#tdr verse

[markantonys]

wot 1x05-8 Rewatch Now That I’ve Read The Books thoughts! book spoilers ahead

i was never more attracted to mat than i was in this one scene of him looking evil and sick in his cloak with his hood up. me and rand shaking hands on being into evil men

rand is such a baby when they arrive in the big city awwww

and we get to the greatest betrayal of modern cinema: when rand and mat enter the inn room and it looks like there’s only one bed, but then the camera angle switches to reveal a second bed!!! heartbreaking

haha i love this scene with moiraine and nynaeve where moiraine’s trying to give her advice about the tower. moiraine is such a fond mom and nynaeve is having absolutely none of it.

the glorious momentary ot3 that was egwene/perrin/aram

rand says that egwene thought she was “jain farstrider herself reincarnated” is this just a shaky word order and it actually means egwene thought that she herself was (male) jain farstrider reincarnated, or do we have female jain farstrider in this verse? also, i feel like egwene (even if she was very young and perhaps not fully understanding of how the wheel works at the time) thinking that she could be jain reincarnated implies that jain has been dead for a long long time, thus sealing the nail in the coffin of the chances of noal making it to the show (not that i ever thought he would)

i like the change of it being egwene instead of rand who was obsessed with that book. it fits with egwene wanting to see the world and have adventures but rand being happy with his little farm and his everyday life!

The Cauthor Promise!!! i hope this will come up again in the future now that they know rand is tdr - i could totally see rand asking mat to fulfill that promise and kill him and mat being unnerved by this behavior. i’m also very curious how mat finding out rand is tdr will go down in the show since he’s now the only one of the ef5 who doesn’t know (although egwene, perrin, and nynaeve were too busy fearing the immediate danger to rand’s life to have yet reacted to the long-term implications of him being tdr). on the one hand, i could imagine that mat having spent so long fearing HE was tdr, and knowing that rand feared the same thing and still never considered leaving him, would make him more empathetic towards rand and more willing to repay the favor and stick by his side. on the other, wouldn’t it be a gutpunch if rand said “no matter what happens i’m here” to mat when they thought mat was tdr and then mat reacted completely the opposite way upon finding out it’s rand?

also wondering if mat’s memory loss might come into play here. maybe he forgets being afraid that he was tdr and rand supporting him through it, or maybe he forgets this promise they made to each other. i’m definitely expecting the show to milk mat’s memory loss more than the books did - mat was always complaining about holes in his memory but he never actually seemed to be missing anything important, so i think the show will make his memory loss more impactful and tragic in order to beef up his motivation to mess around with a dangerous object of the Power in order to get his memories back. what if he forgets his sisters???? 😭😭

i say this all the time but boy, will galad joining the show!whitecloaks be a hard sell. they did make a distinction between regular whitecloaks and questioners back in episode 2, and showed that regular whitecloaks are less extreme given that guy’s willingness to tell moiraine to seek out aes sedai healing, but i didn’t really pick up on that until this watch knowing from the books that that distinction exists, so to a show-only viewer it definitely was not enough to override the overall impression that all whitecloaks are like valda. and as you guys know, this deeply colored my opinion of galad in the books!

when egwene was clapping back at valda MAN i saw shades of egwene owning elaida in the dinner scene!!! i can’t wait to see what madeleine madden does in future seasons!

interesting that liandrin notes that while the aes sedai are a super powerful all-women organization, there are plenty of other areas of the world where men are in charge. take that, male readers who insist that randland is a whole matriarchy just because women have more power than men among one small segment of the population (channelers).

one of my favorite examples of “non-readers are more observant than some readers think”: after nynaeve’s story about egwene’s fever when she was young, i was thinking “ooh i wonder if nynaeve healed her with the power then without realizing it” only to go online and see readers complaining that that story was repurposed to showcase egwene’s strengths when in the books it was meant to show that nynaeve had healed her with the power without realizing it. i can’t speak to whether the show truly *intended* people to get that impression from the story, but at least one non-reader was able to make that conclusion based on the information the show had provided up to that point!

time for forsaken speculation! i was hoping to analyze all the statues and see if i could figure out who they all were, but yeah, i got nothing lmao all i know is that there are 8 total and it seems to be 4 men and 4 women. so let’s make some guesses based on those numbers!

the women: i feel pretty confident that it will be lanfear, graendal, moghedien, and semirhage. mesaana's activities would be the easiest to be absorbed by another forsaken or cut altogether, and she simply is far less memorable and iconic than the others. lanfear, graendal, and moghedien are all shown to be talented with TAR, and all of them are alive and have an Activity Gap around the time that mesaana is most relevant. i don’t really think that graendal would vibe with infiltrating the white tower (or maybe that’s just what she would want me to think!), but i could easily see either lanfear or moghedien. and seeing as both of them don’t do much during the last battle and their endgame fates are respectively TAR defeat and seanchan enslavement, it’d be easy to sub one of them in as egwene’s adversary who gets defeated in her pre-last-battle TAR battle (if that makes the show). i could also see making just the black ajah responsible for the strife in the tower and not an actual forsaken.

the men: ishamael ofc, and demandred, sammael, rahvin, and asmodean will duke it out for the final 3 spots. this is harder to say who could be easiest to cut, so let’s weigh our options.

demandred: it would be pretty easy to cut him since he’s only really relevant in AMOL, and they could just axe shara altogether and say that that continent doesn’t even exist in this verse. and then taim could be the one to wreak havoc on the battlefield and kill gawyn, which would make egwene’s killing of taim feel much more like poetic cinema. however, demandred is my favorite forsaken and i don’t want him to be cut! there’s also the real possibility that the show will go for taimandred since the books set it up so perfectly and didn’t follow through, so that would be a good way to keep demandred in the show and bulk up his role in the earlier seasons.

sammael: the most obvious solution would be to merge him and demandred since they have the same personality of being obsessed with/jealous of LTT, and demandred is the gucci to sammael’s walmart in that respect, so if one of them had to go i would want it to be sammael. another reason to cut sammael is that it’s basically just a quicker and less emotionally significant version of rahvin’s defeat. the moridin/balefire thing could happen with rahvin in caemlyn and we could just axe sammael and illian.

rahvin: i think that caemlyn being under control of a forsaken is too crucial to cut, as caemlyn is a Home Base and thus this plotline has tons of significance to a number of main characters, namely elayne, rand, and gawyn. (i do kinda think morgase will actually be killed by rahvin in the show since she doesn’t make any huge plot contributions for the rest of the series, and her actually being dead will give more weight to gawyn’s hatred of rand (i initially typed “rand’s hatred of rand” because my brain was ahead of my fingers and then was like okay that wasn’t actually what i meant but it’s true) as well as elayne’s arc of coming into her own as a leader without relying on her mom. plus the show will probably want to cut down on the number of characters wherever it can for the sake of streamlining/simplifying the story and saving money on actors.) and the forsaken who is holding caemlyn getting balefired by rand also feels pretty important, as that’s his first Real Big Balefire Use and also lays the groundwork for “not even the dark one can bring back a balefired forsaken, so we should balefire all of them,” so this would preclude that forsaken being able to crop up later on in the story and take on someone else’s activities. so i do feel that this plotline doesn’t have leeway like the other male forsaken’s do, and thus rahvin will have to stay.

asmodean: potentially controversial statement, but i think asmodean would be easy to cut. he’s important for only 1.5 books, and the only thing he does is teach rand how to use saidin, which any other male channeler could do. sammael and rahvin are busy at this time, so demandred could teach rand and then disappear mysteriously and reappear later in the series. however, it would be difficult to explain why demandred would be willing to teach rand since he’s not a lame ass coward like asmodean. the other option which i think could really work is that taim enters the story earlier and teaches rand, which would be a natural lead-in to rand giving him control of teaching the asha’man. or rand could just not have a teacher at all until he starts learning from LTT. but it IS a really fun and interesting dynamic to have rand and a forsaken working together ish, and pretty unique in the series, so it would be a shame if this was cut or if the teaching role was given to the ostensibly-not-evil taim. UPDATE: one of the statues has a little guitar, so asmodean has definitely made it into the show.

overall, i would most want sammael to be cut and am leaning towards it as the most likely, but i think demandred is also a real possibility, and asmodean would be easy to cut but they probably won’t since he has such a unique role in the story compared to the rest of the villains.

will anything ever be more romantic than rand pulling a sword he doesn’t know how to use on a full ass aes sedai and warder to protect mat?

if i hadn’t already been spoiled that rand was tdr at this point in my first watch i FULLY would’ve believed they were setting up dragon mat and warder rand. the vibes are there!!!!! rand and lan having a warder faceoff to defend their respective channelers!!!

“bless his heart he tries” rand al’thor: a summary

rand looks like such a confused, scared puppy after the exorcism, i just wanna wrap him in blankets!

i wonder if the rand-moiraine convo was filmed post-barney’s-departure in order to set up the whole “moiraine not trying too hard to grab mat through the waygate since she thinks he’d choose the shadow if he was the dragon and went to the eye” thing. i think it probably had to be, or if it wasn’t, then they unintentionally set that up perfectly!

prayer circle for Elayne Bath Scenes in future seasons. they are an integral part of her character and of my enjoyment of the story!

i love the contrast between rand (and nynaeve) hiding out for days trying to avoid moiraine and keep her from finding out mat has something weird going on vs. egwene telling her all about perrin’s eyes and the wolves as soon as she sees her. really illustrates the different levels of trust they have in moiraine specifically and sets up that growing divide in their levels of trust of aes sedai in general.

no life, no love of one’s own, nothing but the seat.................the amyrlin not being allowed to date in the show verse has fascinating and delicious implications for gawene!! not to MENTION that “a wisdom never weds” and egwene having to choose between her personal and professional desires right off the bat in 1x01 now becomes foreshadowing. i think that this change (if i’m right in interpreting that line as meaning it is Genuinely Forbidden for amyrlins to have romantic relationships?) will be another instance of adding more weight and depth to a character/relationship. i personally always enjoyed egwene and gawyn’s relationship struggles and found both sides sympathetic, but i know most of you think gawyn is just being a brat about his girlfriend having more power than him (but that’s not true okay! it’s HARD to date the wizard pope!), so if this layer were to be added, wherein gawyn is not only struggling with dating the wizard pope but also with the fact that he can only have a relationship with her if he keeps it a secret from everybody, it would bolster up his side of the conflict because that WOULD be a lot for egwene to ask of him. just as her putting her job at risk to have that secret relationship would be a lot for him to ask of her. and so it will be all the more romantic when they both decide fuck it let’s make this work!

ok here ends my homophobic moment of making a moiraine/siuan scene all about egwene/gawyn, sorry everybody (no i’m not, i fucking love gawene man)

egwene looking at the amyrlin seat!!!!!! 😭❤️

still can’t get over the PERFECT acting that is egwene’s face journey during “you’re the strongest channeler we’ve seen in a thousand years..............nynaeve al’meara” djfkgj iconic!! i love her your honor!! and nynaeve is also perfect in this scene!

really curious to see how moiraine’s exile oath will come into play later! that’s the joy of the show inventing new plotlines, we readers still have fun surprises waiting for us! although i suppose moiraine never goes anywhere close to tar valon in the books again, so it may not be relevant anyway.

haha now i can see why people fussed about the oath rod being used for this purpose and wondered what the fuck the teleportation painting is and how it works (a ter’angreal whose original intended purpose is unknown, i assume), but i just do not care about lore/magic system rules and will never mind the show bending rules or inventing new ones, for the most part. i guess the abusing of the oath rod - i.e. it being used for something besides the 3 oaths and only the 3 oaths - does become important later in the books, but christ alive i hope they cut the black ajah hunters subplot from the show.

moiraine going “at first i didn’t trust you, but now that i know you, i...............[changes the subject]” is SO iconic jkdjfgh

me @ certain readers re: the opening of waygates: SHUT UP ABOUT AVENDESORA LEAVES!!! SHUT UP ABOUT AVENDESORA LEAVES!!!

who caaaaaaaaaares if channeling can also open waygates. i literally didn’t even remember about the leaves in the books until i saw people complaining about their absence in the show recently. and waygates are barely relevant after book 2 anyway! plus, rafe did say that the leaves opening waygates is still canon in the show and will likely be shown in s2.

baby rand’s anguished little face when he realizes mat stayed behind!!!! i’ll never get over it!!!!!

and [perrin watching the ferryman voice] he’s gone

even after having read the books, i have 0 problem with mat dipping here. a) the actor left so What Else could they do, and this was a very smooth way to write him out of the last 2 episodes all things considered. they unintentionally set it up really well in earlier episodes with mat wanting to return home to his sisters, especially 3 and the convo with dana. my coworker who watched the show but hadn’t read the books was surprised when i explained this behind the scenes info to him because mat staying behind came off like a planned plot beat to him. b) it will make even more sense if they say in season 2 that mat’s still connected to the dagger and it was drawing him back to tar valon to find it. c) so what if mat isn’t the perfect “hero who says he’s not a hero but always does the right thing” already in s1? this will give him an opportunity for character development! which it sounds like they are indeed going for in s2 based on donal’s comments about mat’s s2 character arc. and d) eotw mat is a little bitchboy who absolutely would have dipped if moiraine and/or rand hadn’t kept him on a toddler leash at all times.

1x07 cold open!!!!! incredible showstopping spectacular!!!!! absolutely the best action sequence of the season and one of the best scenes overall. it sets the bar SO HIGH for aiel as warriors, and i absolutely can’t wait to see more in future seasons. imagine ayoola as aviendha fighting like that...........i am so ready to thirst 🥵

and i love what a repudiation of the Martyred Mother Of The Chosen One trope tigraine is. she is in the books too, i suppose, but actually seeing her fight onscreen and die violently of battle wounds rather than pass away beautifully and tragically in childbirth hits different than reading it.

people who complained about her not being veiled the whole time are so silly. if anything, it’s actually MORE impactful to see that rule broken here - she had her veil off, she didn’t want to fight, she was just looking for a safe place to give birth, and her attackers gave her no choice but to keep on fighting without even having time to pull her veil back up.

rand’s inner Mat Stan #1 comes out in full force!! his “he wants to fuck mat so bad it makes him look stupid” episode! the way this episode served so much cauthor when mat wasn’t even in it! man, rand’s sense of abandonment by mat hurts so good. they trauma-bonded so hard while traveling alone together for all that time and then mat LEFT and rand feels adrift!!!

rand vs. moiraine and egwene re: mat in this episode is literally “you don’t know all the facts” “which are?” “i love him” bless his HEART!!!!!! it’s giving “oh, mat kidnapped you, seanchan empress? well, i’m sure he had a good reason.”

i looooooove the change to machin shin! give me personalized psychological torment that sheds light on each character’s deepest insecurities over generic spooky talk of blood and gore any day! and of course it ends up being a really good vehicle for the reveal of rand being tdr.

egwene gifted child impostor syndrome you are so important to me!!!!!

nynaeve apeshit power blasts you are so important to me!!!!! i’ve watched the season 3 times by now and every single time i tear up both at this one and the episode 4 one.

amalisa’s tower backstory was a great addition! it tells us a bit more about how the tower works, hinting that becoming a full aes sedai is difficult and lots of women try but aren’t cut out for it, and also sets her up to have enough experience to lead the circle in the next episode, but also too little experience to keep from getting power-drunk and burning herself and the other women out.

“there is a man they must find. a boy, really.” you didn’t have to come for mat’s life like that moiraine djkfjg you’re already siccing the red ajah on him! i am SO excited to see where this plotline goes. i think it’s pretty safe to say that mat will have a traumatic experience at the hands of the reds (and we know from descriptions of that scene they’ve been showing at cons that at least part of his time at the tower is spent in a cell and suspecting that liandrin wants to kill him) and this will inform his fear of the power, which is a crucial aspect of his character, but one that i always felt was NOT sufficiently explained in the books, at all. like yeah, the power would be scary to any non-channeler, but no one else makes it a whole personality trait like mat does lmao. bonus points if moiraine sending the reds after him is learned by rand and becomes a wedge of mistrust between him and moiraine, since by the end of 1x08 he has a much more trusting and positive attitude towards her than he ever does in books 1-5.5, and it would probably be important for both character arcs that the mistrust be maintained in the show (tho i would also love if they just did not do that and had them be mentor-mentee besties for the next few seasons. a girl can dream!)

“what is it? mat?” egwene notices that rand’s upset and, despite the fact that they all went through psychological torment an hour ago, her FIRST thought is that he’s upset because of mat leaving 🥺 matrandgwene V (with rand in the middle and sibling-spouses mat and egwene) is SUCH a good polycule actually

min.........................................................

brace yourself for a long rambling section!

min is 10000000000000% my BIGGEST regret about reading the books! she is so cool and funny and chill and respectful of other people’s privacy in the show, and my opinion of her was neutral to positive, and then the books made me despise her! and i’m fairly confident that most of the things i most hate about her in the books will not be a thing in the show (her changing herself for rand and insisting on dressing in a way she finds uncomfortable but thinks he would find sexy (and she never realizes that he already liked her the way she used to dress and behave), her possessiveness of him and unwillingness to share when elayne and avi are totally selfless and onboard, her using her viewing to bully them into letting her have a piece of their pie (to use her own gross metaphor), the way she puts way less effort into setting up the polycule than elayne and avi do yet gets to reap all the rewards while they get almost no time with rand, her utter lack of storyline, character arc, personality, interests, or goals outside of Being Rand’s Girlfriend, etc etc etc) and so i most likely would never ever have had a problem with show!min if i’d never read the books.

that being said, i still don’t have a problem with show!min - when i sit back and enjoy her scenes in a vacuum. but the second that thoughts of book!min start worming their way into my mind, i become arthur clenching fist meme djkfjg luckily, this min is so vastly different from my detested book!min that it’s pretty easy to separate the two *while i’m watching*. once i stop watching and go back to my regularly scheduled programming WOT Thoughts, book!min takes over again and i hate the character again. i’m really hoping that by the time min becomes a bigger player in the show, it’ll have been long enough since i read the books that show!min will be able to take over as my mind’s primary min - show!perrin already went right back to being my mind’s primary perrin (and many/most other characters too, but using perrin as the example since i disliked him in the books but am fond of him in the show), so hopefully the same will happen with show!min when we have her for more than 3 scenes. of course, i had significant enough show!perrin screentime before meeting his book counterpart that he was able to maintain a hold on me throughout, and i never HATED book!perrin like i hate book!min, mostly just found him annoying/boring.

going along with the min and perrin comparisons, i saw a good post once explaining how show!perrin is the person that book!perrin claims to be but isn’t i.e. genuinely thoughtful and slow to act, while book!perrin claims he is but then often blurts out other people’s secrets and flies off the handle, etc. and the narrative doesn’t really feel intentional about this disconnect between How Perrin Sees Himself and How Perrin Actually Behaves in the same way that it does for mat and nynaeve. the same is true for book!min. she claims to be a mature and worldly woman, a jaded city slicker, someone who minds her own business and never spills other people’s business around, someone far too sensible to throw her life away and become a fool for a man. but in reality, book!min is a fairly naive and inexperienced girl from a tiny backwater “city” (large town) who constantly blabs other people’s secrets and shares viewings about a person with people who aren’t that person and starts acting like a 14-year-old with her first boyfriend once she decides to pursue rand and gives up her entire life to follow him around and curl her hair and dress “sexy” for him. and the narrative never acknowledges this disconnect.

show!min, though? she hits every point on the first list in reality, not just in her own head. she is actually a mature and worldly woman from a big city (and she comes off as enough older/more mature than rand that her going “but he’s too young for me!” would actually be believable, unlike book!min who’s like 2 years older than him and way less mature), she’s a jaded and sensible customer service worker who is Done With Your Shit, and there’s no way THIS min would sacrifice every scrap of her own dignity just to get rand to sleep with her. there is also no way that rand will be her first time having sex, that was one of the most unbelievable parts of the books lmao rj’s own No Sex Until Marriage (or until you’re with the person who will end up being your life partner) cultural underpinnings came through too strongly for every single character except mat. anyway, show!min even says “people’s secrets are their business, no one else’s” when the gang goes into the bar in 1x08 to ask her what she told moiraine about rand and then actually holds her ground and succeeds in not telling them anything, and i was like wow book!min could Never!! and unless i’m misunderstanding her later scene with rand, she actually did know that he was tdr (or at least the ~Special One~ moiraine was looking for) in that first scene but DID NOT TELL moiraine and instead waited for rand to come to her on his own so she could tell him in private and let HIM decide what to do with the information. book!min could never!

and the fact that Certain Readers whined about her casting and claimed that she’s ~too old~ and ~not hot enough~ (and not white enough lbr) already tells me that the show is taking her in the right direction, i.e. they’re not just gonna go for Sexy Lamp Hero’s Girlfriend Min using the most conventionally attractive (but still Tomboyish And Not Like Other Girls, In A Sexy Way) actress they could find. and thank god for that!! kae alexander brings so much more personality to min in 3 scenes than she ever had in 14 books, and she is so HOT god! if the show can make ME thirsty for min and make certain book!min lovers complain that she isn’t hot, then you know it’s doing something right!

it’s probably the queer vibes that are turning me onto her and certain straight male book!min lovers off of her, isn’t it lmao book!min is arguably more painfully heterosexual than book!perrin (at least he has the occasional mildly homoerotic moment with rand) but show!min gives off IMMENSE queer vibes. i could definitely see the show making her date elayne and/or avi in addition to rand! (and of course elayne and avi dating each other is basically a guarantee.) i also am 90% sure i remember rafe saying something about “people with no gender” in the context of romance and queer relationships in the show (i think it was the q&a where avi’s casting was revealed) which made me wonder if we could perhaps get canon nonbinary min? although i think she’s referred to as a woman in these episodes. still, maybe she could have a lil arc where being forced to be elmindreda in the tower makes her realize Why she’s so uncomfortable with wearing dresses and being treated as female. who knows! this is just wild speculation on my part, but i so would love to see it.

okay so WHAT IS THIS RAND BABY VIEWING????? that does Not look like a randlayne or avirand baby!!! that better not be a rand/min baby!!! i find it incredibly hard to believe that the show, with its progressive attitudes, would pull THIS level of Babies Ever After, by making one of the few women who doesn’t end up having babies or ever show much interest in having babies in the books (bar a couple “oooooh i wonder if rand will knock ME up too!” comments that always felt forced and ooc to me) end up having a baby. my only hesitation is that if they were to split the polycule up into rand/min and elayne/avi, then maaaaaybe min might get the Dragon Reborn’s Babymama arc? but i do have a very hard time seeing the show go that route (esp since the 3 women viewing and the blueprint of alanna’s polycule and rafe’s comments about polyamory in the show seem to be a preeeeeetty good indicator that he’s intending to keep the polycule, though i won’t FULLY stop being nervous until i see it with my own eyes lmao) and elayne’s pregnancy is pretty important to HER arc, specifically, in large part due to the viewing making her take bigger risks (and one could also argue that her pregnancy is politically important during the succession in that it gives her the stability of having heirs already on the way), so i don’t think they could/would cut that or give it to min instead. but if not a rand/min baby, then what the fuck is that baby viewing all about???? i remember on one of my book recaps somebody speculated that it’s a Metaphorical rand/min baby, i.e. it’s the viewing that tells min she’s going to fall in love with rand, but the baby is just a symbol of their future romantic connection rather than a literal baby that they’re going to have together. i could buy that! though i think if that was indeed the intention, it could lead to a lot of false expectations from viewers that rand is gonna knock up min at some point. or maybe the baby is a metaphorical baby that has nothing to do with any of rand’s love interests? hit me with your baby viewing interpretations!

speaking of min’s viewings, it’s interesting that they seem to be much more abundant here than in the books - she has multiple quips about how she knew someone was about to come into the bar. of course, they could just be quips, but at least one of them (when she says “you’re gonna want to move” to a patron just before the gang storms in in episode 8) does seem to be a genuine glimpse of the future, as that patron has no idea about her gift, unlike moiraine and rand, so she wouldn’t be making a joke to him about it. it could also be just some small, comedic dialogue meant more for the audience, just to illustrate that Hey, She Can See The Future, rather than a real indication that she is actually having THAT many viewings. i will keep an eye on this in future seasons!

and we get to The Fight!!!!! time to pull up the diagram i made upon first watch of that scene, which i still stand by and can’t wait to add to when more characters enter the mix (my only edit is that mat is Definitely in love with perrin, not just maybe a little bit):

marcus rutherford, you did NOT have to get right up in josha’s face and stare at his mouth while saying “the only WOMAN i’ve ever loved was my wife,” but you did and we’re all grateful for it. inspired.

also rand goes to BAT for mat here, damn okay!!! he is like “egwene you’re my girlfriend but you do NOT talk shit about my boyfriend”! he just comes out with a whole ass essay about how wonderful mat is when literally nobody asked! in all seriousness, this is, of course, rand projecting about a hell of a lot of things. but also he loves mat.

on a rewatch, there were definitely signs in 1x01 that perrin had a crush on egwene, although i didn’t pick up on them at all during my first watch. and while i remember being initially disappointed and annoyed that they pulled this twist when i’d been so enjoying perrin and egwene as a rare example of a deep but purely platonic m/f relationship, i think that the fallout of the fight goes on to show that it’s really Not That Big A Deal and wasn’t intended to be. when rand and egwene are making up, they immediately brush the perrin situation aside - it wasn’t even remotely the real reason that either of them were upset during that scene. then in the next episode, perrin shows no jealousy of egwene saying she loves rand and even says that he loves him too, and the two of them have a making up moment that’s just as sweet and platonic as all their past interactions were. at most, i think perrin had a teenage crush on egwene and perhaps was initially with laila to get over her, but grew to truly love laila in a deeper way than he’d ever felt for egwene, but laila still knew about the crush and felt jealous (she does say “i know” when perrin tells her he loves her and to me it felt like she was being truthful, like she really does know that perrin really does love her and she acknowledges that but can’t help feeling jealous anyway), and so of course perrin would feel guilty about it and laila’s death compounded that guilt. tldr: perrin’s crush on egwene did exist at one point or does still exist, but it’s a small background piece of his guilt over laila’s death and on its own is almost as unimportant to him as it is to egwene and rand.

that hysterical and angry and hurt and tearful laugh josha does in this scene? boy oh boy, i can’t wait to see him take on taint-influenced rand!

what’s more iconic than nynaeve stirring up drama between the other three and then peacing out to go get some dick? queen shit! good for her!

hilarious that on first watch i was like “aww i wish it had been a slower burn” when lanaeve slept together and then i read the books and it turns out their eotw pacing makes their s1 pacing look glacial

but i’m glad they fucked and that the show did away with nynaeve’s shame surrounding sex! it broke my heart in WH when she had some thought about how she was too embarrassed to talk to HER OWN HUSBAND about sex or something like that. and the show very much can still do the arc of lan trying to push her away For Her Own Good even though they’ve already had sex - in fact, that will make lan’s guilt over ~giving into temptation~ and giving nynaeve false hope for a future together and nynaeve’s hurt and frustration over him pushing her away hit all the harder.

randgwene my beloveds 😭😭😭 “i will always stand by you, you know that. no matter what happens. no matter what comes.” 😭😭😭😭 i am going to make so many randgwene in s1 vs. later seasons gifsets someday, i just know it.

rand: do you think i’d let someone else be your warder? gawyn:

i love that we never see nynaeve with one fewer stitch of clothing, but the post-coital scene opens on her rebraiding her hair, and for her that’s an even greater indication of past intimacy (and of now putting her walls back up) than seeing her redressing.

obligatory #RandThirstposting for that shot of him getting out of bed

dragonmount is still a fun mystery for show-onlys! or i, at least, was like “rand remembers that mountain so that means he’s TDR................wait but he was a baby??? how does he remember the mountain??” the dragonmount + LTT connection (and the extent to which rand shares LTT’s memories) is still to come!

min was “a kid” when she saw tam in tar valon and had a viewing of him finding baby rand (her first ever viewing), so show!min must be somewhere in the range of 6-12 years older than rand. we love to see it!!! i am always relentlessly asking for more older woman/younger man romances in media (and like i mentioned above, even now when they’re both adults, min does look like/vibe like she’s a fair bit older than him, which i love)

tigraine’s face when tam puts his sword down and offers his hand 😭😭😭😭😭 i choke up every time!!! that actress was so absolutely fantastic without having a single line of dialogue. and i really love the change of tam being there and helping her in her final moments and perhaps giving her reassurance that her baby will be safe, rather than her having to give birth alone and die alone thinking her baby will also die alone in the snow, and tam just stumbles across them later.

and we get the 3 beautiful women viewing, which rand thinks is a joke but we know isn’t. (unless they’re splitting the polycule into 2 monogamous ships and it’ll turn out this line was just a comedic easter egg a la mat claiming he was a horse trader, which his dad actually is in the books but isn’t in the show. but that would be extremely cruel of them, not to mention they would know they were deliberately setting people up to have false expectations for a major plotpoint, so i have to believe it’s a legitimate viewing.) i really hope that min does NOT share this viewing with elayne or aviendha in the show (or rand, tho i don’t think he ever learns about it in the books anyway), or at least not until the 4 of them are already in a relationship and then she can go “haha guys i actually foresaw that this would happen!” and they can all laugh about it. but in the books, as i mentioned above, i hated how it felt like min was using this viewing to bully elayne into letting her make a move on elayne’s boyfriend when she went to caemlyn with the embassy, and in general, i felt the viewing was used as too much of a crutch for rj to get the polycule together. even worse, it wasn’t actually necessary because he already had a much better way to make it happen - one polycule member comes from a culture that practices polyamory and thus can explain the concept to the other members and get them onboard with it - baked into the story and just used the viewing instead, mostly. it would feel so much better if the 4 of them come to an arrangement on their own terms because they actually want to, and because aviendha explained to them that this type of relationship is possible, rather than just because min said fate said so.

on the other hand, min fighting fate re: falling in love with rand is the only semblance of a character arc she has, so they’ll probably keep it in the show (and hopefully do more with it and have her eventual coming to fall in love with rand against her better judgment feel natural, like aviendha’s arc, rather than her just randomly changing her mind one day and deciding to throw herself at rand with all she’s got) and i’m not sure how else they could make the audience aware that min has had this viewing if not by having her tell another character about it. hmmmmm. i guess they could have her complaining about it to unconscious rand like at the end of TGH.

maybe the third beautiful woman is actually egwene, maybe the viewing is about rand’s past and future girlfriends. here’s how min/rand can still lose-

actually now that i say it, egwene in the polycule is a fascinating idea...........i remember that the egwene/rand/elayne vibes were really strong in TGH/TDR! egwene was constantly thinking about how pretty elayne is! and when they met bain and chiad, egwene was all blushy about the thought of sharing rand with elayne in bed! and she has good chemistry with aviendha in TSR/TFOH. and she and mat would be excellent sibling-spouses. and gawyn obviously needs to get fucked by rand. it all works! i feel like the show’s strengthening of randgwene is gonna make egwene/rand/elayne into another “ship i wouldn’t have thought too much about in the books but is fire in the show” next season. i can’t wait!

nynaeve apologizing voluntarily for her own wrongdoing! her and egwene joking about sex! book!nynaeve is shaking!

I’ve Read All 14 Books And I Still Don’t Understand Why Readers Hated 1x08 So Much, And At This Point I’m Too Afraid To Ask

even when people are generously like “oh it was only because it was hindered so much by covid” i’m like i didn’t even notice any sort of quality drop?? it’s just as good as the other 7 episodes to me?? maybe it’s my show-first blinders still on too strongly (i do remember that after the episode aired it felt like there was a sharp divide between most show-onlys loving it and most readers hating it)

lews therin is SO hot!! jesus christ!! no wonder all the forsaken have been obsessed with him for 3000 years! and i love how he has his baby in the room while he’s talking politics with a coworker, you never see that with male characters. i remember seeing a long time ago an excellent post about the show’s commitment to Men As Caretakers (this, mat with his sisters, rand with mat and his dreams of being a stay-at-home dad, lan with moiraine, etc). boy it’s gonna hurt in a future scene when we see LTT realize he killed that baby!

also very interesting to me that in our one scene of him thus far, he’s anchored in his connection to his child rather than to ilyena. this and rand’s own beefed up interest in having kids compared to how he was in the books gives me hope that elayne’s pregnancy will actually affect rand’s life in some way! “guy fated to die any day now finds out that he has babies on the way whom he’ll never get to meet” is probably one of the biggest Wasted Emotional Opportunities in the books (and there are A LOT).

“i love him, perrin” “so do i” ef4 polycule is REAL yall

i love rand asking moiraine if it was hard to leave lan behind, he’s trying so hard to bond with his mom and she shuts him down so fast

ugh daniel and zoe’s chemistry is so GOOD!!! i’m definitely predicting that nynaeve blaming moiraine for rand’s “death” will end up causing strain between her and lan and being one of the things that pushes them apart again for their mutual pining slowburn phase (in addition to lan wanting to push her away For Her Own Good)

ishamael: [reveals his actual face] rand and the audience: oh no he’s hot!

love that he just starts caressing rand’s face within 1 minute of meeting him, that really is the vibe in the books. also him pouting that lews therin is stupid in this age and not even TRYING to be a worthy archenemy! i love this actor so much, he brings a sort of playfulness to ishamael that’s so fun to watch. and that’s the essence of many of the forsaken, sure they’re villains but they’re Fun villains (unlike the whitecloaks and seanchan). can’t wait to see more of him and meet some of the others next season!

IS THIS FAT LITTLE MAN ANGREAL MY BELOVED?????? he doesn’t look especially fat, and moiraine says it’s a sa’angreal, but i’m choosing to believe it’s him!!!! i actually don’t remember at all where rand got him from in the books lmao not like i just read them or anything. did he get fat little man angreal from rhuidean, or was that the choedan kal?

nynaeve being unable to listen to the wind is because of her block oooooh i’m smart and know things now

haha i feel like on first watch i, like rand, didn’t entirely realize moiraine would be included in the “anyone who goes to the eye and isn’t the dragon will die” until they have that conversation now. she just felt invincible to me! i love her fond little “oh my stupid son” look when he tries to tell her to stay behind.

okay so WHAT is the deal with the eye in the show verse???? all along i assumed that the characters are correct in saying this is the dark one’s prison and that the show got rid of shayol ghul altogether and moved the prison here, but then more recently i saw readers all saying that show!eye is actually just a seal and and not the prison itself. so is that true and people in-universe just...........don’t know that shayol ghul exists? bc iirc moiraine pretty definitively says that the eye is the dark one’s prison. how would she not know about shayol ghul??? one instance where i am now MORE confused after having read the books than i was upon first watch lmao

so, okay, it would make sense if they think the eye is the dark one’s prison and they’re sealing it up but it turns out it’s actually only a seal which ishamael tricked them into breaking, and i think they only decided to go to the eye in ep 6 when siuan had a dream saying moiraine had to bring the dragon there, so maybe ishamael planted that dream to trick them into coming to the eye and breaking the seal? but HOW WOULD MOIRAINE NOT KNOW THAT THE PRISON IS ACTUALLY AT SHAYOL GHUL????? i was really gunning for them to have gotten rid of shayol ghul completely (it always felt like a mordor knockoff to me) and made the eye the prison, because it would be such a fabulous full circle moment if rand came back here to fight TDO in the last episode of the last season.

rand’s dream life 😭😭😭 the lighting!! he is such a soft sunshine baby!! hair glowing in a conveniently placed light source!! the lord of the morning!!

and the actual baby is THE cutest baby i’ve ever seen in my entire life oh my god

and rand HOLDING the baby??? smiling at her??? +10000 psychic damage. #RandThirstposting. i think that every season should include rand holding a baby, as fanservice to me specifically. rand holding babies, shirtless rand, and elayne bath scenes are all i need out of this show.

ishamael concocting the most tempting situation for rand he can think of: oh and i’ll make sure he knows specifically that mat is around and an integral part of his life, that’ll do the trick

the real answer is probably that mat’s presence in particular is important to rand right now due to how shaken he is by mat’s abandonment. but also, rand is in love with him and wants him to be his spouse and co-parent right along with egwene. matrandgwene truthers rise!

what do you guys think this dream stuff is? like, how is ishamael doing it? is it some kind of TAR or dreamshard shit (i did not understand dreamshards in the books lmao) or is it like an actual manipulating of the pattern into showing possible futures the way the dark one and rand do in AMOL?

me on first watch: this has felt like such an equal society all along, why would they suddenly decide that only the men are in the army here and the women stay behind to protect the city? so annoying

me on this watch: wow, look at the women actually wearing armor and loading weapons! incredible! the books could never!

it IS still annoying though, i really don’t know why they decided to keep that one relic of book worldbuilding when all the stupid Women Can’t Be Soldiers stuff was eschewed everywhere else in the season.

“how can we sit here and do nothing” “i’m standing” ICONIC!!!!!! top 10 loial moments. actually every single line loial has is a top 10 loial moment.

moiraine cradling rand in her lap a la mary cradling jesus in the pieta statue, except she’s holding a knife to his neck, CHEF’S KISS

people really got pressed when agelmar died? i could not care less about that dude. and i’m all for cutting down on the number of military general characters lmao there’s way too many in the books (i think it should be only bashere and mat in the show, and MAYBE bryne only because he’s important to egwene’s and especially gawyn’s arcs, but NO ituralde)

people getting pressed that a circle of 5 or 6 women, two of whom are extremely strong in the power and one of whom (the one leading the circle) has received a good deal of formal training, were able to take out the entire trolloc army by themselves But having no problem whatsoever with the book version of a single man who has absolutely no clue what the fuck he is doing being able to take out the entire trolloc army by himself - misogyny, plain and simple!

even so, thankfully most people i’ve seen have agreed that it was good that the show split up the eotw final battle stuff so that non-rand characters could have something to do. and rand has many many power blasts in his future, i’m A-okay with him losing this one! especially since it felt like a symptom of rj not knowing exactly where he was going or how many books he was going to write and rand’s power levels/ability thus being repeatedly adjusted and retconned throughout the early books.

i looooooove josha’s acting while rand is channeling, you can see so clearly both the ecstasy and the taint of saidin affecting him (and it makes you believe that he really MIGHT go mad with power and break the dark one’s chains rather than strengthen them)

WHAT ABOUT WHAT SHE WANTS!!!!!!!!!! KING ICON LEGEND STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

the way this perfectly parallels his final book confrontation with the dark one when he gives up a seemingly ideal future because it takes away the agency of the people involved 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 given what a Theme agency and lack thereof is in rand’s overall arc, i love that that seed is planted early on here.

here we have rand giving up his dream life with a wife and a baby and a cozy home because a) it’s not what egwene would want and b) he has a more important duty to the world that must come first. so if the final episode of the show doesn’t end with rand cozy in caemlyn with his wives and babies, finally getting to have that dream life for real now that his duty to the world is complete, i WILL riot!!!!!

back to the circle, which seems to be the most hated aspect of this episode. as i said above, hating that they’re able to destroy the whole army is just plain misogyny. it’s book canon that a circle of multiple channelers is extremely powerful, and amalisa has tower training, and we saw in TGS that a circle of novices led by one trained aes sedai can do serious damage (doubly so when you consider that nynaeve and egwene’s power levels seem to have been bumped up in the show so that they’re unusually powerful for any channeler rather than only unusually powerful For A Girl - and hating that is, again, misogyny - and thus amalisa basically has the power of two nuclear bombs at her disposal).

second, people in the circle can get killed against their will if the leader draws too much from them. this is obviously a change from book lore, and i absolutely love it! circles are super OP in the books yet bizarrely underused, so adding in this huge counterbalance and high risk makes it make sense that channelers don’t just whip out a massive circle all the time to solve all their problems. it will also lend a ton more credence to women being afraid to link with men and vice versa later in the series, and make the level of trust on display when they do link together that much stronger (also, the show had better get rid of “only men can lead mixed gender circles” or SO HELP ME GOD lmao). and just think of how much tenser the cleansing of saidin will be when there’s a real risk that rand might draw too much from nynaeve and kill her and she wouldn’t be able to drop out of the circle to prevent him from doing so!!! and honestly, now that i think about it, it doesn’t even make sense that this isn’t a thing in the books? if anyone can kill themselves by drawing too much, why would a circle create a magic barrier to prevent someone else drawing too much from them, when no such thing exists for somebody channeling on their own?

and finally, egwene healing nynaeve from the brink of death when egwene isn’t supposed to be good at healing with the power. this complaint, i can see now that i’ve read the books, but i still just don’t really care idk it doesn’t bother me. i know this scene was hugely affected by covid restrictions (rafe said that the plan was for egwene to heal nynaeve with herbs/cpr and her wisdom training, and they didn’t find out until the day of shooting that the actresses weren’t allowed to get close enough to make that happen) and so i cut it tons of slack for that, and also, god knows eotw is full of ideas and occurrences that ended up being dropped or contradicted altogether later in the series as rj figured stuff out while he went along, so i don’t mind at all if the show going forward just ignores that this happened haha and they could also explain retroactively that nynaeve wasn’t that badly hurt (her burning makeup IS way less drastic than amalisa’s and the other women’s who were actually killed) and thus it didn’t actually require all that much skill in power healing from egwene. there’s a very clear visual contrast between egwene’s small wisp of power here and nynaeve’s blinding power blast earlier, so little risk of people mistakenly thinking that egwene is just as strong in healing as nynaeve is. egwene’s healing here looks more equivalent to kerene’s, a green with presumably no particular skill/strength in healing.

very interested in how the hunt for the horn will go down! from what little tidbits we’ve seen from s2, it seems it’s just going to be perrin and loial while rand and mat are doing their own thing. i would love for perrin to be the one to blow the horn since he needs more to do and in the books mat doesn’t even blow it at the last battle so what does it matter, but i’m sure they’ll probably find a way for mat to be the one to blow it at falme anyway.

and rand enacts his plan to wander off and let his friends think he’s dead! every time i think of the “babygirl you don’t even know how roads work” world heritage post.

i can’t WAIT to see the others react to this in the next season!!!!! will they believe moiraine, or will they see through her careful phrasing of only ever saying “he’s gone” rather than “he’s dead”? will they think he’s dead for the entire season until they run into him at falme in the finale (at least i’m assuming that will be the structure and tear and callandor will be pushed to a later season) or will they find out within a couple episodes? will mat cross paths with rand before or after learning about his alleged death and him being TDR?

i’m especially curious about the randgwene trajectory. by the end of the season, we’ve had a switch - rand is the one accepting that he can’t have a future with egwene and letting go of that dream, while egwene has decided that she doesn’t want to leave him behind (although i think in their 1x07 convo she’s probably trying to convince herself that being with rand and being aes sedai can coexist but knows that they can’t really). egwene thinking he’s dead and going through that pain will make a Gentle Falling Out Of Love process much more difficult. on the other hand, when she finds out he’s still alive and made her think he was dead on purpose, maybe she’ll be so mad that she’s like “okay we’re broken up for good i’m over you” djkjfg i do think that by the time they reunite it’s likely they’ll go for the angle of, they’ve both changed too much and they recognize right away they don’t fit together anymore and never can, but it will be a much more emotionally complicated breakup than the book version. particularly since according to book timeline, this should be when rand is getting together with egwene’s best friend! what’s gonna happen with randlayne in the show!!!! i would love love love love for elayne to join the waste crew (so much bonding time with rand AND avi!) since the tanchico plotline is mostly about nynaeve vs. moghedien and elayne isn’t strictly needed for that, and then elayne can go to salidar later with egwene and meet up with nynaeve there for the trips to ebou dar and caemlyn, but it feels pretty unlikely that they’d pull her out of the tanchico plotline and make that just a nynaeve solo roadtrip.

also, the implications these randgwene changes have for gawene! i assume they’ll meet at the white tower, which would be the perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork for their romance (an opportunity the books just completely wasted), but egwene grieving rand at the time will complicate that. perhaps in a good way! i could see gawyn being smitten with her right away but keeping it to himself since he knows that’s not what she needs or wants right now and instead choosing to be a good and supportive friend to her. maybe they establish a nice platonic emotional connection next season that will then develop into a romance when they see each other again later on. another couple that definitely needs more time together early in the series but i’m hard pressed to think of a way to make that happen (since gawyn being left behind at the tower and not knowing where egwene and elayne are is a pretty integral part of his arc). i suppose they could dial back their LOC-era romance into only the beginnings of a spark and a flirtation and save their actual getting together for TGS era since they do spend a lot of time together in the last 3 books, and maybe gawyn defecting to egwene’s army will happen a lot earlier in the show if he’s given significant screentime every season rather than only appearing in 1 prologue scene per book (if that) from books 7-11 lmao

i was editing this post right before i went to bed last night and then i had a dream that i was watching s2 and show!gawyn sucked 😭 i don’t remember what was wrong with him but i remember being heartbroken haha manifesting that NOT to happen next season! it will certainly be interesting to now be in the position of anxiously waiting to see how my beloved book blorbos turn out onscreen rather than just tuning in and meeting my screen blorbos fresh with no prior knowledge of them.

SO glad that the girls are ta’veren in the show. “it’s more empowering for their accomplishments to be their own rather than the pattern influencing stuff” and yet somehow a good chunk of the readers who claim that are also the same ones celebrating the boys’ accomplishments at the expense of egwene’s 🤔 and the girls DO have plenty of ta’veren things happen to them in the books, they’re constantly having unlikely coincidences, people blurting out things they wouldn’t normally say around them, etc. i’m curious how ta’veren will be portrayed in the show, i feel like some of the more obvious “ta’veren is just an in-world lore excuse for Everything Happens To The Protagonists” instances could come off kinda corny in the show haha but we’ll see!

so there definitely IS a seal at the eye that cracked, but is that all the eye is? or is that one big seal on the floor just like the Final Boss seal that will progressively get more and more cracked as the small individual seals get destroyed, and the dark one really is imprisoned here at the eye? or ooooh maybe the eye IS a prison, but for the FORSAKEN rather than for the dark one, hence moiraine’s misinformation that the dark one is also imprisoned here?

the seanchan aesthetic here and in the s2 sneak previews is fantastic. i really like how colorful they are, avoiding the “villains all in black” visual cliche and instead going crazy over the top, as the seanchan should be. and the mouth coverings on the damane is a very chilling touch! and i love that they’re speaking a different language, most unrealistic part of the books was the fact that apparently the whole entire world (not only every single country in the westlands, but also seanchan and shara) speaks the same language lmao i do get it for story convenience though, it’s hard to make anything happen if your characters can’t talk to each other. i wonder if it’s the old tongue they’re speaking in the show or a new made-up language. it would kinda vibe if they still spoke the old tongue since they’re so obsessed with preserving hawkwing’s legacy! (if hawkwing was even old tongue times? fuck me if i know anything about wotworld history)

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

Summary: Everyone's favorite Fuck Mothering Vampire takes a stroll through the Worm verse. Although this time, someone else is holding the leash.

Author: TDR

[sparklermun]

Good evening everyone, and welcome to night twenty-eight of the ninth annual Wreck-it Ralph Pin Post Month!

Tonight we have a special international pin. The TDR, Harmony in Color 40th Anniversary Set, Vanellope ONLY, Wreck-it Ralph pin. OE.

Another recent addition to the collection, this pin was released in July 2023 as apart of Tokyo Disneyland's 40th anniversary celebration in year. The set contains 13 pins featuring different Disney animated characters that participate in the Harmony in Color Parade, celebrating the park's anniversary. Interestingly, two methods were used in selling the pins of this set. The first being in Mystery Packets, where pins were sold individually but their identities were concealed. While the second method included the entire set positioned neatly together in a collectors box. This particular pin from the set features Vanellope Von Schweetz, standing beside her race kart with her arms crossed and an amused smile on her face.

For those with a keen eye, you may have noticed that Vanellope's kart looks different from the one she and Ralph built in their movie. That is because it is not actually her kart, but her parade float in the Harmony in Color Parade. In the parade she actually drives this float like her kart, while Ralph stands on a platform behind the kart's spoiler. A detail that can be seen on the pin in the form of a sandwich cookie just peeking out beneath the spoiler. Vanellope doesn't drive down the streets of Tokyo Disneyland alone, as in their section of the parade she shares the road with Woody and Buzz driving their RC car float. Seeing the two karts next to each other in the parade honestly makes me want to see them race, and discover who would win in a driving competition of toys verses video game characters. At the very least though we can imagine while watching them share the road together.

[rae-gar-targaryen]

like the inside jacket of any good novel [tdr-verse] [college!ez x reader]

A/N: In honor of the 2k sleepover, the wonderful @amorestevens may or may not have mentioned a hope for a lil drabble with our fav academic-turned-romantic rivals... Ezekiel and his literary love. So I decided to cobble together a bit of a blurb JUST for you! But is it ever just a blurb with me? ENJOY WHATEVER UNEDITED MESS THIS IS. Summary: They’re back by popular demand, and on a not-study study date. I’m tossing in one of the prompts from the list BECAUSE I CAN: “I know it’s 2 in the morning but do you want to…” Pairing: EZ Reyes x Reader (set in the College!AU of “Those Damned Romantics”)  Rating: T-ish with mentions of something more? After all, what is the inside jacket of a book but a bit of a tease as to what’s inside... ? Word Count: 1.3k HAHAHAA NOT A BLURB AND I AM DOOMED TO SUFFER. 

--

When was a study date not a study date? 

This isn’t a riddle -- there was a clear answer. The answer?

When said “study date” was with Ezekiel Reyes. When your pen and your notebook were tossed somewhere across the room, rather than beneath your hands, and the focus of your attention. When what was beneath your hands and what was the object of your attentions was the infuriatingly musclebound boy from your Lit Seminar. When, instead of his nose in a book it was nudging at the very center of you. When he had flipped your flashcards out of your hands in favor of slipping you out of your shirt. 

The two of you had progressed passed clandestine hookups in the library beyond the sight of others and progressed to ... well, whatever this was. Where you had gone from resting against his headboard with your book in your hands to ... well, you both could fit on the bed, so enough said.  To where the sight of you coming and going from his room in the baseball team’s house was not an uncommon one these days -- in plain view of god and Ezekiel’s teammates .... which, may have been everybody, as far as you were concerned. 

Speaking of studying -- you really had come over to review lit notes. You had a quiz on allegory on Monday, and if you couldn’t come up with examples from one of each of the books you’d read so far this term, you were sure to fail... 

And while you were determined to study the classics, Ezekiel was determined to study you. His dark eyes roved over you, as though they could see right through you. And maybe they could.

He spent every day in class reading the weighted words of the legendary romantics, eager to devour every word that would fill the pages of his own worldview, would allow him to gain an understanding of everything he felt, just what you meant to him. To give words to that which is otherwise wordless.

By nature of his major, spent his days studying. How to reason through every thought, every feeling … only to come up woefully, frustratingly short when he tried to describe what it meant to him to be with you. 

A poet who couldn't articulate, grasping at metaphorical straws that manifested themselves as blank pages, unable to find a deserving word. A philosopher bereft of reason, left to puzzle and ponder through hazy, menial mental smoke.

And there you were, the sun-goddess sent to shine a beacon of light to guide his way. His Sol, his Theia.

Amorous feelings, his Aphrodite. When had that happened?

It was cliche to say that there was a thin line between love and hate. But the two of you had drawn that line time and again, hadn’t you? Flirted with it? Jumped over it? Erased it and re-written it? What exactly were you now? 

Of course, Ezekiel thought, you were maddening. That was clear. But if you gave as good as you got, didn't that make you equals?

"If we’re talking allegory, then ... you're like Persephone,” EZ breathed between pecks, his lips focused in their path, an intentional line down the slope of your neck. “Freed from the underworld  to bless the Earth with new life. I can't imagine a corner of the world your warmth doesn't touch.”

You sighed as his tongue escaped from behind his lips to brush a particularly sensitive spot somewhere behind your ear. 

“Be careful, EZ,” you breathed. “That sounds an awful lot like love.” 

You had skated your fingers beneath his shirt to map the planes of his back. Fingers that had flipped their way through page after page of historical, eternal romance. So you knew it when you saw it, when you heard it, right?

“It’s not love,” Ezekiel broke away from your neck to look into your eyes. Was it a lie if he could look you in the eye while he said it?

“It’s not?” You challenged, raising your brow at him. “Well, it isn’t allegory, either. It’s simile,” your lips quirked a mean smirk. 

If he could be cruel with your feelings... it’s not as though you hadn’t shown you could give as good as you got. 

You gripped his chin between your thumb and your forefinger, wrapping your legs around his tapered waist just a bit tighter as you held him in position above you on his bed. Refusing to let his amber eyes leave yours...

"And if we’re going along with your simile, Ddes that make you my Hades? Eager to have me in your warmth, to be full of the life I would give? Does my warmth reach your heart, Ezekiel?” 

You rolled your hips beneath his as you spoke. What was that he had said some time before about you being a tease? Downright untrue, in your opinion. 

You were all smooth skin and warm promises beneath his weight … Ezekiel was starting to think he had no choice but to ache for you this time, delighting in the crack-and-flashes of heat he knew were shooting through your writhing body at his touch. Just his touch. 

He knew it was there, because he felt the heat, too. And what were the two of you, if not joined? Of one mind, and one body? 

But if at first it seemed like you were winning? He would lie, lie again. Deflect 

"I'm so under your skin, it's not even funny," he smirked, refusing to melt at your words as his heart was wont to do. 

But everything about Ezekiel was made for romance, sculpted by an after-hours, heartsick oracle. His eyes awash like oil swirling against candlelight, his long fingers beckoning you from within, and ahem, from within... luring you, to pray to him like a wrathful god waging war on your piteous heart.

And you would play the game. Taking Ezekiel’s wrist in your hands, rocking your hips to flip the two of you so that he was beneath you now. 

“Under my skin? You’re woefully unqualified to make that diagnosis,” you smarted, trailing both of your hands from Ezekiel’s waist across the rippled planes of his chest, coming to rest just beneath his collarbones, dipping your head down to brush your mouth along his. Just a slip of something sweet. 

"It doesn't cost you anything to be nice, ya know," EZ’s grip tightened on your hips, as if to scold you. 

You whipped your head up to meet his eyes, your grin wild, a flash of teeth.

"No? Just my time and patience, then, which I'm already woefully short on. Didn’t I come here to study?” 

You made to swing your leg over, to remove yourself from Ezekiel’s space. To retrieve your notes and some semblance of sanity. Away from this clouded heat that always seemed to overtake you whenever you were around Ezekiel. Like trying to peer through stained red glass.

“We are studying,” EZ’s grip didn’t waver, keeping you in place astride his hips. “Anatomy.” 

You rolled your eyes, smacking EZ’s chest with the barest swat of the back of your hand. Half-hearted. Unlike your actual heart. Which this stupid boy held in his stupid hands. 

“You’re corny,” you sighed. Ever (feigned, but never Ezekiel mind) exasperated. 

EZ’s lips split into his signature wide, million-watt grin. All too easy to win you over. Whose to say it wasn’t love? 

“I know it’s two in the morning, but would you want to ...” EZ gestured at the rumpled, empty space beside the both of you in his bed. 

“Stay?” You queried, batting your eyelashes. “Of course, Ezekiel. Who actually comes over at two to study?” 

Sure, the shrieking giggles you made as Ezekiel flipped the two of you again, attacking your neck with nuzzling brushes and tickling kisses, were a little undignified. Maybe so were the gasps that Ezekiel could rip from you with an insistent tongue and clever fingers -- but girl, dignity left a long time ago with this boy, didn’t it? 

---

We’re having a sleepover! Submit your requests here. 

Tagging: My fellow EZ/TDR beloveds @superhoeva @joannasteez @blessedboo @brattyfics @withmyteeth @isisafrofairy @thematthewmurdock @cinewhore @artsymaddie @diaryofkali @cyarikashakira @bendro-pascarnes @moonlight-prose @phoenixhalliwell @brattyfics @luxurybeskar @justanotherblonde23 @kijahslove @flightlessangelwings @emmaveale123​

[kirantar0]

Some DRAMA-tic Spiders.

[marshunter06]

Seven- Taylor Swift (Duncney)

Mad love to @straighttxhell for inspiring this (: I know you said TDR verse duncney, but I couldn’t get main verse duncney out of my mind when I saw your post. Cross posted on ao3

It’s a wonder that Duncan turned out the way he did given the background he was born into. A family full of cops and he ends up being a rebellious teenager set on breaking the law. He never intended on choosing this path, but the world was corrupt and the justice system was a prime example. What was the point in following rules when money could buy a get out of jail free card? He’s seen it too many times to count, he still remembers the moment he gave up pretending to be innocent of the wrongs that would occur hidden behind closed doors,

It’s strange that he can’t quite recall the face of his best friend from the age of four to seven, but he can still feel the way she clutched at his shirt when he found her hiding out in the woods by herself. He can still picture the sunny skies overlooking the creek where they used to play, complete with a makeshift swing that he would try and convince her to jump down from into the waters with him already swimming about. Those were the memories he would smile fondly upon, just mere weeks before he realized looks can be deceiving.

It was the summer before she was set to move away, he wanted to give her a proper goodbye and ask her to keep in touch. Sure they had their differences, but she was his best friend, surely they could find a way to continue their friendship. He hears the shouts and broken glass first, he was a few steps away from the porch when she came darting out the front door running towards the forest. Her braids were neatly done up earlier when they had lunch together, he even complimented her on them, but her hair was blowing wildly in the wind when he found her crying by the shallow waters.

He calls her name, when their eyes meet, she couldn’t help it when she flung herself at him to seek some sort of comfort as he struggled to keep from bombarding her with questions as to what happened. He stayed quiet until she calmed down a bit, when he pulled back to look at her that’s when he noticed the giant bruise on her face, he couldn’t hold back his anger as he demanded to know how she got hurt.

“Duncan, it’s okay, I’m alright.”

“You got hit! Hard! Come with me, we’ll tell my parents and we can get the person who did this to you arrested.”

He starts to pull her back towards their neighbors, but she stops him. She didn’t need to speak, with the shake of her head and her slumped shoulders, he knew what she was trying to say. Still, she tells him that she had already tried to get help, but no one would listen. His world came crashing down, his parents are supposed to help protect people, but they failed at keeping this little girl from harm’s way. Maybe it was because she didn’t live with them, his parents couldn’t help because she has her own parents, yes that must be it.

“Come live with me, my mom loves you. We can just tell them your house is haunted, your dad is always mad, they would believe it! Then we could play pirates and go swimming everyday. You won’t ever need to cry or hide away again.”

“It’s not that simple Duncan.”

He doesn’t remember much more of that day, only that they decided to hold onto their innocence a little longer even though they knew they couldn’t go back after this revelation. They ran around playing hide and seek behind the trees, screaming at the top of their lungs pretending to be ferocious beasts with no fear just enjoying the rare warmth from the sun they hadn’t seen in days. He even offered to play dolls with her, but she had already packed them for the move. He does however learn how to braid her hair after they ran out of energy from making the most of their last day together. He barely remembers her shy smile as he carefully followed her instructions to mirror the braid she has already done up on the left side. He made sure to take extra care to not touch her bruise or tug too hard on her hair. When he was done, she gave him another hug to thank him.

Looking back on it now, he’s positive she was the first person he ever loved. Over the years as he begins to see the world in shades of grey rather than the black and white his parents programmed him to believe in, he still thinks of his childhood best friend. He hopes she’s doing alright out there, he hopes she’s far far away from the man who was supposed to shower her with unconditional love.

“You’re awfully quiet today.”

“There’s a lot on my mind Princess.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Only if you promise to keep it a secret.”

His tone was teasing, but his smile dropped when he finally turned over to look at her. Any other person would have missed the slight discoloration on her cheek, but he knew it was her attempt at covering up the abuse. She wasn’t the type to wear a lot of makeup, especially not around him. She freezes seeing his concerned gaze fixed on the one place she hoped he wouldn’t notice. Ever so gently he touches the tender spot on her face, she couldn’t hide her recoil, she’s never seen him this angry before.

“Who did this to you?”

She doesn’t answer him, she deserved the punishment, especially after losing out on the money after she promised she would get redemption this time. She frowns knowing she’s failed again, Duncan was going to find out her life wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. He’s going to leave her just like all the others.

“Courtney… did you ever…”

The words die on his lips as he finally makes the connection. The reason why he was so drawn to her when they first met on the island, why she was adamant on keeping her hair short, her constant need to prove herself, the evidence was right in his face and it took another mark on her face for him to see it. Without another word, he holds her wrapping his arms around her. She’s not sure how to react, but she feels safe in his arms, she remembers a familiar feeling once in her childhood though the memories are blurry. She almost missed his whispered promise, she clutches him tighter, just as she did ten years ago.

“I won’t let him hurt you anymore. Not this time.”

Love you to the Moon and to Saturn

Passed down like folk songs

The love lasts so long

[transkholins]

hey uh, throwback to 2019 when i made a rand fanmix. posting it because it can't hurt, but note that the track descriptions and song choices are all unedited.

. BLACKOUT — frank turner

but it’s not enough anymore

we can’t turn just around and close the door on the world

it’s asking uneasy questions

this one’s for winternight and the eye of the world. it’s the start of the world going to hell and being overwhelmed by the shadow (“are you afraid of the darkness?”), and it’s essentially rand against the world. he can’t just walk away from it— his house is attacked by trollocs, and the only option he has is to go with moiraine. he doesn’t really know what he’s up against, only that he’s up against something bad.

. HERO — family of the year

let me go

I don’t wanna be your hero

I don’t wanna be a big man

I just wanna fight with everyone else

this song’s all about not wanting to be a part of something big, just wanting a simple and easy life. at the beginning of the great hunt, rand really does not want to be the dragon reborn— I mean, who would? but it’s a role that he’s forced into, nonetheless. at his heart, he’s just a farmboy who wants to go home. moiraine kind of forces his destiny on him, not letting him postpone it or shove it aside. but at this point, he just doesn’t want to be a hero. the song itself is very soft (and acoustic to boot), which I think nicely represents the simple life that rand wants.

. UNUSUAL — typhoon

get your pitchforks out

the crowd is coming and they’ve named you

why, gentle mother, must you wring your hands and weep?

tide brings you a sword, sword will cut you free

dead demands a tribute in the hour of our need

blood be the river to wash the ledgers clean

oh, it took so much self-restraint to not put more than two songs from this album on this playlist. offerings is just so good AND highly existential, so if you’re wanting more sad rand hours, go listen to it. I think this song best fits rand’s start of really being the dragon reborn, around (you guessed it) the dragon reborn. the world is kind of a mess, and he doesn’t really know what to do, so he just does what he thinks he should do. he’s chosen by the pattern— the world demanded a dragon to save the world, and he was the unlucky soul born on the slopes of dragonmount. you know, his blood on the rocks of shayol ghul and all that. this song, like the one preceding it, is softer— rand hasn’t hardened himself like he will in later books. however, around halfway through, it gets louder and brings in more drums. tdr is the start of rand’s transition from farmboy to dragon reborn, in both good ways and bad.

. KIDS — mgmt

we like to watch you laughing

picking insects off of plants

no time to think of consequences

this song focuses a lot on the idea of self-control/self-restraint— not doing more than you have to, good or bad. it reminds me a lot of rand’s earlier experiences with channeling and being ta’veren. saidin is dangerous, what with the taint and all, and drawing too much of either half of the one power has severe consequences. he’s not as in control of his ta’veren-ness as he will be in later books— like his channelling, it’s a bit all over the place. the quote at the beginning of the music video (it’s friedrich nietzsche, not mark twain, but whatever) also ties in with this idea— if you’re not careful, you can become the very thing you were fighting against.

. LOUDER THAN EVER — cold war kids

I was carrying my cheek

I was digging my strange

I was taking you for granted

you were holding the reins

but I can hear you louder than ever

whisper to me, help me remember

I can’t see you but we’re still together

I can hear you louder than ever

moiraine’s “death” is a tipping point for rand— he feels like he could’ve prevented it, even though moiraine literally tells him that he couldn’t, and that what happened was the best possible outcome. after she passes through the portal, rand realizes that he took her presence for granted. her advice was good, if often unwelcome, and after her death rand just ends up going off the rails in so many different ways. when she returns in a memory of light, he realizes how helpful she was to him.

. SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT WITH ME — cold war kids

something is not right with me!

something is not right with me!

something is not right with me!

I’m trying not to let it show

the taint on saidin is just really like that, huh? rand can tell that something’s wrong, with lews therin’s voice in his head. the thing is, he doesn’t let anyone know because he’s 1) scared of showing weakness and 2) sane people don’t normally hear voices. this song is fast, but not in an upbeat way— it feels chaotic, panicked, and just barely in control. the singer is almost shouting the lyrics instead of singing them, contributing to that feeling. I think it embodies most male channellers’ experiences with the taint— it isn’t smooth or calm like saidar, it’s a raging river of fire.

. DREAMS OF CANNIBALISM — typhoon

unhand me, I am not a criminal

but I’ve played a guilty part

in the modern sense that one pretends their life is original

I wrote a book and I will call it something cynical

the story’s slow, the hero does not change

and if he can, then he won’t anyway

instead his foes and lovers all become identical

this song ends with the line “soon enough you will be dancing at my funeral,” and I can’t come up with something that encompasses rand-as-the-dragon more. people are terrified of him— hell, even he’s terrified of him. the world doesn’t want a dragon, but they got one anyways. the second set of verses above is a more textual examination of rand at this point— a crown of swords through crossroads of twilight is incredibly slow, and rand doesn’t change much throughout those books (hence why this song covers 4 books). he could make a change in his life if he tried, but he doesn’t, since he thinks he needs to shut others out to protect them. the whole song seems to be conveying the idea of being stuck and not going anywhere, but running from yourself, which, to be fair, is very close to what rand experiences in his own head in these books.

. GHOSTS THAT WE KNEW — mumford and sons

so lead me back

turn south from that place

and close my eyes to my recent disgrace

so give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

’cause oh, that gave me such a fright

but I will hold on as long as you like

just promise me we’ll be alright

I picked a soft song for the softer scene in the gathering storm where min and rand are talking about how cold he’s become. he realizes that he doesn’t have to fake an uncaring and unemotional nature— to be human is to feel, and it’s not bad to be human. the song is about going through something that’s wearing you down (a common interpretation is depression), and knowing that you have someone helping you through it. min sticks with rand during almost everything that happens from lord of chaos to the end of the series. she’s a support for him, and too stubborn to ever leave him, no matter what.

. DARKER — typhoon

I tried, you know, just to toe the line

love all the neighbors and live in the light

sure, I stumbled sometimes

self-contained; a convenient lie

every source of pain, every sting of pride

had to come from the outside

you won’t even fight me fair

wait for the darkness, catch me unaware

yeah, you pull me close

then you twist the knife

of course, that happy, warm feeling can’t last, because that scene is followed by semirhage being sadistic and deciding that now is the perfect time to use this new torture device. because of that, rand ends up shutting himself off even more than before. he’s suspicious and cruel, and thinks only for himself. it’s scary, frankly. darker, like all the songs on the album that it’s from, is very existential, though this song is, fittingly, darker than the others. it’s filled with the sense of impending death and strong suspicion that characterizes rand at this point in his life. he tried to open up, and look where it got him. this quick change is mirrored by the sharp musical contrast between the quiet, acoustic ‘ghosts that we knew’ and and the more drum-heavy, electric, and distorted ‘darker.’

. MOUNTAIN AT MY GATES — foals

I see a mountain in my way

it’s looming larger by the day

I see a darkness in my fate

I’ll drive my car without the brakes

through lanes and stone rows

black granite, wind blows

fire lake and far flame

go now but come again

dark clouds gather ’round

will I run or stand my ground

oh, when I come to climb

show me the mountain so far behind

yeah, it’s farther away

its shadow gets smaller day after day

the obvious scene for this song is the events leading up to rand’s epiphany on dragonmount. I mean, ‘mountain’ is in the song’s name. I think that this song works well to represent the weight and lack of direction he feels in the days building up to that. something that works especially well about this song is how it builds, both lyrically and musically. the song starts with a hopeless and dark tone to the lyrics, and stays that way for a while. the bridge (second set of lyrics above) is where the tone starts to change. the bridge also uses a lot of imagery that one can tie to the buildup— the streets of ebou dar, the rocky and windy peak of dragonmount, the belly of fire in the mountain itself and tar valon, the city that the peak looks over. the song then crescendos into its final segment, where the singer sings “give me my way/give me my love/give me my choice/give me my fate/give me my lungs/give me my voice.” to me, these represent rand’s realization that the reason the wheel keeps turning is so that people can live again and love again.

. COLORFUL — jukebox the ghost

we're just getting started

take your fears and let them go

for the lovers and the broken-hearted

I! love! this! song! I haven’t found another song that captures that feeling of hope in darkness: when everything around you has gone to hell, but you keep going because the darkness isn’t all there is. that’s how veins of gold ends— with rand realizing that there’s something worth fighting and living for. the gathering storm literally ends with rand laughing without bitterness for the first time in months, if not years— he’s finally looking on the bright side of life again.

. BEAUTIFUL LIFE — the collection

you do not have to be good

even the best of us have been misunderstood

so get up onto your feet

the sun is shining repentance through the leaves

its rays will wash you clean

this one’s for the end of a memory of light, when rand decides to leave and live the rest of his life on his terms. he wants to explore the world, without the pressure of his past and who he was weighing on him. he has a chance to slow down and appreciate this “beautiful life,” instead of rushing through it towards tarmon gai’don. and that’s what this song is about, i think. it’s not super peppy, and neither is rand at this point. it’s more of a quiet and peaceful acceptance.

. ALL THESE THINGS THAT I’VE DONE — the killers

I wanna stand up, I wanna let go

you know, you know, no, you don’t, you don’t

I wanna shine on in the hearts of men

I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand

over and in, last call for sin

while everyone’s lost, the battle is won

with all these things that I’ve done

first of all, the wheel of time series takes place over the span of two years, and rand does so much within that time. within this playlist, I don’t think of this song as an ending, rather a summary of rand’s life through the books. I specifically want to talk about the iconic refrain of “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier.” it serves as a bookend to rand’s arc as a character— initially he refuses his role as the dragon reborn (even though he’s suited for it, due to his heritage and upbringing) because he doesn’t want to fight in that way. during the bulk of the series, he embraces a role as a fighter, even though he doesn’t have the soul for it. and finally, he realizes that he isn’t a weapon, and that he never was. on another note, the line “these changes ain’t changing me/that cold-hearted boy I used to be” hits a bit too close to his character.

[devotvm-archive-blog]

@slavghterhouse​   ❤ ‘d for a one liner !!

      ❛   Oh, sweetheart– Do you need anything? A snack? A drink? Oh, I know! I’ve got some sandwich fixings in the backroom. How does that sound?❜  

[ranking-every-roxette-song]

Ranking Every Roxette Song, #102-104

104. Good Karma

from Good Karma

This is the big one, the giant to tame. When I made the questionable decision of reading TDR’s review of Good Karma before listening to the album itself, this was the song that stood out, receiving glowing praise that promised something so great that we hadn't heard the likes of it from Marie and Per for decades. I shouldn't have read that review, but just couldn't wait, Good Karma being the first Rox album release that I'd followed properly. The introduction bodes well for all that promise, with a huge pairing of "Fading Like A Flower"-like piano and guitar, even more forceful than before. Quickly switching to a minimalistic EDM beat, it continues with one of the changes that make this feel more like a marriage of two disparate songs than a progression that builds some sort of drama. The production is full of synth after synth flashing in and out of sight like sea spray on the side of a ship, never giving us a chance to look at them but still allowing the feeling of frantic motion to come across. It ends up a beautiful sonic picture, but then the chorus comes in. The bombast of the guitars, bubbly bass, unhinged synths, cowbell and Marie together is a sudden surge that should feel absolutely huge. Somehow, it doesn’t connect with the rest of the song’s sections for me as well as it obviously should, and that always leaves me conflicted when listening. On one hand, it’s the point of this absolutely slamming chorus to provide a sudden change from the atmospherics of the verses; on the other, its production is also so huge and powerful that it doesn’t move as well as it could have done, had there been a more fluid groove under the guitars. Still, though in my view the bits of “Good Karma” don’t flow together amazingly well, there is a Son Of A Plumber-like old-fashioned bridge in the middle of the thing, and it’s gorgeous. Reading TDR’s reactions back in 2016 did hurt me in the end - it could have been as fantastic as they said, but remains just a great effort on everyone’s part that I will undoubtedly go back to sometimes.

103. Bringing Me Down To My Knees

from Room Service

There’s been a few songs in Per Gessle’s career that have been said (sometimes by him) to sound as if he’d written them in his sleep, or at least when woken up in the middle of the night. And that, I think, is absolutely a compliment - whether it’s “Gut Feeling”, “Vilket håll du än går”, “Big Black Cadillac”, or this one, they’re very immediate, simple and very him. If the world had let them get their way, Roxette would have been able to churn out songs like this forever without them getting any less lovely. More than anything, “Bringing Me Down To My Knees” is comforting. It opens with a warm line that combines guitar and synth to wind around the opening chords like the sonic equivalent of a wide smile, which is then encased loosely in the blanket of the production. That simple sine-wave sound kept popping up in Per's material almost non-stop around this time. The instruments are all bubbly, amber-coloured substances from the lab where songs are grown, and it’s functioning at full normalcy here, with new melodies and synth swells constantly rising from the vials, expanding and then falling peacefully. Marie is comfortable and earnest, making the song speak magnificently as usual and only ever finding any vocal intensity a few times. There is an acoustic guitar solo over a middle 8 that also can't be called one of the most ambitious ever, but that too works in its favour - it’s so completely effortless. The Backstreet Boys would have been mightily jealous of it, had they ever taken the time to listen to Room Service during breaks between choreography rehearsals and being fleeced by their fraudulent manager. The post-chorus string line in this is brilliant too, providing the same sort of reassuring simplicity. That’s the thing here, so much is achieved by trying so little that thinking about why it works can only confuse you further. Just like the song says, you can’t put your finger on it, it’s only possible to enjoy the ride and listen to several masters of the craft go relaxedly about their work.

102. Half A Woman, Half A Shadow

from Look Sharp!

Marie’s songs are always special points on Roxette’s albums. There’s not ever that many of them, but they do stand out from the surrounding crowd, with a different tinge to how the chord voicings, harmonies and melodies are put together. Though the lyrics to this one are again of Mr. G’s creation, you can very much tell that all around and underneath them is something different. Marie’s sophisticated harmonies are all over this, not just in the layering of voice but in the overlapping synths and guitar arpeggios that spell out big chords, as well as the dreamy pianos that come in later on. It’s all very much a sparkling new locomotive barreling confidently through a twilit misty morning landscape, and underneath this sheen there is the massive beat carrying the two awesome lead guitar lines. It does remind me a bit of “If She Knew What She Wants” by the Bangles, but slowed down, brightened, psyched up and made absolutely huge through Clarence Ofwerman’s magic production and Jonas Isaacson’s massive guitars. I don’t know how he does it, but an absolutely perfect image of a cold sun looming nearer over the horizon is conjured up in his solo. The ending is a wonderfully trippy experience too, with gratuitously phased and flanged sounds all smudging and washing down into the cold earth. In this song we find not so much half a woman as a crowd of them, with a corresponding amount of shadows, all blasting their way through the rain, away from a past that deserves no further thought. It’s such a powerful sound that it’s easy to envision a song like this becoming a lesser band’s only hit, sometime in the spring of 1987, to be longingly relistened to for decades thereafter by a few thousand loyal fans, wishing more people had remembered it. But this is Roxette, and even though I love this song, evidently it hasn’t even made my top 100 (though I do, of course, also wish more people listened to this song). I’m not really looking for moderation in explaining why I love the songs on this list, so be ready, folks, because it keeps getting even better from here on.

[penwarrior11]

Now that I've been to a good chunk of the Parks, I feel comfortable making some THP!verse assumptions:

DLR is kind of claustrophobic small and competitive

WDW is The Empire

TDR is the chill one where everyone gets along for the most part

Fallout: Disneyland Paris: Fury Road

The ships are the closest thing they're going to get to The Office

[princeasimdiya12]

I'm sure most people already figured this out but I think I know why Jude was included in the Total Dramarama-whatever cast.

Its because of Christian Potenza.

Christian is one of the senior cast members for the TD series and has always been a huge part of Fresh TV. For both voice acting and his prescence on YouTube. And since he was absent for the entirety of the Ridonculous Race, he was overdue for an appearance. The problem though is that it would be too difficult to include his character Chris McLean into the show; he wouldn't be able to pull off being a genuine childcare giver since he's a textbook child tormentor (at least with Chef, he did have a soft side and was nicer to the kids once in awhile) and it would be too weird to turn him into a child to play with the other kids because of the pre-existent age differences with the other teens. So the other solution would be to cast him as Jude.

Alomg with Christian having voiced him in the past, it would work with Jude since he's a teen so it wouldn't be too weird for him to interact with the other TD teens who were aged down. And since TDR isn't bound by the laws of the canon verse, the writers would be able to include Jude along with elements of the 6teen verse without issue.

And that's why I believe is the reason for why Jude was included in the show. So that Christian Potenza could have a voicing role on the TD series once again. If you have any thoughts on the matter, you're more than welcome to reblog this with your comments.

[playsvulgar-a]

SURPRISINGLY, it was early morning when mindy had emerged from her bedroom  :  looking as if she’d been awake for hours. in her hands ? a small, precisely wrapped package which could only make you  wonder  when she had the time to fetch. as she approached her father in the middle living space, was quickly disposed of in trade of a cheap bottle of beer  pried  from her father’s calloused grasp, grinning all the while she took a seat beside him. black boots loudly taking comfort upon the surface of the table  &  her short, dirty fingernails already making an attempt to pick away at the corner of the bottle’s label.     ❛     happy birthday, you old fuck. decided what you’re leaving in your will for me yet ?     ❜

@serialclown

[bozojesus]

   so i finally watched 3 from h.ell and...

   i really liked it actually 

  i missed cutter terribly, of course, but not to the point where it ruined the movie. they do kind of rush through the segment about his execution at the beginning, but there’s a scene where otis & baby talk about him during the third act that was very sweet and actually made me tear up. it’s obvious that the characters haven’t forgotten him; he’s just a very painful subject and that’s understandable, considering how much he meant to them. otis in particular sounded ready to cry when talking about him. shocker, right?

   that said !! cutter very very clearly lives on through baby. i really loved how she was developed in this one and she stole every scene she was in. i thought sheri’s acting was solid throughout the movie - even when she was going really over-the-top during the first forty or so minutes, i still bought it, and while baby remains a terrible person, i thought 3FH humanized her a lot more than TDR did. most of her kills are pretty quick ( though she still relishes in them, of course ) rather than the drawn out sadism & mental torture from the first two movies. her emotional journey reminded me so strongly of her dad’s in the sense she has this aimlessness about her, like she no longer knows what to do with herself or what her place is or what she wants. she even goes so far as to question otis about why they even do what they do, which leads to otis questioning their lifestyle himself to some degree. maybe i’m reading into it wrong, or maybe other fans will read his reaction differently, but his response to baby almost seemed like one of resignation. death, violence & destruction is what they’re used to. it’s simply what they’re meant to do - what else is there for them? i’ve always believed that’s a thought that had already crossed cutter’s mind - that he is simply meant to destroy, so he might as well continue to destroy. it was interesting to see otis & baby starting to get to that point now that they’re older. kind of feels like everything’s coming full circle, in that sense.

   as for otis himself, it really seemed like he was just kind of ?? going through the motions. don’t get me wrong, he’s still a sick, thoroughly evil man, but he lacks a lot of the relish he used to have. this time around it felt more like he was following a routine than carrying out these horrendous deeds because he believed them to be his not-so-divine purpose ( or whatever the hell goes on in his head ). he still goes on his usual misanthropic rants, but does he actually believe them anymore, or is he just saying them because that’s what’s expected of him at this point? it’s hard to discern.

   ri.chard brake did a really nice job as foxy. he was appropriately gross & despicable when the movie called for it while still having a certain charm about him. there were moments where i shuddered at his behaviour; other times i found him very endearing and Almost Sweet ( you can definitely tell he was meant to be cutter’s replacement because that was essentially cutter’s role in the last one ). he isn’t as fleshed-out as he could’ve been, no, but for a last-minute addition to the cast? he’s totally fine. he isn’t grating at all. i liked him! i’d be really okay with seeing him again and while no one can replace cutter, i think foxy’s presence helps fill what would’ve been a very sad & lonely void. he and baby basically take turns acting as the comedy relief of the movie with the occasional sarcastic jab from otis. i thought it worked well.

   as for the other characters... sebastian was adorable. by far my favourite new addition to the squad. he played a huge role in the humanization of baby and it was so, so nice to see a character in this series who’s a genuinely kind person and not a total piece of shit. i really hope rob will write more characters like him in future movies because i think he underestimates how important it is to have them around in media like the firefly family series. they keep things from getting too bleak. warden harper’s wife judy was great, but really under-utilized. i thought the guard greta’s storyline had potential but it sadly didn’t go anywhere, which is a shame. warden harper himself is appropriately scummy, but i felt rob... could’ve went a little further with him? i felt he should’ve gone all-out and really made us hate the guy, if that was supposed to be his purpose. i feel like the home invasion scene should’ve been Earned. that was by far my least favourite sequence of the movie and it just dragged on and on and on. 

   i also would’ve liked rob to have explored the concept of sensationalized serial killers in the media more and why this is a bad thing. it seemed like the opening of the movie was setting that up, but like greta and harper’s arcs, it just... did not go anywhere. i was really hoping we’d see how fame impacted otis, baby & cutter, and how their sensationalization affected pop culture in general, since they’ve been in the public eye for over a decade... but nope. we have some scenes where baby maniacally gushes over her supposed stardom, otis grouching about how they have to be careful in the public eye and a pretty funny joke from foxy where he tries to insist he’s the most recognizable of the bunch, but that’s about it.

   and like... could we not have had at least some reactions from them to 80s pop culture? the movie didn’t have to revolve around that, but it’s like... these guys are so heavily ingrained in 70s aesthetic & they’ve been locked up for 10 years, pretty much shut off from the rest of the world. you’d think we’d at least get some quips from otis about how music has gone down the shitter or something like that, but nope! nothing like that either. i suppose that’s something that’s gonna have to be saved for future 3FH threads instead.

   the dialogue wasn’t awful but some of the callbacks were a little Too obvious for my taste. i liked the subtle ones, like where baby tells otis she has a “better idea” at the end when deciding what to do with aquarius and how otis is actually accepting her plan ( as opposed to otis’ “better idea” angering cutter in TDR ), and how otis tries to hype baby up with the “fucked up shit” line. but some of other stuff otis said? like the boogeyman shit at the beginning and the “murder factory” line when he’s killing harper? nah, that felt a bit forced and kind of uncreative on rob’s end. i think he could’ve done a bit better with that.

   overall, i thought the first forty minutes were a bit of a drag, but when the characters get to mexico things really kicked off and i found myself enjoying it and getting really into it. it’s definitely not TDR or Ho1KC, but it’s a fun ride in its own right. the one thing i do think it did better than TDR was - again - giving the characters some depth & dimension. we actually got to see emotional reactions from them & they’re given some quiet moments where they could just talk to each other and have fun outside of the disgusting torture shit ( which, thank god, this movie doesn’t linger on quite as much as the last one imo ). that’s something i felt like TDR lacked & i’m glad rob did that portion right this time around. 

   while it’s a flawed movie and the absence of my beloved clown is definitely felt, i really don’t think 3FH is this abysmal piece of shit that some people are making it out to be. i don’t think it’ll hold the same special place in my heart that the first two do, but i liked it. i’m very glad to have finally seen it and i’m hoping it’ll spark some new life into the fandom. you best believe i’ll be writing up cutter several 3FH verses in the future & am super eager to use this film as a basis of doing new stuff for him. 

[rae-gar-targaryen]

Do you ever think about shipping EZ and Frida?

Oooh! I wish whoever sent this would come back! Provide more detail -- expand on your idea!!!!

What do you think makes EZ and Frida "shippable?"

In the LYO-verse, EZ and Gaby are an established thing, and EZ and Frida have a solid, flowing friendship. But, like, the character of EZ and the character who has become Frida?? Maybe!

I know LYO now has its own "AUs" (like Coco y Frida) -- so now I'm wondering....

Do we wanna have a LYO/Fic AU weekend??? Like, send your ideas for pairings/AUs/HCs within the fics I've written?

Because tbh I have quite a few EZ y Frida HCs, the Angel y Frida proposal fic is happening, Coco y Frida is upcoming... Lots of "those damned romantics" content is coming your way...

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Hello, I’m right back at it with the symbolism on our Ouma and this game, and this is... well, it’s interesting. Give it some consideration.

So it’s worth noting that the Year of the Horse is quite special, because it’s around that time - the period of late 2013-2015, the Horse being 2014- that DRV3 was being conceptualised and developed. But that’s not all.

Under the cut, because this is somewhat long.

2014 was the year of the WOOD HORSE.

We already know well that a certain checkered ‘King Horse’ has design elements drawing from Cassandra of Troy (notably, a princess), as well as a laugh identifying ‘horse’, actions and skills representative of a saboteur well versed in war, and a last name symbolising ‘mastermind’.

The choices for his conceptualisation are very much relevant. Because what else do you associate with ‘wood horse’ in contexts like this, other than the wooden Horse of Troy?

To put this in perspective, the elemental signs of a zodiac go through a cycle of five, and go through the same animal every twelve years. That means the last Wood Horse was sixty years prior. It’s no coincidence that the symbolism for Ouma would be conceptualised around this very, very specific time.

Speaking of that, a very particular characteristic of the Wood Horse even shows up in Ouma: that of his leadership.

This isn’t even the only time we’ve seen the matching zodiac-element situation be symbolic in a piece of work, either. We have Okami, wherein the playable character - Amaterasu, or Ammy - is a sun god wolf, while the year the game was released was 2006, the year of the fire dog.

I’m not done yet.

The end date of the Year of the Wood Horse - that being 2015 - is a very particular year isn’t it? Consider the references strewn around in the Ultimates’ birthdays, most notably Tsumugi Shirogane’s being ‘Victory over Japan Day’, and the name ‘Tojo’ (referring to the then-Prime Minister). It was March of that year, that Kodaka announced V3 being in development, prior to a certain milestone later on: 

THE SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF WWII.

Then if you please, we have TDR’s logo resembling 呪 for CURSE. 

What’s more, is there’s something very particular about this kanji. It comprises of two radicals, two kanji in particular: 口 and 兄. The former, means ‘mouth’, possibly indicating the ‘voice’ of the masterminds of Team DR (the ‘inner voice’, aka ‘audience’ manipulating Kiibo). The latter means...

...”BIG BROTHER”.

What relevance does this have, then?

It’s worth noting that when Ouma talks of the world being deceived, he refers to a state that actually happens in the novel 1984. The world is more or less destroyed and remade after the war, and the truth is bent to the whims of the Party. Even the citizens are unaware of the hell they’re in. 

It’s a dystopia: a despair of a whole other kind.

To recap:

Ouma's Iliad symbolism and theming aligns with an identical zodiac and element, while the astrological sign ('Gemini'- yes, twins) also relates to its characters Cassandra and Helenus - respectively, the cursed seer warning of ruin, and the twin (the traitor, and the one who is believed)

Overall game symbolism aligns with a major milestone of real world history (bonus: '7' associated with 'luck' aligns with Kokichi's given name)

Both these things involve defeat in a major war

And before you come at me with ‘well it’s just symbolism, it doesn’t have any purpose��� weelll.....

A certain Ultimate Anthropologist would disagree with you there.

What you have to understand about Ouma, is that he ends the game as a mystery. The situation around Ouma too remains a mystery. To close the book on him - and his unique perspective - so soon is... premature, to say the least. In a story with meta-elements like this one, it’s only natural that the symbolism has more game than it appears at first glance.

[marshunter06]

Do you have any fluffy TD headcanons?

Hi Anon, I’m so sorry to disappoint but I’m literally the worst when it comes to headcanons. Like yes I have my own thoughts but they usually lead to fics and they change depending on my mood/ what my muse is vibing with. That being said so that I don’t completely suck, I can give you some specifically based off my own verses/ current mindset (also idk if you’re looking for a certain type of headcanon, I need some direction, my brain is all over the place 24/7)

First is def Trentney, if you follow me you know I’m trash for them. So def a solid brotp otp too cause I’m weak idk if you know Oh Wonder, but that kinda vibe is what I envision for them cause they would totally make music together

I’m p obsessed with TDR verse smol duncney, childhood friends to lover trope? Loves it forgive me C but kinda like in canon verse I always think of them losing contact and finding their way back to each other, of course lots of fond memories to look back on and realizing they’re the best suited for each other after going out and discoverying themselves

I also really enjoy the idea that the whole cast ends up all cool with each other and regularly hang out and stuff, like they’re all part of this club from the awfulness that was TD

I know lots of people have ideas of what Duncan’s job should be and while I totally agree with them!... I also kinda really dig the idea that he’s involved with the arts, whether it be through words or some sort of canvas. Like at first it starts off as a thing he did to express his emotions and of course he would hide it, but then he gets the support from (really whoever you can think of, but in my mind of course Courtney) to share it with the world even though it was something hidden for only him to see— until he shared it with Courtney in my case, but really anyone you see him having a strong bond with. And they encouraged and cherish it so much that he’s just like maybe I am good enough to show it off (I also have an idea of Duncan getting involved with law enforcement too, but that’s a whole different thing)

I also really am into the idea that TD wasn’t real, like it was all fake, but it became real, again duncney being like a real thing cause you can only pretend for so long until you catch feelings. Like the way their eyes soften at each other sharing secret glances that communicate a thousand words even tho it’s only been like half a second. Wanting to protect each other from the media cause they just don’t know the struggles of acting, sharing their burdens with each other knowing they would understand. The moment of holy shit I think I actually like this person who’s been such a constant support and how did I not see they were there all along and it being reciprocated, like they were always meant to crash together (and yea I’m a sucker for a pinning Duncan who is the first to get that woah, this is it man, like Courtney’s his one and only, but waiting for her to figure it out too cause it’s not cool to force feelings and self project, but like dude she’s totally into you too just she’s a bit slower to accept it)

Trentney somehow ends up having to raise a kid together (this is a fic idea that idk if I’ll ever get to write, but I want to cause it would self indulgent as fuck) and they’re like the best parents even tho they didn’t choose this life. Like Trent had a relatively normal ish childhood, but Courtney definitely didn’t, so at first she’s afraid she’s messing up, but like Trent doesn’t know what he’s doing either. Yea there are a few bumps, but they go through it together and find that they make great partners, literally had they been on the same team during TD it would’ve been over for the rest of the contestants. Anyways the kids ends up fine and loves their weird family dynamic and wouldn’t change it for the world

Love the idea of everyone shipping my otp (or your otp), so like the entire cast gets together to help push them together but like it only makes things more difficult until finally the otp is like look we appreciate the effort but we got this. And everyone is like clearly not cause why aren’t you together already!!

Ok this got longer than intended and it’s not even that great, shows you what’s goes on in my head cause I’m just always scrambling. And yea most of my things are about duncney or Trentney but they’re my ships so I can’t help it, I write romance fics for a reason