#but it's FANTASY historical china after all

[shrimpchipsss]

while I’m drawing f!sqq here’s one who’d use chenqie pronouns

[cepheusgalaxy]

Hmmm i think im bringing back the village name thing in chui di

[mesetacadre]

107 years ago today an organized group of workers in the Russian Empire decided they had had enough of war, misery, the oppression of women, and of a corrupt democracy that had promised much and changed nothing, the Tsar still in his palaces, the workers still giving their life for a cause foreign to the working class of Europe and the world. Most bolsheviks were industrial workers, with an insufficient formal education, precarious salaries and conditions. The working class in the Russian Empire had tried liberal democracy, had seen its hipocrisy in the months following the election of the provisional government, and understood their historic goal of progressing further beyond the democracy of the landowner, businessman and aristocrat. It wasn't the first time the proletariat had attempted to take power, both worldwide and in the Russian Empire, but this time they were ready, educated, an organized enough.

The armies of 14 imperialist powers combined could not stop the will of a mass of workers that had realized their worth, their potential, and most importantly, their dignity. They no longer had to bow down to paternalism, electoralism, and the capitalists to whom they sold their labor, no armed intervention, no amount of propaganda, no adventurist distraction, could take away from that fact. This isn't a fantasy, it isn't idealistic, it's a historical fact, that revolutions are possible, have happened, succeeded, and that the opportunity presents itself sooner than most expect. The only task at hand is to organize towards it. Agitation, education, an actual dual power structure predicated on a unified will, not on voluntarism and horizontalism.

I understand the topic at hand for the last 2 days and many more to come will be the results of the US election. But the US is not the only liberal democracy that increasingly creates disappointment among the social majority. After all the posting about the various liberals that make up the US electoral environment, it is imperious that nobody falls into despair. Not in a self-care way, not in the way most left-liberals have been talking about, referring to an abstract sense of "preparing", but because of the simple necessity for this election to further erode any popular faith in reformism, whether it's Trump's reforms, Harris' reforms, Bernie's reforms, or Stein's reforms. Wallowing in despair is as useful as placing yet more stake into whoever is wheeled out next to promise even less, in what will most certainly be also called the most important elections of our lifetimes.

Return to the working class of the Russian Empire, of a fractured and hungry China, to the colony of Indochina, to the plantation island that was Cuba. And I urge you to exercise some perspective. These masses of people had suffered more than you for longer than you. Nobody's asking you to feel guilty about your economic position in the world, we're asking you to realize that, for as long as there have been modes of production predicated on the exploitation, division and discrimination of a producing class, there have always been options, better options than sinking into despondent depression. They have managed to cast off their yoke and build towards a society not based on exploitation. They're not utopias, and mistakes have been and will be committed, but they all realized and understood that it's better to commit our own mistakes, than to toil under the rational oppression by another class for any longer.

[fateandloveentwined]

wuxia, xianxia, and cultivation differences meta

translations: wuxia 武俠, xianxia 仙俠, and cultivation 修真/修仙 (xīuzhēn/xīuxiān)

think i've seen posts on this eons ago, and i'm pretty sure there are tons of these online, but since this has been written up already let's just have another one.

wuxia 武俠

wuxia and xianxia sound similar, but basically for wuxia it is about the pugilistic world (江湖 jiānghú). It is relatively more down-to-earth, and people practice martial arts ("kungfu") in their current life -- they do not do it to become xians (仙) and gods (神) however.

Like Thousand Autumns and Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor, it has more historical background and ties to the current court and kingdoms, because people are living in the moment and concern themselves with worldly issues.

Martial arts may seem unrealistic, but in view of chinese fantasy it would be considered "real". It consists of fighting moves and internal energy, which they call qi or nèigōng (內功), and at times you see people flying around, climbing hills and jumping across rooftops which is qīnggōng (輕功).

xianxia 仙俠

A level up would be xianxia, where characters in the story cultivate to become xians (and gods, like in the heaven official's blessing). They don't really care about earthly issues here now, because their ambitions lie beyond the current world, and cultivation, getting stronger, and an immortal life are majorly all their goals.

You may not always see them working towards that purpose, such as in mdzs they are considered a lower-xianxia society (低魔), meaning people don't go through all the steps of cultivation and only stay at the stage before the "golden core" stage.

In xianxia, characters still learn basic fighting moves aka. martial arts, but to direct the internal energy they use línglì (灵力), zhēnqì (真气), and fǎlì (法力), all xianxia terms you commonly see. "neigong" is practically nonexistent in this genre. That's why people building up their "neigong" instead of "lingli" are likely never going to be able to cultivate.

cultivation 修真/修仙

A subgenre in the xianxia category would be cultivation. Characters actively go through the stages of cultivation, and likely for the MC, because they are the main character, they successfully become a xian and exit the world at the end of the novel.

There are many stages of cultivation, usually defined at the beginning of the novel in the synopsis, and a typical example of the different levels would be this:

练气，筑基，金丹，元婴，化神，炼虚，合体，大乘，渡劫

And with a cursory search, an English translation would be something like this, albeit not with all the cultivation ranks identified.

Qi condensation (练气), Foundation establishment (筑基), Core Formation (金丹), Nascent Soul (元婴), and the names after that vary too greatly with translation and fandom so I'll jump straight to Immortal Ascension

extra info: getting into the philosophy of it all

It'd be interesting to note that the word "xiá" (俠) permeates all these genres. This is something akin to the concept of "hero", but not at all also, and I'd love to speak more on this but this post has already gone way longer than I hoped it would be, so perhaps another day.

Regardless, it is interesting to note that wuxia has a greater emphasis on "xia" than xianxia. (some joke that cultivation doesn't have the word "xia" in it, and much of that is because characters have foregone heroism and focused on gaining powers and working towards ascension instead). As a result, wuxia is more confucianism-oriented, though not without its taoism and buddhism influences.

xianxia, on the other hand, is mainly derived from "dào" (道), from taoism, which is another lengthy concept if I ever get to it.

And some may have heard of the "farming" genre, 种田 (zhòngtián). This has to do with golden fingers (mary sues) in imperialistic china, earning a wealth of money, and all that. It has nothing to do with cultivation, alike they sound in english.

that's it for now, hmu if you wish to ask/discuss!

(and apologies for the pinyin translations, hope it's understandable still! formally writing pinyin they are supposed to be two separate words not one.)

[tanadrin]

Sorry about the long ask, but what do you think about this claim: i often see marxists (and adjacent groups, blah blah) say that the united states (empire) is about to collapse or is gradually declining, something along those lines, and specifically with regard to its economy, military and ideology. For example, i was watching a video hosting Richard Wolff, and he claimed that the united states is being replaced by china as the global superpower; he compares the situation to the historical rise of the united states relative to the british empire that slowly took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. I think his comparison is slightly flawed (imo hes comparing apples to oranges here), but in the broad strokes he might be right? I also remember seeing a pretty respectable maoist on here claim the us military is failing. Idk, i would like to hear your take

This answer got real long, so I added a cut. The short version is "people who say things like this are living in a fantasy land, and you can safely ignore their opinions on anything else as a result."

The United States is not the USSR in 1990 or Somalia in 1994 or Rome in the fifth century, or anything similar. Failed states are absolutely a thing, and they're fascinating (and often quite depressing!) historical case studies, and the United States looks nothing like a failed state. It's not even about to collapse in the sense of "suffer a prolonged period of sharp economic decline that forces it to drastically reduce its presence in the wider world and curtails its power in influence." It's not even about to collapse in the sense of "experience significant regime change." The U.S. economy is, overall, doing quite well. There is no significant popular unrest. There is no elite appetite for revolution. There are not competing centers of power that would rather see the status quo burned to the ground than their rivals get power. You might want the U.S. to collapse, and you might not, but the idea it is about to is pure fantasy.

I think before we get to any other specific claims about the United States' position relative to other countries, it's important to note that claims of impending American collapse are, like claims of impending civilizational collapse or Paul Ehrlich's claim of worldwide hunger or breathless claims that the war in Ukraine is going to escalate into WW3 any day now, IMO affective claims about how the speaker feels about the world: there is a certain class of person who, whether out of nihilistic glee, hope of revolutionary change, or simply untrammeled anxiety sees the signs of collapse all around them, Doom-Is-Nigh streetcorner prophets who are emotionally invested in the idea of collapse, for whom the idea of collapse would often justify some pillar of their politics. If, after all, the US is a failed state about to be toppled by its own decadence, this would justify their inordinate degree of contempt for the US.

On another recent post someone phrased claims like this as often being more about "what would be necessary for someone's politics to be justified," and I think that's an important part of it! In fact I think "affective claims about the world being distorted into factual claims about the world bc they are what would be necessary to justify someone's politics" is a fully general phenomenon, regardless of political orientation. There are much milder forms of it than out-and-out doomerism, though of course the absurdity of doomerist claims to this degree make it really hard to take someone's claims about the state of the world seriously.

About the specific claims here:

Re: China: China has experienced terrific growth since the end of WW2, and that's great! A country of over a billion people should by any reasonable metric be one of the largest economies on Earth, and China is, it seems, taking its inevitable place internationally as an economic powerhouse. It's a big country with a ton of people, and it's terrific that it has been able to lift so many people out of the grinding poverty that prevailed throughout much of the country in the 20th century. But like a lot of middle-income countries it seems to be having a ton of trouble, for significant institutional reasons, transitioning from an industrialization-focused economy to one driven by consumer demand and consumer spending. AIUI (and I am so, so far from an expert; mostly I just read what folks like @argumate post from other sources), China has a lot of debt dragging down its economy, and weak consumer demand. China is still much poorer than the United States on a per capita basis, and though it has a large military, is much less capable of projecting its power beyond its borders. It has aspired to increase its economic and diplomatic influence through the Belt and Road initiative, but returns on this project have been decidedly mixed, and China's military and strategic focus remains decidedly confined to its neighborhood. It wants to absorb Taiwan and protect its interests in the South China Sea, and prop up North Korea and such, but it's not able to or interested in, like, fielding large carrier groups that routinely sail up and down the world's oceans or conduct invasions of distant countries like the U.S. is able to. N.B., I'm not saying those invasions are good, just that the U.S. can historically, if it wants, invade and occupy basically any small-to-medium sized country on the planet in a few weeks, and that's not the kind of capability China has, or--AFAICT--is interested in developing.

The British Empire comparison is also, I think, very misleading, and gets at something I find frustrating about a lot of modern Marxists: they want to fit everything into the model of 19th century capitalist imperialism, when the modern global system doesn't look too much like that anymore. Mostly countries like the United States, if they have economic interests in a country, don't invade and reduce the country to a status of colony to extract raw resources from. The Cold War supported a fair bit of regime change in the service of commercial interests, even in the aftermath of post-WW2 decolonization, but nowadays the tools used to develop and enforce the international order preferred by the Status Quo Coalition (which is led, but not commanded by the United States) are much more indirect. They don't involve directly administering colonies, which is significant because colonialism is, for the states that run it, expensive as hell. Sure, it's great for commercial interests--but it's often more a drain on state finances than anything else. I have come around to the view that colonialism was as much an expression of wealth as it was a means to acquire more. Britain was always a small-but-wealthy island country whose empire was much, much larger than its metropole. The vast majority of the population and wealth controlled by the United States is within the fifty states which comprise the core territory of the United States. This isn't Britain with a far-flung overseas empire which is expensive to administer and a minority of Britons on the island itself--this is a country whose wealth and industry is built on a population of 350 million or so which identifies as American first, which speaks English and votes for President and congress. Most of the United States' actual imperial possessions are tiny archipelagoes these days that are economically marginal, or else military bases overseas--these do not generate American wealth and power, they are expressions of it. For the United States to collapse like the British Empire did, it would have to lose control of California and Texas and the Midwest or something like that--which is a goofy-ass fantasy, because if the United States federal government disappeared tomorrow, I think the vast majority of the 350 million or so people living in the present borders of the United States would support re-establishing the United States federal government. Americans like and support the country they live in! This is very different from the subjects of the British Raj, or even the people of Australia and Canada, who had begun to develop their own identity (and thanks to distance from the metropole, completely divergent economic and political interests).

"The U.S. is an empire analogous Britain" is only true if you squint from very far away and don't care about the specifics of history, economics, or politics. But I think again the way to understand this claim is partly affective. If the U.S. really is the second incarnation of the British Empire, then you can cast a lot of disparate conflicts that otherwise don't fit the mold under the aegis of a broad anti-colonial struggle. It also facilitates a certain sort of base campism that some people love to indulge in--the NATO-is-always-evil-so-anything-NATO-doesn't-like-is-good angle, which has a lot of self-described leftists backing in to saying that Putin's Russia is somehow an antifascist or anticolonial force for good in the world.

"The U.S. military is failing" is pure cope. There's no country or active coalition of countries that's even remotely close to the U.S. military in capabilities. Though there is always going to be a stream of waste and corruption and medium-sized bureaucratic fuckups streaming out of the U.S. military, it remains without peer simply by virtue of one of the largest economies on the planet being willing to spend like 4% of its GDP on military stuff. The EU or China might in some counterfactual world be able to field a similar military if they spent a comparable amount, and had similar strategic aims, but they won't and they don't, so unless U.S. foreign policy drastically changes and military spending is slashed as a result, I don't see that changing at any time in the near future.

[jymwahuwu]

I love and think about Emperor Jing Yuan a lot. Like a servant girl getting called in to be the emperor Jing Yuan's Concubine 😋

I love ancient China like the history, art and clothing. when I think about Chinese Emperor Jing Yuan I think of Cinderella Chef (animated version) it's so cute and romantic. I also think about the fic series I used to read in 2020 or 2019 when the reader is the selected tailor for the emperor and the emperor falls in love.

It was such a good story, with many good different story elements to it even though it's was an yandere x reader 😭 and I'm not even exaggerating how good it is. It was slow burn yandere yet sooo good and worth it

I have to read it again cause it's sooo good.

There's sooo many good art of Jing Yuan in ancient Chinese clothing and I love and appreciate it sm 🤤

Jing Yuan kept a servant girl as his concubine, wanting her by his side every moment. As emperor, he faced countless threats and worried constantly for her safety. Yet, he couldn’t resist making her his bride, even though the public and his family disapproved. How could a servant girl from a humble background become empress alongside the emperor? But he paid no attention to their criticisms, choosing instead to live in his Fantasies with her. She was the only woman he’d ever met who cared for him beyond his wealth and title, and he was determined to keep her close forever. 😇

Wow, I also like Chinese palace stories actually!! What you said made me imagine a lot. It turns out that Jing Yuan is so suitable for the palace AU🥰✊

Have you watched "Story of Yanxi Palace"? It was a popular palace drama in 2018, and social media was all about it at that time. The historical prototype of the female protagonist is Empress Xiaoyichun (孝儀純皇后). She first started as a concubine. During her lifetime, she was the "Imperial Noble Consort" (皇貴妃), which was the highest position among the concubines after Empress. The core of its story is about a confident servant woman who starts from the bottom and moves up through the ranks with wisdom and courage.

A negative example is "Ruyi's royal love in the palace". The show still gets a lot of negative criticism in China today (yes, that's happening in 2024) - for its slut-shaming and superiority theories. The lower class people must be loyal to the noble people, otherwise they will be severely punished. There are a lot of torture scenes of women, never criticizing the mistakes of the misogynistic system, vilifying all historical figures just to beautify the female protagonists, advocating that women must be loyal to one man throughout their lives or else they are sluts, vilifying and torturing ambitious women, etc.

Oh, I'm sorry I really hate that TV show so I'm talking too much about it, but to get back to the point, it occurred to me that if Jing Yuan were the emperor, he would be very - very infatuated and dedicated. There was an emperor in Chinese history called "Emperor Xiaozong of Ming"(明孝宗) who insisted on living a monogamous life with only one empress. The same is true for Jing Yuan! Jing Yuan has only married you from beginning to end! You are one of his servants. No matter what your personality is, witty and lively/shy and kind, or even arrogant, Jing Yuan finds you really cute🥰💖He is very happy that you entered the palace and were assigned to serve him. He will sometimes sleep on your lap and ask you to feed him. He was like a big sleeping lion. But no one in politics dares to underestimate Jing Yuan because he always predicts everything.

Jing Yuan built a fruit garden in the palace, as well as a place to raise cats and birds. He got to pet cute cats and birds every day. The kittens purred around him. Maybe you were the servant who took care of the cats here. And he discovered you💖You are so suitable to be the mother of cats. And maybe he's hiding his identity and you care about his health and happiness before his status.

Politics and the harem are closely related. Those ministers petitioned Jing Yuan to marry a girl who matched his status, but he would not marry any girl except you. This is his own business! There was an emperor named "Emperor Gaozong of Tang"(唐高宗) in Chinese history. Despite the objections of his ministers, he insisted on marrying his father's concubine (named "Wuzhao"- 武曌) as his queen and sharing power with her. This is a very real love among emperors! After her husband's death, the queen became the only female emperor of China. The expression of the emperor's love for someone is to give them the best at all costs, including power, fame, wealth, and status. Jing Yuan wants to give it to you. He married you. Based on your status as a maid, you start as a concubine but work your way up. And he will also give birth to kitty babies with you. Those little princesses and princes running happily are all of your blood and his.

And he also decided to discuss politics and decide national affairs with you, collectively called "two saints" (based on Wuzhao's history haha), and share power with you. Because he knows how smart and cute you are, able to sharpen your claws and handle government affairs💖He is also ready to build a royal mausoleum, where only the two of you are buried together (it may be a bit scary, but this is how the Chinese emperors express their love haha). Even after Wuzhao became the empress, she didn’t build a mausoleum independently because she loved her husband. No matter what, you are always together, with sweetness and honor forever💖

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 3

Book summaries below:

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

Science fiction, time travel, multiverse, epistolary, adult

The Radiant Emperor series (She Who Became the Sun, He Who Drowned the World) by Shelley Parker-Chan

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future her brother’s abandoned greatness.

Fantasy, historical fiction, alternate history, epic fantasy, series, adult

[writingwithcolor]

Conlanging Issues: A Compendium

NOTE: This question was submitted before the Nov 1, 2023 reopening and may not adhere to all rules and guidelines. The ask has been abridged for clarity. 

Most of my questions are about linguistics. […] One of the major locations in my story is a massive empire with cultural inspirations ranging from North Africa in the far south to Mongolia/Russia in the far north […] The middle region is where the capital is and is the main root of culture, from which Ive been taking inspiration from Southwest Asia […], but most notably southern regions of India. I've tried to stick to the way cities are named in Sanskrit-based languages but added the names of stars to the front (because the prevalent religion of this region worships the stars [...]). So Ive ended up with names like Pavoprayag, Alyanaga, Alkaiduru, Alcorpura, Cygnapete, etc. Is this a consistent naming system or should I alter it in some way? The empire itself is named the Arcana Empire since [...] each act of my story is named after a tarot card [...]. Another region in my story is based more on parts of South China and North Vietnam, so I've tried to stick to names with a Chinese origin for that. I understand the significance of family names in southwest [sic] Asia, so I wanted to double check [...]. They have only two short given names. Based on the birth order of the child, the first half of the name comes from the fathers family and the second half from the mothers family. It is seen as disrespectful not to use both names because using only one is seen as denouncing that side of your family. Thus I have names like Su Yin, Dai Jun, and Yi Wen for some of the characters from this region, and the city itself that they are from is named Bei Fen. On the other hand, Im having further trouble naming characters. […] Ive been trying to give my human characters names from real human cultures to distinguish them from the website-generated names of say, orcs, elves, dwarves, etc, but I think I should change many of the names Ive used to be more original and avoid fracturing real world cultures for the sake of my worldbuilding. […] Im still very weak in the linguistics area (even after four years of French, sigh) and am having trouble finding where to read about naming patterns so I can make new ones up. I read your naming guides but am still having trouble on where to start for specific languages. […] Im trying to look into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian specifically.

You're Going Too Broad

In my opinion, you’re casting too wide a net. You mentioned looking into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian to develop fantasy names. These languages are very different from one another, so unless you’re using them separately for very different parts of your world, it will be hard to draw inspiration from them in a way that makes sense. You’re taking on a huge amount of research in order to worldbuild cultures that span a massive geographical area (basically all of North Africa and Asia?) and have very little in common. Are you sure you want to take on that task?

I could see it being more manageable if most of your story is set in a small region of this world, which you will then research in depth to make sure you’re being as specific as possible.

Taking Persian as an example, you’ll have to decide whether you want to use Old Persian, Middle Persian, or Modern Persian. Each of these comes with a different alphabet and historical influences. They’re also associated with different periods of time and corresponding cultural and social markers. Once you’ve decided exactly when and where you want to start from, you can then expand the borders of your area of focus. For example, if you’ve decided to draw inspiration from Achaemenid Persia, you can then look at the languages that were spoken in the Achaemenid Empire. A quick Google search tells me that while Old Persian was the empire’s official language, they also used Aramaic, Akkadian, Median, Greek, and Elamite (among, I’m sure, many many others and many more regional variations). Further research into each of these will give you ethnic groups and bordering nations that you can draw more inspiration from to expand out your worldbuilding.

Don’t forget to make sure you’re staying within the same time period in order to keep things consistent. It’s a lot of work, and this is only for a small portion of the continent-spanning worldbuilding you’re trying to do.

You can get away with painting the rest of the continent in broad strokes without too much depth if the story doesn’t go there and you don’t have any main characters from those parts of the world. Otherwise, you’ll need to put this same level of detail into your worldbuilding for the area with Turkish-inspired names, and again for the area with Sanskrit-inspired names, and so on.

I know this isn’t what you were asking, but I honestly have a hard time helping you figure out where to start because your ask is so broad I don’t quite know where I would start myself. So, this is my advice: focus down on one region and time period and go from there. Feel free to write back once you’ve picked a narrower focus that we could help you with.

- Niki

So there’s logistical issues in regards to your naming system for southern China-coded regions. One issue is history: mainly on how there is not simply one language in China but multiple due to having a lot of ethnic groups and the size of China. South China in particular has different dialects and languages than the North as seen in this map of Chinese languages and dialects. There’s also how historically Mandarin was not the official language until 1913 in China and historical China saw vast changes in territory dependent on the dynasty. Before then, Mandarin was primarily a northern Chinese language based in Beijing while southern China had its own languages, dialects, and dynamics. Not to mention, historical China saw an evolution of language just like English has Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. For instance, Vietnam was once part of China during the Tang Dynasty and at another point, it was not part of China.

-Mod Sci

If You’re Borrowing Whole Words or Elements, Research More

The other issue is inconsistency with the cultures you’re deriving this conlang from. In regards to “two given names,” the Chinese name I was given was one syllable and then I would have a last name that was also one syllable. There’s also how not every family is perfect. Not every marriage is sanctioned and some children may come from single parents. Some families may not cooperate with marriage and sometimes children may be abandoned with unknown parents. There does not seem to be contingencies for these names under this conlang system.

The main problem with conlangs is that one needs to truly understand the languages one is drawing from. Tolkein managed to create conlangs due to training in linguistics. Mandarin is already a difficult language with multiple tones, and trying to use it for conlangs without knowledge of how Mandarin works or a good foundation in linguistics is just a Sisyphean endeavor.

-Mod Sci

Four years of French wouldn’t have taught you about linguistics as a science or anything about the language families you’ve listed - Indo-Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, and Turkic, nor any Asian naming conventions. I agree with Niki that you need to narrow down your research.

Pur/pura means city in Sanskrit (ex: Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur). Prayag is a place where pilgrimages are done. Naga isn’t a place name in Sanskrit (google says it means snake), nagar is and it means town. X Nagar is a very common name for places (Ex: Rajinder Nagar). Many cities in Karnataka have names ending in uru (Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Tumakuru, etc) but the language of Karnataka is Kannada - a Dravidian language and completely different family from Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan). I’m not sure where “pete” came from. “Bad” and “vaal” are common suffixes for places too (Ex: Faisalabad, Allahabad). A disclaimer that I do not speak Sanskrit, I speak Punjabi, which is a descendant of Sanskrit and in the same linguistic family (Indo-Aryan languages).

- SK

Also, This Is Not…Really Conlanging.

Hi OP. Linguistics refers to the science of studying how languages work, not the discipline of learning languages. And nothing shows that gap more than how you have thus far approached constructing fictional languages and toponyms. 

The reason why Sci and SK have a lot to say about your place names is because they don't resonate—you have borrowed whole words into your toponyms (place names) from a variety of languages—without an accurate understanding of what these words mean, how they’re pronounced, where they’re derived from—and expected them to work together. I suggest you read the links below on why conlanging is not as simple as choosing some languages and mashing their IRL words together: 

Why Using Random Languages Wholesale in your Fantasy is a Bad Idea 

Pitfalls of Mashing Countries and Languages in Coding

In your city names, for example, you’re using star names from multiple languages that use different sets of sounds represented by different sets of historical spelling rules. “Cygn-” and “Arcana” stick out like a sore thumb—the fact that one “c” is /s/ and one is /k/ is an obvious flag that they are Latin-derived English borrowings. This is because spelling rules were created in Middle English to make sense of the mix of “c” pronunciations across words of Indo-European origin due to a historical split called the Centum-Satem division. This is a phenomenon that is very specific to our world history, and to the history of English at that. Ironically, in your attempt to avoid stock fantasy names (which also often fall into the Latin-derived English pit), you are taking the exact same approach to naming.

Like Niki said, your selections are far too broad to code under a single umbrella. Do you expect that whatever language that city name came from runs the full gamut of sound inventory & spelling variety that spans multiple continents and hundreds of languages? Because that’s not how languages work. (And yes, I mean hundreds. Indigenous languages and linguistic diversity are a thing. See Niki’s note about just the languages in Persia. And nation-states bulldozing over those languages and pretending it’s just one language is a thing. See Sci’s note about China.) I haven't even talked about the variation in morphology (how words are formed) or syntax (sentence structure).

Please just read or re-read my guide on “naming conlangs” in this post and start from there.

~ Rina

PSA ON CONLANGING AND FANTASY NAMES:

For fantasy language asks submitted after Nov 1, 2023, the asker must indicate that they have read Mod Rina’s conlanging posts linked in FAQ 2 (Guides and Posts by Topic) of the Masterpost under the question “How do I make a fictional language for my story?” While this is an older ask, we are posting it as an example to our followers.

Per our new rules, any questions that can be directly answered in or extrapolated from the FAQs, or questions that indicate that the relevant resources haven’t been read, will be deleted with a note in the Deletion Log explaining why.

As always, if this post was helpful or educational to you, please consider tipping the relevant mods: SK, Niki, Sci, and Rina.

Edited for terminology errors

[perotovar]

ásjá - a winter solstice story

Ásjá by Heilung (i highly recommend listening to this while reading)

Our second single release is a love song. Maria sings to the listener of love, recovery and prosperity, chasing away evil and welcoming love. The piece contains a quotation of some lines of “Hávamál”, combined with a selection of blessing words meant to provide help to the listener in a troubled time. Kai brought his vocal part of 'Asja' back to us after a month of isolation, fasting and meditation in nature. Only the spirits know the full meaning, but we do know that the context is love, prosperity and protection.

pairing: pero tovar/ofc!helga (but this is mostly a character study) rating: T word count: 7.4k (idk what happened here) warnings: minor swearing, google translated spanish (sorry), historical inaccuracies in favor of fantasy/magic, my american norse pagan perspective of these practices, if i missed anything else lemme know! dividers by @saradika-graphics beta and norwegian translations by the lovely @chloeangelic thank you, honey ♥

summary: Pero picks up a contract that leads him "somewhere up North", but what he finds instead is unlike anything he imagined for himself. Or, what would happen if Pero encountered the Vikings during their winter celebration?

this is apart of @hellishjoel's 12 days of pedro. thank you for including me, kylee, and make sure you all read the other presents!

god jól, everyone🌲❄️🌙🐺

It was fucking cold.

With shaking hands and numb limbs, Pero made his way further up the hill. The wind picked up the further he went into the trees. 

The contract he’d taken up was for a man by the name of Ingvar. A strange name to Pero’s ears, but that hardly mattered to him. This Ingvar was to be taken care of, and Pero had to show proof. 

Not a problem.

The problem, at least for the moment, was the fucking weather and his own lack of foresight. He was told that Ingvar was “somewhere up North”, and that was it. He didn’t exactly plan for just how cold it would be. His fingers were going numb and red, and he saw every breath that left his lungs. If William were here, he’d tell Pero to quit his “bitching” and to make camp.

The camp, he could do. The bitching? Unlikely. 

Pero and William separated after the… events in China. They stayed together to do a few jobs together, but William decided to make his way back to China and meet up with Lin Mae again, possibly even settle down. Pero didn’t fancy seeing the people that had arrested and almost killed him, and black powder wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. At least not to him. He rather liked the uncertainty of his job. Found comfort in it, in fact. His future was set for him in this line of work. He would live doing the things he loved most; fighting, fucking, and drinking. And the ending was always the same. At least, that’s what he told himself.

A low whisper brought Pero out of his thoughts. He snapped his head towards the direction of the sound and furrowed his already heavy brow. The sound of a raven cawing caught his attention, making him hum skeptically to himself before deciding this was as good a spot as any for a fire. 

Once settled on a fallen tree and attempting to warm his hands with his meager fire, Pero dug into his travel pack. He grumbled at the pitiful excuse for food he had left. He grabbed a piece of thick, dry bread and started ripping off chunks and eating that. Perhaps he could hunt? Find a rabbit, or something a little bigger. He remembered to make a bow this time. Swallowing the last chunk of the bread, he picked up his bow and arrows, and threw his cloak-slash-blanket over his shoulders. It was going to be dark soon, and he didn’t like the idea of starving his first night in this frozen Northern hell.

Another whisper.

Pero’s body went taut. He looked between the tall trees and the endless sea of white ahead of him. Nothing. A rabbit hopped by, distracting him. Before he could think too hard, he knocked an arrow and let fly. The arrow landed in the snow just after the rabbit hopped away.

“Mierda,” he grumbled. (Shit.)

He crouched low and slowly followed after the rabbit. He made his way toward a small clearing, which seemed to be in the center of the forest, if his tracking skills were getting any better.

There was a large stone in the middle, towards the top of the clearing. There looked to be a large blood stain in the center of it. Pero raised a brow and grunted quietly. This was none of his business, clearly.

Suddenly, the rabbit made its way to the middle of the clearing, next to the large stone. Pero sighed and lined up a shot, hoping for the best. He released a breath at the same time that the arrow left his fingers, and another whisper passed through his ears.

He gasped quietly and time seemed to stop as the arrow traveled through the cold air. A shiver ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the weather. He closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath, trying to make himself as still as possible. 

The sound of the arrow piercing the rabbit startled him out of his frozen state. He blinked a few times, the white forest coming back into view as he looked down at the dead rabbit in the clearing. He exhaled and slowly stood, settling his bow on his shoulder. He looked around again, and when he saw nothing, slowly made his way down the hill and towards the center of the clearing.

He picked up the dead rabbit and removed the arrow, tucking it into his belt to clean and use again later. Standing in the center of the clearing, he looked over at the bloodstained stone and felt that shiver go down his spine again. He looked up at the gray sky and decided it was time to go back to his camp. He hooked the rabbit’s carcass onto his belt, pulled the cloak over his shoulders tighter, and shoved his hands inside the fabric.

“Maldita nieve,” he grumbled to himself. (Fucking snow.) As he climbed back up the hill, he felt a sharp pain in his foot and lost his balance, catching himself with his hands in the snow. He hissed loudly and looked down at his boot. A small spike was poking out through the top, meaning the sharp rock was piercing through his foot. He groaned and leaned against the hill, steadying his breathing. He counted to three in his head and yanked the rock from his foot. “Fuck,” he exhaled loudly, a few drops of his own blood covering his palm as he looked at the rock. A small symbol was carved into it, making him squint his eyes, trying to decipher what it was. Pero shook his head and sighed, pocketing the strange rock to inspect later.

On his way back to his little camp, limping the whole way to not put too much pressure on his foot, he grabbed some branches to make the fire last a little longer. Once the meager fire came into view, he swore he saw someone sitting on the log he was using before. He froze in place, heavy boots landing in the snow abruptly. He squinted his eyes and grew confused. An old man? What would he be doing out here? 

Pero looked around the frozen forest to see if there was anyone that could be with the old man. When he didn’t see anyone, he looked back at the campfire, and the old man was gone. He’d completely vanished. Pero grunted quietly and rubbed his eyes with frozen fingers. He shook his head to snap himself out of it and made his way over to the campfire.

After putting the rabbit on the spit and it started to cook, Pero made his bed for the night. He’d do his best to sleep, but didn’t have high hopes. Once the rabbit was cooked, he stabbed it with his knife and started eating it messily. He groaned at the taste of fresh, hot, cooked meat and enjoyed it, even if it was pretty bland. It warmed his bones a little and made him more comfortable, pulling the cloak tighter around his shoulders.

The sound of a branch snapping behind him went unnoticed by Pero’s ears, too focused on the food. He hadn’t eaten in days. The second snap, however, was heard, and it made him drop the rabbit onto the ground and grab his sword, brandishing it in front of him as he stood.

“¿Dónde estás, bastardo?” He grumbled under his breath, his heavy breaths puffing out into smoke. (Where are you, bastard?)

He sighed in frustration when he didn’t see anything. He was seriously starting to consider if this contract was even worth it. And if it wasn’t, would he be able to make it back without dying? Either from the cold, or whatever it was that was playing with him. He mumbled obscenities to himself and sat back down on his fallen tree.

He picked up the rabbit and groaned at the dirt now covering it. He blew off what he could and decided to continue eating it, dirt be damned. He was hungry.

Once full, he looked up at the moon in the sky, trying to figure out how late it was. He rubbed his hands over his arms to keep warm and added a branch or two to his fire. He grabbed a piece of spare cloth from his travel pack and quickly wrapped his foot. He laid down next to the fire and pulled the cloak up over his shoulders and shut his eyes. He didn’t feel tired, but he couldn’t help closing his eyes. He tried to fight it, to keep his guard up, but it was useless. 

He started to feel lightheaded and turned onto his back, looking up at the moon again. The moon and the stars, so bright he almost didn’t need the campfire, were swirling around and moving in close and further away. The trees surrounding him looked to be moving side to side. 

What was happening? Did the old man poison him somehow? Who was that old man?

His vision went blurry and he felt like he was spinning in place despite laying on the ground, completely still. He let out a weak groan and tried to move, reaching for his sword. 

The last thing he saw before his vision went black, was the silhouette of a large dog, or perhaps a wolf, in the distance hidden behind the trees.

Warmth. He felt warm. And a pounding headache.

Pero slowly blinked awake and groaned at the light that hit his eyes. The smell of cooked meat and root vegetables hit his nostrils. His stomach whined in protest. 

“For en merkelig fyr…” An older male voice said, somewhere behind him. (He is a strange one…)

“Kjekk, da,” A younger, female voice replied. (Handsome, though.)

He didn’t understand any of it. It wasn’t a language he’d heard before. Eyelids fluttering, he slowly opened his eyes to a small gathering of people all looking down at him. He startled and reached for his knife, and grunted when he didn’t feel it.

“Vi har våpnene dine. De er trygge.” (We have your weapons. They’re safe.)

Pero turned his head in the direction of the voice and squinted his eyes at the woman. She looked to be in her 30s, with a baby attached to her breast and drinking.

“No entiendo,” he grumbled, voice hoarse from lack of use. “¿Dónde estoy?” (I do not understand. Where am I?)

He took in his surroundings, now sitting up, and saw that he looked to be in a small room cut off from a much larger group of people. He heard laughter and song outside the cloth separating the, assumed, larger hall from where he was now. He furrowed his brows. A celebration? What for?

“¿Dónde estoy?” He repeated, voice slightly harsher. (Where am I?)

“Har ikke hørt det språket før,” one of the men said. (Haven’t heard that tongue before.) Pero looked up at him and squinted his eyes slightly. The man was large, with a full beard, and an even fuller middle. But there was no denying his strength; age hadn’t stopped this man from doing well in a fight, Pero assumed. Not that he couldn’t take him, of course. He looked at the man’s belt and saw a one-handed axe attached to his belt and thought better of it, especially without his own weapons. 

Suddenly a small sting came from his foot and he snapped his head down at the young woman tending to the wound he’d gotten on his way back from the clearing. He’d almost completely forgotten about it, too cold to even really feel it. The young woman startled and blushed, keeping her head down as she cleaned the cut. 

“Det er et vakkert språk, da, er det ikke?” The first younger woman’s voice came through, a slightly entranced tone to it. (It is a beautiful tongue, though, no?) He looked to his left and saw her batting her eyelashes at him. He huffed a breath in amusement. He’d had his fair share of women giving him looks like that, almost always with a payment in mind, but his thoughts were elsewhere, even if it did feel nice. And she was a tad too skinny for his own tastes.

Pero exhaled. This was clearly getting nowhere. Fine. “Where am I? You know English, yes?” He asked, exasperated, in the general direction of anyone who might be able to answer him. 

The shy girl cleaning his wound lifted her head and smiled softly at him. “I know a little,” she said quietly, her voice heavily accented.

“Finally,” he sighed. “What is going on?”

“A few of our men found you in the forest, passed out. Your lips were blue.” She won’t make eye contact with him, bur her brows furrowed like she was worried for him. “We have lost some of our own men in a similar way before. It is not pretty.”

Pero hummed softly and nodded his thanks. “Did any of them see an old man? In the woods?”

The girl tilted her head and asked the man next to him, the one with the axe in his belt, if any of them had seen such a man. The man raised a brow and shook his head, looking at Pero skeptically. 

“Ingvar says–”

“Yes, I understood, thank you–” Pero cut himself off and looked back at the man with the axe. This was Ingvar? Pero looked back at the girl and nodded his head as she bandaged his wound, his own cloth wrapped around his ankle. He would have to be careful if he was to carry out this contract. “Thank you,” he repeated, the words foreign on his tongue.

The girl nodded, cheeks pink, and stood to leave. As she left, the cloth covering them moved to show a large fire in the middle of the hall with an even larger feast around it. The girl came back with a tankard of something for him and he took it gratefully. As the sweet liquid hit his tongue, he coughed slightly.

“What is this?” He wheezed a little, looking at the cup like it slapped his mother.

The girl giggled before saying, “Mead. It is honey wine.”

Pero rolled the words around his tongue for a moment. “Interesante,” he hummed to himself. (Interesting.)

“Vel, han er våken. Tilby ham noe å spise, men hold øye på ham. Han ser ut som en leiesoldat, og jeg stoler ikke på ham,” Ingvar grunted, leaving the room and rejoining the festivities. (Well, he is up. Invite him to eat, but keep an eye on him. He looks like a mercenary and I do not trust him.)

Pero watched him closely as he left, and took another drink of his mead, eyes hard. 

“Would you like some food, mister-”

“Tovar,” Pero grunted. “Yes. I am very hungry.” He turned on the cot and got to his feet quickly, but quickly lost his balance, a couple of the women catching him as he stood on shaky legs. He sighed in frustration and stood on his own, shrugging off their help. The girl held her arm out to him, and didn’t seem too offended when he just stared at it.

“Tovar. This way,” she smiled, her face a little pinched. 

“What are you celebrating?” He asked, looking around at all the food. His stomach roared at the smells.

“It is the third night of Jól. You have heard of Jól?” She asked excitedly, turning to him as she found a place for him to sit. He slowly made his way down at a long table nearby where Ingvar sat at the head of the table. A leader. This contract was getting more difficult by the second.

“I have not,” he grumbled. “What is this… Yool?” 

The girl giggled again, this time at his attempt at the word. “Jól is the celebration that welcomes back the sun from the harsh Winter. Our crops start growing as the sun comes back, and the snow melts away.”

Pero hummed as he listened, nodding his thanks when she handed him a full plate of different meats, root vegetables, bread, and cheese. “You are farmers?”

The girl nods. “Most of us. Some are warriors.”

Pero hummed again, chewing on a piece of meat. “How did you learn English?”

The girl turned a little sad, but smiled anyway. “We used to have a man that came from… Eng-land? He died last year,” she sighed. “He taught me and a few of the children how to read and speak English. How did you learn?”

Pero frowned around his food and sighed.

“I am sorry, forget–” Pero held up a hand to stop her. “Apologies. I am… unused to kindness from strangers,” he grunted, not meeting her eyes. “A dear friend of mine is from Scotland. We have separated so he could be with his woman. He taught me.”

“Scotland?”

“It is near England.”

She nodded, slowly picking at her own food. The two of them grew quiet and just ate for a while. The celebrations continued around them, and it gave Pero a chance to take it all in.

In the center of the hall was a large hearth, with an even larger tree in the middle, lighting up the hall. It looked like the one he was using earlier as a bench, so they must have gotten it from the same forest. He can’t be too far from there, then. There were candles and flames everywhere, lighting up the hall brightly, but warmly.

He looked back at the girl and found her already staring at him. She startled, cheeks going pink again, and looked down at her food. He smirked a little, but hid it well. She was amusing.

“What is your name?” He asked.

“Sigrid,” she said softly.

“It sounds strong.”

“Yes. I am more drawn to medicine, so I suppose the name is ironic.”

Pero chuckled. “Hardly.”

Sigrid smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

A comfortable silence fell over the two of them again before Pero asked, “Who is Ingvar? He seems like a powerful man.”

“He is our Jarl. Our leader.”

“Is this like a king?” Pero furrowed his brows. He didn’t think this contract would be finished.

“Not exactly. But no less powerful.”

“I see,” Pero grunted. As if on cue, Ingvar stood from his seat at the head of the table, a large grin on his bearded face.

“Venner! Kvelden er ung, og festen er rik. Vær så snill, nyt, for mine gamle beindekk. Jeg ser dere alle i morgen tidlig.” Everyone raised their drinks and shouted… something, but Pero didn’t catch it. Sigrid leaned over and translated what Ingvar said for him. He nodded his thanks, but he was skeptical at best. Ingvar left through a door behind the throne that sat in the center of the hall. (Friends! The night is young, and the feast bountiful. Please, enjoy, for my old bones tire. I will see you all in the morning.)

“He cannot be that old, no?”

“He has been around much longer than I,” Sigrid shrugged. Pero laughed softly, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“You are a child, of course he has.”

Sigrid rolled her eyes, but didn’t deny it. “If seventeen winters makes me a child, then yes.”

Pero choked on his mead and hit his chest to keep from coughing too hard. “Yes, it does,” he wheezed, laughing quietly. Sigrid laughed, too, eating some bread and cheese. A small child ran up to Sigrid and asked her a question as he tugged on her dress. Sigrid looked back at Pero apologetically and he waved her off, eating some more meat.

This was hardly the setting he expected for himself when he took the contract, but he couldn’t deny it, it was a pleasant one. The food was good, and the people seemed friendly enough. He couldn’t help but be confused by the contract; who was dumb enough to put a hit out on a powerful leader like Ingvar?

Sigrid mentioned that some of them were warriors. That didn’t surprise him at all. Just by looking at the people around the table, men and women alike, he could’ve figured that out on his own.

He sighed to himself and chewed thoughtfully. Suddenly, he remembered the small stone that pierced his foot. He looked around at the people around him to be sure no one was watching before he felt around his pocket for the stone. When he didn’t feel anything, his body went taut and he froze. Shit. They probably found it when they grabbed his weapons. Where were his weapons?

Sigrid came up to his side with the small child from before holding her hand and looking at him from behind her. “Tovar?” She asked softly. He looked up at her, heavy brow still pulled down. She gave him a quick once-over before clearing her throat. “We have sleeping quarters for you, but Lord Ingvar wishes to speak with you first.”

Pero chuckled humorlessly around his food before putting it down on his plate. He grabbed the mead and took a drink, making a face at the taste. He wasn’t sure he’d get used to that anytime soon. “Of course he does,” he sighed. “You will translate for me?”

Sigrid nodded, braided blonde hair swinging with the movement, and looked like she was trying to steel herself. He admired her mettle.

Pero followed after her, keeping light pressure on his foot as they went through that door Ingvar went through before. It led down a short hallway and ended up in a large bedroom. Ingvar was sitting on the edge of the bed before standing tall and fixing Pero with a hard look. Pero grunted and rested a hand on his hip as he leaned on the uninjured foot, waiting to get this over with.

“Hva heter du?” Ingvar grunted. (What is your name?)

“He asked your name,” Sigrid said softly.

“Tovar,” Pero narrowed his eyes. 

“Hvorfor er du her?” (Why are you here?)

Sigrid translated quietly.

“Your people brought me here. I was wondering the same thing,” Pero shrugged with an attitude. Ingvar gave him a look, clearly unimpressed. Pero rolled his eyes.

Ingvar looked at Sigrid and she blushed, nodding. “He didn’t mean–”

“Yes, I know what he meant,” Pero sighed. “I had a contract. I came to fulfill that contract.”

Sigrid spoke quietly and Ingvar seemed tired as he nodded.

“Var navnet mitt på denne kontrakten?” Ingvar sighed. Pero gave Sigrid a look as she quickly translated. (Did this contract have my name on it?)

“It did…” Pero raised a brow, crossing his arms over his chest. Ingvar nodded again, but Pero spoke up before he could say anything. “I decided not to complete the contract when I saw your celebration and… status. I may be a mercenary, but I am no fool. I do not go after lords or kings.”

Ingvar raised a brow and chuckled quietly before letting out a loud, hearty laugh. “Jeg vet ikke om du er smart eller dum,” Ingvar smiled, cheeks flushed with mirth. “Jeg takker deg, men tilgi meg for at jeg ikke stoler på deg helt, Tovar.” (I do not know if you are smart or stupid. I thank you. But you will forgive me for not completely trusting you, Tovar.)

Pero nodded and shrugged. “I understand.”

Sigrid looked between the two of them, looking much less nervous. She quickly spoke to Ingvar quietly, asking him a question. Ingvar nodded, a small smile on his lips.

“Nyt festen, Tovar. Vi diskuterer hva vi skal gjøre med deg om morgenen.” (Enjoy the festivities, Tovar. We will discuss what to do with you in the morning.)

“I wish to leave,” Pero grunted, looking between Sigrid and the Jarl. Sigrid looked a little crestfallen, but took one more look at Ingvar before he waved them off. She pushed Pero out of the Jarl’s quarters and back out into the celebration. “Sigrid?” Pero asked, confused.

She sighed before looking up at him. “The Jarl wishes to keep you here until Jól ends. To keep an eye on you, make sure you keep your word.” She started wringing her hands together and bit her lip.

“How much longer is Yool?”

Sigrid went quiet.

“Sigrid.”

“Nine more days,” she sighed, looking down.

Pero’s eyes went wide before he shut them and sighed heavily. He looked up at the ceiling and mumbled, “Joder yo,” under his breath. (Fuck me.) “Fine. Nine more days and I will leave.”

Over the course of the first four days, Pero was treated like he belonged with these people. He still didn’t quite know where he was. If someone were to give him a map, he couldn’t tell them, but he knew he was probably at the top somewhere. He was shocked at how much he liked it there despite the bitter cold.

He felt eyes on him the whole time and he didn’t like the feeling, but he understood it. 

He taught Sigrid and some of the children some Spanish words and in turn he was taught some words in their tongue. Norse, he was told.

Pero also found himself helping the warriors Sigrid mentioned before, called Vikingr. Their job was to sail to faraway lands, raid strangers of their belongings, and bring it back home. He didn’t judge. He’d done worse, and frankly, it sounded like something right up his alley. He mostly helped with keeping their longships cleaned for their next raid when the snow thawed.

And he ate. He ate a lot. There was so much food at the feasts in the evenings. He tried to eat as much as he could in the hopes that it would carry him on his journey home. Wherever that was. Every feast started with a chant and “offerings” to their Gods. Some of these “offerings” came in the form of the mead Pero had - reluctantly - grown to like, and other times it came in the form of one of the farmer’s poor goats. 

While he didn’t understand a lot of these people’s customs, he couldn’t deny it, they were a hearty people. 

He’d also caught the eye of some of the women there, too, but he mostly ignored them. They were all too young for him, and he was too busy not getting killed. He still wasn’t given back his weapons. Or the strange stone. His wound would take a while to heal yet, but he could put pressure on it again.

On the fifth day, he was helping chop wood for people’s homes. During the feast, everyone in the village congregated in the Jarl’s home to be surrounded by the fire given by the Jól Log and enjoy the food, but they all needed wood for their own homes as well.

He stopped to take a break and wiped the sweat from his brow as a cool chill blew past him. Pero looked to his left, the feeling of someone looking at him catching his attention. When he saw it wasn’t one of Ingvar’s men, he startled a little. It was a woman. Older than the ones that mostly watched him, and far more… Interesting. To him, at least. He raised a brow as she turned and left, clutching her basket closer to her body. He’d seen her around during his time there and she seemed to keep mostly to herself. She was unattached from what he could tell, and wondered why. She was beautiful. 

Pero snapped himself out of it and shook his head, going back to chopping the wood.

On the sixth day, he saw her again. He’d asked Sigrid what her name was as he saw her making her way through the market, and she said it was Helga. 

Helga.

He liked the name.

Helga was a thread-weaver. She made blankets, scarves, anything to keep one warm and covered. Pero was given clothing that suited the temperature better, and he felt strange without his armor, but he was never given a scarf. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted one before now.

He asked Sigrid if she could ask Helga for him for a scarf, and the girl giggled, pushing him toward the woman. He sighed and walked over to her, looking at the weapons and tools surrounding them at the market. He tried not to make himself too obvious, and it mostly worked, he thought. He was genuinely impressed with the craftsmanship of the weapons.

Pero sidled up to Helga’s side, but before he could say anything, she stepped away from the stand and walked back to her house. He watched her go and frowned.

This was going to be tougher than he thought.

The seventh day was much like the day before, but instead of chopping wood, Pero was asked to help around the Jarl’s home. He noticed a lot of the young women that stared at him worked there, so he tried to keep mostly to himself. He’d never cleaned linens or blankets before, but found it to be quite relaxing. There was a rhythm to it, and he could do it without much help.

“Tovar,” a young voice asked from his left. He looked up, finishing the fold of the blanket he was holding. He grunted in acknowledgement. “Jeg og noen av kvinnene har lurt på noe,” the girl was blushing hard up to her ears and biting her lip. (Some of the women and I have been wondering something.)

Pero smirked a little and nodded for her to continue. He picked up on the gist of what she was saying, thanks to Sigrid’s teachings of Norse.

“Hvor fikk du arret fra?” she asked meekly. (Where did you get your scar?)

Pero’s face pinched slightly and he shook his head. “I do not wish to talk about it.” The girl’s eyes went wide and she started scrambling out apologies, her hand pressed to her chest. A sad smile crossed his features before he shook his head. “It is okay,” he said quietly.

The girl frowned, cheeks bright red, but nodded as she turned and left. Pero exhaled quietly and looked down at the linens he was folding. 

“I do not believe she meant any harm,” a low, feminine voice said to his left. He hummed in acknowledgement before he froze, realizing that she spoke perfect English. He turned his head and nearly jumped out of his boots when he saw Helga standing there. She smiled and started helping him with the linens. “Tovar, yes?”

Pero huffed a laugh and nodded. 

“I have noticed you watching me.” She had a soft smile on her lips, brown hair pulled away from her face in a braid. She turned to look at him, blue eyes full of heat as she looked over his face and chest. 

Pero blinked, eyes slightly wider. He went to speak, but all that came out was a croak, making him cough. “Apologies,” he wheezed, the side of his fist pressed to his chest. “I am sorry for staring,” he mumbled, turning back to his own linens as his cheeks flushed. “I am still getting used to the customs here. There are two days left of your celebration, and I will be gone.”

Helga hummed noncommittally and pushed her small stack of folded linens toward him to add to his pile. “That would be a shame.”

Pero furrowed his brows and added her stack to his. He looked at her incredulously, but her head was faced down as she continued folding. He didn’t say anything and continued as well, his thoughts running a mile a minute.

“I thought only Sigrid and a few of the children spoke English,” he said after a few moments of silence.

“They are not the only ones.”

Pero snorted and shook his head. “Clearly not,” he hummed to himself. He cleared his throat and glanced at her before continuing. “When I arrived at this place, I was in the forest. I am not sure how far it is from here, but I saw an old man,” he started, keeping his eyes downward. “I was hoping I would see him here in the village, but I have not.”

Helga hummed a noise for him to continue. 

“He wore a cloak, the hood covering his head. He sat in front of my campfire, but I only saw one of his eyes,” Pero’s brows furrowed further, confusion filling his head. “I am not sure if he was missing one or if it was covered.”

Helga stopped folding and looked at him, a small smirk on her lips. “Did he have a long beard?”

Pero looked up and blinked. “Y-yes. You have seen this man?”

“Once or twice,” she said. “He is a wanderer. He does not stay in one place for very long.”

“Who is he?”

Helga bit her lip and shrugged. “He has many names. We cannot be certain which he likes best.”

Pero sighed in frustration. “Why was he at my camp?”

Helga smirked again and finished folding her linens. “Perhaps he was looking out for you,” she shrugged again, leaning over to pick up her basket of fabrics. “Enjoy the feast tonight.” She grinned and left the Jarl’s home, leaving Pero quiet and watching her retreating form.

Pero exhaled and looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head. When he looked down, there was a scarf folded on top of her pile of linens. 

“Du får tingene dine i morgen, etter den siste festen,” Ingvar grumbled. (You will receive your belongings after tomorrow’s final feast.)

“Must I stay the whole time? I wish to return home,” Pero growled, crossing his arms over his chest. Not that he had a home to return to.

Ingvar rolled his eyes and waved him off. Sigrid grabbed his elbow and pulled him out of the Jarl’s bedroom. Pero grumbled obscenities in Spanish to himself until he was sat at a table in the hall. It was the eighth night, and he was getting tired of being watched constantly. He had no intention of hurting anyone here. He might if they didn’t give him his things, though. The people around him continued to have the same energy this night that they always seemed to. He supposed that came from actually understanding what you were celebrating, and not having to worry about death or arrest at every corner.

“You leave tomorrow evening, yes?”

Pero startled and looked to his right. Helga sat next to him, a plate of food in front of her. She smiled warmly at him and he softened. “How do you do that?” He huffed a laugh and shook his head before grabbing a piece of meat and eating it.

“You do not pay attention,” she said simply.

He squinted his eyes at her and grumbled around his food that he did too pay attention, thank you very much. She laughed softly and it made him bite his tongue. She had been nothing but kind to him while he was there and she didn’t deserve the frustration he felt to be forced on her.

“Where do you live?” Helga asked softly. “Where will you go?”

Pero bit his lip as he tore a piece of bread in two. “Nowhere. I am a mercenary. I go where the work is,” he shrugged, shoving the bread in his mouth. 

“You enjoy this?”

Pero raised a brow as he chewed. 

“You like not having anywhere to call home? You do not have to leave,” she hummed around her own food, taking a drink of some mead.

“What do you mean? Of course I do,” he scoffed. “Ingvar wants me dead. His men are constantly watching me.”

Helga rolled her eyes. “You really do not pay attention,” she sighed, setting down her cup and turning to face him. “You have not heard how people talk about you?”

“I am still learning the language,” he frowned, chewing messily and lips greasy.

“Why are you learning the language if you want to leave?”

Pero blinked and looked down at his plate. He frowned, thinking about it. Why was he learning the language? 

“Because you like it here, Tovar,” she said softly. “We like you.” It went unsaid, but he got the feeling that she liked him, too.

“Pero.”

“What?”

“My name is Pero.”

Helga smiled, pink dusting her cheeks. “I do not think you will have many people protesting if you stay. The children love you. And I think you would make an excellent Viking.”

Pero raised a brow and exhaled, thinking about it. Having a place to call his own would be nice. And he was familiar with the kind of work the warriors did, from what he’d heard. 

“You do not have long to think about it, Pero,” Helga hummed. She picked up her plate and stood before leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “I would like it if you stayed,” she whispered into his ear. He looked up at her with soft eyes and she smiled down at him with her hand on his shoulder before turning and leaving.

Pero shut his eyes and exhaled once again, then looked in the direction of the Jarl’s personal quarters. 

Would it be such a terrible thing to stay?

On the ninth day, Pero woke with a startle. He thought he’d heard a whisper next to his ear again. He’d been mostly dreamless while he was in the village. Last night, after his talk with Helga, he dreamt about the old man and the wolf in the woods. He didn’t understand any of it, and he barely remembered what the dream actually entailed, but he remembered the feeling. He felt… odd. Not bad or wrong. Just… different. Comforting. 

As he got dressed in the clothes that were given to him, he looked over at the scarf Helga gave him. It was a brown color and the material was rough, but also thick and soft. It kept his ears warm. He wrapped it around his neck before slipping his feet into his boots, making sure to be careful of his injured one. He made his way over to the Jarl’s quarters and knocked on the door.

“Er du sikker?” (Are you sure?)

Pero nodded, arms crossed over his chest. “Yes.”

Ingvar sighed and crossed his arms, too. “Du forvirrer meg, Tovar. Men hvis dette virkelig er det du vil, tror jeg ikke at jeg ser noe problem med det.” He shrugged and looked at Sigrid’s smiling face. “Gå og hent tingene hans.” (You confuse me, Tovar. But if this is truly what you want, I don’t suppose I see a problem with it. Go get his things.)

Sigrid nodded happily and ran from the room. Pero and Ingvar awkwardly avoided eye contact. Even if neither of them were enemies, the circumstances of their acquaintanceship were less than ideal. When Sigrid returned, she was carrying Pero’s weapons in both arms and looked to be struggling to do so.

Pero furrowed his brows and gently took the weapons from her. She sighed in relief, but smiled shyly up at him. “I am happy you decided to stay,” she giggled.

Pero smiled down at her, then gave a grateful nod to Ingvar before leaving the room. Sigrid walked next to him while he attached his sword and hunting knife to his belt. He carried the armor under his left arm. “Me too,” he grunted awkwardly. “I am unsure how I will fit in, but…” He shrugged, scratching the back of his neck.

“I think you will be fine,” she nodded, sure of herself. One of the small children, a younger brother of hers he found out, came up to her and tugged on her dress. He mumbled something Pero didn’t quite catch. Sigrid tapped on his shoulder to get Pero’s attention, making him look down at the two of them, dark eyes intimidating, but soft. “She lives at the end of the village,” Sigrid winked, then took off with her younger brother.

Pero’s cheeks flushed, but he chuckled to himself. He made his way through the village, waving or nodding to people as he saw them. It was strange, being accepted as he was. He wasn’t the only gruff and hardened warrior here, and no one seemed scared of him for his scars or his accent. The feeling was so foreign to him.

As he walked up a small hill toward the end of the village, he heard a quiet thud against the grass. He looked down and saw the strange stone from the forest laying there. Right, he’d completely forgotten. It must’ve fallen from his belongings. He picked it up and looked at it, thumbs running over the strange markings. It was almost shaped like a fork, but with three prongs. Maybe Helga would know what it meant.

When he made his way in front of the door of the last house in the village, he hesitated before knocking. The sun was slowly setting and it was getting a tad colder, so he eventually knocked. 

“Et øyeblikk!” (One moment!)

Pero smiled to himself as he heard her voice behind the door. Once the door opened, he raised his head and smiled sheepishly, the shape on his face still foreign to him.

Helga’s face softened as she saw him and rested a hand on her hip. “Well, come on in, then,” she grinned, opening the door wider for him. He nodded gratefully and stepped inside her home, the smells of burnt leaves and the feeling of a warm fire engulfing his body. 

“I will find my own home, you need not keep me here if–”

“Hush,” she chuckled softly, taking his armor from his arms and putting it in her bedroom for cleaning later. “You are more than welcome to stay here,” she looked up at him with a bit of shyness. The first time she’d ever looked at him like that. “If you want to, that is.”

Pero took two steps closer to her until his face was mere inches from her own. “I want nothing more,” he said softly, rubbing the knuckle of his index finger against her cheek. She shut her eyes and exhaled softly, nodding. 

“I was just getting ready to go to the feast,” Helga smiled, looking up at him. “Would you like to join me?”

Pero’s lips quirked up into a soft smile of his own before he remembered the stone he was holding. “Yes, but first,” his brows furrowed in thought. “It is silly, but… I found this strange stone while I was in the forest.”

Helga hummed and tilted her head to the side, letting him continue.

“It has a marking I have never seen before. Do you know what it means?” He asked, showing her the stone lying in the palm of his hand. She picked it up and rubbed her thumb over the marking like he had before.

“Where did you find this?” Helga asked, face pinched in confusion.

“In the forest. There was a small clearing with a bloodstained stone, and–”

“The ritual site,” she smiled up at him, clutching the stone in her hand. “We sacrificed one of the cows on the first day of Jól there.”

Pero blinked down at her, hands holding her arms and rubbing softly. “I see…”

Helga laughed softly. “You’ll get used to it,” she winked. “This is one of the runes. It seems we forgot one.”

“What does it mean?” He hummed, cupping her face in his large hand. He rubbed his thumb against her cheek.

“Protection,” she said softly. She looked at his lips, then looked back up at his eyes. He did the same and leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. They stayed there for a few moments before he released her and pressed his forehead against hers. 

“Surely the feast can wait a few moments,” he growled into her neck, kissing against the soft skin there. Helga bit her lip and smiled, fingers tangling into the thick curls at the back of his head.

“It can,” she gasped, startled by the small nip he left against her shoulder. Pero slowly walked them toward her bedroom and laid her on top of the bed. The curtains in front of the window were drawn. Something caught his eye in the window and he looked out, hovering over Helga’s body. 

In the distance, on top of a hill, was a large black wolf. It seemed to make eye contact with him before it turned and left.

A chill ran down Pero’s spine.

a/n: if you're at all curious, here's a decent idea of what i imagined the stone to look like 🥰

[wiltkingart]

What queer books do you recommend?

oh honey i have a whole rec page here if you're up for anything, but i mostly read adult m/m fiction. lots of weird and old stuff with dark tones more often than not. if you want some specific titles as a flavor list, here's a few favorites! i'll link their storygraph pages so you can read their synopses too:

Fantasy: The Rifter by Ginn Hale (dark fantasy featuring a romance that spans years and time and space in decaying world with a destroyer god, and bones. so many bones. has one of the most interesting and well written story structures i've encountered. very moody and dark, hits just right).

Scifi: Body after Body by Briar Ripley Page (erotic adult scifi novella with transmasc and transfem MCs. dreamlike and grotesque, delicate and stomach churning, it's about a group of mind-wiped laborers tending genetically engineered mutant bodies.)

Historical: The Still by David Feintuch (my book series of all tiiiiiiime. it's fantasy too but mostly medieval military fiction. don't even talk to me about Rodrigo if you're not ready to be hit with a twelve page verbal essay i'm not joking, that is a threat. not a typical romance, expect heartbreak and plenty of it and to never recover.)

Horror: Hexslinger series by Gemma Files (planning a reread of this one soon to see if it still holds up but this series has stuck with me like a fly to molasses. it's a fucked up time full of desperation, Mayan gods and godessess, faggotry, blasphemy, and witchery) go with the Bound in Flesh anthology instead if you want good trans body horror, or Down by Ally Blue for deepsea suspense horror.

Contemporary: All for the Game by Nora Sakavic (you probably know about this classic but for me it still tops most everything else i've read. it's got sports, mafia drama, and trauma). for something a little different (but still traumatic) try Mo Du / Silent Reading by Priest (dark mystery set in China that follows several disturbing cases and the psychology behind them + romance between a detective and a rich pretty boy)

but yeah i talk about books a lot on my personal/main blog @wiltking (in lieu of updating my actual rec pages these days, it seems) if you ever want more real time recs! i'm a book guy. i like books a normal amount :)

[hunxi-after-hours]

"From books to film to theatre, writers have always been inspired by the stories that came before them. As artists, what are we if not the sum of all we’ve seen and absorbed and alchemised into our own voice? The history of oral storytelling is a history of retelling; the art of storytelling is almost always an act of retelling in some way."

—Wen-yi Lee, "The Comfort (and Discomfort) of Retellings"

"BIPOC retellings are often about demanding a place. Otherwise or at the same time they can critique the rosy nostalgia of fairytale worlds (or the usually-fascist leaning that comes with hyper-defence of Classics and Canon and Civilisation). Queer retellings of great love stories are often claims less to the characters and more to that great love in itself. Retellings are often saying: we, too, claim crowns and prophecies, great loves and romantic tragedies. If these stories have been impressed on everyone as the epitome of human storytelling and mythology, then everyone has equal rights to them."

[...]

"At the same time, there is also a power in simply letting ahistoricity exist, and deliberately not acknowledging oppressive structures at all. Regencies without racism; queer-norm historical settings. Sometimes people are just allowed to imagine themselves in nice things.  "Whether it’s interrogating or (re)claiming the original, I think these retellings are most powerful when they have something to say—when they step into the ring with a conversation in mind."

[...]

"The swell of Chinese fantasy has made more mainstream both mythological elements as well as direct retellings: Shelley Parker-Chan’s genderbent Ming Emperor in She Who Became the Sun and Xiran Jay Zhao’s mecha-pilot Wu Zetian in Iron Widow; Ann Liang’s A Song To Drown Rivers, a romantic retelling of one of China’s Four Beauties; Sister Snake, Amanda Lee Koe’s modernised take on the Legend of the White Snake’s monstrous snake women; S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws, a queer spin on other Chinese classic Water Margin; Sue Lynn Tan and Emily XR Pan’s reimaginings of the legend of Chang’e (Daughter of the Moon Goddess and An Arrow to the Moon, respectively) and Van Hoang and C.B. Lee’s versions of Sun Wukong (Girl Giant and the Monkey King and The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, respectively)... "We’re somewhere. The next step is obviously okay, good, now more.    "I think about non-Western retellings that bear the weight of also being tellings, of being the first time these characters and symbols and histories have ever been presented in the Western or English-language literary scene. What retellings are received as comfortable, and which are received as exotic? ...But I can’t nowadays think about books without also thinking of the social and financial factors affecting their writing, publishing, marketing, distribution, and translation. There are ranges everywhere. So it’s retold once. Will it be retold in different languages, in different countries, in all the bookstores? Even after 'Are we able to tell it?' it’s 'Are we able to sell it?'"

[zhoudadudugongjin]

Hey there I’m getting confused so I just thought I’d ask. You post a lot about NIF, various items with the word Kingdom, and now AA. The thing is a lot of the names seem to be the same and the faces(?)

Are these shows/stories related, if so how, and is there a watch order you’d recommend?? Thanks :)

Oh hello there I'M GLAD YOU ASKED

So.

The Three Kingdoms era was a period of Chinese history that spanned from about the end of the Han dynasty in 189AD to the the year 280AD (at which point China was finally re-unified). It was always a very popular era for the country, which gave rise to a lot of popular heroes. The first well-known person to make a full narrative out of the events was a fellow called Luo Guanzhong, who wrote a ~800k word novel called The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the 14th century, a highly romanticised (lol) version of events which brutalises some historical figures (r.i.p Zhou Yu) and glorfies others (incl. one of China's greatest blorbos, Zhuge Liang).

Here he is, in various forms:

So I started by reading the book, mostly because it's one of the Four Great Classic Chinese Novels, and I wanted to learn a bit more about actual Chinese history and culture instead of just watching endless fantasy.

And then after the book, I discovered that there are unsurprisingly a LOT of adaptations of it! Some are more faithful to the novel, others more faithful to history, and some are just... *War flashbacks from the few episodes I watched of The Three Kingdoms RPG*

As far as I am aware, the two main adaptations that attempted to serialise the whole goddamn story rather than just some parts of it, are the 1994 TV adaptation, and the 2010 remake. I decided to watch the 2010 first because I liked the look of it (and I also found a nice HD download of, with good subtitles).

The Advisors Alliance is kinda like the "bad guy POV" adaptation which focuses solely on the story of Sima Yi, who shows up towards the middle of ROT3K and (SPOILER) basically wins in the end. He's not actually a bad guy, but he's often portrayed as the antagonist because he was on the opposite side to history's greatest blorbo, Zhuge Liang.

It can get a bit confusing because this fellow, Yu Hewei, seems to REALLY LIKE the three kingdoms era because he has so far starred in no less than FOUR different adaptions as various characters. But he decided to really confuse everyone by being Zhuge Liang's beloved liege lord Liu Bei in the 2010 adaptation, as well as Liu Bei's primary sworn enemy Cao Cao in the Advisors Alliance (2017). So yeah, we all like to laugh about that.

Yu Hewei every time he sees someone is making a new ROT3K adaptation:

As for Nirvana in Fire, that's pure fiction and functionally unrelated to The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (though perhaps the author took some inspiration, who knows?) But the main female lead is played by the same woman in both AA and NIF, the delightful Liu Tao:

And both shows also share another cast member, Wang Jinsong, who plays "disillusioned old friend of the king/emperor who now wants a divorce".

As for which you want to watch first? Well I guess that's up to you. Nirvana in Fire is a GREAT piece of fiction and is certainly more popular fandom-wise. If you're interested in digging your teeth into some messy, bloody political history full of homoerotic yearning, watch The Three Kingdoms. And AA is kind of like, a cross between the two!

P.S Red Cliff (2008) is another good fun adaptation that focuses on just a small part of the three kingdoms story, and has what I think is personally the best (or at least, fairest and kindest) of all the Zhou Yu portrayals.

[wearethekat]

Anticipated New Releases of 2024

**As anticipated by Me. Mostly SFF. Links are to goodreads because that's what I use, sorry. Anything marked "new to me" I haven't read anything by that author before and therefore can't vouch for the quality. I just think the premise is neat.**

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands, Heather Fawcett (16 January)

Sequel to the charming novel about the fairy anthropologist.

Exordia, Seth Dickinson (23 January)

Well, it isn't a new Baru Cormorant, but this modern SF about first contact may be the next best thing.

City of Stardust, Georgia Summers (30 January)

New to me. A young woman descends into the underworld in order to break her family's fatal curse.

The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett (6 February)

New to me. A sherlock holmes flavored duo solves the mystery of the murder of an imperial official in a labyrinthine fantasy realm.

What Feasts at Night, T Kingfisher (13 February)

The sequel to the mushroom horror book What Moves the Dead.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Katherine Arden (13 February)

A ghost story set in WW1 about a woman searching for her missing brother.

The Fox Wife, Yangsze Choo (13 February)

New to me. A detective in 1908 Manchuria investigates a young woman's death in an area full of mythical foxes.

Redsight, Meredith Mooring (27 February)

New to me. Unpowered priestess and Imperial pawn is set on a collision path with a pirate with a grudge for the Imperium (Gay romance).

Sunbringer, Hannah Kaner (12 March)

Sequel about the professional godkiller Kissen.

Jumpnauts, Hao Jingfang (12 March)

New to me. A SF novel in translation from Chinese, with three scientists joining forces to deal peacefully with a first contact situation.

The Woods All Black, Lee Mandelo (19 March)

I liked Mandelo's debut novel very much so I'm excited to read this queer horror novella set in 1920s Appalachia.

Floating Hotel, Grace Curtis (19 March)

New to me. A series of cozy character vignettes on a space cruise ship after a murder has occurred. One of the four (!) space hotel murder crimes books coming out this year.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace, Justinian Huang (26 March)

New to me. Reincarnation gay romance set in 4 BCE China, the 1740s, and modern-day LA.

Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky (28 March)

Far future space xenoarchaeology by a man trapped on a prison planet.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (2 April)

New to me. Bizarre lesbian cannibalism monster romance from the point of view of the monster.

The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo (9 April)

Glad to see Bardugo writing more adult fantasy, and this one is especially exciting because it's a fantasy set in early modern Spain with a Jewish main character. Fun to see a more original historical period.

A Sweet Sting of Salt, Rose Sutherland (9 April)

New to me. Lesbian selkie romance.

Death in the Spires, KJ Charles (11 April)

Charles branching out from romance into historical Oxford murder mystery about a group of friends with dark secrets.

Audrey Lane Stirs The Pot, Alexis Hall (22 April)

The new Hall thinly veiled british baking show romcom. Libby says it's releasing in April but I've heard nothing from the author so I think it may be Alecto'd (shifted to next year)

Necrobane, Daniel M Ford (23 April)

Sequel to the dungeons and dragons-esque low fantasy lesbian necromancy book.

A Letter to the Luminous Deep, Sylvie Cathrall (25 April)

New to me. Sweet underwater epistolary academic romance.

How To Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, Django Wexler (21 May)

New to me. A young hero caught in a fantasy time loop gives up and tries being the villain in an attempt to escape.

Goddess of the River, Vaishnavi Patel (21 May)

Another woman-centered retelling of Hindu mythology, this time based on the river goddess Ganga.

Escape Velocity, Victor Manibo (21 May)

New to me. Evil and toxic private school alumni jockey for position in a space hotel event in an attempt to escape a dying Earth.

The Fireborne Blade, Charlotte Bond (28 May)

New to me. Gay dragon slaying knight novella.

Evocation, ST Gibson (28 May)

New to me but looks very cool. Attorney and medium David attempts to escape his deal with the devil with the help of his ex boyfriend and his ex boyfriend's wife (Poly romance).

Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky (4 June)

In an SF future, a robot kills its human owners and ventures out into a world where human supremacy is beginning to crumble.

Lady Eve's Last Con, Rebecca Fraimow (4 June)

New to me. A con artist seeks revenge on the man who hurt her sister, who's coincidentally also on a space cruise ship (Sapphic romance subplot).

Triple Sec, TJ Alexander (4 June)

An actual mainstream published poly romance (!!) by trans author Alexander.

Running Close to the Wind, Alexandra Rowland (11 June)

Gay! Pirates! Scheming! Alt fantasy world! Monks! I liked Taste of Gold and Iron a lot and I'm very excited for this one.

The Knife and the Serpent, Tim Pratt (11 June)

New to me. Space opera about an interdimensional organization. Also, there's a sentient starship.

The Witchstone, Henry Neff (18 June)

A childhood favorite of mine's adult debut, featuring a demon who suddenly has to shape up at his curse keeper job after eight hundred years of slacking.

Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (18 June)

VERY excited to read more weird queer sff from this author after a fantastic debut. Looks weird. I'm in.

Foul Days, Genoveva Dimova (25 June)

New to me. A witch in a Slavic fantasy inspired world flees her evil ex, the Tsar of Monsters. There's also a plague and a detective.

Saints of Storm and Sorrow, Gabriella Buba (25 June)

New to me. Filipino inspired anticolonialist fantasy novel about a nun who is secretly practicing the religion of her goddess.

The Duke at Hazard, KJ Charles (18 July)

A queer regency with an incognito duke by one of my particular favorite romance authors.

Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan (30 July)

!!! Very excited to see a new adult fantasy by Brennan. A reader is dragged into a fictional world and finds herself the villain.

A Sorceress Comes to Call, T Kingfisher (20 August)

A retelling of The Goose Girl from reliably good fairy tale stalwart Kingfisher.

Buried Deep and Other Stories, Naomi Novik (17 September)

Collection of Novik's short stories.

Swordcrossed, Freya Marske (8 October)

VERY excited to see a new book by talented writer Marske. A man falls in love with the duelist hired for his arranged wedding. MEANWHILE. details of the fantasy world wool industry.

Feast While You Can, Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta (29 October)

New to me. Small town queer cave horror.

The Last Hour Between Worlds, Melissa Caruso (19 November)

Multiple reality murder mystery spy vs spy type antics, with lesbians.

[miss0atae]

Meet You At The Blossom : Earning Your Happy Ending (EP 11 – 12)

This is the end for Meet You At The Blossom and as I already said it in a previous post, I’m going to miss this series. It was a really nice ride. I believe they did great even though they had a small budget and it was the danmei I’ve always wanted to watch (but never did because danmei are too long to watch and these twelve episodes were the perfect length for me).

I believe these last two episodes were tied to the trope of “earn your happy ending”. Huai En and Xiao Bao still had to go through a lot more hardship, anguish, and sadness until they get their happily-ever-after. Of course, it's understandable that characters in any stories needs to fight to conquer their happiness. There were so many obstacles to Xiao Bao finding his cure to the poison to be able to get his life back. Huai En also had to face his own obstacles to be able to leave his terrible past to finally know what love is with the lover he chose. It would have been easy to give us a miserable ending where both characters never find what they are looking for. I really thought they would find the cure before the last episode. Then, for the remaining time before the end, Xiao Bao and Huai En would find a way of reconnect. Huai En, despite having no real and good image of love, never let Xiao Bao rejection deter him from going back with him. He trusted the love he felt from him and obsessively tried to keep it. Xiao Bao, despite the misunderstandings and hardship, always was fond of Huai En and he cared about him. He became attracted to Huai En from the very beginning and even if this love made him lose everything and be tortured, this love couldn't really disappear. They were clearly meant to be. That's why, I'm so glad we got a happy ending for them.

What is interesting about earning your happy ending is that it shows us that this ending can happen, despite the odds. I've always had a soft spot for happy endings. I find them far superior to miserable endings. I think it's not easy to write a happy ending. Letting people die or suffer after they face many challenges is expected and so it's not very hard to make it happen. However, letting them face these challenges and win over them while making it believable is a different story. It would have been easy to make Xiao Bao die from the poison and Huai En would lose the last bit of humanity and love in his life. One of the other reasons why a happy ending was a good thing is how it gives us hope. Again, it would be so easy to give a miserable ending to Huai En who already was leaving a very sad life deprived of love or to see Xiao Bao being punished for having a fall from grace. However, as we turn to stories to entertain us, we can take heart in endings that show characters overcoming obstacles. It gives us joy to see characters being able to overcome challenges to be able to live a happy life. Furthermore, I believe there is nothing wrong in having a preference for a happy ending for your beloved characters. They suffered enough in the story to deserve their happy ending. Even if they didn't suffer as much as they did, Xiao Bao and Huai En still deserves a happy ending. I'm not saying all stories need to have a happy ending. Let's not forget how the ending must especially serve the story.

It leads me to my last point as why I love happy ending in queer stories, especially in historical fantasy/wuxia. Not everywhere in the world, you can feel accepted as a queer person and a happy ending can be a radical act. Since the censorship in China, it's been a while we haven't seen a truly queer story. I'm not saying there hasn't been story where you can feel the “love” between two characters, but it's not explicitly showed in the series. I've heard countless time about the Untamed, despite never found the time to watch it and if the love isn't shown explicitly, it's still here. So in some way, Meet You at the Blossom, felt like a radical act, especially as they have given us a happy ending (it was also probably in the book, but I didn't read it so I will only talk about the series). I don't forget that there were some tough scenes so it may have not been easy to watch for some viewers. However, in the end, Huai En and Xiao Bao got their happy ending where they can be in love. Usually historical fantasy/wuxia stories are set in a fictional world which resembles a period from history, but is not that actual history and you get some fantastic elements. It also means you get all the stigma and prejudices of the period from history that is copied. We don't get a real information about this period in Meet You at the Blossom, but it's clear that it's not exactly queer-friendly (despite having several queer characters) as we've seen several people trying to separate Huai En and Xiao Bao because their love is supposedly not something they should have. For all those reasons, it was really pleasant to see these two get their hard-earned happy ending.

I will miss this story and I hope we’ll get other historical fantasy/wuxia Chinese QL stories that won’t be censored.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 38 part two

(Masterpost) (Pinboard)  (whole thing on AO3)    

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!  

Shopping and Night Hunting

Xue Yang convinces Xiao Xingchen to take him along as his night hunting assistant, and the Empathy session jumps forward. The next thing we see is a whole street full of dead people with Xiao Xingchen standing over them with his sword, while Xue Yang looks on approvingly.  

Xiao Xingchen explains that the whole village was Puppets, with no living people. Dude. DUDE. Even by the standards of a world that contains Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen, you are way too trusting of shit that people tell you.  

A-Qing checks the corpses and they have white eyes, which makes her think they might really be puppets. Xue Yang makes some insane faces just so we know he's not actually turned over a new leaf.

Next we see Xiao Xingchen trying to buy potatoes (this is fantasy China, not pre-Qing historical China; they can have all the potatoes they want) and a vendor telling him to scram. Is Xiao Xingchen just asking for free potatoes? Is this the first time he’s realized that doesn’t generally work?. Xue Yang menaces the vendor by loudly stabbing a potato, and then calls Xiao Xingchen back over. 

The vendor gasps and fills up their basket with food, and Xiao Xingchen smiles because he thinks that his buddy silently convinced the guy to give them food by...being nice? Unclear.

I Ain’t Gonna Play Yi City

Next we see ultrahot Song Lan arriving at the gate of Yi City, where A-Qing is happily picking up a money purse. ...whose? Do enough living people come through here that they just casually drop money on the ground? Song Lan twigs to her not being blind pretty quickly, although for politeness sake he lets her continue to pretend.

Song Lan asks if she's seen a white-clad sword-bearing daoist priest, and she quizzes him to make sure he's a good guy before helping him. Her entire set of security questions:

1. are you friends? 2. How tall is he?  3. is he hot? 4. What does his sword look like?

If this is not a mistranslation, these are not very good questions to ask if you want someone to believe you’re blind, incidentally.

Song Lan's answers:

1. ............... .... ...yes 2. me and him match like a set of salt and pepper shakers 3. like, SO hot 4. It’s named Shuanghua (”splendid frost,” per Viki), as all True Sword Fans know

(more after the cut!)

These answers are correct, pretty much, so he passes the security check and she leads him into the city. He comes carrying his sword Fuxue (”blowing away snow,” roughly), his horsetail flail, and his messy, messy feelings, which are going to be his undoing.

They walk through the super-abandoned town, which has paper decorations hanging up. These paper decorations are really well made, considering that they are still there when WangXian roll up several years later.

Song Lan has a little crisis trying to psych himself up to see Xiao Xingchen. Bro, you have been walking around looking for him for literally YEARS, and you haven't figured out what to say yet? Contrast with Lan Wangji, who went for the wrist-grab mere moments after discovering that Wei Wuxian was back, and followed it up by carrying him off to his bed. 

Enemy Mine

While he's dithering, Xue Yang comes back, and A-Qing hides while Song Lan stands there being shocked. 

We're treated to the Xue Yang version of sweet banter, where he tricks Xiao Xingchen into picking a short straw for chores, and then tells him he was tricking him because he was blind. 

They have a laugh together and Xue Yang is handsy with XXC, causing Song Lan to clench his fist so strongly that we can hear his knuckles cracking. 

You knew your ex was going to be at the party; if you can’t handle seeing him with a new guy you shouldn’t have come.

Then he sees Xue Yang go out to get groceries, and he grips his flail so hard that his palm starts bleeding. That sentence is about a weapon, not about his dick, incidentally.

More Empathy

But then empathy skips ahead, showing Xiao Xingchen stabbing Song Lan, while Wei Wuxian's hands shake and he says "Song Lan, don't!" like he’s in the audience of a horror movie. A-Qing, in the present, drools up some blood, which is pretty normal for her, TBH. 

The Lan kids are alarmed and want to wake them up, but Jin Ling says to hang in there for a bit more. For a kid, Jin Ling isn’t bad at wielding authority. 

A distraught Jingyi insists, however, so Jin Ling starts ringing the bell, and Wei Wuxian opens his eyes but doesn't come out of Empathy. He does stop skipping ahead, though, so we go back to Song Lan & Xue Yang's confrontation, which is possibly the best fight in the whole dang show.

We’re Gonna Get It On ‘Cause We Don’t Get Along

Xue Yang comes back from the grocery store to find Song Lan perched on his roof like a sexy vengeful raven. Xue Yang greets him sexily politely and with no anxiety at all, and Song Lan attacks.

Song Lan has had literally years to settle his mind and get his emotions under control and...he has not done that. Like, at all.

He could have cleared this whole situation up with about four words to Xiao Xingchen, and they could have fought Xue Yang together. But he was so unready to hug it out with his ex that he opted to face Xue Yang all on his own. Dumb. Ass. 

Contrast this with Lan Wangji, who always talked to Wei Wuxian, no matter how estranged they had become. Trying to stab him counts as talking. And also contrast this with Jiang Cheng, who hashed everything out with Wei Wuxian in an excruciating public confrontation, after which they teamed up to save their nephew.  Neither of those guys let their ooky feelings stand in the way of a reconnection, and their outcomes were way, way, way better than Song Lan’s. 

Xue Yang and Song Lan get busy fighting, and Song Lan starts asking what the fuck Xue Yang is playing at, how long has he been deceiving Xiao Xingchen, etc.   

Xue Yang is a perceptive guy, and he points out that Song Lan is holding back because he wants to ask these questions. He’s absolutely right; Song Lan wants to feel indignant and righteous, partly because he knows he himself has mistreated Xiao Xingchen. He’s putting himself in the role of Xiao Xingchen’s protector, when he doesn’t actually have that relationship with him any more. 

I love this fight sequence for two reasons.  First, because it showcases the actors doing a lot of moves themselves, and they both look amazing and move beautifully. (OP has slowed most of these gifs down quite a bit to avoid giving everybody a migraine, incidentally--the camera operator was moving around as much as the actors in these shots)

Second, because a lot of story happens in this fight; the dynamic between them, as two people with a very complex mutual hatred, is played out in their moves. Song Lan's moves are all strong attacks, expressing his anger and frustration, while Xue Yang’s are mainly defensive, avoidant, and slippery, because he is more interested in hurting Song Lan with words than with his blade at this point. He knows he has an unbeatable advantage up his sleeve, so he’s not particularly worried, even when Song Lan lands a couple of hits. 

Xue Yang lays it all out for Song Lan, explaining that Xiao Xingchen, being blind, relies on his sword to point toward resentful energy. Hey, isn't that what Wei Wuxian's Compass of Evil does? So WWX only needs that thing because he can't carry a sword? That...actually makes sense. Anyway, Xue Yang figured out if he cuts people's tongues out, Shuanghua can't tell living people from monsters, which is so awesome and fun for Xue Yang.

Song Lan starts to lose his composure and calls Xue Yang a “villain,” which leads Xue Yang to mock him for his weaksauce cussing ability.

Xue Yang: You educated people have a disadvantage when cursing someone out. Song Lan: Eat a bag of dicks, fuckstick.

Then he criticizes Xue Yang for taking advantage of Xiao Xingchen's blindness. 

He gets a couple of licks in but then Xue Yang stops and points out that Xiao Xingchen is only blind because of giving his eyes to Song Lan.

This stops Song Lan in his tracks; I am not sure if he already knew that’s where his eyeballs came from, or if he thought it was a coincidence that Xiao Xingchen became blind after he, Song Lan, got new eyeballs. Then Xue Yang challenges Song Lan's standing to be fighting on Xiao Xingchen's behalf, reminding him that he's not actually Xiao Xingchen's friend. These are the same tactics that Jin Guangyao will later use on righteous, insecure Jiang Cheng. 

Back when Xue Yang killed Song Lan's sect/temple buddies, Song Lan blamed Xiao Xingchen, and Xue Yang says now that that was his plan; he killed them to turn Song Lan against Xiao Xingchen. 

It totally worked. Song Lan said that they should never see each other again, and Xiao Xingchen took it to heart and fucked off forever - after giving Song Lan his eyes. Contrast this with Wei Wuxian, who stuck by Jiang Cheng despite being blamed & choked by him after the Lotus Pier massacre.

Despite all this emotional turmoil, Song Lan is holding his own...until Xue Yang pulls out his secret weapon; half of a yin tiger seal.  

He starts hitting Song Lan with corpse poison and resentment blasts and very quickly has him on the ropes.

He finishes up by cutting his tongue out. Yikes.

At this point it’s clear that Xue Yang was never in any serious danger; this was his plan for Song Lan all along.  Song Lan goes to attack Xue Yang but now that he’s been modded, Splendid Frost thinks he’s a zombie, so Xiao Xingchen comes sailing in and stabs him. 

Song Lan tries to raise his sword to XXC's fingers so he can identify himself, but at the last moment his eyes turn solid black and he drops the sword. Does that mean Xue Yang stuck a nail in his head already? *shrug* 

Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen head back into the coffin house -- seriously, why do they live there instead of one of the many actual houses in this town? -- and leave Song Lan lying in the street, with A-Qing, who saw the whole thing, hiding behind a hay stack.

Xue Yang Must Die...eventually

After some more bell ringing, Wei Wuxian emerges from Empathy, pretty overwhelmed. 

He gets up and goes over to Xiao Xingchen's coffin and looks closely at the wound on his neck, understanding that XXC killed himself, and why.

His face, in this moment. Suicide isn’t something he expected to have in common with his uncle. 

He tells the kids and A-Qing to stay in the coffin house; he won't explain what he saw, except to say that Xue Yang must die. Then he goes off to kill Xue Yang, by which I mean to assemble his Xue-Yang killing team, rather than try to take him mano a mano like Song Lan did.

The first order of business is to finish rebooting Song Lan, which he does by pulling the second nail out of his head like he should have done four hours ago. 

Note that Wen Ning and Song Lan were fighting for the ENTIRE time Wei Wuxian was doing Empathy. Corpses don’t get tired, I guess.

As soon as the nail comes out of his head, Song Lan quiets down, looking bereft, and crouches on the ground to try to reassemble his shattered consciousness. Unlike Wen Ning, he doesn’t have to bake in a cave for a month to achieve this. 

We get a nice shot of Wei Wuxian, Song Lan, and Wen Ning looking like the cultivation world’s handsomest goth band. 

Next, Lan Wangji cuts open Xue Yang's shirt so he can yoink his spirit-trapping bag, which he then tosses to Wei Wuxian. 

Now Xue Yang is the one who's overly emotional. 

Wei Wuxian, despite being very upset by what he saw in Empathy, is completely cool and in control of himself now, because that's just how he is in a fight. (Unless you kill his sister. That gets him very emotional, but the emotion is rage, at least initially, so it’s not a safe tactic.)

Lan Wangji gets in another poke with Bichen while Xue Yang is distracted.

Camera operator: Spare me!

Xue Yang decides to take his ball amulet and go home, disappearing into the fog while Wei Wuxian keeps talking smack at him.

Holy Abrupt Episode Ending, Batman!

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

@meowyautistickitten you didn't explicitly say, but I'm gonna limit myself to books with a butch or masculine woman as a primary protagonist. Since you didn't specify genre, I'll try to give a variety, and I'll focus on characters who think about themselves in butch or masculine terms, rather than just those with a butch or masculine style.

Backwards to Oregon is a historical romance novel about a woman named Luke who lives primarily as a man and is traveling the Oregon trail in the hopes of starting a horse ranch. She has a run in with a prostitute named Nora and her young daughter and, on an impulse, offers to marry Nora so that her daughter can grow up with legitimacy and better prospects. What follows is a very sweet romance obstructed by the fact that Luke is desperate to keep her true gender hidden from Nora, while Nora is desperate to figure out what the fuck Luke's deal is and how she can make sure she and her daughter don't get abandoned. You could probably construct an argument for Luke being transmasc of some variety, but my read was very much that Luke's main objection to being perceived as a woman is all the limits that would put on her behavior - they wouldn't let a woman wear pants and be one of the boys, after all. Be aware that this is set during the US westward expansion and is not particularly interested in interrogating the ethics and politics of that movement. It's not egregiously racist towards native Americans, but their voices definitely aren't being centered. Also, on account of being an older book, some of the ways the author writes about gender read weird to a modern audience.

She Who Became the Sun is historical fantasy fiction following Zhu, a peasant girl in Yuan dynasty China who steals the identity of her dead brother to try to avoid her prophecied fate of oblivion, and winds up involved in a rebel movement. This one has romance, but is much more focused on political and military maneuvering, with a large emphasis on interpersonal conflict. Fair warning that the time period is both brutal and quite prejudiced, and Zhu is absolutely ruthless. Zhu is also much more gender ambiguous, not necessarily butch - her modes of behavior with people who know that she is not a cis man, and the ways she thinks about herself, read to me as some shade of nonbinary.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant follows the titular Baru as she works to infiltrate the government of the imperial power that colonized her homeland and bring it down from within. The series deals extensively with gendered expression and expectations and how those vary across cultural lines - I don't know that I'd call Baru strictly butch, but she definitely enjoys playing a masculine role from time to time, with one of her plots later in the series hinging on the fact that a particular culture would consider her a man because of how she acts and presents herself. This is probably my favorite series of all time; if you somehow hadn't heard about it from me already, be warned that these books deal extensively with colonialism, homophobia, sexism, and racism, and they don't pull any punches. The first book will probably break your heart - if you don't do well with tragedies, then approach with caution.

Hopefully one of those sparks your interest! Thanks for the ask :)