#inflicting

just imagine her making someone forget where they are and what they’re doing by hitting them with a massive wave of confusion, or inflicting anxiety and inducing a panic attack in a neverseen member, like I want to see sophie inflict existential dread and watch what it does to an elf brain because they rarely have to confront mortality

"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it."

I want her to come so close to losing herself to inflicting that the council threatens exile and that’s when Grady has to call in Keefe

Okay wait wait wait. I don't think ANYONE told Bronte that she didn't develop inflicting naturally. Yes, he could've assumed it, and maybe I'm reading into this wrong, but he said "You have no knowledge or appreciation for your talent because it doesn't occur naturally." (Yes, it is italicized)

While he could just mean that "her creators" gave it to her, he could've worded it differently to make it more clear that it was just her. But if all inflicting doesn't occur naturally, that would explain why Bronte is the only inflictor after being alive for over 5000 years.

Okay, so the ability itself is confusing to me. I know Sophie's ability is "enhanced and tweaked" or whatever, but her and Bronte's inficting are very different.

Sophie gathers emotions from memories until it's enough to blast at people in a lightning bolt from her forehead. Now, we don't know how it feels to be inflicted on by her, but I imagine it being different.

Bronte's inflicting is interesting. When Sophie first read his mind, it said that his thoughts were like an icy gust. When he first inflicted on her, she said it was like an icy darkness seeped into her head and "cold gnashed at her mind with sharp teeth, pressing and scraping and thrashing."

When the cold doesn't leave her doubling over in pain, he switches to heat, which "melted the darkness, consuming everything it touched like fire." It got worse the more she tried to fight it, and completely overtook her mind.

So Bronte's inflicting is more based on temperature? What I want to know is if he can change it, or if it is affected by what emotions he uses. Also, I wonder in inflicting affects Bronte like it affects Fintan. It was... odd the way she described how he looked when he inflicted. And creepy. Like the way Fintan looked when he talked about fire. His eyes were filled with glee, but his hands shook and he was out of breath changing the force from cold to hot.

The liquid Grady gave Sophie was described as cold and gave her a feeling of being light, calm, and completely unburdened. So maybe it reversed the effects of the inflicting completely? It would make sense, considering how Sophie's "good inflicting" works.

When she inflicts by imagining feelings of happiness, the person she inflicts on gets overwhelmingly happy. If the elixir reverses the effects, that means Bronte inflicted on her imagining feelings of being worthless, broken, and powerless. I don't know how those feelings are connected to fire, but I think the emotions affect what the "temerature" is.

After this "lesson" though, I'm pretty sure he uses the ice approach more than the fire one.

He was really creepy in this chapter ngl. He would make a TERRIFYING villian.