#Le quatrième c'est encore Anatole

[onaperduamedee]

Thinking again about how the gender essentialism in WoT is aggravating not because there is gender essentialism in magic because that's the entire premise of the books but because RJ set to explore that particular premise without fully understanding how gender essentialism and patriarchy affects women differently that it does men. That's how you get Berelain's writing, the internal monologues of Nynaeve in tel'aran'rhiod, groups of women in power often written as petty squabbling fools, practically all the powerful female leaders at the start of the series will be depowered and humiliated by the end, the Aiel warriors being women presented as something foreign...

In RJ world, men are naturally stronger than women in the OP: this rule isn't subverted and permeates every aspect of his worldbuilding. There's a reason only the boys are ta'veren, that Mat ends up taking control of the armies over Elayne, that Perrin is naturally better at tel'aran'rhiod than Egwene, that Nynaeve the strongest channeler we've seen in a thousand years becomes a glorified battery for Rand in the end.

In a way, it's a fascinating psychological phenomenon that the entire premise of his fictional world is based on gender essentialism yet he doubled down on several core elements of gender essentialism instead of subverting them.

When I discuss gender essentialism in his work I do it so because he made it "gender essentialism: the fantasy edition", so while his women challenge gender essentialism in some ways, it's entirely legitimate to question why he didn't expand the subversion in other aspects of his world.

[flo-n-flon]

Artfol seems quite promising as an app dedicated to art, so naturally I made an account!

You can still find me here, as well as on Twitter and Instagram @ radiolaires

[onaperduamedee]

Not maintagging because this is dangerously close to shitposting but her face as Nyn and Egwene walk in cracks me up:

About to indulge in a smidge of rhetoric mastery to persuade twenty-somethings to save the world.

[onaperduamedee]

Moiraine for the blorbo chart? 🙏

Hello, I realise that some of these may be contradictory but listen, I was switching between my Doylist and Watsonian hats while making this and now I am too tired to give more cohesive answers. In short, I enjoy that the narrative is giving her such a tough time, as well as the privilege to be the maker of her own demise, but...

She's (canonically) very little and you are hurting her.

Thank you for playing!

Send me blorbos and I'll rate them.

[onaperduamedee]

Happy new year 2023!

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve, but I wish you all sweet wanderings and journeys as far and wide as you wish them to be!

[onaperduamedee]

Nynaeve : Moiraine annoys me so much

Nynaeve, two seconds after: Lan annoys me even more, I don't know why

Nynaeve: Lan's grip on my arm... He is so strong

Nynaeve, two seconds after : Moiraine's grip is almost as strong as Lan's

....

Wisdom...

[onaperduamedee]

Probably, on the Wheel of Time.

[onaperduamedee]

Thoughts on The Eye of the World to keep track:

- The Manetheren speech and how much of a nerd Moiraine is;

- Egwene just inviting herself on the quest;

- Moiraine's Sturm and Drang at Baerlon and her weather antics during the chase. It left me wide-eyed and had I been a teenager, I would have followed Moiraine to the end of the world for that only;

- Nynaeve tracking and sneaking behind Lan & Moiraine. I love what the show gave her and us the greatest cold open ever, but I had a blast getting to see Nynaeve on a journey, filled with guilt and concern for her friends;

- Moiraine and Nynaeve's face to face after the separation. I wish we got that scene in the show because it added much needed nuance to the overall depiction of Aes Sedai;

- needless to say, all of Moiraine and Nynaeve's conversations were fantastic, in no small part because it's obvious that early on Moiraine tries to position herself as a mentor for Nynaeve, as she did with Egwene, and it fails miserably. Nynaeve has nothing to learn from Moiraine (or so she believes) and now sees her own mentor role challenged, which makes for a fascinating dynamic between them.

- the ruins from the age of legends and how striking they look, especially with the knowledge they are supposed to be technologically advanced architecture;

- the relentless pursuit of Mat and Rand by Darkfriends (although I could really have done without the endless going from point a to b), but I enjoyed the tension and exhaustion building;

- Rand's little side-adventure meeting the royal family in Caemlyn was a delight;

- Loial, everything about him, his story and infodumping, his arc that's actually the most streamlined and satisfying of the first book to me. He embodies the wide-eyed hero who left his home to see the world, got swept away by a mysterious figure and overcame his fears through bullying encouragement by said figure;

- actually, I do enjoy the way that book! Moiraine's uncompromising and threatening side comes out way sooner than in the show. She tells the kids very early on to their face that she will kill them before she lets the Dark One have them. For all their talks about Moiraine being untrustworthy, they witness her being incredibly candid in her intentions.

- Moiraine and the cat - this was such a sweet moment;

- Perrin's arc was actually quite engaging too, even if I have reservations about the pacing of it and how the Elyas encounter fits into the overall flow of the story. I do hope it only got shifted to season 2;

- the Ways... Gorgeous description but I can absolutely see why the show depicted them the way it did. It just would not have looked anything but confusing on screen. Same observation with the Blight: stunning descriptions, but difficult to render visually;

- Nynaeve launching herself at the forsaken with a knife. Truly amazing peak dumbass overprotective behavior;

- the Eye of World was not nearly as confusing as fans led me to believe and I am disappointed. I was expecting Boris Vian;

- the Green Man is Treebeard;

- I am having feelings about just how much of a trouper Moiraine is and how much she is willing to use her body as a shield to help these kids.

- I also am a tiny bit confused by Lan during the EotW because from the way it was described it reads like he stood there doing nothing while Moiraine was getting obliterated by Aginor. I am aware he was doing everything he could protecting everyone from an overpowered channeler after getting knocked down, but the framing made him look like an NPC waiting for his turn to matter to the plot;

- best character growth of the book is by far Loial, first presenting himself as a rebel, then recoiling in fear when crossing the Ways and finally his delight at Fal Dara and the blight;

- the book can be divided into three parts : "it's like The Fellowship of the ring's first chapter but make it Zola", "if I hear once more about juggling and innkeeping I am throwing that book through the window", "Moiraine is a fucking trouper;"

Overall, I am ambivalent about this one.

On one hand, the parts I enjoyed were really engaging and fun, and I appreciated the slower pacing when it came to describing high fantasy concepts (Age of legends sites, the Ways, the Blight, the Ogier). Jordan has a quasi photographic approach to description which turns fantasy landscapes into hyperrealistic paintings. I loved getting to see more of certain relationships (the Nynaeve and Moiraine content almost made up for how little Moiraine and Lan content there was) and the characters inner life were often rich and complicated. The last part of the story after the group's reunion was phenomenal, with the quicker pacing truly enhancing the sense of urgency and despair.

On the other hand, there are writing quirks that made this book frankly difficult to get through: the pacing can be excruciatingly slow for scenes that should be blood-pumping and fast (everything in the Two Rivers, Rand going down the mountain with Tam, the dreams), the prose itself is at times confusing (dear light, Rand stop "fingering" the hem of your coat that's not how that works, the dreams), the dreams. Yes, I really did not enjoy the way the dreams were written.

Most of all, I have gripes with the way this work is supposed to subvert gender dynamics while a) still depicting casual in-world sexism without characters challenging them, b) coating every female character, their perception by other characters and their internal pov, in a thin layer of ironic distanciation bordering on préciosité, as if women were inherently pettier and more foolish. I don't know how to describe it else beside the usual "men from Mars, women from Venus" approach to gender, except in a high fantasy setting. It pulled me out of the story quite a few times, enough for me to seriously question whether I should carry on.

I don't think I will read the rest ahead of the show, although primarily because I do not want to spoil the story too much. I did enjoy this one quite a lot and it definitely left me wanting to know read more, even with the show.

[onaperduamedee]

Me: I still need to do this and that before tomorrow and then I'll have two days to finish...

That Milippa fic about Michael cradling Philippa’s body and reflecting about how much she isn't ready to let go of Philippa and what it means for their relationship:

[onaperduamedee]

It didn’t escape me that right after getting a scene where Book teased Michael about her thing for uniforms, in comes Mirrorgiou with admiral stripes.

[onaperduamedee]

Hi again!! I can imagine Michelle as Grand Jedi Master Mara Jade Skywalker wielding a purple lightsaber, which means she can control the light and dark side of the Force. Grand Jedi Master Luke remains the symbol of hope, at least he found happiness with his own family. Ben Skywalker is a Jedi knight of the new order who carries on their legacy. Also he wields a dual bladed blue lightsaber. 3/4

4/4: Bonus: Jessica Henwick could play Luke and Mara’s daughter named Stella (if they had one in canon she’d be the younger sister of Ben lol) so imagine instead of finishing her Jedi training, she explores the unknown regions of the galaxy finding lost planets and ancient Jedi relics. Anyway you’re welcome! Hope you enjoyed this! 😄

Anon, this is amazing! I would absolutely watch this film (or new trilogy 👀). I love the concept of a greyer jedi, incorporating light and dark. And to imagine Michelle Yeoh playing it...

Also please tell me more about Stella Skywalker because everything you are telling me about her is fascinating.

Thank you very much! That message made me dream a little of stars and sabers!

[onaperduamedee]

I’m probably going to do a set of Disco S3 icons (tumblr/twitter) with transparent background, so if any of you lot have a request for one or two characters, now’s the time!

This is the kind of icon I will be trying:

[Image description: Picture of Michael Burnham from the shoulders up against a semi transparent background showing a blue sphere and stylised stars. She is wearing a dark uniform and a strand escapes her short curly hair. She is turning her head slightly to the side, pensively looking down. End description]

[onaperduamedee]

Concerning Disco, my spoilers policy is:

- no reblogging gifs from a new episode in the first two days after the episode;

- spoilers for an episode will be tagged "#star trek discovery spoilers" for a week after the episode was released.

(if you do want to scream in my inbox right after the episode, don't hesitate. I don't mind spoilers for myself!)

[onaperduamedee]

made myself a new icon with Michael’s post-crash hair and I am a little bit in love

[Image description: Picture of Michael Burnham from the shoulders up against a semi transparent background showing a blue sphere and stylised stars. She is wearing a dark uniform and a strand escapes her short curly hair. She is turning her head slightly to the side, pensively looking down. End description]

[flo-n-flon]

hands.png

[onaperduamedee]

Writing Tag Game

I was tagged by @pers-books. Thank you so much!

AO3 name: Radiolaria

Fandoms: currently Star Trek: Discovery, but I have written for Doctor Who, Leverage, The Pretender, The Avengers (the 60s British show), Sleepy Hollow.

Tropes: Found Family, Pining, Friends to Lovers, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death.

Number of fics:a little under 100? I have a couple of metas, fanarts and fan videos on AO3 as well.

Fic I spent the most time on: My current Disco on-going project, Sand and Water.

Fic I spent the least time on: I think I remember NFFNSNC came out fully formed, probably because it was deeply personal.

Longest Fic: Sand and Water.

Shortest Fic: La conductivité de l’anneau (The conductivity of the ring) a French crack fic about fictional ladies having a sleepover and not being too happy about Galadriel glowing in the dark.

Most hits/kudos/comment threads/bookmarks:

Hits - for some reasons, Synchronisation, syncope, syncopation, a fluffy, crackish Doctor/River fic.

Kudos - Sand and Water. No surprise here; it’s the longest running.

Comment threads - idem.

Bookmarks - Sand and Water (22), Cretan holiday (17), Ruling Power (17), The rush of being home in rapid fading (12), Remembelonging (12)

Total word count: Not counting my old Pretender fics on defunct sites and forums, 441739.

Favourite fic I wrote: Remembelonging remains my favourite. I’m sorry more recent works, but yeah, I peaked while writing about River and her weird TARDIS mom.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: none, although I still do have chapters for Drifters which was a collection of fics featuring River and Jack.

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on: not sharing anything on Sand and Water but a few weeks ago I was going through old WIPs for Who and stumbled on Faith Graft, a story about River’s first night in custody and her trial. I forgot how hard I went in this story and I kinda want to pick it up again.

“For the first time in my life, I am being completely honest with myself. I ruined my life ; I survived my life. What I am looking at is a future branded and I do not accept it. Have you come trick or treating this time? What do you have to offer? Because I don’t want it. Perhaps later. When I can feel guilt, rather than this desire to kill you and be done with it. The uncertainty. The hiding. The compromise.”

“I know I will regret saying this in the future or maybe it will be mixed up in your head right in the middle of the pile of all the times someone who loves you said “no, not this time”. I don’t like compromise, not for you, not for myself. I’d rather hurt myself trying to escape than compromise here. Right now, I hate you so much I could kill you.”

“You make me feel extremely afraid of myself and what I could do. I ruin myself constantly, but I never wanted it to end. You, on Lake Silencio, make me want to end everything. And I hate you for that. So, please, now, leave.”

She didn’t add he was hurting her being here. That he was the point at which love and trap met and after everything she went through that night, it was enough. She may learn in the future how to be grateful for his cleverness. Not tonight.

The lady with the eye patch hurt. The spacesuit hurt. The fixed point hurt. Connecting the dots hurt. Everything that happened or never happened in the eternity that never was hurt. It would have hurt less if her hurting would have led her to save herself. Instead, he saved himself, with little consideration for what she had went through beside her providing the last piece for his plan falling into place. Or perhaps worse, he cared. He cared enough to feel guilty, and feel ashamed, and doing his darnest to make up for it, without even dreaming she could need at this very moment to be left alone. 

No-pressure tagging : @youngneemleaves @amillionmillionvoices @nomi--sunrider @elissastillstands @starfleetdoesntfirefirst @mygalfriday @whatisreddust @cinemaocd @thatlightsaberlesbian @drstrangewillseeyounow @tincanspaceship and any of the talented writers out there who wants to talk about their work