#tongues of serpents

[amemoryofwot]

HES A HELIUM BALLOON

HELP HIM HES FLOATING AWAY

[dreadbirate]

Temeraire being so excited while commissioning a robe to spoil Laurence that you just know he will find incredibly embarrassing is very funny

[sarcasticbeanie]

“Temeraire could no longer complain at all whenever Tharkay wished them to stop again, and neither could Iskierka; instead they peered over his shoulder, at whatever speck of dirt or dust he might be inspecting, and tried to work out whatever traces he had found.”

Little guys under the cut

[star-temeraire]

man temeraire was straight up not having a good time in tongues of serpents

[lindseybyrd]

This is the exact appropriate reaction to Rankin. Fuck this guy, how dare he not die in the war.

[wildtornado-o]

Part 2 (Part 1 here Part 3 here) of the character descriptions in the Temeraire books I've remembered to snatch pictures of.

In order: Black Powder War (1806-7), Tongues of Serpents (1809), Tongues of Serpents, Tongues of Serpents, Tongues of Serpents, Tongues of Serpents, Crucible of Gold (1810-1811), Crucible of Gold, Crucible of Gold, Crucible of Gold, Crucible of Gold, Crucible of Gold, Crucible of Gold, Crucible of Gold, Crucible of Gold, Blood of Tyrants (1812), Blood of Tyrants, Blood of Tyrants, Blood of Tyrants.

Under a cut because there are a lot.

Note: Based off of the math I've done with Granby's ages throughout the books he would actually be 32 in the last picture, since it is 1812

[grumpyoldsnake]

I am inordinately delighted by all the hatchlings of eggs that Temeraire has managed to talk to being, just. FIRMLY opinionated slskdjfh

(Reading Tongues of Serpents; the first hatchling hatched all of 60 seconds ago in my audiobook and I have no idea how this will play out in even just the next few paragraphs. But. For the moment? Yes. Delighted 😂)

[captainlaurence]

Jack Telly: They say you can make it all the way up the coast line and get work on a merchantman to China!

Tenzing side eyeing Laurence: A charming notion👀…. Don’t you think. 👀

[pkmatrix]

Finished Victory of Eagles which I absolutely LOVED and I’m probably gonna finish Tongues of Serpents tonight.  Enjoyed that Tongues of Serpents is a bit of a breather after the non-stop thrills of Victory of Eagles, even if the middle section of the book was a bit slow.  I’m now in the back half of the Temeraire series and, man, I really don’t want these books to end!  I just love these characters and this setting ^_^

At @googynoober‘s recommendation I checked out the short story In Autumn, a White Dragon Looks Over the Wide River and now I kinda would absolutely love a book that’s just Lien in Paris navigating the elite of French society while slowly being wooed and falling for a dashing French dragon...  ^.^

[amemoryofwot]

“And the captain wasn’t looking to save it for himself, was he? Only he’ll go through fire if he thinks he ought to; he’s churchy.”

Emily stop Edith already killed poor Will last book

[shallicomparetheetolagrenouille]

2022 in books

The most boring installment in the Temeraire series as of now, I really do hope that the last three get better, baceuse this was a disappointment.

Laurence and Temeraire get sent to Australia, as they are too valuable to be put to death but too unreliable (according to the Government and Admiralty) to continue fighting in Great Britain - also, after the treason sentence, they would not be accepted by other members of the Aerial Corps, Navy or Army - so their great solution is seding them off to Australia without a specific task or role, to just be.. there, doing fuck-all

Not that we see them doing that, as the plot kicks off pretty soon with the need to leave with all the avilable dragons and the remaining two eggs (one of the three they have with them hatched and found his captain) to find a way across the mountains to improve communication routes and keep at least a few deported convicts busy in the meantime - also, to steer clear of the ongoing political mess in Sydney

Then one of the dragon eggs gets stolen by the aborigines and a neverending chase ensues, with the most typical Britons-who-know-nothing-of-the-land-they-occupied-and-underestimate-everything-to-do-with-it chain of scenes, to be broken up only by protodragon-made quicksand and the hatching of the remaining dragon egg

Kulingile’s scenes are all adorable, also when he just starts floating around like a balloon - I hope we get to follow his and Demane’s story in the next books

Also, good for the Tswana and their continuing revenge, I guess! I have the feeling that one of the next books will be about them, again, and their search for the slaves carried off by the European slaver ships

Tharkay is there to point people in a certain direction at times and to let us know that the smuggling of Chinese atifacts has been noticed - aside from that, he might have been sobstituted by a letter, honestly

I don’t know, characters felt so detached and empty, in this! One could say that it makes sense, from Temeraire’s and Laurence’s POVs, considering their hopeless situation and lack of purpose, but it was just so grueling for the whole book, ugh! And it ends on such a vague, undecided note, I was really disappointed by the end of the story

At least its adventure-book-ness made it fly by, or else it would still be on the shelf, waiting to be finished!

[v-sanguine]

Tentacles

[chiropteracupola]

Martín Macuilmazatl, a young gentleman of the Ciudad de México.

[lindseybyrd]

GOOD FOR DEMANE

GOOD FOR HIM

ONLY PERSON WHO SHOWED ANY SENSE (besides Laurence who was busy arguing, but still arguing for the right purpose). At least Demane actually did something.

[pkmatrix]

I just finished Tongues of Serpents today!  It was a fun journey!  ^_^

I loved the big banquet scene, and the scene of the five dragons finally all together just relaxing in the pavillion watching all the treasure get passed back and forth was really sweet. ^_^

Tongues of Serpents was so good (I say was, I still have the epilogue left). 🥺❤️ I love Caesar and Kulingile so much, I just want everyone to be happy. I might look up some spoilers when I get to the last book, because I won't be emotionally ready for it to end otherwise. It's a series similar to Discworld or The Aubreyad, long and more or less episodic, but once you get to the end you realise how many friends you've made and can't bear to part with them.

[sssssaarn]

Characters through Stories

Why I don't call myself 'plural' -- despite 'fitting' the experiences.

A sort of reflection on when I thought I was a system/plural.

All the way back in (around) 2022 to 2023, I referred to myself as a system. I had been questioning for a long time before that, but eventually came to that conclusion after talking to numerous other systems about their experiences.

Nowadays though, I do not call myself a system, or even plural at all. Why is that? The short answer is this: it simply doesn't fit.

The long answer is this: my experiences with being 'plural' mostly came down to characters and, specifically, their stories. When I get particularly attached to a character, and especially for a long time (think, 1-2 years at minimum) I would then feel like I could 'know' those characters thoughts. I labeled these experiences as 'alters' in 2022 -- because that was the closest thing I could use to describe them.

But, this was forgetting another key aspect of myself: I love writing, and I especially love writing characters. I could only 'know' these characters' thoughts after extensively writing about them. I could not just think, and they would be there. There had to be some element of narrative or story to them. Otherwise, they wouldn't come across as strongly. This might be a normal experience for some systems, as there have been weirder ways that systems had to get alters to front. But I still feel like I diverge heavily from the typical 'fronting' examples. The characters never took over my body or mind, I would only act as a sort of 'vessel' for them.

Take, for example, two characters I thought had been 'alters' of mine: the SCPs 049 and 035. These 'alters' had come up after I had read a ton of tales focused around Alagadda (which serves as a sort of backstory for both of them) as well as after I had already spent years writing fan-fiction about them (around two years straight, of fan-fiction focused solely on them). After that point where they 'cropped up' (labeled myself as a system, labeled them as alters), I could only 'front' as them when I was writing as them. I could not act in real life, if I had not been writing as them (think of it as roleplaying, or maybe even more accurately: larping).

This is where experiences of most typical plurals and my 'plural' experience diverged heavily. I did not realize that I could only 'front'/'access' these 'alters' through writing/'roleplaying', because I was trying to force a system that just did not work with me and my brain. (Not to say that the plural framework was or is useless, it just doesn't work for me.) These characters were me; or maybe it would be more accurate to say they were extensions of me. They were extensions of my writing and stories, two things that have become a central point in my life.

Writing and stories have always been there for me, and it's also the best method I have to connect with 'myself'. I started this blog specifically because writing about my experiences, thoughts, and feelings was a great way for me to understand myself more! In short: I have a way of making myself feel less lonely, of understanding myself better, but I labeled this way incorrectly, and repressed for a long time after I realized it was wrong (because no one else understood, or thought it had been labeled correctly the first time).

Recently, I've begun having this same experience with two different characters. This time however, I'm not going to force myself to act plural or like a system, or to make these two characters 'front' like alters in a system. Because they aren't, and that simply won't work for me.

I'm writing this specifically because I don't see experiences like this written about a lot. Some beings aren't and will never be plural, but will have experiences and stories like this (that they still will not want to label as plural), and so I think it's something important to talk about!

The mind is an interesting and varied thing, and I think trying to lump any and every experience under a specific label (no matter how broad its definition) will inevitably drive beings away from that community; not towards it. This is a problem I've come across repeatedly; a lot of folks are just jumping at the gun to label every person they come across as 'plural' or 'nonhuman' -- which I can understand, after all, I would love to know more plural and nonhuman beings as well! But trying to force someone to identify as something, or use a system that simply… Doesn't work for that person? It's a pitfall I think (unfortunately) a lot of alterhuman beings fall into.

There's also the fact that someone can use a label or term for a very long time -- but then after a while, discover that it just doesn't work anymore. And that's perfectly fine as well! Change is a normal part of being, and it should be normalized more in alterhuman and adjacent communities!

If I had to give a label to my experiences now, I'd probably use something more like non-plural soulbonding, or perhaps it's something connected to my daemon. But again: minds are confusing and varied, and I'm not even sure if I'll ever have a clear label or answer on 'what' I am in this regard. And you know what? That's just fine with me.