#gella talks tfota

[gellavonhamster]

The upside of being the author of the only fic in the ship's tag that is actually about that ship and doesn't just have them in the background while being focused on another ship is that people leave you sweet comments like "thank you for writing about them!" and "I've reread this about 50 times!". The downside is, of course, being the author of the only such fic

[gellavonhamster]

Random thoughts on The Stolen Heir:

For all Wren’s talk about how monstrous and feral she is, I found her remarkably normal, maybe even more normal than I would’ve preferred. On the other hand, this is consistent with her believing herself a monster largely due to what her shit parents drilled into her.  

Loved how Wren enjoys having a dress with pockets and repeatedly thinks about biting the boy she likes. #justgirlthings

I guessed that Mellith’s heart must be in Wren in some way based on Oak’s behaviour after his conversation with the Thistlewitch. This is not a bad “oh the answer was too easy” thing btw, I was very satisfied to find out I was right. It’s good when there are clues letting the audience figure out the plot twists.

I was half sure Madoc would be dead by the time they reach the Court of Teeth, and I still have a bad feeling he might not survive till the end of this duology. Then again, he’s not your typical kind and wise mentor/father figure that has to go for the characters to reach maturity on their own. He’s a menace and a problem and a pain in the ass to the very characters he acts as a father figure to, and he might as well defy genre expectations. 

“Bogdana” is a Slavic name that means “given by God”, and I can’t help thinking it’s an odd choice for a name for a faerie creature. Though the Faerie, of course, might have its own gods, too.

[gellavonhamster]

A fun thing about having read The Folk of the Air but not having read/played/watched The Witcher is doing a double take on any post on your dashboard that mentions the Roach with a capital R, because you expect it to be about a goblin spy/thief, but instead it is always about a horse

[gellavonhamster]

Went into the TFOTA tag and found out people are taking my old uquiz... unexpected but nice :)

[gellavonhamster]

I am finally reading the Cardan novella and I am Overcome with Emotions

[gellavonhamster]

Beatrice Baudelaire & Eva Duarte handshake meme:

a loving and caring mom to her three children

kept secrets about her past from her children hoping to protect them

eldest daughter possibly/definitely from another man than her two younger children - Lemony Snicket & Madoc respectively

used to be friends with a woman who later causes a lot of problems to her child(ren) - Esme Squalor & Lady Asha respectively

canonically killed someone at least once

status: deceased

[gellavonhamster]

normal people: exile is about Cardan and Jude

me, chronically obsessed with minor characters and background ships: cowboy like me is about the Bomb and the Roach

[gellavonhamster]

I wonder if Cardan thinks that it was not just Kaye but also Roiben, the notorious and fearsome Lord of the Court of Termites, who chose the I RULE coffee mug as a coronation present for him, and if Roiben knows about the mug at all

[gellavonhamster]

I love that moment in TWK when Cardan is like “you know what, I’ve had very little sleep and cannot go on scheming like this, also Jude looks pale and hungry, I’m gonna send for some tea and food for us” but he cannot let the servant into the room lest they see Jude, so he, the king, takes the tray with snacks and two huge pots of tea and carries it to the table himself and then he and Jude and the Roach and the Bomb just have tea and cakes with cheese while discussing such classic tea party topics as how to prevent a war or whether or not they should kill anybody. A quality get-together with friends. A double date, even

[gellavonhamster]

I’m reading Modern Faerie Tales (right now - part two, Valiant), and here’s something I don’t understand: why do different human children age differently in Faerie? In Tithe, Kaye finds out that the human girl whose place she’s taking is still a little kid even though Kaye herself is sixteen. In The Folk of the Air, however, Jude and Taryn grow up in the land of Faerie the way they would in the mortal world. Does that depend on whether a child was replaced by a changeling or not? On the part of Faerie they’re living in? On the whim of those who took them? On anything else?

[gellavonhamster]

ooh, the folk of the air! (for the ask meme)

My favourite thing about TFOTA is the complexity of familial relationships in it. The way Jude and Madoc end up at the opposite sides of the barricade but he still loves her in his own way (and I think he’s proud of her, and recognizes that out of all his children, biological or adopted, she is the most like him) and she still cannot hate him and still recognizes how much she is what she is because of his upbringing. The way Jude and Taryn are so different and similar at the same time, the way they use different, clashing ways to earn their place in Faerie, but still, after all the betrayal, understand that they need each other. The way Oriana is unable to love the Duarte sisters the way she loves Oak - and she’s honest about it! - but still looks after them in her own way (that part when she thinks Jude has become Dain’s mistress and warns her of the dangers of mingling with royals comes to mind). I find it so layered and interesting.

Oh, and I absolutely love the Court of Shadows, it’s adjacent to the wonderful “found family but it’s found through crime” trope, and I really want a novella about the life of crime the Roach and the Bomb led in the early 20th century mortal world. (I mean, I wrote a fic about it, but I still want the canon author’s version).

[gellavonhamster]

Honestly, I’d love to read a TFOTA novella/short story about Eva Duarte. From what we know about her, she was a good mother (though the girls’ memories of her must be heavily tinted with nostalgia and therefore possibly idealized), she loved her family, and she wanted Vivi to be ‘particularly kind’. She also (together with Justin or alone) killed a pregnant woman in order to fake her death and escape Faerieland. And she used to be friends with Lady Asha, who valued partying and entertainment over her own baby son. She seems like a very complex character (which really could be said about every member of Jude’s family, biological or adopted), and I think it would be interesting to learn her own perspective of what happened to her in Faerie.

[gellavonhamster]

in your opinion, should i read dracula or the folk of the air next? and why?

That’s a tough question because I love both a lot, so I guess that depends on what you personally want from a book right now? By which I mean, read Dracula if you want:

just one book, as opposed to a series

an adult book, meaning not a book with Adult Themes but just a book in which the main characters are at least in their twenties (okay, Lucy is nineteen, it’s still an adult book)

a classic Gothic vibe, complete with sinister castles, haunted ships, graveyards, and mental asylums

a very loveable (and shippable) cast of characters who care about each other deeply - oh, and some vampires are there too, I guess

a found family consisting of an eccentric professor and his five adopted adult children who are all dating each other or something

gay/bi/poly undertones

a LOT of layers to analyze, like what societal issues are reflected in the novel and what Count Dracula symbolizes and other stuff which there is even a ton of actual academic research about

And read The Folk of the Air if you want:

a trilogy (+ two novellas) that is also interconnected with other books set in the same universe

a YA book, meaning that sometimes you’ll get reminded that these characters deeply involved in politics and scheming and plotting are, like, eighteen (also the first part of book #1 has some slightly boring stuff about school and boys, but it stops being that quite quickly and turns into a proper court fantasy)

slow-burn enemies to lovers

a family in which adopted and blood relatives keep betraying each other, using each other, but still cannot help caring about each other

female characters being allowed to be angry and mean and vengeful

a group dynamic that’s like “a group of spies who just work together actually become friends”

morally grey characters. I can think of maybe two characters from these books that I wouldn’t describe as morally grey, and one of them is a child.

Hope this helps, and sorry if it ends up confusing you even more :D

[gellavonhamster]

What’s one book(standalone or series) you’ve read that you think would make a good show/movie? Who’d be your dream cast?

Speaking of The Folk of the Air, I think that if done right and on a big budget, it would make an amazing TV show! It’s got a gripping plot, the visuals of the faerie realm have all potential to be stunning (again, with a proper budget), there’s a lot of characters who aren’t paid too much attention because we see everything from Jude’s POV so it’s possible to add more stuff with them for the show. Probably it could even be possible to integrate something from The Modern Faerie Tales and The Darkest Part of the Forest into the show, since all these books are set in the same universe.

The dream cast (or the best-I-could-think-of cast) under read more, because there are too many pictures.

I don’t really have a dream cast for Jude & Taryn because I can’t think of any actresses that would fit all the necessary criteria - twins (!!!), with the appearance that matches the books, preferably Latina because their surname allows such a possibility. In terms of looks, I like the popular fancast of Bruna Marquezine a lot, so it must be someone who looks like her. Only not as thin, I don’t imagine these girls being too skinny.

I imagine Cardan looking basically exactly like Tamino, but if we’re talking only actors, not celebrities in general, then Jorge Lopez

Okay, next we go basically the first actors/actresses I can think of. Ray Stevenson as Madoc. I might be typecasting a little, because he played a father having a complicated relationship with his adult adopted child on Black Sails.

Anya Taylor-Joy as Vivi

Kiki Layne as Heather

Gemma Chan as Oriana

With Oak, it’s difficult, because kids frow up so fast, but I sorta imagine him looking like Roman Griffin Davis in Jojo Rabbit

Orlando Jones as the Roach

Ariana DeBose as the Bomb

Louis Hoffman as the Ghost

Taveeta Szymanowicz as Nicasia

Aidan Turner as Balekin

JJ Feild as Dain

Lucy Lawless as Grima Mog

annnd that’s all I can think of at the moment! It’s all very approximate and might change as soon as I get other ideas.

[gellavonhamster]

I tried my hand at Uquiz and the result is here: Which The Folk of the Air character are you? 

[gellavonhamster]

Rosalía as Jude Duarte and Tamino as Cardan Greenbriar. that’s it, that’s the post.