#baru cormorant

[blujaymi]

lil baru doodle

#still trying 2 figure her out but i think im getting somewhere #also absolutely obsessed #the traitor baru cormorant #baru cormorant #the masquerade #my art

[xuanelle]

they may be doomed by the narrative but atleast they had gay sex

#sorry thinking abt these books again and tain hu the woman that you are #baru cormorant

[torbooks]

Devilman Crybaby meets Marvel’s Venom in Exordia, the science fiction debut of Seth Dickinson, author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant. 

Ssrin Character Illustration by Julie Dillon

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Meet Anna Sinjari, a refugee and disaffected office worker eking an existence in New York City. Her life is about to be upended by Ssrin, an alien with eight serpent heads, no qualms with cold-blooded murder, and an appetite for turtles (yum).

The universe is governed by seven passions, seven patterns which appear again and again, across species and across time. Anna and Ssrin are bound by the last and the greatest. The cosmos itself ships their very souls. Specifically for them, that means they’ll have to outmaneuver spies, armies, and government agencies to save humanity from a diabolical alien entity, hellbent on pinioning the souls of every creature on earth.

Exordia is expansive adventure science fiction that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton, but steeped in the irony, humor, and pain of the Internet age. An alien-human epic for those who've always rooted for the monster.

#ssrin #seth dickinson #exordia #baru cormorant #traitor baru cormorant #julie dillon #original artwork #booklr #new books #monster lit #action #adventure #science fiction

[psrj]

the imperial accountant baru cormorant, and the duchess of vultjag

#the traitor baru cormorant #the masquerade #baru cormorant #tain hu #my art #fan art #character design #i recently rediscovered my literacy #so i read this whole series in two weeks and i think it's both kinda phenomenal and very flawed #but fundamentally just very interesting in almost every aspect #i had a great time #not gonna apologise for the niche fan art lol #utterly obsessed with baru btw #character of all time

[ancientannoyance]

And Baru cast the first dart at hand, the words that set the coopers and the fishmongers and the bannermen of Lyxaxu and Oathsfire and Unuxekome roaring: “Show them who should rule Aurdwynn, and why.” Vultjag! the poorer parts of the crowd screamed, a raw astonished sound. Vultjag!

#this was tain hu's wet shirt darcy scene i fear #i was rereading this book I FORGOT HOW FUCKING GOOD IT IS AND THIS FUCKIGN SCENE DKHGDFG #TAIN HU DUCHESS VULTJAG THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE #the traitor baru cormorant #baru cormorant #tain hu #the masquerade #seth dickinson #my art #fanart #the traitor baru spoilers

[winged-void]

I wasn't expecting "Baru snorts coke for the first time and becomes immediately convinced that her enemies kept coke from her to keep her weak and unalert" but you know what sure

#Baru Cormorant

[hivemire]

I only enforce your precedent. This is the world you chose to live in.

#the masquerade series #baru cormorant #tain shir #my art #I am regularly thinking about shir. very normally #a monster so awful and primordial

[twofoursixohjuan]

#DAMN #i mean...DAMN #the masquerade #baru cormorant #the traitor baru cormorant #FUCK #i won't be functioning for a while

[ash-and-starlight]

my “if something bad happened to them i’d kill everyone in the room and then myself” gang from the masquerade series (…..yeah i’m still in denial over [redacted] shut up)

#id in alt text #alternatively: baru and some of the ppl whose lives she fucked up 🤪 #alternatively (2): mentally unstable blorbini from my books <3 #seth dickinson i’m in your walls #myken i’m Also in your walls i’m going to send u the therapist bill since you’re the one who convinced me to suffer so much 😤 #i want to be clear that something bad happens to these characters Constantly #lgbt stands for laundering grifting bankruptcy taxes #aminata #iraji #tau-indi bosoka #tain hu #baru cormorant #svirakir #the traitor baru cormorant #the monster baru cormorant #the tyrant baru cormorant #the masquerade #my art

[darling-child-tisarwat]

she’s sexy she’s a loser she’s the most cunning woman on the planet she sucks she’s drunk as shit she’s going to steal your girl she’s bad at dancing she’s going to destroy us all

#baru cormorant #the traitor baru cormorant

[promises-of-paradise]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT:

All of these edgy science fiction / fantasy novels about overthrowing evil empires and then becoming the very thing that you sought to destroy and the main character ending up as bad as the regime they overthrew and all that, you know?

You could very easily make a dramatised version of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, transplant it into generic fantasy evil empire world, change the names of the historical figures to fictional names, and all the tumblrinas would eat that up.

Picture this: Napoleon Our protagonist is born the second child in a large family on Corsica generic fantasy island, is sent to a military academy in France evil empire, and begins to rise through the ranks of the army. A revolution occurs, in which the French evil empire monarchy is overthrown, and our protagonist, a supporter of the revolution, fights for the revolutionary government against royalist uprisings and the first coalition other evil empires. Along the way, our protagonist becomes increasingly powerful, as well as being an absolute slut. After a series of military campaigns, our protagonist, seeing the corruption of the directory new evil government, stages a coup and becomes first consul generic fantasy leader. However, over the course of the book, our protagonist has acquired a huge ego and lost many morals, and ends up themself the emperor of France fantasy kingdom. "Morally grey" shenanigans ensue. (Of course, our protagonist would have many many love interests, such as Josephine de Beauharnais hot milf, Jean-Andoche Junot hot best friend, and Tsar Alexander I enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-again.) (Main character would be characterised as being the most pathetic little person to ever exist who is frequently bullied for being quirky and not-like-other-girls)

#THIS POST IS 100% SILLY OKAY PLEASE DON'T TAKE ANYTHING I SAY SERIOUSLY #history #napoleon #napoleonic #napoleonic era #napoleon bonaparte #books #bookblr #fantasy #fantasy books #fantasy writing #writing #writeblr #literature #locked tomb #iron widow #baru cormorant #i'm sorry for this

[beroebluejeans]

In fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding, I am so delighted when the author takes the opportunity to do some gender fuckery. And the more books I read that do this, the more I’m like, yes of course! You’re making up a whole civilization—why wouldn’t you fuck around with gender?

#witch king #baru cormorant #murderbot

[booksandchainmail]

Near the end of part 1 of The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Baru spends time in a tavern arguing about whether power lies in money or in the familial ties of nobility with an "actress", who it later becomes clear was in fact the Duchess Nayaru. Her act slips quite a bit throughout this conversation as she describes who she would make of herself an empress, but Baru misses it completely because she is very, very drunk.

As an extra hint for the observant reader, the scene begins by noting that the actress looks enough like Baru to be her sister: a couple of chapters ago, Baru was stopped by Duke Pinjagata on suspicion of being Nayauru, and he mentioned their strong resemblance.

While Nayauru (correctly) notes that Baru pays no attention to the personal lives and motivations of the Aurdwynni nobility, she gives examples:

"Do you know the story of Xate Olake's marriage to Tain Ko? Could you tell me why Heingyl Ri has only one living cousin, and who it is? Can you name the dukes who lost all their children in the Fools' Rebellion?" Baru brushed the challenge away. "Touching stories, I'm sure. I'm not a playwright. If it mattered, I would learn." "You rule a nation of the bereft. That matters. It changes how we think."

The first example is important because it is one of the breadcrumbs laid out to establish the background existence of Tain Shir. The third, I'm not so sure about: maybe as I reread I'll find further references to exactly which dukes this refers to. But the second:

"Heingyl's daughter handles his accounts. She likes to stay in debt to the Fiat Bank, as a kind of bond of trust." "Oh. Interesting. Maybe that's why she wanted my job. Who's her mother?" "One of the sisters of the last Duchess Nayauru, I believe. Didn't survive the Fool's Rebellion."

Heingyl Ri's only cousin is Nayauru herself, and she is the only one living because the rest of her family died in the Fools' Rebellion. Baru brushes aside as trivia the fact the woman she is speaking to, who holds a quarter of Aurdwynn and dreams of empire restored, lost her entire family to the Masks.

But there is even another layer: Nayauru, the "actress", is in the bar at the recommendation of her cousin. Heingyl Ri, who Baru consistently dismisses in the first two books as a potential actor in her own right, is the one who sent Nayauru Dam-Builder to judge the Imperial Accountant while she was vulnerable.

#baru cormorant #the traitor baru cormorant #heingyl ri #the masquerade

[arianwells]

"My name's Baru," she said, as names were gladly given on Taranoke. "Baru Cormorant, because a cormorant was the only thing that made me stop crying."

#baru cormorant #the traitor baru cormorant #the masquerade #my lines #digital art #it was supposed to be mango nevermind haha

[deanmarywinchester]

everything Seth Dickinson is doing in baru cormorant re gender and lesbianism is so special to me, for ursula le guin “show the society’s traditions and then show how people break traditions” reasons but also for sex reasons. like. I love love love how he portrays cultures outside of the empire doing gender and sexuality differently from the empire, it feels very grounded in historical reality. but I especially love how we see how people inside the empire resist and evade the empire’s strict doctrines of cisnormative heterosexual marriage: third-gendered people pass as man or women to access the empire’s power structures, the rich or connected can get away with more-or-less public gay relationships, people geographically or practically far from the empire’s spies and jails do whatever they want, people like baru who are conditionally allowed into the empire’s power structures are more careful.

also he just portrays lesbian desire really well. ive read too many other unsexy descriptions of tits to not appreciate how baru looks at women and wants them for their strong shoulders and easy confidence and stomachs padded with fat. she’s allowed to want fierce old warrior women and pursue Tain Hu’s old lovers and have fucked up daydreams of sex with beautiful brainwashed Clarified operatives whose consent would be meaningless. he lets her get a little weird with it and i love that about these books

#reading tag #baru cormorant #my posts

[shootingst4rpress]

tricking myself into doing face practice by making it about the fantasy dykes haunting my brain. had a lot of fun with these designs weeee

#the masquerade #the traitor baru cormorant #baru cormorant #tain hu #ellis’s art