#genre: historical

[blackinmotionpictures]

CHEVALIER (2023) dir. Stephen Williams

[queermovierecs]

Desert Hearts (1985)

Vivian, an uptight English professor, moves to Nevada in 1959 to await the finalization of her divorce. There, she meets the wild and wonderful Cay Rivers, and Vivian's tidy life suddenly becomes infinitely more complex. Dessert Hearts is well-crafted, steamy, and—most pleasantly surprising for the time of its release—happy. If you're looking for a tender lesbian period piece that doesn't end in tears, Dessert Hearts is your movie.

Director: Donna Deitch

Runtime: 1h 36m

Genres: Romance, Drama, Historical

Watch if you like: Carol (2015)

Ray's rating: 8/10

[the-emporium-of-free-adopts]

This has been posted on deviantArt for the purpose of being sold and making a profit- however, since it was generated by AI, it does not fall under intellectual property laws, so it's yours for the taking!

[paperbackd]

Book review: A Restless Truth (The Last Binding #2) by Freya Marske

A sultry queer romance set aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic, with a new cast of characters teaming up to continue the adventure which began in A Marvellous Light.

A Restless Truth is a long novel, but it ended up being a quick read for me. Sadly, the protagonists of the first novel of this series, Robin and Edwin, don't make an appearance in this installment, but I enjoyed getting to see more of Maud, Robin's sister. Her romance with a scandalous magical heiress, Violet, was very steamy, although I do wish that it had been given some more build up - while the fact that the novel takes place over just six days at sea helped with the pace of the novel, I found Maud and Violet's instant connection a little unbelievable. I wish they'd had more time to get to know each other, or perhaps been introduced to each other in America, before the novel began.

Still, I enjoyed the magical twists and turns of this chapter of the Last Binding series, and Marske's dialogue was as witty as ever. I'm looking forward to reading the final book of the series - especially now that I've seen who the two protagonists will be. Hawthorn and Ross were a surprisingly entertaining part of this novel - given that I loathed Hawthorn in book one! - so I can't wait to get a better insight into their characters in book three.

Publisher: Tor Books Rating:  3 stars | ★★★✰✰ Review cross-posted to Goodreads

[rpgromanceplayinggirls]

Name: Rise of the Ronin

Genre: Historical, Action RPG

Platform: PS5

Release: 2024

Audience: Teen

Protagonist Type: Optional, Customizable

Romance type: Optional, BxG, GxG

Official Synopsis:

Japan, 1863.

After three centuries of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s oppressive rule, the Black Ships of the West descend upon the nation’s borders and the country falls into a state of turmoil. Amidst the chaos of war, disease and political unrest, a nameless warrior forges their own path, holding the very fate of Japan in their hands.

Content warnings: Violence, Xenophobic themes

Notes:

The unnamed playable female character has multiple love interests, both men and women, from several different factions in the game, all of whom are bisexual. All of the love interests are based on real historical people, but often demonstrate key differences to their real counterparts. Some of the love interests can die during the course of the story, but some can be saved from their fate depending on the choices the playable character makes. A small few characters cannot be saved at all, even if romanced.

There is no reactivity towards the female lead's gender during the game, and she is largely treated as male by the other characters, which is extremely noticable in certain scenes. The various love interests have a varying amount of content depending on the character, with the most content going to Sakamoto Ryouma.

Several of the love interests were married in real life, and the game deals with this differently depending on the character. For example, if Ryouma is romanced, he mentions things not working out with the woman who would become his historical wife. One character, Genzui, is technically romancable using the same mechanics as the other characters, but he remains faithful to his wife and only enters into a kind of martial brothers/platonic soulmates relationship with the protagonist.

There is an unnamed character in the playable character's backstory, also customizable, who is implied to have been their lover before the events of the game if certain dialogue options are taken, but this second character is not romancable.

[theannypetite]

Xian Chan Nu

Time to Read: 1 minute The young lady of the Liu family, Liu Shiqing, doesn’t act the way she’s expecte to. Because she grew up with her father leading armed escorts, she’s not able to stay cooped inside all day, no matter how much her father tells her to do so. One day the men are escorting a certain thing, and Liu Shiqing sneaks into the escort and nearly gets kidnapped. However, a handsome…

[misireads]

Lohikäärmeen värit ("Colours of the dragon") by Pasi Pekkola

[ physical book, read in finnish ]

a story spanning two generations that's actually three (or four!) different stories set in different times.

in chronological order, the first story is that of a small girl named xiaolong, born to poverty in a remote village in rural china in the era of mao zedong. she's raised by her sickly father, but their life is alright until mao's campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries fucks the whole village over.

the second story is xiaolong's adulthood, starting from her moving to finland in the 80's with a man named tomi, they move to helsinki together and are about to have a baby. she knows that finland is a far better environment to raise a child, but she struggles with the culture shock and the loneliness brought with it.

the third story is that of the child as an adult, kimi, born and raised finnish. he has never met his mother because she disappeared when he was only a baby and has spent his entire life wanting to know why she left. he has a strained and distant relationship with his father who travels for work a lot. after his long-term relationship with a woman falls apart, kimi decides to take his father's offer to travel to shanghai to go look for his mother in china.

this is the starting point of each story, and the book keeps jumping between all three to fill in the details and the gaps in time. the recurring theme carrying through the whole book is the clash of love vs money, as well as momentary personal fulfillment and greed vs the harm it causes in the long run. or something such

🐉🇨🇳👶🏻

➕ said this so many times on this blog but i really enjoy layered books with many intertwined stories, where you only get the big picture of each by finishing the book.

➕ i also enjoy stories about cultures and places (and their history) other than finland and USA, china in this case. this one also compares china and finland to each other and highlights their similarities and differences in an interesting way. that's of course supremely entertaining to a finn because we love comparing finland to anything

➕ what i liked early on was that kimi is half chinese but has never had any connection to china because he's born and raised a finn. which is relatable to me as a half ukrainian with no connection to ukraine. the relation was kind of short-lived but i still jotted that down as a positive so it's something

➕ the book very thoroughly and successfully established why the characters are the way they are, what their motivations are and what's the impact of their respective environments….

➖ …but they are aggravatingly unlikable. i mean they're well written and fleshed out but that doesn't make me like them any more. xiaolong is naive and her story is basically just a sequence of making poor stupid decisions [spoiler] and then she dies. while kimi is vividly painted as an unlikable guy from the beginning and it never gets any better. it's the sort of book that's well written but everything is extremely unrelatable to me and i just keep thinking the characters are fucking stupid in everything they do and you just want to scream HOE DON'T DO IT at the book.

➖ could have been more compact with the storytelling overall. there's a lot of verbose rumination of the same things over and over by both xiaolong and kimi, i found myself going "yeah yeah we already know you feel like this, let's move on" many times. i didn't feel like the stakes here were high enough to warrant keeping up some kind of tension so much between the three different POVs.

➖ speaking of stakes [spoiler] the whole existence of wu jiang in the story was kind of… it just felt flat to me. considering that it's an enormous drive for xiaolong's character to be in love with this character. but that love wasn't based on anything? or it was based on him being a murderer? lol. i don't know, i just thought this great gatsby character would turn out to be something much more dramatic for the way his character was foreshadowed, but then it was just. he's just some guy. there's nothing likable about him. he doesn't do much. he's the biggest influence in xiaolong's entire life, basically. and then he just sucks

➖ why so much sex. it was so unnecessary. yes i get it, girls from rural china end up as prostitutes in the big cities because they have no choice. i didn't need all these sex scenes to hammer the point in really, truly.

⭐ score: 3½ -- a good book but a depressing one. the kind that i'll think back to as a well constructed story but one that didn't evoke a single positive feeling in me really.

[cinema-hallucinations]

Prompt: Create a movie concept for a disney musical animated adaptation of Great Expectations in the vein of Oliver & Co.: the main cast is composed mainly of talking feral, quadruped animals living parallel lives to human society.

Title: Paws & Expectations: A Tail of Two Tails

Logline: Pip, a streetwise alley cat, dreams of a life beyond the trashcans. When a mysterious benefactor (a reclusive parrot) elevates him to a life of luxury, Pip finds himself caught between his loyalty to his scrappy dog best friend, Herbert, and the charming but manipulative Miss Havisham, a pampered Persian cat.

Characters (Animals):

Pip: A resourceful and optimistic tabby cat, yearning for a better life. (Tenor)

Herbert: Pip's loyal and cynical mutt friend. (Baritone)

Miss Havisham: A beautiful but jaded Persian with a dark secret. (Alto)

Magwitch: A gruff but kind parrot, Pip's mysterious benefactor. (Bass)

Joe Gargery: A gruff but honest bulldog, Pip's "adopted" owner. (Bass)

Mrs. Gargery: A loving but overworked sheepdog, Pip's "adopted" mother. (Soprano)

Trabb's Boys: A mischievous pack of street rats. (Chorus)

Compeyson: A sly weasel, Miss Havisham's manipulative lawyer. (Baritone)

Musical Numbers:

Alleyway Blues (Pip & Herbert): Introduces Pip and Herbert's life and dreams.

Shiny Dreams (Pip): Expresses Pip's yearning for a better life.

Unleash the Purrfect Life (Miss Havisham): Showcases Miss Havisham's luxurious lifestyle and desire for revenge.

The Price of Pawsperity (Pip): Shows Pip's internal conflict between his new life and his friends.

Loyalty's Howl (Herbert & Pip): Reaffirms Pip and Herbert's friendship despite their differences.

A Tail Wagging Ending (Cast): Celebrates friendship, loyalty, and finding happiness.

Themes:

The importance of friendship and loyalty.

The dangers of social class and manipulation.

Finding your place in the world, regardless of your background.

Communication Barrier:

The film would emphasize the frustration and humor of the animals' inability to directly communicate with humans. Pip, for instance, might try to warn Miss Havisham about Compeyson's deception through elaborate gestures and playful nudges, while Miss Havisham misinterprets them as signs of affection.

This creates a unique dynamic where the audience, privy to the animals' thoughts and feelings, gains a deeper understanding of their struggles and motivations, often contrasting with how the humans perceive them.

[lionofchaeronea]

Greek Girls Picking Up Pebbles by the Sea, Frederic Leighton, 1871

[from-a-spiders-web]

Forum in Pompeii, 1875 Giuseppe De Nittis

[queermovierecs]

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Set in the late 1700s, Portrait of a Lady on Fire follows Marianne, a female painter, and Héloïse, the woman she has been commissioned to paint. Although they know their time together is brief, they have a passionate affair that stays with them for the rest of their lives, even as they go on to live apart. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a masterpiece of lesbian and feminist cinema that will quietly haunt you in the most beautiful way.

Director: Céline Sciamma

Runtime: 2h 0m

Genres: Historical, Romance, Drama

Watch if you like: Maurice (1987), Carol (2015)

Ray's rating: 9/10

[the-emporium-of-free-adopts]

This has been posted on deviantArt for the purpose of being sold and making a profit- however, since it was generated by AI, it does not fall under intellectual property laws, so it's yours for the taking!

[seaglasswrites]

(If you write for multiple of these, just pick the one you write for the most)

[resplendentoutfit]

Painting to Dress Match-up

Thomas Pollock Anshutz (American, 1851–1912) • A Rose • 1907

[theannypetite]

This Villain Emperor's Gotta Charm the Male Lead to Survive (Manhua) (Final Thoughts)

Time to Read: 1 minute Xiao Yu’an got terminally ill and, at the end of his life, he chose to read webnovels to pass the time. Just before he passed away, he commented on one of them… only to wake up as the villain of the story he just finished?! To ensure he avoided certain death, Xiao Yu’an tried to treat Yan Heqing, the male lead, well, while saving many people… But it appears that the…

[misireads]

Myrrys ("Sage") by Anniina Mikama

[ physical book, read in finnish ]

a charles dickens-esque story with a sprinkle of magic set in the kainuu region of finland in the famine years of early 1800s, niilo is an orphaned boy living in poor conditions as a slave in a wealthy-ish farmer family. his life is shit, especially thanks to the cruel master of the house, but he cannot complain since the family bothered to take him as a small child when his mother died.

one day, a local sage takes niilo as his apprentice as the payment for curing the family's son's leg that's mauled by a bear. niilo is scared of the sage at first because of his reputation as a witch doctor doing black magic in the middle of the woods, but the man turns out to be a fine lad and the first person ever who treats niilo as an equal human being. they live together for almost a year, going through all sorts of experiences and little adventures together, and become close friends.

➕ so this is a book for younger teenagers, it was in the children&teens area at the library, so it has a juvenile vibe that softens the harsh themes a lot. it's a mid-length book, almost 400 pages, and somehow felt simultaneously very long, like the story felt very big for a book of this length, but was fast to read because there's a lot happening all the time also due to the YA nature probably. there are several episodic chapters where niilo and martin go hunting, niilo helps a man out of a frozen lake, etc.

➕ martin the sage is a very sympathetic character, i liked him a lot. niilo has less personality but he's meant to be the young hero character coming from poor conditions and thriving when someone actually likes him and gives him the chance, i find that very dickens-like. there aren't exactly any flaws about him, he's perfect at just about anything he does in the entire book, his "flaw" is that the farmer family doesn't like him. the real MVPs of the story are the pastor who helps niilo to reconnect with his family and the farmer family's son who has the truest character development arc.

➕ the finnish mythology elements

➕ beautifully written, this author's commitment to descriptions of nature and especially the woods is no joke

➖ i don't really like stuff set in historical finland, like the aesthetics of this sort of old-timey living conditions shit are off-putting. i don't even care about museums with this theme or anything.

➖ i was expecting this to have more fantasy elements… the first spread before the real book begins opens with a spell in the archaic finnish style so i really thought that was supposed to set the tone, but it was just kind of a minor element in here after all. i mean it's important, niilo saves the day with his forest magic several times, but overall… just not as much mythology stuff as i expected. honestly my expectations got in the way once again because i was hoping this would be like teen lit about finnish mythology set in modern times so when i realised very early on it's not, it kinda flattened my mood and the start was very slow for me because i was like ehh… meehhhhh…. a farm house in northern(ish) finland in the 1820s….. bleh.... do i have to read this.....

➖ juhani the master of the farm house is such a comically evil character. but i feel like that too is a dickens-esque character archetype? there's the mean, wealthy man who turns out to be fradulent on multiple fronts and it comes down to the young hero to prove it to everyone. still, i just kind of wanted someone to grab an ax and toss it at his head like, five pages in

⭐ score: 4 -- i teared up reading the final page and am not even sure why, maybe some line struck a chord or it was just the story coming to an end. but i never cry at anything so that has to be the sign of a great book