#aly cooper

[masterkeynobi]

usually i loathe when a protagonist gets turned into a "bad" parent in a sequel series but tortall does it so well and so realistically that i can't help but think it'd be ooc any other way. of course alanna is gruff and sometimes unkind and not always present. of course jonathan must do what is best for realm and reputation; of course he's king first, father second. jon's parenting style is visible from the start in how roald acts during his page years — jon as a page sees ralon held down and beaten for the crime of bothering little alan; roald, much as he wants to, can't so much as join kel on her nighttime patrols for fear of how it'd look. jon takes alanna on as a squire because they're good friends & lovers; roald has had his knight-master picked out for him for years before he's even made a squire.

alanna gets along well enough with alan and thom, her knightling and her scholar, but she can't for the life of her understand how aly works. in my opinion this has something to do both with the fact that aly is a lot more like george in the most dangerous ways and with the fact that aly is rather significantly more of a Girl than alanna ever was. alanna had no (0) female friends growing up and only one older female mentor figure. she grew up and still lives the vast majority of her life surrounded by men of similar status. is it any surprise she finds her sons easier to talk to?

there's a passing sentence in trickster's choice that alludes to aly having once been jealous of how effusive her mother was about keladry of mindelan. i can't help but think also about kalasin ii of conté, kally whose mother's people are matrilineal, kally who should by rights have been her mother's heir. kally who calls the lioness aunt and wanted as a child nothing more than to be a knight, who will spend the rest of her life in carthak and likely never see a lady knight again. i think she was jealous of kel too, but in the opposite direction. aly couldn't and wouldn't be who kel was, too protective of her own freedom and too much like her father to ever want a shield. aly envied the easy understanding alanna had of kel's ambitions and grit. kalasin had those same ambitions but never got the chance to show that same grit. kalasin spent the four years of kel's page training at king's reach learning to be an empress.

it's the. not wanting and choosing not to do vs the wanting and not having the choice. it's the jealousy someone so distant from alanna got so much of her attention when her interactions with her own daughter were constantly snippy vs the thought that kally should've been there first, should've gotten to prove the conservatives wrong, should've been able to show kel around and shield (ha) her from the worst of their ire. no little girls will grasp wide-eyed for tales of aly cooper or empress kalasin the same way they do for the lioness and lady kel. i don't think aly minds, but i think kalasin very, very quietly does.

#sree.txt #tortall #aly cooper #kalasin of conté #keladry of mindelan #alanna the lioness #jonathan of conté #sorry for the recent verbose tortallposting it will likely continue #also everyone on the planet needs to read in the perfection of conduct and virtues by rain_sleet_snow on ao3 #lifechanging fic i simply cant stop rotating kally in my mindcrowave now

[randomthingsthatilike1]

honestly I think the wrong parent was sent to pick up Aly in the ending of Trickster's Choice

the entire book we see through Kyprioths visions to Aly that Alanna, above all, cares for Aly, that she really does see Aly for who she is and worries terribly for her lost, hidden daughter, angry and upset and scared. She's constantly scrying for her with the mirror Thom gave her--her daughter is missing and her husband lied to her about it.

After months and months of worrying and praying, Alanna finally knows where her daughter is. She loves George, she does, but he lied to her about her only daughter's well being. And after the 8 years of her training constantly lying to everyone Alanna is sick of it, sick of doing it and avoids it at almost all cost--but for this? For the love she has for her daughter?

She’s been worried sick, scrying every free hour, distracted and blaming herself for her daughter’s disappearance. She's not needed in Frasrland, not really, not with this stalemate at the border. The killing devices are all gone and nothing is happening there. They don't need her--but Aly does.

She’s been married to George for 20 years and she’s known him for 30--she’s picked up a few tricks on how to go around unseen, how to slip away seamlessly but first there are a few things she has to do.

Her husband with his nondescript features can roam freely.  She cannot. She’s far too distinctive nowadays, but to quote her daughter that is what razors and dyes are for. Her long hair is her pride and joy. After years of cutting it boyishly short, as well as being a good enough fighter she can have long hair--it’s her one vanity.

She loves her hair. She’d topple kingdoms for her daughter.

A short and stocky man with copper red hair isn't the ideal spy, but shes here to find her daughter--its the story she goes with. She’s looking for her daughter, a Tortallan, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Copper Isles.She speaks enough Carthaki to get by and well it’s not like she can’t defend herself, even with just a knife and hand to hand.

The only dead giveaway about her are her purple eyes, but she's a mage, with a powerful Gift specializing in manipulating the human body--if there's a magical way to create an illusion or temporarily change your eye color she would know it. If not, I'm sure George has found a way and she's already used it before.

This barely scratches the surface of what she’d do for Aly. She's a mage, with a powerful Gift specializing in manipulating the human body--if there's a magical way to create an illusion or temporarily change your eye color she would know it. If not, I'm sure George has found a way. She glamors her eyes to look the same as her daughter and her husband. She lightly dyes her hair, making it a more blondish red like Aly's.

She finds a young squire stationed at the border and surreptitiously steals some of his clothes and other supplies around camp, her personal weaponry far too flashy and distinctive.

Aly isn’t the only one who was trained by the King of Thieves.

You can’t tell me she’s never done anything like this with George, not wanting to be stared at by people who recognize the famous Lioness, either getting him out of some scrapes or just relaxing and having fun.

Kyprioth is sweating bullets. There's only so much he can hide, although he has far more power in the Copper Isles than Tortall so he can't stop her but he’ll do his best to hide her from the Goddess but uhhhhhhhh there’s only So Much he can do. 

Alanna is Determined--she will find her daughter and is she maybe less subtle than George was? Sure. But all the same, she’s brought to the Balitang’s home in Rajmuat and makes her way to Lombyn.

It’s the same scene, of Alanna approaching Winnamine , introducing herself as Alan Cooper and asking to buy Aly-- Winnamine realizing “Alan” isn’t really here to buy Aly.

It takes Aly just a little longer to recognize Alanna--and she comes to a halt and is filled with shock because this is the Lioness, her mother who is persona non grata to the Copper Isles due to killing one of their princesses decades ago (and wow that might actually get Ochabu to tolerate her mother) and would probably be either killed or ransomed as a hostage p much on sight, the King’s Champion, one of the most distinctive and famous women in the continent--is here.

She’s here, her hair short and lighter and her purple eyes--they’re very similar to Aly’s now. Alanna letting out a sob at the sight of her daughter--her hair also shorter, eyebrow scar, broken nose, but alive and safe and still with that spark in her eye.

Just. The PARALLELS of both having the explicit approval of their god to deceive and lie and how they both deceived so many people to achieve their goals. Aly seeing her mother engage in spycraft and trickery to try to find her is probably a better apology than Alanna could ever find the words for

Later after Alanna had her Own standoff with Kyprioth she tells Aly she didn’t want this life for her, not because she was a noble or a Trebond but because she’s Alanna’s daughter and she knows how hard it is to keep a secret and deceive the people she cared about, and how much it hurt when it all came out. That’s something George never had to deal with--George has never really had to deceive his loved ones. They’ve always known he’s Crooked and an inkling of what he’s been up to--but Alanna has. She did it for 8 long years and she was good at it too, but the amount of pain it brought her after meant she never wanted that for her daughter.

Alanna earned her shield through treachery, the constant fear of being found out dogging her footsteps and once she got it she made sure no other girl would have to.

For Aly just to be reminded how similar she really is to her mother and begrudgingly putting that together--for Kyprioth to tell Aly that yes George gave her the skills he needed that made Aly his ideal Spymaster and what she’s done so far in keeping the Balitangs safe is why he wants her to stay, but it was Alanna’s actions that really sold him on recruiting Aly in the first place.

(I have other feelings about Kyprioth and Alanna here because d a m n “they say he loves a good trick”--as a girl for 8 years Alanna fooled the Tortallan monarchy and nobility. That’s what his Promised Queen will have to do. And he is George’s patron--it would make sense that both of them loved aspects of Alanna.)

(also while she’s there it’d be hilarious for Sarai to spar against Alanna and have her ass handed to her--it’d be a great nod back to when Aly was observing Sarai and thinking about her own training bc it sure would make Ulasim wonder wait can Aly use a sword????)

(also if anyone wants to write this go for it)

#tamora pierce #alanna of trebond #aly cooper #george cooper #alianne crow #alianne cooper #tricksters choice #tricksters queen #i've been working on this in my drafts since 2022 #kyprioth #alanna of pirate's swoop #alanna of pirate's swoop and olau #alanna the lioness #daughter of the lioness #1.1k words of meta later #meta #dove balitang

[ladylingua]

Ok so we know that Aly thinks of herself as being very akin to George, which is true, but she also has a lot of Alanna in her that she doesn’t seem to see as clearly- she’s stubborn, she breaks the rules and won’t let anyone else tell her who she is going to be, etc

and of course that’s part of that developmental stage where teens are struggling to separate from their parent and it’s common for girls to struggle to separate from their mothers specifically and we see that in how Aly reacts to Alanna all “OK WELL I’M SORRY I’M NOT YOU”

but also it’s like Aly doesn’t see Alanna as a real human person she sees her as Mother Legend and is clearly so attached to the mythos of how heroic and epic Alanna is, and at the same time has internalized this idea that she herself is lazy and unambitious,

and so sometimes I wonder if part of it is that Aly doesn’t always see the Alanna in herself because she can’t imagine herself as being capable of possessing those same bold and heroic qualities

anyways we were so robbed by only getting Aly for two years

#tamora pierce #tortall #aly cooper #trickster series #daughter of the lioness #alanna the lioness #I was going to list a similar interest in dating as another similarity lmao

[whimsicallywiddershins]

Something I really like about the Trickster series is that Aly could have been the "white person sweeping in and saving poor brown characters from imperialism" but she wasn't. It was a very thin line that Tamora Pierce somehow didn't cross. Aly is definitely the white person coming into a poc rebellion, but she isn't leading it, and she didn't cause it or encourage it to happen. The rebel's plans had been in place for a long time. Aly just nudged some things, and helped it succeed. She obeys the will of the rebels' leaders, and isn't the "driving force" behind the rebellion.

There are even moments where Aly does toe that line, starts to criticize the rebels, and go off on her own. But each time, she is brought back down and remembers that this is not her country, and in the end, it's their choice, their rebellion. She lends a helping hand, but they could have done it without her.

#tamora pierce #tortall #tricksters choice #tricksters queen #trickster series #aly cooper #aly crow #aly tricksters #good books #book reccs #also the audiobook is amazing with all of the accents

[cephalopodinspace]

Spoilers for the Trickster duology.

The oddest thing about the second book in Tamora Pierce's Trickster duology, Trickster's Queen, is that from the very beginning, it posits that the heroes' victory is inevitable not merely because the heroes are strong and worthy, but because the villains are incompetent and pathetic. Exemplifying their inability to rule either effectively or benevolently (and keeping with family tradition), the colonizing regents Imajane and Rubenon kill their own advisors, mages, and child king--who is also their own brother--out of paranoia and needlessly cripple their own government. Their spymaster is a lazy, inattentive fool. Their magic is characterized by its heavy-handediness, in contrast to raka practices. Because of their selfish individualism, they do not realize they are fomenting rebellion by brutalizing their population until the revolution is already upon them. The leaders of the revolution are highly aware of the villains' vulnerabilities, and the main character repeatedly confirms what the totality of the their incompetency implies: the only way for the heroes to fail is if the revolution they trigger is so overwhelmingly violent that it results in the deaths of all members of the tyrants' racial caste.

Complementing the villains' earthly, human weakness, the raka rebels' strength comes from two sources that are beyond the comprehension of the individual human. One, as is typical of the genre, is divine: the trickster god Kyprioth sponsors the rebellion in order to take back the Copper Isles from his siblings, who side with the colonizers. Aly is as close to Kyprioth as any mortal can be, yet he remains a source of mystery for her throughout the series. As a god, he is naturally beyond the comprehension of any mortal; and as a trickster, he deliberately keeps his motivations and true plans somewhat obscure. While Kyprioth's siblings are (like the regents) ignorant of the true extent rebellion until the final battle of the duology, Kyprioth frequently lends his supernatural support to the rebels. For instance, he does things like sending a prophet (in Aly) to the family of his chosen queen and giving the rebels the crows as allies. His actions serve to lend the rebellion a mythic quality and sense of divine justice that contrasts sharply with the all-too-human weakness of the regents.

The other, less conventional source of the rebels' power is centuries of preparation carried about by generations of raka living under luarin rule. Like Kyprioth's divine might, the collective power of the raka transcends that of the individual human. And as with Kyprioth, the raka's overwhelming material power is obscure not just by nature of its vastness, but by design: since the colonization of the Isles, the raka have learned to conceal themselves and their power--their magic, their military strength, their traditions--from luarin view. Now, as the revolution arrives, the leaders agree that no one person in the rebellion will know the true extent of it, emphasizing that the rebellion's victory will not stem from the heroism of the individual, but from the perseverance of the collective. Because the rebels access the perspective of the people, they understand the true reality of the Isles in a way that the regents refuse to--and that's why they win the war.

In a story that is entirely about the rebellion of an indigenous people against a racist colonist regime, Aly--a member of the colonizers' white-coded racial group, albeit a foreigner--seems like an odd choice for a protagonist. However, by virtue of being a luarin and an outsider, Aly has a unique relationship with the colonizing class that is worthy of greater focus. The chief weaknesses of the regents are their ignorance and their individualism, both of which Aly seeks to curb in herself. As a spy, Aly understands the value of information and abhors ignorance. In the first book, she snoops and uses the crows to find information. In the second book, she gains new methods of finding information, such as her spy network and the darkings. Aly is more well-informed about the rebellion than any other participant in it: so much so that Kyprioth casts a spell on her that prevents her from giving up information under torture or magic. However, that knowledge is ultimately imperfect, and potentially serves to mask Aly's true ignorance in the same way that the regents' ignorance is masked from them by their royal power. One moment when Aly realizes her ignorance is when she realizes that prospective queen Sarai has eloped, and she can do nothing to stop it. The Graveyard Hag physically prevents Aly from going off to search for Sarai at the critical moment, linking the revelation of Aly's ignorance and arrogance to the horror of powerlessness. However much information Aly gains, her knowledge remains incomplete. She cannot know everything about the gods, and she cannot know everything the rebellion needs to know. If she believed otherwise, then she would be making the same mistake as the regents. A key part of Aly's story is that she learns not to believe in her own myth or believe her power extends further than it actually does.

Aly's rejection of individualism parallels Pierce's rejection of the individualist hero in the context of the duology. Aly's realization of her own ignorance after Sarai's elopement is one example of her rejection of individualism: the realization pushes Aly to subdue her ego, and she in turn encourages Kyprioth to do the same. She then explains that while Sarai is gone, the rebellion survives, and has the potential to flourish under Dove's leadership. Where the regents fall back on their paranoia after every disaster and murder whomever they can deem responsible for their failures, Aly's discovery of her own weakness leads her to place greater faith in the rebellion that she serves and devote her individual strength more completely to the collective. In many ways, framing throughout the duology enforces the idea that Aly is not a lone hero, but a contributor to a movement far larger than herself. Significantly, Aly is a spy, rather than a warrior or a mage. As a result, her inherent physical and mental strength is less important than the connections she forges: rather than defeating her enemies in combat, she uses information to augment the power of her allies and disadvantage her enemies. In the prophecy fortelling the reestablishment of raka sovereignty, Aly is not the central figure, but again placed in a support role. As a luarin, Aly differentiates herself from the regents and their ilk by understanding that taking that supportive role is just and good, even if it means sacrificing her own myth as an individual--even if it means sacrificing the Tortallan identity that empowered and defined her for her entire life up until her arrival in the Isles, as she does temporarily at the end of the first book and permanently at the end of the second.

The Trickster duology is the story of the indigenous raka and their allies uniting as a collectivist force to overthrow the colonizing luarin regime, which is ultimately a victim of its own individualism and ignorance. While Aly, an outsider, immediately allies herself with the rebels' cause against the colonizers, she ends up spending the rest of the duology learning to identify and deconstruct aspects of the colonizers' ideology as they manifest in her own worldview. In the Trickster duology, Tamora Pierce rejects common fantasy conventions--including conventions that have appeared in her previous works--like setting lone heroes against evil hordes or faceless armies, or making heroes from hegemonic groups the leaders of rebellions composed of oppressed peoples. Though Pierce's work is by no means flawless, it engages deeply and thoughtfully with the worldview behind colonialism and the impacts it has on colonized communities, and raises the bar for discussion of colonialism in the fantasy and young adult genres on the whole.

#tamora pierce #trickster duology #aly cooper #essay

[wintercorrybriea2]

donovan greenn styled by aly cooper

#donovan greenn #b #aly cooper #style

[wintercorrybriea]

aly cooper

#aly cooper #style #addidas

[noua-unu]

#aly cooper #noua unu #noua unu studio #tiago goya

[broodingandbooks]

#I need to know #tortall #tamora pierce #alanna the lioness #keladry of mindelan #beka cooper #aly of pirate’s swoop #veralidaine sarrasri #protector of the small #the song of the lioness

[alyblacklist]

THE GANG'S ALL HERE

#the blacklist #raymond reddington #donald ressler #harold cooper #dembe zuma #10.01 #aly gifs

[goodgrammaritan]

Best Tamora Pierce villain (Tortall):

#tamora pierce #tortall #tamora pierce villains #beka cooper #alanna the lioness #daine sarrasri #keladry of mindelan #aly of pirate's swoop

[luckydiorxoxo]

Martin Short, Sterling K. Brown, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Cara Jade Myers, Jillian Dion, JaNae Collins and Tantoo Cardinal, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy Allen White, Lionel Boyce, Meryl Streep, Ali Wong, Celine Song, Bob Iger, Quinta Brunson, Charles Melton, Willem Dafoe and Greta Gerwig attend the AFI Awards Luncheon.

#meryl streep #willem dafoe #Greta garwig #poor things #Barbie #AFI awards luncheon #ayo edebiri #jeremy allen white #lionel boyce #bradley cooper #jennifer aniston #cara jade myers #jillian dion #janae collins #tantoo cardinal #Celine song #Ali wong #Charles melton #Emily blunt #robert downey jr #sterling k. brown #Martin short #Bob iger #quinta brunson

[randomthingsthatilike1]

ideas that I hurt myself with:

in tricksters queen, kyprioth's plan that he might have had in his back pocket, like everything is going to hell in a handbasket, there is v little hope left for the rebellion, they can't figure a way out?

would probably let Aly die.

because if Aly dies, George and Alanna "One Woman Army" the Lioness would absolutely get involved and a cascade of people would then also get involved and anyone else Jon could order to heel, but Alanna and George and Daine and Numair and Alan and Raol (that's his squire and his friend--of course he's going) and Neal (thats his knight mistress, of course he would follow) and Kel? Wouldn't really work.

Kyprioth's hail Mary plan has always been Aly.

Just. He's a god--using a mortal doesn't always mean they have to be alive for their plans to work.

#kyprioth #tamora pierce #alanna the lioness #george cooper #aly cooper #alanna of pirate's swoop and olau #tricksters queen #tricksters choice

[ladylingua]

Today I was just thinking about what a shock it was to look at pictures and videos of my childhood and see my parents who were my age now when I was young, and like to contextualize their parenting with my lived experience of being 30 years old and having no idea what I’m doing. Like as a child my parents felt like Timeless Immortal Beings who were Old and Wise and Knew All, and thus when they screwed up it was such a betrayal because they obviously ought to know exactly the right things all the time- but now I’m looking back at photos and in reality there’s just this woman, young and fresh faced and probably just as confused and fumbling as I feel today, and somehow they let her have a whole baby and raise it?? What??? I

And anyways, to return us to our regularly scheduled fandom content, do you ever think Aly as she gets older might someday also be like looking at a family portrait or something and suddenly be like “Where is my imposing Mother who Knows All, and who is this 20 year old clutching these twins looking like I feel right now trying to figure out how to parent my kids??”

#tamora pierce #tortall #alanna the lioness #Aly Cooper #alianne cooper of pirate’s swoop #song of the lioness #daughter of the lioness #trickster series

[userchappell]

you get attached to a character you know and love so much and would absolutely do anything for them. and then they fucking die

#or even worse. you hear that they die before you even get to that point #jackie taylor #cindy berman #justin foley #junior wheeler #kang sae byeok #ali abdul #zhilan zhang #marissa cooper #stanley uris #stefan salvatore #laura lee #dani clayton #ashtray euphoria #commander lexa #violet harmon #jaiden rants

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

I could not tell you a single fucking thing about this book but I can tell you that this image changed me. It fundamentally rewired my brain as a child.

(I know I read the whole series but all I remember was that they were too Jesus-y for me and did not live up to the hype of that cover)

#Maybe there was a secret door or hidden panel in a wall in one of them? #I have a really inconsistent memory for books #I remember a LOT of Ali Baba Bernstein and the 40 Sleeves #Which you could probably not name a kids book in 2024 #the dark is rising #susan cooper #post o' mine #clearing out the drafts