All dreams are daydreams if you try hard enough

Particularly when you learn more about the artefact and learn that the suppression and torment inside is an active choice, when you watch the bodies waste away because the artefact doesn't see the point of feeding them or caring for them.

Do you think Thjazi ever looked at the victims left behind and saw the tortured bodies of Merzhad's rebellion that he was trying to save? Do you think he looked at those malnourished people, who had been living in an apartment filling with food that rotted whilst they were unable to reach it, and saw the shadow that hung over the city? Do you think he ever sat in one of Hal's theatres, looking at the stock characters of pantomime masks, and wondered whether the halflings had used the only thing their shaper would truly look at to kill her, her own reflection?

What an awful thing to happen in a city of free people, who have fought so hard for the freedoms they hold. What an awful thing to learn that the artefact has a consciousness too, and is also a free person, but only when subjugating and destroying another. What an anathema to the idea of liberty.

Bolaire is the death penalty given personality at worst, an out of body experience at best. So difficult a concept to chew on, especially for a man who believed that nobody should be owned or controlled against their will. They called the followers of Sylandri flower dolls - pretty things to be shaped and played with as they followed the lines she put in their mouths - it is not hard to see that Bolaire does the same, only no autonomy remains, even when he is being kind.

It's unclear exactly how putting Termina into the Coffin of Olbalad would transform her into a plowshare in the Cloak's original plan, since our local godkilling queen is on the loose and still very much wants to kill gods, but maybe that means it simply didn't work. Maybe because Termina is sentient and didn't agree, she could not be "transformed" from her original purpose/nature without her consent. If that's the case, I think that's fitting. It reinforces the sentience of the Panto masks and that the Cloak did not fully understand their nature.

Bringing this around to Bolaire: a plowshare is a powerful weapon whose purpose is transformed from destructive to creative/cultivative, and by doing so gains new power. And anyone can make plowshares. Shadia transformed the god-killing Pariah Blades into plowshares by painting them and making them harmless props in a momentously inspiring stage play. If Bolaire could truly accept the fact of his own personhood and agency - actually believe it - he would be materially transcending his original design as solely a god-killing weapon. Bam! Plowshare who also happens to also be a little guy. And in this unique event where a plowshare is also a person with thoughts and feelings, rather than an inert configuration of materials, it makes sense that what would transform is how he thinks/acts as opposed to how he is "used". Choosing to build a bridge to free dead souls is also creative rather than destructive. Making the choice to participate in that could make him a plowshare even if he's still figuring himself out internally.

As I write this, I was just hit over the head with the realization that Brennan is pointing at Bolaire to be the plowshare, too, in literal neon colors. Per Mara, the Coffin of Olbalad is "the paint" in the trinity of plowshares needed for the bridge-building ritual (a halfling Panto mask the second, a demonic anchor is the third). Mara and Thjazi originally put the pieces of Termina inside the coffin, intending her to be the plowshare. The magically painted Bolaire-and-Figment (technically created of a plowshare themselves!) traveled to the surface of the coffin and wanted to get in. Painted!Bolaire also rejoices and says he's not alone, prodding Bolaire to look at how he as a person fits into the world and community around him.

The single best way to try and improve your own fic writing prose wise is to spend a significant period of time reading everything except fanfiction. A lot of fanfic is written, obviously, by people who read a lot of fic themselves. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but frankly, it leads to a kind of... self-cannibalizing prose style you can start to spot pretty quickly. I can read a fic sometimes and guess before I go to their profile what popular dudeslash fandoms they loved in 2015, you know? And because it's a style with very limited stylistic inputs, so to speak, over the years the selection of what I'd call 'AO3 house styles' (and there are several!) have gotten more and more calcified. If everything you read sounds like One Thing, your own writing will get locked into very narrow habits. They probably won't serve you well in the long run because of that narrowness.

2021:

2018:

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I haven’t pissed people off lately by reminding them that ALL types of physical punishment of kids has been proven beyond ANY reasonable doubt to have only negative long term outcomes.

So let me scream it from the hilltops:

Stop hitting kids. End of sentence.

2022:

2023:

2024:

2025:

For example, being exposed to corporal punishment as a kid makes it more likely for a person to commit domestic violence against a partner. In places where corporal punishment is normal, people are more likely to think that rape and intimate partner violence are normal. Kids who are spanked are more likely to be violent with and to bully other kids.

Spanking is literally teaching a kid that violence is okay and normal and it affects the whole society.

“Your ancestors are impressed that you are an educated woman!”

“Your ancestors are proud that you are thriving in spite of what society did to them and you”

It’s all very sweet! But! Necromancy! Is! Still! Illegal! Your ancestors are going back in the ground!