To jump fandoms for a moment…
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12774577/1/The-Time-Keeper
Mini-Farla reviewed first:
(This is part of the Pokemon chapter review exchange.)
[Leaving humanity and Pokémon at the brink of extinction]
You don’t capitalize pokemon in the story body itself, but you do so here.
[“Hm. Mmm,” He hummed]
You’re formatting dialogue incorrectly. Dialogue is written as [“Hello,” she said] or [“Hello!” she said], never [“Hello.” She said] or [“Hello”, she said] or [“Hello” she said]. This is because dialogue and speech tags are considered to be part of the same sentence, so they have to flow together. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb. In that case, the second part IS considered a separate sentence, so it’s written as [“Hello.” She grinned], never [“Hello,” she grinned]. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like “laughed” or “giggled” is in the second category. (“Speak” is also not a speech verb.) Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s [“Hi,” she said. “This is it.”] not [“Hi,” she said, “this is it.”] or [“Hi,” she said “this is it.”] And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s [“Hi. This,” she said, “is it.”] The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks (or single quotes) with thoughts. This is because quotation marks for thoughts make it look like your characters are talking out loud, which is confusing to the reader.
If these rules are confusing, or my explanation is too dense, you should look to grammatical resources such as Grammar Girl. These can be found by searching for grammatical rules on the internet.
[Stars glittered within the night sky, like flickering candles swimming across an ocean, their light guiding travellers in their journeys, if they only knew where to look. The light of the moon outshone any star that night, bright enough to illuminate the earth, but dim enough that the weary could still sleep peacefully.]
This is a decently pretty opening, but it feels like you’re including too much stuff and the imagery ends up tripping over itself. While stars are often likened to candles and floating candles are often likened to stars, stars “swimming” sound very strange to me. Stars don’t noticeably move on a normal time scale, and they move on fixed paths. “Candles swimming across an ocean” makes me think more of random movement. The whole sentence is rather meandering – you switch subjects from “stars” to “travelers”, which is a sign the sentence has gone on too long, and it’s similarly awkward to switch from a neutral description of a natural phenomenon to a practical purpose. “If they only knew where to look” also sounds needlessly confrontational to me, because we aren’t talking about any specific travelers – it is quite possible, and indeed likely, many travelers do know where to look.
You then go on to say that the moon outshone the stars, which rather undercuts your opening sentence that focused on the stars. Scenes are generally described as if a human is observing them, which means that the most striking elements are described first and in the most detail. If the moon is so bright, you’d probably notice it first, right? That seems to be the important centerpiece of this picture you’re painting, so you should focus on that. “Bright enough to illuminate the earth, but dim enough that the weary could still sleep peacefully” is a similarly undercutting and contradictory statement – that’s the standard level of brightness for the moon, yet you start the sentence saying the moon is notably bright, making it feel like the narration is going back on what it said.
You also want “travelers”, only one L.
[Stew bubbled and boiled within a copper pot placed gently above the flames, in time it would make a fine meal.]
This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition. You have similarly strange syntax in other places throughout this, and I’d recommend reading up on sentence structure and comma usage.
[Still, it’s scent]
You want “its”. “It’s” always means “it is”.
[leather like]
You want a hyphen between these two words.
Why is dialogue bolded? The effect is rather jarring.
[“Gods damn it!” He yelled]
Hm. Does Andrastrianism exist in this world, or are the pokemon religions dominant?
[noticing the reader staring at him]
I feel like this doesn’t accomplish the effect you intended. Referring to me as “the reader” doesn’t make me feel like part of the story; it makes me feel like “the reader” is an entity apart from myself. Using “I” or “you” here would be more effective, I think. However, if you do plan to use second-person, the omniscient narrative asides such as [judging by the strength of his cough and his dependency on a walking stick, he was not long for this world. This stew would likely be his last meal.] and [Did she know, perhaps, that it would indeed be the last time he would ever get to eat the succulent meat?] sound odd in that format. If this is meant to be from “my” perspective, there’s no way I can possibly know all of that for certain. In second person it’s wise to avoid certain details and narrative judgments to avoid possible conflicts with the reader’s own thoughts; some ambiguity makes it easier to project ourselves into the story.
[So much senseless death… are you sure you want to hear it? I will not lie, will not hide the truth. If you want to hear this story, then you will hear things that you may not want to. Disturbing things… there was a time when men and women were forced to feast upon the flesh of their neighbours. When blood meant little to some and incest was… it happened, rarely, but it happened. Innocence was a luxury, something very few had, and even fewer got to choose who they gave it to… this tale is filled with horrific events, but also true beauty and great wisdom. The choice is yours, young one.]
This preamble seems pointless to me. If I didn’t want to read the story I wouldn’t have clicked on it, and you’ve already listed trigger warnings in the author’s note. If I was really in the room with him I’d be urging him to get to the point during this speech.
[Some would call this place peaceful, others, boring. Perhaps that is why so few ever stayed within the protection of her palisades, for more than a few days at least. Or could it have been because her buildings were simple, wooden walls and straw roofs, and were infested with rattata and other vermin?]
Like what I said about your opening lines, this feels meandering and self-contradictory. If you find the narration is second-guessing itself, that’s probably a sign it’s too unfocused. It makes for a stronger narrative if you can think of a clear picture for Lothering instead of saying it could be a number of things.
[It didn’t matter, not even in the slightest, for the tale would begin whether people found Lothering interesting or not.]
And you then proceed to invalidate the entire preceding paragraph, so… what was the point of it? If something doesn’t matter, you don’t need to talk about it.
Now – I’ve only played Origins, but what we see of Lothering in that game seems to imply it’s a fairly well-established village, not a place where “few every stayed […] for more than a few days at least”. It’s a juncture on the imperial highway, which implies it gets a good amount of trade and thus must produce goods of note, and it appears to have a strong farming community. It appears to be a pretty ordinary town, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be boring, or even peaceful. Even the smallest towns have local cultures, cliques, and feuds – sometimes, especially the smallest towns! If Lothering is going to be important to this story, you should give it more unique character instead of just this generic description. Think back to those tutorial quests – some or the conflict was due to the refugees, but there were also some conflict between the herbalists, the trappers, and the poison guy. And if canon characters are featuring in this, Leliana and the Hawkes are there too, which could certainly spice up the scene. Could Leliana be indicative of the kind of people who come to this place? Does Lothering attract those who don’t fit in elsewhere?
[Mervin watched as a gargantuan gorilla formed a massive body of granite between his hands, and hurled it towards the human village]
Is it literally creating rock out of nothing? That strikes me as… weird. I always picture rock attacks as manipulating the surroundings rather than literally making rocks appear.
[“Ottenuto la grande cagna in un colpo! Booyah! (Got the big bitch in one hit! Booyah!)”]
Doublespeak like this just looks awkward and confusing. The typical way authors handle this is to put the dialogue in italics or brackets and make a note somewhere in narration that they’re talking in another language.
[(A warrior should live and die as a warrior.)” He thought.]
If he’s only thinking it, this shouldn’t be in quotes, as he’s not talking aloud. You may want to use “mused” here, as that means to think aloud.
[thick black smoke and blanket the skies above, like a plague that would never end]
That sounds like an odd comparison to me. The spread of a plague is a rather abstract concept, while smoke blotting out the sky is a very literal one. I’m not entirely sure what’s being said here.
[Deep was not the word it, this death stick had gone straight through his flesh and penetrated his organs.]
This is way too overwrought. You’re doing much better than in your previous story, but there’s still a lot of overdescription throughout this that slows down the story. Meandering detail is good for slow-paced areas of a story such as setting a scene, but during a tense battle it works at cross-purposes with the tone. Think of how a real person in this situation would describe what’s happening. If you had a stick through your guts you wouldn’t have the time to reflect on what was the most poetic description for it, right? You’d be thinking in more concise, matter-of-fact terms.
[He cried out and freed the wood from his flesh, casting it aside as if it were made of fire.]
Wait, it was something he could tear out? I assumed he was impaled on something from behind. Why did he rip it out, then? That tends to do even more damage and causes more bleeding. Moving with a splinter inside you can potentially cause more long-term damage, but he has a better chance of immediate survival with it plugging the wound. You go on to establish he knows this and is now bleeding out, so it seems like an odd decision.
[“I’m a soldier gods damn it!”]
As an Adrastrian, he shouldn’t be swearing by the old gods. I don’t actually recall them having an exact analogue for this, but there are other phrases you could use – “By the Maker, I am still a soldier!” or some such.
[With a final thrust of effort he stood, bleeding out and in great pain, but he stood and he stood tall.]
He should be physically incapable of that – “bleeding out” is a very severe description, and means someone is losing blood too rapidly to do anything strenuous. (Standing up, in particular, actually makes gut wounds bleed more due to all the core muscles involved.) You should mention him binding the wound somehow if you want him to do this – or just remove the bit with the splinter entirely, since it’s honestly pretty unnecessary. It’s reasonable for him to be weakened just from the blunt trauma of the Chantry collapsing on him.
[Stones materialized, surrounded his fists, small in size but numerous and jagged, with enough strength to rip through iron. “BORDO DI PIETRA! (STONE EDGE!)”
A flurry of grey shot through the blackened air, coiling from the fist of the Normal type.]
That’s… not how Stone Edge works.
[(Focus Punch is a difficult technique. It requires complete focus, if he hits me before I land it it’s over. Creator guide my hand.)]
Why? You said it’s obvious Astor is badly injured, so this is overkill. This is jeopardizing his position for no reason.
Incidentally, why is the slaking such an unrelenting murder machine? If you’re incorporating pokemon mechanics, you should account for Slack Off.
[I have failed in my duty…” Astorsaid]
Missing space.
[The pain throughout Astor’s body was great but it did not last long, he was quick to lose sensation and become numb. He could feel the hand of death upon his throat, almost pulling him to the Fade where he would rest for all eternity. Just before he could take his final breath, Astor’s eye caught sight of a sunfire light in the distance. In the darkness of night it was plain to see, a large fire, burning fiercely, it had been lit for several hours and was well fed. It was the Pokémon Hunters, it had to have been them, no one else would be brave, or perhaps foolish, enough to venture this close to a village under attack from pokémon.]
This is a particularly bad example of overwrought prose. People having elaborately detailed thoughts while dying is a particular pet peeve of mind. Your brain is the first organ that shuts down; he should not have the time to think all of this.
[“Why did you forsake us, Hunters? To watch us die…? (Coughs) Dread… Dread Wolf…]
This isn’t a script; you can’t include actions in dialogue. You’d need to break the dialogue and say “he coughed” or some such.
[His deep blue hair]
So is that dye or magic, or are we in an anime now? Including silly elements like anime hair rather undercuts any attempts at picturing a gritty realistic world.
[Chrono was by no means a muscular man, compared to Azor he was a twig, yet his arms had muscle tone that was above the average farm hand.]
The average farm hand is very muscular, so if he’s above that he is definitely a muscular man.
[wouldn’t save him from any attack aimed to kill him..]
Extra period here.
[The laughter died as Chrono hurled the Hunter into the heart of the fire]
This is idiotic. You’ve just established that is incredibly difficult for even skilled humans to beat pokemon. The pokemon have a massive army, yet you say this camp is only about 25 strong, and these appear to be the best of the best elite warriors. I presume it takes a lot of time and money to train them, so each of them represent a significant resource investment. You can’t just casually throw that away when you’re in the middle of a war. Unless Chrono is the second coming of Andraste – in which case, why does he need the rest of the hunters at all? – the others should punish him for this, as it endangers them all.
[“THE MEN ARE STARVING CHRONO!” Azor barked, angry, frustrated and starving himself. “None of us have eaten in days, you’re the only one who knows how to catch and cook those fucking things…! Share the meat, that’s an order.”
“No. The nug is mine.” Chrono growled]
Really, why are they permitting this? Morality doesn’t even enter into this, he is actively sabotaging the group’s survival. Even if he’s the best warrior ever and can protect them from pokemon attacks they otherwise couldn’t survive, the fact that he causes additional death cancels out that benefit. Keeping him around is actively hurting them and eroding their numbers. It seems to me they’d be better off trying their luck without him.
[“It’s the bible you get credit for tryin’!”]
Bibles don’t exist in Thedas. The Bible is the scripture for the Christian faith specifically, not a word for any religious scripture. The scripture of Andrastrianism is the Chant of Light.
So. This was a much better and more concise opening than in your last story. However, I still feel that it was rather sparse with information, and could have explained more about what’s going on. I don’t see much point in the opening scene; I figure the old man is probably important in some way, but I still think it could be pared down. The rest of the chapter is just one long battle scene that tells us very little about the state of the world or what the plot is going to be about.
From what I can gather, this seems like a pretty standard swords-and-sorcery fantasy with pokemon in the place of orcs. I don’t see the point in that, to be quite honest. There are hundreds upon hundreds of stories about gritty warriors fighting evil magic monsters. What makes pokemon unique is their coexistence with humanity; take that away, and you could replace them with just about anything. (Even the mechanics of their powers are structured for fights between themselves; making them attack other beings makes you miss out on a lot of interesting stuff.) Likewise, what makes Dragon Age unique is its portrayal of typical fantasy elements such as magic and elves, yet you haven’t shown us how those elements will feature in this story, if at all. There hasn’t even been any mention of how this monster apocalypse interacts with DA’s existing monster apocalypse of the Blights. The only things tying this story to Dragon Age so far are the names of places and things; file off those serial numbers and this is original fiction.
Basically, I can’t tell what story you want to tell here or why you’ve chosen these two canvases to tell it on, and that means this has failed as a first chapter. About all I’ve learned here is that pokemon and Chrono are both evil, and that’s not a whole lot to go on. Focus on what’s really important to the story and what readers need to know, and get there as soon as you can.
Then Farla:
(Part of the Chapter Review Exchange)
The biggest thing that stands out to me about this is that despite how many words you have for the opening section, I’m left with little grasp of the place. I’m not sure what purpose the opening preamble has – generally, avoiding mention of a character in a scene is meant for suspense, but instead you’re doing the reader thing, so it’s super distracting and pointless.(And raises a lot of really weird questions about who he’s talking about, and why he thinks it’s normal for people from another universe to come by to chat, and so forth.) A lot of this feels a bit cargo cult, where you’re doing things you’ve seen before but aren’t thinking about the purpose they’re supposed to serve in being there. What are you intending to convey to the reader? Why do you want to have a frame of telling people about something long past, and how is that different than diving in to the story in the present? It seems like you’re familiar with a lot of the elements of a story but aren’t thinking about what you’re building with them.
Right now, the only real information I get from the opening is that pokemon = animals in this, which is not particularly interesting and, going by the fact you quickly move on to pokemon being of human intelligence with their own culture, not at all what you were going for anyway.
(Also, bolding all dialogue is horrendously annoying to read.)
[A quaint little village, neither she nor her people ever harmed a soul.]
This seems really, really unlikely. People harm other people all the time. And to get back to the bit about story elements, what’s the point of this? Is it that they’re innocent, so it’s tragic what’ll happen? You just move on to saying this makes it all very boring, and you don’t do anything to humanize any individual or make it matter, and that in turn makes the paragraph not matter and make the whole thing boring. And if the idea is solely that it’s boring, then, well, you didn’t need the paragraph. You never need to spend time establishing something is a waste of people’s time to think about.
(Plus – you go right on to switch to talking pokemon, and the people there think of pokemon as vermin. You can’t have rattata as inconsequential vermin and also fully realized sapient people.)
[he was a soldier. And had been so since the day of his birth, he had never known any other life than to fight.]
Newborns make for crappier soldiers. In addition to the question of what you’re trying to convey, there’s the problem that you have too many absolutes. Lothering can’t be a generally nice place, it has to be a place where absolutely no one has been hurt ever. This guy can’t have been a soldier his whole adult life or even from childhood, he’s got to have been a soldier since he first plopped out of his mom.
It’s like… Often, putting intensifier words into a sentence actually weakens that. “It was horrible.” vs “It was the most horrible thing ever in all of history.” The second one just sounds silly. There’s the sense that it’s being exaggerated, and if someone has it in them to exaggerate, it must actually be pretty minor. A similar thing happens with other intensified description. Something more grounded gets taken more seriously and has more impact, so even though literally, the earlier he’s been in conflict the more of his life he’s spent like that, emotionally it’s shorter amounts that have more impact.
Anyway, so, we continue to the pokemon attacking this place.
[Mervin watched his forces with mixed emotions. He had no love for humankind in his heart, like most of his kind the war had long since poisoned his mind against them and their ways, but still… some humans were like them.]
Some pokemon refer to entire classes of humans as “vermin” and have other classes they prefer for the stewpot?
I’m guessing you meant a thing where some kinds of pokemon are just animals and others are orcs, but from what you wrote, the humans are already mass-murdering pokemon. This isn’t a surprise attack against people who did nothing to them. This is them destroying a bunch of genocidal people-eaters. They don’t need a different religion telling them to do evil for evil’s sake.
[The Creator, the goddess to all pokémon, commands human sacrifice in a cruel and sadistic ritual. Annually. This was done without question as often as possible]
Also….religions that are just evil for evil’s sake are boring, and it’s pretty sketchy to say the good human religion is run by a guy and the evil religion of the animals has a sadistic goddess at the head. Plus it just seems against the setting to have a religion that doesn’t seem to have any positives to it. Dragon Age is all about choices and viewpoints and factions.
[ But to speak out against the command of the Matriarch, his leader,]
Especially when, if this is the mirror of the Chant of Light, then it’d be a female goddess with an all-male priesthood. We even get an example of this in-game – the secret cult worshipping the reborn Andraste has a male priesthood.
[Each one of them knew what they had done, knew they had sentenced an innocent village to death, and yet Azor was the only one amongst them who cared.
Hunters were indeed the lowest of the low.]
A village that wanted protection for free, it seems like. We’ve just seen how extremely deadly pokemon are. Unless these guys have superpowers, fighting off pokemon must be pretty dangerous work. Are they supposed to be killed or crippled to save strangers who wouldn’t give them the time of day? And given you go on to say they’re inexplicably starving, it sure doesn’t sound like they’re asking for particularly much money, while Lothering itself doesn’t appear to be a poor place, so it’s not a situation where they’re asking a price that can’t be paid.
So yeah.
The overall question I have is, what’s the goal of the crossover, what about the two universes merging helps tell the story? Are the pokemon in a similar role to the Qunari? If so, you really can’t have them also be ordinary animals, but also, it doesn’t seem to add much but confusion to say there’s almost a thousand different kinds of creature on one side of the fight. What’s added by having a pokemon faction in a medieval world? And what’s added by making one faction hyper-diverse in a setting like Dragon Age, where there’s lots of different factions already vying for attention? And apparently darkspawn still exist, but in that case, how do they still exist when either pokemon should be far better able to fight them off OR the darkspawn are also able to spawn off pokemon to make super monsters in which case humans would probably be extinct.
Now, if you do have good answers for those, that’s where you should be focusing your first chapter. Crossovers have a pretty limited audience by nature – people generally need at least a passing familiarity with both settings to even look at it, and then there’s the question of the elements of each used in the fic are the same elements as the person likes about the setting. For example, if someone did a pokemon X something else crossover where the thing imported was the type chart and moves but not the pokemon themselves, I’d have no interest, but if someone imported pokemon but not the battle systems, I’d be fine with it, while plenty of other people would say the opposite. It’s really important to establish how your crossover works and what elements are coming from both sides so people who are interested in that particular take know to stick around.
And finally, Words for Calm, over in Dragon Age. Strongly recommend heading over to read that rather than my spoilery reviews.
Ch1:
The whole point is that the magic drowns first!
I knew the metaphor/analogy generally fit but I’m still impressed by just how well you’ve overlaid the two in so many ways.
They’re just as bad as the rebels, if not worse. Actually, you know what? I think they are worse, because they have a responsibility to know better! Stability is our job!
Also I am deeply concerned by Pauline-the-good-Templar. It feels like this won’t go well for anyone in any way.
Better still, even with all this upset, she hadn’t heard a single demon. Back in the Circle, they probably would have been buzzing in her ears by now.
…especially because this is a good reminder that not all problems and pitfalls are intentional ones.
Ch2:
“Well, this is strange,” said the Templar. “You really should be dead by now. You usually are. Why haven’t they killed you yet, I wonder?”
This really seems like a clever setup – the time limit means it’s not simply about being able to beat the demon but find the demon. I wonder if that skews the personalities/general culture of the older mages when so much of who makes it through isn’t really about having the power and skill but about who you end up facing. Given how clear it is Ev wouldn’t have survived normally, is she the only one like her to make it past the demon? Or have others picked up on the switch fast enough to beat Despair within the usual time limit? And how would things be going if anyone told the mages that the test didn’t involve standing around with nothing happening so they’d realize things were wrong?
That turned out to be fine, though, because the next blow never came. “I see,” the Templar said slowly. His voice sounded less certain than it had a moment before. “Then I suppose you really are still a demon asleep.”
Also all of this! It’s interesting that slightly weird behavior makes her a demon, then he doesn’t think there’s anything weird about a demon being scared of getting raped, that doesn’t ping as human to him, but getting cut open and doing nothing to fight back makes her normal. And he still thinks she’s basically a demon anyway, so it’s not like he actually wants her alive – is it that it’s just against the rules to kill them early and he obeys the rules, or that she’s still useful for mage stuff right now so it’d be impractical? And how he’s so unconcerned…there’s no desire to try to cover up what happened, because there’s no need to.
Oddly, his section actually reads as less creepy than the rest – more horrible, but more direct. He’s just okay with all this. While the way everyone else is talking about stuff that does impact them and it’s just all off, the way Belinda has put most of the pieces together about how this works but isn’t really talking about what it means, or how Lydia just sounds cranky and no-nonsense about all of this, like she’s mad it happened at all but it’s done so whatever, let’s move on.
Ch3:
Did it limit their field of vision as much as it seemed like it should? She wished she could just ask, but even Pauline would probably have trouble believing a question like that was motivated by idle curiosity and nothing more.
Aw…
She wished her cousin wouldn’t do this sort of thing. At the very least, she could have remembered to take off her helmet.
And then this on her cousin’s side – I guess in part it’s that Ev is scared to speak up about much of anything, so she can’t bring it up, but that Pauline can’t realize this on her own… It’s strange to think she has no idea that just because she can see out doesn’t mean other people can see in, or else that keeping her uniform on even for a private conversation like this is more important, but then, maybe the Templars know how to tell each other apart even with the full uniform and she can’t make the jump to mages not being able to?
Of course Pauline meant that she had to get her out legitimately.
And continuing in that vein, how much of this is Pauline not getting how things look like from Ev’s point of view and caring too much about what the rules are vs sincerely believing everyone outside of the circle is doomed anyway? Practically, Templars mostly interact with people they’ve found and things don’t go well for those people, so they could get a skewed view of what life could be like, but when they’re hunting apostates they should also be noticing plenty of the adult mages were never in a circle at all and made it that far on their own.
So yeah… I’m not in this for my own happiness. Everything I’ve done these past twelve years was all for you. You know that, right?” But she’s also arguing for the righteousness of her family and over the soul of what Templars should be. So is she well meaningly harmful, or is she mistaken about her own highest priority? Would she take the helmet off if she understood what it looked like when Ev came into her room?
Ch4:
“It’s all right, Ev. I know how much you want this. How much you want me. How much you want to be the one in control, the one with all the power, strong and wanted back instead of helpless and hated and hurting in ways you don’t have the words to describe.”
Weirdly, the whole life in the circle thing does not seem to have helped her with demons.
So alright. The major way to die is by harrowing. She often also found herself thinking of Nenaril, which was a rotten, disgusting thing for her to be thinking. Nenaril hadn’t even liked her, and now she was dead, and Ev was older than she’d ever lived to be. And Nenaril wasn’t old enough for the test. And Belinda thinks a different death was Ev’s fault, so Nenaril’s, presumably by way of Pauline given people seem unified in viewing it as “Ev, the mage who’s maybe got Templar sympathies” and not “Pauline, the Templar who’s maybe got mage sympathies”. So then, does this connect to the blood in the dungeons or is that a different trauma?
Ch5:
“What? No! Of course I’m not going to hit you!” Pauline sounded mortified, which Ev was relieved to hear. She certainly hoped that her cousin didn’t make a habit of beating on Tranquil mages when she wasn’t watching. “Why, did you do something?”
The flow of this is interesting. It starts off normal, but instead of “what do you mean other people are doing that?” it’s “justify to me why I should”. Also, the whole point of Tranquiling people is so they stop doing things you don’t want…is there an element of doublethink going on with the Templars, where it’s easier to put a face to whatever the problem is and punish that, or a strand of paranoia where when something goes wrong they assume that, well, mages are still mages and did it on purpose?
Ev supposed she must have done something objectionable, because the poor dwarf tangled a hand in his beard and started anxiously fiddling with it. “Look, you don’t even want me to agree to this, not really. Even I can tell that ring has to be worth at least twice as much as a pulp-paper novel — and, need I remind you, I don’t sell enchantments.”
“I don’t mind! And that means it’s definitely a good deal for you, right? It’s not like I’m going to come back and burn your shop down if I regret it later. I won’t have a chance to leave the fortress again for weeks, and it could be months or even longer before I make another trip to this marketplace.”
And while part of this is presumably just her struggling with interaction in general, another part is her tripping up on the idea there’s anything more to the world than scary mages and everybody else. If she didn’t know why this reaction was happening, she’d have some chance of working it out, but since she already knows the problem must be something personal to her, and also she knows “I won’t want to do it” doesn’t matter, she goes on a creepy tangent about her inability to burn his shop down that probably only reassures Templars.
Maybe she was leaving Ev to sweat about it because she was angry? That would make sense.
Their relationship is really weird. There’s the parental aspect, but it’s not just like a really bad parent/child relationship. It’s probably worse by the fact they’re too close in age and Pauline probably never consciously thought of herself in that role and then amplified in places by how changed and uneven the mage/Templar thing is, and then there’s also the extra tangle that Pauline did protect Ev. A mage just getting escorted by a Templar might worry the Templar would be pissed off by how long it was taking to find them, but probably no one else in the Circle would think a Templar would ever possibly intentionally not find them for a while out of anger.
“That’s all right, then. I really don’t want anyone touching me.”
“Would you just listen and stop being difficult? I already said it isn’t about that!”
And this…that is exactly what it’s about, though? Is Pauline just autopiloting her way through responses to make Ev shut up? She might’ve explained something during the period Ev wasn’t able to listen, but overall, it seems like she’s trying to talk around what’s going on – does she understand on some level it’s not a plan that can work, that putting it into words is really more a list of why the whole thing’s doomed? She doesn’t get why telling Ev to stop being weird doesn’t work, but from her frustration over surprise, it seems she’s aware that mysteriously, telling Ev to stop being weird has not had a lot of success before and not just barreling along completely obliviously. She seems more snappish in general this chapter – maybe just because she’s been interacting with Ev longer, but pretty much everything she’s snapping about doubles as evidence that her plan won’t work.
Ch6:
Belinda shuddered and broke down sobbing, and stuffed her braid into her mouth to quiet herself until it passed. When she pulled it out again, she concluded, “So I might as well die.
I like the way things compress here. Like, even if Ev didn’t know what to say, in a normal narrative it’d be a paragraph of “it was so awkward not knowing what to say or do while she cried, etc etc”. But Ev actually has comparatively good mage/mage social skills. Sometimes people cry! And desperately try to stop making noise! Yup, that’s why she’s just crammed the braid in there. I should politely wait until she’s up for continuing our discussion, as is the way of our people.
Also, as to the actual issue of how many mages – assuming Ev is correct that the original setup was due to that being roughly how many mages survived and it wasn’t just the original designers liking symmetry, or possibly that a number of Circles with fixed space wasn’t explicitly planned, it suggests that there may be some point in history where they weren’t making sure the number of mages lined up properly. Maybe that’s in some way tied to the development of Annulments? That’s an easy way to correct your math.
but what could she possibly say to be let off from her studies? If she claimed to be sick, Lydia would probably get called in to check on her, and she would see through the lie in an instant.
Also interesting – because the immediate jump to nearly killing herself because she can’t tell anyone she needs help is dramatic, but it’s every step before that which is more disturbing. It’s telling that not only does she think she has to hide from Lydia that she was almost possessed, but even before it gets that bad, before even she realizes how bad it could get, she assumes Lydia’s not going to be on her side.
Ch7:
It had been years since Ev had seen uncrushed blackberries. Her mother sometimes sent jams made out of them because she knew that Ev loved them, and because she did not understand there was nowhere in the apprentice quarters to store such things, nor any easy way of incorporating them into the meals served at the dining hall. Ev always ended up sitting on her bunk and eating them straight out of the jar with her bare hands, like the family disgrace she was.
That sure was an up and down. And Ev doesn’t send home asking for bread with the jam, and Pauline isn’t a help either – it feels she’s more nearby in case of catastrophe than actually present in Ev’s normal life, but still acts with a familiarity like she’s actually there.
I’d imagine that the challenge for a spell like that is making it hold its shape and keeping it from expanding and incinerating a large swathe of the room.”
“Wait,” said Lord Auldwin. “Really?”
“Lightning, meanwhile, is more precise. If you gave me an hour or so to prepare, I bet I could cook you up a really impressive dragon — but it would only last for a split-second, not nearly long enough for you to appreciate all the detail work.”
“And then it would explode and kill people?” Lord Auldwin’s smile had turned decidedly strained.
“What? No, it would just… stop being. That’s what lightning tends to.”
So, it’s obvious that he meant something totally different by “wait really” than first appeared. But it’s interesting that Pauline doesn’t seem to pick up on it either – she wants Ev to stop talking shop rather than the more useful advice of “don’t mention magic being dangerous or going wrong”. I mean, let’s cut out everything scary:
“Our Circle concentrates on the primal school of magic, which tends to be… both over- and underrepresented at the same time, if that makes sense? It’s the first thing laymen generally think of whenever they think of magic, the fireballs and the ice barricades and all those sorts of battle-oriented spells, but most people, even mages, underestimate the potential depth to the discipline. For example, your dragon? It makes sense that it was bigger and more persistent than my butterflies, because that’s fire in a nutshell. I’d imagine that the challenge for a spell like that is making it hold its shape and keeping it from expanding and incinerating a large swathe of the room.”
There! A briefer, vaguer overview with 100% less reference to anything useful magic can do. Even assuming she’ll have difficulty perfectly editing out everything violent, especially since nobles are apparently wusses about a little incineration, you could probably get halfway acceptable party banter out of Ev with that advice.
Is Pauline projecting her own disinterest about magic theory into this? Did she miss that he was freaked out because she’s not that great at this either (…or because Templars are used to people being freaked out and don’t register it)? Is she just referring to the script everyone knows for How To Talk To Nobles At Parties, and it clearly says the only acceptable topics are light banter about things at the party itself? Is she running off the heuristic that whatever Ev thought was a good topic must’ve been the problem, so switch to something totally different?
Anyway, I like the description of lightning just stopping being.
“Ev, stop!” Pauline’s shout hit home at the same moment as the cleanse
Now, how much of that was training vs intentional decision? The way they happen together makes me think it was somewhat of a reflex or at least not something she thinks much about doing, but Pauline’s earlier bit about having to find Ev through regular methods makes me wonder if she was aware that’d hurt Ev but more concerned about keeping up appearances.
And the keeping up appearances thing is then a whole knot of exactly who for – because the more Ev is considered one of the good mages the better for her, but it’s also tied to Pauline’s own reputation, and the overall worthiness of their family. It could be entirely selfless in intent and it could be entirely selfish instead.
Ch8:
And so we meet Nenaril!
Nenaril didn’t need the Circle to teach her, and she didn’t need it to shelter her from people who wouldn’t understand.
She still thinks that by this point? Or, she doesn’t really want to think about the alternative?
The elven girl had retreated back to the far end of the bed and taken Belinda’s braid in her hands, clinging to it like a mooring rope.
This is such a disjoint from Ev’s view! She’s talking the girl up as this mysterious wise being from beyond with her fancy spellwork from impossible super teachers and year or two of extra age who dislikes her due to some personal failing on Ev’s part.
“I never said I was great!” said Belinda. “Literally no one has ever said I was great! That’s not the point!”
On the other hand, I can’t tell how much is Belinda being contradictory and how much is anxious deflection. Would it matter about her mother if more people knew?
“And she told the Templars! Of course she did! Why would you do that?”
But why “of course”, exactly?
It’s clearly not the possibility of a misunderstanding. But neither Ev nor Nenaril are ordinary, so was this a standard outcome or because of who they are? Is it Lydia’s job to tell the Templars about any little magelings getting stabby, or were they waiting on an excuse because Nenaril was always a dead elf walking, or was it that Ev getting hurt risked her cousin getting angry at anyone covering it up?
“No, she didn’t! I told her it was an accident! I told her it was my fault!”
“But was it really just this one thing?” Pauline asked gently. “You’ve been walking on eggshells around that girl for months.”
Certainly Pauline has been motivated to want Nenaril gone for months, but how much of that was communicated to/relevant to Lydia?
Also – given how personal Pauline’s protection is, how her future efforts are all focused on getting Ev personally out of harms way while letting everyone else burn…does she view the other mages as the main threat to Ev’s wellbeing? It fits better with her training and it’s also a lot easier to protect Ev from them than from her coworkers.
Sometimes that’s just how it is for mages who’ve gone too long without proper guidance. There’s a term for it and everything: arcane derangement. There’s books on it, all precise and technical, just the way you like your explanations.
And somehow it’s sadder here to see that Pauline does understand Ev pretty well, since it means she just doesn’t bother most of the time. It’s like, she’s pulling this out as a last-ditch effort to get Ev to stop making a scene.
Around lunchtime, a Tranquil came in to strip Nenaril’s bed and nearly tripped over Belinda as she darted out from her hiding place beneath it.
This is also terribly sad – Ev at least is around because she got special permission to have a breakdown from someone. Belinda is just alone and clinging to anything she can, and no one else cares.
Ch9:
And if Ser Martin’s faction — Lord Seeker Lucius’ faction, really — got its way in Ostwick? Well, Ev couldn’t stop that from happening by worrying about it. Besides, if it did happen, would she even want to be on the outside of it? To be in some noble’s court and hear the news and have to somehow not break down crying and retching in front of everyone? No, if it came to that, she would rather be where her part in it all would be over with quickly.
Wanting it all to be over crops up all over the characters here, doesn’t it? Their lives are just exhausting. Come to think of it, Pauline yelling at Ev about giving up, and Ev talking about all the suicidal teens, it’s also probably a pretty well-represented mindset across the Circle to the point it doesn’t even stand out as abnormal. Or not even that – it’s not a normal perspective, but the only perspective. There’s just shades of how done with it you are and whether you express that by directly hurting yourself or by trying to get other people to hurt you.
“That’s an account of an event that occurred, lacking in any sort of detail that could be used to replicate it,” Lydia said. “Hardly the same thing as a manual.”
Huh. So Lydia does still attempt to help them, even at this point. Is it because she’s also dead if it was a manual, or is it that she’s more protective of the less backtalking non-apostates? Or just that the place is a powder keg and if they get excited beating on some mages there’s no telling if they’ll stop there?
For my part, I will stop here! It’s late and you have written so many lovely words. Final thought:
“Hush, now.” The hand on her face tightened, clamping her jaw shut. “Save your voice. You’ll be screaming soon enough.”
Why must he be so creepy about it???
While I work that out, though, I was thinking that the two of us could practice talking. Like you would to a normal person, I mean. Just a quick chat every day or two
Oh yeah, also this stood out as part of the issue of how much contact they’ve really had.
I wonder what Pauline was picturing, exactly, when it came to saving Ev. That she just had to get the kid to the Circle, because all the bad mages at the Circle just started off bad people and Ev wasn’t so there’d be no further issues? That they’d still be like normal family members and see each other regularly, only it turned out that wasn’t how Templars are supposed to act?
Ch10:
When she opened her eyes again, there was a strange emptiness to them, and she fixed Ev with a dispassionate stare. “All right,” she said simply.
A sudden chill doused the heat of Ev’s anger, but the hammering of her heart didn’t slow. “‘All right’? What do you mean, ‘all right’?”
“All right, you win. Give up and die, if that’s what you want. I’m done.” Then she turned and walked away.
“Pauline, wait, I’m sorry!”
What I think is interesting throughout the story is the sort of…wobble? Where it’s not just that there’s things that could be justified, but that those things get undercut as that justification isn’t really in use. You could look at the first half of the conversation and go, okay, someone could think that mock-execution to terrify someone away from actual execution is their best remaining option, Pauline could think that calling Ev’s bluff now before she says it in front of someone who’ll just cut her down on the spot is worth the cost, but then the second half is that it didn’t take that to terrify Ev. Just Pauline walking away was enough to do that. And I wonder if it’s that if all anyone else uses is a hammer, you forget there’s other options. Like, for example, just having Ev talk to the Tranquil first if Pauline found their descriptions so striking.
“I know, Ev. I’m sorry too, that it came to this. I really am. I just… How was I supposed to get through to you?
And emotionally, it feels better to do a big different thing than the same thing as before. How hard to untangle when a grand gesture is needed and when you just want to feel like that’s what you’re doing because if a decision feels hard and is full of negatives, it must be a grand gesture?
“Right,” said the Templar. “Which means she didn’t say not to. Just wait, tomorrow it’s going to be back to, ‘Oh, how dare you try to discipline my precious spoiled brat, don’t you know who our family is?’ I had to make the most of it.”
Also…there might be situations where it’d be debatable what it means to give the order vs do it yourself, but when it means passing it off to this guy – and maybe she doesn’t totally know it, because she doesn’t question Ev’s complete blame for him wanting to punch her, but she can’t totally not know it either if she’s had to prevent him from doing worse previously, no matter how much she doesn’t want to know.
(There’s also the question, I guess, of how much Pauline’s help truly helped before this. You can’t shield someone and also expect them to be more beaten into line than the unshielded people, especially not when you’re painting a target on them at the same time.)
Lydia turned away from her chore, and her brow knit with concern when she saw Ev. “Evelyn, what did you do to your face?”
There’s an echo here to Pauline saying Ev was making someone want to punch her. And, it’s not like Lydia is totally unfamiliar with a mage getting hit by someone else.
Lydia seems nicer here – though, I guess there’s still the motivation that she’ll be screwed if something actually does go wrong. But I was thinking about how the older mages probably have more of a frame of reference for the varying atmosphere of the Circle than the kids and their behavior might vary to match it. Lydia at this point is probably not in particular danger, so she’s not going to be accused of secret demonhood for being slightly disgruntled or pointing out facts regarding how much drowning was supposed to happen. Lydia at the point people get a free post-Harrowing stab just to be sure, well…
Ch11:
“They don’t have to hang us! They can just torture us until we break and ‘make’ them kill us! Wasn’t that what they did to Nenaril?”
How much do any of them understand how this works? It’s certain there are rules of some kind, but there’s also a lot of time with no witnesses. If everyone agrees a mage is a problem who’ll fight back if provoked, do you always need to bother with the provoking? Do they have by this point a pretty good understanding of what is/isn’t allowed, or are even mages going on a bunch of guesses about how Templar rules work?
Oh, Ev and Belinda are so silly, bickering like children, ha ha ha, I wonder how that started?’ As though she had no part in it. As though she didn’t do exactly what you did, only worse and on purpose. But, hey, maybe she really doesn’t remember!
Does she, come to think of it? She generally seems like she’s an unobservant as she can manage, and the whole Circle culture is particularly good at ignoring disappearances and any fallout from them. (Come to think of it, I wonder how many of the other mages try to edit out Belinda in general – it seems like it’s generally agreed she isn’t going to make it one way or another, so it’s a worse idea than usual to get attached. It’s hard to tell because even prominent people’s disappearances get ignored, so Belinda would still have a valid complex about just disappearing like she never was even if she was the most popular kid in the Circle.)
Blaming yourself lets them off the hook!”
“Sorry,” Ev said again, for some reason.
I wonder if anyone has ever managed not to apologize for apologizing.
“What’s that mean? Are we underwater now? Fine, we’re underwater now! But you know what? I’m still right, because how long can you hold your breath anyway?”
I’m also really curious what would’ve happened to Ev without her cousin. Like I said…we can see she gets special treatment, but that it goes both ways, while Belinda is comparatively naive. On the other hand, the glimpses we see of extremely young Ev suggest it’s she might’ve just sparked a bunch and been killed for it early on. Belinda doesn’t seem as good at involuntary scary magic displays and that’s got to be a huge factor in how sure the Templars are that you’re a problem.
“What?” Belinda asked in alarm as the Tranquil entered her cell. Ev heard the clicks and clinks of shackles unlocking and chains falling away. “No! No, no, no, this is a dream! Go away, demon!”
Now, she’s so unhappy at the reality, and demons usually are pretty good at knowing what people want…did she dream a lot that Nenaril came back? Or is it simply that the reality is so awful she’s overlooking the fact that if she doesn’t like the idea a demon shouldn’t be offering it in the first place?
Yes: someone who has done something for which they know the person to whom they are lying would judge them harshly.
Now, is that totally external in motivation? Did Pauline ever have her own feelings about deciding the girl was a problem, or was it just that she knew Ev would be upset? And why did she pick the lie about death at the time as the better option – was it because it was over and done with that way, and she hoped Ev would forget about it?
“I would suggest that you control your volume more carefully as we make our escape,” Nenaril told her.
…
“At present, I cannot adequately respond to that,” said Nenaril. “We will have to discuss it later.”
I guess it’s a good thing that “frustration” is an emotion too. It must be so weird trying to route your plans around all these emotions other people keep having at you.
Ch12:
but she’d also just wanted to do whatever Nenaril asked, because nothing she could do for Nenaril would ever cancel out her debt.
Did Nenaril know this? Ev’s useful for being a unique gamepiece, so she’s got more practical motivation to get her than Belinda (…and actually, leaving anyone in the cell would risk the conflicting stories being noticed, so if she’s getting Belinda she should empty the cells), but she was able to explain Pauline’s lying as being to not make Ev upset with the truth, so she seems to have a pretty good grasp of other people’s emotional states.
And it’s rather similar to Pauline, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I need your help again, please!” – she can never do anything back for Pauline, their relationship is entirely Pauline doing her favors. Any time Pauline’s interacting with her, it’s because she’s fallen short in some way.
Her palms were nothing but bits of hanging skin and embedded gravel and thick, half-congealed blood.
Also just reading that is ouch.
“I didn’t ask for your advice,” he said, and tweaked her ear hard enough to make her yelp.
…
the Templar who’d been flinging around that grotesque nickname for her earlier and now stood with a hand resting in her hair.
This also, in a more creeping way. Someone wanting things from you and someone protecting you don’t have to have any connection. Other times it just means they’re around more to be cruel. I’ve seen a lot where the spectrum of possible actions is covered by a variety of people rather than there being variety within the individuals, and also fandom really loves “this person is having sex with them, and maybe that’s bad but it’s really hard to realize rape is wrong and anyway it’s better than that other person who just beats them!” to the point it feels like it forgets that’s a specific fantasy more than objective realism.
The violence here is a real shift. It’s always just been single actors before, hasn’t it? Either someone would do something and then stop, or they’d do something and then keep doing it, and now suddenly it’s two-sided.
But the dead Templars lay at their killer’s feet, unrelentingly existent in spite of their lifelessness.
This makes me think of the whole dissolving bodies that’s everywhere in videogames. Even ones in series that didn’t start out with it do it in modern games, which is weird because it’s described as being about reducing the amount the game has to keep track of. And it’s honestly pretty sobering to backtrack or take a wrong turn in DA and run across the piles of bodies from previous fights.
Pauline just picked up the glowstone dropped by the Templar that Nenaril had killed, then scooped Ev into her arms. “Come on, let’s get out of here. You need healing, and I need to warn the others.”
Also, Pauline’s priorities… I think she’s actually a pretty good knight, or paladin, in the sense that Lawful Good isn’t actually Most Good but having two separate allegiances that are quite capable of conflicting. It’s possible she has some rationalization for how anyone will let Ev live after this, but it seems more like just repeating old decisions because reevaluating things would take too much energy. She has to protect Ev, and the Circle is both the only place Ev is allowed to be and where the healing is. And she has to help the Templars and do her job, and that’s also back at the Circle. And there’s been so many conflicts before she’s had to paper over and if she rethinks one thing than she has to do all of them so it’s way easier to helpfully carry Ev toward either a demon-conspiracy slaughterhouse or a mage-only Annulment slaughter.
Ch13:
Hey, I’m back!
“Sorry. I’m used to people dying, I guess. I thought that you were too, so it would be okay to ask while it was just us.”
It occurs to me that part of why she can be fluent in mage and terrible in Templar is the idea that they’re all somehow in the same boat gets in the way of even admitting there’s a difference. That the fear of mages is the same thing as the fear of Templars, that what Templars give up is the same as what mages give up, that both of them put the same weight to the death of others. Ev has to be sad about Templars dying or else she’s a monster, and Pauline just tripped into saying that this is not reciprocated. And it opens up so many other things – that if this is her reaction to an actualfax abomination and actual death of Templars, then all those other times she wasn’t scared when she had to go up against mages…
“Those sort of men are not my friends!” Pauline’s abashed expression gave way to a furious snarl. “I didn’t do it for them! I did it for you!”
And so every time she feels bad about it, it’s yet another thing she’s had to do for Ev.
It’s actually a strange tension – she probably feels restrained in how much she can react to anything else her coworkers want to do without compromising her ability to stand up for Ev, yet I’d guess much of the reason she’s even aware of how bad things can be for mages is because she’s had to stay engaged about Ev instead of assuming everything bad happens to people who deserve it. (Although there’s still the lingering question of how much it’s about their family, and if she’d have kept her mouth shut regardless because it’s the proper thing to do.) I wonder if an older Pauline might’ve handled it better, or if she’d have just been more hardened and fine with Ev dying the first time she did anything wrong. The story of drowning – well, another option would be, if it would look bad for the kid to be possessed, to take away that possibility at the first excuse. Being Tranquil isn’t even officially a punishment.
“Of course you didn’t! You didn’t even tell me what she’d done to you! You never tell me anything, and I have to look out for you anyway!”
“‘What she’d done’? She cut my arm! She cut my arm, and you took everything from her, and what did you do about Ser Martin when he did the same thing on purpose?”
“You didn’t ask me to do anything about him, either!”
This is like another wobble, the way she doesn’t just justify it with “oh, but see, I couldn’t” or even “oh, but see, that’s not the same thing” but instead keeping yelling about Ev not telling her stuff and how hard she’s had it. Either it’s that she’s so used to thinking around the difference that she can’t register what’s being said, or she’s so resentful about how things look from her end that she doesn’t care because it’s a chance to pour out her own grievances. (…also sad that this is about the only time Ev’s done anything other than worshipfully apologize. So, while she’s under a lot more stress this time, I wonder if that’s even really a factor – maybe it wouldn’t be so abrupt, but she’d finally have an excuse to make Ev not her problem.)
“Oh! That?” Pauline sighed and halfway smiled with relief.
Oh, and she seemed to understand it was awful at the time! Has she been revising it over the years into something that was no big deal, or was it always something she thought would only be upsetting to child-Ev?
“Because the last thing I want is to make this easier for her!”
This is actually much like Belinda, isn’t it? If death is inevitable, at least you can be inconvenient.
“I said no!” Ev tried to explain. She never had been much use at lying. “I told it no, all right? That’s what you heard: a refusal! Please, Pauline, it’s talking to me because of you. Just put the sword down, please.”
This makes me think about the other questions of how Circles might’ve evolved. Did they originally know how demons worked a bit better, but because Templars kept killing them, mages avoided mentioning demons, so by this point, from the outside it looks like anytime a mage is talking with a demon, they’re mid-possession?
Ch14:
She found me as I teetered on the edge between Compassion and Despair. She took me into her soul and taught me how to hurt without being destroyed by it, and now I can do the same for Nenaril. Sofia called me into her office and let Mourning reach out to touch my mind, and I felt!
I really like the flow of this.
Her rant finished, she sunk down to her knees and began tearing out clumps of Pauline’s hair and tossing them to the wind while screaming curses.
Ev couldn’t watch. She needed to get away. She’d had a decent chance to rest, first in Pauline’s arms and then on the ground. Though trying to stand made her head spin and her eyes cloud over, she could lift herself up on all fours without her limbs trembling too badly.
“Take it easy,” Belinda said as Ev scuttled up the rocks like an animal. “Mourning’s a friendly spirit, not a demon. She wants to help.”
I like how this plays with signifiers. Partly it’s because the situation’s already so fucked up, but also like, if you’re going to tear apart a person it’s actually less horrible to do it to their corpse, but disrespecting the dead is such a common taboo that it’s used to mean someone’s just evil for evil’s sake. And that the spirit’s Mourning is similar – the sentence is nearly “the Bad Hurty Emotion is Friendly” but mourning is a reaction to sad events, not making sadness. There’d be none if the world is perfect, but the world isn’t perfect, and the aftermath of problems isn’t the same thing as the problem itself.
“Someone has to,” said Lydia. “Someone has to prove to them that this Circle is not entirely irredeemable. What other hope do we have?”
I wonder how much of this is Lydia really not believing there’s any chance to rebellion and how much that she legitimately thinks she’ll actually live through this. Do some mages get spared, or at least are there rumors that Annulments don’t have to kill absolutely 100% so in the event we start killing you guys, turn on each other and maybe we’ll be impressed by your loyalty to the cause? (But then again again, maybe with so many mages getting killed everywhere, and Lydia’s abilities being so useful, she might actually get spared, at least initially?)
Lyrium aside, Templars are ordinary men and women, not monsters or lunatics. Unlike the abominations they hold in check, they can be reasoned with.
And of course there’s the self-hatred. You know, the creepiest part of the Fade section for me was the alt-Circle where the mages shout about how they’re cackling evil villains who live only to kill each other.
“No, I’m staying right here,” the demon said. “I can keep quiet, if you won’t listen to reason, but why would I leave now? You could change your mind, or someone else could come along to change it for you. Or, if no one does find you, you’ll die here. An empty body wouldn’t be so bad a consolation prize, especially if it’s fresh.”
Ev wanted to cry, but there were no tears left.
“Murderer,” the demon said. There was something almost like affection in its voice. “Maleficar. Dangerous, accursed thing. You deserve whatever happens to you. So just let me happen to you.”
I love this demon.
but that was just because she thought I was possessed, because I was covered in blood and yelling at her to stop defending the Templars.
“because possessed” seems like it’s sort of a mental placeholder. Like how Pauline doesn’t want to deal with Belinda, so, Belinda’s definitely already dead or already possessed and dead, therefore we can skip the question of what will happen to her, because it’s resolved already. If people who are possessed are super dangerous and definitely have to be killed, then it’s acceptable that you should kill them on little evidence, so if there’s a reason why you really need to write someone off, you can add “also, they’re maybe possessed” so you can stop trying to weigh the situation. And then there’s the mirror where just as it’s an easy shortcut for the person doing it, it makes it so much harder for the person on the other end, because someone just tried to kill you, but how much was it sincere misunderstanding that didn’t have to happen and how much were they just saying that as an excuse and it didn’t really matter about the blood or the yelling?
Ev found herself thinking that if someone were to look at them now without knowing who or what they were, and if that someone could not make out their robes through the darkness and the dirt, then all that someone would see would be three young women suffering horribly. It would look like a tragedy. It would look something bad had happened
There’s something especially awful that this isn’t just Ev’s thoughts but how so many people view them – that plenty of the Templars aren’t monsters to the rest of the people and would start to react with sympathy only to pull back, that many of those same people would rush over to help and then recoil because no, these aren’t escaped victims, they’re escaped criminals. (And media that does that as a “twist” is the worst thing.)
“She wouldn’t have gone back on it! She didn’t want to! She couldn’t even hold the sword steady!” Ev felt fresh tears beginning to well up from her eyes. Pauline had been anxious and upset and at her very lowest when she’d died. She would never get to be anything else.
It’s crueler that Pauline waffled, really. But also really sad that there wasn’t actually any other way out. If Pauline had actually been talked down, then Ev would be cut off from the other two now. They go hide in total isolation together because Pauline would never let Ev get in contact with any fellow escaped mages who could actually help. And quite possibly Pauline just kills her later anyway. (And really…even the hypothetical good Templar at this point would be trouble for Ev instead of aid – the mages wouldn’t trust someone traveling with one, and even a Templar who was pro-mage would still draw the line at destroying more Circles or leaving possessed people be. And Ev really really really needs to be around those kinds of mages for her own sanity and not the ones still trying to be moderate and repeating her own bad thoughts.)
And poor Nenaril throughout this! She would probably have been all over the place anyway, but it’s got to be extra hard navigating suddenly having emotions with everything going to hell around you. Also – She gave up on her task entirely and crawled around to Belinda’s side to collapse sobbing against her shoulder. “I am sorry, Ev! I was supposed to be helping you! I am sorry!” I wonder if there’s also memory issues here, where she’s used to being able to just perform tasks regardless so it’s a further shock to be falling apart from shock.
Ch15:
“It was Mother and Father who sent me, actually. They want you to come home. They’re more than willing to shelter you until all this chaos has run its course.”
That’s…nice? I sort of wonder what “sheltering” would look like in practice – it could be a matter of assuming everyone around will keep quiet about it because they’re important, or it could be a matter of getting locked up in a room to keep her properly a secret. Especially if the chaos doesn’t run its course properly and they can’t just admit they were harboring an escaped mage this whole time… And there’s always the fact that they didn’t just consider drowning her but considered it after knowing it failed on the last kid, so who knows what they might try in desperation?
Ev had to know whether it was even possible before she made the attempt, because failure would mean throwing her life away for nothing, and she had to believe she deserved better than that.
It’s actually nice that this is the point we’re ending at! Especially in context of her planning to murder someone else. She may still be working at valuing herself, but she’s at least got a strong grip on the idea that people actively making life worse for mages aren’t worth more than them.