failemyfalcon

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checking the timeline of hexarchate stories for a thing and the way this made me stop dead in my tracks jaw hanging open. nirai esfarel was a HEPTARCH? I had to open every single epub I had and confirm he was only mentioned in that one kujen chapter in raven strat + mahar convo in revgun he wasn't just some other guy kujen put in the black cradle with himself he was the FORMER NIRAI HEPTARCH? how will this affect the mandate of heaven

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If I fell in love with a dracula and he turned out to be a Mormon dracula I would be so pissed

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tbh i think the funniest phenomena that's been happening in the last couple years is "youtuber, having gone too deep into the research hole, has been made an investigative journalist against their will"

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Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred Sedai Behind the Scenes, Wheel of Time Season 3

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man so i've been rereading tdr and i've been really noticing here that the reason egwene has such a hard time with nynaeve is because she keeps being reminded of renna

and egwene doesn't even fully realize this! nynaeve doesn't even know she's doing it!

but egwene spends this whole book on HIGH ALERT, because the last time she trusted anyone, she got carried off to the seanchan!! siuan's directive about the black ajah only feeds into her own paranoia after being deceived by liandrin...who, you know, was black ajah. it's not undeserved fear!! but egwene has a hard time looking at anyone she doesn't know (or doesn't know well) as anything but a potential threat. she spends the whole first meeting with aviendha and bain and chiad thinking about ways to protect herself or defuse the situation, when in actuality everyone's wondering why she seems so on edge and ready to attack. aviendha literally catches her embracing the source and hastily goes I WOULD NEVER HURT AN AES SEDAI BTW, FOR NO REASON, JUST FYI,

but coming back to nynaeve...the thing is, renna — and this is really emphasized in the book, where most of the torment is off-screened and told to us later in absolutely horrifying anecdotes — really abused egwene in the way of alternating punishment with "kind" and "humane" treatment. she acted like the owner of a recalcitrant animal she really cares about, or...wait for it...a particularly abusive older sister. renna is the one with the knowledge, the right answers, and egwene was her foolish damane who was learning the ropes. who, when she was punished, was hurt because she'd brought it on herself.

nynaeve, village wisdom, also acts like the older sister with the knowledge, and with the right answers. she also favors egwene with the affections of an authority figure. it's totally different, of course, because nynaeve actually loves egwene and respects her deeply. nynaeve would never hurt her. but we see moments like nynaeve giving egwene's hair a playful tug after egwene compliments her...which completely sours egwene's mood....and is also reminiscent of renna patting her hair when she "does well." both nynaeve and renna position themselves as teachers who have taught egwene lessons, which they ask her to recall! and though their behavior and treatment of her are wildly different, egwene is unable to separate her reactions to nynaeve and feelings about nynaeve with her visceral disgust at her time as a damane.

egwene doesn't WANT to be a "good girl," because with the seanchan she was forced to be a "good girl," a pliable damane, or she'd be hurt until she became compliant. but she is free now, and she's determined to keep her freedom forever, so she CANNOT be the foolish girl who trusted an adult and got captured and tortured. she CANNOT be the valuable damane who had no recourse but to learn her lessons and attempt the smallest resistances allowed to her. she won't agree with an authority figure just because they're an authority, and she won't enjoy their kindness when they agree with her!! all of these experiences have been completely poisoned for her. and, importantly, nynaeve is safe to act out with. egwene couldn't react this way at the white tower, because they have the power to withhold her education, her future as an aes sedai (which she conflates with safety because she will have power), and because they too are willing to apply physical punishment. nynaeve, at worst, will get frustrated or say something sour, but she would never meaningfully hurt egwene. and there's the part of egwene that knows that, even with all of the trauma informing every choice she makes.

tl;dr as usual rj wrote some really compelling trauma material in the wake of egwene's horrific experiences with the seanchan. i love his commitment to depicting the messier, uglier trauma responses people can have and the sympathy with which he does it

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Ok I'll bite. What is wheel of time about

Glad you asked!!!! The short version is that it's a story about the inescapability of fate and the cycles of violence and peace in the world!

The long version is uh. Well (spoilers)

So like. Theres a big wheel that weaves the fabric of reality, right? And people get reincarnated and their souls get spit back out into new people, okay? That's how the world works. Also there is magic But! There's boy magic and girl magic.

So imagine you live in a post-scarity fake utopia and you're essentially a magic researcher. You discover magic that is neither girl nor boy magic but a secret third thing everyone who can already use magic can use (its genetic). And you just went through like the worst break up. So you use this cool new power!

And end up tearing a hole in the fabric of space and time. And theres this like entity in there that promises all this power and stuff and you're like "uhhhh well i do wanna be president or at least have my PhD unrevoked" (PhD revoked for tearing a hole in space and time) and also your ex has decided the entity is like. Pure evil. Which it is but you can't let him win that argument.

So you and your ex's ex and like 11 other researchers who aren't getting anywhere close to enough funding are like. Ok. Y'know what. Kinda fuck with the entity. Also we really don't like your ex girl he's too goody-goody.

Unfortunately your ex is also a top level magician/physicist and leads his 100 best friends to go seal your excellent hole in reality. Boo. But before he does this the entity "taints" boy magic so all men who can use magic go insane and kill everyone they love. Unfortunately you were also sealed inside the hole in reality and kinda go into statis for 3000 years.

Anyways because all then male magicians are insane now they essentially are walking nukes with no direction and blast humanity back to the stone age. Some of them kill themselves and some of them level cities and some of them try to not use magic but that's like acting someone who smokes a pack a day to quit cold turkey. So. Humanity forgets.

They forget genetic engineering and flying cars and teleportation magic. They remember the bare bones of ancient oaths and treaties but they don't have conext for them. The dimension of snake/fox people you had a longstanding treaty with is remembered as a children's game.

Anyways 3000 years pass and humanity sinks into darkness and then slowly, painstakingly, rebuilds. You're still trapped with your 12 colleages and the entity, but you have some small influence on the world. You command small armies of genetically engineered beings and mutants to slow progress. You manipulate people's dreams in a parallel dream dimension. You still aren't over your ex.

And then finally your ex's soul is spat back out into the world. He's a shepherd from a remote farming village. He's destined to be the most powerful male magician in 3000 years. He will go insane one day because of the taint on boy magic. You still love him. He doesn't even know who you are. Sometimes you can here him in the boy's voice, his stubborness. His ability to love other women.

Wheel of time is this story. Told from the perspective of your reincarnated ex and his 2 best childhood friends (reincarnated battle tactician with unreal luck and a man who has rediscovered wolf-telepathy), his childhood crush (president of the united states of girlbossery), his old babysitter (woman with every anger issue, ever), and his three girlfriends (yes they smoke weed. No you still aren't one of them).

It's a series that redefined how women are portrayed in fantasy. It recently got a television show that is a slightly different turning of the wheel but makes up for it by being explicity gay and having incredible costuming. It has excellent worldbuiliding and excellent character driven plot lines. It's been an absolute joy to reread after 7 years.

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siuan?

well? see something interesting, lady moiraine damodred?

art prints my siuanraine art (and others) are available in my inprnt shop <3

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you've been gone such a long time.

[elaida to siuan] mother. you have fooled many... but i know what you are...... (a lesbian)

if r@fe judkins wasn't a coward he would've given us longer kiss scenes that doesn't fade to black in 2 seconds along with moiraine and siuan lezzing out like this in the white tower. unfortunately this will have to do [insert shrug emoji] </3

art prints my siuanraine art (and others) are available in my inprnt shop <3

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I’m just going to leave this here

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Costume Details + The Wheel Of Time

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”I have this artistic idea but not the skills to achieve it to the standard I want.”

congrats! Now you have a motif! A recurring theme! A focus for your art! Something to haunt you!

Seventeen still lives of dandelions? Three hundred poems about grief? A sketchbook dedicated to your grandmother’s house? Two books trying to unravel the complexities of familial relationships?

Don’t let the fear of it not being perfect on the first try stop you from being Weird About It!

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Kinda in love with the idea that different places on other sides of the world can look so similar. Something something universal human experiences

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SIUAN SANCHE TATTOO BREAKDOWN

Since it was mentioned that Tear, where Siuan is from, has similarities with Southeast Asian culture, I focused on the meaning of it for those in the Philippines. I used Polynesian meaning as well, since I've noticed the similarities.

I'm quite not sure about the accuracy of my breakdown, if it's really that or they have different ones in mind, but here are the references i used:

https://www.igorotage.com/blog/batok-igorot-tattoos

polynesiantattoosymbols.com/index.html

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Wheel of Time

I’ve been doing these as warm up studies or when I need a break from one of the longer pieces or feel a bit blocked. I’ve got quite a few set up to do but here are the first six I’ve done over the last couple months. These are all monochromatic so not a range of colors just one in varying intensities. Each is five shades in light to dark.

This show has been delightful and such a surprise to me. I never expected to see these stories on screen let alone with such a diverse cast of characters, gorgeous production values and intensely queer. Baby pie never could have imagined. So grateful to have gotten three seasons.

Enjoy!

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Small Liandrin’s sketch portrait ❤️‍🔥

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