The EQ Alternaverse ((PART 1))

Siege at Howling Rock Part One is up!

http://www.janesenese.com/swiftverse/siege1.html

Oh very well done.

I liked the Father Son reunion.

We got some answers..... and more questions. BRAVO!

Darn it, Wingthing, I'm supposed to be going to sleep!  :DD

OK, so I was totally wrong. Oh well. Rayek's response to The Blight is interesting. I wonder if he'll learn about that poor elf child he nearly obliterated too. I can see some of his "Dream time" conversation with Venka applying here.

And can I just say, the Scroll of Colors seems spectacularly useless? Though I had been assuming they'd watch The Moment through it and see Cutter's timeline. I was looking forward to their reactions.

Why are they all so rude to Timmain?

I don't get it. It's like they all hate her-- but then why continue to hang out with her? And why does she continue to hang out them?

Otherwise-- great story. Can't wait to find out what happens with Melati and how they will deal with the blight.

@Manga - oh Rayek's great breakdown is only just beginning! I'm gonna be putting our dear boy through the wringer in upcoming stories!

@Lunakat - Considering she was raised by Haken, Mel is actually being quite civil to Timmain. Nicer than she usually is to Leetah, anyway.

...but Timmain is feeling the chill, for all she says it doesn't matter. The big question is: now that more and more of her "children" are turning away from her, does she give up and head back to the Egg, or does she decide to change something... something big?

well i suppose Ember finally got what she wanted. Rayek feels guilt for what he did. but i reckon Ember isn't going to be too pleased at all when she wakes up....

and i'm mildly surprised Melati can remember her very birth. so i wonder if this means she'll remember she didn't heal Ruffel? will she begin to feel the guilt Pool has wanted her to feel all her life?

can't wait for the next installation!

Yeah… the Timmain thing is just gonna continue to frustrate you, Luna. Nobody's gonna start being polite to her. Sorry.

Vaeri wrote:

and i'm mildly surprised Melati can remember her very birth. so i wonder if this means she'll remember she didn't heal Ruffel? will she begin to feel the guilt Pool has wanted her to feel all her life?

Nah! Sadly I don't think Melati thinks about Ruffel at all, other than "that defective womb that flooded with blood and tried to kill me." Her fetus-memories are so instinctive, they just feed her persecution complex.

"Lalala, I'm almost full-term, oh no, genetic defect, let's fix that... La la la, wait, I'm being violently evicted and I'm not getting enough blood, quick, divert all available blood to me. What, someone is trying to cut off the blood supply - Oh HELL no!! Defend self, defend self! Pain-send, pain-send! Owwww! Now I'm somewhere cold and dry and someone just broke my shoulder! Drukk you, world! I will have VENGEANCE!!!!!!!"

...someone really could have used some counselling as a child. One of Cholla's many regrets that she didn't insist on it.

sun girl wrote:

Yeah… the Timmain thing is just gonna continue to frustrate you, Luna. Nobody's gonna start being polite to her. Sorry.

It is kind of frustrating because it's getting redundant at this point and pulls me out of the story. Timmain, as a character, is not doing anything that warrants these consistently nasty responses- and no one is that rude to anyone else, really, without a reason. They all have the same response to her, it seems-- no matter who they are or what she says or what the situation is. So I end up reading along, getting engrossed in the story-- and then Timmain steps in and says something-- and this consistent response happens that makes no sense. And it just jolts me out of my suspension of disbelief-- plus it's making me dislike the characters that thirty seconds ago i was interested in.

It would make more sense if the varied characters had varied relationships with and reactions to her. Or if she did something to warrant that same reaction from everyone. But it's like-- she did nothing that's across the board bad. And yet everyone seems to react as if she's done something awful. And it's a real non-sequitur in an otherwise well structured story... if that makes any sense.

The concept you had about Melati's identity and what it would mean to house all those memories was actually really interesting and would have been great to explore... even if just briefly. It's the most interesting idea that I've ever seen suggested in relation to the world of EQ.

I think it's because right now she's hanging out with all the people who have the most issues with her. She pretty much lost the respect and trust of all the Palacedwellers during the Reappearance debacle, and she's been interacting with her estranged daughter, her mortal enemy, and the recovering victim of her inadvertent sphere-brainwashing, who is relearning her social boundaries. She's been surrounded by people who think she's a bitch and see no reason to hide the fact. And she's lingering on their turf when they don't really want her there. If she went back to the Egg where Aurek likes her and Weatherbird finds her amusing and nobody else has any issues with her, you'd be seeing her treated differently.

Also it could have something to do with how whenever someone turns to her for guidance she's worse than useless, like telling Chani and Haken to let Melati die rather than even attempt to do anything about it.

I don't really see how you're seeing "everyone having the same response" to her either. Skywise gave her an articulate reasoned browbeating when she was acting like an insufferable patronizing dictator. Swift told her to put some clothes on once or twice. Chani called her a hateful bitch, but for a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship that's pretty mild, believe me. These are varied responses.

I dunno, I always felt Timmain was kind of like the pain in the ass in general. She's got PTSD, clearly, just like the other high ones in a way. I don't see her getting rude responses from anyone except Chani and Haken, other high ones, and they definitely have a past with her. They can be total assholes to her, agreed. As to the rest, no. I think they treat her like a part of their intuition. She came across for Tass in Oasis warning her when humans will invade, She also is part of the collective memory. She's tied in. I don't think she's been put down - she just comes across as having issues, but then if you look at all the high ones in the stories, they all have issues, period. And for good reason. Like people coming from a time like the depression or something traumatic, they have their baggage, and respond in ways that are not always coherent.
Timmain is much more real here - she's not a goddess at all - she has real trauma. She shifts from wolf to elf and goes to wolf or jackal wolf form to escape pain. It's like autopilot for her. As a result, her communication is not great. I think occasionally others get frustrated with it (understandably), and she does has to deal with that wound somehow. I haven't seen Rayek or Swift or Venka or really anyone be a dick to her besides Haken and Chani. There's a level of occasional exasperation from others but it feels somehow more real and appropriate.

That's a very fair way to interpret Alt-Timmain, Zadzi. I hope she comes across as being the way she is for a reason, because she is supposed to. And yeah, exasperation is a great way to describe the feeling she tends to provoke.

That's my honest reaction as a reader. You can take it into consideration or dismiss it- you're the authors and it's your story, not mine. I'm just being straightforward.

And that's fine, but I'm trying to answer your concerns and point out where you maybe exaggerate a little. "Everybody" does not treat Timmain "the same", that's an unfair statemement about the writing. That's my straightforward opinion of your opinion.

As to Melati becoming a vessel for all those memories, it's a very interesting concept certainly, but it's not really in Melati's character to pursue such a goal. She's a person whose individuality is very important to her, and Beast is more important to her than anything. She'd never risk becoming a being to whom Beast wouldn't matter.

I always think it's fascinating the way different readers can interpret a work. The way for instance, Lunakat can read the last couple stories and believe that Timmain has done nothing to really warrant jarringly rude reactions from the other characters, while Zadzi sees it as a more realistic give-and-take between a messed-up High One and exasperated elves. It's the old "same events through different eyes" phenomenon.

Personally, if I had to deal with Alt-Timmain and some of her uh... well-intentioned but grossly inappropriate suggestions, let's call them - I'd like to think I could be quippily irreverent as Swift, or just tune her out like Weatherbird, but I'd probably just smile and nod and then vent to Haken behind Timmain's back.

Whatever. I'm obviously right , always
Lunakat, you make no sense and you want to make like 100,000 babbys with Timmain. Ptah help you

I am being an asshole ( of course). Lunakat always has awesome contributions to threads. And I'm actually surprised we're seeing so far apart because I tend to see very similarly with her most of the time.

Zadzi wrote:

Whatever. I'm obviously right , always

Zadzi wrote:

Whatever. I'm obviously right , always
Lunakat, you make no sense and you want to make like 100,000 babbys with Timmain. Ptah help you

Thanks.

Quote :

I am being an asshole ( of course). Lunakat always has awesome contributions to threads. And I'm actually surprised we're seeing so far apart because I tend to see very similarly with her most of the time.

Yo- thanks again!

I guess it's like Wingthing said-- people will just have different perspectives sometimes. I guess I should also clarify, for the sake of Sungirl, that not every character's negative reaction to Timmain was exactly the same, but varied slightly due to the circumstance in which the interaction took place in the story.

I'm still trying to remember if any characters have had positive interactions with Timmain or, after having a significant conversation with her, didn't ultimately tell her off with gusto.

The one situation where it really seemed to fit naturally into the story and didn't feel odd to me was when Skywise did it. Timmain was an obstacle at that point to something he strongly felt he needed to do, it was life and death in that moment-- and he lashed out to shock her enough that she would cease forcing him into inaction. That made a lot of sense. I would have expected there to be some fall out from it between the two of them, but then... I'm not sure or can't remember whether he studied under her in this version of the story or not. If not, maybe there was nothing for them to work out? No mentor/mentee type relationship to repair...

wingthing wrote:

...but Timmain is feeling the chill, for all she says it doesn't matter. The big question is: now that more and more of her "children" are turning away from her, does she give up and head back to the Egg, or does she decide to change something... something big?

Well now we know she's not just gonna slink back to the Egg!

I think it would be worth seeing to have Weatherbird be a group therapist for Chani, Haken, and Timmain :

Weatherbird: Let's go around the room and start by talking about feelings today. Timmain?
Haken (springing up out of his chair and almost knocking it over) : Why does SHE get to go first?
Chani : Darling, calm down.
Timmain : I had the dream again last night about when we first arrived and -
Haken and Chani groan in unison. Weatherbird holds a finger up to her lips and shakes her head at them and they grumble.
Weatherbird: Go on, Timmain.
Timmain : Well, this time it was different because we landed in a field instead of humans coming into the palace, it was chickens.
Weatherbird (astonished) : ....Chickens?
Timmain : Yes, chickens. Big fluffy, fat white chickens. They clucked at us and flapped their wings and tried to beak us.
Chani : Mother, you are cracking up. Truly.
Haken : Did you eat them? Did you take their wings off first? One at a time?
Timmain :  I had to protect everyone. They were trying to spear us with their beaks so I sunk my fangs into them. And they were so ... delicious.
Haken (leans back into his chair and goes to cross his arms, then realizes he only has one) : Oh my, isn't this all just so perfect.
Weatherbird : Timmain, can you tell us how you felt?
Timmain : I.... can't. I...
Timmain starts twitching and begins to change.
Weatherbird: Timmain, we've spoken about this. Shapechanging is a way of disassociating from your feelings. I cannot help you if you don't learn to help yourself.
Timmain makes whimpering puppy noises.
Chani (disgusted) : Honestly.

There aren't enough for this! Truly!

   

Does that about cover it?
Seriously, Zadzi, this made my day!

Yay, glad you like ! Weatherbird is so awesome, she's one of my favorite characters and I just kept seeing her in that role