#borgias fanwank

[anghraine]

So there was this really terrible review of The Borgias back in the day that complained about Jeremy Irons, of all people:

“Irons, as lean and elegant as men are made, exudes passion aplenty, but that passion burns with the steely flame of the North, not with Latin fire”

Yeah.

Anyway, when I was writing a paper on the Borgias for school, I vented about that specific sentence to my friends. In retrospect, though, I'm kind of grateful for it, because "steely flame of the North" ended up just entering our collective vocabulary for any number of occasions. It's like:

Friend: I think [other friend] hates X even more than you do.

Me, trying to sound neutral: Possibly.

Friend: Well, maybe. You do burn with the steely flame of the North.

#thanks terrible reviewer lol #anghraine babbles #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #magnificent bastards of the vatican #borgias fanwank

[anghraine]

I felt it was time for another very silly and self-indulgent poll, so ...

(Feel free to respond, but please not with "is that really disputed? It's actually popular/canon/whatever.")

#today i choose violence :D #i have posted explanations for some but not remotely all #anghraine babbles #anghraine's headcanons #legendarium blogging #legendarium fanwank #austen blogging #austen fanwank #sw fanwank #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #borgias fanwank #poll nonsense

[anghraine]

I wanted to say "all of the above" on that one poll about annoying Strong Female Character tropes ... except one of the tropes was femme fatales and I just couldn't. I know there's all kind of baggage but I love them.

#shout out to the marketing team for 'the borgias' for getting the greatness of lucrezia evolving into peak femme fatale #even when the writers vacillated. (real lucrezia was more complicated but it's the borgias so... lol) #also i was thinking about how one of the reasons i love marjory in gw2 is femme fatale energy combined w/ being the noir detective #/and/ she's gay #anyway. the day i'm like 'femme fatales have been done we can move on as a society' is the day to start considering i'm a pod person #anghraine babbles #deep blogging #a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide #general fanwank

[anghraine]

Unpopular opinion: Lucrezia Borgia/the Borgias in general?

I don’t know how popular/unpopular it is, but I think Lucrezia’s development was the most poorly handled after S1. She had a lot of great moments—great arcs, even—but as a whole, it was meandering and chaotic and disconnected from itself (S2 as well as S3), with her character mainly held together by cinematography and Holliday’s acting.

#look you can have your seductive murderous poisoner or you can have your innocent tool but you cannot have both #not at the same time anyway! #anon replies #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #borgias fanwank #meme prattle #unpop opinions meme #lucrezia borgia #i love her a lot but also... /sigh #like. when she tries to impale juan on the chandelier it's one of my favourite lucrezia scenes #but also it's like LALALA NEVER HAPPENED #'i will never wash this blood away' she says mournfully about a mercy killing #as opposed to...? #Anonymous

[anghraine]

crocordile replied to your post: �� unpopular opinion on the Borgias? Show or...

Moreover, even with the freedom that derives from doing an adaptation, the estrangement it’s such a boring trope/conclusion when compared to what actually happened!

Yes, exactly! You could have Lucrezia in cahoots with the family and raising an army for Cesare and the gleeful SO SORRY YOU’RE SICK I HOPE TODAY’S CONQUEST MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER XOXO and instead... boring. (And really poorly executed for maximum :|)

#crocordile #respuestas #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #borgias fanwank #/ #// #/// #//// #cesare borgia #lucrezia borgia #magnificent bastards of the vatican

[anghraine]

There’s nothing quite like clicking on my dash, seeing a screed about how criticism of fandom’s purity culture = DEFENDING PEDOPHILIA AND INCEST, YOU’RE JUST DIRTY OLD WOMEN DEFILING THE PURITY OF FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS ALSO YOU’RE ABUSING CHILDREN BECAUSE THEY MIGHT BE GROOMED-

…followed by a Borgias gifset.

#it was not a g-rated borgias gifset #honestly i just cackled #anghraine babbles #general fanwank #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #in fairness they might have been in elementary school at the time #incest for ts

[anghraine]

omg the other borgia wank, count me in! i can't when they claim that their show was better acted and more accurate and the showtime one was just flashy costumes. it personally pains me when they say that the other lucrezia was better and that holliday was a flat/bad actress that didn't fit the role.

YOU ARE WELCOME IN THESE PARTS, ANON.

It really seems like ... they’re just sort of assigned to “artsy European series” and “big-budget American cable.” And everything else just follows from that—of course The Borgias has better cinematography, it has more money! Of course Borgia has better acting, it’s Art! Even though the leads alone are like ... F&F!Rodrigo is painful enough on his own, and then by contrast to Jeremy Irons, yikes. 

The idea of Holliday as a bad actress who didn’t fill the role is so absurd. There are a LOT of valid criticisms to be made of Lucrezia’s writing, esp in S2&3. It’s Holliday’s acting that manages to infuse Lucrezia with charm and steely resolve, even when the writing is bizarre.

I’m obviously not impartial, but one of the reasons that I didn’t care for F&F was that I was particularly unimpressed with Lucrezia. Holliday in the pilot and Holliday in 2x01 quite genuinely seemed years apart in personality, experience, and appearance. F&F!Lucrezia also had a batshit (and ahistorical) storyline, but to me it seemed like she always had the same general demeanour, and remained creepily childlike throughout. 

I always think that the portrayals of the historical Giulia-Lucrezia friendship kind of epitomize the shows’ different approaches to accuracy. On the one hand, The Borgias manufactures Giulia’s background out of whole cloth, as well as the details of how she meets Lucrezia and how their quick friendship springs up. F&F starts them out with a lot more of the historical details about Giulia’s background and connections ... and no friendship at all, they’re bitter, violent enemies! Accuracy~!

Bleh.

#anon replies #respuestas #borgia fanwank #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #borgia: the other one #this is a f&f hateblog forever and ever amen #but god is f&f!lucrezia's dainty child thing creepy #and holliday was a joy #it always took a bit after i watched an episode to think about her part critically because it was just LUCREZIAAAAA #she carries /so much/ #flat??? HOW DARE #Anonymous

[anghraine]

If you'd like to answer, who are some of the most commonly mischaracterized characters in your fandoms you can think of? I'm guessing Luke is one of them :)

Hmm, off the top of my head:

- definitely Luke, who is made much more upbeat, generally hopeful, easy-going, even-tempered, inherently virtuous, and social than he ever was onscreen.

- Lucrezia Borgia (from The Borgias, though of course also the real person lol), who (as I’ve been periodically screaming through my years in the fandom) literally impaled someone on a chandelier early in S2. 

(I’ve got a series of posts floating around about how Cesare and Lucrezia are both Slytherins, but hybrid Slytherins. Cesare, in sharp contrast to their pure Slytherin father, feeds off of a thick layer of Gryffindor wildfire, while Lucrezia is an iron-willed and largely remorseless Slytherin with a bruised Hufflepuff side that weakly asserts itself and gets stomped underfoot. She is emphatically not the good and pure polar opposite to Cesare or Rodrigo)

- both Darcy and Elizabeth in different ways; it’s a lot more glaring with him and of course I have countless rants about that over the last ten years (he’s basically been flanderized into generic Regency romance hero), but you’d never know how lighthearted and pro-social Elizabeth is from adaptations/fic. (It’s not invariable, but most often, Elizabeth tends to argue for adherence to social mores and accepted generalities, while Darcy insists on attention to individuality and specific circumstances.)

- Denethor, Faramir, Aragorn: probably Denethor most of all, though I think the general ‘wtf’ treatment of them is strongly interconnected. I’d get into it, but honestly, I’m too sleepy rn to get into even a decent summary. Let’s go with “none of them are a) pushovers or b) unreasonable” + “what are Dúnedain for 400”

#anon replies #respuestas #general fanwank #sw fanwank #borgia fanwank #austen fanwank #legendarium fanwank #Anonymous

[anghraine]

I just saw someone say that the acting in Borgia was better than The Borgias

hahahahahahahaha

#'and it's historically accurate' lmao #'it has international casting so there are different accents': this just in england/canada/ireland/holland/etc are the same country #anghraine rants #borgia fanwank #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #borgia: the other one #yeah i'm not a neutral party but p l s #especially rodrigo—after jeremy irons it was just painful

[anghraine]

I’ve gotten a bunch of new followers recently and I’m not sure why—but regardless, hi!

Run-down: my name is Elizabeth and I’m a 30-odd, US American PhD student. I study 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-century British literature, primarily 18th. I also kind of hate academia at this point, lol, so you’ll see a lot of complaining about it unless you block #ivory tower blogging.

I talk reasonably often about mental issues; I have autism, bipolar II, and anxiety, and my general tag is #rare breed of attack unicorn.

I write original fic in addition to fanfic and angst about it; the tag is #original fic rambles, and vaguer stuff is just #writing. Rambling about my fanfic is under #fic talk.

My main fandoms and other tags include:

- Austen—mainly P&P the book. The tag is #austen blogging. I usually tag by character, and also tag #lady anne blogging for Darcy stanning and otp of otps for Darcy/Elizabeth. Wank is under #austen fanwank. I dislike the 1995 P&P, and grumbling about it is under #pride and prejudice 1995.

- Tolkien—his writings only. My faves are Gondor (#ondonórë blogging) and the Stewards (#húrinionath), and I (predictably) have a towering resentment of the films’ treatment of them, though I can admit they’re good in some other ways (tag: #lord of the rings movies). The main tags are #legendarium blogging and #legendarium fanwank. I also have strong feelings about Númenor and am firmly pro-Faithful (#númenórë, #team faithful). My main ships are Faramir/Éowyn (#otp: and the sun shone), Faramir/Aragorn (#otp: love was kindled), Andreth/Aegnor (#otp: nirnaeth arnoediad), and Aegnor/Andreth/Finrod (ot3: await us there). My favourite character is Faramir and my Faramir-centric tag is #jewel of the seashore. The Amazon prequel is under #tv: lotr.

- Star Wars films—I don’t like them all, but I like a lot of them, and find them all interesting in some capacity or another. The main tag is #star wars and the wank tag is #sw fanwank. I’m not a fan of expanded universes & grumping about SW’s in particular is under #sweu critical. I think the ST is okayish and tag it as #tfa for ts. I’m largely here for Anakin and Luke (#cleft chins psychotic rage and cyborg hands), Luke and Leia (#the skywalker twins), Anakin and Luke and Leia (#the skywalkers), and Jyn/Cassian (#otp: welcome home). Also, I have the main SW tag and assorted others blocked for my peace of mind, so I’ll only see SW posts if I’m tagged in them.

- ATLA/LOK—I like them both! My main tags are #avatar: the last airbender and #avatar: the legend of korra, with wank for both under #lok fanwank (I was in LOK fandom first). My favourite characters from LOK are Korra, Noatak/Amon, Tarrlok, and Kuvira, all tagged by name (#noatak for Noatak). My favourite relationships are Korra/Kuvira (#otp: i see myself in you) and Noatak and Tarrlok’s (#the bloodbending brothers). Zuko is my fave from ATLA, but I like nearly all the main cast. I vaguely ship Taang and Zukaang, but not enough to talk about them much. I have a lot blocked, so again, probably won’t see posts unless I’m tagged.

- I don’t talk about it very much any more, but my favourite show is probably The Borgias. Whenever I do post/reblog Content, it’s under #political shenanigans and codependent siblings. Historical Borgias content is under #magnificent bastards of the vatican.

- More general wank is #general fanwank and particularly inane posts are under #deep blogging.

#anghraine babbles #anghraine's blogkeeping

[anghraine]

I’ve gotten some 25 followers in the last few days and have no idea why, so ... um, hi? Anyway, a general overview of The Blog:

My name is Elizabeth, and I’m a suffering PhD student who occasionally writes fanfic/ original fic/meta on the side. I’m also in my thirties and got into fandom around 2003 via livejournal and forums, so ... I don’t mind young people following me, but I’m an adult and I think of my audience as adults. I tend towards a) determinedly enthusiastic or b) grumpy and salty, with little in between. 

I’m mainly a Star Wars/Austen/Tolkien/ATLA+LOK fan, among other things. I should probably say that for me, SW = the films, Austen = her writing, Tolkien = his writing, ATLA+LOK = the shows, and I reallyyyy don’t care for “well, actually, in the expanded universe” and the like. Otherwise, (civil) comments and asks are fine!

Tags for all this stuff:

General self-explanatory organization: #anghraine babbles, #anghraine whines, #anghraine’s meta, #anghraine rants, #anghraine’s fic, #anghraine’s blogkeeping. Replies to people are under #respuestas.

I tag specific fanfic posts by their titles, though I have a few tags for more general verses (#lucy skywalker for my f!Luke Skywalker universe, #pemberley and such for my canon-compliant P&P fic, etc). Discussions of fic rather than fic posts themselves are under #fic talk. Original fic angst etc is under #original fic rambles.

SW: general tag is #star wars (you can probably see that I’m a very original person), while the tag for wank is #sw fanwank. The only ship I really care about at this point is Jyn/Cassian from Rogue One: #otp: welcome home. Apart from them, I’m mostly interested in Luke and Leia (#the skywalker twins), Anakin and Luke (#cleft chins psychotic rage and cyborg hands), and all three (#the skywalkers).

Austen: general tag is #austen blogging and the grumpy tag is #austen fanwank. I tag the adaptations by date, but am aggressively indifferent to nearly all of them. Like a lot of people, I mostly care about Elizabeth (#elizabeth bennet), Darcy (#fitzwilliam darcy in general and #lady anne blogging for extra stanning), and Darcy/Elizabeth (#otp of otps).

Tolkien: general tag is #legendarium blogging and the wank tag is #legendarium fanwank. I’m primarily a LOTR fan and specifically a Gondor fan (#ondonórë blogging) and Stewardist fan (#húrinionath). My favourite character is Faramir (#faramir, #jewel of the seashore). My main Tolkien ships are Aragorn/Faramir (#otp: love was kindled), Faramir/Éowyn (#otp: and the sun shone), and Andreth/Aegnor (#otp: nirnaeth arnoediad), with a side of Finrod/Andreth/Aegnor (#ot3: await us there).

ATLA/LOK: general tags are #avatar: the last airbender and #avatar: the legend of korra. The wank tag for both is #lok fanwank (I was in LOK fandom first). I like a lot of ships, but the one I have the most ~emotions about is Korra/Kuvira: #otp: i see myself in you. I also have very strong feelings about Noatak/Amon and Tarrlok (#the bloodbending brothers). For ATLA, I like Toph/Aang and Zuko/Aang, but don’t really have strong feelings about any of the ships—I just love the show.

Non-fandom specific grumbling/wank: #general fanwank.

Academia stuff: #ivory tower blogging.

Lesbian stuff: #a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide.

Brain stuff (I’m bipolar, autistic, and have anxiety): #rare breed of attack unicorn.

General shallowness: #deep blogging.

I have a few sideblogs. The main one is cesarborjas, for Borgias stuff (exclusively The Borgias + history), but I also have hurinionath, for Stewardist stuff, andreth-and-aegnor for Andreth/Aegnor stuff, and andacielos, for Skywalker stuff.

I have other standardized tags, so just let me know if you want to know other ones! Anyway, welcome :)

#anghraine babbles #anghraine's blogkeeping

[anghraine]

No jokes though, I'm super curious about the characters you hate the most now! What if you make a short list with your main fandoms and the characters you hate the most in them?

Heeeh, off the top of my head

1) Austen

George Wickham, Mrs Norris, Elizabeth Elliot, Reginald de Courcy, the Eltons, Fanny Dashwood

2) Star Wars

Jar-Jar, the Neimodians, Watto, Jabba, Palpatine, Snoke, Darth Maul, General Grievous, Tarkin, Salacious B. Crumb, half the senators in Rogue One + Draven, I could go on awhile

(SWEU: Jacen Solo, Thrawn, every person who has ever said “well, in the EU” to me)

3) Tolkien

Eöl, Ar-Adûnakhôr, Ar-Gimilzôr, Ar-Pharazôn (etc), Fëanor, Celegorm and Curufin, Saeros, Glaurung, Melkor, Sauron, Arvedui, Gríma, the Witch-king of Angmar, Saruman, Castamir, Eärnur. And Malbeth the Seer :P

4) Avatar

Ozai, Yakone, Unalaq, Zaheer, Baatar Jr, Hiroshi Sato, Bolin, whatshisface in Ba Sing Se, I’m sure there’s more but it’s been awhile since I saw ATLA in particular

5) The Borgias

Giuliano della Rovere, all the kings/claimants to Naples, Giovanni Sforza, Caterina’s stooge with the bad hair, Savonarola, Lucrezia’s witch friend, Alfonso d’Aragona, Micheletto’s Cesare-substitute, and though he never appears in person, Fernando of Aragón on general principle. I also really dislike Ursula and Vittoria and Bianca as characters. Probably more!

Despite all of these, there are a lot more characters that I don’t exactly hate, but have strong negative feelings mixed in with positive ones

For celebrities, shout-outs to Susan Sarandon and Bill Maher. I also will carry a grudge against Phil Collins for all eternity.

#crocordile #respuestas #meme prattle #austen fanwank #sw fanwank #anti sweu #legendarium fanwank #lok fanwank #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #borgia fanwank #star wars #austen blogging #legendarium blogging #avatar #avatar: the last airbender #avatar: the legend of korra

[anghraine]

severus snape, jack shephard, juan borgia

I think Snape is a really good character, though I have lingering kneejerk distaste from the Snapefen back in the LJ days. (I was in the Snape+Harry corner, so there was no escaping them.) And I still dislike a lot of Snape fans’ defenses of him, but also think the lazy attacks are... well, lazy. So it kind of comes out to neutral.

I don’t know how Jack Shephard is!

Hahaha, Juan is a blast to hate. I do have some tiny scraps of sympathy, though, on account of Rodrigo fucking him up. 

(JFC, that awful conversation where Rodrigo is like... I guess it is my fault because I was a bad father... I made you a monster, Cesare. SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR, RODRIGO. Your terrible parenting made Juan a monster!) 

But that only goes so far, of course. He’s such a douchebag, lol. I cheered when Cesare killed him. BETTER FOR EVERYONE, L B R.

#ladytharen #respuestas #meme prattle #hp fanwank #borgia fanwank #/ #// #//// #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #harry potter #juan borgia #severus snape

[anghraine]

i hate giuliano della rovere with every fiber of my being

ME

ME ME ME

TV AND HISTORICAL UGH FUCK HIM

#kitmarlowes #respuestas #meme prattle #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #magnificent bastards of the vatican #/ #// #/// #giuliano della rovere #borgia fanwank

[anghraine]

replies!

lolololol i'll try to refrain from putting any of them in my gondor photosets

Heeeh, well, you know my theory that Gondor is actually meant to be analogous to late medieval/early Renaissance Italy, so it’s one of the very few contexts where I wouldn’t mind! 

But otherwise, it’s like... early Renaissance Italy is kiiiind of distinctive, y’all. And there’s more to appearance than “blond,” “redhead,” and “dark.”

yavieriel replied to your post “shallow Borgias wank[[MOR] okay, so The Borgias is my favourite...”

also 100% with you on Lucrezia as Indis being "no what why???" because Lu definitely doesn't strike me as the athletic outgoing type, even as just a physical presence and leaving actual character aside.

Right! Indis is tall and athletic; it’s Míriel who is small and artsy. Blehhhh.

#heckofabecca #yavieriel #respuestas #general fanwank #borgias fanwank #legendarium fanwank #let's just go for the mother lode while we're here #:P #holliday grainger is tiny y'all

[anghraine]

(For the meme) The Borgias?

Happily, Borgias fandom is very light on Discourse. I think the worst I’ve ever seen was the author Sarah Dunant, who was blogging about her own incredible accuracy and hor horrified she was at the show’s perpetuation of the Legend, which is basically the same as birthers.

There’s occasional incest wank (the relationship was TOTALLY PLATONIC before NJ gave into the shippers/corporate pressure/whatever!). But it’s mostly just silly or why C/L in F&F is purer~ incest or whatnot, which … pisses me off, but not for moral reasons, lol.

#anon replies #respuestas #political shenanigans and codependent siblings #incest for ts #borgias fanwank #it is a kindly fandom #Anonymous #meme prattle #discourse hell