#but Daine more than Alanna | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

indigo-casson · 5 months

Text

something that i've been thinking about lately is the parallels between star wars: andor/rogue one and tamora pierce's trickster's queen duology. primarily because the star wars brainrot is real and the tamora pierce obsession is forever, but also because they are kind of both tonal and thematic departures from their main 'verses in some similar ways?

in both the star wars verse and the tortall verse, the majority of the media has focused on one individual (or a small group of individuals) who make a profound difference in the world. Whether that's alanna singlehandedly finding the dominion jewel/becoming king's champion/making way for female knights, or luke skywalker blowing up the death star, or daine and numair going to the divine realms during the immortals war, or anakin skywalker becoming a sith and dooming the republic, most of the original material has seen battle and political change as something that is affected by either an actual chosen one or simply a single very plucky and well-placed individual.

trickster's queen and andor, however, really look at rebellion as something that has to be done by a diverse group of flawed people who work together despite their differences. mon mothma knows that her role is raising money. ulasim, chenaol, and the other members of the raka conspiracy each take their individual roles in the rebellion, and recognize that even though they might not want to work with aly or the luarin nobility, they need their skills and influence to make it happen.

both stories also show rebellion as extremely costly and something that requires making tough calls. nobody has their hands clean by the end of a civil war. notably, trickster's queen explicitly narrowly avoids having the protagonists kill a group of 5 year olds. luthen is ready to kill cassian when he becomes a liability, and cassian does kill lots of people, including some allies whose only "crime" is being susceptible to giving up rebellion secrets.

in rogue one, we don't like davits draven because he orders jyn's father killed, and that just feels wrong. jyn is our heroine and it upsets her, so emotionally it's distressing. but of course, draven and cassian and jyn are all working towards the same goal. draven did what he had to--galen erso is a liability as long as he's alive. dove and sarai's little brother elsren has to die because he's a direct heir to the throne, ahead of his sisters. it doesn't matter that he's five and totally innocent. as long as he lives, a luarin has a greater claim to the throne than a raka, and as long as that's true, the rebellion can't succeed.

in the star wars original trilogy, people for sure die! i'm not trying to say that they don't, but it's definitely not something that's shown affecting our protagonists on a deep, emotional level. they're all side characters, or else they come back as force ghosts. the prequels are uh. fucking tragic, but at the end of it, almost all of our heroes make it out. even the casualties of the war are droids vs clones, which is to say, totally interchangeable cannon fodder on both sides!

the number of character deaths in the tortall 'verse is fewer, probably because it's primarily created for middle grades, but even when people do die, they're either demonstrably bad people or minor enough characters that the emotional resonance isn't the same.

by contrast, at the end of trickster's queen, almost the majority of the main conspirators die in battle, not to mention those who don't even make it to the final conflict. at the end of rogue one, all of our heroes are dead, and people aren't exactly making it out of andor s1 in good shape either. more than half of the aldhani team dies on that mission.

I could go on further, but I think my main takeaway is that once you've invested a lot of time and attention and fandom into a 'verse, you have a lot more leeway to tell different kinds of stories. tamora pierce could not have written trickster's choice until after the values and world of tortall were so clearly established, and if she had, it wouldn't have had the impact that it did. similarly, part of what makes rogue one/andor so striking is the fact that it is such a departure from the preexisting values and story format of star wars.

for every chosen one we see in media, there are hundreds of people working behind the scenes to make their big, death star destroying moment possible. the only way to improve society is through collective action, and part of that is that everyone's hands are going to get dirty. i think lots of people want to imagine that they could be like luke skywalker and swoop in 2 weeks before the battle of yavin and become a hero, but the fact of the matter is that that's not how the world works! war requires us to do things that would ordinarily go against our values, but in the context of a drawn out, bloody, thankless battle, maybe we decide the ends justify the means.

#analysis #i don't particularly imagine that anyone will read this because it is so niche lmao #but the brainworms wouldn't leave me alone #star wars #long post #tamora pierce #tortall #tricksters queen #andor #rogue one

250 notes · View notes

masterkeynobi · 7 months

Text

god going thru the tortall big 3 (sotl/immortals/pots) again is actually so interesting bc the protags have such diff rships to, like. their liege and the capital r Realm and duty and such it's Very fun + jon himself is [presented as] such a different person in each series bc of both what his age and responsibilities are (how they differ) & simply who he is to each. like, alanna is his best friend & ex & fucking. sword arm. right hand man. she's his champion and the kind of knight who, to paraphrase lord raoul in squire, finds dark places and brings them light and all that. like she's not a general or a bureaucrat or a commander the way raoul or gary + her rship to jon is so so Personal that she can afford to a) yell at him and b) fuck off away from corus when he makes decisions she doesnt like. she's allowed to yell at him because he's a close personal friend and he's the thing she's sworn to.

the interesting thing about daine is that she is loyal to Him (she's smitten with him upon meeting him, she and numair are the crown's pet mages and she does a great deal of spycraft for jon whenever it becomes necessary) but it's through a different. idk what the word would be. lens perhaps? like, she's not sworn the same oaths of loyalty to him that any and all knights/nobles must have + she Can defy him and he would be very hard pressed to stop her lol who the fuck can take thee Wildmage to task and win + she has an informal personal rship with him if a more businesslike one than alanna does. but the immortals books do emphasize that she bears him love and loyalty and by the time pots rolls around she and numair are living in corus.

kel on the other hand is sworn to jonathan in the way that all knights are sworn to the king and doesn't particularly like him. so true babygirl get his stupid ass!!! she is a knight and her duty is to king and country but unlike alanna. unlike alanna! she puts country first. she commits treason for her people and means every word of it she puts what she considers her duty and honor above what politically /is/ her duty and her honor. shes stubbornly un-charmed by all of jon's kingliness and has only the relationship to him of a knight to her liegelord. and he respects her but has and would continue to fuck her over if it meant the machine of corus kept running. its really good i fucking love these books man

#sree.txt #tortall #having a full reread + hyperfix moment it is terrible for me i havent thought abt tortall this much in; fully; years #alanna the lioness #jonathan iv of conté #keladry of mindelan #veralidaine sarrasri

242 notes · View notes

spoofymcgee · 8 months

Text

i just finished reading realm of the gods and.

first of all it was a fucking incredible book. just. 10/10 no notes (you will see that this post does continue so actually i have many notes but still). the pacing is always so delightful in that we never spend too much time getting from place to place or on the things that don't matter. the characterizations were so consistent and so delightful. the dialogue was. god. i love the dialogue in these books so much.

and the thing that most surprised me was.

look.

i'm not like, wild, about numair and daine. i do think the age gap is still a little weird, but the fact that it's so extreme and the way they interact earlier in the book makes me think that this wasn't planned from the beginning, that ms. pierce just saw their characters evolving along that path and went with it.

and the thing is, it does work. daine has always been an incredibly self contained character who stands on her own so well. she has companions and friends but she's not so deeply involved with them as alanna, for instance. we see an example of this in the fact that she nearly gives up the mortal realm to keep her word. she values her honor and integrity and the various things that make her who she is over her relationships. Allan would never consider keeping her word over her interpersonal relationships.

so daine, as a character who stands so well on her own, who is so down to earth and straightforward and determined, doesn't see the age gap as an issue. she likes numair, he likes her, and she doesn't care about what reputation she might have. she wouldn't even consider that he might be manipulating her and she very quickly dismisses the concept that she might not be experienced enough for him. it's clear to her that he knows what he wants and he's just getting his frippery in the way.

meanwhile, numair is worrying enough for the both of them and their grandmothers because he's an overthinker and cares more about daine that he does himself. he didn't see her like this from the beginning, but he also didn't singlehandedly raise her. he wasn't really her guardian–she hasn't quite had a relationship like that since her mother, because she didn't need one. he was a friend, who was older than her, and a mentor, but she didn't want a father or even an older brother out of him. he's never seen her in the light of a daughter either, only as a younger friend and then someone experienced and powerful and level with him in different areas.

i guess it was just surprising how little it bothered me, thanks to the way she handled it.

anyway.

#veralidaine sarrasri #numair salmalin #the immortals #tamora pierce #tortall

180 notes · View notes

hunter-gatherer-stuff · 3 months

Text

WIP Word-Find!

Find the words from the list in your WIPs and post the paragraphs they belong to!

I was tagged by @medusasfinalgirl ! Thanks so much, love!

I'm looking for the words close, gentle, push, fade, almost, easy, smile, after, and always.

Close: “When’s the last time you tickled the back of your throat, you pretentious little bitch?” he whispers so close to her mouth she can feel his breath tickling her lips – he smells like cigarettes, garlic and blood… and saliva pools under her tongue.

Gentle: Wow, it had been a very long time since she had a first kiss… Eddie cups the back of her head in a gentle hand and tilts her face up to his before the soft press of his lips cross hers. She has the fleeting thought of this isn’t right, I shouldn’t be doing this! But then Eddie’s tongue swipes softly along her bottom lip and her thoughts melt into a sticky-sweet candy droplets in her brain. She opens her mouth and Eddie groans into it like he can taste those candies fallen from her skull into her mouth where he plunders away into her.

Push: “Okay, you rub mine and I’ll rub yours.” She offers, and he pushes his own feet into her lap so they have to squirm and squiggle until they’re facing each other on his couch, their heels digging into each other’s hipbones and abdomens with a curious sort of likeable discomfort.

Fade: A new song fades in, “Public Enemy Number One” by Motley Crue blasting from every speaker around them and vibrating the floor. Suddenly Billy’s entire demeanour changes; he goes from a grovelling boy to that animal that used to beat the boys that dared touch one of his sisters to a pulp then kiss their mouths just to humiliate them and taste the blood he punched out from between their teeth. “My song!”

Almost: The girl followed his instructions well… too well. The shag was already loose enough there was ample room for air, so when Alina sucked as strongly as she did – it caught and almost burnt down to the root with how deep she inhaled. In a great billowing of smoke Alina choked and gasped, the spent fag dropping from her lips as she gagged for air and coughed like a heifer with lungworm.

Easy: ... I actually can't find one for 'easy'! Sorry!

Smile: Her mouth tastes like all lipsticks do, but the quick spark of gin-martini still on her glossed lips pairs so well with the peppered-grapefruit, burnt sage and fresh balsam of the perfume she must have refreshed since the plane, it’s like he’s tasting her direct from the source. His hand immediately cups the back of her head, fingers spearing through silky hair as her lips part only minimally, a soft sigh against his mouth before she smiles against him. Tasting that smile wakes up something utterly possessive inside of him – like he should be the only one to feel how joy curves her lips just so.

After: “M’sorry!” Alina tried to call when Zoya left, deflating after two failed social interactions. Aleksander could relate, when he was her age he was more than awkward, he was a liability – but he didn’t tell Alina as such, letting her sit in her discomfort until Zoya returned, handing over her glass and turning to Aleksander with a more genuine grin.

Always: “Gods aren’t always right.” Numair leaned over and whispered it comically to her, tugging her necklace with the badger claw. When Daine laughed and looked up at him, he realized how close he was, and how Alanna would wring his neck if she could see them now.

Tagging @jenniebellie, @the-six-fingered-villain, @rogueimperator, @achilleanenjolras and @starbound-wanderer to look for the words: Party, fire, constraint, novel, sink, harsh, insistence, and adventure! (I know you might not have all of these, but I used a random word generator to come up with them so pls forgive!)

#Hellcheer #Darklina #Tortall #Tamora Pierce #stranger things #shadow and bone

7 notes · View notes

theladyragnell · 11 months

Note

to further tortall yelling, ship opinions on the main 3 kel ships (kel/neal, kel/cleon, kel/dom)?

I do love yelling about Tortall!

Kel/Neal

I think if there's one thing about me as a shipper these days, it's that I will absolutely ship the f/m pairing where the canon and the fandom both agree that their friendship is 100% better than any romance could be! In other words, while I didn't ship this when I was younger (I tended, and tend, to be a pretty face-value reader--Kel got over her crush, I was fully content with that), on my most recent reread I was very much going "these two clearly care about each other way more than they care about anyone else" and they just have so many sweet moments! I'm glad it's not canon, though, because Kel would hate being a duchess nearly as much as Alanna would hate being a queen. This is why Kel/Neal/Yuki is currently a winner for me.

Kel/Cleon

Like Alanna/Jon, one of those ships that makes me glad that Tamora Pierce believes in transitory teen romances! It's sweet (though I question the choice to have Kel date one of her former hazers, however much kinder about it he was than the others, in the anti-hazing-and-bullying books; for that reason, Faleron or Yancen or someone might have been a better call), and the progression and the end of it always feel believable. I like it for what it is, and feel no need for it to be anything more!

Kel/Dom

I like it! If it had gone explicitly endgame, I definitely wouldn't have cried about it, Dom is definitely a charming and endearing character, and I like how much he respects Kel. But I do feel a bit like Pierce went "ah, I like her dynamic with Neal but don't want her to be with Neal" and kind of invented Older Hotter Neal (Slightly Less Mean Edition). I will also say that it was a relief but something that made it harder to ship them that, on a reread, Dom clearly doesn't see Kel as a romantic prospect not because she's unattractive but because she's young! Maybe by the end of their Scanra adventure that is changing, but given the Numair and Daine of things it's nice to see that there's clearly no attraction for him while she's still a squire.

#answered asks #horsegirleddiemunson

19 notes · View notes

vhagarswattle · 17 days

Note

you should absolutely read the song of the lioness series it is soooo fun. i adored the books as a child and reread within the last year and i think they were still very enjoyable. i feel like the first book might have more of a juvenile tone than the first book of the protector of the small series but she definitely matures by the end of book 1 if that’s off putting to you. alanna was 100% the fictional character i aspired to most as a child because she’s cool and magic and a swordswoman and has purple eyes etc. etc.

lmao ignore my last ask i realized you said “reread” whoops

I would never ignore you my love. But thank you for realizing this because I didn’t know how to point that out without sounding like a jerk. I actually read Alanna before I read Kel! And daine first of all of them. I was a major Tamora Pierce girlie. I just love Kel best of all of them. My special normal girl who works hard and loves her animals 🥰

#I named my bg3 character Kel. I’m not playing as Kel though she’s just named after her

3 notes · View notes

best-childhood-book · 1 year

Note

ok, while I adore Circle of Magic, you have to also include at least one Tortall quartet too; I vote Immortals, but still. Tortall is just more popular than CoM because scholastic won't reprint CoM >.>

I said this to the other person, but I am THE Tamora Pierce fan. If she has a hundred fans, I'm one of them. If she has one fan, it's me. If she has no fans, I'm gone. I will always put her books on my lists! I'm thinking of doing the main three for Tortall (Alanna, Daine, and Kel), especially because I structured half my personality around Protector of the Small. Maybe I'll figure out an elimination round if we don't want to end up with her as half the competition lol

#ask #submission

13 notes · View notes

myth-blossom · 9 months

Text

Thank you for the tag, @cicaklah! Your picks were great and I’m adding them to my reading list <3

Rules: List ten books that have stayed with you in some way, don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard - they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

As a preface, I‘ve been a voracious reader since childhood. I typically prefer fiction and I remember more of the stories I’ve read than I do their creators and titles (to my great dismay). There came a point in my life when I wasn’t able to dedicate much energy to read for fun and instead focused on reading for my studies and my professional duties, which got to the point that I was getting quite burnt out on one of my favorite hobbies of all time. So I did think harder on this list than I should’ve because the past is somewhat weighted, but I’m hoping to add to my list of impressionable books and new memories in the near future.

In no particular order:

Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien - I like to joke about the *thorough* detailing that Tolkien often provides, but I really do love LOTR and the fantasy and lessons it offers. But what I love most about it is my mother and I read it together when I was young, and I was so engrossed in the pages that I would immediately point out where we left off amongst the many generous details.

Magical young wizard books & Chronicles of Narnia series - I’m tagging these two series together (and leaving the obvious young wizard title vague) because these were books my grandmother would read to us. It was nice to share these stories with her, which also led to her taking us to some of the films and sewing a witch costume for me for Halloween.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - I read this for a class on gothic literature in film and it left such a mark on me. I have many thoughts but I’ll only offer one recommendation: please give this a chance if you haven’t already.

Dracula by Bram Stoker - I also read this for the first time in the gothic class mentioned above. It was really cool to analyze the text and how the vampire legend has been adapted differently over time in media. Plus, I enjoyed the horror and spooky pacing.

Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White - like I said, I read many many many (did I say many?) books as a child. But one of the strongest memories I have is visiting the library, finding this book on the shelf, and being so engrossed with the story of the trumpeting swan. It’s nice to get caught up in a book like that.

Tortall Universe by Tamora Pierce (specifically the characters Alanna the Lioness, Kel, Daine) - Ironically, I bought a later series of the Tortall Universe before realizing I had the original books on my shelf, not yet read. I really wanted stories with strong female characters and these three were fun to read and explore the world of.

The Prince and The Dressmaker by Jen Wang - this book, OH this book, I love it so very much. I read it in less than 24 hours. I should’ve savored it, but I was just that taken with the story. If you like graphic novels or want to give one a try, I would highly recommend this one.

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis - brutal is really the best word to describe this book. It contains a lot of triggering content (so please protect yourself, dear reader) and isn’t something I would normally pick, but it’s been nearly 7 years now and I still strongly remember the emptiness it left me with when I finished it.

The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey - I’ll be quite honest, I hardly remember the story itself. What I do remember is the show-and-tell that day from one of our book club readers. She shared stories from when she lived in Ireland and brought in items from her friends, and it was a lovely and emotional experience to witness.

Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman by Christopher Sebela and Jonathan Lau - As I mentioned, I found myself so burnt out from reading that it had been difficult to commit to a book for quite a while. Fanfiction really rekindled my love for reading and I decided to check out the Hitman comics. I was so happy to have the drive to finish a book again! I enjoyed the comics and the new headcanons they caused.

If you have a list of books or readings you’ve enjoyed, please feel free to share them! :)

#Book meme #Tag game

5 notes · View notes

astronicht · 7 months

Text

whumptober day 6: made to watch

Wild Magic series (Tortall) | Numair/OMC/ OFC, Numair & Daine | 1.8k, rated E

CW: dubcon, drugged sex, mind-sharing/reading, no one is having a good time. Not underage, technically, but if you’re unsure give it a skip.

“i’ll cannibalize an old unfinished oneshot” i said. “this will not be a deeply frustrating writing experience” i said. whatever whatever posting amnesty is the POINT.

The guilt after Carthak was palpable, so Daine assumed that there would be a quiet year or so before anyone asked Numair to do his job again.

Instead, everyone stepped gently around her, but within a month were sheepishly handing Numair new orders. The king’s men looked surprised when Daine came along and stood in the corner of three different antechambers in which Numair was given his orders, but no one dared order her out. She wondered if she should just never explain that the necromancy had run its course.

“You hate political meetings,” Onua said, one evening when Daine was late for dinner after the second meeting. Dinner with Onua was paprika stew and the cartwheel shaped rolls they baked in Corus and stewed sour cherries baked in thin dough, taken from the mess hall. They took it all outside, through three different gates in curtain walls, and ate on a blanket. Daine spit a cherry stone into the pony field.

“I’m just there for him,” Daine tried to explain.

Onua got it more than most, but— “Saving Arram from himself?” she laughed, leaning on Diane’s shoulder affectionately.

No, saving him from them, Daine thought, watching the blue and lilac sunset. From all of us. “People need him a lot,” she settled on. “I’m just there to remind them to only need him a little.”

Onua had laughed.

Numair just looked confused and resigned when Jonathan’s men questioned her presence to him. “What?” He’d say, “Veralidaine? Oh, she decides.”

The bags under his eyes were bruised. In a cold hallway hung with tapestries, he said, “Of course you can always stay home, or here, or at the Swoop.” Daine nodded. She had stayed home once, in the tower. “But I don’t know where they think you go when I’m busy. A cabinet?”

Daine laughed, and when he laughed in return his tired face lit up.

Eventually, she thought, you’re supposed to get big enough that no one can touch you. Even the pressure of war is supposed to stop every few generations, isn’t it? And if you live in the lucky town there’s some time of peace that gets a name in old books. But failing that, you’re supposed to get big enough.

She was sixteen. Numair was twenty-four.

Daine first met Numair when he was an injured bird. He really was a bird that day. When another sorcerer makes a bird it’s an illusion, but when Numair makes a bird he does it with his body, like Daine would.

She stares at him, laying too still on the ship’s bed which was tucked into the wall like all the beds were in the village growing up. Yes, he is breathing. The air is bad and stale.

Sometimes Numair can’t help himself, she’s learned, in the way you learn someone’s weird habits for cracking eggs, or how to tell that they’re putting off washing their hair or answering a letter. He never spills his magic, but he spills his mind everywhere.

“Stop blaming my mind,” Numair whispers suddenly from the bed. “You just read it. I taught you to read so you read it.”

Daine stares levelly at him. If this is all, she doesn’t know why the Lioness thought Daine needed to be kept from a little madness. None of them had even been in that room, had they? But Daine had.

“Why did you have to see it?” Numair mutters through a clenched jaw, like he heard her think it.

He looks like a great black egret dying on a beach. His ribcage rises and falls in huge breaths. His hair is curled in cold sweat.

Buri didn’t think he’d even let Daine past the door to the stateroom. He’s awake enough to have whims. He’ll let Alanna see to him at dawn and dusk but he will not let her stay long.

“Fucking Arram,” is all the Lioness says about it. Annoyed but not shocked. She turns Daine away the first time she comes by. The second, it’s just Buri guarding the door. Daine is never going to stare the Lioness down; she might stare Buri down, though. The older she gets, the more aware she is that she and Buri are very different people cut from very similar cloth.

“Don’t be offended if he yells you out,” Buri says.

Numair says, a strange slurring voice, “It’s fine. It’s fine. She knows everything.”

Buri blinks, goes annoyed and stiff.

“She’s sixteen,” Buri hisses, leaning around the doorway.

“She went in my silly little head,” slurs Numair.

“No, you went in mine,” Daine says, stepping inside. It’s true: the year they first met he went in her head and put a little ring in it. She’s seen blown glass now, and carved rock crystal jugs that Numair keeps at home in the tower. Something like that sits in the throat of her mind, keeping magic and soul from going mad together. He doesn’t have one, does he? Definitely not.

“You went in mine first,” Numair says, finicky and semantic the way he gets, even like this, slurring his words. “You were definitely too young for that.”

Buri slams the door. She does not know Daine was in the room for it either.

Daine is not particularly afraid of Numair in a wild mood. She is afraid of Numair dying — or is she? In the face of Numair dying she would be — has been — something beyond that. Preemptively angry.

This is not Numair dying. No one’s life is going to be materially changed by yesterday or tomorrow.

Numair goes quiet. Daine is not in his silly little head, because that’s not how her magic works. If he were a bird right now, she sure fucking would be. She’d yell some sense into him, or maybe just yell at everyone but him. Enough of the not-dying; he cannot do it the way birds do, where they just sit down on the ground and it seems like within hours they are nearly nothing, a little twisted flesh but mostly hollow bone and hollow feather.

“Yes you are in my mind,” Numair slurs. Daine looks around for the pitcher of water. It is tucked in the small basin in the corner, maybe to prevent it from tipping over when the ship rocks under them. “You just think you’re not.”

“Are you talking to me?” Daine asks, peevishly. She does spill a little water by yanking the jug out of the basin too fast.

“No, sweetheart,” Numair says softly. Her chest slams; she whips around to face him. He still is on the bed. His expression is strange. “I was just speaking to Daine.”

Daine is silent. Maybe for too long; as heartbeats pass, he begins to look almost frightened.

“I’ll stop, I’ll stop if it upsets you, of course,” he says. His voice still sounds so soft. Obliging. A little higher pitched.

With a shock she realizes it is not just his tone that is different; he is speaking Thak. Daine does not understand Thak. But he said — that she was in his head. Could she then hear the meaning, before he speaks?

“I’m only a little angry,” Daine says, because that stretches the truth, but there is no point in lying. “Mostly that you dosed yourself and won’t tell them.”

Numair throws his head back on the pillows and laughs. The action is weak and jerky but it still surprises her, like something jumped out at her.

“It’s always frightening when you speak like that, darling,” he says, charming and smiling and half-dead under his own sweat. A little of his hair is tangled around his neck, like a noose. His eyes seem too young. His mouth seems too soft. Not soft like youth recalled, not soft like he once looked like this, but like this was a way he once acted. Soft and a little coquettish, a little naive: purposefully, with direction. Someone once liked him this way.

Numair whispers, one of his hands twitching across the sheets as if he wants to reach out but is unsure of his welcome. “She’s not in my head, really.”

For a moment, Daine really is outside his head, knocked out briefly by the shock of it: there, just now, she could tell he was lying. Or that he thought he was lying.

Daine sets the jug down on the stateroom floor. It might spill more, it might not. She approaches the bed where Numair watches her with wide black eyes. His gaze fixes blearily on the hand she stretches out towards him. His own hands flex again on the sheets. He holds his breath and stays very still and placid while she untucks the strand of hair from around his sweating neck. The curls spring limply against her hand, bed-frizzed and thick.

She feels his mind shift like feeling a horse grow restless between your legs; she stops touching his hair quickly.

“I didn’t know you were in that room,” he whispers suddenly.

“I know,” Daine says, not touching him.

“Why were you hiding? I never would have—“

“Why are you dosing yourself to have sex,” Daine says.

He does not flush. He never speaks about sex in her presence, but he is not bashful about it. Both of them started young, Daine suspects, but has never verified. And she was a midwife’s daughter. Sex is not strange. This was not, however, something Daine would call—

“Stop,” Numair says weakly.

Fine, whatever he wants.

***

Daine had been a little adder, coiled on a mat in her room. Kitten was tucked in to sleep in Numair’s guest quarters next door. Kitten would enjoy a bed for herself; Numair had not dressed like he intended to come back early from the banquet, or at all.

Sometimes on missions for the crown Numair spent nights away like this. Sometimes, on other missions, he spent time as a bird. Not often, but not never. When he was gone at night Daine listened for birds, just to be safe. She thought for a moment that she heard him anyway: man-shaped and something like man-minded. As close as Numair ever got.

But that was not possible, because wild magic was for one thing, and everyone knew it. It was for talking to things you were not, until you became them.

Numair then stumbled through the door with their hosts, a duke and a duchess. At first Daine thought Numair was very drunk, but then Numair was remembering his own sleight of hand to dose his wine glass, tired down to his bones, needing something to help him along. His theory was that either his wine had already been dosed, or something in the wine they served had interacted with the drug.

Daine was frozen on the rug. The duchess had to help Numair onto the bed. It had seemed to take a very long time for him to come, even with the drug and the duchess on top of him, the duke in front.

They had left him strewn on the bed, cold, numb-mouthed.

She had slithered over, a little rasp of noise on the mat.

He startled so badly that his hands shook for a full minute. “Ah. You were there?” he said. Daine, a little brown adder, could not say anything. But it was enough; he knew she had seen it. And only then did his hands come up in front of his face as if to stop something happening, though it was already done.

It was almost a relief for both of them when he was suddenly, violently sick. Then it just felt like one of those horrible nights when you made a mistake and everything is awful you want to go home.

He had still been drugged and hallucinating three hours later, so Daine had bundled him and Kitten and their bags downstairs to the working courtyard of the ducal palace, where deliveries were already arriving in the slick gray down. It took an unattended cart and a whisper in the ear of the severe mare who drove the cart, and they left it all behind, swift as an adder should have bit.

A few people were still feeling guilty about Carthak, though obviously nowhere near guilty enough. Partly as a consequence of this, the Lioness was waiting two towns down the valley in case of trouble. They had been on a boat upriver before the sun had had much of a chance to warm the air.

Daine sat on the edge of the sickbed, far from the tangled sheets around Numair’s body. He watched her, eyes bleary on the shape of her. Under them the boat rocked gently on its way up the riverbed.

#fucking free me #whumptober ‘23 #my fic

5 notes · View notes

markantonys · 8 months

Text

episode 5 thoughts!

heartbroken by no mat, but i was expecting it since min wasn't credited for this episode on imdb, and there was so much other amazing stuff going on, so i can cope. i do think they must be gearing up for a mat-heavy episode soon because his content has been so sparse thus far! we also didn't have lan this episode, which i'm good with since he got so much last week.

(minor imdb casting spoiler: ayoola isn't listed for ep6, so i'm guessing we may have no perrin next week. they definitely do have a lot of different groups to juggle! but IF mat & lan soon join the cairhien crew, we could condense things)

also sad at not much elayne, but again, the remaining episodes will probably be pretty big for her! same with egwene, that storyline didn't progress as fast as i'd thought it would in this episode, but OOF the preview for next week looks like A Lot!!

back to the beginning! falme looks SO COOL!!! and the opening scene with the seanchan was fantastic, it showed off so many different aspects of their culture in just a few minutes (namely their various Ceremonial Things and ideas of who's allowed to speak to whom)

lanfear just whispering "bitch" the second she revives killed me djkfjg what an icon. and we get confirmation that it is indeed the True Power that she used to revive herself.

Lanfear Unleashed is SO much fun oh my god, i love seeing her in full forsaken mode

moiraine telling rand that he can't sleep because lanfear will get him, girl don't tell him that he's going to internalize it and not sleep for the next 6 seasons. this season is really Wheel Of Time Origins: Rand's Various Emotional, Mental, and Physical Health Problems

elyas saying the ef5 aren't perrin's pack HOW DARE!!! i feel like they're making elyas even more standoffish/human-averse than he was in the books, which makes for an interesting dynamic and contributes to perrin's sense that his human & wolf sides can't coexist.

but hopper follows perrin!!!! the goodest boy!!!!!

AVIENDHA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE'S EVERYTHING!!!!! although ngl her fake accent does sound a bit Fake to me lmao but i'm sure i'll get used to it after a few more scenes

hot dain bornhald is also here! he kinda compels me and i'm furious about it. if whitecloak why hot? in all seriousness, i can see already from his intro episode + the basics of his book story that he has the potential to be quite an interesting character if fleshed out more and given more screentime compared to what he had in the books, sort of a liandrin-and-alanna-like Main Secondary Whitecloak for us to follow

also he totally wants to fuck perrin you can't change my mind. buying him drinks and giving him a Cute Nickname, boy you ain't subtle! and then aviendha briefly hits on perrin later and also perrin stops her from killing dain. wake up babe, insane new WOT polycule just dropped djkfjfg

OB!!!! FREAKING!!!! SESSED!!!!!!!! with verin's detective subplot!!!! it is SO much fun, it delivers a ton of great exposition (namely about the black ajah), and it gives us a bigger peek into the brown ajah than the books ever did. i love this squad!! also katie leung was probably my first Girl Crush (not that i was aware of it) when i was like 8 so i was thrilled to see her show up here, god bless

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, IT GAVE US CONFIRMATION THAT GAWYN EXISTS IN SHOWVERSE!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH when i tell you i came extremely close both to screaming and to falling off my bed!!!! i'd been hoping for a gawyn namedrop all season but having it here was SO unexpected! my current theory is that he'll be introduced in caemlyn next season along with elaida and galad, and all 3 of them will head to tar valon to look for elayne because they're worried after not hearing from her for a long time.

also now i want a fic where the wondergirls actually do get special permission from mommy morgase to leave the tower just so that they can attend gawyn's birthday party

anyway, someday gawyn and egwene are going to kiss with tongue onscreen and haters can die mad about it <3 oooh now i have a brand-new meetcute for them to look forward to since they didn't meet at the tower!

liandrin & nynaeve's convo in the ways was so good! they continue to do amazing work with that relationship and liandrin's character. AND WHEN SHE SUBTLY FREED THE GIRLS RIGHT BEFORE LEAVING HOLY SHIT i gasped!!!!! the LAYERS they have given this character!!! because yes she serves the dark BUT she still feels loyalty to her sisters (as seen in s1 too when she appeared genuinely upset over kerene's death) and can't stomach the thought of any of them, even the light-serving ones, being collared!

suroth saying with her whole chest "oh sure you're a forsaken but you're not even of the blood soooooo" god grant me her confidence. also another great illustration of the insane heights to which seanchan high blood take their superiority complexes. good god, what's tuon gonna be like?!

avi's fight scene was just as amazing as i'd been hoping and expecting!! 10/10 no notes. can't wait to see what she can do when she has weapons at her disposal!

and later avi tells us that she is out in the wetlands Looking For Her Man (that she doesn't yet know is Her Man) <33

moiraine saying "get rand some nice new clothes" and barthanes immediately offering to dress him, Sugar Baby Rand lives on! also, anvaere and barthanes definitely thought rand was moiraine's sugar baby after they cleared the warder possibility, you can't change my mind

also also, barthanes is so surprisingly sweet! i wonder if he'll still be a darkfriend, or if anvaere will be instead

lanfear making ishy dream about caressing rand's face in bed is something i will go insane thinking about every day until i die. like oh my god i don't even know where to START with unpacking that, so i won't even try djfkjg

like for real, they ALL BUT made it explicitly canon that ishy had/has a crush on LTT/rand LMAO it's what we deserve

and we get forsaken namedrops! moghedien, graendal, and "the boys." it could be that semirhage did still make it and lanfear just chose not to go on and on listing every single one (slash the writers wanted to give themselves some leeway in specifically naming forsaken in case they don't get enough seasons to deal with all of them), or it could be that one of the statues from last season was actually a man and/or stepin's statues aren't accurate, and we've got 5 men instead of 4 (in which case i'd imagine ishy, asmodean, sammael, demandred, and rahvin)

i'm gonna have to watch this ishy & lanfear scene again to pick up more because i was FAR too distracted by the initial homoeroticism to keep focusing lmao

aww i'm kinda sad not to get elayne & nynaeve hiding out in falme completely on their own, but for their sakes it's nice they've found (been found by) some Real Adults to help!

LANFEAR'S OUTFIT IN THE END SCENE LMAO this season really just went off the WALLS with horniness and kinkiness, and i am here for it. it's what rj would've wanted

now that moiraine and rand are indeed staying in cairhien after all, i really think we might get a cauthor reunion next episode!!!! fingers crossed!!!!

#wot #wot on prime #wot show spoilers #wot book spoilers #the wheel of time

116 notes · View notes

theroguequeenaniki · 2 years

Text

You know...

I know Alanna is busy as a knight, and King’s Champion at that...and of course there was the Immortal War and all...but...I know Jon kept Alanna and all of the Knights trained with them out of the Knight training program, so as to...appease...the conservatives (I.E. Lord Wyldon). But maybe, just maybe, they would have been better prepared for a female page...if they’d, I don’t know, consulted Alanna at all in the 10 years since Jon’s decree? Like, they didn’t even a plan in place. Which seems so strange, I know he was busy...but come on. And obviously, this is also the fault of everyone involved in the Page training, Wyldon should have had a plan in place for the chance a girl would want to join.

I think if Protector of the Small had come before The Immortals, it wouldn’t be so strange, but going from a series where everyone accepted Daine immediately, and also had little to no qualms about a girl fighting...it was a little jarring. But, then, Daine was a commoner and Kel is a noble so...and I’m a good way through Page now, so I’m not as hung up on it, and Page is a bit more enjoyable than First Test was (namely b/c Kel has friends & that always makes a story better in my opionion).

#Protector of the Small #Page #Kel #Keladry of Mindelan #Tamora Pierce #Tortall #reading #booklr #books #Alanna the Lioness #Jonathon of Conte

24 notes · View notes

siriuslyreads · 2 years

Text

The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce: A Review

Title: Daine’s Quartet

Series: The Immortals Quartet

Author: Tamora Pierce

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 5/5

Release Date: December 1st 1992 (For the first one)

Format: E-Book

Synopsis (This is just for the first in the quartet):

Young Daine's knack with horses gets her a job helping the royal horsemistress drive a herd of ponies to Tortall. Soon it becomes clear that Daine's talent, as much as she struggles to hide it, is downright magical. Horses and other animals not only obey, but listen to her words. Daine, though, will have to learn to trust humans before she can come to terms with her powers, her past, and herself.

Review:

Pierce comes in again with a fantastic quartet for the Tortall universe. As much as I love Alanna, its not my favorite of the series’ available in the Tortall universe. I can’t choose a favorite but Daine’s story is tied with two others for that place. All of the heroines have vastly different stories to tell and the way they overcome the obstacles against them are different as well. While Alanna faced her life with deception at the beginning and became the first lady knight in a long time, Daine found the magic within her and used it and the world around her to become the best version of herself. This included speaking and befriending animals, two-leggers and immortals. That’s another difference between Alanna’s books and these, immortals are now out and about in the world again due to the villain of this story and his quest for more and more power.

Daine is a young orphaned bastard when this book starts. She has a way with animals and can get the feisty ponies under control and to act right as Daine and Onua travel back to the capital. On the way, Daine learns of immortals and meets the man who will soon be her teacher.

Numair is a fair strange man and more interested in learning and magic than court functions for the most part, but he is so charismatic that it is no hard to fall in love with him.

In this quartet, we also see some returning players from Alanna’s quartet. This includes Alanna herself, George, King Jonathan, and even Raoul. Though obviously due to Daine’s age, these are people she looks up to instead of her comrades. We also get a new host of players with Numair, Onua, Sarge and various other smaller characters.

The land of Tortall in these books is far broader than in Alanna’s books. This is not due to the places Daine visits but instead due to Daine’s relationship with these places. Since she has wild magic she can communicate with any animals in the area and as such she sees the world in far different terms than Alanna and other knights might. A common theme in these books, specifically the first, is Daine’s loss of her mother and her home. Due to this, she feels out of place a lot, and it does not make it better that she commonly has conversations with her animal companions that two-leggers can only hear one side of. By the end of the first book however, she has proven herself valuable and has gained the love and respect of a great many people. This allows for the found family dynamic, including some immortals and animals as companions.

One issue that some people have with this series is the age gap romance that occurs in the fourth book of the quartet. Since Numair is 10+ years older than Daine and he is her teacher, some people find issue with this book. I get that, I do. But I also disagree. Naumair never makes his feelings known to Daine until she shows the first signs of interest in her. And there is no grooming in this book. Instead there is the understanding that Daine and Numair are their own people and Numair respects her decisions. Numair does teach her and show her how to use her magic and is her constant companion through these novels. However, that never crosses the line from student/teacher until Daine makes the move to change it, and this only happens when she is an adult and of marriageable age (in those times).

These books are the first of Pierce’s that I fell in love with. Alanna made me want to be strong and fierce, Daine showed me how I could be that way without all the sword work. I found a part of myself in Daine and love to revisit her story often.

#veralidaine sarrasi #numair salmalin #tamora pierce #ya fantasy #fantasy books

2 notes · View notes

bibliophilecats · 2 years

Note

book asks: 2, 3, 4, 11, & 17, please!

Thank you for asking!

2. top 5 books of all time?

The first ask, and already a really difficult one. I think I will stick with older books that (to me!) have remained favourites over the years and that I have read more than once (=proven their worth)

Tamora Pierce's Alanna and Daine quartett's (no, that is not cheating 😋)

Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series (still not cheating - if I'd have to pick, I think I would maybe choose Foxglove Summer)

Walter Moer's City of Dreaming Books (or Rumo? Argh, this is hard!)

Astrid Lindgen's Seacrow Island

L.M. Montgomery Anne of the Island

3. what is your favourite genre?

According to my TheStoryGraph statistics and the genres on my shelf, that would be fantasy (though tbh, I think "fantasy" is just such a broad term, it doesn't say all that much? I think I learn most towards high fantasy). But I do like other genres, too!

4. what sections of a bookstore do you browse?

I used to browse SFF, YA and the bargain sections. But as I read mostly in English nowadays and the selection in German bookstores of English language books is small/only includes bestseller, I now mostly check cooking and nature/science (those I do read in German). And the bargain section.

11. what non-fiction books do you like if any?

I have more difficulties reading non-fiction because I am so slow at reading them. But since I discovered non-fiction audiobooks, they do feature a little more often in my reading. Still, there are so few that I find it difficult to see a clear trend. I did enjoy The Sleepwalkers (how WW1 started), Ace (sexual identity) and Intuitive Eating (Health) and on my tbr are, among others, Caitlin Doughty's books, N. Philbrick's The Heart of the Sea (whaleship Essex) and How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman. Mostly, I pick whatever takes my fancy. I'd say I am not so into true crime and not at all into self help.

17. top 5 children’s books?

I fear, some of those are not internationally know. But I do love them:

Erwin Moser: Der Mond hinter den Scheunen

Torben Kuhlman's children's picture books (some are available in English)

Michael Ende: Der Wunschpunsch (oh, this one is availabe in English, too)

Sven Nordqvist's Petterson and Findus books (Pettson and Findus in English?)

Cornelia Funke Die große Drachensuche (which was the first version of what later came to be Dragon Rider and written in 1994)

Ask me about books

#book asks #book ask #book talk #reply

4 notes · View notes

reviewsthatburn · 1 year

Text

Kel is the first girl to train as a page in living memory who is known as a girl during her training. Alanna’s previous example is wielded against her, as it’s assumed by unhappy sexists that Alanna only made it through with help. This provides narrative opportunities for challenges that Alanna didn’t face, or at least new angles on familiar topics (such as bullying). Kel feels older than ten, not enough to be jarring, but enough that I had to keep remembering how young she is. She's handling a lot of stress very well, partly because of coping mechanisms she learned while living in an unfamiliar country with her parents.

Nealan is Kel's sponsor and quickly becomes her friend. Gradually she gets more of a social circle, but it's difficult to be the only girl surrounded by boys when many of the adults in charge are also treating her gender as somewhere between an annoyance and an issue. The plot focuses on Kel's first year as a page, specifically the fact of her probation and the bullying amongst the pages. She also has a fear of heights, something which one of her instructors makes her work to mitigate.

Full review at link.

#BookReviews #Fantasy #Recommended #protector of the small #first test #tamora pierce #tortall

0 notes

theladyragnell · 2 years

Note

This is a request for All your Tortall … and Jon thoughts 👀

I mean, if I shared ALL my thoughts, I wouldn't get anything else done tonight, and while I do love having tumblr conversations, I do have other things to do with my life. But I will share a collection!

1. Re: Jon, since this has become a Jon Conte Confessional over the past day somehow: in a lot of ways, I am fond of Jon! I have always rooted for George in the love triangle, but I was fond of Jon, and I think that as Privileged Boys Who Don't Get Made Fun Of Enough To Teach Them Humility In Fiction go, there are many worse case scenarios. But these days, I do get annoyed with his smug sense that everything will always go his way when he's younger and also the way he is with Alanna in In the Hand of the Goddess, where he acts like a dick a LOT and only moves to finally seduce her when she's performing femininity. Like, that's sure a thing. And that's before we get to the Kel books, which I won't get into tonight, because we're only two books into the Great Tortall Reread and I've got to pace myself.

2. You can definitely see Pierce feeling out her worldbuilding in the Alanna quartet! I remember things being a lot more settled and standard by the time we hit the Daine books, and there are so many things from the Alanna books that got dropped! The way that magic is perceived and how it's used really change throughout the quartet and after the quartet, for instance. And the first Alanna book especially made me very fascinated with the anthropological history of Tortall. Who are these Old Ones, dipping everything in not!plastic to maintain it? I'm guessing if she had the books to write over again, Pierce would cut that out, maybe make Lightning a divine gift, maybe have the Nameless Ones be stranded immortals, Stormwings or something, a hint of the Immortals quartet to come, but what is there is very interesting to me.

3. George is the Best Fictional Man and I love him, and also it is deeply hilarious that he is 17 at the start of the Alanna books. He's a BABY.

4. An incomplete list of people who deserve better for one reason or another, where "better" can mean "just more narrative depth" or "a wholly different arc, thanks": Thom of Trebond, Delia of Eldorne, Alex of Tirragen.

5. I know Woman Who Rides Like a Man has its problems, but I'm excited for Alanna to mentor and befriend some ladies (and then the arrival of Thayet and Buri in Lioness Rampant, thank goodness!). These early books sure have some Not Like Other Girls syndrome. (Which I know is something Pierce has addressed over the years! I'm not blaming who she is now for them, just commenting on my experience of reading.)

6. My only overarching thought: I'm so sad that since Alianne, Pierce has only written Tortall prequels. I am, as a rule, anti-prequel, and there are post-Aly stories I'd really love to see more than the Beka Cooper books or the Numair prequel. I want to keep seeing Tortall grow and change! Where's my Maura of Dunlath book? Where's one about Dove as she grows up and takes on queenship? Where's my first lady Rogue? I haven't read 3/4 of the prequel books I'm complaining about, but regardless of how good they may be, I'd still rather watch Tortall (and the rest of its world) grow into a happier future.

#narrative causality #answered asks

42 notes · View notes