#rabook

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

For the character ask meme, Harrow and/or Jessica Atreides

Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit Jessica Technicallynotatreides:

favorite thing about them

Jessica stands out in the canon of SFF Moms for being a unique, memorable, immediately recognizable character with clear motivations and desires of her own, even though those motivations and desires still mostly pertain to Frank Herbert's weird gender assumptions in general and the Bene Gesserit's sacramentalized pickmeism in particular. Can you name a single personality trait of anybody's mother in an Asimov or Heinlein novel? I can't, even though Heinlein (much as I hate him for many, many other reasons) was also relatively good at writing women for a male sci-fi author of the period. I also just love the idea, on a conceptual/meta level, of a Spooky Ninja Space Witch who has Jessica's role in the plot. Muad'Dib's mom has got it going on!

least favorite thing about them

See above re: Jessica's motivations and goals still mostly having to do with weird gender and reproductive politics, although I suppose that's true to life for the concubine of a duke in a feudal society, in the same way that Austen's protagonists all having motivations involving marriage is true to life for daughters of England's old landed gentry.

favorite line

“Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it. But it’s a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, these things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that’s really chewing on us.”

(Hey, nobody ever accused Frank Herbert of believing that brevity was the soul of wit.)

random headcanon

She's bi/pan.

unpopular opinion

Leto I is great and all by the standards of his time and place, but in absolute terms Jessica still probably deserved someone better.

song i associate with them

"Witchcraft" by Frank Sinatra and "Mother" by Florence and the Machine.

favorite picture of them

Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House Harrowhark Nonagesimus:

favorite thing about them

She's the fucking worst. I have a "rancid female characters" tag for a reason. In both a feminist way and a psychosexual way I genuinely love female protagonists who are just overpoweringly messy and unpleasant people, and Harrow is a standout of the type. I also appreciate that a fervently religious lesbian is one of the main characters of a popular SFF series now.

least favorite thing about them

Harrow is one of those characters where I'm genuinely hard-pressed to come up with things I don't like about her, not because she doesn't have flaws (lmfao) but because her flaws all contribute to why I'm so invested in her. Gun to my head, I suppose I did get pretty pissed off at how long in took her in HtN to get it through her head that """""""God""""""" did not have her best interests in mind, but she can hardly be blamed for that considering the situation.

favorite line

About Harrow:

"Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus had pretty much cornered the market on wearing black and sneering. It comprised 100 percent of her personality. Gideon marveled that someone could live in the universe only seventeen years and yet wear black and sneer with such ancient self-assurance."

("comprised" here should really be "composed" but whatever, Tamsyn Muir is an award-winning author and I'm just an overeducated pedant who writes for a bunch of blogs.)

By Harrow:

"You are a murderer, a conwoman, a cheat, a liar, a slitherer, and you embody the worst flaws of your House--as do I."

random headcanon

Harrow has read some of Gideon's porn magazines. She genuinely doesn't get off on them or like them, but she has read them.

unpopular opinion

I actually think my Harrow takes are more or less orthodox, perhaps surprisingly for this type of character.

song i associate with them

Within Temptation, "The Truth beneath the Rose".

favorite picture of them

My all-time favorite Harrow art is this picture of her as a Novohispanic monja coronada, by @shigeko-nobufusa.

☆°● — character ask meme

[why-bless-your-heart]

rabook replied to your post: aaaaaaa

?

aaa

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

for the fandom ask, the silmarillion

the first character i ever fell in love with:

Oh gosh, it's been so long! I remember writing a very, um, untutored poem about Fingolfin for a now-defunct Tolkien fan forum that I got banned from for being too young in 2004 or thereabouts, though. So maybe him?

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not:

I've gone back and forth on Maedhros and some other of the sons of Fëanor a lot over the years, but the one I consistently really don't care about now even though I once liked him a lot is Curufin, and it's entirely because of the ~2012-2015 era of the fandom's agonizing habit of insisting against all reason that he, like all of his brothers, Did Nothing Wrong.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not:

I don't dislike Caranthir/Haleth now, but it's no longer my preferred answer to what's "up with" either character involved, relationally speaking.

my ultimate favorite character™:

Galadriel, or maybe Lúthien given that Galadriel is only incindentally involved in most of what goes on in the Silmarillion itself and most of her importance only kicks in later. In general this is a fandom in which I prefer to actively prioritize the female characters beyond their in-text importance, which has led to some friction with my best Tolkien-fandom friend since she tends to be more content with the canon narrative and character focuses.

prettiest character:

Lúthien, obviously, but I also tend to feel like Nellas--who's technically only in Unfinished Tales, not the Silm as such--is probably lovely.

my most hated character:

Tar-Aldarion, who's technically also an Unfinished Tales character but is Silmarillion-relevant because he's from the Second Age, is someone for whom I have next to no patience at all. He's an absentee husband and father obsessed with Navigating and Exploring as a form of personal self-aggrandizement; we're supposed to see the good in him because he provides aid to the elves in Middle-earth, but Númenor under his rule also begins a colonization and conquest process that later turns it into a polity that's in some ways even worse than Mordor. Not a great guy!

my OTP:

Beren/Lúthien feels "too easy" somehow so instead I'll say Míriel/Indis; there's not a ton of canon evidence for this obviously, but in my head Indis pursued Finwë mostly due to their mutual love for and sense of having lost Míriel, and there's nothing in canon that contradicts this either.

my NOTP:

First Age: While obviously this doesn't justify Fëanor's treatment of his stepmother and half-siblings, Finwë and Indis's marriage itself pisses me off big time due to lurking suggestions within the canon that Finwë was thinking solely of his own perceived needs in his decision to remarry, in particular his desire to be sexually active again and his desire for a larger family size; neither of these would be a huge red flag in a widower contemplating remarriage IRL, but considering that this is someone who has to have the gods bend the rules of the world to accommodate his desires, I don't think it's a good look.

Second Age: I hate, hate, hate "the Zimraphel draft," although I've written a fic that tries to receive it charitably and harmonize it with my own reads on the characters.

favorite episode:

N/a

saddest death:

Maedhros's death is really gut-wrenching considering the sheer futility of it, especially since it comes after the victory has been won. There's obviously a ton of very strong competition, though! A more interesting question is least sad death, to which Beren, Lúthien, and Fëanor (since it's extremely difficult to argue he didn't bring it on himself) are imo the strongest answers.

favorite season:

N/a

least favorite season:

N/a

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate:

something something early 2010s something something Fëanorian/whiteNoldocock stanning something something. I do like most of those characters, but I'm apprehensive about devoting too much fannish attention to them due to the awful history there.

I'm also fairly anti-Melian, but I think that's a more common opinion than it used to be.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave:

I mean, it's the fucking Silmarillion. Anyone from Thingol to Caranthir to Finrod to the cast and crew of The Túrin Turambar Experience Featuring Beleg could fit.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave:

Andreth is the only character in the Silm who comes even remotely close to this, unless you include "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" and parachute in the LotR cast, which feels like cheating to me. Since Andreth is a History of Middle-earth character, in the published Silm itself there might literally not be any. Maybe Barahir or someone like that?

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship:

I used to feel this way about Angbang (Morgoth/Sauron) until I realized that people were taking it seriously and engaging in genuinely dangerous far-right-adjacent/Objectivist-adjacent moral and political revisionism of the canon over it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship:

Most of the canon ships that I haven't already discussed in this post, tbh. It's also my opinion of Maedhros/Fingon, the biggest fanon ship and one with surprisingly strong textual support if you're willing to invoke the right Classical and medieval models. Tolkien doesn't generally write bad relationships unless they're supposed to be bad, mostly because his characterization is too lapidary to accommodate huge amounts of everyday interpersonal drama.

send me a fandom and i’ll tell you…

[mothric]

The marine biologist meme isn't referencing anything--somebody made a post about how they had a dream about it being The New Big Meme and tumblr made that dream a reality

incredible I love people

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Snapdragon, for the flower ask

snapdragon - favourite mythical creature?

Normie answer but I fucking love dragons. If you define "mythical" a little more strictly then I was always fascinated by the Calydonian boar growing up. I also like nymphs and lares.

💐 25 flower asks

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

For the film ask, Emma (2020)

never seen | want to see | terrible | boring | okay | good | great | a favorite

Jane Austen? Great. Anya Taylor-Joy? Great. An Emma adaptation that emphasizes her relationship with Harriet? Great. The costumes are really good too, way better than in most other Austen adaptations I've seen.

put a film in my ask

[ramadhanyap]

Ulasan Buku Lima Sekawan Episode “Rawa Rahasia”

Selamat pagi pembaca!

          Pada kesempatan kali ini penulis akan menyampaikan sebuah ulasan buku yang akan diawali dengan novel cerita anak kesukaan penulis yaitu: “Lima Sekawan”. Novel cerita anak ini dibuat oleh seorang penulis beranam Enid Blyton. Episode yang akan diulas berjudul Rawa Rahasia.

RINGKASAN: 

Pada liburan kali ini Anne, George, Juian, Dick dan si anjing pintar Timmy memutuskan untuk berlibur ke sebuah camp berkuda. Tak disangka petualangan pun mengikuti mereka di tempat itu. Di sana mereka bertemu dengan seorang anak misterius bernama Si Ingus. Si Ingus merupakan anak dari seorang kaum kelana yang tak sengaja berkenalan dengan lima sekawan saat sedang mengobati kudanya yang terluka.

           Kaum kelana adalah kaum yang hidup berpindah dengan sebuah kereta kuda, mereka makan dan tidur di dalam kereta kuda. Sesekali mereka pergi ke kota terdekat untuk menambah perbekalan makanan dan lainnya. Sangat disayangkan karena mereka sangat bau! Entah berapa kali mereka mandi dalam setahun. Tampang mereka lusuh dan mereka berperangai buruk, tidak ramah.

           Si Ingus mengatakan kepada lima sekawan bahwa kaum kelana akan menuju ke rawa rahasia, ada hal yang akan mereka kerjakan. Lima sekawan berencana untuk ikut ke rawa rahasia menggunakan kuda-kuda dari camp. Ayah Si Ingus melarang mereka untuk ikut, ia mengancam akan mengusir bila mereka tetap memaksa untuk ikut. Tetapi Si Ingus membantu mereka. Ia meninggalkan sandi rahasia untuk lima sekawan. Ternyata ada yang disembunyikan oleh para kamu kelana! Mengapa ada cahaya terang mengitari rawa rahasia di malam hari? Akan kah lima sekawan memecahkan misteri ini?

Yap, Petualangan dimulai!

 OPINIKU:

Ini adalah salah satu cerita favoritku, cerita yang membawa kita berpetualang sambil membayangkan seperti apa rawa rahasia, sandi rahasia, keseruan-keseruan petualangan lima sekawan kala mencari sandi dan bertemu penjahat, ups, tidak ingin begitu membocorkan cerita. Intinya cerita Rawa Rahasia berhasil membuat detak jantungku berdegub lebih cepat, mataku pun ikut berlarian saat membaca bagian mereka hendak bersembunyi dan hampir tertangkap. Ayo lebih cepat lagi Ju! Dick! teriakku dalam hati, haha. Semoga berkenan membaca dan berbagi kesan denganku :)

Selamat membaca :D

[fridge246]

rabook replied to your post: tbh i DO like poetry you just have to get someone...

You should look up Florence Welch singing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, it’s really good : )

ooh i'll check it out! :D thanks!