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#i swear every other line in GoK is a fucking banger #'not every sentence has to be a work of art; the god-king of sentences' unless you're dunnett writing this book in which case #go off i guess #lymond chronicles

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finished s1 of the 《默读》 audiodrama and:

okay, okay, audio is still my least-preferred medium but. those of you who told me to give it a go. you were right. I get it now. I have seen the light I have heard the music.

Fei Du's... 'how to break someone to your will in 3 easy steps' monologue speaks to my id in every medium. Sticking him under a microscope and adding the 'knowledge as of the end of book 2, specifically re small animals' filter trying to figure out exactly why do you know this, there are several options and I have suspicions.

(Luo Wenzhou's response to that one still absolutely reeks of foreshadowing)

I swear Fei Du's voice has microexpressions

I listened to a short section of episode 7 a while ago on an anon's recommendation but the whole thing, in context??? Luo Wenzhou's quiet 'Fei Du'?? Fei Du's plea to Wang Xiujuan (and the slight... edge it takes on towards the end)?? The transition from that into 《以沫》????? Fucks me up.

The banter is already excellent in written form but it does really come to life when spoken aloud, and the actors do such a good job with it. Not just the leads, though every exchange between them is delightful in how infuriating they are, but Tao Ran? Lang Qiao?? Delightful, all of them. Why are my coworkers not this funny.

Anyway, I do find myself occasionally missing some of the pure prose that doesn't make it in just becuase of the nature of the adaptation, so I'm looking forward to picking the actual novel up again once I 'catch up', but it is an excellent adaptation so far and I'm glad I gave it a chance!

#did I go on a very long walk yesterday specifically to finish the last several episodes in one go? you can't prove anything!! #(I can really only do audio media if I'm in motion and even then it's a tossup but so far so good) #(fortunately I have a fair bit of cycling ahead so that should see me through s2) #neuxue reads mo du #or for the moment 'listens to' but it'll be back to reading soon

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Nice whumpy thing: when people are intensely pragmatic about their injuries illnesses.

“Listen, if I pass out…”

“If you let up pressure, I’ll bleed out. So just, don’t move.”

“I know it ill hurt, just do what you need to.”

#all of these. also when they're extremely detailed (and detached) about it #or talking the other person calmly through how to perform impromptu emergency medical care #when they're the one steadying that person's hands and helping keep them calm through it despite being barely conscious and in agony #absolute catnip to me #id fodder

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started listening to the mo du audiodrama to catch back up to where I left off with the novel (somewhere at the start of book 3) and the episode-end song???

okay okay okay give me a minute I'm fine I just

it's so lovely what the fuck

I See What You Did There with that little "孤舟随烟波渡我" at the end

but also then you get LWZ's "你去那远方没有黎明不见曙光 / 也无悔深渊同往" and first of all ouch second of all man you really can't have a priest story without an abyss can you and third of all in combination with lines like

Fei Du's "默念恶魔的名册 / 奄奄一息是我" I suddenly cannot help but look very very closely at him through the lens of the few other priest novels I know and the first 2 books of this one and ask hey Fei Du quick question where exactly are you planning for this story to go

#not sure if i will actually listen to the full audiodrama bc audio is not my medium but #it was a strong start I'll give it that #anyway off to listen to 《以沫》 like 8 more times #neuxue reads mo du #take 2 #I'm. A normal amount of excited to pick this one up again #it was one of those 'set it down not out of disinterest but becuase it just happened to be an inconvenient time to lose my fucking mind' #like i remember hitting a specific passage in the early chapters of book 3 and going 'oh. okay. this is going to eat my brain.'

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i do enjoy "living weapon" characters but specifically living weapons who did in fact do absolutely horrific things which at least a part of them enjoyed and thought was good and right at the time, and that no amount of not knowing any better or guilt they feel in hindsight will ever make up for. i love living weapons who are "irredeemable", and no it's not their fault that they were made that way or pointed in the directions they were by the hand that wielded them, and yes they are victims, but so were their victims. living weapons who some people will never be able to forgive, but who still wake up every day and try to do better than what's expected of them. a sword that uses its blade to cut wheat to make bread for the people who once lived in fear of its arc falling on their heads.

#ahhh. aaaaahhhhhhhhhh. #shuos jedao. #sheng lingyuan. #among others but yeah this trope is SO good #weaponisation in all its forms is good and this form in particular is absolutely choice #and that last line took me out #id fodder

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The one and only downside to having been fortunate enough to take an extended amount of time off of work a while back is that now I know that simply not having to work for a living would fix like 99% of my problems. And I just have to carry that knowledge with me every day. Into work.

#best months of my adult life; absolutely no regrets #but ever since then it truly is like being cursed with knowledge a mortal like you should never have come to possess #like you've feasted at the fae banquet and no longer belong to the mortal world #used to be I just suspected that not having to work would fix me #but now I know it for a fact and every time I think about that it drives me a little more fucking insane #anyway. I am very aware there are ways to mitigate this. I will go back to applying appropriate coping mechanisms in just a minute. #but I just need to scream into the void first. #a day in the life of Lia #random workblogging

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the final half alas did not fix but instead exacerbated this feeling, but it's fine, one book that doesn't work for me is a small price to pay for the other five in the series that very much did.

I keep stalling on finishing the last half of Checkmate and I think it's because of all the books in this series this is the one where it actually feels like A Romance (derogatory)

#got halfway through writing out my frustrations with Checkmate #then realised dwelling on the salt was just making me more annoyed #I'll just go reread the Pray and Repent scene or maybe the chess game as a final send-off to this delightful series #end it on a high note #(for me. not for the characters.) #neuxue reads lymond

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-a Qinghua graduate in the court of the warlord Cao Cao- part 1

Me designing Guo Jia: what if Zhuge Liang brushed his hair and was like, 2% more evil.

this popped into my head while i was reading wikipedia. Guo Jia would have been around 27-30 when he joined Cao Cao's administration and he was very much a "have you considered Violence, my liege," type of advisor. He accurately predicted Cao Cao's seemingly impossible victory against Yuan Shao, told him to go north and attack the Xianbei people, and depending on which account you read, urged Cao Cao to kill Liu Bei before he stopped being a loser and started consolidating power. (Spoiler: the Sandalweaver has plot armour).

#op your three kingdoms concepts and designs continue to delight #is he the one who recommended the heavenly man-date booty shorts to cao cao though #these are the real questions. the people want to know. #romance of the three kingdoms #art tag

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i love this character so much......i hope they get seriously injured and almost die

#over and over and over #id fodder

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I keep stalling on finishing the last half of Checkmate and I think it's because of all the books in this series this is the one where it actually feels like A Romance (derogatory)

#to be clear the (derogatory) is subjective #this is a me problem #but I was enjoying how UN-romance-y the first... well definitely 4 books were #(unless you count whatever the fuck Lymond and Gabriel had going on which. I wouldn't fault you.) #and this one feels... well. truer to how it's marketed so again this is a me problem. but it's just less up my alley. #anyway we'll get there. eventually. #neuxue reads lymond

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one of the reasons shuos jedao has stuck with me as a character is the feeling through the entire series that the characters are chasing him, but he’s always just out of reach.

in book 1, one of the core draws is the mystery of jedao: why did he do what he did? what does he want now? who was he, really? we get a picture of him, and even literal flashback fragments at the end that try to piece him back together, but in doing so, he is obliterated. those glass shards and the fleeting time Cheris had with him are all we have to go on.

book 2 is also about chasing jedao, from a different perspective— brezan and khiruev meet Cheris-jedao and forced to interpret them. the reader also has to navigate the boundaries between the characters, but it’s impossible. we will never know a jedao that isn’t Cheris during this time. we can’t find him here either, but we can sketch and guess and extrapolate. But still. Out of reach.

book 3 is where this theme gets crazy. you are a teenager in a 40 year old body and they’re telling you that it’s yours and this is who you became and what you did when you grew up. you don’t recognize him, but you’re supposed to follow in his footsteps and do what you’re fated to do. but the people trying to shape you into him have their own ideas of he was, and you don’t really get it either way.

one of the scenes from book 3 that I remember most vividly is when jedos tries to figure out jedao like everyone else, and watches both a historical drama about his life (absolutely awful but so true that they’d romanticize his relationship with khiaz…. and when jedos remarks on it without Understanding but the audience does?? dramatic irony at its most painful) and the archival footage of hellspin fortress… he’s chasing jedao too, but all he has to go off of are kujen’s vision for him, the vast breadth of history and entertainment about his complicated legacy, and a few meetings with someone who is only somewhat him.

if you read Hexarchate Stories, you catch even more fleeting glimpses of who jedao was— snapshots of his family life, his adventures, his hobbies. but still, it feels to me, beautifully incomplete. to me he’s all about the distance and the mystery, someone whose story is always viewed through his legacy and other people.

#good post op #everything seen through smoke and mirrors and carrion glass #might be time for a machineries of empire reread #(i say this at least once a week. it's always true.) #machineries of empire

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trust between two people who could easily kill one another (especially when it would be the more sensible option in the scenario) drives me insane. you could kill me. you SHOULD kill me. but you won’t. and i won’t. and i’m going to go a step further and trust you to hold my life in your hands. as i hold yours. wild sick twisted etc

#good shit good shit #id fodder

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looking back on this I think perhaps the verb is 'ruin'

The ruthless hands let him go. 'All right,' said Lymond, suddenly bored. 'Kill me now, sweetheart... if you can catch me, that is.' Jerott Blyth, cast suddenly free, lunged weakly as his knife arched towards him, handle first, and caught it.

The Disorderly Knights ch6

It is a truth universally acknowledged that in each book of this series, the young man whom Lymond has chosen to [whatever the fuck verb we're using for Lymond's deal with Will Scott, Robin Stewart, and now Jerott Blyth] will at some point try to kill him.

#neuxue reads lymond #I should be finishing checkmate #But instead I am going through my own lymond tag trying to find the motivation

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He made the journey to Dieppe without resting

Checkmate, part 3 ch 3

another surprise entry on the just-like-me-fr crawford of lymond bingo card—

me 🤝lymond: once rode* without stopping from Paris to Dieppe in single-digit hours, because of a boat

*on a bicycle rather than a horse but it's the same verb so it counts

#but in my case it was just because I mixed up the ferry times. #like a dumbass. #anyway this was entertaining and the fatigue at the end sure was relatable #neuxue reads lymond

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The daughter of a Marshal of France, destined from birth for highest station, did not admit newcomers to easy friendship. But sitting murmuring over her sewing with [Philippa,] this slender girl with the clear skin and brown eyes and coiled chestnut hair, Catherine d'Albon found herself moved to converse not as to another girl, but to a tutor. A tutor who brought her not only news and opinions and discoveries but songs and poetry and books, dearly bought and freely given for her to study; so that for part of the day at least her mind was turned from its treadmill. When would he come back? Would he speak? Or would he allow the divorce to take place before he would approach her? But of that, and the person who filled both their minds, neither of them ever said anything.

Checkmate, part 3 ch1 (emphasis mine)

So do we count this as a Bechdel pass or...?

#then again i'm not sure there's ever a conversation between two MEN in this series that isn't about francis crawford of lymond and sevigny #neuxue reads lymond

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literally me every single night

#it's soothing

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a few chapters into Checkmate, and all I can think is that Marthe should simply leave Jerott and go hook up with Kate Somerville. I think that would be funny.

#i think Marthe should get to inflict that level of psychic damage on everyone. as a treat. #just IMAGINE mapping out the marthe-kate-lymond-philippa relationship diagram at that point #(and then you add in jerott and guzel and. god. what a nightmare. i'm cackling just thinking about it.) #neuxue reads lymond