Side Blog to C. J. Cherryth's works

Because that's going to be one hell of a funeral. This is the man that brought peace to so many species and factions therein. Peace to two, maybe even three or more worlds. It'll be a historic occasion. Everything will be shut down for that funeral. And then there's those passages in Defiance that hint at Unit Senoirs either dying immediately after their principal draws their last breath or going irreversibly insane, and I'm back to the picture of a crypt flickering with candlelight, clogged with the smell of so many flowers, and two bodies to bury.

This first book takes so long to reread because a single sentence has so much meaning in context to the other twenty volumes. I'm literally this meme:

You are absolutely right, too, Bren would probably end up getting a funeral to rival an aiji's, especially if Tabini were still alive to nake sure it happened. Actually, maybe even moreso if it were Cajeiri in charge, bc that's Nand'Bren, he should have a fancy send off. There'd be a brief reactionary period afterward where anyone trying to move an agenda forward that Bren, specifically, was blocking, or god forbid directly speaking ill of the dead, would immediately have half the government and a few citizens filing Intent on them

The earlier books are incredible on a reread, bc not even Bren knows half of whats going on, but context from later in the series will make you stop every couple chapters and go "OH"

Bren is sitting in the train station, shaking with fear. Someone just tried to kill him only a handful of hours before, there's fatal traps set all throughout his room that could backfire on him or the atevi he cares for. The weather is miserable, the television is broken, and his mail is... wrong, somehow. Just off in an eerie way. And now he's being shipped into a dead zone no human has ever set foot in before.

So he looks up at the man standing next to him, the one who showed up when everything went pear shaped and tried to fix what he could to make Bren comfortable. Make him safe. And Bren asks in the smallest voice, 'are you coming with me?'

Because right now the list of atevi he trusts has shrunk to a pinhead. No one is telling him anything, and the few who have spoke to him are acting like he did something wrong. And he keeps begging to know what it was he did wrong. Because he's used to everyone blaming him for everything - it's the way he grew up, after all. He's the abnormal child, the family burden. So of course this is somehow his fault.

But there's this one person who went out of their way to sacrifice something for him. Handed him a weapon that would trace back to them if any officer ever questioned it. Protected him. Didn't act like he was the problem, like he was a waste of space even when they were upset. And he really wants that person to be with him, going into this new place. This possible death trap.

And so he asks for reassurance in the voice of the child that was othered for so many years. Pitted against his brother in a battle for the meager scraps of a narcissist's affection. A lonely child who never knew his father.

And Banichi - his future father in law - assures him that of course he is coming with him. Where else would he go, after all? He finds the idea of being anywhere but at Bren's side to be confusing, abhorrent. He's bonded to Bren, his job is Bren, his life revolves around planet Bren.

Banichi: That is not how this works, Bren'ji.

It'd be like that thing where a lot of americanized dishes have huge amounts of cheese when the original recipe didnt call for it, because the cheese was available in a way it hadnt been before. There was time before the war of the landing for that kind of cultural exchange. Clothes that are human styles, recognizably human (most of the time, at least) but decked out in lace and embroidery and colors to the point that even atevi would side-eye them and think 'well thats a bit much.' A trend of growing your hair out as long as possible (and sometimes wearing it scandalously loose), particularly if you or your family worked in roles where long hair was banned or heavily restricted for safety reasons. Humans decorating their homes with So Many Flowers but without any sense of kabiu, leaving any atevi visitors reeling from the sheer amount combined with the complete lack of proper coordination. Itd all be such a huge cultural phenomenon that it would probably still be visible 200 years later in some form or fashion.

Throughout the Foreigner series we're told how dangerous it is for humans and atevi to interact, how the fundamental differences in their psyches lead to disastrous misunderstandings, and that introducing advanced human tech into their early-industrial society will wreck their culture. Most of the atevi we meet are either ambivalent or hostile to humanity's presence. Bren spends the first arc coming to not only understand the atevi mindset, but to embrace their outlook, and ultimately side with them against human interests.

Jase, getting dressed for a formal event: Hey, do you think I could hang myself with this tie?