Frequently overwhelmed with Feelings

My obsessions are few, but when they hit, they hit hard... Give me a good romance and let me wallow in the puddle of my emotions.

[orangeshipper]

After my earlier post, I now can't stop thinking about What If Archie had gone to Russia too.

The (silly AU) idea of Archie and Guzel kind of fighting it out over who gets to Look After Lymond (both in their own WILDLY different ways) is hysterical to me.

[orangeshipper]

Because I cannot get enough of their dynamic, here is a small selection of Archie chastising Lymond with great care and affection beneath the bluster, when Lymond is greatly in need of it.

(side note - I often wonder where Archie is during The Ringed Castle, after bringing Philippa back to Midculter... It makes me sad that he's not with Lymond when he probably needs him the most, but, on the other hand, his rebuilding of himself and friendship with Chancellor, the dynamic of St Mary's in Russia, all of that would be fundamentally different with Archie there too, and I do LOVE the Russia parts... #endramble)

Disorderly Knights:

(bonus Alec Guthrie, who I also adore)

And a few from Checkmate:

[english-history-trip]

(This seems to be another, hm, creative medieval interpretation of Salome's intoxicating dance before the lustful Herod. Sexy stuff.)

[strictlygenteel]

Glass of water (oil on canvas) Artist / Emma May Riley

[thlayli-rah]

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING THIS IS AN OIL PAINTING

[anxietyproblem]

[mellowlow]

if anything happens to philippa I swear to god

[orangeshipper]

It's ok, Lymond feels the same...

Chapter 15 -

"‘Jerott,’ said Lymond, with the thinnest edge beginning to show in his voice. ‘I am taking the Dauphiné and all the appurtenances of a royal bloody envoy because I am proposing if need be to mortgage the King of France down to the last bow on his mistress’s nightcap in order to get the Somerville child out of this safely, with the baby if possible.'"

[orangeshipper]

Was not expecting to read the phrase "you barefaced bitch" in The Iliad, but there it is!

[mblematic]

have any lymond/HoN fanatics tried King Hereafter? I am wondering whether to attempt..

[orangeshipper]

I've been thinking more about this - would anyone be up for a group read-along kind of thing of King Hereafter??

[han-leia-solo]

May the 4th be with you!

[orangeshipper]

While different, I do love the audiobook experience. I don't remember even noticing this line from DK before, but it's just made me laugh out loud in the middle of my kitchen.

The Disorderly Knights, pt 3 ch 10, The Hadden Stank

[versasfanficwastedump]

i actually never ever want AO3 to be censored bc nothing is more fun than reading the tags on a fic and going “huh. didn’t know there was a market for that.”

[galahadenough]

squinting at a tag and trying to decide how badly I want to learn a new word

[honeysuckletook]

Looking at tags and trying to understand if I really want to risk searching up what that means

[themeadowscene]

I would love to see a fantasy novel where the lore that the reader / protagonist learns at first is not true

[themeadowscene]

e.g. they're told that this kind of creature has some kind of psychic or pheromone-based "mate bond" that cannot be broken; but it turns out that's a popular myth that has never been scientifically substantiated, and is basically used to keep people in bad relationships (basically the equivalent of "human women are biologically submissive")

[themeadowscene]

"lore" is imo too often treated like information that the author is giving the reader, and it just happens to be using the medium of diagetic (that is, 'in-story') exposition.

it's so much more interesting and dynamic to treat "lore" as information that is generated and disseminated in-story. who is telling the protagonist this information? under what historical and social circumstances was this idea formed? what political motives are there for trying to get people to believe this information? which characters would disagree with it? would the protagonist believe it, or be sceptical? does the plot bear it out, or cast doubt on it?

[hauntedgiantbakerypeanut]

OK so Massive spoilers for the first Mistborn book. Brandon Sanderson does this really well, I think. A lot if not all the lore we're given in the first book is called into question by the end of the book and this continues on into the second book. I've got a lot of examples down below but I must insist that these are massive spoilers they will taint your enjoyment of the book since it heavily relies on these misconceptions, misunderstandings and altered histories to drive the plot.

Seriously if you want to read Mistborn go do it and do not read further.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

They've got a class divide between the slaves called Skaa and the nobles. Most nobles are taught to believe the Skaa are lesser and stupid. This is such a widely held belief that even the main characters question if it's true and they are Skaa and have fooled other nobles into believing they aren't. But it's later revealed that it's not just the Skaa being a repressed, uneducated and generally beaten down people. The Ministry actually has emotion dampening stations scattered through the slums to keep them from having any passion or strong emotions.

The Lord Rulers is an immortal that can survive burnings, decapitations and you name it because he's a "sliver of god"? Nope just a combination of magic systems that make him appear that way.

The little paragraphs at the start of each chapter are from the Lord Rulers diary that the main cast steal at the mid point of the book? No! It's the Hero's diary and his packman killed him and took his place. Which is why they don't match up personality wise and not because becoming a part god changed him.

There are only 8 standard magic powers and the 2 timey wimey magics? No again there's a 9 and the 2 time ones are separate magics and not a pair so there's another 3 undiscovered ones out there. By the start of the 2nd book the main character is doing research into them because if people missed that many how many more could there be? There's a secret 11th magic that can kill the Lord Ruler? Nope, I think this one might be a broken telephone situation. "The 11th metal will reveal that the Lord Ruler killed the Hero" became "The 11th metal can kill him" because he was faking being the hero and wires got crossed but it is never confirmed in the books.

People using copper magic can't be detected as using magic? Nope turns out the inquisitors can still detect you. Which recontectualises the supposed betrayal the main suffered.

[mikkeneko]

mistborn is an especially fun example of this because (spoilers ahoy) if the reader is paying attention, you can watch the lore change in real time, because it is being actively fucked with by an antagonist god(?)

one of the key plot points of the second book is an established prophecy about the 'Hero of the Ages.' One of the characters goes to examine the original text of the prophecy and realizes to his excitement that the description of the Hero is gender neutral! Does this mean the prophecy could actually apply to his friend, Vin, after all?!

Nope! The prophecy always used male pronouns. It was being edited on the fly to mislead the characters.

[orangeshipper]

Tumblr isn't letting me reply to any posts, and it's driving me nuts.

Contacted support... Twice... Fingers crossed.

[jennydolfen]

Looks like Shallan got her hands on some (digital) gouache. 🤭😶‍🌫️ Colouring my Kaladin sketch from a few weeks ago (the page from Shallan's sketchbook that she didn't want Adolin to see), to try out some more opaque-medium painting. And well, some anatomy practice is always a good idea. XD Aaaand a whole new load of prints has arrived in my shop! Go check them out!

JennyDolfenArt - Etsy

Shop Prints, pins, originals, Procreate brushes & more by JennyDolfenArt located in Jülich, Germany. Smooth shipping! Has a history of shipp

[its-funnytwittertweets]

[nh2d-deactivated20220723]

i love the lymond chronicles because the marketing is so hilariously bad. you find a book tucked on a shelf at the used bookstore with this blurb:

It is 1547 and Scotland has been humiliated by an English invasion and is threatened by machinations elsewhere beyond its borders, but it is still free. Paradoxically, her freedom may depend on a man who stands accused of treason. He is Francis Crawford of Lymond, a scapegrace nobleman of crooked felicities and murderous talents, possessed of a scholar’s erudition and a tongue as wicked as a rapier. In The Game of Kings, this extraordinary antihero returns to the country that has outlawed him to redeem his reputations even at the risk of his life.

and your immediate reaction is, okay, so this is some cheesy tropey 1950s historical romance, right? lots of sex and swooning? perhaps a bodice that might, if we permit ourselves to exercise our imaginations, get genre-appropriately disposed of? female characters who are, at best, POV vessels?

and then you open the first page and it hits you with one of the most obtuse, incomprehensible, historically-informed first chapters I’ve ever read, your protagonist is not so much a dashing antihero as a pathetic depressed should-be-in-college asshole mercenary, your female characters are compelling and wonderful and entirely uninterested in being swept off their feet, the character closest to a Spunky Rebellious Romance Girl ™ is in fact a young man intent on becoming a criminal out of his sheer desire to be Different, and also there is a pig, and it is drunk. this is what you came for, right? says Lymond– just Lymond, you aren’t even on a first name basis with your protagonist for several books– menacingly. This Is A Historical Romance Book. nothing to see here.

[stripedroseandsketchpads]

Dashing romance protagonist and the first thing he does is crawl out of a lake and say

“I am a narwhal…”

[orangeshipper]

Occasionally I remember that the first Lymond book my mum read (I'm eternally grateful to her for introducing me) was Pawn in Frankincense. Like, that was her introduction to Lymond and the series, and that is WILD to me.

I actually just asked what order she read them next, she went BACKWARDS (this was before RC came out) - not back to GoK and onwards, but backwards. So her reading order was Pawn, Disorderly Knights, Queens Play, then Game of Kings last.

Respectfully, mother, WHAT 😆