#fate and choice

[wingedblooms]

Blooming with life

@offtorivendell and I were chatting about the cover for the next book and while there are several options for what might be depicted on the cover, the one that makes the most sense to me (and makes us scream) is the Cauldron (blooming with life, vines and flowers and creatures spilling from its iron lip). It hasn’t been used on a cover yet, and assuming Sarah will continue with one romantic pairing per book, it would align perfectly with what Elain and Azriel’s story would contribute to the overarching plot.

Let me preface this by saying that I do think the three Archeron sisters embody (or are vessels) for the three faces of the Mother, and they will likely need to come together at some point in this storyline (the dream). But if anyone’s story is connected to a force that once bloomed with life, and is tasked with uncovering its secrets to help it and the land bloom again, it’s Elain. The quiet, gentle gardener who glows like the dawn and smells like a promise of spring. She might even be able to use the language of creation to (re)write her own fate. It doesn’t seem coincidental that Azriel has been present or connected to Elain’s major moments involving the Cauldron (her forced rebirth, naming her powers, questioning the mating bond, using TT to rescue her family, being forbidden from going near the Cauldron, etc.). Their story is tied to the Cauldron and what we’ve learned about it (from the original trilogy to the spin-off books to the crossover). Sarah has left hints that it is still important, in general, and specifically in Elain’s journey with Azriel:

acotar

Feyre gives us our first glimpse of the Cauldron from the living (Spring Court):

I found myself overlooking a rose garden, filled with dozens of hues of crimson and pink and white and yellow.

I might have allowed myself a moment to take in the colors, gleaming with dew under the morning sun, had I not glimpsed the painting that stretched along the wall beside the windows.

[…]

At first I could do nothing but stare at its size, the ambition of it, at the fact that this masterpiece was tucked back here for no one to ever see, as if it was nothing—absolutely nothing—to create something like this.

It told a story with the way colors and shapes and light flowed, the way the tone shifted across the mural. The story of…of Prythian.

It began with a cauldron.

A mighty black cauldron held by glowing, slender female hands in a starry, endless night. Those hands tipped it over, golden sparkling liquid pouring out over the lip. No—not sparkling, but…effervescent with small symbols, perhaps of some ancient faerie language. Whatever was written there, whatever it was, the contents of the cauldron were dumped into the void below, pooling on the earth to form our world…(acotar)

acomaf

Elain emerges from the Cauldron. It tips onto its side by itself, as if influenced by an unseen force. Elain rises from the floor, like the earth in the mural, glowing with immortal light and beauty.

And as if it had been tipped by invisible hands, the Cauldron turned on its side. More water than seemed possible dumped out in a cascade. Black, smoke-coated water.

And Elain, as if she’d been thrown by a wave, washed onto the stones facedown.

Her legs were so pale—so delicate. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen them bare. The queens pushed forward. Alive, she had to be alive, had to have wanted to live—

Elain sucked in a breath, her fine-boned back rising, her wet nightgown nearly sheer.

And as she rose from the ground onto her elbows, the gag in place, as she twisted to look at me—

Nesta began roaring again.

Pale skin started to glow. Her face had somehow become more beautiful—infinitely beautiful, and her ears … Elain’s ears were now pointed beneath her sodden hair. (acomaf)

acowar

After Elain was Made in the Cauldron, Azriel is the one to name her power, freeing her from a murky realm where dream and reality entwine:

“A seer,” he said, more to himself than us. “The Cauldron made you a seer.” (acowar)

Feyre wonders about Elain’s new, inner sight and how it might be connected to the Cauldron.

Elain had been told—by Amren. She now sat at the table, more straight-backed and clear-eyed than I’d seen her. Had she beheld this, in whatever wanderings that new, inner sight granted her? Had the Cauldron whispered of it while we’d been away? I hadn’t the heart to ask her. (acowar)

Feyre questions the mating bond system, wondering why Azriel and Elain aren’t mates and who determines it.

“Why not make them mates?” I mused. “Why Lucien?”

“I’d keep that question from Lucien.”

“I’m serious.” I turned toward him and crossed my arms. “What decides it? Who decides it?”

Rhys straightened his lapels before plucking an invisible piece of lint from them. “Fate, the Mother, the Cauldron’s swirling eddies…”

Azriel is the first to notice Elain’s absence and risks his life to get her back, inspiring Feyre to join him.

From the shadows near the entrance to the tent, Azriel said, as if in answer to some unspoken debate, “I’m getting her back.”

Nesta slid her gaze to the shadowsinger. Azriel’s eyes glowed golden in the shadows.

Nesta said, “Then you will die.”

Azriel only repeated, rage glazing that stare, “I’m getting her back.”

With the shadows, he might stand a chance of slipping in. But there were wards to consider, and ancient magic, and the king with those spells and the Cauldron…(acowar)

Armed with Truth-Teller, the blade Azriel gifted to her for the battle, Elain—rather than the Cauldron—answered Feyre’s pleas, somehow appearing just in time to deal Hybern a killing blow.

For a moment, I thought the Cauldron had answered my pleas.

But as a black blade broke through the king’s throat, spraying blood, I realized someone else had.

Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller to the hilt through the back of the king’s neck as she snarled in his ear, “Don’t you touch my sister.” (acowar)

While connected to it through a living link, Feyre learns that the Cauldron adores Elain, gave her such powers (plural, baby), and would not harm her.

The Cauldron seemed to realize what she’d done, too, as his head thumped onto the mossy ground. That Elain…Elain had defended this thief. Elain, who it had gifted with such powers, found her so lovely it had wanted to give her something…It would not harm Elain, even in its hunt to reclaim what had been taken. (acowar)

Both Elain and the Cauldron are described as blooms in bleak and barren settings, which seems to be a hint of their intertwined role/power that is reinforced in the spin-offs and crossover.

She was a rose bloom in a mud field…[…] If Elain was a blooming flower in this army camp, then Nesta, she was a freshly forged sword, waiting to draw blood. (acowar)

-

The Cauldron shattered into three pieces, peeling apart like a blossoming flower (acowar)

acosf

Cassian reminds us that the Cauldron is hidden (and supposedly asleep) in Cretea, worrying that no one could control it if it awoke.

A chill skittered down Cassian’s spine. He trusted the Seraphim Prince and the half-human woman to keep the Cauldron concealed, but there would be nothing they or anyone could do to control its power if awoken. (acosf)

Nesta reminds us of the time the Cauldron stole Elain and its song called only to her:

Elain had been stolen by the Cauldron and saved by Azriel and Feyre. Yet the two terror still gripped Nesta, waking and asleep: the memory of how it had felt in those moments after hearing the Cauldron’s seductive call and realizing it had been for Elain, not for her or Feyre. How it had felt to find Elain’s tent empty, to see that blue cloak discarded. (acosf)

The Inner Circle discusses the Cauldron-Made Trove, and Feyre and Amren remind us that like calls to like, which is why the sisters can help find them.

“What does it have to do with the Cauldron?” Nesta pushed.

“Like calls to like,” Feyre murmured, looking to Amren, who nodded. “Because the Trove was Made by the Cauldron, so might the Trove find its Maker.” (acosf)

Elain offers to find the Trove when Nesta admits to her fears, and Nesta forbids her from going anywhere near the Cauldron.

Amren said, “You tracked the Cauldron—”

“It nearly killed me. It trapped me like a bird in a cage.”

Elain said, “Then I will find it. I might require some time to…reacquaint myself with my powers, but I could start today.”

“Absolutely not,” Nesta spat, fingers curling at her sides. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?” Elain demanded. “Shall I tend to my little garden forever?” When Nesta flinched, Elain said, “You can’t have it both ways.o You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“Then go off on adventures,” Nesta said. “Go drink and fuck strangers. But stay away from the Cauldron.”

Feyre said, “It’s Elain’s choice, Nesta.” (acosf)

Nesta gives us a glimpse of the dusk service where priestesses worship the Mother and the Cauldron and the Forces That Be (Fate). A sacred, possibly interchangeable trio, which is deeply connected to creation and the earth:

The music was pure, ancient, by turns whispering and bold, one moment like a tendril of mist, the next like a gilded ray of light. It finished, and Merrill spoke about the Mother and the Cauldron and the land and sun and water. She spoke of blessings and dreams and hope. Of mercy and love and growth. (acosf)

Nesta finds the carved rose Papa Archeron made for Elain and places it next to a figurine of a primordial goddess:

She plucked another figurine from the mantel: a rose carved from a dark sort of wood. She held it in her palm, its solid weight surprising, and traced a finger over one of the petals. “He made this one for Elain. Since it was winter and she missed the flowers.”

-

Her gaze shifted to the carved wooden rose she’d placed upon the mantel, half-hidden in the shadows beside a figurine of a supple-bodied female, her upraised arms clasping a full moon between them. Some sort of primal goddess—perhaps even the Mother herself. Nesta hadn’t let herself dwell on why she’d felt the need to set the rose there. Why she hadn’t just thrown it in a drawer. (acosf)

Nesta makes a bargain with the Cauldron, so it is at least somewhat awake and seems to be influenced by, or working alongside, a luminescent hand (maybe a gentle gardener’s hand?) that intervenes on Nesta’s behalf.

And as it faded, dark ink splashed upon Nesta’s back, visible through her half-shredded shirt, as if it were a wave crashing upon the shore.

A bargain with the Cauldron itself.

Yet Cassian could have sworn a luminescent, gentle hand prevented the light from leaving her body altogether. (acosf)

After their almost-kiss on solstice, Azriel dares to question the Cauldron, which he appears to revere.

“What if the Cauldron was wrong?”

Rhysand blinked. “What of Mor, Az?”

Azriel ignored the question. “The Cauldron chose three sisters. Tell me how it’s possible that my two brothers are with two of those sisters, yet the third was given to another.” He had never before dared speak the words aloud.

hofas

In the crossover, we learn more of the Cauldron’s history. Life once blossomed from it, but—as if echoing Azriel’s question to Rhys—it was warped by the Daglan (Asteri).

“The Cauldron,” Azriel amended. Bryce shook her head, not understanding. “You don’t have stories of it in your world? The Fae didn’t bring that tradition with them?”

Bryce surveyed the giant cauldron. “No. We have five gods, but no cauldron. What does it do?”

“All life came and comes from it,” Azriel said with something like reverence. “The Mother poured it into this world, and from it, life blossomed.” (hofas)

-

The Cauldron was of our world, our heritage. But upon arriving here, the Daglan captured it and used their powers to warp it. To turn it from what it had been into something deadlier. No longer just a tool of creation, but of destruction. And the horrors it produced … those, too, my parents would turn to their advantage. (hofas)

The Under-King leaves us with a look at the Cauldron from the dead. It was misconstrued as a goddess over time, explaining interconnected, if not interchangeable, terms (Mother, Cauldron, Fate/Forces That Be), but she is a force and her name is Wyrd.

The Under-King lounged on a throne beneath a behemoth statue of a figure holding a black metal bowl between her upraised hands. Symbols were carved all over the bowl, continuing down her fingers, her arms, her body. Ithan could only assume it was meant to represent Urd. No other temples ever depicted the goddess, no one even dared—most people claimed that fate was impossible to portray in any one form. But it seemed that the dead, unlike the living, had a vision of her. And those symbols running from the bowl onto her skin … they were like tattoos.

[…]

“And she,” the Under-King went on, gesturing to that unusual depiction of Urd towering above him, “was not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation. Urd, they call her here—a bastardized version of her true name. Wyrd, we called her in that old world.” (hofas)

Tags: @elriel-month 💕

What do you think will be on the cover, friends? Do you agree it might be the Cauldron, or will it be something else, like the Harp or even…a Pegasus?! Ramiel?

[twinliches]

VIVE LE FUCKING FRANCE BABY!!!! 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

[itsmeimcathy]

faust (1858) by charles gounod | le fantôme de l'opèra (1910) by gaston leroux | wuthering heights (1939) by william wyler | la belle et la bête (1947) by jean cocteau | labyrinth (1986) by jim henson | van helsing (2004) by stephen sommers | the phantom of the opera (2004) by joel schumacher | crimson peak (2014) by guillermo del toro | consumed (2014) by david cronenberg | nosferatu (2024) by robert eggers

[qualityrain]

why are they batshit insane

[salty-an-disco]

everytime someone says a version of "what if Shifty is intentionally manipulative and maybe even evil–" a part of me dies a little inside

[actual-haise]

When Youtubers say that Fate is soooo difficult to get into and the watch order is sooo confusing

[philosophybits]

The relations between destiny and the human soul, the extent to which each soul creates its own destiny, the question of what elements in the soul are transformed by merciless necessity as it tailors the soul to fit the requirements of shifting fate, and of what elements can on the other hand be preserved, through the exercise of virtue and through grace — this whole question is fraught with temptations to falsehood, temptations that are positively enhanced by pride, by shame, by hatred, contempt, indifference, by the will to oblivion or to ignorance.

Simone Weil, "The Iliad or The Poem of Force"

[lotus-pear]

rewatched madoka magica again today bc i fucking hate myself and to absolutely no one’s surprise i went through all five stages of grief in a single evening

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[armenelols]

In deference to my recent bout of shitposting, have a daily reminder that Tolkien's half-elves have no happy ending and no matter what they choose, they'll still lose part of their family forever. They'll always be split between two people, neither fully one or the other, yet forced to pick one and lose the other

[sapphic-agent]

Trying to argue that Katara just wanted a peaceful life is so wild to me because every chance she got she chose violence

[arthursfuckinghat]

The tragedy that is Arthur Morgan is something that keeps me up at night.

That man lived day to day thinking life was just a tally chart of his sins and that he was forever damned, to the point where he was silently suicidal.

He lived and died thinking that no matter what good he did, it would never make up for his existence - in the type of life he didn't get to choose.

And what's worse is that he still tried. He tried and gave absolutely everything to the people he cared about, to the people he loved, and he watched all of it crumble before him.

He was a dog that was tricked into thinking it was a wolf, a stag who was taught to be a moose, that died to unwavering loyalty.

[mareastrorum]

An incredible amount of the Downfall discourse comes off as people trying to game the trolley problem instead of recognizing that there simply isn’t a right answer.

Everyone fucked up. This was a horrible situation that might have been prevented with more time, communication, empathy, all sorts of corrections. But it’s the trolley problem: what we have is a bunch of gods on one set of tracks and a far larger number of mortals on the other, and ultimately, the gods switched the track to kill mortals.

It wasn’t right. Of course, we could justify it—I’m a lawyer, and I could justify anything. That doesn’t change that it isn’t moral, good, or right.

“But the gods couldn’t kill their family.” Did we not watch C2, filled with shitty genetic families and centered around a group of found family idiots? Family only means what you want it to. Of course the gods could have killed their family. Half of them even wanted to! But the PCs chose not to.

“But the gods are gods, of course they should win.” Maybe it’s the grew-up-a-poor-minority-and-climbed-the-social-ladder in me, but I don’t see the virtue in an argument that those born into power deserve to make decisions about those who weren’t. One of the gods was already replaced by a mortal. Aeorians came up with methods to repel, suppress, contain, and kill gods. Seats of power change, and power doesn’t make someone right. It’s been incredibly surreal to see how many people think this is an acceptable argument.

“But if the gods die, they really die, and mortal souls are immortal.” While we know souls are immortal, the actual experience of the afterlife is a mystery. Is what Deanna described how it always is, or just in the particular plane where her soul ended up? Is it really immortality if the sense of self is lost and that soul is separated from all they loved in life? Similarly, we don’t know what typically happens when gods die because there isn’t a normal way for it to happen. Why were some gods’ names forgotten but they are remembered by the silhouette left behind? Why are other gods remembered like Ethedok and Vordo? We don’t know. Why are we belittling the fact that mortal death is an end while also arguing that it’s horrible how divine death is an end? They’re both ends! That’s a terrible thing to force on someone. It’s wrong.

The point of Downfall is that it was wrong to destroy Aeor. The Prime Deities thought so themselves. Of all the wrong choices, that was what they chose in the moment. They didn’t succeed because they were right; they were simply more powerful and outsmarted their opponents.

Downfall is a wonderful example of a story where the protagonists are not heroes. Bask in the mistakes and failures. Cry. Mourn. It’s a tragedy that every key character contributed to. It didn’t have to end this way. There’s blood on everyone’s hands. They’re all monsters. They’re all people. They were all trying to save something. No one realized they were in a corner until there was no way out but through.

The only correct argument about a moral high ground in this kind of story is that someone survived to stand over the corpses.

[sonandheirofnothinginparticular]

[tricksterringmaster]

the 11th prompt of awwgust is "soulmate au", but tbh i hate soulmate aus as a genre, so i just decided to draw a little conversation about the idea

managed to draw 11 out of 31 prompts, not all in august, but still, i guess, not a bad result for a challenge 🙃

[awkward-sultana]

(Almost) Every Costume Per Episode + Extras' costumes in 2x05,6