Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

flvffs asked: top six female characters (if this is still running??)

Oooo-hooo-hooo, it’s been a goddamn WHILE since I went into my inbox, yeah, I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.  But yes!  This is still going!  This is the top six meme, for those of you who (justifiably) have forgotten since a month ago.

Also, this ask if just goddamn MEAN.  How???  Am I supposed to pick????

By cheating ruthlessly, that’s how.

Books

• Jamethiel Priest’s-bane, of the Kencyrath Chronicles, because she’s fierce as fuck and rides a rathorn into battle and is probably going to end the world.  Literally what else could you WANT in a character.

• Harimad-sol AKA Harry Crewe and Lady Aerin Dragon-killer, and I’m cheating MORE by putting them in the same category because they’re from the same series.  They are my beloved childhood friends and heroes, okay, the Blue Sword and the Hero and the Crown are goddamn glorious.

• RACHEL.  Because GODDAMN ANIMORPHS.  I’m not going to say more because I’m writing an epic rant about every book as I reread it.  Also Cassie gets honorary mention because GODDAMN CASSIE.

• Hermione Granger.  C’mon, y’all, I’m part of the Harry Potter generation and I’m a Gryffindor, Hermione is basically mandatory for this list.

• Kitsune Yukiko from Stormdancer, my L O V E.  Someone come cry with me.

• Um!  Um!  I only have one more, um!  THERE ARE TOO MANY.  Fuck it, Galadriel.  And Arwen.  They’re tied for LOTR lady-love.  With Eowyn as a close second.

Movies/TV

• IMPERATOR FURIOSA, ‘nuff said.

• The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, because I’m literally watching Miss Fisher right now and remembering that I adore this show and have the worst crush on Phryne.  Also her lesbian doctor friend is awesome.

• Buffy Goddamn Summers.  

• Echo from Dollhouse.  “I’m not broken.”  And honorary mention to Dolores from Westworld.  “I imagined a narrative where I wasn’t the victim.”  God, stories about empty bodies being filled up with souls are my SHIT.

• Rey.  And General Leia Organa.

• MAKO MOTHERFUCKIN’ JAEGER-DRIVIN’ KAIJU-STOMPIN’ MORI

Comics

• Rogue.  I like shitkicker comics Rogue a lot more than movie Rogue, not gonna lie to you.

• Natasha Goddamn Romanoff.  

• Wonder Woman.  Because she’s fucking Wonder Woman.

• Kitty Pryde.  I feel that she has been grievously wronged by the movies and I’ve taken it very personally.

• Ororo fucking Monroe, god, Storm is everything to me, she’s a goddess.

• Jean Grey.  I know a lot of people think Jean is…I don’t know, boring or something?  But I just.  I love her a lot, I got started on the comics rather than the original movies, and Sophie Turner CRUSHED IT in Apocalypse.
  

sroloc--elbisivni asked: Ok I was the anon who asked about the Hero and the Crown and I picked it up on your recommendation and just finished reading and D A M N

DARLING WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, I’M SO PROUD TO HAVE BEEN YOUR SPONSOR IN READING THIS BOOK.  I MYSELF AM CURRENTLY REREADING IT AND I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH.  D A M N.

Please forgive me for using this as an opportunity to pitch some of my other favorite Robin McKinley books, I CAN’T HELP MYSELF.  Don’t feel obliged to read them all, but they’re great, so if you’re ever strapped for a good book, they’re excellent defaults.

• Obviously you should read The Blue Sword, because Harry (the main character) is a badass and Corlath (Aerin and Tor’s many-times-great-grandson, the king of Damar) is a delight and Tsornin (the horse) is amazing.  AND GONTURAN MAKES A TRIUMPHAL RETURN TO THE BATTLEFIELD, AND LUTHE HAS A BIT, AND AERIN GETS A COUPLE CAMEOS.  Basically: read it.

• If you liked Aerin’s sense of humor and Talat the equine sass master, I recommend Dragonhaven, which is…fairly self-explanitory, but the basics are that the modern world is exactly the same except that instead of Yellowstone, we have Stonehill Dragon Preserve, and the main character (Jake) accidentally adopts a dragonlet.  Jake is perpetually hovering between cranky and wry and Lois is precious.

• If you liked the dreamy feeling of Aerin’s stint with Luthe in the stone hall and the weird magic of kelar, I recommend Chalice, which is weird dreamy magic start to finish.  The main character (Marisol) is part of a network of magic users who keep and care for their demense (like a…fief?) and she works magic through honey and the new Master (whose arrival makes the whole situation go straight to Hell, it’s not his fault, I love him) is about 80% literal fire.

• If you liked the weird magic of kelar and were sitting there thinking “You know what this needs?  Modern technology and some dimensional fuckery” I recommend Shadows, which is…well, weird magic, modern(ish) technology, and dimensional fuckery, 10/10 would experience again.

• If you liked Maur being terrifying and Aerin being tough even when it was awful for her, I recommend Sunshine, which is my number one favorite vampire novel ever, and in which even the nice vampires are pretty fucking terrifying.  The main character (Sunshine) lives in a world that’s basically our world plus demons and vampires and something called the Voodoo Wars that wiped out a good percentage of humanity.  She gets kidnapped by vampires and chained up with their other prisoner, who is also a vampire, and she is a brass bound bitch.  I adore her.  Also the vampire she gets chained up with is great, and the magic in Sunshine is just GORGEOUS.

• If you like retellings of fairy tales generally, I recommend Beauty, which is Beauty and the Beast and has a horse named Greatheart and roses and is basically awesome.  Spindle’s End is also good, but I like Beauty and the Beast better than Sleeping Beauty so.

• If you like to FUCKING SUFFER, I recommend the FUCK out of Pegasus, which is AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and MAGIC-RIDDEN and ABOUT FUCKING PEGASI, but which is also only the first half of a story and it ends on a heartbreaking cliffhanger, so DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.  The next book’s been ‘in the works’ for SO FUCKING LONG, god, someone needs to read this so I have someone to wail with.  @twistedangelsays: I’m coming for you, bitch.

• If you like McKinley’s style and want an epic saga in a similar style, I cannot recommend ANYTHING MORE WHOLEHEARTEDLY than the Kencyrath series by PC Hodgell.  THe link will take you to my epic-length book rec/tirade.  I just.  I love those books.

OKAY FRIEND I WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE NOW.  BUT IF YOU EVER NEED A BOOK REC HIT ME THE FUCK UP.

Anonymous asked: I wanna know more about the Hero and the Crown! i picked up McKinley's the blue sword one day but got distracted and for one reason or another never finished and now i'm trying to track her stuff down again

Oh, BABE, I’m actually jealous, I totally want to read Hero and the Crown again for the first time.  Buckle up, this is going to be quite a book rec.

Okay, so so so so SO, first things first, I don’t blame you for getting distracted during The Blue Sword, it’s a little more political machinations and army tactics and training than Hero and the Crown.  They take place in the same country, Damar, and they’re a set, but Blue Sword takes place hundreds of years later–to put it in perspective, Hero and the Crown happens in a time that’s still horses and knights and swordplay, whereas Blue Sword is a colonization, guns n’ steel, not quite up to telephones era.  Aerin, the main character from Hero and the Crown, is a legend and revered folk hero to the Damarians of Blue Sword, because Aerin is AMAZING.

All right, so, Hero and the Crown is the story of Aerin Dragon-killer, first sol of Damar (first sol being the highest female rank except for being actually married to the king).  Aerin is daughter of King Arlbeth and his witch-woman wife, who was the object of much suspicion from the country before her death, and even more suspicion afterward.  So that suspicion all spills over onto Aerin, who is tall and gawky and not good at being a first sol–in fact, she’s so spectacularly bad at being a first sol that some of her cousins are fairly convinced she’s illegitimate.  She breaks dishes just by being in the same room, she perpetually brings her sword (which she’s not supposed to have) and her saddle (which is for a warhorse rather than a lady’s pony) back to her chambers, she prefers to punch someone in the face rather than scheme, and, just to boot, she exhibits absolutely none of the royal line’s hereditary magic.  Basically, Aerin sucks at being a first sol, which would be fine with her if everyone didn’t expect her to be a first sol all the time.

And then one day Aerin takes her sword and her second-hand warhorse and something called kenet that makes you fireproof and goes to kill a dragon, and she finds out that, while she sucks at being a first sol, she does NOT suck at dragon slaying.  Events unfold from there.  Aerin is stubborn and hot-tempered and snarky and willful, she is everything I ever wanted to be as a kid.  Her perspective on life of “well THAT happened” is an absolute delight to read, and the world of Damar is glorious.

Other things I can guarantee you within the book include:

• a Big Ass Dragon (as opposed to the smaller annoying dragons Aerin largely handles)
  
• not one but two excellently constructed romantic plots (this might be the only book I’ve ever read where the protagonist is in love with two people and it’s…just not an issue, at all, ever, she’s just like ‘that happened’ and carries on fighting a war, this book is probably why I hate love triangles so much)
• magic EVERYWHERE (they call it the Gift and it kind of does shenanigans on its own once it’s strong enough)
• the Blue Sword, Gonturan, which Aerin carried long before she appeared in the eponymous novel
• wizards and mages and small trick-magicians
• a demon army
• AERIN

Other important characters include:

• Talat, Aerin’s second-hand warhorse, who was her father’s favorite horse until a sword cut rendered Talat lame in one leg, and YES, Talat is a character, fight me
  
• Tor, the first sola (heir to the throne), who is called ‘cousin’ in the general sense despite no apparent blood relation to Aerin, and who is at fault for the sword training, the dragon slaying, and probably the army raising, he is also one of the romances and he is HEART EYES over Aerin, I ship it
• Luthe, who I’m not gonna tell you much about because SPOILERS, but yeah, Luthe, FUCK YEAH, you’re going to need to trust me on that
  
• Galanna, another (very vain) cousin, she of the illegitimacy rumor-spreading, who Aerin once drugged so that she could sneak into Galanna’s rooms and shave off her eyebrows, and yes I included her so that I could add that tidbit
• Arlbeth, king of Damar, who gets a mention because he’s king and Aerin’s father, he’s very good at both
• Aerin’s army of wild dogs and hunting cats, who get a mention because??? Why wouldn’t they, that’s awesome
• Gonturan, who gets a mention on account of being awesome
• Maur, the Big Ass Dragon, who gets a mention on account of being a Big Ass Dragon
• AERIN

Basically: Hero and the Crown is amazing, buy it on Amazon here, and I love Robin McKinley like I love lungs, I don’t always think of it because it’s just there, and if you’re in the mood for any other vehemently delighted recs for McKinley’s books, I got you, hit me up.

slyrider asked: 148 - 150 for the ask meme :D

From this thing.

148. What’s your favourite quote?

Wellllll I have a lot.  But strong contenders are “Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light” and “I’d rather be divisive than indecisive” and “Humanity is where the falling angel meets the rising ape” and “You are what you love, not who loves you.”  At least, those are the ones I can think of, right this second.  I’m sure there are a thousand and one I’ll regret not putting on here once I remember them.

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

I…sort of?  Not so much in the ‘running around causing trouble’ sense, like I’m pretty confident that those ghosthunter TV shows are bullshit, but I have difficulty discrediting something that’s been such an integral part of human thought for so long.  Even though the modern American concept of ghosts pretty much dates to the Civil War (there was this whole thing about the dead coming home, since you usually didn’t get the bodies back), the concept of a lingering spirit is…old.  Very old.  And very universal.  So I have trouble rejecting out-of-hand one of the only things humanity ever seems to have agreed on.  

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?

“Aerin knew that Tor was careful not to use his real strength when he forced her back; but at least, as she learned, he had to be quick to keep her off; and strength, she hoped, would come.”  

It’s from The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley and let me tell you something, sweetie, that book is probably one of my top three favorites.  It’s amazing.  If anyone wants to hear more I will write you the most impassioned book rec in history.