#rereading the way of kings

[lordgolden]

Jasnah is soooooo fucking funny she’s like Shallan seems bored she’s inside too much let’s go on a field trip to a scary alley and I’ll fucking kill a guy in front of her. Eviscerate even. great field trip no notes

[writtenbycassandra]

most female main characters in ya fantasy usually don't have their parents around/are orphans/ran away from home (e.g. the mortal instruments, lockwood & co, a deadly education, ...), which is why there are often no adult figures around to manage the (magical) chaos the teenage characters have to untangle standalone.

but the raven cycle is different — the adults work together with the teen characters, actually listen to them, and try to help them with their quest. blue doesn't have only her friends around to help her out, she also has a giant home with different, female rolemodels. calla, persephone, maura, and all the other aunts and friends — they give blue something most ya characters don't have.

and as the series continues, she also meets the grey man, who becomes a familiar figure for her, too.

instead of having not enough help and support from adults, which is a thing most ya protagonists struggle with, blue has so many people constantly trying to protect, guide, and help her, and i think that's awesome.

she has a family, and they're actually a part of the story.

[kingjasnah]

look i know the szeth prologue carries a lot of introductory information as to the magic system and how it can be used (and if there is one thing the cosmere in general excels at it is using the rules of a hard magic system in interesting ways for fight scenes) but it is so crazy that his internal monologue is so full of grief for what he is about to do and his first spoken line is "what am i? i'm sorry" and then he starts killing people in such an overcomplicated rube goldbergian way. why'd he lash a guy to the ceiling above an upright spear and just wait (fearspren spawning up around them) until the lashing broke and he impaled himself. you didnt have to do that man no one was around to see it

[mushimallo]

Post chasmfiend hunt selfie

[lizardson]

one of the things that feels so clear on rereads but so many people miss the first time they read the way of kings is shallans PTSD. I think part of it is the way it gets overshadowed by the constant unending tragedy of kaladin's story, its easy to slot shallan in as the young naive rich girl and not look much deeper. Part of it also is the way shallan drastically understates her own trauma. she says that she's timid, she doesn't like confrontation, she talks about her father's temper, but she was the lucky one because it was never directed at her. There are so many things in her first few chapters alone that are textbook PTSD, the way she freezes and shuts down any thought process that gets too close to her father's death, the flashback when jasnah gets angry at her, how she dissociates when she draws. It's so obvious if you know what you're looking for, but just subtle enough, especially when it's compared to kaladin's trauma, that a lot of people miss it at first. anyway I would defend shallan davar with my life.

[annasofthe11thdimension]

Alright, so this is basically...an art dump for all the pics i drew when i was trying to draft the ending i wanted my Odile looping Au 'Like a Wheel Ever Turning' which...is not even SLIGHTLY how this fic is going to end now, but while figuring that out i still like draw all this and had to do SOMETHING with it.

So figured I'd post it and be like 'hey! fun Odile looping act 5 boss fight vibes not connected to anything else!' since like...that basic IS what they are at this point lol.

The one cool idea i loved that i think is now FIRMLY ditched is the act 5 boss fight starts when Odile uses wish craft to splinter herself into two halves.

The 'old/current' her that is meant to be her coldly logical side, and a younger 'copy' version, which is meant to be the childish irrational side...that is what's stopping her just shutting down the time loop because she can't figure out how to be happy with her friends leaving.

I mean, if you murder the part of you that WANTS the wish to come true, that's basically a 'get out of time loop free card' right? Right! Totally sound logic!

Yes the 'young' version of her firmly believes that she's real, and also also got memories going up to about age 21, and also that she ought to be in Ka Bue not HERE among these french weirdos.

Also yes again, a 'young' Odile is EXACTLY as unhinged about this as you'd expect a 21 year old to be upon finding out that apparently the 'real' her think murdering her is the correct solution to this problem!

The shift of the fight was meant to have the inverse 'colors' shift from one version to the other by the end, wrapping up with the point where the 'original' Odile is forced to have a heart to heart with the personification of her perceived 'worst' qualities.

Pretty sure the vibes for this ending was a lot more focused on the resolution of having deeply complex feeling about EXPRESSING emotion directly to other people. That along with a side helping of how isolating it is to be perceived as a 'real' adult such that you can't be weak enough to ask anyone for help. Because really if you can't even be that then why are you any different then when you were irritating mess of a youth?

Not saying any of that isn't still present in the story, but like...there is a LOT of other stuff going on, and those themes are now linked into many other ones too, and that's not even TOUCHING on how Loop's been...somewhat complicating my redrafting lol.

...Also I might have drawn/plotted this version before i knew about two-hats lol. THAT also is a factor.

Anyway! Still liked all of these enough to want to do SOMETHING with them, and figured this worked, so i could like map out my thoughts on them, even if i never got to write this.

[lizlovespace]

It is actually canon that Dalinar Kholin didnt even get through like his second conversation with Kaladin before handing him basically the Alethi equivalent to adoption papers

[starryarchitect]

okay yeah yeah villain but the diagram is so cool you guys

Wall I made for this (featuring: Russian, Spanish, toki pona, DNA code, women's script, a few alphabets, some geometry and arithmetic, and a language that I invented, among other things. I had fun with this)

[hahahahawk]

“Some people, like a festering finger or a leg shattered beyond repair, just needed to be removed”

Having wild thoughts about Kaladin’s arc. He has this constant tension between surgeon and soldier, healer and killer. At once he’s determining to go to medical school, but also feeling conviction that sometimes killing someone is the best way to deal with them.

Doubly interesting that this duality is crystallized when Roshone is injured and at Lirin’s mercy. Kaladin is certain that if he were in charge, he would let Roshone die.

Later, when its Moash vs Kaladin over Elhokar, which just a different branch of the Roshone situation, I can imagine the same argument being made—a member of the community who is (morally) beyond repair needs to be removed.

I doubt Kaladin was thinking about this (Lirin/Roshone) moment during the confrontation with Moash, but I wonder what he would say to his younger self if he could. The situation with Moash isn’t quiet a copy of this one—Kal has more compassion for Elhokar that he would ever be able to muster for Roshone—but it’s still two people debating whether a third has the right to keep living.

[squash1]

maura being like no calla we can’t send noah into the afterlife while blue is at a toga party because do you remember how when she was 10 and found those tree frogs and wanted to keep them as pets and then we set them free so they wouldn’t die and she was really fucking mad and she’s never forgiven us. because obviously noah and those frogs are exactly the same. god get with it calla.

[megumiifushiiguro]

i'm never gonna get over this btw

[kanejbr3kker]

More Zoyalai/Kanej parallels because how do we not talk about the fact that right before Nikolai performed the ritual that was supposed to kill his demon, he gave Zoya a contract making her the general of both Ravkan armies, which is the exact same as Kaz giving Inej her contract before leaving to try to recruit the Dregs???

[sysig]

Pretty clothes for you! ✨ (Patreon)

[kingjasnah]

easily one of the biggest early stormfather Ls of all time. "something concrete" LOLLLL

[willshaper]

Shallan replacing Jasnahs fake soulcaster with her very real (but broken) soulcaster is absolutely hilarious in retrospect. In WOR it's revealed that the Davar soulcaster could be easily fixed by an expert. In reality she just gave Jasnah a perfectly functional soulcaster in exchange for a piece of hand jewelry.

[ch-mrgt]

Juste received them today, I love them so much, found them on Vinted, never thought that I would find that !

Gansey is so Gansey in that, and Adam in his Coca shirt is all I need.

(Made by Fairyloot ? Idk who it is)