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apocalypticavolition · 4 months

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Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 23: The Testing

Welcome back to my reread! The way to see spoilers for the whole series, yes that's right not just this book but everything all the way to the end, will come but once. Be steadfast. Or just click wildly, whatever you like. But if you like not being spoiled, don't click below and just keep doomscrolling through tumblr with no hope of escape.

This chapter has the Flame icon because it concerns one of the initiation rites of the White Tower.

Centered under the dome was a thing made of three rounded, silver arches, each just tall enough to walk under, sitting on a thick silver ring with their ends touching each other. Arches and ring were all of one piece.

So what the heck is this thing, one wonders. I've seen people suggest it's a holodeck with the safeties off, though that seems frivolous even by AoL standards since it seems to be connected to genuine mirror worlds. It may be some device meant for observing and experiencing such worlds that has become damaged in some way, causing memory loss. Maybe one of the forgotten Darkfriends of old built it as a bizarre punishment system.

All four Aes Sedai wore their shawls, as Sheriam did; blue-fringed for Sheriam, red for the swarthy woman by the table, green, white, and gray for the three around the arches.

We (a word which here means "the wiki") don't know who most of these ladies are, but apparently the "swarthy woman" is Silviana. Not too sure how we know this exactly (the Companion?) but hey! Hi Silviana! You're delightful.

“The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and when it wills. Patience is a virtue that must be learned, but we must all be ready for the change of an instant.”

Nynaeve was patient really, by waiting at all, and she's more than ready for change. The Tower's usual deliberate refusal to communicate is silly under these circumstances. They could have given her something to do.

Nynaeve shook her head. It sounded either like too much to swear or too little, and she said so.

She's exactly right. The First Oath is too little and easily sidestepped, the others give up far too much utility and helped hinder the institution.

Light, child, I am trying to teach you what any other woman standing where you are would have learned over the course of years.

Honestly Sheriam is pretty good as an undercover Black, giving a huge infodump that's legit and not misleading. And I suppose it's pretty appropriate we transition from Moiraine acknowledging the Black to a big spiel by one.

Once you begin, you must continue to the end. Refuse to go on, and no matter your potential, you will be very kindly put out of the Tower with enough silver to support you for a year, and you will never be allowed back.

Oh look it's another policy that only guarantees the Tower doesn't get the numbers it needs.

Some women have entered, and never come out.

And don't forget that this is a price of the ter'angreal they chose to use. They aren't selecting for great women this way, just the stubborn ones who get lucky.

You may turn back now, right now, and I will put your name in the novice book, and you will have only one mark against you.

Literally the only sensible winnowing process they have! If after three chances a woman still doesn't think she's ready, then unless it's the Tower's teachings itself that failed her (and we don't see evidence that such happens often), it's a good sign that she's not ever going to be ready.

I must make Moiraine pay for what she has done to us. I must.

I'm still sad she never quite gets to act on this. It's such a great motivation.

Nynaeve’s cheeks colored at forgetting already what Sheriam had told her on the way down from her room. Hastily she removed her clothes, her shoes and stockings.

Note that she's not at all ashamed to be naked in front of strangers.

And note that this is the first of many "all ladies must be naked" sequences. Yes there's some historical accuracy here, but you'll note that the Black Tower never picks up such a tradition even under Taim's messed up supervision.

Taking a deep breath, she went on straight, through more passages that all looked exactly alike.

It is the nature of video games, even magic post-apocalyptic ones, that sooner or later someone will reinvent Colossal Cave Adventure.

Dimly, she remembered playing mazes on paper as a child; there had been a trick to finding your way out, but she could not bring it to mind.

There are many tricks to exhausting mazes, though not every trick works for every maze. The simplest and most well known is to pick a wall and follow it. In a maze where both entry and exit are upon the outer perimeter, this is guaranteed to work eventually. On the other hand, if you start in the middle like Nynaeve (or if you want to reach the center from the outside), this might not work. The walls may not all be connected, so you loop around to where you started without ever reaching your destination.

She started to take the left fork . . . and spun around at another glimpse of movement. There was nothing there, but this time she was sure. There had been someone behind her. Was someone.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how pathetic is it that dream Aginor manages to be a more compelling threat than he was in book 1 or books 6 through 9?

“You are a pretty one, girl. I will enjoy you.” Suddenly Nynaeve remembered she wore not a stitch.

While obviously the main threat here is the implication of rape, let's step past that and get into the metaphorical. Nudity isn't the normal state of affairs in the arch worlds, only this one. This is Nynaeve beyond the Two Rivers, in a place where the authority she covers herself with is entirely absent. Aginor isn't just the Forsaken, he's also to a degree everyone she's had to deal with since she's left home - even the Aes Sedai who gleefully relish recruiting such a powerhouse.

“You dare? You dare!” He quivered, and spittle leaked down his chin.

This is honestly a pretty good prep for how scary we should actually think the Forsaken are: not at all.

“You cannot! It cannot be!”

Another reason I think Aginor is as much a stand-in for the Aes Sedai as he is for his allies in this sequence is that protests that Nynaeve can't have done awesome stuff and pointless hostility define their reactions to her.

And she could feel Aginor doing . . . something, as well. Dimly she felt it, and far distant, as if it were something she could never truly know, but around her she saw the effects and knew them for what they were.

Early installment weirdness? Or perhaps one of the tells that this isn't real; the arch isn't really drawing on saidin (or perhaps draws to a lesser extent on both), so Nynaeve has a dim awareness of it now that she's connected.

She looked back at Aginor, just in time to see him crawl out of sight over the mounded stone and disappear. She hissed in frustration.

Finally, and rather disappointingly in contradiction to what I've been saying, the last reason to view Aginor as a stand-in for the Aes Sedai is that to succeed in what she has to do, Nynaeve needs to give up her feud with Moiraine and not worry about what she's up to out of sight.

“You are washed clean of what sin you may have done,” the Aes Sedai intoned, “and of those done against you. You are washed clean of what crime you may have committed, and of those committed against you. You come to us washed clean and pure, in heart and soul.”

See what I mean? No reason to include this if not to say that the Moiraine feud is being wiped clean.

“That isn’t supposed to be possible. You should not even remember being able to channel.”

"Not possible! You dare channel in our sacred space?"

It's really rather a blatant parallel now that I'm seeing it.

She kept her memories, and she channeled the One Power when she was threatened. And she came out with her abilities burned to nothing, unable to channel, unable even to sense the True Source. The second to go in was also warded, and she, too, was destroyed in the same way.

To me it sounds like it's the wards plus channeling that cause problems, not the channeling itself. That's one hell of a vicious anti-cheating mechanism though.

There was more than an air of neglect about it, whitewash faded, a shutter hanging loose, the rotted end of a rafter showing at a gap in the roof tiles.

A final final reason (for real this time?) to consider Aginor a stand-in for the Aes Sedai as much as himself is that otherwise the past/present system doesn't line up. The Forsaken are real, present threats and the Two Rivers isn't exactly, but if Aginor is as much about Nynaeve's fear of the Power (oh shit it's that too) and the Aes Sedai then it makes sense that that's a trial she's already put behind her just by being in the Tower. Abandoning her notions of herself as a Two Rivers woman though, that's a harder struggle. It's not Bran neglecting his inn, it's Nynaeve neglecting the whole of her home.

“If Malena knows you’re here, there will be trouble. I just know Cenn went scurrying off to find her. He’s the Mayor, now.”

Malena's name of course comes from the Latin "malus", meaning "bad" or "evil".

She beat Alsbet all around the Green with a stick, and none of us who saw had the nerve to try to stop it.

Nice try, silver arches! There's no possible Mirror World where the Two Rivers folk would watch the blacksmith's wife get beat up and not immediately tear the aggressor to shreds.

She said that was why they died; the Light abandoned them. She talks about sin all the time.

Sin doesn't really get brought up a whole bunch in this universe. Like obviously becoming a Darkfriend is sinning and the Whitecloaks claim all sorts of stuff is tantamount to being a Darkfriend, but it's not as if more mundane behavior gets this description usually. Yet in this chapter the Aes Sedai mention it without and Malena worries about it within. Is she yet another reflection of Nynaeve's fear of the Aes Sedai? Destroying families, marking men with the Dragon... It's not too far off from how Nynaeve sees Moiraine, is it?

If she can’t make you afraid of her, she makes you think you need her for the children.

Is this how Nynaeve internally views her discussion with Moiraine after Shadar Logoth? Moiraine couldn't make Nynaeve be afraid of her but she could make her worry about Egwene and the boys even though she was the reason Nynaeve worried about them at all.

The way back—No! These are my people!

Not anymore. :(

“We have to run. We have to hide. Nynaeve, come on. Cenn will have told her who you are. She hates anyone even to speak of you.”

Does Nynaeve think Moiraine doesn't much like Lan speaking of her, I wonder.

“You are washed clean of false pride. You are washed clean of false ambition. You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul.”

Nynaeve's not a Wisdom anymore. It wasn't her real path.

The third is the worst. “I’m afraid,” she whispered. What could be worse than what I just did?

Having to walk away from the happy ending already won for you.

The city had a thousand gardens, but she preferred this wild garden on the hilltop.

Because a garden growing by itself in what was so recently the Blight feels more wonderous than those maintained by human hands?

“Go back? Where? To Emond’s Field? If you wish it. I’ll send letters to Morgase, and command an escort.”

Morgase of course won't be queen at this point. I wonder what reason besides dramatic necessity causes the arches to get a few things wrong.

To her horror, she found herself remembering him as her husband, remembering laughter and tears, bitter arguments and sweet making up. They were dim memories, but she could feel them growing stronger, warmer.

Did some fools in the AoL think that the Dark One's reach was limited purely to their timeline? Did they build this device in the hopes of finding a place beyond his touch, that would let them forget the horrors of the Shadow and recall all the sweet memories in its place instead?

I could stay here. With Lan. Nothing has changed. Her thoughts turned. Nothing has changed. Egwene is alone in the White Tower. Rand will channel the Power and go mad. And what of Mat and Perrin? Can they take back any shred of their lives? And Moiraine, who tore all our lives apart, still walks free.

It says a great deal about Nynaeve's character that the thing that gets her out of this gilded cage is her love for the others.

And also, I do so love ironic echoes, even if they're only separated by a single sentence.

She tried to picture the arch in her mind, to shape it and form it to the last detail, curve of gleaming metal filled with a glow like snowy fire. It seemed to waver there, in front of her, first there between her and the trees, then not, then there.

Perhaps this is just an ordinary entertainment device. Perhaps you forget for the immersive experience and then the arch is meant to be a primer to remind you of what you're supposed to call back to you. It seems unlikely that only Nynaeve would have this capability, after all. Presumably others should have been able to call the archway back, if only they'd known how.

Child, almost every woman who does this says much the same thing. It is no small thing to be made to face your fears.

It's no wonder so many women go Black, with trauma being such a central part of their identities as sisters. And the arches were only found after the Trolloc Wars, when the corruption began in earnest...

A gift from Ishamael?

“There shouldn’t be any scarring. And how did you only get two, and both placed so precisely? If you tangled yourself in a blackthorn bush, you should be covered with scratches and thorns.”

If scarring yourself permanently is part of the exit conditions, I could definitely see this being something Ishamael specifically devised. Not from scratch of course, he's not an engineer, but a relic he deliberately tampered with, setting admin access at a high price. There is always a price.

The Amyrlin’s eyes seemed to hold a dark glow. Nynaeve’s shiver had nothing to do with being naked and wet.

Yeah, this really only cements the Aginor thing. Too late now to escape, Nynaeve! You've committed.

Next time: A whole bunch of characters from book 1 come back. Some of them plan on being important this book, and others are only flirting with importance for the next three or twelve.

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #rand al'thor #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #nynaeve al'meara #sheriam bayanar #silviana brehon #aginor #cenn buie #marin al'vere #lan mandragoran #siuan sanche

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asha-mage · 4 months

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On the third day near the edge of a cliff they found what might have been a tower, though it was long since half collapsed and, to Jasin and Rand’s stunned realization, slightly melted in places. The steps had been intact enough for them to climb to the top, and there, among long weathered battlements, they built a bonfire and made camp. As night had fallen, Jasin had drawn out his hand-carved harp from the case he always kept it in, and sat on the crumbling wall to play, while the others danced, Mat and Egwene following, Perrin and Rand leading in their gentle sweeping turns around the circle of firelight. Jasin had started with sad songs- things that had seemed to fit that strange mysterious place: The Wind that Shakes the Willow, The Man Who Can’t Forget, Whispers of Blaze. It would have felt wrong for him to play any of the songs he was more practiced at- to dishonor that place with Only One Bucket Of Water or Toss the Feathers, yet it wasn’t long before he found tears threatening the edges of his eyes, and he changed tact to some of the more dignified but still upbeat pieces he knew. Coming Home From Tarwin’s Gap, Weep for Manetheren, and finally Lament for Astrael. “Beautiful Astrael, where the river meets the sea, Sing, sing, of the winds bringing him home to me, Winter’s gone and whispered far, and summer’s yet to bloom, But he’ll return, on spring’s clean burn, my love, my love, my love to me…” As the last few notes faded Jasin realized that the others had ceased their dancing. Egwene was curled up against the wall dozing, while Perrin was adjusting the fire with a long branch he had brought up for that purpose. Mat was leaning near the stairs, enjoying an illicit pipe that he was in no way yet old enough to be smoking while Rand… Rand had wandered over and was staring at Jasin, his expression unreadable. No- not him, Jasin realized- his hands, his harp. “That’s beautiful.” Rand said finally and Jasin felt himself lose focus and strike a sour note, cringing at the sound. He gave himself a shake, blinking his eyes to refocus his vision. He hadn't even realized that he began playing something else. Rand didn't seem to mind the sour note as he sat down beside Jasin on the wall, shoulder to shoulder, turning his gaze up to the stars. “I’ve never heard anything like it. Did you learn it from one of your grandfather’s music books?” Jasin shook his head and frowned, trying to recall the notes he had been playing. “No.” He said slowly. “I didn’t. This is something else I-“ He peered down at his hands. Hesitantly, he laid a hand on the harp and plucked the strings he thought he had used in as close to the order as he could remember. It was...new. Unique. And yet familiar too, like a half-recalled memory. He wondered where he had picked it up- it wasn’t like wandering minstrel’s came through the Two Rivers all that often. “I like it.” Rand said with a smile, pressing their shoulders together. “Does it have a name? “Conden Modero.” Jasin said, then shook himself in shock. Rand blinked, clearly not understanding. But Jasin did, though he didn’t know how. He could not have named the language of those words, or where they had come from, but he knew they meant March of Death. Another sad song, but beautiful too.

-- Phantom Love

My (very very late I am incredibly sorry!) submission for the @feast-of-lights Not So Secret Santa event! My chosen giftee was @darkfeanix and I really hope this was worth the weight. He asked for Randmodean which is one of those pairings I have an incredible soft spot for and well....it uh. Got away from me a bit, to the tune of 18k words. A huge thanks as always to my amazing beta @highladyluck and her incredible patience with me on this one. It would not be nearly as a good a work without her input.

Marry Winter Night to Darkfeanix and a huge happy new year to everyone! As a bonus, have the tags I threw up on A03 as a extra teaser to the fic's content.

#wot secret santa 2023 #WoT #Wheel of Time #WoT Fanfic #WoT Book Spoilers #TFOH Spoilers #Asmodean #Rand al'Thor #Jasin Natael #Cenn Buie #Tam al'Thor #Moiraine Damodred #Randmodean #Rand x Asmodean #joar addam nessosin

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mtg-cards-hourly · 9 months

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Wizened Cenn

"Thoughtweft binds us together as one, part of an intricate pattern that would unravel if even one thread came loose."

Artist: Kev Walker TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

#mtg #magic the gathering #tcg #$0.11 #kev walker #wizened cenn #the list #creature #kithkin #cleric

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mantisgodsaus · 1 year

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New blog moment /pos

Hello! I am here to formally request you may or may not tell me more about this selkieverse. Is it an au where everyone is a selkie (or at least, some bugs are)? Do they just turn into aquatic like bugs instead of actual seals? If actual seals, do you have species picked out for the selkie characters yet? How does it work? Are they even selkies at all? Once more, you don't have to answer if its information you'd like to withold but as local marine biology (mostly seals and jellyfish though) nerd I must know if this may be an au that is like. Right up my alley.

Oh boy, we can answer questions! Technically, we've had this blog for a bit, we just... haven't been using it (we are afflicted with a chronic need to illustrate our worldbuilding and we just Haven't Been Drawing recently).

Not everyone is a selkie, but some bugs are - actual species varies! They're seals, or other assorted... vertebrates, mostly. "Selkie", here, is less referring specifically to seals and more referring to the general category of Bugs With Bonus Pelt. We've got actual species picked out for the selkie characters, but we do want to keep a few under wraps - of the few we can reveal, Leif is a ribbon seal, Mothiva is a leopard seal, Cenn is a yellow-bellied water snake, and Vi... well, her pelt was an ermine.

In terms of how it works - selkies are, more or less, bugs that come in two... pieces, or with two forms. It's genetic, though it can very much skip generations and occasionally appears to manifest from nowhere - generally, you have a few main strains of selkie in an area, maybe with a scattering of other species around. Seals are by far the most common around both Bugaria and The North, and the gene's most common in moths (as far as anyone knows), though it can appear in other species - and, as previously mentioned, sometimes you just get a kid who's a selkie without any previous selkie relatives.

A selkie's pelt isn't present upon hatching, but manifests later - generally either when they metamorphose, in the case of bugs like moths and butterflies, or during one of their first few instars on bugs who do That. It is, functionally, a part of them - a selkie cannot be separated from their pelt for too long, though they can wander farther from it with age and practice, and trying to keep away from it causes fun side effects (like organ failure, and feeling like you're being physically peeled out of your shell, and death).

The pelt itself is, as is typical with selkies, a pelt - seal, or snake, or ermine, or whatever else someone might be. Looks like you'd expect a seal pelt to be - although a selkie's pelt contains a few more bones. Generally, you've got a skull, spine, and ribcage, but it's not uncommon to have a few other bones - they shape the skin, more or less. As is standard, once the skin is donned, they gain the form of their pelt, but the selkie has some control over it - as well as some control over how the pelt moves.

The thing about selkie pelts is that, as they're a part of the selkie, they're functionally "alive" - an extension of the self, an extra limb. Technically, anyone can don a selkie pelt and take on the form of whatever creature they are, but it'll be... strange. Uncanny. They aren't the selkie, and this isn't their form - they're just wearing their skin. Unlike on the selkie themself, the bones aren't going to merge to them properly, they're just going to stick in there, wearing away at their shell until they eventually take it off. A pelt only retains its transformative properties while the selkie it belongs to is alive - once they bite it, it becomes just a piece of leather, though with selkie skin being the only real option as far as skins go, it's still pretty damn valuable dead.

If a selkie's pelt is destroyed, the selkie dies. Likewise, if a selkie dies, the pelt becomes inert. It's a bit like holding a vital organ in your hand - and if the selkie and the pelt are taken too far apart, the connection is severed and the selkie will die even if no damage is dealt to either them or their pelt.

As is standard for selkie mythology, having a selkie's pelt gives you some measure of control over them. Specific degree of control varies, largely based on the selkie - though all selkies can be commanded while you're actively holding their pelt, if they'll keep following that command once you've put it down is a whole 'nother ball park. If you had Leif's pelt in hand and told him to do something, he'd keep doing it even if you put that pelt down later, but if you tried the same with Vi (again, while she had it) she'd stop the second you put it down. With Mothiva, just possessing the pelt is enough - you don't need direct contact, you just need to have it. The effect's at least partially psychosomatic - while it's a direct compulsion with direct contact, anything past that is largely based on if the selkie thinks you should be able to tell them what to do.

The selkie form itself is fairly standard as creatures of its species go, albeit downsized for bug scale. They're around the size they'd normally be relative to a human, relative to an average bug (using an ant as your Standard Human works, here). A selkie is, functionally, both their bug species and their pelt species - behaviors in one form will affect the other, and vice versa. Generally, this'll manifest most noticeably in either tics or diet - a craving for raw fish, an odd sense of territorialism, an impulse to drag dead things to your dumb, bad-at-hunting teammate. It does, however, vary - and a good chunk of selkies do try to keep the fact that they're selkies hidden, especially if they might have reason to fear a stolen pelt.

...this is a whole lot of rambling on Selkie Magic Mechanics and not a whole lot of marine biology, uhh. Hope this helps sketch out the general mechanics for ya! We're always glad to talk about Cool AUs!

#selkieverse #bf aus #selkieverse leif #selkieverse mothiva #selkieverse cenn #selkieverse vi #niko-jpeg #fun fact with standard seal pelts youll cut the flippers and the head off since they don't tan well #a selkie pelt keeps all the bits! its more or less the full skin of the beast including bits thatre just plain impractical to tan normally #also yes fish is a Thing You Can eat its just. not generally a good idea to hunt it as the fish are still Fish Size #leif has the ribbon seal air sac in both forms #mothiva would fucking eat him if she had a chance however she is smaller than him in moth form and he just #entirely lacks any form of self preservation instinct #muze and todd are also selkies but they keep it quiet for dont want their pelts fucking stolen reasons #leif is currently not aware hes a selkie in the first place and hes old enough of one that he has. a Very wide range on his pelt #pelt in question has been hanging up over the fireplace in muze's house ever since an. incident. with grandma muse #they never had the heart to get rid of it. she was Very certain her husband was alive in her old age #you know how it is. a bug gets old and their mind starts to go... always a pity #it does still feel like that pelt is... watching #and it has changed appearance a bit... but who's looking at those old photos anyways?#(leifs pelt has slowly changed color from dark rusty brown to a dark steely blue over the past. century)#(his pelt is not dead but it is Dormant. unfortunately he currently has no fucking clue its even his pelt unfortunately hes stupid)#(also the whole cordyceps thing did scramble his memory access a bit)

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