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markantonys · 7 months

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My Mom Reacts To: wheel of time season 2 episodes 1-4 (season 1)

episode 1

"if i had to carry water all that way for a bath, i'd get a smaller bathtub" you know what? that is a very fair point. just get a smaller tub, moiraine!

mom, #1 Lan Stan: so, he doesn't have any powers, right? except cunning and strength and loyalty of course me: of course

mom: so liandrin wants nynaeve to become red because she........doesn't want her to have a warder? me doing a great aes sedai truth-telling: nynaeve is really powerful so liandrin wants to recruit her for her own team

my dad predicted moiraine was scamming bayle domon and loved it when it was revealed that she was. as always, not too much commentary from him because he remains silent and seems to not be paying attention for most of the time, only to randomly come out with a completely correct prediction or read on a scene.

"i don't think it's true that neat and tidy things can't be worthwhile 🙄" clearly my mom subscribes more to the Egwene School Of Thought than to the Alanna School Of Thought

lan to moiraine after she is Mean to him: make dinner yourself mom: GOOD FOR YOU

when lan brings her the plate later and puts it on top of the maps: "what if he gets greasy food all over her maps?"

"ugh i hate dark scenes where i can't see anything" [scary fade appears] "okay maybe it's good that i can't see"

episode 2

my mom got all confused about rand's dream of him killing his friends and wondered at first if it was real, please pray for her when tel'aran'rhiod is introduced later

"HE'S BALD??????" all of us when we first saw s2 rand's new look djkfgjh

"they must like him here if he gets free food" my boy, beloved wherever he goes :')

she wasn't particularly fond of mat last season, but he's gotten quite a few laughs so far this season! (notably the moment when we ALL fell in love with New Mat, when he was miming liandrin locking the door)

she gave an annoyed TUH! at elayne dissing egwene's room, but didn't comment further, possibly because i'd just told her 20 seconds earlier that elayne was my favorite character and she didn't want to offend me jdkfgh

she was like "wait, is she blue or green???" during a scene where alanna was wearing a slightly-darker-than-normal green outfit, so i think it was definitely a good call by the show to dress aes sedai in their ajah colors always. hard to keep track otherwise!

after moiraine had her hand on her knife when verin revealed she knew about the dragon: "what was she gonna do?? just stab her right in front of all the others??? that's ridiculous!" djkfjg points were made! poor moiraine just kinda panicked and lost all her braincells for a moment there.

my mom was a randgwene shipper last season so i thought she was gonna be pissed about rand hooking up with a strange new woman whilst egwene mourns his death, but she has not said a single word about that situation yet! i did once catch her reading lanfear's wiki article which she'd gotten onto after reading lan's because "i just want to know what happens to him and i'm not going to read all those books" so maybe she retained some info from lanfear's article that made her suspect something fishy with selene?

she recognized min from s1 right away and hastened to add her to her handwritten character list, when other characters needed a couple scenes to get that honor, and i remember she laughed a lot at min's lines last season and she did again today. guys, if my mom becomes a min stan, i may never recover lmao (i'm mostly kidding, show!min has done nothing wrong and is cool. MOSTLY kidding.)

re: the list, i told her she wasn't allowed to google and print out a list of characters because she would see spoilers, only to accidentally spoil her myself last season by instinctively writing liandrin's name down in the "bad guys" column and making her ask "wait, so she's ACTUALLY a villain, not just mean??", rip (but i played it off as "oh she's just unfriendly to moiraine so that's why i put her there" so we shall see whether or not she ends up being surprised by the black ajah reveal)

when min was saying how she sees glimpses of the pattern, my mom made a connection to perrin seeing the past earlier, which i thought was very interesting! (since we hadn't yet learned that what he saw was actually a sending from the wolves.) min's viewings and wolfbrothers are the two major magical powers that have nothing to do with the one power, and it always minorly bugged me that they don't Fit In to the rest of the magic system (despite my apparently-hypocritical mocking of people who get hung up on lore rules etc haha), so i just thought it was neat to think of them in conjunction with each other.

mom, shocked and dismayed: MAT'S GOING TO KILL RAND???????? me: [vibrating with glee over The Great Cauthor Stabbening]

when nynaeve is taken to the arches: "so is she getting a promotion?"

there was some line during the moiraine-lan divorce that got a big offended gasp from our #1 Lan Stan, but i forget which one it was (it wasn't "we were never equals" it was an earlier one)

my dad just laughed when they first showed suroth and her redonkulus getup jkjfg the correct reaction to the pomp and ceremony of seanchan high blood

episode 3

when the aes sedai were saying nynaeve was ready to take the test my mom was like "NO SHE ISN'T!!!!" and was pressed about them rushing her into it

during the bandit attack in the test: "boy, i wouldn't want to live in this world!"

when nynaeve left the tower my mom was like "is this what happens in the books?!" and i couldn't reveal yet that it was still part of the test so i just instinctively said "you'll see" which is my response to everything, and she was like "no i won't, i'm not reading all these books" lmao

my dad during the version of mashiara playing during the lanaeve reunion: why is "somewhere over the rainbow" playing

sheriam: she wasn't ready mom: THAT'S WHAT I SAID!!!!!!!!!!!

she was genuinely very upset for a moment because she thought nynaeve was dead, but i think she then guessed pretty quickly that It Ain't Over Yet

scene transition from nynaeve being left in the arches over to the seanchan: "we're going from bad to worse!"

i was dithering over uno's impending death because i didn't want to spoil them but i thought my mom might want a trigger warning, and thankfully my dad went "that horn looks like it's in a dangerous spot" when they first made uno kneel, so i was all clear to say "yeah this is about to get gory" lmao

my dad wondered if suroth was the dark one which fascinated me! i think everyday negroes had the same thought, iirc. i guess it IS the logical conclusion when you know that ishy is the dark one's right-hand man and in this scene we see him being suroth's right-hand man!

my mom thought elayne might be evil or a spy! how could she! i guess she isn't accustomed to wheel of time strangers just being friendly without an ulterior motive djkfg i didn't outright say her theory was wrong because i'm not about to be a booksplainer, but i'm sure i was so visibly baffled at the idea of elayne being evil that i shot down the theory nonetheless haha

when liandrin goes to visit mat again: "how does she have time for all this? she has her sick son, she has mat, and she has whatever else she does at the tower"

when liandrin blames mat for nynaeve's death: "this lady is CRAZY!!"

mat's "is that an 'i'm here to murder you' stare or a 'light i never realized how handsome you are' stare" line was a big hit! love to see my boy getting some appreciation in this house

...............which he promptly squandered when he a) initially left his cell without freeing min too, and b) did not go comfort egwene. but i pointed out that liandrin's been psychologically tormenting him for months into thinking his friends are better off without him, because i couldn't bear to see them judge my boy!

"it's like we're in 18th century france!" was the first thing out of my mom's mouth when they went to the cairhienin party, i'm sure the costume designers would be thrilled!

mom: how did this lady from the poor district get them into a fancy party? and how could she afford these clothes? 🤨 me: 🤷👀

when logain pours out the wine: "AFTER ALL RAND'S HARD WORK TO GET IT!!"

why did my dad laugh when the inn was on fire jdkfg maybe he just likes to see rand have a bad time

mom: jeez, maybe rand shouldn't stay in other people's houses anymore me: i'm sure rand's thinking the same thing

mom at the end of the test: it's so sad that they keep getting glimpses of the nice lives they could've had 😔

episode 4

mom 2 seconds before the camera reveals who the visitor is: is her little sister moiraine? [camera shows moiraine] mom: I GUESSED SOMETHING FOR ONCE

"it's pretty rude to show up to someone's house and then say 'i don't have time to hang out with you'!"

selene: the fire wasn't your fault rand mom: well it kinda was actually

there was some moment where my dad referred to "sneezing and burning down an inn, or whatever he did" and it killed me, i wish i could remember the context bc it was even funnier in context

"i speak with the amyrlin every time i open my mouth" was also a hit! as was perrin asking if he would turn into a wolf and elyas saying "don't be stupid"

mom when moiraine waltzes into the foregate dressed to the nines: i thought she wanted to keep a low profile

just earlier that day we'd been bemoaning the lack of pockets in women's clothing, as one does, so my mom was like "[delighted] now THAT'S a pocket!" when moiraine fit a whole-ass knife into the pocket of her fancy dress. WOT costumers understand the importance of giving girls pockets! lanfear's outfits have a lot too

my dad said "she seems like a bad guy" about selene during the mountaintop scene, he been knew! but he ended up falling asleep and missing the reveal that he was right

meanwhile, mom: "i'm just waiting for a monster to crawl up that cliff and get them"

when alanna & co go through lan's bags to get the poem: "aww, i thought they were his friends! 😔"

mom: too bad moiraine won't just ask her sister about rand, she talked to him at the party! anvaere: so if you want to know where that redheaded boy is, you'll have to ask me very nicely over tea mom: [just as smug as anvaere]

when ishy shows up at min's room: "how is he EVERYWHERE????"

she didn't seem TOO surprised when liandrin attacked the girls, and she clocked that liandrin was working for ishy after this scene with min (or rather, she asked me if that was the case and i said "you'll see")

she let out the fondest chuckle when rand was like "[choking back tears] i'm going to leave now, thank you" he is BABY YOUR HONOR!!!

as the Lanfear Reveal started my mom said "i just knew she was evil" so that must be why she was so silent on the relationship and so un-judgmental of rand, she must've clocked selene's Bad Vibes from the start! or else she retained something from reading lanfear's wiki article a while back lmao

even so, she went "OH MY GOSH!!!!" and clapped her hands over her mouth in shock when moiraine slit lanfear's throat, which i think is one of her biggest reactions to anything in either season so far! the initial stabbing, zero reaction, but the followup throat-slitting, freakout.

the "i'm a monster too" line + Undead Lanfear Moment has her CONVINCED that forsaken are some kind of creatures or zombies, i'm trying to explain they're just humans who are really powerful and evil haha

at the final shot of lanfear: "i'm going to have nightmares! i'll have to go read my murder mystery to calm down before bed." duality of woman

#wot #wot on prime #the wheel of time #wot show spoilers #i forgot how comparatively slow-paced and calm the first half of the season feels #so i can't WAIT to see the reactions to the second half when shit's hitting the fan 24/7

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moiraineswife · 7 months

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The Lies Our Broken Selves Tell Our Better Halves - A Siuaraine Fic

Title: The Lies Our Broken Selves Tell Our Better Halves

Warnings: Spoilers up to episode 3 of season 2. Safe for non-book readers. Trigger warnings: Mo's general mental state atm which is, as we know: Not Ideal. Mentions of rape/threatened rape in the context of forcing a bond.

Summary: Set/written after the first trio of episodes of season 2 to deal with Lan and Moiraine's dramatic bond-divorce via the power of Siuan Sanche, currently in possession of the only known braincell in Randland. AKA: Moiraine is making bad decisions, spiralling out of control, and smashing every 'self-destruct' button she comes across and she very badly needs Siuan to slam on the brakes before she yeets herself off a cliff. AKA: Moiraine needs a 'come to Jesus' talk so badly and who better to give it to her than the wizard pope/her wife?

Teaser:

'“Then Moiraine crumpled before her eyes. Her shoulders slumped, her mask fell away, revealing the agony and the empty exhaustion that lingered beneath. She covered her face with a shaking hand and moved blindly towards the bed, sinking down onto it as though she no longer had the strength left in her body to remain standing.

Siuan’s heart clenched painfully and the love in it for this woman caused a pang of regret to pulse through her. But she steeled herself and refused to give Moiraine an easy way out of this. It would be painful, but she needed it. Light but she needed it.'

Link: AO3 or Read Below:

“Where’s Lan?”

This simple, casual question instantly changed the atmosphere in the room the way a storm changed the feeling of the wind on the sea and instinctively made Siuan shiver.

Moiraine turned away, putting her back to Siuan, making a casual show of looking out of the window, the gesture effortlessly woven into the absent circles she was walking around the room anyway. But Siuan knew her too well for her to get away with that shit, and a flicker of anxiety immediately tightened in her stomach. She was far too calm for him to be ill or grievously injured, and if he was dead Siuan doubted she would even be upright, let alone coherent, but–

“At the Tower, I expect,” Moiraine replied lightly, absently tracing the delicate petals of a rose in the vase on the window ledge.

“At the Tower?” Siuan repeated, bewildered, “Why in the name of the Light is he there?”

“I sent him there,” Moiraine said, moving away from the window to continue her lazy, seemingly mindless circle around the room. "He should have arrived by now. No doubt he's enjoying reuniting with Nynaeve. Likely as we speak,” with the suggestion of a little smirk on her lips and a faint laugh. It was as flat and empty as her eyes, which remained cold and distant and sad throughout her little performance.

Enjoying reuniting with– Siuan opened her mouth to demand an answer to just such a question, but no. That was deliberate misdirection. Moiraine’s too casual air, that forced smile. She wanted her to focus on something, anything, other than what she should be focusing on. And that was an answer to the question of: what in the name of all that was bright had happened at Verin’s quaint little cottage? Clearly it’d grown more interesting since Siuan had last visited.

“What do you mean you ‘sent’ him?” Siuan asked, very quietly, and very intently, so Moiraine could not avoid the question unless she very obviously side-stepped it, thereby revealing it as a sore point.

Instead of further attempts at deflection, Moiraine returned with that false little smile that Siuan loathed. The one that held no humour at all and that she only used when she was trying to make light of a situation that could not have been darker if it was taking place within the Dark One’s own arsehole.

“I’m not really sure what’s causing you confusion,” Moiraine said with that mildly patronising inflection in her voice. “I sent him, that is to say I arranged for him to go from one place and to arrive in another of my choosing.”

Siuan might have throttled her, but she needed her hands to massage her temples to try and stave off the headache she felt coming on. Light and she’d thought this would be a simple question. She had forgotten that, when talking to Moiraine bloody Sedai, there was no such thing as ‘simple’.

Moiriane, the Light blind her, had the gall to add blithely, “couriers do that sort of thing, you know. I was sure you’d be familiar with the concept.”

Siuan snapped her eyes up to meet Moiraine’s as she cut in sharply, with no trace of amusement or indulgence of the little farce she’d just been forced to witness, “your Warder is not a package.”

The coldness in her voice brought Moiraine up short. Her false little smile faded as her expression hardened. Then she set her jaw in that way she’d picked up from Lan years ago, without either of them realising it and stared icily down at Siuan. As if that was going to put her off.

“That man cannot just be ‘sent’ anywhere,” Siuan continued, utterly unphased by Moiraine’s glare, “anymore than you can send a hurricane to ‘a place of your choosing’,” she repeated sardonically, each word snapping out harsher and faster than the last, until she was practically spitting the last ones. “He has been more devoted to you than a sailor who hasn’t seen a tavern in a year is devoted to his first mug of ale." Her eyes bored into Moiraine’s, and she met the stare defiant and unflinching as ever, so Siuan pressed harder, "I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d died and his corpse just got right back up and refused to stop following your fool self around," she said bluntly.

Then she paused for a moment, letting the implications of that sink in properly, watching the subtle nuances of Moiraine’s expression shift. It was like reading the currents of an ocean, something anyone unfamiliar would miss entirely, but were as obvious as words on parchment to those that knew. Siuan caught the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, the flickering blink, there for half a heartbeat then gone, the slight tightening of the skin around her eyes, and felt as wary as she would spotting a cleverly hidden riptide beneath the waves.

“What happened, Moiraine?” she asked quietly, in the same stone voice, unbroken and unweathered by time or tide, every inch the one she used when she made a demand as the Amyrlin Seat. One that would be obeyed.

With a swirl of deep blue Cairhien skirts, Moiraine turned on her like a summer storm. Siuan held her ground, unmoved, even at the sight of the flare of anger that flashed in her partner's eyes. For a long, charged beat of tension they stared at each other, gazes locked, jaws clenched, heels dug in, both ready to go ‘til the last breath if needed.

Then Moiraine crumpled before her eyes. Her shoulders slumped, her mask fell away, revealing the agony and the empty exhaustion that lingered beneath. She covered her face with a shaking hand and moved blindly towards the bed, sinking down onto it as though she no longer had the strength left in her body to remain standing.

Instead, Siuan crossed the room and knelt down on the floor at her side, staying close, while still giving her the space she needed. Reaching out and gently twining their fingers, stopping Moiraine from agitating the already red and ragged skin around her nails that she’d been worrying at in her agitation. Siuan waited, patient, thumb stroking over the back of her hand, giving Moiraine time to gather her thoughts.

Finally, without warning, like a horse suddenly bolting for no flaming reason at all, as they did, Moiraine launched abruptly into speech.

“I tried for months to make him leave me,” she began, with an obvious frustration in her voice, punctuated by her little huff, “to make him see reason.” She sighed heavily, shaking her head and looking exasperated and hopeless at once. “Nothing I did worked,” she muttered impatiently, “no matter what I said, or what I did, aloof, or indifferent, or even cruel I was to him: it never made any difference. He can be damned stubborn when he wants to be,” she grimaced.

Siuan decided it was not wise to interrupt Moiraine now she’d finally started talking, and clearly had a lot to get off her chest, to point out the frankly hysterical level of irony and lack of self-awareness in her calling any other person in any turning of the Wheel ‘damned stubborn’, but she had to bite her tongue to manage it.

“The more I tried to push him away the more insistent he seemed to become on staying,” she frowned, as though unable to even fathom a suggestion of why he’d acted that way.

Siuan bit her tongue harder still to save bursting out a deeply sarcastic suggestion of why it might be that the man who had been the other half of her bloody soul for decades, and who loved her more than all the stars loved their sky, became more reluctant to abandon her the more clearly unwell and irrational she acted.

Something shifted in Moiraine and Siuan snapped her focus sharply back to her. The atmosphere around her became suddenly very cold and still. As though a funeral shroud had slipped down behind her eyes, they darkened, and she had to swallow to clear her throat before she could continue. Siuan reached up and placed her other hand gently on Moiraine’s side, feeling a need to anchor her against whatever memory threatened to pull her away in its current.

“What?” Siuan prompted as gently as she could, but she still felt the bite to the word that snapped out before she could stop it as concern flared in the pit of her stomach.

“That night, after I found out about the breaking of Lanfear's seal," she clarified quickly, clearly struggling to wrangle her thoughts into some semblance of order, "I left to set out for Cairhien and I–" she paused, mouth tightening and Siuan frowned, sensing her change her mind about what she'd been about to say. Before she could comment, Moiraine blurted out abruptly, "we were attacked by three Fades.”

Siuan swore she felt her soul attempt to leave her body for a moment at the horror of those words, but she wrestled it back down like a troublesome line. Though she knew that, clearly, they had both survived the ordeal, she couldn’t help herself gripping Moiraine’s hand with the fear that had gripped her.

“It was my fault.” Moiraine whispered unsteadily, that familiar shadow of self-loathing turning her sea blue eyes to chips of black ice, “entirely my fault.”

The hand Siuan was not holding curled into a too-tight fist she knew would make the nails bite painfully into her palm.

Mouth trembling, Moiraine went on with difficulty, “ “Lan was fighting, protecting me, but there were too many. It was too much,” she wiped away the tears that threatened in her eyes with a careless, impatient hand. “I was injured, just lying there on the ground like a discarded doll–” she choked on the word as disgust and frustration mingled and silenced her momentarily. “Pointless,” she spat out, words returning, along with her anger at herself. “I was useless, Siuan,” she breathed, shaking her head, “I was so useless. Like a frightened child in the middle of a warzone,” she shook her head again. Her voice was shaking so badly now that Siuan had to concentrate to make out her words. “They were going to kill him and I did nothing to save him, to help him, I– I couldn’t–”

She was crying now, tears streaming from her eyes, her anguish ignoring the hand she used to try and brush them away. Siuan squeezed her hand as her heart tightened in sympathy with her. Moiraine tried to speak several times, her efforts largely incoherent, though Siuan thought she heard the words ‘I tried to channel’, but in the end Moiraine gave up. Swallowing hard she finally just shook her head to indicate that the power had not come when she had needed it.

“I failed him,” she choked out bluntly, “utterly,” she added, ignoring Siuan shaking her head and opening her mouth to chastise her for that. She was still speaking, firm and matter-of-fact now, “I knew then that I had to get him away from me,” she whispered firmly, a new resolve giving her the strength to continue, though it shattered something within Siuan to hear her phrase it like that, as if she were a blight, infectious, corrupting, “whatever it took, I could no longer stand to keep him at my side, shackled to my danger, and my weakness.”

Siuan was quiet for a long moment, letting those words fade from ringing declarations of pain, to fading echoes, until they were mere memories of the agony they once held. Abruptly, Moiraine got to her feet, and moved away. Siuan made no move to stop her. She stayed quiet, watching Moiraine tremble herself to stillness again, the agitation slowly working its way out of her body as she hugged herself, pacing, before finally coming to a halt at the window again. One hand resting on the sil, she stared out of it with a posture and smoothness to her face that said she’d done this many times before, and took several slow, deep breaths, gradually regaining control. Her shoulders hunched slightly and her eyes seemed distant and exhausted again, as though this brief flicker of true emotion had drained her of what little strength she’d managed to cling to.

Finally, when she felt Moiraine was ready to hear it, Siuan broke the silence.

“Do you remember all those years ago,” she intoned softly, “when we agreed that you would search the world for the Dragon, and I would remain at the Tower to maintain our informant networks, and try and politic the bickering Ajahs into something that vaguely resembled a useful faction against the Dark One for when the time came?”

Moiraine nodded, looking too exhausted to speak, but she turned her head over a shoulder, watching, waiting for more.

“I told you that you needed a Warder,” Siuan went on calmly.

Moiraine nodded tiredly again, but with a slightly more impatient air, as though she felt an ‘I told you so’ twenty years after the fact was a little pointless. Siuan agreed, which was why that wasn’t at all what she was headed towards.

Unruffled, Siuan reminded, “you didn’t want one,” and heard a barely perceptible little sigh in response. “You told me that you didn’t want a Warder, didn’t want someone in your head, able to feel all of your fears, and your flaws, and your insecurities,” she went on doggedly, apparently oblivious to the disparaging little frown pinching Moiraine’s face. “You thought it would be invasive and unbearable, and that it wasn’t worth all that. But I insisted.”

‘Insisted’ was actually a very polite way of describing what she’d done. If memory served the conversation had been a lot closer to beating her over the head with a broom and demanding it than anything as polite or civilised as ‘insistence’. Moiraine looked too worn out to point this out, however. Siuan pushed through the worry she felt coiling in her stomach, determined to see this point through.

“So we observed, and we gathered information, and we made notes, and conducted thorough investigations into all of the Warders currently in training at the Tower to find someone who was suitable and competent,” she said, remembering their girlish excitement, their first spy mission undertaken together as budding Blues, “and, more to the point, someone that you might actually manage to stand without driving one or both of you to murder or suicide within a week,” she added wryly, a fondness now tugging at her heartstrings at the memory.

The corners of Moiraine’s mouth even dared to lift into something like a true smile, warm and real, her eyes softening, meeting Siuan’s gaze with such love at the recollection. Without seeming to consciously make a choice to do so, she crossed the room back towards Siuan and reached down twining their fingers together.

Siuan burst the romantic bubble blossoming between with customary brutality before Moiraine became concerned that such uncharacteristic behaviour meant her wife had been replaced by a Forsaken.

“Then you thoughtlessly toppled weeks of our hard work into a fire pit on your way out on that hairbrained scheme you had in mind when you left without so much as a ‘by your leave’,” Siuan grumbled, not missing the way Moiraine rolled her eyes. Undeterred, Siuan forged resolutely ahead. “One week later you waltzed back to the Tower with a man neither of us had ever met before in our lives and announced that you’d bloody gone and taken him as your Warder!” she concluded.

Siuan made sure that her words appropriately conveyed how distinctly incredulous, not to mean miffed, she’d felt at little Lady ‘no Warder is good enough for me’ Damodred pulling a stunt like that after rejecting every one of her carefully selected candidates.

Siuan shook her head in mock-disbelief, but couldn’t stop the smile that was starting to blossom on her lips, “I thought you were insane,” she said bluntly. “Couldn’t even have told me his favourite colour if I’d held a knife to your neck,” she snorted with derision, “but you’d gone and bonded the great stoic stone lump, eyes colder than a dead shark’s and all,” she muttered, fully smirking now.

In spite of the lightness of her tone, and the fact that Moiraine was well aware Siuan loved Lan in his own right after all these years, she did not miss the slight tension that flared for a moment at the insult to him, affectionate or otherwise.

Stroking her thumb soothingly over the back of Moiraine’s hand to stop her spikes making an appearance, Siuan continued, “I was wrong,” she said softly, “and I’ve never been as happy to be so, either,” she added for good measure. Moiraine looked down, as she looked up, their eyes meeting. A faint glint of tears reflected in Moiraine’s again as Siuan murmured, “that man is the best thing that’s happened to you since, well, since I did,” she teased, and was rewarded by a feeble, wobbly little attempt at a smile from Moiraine for her efforts. “And he is, without a doubt, the only reason you didn’t starve to death two months in because you forgot to eat for three weeks straight,” she added mildly.

Moiraine’s weak little smile had the audacity to shift at once into a much stronger little scowl, as though Siuan had claimed something utterly unreasonable or false when they both knew it was true.

“The day I met him, he didn’t know you from the next haughty little Aes Sedai,” Siuan continued, remembering this more clearly than what she’d eaten for breakfast that very morning, “but I knew that he would follow you wherever you led. I knew,” she insisted firmly, “that every step you took, he would be right there at your side, taking each one as you did.” A single tear slid down Moiraine’s cheek at those words, and she gave a tiny nod of affirmation. “I was right,” Siuan agreed, nodding herself, “that’s what he’s done every day for the last twenty years, Moiraine,” she reminded her pointedly, as though she had forgotten that she had lived them, or, perhaps, as though she had simply forgotten that she’d ever lived at all.

“Exactly,” Moiraine murmured and for a brief moment, if she hadn’t known her better, Siuan might have entertained the idea that the stubborn pain in her arse might have seen reason. Unfortunately, she knew her very well, and sensed this was too easy long before Moiraine proved it to her by insisting in a hollow, self-loathing little voice that didn’t suit her, “he has wasted enough of his life on me already.”

“I don’t think he sees it that way,” Siuan argued back, preparing herself for a long, agonising night of attempting to beat some sense into this woman.

Carefully worded logic rarely worked on her when she was like this. Typically she needed a good solid reality check with the approximate subtlety of a brick to the face. This sort of clobbering generally fell to Siuan since her Warder, for all his admirable qualities, was far too gentle with Moiraine for her own good sometimes.

“You can’t just ask someone like Lan, someone who lives and breathes for one single thing, one single goal, one single purpose,” she said, laying a steady emphasis on that final word, not missing the tightening around Moiraine’s eyes that said she knew very well what she was getting at, "to give all of that up and abandon you. He needs you, Moiraine,” she murmured quietly, “as surely as the stars need the sky.”

"He does not,” Moiraine half-growled and half- groaned back. She drew her hands from Siuan’s and took a few steps away from her, gazing unseeingly out of her window again at the night sky and the stars it held beyond. “He has never needed me,” she muttered, arms wrapping around herself, “except perhaps in needing me to stay away from him,” she added darkly.

"He would be dead without you,” Siuan countered bluntly. “If he'd never met you, and you'd never convinced him to trust you and become your Warder he would have died twenty years ago.”

She saw the flash of pain in Moiraine’s eyes at whatever memory of Lan, broken and hopeless as he’d been, and knew she felt the truth of her words. So she kept going, the moment before a catch broke the surface of the water at last was no point to slacken your grip on the line.

“Without you there would be no Lan,” she stated, clear and precise, with all the conviction of a simple truth. “Even if, by some miracle, he survived that suicide mission he set out on, he wouldn’t be the man he is today without you.” She gave that a moment, a brief handful of heartbeats, for Moiraine to come to terms with, then pressed on relentlessly. “And I know you love and trust and respect the man that he’s become at your side more than almost anyone in this world,” she all but growled, “And you know that he has more earned the right to choose to stay with you until the end."

"Enough, Siuan,” Moiraine snapped finally, rubbing the spot between her eyes that marked where the sharpest pain of the migraines that had plagued her since they were novices tended to gather when she was stressed. “I have listened to him argue with me about this every day for the last five months,” she muttered wearily, “I am not going to endure the same from you,” she said with an irritated little jerk of her head, obvious frustration in her.

Well if she was finally frustrating her that meant at least they were starting to get somewhere.

"You listened, did you?” Siuan retorted sceptically, eyebrows raised. “Did you actually listen to him and what he said to you?" she demanded knowingly, “or did you just pretend to hear him the way you do when you know someone is making a reasonable point that you don’t want to acknowledge?” she pressed relentlessly.

Moiraine turned and managed a scowl that looked positively like her old self as she said coldly, "I know what you're doing and it won't work. My mind is made up,” she bit out firmly, seeing Siuan open her mouth to reply.

Then she turned away, her eyes again on the window, and the world beyond, as though she could see through the buildings, and the trees, and the hills as if they too were glass, to the man that she had not been parted from this way in twenty years.

Lowering her head she added in an undertone, “even if you did it's too late now. It is done. It is broken. That is the end,” she concluded very softly, swallowing hard and looking down at her fingers, away from the window, cutting off the invisible thread Siuan had imagined joining her and Lan for a moment.

Siuan paused, pretending to actually deliberate and consider this idea, then she said evenly, “it could still be undone.” Moiraine took a very deep, very slow breath, lifting her chin very slightly towards the ceiling, as though silently begging the Light for patience. “It could be fixed, if you tried,” Siuan said, completely ignoring Moiraine’s reaction.

"Not everything that is broken can be fixed, Siuan," Moiraine replied, a new darkness gathering at the edges of her words, like night steadily swallowing the evening sun and all its warmth.

"No,” Siuan agreed, and she could not maintain her previous toneless, matter-of-fact even cadence now, not when she knew that Moiraine did not only mean to imply her fractured relationship with Lan, but also her fractured self. “Not perfectly or completely,” Siuan went on, made herself go on, made herself say those words, with the full force of the belief that lived behind them. “Maybe it can never be exactly as it once was. But it can always be better than it is now,” she said, and she felt her father’s voice echo in an unheard harmony alongside her own, his lessons, his wisdom, still a core of who she was and, more importantly, who she strived each day to be.

There's no such thing as perfection, so there's no excuse to ever stop trying to improve.

Her head and her heart were still full of his sayings. If they’d been rich, she’d often thought, he could have become one of the greatest philosophers of their age, quoted from Tear to the Two Rivers.

Usually Moiraine knew the feel and form of Berden’s little pearls of wisdom. Usually she would tease her and tell her that her accent became stronger, more Tairen, when she said them, as though her father truly was sharing his words with his daughter’s voice. Usually they coaxed a smile from her, and a pause to the ceaseless spinning of her mind. Usually they connected to her in the same place that she connected to Siuan, a tether to a welcome shore that promised a safe harbour.

This time nothing. No response. No acknowledgement at all. To the point that Siuan was sure she had barely even heard her speak, let alone what she’d said. She opened her mouth to say something more but Moiraine beat her to the catch,

“Not this,” she whispered, and she was staring at the window again, but this time she clearly didn’t see it, or anything at all for that matter, save whatever memory had gotten its hands about her throat and started to crush the breath from her. “Not after what I–” she began in a tremulous whisper.

Abruptly she broke off, as though remembering herself. Siuan watched as she reflexively corrected her posture, straightening her spine, standing tall and confident, the very image of a perfect Cairhien noblewoman. But though her face, as she turned back in Siuan’s direction, was perfectly calm and smooth, she would not meet her eyes.

Something went very cold and dark inside Siuan as she realised that she had made a damned rookie blunder and allowed Moiraine to distract her from the one key detail she clearly hadn’t wanted to discuss.

“How did you get him to agree to go to the Tower without you?” Siuan asked slowly, fear rising in her throat and choking the word near to silence. “You never answered me.”

She’d thought Moiraine had given Lan some false instruction asking him to fetch something for her that she could not, due to her exile. But no, Lan knew her far too well to fall for something like that. Especially after what Moiraine had done to him the night before she’d gone to the Eye of the World. And from the look in her eyes,, the hunch in her shoulders that all to clearly gave away her bone-deep guilt–

“Moiraine–” she began, unable to keep the warning from her voice.

Quiet engulfed them for a long, heavy moment, that seemed to press down with a greater weight than the world they’d carried between them all these years.

“I wrote to Alanna and asked her to meet me at the crossroads so that she might escort Lan to the Tower while I carried on alone to Cairhien” Moiraine answered at last, trying to speak stoutly and confidently, but Siuan could hear the tremors of the fracture lines she was close to breaking along, no matter how well she tried to hide them.

Narrowing her eyes, Siuan bit out, the words sharpened by the tension that was winding ever tighter in her, “it’s a good thing she has Ivhon and Maksim. I imagine that would make it much easier to bind and gag Lan and throw him over the back of his horse, which is the only bloody way I see him going to the Tower with Alanna while you ended up here.”

It could not have been clearer that Moiraine could not meet her eyes. She stared down at her clenched fingers, the skin of which was red raw from how she had agitated it during their conversation. All at once, it was as though she could not even stand to be in her own body, to be herself at all. So great was the guilt and pain and shame that seemed to physically press upon her as Siuan watched, that Siuan thought she might collapse between it. Their eyes met for the briefest moment, as they darted wildly about the room seeking another anchor point, and for that single beat of time, Siuan felt as though she glimpsed Moiraine’s true self, trapped and smothered within the cage of her bones, huddled and broken, given up on trying to break free.

“What the fuck did you do, Moiraine?” Siuan whispered, terrified, genuinely terrified, for the first time in years.

“I told him–” Moiraine began, then broke off, as if gagged by her oath, though Siuan knew there was a far simpler, far more human barrier between her and the words she struggled to speak this time. “I told him that if he refused to go willingly–”

Again she stopped, this time needing to take down a gasp of air as her whole body shook. Even then she seemed to be struggling to breathe, as though something constricted her throat, each word needing to be forced out past an ever-tightening noose, and Siuan suddenly felt dread grip the very heart of her. All at once she did not want to cross this line. She did not want to know into what darkness this woman she loved had fallen.

“I told him that I would have Alanna take his bond by force if I had to,” she whispered in a strangled little voice.

Siuan recoiled. The movement was instinctive, and she couldn’t have stopped it if she’d wanted to. Nor was she sure that she did. Light– That was– Light. Forcing a bond with someone against their will was one of the most invasive and horrific things it was possible to do with their power. It was not only a violation of the body, but of the mind, the very soul itself. For Moiraine to have even threatened that– Threatened Lan with it–

“I thought that you loved him,” Siuan said, horror and disgust rising in her words as well as the back of her throat. “I thought that he was family to you,” she breathed, revulsion forcing her, for the first time that she could remember, to step away from this woman that she had spent most of her life waiting to run to. “How could you do that to him?”

“I didn’t!” Moiraine cried, stricken, a burst of emotion rising in her, stronger than anything else she’d been able to muster as she stared at Siuan with desperate urgency. “Of course I would never have allowed it to get that far, but–”

“You threatened him with it!” Siuan interrupted, a snap in her voice, words rising to a shout in her disbelief and her anger and her horror.

That she had done this in what Siuan assumed, what she begged the very Wheel itself, was in a wild moment of utter desperation was one thing. But to stand here now in the cold aftermath and defend the choice?

Siuan felt as though she were looking into the eyes of a stranger, a nameless, unknown creature wearing her face. Because this could not be her Moiraine. The Eye of the World had taken that woman she had loved for decades, that woman she would have ripped the world apart seam by seam to protect, and spat out something else, something that looked like Moiraine, sounded like her, but could not be her in truth.

Still in disbelief, bile burning the back of her throat she went on, hoarse with shock and ever mounting rage, making her voice waver, “the fact that you actually managed to get those words out past the First Oath to spit in his face?” Her lip curled and she spared no effort at all to hide her disgust as she growled, “I think that’s far enough.”

“Why don’t you understand?” Moiraine whispered, staring at Siuan as though she barely recognised her either. As though they were two strangers seeing each other for the first time. "I was so sure that you would,” she murmured, her eyes going unfocused as she looked inward, seeing something that Siuan could neither see nor even fathom. “I was so sure that you–”

Flinching back with a sudden twist of contempt at that very suggestion, anger rose in her. “How could you ever think I would understand something like this?” she demanded, furious, “let alone accept it!”

“Because you know me!” Moiraine shouted a little wildly, her voice rising and wavering out of her control, like a loose sail stolen by a strong gust rippling and writhing as the rage of the ocean claimed it. “You know me, Siuan,” Moiraine whispered, thumping her palm flat against her chest, just over her heart in a broken display of utter desperation, “you know me better than anyone.”

“I thought I did,” Siuan breathed, her face still hard and cold as her heart had become, petrified and crumbling in the face of this unprecedented darkness in the woman she adored. “Before tonight I never would have believed you capable of this. Not for all the light in this world.”

Moiraine looked utterly broken for a moment, her face falling into lines of clear agony, her eyes closing against it. For a moment Siuan was sure that reason and sanity had returned, and it had hit her just how awful what she’d been suggesting was.

“I swear to you,” she breathed softly, “I swear to you on my father’s name that I did this for the right reasons,” she all but begged, her eyes wide and shining with tears, “I didn’t do it to hurt him, Siuan–” she began.

But Siuan’s anger flared once more and she cut in, “then I’m sure it wouldn’t have,” she snapped with a furious spite twisting each word, “I’m sure he wouldn’t have felt any pain, or violation, or betrayal at all,” she spat, the words firing from her mouth like crashing hailstones, “not as long as you made sure you had him raped with good intentions–”

Moiraine flinched violently at that word as though it was a physical lash Siuan had branded her with. But Siuan couldn’t find any pity for her. She had blinded herself with willful ignorance and justified this to herself somehow, but Siuan would be burned to ashes before she let her ignore the harsh reality of what she had held over the head of a man who had trusted her enough to dedicate his life to hers for two decades.

“I would never allow Alanna, or anyone else, to hurt him like that,” Moiraine snarled, anger deepening her voice so that it almost seemed to echo up to her from the depths of the ocean itself. “If I could not channel I would put a blade through their heart before they even tried to do such a thing to him,” she went on, emotion burning so palpably from her now that for a moment Siuan felt as though she stood beside a raging sun, “And if I had no blade then I would tear them apart with my bare hands before they even thought of harming him.”

There she was. Yes. That was Moiraine, her Moiraine. Without question. There was no mistaking the blazing intensity in her eyes, the strength of will that seemed to rise from every taut muscle and sinew of her body like a heat haze as she set out her goal and swore every fibre of her soul to see it done, as no one Siuan had ever met could do.

But again, Siuan saw her in the slight tremble of her mouth, the brightness of her eyes, the frightened woman who lived beneath that raging force that at times felt as if she could halt the Wheel itself by virtue of the strength and stubbornness of her command alone. The woman you could almost forget was there, fragile and afraid as any other mortal creature made of flesh and blood and foolish, foolish love.

“But I will not apologise for trying to save a good man from an unjust fate,” Moiraine whispered, the near overwhelming fire of her earlier words suddenly ash, and though there was a crack to her voice there was no less conviction or intent because of that, as she now met and held Siuan’s gaze.

Even now, after she had been emotionally beaten and branded for her choice, she maintained that, if it could not be called good, it could also never be called wrong.

Siuan wanted to shake her. She wanted to shake her and ask how she could have endured what she had at the Eye, how she could have felt someone use their Power to strip away her own. How she could know as keenly as it was possible to know what it was to be left behind, vulnerable, and violated, and helpless– how she could feel that pain, and then threaten someone she loved with the same in the name of protecting them.

But she had spoken one truth, amidst the rest of this shadowspawned blight: Siuan did know her. She had known her, and loved her, since they’d been little more than children in the Tower together. So she had to believe, if she believed that there was any light left at all in this forsaken world, that Moiraine had meant well, and could still be made to see some bloody reason.

“Explain,” she murmured tautly, with every flaming bit of restraint that she was still just clinging to.

“There is no chance that either of us will live to see the world we hope to save,” Moiraine said with an honesty that was as casually brutal as it was familiar; and it was as familiar to both of them as cold beds and lonely hearts. “Not until the Wheel turns us out together again in another life. You know that,” she said very quietly, her eyes never leaving Siuan’s, never dropping, never even blinking as they confronted this truth, and this tragedy, of their life, and their love again. “We both made our peace with that years ago when we started all of this. We knew what the price would be if we were to take this path. And we both agreed to pay it."

Siuan nodded, but her brow creased in a slight frown as she said slowly, "Lan would give his life for this, for you, just as willingly, without even thinking about it."

"Of course he would!” Moiraine snapped, sounding almost insulted on her Warder’s behalf, as though Siuan had implied the opposite.

Slamming her palm down against her thigh, frustration rankling through her, she lifted the same hand to press against her head, as though trying to help it resist some unendurable pain. Then she looked up at Siuan, her expression softening, the lines of tension and stress smoothed away, so she appeared half a child again, innocent, and naive, still able to find the hope they had begun this all with years ago.

“But he doesn't have to,” she whispered, the words near a plea, to her, or the Wheel itself, Siuan didn’t know. But it was as honest and as raw a prayer as she had ever heard pass this woman’s lips. “He is not bound to that fate as we are. He would give his life for it, without hesitation, I know he would, I do not question that. But he does not have to die for this unless I drag him into the grave that has already been dug for me.”

Light but there was still good in her, Siuan thought with gentle despair, her heart aching with it. Perhaps too much.

“He can still have this life, a good life,” Moiraine insisted, the words apparently sounding reasonable and fair to her, when to Siuan they just sounded like the nonsensical plea of a loved one to save a fallen friend who’s heart had long since stopped beating, “a life that he deserves at last. That is all I wanted for him, and everything I have done has been for that. For him,” she implored.

Siuan believed her. Light but she believed her.

“You hurt him,” Siuan said quietly, still adamant that she would get an acknowledgement on this point, before they went any further. “No matter why you did it, or what you hoped to achieve, you still hurt him, Moiraine. More than anyone else ever could, and more than you ever should,” she added firmly, because she understood now, but that did not mean she accepted.

“I know,” Moiraine said, something darkening in her eyes. Shame, Siuan realised, shame for what she had done.

All at once she seemed to fade before her, the ghost of the woman that had once stood in her place. She moved as though in a daze and sank down onto the edge of her bed again, head in her hands. Cautiously, Siuan moved to her side once more and sat down next to her.

Her presence seemed to give Moiraine the strength she needed to speak. Raising her head, she said softly, “I knew I was hurting him every day that I spoke to him so callously. Or looked at him as though he were a stranger I did not trust. I could see that pain in him, as clearly as I see you standing here before me. And it destroyed me, Siuan. You have to know that. But– He is no longer caught up within the threads of my Pattern, so he need not be hanged by them as I will be,” she said, her eyes wide, the words caught somewhere between a statement and a question; wanting it to be true, but needing Siuan to make it so.

“Moiraine,” Siuan said, achingly tender, the way she would have wrapped her last breath around her name before she rammed the dagger of mercy between her ribs to spare her a fate worse than death.

Moiraine trembled to hear that, and all the gentle agony it promised.

“Nothing in our Oaths keeps us safe from lying to ourselves,” Siuan murmured, combing her fingers through Moiraine’s hair, smoothing it back from her face. “It’s time,” she said softly, “you can’t hide from yourself anymore, love. You know, you’ve always known, in your heart, that you can’t do this alone.”

Moiraine’s face crumpled at those words, and she buried it against Siuan’s chest as she turned her face against her shoulder. Siuan cradled her, comforting her from the pain that she herself was inflicting with each word she spoke. Yet she spoke them still, feeling the weight of irony in each one, but knowing they were needed.

“You and Lan are bound together with something far more powerful and lasting than any Warder bond,” Siuan told her, sharing a truth she had seen the moment she had met Lan, standing at Moiraine’s side, and feeling, for the first time since they’d heard the prophecy, and chosen their paths, that Moiraine might be safe on hers, with him beside her. “Your Patterns are intertwined, absolutely and inextricably, and always have been,” she murmured, achingly gentle. “Your fate is his; and his yours.”

Moiraine’s whole body shook with the weight of the breaths that heaved through her chest as she struggled to bear yet another burden Siuan laid upon her back.

“I told you that there would be no Lan without you,” Siuan said, still cradling Moiraine in close to her body, “but equally there is no you without Lan,” she murmured.

As she spoke she rubbed Moiraine’s back in broad, soothing circles, trying to convey without words that it was nearly over. A few more words, and Moiraine would have survived the harshest torture that any person could know. That of having the deepest fears that gave your soul its shadow to contrast its light laid bare before you with simple, merciless truth.

“You need him, Moiraine,” she said, then again, one last time, to be sure, “you need him.”

Moiraine’s shoulders slumped, and she laid her head completely in Siuan’s lap, then shocked her by actually saying, very quietly, “I know.”

A pause while she trembled, and wiped furiously at her eyes and mouth with the back of her hand, obviously trying to regain a grip on herself. For a moment, it seemed that she might succeed. Then she wavered, taking several breaths that palpably shuddered through her whole body as she tried to contain the heavy sobs that Siuan could almost feel weighing her down before she managed to get out, “I miss him. I miss him so much.”

The shock of that hit Siuan like a brick to the face. She had expected her to talk about the Pattern, about the future, about the impossibility of the task that had been demanded of them, of the cruelty of the world, and the indifference of the Wheel. She realised now that this had been the last bit of strain needed to snap the entire line, and that everything Moiraine had been holding in since Lan had left, likely since she’d started pushing him away at all, had finally become too much for even her to bear.

“Oh Moiraine–” Siuan breathed sadly.

“I look to my left to catch his eye and seek out his approval before I remember that he’s not there,” she said, the words flowing from her as thick and fast and uncontrollable as her tears. “I hear his voice each morning telling me that I need to eat something before I start my day,” she said, as Siuan stroked her hair and let her weep, “I find it strange when my plate doesn’t have a little more potato or an extra bit of bacon on it than it did a moment before, because he’s slipped me some of his without my noticing.” Siuan smiled at that, at how simple, and ridiculous, and utterly Lan such a gesture was, how it was always the smallest, stupidest things that said ‘I love you’ without ever needing to use the words. “I pour out two cups of tea without even thinking about it. When it all feels too much, and the weight of the world is crushing me, and I do not know what is right or if I can even trust myself to tie my own shoes, I wait for his reassurance, for his hand on my shoulder, or his steadfastness through the bond but– but I–”

Siuan sensed that there was more, so much more, a lifetime’s worth of tiny moments and instinctive acts that had become as thoughtless as breathing, not noticed until they were gone, and then their absence was an agony worse than dying. But there were no more words left to her to speak them. The mask she’d clutched to her face and hidden behind all these months was little more than ash snatched at by the wind. She was bare, and barren, with no more shields to crouch behind, and no more barriers to break her fall. All she could do now was feel, feel every ounce of grief and pain she’d been pushing aside and struggling to ignore for months.

Moiraine broke, utterly and completely, and Siuan held her as she did. She rocked her gently in her arms as she sobbed and screamed until her throat was raw. She stroked her hair as she gasped and heaved and struggled for each breath she sucked in past her grief. She rubbed her back as she convulsed and trembled until at last her exhausted body could give no more, and it lay still and silent in Siuan’s arms.

Afterwards, Siuan remained quiet. Like the first breath the world took after the passing of a great storm, this was not for her to do, this was not her silence to break, only to keep watch over, until the time came. She knew that it would. Some things were inevitable that way, and she had learned patience as a babe strapped to her father’s back on his little fishing boat, waiting for the tides to carry them home. She had kept that patience for twenty long years, spending each day waiting for Moiraine’s return. She had patience now for this.

Wiping her eyes with that frustrated little gesture, sniffing repeatedly, Moiraine pushed herself tiredly into a sitting position, still leaning against Siuan’s shoulder to help keep her upright.

“I must sound so foolish,” she muttered, voice dulled by fatigue and exertion. Catching Siuan’s expression out of the corner of her eye, she seemed to realise that had not been entirely clear, for she clarified, “crying over cups of tea and potatoes when the Forsaken are stirring and the Dark One’s shadow spreads further each day across the entire world which may be lost if we cannot save it,” she said, with a truly admirable amount of dignity maintained between her hiccups.

Siuan smiled fondly, smoothing out Moiraine’s hair, “a bit,” she admitted, though she made it clear from her tone that it was meant to tease. Kissing the top of Moiraine’s head she sighed out a long resigned breath and said, “I think you need your cups of tea and potatoes and… whatever else,” she said, struggling to remember the precise details of Moiraine’s long, only mostly coherent list. Fortunately this lapse made Moiraine snort with suppressed laughter, knowing her far too well to feel aggrieved, so Siuan continued, “and that’s okay,” she murmured, giving Moiraine a bracing little squeeze. “It’s the same reason I still practise my nets and lures by hand every day,” she said, seeing the soft, fond smile and distant bob of Moiraine’s head in acknowledgement of this, “we need something to keep us sane while everything else goes mad around us.”

Moiraine considered that and then she said very quietly, “So many times, Lan has been the only thing protecting me from death, ever snapping at my heels. But he has also been my net,” she said with a watery smile, catching Siuan’s eyes, “keeping me from the insanity always clawing at the edges of my mind.”

Siuan nodded as Moiraine’s mouth trembled with the burden of the realisation Siuan had just watched settle heavy upon her soul. She stroked her cheek, anchoring her, but did not interrupt or say the words for her. She needed this, needed to purge herself of this truth as surely as if it were trolloc poison.

“I was selfish,” Moiraine managed to whisper at last. Siuan closed her eyes, a tension she had carried since she had asked Moiraine where Lan was at last allowed to leave her. “I convinced myself that the pain I caused him was worth it, if it kept him safe but… nothing in our Oaths keeps us safe from lying to ourselves, does it?” she murmured, repeating the wisdom Siuan had given her earlier. She closed her eyes, her face a mask of pain, and Siuan felt such pride, and such love, swell within her as she found the strength to confront the person she had been, and hold her accountable for what she had done. “I sought to break him, to break the love, and the loyalty I did not feel I deserved because I knew that it would break me to lose him as well.” Silent tears escaped her, sliding down her cheeks as she whispered, “I was so selfish.”

“I know,” Siuan said, the harsh simplicity of that truth balanced by the soothing tone in which it was spoken.

“He must hate me,” she said, unable to entirely smother the small sob that choked from her as she spoke those words.

“Maybe he should, for what you did to him,” Siuan said, as softly and gently as she had spoken her last truth.

She saw the reflexive flash of shock and betrayal in Moiraine’s eyes, before she blinked it away, along with the tears that had shone there, and nodded heavily.

"But I’d still stake my life on the bet that he doesn’t,” Siuan continued very quietly. Whether that made him a fool or a hero, she didn’t know, and perhaps it wasn’t her place to decide either way. “You know that’s not him. He will forgive you. Even for this. As long as you give him a reason to."

Moiraine looked up at her for a long moment then, finally, blessedly, she nodded. She looked utterly exhausted as she did so, but she did so, and that was enough for now. Siuan kissed her head. There was still more to say, on this, as well as the other events of the last six months, but Moiraine clearly wasn’t up to hearing so much as the day’s catch right now, let alone anything like that. So Siuan scooped her up and drew her down onto the bed beside her, stroking her hair and wiping away her latest tears.

“Rest now,” she told her softly. Moiraine started to open her mouth to protest, but Siuan just pressed a finger to her lips, “I will stay and shield your dreams,” she said quietly. It was a risk, she knew, not to return to the Palace, but Leane would make her excuses if that became necessary. Siuan judged that the hour-long grilling she would get from her Keeper about where she’d been and why was worth it to allow Moiraine to get a chance to actually recover some of her strength. “You need to sleep,” she insisted, in a tone that warned there would be no arguing of that point.

“You know so well what I need,” Moiraine growled huffily, the words barely distinguishable through the blanket Siuan was already pulling around her.

“I do,” Siuan agreed, as though Moiraine had spoken the words as a mere statement of fact, and not an obviously petulant complaint.

More grumpy sounds issued at this, though none were coherent enough to be made sense of, and were thus very easy to ignore, as Siuan bundled Moiraine up in the densest, heaviest blankets she could find, then wrapped her arms around her and held her close. She was asleep almost before Siuan had finished weaving the shield around her mind to protect her from Lanfear’s influence, at last safe enough to allow the sleep she so desperately needed to claim her.

There was still a ways to go, she knew, the shore was only just visible as a faint line upon the distant horizon, and their little boat still had a vast ocean to cross to reach it. But if things had not yet been fixed, they had been improved. Tomorrow they would improve again, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. Until the sand of the shore turned to earth, then to stone, and they reached a place where the turbulent sea was little more than myth, and the oar they carried was mistaken for a staff.

****

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gluedwithgold · 2 months

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Agent of Chaos AU lineup Pt 1: Cult of Chaos

This is the MAIN main cast of the AoC AU (Yes Leshy is in the main cast but he isn't visibly present most of the time). Agares, Valefar, Amdusias, and Barbatos are the last remaining followers of Leshy before his imprisonment, I like to call them the Og four. After Fawn took on the crown and role of chaos god, these four became their babysitters and have been helping Fawn rebuild the cult of chaos.

Agares is the oldest out of the four and was Leshy's first truly devoted follower. The imprisonment of his god hit Agares hard, he has become a lot more closed off towards the others and ESPECIALLY dismissive towards Fawn, seeing them as a false idol and trying to replace his precious Leshy.

Valefar is the mom of the group (and my personal favorite), she is the glue that keeps the group together as well as keeps their cult together. Originally she was a follower of Heket but left the old faith to join Leshy. Valefar is a strong, confident woman and I reaaally enjoy drawing her!

Amdusias has no braincells. Their head is completely empty and their character in this Au is entirely based on my own experience with them while playing cotl. Am always has a smile on their face and is always ready to go along with whatever shenanigans Fawn comes up with.

Barbatos is silent, being almost completely mute and speaks either through sign language or through the chattering of their head teeth. No one really knows where Barb came from but they are rocking with us so we are rocking with them. Barb and Am are besties and it's usually Barbs job to make sure Am and Fawn don't do anything tooo stupid and reckless.

And lastly, Fawn. Harbinger of chaos and vessel of the green crown. They are the definition of a wild child and the perfect successor to Leshy! I am a big fan of the "cute but dangerous" characters and being a young deer, Fawn is often underestimated and isn't perceived to be a threat by others. Thats all I'm going to say about them right now...

Some notes I didnt know how else to incorporate:

Witness Agares, He/him, 8'ft tall, Old man, Demonic bug

Valefar, She/her, 7'2ft tall, Adult, Bag worm

Amdusias, They/them, 5'7ft tall, Young adult, Chaser worm

Barbatos, They/them, 5'3ft tall, Young adult, Bobbit worm

Fawn, They/them, 4'ft tall, A child/pre-teen, Fallow deer

(When I find the proper credit for Fawn's pose I will put it here. I love Pinterest but HATE how pretty much no one is ever credited!)

Character lineups:

Cult of Chaos Pt 1 (here)

Court of The Red Crown Pt 1

Court of The Red Crown Pt 2

#cult of the lamb #cotl #cult of the lamb oc #cotl oc #cult of the lamb au #cotl au #agent of chaos au #au lore #my art

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fuck-customers · 7 months

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My work set up some animatronics for Halloween, which would be fine except for the fact that everyone and their mother feels the compulsive urge to press the button every 30 seconds, thus causing it to go off super loudly and repetitively. Please for the love of my last 2 remaining braincells, stop pushing the damn button! I don't need to hear it that fucking often!

What's even worse are the customers who will just sit there and do it over and over again, expecting it to change! If it didn't change within the first 5 times, it won't suddenly change what it says magically if you press it a 6th time!

It would a shame if a "customer" keeps stealing the batteries out of them.

-Rodney

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sollucets · 4 months

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beloveds @khaotunq, @pranink & @alexshenry tagged me to do:

every month of 2023! list your favorite/most popular gifset for each month.

i started making gifs in march this year, so january/february are off the table for this. it's funny that it hasn't even been a full year yet. it seems both somehow a lot longer and also like i remain some kind of photoshop baby at the same time. the images in this post will remain undescribed until i have some energy in my failing body, unfortunately

in any case:

march: midnight museum invades all 2 of my braincells. i download photoshop. the end is nigh

most popular: msp/eclipse pool parallel set

favorite: the bams i made for sof

(notes: it's hard to look back at these lmao. what is coloring and why don't i know her. why is everything so dark. who told me to use noise dithering and why did i ever think that was a good idea. anyway)

april: the eighth sense is airing! i meet many mutuals and friends. i figure out about the curves tool (thank god)

most popular: taehyung getting dunked on

(very deserved dunk; very bad set. the coloring of this scene was extremely questionable and i did nothing to fix it it looks so dull and gray. augh)

favorite: feet lining up / jihyun & jaewon on the beach

i really like this coloring actually. it's bright enough to actually see them, their skin doesn't look as weird, and i like the soft pink i made the beach. a win for baby photoshop user rowan

may: the purple is in full swing now

most popular: sandray car makeout

good for them! i start using significant grain on my ofts gifs from here on out and can never decide how i feel about that

favorite: orange/blue eclipse episode seven set

september: the madness continues

most popular: sand cooking for ray / special

ive giffed this scene three times and this is my least favorite coloring but what can you do. this is my third post to cross 1k

favorite: new rules set! i had mixed feelings when i posted it but it's really grown on me.

october: the madness is so much worse. only friends ends and i am left near-catatonic immediately, apparently. also, i learn to blend and use overlays and some other cool things. i join userdramas :'>

most popular: raysand afterglow. as it should be. cheek kissie

favorite: space girl!! show me the stars!!!

loved making this. purple and sparkly and gay. still super proud. that said other runner-up favorites in october are ray's o-face & the boyfriend shirt & akkaye's thumb thing collection

november: i am left cavernously empty after ofts ends and i fill the void with namtan

most popular: last twilight episode one porjai

she <3

favorite: gaipa userdramas set

again, i learned to use musescore for this set just so i could have those pretty notes. :')

december: i am punched in the face by seasonal depression. all is not well. i made just one gifset this month, but at least it was good? :')

and here we are today !! it was very fun to look over everything; thanks so much for playing and have a happy new year everyone

#tagged in <3 #long post #cw flashing #ro's ps adventures #never a better use of that tag tbh

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skye707 · 1 year

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just curious how do the different riddlers feel about hugs? Who desperately needs one? And who will absolutely punch someone if they try? If that makes sense. Im using my last 2 braincells here

Hugs? Who needs those?

These guys. Very desperately.

Unburied - Of course, you can get a hug from him! He's a very good hugger. He'll snuggle his little head into your chest, because then he can get you to smell and compliment him on his wonderful shampoo.

ZY - I don't know if he'd be up for hugs, but probably not. Feelings are gross and dumb. The only reason he'd hug someone is to feel them up on the sly.

Dano - Dear goodness gracious, it's been so long since someone gave this boy a hug, he might just shove you away through instinct. If you remain steadfast, though, he'll slowly melt into tears. Poor baby man.

YJ - Please. please hug him. please? he would love a hug.

Gotham - If you hug him, he won't pull away and he won't say anything, but he will stiffen up like a board. What on earth are you doing?

BTAA - He's not going to ask anyone else for a hug, but if you ask he'll probably give you one. I think he's more of a softy than people give him credit for.

Arkham - Get your hands off of him! He's busy!! He doesn't have the time nor the desire to pander to your emotional needs!!!

But if he ever needed one, you better be waiting with open arms. or else.

BTAS - Okay, alright, that's enough of that. You may hug him for exactly seven seconds, then you really need to give him space.

Telltale - He is not your grandpa. Do you expect him to put you on his knee and divulge life's secrets as well? Get the fuck off of him.

#riddler #the riddler #edward nashton #edward nygma #unburied!riddler #zero year riddler #capullo riddler #paul dano riddler #dano riddler #young justice riddler #gotham riddler #btaa riddler #arkham riddler #btas riddler #telltale riddler #riddlerverse #Skye

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smoothshine · 2 years

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Well well well, if it isn't another one of those "make everything about Royai" posts. Almost another one, to be more specific.

I was just casually adding a new meme to my gallery after going through the most recent episode, when suddenly this bright idea decided to violently infiltrate my last remaining braincell.

Behold - the top-3 results of my grand research featuring Lottie's and Roy-boy's priceless expressions:

1. Error 404 aka Most-possibly-brain-dead face:

2. Surprised Utterly terrified Pikachu face:

3. Drama queen posture:

Bonus: heart-eyes (!) edition starring their gorgeous women, because you do not separate them:

That's all for today, check out part 1 and part 2, if you're like me and absolutely don't have a type.

#fullmetal alchemist #spy x family #roy mustang #loid forger #royai #loidyor #hinted but still #riza hawkeye #yor forger #i am beyond saving at this point #watch me ranting #thinking hard about fictional silly men and their less silly wives #damn i really want to get to manga now #sometimes i just need to take things out of my head and this is how it ends

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nihil-ism · 10 months

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Hey so idk ur ocs so just go off about your fave. What are they like? How are they as people? What makes them so likable to you?

God can I just say how sweet it is of you to go out of your way and send some random strangers questions about their OCs?? I am honestly tossing some glitter and confetti your way because it's just so thoughtful and rarely done tbh so let me preface the upcoming ramble with a huge thank you ! ♡♡

(( also gdi I hope you do not mind having traipsed right into the den of creepy, dark and gruesome OCs™ I apologize profoundly ahah T_T )) Let me put the thing under the cut because immediately three of my OCs perked up (scratch that and make that four the hornet's nest truly has been kicked now AHAH).

The sleepy head that just peeked out after being dormant for god knows how long is also one of my oldest OCs and still very dear to me - Leareth, a Malkavian Vampire I made with and for a roleplaying partner of about... almost 2 decades past. Here is a very quick doodle I made of him:

Malkavian Vampires all suffer from some kind of delusion or other, and hid most defining one is him not knowing he IS a malkav to begin with, but considers himself Toreador (in case you don't know the Vampire the Masquerade lore - he basically believes he is born to a different house/family, so to speak) He's also extremely androgynous and likes to play with that a lot. As a "person", he is usually one of the more agreeable, gentler types (unless he hasn't fed in a while) - albeit rather anxious and easy to scare off. Him having been one of my first OCs is naturally one of the reasons I like him so much, but he also has so many facets about him, and developed so much during the time I wrote him (becoming more and more confident and coming out of his shell, for one). The next one would be Oliver Park, a character I have played in various settings. Bottom line is that he is proficient in archery and parkour, which in most settings he utilizes to hunt - monsters, demons, vampires or whatever the verse I write him in allows. He usually also sells parts of what he hunted. Again a quick doodle to show the guy off:

He's in most cases also working a day-job as a barista and has QUITE the attitude to him. He's a notorious liar and pretty self-confident bordering on arrogant, with a highly troubled past & family story. Oli was one of the first OCs which were "different" from what I would usually create in terms of background, character type and flaws, which reserved him a special place in my heart.

Lastly, I have been starting to flesh out two new OCs which have not much of a backstory yet, they just pretty much made themselves known, propped up a couch in my last remaining braincells and have been occupying those with their feet on the coffee table ever since. I have literally no clue what's going on with Omen's face (the one with the skeleton part as a mug), but I could see him being a Nosferatu in a Vampire the Masquerade verse, or a demon. We'll see what they give away about themselves over the next weeks, I suppose! But yes, those are them:

Void (left), and Omen (right), the latter one's outlines I just cleaned today.

I hope this was an okay-ish peek into the chaos in my head and again, thank you so much for sending this in! Have a great day!

#my art #oc #vtm #idek what to tag this at just TAKE MY OCs //shoves them on the dash #c:leareth #c:oliverpark #c:omen #c:void

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absolutebl · 2 years

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I loved your post on your top 10 actors in BL. It lead me to your post on just Sam Lin and I saw the part where you talk about how he “acts” drunk. You actually believe he’s been drunk before- I totally agree. You also said that some actors who play drunk you can just tell they haven’t before. I actually think being drunk is def a BL trope and I’d be interested in who you think did it well vs not. Or maybe where being drunk actually I handed the plot vs where it didn’t.

Maybe I’m think about this bc of Nitiman- I’ve been watching it since it ranked so highly on your 2021 best of list. There are SO many scenes of just drunk college kids. Which relatable. But I was thinking- I wonder if absolutebl has opinions on how many there are and if they are doing well.

You named my favorite thing about Nitiman, the puppy piles, the late night drunken room parties, all VERY familiar. However I can’t remember how good they were at actually being drunk, I should do a rewatch. Anygay...

Go Home BL, You’re Drunk

Where it looks like the actor actually knows what it’s like to be fershnickered.

Sam Lin in We Best Love 2.

Dome in 2 Moons 2.

Tay & New in Kiss Me Again.

Timmy Xu in Addicted.

Talay in My Engineer.

Fluke & Tong in Second Chance. (Also one of the best drunken kisses.)

Jeff in Ingredients. (I think, I can’t rightly remember.)

Gong Jun in Word of Honor.

Honorable mention to Tine and his last braincells in Still 2gether. I’ve never been around drunks THIS funny but this remains the only scene in BL that can make me bark with laughter even on a rewatch.

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tamelee · 2 years

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i just wanna say that you’re so brave for reading sasuke hetsuden, you may be god’s strongest soldier for being able to read such a cringe content fr

@narcissiques ! 💕

Brave? Then why do I feel like:

I’m on 3 painkillers 😂

Yes. They are a happy family after all. (Yay to search functions)

The moment Sasuke sees Sakura at the prison he is worried about her and thinks something happened. “Is Sarada ok? Where is she?”

The second time she is mentioned is when Sasuke and Sakura look at a pool of water, taking their sweet time even though in it, there is supposed to be a clue that could help Naruto from this disease he’s suffering from, but no- Sasuke needs to take a long time to be all sentimental as he grabs Sakura’s hand and they get all romantic.

Remember this? Sasuke's Inner monologue in Chapter 698:

This is just a snippet, but take that in its entirety, make it different and romantic in words and about Sakura. That is what happens next to the lake. Also add that Sasuke adds that during his travels alone he feels lonely and wants to touch her, but obviously can't :((( aw.

Sarada is mentioned, because he wanted to show Sarada the lake also.. which is located at the prison.. which he only saw briefly.. which is really unimportant.. which I highly doubt.. which honestly makes no sense- but ok.

Sasuke goes on and sort of makes his insecurity about getting replaced as a man known to Sakura, but then they talk about wrinkles on their faces and it’s funny I guess which makes them laugh.

Laughing together is Sasuke-kun’s only wish, but again.. he has to help Naruto :(((( Anyway Sarada is mentioned here because he thinks her dreams can only be realized as long as Sakura stays in Konoha..

So because of their daughter and Naruto (damn them) they can’t travel together and Sasuke-kun’s sincere and only wish, which is laughing together with Sakura can’t happen. OML. Let that one sink in for a moment.

And lastly Sarada makes dinner for “the Uchiha household” as they all peacefully stay at home, relaxing. No one important needs help now anyway.

Well this account exists a little over a year and I haven’t had one argument that I can remember tbh, at least not one with any specific argument-points, which to me is even funnier. But I do feel a little delusional atm, like someone just tore away my last 2 remaining braincells. Even brainless I can tell you that yes, the novel is OOC.

#asktamelee #retsuden talk

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tied-with-a-red-ribbon · 2 years

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It's here >:3c

Based on Chains by @echo-echo31

Surprise! I made a tumblr just for my silly little mechanic stories that y'all in the server seem to enjoy so much :D and, to kick it off c:<

The Prologue

You had always gotten along better with machines than people. Machines you could understand, take them apart, fix what was broken, and put it back together good as new. People were messier. They had rules you were expected to know without explanation, to follow except when you shouldn't; it was a blindfolded dance you didn't know the steps to that always ended with you stepping on someone's toes. So you mostly stuck with machines. Your little repair shop did pretty well, especially when androids started to become a household staple. Google and Bing could charge an arm and a leg for their premium parts and certified technicians, but you could make a repair last longer with rubber hose and quick set epoxy, and you only occasionally charged an arm when yours needed modifying. You very quickly developed a waiting list, and usually had 4 or 5 robots in your workshop at any given time.

That really bit you in the ass when the apocalypse happened. It was one of your regulars, a red GoogleIRL series named Hal you had always gotten along with, who told you what was going on. He had hesitated a moment before suggesting your skill as a mechanic might be useful enough to grant you a place in the new order that was happening. At that, he and the other androids that were in working order turned and left. You never saw him again.

Well, you had always gotten along better with machines than people.

That's how you found yourself 6 months later as one of the only humans in the House, a Bing series android in a heap in your corner of the repair bay. There was a hole straight through his chest where his bioregulator would be, and his eyes were open and dark. Before, you would have bought him as a "donor", to strip for parts; the bioregulator, with all its tiny moving parts, was one part you were never confident enough to fix. Of course, rebuilding one from scratch was now your only way to gain full acceptance into the House. Lucky you.

Technically Alpha hadn't given you a deadline for the project, but you knew his good graces were quick to expire if you didn't prove yourself useful. So, you started researching. It took you two days to confirm that getting a new official bioregulator was impossible; there were none in the House, and the primary android manufacturing facilities for both Bing and Google models had been systematically destroyed by by the resistance early in the conflict. It took you almost 2 weeks after that of trial and error to finally cobble together your own. As you held the fist sized contraption in your hands, you realized that it looked almost anatomical. The flexible rubber chambers, the valves, hell even the pump mechanism you could tell was going to give him a realistic sounding heartbeat. You would have laughed if you weren't so exhausted from working. Earlier in the week you had already repaired his frame, the synthetic skin on his back closed but "scarred" where the wound had been. All that was left between you and being accepted into the House was for this to work, so you pleaded with some unseen entity as you placed the heart back into his frame and connected it, breathing a sigh of relief as it whirred to life. Of course, so much love and care had been put into it, that it was inevitable some remained within the mechanism.

~~~

And there we are! The first part of what will likely just be a collection of drabbles about these two :D its kinda short for something that took me so long, sorry, but this is only the beginning!! There will be more whenever the braincell decides to cooperate

Who wanted to be tagged:

@angelic-guest

@sleeplessinspace

@abyssal-zone-stares-back

@purplefyragon

@very-gay-mech-suit

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chimsmom1013 · 8 months

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On Ballet, PJM's thighs 🤭, Gender Norms, Society, and Parenting Teens...when insomnia plays you like a plague.

Four in the morning and I'm in my walrus form...rolling on the bed like it'll help shut down my brain, until this walrus decided to give up and get up. Welcome to today's insomnia episode feat. me and my attempt to write/blog again.

It's on nights, rather early dawns, like these where my mind ponders on the mundane things in life...like where the hell is Min Yoongi?...Lol! Is slime liquid? Is water wet? Silly questions until the most precious nerds in my life go on a full scientific debate on these (true story). Today was me scouting frames online for my kids' ballet recital pics. I was being a cheesy mom admiring with googly eyes, my children's photos until I was "mom mode no more" when the quads my not so little boy's ballet tights were showcasing caught my attention...and I went *😳* my boy's really starting to morph into pre-debut PJM (Jimin's thighs for President! woot! woot!😂)

It's been over a year since my children decided to "formally" learn ballet. My eldest would be considered late to the game at 16 as most ballerinas start tippy toeing garbed in pink tutus as early as three; she though, has always had an eye for the arts. As a little girl I remember her craning her neck to the other toddlers who were attending the ballet classes held on the second level of the local grocery we used to frequent in QC. She never really says anything, she just watches and stares at the cute girls her age in tutus with her big bright eyes; meanwhile the dense, sleep deprived, mother *c'est moi* never paid it much thought, my last braincells running on the remaining 10 mg of caffeine and whatever nicotine poison was still lingering in my bloodstream. A walking zombie on auto pilot trying to get my errands done so I can hit the sack, wake up to the moon and live life as part of the vampires toiling the night shifts. This was 2010.

Fast forward to the pandemic era when we all got sucked into the purple rabbit hole *another story for another day* and count 2 more years of my whole fam being fans of a particular kid from Busan, SoKor who studied Modern Dance in an Arts School (before an Army gets the wrong idea, we're OT7, just putting that out) and you see me enrolling my children in their first ballet class.

I will spare you the details of how this debacle gave rise to the Kraken that, unbeknownst to la maman, actually lives inside my sweet, darling girl (segway...you know those moments when you look at your child and say, I can't see any of me in her *of which you're mighty glad* then BOOM! Yep there it is, that's definitely me right there. I had that scene play in front of me in 4HD...end of segway). Now despite being a bit relieved in discovering that she actually had this side - when the need calls for it - I knew the crowd that triggered it wasn't healthy for them anymore. I pulled them out of that place in a snap. It was just a summer thing after all, it was just me letting them dip their toes into ballet because we were PJM stans, it was ever really just that - haha! NOT! As I witnessed my daughter's demeanor turn a full 360° because some kids thought it was a good idea to mess with her brother...to which of course they were wrong. I thought that exiting them out of that cesspool was the "parent thing to do'' and that-that experience eventually pulled the lights out on their, "what I initially assumed only as", fangirling/boying fascination for ballet, but like those silly kids who ate the bars that were spat out my daughter's angry mouth for afternoon tea- of course I TOO WAS WRONG.

My then 12yr old son was crying his eyes out, feelings of disgust, betrayal, self-doubt, anger, self-doubt again doused him like an August monsoon, bouts of nausea and a slight fever followed thereafter. It was a sight any mother would demand someone's head for *ofc I'm being exaggeratedly dramatic but you get my point*. I could have *metaphorically* dragged someone by the hair for it, I knew I was entitled to that -we had receipts. But as much as I love my boy, he is THAT- a BOY, biologically assigned male at birth who'll soon turn into a MAN. He needed to learn from this, know how to profile people. Learn the consequences of being naive and gullible, understand the inevitable outcome of what you're getting yourself into. The little vixen was no Taylor Swift and my son is absolutefanfucktabously NOT her John Mayer. Society, however, in this province that is, wouldn't, even at this present day & age, agree with me. Petite, pretty, doe-eyed, damsel type girls will always bag the biggest crowd. He needed to understand this, cuddling and soothing him would be second nature to any mother, but I would like to think I knew better. So that was that or so I thought. We can go back to baking giant cookies, mocking the diabetes curse that ran in our genes, but my son wanted to write a different ending to this chapter and start a new one. So with eyes puffy and tears endlessly falling; nose so red Rudolf would've been threatened, speech garbled from sobbing and the urge to not ingest his snot *graphic ain't I?* he let out a phrase that left me momentarily stunted. "But Mommy, I really wanna dance ballet". I was silent as my incoherent son tried to get his message to my skull. I watched his beautiful face being aggressively rubbed with the collar of his shirt by his own hands. Sounds reminiscent of trumpets being blown ensued right after and I thought to myself, "whoa 😧 the laundromat ladies has got work cut out for them" before I snapped out of my momentary Ally McBeal moment and reminded myself that I'm this human's mother.

And so after a financial debrief with the chief of command in my household a.k.a my husband, the hunt was on for a new ballet school that would be willing to take in my then 16 yr old princess and my 12 yr old snot factory of a son *oh shut up, we all have different love languages mine just happens to exclude being a mopey unfunny mother*. I swept through Metaverse overnight and by 9am-ish the next day, I was on the phone with the owner of the Aims Academy School for the Performing Arts formerly known as Arts in Motion Studio *all puns related to "the artist formerly known as Prince" intended tee-hee* with my V8 of a motor mouth ranting at the speed of light. The school's headmistress being the poor soul to become recipient of my motherly verbal diarrhea. A millenia and a half on my verbal rampage on mean girls, my take on the performing arts, my hope that they could consider taking in my 2 dorks and I'm purchasing a ballet barre online... just like that, my 12 yr old son is once again the only ballet student with a third leg in this new school - grateful for this new chapter in their lives.

Has it ever bothered him that he's the only student danseur in ballet school? nah...he was raised a feminist - and by that I don't mean Beyonce and her booty shaking to "Who Run the World? Girls!" I mean, being raised to respect the differences and contribution each biologically assigned sex contributes to humanity, did I phrase that out right? I am honestly too old to delve into the complexities of pronouns and the whole LGBTQrstuv you know the rest of the alphabet. My son understands and respects that you can embrace whatever pronoun you find fits you, yet equally respects that a pea sized pie hole can pop out a human head but the Jr nestled between his quads will never be able to. He understands that we, biologically assigned women at birth, cannot play the game of how many d*cks around a coffee mug can fill it up with pee in 30 secs *no you cannot unread that bwahaha evil laugh* My son understands that colors, fragrance, one's palate has no gender assignment, munching on siling labuyo does not make one MORE male, lmao. He loves playing war games on his pc but cosplays in a Japanese maid costume without a care in the world if some people raise their brows and think that's queer. Most importantly he knows the difference between a hobby and an art form, and that art is gender fluid.

My kids were unfortunately birthed in an obnoxiously patriarchal society that associates sh*t to being male or female. Society expects my daughter to be domesticated, she is, but equally so is my son. If you can't cook, don't eat, if you don't know how to wash your undergarments then by all means itch where it hurts the most. No one dares give an opinion on my son studying to be a danseur, either they actually funnily think it's just a hobby (believe me when I say what an insanely expensive hobby it is then for a middle class household) as I've caught conversations from older male figures subtly hinting at basketball and taekwondo... or they're very much aware that trying to meddle with how I raise my kids is a pretty bad idea, knowing that I am literally able to get away with murder haha.

Let me ramble on this just once...DANCING is NOT merely a HOBBY! PERFORMING ARTS is WHAT it reads as A-R-T! Ballet is not for wimps and girly soft boys, as is with any other artform - it's a DISCIPLINE; an utterly painful one at that. If anyone then, gets the slightest misogynistic itch to poke fun at my boy in tights- try standing on relevé with a steady bras bas for 20 secs then you can talk to me about how pain makes a man a "MAN"...*blows knuckles*.

Some misguided poor souls can cheat their way into academic high honors; some screwed up parents can kiss ass and/or payV the way for their children, but believe me no amount of ass-kissing skills or deep pockets can ever fool a room full of audience into knowing what talent or the absolute lack of it looks like on stage. Not everyone is born with it, and when you see it, you don't call it a "hobby", you call that talent, skills, what you're seeing is an execution of "Art".

The insatiable and savage thirst for raising ruthless fighting cocks for merciless cockpit battles is what I can call an example of a "hobby" - a gruesomely barbaric one at that but absurdly regarded as Ultra Male — not a skill, definitely not a talent and watching two rooster try to unalive each other will never be a form of Art. I object - admiration for the showcase violence is not manly, on the contrary it defies all that nature intended the male species to be...the supposed caretaker and nurturer of all things created by the Almighty.

My children were sadly born into a society that sees ART as a hobby and the belief that one's only gateway to a stable meal ticket is through the traditional academe. Where grades define them and their peers parents' brag about them like trophies with necks clad in metal you can't even pawn for a cent; and while me and the hubs have hardcoded the importance of school and the sometimes absurd rules of society to our kids' psyche - that a good college degree is still their gate pass to a stable future, we keep them grounded and sane by reiterating that reciting Newton's Law will not help you cook an egg. Life skills are just as important. Social skills, street smarts and most of all empathy, compassion, and kindness are what make you human. No, we are not the type of absurdly idealistic, incel, "stoned hippie-like" parents that teach our children to blame the gov't for our effed up lives or blind them with the idea that politics is divided into black & white. We don't romanticize poverty and tell our children that money isn't the most important thing in the world- eros LOVE is (oh cge shutamez, kumain ka ng pagmamahal tignan ko kung mabusog ka sa kaka-bebetaym haha). NO! we actually tell them that in the hierarchy of things to help you survive, it is next to oxygen. Money can be both a blessing and a curse, you need it but don't be obsessed with it. Recognize the power it holds, respect that to a certain degree but never be a slave to it. Be wary of how people act around money. Do not classify people according to their lack and excess of it, and equally stay away from those who would do just that to you. Work Hard/Play Hard. Be kind to yourself. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Recognize and humble yourselves when you realize you're at fault. Learn from mistakes and learn to forgive mistakes and never wallow in them. Try to always see the good in humans. In this cruel world, it will be the only thing that keeps you from being part of a herd made up of bad sheep that despite having a shepherd and being surrounded by a fence, still always think that everyone around them are predators (the disgusting mentality na kala mo laging iisahan, dadayain at lalamangan, these are the worst people to trust as you will never have theirs). Be careful of those who believe that in order to survive, the best mantra to live by was coined by Machiavelli. School, at some point, will teach you the idea of Utopia; tell you what it looks like, explain to you the do's and don'ts and make you think you're it's future hope as long as you keep the black from bleeding into the white. When you get out in the real world though you'll realize that Utopia is a unicorn. The great Kim Namjoon once said, "Life is a soup, and I'm a fork", my personal favorite is "Life isn't Burger King, you can't always have it your way."

In a year where people are still at odds as to whether the 1969 moon landing was real, the greatest mystery and challenge is still the perfect formula in raising Gen Z teens. I have yet to figure it out as well. I've once been called to speak on the topic of successful parenting and gladly indulged my audience with what maybe perceived as food for thought; when in truth my anxiety laced brain was just as clueless to what successful parenting really is. I guess people think having well mannered and well behaved kids qualifies me to hold a podium. In reality though; while I'm definitely accountable for their upbringing, I can't take any credit for the humans my children decide to become. They are their own person/s the moment they realize they have the ability to feed themselves with their own cooking that will not have them dying from food poisoning.

And so with all these letters jumbled to become words, that become sentences and progressed into paragraphs of mundane thoughts that decided to fill insomnia nights instead of being sleep waste products called dreams; I spill my mind into writing, if you can even call this that. Whoever is reading this has been fooled into tagging along a rollercoaster mumble-jumble ride that started with my admittedly disgusting simp/thirst for Park Jimin's thighs, ballet, gender norms, society, and trying to be a passable parent to my teens...like how in the fowcking world did it jump from there to here? Insomnia indeed plays me like a plague.

#ballet #parenting #random musings #park jimin #bts jimin #bts army #mom blog #SoundCloud

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