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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Tedious Joys

- Chapter 1/8 - Ao3 link -

By the time Lao Nie wrote to Lan Qiren under personal cover to ask for his assistance, they hadn’t spoken in nearly seven years.

Oh, they’d spoken – it was rather impossible to avoid speaking, acting sect leader to sect leader. They attended the same discussion conferences, and of course the Lan and Nie sects were close allies, insofar as the Great Sects were anything to each other; their alliance, martial and moral, tended to balance out the riches and clever tricks brought to bear by the Jin and Jiang sects, and of course the Wen sect was large and powerful enough that it didn’t need or want any allies that it couldn’t subject to its dominion. An alliance meant constant contact, checking in, and ideally would call for a good relationship between the leaders of the two sects, which they had once had.

They had once been very close, even.

Lan Qiren had idolized Lao Nie from a young age, admiring his fierceness and his passion for life, his ruthless logic and his practicality and his thoughtful sense of judgment, all the more admirable given that he was from a sect known for being a bunch of hotheads. When Lan Qiren’s older brother – older by nearly ten years, with a middle brother that had died before Lan Qiren’s birth and several miscarriages in between as his parents struggled to provide the sect with the requisite spare – had continuously tried to leave his irritating younger sibling at home when going on night-hunts, Lao Nie had cheerfully interjected himself more than once, volunteering that he would be happy to take him along, and at that point Lan Qiren’s brother, who admired the older man nearly as much as Lan Qiren did, would generally yield, even if he grumbled about it.

Unlike Qingheng-jun, who ought to have been more considerate for his own family, Lao Nie had never minded having to slow down the pace of his hunts in order to accommodate a sickly child, a pedantic one that needed to understand things thoroughly before he was comfortable trying something new. He had often allowed Qingheng-jun to rush ahead and win glory that ought in all fairness to have been his, something Lan Qiren only discovered when he reviewed his history in retrospect.

Lao Nie hadn’t minded how clumsy Lan Qiren was, or how picky he was, refusing to eat even common foods if the texture didn’t appeal to him; he had only laughed at his excessive formality, the harshness of his tone, his tendency to repeat himself or to become caught on little details. He’d indulged him, wasting copious amounts of his time listening to Lan Qiren talk enthusiastically about the Lan sect rules, which he’d fallen in love with at an early age and, when young, rarely missed the chance to bring into any given conversation no matter how irrelevant.

He’d always been very kind to him.

If you had asked Lan Qiren ten years ago, he would have confidently asserted that Lao Nie was one of his dearest friends.

And yet – it had been Lan Qiren, who was short on friends, and not Lao Nie, who had many, that had cut off their relationship. Lan Qiren hadn’t truly spoken to Lao Nie in seven years, limiting their conversations to the subject of sect business and keeping their meetings as short as could be allowed by etiquette, ignoring the way Lao Nie looked at him with sadness and regret in his eyes. Even when Lan Qiren’s anger had finally died down from a raging flame to a simmering anger he suspected would never leave him entirely, he had thought to himself that it was too late, that the fire had burnt everything out, that there were only ashes left behind.

And yet – on the seventh year, apparently apropos of nothing, Lao Nie wrote to him, requesting his presence.

As a friend, he wrote. Come as a friend, or not at all. I have no use for a sect leader.

Lan Qiren struggled with the request, which did not obey any of the unwritten rules he had forced himself to learn on top of the many that were written. He did not know if he was still enough of a friend to Lao Nie to answer such a request.

He did not know himself whether he would go until the moment that he went.

Lao Nie met him at the gateway to the Unclean Realm, relief written in every line of him.

“Thank you,” he said, and Lan Qiren shifted uncomfortably from side to side.

“I didn’t even do anything yet,” he said stiffly, instinctively reaching up to stroke his beard. It was a more acceptable social tic than others that he had been discouraged from employing; losing access to it, however temporarily, had been one of the reasons he had been so upset with Cangse Sanren when she’d shaved it off while he was asleep. She’d tracked him down later to apologize when she’d realized how badly he’d taken it, serious for perhaps the only time he’d known her, and they’d ended up as something almost like friends out of the whole debacle. He hadn’t heard from her in years, either, but that was no breach; it was only that she was busy with her husband and the little child she had once shoved into his arms with that deep, echoing laugh of hers. “Don’t thank me until I’ve determined if I can do anything for you, or will.”

Lao Nie nodded and showed him inside, leading him to his private chambers rather than the sect leader’s study. This suggested that the issue was private, although Lan Qiren supposed he’d already known that, based on the letter.

They sat in silence while Lao Nie personally served the tea, his brow still creased in concern, and Lan Qiren stared at him – too intently, as always – and wondered what private issue could have caused such an upset, and moreover what he could possibly need Lan Qiren for. Lao Nie was a private man, in the custom of his clan and sect; Lan Qiren didn’t know his birthdate or even his age, only the approximates, and many of the details of his life escaped him. It made it difficult to guess what the matter might be, if it were personal and not political.

Although…

“My condolences regarding your second wife,” he said, watching, and Lao Nie jerked his head in a tight nod, acknowledging the loss. Lao Nie’s first wife had been a mysterious figure, appearing and disappearing as suddenly as an unexpected burst of rain on a sunny day – the stories in Qinghe enthusiastically claimed she was a goddess that descended from the heavens to dally with moral race, who’d ended up marrying Lao Nie to legitimize the child he’d unexpectedly planted in her belly, only to be summoned back to the heavens on important duties, although of course it was commonly understood that she was more than likely just some powerful rogue cultivator who had decided after a short interval that being married was not for her. Lan Qiren had never met her, although he had had the fortune to meet Lao Nie’s second wife, who had been much more down-to-earth, an innkeeper’s daughter.

(Lan Qiren had rather liked her the few times they’d met. She was a little self-absorbed, in a harmless sort of way. She liked beautiful things and good food and talking about them, and was happy to carry on entire conversations while he responded only with nods and grunts; to his relief, she had never expected anything more from him. She was very beautiful herself, both delicate and seductive with her fox’s face and long and narrow eyes; some cruel people spread rumors that she was a demon or a yao in disguise, sent to wreak havoc through the seduction of men. She had never tried anything like that on Lan Qiren, unless her attempt at seduction consistent of sharing a plate of snacks and occupying him enough to prevent him from having to listen to the more boring parts of the social parts of certain discussion conference meetings. At any rate, he’d been truly saddened to hear that she had died.)

Still, Lao Nie had not yet begun to speak.

That meant that the problem was not in relation to that aspect of his life, which in all honesty was a relief. Lan Qiren could not imagine a world in which Lao Nie confided his marital problems in a prematurely old bachelor like him.

Perhaps…

“Your sons?” he asked, and this time Lao Nie flinched, so he’d guessed right. “Ah. The younger one?”

The younger one would be about A-Zhan’s age, surely, or even younger. Little more than a toddler, not yet quite old enough to be taken away from the mother – or nurse, in the case of Lao Nie’s second son – and they were so terribly fragile at that age…

“No,” Lao Nie said, and sighed, a long exhale. “Forgive me, it’s a difficult subject. A-Sang is fine. The issue is with A-Jue.”

Nie Mingjue would now be around eight or nine years old, Lan Qiren thought, or perhaps even older – it was so hard to tell with these secretive Nie, and he only knew enough to make the guess at all because of their former friendship. Most sects were only vaguely aware that there were heirs to the Nie sect, and had certainly never seen hide nor hair of Nie Mingjue, during discussion conferences or otherwise.

He’d been a toddler the last time Lan Qiren had seen him, young and energetic, running around anywhere, but he had something of his father’s kindness – he’d actually listened to Lan Qiren telling him about rules that didn’t apply to him, and even proudly repeated some of them back to his father, much to Lan Qiren’s embarrassment – without having yet grown into his father’s occasional callous ruthlessness.

Perhaps it made a certain amount of sense that Lao Nie would ask for help with his children. Since his life plans had been irrevocably altered, Lan Qiren had taken over teaching at the Cloud Recesses, and to his surprise, was apparently making something of a name for himself.

It hadn’t been intentional: he’d been desperate for something to do with himself that wasn’t just for the sect, so much of his time consumed by the business of sect leadership, and he’d always planned to become a teacher eventually, although he’d always assumed it would be much later in life. He’d volunteered to teach, only to look at the small handful of obedient, well-trained Lan sect disciples that he would be in charge of instructing and quickly realized that such ‘teaching’ wouldn’t occupy his time at all.

Accordingly, he had demanded that the sect elders allow him to accept disciples from other sects as well. The request was highly irregular, but strictly abided by all Lan sect rules on the subject – it was Lan Qiren putting together the proposal, after all – and the elders had granted it with surprisingly little debate. To this day, Lan Qiren wasn’t sure if it was pity for his circumstances or simply an assumption that no outside students would bother attending, but he would not let the approval, once granted, be so easily retracted: he had sent out letters asking for students at once, and to everyone’s surprise but his own they actually came.

(He’d been clever about it, at the start. He’d reached out first to those smaller sects that would not have access to resources even a quarter as good as the Cloud Recesses, asking specifically for those children that seemed troublesome – the ones it took time and attention to teach, the ones who didn’t seem to be getting what they were supposed to learn. The slow, the stupid, the angry, the ones who disappointed their parents most of all. Lan Qiren might not have answers for those children, but at least he could give them his time and attention and he found, for most of them, that was all they wanted.)

Recently, though, they’d started getting more requests to join from the slightly larger subsidiary sects, more people, even murmurs about sending him their sect heirs rather than their burdens – people were saying that his teaching could make a gentleman even out of a waste, which Lan Qiren didn’t really understand. After all, putting aside a few students that were too arrogant to be willing to learn anything, he hadn’t encountered a single one he’d characterize as a waste.

“How can I help A-Jue?” he asked, expecting Lao Nie to finally give in and explain.

But Lao Nie shook his head.

“There’s some background I need to tell you first,” he said. “Without which the problem won’t make much sense. You have one of the finest analytical minds I’ve ever met, Qiren, and a way of thinking that doesn’t match up to conventional wisdom – I’m hoping you can help me where expertise has failed.”

Lan Qiren frowned, embarrassed. “I can try,” he said, already mentally rearranging his plans to account for a longer stay. He disliked sudden changes and had planned out three possible lengths of time for his visit – one short, one medium, one long – so that he would be able to select whichever one would be most appropriate. He hoped that the issue would not require any more time than the longest period he had allotted. “What is the subject?”

“Saber,” Lao Nie said, and smiled at Lan Qiren’s confusion. “My sect’s cultivation style. Let me explain…”

Lao Nie’s explanation was fascinating.

The cultivation style of the Nie sect – and the Nie clan in particular, especially the main branch – was unlike anything Lan Qiren had ever heard before, completely different in both substance and philosophy. It was a rough trade, a difficult road, heartbreaking in its sacrifice, impressive in its results…

It wasn’t the road for everybody, but one couldn’t help but admire those that walked it.

“Doesn’t it get close to demonic cultivation, using resentful energy like that?” he asked at one point, and Lao Nie had explained to him how they had drawn the distinction – using beasts, never humans, and channeling the worst of the effects into their sabers rather than themselves. How much they strived to cultivate morality into their sabers as well as power.

Lan Qiren thought that it was a fine line, but after some thought concluded that they fell on the right side of it, if just barely. The primary dangers of demonic cultivation were in the way it increased the amount of evil in the world, whether through the inevitable madness and violent rampages of its wielders or through the simple side effects of using other people’s corpses as your playthings, increasing their own resentment, breaking the hearts of their loved ones, and causing their ancestors to curse you; that sort of vile conduct was an offense to the Heavens. The Nie sect’s cultivation avoided that, and if through their sabers they added a little bit of evil to the world then it could not be denied that they took much, much more of it out.

“I think I understand now,” he said, brushing his fingers along his beard. “But…why tell me? Isn’t it one of your clan secrets?”

“It is,” Lao Nie agreed. “As a general principle, we do not tell outsiders unless we must.”

The Nie sect preferred principles over rules, which Lan Qiren begrudgingly accepted even if he himself preferred having rules, clear and precise and equal even if they sometimes weren’t quite fair. But situation-dependent or not, the Nie held to those principles just as tightly as any Lan did to their sect rules, and that was worthy of respect.

“So you felt that you must,” Lan Qiren observed. “But why? And what does it have to do with A-Jue? Is he not taking to your sect’s teachings…?”

“I would almost prefer that,” Lao Nie said, and rubbed his eyes. “We’ve always had those that didn’t follow our ways – those that refused to train the saber, or refused to cultivate a spirit despite all their training. No. It’s actually…A-Jue’s very good.”

Lan Qiren had been a teacher for seven years. He was accustomed to parents who needed to praise their child before getting to the point, though he wouldn’t have expected it of Lao Nie. He waited.

“He’s too good,” Lao Nie said, and abruptly covered his face with his hands. “He’s already cultivated a spirit in Baxia.”

Lan Qiren’s whole body jerked. “Lao Nie!” he exclaimed. “You’ve already given him a saber? He’s too young!”

Under the age of ten, Nie Mingjue should still be building his strength, shaping the muscles that would serve him in the future; he should be wielding only a practice saber made of wood, heavy and slow as he etched the forms of his sect style into his bones. Even if he was a true prodigy, a once-in-a-generation genius, he should at most bear a weapon of dulled steel, and never an actual spiritual weapon, much less the one that would be the companion of his future life.

“He took it himself,” Lao Nie said. “A little over a year ago – we had a surprise attack, right in the middle of the summer hunts. Supposedly bandits, but actually mercenaries, supported by traitors from the inside; they had a map to lead them straight inside our home, and attacked at the moment when most of us were gone. When everyone else ran for cover, A-Jue went to the armory and picked up a saber, freshly forged, and he took his first blood the same day. What was I supposed to do? Take it away from him?”

Lan Qiren felt a stab of sympathy for Lao Nie’s impossible dilemma.

Taking the saber away just when A-Jue had started bonding with it, right after he’d shed blood with it for the first time – yes, that would have been far worse. It might have crippled his confidence, introduced hesitation that would damage his cultivation forever, hinder his future growth…

“And he already developed a saber spirit?” he said instead. “Within a year?”

That wasn’t genius. That was insane.

“I know,” Lao Nie said. “The faster we cultivate, the sooner we die, but how am I supposed to say that to a child? And there’s how fast he’s picked up our cultivation style, how fast he’s going – what if he introduces some flaw into it and it sinks in before anyone notices? Even a minor disruption to his qi, at this age –”

Lan Qiren scowled. “Stop panicking,” he ordered. “That won’t help anyone at all, least of all him.”

Unexpectedly, Lao Nie smiled at him, although the smile was full of regret.

“It’s easy to say and hard to do,” he said. “Don’t you know I always lose my head when it comes to love?”

Lan Qiren knew.

Lao Nie had always been reckless in matters of the heart, as seen by his decision to marry some stranger for his first wife and a nobody for his second, and to thereafter refuse a third, more sensible arrangement with some sect leader’s daughter or sister that could care for the children as a mother while acting as a useful political tool, even if no other children were forthcoming. Even though his life had been beset with later tragedy, he had been happy with his wives – happy and in love, and unwilling to trade a single moment with them for anything.

Lan Qiren knew this. He even understood it.

He just had trouble excusing it.

Lao Nie had been friend to Lan Qiren’s brother long before he’d been friend to him, and so when Qingheng-jun had fallen in love in that sudden, shocking, irrevocable manner that the Lan sect had, Lao Nie had been the first to support him in it, delighted to think that his friend would find the same happiness he had himself found. He’d encouraged him not to be shy in presenting his courtship, in presenting himself as a possible match; he’d reassured him that some disinterest to begin with was reasonable, given that they were still strangers, and advised him to enjoy the feeling of falling in love, to be reckless and bold and daring with it…and he did it all in writing, from a distance.

Lao Nie had been occupied at the time with issues in his own sect – probably the scandals relating to his first wife, in retrospect, though of course he said nothing of it back then – and had unwisely trusted in Qingheng-jun’s description of the events, rather than seeing the circumstances for himself. It was understandable that he would not comprehend how fiercely his friend’s heart had been gripped by love, or how truly disinterested He Kexin was in her ardent suitor, not when Qingheng-jun described her resistance as mere coquetry. It was impossible for Lao Nie to have predicted that his well-meant advice that love was worth anything, even defiance of sect rules and the counsels of the elders, would be interpreted in such a terrible way.

Still less, of course, could he have predicted what happened next, the tragedy of He Kexin and the friend that deceived her, that tried to use her and Qingheng-jun through her through false rumors and twisted stories, and in so doing underestimated how unbridled He Kexin could be when pressed. It was all part and parcel of the same underlying calamity: if Qingheng-jun had not been so persistent in his courtship, He Kexin wouldn’t have had such a bad impression of the Lan sect; if she hadn’t had such a bad impression of the Lan sect, she might not have been so ready to believe her friend’s lies about their teacher’s conduct, to allow herself to be indirectly used to manipulate Qingheng-jun’s love-madness to the advantage of another sect; if He Kexin had been a little less arrogant or a little less blindly trusting or had bothered to ask a single question before taking upon herself the duty of executioner as well as judge, if she’d only held back her sword and not gone so far as to kill a man over baseless rumor – if only – if only – if, if, if –

If Qingheng-jun had not decided that his love mattered more to him than his sect.

There was no way Lao Nie could have known what would happen.

It was understandable.

One might even say that it was forgivable, except Lan Qiren had not yet gotten around to forgiving him.

Lan Qiren had dreamed of travel, not teaching; he’d wanted to play music in all the forgotten places, to learn all the things that could not be simply deduced from inside the safety of the Cloud Recesses. He’d wanted to help people, to use that vast store of knowledge that seemed irrevocably stuck in his brain to solve problems and suggest solutions. But the Lan sect needed a leader, and with Qingheng-jun in permanent seclusion, disinterested in sect matters, choosing instead to obsess endlessly over his broken heart…

The duty had fallen to Lan Qiren instead.

(He Kexin had eventually grown rather fond of her husband, even if love wasn’t the word for it. Lan Qiren didn’t know if she was simply salvaging what she could out of an unsalvageable situation or if she just enjoyed the exercise, but he had two nephews now, to raise as if they were his own. Because that was just what he needed, another chain binding him to his home, another duty that shouldn’t have been his – he loved his nephews more than anything, so he couldn’t be angry at them, couldn’t blame them for being born, and so he had to be angry at everyone else instead.)

Lan Qiren lowered his head and pursed his lips. He knew Lao Nie wanted his forgiveness. He even knew, according to the sect rules he valued so highly, that he should grant it. Seven years was surely long enough to pay for any innocent mistake, wasn’t it?

Come as a friend, or not at all.

That was the invitation Lao Nie had extended, and Lan Qiren had come. That was very nearly a decision, if he wanted it to be.

“Let me see him,” Lan Qiren proposed, and Lao Nie’s smile warmed at once.

#mdzs #lan qiren #sect leader nie #my fic #my fics #tedious joys #LQR and the power of research

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warrioreowynofrohan · 4 years ago

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Rhythm of War Review

PART 1

It feels a little separate from the rest of the book to me at the moment because I read it pre-release, but I think it did a good job setting up the rest of the plot. I greatly enjoyed Navani’s perspective and ideas throughout the book, and the first section established her much more firmly as a character than any of the previous books; her couple of chapters in Oathbringer were more focused on politics and her relationship with Dalinar, so it was great yo see much more of her scientific side.

When I first read Part 1 it felt very Kaladin-heavy, but after completing the book I see how it was necessary to establish his burnout in order to set up the rest of the plot. And Chapter 12 (A Way to Help), in addition to being our only chance in the book to see our trio together, did a great job setting up Kaladin’s later work with mentally ill people, both by establishing the need and showing what kind of help was needed. I was nonetheless quite frustrated by Kaladin reacting to Shallan’s DID with “that would be nice...”. She’s having serious problems, Kal! She’s your friend and could use support, not you regarding her issues as a neat way to take a holiday from one’s own brain! Kaladin’s very kind and caring with those he chooses to protect, as we see with Bridge 4 in TWOK and the mentally ill people in Chapter 25, but sometimes I think he’s not a very good friend. I know he was not in a good place, but in Oathbringer when they were in Shadesmar Shallan had just had a complete breakdown and she still went out of her way to emotionally support Kal, so it would be nice to see his friendships become a bit more two-way. (For similar reasons, I liked seeing the moments of Shallan-to-Adolin emotional support in Shadesmar in ROW, because a lot of their relationship in OB was her relying on him; it felt balanced in ROW as both supported each other.)

PART 2

I loved the Shadesmar arc! The emotional arcs for both main characters were very strong - I had been looking forward to seeing Adolin’s reaction to (in-universe) Oathbringer, and it did not disappoint; the conflict between genuinely loving Dalinar and being unable to forgive what he’d done was well-drawn. I was so pissed off at Dalinar in that last conversation! You burned his mom to death, you do not get to take the moral high ground and lecture him. And I do see a difference between killing innocents, as Taravangian does, and killing someone who’s effectively declared war on you and has a history of treason.

I also liked Adolin’s sense of being generally at sea with his purpose in the world. He’s been trained primarily as a warrior and general, and his combat skills have been made virtually obsolete by the Radiants. And at the same time, the reader can see what makes Adolin special, and it’s not combat skills - though those do give him a big heroic moment in a pinch - it’s his care and compassion for others. The way he interacts with Maya and slowly brings her life is absolutely beautiful. Chapter 35 was such a wonderful Shadolin moment (and starspren are amazing!); he really gets her and understands what she needs. Chapter 24 was sweet too, though super cheesy.

I spent the entire Shadesmar arc side-eying Veil and Radiant, especially with Veil’s takeover stunt at the start, but in the end they genuinely were supporting and helping Shallan. So in retrospect I do like scenes like the one with Veil trying to draw Shallan out by drawing Adolin badly.

Spoeking of drawing, I love the spren art, it’s some of the best art so far, and fascianting to see how they all look!

Kaladin finding non-violent ways to protect, culminating in pioneering Rosharan therapy - and Teft insisting on staying to support him - was everything I wanted for him. His arc could have just been that, and I’d have been perfectly happy. Chapter 25 (Devotary of Mercy) is still my favourite in the entire book.

Unfortunately, then Odium’s forces had to show up and SPOIL EVERYTHING. I’m rather appalled by how quickly Urithiru fell - the enemy forces were literally in the pillar room by the time anyone noticed them.

PART 3

Part 3 was a real slog for me, partly because it is a slog and partly because I hit it at the height of my sleep deptivation. (It’s really...not a good thing to be reading on zero sleep at the literal darkest-hour-before-dawn.) Kaladin’s arc in Urithiru is just so exhausting; he’s so clearly worn to the boneand everything feels so hopeless. Kaladin’s had bad times before - Bridge 4 in TWOK, for example - but then the reader could see progress even if Kaladin couldn’t. (Kaladin: I’m getting nowhere and failing at everything! Everyone else: Kaladin, you were literally just miraculously resurrected.) Here, though - well, I genuinely spent the whole book from Part 3 through to the climax thinking that they would lose Urithiru.

Navani’s arc, and Venli’s, I did enjoy.

The other section of Part 3, in Emul, just felt rather disjointed. It had some interesting moments, but it didn’t have a sense of cohesion or of where it was going. I was entertained by Dalinar’s musings on the merits of despositism and the need to free Queen Fen from having - horrors! - a parliament. (I wonder if the Fourth Ideal will be something like “I will recognize that it can sometimes be beneficial to have people oppose my decisions.”)

PART 4

Again, adored the Shadesmar arc. Really strong character arcs for both Adolin and Shallan, combined with excellent plots and a strong sense of momentum. I was pretty sure Maya would be crucial in the trial, but that didn’t make the moment any less powerful (though Sanders probably shouldn’t have tried quite as hard to replicate his “You. Cannot. Have. My. Pain.” moment from Oathbringer). I need to put together a proper post on the theme of choice in Oathbringer, because that moment - combined with Kaladin’s fourth ideal and the conflict with Lirin over the way he’s inspiring the resistance - really crystallized it for me. To treat a person’s choice and sacrifices as something done to them is to devalue their volition, their agency. Maya is put in the horrifying situation of being used as a prop and treated as evidence of a point that she is diametrically opposed to and turned into a weapon against someone she loves, and it’s enough to drive her to regain her voice and speak for herself. I am very curious to know what specifically led the spren to agree to the Recreance!

I did not remotely guess what Shallan’s secret was, even though in retrospect the Cryptic deadeye should have made it incredibly obvious. I think her fear that she’d lose Adolin if it came out was overblown - he already knows she killed both her parents, he’s not going to be fazed by “I was so distraught over having to kill my own mother in self-defence at age ten that I broke my Radiant oaths”. But obviously it’s not something Shalkan would be able to consider duspassionately. Her arc was rather terrifying once I realized that Formless was, well, basically her, but more specifically, Shallan’s idea of the monster that she was, and her breakdown was driving her to “accept who she was” as being that monster. I like Shallan and was never that into Veil - though she was fairly good in this book and went out well - so I’m not sad to see the back of her.

I haven’t managed to work through all the espionage/mole elements. Yes, Pattern used the box to talk to Wit, and Radiant killed Ialai so Shallan wouldn’t, but who’s Mraize’s spy close to Dalinar?

This arc ended too abruptly. I think Sanderson could easily have traded a Kaladin chapter in Part 3 for an extra chapter wrapping up events in Shadesmar; maybe one where Shallan first goes to see Testament.

I enjoyed the Urithiru arc in Part 4 as well. Switching to Bridge 4 points of view other than Kaladin was a good move - we already know he’s worn to ribbons, so we don’t need to be inside his head to see it. “The Dog and the Dragon” was amazing, and the most appropriate story ever for Kaladin. (I get how Wit’s schtick of telling incredibly topical stories and then saying “no, I don’t have a point, what point?” would be really aggravating in person.) It was nice to see him be gentle with Kaladin for a change, the way he is with Shallan - his two previous encounters with Kaladin read as rather baiting, which annoyed me.

Dabbid was - I don’t know quite how to say this, but his inclusion struck an amazing balance in this book. Navani’s arc is all about two amazingly smart people doing science and making incredible breakthroughs, and that is sincerely valued and given importance by the narrative, and then you get chapters like Dabbid’s and one of Taravangian’s emphasizing that a person’s value and ability to contribute is not determined by their intelligence.

Navani’s arc continued to be excellent. All of her research, and the way the story took you through the process, and her complex relationship with Raboniel, was great.

I loved Venli’s character development, and growing willingness to take risks for the sake of others. To me, her arc parallels Dalinar’s in the last book in some ways. If we can love the story of a bloodthirsty conqueror growing to become a good person, why can’t we equally love the story of a coward coming to become a good person? There seems to be a tendency to be more drawn to strength, even in its most terrible forms, than to weakness. To me, Venli’s confession to Rlain and acceptance of his disgust at her was one of the book’s great moments. (And I can’t understand people saying her arc took up two much space. She had 5 chapters in Part 3, and 4 in Part 4. That’s not very many! I’ll grant that the flasbacks packed less punch than some earlier flashback sequences because we already knew the main events - Brandon acknowledged that even before the book came out - but I still liked them well enough, and Venli’s present-day arc was excellent.)

Anyway, the amount of space I’ve spent on this section relative to Part 3 is another strong inducation of the differences in how I feel about them!

PART 5

I should probably start this section with a discussion of Moash. I’ll try to keep it summarized. here - I could, and may, write a short essay on his development through The Stormlight Archive. The first thing that jumps out about Moash’s arc in this book is his reaction to Renarin’s vision in Part 1. I think that vision is showing Moash who he could still be, in a similar way to Shallan’s inspirational drawings of people - both use the Surge of Illumination. So it’s not that Moash is irredeemable; Renarin is specifucally holding out to him the possibility of redemption.

And Moash’s reaction is to run away in terror. Because he desperately wants his decision to be irrevocable. He desperately wants there to only be one possible path forward for him. Because if there are alternative paths, it means he can choose them, and that would mean facing guilt, facing the fact that his past choices were wrong, and his current choices are wrong. And that is exactly what Moash sought to avoid by giving up his pain and sense of guilt to Odium.

Moash is, nonetheless, very much Moash and not Vyre, as evidenced by his continuing obsession with Kaladin. As with his above need to not be wrong, here he needs to feel that he’s right, and the only way he can feel that he’s right is if Kaladin - whom he still deeply admires - makes the same decision as him, and if Moash can convince himself that he’s doing Kaladin a favour in driving him to that point. It’s ironic that he’s given up almost all feeling abd become almost enturely detached, but his worst actions are driven by his attitude towards the one person in the world who he still does have very strong feelings about. By the end of the book, he’s comprehensively broken, to the point that even when his ability to feel is restored he’s unable to even feel genuine remose over the cold-blooded murder of a friend. I don’t know where he’ll go from here - it would be ironic if he was only ever really appealing to Rayse-Odium, and Taravangian-Odium found Moash too much of a flat villain for his purposes and cast him off.

As the plot climaxes go, I thought the ones for Navani and Venli were excellent and very satisfying. I enjoyed Kaladin’s as well and found it cathartic, but it a was moment we all knew had to come, so it didn’t have quite the kick of some of Kaladin’s other big moments. I did love his reconciliation with Lirin. One of the themes of the book was finding common ground despite deeply felt disagreements - with Navani and Raboniel, with Navani and the Sibling, and with humans and singers/Fused more generally - and Kaladin and Lirin’s reconciliation fit well with that. I am far more favourable to Lirin than most people - if you’ve lived as a pacifist in storming Alethkar, which values the lives of its people slightly more than it does crem, you’re going to have been right a solid 95% of the time, where everyone else was wrong. I can make allowances for the other five percent, especially when Lirin’s life lesson from the last five or so years has been “resisting oppression and standing up for what you believe in will destroy everyone you love”.

And on the topic of finding common ground, Leshwi’s reaction to the revelation that Venli was a Radiant was one of the single most beautiful moments of the book, and one of my absolute favourites. It’s gorgeous and moving, and at the same time rather tragic, because - what might have bern different if Venli had revealed herself to Leshwi at the start of the book? How much of the conflict could have been avoided. Singers don’t appear to attract spren as strongly as humans do, which makes Leshwi drawing joyspren particularly powerful. And then the bittersweet note from “My soul is too long owned by someone else”. (Come to think of it, this is another inverted paralell to Moash. This is someone realizing “I was wrong about everything and I’m so glad about that because it means I have a chance to be someone better than I was.”) Oh my goodness, I would love a Leshwi chapter in a later book, just to check in on her and see how she’s doing in her new life with the Singers.

I also loved the climax of Navani’s arc, and was so relieved, because up until that very moment I wasn’t sure if the Sibling would survuve uncorrupted. I know that some people weren’t pleased because the Sibling didn’t even like her, but to me that became a core part of the story, like I said above - people who deeply disagree finding common ground and common cause. That is a key element of being a Bondsmith - the process of bringing people together in spite of their differences - and something that fits Navani so well given the rapport she found with Raboniel. (Though I was conflicted about the latter. On the one hand, she made amazing discoveries that enabled her to save Urithiru. One the other hand, she...kind of collaborated with the enemy and gave them terrible weapons out of intellectual curiosity and a desire to prove herself?) I will grant that it makes the series, and the characters with the most crucial importance to Roshar, rather Kholin-heavy.

For Taravodium, all I can say is - YIPES. I have no idea how to process the implications of that, but I feel like it will be bad. Really really bad. (Taravangian is probably my least favourite character in the entire Stormlight Archive. The attitude of “I am so brave and selfless for doing evil things and look at how wonderful I am for sacrificing my own morality for the benefit of all, you petty selfish people wanting to be good could never make such a grand sacrifice” drives me absolutely nuts. It’s a complete inversion and twisting of morality, and intensely arrogant.)

Dalinar’s encounter with Ishar was fascinating, and I’m very curious to see where this goes. The spren experiments were deeply creepy! And the way Radiant Oaths can temporarily restore a Herald’s sanity was fascinating - I’m very eager to see where this goes in the next book. I suspect that Dalinar may have made a very serious mistake with regards to this trial my combat, and I have no idea how/if they’re going to fit Szeth’s whole arc into the ten days before the duel. I’ve been eagerly anticipating Szeth’s arc ever since The Way of Kings!

#brandon sanderson #the stormlight archive #rhythm of war #row spoilers #kaladin #shallan #adolin #dalinar kholin #navani kholin #leshwi #moash

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dragonnan · 4 years ago

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Author Interview Tag

Tagged by @aelaer a week or two ago, thank you!

Name: Tanya (among family I'm Nan or Auntie Nanny)

Fandoms: Sherlock, MCU, Psych, Prodigal Son, and a goodly collection of others

Where you post: For a number of years I posted on FFN but between the really shitty reviews and extremely cumbersome posting process I finally quit. I posed on Psychfic while still an active part of that fandom but that, too, has pretty much ended. I put a few stories on Wattpad but found it to be pretty meh. I now post exclusively to AO3.

Most popular multi-chapter fic: It's a tossup between “Fury” on Psychfic and “All Nighter” on AO3 – one based on comments and the other on Kudos. Frankly “popularity” is really subjective because there's also stuff like read count and with comments, at least nearly half are replies from me and read count also includes re-reads as well as every time I clicked on the damn thing to edit so....

You know I'm just really not sure how to properly answer this??

Favorite story you’ve written so far: Like others have stated you can ask me this on three different days and get three different answers and there will be more than 1 fic mentioned every time so.... Because I write in different fandoms I just absolutely can't list a single fic. The best I can narrow it would a fic from my top 3 fandoms.

Psych: Paint it Black. I had read a fic where Shawn was gradually going blind and had really been enjoying it and the challenges it presented. Sadly it was never completed. As has happened before I decided I would write my own damn fic if I couldn't get a completed story so that was the primary motivation to start this. What I most love about this is writing from Shawn's perspective as he navigates being blind and not knowing whether or not his condition is permanent. I did my best to honor the experience of blind and partially blind people and tried to look beyond the cliché.

MCU: I have so much fun writing these stories! In spite of the dumpster fire the film canon became I do so love this sandbox and employing various forms of unfucking it. So I'm gonna cheat a little and pick two for my faves here since one is a WIP. Sed Diabolus. I don't need to have completed it yet to know this will be my all-time favorite. This is the first fic that has been entirely plotted out and OMG I'm so excited for iiiit!! The second is Simple Math which seems like an odd choice given there's zero action – mostly just one character – hell, not even any whump. But there is something about that deep dive into Tony's mindset that keeps this as a fave even though it was the first thing I ever wrote for the MCU. I learned about Tony as I wrote this and I also worked my way through those motivations that bothered me regarding Stane. Even years later I still mentally go back to this fic whenever I write Tony because I feel encapsulates the essence of how I see him as a character.

Sherlock: Compared to other fandoms I'm still quite new to this fandom so I don't have nearly as many fics. But I still have a favorite! And, like with the MCU, it's the first story I ever wrote for this fandom; The Tiger and the Shark. Returning to a plot device I've employed in other fics, this one is built around a sexual assault and taking the character on a journey from that terrible event to the point where they rediscover themselves. PTSD ever being my favorite form of whump I employ that fairly a lot in this story and employ some kinda radical methods for coping with those memories.

Fic you were nervous to post: I mean until I start getting comments I'm a world of anxiety with every story I post. But grabbing a specific fic that hit my nerves – that Sherlock fic I'd said was my fave certainly qualified. Not only was it my first Sherlock fic – it also was charging out of the gate with a very heavy topic so yeah – I wasn't sure if people would absolutely hate it or find my characterizations totally off or what.

How you choose your titles: It varies a bit. In some stories, like Sed Diabolus, I actually consult friends on various ideas. Other times I'll consider songs or lyrics and my favorite thing is if I can alter the known title just a bit to make it more relevant to the fic (I did that a LOT with Psych fics which was the method the show also employed for its episode titles). One of my favorite Psych titles is “The Wizard Was the Wicked Witch and the Scarecrow Lost His Courage”.

Do you outline: Almost never – not until “Sed Diabolus”. That story, though, is so astoundingly complex that without an outline I'd be hopelessly lost. I am, though, trying to make a practice of outlining more because it helps SO much!

Complete: If we count every one-shot collection and challenge collection it likely is over 200 stories. Of course a lot of those are one-shots. My total completed chaptered fics number maybe around 34?

In progress: 16 – between Psychfic and AO3. All Psych stories are on long-term hiatus for the foreseeable future (some, honestly, I will never finish as they are many many years old and I've lost the inspiration for the plot). Several MCU stories are also on the back-burner while I focus on “Sed Diabolus”. I admit I get LOTS of story ideas and staying focused on a single fic is not something I've ever been greatly successful with.

Coming soon/not yet started: I meaaaan.... lots?? I have probably several hundred ideas and partially started fics across many fandoms. As to “imminently coming soon...” I don't think I currently have an active story that I haven't already posted at least a first chapter. Sadly I have zero patience for developing something for months before posting which is why I have so many WIPs. That said I DO have a Sherlock au that has been poking at me now and then involving the witch trials that started in Denmark and, eventually, made their way to Salem. The idea would be that Molly Hooper is accused of being a witch. She, of course, is innocent but cause this unfortunate attention due to her “uncanny” ability to heal the sick and injured (not so much uncanny as opposed to employing methods that aren't so reliant on superstition and folklore).

She is scheduled to be tortured and executed but is saved by Sherlock – a strange recluse primarily ignored and given a pass as he solves mysteries for people. He and his friend John save Molly from this awful fate. The twist is that Sherlock is a sorcerer (bit of marvel crossover-ish) and able to transport them to safety.

Do you accept prompts: I wish I could cause I love ideas but I don't have the time/energy to always work on what I already have and I'm awful at follow thru. Like I will never turn away an Ask wanting to share ideas but I can't promise that I can actually write anything.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: As was the reply to a previous query – I have lots that are ideas that will linger in partial stages for sometimes years. If it's “upcoming” I've already posted the first chapter lol! But, again, I have several story ideas that whenever I poke through my folders I get excited about someday actually writing them. Here is a teaser for an MCU fic involving Tony Stark and Obie (I still feel this was never explored enough – certainly not in fic):

They were doing a retrospective, ten year anniversary kinda... whatever. Unofficial, of course. Certainly nothing Pepper would have dreamed up even at her most drunk (which, honestly, was never her scene. Tony had sorta owned that space well beyond the time it had started owning him). Whose idea it ultimately had been? Frankly Tony couldn't give a fuck. That he was asked to be one of the speakers was slightly more... awkward. Awkward was the right word, yeah? Nauseating was certainly another and possibly a bit more accurate.

Dead for a decade and Obadiah Stane still managed to fuck with his life.

But... it hadn't always been that way. At least, not as he'd believed back when the Walkman had been on every kid's Christmas list.

He'd thought it was bonding; at the time. His dad had never been one for just hanging out; shooting the shit; telling tales out of school. No, Pops, when he bothered to interact, led with questions. “You keeping your grades up?” “You still seeing that floozy?” “When are you going to pull your head out of your ass and grow the hell up?” “You do realize it's my name you're disgracing every time you go on a bender?”

With Obie it was just, easy. Obie might ask about school but it was always with approval and pride. He would discuss Tony's conquests as though Tony had climbed Kilimanjaro wearing nothing but underwear and a cape.

Obie was there when his father wasn't. Which meant that Obie was always there. The first time he got astoundingly drunk on his father's scotch, Obie was the one to help him hunch over the toilet and vomit expensive, aged booze into the toilet. Obie was also the one to replace the depleted bottle to keep Howard in the dark. For a fourteen year old kid still trying to gain his dad's favor, that had meant everything.

He saw his first porn with Obie; sex education ala Traci Lords, three months shy of his fifteenth birthday. That was the same time he was introduced to weed. Obie had cautioned him to use it sparingly; didn't want to fry that genius brain, he'd say, and ruffle his hair. The porn had made him uncomfortable. Obie had turned it off and told him they could watch whatever Tony wanted. They'd ended up changing the station to Knight Rider; smoking and munching Cheetos and laughing over their orange fingers.

It was Obie who was there, arm around his shoulders, after his parents died. He desperately didn't want to sob in front of the man. Things were so complicated with his dad that all he felt was blinding guilt... as though some part of him had caused this. But Obie had filled him with bourbon until the emotions got soft around the edges and he'd sat beside the older man, head tipping gradually to the right until he was held up by Obie's shoulder. Obie had just slung an arm around him and let Tony pass out while he rubbed a broad hand up and down his bicep.

It was strange, now, looking back with adult perspective. A perspective that included Afghanistan and his intended execution while Obie talked about legacy and responsibility while Tony's lungs slowly seized. He'd taken the time to sit there – arm around Tony's shoulders while one broad hand traveled up and down Tony's bicep – just like when he was a kid and Obie was the whole world.

He'd tried to remember if it had felt so... tainted... at the time. Or if he'd always believed it was love.

Obie had never quite crossed that line. Though hindsight offered a peek into that possibility with enough clarity Tony had fought with his cramping gut for nearly thirty minutes. He'd staved off vomiting though he was fairly certain his dignity had still been in tatters what with Bruce wandering in on his misery.

Upcoming story you are most excited about (this is basically a repeat of the above question so I decided to change it. Do you have a future story idea you'd like to write that is not yet beyond the vague idea stage? I love stories that put Molly in some sort of jeporady and I have a barely formed idea to someday write a “stalker fic” of some sort and not I don't care that this trope had been done on repeat – I still love it lol! I have a smidge of writing for it:

“I need your help.”

As afternoons at Baker Street went, this was a mundane request heard so often that Sherlock's typical reply, “Obviously, or you wouldn't be here”, could have been printed on flash cards. The detective had actually made the suggestion after a particularly full day at the flat and having heard the statement no less than twenty times.

Today, however, Sherlock merely blinked for a moment. Then, with an awkwardness rare to a man with a lethal sort of grace in his movements, Sherlock gestured to John's chair, JOHN'S CHAIR, before taking his usual seat.

Molly didn't exactly smile but her lips edged up a bit before she sat.

John cleared his throat before pointing a vague hand towards the kitchen. “I'll just go make some tea, shall I?”

“No, please, I...” The stammer in her speech was not uncommon; though John couldn't recall such obvious fear. Forgoing the kitchen he, instead, took the hard wooden chair facing the other two.

“Molly, what's wrong?”

Tagging: @kitcat992 @mizjoely @sgam76 @ariaadagio @hanuko @ceruleanmindpalace

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