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keyofjetwolf · 4 years ago

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Bonus Question Answers! (non-anime heat 1)

I asked a silly question! You gave me incredible answers. SO VERY MANY INCREDIBLE ANSWERS. Now, I present my favourites!

Another that was so so so hard to narrow down. I did have to make special mention, though, at the sheer volume of you who (correctly) pointed out Haruka and Michiru either spending their quarantine fucking, or frustrated at being unable to fuck. Thank you, heroes.

If your answer is listed below, you’ve earned an entry in a random draw to win a GIFTENING liveblog OF YOUR CHOICE

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Q: The Senshi are all quarantining together! Describe what a wonderful/terrible/wonderrible idea this is. (YOU CANNOT BE TOO DETAILED)

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* First things first: if the Senshi are all quarantining *together*, then they must be old enough to be not living with their parents (or lack thereof). Furthermore, they must be living in a place big enough to accommodate all of them. Now, the Outers already have a huge fuck-off house, so if we're cheating and saying ALL the Senshi, not just the Inners, then we can say that Usagi and the girls moved in with Haruka and the girls after high school. Usagi and Makoto and Minako have almost certainly snubbed college; Ami and Rei not only attending, but Ami is aiming to get her Master's, so both of them have to take online courses. Setsuna is teaching them. Haruka and Michiru graduated from college *ages* ago. Hotaru also has to take online courses, but for high school since she'd be about that age at this point. Chibs is not here because she's smarter than to travel back in time to when there was a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Now then! Usagi is moping because she can't see Mamoru or Chibi-Usa, so she reads manga and watches TV to distract herself. As per her usual she mostly shoves her nose into what everyone else is doing, then gets distracted by a passing butterfly and chases it until she finds something new to stick her nose into. She's honestly taking the quarantine the hardest, even though she's living in a house with all her closest friends. The delivery guy knows her by name and by her super-cute hand-sewn (by Makoto) pink-and-white bunny mask. Makoto has sewn everyone custom masks, actually, which brings us to... Makoto naturally is doing the cooking and cleaning and laundry, and while she does love doing these things, she's now doing them for NINE PEOPLE, and Usagi has never learned to fold a sock in her life, and Ami folds socks but is crazy busy with her coursework, and Minako/Rei/Michiru/Haruka can't be bothered for one reason or another, and Makoto is about to explode because everybody assumes she'll do everything and do it smiling and normally they wouldn't be WRONG but COME THE FUCK ON YOU GUYS. She is in a constant state of being two steps away from an explosion. The only saving grace is Setsuna, who does actually help out in between teaching online courses, and who patiently listens to Makoto vent, because she understands that if Makoto melts down, so will the rest of the household. Makoto has a pink-and-green rose mask; Setsuna has a wine red mask with black stitching. Ami has vanished into her room. STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY. She is literally taking four courses at once because with a global pandemic, a) what else is there to do with one's life b) the rest of the household is utter chaos c) MUST DEVELOP VACCINE. She has actually be helping researchers online with this under an anonymous name. She *wants* to go out and volunteer, but understands that the best thing she can do is quarantine properly. She is constantly lecturing everyone about Best Quarantine Practices, to the point that the others mostly tune her out now. This is only piling onto her constant stress. Hotaru visits her occasionally with tea and textbooks so they can study and destress together. It's good for both of them, especially since Hotaru, with her health issues, is the most at risk of all of them. Hotaru's also used to isolation, so she's a surprisingly stabilizing presence for everybody. Ami and Hotaru both have standard hospital red-lined white masks along with their custom masks (Ami's is light blue with dolphin clasps on the side; Hotaru's is designed based on that optical illusion that's either a lamp or two people facing each other), because you need one for when the other is in the wash. Minako has become a Twitch game streamer and beauty YouTuber and is updating both CONSTANTLY, with YT guest star appearances by Michiru (who is always effortlessly and flawlessly beautiful) and Rei (who is using Minako to promote her own YouTube channel). Minako tried to get Usagi to be the camerawoman for her YT show but Usagi wanted to be the star too much, so now Minako as strong-armed Haruka into doing it. Haruka is bored out of her mind because she can't go out on drives, so she helps Minako out without complaint. Sometimes she even guest-stars on Minako's Twitch streams, depending on the game. Getting to film beautiful girls making themselves even hotter? Sure, she's into that. Minako's mask is glittery gold with red ribbons for cords; Rei's mask is black with flame decals on the sides; Haruka's is a solid black, tight and sporty; Michiru's is seemingly plain white, "coincidentally" complementing Haruka's, but is made of fine linen and silk. Rei meanwhile doesn't actually know what her channel is about and didn't give two shits about YouTube until Minako started doing it, but Minako is actually raking in a stupid amount of cash from doing this, so Rei figured, how hard could it be?? Right now she's somewhere in between doing her own beauty channel, doing paranormal investigations, cooking channel (she proudly presents instant meals as time- and money-saving masterpieces without an ounce of self-awareness. Haruka has had to hold Makoto back from suplexing her more than once), and a video review column where she tries things out and gives her opinions on them. She's *absolutely furious* that her channel is not as popular as Minako's. She's also strongarmed Haruka into being her camerawoman. Michiru allows this because watching Minako and Rei fight over their respective channels is the most amusement she's had all year. Ami asks Rei when she finds the time to study. Rei ignores her. -- @ayu-ohseki [I said spare no detail, AND YOU DID NOT. Thoughtful, considered, and a fun read start to finish, amazing.]

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* It is the best. Minako has a captive audience, Makoto has everyone to cook for, Rei has taken charge of how to Do Everything, Ami can hole up with her books and tutor Usagi, Usagi has all the time to play games and read comics. It is the worst. Minako has a captive audience and they want new stories faster than she can make them. Makoto has everyone to cook for and they eat so much all the time. Rei has taken charge of how to Do Everything but no one will listen. Ami can hole up with her books but that doesn't mean its quiet enough to read, and she can tutor Usagi but that doesn't mean Usagi is even making a small attempt at listening like in the group study sessions. Usagi has all the time to play video games and read comics, but no one will let her, especially Rei. -- @cakeandpi [Loved the Dickensian Best of Times/Worst of Times structure, precisely the level of epic this clusterfuck needs.]

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* In the best of situations, it is difficult to find housing for nine people on short notice, and these are not the best of situations. Given that she had, from at least the age of four, been bound to the moon by a curse of blood, it should not have come as any grand opportunity to Michiru that the opportunity to recuse herself from larger society life would be immediately and aggressively offset by Haruka's invitation for the Senshi to come quarantine at the Kaioh beach cottage.

One might assume that perhaps Usagi's parents, or Ami's mother, or Rei's grandfather, might have objected to their children being out of their sight in such a time, but that is to discount the general narrative inconvenience that seemed to pursue Michiru to the last. "Babe, there's like 6 bedrooms in the place," Haruka has said, quite missing the point entirely that Michiru had made it her goal to make use of everyone one of them. And so, here she was, where one might be sipping a glass of champagne on the veranda overlooking the sea, lover at her side, instead she was listening to the endless sniping between Rei and Usagi as they pattered about the house, there was no lover next to her, but only Ami with her endless piles of conspicuously books that Michiru felt quite certain had been selected for the view their covers provided others, Mako sending away the cook for what were noted to be COVID concerns but Michiru felt were more the concern of her longing for the spacious kitchen. Her mind preserved her enough not to speak of Minako, nor of the fact that the one she would have beside her was currently playing Mario Kart with such. Hotaru and Pluto were there, also. Michiru took another deep drink of the wine. With the volume she was consuming, she would have to switch to boxed wine. At this rate, she may qualify as hand santizer herself, which nearly stayed her hand. Usagi wailed loudly at Rei. Michiru took another drink. No Matter, she thought, for I will not die before my appointed time. The Moon will certainly see to that. -- @docholligay [You absolutely catered this to me and you know it, you whore. Hilarious AND beautifully written, I detest you.]

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* Usagi is thrilled to have all of her favorite people in one place. Mako will cook! Ami will read to them! Mina will write and Rei will direct plays for them all to perform! Haruka will make sure they stay fit! Michiru will teach them etiquette! Hotaru and Setsuna will also be there! Her favorite cats will be there to purr and offer guidance without actual knowledge and nagging! Yay! After a week, Usagi is still relentlessly happy. To be otherwise would be to admit that her friends are not perfect, perfectly suited for each other, and perfectly happy. She hasn't seen Haruka and Michiru at all in days; they commandeered the back bedroom with it's own bathroom and the others only know they're still in there by the noises *ahem*, by the food delivery people who keep coming to the door, and the empty food containers that appear in the hallway. Mina and Rei are not speaking to each other after the Hair Clip Incident. Ami is still diligently serving as a go-between, but Mako refused and will not give either of them any of her cooking, so Rei keeps making Hello Curry and leaving the kitchen a disaster, while Mina somehow keeps convincing Haruka and Michiru's uber eats drivers to give her stuff. There is only one litter box for the two cats, and that is not enough. And Artemis keeps leaving the seat up on the toilet. No one knows how, or why, but he does. Hotaru and Setsuna are also there. Worst (best?) of all, Usagi doesn't miss Mamoru at all, and hasn't actually noticed his absence. He's been missing for three days. -- @incorrecttact [I ADORE the little touch of Usagi having to aggressively fake it because even she is struggling THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED. You made me bark laugh at the end. Glorious.]

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* Rei's Journal: It's day 8 under lockdown and I have somehow managed to retain my sanity. It has not been easy. By day 4 Minako and Makoto were at each other's throats because Minako tried to clip her toenails in the kitchen, due to Ami holing herself up in the bathroom. Makoto threatened to make Minako eat a toenail burrito, and by God I think Minako actually would eat it just to show Mako up. It has been a struggle to keep Usagi from eating all the food, and I fear she is contemplating the idea of eating Luna and/or Artemis. Ami is retreating further and further into her shell. She has solved every math problem in every math book she had at her disposal, and is now showing withdrawal symptoms. The walls of her room are covered in math equations. I am doing as best I can; my rations of "Here!" Quarantine snacks have been balanced to last me for at least the next week, but after that point I am not sure what happens. As a shrine maiden, I'm used to long periods of silence in my meditation. It's been difficult keeping my focus with Usagi and the others slowly losing their minds, but I am a survivor if nothing else. If I could survive D-Point, I can survive this... Wait I didn't survive D-Point FUCK. -- @judedeluca [Rei’s journal, yes, thank you for catering to me directly, I appreciate your service and killer ending.]

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* Everyone's locked into separate rooms by day 2, or make-shift rooms with blankets taped to the ceiling. By day 3, there's lines on the floor. Ami makes a timetable for when everyone can go to shared spaces like the kitchen or bathroom. Usagi is distressed that all of her friends can't get along, even as she has an existential crisis about not wanting to be around them herself. Rei is suddenly the mom friend, when Mako realizes that trying to help everyone leads to her stress-baking leads to her taking too much time in the kitchen leads to everyone more pissed off. Minako is alternately drunk off her ass and egging everyone on, or making notes for pressure cooker situations to add to training. Haruka gets more sullen than anyone's seen her, Michiru loses some of her polish as her nerves finally fray by the end of the week, and is cussing people out by day 9. Setsuna immediately regrets her decision not to hunker down at the time gate. Hotaru's glad to be included but so anxious she starts collecting the house's lamps in her area. Ami has to make a timetable for using those as well, so Hotaru doesn't call death to them all. Somehow, they survive. When things let up, they all promise not to speak of it again, at least not directly, and then immediately all take at least 3 days to be by themselves in their own spaces. -- @katrani [Usagi’s existential crisis, yessss. Hotaru stress-hoarding lamps though, everything I never knew I wanted.]

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* Ordered in Michru's least loss to greatest, or conversely, Usagi's greatest loss to least: 1) they stay at Michiru's mansion. It's huge. It's spacious. Michiru disappears within minutes and isn't seen again until 14 days later. Pluto finds her easily enough for tea, Rei does so out of dogged determination, and Haruka doesn't have to try. Usagi does, but she gets lost easily and there are so many snacks everywhere, she gets distracted. what's that? A room filled with tvs? another with comics? Mako worries about her getting cavities and uses the greatest kitchen ever to cook things up. She almost never leaves there. Ami poisons the pool every time she leaves as part of the great Hatemace. Chibs and Hotaru get a chance to be kids and actually play. If the starlights are there, Seiya and Haruka have a dramatic face off. Mina makes sure to leave graffiti everywhere. Despite her best efforts, she can't find Michiru's weakness. Artemis and Luna take a vacation. 2) They stay at Usagi's, Minako's, or Ami's. They do not stay at Rei's because Grandpa is old and Rei has put the fear of god in anyone who dares come to the temple. The houses/apartments are small and cramped with just the five inners. With everyone else? Chaos. Artemis and Luna are glad they aren't affected and escape. Chibs conveniently stays in the covid-free future/"look, I already have teh vaccine! I don't have to stay here with you". Hotaru contemplates reincarnating again. Mako enjoys time with Usagi's mom, cooking together (no, she isn't crying, you're crying). Minako takes extremely long showers to piss Michiru off. Michiru is not sure how she got forced into this, she feels the hand of god in play and curses the writer internally. Pluto unravels the mystery of super!spy!Usagi's Dad but no one will ever know the answer to that. Ami escapes online and plays sims where they all have their own rooms, with Jet's help. Rei turns on the stove and pretends its the great fire to meditate. Haruka likes this long sleepover! She's never got to do one before! Usagi agrees and they plan horror movies and games and fast food. If the starlights are there, Seiya plans an even greater slumber party. Usagi helps both because more parties are always better. 3) They stay at Mako's two-room apartment. Chibs doesn't even step into the past, she's heard the horror stories from her aunts. Hotaru begins the sequence for the end of the world. Word of god or no word of god, Michiru refuses to go. When the narrative railroads her into it, she claims the balcony for herself, furnishes it, and locks the door so no one else can come. Pluto stays in the void, unreachable by all. Mako has never seen her apartment so filled and noisy and she's both elated and afraid for her plants. Her plants are terrified and tremble the entire time. Rei lives in the oven. Minako claims the bathroom--a toll is required for anyone else to enter. Ami puts all her brainpower to finding a cure to escape this hellhole. The bedroom is a nonstop competitive slumber party, and Minako, Haruka, and Seiya have a song off. A toll is still required to enter the bathroom. Usagi breaks onto the balcony once to hug Michiru. -- @kumeko [I love the different branches, ALL THE SHENANIGANS]

~~~

* (Putting Inners in college so Ami isn’t on call as a doctor) The good news is that the Outers’ ridiculously spacious mansion is, in fact, ridiculously spacious enough to accomodate eleven people (I’m certain Mamoru was not in your intentions, but it was agreed that Mamoru is a good quarantine podmate who will follow all necessary rules, and also Usagi would be insufferable if he’s not there and Mako points out that he lives alone and the social isolation would be killer) and three cats. Haruka’s happy to have Minako around all the time, and Pluto and Hotaru are thrilled to have Chibs. (Rei asked why Pluto and Chibiusa can’t just go back to their own times. Pluto gives a lengthy explanation about past and future virology that may or may not be total bullshit. No one really knows with her.) Ami is continuing her studies, as she does, and has a consistent schedule involving Study Hours and Socializing Hours. She does, however, make sure to swim in the Outers Mansion Pool every day at the same time Michiru customarily does. Neither of them says anything about this. Their rivalry continues. Michiru knows every nook, cranny, and secret passage there, and can easily avoid anyone who’s gotten stir-crazy should she so choose. Mako has taken command of the kitchen, and cannot be talked out of doing all the cooking. The food is delicious, nutritious, and is basically Quarantine Baking Times Twelve. Her skills are appreciated by all. Mamoru is likewise well-behaved, and mostly spends his time being quietly useful, spending time with Usagi, and listening to classical music with Michiru without otherwise interacting with her, making him the one man whose presence she will tolerate. The cats are well-behaved. They are the ones who are quarantining well. Minako, of course, is dying of boredom by the month and a half mark, and proceeds to take up a wide variety of hobbies, only to move on when they turn out way less fun than the video suggested. She annoys the others to show her how to bake tarts, or paint, or whatever it is Pluto does all day. Eventually she does find something she enjoys enough to stick with - wirework. While her preference is for jewelry, she does work with larger scale stuff just enough to present Mamoru with her masterpiece - Chicken Sculpture 2.0. (He seethes.) Rei, meanwhile, has also taken up new and exciting hobbies, but she will determinedly stick with each one until she has reached an arbitrary goal of Accomplishment. Even when she hates them, as is the case with birdwatching, Zumba, Mako’s attempts to refine her sense of taste, and trying to follow professional wrestling. She does take to cross-stitching once she discovers it’s basically stabbing something until it’s art. Felting, too. Between that and cleaning she’s a delight when she and Minako are not grating against each other. Which is frequently, with them both taking up all these new hobbies. (When assigning rooms, Michiru thought ahead. Rei’s and Usagi’s are next to each other, at the end of the hall. They bicker as much as ever but everyone else can get distance when really needed.) Usagi is happy to be somewhere with all her dearest friends, all the time! She is VERY BAD at waiting patiently until everyone else’s Productive Hours are over, be they online classes and homework or painting or quietly stealing Mamoru’s abstract mosquito coil shirt and throwing it through the Gate of Time and into a void where it will never again darken their sight. (Pluto isn’t a monster, and replaces it with a similar but less incomprehensible white T-shirt with a pattern. Mamoru assumes this was Minako’s doing.) Artemis assigns himself as resident Blonde Disaster Watcher, while Chibiusa - currently visiting as a roughly 14-year-old, matching Hotaru - smugly points out that she’s handling quarantine just fine. This prompts a round of furious research by the rest of the house as to whether or not cats can drink alcohol. Haruka’s practically run down a path around the Sprawling Kaioh Estate on which the mansion sits. How can she angst gaily without a mission? Sure obviously staying home and keeping safe is the most important thing and she will do her part, but that’s not nearly dramatic enough to hate herself for if she decides she’s quarantining inadequately! Michiru decides the best thing for this is to take her, Usagi, and Minako and sit them all down with empty scrapbooks. Usagi and Haruka emerge after the pandemic with eighteen volumes of Important Friendship Scrapbooks. There’s an adorable doodle of them high-fiving on the title page of each one. They designed it themselves. Despite this all, quarantine does actually pass without any of them killing each other, though Haruka and Michiru do strongly consider sending the others to Hikawa Shrine instead. Grandpa Hino can manage all this energy. No one except Chibiusa thinks to ask how Hotaru’s doing. They forgot to check her room. -- Regalli [I know legit sadness in my Senshi Heart that I cannot see Haruka and Usagi’s scrapbooks with my own eyeballs. Loved this whole thing, but fucking Hotaru at the end hahahah]

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* It's all a matter of perspective. Mako and Ami will keep themselves consistently busy with cooking/baking, plant caregiving, reading, eating sandwiches, etc. Mako will eventually cave, after like, day 6 and there are 3 dozen scones, they lost count of cookies, and they've got frozen meals for weeks. Rei keeps telling her to stop cooking because she stumbled into Mako's apartment with armfuls of Here! Curry! and convenience store meals. Usagi is sooooo boooooored all the time and that's a dangerous combo with Minako being soooooo booooooored all the time. The Rube-Goldberg machines, the destruction, the pranks. More about Rei sadly as I know you don't particularly care for her at all whatsoever: she is a rollercoaster. Every day is too different but it's also always the same. Usagi is eating too much of her food but nobody else is eating enough. It won't go bad this way, but Usagi STOP I GOT THAT KIND OF CHIPS FOR ME. She finds some peace with Michiru who herself trying to keep a grasp on her ~*ara*~ ness but won't admit that by day four has been wanting out. "The girls are sweet" she convinces herself as she listens to another screaming match between Usagi and Rei while Minako snapchats everything. Haruka lost it by the second day, she can't stand not doing anything and not being in motion. At first this was channeled into doing small workouts that Mako sometimes participated in from a distance, but those have stopped. How long have you been laying on her floor today, Haruka? You gonna get up and have something to eat today Haruka? Hotaru and Chibs keep themselves busy with games and movies (Chibs and Usagi fight over the TV), Setsuna plays sometimes but is just happy to watch and enjoy these moments of peace. Chib's pride is on the line because she is getting bored by day 5 but she will not be sooooooo booooooored like Usagi. Mamoru begins to bring them all takeout by day 10 and slips Michiru a bottle of wine when she comes down, she is grateful, the label brings a tear to her eye, he knows good wine. Luna and Artemis are there. They sure are cats, and they can come and go if they want. They are envied. At some point they are all laying in the living room together. They don't know how long, someone's playlist is playing in the background. They don't care. It's the longest anyone has gone without talking. It's the one of the few times they've truly felt connected with one another as a team. Minako then asks, "If I ate myself, would I become twice as big or cease to exist?" It was nice while it lasted. -- @thatonemoonie [Every detail is divine, but oh my god Minako’s question at the end, THANK YOU.]

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* Michiru does not have enough wine and the Moon will pay for what she has endured. -- the Lord of the Sea [Summing it up in the perfect single sentence, brilliant.]

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* It's Usagi's idea, really. Quarantine procedures are announced and she can't help but imagine what it will be like for all her friends. Minako, stuck with family she doesn't get along with. Ami's mom under even more stress as an essential worker, probably avoiding her daughter to keep her safe from the virus. Makoto, completely alone! Rei, probably regressing from not seeing other people! This cannot stand. Usagi has visions of Mako making gigantic family style meals and keeping things scrupulously clean. Ami contentedly petting Luna and Artemis and keeping them all up to date on how things are progressing. Minako livening the mood by driving Rei insane. And all is right in Usagi's world. It IS like that... sometimes. Being stuck together 24/7 has its ups and downs, and there has never been a situation as prolonged as this one. There are tense moments, and fights over silly things like toilet paper and Usagi running up the phone bill by calling Mamoru so often. It's cramped. Ami tries to keep them up on their distance learning, and checks temperatures daily. They try some disastrous DIYS and recipes when supplies get low. Usagi and Rei have an emotional moment when one night, she tries to secretly use Moon Healing Escalation on the city. In the end, they come through stronger than ever, like always. Just with a lot more appreciation for distance and personal space. -- @yunyin [All incredible, but you absolutely fucking GOT ME with Rei catching Usagi trying to heal the city, DELICIOUS ANGST]

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I’ll be drawing for the bonus liveblog around the start of THE GIFTENING 2020 (currently looking to be Monday, 11 January 2021). Each bonus question is another chance to earn an entry! I CAN ABSOLUTELY AND SHAMELESSLY BE BOUGHT.

#THE GIFTENING 2020 #THE GIFTENING 2020 admin stuff #THE GIFTENING 2020 bonus q

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neuxue · 5 years ago

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: Towers of Midnight ch 6

Morgase serves tea and makes a choice

Chapter 6: Questioning Intentions

Oh man Morgase POV is always sad.

Though I suppose her situation now is arguably better than it’s been in…oh…ten books or so, so maybe it will get better for her.

Right now, she’s serving tea.

Tam al’Thor, the simple farmer with the broad shoulders and the calm manners.

And also your in-law. Well, sort of. I mean, it’s complicated.

Okay sorry now I’m distracted by the thought of how absurd those family dinners would be. You’ve got Rand, Elayne, Min, and Aviendha (we’re just going to count that bonding as a marriage because to all intents and purposes…), then Tam, Morgase, Min’s aunts (are they alive? Why can I not remember this?), probably Amys given the sister-bonding ceremony, and if she’s there Rhuarc and Lian probably would be as well. Then Birgitte and Niella and Galad and Gawyn, and that’s just the immediate family but would you also have to extend a courtesy invite to Alanna, and therefore also Ihvon? And if we’re extending courtesy invites based on ‘has real estate in Rand’s head’ then we’ve got to invite Moridin as well, and at that point even without additional plus-ones I don’t envy the person who has to make that seating chart.

That was a tangent.

Of course, Morgase had seen Rand al’Thor once, and the boy hadn’t looked much more than a farmer himself.

Okay I do sort of want to be a fly on the wall when Morgase finds out that Elayne is pregnant with his child.

Speaking of seating charts, we get a roll call for this meeting but it does not add up to 23. Yes I will be looking for that everywhere now.

Very little about that time in her life made sense to her now. Had she really been so infatuated with a man that she’d banished Aemlyn and Ellorien?

Oh Morgase. If she can get one thing out of this mess, let it be the knowledge of who Gaebril really was. Because sure, sometimes it’s better not to know. But one of the cruellest things he did to her, in that whole mess of cruelty, was to leave her with absolutely no way of knowing this was not, truly, all her fault. He took away her self, her trust in and certainty of who she is. He undermined her nation and banished her friends and made her believe, even after his death, that it was by her hand and by her choice.

As if the physical and mental violation wasn’t enough. He found a way to violate her on another level as well, by twisting her own sense of herself, by leaving behind a ruin and leaving her no way to understand that it wasn’t of her own making. The Queen is married to the land, and for all she knows, she has betrayed that in every possible way, and she can’t possibly know that her choices were not her own.

Knowing that it wasn’t her choice, and that there was nothing she could have done… I mean that won’t be fun either, but it would at least give her something of her self back.

Meanwhile, Perrin’s annoyed at how long it took the Wise Ones and Aes Sedai to burn that village. Listen, people, you can’t keep judging these things by Rand. Just because he could take out a city in a matter of seconds doesn’t mean everyone can. Do I need to invent more units of measurement here? The Therin: potential mountains created or destroyed per unit of time.

“You wetlanders would have much trouble dealing with something as deadly as the Blight.”

“I think,” Faile said, “that you would be surprised.”

Yeah. Also don’t say that in Lan’s hearing.

Oddly, Faile’s sense of leadership seemed to have been enhanced by her time spent with the Shaido.

Nope, sorry, still not here for halfhearted attempts to pretend that storyline was All For Her Benefit, Actually. Especially because if we do take that on faith, it leads to some… okay no I’m not rehashing all my issues with the Malden plotline here; none of us need that.

Suffice it to say: ughhhhhhhhhhhh.

At times, being a servant seemed to require more stealth than being a scout. She wasn’t to be seen, wasn’t to distract. Had her own servants acted this way around her?

Morgase and Siuan could have an interesting conversation about dramatic changes in social and political status in a short space of time. And also, you know, extreme trauma and other fun pastimes, but especially the way they both then look at and try to come to terms with their new situations. They both do the same sort of thing of looking at all the ways in which they can still exercise power, only more subtly. The advantages of being overlooked and underestimated. And some of it is likely a kind of denial—a way to not feel like everything they knew and everything they were is lost. To try to focus on the advantages because that makes it hurt less. And the way in which they approach that is the politician’s way: turn it to your advantage, look for lines of power that weren’t there before. And also to think through the implications, and see things they may once have overlooked.

It's a hell of a price to pay for a change in perspective, but the fact that she can look at it that way, and think along some of those lines, is in its way a testament to her capability.

It discomforted her that the two Aes Sedai no longer seemed to resist their station.

Pretty sure we’re not really talking about the Aes Sedai here, Morgase. Because this is the other side of that acceptance of a new role: the fear that, in accepting it, she will lose what remains of herself. Oh look, we’re back to that central idea of identity and self and what it means to hold or lose or change that, and the fine balance between those possibilities.

Pouring tea was more complicated than she’d ever assumed.

This is something Jordan occasionally did as well: centring a chapter—especially one told from the viewpoint of a more minor character—around a motif or touchpoint like this, returning to it as a way of anchoring the rest of the chapter, and giving it more shape, especially when much of it is introspection or observation rather than action. Ornaments comes to mind, from Crossroads of Twilight, but there are quite a few others.

And of course I’m never going to complain about tea being used as a device for focusing a chapter.

It gives us a point from which to segue into Morgase’s thoughts on Perrin, which boil down to a solid ‘it’s complicated’. Mostly because by the standards of the Queen of Andor, he’s technically a rebel.

Alliandre’s cup was half empty. Morgase moved over to refill it; like many highborn ladies, Alliandre always expected her cup to be full.

And so we see the function of the tea: it’s a focal point for the chapter, but more than that it’s the method we’re using to get Morgase’s thoughts about and insights into the various people gathered here. Little bits of character and personality in… not so much how they take their tea, but the considerations around it. The things Morgase has to think about and keep track of, even for so simple a task. And so we get insight into Morgase’s new role as well, and into some of what she’s learning: that even in a position where she is largely unnoticed, there is a great deal she can and must see, and know, and understand about those around her. To pick up on those cues and know what they mean, and how that gives her insight into far more than how they take their tea.

Morgase was no longer the person she had once been. She wasn’t sure what she was, but she would learn how to do her duty as a lady’s maid. This was becoming a passion for her. A way to prove to herself that she was still strong, still of value.

In a way, it was terrifying that she worried about that.

And really fucking sad. But also entirely true to who she is and her situation. She’s lost everything. Her role, her nation, her friends, her sense of self, her sense of autonomy, her name, her identity. And she believes most of it to be her own fault, through her own poor choices and decisions. And now she’s here, under a new name and a new role and everyone believing the person she was to be dead, and Morgase herself came pretty close to making that true. How could she not feel lost, and uncertain of who she is, and desperate to prove that she’s still…someone. To prove that she was right to let Lini draw her away from that open window. Which, yeah, that gets dark fast, but Morgase’s story is not a happy one.

With all she has lost and all she can no longer be, she’s left in this space of not really knowing her purpose, or her place, or even who she is, anymore. And that’s hard enough, but then we add in all the self-loathing stemming from what she thinks she did, and failed to do, and the choices she’s had to make, and you end up here: with Morgase struggling to find any sense of self-worth. And so believing she has to prove—to herself, to others—that she is worth something, because there’s so much in her mind telling her she’s…not.

Meanwhile, Perrin still seems to think he can just send everyone home and everything will go back to normal. Speaking of denial.

“I’m not trying to recruit,” Perrin said. “Just because I don’t turn them away doesn’t mean I intend to enlarge this army any further.”

That sounds oddly like Lan’s resignation to Nynaeve recruiting him an army on a technicality. The difference being Lan at least recognises that’s what’s happening.

Perrin please.

“I didn’t make this banner,” Perrin said. “I never wanted it, but—upon advice—I let it fly. Well, the reasons for doing that are past. I’d order the thing taken down, but that never seems to work for long.” He looked to Wil. “Wil, I want it passed through camp. I’m giving a direct order. I want each and every copy of this blasted banner burned. You understand?”

Two steps forward and one step back.

I mean, I suppose you could make an argument on either side of this: on the one hand seriously, Perrin? You have been trying to deny this banner and your place as leader of these people for nine books now. Has it ever worked for you before? And do you really want to take away that focal point, that symbol to these people of what they’re fighting for and who they’re loyal to and why?

On the other hand… giving up his claim to Manetheren wasn’t a popular decision but I think it was the right one, because it helped focus them on what was truly important and prevent unnecessary tension between those who should be allies, by getting mixed up in the politics of raising a dead nation from the land of existing ones. And you could maybe argue that this is a similar angle, and that he’s trying to get them to focus not on him but on the larger purpose they all need to serve. But that feels like I’m trying too hard.

So, in summary: sigh.

Faile is also very much not convinced. I do sort of get where Perrin’s coming from, that if these people want to fight, they can do so for the Dragon Reborn because he’s the actual champion of the Light. But in reality, delegation is important, Perrin! That’s why you have a place in this as well! That’s why the Pattern dumped leadership superpowers and also wolves on you! Someone needs to actually do the groundwork of leading these people and Rand doesn’t have time or capacity for all of it.

And these people know you, Perrin. You’re the one they chose to follow; Rand is… well, as in so many things, more a force than a person at this point, in the eyes of most. They can fight for his cause, sure, but they’re not really fighting for him the way they’ll fight for the one who helped save their village or their people, and the one they see day to day and choose to give their loyalty to.

“Son,” Tam addressed Perrin, “the lads put a lot of stock in that banner.”

That pretty much says it all. This isn’t a time to be taking that kind of symbol from people, or messing unnecessarily with their sense of identity, or their foundations. In a weird way I’m reminded of Egwene’s approach with the Aes Sedai, and all her thoughts on how to reforge the Tower without breaking it. Making some compromises where needed because while there are some places where she can push, she can’t afford to completely shatter their sense of who they are. Not now, when there’s so little time.

And with Perrin, it’s that same sense of… work with what you have. Forge the metal you’re given. This is the situation, and maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s what you have. That loyalty is a part of the toolset you’ve been handed, so see it for what it is and work with it rather than trying to force it into a different shape and risk breaking the metal entirely.

Literally no one thinks this is a good idea.

“Husband,” Faile said, her words clipped. “Might I suggest that we begin with the ones who want to be sent away?”

And so it comes down, like so much else, to choices; Perrin wants to send them away but these people have chosen to follow him. He’s not keeping them here; they’ve decided to stay. And yes, you can flip that around and say he should also have the choice not to lead, and… yeah, okay, that’s a bit like how Rand technically has the choice not to fight. It’s a choice but not one either of them could really live with themselves for making, and so it becomes a question of framing and perception.

But also, Perrin does lead. When it comes down to it, he takes on that role. That is the choice he makes, over and over, in the moment. It’s in the time between those moments of action, when he is his own worst enemy in a way: he doubts and he fights against it and he looks back on past choices and questions himself and his role and his purpose. In the moment, he leads and he fights and he uses what he has. But in these periods of inaction he thinks himself into a tangle of ‘I’m only a blacksmith’, even when all his actions say otherwise. He just needs to get to a point where he can acknowledge and accept and own that.

Instead, he keeps wavering. And keeps trying to make it stick, but he’s trying to make the choice for those who follow him, rather than making his own choice, and so it doesn’t work.

The Pattern’s bringing maths into it now as well: they literally can’t keep large enough gateways open long enough to send everyone away. A hint, Perrin. Take it.

“Also,” Faile said, “perhaps it is time to send messengers to contact the Lord Dragon”

Someone suggesting proactive communication? If we didn’t already know the apocalypse was near…

“I…” Perrin seemed to flounder. Had he a source of information he wasn’t sharing?

Morgase. Please. Do you even need to ask? Does anyone in this series share anything?

Though in this case ‘I see swirls of colour and sometimes a bit of context whenever I think the names of my friends’ is, understandably, the sort of thing you might want to keep quiet until you can think of a way to frame it so that it doesn’t sound absolutely absurd. Although ‘absurd’ is sort of a moot point when the sky is full of black and silver clouds and the Blight appears in villages that don’t actually exist, so. It’s all relative.

Edarra suggests linking with the Asha’man and on the one hand yes! Cooperation! Good! But on the other hand why would you make it easier for Perrin to continue to try to send everyone away?

I suppose she’s thinking more of the refugees who do actually want to go home, though, so… okay fair enough.

“What would it cost me for you to try this?”

“You have worked too long with Aes Sedai, Perrin Aybara,” Edarra said with a sniff. “Not everything must be done at a cost. This will benefit us all.”

On that last, she is absolutely right. This is what they all need to be doing, and finally we’re starting to see it: cooperation, collaboration, setting aside old divisions and realising that perhaps if they work together they will be stronger for it. Small steps, and all that.

“Burn you, woman, why didn’t you bring it to me earlier, then?”

“You seem hardly interested in your position as chief, most of the time,” Edarra said coldly. “Respect is a thing earned and not demanded, Perrin Aybara.”

Ouch. On both sides there, because they both very much have a point. Edarra should have brought this up earlier, to someone even if not to Perrin.

But Perrin… this is where he kind of tries to have his cake and eat it: he says he’s not a leader, that he’s only a blacksmith, that he wants to send people away or let them fight for Rand rather than him. Tries to deny his role during the times when it’s not absolutely imperative that he claim it. But at other times he is quick to take command, and to make the decisions, and to give direction. And now, he wants to know why she didn’t bring this to him. Because he is, after all, the authority here.

If you would have that, Perrin, you have to accept all the aspects of it. You can’t keep leading these people and then saying you’re not actually their leader, but then also expect them to abide by your decisions—whether that’s to send them away, or to expect them to come to you with information.

There’s an interesting irony in how, by trying to be responsible and not take on a role he doesn’t think he’s suited for, he ends up doing something arguably irresponsible by neglecting the duties of a role he has in fact taken.

It’s not easy. It doesn’t seem like fun. But Perrin, you have to make the choice and claim it and understand what it means, and stop denying yourself.

To his very great credit, Perrin takes the admonishment seriously.

Aiel were people, like any other. They had odd traditions and cultural quirks, but so did everyone else. A queen had to be able to understand all of the people within her realm—and all of her realm’s potential enemies.

I like this about Morgase, and it’s something we see in Elayne as well: this acknowledgement of the importance of cultural understanding. They don’t always get it right, of course, but they understand the importance of it, and while we haven’t seen as much of Morgase in general, we do see Elayne try to follow through on this whenever she’s faced with a different people or group or culture, and I think this is where she gets it from.

Ah, so Balwer wants to visit Rand’s academy in Cairhien. What exactly are you hoping to find, Balwer?

Would [Balwer] tell Aybara who she really was?

I…huh. I hadn’t even thought of that. The others in that group obviously didn’t want or intend to tell anyone who Morgase is, but Balwer has given his loyalty and service to Perrin, so it is actually kind of interesting that he wouldn’t have said anything. But then, if Perrin hasn’t asked, and Balwer also has no specific desire to betray Morgase, I suppose he wouldn’t necessarily bring it up either. And it’s not like people here default to communication when there’s any other option, so… okay, that checks out.

Besides, think how much more fun it will be for this all to come out when Perrin and Galad run into each other. And by fun I mean probably the opposite of that for nearly everyone involved. But fun for me, which is of course the important thing.

She should have approached the dusty man earlier, to see what the price would be to keep his silence. Mistakes like that could cost a queen her throne.

She froze, hand halfway to a cup. You’re not a queen any longer. You have to stop thinking like one!

Oh, Morgase. There’s just… that’s quite a lot of pain packed into a few almost-offhand thoughts.

Especially because, again, it brings it back to this question of self and identity and who is she, now that she’s not a queen? To the point where she’s trying to remake the very patterns of her thoughts, to make herself into someone else because she can’t be who she was before, but if that person is lost then what is left?

Also, on a somewhat less sad note, there’s another small irony here: Morgase, a former queen, trying to force herself out of those habits of thinking, while she and everyone else around her is trying to push Perrin into them.

Of course now Morgase is thinking about how she can’t really go home, because people have to continue to believe she’s dead and Elayne has to be able to stand on her own otherwise it’s a political nightmare and she’s not necessarily wrong but man, Morgase’s story is fucking sad.

Why had she done such things?

I know I’ve already said this at least five hundred times but please, please just let her find out. Of everything, and there’s a lot, I think this is the worst. Bad enough she’s lost everything else and suffered everything she’s suffered and is now adrift, effectively an exile, and trying to find her place—how can she do that when she doesn’t even have her own self to hold on to? When she can barely even trust that? And especially when it comes with the consequences of those things she thinks she did of her own volition, because it’s not just that she doesn’t trust herself; for some things she hates herself.

Perhaps she should have done the noble thing and killed herself.

Wow.

Okay. So that’s.

Yeah. That got dark.

I mean, it’s not… a surprise, given that we very much watched her near-suicide, but…damn. For her to think that would have been the ‘noble thing’. For her to think that her survival is not in and of itself a victory.

She doesn’t even know if Elayne is queen yet, or even in Caemlyn. And politics aside, how hard that must be to not know where her daughter is or even if she’s alive.

Apparently she officially likes Tallanvor now, which… okay sure she deserves whatever happiness she can find, at this point, but this one has always sort of weirded me out. Then again that’s true of a lot of the romance in this series, so okay sure whatever.

Looking into those beautiful young eyes of his, she could not entertain the notion of suicide, even for the good of Andor. She felt a fool for that. Hadn’t she let her heart lead her into enough trouble already?

Okay, there’s a lot to unpack here and I don’t know that I’m going to even try with all of it, but I’m… not a fan of the way it plays to this whole he’s-what-keeps-her-from-killing-herself angle. I just find that an uncomfortable space in general, for any number of reasons.

But the part that hurts, here, of course, is the last part. Hadn’t she let her heart lead her into enough trouble already. Because again, she thinks this is all her fault. Everything that’s happened; she thinks it’s just… her own poor choices, when the truth is that she had no choice, for so much of it. Which… I mean I don’t think I need to make the obvious real-world connection here, but it plays very true to that tendency for those not at all at fault to blame themselves, and how devastating that can be.

Perrin of course knows none of this but does know there’s something going on with Morgase and Tallanvor, because Tallanvor in particular is not exactly subtle.

Morgase raised an eyebrow. From what she’d seen, Perrin himself had followed Faile around lately nearly as much.

Point to Morgase.

PERRIN. NO.

“I was given a suggestion back when you first joined us,” Perrin said gruffly. “Well, I think it’s about time I took it. Lately, you two are like youths from different villages, mooning over one another in the hour before Sunday ends. It’s high time you were married. We could have Alliandre do it, or maybe I could. Do you have some tradition you follow?”

YOU. ABSOLUTE. IDIOT.

Hang on a second, I need to go find a wall to hit my head against repeatedly.

I just. Perrin. No. Why would you even. Think this was a good idea. Pause for five seconds and consider.

Even without any of the knowledge of how awful Morgase’s life has been for the last year or so, Perrin should know better, damn it. You can’t just tell two people to get married as if they have no say in the matter! Especially when it’s not even like he’s taking one of them aside to have a quiet word about ‘this is getting in the way of your work; sort it out’, which would be kind of awkward but just about skirting the edges of acceptability. No, he’s saying it to both of them, when he has no confirmation from either that this is actually what they want. But he’s in charge here so now it’s hard for either of them to refuse him, and of course that would mean publicly rejecting the other, and in short this is the worst idea you’ve had in a while, Perrin.

And then of course—not that Perrin has any reason to know this—there’s the reality of Morgase’s recent past, which makes having her agency taken away (again) in the context of marriage and all that entails (again), even more of a glaring Do Not Want.

Morgase felt a sudden panic

I mean yeah, that’s probably the understatement of the fucking Age.

“Gather any you want to witness and be back here in an hour. Then we’ll get this silliness over with.”

So it’s not enough to take away any choice they may have in the matter and assume you know best; now you need to trivialise it as well? Perrin Aybara you are better than this.

“Well?” Perrin asked.

“No,” Morgase said.

Such a small, quiet thing, but it’s everything in the context of her story. That at last, after so many kinds of violation, after so many instances of her choice or her agency or her name or her will taken from her, she can say no. And she does.

It’s not precisely subtle but it’s also not precisely loud; it’s just a turning point and a reclaiming of self after so long of having that taken away from her. That now, she can stand as herself and say no, I will not.

She didn’t want to see the inevitable disappointment and rejection in Tallanvor’s face.

Which is the other reason you don’t just drag two people into a room and tell them to get married! Because even if they might want to marry each other, one or both might have some objections on principle to being told to do so! And then you’ve just created unnecessary tension in the relationship itself because now she’ll have to explain that ‘it’s not you, it’s that for once in my damn storyline I want to be able to give or deny consent of my own damn volition’.

I’m just very, very here for Morgase Trakand finally having a chance to stand up for herself and say no, because that has so long been denied to her in so many ways. And to find it in herself, even with all that has come before, to do that, because it would be so easy to just…accept it. But instead she stands her ground and in doing so, in asserting herself in front of someone else, it’s almost like asserting herself to herself as well. That she is here and she is someone and she has a choice and she will make it.

“Why, the Queen herself wouldn’t demand this!”

Ha. Okay, you’ve earned that one, I think.

“Forcing two people to marry because you’re tired of the way they look at one another? Like two hounds you intend to breed, then sell the pups?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You said it nonetheless.”

Yeah, this is… very much not Perrin’s finest hour here.

Whereas for Morgase… everything about this carries so much more weight than meets the eye, given all she has been through, and I’m just very here for it.

Pulling herself up to her full height, she almost felt a queen again. “If I choose to marry a man, I will make that decision on my own.”

Reclamation of identity! In reclaiming all the choices that have been taken from her! So much of what came before, all those times she couldn’t choose, was just this long agonising process of stripping away everything she was and everything she could hold on to in herself. And she’s been so lost for so long, and so here, in claiming that choice again, she finds some part of herself again as well. She may no longer be a queen but it’s not really about the crown, it’s about feeling like herself again, and finding something there.

Really, Tallanvor, in this case it’s honestly not you; it’s… a whole pile of other things. Don’t take it personally.

Morgase measured Perrin, who was blushing. She softened her tone. “You’re young at this yet, so I’ll give you advice. There are some things a lord should be involved in, but others he should always leave untouched.”

I do like that we get this—it was important for Morgase to be able to draw a line and stand by it and say, unequivocally, no. And to make it very clearly understood why Perrin was crossing a line.

But she also acknowledges that there was no malice in it; it was fucking stupid, but he did mean well. So let him feel painfully awkward for a few minutes, let it sink in, and then grant him this to soften it.

Man, that was awkward.

I mean, again, absolutely here for Morgase finally getting to make a damn choice, but would kind of have preferred if it weren’t at the cost of Perrin being written into quite this level of uncomfortable idiocy. Which I suppose is part of why I’m glad it ends on that sense of ‘you meant well but no’, rather than letting it escalate.

Basically: great character moment for Morgase but overall not a particularly well-done scene, I feel like.

It seemed she had some spark left in her after all. She hadn’t felt that firm or certain of herself since… well, since before Gaebril’s arrival in Caemlyn!

That pretty much sums it up. She needed this, needed to find that within herself.

And now enter Whitecloaks, stage left. This’ll get interesting.

Next (ToM ch 7) Previous (ToM ch 5)

#bit of a mixed bag of a chapter #Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #Towers of Midnight

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pip-liveblogs · 5 years ago

Text

Liveblog Introductions!

Hi everyone! Call me Pip. I am Head Administrator for @deearly-official and the creator for @twiniverse! Since Steven Universe is now over, I have to look for new things to be interested in (though make no mistake, I will never be over Steven Universe) and in that pursuit I decided to do a liveblog of a show I never actually watched!

Avatar is a show that always looked interesting from afar but I never let myself get sucked into. Since I’m extremely adverse to trying new things, I thought I should first try a show that I know at least occasionally interests me. So Avatar is it. I’ll be starting with The Last Airbender, but there’s always the possibility I might also do Legend of Korra if I get that far in this process.

The Team

This blog will be mostly run by me, Pip (27M). However, since I don’t want to be spoiled more than I already am (see below) I will be having my sister, Kiwi (27F), be my ask screener. She watched the entire series and will be able to determine which asks are safe for me to see and which aren’t. The method that we’re going to use will be me not ever going into the askbox, and she will send acceptable asks to drafts. Hopefully that works!

Btw I cuss a lot.

I’m also not going to do any research into the show, which means no looking at the Avatar tag on Tumblr, not going to the fandom wiki, and not spending hours on TV Tropes, which will outright kill me. I want this to be as blind as possible, given I already have some prior knowledge.

Prior Knowledge

For complete transparency, I know some stuff about Avatar. How could I not? That’s almost impossible as someone who grew up on the internet and watching cartoons in the 2000′s. And still watches cartoons for like 95% of his tv experience. So here’s what I know about ATLA (and LoK where applicable.) For anything that is incorrect, please do not correct me, because that means I get to be surprised!

Aang is the Avatar and the Last Airbender, which are different things, who managed to survive the Fire Nation destroying the Air Nomad Tribe by ... being frozen somehow. For 100 years I think.

Air Benders were fun people

Aang was told he was the Avatar early and mastered all the bending in like a year like some kind of fucking boss

Aang bows properly to all the different kinds of benders, because he’s respectful as shit

Sokka and Katara are sibling water benders. Katara is team mom

Sokka dates the moon

Sokka’s name is pronounced in a way that has annoyed me for over a decade

“That’s rough, buddy.”

Water Benders seem really stoked about tradition

Toph is an Earth bender who is blind and sassy as fuck. Her hat is not a hat and that bothers me

Toph, in addition to being sassy as fuck, is also a huge fucking troll.

“The Boulder is no longer conflicted about fighting a young blind girl.” (The Boulder is my favourite character)

Earth Benders have crazy wrestling with Earth Bending and shenanigans, which is awesome

Zuko is a dick, and a Fire Bender, and then he stops being a dick. Possibly because his father and aunt are bigger dicks.

Zuko’s Uncle is fucking Mako and that’s rad as shit. (RIP Mako)

Uncle Iroh is also apparently the chillest dude in the history of ever, which is contradictory to being a Fire Bender

Fire Benders do not like fun? They like power and war for some reason.

There’s a giant flying buffalo named... Appa?

I feel like there’s also some kind of little big eared monkey creature.

Aang and Katara get married and have a bunch of kids who are really awesome at Airbending and it frustrates Korra.

There’s war and shit.

Aang grows hair and so does Zuko and Aang looks weird with hair but Zuko looks weird without hair.

Someone fucking blood bends at some point I think? I honestly don’t know if that was a fan thing or not. I feel like Toph metal bends and is the only one who can do it and that the argument might be “I bend metal and there’s iron in your blood” or something. That’s brutal, Nathan Explosion would write a kick ass song about that.

Something happened in Ba Sing Se

There’s a cabbage man with the worst luck in the universe, and Skyrim referenced it

Liveblog Format

So what I’m planning is doing a screenshot at the top of the post and then my thoughts on what I pictured below it. These might mostly be 1 screenshot per post, talking about everything that happened between that post and the one before it. Some may have multiple screenshots and multiple thoughts. Once I’m actually doing it people can let me know what they think about the format.

Every episode will be tagged as the name of the episode (if they have names? By number if not) and there will be an episode list with links to the /chrono. To my knowledge, /chrono links still do not work with some Mobile users and there’s nothing I can do about that.

I will also be tagging every liveblog post for this show with “atla” “atla liveblog” and “liveblog” if you want to screen/block any of those. I ALSO will tag non liveblog posts (like this one) with “pip post” so you can skip those, too!

There will probably be no schedule. I’ll probably just do episodes ... whenever I feel like it? I’ll try to give heads up of at least a half hour but no promises since I kind of just do what I want.

#atla #avatar #the last airbender #pip post

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gal-liveblogs · 5 years ago

Photo

So let’s just start with the beginning.

So it’s not just Homestuck 2, it’s Homestuck². That’s fun. Also it has a subtitle of “Beyond Canon”. Makes sense, given what went down in the Homestuck Epilogues. Kinda wish I had liveblogged those now, but I had been too excited. Legitimately spent an entire day reading. I was too focused to even think to liveblog those.

The ^2 looks handwritten and is orange, also makes sense given what happened in the Epilogues. Dirk has his fingers all over this. How much influence will he have, I wonder?

Now that I’ve spent so long staring at the title perhaps I should get to reading the actual comic? Perish the thought! There appears to be a link to an FAQ! Let’s check that out first.

Oh man, this is bringing back some nostalgia. Putting the questions in the exile command boxes is a nice touch.

It is actual Homestuck. That is, an extension to the "canonical" Homestuck storyline,

Those are some big quotation marks around canonical, after the mess the Epilogues were. Not to say the Epilogues were bad, they just flipped and twisted everything around and made you really question what was “real” in a story.

It was designed to include the writing and art contributions from fans of the series. Many writers will be involved, and collectively they will be allowed significant latitude in shaping the direction of the story and the way it's told.

Interesting. Homestuck itself was no stranger to having art done by someone other than Andrew Hussie and the Epilogues were written with the help of someone other than Hussie. Even Homestuck was not solely written by Hussie, in the beginning fans wrote the commands that propelled the story forward. Plus we have Hiveswap, Friendsim, and Pesterquest all belonging to the Homestuck mythos but made by a team only overseen by Hussie. Homestuck 2 seems to be falling in line with the games. Different people make it and bring their own ideas to it, all while Hussie occasionally peeks in to give his nod of approval.

An "official fanonization" of the ongoing epic, if you will.

I can’t wait to see what happens. This is such a weird idea and I love it.

Oh my god. The Epilogues started off with a spoof as if they were written on Archive of Our Own, and now the recap of them is spoofing SparkNotes. Glorious.

Reading through said recap just so all the important bits are fresh in my mind (never skipped the Homestuck recaps, so I’m not skipping the Epilogue recap) and come across this:

In the heat of the moment, the two embrace passionately.

That’s an understatement. John and Terezi boned n the back of a car. Stiiiiill don’t know how to feel about that. Like, Terezi was flying around in Paradox Sapce for who knows how long from her perspective. Everyone else, including John, grew up and became adults. Was Terezi also an adult by this time, or did John just have sex with a minor?

They then fuck in the back of the car and there's really all there is to say on the matter.

Oh. So the previous sentence wasn’t an understatement. I just hadn’t read far enough yet.

But when they arrive, our hero finally succumbs to LE's venom, which has the effect of corroding a person's canonical existence beyond any hope of revival.

AKA, we really needed John to die but also didn’t want to deal with godtier revival rules.

Jade, who is now somehow aware of Dirk's influence, declares that he must be stopped. Dirk agrees with her, claiming his role as the villain of the story outright. He accepts the intrinsic antagonism of his narrative power, and has decided to carry that antagonism to its natural conclusion. He states that his eventual death will be Just.

Dirk is such a fascinating character. He has always been painfully aware of his faults. Yet he doesn’t try to stop himself. He has just accepted that he is not a good person and even encourages everyone else to give up on him. He is full of so much self-loathing and yet he does it all without any self-pity. It is truly something I have never seen in a character before.

Calliope distracts him with one final task: he must rescue Gamzee, who she insists deserves to begin his redemption arc immediately.

Gamzee used to be a fascinating character to me. I had so many questions about him. How much of his fall was out of his control? Was he to blame for everything? Outside forces? Mental instability? Then the Epilogues happened and I finally had to give up on him. I couldn’t hold out the hope that Gamzee could be a good character (if not a good person). Everyone who hated him were right all along. Gamzee is just a trash clown and should have stayed in the fridge.

As Jane joins in with Jake's day drinking, she attempts to seduce him but is ignored. Not to be denied, she resorts to using the terrible power of the trickster lollipop. The two sleep together. When they come to, Jake is alarmed by his lack of consent in the matter--Jane manages to talk him into a committed relationship.

Speaking of characters I gave up on: Jane. I never really had any strong feelings about Jane in Homestuck. She wasn’t interesting, but I didn’t dislike her. She was just... there. Had a few moments that really hit me in the feels, but overall kind of forgettable. Then in the Epilogue he not only turns into a xenophobic fascist, but she also pulls stuff like this. For all her pining over Jake she never actually did care about him it would seem. He wasn’t a person, he was a prize.

I didn’t care about Jake either, and he often annoyed me, but he deserved better than always ending up as Jane’s sex toy without any autonomy.

Gamzee has started performing public redemptions featuring sloppy makeouts and baby bottles full of Jane's breastmilk.

Seriously, Gamzee is just the worst. I hate him. Before the Epilogues the only character I hated was Kankri, but I hate Gamzee now too. This is also a reason why Jane has sunk so low in my standing with her.

They're interrupted by Gamzee, who tries to manipulate Vriska into a sexual relationship in the name of "redemption".

Now here is a sexual encounter that is without question involving a minor. Another reason to hate Gamzee.

She no longer cares if this reality is true, relevant or essential, and is enjoying the simple happiness of loving her wife and daughter.

This was a really sweet moment. Rose always did have a hard time just letting herself be happy.

Phew, O.K., done with the recap. Back to the FAQ!

Oh sweet, optimisticDuelist is part of the writing team for Homestuck 2! I’ve seen some of their stuff. It’s good stuff. Keep meaning to do a deep dive into all their analysis of Homestuck. Also Xamag is the art lead. Nice.

Homestuck has a Patreon now. Neat. Need to pay they people at What Pumpkin after all!

> Is this canon?

It's being pulled further away from direct control by the original author, and allowed to expand into spaces governed by fandom desire - a fanontinuum, you might say.

I’ve always liked the literary lens of Death of the Author. Homestuck 2 is diving head first into it. Yes, there is still an author (or authors, as the case may be), but The Author of Hussie is having less and less control (which makes sense from a narrative standpoint as Hussie, The Author, died in the story to really cement Death of the Author) and the fans are encouraged to take things into their own hands more and more. Homestuck is built by the fans and as such fan-created stories should have the same amount of importance as “canon” does.

> I just can't get enough Homestuck. I want to shove more and more of it into my slavering maw. Please help me.

Did they just plagiarize my diary?

Alright. Now I can start the dang comic!

In the next post. This one is getting a little long.

> Get on with it.

#homestuck 2 #homestuck 2 liveblog #liveblog #gal liveblogs

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faunusrights · 6 years ago

Text

OFFAL HUNT REMASTER LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 7

when will one of these chapters start with ‘wow murphy’s gonna love this and rly enjoy themself’ WHEN IT IS. I HAVE TO KNOW.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

okay i am Recognising this chapter so we’re not quite yet in untouched, completely Feral territory which is. nice. thats nice. i like it when i know what im working w/ but who the kell hnows.

Something nagged at her. A forgotten thing. She thought hard, but even so, it took a long moment for her to remember.

me when i go to my room to fetch my dishes for the washing machine but i get sidetracked by my dog being cute and then i forget and go back downstairs and remember the dishes and then i come back up but my dog is still there and i forget again-

i’m just. rly enjoying this glynda. I SAID IT BEFORE BUT IM RLY THRIVING FOR THIS IDIOT WITH ONE BRAINCELL. THE BRAINCELL IS CINDER.

Glynda’s hunting instincts were primed, the only part of her that worked with absolute clarity, even now.

this is why she hasn’t noticed cinder’s flirting, the fool, the blithering idiot,

In the split second before she faded from consciousness, she smelled ash, the foreign Aura within her flaring until she could taste it: burning flesh and steady decay. Then it disappeared, fizzling out.

hm. is it a callout to say this is. romantic. this is kinda romantic. hey is this? gay? i think its gay. im gonna settle on it.

its gay.

When she awoke the next morning, it was like pulling herself from some great void,

H👈A😎H👈

for some reason THAT was the fingergun that made me spill juice all over my keyboard i see how it is

Then she remembered that at Beacon, her blood usually stayed inside her body.

im thriving for this weird observation. you know when you wake up somewhere new like a hotel or smthng and for a moment yr like ‘where am i’ and u figure it out thru like. normal fucking means. like oh thats not my duvet oh thats not my ceiling oh thats not where my window is-

and then glynda has to judge her location by how much blood of hers is spilled in it. this bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE GOT ONE BRAINCELL AND OFFAL HUNT IS THE THESIS TO PROVE IT-

It was the room she’d all but dissembled in after getting her ass kicked and then saved by Cinder Fall.

sorry im going HOG WILD on quotes but these new lines r SO GOOD and im LIVING for them....................... like until now we’ve had glynda goodwitch, terrifying unstoppable woman and occasional dipshit. now shes all dipshit. just 100% pure dipshit. spread her on a field and you couldnt tell her from the manure. a complete buffoon.

that said its nice to see glynda using her Brainmess for once... i mean she still wont be able to put an otherwise fuck-ton of clues together still because that requires, the ability to multitask, which is surely does not have, but finally she’s taking five fuckin minutes to let herself go ‘well THATS weird’.

There had only been a stirring of life along those red-vein tattoos, swirling just along the cut of Cinder’s dress.

im enjoying the new ‘sexey tattoos’ slant we’re seein in this remaster it was a real shame they didnt get primetime attention last time.

also glynda Why Ya Lookin,

Hello,

she’d be a heretic to the Law of Semblances twice-over,

I May Not Know My Semblances, But I Know A Bitch When I See One!

For the first time in years, Glynda wanted to set everything aside and rest.

we stan a sleepy bitch................ ugh im so glad she’s finally realising she needs 2 give herself some mfing slack!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because as much as im enjoying the Dragfest she rly needs to. chill.

When she finally emerged from the bathroom, a towel around her waist and her dirty clothes balled in her hands,

look i didnt make this blog to lie that my first reaction to this was tilting my head and going ‘tiddy out? tiddy? is the tiddy out? tiddy?’

look women look hotter doing all the things guys do and this is fact i wont sit down and i Wont Shut Up

No more rushing ahead and getting herself torn up for nothing.

H👈A😎H👈!

thats a Good One, Glynda,

Winter Schnee had the pale white hair of her bloodline, and the sharp features of the famously reclusive Willow Schnee.

YES BITCH WE ARE IN IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POP THOSE MFING BOTTLES

i have been WAITING. FOR WEEKS. 7 FUCKING WEEKS I HAVE SAT HERE AND WAITED AND IT FINALLY PAID OFF OH MY GOD MY BITCH IS IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Ozpin had said, she was twice the age of the younger Schnee daughter, and her blue eyes held all the acuity that age had brought her.

i made a Sound at this i CAN SEE WHAT YOU DID. I SEE IT. I SEE IT,

A single photo hung on the wall next to a placard detailing some kind of award. Glynda pushed her glasses up on her nose to get a better look. Though it had the appearance of a family photo, only the women of the Schnee family were present, Willow and Weiss flanking a newly ranked Winter.

why am i being targeted directly anyway

safdjhgfsdajgh WINTER,....... im still. im Love w/ this main bitch finally... Finally.... i love winter in offal hunt so fuckign much and im so glad she’s here and that we’re getting more details because AAAAAAAAAAAAAA i love her!!!!!!!!!

also i cant.... say anything because spoilers..... but also............. NNNNNNN this convo has just. so much behind it. SO MUCH CONTEXT. its Killing Me,

A strange expression crossed Winter’s expression. It looked like how bruises felt.

im losing my fucking mind rn diesel and kc are going right to hell and they know it but do they care???????????? no. they already are the devil,

okay i went silent for ages and read ahead because i screamed in discord for like ten minutes and it looked like this

so YEAH theres that, i guess,

Instead, it only filled her with deep unease. Glynda didn't know what Cinder’s game was, but it was becoming clear that it did not align with her own. And the more she thought about it, the less she understood. The less she understood, the more wary she became.

cinder: i wanted to tell this girl i liked her so i wrote her a note that said get out of my desert,

im rly thrivin in this chap i already said it but we’re rly jumping into the meat n bones of the Plot now and its a Good Plot so im excited!!!!!!!!!

“Yes, I think you’ll like her!”

“she’s a lesbian, like you, so maybe her distinguished energy will chill your dysfunctional energies out-”

Glynda pressed her lips; she needed a delicate hand here, needed to carefully choose a response which would divert Ozpin away from the topic. “No reason.”

YES MY FAV LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is Big Me and literally this is MAYBE the best and also funniest line in this entire shitshow remembers the Pasta Bit and /sweats

i also rly enjoy glynda n ozs friendship... i mean im out here remembering the glynda/ozpin/cinder fic so i was already sold on all their interactions but its rly good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GLYNDAS BEST FRIEND MAY BE 200 YEARS OLD BUT GOD DAMN IT WHEN WILL YR BFF EVER BE THERE FOR U LIKE THAT,

theres a Bit here im not gonna go into but. honestly once u kno how offal hunt basically ends? Its Sad and Im Sad. i hate how knowing this whole thing just inflects on everything else and everything glynda wants and honestly this whole fic sucks. why am i reading this AGAIN.

“I have faith in you, Glynda. But there are terrible things that can be done to a person even without killing them.”

👈😢👈

we’ve popped the first sad fingerguns but also What The Literal Fuck, Oz,

“Come and catch me, then.”

im LAUGHING this is much better than the first version because this is SUCH a cinder-brand of shit to say dsfjhgfds she’s SUCH A SHIT-STIRRER but i love her,

“She’s just sent me something. My Scroll is working fine, but I think it’s safe to assume she knows what we’re discussing.”

“What did she send you?”

“An invitation.”

oh finally glynda works out the whole CCT business JHGDSFSDF i wonder if cinder knew shed figure it out or saw her msgs to oz and went ‘ah shit well’

BUT YEAH..... DATE! DATE! DATE! HOT DATE WITH CINDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am. VERY excited as many of u will remember i made a prime shitpost abt That Chap back in the day and ill have 2 REDRAW IT!!!!!!!!! POPPIN BOTTLES!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway this chapter sucked and was also very good in equal measure. as it is Wont,

#rwby #offal hunt #liveblog

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ladyloveandjustice · 6 years ago

Text

Spring 2018 anime Overview: My Hero Academia Season 3 (Episodes 1-13)

My Hero Academia comes back with a bang for season 3. The students are sent to a superhero training camp, but chaos erupts when villains invade. (Check out my take on season 1 of MHA on Epicstream here, my take on the first arc of season 2 here and my anime overview of MHA season 2 here)

Both My Hero Academia’s strengths and weaknesses persisted in this season. That means annoying bullshit with Mineta sexually harassing the girls as ~comedy ~ , the girl heroes in general being underserved and the occasional bit of sexist or sexualized nonsense. However, it probably says a LOT about My Hero Academia’s strengths that I’m still watching and enjoying.

The characters and their dynamics are so much fun, the fights are some of the best I’ve seen in shonen, the animation is phenomenal and this series can hit the emotional beats so hard and so well. I had so much fun watching this season that I actually couldn’t resist doing a weekly recap/liveblog partway though, which you can check out here if you want more detail on my thoughts and other weirdness.

So this season starts off with the kids at a training camp and though it’s a little bumpy at first (we’ll get to that later), the stakes quickly get wicked high when the villains invade. We also get a little world-building, showing a kid who’s very cynical about superheroes after his parents died in the line of duty. The show hasn’t really gone into what families of heroes go through, and seeing it approach that territory is pretty cool.

Of course it’s up to Deku to prove the worth of heroes, and the fight where he defends Kota is just BOMBASTIC. The action, the visuals, the voice acting, everything is on point- it’s such a simple, not-all-that-uncommon story, but the show executes it with such sincerity and style you’re utterly blown away. Deku’s desperation to save the little boy, his terror when he thinks he’s going to die, the ridiculous bone-breaking feats- it all really hits you.

MHA’s strength is the way it can take simple shonen/superhero plots and elevate them by just going all-in, heart and soul, with total confidence and not a hint of sneer. it’s here to give you a lavish spectacle that has real heart and belief in the power of heroes and the greatness of these characters, and it succeeds. This holds true for the other big fights of this season, particularly All Might’s big one.

Oh boy, does this season have the All Might feels for ya. It was pretty nice to finally learn a little bit about where he came from, and it was very cool to find out he’s carrying on the legacy of a woman, that she’s his mentor and inspiration, and he carries her words and teachings to motivate him in times of need. It’s still sadly rare to see male heroes being inspired by the legacy of women and looking up to them, so I gotta give my props-she’s straight up superhero Mia Fey, and we all know how I feel about that lady. it’s especially nice to see from MHA, which has struggled a lot with adult female characters.

Anyway, All Might’s big fight is pure shonen in the best way, it’s brutal and devastating and over the top and ridiculous and it’s genuinely something that is going to hugely impact the show going forward. You don’t want to miss it

But honestly, MHA’s biggest strength this season may be how it dealt with the aftermath of all this. It was careful to immediately depict the emotional fallout all this violence would have, and the way the characters were going to have to change in response and the conversations they need to have now. That’s a crucial element that’s missing from so many shonen and adventure stories, so it’s nice to see MHA really nail it.

Dead Moms in shonen are kind of a meme, and they’re ubiquitous in young adult adventure stories in general. However, in MHA our protagonist has a living mother who’s struggling to support him, and the show takes the time to explore her feelings over seeing her son get put in life-or-death situations while the older heroes fail to protect him. She puts her foot down, and this is portrayed with far more sympathy toward her than a lot of adventure shows would have. Both All Might and Deku have to acknowledge they’ve been unfair to her, and Deku’s response is surprisingly mature. It’s a very powerful scene that feels grounded in real emotion and it demonstrates the importance of having characters just honestly communicate with each other.

“Legacy” has always been one of my favorite aspects of superheroes, which is unfortunate for me because American comics have a tendency to reset the timeline and erase their legacy heroes. But there’s a real sense of legacy in MHA and it’s a big theme. Heroes will die, they will retire, and new generation will need to step up.

I love that sense of the fight being passed down, of older heroes teaching the younger ones, of the youth carrying those memories and teachings forward. Nobody is permanent, but feelings can last forever if you pass them on.

I’m glad to see the show is leaning into this more than ever, I’m glad to see All Might realize he’s been inadequate as a mentor in some ways and redouble his efforts. I look forward to seeing how the dynamic shift.

It’d be remiss not to mention Bakugou in an overview of this arc, since he was pretty central. I’m honestly surprised by how much I enjoy his character, the way the narrative uses him is just so interesting-the idea that even the villains noticed how much of an asshole this kid is and decided he would fit in is pretty funny, and his reactions to the whole situation were pretty fun and exciting to watch. This season definitely made me understand him a lot more (I go into it more during my recap here if you’re curious) and I’m interested to see where he goes from here- he hasn’t gotten much kinder or seen the error of his ways, and I doubt he will any time soon, but I see signs of progress and his worldview seems to be cracking.

I once again appreciate that while he and Deku are big influences to each other as “rivals”, neither of them is the center of each other’s world or the one who will “save” the other. Deku straight up says that he can’t be the one to “reach out” to Bakugou and he’s accepted that Bakugou would never reach back to him, so when it comes to appealing to him, he elects someone better qualified. That’s a pretty unusual thing to hear a shonen hero say about ANYONE, much less his rival, and the fact their dynamic doesn’t follow the standard is way more interesting to me.

So yeah, I enjoyed the first part of season 3 a lot. But there was some bad stuff. Of course there was. And we gotta talk about it.

The secens of Mineta trying to sexually harass the girls early in the season are some of the worst the show has to offer yet- even when he fails, the girls are still threatened and sexualized. I do appreciate Kota for trying to murder him over it. If only he had succeeded, he would have been the biggest hero of them all. But it’s just galling that the teachers know about Mineta’s behavior and he hasn’t been punished, considering this school is supposed to be about heroism and goodness.

Horikoshi’s gross handling of older female characters continues, we straight up have a 31- old lady superhero whose entire personality is she’s ~desperate to be married~ because she’s ~so old~ and excuse me while I bang my head into the wall. It’s especially stupid to see this overused cliche persist since the average age for marriage amongJapanese women to get married is much higher than it used to be- it’s 31, so she shouldn’t feel like she’s “past the deadline”, she’s absolutely average. But nope, gotta have those stereotypes- even to the point of having her hit on teenage boys, because that’s not creepy. Oh, and when it comes to the big fight she just gets knocked out immediately.

To be fair, Mandalay, who’s the same age, seems sensible and competent enough and we actually finally do get an important, inspirational older female superhero with Nana (though she’s dead, so, there’s that).

The girls get some nice moments this season (Itsuka was badass) and they all remain competent and fun characters, but they’re noticeably sidelined a lot when it comes to fighting especially- both Tsuyu and Ochako conveniently can’t get to one big fight on time so its all boys and while Momo was super awesome in being saavy enough to put a tracer on the villains when they kidnap a classmate- without her efforts the big rescue couldn’t have even taken place at all- it’s very noticable that all the boys on the rescue squad gets to play a physical role in the rescue while Momo just has to stand there.

And the one female villain on the massive villain league- well, her whole thing is she’s horny in a creepy way, because of course it is. But hey, at least Mt. Lady finally got to do something besides be a sexy joke for once!

Okay, I’m done griping. There’s still a Lot of trashy nonsense to contend with when it comes to MHA and I doubt that’s going to get much better. But the show manages to keep me coming back for more because of all the other stuff it has to offer. It can be So Bad sometimes but then most of the time it’s So Good. The true meaning of a problematic fav.

I just...love these kids (sans mineta)...i love watching them interact...they deserve the world...and I can’t wait to see more of them as the season continues.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #anime overview #all might #nana shimura #izuku midoriya #Katsuki Bakugou #inko midoriya #sping 2018 anime #reviews

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imaginetonyandbucky · 8 years ago

Note

Imagine Tony having language kink - namely he gets turned on when Bucky speaks different languages and think he doesn't know. But Bucky is very aware and so he purposely speaks different languages (he knows many of them) and adds weird accents to english to woo Tony. May get smutty

Je Ne Sais Quoi

Bucky couldn’t draw his eyes away from thefrenetic genius. Tony was dancing around the workshop, running three differentscenarios in the 3D light projections, the music cranked up so loud that Buckycould feel the bass in his metal arm, throbbing like a second heartbeat. Tonyalso had a grape popsicle in his mouth that he was doing unintentionallyobscene things with as he talked nonsense with Friday and occasionally directedcommentary at his bots.

Bucky had come down to the ‘shop to have Tony dosome scans of the arm, but they’d been waiting almost an hour for Tony tonotice them. Friday had cautioned the Winter Soldier a few times not tointerrupt sir when he was working… At least Tash had come with him. Bucky had ahard time with coherency whenever Tony Stark was around and Tash helpedtranslate his gibberish into actual English.

It wasn’t, as most of the team thought, that theWinter Soldier was coming out whenever Tony was around, but that Bucky had areal problem with a massive -- and annoying -- crush. He was pretty sure Tashknew that.

“” Somehow, Bucky managed to talk just as the music died down and Tonystared at him for a long moment. Bucky squirmed, but Natasha’s dossier on thegenius had been very clear about what languages Tony spoke, and Russian wasn’ton the list.

“”Tash said. “”

“

Bucky said. “”

[mobile users, ‘ware the read more]

Tony rolled his eyes. “Keep talking about melike I’m not here, I’ll just wait.”

“No, that’s okay,” Tash said, hopping down fromthe counter where she’d been sitting. “You asked to see Yasha about his arm,so, let’s get to it.” She dragged Bucky over to Tony’s workstation. “Oh, andTony?”

“Hmmm?” Tony was already setting up thehard-light spectral analyser.

“You have something, on your mouth, just, there.”And Tash poked her finger in the direction of Tony’s lower lip. Tony’s tongueflicked out to taste the smut of grape popsicle and something in Bucky’sstomach turned over and clenched. Great. Now he was going to spend the wholetime Tony was poking at his arm watching the genius’s mouth.

“” Tash said, patting Bucky’sshoulder.

“”

“What are you to talking about?” Tony asked,prodding the wire-frame into place, making a schematic copy.

“Cheeseburgers,” Bucky said.

“My favorite,” Tony said, easily, exploding theschematic to look at all the little pieces and servos and wires.

“Boss, you should stop there,” Friday said, justbefore Tony walked into the common room.

“What?” Tony stared at the room. “What the hellhappened? Did I suddenly invest in a bicycle company?”

The entire common area was covered in… cardhouses. The furniture had been pushed to the far sides of the room and anenormous castle dominated the room. Diamonds and squares, layer upon layer ofthem, nearly eight feet high.

“” Clintsaid in perfectly fluent French. The archer was perched on Barnes’s shoulder,like the Winter Soldier was a goddamn shooting perch. Barnes handed Clint twocards from the pack in his hand and spread his feet just a little, to giveClint a better angle.

“” Barnes’s deep,rumbling voice was even worse, when he was speaking French, all dark seductivetones and soft, provocative sounds. Tony leaned in the doorframe, casuallytucking his hands in his pockets to conceal the fact that his knees had gone alittle weak.

“ Clint said. He set the next layer of the house up, taking cards asfast as Barnes could hand them to him. Barnes stepped, moving as if Clintweighed nothing at all, so they could keep building.

“” Tony asked. HisFrench was a little rusty, but perfectly understandable, even if his accent wasa little tainted from Peggy Carter having been his tutor, so he spoke French asif he was from England.

“” Barnes answered andthe sound, God. Tony slumped harder against the door. He wasn’t sure what itwas, Barnes spoke English, and when he did, it was with a sweet, Brooklyn drawlthat could get a man hard with a few well-chosen words, but he didn’t seem towant to.

“” Clint added, like this meant anything to Tony.

Tony shook his head. He could watch this allday; the soft, easy way Barnes moved without stirring the air around him,Clint’s graceful, sure fingers, listening to the lilt of French on both sets oflips. They looked so damn good together. After a while, Tony felt he waswatching something private, like he was an intruder. He faded back into thehall and hit the button for the elevator.

“Penthouse, Friday.”

Playing chess with Steve was hilarious underideal conditions. The walking American Flag treated each game like a battle(and also like the pawns were actual people who’d be hurt and leave widowsbehind, which Bucky was not above taking advantage of) and concentrated with adeep furrow in his brow.

It was even better when Bucky was taunting himin German.

“” Bucky rumbled as Steve picked up his knight and promptly forkedBucky’s bishop and rook in the same move. It was a fucking good move, but Buckywasn’t about to admit it.

“Nice try, Fritz,” Steve said, not botheringwith German, even though he spoke it fluently. “You gonna move or what?”

Tony, who was watching the game, brightenedsuddenly. He gave Bucky a very deliberate look, then said in fucking Romanian-- that certainly wasn’t on the dossier! -- “”

Bucky blinked. God damn, he was fucking blind.

“Hey, no hinting, Tony,” Steve said, throwing apillow off the couch at the chair where Tony was sitting. The pillow took Tonyin head with a dull whump and knocked his blue sunglasses right off his face.

“That’s not what I said,” Tony said, reachingfor his glasses at the same time Bucky recovered them. Their fingertips brushedlightly as Bucky dropped the shades in his palm. It was like getting anelectric jolt as their skin touched.

Bucky drew his hand back, almost reluctantly.

“So what did you say?”

Bucky made the move that Tony suggested, thenglanced at Tony over Steve’s shoulder. “” Bucky answered in German.

Steve swore, colored a deep, brilliant pink, andchoked on air. Tony only looked puzzled, which was good.

“Stark!”

“What? I admit everything, I regret nothing,”Tony responded, spreading his hands.

It wasn’t hard to get Steve into checkmate afterthat. Three moves, just as Tony predicted.

The Winter Soldier was… not good for delicateoperations. Tony knew that. Captain America knew it (although Steve made verysure that everyone knew exactly how disappointed Cap was with people for theirjudging-books-by-their-covers attitudes.) But that was okay, because Tonydidn’t really want Barnes along for this one.

After the huge travel ban, too many foreignnationals had ended up stuck in airports, families separated. And then therewas the bombing; too many people afraid and no one thinking straight. Theentire customs area of the airport had been hit, the injuries were horrific.Tony brought the Avengers out in force, for the face-time. To visit the injuredkids in the hospital, to start the repairs, to generally scowl disapprovinglyat presidential politics.

The usual. Barnes was good at scowling. Tony puthim on talk-to-Fox-news duty, while Tony went to the hospital to visit, chat,make people happy, pay their hospital bills.

And it was good that Barnes wasn’t there,because there were four families there who didn’t speak English, and findingout that Tony spoke Russian and German (and Italian and Chinese, too, butBarnes hadn’t used those yet) was probably going to cost him a lot of fun. Alittle heartbreak, but mostly fun. He still hadn’t figured out if Barnes wasserious, or just being an asshole. Could be both. Steve was often an asshole,and they were best friends, so, anything was possible.

No sense showing his hand, though, if Tony andBarnes were still bluffing each other in lingo-poker.

So Tony went, hobnobbed, signed photos, did theschtick. He was good at it, and a lot of times, even enjoyed it. Talking toreal people was a lot better than talking to socialites at high end parties. Itwas one of the better parts about being an Avenger, and he’d come to expect it.

What he didn’t expect -- although in hindsight,he probably should have -- was that someone was filming him. Cell phone cameraswere popular, everyone was doing it for the Vine (or whatever had replacedVine, because that was so 2016) and posting to their liveblogs.

Which meant when Tony got back to the Tower,Barnes was scowling. At him.

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

“You speak Russian,” Barnes said, glaring. Hischeeks were flushed red, but Tony couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or angry.

“Aaaand, you speak English,” Tony pointed out,backing up a little and finding himself suddenly up against a wall, which…well, okay, so it was hot, and he might have liked the way Barnes’s body wasnudging up against his, but at the same time, he wasn’t entirely certain thathe wasn’t about to get strangled. So, little bit nerve-wracking.

“You knew what I was saying.”

“” Tony said, in German,because he might as well be hanged for a chicken as an egg.

“You didn’t say anything,” Barnes said. “Whynot?”

“Kinda waiting for you to say it to me.”

Bucky licked his lips, leaned in, and verysoftly whispered, “Wo xiang zho ai.”

Oh. Well, in that case.

Tony tilted his head just before Barnes’s mouthcame down on his. Nice what a polyglot could do with their lips.

Note: wo xiang zho ai - chinese for “wanna havesex?”

as always, @tisfan and check me out on A03

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #prompts #tisfan #amazinghellawfulheaven

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neuxue · 6 years ago

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 34

Everything from fireworks to Fourier transforms, because why the hell not. Oh and Mat is there. (Or is he?)

Chapter 34: Legends

Oh it’s Mat.

I have very little enthusiasm for Mat, especially this book’s Mat, but at the same time maybe it’s good to have a chapter that isn’t guaranteed to ruin me, just for a change of pace and a chance to catch my breath and regrow my limited supply of emotions.

Occasionally, the wind would blow, and a small sprinkle of dead pine needles would shake free from the boughs above

I see what you’re doing there, with your wind associated with death and release.

Mat’s clearly still a little shaken by Hinderstap, and is not particularly keen to go running into this next town. Can’t say I blame him.

This time he would plan and he would be ready. He nodded to himself in satisfaction.

Yeah, no, still not getting the cadence right here. It’s too…deliberately set up to be funny. Exaggerated. It’s like he’s being written as a caricature of himself.

Apparently it’s a woman who’s looking for him…I thought the pictures of him and Perrin were linked to Moridin’s directive to kill them – we’ve seen at least one attempt on each of them since then – but this sounds like someone who just wants to find him. Who, though? It doesn’t seem like it could be Tuon, and most of the other characters are tied up elsewhere, and none have recently mentioned trying to find Mat.

And it would probably be more efficient to just…read and find out than to try to list out all of the named female characters in the series thus far and cross-reference them against Mat’s story to figure out why they might be looking for him, wouldn’t it? I’ll leave the listing of ladies to Rand.

We’re getting fireworks as signal flares again, and I do have to applaud the ingenuity of the charactesr in this series. So far we’ve got fireworks used as: a distraction, entertainment, currency, battering ram, therapy, weapon, communication device. Have I missed anything?

Also, the red-for-danger, green-for-all-clear system brings another question to mind that maybe someone out there has an answer to: why do we continue to rely so heavily on red/green for important signalling distinctions (port/starboard, stop/go – things you really don’t want to mix up) when red-green is the most common spectrum of colourblindness?

I suppose the choice of colours predated any solid statistics on things like rates of colourblindness, and boats have the whole whistle system as well, and traffic lights have position as well as colour, but still.

Maybe it’s a chemistry thing? If red and green are the easiest colours to make in a fire or lamp or flare or light, it would make sense that those would have become the colours used for signalling when coloured lights were first used in such a way, and then it’s the kind of thing that would stick. So maybe lithium/strontium/barium/copper were more readily available, or happened to be used/discovered as colourants first?

And that was a tangent.

Meanwhile, Mat’s pulling a whole Argo here, creating false identities for the people he’s sending into the town. Okay, a reverse Argo, maybe, as that was exfiltration and this is infiltration but shhh. (Great movie, by the way, if you’ve not seen it – one of those ‘stranger than fiction’ true stories).

“Wait, Mat,” Mandevwin said, scratching his face near his eye patch. “I’m to be an apprentice gleeman? I’m not certain my voice is suited to fine signing. You’ve heard me, I warrant. And with only one eye, I doubt I’ll fare well at juggling.”

So I think by now we all know my thoughts on what ‘give up half the light of the world’ means, what with Mat being as Odin as it’s possible to be this side of actual Norse mythology…and yeah that doesn’t bode well for his juggling and knife-throwing skills, does it? Now I wonder if those skills were given to him intentionally not just as a fitting trait for a character of his archetype but to twist the knife a little in that sacrifice. Like Rand’s skill with the sword and then the loss of his hand.

(Also his skill at being a person and the eventual loss of his sanity, but we’ll just leave that one alone for the moment.)

“Aren’t I a little old to be an apprentice, though?”

“Nonsense,” Mat said. “You’re young at heart, and since you never married – the only woman you ever loved ran away with the tanner’s son – Thom’s arrival offered you an opportunity to start fresh.”

“But I don’t want to leave my great-aunt,” Mandevwin protested. “She’s cared for me since I was a child! It’s not honest of a man to abandon an elderly woman just because she gets a little confused.”

“There is no great-aunt,” Mat said with exasperation. “This is just a legend, a story to go with your false name.”

The thing is, if you take it completely out of context – as in, out of the Wheel of Time completely – there’s nothing particularly wrong with this exchange. It’s not the funniest thing I’ve ever read in my life, but it’s entertaining and a fun sort of ‘yes and’ game between characters. It builds a sense of their relationship, adds a little bit of depth to Mandevwin, presents Mat as creative and a little more fond of stories than he might admit while being a general…

But you have to completely dissociate it from the actual characters for it to work. It’s an alright scene, if it’s not about Matrim Cauthon in The Wheel of Time. If you read it as being from a different story entirely, with characters that just happen to have these names.

And that’s pretty much the problem with Mat. Other characters may see their lexicon shift a bit, or their tendency to externalise their thoughts a little more, but Mat’s been replaced with another character entirely.

I mean, so has Rand, but that’s his own damn fault.

“Too late,” Mat said, rifling through a stack on his desk, searching out a cluster of five pages covered in scrawled handwriting. “You can’t change now. I spent half the night working on your story. It’s the best out of the lot.”

I could almost give the rest a pass, because Mat coming up with false identities that make a fine story but will probably end up falling apart is not too far out of character, even if the conversation felt nothing like him – it’s not unlike what he did with himself, Egeanin, Tuon, and the others when they ran away with Luca’s show, after all – but Mat spending half a night writing up stories for each of them? I can’t make that fit.

“Are you sure we’re not taking this a little too far, lad?” Thom asked.

I think it’s meant to be a little out of character, as a way of showing how on edge he is. The fact that Thom comments on it serves as a narrative cue that this is intentionally off. But it’s too far and not quite in the right direction, so instead of helping us understand where Mat’s head is right now, it’s just…weird.

“I’m tired of walking into traps unprepared. I plan to take command of my own destiny, stop running from problem to problem. It’s time to be in charge.”

And the fact that Mat is so off in this book makes it hard for me to say anything about his actual story or character, because I don’t completely…trust any of it enough. So on the one hand I want to unpack this line, because there’s a lot there in terms of Mat’s own character arc, and his struggle between denial and acceptance of his role, and between luck and improvisation vs planning and strategy. But on the other hand, it’s hard to find any real motivation to do that when I feel like this isn’t really Mat. If that makes sense.

So actually, I’m going to do something a little out of character myself, here. I’m going to read the rest of this scene before commenting further, just to see if I can get a better sense of what’s going on from the general shape of it than from following it line-by-line.

Okay. Mat talks Talmanes through his own constructed backstory, then goes and inspects the camp and thinks about the Band and their current situation and also crossbows, and now he’s visiting Aludra so I’ll stop here for a moment before we get into that.

The bit with the crossbows comes closer to feeling like Mat again. The rest…still feels like it belongs in another book entirely. Also, weird how Mat knows two guys named Talmanes, right?

There are two main issues at play here, as far as I can figure it. The first is the issue of perception and distortion, which, broken down, looks something like this:

Jordan creates the character of Mat in his head

Jordan commits that character to writing. There’s distortion and filtering even here, because words are limiting and no writer isthatgood, and some information will not be conveyed or will be conveyed only obliquely, other things given more prominence, etc. Just like a photo is never going to be a perfect representation of an actual person, because you only have two dimensions to show something that exists in three.

Sanderson (or any reader) reads Mat. Filtering happens here because of how brains work; we’re not perfect machines that can take in every piece of information and give it equal and unbiased weight. Different things will register differently with different readers based on everything about them.

Sanderson (or any reader) creates a mental image/construct/version of Mat, adding the new information to it as it comes along – like making a sculpture from a drawing of a photo. This again is prone to filtering and distortion because of what information registers more or less strongly, how it’s interpreted, and all kinds of other factors.

Sanderson commits his version of Mat to writing, imperfectly portraying his own mental image of the character.

The reader reads Sanderson’s version of Mat, repeating steps 3 and 4.

Obviously this would apply to any character, not just Mat, but I think with Mat it’s an issue of a stronger filter/bias at steps 3, 4, and 5 but especially 4.

It’s something you see a lot in fanfiction, actually, especially in fanfiction centred on characters that can be strongly linked to a specific archetype. If you have the mental fortitude for it, check out some Avengers fanfiction sometime, and you’ll see a huge variation in how these iconic, archetypal characters are portrayed. Because they go through these processing and reconstruction steps, and so much of that is affected by each person’s own experience with or existing idea of the shape of those archetypes.

So we get into things like confirmation bias – if you have a pre-existing ‘outline’ of a character in your head based on the first impression they give, you’re going to end up paying more attention to things that fit into that outline, and ignoring things that don’t. And with these kinds of archetypal characters, it’s hard not to have that pre-existing outline unless you’ve been literally living under a rock for your entire life. In which case you have bigger problems. Also, I think with those sorts of characters, because you have this pre-existing model, your brain is more likely to essentially take short-cuts and go ‘yep, I know what this is’, whereas with characters that aren’t so easily categorised or immediately identified, you’ll rely more on the information directly presented, rather than on that outline.

That affects what you pay attention or give weight to, and that affects how you reconstruct the character in your mind, which creates an ongoing feedback loop but/and also affects how you portray the character yourself, should you ever do so.

It’s a process akin to…okay the first analogy that comes to mind is a Fourier transform followed by the addition of noise or any kind of alteration to any of the resulting frequencies, followed by an inverse Fourier transform to bring you back to something that no longer perfectly resembles the original. Because I’m a fucking nerd. In case that wasn’t already abundantly clear from everything about me.

But perhaps a more broadly accessible analogy is the game of taking a word or phrase or song or whatever and sticking it through a few different languages on google translate, and then translating the result back to the starting language and laughing and how ridiculous it ends up sounding.

(On a tangent from my tangent, I think this is part of why outsider POV can be so interesting. It’s a chance to watch this entire process take place in the minds of other characters, who essentially each create their own version of the character in question.)

Anyway, I think this is the first issue: Sanderson reads Mat, his brain goes ‘oh look, a trickster/rogue! I know what that is!’, which colours how he continues to read and interpret Mat, which shapes the Mat that lives in his head, which shapes how he then writes Mat.

The second problem, I think, is that Sanderson is somewhat aware that he’s doing this. Why is that a problem, you ask? Because it means that, while he’s not writing Jordan’s version of Mat, he also avoids committing completely to his own style of portraying a trickster/rogue. Which leaves us stranded somewhere in the middle, and you can feel the uncertainty and discomfort and tension between what he thinks he’s meant to be doing and what he wants to do. And Mat’s not the kind of character you can commit to halfway.

Okay, picking back up in a more normal fashion, hopefully (unless this next scene goes the way of the first).

Aludra’s making fireworks, Egeanin’s helping, and Mat’s trying to remember that he is a married man now.

Mat still had trouble figuring out what to call the woman. She wanted to be known as Leilwin, and sometimes he thought of her like that. It was foolish to go about changing your name just because someone said you had to

I like this, because it can be extended to a broader commentary on changing not just your name but your identity based on who or what you believe you must be. Tuon has the power, in the society in which Egeanin was raised, the society that shaped her mindset and identity and sense of self, to command that she take a new name and a new place. And that sticks even when – and perhaps even because – she chooses to remove herself from Seanchan society. She is a different person now, and the name is part cause and part symbol of that.

But it has a broader meaning here, for Mat himself and for Rand and for Egwene and for so many others. It’s the question of accepting a name or an identity that is given – the Dragon Reborn or the trickster or the Prince of the Ravens or son of battles or Amyrlin or wolf king. Prophecy and Pattern demand those roles be filled, and ask that they fill those roles, and so do they change to do so? Do they take on those names and fit themselves to those outlines, and if so is it by choice or by force?

Seems like all is not well between Mat and Aludra these days. Another word of advice: try to avoid pissing off the person who makes your explosives.

Honestly, I thought I was unqualified to give dating advice. But Mat and Gawyn and honestly the whole lot of them are really making me question that.

Then again, I thought Aludra and Mat were fine after Aludra made it clear she wasn’t interested in pursuing or being pursued by Mat once he began courting Tuon. Has he done something since then to irritate her?

“Are these the plans for the dragons?” Mat asked eagerly. He knelt down on one knee to inspect the sheets, without touching them. Aludra could be particular about that kind of thing.

“Yes.” She was still tapping with her hammer. She eyed him, looking just faintly uncomfortable. Because of Tuon, he suspected.

“And these figures?” Mat tried to ignore the awkwardness.

“Supply requirements,” she said.

So one thing I’ve been thinking about, and which this exchange highlights rather well, is why Mat seems to be the one so closely linked with and arguably credited with the weaponization of gunpowder, when in reality it’s pretty much all Aludra.

I’m curious as to whether this is just me, or whether it’s true of fandom as a whole – that gunpowder is linked and credited to Mat. Because narratively it seems like it’s set up that way – he plays with the fireworks Aludra gives him in TDR, and then there’s Egwene dreaming of him reaching up to grab a firework from the sky and knowing this will change the world, and dreaming again of him bowling with human lives as the bowling pins and knowing it’s linked to the same thing. And he’s the one who plans the battles in which Aludra’s explosives are used.

But he doesn’t actually come up with any of the ideas – he just incorporates them. She already has plans for her ‘dragons’ when she sets him the bellfounder riddle. She’s already thought through how her fireworks can be altered for various uses in battle. She doesn’t have the funding or resources, but she has the rest of it.

So I wonder if my brain has just taken the shortcut here of crediting Mat with the advent of gunpowder weaponry because he’s a far more major character, he’s the battle strategist, and he’s given all these pieces of foreshadowing and prophecy that link him to this innovation.

I also wonder if some element of it is unconscious gender bias on my part – that while I love the fact that it’s a woman who invents this, and that there’s no downplaying of the rather dark and destructive potential this has to change battle and war and the entire world, some part of me finds it much easier to associate that with a man than a woman. Something to think about, I suppose.

How would the common people react if they knew that the majestic nightflowers were just paper, powder, and – of all things – bat dung? No wonder Illuminators were so secretive with their craft. It wasn’t just about preventing competition. The more you knew about the process, the less wondrous and more ordinary it became.

There’s a great deal of truth to that.

And that, actually, seems like a very in-character observation for Mat to make. It’s something a trickster and a gambler and a strategist or general would understand: the value of knowing how things work, but also the value of misdirection and sleight-of-hand.

It’s a fitting realisation as well in a series that deals so much with the nature of information and knowledge and perception, and the interplay between them.

“This is a lot of material,” Mat said.

“A miracle, that is what you asked me for, Matrim Cauthon,” she replied, handing her nightflower to Leilwin and picking up her writing board. She made some notations on the sheet strapped to the front. “That miracle, I have broken down into a list of ingredients. A feat which is in itself miraculous, yes? Do not complain of the heat when someone offers you the sun in the palm of her hands.”

Hard to argue with that.

I do like Aludra – I always have; she’s a fun character. And a more complex one than her relatively little screen-time would ordinarily allow. As she has to be, I think; her place in the story but especially in her world is itself complex. Her innovation will change the world, and once unleashed that’s not something you can take back. Introducing gunpowder to a world is a heavy role for an otherwise bit-part character, but she’s written in such a way that it works. I do think that’s part of why the narrative leans on Mat so heavily in that regard, as a way of…offloading some of that weight onto a more central character.

“The Dragon Reborn, he can afford such costs.”

If nothing else, he’ll be relieved to be dealing with high costs in such an ordinary currency, after having had to pay such steep prices in less conventional ones – flesh, soul, sanity…

Maybe Rand could manage costs like these, but Matcertainly couldn’t. He’d have to dice with the queen of Andor herself to find this kind of coin!

I think Elayne would quite enjoy that, actually.

But that was Rand’s problem.

Honestly, Rand has well over 99 problems and I’m not even sure this makes the list. But okay.

Burn him, he’d better appreciate what Mat was going through for him.

At this point it’s all he can do to appreciate things like the fact that Nynaeve wants him to live, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

“How many bellfounders are you going to need for this project?”

“Every one you can get,” Aludra said curtly. “Is that not what you promised me? Every bellfounder from Andor to Tear.”

“I suppose,” Mat said. He hadn’t actually expected her to take him literally on that. “What about copper and tin? You don’t have an estimate of those.”

“I need all of it.”

Okay, this is genuinely funny. Most of the credit goes to Aludra, who is written better than pretty much anyone else in Mat’s chapters so far this book. But this is great.

But then you stop laughing, and it becomes very much a sign of how non-trivial the invention of cannons and weaponised explosives is. This is not a small endeavour. This is not something that will be used in one battle and can then either catch on or fade back into obscurity. This is huge, and world-changing. A larger scale than Mat dreamed of and now he’s having to face the full reality of it. It’s one thing to see this in battle and know theoretically that this is going to change everything. It’s another thing to see it written out in figures that demand all the copper and tin that can be found on an entire continent.

Their eyes met for a moment, and Mat realised he’d probably been too curt with her. Maybe he was uncomfortable around her. A little. They’d been getting close before Tuon. And was that pain, hidden in Aludra’s eyes?

“I’m sorry, Aludra,” he said. “I shouldn’t have talked like that.”

She shrugged.

He took a deep breath. “Look, I know that…well, it’s odd how Tuon—”

She waved a hand, cutting him off. “It is nothing. I have my dragons. You have brought me the chance to create them. Other matters are no longer of concern. I wish you happiness.”

I guess I’m just confused because I thought we already did this, with Aludra telling Mat that she wouldn’t tell him the secrets that would make him blush and that she had no plans of being juggled. I sort of figured that was it. But I also thought it was just a bit of fun for both of them, while this would suggest that there were maybe a few feelings involved – just one or two, mind you – which I suppose would account for some continued awkwardness.

That and the fact that Mat has no idea how he’s supposed to behave around women now that he’s married.

Nice of him to offer a sincere apology, though. I’ll give him that.

“But it will take much time, and yet you refuse to tell me when the dragons will be needed.”

“Can’t tell you things I don’t know myself, Aludra,” Mat said, glancing northward. He felt a strange tugging, as if someone had hooked a fisherman’s line about his insides and was softly – but insistently – pulling on it. Rand, is that you, burn you? Colours swirled. “Soon, Aludra,” he found himself saying. “Time is short. So short.”

The storm is coming, and we must go north.

Mat tells Egeanin that he doesn’t want her giving the secret of these weapons to the Seanchan, but…yeah, this isn’t something you’re going to be able to control, once they’re used. And I think he still doesn’t quite see that, doesn’t quite grasp the magnitude of what this is. Which isn’t all that surprising, because it’s the sort of thing that’s almost too much to wrap your head around until it happens. It’s like trying to imagine the ubiquity and myriad uses of smartphones when you’ve only just figured out how to harness lightning.

“By the way, I nearly forgot. Do you know anything about crossbows, Aludra?”

Ha. This is such a classic ‘I know nothing about your field/profession, so I figure you do all of it?’ It’s like when my grandmother asks me to predict the weather because that’s definitely covered under ‘geology’…

She’s the closest thing to an engineer he has, so sure, why not? And your paediatrician could probably perform a bit of neurosurgery on the side, right?

Now, if you wanted to modify a handheld projectile weapon so that its projectiles exploded…

Oh hey it’s the mystery person who’s been looking for him. OH. An Aes Sedai.

OH HEY IT’S VERIN.

Haven’t seen her since she left Rand with that letter and went off to conduct her own mysterious business. What have you been up to, Verin?

How long ago was that, in this timeline? Rand’s apparently a head of the rest of them now, if he saw Mat in Caemlyn, so maybe this isn’t actually all that long after Verin left Rand in KoD.

But why did she leave and why is she here and hi, Verin!

Well that solves one problem for him: she can Travel, so he can get to Caemlyn in time for supper. Time to move the plot along.

He hesitated, eyeing Verin, forcing himself to contain his excitement. There was always a cost when Aes Sedai were involved.

“What do you want?” he asked.

GOOD. QUESTION. Yes, Verin, tell us. What exactly do you want?

She just says she’s been held here because of his own ta’veren effect. Which…is certainly possible, but almost as certainly not the entire truth.

Next (TGS ch 35) Previous (TGS ch 33)

#TELL ME YOUR SECRETS VERIN #Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #The Gathering Storm

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neuxue · 6 years ago

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 28

I’m back! With front row seats to the zombie apocalypse, some musings on the writing of Mat’s character, and an appreciation for not-so-subtle symbolism

Chapter 28: Night in Hinderstap

Apparently it’s a surprise murder party. Where’s my invite?

I’m just not even going to comment on “I can’t rightly be blamed for their unsociable behaviour!”The less said about that, the better. It never happened. Quote? What quote?

A group of raving men soon descended on the two villagers Mat had hamstrung, beating their heads against the ground over and over until they stopped moving. Then the pack looked up at Mat and his men, bloodlust clouding their eyes. It was an incongruous expression on the clean faces of men in neat vests and combed hair.

Everyone’s trying to kill everyone else and is anyone else here reminded of that church scene in Kingsman? Or really any kind of zombie-apocalypse-esque scene from anything ever? Maybe Shai’tan’s a fan of pulp fiction?

The real question here, of course, is this: how did the villagers know this was going to happen? They clearly knew – or at least, they knew somethingwas going to happen at sundown; they were too vehement about the curfew for it to not be something sinister – but if this had happened before, how are any of them alive? And if it hasn’t happened before, how did they know? Also if it’s a one-off thing, the patches on clothing and lack of trade wouldn’t make sense…

Or maybe it’s a ten plagues sort of deal: something happens every sundown, or frequently at sundown, but it’s something different every time. So they know to set a curfew and they want people out, but…

Oh, maybe bad things only happen at sundown when outsiders are in the town? Or have I just read too many far-right campaign speeches?

And the zombie apocalypse continues. This is definitely weirder than ghosts. Pattern? Hey, Pattern, you feeling okay?

“The gold!” Talmanes said. “Burn the gold!” Mat said.

No, Mat, it’s pillage beforeyou burn. Come on, that’s practically the first rule of piracy!

So they start trying to get the hell out of dodge. Zombie apocalypses: keeping our borders secure.

Sorry, I’ll stop.

“This isn’t just about our wager,” Mat said, listening to the screams and shouts.

No shit, Sherlock. The Pope is Catholic, bears shit in the woods, the Dragon Reborn needs therapy, and this is definitely not just about your fucking wager.

Down a side road, a couple of struggling bodies burst through the upper window of a house.

Everything’s better with defenestration!

I’m absolutely picturing this happening with a lively scherzo playing in the background, by the way.

Indeed, it seemed to him that the darkness had come tooquickly here.Unnaturally swift. The road’s length squirmed with shadows, figures battling, screeching, struggling in the deepening gloom. In that darkness, the fights looked at times to be solid, single creatures – horrific monstrosities with a dozen waving limbs and a hundred mouths to scream from the blackness.

Subtle.

But certainly effective; it’s a well-painted picture of horror with very clear undertones of greater chaos and darkness. Jordan was good at these occasional short forays into horror, and this measures up reasonably well.

“Light,” Talmanes yelled as they galloped toward the inn. “Light!”

I see what you did there. The image of unnatural, roiling, violent darkness, and the ensuing cry of “Light!” from the one charging into it.

Because that’s what we’re coming to, now. The end – the Last Battle – is no longer some distant looming threat on the horizon; it’s imminent and immediate and everything else is fraying at its approach, the veneer of order cracking and the pieces so desperately held together falling apart, the places that once may have thought to be passed over unscathed are feeling the touch of apocalypse, and the underlying battle lines: Light and Shadow, are becoming more and more apparent. There isn’t room for anything else, try though they all might.

The night itself seemed to be trying to smother them, to strangle them, and to spawn beasts of blackness and murder.

So in other surprising news, I am still and always a sucker for not-really-hidden secondary layers of meaning. What can I say? I’m a simple girl of simple tastes.

They screamed and hissed, like legions of the drowned trying to pull him down into a deep, unearthly sea.

I was on a plane earlier today, flying over a city that clearly has precisely no chance whatsoever at surviving a sea level rise of even a metre or so and I’m reminded of it here, of clear impending disaster and how humanity responds. Which seems to be, in life as in fiction (in fiction as in life?), to ignore it in favour of other petty conflicts.

He hated fighting in darkness, he bloody hated it. […] It reminded him, briefly, of another night, killing Shadowspawn in the dark.

Hate to break it to you, Mat, but there are going to be more of those nights to come – and I don’t think even you would take the long side of that bet.

Except now of course these aren’t Shadowspawn, but in the growing darkness it becomes harder to tell the difference.

For a moment, it seemed Mat fought the shadows themselves – shadows made by sputtering firelight, random and uncoordinated, yet all the more deadly for his inability to anticipate them.

An interesting line, read through the lens of potential foreshadowing, regarding the Light’s likely general...

Ha, foreshadowing. See what I did there?

Okay, sorry.

Shadows bled where he struck

None of this is remotely subtle but it’s more fun than most of Sanderson’s Mat has been so far, so I’m going to enjoy it and YOU CAN’T STOP ME. So there.

(I haven’t slept in about 36 hours because overnight flights are hell; give me some slack here).

Thom throwing some of his last knives to save Mat as they flee on horseback from a town that becomes deadly with the fall of night…now where have we seen this before…

He didn’t know horseback battle commands himself, but those blasted memories did

This seems off, though perhaps more in the phrasing than the sentiment. Mat usually couches that sort of feeling in terms of being the one to remember, even if the memory belonged to someone else originally. Then again, he’s not exactly at a point of feeling particularly charitable towards the Eelfinn and their gifts, so okay.

“Thank you. For coming back for me.” “I wasn’t going to leave a man to that,” Mat said, shivering. “Dying on the battlefield is one thing, but to die out there, in that darkness…Well, I wasn’t going to let it happen.”

This, too, feels a little bit off – as if Mat should be thinking it rather than saying it. In these sorts of circumstances he has a tendency to almost awkwardly brush off thanks and praise, as if he’s uncomfortable taking it, saying something about ‘anyone would have done it’ or ‘I don’t have enough men to replace you if you died’ or something else that sounds slightly more callous than his actual motives. But again, it’s not completelyout of character, just…a little unusual, it seems. Which could mean it’s actually off, or could mean I’m overly aware of anything that doesn’t fit my own mental picture of Mat, and because his last few chapters have been…interesting…confirmation bias is working against Sanderson here.

I give up; I can’t quote all the light/shadow imagery with secondary meanings here. But there’s a lot of it and I do actually enjoy it. It’s the sort of thing that, at least at this point in the story, I don’t think needs to be subtle. It’s the entire focus, after all – so the idea is that it’s permeating everything, that even the little things have been pulled into this all-consuming war of Light against Shadow, that nothing is free of it this late in the game, especially when the ta’verenstand at the centre.

Mat argues with Aes Sedai; what else is new.

The robe was parted slightly at the top, giving a hint of what hid inside. Talmanes whistled softly.

I miss the actual character of Talmanes. I never liked Nalesean as much and I’m not thrilled to see him here, having done an Arya and stolen Talmanes’s face somehow.

“She’s not a woman, Talmanes,” Mat whispered warningly. “She’s an Aes Sedai. Don’t think of her as a woman.”

Yes, because with the true battle lines drawn before you, between Light and Shadow for the future of humanity and future itself, what you really want to be focusing on is dehumanising your own allies.

“It’s as if the darkness itself intoxicates them,” Thom said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. “As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow…”

Ah, Thom, we can always count on you to point out the symbolism inherent in the situation, just in case we’ve missed it. This is why you bring the bard along.

“Not my fault, Talmanes. How was I to know that staying would cause them all to start tearing each other’s throats out?” “What?” Talmanes asked, glancing at him. “Isn’t this usuallyhow people react when you tell them you’re going to spend the night?”

STOP. RUINING. TALMANES’S CHARACTER. FOR THE SAKE. OF A PUNCHLINE.

Part of the problem is that Jordan’s characters just aren’t constructed to carry this style of banter, whereas it’s something of a staple of Sanderson’s. Both styles are fine – mileage will vary depending on individual readers’ tastes, of course, but both are at least internally consistent – but this is definitely one of those places where they very much are two distinct styles, and they don’t merge very well on this particular field.

It’s part of why Mat seems to be the character Sanderson struggles most with, at least thus far; more than any other major character, Mat is at the mercy of the author’s sense of humour.

Well, more than any other major character with the very possible exception of Nynaeve, but I have a theory about this one. I’ll save that one for another time, though.

Actually no, you know what? Let’s just do it here because this is stream of consciousness and it’s on my mind now. Also I’ve already gone political in this post so let’s go ahead and throw a gender discussion in as well, for shits and giggles.

Nynaeve and Mat, as I know I’ve talked about before and as I’m sure plenty of other people have talked about, have quite a lot in common in terms of their characterisation and the role they fill in the story. Both have the self-awareness of a particularly unintrospective goldfish, both love to dress up in dramatic irony for a night on the town, both are incredibly loyal and will stop at nothing to protect those they love, and both are often used for comic relief, when one (or both) of them is in a scene where comic relief is called for.

So why does Sanderson seem to get Nynaeve mostly right, while wildly missing the mark with Mat? (check out that alliteration).

I don’t think this is the only reason, but I think part of it is to do with the gender of the characters, and the resulting filters Sanderson, like many readers, would subconsciously be perceiving them through, and thus also writing them through.

In Nynaeve and Mat we have two very similar characters, but the emphasis – in the narrative and also, it seems based on my (admittedly limited) interactions with other readers, in the way they are perceived – with each of them is on versions of those shared traits that are coded more masculine or more feminine. Loyalty tilts towards chivalry and honour (‘masculine’) in Mat, and towards the nurturing, caretaking, and healing side (‘feminine’) in Nynaeve. Mat’s blindness to his own character reads as funny, where Nynaeve’s tends to read as more annoying and hypocritical to many. Mat’s irreverence reads and is treated as roguishness; Nynaeve’s as rudeness.

Not all of this is criticism, exactly; it’s more just observation of a pattern. There are things I wouldn’t mind seeing done differently, but I think for the most part both characters are well-handled, and serve as good parallels to each other in different situations.

But let’s bring it back to humour, and Sanderson’s ability to write one of these characters better than the other.

I think, perhaps without consciously framing it to himself this way, Sanderson sees Nynaeve not as ‘funny’ but as a character around whom funny can happen. She can be used for comic relief, but her character doesn’t read immediately as ‘the funny one’ because her irreverence and lack of self-awareness are treated as character flaws – and as flaws and aspects of her growth, they’re done well – because we as a society tend to see those things as flaws in women, more so than in men.

This, then, is how Sanderson seems to write Nynaeve (at least based on the little I’ve seen so far). It’s also how Jordan wrote Nynaeve, and it thus is consistent with her character and with the way she has grown and changed over the course of the story. And when it’s time to throw comic relief at her, she doesn’t make jokes, but instead gets herself into situations that are funny because of who she is and how she reacts.

This, incidentally, is also largely how Jordan wrote humour involving Mat. However, we’re more primed to see Mat as an inherently funny person, because in a male character that’s how those traits combine. To our unconscious filters, Nynaeve should be the butt of the joke; Mat the one making the joke. Except…most of the time, Jordan’s Mat isn’t. He’s irreverent, yes, but the humour around him is actually written much like the humour around Nynaeve; it’s the result of dramatic irony: the character not seeing what is immediately obvious to the audience. We’re all in on the joke, at Nynaeve’s or Mat’s expense.

Sanderson gets Nynaeve’s character right because in a female character this combination of traits doesn’t immediately scream ‘funny’.

But Sanderson gets Mat’s character wrong because in a male character this combination of traits, to the set of filters and biases a reader in our society is likely to possess without realising, doesscream ‘funny’. In Nynaeve it’s easier to see a set of individual traits; in Mat there’s more likely to be that immediate association that gets in the way of seeing how the character is actually used, and how those traits come into play.

Again, I don’t mean this as a harsh criticism of Sanderson; unconscious bias is a pretty strong thing, and it’s an easy trap to fall into without even realising – hence the ‘unconscious’. Also, to his credit, he has made a fair bit of progress in this general area across his writing career.

But that’s my theory, such as it is.

And now back to the zombie apocalypse and your not-so-regularly scheduled nonsense.

There was an odd wrongness about the entire experience. Was the curfew intended to keep this from happening, somehow? Had Mat, by staying, causedall of these deaths?

Rand isn’t the only one who can leave destruction in his wake – though he does probably have the most impressive track record so far. Still, Mat can claim the harbour at Ebou Dar and, you know, gunpowder. It ain’t easy, being a ta’verenwith a conscience.

“It’s not going to leave me alone, Thom. […] That bloody gholam is out there, I know it is, but that’s just a part of it. Myrddraal and Darkfriends, monsters and ghosts. Chasing me and hunting me. I’ve stumbled from one disaster to another, barely keeping my neck above water, ever since this began. I keep saying I just need to find a hole somewhere to dice and drink, but that won’t stop it. Nothing will.”

Wow, Mat, that sounds almost like self-awareness, and acceptance of your role in all of this. And he has shown that more and more; he knows now that he can’t just run; it’s gone from being an actual plan circa TSR/TFoH to a wistful fantasy he occasionally indulges in. He knows the Last Battle is coming, knows he’s ta’veren, knows he can’t run from this. And more and more, he’s having to actually admit that, and face it straight on. You can’t strategise when you’re constantly half-trying to run away.

“Burn me, I wish they’d all just go bother Rand. He likes it.”

Ow.

“You really think that?” Thom asked. Mat hesitated. “I wish I did,” he admitted. “It would make things easier.”

This is one where maybe it’s out of character writing but I’m actually going to take it at face value, as Mat having to face some harder truths rather than dodging them as he has in the past. He knows this all already, and knew it before, but it’s different to actually have to admit it out loud. To deny yourself the refuge of denial and glib evasions.

It would make things easier – just like telling himself he’ll leave as soon as this battle is won, and then this battle, and then that errand, and then and then and then would make it easier – but he can’t afford that anymore.

It’s not the first time he’s realised this, exactly, but it feels less…forced, now. He accepted that he was ta’veren, accepted that he would have to fight in the Last Battle and that he couldn’t just leave, accepted a degree of responsibility for those he leads, but at every stage there’s resistance. First he resisted the whole thing, trying time and time again to leave. Then it was a case of resisting every step along the way, grudgingly accepting one thing after another. Just as Rand has crossed lines in the sand, trying and failing to set boundaries that he can stick to, and always in the end violating them down to ‘the last that could be done’, Mat has followed a path of crossing one line and then the next, taking one step and then the next, fighting it all the way but still ending up there. The difference, of course, being that Rand’s crossing of lines has largely been down a moral slope towards the point where he believes himself irredeemable, whereas Mat’s path has been one of gradual acceptance of his role. But the concept is the same, of resistance but then movement.

Now, he’s more freely admitting all of this. He’s not fighting it so much, anymore. He has almost reached the end of that path, the point where he can step into his place for the ending, as the person he needs to be, accepting it fully.

It’s what they’re all heading towards, now, one way or another. Moving into their final positions, completing their final arcs, taking on their roles for the ending. Accepting who they are and who they must be, and what that means.

(I mean, Rand is still very obviously struggling on that one, but in a way he’s also drawing closer – there’s a breaking point coming. He’s hit what seems like an absolute low; he’s broken and dark and tearing himself apart in an effort to hold himself together, under the pressure of everything that has been building and building and building towards the point where he has to finally…either accept his role in truth, or not).

“Lies never make things easier in the long run. […] When you tell them to yourself, you just bring more trouble.”

Wise words, Thom. And Mat’s finally at a point where he’s maybe ready to hear them; to accept that he has been lying to himself at each step along the way. Denial and self-deception layered on top of itself, peeling some away at every step. And now he’s having to face the last of those lies, and to leave himself without the comfort of those denials to shield himself.

That’s one he absolutely shares with Nynaeve. She, too, has had to peel away the denials and lies she tells herself in order to protect herself, to bring down those walls step by step.

“It strikes me that the people were expecting this. Or something like it.” “How could they have been?” Mat said. “If this had happened before, they’d all be dead.”

GOOD FUCKING QUESTION.

Aw, Mat’s got his very own wanted poster. Our little rogue’s all grown up and worth a bounty.

“Handsome fellow. Good nose, straight teeth, dashing hat.”

Um.

The prisoners are just…gone?

Is there some kind of groundhog day shit going on here?

There is some kind of groundhog day shit going on here.

“You!” he said, pointing. “I killed you!”

I have to say, it had more impact when it was Rand saying that to Moridin. Still, it’s always a good line when you get a chance to pull it out.

So it’s groundhog day meets zombie apocalypse. How…delightful. Murder spree every night with no consequences!

“The oddities were small, you see. A broken door here, a rip in someone’s clothing they didn’t remember. And the nightmares. We all shared them, nightmares of death and killing.”

No consequences, that is, except extreme trauma for the entire population. That is creepy as fuck.

Though they seem to be dealing with it as well as they can, all things considered. I’ve got to hand it to the mayor; the guy does his best to maintain rationality in all circumstances. He’s sort of the classic badass NPC – he’s probably not all that important to the overall story and we only see him for a brief moment, but he’s just making do as well as he can in a story that’s well above his paygrade: standing up to a protagonist, calmly discussing the fact that his entire village murder each other every night, and standing firm by the rules that you don’t talk about fight club.

But now I’m wondering what purpose this serves, in the grand scheme of things. Narratively, I mean. We’ve seen ghosts, we’ve seen So Habor ruined by them, we’ve seen a town appear and vanish, we’ve seen bubbles of evil…why two chapters on this? Why this weird recurring zombie apocalypse? It seems like an odd thing to include just to highlight how completely fucked the world has become; we have plenty on that already that isn’t quite so…involved. Or is this just Sanderson having fun for a chapter or two? It’s the sort of concept I can imagine he’d enjoy playing with – what happens when the fabric of reality and time begins to unravel…

“So just leave,” Mat said. “Leave this bloody place and go somewhere else!” “We’ve tried,” the mayor said. “We always wake up back here, no matter how far we go. Some have tried ending their lives. We buried the bodies. They woke up the next morning in their beds. […] We were curious to see where you’d wake up. Most of the rooms in the inns are permanently taken by travellers who are now, for better or worse, part of our village.”

That’s interesting…so people can be dragged into this and trapped there. Huh. Okay. Hmm.

The mayor continues to be his badass NPC self, by declaring that he’s not going to sell Mat out to whoever put up the wanted posters. The man has his principles and he sticks to them, come hell, high water, or a larger storyline.

Who was looking for him and Perrin, and what did they want?

Do you really have to ask?

But I suppose we’re off to find out.

Next (TGS ch 29) Previous (TGS ch 27)

#maybe I shouldn't write these after sleepless overnight flights #but where's the fun in that?#Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #The Gathering Storm

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neuxue · 8 years ago

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 13

Gawyn is, as usual, frustrating, but does actually make a decision. Also there are Aragorn gifs and a few random tangents.

Chapter 13: An Offer and a Departure

‘Departure’ in the title of a Gawyn chapter seems at least moderately promising. Maybe he’ll finally get his shit together and get out of this godforsaken town.

…I have higher hopes for the latter than the former.

Two sparring opponents? You’re going to have to step it up, Gawyn; I hear the Dragon Reborn can take on five.

Could, anyway. Might be a bit more challenging singlehanded.

Though he can also take on a good-sized army, if he’s carrying the right not-a-sword, so there’s that.

Hattori had been quite pleased when her Warder had finally arrived at Dorlan; she’d lost him at Dumai’s Wells, and his story was the sort gleemen and bards sang about. Sleete had lain wounded for hours before deliriously managing to grab his horse’s reins and pull himself into the saddle. It had loyally carried him, near unconsious, for hours before arriving at a nearby village.

So…

The rest of his story fully embraces the cliché – and by ‘embraces’ I mean ‘makes sloppy but passionate love to’ – because I think all the Warders have a secret competition going to out-do Lan’s story. This, of course, is the real reason Lan decided to ride for Tarwin’s Gap.

It was the marrow of stories and legends – at least, among regular, lesser men. For a Warder, Sleete’s story was almost commonplace. Men like him attracted legends as ordinary men attracted fleas. […] Surviving against the odds, riding in delirium over miles of rough terrain, cutting down an entire band of thieves with wounds not fully healed –

Gaining a name amongst the Aiel, riding to avenge or resurrect a fallen nation…

–these were just the sorts of things you did when you were a Warder.

And then there’s Birgitte. Also Rand, technically speaking.

While Aes Sedai manipulated the world and monsters like al’Thor got the glory, men like Sleete quietly did the work of heroes, each and every day. Without glory or recognition.

Well, except that al’Thor the monster is giving everything he has and tearing himself apart to save a world that hates and fears him. So I would say that qualifies, in its own way, as ‘without recognition’. Of course, Gawyn doesn’t recognise this, which makes the whole thing spectacularly ironic.

And ‘glory’? You saw Rand at Dumai’s Wells, Gawyn. You saw him tortured. Did that look like glory?

It’s not surprising, though, that this idea of unrecognised heroics is what Gawyn’s thoughts are drawn to. After all, he was raised in the shadow of a golden older brother and a sister destined for a crown, and taught that his life is merely a shield for hers. He was meant to be the unsung hero – and now even that seems lost to him.

So I think he idolises the Warders in part because he sees in them what he has always felt he is supposed to be.

Except he sees an idealised version, and holding yourself to impossible standards always ends well. Especially if it coincides with the world falling apart.

The actual swordfighting scene is less enthralling than some. It’s probably a combination of the fact that it’s a relatively low-stakes spar, and also it involves characters I’m not all that invested in.

Gawyn wins. Sleet and Marlesh are surprised. I halfheartedly applaud, once. In my head.

Sleete carried a heron-mark blade and was near-legendary in the White Tower for his prowess. He was said to have bested even Lan Mandragoran twice out of seven bouts

One: I love how Lan is used by pretty much everyone as the standard of excellence. Kind of like how it was mentioned a while back that everyone says their city was even more beautiful than Tar Valon, thus cementing Tar Valon’s actual superiority in that regard.

And two: if you’re trying to convince me that Gawyn is now a better swordsman than Lan Mandragoran, I call bullshit.

back when Mandragoran had been known to spar with other Warders.

This is perfect.

Really, I’m sitting here laughing at just…everything about that phrase, including the way it’s tossed in almost as an afterthought. Back when Lan used to spar with mere enhanced badass mortals. Beautiful.

So there are two possible ways this came about. Either the other Warders decided to stop inviting him to practice – because there’s sparring against a more skilled opponent in order to improve, and then there’s sparring against Lan Mandragoran for the sole purpose of destroying your own ego – or Lan himself decided that there was just no point. Probably the latter, but some of the other Warders were probably relieved.

Meanwhile Lan’s riding off to the Blight to finally find himself a challenge. I mean, really. What does a guy have to do around here to get a proper workout?

(Though he did spar with Narishma. And Rand, obviously. So maybe he makes an exception for sad boys who came into too much power far too quickly and without enough certainty).

Anyway, I’m still laughing at everything about this.

All Gawyn had ever wanted was to protect Elayne. He wanted to defend Andor. Maybe learn to be a little more like Galad.

Why couldn’t life be as simple as a sword match? Opponents clear and arranged before you. The prize obvious: survival.

Well, there’s Gawyn for you.

This really does make up the core of a lot of his problems, though. He was raised with a strong but fairly simple mandate: protect Elayne, and protect Andor. But then what do you do when Elayne is missing, or when Andor’s queen is missing presumed dead? (If you’re Galad, you start a war to help Elayne and then go kill the Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks to avenge the queen, but that’s somewhat beside the point).

Added to that is Gawyn’s constant feeling of not being quite good enough. So when everything goes to shit and there isn’t a clear path that involves ‘protect Elayne’ or ‘defend Andor’, he..wants or even needs to act, but almost doesn’t trust himself to know what to do. And then it’s not as simple as he thought it would be, or wants it to be, and he really doesn’t know what to do, because this is not how his story was supposed to go. And then he ends up caught in these situations where he’s tangled up in greater powers, in over his head, competent in his assigned role but not quite confident enough to leave it.

Also perhaps the ‘opponents clear and arranged before you’ is part of why he can’t look at Rand as anything but his enemy. He wants these certainties, wants things to be simple and clear-cut, and so he subconsciously could end up focusing on and believing the negative things he hears about the Dragon Reborn, because that is far simpler and easier to wrap his mind around than the alternative.

But in general, this is not a good time for wanting things to be simple and clear-cut and nicely laid out like a storybook hero’s plot. Sorry, Gawyn. You’re shit out of luck there.

Having just said that…it’s as if he wants his life to be – or thinks his life to be – something like Sleete’s story from a few pages ago. He idolises and idealises that, and when it isn’t like that for him, he thinks he’s failed somehow, and also doesn’t really know how to deal with everything when it doesn’t follow that kind of familiar pattern.

“You are remarkable, Gawyn Trakand. Like a creature of light, colour and shadow when you move. I feel like a babe holding a stick when I face you.”

I did try not to roll my eyes.

Okay, I confess, I didn’t try very hard.

I think that, weirdly, I almost have less patience for Gawyn when he’s being presented as a badass than when he’s trying to be one because he’s expected to be. Which is odd, because that is not how it normally works for me.

Or maybe it’s just that my patience for Gawyn has worn a bit thin recently in general; I still find him an interesting character in terms of how his arc has been constructed, but he’s been stuck in the same place for a while now. He also, by virtue of no longer being just in the prologues and maybe the occasional chapter, is narratively surrounded by characters who are getting a lot more done, literally and figuratively, so that also may have something to do with it.

I still can’t stand the word ‘Younglings’. I blame Star Wars, maybe.

Except no, I definitely disliked it even before that. You know how some people feel about the word ‘moist’? That’s how I feel about ‘younglings’. It’s a thing, and it bothers me every single time. I vote Gawyn kills them all.

It’s like when an otherwise really cool character just has the worst name and it detracts from their coolness even if you don’t want it to. I genuinely think this is a major part of the reason I never liked The Hobbit as much as I probably should have. Bilbo. I just can’t. I know, I know, it’s the stupidest thing to get hung up on, but there you have it. (Of course, when I was younger I went the exact opposite direction, and gave all my fictional characters the most ridiculously overwrought names, thinking they were awesome and beautiful when in fact they were incredibly cringeworthy. So what can you do).

Anyway, back to Gawyn.

Marlesh thinks he should be a blademaster, Gawyn’s like ‘oh no I couldn’t possiby’, and Marlesh confirms that by killing his teacher, Gawyn does in fact get to claim that title. So, you know, perks.

Gawyn had rarely seen an Aes Sedai and Warder with as casual a relationship as those two.

This strikes me as odd. I guess it depends what is meant by ‘casual’ here, but they come across as having a kind of lighthearted friends/siblings sort of relationship, which doesn’t seem like it should be that far from ordinary. It does sometimes seem as if there’s a slight discrepancy between how Aes Sedai-Warder relationships or dynamics are described in a general sense, and how they’re shown in a specific sense. But maybe that’s simply a result of the specific characters we’re following.

“Those two remind me of nothing so much as a brother and sister at times.”

Okay, yeah, I really don’t see why that should come across as uncommon. If romantic relationships between an Aes Sedai and Warder are uncommon – as is said to be the case – then surely a sibling or close friend dynamic would be well within the norm.

As Sanderson’s characters would say, bah.

“Hattori only has one Warder,” [Sleete] said in his gravelly, soft voice. Gawyn nodded. “That’s not unheard-of for a Green.”

“It isn’t because she isn’t open to having more,” Sleete said. “Years ago, when she bonded me, she said that she would only take another if I judged him worthy. She asked me to search. She doesn’t think much on these kinds of things. Too busy with other matters.”

All right, Gawyn thought, wondering why he was being told this.

Gawyn. Come on. Really? You have to be quicker on the uptake than this.

Sleete turned, meeting Gawyn’s eyes. “It’s been over ten years, but I’ve found someone worthy. She will bond you this hour, if you wish it.”

Huh. So…okay. That’s a thing.

It’s high praise, certainly. I like Sleete; he seems very no-nonsense and unobtrusively skilled, and this comes across as an offer given not because of who Gawyn is or who he is related to, but because Sleete thinks he’s genuinely worthy of it. Not just for his prowess with a sword, but because he does clearly have a sense of honour and duty, even if he doesn’t always know the best way to put that to use.

All in all, becoming Warder to a side-character Aes Sedai, while it’s never going to happen, would probably not be a bad thing for Gawyn. It would give him focus and purpose and direction, and being bonded by an Aes Sedai who already has a Warder would give him a mentor figure, which is something he rather desperately needs right now, I think. I wonder if Sleete has seen that in him, too. Ah well, doesn’t much matter, because there’s only one answer Gawyn’s giving to that.

(After all, when has Gawyn ever chosen to do something that might actually be good for him?)

“I’m honoured, Sleete,” Gawyn said. “But I came to the White Tower to study because of Andoran traditions, not because I was going to be a Warder. My place is beside my sister.” And if anyone is going to bond me, it will be Egwene.

…no cognitive dissonance there, of course. It’s going to be rather difficult to be beside your sister and also bonded by Egwene. It would actually make some sort of sense for Gawyn to be bonded by Elayne, but honestly that’s a bond-tangle he really does not need to be a part of, and Elayne is doing none too poorly for Warders as is.

Also, Gawyn, take a look around and notice how you are neither beside your sister nor bonded by Elayne, and then please take a moment to consider why that is, and then get the fuck out of here already.

“You came for those reasons,” Sleete said, “but those reasons have passed.”

That’s…a very good point, especially in a broader sense. What Gawyn thought he was supposed to do, and the way he thought things were going to be, is…not how things have turned out. And that’s something Gawyn hasn’t been able to accept or understand. He had one path he was focused on, and then it blew up and he’s been sort of left wandering the other paths with no roadmap and a broken compass.

“What do you think of what happened in the Tower, Sleete?”

He’s looking for answers, and trying to figure things out; he knows he’s lost and uncertain and caught in a place he doesn’t really want to be. It’s just that there are no good answers, really. It’s good that he’s asking, but eventually it is going to come down to the same thing it did before: he’s going to have to make his own choice.

As Lan said, “You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway.”

Gawyn is actually not bad at the second part. His problem is with the first part; he’s working with incomplete information, and most likely he always will be, and some of what he ‘knows’ is wrong. And he…sort of knows that but also doesn’t always understand it, or take it into account when he acts.

“Just keep your head down,” Sleete said. “There are hot tempers in the Tower, but there are wise minds as well. They’ll do the right thing.”

Hm. Not completely sure that’s the best advice or attitude there, actually. I mean…on the one hand sure, don’t make it worse, and trust in those who are working to solve it. But also…maybe try to help them? Rather than just standing aside and letting other people do the hard work, and just expecting that someone will? And that you don’t have to do anything yourself, and it’ll all just be fine?

There’s a time and a place for neutrality, sure, and if your interest is in staying alive and getting on with the smaller things, then…okay. But this is a point when people actually need to do something. Egwene can only do so much of it by herself. And this isn’t something that the ‘neutral’ Aes Sedai can actually claim isn’t their problem. It is, because it affects all of them. They can’t just ignore that the Tower is broken, and trying to claim the moral high ground for not taking part in the conflict – by ignoring it and trying to pretend it doesn’t exist, but never making the difficult choice – is absurd. Sleete’s not quite doing that, but still.

Then again, it really isn’t Gawyn’s conflict to get involved in, so maybe Sleete has a point there. Gawyn needs to get out of the whole thing, because he can’t have it both ways: he told Sleete he just came to the Tower for Andoran tradition, but now he’s embroiled in the Tower’s division. Choose, Gawyn.

“Hattori got out,” Sleete continued softly. “Went on this mission to al’Thor, never knowing the depth of what it was about. She just didn’t want to be in the Tower. Wise woman.”

Except…wise? Really? She didn’t know what she was getting herself into, but she went anyway because she wanted to be away from the Tower – and so now she can wash her hands of it and also of what they did to Rand? That’s…not how responsibility works.

I’m all for taking the pragmatic approach, but own up to it.

“Hammar was a good man.”

“He was,” Gawyn said, feeling a twist in his stomach.

“But he would have killed you,” Sleete said. “Killed you cleanly and quickly. He was the one on the offensive, not you. He understood why you did what you did. Nobody made any good decisions that day. There weren’t any good decisions to be made.”

Well that last bit is certainly true, at any rate.

Still, there’s something about Sleete’s tendency to absolve everyone of responsibility that doesn’t quite work for me. I see where he’s going with it here, and I don’t entirely disagree, but…enh. That said, it is pretty much exactly what Gawyn needs to hear, and he beats himself up over enough already, so there’s that.

“She needed to get news to the Greens of what had happened at Dumai’s Wells, of what the Amyrlin’s true orders with al’Thor had entailed. I needed to survive. We did our duty. But once that message had been sent, if she hadn’t felt me approaching on my own, she would have come for me. No matter what. And we both know it.”

Some pointed parting words there, though of course Gawyn doesn’t quite get it. Leave, Gawyn.

The offer had been tempting for a heartbeat, but only as a way of escaping his problems.

Points for self awareness.

(He has so many problems)

Why couldn’t Egwene see that the man she’d grown up with had turned into a monster, twisted by the One Power?

Actually, Gawyn, Egwene was thinking just last chapter about how there was little left of the boy she grew up with. How she and Rand – or rather, the Dragon Reborn – had both changed to the point where they feel they don’t really know each other anymore.

But he’s not a monster, and that much I think she still knows, however else she may think of him. There is that much left of ‘Rand’ in her thoughts. And that’s going to be key in whatever is to come; another Amyrlin may well agree with Gawyn. Egwene, though, might have enough lingering love and trust for Rand to let him do what needs to be done, and to perhaps relinquish an attempt at controlling him.

He didn’t trust Aes Sedai. His mother had, and look where that had gotten her.

How does trusting Aes Sedai have anything to do with where Morgase ended up? Her problem was more with trusting one of the Forsaken, and it wasn’t like she was given a whole lot of choice in that matter.

Gawyn decides it’s a good idea to just walk into a meeting of Aes Sedai. Because yeah, that’s definitely going to work well, and get you access to all the information you could possibly want, Gawyn. Sure. You just go right ahead.

He shouldn’t have to eavesdrop.

The problem is, Gawyn, sometimes the way things should be isn’t the way they are, and sometimes you just have to…accept that. And find a way to work with it. And pick your battles.

So Gawyn gets sent away. What a surprise. Really, colour me shocked.

Aes Sedai. Sensible men stayed away from them when possible, and obeyed them with alacrity when staying away was impossible. Gawyn had trouble doing either; his bloodline prevented staying away, his pride interfered with obeying them.

Again, points for self-awareness. Though Gawyn has always been more or less cognizant of his problems. It’s in doing something to actually solve them, and making the hard choices, that he sometimes gets into trouble. He sees himself as being caught in an impossible tangle – and in fairness, he is in a mess of a situation that in many ways is over his head – but doesn’t believe that he can free himself from it. Because he sees all his options as distasteful or impossible in some way, and so he always comes close to a decision point but then turns back, and accepts the status quo. Even as he hates it.

No, he’d supported [Elaida] because he’d disliked Siuan’s treatment of his sister and Egwene.

But would Elaida have treated the girls any better? Would any of them have? Gawyn had made his decision in a moment of passion; it hadn’t been the coolheaded act of loyalty that his men assumed.

Where was his loyalty, then?

It’s not the first time he’s asked himself this – he’s been struggling with it pretty much since the schism itself. Because he doesn’t have all the information, and he doesn’t know the answers, and he’s trying to do the right thing but in the moment and even after, it’s hard to know what that is, especially when it’s so hard to find out what’s really happening, and what really happened.

But he needs to keep asking himself, and he needs to decide. Loyalty, law, a bond to the Tower…they’re all excuses at this point, more than anything else. And I think he knows it. He just…doesn’t know what to do instead. Or is afraid to think of it, because that’s not an easy question or an easy choice, and he’s perhaps even more afraid now of making the wrong one.

Oh for FUCK’S SAKE.

Of COURSE Gawyn overhears the Aes Sedai talking about how the rebels have set up their own Amyrlin. I’m sure he’ll get the full story with all the context and up-to-date information on what Egwene’s role actually turned out to be and—

Yeah, no, I can’t even say that with a straight face.

Also Katerine knows Travelling. Yay. Wonderful.

“But at least she was captured,” Narenwin noted, pausing at the doorway as Covarla passed through.

Katerine laughed sharply. “Captured and made to howl half the day. I wouldn’t want to be that al’Vere girl right now. Of course, it’s no less than she deserves for letting them put the Amyrlin’s shawl on her shoulders.”

Someone please cover Gawyn’s ears, because there’s absolutely no way he’s going to do anything but misinterpret this. Or rather, interpret it exactly as Katerine delivers it, without context or a healthy dose of skepticism.

He’d heard rumours that the rebels had their own Hall and Amyrlin…but Egwene? It was ridiculous! She was only Accepted!

But who better to set up for a potential fall? Perhaps none of the sisters had been willing to put their necks on the line by taking the title. A younger woman like Egwene would have made a perfect pawn.

So much faith you have in her, Gawyn.

But to be fair, that is exactly what they intended, when they raised her. It’s the logical conclusion, and it’s a part of why Egwene was able to take power in the first place; they simply didn’t see it coming, and didn’t think to put much effort into preventing it, and by the time they realised the truth, she had already run rings around them.

So of course Gawyn is going to do exactly what Mat did upon finding out, and immediately assume that he has to go rescue her. Sigh.

Egwene was in trouble. He blinked deliberately, standing in the square, cattle calling distantly, water bubbling in the canal beside him.

Egwene would be executed.

Where is your loyalty, Gawyn Trakand?

I just…can’t work up much enthusiasm for what appears to be an actual turning point and a decision, finally. Because the impetus for it is so…meh. He’s supposed to be a hero, so he has to go play white knight to a damsel in distress, right?

I don’t think my irritation – or apathy, more accurately – is aimed at the way this is written; it’s more an issue with Gawyn himself. That he takes what Katerine says on face value, because it plays into his… idea of how things work, or should work, or whatever. Egwene’s in trouble, so of course Egwene is in trouble, and of course he can rescue her, but she can’t rescue herself. Blah.

So it is nice to see Gawyn finally decide. He’s been moving towards this for a while but hasn’t been able to take that last step, and he has felt this conflict of loyalties, and uncertainty, and now he is finally choosing.

The way he’s making that decision irks me somwhat, though. Ah well. Can’t deny it’s in character.

Well, he’s made a decision and he’s certainly not wavering on it now. Bags packed and straight to his horse within minutes. Almost makes up for what – months? – of uncertainty and hesitation. Almost makes up for the fact that he hasn’t really taken time to think about what Katerine said, and her motivations for saying it, and whether or not it’s the whole truth, and…ah, whatever. He’s finally getting out of this clusterfuck – even if he is very likely headed right into another one – and I can definitely support that, at least. Maybe along the way he will learn some things. He tries, and his heart is in the right place. He just has some…annoying notions.

Sleete continued to watch from the shadow of a massive pine as Gawyn put the saddle on Challenge’s back. The Warder knew. Gawyn’s act had fooled everyone else, but he could sense that it wouldn’t work on this man. Light! Was he going to have to kill another man he respected?

You’re assuming you could kill him, Gawyn. As Lan so aptly demonstrated in New Spring, winning in sparring does not necessarily mean winning in a real fight. But Sleete isn’t here to fight Gawyn. He practically told him to leave, after all. To go do what he needed to do.

Burn you, Elaida! Burn you, Siuan Sanche, and your entire Tower! Stop using people. Stop using me!

Ah, Gawyn. He has been caught for so long between forces far larger than himself, caught up by events that threw him around before he could really get his bearings. Sure, some of it is on him, but some of it is just…he was young and sheltered and thought he knew his task, and then everything exploded and he couldn’t figure out who or what or why, and he’s been trying, but this…isn’t his story. He’s caught in the swirl of a far larger story, used and pushed and pulled.

“Then why let me go?” Gawyn said, rounding the gelding and taking the reins. He met those shadowed eyes and thought he caught the faintest hint of a smile on the lips beneath them.

“Perhaps I just like to see men care,” Sleete said. “Perhaps I hope you’ll find a way to help end this. Perhaps I am feeling lazy and sore with a bruised spirit from so many defeats. May you find what you seek, young Trakand.”

Okay, I do like him. Those are good parting words.

There was only one place he could think to go for help in rescuing Egwene.

OH. IS HE—IS HE GOING TO GARETH BRYNE? PLEASE TELL ME HE IS GOING TO GARETH BRYNE. For one, that way Bryne can sit him down for A Talk. And also can maybe help him. Because honestly, Gawyn needs a mentor. And a friend. And maybe someone to just…actually tell him things, for once, and see that he’s angry and sad and lost, and help him.

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