melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)
melannen ([personal profile] melannen) wrote2021-09-12 11:37 pm
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100 days of enemy recs: 40. Eagle of the Ninth

Eagle of the Ninth is one of those books I read at a young age that was formative, so it was very exciting when the movie came out and it grew a fandom suddenly! Of course I still have not seen the movie (in my defense it was kind of hard to find), and it's interesting that for a movie that generally followed the plot of the book pretty closely, it changed a bunch of minor things that really altered the dynamic of the slash pairing. Starting with which one of them is the big strong one and which one of them is the pretty one! But also via.. making an already very very slashy story much more in-line with a standard fanon slash narrative? And it's not the only film to do that recently but it was the first one I really encountered. So I read a bunch of fic that seemed like it was for the book I remembered but it was all subtly off in a way that *felt* like OOC fanon but was actually just following movie canon. And then it all got mixed up in my head and now I can't remember what is book canon and what's movie canon and what's just good fanfic. Which made diving back in to find recs hard! Especially since so many of my favorite people wrote for it that I usually just go back and re-read their stuff when I get a hankering for the fandom.

And okay, I will confess: I still like Frontier Wolf better. I have re-read more Frontier Wolf than Eagle. A lot more. Alexios/Hilarion (and Alexios/Cunorix) keep all the delicious tension of Romans among the Northern tribes and mixed loyalties and ambivalence about the whole system you're supporting (from both sides), but the power dynamics involved are, uh, something other than outright slavery. But there is a lot more Eagle fic, and a lot of it is very good! And one thing the movie did was punch up the enemyslash aspects, a lot. I do still have a lot of affection for Marcus going North to find the Eagle and his journey with Esca along the way!

(Also: I blame Eagle of the Ninth and Frontier Wolf for why I could never really get enthused about ASoIAF. I kept wanting it to be Sutcliff's Romans at the Wall and it kept trying to be Wars of the Roses instead.)

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minoanmiss: A detail of the Ladies in Blue fresco (Default)

[personal profile] minoanmiss 2021-09-13 03:19 pm (UTC)(link)
I wish I had read _Eagle of the Ninth_ when I was reading Renault, as more ancient-world slash . It would have been good for me.

The movie was fun but yeah, sooooooooooo simplified.
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2021-09-13 07:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I definitely lucked out in encountering Sutcliff before Renault. (And it was definitely luck, the school library just happened to have them shelved in the corner where I hid during lunch so the teachers wouldn't ask if I had a library pass.)

I think the movie simplified some things but actually added good complexity to others? But in a way that combined made the canon ending less satisfying to me. IDK, I should probably actually watch the film! :D
sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)

[personal profile] sophia_sol 2021-09-13 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Ahhh, sutcliff fandom, I have such fond memories! Frontier Wolf was absolutely the best, but there was so much good fic for Eagle of the Ninth too
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2021-09-13 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Frontier Wolf is so good. Hilarion my love! Hopefully I will not have used literally all the Frontier Wolf writers on other fandoms before I get there in this project.
sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)

[personal profile] sophia_sol 2021-09-13 07:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I just realized that I don't think I ever wrote any fic for Frontier Wolf myself, which is SUCH an oversight on my part!
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2021-09-13 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Me neither! I did request the first fic of record, for YT 2006, though. And I wrote the notfic that inspired Winds of Castellum, so in my heart I feel like I have contributed. :D
sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)

[personal profile] sophia_sol 2021-09-13 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
ooh yes, important contributions both!
carmarthen: a baaaaaby plesiosaur (Default)

[personal profile] carmarthen 2021-09-15 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I always really struggled with writing proper EOT9 book fic unless it was about secondary characters (or OT3) - I like different things about the book and the movie and different things about their versions of the characters - I guess I'm generally drawn to fandoms with multiple versions of canon to pick and choose bits from, but it makes it tough to stick strictly to one of them! There were a few writers who never really got into writing movie-based fic, but I don't remember anymore which ones they were.

Frontier Wolf is forever my fave, although I have trouble with requited Alexios/Cunorix, given the nature of Cunorix's marriage (even if Shula didn't mind sharing, I...think she would have Serious Concerns about Cunorix too getting involved with a Roman under the political circumstances, the same way Cradoc's wife Guinhumara in Eagle of the Ninth regarded Marcus with such suspicion when he visited. But I don't know, maybe someday I can figure out how to write it in a way that convinces me. Maybe Shula is like "if you want to get your heart broken if things go pear-shaped, you're a grown-up and make your own choices, I know you won't forget your responsbilities," which could be extra painful for everyone involved, mmm, angst! Probably should finish my WIP about Alexios' mother and Flavius from The Silver Branch first, though. If I ever write fic again, lolol.)

(P.S. Thank you for the rec, hahaha, not my favorite thing I wrote in that fandom - not enough dinosaurs - but up there.)
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2021-09-15 07:03 pm (UTC)(link)
It was a tiny bit more accessible than dinosaurs and I have a weakness for re-enactor fic. :D (I was really tempted by the Star Wars but I've been avoiding crossovers.)

I ship canon Alexios/Cunorix in the "they have a thing for each other that they acknowledge but they both realize that acting on it wouldn't be worth the complications so they are adult and just UST at each other very, very hard" way, with room left for "futurefic after the complications have become less complicated and they make it work", which is a very specific subset of my enemyslash love. I'm all for it in total AUs though. Not to discourage you if you get inspired by "Shula decides to let them make their own bed and lie in it," which also sounds great!
Edited 2021-09-15 20:19 (UTC)
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