#kazinski family

[braininatankwithalaptop]

You know, rereading through some of Fortov's scenes and his characterization, what if he had ADHD?

This may be a bit of a stretch, but just the way that Zorian tells Fortov that "you're smart, you're just lazy," reminds me of how friends with ADHD were treated in schools. Teachers and parents would see what they could do when they were hyperfocusing and ask "why can't you do that all the time?" I don't think Fortov is notably smart or dumb, he just has some internal difficulties that happen to sometimes be beneficial and that others don't recognize. I wonder how the Kazinski family would react if he could prove it.

[mage-witha-glock]

Forget Zach and Zorian trying to lay low about their magical abilities. What about Zach and Zorian trying to keep everyone from confusing the dynamic of their relationship??

Silverlake literally says that the only explanation is being gay and I know she spent quite a lot of time with them but people (especially teenagers) always seem to come to the conclusion that "you're close so you must be dating" so even though Zach dropped out and let's be real, Zorian will probably end up skipping a lot, people will still see them around and be like, huh, they are weirdly close... The only real edge ZZ has here is the fact that they are two boys, not a guy and a girl.

There was the whole going to Daimen thing together as well where Daimen was being a little shit and went "aww this your bf? <3". And Kirelle's opinion really mattered to Zach (after she initially didn't like him in one of the loops because of the "train station incident"), plus he managed to loop her into his petty revenge. Fuck the rest of Zorian's bio family. Alanic's opinion probably also matters a lot to Zach too. Seeing as he is Zorian's father figure and all. Plus their friend.

They have chemistry. It's not necessarily a romantic one but it's there and it's really obvious + the soul bonded thing. They've been friends for so long in such unique circumstances it's hard not to be super close.

Adding to above though, to everyone else it looks like they became besties out of nowhere which is. Not possible. At least with romantic relationships you can say "omg, first relationship, so smitten". Friendships take time to build. From the outside it would definitely look like they have crazy chemistry for a romantic relationship and that this isn't just the results of a ~decade long friendship.

They are a team. It's ZachAndZorian. ZorianAndZach. It's all "us", "we". They are constantly together.

They have the whole opposites attract thing going on (sun/moon, golden retriever/black cat, red oni/blue oni etc.)

They hang out all the time. They eat out together. They go to the bar together. Everything. They literally do every single last thing together. And somebody like Benisek would definitely notice and be like hm, you've been going to bars together... those are called dates. You are dating.

They leave stuff at each other's places probably. Like "his house is my house, anyway" pretty much. Also Zorian lives with a bunch of other people and tutors people so he can't leave incriminating stuff around at his landlord's.

They share their money. And it is their money. It isn't Zorian borrowing Zach's money or vice versa, it's quite literally theirs as in ours. As in "my money is your money" which. Isn't normal for best friends. Like listen, I lend money and borrow money from my mates sometimes but it isn't an "our". For them, they share funds.

Plus they are definitely touchy. Zach just strikes me as a "your personal space? Our personal space" guy, plus the whole Zorian faking his death thing, and Zorian doesn't really mind either way.

Their futures include each other, they're not planning on separating. I feel like they'll definitely move in together at some point.

They are each others go to person. "I know a guy" literally is just them talking about the other. Which is fair because if Zach can't do something then Zorian definitely can (and vice versa), so it works. They literally really compliment each other in abilities.

They are also both very mature and close so they can talk about whatever without it ever getting awkward.

[dantegotitwrong]

“No, she’s a little angel,” Imaya said, waving his concerns away. Zorian silently rolled his eyes at the idea of Kirielle being an angel. If Kirielle was so nice then why did Imaya want him to come home so badly?

incapable of imagining a loving family

[amusingmyselfsblog]

I can’t get over the fact that when Zorian was on the run and worrying for his family’s safety, he never thinks of Fortov once.

He’s all like when I wake up the next restart, will my house be quiet and my family dead? Then he wakes up, and Kiri is there and he’s all like phew

As if he doesn’t have a brother going to the academy who will be asked questions like “so you and Zorian got on the train and that was the last time you saw him? Never looked for him after getting off? Never checked that your little brother was alright? Where is Zorian, Fortov?” LOL

[spacefairynayu]

I can’t stop thinking about how Zorian is of mixed ethnicity and how that adds so many unexplored layers to his befriending of the indigenous minorities within Eldemar(ie. a morlock, shapeshifters, the aranea) AND layers to his mother’s rejection of her heritage.

Especially to his mother’s rejection of her heritage.

Witches are explicitly indigenous to Altazia, and yes part of the negative perception of them comes from the fact that many witches have done terrible things, but the villager’s treatment of Cikan and her mother also easily parallels plain racism. Cikan’s reaction to this being to completely abandon her heritage screams of a choice to assimilate into the majority culture to avoid discrimination. Her insistence on raising Kirielle as ‘the perfect lady’ by Eldemar’s standards is an almost obsessive attempt to erase any trace of her ethnic background and present both Kirielle and herself as ‘proper’ Eldemarian/Ikosian women. She says she’s doing it for Kirielle’s sake, and partially it is(albeit while heavily projecting), but it’s mostly to reinforce the family’s image, her image, as 100% Eldemarian/Ikosian.

Not to imply that abandoning one culture to embrace another is inherently a bad thing, Cikan is very clearly happier living as an Ikosian woman than an Altazian one. This probably was the correct decision for her. The problem is that she is taking the choice to embrace or reject their heritage away from her children(as well as doing the exact same thing that she hated her mother for, attempting to force a certain way of living onto them that made them miserable).

And then there’s Zorian. The Kazinski child who resembles a witch the most. He’s anti-social and withdrawn, he fiercely holds on to grudges and memories of every slight(and holds to memories of kindness just as tightly), he parleys with non-humans and ‘undesirables’, and to top it all off he inherited the bloodline ability that his witch ancestors cultivated and passed down to a degree that likely hasn’t been seen in generations.

Zorian embodies everything that Cikan has tried to erase from their family history. He’s a walking symbol of their Altazian ancestry.

All this to say that I feel it was a massive waste for Nobody to not explore Zorian’s heritage, his relation to it, and his family’s relation to it, as well as how that in turn affects his relation to/perception of Eldemar and it’s politics.

[braininatankwithalaptop]

Yes! I was just thinking about this recently. I think what's most likely (in my interpretation of her character) is that Cikan could theoretically put the pieces together but is prioritizing trying to cut off all connection to being a witch by denying anything that could be a connection. She hears something that reminds her of her (possibly) empathic witch mother or grandmother? No she didn't, and in fact it's a trick her son is trying to pull on her with lies because he seems committed to ruining the family's reputation. And of course she can't get him checked out by a doctor, because if word spreads that Zorian is being checked out for signs of witch bloodline, all that ostracization and rumors Cikan had to deal with as a child as a witch's daughter will come rushing back and take down her new life she built with her husband. So as long as she can deny the possibility that Zorian has inherited the witch bloodline, then it must not be possible. Because if he truly was an empath the evidence would be undeniable. Right? Right?? (This is Cikan's thoughts as she prays every night).

so umm i just finished mother of learning in like 5 days, and my brain is now full of wriggling squiggling worms. i'm also just starting a re-read with the audiobook and it is already giving me even more questions and ideas! so here i am to share my wormy burden ^_^

anyway, here's something chapter 1 started me thinking about...

do you think zorian's mother knows about their bloodline? (also her name is cikan. i had to look it up, so saying it here incase anyone else needed reminding)

we know that cikan really hated being associated with zorian's grandmother, but she was still immersed in witch culture at least somewhat in her home life. we don't really know how old she was when she first started to reject those practices, so it's hard to judge how much she would have learned before she went out of her way to avoid it, and we also just don't have enough context about the witches' traditions for raising their kids to make guesses about her knowlege level.

we do see later on in the series (what comes to mind is the confrontation in koth) that cikan doesn't have much knowlege about magic as zorian knows it (eg. what you can expect from certain spells used for travel), but given that the witches are an separate spellcasting tradition from the ikosians that doesn't necessarily tell us loads about what she might have picked up from her mother.

also, knowing you have a bloodline is pretty important information to have, so even with the antagonism you'd think zorian's grandmother would've at least made sure cikan knew about that... if SHE knew, anyway, cause that's also not something we can really take for granted is it? there are a few ways i can picture it being

option 1. most of what we see in the series is not typical from an empathy bloodline. archmage zorian is an outlier and should not be counted. and even daimen, the more "normal" natural mind mage is still a whole magical prodigy, which isn't exactly baseline for most people with empathy either. so yeah... zorian's grandmother may not have known that she had a empathy in her family in the first place.

option 2. we do hear (i don't remember when or who from. maybe one of the teachers? was it ilsa? idk) that empathy is a pretty common form of natural magical ability, and it's kind of a mild plot twist that it's a bloodline thing if i remember correctly. so even if zorian's grandmother knew about an empath in her family history she might not have known that meant it could pass down.

option 3. part of the reason in world that empathy isn't usually thought of as a bloodline thing (again, if i'm remembering right) is because it's so comparatively common, so it's entirely possible that empathy bloodlines (and possibly to a lesser extent bloodlines in general) are just quite common for witches to the extent that it's not really something that needs to be said explicitly, or at least wouldn't have been if cikan hadn't done so much to assimilate with the dominant culture and distance herself from witch tradition and knowlege

BUT, those options are thinking about the reasons cikan might NOT know about their bloodline... so again, does she know? even if she doesn't think of it as a bloodline she might be aware that her family has a history of empathy. so now for some thoughts on what the situation might be if she IS aware of the family history.

(note. i'm pretty damn sure cikan herself isn't an empath. zorian would be able to tell if she was "open", and she just doesn't have that understanding of how other people feel. but if you think otherwise, or just want to think about a "what if", i'd love to hear about it ^-^)

(oh and same goes for kiri and fortov)

cikan might know that there's a family history, but not really know what that means in practise. as i mentioned earlier she doesn't seem very knowlegable on magic, so she might not have any clue about the signs and how it typically presents.

she also might be in denial about the possibility that her kids inherited something like that from her, given what we've seen of how she thinks about her heritage. or she might have focused any concern about the possibility onto kirielle, who seems to be where much of her trauma goes, and not considered that the boys might get it. especially considering the witches' beliefs about sex and magical lineage.

but she also might know or suspect that zorian and/or daimen is an empath. which if nothing else is certainly the option with the most potential drama.

personally, i doubt she knows that daimen is an empath. he put a lot of work into hiding it, and i feel like it would probably affect how he sees him. given how much baggage she has about her witch heritage i just can't see that knowlege not somewhat tainting her golden boy, you know? like i know she's fine with him being a mage and really proud of his prodigy status, but i just can't envision her seeing empathy the same way, and i think it would come through in a slightly colder attitude to daimen. especially given the cultural stigma against mind magic when she's worked so hard to become socially acceptable.

but i'm just not sure whether she knows about zorian or not! on the one hand i could totally see her just being oblivious, in denial, not having the right context, whatever, but I can also kind of see the way she treats him (specifically in relation to him socialising and stuff), through the lense of knowing he's an empath.

like he straight up told her as a child that crowds caused him physical pain. he had tp stop going to church because it made him actually pass out! that is some pretty intense stuff to just ignore... we're never told that he saw a doctor or anything about this via his parents (as far as i remember, please let me know if i'm missimg something!) so did she have some idea about what was going on or was it just plain neglect?

and if she did have some understanding of the situation, how did that affect her behaviour? did she think if she ignored it he'd just adjust and never find out? did she just not want it to be associated with her family history if/when he did find out? did she think that if she forced him into triggering situations he'd eventually realise? or that he'd learn to control it subconciously? or did it just not matter how he felt as long as he was still functional when it came to his political use? did she hide it more out of personal shame, or a legitimate conviction that she was protecting him like with kiri?

like i said, i'm not sure what my headcannon is, but the topic fascinates me. as you can probably tell from how long and rambly this got. sorry ^_^'

but yeah, i'd love to hear what other people think!

[azdoine]

Who Cares If It's Worth The Candle?

Three days ago I wrote an article on some recent rational stories. I had not read any fiction of this kind since the days of Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, and, since I con­stantly heard animated discussions of the merits of the rational writers, I was curious to see what they were like today. The specimens I tried I found disappointing, and I made some rather derogatory remarks in connec­tion with my impressions of the genre in general. To my surprise, this brought me letters of protest in a volume and of a passionate earnestness which had hardly been elicited even by my occasional criticisms of Dath Ilan. Of the thirty-nine letters that have reached me, only seven approve my strictures. The writers of almost all the others seem deeply offended and shocked, and they all say almost exactly the same thing: that I had simply not read the right novels and that I would surely have a different opinion if I would only try this or that author recommended by the correspondent. In many of these letters there was a note of asperity, and one lady went so far as to declare that she would never read my articles again unless I were prepared to reconsider my position. In the meantime, furthermore, a number of other writers have published articles defending the rational story: Alexander Wales, Scott Alexander, Eneasz Brodski and Daystar Eld have all had something to say on the subject—nor has the um­brageous Eliezer Yudkowsky failed to raise his voice.

Overwhelmed by so much insistence, I at last wrote my correspondents that I would try to correct any in­justice by undertaking to read some of the authors that had received the most recommendations and taking the whole matter up again. The writer that my correspondents were most nearly unanimous in putting at the top was Mister Domagoj Kurmaić, who was pressed upon me by eighteen people, and the book of his that eight of them were sure I could not fail to enjoy was a time loop caper called Mother of Learning. Well, I set out to read Mother of Learning in the hope of tasting some novel excitement, and I declare that it seems to me one of the dullest books I have ever en­countered in any field. The first part of it is all about magic as it is practiced in university and contains a lot of information of the kind that you might expect to find in an encyclopedia article on tabletop role-playing-games. I skipped a good deal of this, and found myself skipping, also, a large section of the conversations between conventional scholastic characters: “Oh, here’s Xvim with the coursework. People may say what they like about coursework, but it does go on all through the quarter and make a backdrop,” etc. There was also a dreadful stock student of the undiagnosed autistic kind, with the embarrassing name of Zorian Kazinski, and, although he was the focal character of the novel, being Mister Domagoj Kurmaić’s version of the necessary Phil Connors prisoner, I had to skip a good deal of him too. In the meantime, I was losing the story, which had not got a firm grip on my attention, but I went back and picked it up and steadfastly pushed through to the end, and there I discovered that the whole point was that phenomenal arcane power can’t fix a broken family or mend estranged relationships. Not a bad idea for a character piece, and O. Henry would have known how to dramatize it in an entertaining tale of five thousand words, but Mister Kurmaić had not hesitated to pad it out to a book of seven hundred thousand, contriving one of those hackneyed cock-and-bull stories where the protagonist’s disability is a secret power, and larding the whole thing with details of training arcs, bits of quaint lore from OSR monster manuals, and the awful whimsical patter of worldbuilding.

I had often heard people say that Domagoj Kurmaić wrote well, and I felt that my correspondents had been playing him as their literary ace. But, really, he does not write very well: it is simply that he is more con­sciously literary than most of the other rational-story writers and that he thus attracts attention in a field which is mostly on a sub-literary level. In any serious department of fiction, his writing would not appear to have any distinction at all. Yet, commonplace in this re­spect though he is, he gives an impression of brilliant talent if we put him beside Mister Wertifloke, whose The Waves Arisen was also suggested by several corre­spondents. Mister Yudkowsky has put himself on record as be­lieving that Mister Wertifloke, as well as Mister Walker and Mister Solguard, writes his novels in "excellent prose," and this throws for me a good deal of light on Mr. Yudkowsky’s opinions as a critic. I hadn't quite realized before, though I had noted his own rather messy style, to what degree he was insensitive to writing. I do not see how it is possible for anyone with a feeling for words to describe the unap­petizing sawdust which Mister Wertifloke has poured into his pages as "excellent prose" or as prose at all except in the sense that distinguishes prose from verse. And here again the book is mostly padding. There is the notion that unregulated use of power would lead to climate disaster and the collapse of modern civilization, but this is embedded in the dialogue and doings of a lot of self-replicating warrior-magicians who are even more tedious than those of Mother of Learning.

The enthusiastic reader of rational stories will indig­nantly object at this point that I am reading for the wrong things: that I ought not to be expecting good writing, characterization, human interest or even atmos­phere. He is right, of course, though I was not fully aware of it till I attempted Project Lawful, con­sidered by connoisseurs one of the best books of two of the masters of this school. This tale I found completely unreadable. The story and the writing both showed a surface so wooden and dead that I could not keep my mind on the page. How can you care about liberating those damned who have never really been put in torment, because the writer hasn't any ability of even the most ordinary kind to persuade you to see them or feel them? How can you probe the the depths of the characters who surround the protagonist, because they are all simply fodder for dramatic irony? It was then that I understood that a true connoisseur of this fiction must be able to suspend the demands of his imagination and literary taste and take the thing as an intellectual widget. But how you arrive at that state of mind is what I do not understand.

In the light of this revelation, I feel that it is probably irrelevant to mention that I enjoyed The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, by Lurina, more than the novels of any of these luminaries. There is a tinge of black magic that gives it a little of the interest of a horror story, and the author has a virtuosity at playing with alternative hypotheses that makes this trick of rational fiction more amusing than it usually is. I want, however, to take up certain points made by some of the above-mentioned articles. Mr. Munchkin informs the non-expert that the rational novel is a kind of game in which the reader of a given story, in order to play properly his hand, should bring his full attention to the stage. Common sense, it seems, is insufficient: the reader must be versed with Bayesian statistics, game theory, artificial intelligence, theory of mind, and modal realism. This may be true, but I shall never qualify. I would rather read golden age detective fiction, which at least does not involve the consumption of hundreds of ill-written blog posts.

An argument leveled by my interlocutors is that contemporary genre fiction has become so vapid, so abstracted or mass-market, that the public have had to take to the rational story as the only department of fiction where verisimilitude survives. This seems to me to involve two fallacies. On the one hand, it is surely not true that “the common authors of today” - to quote Ms. Neocalico - “have often,” in contrast to the authors of the past, “little or no story to tell,” that “they have allowed themselves to be persuaded that continuity is no consideration.” It is true, of course, that urban fantasy and comics - which, I suppose, must be accounted the emptiest going - have their various modern ways of boring and playing tricks on the reader. But how about the dreadful fanon and reinterpretations that one has to get over in HPMOR? The soft-serve science in Worm? The Deus Ex Machina of Unsong, in which the villain surrenders his cause? Is there anything in first-rate popular fiction quite so gratuitous as these longueurs? Even Rowling and Gaiman do certainly have stories to tell, and they have organized their works with an intensity which has been relatively rare in genre fiction and which, to my mind, more than makes up for the occasional arbitrariness of their narratives.

On the other hand, it seems to me—for reasons sug­gested above—a fantastic misrepresentation to say that the average rational story is an example of good story-telling. The gift for telling stories is uncommon, like other artistic gifts, and the only one of this group of writers—the writers my correspondents have praised—who seems to me to possess it to any degree is Mr. Alexander Wales. Worth the Candle is the only one of these books that I have read all of and read with enjoyment. But Wales, though in the community he’s lauded as a master, does not really belong to this school of rationalist fiction. What he writes is a work of portal fantasy which has less in common with Yudkowsky than with Stephen Donaldson and Michael Ende - the highbrow isekai which has substituted the blue text of numbers going up for the invisible backdrop of psychodrama. It is not simply a question here of a puzzle which has been put together but of an experience conveyed to the reader, the wonder and terror of an otherworld that is continually revealed in all its varied and unlikely forms. To write such a novel successfully you must be able to invent character and incident and to generate atmosphere, and all this Mr. Wales can do. It was only when I got to the end that I felt my old rational-story depression descending upon me again - because here again, as is so often the case, the explanation of the ontological mystery, when it comes, isn’t interesting enough. It fails to justify the excitement produced by the elaborate buildup of picturesque and sinister happenings, and one cannot help feeling cheated.

My experience with this second batch of novels has, therefore, been even more disillusioning than my expe­rience with the first, and my final conclusion is that the reading of rational stories is simply a kind of vice that, for silliness and minor harmfulness, ranks somewhere be­tween LitRPG and xianxia. This conclusion seems borne out by the violence of the letters I have been receiving. Rational-story readers feel guilty, they are habitually on the defensive, and all their talk about "well-written" fanfics is simply an excuse for their vice, like the reasons that the alcoholic can always pro­duce for a drink. One of the letters I have had shows the addict in his frankest and most shameless phase. This lady begins by pretending, like the others, to guide me in my choice, but she breaks down and tells the whole dreadful truth. Though she has read, she says, hundreds of rational stories, "it is surprising," she finally con­fesses, "how few I would recommend to another. However, a poor rational story is better than none at all. Try again. With a little better luck, you'll find one you admire and enjoy. Then you, too, may be a rationalist."

This letter has made my blood run cold: so the opium smoker tells the novice not to mind if the first pipe makes him sick; and I fall back for reassurance on the valiant little band of my readers who sympathize with my views on the subject. One of these tells me that I have underestimated both the badness of rational stories themselves and the lax mental habits of those who en­joy them. The worst of it is, he says, that the true addict, half the time, never even learns how to be less wrong. The addict reads not to find anything out but merely to get the mild stimulation of a few shows of wits and of the suspense itself of waiting until the protagonist takes over the world. That this strategy of conquest is nothing at all and does not really explain how to systematically win does not matter to such a reader. He has learned from his long indulgence how to connive with the author in the swindle: he does not pay any real attention when the disappointment occurs, he does not think back and check the chain of reasoning, he simply closes the tab and starts another.

To rational-story addicts, then, I say: Please do not write me any more letters telling me that I have not read the right books. And to the seven correspondents who are with me and who in some cases have thanked me for helping them to liberate themselves from a habit which they recognized as wasteful of time and degrading to the intellect but into which they had been bullied by convention and the portentously performed hijacking of Greg Egan and Charles Stross—to these staunch and pure spirits I say: Friends, we represent a minority, but Literature is on our side. With so many fine web novels to be read, so much to be studied and known, there is no need to bore ourselves with this rubbish. And with the URL shortage pressing on all publication and many first-rate writers forced out of the top 100 on Royal Road, we shall do well to discourage the squandering of this wordcount that might be put to better use.

[cal-cium-the-nerd]

Fandom: Mother of Learning Words: 5557 Chapters: 1/? Relationships: Zorian Kazinski & Spear of Resolve Striking Straight at the Heart of the Matter, Zorian Kazinski & Enthusiastic Seeker of Novelty, Zorian Kazinski & Cyorian Web, Zorian Kazinski & Zach Noveda Other tags: Canon Divergence, Canon Retelling, Raised by Aranea AU, found family, contains a shameless amount of headcanons regarding aranean societies - proceed at your own risk Summary: Zorian thought that being adopted —arguably kidnapped— by a colony of giant mind reading spiders, raised by them and then becoming their human spokesperson-in-progress would be the weirdest sequence of events to ever happen in his life. Then he got stuck in a time loop.

Written for day 3 of MoL prompt week - Empathy!

I'm actually very proud of this one! I've put a lot of thought into it and have lots of plans for its future, though I wouldn't want to spoil anything. Hope you enjoy! ^w^

[gryffindormarveltwilight]

All We Need - Prologue

A/N: It has been a while since I have posted anything, I thought I would try my hand at a TopGun Maverick fic. As always any request or feedback is always welcomed x

Masterlist

Pairing: Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x fem!pilot!Benjamin Reader (referred to as Athena’

Warnings: mentions of the mission from the movie, angst, fluff (nothing much in this part)

Prologue: this chapter outlines the character and the connections she has!

Part 1

My name Y/N ‘Athena’ Benjamin. Being a pilot practically runs in the family, my grandfather was an Admiral, my dad also an Admiral his two best friends Admiral Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazinsky and Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell also known as Uncle Ice and Uncle Mav.

My dad served at TopGun with them in ‘86 and have been inseparable since, that is where they all lost their other best-friend Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw. Since then all three pilots took it under their wing to look after Gooses son Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw, 6 years my senior and the closest thing I have to an older brother despite only seeing him on summer holidays when our mothers took it upon themselves to have a summer trip, just Carole, my Mum, Aunt Penny, Bradley and me. Mum and Carole were best friends before and while Dad and Goose were at TopGun having met when their husbands were still doing basic training, after Goose, Carole moved to Virginia and Dad was posted to Texas. Two years later I was born and Texas became Dad permanent station even to this day.

Growing up I was lucky to have my best friend grow up next door to me, our parents were close and therefore we were inseparable, my best friend none other than the infamous Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin, we were inseparable all through our child and teen years, all through basic and flight school. The only time they separated us was three years into our Naval career, when i became the youngest pilot to go through TopGun having only been out of flight school a year and finished top of my class, Jake was called back a few years later also finishing the top of his class.

It has long been said that I was the best pilot the Navy had seen since Iceman, Maverick and my dad, which makes sense when they are the ones who taught me to fly.

So here I am now on the way to the house Jake and I share in San Diego, I had been recalled in the middle of a six month deployment, on the flight home i had been handed a folder with the list of the best pilots that had been recalled and simple instructions on the front stating I had been recalled as team leader for a dangerous mission and was in charge of training the best of the best with Maverick. The only issue is someone is unlikely to come home.

[almostgenerallyalways]

tgm fic recs

@stcverogers tagged one of my fics in a rec list yesterday and i thought it was such a good idea, i wanted to share some of my own favs

in no particular order:

* * *

hangman 

one time thing // kiss the sun (fight the fire) // love that’s a real long shot  He nods again like that’s exactly what he expected you to say. “I think you’re wrong. Doesn’t matter now though, does it?” i would rec anything by @callsignvalley but this is probably the series that got me most. i also love tailspin and its rooster follow up steady

california coast in your green eyes // i’ll carry my bags just until i can hold you again (2 different series) Bob’s older sister gets the news that his plane went down during a training drill, and shows up at the hospital at the same time as an arrogant pilot. //  Six months after they break up, Jake shows up at Julie’s Family thanksgiving. A second chance holiday romance with fake dating, family drama, and fall festivities. @theharddeck these fics, esp carry my bags, feel so so real and human to me, i love julie and the characterisation of jake feels so on point i also love her series out of the clear, blue sky as well as kinda might, sorta like, love you a little bit + its follow ups

i’ve been holdin’ out so long (4 part series) You can’t stand Hangman, but your dreams lately say otherwise. He notices. @steadfastconviction i adore Bluegrass and her sass

do not engage (series) You hate Hangman. Really, you do... Or so you like to think, until it begins to seem like that distaste might not be as strong as you’d prefer to believe. @clints-lucky-arrow the entire f&f universe is great but Duchess especially is a badass

afterburn (series) It had been clear from the moment you got inside a cockpit that you were going to be something special. You certainly weren’t the youngest Naval Aviator to be invited to TOPGUN, but you had been the youngest to graduate at number one in more than thirty years. Which is all the more reason why it was so tragic that you would never, ever, be able to fly again. @top-hhun is a master of setting a scene

the off-season (series) It was supposed to just be one summer. But somehow you found yourself living in your grandparent’s Maine vacation house indefinitely. It was quiet when the summer tourists left, but tolerable. That was, until your brother’s friend from college needed a place to crash and he somehow wound up staying in your guest bedroom. Also indefinitely. @ereardon just started this series but i’m so into this world (au) already

fuck (the universe) (series) You’re a Kazansky–Tom “Iceman” Kazinsky’s youngest daughter–and you’ve taken after your father and become a Naval aviator. You finished at the top of your class at Top Gun and have worked diligently and fruitlessly to get to where you are now: North Island. You don the call-sign Wisteria not only because the beauty of the flower but because of its lethal qualities. i mention @roosterbruiser below bc i read landslide first but holy fuck indeed

* * *

rooster 

landslide (series) It’s been almost three years since the accident that took half of her, and Faye “Clover” Ledger seems fine, really. She loves her old house, she has a perpetually expanding vinyl collection, she’s got a job she likes on base, and she is only a short drive from the beach. She’s grounded--literally. @roosterbruiser landslide is one of those fics i have to read in little bits because it’s just too good. beautiful writing that just transports me (and i love faye, she may be the most developed fanfic oc i’ve ever read - and I love her taste in music)

baby let’s play house // pt 2  you got yourself in trouble. bradley has a bit of a savior complex. together, you come up with what could potentially be the worst idea in the longstanding and illustrious history of bad ideas. @seasonsbloom i just really love this fic, it shows all the quietest best parts of bradley

first impressions  at the induction day for the newest recruits of the Golden Warriors of VFA 87, rooster assumes you’re a civilian, instead of, you know, a member of his team? you see how far you can push it before he figures it out.  @ohcaptains‘s pilot in this fic is the badass bitch i wish i could be. as well as fucking funny.

like i can (series) After yet another bad date and tired of swiping on apps, the Dagger Squad steps in to help you out by setting you up on a series of blind dates. Much to Rooster’s dismay. @sometimesanalice perfect blend of cute, funny and heartmelting

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bob 

he’s so pretty (when he goes down on me) // pt 2  things between you and Bob are strictly business: he’s your backseater, and that’s all there is. @seasonsbloom‘s writing is so good it made me want to try writing fic myself

* * *

hangman x rooster

we’re fools to make war In a Walmart at three am, between beef jerky and tortilla chips, with the lights flickering above them like it’s the fucking twilight zone, Bradley wants him more than he’s ever wanted anyone. or: it's a hundred degrees in texas. i can’t find a tumblr link for this but the writer is @baroness-elsa. this is 66k words and i read it in two days which probably says enough. holy shit.

* * *

there are many many more (this fandom is FULL of talented writers, damn) but this already took me an hour so that’ll be part 2 haha

[braininatankwithalaptop]

Has anyone talked about how envious Zach is of Zorian's life?

Zach is the classic fantasy protagonist/d&d character. He's an orphan with a tragic backstory and given a mission by the angels to save the world. But he doesn't know he's a character. He doesn't have parents, siblings, or even extended family.

Do you think that he used to deeply trust and rely on Tesen no matter how cold or dismissive he was? I wonder if there was a house servant that Zach clung to as his closest thing to a family and he could do or say nothing when they were fired, convinced that it was in the name of rebuilding his house. Based on his reputation and how people react to his success in the time loop I don't think he had many close friends at school either. Can you imagine how lost he was as a 15 boy being given two impossible missions (rebuilding his house and stopping the invasion) and then finding out how Tesen betrayed him and his family?

In the time loop he was alone for years without being able to make deep relationships with his newfound maturity and got blindsided by betrayal (again) by Red Robe.

Now can you imagine Zach comparing all of this to Zorian? Zorian was only in the time loop for about a decade. Zorian had a sister, two brothers, parents, and a friend he was decently close to before the time loop? When Zach reunites with Zorian he finds out he was able to convince Xvim, Kael, and Taiven of the time loop. If I were him I'd be wondering what I did wrong (or what was wrong with me) that I couldn't get as many people to believe me.

Now Zorian's life wasn't a cakewalk, and his time in the timeloop was much more stressful compared to Zach's due to the ticking clock and threats, but to Zach, Zorian was in a much healthier situation. His antisocialness could partly (not wholly) be attributed to not being aware of his empathy, but once he gets a handle on it (by becoming allies/friends with the aranea who can jury rig awareness of the time loop and retain memories) he flourishes. Zorian becomes much closer with his little sister and reconciles with his older brother, two connections Zach doesn't have an equivalent for.

I hope after the time loop Zach is able to get the life he's been hoping for.

[mage-witha-glock]

Daimen noting that to Zorian post loop their parents are practically strangers to him and being concerned is so funny to me. Like imagine you find out your brother is actually 25 (if we count the blackrooms) but he only spoke to his (your) parents a number of times that you can literally count on one hand during the time loop that he has been stuck in for a decade. And he literally looks bored and like he doesn't want to be there when your parents arrive in Cyoria. Not to mention Zorian looks ready to immediately make an enemy out of the whole family just to protect Kirelle.

Also Fortov actively disliking Daimen but still bothering Zorian from time to time when Zorian literally gives 0 shits about him but Daimen does is crazy. Obviously he isn't completely aware of this dynamic but still.

[obsidiaspell]

Re-read of Mother of Learning

a few days ago i finished Mother of Learning by nobody103 on royal roads. It was the best realized time-loop piece of fiction I have ever read. I love Zorian Kazinski, his disfunctional family and a human golden retriever that is Zach Noveda.

I have also purchased the first arc on Audible and I am going to do a re-read/listen of it and see how many times i am going to laugh at our little time looping wizard while he says things like: “But that had nothing to do with me.”

PS: the fandom is smol but if it does reach anyone please do comment, we can scream together

PPS: I am going to tag all of those as #MoL_again in case there is anyone who would like to opt out of this experience

[thelostgirl21]

Okay this is driving me literally crazy, but I keep seeing people talk about Radovid's long soft flowing blond locks, but I...

...see him as a GINGER?!?!?

Like, my very first reaction when I saw him was "OMG! Jaskier's going to fall in love with a sweet ginger Prince!"

That wig looks so soft and so clearly reddish blond to me, especially when you compare its color to the hair color of real life gingers, that I can't understand why people keep talking about his blond hair?!

I mean, here's ginger exhibit #1 (Robert Kazinsky)...

Ginger exhibit #2 (Diego Klattenhoff)...

Ginger exhibit #3 (Max Martini)...

(Yeah, I'm aware they're all actors from "Pacific Rim". Apparently, people with red hair have a predisposition towards piloting giant robots... Great. Now I want a "The Witcher / Pacific Rim" crossover...)

And then, there's Radovid...

I mean, the color of his hair literally matches the reddish fur highlights of his cloak!

It has this very caramel tone that just screams ginger puppy to me!

Plus, apparently, King Radovid III was called "The Red" because of his red hair.

Therefore, red hair genetically run in Radovid's family.

I mean, that's a blonde:

(Yeah, that's Charlie Hunnam and he's also from "Pacific Rim", sue me!)

And Radovid's wig really seems to be a closer match to his other three co-stars with red hair.

I think the only moments where Radovid's hair have looked kinda blond, to me, is when there's this very dark and bluish lighting (i.e. in the scene in the shed).

Otherwise, when he's just outside under more natural lighting, there really is a reddish tint to his hair (that I am absolutely enamored with, BTW).

[fablesbooks]

Mother of Learning Arc 3 - Domagoj Kurmaic

In the third installment of Mother of Learning, Zorian continues to try different tactics in attempt to save the world. This time, he has Zack with him most of the time as well as a handful of simulacra to explore different paths of the loop. In this we also get introduced to a new player, Zorian’s older brother Daimen. Adding in Daimen after two whole books in the loop made several chapters feel repetitive since they had to bring him up to speed with everything that has happened. It’s surprising that all this time the loop hasn’t even felt repetitive until then, it just felt like taking a few steps back. I think overall this arc felt slower, but at the same time so much happened. Zorian and Daimen got to work through some of their realistic family issues. Whenever an author writes things that are so specific like the issues in the Kazinski family, I definitely wonder what happened to the author growing up and if they are okay. Perhaps it feels slower because Zorian was written as more of a hero, when previously he has been very antihero. Seeing the MC throw away certain morals and slowly descend into evil or madness without even realizing it is one of the things I love about the average time loop. Being with Zack and his brother maybe made him evaluate choices differently, but would have been an interesting contrast if Zorian would have done something absolutely insane in the name of the loop and just casually horrify them. I still enjoyed this arc overall, but I think I’m ready to find out how it ends.

[clormstroke]

everyone on earth should read mother of learning, it's about timeloops and is kind of long (800k words), but it manages to deliver some really good character growth and accurately represents family dynamics in more ways than one.

I picked this up and couldn't put it down, i sacrificed my sleep schedule to finish this, and Zorian Kazinski is my boy now

the cosmic horror implications of timeloops are fascinating if you actually stop to think about it. because in order to trap someone in a situation like that you'd either have to reset all of time with each loop, which suggests a staggeringly horrifying scale of power and personal pettiness, or you'd have to isolate an area of effect to keep replaying like a broken record while the rest of time continues around it, posing potentially destructive consequences for the integrity of reality itself if people and things caught in the timeloop fail to show up in the present and effect change outside of it.