#rote readthrough

[fratpackhasmeinachokehold]

You know when people made jokes about how Fitz and the Fool skill linking is the gayest thing they ever read I thought it was just that, jokes. But I now no longer think it's a joke. It is very very real.

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“Fitz, you can deny it. But I have been with you, in every way that matters. As you have been with me. We’ve shared our thoughts and our food, bound each other’s wounds, slept close when the warmth of our bodies was all we had left to share. Your tears have fallen on my face, and my blood has been on your hands. You’ve carried me when I was dead, and I carried you when I did not even recognize you. You’ve breathed my breath for me, sheltered me inside your own body. So yes, Fitz, in every way that matters, I’ve been with you. We’ve shared the stuff of our beings.”

This is probably the most romantic thing I’ve ever read in a fantasy book

[iwillberunningfromdemons]

The Fool ensconced himself in one of the two chairs that faced the hearth. He leaned back in it with a sigh and stretched out his long legs toward the warmth. His voice reached me as I moved toward my chamber.

"Fitz. You know I love you, don't you?"

I halted where I stood.

"I'd hate to have to kill you," he continued. I recognized his adept imitation of my own voice and inflection. I stared at him, baffled. He sat up taller and glanced over the back of his chair at me with a pained smile. "Never again attempt to put my clothing away," he warned me. "Verulean silk should be draped for storage. Not wadded."

"I'll try to remember that," I promised him humbly.

He settled back in his chair and picked up his glass of wine. "Good night, Fitz," he told me quietly.

(...)

Lord Golden's chamber, as I ghosted through it, was now lit only by flickering firelight. As I passed the chair by the hearth, I offered, "Good night, Fool." He did not speak, but lifted his graceful hand in farewell, his flicking forefinger gesturing me toward the door. I slipped out, feeling oddly as if I had forgotten something.

Fool's Errand, by Robin Hobb (Tawny Man Trilogy #1)

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“In Amber’s guise, the Fool became a very fetching woman.”

Every POV character who met Amber in Liveship described her as unattractive, but Fitz thinks she’s beautiful. Fitz is totally attracted to the Fool and it is obvious to everyone but him

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I’m sorry, did Fitzchivalry “no homo” Farseer just tell the Fool that his new Elderling features are “not unattractive”?!?!!! In Tawny Man he still would have thought it but would have set himself on fire before admitting it out loud

[fratpackhasmeinachokehold]

We were just having a very important meeting and then Elliania comes in with her tatas out girl wtffff

Dutiful you must stay focusedddd the way Fitz and Chase have to keep reminding him. Sometimes I forget he’s 15😭😭😭

I swear this book doesn’t feel real

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“‘You said once I may call you Beloved if I no longer wished to call you Fool.’ I took a breath. ‘Beloved, I have missed your company.’”

I WANT THIS ENGRAVED ON MY SOUL

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I can’t get over the fact that Bee is Fitz and the Fools magic love child. This is like something from a fanfic (affectionate) only it’s in an actual highly acclaimed series

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“‘Does it bother you?’ she asked me. I did not ask her what she meant. ‘Strange to say, no. You are you. Fool, Lord Golden, Amber, and Beloved. You are you, and we know each other as well as any two people can. ‘Beloved,’ she said, and smiled sadly. I did not know if she repeated my word, or if the Fool called me by his own name. She dropped her hands to the top of the table, gloved atop the bared one. ‘There was a time,’ she began, where you would have hated this masquerade.’ ‘There was,’ I agreed. ‘And this is a different time.’”

God while Fitz had remained stubbornly unchanged in some ways in others he has really grown. This is a much wiser and more mature version of him than Tawny Man or Farseer

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Fitz is just casually observing how beautiful the Fool looks in Lord Goldens chambers and how the color scheme compliments his skin. Normal friend stuff

[fratpackhasmeinachokehold]

FitzChivalry Farseer:

[fratpackhasmeinachokehold]

That scene between Fitz and The Fool at the end of chapter 15 was so unexpected. Thanks Robin, now I'm laying on the floor crying my eyes out over The Fool recognizing Fitz's beauty and them gazing at each other in the mirror. UGHHHHH this book is amazing

[iwillberunningfromdemons]

I waited, but had to finally say, "And what did you want to ask me?"

He bit his lower lip and turned his gaze to the tower window. "About you and Lord Golden," he said at last. And halted again.

"What about us?" I asked impatiently. The morning was wearing on, and I had things to do. Such as somehow dampening the headache that now assailed me full force.

"Do you . . . do you like working for him?"

I instantly knew that was not the question he wanted to ask. I wondered what was troubling him. Was he jealous of my friendship with the Fool? Did he feel excluded somehow? I made my voice gentle. "He has been my friend for a long time. I told you that before, in the inn on our way home. The roles we play now, master and man, are only for convenience. They afford me an excuse to attend occasions where a man such as myself would not be expected. That's all."

"Then you don't truly . . . serve him."

I shrugged a shoulder. "Only when it fits my role, or when it pleases me to do a favor for him. We've been friends a long time, Dutiful. There is very little I wouldn't do for him, or he for me."

The look on his face told me I had not lain to rest whatever was troubling him but I was willing at that point to let it go. I could wait until he found words for whatever it was. He seemed also willing to let it rest, for he turned away from me to the door. But with his hand on the handle, he spoke again, suddenly. His voice was harsh, the words wrung from him against his will. "Civil says that Lord Golden likes boys." When I said nothing, he added painfully, "For bedding." He kept staring at the door. The back of his neck grew scarlet.

I suddenly felt very tired. "Dutiful. Look at me, please."

"I'm sorry," he said as he turned, but he couldn’t quite meet my eyes. "I shouldn't have asked."

I wished he hadn't. I wished I hadn't discovered that the gossip was widespread enough to have reached his ears. Time to lay it to rest. "Dutiful. Lord Golden and I do not bed together. In truth, I have never known the man to bed anyone. His actions toward Civil were a ploy, to provoke Lady Bresinga into asking us to leave her hospitality. That was all. But you cannot, of course, let Civil know that. It remains between you and me."

He drew a deep breath and sighed it out. "I did not want to think it of you. But you seem so close. And Lord Golden is, of course, a Jamaillian, and all know that they care little about such things."

Golden Fool, by Robin Hobb (Tawny Man Trilogy #2)

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“I pushed his golden hair back from his tawny forehead. ‘Oh, Beloved’ I said. I bent and kissed his brow in farewell. And then, grasping the rightness of that foreign tradition, I named him as myself. For when I burned him, I knew that I would be ending myself as well. The man I had been would not survive this loss. ‘Goodbye, Fitzchivalry Farseer.’”

My husband is looking over from his game asking if I’m ok because I am sobbing

[iwillberunningfromdemons]

I returned to Lord Golden’s chambers and was in time to join the Fool for his breakfast. As I entered, however, he was not eating. Rather, he sat at table, bemusedly twirling a tiny bouquet of flowers between his forefinger and thumb. It was an unusual token, for the blossoms were made of white lace and black ribbon. It seemed a clever subterfuge for a season without flowers, and it put me in mind of his old Fool’s motley for this season. He saw me looking at the posy, smiled at my bemusement, and then carefully pinned it to his breast.

▪︎

I found the door latched. At my knock and quiet call, it was opened. I stepped through and shut it behind me, and then stood in shock. The Fool stood before me. Not the Fool in Lord Golden’s garb, but the Fool very nearly as I had known him when we were both boys. It was the garments he wore, close-fitting hose and a full tunic of solid black. His only ornaments were the earring and the tiny black-and-white posy. Even his slippers were black. Only his man’s stature and coloring seemed changed from those days. I half-expected him to shake a rat’s-head scepter at me or turn a flip. At my raised brows, he said, almost abashedly, "I did not wish to risk any of Lord Golden’s wardrobe in your dusty warren. And I can move most quietly in simple garments."

Golden Fool, by Robin Hobb (Tawny Man Trilogy #2)

[fratpackhasmeinachokehold]

"Does anything show?"