#hxan

[hxans]

Inspired by the post I saw the other day, my version of the Gävlebocken made of lego

[markantonys]

Watched the finale last night and thought I'd wait until morning to send commiserations. R.i.p. Adar, we knew you were doomed but we had high hopes anyway.

(Also, yay, Arondir lived, guess he was only lightly stabbed since he was still able to fight some more)

thank you for your condolences in these trying times! and for waiting to send them until after you were sure i'd seen the episode haha they drop at 3am in my timezone which is not ideal. fine for ROP since i'm not absolutely dying chomping at the bit to see the new episodes (except for this week), but if WOT s3 adopts this same schedule i will be very sad!

anyway, good news for arondir! not surprising since they passed over his stabbing so quickly last episode, if he'd been in any real danger they would've made a big moment of that scene. he felt like he didn't get a whole lot to do this season, so i hope he gets more next season. then again, he had one of the biggest stories in s1 so fair enough if it was his turn to step back a bit this time. still, hoping for more with him next season! it's very exciting that he seems prepped to hang with the Elf Gang for a while, i'd love to see how he fits in with them. on the other hand, i want him to get back to his honorary son!

and the subject of Dads Who Stepped Up brings us to adar. oh adar, very obviously doomed by the narrative since 2x01 if not since s1, and yet we hoped! all in all, though, i'm pretty satisfied with his final scene. he got his "no one can walk so long in the shadow that they can never return to the light" moment! he proposed to galadriel ring and all and she said yes! he had the chance to get his elven form back forever by keeping the ring but refused it because he is not who he was born, he is who he's chosen to be, he is uruk, he is adar, he is Dad!! he still loved his uruk even as they were killing him and his last words were "my children" as he reached out a hand to them 😭😭😭 was it gutwrenching? yes. does my heart yearn for a version where adar survived and joined the good guys and led a light-side orc faction in the final battle? yes. but do i also appreciate a good shakespearean tragedy? yes i do.

adar saw how sauron mercilessly sacrificed orc lives to achieve his personal goals and he swore he would never let anyone treat his kids like that again. it traumatized him so much that he went crazy trying to snuff out the renewed threat of sauron, so crazy that he started mercilessly sacrificing orc lives to achieve his personal goals, but his personal goals are to protect them but they can't see that and they think he's turned into just what he always warned them about, and sauron swoops in to play them like fiddles and manipulate them into killing their father and swearing allegiance to him under the pretense that he'll be a better lord-father to them than adar has become.............and when glug realizes orcs are still dying under sauron and voices protest, where adar responded to protest with "[i love you] with all that's left of my heart, too much to let you become sauron's slaves", sauron responded by immediately, carelessly killing him mid-sentence. thus proving adar's fears completely right, far too late for glug to change the course the orcs have gone down. PAIN!!!!

adar tried so hard to break free of the generational trauma but in doing so played right into it and passed it on to yet another generation. and now they can never escape it because there is nobody left in the world who cares for them or will ever care for them now that dad is gone. galadriel, please, try to get custody of your ex's ex's kids, i beg you! be the mom who stepped up! it IS interesting that in this episode she showed some remorse for killing orcs and willingness to work with adar to broker peace between orcs and elves - will that be a surprise tool to help us later or did galadriel's growth in that regard die with adar? i think it's probably the latter since we know she could at most only get a small faction of orcs on her side since sauron has whole armies of them in the future during the trilogy, and getting even a small faction is unlikely since they offed the only Specific Orc (glug) and thus they're probably back to being nameless cannon fodder for the rest of the show. but still, it was good for galadriel to have that moment of development as she goes along her arc of maturing and becoming wiser, and it's so so important to me that adar died with at least one person respecting him and seeing the goodness within him 🥺

so anyway! it was all narratively sensible, narratively inevitable, and narratively satisfying. yes, tragedies that make me personally unhappy can be narratively satisfying too; i would describe it as, in-world, adar deserved better, but narratively, he was done justice with a complete, satisfying tragic arc. now, i DO think it was somewhat rushed, but i personally have long since made my peace with the fact that in 8-episode-season shows with tons of main characters, sometimes things won't get as much time to breathe as i might like. it is what it is (and it's often pretty subjective; what one viewer wishes had more time to breathe another might think took up too much screentime).

i'd argue the only big "missing scenes" here are a) adar initially going through his transformation which leads him to a change of heart, but i think he says everything that's important in his convo with galadriel and from that we can easily infer what happened between ep7 and now to get him to this point. and b) sauron convincing the orcs to join him and kill adar. this is a much bigger gap, because we'd had ample evidence that the orcs are unhappy with adar but no reason to think they'd go as far as killing him and joining the guy who's been their people's bogeyman for thousands of years. so that's the only real piece of potential Bad Writing to me, but even then, we've seen in great detail how sauron's manipulation tactics operate, so we can imagine him pulling the same shit on the orcs offscreen after they run into him in eregion (especially since orcs probably aren't that bright compared to the likes of celebrimbor, so it'd be child's play for sauron to manipulate them into doing exactly what he wants). it would have helped to see these two scenes onscreen, but if they were really pressed for time, i can accept not including them because we have enough to infer what happened.

in conclusion, i just read a really great post-season interview with sam hazeldine about adar conducted by an interviewer who is a huge adar fan and asked fantastic questions, and i would recommend it highly to those of us looking to fill the adar-shaped hole in our hearts!

[schnoobums]

THE MUMMY (1999)

endless gifs of Jonathan Carnahan 10/?

[aenslem]

Star trek, best looking character

so hard to choose one, like, they are all so good looking, all the ladies??? they are gorgeous! I cannot choose just one :')

[spockvarietyhour]

What happened with s5 of izombie? My husband and I never finished it because it was missing something, idk what though, and I have no idea how it ended

This is with a few years hazy memory and @kiranerys can help me out here. the show did an Occupation Seattle and the show lost its direction. Major became a Soldier and that just....soured me on the show quickly. a lot of his characterization was thrown out the window. at some point during the season we basically went "what if we just....didn't watch this show anymore"

[highladyluck]

Wifeswap AU: Mat/Faile and Perrin/Tuon

I kind of covered this in Perrin's Cursed Shadar Logoth Ax AU, in that I think Coyote Cauthon would end up with Berelain, and Faile would be his Birgitte-style galpal, and Gun!Perrin/Tuon is a hideous disaster that hopefully doesn't have all its shit hit the fan until after the Last Battle.

2. BUT. Someone on here (and I need to look up who) had a theory that the two birds fighting over a ta'veren were originally supposed to be Tuon and Berelain, and the ensuing choice would have been between allying with the invading descendants of Hawkwing vs the local descendants of Hawkwing. Part of the idea was that this would have tied into the Old Blood thing that Mat had early on, and Mat would have had the raising Manetheren plotline. 3. Aside from the bird thing as it currently is being kind of gross and thematically not super interesting, and the Mat's Old Blood plotline mostly ending up as Early Installment Weirdness instead of tying into the raising of Manetheren, I think there's evidence for this in the fact that Tuon and Faile have a lot of strange little similarities.

4. But keeping the setting and plot the same, and just trying to make it work personality wise... I could maybe see Mat doing like a slowburn friends to lovers thing with Faile? They've got the knife kink going for them & Mat loves a competent violent lady. Mat's a little bit in love with almost every woman, so the trick to getting Mat to fall hard in love is some combination of him being emotionally ready, and also kinda frog-boiling him in slightly escalating feelings that he doesn't notice until it's too late for him to escape. For her part, Faile seems very firmly not into twinks, but otoh that'll help; this is not going to work if Faile comes on too strong too fast. Faile admires competency but also wants a fixer-upper, and Mat does fit the bill.

5. I have to go with a variation on the Gunk Premise for Perrin/Tuon; Perrin has just killed Faile or someone else he loves sincerely, goes off the rails because he can't trust himself anymore, and ends up doing wetwork for Tuon because he wants to be punished, used, and eventually discarded by a professional. Tuon makes him a Seeker and loves him in the way she loves her tools, and I guess if Mat isn't in the picture and she needs to make an alliance she might marry him, but it's pretty unlikely to get healthier or more equal. UNLESS she gets made damane, and Perrin rescues her, and then probably someone else entirely gets them therapy and teaches them both how to be functional people somehow, and they have some sort of hint of a real relationship in the aftermath. Which would actually be kind of cool, but is not something I'm equipped to write, that's like several levels of whump beyond my skill or interest level.

[sebastienlelivre]

If you ever get around to writing Sam/Teal'c anything I will read it. Their implied time together in Undending lives rent free in the back of my mind

Everything about their implied time in “Unending” drives me crazy. That smile he gives her at the end because he remembers everything? Knocks me down every time.

I’m toying around with ideas, and they’re only getting worse as I rewatch.

[alectology-archive]

Galad and Rand met briefly in the garden scene in teotw. They don't met up again until amol I think, but never had a discussion nor did Rand get to tell him about their relation

I just thought that scene didn’t really Qualify as a proper meeting since it was more focussed on the Rand/Elayne side of things - but yeah, I would’ve loved for them to eventually acknowledge their parentage properly! It’s such a big Thing that Galad kind of feels that Morgase sort of did him a kindness by treating him like her own kid & feels indebted to her for raising him with so much love and Rand struggles with the idea of properly belonging somewhere that it would’ve been very thematically appropriate for the meeting to happen beyond just wish fulfilment reasons, although I know both of them are generally very content with the adopted families they grew up with.

[hxans]

This is my earliest memory. I was about 18 months old. My mum needed to hang up the washing, and I was a clingy baby, so she set me down in the basket with the washing.

What I remember distinctly is thinking, "I don't want to be here. If I cry, I'll get picked up." So I cried. Mum took a picture instead of picking me up.

now I'm curious

this isn't about where you think your continuous memories start, but rather what you think is the earliest thing you can remember (even if it's only a few seconds or a quick image)

[twistedingenue]

@hxans replied to your post “I finally removed Twitter on my phone. I might...”:

I'm barely on twitter these days too. I spend maybe 5 mins on fb & insta for irl ppl, the rest of my socmed time is here or the handful of discord groups I'm in

​Yeah, I'm on FB for dance and belegarth stuff, discord for most things, and here. I still have insta and tiktok accounts but I rarely use them. I'm hoping twitter joins them in that I only really check them when someone links me to something.

[hxans]

My wish is that we some day get an official WoT soundtrack version of Jak o' the Shadows with Dónal singing it

🤞 please please please 🤞

[markantonys]

Saw this post and immediately thought of the cauthor/randlayne/matrandlayne and the stabbening meeting. It's a very Rand thing to do

LITERALLY!!!!!! the most randcore of all time!!!

[aenslem]

tell a story about your childhood

Okay, um, when I was in kindergarten, we - bunch of tiny idiots who hated the place, cos it was not really a good place, we were not taken care of, we were mocked, laughed at, and honestly it was an abusive environment, one time those who supposed to take care of us scared the shit out of us for their fun, all of us were crying non stop after and then we were yelled at why we cry, but it was 90s after we left soviet union finally, so who cared about kids :/ so we decided to escape, we had a plan, me and my brother were the brains, and you know what? we did it :D

We went outside of that place, past the gate, we walked down the street, and we were caught because one of the toddlers started crying.

It sounds fun cos I was the kid who was escaping a facility, but when I look back it's wild what a fucking disaster of a place it was, how unsafe it was that bunch of pre schoolers and toddlers escaped it and went outside on street, and there were cars on the road, 90s were wild.

[delannoie]

The Mummy x Halloween 2/? [ @hxans suggested "Night at the museum" crossover so I did it XD] "Hmm, nice dress" "It's a tunic!" "Love it how it shows you legs" "Oh, shut up, you!..

[sixth-light]

TGH/TDR vs WoT season 2: what's in and what's out pt 1 (characters)

WoT's in and WoT's out, that is

I thought it would be fun (for me, sorry to the rest of you) to do a little analysis of where we're actually at in terms of adapting book material and the show, now we have officially passed the adaptation of the first three books. I am looking at this, as the show/showrunner have repeatedly stated they're doing, as a whole-series adaptation question: what happens in the first three books, in terms of worldbuilding, character introductions, and plot points, which is vital for the series arc as a whole? And of that, what remains to be shown on screen and thus might end up getting cut?

This is long, so I'm going to divide it into three posts over the next day or two: Characters (who has shown up and who hasn't), Worldbuilding points (ditto), and Plot points (has it happened or not). Major book spoilers obvs as I'll be discussing which of these continue to be important throughout the series.

NB before I dive in: what doing this has shown me is that despite TDR being one of my top 3 books of the series as a whole and much-beloved more generally, it...honestly has bugger-all in terms of plot that can't be handled by the show in other ways. The structure is a straight repeat of TGH and most of the really memorable scenes are vibes and character work (Mat's duel, Perrin's blacksmithing, Egwene's Accepted test) that the show likely doesn't have time to indulge in and/or that can be used as fodder for character development on the show in different contexts (like, Perrin's blacksmithing scene is lovely and you could do a version of it whenever the show character needs to re-centre himself pretty much...right up through the end of the series.)

Anyway, on with the actual programming!

CHARACTERS

My test for listing characters here is 1) is this character a PoV character and 2) if not, do they have a genuine impact on the plot or character development of PoV characters. For example: Carlinya and Breane Taborwin appear repeatedly through the series but do nothing someone else couldn't, so there's no point in assessing the significance of them not showing up in S2 even though they first appear in TGH. Characters struck through are ones who have now been introduced or mentioned by the show.

Introduced in TEoTW but not S1 of the show

Bayle Domon Elaida Gawyn (mentioned in S2, h/t @hxans) Galad Morgase (mentioned in S2, h/t @hxans) Elyas

Immediately obvious that it's the Caemlyn crew we're waiting on, and since casting has been confirmed for at least two of them and the other two were mentioned on-screen in S2, I think there's no question Elaida, Gawyn, and Galad will be in S3. Morgase is more questionable; my money is that she either won't be in the show and/or will actually be killed by Rahvin. Hate to lose a not-really-dead mum but some characters have got to go and it will make it much harder for show viewers to accept Elayne as Queen in the late series if she's still alive actually.

Introduced/mentioned in TGH

Suroth Renna & Seta Egeanin Verin Anaiya Liandrin (S1) Alanna (S1) Siuan (S1) Leane (S1) Vandene & Adeleas (Vandene now merged with Verin) Sheriam Alviarin Hurin (merged with Elyas in the show) 'Selene' Erith Aludra Masema Uno Mazrim Taim

Of those who haven't appeared in the show, Alviarin and Anaiya are frankly questionable in terms of whether the show needs them/highly likely to be merged with other Aes Sedai the way show!Alanna and show!Verin are book!Alanna x book!Myrelle and book!Verin x book!Vandene merges. ETA: thanks to @vriah for pointing out Anaiya was mentioned by name in 2x06, although I think the rest of this point stands. There's no point introducing Erith or Aludra until the show is ready to follow through on the storylines they are crucial for, which are both late-book storylines. I don't think we'll see either of them until S4-6, although I think we WILL see them.

ETA: I forgot Egeanin first shows up here! (h/t @butterflydm) Given what they did with all the Seanchan characters I think that's a deliberate choice to not confuse the narrative with a sympathetic Seanchan character until a season where we start to ask 'can individual Seanchan be anything except antagonists'. And since we likely won't hit that until S4 at the earliest, no point casting an actress here who might not be available (c.f. Birgitte). As an example, they've already had to re-cast Egwene's mother because the S1 actress was no longer available for S3.

Introduced in TDR

Aviendha Bain & Chiad Gaul Rhuarc Juilin Sammael Be'lal Pedron Niall Jaichim Carridin Faile Noam Rahvin Liandrin's thirteen, including Joiya Byir Faolain & Theodrin Tallanvor Dyelin Berelain Darlin Sisnera Laras (h/t @undeterminedvintage)

In contrast, most of the new-in-TDR characters haven't been mentioned yet!

Rhuarc and Faile: I think you have to have Rhuarc as a male Aiel leader in S3, there's no reason for it to NOT be him, and we know Faile has been cast. Makes total sense for her to meet Perrin in S3 as they will clearly be slow-burning that romance.

Berelain: Key to a bunch of plotlines, a very fun character, but there's no point bringing her in until Perrin/Faile is a going concern (but I think crucially in the show BEFORE they are married) which won't be for a season or two. Likely to be the first example of a ruler proactively pledging to Rand.

Jaichim Carridin, Liandrin's thirteen, Noam: Necessary but also won't be brought in until they're needed, and in the case of Liandrin's crew, will just be Black Ajah sisters as needed rather than a coherent group.

Pedron Niall, Dyelin, Darlin Sisnera, Faolain & Theodrin: I think elements of all of these characters will make the show (e.g. Elayne needs a buddy noble for the Succession, the Whitecloaks have to have a commander for Valda to assassinate, Egwene needs followers within the rebels) but they could be radically different and in some cases will likely take on other roles as well, though more likely than not under these names.

Rahvin, Gaul, Juilin, Tallanvor, Laras: I don't think any of these characters will make the cut for the show or if they do they'll be significantly merged with others. We only have room for two other male Forsaken and one of them has to be Asmodean, Tallanvor only matters if you do a Morgase storyline, Juilin and Laras are fun flavour and that's mostly it, and sorry Gaul fans but really what does he do aside from create sideshow romantic drama.

Be'lal: Out for sure since there's only 8 Forsaken.

Introduced in TSR

Lanfear-as-Lanfear (for Rand) and Moghedien...both don't show up until TSR actually, so we're ahead of the game there! Also possibly with Anvaere if she takes over Colavaere's later role (sob).

One other character note - it is still fascinating to me that the show chose to use obscure or non-existent names for the Brown sisters Verin spoke with in S2, as there are 30+ named Brown sisters in the books, many of whom could easily have filled those roles. The show isn't afraid to use existing sisters and even kill them (c.f. Maigan) so...what drove that decision? I thought it might be so they could be killed in the Tower Coup but now Maigan's dead I'm not sure!

Next time: worldbuilding!

[hxans]

Of my most recents, gotta go with the sleeping tiger with its tail dangling so close to the path that I could have reached up and tugged it

Share a pic of something in your camera roll that makes you smile, I'll start: