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themidnightcircusshow · 1 year

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The Queen’s Choice by Anne O’Brien

The Queen’s Choice is a pretty average novel, with some good tidbits and some things that got under my skin. But it’s main problems aren’t bad history (though there is some of that), but bad writing. It has the same problem that a lot of historical fiction in the vein of Philippa Gregory has, where the heroine of the novel is not necessarily present at a lot of historically significant moments. The way to counteract this problem is by making her the focus of her own plot, so we aren’t left with nothing but a conspicuous absence. The Queen’s Choice goes in the opposite direction-- almost every important plot element happens off screen. Even the choice the novel is named for happens only in exposition. Joanna’s imprisonment happens after a six year time skip, so it truly comes out of nowhere. The battle of Shrewsbury, the execution of Archbishop Scrope, most of Henry and Joanna’s marriage takes place in letters or single sentences that get cast aside. It conveys, perhaps more than Anne O’Brien intended, that Joanna was a Queen with nothing to do and no importance. Which makes it increasingly laughable every time Joanna is praised for her political knowledge and ability to give good counsel, when we never see her express either attribute and she gets shot down whenever she tries. This Joanna is ironically far less active than any of the information about her indicates, and her characterisation is too flat to give her any other impact.

To put it frankly, it reads like fanfiction-- not just because it’s an easy read, but because it feels like a companion piece, the kind of fic you write about a side character you like but who isn’t very involved in the main plot. If you don’t already know this time period in depth, you won’t have any idea what is going on.

Little Details I liked

Humphrey cheerfully recounting all the ways his father has nearly been murdered.

The concern about Joanna’s entourage and ties to Brittany is shown well. None of it relates at all to her imprisonment, so the foreshadowing and payoff are completely divorced from one another, but it’s nice to see an attempt.

Similarly, Joanna is shown to indulge in plenty of herbs, as does a lot of other characters. I just like when it’s shown a lot of people use potions and tinctures and the like, and how the line between that and witchcraft is essentially whether a person likes you or not.

We get to see a glimpse of Henry’s rising paranoia after taking the crown. It goes nowhere, and the most pressing examples of it are left aside, but again, an attempt was made. Sort of.

Stuff that Irked Me

Blanche is referred to as dying in childbirth. Again.

Henry is barely given a character. Their romance is never given enough detail to be convincing. Frankly, I wonder if the author was more interested in the storyline with Thomas than the one with Henry.

Humphrey stands around listening to people call Hal selfish, greedy, and all sorts after Joanna’s imprisonment, and does nothing. Humphrey.

Henry Beaufort’s characterisation is neither consistent nor sensical.

Henry IV supports the Burgundians in this book, but is reluctant to go to war. Still, he is determined to lead the invasion himself. This plot line is never resolved in a way that makes it historically accurate, it’s just dropped.

Hal is seen on screen perhaps five times. The first is after the Battle of Shrewsbury, where Joanna offers him potions for his scar. The second is him being mentioned to be talking about violently quashing the Welsh. The third, him demanding Henry abdicate (and demand is the right word. Little argument is made, and none that would suggest Hal is concerned at all about Henry’s ill health, just that he wants the power for himself). The fourth is at Henry’s deathbed, wherein Joanna says Hal doesn’t like her very much. Based on these few scenes, and the final chapters in the book where every character on screen (except Humphrey, but he doesn’t say otherwise) is quick to call Hal various insults, I think that Hal is meant to simply be taken as evil. Hal is undoubtedly the villain of Joanna’s story, but as soon as we get Henry saying Hal doesn’t understand why you would want an outspoken wife and Joanna claiming Hal would never take the advice of a woman (forgetting, of course, that Joanna was very active in Hal’s court when he first became King, and Joan FitzAlan’s entire existence), there is no longer room for nuance and subtlety. He is sexist, and violent, and greedy, and he is either Evil or at the very least a real prick who not even his uncle and brother can defend. While wholly unintentional, considering Joanna shows sympathy towards Hal about it and it only, I’m still somewhat annoyed that one of the only times we get Hal with his scar, it’s when he is intended to be as unsympathetic as possible.

#The Queen's Choice #Joanna of Navarre #Henry V #Cirque Reviews

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chandler-monica · 1 year

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SHERYL LEE RALPH accepts her award for Best Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series at the 28th Annual Critics Choice Awards (January 15, 2023)

#sheryl lee ralph #abbott elementary #abbottedit #abbottelementaryedit #critics choice awards #critics choice 2023 #userjessica #userrobin #userbbelcher #chewieblog #useroptional #dailywomen #dailywoc #flawlessbeautyqueens #*#A QUEEN

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egophiliac · 1 month

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IT WAS ERIC AFTER ALL!!!! I'm so glad we got to meet him (before Vil snaps him away with those Infinity Gauntlets) (can't wait to see what happens when we get the matching Infinity Tiara to go with them, there will be no survivors)

(sorry to be so slow/rough lately, just got a lot of stuff on the ol' brain at the moment! alas, if only I could spend all my time drawing incredibly stupid characters I mean I do but)

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #tapis rouge #i know these are not my best but by god i needed to draw ~daddo venue~#he is a treat! can't wait for him to yell at us for screwing up a shoot or whatever the last-minute disaster will be #i am SO HAPPY it turned out to be about movies after all! ...i mean sort of anyway #i'll take what i can get (and i do enjoy twst trying to be all cute about snow whAHEM i mean beautiful queen) (i see you there twst)#(also to be fair it actually wasn't poisoned in historial-revisionism-twstland so i think we can trust this apple. a+ acting eric)#anyway we are still. very solidly in the 'stand around and talk about the wallpaper for three hours' part of the event.#but HEY we got to meet eric! i was not really expecting it to be him so i am VERY pleased #also god help me i did think the shopping montage as portrayed by a rhythmic where they literally SKIP down the street was hilarious #there's a lot of Choices that were made in this event and that was a good one

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luthienne · 1 year

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anyway literally everyone is going through something all the time!!! everyone is wounded!!! everyone is human & no one makes it out of this life unscathed!! maybe try approaching people in good faith instead of always defaulting to the worst possible interpretations of each other

#the way people will pounce at the opportunity to unload on someone the second they have perceived A Wrongdoing #and then justify that with trauma like. i have been Traumatized so therefore i am allowed to make this other person feel like shit #never mind that life is not a binary set of right and wrong choices/beliefs and you are never going to agree with someone 100% of the time #and that disagreement ≠ the other person being a terrible human being. please god allow for some nuance and grace #stop putting people on pedestals stop with the unproblematic king/queen culture stop reducing other people to the image of them in your head

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tofixtheshadows · 2 months

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So I've been thinking lately about how Mithrun is Kabru's dark mirror (more on that another time- it needs its own post), and I thought it interesting that one of their parallels is that they were both cared for by Milsiril, but in opposite directions. She took Kabru in as her foster after he was orphaned and tried to convince him not to become an adventurer. On the flip side, she helped rehabilitate Mithrun specifically so that he could rejoin the Canaries.

And I kept wondering: why?

For Kabru, obviously she loves him a whole lot- despite any other shortcomings in their relationship, I do believe that.

So I get why she tries to convince him not to go dungeoning, and, failing that, at least prepares him as thoroughly as she can.

But why help Mithrun? She used to hate Mithrun, but after realizing what a secretly twisted person he was, she actually thought of him more positively (oh, Milsiril). So it wasn't as if she held the kind of grudge that might motivate her to make his already-depleted life even more miserable by sending him back to the dungeons. And it wasn't that she felt bad for him either, since she didn't visit Mithrun for the first ~20 years of his recovery.

The Adventurer's Bible says that Utaya was the impetus for Mithrun returning to the Canaries, but Milsiril is the one who made the trip to see him and tell him about it.

Why would Milsiril work so hard to get her old coworker back into fighting fit? Why encourage him to return to such a dangerous lifestyle, when she was the one who chose not to mercy-kill him?

That last panel is such a crazy thing to hint at and then never elaborate on. Without it we could have just thought that Milsiril wanted the Canaries' work to continue without her, even if it seemed out of character. I think some people even assume she's just a natural caretaker as a foster mom and handwave it to include nursing Mithrun too. What could Milsiril's suspicious motives be? What does she gain from Mithrun joining the Canaries that isn't an altruistic desire to see dungeons safely sealed? Feeling a sense of responsibility for the work she left behind isn't an ulterior motive.

My theory is: Milsiril, knowing that Mithrun was empty save for the burning desire to face the demon again, wound him up like a clockwork doll and pointed him back at the dungeons.

Hoping that he'd eliminate the biggest threat to Kabru's life, before it was too late for him.

Milsiril the puppetmaster.

#Mithrun #Milsiril #Kabru #btw I'm working with the only translations I could find sorry #so keep that in mind #like it just seemed WEIRD to me #that gloomy introverted Milsiril #who left the life of a Canary behind #decided to do this Canary-adjacent work of helping this guy #maybe the queen made her do it because so many people died and they needed more Canaries idk!#but why would anyone pick Milsiril as a life coach? I really think it was her own choice #it's so interesting how we get these hints of a downright sinster Milsiril #I really like the complicated relationship she and Kabru have #struggling to fully humanize him from her elven perspective #but still taking him seriously wrt: his fears over being a monster or his desire to go to a party!#crazy stuff there #everything about Kabru and adjacent to Kabru is insane what a character

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pandoa · 4 months

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in every new game, there's a jumin han waiting to be discovered...

(malleus is just happy he finally got invited to something)

#twst is not an otome!!!#ngl i kinda only added malleus bc i needed one more 'serious' character to complete it lol #i don't play enough games to know another character #honorary love interest fr (he's close enough)#this is all for jokes btw lmao #mystic messenger #obey me #lovebrush chronicles #for all time #tears of themis #mr. love queen's choice #love and deepspace #jumin han #lucifer obey me #lucien #malleus draconia #clarence clayden #zayne

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ayo-edebiri · 6 months

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She did the right thing!!

#jenna ortega #scream #i don't inow if it's a huge choice for her.... but a lot of actors wouldn't have done this #melissa barrera #and Percy isn't in Wednesday s2.... a queen

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suntails · 6 months

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knighted

#MOMENTS THAT MAKE ME EMOTIONAL. BAUL CALLING HIM BY NAME NOT CALLING HIM HUMAN. WEAK AT THE KNEES #i think ill only have time to draw these two pieces before i leave for the holidays so i want them to be a set. i think its fun #talked abt it on twt but artistically its SO fun that book 7 has the 'good guys' w the colors of the night. greens and purples and darks #and the 'bad guys' of the humans strike their queen down with a brilliant yellow light. the light IS the darkness is conceptually yummy #trying to lean into color choices and intentional comps lately. lilias piece reading L>R feels like the angle pushes down on him #here sebek faces with the eye's movement so its more positive. like hes climbing towards his beautiful bright future. ouughj #never before in fandom have i wanted to so clearly break down my own art choices like a historian but diasom does smth to my brain #twst #twisted wonderland #sebek zigvolt #baul zigvolt #ch 7 spoilers #suntails

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aralisj · 1 year

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Don't mind me, just thinking about how Queen Charlotte is still dressing like it's the late eighteenth century forty years later, how it's portrayed as a deliberate choice with her entourage also echoing the same exaggerated rococo style, how Lady Danbury is shown to have moved on by adopting the regency silhouette, how Brimsley said the Queen's daughters wouldn't leave her because she was trapped in time, frozen...

#i know probably it was more of a stylistic choice in Bridgerton but retroactively... the implications...#it's fine i'm fine #bridgerton #queen charlotte a bridgerton story #qcabs #qcabs spoilers #costume design #queen charlotte

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xingxueyue · 11 months

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Lasting Waves UR Card Wish Tree Event

Date: 4 July 2023 to 15 July 2023

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smokestarrules · 9 months

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it's been literal years since either of these episodes aired so I can't possibly be the only person to notice but like. this is an intentional parallel, right. it has to be.

#I love having zero information about 90% of this show when I thought I watched it through entirely #I did in fact. not #like to think bonnie is consciously making a choice here bc its funny to me. anyway. goodbye again #binging is so fun #adventure time #princess bubblegum #bonnibel bubblegum #marceline abadeer #marceline the vampire queen #bubbline #smokey speaks #500 #1k

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sevenai · 1 year

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“i go to therapy,” i say as i open my otome games.

#ikemen series #cybird ikemen #otome #ikemen prince #ikepri #ikemen cybird #ikemen sengoku #ikesen #ikemen vampire #ikevamp #mr love queen's choice #mlqc #tears of themis #tot #too many to add

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egophiliac · 2 months

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