#tc&tf appreciation week

[choices-binglebonkus]

The Crown & The Flame: An Exceptionally Rare Critical

I have made no secret of how much I love The Crown & The Flame. One of the three original series that accompanied the launch of Choices back in 2016, it holds a very dear place in my heart as one of my all-time favorites. However, I value objectivity, and am fully aware (and even appreciative) that all of my favorites, no matter how much I love them and no matter how good they are, have flaws.

The Crown & The Flame is no exception to this, and though I think the books have held up remarkably well, they’re definitely very flawed. Particularly book three. Most of my gripes with the series come from book three, actually, and that is the very subject of this post: the issues that came with the final book in the series.

As always, these are just my personal opinions. So if you love TC&TF, that’s great! I love it too. I just thought that, since the series gets so little criticism, I would take an objective stance and take up that role.

Pacing and filler

The first issue I’d like to discuss about book three is its pacing. Compared to the first two books where everything was go, go, go, this book doesn’t really do that. And I’m not a huge fan of that since the stakes are arguably larger in this book since Empress Azura has literally threatened to kill everyone in the Five Kingdoms should they not submit to her.

A lot of the chapters are positively BLOATED with fluff and filler. The first three chapters take place in Ducitora and the only major plot points that occur are that Kenna meets Azura, Leon is killed, and Azura wages war on the Five Kingdoms as Kenna and co. make their escape. I think that the first three chapters could have been condensed into one and a half chapters bridging onto the next major plot point. At the very least, we should have gotten to see more of Ducitora and Marossi. We got to see very, very, VERY little of it, and with little substance to show for it all.

Dom’s chapters didn’t have a lot of substance to them, either. It’s mostly just Dom fighting Hex’s mind control, making some semblance of progress, immediately failing and succumbing further to her control, and getting frustrated or feeling guilty. And, while I’m thinking about it, what purpose did Dom being captured by Hex serve? In what way does it further the main plot? It honestly just felt like the writers had Hex capture him just so he and Kenna wouldn’t be together 24/7 to keep them separate for their dual-lead chapters. In other words, his capture seemed to serve primarily as filler as well.

My biggest complaint regarding filler comes from chapters 13 and 14, which are E N T I R E L Y filler, no two ways about it. Chapter 13 focuses on Kenna speaking with all the allies she’s amassed, and the chapter time is seriously cut down if you haven’t recruited any diamond allies. Chapter 14 is the exact same thing, but this time, Dom is the one who talks to all the allies. Why they needed two chapters of pure filler, I’ll never know. But I’ll tell you what: back when TC&TF was still releasing on a weekly basis, I was so annoyed that we had two whole weeks of filler. There was no need.

The worst part about all the filler was the impact it had on the buildup to the final battle. Compared to book one and two where we fought tooth and nail for the entire book to get Stormholt back or to prepare for Luther’s return, the buildup to the battle with Azura felt very underwhelming: the book was mostly just a little bit of plot here, filler there and there, here we are switching POVs to one of the side characters for a couple of chapters, here’s some more filler. In books one and two, there was practically NO filler, and the buildup to the final battles was much better for it.

A lot of books are pretty notorious for filler and fluff, but TC&TF book 3, dare I say it, may have been the worst about it given the high stakes and the generally fillerless precedent set by the previous two books.

POV flipflopping

In books one and two, you got to play as characters other than Kenna and Dom in diamond scenes, plus that one time where Val infiltrated the Nevrakis stronghold masquerading as a handmaiden. Other than that, the writers stuck religiously to the Kenna/Dom POVs, and the story was much less choppy, confusing, and generally less all over the place because of it.

This is not the case in book three. You play as Kenna and Dom, yes, but the POV flip-flops around between other characters as well. Leon, Val, Raydan, even Whitlock. I’m shocked as hell that they didn’t somehow manage to cram in a chapter where we played as Annelyse or Sei.

Of these different POVs, Raydan’s was the most important and by far the least filler-y. It still didn’t really sit well with me, though. The Crown & The Flame is Kenna’s (and Dom’s, but mostly Kenna’s) story. Book 3 is 17 chapters. Kenna—the main freaking character—is either unplayable or mostly unplayable for nine of them. Nine! But she gets off much better than Dom—the deuteragonist, mind you—who only gets three chapters where he’s the main focus. And, of course, you’ll recall my previous complaints about how Dom’s chapters were filler. So.

Having all these different POV switches was not graceful in the slightest. It was unnecessary for the most part, and at times, it really came across as a Wattpad POV fic where the pre-teen author interjects every few paragraphs with <{[CHARACTER A’S POV]}> and ~{[CHARACTER B’S POV]}~ because, like I said, it wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t necessary. Especially since TC&TF is a dual-lead story.

The allies

I actually made a ranking list from worst to best of every recruitable ally in TC&TF across all three books. It’s currently unpublished on my blog, but it’s been sitting on my computer for a while. At any rate, most of the book three allies were ranked very, very, VERY low. There are 32 recruitable allies in all, and numbers 32-27 on my ranking list are all book three allies.

Aurynn Amanth, though I liked her as a character, doesn’t do shit after you recruit her and is only in a grand total of two extra chapters if you recruit her, and for 25 diamonds, that’s so goddamn steep. Clover Hapley also serves no real purpose for 23 diamonds, but somehow appears more than Aurynn and for two fewer diamonds. Florian Tartassis and Zenobia Nevrakis were recruited just to fill the allies roster, plain and simple. Anton Luno was just kinda…there. And Luther—the Blood King who mercilessly slaughtered the royals and nobles of the Five Kingdoms, who conquered the realm and waged war against any who dared to rise against him—does fuck all unless you give him control of the Nevrakis army, then tries to murder Kenna at the end regardless.

There were only a few book three allies I ranked higher than #27. The Mechawolf Pup, who didn’t do much, and who I also found annoying as hell, but he was kiiiinda cute I guess. Lia really stuck her neck out for Raydan by translating the anti-magic book for him, but she doesn’t do much when you recruit her. And I love Madeline to pieces, but she’s 30 diamonds and only appears in five chapters.

Hex was the second highest ranked book three ally on my ranking list at #6 overall because she was such a complex character, and though she was incredibly morally grey, recruiting her nudged her towards active atonement and the chance to actually do some good in the world. Diavolos was ranked #3, and I think he really could have been an awesome character in the series if we had gotten to know him sooner because the dynamic between him and Kenna is impeccable, and he’s such a vulnerable character when you think he wouldn’t be.

Unfortunately, most of the book three allies are just there to fill the ally roster or do damn near nothing once you recruit them. The only allies we got who were heavy hitters were Hex and Anton (recruited jointly to fill the ally spots) and Diavolos. Since book three is the highest-stakes book of them all since we fight an entire fucking EMPIRE, we should’ve gotten some seriously powerful allies. Instead, most of who we got were characters who couldn’t fight: Aurynn, Clover, Madeline, Lia, the Mechawolf Pup, Zenobia, and Florian.

What kind of sense does that make?

Finishing things off…

The Crown & The Flame, to reiterate, is one of my favorite series in Choices. I’ve replayed it time and time again and never get tired of it because it’s just that kind of story. And I do like book three. I’m not saying it’s a bad book at all: it’s actually quite a good book. I just think it’s much less of a good book than 1 & 2, which were absolute titans to compete with.

Even my faves are imperfect. But that doesn’t mean I love them any less. And TC&TF book 3 is a shining example of that: flawed, but still perfectly lovable.

With all that said, I think I’ll give the series another replay soon.

[bebxos]

TC&TFAW Day 1: Women of The Crown

@tcandtfappreciationweek

[homeformyheart]

portrait of an aurelian queen - featuring annelyse adair, for @tcandtfappreciationweek

art by the amazing @solarbridge; so glad i got to commission you for this!

*goes without saying, but do not repost.

[pxlbry]

tcatf appreciation week day one

val time val time val time 

@tcandtfappreciationweek

[aestheteasteria]

The Crown and The Flame Appreciation Week Day 7- Wildcard

Dark Kenna

@tcandtfappreciationweek

[kc-otome]

@tcandtfappreciationweek

The Crown & The Flame Appreciation Week - Day 4 - Side Characters - Whitlock

[thepixelberrybush]

The Crown and the Flame Appreciation Week - Day 1: Val Greaves

@tcandtfappreciationweek

[averagetastesofonelittlebird]

@tcandtfappreciationweek / Day 2: “Men of the Flame: Raydan Lykel

“Morning reports are in your M... Oh, well. I suppose 5 more minutes are fine.”

@homeformyheart

[ratanslily]

Kenna Rys • icons

set 1/3

for @tcandtfappreciationweek @the-unconquered-queen

[endlesscordonia]

I haven’t been participating in this week so far, but for Kenna’s day I thought I might upload this realistic portrait I did for the reddit sub a while ago!

@tcandtfappreciationweek

[pinesprings]

𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂!? 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗵𝗼𝗹𝘁. 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗱𝗼𝗺𝘀

𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙆𝙚𝙣𝙣𝙖 𝙍𝙮𝙨

Kenna Rys for @tcandtfappreciationweek day 6: "Reign Supreme"

[thefirstcourtesan]

Soulmates January- Between Love and War (Diavolos and Kenna)

Between Love and War By Misha

Disclaimer- Not mine.

Author’s Notes- I did write a Diavolos and Kenna soulmates AU a few years ago but when @tcandtfappreciationweek overlapped with my Soulmates January, I had to give it another spin. This is set in a world where you don’t see color until you meet your soulmate, like all my AUs this is a spin on the canon and is set in book 3.

Pairing- Diavolos/Kenna

Rating- PG-13

Summary- Kenna was focused on war, not love, until the son of her greatest enemy walked into the room and changed the way she saw the world.

Words- 1100

Kenna often wondered about color. Her mother described it to her, but it wasn’t the same as experiencing it for herself. But then, as a princess of The Five Kingdoms, there were many experiences she could only ever hope to hear about this, so why should this be different?

Besides even if she met the person who let her see colors, it didn’t mean that they would be allowed to be together. Still, she kept hoping. If she was honest, she kept expecting to wake up one day to a burst of color. After all, soulmarks didn’t manifest until after physical maturity, even if you met your soulmate before that, and part of Kenna assumed it was Dominic. That it had to be.

But while color never came into her world, tragedy did and she was forced to leave Stormholt and Dom behind. Suddenly, she had more pressing problems than whether she would ever see the world draped in color, the way the artists described, like whether she would ever sit on her throne.

So she focused on that, concentrated on being the leader her people would need, and tried not to think about anything else. But as she stood in the gardens of Aurelia, surrounded by flowers, a handsome man at her side, she wished fervently she would be able to see them both in their full beauty. But it was not to me. Color still eluded her and the man was not her destiny.

Neither was Dom. Reuniting with him proved it once and for all, because the world was still grey. With two strikes behind her, Kenna decided to focus on winning the war, after all that was the future she could control.

She beat Luther. She went to the Iron Empire and came back, shattered (and also fill of questions that could never be answered, her assumptions about her parents forever changed) but ready for the fight of her lifetime. Even if it meant allying with the enemy.

So she made a truce with Luther. She invited him to her table. She freed his spoiled daughter and agreed to locate his oldest son. She did what was expected of her, mind focused on the task at hand.

Until he strode into the room and for the first time in her life, the world exploded into color. Beautiful vivid color, which was ironic because the man in front of her was glad head to toe in Nevrakis black. Diavolos. Luther’s oldest son.

And her soulmate.

It couldn’t be. Kenna looked behind him, for a soldier she hadn’t met, a servant, anyone. But there was no one in her line of vision but Diavolos and the way his gaze stayed on her throughout the meal confirmed what she already knew.

What she didn’t know was what she was going to do about it. She couldn’t have a Nevrakis as a soulmate. The idea was ludicrous...

And yet, there was no denying that Diavolos was handsome and he was also far more pleasant than a Nevrakis had any right to be. He insisted on accompanying her to Aurelia and she agreed, because it was the diplomatic thing to do, but also because it would give her time to figure out how to approach this... situation.

“Should we talk?” Diavolos asked the night she invited him into her room.

“I thought we were talking,” Kenna said lightly, trying to keep her tone neutral.

Diavolos smirked, “I meant about us, but sure we can keep talking about my miserable childhood if you want. Or we can discuss how well blue suits you.”

“I’d say Abanthus black suits you, but I am sure you have heard that before,” Kenna returned, not sure what else to say, “and it doesn’t really prove anything, does it?”

“No,” Diavolos agreed, he stepped closer to her, “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived at that dinner, but it wasn’t for the world to burst into color.”

“No,” Kenna echoed, very aware of how close he was. “Who would’ve thought that—“

“A Nevrakis and a Rys could be soulmates?” He finished for her, “it does seem like the universe has a sense of humor, doesn’t it?” He reached out a hand, placing it on her cheek. His hand was rough from years spent holding a sword, but surprisingly gentle. “I can only imagine my father’s reaction.”

Kenna chuckled and then gazed up at him, tilting her head back to do so, “you don’t sound worried.”

Diavolos shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time I faced his wrath. Plus, I have a feeling it might be worth it.” There was no mistaking the heat in his gaze. A heat that made her heart pound in her chest. She took a step closer to him.

It was the only invitation Diavolos needed. His arms slid around her, anchoring her to his chest before his lips descended on hers. He might have brought color into her world, but at this moment it felt like he had awakened all her senses. She had never felt so aware or so alive.

Kenna kissed him back eagerly, the rest of the world fading away as she lost herself in his touch. She had heard soul bonds were powerful, but nothing could have prepared her for this. It was as if the world itself had stood still for a moment and everything outside the two of them had ceased to exist.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I saw you,” Diavolos told her when they finally broke the kiss, his arms still around her.

“Because of the color?” Kenna asked, still unaware how much of what she was feeling was because of the bond and how much of it was just him.

“No,” Diavolos told her, “because of you.” And then he kissed her again and it was just as good as the first and Kenna had the fleeting thought that it was going to be hard to concentrate on winning a war when Diavolos kissed like that.

End

[suoirallesalta]

orc!Val

@tcandtfappreciationweek - Day 1 - Women of the Crown

[pxlbry]

tcatf appreciation week day seven

(sorry for the reupload!! the links made the post hidden, so i’ve decided to add those on in the rb instead of on the original post)

decided to round off the appreciation week with my yearly redraw of kenna and dom :) i think it’s absolutely insane this is my fifth year drawing her and looking back on the past five iterations.. i feel like ive grown a lot as both a person and artist

@tcandtfappreciationweek

[aestheteasteria]

The Crown and The Flame Appreciation Week Day 1 - Women of the Crown

Annelyse Adair 👑

Tagging : @tcandtfappreciationweek @homeformyheart

Annelyse Adair Edits, Val Greaves Edits

[endlessflame]

Character aesthetic: Raydan Lykel

For TC&TF Appreciation Week, Day 2: Men of the Flame 

@tcandtfappreciationweek