#doubtless and secure spoilers

[beccastareyes]

It's Time for Scream about New Book!

The Innocent Sleep + bonus Novella. But with spoiler tags, because I'm not a monster

(The tag lets everyone block things right? I am inexperienced at the Tumblr.)

I have a lot to say, and I'm glad we got the look at what the spell looked like from the outside. Some things I noticed:

Tybalt noted that Berkley was always independent, and that while most people assumed it was because of the university, it was not.

Confirmation that 'Eira' was Karen Brown, but a further mystery of what role Cassandra was playing.

It seems like Titania took three days to get some things straight; Raysel and Tybalt were booted as soon as possible, but the Cait Sidhe spent 3 days stuck in the Court before the 'we have always lived in the castle' thing hit.

For someone who was always about refinement, Titania really got lazy, or just assumed that since she caught Oberon and the Luidaeg off guard and Maeve continues to be MIA, she didn't have to care about the details herself since it was only 4 months. Because a lot of people seemed to key into 'this makes no sense' when confronted with it. As soon as Grainne realized the Cait Sidhe were alive, she connected 'that's why Candela can still access the Shadow Roads -- we couldn't be sustaining them ourselves. Gabriel noted that there shouldn't be this many thin-blooded changlings among the Cait Sidhe if they'd been trapped for centuries without contact with the mortal world. Even Toby herself -- with a double dose of the illusion -- had the realization that she would have had to have cut herself once during a childhood, but she never remembered it.

Since I assume Quentin was the intended sacrifice, having 'Evening' taking a more active role in his fosterage to create the illusion that he had seven years of paradise probably didn't help. (I also wonder if Titania edited out the memory of his sister; Quentin was pretty miserable in Shadowed Hills in canon because he knew what having someone close to you and equal enough to call you out on things was like, in addition to 'Sylvester is not doing well'. )

(I do appreciate the irony that Titania gave Amandine what she thought she wanted -- look, here your husband and daughters all love you, and everyone is willing to flatter and celebrate you... because you are the only one who can sustain Faerie as Titania made it, so get to work. Probably because Amandine's bloodworking meant she could penetrate the illusions, so she needed something to buy her off, with the promise that once the spell was anchored in the Heart of Faerie, they could reopen the doors to deeper Faerie and Amandine wouldn't be needed.)

... I probably should be breaking some of these up. This is getting long.

I also liked the novella. Which... Helmi noticed that the magical signature during the Earthquake was 'roses and wood smoke'... that's August's signature. (Well, roses and 'campfire smoke' but close enough. Unless the source isn't August but is part of the explanation for why Simon's magical signature is unlike Sylvester's despite them being twins.) (Also Mary stating that the Roane were only sure about Dianda's daughter after Simon started having sex with Patrick and Dianda, and the daughter's magical signature including whitebeam flowers when Simon's has whitebeam smoke seems to suggest that the daughter will be biologically Simon and Dianda's.)

[blamebrampton]

Books talk to each other. Mostly because practically every writer is also a voracious reader, but also because books arise out of times and places and we share a lot of our worlds these days. So it’s unsurprising that several novels I have hugely enjoyed over the past few years share the theme of the antiheroine who is past all giving of the fucks. Naomi Novik’s powerful dark sorceress kept on her own tight leash in the Scholomance books was a joy to follow; Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow slashed her way into my heart and now Sarah Rees Brennan’s Long Live Evil has added to a list of beloved antiheroines that probably started for me with Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair.

Coincidentally, when considering how to describe Long Live Evil without significant spoilers, I realised that it shared several major themes with Vanity Fair. Young woman unfairly treated by fate decides to embrace her slut era to survive a war zone – both very accurate and wildly inaccurate for both. LLE opens with main character Rae in a hospital bed, teasing her sister about a book series they both adore. Rae is taking refuge in the story they have shared over years because it is one of the few things they have left: she is losing her fight against cancer and has been losing parts of her life, family and memory as that fight has progressed.

My personal hospital experiences have all been to do with major traumas rather than illness, which I vastly prefer because if you don’t die in the first couple of days, you usually start mending and you can immediately make plans to make the best of whatever you’ve broken. Rees Brennan, however, famously wrote a very funny, very horrible, ‘Kids, you won’t believe what shenanigans your girl’s been up to now, it’s only stage four Hodgkins lymphoma!’ post on her Tumblr or LJ (someone who has been hit in the head with taxis fewer times than me will doubtless factcheck that in the notes) about seven or eight years ago and then faced the very serious business of trying to live. The hospital scenes are painfully authentic, as are the stories of people who have left Rae as she slipped further out of everyday life.

For Rees Brennan, a loving family and peer group were there to hold her as close as they could. For Rae, only her beloved little sister, Alice, and Time of Iron, their favourite fantasy series, remain. They read the books together, remember adventures cosplaying and watching the musical, they wonder about the final instalment; for Rae it’s a joy she can still share (even if she doesn’t remember as much as she should), for Alice, it’s her two greatest loves. When a strange woman offers a door into the world of the book and a possible magical cure to Rae, she wants it as much as she disbelieves it.

Stepping into Eyam, the land of Time of Iron, Rae finds herself in the body of a villain doomed to die the next day. No worries! She’s thought and fought her way out of worse scraps than this in her past as a head cheerleader, let alone while battling cancer. She can use her knowledge of the plot to change things! If only she remembered more of the books…

Portal fantasies are common enough, but not all play by the same rules. This isn’t Narnia, where the magical world is more real than our own, for Rae, the world of the book is nothing more a tool to get her hands on the cure. She doesn’t need to care about any of these people, they’re not real. Most of them speak in a formal language that relies on the conventions of fantasy literature (there is an ongoing, warm-hearted skewering of all Game of Thrones-esque texts running through both the story and the in-text ‘quotes’ from Time of Iron) and half the characters are known more by their descriptions rather than their names. So she will play the Beauty Dipped in Blood, with her questionable morals, impractical clothes and centre-of-balance-distorting boobs for the weeks that will pass until the cure is available. Whoever she has to shuffle in the plot to secure a place beside that cure, she will shuffle. While she’s not out to kill anyone, it’s not as though they were ever really alive. Not like her. If she has to be the villain to survive, she will be an impeccable one. The people will cheer evil on!

Obviously, little goes to plan. Rae’s illness has taught her cruelty, but she hasn’t forgotten what it is to be kind. Even as she manipulates her role into ongoing main character, she realises that’s not how anyone gets a happy ending. That’s not how she can live with herself. As she comes to think of the other people in the story as real, they become more so, both in how we read them and in how they impact the story. Rae remembers what it is like to make friends, which she never meant to, but, oh, the luxury after years of watching people slip away!

As in previous novel In Other Lands, Rees Brennan has a long list of fantasy tropes to embrace and undermine, and her deft touch with humour is as evident as ever here, but her publishers call this her first adult novel and there is a shift in tone from her previous works. Anger is more real and lasting. Consequences are more significant. Understanding is reached for, even if it’s bitter. One of my favourite things is that she lets her female characters rage, but never judges those who can’t, whether because they’re too powerless or just too tired, and her male characters are allowed to be people if they choose to be — which all but the most vainglorious do.

I hadn’t paid much attention beyond checking the release date for the book, so didn’t realise it was the first in a series. For me, it worked perfectly as a standalone novel, even with the unended threads, which would have perfectly balanced Rae’s unfinished life. That said, I am very happy to know we will spend more time with these characters in the future. I want more. I do want to know if there is a hope for Rae, if this is the fever dream of a fading life, if this is the story Alice has told to ease her sister from the world or something else. There are a dozen characters I hope for, at least three happy endings that would bring joy. But don’t wait for the next books: sink your teeth into this one and believe what it says about the importance of listening to stories rather than just falling in love with characters. Though if you find yourself cheering on Rae, or her servant Emer, the elusive Eric, Horrible Hortensia or almost any of the others, I am the last person who will judge you.

[smilingformoney]

For that author ask: Perspective Flip

I’ve been wanting to read a fic from Snape’s pov (first person) for a while

First of all, thanks for your patience, Anon. It took me a few days to decide which scene I wanted to try from Snape's POV, and then I had to find time to write it.

Because I hate myself, I didn't choose a fluffy or smutty scene, but went for the ultimate angst and chose his death scene 🙃

Not The End

Content/warnings: blood, Snape lives, but he doesn't think so, soul of ice spoilers

Read on Ao3 or below:

When the Dark Lord gave the command, my heart dropped.

It could not end this way. I hadn’t yet reached Potter, I hadn’t told Persephone I loved her one last time, I hadn’t said my goodbyes to my daughter…

I screamed. I couldn’t help it. The pain of the snake’s fangs sinking into my neck was too great. It felt as if she were trying to sever my very head from my shoulders, but instead she tore a chunk from my neck, penetrating my jugular with precision. She withdrew, and I felt my knees buckle.

I had failed. Failed in my final task, leaving it all for naught. I had failed them all, all who relied on me, whether they knew it or not. Failed my daughter, whose voice I could hear now, screaming for me…

My back hit the wall behind me, just as something exploded some feet away - I closed my eyes instinctively, and when I fell, it felt as if the floor would never reach me. The Dark Lord was speaking, and yet I was still falling…

Except I wasn’t falling. My eyes fluttered open as I realised I hadn’t yet hit the ground… because I had been caught.

In the distance, I saw the Dark Lord’s robes sweep behind him as he left the room, leaving behind his favourite servant to bleed to death.

I turned my head as much as I could, and I swore I was hallucinating.

How could she be here?

She was in the castle, hopefully safe but doubtless fighting - why would she be in the Shrieking Shack?

She must have followed me. The stupid, brilliant girl that she was, refusing to leave my side even at the end of all things.

“Abbie…” I mumbled, not daring to raise my voice with such pain searing through my neck. Even so, I was determined to speak, to tell her all I could. “I -”

“Shut up!” Abbie yelled, and I felt my blood on my cheek. No, that wasn’t right - it wasn’t blood at all. It was her tears, my daughter’s tears, sobbing as she held my dying form. Too much pain, too much, for one so young…

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking die on me, you idiot.”

If I had any strength left, I might have chuckled. As it was, I managed only the faintest of gasps. Despite the horror she was enduring, my brave daughter kept herself together enough to withdraw her wand and incant a spell I had taught her many years ago.

“Vulnera sanentur… vulnera sanentur…”

Whether the spell was working or not, I had no idea - the sting of skin stitching together would be drowned out by the pain I was in as the snake’s poison spread through my veins.

It turns out the old adage is true: your life really does flash before your eyes in the moments before you die.

As she continued to cast her spell, fighting back against her sobs, I recalled the day our roles were reversed; the day I had cradled her unconscious body in my arms as she bled out, and it had taken all the occlumency I could muster to push down my fear and focus on healing her wound.

She could not save me, I was sure of it. But she could keep me alive a little longer, long enough that I could complete my final task, that I could die knowing I hadn’t failed her in the end.

I had spent my entire life keeping my thoughts, my feelings and my memories locked securely inside my mind. Now, I opened the floodgates and allowed it all to rush out, the memories streaming out of my eyes, my mouth, my ears.

“Potter,” I mumbled. “Take… it…”

I hadn’t even realised he was there. I had expected Abbie to take the memories to him. But suddenly he was there, a vial in his hand, scooping up as many of my memories as he could. I looked up at him, and for the first time, I looked past James’ face and into Lily’s eyes, a glistening emerald green; and despite it all, despite the hatred and distrust between us, still Potter seemed to fear for my life.

He backed away, his hand wrapped securely around the vial, and I knew my job was done.

I felt the poison begin to take me, and my vision was fading. Instinctively, I grabbed my daughter’s arm, holding her for the last time as tightly as I could with the little strength I had.

“Abbie… remember… remember I love you…”

She had to know. I had told her, yes, but not enough, not nearly enough. I should have told her every day, every time I saw her. I should have made sure she knew I loved her more than I ever believed was possible.

The stubborn girl didn’t give up. I wanted her to embrace me, to let me die holding her, but instead she applied a salve to my neck, and fresh tears fell from her eyes as she cursed loudly, my death not yet over.

“He’s poisoned!” Abbie cried out in a broken voice. “Help me sit him up.”

I felt several pairs of hands lift me from Abbie’s lap and place me against the wall, but I lacked even the strength to lift my head.

She would never give up. That, I was sure of. She would fight until my last breath, never admitting defeat. She was too stubborn, too brave, to take any other course. She loved me too much.

A bezoar, Potter suggested. Yes, a bezoar, just like the one I threw down her throat all those years ago, back when I was so foolish as to think I could live a life without her, until she had threatened to take it away herself and I pulled her back from the brink by sheer luck that I carried a bezoar at all times.

It was a habit befitting a potions master… a habit that I had difficulty breaking even after leaving the post.

A habit I still practised to that day.

A glimmer of hope. A spark of possibility. A dream that perhaps - maybe - if I was fortunate… it might not be the end after all.

That hope was all I had left, and it gave me the strength I needed to lift my hand to my pocket. Yes, it was there, I could feel it… the smallest of stones, sitting in the depths of my pocket, waiting for this day.

“Here…” I mumbled. “M’pocket…”

A hand reached into my pocket, and then my daughter was pushing the stone between my lips, tilting my head back.

“Swallow it!” she begged. “Swallow it or I’ll kill you myself!”

Swallow… yes. I felt as if I had only seconds to live, my vision was fading, my thoughts were slowing… but my love for her still burned like a fire in my heart, and so I drew strength from there, strength enough to swallow the stone.

It was mere moments before the stone’s magic began to rush through my veins, but the moments stretched themselves thin, my heart pounding as it fought back against the poison.

It must have worked, because she cried out with relief and buried her head against my shoulder. And… yes, my strength had come back some, as I lifted my arm to cradle her head. I tried to smile. Whether I managed, I didn’t know, because she was sobbing with her head pressed against my heart.

“You idiot!” she cried into my robes. “You stupid - fucking - dickhead - moron - asshole! Don’t you ever - ever - do that again!”

Yes, it was working, alright. I could feel the antipoison rushing through my veins. My heartbeat rose again, my vision cleared… and there she was, looking at me now. She was covered in her tears and my blood, her hair was a mess, and she was beautiful. An angel come to save me from the brink of death.

I blinked slowly. I felt light in the head, and although my grip on consciousness was fading still, I knew now that I was only passing out.

“Abbie…” I mumbled. I had so much to say to her. I love you. You are extraordinary. I love you. I’m going to sleep now. I love you. I promise to wake up. I love you, I love you, I love you.

“May I… pass out now?” I asked.

She laughed. Despite everything, she laughed at the notion that I would ask for permission.

“Yes,” she said. “Just make sure you wake up again.”

I smiled.

“I… promise…”

And I meant it.

Then I slept.

[kogiopsis]

The second part of @alterawinty‘s ask: Prompt #6 for Shadolin.

6. Wrapped up in a question. How’s your day been, have you eaten, you know you can tell me anything, right? You know you can tell them anything. Right?

I think I wandered away from the exact focus of the prompt, but I feel like this is pretty cute anyhow. Modern AU, so no spoilers, though I did draw on Adolin’s RoW emotional arc a bit. For clarity: Radiant has become Prudence in this setting, since her original character does not really fit in a non-fantasy context as well.

---------------------------------------------------------

Locking the apartment door behind her, Prudence balanced on one foot at a time as she slid off her sensible black heels, hooking two fingers into the shoes to carry them. She wiggled her toes against the plush carpet with a sigh of relief, rolled her shoulders, and gave way to Shallan now that they were secure at home.

Shallan padded through the living room and into the bedroom, dropping her shoes in front of the closet - Prudence would doubtless straighten them later - and changing out of her work attire into soft sweatpants and a paint-stained t-shirt. Then, comfortable at last, she went looking for Adolin.

It wasn’t much of a search. Her husband was exactly where she expected: in his workroom, at the center of a veritable hurricane of design sketches, fabric swatches, and inside-out garments. He was bent over a work table covered in pattern paper, and by the scatter of wadded-up patterns on the floor around him, had been there for a while. She picked her way across the floor, careful not to step on anything, and placed her hands on his tense shoulders, digging her thumbs into the base of his neck.

“Have you eaten today?” she asked, leaning forward to look at his work. He sighed heavily and pushed up on his arms, leaning away from the table, into her.

“Yeah, Renarin brought takeout for lunch. I guess that was a while ago. Welcome home, by the way; how was work?”

Shallan shrugged and dropped a quick kiss on the top of his head. “Fine. Nothing I haven’t been dealing with for the last year or so now. Jasnah did ask how your collection was coming, though.” She draped her arms down his chest, allowing him to rest more of his weight on her, and he sighed again.

“I don’t - I don’t know. I have all these pictures in my head, and I know what I’m doing with the sewing machine, but it feels like I’ll never get it quite right. There’s so much between the design and the final piece, and I just keep thinking I’ll mess it up at the very beginning and then spend even more time trying to fix it.” He shook his head, black-and-gold curls brushing against her chin. “I don’t know how people do it.”

Shallan laughed softly. “That’s what most people would say about competing in the Olympics, babe.”

“That’s different,” Adolin grumbled. “That’s just a bunch of individual bouts all in a row.”

“So,” Shallan said, disentangling herself and stepping around to lean on the table and look him in the eye, “this is just a bunch of individual projects all in a row. You know how to design, draft, and sew. You just have to do all three several times over, and voila! Your first runway show.”

Adolin smiled up at her, eyes warm with affection that made her heart skip a beat. “Oh, is that all?”

She gave him an exaggerated wink. “Nothing else to it!”

He sighed, and reached out to place his hand over hers, the calluses on his palms a familiar, pleasant roughness against her skin.

“I wish I had as much faith in me as you do, my love,” he murmured. “I don’t… this is so far from what anyone in my family expected of me. I don’t want to be even more of a disappointment.”

You aren’t, she thought, not to me, or to Renarin, or Navani or even Jasnah. But that wasn’t the ‘family’ he was referring to, and they both knew it. Reminding him of everyone but his father would only emphasize the strain between him and Dalinar.

“Have you talked to him recently?” she asked instead. He shook his head.

“Not since New Year’s.” Shallan suppressed a wince. The last family gathering had been marred by a tense conversation between father and son about Adolin’s decision to invest some of his savings in this show. They hadn’t left early, but it was a near thing.

“You should invite him,” she said softly. “Give him the chance to see you and be proud of you instead of at you.”

“You think?” Adolin smiled again, but it was a wan thing that didn’t reach his eyes. “He won’t come.”

“He might,” Shallan said, thinking of Prudence and the access she had to Kholin Enterprises’ executive schedules. “You never know.”

Adolin sighed and stood up, stretching until his back popped, and then leaned down to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “Alright. If my clever and beautiful wife thinks it’s a good idea, I’ll save my father a seat. Before that happens, though, I need to finish this, and I think I need dinner to do that. Cook with me?”

Shallan hooked one hand around the back of his neck and tugged him back down for a proper kiss, lingering and warm. Adolin responded eagerly, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her upright and flush against him. When they separated, she noted the color in his cheeks with satisfaction.

“Let’s go make dinner,” she said, “and you can talk me through whatever you’re stuck on with the collection, okay?”

“Okay,” Adolin said, and as they left the workroom together, he caught her hand in his.

[buriednurbckyrd]

Right In Front of You (1)

***Bucky hasn't had a rut since before the war, and now he has to accept that one is coming. He'll need to find an Omega mate but he can't help but wish he could ignore biology. Things would be so much easier if he were just a Beta like his best friend, Y/N.

...She is a Beta, right?***

The greenhouse was warm and fragrant.  Bucky took a deep breath and his lips curved into a peaceful smile.  He traced a fingertip over the petals of a delicate orchid, taking a moment to appreciate the vibrant colors around him.  She could have told him the names of all the different variates, and had several times with unending patience, but he would never remember them all.  He just liked to listen to her talk.  He looked around and focused on what he could hear but after a few moments realized that she wasn't inside the glass walls.  After a relaxed stroll through the plants he finally spotted the person he was looking for, she was outside on her hands and knees digging in a flowerbed.  

She wore a wide brimmed hat to shield her face from the sun, a pair of gardening gloves sat abandoned beside her.  She preferred to sink her hands into the soil and feel the earth.  But she would spend a fair bit of time that evening cleaning it from her under her fingernails, questioning why she didn't just keep the gloves on and save herself the tedious task.  He smiled again at the thought.

“Hey Y/N, what'cha planting?”  He called out.  She glanced up from her task.

“Lilies.  I found some beautiful ones at the farmer's market.  They were on sale for Mother's Day, but they don't need to know I'm keeping them for myself.”  She gestured at her truck, and he saw several pots of flowers sitting in the bed.  “They smell incredible and the bees really like them.”  

“Want me to carry the pots over here for you?”  He asked.  Y/N sat back on her heels and wiped her hands on her stained jeans.

“Getting all macho Alpha on me, JB?”  Her eyes sparkled with humor.  “Who do you think loaded them into the truck in the first place?”  Bucky rolled his eyes.

“I assume you batted your eyelashes and sweet talked some big strong man into doing it for you, ya pretty little Beta darlin'.”  She laughed in response and halfheartedly threw a clump of dirt in his direction.  

“Go get my flowers, you brute.”  She giggled.  He gave her a mock salute and sauntered off towards her truck.  

She showed him how to gently de-pot the lilies and plant them into the holes she had dug.  The two of them settled into the simple routine, gently teasing each other while they planted the flowers in their new home.  Bucky felt completely at ease with Y/N.  Underneath her outer layer of sass, she was kind and nurturing.  His gaze slide over to look at her covertly and smiled at the smudge of dirt on her cheek, probably from brushing her hair behind her ear.  He remembered how beautiful he had thought she was when Steve and Sam introduced them when he was finally welcomed to live at the Avengers compound.

…

“This is Y/N, Buck.”  Steve stepped aside so he could get a look at the woman behind him, she waved and said hello.  The first thing he noticed was her crooked grin beneath a pair of the most lovely pair of (color) eyes he had ever seen.  The second was her full figured body, curvy and soft; and obviously powerful.  When he failed to greet her in return her eyebrow arched.  

“Not what you were expecting?”  Her tone was pointed.  Sam chuckled and nudged Bucky in the ribs and he started.

“N-no!   I mean, hi.  It's nice to meet you.”  

“Don't worry about it, I'm used to being underestimated.”  She replied, tilting her chin upwards almost in challenge.  

“Oh boy, here we go.”  Sam muttered under his breath.  

“I'm not-” Bucky stuttered, eyes going wide.  Her expression narrowed and before he knew what has happening she picked up her heel and brought it down with a definite 'thump'.  A mild tremor went through the ground and knocked Bucky onto his butt.  

“Really Y/N?” Steve groaned.  “Here.”  He reached his hand down to Bucky, who was looking up at her in shock.  Before he could take his friend's hand she stalked over and smacked it aside, offering her own instead.  Her face had softened into a friendly smile.  

“Just a little initiation prank, Captain,” she reassured Steve.  “I think we're going to get along just fine, right Bucky?”  He eyed her curiously, but reached for her hand and stood up.  She didn't let go of him, her grip was firm and comforting.  He felt a slight shift in his chest, like his body already knew she was going to be very important to him. She squeezed his fingers and looked up at him with a soft expression.  “Come on, cutie pie.  I'll show you my green house.”

…

He held onto the memory of that day tightly. With his prewar past still incredibly foggy, and his HYDRA days a painful reality; the happy moments of his present were priceless treasures.  As they had walked around the plants that day she asked him no uncomfortable questions that she doubtless already knew most of the answers to.  Instead she gave him her own back story.  

Turned out and disowned by her family when her abilities manifested.  Taken in and forced to participate in brutal fights against other enhanced individuals.  Her stature and Beta status lulled opponents into a false sense of security until the full range of her powers were revealed.  He realized her 'prank' was a defense mechanism, left over from a life of abuse and manipulation.  No matter what people thought of how she looked she was capable of extraordinary things, and she wasn't going to give anyone the chance to ignore that fact.

“I love this!” Her happy exclamation brought him back from his reminiscing.  She was on her feet, hands planted on her wide hips as she surveyed the new flowers.  He unfolded his long legs to stand beside her, metal arm slung around her shoulders.  Neither of them made any mention that the casual contact with the vibranium appendage, something that would never have happened just a few months ago.  

“Looks great,” he said.  “Don't suppose you made any other stops at the market?”  He looked down at her with a sly grin.  She tapped her chin thoughtfully.  

“Hmm… I might have.  There's a good chance there's a box of cookies hidden in my room to share with my favorite Sargent.” He kissed the top of her head, missing the way her breath hitched in her throat.  

…

After showers to wash away the dirt and changing into clean, comfortable clothes the two of them were lounging on the oversized couch in her rooms with a white bakery box between them.  

“Mmm...” Bucky hummed happily as he bite into a soft chocolate chip cookie. “Too bad Shuri couldn't stick around to enjoy these.”  

“Aw, I missed her?  Why didn't you tell me she was coming?”  Y/N pouted. “I wanted to ask her if they have had any luck trying to reestablish the heart shaped herbs.”  The precious Wakanadan plants needed to be found and saved if at all possible, and Shuri had asked for Y/N's advice.  

“I didn't know she was going to here or I would have.  I think it was a last minute thing on their way to check up on the outreach center.  She wanted to see my latest blood panels.”  He paused reaching for another cookie.  Y/N rested her hand on his knee, concerned.

“Is there something wrong?”  He shook his head and dropped his hands into his lap, picking at his sweat pants.  

“No. But my hormone levels indicate that I'm going into a rut soon.” His voice was quiet.  Between being pumped full of suppressants and going in and out of cryo-freeze for decades, his Alpha cycle had gone dormant.  

“Oh.” She stared off in front of her.  “That's good, right?”  Her tone was trying to be optimistic.  “It means your body is starting to function normally.”  Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat.  

“Yeah, for sure.”  He said.  He rubbed at the nagging empty feeling in his chest.  His ruts starting meant it was time to find an Omega mate. His body required the bond between an Alpha and their Omega to satisfy his biological needs.  A disquieting air settled over the pair of them, something that never happened when they spent time together.  There weren't awkward silences between them, but neither one of them seemed to know what to say.  Y/N reached over and laced her fingers with his.  

“Well,” she said managing to keep the complicated emotions out of her voice. “I'll do whatever I can to help you through when it hits.”  Her smile was strained.  “Until you find...someone.”  His smile was equally tight and he squeezed her fingers.

***This will be minimal angst, just a sprinkle of conflict for the sake of plot. After Endgame (don't worry, no spoilers here!!) I'm in need of some nice fluff and sexy smut. Not sure how many chapters this will have yet, but it will probably be much shorter than my previous a/b/o fic, Necessary Paradox.***

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[labingi-blog]

Mirage of Blaze Plays: Review and Some Kagetora/Naoe Thoughts

(For the fully formatted post, go here: http://labingi.dreamwidth.org/140269.html)

Many thanks to imperfekti for a) informing me that Mirage of Blaze Showa period stage plays exist and b) doing excellent summaries so that I can sort of tell what's going on:

http://michiru2042.tumblr.com/post/128310313517/mirage-of-blaze-yonakidori-blues-summary-part-5

http://imperfekti.tumblr.com/post/150910620139/mirage-of-blaze-stage-play-ruritsubame-blues-part

I have got my hands on the DVDs for the first two, thanks to demitas, who used her Japanese skills to order them for me. And now I have thinky thoughts. To begin reviewish stuff:

Reviewish Thoughts on Mirage Stage Plays Caveat: I can't fully "review" these plays, of course, because I can't understand 95% of the script. For the same reason, I can't fully assess these plays against any other Mirage material that hasn't been translated into English, so please take my thoughts with the appropriate grains of salt.

In a word, I loved these plays. They're very successful theater: wonderful use of lighting and sound effects to create very much the same level of physical excitement I personally get from a big budget movie. It's a great way to bring a text with comparatively small financial pull to life (and I'd love to see more of this in the fine arts). The acting, in general, is very good and the characters very in character. I would recommend these plays to anyone who is a serious Mirage fan. They are an important addition to the universe. I laid down a fair amount of money (~$160 USD) to buy them and get them shipped from Japan, and although I am not rich, I consider it money well spent. They're that good.  

SPOILERS FOLLOW…

Setup: The plays take place c. 1958, that is, the beginning of the events that culminate in all the Minako-era horror (the two plays do not nearly get that far). Basically, everybody is in the body they possessed just before the original Mirage novels. These two plays concern the resurgence of Nobunaga with the Yashashuu attempting to foil him and being depressed at the idea that he's back. They also meet and begin to befriend Minako.

Plotty side note: most of what I know of this era in novel canon comes from summaries and discussions, and it's a bit hazy, but I have a suspicion there are some changed premises from the narrative in the original novels. I welcome clarifications.

At this point in time, Kagetora is Kase, a World War II veteran (and, thus, a significantly physically older Kagetora than we are accustomed to). Naoe, in contrast, is in the body of Kasahara, a lad at medical school and thus physically much younger than Kagetora, which is weird and interesting. For further summary, I'll refer you to Imperfekti's links above; she does a wonderful, thorough job and with pictures.

Acting Generally, the acting and character concepts are very good. Irobe, Haruie, and Nagahide (who appears only in the second play) are very much themselves. Nagahide feels a little lighter than I'm accustomed to, a bit more playful, less mean, but that could be perfectly in keeping with life before everything really goes to hell. A few actors are doing dual roles: original personality and person/spirit possessing the body, and they navigate this really well. This includes Minako. The actress has good range and brings a nice subtlety to a basically "good girl" part.

But let's talk about Naoe (Aramaki Yoshihiko) and Kagetora (Tomita Sho). (I think I have the actors right, but somebody let me know if I have them backwards.)

I'm going to start with just about the only negative thing I have to say about these plays. I don't think Aramaki carries off Naoe. He's a very gifted physical actor. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a background in dance, and he's competent in every respect, but Naoe is a complicated character—Naoe stuck in the body of a college student even more so—and I did not get a real sense of "Naoe" out of this performance. I suspect the script is good and the character well written, and if you can understand the dialogue, that doubtless helps the overall effect, but the acting per se feels wooden to me, the gestures a bit contrived, the facial expressions stiff, and so on.

I will give some handicap points for the fact that Naoe is stuck in a body he himself is not comfortable in. He's only been in it for three years. He's socially treated as younger than all his compatriots, and this is awkward. So a certain woodenness may be exactly what Naoe's feeling. But that allowance made, I still didn't feel the spark.

This slight "miss" in the performance stands in radical contrast to Tomita as Kagetora, who is a revelation. So now that the negative is out of the way, let me gush. Damn, this man is a good actor! While it's a stage play, and everyone broadcasts to the back rows, there's a tremendous nuance in his performance (facial expressions, etc.), much of which I expect the audience can't directly see in a live production but which undergirds the whole feel of the character. And he can cry on demand! Which brings us to…

Kagetora (and Naoe) This theatrical conception of Kagetora is brilliant combination of scripting, casting, and acting that finds the sweet spot of being unexpected but also utterly in character. As Imperfekti observes in her summaries, Kase is not Takaya. But he is the person who will become Takaya and stands as both a fascinating presence in his own right and an instructive lens through which to read Takaya and his dynamics with Naoe thirty years later.

Kase brings to life a lot of things the novels <i>tell</i> us about Kagetora but don't <i>show</i> much. He is reserved, low key, very much in control, and sells better than Takaya the idea that he's the leader everyone on his team looks up to. Unlike Takaya, he rarely shows the chinks in his armor. When he does, it usually comes out as grandstanding at Naoe, which is, in itself, a refusal to really show the chinks. Or occasionally, he'll give a speech about how hard it all is, but this is a far cry from Takaya's tendency to launch into long spiels about the details of his anguish with people who, on a conscious level, he thinks are complete strangers (Ujiteru, Kaizaki).

This greatly enhances my understanding of why Naoe is so intimidated by Kagetora, why he so often accuses Takaya (even poor teenage Takaya without most of his memories!) of treating him like a dog. Kase really does do a number on Naoe—Takaya does too, and Naoe and Kagetora surely do it to each other—but Kase does it with far greater consistency and, I think, more explicit manipulation than Takaya ever achieves. Takaya seems to go into a sort of "Kagetora mode," in which he berates Naoe for being a worthless sycophant and dares him to leave or not to leave, but this feels more like habit, like an inability to snap out of it, than a reasoned strategy for dealing with Naoe. In fact, it often runs directly contrary to what he wants to express. With Kase, it feels like a strategy, at least in part, a performance he passes on to Takaya even though, by Takaya's time, he no longer really wants to use it.

It is worth noting that Kasahara!Naoe is bad to Kase too. In fact, he's much more physically aggressive than I expected from Naoe in that era. (I wonder how much this is a changed premise for theatrical effect? I had the impression, based on what I don't know, that Naoe in that era was reserved and correct until it all busts out with Minako.) In any case, Naoe's behavior is bad, no question, but I do understand his sense of extremis.

Kase's pattern of behavior to him is psychologically manipulative, arguably to the point of abuse. It consists of a push-pull in which a dominant sense of combative disapproval, for what seems little reason, is occasionally interrupted by a tender, relative openness: sharing a drink, a vulnerability, a reminiscence, etc. This is a formula for profoundly wounding someone by giving them just enough affection to keep them emotionally dependent and in a constant state of fear over when the other shoe is going to drop. Mind you, I don't think Kase does this completely intentionally. He's trapped in a wounded relationship with Naoe too, needing him and unable to admit his need. But he sure as heck knows he is pushing Naoe's buttons, and he strategically does so to assert his ownership over someone he is fundamentally afraid of losing.

I find it interesting to set this "pure," un-Takaya-mediated dynamic against Naoe's later pattern of behavior to Takaya, which is abusive in a remarkably similar way: a push-pull in which he embodies loving support only to undercut Takaya's sense of security by lashing out in ugly, violent, nasty outbursts. Naoe, too, doesn't do all of this systematically. By the Takaya era, he's trapped between trying to forge a new, better relationship with Takaya and falling into the old patterns based on the old resentments against Kagetora. Still, there's an element of turnabout here, and it's certainly an effective way to get Takaya to feel very much what Kagetora has made Naoe feel.

All in all, this dynamic provides wonderful context for the craziness that is Naoetora in the novels.

There's a lot more to say, but I'll break here and pick it up in another post.

[poorquentyn]

Bestie! So yesterday I was thinking a lot about "The Drowned Man" as a chapter, and considering whether I would rank it among the best of AFFC (certainly)/ASOIAF (probs?). But since you're infinitely better at themes and ironborn stuff than I am, I wanted to hear you wax about it 😊

Hey Nina The Stand summed it up nicely in this description of Euron’s true identity forerunner Randall Flagg:

When he walked into a meeting, the hysterical babble ceased–the backbiting, recriminations, accusations, the ideological rhetoric. For a moment there would be dead silence and they would start to turn to him and then turn away, as if he had come to them with some old and terrible engine of destruction cradled in his arms, something a thousand times worse than the plastic explosive made in the basement labs of renegade chemistry students or the black market arms obtained from some greedy army post supply sergeant. It seemed that he had come to them with a device gone rusty with blood and packed for centuries in the Cosmoline of screams but now ready again, carried to their meeting like some infernal gift, a birthday cake with nitroglycerine candles. 

I’d probably call “The Drowned Man” the central chapter of AFFC, as Attewell argued RE Catelyn III ACOK. All the moods and ideas of the book are as one here: the comprehensive expression of the feast, the crows, and how we got ourselves to the point of watching the worst of said crows descending on said feast. That element of playing witness is very central to the chapter, because for all the political and metaphysical implications at play, “The Drowned Man” is ultimately rooted in our POV character.

Aeron Greyjoy’s story is a religiously-inflected gauntlet of nightmares, designed to pierce his external performance (the Voice of God) and his inner defenses (the fog of repression surrounding his abuser, rendered as desperate mantras and flashes of imagery). The chapter opens with Damphair acknowledging, well before Dragonbinder and Euron’s triumph, that his armor is down:

Only when his arms and legs were numb from the cold did Aeron Greyjoy struggle back to shore and don his robes again.

He had run before the Crow’s Eye as if he were still the weak thing he had been, but when the waves broke over his head they reminded once more that that man was dead. I was reborn from the sea, a harder man and stronger.

This follows directly not only on him fleeing the feast tent in “The Iron Captain,” but also on his solo ruminations in “The Prophet,” in which Euron functioned as an offstage catalyst to Aeron’s fearful inner journey, helping us understand them both. That earlier chapter is at heart about measuring the gap between Aeron’s public persona and his inner demons, come home to roost. He starts off as secure as he can be (on the surface, which is all he allows himself to access), sure in his god, sure in himself, sure that CPR constitutes a miracle; he’s demanding imperiously of nobles if they’ve been drowned properly, aware of his cultural cachet and seeking to increase it.

And then, his “mighty pillars” come crashing down, and he is a child again, listening to his bedroom door squeak open.

Aeron was almost at the door when the maester cleared his throat, and said, “Euron Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.”

The Damphair turned. The hall had suddenly grown colder. The Crow’s Eye is half a world away. Balon sent him off two years ago, and swore that it would be his life if he returned. “Tell me,” he said hoarsely.

So as with Arianne’s queenmaking in Dorne, while the kingsmoot is at one level a collective expression of cultural defiance and a self-conception as separate from mainland Westeros, it’s also a deeply personal, intra-familial maneuver. Arianne’s rebelling against what she believes to be her father’s betrayal, and Aeron’s taking refuge in tradition as a defense against his abuser’s return. The Dornish plot, for all its many aspects and resonances, boils down to Doran and Arianne facing each other down across a cyvasse board, and the Ironborn plot, while also a social and cultural interrogation, takes as its engine Aeron’s fear and hatred of Euron.

Perhaps consequently, the peace and strength Aeron finds in the sea is the fragile, flickering heart of his character (more than ever in “The Forsaken”). It is genuine and moving, despite the lack of actual divine communication. 

No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul.

Memories are the bones of the soul: such a lovely weaving-together of the ethereal and the concrete! By repeatedly using the bones of Nagga’s Hill to symbolize Aeron’s internal struggle, GRRM links the overarching political ramifications of the Ironborn plot to the one-on-one confrontation of Aeron and Euron. His eye for the personal inside the large-scale movements of the plot is for me what makes all the new POVs in the Feastdance work so well; Cersei, Brienne, Asha, Arianne, Quentyn, and Jon Connington also have this kind of searingly intimate moment that draws you in so close it’s as if they’ve been POVs since book one.

And so the politics can begin, GRRM setting the scene in patient, exquisite fashion.

Dark clouds ran before the wind as the first light stole into the world. The black sky went grey as slate; the black sea turned grey-green; the black mountains of Great Wyk across the bay put on the blue-green hues of soldier pines. As color stole back into the world, a hundred banners lifted and began to flap. Aeron beheld the silver fish of Botley, the bloody moon of Wynch, the dark green trees of Orkwood. He saw warhorns and leviathans and scythes, and everywhere the krakens great and golden. Beneath them, thralls and salt wives begin to move about, stirring coals into new life and gutting fish for the captains and the kings to break their fasts. The dawnlight touched the stony strand, and he watched men wake from sleep, throwing aside their sealskin blankets as they called for their first horn of ale. Drink deep, he thought, for we have god’s work to do today.

The sea was stirring too. The waves grew larger as the wind rose, sending plumes of spray to crash against the longships. The Drowned God wakes, thought Aeron. He could hear his voice welling from the depths of the sea. I shall be with you here this day, my strong and faithful servant, the voice said. No godless man will sit my Seastone Chair.

It was there beneath the arch of Nagga’s ribs that his drowned men found him, standing tall and stern with his long black hair blowing in the wind. “Is it time?” Rus asked. Aeron gave a nod, and said, “It is. Go forth and sound the summons.”

In ASOS (oh man spoilers), a lot of powerful people died. AFFC is about the aftermath, examining how the survivors deal with death politically and personally, how the dead are both omnipresent and yet powerless to determine their legacy, and how all of this ultimately amounts to a rolled-out red carpet for the Others. In the specific case of the Ironborn, what we’re dealing with is the reckoning–or lack thereof–with the costs of Balon’s Old Way in the wake of the king’s death. We’ve already seen that dynamic at work in the first three chapters of this storyline, all of which comes to a head here…but before the Greyjoys, we get the other contestants, starting with our favorite candidate:

“The ironborn must have a king,” the priest insisted, after a long silence. “I ask again. Who shall be king over us?”

“I will,” came the answer from below.

At once a ragged cry of “Gylbert! Gylbert King!” went up. The captains gave way to let the claimant and his champions ascend the hill to stand at Aeron’s side beneath the ribs of Nagga. This would-be king was a tall spare lord with a melancholy visage, his lantern jaw shaved clean. His three champions took up their position two steps below him, bearing his sword and shield and banner. They shared a certain look with the tall lord, and Aeron took them for his sons. One unfurled his banner, a great black longship against a setting sun. “I am Gylbert Farwynd, Lord of the Lonely Light,” the lord told the kingsmoot.

Aeron knew some Farwynds, a queer folk who held lands on the westernmost shores of Great Wyk and the scattered isles beyond, rocks so small that most could support but a single household. Of those, the Lonely Light was the most distant, eight days’ sail to the northwest amongst rookeries of seals and sea lions and the boundless grey oceans. The Farwynds there were even queerer than the rest. Some said they were skinchangers, unholy creatures who could take on the forms of sea lions, walruses, even spotted whales, the wolves of the wild sea.

Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. “Make me your king, and I shall lead you there,” he cried. “We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen.”

His eyes, Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas. Mad eyes, he thought, fool’s eyes. The vision he spoke of was doubtless a snare set by the Storm God to lure the ironborn to destruction. The offerings that his men spilled out before the kingsmoot included sealskins and walrus tusks, arm rings made of whalebone, warhorns banded in bronze. The captains looked and turned away, leaving lesser men to help themselves to the gifts. When the fool was done talking and his champions began to shout his name, only the Farwynds took up the cry, and not even all of them. Soon enough the cries of “Gylbert! Gylbert King!” faded away to silence. The gull screamed loudly above them, and landed atop one of Nagga’s ribs as the Lord of the Lonely Light made his way back down the hill.

Y’all know in your hearts he was telling the truth, too. But srsly, we said our piece on Gylbert Farwynd: he’s Good Euron, down to the eyes, creating a mirroring effect. The kingsmoot ends as it begins, with someone promising to elevate the Ironborn above this “dry and dismal vale.” But GRRM knows how to use contrasts as well as parallels—just look how he follows up Gylbert’s vision.

Aeron Damphair stepped forward once more. “I ask again. Who shall be king over us?”

“Me!” a deep voice boomed, and once more the crowd parted.

The speaker was borne up the hill in a carved driftwood chair carried on the shoulders of his grandsons. A great ruin of a man, twenty stones heavy and ninety years old, he was cloaked in a white bearskin. His own hair was snow white as well, and his huge beard covered him like a blanket from cheeks to thighs, so it was hard to tell where the beard ended and the pelt began. Though his grandsons were great strapping men, they struggled with his weight on the steep stone steps. Before the Grey King’s Hall they set him down, and three remained below him as his champions.

Sixty years ago, this one might well have won the favor of the moot, Aeron thought, but his hour is long past.

“Aye, me!” the man roared from where he sat, in a voice as huge as he was. “Why not? Who better? I am Erik Ironmaker, for them who’s blind. Erik the Just. Erik Anvil-Breaker. Show them my hammer, Thormor.” One of his champions lifted it up for all to see; a monstrous thing it was, its haft wrapped in old leather, its head a brick of steel as large as a loaf of bread. “I can’t count how many hands I’ve smashed to pulp with that hammer,” Erik said, “but might be some thief could tell you. I can’t say how many heads I’ve crushed against my anvil neither, but there’s some widows could. I could tell you all the deeds I’ve done in battle, but I’m eight-and-eighty and won’t live long enough to finish. If old is wise, no one is wiser than me. If big is strong, no one’s stronger. You want a king with heirs? I’ve more’n I can count. King Erik, aye, I like the sound o’ that. Come, say it with me. ERIK! ERIK ANVIL-BREAKER! ERIK KING!”

Erik Ironmaker, clearly the Tormund of the Ironborn, is thoroughly grounded in the “dry and dismal vale.” His platform is that he represents the masculine ideal of the Ironborn, full stop. But Asha spots the same problem as Aeron, and gives it voice:

“Erik!” Men moved aside to let her through. With one foot on the lowest step, she said, “Erik, stand up.”

A hush fell. The wind blew, waves broke against the shore, men murmured in each other’s ears.

Erik Ironmaker stared down at Asha Greyjoy. “Girl. Thrice-damned girl. What did you say?”

“Stand up, Erik,” she called. “Stand up and I’ll shout your name with all the rest. Stand up and I’ll be the first to follow you. You want a crown, aye. Stand up and take it.”

The aforementioned masculine ideal is past its sell-by date. Erik wants the crown as a symbol of a life well lived (by his standards), but Asha’s implicitly arguing that this is a debate about the future, not the past. (Of course, her platform has its own blind spots. More in a bit!)

Next up is Dunstan Drumm.

He climbed the hill on his own two legs, and on his hip rode Red Rain, his famous sword, forged of Valyrian steel in the days before the Doom. His champions were men of note: his sons Denys and Donnel, both stout fighters, and between them Andrik the Unsmiling, a giant of a man with arms as thick as trees. It spoke well of the Drumm that such a man would stand for him.

“Where is it written that our king must be a kraken?” Drumm began. “What right has Pyke to rule us? Great Wyk is the largest isle, Harlaw the richest, Old Wyk the most holy. When the black line was consumed by dragonfire, the ironborn gave the primacy to Vickon Greyjoy, aye … but as lord, not king.”

It was a good beginning. Aeron heard shouts of approval, but they dwindled as the old man began to tell of the glory of the Drumms. He spoke of Dale the Dread, Roryn the Reaver, the hundred sons of Gormond Drumm the Oldfather. He drew Red Rain and told them how Hilmar Drumm the Cunning had taken the blade from an armored knight with wits and a wooden cudgel. He spoke of ships long lost and battles eight hundred years forgotten, and the crowd grew restive. He spoke and spoke, and then he spoke still more.

And when Drumm’s chests were thrown open, the captains saw the niggard’s gifts he’d brought them. No throne was ever bought with bronze, the Damphair thought. The truth of that was plain to hear, as the cries of “Drumm! Drumm! Dunstan King!” died away.

On the one hand, he’s absolutely right that the Greyjoys owe their primacy to the very polity against which they’re leading rebellions. On the other, he gets bogged down and fails to offer an affirmative case for something better, reflected in his paltry offerings.

These candidates provide context for the main act: the three Greyjoy candidates. That Victarion has nothing to offer but this…

“You all know me. If you want sweet words, look elsewhere. I have no singer’s tongue. I have an axe, and I have these.” He raised his huge mailed hands up to show them, and Nute the Barber displayed his axe, a fearsome piece of steel. “I was a loyal brother,” Victarion went on. “When Balon was wed, it was me he sent to Harlaw to bring him back his bride. I led his longships into many a battle, and never lost but one. The first time Balon took a crown, it was me sailed into Lannisport to singe the lion’s tail. The second time, it was me he sent to skin the Young Wolf should he come howling home. All you’ll get from me is more of what you got from Balon. That’s all I have to say.”

…resonates with Erik Ironmaker’s pitch. Victarion is the status quo candidate. He’s this guy:

(gif by stevemcqueened.tumblr.com)

Something is rotten in the state of the Iron Islands, and Vic can’t identify it, let alone deal with it. Again, the personal and political are intertwined: deep down, Victarion Greyjoy knows he’s unhappy, but can’t conceive of what to do about it. “Balon 2.0” is enough for many of the captains and kings, but not a majority, because Balon’s failures are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

So how does Balon’s chosen heir respond?

“Nuncle says he’ll give you more of what my father gave you. Well, what was that? Gold and glory, some will say. Freedom, ever sweet. Aye, it’s so, he gave us that … and widows too, as Lord Blacktyde will tell you. How many of you had your homes put to the torch when Robert came? How many had daughters raped and despoiled? Burnt towns and broken castles, my father gave you that. Defeat was what he gave you. Nuncle here will give you more. Not me.”

“What will you give us?” asked Lucas Codd. “Knitting?”

“Aye, Lucas. I’ll knit us all a kingdom.” She tossed her dirk from hand to hand. “We need to take a lesson from the Young Wolf, who won every battle … and lost all.”

“A wolf is not a kraken,” Victarion objected. “What the kraken grasps it does not lose, be it longship or leviathan.”

“And what have we grasped, Nuncle? The north? What is that, but leagues and leagues of leagues and leagues, far from the sound of the sea? We have taken Moat Cailin, Deepwood Motte, Torrhen’s Square, even Winterfell. What do we have to show for it?” She beckoned, and her Black Wind men pushed forward, chests of oak and iron on their shoulders. “I give you the wealth of the Stony Shore,” Asha said as the first was upended. An avalanche of pebbles clattered forth, cascading down the steps; pebbles grey and black and white, worn smooth by the sea. “I give you the riches of Deepwood,” she said, as the second chest was opened. Pinecones came pouring out, to roll and bounce down into the crowd. “And last, the gold of Winterfell.” From the third chest came yellow turnips, round and hard and big as a man’s head. They landed amidst the pebbles and the pinecones. Asha stabbed one with her dirk. “Harmund Sharp,” she shouted, “your son Harrag died at Winterfell, for this.” She pulled the turnip off her blade and tossed it to him. “You have other sons, I think. If you’d trade their lives for turnips, shout my nuncle’s name!”

“And if I shout your name?” Harmund demanded. “What then?”

“Peace,” said Asha. “Land. Victory. I’ll give you Sea Dragon Point and the Stony Shore, black earth and tall trees and stones enough for every younger son to build a hall. We’ll have the northmen too … as friends, to stand with us against the Iron Throne. Your choice is simple. Crown me, for peace and victory. Or crown my nuncle, for more war and more defeat.” She sheathed her dirk again. “What will you have, ironmen?”

Asha comes the closest to Grandpa Quellon’s reformation, but she’s got a fatal blind spot regarding Balon’s wars and their effect on both the North and the Ironborn. The former are not going to accept the latter’s control of the Stony Shore, let alone forge an active alliance against the Iron Throne, especially after what Theon did at Winterfell. Asha doesn’t even stop to consider the Northern perspective on the Ironborn, the cost and consequences of her family’s actions in Stark territory—she just assumes she can create a lasting peace through hostages. But she can’t. The North wants Theon Turncloak’s people gone, which is why Stannis and the Boltons are both trying to win over Northerners by fighting Ironborn. Asha’s ADWD chapters are all about her facing this:

Asha smiled back. “Mormont women are all fighters too.”

The other woman’s smile faded. “What we are is what you made us. On Bear Island every child learns to fear krakens rising from the sea.”

The Old Way. Asha turned away, chains clinking faintly.

Of course, Asha’s also running up against the patriarchy, and many of the captains and kings associate giving up any conquest with a “craven’s peace.” So I’m not entirely blaming Asha here, as again she’s much closer to a sustainable path than her (kraken) uncles, but she fails to offer a sufficiently powerful counter-narrative, and so leaves the door open for Euron. In the moments before he begins his pitch, chaos reigns.

Men began to shove at one another. Someone flung a pinecone at Asha’s head. When she ducked, her makeshift crown fell off. For a moment it seemed to the priest as if he stood atop a giant anthill, with a thousand ants in a boil at his feet. Shouts of “Asha!” and “Victarion!” surged back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf them all.

That is the war; that is the feast; that is everything the Others need. So what better “savage storm” to interrupt this “squabbling over spoils” than the apocalypse?

Sharp as a swordthrust, the sound of a horn split the air.

Bright and baneful was its voice, a shivering hot scream that made a man’s bones seem to thrum within him. The cry lingered in the damp sea air: aaaaRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

All eyes turned toward the sound. It was one of Euron’s mongrels winding the call, a monstrous man with a shaved head. Rings of gold and jade and jet glistened on his arms, and on his broad chest was tattooed some bird of prey, talons dripping blood.

aaaaRRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The horn he blew was shiny black and twisted, and taller than a man as he held it with both hands. It was bound about with bands of red gold and dark steel, incised with ancient Valyrian glyphs that seemed to glow redly as the sound swelled.

aaaaaaaRRREEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

It was a terrible sound, a wail of pain and fury that seemed to burn the ears. Aeron Damphair covered his, and prayed for the Drowned God to raise a mighty wave and smash the horn to silence, yet still the shriek went on and on. It is the horn of hell, he wanted to scream, though no man would have heard him. The cheeks of the tattooed man were so puffed out they looked about to burst, and the muscles in his chest twitched in a way that it made it seem as if the bird were about to rip free of hisflesh and take wing. And now the glyphs were burning brightly, every line and letter shimmering with white fire. On and on and on the sound went, echoing amongst the howling hills behind them and across the waters of Nagga’s Cradle to ring against the mountains of Great Wyk, on and on and on until it filled the whole wet world.

Such are the bones of Euron’s soul. This is what the inside of his skull looks like: an LSD-soaked portal to hell, driven by blood sacrifice and a keen understanding of the sweet spot between fear and awe. This horror-tinged passage is supposed to feel jarring, like something out of a completely different genre; Euron’s not really a part of the debate he just interrupted, but is rather out to hijack it for his own apocalyptic ends. (Remember: what is signaled by three horn blasts? “Others.”) Look at what he’s disrupting: a “giant anthill.” Damphair’s kingsmoot was made to be bulldozed; it’s a fragile gathering of fragments against the ruin. The weaknesses were there to be exploited…but of course, Euron has to put on his pirate suit to do so.

The Crow’s Eye stopped atop the steps, at the doors of the Grey King’s Hall, and turned his smiling eye upon the captains and the kings, but Aeron could feel his other eye as well, the one that he kept hidden.

“IRONMEN,” said Euron Greyjoy, “you have heard my horn. Now hear my words. I am Balon’s brother, Quellon’s eldest living son. Lord Vickon’s blood is in my veins, and the blood of the Old Kraken. Yet I have sailed farther than any of them. Only one living kraken has never known defeat Only one has never bent his knee. Only one has sailed to Asshai by the Shadow, and seen wonders and terrors beyond imagining …”

GRRM consistently uses the “smiling eye” as a microcosm of Euron’s public face, and the Crow’s Eye as a microcosm of the self he keeps hidden from his fellow Ironborn (other than Aeron). I’m the ultimate pirate, guys, nothing else to see here—just look at my eyepatch, and don’t worry about what I’m hiding underneath it. Indeed, Euron knows his audience well, constructing his argument patiently; only after establishing his Old Way bona fides can he then take the next step.

“My little brother would finish Balon’s war, and claim the north. My sweet niece would give us peace and pinecones.” His blue lips twisted in a smile. “Asha prefers victory to defeat. Victarion wants a kingdom, not a few scant yards of earth. From me, you shall have both.”

For all Euron’s skills, he only wins because both Vic and Asha’s platforms are riddled with flaws—and not only that, the flaws compound each other, allowing Euron to link them together rhetorically as insufficient. This resonates with the captains and kings because the Balon-Aeron-Victarion agenda has immense cultural appeal but has blatantly failed to deliver on its promises, while Asha’s platform would push the Ironborn in a better direction but isn’t convincing enough (emotionally or pragmatically) to be an effective rallying point. Euron, ever the postmodern magpie, steals the most appealing aspects of both and frames it as the ultimate Ironborn dream of conquest. My brothers’ dream has fallen miserably short in reality, and my niece is telling you stop dreaming. The former cannot defeat the greenlanders, the latter is telling you to admit that—in a way that won’t bring peace anyway! I will be the best of both worlds, doing what the former cannot and the latter wants to give up on. In short: Euron tells the Ironborn that they’re losers but can be winners if they follow and imitate him, whereas Victarion won’t admit they’re losers and Asha won’t let them win. It’s such a potent appeal to cultural self-conception and resentment that it even sways Damphair, if only for a moment:

“We are the ironborn, and once we were conquerors. Our writ ran everywhere the sound of the waves was heard. My brother would have you be content with the cold and dismal north, my niece with even less … but I shall give you Lannisport. Highgarden. The Arbor. Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne and the marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the Stepstones. I say we take it all! I say, we take Westeros.” He glanced at the priest. “All for the greater glory of our Drowned God, to be sure.”

For half a heartbeat even Aeron was swept away by the boldness of his words. The priest had dreamed the same dream, when first he’d seen the red comet in the sky. We shall sweep over the green lands with fire and sword, root out the seven gods of the septons and the white trees of the northmen …

But the rest of the crowd, of course, sees only the “smiling eye.” Our POV knows better, and being in Aeron’s head primes us to see the cracks in Euron’s facade, the tears in his pirate suit. Only Aeron recognizes, at chapter’s end, that Euron is out to dethrone the gods.

Even a priest may doubt. Even a prophet may know terror. Aeron Damphair reached within himself for his god and discovered only silence. [Because that’s the name of Euron’s ship, you see] As a thousand voices shouted out his brother’s name, all he could hear was the scream of a rusted iron hinge.

Euron cares not for the Seastone Chair, nor even the Iron Throne, not really. So what is he in this for?

“Crow’s Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow? After every battle the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the fallen. A crow can espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days.”

There it is, right? AFFC summarized: “all of Westeros is dying.” The war has rendered Westeros a fit meal for Euron…and the Others. And indeed, the “anthill” of the kingsmoot is a perfect microcosm of that political impotence in the face of the abyss. That’s the message “The Drowned Man” communicates: we let Trump Euron happen. As I’ve argued before, the essence of great horror isn’t that the monsters are at the door. It’s that we’re going to let them in.