#mat x rand

[thesunwillshineonusagain757]

Just finished rewatching the first season and watching the second season of wheel of time and this is the fucking ship I choose to ship!!!

WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME !?!

[strxtsbat]

doing my duty as a Cauthor shipper🤡

[wipbigbang]

The final round of art claims is open at @wipbigbang! We have all sorts of great stories left in multiple fandoms, and we'd love any type of fanart for them: traditional art, digital art, fanmixes, moodboards, fic covers/chapter headers...any kind of art you can imagine!

The synopses are located at https://wipbigbang.dreamwidth.org/173272.html

The form is located at https://forms.gle/yyxkCxyXJopMTyUs8.

Wheel of Time

#181

Title: stars fading (but I linger on)

Pairing/Characters: Rand al'Thor/Mat Cauthon

Rating Explicit | E

Warnings/Tags: No Warnings apply

bondage, Dom/sub, deals with issues of mental health, Seanchan culture warning - the main characters encountering the invasion by the slavers of the canon

Summary: "After leaving Moiraine behind at the Eye of the World, Rand wanders southward, until he runs across the city of Cairhien, and discovers someone there he hadn't expected to see ever again." (posted summary on AO3)

This is a show-verse take on the second book in the Wheel of Time series, The Great Hunt. It picks up a couple of months after the ending of the final episode of the first season, with a strong focus on a relationship between Rand al'Thor and Mat Cauthon, the idea of struggling with a prophesied future, and the events at the ending of The Great Hunt, which does include interacting with a canonical culture in the series that enslaves (among others) the magic users of the population.

This WIP has been partially posted already.

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

Wot memes

[asha-mage]

WoT Meta: Prophecies, Fated Lovers, and Robert Jordan's knack for finding the nuance underneath the myth

One complaint I've never understood about the way Jordan writes romances is the persistent claim that he over uses the 'prophesied love' trope.

In part for me, I think it's a little bit folks not seeing the forest for the trees. WoT is fundamentally about the relationship between myth and reality: the place where the fallen angel meets the disgruntled academic, the bitter accountant, and the man who never got over being too short. It's a story where the messiah is real and dealing with chronic pain and PTSD from his stigmata. Where a legendary High Queen has to deal with both marching armies to the apocalypse, and the irritating banal realities of being pregnant at the same time. Of course Jordan digs into the idea of prophesied love- it's a huge theme in folklore and mythologies the world over. Jordan wants to dig into what it really means for there to be a person out there that you are destined to be with: that is a match for you, decreed so by the universe itself....and that you get absolutely no agency and choice in choosing. If anything Tumblr, which adores the 'red string of fate'/'soulmark'/'soulmates share pain'/'world is black until you look into your soulmates eyes' (to name a few of the more prevalent ones- some of which Tumblr practically invented), should be super on board for the parade of fated lovers to be found in WoT. It's nothing short of baffling to me that their not more fondly viewed.

And I think that is tied to the follow up complaint: the criticism that Jordan 'uses prophecy love as a replacement for a romance arc'. But that is something that is just. Patently untrue.

Cause the thing is that is how soulmates are often used...in the majority of soulmate au fanfics you find here and on AO3- an excuse to get the really hard part (two characters realizing they are right for each other and love each other, then having the communication skills to articulate that so they can start a relationship) out of the way, so the author can focus on the fluff or angst or other part they and the audience want to get to. And that's fine! But that's not at all what Jordan does. Just like he does with the Prophecies of the Dragon, or Elaida's fortellings, or even just most of Min's viewings- Jordan takes the idea of the prophecy soulmate, this person decreed by some higher power to be Perfect For You and being right about it, and digs deeper, shining it in different lights and attacking it from different angles. Jordan gives the concept of the soulmate teeth, explores the spines and the sharp points of it: is it real love if it's fated and not your choice? Can you trust your own feelings, or are they fate's design working against you as surely as Aphrodite worked against Helen or Eros against Apollo? What is it like, to see someone one day, and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would love this stranger? This question mark? This wildcard?

Rand's relationships with Min and Aviendha, as well as Mat and Tuon's courtship are great examples of this conundrum. Min and Aviendha have completely opposite reactions to the same information that demonstrates their unique strengths and weaknesses as characters and people, while Tuon and Mat's courtship is all about two people who know they will marry trying to figure out what that means, without ever confronting the reality of those prophecies directly.

Min, as befits a Seer who has learned time and time again that her viewings can not be changed, has resigned herself in an almost fatalistic fashion to all of them, and to loving Rand no less. Min knows that she, and two others, will love him, and she accepts its inevitability the same way she accepts Colavere's death, or Logain's glory, or the shattering of the White Tower. What is, is, and there is no sense or point in struggling against it. What concerns her a great deal more is what she doesn't know- she doesn't know if Rand will love her in return, she doesn't know the identity of the other two women who will love him, and she doesn't know if he will fall in love with one or both of the others but not her. Add to that Min's own insecurities about how she stands out and doesn't fit what her society deems 'proper', between her crossdressing, and her offputting manners, and it makes perfect sense that she's worried about making Rand love her. She doesn't mind sharing him- she hates the idea of being in love with a man who doesn't love her in return, of being stuck like 'Elmindreda' of the stories, sighing and pining endlessly for a man instead of being able to act, to take control of her own fate. 

So she takes control: she learns to flirt from Leane, works hard at making herself desirable, and also indispensable: with her visions, her advice, even just her emotional support to Rand when he otherwise has no one else. The irony is that whenever Rand thinks of Min prior to her return to his side in LoC, it's about how much he liked her earthy honesty and lack of wiles: how she was earnest and made him feel at ease, and didn't 'spin his head like a top'- and that's still what he loves about her after they get together: the fact that she isn't fooled by his front, that she sees him clearly and refuses to be driven away the way so many others are so easily. The point is that Min never had to change, and in the ways that matter she didn't- she only thought she did because of her own fatalism.

Contrast that with Aviendha, who, after learning about being destined to fall in love with Rand, does everything in her power to prevent that outcome- because she is a warrior, a soldier, who has never yet met a problem that could not be killed, endured, or retreated from. Aviendha values nothing so much as her honor and her word- she has promised to keep Rand safe for Elayne and what greater act of dishonor could there be in that situation then not just failing in that promise, but despoiling (and she does view it that way) said man herself? So she is awful to him in the hopes of poisoning the well of affection or at least keeping him far enough away that she is never tempted. Aviendha hurls contempt and anger at him, berates him, does everything short of trying to stab him in an effort to make him hate her, and it doesn't work. Despite all her efforts to keep her thorny wall up, they are literally made for each other and can not help but be drawn together time and again. Despite all her efforts to insist, to him and herself, that she hates him, she can not hide entirely that the opposite is true: that she likes him, sees his strength and courage and resilience, and is a little in awe of his generous kindness. 

This is why she vacillates wildly between wanting desperately to get away from him in The Fires of Heaven, to not wanting to leave his side: they are two planets caught in each other's gravity, with about as much chance of escaping each other. When she resorts to the last recourse of a soldier- retreat- and runs headlong into a blizzard that would surely kill her, Rand follows to try and save her life and she can deny the truth that she loves him no longer, nor can she resist taking him, even knowing that to redress that balance, she will one day have to offer her life to Elayne (as she attempts to do in LoC)- though fate still has other plans in store.

But in many ways the apex of this, the relationship that really shows Jordan's deconstruction of this trope, is Mat and Tuon. Before they ever lay eyes on each other, each is given a prophecy that they will marry the other: not that they'll love each other, not that they will be able to trust each other, not even that that will like each other: just that they will marry. And their strange courtship is a result of this knowledge, as each attempts to suss out the other, to try and understand them without ever overplaying their own hand. Each believes that the moment they admit their prophecy they will destroy any chance of real connection or understanding.

To Tuon, if Mat learns he is destined to wed her he gains something she can not abide: power over her, leverage that could be used to subvert her own plans and visions- because nothing matters more to Tuon than control, especially over herself. So she keeps her 'fortune' secret and tries to figure out: What will it mean to be married to Mat? Will he be a pretty trophy? A liability? A threat to her Empire? Will she have to kill him once she gets her heirs?

To Mat, if Tuon learns of his prophecy, she gains the power to take away his freedom, to snare and collar him and bind him to her, because that's how Mat deep down views marriage: as a binding cord, a loss of freedom, and nothing matters to Mat more than freedom. So he keeps his *Finn gained knowledge secret and tries to figure out: What will it mean to be collared by Tuon? Will she she treat him as a pretty and plaything the way Tylin did? Will she try to use him against Rand and the Westlands? Will she make him a slave and sent him to be beaten anytime he disobeys her? Will he have no choice but to fight her one day, this woman he is going to swear to spend his life with? Will he have to kill her the way he did Melindhra, and carry that guilt of mariticide on top of all else?

So the two stay in their strange limbo, because as long as they don't admit it out loud to the other, they can pretend they are still two people forced together by happenstance, and (each thinks) they can continue to try and understand and figure out the other, to find out where this inevitability of their marriage will really leave them, and if there can be even the faintest possibility of love in such circumstances. And that limbo- that protracted refusal to act as if they are under fate's direction- is what allows them to build a genuine bond of trust and respect for each other, and to start seeing the other person with the clarity that love requires. All this, so that when Tuon finally does play her hand, and reveal the truth....it's obvious they've long since fallen in love with each other (even though Tuon won't admit that to herself), and come to trust each other (even though Mat won't admit that to himself).

And the thing is- all of Jordan’s prophecy romances are written like this: from Egwene seeing that loving Gawyn might be both their downfalls in LoC and seeking him out anyways, to Perrin misinterpreting the 'falcon and hawk' viewing and thinking Faile is a danger to him when she's the love of his life, to Galad and Berelain not even being AWARE they’re fated to fall in love and just....do, at wild first sight (Another classic folklore/mythology trope). They also never find out:  always remaining unaware that the Pattern had long since decreed that they would be together and being incredibly funny/annoying about it. The prophesied love is an example of classic Jordan: taking a common, maybe even ubiquitous premise, and asking those complicating questions that allow him to write it as something much more nuanced and interesting and fascinating. And he gets no credit for it, send tumble.

[markantonys]

i don't know if i'll ever be over the greek tragedy shit of mat hearing that he's fated to stab rand, avoiding rand to protect him and in so doing making rand think that mat has abandoned him, then rolling up at a battle to save rand's life only to accidentally stab him just like the prophecy foretold. sophocles is shaking.

[lanfear-is-my-darkmistress]

With the wheel of time season 3 coming out I've decided to write a Wheel of Time fic where they advanced in a solar punk and steam punk kinda way. There still gonna be like monarch castles though. Which means The Aiel are gonna be advanced in terms like the Fremen are in Dune but I need help like with what Cities like Camelyn, Tear, Ebou Dar, Falme, The Two Rivers match the Cities in book cultures wise and stuff like that. Please give some suggestions. Also if you can add another piece of book, TV show, movie series that deals with magic and technology like Sci Fi fantasy, Steampunk, like Arcane, Fate the Winx Saga, please let me know lik

World will have:

Horses, Cars, Airships, and Motorcycles (But they don't fly).

Universities where the brightest of minds non channelers who can afford it study Physics, Psychology, philosophy, Literature, Chemistry, Law, etc. Aes Sedai are permitted immediate access inside except for the one in Tear.

Television/Computers/Holograms/Electricity.

Channelers are still banned in Tear

Seafolk still help people travel by sea. Airships are for like shipment for nobility prefer to travel that way.

Trollocs and Fades still exist

The White Tower in Tar Valon exists (but is still not good in the One Power as they used to be in the Age of Legends due to them sticking to the traditional ways. And because of Black Ajah influence)

[tiredmoonslut]

I'm ngl I think of Mat wiping tears from his eyes when he reunited with Rand like once a week

[losers-club6]

how is there barely any the wheel of time fanfics??? i’m going crazy trying to find even the tiniest of crumbs. please someone write some 🙏🏻🙏🏻😭😭😭

[maarigolds]

Ok so what I'm getting is masc bi girl and fem bi guy.... perhaps i do ship them after all

[kaiartx]

i fr thought mat was gonna kiss rand in the first pic and aww look at them holding hands

[r0sa4077]

3. Nynaeve al'Meara

Art Credit to Karaburrito

https://www.deviantart.com/karaburrito/gallery

[hikarielizabethbloom]

Looking for something lanaeve related 😂

I swear, if they don't give me some Lan/Nynaeve and Egwene/Perin scenes i will scream. I don't ask for more... Just something...

I'm ok with Siuan/Moiraine because it seems like we're going to be blessed this season 🤞

[blank-potato]

Flowers for Bel Tine

Pairing: Rand al’Thor x Reader

Summary: Reader wants to confess her feelings to Rand during the Bel Tine festival, but things don't quite go to plan.

A/N: I am writing this out of desperation because there are near next to no Rand al'Thor X Reader fanfics and I've searched every site. This fic is set in showverse, before season one and the ta'veren are 18. Also, I realised once I finished it that the Bel Tine tradition is actually that the girl is supposed to ask the guy to dance and the girl is supposed to put the flower in the guy's hair but for the sake of the fic and my sanity ignore canon.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

Nervous but excited was one way to describe how you were feeling. Bel Tine was fast approaching and you were finally ready to do something about certain unspoken feelings towards a certain redhead farm boy that had caught your eye as soon as you met.

It had been a bright, warm summer’s day when your family had arrived in Edmond’s Field. A long journey, across distant lands, searching for a place to call home. You had found yourself missing everything you had once known—the rolling hills and sharp peaks of the Borderlands.

Sat on the edge of the village green, staring out at the landscape so unfamiliar and new, in your homesick haze and uncertain worries, a boy about your age appeared, standing right in front of you. His smile was shy but kind, just as nervous as you were, a basket of strawberries in hand and the best of intentions.

And from that moment on, you were infatuated with him—the lopsided grin, the way his red hair caught the sunlight, the quiet confidence he carried when he spoke, all the things that made him Rand al’Thor. But despite your feelings for him, he had relegated you to a "little sister" role. A relationship you once cherished but, as time passed and you grew older, began to resent.

As he grew into the man that you were so deeply in love with, it became clear to most people around the two of you how much you longed for him. But Rand was none the wiser, being as dense as a rock and as clueless as a lamb on shearing day when it came to girls.

However for the past few months, you had been working on making your feelings as clear as you could without embarrassing yourself and now, finally, the day had arrived where your hard work would either pay off or come crashing down like a poorly built haystack.

The festival was in full swing. Lanterns swayed gently in the evening breeze, music and laughter carrying on the air. You had always loved this time of year when the village came alive in a way it rarely did otherwise.

Your heart was abuzz with nerves and anticipation as if a fire had been lit under your feet.  Your eyes leave the window and focus on Egwene as she picks out flowers to put in your hair. The flowers represented that there was someone she was interested in, an old Bel Tine tradition, you would not fail to use to your advantage.

“Who are you hoping to attract with these?” Egwene asks as she gently braids the flowers into your hair. She had a mischievous twinkle in her eye, her tone teasing but affectionate.

“I fear I should rather die than tell you,” you reply immediately and you can say with all certainty that you mean them.

“Die? How dramatic of you.”

"I only speak the truth, Egwene. So, who are your flowers for, then?" you say with a playful lilt.

Egwene takes a long, measured breath, but lets it out slowly, a sigh that sounds like she’s giving up on answering her own question.

"That's what I thought."

❤︎❤︎❤︎

As the festival is in full swing, you feel your pulse quicken as you stand at the edge of the dancing circle, enjoying the festivities from a safe distance. You see him from across the green, your face heating up at just the thought of approaching him... but song after song plays, and you remain in the same position you’ve been in for over half an hour.

Catching glimpses of him, disappearing in and out of the crowd, you feel both excitement and dread tightening your chest.

Mat comes up to you, a playful smirk already plastered on his face. “If I were a betting man, I’d say you had become a statue.”

“Oh hush, Mat.”

“I haven’t seen you move from this position for what feels like forever. Are you not planning on dancing tonight?” he pauses, taking in your appearance, particularly the flowers in your hair. “Or are you waiting for a special someone?”

You load up a sarcastic remark, but it dies in your throat when your eyes drift back out to the crowd and land on Rand. His hand is in Egwene’s, their smiles directed at each other as they sway to the music.

The voices around you fade into nothingness, and a sharp ache pierces your chest. Suddenly, it was just the two of them, and there was nothing but the stark, painful clarity of what you’d been too blind to see all along. The voice in your head berates you for being so foolish, for being so blind to what had been in front of you the whole time.

Her. 

It had always been her.

You don’t even let Mat finish his sentence before you excuse yourself in a hurry, your heart heavy in your chest, your breaths shallow, as you feel so utterly small and exposed.

You run out towards the woods, needing somewhere quiet to hide, somewhere to let the tears fall unnoticed.

The songs play on into the night, quieter now in the distance from where you’ve taken refuge. You hug yourself tightly, your arms wrapping around your body like vines, trying to keep from unravelling entirely.

You start to unbraid your hair, picking out flower after flower, each one discarded at your feet in frustration.

“Whole lot of good it did me…” you mutter bitterly, tossing another flower to the ground.

Just then, a voice breaks through the stillness.

“Whole lot of good what did you?”

You glance up to see Rand standing there, his brows drawn in confusion and concern. Taking notice of the flowers scattered on the forest floor in front of you and the loose petals still tangled in your hair, he asks, “Who is he?” His voice is low, a deep warmth beneath the hesitancy that sends shivers through your body. But you feign ignorance, unwilling to make yourself even more vulnerable.

“What?”

“The man that has your heart,” he clarifies, stepping closer.

“Does it matter? He didn’t ask me to dance…” you say, your voice trembling despite your best efforts.

Rand sits next to you, his presence grounding yet inexplicably nerve-wracking. He looks at you intently, his expression unreadable but earnest.

“Then what a fool he must be.”

You find yourself bitterly smiling at the irony, shaking your head. “You don’t believe me?” Rand continues, his knees now knocking into your own.

“You are the most brilliant, strong, and beautiful person I know. Anyone would be lucky to have you,” his words were full of sincerity, and you swear your heart stopped for a moment. Looking away from his intense, unwavering gaze, you try to collect yourself and your emotions. These were the words of a friend consoling another friend, and you had to remind yourself of that.

Finding issue in you looking away from him, he reaches up towards your tear-stained face and gently turns it back to him. His touch is soft, despite the callouses of his work-worn hands, and something about it felt comforting, like home. It took everything in you in that moment not to fall apart completely, not to give in to what felt so right.

“You should go…”

“And leave you like this?”

“Your being here is causing me more pain than it would if you were gone…”

You watched as his face twisted into a look of confusion. The dam of your feelings was so close to overflowing. Too long had you kept your love for him secret, if you didn't let him know now…you fear you never would.

“It is unbearable,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, trembling with the weight of your confession.

“Being in love with you is unbearable. Whether you are near or far, my heart reaches out to you like a flower to the sun, longing for its warmth.”

“In love with me–?” Rand starts but you cut him off with a strangled chuckle.

“I thought I had… But you and Egwene—” you say before you’re cut off by a sudden, firm interruption from Rand.

“Me and Egwene?”

“I saw you with her.”

“There’s been a misunderstanding, a grave one,” he says, his voice full of urgency as he takes your hands in his.

You look into his eyes and think the emotion there must be pity. It had to be pity; there was no other explanation.

“You don’t need to protect me. I understand… and I’m happy for you both.”

"No, no, I was just giving Egwene and Perrin a little push. Jealousy works wonders…" he says softly. “But if I had known…I would’ve told you long ago that my heart beats for you too.”

“You were right.”

Rand gives you a look of confusion, his brows furrowed slightly. “Right about what?”

“You really are a fool,” you say with a soft, watery chuckle, before pulling him in for a long-awaited kiss.

As his hands find themselves wrapped up in your hair, his touch is careful, reverent, and full of the unspoken words you’d been waiting to hear. It feels like everything you’d ever hoped for.

[daveyfvckingjacobs]

tanner posting something other than newsies?? never thought I’d see the day but I have to let the wot hyperfixation win for a little while or I fear I may explode so hi wot fandom <33