Spartacus: Vengeance - ep 2

February 11, 2013, 7:16 pm

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It was great to get Oenomaus backstory. He is perhaps the character I am invested least in out of all the main good guys, because his loyalty to the system goes against my beliefs, but the backstory does go a long way towards explaining his view and the man is also perhaps the biggest BAMF on the show.





Crixus tearing the world apart looking for Naevia is about the sexiest thing I have ever seen. During the scene with the dominus, what I loved most of all is that when the Roman tries to blurt the whole “I didn’t know she was someone important” as an excuse for viewing Naevia as a thing and raping her, Crixus’ response is that she breathed, she was a woman, therefore she was important. You have no idea how much I love that. Because this is a huge step from “she is important and shouldn’t be abused because she is someone I love” to “she is important because everyone is.” And it’s in stark contrast to how the Romans view people. It’s even a contrast from Crixus of early S1 - he has quite a character arc.








Ilythiya and Glaber continue to be magnetic villains. A lot more low-key than Batiatus and Lucretia but they suit the new tone. I still want them both gruesomely dead.





I continue to be a rabid Spartacus/Sura shipper who really wants Spartacus/Mira to work out because she makes him happy.











Ooooh, a new character I like! I really like the Syrian ex-slave Nasir and hope he sticks around for a while (with my luck, he is going to get killed in the next ep). Because it took balls to try to kill Spartacus (and I love that Spartacus sees this as a chance to train him as a fighter, and to be a fighter not to fight for something Spartacus asks, but for anything he wants). And because he is smart and saved all their necks with the Romans. Also, I loved his little interaction with Agron. That’s the most we see Agron unbend with anyone…Stick around, Syrian dude, don’t die right away, k? He isn’t hard on the eyes either.

















I love love love Spartacus and Crixus being friends - they will never be as close as Spartacus and Varro were but I love their complicated bond. Damaged alphas with mad devotion to their OTPs unite! Also, I am really getting to like Liam McIntyre in the role. And I love the way Spartacus is - wanting freedom and equality, but also with strength and anger behind his actions. I love the debate this show has going not just between the bad and good guys but even within the slave uprising itself - Spartacus, Crixus, Agron and the rest have very different views on how the slave rebellion is to be run, what it is really about etc (take their different take on civilian slaves).

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Spartacus: Vengeance - ep 3

February 13, 2013, 7:00 pm

≫ Next: Spartacus: Vengeance, ep 4 - If I were any more Team Crixus, I'd have to get a t-shirt

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I think I officially ship this.














Oh God, Crixus’ face when he is told Naevia is dead. His face. Maybe I am just tired but I am seriously tearing up. She isn’t dead, she isn’t - I’ve seen clips! Don’t give up!!!!! My OTP, please please please get fixed!














“I am but bones and flesh. Void of a beating heart.” Oh. My. GOD. And he blames himself for her death because she was sent away because of their love affair. Nooooo, it’s not your fault, it’s psycho Romans’ fault!!!! Oh, it’s been years since I’ve been this rabid about an OTP. He loves her so fucking much!


























I am torn between rage that they are concealing that Naevia is alive from Crixus and shippy joy at touching. My feelings. They confuse me.








This pretty much gave me shivers - Crixus declaring he is with Spartacus in burning down Rome and rebellion, despite all his loss. Ummm, I think my crush on Crixus is getting unhealthy. Also, bromance forever!




















I have no deep thoughts about this scene. I just think it’s hot.

















Yessss! Nasir told Crixus that Naevia is alive!!! I love that he did it because Crixus was being decent to him (and he wasn’t decent to get anything, just being so). ILY Nasir! Though I think Agron is not going to be happy with you.








OMG!!!!!!! Crixus finds out Naevia is alive and Agron lied to him and goes berserk. And I cannot blame him. (Naevia is in the mines?! After being repeatedly raped? I am worried about how broken she will be). Logically, I can see why Agron did what he did - rescuing Naevia would be dangerous, he has no personal liking for Crixus, and he doesn’t share Spartacus’ view that every life is important otherwise they are no better than the Romans. But the Crixus fangirl and Crixus/Naevia shipper in me is screaming!!! Also, I am getting the sense that nobody is going to go on the ‘rescue Naevia’ mission except for Crixus, who lives for Naevia and Spartacus, who not only promised Crixus and believes in the importance of rescuing every slave life, but also because he can imagine how Crixus feels more than anyone else can - he must have wished every day since Sura’s death that it wasn’t true and he had another choice. In which case, yes yes yes, I want to see the two men go on that quest and further the bromance.




















Things I want to do to Ashur are deeply deeply illegal, and not in a good way. He is so utterly morally void that he genuinely doesn’t get why Spartacus, Crixus, and Oenomaus all are ‘obsessed about women who had sex with someone else’ (paraphrase) and are, according to him, ‘whores.’ The fact that all these women were raped doesn’t even register to him. He genuinely doesn’t get it - people have no intrinsic worth to him. I hope someone rescues Oenomaus from his clutches. It kills me that Oenomaus unwittingly helped Ashur figure out where the slaves were headed (and oh, the Romans’ and Ashur’s soullessness is their weakness - it never even occurred to them before that Crixus might want to rescue the woman he loves).








Can I just say how much I love Team Rescue Naevia? I am not sure what I love the most - the way Nasir volunteers to go with these people he has just met to help them and saves their hides with his quick thinking, or the way Spartacus vows to come back to the mines and rescue everyone and implores them to live until then, or Mira being so fierce and quick and smart (and oh, Spartacus was totally worried about her!) or Crixus being like a man possessed.























Crixus finally finds Naevia in the hell on earth that is the mines. I cried and cried and cried and cried. The intensity and emotion and clutching and his face and her eyes. It kills me how terrified she is to be touched, until she realizes who it is and then he begs her to forgive him for what he has done to her, even though he is not the one who has done anything wrong, while it would never occur to the Romans to even view her as human, let alone apologize for condemning her to this horror. It’s official, Crixus/Naevia are my favorite Western TV OTP except for John/Aeryn from Farscape. Also, I have just realized I am going to fall apart with the way this will end. Because while Naevia is fictional so they have some wiggle room with what ending they give her, Crixus’ end has been set in stone for 2000 years by history. Oh God.
































I had to leave in the morning right after Crixus and Naevia got reunited and couldn’t get back to watching until now. And what do I come back to?! Crixus asks Spartacus to get Naevia away and save her while he is going to buy them time by sacrificing himself?!?!?! NOOOOOOOOO! And he fights the Romans like a mad person but of course they overpower him, as she is screaming for him and stretching her hands. And even when he is facing certain death (best case scenario), he looks so at peace because she is safe. And just like he used to look only at her when in the arena, he once again looks only at her. Because just like back then, he is fighting for her, only this time for her life and freedom (contrast to the gladiatorial games they intercut this with - where men fight and die for the amusement of the mob). And Ashur is there, gloating, and he clubs Crixus down and I am utterly terrified but also so so so proud and shippyfull and just….

Spartacus: Vengeance, ep 4 - If I were any more Team Crixus, I'd have to get a t-shirt

February 13, 2013, 9:21 pm

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Not sure who I love more - Spartacus for being so fierce and protecting Naevia without a second’s hesitation because he promised Crixus, Mira for taking care of her, or Nasir for existing. But it breaks my heart to see Naevia so broken…





Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckedy fuck!!! I literally screamed. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Fuck. I guess Glaber needs variety in his targets - he got to torture Spartacus last season and wants to change it up a bit. A small part of me, however, enjoyed seeing Lucretia presented with incontrovertible evidence that the man she was obsessed about would go to such amazing lengths for another woman.





Oenomaus: “Love? You fall to ruin for love?”
Crixus: “She is my heart.”
Me: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He’s captured by the Romans and knows he is probably going to be tortured to death and still he says that. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then Crixus' reply when Oenomaus goes on a rant about women being fragile/incomprehensible/cheating/whatever - “She lives. That is all that matters” - is such an unconditional statement of love, that it takes my breath away.



I am beginning to really love Spartacus/Mira. But seeing how utterly broken Naevia is, is totally horrifying.





1. Lucretia-Crixus continues to creep me the fuck out. Even in the very limited and public interaction they got now. I kinda need to scrub my skin off after any scene of the two of them together. Or within ten miles of each other. Or on the same planet. 2. Roman dude, you are super-hot, in that ‘CEO in a toga’ kinda way, but do you really think you want to execute Crixus and other gladiators in the arena?! I mean, sticking a champion gladiator who is capable of taking on all comers in the arena doesn’t seem like a very…sensible thing. P.S. I hope Crixus takes your head off!






This is here for two reasons. One, it’s because looking at Crixus bloodied but defiant and super-sexy, makes me feel happy happy fangirl feelings. Two, because when Lucretia is gloating that he is going to die soon blah blah blah, he tells her his life is gladly given for Naevia and actually grins, full of joy even in the midst of all this, that Naevia is alive. Isn’t it weird, Lucretia, when dudes prefer ladies who don’t rape them? Oh well, you can always take comfort in your bling. Or maybe Glaber, whose marriage doesn’t seem to be going great, wants to go older…I was also pretty amused when Lucretia said his name will be lost to history (yeah, no!) and that he won’t die with honor as he would have as a gladiator (there is a million times more honor in dying due to rebelling and to protect a loved one, than for the entertainment of bored Romans who like watching blood).






He prepares for a hopeless last stand to buy them time and she refuses to leave and stands by his side in this suicidal attack. This was the exact moment where I realized two things:
1. I ship Spartacus/Mira. And not as a ‘she will make him feel better after Sura’ thing, but a ship in their own right.
2. Holy fuck, Liam McIntyre is really really REALLY hot. And I am also finally in love with his Spartacus.







Nasir/Agron YESSSS!

First Man in Rome - Colleen McCullough

February 15, 2013, 1:21 pm

≫ Next: Spartacus: Vengeance - eps 5-8

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My Spartacus binge has reawakened my interest in all things Ancient Rome, so I dug out Colleen McCullough's First Man in Rome, the first volume of her behemoth series of novels about the end of the Republic. My parents bought it for me when it was first published, back in the early 1990s, but I barely remembered anything about it, it's been so long.

While FMiR has a truly mammoth cast of characters (I think if I didn't know all the major players from history, I'd get a bit lost), the focus of the book is on two remarkable men who brought about the start of the end of the Republic - Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In his late 40s, Marius is provincial - his wealth and talents should put him in the consul's seat or in command of an army, but because he lacks the requisite blue blood, he finds that world barred to him. Just-turned-30 Sulla's blood is bluest of the blue, but without anything to his name, any military or civilian office is an unachievable dream. Unless they work together and change the rules (and remove the people) who prevent their rise.

Marius and Sulla are, of course, both real and well-known historical figures, yet they do not appear in fiction or popular consciousness with the ubiquity of their spiritual descendant and sorta-relative Julius Caesar. You'd have to be dead not to know about Caesar but I'd imagine most people not interested in Roman history are unfamiliar with Marius and Sulla. I'd love this book for no other reason than McCullough actually writes about them. But the book does more than write about them, it also brings them to life - there are many relationships in the book, from loving to hateful and everything in-between, but the core of of it is the uneasy comradeship that develops between two very different, yet very ruthless, talented and ambitious men. The knowledge that their friendship eventually disintegrates into envy, enmity, and an open civil war gives this an added twist.

I confess that it's Sulla who makes the book for me. Before going in, what I knew about Sulla was: (1) talented general (2) fought a civil war with Marius (3) had long-standing affair with male theater actor and didn't give a damn who knew (4) bloody dictator who instituted proscriptions that made him rich and killed a lot of people (5) was very fond of his fourth(?) wife, Caecilia Metella (6) resigned his dictatorship and retired to private life. McCullough transformed him from collection of facts in my head to a real living, breathing person. He is not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but he is occasionally loyal, always magnetic, and so driven, so vivid, so caught in compensating for his basic insecurity for his initial have-not status, that I cannot help but root for him even as he starts getting rid those who stand in his way.

So yeah, short version - read it.

I plan to start on The Grass Crown, about Sulla's rise and Marius' descent, and the second book in the series, as soon as I finish this.

Spartacus: Vengeance - eps 5-8

February 17, 2013, 9:47 am

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They are getting Gannicus to kill them?!?!!!!!! Oenomaus’ best friend and Crixus’ sorta-mentor?!?! Also, 1. I missed you, Gannicus and ILY, unless you do go through with it! Please don’t do it! And, 2. Crixus/Lucretia staredown before the start = awesome. She is never going to rattle him now. He will kill her if he gets his hands on her though. So let’s hope that happens.





























Allies! That was pretty unexpected and awesome and I am totally loving the Spartacus-Agron dynamic. Bonus points for mentioning Sulla, show!























My OTP is not together but they still manage to remain the epitome of shippiness. I love how Naevia’s whole being transformed and she actually acted radiantly alive as opposed to trembling, shell-shocked zombie she was earlier, when she found out Crixus was alive. And there is monomaniacal and then there is Crixus - they are all about to die on the sands and his main reaction is ‘I am going to embrace Naevia in the afterlife once she eventually joins me.’ No words. Crixus=best boyfriend ever.











“I am for wine and the embrace of questionable women.” Oh, Gannicus! Only you can make me LOL and swoon like a gladiator groupie at the same time!








This scene! OMFG, this scene! When Agron thanked Naevia for saving Nasir - my heart!!! (pls pls let them be friends - I’d love it). When Naevia told Agron that she survived in the mines only by thinking of being held by Crixus once more - my heart!!! But then she adds that what she got was to be held by him for a moment and be torn away forever, and that she wishes he never came for her, and my heart breaks. But it’s nothing to the horror I felt when she said that she wished Lucretia killed her so Crixus wouldn’t have thrown his life away for someone “soiled and ruined.” The fact that she sees herself that way - it’s just horrifying! Noooooooo!!!!! It’s not your fault! None of it is your fault!!! Oh God. You know, even once she and Crixus reunite (because they must, show, they must!), they are going to have a hell of an uphill battle to happiness because she is so broken and traumatized by her experiences - between the rapes and the mines and God knows what else.




















When he is determined and so angry yet with an iron grip on his anger, I feel…funny. Good funny. Very good funny.

















There is currently major, massive, high-pitched screaming going on in my house. That is all.

















Oh, Gannicus, how I love you, and not just because you gave us this ep’s requisite sex scene! (And one which was voluntary and enjoyed by both participants, which is freaking rarer than gold on this show). It’s just that his particular demons are covered by a smirk, a devil-may-care attitude, and a liking for booze and ladies. It’s a fun change from intense-to-the-marrow Spartacus, Crixus et al. I mean, I love them, but a bit of snarky attitude makes for a fun occasional change.














Crixus (after taking one look at Lucretia): “It is a blessing to be forever removed from this fucking house.” Mind you, he is going off to be executed. Heeeeeee! I need that slow-clap GIF.











Never in a million years did I think I would ever feel sorry for Glaber, but Craig Parker is so good, I actually felt bad in this scene. And then I remembered what Glaber had done, and reverted to wanting him eaten by piranhas, slowly.








I ship Spartacus/Mira so much. Because he is happy around her and because she is fierce and fearless and they bring down the arena together and look so amazing all sooty yet delirious with joy. I was very rabid about Spartacus/Sura, but I just want him to find happiness. I think it helps that due to the actor change, I associate Sura with AW’s Spartacus while Mira goes with LM’s Spartacus.




















Here because they are all a bunch of BAMFs and the escape/burning down of the arena was the most amazing thing ever. I love Spartacus for pulling that insane plan, for Gannicus helping Oenomaus despite it all, for Crixus being a killing machine even though chained and weaponless, and all of them for taking that freaking arena down and the fight to the Romans.





























Why are they so shippy-awesome, why? There is teasing and happiness and everything and it’s so shocking to see gruff angry Agron so happy.











“Do I yet dream?”
“If so, I would never have you wake.”
Much as I ship Nasir/Agron, I confess this was the reunion I was waiting for. The way Naevia scans the crowd, looking for him, and then sees him and moves as if she is not even aware of what she is doing, the way they cling to each other, and the look on his face - oh, the look on his face when she is in his arms, after months of hoping and desperation.























The female part of Team Evil is not having a good day either. I cannot say I feel sorry for Ilythiya and the way Glaber now has her on a short leash (to see one monster bested by another is not a bad thing) but while I hate Lucretia and want her to die, nobody, not even she, deserves what Ashur did. (Pls pls, someone kill Ashur already. I don’t even care who).








I love love love the two of them together with an insane degree of love. And I just love how stubborn and unwavering Crixus is - he’s decided he loves Naevia and she is perfect and nothing is going to change his mind. If someone could be fixed through sheer determination, it would be a cinch. When he told her “I see no scars,” I melted. But when she said: “you risked all for the pale shadow of the woman you once loved,” and he replied: “then let us ignite the sun and strike darkness with its warmth.” I pretty much…well, I couldn’t melt because I was melted already, but I pretty much !!!! and !!!!!!!! and !!!!!!!























“They have taken everything from me, even your touch.” Oh God, I knew I knew I knew something like this was coming. She is too traumatized and damaged and of course trying to make love would bring back all the horrifying flashbacks of her being raped but ohhhhh - they break my heart. It is beyonf awful that the horror inflicted on her is robbing her of the best, happiest thing in her life - her love for Crixus. And of course, the helplessness Crixus is feeling, and the way it tears him apart to see her so hurt - oh good God. I hope they get fixed pls pls pls, show!




















I find the underpinnings in the rebel camp between all these strong-willed, different people fascinating. I love how Crixus encourages Spartacus to try to convert Gannicus to the cause (I seriously love their bromance), Gannicus’ cynical attitude (which really is his shield), or the antagonism between Agron and Crixus - Crixus is taking out his unhappiness on a promising target. And Agron made me melt when he told Crixus: “To set eyes again upon your heart, I understand now why men would risk all for such a thing.”























One of the things I love about Gannicus is that he stirs up all the established relationships and takes. I especially love his interactions with Spartacus - especially when Spartacus tells him: “Freedom is not a stick of wood to be presented as obedient dog. It is a thing all men deserve.” And the theme of love keeps running through it all - clearly there are only two criteria to join Spartacus’ army - to be a badass fighter and to love an OTP above all sanity. When Spartacus admits that he has taken on Rome for Sura - !!!!!!. And that is the closest Gannicus comes to unbending because it reminds him of Melitta. Gannicus, like all of them, is a fool for love - when he tells Oenomaus that Melitta always wanted only him (Oenomaus) despite what saying that must have cost him (and despite the fact that it’s not really true) and when she says: “I am to blame, not her, never her” - my heart my heart my heart! My favorite interaction was the one between him and Crixus though - it is by far the least complicated and most friendly, but once again, they talk about loving someone - Crixus’ love for Naevia. When Gannicus says, “the heaviest price is always paid by those we love,” he speaks from experience.
































I know I said it before, but I love how fiercely determined Crixus is - he just won’t allow that Naevia is anything less than a perfect Goddess as far as he is concerned, no matter what. When she says he probably wishes he left her in the mines after the disaster that was last night, and he tells her that if he had a thought like that, he’d rip it from his brain with bare hands - he has got to be the most unwavering man ever. And then he tells her: “All that matters is that the woman I love stands before me once again.” Dead. I am dead. But Naevia’s somber reply is heartbreaking: “Does she? Or is it but a faint spirit haunting the memory of a body?” Fixitfixitfixitfixit.














OMG, I literally screamed when I saw her toying with that dagger, clearly contemplating suicide. The amount of pain she is in. And the helpless rage at what has been done to her that Crixus is experiencing. And I love that he asks her what she wants him to do - putting her needs and wants above anything of his own. He was willing to ditch the rebellion and take her and go somewhere far away from Rome’s borders and that is so huge that I have no words. But her reply, it is her reply that made me breathless and then cheer - “I would have you teach. How to breathe again, how to live, how to fight so that no man would ever lay hands on me against my will.” Oh, Naevia. You are fucking amazing. And he promises her vengeance on Romans, and I didn’t think it was possible to love him more but I was wrong.


























Mira Warrior Princess. Oh, how I love her. How I love her.





The final sequence was pretty amazing. And not just because we got to watch Gannicus and Spartacus go at each other (be still my geeky heart. Though I suppose we still don’t know who would win, as the fight got interrupted). No, I loved it because Spartacus holds to his credo of free choice - he will not stop Gannicus from leaving because “every man has a right to his own choice.” Oh, Spartacus. I love you.



























Before this show, I would have never thought a man teaching a woman how to kill someone in every possible way as efficiently as you can, is the most romantic thing ever. Yet here we are. And Crixus doing his level best to teach Naevia killing blows is pretty much making me swoon. And I love how obsessively driven she is and how fiercely determined to learn and how he is willing to do whatever would make her happier and help her heal, and if that means sword-training with her non-stop, that’s fine (having the biggest monomaniac in ancient Rome as a boyfriend is pretty useful, I suppose, especially if said boyfriend is a legendary killing machine with plenty of tips to pass on :P) I mean - the thing is, when she tells him what she wants, he does his best to get it for her. There isn’t any of the “but you don’t need to, I will be around to protect you” (in part because that’s proven impossible before) or even “it’s too hard for you” or anything. And then Nasir caps the scene by talking to Mira and mentioning that they’ve basically been glued together all week training and he wouldn’t even go to the Neapolis raid so as to stay with her - seriously. Swoon, Crixus=best boyfriend of the ancient world.




















Happy reunions make me happy. Happy reunions involving Oenomaus, more so.











A lot of this episode, for me, was about Gannicus being pushed from every direction - by Spartacus, by Glaber, by Lucretia, as well as by his own growing outrage about what Romans are doing, and then reaching his own decision, and not one any of them expected. ILY, Gannicus, just so we are clear!























Various shippy things in ep 7 taught me that:
*Even if I want to strangle Agron otherwise (don’t worry, he redeemed himself in my eyes by the end of the ep), put him within 5 feet of Nasir, and my annoyance disappears and I get happy.
*Mira/Spartacus = awesome, but Spartacus would be the worst party attendee ever.
* Crixus/Naevia still own my heart. Also, mess with Naevia, and it’s 50/50 whether she will do her best to end you or Crixus will.


























Agron’s actions for most of the ep made me worry there was going to be a giant rift with Spartacus, so the end made me !!! in relieved happiness. When he said, “I stand with Spartacus,” I wanted to cheer. The ending was pretty amazing to start with, anyway. And since Spartacus looks pretty incredible grim and pissed off, I guess it’s all fine anyway :)































They make me so happy! And Spartacus actually smiles around her and doesn’t act like someone whose soul is in the grave. Pls pls pls keep Mira alive, show!











Gannicus: “Don’t ever say I never got you anything!” Or at least that’s what I think he should have said :) I am rooting for Spartacus to kill her - because of her encouragement the whole chain of events leading to Spartacus’ capture and his wife’s death happened, she made him kill his only friend, and taunted him about his wife and is generally a waste of air. KILL HERRRRRRRR!!!!














!!!!!!!!!! I mean !!!!!! I love how excited she is to get better and better and how proud he gets when she lands hits. And OMFG, she is totally flirting and voluntarily touching and she even initiated a kiss, which means she is healing that way too (I love how stunned Crixus is by the kiss - ohhhhhhhh. My darlings!). Plus, the chemistry - it is insane insane insane.
































Jesus H, what is with all the rape potential-babies in this show?! This is the third one! Though since Ilithiya has never spoken truth in her life, who knows if she is lying to make Spartacus spare her life. I seriously gasped and freaked out because I really really really hope it isn’t his! But his face and his eyes OMFG. Stop making his life horrible, show! I mean, you are going to kill him in the end anyway, at least give him some fucking peace first! I did love that even that wasn’t going to stop him and only Ilithiya’s claim that his wife would turn from him in the afterlife for killing her/her unborn child, stopped him. Guuuuh, instead of calling this Spartacus: Vengeance, they should have called it Spartacus: Theater of Pain. Seriously.























Bromance FTW!





Reasons Spartacus is better than anyone else, as far as I am concerned - he won’t kill even Ilythiya because his wife would not like the man he would be if he did it. And he doesn’t tell Glaber that Ilythiya told him the child is likely Spartacus’. But then, of course, Glaber doesn’t care for anyone but himself, so…














!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is all.























I know I should be all about the BAMFs going off to best Glaber, or the fact that Gannicus volunteers even though he doesn’t believe in the cause, because Oenomaus does and he wants to atone to his former BFF. Or even Spartacus’ grin. But I am all about my ultimate OTP (that’s Crixus/Naevia, in case this LJ is confusing on this point :P) and the touching and Crixus’ snark towards Agron and just - guuuuuh. Team Good Guys forever!




















“Do you know what it is to love? To be filled with light and hope? To see that blessing returned in kind, in the eyes of the only one that could ever know the true depth of your heart? That is what your husband took from me. I would take the same from him. Yet he chose vengeance against me over your life. Taking it would balance nothing. He does not love you, as I loved my wife.” That was the best ending to an episode ever. No words.













And now on to check out That Winter the Wind Blows

Spartacus: Vengeance - eps 9-10

February 17, 2013, 6:44 pm

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I love Spartacus' speeches about justice and freedome being better than the Romans. Because it is about vengeance for him, sure, but not just about that.








I probably should have known it was coming, but it still broke my heart. Because she wants more but he doesn't have more to give. She asks for his heart and he replies "I have given you all that remains" and ohhhh, he knows it is not enough, and the look on his face when she says "it is not enough" and he replies: "no, it is not." I so want him to find a second chance at happiness, not just vengeance and justice. But I would have settled for his finding peace...




















Bromance! I love it when BFFs interact.





I don't think anyone who wasn't into Battlestar Galactica is going to get this reference, but Naevia cheering for Crixus reminded me of Fighting Agathons :) (I.e. my last American TV ship). It is wonderful to see her so outgoing and functional and...











Speaking of bromance, I was so happy to see Oenomaus and Gannicus recover their friendship. I love the friendships in this show almost as much as I do the romances.








And Agron and Crixus are not at each other's throats! Miracles! Plus, about time, as their significant others get along.








Two monsters rediscover love? I was oddly pleased by that. I still want them dead but you know...








I seriously started screaming! Crixus and Naevia are another couple rediscovering each other, but while Glaber and Ilythiya are monstrous together, Crixus/Naevia are healing and loving and sane. It totally killed me when he stopped their make-out and apologized for being lost in the moment. And then she replied: "No, it's I who have been lost, and your touch that guides me home." And then - eeee! I could go all meta and talk about her reclaiming her sexuality (both of them reclaiming theirs, actually) or I could be all shallow and just say it's hot. Either way - !!!!!!
































This is here because I love my BAMFs.



































Even when they are not together, she understands him so well - as he puts it, she finds words to pull him from his darkest thoughts.











So, of course, since this show loves to torture Spartacus, she is killed. Damn!!!! You really can't let him have a scrap of peace, can you, show? He must have been a mass murderer in ten past lives in a row to get a fate like this!























Is it me, or is that blonde German lady (and awesome fighter) eyeing Gannicus? I'd kinda like to see that go somewhere...








Bromance! I love my bromance! I think Gannicus is still skeptical but he is being won over and his friends are here and he always loved mad fights and bad odds.











Crixus is ready to end Ashur and I cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer, die die die!!!!














But then! I have no words! Naevia steps in and says that Ashur is hers and she is the one who should get vengeance on him, and Crixus - Crixus - Crixus - seriously, no words. Despite his own need for vengeance, despite any qualms about Naevia's ability to take out Ashur, despite his need to protect her (you can tell he is terrified out of his mind and is not sure she can take Ashur out), despite everything - he steps back and lets her have her vengeance, lets her fight Ashur. Not just that, but he keeps Spartacus from interfering, despite how much he wants to help himself, and what it may cost him (he pretty much went insane when he lost her and here he is faced with another possibility of an imminent loss), because he puts what she needs above all else, and he knows she needs that. GUUUUUUH! Crixus = ultimate feminist boyfriend. (Also, couple who stabs their rapists together, stays together? Crixus did get to stab Lucretia in s1, so it's only fair Naevia gets her turn with Ashur).
































But Naevia manages to win, and I love how proud he looks. And even more, I love that when Ashur tries to spread some last dying poison, saying that killing him won't erase what was done to her, Naevia pauses and says that not, it won't. "But it's a fucking start!" And beheads him, in a few tries.























I didn't think it could get more perfect, but it did. She tells him he was right, it's hard to behead someone in a single stroke, and I squeal at the callback to their first conversation in B&S. And he tells her "then I will teach you" and it is pretty much the most romantic thing I've ever heard. Also, clutching! There is clutching!!!




















My OTP continues its insane awesomeness when he is about to go on a super-insanely-risky raid. He tells her that they will be reunited soon, in this life or the next. Crixus/Naevia = best OTP since B.C.E. I love how shining she looks!























I just love them. Seriously, I have no deep thoughts here, I just love them.























Noooooo!!!! Oenomaus :(








That was creeptastically perfect and a perfect ending to these two horrifying women.











Spartacus finally brings down Glaber and avenges his wife. I loved that he told Glaber he was free and when Glaber started ranting about Rome killing him and that a day will come Spartacus will be killed, his reply: "Perhaps. But it is not this day." God, could he be any more amazing? No, no, he couldn't.




















And they are going to take on Rome!!! YESSSS!

That Winter the Wind Blows - ep 1 thoughts and caps

February 17, 2013, 7:03 pm

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My two-month old kdrama slump is over, courtesy of the intense and artistic That Winter the Wind Blows. One ep in, and it owns my hear



Jo In Sung is back on my screen! I am hyperventilating here!!!!!! One minute in, and this drama owns my heart for that fact alone.





Granted, I am barely a few minutes into the first episode, but what strikes me is how alive Jo In Sung’s character is, with all his issues and anger, and not-caring. And how princess-frozen Song Hye Kyo is, sleepwalking through life. In a way, this plays to the actors’ strength - SHK’s porcelain elegant beauty and JIS’ wildly vivid, emotional screen presence.








Kim Bum held his own against Jung Woo Sung in Padam Padam and here he is holding his own against Jo In Sung. The boy is pretty damn good! The high-strung nervous energy of his performances does remind me of a younger JIS, so I see how that works. I really love the edgy, crackling chemistry between their characters - friends with reckless, self-destructive streaks. It’s so unhealthy, what they are doing, yet so alive.











Once again, the contrast between his aliveness and her withdrawal...








Their scene pretty much killed me - their chemistry is insane, but it is the little looks he keep sneaking her, little glances and a smile and looking oddly more innocent and open than he does at any other time. They combust the screen with barely a touch.























The whole intercut of these two strangers having these horrible days feet from each other, for seemingly different but interconnected reasons. I barely met these people, but it's still like a punch in the gut.








And the winner for the most insane girlfriend is - !! Can someone strangle her?














The sheer magnetic fierceness of Jo In Sung's performance blows me away. There isn't anything quite like him, really. I could watch an hour of a camera just on his face as his character thinks and feels.











But he is not the only thing that elevates this drama - the camerawork, the writing, the acting and cast chemistry in general (JIS and KB play so well off each other), they all contribute.

















The episode does a great job of showing the grounds for JIS' desperation, how off-kilter and shockingly violent his new world is. The casting is pretty much perfect because I always associate JIS with beautiful suffering, if it makes sense. It's not that he looks composedly-gorgeous in grief, far from it - but it somehow becomes more than real - his pain, his fear, his very state of desperately being alive, and I just want to reach in there and make it better even as I drink it in, eyes helplessly glued to the screen.






































To end on a shallow note - Damn, I've forgotten how insanely intense Jo In Sung is, and how mesmerizing in that intensity. I think the real tragedy of this drama is that Song Hye Kyo will be dating him without being able to see him - because, damn! :)

That Winter the Winds Blows - ep 2

February 18, 2013, 9:19 am

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I continue to love this, especially due to Jo In Sung's searing performance. His eyes! His eyes whenever he looks at Song Hye Kyo!




His desperation drags me into the story with him and finds me rooting for him to pull off what is, objectively, a pretty horrible scam. But then JIS makes me care for his characters even when he plays a mob killer as in Dirty Carnival or the messed-up mess he was in Frozen Flower. There is something so powerfully alive about him.








I really wish Eunji would just let it go - if her sister chose to off herself after being dumped, I fail to see how it is JIS' fault. Seriously, woman, let it go! Get therapy. I did love JIS' character conversation about how he only lives because he breathes and wakes up in the morning, but does he have to have a great meaning in life to want to live? No.








And here we get to the heart of the story for me - JIS and SHK - both wounded, both layered. And somehow, he is more himself, more genuine with her, despite the deception, than he is with anyone else. She gets to him without trying. Just look at his eyes.

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Spartacus: War of the Damned - ep 1

February 18, 2013, 9:32 am

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First things, first. Ummm, I think I have a crush on Crassus. Heeeelp! But he is the first Roman we meet who actually has brains and balls and honor all at once. He is ruthless as hell, but he does have a code, plus he does not underestimate someone for being a slave. Oh, and his grabbing the sword blade with bare hands was ridiculously hot. I need help!



I have no deep thoughts about this scene, just fangirl joy.







Hello there, facial hair! I approve! Go on, Crixus, flaunt the empire with your locks! I loved that when Naevia tried to say she is her current badass self because of him, Crixus told him it is because of her - her will and her strength. Plus, swords as foreplay = hot. They seem to be a tad too obsessed in bathing in Roman blood, but I can’t say I blame them with their history. Is it praiseworthy? No, but completely understandable.








Here because Gannicus is ridiculously hot.



He is not the only hot one...




The thing that struck me the most in the first episode of War of the Damned was how inhuman Spartacus became - without Sura (or hope of her), without Varro, without Mira - he has nothing to tether him to life and warmth any more. It is proof of how strong his will and core are that he is not a conscienceless monster, but he is certainly stone-cold, utterly hard, and very remote. He is discovering that his rage has no appeasement - those who killed Sura are dead but he does not feel any better - he cannot stop because there is nothing left waiting for him once he does. Nothing makes it better. Sura is still dead, all those he loved are still dead. He still suffered and nothing erases it (in a way, I think this is true for everyone in the slave army but on a smaller scale and they do have those they are attached to, to compensate. Spartacus does not. The other leaders do have someone to tie them to the world - Agron has Nasir, Crixus has Naevia). There is also the totality of war, which doesn’t help him heal any - being bathed in blood and entrails every day is not the best place to try to recover peace and sanity. Especially a bloody civil war like the one they are fighting - the slaves give no quarter and would probably eviscerate every Roman they come across, and the Romans would gladly crucify them all without a second thought. That is about the worst place to try to heal.




I loved his conversation with Gannicus because Gannicus understands as having been there and tries to counsel but it doesn’t really work - as Spartacus says, he has nobody left who can speak words of absolution for him. (Gannicus - well, he deals with his damage via drinking and women and, I cannot believe I am about to say this, it is a healthier coping mechanism than what Spartacus cobbled together. But then he had years to cope and years of being free).




He has his just cause and his blood vengeance but he really has no life - he only exists. His life ended the day the Romans caught him and Sura in the first ep of Blood and Sand.

Spartacus: War of the Damned - ep 2

February 18, 2013, 3:14 pm

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Surely, it is wrong that my main feeling through this episode was: "Crassus, do me!" What are you doing to me, show?



Caesar!!! I don't even care why he looks like a Celtic sheepherder! Caesar!!! Insert fangirl scream.




It kills me how utterly cold and dead Spartacus' eyes are, even when he is smiling. I associate Andy Whitfield's S1 Spartacus with so much unbearable pain reflected in his eyes, but Liam McIntyre's Spartacus - by now he's experienced so much pain that I think his feelings pretty much burned out and you can see that - you can see a bleak shell that used to be a person, that is all.




This is here for sheer warrior hotness:






I am loving all the Crassus-Caesar interactions. They are both so smart and the actors have great chemistry together. I am actually looking forward to Roman scenes, which never happens!








I find the whole story with Kore so interesting. Because she obviously loves Crassus and vice-versa, but her interaction with Caesar shows the pitfalls of any slave - sure, Crassus and Tiberius care for her and will protect her, and in general Crassus seems to run a very organized household, but let's face it, Caesar's reaction to Crassus when Crassus comes across Caesar trying to bed Kore and shuts it down ASAP is totally telling - he apologizes for trying to molest Kore because he didn't know "the girl had meaning." I want to go all Crixus on him and yell at him that she has meaning because she is a person, and he should care not because Crassus likes her, but because she did not give consent! And there is the fact that any slave has no agency - let's say Crassus and Tiberius get killed in battle - Crassus' wife will sell her off in two seconds flat, best-case scenario. What kind of life is that? But then the rebels aren't a saintly bed of roses either - I do wonder how she will react in general to this.






The look on Naevia's face breaks my heart. Even in victory, she faces loss...



I literally fucking screamed! But!!!!! I can't believe this show has me shipping master/slave but omfg Crassus/Kore I need fic and fic and aaaaaaaaa!!!!!! He wants her to follow on campaign with him! And he asks her answer "not as a master but as a man" and she calls him Marcus and !!!!!!!!!!! Crassus, do me! That is the refrain of this ep.












Ummm, I think Gannicus just got a groupie :) All it takes to win a gal's heart is to off her master, it seems :)




The interactions between Spartacus and the aedile's wife were fascinating to me. Because this war is a lot less noble and clear-cut than it used to be when they fought for their lives and freedom and killed only those who were worth killing (either soldiers or those, like the Batiatus guests at the end of s1 or the arena mob in s2, who totally deserved it). That is the peril of any war, however just its start - innocents get killed. Especially in a fight like this, where the slave army views all Romans as enemies because they know they are viewed the same, and when they take out years of abuse on nearest convenient target. I mean, theoretically speaking, Varro's son could have been in that city and one of children killed and no one would have known (yes, I know he wasn't, but the fact remains that some kid like him was, and the war machine couldn't have been stopped). And Spartacus still, after everything, has enough humanity in him to feel sorry about the slaughter and even sympathize with the aedil's wife, saying that he's been where she was, but the war still goes on - which it must, for where would the slaves go, if they stopped? There is nowhere much outside of the reach of Rome.






I conclude on my newfound crush. Crassus!!! I think it's because he is the first Roman in three seasons who is not a degenerate waste of breath, but smart, ruthless, strong-willed, brave, and with an honor code.

Spartacus: Vengeance - ep 3

February 19, 2013, 9:39 am

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Have some hotness:



My heart breaks for Crixus and Naevia - these two are so so so far from well (I don’t mean ‘well together,’ because they are each other’s port in any storm, but I mean well emotionally and psychologically). In a way, it’s the same as with Spartacus never achieving peace for Sura’s death no matter how many Romans he kills - they can kill and win but it will never fully erase what was done to them. To Naevia especially - all the slaves have horrible backgrounds, but nobody’s can compete with hers - the story she told about that man on the way to the mines is beyond horrifying. And Crixus tells her he wishes he could erase her memories, but that’s the thing - he can’t. Nobody can. Just as he says he wishes he had words to make it better, but once again, there is no such magic thing. And when she tells him that “knowing you are by my side is comfort enough” and he promises to stay by her side forever, it is beyond heartbreaking, not because we know historically Crixus is going to get killed in battle, but because it really is the most they can do - to stay together and to love each other despite all the horrors and scars. But it will never be enough to fully fix them. Nothing will.

Their actions towards the Romans are driven by that knowledge to me - that they aren’t fixed and I don’t expect them to be, not until years and years pass (and they don’t have that). Crixus making those Romans fight to the death the way the Romans made him fight? Not nice, not even necessarily just (except in a very rough sense) but completely understandable. Naevia watching the fight and chopping off that man’s hand because she thought he was going for Crixus when he was only grabbing bread? Once again, hardly praiseworthy, but utterly understandable, in light of her PTSD - the woman has so much trauma, it’s a miracle she isn’t banging her head on the wall somewhere. The reason Spartacus (the character) is so unique is that he is able to put the breaks on treatment of Romans unless they are Romans who directly hurt him, even if it’s hard for him to stop. The rest of the slaves cannot. If you take people and torture and brutalize them all their life, and that is all you teach them, when they have the upper hand on you, to expect any kind of mercy would be beyond naive. Sainthood is great but pretty rare for a reason. The way Crixus, Naevia and the rest of the slaves view the captured Romans makes sense. As slaves, they’ve been beaten, tortured, raped, made to kill for amusement or do God knows what else, and treated as subhuman things - is it wonder that anyone they associate with that they desire dead? It doesn’t make it right, but it is certainly understandable.

P.S. Crixus going for the blacksmith’s throat when he insulted Naevia? Is it wrong that I found it beyond hot?











Spartacus continues to break my heart in this ep, but then he does in every episode. It's the fact that he still has enough humanity to feel compassion even for the Romans, despite everything that he's done and that has been done to him. Though the thing with aedile's widow is not going to end well - any time the show allows him to unbend to someone, he always loses them in the worst possible manner. I bet she will betray him over her people (understandably) and will get killed and guhhhh - seriously, who do I have to pay to perform black magic to bring Sura back to him, or at least to wipe his memories?








Since they are both fictional, maybe they will be the sole OTP left standing at the end of it? (I already pre-mourned Crixus/Naevia, and my Spartacus OTPs are dead, ditto for Gannicus/Melitta). Nah, with this show, all this means is they will probably come up with some extra-horrific way to off them.










That was all sorts of awesome. Though like their leader Spartacus, Crixus and Naevia seem to be like the last people you’d want to invite to a party - they are just not mixers :)




I think this season my heart is owned by Gannicus. I never thought I’d ever say this, but he is by far the most functional and sanest of the mains. Naevia is, understandably, tap-dancing on the edge of sanity, Crixus and Spartacus are both that combo of functioning yet super-fucked-up, and Agron has that terrible temper. Gannicus ends up being the voice of reason, which is pretty insane, but I love it. In a way, he’s been where Spartacus was, but emerged on the other side. Also, I think I am shipping Gannicus/Sybil (sp?). It’s the way he looked at her. Or maybe because that pairing would hit my shippy kinks. Or maybe because I want his heart to be engaged - he and Saxa are in a very fun relationship, but he is clearly emotionally uninvolved. He allows himself to be visibly serious so little that I kinda yearn for the teeny scraps when it happens.
















Because I am pretty much obsessed with Crixus, Naevia and Crixux/Naevia. Also, I think I finally figured out just why Crixus hits all my buttons (it’s not just the hair! I think. Nor is it even just his undying love for Naevia). He is by far the most monomaniacal of them all - he is so single-minded a new term should be invented. When he decided he wanted to be a gladiator, he basically dedicated 120% of himself to it and it was the only thing he lived and breathed (and when Spartacus switched his fighting focus to killing Romans, he is pretty much death unleashed.) When he decided the meaning of his life is Naevia, it was the same thing - he pretty much negated himself for her. I just find the intense single-mindedness really appealing, in real life as well as in fiction. And Naevia - I really wish for her to work through her demons and emerge healed on the other side, but let’s face it, history won’t let it happen. I suppose you know you are a Spartacus fan if your hope is “I hope both members of my OTP die together, in battle, and doesn’t get crucified instead.”

That Winter the Wind Blows - ep 3

February 19, 2013, 5:59 pm

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I continue to love the desperation, the chemistry, the broken connections and the games. I think Soo's con is working so well precisely because his heart is involved.

Latest romance novel tally...

February 20, 2013, 7:14 am

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Pamela Clare, Ride the Fire - this certainly may be the most unusual romance setting and characters I have ever come across. This is set in the Ohio Valley during the 1760s, and our protagonists are a trapper and a young widow that is 8 months pregnant, who end up wintering together in her cabin. There are a lot of household chores, avoiding being killed, and hero helping heroine deliver her baby. It's also not for the faint-hearted, because the hero has survived capture and torture at the hands of an Indian tribe during the French and Indian War and if I could unread the description of what happened to him and his men, I would. Ditto for heroine and her abusive family. This is really really good - it takes two very cautious and very wounded people and slowly brings them together and allows them mental, emotional, and physical healing. I loved both Elspeth and Nicholas - it's a testament to how much that while large chunks of the books only have the two of them as characters (as they are in the wilderness), I never felt bored. Plus, when is the last time Benjamin Franklin featured in a romance novel?

Gena Showalter, The Darkest Pleasure - heroine is a painter on the run, hero is Lord of Paaaaaaaaaaain. I am sorry, I always said it that way in my head whenever he appeared. Ummmm, I was kinda freaked out at all the descriptions of the dude craving extreme pain, breaking bones, and cutting himself under his demon's compulsion (especially when he did same when...ahem...pleasing himself, so heroine wouldn't be freaked out). I am not into that sort of thing. By the end, lucky him, she calms his demon a lot so he only needs to cut occasionally? Ummm, no thanks.

Gena Showalter, The Darkest Whisper - I liked that one! Heroine is a Harpy - a sort of ultra-badass warrior. One problem - she is the timid one in the family and craves normalcy, which doesn't work out when bad guys capture her for experiments. Luckily, she gets rescued by the Lords of the Underworld and grabs the attention of Sabin, who houses the demon of Doubt and is oobsessed with the fight with the bad guys above all else. Well, until the heroine takes off her clothes, at least. Then his priorities shift. Oh, and she discovers a killer instinct. This was low-angst (except when Paris appeared. That guy is a one-man angst machine. It's a good thing i read his book already, out of order, or I would have wondered if he needs industrial quantities or prozac. Oh, and Gideon, but he got tortured and his body parts cut off, so I am giving him slack). It was pretty damn fun. It reminded me a bit of Kresley Cole's series, actually (amusingly, there is a teeny shout-out to Cole's series in it. Though if she decides to cross-book hook Torin with Nix, I will end something. Me no like).

Julie Anne Long, The Runaway Duke - this is so historically implausible that it must create an anachronism singularity to swallow the world, but if you can overlook that, it's pretty fun. Hero is a Duke's heir who gets mistaken for dead at Waterloo and goes with the deception because he hates his family (as one does, if one is a romance novel hero), and spends the next five years as a groom (!!!!!). His boss' daughter decides to run away from an engagement and he helps her, they fall in love, are chased by bad guys (who I actually loved and shipped together, luckily so did the author) blah blah blah. I like Long's writing style and this was a nice way to pass the time, but I much prefer the one other book of hers I read, What I Did for a Duke (what is with the Ducal fixation, author? One would think England was populated solely by those rarified inbreds).

That Winter the Wind Blows - ep 4

February 23, 2013, 8:58 pm

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I confess I think largely abandoned this LJ in favor of tumblr, where I have been hanging out a lot. But this is still a good place for ep posts, so here goes.



For the pretty...














You know what is killing me? Soo is a total stranger to Young, who has only gotten close to her to get money to pay off the Mob and who is running a con. And he is the only one who cares what happens to her! He is the only one who actually is concerned about her well-being, who gets angry at how she’s been treated (and not treated), who cheers her up and pushes her outside her comfort zone to live it up! He doesn’t need to do any of it to get his hands on her money, but he does it because he is drawn to her and because it’s a pattern of his - he is a lost soul who used to collect fellow lost souls and sort-of bail them out, unthinkingly. And even though he now has nothing and things are twisted, he still can’t help it. But the thing is - it is horrifying that Soo is the best and most caring thing Young has got! No wonder she is bitter and cynical and with a deathwish, if she spent the last twenty years surrounded by ‘near and dear’ who make a stranger-swindler look like a knight in shining armor.




















I ship those two with an unhealthy degree of love. When she tells him she hates people mocking and laughing at her behind her back. And he tells her that she she go in front of them, so that they can’t do it behind her back. GUUUUUUUUUUH. I wonder if he is trying to make her life as functional and as good as it can as a sort of repayment for the money he is going to take from her. I think it’s a mix of that, his being a good person despite the situation he is in, and the fact that he can identify with her broken soul, seeing that his is broken as well, in a different way. As he tells her, he knows what it’s like to be alone, and he doesn’t want her to be so. On a shallow note, Jo In Sung and his eyes and his height and his high-strung intensity and his rapid speech - damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.














You can see the precise second where his emotions in this scene transform from ‘joking and making Young feel good’ to breath-taking, all-encompassing attraction which completely overcomes him. And she can feel it, as well. Ummm, seeing that I am shipping real siblings Cesare/Lucretia in the Borgias, shipping fake siblings is nothing…


















Speaking of attraction and lines becoming blurry - I love how excited he is to get her that candy, not because it will verify to her who he is (because he doesn’t need it by that point), but because it will please her. And then that blinding moment of awareness of her proximity and how loaded it is, when he starts eating the candy with her…























That scene! The longing and the emotion and the darkness and hope and everything. She is going to be both his salvation and his damnation, isn’t she? Because she is going to save his soul (and wake up his heart - she already has) but that love is going to get him killed. And when she says she wants to touch her brother’s face once, and his eyes, looking damned. And the way he looks at her when she strokes his face. Jo In Sung’s eyes are - seriously. This is making me bawl.

Article 1

February 26, 2013, 1:47 pm

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I want to post about Spartacus and That Winter the Wind Blows, but photobucket is being troublesome, so instead I am going to recommend a book - Shana Abe's The Secret Swan. It's pretty much a gorgeous, fevered h/c medieval dream of a romance novel.

Our hero, Tristan, is an English knight who, eight years ago, rode off leaving his new bride Amiranth to fight in a Hundred Years' War. As the book opens, he has managed to escape French captivity (his family did not ransom him, long story), and returns alone and battered in mind and body to his remote estate seeking the wife he left there - his vague memories of her (they barely knew each other and he was a young idiot more interested in glory than marriage) are the one thing he latched on to in prison to keep sane, and he is seeking absolution and hope of happiness or, at least, peace.

When he arrives at his destination, however, he discovers an estate empty due to the Black Plague (ahh, 14th century, the fount of fun!). Well, with one exception. A beautiful young woman tells him that his wife is dead and she is her cousin. It is no sort of spoiler to say that she is actually Amiranth who has decided to seek the limited freedom she can and go to a convent (her actual cousin, who looked a lot like her, has died and she swapped identities). Amiranth is not particularly pleased to see Tristan - she has had a childish crush on him before marriage, but the fact that he had little interest in her and the fact that he ditched her on a remote estate for war and never came back (she didn't know he was captured in the first battle - once again, plotty reasons), have long killed any lingering fondness.

She wants little to do with him, but then Tristan collapses with fever or ague or one of those awesome medieval diseases (thankfully NOT the plague) and the story gets even cheerier from here.

This is basically h/c heaven about two very damaged people finding peace and healing with each other. Tristan is a total mess - he basically survived 8 years of hell and is utterly traumatized by it, as well as driven by guilt for wanting a cousin of the wife he believes he wronged. And Amaranth has basically been beaten down by loneliness and illness of loved ones and disollution of romantic dreams. She also lost a child (neither of them knew, but she was pregnant when he rode off to war). But he is honorable and incredibly intense and dedicated to her, and she is strong and kind and realistic. I basically ship them to an insane insane degree and this is soooooooo good!!!!!

Read it!!!!!!

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Spartacus: War of the Damned ep 4

February 26, 2013, 5:28 pm

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So, let’s talk about Naevia/Crixus first, because - well, because I am me.

Right off the bat, I think that what they did in this episode was unforgivable yet completely understandable. History is going to pay them back tenfold for that they did, and it will be karmically just, and I will bawl my eyes out.

It’s clear Naevia is not getting better - that wonderful, empowering finale of s2 (killing her enemy, reclaiming her sexuality, learning to fight) was really not the happy ending but a high point in a descent of a different sort. She has become no different than the Romans she fights and hates - the “us” is worth caring for and protecting and the “them” are subhumans who do not deserve to live. (She is not alone in that view - most of the slave army holds that position. And look at Crixus - he is a lot more in control of himself than she is, but he also has us v. them thing going). That makes her little different from Caesar, who wept over Fabia’s torment because she was a Roman but wouldn’t think twice if it was a slave.

But that is the thing - horror creates more horror, in a never-ending cycle. She is the way she is now because the Romans made her so. Because the Romans took a gentle young woman, who thought the gladiatorial games were too much, and broke her and tortured her in every possible way, until she is empty of everything but desire for revenge on anyone Roman and desire to kill. In a way, even now, the slaves’ treatment of Romans is more justified than vice-versa. Naevia wants every Roman man, woman and child dead because she was tortured horrifically for months by a wide variety of Romans. Romans view the slaves as subhuman because…why? Look what Batiatus et al condemned their slaves to - and those slaves did nothing to them.

And Crixus - he knows Naevia is broken, he knows she is wrong, but he can do nothing but love her, because she is everything he lives for, and all he knows. And of course, he also hates the Romans - the Romans who enslaved him, mistreated him, raped him, killed his friends and wrecked the woman he loves for good. In a dark, twisted way, his ordering a massacre is a supremely romantic gesture - as he tells Naevia, before ordering the slaughter - “for every unwanted touch upon you” (paraphrase). Because he will do anything he can to give her peace, however illusory the peace and however not right the way there. But also because of his own fury and because this is one outlet for his own rage - I don’t think he’s ever processed fully what Romans did to him, and that way he can get rid of some of the rage that drives him without having to process it.

There is no doubt about the split - much as Crixus likes Spartacus and owes him, he would pick Naevia above everyone and everything - his friends, his life, his soul. And perhaps all those who are commenting that Naevia and Crixus aren’t good for each other are right - they are in a feedback loop. But what else is there for them? These are horrifically broken people, trying not to go mad and failing - and it’s Romans who made them this way, who turned them into this. And now Roman innocents are paying the price for what other Romans have wrought.









I ship Crassus/Kore. I know, but I can’t help it. The above was pretty damn gorgeous and surprisingly romantic and reverent. Who knew that between ordering brutal deaths of his own troops via decimation and being the most ‘tough love’ father ever (I think he lost Tiberius for good), getting rid of political rivals and sending Caesar to infiltrate the rebels to destroy them from within, Marcus Crassus was also a dream in the sack :P









Because I love me some Gannicus smirk! Also, because he is one of the most level-headed characters in the rebel camp right now (a scary thought). Probably because he has had a lot longer time to get over being a slave than the rest of them (what’s truly miraculous is that Spartacus can also put breaks on things, even though he hasn’t had much time to get used to being free at all, and also was horrifically wronged). Now go make out with Sybil and make me happy, dude!



OK, Gaius Julius Caesar, I now like you. All it takes is a show of some compassion and human feeling.Plus hotness. I want that ‘hot Caesar’ show now.

It does not prevent me from noting that (a) you felt horrible for the woman because she was a Roman. If she were a slave, I wonder how you’d act and (b) shortly after this, you instigated a murder of a whole bunch of Romans so as to divide the rebels.

The thing is, I am very happy with the antagonists this season because (a) they are smart (Batiatus had some animal cunning but smart he wasn’t, Glaber = box of rocks, Ilithiya were a short-sighted schemer and Lucretia same). Crassus and Caesar are actually very very smart and (b) they may do ruthless and violent things but they don’t revel in pain and suffering, the way previous Roman antagonists did.

Oh, and while we are on topic, Nemetes must die!!!! He and his scum bunch = the Romans who raped Naevia.







The “I have no deep thoughts on these caps, these people are just hot” edition.







And Crassus has just lost his son for good, even if Tiberius is physically alive. I just knew something like this was going to happen. Any time there is a healthy, happy relationship on this show, either one or both participants wind up dead, or they end up broken and damaged beyond repair. And then dead

Article 1

February 27, 2013, 11:52 am

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Hero is an upper-class gentleman still grieving for his dead wife who ends up in arranged marriage to young woman grieving for her fiancee. And then there are bad people enslaving little girls to make stockings in Georgian London.

At last, an Elizabeth Hoyt book I didn't love. The book in question is the latest in her Maiden Lane series, Lord of Darkness, and unlike all the other books in the series, I did not like it. In part, because it largely rehashes the plot of the previous book in the series, Thief of Shdows, which I loved loved loved loved! (If you are a fan of orphanage runner by day/protector of the powerless by night - pragmatic upper class widow, younger man-older woman, she is an aristocrat while he isn't, set up, this is the book for you!)

But mainly because it took all the tropes I dislike and stuck them in one book - the heroine spends 90% of the book mourning her lost lover!!!! No, thank you. Not really what I want in a romance novel, especially when the hero has been nothing but lovely to her. And while I am OK with the 'hero gets second chance at love' thing, I am not OK with it where I think he loved his dead wife more/was more compatible with her. Oh, and arranged marriage turns to love is an OK trope, but not where hero was blackmailed into marriage by heroine's brother, and had someone else (admittedly dead) he loved madly.

Grrrr. I spent most of that book irritated. My favorite parts involved glimpses of characters from the other books from the series, especially Caire/Temperance (because their book Wicked Intentions was so dark and deliciously fucked up) and Winter/Isabel (Thief of Sahdows = love forever!).

Actually, I lied. My favorite part were glimpses into the leads of the next book because I am madly excited for it. Because the hero of it is going to be Maximus (the autocratic older brother of Lady Hero from Notorious Pleasures), who is an aristocratic anti-gin crusader by day, and a Georgian Batman by night. He even has a Batman backstory of having his two parents offed in front of him when he was a boy and somehow they were visiting the slums. And then he trained with a wise old dude who taught him to use two swords at once. And he is way fucked up. YES PLS. I had a mini-crush on him from other books already. And the heroine is named Artemis, is a lady's companion who carries blades in the soles of her boots and has a brother wrongly committed to Bedlam. I need this book NOW!!!!

OK, for my tastes, the ranking of the books in the series is as follows:

Thief of Shadows (book 4) - I think rock-hard integrity and social consience are super-sexy, see above for more.
Wicked Intentions (book 1) - omfg I love I love I love. Heroine is a widow who doesn't believe in pleasure of any sort and helps to run a desperate orphan home in the slums, and hero is an aristocrat who hires her to help him naviage the slums in search of his mistress' murderer. Hero is utterly fucked up and can't bear to be touched and has no healthy relationships ever. Mmmmm, angst and h/c central.
Scandalous Desires (book 3) - hero is a river pirate, heroine is a widow whose reputation was ruined because of him. There are hangings and horrific pasts and just general awesomeness.
Notorious Pleasures (book 2) - I liked both the very ladylike Lady Hero and Griffin, who managed to be a rakish and disreputable dude while being a thoroughly good person who was trying to make $$$ for his family.
Looooong drop and then the book that was the topic of this post.

A Mary Jo Putney book I actually love! Will wonders never cease?

February 27, 2013, 1:37 pm

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Mary Jo Putney is quite the name in period romance (I knew who she was years before I ever read romances), but I confess her books never truly wowed me - they were all very solid, very well-written but somehow without that magic spark - they lacked that extra something that made me really really care.

Well, that dry spell is over because I am now reading Shattered Rainbows and it's passionate hardcore love I have never even come close to feeling for a MJP book.

More than half of it is set right before, during, and after Waterloo, and is unspoken, unacted-on romance between an English officer and the wife of another officer at whose house he is billeted at and IT IS MAKING ME DIE.

Michael is the quietly competent Colonel who had fought in the Peninsular Wars, had sold out since, but comes back to rejoin the army once Napoleon escapes. He doesn't have a deathwish or anything, but he has a deep sense of honor, a strong feeling of needing expiate for his past (an affair with a wife of a close friend years ago that ended badly), and a feeling of comradeship with his men as well as a certain attraction to how alive he feels in battle. And he has a huge weakness for beautiful women who he has a tendency to put on an angelic pedestal, which he knows of as a weakness and fights.

Catherine is the gorgeous, superemely competent (yes, both hero and heroine are super-competent, I love!) wife of an officer who follows the drum with their almost-teenage daughter. She was a daughter of an officer, married another officer at 16, and army life is all she knows. She is superb at arranging lodgings, nursing, making order out of chaos etc. She and her husband have a marriage in name only - he loves to sleep with anything in skirts and she is fine with it as she finds notion of bodily intimacy utterly repellent. But they are not unhappy together as the arrangement is satisfactory to both.

And then Michael is billeted with Catherine and her household in the days leading to Waterloo.

And !!!!!! I have no words how much I ship them and how much I love their relationship, where neither makes a move or speaks of their attraction (he fights it because he knows his tendency to have rationality desert him in the face of beauty and because he will never do anything with a married woman; and she fights it because she is loyal to her odd marriage, and she thinks he deserves a woman who would want a real relationship, physical side included.) But their love for each other is palpable desite being unspoken and unacted on and just - they are so freaking perfect together and they long for each other so much, and are both such amazing people, and there are all these descriptions of army life and the battle and her saving his life after he is wounded and just - guuuuuuuuuh!!! I DIE!

The second half of the book that I haven't gotten to yet apparently involves some plot where she asks him to pretend to be her husband while concealing from him that her actual husband had since died (don't ask, I promise it makes sense) and I can just imagine the angst and longing and all that, but for now I am wallowing in Waterloo goodness.

Putney has finally made a believer out of me!

I have found a romance novel that made me bawl for half the book

February 28, 2013, 5:38 pm

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Seriously. Ugly, gross crying that requires a box of kleenex and hiding from your family.

The book in question is One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney. I think it might end up displacing Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm as my favorite romance novel.

Set in the later 1810s, the hero of the book is Stephen Kenyon, Duke of Ashburton (the older brother of Michael Kenyon from Shattered Rainbows, glimpses of whom I loved in SR though reading SR is unnecessary to get the brunt of this book).

Stephen is quiet, reserved man who has always done his duty, the right thing, what was expected of him. He's dealt with his screwed-up family, uncaring parents, loveless marriage that ended in his wife's death, etc with quiet dignity and unremitting goodness and never asking more from life. And now, at 36, his doctor informs him that he has stomach cancer and 3-6 months left to live. And for the first time in his life, Stephen rebels - he looks at his life and realizes how bleak and empty and loveless it has been - all his goodness and propriety and duty have been for nothing. Angry and despairing, he decides to do the one selfish, impulsive thing in his life - to go traveling incognito for a few weeks he has left of semi-decent health before he has to come back and put his affairs in order. To enjoy life before he has to die.

A week into his travels he runs into a troupe of traveling actors and his eye is caught by Rosalind Jordan, the adopted daughter of the people who run the company. He ends up traveling with them for a bit, relishing the warmth and kindness and trying to fight his growing attraction to Rosalind - as a dying man, he knows there is no good outcome.

This book is amazing. It is beyond amazing. I have no words for how amazing it is. Even if I did spend half of it sobbing and sobbing some more. (Don't worry, it has a happy ending, I would have expired otherwise).

I love the relationship between Stephen and Rosalind - both are so grown-up, both have scars of the past (Rosalind is a widow whose marriage was not happy), and both are just such good, good people. And Rosalind has so much strength and steadiness and brightness to give. But it's really Stephen who makes the book for me. He just might be the most amazing romance novel hero - watching someone so full of courage and dignity try to process the fact that he is dying without having truly lived, dealing with anger and grief and denial and acceptance and yet remaining unswervingly good despite his terror - oh, it broke my heart. And his discovering love and happiness even as his body is slowly betraying him is such a bleak contrast that I wept and wept and wept.

OK, I am not convincing anyone but a masochist to read this one, am I? But seriously, it is so amazing and beautiful.

My one very minor niggle was with the outcome for the bad guy - it was entirely in character for Stephen to let it go, but I wanted the man to be tortured for years and years and years. He was the most appalling human being ever and I can't believe he didn't get punsihed. I was all with Michael when he wanted to blow the man's brains out.

Two very different yet fun romances...

March 1, 2013, 7:03 am

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These two books have nothing in common other than I enjoyed them.

Gena Showalter, Beauty Awakened - thanks, cleobulle, you have never steered me wrong! The latest in GS''they are sorta like angels but not really' series, BA is no great masterpiece but it has about a million tropes that I adore all in one place so I was a happy happy camper. Hero is a 'sorta not really an angel' whose parents were emotionally and physically abusive monsters and who is now a tough, ginormous warrior for the good guys. Heroine is a teeny fragile heart patient, who is full of optimism and perseverance. You see now why I loved it? I bet you do. I confess nearly dying of laughter at one point though when heroine thought hero looked like Khal Drogo from HBO's Game of Thrones - picturing the hero as Jason Momoa in Drogo-style get-up didn't hurt my enjoyment of this book one bit.

Liz Carlyle, A Woman Scorned - this Victorian (well, not really - it's set too late for a Regency but too early for a Victorian. A Williamian? :P) is so so so good! The hero is an officer in between postings who used to think about becoming a clergyman and the heroine is a widow into whose household he comes as a tutor to her two young sons (long story). There are murders and mysteries but the reason I love the book so much were Cole and Jonet - she is high-strung and brittle but so understandable in it and so strong, and he is such an incredibly good and patient and kind person without being weak. I loved them, separately and together, to bits.