she/her I reblog many things related to shows I've watched in the past, collected under the 'fandom queue' tag. Found on livejournal, dreamwidth, pinboard, & AO3. Icon created by taibhrigh from livejournal.
voice in the back of my head: Rand/Mat; Rand/Mat/Elayne/Aviendha+. Splits off from canon in the middle of S1E6: The Flame of Tar Valon. Spoilers through book 12: The Gathering Storm. Show and book mix. In progress.
One-Shots:
pocketful of sunshine: Mat/Elayne. Show-based, set in s3.
a place in your house of memories: Rand/Mat. Post-s3. Show-based.
pull my pin (trip my wire): Rand/Mat; Rand/Mat/Elayne/Aviendha. Canon divergence during Lord of Chaos, with spoilers through A Memory of Light. Book-based.
after the fires die out: Rand/Mat; hints of Rand/Elayne/Mat potentially in the future. Set directly after the s2 finale; show-based.
AU Roulette ficlets: A little bit of Rand/Elayne; all AUs so no extensive spoilers for actual canon. Dystopia (ch1); Secret Agent (ch2); Museum/Archives (ch3).
wishing on the same bright star: Rand/Mat; Mat/Elayne; canon polycule. Post-canon fix-it fic that picks up directly from the epilogue.
(more fic and meta links under the 'read more')
bootleg gin: post s2 Mat/Elayne; with spoilers through The Shadow Rising and with some unverified spoilers for s3. Mommy kink. Show-based.
feels something like summertime: pre-series Rand/Mat, kissing practice.
the shadow of history: post-canon Rand-focused ficlet with spoilers through A Memory of Light. Book-based.
not in the stars, but in ourselves: Rand/Mat; Rand/Mat/Elayne/Aviendha. Splits off during The Path of Daggers, with spoilers through A Memory of Light. Book-based.
Randfear Trilogy: Rand/Selene; show canon with spoilers through 2x5.
past is prologue: Rand/Mat; Rand/Mat/Lanfear. Show canon with spoilers through 2x8; uses the Randfear trilogy as optional backstory.
give me your trust (said the love of your life): Rand/Mat/Elayne; book canon. Spoilers through AMoL (including the epilogue).
Seia Ascar: Rand/Mat; book canon. Spoilers through AMoL (including the epilogue)
stars fading (but I linger on): Rand/Mat. Splits off after S1E8 of the show. Show and book mix.
maybe this time (i’ll be lucky): Rand/Mat/Elayne/Aviendha. Splits off from chapter 42 of TFoH. Book-based. I am eventually planning to write a sequel for this, but it’s been on the backburner a while.
Skipping Stones: Rand/Mat. Pre-canon. Show-based.
share one more drink (with me): Egwene/Rand/Mat. Pre-canon. Show-based.
like roses and clover: Rand/Mat/Elayne. Splits off from Chapter 49 in The Dragon Reborn. Book-based.
negotiating with the truth: Rand/Mat. Splits off in between The Dragon Reborn and The Shadow Rising. Book-based.
lean on me: Rand/Mat/Elayne. This fic is based on one way that negotiating with the truth could have gone; written for polyship week 2023.
soul of fire, heart of stone: Rand/Mat/Talmanes. Set roughly in the early parts of LoC, but with an alternate Rand/Mat backstory. Book canon.
where the lightning splits the sea: Rand/Mat; fix-it fic for Winter’s Heart. Written for WoT 2022 Big Bang. Book canon.
trackless domain: Mat/Elayne; Rand/Mat/Elayne/Aviendha. AU for ACoS. Book canon.
Meta & Reread posts:
General meta posts sadly under two different tags
WoT!Prime speculation and specifically WoT s3 speculation (obviously wrong a lot but speculating is fun)
Series Reread in chronological order (COMPLETED)
reverse order
Initial Show Reactions/Meta
reverse order
Initial thoughts on the Dark Along the Ways (post refuses to be retagged for some reason)
Show Rewatch
reverse order
Worldbuilding notes (all of these have spoilers from the books):
Leavetaking ~ Shadow’s Waiting ~ A Place of Safety ~ The Dragon Reborn
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This is a follow-up to "I am losing my mind over the lighting of the Hail Mary," which I wrote pretty much to set context and argue It Really Is That Deep. Going into this, I am assuming you also believe the way lighting is used in PHM is intentional.
(Note: My screencaps come from a specific leak of PHM that is shockingly HQ but does have desaturation issues. I've done a HSV Saturation run on several images but not all of them. My screencap folder is like +300 items now and there's only so many hours in the day. If I could buy this on blu-ray TODAY I would.)
Sooooo... what's up with Grace and rainbows, question?
In Grace's very first flashback/recovered memory, one of the first things we see is a ring of light, rainbow. When he finally remembers being betrayed and put onto the Hail Mary against his will, this memory is triggered by the refracting light in Rocky's ship connecting to the rainbow overhead on the day he tried to run.
Refracted light is practically Grace's thumbprint smudged onto every corner of the story, the narrative voice in prismatic form. It truly reaches drinking game levels of ubiquity.
When Stratt first meets Grace, he just happens to be draped in a cloak of rainbow light. More subtly, but still obviously once you're looking for it, when he arrives on the aircraft carrier, he brings along a small halo of colored light.
At its most subtle, it comes from glass. Every time the camera implicitly slides into Rocky's POV, settling over his shoulder to observe Grace through xenonite glass, there are coronas to be found, touching Grace at all times. In the Clock Bros scene, when Grace leans in to observe Rocky's eridian clock, a smudge of refraction just happens to pop up. I cannot emphasize enough how no frame of this movie is safe from the rainbow.
Dr. Ryland Grace adjusts a light and it looks like a dance club in the Castro, it's absurd.
So, down to basics: why? What makes cameras do That Thing?
Well, it's not unique to cameras. It's a matter of glass and white-toned light. Modern camera lenses are either treated with a diffusion layer or have specific filters meant to diffuse light-- to break it up more clearly. When you use a lens without that coating, almost any light source can make this happen.
The rainbow, the prismatic light, it comes from a lack of filter, from the removal of deliberate or accidental barriers. You need light. You need glass. Clarity.
Okay but why, narratively?
Nope, not yet. First, let's look at Grace's physicality as more and more lenses surround him. I'm personally deeply obsessed with how Grace interacts with Rocky's xenonite barrier.
In their first meeting, Rocky assumes he's dealing with another creature that relies on hearing as primary form of perception. After all, Rocky can hear through to the other side of the Mary with pinpoint accuracy, can even track Grace's status and location on the hull of the ship when falling into high orbit. But this weird alien bypasses each section of the nice big solid acoustically-friendly wall to focus in on the one spot where light shines through.
So the next wall Rocky builds is geometric blocks of glass. Which Grace, without prompt, makes himself comfortable with, finding any and all alcoves and wedging himself in.
Fun fact: It takes less than 30 seconds for Grace to go from "IDK you watching me sleep is weird" before the smash cut to "i have now dragged a cushion, pillow, and my favorite quilt into the glass to sleep here." I counted 26 seconds.
I can't even make that weird by pointing anything out about it. We have already started at Grace making it weird, to my absolute delight.
But even when Rocky decides to move onto the Mary, Grace doesn't seem to mind beyond some token protests on his little vlog. Which is quite remarkable, because wow. Wow. Look at this.
Here is Ryland Grace, under glass.
There is such an secession of space to Rocky. Even if it weren't, these shapes and the way they bend light and cast shadows are the focal point of every scene. Always center of frame, and we always watch how Grace interacts with this, how he bends to duck underneath, how he drags monitors closer for Rocky to see, how he continues to sleep pressed along any sympathetic angle he can find.
Add to that how Grace is framed, as a significant chunk of the film is looking through the glass at Grace, and this begins to invert the core concept of what's occurring here. Who is in an enclosure here, really? Does the glass keep Rocky safe? Yes, but does it also keep Grace safe?
Even after the two have gone their separate ways, Grace doesn't dismantle the enclosures to reclaim the space. Instead, as he contemplates turning back to his almost-certain death to save Rocky and Erid, he lays in the Don't-Go-Crazy room with a foggy memory surrounding him, his body weight against alien glass.
Grace's happy ending was something that I could not even conceive of until the moment it happened. I honestly couldn't imagine the story would let Grace live, let him save Rocky, and then let him be a teacher again.
Erid is a planet without enough light to see, and yet the people there build a ball of glass just for Grace, tailored to his happiness and whim.
That's a whole lotta motif-building. Now is time for the question: what does it mean?
Art is subjective and my answer will differ from yours. Here's what it makes me feel:
Between this post and the previous table-setting post, the thing that I cannot stop fixating on is how this situation should feel versus how much effort the film goes into to avoid that exact emotional beat.
We have a story about a man from earth, sent off into space, expected to live out the remainder of his life on a spaceship. This ship is further encroached on by necessity as the space is sectioned out to create a habitable area for an alien. In the end, this man's reward is a dome built to give him a habitable space on an otherwise inhabitable planet. He'll never see his home planet ever again.
All of the markers are there. This should be a story of claustrophobia and small spaces and feeling trapped with the walls closing in and no way to break through them because death is on the other side, be it the void of space or the hot, ammonia-drenched atmosphere of Erid.
Should be.
But there's the other side of the story. Grace's last memory of Earth is his voice failing mid-sentence as a needle pierces his skin, as one of his only friends and protectors watches him struggle, and overheard there is a rainbow.
Earth wouldn't take no for an answer. He'd never be a teacher again. A barbed wire fence stands before the rainbow.
I know writers who use subtlety and they're all cowards.
Here's what Project Hail Mary is really saying, with all of its rainbows and refractions and a crying man who sleeps against prisms: Ryland Grace was the light the entire time. It's not something he's looking for, it's not the Deep Truth he's seeking. He just needed a way to shine, to remember it was there.
"Oh yeah, uh... I'm Grace," he says, introducing himself as the world blooms with colored light around him.
They told me that the end is near; we gotta get away from here.
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IDGAF if the women in my fiction are empowering or aspirational, I'm an adult, I don't need role models, I want the women in my fiction to be interesting, and if that involves being pathetic, hypocritical, amoral, or trapped in a delightfully dysfunctional relationship so be it
This episode really has the purest example of "this is how Julien behaves when he actually doesn't care about someone", when he runs into Teor, notices that the guy is probably on the way to a death trap, and essentially just shrugs and goes on with his day. And even in 4x30, when he knows Teor a bit better, he's still able to kinda go "that doesn't look like my problem" and move on with the rest of the mission.
Or in 4x31, when Occtis is telling him to take Mara and leave, so that Occtis can go in after Thimble alone, and Julien is basically like ???? why should I care about Mara ????
When Julien doesn't care about someone, it is real obvious.
So... I feel like I have to mention the elephant in the room: the extremely unlucky bar fight trio have been reunited. Thimble, Occtis, and Kattigan had the first combat of the campaign and their entire beginning rounds were just... so incredibly unlucky. Hopefully that won't happen again in the upcoming Seekers arc!
Kattigan and Murray have a mutual flirt-off in this episode, which kinda happened again in the Convergence (or, wait, did they flirt or did we only get the bit where Murray was horny and missed him?), and he also smacked Occtis's ass, which Occtis says is "weird", and he tells Azune that it sounds like "his balls finally dropped". Just to collect all that together.
We see a lot of classism from Julien in these early episodes. The difference between the way he treats people on or above his own level of nobility vs how he treats 'commoners'. He's not as bad as Primus, but he's definitely somewhere on that scale. Which I like as a character flaw, but it does make it very interesting that Wick kinda engages with his classism basically right away, because he's thrown into a party of non-nobles, while Julien travels with two nobles of Sundered Houses, a member of the esteemed Lloy Family, and an ancient elf (which seems to come with its own level of respectability), so he doesn't really need to challenge his classism at all in the first arc. In the new Seekers group that he's in, he now has to face the challenging elements that Wick faced in his first arc (Kattigan & Thimble).
Julien also faces a lot of his doubt from his father here but gets his job (find Occtis) done with a lot of efficiency. Much as he does in the Convergence Arc when it comes to his sister's soul gem. Julien gets things done! Julien remembers Occtis from five years ago, places him as the same boy who was hanging out with Thaisha at the funeral, notices that the guy hanging out with Thimble has a voice that doesn't match his face, and then pretty easily talks Occtis into returning with him.
Some quotes that really stuck out to me:
Thimble to Julien:
"[Thjazi] didn't deserve it, you know. All the shit you gave him."
"Keeping running, like you always do."
"You may have everyone else fooled."
"I know you aren't my better. I see you. Sir Julien."
And to Occtis re: Julien
"He's nothing but a liar. He lies about everything."
All of them makes me extremely curious about what exactly what down between Julien and Thjazi twelve years ago. What lie did Julien tell? Azune is also going to allude to this in the next episode I think -- he says that he'll tell the story that Julien wants him to tell, if Julien gives the people here a chance. It's kinda implied here that this might be the first time that Thimble has seen Julien since he captured Thjazi twelve years ago. Brennan says it's been many years since Thimble's seen him.
"Is it possible that dead things can still love us?" Continues to go so hard. I love that line so much.
Julien's "So you got out" to Occtis about him leaving his family behind remains a very intriguing line as well. Occtis seems pretty overwhelmed talking with Julien ("he's scary") but still manages to lie to him about not being part of the plan to rescue Thjazi.
While Thimble doesn't like Julien, she also doesn't seem to think Occtis is in any danger from him. She's worried that Julien might be mean to Occtis ("Don't take any shit from Julien.") but she doesn't seem at all worried that Julien might hurt Occtis. Which is an interesting contrast to Thaisha, who does seem to feel that Julien presents a potential physical danger (when she hears that Occtis left with Julien, she instantly goes wolf shape to go hunt them down; and when she and Julien talked about Alogar in the first episode, she also assumes that Julien might hurt him).
Aranessa was aware that Thjazi was collecting relics, it seems, from what she says to Occtis in their conversation. Did she know what he was planning on doing with them?
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for the love of god, write all the self-indulgent scenes you want. be utterly shameless about including every last fantasy. i know everyone likes to share quotes and quips about how miserably hard writing is, but please please try thinking of it as a joyful act where you get to be a messy human who makes art rather than some pain filled quest for icy perfection.
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