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Pendragon Saga: Chapter 3

Prince Arthwr III of Deheubarth

House Words: Son of the Dragon

Standard: Crown of Or on an Azure Field

Living Members: 13

June 17, 911

Prince Arthur didn’t recognize the man staring back at him in the mirror.

Of course it was him, the same thin face, his father’s long nose and flaxen hair, his mother’s delicate features he’d been teased about endlessly in the training yard. But the years had changed him. He was gaunt, his eyes were sunken and tired, lips pursed tightly, a nervous habit picked up through years of tragedy, war and difficult decisions.

“Your guests are arriving, m’lord.”

Arthwr turned and nodded at the chamberlain, who hurried in a couple of pages. They helped the Prince of Deheubarth dress, a beautiful golden shirt woven fresh for the occasion, and one brought him the crown of Deheubarth in its ornate case, a dragon rampant carved on the cover. The golden band was heavier than it looked, he’d have a headache from it before the night was out.

Still, this was his first royal feast, and he had reason to appear princely. His offensive started tonight.

As he descended through the keep he could hear the sharp notes of the psaltery cutting through laughter and boisterous greetings. He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the onslaught of greetings and petty chatter. As he stepped around the corner and stood in the entrance to Caerllion’s modest hall, a herald announced his presence:

“His majesty Arthwr of House Pendragon, third of his name, Prince of Deheubarth, lord of Gwent, lord of Morgannwg, lord of Sir Gaerfyrddin, lord of Ferlix, lord of Penllyn, heir to the Kingdom of Wales.”

A hundred feet rose in respect for their prince, and Arthwr waved and gave a small bow of his head to his subjects, smiling–happy to have that mortifying formality out of the way–and the raucous laughter took up again, the music picking up with a popular ballad by Anarawd of Caer Gybi–who’d charmed the courts of Wales with his tales from places as far away as Moray two years prior. As he passed by them through the hall, his closest friends clapped him on the back, his childhood friend and confidant Alberto Azzo, another in Lord Hyfaidd ap Rhodri of Dyfedd, grown into his dark beard and a shrewd, intelligent gaze, chatting with Arthwr’s younger brother, Mordred, and a couple other knights. After greeting them each he continued through the hall to take his place at the high table. Just as he was about to climb the stairs he noticed Lord Hywel the Foolish, a boyish haircut betrayed by the stubble on his face. The Lord of Brycheiniog glowered at the excesses of the celebration from a corner near the kitchen entrance, eyes looking for trouble or debauchery.

Lord Hywel was a more recent companion, there had been seditious grumblings from Brycheiniog of unfair taxation… always taxation… During the war for the principality of Deheubarth in Arthwr’s first year on the throne, the prince had worried himself sick Hywel would declare against Caerllion, taking away precious levies and even more precious silver. Arthwr had appealed to Hywel’s intense faith and honour as a knight and vassal in service of Deheubarth. Now the Lord of Brycheiniog was one of his staunchest allies.

His father had his battlefield, the court was Arthwr’s. However shy and reclusive, he would do anything to keep what his father had built together, however it pained him.

“Tewdwr’s here,” Lord Hywel muttered in disgust as the two glanced over at the Mayor of Machynlleth. Even through his beard, even from the distance between them, they could see the roiling blisters of pox about Mayor Tewdwr’s mouth as he laughed with his coterie of lowborn grunts, grabbing at a serving girl.

“Here to petition for your seat on the council, I believe.”

Hywel grimaced, “He can fight me for it.”

Arthwr laughed and clasped his friend’s hand before continuing to the high table. Plump Princess Mathilde spoke with the wives of his vassals, beautiful Lady Heulwen of Dyfedd and sour-faced Lady Sybil of Brycheiniog. He bowed to his wife, who nodded back respectfully before continuing on their conversation, picking at a plate of smoked ham before her. His son and heir Arthur sat at the table, sullen, eyes scanning the crowd, cool and calculating, beside his younger brother Myrddin, the spitting image of Arthwr’s brother Morgan at that age. Little Cicely, only a year old, would be feasting with her wet nurse that evening, safe from the festivities.

Arthwr sidled in beside his wife, taking the heavy wooden seat at the head of the high table. The chatter became muted as a hundred guests turned to hear the greeting from their liege.

“My friends,” Arthwr called out even, practiced. When he was reading from the script of a ruler he was fine, it was down amongst his subjects he felt most uneasy and vulnerable. “I will delay the festivities no longer. Eat, drink, and be merry!”

There were shouts of celebration, cries of “Long live the Prince!” Arthwr lowered himself into his seat and a servant was at his hand with a chalice of wine, which he accepted happily. His battlefield, the court; his war had begun this evening, the summer solstice, long before a sword would be drawn.

*

As the week of celebrations dragged on Arthwr was more and more exhausted. The endless toasts, the petty petitions, the chatter, constant chatter. He was surprised how keenly his wife attended to him during the week of festivities. They had never been particularly close, theirs had always been a functional marriage, an alliance with a duke of Austria during his father’s reign long since forgotten. She was beautiful but reserved, like him, and terrified of sex, so they rarely shared their marital bed. She sought solace for being far from home in food and drink. Still, she was intelligent, looked after the household, saw to their children’s education. Perhaps seeing him acting the prince at the feast inspired something in her, they’d spoken more in one night than they had the entirety of their marriage, and Arthwr was surprised to learn they had a great deal in common, chiefly a love of poetry.

Caerllion hosted a small tourney on the field down the hill, an unlanded knight named Sir Seisyll taking a small pouch of silver for his victory in a melee, outstripping even the rapacious Sir Dafydd, Arthwr’s most skilled knight, at the blade. The prince wondered if perhaps money could be found to take Seisyll on before he continued his wandering.

At night they feasted, more toasts, more petitions, more chatter, before the households and retainers of the lords and ladies stumbled down to their tents on the tourney field. Lady Mathilde and Arthwr would entertain their vassals and their children. Hywel would bemoan only having daughters, Rhodri would speak of all manner of esoteric knowledge of the human body that perhaps wasn’t appropriate just after dinner, Mordred would drunkenly profess his love for his comrade-in-arms–he’d taken quite enthusiastically to the bottle lately… Alberto watched the proceedings with his usual intensity.

“Fuck, but Owain isn’t looking well.”

Lord Hyfaidd nodded over at the youngest Pendragon brother one night of feasting. Dark-haired Owain spoke to his golden-haired twin from the lower family table. Owain in pale blue finery that hung off him like a pavillon over too little structure. Morgan was garbed in the simple robes of a brother of the cloth. Owain had a heaping plate in front of him that he hadn’t touched.

“He did not take father’s death well,” Arthwr admitted. Not long after they had laid Prince Arthur II in the Pendragon crypt beneath Caerllion’s chapel, they noticed a drastic change in Owain’s weight. The family learned he barely ate, Arthwr had even called for his twin to return from Ceredigion, where he’d been serving with the other brothers of the nearby monastery. Arthwr had set Brother Morgan up as the court physician in hopes that his presence and care would help Morgan, but still his younger brother and chancellor was little more than pallid skin stretched over a skeleton.

Mordred snorted into his ale, “And yet you and I have soldiered on well enough!”

Arthwr smiled, but his gaze fell again on his skeletal brother.

Prince Arthur II’s death had come as a shock, but perhaps not a surprise. He’d been melancholic since the murder of Uther, and when he discovered it was one of his own household knights–Alberto’s father, no less–Arthur had been inconsolable. And then the murder of Hywel, Arthur’s longtime blood brother and confidant, unsolved, pushed him over the edge.

He became careless on the battlefield, and in training. One day, in the Prince’s 45th year, he decided to train with a longsword rather than his usual warhammer. He’d cleaved himself in the face, so the court had scrambled to find a physician since old Menechem had died some years ago. A man and his wife showed up for the position, charlatans, Arthwr guessed, since the treatment was worse than the wound itself. Feverish, failing, Arthwr sat with his father all night, holding his hand when the man was not convulsing in delirious pain. In his more lucid moments the mighty prince, one of the greatest warriors of their time, sobbed out for “Hywel”. Not his former squire Lord Hywel, not his son, Arthwr guessed, but his long-serving steward and friend. Arthwr found that curious, but going through his father’s papers he found no reason he’d ask for a dead man over his wife or family in his final moments. The only mentions of Hywel were in relation to plans for the tradeport.

And then Arthwr had been crowned prince, third of his name.

Soldiered on indeed. The difficulties of succession came from his younger brothers, sword-swinging Mordred and the odd little idiot Hywel. By law, Mordred inherited Morgannwg, Hywel: Gaerfyrddin, which deprived Caerllion of income and levies.

Not even a month in their respective keeps, word came to Arthwr that his brothers schemed against him to put another Pendragon on the throne. The freshly crowned prince assumed it was Mordred, a warrior who squired under Prince Arthur II, an honourable man if a little thick headed… but somehow Hywel had convinced him and Lord Hyfaidd it should be he, not Mordred or Arthwr, to sit on the throne in Caerllion. Creepy little Hywel, who could barely lace his own boots…

Word came of their uprising while the forces of Caerllion were far away, off to fight Mathilde’s brother’s war in East Francia. Arthwr sent frantic messages, but by the time they returned, their feet having barely touched foreign soil, Aberhonddu was already besieged. Why the seat of Lord Hywel and not Caerllion? Arthwr had always wanted to ask Mordred, but didn’t want to open old wounds. It was probably their idiot younger brother’s idea anyways…

Mordred was captured in the early battles, and bowed to Arthwr’s mercy, and eventually, after the deaths of many of his levied peasants Lord Hyfaidd, too, withdrew from the conflict. Hywel kept fighting to the bitter end. Arthwr felt guilt, not pleasure, stripping his two younger brothers of their lands. Hywel ran off to God knows where and Mordred had hated him for a time, but unified Deheubarth had prospered. Under the martial leadership of Lord Hywel the Foolish the forces of Deheubrath had taken Ferlix, then Penllyn. Pendragon, not Aberffraw, now controlled most of Wales.

But not all of it.

On the last night of the festivities, Arthwr gathered his friends in his study to share some wine and ale before they returned home.

People, groups of people, were difficult for Arthwr, but these men were closer to him than his brothers… save Mordred, who was indeed his brother. At a lull in the conversation the prince cleared his throat, and all eyes turned on him.

“Uh oh, is he going to profess his undying, brotherly love to us?” said Hyfaidd.

“Mordred, how is he for a good brotherly fucking?” asked Alberto.

Mordred sniffed, slurring, “We haven’t been intimate in years!”

The drunken men roared with laughter. Even Lord Hywel cracked a smile despite the sodomitical jests.

“My brothers–” Arthwr began.

“There it is,” muttered Hyfaidd, and the others snorted into their cups.

“–I have gathered you here to discuss something of great import.”

Alberto jabbed Mordred in the ribs, “I know a crone with some tea that would get the job done. Nip that bastard right in the bud.”

“Or a good push down some stairs,” Mordred added, “worked on that one laundry wench.”

Lord Hywel sneered in disgust at the mere suggestion.

Arthwr gave them all a withering look, but then smiled, “If you’d like I can have the servants replace our ale with water.”

The men quieted.

“My father, our Prince, taught us as children our people had a destiny,” Arthwr continued. “Not to rule Deheubarth, not to rule Wales, but to rule all of England.”

“Heaping load of Saxon horseshit it is,” Mordred intoned into his cup.

Arthwr let silence hang for a moment, let the anticipation build, before he continued. “We now have an opportunity to begin the conquest of Gwynedd.”

This sobered the men.

“My prince,” his marshal said, keeping his tone even. “We have an alliance with Gwynedd.”

“Yea,” Mordred slurred, furious, “You’re marrying your son off to one of their whores.”

A sore subject between Mordred and Arthwr. His younger brother was brash, impatient. He wouldn’t hear that sometimes a marriage can be a defensive maneuver. His son and heir, Arthur, was betrothed to Heledd ferch Rhodri, the daughter of the Prince of Gwynedd. When Arthwr was taking Ferlix and Penllyn, the last thing Deheubarth needed was an invasion from Gwynedd, whose forces were overwhelming in those days.

“My friends, we will not be taking land from Aberffraw.”

He drew a piece of paper from his desk and handed it to Lord Hywel. His marshal scanned it quickly, before passing it around. Alberto passed it back to Arthwr without looking at it, he knew the contents, he’d brought the information to his prince.

“After the death of Lord Idwal of Eryri, the lordship was passed down to your half-brother, Hyfaidd.”

“Cadell…” Hyfaidd nodded, the matter coming together in his mind. Another child through his mother after she remarried, Cadell was the son of the former lord of Eryri, who also ruled over the Island of Mann.

“Sanctimonious little shit,” Mordred growled. “Principality of Mann, my arsehole! Principality of gull shit and northmen bastards, more like.”

Alberto stated the fact: “Eryri belongs to Mann, not Gwynedd.”

Arthwr nodded. “Gwynedd will have a claim, but will also have an alliance. We all know alliances end, through death of a ruler or death of their child.”

Alberto grinned at the idea, but Arthwr shook his head. “We will not be murdering my son’s betrothed. The men of Deheubarth are men of honour. We will honour the marriage, as we will honour the alliance, as we honour the ownership of Eryri.”

The gathered men liked this, and nodded to each other, grumbling about taking Wales back from Cadell.

“But,” he continued raising his cup, “when the alliance ends we will already have this land, and we will continue to claim ever inch of our birthright. Pendragon will rule all of Wales.”

“And then all of fucking England!” Mordred cried, and the others cheered.

This was Arthwr’s battlefield, and this battle had been won without spilling a drop of blood.

That would come in time.

BLog: Seaside Stranger Vol. 1 Umibe no Étranger

BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.

Seaside Stranger Vol. 1: Umibe no Étranger
Story and art: Kii Kanna
Translation: Jocelyne Allen
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
Release Date: July 27, 2021

Seaside Stranger has that feeling of the waning days of summer. A sort of golden, soft melancholy; the elegiac, distant cry of seagulls and laughter elsewhere; a sweet, cool breeze as the sun sets over a perfect day. A last glance of a lover as they stroll away down the boardwalk.

The manga is mellow in its quiet drama, a story of two young men trying to come together despite their hurt. At the same time, the burgeoning relationship between Shun and Mio is a touch melodramatic in the way that young love can be.

Shun is a friendly young writer who was disowned by his family after coming out as gay on the day of his arranged marriage. He moved to live with his aunt (who appears to take in wayward young homosexuals) on a small island near Okinawa where he spends his days helping out around the house, writing and playing with the adorable local cats. He takes notice of young Mio, a beautiful high school boy who spends his evenings sitting on the same bench and staring out at the sea. Shun learns that Mio lost his mom, who was his entire world, and is now all alone. They develop a brief but intimate friendship, Mio even takes Shun to a secret place along the beach, where his mom used to take him, the day before he leaves the island to move to a group home on the mainland. Despite promising to call, the only correspondence Shun receives is a postcard congratulating him on publishing a story.

Until the day Mio arrives at the door of Shun’s aunt’s, to move in.

Seaside Stranger succeeds where it depicts the struggle of young romance, the sort of fumbling way two young guys trying to cope with their emotional scars fall into bed with one another. BL romances can sometimes feel too formulaic in its tied-up-neat-with-a-bow romantic arcs, too easy, so it’s nice to see an alternative to that. Coming to a relationship isn’t simple for either of them.

Shun hasn’t recovered from his family’s reaction to coming out–admittedly, maybe during the wedding ceremony of your arranged marriage isn’t the most opportune time to come out. He believes a relationship between two men will always ruin the friendship between them, and that Mio would be better off in a relationship with a woman. He’s estranged from his family, and his fiancée.

One of the more refreshing parts of Seaside Stranger is in Mio, especially his sadness and grief for his mother. As a high schooler, Mio’s pulled away from people because he’s tired of their pity, their judgements, their assumptions about his life. He wants to grow up so he can make his own decisions about his life. The exploration of loss is where his character really shines; there’s a scene early on where Mio joins Shun and his odd little chosen family–loud-mouthed, fellow wayward homosexual Eri, her girlfriend Suzu and the cats, of course–at his aunt’s house. I was genuinely shocked how, when Suzu tells Mio about Shun’s constant worrying that the high school boy is eating, Mio actually smiles and laughs. Depictions of grief can be so one-dimensional in media, especially manga. When we meet him we assume he’s a wistful anime boy, paralyzed with grief from his mother’s death, fated to waste away staring out at the ocean. Very Japanese, or like something from a Greek myth. It’s nice to see grief depicted as just another facet of his personality.

The parts where Seaside Strangers stumbles is around Shun’s background, and his relationship to his fiancée. Self-loathing is certainly part of the gay experience, and I can’t even imagine what a gay man’s experience in a Japanese arranged marriage would look like. It does feel a bit overwrought, though, and hand wringing, but it’s an important part of the narrative arc of volume 1. One of the more difficult of the characters to parse out is Sakurako, Shun’s fiancée. She shows up on the island out of the blue, throwing a wrench into the works of Mio trying to win over Shun. She has a plot-important reason to be there, but she’s blunt, cold, standoffish, one-dimensional and still in love with Shun, the standard heaping spoonful of jilted girlfriend in this gay soup. She maybe tries to stab Shun at one point? It’s a lot.

Even with the stumbling points Seaside Stranger is well worth the read, even just for the art alone. BL’s never looked so good, and the intense feelings of these sun-dappled pretty boys will take you right back to your first bittersweet summertime romance.

Level of Problematic: Knifey wifey; Sakurako was my biggest point of contention with the whole story. Maybe if she had a personality beyond being the thrown aside fiancée of a gay guy? Her entire character revolves around Shun, there’s definitely been better BL-ex-girlfriends, like in Therapy Game‘s Yuka. Plus the BL-standard falling in love with a high schooler thing, but they don’t even admit their feelings for one another until Mio’s an adult, so there’s at least that.

Level of Adorable: Long-haired lover; Mio’s precious, you’ll want to love and protect him, and want to strangle Shun for giving him the royal run-around. Get it together, disaster gay. They’re painfully adorable together, though. Plus the cats.

Level of Spiciness: Seaside strangers’ smutty sex; one of the biggest surprises was the QUITE EXPLICIT sex scenes. Also one of the few manga to acknowledge that douching happens before anal, so bonus points for that.

Pendragon Saga: Chapter 2

Prince Arthur II of Deheubarth

House Words: Son of the Dragon

Standard: Crown of Or on an Azure Field

Living Members: 6

September 28, 892

Prince Arthur felt the cool sea spray against his eyelids, listened to the distant wash of the Môr Hafren. Nearby, on the muddy bank of the Wysk, he could hear the laughter and curses of peasant labourors gathering timber and stone, storing it in an old, repaired Roman storehouse. More supplies would arrive throughout the winter, and at the first thaw construction would start on a modest harbor for Caerllion.

“Admiring your new port, my prince?”

Arthur slowly opened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder. An old, one-eyed man on a palfrey sidled up beside him. Arthur reached out and clasped the hand of Hywel, his long serving steward, and his long serving lover.

“Only 25 autumns later.”

“You did say it would be years in the doing.”

And indeed the young lord had been right all those years ago. Now, at 41 winters, Prince Arthur of Deheubarth felt like he had lived several lifetimes in two decades.

*

His early years had been marred by failure and humiliation, some his own fault, some the simple whims of fate.

The first war he had lost was on the domestic front lines. Arthur had assumed when his Irish wife arrived there would be some time before she felt at home. What he hadn’t prepared for was how cold and difficult his wife would be. Lady Gormlaith had a quick temper, yet rarely said what she actually felt. He had attempted to provide some intimacy in their marriage bed, but she had rebuffed him. “I simply don’t feel the same way as you do, my lord,” she had offered the first night he had dismissed all the servants and invited her to his chambers.

She believed she had already fulfilled her marital duties by providing him with an heir not long after their marriage. She did not seem interested in more children in any hurry.

He had seen victory in battle, of course. But while he wore scars, deep gashes across his face, while peasants and nobles alike marvelled at the scarred warrior lord, few knew the scares were the result of an embarrassing training accident. Not long before that first failed siege of Caerdydd, he and Ithel had taken their knights field riding, and set up a course to simulate ambushing infantry in a forest. Leading one flank, young, invincible lord Arthur had decided to push through a tricky bit of bramble for a more aggressive charge. He had roared in fury like an Irish barbarian as he led the offensive. After inevitably getting thrown, he came to with the world spinning, his head throbbing, his vision the red of blood in his eyes. Nothing lasting, save the scars, but it had tempered his daring somewhat. Lucky he hadn’t driven his own sword through his eye socket, an ignoble end to the short lived reign of the last Pendragon of Gwent that would have been.

The true training came on the battlefield, a lesson in humility, how arbitrary the fortunes of war can be. Just as he had ordered, old Bishop Rhiwal had produced a claim on the lordship of Morgannwg. They had gathered their soldiers at Trefynwy and marched on Caerdydd. They laid siege to the cowardly Prince Hywel for months, were close to taking the castle, when two riders came. The first a messenger from Caerllion who had rode hard, vikings were raiding Gwent. The second a scout from the barrowlands up near Brecon. A sizeable force of soldiers flying the standard of Gwynedd had joined with the levies of aged Lord Elisedd of Brychcheiniog and marched on Caerdydd. There was confusion, were they coming to the aid of Prince Hywel? No, Elisedd was rebelling over some taxation the coward had imposed, and had Lord Elisedd’s wife’s family, the soldiers of Prince Rhodri the Great, joined the small rebellion.

Arthur broke the siege and ordered a march on Caerllion. If they hurried, they would miss being caught in the infighting between Rhodri and Hywel, and could come back later and take the keep once the Gwynedd forces had won. Too late, Prince Rhodri’s soldiers caught the forces of Gwent near the bishopric of Caerffili, charging them on sight as Arthur’s small force retreated. Too late, Arthur sent a messenger to Rhodri and Hywel, a white peace surrender, but his levies and men-at-arms had been whittled down, too many dead not from the war he had started, but a war they should have had no part in. Too late, the survivors threw themselves at the northmen barbarians raping and pillaging their way through the village, and Arthur was delivered another humiliation as he ordered a retreat, overwhelmed by their numbers and ferocity. When his routed forces had rallied and returned to the keep, they found homes burned, a keep ransacked, hostages taken, and more dead than Caerllion had seen in decades.

Lady Gormlaith had been taken, as had the wife of one of his knights. Aunty Agnes had been killed in the slaughter, as had his spymaster Eurowyn. Those weighed heavy on him, especially Agnes. As they recovered and rebuilt, he had to sit across the table from Cynwallon, whose eyes were always red and whose interest in the rule of Caerllion dwindled, even as he remarried a beautiful Cispaline woman. Eventually Arthur allowed him to return to the village and live the rest of his quiet life, replacing him with a gentle giant from Ireland named Murchad.

Arthur was numb all during that time. The war he’d abandoned had drained the coffers of Caerllion, with no loot from taking the coward’s keep to build on, and so he was forced to sit and watch as the silver trickled in. Life had taken on a kind of surreal normality. He was little more than a farmer with a fancy little fortress, so he had spent time patrolling his land with his men, settling minor disputes, helping the small farmsteads rebuild and sow a new harvest, raise his son.

He missed even the occasional times Gormlaith would share his marital bed. However neglectful she could be, he was comforted by the sound of someone sleeping next to him. Even with all the distractions of rebuilding he had been lonely. Perhaps that’s why he’d turned to Hywel.

While they rebuilt the village, Arthur began to meet with Hywel at least once a week to discuss the harbor. An idle fantasy given Arthur couldn’t even afford to ransom his wife back from barbarians, but it gave him something simple to look forward to; building something new.

It happened the first time they rode down to survey the old Roman ruins, all those years ago.

A beautiful summer day, the kind that is coloured golden in memory. Motes of pollen drifted lazily through the gentle, intoxicating breeze. The two men dismounted, letting their horses nibble on grass, and Arthur began to take notes with the occasional, sardonic comment from Hywel.

Eventually they sat on the bank of the Wysk and shared a flagon of water, and some bread and cheese.

“I’m very sorry about your wife, m’lord.”

Arthur looked up at his steward. The older man seemed genuine, a change from his usual teasing.

Arthur shrugged, “Truth be told, it only means I sleep alone a little more often than if she were here.”

He had no idea why he would admit such a thing to someone lowborn, a peasant, an apple picker. He didn’t know why, but it felt like Hywel had offered something, and Arthur had returned the sentiment. As if a key had opened a lock.

He’d expected to be roundly teased by his steward, but Hywel merely lifted himself up from the ground to sit on the stone next to Arthur. “You shouldn’t have to sleep alone.”

Arthur felt a heat ignite deep in his gut, “You seem to have no problem doing so.”

Hywel grinned, and young Arthur melted. “Who says I sleep alone every night?”

“If you’ve ever snuck a strumpet into your cottage, you’ve hid it from the village gossip-mongers quite well.”

“And who says it would be a strumpet I sneak into my cottage.”

Arthur’s stomach dropped out, and he gulped nervously, like a dumb show character as he felt a hand cup his basket.

“Apple pickers tend not to care which tree they pick from, or at least not the ones I know,” Hywel murmured tenderly as he stroked his liege. “There’s a great deal you could learn, m’lord. A great deal I could teach you.”

Arthur reached down and clasped Hywel’s hand. The peasant man’s eyes went wide in fear, but Arthur merely raised the hand to his mouth and kissed it tenderly. “Thank you for your counsel, steward. I will take your proposal under advisement.”

Hywel smiled that same rugged, crooked-tooth smile. He could feel Arthur’s hand trebling. He had felt how his liege… reacted to the advance.

Arthur became consumed by the exchange, he began to seek out any time he could to meet with Hywel to discuss the port. They would ride down to the river on pleasant days, pretending to plan the harbour, or drink wine and talk late into the night in the kitchen, picking at the last remnants of the evening meal. Hywel allowed Arthur to make his own approach. Hywel received a small silver locket and had worn it every day since given, which Arthur took as a good sign. One night, in a fury of passion, Arthur sent for his steward to meet him in the kitchen to discuss something of great importance.

Arthur wanted to confess how his adoration for Hywel had blossomed, but they came together violently, like a storm over the channel. Arthur almost told Hywel to stop as he found himself pressed against a countertop. It was late, but that didn’t mean a servant wouldn’t come to finish their duties, or a coal boy wasn’t skulking nearby. But as Hywel ran his hands under Arthur’s shirt, the young lord returned the gesture and found a power in his hands on Hywel’s body as his steward squirmed in pleasure.

They did not entirely consummate their love that evening, that came a few days later, but Arthur returned to his chambers with Hywel’s issue coating his chest. Arthur had hoped confessing would help temper these feelings somewhat, but he hadn’t confessed and their joining hadn’t tempered anything. He burned for Hywel.

Meanwhile, Caerllion would receive occasional messages from Gormlaith and the Irish noblewoman, the wife of his knight Sir Einion. The council was disgusted when, about a year after the raid, word came that the Jarl of Mann had taken the noblewoman as his concubine. Arthur feared for the day the same message would arrive about Gormlaith, thrown to be rutted by those feral sea snakes. Her only protection was her worth for ransom. Arthur didn’t even succeed at that, Lady Gormlaith arrived at Caerllion in rags a few years after being taken. A Cumbrian petty king of the north had taken Mann and released the jarl’s prisoners. She had been freed by the whims of fate. Failure after failure.

While he had taken Caerdydd not long after that, tragedy continued to dog him for a time. He brought on Ithel’s wife to replace Euronwy. Ealdgyth was a shrewd, bold, callous woman. Well suited to the work, but not well suited to win any hearts. She and Gormlaith loathed one another, his wife’s temper setting off Ealdgyth’s paranoia–council meetings were tense when both women were present, everyone waiting for one to set off the other–so when a coal boy discovered Gormlaith stabbed to death in her chambers, her jewelry stolen, Arthur had his suspicions. Of course Ealdgyth was nowhere near the keep the evening of Gormlaith’s death. She had enthusiastically investigated the murder but found no evidence and believed it was a theft gone awry. Arthur had sat with the evil shrew at the council table, wondering, for 18 years.

Still, however awful Gormlaith’s death it was something of a relief for Arthur. He sought out a landless Dutch noblewoman renowned for her beauty, shy but headstrong and level-headed. No significant allies, but loving Lady Cecily as a wife was no more a challenge than bedding her, and she gave him many beautiful sons. The way he dreamed marriage to a good woman should be.

*

“Lost in thought, m’lord?”

Arthur blinked away the fog of memory. “Just thinking of that rock by the river.”

Hywel smiled and dismounted–with some difficulty. At 54 summers the man was ancient compared to most of the villagers, healthy for now, but his youthful vigor faded with every year. He was slower now. Arthur climbed off his palfrey and the two men’s lips met. Hywel reached for Arthur’s cock, and even at the advanced age of 41, he responded like a man half his age. They rutted slowly, carefully, they both had aches and pains and old wounds. After they lay together half-dressed on a bower of grass watching the sun set over the channel.

They perhaps didn’t take as much care as they should. Ealdgyth had come to Arthur one night with news that a roughly dressed man had been seen sneaking out of Hywel’s cottage late at night by an inquisitive neighbour–probably some opportunistic crone who received a little gold for spying on the steward. Arthur assumed the man was him… or else one of Hywel’s apple pickers. He’d never told Hywel, only kept their assignations more contained. Hywel was one of his knights, after all, and a knight always stood guard by their lord’s chambers at night. A convenient occasional excuse to spend the night together.

Arthur turned and studied the sun-browned, weather-lined, battle-scarred face of his paramour. Hywel had lost his left eye in the fight for the Principality of Deheubarth. A holy battle, given the how it was instigated, so Hywel joked that he was now “hole-y-er” too.

In the aftermath of the devastating Viking raids from Mann, Arthur had travelled to Canterbury, partly for some new perspective, partly to get away from the death that walked the halls of Caerllion in his mind. At the encouragement from the bishop of Canterbury, Arthur had written to Pope Marinus to describe Gwent’s tribulations, and to Arthur’s surprise the great man responded with a small fortune of gold and kind words, and they’d kept up an occasional correspondence. All the more surprising, when Lord Arthur politely invited Pope Marinus to a St. David’s Day feast and celebration in 880, the Pope accepted. The court had never seen such festivities, nor so many Italians. Marinus was an honest, patient man, but had a bawdy side Arthur found as surprising as their friendship. After years of lessons from Hywel, Arthur even noticed subtle signs that maybe the supreme pontiff was not entirely unlike him. The man complimented boy servants just as quickly as the young women of the court. Arthur caught him admiring the prat of Sir Cadfan, one of his knights, as the other man bent over the side of a post in the training yard. The last thing he expected was to catch the Pope’s eye, and have the bishop of Rome wink at him playfully. At the St. David’s Day feast, the Pope was seated at the place of honour in Caerllion’s hall. As the dancing began, he and Arthur were discussing cowardly Prince Hywel of Deheubarth’s retreat into the hills of Aberhonddu, displacing Lord Elisedd and his family. Marinus said, given the right sway among the clergy, he could make inquiries and transfer the Principality to Arthur, and the lord could claim Deheubarth.

“The Holy See is always prepared to assist the righteous,” Marinus said with a knowing smile, reaching over and patting Arthur’s thigh. The touch lingered, the man’s fingers inched upward slightly. He was a man of 61 years, but healthy, and of healthy appetites, clearly. Arthur was genuinely flattered, and not the least bit intrigued. Did the fucking Pope really want to lay with him?

The hand was retracted, although not the offer of aid. A few years later the man did indeed grant Arthur a claim on the Principality of Deheubarth.

The cowardly prince was injured in the fighting and promptly died, leaving the castle of Aberhondu to his grandson. After taking Caerfyrddin from his rival Prince of Gwynedd, the Lord Hyfaidd of Dyfed to the west presented himself as a vassal of Prince Arthur of Deheubarth. The young warrior now controlled a small principality; hard fought and hard won, but it was his.

Princess Cecily, Prince Arthur and the late Uther ab Arthur on Arthur’s ascent to the Principality of Deheubarth.

Not without sacrifice. War was terrible, to see men stagger, bloody, practically cloven in half, tripping and slipping over the viscera of their fallen comrades and enemies, blood pooling dark and baleful in the mud. Arthur counted every loss as a personal failure, and was most anxious about his brave knights, anxious to see them stumble or ride across the charnel landscapes of victory. Loyal Sir Gerallt, an unlanded young knight and exceptional warrior, lost a leg and was disfigured so badly he no longer showed his face; big, kindly Murchad had been maimed so badly in the fighting he succumbed to his wounds despite the best treatment; Hywel lost his eye.

Arthur turned to Hywel, who dozed even as the cool sea air became cooler in the evening. “Does your eye still bother you much?”

Hywel stirred, smiling sleepily, “Only when handsome princes ask about it.”

Arthur smiled. He loved Hywel, more than he had ever been able to say. He’d tried to confess his feelings on a couple of occasion, wanted to dedicate himself to his steward, and have Hywel do the same. He’d been rebuffed not once, but twice. Hywel was happy with the… physical nature of their assignations, but did not seek more for his own reasons. Arthur had accepted this now, but wondered what he would do when elderly Hywel passed.

Despite all the loss, all the destruction, all the death, crops were sown, harvests were reaped, weddings were celebrated, babies were born, boys were trained at swords and now Hywel and Arthur had their port.

They dressed and mounted, Arthur riding a little gingerly after their rutting, he wasn’t a young man any more. Arthur’s heart sank as they left their sunrise behind and rode towards the distant glow of Caerllion, still clad in black pennants of mourning at his son and heir’s death. Hywel glanced nervously at his liege before bidding him good evening. A quick clasp of their hands and Arthur spurred his mount on up the hill, dreading finding his home as quiet as a tomb.

His third son and squire, Mordred, almost a man himself, was waiting in the stable yard along with his other squire, Lord Hywel, a boy of twelve winters. Arthur had taken young Hywel under his wing after the boy was unceremoniously pronounced Lord of Brycheiniog and vassal to the new Prince of Deheubarth… the man who had cut away at his family until there was little left. Arthur hoped they would develop a friendship over a shared love of martial training, and the boy was already showing a Christian bravery that bordered on zealotry, a religious worship of the Crusades. Mordred, tall and bright with Arthur’s good looks and his mother’s dark hair and dark eyes, had taken more to the tenets of chivalry than his fellow squire. He was brash and impatient, sure, but his bravery and sense of honour reminded Arthur of himself at that age, ready to forge a kingdom.

“Father,” Mordred gave a curt bow.

“My liege,” Lord Hywel followed the gesture.

Arthur smiled to himself as he climbed off his mount. He clasped his squires on their shoulders affectionately. “You two didn’t need to wait up, the stable boy could have seen to this old nag.”

The two boys went about leading the palfrey into the stables and began removing the old, cracked saddle, Hywel with a horse brush in hand. He’d trained them well, a lord who was not afraid to do the work of a stable boy was not too proud to care for his people.

Mordred looked grim, “Mother was worrying after you. Arthwr is with her in her chambers.”

Arthur patted his son’s shoulder affectionately and promised they would go field riding the next day.

Up the steps of the keep, through the hall and into the family’s quarters, Arthur found his wife dressed in mourning black, smiling serenely at her beloved son, Arthur’s now heir. The moon glimmered and shivered in the reflection of the distant river. Even at 43, Lady Cecily was a beautiful woman, intelligent eyes and a calm, soothing soul. But a quiet reserve of strength. Little Arthwr, first born to Arthur and Cecily, had inherited her beauty, though had his father’s gold-spun hair and sea-blue eyes. Since the death of Uther, he’d taken his brother’s seat as chancellor at the council table. While less of a student of statecraft than his late half-brother, he still exceeded him in intelligence and cunning. Arthur was intensely proud of his sons.

The late Uther, Arthwr, Mordred, Hywel and the twins Morgan and Owain.

“Husband,” Cecily stood and ran into Arthur’s arms, sniffling. While he wasn’t her trueborn child, she had taken Uther’s death hard. He’d been murdered in cold blood, found stabbed to death in his chambers, like his mother. The first time since Lady Gormlaith’s death such violent tragedy had infiltrated their humble court. Athur knew Cecily doted on her children, and worried herself sick the same fate could be theirs. His spymaster was currently investigating the murder quietly, but until they had any answer an air of fear and suspicion chilled the court. Arthur, as always, feared Ealdgyth might be involved. If it was an assassination, if it was planned, either she was a poor spymaster or she was complicit.

“Any news, my lord?”

“None,” Arthur admitted. He would meet with Ealdgyth soon to see if she had discovered anything suspicious, but until then they were all fumbling in the dark. He walked over and clapped his hand on Arthwr’s shoulder, who patted it affectionately.

“How’s Hywel?” Arthur asked, “the twins?”

Arthwr rolled his eyes, “Hywell’s skulking about like usual, scaring the servants, playing spymaster.”

“The twins and I had the most wonderful game of pick-up-sticks today,” Cecily smiled warmly. “They were hoping you’d take them riding tomorrow.”

“I will, wife,” he kissed her, a simple peck. She looked at him with a mournful longing.

“Shall I join you in your chambers tonight,” she whispered, although Arthur had to believe their poor son could hear.

“I had a long day, I don’t think I’m long from sleep,” she nodded, smiling through her disappointment. “Why don’t you go and see the twins get to bed, I’ll come and say goodnight to them presently.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Cecily strode from the room, her black gown fluttering around the corner of the door. Arthwr stood and went to the hearth, throwing another log in to keep the fire going.

“She worries about you, father.”

Arthur sagged down in the chair, and his son came over and crouched beside him, clasping his hand over his father’s.

“We all do.”

Arthur gave his son and heir a sad smile, “It will pass, this dark cloud. We’re all still in mourning.”

Although Arthur didn’t believe that, nor did his perceptive, empathic son. Since Uther’s death a darkness had gripped Athur’s soul. There were moments he didn’t feel like himself, like time dragged out too long and little details became cataclysmic, moments where he felt like ending this whole tragic existence. He carried on for his wife, his children, his lover, his people, but the world seemed greyer, flatter, like all the colour had gone out of it. Happiness came less frequently, and rarely lasted more than a moment.

He had spoken first on the matter with the court physician, Menechem, an aged and wise Ashkenazi Jew who had stumbled into court looking for a home more than a decade ago. The man proclaimed that Arthur’s humours were unbalanced, prescribed a bloodletting, but Arthur didn’t see how that would heal his soul. Next he’d gone to his new bishop, Mraczysław, an odd little Polish man, the second son of an ousted count from the incessantly warring kingdoms across the channel. He was a drunk and a madman, Arthur thought that the captivity that killed his father likely broke him. But he was more intelligent than Rhiwal and a good deal more of a hard worker, so Arthur did not begrudge him a little lunacy.

Slurring, Mraczysław had quoted Revelations: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Arthur was not the most religious man, but found some comfort in that. The thought of the old order dying away, a good, eternal Christian peace replacing it…

Arthur took his hand and placed it over his son’s. “You’re a good man, Arthwr. You’ll make a good father.”

He kissed his son on the forehead and stood, grunting from his exertions with his lover earlier. Any priest would say he should feel guilt about going to his family, discussing his son’s death, while the issue of his fornicating, sodomitical lover dried between his legs. He’d felt guilty about it at first, but time had a way of working away at things until they were worn smooth, like an old runestone deep in the woods. Maybe the grief and melancholy that gripped him since his son’s death would soften over time… he hoped…

Uther ab Arthur of House Pendragon had been born to Gormlaith, her only child before her untimely death, when Arthur was only 18, still feeling like a child himself. He’d survived that Viking raid, hidden away by the women with some servants in Caerllion’s earth cellar. He’d survived his mother’s disappearance, and her violent death. He had been a hardworking, just boy, virtues marred only by his utter cowardice. Uther had struggled to even pick up a sword, let alone have any desire to wield it, mystifying to his warrior father. Still, a charming, well liked boy who became an intelligent, diligent young man. He left behind a wife, a beautiful, drunken Bavarian no one in Caerllion could understand and who most people avoided. No children, the biggest heartbreak of all. He was dead and would likely pass out of memory long before the rest of his brothers. Eventually there would be no one left to mourn him.

Arthur checked in on Cecily and the twins, gold-haired Morgan and dark-haired Owain. Morgan was splayed out on his bed, head resting in his mother’s lap, chattering away about his studies that day, a bookworm from the moment he learned to read. Arthur wondered if maybe he would do better in the priesthood than a life of heartbreak, pain and dead children.

Fidgety Owain was up on his feet, wooden sword in hand, going through his form, but dropped it and ran over to his father, throwing himself into Arthur’s arms.

“Father! Father! Mother said you’d take us riding with Mordred and Hy tomorrow!”

Arthur ruffled Morgan’s curly mop of dark hair, with a smile and a nod. Owain whooped and ran around the room, collecting all the things he would need tomorrow. Arthur bid the twins a good night and headed to his chambers.

Mercifully, the coal boy had built up a fire, likely sent along by Arthwr or Mordred. Arthur dropped himself into the large, plush chair before the fire, feeling exhausted down to his bones. He would get himself to bed soon, alone. Soon he would receive word from his deceitful spymaster. Tomorrow he would meet with his council to discuss their next move in liberating Wales from the Aberffraw line.

Like his lover, like his family, like the port, maybe reclaiming Wales would distract him from this deep, aching pain.

Maybe.

Pendragon Saga: Chapter 1

Lord Arthur of Gwent

Motto: Son of the Dragon

Standard: Crown of Or on an Azure Field

Living Members: 1

January 1, 867

The purposeful steps of Lord Arthur echoed off the stone walls of Caerllion, a trepidatious quiet settled over the small keep that early morning. His first council awaited him.

The “lord” would take some getting used to. It was barely a year ago, not long after his fifteenth birthday, on the cusp of manhood, the man he thought was his father revealed the farmer boy’s destiny. The sole surviving member of an ancient line, the only remnants an ancient sword wrapped in a threadbare pennant and Arthur himself. Three gold crowns on blue field, but faded almost to white and grey, moth eaten and crumbling at the touch. The sword would serve, after a little sharpening. Caerllion would be his, as would Wales, as would all of England, should he rise to it, as was his birthright.

With the support of the bishop they had taken and rebuilt Caerllion. His first conquest, albeit of little consequence, a war against rats and the odd, desperate highwayman. The old Roman foundation was solid, the fortifications, his fortifications, went up with impossible speed. Ithel, the man who had raised him, worked swiftly with the men of the village, all of whom, the boy’s entire world, suddenly looked on Arthur with something like awe… or fear. A lord meant war to peasants, Arthur knew that. The two spent the year organizing the farmers of Caerllion into something like a small army, he and Ithel even trained up a couple of hundred men into something approaching warriors, handy with a sword and shield; his first appointment was Ithel as Caerllion’s marshal.

And now he was a man, the lord of Gwent. A sun-browned, freckled, lanky, gawky lord he was, but a lord nonetheless. Ithel awaited him, as did his other appointees.

Arthur took a moment to adjust his tunic–so bright and new, woven for this occasion, it looked to be spun of gold–before pushing the door open to the council chamber. Five sets of eyes glanced up from stilted conversation, five sets of feet stood, five people rising for their lord.

“Be seated, please,” Arthur murmured as he strode to the head of the table and took his seat in a heavy wooden chair carved with a rampant dragon. He was the son of the dragon, reasoned the carpenter in less elegant and more colourful language, and any poncey cunt that meets with him should be reminded as such.

Ithel smirked at Arthur from his right hand. In truth it’d been foolish, a childhood fancy to have assumed the man was his father. He would have had to have conceived at an age younger than Arthur almost half. Still, the burly, earthy farmer and occasional leader of Caerllion’s defenses had taught Arthur everything he knew about warfare, and how to hold a sword. Arthur now outstripped his guardian in both regards.

Although it was Arthur’s other teacher who spoke up first.

“My Lord Arthur, God blesses us on this day to see you seated there,” Bishop Rhiwal intoned from the other end of the table, likely meaning anything but. Arthur got the impression that the suffragan bishop of Trefynwy didn’t much care for this new arrangement, or for Arthur himself. Truth be told Arthur thought he was an idiot, calm and kindly, but obsessed with the scourge of carnality to an undue extent. There were rumours about the last bishopric he had left. Still he had impressed the power of reading and writing onto the young lord ascendant, something Arthur had taken to heart, even if he believed the bishop sparingly put to use his own abilities.

The others nodded politely, and the bishop leaned forward, appraising Arthur with an uncomfortable intensity, as if he were sizing up a prized hog. He gave his lord a polite but knowing smile, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

The man seated to the right of the bishop scoffed, “Bloody hell, bishop, let the lordling warm his seat a little before we find some place for him to stick his cock.”

Hywel turned and winked at Arthur, whose gut fluttered as it did whenever he had encountered his now steward as a boy. There was something about him Arthur found… confusing and unsettling. At 29 summers, the apple picker had never married, had never even so much as looked at a woman, claimed Ithel. He was ruggedly handsome, kept his ruddy face clean shaven, kept his hair long and flowing, like a woman’s. He had never minced words, and had always spoke in arcane references Arthur found daunting. He had warranted a seat on the council solely for his ability to run his family’s orchard. A poor qualification for a steward, but Ithel always said “we go to war with the soldiers we have.”

The bishop gave an indignant “harrumph”, the perfect opportunity for kind Cynwallon to lean forward. Unlike Ithel, Arthur’s chancellor was not so dismissive of the bishop, of the duties a lord should carry out other than coveting the land of other, more powerful lords and ladies.

“M’lord, the bishop and I have written to houses we feel would be beneficial to secure ties to,” he smiled through his curly, bushy beard, pushing a piece of parchment he would never be able to read forward. Cynwallon was the obvious choice for a diplomat, he was beloved of the village, could reason with even the most obstinate of villeins and never forgot a face. He and his wife, Agnes, were two of the kindest people Arthur had ever met, an almost surrogate mother and father to him until… well, he was a lord now, not a dirty little urchin sneaking around for some fresh bread from Aunty Agnes. Now they lived down in the village, he in the keep on top of the hill.

“The Saxon woman would be a most advantageous partnership,” the bishop nodded sagely, although the faces of the others turned sour, even Cynwallon. The bishop had travelled to Canterbury, considered himself more worldly and tolerant of brutish Viking-spawn that had taken residence in southern England and beyond.

Ithel spit, “I rue the day my Arthur beds a Saxon whore.”

The bishop sighed, “I also sent word to a colleague in the bishopric of Saint-Flour–“

Ithel spit again, “Fucking frogs.”

“–and a nearby lord has a most charming daughter, almost of age, I’m told,” the bishop continued, shooting the marshal a withering glare.

“If we call our allies to war, they actually need to arrive in time to kill a few people, goodly bishop,” Ithel lobbed back, and shook his head, muttering, “Fucking frogs…”

“Are we at war?” asked a lilting woman’s voice on the other side of the bishop. “That was quick, even for you, Sir Ithel.”

Euronwy’s inclusion at the table had been a controversial one. Ithel begrudged the bishop needed to be part of the council, but he wanted his best comrades-in-arms represented, however ill-suited they may be to ruling. Arthur had insisted on the woman. The petite, fine-featured woman could read, for one, apparently an uncle had been a mendicant preacher who had shared his knowledge, and she just seemed to… know things, somehow the locus of all the villages gossip without even stepping away from her seamstress work at her mother’s hearth.

Ithel pounded the table with his fist, not hard, but it was the way he punctuated his speech. “We have the covetous coward to the west, conniving Anglo-Saxons to the east, and word down from Hereford is that he’s goaded the fucking Vikings into a fresh offensive. I would prefer to have as many blades between my home and the northmen as possible, m’lady.”

Euronwy gave Ithel a sickly-sweet smile, “I am so glad peace is at hand under your care, my lord marshal.”

Arthur cleared his throat, picking up the paper Cynwallon and the bishop had prepared. The others lapsed into silence, waiting. He studied the notes in the bishop’s scrawl a moment, then placed the paper down. “I will marry Lady Gormlaith of Meath.”

This chilled the conversation further until Ithel pounded his fist on the thick wooden table, “The fucking Irish?!”

“M’lord,” Cynwallon intoned, looking nervous, “We did not seek word from House Néill… we don’t even know if this… Lady Gormlaith is…”

“I have been in correspondence with her uncle, the High Chieftan of Meath, since his ship beached at the mouth of the Wysk,” Arthur continued, and Cynwallon did his best to surpress a shocked gasp. “Ithel is right, should we need the aid of allies they must be close at hand. The chieftan writes that Lady Gormlaith is accomplished with keeping house, it’s said she can make a third coin appear by rubbing two together. If we would raise more men we will need those kinds of skills.”

Hywel put a hand to his heart and gasped, “You wound me, m’lord.”

Arthur locked eyes with him and something passed between them. That same feeling. He offered a neutral smile to appease the steward’s jest. “We are a small household, we need every advantage should we hope to take Wales.”

“Yes,” growled Ithel in delight. “Irish barbarians fucked us for so long, our lord is going to fuck them right back, get a few babies out of their who–“

“Lady Gormlaith should be arriving within the week, and I expect every courtesy shown to her. She will be the lady of the house. Is that understood?” he shot a pointed look to Ithel.

The council muttered uncomfortable approval. Arthur glanced around, to gauge their reactions. Ithel and Cynwallon still did not look entirely pleased, while the bishop looked apoplectic at the thought of an Irish heathen among them. Hywel eyed Arthur with unveiled interest, which the lord hoped was only approval at his decision. He didn’t want to think about what else that gaze could mean otherwise. Euronwy studied him with guarded curiosity. She was watching him watch the others.

“Hywel,” Arthur continued, “This will be years in the doing, but I would like the old Roman port at the mouth of the Wysk rebuilt. When we have the gold we will have you hire builders and see to it. That will mean more gold and trade coming in.”

“An honour, m’lord,” Hywel drawled, and Arthur looked away before the strange man could catch his eye again.

The lord turned to his chancellor, “Cynwallon, I would like for you to send word House Pendragon seeks strong, honourable warriors.”

The other man bowed his head, “M’lord.”

Arthur reached for the rough hunter’s map in front of Ithel and placed it at the centre of the table. “Prince Hywel of Deheubarth’s land is largely unguarded, he has little more forces than we. Bishop, I would like for you to go through the archives of the bishopric and present evidence for a claim on Caerdydd.”

The bishop looked nervous about this, “And should no claim exist?”

“One will. If my namesake can be believed a claim exists for all of England. Once we have the coin to hire more men, Ithel and I will raise up more footmen, perhaps even archers. Within five years I would like to gather our forces at Tryfynwy and march on Caerdydd. This will not leave this room.”

“Yes, m’lord,” the others agreed. It would leave the room, perhaps even make its way to the craven in the west. Let him cower at the thought of his house’s seat being taken by Lord Arthur Pendragon of Gwent.

“I thank you for your council, my friends, unless there is any other business…”

Cynwallon cleared his throat. “There is the matter of your standard, m’lord. If we intend to fend off Ithel’s Vikings and war with the prince of Deheubarth, the soldiers will need one to gather to.”

“Thank you, my chancellor,” Arthur turned to Euronwy, who reached down and pulled out a tightly bound linen wrap. “I have seen to this as well. My lady, if you would.”

Euronwy unwrapped a sky-blue piece of cloth and threw it across the table. On the azure field sat a single golden crown. The crown of his birthright.

Son of the dragon, thought Lord Arthur. Now to the work of forging a kingdom.

BLog: Dick Fight Island Vol. 1

BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.

Dick Fight Island Vol. 1
Story and art: Reibun Ike
Translation: Adrienne Beck
Publisher: SuBLime Manga
Release Date: May 11, 2021

The most surprising thing about Dick Fight Island is that its one of the more wholesome new release BL manga I’ve read in the past year.

That’s not to say it isn’t filthy as sin. Dick Fight Island is Scott Pilgrim meets gay thirst trap Twitter wrestling fetishism. It’s like if the Hunger Games was written by a hormonal teenager exclusively on AO3 on a particularly saucy fanfic bender. It’s like if Mortal Kombat took place entirely at the Folsom Street Fair which was also taking place on Fire Island.

And it’s also so cute and wholesome. And fluffy and romantic.

And also magical penis fights.

The mystical tribal islands of Pulau Yong’unda are a paradise, but it was not always so. Eight tribes once warred for supremacy over the islands; or, once, over the hand of the Moon Clan’s beauty lady chief. There was the Dragon Clan, that rode huge dinosaur-like lizards unto battle… only they consumed such massive amounts of food that the eight clan chiefs united and negotiated that the king of the island would be decided every four years by the Great Wyrm Tournament.

The Dick Fightening. In a tournament of man-on-man bouts, if you cum you lose.

Manhood is a serious deal on the islands of Pulau Yong’unda. For adult men the buttocks are bared to display their manliness. To protect the… erm… manhood during the tournament from weaponized sensuality (or dickblades, terrifyingly, that can’t always end well), on top of their combat prowess the tribes have developed increasingly elaborate dick armour.

This is happening. (From left to right: Blanc, Lolo, Taling, Vampyr, Sicolenga, Pisao, Judah and Hart)

The fact that all of that is just a fraction of the LORE of Dick Fight Island, given in bits and pieces as the tribes’ chosen dick combatants pair off throughout the tournament, is just another wild thing about this wild, dick-armoured ride.

The main thrust (har har har) of the story centres around Hart, chosen of the Jewel Clan. Their island is the most developed, since its rich in precious stones… hence the name. This means they have the most contact with the outside world, and Hart has spent the last four years studying abroad, learning the strange, non-buttocks-baring ways of people beyond Pulau Yong’unda. Returning for the Great Wyrm Tournament, Hart is greeted by his childhood friends Judah of the Warrior Clan, a trained martial artist, and Pisao, member of the sun-kissed, athletic, peaceful fishers of the Sun Clan.

They’re joined by Yaling, the barely legal chosen and son of the Fang Clan chieftess, leader of a matriarchal clan of lesbian-hunters where boy births are exceedingly rare. Chosens Vampyr and one-eyed Sicolenga, of the Healer Clan (mystical healing arts and medicine) and the aforementioned Dragon Clan respectively, arrive and seem to have a fraught history. Frighteningly pretty hunk Blanc of the frighteningly beautiful, mountain-dwelling moon clan, and hot-tempered warrior-chief Lolo of the clay-working Earth Clan–previously disgraced at the last tournament–complete the set.

AND THAT’S JUST THE SETUP.

Phew.

Of course we show up for the dick fighting, but we stay for the boys’ love. Dick Fight Island very much feels like a hilarious and absurd premise to basically draw pinup anime boys of every flavour in skimpy, butt-baring dick armour, but tucked into this premise is a series of cute little romances. Judah harbours a childhood crush on his friend Pisao, and has wagered with Pisao’s older brother that if he wins, the two can live together. Lolo, as well, is trying to prove himself worthy of kingship… OR IS HE TRYING TO PROVE HIMSELF WORTHY OF THE JEWEL CLAN KING?! And then of course Hart himself brings a secret weapon to the island…

Plot-specific prostate gland.

But what British combat master taught Hart such mystical powers? And why is he on the way to Pulau Yong’unda?

Honestly, I championed Dick Fight Island because I knew it would be sexy and ridiculous in the best possible ways. What I wasn’t prepared for was the fluffy, wholesome little love stories in between the colloquial “sword fighting”. Pisao and Judah were my favourites, there’s something appealing to me of childhood crushes stripping each other’s defences and giving each other a pounding (har har har) in front of a stadium of spectators, only to abscond to a more private battle in the jungle and truly get their happy endings. This manga is like a yaoi open bar with a little treat for everyone depending on your poison, whether that’s beefy boys like Pisao, Judah, Lolo and Blanc slapping meat inside and out of the ring, twinky, impish Yaling, hopeless romantic Hart, buff daddies with a dickaxe to grind, etc.

What can we expect of volume 2? Will the warriors return four years on for another chance at the title? Will Yaling get his revenge? Will we have a whole new roster with volume 1’s warriors cheering them on? Will another threat facing Pulau Yong’unda cause the clans to unite and dick fight side by side? Whatever is in store, we will gather when next dicks clash.

Level of Problematic: Dickblades; I guess if casual sex exists, that implies there’s such thing as casual sex. (I did not make that joke up.) Competitive sex is a weird one to tackle with, but relatively free of dubious consent and such. Any “no don’t do that” is more about underhanded or effective sexual techniques rather than non-consensual sex. They sort of make reference to that, that the sex in the ring is more seen as competition than actual sex, and that Pulau Yong’undans are actually relatively innocent when it comes to sexuality. As evidenced by the whole… prostate thing… Someone should tell the Pulau Yong’undans they should get themselves checked annually if they’re a person with a prostate over 50.

Level of Adorable: Tiny sex dragons; again, probably the weirdest thing about Dick Fight Island is how cute it is… in between bouts of nipple play and jizz.

Level of Spiciness: Secret weapon of hidden lube; what more needs to be said?

BLog: Thigh High: Reiwa Hanamaru Academy Vol. 1

BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.

Thigh High: Reiwa Hanamaru Academy Vol. 1
Story and art: Kotobuki
Translation: Elina Ishikawa
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
Release Date: May 11, 2021

The boys at Reiwa Hanamaru Academy care about the same things that any others do… grades, sports, clubs, fitness, being popular, looking good for selfies… getting into shape to… fill out a bikini…

You see, whether it be an alternate universe where boys (and men, the teachers are not exempt) dress as women, or an all boys high school with a very specific dress code, the young blossoms in the proverbial garden of Reiwa Hanamaru Academy wear skirts and blouses.

You might have picked up on that from the cover…

Thigh High is a delightful slice of life where the boys wear skirts, bras and panties and its completely normal. If you transposed the same story onto girls it would be your standard male-gaze, inappropriate high school manga, but the deadpan delivery on the premise creates a level of absurdity that distances it from the worst of the creepiness. Then the manga’s playfulness and humour give the entire endeavour a tongue-in-cheek innocence; even when the main character walks into a class of boys changing for gym, or as they discuss what it takes to fill out a bikini, it’s just sort of normal.

Don’t get me wrong, this is an excuse to draw buff boys in skirts and panties–the up-skirt shot on the cover might’ve given that one away. There’s generous fan service, but unlike other high school sex romps like Yarichin Bitch Club or Can an Otaku Like Me Really Be an Idol?! sex doesn’t factor into the story any more than homework or class duties. It’s not a hypersexualized world, just one where cute guys wear skirts.

The chapters centre around frumpy, hapless, uptight, unpopular, glasses’d 2-A class rep Kiritani Yuuma as he struggles to connect with his classmates–a character I immediately identified with.

Kiritani, nicknamed Kiretani by his classmates (a play on “kire”, “to snap”), is baffled by the boys around him who are effortlessly cool, beautiful and popular, especially his pocket-sized, bubbly and easygoing friend Harumi Shion who is liked and respected by everyone. Kiritani thinks a class rep should be more like Harumi, who tries to coach “Maa-chan” through a series of hijinks that usually end up with Kiritani regretting his efforts. Whether that’s dealing with teasing commentary from cutie band members Taki (bass player) and Himura (lead vocals) discussing bras with sports bros Kitahara and Yumekawa, the baseball ace and beefy wrestler, respectively, trying to connect with scary, thuggish Misaki, or tanning mishaps with the bronze-skinned swim team beauty Unno.

Thigh High is like if the boys from the Ouran High School Host Club wore skirts, its the same type of madcap humour, absurd high school hijinks and shameless fan service. Only girls don’t factor into the equation at all. The execution was actually the most surprising thing, I was expecting this to be a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the quintessential Japanese schoolgirl uniform, maybe like when boys where skirts to school to protest draconian dress codes, homophobia or transphobia, which occasionally crops up in the media. Instead, Thigh High is more a self-contained little world dreamed up entirely for an excuse to draw cute boys in cute skirts.

I’m not complaining, there’s something refreshing and wholesome about boys in girls clothes just for the sake of it, as opposed to serving some sort of message. It’s not drag, it just is. That’s not to say that signature Japanese genderbending titillation doesn’t factor into it at all. The excuse to draw boys in skirts extends to drawing boys in bras and cute little panties, with all the butt and titty shots one would expect from manga.

Again, if it was about girls it’d feel creepy, but with the boys at Reiwa Hanamaru Academy even the hornier moments–up skirt shots, butt and boob bits abound–are sexy but not sexual, if that makes sense. There are blushing boys and the occasional meaningful glances, but unlike Yarichin Bitch Club they don’t abscond to the “photography” club room to boink, they have actual clubs and homework! Kotobuki strikes a delicate balance of cuteness and titillation without crossing the line into full on manga porn. This is, like the tagline says, just an all boys high school where every day is leg day.

Level of Problematic: The frumpy class rep’s cute panties; I was trying to figure out if I should feel like a creep for loving Thigh High as much as I did. And then I remember I’ve read Yarichin Bitch Club, which is about a high school brothel. So perspective.

Level of Adorable: The dance club boys (who are probably dating); I genuinely believe the artist just an excuse to draw boys in skirts. That it ended up being extremely well executed and the cutest thing in the world is a bonus.

Level of Spiciness: The swim team star’s super special swimsuit; just a lot of fan service. A lot.

BLog: Go For It, Nakamura!

BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.

Go For It, Nakamura!
Story and art: Syundei
Translation: Amber Tamosaitis
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
Release Date: July 3 2018

BL is rarely about real gay boys.

Like, yeah, you have gorgeous, impossibly pretty anime boys giving each other intense, meaningful looks and making out, but they are to homosexuality what Harlequin novels are to heterosexuality. Don’t get me wrong, that’s why my bookshelf overfloweth with BL. It’s comforting and cathartic, and gives me the warm fuzzies. And sometimes the hornies.

And then along comes Go For It, Nakamura! to show that BL can depict what an actual high school boy pining for one of his classmates is like… a gay disaster.

Nakamura Okuto is a sixteen-year-old, artistic, socially awkward, octopus-obsessed, reasonably horny gay disaster. On his first day at his new high school he spots the adorable, bright-eyed, light-haired Hirose Aiki and falls in love at first sight. They’ll probably fall madly and hopelessly in love with one another, Nakamura just has to work up the courage to introduce himself.

Go For It, Nakamura! is a cross between a high school slice of life and a romantic comedy, although the premise that Nakamura can barely even approach Hirose without becoming a quivering, speechless mess makes it different from a lot of BL. Instead of the tension being a buildup of feelings and drama, wondering when Nakamura and Hirose are going to kiss and confess their love for each other, the tension is if he can even speak to Hirose, and if he does can he do so without making a total mess of it. Nakumura worries Hirose may have a crush on the cool teacher, he imagines all the different ways he and Hirose will fall in love, he fantasizes about Hirose and tentacles in one of the few saucy panels. He’s not a passive victim of homophobia. He doesn’t agonize over his sexuality. He doesn’t agonize over the fact that Hirose may not like him back–he’s absolutely sure if he can just find the right approach they’ll fall madly in love. As a recovering high school boy with a couple of the most monumental puppy dog crushes that still haunt me to this day–choices were made, MSN messages were sent, class timetables were memorized–the most charming thing about Go For It, Nakamura! is how perfectly it captures the awkward high school gay boy experience. Teenagers are all hormones and complicated feelings, and a crush becomes all-consuming, over the top and utterly ridiculous.

My favourite of many aspects of the manga is Syundei’s style, a throwback to 90s Gundam– or Evangelion-like art. Thick solid lines, extremely expressive characters, no hesitation to go for the absurd or over-the-top–like the thugs who attack Hirose after he and Nakamura walk home together for the first time, or the imperious guidance counselors doing student conduct checks. But then its the emotional moments of tenderness or intimacy, when the ridiculousness of being an awkward high school gay boy fall away and he’s able to have quiet, intimate conversations with his crush, small truths coming to light.

That’s maybe one of the stranger aspects of Nakamura!, and why it’s as charming as it is to me. It’s a BL that’s aware of BL–Nakamura himself is an avid BL reader–and subverts the tropes for something more human, but without sacrificing the madcap hilarity of a comedy BL, a difficult balance to achieve while also feeling very genuine and lovely. Nakamura himself feels multi-dimensional and dynamic. Sure, he spends the entire manga obsessing over the relationship he desperately craves with Hirose, but he also has other interests, like drawing, or marine biology (or BL…), which helps the character feel real and charming. The payoff is in the quieter, more intimate moments, since you’ve gotten to know this adorable little gay disaster. While Nakamura’s feelings may be unreciprocated for most of the manga (but what about all of it?!), even the smallest of moments come to mean a great deal, because the title says what we’re all thinking.

Level of Problematic: Go for it, shounen ai!; Honestly, one of the best things about Go For It, Nakamura! is that its cute, horny and wholesome in equal measure with little of the problematic sexual politics that pervade BL.

Level of Adorable: Go for it, cross-dressing crush tropes!; If you’re at all like me you will be literally squeeing throughout.

Level of Spiciness: Go for it, tentacles!; Syundei talks in the artist’s notes about how they didn’t think the series would go past chapter 2 so they threw in a brief tentacle fantasy for a little titillation. Good god, I would do anything for a “Nakamura and Hirose’s college adventures” continuation, with extra tentacles on the side, please.

BLog: MADK Vol. 1

BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.

MADK Vol. 1
Story and art: Ryo Suzuri
Translation: Adrienne Beck
Publisher: SuBLime Manga
Release Date: February 9, 2021

(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) CW: Extreme violence and sexuality (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

Think of the darkest part of yourself.

I’m talking about that piece of yourself you’d never share with anyone; the most reprehensible, most messed up, most horrifying, deepest, darkest desire, fantasy or thought. That hidden, terrifying, annihilating fragment of you.

MADK is trying to approach that. It’s the most viscerally horrific, disturbing BL manga I’ve ever read. It’s also one of the most beautiful.

On the surface, MADK‘s premise isn’t far off from your typical manga tropes. Messed up high school boy summons demon and forges a pact that sees him dragged to hell and live as part of a demon prince’s court. Plenty of latitude for some over the top Black Butler-esque gothic darkness, gore and perversion.

Within the first 20 pages MADK blows that clean out of the water and jets off into space to find a less boring planet. Preferably with prehensile monster cock.

As it turns out, the “sexual kink others would see as disgusting” of high schooler Makoto, as advertised in the synopsis, is his desire to eat someone alive. Not your standard BL fare.

Summoning a demon is his compromise with himself. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he’s always been fascinated by books on serial killers and cannibals; he used to collect roadkill and hide it in his room until he was found out. And then there’s the sexual element of his desire to eat someone alive… He’s terrified his fascination and desires will lead him to doing the unthinkable and he doesn’t see his soul as worth saving, so exchanging it to a demon for the chance to fulfill his fantasy on a non-human, technically non-living entity seems an easy choice.

Supremely powerful demon Archduke J’s world is well suited to a monster like Makoto. Oh, sure, it’s an awkward adjustment as his disembodied head is mounted on a dog’s body while waiting for a human one, and then demons clamber to feast on the former human–feast in any meaning imaginable–but his kinks and desires seem tame in comparison to those of demons. And those pale in comparison to the machinations of the demons vying for power, constantly attempting to surpass one another to lord over the rest. In hell, Makoto learns, words and especially names have just as much or more power than physical violence.

We’ve established MADK is intensely dark and disturbing, so what makes it a good manga?

First of all, Ryo Suzuri’s art is some of the most gorgeous I’ve seen in any manga, taking full advantage of the black and white with masterful contrasting and shading. Often greyscale feels like a limitation with manga–it’s more pleasing to see our favourite beautiful boys in full colour–but in MADK it feels like a feature. The art is lush and expressive, disturbing, of course, but Suzuri has a talent for obscuring some (only some) of the most messed up moments with close ups, blurring or contrast so the reader has to fill in the horrific blanks. There’s a moment close to the start where a… non-standard orifice is created and sodomized. I’ll leave it at that.

This is balanced against a compelling world and story. Maybe its because BL is mostly set in mundane locations that we don’t get to see a writer weave a world like MADK‘s hell, but this too is refreshing and masterfully done. The reader learns about hell alongside Makoto, the demon courts, demonic powers, the silver-tongued scramble for power. We get to meet Datensho, a plantoid incensate demon who uses scent to influence the emotions of others. We get to meet Fjord, an adorable, bubbly, friendly, supernaturally well-endowed sex fiend. Eccentric, mercurial, violent Archduke J is a more monolithic demon prince, a spider constantly spinning his webs around those in his orbit. Makoto is both ward and victim as the demon drops him into the deep end.

But this is maybe what sets apart MADK from another gratuitously sexually violent manga; I’d draw the comparison to Caste Heaven. In Caste Heaven the sex and violence (and where the two often overlap) felt empty, pointless, truly gratuitous. MADK‘s violence, especially the sexual violence, is even more extreme and disturbing, but still lends itself to the story and world. What we begin to learn alongside Makoto is that every fresh horror is a lesson, and every lesson is about power. The most chilling part of MADK somehow isn’t the live cannibalism or necrophilic rape–those are just the most stomach churning. There’s a moment close to the end of volume 1 where Makoto begins to wonder what kind of power it would take to surpass J. Fjord, along with the reader, wonders just how much of a monster Makoto actually is.

Level of Problematic: The laundry list; hoo boy, let’s do this. We’ve got live cannibalism, we’ve got intestine- and non-standard orifice fucking, we’ve got gore, we’ve got body horror, we’ve got disturbed rumination, we’ve got cannibal sex, we’ve got arguable necrophilic rape, we’ve got monster cock. But this is the pact you sign when you consort with BL demons like Ryo Suzuri.

Level of Adorable: Terrifyingly cute; I think that’s the most disturbing thing, that aside from being horrifying but beautiful, the cute elements are all the more juxtaposed against the brutal violence and horrors. Datensho is my fav, cute little mushroom demon and his cute little rafflesia minions.

Level of Spiciness: Let’s not go there; listen, it’s not what I’d whack it to, but it also has its sexy moments. I’d feel guilty about that except for the fact that this was put out by a major BL publisher, and I’ve seen monsterfucker twitter. I know, the darkness in your hearts, monsterfuckers. I know what you freakjobs get off to.

MADK Vol. 1

BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.

MADK Vol. 1
Story and art: Ryo Suzuri
Translation: Adrienne Beck
Publisher: SuBLime Manga
Release Date: February 9, 2021

(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) CW: Extreme violence and sexuality (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

Think of the darkest part of yourself.

I’m talking about that piece of yourself you’d never share with anyone; the most reprehensible, most messed up, most horrifying, deepest, darkest desire, fantasy or thought. That hidden, terrifying, annihilating fragment of you.

MADK is trying to approach that. It’s the most viscerally horrific, disturbing BL manga I’ve ever read. It’s also one of the most beautiful.

On the surface, MADK‘s premise isn’t far off from your typical manga tropes. Messed up high school boy summons demon and forges a pact that sees him dragged to hell and live as part of a demon prince’s court. Plenty of latitude for some over the top Black Butler-esque gothic darkness, gore and perversion.

Within the first 20 pages MADK blows that clean out of the water and jets off into space to find a less boring planet. Preferably with prehensile monster cock.

As it turns out, the “sexual kink others would see as disgusting” of high schooler Makoto, as advertised in the synopsis, is his desire to eat someone alive. Not your standard BL fare.

Summoning a demon is his compromise with himself. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he’s always been fascinated by books on serial killers and cannibals; he used to collect roadkill and hide it in his room until he was found out. And then there’s the sexual element of his desire to eat someone alive… He’s terrified his fascination and desires will lead him to doing the unthinkable and he doesn’t see his soul as worth saving, so exchanging it to a demon for the chance to fulfill his fantasy on a non-human, technically non-living entity seems an easy choice.

Supremely powerful demon Archduke J’s world is well suited to a monster like Makoto. Oh, sure, it’s an awkward adjustment as his disembodied head is mounted on a dog’s body while waiting for a human one, and then demons clamber to feast on the former human–feast in any meaning imaginable–but his kinks and desires seem tame in comparison to those of demons. And those pale in comparison to the machinations of the demons vying for power, constantly attempting to surpass one another to lord over the rest. In hell, Makoto learns, words and especially names have just as much or more power than physical violence.

We’ve established MADK is intensely dark and disturbing, so what makes it a good manga?

First of all, Ryo Suzuri’s art is some of the most gorgeous I’ve seen in any manga, taking full advantage of the black and white with masterful contrasting and shading. Often greyscale feels like a limitation with manga–it’s more pleasing to see our favourite beautiful boys in full colour–but in MADK it feels like a feature. The art is lush and expressive, disturbing, of course, but Suzuri has a talent for obscuring some (only some) of the most messed up moments with close ups, blurring or contrast so the reader has to fill in the horrific blanks. There’s a moment close to the start where a… non-standard orifice is created and sodomized. I’ll leave it at that.

This is balanced against a compelling world and story. Maybe its because BL is mostly set in mundane locations that we don’t get to see a writer weave a world like MADK‘s hell, but this too is refreshing and masterfully done. The reader learns about hell alongside Makoto, the demon courts, demonic powers, the silver-tongued scramble for power. We get to meet Datensho, a plantoid incensate demon who uses scent to influence the emotions of others. We get to meet Fjord, an adorable, bubbly, friendly, supernaturally well-endowed sex fiend. Eccentric, mercurial, violent Archduke J is a more monolithic demon prince, a spider constantly spinning his webs around those in his orbit. Makoto is both ward and victim as the demon drops him into the deep end.

But this is maybe what sets apart MADK from another gratuitously sexually violent manga; I’d draw the comparison to Caste Heaven. In Caste Heaven the sex and violence (and where the two often overlap) felt empty, pointless, truly gratuitous. MADK‘s violence, especially the sexual violence, is even more extreme and disturbing, but still lends itself to the story and world. What we begin to learn alongside Makoto is that every fresh horror is a lesson, and every lesson is about power. The most chilling part of MADK somehow isn’t the live cannibalism or necrophilic rape–those are just the most stomach churning. There’s a moment close to the end of volume 1 where Makoto begins to wonder what kind of power it would take to surpass J. Fjord, along with the reader, wonders just how much of a monster Makoto actually is.

Level of Problematic: The laundry list; hoo boy, let’s do this. We’ve got live cannibalism, we’ve got intestine- and non-standard orifice fucking, we’ve got gore, we’ve got body horror, we’ve got disturbed rumination, we’ve got cannibal sex, we’ve got arguable necrophilic rape, we’ve got monster cock. But this is the pact you sign when you consort with BL demons like Ryo Suzuri.

Level of Adorable: Terrifyingly cute; I think that’s the most disturbing thing, that aside from being horrifying but beautiful, the cute elements are all the more juxtaposed against the brutal violence and horrors. Datensho is my fav, cute little mushroom demon and his cute little rafflesia minions.

Level of Spiciness: Let’s not go there; listen, it’s not what I’d whack it to, but it also has its sexy moments. I’d feel guilty about that except for the fact that this was put out by a major BL publisher, and I’ve seen monsterfucker twitter. I know, the darkness in your hearts, monsterfuckers. I know what you freakjobs get off to.

BLog: Therapy Game Vol. 2

BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.

Therapy Game Vol. 2
Story and art: Meguru Hinohara
Translation: Adrienne Beck
Publisher: SuBLime Manga
Release Date: September 8, 2020

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ Spoilers for Secret XXX and Therapy Game Vol. 1 ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

Sex! Romance! Drag queens! Bunnies! Therapy Game has it all!

Among my manga reading friends Therapy Game is a favourite, as well as its prequel/companion story Secret XXX, and that’s no surprise. Meguru Hinohara is a genius at balancing fun, adorable characters, interesting, believable drama, grade A comedy… and the sex…

Oh, the sex… If you’re looking for a series to get you through the lonely nights…

We’ll get to that, quick recap of volume 1: pessimistic blond babe Minato has seduced previously straight Shizuma into falling in love with him on a dare. This is complicated by the two developing feelings for one another, but childhood trauma has twisted Minato’s desires so even he doesn’t know what he wants, or if he can have a real human relationship… other than with his adored older brother Mito (of Secret XXX). Minato’s pushed Shizuma away, hard, but quickly realizes that’s the opposite of what he actually wants.

At the beginning of volume 2, Shizuma has disappeared. He’s not answering his phone, none of his university friends know where he is but, to Minato’s surprise, they pitch in to help find him. Even Yuka, Shizuma’s (female) cheating ex uses a tracer app she installed on his phone when they started dating (creepy). At Mito’s encouragement, Shizuma has travelled to the brothers’ hometown, hoping that bringing back some pictures to Minato will cheer him up. Minato chases him down, it starts to rain, painful origin stories are shared inside of a pillow fort… other things are shared…

Okay, let’s get the sex out of the way. Even more than Secret XXX or volume 1 this is full tilt, dick-in-ass, uncensored buttfucking. And it’s glorious. Hinohara is a next level artist and on top of the art being gorgeous and super sexy it also feels real, which is a high bar for manga that so often feels like artist learned about anal from… other manga. No… you could not go in dry like that without… tearing…

But that extends into the story and relationship at the centre of the series. More than any other manga I’ve read this year Shizuma and Minato’s relationship feels full, well-rounded, interesting, dynamic. Real. There’s give and take, there’s compromises, there’s insecurities. At the same time it feels well balanced within the story. There’s drama, but it doesn’t feel melodramatic. There’s affection and sex, sure, but it doesn’t feel cheesy or like its only in there to be hot (though it is).

The thing I was most worried about with this entire series is the family backstory of Minato and Mito. We learned in Secret XXX that their father slept with another man, driving their emotionally cold mother to kill herself. The truth is even more overwrought than that, which we learn in volume 2. In Secret XXX this felt dark and jarring in an otherwise relatively light and fluffy story–not a dealbreaker, but a strange choice, leaning on some pretty crappy tropes; the sneaky, cheating homosexual husband living a lie, the unstable, neurotic mother driven to madness, etc.

In Therapy Game it works because its actually the centre of why Minato is so afraid of intimacy, why its easier to push people away. Is it over the top? Sure. But does it work within the story? Absolutely. Minato fears becoming his mother. In a lot of ways he’s very like her, possessive and volatile, but its a joy to watch that untangled and engaged with, instead of it just being the reason he’s an awful person. He has remorse about the bad things that he does, he knows a lot of his negative feelings are entirely internal, and he wants to change, even if he struggles with it. It’s fascinating, and very human.

If you, like me, enjoyed Secret XXX and loved Therapy Game Vol. 1, this will be the conclusion(?) you hoped for. Sweet, romantic, satisfying, sexy, kinky, with all your favourite returning characters and a couple of new ones–Minato’s former lovers who show up to instigate Minato and Shizuma reconciling, while also fawning all over Shizuma. (Here’s hoping for a spinoff foursome.)

Hinohara hints that there’s the possibility of a sequel, or maybe yet another spinoff with different characters. As a dedicated Therapy Game fanboy, I only hope we get the chance to jump back into to her amazing characters… And out, and in again…

Level of Problematic: Human over evil homo; volume 2 resolved a lot of the issues I had with Mito’s family storyline in Secret XXX. Probably should have just been saved for this one, but oh well! Also, even at the end Minato’s intense, scary possessiveness is still a bit much… but very manga.

Level of Adorable: Post-coital pillow fort cuddling; just fuck me up.

Level of Spiciness: Pre-post-coital pillow fort fucking; ditto.