#the emperor book

[bogkeep]

ok so i think that my favourite fantasy subgenre is The Inherent Tragedy Of Being Born Into Royalty. which mostly means that i like to read about gay princes but with some nuance

[ren-is-real]

The idea of toh and gravity falls being in the same universe is so important to me

The idea of Philip going to the theraprism and having to deal with bill is so fucking funny like. 1600s puritan vs literal chaos demon who wins. Nobody.

[obsob]

bedtime story with my love !!

[wiltkingart]

he was white and cold and sparkling, like a snowfield under moonlight.

[bobellafofella]

He said lamely, "She is very beautiful." "And she has the sense not to frighten you," Dach'osmin Ceredin said, and Maia took a step back, wanting to protest her deduction, but unable to deny its truth. "We should take lessons from her, we see."

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is one of my favorite books of all time, and within it, one of my favorite scenes is Maia and Csethiro's first real interaction at Nurevis' party! so i drew it. their slow romance is so delicious.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

🤷‍♂️publishing can’t ask us to write bestsellers for them on no money

[vaguely-concerned]

sometimes I think of all the on-the-surface warm, well-meaning but deeply ineffectual advice and attention john gives harrow through harrow the ninth (make some soup and get some sleep! get a hobby! don't be so hard on yourself! self care harrow! as long as I need take no actual responsibility in this relationship whatsoever I would have loved to be your dad!) set up against the stark truth that with his other hand he has been staging her attempted horrific murder again and again and again like a living nightmare on the logic that it will 'put her down or fix her'. and then I find that I wish there is a hell. a special hell where twitch streamers turned necromantic death emperors go

[catofoldstones]

we already have people bitching about how “i can’t stand Chani, she’s so annoying 🙄” and “Paul chose Chani to be the mother of his children, Irulan is just at the sidelines eating dust as she should”, like brothers we cannot do this again. We can’t Chani v Irulan our way out of this one because the problem is Paul and the Empire. Gosh, we truly are never getting out of the patriarchy.

[akaiitwki]

Belos at Theraprism

since the Amphibia core is there too lol

you can decipher it if you want, is not a big deal tho

[asmalltooth]

Sandworms this, Bene Gesserit that, something I really love about the Dune books is they look you dead in the eye and tell you how fucked up parents and children are.

A huge part of the Dune novel is about subtle workings of violence and resentment in the family. The way Jessica views Paul as her creature and posession and recoils in horror from the parts of him she can't control. The way Paul sees her as a source of both his strength and his deepest fears: She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy. And in all this they still love each other. It's not the lack of love. It's the idea that birth and nurturing are inherently violent for both sides.

Just like with Duke Leto and his father. Just like with Jessica and Alia. And we see the same thing mirrored in the Harkonnens. The Baron abusing Feyd-Rautha while raising him and preparing him as his successor?? Fully aware the boy's rise to power will be his own death. The Baron himself as the book's main villain is a giant grotesque baby. Parenthood as existential horror.

The theme continues with Messiah where the birth of Leto II and Ghanima erases their parents. In Children of Dune Paul offers himself as sacrifice to the son he tried to kill and Chani nearly returns from the dead by possessing her daughter. Leto II and Ghanima are eldritch horrors trapped in child bodies. But even they come off as less cruel than Jessica in her final abandonment of both Paul and Alia. Leto II returns in God Emperor to claim humanity as his children, becoming both a god and a tyrant. Meanwhile his whole dead family lives inside his head and has to be kept from overpowering him at all times.

There is so much weird horror surrounding parents and children in the Dune books.

And I love that a lot of that found its way into Villeneuve's Jessica. That's who she is, that's why Rebecca Ferguson's performance is a horror performance even though it might not always serve the character. It captures that part of the books beautifully.

[passions-graveyard]

Qin Zheng: Why are you hairy, Woman?

Wu Zetian: Fuck off.

Qin Zheng: Don't you dare talk to me like that!

Wu Zetian: Well then, police this

[badassindistress]

I got myself The Goblin Emperor as a reward for a terribly dull certification training I have to do, because tumblr promised me it had court intrige, a protagonist who chooses kindness and long descriptions of clothing

And boy tumblr was right. I am devouring this book. It's like a historical cdrama but everyone can see if the emperor is sad because his ears will droop. 10/10, absolutely amazing

[obsob]

happy and proud!!

✷(print shop)✷

[mostlyghostie]

New commission!

I had started this in good time, then impulsively peeled off my screen protector because it got too dirty, not realising that I’m now so used to drawing with one on that I was incapable of continuing without ordering another, so I just got finished in time to retain my coveted Etsy perfect shipping record. Stressful!

Which of these have you read?

[mentattea]

I think the 2019 Romanian editions are one of the best-looking out there.

[buried-in-stardust]

Buying Emperor's Smile (from Mo Dao Zu Shi) in the Gusu district of Suzhou, Jiangsu province. OP bought a jar of both 12% and 38%, and according to others who also bought it, it is a sour fruity wine, and because of the low alcohol content, the flavour of the baijiu is overpowered by the fruit flavour.

The shop is on Pingjiang Road (平江路), a historic district in Gusu. The street also has many other shops selling Emperor's Smile. Another street with shops selling Emperor's Smile is Shantang Street (山塘街), also in Gusu.

[eng by me]

One of the other shops (?) on Pingjiang Road offers both white and black jars

Copied from my reblog: I hear that there's a shop on Shantang Street that sells a 52% ABV Emperor's Smile and is a spicy baijiu, which would be far more accurate to the type of wine Wei Wuxian would have been drinking.