#elyan the forsaken

[deimcs]

A LETTER FOUND IN THE POCKETS OF A DEAD THUG, THE PAGES ARE OUT OF ORDER AND STINK OF CHEAP WINE —

He is one of my best fighters, by Mystra’s tits, I want him back! And I don’t have to remind you that this is not the only reason why it is in our best interest to keep the lad away from civilization and well within our reach, where he can fatten our purses and keep the competition in check. Do not write back until you have news of him. I don’t care if you have to search the whole damn coast and turn every fucking stone you see on your path. Loudwater was a bust, but I know for a fact that snake hasn’t slithered back into the forest, too much of a scaredy-cat still. You saw what it took to beat all that dainty woodland shit out of him, he knows he can't go back to that life now. This is why he will be back with my chains around his pretty neck before long. Go west to Waterdeep and stay sharp, a storm is gathering on the horizon.

[orbit-of-eternity]

The Fires of Hevean Final Update

*Spilers Abound*

My girl Nynaeve out here and defeated Moghedian AGAIN. I'm loving this anime rivalry.

Asmodean is going to get his soon. Sorry not sorry.

Moraine just tackled Lanfear into that other dimension. This is why you need someone for your blind side! Always listen to Sandra Bullock (/uj maybe not in that movie).

Rand really went on a rampage here huh. He's just like "ok we are hitting here and here to kill these Forsaken before lunch". Take a BREATHER my guy.

Also can the Aes Sedai in Salidar get a move on!?! Like fuck you got yhe Whitecloaks and the Black Ajah on your asses and Nynaeve and Elyane fully know this (at least The Whitecloaks), but y'all ain't going to do nothing!

*pls no spoilers below!*

(Also going to take a break here for Spooky Season. I hope everyone enjoys this holiday season and Wheel of Time season 2!)

[scalpelsister]

tagged by @hey-hey-its-magic to do oc name meanings! thank you! :)

unlike heather I do not have oc icons ready to go, so these are going to just be baldur’s gate screenshots. very function over form on this one 😅

Leontine Trevelyan

Leontine- has its roots in Latin and French, and means "lion". Leontine is an alternate form of Leona (Latin): feminine of Leon. [x]

Trevelyan- the last name given to human player characters in the game Dragon Age Inquisition. It is originally a welsh / cornish last name derived from a place name, meaning ‘farmstead or tref (town in welsh) of Elyan’. [x]

Lydia Coleman

Lydia- It derives from the Greek Λυδία, Ludía, from λυδία (ludía; "beautiful one", "noble one", "from Lydia/Persia"), a feminine form of the ancient given name Λυδός (Lydus). The region of Lydia is said to be named for a king named Λυδός; the given name Lydia originally indicated ancestry or residence in the region of Lydia. Lydia is also a Biblical given name: Lydia of Thyatira, businesswoman in the city of Thyatira in the New Testament's Acts of the Apostles. She was the apostle Paul's first convert in Philippi and thus the first convert to Christianity in Europe. [x]

Coleman- Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Clumháin ‘descendant of Clumhán’, a personal name from the diminutive of clúmh ‘down’, ‘feathers’. OR an occupational name for a burner of charcoal or a gatherer of coal, Middle English coleman, from Old English col ‘(char)coal’ + mann ‘man’. [x]

Feilan, The Little Wolf Of Luskan

Feilan- From Old Norse ‘feilan’, from Old Irish ‘fáelán’ (literally “wolfling”), diminutive of fáel (“wolf”). Taken from Olaf Feilan, an Icelandic Gothi in the 10th century. [x] [x]

The Little Wolf Of Luskan- Luskan is the name of a town in the Forgotten Realms / Faerun setting in dnd, and is where she grew up.

Morana Talahriel

Morana- Marzanna (in Polish), Morė (in Lithuanian), Marena (in Russian), Mara (in Ukrainian), Morana (in Czech, Slovene and Serbo-Croatian), Morena (in Slovak and Macedonian) or Mora (in Bulgarian) is a pagan Slavic goddess associated with seasonal rites based on the idea of death and rebirth of nature. She is an ancient goddess associated with winter's death, rebirth and dreams. Marzanna's name most likely comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *mar-, *mor-, signifying death. Other theories claim her name is derived from the same Indo-European root as Latin mors 'death' and Russian mor 'pestilence'. Some authors also likened her to mare, an evil spirit in Germanic and Slavic folklore, associated with nightmares and sleep paralysis. In Belarusian, Polish, Ukrainian and in some Russian dialects the word 'mara' means dream. But Vladimir Dahl says it means 'phantom', 'vision', 'hallucination'. [x]

Talahriel- An elvish last name I created, using Thalassian, the language of Blood Elves from World Of Warcraft. Loosely meaning ‘Death Keeper’ or ‘Death Guardian’. Talah meaning death, or possibly the opposite of light. Riel is taken from and simplified from ‘Ban’dinoriel’, meaning Gatekeeper. The meaning was inspired by the forsaken Death Guards (also from World of Warcraft), but also a line from irish mythology where the goddess The Morrigan tells Cu Chulainn that she will guard his death. [x][x]

[in-love-with-morgana-pendragon]

BBC Merlin Characters as things I’ve heard my friends say:

Merlin: Why am I still crying? I don’t have any spare time for this shit.

Gwen: I know everyone thinks I’m nice and sweet because I’m so quiet all of the time but really I’m planning the demise of my enemies.

Leon: I’m officially resigning from the position of Mum Friend™️ for this god forsaken group, good luck [Lancelot]!

Gwaine: Putting my head through a wall? I think that would be very sexy of me.

Morgana: *under her breath* Do it for all of the pretty girls who might be watching you right now.

Arthur: I really want to use a sword. Do I have a sword? Physically, no. Mentally, everyone around me is bleeding from the stab wounds.

Percival: I might be tall but I still have feelings and you guys are really mean.

Elyan: *before doing something extremely stupid* Remember people, beauty fades but dumb is forever!

Lancelot: I’m too old for this shit. (Other friend: We’re basically the exact same age dude.) I said what I said!

Gaius: I only love two things. Reading and... Oh that’s it.

Uther: Wow! I really am a huge asshole.

Bonus Merlin one: The only reason my room is clean is because I prefer to have space on my floor to lie down. It makes having an existential crisis much easier.

[damn-oh-dread]

Prologue: Lord of Chaos

So I actually finished this book (whoops) but here is all my written commentary I did while reading it. Why was this prologue so long? It did not need to be 100 pages. Anyways!

- very excited that we are meeting all the forsaken now! Not going to lie I actually forgot there were more we hadn't been introduced to yet (for some reason I was convinced there were only 7?) But no it's actually closer to being like the 12 evil disciples. (+1)

- *said with as much sarcasm as possible* obsessed with all the miscommunication in this series! Actually I have very mixed feelings about all the miscommunication. On one hand, miscommunication can lead to very very sexy dramatic irony. On the other hand the amount of times people believe or do not believe someone important is dead in this series is too much. I think these characters should just start to only believe someone is dead if they see their literal corpse and only then.

- NYNAEVE FLINCHING AT THE NEWS OF MOIRAINE BEING DEAD!!!! I love love love Nynaeves love-hate relationship with Moiraine and how she shaped Nynaeves life for better and for worse and just overall the complicated place she had in Nynaeves life. Amazing *chefs kiss*

- okay brief rant: I absolutely despise how the only big thingTM about the green ajah is that it's the only ajah where you can have more than one warder. NO! This might just be the lesbian in me but I hate that the green ajah is reduced to boysTM and being hot when there are literally so many other cool reasons to join. IT IS THE BATTLE AJAH! PEOPLE IN THE BATTLE AJAH TRAIN TO FIGHT IN THE FINAL BATTLE! Why can't they play up that angle more? So many Greens are generals or pros at battle tactics! They are a group of warriors! And really, you should be allowed to have as many warders as you want in any ajah for protection and whatever UNLESS it goes against the ajah mentality which I feel like it only really does for red. (WHY DO AJAH PHILOSOPHIES INCLUDE HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT MEN? WHY DO WE CARE?!) So, which is just to say, I do think Elyane would do well in Green I just don't like how she chooses it for the sole purpose of having more than one warder when there is so much cool history to the ajah outside of that.

- I missed Perrin last book but you know what, I think I might actually retract that statement. Just *gestures* everything. Going on with Perrin and Faile is. A lot.

- Gwayne my worstie! Can't believe I like your WHITECLOAK BROTHER more than you! I can not articulate why but something about Gwayne just gets on my nerves. I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate him but we just do not vibe.

- Calling it right now Messana is going to be my fav. She really was denied a teaching position at a university and decieded that would be her villian origin story. Absolute girlboss.

- fuck, lanfear is back? Rip Moiraine dying for nothing 💀 I mean she was the mentor character and extremely competent so she was going to need to die eventually but oof.

Already this feels a little more like a set up book for later parts of the series but people seem to really have a lot to say about this one so I'm excited!

[ivanaskye]

WoT Reactions: Book 9, Winter’s Heart

OKAY FINALLY. I finished Book 9 of Wheel of Time over a week ago and then just... didn’t write this.

So now it’s time to. Yee-haw!

Usually I go character-by-character, but that’s a little weird with this book since there are essentially three major plotlines, each “belonging” to a single character: Rand, Elayne, and Mat. [Clickbait voice] Which of these I’m most interested in may surprise you!

Elyane(’s plotline)

This is, unfortunately, the least interesting of the book’s plotlines. It’s mostly political intrigue, which I LIKE, but so far it’s basically all the set-up part of that intrigue with not much actually getting payoff yet.

I mean there very much is an assassination attempt, but that’s pretty low-stakes by this series’ standards.

Even if the guy who saved her and therefore got a shiny new place as the head of her guard ACTUALLY did so as part of a long con to get into an even BETTER position to kill her.

But... it says a few things that I don’t really remember most of the political machinations beyond that. She’s just kind of There, aware of other contenders to the throne, trying to pull things together, but not only has the other shoe not dropped yet, I’m not sure the first shoe has dropped

In GREAT news, however, she, Min, and Aviendha have bonded Rand

I honestly didn’t expect all three to do it together, especially since Min can’t channel, but it is honestly IDEAL

FINALLY some PROGRESS on these POLY DISASTERS

Ft. “Oops I can’t turn it off so now I’m getting graphic imagery of Rand having sex with one of the others in the bond, except as written by someone who will only write sex in euphemism and shocked ellipses”

There’s a lot of “Oh MY!”

It’s great

Mat(’s plotline)

Shockingly, this one is... my favorite...?

Like, it’s Mat

How did this happen

Well, I know how it happened. It happened because The Daughter of The Nine Moons finally showed up (and I absolutely knew that was who she was like, one paragraph into her first chapter, lol)

For those of you following along at home, the Daughter of The Nine Moons (given name: Tuon) is Mat’s PROPHECIED WIFE

And of course a Seanchan princess

Which, again, for those following at home, the Seanchan is the culture that does the slavery

So she’s enmeshed in THAT

Probably a good? person? from what we’ve seen so far, but she’ll probably be shocked when she learns that you can Not Make People Slaves

Which will probably come soon because when Mat was on his way escaping with a few Aes Sedai (a class of people that the Seanchan ALWAYS enslave)

He discovered she was ProphecyWife, panicked, and KIDNAPPED HER

LIKE YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE PANICKING

So that’s shaping up to be a good time. I’m ready.

And guess what’s even better?

THAT’S RIGHT EGEANIN’S BACK

MY DAUGHTER HAS RETURNED

And of course she’s part of this escape/kidnapping crew of disastrous nature

Tl;dr my heart is READY

Rand(’s plotline)

For the first while of the book, Rand is kind of stalking around, Laying Plans that the readers aren’t privy to, and trying to figure out what his own latest assassination attempt was all about

Gets bonded, as mentioned earlier

With Min still of course serving as his one (1) brain cell

BUT THEN

Then he goes to Nynaeve and is like. Help me with this thing.

AND THEN, FINALLY

SEVERAL FREAKING BOOKS’ WORTH OF PLANNING

AND OF THE READERS NOT BEING TOLD EVEN 5% OF WHAT HE’S THINKING

PAYS OFF

BECAUSE HE FREAKING JUST. SITS DOWN, WITH HE AND NYNAEVE HAVING A LINK TO THE MOST POWERFUL SA’ANGREAL OUT THERE

AND REMOVES

THE TAINT ON THE MALE SOURCE

HE JUST. THE BIGGEST COSMOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF THE PAST 4+ MILLENNIA? GONE NOW

Which was just

Such a well-handled scene

Also Cadsuane holding down the fort which is to say stopping the entire Forsaken from interfering with this

Although at least one Darkfriend has totally snuck into the ranks of the other Aes Sedai helping out

I just

I’m so proud of my boy

And I’m READY for the 9238493220 implications this is going to have on like, possibly the entire world

Also, of course, there were some actions of other characters not directly associated with any of these plotlines, so I’ll mention those too

Cyndane

She had four whole paragraphs of POV, and yet those paragraphs have a LOT of implications

Because she is almost definitely Lanfear

(Who else would be that possessive toward Rand, in those exact terms?)

This of course means Lanfear is alive, and escaped the other dimension she ended up in

WHICH APPARENTLY was the dimension with the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn, which are. The snake and fox spirit fellows who gave Mat his prophecy and are also allergic to iron and who we know very little about.

And of course... if she is alive, then...?

But I kind of imagine that if Moiraine escaped that dimension, we’d know about it by now

So my GUESS is that Moiraine is alive, BUT still with the Aelfinn and Eelfinn, whoever exactly THEY are

Faile

Is having problems

She (as well as Perrin) only gets a little bit of time early in the book, but that’s enough to know that, as one might expect, being kidnapped sucks

The most interesting thing right now regarding her is the ongoing question of when she’s going to figure out that Maighdin, supposed serving lady, is actually Elayne’s mother and the former queen of Andor

(Perrin’s also doing stuff but there aren’t really any new developments there)

...Okay, that’s actually about it for the other characters. See you next time!

[loopstagirl]

Darkness Falls

Merlin didn't know what to say.

He didn't even know what to think.

The only thing that was registering in his head as they finally burst through the final door of that forsaken tower was sheer and utter shock. He knew that Elyan had led the way; the knight's concern for his sister had caused him to be a driving force throughout this whole quest. Merlin wasn't sure who was more concerned about the Queen's safety between Arthur and Elyan. Yet somehow, knowing they would both fight to the end in order to make sure she made it out had given him a false sense of security. A warrior who had nothing to lose was one of the deadliest things around.

But that didn't mean Elyan was supposed to have lost. Merlin had sensed the magic from the second they had approached the door and had silently urged Arthur to open it quicker. He wasn't sure what it was that he was sensing, yet the warning was ringing loudly in his ears.

One of them wouldn't be making it back alive.

They had got here without mishap though, they had survived this long. This was the Round Table they were talking about, they always made it back. All of them always made it back. Merlin had almost just assumed that would be a given again this time.

Yet he had known that there was still the threat, and had let Elyan go off alone. Seeing him cradled in Gwen's lap, the Queen's tearstained face turning towards them as they burst through the door had caused the shock to crash into him with such a force that Merlin had truly believed that someone had stolen all of his breath away. Lancelot had died for Gwen, and now so had Elyan.

"Guinevere…" Arthur's soft voice broke through the silence and almost seemed to break through the shock that had fallen over the rest of the group. As he moved forward, so did everyone else. Yet Merlin found himself rooted to the stop. They had had no idea that something like this would happen, they were allowed to be horrified at the sight waiting for them.

Read More -->

[ivanaskye]

WoT Reactions: Book 7, A Crown of Swords

Almost halfway through the series, and a lot is happening. Well, except for the parts where it takes forever for something to happen... while a bunch of other things happen. I think this is starting to hit the part of the series that many fans say is poorly-paced, and I can kind of see why...

That’s not why it took a while for me to finish this one tho, that’s mostly because I was visiting family for the holidays.

One of the main themes of this book is the many, many ways in which the Aes Sedai have horribly mismanaged basically everything due to being too strict (read: abusive) as well as too distrustful of each other. Which means that it turns out that there’s ALMOST TWO THOUSAND women trained by them who they’ve kicked out, which is literally more than the people they haven’t. Also some of them are older than they thought any Aes Sedai could get. Also the complete lack of sharing information between Ajahs or even sometimes between individuals within the same Ajah means no one knows anything EXCEPT the evil ones. Amazing.

Anyway, that’s all set to change now that the world is ending, so uh, that’s a plus? Lmao.

Character-by-character thoughts under the cut.

Rand

One of Rand’s most notable developments this book is having sex with Min, then completely losing his mind over it

It’s like. Min: rips off his clothing. Rand, for the next several days: I’m such a monster.

This is also why he flings Perrin against a wall

Bc obviously having SEX proves he’s a MONSTER

Thankfully this gets resolved in less than a week, but still

Also! He and Min VERBALLY confessed their feelings to each other! That’s the best progress this harem has seen yet!

God what else did Rand do this book. Oh right, teleport around a lot and get stabbed by Padan Fain and then let Sammael lure him into Shadar Logoth

Where Sammael “””dies”””

(I will not believe ANYONE in this series is dead until I have SEEN THE BODY)

Meanwhile he does a mercy killing of Leah, which hopefully has broken down his block against killing women, because there’s like, what, five female forsaken who are totally willing to kill him?

Perrin

Gets flung against a wall, leaves to do some other mission

Honestly I don’t have much to say about Perrin this book?

He and Faile still aren’t really communicating, for still-really-stupid reasons?

Sigh

Egwene

Still THE GODDAMN AMYRLIN SEAT

Finds out about Lan, sends him to Nynaeve

Not rly the most important character this book but I love her

Min

As mentioned above, has sex with Rand

Is also absolute MVP for actually communicating with him. And having something that resembles a brain.

Tells Cadsuane etc enough to prevent them from totally triggering his PTSD while trying to save his life

LITERALLY possesses half the braincells in this whole book

Also, total confirmation that Moiraine isn’t dead, Min thinking about how Moiraine being essential to Rand’s success is her ‘one viewing that hasn’t come true’

Birgitte

The other MVP, the only person on the planet capable of breaking down the communication barriers between Mat and Nynaeve + Elyane

This is because she is the only person on the planet who is from a time period (well, several time periods) with actual gender equality, including men and women not all automatically distrusting each other

Mat is shocked to discover he can think of a woman as a person

Nynaeve is shocked that Birgitte can think of a man as a person

A+, good work

Mat

Speaking of,

Maybe actually learns a thing or two regarding his sexism. Part of that is via a FRIENDSHIP WITH BIRGITTE, which I did not expect to become one of my favorite friendships in the series, but here we are

The other part is uh, the getting raped

And like, otherwise assaulted

A lot

By Tylin, queen of Ebou Dar

It’s a real bad time and I feel sorry for him

We leave the book with him being the last of our protagonists out of the city, not quite leaving before a war erupts there, I’m sure he’ll have a GREAT time next book,

Nynaeve

Despite Aviendha making her apologize to Mat, I don’t think she ACTUALLY admits she’s wrong any time in this book? So she’s still only done so once in the entire series lmao

A Mess TM!

Her block is broken now, thanks to a near-death experience WHICH WAS DUE TO MOGHEDIAN, meaning Moghedian is accidentally responsible for Nynaeve becoming more powerful, good job

Ok weirdly her relationship with Lan is actually... super cute in this book, where it WASN’T before, and I think the difference is the part where Lan longs for death even more than usual

You would think that wouldn’t suddenly make a ship cute

But you would be wrong

He’s HOLLOW and HALF DEAD INSIDE and somehow. It works? I don’t know man

Lan

See above

Elayne

More braincells than Nynaeve or Mat, which is to say, she has one (1)

Spends significantly too many pages flailing around looking for the Bowl, but hey, she+Nynaeve+Mat have finally found it, so at least THAT subplot comes to an end

Still needs to actually go be queen

Cadsuane

She’s no Moiraine, but I like her

Badass old lady who fears zero (0) things

Morgase

Still alive, BARELY

Has now been tortured, but OFF-page, which is a rarity in the Torture Porn Series

Also she had very, very coerced sex

Then the Seanchan show up in Amadicia and she’s introduced to something even more terrifying, the concept of slavery, and manages to escape with one of the suddenly-less-bad-seeming religious zealots

Moghedien, Galina

SPEAKING OF the concept of slavery,

Both of these are very evil people we don’t like, who this book now makes us feel sorry for by watching their torture and degradation

Which is very classic WoT

So that’s most of the characters I have specific thoughts on, but there’s something else I wanna say here at the end, which is predictions for the next book!

While I’m quite sure that Moiraine and Lanfear aren’t dead, I don’t think they’re coming back quite yet. For that matter, I’m not sure if Sammael’s probably-not-dead nature will be revealed yet

Instead, I think the main enemy next book is going to be the Seanchan, now that they’ve invaded two further countries

Maybe we’ll get to see Egeanin again???? Pls????