#spoilers for all the book plots

[bomberqueen17]

Liveblogging the Aubreyad: Book 3, HMS Surprise (part 1)

This one, I made notes on my phone while listening to the audiobook, so we shall see how well I distill them.

The series is hitting its stride now as a series, I think. M&C was kind of oneshottish, no real expectation of continuation; Post Captain was the pleased "oh! i get another one? great!" where he then crammed in three books' worth into one, and now HMS S is "ah. this is a series! Settle this plot down, then." pacing-wise.

So we pick up with politicians wrangling over the aftermath of the previous book, which had seemed to end so tidily and on such a happy note. Of course that is not the end-- there's a series now.

So at the end of the previous book, Jack was one of five captains sharing out a prize of some several million pounds, and this would have made him enormously wealthy and guaranteed his marriage. Of course.

In the opening scene of this one we hear that, legally, Spain had not declared war on Britain at the time, so legally, that money is not prize money, so legally, it should just be kept entirely for the government and not distributed to the sailors and officers who actually did the fighting at all, despite that being the well-established custom of the day. Legally, see, they don't have to hand it out, even though the people who designed the mission, and the people who executed the mission, all felt certain that it was a legit prize at the time and acted accordingly.

Stephen's friend Sir Joseph, head of Naval Intelligence, is arguing that of course it should be prize money, for large numbers of very good reasons, not least that he designed the mission with that in mind.

But the new First Lord of the Admiralty is a civilian politician. And he openly mentions Stephen Maturin's name, despite the fact that Sir Joseph had stressed to him that the man is a confidential agent. The First Lord does not catch the hint. And then he asks who the captains are, and remembers that Jack Aubrey's father is an opposition member in Parliament, and immediately Sir Joseph knows that it's over; this is political wrangling now, and this man will make a decision that harms the national interest and the morale of the service and everything else simply because General Aubrey is a politician he does not like.

So there is no prize money. And Jack is not out of debt. And cannot marry Sophie. And, far far far worse, Stephen's name is now exposed to a crowd of non-confidential people of no particular discretion, particularly marked as a secret agent with knowledge of Spanish affairs.

Anyway-- zooming out from that crackerjack first scene, and it is despite how it sounds, it's really well-told political intrigue with a very good layering of easy-to-understand, easy-to-deplore bullshit (and Admiral Harte gets his shitty little nose in there being a massive hypocrite, have no fear) -- the general situation is thus:

Jack, still in the Lively, is in the Med bottling up the French fleet in Toulon, and is engaged to Sophie-- legally, with all kinds of avaricious wrangles from Mrs. Williams, all the terms and conditions he acquiesced to unprotesting, so that Sophie will legally own most of their joint property. Diana has run off to India with Canning; Stephen has been collecting intelligence on them, though mostly it seems for the purpose of hurting himself with it. Stephen is to go to Minorca to do more intelligence stuff despite the fact that his name has been exposed-- the news will not have reached them, Stephen says coolly, declining to cancel the mission.

The Lively has a schoolmaster to oversee the young gentlemen's lessons. (Prior to being a midshipman, a young gentleman will be expected to have served three years of sea time, with the status of First Class Volunteer; many are listed as servants during this time, and many of them do not actually report to the ship during this time-- entering a friend's son on one's books to say he was on a ship long enough that when he joins he can just start as a midshipman with no waste of time is a perfectly accepted kind of little fraud, very common in Jack's social circles. "Young gentleman" as a category seems to include both the volunteers and rated midshipmen. But the Lively has a number of quite young gentlemen actually aboard, including the five-year-old [or, seven. he was five in the previous book but in this book, some weeks later, he is now seven] son of one of the lieutenants, as he came home from a voyage to find his wife dead and no family remaining to care for the child, so the little boy has been onboard ever since. Apparently Babbington may actually have still been a volunteer during some of the events of Master and Commander, but of course this is not consistently represented. I fully support an author doing whatever the hell he wants with timelines, and it is absolutely consistent with the inconsistency of historical records, LOL.)

Anyway-- Jack also actually went to sea as a volunteer very young, and the ship he was on did not have a competent schoolmaster, so he has suffered his entire life from not a very good education. He is sitting in on the young gentlemen's lessons ostensibly because he is concerned for them and wants to ensure they learn what they must, but in practice, he is taking advantage of this opportunity to get a proper thorough grounding in his own education, belatedly, and is thereby unlocking a real true love of mathematics, heretofore only instinctively guessed-at.

The Lively has seen long prior service in the South Pacific, and as such has a number of Asian crew members aboard. (So we do now see the word Chinaman occur, which unlike Indiaman does refer to humans, but is used as a neutral descriptor; I will nevertheless henceforth be avoiding its use, though to be fair I think it only occurs once in the book anyway.) Jack is pleased with the Chinese and Malayan crewmen, largely, as they all are unfailingly polite and have a number of useful skills, and are excellent seamen. But he finds out during an elaborate cutting-out expedition that many of them had formerly been pirates; they slaughter their opponents with absolutely stunning efficiency in a quite practiced manner despite how little combat the Lively itself has seen.

They make for Minorca to pick up Stephen but he does not make the rendezvous. Another Catalan man appears, and says Stephen has been taken, and is being tortured by the French in Port Mahon. Jack knows the city. With the Catalans, he sets up a rescue mission, and frees the prisoners, burns the house (coincidentally, the house where Captain and Molly Harte used to live), and rescues Stephen, who has had all his fingernails pulled out and has been stretched on a rack. (Touchingly, he has hallucinated Jack coming in to rescue him before, and so when it truly happens, is surprisingly calm, mistaking it for another hallucination.) It is a taut little action, badass as fuck. The officers of the Lively are disappointed when Jack won't take them, but this is not an official sanctioned expedition and there will be no glory, no report, no credit, no advancement of career-- it is simply a pragmatic necessity, and he wants only people who know the ground (his own people, Killick and Bonden) plus enough to pad out the numbers to make it work, so he takes those of the Chinese and Malay pirates who choose to volunteer, since this is just the ticket for them. (All of them volunteer.)

(A side note. The Catalan who helps them is named Joan. The audiobook narrator pronounces this Catalan man's name, which in Spanish would be Juan, and is pronounced the same, as the English woman's name Joan. Come on Simon. I believed in you.)

They get Stephen and get out, and we resume the tale in England with Stephen staying at an inn in Portsmouth. The Lively has been handed back over to her real captain, Hammond, at Gibraltar.

Jack is immediately arrested for debt as he tries to get the invalid Stephen into a carriage to go from Portsmouth to London, so off he goes to a sponging-house, hero or no; he goes quietly and resignedly. Sir Joseph Blaine is shocked to hear that heroic Jack is imprisoned; he had arranged for at least a consolation, an ex gratia payment, for the captains who were denied prize rights over the Spanish treasure, but it comes out that the agent has been slow in paying it out, and Jack is helpless without it. Blaine resolves to see it settled, at least, and does-- Jack is released. At least provisionally; there are other debts.

Sir Joseph, in his gratitude for Stephen's rescue, gets Jack another ship-- HMS Surprise, on an errand to carry an emissary to Kampong. It's a good long mission in a lovely ship (in which Jack served as a midshipman long ago), and he hopes it will give Jack's affairs time to settle.

Stephen turns to Bonden, asking him to write a letter for him, since his hands are so injured, and it comes out abruptly that Bonden is illiterate.

'Bonden,' cried Stephen, 'take pen and ink, and write -' 'Write, sir?' cried Bonden. 'Yes. Sit square to your paper, and write: Landsdowne Crescent - Barret Bonden, are you brought by the lee?' 'Why, yes, sir; that I am - fair broached-to. Though I can read pretty quick, if in broad print; I can make out a watch-bill.' 'Never mind. I shall show you the way of it when we are at sea, however: it is no great matter - look at the fools who write all day long - but it is useful, by land. You can ride a horse, sure?' 'Which I have rid a horse, sir; and three or four times, too, when ashore.'

Bonden takes the message on foot, and goes and fetches Sophie and Pullings, Sophie to write the letter from Stephen to Jack, and Pullings to carry it. This allows them to arrange for Sophie to come along to the rendezvous, so that she can see and speak to Jack briefly without her mother's knowledge. Jack had tried to release her from the engagement when his renewed troubles with debt became apparent, but she wished to refuse, but could not speak to him directly about it, so this is their chance.

She sneaks out at night and goes in the coach with Stephen, and there gets a half an hour (well, forty-five minutes; Stephen with the timepiece is soft-hearted) of conversation with Jack before they must part ways, her to go home and sneak back in to her house, Stephen and Jack to go on to the Surprise, waiting in Plymouth.

The Surprise makes her way off around the world, saddled with a moderately ineffectual but amiable first lieutenant named Hervey who has influential friends, and a second lieutenant named Nicolls who is inoffensive if clearly suffering from major depression, but with Tom Pullings as the third lieutenant, competent and familiar. They are becalmed awhile, and Jack teaches Stephen to swim-- badly, but at all, which is an accomplishment.

'Did you see me?' [Stephen] cried as Jack came nearer. 'I swam the entire length: four hundred and twenty strokes without a pause!' 'Well done,' said Jack, swinging himself into the boat with an easy roll. 'Well done indeed.' Each stroke must have propelled Stephen a little less than three inches, for the Surprise was only a twenty-eight gun ship, a sixth-rate of 579 tons - the kind so harshly called a jackass frigate by those not belonging to her. 'Should you like to come aboard? Let me give you a hand.'

Some of the men get scurvy. They run short of supplies and are down to eating rats, which they euphemistically term "millers" out of absurd delicacy. Stephen has pet rats, he is feeding them madder as an experiment.

They find St. Paul's Rocks, where Stephen begs to be put ashore for a moment to study the birds. Jack declines, as it is Sunday and one cannot ask the men to work on Sunday, but the second lieutenant Nicolls volunteers to take him over in the little rowboat for a few hours.

A sudden squall damages the ship and washes poor depressed Nicolls away, along with the little boat; Stephen survives, but is stranded, and the Surprise driven away by the wind. Some undefined time later (two days?), Babbington comes in the barge with Bonden and others rowing double-banked in a great hurry straight into the eye of the wind where the ship herself could not come, certain the Doctor must be dead but hoping against hope to find him. They do, alive, and bring him back to the ship.

Stephen claims that the extreme heat on the shelter-less rock has worked miracles on his torture-twisted tendons.

'I wish you joy of your rescue, Doctor,' said Mr Atkins, the only man aboard who was not pleased to see the barge return: Stephen was attached to the mission in an artfully vague capacity, and the envoy's instructions required him to seek Dr Maturin's advice; Mr Atkins's advice or indeed presence was nowhere mentioned and he was consumed with jealousy. 'May I fetch you a towel or some other garment?'- with a look at Stephen's scrofulous shrunken belly. 'You are very officious, sir; but this is the garment in which I shall appear before God; I find it answers pretty well. It may be termed my birthday suit.' 'That has choked the bugger off,' said Pullings to Babbington, just above his breath, out of a motionless face. 'That is one in his bleeding eye.'

During Stephen's absence, however, he finds that someone has stolen his rats, and he is furious.

Babbington is given an acting promotion to lieutenant to replace Nicolls. His perfect delight in this is marred only by his guilt at having, along with the rest of the larboard midshipmen's berth, eaten Stephen's rats, and he blubberingly confesses. Stephen revenges himself only mildly for this offense.

Jack wished to avoid putting ashore in Brazil, to avoid official delays, but Stephen suggests they just find a village and buy green stuff there, which works. Stephen of course has to go ashore. He promises not to return with any vampires, but in the event comes back with a three-toed sloth, which does not like Jack. Jack wins it over by giving it grog, in time-honored sailor fashion. Stephen discovers this and is indignant, leading to possibly the funniest line in this book:

Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.'

The dignitaries aboard are annoying and take up an enormous amount of space, including Jack's entire great cabin, so that he must room with Stephen in a smaller space. The envoy himself, a Mr. Stanhope, is dignified and kind (though a bit remote: "Once he had established that Jack and Hervey were connected with families he knew, he treated them as human beings; all the others as dogs - but as good, quite intelligent dogs in a dog-loving community"), but his head secretary, Mr. Atkins, is an officious, self-important, tale-bearing busybody universally loathed onboard.

Stephen teaches Bonden to read and write. They have their lessons up in the top, for privacy-- Bonden is not keen to be mocked on his scholarly habits, and hides the book when the midshipman Callow comes up to deliver a message. Stephen doesn't notice this.

They get, finally, to the high latitudes, where there is a huge blow, though Stephen is consoled by finally seeing the albatross. The dignitaries complain that the ship leaks and demand better accomodations. Stephen refuses to pass the message and tells the officious secretary to go tell Jack himself. The man declines to do this, as Jack is currently lashed to the wheel in the driving rain working like hell round the clock with all hands to keep the ship from broaching-to and foundering, and indeed shortly after winds up clinging for his life to a broken mast in the front of the ship trying like hell to keep the sea from overwhelming them. Surprise is damaged internally, her timbers strained, and they have to limp the rest of the way. Not a single rat is left in the ship, the stores are dangerously low.

I wasn't going to do this but I'm going to divide this. I swear I'll get better at making these short. I'm kind of doing a... rehabilitative exercise on my ability to write, here. Coming up is part two, Bombay! With critical updates on How Many Indiamen Tom Pullings Has Been In! And you'll never guess who gets the clap!

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[reliquiaen]

Summarising S3E4 to a friend as 'hot physicist is bitter that fellow scientists aren't giving her enough credit, starts apocalypse'.

We stan Mierin Eronaile in this house.

[eelclaw]

stupid fucking bastard. i am not coping with the leaks

[torchstelechos]

Something a lil funny about wishcraft smelling like sugar, you're telling me that traveler who doesn't wash their hair smells like a bakery? Press X to doubt

[ventique18]

Spoilers

Malenoa ascending to the afterlife, a bit hopeful that she's finally gonna meet Levan again:

Then she finds out he's been buying milk all this time and the only fatherly thing he's done for their son is cheer on him during Spelldrive

[aroaceleovaldez]

they girlbossed Sally Jackson

[ember-not-amber]

I recently started watching The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu (the last episode I watched was S2 ep 7) and I'm curious what the general consensus is on Luke & June vs Nick & June bc I really like Nick for June and Luke doesn't seem terrible at all. Still, that one flashback scene where he reassures June that they should stay together even though they started their relationship while he was still married to another woman, "she doesn’t matter because we’re going to get married. I’m going to make you happy." gave me the ick.

Like, you married Annie, too and you still cheated on her so how is that at all reassuring? I'm still waiting for a flashback that shows what Annie and Luke's relationship was like bc I have absolutely no clue why he cheated on her. I can understand why June technically cheated on Luke with Nick which was bc she was trapped in a terrible system where she was abused and felt unloved and unwanted and she was separated from her loved ones and she just wanted to feel something. So far I haven't seen any dialogue from Luke saying anything about what his marriage with Annie was like but if I had to guess, based on the episode where Annie stalked June and accused her of "stealing her husband" as if he's not also a human being capable of making his own choices, maybe they had differing views/ideas on what they wanted out of marriage, or he fell out of love with her, or he cheated just to cheat like a lot of douchebag guys do.

And yes, I am aware that June is also in the wrong for knowingly going after a married man, she isn't innocent in this either. She did seem to consider ending the relationship after Annie confronted her (which, why did it take his ex confronting you for you to consider not getting with a married man? Did Moira not give you any criticism for it? She seems like the type who would bc real friends tell you when you did sth wrong and they hold you accountable but judging by how they act around each other Moira seems very supportive of their relationship) whereas Luke didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with staying with the woman he started a relationship with while he was still taken at any point in time but that means nothing since she did end up staying with him despite that.

Sorry for how long this is, I originally meant for this to be shorter lol I'll put a Keep Reading tab in case ppl just want the tl;dr at the top. So, with all this considered I'm wondering if everyone else that enjoys this show wants June to end up with Nick or stay with Luke and which one is supported by the majority of people?

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Well, at least Fukuzawa got his wish granted, I guess.... he's finally inside Fukuchi <3

[the-way-astray]

idk if these are even spoilers but i'm tagging them anyway (minor unraveled spoilers):

well. there go my hopes for the series ending with book ten

[egophiliac]

Silver is finally here...he just took the title for the most beautiful card in TWST's history...

me five years ago: wow I really hope we get to see dragon Malleus someday! that'll be so nice and wonderful. I bet he's a big silly! :)

twst: :)

GOD. it occurred to me literally three hours before the anniversary stream that they might've been saving the reveal for then to just explode us all at once. this timing was EXTREMELY deliberate. thank you Twst. I can't even focus on all the Blazing Jewel stuff because Silver wielding the physical manifestation of his Complicated Dad Issues is busy eating my entire brain. and -- oh what's that? he duos with Lilia? I'M RUINED THANK YOU ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ

this is your warning that I'm going to be the most annoying person on the planet come Monday morning, thank you everybody and goodniiiiiiight

[problemswithbooks]

Onyx Storm and LGBT+ Rep

How does everyone feel about the LGBT+ rep in the series post Onyx Storm? Personally, I'm not very impressed.

Now, the LGBT+ rep was never the best. Frankly it was always a blink, and you'll miss it type deal, but I have to say after reading Onyx Storm I'm seeing some worrying signs.

One thing I noticed in particular was that the two main LGBT+ characters we have are the only ones without clear love interests/ they're the characters pointed out as sleeping around and unattached. This is in comparison to the straight side characters, who almost all have clear end game love interests or close relationships with one person. The straight characters also have their love interests as part of the side cast, who have at least some lines, as opposed to the LGBT+ characters whose lovers are barely mentioned by name, let alone are a part of the group.

Take Dain. He's one the main side characters. This book it appears his love interest and end game (because no one simply has a crush in a romance novel, or breaks up) is Sloane. Sloane didn't have many scenes in this book, but she's still around, she still has moments. She's apart of their Wing. She has multiple interactions with Dain on page. Also she was a pretty big character last book, who has family ties with an important character from the first book.

In contrast, Ridoc. He was a major character in this book, getting far more scene time than he did in previous installments. He's gay and the only thing we know about his love life, something that's been brought up multiple times, is that he loves sleeping around. In the book where he gets upped scene time, his only romantic interaction is flirting with a new Flier who never shows up again. The only other thing he does romance related (if you can even call it that) is to jokingly mock his straight friends for having steady partners, instead of living it up by sleeping around.

Rhiannon gets similar treatment, though she's not as much of a player. Rhi is an incredibly important character in the first two books and Violet's bff. Her romantic partner is a woman called Tara. They have an off and on again relationship, that is implied to simply be sexual, not romantic. Tara maybe gets a line in one of the books, but I can't recall it at all. Tara is in First Wing.

Unlike the straight characters (or at least those pursuing opposite sex relationships) these two prominent LGBT+ characters are not allowed to have romantic interests, only sexual hook-ups, none of which who are other important side characters, therefore get zero character interactions.

Also, the only LGBT+ character that had a romantic partner (who again is not part of the main friend group) died in this book, so that's not great.

I'm not saying that Yarros has to write an epic LGBT+ romance, but it'd be nice if she at least gave one of these characters as much care as her straight side characters get in the romance department. I mean, would it have killed her to have Ridoc or Rhi have crushes on someone in the main friend group and have cute interactions with them, similar to Dain and Sloane, or Sawyer and Jesinia, or Imogen and Garrick? Why can't Ridoc be interested in Bodhi and get some cute moment during the sparing matches?

I doubt it was intentional, but Yarros is playing into the trope (especially with Ridoc) that LGBT+ people are very promiscuous and rarely have meaningful relationships based on love, rather than sex. Past that, it really feels like they aren't treated the same as the 'straight' characters (because they could be bi) who get at least some dialog with their love interests, who in turn have scenes independent of that relationship, because unlike the LGBT+ characters' love interests, their crushes are important to the story.

[annabelle--cane]

also erin please please please be having a vampire baby. that would be so good for me. if you're having a vampire baby then I can officially start a collection along with ultraviolet 1998.

[valewritessss]

The amount of criticism and hate the wottg book is getting makes me scared to like it bc it feels like if I do then I’m doing something wrong😅

[youmakethelight]

It's giving... "but I was thinking about you the whole time".

[daisywords]

finally got around to reading Mexican Gothic. It had me hooked and actually followed through (the buildup was good but I was worried the ending/revelation was going to fall flat. it held up though.) Anyway my take is that it felt like if a really good movie was a book. Like the story operated more on movie logic than book logic if that makes any sense. (not a criticism, just an observation.) Overall well done and well paced. Predictable enough to be coherent but mysterious enough to be compelling. There were a couple of elements that seemed a little clumsy to me, but forgivable in service of the whole. Would recommend if you want to read a book that feels like watching Crimson Peak or something