#if you like problematic romance though i guess i rec->

[scarysanctuary]

i watched a low budget film where the lead is in a wheelchair, and upon looking up the cast afterwards, i found out he uses one in real life as well, it made me so happy that the role was actually given to someone that uses a wheelchair, rather than someone that does not have a disability

[viridian-house]

Do you have any favorite naruto fics you’d recommend? Any pairing, complete or not, on-hiatus, gen, oneshots, anything is fine lol

I was legitimately just pruning my bookmarks the other day!! thank you so much for asking.

I don't read too much fanfic these days, and I'm picky when I do--only about grammar/punctuation and immersion though. I ship a LOT of stuff (I guess The Youth would call me a proshipper) and although I never read darkfic, I don't shy away from weirder kinks and unhealthy relationship stuff.

categorizing by pairing, if applicable. some of them are smutty, and please note that the first 3 come from FFN which doesn't have a tagging system, but there is some SA CW I'll give in advance.

KAKASAKU | my first OTP! formative fics that totally reshaped my understanding of what fanfiction could be, and how well-written chemistry can make it or break it

HOUSE OF CROWS is the quintessential kakasaku fanfic. it was written during shippuden and so is canon divergent because of that, but also tells a comprehensive story of its own right that is intriguing and well planned. excellent characterization and world building. leaves me gutted in the best way on my yearly reread.

DUTY BEFORE HONOR is another silvershine classic. I don't reread is as often as House of Crows but they are just about equal in quality. again, the chemistry between them is off the charts, and the world feels so alive.

WILL OF FIRE for me is up there with House of Crows in being essential kakasaku reading. cynchick is a multisaku champion and a wonderful storyteller. the stakes in this one are stressful, the romance tense and believable, and we once again get lovely world building and great chemistry.

ITAKISA | a pairing near and dear to me, because men who do everything wrong are so deeply relatable. they both know they don't deserve anything good ever again but they found each other!!!! ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS--

A SHARK HIDDEN INN THE LEAVES doesn't have my favorite version of Kisame, but he's plenty close enough. it's a lengthy oneshot that got me into certain *ahem* kinks. it is a very fun and wild fic that is entirely self-aware of how absurd it's being, and manages to have nothing but sincerity at the same time (and I highly recommend the author's other stories as well)

AN ORCHESTRA PLAYING ON, INSANE is a modern AU (extremely rare in my bookmarks) that absolutely tore my heart out. god is it SO much to ask for these losers to be happy?! yes, it is, and I love every moment of it

MADAMITO | a rarepair I am SUCH a sucker for that has some of the most talented authors writing for it. lots of them have ot3 elements between them and hashirama, often angsty, but stuff like that is part of the appeal for me, lol

A HANDFUL OF SKY is an unfinished fic that I genuinely think about like once a week. if it ever updates then I will be over the moon. technically hashimadamito but it hadn't quite gotten there yet

LIKE ALTARS is just such a beautiful piece of writing, mostly on madara. it is everything, that is all

BLOOD AND RIVER WATER is more mito-centric but has one of my favorite madaras of all time

YOURS ARE RATTLED BONES is another short, mito-centric but gut-wrenching piece featuring the opposite type of madara from the last one

OTHER | character-centric stuff that isn't necessarily shippy but also doesn't have a very "gen" vibe either?

A SERPENT IN THE RICE is a little series about orochimaru that makes me feel so so so many things. highly recommended

HERETIC is such a love letter to kushina, and kurama too. cannot stress enough how much I adore this one

there's a few others that I probably won't link on tumblr, mostly unhealthy and/or "problematic" smut hhfhdj but maybe I'll make a public rec list on ao3 for these different categories and stuff like that.

but yeah that's pretty much it!!! I know it's not a huge list with a lot of variety but it's what I've enjoyed over the last 15+ years in the naruto fandom.

[bylightofdawn]

I finished ME3 and whelp that end game was a fucking SLOG. OH MY GOD. It never ended. I ended up going with Control because I am a weak-willed paragon player at the end of the day. I will probably reload my save if I can and experiment with Destroy tomorrow though. Even though I did a shit ton of side-missions I guess my military assets still weren’t enough. I blame the fact I didn’t know the Reapors would breed like fucking lice and I prolly should have spent the first day just scanning for as much materials as I could because I did 95% of the side-missions that didn’t require scanning and I was only like 6000+

Fuck. My. Life.

Okay so my hot takes are as follows: I still love Shepard/Garrus. I was very heartbroken to break Kaidan’s heart by picking the sexy velociraptor over him.

Also, Garrus never gave me shit for picking up with Cerberus and I get why people dislike Kaidan. I still think his pluses outweigh the minuses and I am thinking of doing a m!Shep only trilogy playthrough where I romance him cause fuck I love war buddies falling in love and watching a friendship shift into something more trope. -cough cough- I’m looking at you Cortez and Vega. -cough cough-

Garrus also kinda reads as ver young and emotionally immature in a lot of ways. Like Shepard was definitely the first serious relationship he ever had. Fucks sake, this man’s idea of a date was to go and shoot things on top of the Citadel. And he cannot be smooth to save his poor Turian life. 

But that’s part of his charm, if I’m being honest. However compare that to the heartbreaking and emotionally vulnerable moments Shepard and Kaidan have, you can definitely tell the developers were more invested in that romance.

I ABJECTLY REFUSE to acknowledge they did my bae Kal’Reegar like they did and fucking offed him in a fucking email. N O P E. Sorry, rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated and he will drag his wounded ass home and surprise Tali by being alive. I will accept no other canon.

I fucking ship the hell out of Liara and Javik even though Javik is a super not-cool colonizer/ at times outright misogynist and I don’t know how I feel about this. It makes me uncomfortable but I guess that’s why you have problematic faves. So long as you are willing to acknowledge and accept that the shit they pull isn’t kosher and don’t try and defend it then it’s up for you to find that balance of on your morality scale.

But yeah even Citadel DLC hinted at that being a thing and yeah I ship it.

I don’t mind Garrus/Tali as much as I thought I was when going into ME3 and I know I kinda rudely labeled it as pair the spares but the more I think about it, the more I can see it. I mean, they have been with Shepard for years and I can totally see them building a bond. I would also be completely down for a Garrus/Tali slow-burn where Shepard/Garrus was a thing and now Garrus needs to find a way to conduct his life in a world without her being the pendulum on which his orbit revolves.

And I feel like Tali and Kaidan/Liara to a lesser extent are the people who would understand what it’s like trying to live in a world without her larger-than-life presence. I am also 1000% open to the idea of Garrus/Kaidan finding second chance love with one another with them grieving together over the loss of Shepard and HAVE in fact read some really awesome fanfics with that theme.

I’ve been reading SO MANY FANFICS during this playthrough and I have a shit ton of pairings, both crack and otherwise. I’m compiling a list of ME fanfic recs right now that I will gush about in ad nauseam later.

I got boned because I didn’t import from ME1 onwards so it felt like a personal attack and failing that Eve and Miranda died. I also didn’t have access to Kasumi or Zaheed which made me sad.

I just don’t think I’m up for sinking another 100+ hours into this series right this moment. I am debating buying Andromedea but the amount of bitching and whinging I’ve heard about it, I don’t know if it’s just fandom being a whiny titty baby because they ‘broke it’ or if it’s legitimate criticism.

I’m darkly amused that I am 2/2 in the talking at people long enough they would rather shoot themselves than listen to me pontificate any longer. First Saren and now the Illusive Man, Shepard really do be talking people quite literally to death with her care bear stares Paragon energy. 🤣 And yes I am dating myself horrifically with that reference.

I’m also debating picking up Dragon Age. I bought it on disk for PS3 I think but I’m not breaking that shit out to play a horrifically grainy near 20 year old title. Hopefully it has a remastered edition.

I’m glad I finally finished this series. I’ve legit been picking it up and putting it down for like 10 years at this point. Do I think it’s worth the hype everyone has given it? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh no? It’s serviceable and definitely a fun ride. I am super both confused and impressed with BioWare rehauling the gaming mechanics THREE DIFFERENT TIMES. Like, I respect the grind but why? I know everyone hated the Mako and none of use were sad to see it go but jeeze. I’m assuming there was a gaming engine difference between the three of them but still it’s not usual to have the gaming mechanics changed three different times and it gives it a bit of a haphazard vibe because of it.

I actually REALLY MISSED the hacking games in ME3. I suspect I’m prolly in the minority there but I would much rather have that fun code matching/icon matching memory style game over mashing buttons in ME1 or just having to sit there watching Shepard wave her hand around for 10 seconds while bypassing doors in ME3.

I hated only having access to three/eventually four weapons in ME2 but I liked it’s leveling up system the most. Class restricted weapons just didn’t do it for me. Being able to build your paragon/renegade level in ME1 is just weird and I’m glad they got away from that. I do feel like ME1 and ME3 were more similar in how they did their level scaling and I really liked being able to earn a special ability from one of your teammates if you invested enough time and effort into building a rapport with them. Whereas you could just buy it in ME2.

NGL I got Flare and didn’t look back at all. LMAO. What a stupidly OP ability. Banshee and Brutes? Eh toss some grenades and Flare at them and it ain’t a problem anymore.

There are other things but I think I’ve spazzed out long enough over this stupid video game trilogy.

[olderthannetfic]

hi hi history-non again, sorry I know it's a very

ahem wide and girthy ahem

ask, and i'm sorry for not narrowing it down farther my brain is smooth as butter and the dart board, so to speak, is. big. i feel like im throwing my dart in the ocean of 'what i don't know' and trying to spear a fish who might speak to me like the queer elder i never ha d ;lkasjd;flkas damn you small conservative town ANYWAYS

i guess okay maybe do you have any favourite figureheads? whats your fave pieces of lgbtqa+ media (like books or shows?)

thanks again and sorry for.

uh.

big.

--

Lolololol. Yes.... it’s so... big...

In the 90s, the writers of nonfiction who I found really inspirational were Susie Bright and Kate Bornstein. My Gender Workbook was a classic. I gather there’s a new edition.

I was a massive, massive nerd, so my actual favorite queer book as a 14-year-old is one that will be a bit... uh... much if you’re not feeling very intellectual. It’s Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. This thing is a massive doorstop of a book that collects academic journal articles on third gender roles from various cultures. I was obsessed with this thing. Again, it’s academic journal articles, not popular nonfiction, so expect that level of impenetrable prose.

I was also a giant weeb, so I read a bunch of books on the history of gay sex in Japan. It’s pretty interesting how much people assume the “m/m sex = sin” shit was worldwide and how much it just was not.

In terms of fiction, I’ve always struggled to find f/f media I relate to. I really like the tv adaptations of Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet. Lots of fucked up problematicness and gorgeous visuals. Gotta love the lady with the strap-on and the gold body paint!

For other queer media, I was a big fan of Velvet Goldmine and of Pedro Almodóvar’s older films, which are full of every problematic kink you can think of. They also have a lot of het I like, like the lady being coerced into sex (that she enjoys) by the drag queen who impersonates her famous mother she has a lot of mommy issues about... except said drag queen is really an undercover police officer. Just... whut. (All the “straight” stuff in Almodóvar’s films is also bugfuck nuts and often kind of queer.)

I really, really, really loved Crash. Not the shitty one that won an oscar: the car crash perverts one full of weird UST. There’s a ton of straight sex in this too, along with every gender combo and a laundry list of upsetting kinks. It’s just every kind of weird perv thing. (”Weird art film full of sex and problematicness” is pretty much the defining feature of movies I liked as a teen. I loved Kissed, that het necrophilia movie too.)

Stage Beauty is probably my favorite film for bi vibes. It’s this meditation on identity as the English stage was changing over from having men play women to having actual actresses. It ends in f/m, but it’s definitely a very queer film.

If you want slice of life stuff, I guess you could try Dykes to Watch Out For (the comic that’s the source of the bechdel test) or the Tales of the City novel series. These will both give you a sense of what was going on in certain queer communities in the late 20thC. If you want something relatively fluffy, Maurice is a historical costume drama with a happy ending. I found it awfully slow as a college student, but it does have naked Rupert Graves (Lestrade from Sherlock), so...

----

See, this is hard to answer because I came of age and did all of my reading of that kind a long time ago. I pretty quickly moved on to fangirl media, which I have always liked a lot better than other arguably queer stuff. Back in the 90s, that meant Japanese stuff and fic. Later, I had access to more flavors of by-fujoshi-for-fujoshi media.

So my actual favorite m/m books are a bunch of “m/m romance” (i.e. American BL being sold as ebooks on amazon). If you want live action TV and fandomy vibes, you’re better off with Trapped (hot cop/mobster action!) or one of those Thai series about schoolboys or something than stuff made by cis gay men in the US.

I also came of age in an era when “queer” media was very Cis Gay Men And Sometimes Cis Lesbians with an occasional nod to bi people existing... maybe. Kate Bornstein and a few others were raising the profile of MtF transsexuals (the term in use at the time) who wanted surgery or even, gasp, maybe didn’t want bottom surgery in some cases. Anything about FtMs or nb/agender/etc. identities was practically invisible. I saw the term ‘genderqueer’ around a bit, but it was mostly in contexts that were very tryhard and unappealing to me.

(You haven’t given any details, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re like much of tumblr and the flavors of queerness you relate to aren’t so much the Cis Gay Men Only culture that makes up quite a bit of queer history and older queer media.)

I can tell you what I liked as a teen, but not everybody is into fucked up art films that may not have happy endings. I can try to rec things about queer culture in the 90s, but I probably don’t have great recs for way earlier or later than that... unless it’s so much earlier that I’ve researched it while writing fic of some historical canon or other. A lot of how I learned about queer culture myself was from magazines or from reading soc.bi on usenet or just from living through the 90s--not typically from books that are easy to unearth and just hand to someone now.

I tend to just not like anything in the contemporary romance or slice of life genres, regardless of gender and orientation, so while I’ve watched/read a bit more queer stuff like this, especially in the past when I had less access to queer media, it’s not a space I’m great at reccing in. And that’s unfortunate because a lot of that type of art gives you a better sense of what other queer people were like in other eras and/or it’s a safer rec than some bananas crazy BDSM film.

I was, and am, very kinky (though pretty lazy in terms of actual practice), so a lot of my reading and media interest was bound up in that also. Obviously, I was quite interested in the drawings of Tom of Finland or the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, but are you going to be into photos of some guy shoving a whip handle in his ass? I love the movie Cruising... it’s about serial killers and leather and homophobia and is every bit as potentially traumatizing as that sounds.

I feel you on the problem of finding queer elders. There isn’t really an obvious way to go about this.

[lgbtqreads]

Do you have any f/f dark romance recs? Like something that would read like all of those kindle unlimited, wattpad inspired more problematic romances...but like gay? I haven’t been able to find anything and sometimes us gay girls like a little kink too :(

If you don’t mind bi rather than gay (which I mention specifically because there are m/f and m/f/f scenes in it too), Black Iris is a good fit for this. I guess Cam Girl too (same author), though again, not quite f/f but also not not. (Trying not to overly spoil, but I know readers very strictly want women. I do think these are the best fits, though.)

[dsudis]

Hey, so I have a vague memory of you saying you were reading the Witcher books? Are they good? Would you recommend them?

Okay so the thing is that given the state of the world and my mental health, I have a real hard time reading anything that is not a romance novel, which the Witcher books are very not, so my experience of them is not apt to be the same as anyone else’s who is not experiencing that. (But hey anyone who is, remind me to rec some lovely romances because hooboy have I read a lot of them since I last suggested any to anyone.)

That said, I’m pretty sure that it is objectively true that the Witcher books read very much like what they are, which is a series of fantasy novels written by a dude in Poland in the late 80s and 90s, so his efforts to write Powerful Female Characters are, uh, problematic by current standards, and also there’s a lot of rape and a lot of coded fantasy antisemitism baked into the worldbuilding. (Not, to be clear, in a way where I think Sapkowski himself is in any way antisemitic, but in the way where his writing reflects the big awful cultural conflict that is most salient to a Polish guy, and that’s mostly antisemitism. And misogyny. So much misogyny.)

Also, the first two books, which formed the basis for the first TV season, are a series of disconnected stories/novellas, so if you are looking for a really coherent version of those events, you will not find one. You will also not find much or any illumination as to Ciri and Yennefer’s backstories or internal narratives because those were mostly created/extrapolated for the show, to give them more equal weight with Geralt, who is the central POV character for those stories. You also don’t get a lot more of Geralt’s internal experience, for that matter, because the POV is not the riding-behind-the-eyes tight-third-person that I think I tend to expect as a default narrative experience; it’s a bit more of the camera riding over Geralt’s shoulder, so you sometimes get an idea of his thoughts/feelings but you often don’t.

Also also holy shit book Jaskier is so much worse. I hate him so much you guys oh my god. So much. Um. Other people don’t though, that one might just be me fixating on his worst moments in the books I’ve read so far.

Uhhh anyway, all that said, other than that they’re pretty good I guess?

I’ve only read the first two books and read/listened to the audiobook of about 5/6 of Blood of Elves. I mostly am persevering, inasmuch as I am, because I want to get to the books where Geralt is traveling around getting in adventures with his D&D party including his vampire BFF, and also from a morbid curiosity to know just exactly how awful a person book Emhyr is, which is, uh, not entirely a recommendation. Obviously. But again, I am also not a person who reads fantasy novels for funsies in any case so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[jinxofthedesert]

Hi there!!! It is the same anon that requested some fic recs ☺ Thank you so much! I may give them a read! They look very interesting! But tbh I'm looking for fics that deal with some more in-depth approach to the twins' psychology and character (I don't mind the romance. In fact, I think it's a really interesting plus to the story when handled well).

(Below this is the rest of the messages, put together. Farther down, below the line, are my responses)  

 I’ve usually seen that the twins are portrayed as soft, loving and caring guys with their partners without real motives for such drastic change of dynamics in their twisted personalities. I mean, the usual Valeska centered fic goes like this: they meet the OC in Arkham or during their childhood in the circus and for some reason they reunite in the present, and then it is just the twins somehow falling for them, changing their whole way of being and only wanting to bang the OC the whole time (without taking into account the lack of the OC's inner conflict about loving such twisted men, because these OCs usually are "sane" and good people that somehow are dragged into the twins' world and for some reason they just fall in love with them without questioning it). But for me the least realistic thing about these fics is that the twins become super nice guys all of a sudden. I mean of course there can be character develoment and growth (up to a certain point), but I haven't really found a story that contains such deep explanation. Let's face it, they're still psychos no matter what, even if they have a partner.  In the last season we get a glimpse of how Jeremiah treats Ecco, someone that he used to appreciate and care for deeply, and she still meant little to him. So it doesn't add up to me when the twins are magically turned into these super sweet caring guys while their twisted, evil and manipulative side is completely ignored. I am not saying they can't love, I am just saying that they surely have their own twisted perception of what love is 🤔 Sorry for my rambling, damn, it took soooooo many comments hahaha!!! OMG, Sorry!😂😂 I had a LOT to say 😂😂😂 But I just find these characters very interesting and I would love to read a story with a more realistic approach to the construction of their personalities (and their twisted way of loving too!). Let me know, please, if you happen to know about some fics/authors 😘 thanks again! 

- - - - - - - - -  Hi again, anon! I’m sorry my list of content in the previous ask wasn’t exactly what you were looking/hoping for. As of right now, besides the ones I sent you that may delve a little bit below the surface, I can’t think of a true ‘character study’ type story that I have read so far. But, again, I usually stay in the area of romance so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are such fics out there under a different genre.

I’ll be quite honest, it’s been a very long time since I’ve read any oc/(input character here), including ones with the twins. Normally, I forget they exist until someone brings it up or I stumble across one on Tumblr accidentally. I do agree, the twins suddenly changing for an OC (or anyone) can be a bit unrealistic but from my years of reading and writing, creating stories with such things is a bit of ‘wish fulfillment’ which, to be honest, isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes a reader just needs content that is kind of good-feeling type fic (though not in a sense of how murderous the twins can be but in them getting some kind of positivity in their lives, whether it be through an OC or another character in the universe). When I wrote Oc’s at the beginning, it was either wish fulfillment for me or simply just wanting these characters I adored to finally have some kind of happy ending which they probably did not deserve, at all. 

A reason you might not find such content is also because, character studies are hard. Especially if you don’t have a complete picture of the character. With the twins, a lot is just coming up with stuff, imaging their past and how it still affects them, even if, on the upper layer we’re shown, doesn’t portray those scars left behind. 

With Oc’s, they can usually be pretty hit or miss. It’s not like you’re taking an already known character with known flaws and putting them in your story. Those characters have a foundation already built. For an Oc, the writer has to literally make someone from the ground up, which is equally as hard without making them seem too whiny, too mary-sue like, or just too problematic. This can leave a lot to be desired which can create something unrealistic as well. That’s why I usually only look for content centered around characters from the show, instead of Oc’s; like with Bruce and the twins because canon-wise there is already something there (depending on how you look at it and write it). 

In regard to Ecco: firstly, I think it’s arguable what type of relationship she even has with Jeremiah when we first are introduced to them. We’re shown some concern on his end when she’s clearly been hypnotized but this can be seen as a boss concerned for an employee, an employee who he’s probably had for awhile now and is one of the very rare few who he trusts to an extent. However, we just don’t know much of anything about their relationship or past together. She might have hardly seen him, only contacting him through phone calls and text messages; she may have only brought him supplies through the maze and never was in his inner personal areas. This treatment is all possible given how Jeremiah is quite literally a paranoid mess before the spray, no matter how well put-together he appears. And, if we’re to compare this to his eventual obsession with Bruce Wayne, we can take a guess that Jeremiah and Ecco probably didn’t get very deep with this connection they had. Mainly because with just a few compliments, Jeremiah is invested in Bruce, something we don’t see with Ecco before or after the spray. So we have Bruce enter the picture (someone who has run into his twin on multiple occasions, a fact Jeremiah must know to some extent with his paranoia probably leading him to constantly check newspapers and the news for info on Jerome) and, if you look at things from Jeremiah’s perspective, besides complimenting him, Bruce looks at him and only sees Jeremiah. And this would be baffling to Jeremiah if he knows the affect Jerome has had on Bruce, for him to look at Jeremiah and not see his twin after everything would be just as big a compliment as anything because it’s differentiating him from his twin. Someone who has probably feared being compared to his brother, for people to look at him and only see Jerome (such as what occurs with Jim and Harvey only hours prior). Because of this, when compared to Ecco, we can deduce that either their conversations never went in such a direction, or she hardly had the extended physical contact to ever bring up Jerome or compare or compliment. If so, it’s possible with how Jeremiah is that something similar could have happened with Ecco. And this eventually leads into the spray where his only true attachment is not Ecco but with Bruce, especially, after his initial spray, Jeremiah’s hatred for Jerome is far worse than it had been before, making Bruce’s assessment of Jeremiah simply being himself and not his brother, far more endearing as well. So, in comparison to Bruce, Ecco means absolutely nothing to him, a means to an end. 

I’ll admit, reading content where the twins are somehow in a relationship (with an oc or canon character) while still being rather insane, are quite interesting. However, for stuff like that to work in a compelling and ‘actual’ way, characters like that have to be bent because these characters logistically working in that kind of environment may never be realistic anyways. This can be worked around of course, but it takes so much time and effort; even now, as I write my stories for Gotham, I’m still trying to work around how to make these ships work for the twins because they’re stubborn and although they have obsessions they, at their cores are not good people and while they may try, seriously try to better themselves, there will always be slip-ups.

I do agree, they can love but it would always be twisted in some way or another (look no further than Jeremiah with Bruce). They’re also a lot of fun to take apart and analyze or try and come up with a type of background that works with all the hints we’ve been given. Background-wise, the twins are really something a writer can make their own which is an interesting concept.

This turned more so into a long ramble of writing and Ocs and lots of Gotham lol but anyways, I wish I could give you a story to fit your needs. I quite hate when I have an itch for certain fics and I either can’t find them or the number of fics is so daunting that I don’t dare even try. I would recommend just going through them, possibly looking for complete content first, or ones with high hits or kudos (depending on the site you’re searching on) because I don’t have any at the moment I can suggest. 

(Honestly the ideas for the twins never stop coming lol, perks of their backgrounds and everything else being so hazy.)

I hope some of this message was at least interesting lol and I do wish you luck in finding good twin content that delves into their character or, maybe you’ll get lucky and someone will publish something like that soon! Either way, I hope you find something 😘

[sometimesrosy]

I’m putting my summer reading list together and was wondering if you had any good book recommendations. Any genre will do.

I should be better at this than I am, but I generally have a hard time keeping track of my favorites in my head and people able to recall them for when people ask me. Maybe I should keep a list of books to rec. Hey that’s kind of a good thing to put on my website. Why didn’t I ever think of that before? Then I wouldn’t have to remember it all the time and I’d also have a list of influences. I should seriously consider that. hmm

The only thing I can think of now is a book series that I recently picked up again after recommending it to a friend because I thought there was a romance in it that reminded me of Bellarke. So why don’t I do that one.

It’s called the Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb, and the first book is called Ship of Magic.

In my memory, I made the bellarke-like characters into the main characters, but when I went back over it, I realized that their story was one of multiple interwoven stories.  I was in a bellarke mood, so I actually ended up doing a shipping kind of edit while I read and skipped through to all the chapters about the bellarke-like characters, so I ended up reading THEIR story. It got tricky at the end of the series when all the stories came together and I hadn’t caught up on the other characters… but I managed. Quite well. I’d never read these books this way, and because I was in a bellarke mood, I suddenly wondered if the reason why I resonated with Bellarke so strongly was actually because they reminded me of THIS couple.

Anyway, so now that I’ve recd a book based on shipping bellarke. The series is actually a fantasy. This series is about a family of shiptraders who own a living, magic ship. The daughter, Althea, wants to inherit the ship, but when her father dies, it goes to her brother in law instead, a man who is not one of them and doesn’t understand the strange burden of these ships. To save the family from bankruptcy, he turns to slave trading– a very bad mistake for a very sensitive ship. It tells the story not only of Althea, but also of her mother and sister and niece back in the trading town, and her nephew and ship. And pirates! LOTS OF PIRATES. And sea serpents. And a female character dressed as a man. And exotic riches. And a mysterious veiled people. And political plots. And people falling in love. And silly selfish girls growing up to be unstoppable. And the mystery of the dragons, who have gone from the world. Or have they?

This is set in the world of the Farseer books, Fitz and the Fool, (kings and queens, bastard princes, animal magic, high magic, magic zombies, betrayal, more dragons, a strange character who sometimes makes prophecies.) The first book of that is Assassin’s Apprentice.

All these books are interconnected and, in the end, about the fate of the dragons, and the prophecies that are trying to set the world back on the right track. There is a little bit of crossover between the trader books and the fitz books, but it’s subtle, and i don’t want to give it away. I can easily recommend starting with the Assassin books, as it’s one of my favorite series, and Fitz is a great character. So if you’d rather read about northern barbarian royalty in a political battle and the bastard prince who has both the noble high magic and base beast magic in his blood, and also ends up saving everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, at the cost to his own soul and body, then read this one first. If you’d rather read about pirates and a magic ship, then read the liveship. If you want, like, to lose yourself in another world all summer, start with the Assassin books, then read the Liveship books, then go back to the Fitz and Fool books, because those follow a couple of the characters from the Assassin books as they get older and the plots thicken. Also. More dragons. You can actually watch Fitz get older. The first book is him as a boy. He saves the world, yadda yadda, grows up, and in each following series he grows up more and saves the world again. Real, actual maturing. 

Now these books CAN be very dark. But if you like The 100, with it’s strong characters fighting for their lives and souls, and suffering for it, and victories at a cost, then you might like this book. It’s not fluffy. At all. There is torture. Lots of it. Abusive childhoods. Adopted families. Tragedy aplenty. Broken hearts. Death. But it’s also engaging and addictive and sweeping and dramatic and epic. I would put Robin Hobb on a par with GRR Martin, but a woman. Do expect that kind of pain though, but the stories are more feminist. And it’s actually more original and less traditional.

Now I don’t look for this when I read, and this isn’t a “PC” book, meaning expect characters to be problematic and stupid sometimes, but it addresses some social and identity issues. For instance, the country of Farseers, inland, is mostly white. But the coast and the Farseers themselves are definitely not. They were barbarian raiders, and darker skinned with black hair, so the kings and princes, while it doesn’t SAY their ethnicity, seem to be a kind of northern native american/asian-viking kind of hybrid. Maybe like if Mongolians were seafaring like the vikings. The barbarian raiders conquered the land and settled down to rule it. But the barbarian raiders are still out there raiding. And the soft, white inland farmers still want to be in control. But the publishing industry the way it is, I feel like they play that down. The Farseers are not white, but they do intermarry with the white inland duchies. And to the south is a country of slavers, (not racially motivated) who no one likes. And when they do like them? Expect them to be evil. lol. There are also multiple disabled characters. Heroic ones. Gosh I can’t actually spoil on that one, either, but it’s kind of a plot point in many of the series. Geez Robin. I did not even REALIZE how much this matters to you. (ALTHOUGH, she did write a story about an obese character. And I don’t mean chubby. I mean OBESE, it’s part of his magic. It isn’t my favorite of hers, Soldier’s Son Trilogy. Not set in the world of Fitz. It figures that none of the book covers show him as fat.) She writes about those people that society discards. Always. 

And. Well. I don’t really want to give it away, because it’s kind of a big part of the story, but I’d call the Farseer books lgbt. Not because there is a typical wlw or mlm love story… uhm… but… Ugh. I can’t give it away. Let’s just say there’s a non binary major character. Who you will love. Who I love. I’ve never seen anything like them. Main character. V. Important. You have to really read the whole story to unravel it all, though. Like ALL the books. It’s epic. Cannot express enough my love for this character. Cannot tell you more specifically because their life and story is intrinsically plot related. But trust me it’s amazing, particularly if you’d like to read an LGBT story about the letters other than L or G. Yes. I think that’s the best way to describe it. I wouldn’t want you to think that it’s a typical L/G story because you might be disappointed not to see that. There are an awful lot of hetero romances. But…. There is an epic story running through all the books and it ain’t cishet. But it takes so long to develop, you have to invest in it. Dudes. It’s worth it. 

Wow. That’s a lot of gushing. I guess that’s my rec.

[fridge246]

@bookhobbit​

...So here’s a bunch of fic recs for Lord of the Rings fic in response to your post requesting some... I wrote some notes about whether or not there was romance and how much worldbuilding there was... i have no idea what you have read already so i just kind of put down everything i could remember off the top of my head!

...I haven’t read some of these fics for years so I may have forgotten some problematic elements (or not noticed them... i was a different person at 15/16 :\) ...or i may not have accurately remembered the writing quality... I have no idea if your tastes even match mine... actually i’m kind of nervous you won’t like any of them ha  but here we go anyway:

Lindelea: LOTS of Hobbits, and detailed worldbuilding on Hobbit society. Not all of her writing is romance-free but theres SO MUCH of it that the non-romance content is still a considerable amount. Does a good job of treating Hobbits as a real society instead of innocent children or silly and oblivious. (though she’s also good at comedy... there’s just an enormous range of fic)

 Going, Going, Gone is a pretty good and fairly short fic with an interesting premise even if it’s not one of her more worldbuilding-heavy ones (also it has rosie and frodo being friends) and she also wrote a good one about the history of how the Shire began which has LOTS of worldbuilding ...but also is 90% OCs

Canafinwe: Low on the Hobbits but really REALLY good at making Middle Earth feel REAL and filling in worldbuilding gaps (especially the interpersonal and political dynamics- everything is fully fleshed out and complex it’s GREAT). and she writes Gilraen really well! The only romance i can recall is a little bit of Aragorn/Arwen but that’s done... well literally the best I’ve ever seen it done EVER, and it’s very understated. Just. all around character dynamics are realistic and A+ aaaaand i could go on for a week so i’ll stop.

...the fic A Long and Weary Way is really good but can get kind of grim/painful... if you want to skip right to the part that has more interpersonal interaction it’d probably work to start at chapter 55 or 56 instead of the begining. Everything else is ....less continuously harsh? so maybe start with one of her other fics. I’m not up to date with her newest fic since it’s still in progress, but it seems to be of a consistent level of excellent with the others!

...i guess start with one of the short stories or this one *shrugs*

Soledad: does some good versions of Hobbits and Dwarves! (pre-hobbit-movie dwarves no less! a rare treasure) I remember really liking Elf-root and a couple of other ones.

Nothing of Note by Primsong lots of hobbits, and Bilbo goes on a trip around the Shire+the land just outside so we get to see some worldbuilding up close! excellent Bilbo and Frodo friendship/family relationship and a nice balance of funny and serious. It’s long though. The author wrote some fic with dwarves, but I haven’t read it *shrugs*

Less Worldbuilding, More Hobbits?

...er also i got a little bit carried away so some of these might not have a total worldbuilding focus ...of course people still have to build most of hobbit society from scratch so there’s at least some? it’s always nice to see which names off the Hobbit family trees get turned into actual characters

Dreamflower: lots of Hobbits...! and she does a little bit of Shire history too! 

on the non-worldbuild-y side of things her Eucatastrophe series is an AU where Frodo only needs to sail West for a short time and then returns the shire... i remember it being pretty good, if blatantly a AU for Happy Ending Purposes 

Thundera Tiger: i don’t really remember much about her fic?... i think she writes good gapfillers...? also Fey is just a good mystery story all on it’s own- and it adds in a bit of worldbuilding which is a plus?

Gamgeefest: pretty good Hobbits but i think sometimes their writing strays into movie-verse territory? movie-verse appearances anyway i think? but I don’t 100% remember. Anyway, just read this one shot if nothing else... and i remember this fic being kind of fun and also having some worldbuilding/cultural exchange?

Larner: can get a little... “character infodumps exposition” at times but pretty good at writing Hobbits and their society!

Budgielover: i remember really liking this author back in the day but i don’t 100% remember everything... ? might get a little bit ‘and then people prank each other’ but it’s been years so idk 

Cairistiona: is one of my personal top favorites so she goes on the list even though she only has a couple stories with Hobbits! Very good at OCs that feel natural and does some worldbuilding of the towns/culture in the areas her fic is usually set. 

there’s a LOT more i could try to track down... i spent like two YEARS obsessively reading every scrap of decent LotR fic i could get my hands on, and it’s all kind of a blur now ha... but yeah these were what came to mind. There was one more person who did excellent worldbuilding but i just can’t remember their name or any fic titles :\ i’ll figure it out eventually

random extra bonus fic rec

just this chapter of this fic it’s Frodo and Feanor having a chat due to a chance meeting in Valinor after the end of Lord of the Rings. 110% better than it sounds but it does have a bit of not-third-age stuff so i’m not officially putting it on the rec list. it’s one of the few ‘elves of legend meet hobbits’ that actually works and treats both characters with respect and dignity. There’s actually quite a bit of worldbuilding just because they’re both curious about the other’s culture/background. Also they talk about linguistics a lot and it’s fun?? idk it’s hard to explain. there’s footnotes!

[piesandswords]

maybe Holster for the character headcanon thing?? ^~^

1. sexuality headcanon: okay i know that i literally just said that i imagined jack as demiro bi? well i see holster as aro bi. i think my reasoning for this is i just highkey project onto his relationship with ransom which is qpr goals for me.

2. otp: so kinda holsom but as a qpr. like, i’m fine with them romantically, but they’re so awesome.

3. brotp: …. holsom. (is that cheating? that might be cheating.) if that’s cheating, let’s go with… bitty. i like how they bond over being giant messes and music.

4. notp: honestly? also bitty and holster. this more has to do with how much i ship zimbits but i also don’t think they would work very well as a couple. sometimes people who are really good friends are not necessarily meant for romance.

5. first headcanon that pops into my head: holster was once given a pair of salmon shorts by his sister. he keeps them buried in the back of his closet at his house. ransom can never know.

6. one way in which I relate to this character: okay so hi i’m aroace and he and ransom are qpr goals. other than that, i too love musical theater and parks and rec.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: he’s? so? loud? (so am i though…) he eats too many eggs. i hate that. why do you have so many eggs. put those down. you are just stuffing them in your mouth. stop this. oh god.8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave: cinnamon roll, i guess.

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