#alister behaim

[bluebrrsnmtint]

Pact fans need some comfort so I cooked something

me i’m pact fans

[eyesfromhell]

If Alister Behaim wasn't a coward his Implement would've been a Duel Disk.

Can you imagine a practitioner going "IT'S TIME TO D-D-D-DUEL" and pulling out the six of wands like "whoops looks like the future is bad for you".

Same for all the Belangers. There's no way not one of them thought to use a portable device used for placing cards to do a reading.

[jumboseafood]

Alister isn't a child bride

So I've recently seen some posts calling Alister Rose's child bride. And I mean dudes like 18 and Rose is 20. There's plenty of other really fucked up shit going on there other than the small age gap.

[lilliankillthisman]

Pact AU where Fox News hires Alister Behaim and he tries desperately not to draw the Five of Coins three times in his presidential tarot show

[shakertwelve]

Sad thing was, he thought, Behaim girls didn’t tend to age well.  They were healthy, but healthy was not a label most girls liked to have stuck on them.  Ainsley would be one of those most. Going by their older cousins, she’d be pretty as a teen, and then she’d get… blocky.

i can't wait for alister to die

[lakesbian]

Drawing the Hyena, I began to carve letters out, as slowly and carefully as I could.  Rounded edges were harder. The paper cut, then turned black and brown where the blade had touched it. Rose, Behaims plan to back Alister.  They have weapon for him.  Must discredit or stop or attacks can become more serious, worse. Give permission? I didn’t sign my name.  No time. I threw the cover as far as I could get it, and I hoped the cover of the real book did something similar, within that library.

this is so fucking funny. he's going to give her a fucking heart attack. she freaked out when he escaped the circle i know she's in there head on the desk abt this man. blake thorburn is really good at spending the entire book going "I am going to help rose." and then proceeding to do shit that has rose seething and furiously backseat-gaming in her head

[v1leblood]

Can you please write that 500 page* essay on Laird Behaim? Because all I got from my read was What The Fuck is Your Problem?

*couple paragraphs fine too lol

the thing about laird is that he's Fucked. he's obviously not as Fucked as blake was, but he's still Fucked. he was groomed from a young age to play a part in aimon and rose sr's dynastic plan, and while his father maintained the pretense that laird did have a choice and that he wasn't obligated to follow the path laid out for him, circumstances and practical concerns meant that not following the path would be wasteful, selfish and short-sighted. which, when coupled with part of The Path tm includes getting private lessons with the terrifying diabolist who's a little too close to your dad for you or your mom's comfort, lessons that are abjectly traumatizing for grown adults and thus much worse for a child, makes you resent your dad and his plans just a little. especially when you feel like your dad is enabling the terrifying local diabolist

(chapter immediately after the aimon interlude)

laird feels trapped by his role in aimon and rose's plan, and he tries to exercise his freedom to eat his cake and have it too. to benefit his family as much as possible, to possibly grant them the lordship or something of similar stature. but he's still trapped, because he can't in good conscience not participate in rose sr's plan, and no amount of exercising his freedom while following the plan feels like Enough. he's borderline suicidal, having set his affairs in order before leaving for toronto and planning to feed himself to Conquest -- essentially killing himself -- because being stuck as Conquest limited by what an incarnation of Conquest can do felt preferable to being stuck as Laird Behaim doing the things Laird Behaim is meant to do. but even if he had succeeded in that, it wouldn't have been a radical departure where he upsets the expectations thrust upon him -- he had already trained and chosen alister to continue in his stead, after all

anyway RIP bozo ACAB

[ewingstan]

☕️ chronomancy (and time magic in fiction in general)

In terms of how it works in Pact, I'm honestly super into the twist that it's mostly perception manipulation. Because it's framed like it completely invalidates the Behaims as a serious power, even though given a moments thought, its obvious that the ability to control other's perception of time is incredibly strong—just not as strong as controlling a fundamental force of nature like they postured. But the framing makes sense when you consider how important deception and bluffing is for magic to actually work in this universe.

The twist also makes it that much more significant when real time magic is used—it makes Alister's casual use of the family supply not just a show of power, but a small character-defining moment. The audience appreciates the arrogance it must take to blow through this rare and useful power, and are put off-balance wondering if he's absurdly confident, absurdly powerful, or just trying to intimidate Blake. That's economic story telling! That moment helped us really get a feel for a character with relatively little page time.

In terms of time magic in general, I haven't read a ton of stories that use it, and less that use it well. There's the usual problem of its introduction causing a lot of problems for the narrative that are often address clumsily ("Sorry everyone, Neville knocked time travel over, so we can't do that anymore"). I've seen this avoided, but mainly by having time travel be a lot less powerful, so it couldn't always be a fix (like HPMOR only using stable time loops). This isn't as much of a problem for sci-fi time travel stories, because time travel is usually the whole focus in those. The characters are allowed to use time travel to try and solve all there problems to their hearts content, and we get to see it blow up in their face in entertaining ways. Whereas in fantasy, time travel is often used only once or twice and then excuses have to be made for why its not being used constantly.

That said, I am hoping to start Mother of Learning soon, which from what I've heard neatly circumvents this problem!

[bluebrrsnmtint]

I’m in Possession 15.4 and can’t deny it anymore, I like Rose and Alister as a couple

[bluebrrsnmtint]

Part 2 of this mini comic just because I want something happy

(read from right to left)

[lilliankillthisman]

Alister Behaim is to Blake as Sylvester is to Reverend Mauer...