Tumgik
#wot nonsense
toastandjamie · 3 months
Text
Things about the band of the red hand that I think about on the daily:
-all the nobles in the Band competing to be Mat’s Favorite Noble(the answer is Talmanes but no one tell them that)
-after the battle of Cairihan, Talmanes and Nalesian putting aside their differences to defend Mat’s honor from the perceived slight of him not getting a parade
-Talmanes clearly knowing Mat is trying to ditch them and proceeding to insist on going with Mat literally everywhere until Mat gave up
-every noble in the band preening over being on Mat’s short list of “tolerable nobles” they are very proud of this fact and will brag about the fact that Mat willingly interacts with them
-Mat, half delirious from pain, teaching the band Jak’o’shadows and immediately regretting it as the band begins to sing it at every given opportunity and adds an entirely new verse dedicated to him
-while Mat was stuck in Ebou Dar every member of the band that was not with him simultaneously feeling the Ta’veren pull like a Spiderman esque sixth sense for knowing their general is in trouble
-upon feeling the Ta’veren pull, Talmanes immediately guilting Egwene into telling him where Mat is
-the band collectively deciding that their Olver’s cool uncles and teaching him to gamble, flirt with women, use weapons, and steal horses. You know, like responsible adults.
-when Mat is at the tower of genji, Talmanes being left in charge of Olver like the worlds most reluctant babysitter
-after seeing Mat refuse Aes Sedai healing every single member of the band deciding that they to would heal the old fashioned way
-a large portion of the band going out and getting tattoos together after they officially became the Band of The Red Hand
-Mat making one off hand mention of the original Band of the Red Hand from Manethran and the Band deciding that that was now the name of their mercenary band despite Mat’s protests
-the band deciding that No, they will not serve the Dragon Reborn, instead they’ll enlist into the service of the guy who Does Not Want Them
-the band deciding that Mat was a lord on principle because he’s just that good at fighting battles
-not a single member of the band was ever revealed to be a dark friend, they all just genuinely wanted to follow Mat with no ulterior motives
-every member of the band being willing to die for Mat at any given moment
-when Mat initially showed up to warn the army that they were walking into a Shaido ambush, Talmanes calling Mat’s bluff and getting him to begrudgingly agree to leading a portion of the army
-Mat effectively death glaring the bands nobles into a meritocracy
201 notes · View notes
femmefurina · 5 months
Text
Oh I can't wait until show only tumblr girlies simping over rand x elayne find out about the details of that Situation, it's gonna be like dropping a nuke on ship discourse
y'all couldn't even handle catra 'ended up in the same orphanage together' dora
hashtag popcorn
5 notes · View notes
markantonys · 5 months
Text
we've almost certainly got our morgase!!!
50 notes · View notes
allaganexarch · 7 months
Text
ghost of you (2/3ish)
Wheel of Time || Moiraine/Lan
Lan can never sleep when Moiraine’s masked the bond. He’d never admit it.  Usually he spends the time standing guard at her door until he can feel her again.  He imagines the breaks from their connection are relaxing for her, an indulgence she foregoes primarily for his comfort.  Tonight, for example, she wants to see Siuan. She hasn’t told him what transpired during her meeting with the Amyrlin Seat earlier, or any of the other secret meetings she arranged with her sisters, nor does he expect she will.  But she has been uncommonly stormy this afternoon, even by her standards.  It’s a particular area of her life into which Lan is reluctant to pry, but as the events of the day proceed to wind themselves into knots, he does begin to wish Moiraine were more inclined to accept some small gesture of empathy. “It’s been nearly two years,” she says in the present.  “I thought you would welcome the break.”  It must be true, for she cannot lie.  Even after all this time, Moiraine truly believes that the bond is a burden to him, and not a lifeline.
Read More (AO3)
24 notes · View notes
jackoshadows · 11 months
Text
Looking through the 2023 WoTCon panels and...
Tumblr media
Really? Do we really need this ‘eternal fandom debate’ regurgitated in 2023? Why is it Min Farshaw alone that perennially gets this treatment? Where is the ‘Damn, he’s a sexy Lamp’ analysis for Gawyn Trakand, who is just around to complain about Rand?
Even to the extend that when the TV show was being cast, fans were speculating that Min would be cut or combined with Elayne, horrifying even Rafe Judkins!
Q: Are you going to merge Min and Elayne?
A: Hell no 
Q: Will min, elayne, and avienda have to be combined into a single character?
A: Girl you crazy. I’m not going to combine huge characters like that.  Maybe sometimes a minor character folded into a more major one to make  better use of our cast but nothing nutso
Can’t female characters play different kinds of important roles without being leaders, Queens, Amyrlins and warriors anymore? If one female character plays a supporting role to a male character she’s reduced to being a ‘sexy lamp’?
I can understand this critique if Min Farshaw was the sole, lead female character in the series. However, in a series where the female characters are the most powerful, most pro-active, comprise most of the leaders of this world, make the rules, why is it that Min Farshaw is always picked out for simply supporting the man she loves?
And given how important Rand’s mental health is to the survival of the world, isn’t Min’s emotional strength and support to this person she loves dearly also an important narrative plot?
Min - ‘I love this person, he needs my help, others are doing their part to save the world, I am saving the person who is essential to saving the world’
Fandom - ‘Is Min a sexy Lamp, simply there for decor. Let’s continue to have this eternal debate!’
And if the criticism is about problematic or sexist writing for the character in terms of fashion and dressing etc. then there’s a lot of problematic writing and tropes for ALL the female characters in they way Jordan uses stereotypes and leans hard into the gender divide of ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, the spankings and nudity etc. 
Min trying to find allies to support Rand, her visions, her friendships with Far Dareis Mai, her sticking by him when he suffers from PTSD from the box when all his friends are afraid of him, think him mad or think to control him...Without Min Farshaw, Rand al’Thor would be a different, much darker, more lonely character who has absolutely no one by his side.
In a book series where characters fall in love in a few seconds because of the pattern and then spend the rest of the series apart, Rand and Min is that rare relationship where they spend time with each other and support each other.
I love Min Farshaw and I hope the TV show does not change the book character too much and turn her into a mini Egwene/Elayne/Aviendha because of this idea that female characters cannot be different things and have different roles and parts to play in a story or be secondary/tertiary characters and in supporting roles. We get a wide variety of male characters in the books, let’s want and hope for the same with it’s female characters.
48 notes · View notes
reformedmoth · 8 months
Text
In the spirit of shipping Perrin with anyone who stands within a two feet radius of him, I am warning folks that I will be entertaining Perrin/Aviendha. I feel emboldened by the promo...
14 notes · View notes
asha-mage · 2 years
Note
Your Cauthor Amol feelings?
It makes me so overwhelmingly sad that Mat's choice to return to Tuon rather then travel with Moiraine to Merrilor is the final kiss of death for his and Rand's old relationship, something that everyone seems to grasp except for Mat.
Consider for a moment the Almost of that: If Mat had gone to Merrilor and been present for the Randland UN, he would have been a voice of reason, pushing the idea that the Seanchan could be reasoned with, and that an alliance was necessary, not just to protect the nations, but to gain their military aid in facing the Shadow. And so Mat would have been dispatched to serve as emissary to bring the Seanchan to the peace, Rand's general and oldest friend first, providing a link to the Empire to bring them into the coalition. Very likely his and Tuon's meeting would have been largely the same even: except that Mat would been there to win her over to the Light, and prepare her for her second meeting with Rand.
But instead what happens is that, in a final burst of abandonment of his duty and destiny, the thing that drove Mat and Rand apart in the first place, Mat refuses to go to Merrilor with Moiraine, and instead flees to Ebu Dar in an attempt to wait out the Last Battle, regressing at the last second instead of confronting and overcome his main character flaw head on. And that leads to the meeting we get in canon: Mat sneaking into the palace after he learns Tuon is under threat of assassins, which leads to them reconciling before Mat can reconcile with Rand, which then precludes his and Rand's reconciliation.
You can see the after affects when Rand shows up the next day: both Tuon and Rand sort of come out of their confrontation subtly acknowledging Tuon's claim to Mat, and there after he is more or less bound to the Seanchan empire, both in the story and more importantly, his own mind. Mat accepts his primary place, not as Rand's general and commander, not as his friend and ally, leader of the Band of the Red Hand, and reluctant part of the Ta'veren trio, but as consort to the Empress, commander of the forces of the Empire.
The amazing @highladyluckck, has a great meta about the ways that Tuon is, in essence, the evolved form of the Dagger plotline. Tuon powerful, beautiful, dangerous, alluring, and most of all, impossible for Mat to truly understand, or to shake off. The heartbreaking difference between the first dagger plot line and Tuon and Mat's courtship though, is that, unlike before there is nothing to balance Tuon's effect on Mat.
Mat ran from Rand, the man who kept him sane, who struggled to keep him from falling under Mashadar's power, who cared for him when he went blind, and refused to let him succumb to despair. The man who refused to let the evil of Mashadar consume him. Mat ran from him constantly, and furiously, struggling against fate itself, because he refused to be bound by anything. The tragedy of that, is it ends with him being snared anyways, by something just as beautiful and just as dangerous as the dagger once was.
And things where SO CLOSE to putting Mat back in a position of balance, where Rand could help him again struggle against what was trying to ensnare him. If Mat had gone to Merrilor, Rand, with the raw hurt the Seanchan had caused him, all the knowledge of their depravity and cruelty, might have been able to meaningfully oppose Tuon's influence on Mat as he once did the dagger. Certainly no one ELSE proved willing or able to do so, anymore then anyone else proved able to help Mat face the dagger's influence. But instead Mat chooses to return to Tuon rather then face Rand again, and so, seals his fate.
I can't describe how incredibly sad their final scene in the garden makes me feel, and nothing quite as much as the way that Mat swears by Rand's trustworthiness and compassion to Tuon in private even while abandoning him one final time.
It's a final flash of reminder that beneath it all he DOES love Rand (in whatever way you want to consider it- romantic or platonic or brotherly) and knows him to be good, but that he lacks the trust to put faith in that good, even though Rand proved it beyond any shadow of doubt from the very beginning.
91 notes · View notes
Text
Wild that Elayne, 1/3 of Rand's wives, and Perrin, 1/2 of Rand's best friends, meet and it's so tense?? Like matters of state taken into account even, what does Elayne think will happen if she executes one of the Dragon Reborn's childhood friends and a ta'veren he needs in the Last Battle? Politically it's a bad idea, and also personally it's a horrible idea???
3 notes · View notes
variousqueerthings · 5 months
Text
Is your name really disruptive influence?
it's "The Caretaker" and it's... an episode. season 8 is more complicated to rate than previous seasons, not because I think on the whole it's been good but because parts of it certainly are
and this one I think is the most indicative of that so far, because on this rating's system I predict it'll do quite well, but as a story I thought it was... mid. a bit rambly, a bit emotionally shallow, but yeah it's fine, youknow
sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 9/10
sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 7/10
interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 8/10
furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 8/10
companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 5/10
the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 7/10
doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 6/10
isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 9/10
internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 7/10
Politics (how conservative is the story): 4/10
FULL RATING: 70/100 (if I can count….)
let's just jump right into it, without thinking too much about the episode School Reunion, the bestest of all the school episodes in nu!who (of which there are... these two)
OBJECTIFICATION: Yeah no, can't complain. nothing on the suit of Time Heist, but nothing objectionable from what I remember
PLOT-POINT: Clara's dating Danny, and she knows the Doctor won't approve because Danny used to be a soldier (does she have opinions on this, do they have conversations about this? not so far)
so she's avoiding having these two parts of her life meet through a frantic little dance, except then the Doctor arrives, and eveeentually discovers what's going on and Danny also finally figures out what's going on, and the Doctor hates him, because he's a (ex-)soldier
Clara in all of this is kind of. I mean she's a bit angry because the Doctor really treats Danny like shit on his own principle, and throughout it all Clara's really mostly there
I think she really ought to have a bigger response one way or another -- engage with her boyfriend having been a soldier (and definitely having killed someone) and/or with the Doctor's hypocrisies and/or simply the way he's controlling her life
we do get a bit at the end where Danny basically says "hey look if this guy goes too far, let me know and I will fuck him up" and I think that's right. I think that makes sense for Danny, I think he's seeing that the Doctor is a bitch in this era, and I think he's warning Clara correctly (it's not quite so macho as that either, sorry Danny I'm putting that on you)
so Clara has something to think about at the end of all of this
COMPLEXITY: Mmmmm it's quite simple on the whole, except for the emotional Stuff, which I think wants to do more than it is doing, but ends up giving us quite little -- I think some of that may be covered in future episodes, but that's a M*ffat special isn't it? keep watching and the subtext may become text -- however for now, will be in good faith about it
CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: the Doctor knows about Danny now. Danny knows about time travel now (I honestly don't understand why she kept on trying to lie when it clearly was Alien Stuff Happening)
the Doctor doesn't approve of Danny, but also it's none of his business -- and I think honestly if he were more upset it would make more sense. the idea of idealistic betrayal could be far stronger, and Clara's reaction to that would then be much stronger as well
however I have been looking ahead and I believe this situation is slooowly spiralling out of control bit by bit
I think it's interesting that Clara's story with the Doctor in snapshots seems to show more danger and terror and possible death than wonder. Idk where I'm going with this. this episode happened, it furthered some lore, I can't say that I enjoyed myself, and I keep trying to figure out why, beyond the Doctor's character and the general fatigue. maybe that's a lost cause. but yeah Clara's journeys with the Doctor don't seem so oriented around fun, so much as a wearing down, which is kind of the plot (we know she almost leaves in Mummy On The Orient Express in the future), but yeah, wonder what it is in her that makes her continue...
COMPANIONS MATTER: Clara does a little more here, mainly because she's trying not to have Danny and the Doctor meet. she follows the plan, almost gets killed, Danny saves the day, the end
“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: we continue on the journey of prat-Doctor. he really Yells at Danny in this (he really Yelled at Clara in the last episode) and he's horrible to a child
there is this bit where Danny takes him to task for being a hypocrite, points out that he was an officer and the like, and I'm not sure that's quite right in canon? as in, the Doctor as aristocracy that thinks it's above others isn't toooootally out of the way, seeing as there is a divide between Time Lords and Shobogan, but the Doctor -- including in M*ffat's canon -- was kind of terrible at being a Time Lord, to the extent that they ran away
I think the divide is more Time Lords and more mortal/mono-lifed species, but I wouldn't call that an aristocratic divide so much? Idk the show flip-flops on whether the Doctor is conservative or not on this whole Thing, definitely representing a more Time Lord society perspective sometimes and sometimes not, but... it's not quite what Danny is talking about
M*ffat's own canon places the Doctor as a conscientious objector, who then joins in because of Prophecy (always a flipping Prophecy with M*ffat) and by all accounts is in it for quite awhiiile, and so the hypocrisy that Danny is pinpointing is real, but I think the framing simplifies it
but then the Doctor simplifies Danny too, so tit for tat I guess. this isn't in my rating the episode, I'm just musing on this facet. hopefully the hypocrisy aspect continues to be dug at
PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: uses the name John Smith again, mention of River Song. nothing much one way or another
“SEXINESS”: nothing much in the way here, wahay!
INTERNAL WORLD: yeah, there's Clara's school. we've seen a bit of it before, so I appreciate it's still there. apart from Danny (and now Courtney) we don't really know anyone, but it does feel like it's a real fictional place, a recurring Space in the narrative
POLITICS: this episode is... yeah, I did compare it to School Reunion in which Kenny blows up the school. not that school is a bad thing, but it's school-as-establishment, school-as-hurting-children, school-as-unthinking-compliance, because youknow. the teachers are big bats that occasionally eat children and are infesting their brains with godlike intelligence to hack the universe. sometimes you gotta blow up the school
so in thiiis one we get far more realistic in some ways -- a parent-teacher night that's derailed, a cop stopping two Black teens in uniform and threatening them to make them go back to school, a young Black student known as "a disruptive influence" whom the Doctor is very rude to (he does seem to like her nickname)
generally the kids aren't really important to the plot, they just go to school, and that's... where we are, and there are kids. gimme some real disruption, youknow
the other thing is what I'm going to start mentioning more and more whenever Danny appears... soldiers. the Doctor mentions early on about hating soldiers, and this whole season is tryyying to set up a thing about soldiers, but it's still not really going there, poking at it properly
it's just a bit tepid, with the things it's got
FULL RATING: 70/100 (if I can count….)
I think my maiiiin thing now I'm solidly into season 8 (I'm actually two episodes ahead), is that there's a lot of "promise this will all come together," and having to believe that when we've got three whole seasons behind us that did not deliver on anything satisfactorily (The God Complex notwithstanding)
I remember by this point on my first watch of Doctor Who I'd basically stopped watching, and on my second attempt it felt like homework -- it feels like homework this time around as well, definitely my energy is flagging
and the thing is, I think if I wasn't so exhausted from s5-7 it probably would go down a little better. I'm going to try and be a bit more "taking with good faith" moving forwards
the fuckn. Danny doing a forward rolling jump over the robot was. something
I do think that this season does better at complicating the Doctor and in giving the Companion more of a life. I think they still fail at the Companion being overall relevant to the story in the end
6 notes · View notes
highladyluck · 2 years
Text
Reading the first Mat POV in The Gathering Storm and physically recoiling, reblog if you agree
69 notes · View notes
toastandjamie · 2 months
Text
Objectively, Mat accidentally falling face first into a responsible domestic life is so funny. This man spends the first three books insisting that he doesn’t want to get married, doesn’t want any responsibility and have people expect things of him. Then Bam! He trips into being the general of a mercenary company and like a baseball from outfield gets hit directly in the side of the head with an orphan who’s adopted him as his new father and the final nail in the coffin accidentally getting himself legally married. When Mat says that there’s a bunch of tiny reasonable and unavoidable steps he has to take in any given situation that ends up spiraling wildly out of his control he means it. Like what kind of man accidentally gets a job, wife and child. The pattern was dragging that man about like a dog with a toy
107 notes · View notes
alectology-archive · 2 years
Text
It makes ZERO sense for a prince of kandor to swear to be a part of the personal guard to a king of another nation. Idk whether this is supposed to be some uplifting nonsense about camaraderie in dark times but my head is hurting from the sheer stupidity of the concept proposed here.
31 notes · View notes
markantonys · 2 years
Text
walmart: cadsuane
gucci: lini
51 notes · View notes
applepiips · 1 year
Text
Okay, the barrage of porn bots is getting annoying. They are relentless! Like more pornbots are following than legitimate notifications which is just very eughhhh
Tumblr media
10 notes · View notes
aflawedfashion · 2 years
Note
60. "We definitely need a cup of tea for this." - Siuan/Moiraine?
“Tell me if I understand this correctly.” Siuan paced back and forth across her quarters, arms folded tightly across her chest. “You lost an entire year’s salary gambling with novices.”
Moiraine sat silently in a small wooden chair with her arms folded across her lap. She was as still as a statue, unresponsive for far longer than Siuan appreciated. Finally, Moiraine looked up, a sheepish smile on her face. “Unfortunately, you are correct.” 
“Moiraine, they’re practically children.” Siuan sighed. “What possessed you to gamble with them in the first place?”
“I wanted to show a little kindness by spending time with them, and I don’t regret it. I know how hard life is at that age, how hard it is to struggle with your place in this world.” Moiraine stood, approaching Siuan. “And so do you.” Her voice was soft and empathetic. “It wasn’t so long ago that we were in their position.”
“It was long enough.” Siuan stood firm, confident she was in the right. “We’re Aes Sedai now.”
Moiraine smiled, trailing her fingers down Siuan’s arms and forcing her to uncross them. “It’s only money.” 
Siuan scoffed. She hated it when Moiriane said such things. “You only say that because you have so much of it.” 
“Precisely,” Moiraine said, her gaze wide and soft. “I don’t need it, so let's forget this, please.”  
Siuan stared into Moiraine’s eyes, feeling her resolve dissipate, but she simply could not let this go. There was only one solution. “At the very least, may we play a prank on them?” 
Moiraine’s soft smile widened with amusement. “Did you not scold me for immaturity moments ago.”
“Yes,” Siuan stated, “but the damage is already done, and other than demanding they return your losses, this is the only way to settle the score.” 
Moiraine let out a soft laugh. “If I did not think it would be utterly pointless, I would remind you that I lost, and in all fairness, the money rightfully belongs to them.” She paused, making sure her point did not go unheard. “Still, I’m happy to see you haven’t hardened too much over these last few years, and spending the evening with novices made me nostalgic for the old days and all the mischief we got into.” Moiraine squeezed Siuan’s arm and moved towards the table beside the fireplace. “But if we’re going to devise a good plan, we will definitely need a cup of tea. I have a feeling this might take quite some time.” 
“Oh, this might take all night.” Siuan grinned mischievously, her mind racing with ideas. “I want this to be our best work ever.”
30 notes · View notes
asha-mage · 10 months
Text
Tumblr media
....anyways I am stupidly close to finishing FFXVI so, fair warning?
5 notes · View notes