#c4 e31

[softness-and-shattering]

"Im a druid of the Old Path, and youre about to walk it. "/your hopes and dreams have been realized and I openly carry our ancient tradition

im *bawling*. This tugs at my Jewishness so hard I love this so much. Hi Im your descendant hi we are alive you dont need to worry about us we've got this. 😭😭😭😭

"You know my name?"

"Yes I kmow your story"

And Thaisha sees *her* man up in technicolour what is she gonna do with the paint dol mak'jar shel maalah? 😅😂

[probably-a-fae]

Seeing a lot of Bolaire posting in argument post c4 e31 and thought I would maybe add this to the pile. Note: I'm not a huge fan of Bolaire, he's not to my tastes so that may color some of my observations but I eill try to keep things positive. That being said:

I like what Talisin is doing with Bolaire because I think he is intentionally playing the character to be a bit of a hypocrite and a manipulator in a way that sometimes pisses off other characters.

The big thing I keep thinking about is Bolaire's relationship to telling the truth. In a Tale Gate I believe Tal mentioned that Bolaire rarely/never outright lies and instead chooses to leave things out, allow people to come to their own conclusions based on his words. I get the strongest feeling of him doing that when he talks around Thjazi's treatment of him.

He will often mention that he was used and threatened and that Thjazi would say he would do terrible things and then do them, but Bolaire repeatedly dances around the details. He lets us imagine the terrible things rather than spell them out. Closest to an explanation we get is a threat to reveal his true nature and Thjazi's treatment of Bolaire as a thing. Both of those are presented without context to allow us to judge for ourselves what we think of Thjazi's actions. We have to rely on what Bolaire says, and he's purposely saying very little.

I think the other Characters maybe sense this too. Bolaire bites out remarks about Thjazi and the characters are left in the dark about the context and maybe as a reaction dont trust Bolaire's words. Very likely Bolaire isnt lying, but because he has put up these veils, it can be hard to trust him. I think thats why Thimble's invitation to let Bolaire actually tell her what he went through is so interesting to me, because I can tell that Thimble has been frustrated that Bolaire is so vague, so she's inviting him to air out the issue to remove that distrust.

Also like, as much as Bolaire complains about the terrible things Thjazi did to him, he's not exactly a perfect peach himself. Thjazi was secretive, he used people, he had dubious methods, but ultimately was noble. Bolaire is parallel to may of those traits. He mentions himself being "made of" secrets. He has to control and in some cases torture a person to maintain autonomy. Even if he appears to focus on body snatching criminals, that's still blood on his hands. In many ways Thjazi and Bolaire are similar.

I think my biggest frustration with Bolaire (as a character, not as a performance from Tal) is his rejection of responsibility. Thjazi once threatened to ruin his life, so Bolaire blames him when his life gets ruined. But Thjazi is dead. Thjazi didn't send the Cormoray to take over the Archenad. Thjazi didn't command the Tachonis to destroy hoise Royce. Thjazi didn't force Bolaire to join the Schemers and work to try and save the city. Bolaire made the choice to do that. He took on the risk and unfortunately there is a price. The fallout with Termina is also partially Bolaire's fault! (There is a big difference between 70 years and 100 years my guy. A difference Lady C could press to make Termina distrust you) Maybe Bolaire has an argument that Thjazi shouldn't have messed with Termina, but Thjazi might have also assumed Termina was dead like Bolaire did.

Anyway, this post got long. Bolaire I think is in for an interesting character arc, but I think a lot on that is going to depend on how Tal approaches Bolaire's relationship to telling the truth and also what he thinks the truth is. Can Bolaire learn to recognize his own faults and similarities to Thjazi? I guess we will see.

[puptergeist]

What if I drew a pinup of every character in the shadow-soul-bikini.......

[magnificentbitchface]

Harriet Tubman would have shot Azgra's Priests.

[probably-a-fae]

Someone needs to write a fic of Teor and Cyd meeting up with Hannan on the Old Path. Like they didnt know each other in life, but I think having more people take that journey together would be sweet. Especially since Hannan was in some ways eager to walk the path.

[softness-and-shattering]

Are they going to Timmony to deal with Houndsport and Tachonis? Mara was heading generic north, and Julien was talking about the Orchard which is NE, and suddenly the old millers road and timmony is important? Or is to talk to Gus again, or check on what tachonis was digging up there, it didnt seem like just an alt way to the orchard.

(Also my internal map is so wrong. I thought dvalmar headed west not east so I moved wher reisingurtle is in my mind. And i thought the eternal night was north of there and the orchard was like north west. No the eternal night is south of reisingurtle which is east of dol makjar and the orchard is north of reisingurtle, north east from.dol makjar so instead of in my mind.timmony being north of the map and then the mournvale across the sea, no timmony is middlr of the map the orchard os east of there. I need to draw this out.

Also i thought the seed was given tp thimble as a solution for her golden orchard brethren to find safery but.now its planted at the round. )