#cursed book five

[egophiliac]

(it probably wasn't actually Idia's fault)

(or was it)

some quick initial reactions to celebrate Diasomnia Day One! it felt like a bit of a short intro, but oh, what a tasting menu of things to come.

[valewritessss]

I’m working on a big Percabeth fanfic recommendations post because someone asked and I just decided to sort through and recommend almost every percabeth fic I’ve read.

I know enough about myself to know that it’s not a good idea to set a due date so I’m just gonna say that I’ll post it by this week probably. If you want to be tagged please say so in the tags or something.

EDIT: school is already taking up time so this will probably take so long I’m sorry😭

[feyres-divorce-lawyer]

thinking about how acomaf and acosf are literary crime scenes where sarah janet murdered feyre and nesta, scooped out their cores and replaced it with bat bastard loving hearts and then she dared tell me “look how happy they are” no they are not happy, sarah janet, they’re mere shadows of the originals. get out of my fucking house.

[jotun-philosopher]

If you liked that, you might like this: Good Omens and World Of The Five Gods

Heyo! Time for another ramble~!

Good Omens has given me a bit of a taste for theologically interesting fantasy, which led me to the World of the Five Gods series by Lois McMaster Bujold -- let me tell you about it! (Not everything, but hopefully enough to whet your appetite and spark your curiosity ^_^)

Putting everything under a cut, because while this isn't really a meta and I'm going to try to avoid spoilers as far as possible, I am going to be infodumping so it's gonna get loooooooooong XD #AutismForTheWin

So! World of the Five Gods is set in a sort of fantasy-counterpart-culture version of Medieval Europe (more or less late Reconquista era), but with the map rotated 180 degrees. Consistent across countries and cultures is the Quintarian religion, which involves worship of a pantheon of five gods:

The Father of Winter, who deals with mature manhood, fatherhood, justice, fairness, leadership, natural deaths, male virility and suchlike. His colours are grey and black.

The Mother of Summer, who covers mature womanhood, motherhood, love and its results, female sexuality, birth, renewal and healing/medicine, among others. Her colour is green.

The Daughter of Spring, whose purview is youth, beauty, virginity, education and planting. Her colour is blue, which is frequently trimmed with white.

The Son of Autumn, who covers war, hunting, courage, harvest and emotion. His colours are red and orange.

The Bastard, the broadly benevolent but frequently inscrutable trickster figure of the pantheon. His purview is orphans, demons, disasters and chaos, illegitimate children, queer folks, executioners, divine justice where mortal justice fails, lives unnaturally cut short, "all things out of season". His colour is white. He likes it when his followers 'pray' to him by cursing him out, both because they're actually *thinking* about their situations and because he finds it hilarious. (His sense of humour is a bit odd...) At the uttermost end of mortal justice, when all else has failed, one can pray to the Bastard for a 'death miracle', which if successful will kill both you and the intended target via one of the Bastard's demons taking your soul and theirs.

The Quadrene religion views the Bastard as a demon rather than a god, and reviles as heretical those matters which fall within his purview.

The gods have total power over the world of spirit, but their ability to affect the world of matter is highly limited at best; they thus have to rely on mortal agents. The tool is not the work, though -- tools get broken, after all -- so being a tool of the gods tends to really fucking suck.

WotFG has (at time of writing) three novels and twelve novellas.

The novels are:

The Curse of Chalion -- The Daughter's book. An escapee from a slave galley seeks a position in the household of his old patroness, is assigned as secretary-tutor to the Royesse (= princess) of Chalion (roughly equivalent to Castile in Reconquista-era Spain) and does his darndest to protect her from the deadly court machinations of the PROFOUNDLY evil chancellor and his brother while also seeking a way to break the curse of the title. (Seriously, get you someone who's as fiercely loyal and devoted to you as Cazaril is to 'his ladies'!)

Paladin of Souls -- The Bastard's book, and direct sequel to Curse, taking place a few years later. Ista, Dowager Royina of Chalion, is fed up of being locked in her rural castle by well-meaning caretakers who mistake her god-touched status for insanity. She goes on what is ostensibly a pilgrimage for her mother's soul, and finds that the gods are not done with her yet... (not quite the little-old-lady fantasy hero I've seen tumblr posts about -- Ista's in her forties -- but she is *very* badass and outspoken; one can imagine her being played by Catherine Tate)

The Hallowed Hunt -- The Son's book, set about 250 years before Curse, in the Weald (roughly analogous to Germanic areas). Ingrey kin Wolfcliff is dispatched to a remote castle to collect a young woman called Ijada, as well as the corpse of the highborn would-be rapist whose head she bashed in with a giant war hammer. Devious machinations and long-laid schemes abound surrounding the Hallow Kingship of the Weald, into which Ingrey and Ijada are swiftly drawn.

The thirteeen (so far) novellas focus on Learned Penric kin Jurald, scholar and sorcerer-divine of the Bastard's order, and his demon Desdemona. They take place roughly 150 years after Hunt (so, about a century before the start of Curse) and start out set in the Cantons (equivalent to Switzerland), but Penric (and the stories) travel around a fair bit. There is some interesting gender-wibbliness involved as well, because all of Desdemona's hosts prior to Penric were female, still live on in some way within her such that Penric can channel and converse with them, and Penric has to cross-dress more than once (particularly and memorably channelling the courtesan Mira).

In terms of approximate internal chronology, the Penric novellas are:

Penric's Demon, Penric and the Shaman, Penric's Fox (collected in the omnibus titled 'Penric's Progress')

Penric's Mission, Mira's Last Dance, The Prisoner of Limnos (collected in the omnibus titled 'Penric's Travels')

Masquerade In Lodi [chronologically earlier than the stories in Penric's Travels], The Orphans of Raspay, The Physicians of Vilnoc (collected in the omnibus titled 'Penric's Labors')

The Assassins of Thasalon, Knot of Shadows, Demon Daughter (at time of writing, to the best of my knowledge, only available in e-book format)

edit 17/08/24: Penric and the Bandit (published 1st July 2024, ebook format only)

The novels and novellas can technically be read in any order (though, being a sequel to Curse, Paladin of Souls contains spoilers for that book). Personally, I find the worldbuilding easiest to digest when reading the novels in publication order (Curse, Paladin, Hunt), then the Penric stories. It's up to you, though!

The setting of WotFG as a whole (as I mentioned at the start) is informed to varying degrees by the history of Spain's 'Reconquista' era; the influence is especially strong in The Curse of Chalion, to the point that I'd strongly advise against making a drinking game out of it -- there are parallels to persons and events you wouldn't think could *have* parallels! Good fodder for a history-side-of-tumblr meta post, though, eh? ;-) (pls tag me if you do make one, I'd love to read it!)

Having come to WotFG from Good Omens, I have a particular soft spot for the Penric stories -- there are a few parallels with GO (a small enough number that it's probably safe to make a drinking game out of it -- though I'd still recommend tumblr meta-posts as the safer and healthier alternative!), all of which are more than likely genuine coincidences, but enough to add an ineffably lovely layer of enjoyment :D Have fun finding 'em ^^ (Srsly, the AU fanfics almost write themselves...)

Happy reading!

(tagging @ao3cassandraic and @vidavalor -- I get the feeling you'll like WotFG if you haven't run across the series already)

[rainintheevening]

five sentence fic asks: Narnia + broken

The silence was broken by Eustace's soft question. "But who exactly is Aslan? Do you know him?"

Edmund looked away over the mossy rocks, and the murmuring stream flashing white through the grey early light, looked out to the sea, to the west, back, back, looking back to the cliffs above the cove, and the shining towers that were no longer, and the great stone slab cracked in two, and he smiled softly to himself.

"Well, he knows me."

[zipadeea]

Like, obviously The Sea of Monsters is going to be great on screen. Obviously. Grover in a wedding dress, Percy as a guinea pig, Clarisse character growth, the chariot races, Annabeth facing the sirens, we've got a full-on Odyssey and it's fantastic. I don't want to wish away all the good things coming! Season 2 is going to be so much fun.

But. BUT. Season 3, man. The Titan's Curse. Thalia. Zoe Nightshade. THE DI ANGELOS. Holy shit, season 3 is going to be excellent.

[landrinha]

I'm re-reading iwtv cause I read it 5 month ago but I have no memory ❤️

[bugieeeee]

@ifuckinghatebriansella tagged me in this even though I already know what they're stealing from my room

No pressure Tagging @i-am-not-to-be-perceived @myvirtuesuncounted @wellmanneredthief @somedancingdoodles @thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole @youmustfixyourheartt @iveofficiallygonemad

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[borgeslabyrinth]

Ah, the familiar rage that one always feels towards the husband in a horror novel. I would simply tear this man apart limb by limb.

[jennablackmorebooks]

The Curse Of Rhiannon was first released five years ago today, on the 23rd of October, 2018!

[howtodrawyourdragon]

Plot twist: HICCUP WAS THE ONE WITH VORPENTITIS ALL ALONG!

[asteria-argo]

you know considering batman is my special interest and has been since I was about five it's ironic I've only just started talking about it with any kind of frequency on tumblr

[crabbarts]

my first impression of arhys dy lutez vs my impression of dy lutez 50 pages later

[tigresslanzhu]

Kung Fu Morning Ritual

Shifu: Panda, why do you keep getting in these silly arguments with Zhen every morning? As the spiritual leader of the Valley Of Peace, you should know better!

Po: Aw, Shifu, it’s just a part of the morning routine: get out of bed, scratch my butt, take a shower, get mad at Zhen for a stupid reason, and then eat first breakfast!

Shifu: First breakfast?

Po: Of course, everybody knows that pandas get more than one breakfast!

Artica: Po, I know you don’t know what a hobbit is, but I’m sure you know that you definitely aren’t one! You don’t get second breakfast and second dinner and elevensies and any of these extra meals in this Palace.

Po: Elevensies? Awesome! Another excuse to eat!

Shifu: ARTICA!

[xadianglyphs]