Fic: When the stars threw down their spears

[lareinenoire]

Title: When the stars threw down their spears
Author: lareinenoire
Play: pre-Richard II
Characters / Pairings: John of Gaunt, Henry Bolingbroke, Elizabeth Lancaster, Philippa Lancaster, Gaunt/Katherine Swinford
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2729
Warnings: Extremely dodgy interior decoration
Summary: Henry had always hated his father's study.
NB: For angevin2 , who guessed

Comments

[angevin2]

OH GOD THIS IS PERFECT. Thank you so much! It's so perfectly Victorian and also so perfectly them -- I love Henry's desperation to not make waves, and the way that you've humanized Gaunt, and Richard being diplomatic, and Lizzy's "I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU." AND THE TIGER. Oh, they all need so much therapy. I LOVE IT.

[lareinenoire]

They all need YEARS of therapy. YEARS. DECADES, even.

Very, very glad you liked it! I was so aiming to humanise Gaunt while making sure he was still a horrible, repressed Victorian gentleman. ;)

[angevin2]

You absolutely nailed it! I have to admit I totally cracked up at Lizzy's line about reading too many novels, but I actually felt really bad for him in this fic even though he is still, being Gaunt, a dick (the part with the tiger in the letters is just absolutely perfectly how Henry sees his father).

[lareinenoire]

Just because he's going through his own stuff doesn't make him less of a dick to everyone else. ;) Very, very glad it worked. And poor Henry! But at least he's going to meet Mary in short order.

[speak_me_fair]

Brilliant characterisation as always! You actually made me feel for John, which is no small feat, and the bit about the tiger and John's keeping it is absolutely fantastic.

(Also, LOVE for the Richard/Henry undercurrents. Seriously.)

[lareinenoire]

Yay! My evil plan to make John of Gaunt a sympathetic-yet-awful person is working! ;) And he's totally the sort of man who would hold onto one of those rugs with a complete lack of irony.

(Hee, I wondered if those were noticeable!)

[angevin2]

(THEY ARE ALWAYS NOTICEABLE. Although this is, granted, a fandom that LOOKS FOR THEM. ;) )

[erstwhiletexan]

angevin2 JUST SENT ME THIS OMG MY LIFE IS IMMEASURABLY IMPROVED *_*

I love you. so much.

[lareinenoire]

Oh, that icon! Love it. And yes, I totally ship them. Damn you, Anya Seton, you got to me young. ;) Her Gaunt definitely isn't mine (mine is a lot more of a jerk) but I still have a sort of guilty-pleasure love for that book.

[erstwhiletexan]

SAME.

Also, yes, my John of Gaunt is more of an ass and far less Idealized Romance Hero!!1, but still. Anya Seton, for all your faults, i luv u.