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

leaper182:

gehayi:

alisfranklin:

ceescedasticity:

wrangletangle:

rashaka:

reblog if you’ve ever written a fanfic just to spite the existence of another fanfic somebody else wrote

Funny story. Robin McKinley once wrote an entire book like that. Her novel was The Blue Sword, and it was in response to the horror that is The Sheik by Edith Hull (trigger warnings for rape, stockholm syndrome, and virulent racism). McKinley stated that it took her about 6 months to draft The Blue Sword, which was at that point the fastest she had ever written a novel.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that fury can’t sustain you through a giant artistic fuck you.

I have heard that “Lord of the Flies” was written in response to a book with some English public school boys getting stranded and having just a jolly very civilized time. I feel much better about that book knowing it’s supposed to be not a indictment of human nature but a commentary on English public school boys.

That book was The Coral Island, FWIW. It’s basically about rich English boys getting stranded on an island and having a jolly good time while fending off cannibalism and rape from “savages”. William Golding read the book repeatedly as a boy, but disagreed with it as an adult, and apparently stated that the Lord of the Flies grew out of the “rotted compost” of his memories of the text.

The other things The Coral Island inspired were Peter Pan and Treasure Island, which just goes to show sometimes the fanfic outlives the original.

The Cat in the Hat was written because the director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin challenged Dr. Seuss to come up with a story children would actually want to read using some of the same basic words used in Fun with Dick and Jane.

The His Dark Materials trilogy was written as a Take That to the Chronicles of Narnia.

I think one of my first slash fics was written because I’d read something so incredibly ooc that I, at 16, felt like I could write a better story.

17 years later, I’m still going. :D

(via skymurdock)

Request from @littlestartopaz​ for Harry/Corlath from the Blue Sword on the music meme.   I got Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons, so…yeah…that happened.  ALL RIGHT HERE WE MOTHERFUCKING GO, goddamn but I love these books.

Corlath had known what it was to be king since his father’s death when he was a young man, only just eighteen.  He had known he would fight a war for even longer, since before his kelar came to him—maybe he’d known it forever, maybe it was what his mother sang to him at his birth and whispered to him when he was wakeful at night.  The first time he tasted the Meeldtar, it snatched him away from himself and brought him visions of Thurra and his fierce white stallion, streaked with blood and battle rage.  When he came back, he dropped the leather pouch as if his hands were suddenly as weak as a sickly child’s, and he wept for the terror that was not his and the battle he had seen, and his father had soothed him with a gentle hand and quiet voice.

It was not until he was on the field before the Bledfi Gap, his soldiers holding well against the mere trickle of Northerners coming through, and he felt the prickle of his kelar stirring, that he understood that old vision.  It was not his battle, no—but it was his terror.

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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.

Anonymous asked: Have you read Sunshine? What did you think? (I am low-key always creeping for other people who know who the hell Robin McKinley is and who like her stuff.)

leupagus:

BOY HAVE I. I love that fucking book, even though McKinley, like a real asshole (and I mean that with affection and respect) has declared throughout the years that she’ll only write a sequel if the muse comes to her or the moon is in the seventh house or whatever the fuck. Lady, you sit your ass down and YOU WRITE ME THE SEQUEL.

I love that book a lot; it’s one of my comfort reads, in part because it’s a book that at one point discusses the concept of comfort reads. Sunshine came out during a time when I was having a difficult relationship with my mom, and I really connected with the way that Sunshine’s mother was such a huge, palpable presence in the book - and yet never actually appeared in a scene, never had any dialogue, was never there in the solid sense. That also made me realize that character can be written in ways I’d never previously imagined, much less tried myself, and so it inspired me to write more creatively. It’s such an interesting book that would be impossible to make into a movie, although I’d definitely watch a tv show of it; there’s so little action and so much introspection, so much meditation on the importance of memory. It is - and I mean this sincerely - what Twilight could have, and should have, been: a story not about love so much as partnership and faith and bravery. It makes me believe in people.

But seriously McKinley what the fuck bro.