Femslash February Challenge: Day 3
Feb. 3rd, 2021 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flo_neljaDay 3 of female-centered stories with canon wlws!
Farewell, my queen (in English) / Les adieux à la reine (en français) by Benoît Jacquot
Length: One movie, 1h40
Happy ending or not? Given the historical context, no, of course (we don't see any death though)
Who is the wlw? Sidonie has a crush on queen Marie-Antoinette, who has an affair with her best friend Gabrielle de Polignac.
Is there other representation? Not really. Though working-class representation in a movie about the royal court is rare enough.
Warnings? Nudity, unhealthy relationships, court manipulation some violence in the background.
What about the plot? Sidonie is a servant in Versailles. She deeply loves her queen and is happy to be the one who read her books, who can have personal conversations with her. But the French revolution is happening...
How good it is? The historical writing is good! And the love triangle just as poisonous as I love them, even if it's a matter of tastes.
I really love how the movie shows that Sidonie is fully devoted to her queen, without making it either a political moral failing or something Marie-Antoinette deserves. The power dynamics between royalty and servants is very well done to me. I also love all the pining, of course. Marie-Antoinette is not a good person neither a bad one, but she is emotionally deep, and clever. Some people suggested that writing her as in love with Polignac was giving credit to some sexist political pamphlet, but I don't see it like thiat, since her love is written as deep and not as superficial debauchery at all.
And the actresses are all good.
Length: One movie, 1h40
Happy ending or not? Given the historical context, no, of course (we don't see any death though)
Who is the wlw? Sidonie has a crush on queen Marie-Antoinette, who has an affair with her best friend Gabrielle de Polignac.
Is there other representation? Not really. Though working-class representation in a movie about the royal court is rare enough.
Warnings? Nudity, unhealthy relationships, court manipulation some violence in the background.
What about the plot? Sidonie is a servant in Versailles. She deeply loves her queen and is happy to be the one who read her books, who can have personal conversations with her. But the French revolution is happening...
How good it is? The historical writing is good! And the love triangle just as poisonous as I love them, even if it's a matter of tastes.
I really love how the movie shows that Sidonie is fully devoted to her queen, without making it either a political moral failing or something Marie-Antoinette deserves. The power dynamics between royalty and servants is very well done to me. I also love all the pining, of course. Marie-Antoinette is not a good person neither a bad one, but she is emotionally deep, and clever. Some people suggested that writing her as in love with Polignac was giving credit to some sexist political pamphlet, but I don't see it like thiat, since her love is written as deep and not as superficial debauchery at all.
And the actresses are all good.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-04 07:41 pm (UTC)I am loving all your femslash recs! It's not always easy to find good f/f content, but everything you have recced recently is unknown to me :)
no subject
Date: 2021-02-04 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-09 07:59 pm (UTC)The novel Proper English by KJ Charles is a big favourite of mine.
I recently read That Could Be Enough, by Alyssa Cole - the plot is a bit cliché, but very sweet.
Olivia Waite has some good novels too.
(These are all historical romance.)
no subject
Date: 2021-02-09 08:05 pm (UTC)What are the stories in these ones?
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Date: 2021-02-16 10:54 pm (UTC)Yes, unfortunately this is KJ Charles' only f/f novel, I think.
"That Could Be Enough" is the very standard "girl meets girl, some misunderstandings keep them apart, but they have a happy ending" plot, but it was memorable because it is between two working-class women, which is pretty rare.
The KJ Charles one is a great country-house mystery plot where the characters fall in love while trying to solve a murder.
I also really like "The Strange Case of the Starship Iris", a podcast set in space where the f/f relationship is quite prominent in the story. (It is an ongoing show, so I'm not sure how the relationship will play out, but I don't really think it will be an unhappy ending...)
Also very much like the character Lily Wright from the podcast King Falls AM (comedy/horror podcast) but she only appears in the later seasons, and her various crushes on women and her eventual relationship are only background plotpoints, so I would not recommend it to anyone specifically looking for wlw rep.
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Date: 2021-02-17 07:40 am (UTC)And also, murder mystery + f/f romance seems like a perfect mix for me!
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Date: 2021-02-17 06:12 pm (UTC)I should clarify that King Falls AM is definitely not women-centric. Rather the opposite! (Except a handful of episodes centred on Lily.)