#gateway weave? it’s all right there.

[hauntedmoors]

wheel of time written by nuclear engineer robert jordan is actually about nuclear anxiety and the consequences of the development of new technology aiding and abetting unchecked usage of weapons of mass destruction. in this essay I will -

#that’s what balefire is! #rand contemplating how war tactics will change to accomodate gateways? mat feeling unhappy about aludra’s invention of the cannons? #the seanchan hesitating when they think elayne deployed a powerful weapon to obliterate their forces? the race to get their hands on the #gateway weave? it’s all right there. #text #wheel of time #and brandon sanderson went ahead and glamourised it. bye. #<- lmao I know this tag is going to piss so many people off like stay mad! if you want to interpret his writing with more generosity than #he deserves instead of examining his pattern of writing across all his books it’s a you problem. #brandon

[papiliotao]

꒰ 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 ✩࿐

pairings: alhaitham, kaveh, kazuha, lyney, scaramouche, and xiao x gn!reader (separate)

content: fluff, modern au, college au, the reader is a sleep-deprived student, correction: everyone in this fic is a sleep-deprived student, cuddling, reader is sick in scara’s, venti makes a cameo in kazuha’s part, reverse comfort in kaveh’s

summary: small scenarios with the genshin boys as your roommates! ♡

a/n: this has been sitting in my drafts for a while, so i decided to finally finish it up. i hope you enjoy!

₊˚ପ ALHAITHAM

Tonight, it feels like endless night ebbs and flows into the very core of your being, chilling you with fragments of a glacial atmosphere.

It’s cold.

Even with multiple blankets wrapped around you, you can’t help but shiver, shake like a vibrant autumn leaf in a passing zephyr. Winter is approaching, and unfortunately for you, you may have relished a little too much in the gilded threads of summer warmth that had graced the world a few months prior. For now, you’re unable to stand the gradual freeze that’s beginning to spread throughout your city.

Slumber is tempting. It lures you in, wrapping you in a blanket weaved of starlight and dreams. However, it’s all an illusion. In reality, you’re far from sleep. You know that there’s no way you’ll be able to pass the gateway into the oneiric realm. Not with the sensation of frostbite threatening to consume you whole.

Eventually, you decide to get up. You’re certain that you won’t be able to fall asleep, at least, not without more blankets, so you decide to make your way to Alhaitham’s room to ask if he has any spares.

Although you’d normally feel guilty for rousing someone from slumber, it’s not that late as of right now. Either way, you’re quite certain that your roommate is still wide awake, most likely losing himself amongst the yellowed pages of a verbose book. After all, he always seems to have his nose buried in a complex tome, filled with words that make your brain hurt.

Slowly, you drag yourself out from under the plush covers of your bed. The floorboards groan slightly as you stand, exhaling under the pressure of your footsteps. You make your way down a hallway drowned in shades of midnight, making your way towards the golden light seeping out into the corridor from under the cracks of a closed door.

The door to Alhaitham’s room.

You knock, the sound seemingly echoing down the walls of the hall, repeating in a chorus of onomatopoeia.

A few seconds pass before the door opens to reveal Alhaitham. Strands of silver hair messily frame his face, and yet as the aquamarine hues of his irises meet your gaze, you find that he’s just as dazzling as ever.

“Do you need something?” he asks, his voice as flat and monotonous as always. As usual, your roommate’s front doesn’t betray a single hint of emotion. Not even irritation.

You pause for a moment, still a little intimidated by Alhaitham. Although you’ve been living together for a while now, his apathetic demeanour can be slightly off-putting at times. Nonetheless, you eventually manage to steel your nerves.

“Yeah,” you say. The word comes tumbling out of your mouth like the iridescent droplets of a waterfall. “Do you happen to have any extra blankets?”

Alhaitham pauses for a moment, seemingly deep in thought.

You hold your breath, hoping that he’ll say yes, and you’ll be able to get this over with.

However, he shakes his head, and you feel your heart drop, shattering into a thousand shards of fragmented ruby.

“Oh,” you sigh, trying your best to hide the dejected expression overtaking your features. “That’s okay. Sorry for bothering you.” 

You turn away, ready to head back to your room, but Alhaitham’s voice stops you.

“I think it’s safe to presume you wanted a blanket because you were cold, right?”

It’s a rhetorical question, so you don’t bother to answer it. Instead, you freeze, becoming akin to a stunning statue carved of pale blue ice.

“Then allow me to propose an alternate solution.”

You turn around, meeting Alhaitham’s eyes once more. Lakes of turquoise, typically devoid of emotion, are now filled with a particular spark. You can’t quite determine what it is, but there’s a subtle glimmer — barely visible, but it’s there.

“Why don’t you stay in my room for the night?”

Your eyes widen, and you feel your jaw drop. For a moment, you just stand there, absolutely still and dumbfounded.

Perhaps you had heard Alhaitham wrong. Or maybe your mind is playing tricks on you, making mirages materialize out of nothing. The blank expression painted over your roommate’s features certainly makes you think so.

“Excuse me?” you blink languidly, staring at Alhaitham as if he’ll disappear into thin air if you take your eyes off him.

“I said why don’t you stay in my room for the night?” he repeats nonchalantly, the evening chill seemingly intertwining itself into his tone. His gaze remains fixated on you.

Your mind blanks for a second, each intricate acrylic line of a composition painted over, leaving you with nothing but an empty canvas. As you stand still, a thousand scenarios seem to flash through your head, filling up the blank space with a myriad of thoughts — some pleasant and some unpleasant. However, you soon realize that you don’t have time to weigh all the pros and cons of your decision, as Alhaitham is staring at you intently, awaiting your answer.

“Sure,” you blurt out.

You’re not sure what compels you to accept his proposal. Perhaps it’s your longing for the comfort of shared warmth. Perhaps it’s a result of your inability to say no to others due to a fear of disappointing them. Or perhaps it’s because you’ve grown a lot closer to Alhaitham than you’d care to admit.

Although you’re still slightly intimidated by him, you’re certain that he’d never do anything to harm you. And there are even times where he shows he has your best interests in mind (despite the fact that you were initially under the impression that he cared little for others).

You’re snapped out of your trance of reminiscence as Alhaitham speaks once more.

“Alright,” he says, taking your hand and leading you over to his bed. His grip is firm — not suffocating, but at the same time, not so soft that the connection between the two of you would be easily severed.

Alhaitham’s touch sends butterflies, tinted a colour reminiscent of spring blossoms, dancing within the pit of your stomach. It’s enchanting, and at this rate, you’re not sure how you’ll be able to handle sleeping in the same bed as him.

He allows you to climb into bed first, tucking you in with an unexpected amount of care. You know Alhaitham’s not exactly the cold-hearted jerk many make him out to be, but you didn’t anticipate that he’d be this gentle, his touch akin to the caress of sunlight on a spring day.

After the man ensures that you’re cozy, he lies down beside you, embracing you. As he does so, you feel a wave of heat overwhelm you. To your relief, the frigidness that had once gnawed at your very soul is now gone, but unfortunately, you’re faced with a new problem.

Alhaitham’s actions have flustered you, and to your misfortune, it feels as though crimson embers of embarrassment are transforming into flames far too quickly for your liking.

You’ve solved one issue, but in turn, you’ve accidentally created another.

This is going to be a long night.

₊˚ପ KAVEH

It’s no secret that your roommate is a perfectionist.

Whenever his eyebrows knit up in a jumble of discontent and pools of liquid ruby tinged with sunsets glint with hints of frustration, it becomes obvious what’s going on. He’s spent too long trying to perfect yet another assignment. The bags that seem to perpetually line the undersides of his eyes are dark shadows — serving as an eternal reminder to the man’s exhaustion.

There are times where you find him hunched over his desk, teetering on a thin tightrope, walking a line between the waking world and a wonderland of dreams. Of course, he refuses to succumb to the temptations of a golden slumber time and time again, forcing himself to fixate on his projects until he’s finished and happy with the final product.

Today is one of those days. The cold light that leaks through the cracks beneath the door to Kaveh’s room seeps into the hallway, serving as a warning written in a display of molten opalescence.

Stark white. Cutting through the darkness of deep midnights with ease.

It’s jarring, and when you press your ear to the door and listen carefully, you manage to make out the sound of Kaveh muttering underneath his breath.

You know you have to do something. Now. Before your roommate decides to work himself half to death again.

You take a deep breath, inhaling night air reminiscent of the crystalline waters. It’s refreshing, and as you breathe out, a sense of tranquility washes over you.

Steeling yourself, you knock on Kaveh’s door, the sound seemingly reverberating through the corridor in a myriad of echoes.

“[Name]? Is that you?” he asks, his voice ringing out loudly, fragmenting and shattering the quiet ambience. 

You hear the sounds of drawers opening and closing, papers rustling, and footsteps falling.

“There’s no point in hiding anything,” you tell your roommate, picturing the distress swirling like nebulae in his vibrant crimson eyes. “I know you’ve been working late again.”

The noises come to a halt, and peace returns to the late night atmosphere once more. Soon, the sound of soft footsteps fill your senses, gradually growing louder in a crescendo until you’re sure that Kaveh is right in front of the door.

And then it swings open to reveal a sleep-looking Kaveh clad in pyjamas.

“Alright, I’ll admit it,” he sighs. “You caught me red-handed.”

Silence permeates your senses for a few seconds, but the illusion of stillness is quickly shattered as Kaveh breathes out a sigh.

“I just can’t seem to figure out this one last thing,” he groans, burying his head in his hands. “I seriously can’t take it anymore. It’s driving me insane.”

For a few seconds, his gaze remains averted, staring down at the wooden finish of his desk, tinted a subtle peach under the topaz shades of light spilling from Kaveh’s lamp. If you didn’t know any better, you would have sworn that he had fallen asleep. However, your eyes eventually meet hues of dulled rose, glittering with a faint spark concealed by exhaustion.

“You should rest,” you tell your roommate, cautiously placing a hand on his shoulder. To your relief, he doesn’t flinch or pull away when you touch him. He simply slumps and begins to stand up.

“I suppose you’re right,” he speaks slowly, his voice laced with resignation. “Perhaps a short break will help me clear my mind.”

Kaveh walks over to his bed, brushing locks of sunshine that threaten to obscure his vision away from his eyes. The mattress sinks like quicksand as he lies down and tucks himself under the covers, enveloping him in layers upon layers of plush comfort.

You turn away, switching Kaveh’s lamp off before you head back to the door. However, just as you’re about to leave, Kaveh calls your name.

“[Name],” Kaveh starts, his voice seemingly amplified by the abyssal midnight overtaking your surroundings.

You spin around, only to be met with the sight of Kaveh’s silhouette outlined against backdrops of navy and black, enveloping the world in curtains of phantasmagoric silk.

“Can you stay with me?” he asks. His voice trembles slightly, and he sounds sheepish — almost shy. “It’s just that, if I don’t have you around, I might convince myself to start working again.”

You freeze.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

It takes three seconds for you to fully process Kaveh’s request, and when you do, you feel your heart skip a beat.

“I would be happy to.”

And with Kaveh’s permission, you climb under the covers of his bed with him. He wraps an arm around you. The position feels far too intimate for two roommates who harbour nothing more than platonic feelings for each other, but you decide that that’s a problem for future you to address.

For now, you decide to close your eyes and seek solace in a realm of breathtaking dreamscapes. Finding joy in each cotton candy cloud, each droplet of crystal rain, and each gilded leaf within a fantastical world found far away from reality.

And yet as you drift off to sleep, you find that there’s one thing in the waking world that has become far more tantalizing than anything your imagination could ever conjure: the warmth of Kaveh’s embrace.

₊˚ପ KAZUHA

Golden ribbons of warmth caress your face as you open your eyes to find yourself awake again. A wave of tranquility washes over you, weighing down your eyelids with a serene lullaby — an ode to quiet mornings spent in the solace of your home. You want nothing more than to stay in bed for a few more minutes, but you have classes.

Groggily, you stretch and then pick your phone up from where it’s sitting on your nightstand in order to check the time. The screen lights up with a cold radiance, a stark contrast to the gilded rays of the sun, as you turn it on.

And that’s when all hell breaks loose.

It’s 9:30 a.m., and you’ve already missed the start of your first class. You grimace internally, but you can’t dwell on your feelings for too long. After all, the longer you delay, the more you’ll miss.

You change in record time, pulling on a comfortable hoodie and jeans, grab a few of your belongings, and rush out the door.

The chilly autumn air brushes against your skin as you make your way to class, and the enticing fragrance of sap hits your nose, tantalizing you with a perfume that carries nostalgic memories. In the corners of your vision, you watch as leaves coloured shades of vivid crimson, marigold, and amber swirl in a waltz signaling the end of summer and the beginnings of harsher days. The scenery is beautiful, and if you weren’t in a panic, you would have stopped to admire it. However, you force yourself to ignore the scenes around you, continuing to focus on your primary objective.

When you arrive at the lecture hall, you’re panting. Simple oxygen feels like ambrosia to you, sweet and satisfying, refreshing in a way that it’s never been before. For a few moments, you stand outside the room and catch your breath. With each inhale and exhale, you get closer and closer to finding a rhythm until finally, you’re no longer gasping for air.

Quietly, you walk into class, trying your best to avoid disturbing anyone. Thankfully, nobody seems to notice as you take a seat near the back of the hall, settling down in your seat. Time passes slowly as class continues on, and it almost feels like universal laws operate differently within the small bubble of the room you’re currently sitting in. Everything seems to take an eternity, and you can’t do anything except watch the minutes tick by, each addition of one moving you closer and closer to the end of a mundane lecture.

It feels like the moment will never arrive, but eventually, you’re dismissed. Thankfully, there’s quite a while until you have to go to your next class, so you decide to wander around for a while.

For a while, you stroll aimlessly, eventually finding yourself back outdoors once more. Now, you can truly savour the beauty of your surroundings, relish in the splendor of each flaming leaf that drifts by and each rivulet of tepid light that pierces through the crystalline coolness of the autumn air.

You stand there for a while, simply enjoying a break after a hectic morning.

Until something else — or rather, someone else — catches your eye.

Under the shade of a maple tree stands your roommate, basking in the glory of a crimson waterfall composed entirely of maple leaves dancing gracefully until they hit the ground. His platinum hair is tied back in its usual ponytail, each strand of silken moonlight swaying as a gentle zephyr blows by, and his eyes are a shade of ruby that flawlessly mimics the autumnal landscape.

He’s as breathtaking as ever.

But before you can admire him for long, hues of starglitter and rose petals meet your gaze, and a small smile dances across his lips. Without a word, he walks over to you.

“Running into you here is certainly a pleasant surprise,” he says, his grin widening.

“You say that as if we don’t already live together,” you remark, laughing a little.

He chuckles, the sound as light and airy as autumn winds swirling leaves around in a waltz of farewells. The lighthearted atmosphere is truly euphoric, especially after such a stressful morning.

Of course, good things never last for long.

“Good morning, Kazuha. Good morning, [name]. How’s my favourite couple?” a cheery voice asks. In the edges of your vision, you see a figure donning twin braids of sapphire and turquoise approaching. It’s Venti — one of Kazuha’s friends.

Both you and Kazuha freeze, a frigidity crystallizing the ambience into icy fractals. And yet at the same time, you can feel your face beginning to heat up.

Couple?

Before you can clear up the misunderstanding, Kazuha speaks.

“Good morning to you too, Venti,” he says. “We’re doing well, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” Kazuha subtly averts his gaze, staring at the ground, but you swear you can see a blush dawning on his cheeks in shades of sunset. “[Name] and I aren’t a couple.”

“Oh really?” Venti asks teasingly, giggling in a manner that sounds almost maniacal, “then why are they wearing your hoodie?”

You look down, and sure enough, the top you chose to wear today was Kazuha’s. He had allowed you to borrow it a few days ago when you complained about the chilly autumn weather, and you had forgotten to return it. Apparently you were in such a rush this morning that you pulled it on without a second thought.

“It was an accident,” you blurt out, wanting to clear up the misconception as soon as possible. “I woke up late, and I was in a hurry.”

“Uh huh,” Venti nods, his tone laced with sarcasm. “Sure. I believe you.”

“No, seriously. We’re not a couple,” you reiterate, sighing as Venti laughs quietly.

“Whatever you say,” he says. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere to be. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”

Without another word, Venti skips off, jubilantly humming to himself. And now, you’re alone with Kazuha, left to deal with the awkward aftermath of Venti’s assumptions.

“That was… interesting,” you remark.

Kazuha nods.

“I hope you didn’t feel too uncomfortable,” he says, smiling at you gently, a light blush still coating his cheeks. Although you’ll never admit it out loud, you find him quite cute when he’s flustered. Venti would have a field day if he knew you found your roommate so adorable.

“I’m fine,” you reassure Kazuha, “and I’ll return your hoodie to you as soon as possible,” you add.

However, to your surprise, Kazuha shakes his head.

“You can keep it if you want,” he tells you.

“Really?”

Kazuha chuckles.

“Really,” he assures you. “As long as you don’t mind being mistaken for a couple, that is. I know I certainly don’t.”

₊˚ପ LYNEY

“Lyney, if I remember correctly, you told me you perform magic as a sort of side hustle, right?” you ask your roommate.

The question is out of the blue, but you want nothing more than to learn about the man you’ve recently grown to be infatuated with. Besides, he’ll probably think nothing of it. After all, it’s only natural for someone to want to get to know their roommate anyway.

“Yeah, I guess you’d be right,” he responds, averting his gaze from his phone and glancing at you. “Although I’d say it’s more about putting on a good show than the money.”

Lilac hues make your mind go blank as you make eye contact, enchanting you with oceans full of stardust and sunshine alike. Lilac. It’s a colour you’ve come to adore. Before meeting Lyney, it was a shade known to you as the border between night and day, mixed into compositions of dawning sunrises and fading sunsets. But now, it’s synonymous with magic and mystery, and it’s all thanks to your charming roommate.

“Oh, I see,” you mutter.

You’re surprised that your voice doesn’t end up shaking. Simply looking into Lyney’s eyes is causing your heart to beat rapidly, igniting crimson sparks of giddiness and glee with each thump.

Perhaps this is what it feels like to be in love.

“Why do you ask?” Lyney inquires, tilting his head slightly. “Are you interested in seeing a trick?”

Lyney flashes a charming smile at you — a smile embodying the enigmatic charms of various twilight hues. He reaches his hand up to brush the few strands of dusky hair that had fallen in front of his eyes away, and somehow, the subtle action makes you find him all the more attractive.

“I would love to,” you say, “if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

You wait with bated breath, feeling the whole world still as you await Lyney’s response. The carefree atmosphere solidifies into something denser, heavier, as tension begins to build.

“Well, I usually don’t do private shows like this, especially not out of the blue,” he remarks.

For a second, you feel your smile fall.

“But since it’s you, I can try,” Lyney says.

A grins dances upon your lips once more, and the elation from before comes back in full force. Unbridled adoration swirls through your heart, taking down each and every glacial barrier in a roaring tempest of rose and vermillion. With every day that passes, you feel yourself falling deeper and deeper into the clutches of romantic fantasies.

“Thank you.”

With that, Lyney rushes to his room. A few seconds later, he returns with some props and a top hat, midnight black adorned with velvety scarlet and magenta detailing, perched upon his head.

He performs for you, and it’s absolutely enamouring. His prowess is incredible, and it’s clear he’s enjoying putting on a show for you. The entire performance is interesting, captivating. However, it’s Lyney’s last act that stands out to you most of all.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what my grand finale will be,” Lyney announces with a fiery sort of flamboyance. It’s amusing because you’re the only audience member, but at the same time, slightly endearing.

He takes his hat off, reaching his hand into the void within. Slowly, he pulls something out.

The verdant green of a stem lined with thorns appears first. Then you catch sight of luscious leaves. And lastly, the delicate petals of a rose enter your line of vision. They’re tinted a vibrant purple, reminiscent of sparkling amethysts.

“For you,” Lyney says, handing you the flower.

Upon closer examination, you note that the rose is unblemished. It’s perfect. You wonder if Lyney put any thought into picking out this particular flower, but you brush the thought off. Embers of newly-kindled feelings of romance brush against your skin.

You’re flustered.

Flustered beyond measure.

Awkwardly, you take the rose from Lyney, your heart fluttering as your fingers accidentally bump against his. His skin is soft, and his touch is tantalizing. You wouldn’t mind feeling his hand in yours.

“Thank you,” you manage to whisper, averting your gaze and looking anywhere but into the very lavender irises that will never fail to enchant you. “It’s stunning.”

“A stunning flower for a stunning person,” Lyney says. The sincerity lacing his tone doesn’t go unnoticed, and you have to stop yourself from melting on the spot. “Do you know what the purple rose represents?”

You shake your head as sudden curiosity and cupid’s final arrow strike simultaneously.

He leans in, moving so close that you can feel strands of silken platinum tickle your skin. A soft breath lightly brushes against your ear as he opens his mouth to speak.

“Love at first sight.”

₊˚ପ SCARAMOUCHE

Weak beams of winter light filter through the curtains of the window beside your bed, illuminating your room with a radiance tinted pale blue. With a foggy mind, you make your way over to the window, leaving the warmth and comfort of your covers to do so. The chill pokes at your skin like a thousand miniature needles of ice, and yet you continue on.

As soon as velvety veils of fabric fall away from glass panes, glacial sunshine spills through. The panoramic scenery that welcomes you is a glazed-over landscape, thick blankets of pure white sprinkled with glimmers of stardust. Even the branches of the tall evergreen trees surrounding your home are dusted with powdered opal. Nothing is free from the frigid caress of winter, and you’re suddenly reminded of this fact as you start coughing.

Oh. You’re sick.

You blink slowly, an unbearable headache making itself known by jumbling your thoughts into nothing more than incoherence. Begrudgingly, you decide to lie back down, pulling a few blankets over you in order to stay warm. However, the layer of plush protection isn’t enough to shield you, as shivers continue to wrack your body.

For a while, you just lie there, huddled and trying to cling onto any remaining heat, any remaining comfort. You close your eyes, feeling absolutely helpless against the coolness that threatens to permeate the very essence of your being. The world around you begins to become distant as grogginess and discomfort plague you, but soon enough, you’re snapped out of your haze.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The last thing you want to do is answer the door.

“[Name]? Are you in there?” your roommate, Scaramouche, calls. As usual, irritation laces his tone, but there’s something new this time. Maybe you’re delusional, but it almost sounds like concern.

“Yeah. Come in,” you manage to respond.

Your voice is unsurprisingly hoarse, and you have to strain in order to be heard. However, in the end, it seems that you were just loud enough because seconds later, the door opens with a click. In its wake, a man with hair reminiscent of desolate midnights walks in. Soon enough, you find your gaze meeting hues of deep twilight fading into a paler shade of periwinkle akin to the colour of forget-me-nots.

“Wow, you look awful,” Scaramouche remarks bluntly, examining you.

You feel yourself shrink under his gaze.

“Can you not?” you shoot back, mustering the strength to glare at him between coughs and sniffles. “I'm kind of dying here.”

Scaramouche scoffs.

“Fine. I’ll leave you alone,” he says, turning away and walking out the door.

Once again, silence envelops the atmosphere, ebbing and flowing throughout the greys and blues of an early winter morning in soundless waves. Although you’re thankful for the serene ambience, you also feel awfully lonely now that your roommate is gone. All you can do now is stare blankly at the wall in front of you and entertain yourself with your own thoughts.

Time becomes a blur, and yet it stretches on as well. It feels like you’re trapped in a sort of limbo — suspended in a mundane reality without any sort of respite or the slightest idea of when you’ll finally find your refuge.

That is, until you hear the hinges of the door creak once more.

Scaramouche is back.

You look up. To your surprise, the glints of starlight that dance within his indigo eyes show a rare sort of softness, and he’s carrying a bowl of soup.

Without a word, he sets the bowl on your bedside table, staring at you expectantly.

“Is that for me?” you ask.

Scaramouche groans, rolling his eyes.

“Who did you think it was for?” he says, averting his gaze.

A small smile dances across your lips. Although your roommate doesn’t want to show that he cares for you, you’re beginning to realize that he’s looking out for you in his own way.

“Thank you,” you respond. However, just as you’re about to reach for the soup, you’re attacked by another fit of coughs.

Scaramouche’s eyes fixate on you once more, and he sighs.

“Do you need me to spoon feed you or something?” Although it sounds like he’s mocking you, you can tell he’s serious to some extent.

“Do you want to feed me?” you say, trying to muster a playful tone. Even though you’re sick, teasing Scaramouche is as fun as ever.

“I will if it means you’ll shut up,” he mutters, taking the bowl carefully and scooping up a spoon of the soup.

With caution and a shocking amount of attentiveness, he lifts the spoon to your lips, and you open your mouth. To your surprise, the soup is actually quite tasty. You didn't expect your roommate to be such a good cook.

“How was it?” Scaramouche asks after you swallow. Not a hint of emotion shows through the veils of apathy he’s crafted as he awaits your response.

“It was amazing,” you remark genuinely. “I’d love to try some more of your cooking, and… thanks for taking care of me.”

Scaramouche looks away, but as he does, you notice a colour reminiscent of delicate rose petals rising to his cheeks, tinting porcelain akin to the snow outside a vivid shade.

“Don’t mention it.”

₊˚ପ XIAO

Procrastination is every student’s worst enemy, and you’re no different.

You had spent the past few days putting off your latest assignments and neglecting your studies more than you’d care to admit. It’s not that you didn’t want to work and study, but every time you tried to start on something, you’d feel put off by the copious amounts of labour you’d have to put in. And unfortunately, now you’re reaping the consequences of the seeds you had previously sowed.

It’s currently 1 a.m., and all you can see outside the window is ebony fragmented by the occasional streetlight or polychromatic star. Your eyelids are beginning to droop of their own volition, but you force yourself to stay awake. You have something important due later today, and unfortunately, you’ve barely even started on it.

So you have no choice but to continue on, allowing yourself to fall into the treacherous grasp of sleep-deprivation all because of your poor decision-making skills.

The minutes seem to count down all too quickly as you toil, yet at the same time, the mundane assignment makes every second feel like an eon. It’s a paradoxical distortion of the universe’s concepts, but it’s something you’ve grown far too accustomed to in your time as a student. Panic and hopelessness set in more and more with every tick of the clock, and eventually, you lose all sense of time, burying yourself in a pile of work.

The next time you look up, you notice that it’s well past your first scheduled break time, and you’re absolutely exhausted.

You stand up, stretching and relishing the sensation of being able to move your aching limbs after hours of sitting in the same position, mulling over boring assignments. However, your momentary respite is ruined, as it isn’t long before the creaking of a door pulls you out from the temporary euphoria that had taken over your mind.

“Hey,” a calm voice utters. It’s melodic like a beautiful song you wouldn’t mind hearing on repeat. “Are you alright?”

You turn around, and as expected you’re met with the sight of your roommate. Honeyed eyes filled with a dandelion warmth shimmer when met with the dim incandescent glow of your desk lamp, and locks of seafoam frame his pale face. Even though his hair is messy, and there are visible bags under his eyes, Xiao looks as stunning as ever.

“I’m fine,” you say, miraculously stringing together a couple of words despite your exhaustion.

“You’ve been up all night,” Xiao observes, glancing at your messy desk — a testament to the few hours you had been chipping away at your work. Somehow in that time, you’ve managed to make it look as though some sort of wild tempest had ravaged your room.

“You’re saying that as if you don’t stay up all the time,” you shoot back.

You flinch. Your tone is harsh and dripping with venom, but you hadn’t meant your words in that way. They were from a place of concern, but it seems that Xiao understands.

“That’s true,” he remarks, “but I’m not as keen on working myself to death as you are.”

A second passes.

Then you realized that you may have gotten a little bit carried away due to your momentary burst of energy — a rush of exhilaration prompted by a sense of urgency.

“Oh.”

Xiao sighs.

“You need a break,” he says, hesitantly walking over to you and intertwining your fingers with his.

His actions surprise you. Most of the time, Xiao avoids touch, but now, he’s holding your hand. The tepidness of Xiao’s skin on yours causes lucidity to wash over you. Suddenly, you feel more aware of your surroundings.

Your roommate pulls you out the door, exiting your dorm swiftly before you can refuse. Truthfully, you wouldn’t have denied him his demand anyway. Although Xiao seems like a tough person on the outside, his heart is forged of silvery moonbeams — glittering lights that illuminate the world with a subtle phosphorescence, not quite as glaring as rays of sunlight, but equally as bright, nonetheless. As a result, you’ve grown to develop a soft spot for him.

When you exit the building, the first thing you notice is the crisp, fresh air. After staying cooped up in your room for so long, it’s relieving to breathe in the liquified stardrops dissolved within the night atmosphere. Your head clears up nearly instantaneously, and finally, you feel a sense of peace wash over you.

“Feeling better?” Xiao asks, noticing the change in your expression immediately.

He’s usually not the brightest when it comes to interpreting emotions, so your prior distress must have been extremely obvious. Nonetheless, you brush off your embarrassment and swallow your pride, nodding to reassure Xiao that yes, this is helping, and yes, you’d like to stay here with him for a while longer.

Xiao seems to get what you’re trying to convey, so he continues walking, leading you under the gold-lacquered light of the lamps lining the path before you. Right now, it feels as though your hearts are connected, and for once, you’re under the impression that Xiao’s let down his walls.

You know that once your midnight escapades cease, you’ll have to face a world of pain, but perhaps it’s worth it.

After all, exhaustion is temporary, but maybe, just maybe, this lavender haze will endure forevermore.

thank you for reading!! if you liked this, i’d really appreciate it if you reblogged this fic.

#r.archives *ೃ༄ #favoniuslibrary #astronetwrk #alhaitham x reader #kaveh x reader #kazuha x reader #lyney x reader #scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #xiao x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin imagines #genshin headcanons #genshin x you #genshin fluff

[neptunes-sol-angel]

Messages from my Goddess to you 🌊🐚 Pick the picture(s) that you're drawn to the most, then scroll down for their corresponding message.

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Pile One 🌊

Shame is the lowest that you can feel in life because it represents the disparity that we have for ourselves. What keeps you stuck in shame, is the indecision of whether you feel worthy enough to rise above it to either improve yourself for the better or to finally open your eyes in the ways that you are already better and that you need to instill more trust into who you are. You could be feeling very exposed at the moment, like maybe you're talking too much, maybe you shouldn't have done that, and the only way to escape this rut, is if you crawl into hiding, or for just one day at least, you could change into a whole different person. Yemaya wants to let you know that your grip on control in how you are perceived, is what's ironically leading you to a fall. You've spent so long trying to weave your way from being vulnerable and disassociating from your emotions, that you can't recognize what's actually trying to be voiced to you. You're not spiraling, you're feeling. It feels like you're going crazy, because it is crazy to try to turn your emotions into something that they're not because of how you want to be perceived. The same way that you don't debate your happiness is the same respect that you should have for the feelings that you keep in the dark. You don't run away from the sadness, the dissatisfaction, the anxiety, the anger, the insecurity, or the jealousy because it doesn't change the fact that it's still there. It's going to be very uncomfortable, it's even going to bring us to our lowest that scares us the most, which is to be ashamed, but just like how shame can create the illusion that we're stuck in places that we're actually not, it's the gateway that poses the question, "now what do we do next?".  It's how we heal, and it's how we evolve.

Pile Two 🌊

What if I told you that one day, is all it takes for the wheel of fate to spin in your favor? That reliving that situation over and over in your head won't hurt as much anymore and is something that you will surpass? For some of you, it's closer than expected, for others, Yemaya wants to let you know that what feels impossible to bear is what you're capable of coming out on top of in the end. You're approaching a newer start in finding alignment in your life by taking the pieces of the past that left you puzzled to accumulate more wisdom that you can bring into not just your own situations but for the people that you come across and a boost in developing strength and trust in your intuition. Intellect doesn't just come primarily from books, there are certain experiences that must endure, to truly understand why and how we can approach our circumstances. In regards to your healing, you may feel like you aren't really healing at all, but the beauty in your journey is learning how much freedom plays a part in your progress. You gotta free yourself from being too harsh with how you think you should be or how far you think you're behind, because you're overlooking the many ways that you're actually right on time and the immense transformations that you have made and to rethink about what it means to heal. Healing comes in waves, and it's a never ending cycle, one of your biggest blockages is chasing after a concept that's derived from a man made perspective. What works for someone else, may not work for you, and vice versa. But this stage of awareness that you're entering, is the realization of just how intimately personal your journey is for you.

Pile Three 🌊

You're gracefully attaining more authority over your life and walking firmly away from the people and situations that made you feel powerless. You're blooming with self-love and strengthening your self-awareness with understanding what makes you thrive the best. When it comes to the traits or habits that hinder you, you're deciphering which of those that you can work on to break away from and the traits that you can make peace with to help advance in your life in a different way. You could relief, you could feel rewarded, but there are times where you could feel speechless or not quite whole despite the many accomplishments you're achieving. This could stem from a part of you that still mourns in regret over your actions in the past. Whether this is you, or someone else that is trying to bring you down to who you once you were, you must remember that as you're moving on to the next chapter of your life, you must extend gratitude and self-love to the versions of yourself in the past that weren't aware of what you know now. Despite the things that may have been embarrassing or disappointing that you may have done out of not realizing your worth, every phase that made you the person that you are now, is deserving of grace and to be seen as beautiful.

#divination #intuitive #psychic #pick a card #tarot #spirituality #pac #tarotblr #pick a pile #pick a card reading #pick a picture #the tarot community #tarot community #tarot readings #free readings

[marsprincess889]

About Bharani

Fate, The female and Desire.

Venus ruled, Mars's sign, Rahu's birth, Saturn's debilitation.

A kind of love letter to myself and other bharanis, especially bharani moons.

So, aren't we amazing? 😄 jk, but in all seriousness, I have some opinions and want to express them.

We're mleccha(outcaste) and venus ruled. What the hell is that? We're precious, that's the truth.

If there is one nakshatra that caters to females exclusively, this has to be it. This is no male territory. They wouldn't even understand. They don't. Think of how helpless they are when a female is birthing, how clueless they are about what menstruating feels like. We know some things have to be gatekept, for our sake. That's what we are about: guarding, protecting, gatekeeping, and we do it harshly, mercilessly, there's no other real way of doing it anyways.

I want to talk about what i think Bharani nakshatra is truly about: Fate.

Fate, choicelessness, being at the mercy of higher beings, authority, hierarchy...

Bharani's symbol is widely known to be the yoni(female sexual organ), a gateway to another world. Another symbol is the boat. In Greek mythology, souls were transported to the underworld via a boat. In various cultures, when a person died, people would put the corpse on a boat and let it burn while it floated away on water. Bharani-death association is no news, but why are females the key to all this?

After the freedom in Ashwini, the Sun's exaltation, we come to restraint, and not restraint from our own will, but the restraint we have no choice but to accept. This is the first nakshatra where we see the female. This is Saturn's debilitation, and amidst all this restraint we have the birth of planet Rahu, the birth of desire. Makes for a thrilling combination, does it not? While the male is cerebral, solar, the female is material. She IS the nature. While the male does, female is. The male's the user, the female's the used, and she can be used unfairly, poorly, incorrectly. This is the place where the female gets her revenge. Bharani is like a protection mechanism for ladies, she's given the right to refuse and if that right is violated, the will get her revenge. I'd say she has the power, but that would be wrong, because she IS power.

After all, all that male energy needs grounding, or it will disperse, that's why the female and her body, as well as mother nature that we all live on, are vessels_ material manifestations of the male energy that they hold. Bharani is about the rules that the universe is governed by, the unchangeable rules, the simple truths that have to be accepted. When you realize that the female perfection can be so easily ruined by the incorrect use of male energy, the choicelessness gains a whole new meaning in this context. It's the female that is choiceless, she's simply replicating the energy given to her on the material plane, giving it a shape, its proper shape, and if they don't like what they see, the blame should not be placed on the feminine.

So the female is the material and the rules,the boundaries, the limitations. That's why, in the most stereotipical way, many men fear women or are annoyed by them. The fate cannot be escaped, fortunately or unfortunately, and it does not really care what any individual thinks, it's much bigger than that.

Mythologically, various cultures have attributed fate to the feminine. The fates in greek mythology, three women with their threads of human fate, are one one of them. Another one that comes to mind is the norse goddess Frigg. Although I wouldn't coorelate her to Bharani, I think it's interesting that the highest standing(debatable) Norse goddess has a spinning wheel and a spindle, and it had been said that she knows the fate of everyone and eveything but keeps silent. Another interesting example would be Arianrhod from Welsh mythology. Her name literally means "The Silver wheel". Her various symbols include the tools used for weaving. The wheel-fate coorelation is apparent, and it's also interesting that fate is something to be "weaved" in all these mythologies I've mentioned.

The movie Brave(2012) comes to mind, where the rebellious princess Merida wants to change her fate, without any spoilers, there's a scene in the end where she has to repair a tapestry to avoid some disaster. She also has a tumultuous relationship with her mother, something that is also closely connected to Bharani. A really good example of this is the movie Ladybird starring Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalfe, both Bharani moons.

Now we come to the part where I mention my personal life. As Bharani moon my relationship with my mother has been chaotic and full of tension, it's not exactly easy to talk about or explain. I've also noticed this in almost every Bharani person I ever knew. We always have that passion to stand up to authority and injustice, and it frequently leads to quarrels.

TRIGGER WARNING (gaslighting)

So I always thought that the gaslight gatekeep girlboss term was very Bharani. We've discussed the gatekeeping part, the girlboss part is obvious, and about gaslighting... the yoni is called "the great deluder"(source_claire nakti. Had to credit her!).

I want to talk about the movie Tangled and about Rapunzel's tale in general. The original story goes like this: A couple want a child(that venus, rahu's birth, desire theme) and the wife is pregnant(another bharani symbol) and she's craving a plant- rapunzel, that grows in their neighbor's garden(again, the desire-craving theme). Their neighbor is a sorceress. The husband ultimately steals the rapunzel, but he is caught by its rightful owner. They strike a deal: he can take all the rapunzel he wants in exchange for the baby. The man agrees.

After some time, the baby girl is born, and the witch comes to claim her. She names her Rapunzel, after the plant, and eventually, when she's twelve, locks her up in a tower. Let's pause for a moment to note the fact that we already have the Bharani themes of karma, cause and effect, desire and now claim and ownership(bharani, as the first venus-ruled nakshatra often tries to claim things and label them as their own and then gatekeep it harshly, just like the sorceress in this story. It's also interesting that the OWNED is also feminine).

Now, I really relate to Rapunzel. I also feel like I'm always missing something and that I could attain if only i could escape my current circumstances(the tower). Despite this state, I'm also full of desire and enthusiasm. When I was 8 (?) I won the tickets for my family to the premier of Tangled at my friend's birthday party. I obviously loved it(I still do), loved the story, the animation, THE MUSIC, Eugene... but never did I ever imagine that it would be so emotionally relevant to my life 12 years later. I kinda cracked the code and realised why I love it so much, it's cause she's basically me, and to be honest, she's every human in the truest, simplest way possible.

Anyways, let's continiue wuth the story. Rapunzel is locked in and while she's safe from the world, she's not safe from her "mother". Here I want to move over to the movie Tangled, but before that I'll finish the original. A prince finds her, they become lovers behind the sorceress's back, she eventually finds it out because Rapunzel can't keep her mouth shut, she cuts off Rapunzel's long golden hair and exiles her. When the prince comes to the tower he is greeted by Dame Gothel instead of Rapunzel, she tells him he's not to see Rapunzel again, he falls from there into the rose bushes and blinds himself. After years of wandering, he and Rapunzel finally find each other, Rapunzel's tears heal his blindness, they go to his kingdom and live happily ever after. Now, to Tangled.

The relationship between Rapunzel and and Gothel in Tangled is explored well enough for the audience to realize that she's abusive and a gaslighter(watch cinema therapy on youtube, they have a video about Tangled. They're also very wholesome). She's lying to her to keep her to herself, not really caring about her at all. The way Rapunzel feels misunderstood by the person who raised her feels very personal to me. This theme of gaslighting is very Bharani, as well the theme that love conquers all which is prevalent in the original tale. Also, I think that the damsel in distress archetype is very Bharani, as is the princess in the tower trope. She is power herself, so she's this completely passive power, waiting to be seen and be of use, longing for the other side while being trapped(saturn's debilitation). Bharani is about that leap of faith, to approach the female, to stand up to authority, to be brave, to follow your heart...

My another point is what drives these actions, which is desire and love. Overcoming fear through desire is the theme of Bharani. That's the very basis of life. There are tons of things to be wary of, but if we had no desire, no lust for life, we might not have lived at all. It's no secret that life and death, or birth and death, nourish each other. It's simply a matter of time(saturn, the material. The illusion of time is nessecary for life, limitations are nessecary for life, as bharani teaches us, the point is, are your limitations correct for you and your desires?), it's a process created by the illusion of time, and all that is driven by desire. While analyzing the tale of Rapunzel, I've noticed that most people focus on her long golden hair, ignoring what this tale is truly about, which is destiny, karma, cause and effect, bravery, how desire can lead to actions that have undoable consequences, how helplessly we are driven by desire.

One of my favourite movies, Tristan + Isolde (2006) is about the famous couple written about in medieval texts. They live in a cruel world but they're still driven by love, even though everyone and everything around them urges them towards restraint. They choose the limitation based on their hearts, knowing of the consequences that they would most likely have to face. I won't spoil it for you, but there's a quote in the end that i think really represents the essence of Bharani, at least, from the human perspective: " I don't know if life is greater than death, but love was more than either." This is very poweful. Life and death are just opposite sides of the same coin, death leads to birth, birth leads to death, and it's all driven by desire, it's all driven by love. And whether or not we have choice in all of this, we still simply have to accept the truth, we have to accept our truest limitations, as that is only way of growth and self-realization.

I'll leave you to that movie, that quote and this song. Love all of you, take care ❤

Please, interact with me. Like, reblog, COMMENT, especially if you're bharani, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

#bharani #bharani nakshatra #vedic astrology #moon in bharani #moon in bharani nakshatra #feminine #Spotify #sirereal astrology #sun in bharani #ascendant in bharani #ketu in bharani #astrology #nakshatras #bharani observations #bharani nakshatra observations #astrology observations #vedic astrology observations #astrology tumblr

[butterflydm]

wot reread: a memory of light (chapter 37)

spoilers for the last book, a memory of light

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

Egwene & Gawyn (& Galad)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

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

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

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

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

Rand (& Nynaeve)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rand had failed.

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

Let go.

Elayne & Mat (& Fortuona & Min & Galad)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since I mention Rand:

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

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

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

Mat dismissed the vision. Not. Now.

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

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

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

Something, something, wrong road vs right road.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Horn of Valere Team (Faile; Olver)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Misc PoVs

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

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

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

Graendal collects Rhuarc as one of her pets. 😭

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #wot amol spoilers #wot a memory of light spoilers #mat cauthon #egwene al'vere #elayne trakand #rand al'thor #seanchan content warning #faile bashere #olver (wheel of time)

[feral-and-chaotic]

Percy Jackson Episode 4 Thoughts!!

Right. Slightly more coherent than before.

Plot:

- Very close to the book, tho I like the lean towards making the Echidna fight more suspenseful than it is in the musical or the book.

(Even if it is a shame to cut the Chimera/Chihuahua joke I think this is a great move away from undermining the tension with comedy in the way that Marvel does.

- Love the stuff with Annabeth and the cops. Her standing up to them is both poignant with current politics and does a great job to show her bravery and how out of touch with the mortal world she is, forgetting she's 12 because she's been in camp for so long.

- I'm really interested in the fact they are taking so long to set up the Grover backstory and Pan stuff. I like how much weight they are giving it.

- also congrats kids. You blew up a bus AND a train AND the gateway arch. I couldn't be prouder.

-also, (I may be wrong and correct me if I am) but I believe they changed Echidna's motivation from trying to push Percy to test his powers, to avenging some super pissed off gods. And I think that it tightens the story by doing so. It makes the gods unlikable and you can really stand and empathize with [Book spoiler] Luke's motivations.

Characterisations:

Grover:

Man are they going off with Grover. Similarly to being, cutting some of his comedy for meaningful moments is fantastic.

You really feel a depth to him which was maybe lacked in the musical and books. I adore how they are weaving in his bravery and levelhead too, it feels a tad more mature than with Percy and Annabeth and that makes absolute sense. He's done this before and boy can you feel how scared of messing up he is.

Also also. I adore how the writers have established a relationship between Grover and Annabeth as well as Grover and Percy. The books could never really elaborate on that because we have Percy's POV and so he'd miss that in places. But the show is doing great with my boi Grover!

Additionally, as an environmentalist myself, I'm happy they are weaving that in a way that feels organic. Great writing and acting choices all around especially with Aryan Simhadri who is killing it.

Annabeth:

Man does this episode sink it's teeth into her characterisation. I love how we are getting a thorough elaboration on her feelings to the Gods and Athena. And Oh boi is she the opposite to Luke. She craves her mother's admiration and... She's not seeing it. It's a great choice because it highlights how hands off the gods are and that the system NEEDS to change.

I also like how they tied that desperation for validation into her hubris. It's still pride her. But it's pride in her mother. And man, the pride with her plan feeding into her being self sacrificial reminds you so hard that they are all just kids.

Also, where would I be if I didn't mention how good the moments with Percy are. Him teasing her and getting a genuine laugh was beautiful. I love the chemistry for all of these actors.

Percy:

I love this idiot. He's so angry and scared and also funny. God, I love the nuance being brought to him. I love the genuine fear that he has facing the Chimera and being arrested by the cops. I also love how Walker Scobell sells the anger at the gods for implicating his friends in his actions to send Medusa's head. Great stuff.

Additionally, I love the moment on the bridge, this idiot (smart but brash) pulling a self sacrifice on the bridge feeds so well into his undying loyalty to a fault. Willing to trick his friends into letting him die, to save them is a very Percy thing. I also enjoy how they haven't made Percy stupid, whilst keeping Annabeth still more strategic than him, by having him basically just steal her plan.

Also the soft stuff in this episode fucking ruled. The train car joking, him cheering Annabeth up with a stupid voice. The little asides.

Overall, god I love these dumb kids. And this show has made me start rereading the books!!!! Am I hyperfixating again??! Never!!!

.

.

. Yes I am.

#percy jackson #percy jackson spoilers #pjo tv #percy pjo #Percy Jackson book spoilers #I guess tho if you haven't read thr books and don't want spoilers for the first series blacklist the tag #the books came out yoinks ago #percy and annabeth #percy jackon and the olympians #percy series #annabeth chase #grover underwood #i would sell my soul for these kids

[onaperduamedee]

my scattered thoughts on the finale after a rewatch. I didn't even need to let the episode infuse; I was just basking in the joy. It was thrilling, it was moving, it IS the fantasy I love. I'm so proud of what this show accomplished

- Renna cutting Egwene's hair. Maddie's eyes in that scene... Light

- The flashback of Ishy's imprisonment at the Eye was so good. YES Alexander Karim is incredible. Fares Fares is incredible. I love a good "3000 years ago" Doctor Who title card

- PADAN FAIN MY FAVOURITE LOOSE CANON. His panic when he saw he armed Mat without subduing him had me smirking

- Denial is a river but I'll take Ishy putting all the pieces in place before Falme as proof that the Cairhien train wreck was planned

- Lanfear yeeting Mo and Lan out of the Gateway... enough said

- Loved the way Avi said that many people would wake from the dream. Her tone sounded kind, full of the awareness that many of the people who would die did not choose to fight

- The Mat stuff... Delicious. I had gripes about his arc but they stuck the landing. I adore his shrewdness, his heart, his relief at finding out who he is. And the Horn! I got chills. It looked nothing like I had pictured it but man, I loved it

- Minor thing: I didn't care for the design of the Horn or the blurry motion, but those are strong stylistic choices and I commend the show for making them. This series has a vision and will not settle for generic fantasy look and I LOVE it

- The bond scene got me, truly. I think we all knew that Lan had misinterpreted Moiraine's words but it was nice to get confirmation. I love that it was such a choice to recommit for both of them. The scenery, the music, the weave, the acting...

- When Daniel's face twisted as he was hit with the full force of Moiraine's emotions, I lost it. I cannot believe how good this relationship is. The choice to treat their platonic bond as profoudly as a romantic bond? GENIUS

- I'm fascinated by the way they're depicting Nynaeve's block. It's layered, nuanced, fed by different experiences and traumatic events and makes much more sense than her book block. Zoë portrays Nyn's insecurities SO WELL, it's painful to watch

- I hated that the way of showing Nyn still could be a Wisdom was with her shoving the arrow with the fletching inside Elayne's leg?!?! Remove the large end please!?! Why??!? I winced at that

- Nyn and Elayne's arc was also a miss for me. Since they use the a'dam on a sul'dam, they could figure out as well that sul'dam can channel except we don't see it. So the set-up with Ryma showing them the a'dam leads to nothing for their arc

- Hmmmmmmm, the parallel with the EF5 and the Ishy, Lanfear, Lews bond was perfect. Especially as Rand is part of both groups. Just amazing

- They dress Nyn as a sul'dam to... show that the white character feels bad when Nyn tortures the real slaver? I get the point of the scene for Nyn and Elayne. The optics are just weird for a disguise that does little. Nyn looked so good still!

- Elayne has the patience and control of a mountain though because the situation was extremely tense

- I loved Loial's little speech even if he deserves more screen time: he's right, they are living history. He's a constant delight

- The trope of characters running into each other in the midst of battle is one of my favourites so I was living

- Eggy's arc is so satisfying: from her confrontation with Renna to her getting to protect Rand, she was utterly amazing. As much as I'm disappointed that Nyn and El didn't help here, I appreciate what this isolation is doing for her character

- Will Perrin keep the MAGIC SHIELD? This show is fantasy with all its heart and it's so enjoyable to watch

- Rand finding her broken and exhausted, not even grasping he was here was heartbreaking and gorgeous. Even if they all came to save her, in the end she was alone and had to break herself free. (Also pouring one for Maigan)

- Perrin had the most consistent and enjoyable arc of the EF5. I love everything about the characters he met and who contrast or echo his internal struggles. His horror at Hopper's death and the fury with which he killed Bornhald sr? SO GOOD

- It's so fun that many book readers had theorized Uno would come back as a hero of the Horn and he did!

- Mat has my whole heart too. Truly, the way he cradled Rand in his arms. These kids love each other so much

- Nynaeve watching Rand agonizing, unable to help him. I feel so sorry for her. She needs to rely on others, it's a needed pain here. Still painful though. Contrast that with Moiraine who shut off Lan because she could not protect him

- Moiraine weaving some Greek Fires torpedoes and using the fire of the burning ships to shape a dragon banner was not on my bingo card, but she deserved that after this powerless era. It was so beautiful and cathartic to watch

- I do love Moiraine "I'm not at my strongest with fire" Sedai hurling a giant fireball at an entire fleet. It's a nice way to integrate the scenes of Moiraine creating firewalls and weaving a giant illusion we did not get from book 1

- Love, LOVE the fact that in the end, Lanfear's and Moiraine's goal aligned. Moiraine got to proclaim the Dragon, making history, which Lanfear had planned. Rand will not like that. It's such a good set-up for future conflict between them

- On Rand, for anyone worried about how his powers come off, show-only sister literally just observed that it was funny that he has better control than Nyn who's supposed to be so powerful

- His greatest display of power with Turak is quick, ruthless, perfectly echoing the easiness with which Ishy and Lanfear wields the One Power. It makes sense he would not channel like Eggy and Moiraine, let alone Nyn

- In the end, I love that the show made his standing up and defeating Ishy a collaboration: all of his friends (plus MoLan on the beach) were essential. It was the perfect hopeful counterpoint to the bleakness of the s1 ending (which I loved)

- The Moghedien reveal... That's the second season where they manage to perfectly tease the next season. Now all the Forsaken are loose and the gloves are off.

I loved s1, I really did, but this was even greater. Two years for more is torture

#The wheel of time #Wot show spoilers #Remblai #Ramblings #wot book spoilers #Merely Twitter notes #Probably favourite or second favourite episode this season

[demonslayedher]

Appreciating the KnY Noh Production: Part 1 of 3

Humans are demons, demons are humans. Weave their eternal feelings, and dance.

...or so goes my very basic translation of the tagline of the Kimetsu no Yaiba Noh/Kyogen production, "人も鬼、鬼も人　不滅の思いを紡ぎ、舞う" which could arguably be translated in other ways like "humans and demons" or "inextinguishable thoughts" or you could rid of the comma. I wanted to keep the translation more aligned with how people might be familiar with Ubuyashiki's words, while also capturing the spiritual element behind dances in Noh, but there is no such things as perfectly translating something's form, especially if you're trying to keep it beautiful. It's wiser to translate in spirit.

That, I feel, came through in adapting a hit manga like Kimetsu no Yaiba into one of Japan's most high-culture theater traditions.

(Source and interview with Ohtsuki here)

As much as I love going to any silly, gimicky KnY event, I admit that my appreciation for this one partly stems from my (overly?) deep appreciation for the original Gotouge creation, as well as from previous study of Noh basics (not to mention understanding Japanese). That means that in order for me to be a simple fangirl about it, I'm going to have to explain a bit of Noh background, at least as far as it relates to Kimetsu no Yaiba. My scene-by-scene fangirling will come in the following two parts, so enjoy the nerdery for now.

This post is going to serve as background information for the sake of pointing out the things I appreciated about this production. It's not going to be a full intro to Noh, because that would be a silly goal when all I want to do is gush. However! My blog has also become a window into Japanese culture for many readers and I am happy to pull you by the wrists to fall through the window with me. As such, I'm referring you to the-Noh.com for English language overviews about the background, meaning, and basic details of Noh, as well as more and more to read about if you find yourself inclined.

For our purposes here, Noh has its roots in humorous Kyogen plays (and the two are often linked), it has a sparse approach to the stage and props, but each element serves a practical and/or symbolic meaning.

Knowing this visual language helps in appreciating the story. For example, knowing which role each character plays based on which part of the stage they stay closest to, or what kind of being they are based on what prop they carry (spoiling this for you right now, I've always loved the tiny demon mallet, it's so non-threatening like the oni is going around bopping people on the head with it). And of course, Noh masks are iconic and prolific, something which can also be said of the KnY universe. Let's Ask Shogo has an enlightening video about Noh masks, and it's a good starting point for appreciating Noh. Another example I'll refer to a lot is the hashigakari, a bridgeway to the left of the main stage where actors make their entrances and exits. This is often treated as a gateway between worlds, and since spirits letting go of their attachments and moving on is a common theme, exiting down this bridgeway implies implies that. As you can imagine, a play with ghosts and demons like KnY makes use of that.

(Source and more about Noh stage design here)

That brings us to the themes... When I first heard about this play, I was struck by how well the themes of KnY line up with Noh, and that's a big reason this project became a reality in the first place--people in the Noh world sure noticed too. I'm probably going to come back to the theme of "demon/ghost/whatever being with a sad past moves on" over and over so I'm leaving this here for now, but that takes us into a couple of the most important character roles: Shite: The main character, the one often going through some sort of spiritually transformative experience

Waki: The side character, who often helps the shite attain that spiritually transformative experience, often simply by listening and bearing witness to it

That created a challenge for the KnY production. Tanjiro is the shite, as he is the focal character, but he plays more of a waki role in the arcs of other characters.

There are also Kyogen characters, who often appear for the sake of comical relief. It's not uncommon for them to have dialogue together, as in the case of the Kasugai crows & sparrow drinking and complaining about their jobs, or to monologue to the audience, as Haganezuka did since he had a captive audience to hear him talk about how swords are made. These are some of the best opportunities to play with the onomatopoeic aspects of Kyogen scripts, often the word play is simply fun and rhythmic to listen to, compared to the chanting and (somewhat dis-harmonic) accompanying chorus and flutes and drums during the Noh drama. There are different structural functions of Kyogen when used in combination with Noh.

That brings us to structure. There are different kinds of Noh plays depending on their subject matter, but sometimes you get a whole menu of plays all at once, like going to a fancy Kaiseki restaurant that hits certain basics while showing you a multi-course meal of different cooking techniques. In Noh, this menu of plays watched in sequence is a Gobandate, five kinds of plays which can take all day to perform one after another. On special occasions like New Years, there's a special sixth elemental to start it all off on a spiritual high note.

*Special Occasions only!* Okina: Also called "Noh which is not Noh," this is like a ritualistic dance that is often associated with gods or other holy characters, sort of like a blessing over the whole event taking place on the stage that day

Waki-Noh: Kind of like an accompaniment to the implied shite character of the previous Okina, if there was one. Regardless, probably some focus on otherworldliness. Shura-Noh: Great tales of warriors, yay, always a safe bet for the stage

Katsura-Noh: Some story about a woman. Often a woman who is suffering, or in love. Or both! Women's stories in Noh are not limited to this category, as you can guess from below.

Zatsu-Noh: Kind of a catch-all category for stories that don't fit in other categories, a common theme is some kind of obsession or chaos.

Kiri-Noh: To finish with a bang, a play about a demon or other otherworldly thing.

In all of these, you'll find other structures of Noh story-telling, like the chanters telling you a lot of what's going on (like the narration in the early volumes of KnY, I felt!), or characters recounting their own story to a listener instead of acting it out in real time. That makes it perfectly plausible for a demon to get their head cut off, and then monologue about their sob story. This performance was formally structured as follows, at least in the first draft of the script, which saw a lot of changes by the time it hit the stage. It had to take a few liberties to fit around a story with a shite who acts like a waki, as well as presenting a Gobandate structure in the span of two hours. Okina: Hinokami (yes, perfect choice)

Waki-Noh: Sagiridoushi (the children of Sagiri, aka our favorite fox-mask wearing children)

Shura-Noh: Fujikasaneyama (Mt. Fujikasane)

Kyogen (Interlude 1): Katanakaji (Swordsmith)

Katsura-Noh: Shirayuki ("White Snow," the theme chosen for Nezuko's part, which I had so many feelings about)

Kyogen (Interlude 2): Kasugaigarasu (Kasugai Crows + Sparrow)

Zatsu-Noh: Kimi ga Tame (I'll explain the cleverness of this title later, but this was where Zenitsu & Inosuke, our favorite elements of chaos got to fit in)

Kiri-Noh: Rui

Or at least, that was the original idea. Some parts of the drafted script stayed pretty close, but other changed significantly based on run-time, overall flow of the production, and input from the director Ohtsuki Bunzou (a living National Treasure and the actor who played Rui), and from one of the lead actors, Nomura Mansai, who played Kibitsuji Muzan, whom I did not see coming.

I saw in the pamphlet that they were making an Okina themed around Hinokami Kagura and in my anticipation for being lulled into this experience with a holy dance entering from the hashigakari bridgeway, I was totally taken off-guard by Muzan, in full Michael Jackson style, strolling through the audience on his way to the stage, asking, "do I look sickly to you?"

HOLY FUDGE, THAT STARTLED ME

Mansai-san (referred to in this photo on the official Twitter as "Muzan-Mansai-sama" instead of just Mansai-san like in other interviews) has other drama experience besides Noh and was chosen to play Muzan from the get-go. Man, what a great Muzan he was. I don't know that I've become a Noh fan beyond having appreciation for it, but I have indeed become a Nomura Mansai fan. Anyway, this is all to set the stage (ha!) for more of my thoughts to come later, but I'll conclude this by saying that although they decided to break from stiff tradition to produce this play, they did so in the spirit of how centuries ago, plays would use content from popular literature like The Tale of Genji and The Tale of Heike to draw in crowds. Throughout the performer commentary, you can see them imploring Kimetsu no Yaiba fans to take this as a first step into appreciating Noh. There was a lot of care in making sure they did not become a copy of the KnY stage play musicals, for example, taking liberties with the costumes to make they recognizable but more Noh style than anime style.

The script writer, Kinoshita Yuuichi, set two important rules for himself: 1. Honor Gotouge's original work As such, he did a very close reading of the 23 volumes of manga and 2 fanbooks, but did not take other adaptations or outside materials into account (such as the anime or novels).

2. Make a true Noh production Although they needed to make a few departures from strict Noh style storytelling in order to fit Gotouge's story and characters, they used the elements of KnY to make something that honors Noh tradition and technique

Rather than just fangirling about the staging choices, a lot of my fangirling is going to be about Kinoshita's care with the script, and how beautifully he paid homage to famous works of Noh canon while also paying careful attention to emotional details and references throughout KnY. As someone who tries to express my love for canon while creating fanfics that are pleasing in the English language, the amount of care he took hit me deeply. Translation and adaptation is never exchanging one structure piece by piece into another. It takes a grasp for deeper meaning and beauty, both for the original work and what it is being transformed into. I shall humbly continue to try to convey my respect for that as I continue fangirling in Parts 2 and 3, my Scene-by-Scene reactions.

#kny noh production #kny in real life

[jonmyblaze]

Sequel to part a

Now this my friends is the depression Arc as I call it

(I'm going to play a bit loose with the timeline right now I apologize but it's so it weaves together for the story I am making,

I'm going to be quite blunt about which stories I'm altering or taking inspiration from

1.Batman Son of the Demon (1987 )

2. Batman The Killing Joke (1988)

3.Batman A Death in the Family (1988 DC))

Start off with the first event

"Son of the demon"

when Dick and Bruce were still a dynamic duo. Dick encountered a woman named Talia Al guhl while he was in college at med school. (Dropped out but he has went through multiple semesters ) (fuck you DC for having him be in college for 10 years our time. and only say he just went through one semester)

This created the on and off relationship of the demon heriess and the bat . A Relationship filled with love angst tragedy grief and Hope.

Multiple instances she would go against her own father for her own morality. For a while she loved him she also recognized his faults.

Talia always wanted to be and remained independent. Even with her love of her favorite detective she refused to be tied down

Ultimately the relationship would end in tragedy.

They tried to got married, in fact they had a lovely honeymoon and relationship however it's when the pregnancy started that things fell apart. Bruce was paranoid he had known that his mother went through multiple miscarriages some heavily traumatic and scarring before he was born. This would influence his paranoia, infantilizing her and hurting her feelings and sense of Independence

ultimately leads this lead the self-destruction of the relationship.

After much tragedy and marital instability Talia and Bruce would divorce after one of her more traumatic miscarriages.(this was caused because ninjas attempted to kill Talia for her position)

No matter how much Bruce tried, It happened and he accepted the results.

To him, as much as he valued Talia. He also had to acknowledge her independence. He could not control her. No matter how much he wanted to protect her.

If she chose The divorce he would acknowledge it as such. It was such a shame it had to break off this way. With the death of a unborn WANTED CHILD.

(I am pro-choice but even I acknowledge there's a difference between the accidental death of a wanted child and a abortion.)

However where Wayne decided he would accept a results, The Al ghuls were not as caring about the laws between life and death.

After all the patriarch Ra's had been in this situation before. A Child that was so close to life but died in the final push. And he did what any father would do in his situation with his resources. His daughter would be healthy and developed rather than a small feeble pre developed corpse.

He would in turn ensure that his daughter would see the full success that he saw with her.

After much care in resurrecting and restarting the process in an artificial womb. Damian son of a bat would be born.

In a sense talia had lied, in another point of view she hadn't. To some, death was a barrier to others death was merely a gateway between realms. For this result, Talia would owe her father A life debt. She would work with her father for many years to come.

A series of further tragedies will nearly shatter the bat family. This was the one that hurt Bruce first emotionally.

........

Next part The killing joke, and the death of the first batwoman

#bruce x talia #good mom talia #talia al ghul #Bruce #dick grayson #dc #batman #bruce wayne #brutalia #ra's al ghul #league of assassins #loa #league of shadows #miscarriage

[phantoms-lair]

Resident Isekai Snip 1

When you say something silly in a twitch chat and then it ends up eating your brain:

Salazar couldn't help but cackle as he saw his work come into fruition. He'd been searching his old records for anything that might help Lord Saddler and come across a ritual for accessing 'The Gateway of Power'. Much like the plagas themselves it was something his foolish family had been guarding from use. Well no more. Now he would use it for the glory of Los Illuminados!

He could feel the energy build as his servants completed the ritual. He couldn't wait to see what form the power would take!

~

"Holy Shit," Leon whispered under his breath as he witnessed his other guide burning to death on a makeshift pyre. Tucking his binoculars away, he took the side path, hoping to be able to sneak right by the enemy. He was about halfway down the path when there was a strange explosion from far off and a ripple of energy he barely had time to see before it passed through him and kept going.

Leon was knocked on his ass, but otherwise was able to kip up without any problem. He raised his hand to his ear to apprise Hunnigan of what just occurred and froze.

There were two things of import. The first is that his com seemed to be dead without even radio static coming through. That was...bad, but not expected. That energy field could very well be some sort of EMP, especially if his escorts divulged there was an agent with them before being terminated.

The second was that his ears felt very much the wrong shape.

Leon pulled out his knife and used it to check his reflection. His ears were definitely the wrong shape, pointed almost like an elf's. His eyes were also wrong, his irises being the same blue but seeming to almost have a starburst pattern in them. And there seemed to be almost a sparkle to his skin, one he could see in the fingers holding the blade as well as in his reflection.

He was interrupted from taking this in by a cry in Spanish. He'd gotten distracted. He looked up and saw one of the village women. And if he hadn't been a Raccoon survivor he might have lost it right there.

Her torso looked more like a cancerous mass with tendril's moving beneath the skin. Tentacle-like limbs hung limply from her torso, almost as if huddled in the shade of her body. Her mouth a multi-hinged jaw and she screamed and charged.

She was fast but Leon was faster. He met her charge, his grip shifting on the knife and in one smooth move, decapitated her. Her body took a few more steps, as if confused, before collapsing.

Leon stared at the body before him, tendril wriggling like worms from the neck hole. He had trained to the peak of human ability. He was fast. He was strong. He was no where near that fast and strong.

"What the hell?" he muttered as more of the villagers came, draw by the woman-things cries. All of them transformed as monstrous as she had been. Leon swapped his knife for his gun. Whatever was going on, he's have to fight his way out.

He scanned the village looking for a defensible location. He weaved through the crowd and ducked into one of the sturdier looking buildings. He barred the door and was in the process of shoving a bookcase to block the window when he heard what was close the last sound he wanted to here. A chainsaw revving.

A peek out the window he was blocking off revealed a mammoth figure with what looked like a burlap sack over his head. In the back of his mind it struck Leon as strange, none of the other mutant villagers felt the need to hide their deformities. But that was a very much back of his mind thought as he needed to focus on survival, At least in Raccoon City the zombies and monsters hadn't been able to use weapons! The sound of glass breaking upstairs drew him there as the chainsaw began to bite into the door.

A ladder had broken the window and the villagers were beginning to climb up. It was easy enough to push the ladder away and drop them to the ground below. And being brought upstairs had had an unexpected benefit. Displayed on the wall at the top of the stairs was a shotgun.

Leon had had to enter Spain lightly armed. He was a foreign agent and there had been no proof the Baby Eagle had been in the country at all. He had only his service pistol and his knife. But this was no longer the time to care about not making waves.

He took position at the top of the stairs, suppressing his urge to flee as the sound of the chainsaw roared in his ears. (Was is the adrenaline or were his new ears that much sharper? He wished he'd had time to assess.) He held firm as the door broke and the monster of a man charged up the steps. Leon waited until he was halfway up and fired, focusing the shotgun on his knees. The chainsaw man tumbled down the steps. Sadly the chainsaw didn't take him out like Leon had hoped, But he had a few more tries.

The chainsaw man didn't seem to have the mental acuity to change tactics, and proceeded to run up the stairs again. Leon noticed what looked like tiny tendril within is legs acting as replacement muscle, effectively repairing the damage he'd just done. Great.

They repeated this song and dance until Leon heard another breaking of glass. He didn't have time to knock down a ladder and get back into position, so it was time to bail. He saw some scaffolding out the window nearest to him and crashed through. Just in time, as he saw a villager come from the other side of the staircase. Being pincered between him and the chainsaw man would have been bad.

He drew a bead trough the window, only to get blindsided by one coming around the corner. It grabbed him and flung him off the scaffold. Leon braced himself. A fall from the height wouldn't kill him, but it would hurt.

Except it didn't. His body twisted like a cat and he landed lightly on his feet, feeling more like he'd jumped the last few steps of a stairwell than been thrown off the second story of a building.

What's happening to me?

Survival first. He was faster and stronger than before, so he had to take that into account. He was not going to just assume he was pitchfork or chainsaw proof too, and focus on evasion. While the villagers would normally have the advantage of knowing the terrain, he didn't think they had enough of their minds left to use it properly.

Idly he heard a bell ringing but dismissed it as important. He was getting surrounded as more of them seemed to pour in from nowhere, but he could weave through them and get to a new location. Possibly that old bell tower would make a good bottle neck-

And that's when he realized the villagers were no longer attacking. Weapons fell from their fingers, dropping into the the mud and they turned as one entity and began to trudge into the church, whispering reverently about a Lord Saddler and completely ignoring the man seconds ago they'd been hellbent on killing.

In less than a minute Leon found himself in a deserted town square, his only company being chickens and the still burning corpse of the policía.

"Where's everyone going? Bingo?" Leon joked, confused but relieved. Then he took a deep breath. He'd wanted time to access and here it was. He was alone in a valley full of monsters, he'd turned into some kind of elf (elf was good, or at least better for his psyche than 'mutant' or 'infected'), and somewhere here the Ashley Graham, daughter of the President of the United States, was being held prisoner. His earpiece remained silent. The radio he'd taken earlier the same. He was cut off. But there was a young girl depending on him.

No way to go but forward.

#Ghost Writing #Resident Evil #Salazar basically isekai'd everyone in Valdelobos #The Plagas are a bit more like mindflayer tadpoles now as they merge with and mutate the host body #Also despite what he thinks Leon isn't actually an elf

[s0nia246]

UNDER$TEAD, A joke au I made to help learn about all the Undertale AUs. (So thier are so many sans)

The a joke au that I made to help me understand all the Undertale AU. Mettaton was created by Watcher Alphys to be an assistant. The Watcher is someone who watches and observes all the au.

Some lore on the rings. Alphys made the rings of a planet.

Ring of Light: Adorning Mettaton's right arm, this ring harnesses the pure essence of the planet's radiant energy. It enables Mettaton to emit blinding light beams, dazzling foes and providing a powerful source for his performances.

Ring of Harmony: Positioned on Mettaton's left arm, this ring resonates with the harmonious frequencies of the celestial body. It allows Mettaton to manipulate sound waves, creating sonic blasts or harmonious tunes that can influence the emotions of those within its reach.

Ring of Flux: Encircling Mettaton's right leg, the Ring of Flux taps into the planet's gravitational forces. Mettaton can control gravity within its proximity, giving him the ability to levitate, enhance his agility, or even manipulate the gravitational pull on objects around him.

Ring of Chrono: Embracing Mettaton's left leg, this ring is attuned to the temporal essence of the planet. Mettaton gains control over time to a limited extent, allowing him to slow down or hasten moments, providing strategic advantages in battles.

Ring of Nexus: The ethereal fifth ring, delicately adorning Mettaton's head like a celestial halo, is known as the Ring of Nexus. This mystic ring holds the essence of interconnectedness and serves as the conduit for Mettaton's communion with the multiverse.

Forged from the rarest material of the distant planet, the Ring of Nexus allows Mettaton to perceive and tap into the threads that weave the fabric of the multiverse. Its powers include:

Multiversal Insight: The Ring of Nexus grants Mettaton unparalleled awareness, allowing him to sense disturbances, anomalies, and connections between different timelines and dimensions. This insight aids him in navigating the complexities of the multiverse.

Dimensional Resonance: Mettaton can attune the Ring of Nexus to resonate with specific dimensions, creating gateways or portals that facilitate travel between different realms. This ability is crucial for his role as the Watcher's apprentice.

Cosmic Communication: Through the Ring of Nexus, Mettaton can establish telepathic communication with beings across the multiverse. This enables him to exchange information, seek guidance from the Watcher, or connect with others who possess cosmic awareness.

Temporal Stabilization: The Ring of Nexus acts as a stabilizing force, preventing temporal dissonance as Mettaton traverses various timelines. This ensures a harmonious integration with the multiverse without causing unintended disruptions.

#oc #oc tag #my ocs #undertale #undertale au #undertale mettaton #mettaton #Au #Under$tead au

[free-pancakes]

His Achilles Heel

- a levihan drabble

“We’re in.”

Warm light greeted them at the entrance, twinkling calmly off the crystal chandeliers. As the tall, wooden doors closed softly behind them, Levi clutched his elbow tighter over Nanaba’s arm. Together, they stepped forward carefully into the gigantic anteroom, the dazzling lights nearly blinding them. As their eyes adjusted, they saw a double winding staircase meeting together at the top, creating an arch—a gateway into the giant ballroom filled with people, all wearing glittering masks, making the room even brighter.

Laughter and smiles surrounded them, and Nanaba’s eyes sparkled at the sight—the sheer beauty of the room could make anyone’s jaw drop.

But not for Levi—it was eyes and mind on the mission, as always.

Nanaba had crushed the heel of her silver stiletto into Levi’s foot.

“Ow, what the hell?!”

“Lighten up, will ya?” she muttered under her breath, Levi answering her with a scowl.

As they turned the corner, they put on their masks for the masquerade ball, blending into the crowd before splitting ways. Intel Miche had gathered for them over the past week indicated which security guards to tail, which ones had keys to the library upstairs and to the wine cellar underneath them all. Levi and Nanaba nodded before disappearing into the crowd.

Levi weaves his way through, his jaw clenching as he pushes by dozens of people, smell of strong perfume and cologne overwhelming his senses. He knew his target guard would be by in just a few minutes so he took the time to gather in his surroundings. He observed a few guards to his right, and had no sign of the dreaded enemy yet, the host and owner of this very mansion, Zeke Yeager. All appeared well and according to plan so far, yet he felt the hairs behind his neck stand right up—the sensation he was being watched.

Levi knew better than to ignore his intuition, and decided to make his way out of the crowd into a quieter hallway, and into the shadows he went. He felt his heart beat faster and took a deep breath. As he crept quietly, the sounds of whispers took him by surprise. Inching forward, Levi peered around the corner, squinting to see the reflection of the next hallway over on the decorative vase nearby.

His heart stopped as he saw the flash of blonde hair—Zeke. Levi ducked back around the corner and suddenly the whispers stopped. Sweat beaded on his brow as steps echoed down the hall toward him, and he kept his nerves at bay as he reached his hand into his pocket, fingers quietly gripping the rough handle of his knife.

All of a sudden, a flash of gold swept past him, a subtle glint of light before him reflecting off lenses of wire rimmed glasses. Levi was so caught aback by her swiftness that he did not even react—how did a human being even get all the way back hear without him hearing it, let alone here right in front of him. As she paused to listen to Zeke’s footsteps, she turned to Levi, her bright but sure gaze staring intently into his, a look that for whatever reason made his heart thump harder in his chest, nerves no longer at bay. She clearly wasn’t on Zeke’s side, thankfully, but Levi definitely didn’t recognize her. With caution, Levi kept his guard but did not fight her.

With a bright and cheery voice that did not match the seriousness in her eyes, this person loudly spoke for Zeke and whoever his fellow henchman was to hear—“Wow, fancy seeing you here again!”

Her ruse didn’t seem to make the footsteps stop. Actually, it sounded as though they started to hurry faster towards the two of them.

The music in the ballroom grew in volume, drowning out the sound in the entire building, making it impossible to know how close Zeke would be. Gritting his teeth, Levi prepared for the worst. With hearing gone, the rest of his senses heightened. First he relied on his eyes, waiting to see movement on the rug below to know how close Zeke could be. He slipped the knife out from his pocket—he couldn’t kill him but something had to happen before his cover would be blown.

Before he could pounce forward a hand grabbed him by the waist. He completely forgot he wasn’t alone. Knife still in hand, Levi spun around by the force and suddenly he felt warmth reach his lips. Glasses pushed up against him, their noses squished clumsily as he was held in a kiss, his hands losing strength—music too loud to hear his knife clatter to the floor, he closed his eyes and the two of them seemed to melt into the party, nothing else on Levi’s mind but the sense of weird safety in that moment.

It felt as though time stopped—but within 2 seconds Levi came back to his senses.

A kiss, something so absurd as a hail mary attempt at distraction, the oldest one in the book. Cracking open his eyes just enough to see, he watched Zeke’s face go red, turning sideways, the looks of the words “sorry, excuse me” on his lips, as he whipped around to walk away hurriedly, shaking his head.

For good measure he held on for another few seconds, before finally breaking away, shoving himself free. All he could do but scream at her, his face hot in anger and her idea of staying under cover, keeping their identities safe from the enemy.

He watched her figure, unable to hear her laughter, but watched her shaking as she giggled, her tall figure clothed in a gold, shimmering gown, her slender arms hugging herself before she could fall over in laughter. Wiping the tears away she smiled at him, Levi only able to give her a confused look, trying hard to make the blush on his face look like it was a result of anger rather than embarrassment.

With that she laughed again, but then rushed away up the stairs. Levi chased after her—she must have been going where he needed to go, and he couldn’t let her.

He ran, almost loosing his way through the maze of corridors, until he found the room, already cracked open. He barged in, closing the door behind him, his back leaning against it. His ears rang, adjusting to the sudden quietness of the room, the music and partying now drowned out behind the closed door.

“What the HELL was that? And who are you??”

She stopped rummaging through boxes for a second and looked up.

“Oh good to see you finally caught up!” she said with a smile and quickly turned back to work.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Levi lunged forward, grabbing her by the inside of her elbow and pulling her away from the exact boxes he was supposed to be finding top secret documents from.

She quickly fixed her glasses and frowned at him.

“Relax, Shorty!”

“What the hell did you just call me—“

“Shorty! Yaknow, cuz you’re pretty short!” She laughed at the upset look on his face. “The name’s Hange! So you can let go of me now!”

He reached to his pocket only to find it empty.

“Calm down, Shorty! Erwin sent me.”

“W-what??” Levi exclaimed.

“He sent me in, supposed to come assist the famous Levi, who knew! He rambled about how our fighting styles might be compatible, and wanted to test it out, blah blah blah—you know much the guy could ramble.”

She went back to sifting through boxes.

“Figured I’d come up with another way out of that situation so you wouldn’t have to stab our target with that knife and blow our cover!”

She chuckled at the memory—“You’re knife’s over there in the corner, by the way! Seems like you forgot all about it once you got the chance to kiss someone. What a cute Achilles heel, huh!”

Levi grimaced at the statement, and went to grab his knife neatly placed on the corner table. He swept his thumb gently across the engraved “K. A.” on the handle.

“Who knew a kiss by humble ol’ Hange Zoe could completely shut down the formidable Levi Ackerman!”

Levi sighed. He could not imagine working on another case with her, but knowing Erwin, he was probably already assigned to missions in the near future. He shook his head and joined next to her to help dig for the papers they came to retrieve.

#levihan #sorry it’s been a million years since i’ve written a drabble lmao #hope it’s readable #i literally would write bits of these while lying in bed falling asleep like i am rn ☠️ #so like good luck reading LOL #levihan fanfic #levihan drabble

[jaqobis]

okay, it’s time for me to sort out my thoughts about AMOL and this part of the series.

i’ve gone ahead and tagged this with the warning that there’s going to be negativity about sanderson’s choices in here. if you really enjoyed how he approached the last three books, full respect, but this post probably isn’t for you! skdjfkl i might be warning too much, but as i’ve said before i usually prefer to focus on what i did like for these wot read posts so this is a divergence for me!

in short: a lot of these last three books, especially the things we know sanderson did wholecloth, really didn’t work for me. 

rj had his flaws, for sure. but wow these last three felt like they hated women so much! aes sedai are suddenly weaker without warders for some reason, gawyn’s lecturing egwene on how it’s the WORLD’S business if aes sedai refuse warders and let themselves be ~ vulnerable ~ in that way has the same vibes as bashere asserting that andor DESERVES to know whose babies elayne is carrying! the only time elayne is specifically threatened with (pretty graphic) violence against her as a pregnant woman is by mellor in AMOL. her kidnapping in KoD, in contrast, was written the same way as anything before she got pregnant. cadsuane, who is defined by her inability to be cowed by rand, is now frightened by him multiple times and/or the target of put-downs by rand. which feels a lot like Putting Her In Her Place. 

like i do genuinely like egwene/gawyn but the framing in TOM that he was right and she was wrong about her needing him (as a warder incidentally), together with her conflict with rand (more on that in a moment) is pretty bad actually! i have no problem with her disagreeing with rand — he literally waltzed in, said he’d break the seals, and left — but taking rj’s notes that say “rand and egwene will fight” and basically making it a situation where rand is right and egwene is wrong sure is a choice. her entire death feels nonsensical because as cool as parts of the scene are, it’s premised on the forsaken suddenly not being afraid of using balefire anymore — not even that, on them spamming the weave like there’s no tomorrow, when we have 11 prior books of material that they use it sparingly if at all because of horrors they witnessed in the war of power. don’t get me going on perrin going “it’s just a weave” and being the dream person now while egwene regresses in her TAR abilities for no reason.

i do not care about androl. tbh i ran out of the ability to care about new characters by the time the sea folk arrived on the scene, so this isn’t entirely a problem i have with sanderson. but androl ate up a LOT of screentime in AMOL specifically when i would’ve rather spent that time with established characters and getting some of the reunions that we did...not get. his ability with gateways also breaks all previously established gateways lore, but frankly just about every use of gateways in AMOL does.

one of my BIGGEST problems is a thematic mismatch between the rj and sanderson books; the rj books are heavy on war as horror, violence as terrible, and delving into the psychological fallout of that and other traumatic events on the characters. in the sandersons everyone’s body counts rise dramatically and fantasy war treated as cool, some parts of the violence as justified, and the good guy characters read kinda bloodthirstier. i think it’s really notable that rand spends all of the path of daggers on a military campaign but the battles are almost never onscreen, we most live in the aftermath and the in-between, whereas AMOL is like 80% battles. this isn’t a thing i’m here to moralize about, just that it’s a pretty jarring change after reading 11 books in a series with themes pointing one way, only for them to go another way at the end.

relatedly: i really wanted to like darth rand, before i got there. i was pretty puzzled when i got up to KoD with no sith behavior; i hadn’t realized until then that darth rand is a one-book wonder. still, i was ready! but boy. before i get into this, i’ll admit that i got to the end of AMOL and had a Feeling but not as big of one as i’d expected. then i realized that rand had felt so unrecognizable to me for most of these last three books that i’d felt like he was already gone after KoD. 

it’s terrible that minimal attention is paid to the fact that he lost a hand. it’s terrible that his chronic pain and unhealing wounds become a footnote to his narrative. it’s doubly terrible that both things mostly only come up in rand’s pov chapters when he’s darth rand, and barely post-dragonmount. it’s not only erasure of his disabilities, it’s really nasty framing to associate rand struggling with his mental health and physical unwellness with literally being surrounded by an aura of darkness and No Longer Caring About Others and committing atrocities. it’s really nasty framing when post-dragonmount rand who is literally surrounded by an aura of light and makes flowers bloom with his presence doesn’t have ptsd flashbacks anymore, doesn’t struggle with pain, doesn’t anything. it’s really nasty framing that rand just needed An Epiphany Moment to simply Get Over all of this. in a series that took a lot of care with his mental deterioration and chronic wounds for 11 books, it’s a slap in the face.

i genuinely have a hard time even remembering who died in AMOL aside from gawyn and egwene — which did evoke a lot of feelings — because it mostly goes by so fast. there’s little time dwelt on the losses, on the impact of those losses on the people who are left, on the world going into the fourth age. together with the number of death fakeouts i’m pretty ??? on who’s left or what they’ll be doing with their lives now.

circling back to the approach to violence: bringing back the tuatha’an for a pov in AMOL just to criticize their peaceful existence. we get raen sort of tempted to pick up a weapon. we get contemplation that they should be nicer about people who do choose to fight. we get the suggestion that some of those choosing not to fight are simply being opportunistic cowards. the traveling people are literally in this book solely for this critique. together with the aiel being presented as Only capable of fighting and being locked into another warrior-focused role for the foreseeable future after what a big deal the reveal about their past peaceful ways had been is a whole Message. 

though i could write an entire additional meta about the dragon’s peace and the idea of locking in status quo like that in a series premised on being a time of change and upheaval and the themes of necessary change and positive destruction (see: the creation of the lake at rhuidean, rand changing laws wherever he goes to favor the poor, the wonder girls revolutionizing the white tower, the rediscovery of many lost Talents, etc).

this is really long already so i’ll stop here and say: the tl;dr is that i only enjoyed the last three in bits and pieces and i’ll probably focus future rereads on the first 11.

#wheel of time read #wot book spoilers #sanderson critical #words #this is probably also incoherent sorry guys #long long post

[b3lz33bub]

[warning: Enstars brain rot, nerd knowledge]

VALKYRIE - ETERNAL WEAVING

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Lyric analysis *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Before I let myself indulge in this nerdy analysis of the song of my favourite Enstars unit, I have to outspeak for the detail and dedication the creators put into Valkyrie and Shu's character. The language, the references in Vakyrie songs portray Shu and his vision spledid. They really worked hard to maintain the image of an art obsessed eccentric, while still morphing his character development into refined shape.

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．.・゜゜・　　・゜

Now with the actual analysis

(I'm going to use the fanwiki translation as a source)

[Mika] - green

[Shu] - pink

[Mika and Shu] - blue

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．.・゜゜・　　・゜

"A living soul, veiled with a lump of clay

Is blessed with a miracle. Let us begin here."

Mika is talking about himself, a puppet whose creator and saviour is Shu, the leader of Valkyrie.

"Singing glories of a king carved out of stone

I wonder if our anguish can be heard from afar."

Shu's past self is the king carved out of stone. Glorious and unshakable, untouchable, unchangeable. Unlike clay, which can be easily shaped into form, stone is resilient and hard to sculpt and reshape. It symbolizes Shu's narcissistic and proud persona, but also the fact that people reaching out to him wasn't enough, it was necessary for a humiliating failure to open his eyes and realize his mistakes.

"Fairytales, each distorted by time

Are old myths torn asunder and rewritten."

Valkyrie was going to reborn and for that to happen, the tragic past had to be left behind, Valkyrie to be "torn asunder" (Nazuna had to leave) and "rewritten" not as Shu's scheme, but as Shu and Mika's unit. Notice how "rewritten" is sung by both of them, despite Shu having a strong voice to end the verse. Just like Valkyrie, together, it would just be stronger and more mesmerizing.

[Chorus] "In an eternity that never ends, all things progress without halting."

At first glance, the phrase "eternity that never ends" might seem like a pleonasm, but it is purposefully sung so. The old Valkyrie seemed immortal, eternal, but it came to a crumble and a miserable downfall. Yet, it evolved, it came back stronger than ever, it progressed from the "eternity with an end" people might have assumed about Valkyrie after its tragedy.

"Now please, show me your eyes painted with delight."

Shu is addressing Mika, who has a high insecurity of his heterochromia. Thus, Shu is asking, not demanding, but saying "please" and asking for Mika to trust him. Shu wants to be Mika's comfort zone and be the one to preserve the delight in those eyes, Mika's happiness. In a metaphorical perspective, since the eyes are the gateways to the soul, Shu is asking Mika to be his true self around him, to not act according to Shu's "string pulls" anymore.

"From the cradle of the world tumbles and scatters;

Tears that are nothing but reflections of color,

Used only to weave a

Tapestry"

After the old Valkyrie's fall and inevitable crumble, the members had to endure much sorrow. The "tears" later on became "reflections of color", inspiration for the future reborn Valkyrie and motivation to weave Valkyrie, like a tapestry. We'll later on see the tapestry imagery continue.

Shu is known for being a master at sewing and likes using references into Valkyrie songs, this being the case too. "Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth." The 2 distinct threads, we will later on find one what are they, are used to reconstruct Valkyrie from its remains.

Furthermore, to weave, when it comes to stories, means to make complex connections. Thus, Valkyrie is a story which underwent many struggles and sorrows, many obstacles and much work.

"We adorn glamorous clothing, becoming nobility the moment

this comedy threads through the weft"

"Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible." The old Valkyrie is the warp, as its decay let the current Valkyrie shine in all its might.

Compared to the current Valkyrie, the old Valkyrie has become a comedy, an act of aesthetics at the point of faking its genuinity. But Shu still recognizes the old Valkyrie as the backbone of Valkyrie's tapestry.

"The crumbling eternity of this nightmare entwines

with tragedy, strained into warps."

If for Shu, the old Vakyrie was a masquerade incomparable to the artistic heights of the current Valkyrie, for Mika it was "grotesque", a fuel for both his low self-esteem and his adoration for his unit. The tragedy of the old Valkyrie was a true nightmare, as Valkyrie and Shu were everything to him. Even so, he recognizes that the crumbling of Valkyrie is vital to uphold the present Valkyrie.

"As you submerge into that hot bath, let the vision of

A storyteller’s evanesced reality that we created fly free"

Shu and Mika are now addressing the audience to submerge into Valkyrie's story, one that one day will turn from reality to only a legend. "that we created" is sung together, once again, to portray their unity.

[Chorus] "In an eternity that never comes to an end, ideations evolve."

Same as the last chorus :)

"Let us join our embroidering together, misery cupped in our hands."

Mika is conscious that the current Valkyrie can only be embroidered into shape from the misery of their previous fall. That sorrow is an opportunity to arise, and shares it with both Shu and the audience, pain is nothing to be shameful about. They are willing to turn it into art.

"The ephemeral birth of that palace is

A delightful fever dream."

The old Valkyrie has always been meant to be ephemeral, and Shu knows that. He uses contradictory terms to express his feelings for the unit that once Valkyrie was, "delightful" for the great artistic achievements it has reached and a "fever dream" because he knows the suffering it has brought Nazuna and Mika and he deeply regrets it.

"「I am but a fool that struggles within the sorrow and rapture of this mire.」"

The introduction to the theater style monologue is highlighting the true feelings of the speaker, not through a song, not Mika as an idol, but Mika as himself. Mika has very low self-esteem, can't see his worth, his talent. He thinks himself not even worthy as a human, but as a marionette to be directed around as he suffers in his own sorrows.

"「Nay, your handwoven tales are a beauty desired by Epicurus himself!」"

Continuing with the addressed monologue, Shu displays his true feelings. He is hurt to hear Mika speak so poorly of himself. He wants Mika to know he is worthy, he is desired, by Epicurus himself. But why desired by Epicurus specifically?

"For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to help people attain a happy (eudaimonic), tranquil life characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain)." Knowing Shu's character, the reason why he became an abuser of power in Ensemble Stars!, we can certainly deduce that when referring to Epicurus, Shu is referring to himself. "Epicurus advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends." By associating himself with Epicurus, Shu wants Mika to know that he is an admirable individual and wants to pursue his art and live his life alongside him.

"「O’Light! Why will you not cease creating!」

「O’Shadow! It is because that is precisely what you demand of me, and it is precisely that which makes you human!」"

Mika can't see his worth, his potential, his beauty. Why would the Light(Shu) keeping casting him(Shadow/Mika)? Shu knows in his heart that Mika wants to be worthy, wants to be in the spotlight and have his art shown to the world. As much as Mika is willing to give up, Shu won't cease to try to achieve their dream together. Because Mika having a dream means that he is his own person, not a marionette.

The shadow can't exist without light. Light can't truly exist without shadow, either.

"「We wish to bestow the beauty of art upon this world!」"

Mika and Shu can now announce their dream, they are ready to uptake the challenge in walking that road together, even if more suffering is yet to come. They now have each other, as equals.

"In this eternity that never ends, let us create that of which the Gods desire,

The reverie of an ever-changing creation."

The two of them are now expecting change, they will reach their mighty artistic goal which cannot be truly eternal, but ever-changing, morphing. As long as they keep themselves true to their hearts, the Valkyrie they are mending will remain truly eternal in its own way.

"The walls of this world’s palace, embellished with tapestries abound,

Displays an endless lineage of weavers."

Shu and Mika recognize that Valkyrie is not the only truly achieved artistic act, but there are many unit and idols also struggling to attain their artistic views and goals.

"Now, let us fall heir to that worth and mend it."

As a conclusion, Shu and Mika are willing to uphold the responsibility of mend Valkyrie into a unit worth its potential. Their true journey towards their dream is just starting.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STAYING TILL THE END, NERD! I wrote it twice cause Tumblr is evil and made me think it got my draft deleted.

Jokes aside, thank you for letting me ramble about this majestic song. Stan Valkyrie for clear skin!!

#ensemble stars #enstars #ensemble stars music #utter rambling #shu itsuki #mika kagehira #shumika #ensemble stars valkyrie #music #lyrics #lyric analysis #music analysis #lyric interpretation #be who you are

[sam-glade]

Hi, happy STS~!

As I get closer to finishing my current WIP's first draft, I'm having trouble dealing with the large amount of exposition I need to do before the end. Have you ever run into this problem? How did you deal with it? What's the best way to handle exposition, in your opinion?

(from @tisiphonewolfe)

Hi Tiss, happy STS💜

Oh dear, the dreaded exposition. You can imagine that with the amount of worldbuilding I am tempted by info dumps.

I'm also really happy that in Gifts of Fate, only one paragraph was highlighted as info-dumpy - Gullin thinking through limitations of gateways right after he'd met Lissan for the first time. One paragraph. That feels like an achievement.

My first rule is that you need less exposition than you think. I trust the readers to infer a lot of information, and I was told that even with some outstanding background questions, Gifts of Fate is still a satisfying read. I also started to accept that readers may imagine something or fill in some details differently, but it doesn't spoil their enjoyment of the story. In fact, by filling in the gaps with what they like and enjoy, they tailor the story to their tastes, make it more fun for them.

My second rule is to correlate the amount of time spent on exposition to how much time the character has. For example, if a character is doing research, hunched over a book in the dead of night, they have time to 'think' through a handful of paragraphs. On the other hand, in the middle of dialogue, more than a short paragraph takes me out of the story, because it gives the impression that an awkward amount of time has passed.

My third rule is that everything has to be connected to the story's 'present' within one sentence. Otherwise you end up with readers asking themselves why they're sitting through this lecture. Here's an example. I never have a character tell their backstory to someone. I engineer questions that will make them say things that connect the details from their past to their present. E.g. when Lissan and Gullin are having a late night conversation at the manor, and technically have time to talk about their pasts, Gullin never says that he was a street urchin before he attended the military academy. All he says is that he was used to cold nights in the past. It goes like this:

“You seem to never sleep,” Lissan countered, sitting on the floor next to him. Gullin offered him a wry smile and pulled a blanket tighter around himself. “It’s too bloody cold for that.” “Not used to cold winters?” “Not really, no. I was used to them, I suppose, but the amenities in the barracks in Redguard can spoil anyone in days.”

And if weaving in details like this takes too long, or a lecture on the topic is really the most reasonable way forwards, I make sure to 1. frame it as a conversation, with a few characters actively engaged, asking questions, making wrong assumptions, needing corrections, etc. - a bit more than a question-answer-question-answer. 2. Have another undercurrent to the scene.

Let me elaborate on that one. I like to think about it as a sleight of hand. You want the readers to know, say, a chunk of the world's history, that's the goal of the scene. I'd make them be nervous about an upcoming audience or meeting, fret about it, and only offhandedly mention a series of mosaics on the wall that depict the story. You want to do a villain monologue? Let the villain's voice fade to the background, while the characters are focused on finding the way out, thankful for being given more time by the villain's hubris. A spoken sentence here and there still reaches them, and sticks out to the reader, but the reader doesn't feel lectured.

Finally, space it out. Drop half of the exposition earlier, then reinforce it by a quick reference 'as discussed then and there'. Dangling an interesting concept in front of the readers and not explaining it fully, while hinting that an explanation is coming, will make them excited to solve the mystery.

#you know the chapter you refer to as #masterclass in catty queer men? #primary tension: Gullin (POV) is jealous that Ianim made a new friend and wants to show off #he shows off his technical knowledge and competence #by spoonfeeding the reader multiple worldbuilding concepts #sts #writeblr #ask and i shall answer #days of dusk

[thorngrassrecords]

Chapter 3: "If you don't mind a touch of hell"

All those who knew Edward said he was very different since finding that journal. At first, he just seemed a bit tired, loftier with how he spoke and moved, then he started getting a bit restless, he seemed to withdrawal within his house more, focused but seemingly not sleeping much. Paranoia soon followed, his own family asking him who he was, his wife disappearing after wanting to see why he was studying that stupid journal so much, never returning from the study after a bright flash of light... he disappeared ten days later.

“Where have you been my dear, I’ve been so lonely?” Said a soft, comforting voice. “Quiet you demon, you took her, and now wear her skin. You must be stopped.” He said with a familiar vitriol, now turned outward toward his tormentor. “Well quite a disappointment really, I had high hopes for you, Astora-kin.” The hateful, acrid voice rang out, a deep resonance coming from it, the sky itself seeming to shake from its expression of power. “You no longer scare me, parasite.” “That will be your downfall.”

After the last word came from this great gateway, it was as if a star ignited within the house, from the journal, brilliant lights shined from every rune, as Edward seemed to catch on fire, a fire of his own, countering, and pushing back the dark center of the light ever so slightly. Before it grabbed him, tensing in pain. "You hurt yourself to drag me under parasite! Is this worth it, adding me to your insufferable prison!” “To set an example of where resistance gets you.” It said, annoyance clear in its acrid voice. “Good luck you bastard.” Edward’s aura seemed to sharpen, and right as he was dragged past the point of no return, he fired, skewering the hand that bound him, and setting his house ablaze, nothing was salvageable after the ashes settled, and the journal was nowhere to be found.

The demon that wished to bind him, momentarily stunned, would soon be on the chase, so he had to act quick or all would be for not, weaving through passages in mountains, hunkering in caves, morning at a body, he quickly found a spot far from the source, some odd 3,000 miles away, taking around 5 days to reach, where he started to familiarize himself with this realm, so different from his own. Starting with trying the magic he knew, even though he knew the answer already, as nothing happened, next he tried to shape the area around him, to limited success, it was as if he was within one of the many dreams, he knew not how long it would take, but he would escape.

Success and failure are equally disastrous in this place, if I fail, everything I have done will be for nothing, and if I succeed, I replace what I destroy. A heavy sigh escapes him as he continues to practice casting within this realm, “Grasp the heart, focus the soul, sharpen the mind, Grasp the heart, focus the soul, sharpen the mind, Grasp the heart, focus the soul, sharpen the mind... but what of body... it matters not. Body, an illusion in here, holds me back, but how do I lose my body and keep my mind a part of me... how would such a feat be done?

#writeblr #creative writing #writers on tumblr #writing #fantasy #drafts