Entries tagged with borgias

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Current Location: Bamberg

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Past and Present

Daily horrors whenever one catches up with the news, both on a global and national level, makes for an increasing need to find some way to fannishly relax. (Mind you, there are no safe zones from current day insanity in fandom, either. Some weeks ago yours truly was horrified to learn the claim that the Orange Felon supposedly likes Sunset Boulevard, one of Billy Wilder's masterpieces. I'm still in denial about that - maybe he just likes some songs from ALW's musical version? How would he even have the patience and focus to watch an entire movie with no action scenes, no sex scenes and lots and lots of sharp dialogue, not to mention no macho hero in sight? What Billy Wilder, who as a young man watched the country he was in go from a Republic to a fascist state, but who was with all cynisim pretty idealistic about the US where he found refuge would have said about the present, I don't want to imagine. At the very least, he'd demand a rewrite. I mean: like all VPs during the Munich security conference, the current one a few days ago visited Dachau. I'm not exaggerating, it is what every single US VP attending the Munich security conference has done. Like the rest of them, Vance got a guided tour by one of the few still living survivors. If it filtered through that Dachau, one of the very first German concentration camps which when it was built and put to work in 1933 included as its very first inmates Social Democrats, Union Representatives and Communists, i.e. the very people Elon Musk and Alice Weidel (Germany's Marine Le Pen wannabe) declared to be Nazis to an audience of billions, Vance didn't say. Instead, he went from visiting a concentration camp to meeting Weidel, i.e. the leading woman of a certified right extremist (or if you want to be less polite, Neonazi) party, and then held forth at the conference where he claimed to defend free speech (you know, while his boss kicks out reporters daring to say "Gulf of Mexico" and erases trans people out of existence) and told Europeans they're the true anti democratic dictators and should work with their Nazi parties already.

Billy Wilder, at his most cynical, would not have written such caricatures as are currently in charge of dismantling democracy not just in the US but nearly everywhere. Btw, the retort by our current secretary for defense, Boris Pistorius, was this:

Watch on YouTube

Aaanyway. I find history podcasts not just interesting in general but at such times as these oddly comforting in a "this, too, shall pass" way. (I am not referring to the history of the 20th century, of course. That currently provides a "this, too, shall come back" vibe.) Since it's been a while, some impressions on my English language favourites:

History of Byzantium: got into something of a depressive slump after the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, but that's history, and it is now back to the narrative. (Decline-and-fall-like as it has to be.)

Not just the Tudors: continues to be very entertaining, and most guest speakers Susannah Libscombe interviews are good, with the occasional dud; most recently there excellent episodes on the various males of the Borgia family, and then for Lucrezia she changed her interview partner and alas her new interviewee was, shall we say, less than stellar.

History of the Germans: has since last I wrote been reordered so there are thematic seasons, i.e. if you're just interested in, say, the Ottonians or the Hanseatic League, you can listen to just those seasons. On a personal level, my experience with this podcast has been that the seasons that deal with parts of history I'm not so familiar with captivate me more than those I do already know a lot about, but not because the later is badly researched (au contraire), it's just that I love getting intrigued and learning more. So of course I have favourites. In the recent year, I loved the Interregnum season (starring among others Rudolf von Habsburg, the first Emperor of that family, going from simple count to HRE buy "waving a marriage contract in one hand and a sword in the other" as he tactically married his many female relations to lots of dying-out-older nobility, Ludwig the Bavarian (proving that getting excommunicated by the (Avignon) Pope is no longer the big deal it used to be as he employs, as Dirk puts it, half the cast of The Name of the Rose, and Karl IV, he after whom the bridge and a lot of other things in Prague are named after) and the current season, The Reformation before the Reformation, which you get the whole late medieval enchilade of corrupt popes and antipopes, the Council of Konstanz (good for book swapping, not so good for actual radical reforms, ask Jan Hus, who gets burned during it) and then the Hussite Revolution in Bohemia.

Revolutions: Mike Duncan's second podcast which used to be finished with the Russian Revolution but now has been resumed by him with a highly entertaining sci fi season, the Martian Revolution. Its backstory sounds a bit inspired by The Expanse as well as lots of the historical revolutions he has covered. If the CEO of OmniCorps whose blinkered know-it-all-ness, ego and lack of anything resembling human empahy triggered the Martian Revolution sounds a bit like a current tech bro in charge of the White House, I'm sure it's entirely coincidental.

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Current Location: Bamberg

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Jo Graham: The Borgia Dove (Book Review)

Aka the second volume in her series about Giulia Farnese, the mistress of Rodrigo Borgia (aka Pope Alexander VI.) and sister to Alessandro Farnese (aka Pope Paul III.) (The first book was "A Blackened Mirror", which I reviewed here.) It's as engaging and enjoyable to read as the first one, provided you like your Renaissance colourful and your Borgias sympathetic, which I very much do.

It's 1492, Pope Innocent is dying, which means Rodrgio Borgia is about to embark on his life time goal of getting elected as Pope. But the competition is as fierce and ruthless as it's ever been, and our heroine Giulia, who at this point has been his mistress for two years, basically is the Josh Lymon (or would that be Leo?) to his not yet President Bartlett, making and using contacts, arranging and negotiating votes from other Cardinals via their mistresses while Rodrigo & Co. are locked up in the Conclave and not supposed to be in contact with the outside world. (But of course they are. In various degrees of discretion. If one guard takes bribes from too many Cardinals and thus gets caught, though, everyone is screwed for a while and scrambling to find other channels.) If, that is, she's not foiling assassination attempts on either her beloved or herself. Half the fun of this particular novel is Giulia-as-campaign-manager/fixer negotiating with other (older than her) women, all wily and tough in their own right. Earlier on, Rodrigo's son Cesare, who was off to school in the last volume but gets on stage here, who is exactly her own age, asks her what she can do that he can't, since he, of course, is also helping with the electioneering, and this is what. (Fear not, Cesare fans, he also gets plenty to do. Not least because what Giulia can't do is sword fight. Young Cesare is suitably dashing with a good deal more cynicsm than his old man but also some not immediately obvious yearning for more acknowledgment, which Giulia spots.) (Also, one of the ladies Giulia is negotiating with is the courtesan Fiammetta, who immediately is taken by Cesare's hotness, which is mutual. Fiammetta - who historically had a long term affair with him - doesn't often show up in Borgia fictionalisiations for some reasons, or if she does, is barely mentioned. Here, she's an important supporting player, worldly, witty and that rarity, a non-noble woman of independent means who's made a success of her courtesan career and can afford to choose her affairs now.)

Other than Cesare, Fiammetta, and various other female power players of Renaissance Rome with a vested interest in which Cardinal wins the papal election, the novel introduces us to a Jewish family in need of sanctuary. They couldn't have picked a worse time - Rome while one Pope is dead and before the next Pope was voted into power was basically a lethal free for all, even leaving aside the Antijudaism -, but Giulia takes them in anyway, which btw isn't the type of anachronistic giving your historic heroines modern attitudes but foreshadows Rodrigo Borgia's deciding that Rome would take in loads of Jewish refugees from Spain (a papal decision far more sympathetically regarded in our time than it was back in the day, and btw, much as I disliked great parts of the third season of The Borgias, I loved that they included Rodrigo's Jewish sympathies as well). This plotthread is also connected to something I really love about Jo Graham's version of Giulia Farnese, which is that she's a passionate book lover and geek. (Part of Rodrigo's early attraction in the last volume was that he offered her books.) I really like it if a historical novel remembers to give its main characters passionate interests that aren't only brought up when servicing the plot but are part of their constant characterisation, and that is very much the case with Giulia.

Something that did surprise me a bit, though not in a negative way, is that Rodrigo's main long term opponent and bane, Cardinal della Rovere (future Pope Julius) continues to be kept of page, so to speak, solely talked about, but not yet making personal appearances. It makes sense, since Giulia is our pov character, and della Rovere spends his time in the Conclave for most of this volume where Giulia decidedly is not, but I'm ever more curious what he'll be like in person in this version. In the meantime, last volume's villain, Virginio Orsini, makes an encore appearance, and we're introduced to the very intriguing Ascanio Sforza, both rival and (for now) temporary ally in these papal elections.

In conclusion, it's another great novel by Jo Graham, and I hope she'll stay in the Renaissance a good long while, no offense to Napoleonic France. It's one of my favourite eras (to read about; I wouldn't have wanted to live there). (Though our current era shows disturbing similarities - never mind.)

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Current Location: Munich

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Jo Graham: A Blackened Mirror (Book Review)

A thoroughly delightful Renaissance adventure from one of my favourite authors. Our heroine is Giulia Farnese, and the story starts three years before Rodrigo Borgia will become Pope. The Farnese are somewhat impoverished nobility at this point, and so when the head of one of the most important Roman familiies, the Orsini, proposes a match between Giulia and one of his nephews, there's no question about it. But then the groom is unwilling to consumate the marriage, his uncle has decidedly sinister things in mind (no, not those), and Giulia becomes ever more intrigued by the the Vice Chancellor of the church, Cardinal Borgia, whose young daughter Lucrezia is curerntly living with Giulia's new mother-in-law...

Now I'm familiar with a great many fictional takes on all things Borgia, including at least two interesting and compelling Giiulia Farneses who are completely different from each other (both from tv shows, one from The Borgias and one from Borgia). I dare say this take on Giulia, who is different yet again, comes closest to how I imagine the woman from the biographies - starting out young and powerless, yes, but due to wit, charm and very definite ideas of what she doesn't want her life to be quite capable to navigate herself through a dangerous world to go from pawn to player. What charms me as well is how embedded in her context this Giulila is. For example: Jo Graham gives her a love for books (which, since books are still relatively expensive, is something she only starts being able to pursue post marriage, and the books Giulia reads and responds to are books available at the time, and it's a trait that consists through the novel, as opposed to being mentioned once and then we never hear her talk about books again. The descriptions of Renaissance Rome, from the reappropriated Pantheon - a church at the time - to the statues Rodrigo Borgia collects to the alley once used for murder in ancient Rome and still not a good place ot be - make you feel you're seeing it with your own eyes. And the various relationships are all show, not tell, like Giulia's closeness to her brother Alessandro, her befriending Lucrezia, and of course the growing flirtation with Rodrigo, which I found to be the most convincing case of electric mutual attraction in a Graham novel since Mtich and Stasi in the Order of the Air books.

Evidently readers like yours truly who know the history know where some of this is going, but by no means all, not least because of the particular dastardly scheme our villain du jour (for a change in Borgia novels not Guiliano della Rovere, who is still off stage in this book, but Virginio Orsini) is hatching. There's also a character who I tihnk is an OC, Dr. Treschi, whose loyalties neither Giulia nor the reader can be certain of. And speaking of the good doctor, there's a short dialogue between him and Giulia which I felt to be a very apropos comment on the present, when Treschi says it doesn't really matter who becomes the next Pope, the Cardinals are all the same, and Giulia retorts that yes, it does matter, naming a few very unabstract and immediate examples where who is Pope and has the power to decide is indeed crucial.

In conclusion, the book is promising to be the first of a new saga, which I am very much looking forward to, but it also has a self contained narrative arc which is satisfyingly wrapped up in this particular volume. Very much reccommended.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

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January Meme: The Borgias on tv: My likes and dislikes

Why

liraen wanted to know.

Here's what I haven't watched: the 1981 BBC series The Borgias, and the movie Prince of Foxes, though I do want to see the later, not because I expect it to have to do anything with history, but because Orson Welles plays Cesare. I did watch a French or Spanish miniseries about the Borgias, but that one was so unmemorable that I can't recall anything about it. Which leaves me with the two tv series who premiered in 2011: Showtime's The Borgias, created by Neil Jordan (Rodrigo: Jeremy Irons), and Borgia by Tom Fontana (Rodrigo: John Dorman), broadcast across various European channels. Now back in the day when both shows were in their first season, or had just concluded it, a post was making the rounds which strongly critisized The Borgias while praising Borgia for its "historicity". I found the essay in question so obnoxious, and didn't like the Borgia pilot, that I didn't watch Borgia for years. However, I did watch it some years later, when it was for a while free on Amazon Prime, and found to my surprise I liked it, though certainly not for more "historicity". (Any version of the Borgia tale that has Cesare sacrificing his first born baby so Dad can become Pope (don't worry, someone saves the Baby) in s1, and has in s2 Cardinals seriously debating to keep on Lucrezia in her father's job since she's doing such a good job filling in for him has no room to boast in that regard.) For a detailed review by yours truly of its three seasons, see here.

Years passing also helped me to get over my extreme annoyance and disappointment with The Borgias' third season (a few scenes and one or two episodes excepted). Overall, I'm still quite fond of that show, though in retrospect, you can see signs of the declline in s2 already; I suspect Neil Jordan had the first season - which I still love to pieces - mapped out from start to finish, started improvising and handing over responsibilities in s2, and in s3 wasn't even trying anymore, which is why a lot of it feels the laziest fanfiction. So, looking back, what are my likes and dislikes?

( Detailed spoilers for both shows follow )

The other days

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Current Location: Landshut

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Meanwhile…

I’ve been meaning to post these two links for ages, but this week and the next are terribly crowded for me.

Star Trek: Discovery : Level Up : wonderful vid capturing all the joy and love this show offers in three seasons. Definitely the one to show to people who didn’t watch more than first few episodes and keep calling the series “grimdark” when it really isn’t.

Renaissance History : The Body Politic (School Days) : a day in the life of teenage Cesare Borgia, studying at Pisa with the likes of Giovanni de’ Medici, Alessandro Farnese and, of course, his future henchman-in-chief Micheletto. (Not based on either of the Borgia tv shows.)

Also, I’ve been watching Midnight Mass at Netflix. I’d liked Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House (except for the ending), and been mildly interested but in the end not really touched by his take on The Turn of the Screw, aka The Haunting of Bly Manor. Midnight Mass, by contrast, isn’t inspired by literary origins, though some characters do feel as if they could be from a Stephen King novel. (Bev in particular, though in a different way Riley, too.) Here, I was captured from the get go and thought the story had the right (for it) ending. All the characters of its ensemble come alive, and the self indulgent parts - my lord, does Mike Flanagan love his monologues! - don’t detract, they somehow fit with the people who say them.

(Not solely the priest who has a professional excuse to monologue.)

What’s most appealing, though, is that Flanagan uses his basic premise - using the similarities between the vampire myth and the Catholic mass if you take it literally - for more than a gimmick, and while the series certainly offers its share of meta and Watsonian critique on religion, it doesn’t do so via cheap shots, but shows the good side of faith as well. You have characters who exploit it, and you have characters who draw their strength from it. The small community on an island where the story is set feels real. (With the one caveat that clearly this entire series takes place in a universe where no vampire novel was ever written, or if written then never filmed, and vampires don’t exist in pop culture.). The way relationships between the characters are complicated and often intense provided emotional hooks for me to follow the story. Lastl, I admired that Flanagan had the guts to put his big horror/action climax two episodes before the ending, and devoted the last two episodes to the fallout. The emotional consequences for everyone. It’s the kind of thing often missing when something as momentous as what happenes in said episode does. There is also the very humane conviction at play that as a human being, you do not lose your capacity to regret and to act on it, even if you have done terrible things. Doesn’t mean everyone use it it (as opposed to clinging to self justification or denial). But in this series, a surprising number of characters do.

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Current Location: Bamberg

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Briefly

Two links, for Darth Real Life continues to stalk me:

See what's in front of you: a lovely Pepper/Tony/Rhodey vignette with emphasis on Pepper and Rhodey, one of the completely unexplored relationships of the MCU.

Rodrigo Borgia, Fanboy:

jo_graham's great meta on how to interpret Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI., though what he chooses to be enthusiastic about.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Bamberg

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Unsent Letters from the Renaissance and a Galaxy far, far away

The unsent_letters_exchange authors were revealed. As mentioned before, I went back to two old fandoms of mine for this. My assignment actually matched me in several of those, but the one I had signed up for was Star Wars, and of the various prompts, the one that immediately spoke to me was about Anakin's mother Shmi. Shmi had only a bit of screentime, but Pernille August gave her presence and warmth, and I was happy to explore her emotions and mind in this format:

Messages from Tatooine (3217 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, C-3PO & Shmi Skywalker, Cliegg Lars/Shmi Skywalker, Shmi Skywalker & Owen Lars
Characters: Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, C-3PO (Star Wars), Cliegg Lars, Owen Lars, Qui-Gon Jinn
Additional Tags: Mother-Son Relationship, Character Study, Family Feels, Canon Related, Parent-Child Relationship, Motherhood, Slavery, Freedom, Coping, Healing, Separation Anxiety, Epistolary, Letters
Summary:

Five messages Shmi Skywalker began and one she finished.

Now, one of my oldest fannish friends had discovered The Borgias this year, and, like yours truly, quickly discovered that if you're not into Cesare/Lucrezia, and/or Cesare/Micheletto, there isn't much fanfic to be had. Just when she'd drawn this conclusion, I stumbled across this ficathon which I hadn't done before. Let's participate, quoth I, and thus be part of the solution to this problem. We weren't matched, but I thought after luring her into this the least I could do was write her a treat, which I did:

So let us melt (1736 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Rodrigo Borgia | Pope Alexander VI/Giulia Farnese
Characters: Giulia Farnese, Rodrigo Borgia | Pope Alexander VI, Vittoria (Borgias), Lucrezia Borgia, Vannozza dei Cattanei
Additional Tags: Friendship/Love, Older Man/Younger Woman, Epistolary, Post-Canon, Romance, Past Relationship(s), Character Study, Tenderness, Correspondence
Summary:

So let us melt, and make no noise,/ No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;/'Twere profanation of our joys/ To tell the laity our love.

Giulia looks back.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

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Unsent Letters live

The Unsent Letters Exchange is online! I participated for the first time this year, and received a lovely story in one of my older fandoms, The Borgias: Amor Vincit Omnia, which consists of a series of letters written by Giulia Farnese to Lucrezia near the end of season 1. The Giulia & Lucrezia relationship was one of my favourite elements of the series and I was sad that the show let it fade it to the background after s1, so I treasure fanfiction focusing on it, all the more if it's so clever and affectionately written.

I myself wrote two stories in two different fandoms, and since neither of them involves a single Prussian, I'm going to let you guess.

Meanwhile, here are some early favourites among the other stories:

Good Omens: Tokens of Esteem: exccerpts from Crowley and Aziraphale through the millennia, witch historical tie-ins to die for.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series: Notes I'll never pass: letters from Faith to Buffy from prison, painting a portrait of Faith's ongoing redemption arc as well.

Sherlock Holmes Stories: Nuts and Bolts: Dr. Watson corresponds with his publisher and gains an editor. A real gem.

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Current Location: Munich

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This and that

This week, I read a couple of harrowing books, both fiction and non-fiction, and in between watched Soul, the Disney movie reccomended to me, which turned out to be delightful - both visually (it's amazing was Pixar does here) and in terms of characterisation. Our hero is Joe Gardner, a music teacher wishing he could be full time jazz pianist, voiced by Jamie Foxx, and early on I thought the story would go for another rerun of the basic It's a wonderful life premise, but no, the story goes into another direction. His sidekick-slash-co-lead whom he acquires later on is called 22, voiced by Tina Fey, and we get Angela Bassett voicing jazz saxophonist Dorothy Williams in a supporting role. As Disney/Pixar heroes go, Joe is endearing yet flawed, and believable as a passionate musician to me, which isn't always the case when films depict artists (yet avoid giving more than a nod to the type of art that's supposed to be essential to their lives). You can tell where the broad story is going, but there were some great twists and turns in between, and I really enjoyed watching this in between creeped out by some 18th century people.

I also would have enjoyed the Borgias rewatch I had planned, but alas it turned out my DVDs, which I had not watched in years, possibly since a year after the show ended, are of a terrible quality. One episode was barely watchable, and the next dissolved into blackness. This does not make me happy panda.

Much more importantly: no sooner was I happy that my parents had been vaccinated that Astra Zeneca (first shot) , which they were vaccinated with, was no longer allowed to be used in Germany. So you might say I had a very mixed week so far.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Munich

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Dear Writer of Unsent Letters

Dear Letter writer,

this is the first time I'll participate in this exchange, and I am very much looking forward to reading your story - and grateful. All the prompts are just suggestions; if you have very different ideas, go for them.

General DNW: I'm okay with characters who canonically loathe other characters expressing that opinion as a part of the story, but there's a difference between this and character bashing, i.e.: if you always loathed character X, please don't use the story you're writing for me for venting, vent elsewhere.

Canon specific DNW, see below for individual canons.

General Preferences: I'm easy. The format of this exchange seems immensely suitable to exploring feelings and thoughts without having to provide plot to go with them. (Not that I'm against plot if you can use the letter format to provide one.) I like complications and contradictory elements in relationships - affection and resentment intermingled, dislike but also respect, that kind of thing.

On to the fandoms.

( 18th Century CE Frederician RPF )

( The Borgias )

( Roma Sub Rosa Series - Steven Saylor )

( Black Sails )

( Babylon 5 )

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: Munich

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once upon a time....

A friend of mine has just finished the first season of The Borgias, started the next, and it evokes much nostalgia in me to watch her do it, so to speak. Not least because lo and behold, she, like yours truly, is mostly drawn to Rodrigo, Giulia Farnese and Vannozza. One reason why I never was in touch with much of Borgias fandom, save for a few lj friends, was that 98% of it seemed only to care about Cesare/Lucrezia, and the rest about Cesare/Michelotto. (Where I like all characters involved! Just not in the "want to read fanfic and meta about that pairing" way.) Mind you, since the show itself seemed as interested in the "older" generation (not technically true for Giulia, but narratively she gets put there) as I was, this was strictly a fandom, not a source material problem for me.

This, in turn, made me reflect on my other experiences of being fannish about a book/movie/show when not being into the juggernaut pairing and/or fandom fave. Torchwood was certainly one (I was for the most part completely indifferent both to Ianto and Jack/Ianto, and I loved Children of Earth), Battlestar Galactica another (Kara/Lee became one of the few NOTPs I ever had, and while early on I was fine with Roslin/Adama, my growing dislike of Adama made me abhor the pairing as well), and I never got shippy about John/Aeryn in Farscape either. (I had nothing against the pairing! With the exception of s4, I disliked the way they were written there, but thankfully, The Peacekeeper Wars fixed this for me. It's just that I felt never compelled to read or write a single John/Aeryn fanfic in my life.) It does limit the chances for fannish conversation, but depending on the size of the fandom, you do find some others with similar interests sooner or later. Oh, and of course, Breaking Bad, where Skyler became my main character of interest, though there I was lucky in as much as I did find Walt and Jesse compelling - since most of the show is build around them, it would have been a long five years otherwise -, but, again, not in a way that would make me see out fanfiction, - the show had that covered - , whereas I wanted more of Skyler. (And Marie.)

(This is what makes Better Call Saul such a contrasting experience for me - the show and the fandom and yours truly all love Kim Wexler.)

Anyway, back to The Borgias - my friend has written missing scenes ficlets for Giulia Farnese already. These are a lovely distraction in an anxious week for me. Now, back to rl (and Yuletide).

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

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Letter for raremaleslashex ficathon

Dear Creator,

thank you so much for writing this story for me. We clearly share at least some interests, and I'm thrilled to find out what you'll come up with.

DNW:

- bashing of canon pairings or characters in general. By which I don't mean the characters have to like each and everyone - a great number of those I've nominated can be described as prickly jerks, among other things, and it would be ic for them to say something negative about people they canonically can't stand - but there's a difference between that and the narrative giving me the impression to go along with said opinions.

- Alpha/Beta/Omega scenarios, watersports, infantilisation. Really not my thing, sorry.

- Rape. Now, several of the pairings I nominated involve relationships with power differentials, or even canonical captive scenarios, and I'm not opposed to questionable consent per se to start with, but I really want both partners to, in the end, agree with what's going on. (Resentment at one partner for wanting him is fine, though.)

- non-canonical torture (several canons do include torture, and if you want to explore what that means for character x in their relationship with Y, absolutely, just don't add

Likes:

- flirting/seduction via wordplay and banter (doesn't work for all pairings, I know)

- for the darker push/pull dynamics: moments of tenderness and understanding in between the fighting/one upman shipping (without abandoning the anger)

- for the pairings that are gentler and harmonious by nature: making it clear each has their own life and agenda as well

- some humor amidst the angst (especially if the character in question displays it in canon)

The question of AUs: depends. "What if this key canon event did not happen?" can lead to great character and dynamics exploration, but I do want to recognize the characters. The majority of those I nominated are from historical canons, and the history is part of the fascination the canon has for me. (Though ironically one of the two non-historical canons has its very own canonical high school AU.) However, if you feel inspired to, say, write Frederick the Great, space lawyer, and manage to do it in a way that gives me gripping analogues to the historical situations: be my guest!

How much or how little sex: I'm cool with anything you feel comfortable with, from detailed sex to the proverbial fade out after a kiss. Or even no sex at all, as long as the story explores the emotional dynamics in a way that makes it clear what's going on there is love/passion.

Specific details for specific pairings:

( Borgia: Faith and Fear )

( The Bounty (1984) )

( 18 Century CE RPF )

( Farscape )

( The Last Kingdom )

( Lost )

Current Mood: crazy
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

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Thirty Days of Medici: Love (or at least Sex) Across Space and Time

Day 12 ~ Historical Crackship: Who belongs together, time and space be damned?

Well, the dates would even almost work, but not quite. (I think he was still a youngster in Spain at the relevant time.) I’m thinking Contessina/Rodrigo Borgia, either during Cosimo’s exile in Venice or later between seasons when she’s a widow. Rodrigo is into intelligent, strong-willed women, and he could learn a lot from her. Meanwhile, Contessina deserves an angst-free fling, and since Rodrigo has his eyes up the clerical ladder, it’s clear it won’t be more than that.

Far more cracky, but also fun: Jacopo Pazzi/Winn Adami (from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, played by the great Louise Fletcher). She’s a corrupt Renaissance cardinal (later pope) in space who knows what it’s like if some upstart keeps you from ruling your home turf, and has been known to have sex with more than one fellow manipulative bastard. There’d be glorious scheming, mutual back stabbing, and best of all, she’d have zero time for being patronized to and pushed around. Her Eminence is the Kai of Bajor, Jacopo. You better prepare for getting your ear grabbed.

( The other days )

Current Mood: cynical
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

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This timeline sucks, part the Nth

The Turkish Minister of foreign affairs claims Individual 1 has promised to extradite Gülen to Turkey. While anything the Erdogan government claims, especially re: the attempted coup, is worth some scepticism, I could believe this one, since the Orange Menace loves autocrats and never understood all the bother raised a bit of torture there and prison for one's political enemies here. Maybe he'll send a bone saw along with Gülen.

If US politics have taken on a Tarantino flair, then British politics... honestly, I don't know what to compare them to anymore. Spitting Image, back in the 80s? Seems like understated hardcore realism by comparison. Ivan Rogers, who was the UK's representative to the EU until recently, dissected all the Brexit delusions in this great speech given in Liverpool. Choice quote:

It still amazes me that virtually the entire British political class still thinks that it’s free movement obsessions are about to be shared in the 27. They aren’t.

BUT…. once you leave the EU, you cannot, from just outside the fence, achieve all the benefits you got just inside it.

First, there will, under NO circumstances, be frictionless trade when outside the Single Market and Customs Union. Frictionless trade comes with free movement. And with the European Court of Justice. More later on that.

Second, voluntary alignment from outside – even where that makes sense or is just inevitable – does NOT deliver all the benefits of membership. Because, unlike members you are not subject to the adjudication and enforcement machinery to which all members are.

And that’s what Brexiteers wanted, right? British laws and British Courts.

Fine. But then market access into what is now their market, governed by supranational laws and Courts of which you are no longer part – and not, as it used to be, yours – is worse and more limited than before.

That is unavoidable. It is not, vindictive, voluntary, a punishment beating, or any of the other nonsense we hear daily. It is just ineluctable reality.

And finally, the solidarity of the club members will ALWAYS be with each other, not with you. We have seen that over the backstop issue over the last 18 months. The 26 supported Dublin, not London. They still do. Nothing the Prime Minister now bids for will change that.

This may be the first Anglo-Irish negotiation in history where the greater leverage is not on London’s side of the table. And the vituperation aimed at Dublin politicians tells one just how well that has gone down with politicians and apparatchiks who had not bothered to work out that this was no longer a bilateral business, and are now appalled to find they are cornered.

Well, just wait till the trade negotiations. The solidarity of the remaining Member States will be with the major fishing Member States, not with the U.K. The solidarity will be with Spain, not the U.K., when Madrid makes Gibraltar-related demands in the trade negotiation endgame. The solidarity will be with Cyprus when it says it wants to avoid precedents which might be applied to Turkey.

I could go on.

The point re: this being the first Anglo-Irish negotiation in history where the Irish have the greater leverage was realised by the Irish long before the UK, it seems: How Ireland outmaneuvered Britain on Brexit is an article devoted to this aspect in particular. Back to Ivan Rogers dissecting Brexit: he does so in a bipartisan way, no more impressed by Labour's leadership than he is with the Tories:

And even yesterday morning I listened to a Shadow Cabinet Member promising, with a straight face, that, even after a General Election, there would be time for Labour to negotiate a completely different deal – INCLUDING a full trade deal, which would replicate all the advantages of the Single Market and Customs Union. And all before March 30th. I assume they haven’t yet stopped laughing in Brussels.

If they haven't, it's only because watching people you used to respect and like commit self mutilatation is actually a painful business. Do I ever prefer fiction to reality. It just makes more sense.

Even if it's so surreal and bewildering like the tv show Legion.

versaphile wrote this great glimpse at Lenny and David post Season 2 finale: All Good In The Head Now?

And here are two excellent meta posts by the same writer: Why Mr. Darcy keeps being misread as a Bad Boy Reformed (which isn't his trope), and Why the Borgias got their image as worst of the worst in the Renaissance, when objectively speaking they were no more (or less) corrupt than the rest of their contemporaries, including the families who managed to get members on the papal throne.

Current Mood: energetic
Current Location: Munich

Entry tags:

Yuletide Letter

Dear Yuletide Writer,

thank you so much for creating a story for me! I hope you'll enjoy the experience and appreciate the work you're doing - writing a story in a tiny fandom we share is absolutely lovely, and I'm guaranteed to be pleased by your gift, so don't fret. My prompts are just that, prompts, not absolutes; if you have an idea that doesn't fit with any of them, but features the characters I asked for, I'll love it with added joyful surprise.

( General stuff )

Requests:

( The Last Kingdom )

( Borgia: Faith and Fear )

( Logan )

( Class )

In conclusion: no matter which of these you'll pick, you'll make me a happy recipient. Again, thank you so much - and see you at Yuletide!

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Bamberg

Entry tags:

borgias,
review

The Other Borgias

Aka the European-produced series which debuted exactly in the same year as Neil Jordan’s The Borgias did, and got three seasons as well. I had seen the pilot back in the day and hadn’t liked it much, but as Amazon Prime put it up, I thought, why not. Also back in the day: an article proclaiming Borgia (with each of the seasons having subtitles “Faith and Fear” (s1), “Rules of Love, Rules of War” (s2) and “Triumph and Oblivion” (s3)) being the superior show with more “historicity”, which put my back up, since I happen to be fond of The Borgias (well, fond of the first two seasons and two or three s3 episodes). That was another reason why I delayed watching Borgia beyond the pilot until this year.

Having now accomplished this, here are a few impressions: Borgia on the one hand does use a lot more actual events from the historical characters’ lives than The Borgias did (including such very Renaissance trivia as Lucrezia’s later father-in-law, Duke Hercole d’Este of Ferrara, collecting nuns with stigmata, I kid you not) , but on the other hand is no slouch when it comes to breathtaking dramatic license. (Cesare Borgia did many gruesome things, but I don’t think ordering pants made of the skin of his enemies was one of them. Also, I really doubt that a bunch of 15th century cardinals would have conspired to replace the Pope with his daughter, no matter how impressive a job she did when the Pope made her regent while he was indisposed. Michelangelo creating the David in Rome instead of Florence is almost harmless as an invention by comparison. And then there’s the drug addiction plot complete with cold turkey conclusion…) The first season suffers from several instances of telling over showing when it came to some important relationships. However, this was mostly remedied in subsequent seasons. And it was really interesting to see both the differences and similarities in the storytelling choices based on the same basic material. Not to mention that the series Borgia actually includes the decline of the family fortunes; Rodrigo dies mid s3, and the rest is Cesare’s falling apart until the series finale ending with his historic death and some other spoilery (not for history) stuff.

One of the biggest differences is the overall emotional arc for the Borgia family. In The Borgias, we start with the featured members more or less affectionately close to each other (even the Cesare-Juan relationship isn’t yet worse than mild fraternal rivalry), and end with them having outwitted and outplayed all their enemies, but lost each other in the process, or have their former closeness turned dysfunctional. In Borgia, otoh, we start with the Borgias dysfunctional and estranged (this Rodrigo hasn’t yet admitted to his children that they are his children but still employs the “niece and nephews” excuse even in private), it gets worse except in one regard from there until Juan’s death at the end of the first season… and then it gets better. From mid s2 onwards, there are family reconciliations all around, and for the rest of the show, the strong affection the Borgias have for each other are often their saving graces, so to speak. When near the end of the show Lucrezia’s third husband, Alfonso d’Este, ruefully observes to his wife that the D’Estes are worse than the Borgias and that she can show them how to be better (as in, a family), he’s not kidding.

( A lot more spoilery ramblings and comparisons ensue )

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Location: Bamberg

Entry tags:

January Meme: Family Dynamics in The Borgias

The Borgias: love the first two seasons, do not love the third with the exception of a few episodes, to the point where I was relieved when it was cancelled, not least because I could see where this was (likely) going even before Neil Jordan described the ending he had had in mind. That my emotional investment was with the family dynamic (as in the entire family, not just Cesare and Lucrezia – in fact, my favourite character was probably Rodrigo, followed closely by Vannozza) had a big deal to do with this.
I will keep the s3 irritation to a minimum, though, when talking about the family dynamics on the show. The occasional comparison the historical originals will happen, though. But let’s talk about the Borgia family as presented on this show.

( which can only be done in a spoilery fashion )

The other days

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: Munich

Entry tags:

Meme: Ten Fics That Stayed With You

From

intrigueing and

muccamukk:

In a new post, list ten fic that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” works, or even all the same pairing or fandom, just the fics that have touched you or that stuck with you somehow.

I'm sure I could come up with ten more, but these are the ones that came immediately to mind (and which I could find again online!):

1.) From Me To Q by Julia Houston (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Star Trek in its first three incarnations is one of my oldest fandoms, and the time when TNG and then DS9 were broadcast was when I started to get aquainted with fanfiction, first via fanzines and then via the earliest online archives. Finding this particular story was like striking gold. It's TNG; it's plotty, like a well written episode complete with ethical dilemmas; it's Picard/Q (which was what I was looking for when finding the story) but uses the entire TNG ensemble well; it takes the most reviled of fanfic clichés, the Mary Sue, and gives it a highly original twist. (Well, back then it was original, for all I know, it's been often imitated since.) Also, the dialogue sparkles. In short, I fell in love, so much so that I gave Voyager, which I had almost given up upon, another shot, simply because Julia Houston back then was also writing Voyager reviews and I adored her writing that much.

2.) Last Set Before Closing, by Kat Allison. (Highlander: The Series). HL was another early online fandom of mine, and this story left me shaken and breathless the first time I read it. On the surface, not much happens in this tale, which is set several years after the series ended; Joe Dawson is very old, not far from death, and his mind has started to wander; Duncan visits. Behind that simple description hides one of the best and most gutwrenching stories I've read in any fandom, which at once gives us the relationship between Joe and Duncan, and how both of them relate to Methos, about friendship, about mortals and immortals, and at the same time manages to say something very personal to anyone who has an older relative. (Until then, I don't think I had ever read fanfiction tackling a rl subject such as aging, its physical and mental decline, so unflinchingly, and with a beloved character, no less.) Another reason why I love it is this: at the time when it was first posted, its take on Methos was pretty much unique and went directly against how most fans then wrote him. (Probably still does.) And yet I find it entirely plausible.

3.) Changed Utterly by Parda (Highlander: The Series). Another HL story. Parda was a writer I interacted with a lot during my HL days, both as a reader and as a writer. This story is still my favourite of hers, and at the time it was first posted struck me as one of the best meditations onf grief and surviving I had read i nthe fandom. It's set about a year after the show ends, wherein Duncan is still dealing with Richie’s fate, when he sees Cassandra again. Not present in body but very much in thought are Methos, Connor and Richie. What to do when you’ve both done and experienced the unforgivable is a question with a dozen answers and none, and all the characters here are dealing with it. Poetic and profound.

4.) Father's Heart by Fernwithy ( Star Wars). Still my favourite Star Wars story, many years later (this was written shortly after The Phantom Menace was released). Set between trilogies, it pulls off something a lot of people tried since, and does so in a credible way: Vader and the child and later teenager Leia forming a tentative friendship, which falls apart with a vengeance as she grows older and experiences the Empire at its worst. In addition to a terrific take on Leia and Vader, Bail Organa and his wife (who in this version is one of the former handmaidens, Sabé) as well as some original characters are compellingly written. ( Not to mention it caters to two of my narrative soft spots: non-romantic intense relationship, relationship that breaks up because of politics and ethics (and rightly so). ) I was only ever at the periphery of SW fandom, not least because I happen to like the prequels, but this story made me search for and read a lot of SW fanfiction for a while. It was years before I found its match.

5.) Freefall by Penknife (X-Men movieverse). This is an X2 AU, ensemble story, Scott pov, and one of the earliest

penknife stories I read. X2 had just been released. As after X1, I hunted for stories that weren't Wolverine/Rogue. Hard to imagine for current day fans, but back then it was actually difficult to find Magneto/Xavier stories, or stories that featured Mystique in a prominent role, or stories that featured Scott at all. Bingo, thought I, when I found this one, and little did I know I had also found a favourite writer in many fandoms more. Oh, and I think this was the first AU I really liked (the twist is that Scott realises a bit sooner what's going on during the prison visit at the start of the movie, with the result that he and Xavier end up as fugitives together with Magneto and Mystique; it's Jean who gets captured instead). Until then, I had avoided AUs. After reading it, I gave them a shot.

6.) Ten Thousand Candles by Andraste. This is another early story by a future favourite writer; Charles Xavier post X2, trying to cope with all that happened (read: ( spoiler for big X2 twist )). Back then, Charles Xavier centric stories were incredibly rare; stories in which he wasn't either the wise mentor type or trying to win Erik back were even rarer. What he experiences in X2 is pretty horrifying, and I loved finding a story which addressed that. Of course, Andraste turned out to be the biggest Xavier expert in the planet, but I didn't know that then. :)

7.) Bed of Bones by Roz Kaveney (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): I had spotted Roz on a couple of Buffy discussion mailing lists (remember those?), but this was the first BTVS or fanfiction in any fandom tale of hers that I had read, and it was sharp, poetic, and made the First Slayer(about whom at this point we only knew what Restless had mentioned) into a fascinating character. I was wowed. It also raised my standard of expectation re: fanfiction creating mythology in present day or futuristic fandoms to no end.

8.) Queen of Spades by Astolat (James Bond: Casino Royale): Ah, ye golden days when the Craig Casino Royale had been released and for the first time in my life I actually went and looked for Bond fanfiction, because Dench!M and Craig!Bond dynamic in that movie had gripped me in and fascinated me. (I had also loved Eva Green as Vesper and her relationship with Bond, but not in a way that made me look for fanfic.) And again, I hit gold. I think this probably was the first Bond/M story online. It set a most pleasing trend - for the next few years, you could rely on Yuletide including some great and sharp Bond and M fanfiction. (And then came Skyfall which brought the avalanche of Bond/Q and the Bond movies were no longer qualified for Yuletide, but that's another story.) Now, most combinations that have one character in a position of power over the other character are hard to sell to me as pairings, but there are exceptions, and Queen of Spades made me realize Dench!M and Craig!Bond were such an exception for me, because wow. (It also made me realise that I had a new story or rather old story archetype, not necessarily always as pairings, I love the gen variations, too, but: Morally ambiguous queens and their morally ambiguous battered knights, bring them on! Though only if the Queen is the older of the two. Read: Dany/Jorah does nothing fo rme.)

9: Working Order by Eatscissors (Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles). John/Cameron is a pairing that intrigues me but which I find more interesting on the actual show than in most of fanfiction, because, imo as often, fanfic tends to simplify and dispense with much that makes this particular relationship so layered, starting with the fact that Cameron is a machine, no matter what she looks like.( Some spoilery ramblings about John and Cameron on the show ensue. ) Working Order, by contrast, addresses this and the other issues between them head-on while also being one of those stories where the explicit sex is part of the character exploration instead of reading as just being there for its own sake. For a reader like me who often finds sex scenes (both slash and het) reading like involuntarily funny gymnastic mannuals, with the participants interchangable to other fandoms and thus not very interesting, this was an eye opener. Really well written.

10.) Petrarchan Sonnets from the Vatican by Petra (The Borgias): I was and am grateful for all the stories I got in exchanges, and often loved them to bits, but this one will always remain special. Its just that awesome. It's a story in the guise of a fake article about the discovery of sonnets between L.B. (now who could that possibly be in Borgias fandom?) and person unknown, female and apparantly her tutor. Complete with the sonnets. And the commentary. Absolutely delightful, needless to say, poetic (my Yulewriter's ability to compose Petrarchan Sonnets with clever allusions to events from the show's first season still stuns me), and full of subtlety, and the wit and love for language that the characters in question display on the show as well (and did in history). (And now I'm grieved again that the Lucrezia and Guilia relationship post s1 fell by the wayside on the show, but never mind me.) If I could ensure that just one bit of Borgias fanfiction survives, this would be it.

Current Mood: enthralled
Current Location: Bamberg

Entry tags:

December Talking Meme: Top Ten Favourite Vids

With the disclaimer that this is prone to change depending on mood except for the first two, and is in no particular order:

1) Scooby Road by

luminosity. Still the most awesome vid of them all, not only if you're a fan of BtVS and of the Beatles, and I am both. My detailed ravings on it are here.

2.) Ophelia, a Babylon 5 vid. I'll forever be glad to have lured

andraste into B5, and not just because she makes fabulous vids, but this vid - about the dead women and the way they return on the show - is definitely a part of why.

3.) Blank Space: a more recent favourite, to my mind, the best Doctor/Master vid to date, encompassing both Old and New Who.

4.) Savages: a magnificent vid that beautifully captures all I loved about The Borgias. (Not so coincidentally based on the first two seasons.)

5.) Virgin: it's Vorenus/Antony, yes, and I do have a soft spot for that pairing, but better than that, it's about Rome and Rome, and captures the essence of both.

6.) On your wings: Doctor Who again, this time a vid portraying one of my all time favourite companions, Ace. And beautifully so.

7.) The Unforgiven Ones: Battlestar Galactica, Ellen and Cavil, the Five and the Seven; a short vid that packs an incredible punch.

8.) We didn't start the fire: still BSG, this time on the hilarious side. I love this to bits, and the identifications (Lee as the Cather in the Rye! Laura Roslin as Richard Nixon! Athena as Lawrence of Arabia!) reliably crack me up every time.

9.) Half Acre: incredibly beautiful Six Feet Under vid that uses Claire's art to frame the entire show.

10.) Runner: aka the Connor from Angel character study which made me go "here I wrote lengthy posts about him and the vid makes all my points much better, and then some"!

December Talking Meme: The Other Days

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Kampen

Entry tags:

Seven Days of Self Promotion: Something you made for someone else

Third day of the meme:

More composition and fierce quality (6108 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Borgias, Historical RPF, 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sancia & Vannozza, Sancia & Rodrigo Borgia, Sancia/Juan Borgia, Sancia & Alfonso, Sancia & Lucrezia Borgia, Rodrigo Borgia/Vannozza dei Cattanei, Sancia & Ferrante of Naples, Sancia/Gioffre Borgia
Characters: Sancia (Borgias), Rodrigo Borgia, Vannozza dei Cattanei, Juan Borgia, Lucrezia Borgia, Alfonso (Borgias), Alfonso of Aragon, Cesare Borgia, Gioffre Borgia
Summary:

Sancia and the art of survival among the Borgias.

This was written for Lightningwaltz as part of a Rarewomen ficathon, during the hiatus of season 2 and season 2 of The Borgias. Now, Sancia shows up only in the first season, and there not very often (ditto for the youngest Borgia brother, Joffre). The Naples storyline which already took a lot of historical liberties in s1 and early s2 goes into complete historical AU in season 3, but when I wrote the story, s3 hadn't happened yet, and thus I was free to use some history in addition to the bits and pieces s1 of the show had given us about Sancia to fulfill this request about a character I hadn't given much thought of before and probably never would have written about, save for said request.

As it turned out, Sancia was great fun to write and flesh out. Naples, and the difference between Naples and Rome, between the Borgias and Sancia's own family, from Sancia's pov, became intriguing to explore, was was being a (noble) bastard in the Renaissance (and the very different way Sancia and Juan handle it). In a way, I'm glad the show didn't bring Sancia back in s3 because I became fond of my version and like to think she continued to thrive off screen.

( The rest of the days )