#AND STILL SURVIVED LIGHT

[cruelplatonic]

my personal headcanon is the vees were unremarkable nobodies when they were alive. i just love it as a thematic throughline for them. they love to let the public of hell speculate on them being famed and acclaimed since before death, but the the truth is they were a d-list failed influencer that got by on cheap controversey and scamming, a broke junkie who burned every shaky bridge he ever had, and a worn-out broadcast production assistant with more rejected auditions and tossed out script pitches than he could count. nobody missed them when they were gone, nobody cared who they were until they were dead.

[silverfoxstole]

A few of the photos from the Paul and India interview in this month’s DWM, plus a couple of snippets:

[gods-perfect-idiots]

something something blood-soaked hands cradling your face something something

anyway here's the post btw

[onaperduamedee]

As a character, Lan is defined by lack of agency.

He was born to be king, but his nation dies out and he becomes the living embodiment of a lost people. New Spring shows that people keep on projecting ambitions on him, expecting him to rebuild Malkier or at least to uphold its culture. To him, the only escape is a futile death in the name of his nation, not even for himself.

Over the course of the books, his character is shown to be rather passive: Moiraine deprives him of his agency by compelling him to live, he is bonded by force to Myrelle, Egwene orders him to go to Nynaeve and Nynaeve herself has to trick him to distract from again dying a futile death in the name of his nation. 

Even his mentoring of Rand is presented by himself as a consequence of Rand's ta'veren pull rather than assertion. Now, this might not be what is actually happening because we see that Lan does disagree with Moiraine's course of actions on other occasions, but that's how he argues in this instance: he's explaining away an attempt to seize agency by saying he in fact wasn't completely in control. According to Lan himself, he is not in control in his own life and he shouldn't be.

So his story is fraught with characters denying his agency. When Nynaeve tricks him, not once but twice, to get him to not die alone in the Blight, with the baggage he has with Moiraine, the fact that it's business as usual for Lan is frustrating for the reader who hoped that at least Nynaeve would be more respectful of his agency. Yet it is consistent for his character to accept that this is how people who care about him (or don't) will treat him because that's what he got with Edeyn, Moiraine, Myrelle, even Bukama to some degree. Obviously, all of these violations do not happen on the same level but these instances are still denial of his agency.

The question as to why he seems to be so accepting of this repeated transgression is not really explored in the books but the reason can be easily inferred: trauma from losing his family and people so young, from being burdened with carrying the memory of a dead nation since infancy (he's described like a memorial more than a person), from embarking on a lifelong rather hopeless journey with Moiraine, from war, naturally. It is what makes him a compelling character, albeit a frustratingly static one.

He changes very little from the beginning to the end of the story, if one considers the beginning to be New Spring. He started the story by wanting to ride into the Blight to die and ended up the story by riding into a fight against Demandred (I have to stop calling him Demi in my head) to die. The tension of his story, for me, is that no matter how much Nynaeve sparks hope in him and even desire for a future, trauma is incredibly strong a pull and will draw him toward seeking death nevertheless. 

There's a sort of nihilism to his character, a death drive, that's consistent with his baggage as a war veteran and trauma victim. It's not far-fetched to read his arc as an exploration of the fact that love (Nynaeve) and duty (toward Malkier and Moiraine) aren't enough to heal and survive on his own.

That's why the culmination of Lan's arc, for me, isn't when he rides to Tarwin Gap or fights Demandred (because it's the same old death drive disguised as abnegation), or even when he dons Malkier's crown (because it has been his responsibility from birth), but when Agelmar calls him selfish: 

« Lan stopped, eyeing the aged general. “Take care, Lord Agelmar. It almost sounds as if you are calling me selfish.”

“I am, Lan,” Agelmar said. “And you are.”

Lan did not flinch.

“You came to throw your life away for Malkier. That, in itself, is noble. However, with the Last Battle upon us, it’s also stupid. We need you. Men will die because of your stubbornness.” »

[...]

« Some men,” Agelmar said, “are destined to die, and they fear it. Others are destined to live, and to lead, and they find it a burden. If you wished to keep fighting here until the last man fell, you could do it, and they’d die singing the glory of the fight. Or, you could do what we both need to do. » - A Memory Of Light, Brandon Sanderson.

Agelmar calls Lan selfish because, like Tenobia, Lan is wriggling out of duty toward his people by seeking a heroic death, but Agelmar is mainly challenging the notion Lan has been touting as his mantra for decades: "Death is lighter than a feather, Duty heavier than a mountain".

What Agelmar is implying is that Lan has been misinterpreting this saying to justify evading his responsibilities. Agelmar refers to his responsibility toward Malkier and the world as his duty; Lan sees his long pursuit of death (for Malkier in the Blight, for the DR with Moiraine) as his duty. Dying for the cause was the goal - in his mind it is what he can offer and what Agelmar is pointing out. It's less about being selfish and more about Lan being self-destructive. His war against the shadow is a war against himself.

It isn't exactly a revelation for him because although Lan is shaken by Agelmar's words he later rides into battle to die at the hands of Demandred, with Agelmar and all the other generals out of commission. 

What is interesting narratiely is that at this point Lan gets exactly what he wants: at last no one is stopping him to ride and die into battle. He gets to be only a man, not the herald of a dead nation, a man who can die at that. Yet, death denies him and he survives, somehow.

We don't know exactly why and how he survives the death blows Demandred deals to him. It could be that the Wheel needed him alive so he survived when so many died (in New Spring, Lan is a target for the shadow because he is suspiciously lucky), it could be that Demandred was just a man himself after all and Rand's sealing the DO (with Moiraine and Nynaeve) happened just in the nick of time for Demandred to be stopped from re-ascending to more.

The narrative treats the why as of no importance: Lan is forced to live, yet again, except by the Wheel itself. The natural follow-up is that he will live, he will reclaim Malkier, he will grow old with Nynaeve. His crowning moment with Nynaeve at his side is presented at the end as a fait accompli, as the obvious next step in his survival.

But I cannot help finding this conclusion to his arc inordinately sad. He didn't choose life. He didn't choose Malkier. He chose Nynaeve but tragically it wasn't enough to get him to choose living: it isn't before the very end that he sees Nynaeve as more than a widow. And even then, there's a discrepancy between his thoughts and actions: he can envision a future with her, yet he doesn't make the decisions that could spare him.

One could argue that he chose future by giving the Aes Sedai a chance of success in going against Demandred, but fighting Demandred IS a senseless and desperate decision only leading to death because it's how Gawyn and Galad's fight against him is described as. Lan went in expecting to die, knowing he would deprive his people of a leader and Nynaeve of a husband and warder (just as Gawyn dying right in the middle of battle is a selfish act in regards to Egwene, Lan doing the same to Nynaeve is just as selfish). He chose death, again and again, and it was denied him. 

When I think of Lan, I cannot help going back to Verlaine's famous poem about Kaspar Hauser, here translated by Peter Low (https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=136604)

I came, a calm orphan,

with no wealth but my peaceful eyes,

among the men of the cities:

they did not find me clever.

At age twenty a new turmoil

- it is known as amorous flames -

made me find women beautiful:

they did not find me handsome.

Though lacking a homeland or king

and not being very brave,

I wanted to go to war and die:

death didn't want me.

Was I born too early or too late?

What am I doing in this world?

Listen, all of you, I am in deep sorrow:

say a prayer for poor Gaspard.

I see little triumph in him surviving the Last Battle as he remained passive to the very end, carried by the Wheel and what it had planned for him, relentlessly pushed to seeking death and clinging whatever reason he could muster to justify to himself dying nobly (Malkier, Moiraine, the Dragon, etc...). He's fundamentally adrift long before meeting Moiraine and the journey to Merrilor did nothing to ground him.

More than the technicalities of rebuilding a nation that's been buried for 40 years, I'm fascinated by what life, a simple, quiet life with his wife and friends, would do to a man like Lan: he spent his life replacing one reason to die with another and although Nynaeve and a nation to rebuild can be a reason to live it wasn't enough before the Last Battle, which left him probably more traumatised. 

What does life look like to Lan? Is he prepared to experience it and more importantly to be an actor in it rather than an object? I'm not sure the books could have provided an answer because veteran's mental health is a delicate matter and the therapy Ajah isn't really a thing in the books but the conclusion of his arc on his surviving as a punishment almost is worth interrogating.

[canisalbus]

like maybe 2014 or 2015, were you active on instagram? maybe I'm confusing you with someone else and the art styles are blurring together, but i remember liking (assumadly your) art a lot, its what got me to take art a little bit more seriously.

I also remember you seemed to be in a bad place mentally, and I wasn't really sure what happened to you because one way or another I stopped using instagram and couldnt remember your username (it probably changed or I had been misremembering it).

i'm not doing well right now, and i guess recognizing your art as someone i saw around a really long time ago gave me hope for the future in a way? i'm glad you're here? if youre not the same person then this is probably very confusing, and i'm sorry. cheers.

Thank you for leaving me a message! Sorry I'm answering it about three months late.

Maybe you're thinking of someone else but it could've been me as well. I have an instagram (username kalpeakoira) but I keep failing to update it. I just really dislike how it works as a platform and what it does to people, I check in once in a while but every time it feels like I'm slowly getting radiation poisoning from it.

I'm sorry to hear you're going through a rough time, I sincerely hope you still happen to see this response and that you're doing better now than you were months ago. Wishing you all the best!

[biblically-accurate-dca]

KILL!!!!!!!!!

[unordinaries]

presented without comment

(chapters 280 + 344)

[twentyonefirstmates]

Anyway oldies station is the most beautiful song ever written sorry I don't make the rules

[dykeredhood]

The Terror high school AU where the rowing crew’s 2 charter busses break down in the middle of nowhere on their way to a regatta

Thomas Jopson is referred to as TJ or just Teej

[cak31ssuperi04]

Henna not being back in any capacity in the second Mariposa movie gives me two impressions:

1). untapped potential for a 3rd movie where we get Henna reformation or some such.

2).

Mariposa: I wonder how Henna's doing out there.

Willa: ..... what if she's dead 😧

Mariposa: 😨

Honestly it's entirely possible that she IS dead; a lot of her control over the Skeezites hinged on the promise of invading Flutterfield, and we can see their patience wearing thin throughout the movie. It's possible her failure to follow through would be the final straw, and that her lights would only be able to carry her so far when her entire army is against her. I do like the potential for another sequel to tie up that loose end though, in no small part because "dramatic revenge declaration followed by offscreen death that's never mentioned" is just kind of anticlimactic. Even if it's been a decade and that ship has sailed at this point. We could've had it all. Two fairy trilogies. Also consider: The Skeezites don't seem to be a threat--or even present at all-- in Fairy Princess. They're not once brought up unless in past tense. Regellius brings up Flutterfield defeating them when that's not necessarily how it happens in the first movie(which she does point out but focuses more on the method than the outcome so it's still unclear). Yeah they succeed in driving them off, but if Mariposa's quest or the fact that they've been terrorizing the kingdom for centuries says anything, it's that there are probably way more hanging around than Henna's immediate army. I'm imagining a midquel where she manages to get the Skeezites to hold out for a little longer so she can get her Revenge Plan in, and Flutterfield deals with them for good.

[dolores-slay]

My Tav: Did you really need to eat criminals' brains to survive?

Emperor: better I ate criminals than a potential ally such as yourself

My (Baldurian Criminal Backround) Tav: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[5a-alf]

I struggle to write impulsivity, probably because I myself am the least impulsive person you can imagine. The thing is.

HALF OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING CHARACTERS ARE IMPULSIVE.

What do you mean you do not spend time with your internal monologue before doing something. What do you mean you just do the thing. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE.

Also like,, how do you work on being a better person without thinking about what you are doing all the time?

[kurozu501]

the thing that really bothers me about the whole demon racism thing in Frieren is the extremely heavy handed flashback we get justifying Frieren's prejudice. its a whole ridiculous series of events that make no sense. Felt like some gross propaganda.

Lemme break it down real fast: in the past Frieren and her pals came to a town where a demon in the shape of a young girl attacked and killed a child. They defeated it in battle, but Himmel was hesitant to kill it because it looked like a kid and called out 'mother.' The village chief then comes in and says that killing the demon will make them just as bad as them, and that they should offer her a chance at redemption. Some time passes with the demon girl living with the chief and his daughter peacefully before suddenly one night she kills the chief. She presents the chief's unconscious daughter to the parents of the girl she killed saying she wanted to get them a replacement child. Himmel and Frieren kill her, Fireren explains that demons don't even have families so her calling out 'mother' was just a manipulation tactic. which the dying demon girl confirms is correct.

So,

2 things

Why the fuck did the chief come in saying they had to give the demon a chance when she'd already murdered someone? Why was everyone besides Frieren and the dead kids parents just cool with letting a child murderer get off scott free and walk around their town with no consequences? Generally we don't even let human child murderers do that, so its frankly bizarre. If you want to prove demons are fundamentally evil wouldn't it make more sense to start with a demon who hasn't yet committed any crime? Then the chief sticking up for it would feel logical. Whole thing makes no sense except to demonize (lol) the very concept of redemption. No you stupid fucking idiot you should have used extreme violence and murder every time always. its always justified, learn your lesson kids and if you see one of the Evil Races walking around remember its always ok to lynch them.

What the fuck is the demon child doing here? Her actions make no sense. Frieren says that demons are basically just intelligent predators, that they only use speech and social customs to manipulate humans and prey on them. So why on earth did the demon kid murder the chief while Himmel and squad were still in town? Why'd she have a weird fixation on getting the parents a new kid? Almost as if she was trying to make up for what she'd done to them in a twisted way, as if she felt bad? This seems to imply the opposite of what Frieren said. While watching i assumed what would happen is that Frieren would tell Himmel and the group that they should pretend to leave the village, then double back whereupon they'd find the demon going on a rampage again, since she would assume its now safe to do so with them gone. i assumed that because it would make sense. but nah. instead we get this really nonsensical series of events that clearly exists only to prove frieren's bigotry right. Demon girl is so ridiculous she literally uses her last words to be like "btw this lady who killed me was right you should never trust filthy demons like meeee." Give me a break.

[oatmealdaydreams]

Everything is the same except the Memory Gun doesn't get destroyed like it does in the canonical finale. This means it's still around to tempt Fiddleford, cause problems, and even have the potential for a new and more malicious force to use it against people...

Anyway: may I present to y'all the Memory Survival AU, which may get a drabble soon if I can just freakin' write it.

[koifrog]

.

[electoons]

another day another taco bell drive thru murder-suicide