#bc I’m the middle child of three but like. come on. I KNOW Fitz was biased against Regal (FAIR) in his narration

[spending-life-pretending]

Just remembered that one scene in Assassin’s Apprentice where baby Fitz runs into Verity and Regal on the road and they think he’s Chiv’s ghost for a second. Now granted I don’t have the book in front of me so maybe there’s more context…but how the fuck was that interaction going before Fitz showed up? Was Regal being ominous and evil or were they just…chilling?? Did Verity view him as a threat, or was he just his baby brother? Wasn’t Regal like. Fifteen. Farseer brothers…reveal the intricacies of your dynamics to me.

[infinitestarsintheskye]

The Lady and the Chauffeur Name Thing

So at the end of my LAST installment of my FS Downton Abbey AU, Christmas at the Abbey, I promised that if ONE person wanted an explanation of the many new names that popped up I would write it. Well many weeks ago now the lovely @valentinaonthemoon asked for such a list, and I am a woman of my word, even if I completely forgot about and only remembered about it just now. I’m going to pop it under a read more bc it is going to get LONG  and also contain ALL OF THE SPOILERS for that series. 

OKAY SO

We’ll do this in birth order I think. Nicknames are in () 

Eilidh May FitzSimmons, born December 12th 1919 - The first of the many babies!! As many of you will know if you have been following me for a while, Eilidh May was, pre-finale of course, my utter ride or die name for baby girl Fitzsimmons. I think I have like three or four fics with this particular name in it, I loved it so much. Eilidh is the Scottish variation of Helen, and means sun-ray, which ugh wouldn’t that just be so perfect for a little FitzSimmons baby. I was just utterly in love with the idea of FS giving their baby a Scottish name (as you will see in the NEXT FS baby) and the fact that this had a space/star/sun/celestial twist to it just absolutely SOLD IT for me. I should add, for all my non-scottish followers that Eilidh is pronounced Ay-Lee. I have no idea how gaelic pronunciation works, I just know how to say it.  Her middle name, May, doesn’t need much explanation. I just loved the idea of them giving their little girl a middle name after someone on the team. 

George (Georgie) Lincoln Campbell, born 2nd October 1921 - Okay ngl, I got real lazy with this name. Mary and Matthew’s (who Daisy and Lincoln were in the place of in this fic) son was also named George, and I liked it, I thought it would be cute if he was called Georgie, as a bit of a variation. His middle name comes from his father, obvi, who, in keeping with BOTH canons (the noise I made when I figured out I could do that I swear. I’m so sorry Lincoln it was just far too good an opportunity to pass up), I killed off on the day he was born. My apologies. 

Hamish Phillip FitzSimmons, born 6th January 1922 - Oh this name. A lot of people REALLY don’t like this name, which is fine. As I said with Eilidh, I was really on a kick of giving FS babies Scottish names. I originally dismissed Hamish, and it just wouldn’t leave me alone, and just utterly grew on me. I actually went to school with a Hamish, he was a fair few years below me and he was just the tiniest, most adorable little toot! From what I can gather, Hamish is an anglicised version of Seamus or Seumus, which is the gaelic version of James, which is a very long and roundabout way of honouring Fitz’s middle name, but I still love having that connection. The middle name, Phillip, again, this name was a love of mine before this fic came about and it just seemed so natural to me that they would name their son after Coulson, and there was just no other name I liked so much with Hamish 

 Kathleen (Kathy) Skye FitzSimmons, born 30th May 1925 - I have no really grand explanation for this name, other than Kathleen is a special name to me, and I love using it in stories. It fit in well I thought with the 1920′s style of naming (yes I did that extensive googling) and as I say it is a very dear name to me and FitzSimmons are deserving of it. Skye, again, I’m just going through the checklist of names from the team. This was in NO WAY  a narcissistic naming, I promise, I just really think they’d give their child that as a middle name, as also this was my way of slipping a lil bit of Scottish into her name too. Just a smidge :)

 Hazel June Sousa, born 14th October 1926 - Oh Hazel. Hazel is just a name I really love. It is also the name of a dear friend of mine who I don’t get to see very often, and I just love it. Honestly I was just trying to find names that worked with the last name Sousa and Hazel just popped into my head. Again it works with 1920′s naming trends, (again with the googling) and yeah I just really love it. The middle name June comes from the fact that in this fic, Daisy and Sousa get married in the month of June. I thought that was a nice way of honouring their relationship, through their daughters name :)

Finley (Flint) Alphonso Mackenzie, born 28th May 1927 - So Mack and Elena adopting Flint is basically canon isn’t it??!?!? He is their son I will have no arguments. SO finding a name that Flint would work for as a nickname, bc lets be real no one was naming their child Flint in 1926, I had to find a roundabout way, was NOT EASY. I still have no idea how Flint could come from Finley, but it is close enough to make sense. By the time I got to Flint I had already named five children and was getting a bit lazy, and so his middle name is just the same as his fathers first name, which is still a very common middle name tactic. 

Emily Lorna FitzSimmons, born 12th October 1927 - Again, by the time I got to poor little Emily, I had named six children already. Emily I just like. Every Emily I have ever met has honestly been the nicest and sweetest person I have ever known. It has a good track record for me and it just sounds so nice with Fitzsimmons. Lorna, Lorna comes from my own personal headcanon for Fitz’s mum’s name, and so I think that’s where Lorna comes from, as a way of honouring Fitz’s mum.  It is also believed to derive from the name of the Scottish town Lorne, so snuck another bit of Scotland into baby FitzSimmons’s name :) 

Arthur (Archie) James FitzSimmons, born 14th August 1929 - If you all cast your minds back, at the very start of the Lady and the Chauffeur, I named Jemma’s dad, Lord Shieldshire, Arthur Simmons. So this was my way of honouring dear old Donk, but they call him Archie, just so he’s his own wee man. James, again, got a bit lazy, same middle name as Fitz. Also v Scottish name, we are 5/5 for Scottish baby FitzSimmons :)

Eve Margaret Sousa, born December 24th 1929 - Eve, well, she was born on Christmas Eve. I cast around for ages trying to find Christmasy names. She was Robyn for a little while, I considered Noel, but that felt a little too contemporary, so she was Eve! And yes, Margaret is my little wink to Agent Carter. I couldn’t help myself. 

Violet Faith Mackenzie, born 6th April 1930 - I actually had a lot of fun finding this name. I briefly considered calling her Hope, but no, that felt a little too on the nose for me. The name Violet comes from obviously the little purple flower, but the flower itself means hope, which I liked. Out of the three surnames, I feel like Mackenzie is the easiest out of all of them to find names for, (maybe it’s because I’m Scottish and know a fair few people with that Mac/Mc sound at the start of their surname) and I played around with a few possibilities, but honestly I just fell in love with Violet. Faith comes from the fact that faith is very important to both Mack and Elena and I wanted to consider that and honour that in the naming of their little girl. 

 Edward (Teddy) Donald FitzSimmons, born December 1st 1932 - The last (for real this time) little FitzSimmons baby of this verse. Blame Fitz being forever broody and Jemma just loving their babies so much, and also being an easy burst when it comes to Fitz and their babies. This name, boy oh boy, this name was HARD. Girls names for FitzSimmons babies, for some reason, easy as pie for me, I have a list as long as my arm of girls names I love for them. As for boys names, Hamish is the only one that has really stuck long term for me. All of the names I found for this poor wee boy that I liked were just a bit too modern, so I had to go searching again. I saw Edward, realised it could be shortened to Teddy and fell in LOVE. Only in this verse would I really get away with calling a baby Teddy so I took the chance and ran with it, and now little dark haired blue eyed Teddy FitzSimmons runs around rent free in my brain. His middle name, is not really obvious why I chose it at first glance. Again I struggled. I couldn’t really find any more Scottish names that I liked, or at least ones that i could give poor Simmons a fighting chance of pronouncing properly (Lachlan is still on my list and I have NEVER heard anyone not Scottish pronounce that first syllable properly). So Scottish was out, and so I went to my next mainstain of family names. And Deke or Enoch were the only two male names I hadn’t touched. Enoch was going to be impossible to find a link (trust me I tried) but DEKE, comes from a common nickname for Donald. So Donald he was. 

I hope you enjoyed this little (haha) list! I just love putting thought and meaning into names, and this kind of gives you a little glimpse into my naming process. Yes I know I will be a nightmare if I ever have children. That is a whole SEPARATE and ever changing and evolving list. 

[storiescrafted-a]

MUSE INFO   —   MELODY ‘MELLIE’ MARGARET GRANT.

formerly found at: politicalgenius.

triggers that may apply:  death,  loss,  grief,  child death,  depression,  alcoholism,  overdose,  attempted suicide,  sexual assault,  infidelity,  abuse.   to be expanded upon as i think of more but hi she deserves hugs and a break.  

all information outlined below is based in the latest possible information   (   though some still has to be updated as i rewatch   ),   and can vary by verse.  a lot of it is headcanon based,  and has developed over my time writing mellie,  because she deserves the world and this garbage show really only gave her pain and zero (0) friends / people she could trust.

NOTE:  mellie has views that not all will agree with or like.  these don’t reflect my own feelings,  thoughts,  or opinions,  and anything that may come up will simply be me attempting to stay true to who my girl is!

BORN:  melody margaret eaves*. PLACE OF BIRTH:  asheville,  north carolina. DATE OF BIRTH:  december 5th, 1966;  age  —  53. EYE COLOR:  blue. HAIR COLOR:  brown. PARENTS:  beau eaves  (father,  estranged)*.   evelyn baker eaves  (mother, deceased)*.   SIBLINGS:  harmony eaves  (half-sister,  somewhat estranged). SPOUSE:  fitzgerald ‘fitz’ thomas grant iii  (divorced). CHILDREN:  fitzgerald ‘jerry’ thomas grant iv  (deceased,  2014),   karen grant,   theodore wallace grant. EDUCATION:  harvard undergrad,  yale law. PAST OCCUPATIONS:  attorney,  first lady of california,  first lady of the united states,  junior senator from virginia. CURRENT OCCUPATION:  45th president of the united states. POLITICAL PARTY:  republican. SECRET SERVICE CODENAME:  foxtail. SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  she’s a lesbian, harold.

QUICK FACTS THAT MOST WOULD KNOW!

graduated top of her class from both harvard for her undergrad,  and from yale law.

former partner at a prestigious california law firm,  a job she gave up to help fitz get elected governor.

while mellie is a republican,  it’s been noted that she’s the most progressive republican president in over 100 years,  and is pro-lqbt+,  pro-immigration,  pro-choice,  and has notably pushed through legislation for stricter gun control,  and worked toward middle eastern peace.

tbh she’s only a republican bc fitz is and she for political and image reasons she had to match him.

wrote a ‘tell all’ book about her time as first lady,  though only bits of it were published in a ‘leak’ in an attempt to get her better footing as a presidential candidate.

was the first person to air information about fitz’s affair with olivia pope   (   though she didn’t leak olivia’s name   ).

ex-wife of 44th president of the united states,  fitzgerald ‘fitz’ grant iii.

once she filibustered for 16 hours on the eve of the christmas holidays to save planned parenthood bc a man told her not to / bc her convictions are so good and i love her.

her son,  jerry,  died during fitz’s second campaign and she spent three months in a deep depression,  where she was regularly attacked by the press for regularly visiting his grave in her pajamas.   *   this led to a stalwart fight both as a senator and as president to support mental health and discussions and destigmatization of as many aspects of mental illness as she’s able,  particularly as depression is something she’s dealt with her whole life.

she didn’t win the presidential election,  she lost to frankie vargas,  who was assassinated almost immediately after being announced as the winner.  mellie was elected by the electoral college over cyrus beene.

her chief of staff was initially olivia pope,  until mellie forced her to resign.

her original pick for vp was jake ballard,  who was blackmailed out of the position and replaced by frankie vargas’ widow,  luna.  luna died the evening of mellie’s inauguration and was replaced by cyrus beene.

olivia was replaced as chief of staff by jake ballard,  who tried to push mellie out of office with the aid of cyrus beene.

jake was later arrested and sent to a maximum security prison,  and cyrus was forced by olivia to resign as vp.

was under suspicion of plotting to kill cyrus beene while he was her vice president,  though this was found to be a plot by cyrus to unseat her and get his shot at the oval.

underwent impeachment hearings during her first year in office,  though they were later found to be under false pretenses presented by jake ballard.

i headcanon that she convinces susan ross,  who ran against her for president,  to come on as vp;  and abby whelan,  who worked previously as fitz’s chief of staff,  to come on as her chief of staff,  as cyrus resigned,  jake was imprisoned,  and olivia refused to come back on.   *   this all depends on plotting bc depending on who i’m writing with,  things here could easily change

also this isn’t necessarily crucial to mellie,  but david rosen definitely didn’t die and is helping mellie to restore her public image post impeachment-hearings thank u.

near the end of her presidency,  mellie does a press conference where comes out as a lesbian and announces proposed initiatives to improve lgbtq+ support nationwide,  and she works hard to implement them before her last term is up.

in her main verse,  post-presidency she moves to new york city to live with her best friend and fellow lesbian,  minerva allory  (@crimscnmalice),  and her friendship with min in general is included heavily in mellie’s main default verse and it’s not something that’s at all secret so people Know they’re best friends and it’s soft and cute and Fine.

FACTS THAT PRIVILEGED PEOPLE MIGHT KNOW!

her marriage to fitz was arranged for political benefit,  as mellie’s father came from old money so her name was ‘good’.

had an affair with former vice president andrew nichols.

was a part of the team that conspired to rig voting machines in defiance county, ohio in order to get fitz elected,  along with olivia pope,  verna thorton,  hollis doyle,  and cyrus beene   (   commonly referred to as ‘defiance’   ).

her son was murdered by a secret service agent under orders from olivia’s father,  rowan pope.

was in a flirtatious relationship with president farid rashad of bashran before he was killed by olivia pope via her b613   (   an underground spy organization,  now dismantled   )   resources.

she legitimately has mason jars of moonshine made by her family stashed around the white house and she’s a barely-functional alcoholic and needs hugs.

[greesngrass-archive-blog]

DOMINIC GREENGRASS is NEUTRAL in the war, even though HIS official job is as A MEMBER OF THE WIZENGAMOT. the TWENTY EIGHT year old PUREBLOOD is known to be DILIGENT and ASTUTE but also PRUDENT and DELIBERATELY IGNORANT. some might label them as THE JUDICIOUS fc: charlie cox

dominic tiberius greengrass is the youngest of three waaaaay too rich children

his mother, brigid, was an herbologist better known for her best selling books. the estate’s gardens and greenhouse are her life’s work and joy, and all three greengrass boys share fond memories of spending time with her in them, learning about it all even when they didn’t care, being forced to nurture pots of plants in hopes to turn them into responsible people. she still has a small army of handpicked herbologists and gardeners working for her, making her greenhouse and gardens a true paradise and place of research, and focuses on that mostly nowadays

roland greengrass, his father, left his position as chief warlock of the wizengamot three years ago, and has been working on a book ever since, yet to be finished. he’s been considering looking for a high position in some wizarding school, maybe ilvermorny, but has not made up his mind yet. he truly instilled in his children a sense of hard work, strict planning and following the law. oh, and he’s got an order of merlin, first class. quite the legacy to live up to.

the elder brother, sebastian, is a diplomat. the middle child, nathaniel, a well traveled herbologist, who owns his own research center. they are all very busy, and the oldest two already well married, with a few children. the three try to keep in touch, reuniting monthly at the main family estate for a weekend or so, and they also send each other letters?? cute

he’s so proud to be a greengrass all the time tbh like yeS I AM slightly better than u i am a greengrass pls

the greengrass family doesn’t have a history of joining extremist groups, but they are well integrated into pureblood high society, and a part of the sacred 28. they’ve always held positions of power and rivers of money, and are especially skilled in the art of arranged marriages, something that has made their ties to the rest of the wizarding society so much stronger. marrying a greengrass or into the greengrasses means a life of family protection, luscious estates and travels, a name of power and a spot in the lovely grey area between blood purists and blood traitor families, appeasing both sides just enough

it came as no surprise for him when, a couple of years ago, they started looking for someone. it’s been a long process, dom usually only involved when they needed a final yes or no, and he said lots of no’s until jacqueline showed up. a quick conversation, a dinner the next day, and the choice felt pretty easy. after all, worked for generations, why wouldn’t it work on him? so he’s now betrothed to jacqueline nott !!!!

so far it’s been A Gift honestly?? he?? has so much in common with her and it’s been so fun and niCE it’s something so calming and certain?? the future doesn’t seem as scary anymore??? help

he was always told to not get in the way of blood purists, but to not shun them away, and he still lives by that. ignores the war away, and never encourages the D.E.s (extremists are never a good thing). the only thing he follows is the law, as closely as possible 

he was sorted into slytherin but honestly the hat took a few extra minutes because it was almost a tie between that and hufflepuff. 

has retinitis pigmentosa, which pretty much means that he started losing some sight as a child, like the ability to adjust to different lighting or walking around at night, and tunnel vision, and gradually has been losing more and more of it (he was officially diagnosed when he was 12). as of right now, he barely has any left, so he’s legally blind (mostly just notices light, it’s reflections, flames). doesn’t talk about it. ignore ur problems awaaay

he truly is a fan of ignoring everything that’s serious when it comes to him. things are never really dealt with but shh

hogwarts is not the most disability-friendly school, although it’s improving but also, it was the 60s, so as his eyesight diminished the school’s measures weren’t really enough. he BROKE his right leg in 6th year in a moving staircase and the greengrasses immediately SUED the school, forcing it to rush improvement. his disability could never be a stop on his path, the greengrasses always made sure of it. 

but also, even if it’s the 60s and wizard society is very separated from muggle technology, there needs to be some stuff available for visually impaired people so i'm just gonna fill in all the gaps canon left - there is a spell that turns any writing into braille, another that turns braille typing into writing. both are very very advanced spells, and don’t always work 100%. 

uses muggle things like braille typewriters (they were still super nosy in the 60s-80s so his was charmed to not make a lot of it) and talking calculators. his parents got him a mobility instructor as soon as his diagnostic was made and his lack of vision was enough to justify it, aka someone who taught him how to adapt, how to move without crashing into things, how to properly use a cane. that greengrass money also paid for the best braille tutors possible, which he started learning right after his diagnostic since they knew it would only get worse. a braille tutor followed him to hogwarts during the school months too, coming in for a bit every day to keep helping him with braille and later on just to print over his work, made in braille, so that teachers could read it and mark it. eventually the tutor stopped coming, as he perfected the spell that turned his work into regular writing.

doesn’t care for the war. he greengrass especially are a family of rich well connected people who don’t engage in the most extreme views of the rest, so he was never raised with a specific hatred

ppl at school couldn’t make him develop that view either. he nodded along in order to not start shit and tried to dissuade them from the more intense stuff

never starts shit. so self aware of his words and what they’ll do

the Wise and Responsible friend

doesn’t let loose enough

dom’s great at charms?? his best subject tbh. 

will try to fix everything all the time???? always has. whenever a problem arises, he’s there, trying to make sure you don’t even need to think about it

he’s?? kind. he’s a kind person. he was always The Softer Friend, the one who gave silent hugs when all others did was act stoic, the one who never got any of the jokes and laughed for minutes after they were explained to him, the slightly socially awkward kind friend who had everyone’s backs but also gave them shit about their snobbier attitudes and mocked their speech patterns and was the jokingly asshole-ish slytherin friend you’d expect

has been rising the ranks inside of the ministry, usually in the offices nearer to the minister. just got a job at the wizengamot, being one of the youngest there !!

likes his job? quite a bit? he liked the administrative stuff before, and then the powerful political roles, but he finds the law much more interesting, and is very open about much needed reforms in the british magical judiciary system. he’s so far from the revolutionary type, he just wants,,,, soft changes. pls fix this broken system.

he’s also good at it?? homeboi gives Good Speeches when he needs to convince his fellow wizengamot ppl, and he always pays so much attention and notices tiny details and logic flaws, plotholes - u can’t escape dominic justice. 

people suspect he only has it because of his family’s influence, which kinda fucks him up mentally because he questions himself and his work and position in the world a lot. 

he loves music so much?? any type of music. muggle, wizard, british, international, even when he can’t understand the words. can often be seen dancing. it’s like awkward dad dancing but?? endearing. if he’s in a good mood, there’s loud music playing in his house and he’s grooving around

dom definitely enjoys the lavish lifestyle his family money and his own now can provide him. wears the best clothes, lives in an expensive but small house, enjoys his vacations in Style™, like my man has that greengrass trademark money and knows how to spend it

loves buying people gifts??? takes a long time picking them too

he’s the kind of person that would take in his friends in danger into his house and hide them, but have a serious lecture ready for them the next day. probably tell them they need to find somewhere else to stay since they’re there bc shady stuff. BUT HE’LL TAKE THEM IN

he’s alecto and amycus’s cousin?? how fun?? also somewhat related to the blacks and lestranges bc pureblood families?? all related lbr

parallels: randall pearson (this is us), george o'malley (grey’s anatomy), leo fitz (agents of shield), chloe decker (lucifer), simon lewis (shadowhunters), ravi chakrabarti (izombie)

[zani-is-a-stan]

Suzani reads AF: Chapter 3 - In The Mountains

All the other chapters: Prologue Chapter 1 - Bee Stings Chapter 2 - The Silver Touch

I’m reading AF and liveblogging my response. This is partly because RH’s books are so densely woven that I want to make sure I catch every detail I can on the first read. I pounded most of the other RotE books, and discovered an insane amount of details on my second and third read-throughs that I completely missed the first time. I’m also inventing reasons to slow down because i want to savor the fuck out of this book.

I will not be responding to any comments on these posts until I’ve finished the book - to save myself from spoilers.

And I just wrote a bunch of junk so that you could turn away before the spoilers in case you made it here by accident.

Spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk

Predictions based on chapter title: We’re in the mountains. -_-

Preface text: I don’t get this one. I don’t enjoy it either. Well ... I *get* it. Someone’s watching serpents hatch and capturing while an Other watches. I don’t like this at all. It’s bad news bears. AND it’s being done by a White wearing green and gold, colors we just learned were associated with Withywoods. Is it Beloved being so sinister? Is it Bee herself? Is it someone from a very long time ago? Is it metaphorical? Will Amber win over the keepers of the blue and gold dragons only to be turned on by Heeby and Rapskal? Is it a metaphor about how enslaving other will only lead to them turning on you and consuming them? The whole thing feels very ominous and I don’t want Heeby to eat Beloved. Or Beloved to enslave serpents.

Bee wakes up: You know, the first time I read a Bee-narrated chapter, I was angry and stressed about it. This wasn’t the Fitz book I was looking for! When the messenger turned our to be not Beloved, I was furious! I had skipped over RWC to go straight to the Fitz and the Fool books after Tawny man because I was so intoxicated with the OTP. The slow-downs and re-reads have forced me to appreciate the series from a perspective that incorporated more than just skimming the passages until I got to the next occurrence of the OTP being in the same room together. I’m really glad this change happened for me, for a few reasons. It allowed me a greater appreciation of what a true master of the craft Hobb is. It also allowed me to fall in love with all these other characters! Mostly Lant and Bee, but the rest of them too.

So I was really happy when this book opened with a scene of badass, 8-year-old Bee clobbering her kidnappers in the face with a club, and never ever giving up. She’s amazing. She’s inspiring. And give me another story of any genre where the true hero is a magic 8 year old girl ... and it’s as cool as this?

Dwalia and Alaria’s character progression: Dwalia’s coming across as more desperate and petty and cruel than she even did in the first chapter. I wonder where this is going to end up ... The closer we draw to her character, the worse of a person she is revealed to be. And Alaria is suddenly a threat, when before she might have been a character Bee could have turned into an ally. A petty, cruel threat. Dwalia is a person who hold the power of intimidation on those around her, and the people around haven’t yet figured out that there are more of them than her. AND we learn that Dwalia was perhaps in love with the Pale Woman, and this all was a revenge trip. This makes her even more dangerous, I think. I love the detail of her just assuming that the values of another culture (regarding Chalced and Kerf’s family) don’t matter, and she can manipulate any situation to get her way.

New names Symphe. Who is Symphe? Are they one of the four? Symphe might be french, but it popped up in an old english dictionary as part of a root word for the harmonious implications in the word ‘symphony’, and the ‘sym’ aspect as a root for the work ‘sympathy’. So ... someone often in agreement with others? Someone passive? A supporter? And then .... is it possible that Symphe picked the luriks she picked to accompany Dwalia to attempt to turn her away from Bee? Is it possible that Symphe is on ‘our’ side?

Also, this is a good time to bring up that the word ‘Kerf’ means ‘cut’.

Ilistore! The Pale Woman finally has a name! And uh-oh, some heavy implications with this one ... Ilistore sounds not unlike ‘illusion’ or ‘illusory’, which would make sense, as she used the Skill to blind people a lot. But what it really sounds like is ‘Alastair’ or ‘Alaster’ - which mean ‘defender of mankind’, ‘avenger of evil deeds’, 'he who does not forget', 'avenger', 'persecutor', 'tormenter’, 'one who suffers from divine vengeance'. So ... what if she was the actual right White Prophet after all? Obvi a sociopathic evil bitch, but ... what if she was also ... right?

Prillkop Oh man. I wanted so much for this dude to have been a bad guy luring Beloved back to Clerres instead of a good guy who’s probably dead now.

Bee’s Treasures In addition to Per’s hat and Molly’s candle, she now has Lady Thyme’s shawl. Taken of necessity, but still portentous? But Dwalia get the item that was Fitz’s. That’s probably not good, whatever it was. Bee’s First Kill Reppin’s slow death reminds me of the first time I read the scene in Assassin’s Quest where Fitz has to listen to a very young man cry in the road until he dies of the slow poison he had given him. The difference is, Fitz is somewhat tormented by the experience, even though it was the only way to save himself. Bee regrets, but with Nighteyes encouraging her, knew she did what she had to survive. Reppin, Alaria and Vindeliar God, these three are like watching middle school social dynamics play out in front of my eyes. Fucking ow. I really hope Vindeliar makes it out of this in one piece. It’s not his fault he’s been used like this and treated so badly. Important Plot Points I think (for now) that Symphe, Coultrie and Capra are all of the Four. Confirmation that Whites (at least Beloved) have multiple catalysts.

Hoo boy! So ... the Unexpected Sun’s victory is supposed to be absolute, and the recapturing of Beloved proves (to the Servants) that Fitz was not the Unexpected Sun. The reasoning for this is a key to understanding the way they think: victory is the destruction of their opponents. To lose any one aspect of a conflict is to negate any success. This is very different from Beloved’s approach of ‘one little ant at a time’. It shows their paranoia. It shows as well that they see themselves as in battle against something.

Beloved’s catalysts: an assassin (Fitz), a nine-fingered slave boy (Wintrow, who Amber completely missed out on any contact with until everything was over), a ship’s captain (could be Wintrow again ... could be Althea? even though she wasn’t technically a captain. I don’t think it’s Kennit, although it would make complete sense if it was given his historical significance. Wouldn’t it be a damn laugh if it was Grag?), a spoiled girl (Malta, duh), a noble bastard (Fitzy Fitz. Or ... Chade?)

Vindeliar had, or has a sister.

Beloved probably didn’t escape, but was deliberately released. Seems likely. He was a fucking mess, not a Shawshank.

DUDE! The White that Beloved one was is TOTALLY singing through time at Bee! Is she also trying to manipulate Kerf? Did she push him to do what he did? It’s basically because of him that they go through the pillar as they do. When he says “Darker than Death” .... what does he mean? The blood? Bee?

“So, I had that.” THIS IS MY FAVORITE LINE SO FAR!

Dreams Alaria dreams the destroyer (currently being assumed by me to be Fitz) brings foul fumes and death. An acorn (currently being assumed by me to be Bee) is taken inside what I assume is Clerres and becomes the destroyer. Bee mentions the dream from Fool’s Assasin with the puppet with an acorn head, being wielded by what I had assumed was Beloved. I’m going to go back and look at that one again - I had a hard time with it the first time around bc, much like the dream in the beginning of this chapter, it implied that Beloved was a Bad Guy. Reppin dreams that destruction comes (and for her, it does sooner than others.) Vindeliar dreams what seems to be poiting us to the same concept - Bee is brought to Clerres, is ‘opened’ or ‘crushed’ and that triggers a big destruction.

You know, when Hobb really pushes me to expect a certain outcome of a situation, i just don’t know if I believe her.

Bee holds a torch under a wasps nest at a crossroads (could be where they are now, with Dwalia being the wasp’s nest.) I like this theory because it ties in beautifully with Kerf’s assertion that killing for no reason will harm Bee if she does it, but won’t harm Dwalia if she does it, by comparing Dwalia to a wasp. As Nighteyes said in Fool’s Errand of Fitz.

A scarred girl weeps with Nettle while they hold a baby. Is the scarred girl Nettle’s unborn baby, changed from her contact with Tintaglia? Is Bee the scarred girl, and the baby her niece? Will be she back home in time for Nettle’s child to be born? A man burns porridge, (no idea on this one) the wolfpack (the Farseers?)howls in despair. The blackness of the destruction is acid, and brings down dragons, destroying their wings.

**There is a thing that only Bee can do!**

And at the end of it all, Bee cries out to her father. Because she loves and needs him --- but will it be a Skill call?