#except for the hearing plotline we see what he sees. we feel what he feels

[iirulancorrino]

Movies that attempt something different, that recognize that less can indeed be more, are thus easily taken to task. “It’s so subjective!” and “It omits a crucial P.O.V.!” are assumed to be substantive criticisms rather than essentially value-neutral statements. We are sometimes told, in matters of art and storytelling, that depiction is not endorsement; we are not reminded nearly as often that omission is not erasure. But because viewers of course cannot be trusted to know any history or muster any empathy on their own — and if anything unites those who criticize “Oppenheimer” on representational grounds, it’s their reflexive assumption of the audience’s stupidity — anything that isn’t explicitly shown onscreen is denigrated as a dodge or an oversight, rather than a carefully considered decision. A film like “Oppenheimer” offers a welcome challenge to these assumptions. Like nearly all Nolan’s movies, from “Memento” to “Dunkirk,” it’s a crafty exercise in radical subjectivity and narrative misdirection, in which the most significant subjects — lost memories, lost time, lost loves — often are invisible and all the more powerful for it. We can certainly imagine a version of “Oppenheimer” that tossed in a few startling but desultory minutes of Japanese destruction footage. Such a version might have flirted with kitsch, but it might well have satisfied the representational completists in the audience. It also would have reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a piddling afterthought; Nolan treats them instead as a profound absence, an indictment by silence. That’s true even in one of the movie’s most powerful and contested sequences. Not long after news of Hiroshima’s destruction arrives, Oppenheimer gives a would-be-triumphant speech to a euphoric Los Alamos crowd, only for his words to turn to dust in his mouth. For a moment, Nolan abandons realism altogether — but not, crucially, Oppenheimer’s perspective — to embrace a hallucinatory horror-movie expressionism. A piercing scream erupts in the crowd; a woman’s face crumples and flutters, like a paper mask about to disintegrate. The crowd is there and then suddenly, with much sonic rumbling, image blurring and an obliterating flash of white light, it is not. For “Oppenheimer’s” detractors, this sequence constitutes its most grievous act of erasure: Even in the movie’s one evocation of nuclear disaster, the true victims have been obscured and whitewashed. The absence of Japanese faces and bodies in these visions is indeed striking. It’s also consistent with Nolan’s strict representational parameters, and it produces a tension, even a contradiction, that the movie wants us to recognize and wrestle with. Is Oppenheimer trying (and failing) to imagine the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians murdered by the weapon he devised? Or is he envisioning some hypothetical doomsday scenario still to come? I think the answer is a blur of both, and also something more: In this moment, one of the movie’s most abstract, Nolan advances a longer view of his protagonist’s history and his future. Oppenheimer’s blindness to Japanese victims and survivors foreshadows his own stubborn inability to confront the consequences of his actions in years to come. He will speak out against nuclear weaponry, but he will never apologize for the atomic bombings of Japan — not even when he visits Tokyo and Osaka in 1960 and is questioned by a reporter about his perspective now. “I do not think coming to Japan changed my sense of anguish about my part in this whole piece of history,” he will respond. “Nor has it fully made me regret my responsibility for the technical success of the enterprise.” Talk about compartmentalization. That episode, by the way, doesn’t find its way into “Oppenheimer,” which knows better than to offer itself up as the last word on anything. To the end, Nolan trusts us to seek out and think about history for ourselves. If we elect not to, that’s on us.

[meshlasolus]

House Of Memories (29/?)

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Padawan!reader

Warnings: okay so like this one's fun, very dark, but fun. not really a lot of warning except for maybe clone wars typical violence??

Summary: You've lost your path to the light... in an attempt to even the score, you travel with Anakin and Ahsoka to kill the man who took your master from you.

A/n: i cannot explain how much i LOVE this episode.... y'all needs understand i'm so hyped for this plotline it's my favorite in all of clone wars it's so angsty UGH

also y'all if you like the story, maybe consider buying me a coffee :)

Words: 3.8k

You did not sleep; you were never able to. You lied still until sunrise, and never rested. Obi-Wan was at eternal rest, but you were restless. It was impossible to calm your mind.

Your entire body was unable to move, weighted down by the heaviness in your head, swirling around and taunting you with its gruesome storm.

You faintly were able to hear the knocking sounds, two taps and then two more on the front entrance door. It shouldn't have made you anxious to hear it, but you were in no state of being to have any sort of company in your presence. You doubted you'd even be able to look whoever it was in the eye. You sure as hell wouldn't be able to speak.

Your prayers for them to leave went unanswered, as the door was opened, and a pair of footsteps came into the apartment, unwelcome. You curled even deeper into your solemn cocoon of sheets and blankets, closing your eyes and feeling darkness wash over you.

You'd welcomed the darkness during the night. The once scary and uncontrollable dark force inside of you, became the only thing that could bring you a semblance of peace... nay, not peace, but a quieter mind. When the darkness consumed you, your thoughts were not painful, just angry. You longed for revenge, to ease the pain and suffering. You were willing to let it drive you, to keep going, to live on after the loss you swore would be your end.

"She's not in her room," you heard Ahsoka's confused voice, and Anakin's reply, which came unsurprised from her words.

"She's in his."

You braced yourself to face your friends, or rather them facing you. You took in a breath in time with the small hiss of the door retracting, and now those same four feet brought their steps up to you, seeing your huddled up form lying motionless in the bed... Obi-Wan's bed.

"Is she awake?" Ahsoka couldn't be sure, she wasn't so in tune with your presence as Anakin was, and yes, he knew you were awake, and trying to avoid them.

He sat beside you on the bed, his hand lifting to rest on your shoulder, his thumb moving in soothing motions that did nothing to help you.

"We got him, the sniper," Anakin told you, and your eyes shot open. What? They got him. What does he mean by that?

"Is he dead?" you asked shortly, your tone was so flat and uncaring, the complete opposite of what you used to be.

"No, he's in a max security prison."

You forced yourself to sit up, looking at Anakin with your dead, sleep deprived expression. He didn't look all that great himself, but you were a wreck. What happened to you?

You shot him a glare, and he could have sworn he saw a golden glow reflect off the center of your irises in that moment. It was gone the next, but it frightened him all the same.

"You brought him in without me?" you barely moved, your normal expressions of rage, with your wild hand movements were not included with your statement... but no, this was far more terrifying. The state you were in, the way you spoke, it all told Anakin that you were battling the darkness, or maybe it had won. He was in no position to tell you it was wrong, because he himself was having to fight it, still.

"The council thought it best to avoid your inclusion," Ahsoka replied, trying to defend Anakin, but also deflect your attention for a moment. You had never looked more lethal than you did right now, wrapped up in Obi-Wan's blankets and clinging to his bed.

You turned your head in her direction now, and she gasped, having seen the face of the girl she knew become cold and ruthless.

"The council did not know what Obi-Wan meant to me; you did. And you decided not to tell me about finding his killer," you had to use every ounce of restrain in your body not to force call an object to your hand, before you would inevitably throw it across the room, shattering someone breakable. You still loved these people, you couldn't hurt them.

"He was unarmed, you would have killed him."

Anakin's words meant nothing to you, because yes, of course you would kill him. He could be begging for mercy at your feet, and you would use your saber to cut every limb from his body until he was unable to even crawl to safety, then you would end his life in the slowest, most agonizing way you could possibly think of.

"And would you have stopped me?" It was a valid question, if you had been there, you wouldn't have hesitated, but would Anakin let you go through with it?

He ducked his head, unwilling to lie to your compelling question, but not wanting to answer truthfully, knowing it would be a travesty against your master's teachings.

"Obi-Wan would not want us to act on revenge."

Good answer, but not the one you were looking for.

"The answer is no; you would have let me kill him in an instant," you corrected him, and he shot his head up to meet your dark eyeline. Everything about you emanated so much weight, something so deep that he began to feel the effects of it in his signature.

"It's not the Jedi way," Ahsoka reminded you, and for a moment you thought you heard Obi-Wan's voice echoing the sentiment to your mind, but it didn't instill in you a need to respect it.

"The Jedi have become corrupt, the republic has made us an army, and we do their bidding without hesitation. The Jedi way has fallen far from what it used to be, and you both know it."

You were getting more frustrated as the time passed, and you sent into Anakin's mind a hint that you wanted them to just stay away from you, to leave you alone and to let you wallow in your misery.

He looked at Ahsoka and nodded for her to leave the room, before ultimately, he stood to his feet, and followed after her. Before he shut the door, he turned back one more time. He shuddered to even speak the words he wanted to say, but they needed to be said.

"Obi-Wan said to us once, that if you suffer to let go, you will suffer to grow."

And then he was gone.

Obi-Wan was ever as wise as his former Master, and often you wondered why he was never a consular like Qui Gon. It was his spirit that was a Guardian. His passionate heart to defend his will and the will of the force, to defend those he cared about, the ones closest to him, and to defend you. He always defended you, and you relied on it, more than you should, but now you have to fight your own battles, and you need more strength than you have.

Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t build character. It only hurts.

-

You heard the news of the prison break, it echoed in the halls outside of your apartment, and you were practically jumping out of bed to make sure you hadn't misunderstood anything.

The chancellor was sending Anakin and Ahsoka to capture the escaped prisoners, that of which included Moralo Evol, Cad Bane, and of course, Rako Hardeen.

They would likely be leaving soon to follow the trail that the prison had begun to track.

You needed to be on the ship before it left, this was your chance. This was your chance to even the score, it was your chance to avenge the life of your Master, the one you'd adored so dearly.

You were wearing his robes, and his old cloak, which he kept with him since his padawancy, even after taking the trials, it was a sentimental article that meant something to him. It fit you quite well, and it was full of echoes in the force, from his time and training before you entered his life. There were some remnants of yourself you could sense within the ragged fabric, a younger version of yourself who's trouble seemed so foolish, now.

Your saber was on your hip as you walked down the corridors to the elevator. There were few Jedi, but several clone squads that stared on. Some were from the 212th, which was now your battalion by inheritance. You never gave any of them a second glance, your focus was uninterrupted, and would remain that way until you had accomplished your main goal.

Stepping into the elevator, you caught sight of Master Kit Fisto, who had looked at you with disbelief before the elevator doors were shut and your view was blocked from his expression.

Everyone you passed on the way to the hanger seemed to be completely distracted by you, and you knew why. They sensed it in you, the vengeance was radiating off of you like hot steam, filling the air with the mist and heat when you walked by them. It was frightening to them for sure, to see a young girl who was so optimistic become so enraptured with hatred for a single being.

You saw Anakin and Ahsoka in the distance, waiting on their ship to be fueled, and you approached them swiftly, non-hesitant. Your confidence could not be swayed, even if they cut it down with a lightsaber, you would quickly rebuild it, and keep moving.

"What are you doing here?" Anakin stopped you from going any further, placing himself in the way of the ship and not allowing you even an inch of access.

"I'm coming with you. You'll need my help," you insisted, and though he knew you were very capable of doing so, he was still worried that your emotion will cloud your judgement. "He was my master, Anakin."

"He was mine, too. I understand how you feel, and I'm not going to hold you back, but I need to know you're up for this," he crossed his arms, looking down on you and waiting for a sign of your readiness. You furrowed your brow and shook your head, stepping forward so that you were nearly nose to nose.

"I will not rest until I know the man responsible for Obi-Wan's death has been taken out."

He sighed. That wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear, but he knew better than to argue with you when you were angry, especially this new side of you.

"Let's go," he stepped aside, letting you up onto the ramp, following after you and Ahsoka when you walked up.

The first planet they had been tracked to was already set in the coordinates in the pilot's console, and with Ahsoka as copilot, you figured you would sit in the back, and be company to yourself.

The ride was long, and silent.

Sitting in the hull of the ship, you waited. You waited for them to come back and tell you where you would inevitably find the escaped bounty hunters. You held your saber in your right hand, sliding your thumb up and down over the crystal chamber. It was a subconscious movement, simple and fluid, but you had no idea the affects you were causing with it.

You were already filled with so much anger, so much hatred, you let it motivate you, you allowed it to consume your signature in its whole. You hated that it had this much control over you, the darkness, but it made you stronger, you could feel its power in your veins, every muscle felt energized by the dark force. It was pushing you towards the only new success you craved: vengeance.

You closed your eyes, meditating on this darkness for the first time since you let it overtake you. You absentmindedly kept your hand around your saber, clenching it tightly and using it as a tether.

You weren't sure how you felt, indulging in the darkness like this, to meditate on it in a way you'd been raised to avoid. The Jedi never told you how peaceful and quiet the darkness could be. They always mentioned it was made up of all the horrors you could not yet understand. Perhaps they were wrong.

For you, the dark side had worked almost seductively, luring you in with all it could offer, and empowering you to feel like you were untouchable. You did not even think that something like this could be bad.

You poured all your anger into your meditation, and let it fester, turning into raw power that you could later use to conquer your enemy, and make them-

"Kriff," You swore silently, dropping your saber to the ground for the way it began to burn your hand. It wasn't hot like fire, but the energy stung your skin, and you opened your eyes, letting them fall on where your weapon hit the ground of the ship.

You sensed that something was off, and when you picked it up, you felt it. You'd infused your weapon with your feelings, you may have damaged it from the inside. You ignited it, just as Anakin and Ahsoka were now coming back aboard the ship, and all at once you all witnessed what you had done to your lightsaber, your treasured weapon. This weapon is your life...

"What did you do?" Anakin asked in confusion, looking at the blade in disbelief.

The beautiful green glow that emanated from the hilt was only halfway there, as it collided with the dark red that took over its beauty, and made it into something new, something deeper, something more powerful.

"I don't know."

He looked once at his Padawan, nodding for her to go and start the ship. You were still gazing upon the new red and green glow of your saber, mesmerized by the duality it now possessed. It was quite lovely, and you'd never seen anything like it before.

"We have to talk about this," Anakin said gently as he walked over to you. "I know it's hard to resist the darkness, but you're making me concerned."

You deactivated the saber, clipping it back to your hilt and letting it fall by your side. You looked back at Anakin and saw your truest friend as confidant, the person you felt you could be honest with, and the only other person in this galaxy who might be feeling even a shred of your loss, your grief.

"I can't feel the light anymore... I'm trying, I promise," it wasn't a lie. You were struggling beyond measure to find even the slightest bit of connection to the light side of the force, but every time you thought of your master's teachings, the way he led you, guided you, it pushed you back to the start... but the dark side let you in, and it embraced you with open arms, like it had been waiting all this time.

"This isn't the Jedi way; this isn't what Obi-Wan would want for you."

"Obi-Wan didn't want for me to suffer like this, either," you said, a tear that threatened to spill over but was held back for the sake of your sanity. You couldn't stand to cry anymore, it just kept you in the same state of pain.

"Going against the order won't do us any favors... the council already looks down on us, anything we do is under their scrutiny."

He tried getting closer, but soon realized that was a bad idea.

"I'm going to be expelled," you let out, scoffing with furrowed brows. You were so confident that it would happen, because deep down, even before you lost Obi-Wan, you felt you weren't meant for the Jedi. You felt that they only accepted you because they had to.

"You won't be expelled. They might act like they hate you, but for Obi-Wan's sake they would still care enough to help you."

“No, they won't. All they have ever done is lie to me. To the both of us. For almost our whole lives, we have been told to follow a code. No emotion, but peace. No ignorance, but knowledge. No passion, but serenity. No chaos, but harmony. No death, but the Force,” you stepped forward to him, and though you were not trying to, your force caused the ship to rattle and vibrate beneath you, “But, anger is what brings me peace. The passion to want to hurt the person who killed him…is what brings me serenity.”

He couldn't believe what he was hearing, the strained look in your eyes to hold back tears, your clenched fists. It was all too much for Anakin to take. He was still battling the dark, but for you, the darkness had won. The only way you would be coming back to the temple with him would be if by some miracle, killing the bounty hunter gave you your clarity back.

"You will kill him, I promise."

And with that, he was back in the cockpit, leaving you to fume in the hull.

-

The chase was on, and as you spotted the hunters in the docking port to obtain fuel, you heart pounded deeply in your chest. You were hovered over Ahsoka's seat, watching everything going on and making sure you had the perfect view.

"I have eyes on Cad Bane," Ahsoka said, nodding to the entrance ramp on the ship in the dock.

"Are you sure that's him?"

You scoffed and nodded along with Ahsoka.

"Who else wears a hat like that?"

Anakin circled the station slowly, being careful not to attract any unwanted attention, or to give away to the hunter that you were, in fact, after them.

He waited until they were airborne, letting them gain some speed before he rammed your ship into theirs. You jolted forward, catching yourself between the seats as you stood back up into a straight position. You could see them react rather quickly, but they had nowhere to go. The ship they were in had half the speed and agility capabilities that yours had.

"Ahsoka, take over, we'll bring them down ourselves."

You smirked, discarding your cloak and shaking off your nerves. This was finally it; you were about to set in motion a series of events that would end in the death of Rako Hardeen. You hopped at the chance to jump out of the ship with Anakin, landing on the stabilizer panel by the wing.

Anakin tried to gain access through one of the side entry points, but was immediately met with a challenge, fending off Cad Bane. He was perfectly capable of taking him on, and probably ten other men if he needed to, so you left him in order to find your real target.

You climbed up in front of the cockpit, seeing Moralo Evol looked scared out of his wits. You scanned the area, and as soon as your eyes met with the man who killed Obi-Wan, you froze. Something didn't feel right, but that must have been the anxiety talking. Everything else, the hatred, the anger, the fire that was lit beneath you, it pushed you forward.

He looked at you with not a semblance of fear, but with confusion, and dismay. He made eye contact with you, and for whatever you reason, he looked distraught, like he was sad. It didn't make any sense, but you weren't going to let it bother you. In the end, he would die by your hand, and nothing could stop you, now.

You placed your hand on the glass, focusing the new dark energy within yourself, and using it to slowly crack the glass. The hunter you sought after wasn't scared of you now, but he would be. You'd make sure of it.

You detached your lightsaber from your belt, holding it out to your side and activating it, never breaking eye contact with the man you called your target. You wouldn't be letting him out of your sight. His mouth gaped open and having seen the half-bleeding blade of your saber, he now held deep fear in his eyes.

The glass was almost shattered, with only a few lines left to connect with each other, and Rako knew he had to act fast. He shifted the steering on the ship, lifting it into a climb momentarily, causing the ship that Ahsoka flew above it to collide with the top, and send both transports spiraling into the ground. You were thrown from the vessel, along with Anakin and the other hunter, Bane.

You stood to your feet after coughing up a small amount of dust that you'd inhaled, and then you dusted yourself off, force pulling your saber to your hand as it had landed a bit further from you.

You activated it, stepping through the cloud of fog that surrounded you, and finding the man you were here for. He had gotten off the ship, for what reason you were unsure, but it didn't matter. He was making it easier for you.

You saw Anakin step closer to him on the other side of the fog, surrounding him from leaving in any direction.

"You're going to pay for what you've done," Anakin engaged him in hand-to-hand combat, throwing him into a pit, which you quickly jumped into.

Anakin was kicked back into a corner, so you took your chance, pushing Hardeen into the rocky wall that had formed around the hole in the ground.

"You shouldn't have gotten involved," Rako sounded, for lack of a better word, exasperated, like he took no joy in fighting you both. He had no problem in killing your master, so what was any different now, with the both of you?

You took a hit to the shoulder from Cad Bane, who was fast approaching on your left. You deflected his next shots with your saber, and struck forward, taking out one of his boot thrusters. He was grounded for now, and you needed to focus on the target.

Anakin was now tangled up in a bash with Bane, so you fixed your saber on Hardeen, slowly walking towards him as he struggled to stand to his feet.

"You took everything from me," and then you were right in front of him. He looked at you with eyes of pity, and it bothered you to no end. You were about to bring this man's life to a pathetic halt, and he was the one looking onto you as if you deserved to be pitied. You hated him, hated the very ground he stood on.

You raised your saber, only for it to stop in the air, along with your arm. Why can't I move?

Rako tackled you into the ground, deactivating your saber, and pinning you beneath him, arms on either side of your head. He straddled your hips and put nearly all his weight to keep you immobile, before he leaned down and whispered in your ear.

"I can't hurt you... Stay down, little one."

You froze, a gasp leaving your throat and your eyes widening in shock.

"Obi..." you trailed off, complete disbelief washing over you. You felt a warm, comforting presence embrace you, before his hands at the side of your head faded you into unconsciousness.

-

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[markantonys]

amol chapters 21-36, though once again contains major spoilers for character endgame fates that still haven’t happened yet as of chapter 36

so asha’man can compel aes sedai with the bond but aes sedai can’t compel asha’man? that’s rancid

“she also wanted to be done with the black tower” mood!

my man demandred shows up with the sharans, being very sexy as always. don’t lie, we all have our FILF (forsaken i’d like to fuck) demandred is mine 100%. i love an evil man with a weird nose and an antagonistic homoerotic obsession with the hero (see: francesco pazzi in i medici season 2). i hope he doesn’t get cut from the show and instead absorbs some of the less sexy forsaken’s plotlines so that he can have something to do prior to the final season lmao

he’s acting like a jilted ex by claiming that he has “crawled through the depths of sorrow and risen up to accept my glory,” asking people if they know anything about rand, saying that leane is beautiful but he doesn’t give a shit because he just wants her to deliver a message to rand. “tell him i will finally have satisfaction.” literally the gayest possible way you could’ve phrased that my dude

“i will slaughter and destroy. i will seize his people. i will enslave his children, i will take his women for my own. one by one, i will break, destroy, or dominate everything he has loved. the only way for him to avoid this is for him to come and face me.” somebody is not taking his recent breakup well! his recent 3000-years-ago breakup. on a more serious note, exhibit fucking A of how stupid it was for bashere to make elayne publicize that rand is the babies’ dad!

i’m laughing about all these gay dramatics because rand is literally about to go face the dark one, he does NOT have time for your shit demandred. he’s gonna hear this message and be like “oh my god why are you so obsessed with me” and then continue on to shayol ghul. the dark one is gonna be facepalming that demandred’s gay dramatics are trying to get in the way of his faceoff with rand.

previously we’ve discussed that demandred is mat’s foil, but he’s also gawyn’s foil: homoerotic obsession with rand that consumes their every waking thought meanwhile rand never thinks about them and has no idea they’re obsessed with him. but gawyn was able to get over his onesided breakup and find closure where demandred couldn’t. although rand DID have that angsty gay thought about how maybe demandred wouldn’t have turned to the shadow if rand/LTT had loved him instead of competed with him, so not quite as onesided as gawyn. we’ve also previously discussed mat and gawyn foiling each other (young extremely skilled military men thrust into leadership positions they didn’t want, wary of being used by aes sedai, complicated relationships with rand), so this is just a nice trio of foils here.

in conclusion, demandred and LTT are that post that’s like “characters that never dated but are definitely exes now”

when perrin vanishes graendal’s balefire in TAR: “the woman started. they always did that. didn’t they realize that nothing was real here except what you thought to be real?” i’m so sick of perrin reading 1 wikipedia article on TAR and then acting like he knows it better than women who’ve been studying it for years (he also kinda did this with the wise ones when they tried to warn him against going in the flesh and then once he did so he was like “this doesn’t feel evil, they’re wrong about that”)

“a warrior who will not strike a maiden is a warrior who refuses her honor.” king gaul!!! and we have quite a bit of both gaul and lanfear shaming perrin for Not Killing Women and perrin himself acknowledging that it was foolish of him not to kill graendal when he had the chance. this combined with lan’s scene in the last chapter chunk, i feel like sanderson is coming down hard on how stupid this rj attitude was lmao bless

lanfear says that graendal was invading bashere’s dreams oh no!!!! what did she do!!!! i’m remembering that min had some kinda Darkness viewing about bashere and biting my nails!!!

well, if bashere is under the influence of the shadow then at least that would explain why he made elayne endanger herself and the babies by making her tell everyone rand is the dad lmao idk if he WAS under the influence of the shadow back at that time, but i’m going to believe he was in order to rationalize that buckwild stupidity.

“[egwene] looked at [gawyn], a cold strength in her eyes, and nodded. light! how could she be so calm when he had to clench his teeth for fear they would start rattling together?” that’s our wife!!

gawyn is using the bloodknife rings oooh sexy

at the shayol ghul group, rand has placed aviendha in charge ❤️❤️ so we could’ve had rand facing off against the dark one, aviendha leading at shayol ghul, elayne leading the armies, and mat maybe helping her lead the armies if he was here instead of ebou dar. power polycule!!!

aviendha sees rand approaching the cavern: “he wore his coat of red and gold, but under it a simple two rivers shirt. what he had become and what he had been, wrapped together in one.” 😭 rand has two swords, callandor and laman’s sword. “he carried that because of her. fool man.” 😭😭 “aviendha raised her hand to him, and he raised his in return. that would be their only farewell if he failed in his task or she died during hers. with a last look, she turned away from him and toward her duty.” 😭😭😭😭😭

randlayne was given priority for a number of chapters, and then in this brief portion avirand got priority - avi is the last one to see rand here, and she’s also the last one who got an on-page Relationship Moment with him (a couple chapters ago when they were standing together after scoping out shayol ghul), not to mention the Romance of her being the one leading the group protecting him outside the cavern. meanwhile min has only exchanged about 3 words with rand in the entire book 😌 fueling my belief that min was just sex while rand was Going Through It and desperate for companionship and she was literally the only one available, but elayne and avi are his endgame. now that the end has come and he’s back with his other loved ones, min has all but vanished from his mind and from the book while elayne and avi are the ones he’s focused on and the ones who have onscreen Relationship Scenes with him. min didn’t even GET an onscreen goodbye with him at all lmao! cadsuane mentioned that rand had given min jewelry as a goodbye gift but we didn’t see the interaction! we love to see it! or not see it, in this case.

we have a battle scene here that i did enjoy because it was wonderful to see avi flexing her leadership AND channeling skills! a perfect culmination of her character arc!

moiraine on the shayol ghul cavern: “this is not the bore, this is not the dark one’s prison.” it’s not? oh. well then...................i don’t know what the bore is and at this point i’m too afraid to ask. (update: later on it’s mentioned how the bore is Outside The Pattern. i would very much enjoy seeing the show adapt this whole pit of doom confrontation because it’s hard for me to visualize so far in this chapter chunk.)

so moiraine and nynaeve will be the 2 women to use callandor with rand. awww i really think one should’ve been egwene since she and rand have been foils and two sides of the same coin and complements and yin and yang and co-protagonists for so long. bummer! i think her instead of nynaeve would’ve had more impact bc it would’ve shown how far rand has come out of his paranoia and self-isolation, if he was doing this with 2 aes sedai he strongly mistrusted for a long time rather than with nynaeve who was always the only one he never mistrusted or pushed away. and in fact it would’ve been such beautiful poetic cinema if callandor only required 1 man and 1 woman and it was just rand and egwene going into the cavern together. haha i was also thinking that egwene would’ve been better than perrin doing all the TAR stuff, so i guess my dream last battle would just be egwene doing EVERY task jkfjg it’s what she deserves!

nynaeve is wearing a beautiful dress because of course women be dressing to the nines to go BATTLE THE DARK ONE

i once saw someone say that the dark one’s all-caps dialogue makes them think of an old person on facebook accidentally writing things in all caps all the time and now that is always what i think of jkfgjh

rand is now entering the cave, so he officially has no time to deal with demandred’s gay dramatics and in fact has never even heard about them. god it would be so funny if demandred gets killed without ever coming face to face with rand in the entire series, that’s HUGE gawyn-onesided-homoerotic-rivalry-with-rand energy!

“an empress had to be crafty, strong, and skilled if she was to survive” and we have never actually seen tuon be any of those things, we’ve only been told that she is, so i guess that means she won’t be long for this world yeah baby!

“matrim would never be a rival...was not the prince of the ravens a check upon the empress, to keep her strong by providing a constant threat?” see, if the ship had been done well, i would be swooning over the romance of tuon being puzzled that for the first time she has a healthy relationship and a family member who won’t try to kill her, but it wasn’t, so instead i’m just like “yeah i WISH mat was a rival and a threat to her” (but i can soothe myself that maybe this is a sign that mat WILL someday be her and the empire’s downfall, and she’s just underestimating him here as usual)

wait shit tuon believes that rand knelt before the crystal throne, and now that i think about it he did do so literally and also kinda did do so metaphorically since he let her walk all over him in arranging their “alliance,” but the dragon kneeling before the crystal throne was a marker of the bad future in avi’s visions..............OH NO

tuon can you stop forcibly renaming mat FOR FIVE MINUTES

mat just says “knotai? i kind of like it” because by this point he has been officially slave-broken and happily accepts his new slave name

but again i can soothe myself that tuon naming him this as “a bringer of destruction” is a sign that someday it’ll backfire on her and he’ll bring destruction to the empire rather than to the empire’s enemies, as she believes here

mat tells tuon that they have to go help egwene’s army and has the audacity to be upset that she seems like she either might not help or might use the opportunity to enslave all the aes sedai. “i never thought the leopards would eat MY face,” sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party.

“you gave your word.” “i signed a treaty. any treaty can be broken, particularly by the empress...the empress cannot be constrained by words on a paper.” LMAO wasn’t there a bit in a past book where she insisted that she was so honorable and always kept her promises? LMAOOO and she’s always pressed about the westlanders not keeping their oaths (that they never swore anywhere but in her deranged mind) and whatnot.

me after violating a legal document that i signed: i cannot be constrained by words on a paper 😌

she doesn’t Actually break the treaty yet because she decides it’s in her best interests to help the ~marath’damane army~ so she can use them to defeat the shadow (with the alternative being go back to seanchan right now, solidify her rule, and then come back to fight the shadow with her own forces. because obviously we totally have enough time for that, tuon, it’s not as if the last battle started DAYS ago or anything.) however, this just proves how fucking stupid and pointless the seanchan peace treaty is - tuon does not consider herself bound by it in any way and WILL violate it the SECOND it inconveniences her.

“the clouds had parted above them - they often did when [elayne] was near, one way the bond with rand manifested” ❤️❤️ romance!

just a week or two ago i saw someone shitting on elayne’s pre-battle speech in this book and saying it was lame, but i just read it and it rocks??? fuck off. elayne says “i am supposed to reassure you but i cannot...doing so would remove responsibility...this is not a day for empty promises” and people say it’s lame and not inspiring, but if she HAD hyped the soldiers up more with false positivity then people would’ve said she was being insensitive of the gravity of the situation and treating war as child’s play. there is literally no winning for elayne among Certain Readers.

“birgitte, i am in command, and you are my soldier. you will obey...i’m one of the few channelers of any strength this army has, and i’ll be drawn and quartered before i let myself sit out the fight. i’m easily worth a thousand soldiers on this battlefield.” GO OFF!!!!!!

birgitte tries to protest about the babies, because as we know those are the people she actually cares about and elayne is just a vessel for them in her eyes, and elayne claps back with “even if min hadn’t had that viewing, i’d still insist on fighting. you think the babes of these soldiers aren’t at risk? many of them line the walls of that city! if we fail here, they will be slaughtered. no, i will not keep myself out of danger, and no, i will not sit back and wait. if you think it’s your duty as my warder to stop me, then i will bloody sever this bond right here and now and send you to someone else! i’m not gong to spend the last battle lounging on a chaise and drinking goat’s milk!” YES!!! 👏👏👏👏👏 CHEERING AND PUMPING MY FIST

also, this is another example of there being no winning for elayne among Certain Readers: she does stuff like this and they complain that she’s reckless and gets people killed and Doesn’t Listen To Birgitte, but if she were to spend the last battle lounging on a chaise and drinking goat’s milk they’d complain about her doing nothing and letting everyone else die in her place.

mark my words, lounging on a chaise and drinking goat’s milk is exactly how tuon will spend the last battle. probably min too.

“an odd sensation came to mind. one of the women was in trouble. was it elayne? aviendha? he could not tell.” when rand senses one of his bondholders is in trouble, elayne and aviendha are the only two he cares about 😌 either that or he doesn’t even consider min could be in danger because she’s not doing anything in the battle lmao

moridin arrives. “you could step aside. if my victory is not assured, neither is your fall. let me pass. for once, make the choice you know you should.” “now? now you beg me to return to the light? i have been promised oblivion. finally, nothing, a destruction of my entire being. an end. you will not steal that from me, lews therin! by my grave, you will not!” and they start swordfighting. poor demandred, he wants what ishamael has with rand. demandred and gawyn shaking on the gates yelling “let me in!” whilst rand is too busy in his intense and complicated *and reciprocal* relationships with ishamael and mat.

also, like lanfear, ishamael hovers just on the edge of being a really interesting and complex villain and character, and i hope the show will bring out his motives and psychology more especially through use of AOL flashbacks. it already did a great job establishing “i just want existence to end” as a motive for joining the shadow via dana.

perrin sees the cavern battle from TAR: “two men, locked in battle. two women, as if frozen.” if moiraine and nynaeve spend the entire battle just frozen and not doing anything i’ll be so mad lmao i guess it’s actually good that egwene wasn’t wasted here

perrin and gaul are attacked by aiel male channelers who have been turned to the shadow. this is so interesting, why the hell is it just kind of a 5-page footnote in the final book of the series? why didn’t we get any aiel asha’man? that would’ve been so cool!

“i killed two of those myself, perrin aybara. one could channel. i think myself great with honor, then you slide in and take two captive. bain would laugh herself all the way back to the three-fold land if she saw this.” aw a tidbit of gaul-bain banter/friendship! it should be gaul and bain who are first-siblings rather than bain and chiad. like maybe bain and chiad are already lovers, gaul and chiad start falling for each other, and bain’s resistance is to taking gaul as her first-brother and sharing chiad with him, and then they get a nice little rivals to friends to first-siblings arc. it would’ve made so much more sense! i’m hoping the show will give us mixed gender first-siblings in general (and first-brothers, getting rid of the nonsense that men are worse at being close friends with each other than women are lmao)

“i don’t like fighting beside those seanchan” king gawyn strikes again! and egwene thinks that she “should be fighting the seanchan with every breath, not allying with them. her instincts rebelled as she approached the gathering of seanchan.” i swear to god gawyn and egwene are the only people who still remember that the seanchan suck (and elayne, i believe she was resistant to the idea of allying with them back in the big meeting?)

“egwene’s chances depended on the seanchan joining the battle and engaging the sharan channelers. her stomach twisted...the seanchan damane were not free women; they could not choose to fight. from what she’d seen of the sharan male channelers, they were little more than animals themselves.” queen egwene being the only one to acknowledge this!

“egwene revised her expectations. she’d imagined fortuona as a spoiled adolescent, the product of a coddled lifetime.” no yeah you were right on the money there egwene no revisions needed

egwene absolutely OWNS tuon throughout this conversation and it gives me so much life!!!!!! it is so goddamn satisfying to see someone FINALLY stand up to tuon, given the way she carries a spine-removal kit around (to use @butterflydm​’s extremely apt analogy) for use on literally every single other character who has interacted with her thus far.

now i am going to take a pause simply to record some epic egwene quotes before going back to analysis mode

when tuon says she’d considered whether it would be appropriate for her to speak to egwene with her own voice: “i have considered myself whether it would be appropriate to speak to one such as yourself, who has committed such terrible atrocities.” OOH

when tuon decides oh so generously to see egwene as a queen rather than as a marath’damane for this conversation: “no. you will see me for what i am, woman. i demand it.” OOOH

when tuon agrees and says that she’s spoken to marath’damane before, as it’s allowed for an empress to speak with her pet hounds: “then i will speak with you directly as well. for the amyrlin judges many trials. she must be able to speak to murderers and rapists in order to pass sentence upon them. i think you would be at home in their company, though i suspect they would find you nauseating.” OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH a worthy successor to that epic elaida clapback

“i represent the ultimate proof that your society and empire are built upon falsehoods. here i stand, a woman you insist should be collared for the common good. and yet i display none of the wild or dangerous tendencies that you claim i should have. so long as i am free from your collars, i prove to every man and woman who draws breath that you are a liar.” OOOOOHHH and the other seanchan murmur at this!

there will be more epic quotes coming but now i want to analyze. suffice it to say that this was me throughout this scene:

tuon insists that egwene wouldn’t criticize the collar if she’d known its peace and whatever nauseating shit, and egwene reveals to everybody that she WAS collared and she HATED IT!! tuon is big mad because she didn’t know this so now egwene’s made her look like a fool (and undermined the damane system and her authority) in front of a lot of people.

tuon rounds on mat to demand why he never told her that egwene was collared. he replies, “i didn’t think too much about it. she wasn’t one for very long.” boy i bet egwene wishes SHE was able to not think too much about it! mat has deadass been mooning over the head slaver for all these books with that one time his best friend was enslaved by these people just completely slipping his mind. he also chimes in with an obedient little “may she live forever” when tuon ends a sentence with “the empress” which is sickening.

egwene’s FIRST assumptions when she sees mat among the seanchan are that he’s undercover and they don’t know who he really is or that he’s a captive, that he’s in danger, and that she needs to save him from them. i think this is supposed to be a humorous role reversal of mat thinking these things about egwene being amyrlin when he first arrives in salidar, but it’s absolutely heartbreaking. egwene sees her close friend all buddy-buddy with the people who enslaved her and who have enslaved or murdered countless of her sisters and allies, and she assumes that mat must be there for an ulterior motive or not of his own free will, but nope, he voluntarily threw himself in with them because he was into tuon’s ~mysterious eyes.~ and how can i laugh at egwene ~presumptively~ thinking mat needs a rescue, when he DOES need a rescue before he spends the rest of his life miserable and under tuon’s thumb?

egwene says that their marriage was a result of tuon getting caught up in mat’s ta’veren pull (which tuon denies). “‘being ta’veren never did get me much,’ mat said sourly.” so is he admitting that he doesn’t want this marriage or this life?

tuon is mad at mat for not telling her about egwene’s stint as a damane and says “we will speak of this on another occasion. it will not be pleasant.” and later in the scene when he displeases her, “we will have many words about this tonight” 🚩🚩🚩

“egwene regarded the woman, baffled. light! these people were completely insane.” YES. YES THEY ARE. what a breath of fresh air to see a pov character FINALLY acknowledge this. egwene you’re the only bitch in this house i ever respected.

“oh, light, rand. what did you promise them?” mood

egwene actually makes an effort to get concessions from tuon AND SUCCEEDS (tuon agrees to give up tremalking) unlike rand just going “oh well there’s nothing i can do” the second tuon counters him and mat just standing there silently not even trying. because egwene is the only bitch in this house i ever respected.

me @ every character but egwene, gawyn, and elayne: you have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair

egwene announces that all sul’dam can channel. tuon tells her not to spread such lies. “oh? shall we test it, fortuona? you said you trained them yourself. you are a sul’dam, i presume? put the a’dam on your neck. i dare you. if i am wrong, it will do nothing to you. if i am right, you will be subject to its power, and will prove to be marath’damane...let us do it and test the real strength of your commitment. if you prove to be able to channel, will you do as you claim others should? will you stroll up to the collar and snap it around your own neck, fortuona? will you obey your own laws?” i am screaming and hollering in approval, but then, for some GODFORSAKEN reason, this DOES NOT HAPPEN. at this point being collared and forced to channel is literally the only thing that could possibly force tuon into any sort of character development, so WHY in the name of the light would you set this up so perfectly and then wuss out of following through???????????? what’s the point????????? i’m so mad!!!!!!!!! just when i think tuon might finally be forced to face a consequence for the first time in her life!!!

“‘i plan to live centuries,’ egwene hissed. ‘i will watch your empire crumble, fortuona. i will watch it with joy.’” AND YET EGWENE FUCKING DIES IN THE LAST BATTLE AND TUON’S EVIL ASS GETS TO LIVE!!!! IT’S SO UNFAIR I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!! nobody is going to stand up to the seanchan once egwene, possessor of the sole backbone in the westlands, is gone!!!! i’m sure egwene’s death will be a moving Heroic Sacrifice moment, but my god it’s the worst thing that could’ve possibly happened for the upcoming fourth age. the world doesn’t need rand or perrin or mat or nynaeve anymore after the last battle, but it needs egwene DESPERATELY. if an ef5 had to die, why couldn’t it have been literally any of them except egwene? except i don’t want rand to die because he deserves a second chance at life, and i don’t want nynaeve to die because she deserves her happy ending with lan after they’ve had a Doomed Relationship for so much of the series, and i don’t want mat to die because he needs to overthrow the seanchan empire and then go back to the westlands to marry rand and elayne. so, i will amend my statement: if an ef5 had to die, why couldn’t it have been perrin? lmao (tho i do stand by the fact that rand or nynaeve not making it would’ve been better For The World than egwene even if i would’ve been sad personally, and possibly mat as well unless i really AM meant to believe that he’ll destroy seanchan, in which case he needs to survive to the fourth age too)

mat intervenes and pushes them apart. “let’s be civil, ladies. don’t make me throw the pair of you over my knee.” i am going to strangle him and make it stick this time. my earlier-in-this-book sympathy for mat is over now, fuck post-WH mat all my homies hate post-WH mat. like can you IMAGINE a woman with no political authority saying this to two extremely powerful male rulers/leaders while they’re arguing about serious political and human rights topics? ..........okay cadsuane would absolutely do this, but aside from her.

“the people of the world need you two, and they need you levelheaded, you hear me?” they literally do not need tuon mat they would literally be so much better off without her. “this is bigger than any of us. when you fight each other, the dark one wins, and that is that. so stop behaving like children.” and so we have the culmination of the gross ass “one side wanting to enslave the other vs. the other not wanting to be enslaved being treated as equally petty, selfish, and in the wrong” theme that’s been present ever since COT. i’m fuming!!!! chewing rocks!!!!!!!!

“when you fight each other the dark one wins” would’ve been an effective line to use when the world leaders were squabbling in the big meeting scene or when rand and egwene were arguing, NOT when tuon is threatening to enslave egwene and egwene is saying she wants to see her slaver empire destroyed!

although at least mat does chide tuon a little bit extra and tell her that she needs egwene, and doesn’t say anything more to egwene or try to tell her that she needs tuon, so that’s a small mercy

the meeting ends and egwene returns to “where gawyn waited for her” sanderson couldn’t have gawyn present for/within earshot of the meeting because gawyn would’ve beat mat’s ass for treating egwene like that, and rightfully so. also because he would’ve just straight up killed tuon using his bloodknife ring abilities the second she threatened egwene. egwene wouldn’t kill tuon because she’s too practical and levelheaded, but gawyn would’ve snapped and taken her head off, my impulsive boy.

elayne’s exhausted herself channeling in battle, and birgitte actually admits that elayne was right to want to fight and that she did well and that seeing her fight right on the front lines inspired the soldiers, thank god.

elayne realizes that bashere’s been spreading misinformation, which led to them being taken by surprise by a second trolloc army, and concludes that he’s a darkfriend and fires him from being her general and puts him under guard. lan’s been noticing agelmar making mistakes too, so i’m guessing graendal’s messing with all the generals’ dreams.

i’m sad because i always was fond of bashere, but i’m also thrilled because now elayne is in charge and flexes her military general muscles and puts together a good battle plan on the spot! that’s my girl! fuck perrin and everyone else who claimed she’s only a good leader because she sits quietly and lets the male generals do all the work.

“the one power flooded into her, though she could hold only a trickle. she could act as if she weren’t exhausted, but her body knew the truth. she would lead them anyway.” ❤️❤️

min gets sent as a messenger from bryne to tuon. the aes sedai doing gateways have to make them as small as possible since they need to conserve their strength, and min is annoyed that they make her one so small she has to crawl through it. why don’t you do something useful rather than complaining that other people don’t have enough energy left to do things, min?

she mentions that one of the aes sedai notes her “breeches and curls” do NOT tell me min has been curling her hair even during the last fucking battle????? 💀💀 i hope that sanderson just forgot or didn’t realize that her hair wasn’t naturally curly (and it isn’t - there were multiple times in rj’s books where she mentioned that she started curling it For Rand) because otherwise, oh my god.

she’s been doing odd jobs in the camp for a week. interesting that a week has passed since the day before rand went to the pit of doom. “it wasn’t work that had required her, specifically, but it was better than sitting in tear and worrying about rand...or being angry at him for forbidding her to go to shayol ghul.” meanwhile, avi was briefly disappointed that rand wouldn’t take her but accepted immediately that it was the right course of action. “you’d have been a liability there, min told herself. you know it. he couldn’t worry about saving the world and protecting her from the forsaken at the same time.” at least she admits it. “sometimes, it was hard not to feel insignificant in a world of channelers like rand, elayne, and aviendha.” that’s because you ARE insignificant 😌 like, there are so many ways to pull off “non-magical non-warrior character has strength in other areas” and none of them were used with min. her viewings are useless and the emotional support she allegedly provides for rand is either nonexistent or detrimental 90% of the time.

like what’s going on???? lmao anyway

min was just internally moping about being useless but when mat says “hey i could use you” she gets offended that he phrased it rudely or something??? not sure if you noticed but we’re in the middle of a WAR here min, people don’t have time to waste on making sure their requests are phrased politely enough so as not to hurt your feelings.

min even seems to know about mat’s luck??? you’ve met him ONCE and it was before he had that luck! elayne doesn’t even know about it and she’s his bestie! what’s going on??? i would say rand told her, but i’m not sure even rand is aware of mat’s luck? totally possible that he could be, i just don’t remember.

“they’re insane, min. they’re all bloody insane.” “i’m sure egwene would help you escape if you ask, mat.” “well, i didn’t say they weren’t fun. just insane.” mat name ONE time that the seanchan, infamous war criminals and human rights abusers in whose company you’ve been constantly miserable and fearing for your life and your freedom, have been “fun”

“gritting her teeth, min went down on one knee. the woman was the empress, after all. min wouldn’t bow to mat or the generals, but it was only proper to show respect to fortuona.” literally why??? she’s not YOUR empress!

“who is this one, knotai? she thinks herself high.” “oh, well, she’s just the dragon reborn’s woman.” “how curious. that would make her your equal, knotai.” DJFKGJKJHJKDFHGLJ tuon is calling mat rand’s lover and you can’t change my mind

also, it’s making me completely insane yet again that mat is fully aware that min is rand’s girlfriend and is also fully aware that rand is elayne’s babydaddy and we just do not ever see him have any reaction to that or wonder what’s going on. and we can’t even say “maybe rand explained it to him offscreen while they were catching up” because they didn’t GET one of those catchups like rand & perrin and mat & perrin got.

mat tries to hustle min out: “just keep moving. don’t risk her deciding to snatch you up. she’s not particularly good at letting things go, once she has them in hand.” i was all prepared to feel sorry for him, but then, “he actually sounded proud, saying that.” sigh. “you’re as crazy as they are, min thought.” for once something we can agree on. i am trying so hard to interpret everything as mat having been brainwashed and psychologically beaten into submission, but at times it is difficult.

“i don’t belong to anyone. except maybe rand, and him to me.” compare with aviendha: “he did not own her, and she did not own him.” HMMM. very telling. we now have this, avi shunning the thought of possessive public touching while min drapes herself over rand in public constantly, avi accepting immediately that rand has his duty and she has hers while min mopes over rand not taking her to shayol ghul, avi thinking that she couldn’t be with rand until she knew who she was while min thinks she’ll be whatever rand wants her to be.............the two of them are truly at polar opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how they view relationships, with min being the end of “painfully insecure, possessive, and monogamous.” “we belong to each other” is probably meant to feel romantic, and if used it a different moment maybe it would be, but the fact that we had avi thinking mere CHAPTERS ago that she and rand don’t own each other really throws this line into sharp relief.

oh wack tuon declares that min is her truthspeaker now. is something interesting and non-rand-related finally happening to min for the first time in 14 books? also, note that it’s something interesting happening TO her rather than her DOING something interesting. that’s the real reason she’s insignificant compared to rand, elayne, and aviendha: not because she isn’t a channeler, but because she’s a passive character. things happen TO her, she doesn’t MAKE things happen.

“loial fought on. this song was not a song of victory. it was a song of life. loial did not intend to die here on this hillside. by the light, he had a book to finish before he went!” 😭❤️

mat is weirdly into min all of a sudden lmao hate that. although it IS further evidence for the “mat is gonna cheat on tuon so fast” folder, and that’s always a good thing. and i guess i shouldn’t have expected anything different when the “thinks of all women in terms of whether they’re fuckable” character and the “exists solely to cater to the straight male gaze” character met up.

“she was with rand, so that made her practically his sister.” so you’re saying that min is your sister-wife, because you are also with rand? also, contrast to in LOC when he was like “elayne is so hot, but i wouldn’t kiss her, not because she’s with rand, just because she’s annoying” mat was 100% willing to homewreck rand with elayne, make of that what you will jkjfgh

mat managed to retain his old clothes and puts them on now! phew

it’s so wild that tuon can just go “you’re my truthspeaker now” and snatch min???? and no one does anything about it???? well min, i guess you’re headed off to seanchan forever after the last battle. sucks for her and i’m not necessarily glad about someone else falling into seanchan hands.............but this DOES clear the way for avirandlayne throuple raising their six (6) babies in caemlyn endgame to happen, it has to be said.

mat mentions that he burned the ugly ratty coat he wore to visit elayne in TOM, aw he was so upset that she made fun of it djkfgj

“mat grinned at tuon, and she favored him with a smile. light, but he liked those smiles.” sigh. though this does absolutely read like a fully brainwashed damane being happy to receive a sul’dam’s approval, which..........well, it sure doesn’t SOOTHE me, but it’s better for mat’s characterization to believe that he’s been brainwashed and slave-broken rather than that he’s just fully bought into all this while in his right mind.

“gawyn stepped up to her side, faithful as always.” ❤️❤️ THIS loyal husband DOES spark joy.

egwene notes that gawyn is looking pale, as if at the start of a sickness. oh no!!!!! i think i remember it was mentioned that you don’t live long after activating the bloodknife rings, but idk if that was just because people only activate them to go on suicide missions or if it means that the rings themselves will actually kill you after a certain point. i do know already that gawyn dies (sob) but i don’t know how or when it will happen (same with egwene’s death, i only know the bare fact and not any details).

lan ousts agelmar and mat ousts bryne later in the chapter. and tenobia dies in the battle, so with her gone and bashere currently unfit to rule, does that mean my girl faile is now queen of saldaea? nice! i mean, rip tenobia and everything, but all hail queen faile.

“‘he seems to be yelling for the dragon reborn,’ galgan said. demandred’s voice boomed across the battlefield right then, enhanced by the one power. he was demanding that the dragon come and face him in a duel.” THIS IS SO FUNNY TO ME KJFGKHJ the Unhinged Ex energy of it all! the dragon is a little busy battling the dark one, demandred, read the room! i can’t tell you how much this is making me laugh!!

“mat inspected the fellow through the glass. ‘demandred, eh? has he gone a bit dotty, or what?’” mat watching demandred and going “imagine being so obsessed with rand. could not be me!”

in worse news, mat ends up getting his very own slave due to Can’t Kill A Woman behavior, so that’s fun. (he didn’t explicitly reference Can’t Kill A Woman or give any reason for saving the sharan channeler’s life, but i assume this is the reason.) his response to realizing he accidentally enslaved someone: 1) tells tuon she can have her (because slavery is fine as long as HE’S not the one doing it, i guess), and when tuon insists that the channeler is his, 2) “mat shrugged. what else could he do?” i can think of a few things, mat. just a few. “maybe, if the damane belonged to him, he could let her free or something.” all right that’s something at least. now to see if he actually follows through on that after the last battle or if he simply grows ambivalent enough to let her remain damane.........

“has he punished you for that?” “yes. he returned me to life.” wow moridin needs even MORE therapy than rand does

logain’s contingent arrives on elayne’s battlefied. “we came to you first. the black tower stands with the lion of andor.” fistpump! they may have given up on their deadbeat dad, but they went straight to stepmommy elayne the second they had the chance.

“the woman approaching wore fine seanchan silks, and egwene’s stomach turned at the sight. that finery existed because of a foundation of enslaved channelers, forced into obedience to the crystal throne.” GO OFF QUEEN!!!!! but then it turns out that the woman is min, so idk if that’s supposed to make egwene’s moral rant feel humorous or something? also, the narrative has definitely 100% forgotten that da’covale, aka regular non-channeling people, are also slaves (earlier in this book a westlander referred to them as “servants” which i remember seeing quite a bit in the late rj books too)

“‘you should see the things [the seanchan] drink, egwene.’ ‘i’ve seen them,’ egwene said, unable to keep her tone from coldness. ‘oh. yes. i suppose you have.’” absolute dick move by min here. wasn’t she in falme for a long period of time trying to help rescue egwene?? she should be even more aware of egwene’s captivity than mat! why does everybody have such an easy time just Forgetting that their friend was enslaved and traumatized?

“‘i suppose i’m better off with fortuona. she...knows about a certain talent of mine, thanks to mat, and it might let me help her. and you.’ the statement was laden with meaning.” is min actually going to try to use her newfound influence with tuon to take seanchan down from the inside? now that would be an interesting plotline for her. why didn’t this happen to her 7 books ago? i say, axe min as rand’s love interest and instead send her into tuon’s path MUCH earlier on so that she can use her viewings to influence her into having a little smidge of character development, and plus min has known the sul’dam secret since TGH and so might make more headway with tuon there than mat ever bothered to. then have mat stay with rand instead, being his general and a childhood friend to remind him of who he used to be (since mat actually knows the shepherd boy and min does not). they would both be way more useful in the other’s plotline. hell, we can even switch the romances and make min tuon’s love interest and mat rand’s!

egwene on mat: “a carouser, leering at every pretty woman he met. treating her like a painting and not a person.” i’m probably supposed to think egwene is being unfair to mat and misjudging him, but this is literally exactly how he’s been treating women in his own narration ever since WH and even ACOS. since then, every single woman he meets, he describes in terms of whether or not she’s fuckable. this was not the case in the first 6 books.

“he’d jumped into the river to save kiem lewin from drowning. of course, she hadn’t been drowning. she’d merely been dunked under the water by a friend, and mat had come running, throwing himself into the water to help. the men of emond’s field had made sport of him for months about that. the next spring, mat had pulled jer al’hune from the same river, saving the boy’s life...that was how mat was. he’d grumbled and muttered all winter about how people made sport of him, insisting that next time, he’d just let them drown. then the moment he’d seen someone in danger, he’d gone splashing right back in. egwene could remember gangly mat stumbling from the river, little jer clinging to him and gasping, a look of pure terror in his eyes.” 😭😭😭😭😭

“he was a scoundrel and a fool, but she trusted him. light help her, but she did. she’d trust him with her life.” ❤️❤️❤️ i remember when they parted in LOC being so afraid that that was the last time they’d ever see each other, so i’m so happy to see them interact again in this book! even if their one interaction thus far was mat being shitty to egwene. but i have hope that there will be more and better interactions coming.

once again we have mat fretting over how he married an “aes sedai” and not the fact that he married a slaver

“she was something incredible, though. he felt a thrill each time she gave orders; she did it so naturally. elayne and nynaeve could take lessons. tuon did look very nice on that throne.” 🙄🙄🙄 and once again we have mat gushing over how good tuon is at bossing people around, but failing to provide us with any examples of her showing ACTUAL leadership skills. and gushing over how good tuon is at bossing people around when he constantly shits on the wondergirls for a non-malicious and less extreme version of the same behavior. elayne could take lessons? please. unlike tuon and mat, elayne knows that being a ruler is about more than giving orders and looking good on a throne. mat’s “coming to respect nobility” arc, if it had to happen at all, should’ve been him realizing that being a monarch is hard fucking work, rather than declaring that tuon is Not Like Other Nobles when she embodies every single one of his original negative perceptions of them.

but the good part of this passage is that it gives grounds for mat to have a Queen Elayne kink in a better universe, god bless. getting railed by elayne would honestly do him so much good.

“the sul’dam, catrona, almost choked on the words ‘aes sedai.’ mat couldn’t blame her. those could be tough words to speak.” and once again we have mat showing more empathy for the sul’dam than for the aes sedai they think should be enslaved.

“he didn’t look too hard at the damane [whom he accidentally captured]. mat was responsible for her being captured. it was better than her fighting for the shadow, wasn’t it? blood and bloody ashes, he thought to himself. you are doing a fine job of persuading tuon not to use damane, matrim cauthon. capturing one yourself...” sorry, have you EVER tried to persuade tuon not to use damane? this is literally the first time i’ve seen any indication of that, mat. at least he’s feeling some guilt and sense of responsibility right now, for a whole 3 sentences.

“it was unnerving how quickly the sharan woman had taken to her captivity. the sul’dam had all remarked upon it. barely a moment of struggle, then complete subservience.” AKA EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO MAT IN COT

“demandred - despite continuing to rave about the dragon reborn - was continually testing mat’s defenses.” JKJDFGKJJKH KILLING ME AGAIN rafe please give demandred a canon messy gay backstory with LTT because no other justification for this behavior would be as good.

more lines of mat gushing over tuon’s pretty eyes and how much he likes it when she's pleased with him

mat just referred to the sharan channelers as “marath’damane” ugh. but then a paragraph later he mentions “[the seanchan] had started using the term [aes sedai] instead of marath’damane by mat’s order” so that’s good. maybe the prior line i’ll chalk up to it originally being galgan’s line which sanderson then gave to mat and forgot to change “marath’damane” to “channelers” or something.

“he had an inkling of what tuon might be capable of, if she grew displeased with min. he loved her - light, he was pretty sure he did. but he also let himself be a little afraid of her. he’d have to keep watch so that tuon didn’t decide to ‘educate’ min.” okay this is bone chilling. mat is SO CLEARLY in an abusive marriage and a subconscious part of him KNOWS it and is trying to protect min from tuon, though he’s resigned to the thought that it’s too late to protect himself. but the conscious part of him is insisting that he loves tuon, he really does! heartbreaking.

mat spends a whole paragraph talking about how it sucks that seanchan women’s armor doesn’t show boobs and how he ACTUALLY ASKED the armorer if that should be changed. “light, these people had no sense of morality. a fellow needed to know if he was fighting a woman on the battlefield. it was only right.” i’m thinking that in addition to Objectifying Women and Can’t Kill A Woman nonsense, mat is also afraid he might be like “ooh that soldier’s hot!” and then realize it’s a man jdfkjg just accept it mat it’s okay.

“tuon blinked once, looking straight at min. the room seemed to drop into shade, feeling colder. mat shivered. he didn’t like it when tuon got like this. that stare of hers...it seemed like the stare of another person. a person without compassion.” i mean this is literally how she always is? name ONE time when tuon has displayed compassion. also, more “mat being trapped in an abusive marriage and trying to convince himself that it isn’t so and that this isn’t the ~real~ tuon” vibes here.

really interesting scene between tuon and min regarding min’s viewings. tuon attempts to take advantage of the viewings and prevent them from happening, which is a refreshing change from how everyone else just immediately accepted “ah well they can’t be changed, no point trying.” and min stands up to tuon and refuses to share her viewings anymore if tuon will just use them to execute people she suspects of future treason, which is a refreshing change from everyone else having their spine removed when tuon is in the room. see? these two characters play off each other quite well and this plotline/dynamic should’ve been set up way sooner! my 2 most hated characters in the series, yet when they’re together i actually kinda enjoy their interactions lmao it’s witchcraft! probably because min is finally showing an actual personality outside of loving rand now that she’s been separated from him, and because she argues with and challenges tuon and tuon actually listens to her (to an extent) since she’s her truthspeaker.

“if only min would learn a little respect.” mat is literally so scared of his friend getting abused the same way he is, he wants her to just keep her head down.

i love egwene and mat talking in code about his medallion! “do you still have your pet fox?” “i do. he’s snuggled up nice and warm.” “take care of him. i would not see you suffer gareth bryne’s fate.”

mat says “what does elayne want to do? isn’t she in charge?” king shit! respecting her authority and wanting her input, unlike perrin! and then he asks them to make another gateway to get elayne to this meeting so she can discuss with them!

“elayne strode through, thick with child, eyes practically on fire.” mat shaking hands meme with rand and aviendha over commenting on the fire in elayne’s eyes

“she maintained the posture of a queen, but her disheveled hair and clothing burned in several places indicated what she’d been through.” and his earlier description of egwene: “blood and bloody ashes - if he had a soldier with that cast to his skin and that look in his eyes, mat would send the fellow to bed rest for a week.” see, mat? this is what ACTUAL leadership looks like, while tuon has been sitting cozy on her throne letting everyone else do the fighting.

i love to see mat and elayne making battle plans together!!!! power couple!!!!!! tuon could never (she’s just sitting there silently for the whole discussion)

“now, if only [galad] could right [elayne’s] moral compass. she wasn’t a bad person, but galad wished that she - like other monarchs - could see as clearly as he did. he was beginning to accept that they didn’t. he was beginning to accept that it was all right, so long as they tried their best. whatever he had inside of him that allowed him to see the right of things was obviously a gift of the light, and holding others to scorn because they had not been born with it was wrong. just as it would be wrong to hold a man to scorn because he had been born with only one hand, and was therefore an inferior swordsman.” y’all are really trying to tell me that gawyn is the worse trakand brother when galad’s self-righteous holier-than-thou superiority-complex christian-fundamentalist ass is out here behaving like this??? unreal. galad fucking sucks!!!!!!! and has learned absolutely nothing from what morgase was trying to teach him in the last book - his arc should’ve been coming to realize that his view of what’s right isn’t absolute truth, but instead it was coming to accept that it’s okay if other people aren’t as good and perfect as he is because they have not been blessed by the light like he has. bonkers!!!!

like, this is VERY close to how tuon thinks in her povs. this sense of entitlement and enlightenment, this conviction that they are the only ones who know what’s truly right and they must help the ignorant rest of the world see it too - that is BANG ON seanchan thinking.

“he had stopped worrying that his words offended [elayne] long ago. it seemed he couldn’t claim that a day was pleasant or his tea warm without her taking offense somehow. it would have been nice if aybara hadn’t run off. that man was a leader - one of the few that galad had ever met - that one could actually talk to without worrying that he’d take offense.” galad literally being a rightwinger complaining about how easily offended everybody is these days by harmless little things such as being part of a group trying to take away their rights! clearly, elayne is just a special snowflake who’s too sensitive, it’s so unfair that she’s mean to galad! 

no wonder reddit is on galad’s side and whines so much about how immature and prejudiced elayne’s behavior towards him is

the virgin galad (religious zealot, misogynist, joins a group dedicated to oppressing people like his sister and then complains about how mean she is to him about it) vs. the chad gawyn (respects women, devoted his life to protecting his wife, switched sides when he realized that his original side was actively bringing harm to his loved ones)

in conclusion, fuck galad all my homies hate galad. except all my homies DON’T hate galad and so i am alone being old man yells at cloud meme! wake up, my homies! he’s the worst!

there IS a small moment where he instinctively thinks of the whitecloaks as “the whitecloaks” instead of “the children” and is shocked with himself about it, so i guess that’s something. too little too late!

we catch up with faile retrieving the horn from tar valon! wow i completely forgot about that. their conversation at the beginning of the book where they sent her to get it feels like it was 5 books ago.

and aviendha is attacked by some of the aiel male channelers! turns out that when an aiel man can channel they send him to the blight (i’m sure this was mentioned before, i just forgot) and that’s how they all got corrupted by the dark one.

“mat had run off to the seanchan, talmanes to fight alongside queen elayne. one by one, everyone in this group was being eaten by trees, mud, or monsters. why did they all leave olver alone?” “noal...dead. would mat die too?” 😭😭😭

“i am not spending the last battle clinging to a rock! [nynaeve] thought.” my mood exactly lmao we’re on page 600 and she and moiraine have not done anything yet!

it turns out that alanna is in the cavern and is dying, and rand will snap and go crazy if she dies, so nynaeve has to save her but she can’t use saidar because she’s still linked with rand. oh shit!!! it’s nice to see alanna’s bond with rand FINALLY be relevant and have narrative payoff.

egwene is still so ready to help mat escape tuon and the seanchan 😭

mat complains that tuon wants him to sit in judgment. “mat was not going to order men to be executed, and that was that.” okay so then you should sit in judgment and pronounce them innocent rather than avoid jury duty and let other people pronounce them guilty and have them executed? obvious solution here, mat. he complains about elayne and other nobles (gawyn here in this passage) being entitled, yet when HE is given power and privilege that he could potentially use to help others, he does nothing with it. (obviously he’s too busy preparing for the battle to sit in judgment right at this very moment, so that’s fair enough, but his objection IS that he doesn’t want to execute people rather than that he has more pressing duties right now.)

we get 2 little nuggets of the mat-gawyn interactions i’d hoped for in the previous book and didn’t get and i’m delighted!!! “gawyn trakand was apparently practicing to be an aes sedai sometime, because he kept giving mat glares that would have made moiraine proud.” “‘burn me, first rand, then you [egwene]. is everybody going to chivy me about these days? gawyn, you want a turn?’ ‘yes, please.’ he sounded eager. ‘shut up,’ mat said.” JDFGJKHKJHJFG that’s one of my top 10 interactions in the book so far, why did it make me laugh so hard!! could’ve been even better if mat had married elayne and he and gawyn were now annoyed brothers-in-law!

“he could feel something pulling on him, tugging him northward. rand would need him soon.” “he narrowed his eye. rand was tugging on him.” one more cauthor ta’veren pull instance for the road!

“this is it, egwene. take a deep breath, a last pull on the brandy, or burn your final pinch of tabac. have a good look at the ground before you, as it’s soon going to be covered in blood. in an hour, we’ll be in the thick of it. the light watch over us all.” dun dun duuuuuuuun!!!! and the next chapter, titled “the last battle,” is TWO HUNDRED PAGES so i’m calling it a day for this recap.

[waheelawhisperer]

Every so often, I hear people say that Adam Taurus was wasted potential, and I am of two minds about this. While I certainly don't think he needed to be the morally gray revolutionary certain segments of the fandom insist that he was before the evil writers ruined him, I do think he (or, perhaps more accurately, the White Fang plotline as a whole) represents a missed opportunity - namely, he has no connection to Weiss whatsoever.

The conflict between the White Fang and the Schnee family/SDC is central to Weiss and Blake's dynamic in the early Volumes. They first fall out when Weiss reveals her racist attitudes at the end of Volume 1. During this story arc, we learn through Blake how the rest of the world (and Weiss's family/family company in particular) treat the Faunus, why Blake felt violence was the only solution left to her if she wanted to obtain equality, and we learn the effects that violence had on Weiss - the White Fang killed people she knew on a personal level, and her father took his frustrations out on her family. The end of Volume 1 establishes Weiss as an important component of the White Fang storyline and establishes the White Fang as an important part of Weiss's personal narrative.

Other parts of the early Volumes support this: Blake's first interaction with Weiss is dunking on her family company, Lieutenant Banesaw expresses pleasure at the thought of killing a Schnee, Roman Torchwick riles up a crowd, Weiss's big goal is to redeem her family name, etc. and we get more evidence in Volumes 4 and 5, where we see what Jacques is like in person and learn that Ilia lost her parents in a mining accident. All of this is setting up Weiss to be important to the resolution of the White Fang plotline, and yet she never really feels connected to it after Volume 3 at the absolute latest. She gets over her racism with minimal struggle, no one ever bothers mentioning it again (because that plot is done and it's on to the Next Cool Thing), and she and Blake eventually become comfortable enough with each other that Blake casually roasts her.

The reason (or one of the reasons, at least) Weiss feels so disconnected from the White Fang plotline is because Adam is the primary representative of the White Fang we see on screen, and Adam does not give a shit about the White Fang except as an instrument of his own will and power and vengeance, a tool which he can wield to make the world hurt the way it hurt him, something he can use to repay real and imagined slights tenfold.

I always find it funny when people say that making him abusive and self-centered violates his established characterization when:

A) He'd been on screen for like 5 minutes at that point and didn't have much characterization to contradict to begin with.

B) His literal first appearance involves him expressing his willingness to harm innocent people who were just doing their jobs (unless you think everyone who works for a crappy company is complicit in that company's misdeeds, but we see no indication that the workers on the train were doing anything more morally reprehensible than earning a paycheck).

C) His next appearance involves him showing up after one of Cinder's operations cost some of his subordinates their lives and got others arrested, showing no concern for any of them, and confirming that he'll ensure any dissidents fall in line.

D) The only scene that could potentially support the interpretation of Adam as someone that actually cares about Faunus rights takes place when he can't afford to lose face in front of his men. Considering everything else he does during his time as part of the story, it seems pretty clear that he's just posturing in order to maintain the loyalty of his troops.

The Adam his fans want to exist was probably real at one point, sometime long, long ago. He probably did care at one point, given that he was apparently willing to follow Ghira's lead until Sienna encouraged him to employ violence more readily, he started receiving accolades for his ability to kill people, and his newfound standing in a White Fang that was turning more openly to violence in general went to his head, but that Adam was long gone by the time he started playing a major role in the story. By the time Adam mattered to the narrative, everything was about him, not the cause.

On the one hand, making it so that Adam never interacts with Weiss is an interesting way to demonstrate how small and petty and selfish he is, how everything in his life is about how it affects him personally. He doesn't go after Weiss because she's less important to him than Blake and Yang, who (he thinks) hurt him more recently and threaten his power. The Schnees don't matter to him the way they do to his subordinates, even though he has an SDC brand on his face, because all Adam wants to do is hurt someone, anyone, the way the world hurt him. He's happy to attack the Huntsman Academies despite those not exactly being the fountains of injustice that plague the world of Remnant because they happen to be convenient targets that his allies are giving him the power to destroy. He's lashing out at whoever and whatever he can. Weiss doesn't matter. The SDC doesn't matter. Equality doesn't matter. Salem's targets or the consequences of attacking them don't matter. All that matters is Blake, who defied his power over her and made him feel weak. He targets her parents and maims Yang to hurt her. She's his priority even when he's in control of the White Fang. Even Yang only matters to him because she represents a threat to his control over, his ownership of, Blake. Ultimately, it's not even about Blake, it's about Adam's need to be powerful and in control.

On the other hand, Weiss is inextricably intertwined with the White Fang storyline and Adam is its primary representative, which means those narrative threads should've gone somewhere. The closest Weiss ever gets to confronting her family's complicity in the oppression the Faunus labor under is her conflict with Blake. She doesn't get a meaningful confrontation with any member of the White Fang besides a background character who mostly existed to give her someone to lose a fight to and her own teammate, who had already left the organization. The other side of that storyline, her connection to the SDC, fizzles out when her mother hands her the evidence she needs to get her father arrested with minimal effort and Ambrosius casts Meteor using Atlas as the projectile.

This is one of many reasons I hate the way they killed Sienna Khan off the way they did. If she'd survived, if Adam's faction had been a splinter group in truth, we could've positioned Sienna as the member of the White Fang with the conflict with Weiss and Adam as a more personal antagonist for Yang and Blake. We could've had Weiss express the frustration Sienna's White Fang caused her and given Sienna the chance to air her very legitimate grievances with the Schnee family, call Weiss a spoiled child, and all the other good stuff that comes with their ideological conflict. Give Weiss a real good look at who her family's hurt, let her come to terms with the damage Jacques caused to people outside her immediate circle, make her desire to redeem her family name mean something by showing her exactly what the world thinks of it. Hell, let her talk to Ilia. They had the chance for that, she was literally right there at the start of Volume 6, but I'm pretty sure by that point they were trying to close off the White Fang plotline as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure the writers have never really been comfortable writing the fantasy racism storyline, which is a shame because I think it could've been really good if they'd knuckled down, done their research, and really engaged with it. Unfortunately, they didn't, and we switched gears to Salem on top of that and everything else kind of fell by the wayside.

Do I think RWBY could've told a good story if Adam really had been the morally gray revolutionary, the badass antihero, that certain people seem to think he either was or should've been? Honestly, yeah, it's not like that character archetype hasn't proven successful before, and edgy weeby characters can absolutely work, but also, like, I don't think RWBY needed to go that route, nor do I think it would have been significantly better if it had. Can't say I'm super thrilled about the decision to give Adam a brand on his face and then just... never really engage with that or acknowledge that literally being marked like livestock suddenly made him a lot more sympathetic and had implications for the worldbuilding, but overall I'm pretty fine with how they handled him.

In conclusion, goatman a bitch.

[lookinghalfacorpse]

I posted my butterfly art on IG with some of your text (with credit) and someone asked if Dream can feel when a butterfly is killed. What should I tell them skdjsj

this is fun because we have no rules behind how canon chats work in the dsmp right? if u wanna know my personal headcanon behind it that i use when i write, it’s something like this:

i write chats as something that every character can see, but only one character can communicate with (except in the case of c!techno’s chat or other chats that don’t have such a physical form).  and if only one character can communicate with a chat, that means the chat can’t just... speak in a human tongue.  if they did, everyone could just listen in!  c!philza’s crows don’t speak, c!tubbo’s bees don’t speak, and c!dream’s butterflies don’t speak.  

dream could talk TO phil’s crows, and the crow might caw back at him, but he won’t understand what it means.  a butterfly could land on phil’s sleeve and pull on it, and phil might be able to infer what it wants, but the communication isn’t super clear.

so, yes, the bond between the character and their chat is a little deeper so communication can make more sense.  when i write lines like ‘stop looking’ ‘stop looking’ from the butterfly chat, i picture that dialogue as popping up in dream’s head and being inaudible to everyone else :) so, yeah, a voice that only c!dream can hear.

I do think that chats have a lot of free will, can be unruly at times, and can act outside of their “owner’s” permission.  They can keep secrets, even from their owner (”are we that hungry?... you should’ve told me”) (and, in itwall ch 10, phil’s chat had to make it back to philza to share info with him.  the transfer wasn’t instant). for that reason, i’m hesitant to give dream power over them to “see through their eyes” as he uses them to spy.  as a writer, i’ve used that slight disconnect between character and chat to make plotlines more interesting.  that IS a rly cool headcanon though, esp if we’re talking about butterflies with eye designs on them! 

and would he know if a butterfly died?  well, he Did know that the blue one he sent to quackity didn’t make it back.  and you can Bet he has more than one blue one in that swarm of his.  i’m not 100% sure what’s meant by the word “feel”-- i definitely wasn’t picturing that he, like, felt physical pain when it died.  but he knows his chat, knows their voices, and knows when one of them doesn’t make it back to him.  and he’d insist that it doesn’t hurt (it hurts him very, very much).

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

Hello, so this not a request per se; but seeing your reaction to the latest archon story quest, I was curious, but which nation do you think has the best story arc so far? Sumeru or Fontaine? what you like the most? Just want to hear your thoughts and opinions, that’s all.

oooh that's a good question!! i'll put my answer under the cut because it got kinda rambly and there are spoilers (i'm also quite opinionated i'm warning you now!)

in terms of a consistent plotline, i think Sumeru was better. but in terms of personal enjoyment, i liked Fontaine more.

as for why i liked Fontaine more (except the prison part, fuck that), it's for a number of reasons- i like the characters more (Arlecchino and Furina being two of my absolute favorites), the stakes felt higher and more mysterious (Sumeru i kinda figured out what Dottore and Scaramouche were doing early on), the NPC deaths hit hard because they actually stayed dead (rip Melus and Silver you two will not be forgotten), i really liked the trial aspects, and also FOUL LEGACY APPEARANCE!!!! HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY!!!!! it also helped that Fontaine was the first archon questline to not feature the Fatui as the main bad guys, which i absolutely love

oh and i like the narwhal weekly boss better than the Scaramech boss. in fact i have a bit of a hatred for the Scaramech boss because of how it's entirely based off of the floating rabbit-thing gimmick- the only reasons i generally enjoy doing it is because A.) we're beating up Scaramouche and B.) the music slaps

Furina is also one of my favorite characters in the entire game now. she doesn't quite top Childe/Foul Legacy, Arlecchino, or Baizhu, but she's up there. i liked her from the beginning because she was goofy and dramatic, and now i think her story was beautifully written and it was something i can also relate to in a sense, although obviously not nearly on the same scale as Furina's struggles. Nahida's story was also good and very tragic, but i don't have anywhere near the same attachment to her as i do to Furina (sorry little radish)

Fontaine also brought back the trend of Fatui Harbingers actually feeling intimidating. the last time i really felt in danger around a Harbinger was Dottore, and since he wasn't the focused Harbinger of the arc i knew he wasn't going to do anything super drastic- i kinda knew Signora was going to die (still in mourning btw) and Scaramouche lost his intimidation factor when he tried to become a god, so Arlecchino being a quiet but powerful force through sheer voice and stance is very lovely

also i generally enjoy underwater exploration more than the rainforest and desert desert MORE DESERT exploration in Sumeru, so that contributes to my Fontaine bias

obviously there are some parts that could be done better, like the implementation of the narwhal boss and the plotline flowing a little better and Chlorinde definitely needing more screentime (better than Sara at least), but yeah Fontaine is my personal favorite. also the whole "erase our problems from everyone's memory" conclusion in Sumeru is kinda ehhhh, i can see why they did that but also the tree containing literally all the world's knowledge is lowkey boring and becomes a bit of a plot hole if you think about it. why couldn't we just take a little trip back to Sumeru to find out the origins of Fontaine's prophecy? i'm sure Nahida, bless her heart, would be more than happy to tell us what's up, but obviously we can't do that because it'd be too easy

i think Fontaine had higher highs and lower lows while Sumeru was consistently pretty good, so if you want a good, solid plotline to show someone, show them Sumeru. i liked Fontaine better, but that's definitely personal preference, hope that answers your question!

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Loved About "King's Tide" from The Owl House

Salutations, random people on the internet who certainly won't read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Here it is, ladies, gentlemen, and those of other genders! The Season Two finale of The Owl House! And holy s**t, what a season this has been! Season One wasn't bad by any means, but everything in Season Two is taken up a notch.

The characters, for one, are impressively well-written. After a season of getting to know our cast of misfits and weirdos, Dana Terrace and her crew finally get a chance to play around with them, introducing new layers and motivations that make almost every character multidimensional. Not only that, but we get introduced to new fan favorites, like Vee, Raine, and especially Hunter, with each of them instantly winning us over.

But the characters aren't the only things that are improved this season. The overarching story and the little narratives threaded within it are perfectly tied together. The writers managed to juggle so many plotlines in a way where they all flowed together well, giving each one its own time to develop while others moved forward. One complaint I had with Season One was how the B-plots always felt like filler, where the time they took away should have been used to better further the main plot. In Season Two, the B-plots are used appropriately, as they continue one plotline or develop characters while the main story focuses on others...Except for "Any Sport in a Storm," which had a whole section of an episode dedicated to Luz and Amity finding out how The Good Witch Azura exists in both the Boiling Isles and the Human Realm. Still have no idea why they wasted so much time on that when Amity simply saying, "Oh, I got them from a box that washed onto shore," would have taken no time. Still, everything else is so tightly written, and I was all there for it.

And the animation is where the improvements this season are more noticeable. Season One had fine animation, but in Season Two, there's more emphasis on shading, colors, expressions, and movements that make it a spectacle to see at times. You can tell Disney pumped more money into the series this time...which makes their inevitable betrayal to Dana and her crew all the more frustrating, but that's neither here nor there.

Season Two is damn near perfect. It does feel like there's little time to breathe with how much every episode throws in, but if I'm seriously going to complain about getting a lot of high-level quality we got each week with little room for filler, I might just consider myself insane.

Now, let's just hope "King's Tide" can do its job at ending this season on a high note. I'm sure there will be a lot of awesome action and heartbreaking emotions ahead of us, so let's dive into it, shall we?

Also…taking out the “Disliked” section…I won’t need it.

Spoilers ahead.

WHAT I LIKED

The Collector’s Getting Impatient: Once again, an episode starts things off ominously. Hearing The Collector spout off about how he wants to be free but Belos won’t let them shows us how childlike The Collector really is. Not only are they still naive to believe that Belos will hold his end of the bargain, but the way he’s whining about not being free yet is very childlike. Trust me, kids whine when you don’t give them what they want exactly when they ask for it. Granted, The Collector has more of a valid reason for why they’re whining. If I was trapped in that pokeball, I’d be screaming “Let me out” over and over again too. Regardless, with all the childishness in this scene, it tells us that The Collector is more of a unique type of godlike character. We’ll see more of that later, but for now, let’s appreciate this little taste of what this crazy kid could be like.

The Rest of the Opening Scene: Speaking of crazy kids, seeing what the others are up to after Luz let herself get taken away is just about what I expected. There’s a sense of panic and frustration between them all, escalating further with each second. It’s not until Willow gets the palismans to step in. What follows are a few nice moments of everyone sorting out their differences and even an adorable revelation for why Amity’s nickname is “Mittens.” When I first watched this scene, I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought it was cute, and that’s about it…and then the rest of the episode happened. From then on, it became clear that this scene was just the calm before the storm, easing us into the darkness that soon followed closely behind. And BOY did things get dark!

“There’s always a way to help. You just have to look for the right opportunity.”: Oh, Willow…Willow, Willow, Willow…

What you said was sweet and is very much true…but you pretty much doomed the planet by saying it. Because King was right. He WILL remember what you’ve said. For better and worse…

Eda DID Get the Brand: Well, there went that theory from the last episode.

I still stuck by what I said last time. Eda getting this brand is a betrayal of everything she stands for, so to go through with it proves how committed to the cause she is. If she’s willing to lose the one thing that makes Eda, well, Eda, it means that she’d do anything for the Isles. Such an action makes her far more than the con-artist we got introduced to in “A Lying Witch and a Warden.” Still, it leaves this sick feeling in my stomach to see her branded like that.

But don’t worry. That sickness gets replaced by sadness real quick.

Eda’s Talk With Raine, Lilith, and Hooty: Yup. That’s the good stuff…

This scene is everything. Eda already had a final moment with her kids, so to give her time with the other most important people in her life really hits hard. Raine and Lilith tell Eda to be careful, in which she reasures them both that everything will be fine. She even kisses Hooty on the head! That’s not only sweet as all forms of hell, but it says alot about how Eda sees her relationship with Hooty. He certainly got on her nerves a couple of times, but she cares about him enough to reassure Hooty that she’ll make it out alright. Granted, Eda doesn’t know that, but what’s she going to say? That things are as scary as they seem and that there’s a good chance things will go wrong? No. We know Eda, and we’ve seen that if given the chance, she’ll put a positive spin on things even though they’re dire. She did it with Luz in “Agony of a Witch,” and she’ll do it again here. I wouldn’t call it overconfidence, but rather Eda just caring about her loved ones so much that she’s willing to hide her own fears from them. Not the best thing to do, but it does further emphasize the nobility within her that the coven brand already revealed. And it’s incredible.

Belos Preparing to Leave: But if there’s anybody who’s best described as overconfident, it’s this son of a witch! You can tell how sure Belos is about his victory with how he quickly drops his act the second he begins the draining spell. He discards his old witch robes, makes himself look human, explicitly admits that he lied to The Collector, and just tells Kikimora to go die in a hole. Even when Luz shows up, Belos doesn’t look surprised or worried. If anything, it’s like he expected this to happen and was readily prepared for it. It’s not like he’ll be scared. Why would he? The draining spell has started and there’s very little that anyone can do to stop it. All he has left is to take care of this one “pest,” and he’s good to go in leaving everything behind. It’s a testament to just how confident Belos is in his schemes, to the point where he doesn’t consider that there’s the tiniest possibility that something could go wrong. Even though the people he disregarded ended up being what lead to his downfall.

But we’ll get into that. For now, we’ve got some action to go through!

The Kids (and Alador) Fighting the Other Airships: This is a pretty fun set-piece. The little ways that everyone works together to stop the airships attacking is extraordinary. They all contribute in a unique way with Gus covering them with an illusion, Hunter going for a full frontal assault, Willow saving Hunter’s dumbass, and Amity shutting down the abomitons while Alador drives their airship. It’s teamwork to the extreme, being a blast to see for every second. My only complaint is that I wish it could have gone on longer. I’m not saying I’m disappointed that we didn’t get an extended action scene. I just would have loved to see MORE. Still, I can live with how little we got.

Darius and Eberwolf Fighting Covenheads: This is another fight scene I wish was longer. Seeing Darius and Eberwolf fight through the covenheads to the best of their ability was awesome, not only in the ways that Darius and Eberwolf hold out on their own, but also for the chance to see what the other covenheads can do. Still makes me wish that we got an entire episode with them like we did with Terra and Adrian, but…eh. There’s literally nothing I or the writers can do to change that, so complaining that a series doesn’t give me more of something awesome is pretty petty at this point. Believe me.

So, I’ll take the little awesomeness for what it’s worth. Especially for the short character moments it gives us, like Darius stopping the second it looked like Eberwolf was in danger. I found that weirdly wholesome for some reason. I don’t know why.

Eda Telling Terra She’s Making a Mistake: Unfortunately, the wholesomeness doesn’t last.

The fear in Eda’s voice as she pleads with Terra to understand is something we rarely hear in her. There have been times when it’s evident how scared or worried Eda is for the people she loves, whether it’s Luz breaking into the Conformitorium or the Emperor’s Coven looking for Luz. This time, though, I feel like it’s the most afraid Eda’s ever been, and I can’t blame her. Literally the fate of EVERYONE is based on the draining spell failing, so of course, she’ll be scared out of her wits when it looks like everyone is going to die and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. It’s a moment that leaves them helpless, and some of HER fear bleeds into me.

But if you think Eda’s worried about everyone dying, just imagine how’d she react to what Luz is up to.

Luz Trying to “Make A Deal” with Belos: Don’t mind me. Just watching one of my favorite characters in all of fiction being turned to stone and can’t do anything to stop it. Carry on.

Real talk, though, this is the closest Luz has ever come to death…and I think she knows it. You see it in the way that she flounders to get Belos to agree in having Luz as a guide, as well as in how she begins to cry as the stone reaches her face. And what’s great (I can’t believe I just described this as great) is that Luz doesn’t appeal to Belos with kind words like she usually does with people. Instead, Luz uses logic, explaining to Belos that letting her live is the smartest thing to do. The reason that works is because reaching out to Belos’ humanity would be pointless. There’s nothing human left inside him anymore, so the only thing she has left is to use the one thing he understands: Logic. Still, it was an evidential shot in the dark that he’d take this deal, and you can all but see the relief in Luz when he does. And it’s a good thing he did…because it gave Luz the one thing she needed.

Luz Branding Belos: I feel like a show is doing something right when it makes me want to get up and cheer over a character doing something brilliant.

Seriously, moments like this are why Luz is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. She doesn’t overpower her enemies, but instead outsmarts them. She is more or less a crafty strategist who uses her wits and environment to get a leg up on someone else, doing tricks like this that would make her adoptive owl mom proud. And it was a solid plan too…considering that–

The Draining Spell Begins to Take Effect: This…left me sick to my stomach.

Everyone realizing what the spell is doing and trying to just…run? Only to then realize that they’re trapped and can’t escape their fate? It was…horrifying. It was the most horrifying thing that I’ve seen in a kids’ show, and that’s saying something given all the s**t this series pulled in just this season alone.

Hell, even this episode seems pretty grim. Especially with what happens to Belos.

Belos’ Final Form: And people questioned my logic when I announced that Belos would be the Venom-stand-in for my Spider-Luz AU.

“Oh, I wOuLd HaVe MaDe HiM gReEn GoBlIn–”

Honey, look at this thing:

Does THIS scream Green Goblin to you?! COME ON, NOW! Come ON, now…also, spoilers for my Spider-Luz AU, I guess.

My bad.

Alright, now that I got my silliness out of the way, I really DIG his final form. I mean, it kind of sucks that his powerful magic is now restricted to evil rage demon, but at the same time…look at him! He's a horrifying looking creature, and I adore it. Plus, with all the ways that he attacks like a wild animal, forming weapons with…whatever the hell he’s made of, it results in a pretty cool final boss…even though our characters could hardly fight him.

The Kids Fighting Belos: What’s interesting about this is that nothing that the kids could do actually hurts Belos. Maybe trap or distract him for a couple of seconds, but never really leave a dent to him. Gus is the one to do the most damage by bringing up stuff that Belos hid away, and even then, that didn’t really hurt Belos. If anything, it pissed him off. And I’m weirdly ok with this. It shows that while Belos isn’t the same witch who can perform spells that Luz can barely keep up with, he’s still very much unstoppable. It’d really take a force of nature to put an end to Belos…Or, a godlike child.

And we’re CLOSE to getting to that. Trust me. There’s just one thing I want to talk about first. Or, rather, one gremlin

Kikimora: It’s always the ones you least expect.

Who would have guessed it would be Kikimora, Belos’ most loyal stooge, would be the one to help lead to his downfall? Turns out all it took was seeing his true colors and witnessing the end of the world.

Now, normally I’d prefer a villain’s redemption to be handled a little more…well paced, but I wouldn’t call this a redemption, per se. More like a character getting pissed off at another to the point of murder. Sure, she probably didn’t expect what The Collector would EXACTLY do to Belos, but I doubt she’d leave murder off the table after how he treated her. It truly shows that Belos’ own confidence in being unbeatable is what led to his defeat.

As for where Kikimora leads King…

The Gold Guard Graveyard: ANOTHER thing that leaves me sick to my stomach.

We all assumed that the Golden Guards in Belos’ mind was all he killed…but apparently that was REALLY stupid of us. Turns out, Belos is WAY more of a twisted f**k than we thought, as he’s killed dozens of “failures” to the point that he’s all but made a graveyard for them. It’s…awful. But it’s supposed to BE awful, so…you know. Job well-done. I guess.

But, hey, don’t worry…things get worse.

King Meets the Collector: I don’t know what interests me more in this interaction, the fact that the Collector couldn’t see King or that they originally wanted to play with him.

To be fair, both are pretty fascinating. The symbols in King’s “castle” being something to help him hide from The Collector proves that The Collector himself is worthy of being someone to hide from. All they want to do is play, but we’ll soon learn just the extent of why that’s a bad idea. But there’s still the fact that he knew King specifically, meaning that it’s possible that King’s father is the one who trapped The Collector in the first place. Because while hiding King is one thing, getting rid of the monster looking for him is another.

Through just one meeting of two characters who have never heard of each other until that day, we get so much lore and backstory behind both of them. But that’s not even the best(?) part.

King Makes a Deal With The Collector: This plan. THIS. PLAN.

This plan…is going to lead to some debate.

Because it’s a stupid plan. But at the same time, it’s the only thing that saves EVERYONE. Yet, it also led to people being in MORE danger. Meaning that while they’re still alive, would it have been better if they were dead? So as not to suffer the wrath of someone who could potentially be WORSE than Belos?

It is an interesting scenario where everyone wins, but everyone loses at the same time. And let me tell you: No other series, kids’ show or not, has ever made me question whether something was the right call. Because I can see why King did this, but I also imagine the destruction it could lead to. And for that…we’ll just have to wait and see where it could lead. For now, there’s one last thing I want to talk about before.

Raine Rips Off Eda’s Arm: I’m well aware that this sounds horrible out of context…but, I don’t know. How do you WANT me to say it?

This really is a brilliant solution that I’m surprised none of us thought of…Well, MoringMark thought of it. Technically.

But, yeah, ripping off Eda’s arm so that the spell would stop affecting her is pretty clever. The mix of the draining spell and the curse causes it to decay into nothing, leaving Eda free from the magic and maybe even the coven brand itself. So, that’s the good news…the bad news is the position it leaves her in.

Right now, Eda is missing an arm, holding the person she loves most as they die in her embrace, and has NO IDEA of the danger her kids are in. And THAT is where we leave her this season. In a very bad predicament that we have no idea how she’ll recover from it. Or IF she’ll recover from it, that is. It’s crazy to think about how this is the last time we’ll see Eda for MONTHS, all because a certain someone decided to steal the show. And steal it they did.

The Collector in His Physical Form: You know, I was already on board with this character when they were basically just a shadow. But seeing him in their physical form and finally getting a chance to shine, I am more invested in this character than ever.

In the last few minutes they were on screen, The Collector turns Belos into paste, moves the moon, and forms the Isles into his own personal playpen. In other words, The Collector is certainly going to be a terrifying antagonist. Yet, the crazy thing about them is that I wouldn’t say they’re evil.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s beyond nuts…but they’re also just a kid. Kids are nuts, yo! My nephew the other day said he’d rip Spider-Man’s butt off and then laughed like the little psycho that he is. The reason why I wasn’t worried about it was because I knew he was a kid who just didn’t understand how the world works and why some things are a bit messed up. It’s the same with The Collector. What he’s doing is messed up, but they don’t know that. He thinks that they’re playing a game and are unaware of how…fragile the players are. And THAT is what makes The Collector a unique antagonist. He’s a child with the powers of a god. They’re terrifying and insane, but in an almost innocent way. I’m not saying that because The Collector is a kid that excuses their actions, but I AM saying that after everything he’s done, they should expect a severe grounding when this series is over.

Unfortunately, this season has yet to end.

We’ve still got some more pain to go through…

Luz Trying to Stay and Keep Everything Together: Because, of course, she did.

Another great thing about Luz is her nobility. She doesn’t want to just run as everything is tearing down around her while there are people in danger. Instead, Luz will try to sacrifice herself at the first chance if it means someone she loves is safe. It’s what makes her Luz…but in trying to protect her loved ones, she ends up hurting them. Amity was literally begging Luz to come into the human realm, both because Amity doesn’t want to be apart again AND because she doesn’t want to lose someone else she loves. Alador ran off to distract the abomitons so the kids could be safe, and the twins are…Titan knows where, so if Amity lost Luz, she might just crack. And think of her friends? Do you think Gus, Willow, and maybe even Hunter would want to leave Luz behind so easily? But worst of all is Camila. How would she react to learning that her daughter is still trapped in another dimension while these four random kids aren’t? Something tells me she wouldn’t take the news well.

I get why Luz does this, but she needs to think more about the people she’s saving. For her greatest character trait is also her greatest weakness.

Just like how my greatest weakness is angst.

King Forcing Luz and Her Friends into the Human Realm: Yup…that hurt.

At the beginning of the season, King screamed how he would never let Luz go, caring so much about her that he doesn’t want to be apart. So to have King be the one to push Luz out the portal door says so much. Because while King values being with Luz forever, he cares more about her being safe above everything else. So, he does the one thing Luz could have done if the roles were reversed. And, just like Luz, he wasn’t aware of the pain this would cause.

Also, I didn’t want to be right when I said that Eda, Luz, and King’s scene together in “Clouds on the Horizon” would be their last scene together for a while. I really didn’t. But, yeah, that looks like where this is heading. And to tell you the truth, that might be more tragic than the Season Two finale of “Amphibia.” At least there, Anne may have been separated from Sasha and Marcy, but she wasn’t torn apart from her “family.” The Plantars still came with her to Earth, keeping Anne with the people she cares about the most. Here…it’s sort of different for Luz. She’s still with her friends, but her family is torn apart in all sorts of ways. Eda is stuck with Raine and a handful of dying witches, King is forced as The Collector’s playmate, and Luz is separated from both of them with no conceivable way of returning. A series is as strong as the bond between its main characters, so to have them separate like this leaves the series in a position where I don’t even know how the characters will resolve this.

So to end the season like THAT…earns so much of my respect

IN CONCLUSION

Is “King’s Tide” a satisfying conclusion? Is a hummingbird’s heart rate 1,260 beats per minute?

…Yes. The answer is yes–THIS FINALE WAS AWESOME!

There was great action and heartbreaking drama that still gave us some solid character building moments that led to a finale of epic proportions. I’m sure there are some nitpicks to be had, but I don’t care. Everything is done so well that why should I bother complaining about a few small problems that I might have.

An A+ all around, and I can’t wait for Season Three…whenever the hell that decides to come out.

[velvetbunniie-archive]

AHH YAY FOR THE BOOK BLOG!! Can’t wait to hear all of your book thoughts <3

I do have a question for you: I know how you feel about Jacks and Eva (and that whole disastrous spin-off), but what are your thoughts on the original trio (Scarlett, Tella, Julian… and Dante/Legend too I guess!)? Thoughts on the ships, the characters, the plot itself?

(Also, I’m glad your surgery went well, wishing for a speedy recovery and nothing but good news from here on out!!!) 💗💗💗

OH, EVERYONE WILL B HEARING THEM… i am annoying, babey!!!

((we don’t talk abt that fucking spin-off on this blog.. love and light <3 need to send eva back to her pre-algebra class fr.))

BUT THE ORIGINAL TRIO…. scarlett is honestly one of my fav ya mcs still… she’s got that eldest daughter syndrome burned into her + she’s so refreshingly sheltered and anxious, but has the strength at the core of her that feels so human and mundane … that said, i think maybe she should’ve smacked tella for killing herself and coming back to prove a point. as an elder sister, i think scarlett should be a bit more ruthless, don’t you agree?

and julian is also a nice departure from the typical ya male love interest, wherein he’s, like, actually respectful, omg?? and kind and sweet? i find him much more interesting than dante (though maybe that’s bc legend being his brother is important to his character development. i will accept legend for this reason and this reason alone.) honestly, out of all of the characters stephanie’s written, i think scarlett and julian are the most soulmate-coded out of all of them. i mean, they have matching white streaks in their hair bc they died together for a day <3 need i say more? the DEVOTION!!! even in the small things!!

i will forever mourn the fact that stephanie felt she wasn’t mature enough to write their love story in legendary… be soooo serious. i want to see it!!! instead we get, like, two scenes with scarlett and julian when actually i deserve a thousand of them. on top of that, it defs feels like lazy writing to ignore all that development that occurs in that book. many issues with this (>jst wants to see them kiss a bit more, ithink.)

((also they were quite possibly her strongest-written charas with the most compelling storyline… WHERE are they!!! i deserve to see more of them!!!!!))

OH ALSO, THEY WEREN’T A LOVE TRIANGLE (legend tried for,like , half a chapter, that doesn’t count), and that, my friend, is what i like to see in a soulmate couple. or in more ya couples in general, bc i literally can’t do this anymore. (>will make exceptions, as always)

i found tella to be fun, it a bit like most of the ya mcs in fantasy novels… but again,, you can’t tear a character that’s a bit of a bitch away from me. go harder. make her a feral bitch too. but, oughhh, the ya fantasy series doldrums… the love triangle… :// maybe i want tella to be meaner to jacks (and also i think jacks wants tella to be meaner to him too. many things to think of.) rather than running off with legend.

whiiiich brings me to legend. i kinda hate that he’s the way he is. he’s jst super up his own ass in a less engaging way than jacks is (i also want jacks dead. we all know how i feel about him. killing him with my mind.) not only that, but he’s boring. oh my god, he’s so boring. the romance with tella felt like stephanie chickening out / making the sisters fall in love with the brothers to make it nice and neat.. honestly, finding out she hadn’t decided who tella would end up with while she’d been plotting out the novel made me all the more enraged. we have a boring ass bitch here??? instead of jacks?? instead of an actually more engaging plotline? i want ppl that are horrible !!!! i’m here for an interesting time, not a wholesome one!

that said, i want jacks left out in the cold, where he’ll die alone. love him to bits. i hope he’s mauled by a wolf <3 i’ll also stick him in a little terrarium, if need be.

anyway, i… won’t lie, i think finale is probably the most interesting book (mostly bc we actually get to see mistress luck, god bless!!), but the scenes with tella and legend had me rolling my eyes. when has he ever been interesting enough to pine after? maybe tella should’ve jst remained single (and honestly, with that travesty of a scene in once upon a broken heart wherein all of the original characters had their personalities mauled to bits, it certainly fucking feels like tella’s single). but alas.

(yes, it defs did!!! my hand’s bruising a bit and my stitches are stinging like a bitch rn, but such is the nature of having a healthy hand in the end, i guess ;;;; )

[black-rose-writings]

Watching Shadow and Bone Season 2: Episode 1 - I am losing braincells fast

Okay, I finally have time. Let's do this.

Firstly, sorry if I miss some visual details, I am watching it on a very legal site that unfortunately has something of a potato quality.

S1 Intros looked better.

Alina is looking around in her pretty little dream sequence like "My Saints, life is so emo right now."

Sasha, my beloved.

Wasting sickness my ass.

And there is Mal, assuring her that Sasha is dead.

Where did Alina get her new fancy dress, if they've been on a ship since the end of S1? And her hair grew a lot for it being just two weeks... sorry, nit picks, but like... her hair was not that long and it doesn't grow all that much in two weeks.

Oh, look, Ketterdam. Surely, Alina will not face any danger of being kidnapped and sold into slavery, despite there being a million kruge bounty on her head last season.

So, what exactly do they think they'll find in Kerch. At least when they were running in the books, they just wanted to get to the frontier to disappear there. But like, you two don't have shit to your name... ah, I'm barely like 2 minutes in and I'm already rambling.

Oh, look, Kaz arranged them fake passports... somehow. While they were all on a ship.

*stop thinking about the details, stop thinking about the details, or you'll drive yourself crazy*

So, when exactly did she decide to go after the Sea Whip? Why does she believe it's real? Fuck, I'm doing it again.

Ah, yes, let's talk about our plans and identities openly in public where anyone can hear us.

Also, love how this is 100% the opposite of book Mal. Kinda unironially. Book!Mal can go die in a ditch.

So, we're sticking to the stange season 1 plot of Alina being some kind of a clairvoyant, huh?

Or, wait, are they in Novyi Zem? I guess they are. Okay, nevermind my first few points, I am an idiot.

I know season 1 did weird time jumps, too, but this is going to be very jarring.

Oh, look, Inej still not scared one bit of Haleen.

And... that's what happens when you leave town for months on a whim. You dunce.

Oh, look, Kaz's backstory.

Not sure how I feel about this weird twist, but sure, let's see where this goes.

I'm sorry, who did they even kill? WTF is that?

I mean, I know Ketterdam kinda sucks, but that went down way too quickly.

And Kaz trying not to lose his shit because he's surrounded by people. Well, at least that's book accurate.

Love how the guy next to Jesper is staring at him like "bro, who you talking to".

Okay, what the fuck is happening.

Oh, look at that, we are not completely ignoring that Kaz and co. got hired to kidnap and sell Alina. Well, her side of the story will, but hey, at least it's not completely glossed over like the fucking maps.

Okay, excuse, what the actual fuck is this? What in the name of hell is Nikolai doing. I am confused and not in a good way. I feel like we're missing... a lot of context. Like, a lot.

Okay, so let me get this straight... the way that they get around the "Crows planned to sell Alina into slavery" plot line is... by retconning it so that Nikolai was behind it all along. For some Saints-forsaken reason. Well, Alina is still dumb as bricks, but okay I guess.

Fjerda made ship-art. Of Darklina. For their bounty poster. (Or is this part of the whole retarded "Aleksander is working with the Fjerdans for some reason" plotline.

My question is where they got the visual reference from since everyone except for Crows and Alina-and-co. got murdered.

Kaz, mentally: Jesper, you idiot.

Wow, look at that. Room like for a queen. Wonder where they got the money from. Definitelly an upgrade from the bed-bug infested group room of the book.

At least take your fucking shoes off you barbarian!

Mal is down for travelling the world. Wow, they really pulled a full 180 on this bitch, huh?

Ew. Just ew.

Thank the Saints for cockblocking fishermen. I will vomit if they go any further.

Kaz, screaming internally: Shut the fuck up Jesper.

Oh, look, we still doing the whole "paying with jewelry got her tracked down" thing. Just, slightly less retarded.

Hold up, are we saying Jesper and Kaz are having the conversation now. Like, come on, they've worked with each other for a long time, there's no way this didn't come up before.

That is way more than 20 seconds, just saying.

Oh, look, another Alina dream sequence.

Okay, so is that like a Tether thing or is she just having prophetic dreams? If it's the Tether, how does Sasha already know what Mal is, they spoke like 2 times. If it's prophetic dreams... why though?

Language barrier? What language barrier?

Ravkan Grisha? Of all places? Is she talking about the pogroms that happened after the Fold expanded? Cause if I understand the timeline correctly, there's no way the news have spread that far, yet.

I mean, even in Novyi Zem, Grisha are not safe, in the books. There might not be society-wide prejudice, but there's also not any protection from, you know, slavers and shit (or at least not enough). Ravkan Grisha might be soldiers, but that's not exactly an uncommon profession in this world.

(calm down. You can rant later)

Please tell me this interaction isn't the reason Alina is going to go "All lives matter" on her Grisha status.

Also, how come the maps are marked in Ravkan? Again, language barrier is not a thing here.

Alina being the most suspicious thief ever.

Also, ehm, what the actual fuck is that map doing?

Wow, look at Alina, definitelly not attracting any attention with her summoning.

Why are these two talking about it... in the library of all places?

Also, I'm pretty sure public libraries with all this quantity of information available to just anyone were not a thing until the early 20th century, which the Grishaverse is most certainly not.

Dear god, this is so dumb.

Who drew that shit that it's so accurate that the people actually recognize her by it? At least when she had the physical collar in the books it made sense why everyone recognized her.

Mal being no less suspicious about asking about this shit.

For some reason, there's First Army here. Is that Bohdan from season 1? Why the fuck is he of all people in Novyi Zem?

I know the plot needs to move forwar, but this is a bit too many coincidences for my taste.

Mal's doing parkour, because we've gone 20 minutes without an action scene and if nothing happens for too long, people will start to question our dumb-fuck narrative choices.

Also, the question stands. Where the fuck did Mal and Alina get their money.

Not that I am a big fan of the King's army, but like... just shoot him. He's gonna hang for desertion, anyway. You had a gun to his head, already.

And look, how much of a badass Mal is, taking down a handful of soldiers of equal training without much trouble.

Really... you're trying to stay hidden and you've just found out there's a massive bounty on your head and you... summon in a square full of people.

I don't know why I'm bothering to use my brain anymore.

Random Zemeni people decide to protect her because... she's a Saint? I guess?

Zemeni people believe in the Saints, I guess.

Okay... let's see if they can at least write a convincing sibling dynamic when they don't intend for those two characters to fuck.

Tamar sounding far too 21st century and that's not how people talk, in general. (I say as if I talk to people).

As much as I love the bounty posters, I do have to say, I don't get how they have such a good drawing on them so quickly.

Why is Inej stealing random people's knives?

They killed Haleen. Off screen.

I mean, I guess that's one way to avoid Inej's absolutely amazing, very important and already ruined by last season revenge moment. However...

I am not saying this just because they changed the story and I know they needed to include them again, since they did last season, but like... I don't trust these writers to do these characters an ounce of justice. Or make up an alternative story that makes even a little bit of sense.

And there's still 20 minutes of an episode left. FML.

Okay, hot take, I liked book!Pekka more. This one is far too much of a cartoon villain and not in a fun way. Kaz was the one for whom it was personal. Pekka was just doing business. So, either Pekka is being pupeteered by someone else (which would make the level of too complex and dumb to work conspiracy way too high. Like, it already is, but this would be over 9000) or they really made Pekka into a cartoon villain who would hunt down one guy for a single (fake) million kruge job.

And just like that, everyone in the room went deaf.

Oh, look, Wylan. He's baby.

Inej somehow got caught sneaking in the shadows. Book!Inej would be disappointed.

Ah, yes, asking a random stranger to help break your boyfriend out of the most secure and shitty prison in all of Kerch, like, right now, something which took a lot of planning and a lot of work in the book.

(stop comparing it to the book, we know it was better, you'll drive yourself crazy)

I think telling them you're innocent when you're being dragged into the cell is... a little pointless?

I am still asking the money question.

And that's Sturmhond's ship, isn't it?

Ew 2.

Dear god, they're still using the fucking pins. They didn't have to. They could have completely avoided it. They didn't have to do it. I feel personally attacked by the inclusion of the pins.

How does Alina not realize the boat people are after her, too, right now, is beyond me. Like... my dude, my lass, nobody is going to put their life on the line for one shitty pin.

Are we getting Sasha. Please tell me we're getting Sasha being the best leader and the best character, please, I need a little bit of common sense before I lose my shit.

So... the first army is doing the sham trials of Grisha. And Aleksander is going to save them. And he's still the villain and not the monarchy. Okay. Sure.

Is that Genya?

Tell me, if this is what happens, how in the hell is she going to join Alina, who is supporting the King.

Please, tell me the show is gonna go for a "Fuck the monarchy" twist.

The First army is laughing as they're preparing to murder a bunch of innocent people. I think it's only fair that I cheer on once Sasha and the Nichevoya tear them to bits.

It's Sasha to the rescue!!!!! Hell yeah.

Now that is a hero's entrance. Moi Soverennyi!

Ah, yes, time to catch up.

Oh, look, Alina being a dumb bitch finally but her in the ass.

Well, not really, we know it's Nikolai, but Saints I wish it did.

[dreamcaught]

The Doc/River and Doc/Clara are equally valid ships.

I'm a Tentoo stan all the way, so the Doctor moving on to a new romance doesn't bother me, especially the first time I watched the show. But on rewatch, I'm frustrated with how poorly his new romances have been executed.

(My apologies to any Thasmin fans -- I haven't seen any of that yet, but I hear your ship is gold, so kudos there and I'll take your word for it.)

The problem I've had with both of them though is that they occur concurrently. Matt Smith said in an interview once that it was tense to introduce his girlfriend to his wife. And while I'm genuinely on board with polyamory, I do not think that's what this is. It takes away from both relationships and confuses the narrative.

I think that the Doctor loved Clara but never had her, while he had River but never loved her. Their romantic stories are sometimes interesting from his perspective because it's him trying to do the right thing for both women and failing in consequence. But it's also taking away the agency from Clara and River who just become the mistress and the wife.

It confuses things even further when you realize that both of them were introduced in a strange out of order way and whose main arcs revolve entirely around their interactions with the Doctor. This is flanderized with River (literally - her actual life revolves around him) and, while there is an attempt to fix that mistake with Clara (by making her only part of his history because of a paradox), it ultimately falls flat. Their backstories, their personalities and their interests make them feel much like the same person as much as their relationship with the Doctor does.

(Don't even get me started on how much River and Clara sound alike, either. Moffat only knows how to write one woman. She makes an appearance in Sherlock, too. But I digress.)

The essential problem that I have with these concurrent relationships is the faithlessness that the Doctor demonstrates. Again, it could be argued that some of these feelings are only problematic when seeing them from a monogamous perspective. The Doctor could not be monogamous, except that he is. The level of devotion and faithfulness to Rose through to Journeys End is one example of this.

However there is also that Twelve's reactions to River's exploits and other marriages shows that it bothers him. Eleven calls River his ex when he's with Clara, because being with two people at once bothers him. Both River and Clara are jealous of each other. The Doctor keeps them a secret from each other while simultaneously dating both. That is not devotion to either of them, nor do they have devotion to him.

Honestly, unless River is a plot point in the episode of choice, she is essentially forgotten about. Then, when Clara is actually forgotten about, River comes back. It's sort of like Moffat thought they were interchangeable. It's like he wrote part of River's timeline and then fell in love with the idea of Clara but had already tied the knot with the whole marriage to River thing that he had to begrudgingly keep on -- and it shows.

(And sidenote, Moffat: bisexual people are not polyamorous by rote, just so you know. It can happen like once and be okay, but you used that card with Jack Harkness.)

I know this is mostly nonsense because I'm talking about the B romantic plotline of an action/adventure/science fiction show, but how these characters interact with each other has a big impact on why we enjoy watching them. I don't like being taught that it's okay to emotionally cheat on someone you're with, whether that be either River or Clara, and I think that's ultimately why I could never get on board with these ships.

[soulerflaire]

It definitely feels like they rushed to get Wesley’s story finished and just shoved it in with this unrelated episode. This coulda been done so much better, and it sucks that they ended up going this route (whether by choice or due to lack of time).

First, get rid of the colony plotline. It has nothing to do with anything and should be its own separate episode. And I think this should have been a two-parter to give us the appropriate build-up. Have part 1 take place at the Academy. Show Wesley being depressed and frustrated. He has no friends at the Academy due to the piloting incident. He’s feeling overwhelmed by the workload. Have him contact his mom, and talk about how he’s looking forward to seeing the Enterprise again. He’s hoping that being on the ship will pull him out of this funk, give him the motivation to push through to graduation. Just all around, make it an episode explaining that he feels unhappy at the Academy, like everything he used to enjoy has lost its appeal. Maybe have him working on a personal project and then just...giving up on it. But when he boards the Enterprise, he finds himself dodging questions about academy life, trying hard not to lie, but not admitting how awful it’s been recently. The episode ends with him meeting Ensign Ricky at Ten Forward. Ricky talks about being a new transfer to the Enterprise, hearing all kinds of stories about Wes, and wanting to get to know him.

The second episode starts with Wes getting more and more frustrated with life on the ship. Everything reminds him of what’s expected of him, and how he feel incapable of meeting those expectations. He starts to snap at people and avoid contact. Eventually he just spends his time locked in his room. Through all this, Ricky’s trying to keep his spirits up, encouraging him to find his passion in life again, but without referencing Starfleet or the Academy.

At the request of Beverley, Geordi asks Wesley to come down to engineering to look at the new set up he’s developed, since Wesley used to love spending time down there discussing things with him. The scene plays out like in the original, with Wesley being rude and dismissive, except Geordi loses his cool and it devolves into a shouting match. Wesley retreats to his room, where Ricky shows up to try and talk to him, and Wesley ends up letting everything out, about hos he hates academy life, how he feels trapped and like a failure. After Wes calms down, Ricky suggests a Klingon ritual of centering he’s heard about from Worf. They go to the holodeck, and set it up, and Wes ends up having the vision of his father. After that, he realizes he’s changed, and doesn’t want to be in Starfleet. He goes to meet with Picard and Beverley, to explain and resign, when an EPS conduit blows in front of him and Ricky. Wes stops time the same way he did in the episode. Ricky reveals himself to be the Traveler, and they sidestep the explosion (no one else is nearby so no one gets hurt). Then we get a real and meaningful conversation with Picard and Beverley, and at the end of the episode, Wes says farewell to all his friends on the ship, not just those two (he also apologized to Geordi and they hug it out).

That would have been a satisfying end to his character arc. not this tacked-on unrelated side-plot with an uncomfortable appropriation of Native American culture sprinkled in.

[sophsun1]

I hope you don’t mind me sending you this ask but I finished with 5x07 (i am trying to go slow through these last episodes because while this season sucks, i am not ready to let it go). First about 5x06, i died at that moment where Emmett is waxing Carl. Also I need Emmett to go back to throwing his amazing parties because this new queer guy job, is not it. The things Brian said at that store were so right even though as usual it was rude. That brad pitt wanna be knock off, needs to leave. Oh my god, first of I am offended on Brian’s behalf because c’mon, he looks 1000x better. But also my gosh this story line is dumb. The ending was sad, but the whole ‘proper couple’ thing kind of annoyed me because weren’t they already that?? And now 5x07: i don’t know if it was here or not but I can’t stand Monty and Eli, im sorry i know it’s random but they’re so annoying. I feel bad for Justin but this whole marriage thing he’s now after is just weird, like c’mon you’re 21/22. Their break up hurt. I think this one hurt the most out of all (except the ethan one), Brian’s ‘youre making me nervous’ HURT! But also the part where Justin already had bags packed and ready. Fucking hell writers! I did though enjoy that he told Jen and Deb that Brian didn’t do anything wrong. And Jen’s ‘i wish you worked it out’ was so cute!!! I wish we hot waaaay more Jen/Brian scenes. The Brain and Michael scene hurt though. Seeing Brian have that smile right before Michael said ‘he left bc of you, who wouldnt’ and then his smile dropped and you see his eyes search Michel’s face. PAIN!!!! Gale, you will pay for my therapy! And the ending?!?!?! You ate my sunshine???? GIRL! I WANT TO CRY ALL OVER AGAIN! Also the bet is so fucking dumb. Please tell me this dude/storyline disappears in the next ep like the posse storyline did. But it was funny how Brian kicked him out of the club

Hey anon!

Of course I don't mind!

I love hearing people's reactions to watching the show for the first time and their descendent into anger at the brutally terrible story arcs this season offers up lmao.

Oh that bargain basement Brian Kinney, I cringed so hard... THE WORST PLOTLINE EVER. IT'S EMBARRASSING ON EVERY LEVEL. They really tested Gale, Randy and the viewers patience and yes, Britin's 100th breakup was again weak and just recycled issues that they had kind of worked through before and now Justin wants to be like Ben and Michael?

They were already a normal couple, that was the whole point of their relationship, they were unconventional and didn't bow down to society's expectations of them but that didn't mean their love was any less real. Somehow the writers threw that out the window and made Justin into a homemaker at 22!!!

The one thing I've always loved about their breakups is that they have never spoken badly about the other, or set out for revenge or been petty. In fact it's been the opposite you can see the love and respect for each other shine through unlike Mel and Linds for example.

God you are my sunshine playing over them as they walk away, PAIN!

What a way to stick the knife in from Michael, saying the one thing Brian fears the most the people he loves will ultimately leave him😔

[huntathalarstits]

okay but i am just THINKING about the potential plotlines for the elain book.....i honest to god hope we get both elriel, gywnriel, and elucien drama. i know there's like. a HUGE ship war or whatever the fuck (please get over yourselves it is a book) but just hear me out:

elain's book will obviously be about her coming into her own, probably gaining confidence and removing form herself this like. . . . "baby sister" title she's earned despite being able to do shit and having proved herself time and time again. i just. as someone who is also pink(tm) and soft(tm) i really just love her so much. she deserves the world! she deserves to be both strong and soft!!!!

azriel is clearly pining for her hard, but honest to god I can't tell if it's because he thinks he DESERVES her (see: bonus chapter) or if he is like. actually attracted to her?? And i love that, and I hope SJM gives us more of that, because while we love az for the most part, he is kind of fucked up emotionally, and stunted from his backstory alone (not even mentioning mor)

the elucien possibilities-- I mean we have iterally NO idea who elain would possibly chose between the two, and while lucien has affection for elain, he's kind of in the same boat as azriel-- he doesn't know her as a PERSON, (nobody does, I think, except maybe nesta), he is also just....kind of going on instinct.

so while elain is obviously attracted to azriel (i mean .. . .. . . duh).... the idea that she doesn't know what he does, the idea that they might begin to meet in secret, against rhysand's orders, is like. . . . MMPH.... the drama

and poor lucien. . . . i feel like elain is kind of having a #nesta moment and she hates the idea of a mating bond because she was and still is kind of human, but he is really sweet, and feyre does say they would make a good match, despite everything. but the drama there is just. . . . . UGH. the drama. i am incoherent about them.

when it comes to gwynriel, i do see the chemistry there, the overcoming of shared trauma, i just really hope that SJM manages to not be disrespectful and downplay gwyn's trauma/healing for the sake of smut/romance (honestly if she takes the time to do gwyn justice like she did nesta, i think it'll be great).

a potential ending is like. the book is mostly elriel, but a twist occurs and the end becomes gywnriel and elucien, which is like...... really interesting because of the buildup between all four of them.

Please god SJM all i ask is that we get to have good growth for elain. baby girl . . . . .

okay. phew. brain thoughts are down on the page. i just want to clarify that i love ALL of these ships (fuck it, even lucien x azriel LMAO) and honestly I would be So Down for a magical foursome, so there is no hate here.

[izzyisafreak]

what do u want to happen in OFMD season 2? 👀

I have so many thoughts, thank you for asking! Here's a probably incomplete list of things I want to happen:

1) Lucius being alive, literally don't care how or why but bonus points if it's funny, and bonus bonus if he's hiding on the ship and that becomes part of a major plotline

2) Would love to see Izzy slowly come to understand that he really fucked up with Ed, and see him try to fix it

3) a scary Kraken the scariness of which mainly stems from him completely losing any remaining sense of self-preservation, thereby leading the crew into dangerous situations without plans (this is the behavior that really kicks Izzy into gear, lord knows he does not vibe with casual disregard of self-preservation)

Just to ramble about that point for a bit, I can see the Kraken being a scary presence on the ship, especially around the others, but bonus points if they make it clear that he's only putting it on in public (i.e. Ed crying alone last season). He had gotten just a glimpse of being able to have what his mother and the world told him he'd never be able to have, fancy things, Nice Things, and whether Izzy understands it or not, I think the way Ed interpreted their convo was through that lens. What was he thinking, thinking he could have that kind of life. That he could try to be a nicer person. He sees the Kraken in himself and he's terrified of it. But now he has convinced himself it's the only thing he's allowed to be. Honestly i don't think Izzy was intending to do anything more than bring Blackbeard the strategist, the brilliant sailor he admired, back. The Kraken doesn't have self preservation, because deep down, Blackbeard doesnt want to live if he's living that way. So i feel like that's going to get the remaining crew of the Revenge into trouble. and as Izzy said "I'm not dying, not for that ponce and not for you." So I see Izzy coming to realize that this is not what he wanted and coming up with some kind of plan to fix it. This might inherently involve some character redemption for Izzy but i really would love for him to stay a grumpy grumpy bastard at the same time. This brings me to

4) Izzy still an angry little man but we get to see his whole antagonistic vibe used in ways that are actually helpful for everyone else. Would be very fun to see him get along with the rest of them, but in the way where he's reluctantly grumbling the whole time and they're all like 'and this is our angry guy that we've adopted, if you look at us the wrong way, he'll probably kill you 😊'

Back to the Ed situation, to combine my earlier hopes into a hope that relies on 1 and 2

5) Izzy (and like the entire remaining Revenge crew except Ed) discovers Lucius in the walls but only AFTER he's already started to realize he needs to do something to help Ed. Then everyone gets to team up on some crazy plan to like, go get Stede or something idk

6) First Badminton brother style, Ed sees Lucius as a ghost and it's both sad and hilarious. Ghost!Lucius is basically the voice of Ed's inner conscience, letting us as the audience hear Ed's internal conflict without him having to voice it himself.

7) speaking of the Badminton brothers, i want there to be a triplet. Then after Stede somehow accidentally kills him in some ridiculous way, I want there to be another badminton, some other family member, inexplicably played by the same actor but now with no canon explanation. I want this to continue in the same inevitable pattern of them dying and another one showing up (always the same actor) until the end of the show. Endless Badmintons. I think it would be absolutely hilarious

8) Jim gets to have some murder attempts, as a treat, mainly of Blackbeard and Izzy, mostly in the early part of the season. Would love it if Izzy is very very aware of the danger they pose whereas Blackbeard comically somehow doesn't notice every single time (if he did that'd be bad for Jim probably so better for him not to notice, also funnier too)

9) would absolutely love to see Izzy duel someone but like in a context where we're rooting for him and he gets to look deadly competent and very very cool. Bonus points if it helps redeem him in the eyes of Stede and/or the crew

10) a slowburn love story for Izzy, like it would not be resolved or even Near Resolved by the end of season 2. I'm pretty biased toward an eventual Pete/Izzy/Lucius because 1) i think it'd be cute and 2) i would die for actual polyam representation, that would be so cool. But I'd take anything, I just want him to start healing

Though to be clear, I don't want it to be the romance that heals him, that's why I want it to be slowburn. I want him to be an active participant in his own healing, would love to see clear signs that he is Trying. He's still a bastard, but he's a bastard who will sit and watch the talent show without complaining. Would love to see moments where he snaps at someone, starts to walk away, stops and grimaces at himself, turns back and through gritted teeth attempts to rephrase whatever he said in a nicer way. Then the fact that he is trying, is getting better in his own way is what opens him up to have more meaningful relationships with other people in the crew.

11) Lots more backstory for the rest of the crew + Izzy. Whether that be through literal flashbacks or just mentions of what they did/where they came from before the events of the show, I would love to get more info about everyone.

12) would love to see Black Pete go through some kind of development re: his what seems to be compulsive lying or strong need to boast about things and the way he idolizes Blackbeard. I think the latter part is going to fizzle out as soon as he finds out Blackbeard tried to murder Lucius. But it would be interesting if someone (I'm biased toward Izzy lol) just kinda confronted him on it and were like, dude why do you do that? You don't need to try to impress people all the time.

I'd like it to be Izzy because I love Izzy but also because I think he'd be like, if you want people to respect you, then just work on being a fucking great pirate. Learn how to sail, how to swordfight. Fuck, if you agree to take it seriously, I'll teach you. Don't make me regret this. That could be a season 3 plotline for all i care i just think it would be fun and would help them both. I want to see Black Pete become truly competent in his own right, get to the point where he can be like, i did this really cool thing and it was badass, and he really did do it, and people really do believe him.

13) during the early season aftermath when it's still just the few remaining crew on the revenge, I want Frenchie to pull off a really cool con, fuckery style, but in a similar vein to what he did on the rich people ship, and i want it to get them out of a situation where they otherwise could have died, and I want everyone to be very impressed, especially Izzy

can you tell i like Izzy, he's in like 90% of my bullet points lmao

14) i want to find out where in god's name the rest of Blackbeard's crew went and where his ship is, it's so funny that he literally just left his ship somewhere

15) more subtitled Olivia, that bit killed me I would love more of that

16) oluwande and jim. More please, i love them. That is all. But also Jim having to reveal more and more about themselves over time and they hate it but it fills oluwande with glee so they slowly start offering more and more information of their own free will

17) i think the whole point of the end of last season was that stede and Mary would never see each other again but also hear me out it would be hilarious if Mary met Ed, like, the 'the love of your life is BLACKBEARD?!" potential is fantastic also Mary is awesome and i love her and would love to see more of her

18) post reunion, we see everyone eat breakfast lunch or dinner several times and each time the meals get more and more ridiculous and elaborate with no explanation and a grinning Roach in the background. Also more doctor Roach. More Roach in general ("come back! it's just a dream!" absolute top tier comedy, i need more)

19) oh and duh i want stede and ed to reunite, however they decide to do it is fine, a little angst would be fun for sure but definitely a happy ending with a really sweet kiss would be great :)

And given that i have almost 20 points here I'm gonna stop for now lmao if i think of any more big ones maybe I'll add on more! thank you for coming to my ted talk and thank you for asking!!

[goodluckdetective]

But What’s the Punchline: Why the Joker is Being Written all Wrong and Why.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the circus. Yes, I am going to talk about the Joker at length here, making me the biggest clown, but listen, I promise, I have points to make. Just sit down and hear me out. 

So a lot of comic book fans, myself included, loathe seeing the Joker because when he appears, it’s usually a sign some bad writing will commence. The Joker is less than a character these days than a “stakes are raised” flag that a writer throws in to let us know “shit is serious now” like we didn’t just see the Joker a month ago in the same way. In general, his actions follow whatever the plot needs from him, plus a joke or two in a wavy font, but otherwise, there’s not much depth to him. He’s a bit like the “sexy lamp” trope except instead he’s more of a street sign that says “danger” and that street sign is in front of like the smallest pot hole to a full on burning building.

But I digress. So the Joker now kinda of sucks, but he has been good in the past. We’ve all read a story where he is actually interesting. So what happened? Well, long story short, the Joker got a bit lost in translation. 

What does the Joker actually represent? A lot of folks say society but that’s not it. Some say he’s chaos for chaos sake, which isn’t entirely wrong, and some interpretations have written him that way, but I’d argue they’re not good ones. 

I think Moore is a little closer with the idea of one bad day but I think people also really simplify what he was getting at.  Because Moore’s point in the Killing Joke (derogatory, problematic) was that the Joker is wrong. Jim proves him wrong, that’s the point. So it’s not that either.

So let’s take a step back. I think the best way to view the Joker is to start with Batman because the Joker is supposed to be his natural foil, his true nemesis. So to foil properly, you first have to decide what you’re foiling. Batman is an idea, the idea Bruce had a very very bad day and then decided to try to stop bad things like it from ever happening again. He’s not a defense of the “system” per say because Bruce goes against the system a lot because it’s corrupt and doesn’t work. But it’s an idea of justice, that those who are hurt can feel safe and that people can be better. 

It’s the idea that “the world sucks and is unfair and bad things happen, but we get up and try to make it better anyway because it’s worth it” Which fits Gotham thematically: things are terrible and dark but no one gives up, they keep pushing towards that light.

Okay so with this in mind, the Joker is easier to define. He’s not pure chaos. The Joker is destructive nihilism, the idea that “everyone sucks and the world is unfair and bad things happen and because of that, I should burn it all down until everyone else realizes it too, because we will never truly win.” A lot of the things the Joker does when written well come back to this mission statement: futility and despair. There’s no hope to be had so fuck it, let’s commit some arson and laugh because none of this means anything, might as well have fun as the world falls apart. And that fits with his character. Why is he a clown? Tragic comedy duality. Why is his backstory always changing and never concrete? Because nothing matters so who he is doesn’t matter, the city will still burn. Why does he shift tactics so often? Because he doesn’t care about consistency, he sees the world as a doomed sim city and he’s happy to destroy it regardless of what tools he has in the hot bar.

And it’s why he hates Batman so much. The Joker views the world as a bird with two broken wings from hitting the window:it hasn’t quite died yet but will never get better. Meanwhile Batman is the person still trying to bandage each wing, like birds doesn’t break wings every day, like the window isn’t going to cause this problem again, like trying to fix this one doomed bird matters. And the Joker hates him for it. He wants him to stop fighting, admit you can’t fix things and laugh. And yet Batman keeps trying to save every broken bird he can find like that will change anything. Hell, he even tries to fix the fucking window, even though some other asshole will put up another one as soon as he convinces this property owner to replace it. Batman looks at this problem and keeps railing against it, even when the chance of him saving ever bird and replacing every too opaque window is impossible. And the Joker finds that attempt to work against what he views as a hopeless situation the most frustrating thing in the world. 

(This viewpoint of the Joker also helps explain why Harley and others so easily fell for the line: cause chaos cus it’s fun is a harder sell then “we’re all doomed, might as well watch it burn and laugh knowing it was doomed to begin with). 

But instead everyone writes him as their first chaotic evil character in dnd and it’s lazy. It’s boring. It’s a plot device in clown make-up. Use a character who makes sense for your plotline. Save the Joker for what he’s meant for. 

[dynyamight]

#116 bkdk please 🥰

send me a writting ask

116. “I’m right here.”

Nightmares. Midoriya feels embarrassed to even admit he still has them.

Ochako had told him that was perfectly normal. “Heroes aren’t high and almighty, Deku. We struggle, cry, and experience loss. Why wouldn’t we have nightmares, either?”

“I have nightmares too, Midoriya-san.” Iida had confessed to him, “But, they don’t make us weak. They fuel us to stay strong and brave.”

Todoroki felt the most convincing to Midoriya. “I have them. Almost every other night.”

“Oh.” Midoriya barely voiced, feeling a little intrusive. He adjusted his phone in his hand, trying to dispel the stiff air he felt in the call.

“Yeah.” On Todoroki’s end, Midoriya heard a bit of shuffling. “If you feel like you’re the only person in the world who deals with the worst of them, you’re not. I’m there with you.”

“Do you know anything to make them disappear?”

“If I did, don’t you think I would have stopped having them?”

“Sorry. You’re completely right.” Midoriya sighed, long and defeated. “I just hate bothering people with these calls.”

“There’s nothing wrong with calling me.” Todoroki offered softly. “I get it. It also helps me to talk it out with someone, too.”

Midoriya hummed, left feeling disappointed in his gut. He knows Todoroki, as well as the rest of his closest friends, are willing to deal with his phone calls. But, he wants them to stop. The nightmares.

They always leave him in a cold sweat, gasping for air. No matter how strong he got, no matter how many villains he took down, or how much the public adornes him with glory and applause, the nightmares break him.

They belittle him. They mock him. They dare him with the deaths of his loved ones. They taunt him with deaths of his own. They curse him with images of not saving enough, or saving no one at all.

All for One. He continues to haunt him, the moment he closes his eyes and falls in a slumber. And, it leaves Midoriya frustratingly holding back tears, wanting him to leave his essence.

And, tonight was another one of those nights. Padding down barefoot, Midoriya walks out of his bedroom and into the living space. There’s a damp towel around his neck, soaking the sweat he built up from his recent nightmare.

In his hands, his cell phone was held tight.

He doesn’t want to call Todoroki, or Ochako, or Iida. He doesn’t want to stress out his mother any more than she needs to. All Might deserves a peaceful night of his own, free from Midoriya’s rambles. And, Midoriya simply didn’t feel comfortable enough to talk with anyone else.

Except, maybe there was one. Midoriya groans, slumping down on his couch.

He looks down at the phone in his hands, its screen glowing. There was a contact name blaring at him back, beckoning him to press the call button.

Midoriya hates the way his exhausted mind easily talks to him into pressing it. He hates the way he puts the phone to his ear, as if he hopes the call is picked up. He hates the way his heart beats frantically in his chest, wanting to hear that familiar voice.

Midoriya hopes his call is ignored.

“Who the fuck is this?”

His voice gets caught in his throat. Midoriya feels the burning of embarrassment suddenly engulf him, like a wildfire.

Bakugou never looks at the contact name, before answering any calls, Midoriya knows. And, he knows that if he were to say anything, Bakugou would know it’s him.

But, he can’t even breathe right now. He immediately regrets everything. Bakugou could be working, patrolling. Bakugou could have been sleeping. Bakugou could have been enjoying time by himself. Or with others.

God, he could be with people right now, and Midoriya’s wanting to talk about his nightmares. How embarrassing. How weak of him.

“Hello?” Bakugou’s voice echoes. “Hello?”

Midoriya chokes, tears falling down his cheeks. “S-Sorry.”

He hangs up.

And, just as fast as he ends the call, his phone is ringing.

It’s almost laughable. If it wasn’t for the brittle heart he had currently, Midoriya would have been smiling at the way Bakugou was urgently calling back. But, instead, he felt terrible, making Bakugou stressed.

Tentatively, Midoriya answers the call, quickly wiping his tears. “K-Kacchan—”

“Where are you? Now.” Bakugou’s concern booms.

Midoriya shakes his head. “I’m home. Safe.”

“You hurt?”

“N-No. I’m okay.”

There’s a moment of silence on Bakugou’s end. “..The fuck you crying about?” He suddenly asks, bluntly.

“It’s—” Midoriya groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s nothing.”

“Hell, it’s nothing.” Bakugou scoffs, “You fucking called me during my shift.”

Of course he did. “You should go back, then.”

“Nah, I got it covered. ‘Sides, it ain’t eventful, tonight.”

“You need to go back to work, Kacchan. It’s important.” Midoriya chastises.

“Yeah, well, so are you.”

That prickles some tears. Sniffing, Midoriya furiously rubs his eyes, frantically trying to keep them dry. The stuffiness in his nose returns, making his voice sound muffled. “I had a nightmare. That’s all.”

“You used to have shitty nightmares, when we were younger.”

“I never outgrew them.” Midoriya admits, quietly.

“Hm.” There’s a bit of wind resounding in Bakugou’s end. “Did they get worse?”

“..They have.”

“Why haven’t you told me.”

Shrugging against the phone, Midoriya curls himself into a ball. “I thought you wouldn’t want to hear about them. They are a bit bothersome, even for me.”

“I wouldn’t—” Bakugou ceases, sighing. “Then, tell me. What was it about? This one.”

Reimagining his nightmares was always hard. Midoriya remembers the faces of the people in his dreams, and the sensations he feels afterwards. But, he cannot seem to recall the story of them, the events in order.

But, for this particular nightmare, there wasn’t any bizarre plotline to understand.

“You.” Midoriya confesses. “You were in it. And, All for One had taken you, in his hands. And, right when I was so close to reaching you, he— you were gone.”

“Lame.”

Sputtering, Midoriya is utterly baffled. “That’s—!”

“What the hell, Deku. You should have known that I ain’t dying anytime soon.” Bakugou huffs irritated, “Especially not from that damn old man. People would call for elder abuse, from how I could beat his ass.”

He shouldn’t laugh, but Midoriya can’t help it. He smiles, staring up at his ceiling. “I knew you would say something like that.”

“Is that why you called?” Bakugou inqueries, “So, you could hear me say that.”

“..Yeah.” Midoriya nods. He brings a hand to his curls, running them through. “I needed to hear you say that.”

“You planning to go back to sleep?”

“You’ve never asked these many questions before, Kacchan.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Midoriya exhales a defeated breath, laying his head back on the couch. “No. I wasn’t.”

“You fucking should.” Bakugou tsk’s. Midoriya can imagine him shaking his head in disapproval.

“If I do, the nightmares will come back.” He states weakly, and his shoulders tighten. “I-I can’t. I don’t want to see you fall again.”

“..Stay on the line.”

Midoriya doesn’t know what to expect, as he stayed waiting. A couple seconds became a few minutes, and then those minutes became at least fifteen minutes of no response.

He’s about to hang up, thinking Bakugou had to go back to combat, until he hears loud rummaging.

“You there?” Bakugou voices.

He nods. But then, Midoriya remembers that Bakugou can’t see him. “Y-Yeah. I am.” He hurriedly states.

“Good.”

There’s a lot more movement and noise sounding off on Bakugou’s end; clinking of metal, heavy footsteps, car horns, beeping of sorts.

“I put you on my bluetooth.” Bakugou mentions it easily.

“N-No! Don’t do that, Kacchan!” Midoriya frantically insists, sitting up fully in his seat.

“I need to do my fucking job, idiot.”

“Then, hang up!”

“Yeah, but you need me.”

Midoriya stills. Despite his pleas to leave, his heart soars achingly, appreciating Bakugou’s efforts towards him. It causes a surge of tears, threatening to fall. “I-I don’t want to bother you.”

“You’re exhausting, Deku.” Bakugou groans, “If you were, I would have hung up by now.”

“What are you even planning for us to do, then?”

“Fucking easy.” Bakugou huffs confidently, “Keep your phone to your ears.”

“Keep my phone?”

“So, when you fall asleep, you can still continue hearing me alive.” Bakugou states, “Hear me talk, walk, breathe. Maybe, in your shit dreams, I’ll be alive there, too.”

Midoriya smiles, his vision blurring. “I wish you were here.” He confesses.

“I’m right here.” Bakugou firmly states, his voice resounding deep in Midoriya’s fragile, weakened core. “Just don’t fucking hang up, and I’ll be here.”

And, Midoriya doesn’t. He listens quietly to Bakugou flying around his city, the booming of his explosives reaching his call. And, he hears all the conversations Bakugou has with people; his sidekicks, the bypassing citizens, his fellow fans.

Midoriya overhears Bakugou mentioning to someone that yes, he was on a call, and no, it wasn’t their business who. “It’s someone I would fucking fight for. There. Happy now?” Bakugou relents, finally.

Midoriya wants to laugh, but instead, he feels his body light and sleepy. Resting flat on the couch, he brings a pillow to his chest, and allows himself to close his eyes.

The last thing he hears from Bakugou is a small, short whisper. “Let me fight those nightmares, Deku.”

His dreams consist of Bakugou beating up All for One with ease.