#which is less ideal but also. relatable.

[essektheylyss]

The best thing about living with cats is that sometimes they'll just meander over and sit next to you expectantly, and then you can give them a little forehead boop with your forehead and that's all they really want.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

was thinking abt that thing from a lil while ago where arceus cuts ingo's heart out, to spare him having to be sad about his former life. and then also got to thinking abt that thing i briefly mentioned a WHILE ago which is the idea that the reason ingo has no apparent language barrier w/ hisui is that uxie hotswapped his language from unova's to hisui's rq while he was falling as like a "sorry about your memories" consolation prize. and abt how, despite the very silly way i phrased that, that is actually like a supremely fucked up thing to do to a person and i would also consider it metaphysical violence on some level.

so anyway like. alt version where instead of it being arceus, it gets the whole lake trio in on it. mesprit takes out his heart, uxie takes out his tongue

[idol-emu-otori-official-archived]

╰┈➤ SHUFFLE AU

DESTINATION POINT (DP)

the Leo/need adjacent unit, composed of Ichika Hoshino, Airi Momoi, Ena Shinonome, and Minori Hanasato. ☆ a girl who's lost her friendships, and three others searching for their worth.

about the group's name: ♡ originally, i had "from here to there" in mind, but someone from the Discord gave me the name "destination point" and i thought it was much better, so i went with that. ♪

about the SEKAI: ♡ the Train SEKAI. no one knows when it left, or where it's going - just that it never stops. it's the perfect place for those who feel like they're lagging behind. just close your eyes and let yourself be carried away, right? but maybe there's something you can do… starts with a Miku and a Rin. the former's hardworking and talented, but the latter struggles - Rin is somewhat influenced by Ena's (and, to a lesser extent, Airi's) jealousy towards others.

•

Ichika hasn't managed to rekindle her friendship with her friends, and she's not doing particularly well. At one point, she meets Airi - who just quit being an idol. The two start talking and become friends, at which point they end up forming a band together. Airi wants to try finding a place where she could finally be taken seriously.

Ena's invited by Airi, and Minori - who had failed auditions recently - ends up inspired by Ichika's kindness, Airi's drive and Ena's determination, which is how she joins. (Haruka completely gave up on being an idol; something Minori is saddened by.)

In my mind, Ichika plays the guitar; Airi, the drums; Minori, the keyboard and Ena, the bass.

-

IDEAL HEAVEN! (IH)

the MORE MORE JUMP! adjacent unit, composed of Mafuyu Asahina, Emu Otori, Mizuki Akiyama and Shizuku Hinomori. ☆ an up-and-coming idol group that combines cuteness and sophistication.

about the SEKAI: ♡ quite similar to the Empty SEKAI, but with some idol influences - a broken stage with no one in sight. there's no bright lights, no colorful props. nothing. that SEKAI both comforts and pains Mafuyu. home to a lone Miku. sweet, hopeful, but genuinely crushed by the pressure she's feeling.

•

Mafuyu's mother wants a perfect child. idols are very frequently represented as being perfect - so, she decides that her daughter should become one, too. Mafuyu's not keen on the idea, but that's her mother; she's obedient, so she goes along with it.

Shizuku still quit Cheerful * Days, but instead of stopping altogether she ends up with Mafuyu. Emu wants to make people smile, but no one ever came; Wonderlands × Showtime was never a thing. so she decides to become an idol instead, even if it means she'll never bring back the Wonder Stage to its former state.

Mizuki's half-dragged into IDEAL HEAVEN! by Emu, who saw them looking with interest at idol merch. after bringing them to meet Mafuyu and Shizuku, Mizuki ends up accepting - the idea of wearing cute clothes and being called cute doesn't seem too terrible.

-

READY MADE SUCCESS (RMS)

the Vivid BAD SQUAD adjacent unit, composed of Haruka Kiritani, An Shiraishi, Shiho Hinomori and Akito Shinonome. ☆ two street musicians chasing after their dream, and the two girls they brought with them.

about the SEKAI: ♡ the Street SEKAI. weirdly, it seems Haruka's idol background has somewhat influenced its appearance. its inhabitants are Miku, Meiko and Len. this Miku is levelheaded, but it seems like there's something holding her back from going all-in...

•

after quitting being an idol, Haruka is invited by An to join her.

An's never met Kohane, and she never found a partner. Haruka is hesitant for a moment before deciding to give it a shot, though she keeps struggling with singing. Shiho tries getting more experience, meets Akito. no one really knows how these two ended together, but they both have a similar drive and take music very seriously.

eventually, they all start working together. Haruka deals with her guilt and, while she doubts she'll become an idol again, she's mostly made peace with what happened.

-

STARLIGHT ☆ EVERMORE (S ☆ E)

the Wonderlands × Showtime adjacent unit, composed of Tsukasa Tenma, Saki Tenma, Kanade Yoisaki and Toya Aoyagi. ☆ a strange troupe of people who aim to help others through their performances.

about the SEKAI: ♡ still very much Tsukasa's, so it's the Wonderland SEKAI. [kanade goes there for the first time and dies. alas, they're still a shut-in and this place is simply too colorful for her poor eyes.] starts with a Miku and a Kaito, though this version of the former uses far less onomatopoeias.

Tsukasa figures he needs to show the world how much of a star he is himself, and he drags his siblings into it (with varying degrees of willingness).

a part of Saki still wishes she could be in a band with her friends; she's only somewhat managed to repair her friendship with Ichika. but she's still happy to do something fun and lighthearted after all her struggles. Toya's very excited to do something with Tsukasa and his siblings. he also gets to stick it to his dad, which, honestly - is a bonus.

out of the three, Kanade is obviously the most hesitant about the whole thing. but she sees Tsukasa's drive to make others happy, something she shares with him, so she ends up agreeing. Kanade is… slightly healthier physically on account of the stubborn people looking after her, as well as all the exercise she does she does as part of Starlight ☆ Evermore. mentally? eh… we'll get there. i need her traumatized to be interesting. <3

-

LONELY SYNDROME (LS)

the 25-ji, Nightcord de. adjacent unit, composed of Nene Kusanagi, Rui Kamishiro, Honami Mochizuki and Kohane Azusawa. ☆ hidden behind avatars, these citizens of the web tell stories online.

about the SEKAI: ♡ the arcade SEKAI. this Miku is shy and withdrawn, though she one day hopes she'll be able to break out of her shell, just like Nene. alongside her is Luka - she has a bit of a teasing attitude and a catlike personality, but she always does her best to boost Nene's confidence.

about the group's name: ♡ syndrome refers to a group of symptoms - i paired it with the word lonely because i felt like it represented the atmosphere of an arcade. you're connected with people who share your interests, but at the same time, you're sort of separate from them. surrounded by people, but utterly alone…

•

Nene's social anxiety hasn't gotten better over the years. since she never joins Wonderlands × Showtime, she doesn't learn how to fight her stage fright.

but, she finds an alternate solution; using an avatar online. it's less stress-inducing, and it lets her pursue acting, in a way - it's not what Nene wants, but it's close enough. she figures she could be satisfied with that. Rui ends up figuring out what she's doing, and asks if he can help. Nene doesn't really have any reason to say no, so they start working together.

as for Honami and Kohane, they ended up on Nene's channel by pure accident. but her performances quickly became a comfort to them, since they were struggling at the time (the former because she no longer had her friends, the latter because of her lack of confidence).

unfortunately, ignoring your problems only goes so far, and eventually, her feelings give birth to the arcade SEKAI.

[tj-crochets]

Hey y’all! Do you have any recommendations for walkers or rollators that are foldable and can be converted to wheelchairs?  This question brought to you by today’s POTS flareup that has my heartrate jumping to the high 130s every time I stand up but I need to go grocery shopping. I sometimes need to sit down to let my heartrate come back down, but A. it tends to alarm people in the grocery store when I sit on the floor to catch my breath, B. it’s hard to get off the floor on bad blood pressure days, and C. if it converts to a wheelchair, when I hit the “okay no more walking” stage my family can wheel me along with them without having to have the “our faces are uncomfortably close to each other while you push me backwards through a store” experience of a rollator  Heck, maybe one of those like shopping bags on wheels with a fold down seat? Being pulled behind my brother like luggage would be weird but would be a safer way to get me back out to the car than trying to get me both into and out of a shopping cart without falling

[queenerdloser]

in a fit of job-related frustration i briefly went job hunting and while the prospects were bleak enough that i abandoned the exercise pretty quickly, i actually found two library jobs that were so suspiciously perfect for what i want in a job i was kind of like ??? what the fuck. i yearned for a library job back when i was first seriously job hunting in the us in 2020 but i couldnt find anything full time or with decent enough pay. and now TWO (2) jobs that a) are higher level but DON'T require a master's degree, which is shocking enough in itself b) both exceed my current pay rate (????) and c) actually are in my wheelhouse and are jobs i could do well, show up on my radar in the exact week i'm looking at jobs? suspicious!

i applied to both of them mostly just for kicks. i kind of forgot about it last week due to my grad school haze but i just remembered to double check the apps and for the one that closed to applications last weekend i've been moved up to reviewing training/experience... which seems like a good sign???? genuinely don't know what i'd do if i actually get asked to interview but that'd be so funny omfg

[ghostlyferrettarot]

💜🖇Neptune in the houses🖇💜

❗️All the observations in this post are based on personal experience and research, it's completely fine if it doesn't resonate with everyone❗️

✨️Paid Services ✨️ (Natal charts and tarot readings) Open!

💜If you like my work you can support me through Ko-fi. Thank you!💜

🖇Masterlist🖇

💜Neptune in the 1st house: speaks of an exalted sensitivity and defined intuitive qualities, which in some cases can generate natives with medium profiles due to their psychic abilities. They are personalities with spiritual, emotional qualities, with a deep inner world.

💜Neptune in the 2nd house: They do not put a real focus on their income and for this reason a scenario of economic imbalance and money disorder can be generated. It is a position that induces an inactive, idle or resigned attitude with respect to material searches. If the planet is well aspected, this placement can become a successful future due to having a prodigious intuition for economic matters.

💜Neptune in the 3rd house: generates profiles of intuitive, visionary, utopian minds. However, it is an ideal position for all those tasks for which stimulus and hunch are required. It favours artistic and musical qualities, but above all it is ideal for directing thought towards the realm of spirituality.

💜Neptune in the 4th house: the inner world symbolises the influence of this planet and by default it can be a particularly sensitive or intuitive native, who may be linked to art or some form of spirituality. They are people who feel love for nature and who have a harmonious vision of the family. But at the same time, family life can be confusing.

💜Neptune in the 5th house: it is a position that revives romantic feelings and favours platonic bonds. On the other hand, imagination plays a leading role in everything related to sentimental life. It is also associated with secret or unattainable loves that can be a source of great disappointments.

💜Neptune in the 6th house: it idealises the professional sphere and motivates the spirit of service and sacrifice. It is favourable for tasks and activities linked to the esoteric world in any of its facets. Natives tend to dedicate themselves to a profession that facilitates helping others, such as doctors, teachers, psychologists or astrologers, and sensitivity and intuition are of great help to them in the workplace.

💜Neptune in the 7th house: this position tends to cause great challenges for both romantic ties and partnerships. It predisposes an excessive idealization of relationships. In some cases, these people may be overcome by feelings of pity, or by the desire to help or save the other. The professional partner is likely to have "Neptunian" characteristics, that is, dreamy, sensitive, vulnerable qualities.

💜Neptune in the 8th house: creates profiles with a great attraction to the spiritual world, mystical sciences and esotericism. The union with others is experienced as if it were a mystical union. Likewise, it makes them more vulnerable to fraudulent situations in the field of business and contracts. However, economic disappointments will contribute to the native's spiritual growth.

💜Neptune in the 9th house: it is a fruitful position for the development of spiritual abundance in all its angles. It favors religious and mystical preferences, as well as interest in the occult. But if the planet is in tense aspect, the native can fall into deception or into tangled and uncertain forms of spirituality. They may also be attracted to more or less sacred figures: ascended masters and angels.

💜Neptune in the 10th house: it marks in the native a professional life of a "Neptunian" trajectory, or, what is the same, of a bohemian nature so to speak. With this position, all kinds of personalities can be found who develop within the spiritual world: psychics, healers, magic practitioners, teachers, etc.

💜Neptune in the 11th house: they may have a tendency to join groups of character or with spiritual purposes, it is a position that seeks connection with others. They can also connect with groups of a humanitarian, religious or social nature, which dedicate their energy to helping the most disadvantaged. The friends of these natives may have "Neptunian" traits: people with bohemian, sensitive and perceptive lives.

💜Neptune in the 12th house: it is in its domicile, and therefore at its maximum power. It predisposes a life of service, offering or renunciation, being an ideal position for priests, monks and mystics. This position encourages isolation from the world and the development of an intense spiritual search. Its a placement that favors artistic, poetic or musical creation.

[lifeonmarz-blog]

Sun through the houses: Synastry

Sun in 1st, the sun person makes the house person feel understood. Ive had this aspect with one of my bestfriends. He was my go to person, the first one id call when anything interesting happened. Its easy to share your feelings with the sun person it feels natural. We gave each other more confidence. He acknowledged accomplishments in my life that others didn't. Things that i didn't even give myself credit for he shined a light on. This placement made me act more fearlessly because someone else saw that quality in me.

Sun in 2nd, Stability is a common attraction to this placement. The sun person sees the house person as someone they can depend on. House person can help sun person financially or help develop their interest. Together these two can create great business plans, they work well together towards mutual interest. Others see the couple as very business oriented. I have this placement with one of my brothers both ways and we grew up sharing alot of our things sometimes because he had to other times because we knew that would allow us to both have more. Also i would borrow money from him he's always been a saver. Ive always preferred to exchange money for experiences.

Sun in 3rd, Sun person is very easy to talk to almost like a Therapist or something. Your secrets are spilled easily. The house person naturally wants to share here but it goes both ways the sun person also feels very understood by the house person. There's a mutual openness and grace with this placement. If you were in a long distance relationship this is type of placement that would be beneficial. I have this with a sibling he is the sun person and we have mutual interest so it makes collabing very easy. We tend to naturally operate in the same direction even though we individually don't think that similar.

Sun in 4th, This placement can feel like looking into a mirror. This person is a blatant reflection of some of your own behaviors. On the surface they seem like your ideal partner. Very well received by family. Honesty well received in general they look good together. This placement focuses on healing emotions in yourself that you reject. Its easier to be grateful for the little things with this person. They show you new ways to view the same things. Here you will see the areas where your being naive. They want you to believe in yourself as much as they do.

Sun in 5th, Child like fun happens here. The way the sun person expresses helps the house person not take things so seriously. The sun person is in awe of the house person. Its such a cute placement, The sun person makes the house person feel special. It may not be long term but it shows you how to just be, with no added pressures. Express your love today don't wait type of vibe. You may even talk about having babies here, are you actually serious probably not but this placement loves to feed into fantasies and ideals and that's nice sometimes. Someone i had this placement with would always tell me how beautiful i was even when i was just chilling in pajamas it was cute. Ive also been the sun person and the way the house person handled their problems and stayed so mentally strong was very inspiring to me. It made me want to be less reactive and more of a problem solver. I looked up to their resilience.

Sun in 6th, The house person feels the need to improve because of the sun person. The things that you choose to ignore are brought up here. The energy is like ''deal with it now, no more waiting". The house persons structure and discipline is being improved here. Its often that the house person doesn't want to be seen as lazy by the sun person. Which can be very helpful if you have goals your working towards. Their energy is motivating especially when it comes to business related things. House person doesn't want to disappoint the sun person. Sun person sees the house person as capable of great achievements.

Sun in 7th, Long term friendship or friends turned lovers is the theme in this house. Relationships built here usually started innocently from just being around each other alot. Sometimes the Sun person can have unfair expectations of the house person. Unbalanced relationships is common here one or both people can feel they carry more responsibility and burden. It can feel like at times communication is missed, misinterpretations can always be worked through if both people are willing to listen to understanding and if they are relationships here will go the distance. Both sets of my grandparents had this placement and were married for over 40 years. This could also be person you have a child with and now your bonded to each other even if their wasn't marriage. They feel a sense of home in each other. This couple could like to stay home and do things together.

Sun in 8th, The sun person buries themself into house persons wounds often times wounds they didn't even know they had. Both people are meant to be transformed by the union. If this relationship can make it through the first few initial hurtles which tend to be more dramatic, this relationship will keep you together for a while. The way the sun person expresses can have the house person feeling the need to keep a defense up. The sun person feels the house person is running away from their issues. Sun person is made to feel like the bad guy because their just more comfortable bringing up the hard topics. If the house person is willing to drop their defensiveness and the sun person is willing to be patient and tactful with the house person this relationship would be one of the phoenix rising from the ashes. They would be unbreakable together.

Sun in 9th, This couple inspires each other. Expanding what you thought you knew. Transforming what you thought love was. This is a beautiful placement of people learning a new viewpoint on love and self expression. Sun person expands house persons viewpoints more but this placement goes both ways. Topics that you wouldn't normally talk about gets discussed here. Long term friendships are built through the expansion of the mind. Affection is easily shown here taking trips together would do this couple well and deeper the connection. They want to give to each other and spending money together is one of their favorite things to do. This is honestly one of my favorite placements its mentally and physically expansive.

Sun in 10th, Sun person is proud of house person. They want to show house person off they feel lucky to be with house person. It makes them look good publicly. This couple has a relationship that is centered around fun. They want everyone to see their affection towards each other. This couple is friends first and lovers second. This placement isn't as emotionally deep but it will make you feel important. They want people to know how amazing you are. Its very easy to be yourself and tap into your more child like energies with this placement. This couple shows each other sides of themselves no one else knows about. With that being said they can also be vicious towards one another if this relationship turns sour this couple will have no problem having public disputes. Also this may be a taboo type of relationship were people don't understand why your together or be curious on how the person got with you.

Sun in 11th, I bet this relationship started with lighthearted playful flirting. This is the most "friendly" placement. Intimacy may take more work to develop here. Ive had this placement in a friends with benefits situation. It can easily turn into that if both people aren't intentional about what they’re looking for. If they are, this is a great placement. Communication feels very open and theirs no pressure. This couple merges friend groups and could've also meet through friends or have mutual friends. This couple networks well together and other people are very attracted to their energy together. Its fun to watch them interact with each other. They’re the type to be in a room full of people but have their own sidebar conversation and cues towards one another.

Sun in 12th, Spiritual connection or secret infatuation? My sun is in the 12th house so ive experienced this more times than i would like to but in the same breathe i love it. The sun person unintentionally test who you thought you were. Boundaries become blurred in this house but its slick, you might not even notice until after the fact. Things that you might find embarrassing happen here "thats never happened before" type of things. Alot of the communication in this house goes unsaid. Its like the little social cues that your supposed to just pick up on. It can also feel like your being observed on how you react to situations. You still seem to be mysterious to each other no matter how long you've known each other. Like there's still something being hidden from you. Without trust this placement could easily lead to feelings of being deceived. Thats not to say your not being deceived though. Cheating is common in the 12th house. You could be completely shocked and unaware about your partner living a double life. With the 12th house there's really no planet person, house person dynamic it switches back in fourth. Theres alot of talking behind each others back but that doesn't have to be a bad thing the person could be speaking well about you, putting your name in the right spaces. You know the feeling of walking into a room that people were just talking about you in? Its like you didn't physically hear it but you feel it. Someones sun in your 12th can give that type of feeling for both people. If its not operating from an expansive place. If it is you experience complete devotion. Two people committed to the relationship no matter where its headed. Someone you can experience complete intimacy and vulnerability with. Complete was an unintentional brilliant choice of words here. Not to many can navigate the 12th house and make it out together but if you do... you'll feel you've completed something great and felt a connection sent directly from god.

[iguinn]

Urgent Donation Please Read

Hi this is Cross we're remaking our old post because it's losing traction and we still need a lot of money before October comes so we don't have to scramble for even more money. Which we will need to do anyway because of computer related issues, so we're bumping the goal a bit higher. Here's the situation:

We're out of our mom’s insurance and we can’t get our own because of various reason, we need money to get the necessary paperwork for our disability to be back in our mom’s insurance asap and it will take months to arrive, until then we need money for our meds and our yearly ear doctor consultation, our mom who needs monthly eye injections because she had a stroke last year and it deeply affected her eye and she only has one and because her request to have the injections done for free at the hospital will take months to process she needs to still pay for months worth of injections plus some even more disability paperwork she requested for us and her hasn’t even gone through yet and we need that for better disability aid since that is the only income we have plus some that helps us pay a bit of our rent cause our mom isn't working at the moment and we are starting college this month and cant work, thankfully the money to pay college isn't a huge issue cause we got a huge disability scholarship cause they accepted our old paperwork but we will need update ones before the semester ends to keep it which is ideal since while we have no income other than aid we would still have to pay less than normal it would still be over the money of our current scholarship and therefore less affordable and we need all this before October. And also we recently found out that the previous owner of our computer kinda fucked it up severely and we need to buy some more up to date components so it work's properly and doesn't just randomly break down like it has happened before and we need this computer for school too.

paypal: https://paypal.me/froilovemail?country.x=PT&locale.x=en_US

goal:

38€/2000€

[messiahzzz]

i have been thinking a lot about mystra’s relationship with gale, how reducing her to “his ex” really is an understatement. she was and still is so much more than that. moreover, using the term “ex-girlfriend” in relation to her plainly feels wrong and diminishes the influence she has over him, as well as the role she played in his life since his childhood (and it also trivializes the abuse he suffered through her).

there are several instances where gale gets defensive when his companions mention or ask him abt mystra. he claims that their relationship was no less real even though most of their interactions were incorporeal.

we have already established that gale is an unreliable narrator in this particular case, still not having fully come to terms with the fact that he was groomed, manipulated and abused. he ping-pongs between bouts of realization (even in his romance), gaining clarity that he was merely used and eventually discarded and that mystra never truly cared for him, back to making light of his situation, idealizing her once again. realizing the extent of his trauma, that he is indeed a victim in this scenario, unlearning what he has been made to believe from a young age is a slow and painful journey. he is in the process of healing, but it takes time. time he deserves just like anyone else.

which makes me wonder what their relationship really looked like, once the lines between teacher, muse, and lover began to blur. i also feel like one of the reasons why part of the fandom still struggles to identify mystra as his abuser, is because she is a white woman who initially presents herself in a soft-spoken, benevolent manner… and well, the fact that gale himself is ambitious to a fault and a lil insane about the promise of power. he also briefly mentions "crossing mystra’s boundaries” when he confides in tav and tells them about his folly. (“i am, after all, the villain in this story.”) which led to a looooot of misinterpretations.

leaving the overall lore and mystra’s treatment of her other chosen aside — what we can discern from her interactions with gale in-game, is that mystra is civil as long as she remains in control and gale follows her demands, but as soon as there’s even a slight mention of challenging her power or defying her rule, she rather quickly changes her tone.

there is also one particular exchange between them that just won’t leave my head:

“you were many things to me, but never a threat. and never a savior."

even if we choose to blatantly ignore the fact that mystra is a deity, his goddess - there is no possible way that their relationship ever could have been equal by any mortal standards. the power imbalance that comes with her being his teacher and a symbol of his admiration, plus the sheer control she holds over him and his powers are simply too great. don’t even let me get started on how it is a common tactic of abusers to isolate their victims from any outside influences so they can exert full control over them. and how up to meeting tav and their merry band of misfits, every single soul he was close to was inevitably tied to mystra in one way or another. he briefly mentions his colleagues and then there’s elminster, also mystra’s chosen and former lover, and tara, who is a fine wizard in her own right. he spend so many years in service of her, dedicating his life to her, that now there is no one left he can truly call a friend. most of his little anecdotes and stories he tells are restricted to his childhood and university days, everything else was mystra.

evidently, ordering gale to detonate the orb is the most efficient course of action in her eyes. he is just as expendable as any other mortal, after all. maybe once significantly more useful given his status and the extent of his powers, but she doesn’t feel sorrow nor remorse for ordering him to end his life. his death is simply the most convenient means to an end.

another thing i would also like to briefly touch upon is the trigger/detonator itself. a dagger to the heart. it could have been literally anything else, a simple incantation. it is well within mystra’s power to stabilize the orb and also to remove it from his body entirely. but no, what she requires of gale is to stab himself. one might argue that it was simply a cinematic choice meant for a more dramatic effect, but it really leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. especially considering the fact that she is commonly known and referred to as a jealous goddess. it almost makes it seem like yet another form of punishment or mere pettiness. after his long period of isolation, gale is now surrounded by fellow humans. people he cares about, even perhaps people he might eventually consider good friends — which is enough of a reason for him to not want to die, to keep going and try to find another way, rather than to blindly follow mystra’s bidding. now there’s a group of people who support him and are genuinely invested in him staying alive. hmmm...

[wszczebrzyszynie]

Anymore space mining au stuff ?

Space mining occupies my brain so there is a lot of concepts but most of it is unfinished. Will probably post a lot of art related to it in the week. All i have to offer for now is an unfinished goal/relationship chart? Not sure how to call it but it exists. Doesnt include all characters and information... so all the additional things are below! Under the read more thing

Grian, Jimmy and Pearl are all from earth and were raised together. Pearl and Grian have a rival-like relationship but in a friendly, more sibling like way. Their main point of rivarly is their bounties... theyre both happy with their lifestyles now even if they were forced into crime by their less than ideal situation on their home planet. Grian used to be a small theif with a passion for explosives before he and Scar joined forces. In true post space colonial story fashion earth is a destroyed hellhole. Jimmy is the only one out of the three that managed to not go into crime; instead he led a pretty uneventful life. he became a space miner somewhere in the solar system. Married scott (who lives and works on a space station) somewhere down the line. All went well until he accidentialy discovered the presence of sculk, shutting the mine down. It would be okay if the same exact situation didnt happen again... and again. After divorce he went through a late 20s middle age crisis and started a ranch on a planet no one really heard about. Pearl and Grian both visit him from time to time

Scar used to be a bounty hunter. Not an independent one like etho is; instead scar was assigned the jobs he had to do by higher ups... More like a cop. It was a generally miserable experience for many reasons, so he left for crime quite easily. Him leaving also fixed his relationship with Cub a significant amount; the two are really close as theyre both next generation vex (which is an illegal genetic modification; next gen means they were not modified themselves, but they parents were. Their existence is therefore not illegal but undesirable and it was something scar had to deal with while being a bounty hunter a lot) and therefore treat each other like family a bit.

Joel and lizzie are married and space pirates. Both of them want to be treated more seriously, but Joel especially needs to be noticed by etho. Lizzie just accepted that.

Cleo and bdubs used to work together for a stupid amount of time; mostly doing all kinds of jobs no one wanted to do. Everything went well until bdubs got caught by etho and went to actual prison for a while. The prison itself wasnt what changed him; he became absolutely fascinsted with etho instead, leaving his old life behind and becoming a bounty hunter. Cleo obviously holds a grudge... so much so that despite focusing more on sculpting she still finds time to mess with Bdubs plans every now and then

And Etho is mostly focused on finally catching Pearl and hiding the fact that hes an animal modification (done against his will). Kitty ...

[ifellintothestyx]

Shen Qiao explaining how he was not able to hold onto hatred or grudges was so satisfying for me to read because, for the first time, I could relate to a white lotus character. From my experience, hatred and resentment are exhausting to hold onto. I mean, I would fume for a few hours, but ultimately, I ended up rationalizing the incident and deciding on how to move forward with the conclusion. I'm left with some wariness towards difficult people still because, even though thoughts about them don't regularly occupy my mind, I still know enough about their personalities to avoid them for my own good. It's not an act of kindness or benevolence or mercy or forgiveness—I just barely have the energy to spare to focus on functioning normally and interacting with others, I can't spare any more to stew on grudges.

It's pretty much the same for Shen Qiao. It's not that he's an infinite well of kindness, or the kind that believes in second chances, or someone who brushes aside the wrongs committed on them. He's wary of those who have betrayed him and kind to those who are kind or yet to be evil to him. He's not someone who thinks redemption is for everyone—he killed HJX because he was a danger to the public, and he castrated Mu Tipo because he's a serial rapist, and a noble so he could only stop at castration unfortunately. He will try to prevent injustices when he comes across them, but he has enough awareness to know his limits and to act within them. He is set in his ideals and morals, but also respects that there will be people with different or opposing ones which does not make them less worthy in his eyes. One of his selling points as a character is his compassion and inner strength, but my favorite aspect of his that goes unappreciated a lot is his rationality that does not minimize his empathy.

Yes, he will risk his life to go to an underground desert city for the sake of two hostages, but if you consider the facts, he owes those two a debt for allowing him and Yan Wushi to stay and recover. He indirecrly brought them trouble, so he decided to take responsibility. There's an underlying rationale in his selflessness, but it doesn't take away from his selfless attitude.

It's why characters like Yu Ai and Chen Gong (and maybe even Yan Wushi at the beginning) can't stand him—he looks and acts so unaffected no matter what happens to him. For characters like them, who remember transgressions and hold on too deeply to past hurts, it's infuriating to see someone who appears to let all his hardships slide off him.

[d3adp00ls]

Heyia lovely! Noticed you were taking or rather looking for requests to do with Vanessa from FNAF?

If there still open I was wondering if you were able to a fluffy one, maybe when the reader is related to Mike somehow and she knows he’s struggling with a job so it’s actually her that suggest to Mike to work as a night guard with her, and maybe Mike is overprotective of the reader so when Vanessa turns up he’s like ‘stay away from her’, but their actually a couple, and when Mike just finds out he’s shocked and if your comfortable with it maybe Vanessa giving the reader a kiss or a kiss on the cheek and he like ‘so I’ll see you for date night?’

Overprotective?

Vanessa (fnaf movie) x reader

Summary: basically the request

Contents: fluff, angst (you gotta squint really hard tbh), established relationship, protective Mike, secret relationship

W/c: how about you count for me bbg 😉 (I’m actually so sorry this is so fucking long and idek why)

side note: The only thing I really changed is the fact that you aren't related to Mike and that you're just a childhood friend, I hope that’s okay and enjoy the totally amazing writing that I love so much!! Also, I’m pretty sure this does not fit totally well with the movie's timeline but it does kind of take place during it.

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You started working as a security guard at Freddy’s about three months ago. Although it wasn’t the ideal job and the pay sucked ass, it had its perks. For instance, you enjoyed watching Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica perform for you, and you also found it amusing to watch Foxy try to beat your high score on one of the old arcade games. It was pretty funny to see him struggle with the machines using only one hand, but it was less funny when he got mad and hit the machine with his hook. However, the best thing about the job was Vanessa Shelly, the officer who came every other night. You met her on your third day working at Freddy’s when she came to introduce herself to you, and you both immediately clicked. Now, two months later, you’re together.

Recently, you’ve been feeling lonely at Freddy’s. Vanessa couldn’t visit you all the time due to her job, and as much as you love the animatronics, you can’t have real conversations with them. Half the time, you’re left in your own thoughts while waiting for your watch to read 6 a.m. Vanessa recently told you that they were trying to find another security guard to work at Freddy’s with you. You were excited about the idea until she told you that you both would only have one shift together. Nonetheless, you were still excited about the idea of not being alone every night on the weeks Vanessa couldn’t keep you company. You just wish they would find a person faster. You were becoming more and more impatient as the days passed. It got to the point where you even asked Vanessa if you could look for someone yourself, which you quickly realized was stupid because you didn’t even know anyone who could do night shifts. You had given up hope of having a coworker and accepted the fact that some weeks you would be stuck at the old restaurant alone. However, one of your nights off changed everything. You were babysitting for your best friend Mike Schmidt, who was apparently out trying to get a job because he beat up some kid’s father at his last one. You had been drawing in the living room on the floor with Abby when he came in holding and reading an orange paper. You furrowed your eyes as you stood up and walked to him. “What’s that?” Mike looked up at you as you nodded toward the paper. He looked back down at it before sighing and crumbling it up. “Nothing, don’t worry about it,” he said with a small huff before looking towards the kitchen and seeing a box of pizza with a half-eaten pie on the table. He looked back towards you with furrowed brows. “Did you order dinner?” he asked while walking towards the kitchen and picking up a slice, feeling that it was still warm.

“Nah, my girl….I mean uh… a friend of mine did,” you said with a shrug, clearing your throat when you realized you almost had a slip-up. It’s not like you didn’t trust Mike with knowing that you had a girlfriend. You knew you could trust him, seeing as you had come out to him when you both were 15, and he was more supportive than your own parents could ever be. However, it wasn’t about sexuality with Mike. It was his protectiveness over the one he loved. He has been going through a lot ever since Garret’s death, so you don’t blame him at all for becoming overprotective about you and Abby. But the fact that you don’t blame him doesn’t mean you won’t sometimes wish he would lay off on the protective big brother act. Sometimes it’s the only reason why you haven’t told him about Vanessa. You were scared of how he would react and that he wouldn’t approve. Mike looked at you with a raised brow, and your heart nearly sank at the thought of him hearing your slip-up. But then a smirk started to form on his lips, causing you to raise a brow before he started speaking. “Oh? I didn’t realize people actually liked you enough to consider you a friend.”

You sarcastically laughed at his words before punching him in the arm, causing him to laugh and move away from you with his arms raised in defense. “Very funny, Mike. Tons of people like me, alright?” you say with a roll of your eyes as you walk back to the living room where Abby is still finishing her drawing. “Anyways, how’d it go? Did you get the job?” You ask as you begin to pick up some of the crayons that Abby wasn’t using. You hear Mike groan, causing you to glance up at him. He’s sitting in a chair with a hand covering his face. “That bad, huh?” Mike shakes his head, moving his hand to tap against the arm of the chair. “I don’t even want to talk about it,” he says with another groan before leaning his head back to let out a huff. You hum in return as you finish picking up the rest of the crayons and placing them next to Abby’s drawings on a table with a smile before standing up fully and brushing your pants off. “Well, I should start heading out. I have work tomorrow, and I have to do a ton of other stuff before then, so I want to get some rest before all of that,” you begin walking around to grab your stuff as you speak. Mike seems to perk up at your words, and you notice it as you go to reach for your coat. The way he practically jumps out of his seat and looks at you almost stuns you with how fast he moves towards you. You notice Abby now looking at you both with a confused look, which you shrug at her before Mike stands right in front of you, causing you to take a step back. “Whoa, what’re-” “You have a job, right?” Mike says so quickly you won’t even think he’s speaking English. “Excuse me?” “You’ve got a job, right?” he says a little slower but still slightly fast. “Yeah? Did I not just say that?” “Are you hiring?” He asks, his face showing hope. You give a sad smile in return as you pull your coat on. “Yeah, we are…but you can’t do night shifts, remember?” Mike sighs, looking towards Abby, who is watching the interaction.

He looks at you returning the sad look.

“I don’t think I have much of a choice at this point.”

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You sat in the security office at Freddy’s, humming to yourself as you watched the security camera with a bored expression. It was Thursday, which meant you and Mike had a joint shift. This was the last day of the week for him and the first day of the week for you. You had arrived a little earlier than needed, so you continued to stare mindlessly at the cameras as you waited for him to arrive. Your eyes began to get heavy, and you were just about to dose off when you saw a car pull into the parking lot and park next to your car. You sat up, looking more closely, and saw Mike get out of the car. You smiled a little, but your smile dropped when you noticed him talking to someone. You tried to squint to get a closer look before the door opened, and Abby got out. “What the hell?” you mumbled under your breath before standing up and walking towards the entrance to meet them there.

“Y/n!” You smile when you hear Abby’s voice excitedly yell your name before she jumps into your arms and gives you a tight hug. “Hey, Ab’s!” you answer, hugging her back before putting her down. “What are you doing here?” you ask with an amused tone. When you look towards Mike, he’s already nervous, knowing you will be on his case about this later. “Mike lets me come sometimes!” she says happily, and you raise your eyebrow at her while looking back at Mike. “Sometimes? You’ve been here before?” Abby nods before running off towards the stage where Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica are all standing, seeming to be happy that she’s there. You watch the interaction between the three robots and the little girl before sighing and looking back at Mike. “She’s been here before, Mike?” Your tone now changes from the one you used with Abby to one more serious. “I know what this looks like, but I swear I have a good explanation,” he says. You raise a brow at him as he continues to speak. “You usually babysit for Abby, but today we both had work, so I tried to get someone else, but I couldn’t find anyone to fill in for you.” “What about that girl who would sometimes watch Abby? Max?” you ask while looking back at Abby to see her and Foxy watching the other three perform. “She hasn’t been answering my calls,” Mike states, causing you to look back at him with a confused look. “Since when?” “Since last Thursday when you took the day off because you were sick.” You nod at his answer before letting out a sigh. “Okay…I guess it’s fine that she’s here. Just please keep an eye on her. The animatronics are cool and all, but they can be a little rough sometimes.” He hums and nods, and you smile at him before playfully hitting his arm. “Now, come on, let’s go watch the show.”

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It was 4 am, You and Abby were playing in the arcade with animatronics watched you both and Mike was god knows where.

Abby had just beaten your high score, much to Foxy’s dismay, and she was excitedly jumping around as you watched her while laughing before you got a glimpse of Mike speed walking towards the entrance causing you to furrow your brows but you just shrugged it off and look back at Abby who is now trying to convince foxy he can beat the high scores.

You were about to start a new game for him but then you heard Mike's voice paired with another familiar one causing you to furrow your brows and move away from the arcade game telling the group that you would be right back before you jogged towards the voices.

when you got to the entrance you saw Mike talking to someone at the door causing you to walk closer to get a look but when you stepped closer you were met with Vanessa walking in with a smile on her face.

“Hey y/n,” she says with a smile and you all but jump into her arm and hug her tightly while she laughs.

“Vanessa!” you exclaimed, surprised to see her. “It’s been forever!” She chuckled at your words and hugged you back before pulling away, leaving her hand on your waist. “We literally saw each other on Sunday,” she said as you pulled your arms from her. “Yeah…but it still feels like forever,” you mumbled as she laughed again, causing you to smile and playfully hit her on the arm. You were so caught up in the fact that Vanessa was here that you almost forgot Mike was there until he cleared his throat, causing both of you to look back at him. “I didn’t know you two knew each other,” he said, throwing a very obvious glare at Vanessa when her hand stayed at your waist, but she pulled away while clearing her throat, seeming to notice the tension between them suddenly. “Uh, yeah, I met her on her third day here,” she said, glancing at you with a shy smile, which you returned before looking back at Mike, who still hadn’t taken his glare off of Vanessa. “Anyway, I’m gonna go say hi to Abby,” Vanessa clears her throat , giving you one more smile before walking towards the group to escape the awkward tension. “You two seem close…” he stated dryly, finally taking his eyes off of her and landing them on you. You hummed while looking down at your shoes, not wanting to look him in the eyes if you decided to lie about the relationship. “She kept me company during my first few weeks here. She’s a very nice person,” you said, trying to diffuse the tension. Mike hummed and nodded his head, his gaze going back to Vanessa, who was now playing the arcade game. “I bet she is nice to you,” he said, his tone a little harsh, making you glance up at him with furrowed eyebrows, but he was still looking at Vanessa, making you clear your throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked him when he looked back at you. Mike shrugged before beginning to walk away from you and towards the others. “Nothing…forget it. Let’s just go.”

As you watch him walk away, you groan and cover your face with your hands. You slide them down your face and glance over at the group. Vanessa is already looking back at you with a playful smile and motions her head towards the hallway that leads to the security room. You furrow your brows and look away from her towards Mike, who is being distracted by Abby. She’s trying to get him to give Freddy a hug, but he keeps telling her no with what almost looks like a scared expression on his face. The interaction makes you chuckle and shake your head. You look back at Vanessa, who is still staring at you, waiting for you to make a move.

You can't help but break into a smile as you playfully roll your eyes and make your way towards the office. Vanessa announces that she needs to put her coat away and her footsteps quickly jog down the hallway. She grabs your arms and pulls you into the office.

Your gasp is cut short when she kisses you, leaving you momentarily stunned. But you quickly reciprocate, feeling her smile against your lips. She moves her hands to your waist and pushes you into the security chair, closing the door with her foot.

As you try to catch your breath, you look up at her and see her licking her lips. She straddles your legs and you instinctively hold onto her waist. She leans in to kiss your ear, causing you to tilt your head for better access.

"I don't think your little boyfriend approves of me," Vanessa whispers in your ear. You groan and push her back slightly to look at her.

"Don't call him that, he's like a brother to me," you say. Vanessa just smiles and kisses your lips again before moving to your neck.

"Well, your 'brother' definitely looked like he wanted to kill me," she teases. You hum in agreement, closing your eyes as she kisses a sensitive spot on your neck.

"Don't worry about him, he'll come around. He can be a bit overprotective at times," you assure her, gently lifting her head and brushing your thumb against her cheek.

"Have you told him about us yet?" she asks, and you meet her gaze before reluctantly shaking your head.

"I haven't found the right time," you sigh, and she nods in understanding.

"Well, you should figure that out soon," she says, getting up from your lap with a laugh and taking off her police jacket.

"But I don't want to," you whine, standing up and grabbing her arm to turn her back towards you. She smirks at you and shakes her head.

"Babe, I'm not his best friend, you are. You have to handle this on your own. But I'm sure it'll be fine. If he truly cares about you, he'll be happy for us, right?" she reasons, gazing into your eyes. With a heavy sigh, you nod in agreement. Vanessa's soft smile reassures you, and you lean into her touch as she cups your cheek.

"So, are we still on for our date night on Sunday?" you ask, and she leans in closer, her forehead resting against yours.

"Why wouldn't we be?" she teases, a mischievous glint in her eyes. You can't help but look at her lips, and she notices, licking her own before leaning in to kiss you once more.

"We probably should get back to everyone," you mumble between kisses, but you don't make any move to leave her embrace. She hums in response, her lips still pressed against yours.

"We should, but I don't want to leave you," she murmurs, making you laugh softly. You meet her gaze again, and she licks her lips before capturing yours in another passionate kiss.

You were so deep into the kiss that you didnt hear the footsteps coming near the room nor did you hear when the door open.

“The fuck is going on?!”

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AHHH I FINALLY FINISHED THIS FOR MY GIRL 🤭😋 TOOK FOREVER BUT I THINK IT WAS WORTH IT!!

Anyways please reblog if you liked it 🙏🏾🙏🏾 and have a nice day/night/evening/wtv

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Tag list - 🌚 ion have one yet

[hugsandchaos]

Language Of Time AU

For as long as Bruno has had his powers, he’s become aware of something unbelievable, even with magic. Or rather someone.

A massive eldritch creature that is the embodiment of time itself. Clockwork was a terrifying sight for Bruno, and still is. The being seems neither malicious nor benevolent, and knowing that such a thing exists instills a primal fear in Bruno like nothing else. Yet he also feels a small sense of belonging and trust with it.

It’s hard to tell if the being wants good things for Bruno or not given his ability to see into the future more often than not gives him less than ideal results. When asked why most of his visions are bad, the being spoke to him for the first time. It was a language he’d never heard before, and likely never would from another human, but he understood it like he’d known it his whole life.

“Better to be safe than sorry.”

That was all Clockwork ever said to him.

Until one day, months after Casita was rebuilt. He was eating breakfast when his eyes flashed bright green, and he knew what it was. Bruno excused himself and went into his room, which was magically rebuilt as well. Once he climbed to the top of the stairs, he looked up at the bright light, which had gone dark.

“You asked for me?” He asked, barely holding back his fear of what the primordial being would want.

Unlike last time, Bruno didn’t have to wait very long for Clockwork to respond.

“My student. Find him, now.”

The Language Of Time AU includes pretty much that. A language spoken and understood by those with a connection with time or having powers related to it. Since Bruno has the ability to see into the future, he can do the same.

[amerricanartwork]

RW Headcanon: Know the Difference! | An Overview of Quetzalli's Slugcats

Here’s a headcanon I’ve wanted to elaborate on for a while, and today I finally felt compelled to make it real! Also, just a disclaimer I am not a huge biology nerd nor have I studied it that heavily, so I apologize if something here doesn’t make sense or if I get something wrong. I just like fantasy worldbuilding from time to time, and I always like trying to make sense of things I’m interested in!

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Basically, I’m in the crowd that interprets slugcats as mustelids rather than literal slugs. When I say this, however I don’t mean that slugcats would necessarily be classified in the actual mustelidae family, seeing as Rain World’s world is most-likely not Earth and therefore our taxonomic classifications and phylogenetic relations can’t necessarily apply. Thus, when I call them “mustelids”, I really just mean that I imagine them as some kind of weasel with all the necessary physical traits to earn that general label. 

The first half of the name “slugcat”, in my headcanon, is thus not referring to any literal connection to slugs or other mollusks, but is instead derived simply from their appearance. Due to their long ears and thick tail, and because their fur and fat often squishes together in such a way that it makes their features blend together and their bodies appear more smooth (it’s the same physics as that whole “cats are liquid” idea), the general silhouette of a slugcat can easily be likened to that of a literal slug. The second half of their name is also not literal, and instead refers to their jumping and acrobatic abilities and their skill in hunting and pouncing on small prey, which is very similar to that of small cats.

Species Overview

Now to give a little more detail on slugcats themselves as a species! I headcanon them as small to medium-sized mammals most similar to Earth weasels in both their biology and their ecological niche, who originally served as cute low-maintenance pets for the Ancients and as hunters of small pests in facilities on the ground. They’re clever by nature and good at fitting through tight spaces, and later on they evolved greater jumping abilities to pounce on prey. They’re also very social creatures, who’ve taken to forming medium to large colonies primarily in and around the massive trees that thrive between the cracks in iterators’ rainstorm areas (like the one Gourmand, Survivor, and Monk’s colony lives in). Due to this social nature they also generally travel in groups of at least two, both for company and protection against tougher animals. Travel partners are usually siblings or good friends, and sometimes even whole families will journey out together to find food and other resources for the rest of the colony.

Despite being a small prey animal, slugcats have managed to get by not only due to their intelligence — the evolution of which would be seen as a rather unexpected twist of events if you asked their creators, for the Ancients found them cute but rather simple — but because of their impressive adaptability. It’s similar to that of real life red foxes and pigeons, and it allows them to survive decently well even in less ideal environments; a trait especially necessary for a world as industrialized as this one, even if its people are gone and most of the machinery is inactive. As such not all colonies live in trees; some find homes in the abandoned facilities, large underground hollows, and a few bold colonies have even claimed territories high up in iterator cities alongside scavengers. Slugcats are opportunists and masters at making the best of their surroundings, yet even beyond that they carry a certain other, “special” ability of their own that makes them as diverse as they are clever. But that’s a headcanon for another day…

Reasoning

Now for some out-of-universe explanation for this classification choice. I’ve always seen slugcats as some kind of small scurrying mammal (kind of a bias on my part, I just like mammals honestly, and they’re most familiar to me), mainly due to the way they look and move when on all fours, and their place in the game’s food chain. Originally though I saw them as rodents and compared them to mice and rats, which I still sometimes use for anatomy reference for these creatures. But one day a friend of mine saw me drawing slugcats and thought they were weird ferrets, and the more I thought about it and the more I developed personal speculative biology headcanons for slugcats, the more that label seemed the most fitting for them. It was also solidified when I did a bit more research and realized the main characteristic of rodents is their buck teeth, which just didn’t seem to fit with how I perceived slugcats. Not to mention rodents aren’t really predator animals, and slugcats’ implied natural diet and the gameplay itself does strongly imply if not confirm they have some instinctive hunting ability. 

Thus, it seemed “weasel” was the best classification for these creatures, and I quite like it so far! Once again it satisfies my mammal preference, but I also just think it’s a fun idea that neither part of the “slugcat” name is literal, similar to a lot of real-life creatures named after completely different animals, including fellow weasel, the polecat. Plus, I realized recently it’s kind of ironic with how I perceive the messenger slugcats, Hunter and Spearmaster, as being like hunting or guard dogs for their creators, when weasels are exactly the kind of animal humans with their dogs would normally hunt for! It’s cute, it’s familiar, it’s fun, yet I think it still has just as much potential for some interesting speculative biology ideas as the literal slug slugcat interpretations!

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I'm so glad to finally get this out! I like seeing specbio slugcat headcanons in the RW fandom, yet I haven't seen many more in-depth takes from artists who don't take the "slugcats are literal slugs/mollusks/primarily mollusk-based" angle. Not that that's a bad headcanon of course; do what you think feels right! But once again I personally prefer slugcats being mammals, and I always look for fan-content that's as close to my personal preferences as possible. And when I can't find enough of it, I make it myself!

So hopefully this serves as a bit more of that kind of representation for the mustelid slugcat interpretation. It at least helped me develop my own idea of the species a bit more; much of that stuff in the overview part was ideas I came up with while typing this whole headcanon out!

As always, I hope you enjoy this headcanon of mine! I've still got so many ideas to develop and share, and even more coming as I continue to ponder these characters and their stories, so as long as you guys still like these Rain World headcanons of mine, they'll keep coming!

[asha-mage]

WoT Meta: Feudalism, Class, And The Politics of The Wheel of Time

One of my long standing personal annoyances with the fantasy genre is that it often falls into the trap of simplifying feudal class systems, stripping out the interesting parts and the nuance to make something that’s either a lot more cardboard cut-out, or has our modern ideas about class imposed onto it.

Ironically the principal exception is also the series that set the bar for me. As is so often the case, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is unique in how much it works to understand and convey a realistic approach to power, politics, government, rulership, and the world in general–colored neither by cynicism or idealism. How Jordan works the feudal system into his world building is no exception–weaving in the weaknesses, the strengths, and the banal realities of what it means to have a Lord or Lady, a sovereign Queen or King, and to exist in a state held together by interpersonal relationships between them–while still conveying themes and ideas that are, at their heart, relevant to our modern world.

So, I thought I’d talk a little bit about how he does that.

Defining the Structure

First, since we’re talking about feudal class systems, let's define what that means– what classes actually existed, how they related to each other, and how that is represented in Jordan’s world. 

But before that, a quick disclaimer. To avoid getting too deep into the historical weeds, I am going to be making some pretty wide generalizations. The phrases ‘most often’, ‘usually’, and ‘in general’ are going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting. While the strata I’m describing is broadly true across the majority medieval and early Renaissance feudal states these things were obviously heavily influenced by the culture, religion, geography, and economics of their country–all of which varied widely and could shift dramatically over a surprisingly small amount of time (sometimes less than a single generation). Almost nothing I am going to say is universally applicable to all feudal states, but all states will have large swathes of it true for them, and it will be widely applicable. The other thing I would ask you to keep in mind is that a lot of our conceptions of class have been heavily changed by industrialization. It’s impossible to overstate how completely the steam engine altered the landscape of socio-politics the world over, in ways both good and bad. This is already one of those things that Jordan is incredibly good at remembering, and that most fantasy authors are very good at forgetting. 

The disparity between your average medieval monarch’s standard of living and their peasants was pretty wide, but it was nothing compared to the distance between your average minimum wage worker and any billionaire; the monarch and the peasant had far more in common with each other than you or I do with Jeff Bezos or Mike Zuckerberg. The disparity between most people’s local country lord and their peasants was even smaller. It was only when the steam engine made the mass production of consumer goods possible that the wealth gap started to become a chasm–and that was in fact one of the forces that lead to the end of the feudal system and the collapse of many (though by no means all) of the ruling monarchies in Europe. I bring this up because the idea of a class system not predicated on the accumulation of capital seems pretty alien to our modern sensibilities, but it was the norm for most of history. Descent and birth mattered far more than the riches you could acquire–and the act of accumulating wealth was itself often seen as something vulgar and in many countries actively sinful. So with that in mind, what exactly were the classes of feudalism, and how do they connect to the Wheel of Time?

The Monarch and their immediate family unsurprisingly occupied the top of the societal pyramid (at least, in feudal states that had a monarch and royal family- which wasn’t all of them). The Monarch was head of the government and was responsible for administering the nation: collecting taxes, seeing them spent, enforcing law, defending the country’s borders and vassals in the event of war, etc. Contrary to popular belief, relatively few monarchs had absolute power during the medieval period. But how much power the monarch did have varied widely- some monarchs were little more than figureheads, others were able to centralize enough power on themselves to dictate the majority of state business- and that balance could shift back and forth over a single generation, or even a single reign depending on the competence of the monarch. 

The royal family usually held power in relation to their monarch, but also at the monarch’s discretion. The more power a monarch had, the more likely they were to delegate it to trusted family members in order to aid with the administration of the realm. This was in both official and unofficial capacities: princes were often required to do military service as a right of passage, and to act as diplomats or officials, and princesses (especially those married into foreign powers) were often used as spies for their home state, or played roles in managing court affairs and business on behalf of the ruler.

Beneath the monarch and their family you get the noble aristocracy, and I could write a whole separate essay just on the delineations and strata within this group, but suffice to say the aristocracy covers individuals and families with a wide range of power and wealth. Again, starting from that country lord whose power and wealth in the grand scheme of things is not much bigger than his peasants, all the way to people as powerful, or sometimes more powerful, than the monarch. 

Nobles in a feudal system ruled over sections of land (the size and quality usually related sharply to their power) setting taxes, enforcing laws, providing protection to the peasants, hearing petitions, etc. within their domains. These nobles were sometimes independent, but more often would swear fealty to more powerful nobles (or monarchs) in exchange for greater protection and membership in a nation state. Doing so meant agreeing to pay taxes, obey (and enforce) the laws of the kingdom, and to provide soldiers to their liege in the event of war. The amount of actual power and autonomy nobles had varied pretty widely, and the general rule of thumb is that the more powerful the monarch is, the less power and autonomy the nobles have, and vice versa. Nobles generally were expected to be well educated (or at least to be able to pretend they were) and usually provided the pool from which important government officials were drawn–generals, council members, envoys, etc–with some kingdoms having laws that prevented anyone not of noble descent from occupying these positions.

Beneath the nobles you get the wealthy financial class–major merchants, bankers, and the heads of large trade guilds. Those Marx referred to generally as the bourgeoisie because they either own means of production or manage capital. In a feudal system this class tended to have a good bit of soft power, since their fortunes could buy them access to circles of the powerful, but very little institutional power, since the accumulation and pursuit of riches, if anything, was seen to have negative moral worth. An underlying presumption of greediness was attached to this class, and with it the sense that they should be kept out of direct power.

That was possible, in part, because there weren't that many means of production to actually own, or that much capital to manage, in a pre-industrial society. Most goods were produced without the aid of equipment that required significant capital investment (a weaver owned their own loom, a blacksmith owned their own tools, etc), and most citizens did not have enough wealth to make use of banking services. This is the class of merchants who owned, but generally didn’t directly operate, multiple trading ships or caravans, guild leaders for craftsfolk who required large scale equipment to do their work (copper and iron foundries for the making of bells, for example), and bankers who mainly served the nobility and other wealthy individuals through the loaning and borrowing of money. This usually (but not always) represented the ceiling of what those not born aristocrats could achieve in society.

After that you get middling merchants, master craftsfolk and specialty artisans, in particular of luxury goods. Merchants in this class usually still directly manage their expeditions and operations, while the craftsfolk and artisans are those with specialty skill sets that can not be easily replicated without a lifetime of training. Master silversmiths, dressmakers, lacquer workers, hairdressers, and clockmakers are all found in this class. How much social clout individuals in this class have usually relates strongly to how much value is placed on their skill or product by their society (think how the Seanchan have an insatiable appetite for lacquer work and how Seanchan nobles make several Ebou Dari lacquer workers very rich) as well as the actual quality of the product. But even an unskilled artisan is still probably comfortable (as Thom says, even a bad clockmaker is still a wealthy man). Apprenticeships, where children are taught these crafts, are thus highly desired by those in lower classes,as it guaranteed at least some level of financial security in life.

Bellow that class you find minor merchants (single ship or wagon types), the owners of small businesses (inns, taverns, millers etc), some educated posts (clerks, scribes, accountants, tutors) and most craftsfolk (blacksmiths, carpenters, bootmakers, etc). These are people who can usually support themselves and their families through their own labor, or who, in the words of Jin Di, ‘work with their hands’. Most of those who occupy this class are found in cities and larger towns, where the flow of trade allows so many non-food producers to congregate and still (mostly) make ends meet. This is why there is only one inn, one miller, one blacksmith (with a single apprentice) in places like Emond’s Field: most smaller villages can not sustain more than a handful of non-food producers. This is also where you start to get the possibility of serious financial instability; in times of chaos it is people at this tier (and below) that are the first to be forced into poverty, flight, or other desperate actions to survive.

Finally, there is the group often collectively called ‘peasants’ (though that term is also sometimes used to mean anyone not noble born). Farmers, manual laborers, peddlers, fishers- anyone who is unlikely to be able to support more than themselves with their labor, and often had to depend on the combined labor of their spouse and families to get by. Servants also generally fit into this tier socially, but it’s important to understand that a servant in say, a palace, is going to be significantly better paid and respected than a maid in a merchant's house. This class is the largest, making up the majority of the population in a given country, and with a majority of its own number being food-producers specifically. Without the aid of the steam engine, most of a country’s populace needs to be producing food, and a great deal of it, in order to remain a functional nation. Most of the population as a result live in smaller spread out agrarian communities, loosely organized around single towns and villages. Since these communities will almost always lack access to certain goods or amenities (Emond’s Field has a bootmaker, but no candlemaker, for example) they depend on smalltime traders, called peddlers, to provide them with everyday things, who might travel from town to town with no more than a single wagon, or even just a large pack.

The only groups lower than peasants on the social hierarchy are beggars, the destitute, and (in societies that practice slavery) slaves. People who can not (or are not allowed to) support themselves, and instead must either eke out a day to day existence from scraps, or must be supported by others. Slaves can perform labor of any kind, but they are regarded legally as a means of production rather than a laborer, and the value is awarded to their owner instead. 

It’s also worth noting that slavery has varied wildly across history in how exactly it was carried out and ran the gamut from the trans-Atlantic chattel slavery to more caste or punitive-based slavery systems where slaves could achieve freedom, social mobility, or even some degree of power within their societies. But those realities (as with servants) had more to do with who their owners were than the slave’s own merit, and the majority of slaves (who are almost always seen as less than a freedman even when they are doing the same work) were performing the same common labor as the ‘peasant’ class, and so viewed as inferior.

Viewing The Wheel of Time Through This Lens

So what does all this have to do with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time? A lot actually, especially compared to his contemporaries in fantasy writing. Whereas most fantasy taking place in feudal systems succumbs to the urge to simplify matters (sometimes as far down to their only being two classes, ‘peasant’ and ‘royalty’) Jordan much more closely models real feudalism in his world. 

The majority of the nations we encounter are feudal monarchies, and a majority of each of their populations are agrarian farming communities overseen by a local lord or other official. How large a nation’s other classes are is directly tied to how prosperous the kingdom is, which is strongly connected to how much food and how many goods the kingdom can produce on the available land within it. This in turn, is tightly interdependent on how stable the kingdom is and how effective its government is.

Andor is the prime example: a very large, very prosperous kingdom, which is both self-sufficient in feeding itself via its large swathes of farmland (so much so that they can afford to feed Cairhien through selling their surplus almost certainly at next to no profit) and rich in mineral wealth from mines in the west. It is capable of supporting several fairly large cities even on its outskirts, as well as the very well-developed and cosmopolitan Caemlyn as its capital. This allows Andor to maintain a pretty robust class of educated workers, craftsfolk, artisans, etc, which in turn furthers the realm’s prosperity. At the top of things, the Queen presides over the entire realm with largely centralized power to set laws and taxes. Beneath her are the ‘great houses’–the only Houses in Andor besides the royal house who are strong enough that other nobles ‘follow where they lead’ making them the equivalent of Duchesses and Dukes, with any minor nobles not sworn directly to the Queen being sworn to these ten.

And that ties into something very important about the feudal system and the impact it had on our world and the impact it has on Jordan's. To quote Youtuber Jack Rackham, feudalism is what those in the science biz would call an unstable equilibrium. The monarch and their vassals are constantly in conflict with each other; the vassals desiring more power and autonomy, as the monarch works to centralize power on themselves. In feudalism there isn’t really a state army. Instead the monarch and the nobles all have personal armies, and while the monarch’s might be stronger than anyone else’s army, it’s never going to be stronger than everybody else’s. 

To maintain peace and stability in this situation everyone has to essentially play Game of Thrones (or as Jordan called it years before Martin wrote GoT, Daes Dae’mar) using political maneuvering, alliances, and scheming in order to pursue their goals without the swords coming out, and depending on the relative skill of those involved, this can go on for centuries at a time….or break apart completely over the course of a single bad summer, and plunge the country into civil war.

Cairhien is a great example of this problem. After losing the Aiel War and being left in ruins, the monarch who ultimately secured the throne of Cairhien, Galldrian Riatin, started from a place of profound weakness. He inherited a bankrupt, war torn and starving country, parts of which were still actively on fire at the time. As Thom discusses in the Great Hunt, Galddrian's failure to resettle the farmers displaced by the war left Cairhien dependent on foreign powers to feed the populace (the grain exports from Tear and Andor) and in order to prevent riots in his own capital, Galldrian choose bread and circuses to keep the people pacified rather then trying to substantially improve their situation. Meanwhile, the nobles, with no effective check on them, began to flex their power, seeing how much strength they could take away from each other and the King, further limiting the throne’s options in how to deal with the crisis, and forcing the King to compete with his most powerful vassals in order to just stay on the throne. This state of affairs ultimately resulted, unsurprisingly, in one of Galladrin’s schemes backfiring, him ending up dead, and the country plunging into civil war, every aristocrat fighting to replace him and more concerned with securing their own power then with restoring the country that was now fully plunged into ruin.

When Dyelin is supporting Elayne in the Andoran Succession, it is this outcome (or one very much like it) that she is attempting to prevent. She says as much outright to Elayne in Knife of Dreams–a direct succession is more stable, and should only be prevented in a situation where the Daughter Heir is unfit–through either incompetence or malice–to become Queen. On the flip side, Arymilla and her lot are trying to push their own agendas, using the war as an excuse to further enrich their Houses or empower themselves and their allies. Rhavin’s machinations had very neatly destabilized Andor, emboldening nobles such as Arymilla (who normally would never dream of putting forward a serious claim for the throne) by making them believe Morgase and Trakand were weak and thus easy to take advantage of. 

We also see this conflict crop up as a central reason Murandy and Altara are in their current state as well. Both are countries where their noble classes have almost complete autonomy, and the monarch is a figurehead without significantly more power than their vassals (Tylin can only keep order in Ebou Dar and its immediate surrounding area, and from what she says her father started with an even worse deal,with parts of the capital more under the control of his vassals than him). Their main unifying force is that they wish to avoid invasion and domination by another larger power (Andor for Murandy, Illian and Amadica for Altara) and the threat of that is the only thing capable of bringing either country into anything close to unity.

Meanwhile a lack of centralization has its trade offs; people enjoy more relative freedoms and social mobility (both depend heavily on trade, which means more wealth flowing into their countries but not necessarily accumulating at the top, due to the lack of stability), and Altara specifically has a very robust ‘middle class’ (or as near as you can get pre-industrialization) of middling to minor merchants, business and craftsfolk, etc. Mat’s time in Ebou Dar (and his friendship with Satelle Anan) gets into a lot of this. Think of the many many guilds that call Altara home, and how the husband of an inn owner can do a successful enough business fishing that he comes to own several crafts by his own merit. 

On the flip side both countries have problems with violence and lawlessness due to the lack of any enforced uniformity in terms of justice. You might ride a day and end up in land ruled by a Lord or Lady with a completely different idea of what constitutes, say, a capital offense, than the Lord or Lady you were under yesterday. This is also probably why Altara has such an ingrained culture of duels to resolve disputes, among both nobles and common folk. Why appeal to a higher authority when that authority can barely keep the streets clean? Instead you and the person you are in conflict with, on anything from the last cup of wine to who cheated who in a business deal, can just settle it with your knives and not have to bother with a hearing or a petition. It’s not like you could trust it anyways; as Mat informs us, most of the magistrates in Altara do the bidding of whoever is paying their bribes.

But neither Altara nor Murandy represents the extreme of how much power and autonomy nobles can manage to wrangle for themselves. That honor goes to Tear, where the nobles have done away with the monarch entirely to instead establish what amounts to an aristocratic confederacy. Their ruling council (The High Lords of Tear) share power roughly equally among themselves, and rule via compromise and consensus. This approach also has its tradeoffs: unlike Murandy and Altara, Tear is still able to effectively administer the realm and create uniformity even without a monarch, and they are able to be remarkably flexible in terms of their politics and foreign policy, maintaining trade relationships even with bitter enemies like Tar Valon or Illian.  On the flipside, the interests of individual nobles are able to shape policy and law to a much greater extent, with no monarch to play arbiter or hold them accountable. This is the source of many of the social problems in Tear: a higher sense of justice, good, or even just plain fairness all take a back seat to the whims and interest of nobles. Tear is the only country where Jordan goes out of his way, repeatedly, to point out wealth inequality and injustice. They are present in other countries, but Jordan drives home that it is much worse in Tear, and much more obscene. 

This is at least in part because there is no one to serve as a check to the nobles, not even each other. A monarch is (at least in theory) beholden to the country as a whole, but each High Lord is beholden only to their specific people, house and interests, and there is no force present that can even attempt to keep the ambitions and desires of the High Lords from dictating everything. So while Satelle Anan's husband can work his way up from a single fishing boat to the owner of multiple vessels, most fisherman and farmers in Tear scrape by on subsistence, as taxes are used to siphon off their wealth and enrich the High Lords. While in Andor ‘even the Queen most obey the law she makes or there is no law’ (to quote Morgase), Tairen Lords can commit murder, rape, or theft without any expectation of consequences, because the law dosen’t treat those acts as crimes when done to their ‘lessers’, and any chance someone might get their own justice back (as they would in Altara) is quashed, since the common folk are not even allowed to own weapons in Tear. As we’re told in the Dragon Reborn, when an innkeeper is troubled by a Lord cheating at dice in the common room, the Civil Watch will do nothing about it and citizens in Tear are banned from owning weapons so there is nothing he can do about it. The best that can be hoped for is that he will ‘get bored and go away’.

On the opposite end, you have the very very centralized Seanchan Empire as a counter example to Tear, so centralized it’s almost (though not quite) managed to transcend feudalism. In Seanchan the aristocratic class has largely been neutered by the monarchy, their ambitions and plots kept in check by a secret police (the Seekers of Truth) and their private armies dwarfed by a state army that is rigorously kept and maintained. It’s likely that the levies of the noble houses, if they all united together, would still be enough to topple the Empress, but the Crystal Throne expends a great deal of effort to ensure that doesn't happen,playing the nobles against each other and taking advantage of natural divisions in order to keep them from uniting.

Again, this has pros and cons. The Seanchan Empire is unquestionably prosperous; able to support a ridiculous food surplus and the accompanying flow of wealth throughout its society, and it has a level of equity in its legal administration that we don’t see anywhere else in Randland. Mat spots the heads of at least two Seanchan nobles decorating the gates over Ebou Dar when he enters, their crimes being rape and theft, which is a far cry from the consequence-free lives of the Tairen nobles. Meanwhile a vast state-sponsored bureaucracy works to oversee the distribution of resources and effective governance in the Empress’s name. No one, Tuon tells us proudly, has to beg or go hungry in the Empire. But that is not without cost. 

Because for all its prosperity, Seanchan society is also incredibly rigid and controlling. One of the guiding philosophies of the Seanchan is ‘the pattern has a place for everything and everything’s place should be obvious on sight’. The classes are more distinct and more regimented than anywhere else we see in Randland. The freedoms and rights of everyone from High Lords to common folk are curtailed–and what you can say or do is sharply limited by both social convention and law. The Throne (and its proxies) are also permitted to deprive you of those rights on nothing more than suspicion. To paraphrase Egeanin from TSR: Disobeying a Seeker (and presumably any other proxy of the Empress) is a crime. Flight from a Seeker is a crime. Failure to cooperate fully with a Seeker is a crime. A Seeker could order a suspected criminal to go fetch the rope for their own binding, and the suspected criminal would be expected to do it–and likely would because failure to do anything else would make them a criminal anyway, whatever their guilt or innocence in any other matter.

Meanwhile that food surplus and the resulting wealth of the Empire is built on its imperialism and its caste-based slavery system, and both of those are inherently unsustainable engines. What social mobility there is, is tied to the Empire’s constant cycle of expand, consolidate, assimilate, repeat–Egeanin raises that very point early on, that the Corenne would mean ‘new names given and the chance to rise high’. But that cycle also creates an endless slew of problems and burning resentments, as conquered populations resist assimilation, the resistance explodes into violence that the Seanchan must constantly deal with–the ‘near constant rebellions since the Conquest finished’ that Mat mentions when musing on how the Seanchan army has stayed sharp.

The Seanchan also practice a form of punitive and caste-based slavery for non-channelers, and chattel slavery for channelers. As with the real-life Ottoman Empire, some da’covale enjoy incredible power and privilege in their society, but they (the Deathwatch Guard, the so’jhin, the Seekers) are the exception, not the rule. The majority of the slaves we encounter are nameless servants, laborers, or damane. While non-channelers have some enshrined legal protections in how they can be treated by their masters and society as a whole, we are told that emancipation is incredibly rare, and the slave status is inherited from parent to child as well as used as a legal punishment–which of course would have the natural effect of discouraging most da’covale from reproducing by choice until after (or if) they are emancipated–so the primary source for most of the laborers and servants in Seanchan society is going to be either people who are being punished or who choose to sell themselves into slavery rather then beg or face other desperate circumstances. 

This keeps the enslaved population in proportion with the rest of society only because of the Empire’s imperialism- that same cycle of expand, consolidate, assimilate, repeat, has the side effect of breeding instability, which breeds desperation and thus provides a wide pool to draw on of both those willing to go into slavery to avoid starvation, and those who are being punished with slavery for wronging the state in some manner. It’s likely the only reason the Empire’s production can keep pace with its constant war efforts: conquered nations (and subdued rebellions) eventually yield up not just the necessary resources, but also the necessary laborers to cultivate them in the name of the state, and if that engine stalls for any sustained length of time (like say a three hundred year peace enforced by a treaty), it would mean a labor collapse the likes of which the Empire has never seen before.

A note on damane here: the damane system is undoubtedly one of chattel slavery, where human beings are deprived of basic rights and person hood under the law for the enrichment of those that claim ownership over them. Like in real life this state of affairs is maintained by a set of ingrained cultural prejudices, carefully constructed lies, and simple ignorance of the truly horrific state of affairs that the masses enjoy. The longevity of channelers insulates the damane from some of the problems of how slavery can be unsustainable, but in the long run it also suffers from the same structural problem: when the endless expansion stops, so too will the flow of new damane, and the resulting cratering of power the Empire will face will put it in jeopardy like nothing has before. There is also the problem that, as with real life chattel slavery, if any one piece of the combination of ignorance, lies, and prejudice starts to fall apart, an abolition movement becomes inevitable–and several characters are setting the stage for just that via the careful spreading of the truth about the sul’dam. Even if the Seanchan successfully put down an abolition movement, doing so will profoundly weaken them in a way that will necessitate fundamental transformation, or ensure collapse.

How Jordan Depicts The Relationships Between Classes

As someone who is very conscious in how he depicts class in his works, it makes sense that Jordan frequently focuses on characters interacting through the barriers of their various classes in different ways. New Spring in particular is a gold mine for this kind of insight.

Take, for example, Moiraine and Siuan’s visit to the master seamstress. A lesser writer would not think more deeply on the matter than ‘Moiraine is nobly born so obviously she’s going to be snobby and demanding, while down-to-earth Siuan is likely to be build a natural rapport and have better relationship her fellow commoner, the seamstress Tamore Alkohima’. But Jordan correctly writes it as the reverse: Tamore Alkohima might not be nobly born, but she is not really a peasant either–rather she belongs to that class of speciality artisans, who via the value placed on her labor and skill, is able to live quite comfortably. Moiraine is much more adept at maneuvering this kind of possibly fraught relationship than Siuan is. Yes, she is at the top of the social structure (all the more so since becoming Aes Sedai) but that does not release her from a need to observe formalities and courtesies with someone who, afterall, is doing something for Moiraine that she can not do for herself, even with the Power. If Moiraine wants the services of a master dressmaker, the finest in Tar Valon, she must show respect for both Tamore Alkohima and her craft, which means submitting to her artistic decisions, as well as paying whatever price, without complaint.

Siuan, who comes from the poor Maule district in Tear, is not used to navigating this kind of situation. Most of those she has dealt with before coming to the Tower were either her equals or only slightly above her in terms of class. She tries to treat Tamore Alkohima initially like she most likely treated vendors in the Maule where everyone is concerned with price, since so many are constantly on the edge of poverty, and she wants to know exactly what she is buying and have complete say over the final product, which is the practical mentality of someone to whom those factors had a huge impact on her survival. Coin wasted on fish a day from going bad, or netting that isn’t the right kind, might have meant the difference between eating that week or not, for a young Siuan and her father. 

Yet this this reads as an insult to Tamore Alkohima, who takes it as being treated with mockery, and leads to Moiraine needing to step in to try and smooth things over, and explain to Siuan-

“Listen to me, Siuan and do not argue.” she whispered in a rush. “We must not keep Tamore waiting long. Do not ask after prices: she will tell us after we make our selections. Nothing you buy here will be cheap, but the dresses Tamore sews for you will make you look Aes Sedai as much as the shawl does. And it is Tamore, not Mistress Alkohima. You must observe the properties or she will believe you are mocking her. But try thinking of her as a sister who stands just a little above you. A touch of deference is necessary. Just a touch, but she will tell you what to wear as much as she asks.” “And will the bloody shoe maker tell us what kind of slippers to buy and charge us enough to buy fifty new sets of nets?” “No.” Moiraine said impatiently. Tamore was only arching one eyebrow but her face may as well have been a thunderhead. The meaning of that eyebrow was clear as the finest crystal. They had already made the seamstress wait too long, and there was going to be a price for it. And that scowl! She hurried on, whispering as fast as she could. “The shoemaker will make us what we want and we will bargain the price with him, but not too hard if we want his best work. The same with the glovemaker, the stockingmaker, the shiftmaker, and all the rest. Just be glad neither of us needs a hairdresser. The best hairdressers are true tyrants, and nearly as bad as perfumers.”

-New Spring, Chapter 13: Business in the City.

Navigating the relationship between characters of a different class is something a of a running theme throughout New Spring–from Moiraine’s dealing with the discretion of her banker (‘Another woman who knew well her place in the world’ as Moiraine puts it), to having to meet with peasants during her search for the Dragon Reborn (and bungling several of those interactions), to wading through the roughest criminal parts of Chachin in search of an inn, and frequently needing to resort to the Power to avoid or resolve conflict. Moiraine’s ability to handle these situations is tightly tied to her experience with the people involved prior to her time as a Novice, but all hold up and give color to the class system Jordan presents. It also serves as set up so that when Moraine breaks the properties with a different seamstress near the end of the book, it can be a sign of the rising tension and the complex machinations she and Siuan find themselves in.

Notably, Moiraine and Siuan’s relative skill with working with people is strongly related to their backgrounds: the more Moiraine encounters people outside her lived experience as a noble daughter in Cairhien, the more she struggles to navigate those situations while Siuan is much more effective at dealing with the soldiers during the name-taking sequence (who are drawn mostly from the same class as her–common laborers, farmers, etc), and the people in Chachin, where she secures an lodging and local contacts to help in the search with relative ease.

Trying to navigate these waters is also something that frequently trips up characters in the main series as well, especially with the Two Rivers folk who are, ultimately, from a relatively classless society that does not subscribe to feudal norms (more on that below). All of them react to both moving through a society that does follow those norms, and later, being incorporated into its power structures in different, frequently disastrous ways.

Rand, who is not used to the complicated balance between vassal and monarch (which is all the more complicated as he is constantly adding more and more realms under his banner) finds imposing his will and leading the aristocrats who swear fealty to him incredibly difficult. While his reforms are undoubtedly good for the common folk and the general welfare of the nations he takes over, he is most often left to enforce them with threats and violence, which ultimately fuel resistance, rebellion, and more opposition to him throughout the nations he rules, and has down-the-line bad ripple effects on how he treats others, both noble and not, who disagree with him. 

Rand also struggles even with those who sincerely wish to serve and aid him in this context: he is awkward with servants, distant with the soldiers and warriors who swear their lives to him, and even struggles with many of his advisors and allies. Part of that is distrust that plagues him in general, but a big element to it is also his own outsider perspective. The Aiel frequently complain that Rand tries to lead them like a King, but that’s because they assume a wetlander King always leads by edict and command. Yet Rand’s efforts to do that with the Westland nations he takes over almost always backfire or have lasting consequences. Rand is frequently trying to frequently play act at what he thinks a King is and does–and when he succeeds it’s almost always a result of Moiraine or Elayne’s advice on the subject, not his own instincts or preconceptions.

Perrin, meanwhile, is unable to hide his contempt for aristocracy and those that willingly follow them, which leads to him both being frequently derelict in his duties as a Lord, and not treating his followers with a great deal of respect. Nynaeve has a similar problem, where she often tries to ‘instill backbone’ into those lower in the class system then her, then comes to regret it when that backbone ends up turned on her, and her leadership rejected or her position disrespected by those she had encouraged to reject leadership or not show respect to people in higher positions.

Interestingly, it’s Mat that most effectively manages to navigate various inter-class relationships, and who via the Band of the Red Hand builds a pretty equitable, merit-based army. He does this by following a simple rule: treating people how they wish to be treated. He accepts deference when it’s offered, but never demands it. He pushes back on the notion he’s a Lord often, but only makes it a serious bone with people who hold the aristocracy in contempt. He’s earnest in his dealings, fair minded, and good at reading social situations to adapt to how folks expect him to act, and when he breaches those expectations it’s usually a deliberate tactical choice. 

This lets him maintain strong friendships with people of all backgrounds and classes– from Princes like Beslan to horse thieves like Chel Vanin. More importantly, it makes everyone under his command feel included, respected, and valued for what they are. Mat has Strong Ideas About Class (and about most things really), but he’s the only Two Rivers character who doesn't seem to be working from an assumption that everyone else ought to live by his ideals. He thinks anyone that buys into the feudal system is mad, but he doesn't actually let that impact how he treats anyone–probably from the knowledge that they think he’s just as mad.

Getting Creative With the Structure

The other thing I want to dig into is the ways in which Jordan, via his understanding of the feudal system, is able to play with it in creative and interesting ways that match his world. Succession is the big one; who rules after the current monarch dies is a massively important matter since it determines the flow of power in a country from one leader to the next. The reason so many European monarchies had primogeniture (eldest child inherits all titles) succession is not because everyone just hated second children, it’s because primogeniture is remarkably stable. Being able to point to the eldest child of the monarch and say them, that one, and their younger sibling if they're not around, and so on is very good for the transition of power, since it establishes a framework that is both easy to understand and very very hard to subvert. Pretty much the only way, historically, to subvert a primogeniture succession is for either the heir’s blood relationship to the monarch or the legitimacy of their parent’s marriage to be called into question.

And yet despite that, few of the countries in Jordan's world actually use primogeniture succession. Andor does, as do some of the Borderlands, but the majority of  monarchies in Randland use elective succession, where the monarch is elected from among the aristocratic class by some kind of deliberative body. This is the way things are in Tarabon, Arad Doman,Ghealdan, Illian, and Malkier, who all elect the monarchs (or diarchs in the case of Tarabon- where two rulers, the Panarch and the King, share power) via either special council or some other assembly of aristocrats. 

There are three countries where we don’t know the succession type (Arafel, Murandy, and Amadicia) but also one we know for sure doesn't use primogeniture succession: Cairhien. We know this because Moiraine’s claim to the Sun Throne as a member of House Damodred is seen as as legitimate enough for the White Tower to view putting her on the Sun Throne as a viable possibility, despite the fact that she has two older sisters whose claims would be considered superior to her own under primogeniture succession. We never find out for sure in the books what the succession law actually is (the country never stabilizes for a long enough period that it becomes important), but if I had to guess I would guess that it’s designated,where the monarch chooses their successor prior to their death, and that the civil war that followed the Aiel War was the result of both Laman and his designated heir(s) dying at the Bloodsnows (we are told by Moiraine that Laman and both his brothers are killed; likely one of them was the next in line).

One country that we know for sure uses designated succession is Seanchan, where the prospective heir is still chosen from among the children of the Empress, but they are made to compete with each other (usually via murder and plotting) for the monarch’s favor, the ‘best’ being then chosen to become the heir. This very closely models how the Ottoman Empire did succession (state sanctioned fratricide) and while it has the potential to ensure competence (by certain metrics, anyways) it also sows the seeds of potential instability by ensuring that the monarch is surrounded by a whole lot of people with bad will to them and feelings of being cheated or snubbed in the succession, or else out for vengeance for their favored and felled candidate. Of course, from the Seanchan’s point of view this is a feature not a bug: if you can’t win a civil war or prevent yourself from being assassinated, then you shouldn’t have the throne anyways.

Succession is far from the only way that Jordan plays with the feudal structure either. Population is something else that is very present in the world building, even though it’s only drawn attention to a handful of times. In our world, the global population steadily and consistently rose throughout the middle ages and the Renaissance (with only small dips for things like the plague and the Mongol Invasion), then exploded with the Industrial Revolution and has seen been on a meteoric climb year over year (something that may just now be stabilizing into an equilibrium again, only time will tell). This is one of the pressures that led to the collapse of feudalism in the real world, as a growing aristocratic class was confronted with finite land and titles, while at the same time the growing (and increasingly powerful) wealthy financial class of various countries were beginning to challenge the traditions and laws that kept them out of direct power. If you’ve ever read a Jane Austen novel (or really anything from the Georgian/Regency/Victorian eras) this tension is on display. The aristocratic class had never been as secure as people think, but the potential to fall into poverty and ruin had never been a greater threat, which had ripple effects for the stability of a nation, and in particular a monarch who derived much of their power from the fealty of their now-destabilized vassals.

In Jordan’s world however, we are told as early as The Great Hunt that the global population is steadily falling, and has been since the Hundred Years’ War (at least). No kingdom is able to actually control all the territory it has on a map, the size of armies have in particular shrunk consistently (to the point where it’s repeatedly commented on that the armies Rand puts together, some of no more than a few thousand, are larger than any ‘since Artur Hawkwing's day’), large swathes of land lay ungoverned and even more uninhabited or settled. Entire kingdoms have collapsed due to the inability of their increasingly small populations to hold together. This is the fate of many of the kingdoms Ingtar talks about in the Great Hunt: Almoth, Gabon, Hardan, Moredo, Caralain, to name just a few. They came apart due to a combination of ineffective leadership, low population, and a lack of strong neighbors willing or able to extend their power and stability over the area.

All of this means that there is actually more land than there are aristocrats to govern it; so much so that in places like Baerlon power is held by a crown-appointed governor because no noble house has been able to effectively entrench in the area. This has several interesting effects on the society and politics of Randland: people in general are far more aware of the fragility of the nation state as a idea then they would be otherwise, and institutions (even the intractable and mysterious White Tower) are not viewed by even their biggest partisans as invulnerable or perpetual. Even the most powerful leaders are aware, gazing out constantly, as they do, at the ruins of the hundreds of kingdoms that have risen and fallen since the Breaking of the World (itself nothing more, to their understanding, then the death of the ultimate kingdom) that there are no guarantees, no promises that it all won’t fall apart. 

This conflict reflects on different characters in different ways, drawing out selfishness and cowardice from some, courage and strength from others. This is a factor in Andor’s surprisingly egalitarian social climate: Elayne and Morgase both boast that Andorans are able to speak their minds freely to their leaders about the state of things, and be listened to, and even the most selfish of leaders like Elenia Sarand are painfully aware that they stand on a tower built from ‘the bricks of the common folk’, and make a concentrated effort to ensure their followers feel included and heard. Conversely it also reflects on the extremely regimented culture of the Borderlands, were dereliction of duty can mean not just the loss of your life, but the loss of a village, a town, a city, to Trolloc raids (another pressure likely responsible for slow and steady decline of the global population). 

The Borderlanders value duty, honor, and responsibility above all else, because those are the cornerstones holding their various nations together against both the march of time and the Blight. All classes place a high value on the social contract; the idea that everyone must fulfill their duty to keep society safe is a lot less abstract when the stakes are made obvious every winter through monsters raiding your towns. This is most obvious in both Hurin and Ingtar’s behavior throughout The Great Hunt: Hurin (and the rest of the non-noble class) lean on the assurance that the noble class will be responsible for the greater scale problems and issues in order to endure otherwise unendurable realities, and that Rand, Ingtar, Aglemar, Lan (all of whom he believes to be nobly born) have been raised with the necessary training and tools to take charge and lead others through impossible situations and are giving over their entire lives in service to the people. In exchange Hurin pays in respect, obedience, and (presumably) taxes. This frees Hurin up to focus on the things that are decidedly within his ken: tracking, thief taking, sword breaking, etc, trusting that Ingtar, and later Rand, will take care of everything else.

When Hurin comes up against the feudal system in Cairhien, where the failures of everyone involved have lead to a culture of endless backstabbing and scheming, forced deference, entitlement, and mutual contempt between the parties, he at first attempts to show the Cairhienin ‘proper’ behavior through example, in the hopes of drawing out some shame in them. But upon realizing that no one in Cairhien truly believes in the system any longer after it has failed the country so thoroughly (hence the willingness of vassals to betray their masters, and nobles to abandon their oaths–something unthinkable in the Borderlands) he reverts to his more normal shows of deference to Rand and Ingtar, abandoning excessive courtesy in favor of true fealty.

Ingtar (and later Rand) feel the reverse side of this: the pressure to be the one with the answers, to hold it all together, to be as much icon and object as living person, a figure who people can believe in and draw strength from when they have none of their own remaining, and knowing at the same time that their choices will decide the fates and lives of others. It’s no mistake that Rand first meets Hurin and begins this arc in the remains of Hardan, one of those swept-away nations that Ingtar talks about having been left nothing more than ‘the greatest stone quarry for a hundred miles’. The stakes of what can happen if they fail in this duty are made painfully clear from the start, and for Rand the stakes will only grow ever higher throughout the course of the series, as number of those ‘under his charge’ slides to become ‘a nation’ then ‘several nations’ and finally ‘all the world’. And that leads into one of the problems at the heart of Rand’s character arc.

This emphasis on the feudal contract and duty helps the Borderlands survive the impossible, but almost all of them (with the exception of Saldaea) practice cultures of emotional repression and control,spurning displays of emotion as a lack of self-control, and viewing it as weakness to address the pains and psychological traumas of their day to day lives. ‘Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather’, ‘There will be time to sleep when you’re dead’, ‘You can care for the living or mourn the dead, you cannot do both’: all common sayings in the Borderlands. On the one hand, all of these emphasize the importance of fulfilling your duty and obligations…but on the other, all also  implicitly imply the only true release from the sorrows and wounds taken in the course of that duty is death. It is this, in part, that breaks Ingtar: the belief that only the Borderlands truly understand the existential threat, and that he and those like him are suffering and dying for ‘soft southlanders’ whose kingdoms are destined to go to ruin anyways. It’s also why he reveals his suffering to Rand only after he has decided to die in a last stand–he is putting down the mountain of his trauma at last. This is also one of those moments in the books that is a particular building block on the road to Rand’s own problems with not expressing his feelings or being willing to work through his trauma, that will swing back around to endanger the same world he is duty-bound to protect.

I also suspect strongly that this is the source of the otherwise baffling Saldean practice of….what we will call dedicated emotional release. One of the core cultural Saldean traits (and something that is constantly tripping up Perrin in his interactions with Faile) is that Saldeans are the only Borderlanders to reject the notion that showing emotion is weakness. In fact, Saldeans in general believe that shows of anger, passion, sorrow, ardor–you name it–are a sign of both strength and respect. Your feelings are strong and they matter, and being willing to inflict them on another person is not a burden or a betrayal of duty, it’s knowing that they will be strong enough to bear whatever you are feeling. I would hesitate to call even the Saldaens well-adjusted (I don’t know that there is a way to be well-adjusted in a society at constant war), but I do think there is merit to their apparent belief in catharsis, and their resistance to emotional repression as a sign of strength. Of course, that doesn't make their culture naturally better at communication (as Faile and Perrin’s relationship problems prove) but I do think it plays a part in why Bashere is such a good influence on Rand, helping push him away from a lot of the stoic restraint Rand has internalized from Lan, Ingtar, Moiraine, et al.

It also demonstrates that a functioning feudal society is not dependent on absolute emotional repression, or perfect obedience.  Only mutual respect and trust between the parties are necessary–trust that the noble (or monarch) will do their best in the execution of their duties, and trust that the common folk in society will in turn fulfill their roles to the best of their ability. Faile’s effectiveness as Perrin’s co-leader/second in command is never hindered or even implied to be hindered by her temperament or her refusal to hide/repress her emotions. She is arguably the one who is doing most of the actual work of governing the Two Rivers after she and Perrin are acclaimed their lord and lady: seeing to public works projects, settling disputes, maintaining relationships with various official groups of their subjects.

The prologue from Lord of Chaos (a favorite scene of mine of the books) where Faile is holding public audience while Perrin is off sulking ‘again’ is a great great example of this; Faile is the quintessential Borderland noble heir, raised all her life in the skills necessary to run a feudal domain, and those skills are on prime display as she holds court. But that is not hindered by her willingness to show her true feelings, from contempt of those she thinks are wasting her time, to compassion and empathy to the Wisdoms who come to her for reassurance about the weather. This is one of those things that Perrin has to learn from her over the course of the series–that simply burying his emotions for fear they might hurt others is not a healthy way to go about life, and it isn’t necessary to rule or lead either. His prejudices about what constitutes a ‘good’ Lord (Lan, Agelmar, Ingtar) and a ‘bad’ one (literally everyone else) are blinding him, showing his lack of understanding of the system that his people are adopting, and his role in it.

Which is a nice dovetail with my next bit–

Outsiders And the Non-Feudal State

Another way Jordan effectively depicts the Feudal system is by having groups who decidedly do not practice it be prominent throughout the series–which is again accurate to real life history, where feudalism was the mode of government for much of (but by no means all) of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, but even in Europe their were always societies doing their own thing, and outside of it, different systems of government flourished in response to their environments and cultures; some with parallels to Feudalism, many completely distinct.

The obvious here are the Aiel who draw on several different non-feudal societies (the Scottish Highland Clans, the Iroquois Confederation, the Mongols, and the Zulu to name just a few) and the Seafolk (whose are a combination of the Maori and the Republic of Piracy of all things), but also firmly in these categories are groups like the communities in the Black Hills, Almoth Plain, and the Two Rivers.

Even though it’s an agrarian farming community made up primarily of small villages, the Two Rivers is not a feudal state or system. We tend to forget this because it looks a lot like our notion of a classic medieval European village, which our biases inherently equate to feudal, but Jordan is very good at remembering this is not the case, and that the Two Rivers folk are just as much outsiders to these systems as the Aiel, or the Seafolk. 

Consider how often the refrain of ‘don’t even know they’re part of the Kingdom of Andor’ is repeated in regards to the Two Rivers, and how much the knowledge of Our Heroes about how things like Kingdoms, courts, war, etc, are little more than fairy tales to the likes of those Two Rivers, while even places unaffected directly by things like the Trakand Succession or the Aiel War are still strongly culturally, economically, and politically impacted. 

Instead of deriving power and justice from a noble or even a code of law, power is maintained by two distinct groups of village elders (The Village Council and the Women’s Circle) who are awarded seats based on their standing within the community. These groups provide the day-to-day ordering of business and resolving of conflicts, aiding those in need and doing what they can for problems that impact the entire community. The Wisdom serves as the community physician, spiritual advisor, and judge (in a role that resembles what we know of pre-Christian celtic druids), and the Women’s Circle manages most social ceremonies from marriages to betrothals to funerals, as well as presiding over criminal trials (insofar as they even have them). The Mayor manages the village economics, maintaining relationships and arbitrating deals with outsider merchants and peddlers, collecting and spending public funds (through a volunteer collection when necessary, which is how we’re told the new sick house was built and presumably was how the village paid for things like fireworks and gleeman for public festivals), while the Council oversees civil matters like property disputes. 

On the surface this seems like an ideal community: idyllic, agrarian, decentralized, where everyone cares more about good food and good company and good harvests than matters of power, politics, or wealth, and without the need for any broader power-structure beyond the local town leaders. It’s the kind of place that luddites Tolkien and Thomas Jefferson envisioned as a utopia (and indeed the Two Rivers it the most Tolkien-y place in Randland after the Ogier stedding, of which we see relatively little), but I think Jordan does an excellent job of not romanticizing this way of life the way Tolkien often did. Because while the Two Rivers has many virtues and a great deal to recommend it, it also has many flaws.

The people in the Two Rivers are largely narrow minded and bigoted, especially to outsiders; The day after Moiraine saves the lives of the entire village from a Trolloc attack, a mob turns up to try and burn her out, driven by their own xenophobia and fear of that which they don’t understand. Their society is also heavily repressed and regressive in its sex norms and gender relations: the personal lives of everyone are considered public business, and anyone living in a fashion the Women’s Circle deems unsuitable (such as widower and single father Tam al’Thor) is subject to intense pressure to ‘correct’ their ways (remarry and find a mother for Rand). There is also no uniformity in terms of law or government, no codified legal code, and no real public infrastructure (largely the result of the region’s lack of taxes). This is made possible by the geographic isolation and food stability–two factors that insulate the Two Rivers from many of the problems that cause the formation or joining of a nation state. It’s only after the repeated emergence of problems that their existing systems can not handle (Trolloc raids, martial law under the White Cloaks, the Endless Summer, etc) that the Two Rivers folk begin adopting feudalism, and even then it’s not an instantaneous process, as everyone involved must navigate not just how they are going to adopt this alien form of government, but how they are going to make it match to their culture and history as well.

This plays neatly with the societies that, very pointedly, do not adopt feudalism over the course of the series. The Aiel reject the notion entirely, thinking it as barbaric and backward as the Westerlanders think their culture is–and Jordan is very good at showing neither as really right. The Aiel as a society have many strengths the fandom likes to focus on (a commitment to community care, a strong sense of collective responsibility, a flexible social order that is more capable of accounting for non-traditional platonic and romantic relationships, as well as a general lack of repressive sex norms) but this comes at a serious cost as well. The Aiel broadly share the Borderlander’s response of emotional suppression as a way of dealing with the violence of their daily life, as well as serious problems with institutionalized violence, xenophobia, and a lack of respect for individual rights and agency. Of these, the xenophobia is probably the most outright destructive, and is one of the major factors Rand has to account for when leading the Aiel into Cairhien, as well a huge motivating factor in the Shaido going renegade, and many Aiel breaking clan to join them–and even before Rand’s arrival it manifested as killing all outsiders who entered their land, except for Cairhienin, whom they sold as slaves in Shara.

And yet, despite these problems Jordan never really suggests that the Aiel would be better off as town-or-castle dwelling society, and several characters (most notably the Maidens) explicitly reject the idea that they should abandon their culture, values, and history as a response to the revelations at Rhuidean. Charting a unique course forward for the Aiel is one of the most persistent problems that weighs on the Wise Ones throughout the second half of the series, and Aviendha in particular. Unlike many of the feudal states faced with Tarmon Gai’don, the Aiel when confronted with the end of days and the sure knowledge of the destruction of their way of life are mostly disinterested in ignoring, running from, or rejecting that revelation (those that do, defect to the Shaido). Their unique government and cultural structure gives them the necessary flexibility to pivot quickly to facing the reality of the Last Battle, and to focus on both helping the world defeat the Shadow, and what will become of them afterwards. This ironically, leaves them in one of the best positions post-series, as the keepers of the Dragon’s Peace, which will allow them to hold on to many of their core cultural values even as they make the transition to a new way of life, without having to succumb to the pressures to either assimilate into Westlands, or return to their xenophobic isolationism.

The Seafolk provide the other contrast, being a maritime society where the majority of the people spend their time shipboard. Their culture is one of strong self-discipline and control, where rank, experience, and rules are valued heavily, agreements are considered the next thing to sacred, and material prosperity is valued. Though we don’t spend quite as much time with them as the Aiel, we get a good sense of their culture throughout the mid-series. They share the Aiel’s contempt for the feudal ‘shorebound’, but don’t share their xenophobia, instead maintaining strong trade relationships with every nation on navigable water, though outside of the context of those trade relationships, they are at best frosty to non-Seafolk. 

They are not society without problems–the implication of their strong anti-corruption and anti-nepotism policies is that it’s a serious issue in their culture, and their lack of a centralized power structure outside of their handful of island homes means that they suffer a similar problem to the likes of Murandy and Altara, where life on one ship might be radically different then life on another, in terms of the justice or treatment you might face, especially as an outsider. But the trade off is that they have more social mobility then basically any other society we see in Randland. Even the Aiel tend to have strongly entrenched and managed circles of power, with little mobility not managed by the Wise Ones or the chiefs. But anyone can rise high in Sea Folk society, to become a leader in their clan, or even Mistress of the Ships or Master of the Blades– and they can fall just as easily, for shows of incompetence, or failures to execute their duties. 

They are also another society who is able to adapt to circumstances of Tamon Gai’don relatively painlessly, having a very effective plan in place to deal with the fallout and realities of the Last Battle. The execution gets tripped up frequently by various factors, but again, I don’t think it’s a mistake that they are one of the groups that comes out the other side of the Last Battle in a strong position, especially given the need that will now exist to move supplies and personnel for rebuilding post-Last Battle. The Seafolk have already begun working out embassies in every nation on navigable water, an important step to modernizing national relationships.

How does all this relate to feudalism and class? It’s Jordan digging into a fundamental truth about the world and people–at no point in our own history have we ever found a truly ‘perfect’ model for society. That’s something he’s constantly trying to show with feudalism–it is neither an ideal nor an abomination, it just is. Conversely, the Two Rivers, Aiel, Seafolk, and Ogier (who I don’t get into to much here for space, but who also have their own big problems with suffrage and independence, and their virtues in terms of environmental stability and social harmony) all exist in largely classes societies, but that doesn't exempt them from having problems or make them a utopia, and it certainly doesn't make them lesser or backwards either–Jordan expends a lot of energy to show them as complex, nuanced and flawed, in the same way he does for his pseudo-Europe.

Conclusion

To restate my premise: one of Jordan’s profound gifts as a writer is his capacity to set aside his own biases and write anything from his villains to his world with an honest, empathetic cast that defies simplification. Feudalism and monarchy more generally have a bad rep in our society, for good reasons. But I think either whitewashing or vilifying the feudal system is a mistake, which Jordan’s writing naturally reflects. Jordan is good at asking complicating questions of simple premises. He presents you with the Kingdom of Andor, prosperous and vast and under the rule of a regal much loved Queen and he asks ‘where does its wealth come from? How does it maintain law and order? How does the Queen exert influence and maintain her rule even in far-flung corners of the realm? How did she come to power in the first place and does that have an impact on the politics surrounding her current reign?’. And he does this with every country, every corner of his world–shining interesting lights on familiar tropes, and exploring the humanity of these grand ideas in a way that feels very real as a result.

The question of, is this an inherently just system is never really raised because it’s a simplifying question, not a complicating one. Whatever you answer–yes or no–does not add to the depiction of these systems or the people within them, it takes away. You make someone flat–be it a glorious just revolutionary opposing a cackling wicked King, or a virtuous and dutiful King suppressing dangerous radical dissidents, and you make the world flatter as a result. 

I often think about how, when I began studying European history, I was shocked to learn that the majority of the royalists who rose up against the Jacobins were provincial peasants, marching against what they perceived to be disgruntled, greedy academic and financial elites. These were, after all, the same people that the Jacobins’ revolution claimed to serve and be doing the will of. Many of the French aristocrats were undeniably corrupt, indolent, and detached from their subjects, but when you look closer at the motives of many of the Jacobins you discover that motives were frequently more complex then history tends to remember or their propaganda tried to claim, and many were bitterly divided against each other on matters of tactics, or ideals, or simple personality difference. The simple version of the French Revolution assigns all the blame to the likes of Robespierre going mad with power, and losing sight of the revolutions’ higher ideals, but the truth was the Jacobins could never properly agree on many of their supposed core ideals, and Robespierre, while powerful, was still one voice in a Republic–and every person executed by guillotine was decreed guilty by a majority vote.

This is the sort of nuance lost so often in fantasy stories, but not in Jordan’s books. The story could be simpler–Morgase could just be a just and good high Queen archetype who is driven by love of her people, but Jordan depicts her from the beginning as human–with virtues and flaws, doing the best she can in the word she has found herself. Trying to be a just and good Queen and often succeeding, and sometimes falling short of the mark. The Tairen and Cairhienin nobility could just all be greedy, corrupt, out-of-touch monsters who cannot care for anything beyond their own pleasures–but for every Laman, Weairamon, or Colavaere, you have Dobraine, Moiraine, or Darlin. And that is one of the core tenets of Jordan’s storytelling: that there is no system wholly without merit or completely without flaw, and no group of people is ever wholly good or evil.

By taking this approach, Jordan’s story feels real. None of his characters or world come across like caricature or parody. The heinous acts are sharper and more distinct, the heroic choices more earned and powerful. Nothing is assumed–not the divine right of kings, or the glorious virtue of the common man. This, combined with a willingness to draw on the real complex histories of our own world, and work through how the unique quirks of fantasy impact them, is what renders The Wheel Of Time such a standout as a fantasy series, past even more classic seminal examples of the genre, and why its themes of class, duty, power, and politics resonate with its modern audiences.

[msafterhours]

A Single Trip Around the Sun

It's wild to think about, but today marks a year's time since I released "Drive" and dove back into writing. Funnily enough, it's also been just over 5 years since I stopped updating my first ever story, which began in March of 2019 and ended in late October of the same year.

I wrote & published over 75,000 words between October 2023 & March 2024 to varying degrees of quality and personal satisfaction. Two of those stories still remain public, while the third has been made private due to my own personal dissatisfaction with the finished product.

Over the past 7 months or so, things have been less than ideal, and while I wish that there could be more finished products to share with you all, I'd be lying if I said I've been in the right mindset to produce work that's up to my personal standards. However, that isn't to say that there hasn't been incredible work produced during that time. More on that in a second.

I personally don't view myself as a particularly creative person. Writing is very difficult for me to find success in (especially compared to other interests), but I enjoy the process of learning and growth. Thus, a significant amount of my time over the past half decade or so has been spent researching techniques, learning how to improve the quality of my work, and compiling those lessons into notes for my own future reference.

So, I'd like to take this opportunity to share that knowledge with anyone that might find it helpful. Contained within are archives of my external writing related research, saved passages from my favorite works produced by the community, and a bit of a peek behind the curtain into my older works & the planning that goes into a standard project of mine.

If nothing else, I hope you choose to look through the community quote archives and join me in celebrating the incredible content featured within. These are only small fragments of the wonderful work put together by @capslocked , @kooyabooya , @majorblinks , @iznsfw , @jeneveuxrein , @yieldtotemptation , and so many others who have blessed us with their awe-inspiring talent. There's plenty of other content that I haven't gotten around to including quite yet, but I have every intention of keeping this updated moving forward, so keep an eye out for even more magnificent inclusions in the near future.

I hope anyone who decides to check it out enjoys their time doing so and finds a bit of inspiration or helpful information within. Thank you so much to the over one thousand people who have chosen to follow this blog and thank you very much to everyone who's chosen to spend your time reading my work!

Sincerely,

Mirror's Secrets / Tyler ❤️