Holy shit the last Imriel book is so bad it's actually heartbreaking. It doesn't even read like Jacqueline Carey wrote it. Was she replaced by a ghost writer? A pod person?

I cannot overstate how unbelievably bad this book is. It feels like some kind of really bad prank. It's a bad fanfic inspired by a cartoon that has characters sharing the same names as the rest of the series. It's worse than what happened to the later Discworld novels after Terry Pratchett's Alzheimer's really started setting in. At least we can just not count those last novels as part of the real Discworld canon. But Imriel's real story just going to stay unfinished forever.

At least parts of the first half was okay. And the showdown between Imriel and Astegal deserved a better story. Idk man what the fuck. I loved this boy so much. We really can't have anything.

Title: Kushiel's Mercy | Author: Jacqueline Carey | Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (2008)

📚 March Reading Round-Up 📚

Read some pretty great books in March, and there's a few I'm still reading that I hope to finish in April!

I was able to continue some series that I've been reading, such as The Murderbot Diaries and Kushiel's Legacy. I also finally finished the Imperial Radch trilogy!

- House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J Maas (partial re-read, Partial re-read, very good, kept wanting to read more, didn’t cry but felt the Emotions, friendship! Connected much more to some characters this time around)

- Divinity 36 by Gail Carriger (Good, engrossing, very emotional, lots of heart at its core, enjoyed it more as I continued reading)

- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (thank you Bigolas Dickolas for the push to finally read this book! Loved the audiobook, beautiful, not as confusing as I’d feared, loved how their relationship developed, the prose and metaphors and language…)

- Traveller's Joy by Victoria Goddard (Good, emotional, heartwarming, some sadness and dramatic irony, friendship!)

- Kushiel's Chosen (finally got to the second book, and it didn't disappoint! So good, kept binging it, so emotional and philosophical, heartbreaking at parts, loved it even more than book one)

- Network Effect by Martha Wells (so good and readable, Murderbot my beloved, loved seeing the characters and their relationships and Three, Murderbot being rescued!!!!)

- Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Read it in one sitting immediately after finishing Network Effect, so very good, loved the themes and characters and how they developed and grew, that ending!)

one day I will make a much longer lore post about her but the cliffs notes on Tav!Gisèle:

- Chosen of Eilistraee.

- Simultaneously Chosen of Loviatar, aka an anguissette.

- born to House Surana, Second House of Menzoberranzan, during Lolth’s Silence. (I will do a whole post just on their history, but they are basically Drow Shahrizai.) She briefly had an arranged betrothal with Minthara when they were very small children that was nullified when Triel Baenre was assassinated and Quenthel took control of House Baenre.

- first love was Shalnazar, the courtesan who deflowered her, he was a secret worshiper of Eilistraee who was then taken in by House Surana for his magical abilities. He introduced her to the Dark Maiden and she worshiped w him in secret.

- while attending Arach-Tinilith, she was caught rule breaking and punished publicly by Minthara, and her getting off on it outed her as what everyone including her erroneously thought was a Lolthite blessing but was in fact her anguissette thing. this gave her a lot of clout but it also made her a target.

- had extremely toxic yuri with Quenthel Baenre for years. Gisèle seduced her for protection from the enemies that last point earned, Quenthel took advantage of her age and position. All the while knowing her daughter Minthara was in love with Gisèle btw.

- defected from Menzo a few years after graduating Arach-Tinilith bc Quenthel demanded she sacrifice Shalnazar. She fled to Lith My’athar, where she formally dedicated herself to Eilistraee’s service and trained as a Sword Dancer under my old Hero of Undrentide in NWN, Kariza de’Camyras. Eventually Eilistraee asked her to become her Chosen, and Gisèle agreed.

- was abducted by the Nautiloid while on her way to Waterdeep, to assist the rebuilding of the Promenade of the Dark Maiden.

- has Draconic ancestry from a silver dragon pre-Descent, and a still living deep dragon, which reflects in her Sorcerer levels.

- mortal reincarnation of my old CHARNAME Ravenna, who ascended to godhood in Throne of Bhaal and became the Goddess of Merciful Death, then was murdered. She does not find out about this until Act 3.

- has a large complicated polycule as usual: this one is Gisèle/Astarion/Halsin/Shadowheart/Wyll/Karlach, but the “core” of it insofar as much as it has one is Gisèle/Halsin/Astarion.

- Wyll becomes her oathsworn protector (eg an Oath of Devotion paladin) once he loses his powers from Mizora.

- She saved Minthara and their relationship status is…deeply complicated but Min eventually begins to accept Eilistraee’s teachings, if in small ways.

- Abdirak is a full companion, joining the group after fleeing the battle at the goblin camp, and becomes her lover and mentor in the ways of Loviatar (who I have always written as a neutrally aligned fem Kushiel type of goddess rather than neckbeard fap bait.).

- Gortash could be a whole post but. she ends up flipping him entirely due to the deep spiritual bond they share as Chosen of Bane and Loviatar. (Think of this as a Scion of Kushiel reacting to his chosen and yeah.)

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @feralkwe - thank you! I feel like I've done this before but if I have it's been a minute so

1. How many works do you have on AO3? across pseuds I have 1,010 works. with my "current" one I'm at 607. that is more or less my entire oeuvre, though there's a fair number of short fics on tumblr I haven't gotten around to crossposting though I'd ostensibly like to at some point. eventually. maybe.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 4,873,723. aYIKES. but hey closing in on 5 million! wonder when I'll hit that. I bet I would if I posted my unfinished wips for the mcu tbh

3. What fandoms do you write for? ever or currently? the list of fandoms I have written at least one fic for (not counting ones where the one fic was a crossover) is [deep breath] the mcu, the untamed/mdzs, supernatural, the silmarillion, a song of ice and fire, black jewels trilogy, wheel of time, doctrine of labyrinths, death note, the caliban leandros series, avatar the last airbender, kinnporsche, doctor who, buffy the vampire slayer/angel, gentleman bastard sequence, marvel comics, harry potter, temeraire, good omens, code geass, realm of the elderlings, greek mythology, dragon age, sandman, dexter, lymond chronicles, the firekeeper saga, lucifer (the tv series), crimson peak, kushiel's legacy, the x men movies, chronicles of narnia, twilight, and a couple other small book fandoms.

i used to be a lot more multifandom than i am now in terms of what i wrote for, and have been writing fic for which is how this happened.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Not my favorite fics, for the most part. They are:

Life in Reverse (MCU)

With Absolute Splendor (The Untamed)

some good mistakes (The Untamed)

half a league onward (MCU)

The Villain Wrangler (MCU)

5. Do you respond to comments? I do not. I feel bad about it, but (a) I don't know what to say, (b) I feel unbearably self-conscious/self-important trying and (c) I already have too much I'm trying to do in my limited time/too many obligations I have placed upon myself to add another one that will just stress me out. Again, I have all kinds of guilt about this, though, which probably kind of defeats the (c) purpose of not doing it.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Almost certainly Mercy, though it's possible I could dig up others; that's the literal murder-suicide one, though, and I'm pretty sure I've only written one of those. I've written a lot where one character dies but another survives and has to live with the grief, which is arguably worse? but I still think Mercy wins. once there was a way to get back home might give it a run for its money, though.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I've actually written a fair amount of fic with happy endings! just mostly they have to suffer to get there. but trying to think of fic with a straight happy ending...I feel like I wrote some fairly fluffy fic in Black Jewels Trilogy fandom that I don't want to link to because I don't think it's very good. Maybe Life in Reverse, honestly? That's a fic where I tied up most things and resolved them in a pretty happy way.

Oh, or actually With Absolute Splendor might qualify.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I have in the past! Not a lot, but it happens every so often. Usually I just delete it, tbh; it doesn't feel worth leaving it there and I'm certainly not going to respond to it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Sure do, primarily for pairings that are dysfunctional in one way or another, and for the most part I want the sex to say something about the inner life/psychology of the characters I'm writing. truly plotless smut does happen but I find it weirdly difficult. I have to do so much pre-justification work for my smut, at least in my head if not on page.

a lot of what I write at least has a little bit of kink or D/s flavor to it even if it's not explicitly written as such (and a lot of it is at least a little explicitly written as such). I also like to write about power dynamics (in sex) and sex that's sublimating some other emotion or desire, if that latter makes sense.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I used to, but not anymore, and I probably won't; I don't know why, but I'm just generally not a crossover fan these days. But I did write a Lord of the Rings/Cthulhu Mythos Morgoth/Cthulhu fic back in the day. No, I'm not going to link it, you can find it if you really want.

The Scarlet Pimpernel/Black Jewels Trilogy might be objectively weirder but it was because of an RP and therefore feels more reasonable to me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I had forgotten about it until just now, but yes, actually. Including one that actually got reposted on AO3, which takes a particular kind of guts that's not the same as reposting on Wattpad or the like, imo. (I've also had fic scraped off AO3 and reposted on other sites.) The person took it down when I called them out on it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have been fortunate enough to have a number of fics translated into a few languages! I was curious which ones so I went and looked, and it looks like I've had fic translated into Russian, Chinese, and Japanese.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I've started co-writing a fic but never finished one.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? Might have to give this one to xuexiao, though there's a lot of room in my heart for many ships! that's just one that hit an incredible number of my favorite things squarely on the head several times, leaving me concussed and helpless. It's so much, you guys.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? There's a number of my MCU wips that I look at and am like "yeah what I have of this is good actually, too bad I'll almost certainly never finish it", among which is Dead Superheroes Walking, the fic about everyone who died in Infinity War being trapped inside the Soul Stone and having to work together to fix the ensnappening from the inside. I have about 3/4 of it written if not more and the remaining quarter will probably remain unfinished. It was Wanda POV and a lot about Wanda and Loki bonding.

another one is the one where Hela decides instead of fighting Odin to strategically back down and plan to overthrow him later, and therefore is around while Loki and Thor are growing up. I really liked what I had of this one, and really enjoyed writing Hela's POV, but again. don't think I'm going to end up finishing it.

I have a whole folder called "MCU Salvage" that's basically my MCU wips that I parsed out because I was like "these are pretty good actually, maybe someday I'll have the motivation to return to them", which is probably delusional but, well. one never knows.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I'm pretty good at dialogue - I love to write characters having conversations, probably to a fault - and, when it comes to fanfiction, characterization.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Worldbuilding for sure is one. I hate it, I don't think I'm very good at it. also description - I feel like I lean heavily on dialogue in fic and tend to go light on descriptive language. this is probably partly because I'm not a very imagery-focused reader, so I don't think a lot about creating a "visual" with my writing, but also because I just don't like doing it as much as I like writing about internal thought processes and interpersonal verbal exchanges.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I almost certainly would not do it, as someone who is monolingual and has zero confidence in my ability to do it right in a way that wouldn't read absolutely awfully. The one exception to this is in Lymond fic, and that's because the canon did it first, so it is fully justifiable for me to have this guy spout off in five languages in one fic. Otherwise...not since I tried writing a fake Phantom of the Opera fic mocking bad Phantom of the Opera fics.

19. First fandom you wrote for? I always say Wheel of Time because that's the first fandom of my heart but technically I wrote a crack Harry Potter fic before I wrote for Wheel of Time. But in my heart it was Wheel of Time. That was certainly my first fandom in any meaningful sense of the word.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written? This question is my nemesis. My favorite fic I've ever written changes at least once a month. I have a series for this on AO3 that I'm going to link to as a lazy answer to this question even though that's sort of 50 of my favorite fics, so sue me, I've written a lot of things over the years and I actually do like a fair number of them, even if you have to make me say so.

tagging uhhhh @highladyluck, @curiosity-killed, @ameliarating, @gloriousmonsters, i'm not sure how many people i'm supposed to tag for this but if you want to do it, go ahead?

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Jeanne de Mereliot

All at once, it seemed too hot in the room. I threw off the heavy quilts and lay naked atop the bed. When a soft knock came at the door, I went to answer it unthinking, pausing only to grab my sword-belt. It was Jeanne, the Lady’s daughter. Amusement lightened her dark grey eyes. “Did I disturb you? I thought you might be awake.” “No, and I was.” I laughed. “How did you know?”       “Because I’m a healer who ought to know better than to ask pressing questions of a battle-weary soul.” She touched my bare chest with her chirurgeon’s fingers. “And so I came to offer . . .” “Healing?” I asked. “Respite.” Jeanne smiled at me. “Ease. Eisheth’s mercy, if you want it.” “Yes.” Taking her hand, I drew her into the room. “Oh, yes.”

After... Years? Yes, years... I've been finally able to complete a drawing! Well... Actually it wasn't exactly one drawing but a couple of drawings, but I successed! 💖 Again from my favorite book series Kushiel's Legacy, Imriel dressed as the Night Prince for the Masque! I took some liberties, since his dress was totally black and he has stars in his hair, but it was too dark...

And here, the couple finally together, the Night Prince and his Sun Princess:

The tattoo wasn’t very large, not much bigger than the engraving on Astegal’s signet ring. It was stark and black against her skin. I laid the blade alongside it, breathing slowly and deeply. I could do this. I had to do this. Before I was born, the Skaldi warlord Waldemar Selig had attempted to skin Phèdre alive on the battlefield of Troyes-le-Mont. If a man could do such a thing for spite, I could do it for love. I cut into Sidonie’s flesh. Her entire body jerked and she uttered a stifled cry that brought tears to my eyes. Blood flowed, making the hilt of the little blade slippery. Cutting and cutting, all the way around it, shaking my head to clear my eyes of the tears that blurred my vision. Gods, it was awful. It was the most awful thing I’d ever done. But I did it. I set the paring knife and the bloody disk of skin and flesh on the table. “It’s done.” Sidonie spat out the sash, but her hands remained braced on the table, knuckles white. For a long moment, she didn’t move or speak, only breathed hard, her ribcage heaving. Blood trickled down her spine. “I’m going to kill him,” she said at last in a low, savage voice. “Kushiel bear witness, I swear, I’m going to kill him myself!” She straightened and turned so quickly I had to step back. I saw the full helpless fury of the knowledge of what had been done to her written in her face. Everything, every violation. Every night in Astegal’s bed. And then her expression changed. “Imriel,” Sidonie breathed, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Blessed Elua! How could I forget you? In a thousand years, how could I forget you?” “You didn’t,” I said, my heart aching for her. “Neither of us did. Sidonie, you found me inside Leander when I didn’t even know myself. And I fell in love with you all over again. All the magic in Carthage couldn’t stop us from loving one another, any more than all the politics of Terre d’Ange could. You were right when you said Blessed Elua must have some purpose for joining us, because here I am – ” She reached up to me and stopped my mouth with a kiss, with a dozen kisses. I groaned aloud and gathered her to me, sinking one hand into her hair, wrapping my arm around her waist. “Erase him from me,” Sidonie whispered against my lips. “You’re hurt,” I murmured. “I don’t care.” She shook her head. “I need you.” I slid both hands down to grasp her buttocks and lifted her gently. She clung to me, legs wrapped around my waist, arms twined around my neck, kissing my face as I carried her to the bed. I found clean towels by the washbasin. “Every trace,” I promised, bathing the blood from her skin while she knelt on the bed. The wound was still seeping, but slowly. I’d made the cut as shallow as I could. “Every trace of him, gone.” “You promise?” Sidonie whispered. “Always.” My throat was tight, my heart overflowing. “Always and always.”

Kushiel’s Mercy, Jacqueline Carey

LONGEST NIGHTS IN THE SERIES- Imriel & Sidonie dress as Day & Night

I think I'm so fixated on Imriel's Trilogy because it would be such a great story if it wasn't the author writing it. Which is exactly my brand.

Jacqueline Carey is the most white woman to ever white woman good Christ. I know she apologized for not having any trans characters in Kushiel's Legacy even though it's an LGBT story because nobody knew what the T stood for in the 2000s. But if not for that, she's who I would pick to have gone fully radfem conservative liberal JKR. Not least because you can tell at what point she thought she was too good for an editor (halfway through the first Imriel book). All three books are at least one third longer than they have to be. The tortured fake medieval speak in making my eyes bleed. Did they kill the editors in the publishing house? Put them out to pasture to graze with JKR's? I keep wanting so badly to at least beta read this. The writing's engaging, even if the plots are a bit slipshod, but dear God it would be so easy to make this a bit more readable.

And then there is the narrative. Carey seems to think women are exceptionally sensible soft-hearted unicorn species (when they aren't scheming badass girlboss villains). She's indistinguishable from some benevolently sexist old Victorian guy. Rape only happens to women and children. For men, being sexually assaulted is a good nudge nudge wink wink joke. And the white ethnosupremacy! Girl, an idealised white Tolkien race that's better and more beautiful and progressive than everyone else, most of whom grow more and more misogynistic and barbaric the further away, is still white supremacy even when in it's alternate universe medieval France. Also, beauty standards aren't universal across borders and cultures, especially in the medieval world. How do you put this much thought into an alternate history and complex belief systems and not even consider what it means to have different cultures and ethnicities? You don't get cookies for allowing your Legolas race of people marry into indigenous Celts and Picts when you keep rhapsodizing about how much prettier and more civilized D'Angelines are! And what the fuck is up with this obsession with blood relations?? Why do you need to have your protagonists halfway in love with their adoptive parents (I overlooked it once because of extenuating circumstances but jeez), why do you need to make the adoptive parents have to qualify their claims in the middle of being a parent ("He is my son....at least in my heart") and why do you keep insisting blood connections equate to stronger bonds ("Alais may be the sister of my heart, but Sidonie is her flesh and blood." "She's my blood! Why do you think I tried so hard to protect her from you?") when the whole premise of the series is a ruling family fucking each other over for the throne?

I will say that Sidone finally seems like a real person and she's pretty great, but Imriel's own personality has faded so much to let her shine that sometimes it's like it's just some guy narrating the book. Imriel's intensity and guilt and charm and cunning have all just vanished in the third book. He's just there to weep and gnash his teeth at losing Sidone, tear at his hair about Sidonie being in danger, gaze adoringly at her and being her bodyguard. It's like watching the later seasons of a CW show. Everything is about the badass trophy girlfriend who's always right about everything. Sidonie isn't as obnoxious but good God it's like she's the only real person in this book. Kratos is literally just there to gape at her. (URIST PLEASE COME BACK YOU WERE MY FAVOURITE.) Complete waste of characters who've been so compelling and engaging all this time.

In short, this a goddamn mess. Why do the most privileged, insipid white people get the most opportunity to sell their stories?

I'm going to assume that Phedre's Trilogy is actually good though. I stopped halfway down the first book because I was too shocked and sad when my faves died and picked up the Imriel sequels instead so that I'd already know the basics of what happened in the original. (I literally read the Wikipedia plot synopsis while in the movie theater before it starts so that I'm not surprised by anything. My ex boyfriend once threw a surprise party for me and I nearly broke up with him. I'm too emotionally dysregulated for surprises.) But what I read was really, genuinely good. I skimmed the other two and they also seemed as good. So I'm hoping that whatever youthful talent Carey possessed before bloated egoism brought her down lives up to its promise. Plus I just really love Phedre. Scheming little bitch she is. She's lost all her spice and teeth and self-absorption in Imriel's books, but she's mostly there to be his mother that everyone has a crush on, including him, so it didn't matter. Imriel doesn't have an Oedipal complex, but he always gives the impression that he might if he let himself think about it too hard.

Edit: no but seriously. Why the fuck does this last book read like a bad ghostwriter wrote it??

Just finished kushiel's mercy and I am filled with so many emotions!!! My boy imriel has gone so far and seen so much and changed!!! So well!!!! He's learned how to love!!!! So!!! Many !!!! Emotions!!!!!!

Imriel earning Barquel L’Envers’ respect made my heart grow three sizes too big.

Noble Families of Terre d’Ange 7/ - House Mereliot (at the time of Kushiel’s Mercy)

Arms:

Two gold fish, head-to-tail, on sea blue

Territory:

Eisande

Scions of:

Eisheth 

House Mereliot is the ruling house of Eisande. Its arms is a pair of gold fish, head-to-tail, on sea blue.

Because they are scions of Eisheth, members of House Mereliot are skilled at healing, music and storytelling. They are frequently very gifted at the healing arts, with some members becoming chirurgeons. Unlike the rest of Terre d'Ange where the oldest child inherits, House Mereliot gives preference to daughters in the line of inheritance. The head of House Mereliot is always female because Eisheth was female. She is referred to as both the Duchese de Mereliot and the Lady of Marsilikos. If there are no daughters, the heir's wife will be Lady of Marsilikos and will share power with him. Members of the house typically have dark hair and dark eyes.

The seat of House Mereliot is Marsilikos. Marsilikos is an extremely important port and perhaps the most important city of Terre d'Ange besides the City of Elua. House Mereliot lives in the Dome of the Lady. It is an impressive structure of white marble with a large golden dome surrounded by minarets. There is a legend that the golden dome can be seen far out to sea and has saved the lives of sailors during storms.

(From the Kushiel’s Legacy wiki)

I haven't finished the book yet, but my one-sentence summary of Kushiel's Mercy so far is "Carthago delenda est"