#aelia reads a memory of light

[alectology-archive]

I have to laugh (bitterly) at Elayne hesitating to trust Faile to manage certain responsibilities because it genuinely doesn't make any sense. Faile is clearly an ally and a very capable person compared to Perrin + she has the experience of actually managing people because of her upbringing. I would also like everybody to stop pretending Perrin makes a great leader because he frankly doesn't and he only really accepted that he has a certain obligation to look after the people following him a couple of weeks ago. A couple of weeks ago!!!!

[acollectionofchoices]

*edit: for clarification reasons, this is a joke. It's for fun. For giggles. To make my friends have a nice little laugh. And to get more ideas for incredibly incorrect reading order suggestions. Like Aelia saying just read New Spring. Inspired.

[sands-of-amber]

FFXIV Write Entry #1: Cosmic Love

❀ Prompt #9: Fair (Entry for Makeup Day #10) || Read it w/ notes on AO3 here ❀

Excerpt: He knelt before her grave for—what was it now—the tenth time? The twentieth? It did not matter, it may as well be the thousandth, for a single time was already one too many. The shadows from the clouds overhead cast their slow-moving gloom over the figure hunched upon the snowy ground, the watercolor hues of the sunset peeking through every so often. A rare respite from the usual grey skies that hung over Garlemald.

But you are not here to see it.

--

The fact that he had gone through it before didn’t serve to make it hurt any less, didn’t stop that old familiar ache from flaring up from deep in his chest. No. No matter how many times he was forced to repeat this cycle of grief, it never dulled the sting any. It never became easier to stomach like he’d hoped against hope that it would.

Each and every time, it was like another knife thrust into his chest and wrenched, finding new ways to carve away at whatever remained of his tired old heart.

And the guilt… The guilt he felt, especially upon conclusions in the same vein as this one, always struck him with such force that it was almost unbearable.

Knelt before her grave for—what was it now—the tenth time? The twentieth? It did not matter, it may as well be the thousandth, for a single time was already one too many. The shadows from the clouds overhead cast their slow-moving gloom over the figure hunched upon the snowy ground, the watercolor hues of the sunset peeking through every so often. A rare respite from the usual grey skies that hung over Garlemald.

But you are not here to see it.

The Emperor slowly rises to his tired feet and stares straight ahead at the elegant memorial before him, his hands tucked inside his coat pockets to lessen the chill of the icy wind, though it did little to lessen the bitter cold coming from within. It was a beautiful tribute: a statue made in her likeness, commissioned out of the finest marble by the most skilled artisans the land could offer. The pearlescent figure depicts the late Empress in a regal and elegant manner: sat upon the throne in ceremonial attire, crown upon her head and a serious yet somehow soft expression upon her face.

An inscription engraved on the plaque below the statue reads, ‘In loving memory of Her Radiance, first Empress of Garlemald, Aelia wir Galvus.’ The Garlean insignia sits proudly below the dates that denote the start and end of her painfully short life and the brief written tribute to her service to the Empire. Each time he stood here and gazed upon it, the date of her death slipped further and further into the past, but to him it still felt like just yesterday that her light faded from this world.

Next to his late wife’s grave stood that of their firstborn son, Lucius yae Galvus. To the people, he was simply  the crown prince whose reign never came to be, but to Emet-Selch, he was a hard lesson— a painful reminder that to hope was folly. To hope was to deny the bitter truth that he’d known deep down for millennia but had stubbornly refused in his foolish joy at finally getting to play “family” with the one soul his heart could not, would not, ever let go.

Foolish, stubborn hope. How sweet its first bite—and how sour its aftertaste.

He had kept up his façade as stern and hardened leader well enough, for he’d had eons of practice at tucking away and dulling his emotions by now and it was easy enough to slip on the mask of Emperor Solus whenever needed. It was easier still to drown (or at least numb) the pain in bottles of spirits or whatever play was currently showing at the theatre. He’d never cared much for the idea of utilizing alcohol as a vice back in the simpler days, but its appeal grew ever clearer through each torturous century he spent toiling away here. And it worked in his favor, because to the outside world it appeared as though he were acting as any other rich and ultra-powerful man should—gorging on the finest and most lavish of booze and entertainment that the palace’s coffers could buy. Only he, and to an extent his two co-conspirators, knew the real force driving his indulgence.

Despite his near-flawless outward performance, though, he’d been a wreck ever since the day she’d died and taken another little piece of him with her. He’d watched on in abject horror as the light of her brilliant soul had grown dimmer and dimmer, slowly fading out of this fractured world just after another soul’s light had entered it. Had only half-listened, pale-faced and heart in his throat, as the head chirurgeon bowed his head and mournfully told him what he already knew. He’d had to accept the wailing newborn into his arms and turn away from her still form as an attendant ushered him out of the room, chancing one last glimpse of her soul as they covered her body with the bloodied sheet, watched it abandon her fragile mortal form and slip away to return unto the lifestream.

And then there had been the matter of explaining the bitter truth to Lucius, of answering the dreaded questions of a naive child wondering why he wasn’t allowed to go see his mother after his brother was born, and why his father had shut himself away with the newborn and a nurse and he himself had been bade away and urged not to bother him for the moment. The palace had been cold and quiet that day, a solemn mood spreading among its inhabitants as the news inevitably made its rounds as it often so quickly did within those walls where servants’ gossip was an ever-turning wheel. And of course that gossip had made its way to the ears of the young prince, forcing Emet-Selch into a difficult situation when the boy came wanting for the truth.

And then years later in his prime, Lucius was ripped from him just the same, taken by the same wretched ailment that had afflicted his mother and left her body weakened, too fragile to survive her second birth. In both cases, the illness had not been known until it was already too late and their souls had gone back into the cycle to repeat this endless dance of death and rebirth at the hands of that horrid Hydaelyn.

Much as he wanted to love Titus and cherish the gift she’d given him—the life she’d given up her own to bring into the world for him—he just couldn’t. It ate away at him, the guilt of not loving this child the way he did Lucius, but try as he might he only ever felt numb when he looked upon his youngest son. To glimpse him was to glimpse the last remaining fragment of herself she’d left behind in this incarnation, to acknowledge him was to acknowledge that he himself had her blood on his hands. 

For one fleeting moment in time, we were happy. We had a family of our own and the world at our feet. I managed to find her, to pull her up out of this cesspit crawling with unworthy halfmen and their filth and raise her far above them where she rightfully belongs. And in so doing, I let down my guard and dared to dream that this time would be different.

But it was never any different, and he knew it. He had allowed himself to get swept up in foolish fantasies of marriage and having children and chasing the life they’d never fully gotten to have back then. When she’d discovered her second pregnancy he’d been surprised, having thought one was enough of a miracle, but he’d been happy nevertheless. Two was a good number—it was the amount of children they’d talked of potentially having back then. She’d delivered their first without any trouble, so the fear had scarcely been on his mind until he was suddenly watching her die right in front of him all because of what he had done to her. It was his fault, and he wore the blame heavy upon his shoulders much like the rest of his ceaseless burdens.

“There you are, Your Radiance. We have been looking for you; Lord Varis wishes to-”

“Leave me. Whatever it is, it can wait.”

The young page opens his mouth as if to say something more, but he immediately thinks better of it when Solus turns his head ever so slightly in the boy’s direction, just enough to shoot him a hardened glare from those weary aurum eyes. It’s a look that most would know better than to challenge, and young and inexperienced as the boy might be he’s smart enough to silently dismiss himself and leave the Emperor to his brooding.

Solus sighs, a heavy sigh that rattles his chest as he turns his gaze upward toward the heavens. Weary though his body may be in its old age, he wishes to stand here a little longer before retreating back to the seat of his throne. It was something he liked to do every year on the anniversary of her death, the one little sliver of foolish and hopeless romanticism he’d let himself cling onto—he liked to come out here and tell her about the goings on in the world and the progress he and his brothers had made with their plans. And then he’d look up and watch the flow of aether as life moved tirelessly around him, and wish that he could return to that aetherial sea once his mortal vessel had gasped its last breath.

What he would not give to join them.

Once he has had enough of allowing himself to feel for the time being, he turns and begins to make his way back inside the palace, but not before spitting at the sky and cursing Hydaelyn one last time for taking her away from him over and over again. For taking everything he’d ever loved and always finding ways to    weaponize that love against him. For punishing his selfless duty to the star by holding hostage the soul he was already eternally bound and devoted to—the soul which had been his long before She had claimed it for her own—and leaving him with naught but a madman and an empty shell of a devoted emissary for companions, neither of whom would ever be able to understand his plight far gone as they were. Not to mention two surviving ever-present reminders of what almost was, each with their own living legacies now that would ensure his mistake continued to create its grotesque ripples through time.

To call it unfair would be a gross trivialization at best.

[wubwubnparmaham]

heya! so i read your fics when i was in high school and im now pursuing a history degree in uni and i wanted to ask, (im sure youve been asked this before and i apologise) how you chose the historical figures of alexander and hadrian for love endless? i know hadrian is very similar to harry and that hadrian had of course his famous lover antinous but i wondered if u knew about alexander and hephaestion and therefore picked him for louis?? i just always loved how u chose two historical figures who had relationships with men irl and now that i study classics, i wanted to hear more about ur thought process <3

Whoaa, this is a really cool question, and I'm happy you asked it. Essentially I always knew when I started writing Love Endless that I wanted Harry to be from Ancient Rome. I wanted him outrageously old, because the "I'm 128" or whatever age that usually transpire in vampire stories are simply not enough. My own greatgrandma lived to be 102—you're not special for being a centurion. I wanted him to have an unending, impossibly and almost inconceivable lifetime of experience, I wanted him kind naturally but unstable with his immortality. I wanted a clear juxtaposition of good human but terrible immortal, and I wanted a twin who was terrible as a human but ironically better as an immortal, even though he was kinda still evil. I couldn't find a Roman emperor from the past with a twin brother, but I did find Hadrian with a sister, ironically also an "H" name, and I found out that Hadrian was more interested in architecture and Greek shit than he was with the classic Roman expansion as a general rule—someone that got a flak for being "wussy"ish even if that's an outlandish accusation. Hadrian's obsession with Hellenism really led me pretty perfectly to Alexander. I knew he must have really looked up to Alexander, and I also wanted him heartbroken from a past love that was far older than he was. I wanted Louis to be the reincarnation of that lover; that was always the plan. And the insta-love that the story is guilty of is a direct product of Hadrian also unknowingly being the reincarnation of Hephaestion himself, who was obviously Alexander's soulmate. Also immortals click fast, but that was the TRUE reason they fell so hard for one another.

With all this in mind, I got to work crafting the inter-relationships. I wrote Auron in to have been replaced by the Annalists as Hadrian's hypothetical sister, Aelia Domitia Paulina (forgot to add that bit until just recently cuz i'm dumb and forget my outline details too often), I wrote Alexander in as having not only a connection to the twins that I wanted to write in multiple different ways, soulmate-ry being one where Hadrian is concerned, lust and general love where Auronius is concerned, but to also have a connection in the concept of their makers, who are original brothers that become relevant later (since Conall is the only creature in the world who could have given Hadrian his memories back from past lives), and I wanted Louis to figure all this out with Hadrian/Harry, who'd impressively turned his ways around upon Alexander's death to be the peaceful creature he was as a human. Doesn't necessarily always stay that way, but the two figures of Alexander, the mass-murdering conqueror COLONIST asshole to docile and consistently kind-hearted immortal, and the respectable Hadrian the human to actual menace to society, was too good to pass up.

There's more I could say, but I'll stop for now. Thanks for this question!

There's one more HUGE reincarnation secret that is staring everyone in the face who has read the series, but I've never unveiled the secrets behind who it is, why, and how it's relevant. It'll probably come to light in Conall's story. Teehee.

[mybeautifulbeautifuleternal]

The Sun, the Moon, and all the Stars - Reading

Drabble: Reading

Ratings/Warnings: general, mentions of death, spoilers for the Eternals (2021), Unbeta’d and quickly written

Words: 468

More for Aelia: x x

Ao3

a/n: so I saw the eternals this past weekend and I fell in love. It’s now one of my favorite marvel movies. As I left the theater, the shape of Aelia was already forming in my head. I don’t know if I’ll ever write a full chaptered story for her but I do believe several drabbles and small imagines are in my future. Feel free to ask any questions!

Summary: based on the prompt 36:‘letting them lay across your lap to read’ from 101 ways to love you

One of the better inventions introduced to humans, in Aelia’s opinion, was the written word. While she loved the oral stories, the history and tradition of them, the way that each speaker told them slightly differently, Sprite’s way of bringing them to life…sometimes the people around her were too much.

Too loud. Too present. Too…alive.

But now, when she felt that way, Aelia could just grab a scroll and disappear for a while. Her family were long used to her tendency to disappear when overwhelmed, knowing and trusting that she’d come back long before they’d need her. Usually, Aelia would transform — most notably into a bird of some sort, the freedom of the empty blue skies calling to her in a way she’d never been able to describe aloud to anyone. Sometimes, she’d shift to become a small feline and find the highest, sunniest spot she could, lazing the day away in a daze.

Now, however, with the written word, she could still devour the stories she held close to her heart without other people being involved.

Aelia had just settled down at her shower spot for the day when she sensed Druig. She wasn’t surprised. Things had been slow recently, almost all the Deviants in the area had been killed. Now it was the time that they spent helping the humans rebuild what had been destroyed, subtlety guiding them to a better future. And as much as Druig loved to spend time with humans during peace, Aelia knew that he got overwhelmed as she did.

Whenever she hid away without shifting, there was always an equal chance that she’d spend the day alone or with Druig at her side.

As he slowly made his way to her, Aelia lifted the scroll from her lap. Only moments after she had, Druig was lounging across her lower body like it was his birthright.

Sometimes, she thought it might have been. That beyond her purpose to fight Deviants and protect the humans, she had been born to love and be loved by Druig. It was something that made sense whenever she spared a thought to it. She had no memories of life before without him and she couldn’t imagine living a life where he wasn’t in it. Without him by her side.

As Druig shifted slightly to get more comfortable, Aelia found herself running the fingers of her free hand through his hair, absentmindedly playing with it.

“Read to me, m’darlin?” Druig’s voice was soft and low, muffled because he was speaking more into her clothing then to the open air. She understood him anyway. She always did.

She did her best to prop the scroll up against her raised knee and began again at the beginning.

They didn’t move again until there wasn’t any more light to read by.

[roman-writing]

WIP tagging game

I got tagged by @mkandas who wanted to know what I’m working on and the answer is: A Lot. So much that I’m putting a snippet from a handful of my WIPs below the cut.

1) a scene from an original work called “Miss Grace’s Guide to Household Governance:

He stared at the far wall, his expression as blank as his tone. “I've been cursed by the devil himself.”

“I assure you, the devil had nothing to do with it,” Miss Grace said. She reached out and patted his sleeve as if trying to calm him. “Lycanthropy is an any man’s affliction.”

Albert stared at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means any man can turn beast and lose himself to savagery. Believe me when I say this, Albert: the devil is unconcerned with the condition of just any man.”

After a moment’s shocked silence, Albert said slowly, “Miss Grace, you are an exemplary aide -”

Miss Grace nodded in acceptance of her due. “Yes, thank you.”

“- but you are absolute shite at consolation.”

She seemed to mull this over, before announcing, “I shall take this under advisement, and adjust my behaviour accordingly.”

2) a scene from chapter 3 of “and sink to human shape”

Fareeha pushed her aviators back up the bridge of her nose, and kept on walking. “You couldn’t wait to light up until we got outside?” she asked, though her words lacked any real bite.

Angela shrugged. The tip of the cigarette burned bright as a distant star in the night-swept sky. She exhaled a plume of smoke. “I’m the primordial manifestation of mercy, not temperance.”

“Which mercy is that?” Fareeha asked.

She had not meant for her query to sound so serious, but Angela’s answering silence was inscrutable. For a few steps, Angela said nothing. Ash flaked at her fingertips. Finally, she answered, “The compassionate kind.”

She did not specify if it was the compassion borne from a desire to relieve suffering, or the compassion wielded in an executioner’s hands. Perhaps she could not tell the difference. ‘Mercy’ a cry on the lips of the desperate and dying, of the fearful masses trembling beneath their impending fate, as though Angela were a vision that appeared to those war-wounded soldiers choking upon smoke-strewn battlefields, a being of bounded light come to spirit them from this mortal coil.

3) a scene from chapter 2 of “the trick of singularity”

“What?” Miranda narrowed her eyes.

“Nothing!” Andy said. “I just - You’re -”

Miranda raised her eyebrows, as if daring Andy to set her thoughts to stone with speech.

“You -” Andy searched Miranda’s face in a blind panic. They stood close enough that she could see the fine layer of make-up applied to her skin, the smoky eye-shadow and perfect eye-liner. And beneath it all a scar. Barely discernible. From a distance it would all but vanish, but now that Andy could see it, she couldn’t not see it. A narrow cut deep in her skin, slicing from upper lip to cheek in a crooked line. Pointing dumbly, Andy said, “You have a scar.”

Miranda’s jaw tightened, and though she toyed absently with the measuring tape in her hands, her eyes never left Andy’s, never erred; they remained ice-cold. When she spoke it was in that soft whisper of hers that meant Andy was treading dangerous waters. “Your powers of observation are unimpeachable.”

4) the opening scene from “The Modern Iphigenia” a sequel to “In Search of Dead Time”

Caroline’s mother wants her to be an opera singer. From the ages of six to fourteen, Caroline is made to attend private classes four times a week. Caroline only goes without a fuss because she manages to bargain for extra time at the local library in exchange for not screaming on the ride across the city. Instead, she ignores the passing scenery through the car window in favour of pulling one of the books from her bag -- Linear Algebra, 3rd edition -- and thumbing open the page she’d last been reading.

“Caroline.”

She doesn't respond

Her mother reaches over and shuts the book. “Come on. We’re here.”

5) a scene from chapter 2 of “a wound that shall not close”

“How am I supposed to believe that? How am I supposed to believe anything you say?” Kassandra said, her eyes narrowing. “All roads lead back to you. They always do.”

Something very much like indignation flashed across Aspasia’s face, and she sat up straight in her seat, chin lifted and brows lowered. “You think I wanted Alcibiades dead? He is Perikles’ nephew. He lived with us. I practically raised him.”

“I take back what I said earlier about you never changing,” Kassandra drawled. “Motherly sentiment is very new for you.”

At that, Aspasia’s face darkened. Her lips pursed.

Kassandra bared her teeth in grim satisfaction. “Have I struck a nerve?”

“You speak of things about which you know very little,” Aspasia replied coolly, and though her tone was calm and even, her eyes glittered dangerously. It sent a thrill of satisfaction racing down Kassandra’s spine.

6) a scene from a yet unnamed prequel to “Among the Hollow”

Iustina steepled her fingers and fixed Aelia with a hard look. "Have you ever seen a god before?"

Aelia shook her head.

Tapping her fingertips together in what would have been a nervous tick for anyone else, but which Iustina made appear merely thoughtful, she said, "I have. When I was a girl. There was nothing glamorous or holy about it. I shit myself. Most people do, you know." Though Iustina continued looking at Aelia, she seemed to peer right through her, as if off into the distance. "My father had just completed construction of the Temple of Wisdom in Faros as part of his contract -- he was one of the rare fools who sought out a contract with the gods and actually achieved one. Though perhaps 'achieve' isn't the proper word for it. Unless it is an achievement to shackle yourself to a higher power in order to obtain your own petty ends. Some might think so. Some might even dream of it. Meanwhile the memory alone of my encounter is enough to revisit me in my nightmares even today. They're not -"

Iustina paused, clearing her throat to collect herself before she continued. "They're not what you think. They are not beautiful or just or grand. Divinity manifests itself in horror. To describe them is to transcend language. Standing in the presence of a god overwhelms you the way the sky overwhelms the very earth: naturally and uniformly all-encompassing. They cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be tricked, or ransomed, or threatened. We are less to them than the most insignificant insect that crawls among the ribs of desert carrion. The empires of men mean nothing to them."

"They can appear to us in human form, but it is as if they are wearing a loose animal skin over their shoulders, as if they have only a vague idea of what humanity should look like. It had a face -- I'm sure it had a face -- but I cannot for the life of me remember it. I used to wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night to find that I had drawn it in blood across the floor of my room. A face with eyes like smears of torchlight. It spoke in starlight, in colour, and cold distant silence." With a chest-deep shudder, Iustina grimaced. "In exchange for a temple and the bodies of those fallen in battle, it gave my father the power to defeat his enemies, ending a civil war that had waged for decades since the fall of Proban. At the end of every fight, my father’s forces were ordered to quench all their torches and lamps, and all through the night they heard strange, gristly noises from the battlefield. The next morning, all the bodies were gone. I stopped practicing necromancy despite my father's insistence. No gain, however great, could match the demands of such a contract."

Leaning forward, Iustina grabbed her cup of tea and sipped. "The gods have mysteriously vanished these last few years, and good fucking riddance, I say. Could you ask for another pot of tea? This one's gone cold and it tastes like cat piss."

Aelia blinked at the abrupt shift in topic. "Of - Of course, Your Majesty."

[alectology-archive]

Mat dug in his saddlebags as Lan withdrew. He pulled out Rand’s banner, the one of the ancient Aes Sedai. He’d gathered it earlier, thinking perhaps it might have some use. “Somebody hoist this thing up. We’re fighting in Rand’s bloody name. Let’s show the Shadow we’re proud of it.”

Aw hey this makes for a nice contrast against Mat finding Rand holding the Dragon Banner in TGH and resenting him for it versus him raising it to fight on his behalf for the last push during the battle <3

[alectology-archive]

Too many "mat runs from responsibility" jokes and too few "perrin is the most irresponsible character" jokes in the fandom honestly

[alectology-archive]

amol spoilers about siuan//

The most offensive thing to come out of amol is siuan sanche being killed off-screen while trying to rescue a ta'veren and min ending up saving mat instead with perfectly aimed knife throws when mat is Lucky and better at using his knives.

She's not even done the courtesy of receiving a heroic death when she and moiraine are responsible for kicking off the search for the dragon reborn and guiding him and egwene - they end up becoming the two most powerful characters in the series! Even gawyn receives a better death than she does. Ugh.

[alectology-archive]

I finally finished the book ha. Speaking of the sanderson books specifically, I don't ever see myself rereading ToM or AMoL again (I can fully see myself rereading even CoT) because they were painfully bad. A couple of things in AMoL were done well - this might still be a generous take on it because it was mostly the epilogue that I really liked and I'm still Reeling even if I already had rand's ending spoiled to me beforehand.

I'm just dumping miscellaneous thoughts under the cut. It mostly started as a rant post about chapter 37 but covers my thoughts on the epilogue as well.

- Demandred is now entering into a swordfight with galad. Even if this is because galad has a foxhead medallion, the demandred from RJ's books would literally never fight another person with a sword bye.

- I've already made a post about this but brandon doesn't get galad. Galad always tried to do what he thought was right - whatever we get from brandon is suspiciously similar to dragonsworn/whitecloak ideology (essentially cult-like behaviour) which is what rj was trying to critique in the first place:

The right thing had always seemed clear to Galad before, but never had it felt as right as this ... The Light itself guided him. It had prepared him, placed him here at this moment.

- demandred literally does not look like rand. He looks like taim:

Demandred was a proud man; one needed see only his face to know that. He looked like al’Thor, actually. They had a similar sense about them.

- Mat has done nothing to offend Bashere. Bashere doesn't talk like this either:

“Matrim Cauthon, you bloody fool. You’re still alive?”

- My eyes are bleeding this is not how command structure works - why couldn't Deira or another ranking officer of Saldaea take command???

All he had said was that Saldaea fights alongside Malkier, and told the troops to look toward Lan. The throne would be sorted out if they all survived the Last Battle.

- This sounds so corny I don't like it tbh ajshejdhdj. Balefire is neutral and doesn't really know Sides like the Light and Shadow but the anti-balefire Flame is... not? It's irritating:

The balefire vanished. A multihued, beautiful crystal grew from him [Taim]. Uncut and rough, as if from the core of the earth itself. Somehow Egwene knew that the Flame would have had much less effect on a person who had not given himself to the Shadow.

- Come ON Asmodean hasn't picked up a single weapon in his LIFE. why would he assume lan is asmodean in disguise.

Demandred blocked Lan’s attack, but he breathed hoarsely. “Who are you?” Demandred whispered again. “No one of this Age has such skill. Asmodean? No, no. He couldn’t have fought me like this. Lews Therin? It is you behind that face, isn’t it?”

- ngl rj would hate having a battle described as 'exquisite' instead of 'terrifying'

“Exquisite," Thom thought. That is the word. Unexpected, but true. Majestically exquisite. No. Not “majestically". Let the word stand on its own. If it is the right word, it will work without help. If it’s the wrong word, adding other words to it will just make it seem desperate.

- These two quotes read like everybody including the dark one think mat is very Important to rand <3

THE SON OF BATTLES. I WILL TAKE HIM. I WILL TAKE THEM ALL, ADVERSARY. AS I TOOK THE KING OF NOTHING.

....

“Not the tree, Gambler,” Hawkwing said. “Another moment, one that you cannot remember. It is fitting, as Lews Therin did save your life both times.”

“Remember him,” Amaresu snapped. “I have seen you murmur that you fear his madness, but all the while you forget that every breath you breathe—every step you take—comes at his forbearance. Your life is a gift from the Dragon Reborn, Gambler. Twice over.”

- I got Major rand/mat/elayne vibes from this passage <3 :

“The Queen of Andor is dead,” Arganda said.

Bloody Ashes! Not Elayne! Mat felt a lurch inside. Rand. . . I'm sorry.

... "This is the end!" Demandred’s augmented voice washed across Mat from the other end of the plateau. “Lews Therin has abandoned you! Cry out to him as you die. Let him feel your pain.”

- kind of irritating that perrin is the one who makes his way back to rand when he's heartsick over faile because we know faile is on top of his priority list whereas mat is the one who walks away? Mat has always been a lot more attached to rand than perrin but this book completely reverses that and chooses to make perrin the Closer friend. And my god mat doesn't meet rand again after that tuon/mat/rand conversation earlier in the book 😐

- where is olver going to go? He's just a kid wtf.

- I hate the tuon pregnancy plot lmfao

- Mat not being present at rand's funeral... I WILL cry.

- mat doesn't see the band again, doesn't attend rand's funeral, doesn't have olver around, doesn't meet his other friends from emond's field again and I am MAD. I imagine it's going to happen anyway eventually but ugh. I'd have liked to see that on-screen.

- sanderson making rand even CONSIDER that he'd be content with only one person out of his three gfs following him is annoying. He loves all three of them.

- I think the only chapter I enjoyed fully was the epilogue. I'm still Sad about rand not being able to kill the dark one and facing the bleak future of being reborn as the dragon again and again but it's a sweet pain, I think. I'm glad he gets to live his life now and thinks of going on adventures (you know who else likes adventures. Mat.)

- I DO kind of dislike that rand can't channel anymore though. I don't really care that he can will things to happen as he pleases now - he struggled with accepting that part of himself for so long and he even cleansed saidin for him to eventually just be shut away from the source like that... it takes away from all the queer readings that it allowed.

- I'm such a sucker for doppelgangers and body snatchers and acts of mimesis and anything that vaguely falls under the genre so the fact that moridin and rand switched bodies fully turned out to be my favourite part of the ending ha.

- cadsuane being chosen as the amyrlin is so stupid bye. The white tower needs a new visionary who's capable of fixing its institutional problems not somebody who bullies people all the time and is stubbornly set in her old ways - she's only had her ego reinforced in all the 300+ years she's lived.

- I think moghedien should have been allowed to run free and commit gay crimes. More reasons to hate the seanchan in my opinion.

- tbh I find myself envisioning mat running from the seanchan the moment tuon has her back turned to him and... good for him? I will forever mourn the potential that tuon had - sanderson chose to not give her much of an arc, I'm guessing, since it wasn't even rj's choice for egwene and siuan to die but harriet's (plus idk I got the impression that he was writing tuon like she was never going to become a better person and still excuses her behaviour while rj specifically writes like tuon is going to become a better person most of the time). I feel like early tuon is very much firmly a fave - I just can't stomach her later because she just keeps having her ego boosted and sanderson plays it off as if it's funny that she's off ordering atrocities to be committed. He just doesn't know how to read the room whenever he picks up mat's povs. Mat never made jokes during the battles he fought in rj's books.

- I hate that I don't really have any thoughts about elayne, aviendha, egwene or nynaeve but they're almost non-characters in this book except when sanderson brought them out for Epic Fights? I was especially let down by the lack of politics in the book.

- the endless battle sequences are just so fatiguing to read that even Good Fight Scenes don't leave a mark on the reader. This was not a good book, lol - I think a lot of my positive thoughts are fully influenced by how good I feel about the epilogue.

- and I definitely did expect rand to die even while I was reading the series around book 5? It was some time then that I managed to spoil the ending to myself which was unfortunate, but I think the ending managed to satisfy readers who'd have liked for him to die as well as the ones who'd have liked for him to live (I am both people)

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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.

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I haven't had a Mat pov yet WHY haven't I had a Mat pov yet???

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Major amol spoilers about egwene//

Wait egwene chose killing herself over being burned out????

I... understand the principle of the thing. I do think egwene would fully sacrifice herself for the greater good, yes! I do however think that this was not in-character for her because RJ was very insistent on making characters come to the realisation that positions of power and authority are a lot more important to hold onto than to Actually Fight in a battle: see Rand versus the Shaido.

This is also just so poorly written, tbh, considering how Nynaeve literally taught aes sedai how to heal channelers who were stilled/burned themselves out.

She [Egwene] had pulled in too much. She knew that if she released her grip, she would leave herself burned out, unable to channel another drop. The Power surged through her in this last moment.

I do understand that this was partly in response to the sharan channelers overwhelming the aes sedai but it just seems like a very flimsy excuse. Just like siuan's death was so badly done.

Edit: burning and stilling are apparently not quite the same and I'd recommend going through the comments for the reasons the authors gave for the differences between them

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I kind of do like that gawyn goes after demandred sorry wjdhjdfheudh. Their conversation however makes zero sense, is very immature, & badly written.

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Reading brandon's wot installments feels like reading a thesis on how powerful women are arrogant misandrists who need to be tamed by the less capable male characters who are Good and Humble and absolutely perfect with character flaws that don't really count as flaws.

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1. Perrin hesitates to kill literal Turned Aiel but does not mind handing over the Shaido channelers to the Seanchan. He can choke.

2. I suspect again that this partly has to do with Sanderson's obsession with focussing on giving a tragic element to nearly every male character who enters the screen, and especially so male channelers. There's a fine line to walk when you critcise the abuse and ostracisation they are subjected to while also discussing the very real and unignorable consequences of not gentling them. WoT is not exactly matriarchal so I hate it when he handles characters as if people are presisposed to misandry in the world. I'm simply stating the facts - the Aes Sedai are constantly criticised and torn down by him in a way that even the Whitecloaks aren't.

No for real, why does he hate women so much :) they tend to be overwhelmingly characterised as irrational, arrogant, emotional and incompetent people way in over their heads and not exactly qualified to perform their tasks (or needing guidance from their male partners/more qualified male character) as if they aren't the ones responsible for driving the plot mostly.

3. Perrin being plagued by his "to kill or not to kill" dilemma when facing literal darkfriends is fucking annoying actually and not the example of a thoughtful and caring person like Sanderson makes it out to be.

4. Kind of hope perrin falls into the dark pit

5. I hate Perrin and Lanfear's interactions. I hate how Lanfear is written by him almost worse than how she's treated by RJ but that's maybe just annoyance talking and not logic right now.

6. I'm fucking tired of him forcing us to read his horrendous take on ji'e'toh about taking enemies gai'shain to earn honour. Did he read the fucking books. Did he read the fucking books???? I feel like banging my head against a wall whenever I read the sections about Gaul asking him to take enemies (darkfriends!!!!) alive to make them gai'shain and recall Aviendha saying it'd be great if Rand defeated the Dark One but Better if he made him gai'shain. Ji'e'toh is not about enslavement or punishment!! The Dark One is a literal force of nature!!!! Ugh.

7. Why is Perrin able to see people in the real world in tel'aran'rhiod? It's never explained. I suspect it's because reality is acting funky right now but I'm very annoyed about that as well.

8. By the way is it kind of racist that the Turned Aiel channelers have pointed teeth that make them look creepy while other Turned channelers don't.

9. Also how was Perrin able to handle so many Turned channelers. I call bullshit on that. The whole Perrin/Slayer fight scene is written in a very shallow but cinematic way a la fight scenes in marvel movies.