#Correct me if I misunderstand the plot of epic

[roceit-countdown]

Sorry, I only recently saw your answer, but I think

Eurylochus would be Roman

Odysseus would be Janus

(Although I do keep flip flopping them around.)

-g

Hey no worries! But ooooo....Roman is dooming them and Janus is having a corruption arc.....

(I see what you mean about flip flopping tho, both ways are so interesting)

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Okay fair enough, you may be being a bit rude about it but you have a point. I didn’t include the actual pitch when I made this PowerPoint because it was late at night and I was hungry and I wanted to avoid spoilers and it’s also a long and complex series so I didn’t think it was necessary for a shitpost adjacent propaganda PowerPoint. But I have also found it annoying when people just say what is featured in something instead of telling me what it’s about in the past so I will go ahead and give you the actual pitch.

Because the idea of this 14 book epic not having enough plot to talk about is so funny to me that I simply have to correct this misunderstanding.

The wheel of time is about how much it sucks to be the chosen one. It is an inversion of the high fantasy tropes that dominated post Tolkien literature: a wise powerful sorcerer comes to town and spirits the provincial country bumpkin along on a quest. The main character is foretold by prophecy to be the specialest boy in the world. Which is unfortunate for him because he would much rather stay Just Some Guy and herd his sheep.

Our central protagonist is simultaneously a christ metaphor and an antichrist metaphor with a little King Arthur and reincarnation thrown in for flavor. He is fated by prophecy to both save and destroy the world and to go mad and die horribly, and the entire series is the progression of several years towards The Last Battle, when the Dragon Reborn must face the Dark One. He is the reincarnation of a powerful man who was driven mad by the incident that cracked a hole in the Dark One’s prison and tainted the magical force that drives the universe (and turns the wheel of time) so that every male magic user goes insane and starts killing everyone around them, usually starting with their loved ones.

Society collapsed in the breaking of the world and now three thousand years later the Dragon Reborn must fight the Dark One and break and remake the world. As a result of the breaking, society is matriarchal, given that a man committed the cultural equivalent of Original Sin, and the most powerful group of people are the ancient order of female magic users called the Aes Sedai. One of the aes sedai finds our protagonists, a group of 20 something’s from a farming village, and pulls them into the plot, which is a massive geopolitical conflict spanning multiple continents across 14 books and 4 million words. Some of the driving themes are about how real events become history which becomes legend which becomes myth with information changing over time and space, and how older societies collapse into new societies, and uses a circular instead of linear view of time and the universe (hence. The wheel.)

Also it’s really funny and Robert Jordan had a BIT of a femdom kink.

Oh and the whole breaking of the world thing is a nuclear apocalypse metaphor because ya know. Written by a nuclear physicist.

wheel of time show should be HUGE on tumblr like. SO much blorbo potential + gay + cool magic + evil milfs + visually appealing. what more do you people want

[absolutebl]

Hi hi! I watched We Best Love 1 & 2 and thought I would share my thoughts.

Short thoughts

My personal rating would be a 6/10. I had to force myself to continue after part 1 ended in heartbreak, and then again after finishing episode 3 of part 2. The rating is mostly driven by the fact I didn’t enjoy the main plotline nor the main secondary plotline and therefore probably wouldn’t ever rewatch it.

Longer thoughts

Things I liked

* The acting was superb, especially YU, who had such incredible facial control and emotiveness throughout. The hugs between Zhou Shu Yi and Gao Shi De hit me harder than the kisses or other things; they just felt so weighty and emotional, and like they were genuinely taking so much comfort from each other.

* The way the Japanese dialogue was sprinkled in so naturally was extremely charming and made me smile a lot.

* The scene in part 1 where Zhou Shu Yi and Gao Shi De’s mom are ganging up on Gao Shi De at the dinner table is probably one of my favorite BL scenes ever. I cackled so hard through the whole thing. Shu Yi and Shi De’s mom’s dynamic in general I just found so fun.

* Set design and styling of the actors, especially in part 2. I want Zhou Shu Yi’s house so badly, and few BL actors have looked quite as good in suits as those two. (Although I wanted so much to put a pair of suspenders on Shu Yi’s pants so his white shirt wouldn’t pop out between his black vest and trousers when he sat down.)

* Shi Zhe Yu and Liu Bing Wei’s side storyline. They had immediate chemistry in part 1, and after a rocky start in ep 1 of part 2, I thought they were very cute together. I loved the “donkey and carrot” dynamic.

* “You can consider it my dowry” literally made me choke on my tea. Epic line, especially delivered so nonchalantly. That whole conversation between Zhou Shu Yi’s dad and Gao Shi De was great—“No worries; he can join my family instead” was such a great table-turn, and very fitting for a couple that took turns pursuing each other and always felt like equals. I also appreciated that they tried hard to make Zhou Shu Yi’s father a more three-dimensional and likable version of the ultrapowerful homophobic dad character than normal, and it was clear Yoza Eriku was having a lot of fun playing him.

Things I didn’t like:

* The entire main plotline. I simply personally don’t enjoy the “interfering powerful homophobic parents” and “forced/prolonged separation” tropes. The five year separation, the misunderstanding, and the dad’s involvement just turned me off dramatically. If the show hadn’t been so short (and so highly recommended) I don’t think I would have finished it. Also, you described the plot as “classic”; the down-side of that is there was nothing in the main plot that felt new. Is this the best iteration of these common plots? Maybe. But coming to it after almost 30 other BLs (and the show coming out in 2021 after it had all been down before), there just wasn’t much that felt fresh in the plot or characters.

* Pei Shou Yi and Yu Zhen Xuan’s entire storyline. When Pei Shou Yi was explaining to Yu Zhen Xuan about his affective disorder (which is not a correct use of that term I don’t think, but that’s beside the point), I was super intrigued. (That line, “For me, it was just 12 years,” hit so hard.) I still think it’s a really cool and fascinating idea for a BL character. But I didn’t feel that that core concept connected to any of his actions in a way that made him suddenly make sense and feel like a well-developed, 3D character, so it just felt like a waste. For example, I still couldn’t tell you why he left Yu Zhen Xuan at the end of the year, although I wasn’t paying a ton of attention by that point. Even still, if at the end of that speech Pei Shou Yi had been like, “Look, if it makes you happy to be here with me then go ahead; as you now know, it literally doesn’t make a difference to me so I guess knock yourself out,” I could have dug that as a satisfying ending for them. The extra episode of drama and sudden U-turn from Shou Yi felt unnecessary and unearned. And I just didn’t really find Yu Zhen Xuan to be particularly likable or sympathetic as a character.

* Even though part 2 picked up literally where part 1 ended, and it was clear both parts were shot together, the further I got into part 2 the harder it was to feel like I was watching the same characters as in part 1. In particular, connecting the somewhat playful, lovesick Shu Yi of part 1 to the ambitious Shu Yi whose dream in life is to be chairman of a business conglomerate was a bit of a challenge.

* The whole business setting wasn’t badly done (it was oddly charming) but it wasn’t super well done either. Yu Zhen Xuan as CTO of a tech company was pretty hard to swallow. There also just wasn’t a lot of actual plot in part 2. The corporate espionage storyline didn’t seem to have a point, and largely seemed to exist so something besides a flashback would happen, and to justify the use of a business setting.

* The sheer amount of heterosexuality in part 1.

* The sheer amount of questions never answered in part 2. (“Who did Zhou Shu Yi see in America?” is the biggest one that I’m not aware was answered.)

Miscellanea:

* I don’t know if this is a Taiwanese accent thing or something general for Mandarin that I just never picked up on, but I noticed a lot of “sh” sounds devolving into “s” sounds throughout the show and from multiple characters. In particular, both main characters’ names got the treatment (Shu Yi being pronounced as Su Yi and Shi De as Si De), and the words 說 and 什麼 getting pronounced as “suō” and “sénme” respectively.

Other BL thoughts:

* I finished Manner of Death; personal rating is 8/10. I loved the couples and the setting, and the ending was extremely cute and satisfying. The two stars it loses are (1) for the unbelievably grim material the plot is actually about; and (2) because at times the romance and the mystery seemed really poorly integrated and to detract from one another. Would rewatch but with a lot of skipping around to avoid the really grim bits.

* I started Until We Meet Again. Just from the first episode I really love it. I think I know what’s going on with Pharm’s dreams, and if I’m right it’s going to be so cool. I already love the desserts angle. Manaow is my favorite female side character since Yihwa stole the show in Together with Me; her and Pharm’s banter and laughter feel so natural that I kept wondering if they were improv-ing. Probably the best 1st episode I’ve seen from a Thai BL, so I have very high expectations from here.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

I hope you're having a greta weekend too!

Excellent thoughts all.

The only thing I'll point out, just in case you didn't know, is Taiwanese Mandarin is different from the Mainland in a few ways. (Most notably its written standards, like they did in Hong Kong.) But when spoken Standard Guoyu (used in education, businesses, govt offices, the news etc... see Guoyu Cidian《國語辭典》) seems quite formal and, to me, a little stiff sounding. 

But your ear (better a than mine) is, I think, picking up on Taiwan Guoyu - it’s a colloquial, localized form. Slightly influenced by Hokkien and a few other things. 

Languages do crazy things on islands. 

---

On a different note if you liked the first few eps of UWMA then you are going to really love the rest. At least I hope so. Clearly we don’t have an exact match in taste, but UWMA is wonderful on story. There is a bit of a blushing maiden trope with Pharm but that’s the only flag I really have for that show (apart from old school trigger warning, which you kinda know you’re in for form the get go). 

[whimsicalmeerkat]

Five of my fics I love (as opposed to those other bastards)

Originally saw this from @fairytales-and-folklore via @greyhavenisback: "Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖"

These aren't in any sort of order. I don't know if they're even my five favorite fics I've written. This is going in public so none of my hockey RPF fics were even taken into consideration. I'm not about to try to rank things or whatever. They're just five out of the crowd that I love and want to share today.

Can't Start a Fire Without a Spark

Daemon Sadi/Lucivar Yaslana

Black Jewels by Anne Bishop | 1188 words | Explicit

Summary:

Lucivar didn’t always want Daemon when he saw him, but sometimes he did, and after nearly two thousand years, he knew he could usually have what he wanted. Not always. Both of them valued the ability to choose - that freedom they were denied for centuries. There were times when Daemon wanted him when he would say no, for no reason other than that he could. They had never talked about it, but he knew there were times when Daemon did the same. or The one where they fornicate against a tree

Thoughts:

Daemon & Lucivar is one of my favorite ships to write, and I have so many, many feelings about them. I saw someone describe the series in an exchange request as the author creating a kinkverse and making it a story about family, and that's absolutely true. These two went through so very, very much trauma, and in this story I give them a chance to act on the mind-boggling amounts of sexual tension they have going on while still acknowledging what they've gone through. They are half-brothers, so mind the tags.

Tags:

incest, sibling incest, anal sex, outdoor sex, smut, plot what plot/porn without plot, top lucivar yaslana, bottom daemon sadi, trauma bois, acting on impulse, fornicating against a tree, excuse me sir there are feelings in my porn

lie beside me baby, that's an order

Emhyr var Emreis/Geralt of Rivia

The Witcher | 13.693 words | Explicit

Summary:

Geralt was relaxing after dinner when his life went to hell. The sound of a carriage pulling up wasn’t surprising. He had friends who came by occasionally. The sound of two more was unexpected though. He got up to see what was happening at the same moment a rather pale, unusually flustered Barnabas-Basil came out onto the patio, and proclaimed, “His Imperial Majesty has arrived.” His tone was distinctly accusatory. Geralt really couldn’t blame him.

~

Emhyr shows up at Corvo Bianco because of a threat which can only be solved by Geralt, specifically by sleeping in Geralt's bed. What's a poor Witcher to do?

Thoughts:

Grumpy old men all the way on this one. One of the tags is 'Emhyr Has Schemes(TM)' and it is well-earned. There's bed sharing and misunderstandings, but it isn't all light-hearted shenanigans. They talk about things like Blaviken and the wars Emhyr has waged. There's a happy ending, but it takes a fair amount of feeling each other out before they get to feeling each other up. Well, back to. Guess you'll just have to read for that to make sense!

Tags:

canon what canon, boys being dumb, Emhyr has Schemes(TM), sharing a bed, mild potential somnophilia, the lesser evil

make a moan upon the midnight hours

Enkidu/Gilgamesh

Mesopotamian Mythology | 3879 words | Explicit

Summary:

“Teach me,” Enkidu said simply, smiling slightly when Gilgamesh turned his head to look at him. “I would learn you.”

“You mean you would learn from me,” Gilgamesh corrected with a smile.

"That too,” Enkidu said, rising up and turning onto his side.

~

Enkidu can’t fall asleep indoors. Gilgamesh has a solution for that.

Thoughts:

I knew nothing about the Epic of Gilgamesh beyond the name and relative age of the text when I signed up for the Chocolate Box exchange, but my personal place in rarepair hell made me decide I wanted to give my recipient something they probably didn't expect. I ended up having a hell of a good time writing this original enemies to lovers pair. I got good feedback from both the person the gift was for and others who've read the epic. Not into it from that perspective? Maybe you'll be drawn in by the fact that they get together on the palace roof under the stars. Features both humor and tenderness along with the smut.

Tags:

blow jobs, hand jobs, first time, smut, outdoor sex, sex under the stars

every breath you take

Rodney McKay/John Sheppard

Stargate Atlantis | 1356 words | Teen+

Summary:

John couldn’t help but count the beats, trying to time them in his head. If he could focus on that—somehow find a way to mentally track breaths per minute without looking at his watch—maybe, just maybe, for a little bit, maybe for longer than a handful of seconds he could forget the awful sound of Rodney not breathing.

Thoughts:

I set out to write Rodney getting physically hurt and John comforting him. That lasted maybe a sentence. This one is all about the feels with no smut. I'm quite happy with it. Zero stalking in spite of the title, which probably shouldn't be allowed, but I promise it makes sense.

Tags:

hurt/comfort, fluff and nonsense, this fic contains zero incidences of stalking, the botanists were fine

just give me one thing that I can hold onto

Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski

Teen Wolf | 9392 words | Explicit

Summary:

Derek woke up feeling relaxed and content, which was how he knew something was wrong.

~

Derek & Stiles keep waking up naked in the woods. It’s obviously a curse. I mean, what else could it possibly be?

Thoughts:

A plot bunny run rabid, but one I'm pretty damn proud to have tamed. Full of tropes, but with a few of my own ideas on things like mating bites and claiming. At least 60% porn, but with lots of feelings (thanks, Derek), hence the 'excuse me sir there are feelings in my porn' tag. Includes Stiles saying he wants a werewolf divorce.

Tags:

alternate universe - canon divergence, blow jobs, anal sex, knotting, mates, porn with feelings, mild angst, fluff and smut, smut, marking, scenting, banter, top derek hale, bottom stiles stilinski, alpha derek hale, derek hale is a failwolf, derek hale deserves nice things, even though he doesn't think he does, fluff and nonsense, excuse me sir there are feelings in my porn

Well, there you have it. Five of my fics I especially love. I'd love to know what you think of them, either here or in comments. I'd also love to answer any questions you might have. I adore talking about my stuff.

Tagging a random assortment of people, but feel free to grab it and run with it if I missed tagging you. I'd love it if you'd tag me when you do. I'm always on the lookout for new stuff to read. @torrefaction-of-silver, @ooksaidthelibrarian, @krabraccoon, @dreaminghour, @calenlily, @pterawaters, @mswhich, @bad-at-names-and-faces, @alondradina, @dr-fumbles-mcstupid, @elder-flower, @milficwriter, @shadow-wasser

[ciceroprofacto]

Well I don't know if this may come as rude but. Honestly, I'd like a lot that in a certain moment, soa has more of that ofmd energy you mentioned: not giving a fuck of what actually happened, but staying somehow not out of reality.

I couldn't read soa in one week. I had to read it in four months for the huge emotional charge it is. And I had to re read previous chapters or some paragraphs before continuing because I had almost forgotten what was there before. I know you want this to be serious and you're putting a LOT of effort in it. It's noticeable, and I think I haven't ever seen a fic writer make that much effort in their writing.

But the plot, characters and themes (philosophical themes) sometimes are not simply a lot to handle. They're too much to handle, making it difficult for people with already busy lifes read it.

Sorry if I made any spelling or grammar mistake. English isn't my first language, and I practically learned it by myself. Thanks.

I'm vibing as much as I can with the meaning, but I do have a little confusion and I don't want to misunderstand, so correct me if I'm wrong. It seems like you're saying the tone of it doesn't take itself too seriously, but the themes and plot are really heavy. I think that's absolutely true!

But, I could do it better

The strength of comedy is that you're able to make heavy things lighter and it gives more people the ability to carry it. Which is exactly why ofmd has blown up where Black Sails didn't- despite BS being basically as-perfect as a show can be (Taika Waititi's name on ofmd definitely helps). It's the difference between having comedic relief and being a comedy. BS is an epic period drama that's with a touch, funny. Ofmd is really well-made comedy that's able to convey fairly-heavy themes because it nails the notes between things that are jokes and things that are not jokes. But, it also isn't quite as ambitious as Black Sails on what themes it's taking on- it skirts carefully around period-typical homophobia, racism, and sexism by creating a bubble in which those things have less influence, whereas Black Sails dunks you headfirst into that reality.

Since I'm trying to take on similar issues, I've been taking my tonal cues more from Black Sails. But, there's a lot that I can learn from ofmd's escapism, because it somehow manages to still be immersive despite not going into depth on some of those concepts, and because they don't go so far into those concepts they're able to focus on the more-accessible nuances of human emotion like found family, self-discovery, and falling in love. While it's important to take on issues and ensure the tone reflects the gravity of those issues- taking on some issues shouldn't be a commitment to take on all issues because then the tone becomes so burdensome no one can stomach the weight of the story anymore.

Basically- ofmd shows you don't have to delve into every little plot tangent to make an immersive period piece, and tangents are definitely my biggest weakness as a writer. What you're calling 'effort' is what I consider my little 'fascinations'. Half the time I'm writing plot around the research that I was doing for fun and half the time I'm researching to connect holes in the story. It's the plot vs story balance, and I think both SOA and BS try and keep those two on equal-footing while ofmd is character-focused with the story taking priority over plot. SOA and BS's style lets things get complicated and can be really intellectually-impressive, whereas ofmd's style is a lot more streamline and emotionally-impactful.

It's also nice that ofmd gives a lot of leeway to anachronisms. SOA and BS aren't exactly high-brow compared to the source material, but the language is still less-accessible than a show that just totally doesn't bother with 18th c. dialogue.

tldr; SOA is hard to read and I can do more to fix that.

Themes- people want to laugh, no one wants to laugh at injustice.

Tone- escapism is easier to stomach than realistic conflict.

Content- more people care about story than plot.

Delivery- more people understand what the fuck you're saying if characters talk like modern humans.

[wetalkinboutbooks]

Reaper of Souls by Rena Barron

Summary: After so many years yearning for the gift of magic, Arrah has the one thing she’s always wanted—at a terrible price. Now the last surviving witchdoctor, she’s been left to pick up the shattered pieces of a family that betrayed her, a kingdom in shambles, and long-buried secrets about who she is. 

Desperate not to repeat her mother’s mistakes, Arrah must return to the tribal lands to search for help from the remnants of her parents’ people. But the Demon King’s shadow looms closer than she thinks. And as Arrah struggles to unravel her connection to him, defeating him begins to seem more and more impossible—if it’s something she can bring herself to do at all.

Set in a richly imagined world inspired by spine-tingling tales of voodoo and folk magic, Kingdom of Souls was lauded as “masterful” by the School Library Journal in a starred review. This explosively epic sequel will have readers racing to the can’t-miss conclusion. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:  

 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌗

 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: A messy sequel to an amazing series, we get to see the after effects of the fall out of Arrah vs. Efiya from KOS… and when we tell you it is MESS!!!

~Spoiler-Full Review Below~

The Good: 

→ Arrah and Dimma

Geena: One of my favourite things about Reaper was the sprinkle of Dimma’s POVs throughout the story. We got an insight into Dimma’s life before she was Arrah, and how her relationship with the other Orisha and Daho developed. It also really helped build up the suspense near the end and set up plot twists that clocked us near the end. Dimma aside, let’s talk about Arrah. Rena Barron said brooding boys are out, brooding girls are IN! And you know what, we love to read it. The story starts off with Arrah trying to save Sukkar after she snapped all his bones while trying to save him, and she does save him :) Or so she thinks but that’s besides the point. Over the length of the book we follow Arrah’s inner turmoil of suddenly having the power of 10 tribal chieftains and being insecure about whether or not she even deserves it.

I loved Arrah, even when she was holding herself up to a terribly high bar and beating herself up about everything she did. Arrah helped bring her Auntie back from the dead and was like “Damn I suck :/” and thought shattering a girl’s glass (who was flirting with Rudjek) put her on the same level as her mom and Efiya. I was sitting there like NO GIRL YOU’RE PERFECT, YOU, YOUR MISSING TOOTH AND YOUR PETTY NATURE!! 

Kae: YAAAAAAAAAS! Geena summed Arrah and Dimma up perfectly. 

But I would like to add how much I love Arrah and how selfless she is. She’s always thinking about her friends and their safety, the safety of the tribal people, and of course the kingdom. She’s a worry woman, but for all the right reasons. And she also cares about herself; so much even that like Geena said, she beats herself up for the smallest of things. She’s so worried about being evil like her mother and her sister, that she calculates every single move that she makes, debating if it’s really worth it to use strong magic or not. 

As for Dimma, I loved her POV’S. She is a complex character who has been demonized since book 1. We were taught to believe, through the POV of some of the Gods, that Dimma was a horrible Goddess who wrought nothing but chaos. They erased her name from history, LITERALLY. And Dimma became known as the Unnamed Orisha. While reading her POV, we learn that Dimma was quite selfless, much like Arrah (since they are technically the same person). Dimma was full of love and loved even harder. She went out of her way to give Daho immortality as well as his people, because she loved them so much. She defied the rules of the universe for her love, and it only came to bite her in the ass in the end. Like her siblings told her, “A God’s love is a dangerous thing.” And it was, but not exactly for the reasons one might think.

Geena:  Kae’s summary of Dimma and Arrah is AMAZING, you know my ability to connect dots when reading is kinda shit so reading Kae’s summary gave me realization…  Arrah tries so hard to separate herself from Dimma, because she refuses to believe that a part of her is in love with Daho because she herself is in love with Rudjek… but it’s like girl… you have travelled to the ends of the earth to fight and bring back the people you love (the tribespeople) just like Dimma searched the ends of the universe for immortality to give to Daho. It’d be much easier to reconcile your feelings if you just accepted that “Okay, I may have been Dimma but now I am Arrah”

Also another thing I love about Arrah is how she had…. For a time… three dudes in love with her… or at least what she thought was three dudes. Real hot girl shit. 

→ Rudjek and Daho

Geena: You know the character archetype that’s like a snarky boy who knows he’s hot shit and acts accordingly, but when it comes to the person he’s in love with he’s just a bowl of mush. That’s Rudjek, and only Rudjek can pull it off. In KOS, he was slated to be the next vizier because of his father, in Reaper he’s known as a prince because his dad snaked his way into becoming the monarch. So, now he’s the snarky prince…. And the only snarky prince with rights! His POVs were actually so fun to read, like following the politics of the Kingdom and him dealing with his new craven powers…. Which also had him being able to smell pheromones when people were doing the dirty around him 😭

I really liked that Rena gave him a POV, because now we get to see how he develops given the fact that him and Arrah are dangerous to one another, because he saps her magic with a single touch and could kill her. The whole time Arrah is stressing like “Damn, what if he doesn’t like me anymore because we can’t touch” meanwhile Rudjek is like “I’ll fight the Gods if I have to, to keep her by my side” and it’s like 🥺Also, who let a teenager be in control of a whole army… I thought the vizier was a sly and smart man but I digress… Another thing I liked about Rudjek in this book was that he didn’t shy away from uncomfortable conversations with Arrah, regarding the fact that he confused Efiya for Arrah when they did the unspeakable in the clearing in KOS. Like, that was very mature of them and I’m glad they could deal with that misunderstanding… But… hands down… my favourite scene… During the climax of the book Rudjek gets a demon soul shoved down his body, and immediately assumes it’s the demon king…. And his only command to his friends is to not let him near Arrah😭😭😭 I was like PEAK ROMANCE, SOFTEST SHIT, SACRIFICIAL LOVER!!!!! 

Kae: SO GEENA SUMMED UP RUDJEK SO DAMN WELL. LIKE DUDE OMG? Correct. He is perfect. I really don’t have much to add but I just genuinely loved him as a character. He is caring for both Arrah and his friends. He is also one of the few male characters I’ve read that actively tries to go against their father. Most dudes in books are like “Fine puhpa, I shall do your evil bidding.” But Rudjek is like “Sike bitch, I’ll let you think that but I’m doing what I WAAAANT!” 

But okay, let’s talk about Daho. So first off, I love him??? Am I a villain sympathizer now? Tbh, I don’t really see him as a villain. Man’s didn’t commit a genocide or try to scheme Arrah out of her pants. AND HE VERY MUCH HAD THE CHANCE TO and he was like “nah.” And I appreciate that. Because there are a few certain villainous men who I shan’t name, that be on that scant shit. And Daho is just like… genuinely trying to avenge his wife’s death (Dimma) and try to get Arrah to remember that she is Dimma. 

YES, I know he got Arti to bring him back. BUUUUUT, he didn’t tell her to kill a bunch of kids and shit to do it. Arti did all that evil shit on her own and Daho was like “look, i don’t condone that shit. But it’s over and I’m sorry it happened but I can’t change it.” And I’m like… okay, mood. I get it. Daho is sweet and caring. He looked out for Arrah in *redacted’s* body because we didn’t know *redacted* was dead the whole time. And even then, Daho was still like “My bad… But he wasn’t using his body??? So I took it???” Why let it go to waste, amiright? 

Geena: STOOOOP FOR REAL HE WAS LIKE “It was empty, I didn’t think you’d mind” 

Kae: LMAOOO OKAY BUT DEADASS. And like, idk man. He just seriously isn’t a bad person. He was trapped because after the God’s killed Dimma, he was like “BET IMMA JUST KILL THEM” and they lowkey were shook so they trapped his ass in a box for a millenia or whatever. He wasn’t even out to kill all humanity or anything. The God’s were just being some haters and now he’s suddenly the bad guy. Anyway, we stan Daho in this house. 

Geena: Daho is how you write a sympathetic villain. He owns up to his own mistakes even while his demons run free terrorizing people. Kae said it best that he just wants justice for his wife and unfortunately history is written by the victors so the Orisha painted him out to be a bad guy… My dude was just chugging that respecting my wife juice and they killed her… and he also thinks they killed his son… Guess me and Kae are just villain sympathizers now 

The Bad:   

→ The Ending 

Kae: Okay, let’s get it. And I also just want to clarify that when we say “the bad”, we don’t mean we hate it. This is just something that was like “oh fuck, this is BAAAAD! THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GO DOOOWN.” 

But like, good Lord. The ending? That shit was crazy. First of all, we find out that *redacted* aka, SUKKAR. OUR SWEET, PLAYFUL, SARCASTIC SUKKAR. IS DEAD. HE HAS BEEN DEAD THIS WHOLE TIME!? Excuse me while I *SCREEEEEEEEEEEAM*. Like, what an unforeseen twist. This mf kicked the bucket back in KOS when Arrah tried to save him. Turns out… She maybe… Totally… possibly… Absolutely killed my guy on accident. He dead-dead. And this is how we find out that Daho took over his body, once Sukkar’s spirit ascended. It was a really sad reveal and my heart kind of hurt reading it. I straight up wasn’t expecting that to happen. THEEEEEN. GOTDAMN EFIYA. IS BROUGHT BACK. 

Geena: No joke, the ending of Reaper was just one sucker punch followed by another… At first you think Tyrek (the prince from KOS who joins Arrah and her crew on a journey to save the tribespeople) is the demon king, then you think it’s Rudjek because he’s getting possessed, and then you learn it’s Sukkar… The final punch to the gut was Daho bringing back Efiya because his close general asked for her… because she’s his daughter. We were like, DAHO ARE YOU SERIOUS YOU SAW THE DAMAGE SHE DID TO THE HUMANS!!! Like Efiya may have grown quickly in a few months but her brain isn’t fully developed, like that girl is UNHINGED!!! I thought we were done with the Efiya chapter but here we are, and I’m scared to see what role she’ll play in the final instalment of the series. I guess this is the case of bringing back an old villain that can work out really well…  I trusted Rena with the messy Arrah/Daho/Rudjek love triangle, so I trust her with this too 

The Ugly:  

→ Tyrek 

Geena: Remember how I said Rudjek is the only valid snarky prince… Yea, Tyrek can CHOKE!! In KOS he sides with Efiya and she wreaks havoc in the Kingdom, and in Reaper he’s brought to his knees. Rudjek’s dad wants to execute him for his crimes, but Arrah sympathizes with him because she knows how Efiya’s mind control worked. As you read, you get a sense of “Okay, maybe he isn’t bad, he’s helping Arrah and them” but then you get to the climax and you’re like okay nvm this boy was insane… Imagine travelling to a whole other dimension and making deals with demons, because you’re in a fucked up sort of romance with a half-demon girl. He managed to lie to Arrah that he was being controlled by Efiyah, when he was really with Efiya the whole way…. Even when she told him to murder his whole family… this man was vile!! He’s also one of our first fake outs, when he pretends to be the demon king I was kinda disappointed… I was like no this ruins the messy love triangle I’ve been waiting for! But it was just a fake out, Tyrek was just trying to scare Arrah into freeing Efiya, whose soul was in the demon dagger that Arrah used to kill her in KOS. Overall, 1/10 for this man… the 1 point is for when he figured out “Sukkar” had a crush on Arrah before Arrah even knew.  

Conclusion 

Kae: So, I don't have much to add to Tyrek’s snake ass. He really was ugly in the end. I’m glad he’s dead. 

But to conclude, this was such an amazing, refreshing read. Reaper of Souls was a wonderful sequel to Kingdom of Souls. Rena writes so beautifully and she didn’t hesitate to have us readers shaking in our boots. Getting more background information on Dimma, the Gods, and their old ass war, was really fun and insightful! IT added to the story in a way I hadn’t even thought about until I was consuming it all! 

Arrah and Rudjek are perfect angels and I can’t wait to see where book three leads them. I also want to give a shout out to Essnai and Majka for being such good friends to Arrah and Rudjek. Same to Kira and the Cravens. This is a really close knit group of friends who will go to the ends of the Earth (and literally new dimensions) for each other. THAT’S LOVE, BITCH. And we LOVE to see it. 

Geena: For real! Rena Barron set up such an amazing cast of characters, and she really emphasizes the power of friendship in her series and it’s one of my favourite things to read. With Reaper, from the very start, she sets up the story in such a way you’re literally screaming by the end… I think it requires a special kind of skill to be able to set up a story so well that while you do make predictions about what’s going to happen, it still shocks you when you realize you’re right. Cannot wait to see the absolute mess that will be the final book, with Rudjek/Arrah vs. Daho… and the drama it will bring now that the Orishas realize that Arrah is Dimma’s reincarnation.  

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE02, Ep24

This is a buildup ep for the finale. looks like furuba’s tradition for awkward buildup eps continues as this ep is clearly divided into two parts: machi & zodiac banquet.

-Killing the Vibe (furuba style):

Usually when writers buildup an emotional moment, they either go with it right away or if it is not its time, they slowly dissolve it or gradually redirect the story somewhere else. But the most important thing is that you hold on to the feeling they worked so hard to build but know that it will be dealt with later. Usually this is done with minor visuals such as quick flashback to the main event & the character taking deep breath ignoring it. But it is acknowledged that now it is not the time. Furuba doesn’t do that. If they build high moment & decide it is not the time to continue with it, they drop it abruptly, using the ending ost as a closing sign....which is odd cuz this is not episodic eps but continuing plot. They did it twice now: (a) tohru’s nightmare ep 19. it was treated as cliffhanger, but the next, we opened with yuki’s narrative where we see tohru normal. I know tohru’s issues will be dealt with later, perhaps season 3. But the nightmare moment was left hanging weirdly!! we never saw tohru deciding not to focus on it or anything! then (b) the kyo/tohru moment on stage & the symbolic tearing image ep23. Big moment which I  know will be focused on later. But it is so freakin odd that we see them so normal in their daily activities..as if nothing happened. Not a slight visual hint that either one is troubled... I praised how in ep, 23, they showed tohru face worrying abt bits & pieces here & there. These visual hints connects the plot.. For a moment I thought Cinderella play is a filler!! but I don’t think so, since 3 major things happened (Tohru’s near confession, machi’s opinion of yuki, arisa’s recorded outburst) two of which dealt with this ep. I know they want the focus to be on yuki, seeing that his plotline is moving smoothly without awkward breaks, but why not smooth out the other’s plotline with minor visuals without the jarring jumps. Ending ost is not automatic shifts in continued plot. Oh well, it is a minor thing I felt, no big deal.

-Machi pov is here!:

I never expected to see machi today! nice surprise! So machi is not only lonely, she lives alone! that’s odd & tragic! how can a junior high school student live alone? since when was she living alone? & her mom calling to check on her or insult her or scold her! I never wanted a phone call to end this fast. Machi’s monologue was amazingly done. Rather than describing her feelings to us or stating what we are already seeing, the words came cold.. automatic.. slow.. without much emotions. Exactly imitating how machi feels abt herself. DULL. She never thought abt things such as fave color or fave place. never thought abt anything that requires personality or preferences. The imagery they used while she was walking in the street is epic! It explained her mentality! honestly even if she said nothing around that time while she was walking, the image would’ve done enough! Machi was able to see the change in yuki cuz she was able to sense that yuki too was dull/boring or felt he felt so. Now he laughs, jokes, interacts, & joins outside school activities. Negating the dull persona. Now, it is only her. machi questions if she can do the same but her question comes out loaded with her negativity. Instead of can I do the same? it is “ why Am i here? Her bad habits are pulling her back & resisting the change.

- Since they’re deciding to embark into the romantic aspect of mach/yuki & to further add contrast to his interaction with tohru, machi is shown so struck by yuki’s presence, she falls. Typical romantic moment that I appreciate for machi who thinks she isn’t typical girl. but dull girl. Yuki finding the leaf & being happy that she treasures it adds to his self-esteem as it tells him that he is worthy to be treasured. I love machi’s indecisive responses! It gives her personality! as she is reluctant between denying or telling the truth. She was never in such situation, so she doesn’t know what to do!! blushing red like her leaf, machi didn’t only go with friends, she also learned her fave color! yuki, developing the future boyfriend detective sense like kyo, guessed it that machi likes red. You remember things abt ppl you find interesting! Machi felt that perhaps to yuki she is not dull, but interesting enough to want to learn things abt her!

-Tohru is a grown woman!!!

trust me to take 5sec interaction that involves my girl & write a deep analytic paragraph! Call it building sandcastles out of nothing but I don’t care! XD. tohru deserves some spotlight! I’m a bit disappointed that the scene is shown form a far to include yuki & shiggure..(WHY???. They can have their moment later! let my girl have a screenshot for a change!!) & the art quality is the lowest in the ep, lol & but whatever~~~ let’s focus on the positive side! my tohru bought sth for herself!! tohru who spent her hard earned money on buying candy ingredients for the filthy rich sohma’s instead of paying her tuition fees?!! tohru who wore a worn out swimsuit for school & didn’t see the value in buying new one ?! tohru whose school bag have seen better days as hiro said?!! tohru bough herself a scarf with pompom!!& she’s PROUD!! & she goes & shows kyo!!!! cuz she loves him & cuz in SE01 he was mad she doesn't buy herself stuff & cuz she knows he’ll be proud of her & cuz she want show off her cuteness & get his attention & cuz she wanna tease him!! Did you see my girl deliberately hit him with the pompom??? my girl is feisty!! She teases!! Tohru has this feisty, forward personality that she hides but peeks in certain instances!! Like when she teased kyo that he’s still scared of the stain on the wall..like when she calls him cute later this ep!! I’m so happy for every tiny teeny moment of tohru where she is herself & not the worrying mom or friend, when she is focused abt what she shows & what she wants & right now she wants kyo to notice her! GIRL HE ALREADY DOES! you are killing him already tohru..he’d be dead by now if he wasn’t a cat with 9 souls! XD.

-Yuki is leaving Akito’s side:

coming to the big moment in this ep. Akito is loosing yuki. Not only yuki decided by himself to attend the banquet that he avoided last year, he also talked to akito & forgave him for everything before. Yuki is letting go of the past. Forgiveness is a cure ppl! it’s the hardest achieved cure. it cuts the ties to negativity & free the person from the painful feelings. Akito knows she’ll be loosing a zodiac member soon! she reacts the same way she did with hatori! violently resisting change, violently making a statement that I’m the ruler of you. However, unlike when it was hatori, no one came to her. Kureno stopped her. but the rest went to yuki, to the rebel, to the one who caused her pain & rage. Akito is not only loosing yuki...she is slowly loosing all of them.

- Yuki continues the next step in his growth & frees hatori from his sins. By allowing himself to accept that he is not a helpless victim, yuki was able to see the others plain as well. Before, in his mind, he was the only one suffering, others are cruel, but now, he sees the criminal who erased his friends memories was also suffering all along. Perhaps yuki thinks that akito is suffering too? That’s why chose to forgive her & tell her that I don’t hate you anymore or hold grudge.

Side Notes:

I’m so glad kakeru had so little to do with machi & yuki interaction here. He is a character that demands spotlight & if his role was bigger, machi would disappear, it will be another yuki/kakeru moment. Also, since machi/kakeru parallel aya/yuki, you bet kakeru will be more involved between them in order to get closer to his sister & fix the gap like aya did, so I appreciate the moment of only yuki/machi now as it is unique moment without any parallels involved.

After learning of Shigure’s correct line, I can now see how things would’ve been better for akito, if she learned from yuki’s rebellion. loosing one is less painful than loosing them all, which she will. Shigure was eager for her to be spared the pain. or he might be eager for sth else entirely! but he wants this to end.

Shigure sure wasn’t himself this ep! he was restless & his jokes were all over the place, he nearly caused a misunderstanding between hatori & Mayko. I think shigure is hearing the curse breaking!!!!!

Rin & kyo!!!! I never knew I needed this!!! like last ep, I was celebrating hana & kyo, & the return of kyo & haru!! but rin & kyo is unique duo since it is not a teasing dynamics! it is a we-are-too-similar dynamics! XD

Kazuma is luv!! ugh!! my heart! what a man!! so caring & kind & ever so gentle! look at him going to rin to invite her! no kid should be alone in new years! look at him teasing his son!! look at him out polite tohru! just look at him!!!

I appreciate that the boys (kyo,yuki.haru,momiji) have different body types from each other. however, since kyo’s body changing is mentioned in the story many times, they focused on showing him growing since the 2nd ep of season 2 & more so in the beach arc & they steadily continued ever since!!! this ep, even with the low quality they showed his Adam’s apple & he is taller next to shishio. Also his baggy clothes help defy the lanky art style. With yuki, since his beauty is mentioned in the story, they’ve been focused on his face, giving him HD quality beauty all the time, but not much when it comes to his body. but today, he looked a lil bit older in machi’s scene? I duno if it is the new clothes or they’re finally allowing his body to grow?! I hope so. They are still making him so lanky as his legs were only a bit meatier than machi’s in the fight scene, but hey lankiness is the show’s art style, just look at hatori </3. They focused on making Momiji baby as it is mentioned in the story that he doesn’t look like a highschooler at all, but I swear he looks a bit older this ep!! right???

Speaking of hatori, hello there~ doc~ I never knew I needed hatori in Japanese clothes this much! It hid the lankiness & gave him the adult manly look he deserves!! so hot!!! I heard his grunt in my heart as he took his clothes off! XD. Soyou’re attached to the school sensie now~~ a lit bit worried your filthy buddy is putting hands on her..huh? oh!, if only you knew that your goofy pal is the master mind behind your new love story! I think he knows tho~

I never expected machi to be that cute!!! machi/yuki is so cute!

Rin sleeps sitting...like a horse? rin didn’t feel haru? i thought horses are as jumpy as cats! lol

Tohru & kyo are having quality flirting time with no interference from either shigure or yuki. lol.. shishio is amazing! XD

Kureno has the DVD now..let the war begins!!!

[aion-rsa]

Vikings Season 6: How Lagertha’s Legacy Lives On

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This article contains Vikings season 6 spoilers.

With the release of season 6 part two on Dec. 30, Vikings has come to an end. While the spinoff Vikings: Vahalla is set to premiere on Netflix sometime in 2021, it will pick up the story of the Viking and Anglo-Saxon conflict 100 years after the last events depicted in the original series. Thus the series finale of Vikings means we are saying goodbye to all the characters whose exploits viewers have enjoyed these last seven years. Whether in the flesh or in flashbacks, this is the final farewell. And no character will be missed so much as Lagertha.

When Vikings began, in the spring of 2013, it was a largely misunderstood enterprise (and still continues to be, by some). Premiering as it did on the History Channel, a cable channel best known for its WWII/Hitlerian focus in the 90’s and more current shows like Pawn Stars and Swamp People, many assumed that Vikings was a testosterone-heavy fight-fest created to feed the key male 18-49 year-old demographic that the network targets.

But that was never really the intention of creator/writer/showrunner Michael Hirst. As Hirst tells Den of Geek, women, particularly Viking queen Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), were always supposed to be central in the series’ storytelling. 

“I was hoping she would be popular,” Hirst says. “History Channel is a male-viewed channel. And I think History Channel initially picked the show up because they thought it would appeal to that natural base. That they thought, ‘Well, you know, it’s obviously going to be a show full of battles and fights and so on.’ But I always thought it was going to be about Lagertha as much as Ragnar. And I like writing with women.”

Hirst’s focus paid off. Women, like myself, eventually found (generally through word of mouth) the series, and we loved what we saw. Lagertha and the rest of the women on the show were more than pretty faces and eternal victims. They ran the gamut from the initially innocent and oppressed Anglo-Saxon Judith (Jennie Jacques) to soft-power-wielding Gisla (Morgane Polanski) and Aslaug (Alyssa Sunderland) to shield-maidens like Torvi (Georgia Hirst) and Gunnhild (Ragga Ragnars).  

But it wasn’t simply the variety of types of women on the show. It was that none of them were ever simple and they were never just plot devices. Whatever label their cultures applied to them, they have always exceeded them. The women of Vikings have been spouses, parents, politicians, strategists, lovers, and friends—everything that their male counterparts were, and often more successful in their endeavors than those men. It was surprising, and on a show like Vikings, something rarely seen on American television.

And Lagertha—farmer, visionary, wife of Ragnar, mother of Bjorn Ironside and Gyda, shield-maiden, Jarl and Kattegat’s queen in her own right— was the first among the women we tuned in to watch. Which pleased her creator.

“What was wonderful for me was that the show, on History Channel, was getting 50/50 male/female viewership,” Hirst says. “In other words, particularly Lagertha was making women watch the show. And it was about so much more than fights and battles and things. So I was really proud of that. And I think that Katheryn was just brilliant in the role.”

And she has been. Appearing in over 80 episodes (and directing season 6A’s “Valhalla Can Wait”), Winnick shows up more than any other actor, and helped the show bridge the gap when Hirst’s other primary antagonist, Ragnar, was killed off. Doomsayers predicted the end of the series after the departure of Travis Fimmel’s excellent Viking legend. But Winnick and Lagertha went a long way in ensuring we continued to stay engaged and tuning in.

Not that everyone was pleased. From the start, there has always been some Internet criticism of Lagertha that accuses the character of “forced feminism,” ahistorically expansive sexuality, and the impossibility of the existence of actual “shield-maidens.” Some have even argued that women do not possess the physical strength to wield historically accurate Viking weapons (despite watching female actors, Winnick and Georgia Hirst specifically, regularly do just that on Vikings on a regular basis).

In fact, Lagertha appears to be closer to the truth than even many historians assumed when the show began seven years ago. According to the series’ historical consultant and writer Justin Pollard, not only was “Viking society, for all of its apparent terrors to Christians, a much more egalitarian society than Christian society, and women had a much stronger role in it,” but despite “quite a lot of howls of complaint, since then, we’ve found a number of excavated bodies, often excavated in the 19th century, that have been reanalyzed and now been shown to be women.”

The most famous of these is the grave of what many historians had referred to, up until 2017, as the archetypical “ultimate Viking” of the tenth century, found on the island of Birka, Sweden. First discovered and documented in 1878, it was assumed to be the skeletal remains and grave items of a male warrior—sword, spear, axe, arrows, shields, etc. One year after Vikings premiered, an analysis of the pelvic bones and jaw by bioarchaelogist Anna Kjellström strongly suggested that the skeleton was that of a woman. In 2017, analysis of the DNA and Strontium isotypes on the skeleton by a team led by Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson confirmed that the body was a woman, and consistent with the geographic profile of someone having lived in the correct place to be a Viking. 

Lagertha, and women like her, weren’t a modern-day invention—Hirst’s women warriors were a strangely prophetic echo from the past. 

Read more

TV

Vikings Ending Explained

By Jamie Andrew

Nor are women incapable of the type of fighting we get to watch on the show. I brought up the point when I interviewed Clive Standen (Rollo) a few years ago, asking whether it was odd having Winnick, who stands as much as a foot shorter and weighs half as much than many of her male co-stars, on the battlefield. He laughed outright, assuring me that the actress, who holds black belts in two martial arts and founded three martial arts schools before the age of 22, is more than a match for those her character faces on the killing fields of Vikings–a not inconsiderable recommendation considering Standen’s own martial arts background. In other words, what we saw on the series was just as, if not more, real than the reality shows that make up a great deal of History Channel’s programming.

But whatever problems that naysayers may have had with the depiction of shield-maidens in general and of Lagertha in particular, her fans are legion and loyal. Word of her impending death began to circle as early as 2017. Article after article conjectured that she was always about to be killed off—even well past the point where most of Aslaug’s sons had given up their mission to avenge their mother. 

So we had long been emotionally prepared for the death of the semi-retired Lagertha. That the means of her death was less glorious than the eventual end of her son Bjorn might have rankled had it not been so very much like the woman we have come to love. Both die in defense of their beloved Kattegat, but for Lagertha, the moment is about the heart of the show: family. 

Vikings has always been less a historically-based action series and more a family drama told on an epic scale. And as it is as true now as then that rivalries and alliances, anger and empathy, misunderstanding and enlightenment, are constantly in flux in families. Lagertha has always had reason enough to hate her murderer. His birth alone might have earned him death at her hands. But like her equally illustrious partner Ragnar, she has never been as simple as the blood vengeance we traditionally and often erroneously associate with the Vikings. 

Both are complicated characters, and capable of seeing the bigger picture when it comes to their family, to honor, to their fates. She recognizes that his actions are enough to rip apart the wounds only half healed among Ragnar’s sons. That she is able to comfort her own killer, to reassure him that he has done no more than live his destiny and hers, speaks to complexity and compassion all but absent in depictions of Vikings before the show began its run on History Channel. 

And in that, Lagertha is precisely the embodiment of Hirst’s wish for the series:

“One of the things I most wanted to do was to overturn all the cliches about Vikings. I was told by some people at the beginning that I couldn’t really make a show about Vikings. Or, at least, I couldn’t make a show where Vikings were the heroes. Because they were always the Other. They’re the bad guys. They’re the people who come in the night and steal and rape and burn. And how could I make them heroic in any way? And of course, people thought they knew about the Vikings. Actually, they didn’t know anything, which is often the case. And so I thought, “Well, how do I show that?”

It turns out, you do it by creating a character like Lagertha. You do it by taking one of the most misunderstood members of a misunderstood culture and turn her into a hero who makes mistakes and silent sacrifices, enjoys triumphs and endures losses, bides her time and acts impulsively, regrets and doesn’t compromise, gives and takes, and loves and hates, and still goes on, even in death. 

You make her one of us. 

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And that’s why we have loved her, cheered her on, cried over her pain, and now mourn her end. Because Michael Hirst and Katheryn Winnick made Lagertha someone we could recognize some modicum of ourselves in, creating a link between Vikings of the 9th century and our own 21st century lives. She reminds us that carrying a sword in battle isn’t what makes a hero. Heroes are so much more than that, and while we will never wield axe or spear, the heroic is always within our own grasp.

The post Vikings Season 6: How Lagertha’s Legacy Lives On appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[thebluelemontree]

Harry the Heir is such an arrogant douche! But some people say that since he apologized to Alayne at the feast, he's not that bad and their romance is definitely a possibility. Some even go as far as to say that Sansa will fall in love with him and this story gives them Mr Darcy/Elizabeth vibes. What is your opinion on their possible relationship? BTW I don't think Darcy had bastards all over Derbyshire)))

Elizabeth is not tasked with seducing Darcy nor ever intended him to be a love interest.  Darcy was genuinely regretful at learning how his attitudes and behaviors affected other people and set to changing himself.  Not to win Elizabeth over either, but to be a better person and to try to correct his mistakes.  Harry... no.  He’s in his heir position by sheer dumb luck and he acts like Robert Arryn is already dead in the ground.  I don’t think Darcy would be able to identify with who Harry actually is at all.  

Harry apologized because Anya Waynwood made him as she also insisted that he dance with Alayne.  She stands to collect a fat dowry from this.  She’s not forcing Harry to accept the betrothal per se, but she is making him be “nice” and interact with Alayne.  At least enough times so Alayne can presumably seduce him as I’m sure Littlefinger assured her would happen.  It’s such a grudgingly given apology that almost seems like it pains him to sink so low to apologize to a bastard.  I don’t see how it can be read as genuine.  And he only does it after she refuses to dance with him, which I’m sure he was expecting her to just light up and be grateful for his asking.  Not even a please forgive me.

And there he stood, Harry the Heir himself; tall, handsome, scowling. "Lady Alayne. May I partner you in this dance?"

She considered for a moment. "No. I don't think so."

Color rose to his cheeks. "I was unforgiveably rude to you in the yard. You must forgive me." 

Still she’s had enough experience with difficult people to know that sometimes a harsh exterior can hide a suffering soul beneath the surface.  She wants to know the real Harry and look at him with a critical eye.  So she is willing to dig a little deeper, mildly tolerating his rudeness to ask him directly about his bastards.  It seems as though he accepts his natural children well enough, even though he was callous in his treatment of Cissy after her birth.  For a moment, things look like they might be “different with Saffron.”  Sansa could certainly understand if Harry was in love with her and he was being pressured to marry another which would explain his rudeness.  Yet, he’s awful quick to agree to send Saffron away for the mere suggestion of some “spice” with Alayne.  Not that different with Saffron, is it?  

I think it’s clear that Harry’s head is easily turned and what she can expect from him as a husband.  He is not the worst guy ever.  He’s shallow, arrogant, and seems to follow his dick around.  Sansa has seen too much real cruelty to be easily shaken by his behavior.Of all his faults, at least he’s not a liar.  He’s pretty bluntly honest, in fact.  The nicest thing she can come up with to say about Harry is that he has nice teeth and dimples; however, as far as Sansa knows this marriage might be her only chance to go home, which is the only thing she’s ever really wanted.  This scene, I think, goes to show how far Sansa has come in her evaluation of a love interest way more than it points to an actual love interest.  This is not 11/12 year old Sansa that would have shrunk down, cried and blushed, and blamed herself for a handsome knight not liking her.  Nor is she tongue-tied. easily rankled, or naively misunderstanding innuendo (heck she’s making innuendo now!) This is older Sansa learning how to deftly handle and flirt with someone who is overly harsh and bluntly honest to the point of being offensive.  Sound familiar?  ;)

I would say Harry represents a fairly typical type of husband that many wives accept as normal.  The question is can Sansa, who has always dreamed of a mutual love in her marriage, abandon that dream to settle for Harry so she can maybe one day go home and finally be safe?  I don’t think she’ll have to end up making that choice after all, because shit is setup to go down fast and hard in the Vale probably by her second chapter.

George is using a lot of misdirection in the Vale arc and I believe Harry is a red herring.  While we’re all looking toward the Young Falcon and all those untouched, shining knights of the Vale (ahem, knights of summer) to be the answer to our prayers, we’re forgetting all the other hidden players ready to twist the plot.  

Lyn Corbray who is LF’s friend pretending to be his foe but who really is a foe.  What if he found out who Alayne is?  He desperately could use the ransom and it would be a nice little F.U. to LF at the same time.

Ser Shadrich and his team who’ve know who Alayne really is and have been living under LF’s nose for months waiting to strike.

Myranda Royce who also knows who Alayne really is.  We don’t know yet how she’s going to affect things.

Lothor Brune who has a crush on Mya Stone might be set to switch sides if Sansa plays match-maker.

The Mountain Clans who have been armed with steel by Tyrion.  They got a hard on to take the Vale back and are still occasionally brought up as a threat that has never been dealt with.

Yohn Royce is back in Runestone with his forces biding his time for his opportunity to bring LF down. He also has ships, a port, and his own grain stores.

Possibly a catastrophic avalanche from the Giant’s Lance with the Gates of the Moon right in it’s path.

Just focusing on Harry, remember he “earned” his knighthood in a tourney that was rigged for him to win so Yohn could exert influence over the heir against LF.  You think this tourney isn’t rigged for Harry to win by Littlefinger for the same reasons? I think we’re being told this is not the horse we or Sansa should bet on.  We also have the competitor that Alayne will actually give her favor to that just might shake up that tourney outcome judging by tourneys past.  Harry bears some similarities to Ser Hugh of the Vale that was killed by a giant’s lance in the hands of the Mountain at the last tourney Sansa attended. 

They both are arrogant, newly made knights.  

They both sport the Arryn colors and symbols though they aren’t Arryns.  

Both seem to be knighted before they were truly ready, for reasons that have nothing to do with their abilities.  Hugh, squire to Jon Arryn, was knighted by Robert I for Jon’s memory.  Harry for political jockeying.

They are hidden forces in play that they are woefully ill-prepared for and they are charging headlong into.  This doesn’t look good.

I don’t think Harry is long for this world.  And his potential demise fits into the greater themes of Littlefinger’s legacy as Lord Protector in the Vale.  Corruption, bribery, and excess that the majority of lords have been seduced by does not make me feel confident about those knights and grain stores being put to good use.  It’s all lies and Arbor gold built on a foundation of rot.  I see massive waste and snuffed out potential as a very George-esque consequence for this decadent folly on the cusp of winter.  The tourney feast and games feel very Masque of the Red Death with the world falling apart outside and these nobles sequestering themselves in a decadent, glittering daydream.  The Red Death still gets in and pwns everyone. Yeah... :/  I think Sansa’s Vale arc will resolve in an epic, tragic smash by any number of George’s planted wild cards.          

[mild-lunacy]

stranger in a fannish land 2: the unpopular opinions

So there's a meme where people are weighing in on what they'd change about The Raven Cycle and it's like.... Many people in fandom really have no sense of what's 'good for the story', or the difference between your personal satisfaction or reaction and 'a good idea' for the plot. Like, I realize that some things are sad, or unfortunate to have happen. But like, just because it's unfortunate (for ex, a character-- say, Noah-- doesn't get a happy ending) doesn't mean it's better not done in fiction. Alternatively, just because you can imagine it, doesn't mean it's even remotely a good idea for the fictional situation and/or characters as they stand. I mean... anything *can* happen, but not everything *should* happen, given you're trying to justify it as a Good Idea in the first place.

Sure, Ronan could've been together with Gansey, or even Kavinsky before Adam. Why not? He also could've been kidnapped by a pedophile as a child, or he could've been hit by lightning and got grey hair, or he could've been born on Maui and never met Gansey. He simply could've died as a baby, etc etc. If you're actually talking about desirable outcomes or things helpful to the relationships between Gansey, Adam, Ronan and Blue, you have to limit these potentialities and look at what *ought* to happen to preserve their dynamic, though. So yeah, Ronan/Kavinsky would be especially destructive to every major relationship in the books, and any hope for growth Ronan has, and in that sense it's equivalent to Ronan being born in Hawaii or dying as a baby. But Ronan/Gansey is just differently destructive to the group dynamic as we know it, with the characters as we know them. It would mean Ronan isn't so romantic and innocent, either, so his whole characterization changes, or it means they're not simply best friends. I mean, you can't 'just' casually have a crush on your closest friend if you're a romantic. If you do, it's usually not something one quickly or easily gets over to move easily onto the next friend, whether that's Blue or Adam. Further, Gansey's power over Ronan would start being really questionable all of a sudden, to the point where you'd have to wonder if Kavinsky was right. Jealousy and weird unrequited feelings would probably threaten the boys' connection with Blue, and this would probably change both Gansey's and Ronan's relationship with Blue. Regardless, an actual canon attraction or relationship between Ronan and Gansey, or between Henry, Blue and Gansey, is not just a fun, sexy little detail you can easily insert at any time. Every choice has consequences like ripples in a pond. That's how life works, but more importantly, it's how fiction works. This is the very thing that fans seem particularly oblivious of.

In general, my point is that just because you have a preference for X thing, or you react in a negative way to Y plot point, it doesn't mean that said X is good and Y is bad. I dunno, I feel like I'm stating the obvious. These aren't super-deep thoughts, are they? I mean, it's actually really blatant that say, Noah had a great arc and/or served his purpose wonderfully in the books, and yet maybe 5 people out of 100 seem aware of this in Raven Cycle fandom. Almost every post complaining about TRK states Noah's resolution sucked 'cause he 'deserved better'. I'd understand if 6 year-olds said that sort of thing, because it takes a while to understand dead people don't get better, but otherwise, I don't see how ghosts deserve happiness. Like, they're already dead, basically. Noah started out dead, and this had a major purpose in that plot. And dead is dead, man. That's kinda the *point* of being dead. It's both permanent and unhappy. As far as being dwelled on afterwards, none of the events of the climax got dwelled on afterwards. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, so the number one thing that drives me batty in fandom is people ignoring the entire idea of characterization or plot requirements in the story and assuming any old thing or headcanon that they wanted could actually somehow work. I dunno if these fans even think in terms of things 'working', though maybe I should be more optimistic. Like, for example, even agreeing it'd be great if Gansey also kissed/liked boys and was bisexual... why would he *randomly* kiss his friends? Who in the world does that outside pure romantic/sexual fantasies? Why not at least ask the question of 'why Gansey' first? Or why not demand Adam kiss random boys, 'cause at least he's confirmed to be bisexual in canon? Is there any other point except that everyone needs to be queer at all times? Even individual fanfics would usually at least try to make sense, rather than randomly putting in an assortment of happy headcanons. (Granted, I've seen fics that claim to incorporate an assortment of headcanons, but this isn't typical.) Who really wants books to be a collection of politically correct boxes checked, double checked and triple checked? Honestly.

What really drives me nuts is not really the fact that people want these counterproductive things to be canon, because surely the heart wants what it wants. It's the misunderstanding of the way fiction works, and consequently that these posts blame the writer(s) for their so-called failure in delivering what makes no sense in the first place. Like, some critiques are valid, obviously, even though I don't think the characterization of either Ronan or Adam (as it stands) easily transfers onto a POC character. Their background would need to change to some degree (particularly Ronan's, being Irish as a matter of characterization), so essentially it'd be a different character (though Blue is different). Anyway, so one can certainly critique that, as well as the pros and cons of labelling Adam bisexual more explicitly and so on. But stuff like randomly bi Gansey or happy Noah are just headcanons and pure wish-fulfillment. And my issue is that fandom doesn't draw any kind of serious line between these two kinds of 'critiques', in part because they often use the same lingo. It's literally like no one is aware that say, polyamory isn't really even in the same box as racial and sexual diversity representation, so Stiefvater had no responsibility to include Sarchengsey. Just because you care about that headcanon and/or real life issue doesn't make it a *social justice* responsibility that needs addressing in the media. I would think that's obvious, but it definitely isn't.

I think the underlying problem in my relating to fandom these days is that I don't... 'read' characters any particular way. Like, I may have interpretations about what happened and guesses as to what will happen, as well as hopes, but I don't just *decide* things. I never personally decide to read a character as gay, trans, ace, or a POC (let alone polyamorous), unless they're stated or super-heavily implied as being intended as any or all of the above. That is not a thing that happens to me. Of course, 'implied' kinda means that canon can get fuzzy to me, which is certainly true. Usually I'm just aware 'this is fuzzy'; maybe it's that even if I do go further, I don't fill in blanks with personal experience on any conscious level that I've ever noticed. It's not that I'm (that much of) a canon absolutist; I'm just unlikely (and indeed almost incapable of) making leaps that aren't ultimately suggested by the text. I'm also definitely irritated by many people who *do* make such leaps in a preachy, pushy, in-your-face way, like canon is irrelevant and fanon is the Only Truth needed (and if you disagree, you're the problem). If it's subtle but still intentionally textual, I'll (eventually) see it. If it's not textual... I probably won't. I don't read against the grain, basically.

It wouldn't be so bad (my mental dissonance in fandom, I mean) if not for the pushy holier-than-thou posts about the Truthiness of things which are absolutely Not Canon, which are always at the back oh my mind. So I guess I can overreact to some innocent wish-fulfillment stuff sometimes. I don't mean Truthiness like those (wanky and unfortunate) old debates about canon Johnlock or even (apparently) whether Victuuri is canon. That's actually less weird 'cause at least I can see people genuinely reading the text differently in that case, for whatever reason. Like yeah, I mean, I think denying Victuuri is canon is ridiculous and I haven't even watched Yuri on Ice. But at least those people seem to have some sort of reasoning as to *why* they think Victuuri doesn't exist, even if it's bad or homophobic reasoning. What really frustrates me the most is the growing fandom trend of people who wilfully ignore canon and the very idea of interpretive/headcanon plausibility without even acknowledging there's a deeper disagreement.

Like, we're talkin' the level of the folks who go beyond 'let's racebend Ronan Lynch' (ok, sure!), through the valley of 'you better racebend him or you're Problematic' (um, are you sure? I think I'm going to go with 'strongly disagree') and into the shadow of 'Ronan Lynch *is* black, and if you *deny* it you're Problematic'. I know it's all fun, games and headcanons, but when you're trying to get other people to replace their idea of canon with your headcanon, or trying to justify it in general, eventually it becomes all too easy to forget you'd ever even noticed that, say, Ronan is white while reading the books. And in fact, many people seem genuinely confused about that aspect of canon reality at this point, which is kind of terrifying to me. I value my ability to process the text correctly, pay attention to basic facts and, well, perceive objective reality in general. And yes, white Ronan Lynch is objective canon reality. You can certainly mess with it in fanworks (that's what fanworks are for!), but it remains canon, and no headcanon is morally superior enough to canon to *have* to be the preferable choice, let alone actually *replacing* it. In fact, the very idea that the more morally superior thing is somehow more 'correct' on a literal level is... Problematic. At least, to me. Not least because I think that although we do definitely need more representation, fellow fans cannot have a responsibility to invent it where it doesn't exist. Ability is not *responsibility*.

Basically, while transformative readings and headcanons are a great outlet and a fundamental part of fandom, it's not the *responsibility* of other character fans or fellow shippers to follow them or even support them. To me, that's really basic stuff that's long made fandom function on a fundamental level (on par with 'ship what you like'), and the fact that it often seems the majority of Tumblr fandom disagrees is making participation near-intolerable, at least in The Raven Cycle (the most extreme examples of this type of wank are concentrated in book fandoms, it seems, 'cause I think actors are more 'real' to people visually). It should just always be unnecessary to even say that if you don't want to slash, or racebend, or even ship outside of the canon sandbox (or you want to sometimes but not others), there's *nothing* wrong with that, as long as you accept that others won't have the same preferences. I really can't believe I feel I even have to say so, but I know I do. There's nothing wrong with preferring or enjoying canon as is. That's the basic level of the meaning of being fannish, surely. You like the thing you like! Liking it the way it is in canon cannot be considered the *inferior* way of liking it. So yeah, the mental dissonance can get very, *very* intense for me.

Essentially, good characters (especially ones I care about at all) and their core emotional responses and frameworks are real to me: Ronan is an individual. He's white, he's Irish-American, he's a Southern boy, he's got blue eyes. He's also angry, depressed, idealistic, loyal. Sherlock is an individual. He's also a white male, he's a Londoner, he's got dark curly hair, a low voice and many chins. And he's analytical, sensitive but interpersonally oblivious in some ways, obsessed with John, jealous of Mycroft, etc. You *can* certainly change most of this in a fic, but this doesn't mean you *should*, certainly without acknowledging the broad-ranging consequences. In a good and IC fanfic, you would have to acknowledge that those core traits are still the basic starting points, part of the definition of the character. Basically, as anyone who knows me will know, I've got an unholy obsession with ICness, even/especially in the context of fanon pairings, settings or situations like AUs. The characters and their core motivations are simply not fungible or interchangeable to me. This isn't really a failure of imagination ('why can't you just imagine whatever?' you say), but rather about seeing an imaginary person *so* vividly in my mind they they become effectively real.

In a way, this sounds similar enough to what people say happens with various projections and headcanons, but the process actually seems rather different, 'cause I pay attention to the text and not just my reactions to it. I love to imagine, to build upon the possibilities of the canon world, of course. I just... have to have a foundation. I can't imagine being *any* kind of fan without paying close attention outside of myself and caring about what I find there, in the text. Fanon and canon have to be separated for *either* to have true meaning.

In any case, in a broader sense, I do think I understand what happens to the people who get hung up on their headcanons and start insisting on them. My imagination is always something that starts out broad and open and ends up cast in stone, once I feel I've figured out what the relevant 'truth' is, in context. I can certainly settle on an interpretation and get pretty hardline about it, which happened to a large extent with my ideas about canon Johnlock (though I was always aware what's opinion and what's fact, I became very certain about my reading and I definitely got pretty easily frustrated by people who ignored the 'obvious'). That's why I separated a close reading or interpretation like canon Johnlock and even Victuuri from something like racebending Ronan Lynch, though. That's not a plausible reading or interpretation; rather, it's a simple denial and substitution of canon (which, as I've said, I never do). Telling me that doing it would be morally preferable doesn't really help (to say the least), although the process of how people get to this point *is* familiar to me.

I can and *do* often enjoy AUs or graphics where there's a new context for the character (say, edits where Ronan is Korean or Mexican-Irish have been cool). Not all AUs are created equal to me, though, 'cause not all AUs or fanon scenarios work with the characters' core traits, as written. Sometimes, though, fanon ships (a form of an AU) do work on the level of potential, like the Road Not Travelled By. You can sometimes imagine the canon arc splitting off at some crucial point, so it bends but doesn't break. This can be complicated stuff, but it's how I intuitively think of it. Generally, I'd need a sense of broader changes to who they are as a result of a new life history, but that's still an agreed-upon suspension of disbelief. Consequences, in other words.