#shading is not my strongest LOL

[starryyskies]

I can imagine they fight, a lot, and most of it revolves around her LOL

AU BELONGS TO THE @thelovelycircusau THIS AU IS SO GOOD AND HAS DEEP LORE COOKING

[sygneth]

game of deduction

[ponderingmoonlight]

Realizing your true feelings for Gojo after he stands up for you

Pairing: Gojo x fem!reader

Word Count: 1,4k

Synopsis: You told yourself countless times that you aren't able to like Gojo Satoru, that he is nothing but a jerk. Until he stands up for you, until he shows you what he really thinks of you...

Warnings: literally wrote this in my break at work so don't come for me lol, fluff fluff fluff, reader getting insulted

Oh, how much you hate the way basically everyone looks at you. Well, not technically you, to be exact. It’s rather the person walking next to you who drowns in attention every time you are forced to go out together.

Not that you’d understand the hype. Gojo Satoru, the blessed one, the honored one, the strongest fucking jujutsu sorcerer of your lifetime.

“What’s wrong? Feeling left out, (y/n)?”

And probably the biggest pain in your ass.

“You’re such a whore for attention it hurts”, you bite back while rolling your shaded eyes the way you always do the second he opens his mouth.

His laughter vibrates through your body, annoys you to the core. When will this madness finally come to an end? When will they finally begin to send you onto missions with Geto, Yu or fuck, even Nanami? Why on earth does it always have to be him?

“Caught me there I guess. But it’s not my fault that I’m easy to look at. Not like you.”

You force yourself to take a deep breath in and out, to calm your tingling nerves and stop your fist from twitching. That fucker has some really good nerves. Only the sound of his name next to you simply drives you insane, let alone his stupid comments and oh too annoying voice. Is there really anything good on Gojo Satoru, something you might like?

“I hate you”, you hiss through gritted teeth.

“Aww, don’t be like that, (y/n). We both know that isn’t true”, he purrs, ready to grab your shoulder when you yank away.

“I’ll break your fucking nose if you touch me, jerk.”

“I’d love to see you try, princess.”

“I’ve never seen you around here.”

The sudden soft female voice that interrupts your rambling catches you off guard.

There she stands, an undeniable beauty with curves in just the right places and blonde hair that looks like strands of gold. The bluest eyes, the most breathtaking smile. And of course, her gaze is fixated on Satoru.

“That’s because it’s my first time here. After all, my eyes definitely wouldn’t have miss someone like you”, he replies with that cheeky grin you know oh too well, the cheeky grin that makes your blood boil in an instant.

Really? This is probably the worst time to start a flirty conversation. You were sent here to detect a special grade curse, to save this damned city from getting scorched. But he? He has nothing but her blonde hair and delicate smile in his pea brain

“Don’t you think that this isn’t the right time for a conversation like that?”, you mumble irritably.

“We’re just having a little talk. Who are you, his girlfriend? I highly doubt that. A girl like you would never have a chance with a guy like him.”

You have to blink a few times when her sugary voice spits at you with pure venom.

It shouldn’t bother you. Why would it? Gojo is the last person walking on earth you’d be in a relationship with, the last person who would ever want you. You, with your average looks. You, being a grade 2 sorcerer who has nothing special to offer. You, who never actually allowed herself to like Gojo. You, who is nothing compared to the woman standing in front of you.

Then why do her words feel like a knife in your heart? Why are you standing there like an idiot, sunglasses barely covering your pain? Why does his presence next to you suddenly sting so badly?

“Pretty disgusting words for someone with that face. Do you really think the world belongs to you because you look good? Let me tell you something: Apart from being hot, (y/n) is also unremarkable smart, astute and sarcastic. Someone as simple-minded as you should better avoid me. Now get lost, will you?”

What.

On.

Earth.

Did Gojo Satoru really stand up for you? No, did Gojo Satoru just call you “hot, unremarkable smart, astute and sarcastic”? Your heart almost beats out of your chest, pounding so roughly against your ribcage that you feel like fainting any given minute. A cruel storm of butterflies almost causes your guts to turn, makes you see stars. Are you dreaming, maybe? This can’t be reality. It’s impossible that-

“Hey, are you okay? I hope you don’t trust that stinky girl”, Gojo speaks out softly.

You can sense the way he eyes you up and down through his sunglasses, the little pout on his face revealing that he’s truly worried. Is that really the boy who teases you until you lose your mind completely? God, how much you hate him, how much you want to punch him into his stupid perfect face.

You let out the breath you didn’t know you were holding. But what is that little part of your brain that almost dies in excitement, then? What are those strange butterflies that never invaded you since you joined Jujutsu High?

“Hey, look at me.”

Your eyes dart upwards, get greeted by his bright blue orbs that look down at you in a seriousness you’ve never seen before.

“Tell me you don’t believe her.”

“She said nothing I don’t already know”, you reply dryly.

He shakes his head, still staring down at you with furrowed eyebrows. Who is this guy? What are those feelings? Why aren’t you able to look away like you always do? Gojo is only playing with you the way he does constantly. His bright blue orbs aren’t to be trust and you know it.

“I would choose you a hundred times before someone like her, (y/n).”

It’s like all life drained from your body, blank eyes staring at him in shock. This really has to be a dream. When was the last time Gojo has been nice to you? Probably never. He constantly teases you, drives you inane, makes you mad, makes you regret your decision to come to Jujutsu High and also…

Makes you feel save, makes you feel good about yourself, makes you feel affection.

Affection? For Gojo?

“I…I have to go”, you blurt out so abruptly that you almost trip over your own feet while trying to haste away.

He’s only picking on you like he always does. Gojo Satoru, considering a romantic relationship with you? You huff out loud, cheeks redden by the sheer thought of the dumb look you gave him. You aren’t better than the girls you despise so much, after all. He truly managed to wrap you around his finger like everyone else, even though you told yourself over and over to hate him.

What a pathetic jerk you are.

You spin around so fast you almost fall over, only to get caught in a pair of strong arms.

“You don’t believe me”, Gojo notes while keeping you in place.

“Why would I?”, you press out, not daring to look at him once again.

You need to get away from this cursed place, away from the honored one. It’s time to go back to normal, back to hating him with all your heart. Because this is all he is, right? Gojo Satoru is nothing but your rival…right?

“Maybe I can convince you with something else.”

Just when you’re about to protest and freeing yourself, he pulls you even closer and presses his lips against yours.

Time stands still, the lenses of your sunglasses pressing so violently against Gojo’s skin that they crack.

This.

This is the stuff your wildest dreams are made of, a dream you didn’t even allow yourself to think about. If there’s one thing that always seemed impossible to you, it was this. Why would you ever be more than Gojo’s rival, what is the purpose of seeing anything apart from a pain in the ass in him?

This right here.

Out of instinct, you wrap your arms around him as well, pull him closer and closer, take in his delicious scent. The sheer feeling of his lips collapsing into yours leaves you breathless, makes your lungs ache in the urge for air.

Until he lets go of you while panting hard, now glowing eyes fixated on you so intimidating that you feel yourself blushing.

“Believing me know?”

“You stained my sunglasses”, you breathe out mindlessly.

Tags:

@arehzhera @ploylulla @tzubaki @beatrexworld @kenstarsworld

@hellkaiserinphoenix  @lauv4chuuya @sindela @kayleegomez @sunshine7queen

@magalimachete @gatitam @idontknow1123 @creative1writings @sanicsmut 

@mynahx3 @sad-darksoul @chilichopsticks @hellkaiserinphoenix @chuyasthighs0

@ynackerman9499 @keepghostly  @froufrousnowman @tomiokathedepresso @gojosrealwife 

@coffeeluvr96 @mahi-tamashi @weebotaku21 @chaoticwinnercupcake @lees-chaotic-brain 

@risuola  @sugurulefttesticle @wordskeeper @baku2345 @polarbvnny

@ruixrei @bam-bam-bam-bame-blog @lavenderdrxp @localhehecat @alicerhr

@kayleegomez @belovedvamp @wifenanami @chilichopsticks @dlwlrmas-world

@oikawarz @darkstarlight82 @satoreo @kentocalls @cheesemachine44

@ryva @kenjakusconcubine @baku2345 @komelrebi-san @deezy12299

@okay-it-is-ivy @paridoliaaa

[goodiegoddesselle]

my favorite pair | L. DH

pairing: enemy roommate!haechan x reader

genre: smut, sir/daddy dom, unprotected sex, degradation, pervert haechan lol, enemies to lovers, uses doll/toy as a nickname

summary: you see one day that your annoying roommate, haechan, hasn't done his laundry and just left his basket by the washing machine. sure, this is irritating, but it reminded you to do your own. when you finally start getting your own clothing, you notice that your favorite pair of underwear is missing. on top of noticing that, you notice that your roommate, who moves around the apartment a lot normally, hasn't left his room at all that day either.

wc: 3k

minors dni. dont like, dont read.

______________________________________________________

You were tired of him. Tired of the dishes constantly sitting in the sink. Tired of his friends constantly being piled up on the couch, like you didn’t live there too. Tired of all the noise from his gaming—finally, it truly occurred to you just how tired you were of your roommate Lee Haechan.

For the most part, he didn’t do much but sit around and annoy you, whether or not he actually did his chores. It was almost like he messed with you on purpose. Despite all of this, however, you couldn’t help yourself from still having a partially hidden crush on him.

Yes, sadly, you did have a crush on him. You did, but there’s only so much you can do about having a crush on someone that doesn’t really get along with you the way you truly would’ve liked. It was almost impossible not to, nonetheless, seeing as Haechan was one of the most gorgeous men out there. His hair was long, golden and wavy, his eyes glowed a glistening honey color, and his voice was sultry with the perfect tenor tone. And with the amount of talents this man had, there really wasn’t anything you couldn’t like him for.

Did Haechan know about this crush, though? Never in a million years. You figured you would die before he even came close to knowing about it, let alone actually knowing. Especially since he was so irritating to you, even at that moment.

“Ugh, can you actually do your damn chores Haechan? I would like to take a break too, y’know!” you called out. You were in your room, digging through your clothes after seeing his laundry basket lying next to the washing machine. You figured you might as well do the laundry anyway, since he wasn’t getting around to it and your clothing was beginning to pile up inside your room.

A deep sigh left you as you dug through your underwear and recognized that something was wrong. It was gone—your favorite pair of panties was missing, and oddly enough, this was the first time that has ever happened to you. Your eyebrows scrunched in complete confusion. Where the hell could they have possibly gone?

You searched a little further, peeking under your pillows and through the rest of the drawers until Haechan’s lack of movement started making you curious. Sure, he was annoying, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t another human, and he typically moved around the apartment a lot more than he was that day.

Immediately you turned around, walked out of your room, and headed to the bedroom next to yours. It wouldn’t take much to get in his room anyway, seeing as he was either playing a game or sleeping with all the grunting he was letting out.

At least, you thought so.

You simply knocked on his door twice before letting yourself in, ready to talk about his laundry until your eyes landed on your roommate, who rushed to pull his blanket over his completely nude body. The squat you would have to do to pick up your jaw would probably give you the strongest legs on Earth.

“Woah!” he yelled, his eyes wide as he scrambled to hide his hands under the blanket as well. “I, um—I was just, uh, I-I…”

“There’s no need to explain, Haechan,” you interrupted, a smirk slowly spreading across your face, “I already saw them. Really? That’s what you’ve been doing?” The laugh that left you made his face turn the hottest shade of red.

It wasn’t hard to see Haechan holding your favorite panties in his hand. For once, you weren’t angry about it either. It was, however, a teeny bit shocking instead. You didn’t know that he was like this at all, seeing as every time one of your pairs would go missing, you would find it somewhere in your room the day after. The whole time you just figured it was you making them disappear. At least, until now.

You walked a little closer to him, closing the door behind you and giggling lowly. “Lee Haechan, when were you ever going to tell me that you are the world's most hidden pervert?” you asked. It was like he was frozen in place, internally freaking out as you leaned in and ran your thumb across his chin, his breath completely silent. “Well? What are you going to say about all this?”

“You know what, I was going to find an excuse, but since you want the truth so bad…” Haechan sat up, suddenly grabbing your wrist and pulling it away from his chin while pulling you closer. Your eyes widened as he held up your underwear again. His lips rose into a cocky grin as he waved them back and forth, watching the annoyance cover your face all over again. “It’s one thing to want you this badly, y’know, but you make it really easy to come and get these. And if you want them back, babe, this time you’re going to have to work for it.”

You scoffed. “Work for it? When it belongs to me? Guess you’re always like this, huh?”

“Like what, Y/N?”

“So goddamn infuriating!” you answered, rolling your eyes. Haechan laughed and leaned closer and closer to you, all the way to the point where your lips were almost touching, but not quite yet.

“Do you know you only get hotter and hotter the angrier you get?” Haechan replied. “If you didn’t want me to be so ‘goddamn infuriating’, then stop being so goddamn hot.”

He closed the distance between you two, tilting his head and pressing his lips to yours. It took no time at all for you to respond to it. You kissed him back fervently and climbed further onto his lap, sliding your hands onto his shoulders and taking his words and actions as an invitation to fight back. It was hard to reject him, after all, especially after feeling his teeth graze against your bottom lip several times.

The feeling of Haechan’s arms wrapping around your hips brought you into a high you didn’t even know you could reach, only getting higher and higher as he leaned down to your neck, slowly leaving kisses and sucking marks onto your warm skin. Crowds of moans left your lips, making him bite even harder. Out of nowhere, he flipped the two of you over and shoved you onto his mattress.

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks or how much I infuriate you, babe,” Haechan whispered into your ear, licking the shell of it, “you’re mine whether you like it or not.” He tossed the panties away from the bed and went back to leaving hot kisses on your lips and neck. But this time, you could feel his fingers sliding down your torso, all the way until he reached your pajama shorts and pushed under them. Another chuckle left him, and you could feel your face scorching from embarrassment, knowing damn well that he was laughing because you weren’t wearing anything under them. Your lips separated for a moment, but shut shortly after, shyness killing your effort to say something before he did. Haechan, however, already knew where you were headed with that.

“Oh? What, do you only wear your favorite ones?” Despite knowing it was a genuine question on his end, you really couldn’t find it in you to answer him. You even looked away, but that had no point, especially since he grabbed your jawline and immediately pulled your head back into facing him.

“Look at me when I speak to you, and don’t make me tell you again,” Haechan ordered. “You can use your words, doll. In fact, I’d like it better if you did.”

“Um, n-no, I don’t,” you stuttered back. Haechan’s gaze alone was intimidating you, which only made the situation ten times better than when it began. In fact, it got even better than that, right when his fingers started lazily rubbing at your cunt, slipping between your lips and toying with your clit. A loud groan filled the room the moment he began.

Haechan slid two of his fingers into you while keeping his eyes on yours. “For someone that loves talking about how annoying I am, you’re pretty wet right now. Soaked, even,” he teased, fingers massaging at your sweet spot gently. “It’s real cute.”

A frown crossed your face. You wanted so badly to say something back to that, but there wasn’t much to say back to the truth, really. However, as he picked up the speed of his fingers, the frown died within a few seconds, followed by his name being pulled out of you. Each second after, you could feel yourself getting closer to finishing, and you were completely ready for it—until he ripped his hand out of you. At first you were upset about it, but then you saw him licking your essense off of his fingers with an evil grin on his face, and that settled right away, being replaced with the need for him to put something much bigger back where his hand was.

Haechan pulled his fingers out of his mouth and chuckled, saying, “don’t think I can’t tell when you’re almost there; you made that face like you were ready to explode.”

Another pout crossed your face. “Then why didn’t you let me get there?” you asked. His face straightened out as he looked at you like you truly didn’t understand the situation you put yourself in at the moment. Again, he grabbed your chin and made you face him, his eyes flaring now instead of swirling with honey like usual.

“Did you really think I was just going to let you cum and we’d be done here? When you haven’t even thought about what you need to do for me too? Get up.” His hand slipped away as he climbed off of you, gesturing for you to rise up as well and take your shorts off. Despite being ordered to, another thought came to your mind and you figured things would definitely get different if you followed it. This time, a smirk crossed your face instead, and you crossed your arms.

“If you want me to get up, make me, then,” you baited, watching a look of surprise spread across his face before disappearing quickly. Before you could even see what he was planning to do, his hand shot across the bed like lightning and grasped your wrist again, startling you. Somehow you knew where this was headed for you.

“Last I checked, doll, I told you not to make me have to tell you again,” Haechan growled, ripping you off of the bed and in front of him, “but if you’re going to make me, you’re going to find out why I warned you to begin with. Shorts, off. Now.”

Completely filled with intimidation, you wasted no time in pulling your pajama shorts off this time, being completely nude from the waist down. Haechan’s gaze swept over you before he lifted your shirt up and leaned in, lips heading for your chest, right below your neck this time. He began leaving spots all over it, suckling onto your skin and heading lower and lower each time. You couldn’t help yourself from whining as he did it, grabbing at his shoulders again as your legs shook.

“H-Hae…” you mumbled, grip tightening around him. Haechan’s teeth grazed across your right breast before his head lifted. “Is there something my little toy wants?” he interrupted. With a tight throat, you simply nodded, hoping you could find it in you to answer him with words this time, but it didn’t take long for you to find out that those words wouldn’t matter either way. He lowered his head again and bit on your nipple, making you cry out into the room.

“Remember what I said earlier? Disrespectful playthings like you don’t get what they want either way,” Haechan said, sliding his hands under your thighs and lifting you up. “Learn how to act right next time and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

“Yes…” you moaned.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, sir…”

Haechan hummed in response and turned around, pinning you against the wall next to the door. “Now it’s my turn to play with my little toy,” he muttered. It didn’t take much time at all for you to feel it—the feeling of Haechan stretching you out with his size alone, making you wonder if you could even take someone as big as that. Your face froze with your mouth open, facing the ceiling in complete shock, your soul escaping your body more and more the deeper he got into you. Haechan himself let out a long, smooth moan as he pressed into you.

“God, I never knew you’d be this tight, Y/N,” he said, pulling out a little before thrusting himself back in roughly. “So, so good…” The two of you stayed still for a moment as he let you get used to his size. After a few moments, Haechan began again, pushing and pulling himself in and out of you at a slow pace at first.

“Sir,” you finally spoke, “can you speed up a little bit?”

“I will if you ask me nicely,” he responded, still moving slowly just to mess with you.

“Sir, please speed up,” you pleaded. Haechan leaned down and left a quick kiss on your neck before speeding up to a pace more hasty, more rough and harder to handle. Part of you regretted asking him to get faster, but most of you couldn’t even focus on that. You were enjoying the sensation of his cock hitting your sweet spot full force each time he slammed into you, your back pressing against the wall as he fucked you.

“Look at my pretty little doll, taking it like she should be,” Haechan teased, going harder and harder into you. At this point, you could barely handle what he was giving you, but every part of you wanted it. Needed it, even. You could even feel your orgasm coming toward you full speed, like a car on the highway at night. With how loud you were moaning, too, everything in you knew that he could tell as well.

“I’m so close,” you breathed, your arms tightening around his neck as your cunt tightened around him.

“Really? Is my doll already so close? How bad do you want it?” Haechan asked mockingly.

“So bad,” you replied, “really, really bad…”

“Yeah? Then beg for it.”

“Please, sir, please let me cum; I need this so badly…”

Haechan reached his hand down and began stroking at your clit. “Keep going, babe.”

“I’m so close, please let me cum, I’m begging! I-I’ve been doing good, please, I’ve been a good girl,” you continued pleading as a shock of what felt like lightning passed through you. If he didn’t decide now, you were going to release either way, and you didn’t want to disobey him all over again just to get another punishment.

“Hmm,” Haechan hummed decisively, almost jokingly. “You have been doing pretty well so far… I think you’ve earned it. You know what to do; cum for me, now.”

Immediately you released, his order cutting the tie for you. You were squeezing his cock as your juices leaked out, spreading all over him as he continued to thrust into you. It was amazing, but the overstimulation was starting to hit you not too long after.

“S-Sir, I can’t take this anymore,” you cried, legs weakening around his waist as he continued.

“Yes you can, doll,” Haechan responded, grunting lowly, “because good girls take what they’re given. And I’ve got something for you to take.”

Your nails were clawing into his skin at this point. Tears rolled down your cheeks as the intensity increased. You could feel another orgasm coming for you, and your whole body was ready to implode all over again. Haechan pressed his face into your neck again, taking a deep breath in before moaning at full volume, picking up speed as he pounded into you.

Not too long after, Haechan’s teeth sunk into your collarbone again as he moaned, “now take everything Daddy gives you.” Instantly, you were filled with more and more of his cum as he came, pushing you harder against the wall and leaning up to kiss you on your lips instead. The two of you made out even after he finished, even after both of you noticed that his release was starting to drip out of you, and even after you noticed you had also came while he was getting off. After a while, the two of you finally pulled away from each other, Haechan still carrying you but just not against the wall anymore.

Soon after, the high started fading away, replacing itself with a different level of nervousness. The reality that you just slept with your crush-slash-enemy hit you like a full-force train. At some point, you decided that since you already did all of this, you might as well just let him know anyway. “I just wanted to say, Haechan,” you began nervously, “that I do actually like you… I just didn’t really have a way to let you know, I guess…”

The nervousness began peaking when all Haechan did was watch you in silence while blinking. Then, out of nowhere, another gentle laugh escaped him. “You think I didn’t know that, Y/N? What did you think I bothered you so damn much for?”

“You what?” you gasped. “You fucking knew that already and didn’t ask me out or something like that instead?” He shrugged.

“Just wanted to play with my toy first. You should already know that you’re mine. I’m just glad everyone else gets to know now, too,” he said. 

You sighed. “You’re so freaking annoying.” Haechan leaned in right by your face again.

“Doesn’t matter; either way you’re mine. Aren’t you, doll?”

[dragons-and-art]

Do you like the color of bird?

As an experiment i decided to do a specie swap with the dragon bunch, as a design exercise to see what defines each of my goobers. I started by turning them all into draygon birds, somehow ending with several more species of fluffy cloud friends.

Honestly it is perfect, since i already had the idea of having my cloud draygons come in different colors, each fitting a shade of the sky. I ended with four subspecies, called Midnight Grey, Rose Morning, Midday Blue, and Golden Sunset.

Vinny and Vex get to be Midnight Greys, fitting to their dominant and sometimes misjudged personas. These draygons are known as the strongest yet most elegant of the four subspecies, with more tidy feathers that allow them to fly quietly through the night. These two specifically come in slightly different shades due to their parents being of different species, with Vex getting a redder hue and the usual bulky build of the breed, while Vinny retains the proper blueish shade but with an odd thinner frame.

Nala gets to be the cutest thing alive by being a Rose Morning bird lass. Very active draygons, specifically in the morning. They are the smallest of the four, with short wings and stubbier bodies, but with the best control over their air magic, which allows them to lift off quickly and fly with surprising speed in short bursts.

Drixie would be a MIdday Blue gal, the sea bird of the four breeds, with wings best designed to cut through the air and soar with little assistance of their air powers, making them extremely good at long flights, sometimes having enough endurance to fly across continents. Also to note, this breed is usually very tall and sharp, the second tallest in fact, but Drixie's short and round genes are strong lol

And last but not least, Summer! Of course he gets some text <3

As a natural Golden Sunset cloud draygon, he's is one of tallest subspecies with his own height at 8'9", with strong wings to fly through the intense late afternoon winds, or sit still in the sky almost like a fluffy kite with the help of their elemental magic. Like their gray cousins, they were considered rare sights, as they used to keep themselves at a distance from the ground, some still preferring to live and roost in mountain peaks and far away islands. But in modern times you have odd ducklings like Summer who enjoy a life near the ground.

[bonefall]

what’s up with BB! Puddleshine? been having thoughts about him recently lol. i find it funny that rowanstar grabbed this random child from the nursery and was like ‘bam here’s our brand new doctor and spiritual leader everyone’

(*shaking twelve year old in the background*)

You know what's pretty cool about AVoS, buried underneath the slog of it all? The thing I keep going back to about this arc, in spite of how annoying it is to be forced to say in ThunderClan as everything interesting happens off-screen?

The way that so, so many young warriors are horrifically traumatized by both the structure of the Clans, and the Kin that they turn to.

It's a shame that the Erins were so committed to the idea of the Clan social structure NOT being the problem, because this whole arc is a perfect time to show how flawed it structurally is. LET these kids have a point, that maybe they were rebelling against something broken, but Darktail was a malicious actor who exploited their naivety to serve HIS ends.

A recap of what's happening in BB!AvoS before I explain my intentions with the Puddy Boy;

The big problem that I want Rowanstar to display is a problem that ALL the leaders of this time period also have. Commitment to Clan rivalry.

After Firestar was killed in AVoS by Dark Forest warriors, Bramblestar considers diplomacy secondary as a tactic. "ThunderClan will not be bullied any longer. We have been too soft with the other Clans for too long; and they have humiliated us by taking advantage of our kindness." (Note: Harespring and Breezepelt being part of the assassination patrol is not revealed until TBC. For MAXIMUM drama reveal.)

He escalated a border dispute that Firestar had worked closely and intimately with ShadowClan to resolve; a fight for a knoutberry patch on their border, just before Winter.

After Russetfur died in this painful battle, Blackstar backslid hard from his redemption arc. This caused the Thunder/Shadow alliance to dissolve towards the end of OotS, ending a friendship between the two Clans that had lasted through all of Po3.

He was open to Sol's manipulation, and while Tawnypelt was trying to fight the Dark Forest trainees who took over ShadowClan in the meantime... Rowanclaw became deputy by organizing a patrol of cats to remind Blackstar how much he means to them.

So Rowanstar inherits the Clan with this in mind. ShadowClan solves SHADOWCLAN'S problems. "ThunderClan had a quarrel with WindClan, but decided that we were their enemy. Leaving ourselves open for betrayal was a mistake; if we cannot handle our own problems, we will inevitably succumb to them when our so-called 'allies' don't come to help." (Note: he isn't completely wrong. His words are borderline prophetic for what's about to happen.)

Onestar has a smug chuckle at this. Since taking leadership, he's been appealing to the strongest, hardest members of his Clan. Those who once tried to kill him for his "weakness" in the Civil War. The "lesson" ShadowClan learned is one that he's known since the day Onewhisker died and Onestar was born, on the night of that sabotaged muirburn. "That so-called peace was always a farce. We are warriors of the four Clans; it was always going to come down to honor, and putting ourselves first. My WindClan isn't foolish enough to pretend like ThunderClan ever acted in anything but their own, hidden self-interest."

And Mistystar respects the direction Bramblestar has taken his Clan in, and approves of the "honesty" that the Clans are now showing. "As the branches of the honeysuckle fight and win the light for themselves, sometimes there are beautiful flowers that die in the shade. We can mourn the end of an era, and prepare for a future that will be made all the sweeter for our shared struggle. This is the way of the Clans, and StarClan's solemn light shines upon us all." (Note: god I love writing Misty's speeches)

In the family tree reworkings, Rowanstar is now the brother of Littlecloud. Sons of Brokenstar, honor-sired for Newtspeck.

Littlecloud... is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's.

He didn't want to choose an apprentice after Flametail's horrible death, heartbroken and stressed out, especially when he couldn't reach his nephew through contact with StarClan.

He can't remember, anymore, that Flametail was freed. He keeps forgetting this, over and over

He keeps ending up in different times of his life, where he's best friends with Cinderpelt and still calling Leafpool by her pre-Honor Title name, where he's inventing a mobility device for Wildfur, where he's still escaping the plague and before he knew his mentor caused it, where he's on the Great Journey...

Rowanstar is in a lot of pain, watching his brother forget so many things, scared and confused half the time. He doesn't want to believe that this is really the end, or that... many of these cats are now so young they can't recognize the various eras that Littlecloud is finding himself in.

Puddleshine and Slatefur are going to remain in Pinenose's litter. Either Lion or Birch MIGHT get shuffled to another one; and ALSO the shuffler might survive the Kin. (SO voice which one you want to survive, if you have a preference!)

SO, Violetshine has either two or three adopted siblings... plus another.

Pinenose's oldest surviving child is Happypaw. Happy is the half-sibling of Puddle/Slate-- the death of Weaselkit in the Great Battle caused his parents (Pinenose and Owlclaw) to break up.

(this is why I'm thinking about just reducing the litter to Puddle/Slate, so Violet has three major adoption-siblings to remember instead of four.)

And now we're ready to talk about Puddleshine.

He isn't the first young cat to be shoved into an extremely high-pressure position because of a Cleric becoming incapacitated. Kestrelflight was also forced to become the holy speaker of his people when he was far, far too young, after Barkface died in TNP. He dealt with this obediently, with only Jayfeather ever really being able to get him to think about it in a different light.

Unlike Kestrel, Puddlekit did voice that he was interested in becoming a Cleric, in BB. But he was too young to be properly making that choice, to know what he was getting into. He mentioned it practically offhandedly, and BOOM Rowanstar had rolled him into the position.

But Puddlepaw has a deep sense of responsibility. "Wise beyond his years"-- likely because of how tumultuous his home life was.

His mother's oldest child, Happypaw, was openly a bully of his half-siblings. Pinenose distanced herself from him as a result, causing Happy to be closer to Owlclaw, who was still not over Weaselkit's death.

But Puddle's Ba Spikefur is not a cat who handles his kit's emotions well. Instead, he encourages ambition, tells him to get back at his half-sibling by being more influential than that twerp could ever be.

Puddle will often go to Violet, the new POV, to vent about these things.

And one thing he mentions to her is how amazing Kestrelflight is, when he gets to meet him at the half-moon conferences. He learns SO MUCH from him, it's like he GETS what he's going through...

Puddle doesn't even feel sure that Littlecloud knows what he's doing anymore. If he's learning the right information at all.

But Rowanstar won't DO anything about Littlecloud-- and he CERTAINLY isn't about to let Puddlepaw go train under someone else's Cleric.

As a result of this, Puddlepaw becomes a VERY important member of Sleekpaw's little group. He wasn't one of their friends to begin with, buuuuut...

When he sits to chat with Sleekpaw and Needlepaw, with Happypaw good and far out of earshot, she makes a lot of sense.

A LOT of it.

ShadowClan is run by old men who don't know what they're doing. Rowanstar is too emotional to make good choices. Puddlepaw, barely even old enough to begin apprenticeship, is running all the medicine for an entire Clan.

And, sure, he doesn't have much in the way of a connection to StarClan, no, just a little more spiritual than the average cat...

But who can point this out? If Littlecloud is slowly losing his mind anyway?

"It's not right, how much pressure's on you," Sleekpaw growls, "And it wouldn't be this way if we could challenge Rowanstar. You should be training with Kestrelflight right now."

"But we're dealing with the shells StarClan dealt, and the Clan is looking to you now," Needlepaw points out on behalf of her friend, "You have much more sway than you know."

This time around for BB, Sleekpaw starts as a young hero. She's right. Rowanstar should be challenged, his emotions are affecting the ENTIRE Clan, and Puddlepaw is in a bad position because of it. Needlepaw is like her best diplomat, surely to become her deputy someday.

They would have made an excellent set of leaders for ShadowClan. But they trusted the wrong person, and were exploited. When Darktail and The Kin came to the lake, they were swept up by it, and WindClan began an embargo.

Puddlepaw eventually oversees the Yellowcough Outbreak, and at first just thinks it's Greencough. He has no idea about strains, or the special types of Color Cough that Clan cats have historically dealt with. Even when he finally does learn it's not JUST Greencough, he's powerless to do anything about it. A lot of cats die because of the lack of mullein.

After that, with ShadowClan so weak and the Kin so strong... he's one of the cats who calls for the merge. The most important one, in fact, leveraging his position to say that this is StarClan's will.

Sleekwhisker and Needletail were right all along, and he's happy to stick it right into everyone's faces. Onestar's tantrum of an embargo killed his Clanmates, Rowanstar stopped him from properly training, he's been under pressure from the time he was small with Littlecloud not fit to be a mentor, and he's ready to welcome in ShadowClan's new era as something that is not a Clan.

...unfortunately, it turned out to be the wrong choice. Not because his thought process was wrong. But because Darktail had other plans in-mind.

[listofwhyyouloveher]

hey heyehye <33 what about Bob Hughes x fem reader, where he's all gooey and mushy (all lovey-dovey) because he's tripping balls and out of his mind and wants to have sex with reader? but, y'know, the drugs just do something to him and as soon as he's inside all big talk about wrecking and dominating her is just gone and reader ends up having to take care of him during sex?

like full on bob acting cocky about being a dom and then just completely melting into a needy sub when he's inside <333

Summary: Bob spends some time with you while he's wired.

Warnings: smut, just pure smut, use of HARD drugs, romantisization of hard drugs/injections.

Author's Note: ty to everyone who requests things, just know it will take a while..LOL

Bob's new favorite thing to do was to walk into a pharmacy like a cowboy, watch Nadine and Rick create a diversion, take the strongest shit he can find, shoot it, and then poke and prod and rile you up until you'rered faced angry and bout to send his sorry ass to heaven early.

He was never one to act out anything while he was strung, letting his mind hop from interest to interest as he pleased. However, that didn't mean that it wouldn't happen, in fact, once in a blue moon you'd find yourself shaded by an unfamiliar roof, letting out squeaks of pleasure as you gripped your arm to stop the dotting blood from your previous injection.

Right now, Bob's fingers were gently stroking your fluttering opening, pulling the knot in your stomach tighter and tighter. Your toes curled with the same hazy pleasure that you'd find in the rattle of a pill bottle or a fresh prescription. "Jesus christ, Bob," You whimpered, your eyes echoing the sentiment, filled with adoration and pleasured tears.

He'd been touching you, slowly, for about 10 minutes, complimenting every trace of your face, whispering every dirty thing he'd do to you, pressing against your clit harder to stimulate you.

"C'mon, pretty baby," He slurred, trying to coax another half-hearted orgasm out of you. "Bob, don't waste my time," You struggled, closing your legs around his hand. "Gotta prep you dollface, not gonna go easy on ya tonight," He teased, and your hips jolted. It'd been so long since your last GOOD fuck. Sure, there are the quickies or the times that feel like one night stands, ending with a simple click of the lamp and the flooding darkness instead of something real, but when Bob gets going, it presses at the back of your throat and at the bottom of your heart. It reminds you of the boy you fell in love with. Not like you're not in love with Bob, but sometimes its good to unwind and feel a little immature.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he had you squirming against his fingers again. "God, is that enough prep?" You groaned into your pillow, feeling totally diminished. "Sure, dolly." He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your forehead. In a swift motion, his belt was on the ground and his length was positioned at your entrance. "Slowly, alright?" You whispered, he nodded half-heartedly, more focused on where his cock spearheaded your slick opening.

Your hands tingled, reminding you of the heavy influence that was about to wash over you. Bob kissed the valley of your breasts. "Feel it?" He whispered, looking up at you while kissing your chest. You sighed, happily, "Yeah," then dragged a delicate finger across his back.

Slowly, Bob inched his way in, getting lost in both how you sucked him in and the increasingly overwhelming feeling of the drugs. He bottomed out with a sigh, massaging your tummy where his sheated cock pressed through. His hands slid up to your side, squeezing you like a teddy bear. "Aren't you going to move?" You ask, after a little bit of silence and complete stillness. You studied his face and noted how he looked like he could barely keep it together. "Yeah..yeah, just..give me a moment," He sighed, pressing his face into your neck. You let him breath for a little bit before you realized he wasn't ever planning on fucking you. "God, you're a pain in my ass," You muttered, pushing him back so he was laid out on his back. You sat up, situating yourself in cowgirl and giving him a mean-spirited pinch. "I'm not a pain," He murmmured, looking slightly offended. "Yes you are," You retorted, slowly circling your hips to elicit a whimper from him. "Just, give me a couple minutes, I'll do it." He said, pressing the back of his hand over his eyes. Your tense shoulders slumped, an frustrated sound escaped your lips. "Can't wait that long." You tugged your top lip in between your teeth, "Spare me your ego and just let me…" You trailed off, reaching down to tease at his halfway exposed shaft.

Bob opened his mouth but no sound came out, his hands gripped your hips suddenly and he very slowly moved you against him. His head lolled as he lost himself and you were quite suprised that you were able to stay more clearminded than him. You let him slowly use you, relishing in the way your clit sent sparks of pleasure everytime it caught against his toned pelvis.

His grip loosened and you started to move faster, up and down. A ring of slick formed at the base of his shaft as you rode him. His eyes were bleary and his hands found purchase on the flesh of your ass, gripping hard enough to leave red marks. "Fuuuck," He groaned, biting the back of his hand to conceal the noises. His eyes reflected the stars, as if he was the intoxicant, he was the feverish dreams you get from getting too high. You stroked his cheek gently and he turned his head to press a kiss to your palm. You held your hand there, losely, against his lips, as you continued to ride him. Faster and faster, until you tipped over the edge, a line of dominos falling. You lurched forward, catching yourself by straightening your arms, and let out several gasping breaths.

It wasn't as if you've never orgasmed before, but this feeling left you speechless. You were floating, entirely surrounded by bliss, every nerve was numbed to the perfect amount that made you feel seperate from the world as a whole. Bob looked like he was feeling similar effects. His eyes were closed in deep concentration, as if he was trying to hold onto that feeling, and his hand gripped yours against his cheek.

With a flutter, your high came to an end, as did Bob's. Truthfully, he was glad that it stopped. He had something to say to you that he'd been thinking the whole time you were together.

"I love you, Y/n," He mummbled, slurring his words a little. "I love you too, Bob."

[prismaticpichu]

Hi pichu!!! <3

I see a lot of people make headcanons that Sephiroth's eyes dilate like a cats' bc of the way his eyes are, but I NEVER see people think about the other stuff it'd mean!

Like wouldn't he also be colorblind since cats have different vision than we do? And I'm not an expert on cat-vision lol, but a quick Google search of what cats see show blurred peripheral vision too :o (but idk if that'd really be super accurate 😭💔)

so basically, what-if Sephiroth had bad vision lmfao 💀💔

Heya, friendo!!! Hope you’re doing well!!!

~

LMAO this is for real something that’s crossed my mind too!! 🤣🤣 Like, yes, he does have those slitted pupils… but what does that actually mean??? Welp, let’s see!!!

*does a quick google search as well, double-checking some sources*

“Scientists used to think cats were dichromats – able to only see two colors – but they're not, exactly. While feline photoreceptors are most sensitive to wavelengths in the blue-violet and greenish-yellow ranges, it appears they might be able to see a little bit of green as well. In other words, cats are mostly red-green color blind, as are many of us, with a little bit of green creeping in” - Wired.com

“What colors can cats see? Cats primarily see muted shades of blue-violet and yellow-green but are unable to perceive red, orange, and brown.” - TheWildest.com

What’s bolded in pink is what I find the most interesting, bc it made me think of two REALLY interesting things:

1. Sephiroth can’t see Genesis’s stylish red outfit. Ouch!!

2. Sephiroth cannot see the color of the blood he sheds, nor the angry orange that SWALLOWED NIBELHEIM WHOLE… ouch.

In terms of peripheral vision…!

“Cats have a wider field of view — about 200 degrees, compared with humans' 180-degree view. Cats also have a greater range of peripheral vision, all the better to spot that mouse (or toy) wriggling in the corner.” - LiveScience.com

In ADDITION:

“Depth perception in vertical slit pupils is even better than in round pupils because the smaller animals are closer to the ground. Additionally, having vertical slits allows them to better hunt at night, thus, these animals are more likely to be nocturnal.” - DirtyClassroom.com

“Predatory animals with vertical slit pupils, like cats and many snakes, can maintain sharp focus across the horizontal field of view and more accurately judge distance to their prey. Horizontal slit pupils, on the other hand, sacrifice image sharpness at the left and right edges in return for wider peripheral vision.” - LifeScience.com

Okay!! So we know that Sephiroth has vertically-slitted pupils, meaning that his depth perception is more enhanced than ours!! 😂 Cats, on top of that, also have better peripheral vision than us rounded-pupil folk!! This man truly is superior lmaooooooooo!!

~

HOWEVER, it is just really funny to imagine Sephiroth needing glasses xDD Like… the strongest fella in all the land needing to slide on some spectacles in order to read a menu dhdhdhdhdhh!!! Them darn WORDS!! 🤣

Anyyywhoooo, this has been your impromptu research session from Professor Pichu 😂❤️ Plz feel free to take out an independent study material for the rest of class!

[s4ndg3m]

COMMISSIONS! FROM ME! YAY!

Status: Open!

okay, gonna start this with.. i have no idea how to make a comms info post. i was going to try and make a carrd but it's... a lot! so, under the cut, i'll have some examples and prices and some info on what to expect! (LONG POST) (YE BE WARNED)

Rules! (and some general info)

because we need that

Don't haggle with me. I'm not selling you old furniture, you're paying me for my time and effort.

For smaller commissions, I require pay up-front

Larger commissions (over $30) can be paid half up-front, and half later. For both ours' insurance!

I can do cashapp, zelle, or paypal.

Time taken on each piece will vary, of course, and I can give you an estimate when we hash out details. I can provide updates as well! Don't be afraid to check in whenever! I won't feel rushed or hassled if you just want to know how progress is :)

If you have literally ANY questions. ANY OF THEM. at all. just message me. Even if you're not sure if you want to commission, or don't intend to at the moment. Have a curiosity? My dms are open, friend. And my ask box too, if you'd rather. I'm so open to questions it's unbelievable. I am almost begging you to ask... If you have something to ask.

YAY / NAY / MAY(or, what i will and won't do)

YAY!

Furries

Humans

Roblox avatars/characters

Fandom

Oc

Light/medium mech

Ships (including selfship)

Suggestive

(Artistic) nudity

Multiple characters

Whatever's not on my "no" list! Please please just message me and ask if you're unsure. Even if you're not sure about commissioning and just want to see if it would be possible! I won't bite, I promise. :)

NAY!

Nsfw

Fetish (even if not explicit)

Heavy mech

Heavy gore

Anything proship/comship/whatever the hell they're calling it. NO KID DIDDLING! OR INCEST!

Anything vivziepop related. I don't like her or anything that she makes.

Celebrities (actors in a role, sure, but just the guy? the plain dude? just some guy on our earth who works a job? a real person with a life? no.)

MAY! (or, things I'm on the fence abt)

Horror

Minor gore

Large scenes (not my strongest skillset)

Whatever! I'm okay with stepping outside of my artistic comfort zone, so long as you're okay with the result varying in quality (and possibly taking longer, depending on what you ask for) Again, and I CANNOT say this enough, JUST ASK ME!!

WHAT I HAVE TO OFFER!

Okay, so, as shown here, for a standard commission i'll have 3 sizes, along with 4 stages of completion.

The stages are sketch, line art, flat colors, and render (shading/lighting)! sketch is the cheapest, and render is the most expensive. I'll list some prices for each size below :3

Head

Sketch - $5

Line art - $7

Colors - $10

Render - $15

Half

Sketch - $10

Line art - $15

Colors - $20

Render - $25

Full body

Sketch - $20

Line art - $25

Colors - $30

Render - $50

Add-ons!

Background (any commission automatically comes with a simple one, free, to be pictured in examples) - $15

Extra character - $7-$20 depending on what you're getting! just ask

COMPLEX object (like a weapon) (simpler ones r free) - $5-$10 (again, depending. just ask)

Anything that would take me more time and effort than usual, really. Time and effort is what you're paying for! I try to keep most of these pretty cheap, cus you're already paying for the drawing itself lol. Just ask if you're unsure.

Other kinds of stuff I'll do!

Icons! (or emojis, they're very similar)

These are basically just the head w/ colors, so $10 If you want an emoji set (or icon set, i guess?) it'll be +$5 for each additional one!

Reference sheets!

These are fun to make! They'll include 2/3 full-body shots of your character (front, side, and/or back), 1 head shot, flat colors, and some spaces for info! You can add in the info yourself, or have me add it in for you (no additional cost). They'll run you around $50 (however, you can add/take away stuff to change the price.)

Character page!

I will just. draw the character a bunch of times. $30 base price (sketch quality) can go up to $70 if you want them VERY spruced up (full render)

FINALLY. What we've all been waiting for... Examples!

These are fullbodies! (with their categories and prices in alt) (First is a commission of one of my friends ocs, last one is moff, @/sneablebeable 's character!)

these are rendered pieces w/ backgrounds! (though pokémon like these, I would consider chibi, making them a slightly lesser price.)

Reference sheets! Highly customizable, these are 2 I did for art fight a lil while ago :)

sketches! (with complex background, with extra character) For these, I can include basic values to help with composition, but usually done just cus i feel like it. (no extra charge if I do).

Half body (in the style of a valentines card)

Icons!

Thanks for considering me! or... just checking this out! reading this far! whatever!

[butterflydm]

wot reread: a memory of light (chapter 37)

spoilers for the last book, a memory of light

I am going to do this enormous chapter a little differently than the previous chapters (basically so that I can refer to this post later and understand all the various threads and not get them mixed up with each other). Instead of going in chronological order by each event presented to me, I'm going to have different PoV sections and then have my thoughts under each of those.

Egwene & Gawyn (& Galad)

Gawyn is exhausted, despite the week that they all just took to prepare for this last push of the battle. That's not a good sign. Pretty sure that's the Bloodknife ring sapping his strength. Yeah, when he puts the ring on again "his strength returned". (From TGS: "One never committed Bloodknives unless one was very serious, for they did not return from their missions." "The incredible abilities came at a cost, however, for the rings leeched life from their hosts, killing them in a matter of days. Removing the ring would slow that process slightly but once activated - done by touching a drop of one's own blood to the stone ring while wearing it - the process was irreversible.") He's already dead. He's just still walking around. Oh, hon.

"[Egwene] hesitated for a moment, looking through the gateway to Mat's command post. Egwene met the eyes of the Seanchan woman across the table, where she sat imperiously on her throne. I have not finished with you, Egwene thought." A very mean thing for Sanderson to write here, considering.

From her sense in the bond, she believes that Gawyn has gone off "to join the Andoran army" and sends Bryne to fetch him. Then she assigns Siuan to go "join Mat and the Seanchan Empress and listen with ears accustomed to hearing what is not spoken". Siuan calls Egwene a legacy that will shape "what is to come".

"I'll help watch this Seanchan woman for you, maybe help poor Min crawl out of the fang-fish net she's found herself in." Good luck, Siuan!

Egwene realizes, too late, that she's sent Bryne off to the wrong place, as once she travels to her own new location, that Gawyn is actually "on the Heights themselves, where the Shadow held the strongest."

Honestly, using the Special Assassin Rings to try to commit a Special Assassination on the leader of the Shadowspawn forces sounds like... a good idea? Gawyn knows that the original Bloodknives were doing a very good job specifically murdering Aes Sedai, because that was the crime that he was investigating when he found them in the first place. I also wonder if a lot of people forgot or missed that this attempt to go kill Demandred is not when Gawyn first activated the ring and signed his own death warrant (I bet that I missed it during my first read too). That he first activated the ring back when he and Egwene were pinned down by the Sharans and death seemed right around the corner for both of them. Gawyn's death has been irreversible since chapter 23.

"Once, perhaps, he would have done this for the pride of the battle and the chance to pit himself against Demandred. That was not his heart now. His heart was the need. Someone had to fight this creature, someone had to kill him or they would lose this battle. They could all see it. Risking Egwene or Logain would be too great a gamble. Gawyn could be risked. No one would send him to do this -- no one would dare -- but it was necessary."

He isn't able to get the assassin's blow off on Demandred and it looks like a key element is because Demandred detected the 'weave' that the ter'angreal is using on him. He calls it Night's Shade and confirms that it "leaks your life away".

I wonder why Demandred's face seems "eerily familiar" to Gawyn? I can't think of why that might be. lol, why does Demandred call everyone "little"? "Little man." "Little queen". "Little swordsman". What is your obsessions with everyone's heights? (wait, is he the one that was SLIGHTLY shorter than LTT and pissed off about it? as opposed to Sammael, who was considerably shorter than LTT and pissed off about it?)

haha, Demandred is CONVINCED that Lews Therin is the one directing the battle on the other side, either using Mat's face as a Mask of Mirrors or by sending messages through Mat. He has a spy in Mat's camp, probably, but is convinced that Rand is there somewhere, hiding. I mean, I kinda wish he were, just so that Rand and Mat COULD HAVE A REAL SCENE TOGETHER, but Demandred and I will both have to be disappointed. But it's kinda funny that it feels like Gawyn was rejecting the idea that he is "following" Rand in, like, a philosophical way, but Demandred meant "Lews Therin is literally your battle commander".

Gawyn loses the duel. And I like Gawyn this time around, so I'm much more emotionally affected by it. That's so rude. 😭

Egwene fights to reach Gawyn, feeling how close to death he is. 😭😭

Galad is on the Heights, fighting against Sharan channelers on Mat's orders, wearing a copy of the foxhead medallion. Galad also keeps getting confronted with things about 'his' Children of Light that are making him go 'yikes'. He's killing the Sharan channelers because it makes sense for the battle and he was ordered to do it... but the Children are happy to have an excuse to kill channelers and have some... real strange beliefs that kinda make channelers akin to vampires (...burying the head separately or they will rise again?).

One of the Children finds Gawyn, near death, and brings Galad to him. As he dies, Gawyn is talking over his regrets, starting with regretting staying at the White Tower back in book 4. He tells Galad to tell Egwene that he loves her, and Galad reassures him that Egwene already knows. Galad gets very cold inside when he realizes that his brother is dying. "He had seen men die, he had lost friends. This hurt more. Light, but it did."

When he tries to tell Gawyn that he needs to leave, so that he doesn't leave Galad without a brother, Gawyn tells him about Rand. And he tells Galad not to hate Rand. "I always hated him but I stopped." And Gawyn dies. 😭😭😭

Egwene feels it when it happens. After sending out a burst of flames at the nearby enemies as the pain consumes her, she collapses for the moment (there is a group of Whitecloaks nearby so she was very very close to reaching Gawyn before he died. That is heartbreaking).

Egwene wakes up after having been removed from the battlefield. She feels empty and heartbroken but, especially after she overhears how badly the battle is going, she knows that she does not have the time for grief or mourning, not now. "Egwene al'Vere lost a man she loved, and she felt him die through a bond. The Amrylin has sympathy for Egwene al'Vere, as she would have sympathy for any Aes Sedai dealing with such loss. And then, in the face of the Last Battle, the Amrylin would expect that woman to pick herself up and return to the fight." It's interesting how (as Rand's foil), Egwene is both the same kind of hero that Rand is, but she's also the kind of hero that Rand expected himself to be but actually ends up not being. Rand's Last Battle is philosophical; Egwene's Last Battle is physical (which is to say, the show gets another point right in how they decided to distribute episode eight out to its protagonists -- with Rand's fight ultimately being in his head while Egwene's is out on the battlefield; that's what Rafe & co meant when they said they were doing a whole-series adaptation and not just adapting book-by-book. they looked at the actual endgame needs of the characters and put in the work up-front to make sure that those would vibe with the set-up).

18. In order to keep herself balanced on the battlefield, Egwene decides that she needs to bond a Warder, though she is far from emotionally ready, and she asked "Leilwin Shipless" if she will accept the duty, getting immediate agreement. And Egwene goes back out to fight again.

19. "Egwene led an assault the likes of which had not been seen in millennia." There's some intense fighting and then Egwene comes face-to-face with Taim, who calls himself M'Hael now. There is an intense battle scene. The battle involves a lot of balefire being tossed around by Taim and, in the back of her mind, Egwene ponders the notion of whether or not the weave really is impossible to counter. Egwene didn't need the help of anyone else's ancient memories in order to rediscover Traveling, after all. That was all her, figuring it out from basic principles.

20. Egwene and her Aes Sedai have been fighting on the Heights for hours. Taim reappears, pouring balefire into her line of Aes Sedai and killing dozens. Egwene thinks again about what Perrin said in TAR about balefire -- "it's only a weave" -- and considers how balefire is considered a one-of-a-kind sort of thing. But what if it isn't? What if it works like any other weave? With the One Power, there are always two halves. Logically, balefire should have an equal and opposite counterpart, just as saidar has saidin. "If a weave exists, so must its opposite". And when Taim strikes again with balefire, she counters with this idea of this weave that she has created, one that is the opposite of balefire. Something that will reinforce the Pattern instead of unraveling it.

She decides that it is called the Flame of Tar Valon, and she uses it to kill Taim.

21. Egwene realizes that she's reached the point of no return -- if she releases her grip on saidar, then she will burn out. There is too much inside her right now. More than she can hold. So she can let go and burn out and survive... or she can take that power and use it.

She tells Leilwin née Egeanin one last command -- find the seals and keep them until she sees 'the moment the light shines'. Then she wraps her up in Air and shoves her through a gateway, releasing their bond.

She closed her eyes and drew in the power. More than a woman should be able to, more than was right. Far beyond safety, far beyond wisdom. This sa'angreal had no buffer to prevent this.

Her body was spent. She offered it up and became a column of light, releasing the Flame of Tar Valon into the ground beneath her and high into the sky. The Power left her in a quiet, beautiful explosion, washing across the Sharans and sealing the cracks created by her fight with M'Hael.

Egwene's soul separated from her collapsing body and rested upon that wave, riding it into the Light.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Before I move on to the next set of plot-threads, I want to ponder a question: why on earth does Gawyn get blamed for Egwene deciding to go out in a blaze of glory? He died hours ago. She bonded a new Warder. She doesn't die out of rage over her Warder's death here. To quote Gawyn: [Her] heart was the need. Egwene looked at what the battle needed from her at that moment, and she made a choice.

Once upon a time, Lews Therin stood on a mountain after losing the love of his life, and his despair created destruction around him. Once upon a time, Egwene stood on a battlefield after losing the love of her life, and her sacrifice healed the destruction around her.

Last time around, Lews Therin was fighting the wrong battle -- and the wrong person was the one fighting in the battle.

re: Egwene dying at all. I actually do think that having one of the Emond's Field Five die was a good choice. Would I have picked Egwene as the one? Probably not. otoh, it kinda seems like the other four were all mentioned as still being alive in Jordan's epilogue, so Egwene was the only one who could die (since the epilogue was considered basically sacred). idk I'm a big softie who has a hard time killing off characters so I'm not really the person to talk to about that subject, lol.

Rand (& Nynaeve)

TDO's attack against Rand starts out as an attempt to break him down and shatter him, but Rand resists. "It was as if the Dark One was shredding him while at the same time trying to crush him entirely, coming at Rand from infinite directions, all at once, in a wave."

When that fails, TDO then 'weaves' a reality for Rand to see. A world 'remade' in TDO's image, where the taint overlays everything, the Blight is everywhere, and Rand has been forgotten in his failure. TDO makes him watch his father die, and then Dannil leads him back to Emond's Field, where a Turned Nynaeve is waiting with channelers and Fades to Turn Rand too. It's an attempt to make Rand feel despair and give up, but when Nynaeve & co begin the process of trying to Turn Rand to the Shadow, he pushes back, rejecting this reimagining of the world that TDO has created. Hmm, Rand finds threads here that are more varied than the five threads of the One Power, calls them "the fabric of creation" and uses them to channel a different reality.

We now get introduced to the world that Rand reimagines. "He passed from nothingness into majesty."

Gorgeous buildings. Wide roads but nothing driving on it, only people walking around, in vibrant clothing. Now, instead of the memory of Turned Chosen enslaving and tormenting the Two Rivers, Rand has willed into being memories of Ogier coming "to the Two Rivers to repay Rand for his sacrifice, intending to build a monument here, [but] the town's leaders had wisely requested help improving their city instead".

Rand doesn't quite imagine paradise entirely -- though he's integrated the Seanchan into his vision of peace here, he doesn't know enough about the Sharans to do the same, so there are still "campaigns" there. And there is a monument dedicated to the fallen of the Last Battle with "familiar" faces that Rand isn't quite willing to look at. Like TDO had done earlier, "He'd built this reality out of the threads of what could be, of mirrors of the world as it now played out".

The knowledge that other people are out there dying and sacrificing for a potential future shakes Rand -- he wanted so much for his sacrifice to be the only sacrifice, which was always going to be impossible. But when he lets that thought enter his mind, this vision of reality starts to get eaten up by TDO and Rand has to force it back into place.

It is the anniversary of the hundred years of peace that Rand had wanted in the Dragon's Peace that he had the nations sign before (and during, in the case of the Seanchan) the Last Battle. Lady Adora, Perrin's granddaughter, is the mayor of Emond's Field. Rand slips past her and into the school. A school for anyone to come and learn, no matter what their background. TDO taunts him again for believing that he can eliminate suffering entirely. So we're kinda doing a "the perfect is the enemy of the good" argument here. Is "better" enough when it isn't "perfect"? And is "perfect" only ever a lie? TDO attacks Rand again, and this world fades back into a faint mirror of possibility. The heart of the Last Battle is a philosophical argument about the nature of reality, and of human nature.

As he stands with the great shadow of TDO, Rand can see the armies outside fighting. TDO is mostly outside of time, except wherever it touches the Pattern. There it is bound to the linear nature of time. TDO tells Rand to watch as the people fighting in his name die, and spins another vision for him.

The new world-possibility that TDO spins for Rand looks very much like the regular world, with some minor differences like steam-drawn carriages driving around. He's in Caemlyn this time, and he can still see the hole in the wall from when Talmanes blew the hole to escape from the Shadowspawn, but there's a bustle and a life around.

He goes to a fruit seller, and she mentions her fresh peaches for sale. "Peaches," Rand said, aghast. Everyone knew those were poisonous. She tells him that they are safe now; the toxin has been removed. Hey, isn't it peach blossoms that Rand made bloom back in Ebou Dar? So that was actually meant as something of a subtle threat, though Tuon took as an Important Omen. As they're talking, a street urchin steals one of the fruits and starts to run off, and the fruit-seller pulls out a rod and does something that instantly kills him. When Rand reacts in horror, she acts puzzled, asking him if "it" belonged to him. Yikes! Yeah, definitely still a very Bad World, Rand. When she asks him what faction he belongs to, he takes that as his cue to leave, very quickly.

He searches Caemlyn to find the Queen's Blessing and, with relief, sees that Basel Gill is working inside. So this one is not a hundred years in the future like the last one. Gill says that they're in the Fourth Age and that the Last Battle was won. After Gill tells him that he'll get him a faction symbol, Rand notices a nothingness that signifies TDO's presence and questions it. This is a world where TDO has tricked people into believing that they won the Last Battle.

When Gill returns, it's with guards to rob Rand for his fancy coat. Rand realizes that TDO has taken everyone's consciences/compassion. This is a world without any spark of 'light' inside people's hearts, only Shadow. Rand tells TDO that seeing this only makes him want to fight harder and now he will show TDO a world "without Shadow".

In the cavern, Nynaeve works to save Alanna's life. All her Power is still wrapped up in the link with Rand, so she has to sew and use her herbs and all her know-how from being the Wisdom of Emond's Field.

As Rand tries to weave together the possibility of a world without the Shadow, he finds that the threads resist him and he wonders if that is because of how unlikely such a world is. iirc, Rand's upcoming dreamworld is a moment that the show has already given us great set-up for with the fantasy that Rand gets from Ishamael in episode 8 and is another illustration of how far ahead Rafe & co were thinking with all their choices in the first season.

He chooses to create Caemlyn, to wash the taste out of his mouth of having seen the horrible vision that TDO showed him last time. Trees are in full bloom, there isn't a cloud in the sky, and children don't recognize what a sword is. He asks to visit the queen and is directed towards the gardens, though he first travels through a hallway of magic mirrors, letting him see this paradise reflected in other lands: a peaceful meadow in the Mountains of Mists, the Stone a museum instead of a fortress, the rebuilt towers of Malkier, the Chora Fields of the Age of Legends surrounding the city of Rhuidean as he hears Aiel voices lifted in song. No locks on the doors. No more need for money -- "a nearly forgotten eccentricity". Channelers create food for everyone and Aes Sedai heal anyone who suffers injury.

His own grave in the Blasted Lands, where his body had been burned after the Last Battle, overgrown with leaves, grass, and flowers. Rand pauses at this window for a long moment before he moves onward into the gardens.

Elayne sits alone in the gardens, not too far from the garden wall where he once fallen in and met her for the first time. "Elayne was as beautiful as she'd been when they'd last parted. She was no longer pregnant, of course. A hundred years had passed since the Last Battle. She appeared not to have aged a day." When Elayne sees him, she greets him in surprise.

18. She wonders if her daughter is using the Mask of Mirrors to play a prank on her, but Rand sinks down to one knee before her and tells her that he's real. And, as he looks into her eyes and listens to her voice, he realizes that "something was wrong".

19. "That simpering tone, that vapid reaction... Elayne had never been like that." He gets more disturbed as she continues, talking about Aviendha spending her week off from singing to do "nursery duty". "Aviendha. Tending children and singing to chora trees. There was nothing wrong with that, really. Why shouldn't she enjoy such activities? But it was wrong, too. He thought Aviendha would be a wonderful mother, but to imagine her seeking to spend all day playing with other people's children..."

20. When he looks into Elayne's eyes, he sees the same kind of blankness that he's seen in those forcibly Turned to the Shadow. He accuses TDO of having done something to her. But TDO asks him, "Did you think that removing me from their lives would leave them unaltered?"

21. "She was not herself... because Rand had taken away her ability to be herself." Again! This resonates so well with what was set up in episode eight! Rafe is playing the long game!

22. I do have to... interject a side note: this scene really couldn't be done with Min because... this horror that Rand accidentally did to Elayne, stripping her of her autonomy in an attempt to create a world without Shadow... is basically what Min did to herself in LoC.

He’ll have to take me as I am, [Min] thought, twitching the reins irritably. I’m not changing for any man. Only, her clothes would have been as plain as any farmer’s not that long ago, her hair had not been in ringlets almost to her shoulders, and a small voice whispered, You’ll be whatever you think he wants you to be.

Honestly, that's a big part of why I dislike how prophecy is used in a couple of the romances (Min->Rand and Mat->Tuon) because it feels like it's been used to strip away their autonomy and yet this loss of their self doesn't get treated like a horror even though their 'choice' to chase Rand/marry Tuon was done because they believed they had no choice.

23. Rand weeps in despair at all the loss of life that is going on in the Last Battle outside of Shayol Ghul. "He should have been able to protect them. Why couldn't he? Against his will, the names began to replay in his mind. The names of those who had died for him, starting with only women, but now expanded to each and every person he should have been able to save - but hadn't." But he refuses to give in to TDO's offer to 'stop fighting and rest'. And TDO spins another possibility for him...

24. The next offer that TDO makes is 'nothing'. Aka oblivion for all of existence. He claims that it is the same as the 'peace of the void' that Rand seeks so often. Rand gives the offer due consideration, and then rejects it.

25. Rand feels Egwene's death and it shakes him hard. Egwene's name is added to the list in his mind, and despair claws at him as TDO gloats that the dead belong to him.

26. Rand is watching the whole battle play out -- he sees Elayne (captive and alone), he see Rhuarc (his mind forfeit), Mat (desperate, facing down horrible odds), and Lan (riding to his death).

Demandred's words dug at him. The Dark One's pressure continue to tear at him.

Rand had failed.

But in the back of his mind, a voice. Frail, almost forgotten.

Let go.

Elayne & Mat (& Fortuona & Min & Galad)

Elayne is heading into the main Seanchan camp to talk to Mat about why he appears to be changing the battle plans without letting her know. Along the way, they deal with some Draghkar and Elayne deliberately deafens her side so that they will be able to ignore their song. After this, she's approached by a sul'dam and damane pair and, reluctantly, allows the damane to heal her ears. Elayne is, btw, wearing sturdy boots.

Elayne has also been paying attention to how the Seanchan behave, and so she does not talk to any of the sul'dam herself, because she's noticed that they care a LOT about who talks to who. This sul'dam in particular is highborn, Elayne suspects from the shaven sides of her head, so she'll definitely feel insulted by Elayne not being willing to speak to her. <3

Elayne also notes here that the Seanchan highborn seem to dislike the idea of being healed with the Power ("Why any of you would want to be Healed by an animal is beyond me," the sul'dam says). But she also points out that there's a gap between what the Seanchan claim is true and what they actually seem to do -- they say they disapprove of healing but are having their damane learn the weaves.

Mat and Elayne's relationship seems to be fairly healthy here which honestly is fascinating given... you know. Tuon and the whole Seanchan defection. Elayne insults Mat when she greets him, but he finds it amusing, just as she suspected that he would. He's made up a throne for her in Andoran red-and-gold, extra cushioned, and with a still-steaming cup of tea waiting for her! Husband behavior! Not the kind of ~husband behavior~ that Mat derided all throughout TGS but actual "I care about your comfort" behavior.

She notes that his clothing "smelled of some kind of compromise" -- Tuon agreed to let Mat wear clothing in the style that he preferred as long as it was silk? Elayne also notes that he's wearing a pink ribbon around his hat. And that is also fascinating because Mat had two very specific memories about Tylin's (pink) ribbons in his second chapter in this book (right before he saw Tuon again), and they were both extremely negative. The first time was when his scarf around his neck reminded him of "a ribbon that felt like a chain" and the second was his flashback to the pink ribbons when he saw Tylin's headboard/bed. So for Mat to put a pink ribbon around his hat is... interesting. A reminder of the chains that he's still wearing? We're not in his PoV, so we don't get his reasoning, and I don't think he ever thinks about it in his own PoV.

"All in all, Elayne was impressed by how easily the scout mixed his obeisance and his report. She was also sickened. No ruler should demand such of her subjects. A nation's strength came from the strength of its people; break them, and you were breaking your own back."

I am also really really curious by what (silent) Fortuona might be thinking of the casual & intimate way that Mat and Elayne are talking to each other here, given how jealous she's gotten in the past. Elayne noted when she entered the tent that Fortuona was present ("dressed in enough green silk to supply a shop in Caemlyn for two weeks" and with Min standing silently at her side) but has not engaged with her at all.

"You spent this whole week planning with us, and you knew the entire time you'd throw [the plans] out with the dishwater." Anyway, Mat says that he didn't know the entire time, but that he needs to keep the plans in his head if they want them to be safe from the Forsaken. Also, Elayne, in contrast to most of the people who have interacted with Mat recently, is able to figure out what he's thinking just from a couple of micro-expressions.

But it's interesting/frustrating the implied changes that have happened over the course of this week of off-screen planning -- aka Tuon compromising with Mat. Because it happens off-screen, we don't actually find out why Tuon was willing to compromise - is it because, with all his friends around, she's realized that it would be impossible to control him with the methods she would use if they were alone, because he could just... walk fifty feet away and hang out with his powerful friends instead of being stuck with her if she pushes him too far (as he did in the previous chapter when she was trying to force him to sit in judgement)? Has she actually had off-screen character development (if so, stop having important emotional moments happen off-screen!)? We just don't know.

Mat is also still calling Fortuona "Tuon". And that scene ended with Elayne never, at any point, engaging with Tuon and she also never thinks of Fortuona as "Mat's wife", only as "the Seanchan Empress". Surely she has to know by this point that they're married but she Does Not Think About It. I genuinely have so many questions -- one of the primary ones being: where has Mat been sleeping this last week? Does the fact that Mat was saying "Tuon's tent" in the previous chapter mean that he has his own tent separate from hers? Tuon positioned "having sex" as a reward-type situation back when Mat first showed up in Ebou Dar, so is that time in the gardens the only time that they've had sex? Given that Tuon seems to want Min by her side constantly, if she did decide to have sex with Mat again, would she insist on Min staying in the tent with them to keep an eye out for sex-related omens? (we already know that Selucia and at least one or two other guard-slaves would likely be present) Has Mat been avoiding having sex with her or sleeping in the same tent as her so that she doesn't get another chance to steal his medallion? So many questions, absolutely nothing in the narration that gives me any hints at answers.

Okay, our first Mat PoV in this chapter is fascinating because Mat has basically the exact same thought here about Galad that he had about Tuon in an earlier chapter. Compare "[Galad] could have been a statue, with that pretty face and unchanging expression. No, statues had more life." vs "Mat shivered. He didn’t like it when Tuon got like this. That stare of hers... it seemed like the stare of another person. A person without compassion. A statue had more life to it." The Whitecloaks = Seanchan comparison is alive and well (or the Seanchan are what the Whitecloaks would be if they had the kind of continent-wide coercive power).

Min is spending all her time in the command tent whispering to Tuon. It sure feels like she swapped super-easily from being Rand's prophecy girl to being Tuon's prophecy girl (okay, okay, I'll cut her some slack since Rand did ask her to watch Fortuona). When Elayne's voice sounds "cold" here, Mat compares her to an Aes Sedai, unlike their earlier encounters. Also... it doesn't sound like Selucia is around? Did she get demoted again? Elayne also... sorta speaks to Tuon here? But then quickly swaps back to talking to Mat only lol.

Mat realizes that there's a spy either inside or just around the command tent, because of how quickly Demandred is responding to his changes.

Mat is amused by the fact that Elayne has managed to "shift" her throne around so that it's either the same height or slightly higher than Tuon's, so he hasn't ~embraced Tuon's dignity as his own~ or however the Seanchan might put it.

15. Hmm, we also have confirmation here that Mat has been... flirting (????? sexually harassing???? who knows with New Mat but probably harassing, sadly) with other Seanchan Bloods, if not in front of Tuon, then in front of people who would report to Tuon, which is another interesting piece of data to put into the puzzle. It really does seem like Mat has managed to (off the page) force a certain level of compromise into his marriage.

16. And, here, Mat slips away with just Elayne and Birgitte so that he can reassure Elayne about his plans in private, even though Tuon questions him walking away (and he doesn't even look back at her because "those eyes could drill through solid steel"). It genuinely seems like some fascinating stuff happened in that week of planning that we didn't get to see! Mat seems a lot less scared of doing things that will upset Tuon. But again, we don't know if that's actually due to a change in Mat and Tuon's relationship or if it's Mat's physical proximity to people who would unquestioningly take his side against hers that gives him new boldness.

17. He tells Elayne that he has a plan to deal with the spy that he believes is listening in at the command tent, and he goes through his entire thought process for her here, which is an astonishingly unprecedented amount of communication from Mat. So Elayne is in on his plan -- and away from the command post so that if things go wrong, she can pick another general to lead them; and he sent a message to Talmanes about his plan as well (that Talmanes signaled that he received), so the only remaining question mark for Mat is whether or not he can "coax" Tuon into doing what needs to be done.

I am going to say that I find it very interesting that when Mat is certain that there's a spy in the command tent and that their security is compromised, he finds a reason to get Elayne away from the command tent. The reason makes tactical sense, of course, but it's interesting.

18. Birgitte tells Elayne that all her older memories are gone now. Her first memories are of waking up to Nynaeve and Elayne in this world. Elayne wants to go after Birgitte, to try to comfort her, but Galad arrives. Galad isn't entirely certain why he's been sent here but he's got time to scold Elayne for being on the battlefield "in your condition". Elayne (accurately) points out that if they lose, it's gonna be a lot worse for the kids. So Elayne and Galad can talk about the kids together but Elayne and Tam can't?

19. Elayne knows Mat so well, even as she claims to despair over understanding him. "I'm convinced that Mat only acts simple so that people will let him get away with more."

20. A letter arrives for Galad from Mat, and Sanderson makes fun of himself when he has Elayne note that Mat's spelling and handwriting is much better in this letter than the one he sent her in ToM. Anyway, he's sent the copy he had of the medallion (Elayne does verify here that it's a copy and not the original) to Galad and told him to go kill as many Sharan channelers as he's capable of killing. Because he feels like "a Whitecloak" will have the stomach to go kill a bunch of channelers. When Galad agrees with Elayne that he shouldn't have a problem with "killing women" and explains that women are just as capable of evil as men are, Elayne tells him "You actually said something that doesn't make me want to strangle you." lol, ilu Elayne. Galad thinks she's joking but, no, of course not.

Characterization note: Mat never gave the medallion copy to Tuon. That was the whole reason that he'd originally held onto it after ToM, with plans to give it to Tuon to protect her. ...and then she stole his medallion and it sounds like he had to do some fast-talking to get it back. And then he never mentions or brings up the copy until this moment when he sends it to Galad.

Did Tuon's betrayal of Mat earlier in AMoL mean that he no longer trusted her with a medallion?

Did Tuon's own paranoia and mistrust screw her out of getting that extra level of protection and trust openly given from Mat, and so Mat held onto it to find another purpose for the copy instead?

21. Min apparently is still spending all her time here quietly whispering to Tuon. She's gotta be someone's little whisper, I guess. She's gotten used to it over the last few books. Anyway, Logain is here because he wants to go fight at Shayol Ghul instead of here at the "battle for the little lives of men". Or he wants to be sent against Demandred, as the "dragon's replacement". Mat finally just gives Logain permission to go fight Demandred if he wants to do it so badly.

22. Ah, here is where Mat has another willful delusion (number five? six? not sure): "What he would give to be done with all of these high heads. Mat might be one of them now, but that could be fixed. All he had to do was convince Tuon to forsake her throne and run off with him. That would not be easy, but bloody ashes, he was fighting the Last Battle. Compared to the challenge he now faced, Tuon seemed an easy knot to untie."

Made up a girl in his head, one that Fortuona will never be. Good luck with that, and all.

This does also show that Mat continues to have no interest in being part of the Seanchan hierarchy (and this is something that is backed up by his actions, like refusing to legitimize himself as the Prince of Ravens by refusing to sit in judgement of soldiers throwing themselves on the Empress's mercy). Though Mat shows signs of protectiveness and sometimes affection towards 'Tuon', he shows no signs of wanting to be involved with 'The Seanchan Empress Fortuona'. It does feel a bit like we're continuing the thread where Sanderson actually gave Mat a reason for his bizarre turnaround in CoT/KoD by having him mentally compare the fear that Tuon/the sul'dam have over channeling with the fear that Rand/male channelers have over channeling -- this is an echo of the 'Rand-friend vs Dragon Reborn-scary' battle that Mat has been having in his brain, off-and-on, ever since he first learned that Rand could channel. I wish that Sanderson had leaned into it more, but even this subtext here is more of an explanation for Mat's change in characterization in CoT than we ever got from Jordan.

I have to admit, the way that it's done does kinda remind me of BBC's Merlin -- in S1, Arthur and Merlin go through this entire character arc of Arthur looking past his prejudices about servants as he becomes Merlin's friend. And then the show aired and large parts of the audience went, "huh, kinda seems like they're in love with each other"; and so the show did a hard reset in S2 and Arthur basically went through that exact same arc with Gwen, who was always meant to be his canon love interest, and went back to being more of a jerk towards Merlin. And in WoT, Mat's struggle between caring about a person vs being put off by/scared of that person's public mask was first grounded in his friendship with Rand, but now it's basically been transferred over to Tuon instead. Basically "oh shit, this character arc makes this character look queer; better shift it over to his canon het love interest STAT".

(but imo this thread works so much better with Rand because the READERS know the real person behind the public mask; and I feel like we never really get that with Tuon -- there are hints that a real person exists but even in her own PoVs, it feels like Tuon is still mostly just The Mask)

23. Tuon signals that it's time for her and Mat to stage their fake fight about the Seanchan pulling out of the battle, picking "I can protect myself" as the issue she wants to fight over, which Mat thinks is kinda silly but whatever. "His plan with Tuon was to take a cue from what Rand had once done with Perrin". ...how did Mat find out about that? I guess from Min? Perrin was asleep and Rand was gone, so I guess it must have been from Min. I'm... pretty sure she knew the Rand & Perrin fight was fake? Or maybe Perrin told him about it during the dinner where Perrin laughed and laughed over how droll it was that Mat had married a slaver. Because Perrin and Mat got to have a reunion dinner.

24. A Gray Man attacks. I'm sorry... are we supposed to believe that this is the same Gray Man from Ebou Dar that escaped back in Mat's second chapter? Because I thought Shadowspawn (including Gray Men?) couldn't go through Gateways? Maybe this Gray Man also has Mat's non-channeling teleportation skills. Anyway, this time the Gray Man is attacking Mat just as channelers invade the command tent (so... literally proving the point that Mat had just made about how the tent was no longer secure) so Min... throws herself at Tuon to protect her? Why is Min's first instinct "protect the head slaver"? Why is Min in the tank for the Seanchan so quickly?

Min also manages to knock over Tuon's ten-foot tall throne, so it sounds like it's actually made of pretty flimsy materials. That kinda feels like an unintentional metaphor -- looks imposing but is basically paper mache. lol.

25. Anyway, this is the first time Tuon shows any shred of an actual... like... positive emotion towards Mat? (I don't count "laughing at him because she views him as a brainless sex toy" as a positive emotion) So I guess we should celebrate that. Because when everyone gets attacked, Tuon runs over to try to help Mat with the Gray Man, "growling softly in an almost feral way". Once again, I am deeply curious about the mysterious changes that happened in their relationship during that skipped over week of planning, that resulted in Tuon compromising with Mat and now appearing to actually give a shit that he might die (... or she might just be possessive and not want to lose her new favorite toy? But I will choose to extend the benefit of the doubt).

26. And, once again, Min's entire priority list seems to be Tuon. ?????? Why are you so obsessed with her? Since we're in your PoV right now, could you explain to the readers why you're so deep in the tank for the Seanchan and Fortuona? Would love a reason. Anyway, she can't reach her new-found love, Fortuona, so she slips out of the tent to see if she can help any other way, and runs into Siuan.

27. When Min tells her that she needs to go find Bryne because that's the only way she'll survive, Siuan says that she can't leave because "Cauthon is in danger." Hey, you were willing to call him 'Mat' back in book three. But anyway, she says, "If Cauthon falls, this battle is lost! I don't care if we both die from this. We must help. Move!" So. Siuan. The tent is on fire. Would you say that you were there to help Mat "when the flames are high?" Just asking.

28. Okay, there's a whole group of Gray Men attacking Mat, so we're not supposed to think it was the one from Ebou Dar. But that's a gun that never went off, now that I think about it.

29. MIN! Yelling at the terrified damane to help when her sul'dam is dead is pointless if you don't FREE HER from the collar. She isn't capable of channeling without her sul'dam's permission. You should know this. YOU WERE IN FALME WITH EGWENE! Egwene explained all of this to you! (also, I think Min left the poor nameless damane to die in the burning tent, since she would also be incapable of running away on her own if she's still leashed? Slave-masters always get rescued before slaves, after all, and Min has yet to actually voice any objections to slavery since she has joined up with the Seanchan)

30. Anyway, Min successfully throws a knife at the remaining Gray Man and Mat hauls an unconscious Tuon up over his shoulder, and we have sadly saved the head slaver's life yet again. "Never had [Min] been so happy to see a knife fly true." ????? I mean, I guess the idea is that saving Tuon means that Mat is willing to leave the burning tent but still... didn't she once save Rand's life during some event or other? Or maybe I imagined that and this is the first time Min's knife skills have ever been useful, idk.

31. Oh, and Siuan is dead. Happened when Min wasn't looking. So we traded Siuan's life for Tuon's. Not worth it. Min gets a break from being the Distressed Damsel because Rand isn't around and so Tuon gets assigned the role. I feel like... maybe the narrative should have focused on whatever it was that Siuan was doing to help there, instead of what Min did? Also, it seems somewhat convenient that Siuan died before she got a good look at Tuon, because Siuan has a Talent for seeing ta'veren.

32. I wish... I really wish that Sanderson had given us the compromise conversation between Tuon and Mat. I wish that we'd actually gotten that conversation on the page, instead of just implying that something has changed because Elayne notices the effects. Because then maybe I would also give a shit about Tuon instead of just kinda wishing that someone would let one of these assassins take her out.

33. Okay, our first ~Fortuona~ PoV since the week of planning that appeared to have led to compromises in her marriage with Mat. Let's see how things stand with little miss slaver. She refuses to be healed by damane herself, though she seems vaguely tolerant of the idea of other people being healed by them.

34. I have to roll my eyes over Fortuona thinking about how her slave-guard's 'honor' depends on her fatally punishing them for their failures. It's like how she pretended that she was the one who most regretted having had Selucia beaten a time or two back in her initial intro PoV, rather than the actual person who got their ass whipped. It's just toxic brain-vomit that speaks of how deeply conditioned Fortuona is by her culture. If she actually cared about any of them as people (she doesn't, of course; she cares about them as property that she owns) then she would care about trying to dismantle the part of their brainwashing culture that says that their lives should be forfeit if they have failed her.

Anyway, she assigns them to go off to be suicide troops in the battle. Oh, and Selucia is here now, in the aftermath, with an injury. So I guess she in the tent that whole time, it's just that no one mentioned her. Poor Selucia. She really has gone back to being nothing but Tuon's Voice.

35. Fortuona raises "Darbinda" aka Min to the Blood for saving her and Mat's life, and Min isn't impressed enough for her liking (I'm also not ever going to be using that name for Min again). "How like [Mat] she was. Stubbornly humble, these mainlanders. They were actually proud - proud - of their low-born heritage. Baffling." Have you- have you considered having an actual conversation with one of them about why? And about the name thing too -- both Min and Mat are people who actively choose to go by shortened versions of their names. Maybe ask them why they don't consider forcible re-naming to be an honor (and Fortuona should know that Mat feels that way, since she glared at him and willed him not to argue when she re-named him).

Though, of course, given that Fortuona Must Always Have Slaves Around Her at all times, having a conversation like that with Mat or Min becomes a bit trickier, because if they give good answers to her questions about why they don't care about being part of the Blood, Fortuona's slaves will hear those answers. That's a major downside to the whole "nothing is private (when you have slaves)" lifestyle that Fortuona is rocking. She probably doesn't even really understand what having privacy would be like (once again, I have to say what a huge mistake it was for Jordan to have Selucia along on the circus journey, because it meant that Tuon was still wallowing in her toxic slave-owner culture during that entire time period, because she always had a slave on tap to make sure that she kept The Mask up at all times). Because though Tuon doesn't see her slaves as people, she does always need to be The Owner when they are around (which is always).

36. Mat looks over to her and gives her a nod, to let her know that they should have their fake break-up fight now. Alas that it isn't a real break-up fight. So they fight over how Mat should have warned them all sooner that the tent wasn't safe. Interesting note: though many of the Seanchan look at Mat with "accusing" eyes after she lays her charge, Galgan frowns and Fortuona notes that he doesn't seem to agree with her accusation. "Impressive, that [Mat] had converted Galgan so quickly." Anyway, after a super-quick fight where Mat is just like "okay, fine, storm off in a tizzy if you want, see if I care"; Fortuona turns around and does just that.

37. Interesting that their fake fight actually got Mat's genuine temper up. And he wonders if Tuon was genuinely angry as well and if she will genuinely abandon the fight rather than come back as planned. Interestingly enough, Fortuona didn't have a single spark of genuine anger in her PoV. It was all her following the plan. So it sounds like the fight involved a lot more of Mat's genuine frustrations than it did Tuon's. "I've had it with you. You and your bloody Seanchan rules just keep getting in the way," does feel like a pretty accurate representation of how Mat has been feeling in a lot of the Seanchan-related scenes that he's been forcing himself to endure, yeah. But Fortuona assumed, in her PoV, that Mat was entirely acting and that none of his reactions were genuine -- "he was good at this". Mat and Tuon are still looking at each other and seeing someone completely different than the person who is really there.

38. What Mat says to Min here is also genuinely fascinating. I don't particularly like Mat & Tuon, even now, but I am finding them much more interesting (in a 'watching a bug through a glass' sort of way) than I ever found them in the Jordan books. Because Mat tells Min to "keep an eye on" Tuon and then clarifies that he doesn't mean in a "protection" way but in a "watch her" way. "She worries me, Min."

...I do kinda have to giggle at Mat saying that Tuon doesn't need protection and is a "strong one" when Mat literally just had to haul her unconscious ass out of a burning tent because she basically failed immediately when she went to go help him with the Gray Men. But, hey, I appreciate that Mat didn't let the narrative shoehorn Tuon into the role of his Personal Distressed Damsel even when it was clearly trying its hardest to force her into that position.

39. Oh, so Mat and MIN get a hug when they say goodbye. *eternal grumbles at how the ONLY PERSON who didn't get an emotionally appropriate reunion with Mat was his fucking best friend*

40. Ugh, is this where Mat starts calling her "Fortuona"? Because he's decided to take Karede's suicide troops into battle with him and Karede refuses to go with him if Mat won't call her "Fortuona"? I guess I'll wait and see if the way that he addresses her actually changes.

Anyway, Mat tells Karede to keep Mat alive "for Tuon" because he's "almost certain that she's fond of" him.

*gazes off into the distance, thinking about how everyone else that Tuon is 'fond' of is a slave that she owns and is fully willing to beat or order to their death if they fail her*

41. Bryne dying off-screen affects me a lot less than Siuan somehow managing to die off-screen in a scene that she was actively in. Elayne figures that Bryne's fit of rage that sent him running towards Trollocs and got him killed means that Siuan is dead.

Siuan and Moiraine never got to see each other again. 😭

(fingers crossed for her getting to take Thom's place as the watcher outside the cave in the show version, if we get to the ending)

42. Yeah, from what we've seen in every other PoV and perspective, Perrin is the only person who thinks that Elayne isn't good at tactics. So we can safely discount his opinion as just him being an asshole who thinks that the only woman worth listening to is his wife.

43. "The Shadow pushed with all its might. Humankind did not have days remaining, but hours."

44. A bolt of balefire attacks their camp, and Demandred loudly taunts "Lews Therin" that he is hunting "a woman you love". Of course, Rand can't respond to any of that, no matter how loudly Demandred echoes it across the battlefield with the Power. Birgitte grabs Elayne so that they can get somewhere secret and safe to regroup from, since Elayne herself is the main target now.

45. Of course, Galad can hear the threats and knows that Demandred is actively hunting his sister, so now he has twice the reason to try to kill the man -- killing his brother and trying to kill his sister. In order to get Demandred to fight him directly, Galad loudly proclaims his relationship to Rand. "[The Dragon Reborn] is not here, but his brother is!" And now Galad and Demandred will duel.

46. Mat finds out from Bashere that no one has heard from Faile. He wonders how he can possible finish off this battle without help from the Horn of Valere. ...maybe you shouldn't have deserted from the Last Battle at the start of the book, Mat? Just a thought. Mat yells at Bashere, which makes him grin and his wife give Mat a fond look -- hey, Mat, bet they'd be willing to let you be a third, especially if you yell at Bashere some more. Still healthier than your marriage with Tuon! Give it some consideration!

47. "He needed an army. And a gateway. He needed a bloody gateway. Fool, he thought. He had sent the damane away. Could he not at least have kept one? Though they did make his skin crawl as if it were covered in spiders." God, this is the first time since Winter's Heart that the narrative has let Mat openly think about how fucking creeped-out he is by damane and what the Seanchan do with them! Mat was so incredibly disturbed by the damane kennels in WH and then in CoT & KoD, he acted like it was the sul'dam who had the raw end of the deal. So, yeah, Mat's first chapter in AMoL had brain-breaking teleportation and he forgot half of his characterization until he was finally allowed out of fucking Ebou Dar (RIP any hopes of an emotionally-resonant Cauthor reunion), but we have seen, over the course of the last few chapters, the slow return of how incredibly disturbed and creeped-out Mat was over the damane system. This was the thing that Jordan essentially made Mat forget in order to get him to be willing to suck face with Tuon at the end of KoD, so it's really nice to see it coming back to life. Finally.

Maybe Min will also remember at some point how fucking awful the damane system is.

48. Oh, Mat gets to reunite with Loial now? *insert annoyed grumbles about how Mat & Rand is pretty much the only important relationship that got completely cheated by how Sanderson decided to do the plotting of AMoL*

Since I mention Rand:

Those dice kept ratting in his head. He also felt a pull from the north, a tugging, as if some threads around his chest were yanking on him.

Now now, Rand, he thought. I'm bloody busy.

No colors formed, only blackness. Dark as a Myrddraal's heart. The tugging grew stronger.

Mat dismissed the vision. Not. Now.

I feel so cheated that this ends up giving me nothing that I wanted, thanks! Why did we bother! I am vibing with so much of Mat's PoV in this book now that we're out of Light-forsaken Altara but I'm so frustrated by how much Sanderson is teasing something that I already know I will not actually get.

49. Mat gets to reunite with Teslyn here. Not that I am not thrilled to have Mat reunite with Teslyn because I am, but it does... frustrate me all over again, how shallow and limp the Cauthor reunion ended up being, all happening in the shadow of the slaver ball-and-chain. Every time Mat gets a better reunion with someone else, I feel cheated about his reunion with Rand all over again. Anyway, Mat is so happy to see Teslyn that he could kiss her. (he does not)

Teslyn is going to take Mat, Loial, & co up to the Heights. My brain wants to find something symbolic in the fact that after Mat sends away Tuon & the damane, the first channeler that he runs into is Teslyn and she is the one who is enabling all his battleground hopping as he sends out order after order.

Something, something, wrong road vs right road.

Tylin... Tuon... Teslyn. Women that Mat met in Ebou Dar who have similarly rhythmic 'T' names. Tuon was jealous of Joline but it was Teslyn who started the ball rolling on Mat helping the Aes Sedai escape Ebou Dar.

idk. Maiden, mother, crone vibes, but the maiden & the mother are both abusive?

50. Demandred and Galad duel; Demandred tries to taunt Galad about Gawyn's death in order to break his focus. Galad realizes that the main purpose of what he's doing here is keeping Demandred's focus off of the armies and off of Elayne. It's in Galad's best interests to last as long against Demandred as he can. Some more fighting happens but then Galad's arm gets cut off, and he too, has lost his duel against Demandred.

51. I've seen objections to Mat personally leading the fight at this point but -- the situation is pretty dire and his command tent was blown up. Maintaining a mobile unit and darting in and out of the battle seems like the best of the bad options at this point?

52. For the moment, Elayne and Birgitte are out of the direct line of the fight. Elayne is not currently flying her banner, but she's sent messages to her commanders to let them know she still lives. Then a fake band of refugees arrives, hiding Mellar, who still has his copy of the medallion and who is here because he is still obsessed with Elayne. She thinks here that he's "the one many people still assumed fathered her children". So Elayne sent out the "Rand is the baby-daddy" press release but some people actively chose to continue to believe that slimy Mellar was the daddy? Gross. He has, apparently, been trying to track Elayne down this entire time.

53. He kills Birgitte and the loss of the bond -- and the loss of her friend -- tears at Elayne. They also have another corpse -- a woman dressed to look like Elayne, with her hair color -- that they plan to parade around to pretend to everyone that Elayne is dead. His next plan is to cut her babies out of Elayne -- ah, this must be why we jumped her pregnancy so far ahead, so that it wouldn't be quite so ridiculous that her babies could be kept alive after this -- and TDO gets the kids while Mellar gets to keep Elayne.

54. Mat has requested that the Seanchan make their return to the battlefield but instead of doing that, Fortuona is taking some time to listen to her captains debate over the subject of returning. While people suffer and die on the battlefield.

55. ...Min thinks here, with no commentary, that a Captain Yulan "had been the one to lead the strike on Tar Valon". Do you... have any opinions on that, Min? No? No opinions. Okay, noted. Her only worry is that she's started to think of her viewings as 'omens'. She really does lose herself in other people so easily. For literally the first time ever, Min uses her viewings to try to suss out a spy. Wow, Rand would have found this extremely useful, Min! She notices that one of the random so'jihn (those are slaves, Min, btw, in case you've forgotten about the existence of slavery) has a bunch of images over her head the way that normally only Aes Sedai, Warders or ta'veren do.

56. Part of her wants to just try to stab the woman, but instead she goes to confront Fortuona, asking her to please define what a Truthspeaker is. Fortuona... reluctantly... allows that it's her job to call Fortuona out in public if she screws up. So Min turns to the Blood and says, "[Tuon] has abandoned the armies of humankind, and she withholds her strength in a time of need. Her pride will cause the destruction of all people, everywhere."

She calls out the member of the Blood that the spy has compelled while throwing a dagger at the spy -- which is caught mid-air using the Power. After Moghedien (I'm assuming) escapes, Min says that this shows that the Shadow is trying to keep them from the battle. "With that in mind, will you still pursue this course of indecision?"

57. Tuon does claim here that following this mandate that Min has pressed upon her is "follow[ing] what my heart would choose". Is that true? Who knows? At least she's going back. Tuon also seems to regret slightly that she's now placed someone into the position of Truthspeaker who doesn't have the kind of trained-in deference that Selucia had. Grass is always greener.

Question: does Tuon's 'heart' matter if she still actively chooses evil unless her feet are held to the fire? That is the sort of... moral question that I feel like should have been at play way earlier in the Mat & Tuon relationship. Sanderson is actually using the basic foundations of Mat & Tuon to much greater emotional complexity than we saw at work in CoT & KoD but because it's happened after we already saw that stagnant Tuon in those two books... it's hard for this to feel earned by the narrative. It works a lot better if I close my eyes and try to imagine that we had a better lead-up in the earlier books, lol.

58. Mat learns that Egwene has died (Blood and bloody ashes, Mat thought. Egwene. Not Egwene too? It hit him like a punch to the face.) and half the Aes Sedai have exhausted themselves too much to keep channeling but all the Sharan channelers have been taken out of the picture. Then we also witness Mat's coping mechanism in action -- when his mind wanders back to Egwene, he abruptly cuts the thought off. "No thinking of that right now". Instead, he forces his mind back to business and asks if they've gotten any new troops from Mayene, healed up and ready to fight again. Lan says that he'll check.

59. Then Mat digs in his saddlebags, pulling out Rand's banner, "the one of the ancient Aes Sedai" and he tells them, "Somebody hoist this thing up. We're fighting in Rand's bloody name. Let's show the Shadow we're proud of it."

So many things that could be said here. Frustrating how late this happens? I guess that's my main feeling here, which is a shame. I wish that it could feel more triumphant for me, but this is essentially where Mat already was before he had his weird teleportation to Ebou Dar at the start of AMoL, so it's mostly just me being frustrated that none of this was allowed to exist when Rand was actually here for Mat to interact with him. Mat's friendship with Rand disappeared from the narrative just long enough to avoid us actually getting any kind of emotionally-resonant scene between them and that just... will probably always be something that I will find deeply regretful about the choices Sanderson made in this book.

But I don't want to hold onto my frustration forever, I guess. Mat really has gotten a lot better over the last few chapters. I will choose to be glad that Mat has gotten to a better place again with Rand, even if it's still bizarre that he suddenly backtracked on him at the start of this book.

60. Mat is hoping that his luck will come through when another messager brings news. The Queen of Andor is reported dead. (Bloody ashes! Not Elayne! Mat felt a lurch inside. Rand... I'm sorry.) Just like with Egwene, though, he doesn't let any of that emotion show through to the soldiers, only asking the messenger who is now in charge of the battlefield.

61. He wonders if he might not be able to win even if the Seanchan do return. If it might not be better to let the Seanchan/Fortuona hunker down in Ebou Dar and... die anyway in a few weeks or months? lol, that's not a mercy for them, Mat. But he did just hear that two people he cares about deeply are dead, so I'll give him a little slack for momentarily wishing that he didn't have to call Tuon back to her potential death too, even if he's still never given me anything he actually likes about her besides "hot enough to have sex with".

...oh, and he then learns here that Lan disobeyed his orders and went off to head towards Demandred on his own.

But Mat moves forward with his plan anyway, even though he's fairly sure it won't be enough.

Horn of Valere Team (Faile; Olver)

Faile & co run across a camp in the Blasted Lands that is being used as a supply station for the Shadow's army.

Aravine betrays the group and is a Darkfriend. I am... struggling to remember who she is. brb, will check the wiki. ahhh, she's one of the people that Faile met while she was a captive of the Shaido; a fellow captive. Anyway, Darkfriend, and she finds the Horn in Faile's bag at this point and says that she will deliver it to "Lord Demandred". Olver gets free and stabs the woman who is keeping Faile captive.

Faile grabs a horse (miraculously, it is Bela) and gives chase after Aravine, soon joined by Harnan and Vanin. She accuses them of trying to steal the Horn but they protest that they were only trying to steal the tabac that they thought she was carrying, because Mat owes them money, and seeing the Horn in there came as a huge shock to them (which is why they dropped it and didn't take it with them when they ran).

She throws a knife at Aravine's back and recovers the Horn. She finds Olver again, but they are being hunted by the Shadow's forces, who now know they have the Horn. She gives the Horn to Olver and tells him to get it to Mat. Then she gets back on a different horse (not Bela), making sure that the sack she carries is obvious, and heads off on distraction duty.

So Olver has the Horn. He's pretty stressed because now he's all alone again, as the Darkfriends and Trollocs chase after Faile. "How brave he had thought himself. Now, here he was, finally at the battle. He could barely keep his hands from trembling. He wanted to hide, dig deep into the earth."

A Trolloc discovers him and Olver sees Bela still there and runs for her, wishing he had a horse that looked faster. He races towards where he can see Mat's banners on the horizon, but more Trollocs keep appearing. And Bela gets shot by a Trolloc arrow and goes down. He tries racing up the mountain to reach Mat's banners but they're so far away. He finds a crevasse and wedges himself into it, trying to push deep enough that he's out of the reach of the Trollocs. Poor kid. This is all incredibly traumatizing for him.

He couldn't stop shaking. He also couldn't make himself move. He trembled, terrified, as the beasts pried at him with filthy fingers, digging closer and closer.

Other Misc PoVs

We get a Tam PoV that continues to have zero acknowledgement of the whole "Tam knows he's going to be a grandfather" thing. It's just weird at this point.

Okay, what Uno thinks about Mat ("He still didn't understand why anyone would put Cauthon in charge of anything. He remembered that boy, always snapping at people, eyes sunken in his head. Half-dead, half-spoiled.") should also have been what Min remembered about Mat. The last time they both saw him was around that same time period of Falme, when Mat was deep in the grip of the dagger-sickness. This is the Mat that Min would have met!

Perrin wakes up and is told that they were able to heal him so that he wouldn't die and will recover but that's all they can do for him. Healing needs to be saved for other people too, so "your participation in the Last Battle is over". And then he goes back to sleep, but regular sleep this time.

Graendal collects Rhuarc as one of her pets. 😭

...why am I supposed to care that Demandred has feelings for women (or, I guess, A Woman)? I really have absolutely no reason to care about Demandred's love life. Why am I being told any of this? Was someone worried that readers would think Demandred was gay for obsessing so much over Lews Therin, so a "Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?" moment was thrown in to avoid that? It does seem put in to deliberately contrast for his, uh, "burning passion that was his hatred for Lews Therin".

Another possibility is that this is a relationship meant to foil/reflect Mat and Tuon's? Shendla sounds just as willfully delusional about her future with ~her Wyld~ as Mat always sounds when he's thinking about his Fictional Tuon Girl. "Oh, just because you do evil things and control an evil army of literal horrors doesn't make you evil, darling! Just because you own slaves command Shadowspawn doesn't make you bad, sweetheart! The evil things that you do don't define you! You can do evil things and be a super-great person! I believe in you!"

We get another Tam PoV where he doesn't think at all about his impending post-Last Battle grandfatherhood.

Our third Tam PoV. No acknowledgement of Elayne's pregnancy and how Rand has been announced to be the father. We have time for Tam to run into Lan and for Lan to be all "ah, the blademaster who gave Rand his sword earned the title" but no time to think about Tam's actual upcoming grandkids. It's so weird how disconnected Elayne's pregnancy manages to be from Rand's plotline even after Rand and her entire army all know about the pregnancy and that Rand is the father! Somehow, this plotline is still only considered relevant to Elayne herself and not relevant to Rand or Tam at all????

Androl pickpockets Taim for the true seals, I think? I feel like maybe Sanderson should have leaned into the pickpocketing thing for Androl. tbh, this plotline has felt pretty pointless, lol. The Asha'man could have just been part of the army in the other plotlines and nothing of value really would have been lost.

Okay so... why are the Sharan channelers such experts in war, anyway? Because it doesn't sound like they've constantly been having civil wars, the way that the Seanchan have, so where have they been getting their experience in fighting? You can't become an expert fighter in a vacuum.

The Band has been secretly hidden in caverns deep underground so that they can work on repairing the dragons (with Aludra's expertise guiding the way, of course), waiting on Mat's order (with Asha'man and gateways to get them out again) for them to attack once more.

The Tuatha'an work as battlefield triage, going through the bodies trying to find those who are only wounded and might be saved. "The Way of the Leaf was an easy master at times, providing a life of joy and peace. But a leaf fell in calm winds and in the tempest; dedication demanded that one accept the latter as well as the former."

Raen asks Ila what they would have asked these people to do, in the face of Trollocs. Ila says that they could have run. That there was no need for them to fight here, right at the cusp of the Blight. Raen says that the Trollocs would have followed. "We have accepted many masters. The Shadow might treat us poorly, but would it really be worse than we have been treated at the hands of others?" Ila asks, but Raen disagrees. "It would have been worse. I am not going to abandon the Way, Ila. It is my path and it is right for me. Perhaps... perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path." Ah. They're talking about/mourning Aram. Ila says, "I shouldn't have turned my back on him. I should have tried to help him return to us, not cast him out." She had always felt as if she knew the answers in life. Today, most of those had slipped from her. Saving a person's life though... that she could cling to. She headed back among the bodies, searching for the living among the dead.

Galad ends up in the Mayane hospital. I wonder if he still has his copy of the medallion. I assume he does. Not sure when he'd have had a chance to give it back.

Ah, asked and answered. Berelain finds the medallion around Galad's neck as he whispers "back to Cauthon", so she takes the medallion and heads off at a brisk pace.

Loial and Erith take a moment to rest together before the final charge of the Last Battle. Loial has managed to take notes here and there, for a story that he'd like to pretend that he'll still get to write. "There was no harm to such a little lie."

The night grows darker as Lan charges towards Demandred and we pass our final Tam PoV of this chapter... still no mention of the fact that he knows he's going to have grandkids. (or the news going through the army that Elayne is reported dead? or anything like that?)

18. Ah, Lan was the one who received the note from Berelain with the medallion - I do not know how Galad ended up with this, but I believe he wished me to send it to Cauthon. I wish that Lan had cleared this plan with Mat tbh! But anyway, Lan does have three things here as he faces off with Demandred: one that Gawyn had (he's a Warder, with that boost in endurance) and one that Galad had (a medallion to protect him from weaves) plus he also has twenty years of experience fighting at the side of an Aes Sedai in a quest to locate the Dragon Reborn. It sounds very much like his reasoning is the same as Gawyn and Galad as well -- this is a necessary job, and I'm a person who is already here and can be risked to do that job.

19. "Lan held nothing back." He knows that he can't afford to give Demandred time to think, so he just goes for a relentless assault. Demandred does pretty quickly figure out the 'just channel things at him' trick, so Lan is dealing with dodging rocks as well. Demandred is just so certain that anyone who can hold their own against him is Lews Therin! It's honestly been kinda the comic relief of this chapter.

20. Then he uses one of the lessons that he taught Rand (that Rand used in his battle against Ishamael in Falme) -- he deliberately lets Demandred stab him so that he can get close enough to stab his own sword through Demandred's throat.

The world grew dark as Lan slipped backward off the sword. He felt Nynaeve's fear and pain as he did, and he sent his love to her.

[gojozaiacc]

HEART, chuuya nakahara

chuuya nakahara x fem!!reader summary: chuuya arrives home a lot later than usual only to find his panicky girlfriend in tears. tw!! angst, swearing, suggestive themes, death mentions (sorta) notes: this sucks and if Chuuya seems ooc I apologise- my brain is all over the place atm lol

Chuuya's muscles ached with exhaustion as he stood in the elevator that would take him up to his comfortable apartment. His coat was folded over his left arm and his signature fedora tipped over his head casting a shade across his tired face.

The elevator pinged and he sighed in relief as the metal doors slid open. Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, he stepped out and headed down the long hall until his front door was finally in view.

Now as a port mafia executive, Chuuya was on edge and prepared for nearly everything. Possible sneak attacks, gunfire, ambushes, explosions- you name it. But what surprised him when he walked through his front door? something small and fluffy smacking him on the chest.

His eyebrows furrow almost comedically and he turns his head to glance down at what on earth he had been hit with only to see his girlfriend's stuffed lamb plushie staring back at him with its (in Chuuya's opinion) large creepily stitched eyes.

Blinking in surprise, he lifts his head back upwards to see the culprit of the attack- his girlfriend, y/n. Usually when he got home y/n would be waiting for him on the couch or in their bedroom and she would get extremely excited when she would see him.

Due to his busy schedule, the pair rarely got to see each other so despite his constant scolding y/n would stay up late just so she could see him after work and she would wake up at the same time as him every morning to see him off before she headed to her own work.

Routinely, she would usually come bouncing over to him excitedly and pull him in for a long kiss or a tight hug (which usually led to Chuuya informing her that he couldn't breathe).

But tonight was different and he had known the second he walked through the door that it was- looking at her face only confirmed his suspicions.

A usually bright and excitable y/n who would typically wear a bubbly smile at the mere sight of Chuuya instead wore a distressed expression as tears flowed down her pale cheeks.

Chuuya is exhausted but the exhaustion seems to fade as he is instead overcome with worry for his lover. --"y/n? what's wrong?"He asks, his eyebrows furrowing in concern as he shuts the door behind him and walks towards her, throwing his coat to the side carelessly- glancing from side to side to see if he could detect any signs of threat in their small apartment that would cause her to cry.

However, the second he got close to her he was met with her smacking his chest with her hand, her face scrunched up as tears flowed down her cheeks. He blinked in surprise and stood straight for a second as she smacked his chest again- this didn't hurt him of course not only because she wasn't exactly the strongest person he knew but because he wasn't even really focussing on the hits- more observing her expressions.

"Woah, woah, woah-"He grabs her wrists as she starts to smack his chest repeatedly- her bottom lip trembling as her chest starts to heave in what appeared to be a mixture of fear and panic. "What's wrong, doll?"He asks her- his voice as soft as possible to try and calm her down.

"I-I thought something ha-"Her voice wavered as she breathed heavily. "Breathe."He whispered to her softly, his gloved hands sliding from her wrists and up her arms causing her to shiver at the material. "W-What took you so long?"She finally manages out shakily- tears dripping from her chin.

A confused look appears on Chuuya's face for a second. --"I-I thought something h-happened to you-"She rushes out in a panicky voice causing his eyes to widen in surprise.

Chuuya and y/n have been dating for around 7 months and since the executive could see that things were becoming serious with her- he decided to tell her about his job. He told her this last week and she had seemed a bit sceptical at first but ultimately told him it didn't bother her much and that she still loved him.

However, she may have sort of lied on half of that response. She still loves him of course- she doesn't think she'll ever love someone as much as she does Chuuya. But ever since he informed her of his position with the Mafia and what his job entails- she had been plagued with nightmares.

The fear of losing him had been bottling up in her for over a week and him returning home tonight much later than usual caused it to spill all over.

"y/n-"He says her name softly- removing his hands from her arms as he slid his leather gloves off. "I-I didn't know i-if anything happened to you o-or if you were in danger," She hiccups through salty tears and a wobbly bottom lip.

His face softens at the tone of her voice and he frowns sympathetically. y/n doesn't have anyone in her life besides Chuuya. She lost both of her parents when she was 16 and doesn't have any living relatives. Chuuya's all that she really has and the idea of possibly losing him terrified her.

"M'sorry, baby- the boss gave me a shit tonna' paperwork to do." he sighs softly, his naked hands lifting to cradle her face gently- using his thumbs to catch some of her stray tears.

That's understandable enough, she thought to herself as her breathing continued to slightly speed. "W-Why didn't you call?"She rasps to him, nuzzling her face into his hands as her glossy eyes searched his expression.

He clicks his tongue and sighs, pulling one hand from her face to fish his phone out of his pocket- he waves the device in the air. "stupid thing died."He hums, clicking the button on the side to show the drained battery.

A pout forms on her lips without her noticing as she sniffles and glances at the floor and her cheeks begin to flare in embarrassment at her obvious continuing overreaction. --"I-"Her voice wavered again and she swallowed.

A soft chuckle leaves Chuuya's lips as his hand comes back to her cheeks so he was cradling her entire face in his grasp. --"I'm okay, dollface."He tells her. --"I am the strongest fuckin' thing the Mafia has you don't have to worry about me."He whispers, activating his ability briefly so his hat can lift from his head and whiz over to drop onto the hat rack he kept by the door. He lets his forehead touch hers as her breathing shakes about almost unpredictably.

Y/n is a worrier and Chuuya had known that when he pursued her. She suffered frequent panic attacks and could be rather clingy when it came to ultimately parting with him. So he wasn't surprised that even though she could see him with her own two eyes she was still panicking over his safe return.

Her head was all over the place and she had spent a better half of the night panicking that he may have gotten killed on a mission. She hadn't fully stepped out of the worrisome frame of mind and so even though she could feel the touch of his hand- her heart continued to race with worry.

Licking his lips, Chuuya slid one of his hands from her cheek to grab ahold of her hand- lifting her palm to press against his chest just over his heart. Her breath hitches as she feels the steady beat of his heart against her palm. Keeping his forehead pressed to hers- he held her hand in place against his chest.

"It's cute you worry so much."He mumbled to her, causing her to snap her gaze from her hand over his heart to his eyes. Her cheeks warm and she doesn't move her hand away from his chest- wanting the most confirmation of his living breathing self she could get.

"But you really don't have to."He adds on after a short second. --"The last thing you have to do is worry about me while I'm on a job, okay?"He tells her in a serious voice with a nod.

A slow sigh leaves her lips and she nods her head with his movements, her hand moving from his chest and up to his neck. "Promise you'll always come back to me?"She whispers shakily, blinking her wet eyelashes at him.

A normal person would know not to promise something like that. You don't want to wrap the person you love in a false sense of security. But Chuuya isn't any normal person. He's confident in his abilities and knows damn well that there's not a single soul in Japan that could take on his ability or his strength.

"I promise."He whispered confidently, no shred of doubt in his voice or expression. She notably relaxes at his confidence and nods her head, both of her arms now hooked around his neck. --"Okay?"He whispers encouragingly.

A small smile appears on her face for the first time that night and he grins as she nods. "no more tears, okay, pretty girl?"He says softly, brushing his thumbs up and down her cheekbones- wiping away some of the tear stains on her cheeks.

The corners of her lips twitch at the affection and she nods again. "okay."She murmurs with a sniffle, caressing the sides of his neck with her hands as they go silent for a few short seconds.

"Start taking a phone charger with you to work."She finally mumbles after a comfortable silence causing him to let out a loud belly laugh as he nuzzled his nose against hers with a toothy grin.

"Deal." he chuckles just before pressing his mouth to hers- grinning against her lips. The kiss took her breath away and he immediately pulled her as close to his body as he could; wrapping an arm around her back and around her waist.

The kiss was soft and yearning; a complete contrast to their typically immediate hot and heavy ones. Chuuya felt the need to lure her into a sense of security so he kept his movements slow and steady- treating her like a precious flower petal that could wilt with the wrong move.

Her cheeks flush and he pulls her close to his chest- practically devouring her whole as his fingers slowly slide into her hair. Her spine arches to press herself against his body more- her arms tightening around his neck as his arm could tightly around her waist.

"Sorry, I was late, doll."He murmured against her lips again- sensing that she was still slightly annoyed for worrying her. Her brain goes fuzzy and her stomach flips as one of his hands slides from her hair and down to her hip.

She curls her fingers into his soft copper hair posessively and tugs gently causing him to grunt slightly against her lips and pull her completely flush against his body. "how about-"he pauses to move his lips from hers and press them to the base of her neck. --"You let me make it up to you."He rasps causing her stomach to twist as her breath hitches.

Her lips parted as his lips travelled up the side of her neck, his teeth grazing her skin as both of his hands slid down to grip both of her hips. Melting into his touch, she lets her eyes flutter shut as she grips his hair tightly.

"Gladly."

[mercury2venus]

“ and should our worst tendencies turn us into enemies.”

( honestly I feel like I always see Geto betray Gojo so here’s the opposite teehee.)

This is an AU btw. Here they were able to save Riko, they never failed the mission and Geto never lost his mind. they’re both teachers in this. ) Excuse any mistakes !!

(I was watching the best man recently lol and got inspired a little iykyk)

Blue is Geto speaking

Green is Gojo speaking

His best friend hid it well. He had to admit.

But ever so recently, Suguru has been paying closer attention.

There was something in Satoru’s eyes when he looked at Maya.

It was more than a glint, more than admiration no..this was different.

Suguru knew that look.

He gave it to her every waking moment of his day. As if she was the sun and he was irrevocably stuck in her orbit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The best friends sat in an empty classroom.

The atmosphere couldn’t be more tense.

“ How long Satoru ?” Suguru awaited his answer. Part of him wishing he was wrong and the other part trying not to crash out. Beforehand, Suguru asked Maya if she noticed Satoru’s longing gazes.

Of course she did. Yet, she ignored him. Paid him dust, kept it cordial and chalked it up to a man who probably didn’t have the proper love and care at home.

And with that Suguru felt like he needed to confront his best friend. Even if he wanted to cry.

“ You’re sitting there in silence and I’m asking you Satoru..how long have you been in love with MY girlfriend.” He said.

“ Since you met her. 5 years ago.” Satoru said softly.

Suguru froze.

“ You’ve been in love with Maya…for 5 years? And you said nothing? When were you going to tell me Satoru ? When a curse took my life ? When you’d comfort her at my funeral ? When Shoko cuts me open ?” He said in a panic.

Satoru was silent again.

“ Answer Me !”

Suguru clenched his fists. “ You’re the strongest. You’re Satoru Gojo. The pride of the Gojo clan, with 2 legendary techniques. It places you above everyone else naturally. I’m 2nd to you, you know that right ? It’s hard to not live in your shadow and as your best friend I don’t complain, I want you to shine and grow. Be who the world needs you to be. But sometimes you’re nothing more than a spoiled rich kid who has never been told no, that grew into an overgrown man child. “

Suguru took a breather, then continued.

“ We’re close, I don’t think I’ve been closer to anyone else in my life. You’re my brother Satoru. I get it we share things but what was the end game here? Think we’d share Maya ? “

Suguru pinches the bridge of his nose. Suddenly picturing his girlfriend. “ She’s uncomfortable now.” He said softly. “ She feels strange. Do you know she’s already uncomfortable being here as is ? She’s in a foreign country, is not a sorcerer, looks nothing like anyone here ! You’ve heard me vent about her family not accepting us or her longing to move back to America. What the hell were you thinking ?”

Satoru took off his glasses. Cerulean eyes lined with tears. “ I have no desire to go after her. I don’t know what my endgame is. But since we’re being honest I don’t know how to move on…not sure if I can. It sounds inconsiderate even insane but she looks at me like I’m just Satoru. Like I’m just me. I love her the same way you —

Suguru furrowed his brows, he couldn’t believe his ears right now.

“ Watch it.”

Satoru sighed deeply. He placed his shades back on.

“ What I’m saying is I’m sorry, for all of this.”

Suguru shook his head and walked towards the door “ Stay away from us, especially HER for now. I won’t ask again. “ he said.

Satoru lowered his head in shame, he agreed. “ Okay Sug I hear you. I will, I understand man. “

And with that the 2 strongest left their friendship right there.

Suguru was long gone when Satoru spoke aloud. Wiping his tears he whispered to no one in particular “ God this is the worst day of my life.”

[lsficbin]

“All the time we spent waiting for the light to take us in have been the greatest moments of my life.”

Satoru Gojo x reader (drabble)

(Based on this post by @hunnismokah)

Tags: fem!reader, fluff, slight angst, mention of sex, no use of y/n

Satoru laid sprawled out on the bed, uniform discarded to the floor without much thought, but his blindfold remained. The late afternoon light was soft, but still too heavy on his weary eyes, overused from the days lessons and activities requiring their use. He sighed, long limbs strewn across the comforter, wanting nothing more than to succumb to sleep, but his mind still raced.

The door to the bedroom opened softly, and clothed feet padded across the floor. There was a dip in the bed beside him before Satoru felt gentle fingers trying to work the fabric away from his eyes. “Don’t baby,” his hand went up to meet hers, “‘s too bright.”

“I know silly,” she cooed, “just give me a minute.”

He pulled his hand away, too tired to argue, just hoping she knew what she was doing. She removed the blindfold and his silver hair fell down past his forehead, providing some reprieve as he scrunched his eyes tight. She moved into place beside him, using her body to shield him from the light coming through the shades before gently smoothing out his furrowed brow with her thumb.

He sighed contently and she held back a chuckle, “Better?”

“Mm,” he wrapped an arm around her waist pulling her closer, “better now.”

She ran her hands through his hair, kissing the crown of his head as his face was buried in her chest. “Where does it hurt?”

“Temples mostly,” he groaned.

Her nimble fingers moved swiftly to the sides of his head, applying pressure in small circles, earning another pleased moan from the large man. “How’s that?”

“Would it be bad if I said better than sex?”

She laughed softly at that, “No, I get it.”

“You don’t have to babysit me if you’ve got things to do.”

“This is much better than anything else I could be doing right now.”

“God, I love you.”

“Love you too ‘Toru.”

It only took a few more minutes of massaging his temples for his breath to even out and for her to know he was asleep. She’d do this everyday if it meant that, just for a little while, he didn’t have to feel like The Strongest. Here, he was just her Satoru, and that would always be enough.

A/N: first time giving this a shot, but I saw the post linked above and had this scene play out in my head. song lyric is from “Here With Me” by d4vd, which was the top of my Spotify Wrapped last year lol.

[ilovemorayeels]

Can you please do Yandere Gojo where his darling accidentally finds his stalker wall where he has all his pictures of them

of course! ty for requesting, enjoy!

Black Roses, in the Middle of an Altar.

a/n: idk why almost everything I write about somehow has coffee in it, I don't even like it lol

type: yandere oneshot

cw: worship (towards reader), gn!reader, yan!satoru, stalking, candid photos, knocking out (towards reader), creepiness, delusional!satoru

word count: 637

Satoru hummed your favorite song as he placed the plastic bottle you drank from in the shrine, another sacred item you bestowed your DNA on. He couldn't be any happier to have another thing you had the honor to bless him with this! Well, not really, he took it from the trashcan after you threw it away. A photo of you, the best one, was right in the middle, shining away all of the other pictures, and a table for everything Satoru is lucky to get his hands on. Napkins, empty water bottles, your mug (which he drinks from everyday), and a shirt he stole from your closet!

Oh, how he wished to see you smile at him. To see your pearly whites beam at him, he's sure he'd melt. Yet you're just another citizen, one who barely knows who he is. But that's alright for Satoru! You can just know him as "the-white-haired-dude-who-seems-to-love-and-do-everything-that-you-like"! He'll be fine with that either way. Little by little, Gojo will have you.

"I'm surprised you know this café, Gojo!" You chirped in delight, holding a fragrant coffee. How did Gojo know this was your favorite coffee shop? It wasn't well-known, only locals and curious tourists who looked further than famous crowded places. It was probably just pure luck...

"I just saw it and I immediately knew you'd like it. I had no idea you even knew of this place!" Satoru lied, his tone slightly straining, annoyed that you two were still in last-name basis. Has he not done enough? Has he not been taking you in enough dates hangouts? Oh well. He drowned his lips in affogato, the bittersweet filling just the right amount of sugar and caffeine in his heart. "Say, how about you visit my house? I have a limited edition brew of the coffee you're drinking right now. I have enough to make a batch for the both of us." He'd been drinking it regularly, thinking it'd bloom the roots of your soon-to-be relationship.

"I'd love to!" You agreed, thinking this was just another attempt that Gojo was making to get you to hang out with him longer. Not that you didn't mind the clinginess, you just never saw someone so interested in hanging out with you for so long (no shade!!).

Before you knew it, you were sitting in a dining table, laughing it up with the strongest with fresh brew. Black roses sat in the middle of the table, though it didn't fit the aesthetic, why would there be gothic looks in a clean modern house? Maybe it's just a preference. You shouldn't be so judgy.

"I need to go to the bathroom, do you mind telling me where it is?" You asked, putting down your coffee.

"Of course, it's just right down the hall." Satoru vaguely waved to the direction.

It felt like a completely different aura in the hallway, creepy, cold. Like everything in your body was telling not to, your legs felt the need to run away, but you marched on. The floor creaked, it was quiet, endless. This must be the door, right? It's the only one you can really think is for a bathroom. You open the door.

You're sleeping. You're working. You're eating. All these memories should only be kept to yourself, you lived alone. But you're right here, in all these photos. And those same dreaded roses that look like the night sky itself in the midst of an altar. Dedicated to you. To show worship towards you.

Satoru. Has. Been. Stalking. You-

"So you found it." He mutters with disappointment, you don't dare look back. He wasn't dumb, he knew where you stumbled upon the moment you entered the room. He has the six eyes after all. "That's alright, I'll be something more to you."

Goodnight, Y/N.

[maya-chirps]

Do you know anything about pre-colonial ilokano culture? Like any practices, myths etc :)

Precolonial Ilokano culture has also been on my radar especially since I myself am of Ilokano descent actually! My ties to the culture had been severed by my Ilokano grandfather after a falling out with his family, but I might be able to get together some sources and articles on precolonial Ilocos some other time.

One of the most popular myths from the Ilokos region that is often taught in schools even outside the area is the Life of Lam-Ang or Biag ni Lam-Ang. This story follows Lam-Ang and different parts of his life from before his birth and up to his peaceful life after all of his adventures. You can read it here alongside a collection of other epics from other Filipino ethnic groups and an English translation here (thanks to a Christian school's English class lol)

From quick research, an article by Jordan Clark of the Aswang Project lists the 1978 book Handbook of Philippine Language Groups as source for knowing the early Ilokano pantheon or at least the generally accepted Ilokano pantheon.

This book identifies Buni as the supreme being of the pantheon, who, from other sources I've seen, is often referenced as someone who has tasked the giants with creation. I can't seem to find the specific myth that exactly references how the world had come to be. Parsua was also identified as a creation deity.

Then there are the deities related to different nature-related and weather-related things which are listed as Apo Langit (Lord Heaven), Apo Angin (Lord Wind), Apo Init (Lord Sun), and Apo Tudo (Lord Rain).

There are also variations listed within the article that had been referenced to have come from the book published in 1952 called the Historical and Cultural Data of Provinces specifically from Vigan, Ilocos Sur, although it seems to have more outsider influence.

Here's the plain-text from the article since it's pretty difficult to find other sources of this myth other than the book and the article:

Cabalangegan was formerly a jungle at the edge of the river Abra. On the far side of the river were mountains high and steep. On these mountains lived an old man named Abra, the father of Caburayan. The old man lived and controlled the weather. It is said that the river Abra was a gathering of water vapor, shaded, and the days were always bright with sunlight. At that time Anianihan, God of Harvests, was in love with Anianihan, Goddess of Healing. Her mother, Lady Makiling knew about their mutual understanding, but Abra did not know it for the three were afraid to tell him since he might punish them as he disapproved of Anianihan. Abra wanted his daughter to marry either Saguday, God of the Wind, or Revenador, God of Thunder and Lightning. This being so, Anianihan took Caburayan from her home. Abra wept a great deal. He sent Lady Makiling away after beating her. When Abra was alone, he wept day and night till Bulan, God of Peace and Calm, came. But though Bulan was there to brighten Abra’s spirits, Abra did not stop weeping. He could not express his anger. He begged the other gods to bring back his daughter. One day the sun, eye of Amman, shone so bright that the water of the river Abra was excessively heated. Smoke rose from the river. Soon, thick, black clouds began to darken the sky. Then Saguday sent the strongest wind until the crowns of the trees brushed the ground. The god Revenador sent down the largest strings of fire. The heaviest of rains fell. All these frightful events lasted seven days. The river Abra then rose and covered the trees. There rose a vast body of water and the highest part of the mountain could be seen. It looked like the back of a turtle from a distance. At this spot Abra lived. On the seventh day, Abra heard a cry. He also heard a most sorrowful song. Abra dried his tears and looked around, but he saw no one. He determined to find Maria Makiling, his grandchild. He did not find her for the cries of the baby had stopped. The search for the baby lasted three full moons, but to no avail and the poor old man returned to his home very sad. He lost all hope. His wits were gone. At that time Maria Makiling was under the care of the fierce dog Lobo, that was under a god of the Underworld. He had been punished by the other gods and that is why he looked like a fierce dog. He was sent down to do charity.

From just the story alone, there's some obvious influences from other cultures such as one of the deities mentioned, Lady Makiling, the mother of Caburayan, having come from Laguna, as well as the usage of the word Lobo to name a fierce dog with the word having come from Spanish.

This may be the reason why this myth isn't regarded as highly as a more authentic version of the precolonial Ilocano pantheon although it is an interesting story still.

I do want to learn more about Ilocano precolonial culture too but that's all I have for now! Hopefully it's informative enough especially since finding sources outside the Aswang Project website is rather difficult.

[crickets-lovely-place]

Shuffled playlist tag game

Rules: you can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to. Put a playlist on shuffle, list the first 10 songs and then tag people :)

@barrioghost tagged me and—holy shit i just noticed ur new little bio i'm obsessed with you—anyway i've been putting off doing this bc i couldn't decide what playlist to use??? I'm using one called "Deja Vu" which.... is made entirely of songs with the same title as other songs on the playlist. this is not a curated vibe, it's just a funny concept. but like. good music tho. so here she goes!

Heart Attack — One Direction (lol i forgot this was on here)

jealousy, jealousy — Olivia Rodrigo (I LOVE HER)

SKATEBOARD — PENTAGON (this one is only here bc @revjem told me it exists)

Boyfriend — Big Time Rush (this section of this playlist is WILD i love it so much)

Airplane — IZ*ONE (ngl every kpop group that has a song called airplane made it one of their best songs)

FIESTA — IZ*ONE (please understand that they are only 5/746 songs on this playlist, shuffle is playing. also i do love them tho)

Domino — KAI (is this the worst Domino on my playlist? maybe... no shade to mr. rover)

Amnesia — 5 Seconds of Summer (if you ever catch me NOT going feral about this song i am actually unwell)

Dangerous Woman — SuperM (forgot about this one too XD)

WAVE — CIX (not the wave I feel the strongest about, but it's a good one)

anyway this was fun and I'll tag @lines-on-ice @neutronstarchild @probablytoooldforthis @balladoftime and @revjem 🫶