My favorite exchange: Spoiler: vague spoilers "Nobody loved me." "No -- you didn't love anyone. Not even yourself." God damn. Spoiler Like, it's nothing special up till the last three words. "Not even yourself" makes it not just a ruthless diagnosis of what's broken in Ka'an but compassionate in a strange way, too. Ka'an becomes pitiable. And on the flip side, what it implies about Kieran, who hated himself for so long -- Ash's love didn't save him, his love for Ash did, and he's come to love himself as well. The best climactic fight scenes are emotional climaxes too.
@The Frood Abides YES! That is SUCH A GOOD CLIMAX Spoiler I love the kind of climax in which the hero just matures so far past the villain that the villain suddenly seems pitiful and somehow harmless, not a real threat anymore (as often seen in Ghibli films and Neil Gaiman's stories...) it's such a satisfying and catharthic kind of conclusion, and it can be badass without being the male power fantasy of SAVING THE WORLD BY KICKING ASS.
Reread: prologue: Spoiler: This is long and slightly irrelevant. 1. Yay, casual cruelty. Actually this scene disturbed me much more when I first read it. Of course I was thirteen at the time. 2. Iavaian actually looks like a really cool language and I'd like to know more about it. 3. I feel bad for the kid Kieran murdered, although less on the murdery front and more on the 'this poor kid is so misguided and messed up' front, like imagine that sense of entitlement and degree of douchebaggary in an adult. Oh wait, I don't have to. *Grumble grumble* 4. Kieran's back story is just as tragic as I remember. :( Baby. 5. I actually really like bb!Kieran a lot more than I did the first time like he's such a vicious little monster. It's great. 6. I really hate Kinter. Like wow, he's barely been introduced and I am just so grossed out by his nasty predatory-ness. Stay away from Kieran, douchebag. Hssssst. 7. I like Shan. He talks sense. This was incidentally the first time I was exposed to addiction in fiction and I really appreciate the way it was handled. It was also the first time I saw "you're not doing this for me, you're doing this for you" portrayed as a good thing, and it was very much a wow moment at the time. 8. "You like wrecking way too much. One of these days, babe, you're gonna wreck the world." Ahaha yeah. 9. ""I love you," he said, and realized it was a lie." For some reason this hit me really hard? Just. Well. Of course your first real relationship isn't usually ~true love~ but. Idk. 10. I really love the way he grins to intimidate people. And there's a certain amount of 'you bastards have me and there's nothing I can do about it, but I can make you fucking scared' going on, like he's going to exercise as much control as he can dig his fingernails into, even if all that means is freaking some people out. 11. I'm pretty sure the blackout is not Ka'an, but I am also wondering if the blackout is Ka'an. 12. Worldbuilding, worldbuilding ~ *does a little dance* I really like the way Churchrock is described. Also Thelyan is evil, I don't even have to remember who he is to know that he's evil. He's evil. Eyugh. I feel really, really bad for Chaiel. 13. DAT MAGIC! I just really love the way this book talks about magic. And the way their godhood works is so cool. Also ""How can you be so sure? We all start incarnated. Maybe he's getting his power back, did you think of that? Maybe he fell into his Burn and sucked it up." Chaiel made a rude slurping noise. "Like a fly on an eyeball. And he's going to come for you and twist you around until you're inside out and you have to look at yourself and see that there's nothing in there!" This was followed by another spate of giggling." This mental image speaks to me. Bless you, Chaiel. 14. I like that you can immediately tell that the isolation has driven Chaiel somewhat batty. People often seem to disregard that sort of thing. 15. Not only evil but egotistical and presumptuous. Good going, Thelyan.
I JUST FINISHED THE BOOK (on LJ thank you for posting it for free because I am poor you are a saint.) Oh my god it was so good, and now that I'm done I just don't know what to do with myself. D: Though I keep going back to "yeah but what about Yelorre" because it seems like a sort of parallel to Ireland and I NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON UP THERE. Is there some kind of like, IRA-esqe batshit rebel army running around bombing everything in sight. Are there like fifty named rebellions and countless unnamed rebellions that (usually) amounted to "well we were all a bit drunk so we decided to go down and give the peelers a good thumpin but now we're in jail so lets write a lot of sad songs about how awful the commonwealth is". I'm going to have to force my friend to read this at some point so I have someone to scream with and make OCs with and just...it's a really good book lord help me.
basically yes there are beardy yelorrean insurgents leaving pipe bombs in police stations i just couldn't get into it bc down in iavaiah they weren't reading the capitol newspapers :P
This is way delayed, because rl, but here: Reread: Chapter 1: Spoiler: as before 1. Aaaaash! He's obviously so well-informed about the world, or at least the Commonwealth (and he'd have to be, wouldn't he?), but he's got no idea what's in store for him. (Spoiler: humiliation, degradation, and true love!) 2. Oh, Kieran. You just can't keep from antagonizing the watch. Of course he laughs. Also, Ash's description of his voice is great. And instant attraction, naturally. I really like the way Kieran's attractiveness goes hand in hand with the way he looks like he'll straight-up murder a bitch. Of course, that's accurate... 3. I'm going to keep track of all the ways Kieran's eyes are described. Partially for artistic purposes. Shh. This is more a comment on Ash than on Jesse, also, since he's mostly the one describing them, and his... lyricalness? really shows. So far we have "river-mud green" and "the sky before a storm". Which is almost yellowish. Jeez, he must be creepy to make eye contact with. You know, I don't know if it's ever specified, but Kieran strikes me as the sort to make really intense, prolonged eye contact. Like I do sometimes. It's apparently unnerving? It's not like it's deliberate. 4. I'd forgotten how scarred-up Kieran is. Must adjust art. 5. "Dear god, I'm back in grammar school." Boy have I felt this. 6. And Kieran just... again with the casual violence. And poor Ash. Not the best first meeting. 7. Have I mentioned how much I love the way stuff is described in this book? Because I do. 8. I really want to give Ash a hug.
I've had plans for a Loser Unity tat for a long time now. It is a thing that will be happening when my financial situation is less precarious. It's just a good motto with good memories attached. <3
I think the god eaters might have been the first queer genre fiction I came across. The main thing I remember reading before that was Annie on my mind, which is a good book but very much about sad gays. It at least has a happy ish ending, which is more than you can say for a lot of similar stories. And then suddenly gay magic cowboys.
ordered paperback so i can have it on my shelf. now just have to get up the gumption to actually read it once it comes in. my self-esteem is so low that i'm afraid to read any other original fiction (including lolita and the martian) because i'll never be that good, but like, i want to read the things? ugh. i want to read this. i really do.
I am currently reading The God Eaters. (I chickened out the first couple tries because grimdarkness.) I really like it so far! I'm on chapter five.
I am up to chapter seventeen, and Kieran and Ash are adorable, and I say this after Ash having held up a store run by a terrible woman, and Kieran being a killer. I am extremely worried about what's going to happen the next time there's a fight though; Ash really got knocked out bad in the encounter in front of the brothel.
Spoiler: Meta blather Okay, it seems like The God Eaters uses a similar good-evil flip to Jacqueline Carey's "sympathy for the dark lord" book Banewreaker. Ka'an is "evil' and Thelyan/Dalan uses Ka'an's "evil" as an excuse to form a coalition to destroy Ka'an and incidentally devour all the other gods in the name of destroying Ka'an. Ka'an is just as bad as his reputation makes him, but is also massively, massively lonely and tired of his own shit (though only on a subconscious level.) Banewreaker from what I remember though, is a bunch of accidents and misunderstandings. Ka'an is legitimately terrible (and so is Kieran). But on the other side, Dalan is just as terrible, though in a completely different way.
Oh, that was a great ending! Though now I want to know what they do next. (They including Chaiel, who seems to have definite Plans.)
The magic/diety system reminds me a little of Bujold's Chalion books! Though not quite. Instead of people acquiring demons (who have absorbed the memories of their previous hosts) you have really strong psychics hopping from incarnation to incarnation and getting an extra boost from the belief of others.
There is only the tiniest handful of God Eater fanfic on AO3. I am sad. I am sad and want epic length fanfic where Kieran and Ashes build a life together and find ways to destroy the Commonwealth. Half domestic "curtain" fic, half spy/thriller/action-adventure.
Yesssss I am so glad this thread exists because I have a Very Important worldbuilding question for @jacktrash which has been preying upon me for years, to wit: Spoiler Point one: Ash seems to have a particular talent for healing, as well as for mind-related skills (empathy, duh). Point two: The Watch does - something - to female Talents that makes them not able to use their Talent anymore (and also seems to carry a risk of personality/brain side effects). Point three: assuming a Talent is some sort of... mental structure, it's probably easier to simply quarantine it from the rest of the brain than to remove it entirely, right? Which means it could potentially be re-connected, right? SO MY QUESTION IS: could Ash, in theory, raise an army of non-neurotypical, disenfranchised, angry witches? Please tell me the answer is YES.
Spoiler I kind of assumed the what happened was something more like a lobotomy. But god, yes, there needs to be an army/slowly growing coven-community of angry witches built by ash and/or possibly possibly the one guy who's name slips my mind at the moment. Or maybe he just dumps the first rescues in Ash and Kieran's laps because Ash is a healer type?
Chaiel! idk if he would think of it, though. He seems to mostly accept things as they are - I think he's more about knowing things than doing things. Spoiler My personal ~scenario for this is that Ash goes to find Aunt Isobel (who IN MY REALITY totally got away and didn't get executed) and they have a heartwarming reunion and then Ash is like "oh what's this weird thing in your pattern, that looks bad, let me fix" and it TURNS OUT that she had a severed talent all along! Plot twist! So then they all look at each other like "this seems actionable" and then there's like a recruitment montage like in xmen first class or whatever where they assemble a ragged band of misfits for the RESISTANCE EFFORT. (I also think it would be cool if they had an inside guy on the Watch, because surely they can't all be completely indoctrinated? Maybe he's the brother of one of the women, possibly one who had a particularly botched [what is the name of this procedure I can't fucking remember] and he was never totally comfortable with it cause he REALLY LOVES HIS SISTER and stuff and... that would be really cute and also a good opportunity for Spy Shenanigans. Yeah... I wasn't going to admit it but this "worldbuilding question" has a cast of characters. In the mirror universe where I'm not a lazy asshole I probably wrote a 250k fanfic about this.)
