OH WAIT COOL SHE ALREADY WENT AND YOINKED HIS SPERM WITHOUT ASKING, THAT’S NOT A CREEPY BODILY VIOLATION AT ALLpic.twitter.com/NAUpp8yX9U
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I’m not sure how old Damia is now; she’s at least 18 or 19 and there hasn’t been a stated timeskip, but her younger brother by two years is married with a new baby, so either he’s a teen dad or she’s 20ish. Either way: she’s an adult, but I still
at the origins for her & Afra.pic.twitter.com/4OVU9uDOUQ
Adult Damia is now trying to psychically bone an unknown alien, so naturally her brother is like, “Why can’t she just bone the dude who practically raised her?”pic.twitter.com/GpPPKPaI6o
In the wake of tragedy, Damia has suddenly realised that Afra Is A Man, Actually, and therefore what she’s been looking for.pic.twitter.com/MyEwZb21yp
So Afra is basically 25 years older than Damia: depending on HER current age (WHY CAN THIS BOOK NOT JUST TELL US CLEARLY HOW OLD EVERYONE IS, THE TIMESKIPS MAKE IT RELEVANT) that means they’re somewhere between 18/43 and 20/45 as a pairing. Which -pic.twitter.com/zleEOpDVva
- to be clear, if they’d met as adults, I’d not especially care about: it’s skeevy because of all the goddamn detail put into showing us how Damia loved Afra as a baby and vice versa, and using adult words like “coy” and “beguiling” to describe how she looked AS A CHILD.
I could even maybe - maybe! - make an exception for a childhood family friend seen anew in adulthood, without all the other stuff. But the whole book through Damia’s childhood is meant to foreshadow their Special Bond, and how Afra waits for her, and how she always wanted him.
One thing that did make me frown as a teen reader is how easily the family monopoly in the psychic business is dismissed here. It’s a literal genetic dynasty very openly based on breeding for Talentee successors! This is perhaps not ideal!!pic.twitter.com/QznNWv1mZH
Fully shuddering at the phrase “ripening sexuality,” but also noting that the seven years mentioned means that Damia is now 23, which makes Afra 48. THESE ARE RELEVANT DETAILS, BOOK!pic.twitter.com/9PBaqkuAXa
Hmm, yes, why would Damia’s father object to his wife’s former almost-lover shacking up with their daughter, especially in the wake of a major trauma!! No red flags on that play at ALLpic.twitter.com/FvyFDG8BXL
And just like that, Everyone Is Cool With It, and also more aliens have shown up.pic.twitter.com/iVEiPyvgxT
And so we hit the last page with Damia pregnant by surprise rather than design, because apparently no one in the future keeps track of birth control. THE END. Good LORD.pic.twitter.com/oeeJo5X9e3
IT IS DONE, I CANNOT BELIEVE I'VE SPENT *FOUR FUCKING HOURS* DOING THIS, OH MY GOD. why. why did none of you stop me. why do I make these choices. WHY AM I LIKE THIS.
Final notes: as with Pegasus, it's maddening to see the shape of why I liked the book so much as a teen. The pacing and (non-skeevy romance) plotting are great, and there's something really compelling about the overarching generational saga that McCaffrey is doing here.
As a teen, I remember being impressed at her ability to make the Rowan so flawed and yet to still root for her; to create this big, complicated family where the siblings don't all like each other and have different, complex relationships with their parents & other relatives -
- and even on a skimthrough now, those strengths still hold true. The Rowan's desire for a big family after a lonely childhood doesn't prepare her for the difficulties of multiple pregnancies & all the challenges of rearing those kids while working; it's real and complicated.
That she suffers pregnancy complications and makes the difficult but positive decision to have her children largely raised and fostered with loving family on-planet? That the narrative doesn't shame her for this, but reinforces that it was a good decision? Those aspects are SOLID
But every. single. time. that gender, sex and sexuality come up, McCaffrey just. she's just fuckin' WEIRD about it, you guys, and it's SO FUCKING UNSETTLING. The little asides about Larak finding his sister fuckable! Calling partners "mates" and the talk about breeding! W H Y
Prior to this, given that the book is called Damia, I'd completely forgotten that it starts with Afra and is mostly told in his 3rd person POV - I'd just assumed those elements were all from the first book in the series. And to a degree, the book IS about Damia -
- but not as her own person. It's about how she comes to exist FOR AFRA: about how HE gets his happy ending, when we ended the first book watching him lovelorn while the Rowan goes off with Jeff. Damia isn't about Damia; it's about how Afra GETS Damia, and in that context -
- the decision to show their "special bond" through her childhood is just... I'm not *quite* gonna call it grooming, on account of how he ignores her advances until she's a legal adult and she has a healthy sex life beyond him prior to that, but it's... it feels really creepy.
Like. Narratively, when you know where they're headed, it comes across like "somehow as a child she Knew this adult man would one day be her husband and she was Into Him as soon as she hit puberty, but he nobly waited while she went through her rebellious phase to make it Cool."
Even so - and this is a LOW FUCKIN BAR to leap - the Afra/Damia relationship is still WAY less skeevy than the setup for Tirla/Sascha in Pegasus in Flight, wherein Tirla is TWELVE YEARS OLD BUT LOOKS SEVEN, and the justification is "oh but she'll be ripe enough for him at 16."
A glance at my bookshelves reveals that I still have copies of the next two books in the series, Damia's Children and Lyon's Pride. You guys... I am. I am tempted, because I am a masochist. But I do not think that I should.
I remember very little of the rest of the series beyond 1) Damia and Afra go on to have, like, eight children, 2) there are lil blue furry aliens and 3) one of Damia's daughters bones a gay man and turns him straight with the power of Compulsory Hetetosexual Romance.
I will... consider skimcritting the Gay Man Turns Straight book, if I can remember which one it is, and assuming it's one of the ones I already own. But goddamn. I am TIRED. I am gonna go read something now for pleasure, that doesn't make me want to bleach my eyes. good NIGHT
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