These last couple of chapters were particularly difficult to write, because I have to make sure I understand the implications of everything on future events. The more books in this series that I write, the further and further ahead I end up plotting.
As always, discussion welcome.
Siobhan’s personal study time gets more and more interesting every time I read it. It’s also interesting that she’s found her own method of therapy. I approve of her preparations.
For the usual errata and book recommendations - I shall leave them for the morning .
Wildly enjoyable as always, Azalea!
Errata:
Let’s not consider reaching Myrddin’s level of skill, but even with access to the University library, it will be years before I can even begin to catch up enough to be able to understand his ideas. → this sentence feels a little confused, maybe “let’s not discount my ability to reach Myrddin’s level”? Or maybe remove the but and make it into two sentences at that point.
book she’d transcribed the last section of the journal onto → She’s transcribing into the book.
milk tainted with a dollop of vinegar → I had to consult with a native English speaker on this one. It felt wrong. Dollop brings to mind more solid substances like cream or yoghurt. I’d say drop, splash or dash for a liquid.
That was all I found, and all of it relatively minor.
Poor Siobhan, honestly. She’s going to have to get very good at fooling Thaddeus over this next month if they don’t somehow reconcile before then. It’s one thing doing it as Siobhan, whose aloofness is perfectly in-character for the Raven Queen, but Thaddeus practically views Sebastien as a son at this point, and they’ll be seeing each other a lot once term starts again
That said, I absolutely believe that, with prep time (and maybe a bit of help from Liza), she could kill Thaddeus, if for no other reason than because he wouldn’t be expecting it. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that point
She’s progressing so much in many aspects !
I wonder how her 3rd Will will affect her thaumic capacity progression. If she’s increasing even faster than before she’s going to be very conspicuous during the next testing.
If she can learn to fly that would be awesome for the Raven Queen, and her increasing proficiency with illusions and the like is going to help tremendously too (her new disguise method is awesome !).
And if she send someone to the spirit realm without them having the time to react (either because it’s too quick or because she’d distract them with illusions or something else) that would be a very powerful ace in her sleeve.
And if she send someone to the spirit realm without them having the time to react
Maybe she could test it on Hite. It would also make Thaddeus win the bet since none of the other agents would guess something like that.
Yeah that’s my guess as to how she would deal with Hite, and making him disappear without any trace of even a struggle would definitely reinforce the myth of the Raven Queen.
Mm lots of thoughts on this one.
As a small positive, with the right framing Siobahn could maybe do some proccessing of her sense of control being damaged by Thadeus’s violation given the fidelity of her illusions. Properly calibrating for hurt is hard but the aspect of focusing on biofeedback could do a lot to mitigate some of the latent stress response even if she hasnt gotten any support for reframing and proccessing other aspects of the trauma.
I really do feel like the Brilig and Fae are kind of opposite methods using the same medium for power.
The Brilig form multiple ubique identities because they are I think closer to their selves in the spirit realm. Their multiple resultant wills able to help them stabily use magic because, partially aided by culture they saw past the illusion of the spirit world being a different place than the physical. Though downside there being the deformations and physical issues,at least they didnt die.
Comparatively I think the Fae went the opposite route define identity instead in physical reality.
Essentially a strategy of defining the scope of reality and embracing the feedback loops so perfectly that you are aligned with your broader identity. Almost like Transmutation being done so well as to mimic transmogrification. Perhaps the resultant little realm has rules and patterns, all set up and defined, and all have to be followed. There isnt another option. A opposite place to the black desert blurring ones identity and the worlds, where definement is absolute, at the cost of calcification. A place of absolute definition is a bit of a cage after all, cant really exchange or change beyond it.
Relatedly Myrddins wariness of transmogrification would be the ideas being used possibly blurring outside the “box” one is using to define oneself. Go too far and you no longer fit the configuration of yourself that is alive or human in general.
Though probably way easier to die than become something else. He definitely played around with manipulating aspects of himself with multiple names but I think thats easier in some sense to monitor given its from external groups in a lot of ways. I rather suspect the Naughts and Nulls are parallel results of a similar idea. Ongoing external definitions being used to form their own safe categorical boxes for one who knows how to move from frame of self to frame of self.
I had thoughts on Siobahn boosting her ravens earlier and it seems they are viable for all sorts of things. Actions done by beings in the physical world seem to imprint onto magic. So the ability of birds to orient to home may find a broader merging amongst spirits that are defined in part by being birds simply by repetition and need of such in their life cycles. Its pretty similar to the skin being a barrier for magic but the eyes not so much. There might be useful angles that are similar for say fish or bees but its a really useful thing for her ravens. Especially as both mundane aspects of bonding with them could work well with magical cultivation.
She already has a framework with her sleep spell to distribute a effect amongst her ravens as well as her means of spreading a signal of “herself” amongst them.
She has good context to act as those same ravens may be asleep. Might be a decent idea to find spots where other wild families/troupes of Ravens may be about. Which the Unsleeping Order may already have helped facilitate by offering food and shelter to them. She could likely aid both the integration of effects into her ravens through Legion and use her ravens to furthermore aid her indirectly on numerous fronts.
There are numerous uses but giving potential spirit guides to aid her followers would be very useful for helping them avoid risk in the spirit realm.
Cultivating concepts through Legion that could used by her and them. Which may accelerate both the upsides of the Orders practices and give them safety nets for self development. Which is another good boost along the flavor spell for that element of her power.
The ravens themselves might also be quite useful too if her actions of dreaming through them can help make a link. She already is using a ritual of essentially sharing elements of each other. If they are ideated as a part of her as the name, The Raven Queen she may essentially be able to make her ravens “anchors” for coming back out of the spirit world. They may be viable for their own rituals or to be extensions of her in several ways. Which may in turn also be useful for potential freecastings especially anything easily affiliating with the ravens own umwelt as it were. Flight especially may be a good route, and she can even avoid the tragic fate of that previous mage who thought they were a bird. A good asymmetric possibility in many ways.
Another possibility is combining that sensory spell and flight spell with them for spying. And using training and sharing their dreams to form a feedback loop of built concepts around flight and sensing that could aid her spells and allow the ravens enhanced capabilities.
Also as another minor plus the usage of names like this may actually help that curse to not trigger if the Royals mess with The Raven Queen rather than Sebastian. May require a bit of work by Siobahn though.
Interesting hints. Pure speculation: Since transmogrification relies on the collective consciousness it may weaken one’s identity and thus make oneself more prone to break events. Could also explain why there are more break events. More mages and more time could empower the collective will until it gains its own identity and then boom - cataclysm.
That said it’s likely transmogrification does something to the identity.
To me, dollop means spoonful.
About that amount, yes. But where you could have a spoonful of vinegar you wouldn’t have a dollop of it. Because dollop has “plop” vibes.
No, I can’t explain better. Yes, I did consult with both a native and Google to make sure I wasn’t being weird.
English is a very idiosyncratic language.
Dollop is weird in being like etymologically defined around a relatively shapeless lump. Which then gets you all the spoon uses but its intrinsically describes anything from a clump of uprooted grass to a lumped up bit of cooling glass.
And yet, Webster’s includes “dollop of milk” in its usage sentences. Like, for me, it means spoonful, as all the secondary definitions suggest. AHD has an explicit example of liquid: American Heritage Dictionary Entry: dollop
It’s just weird; the usage didn’t seem wrong to me. I’ll blame cooking shows.
According to the Google Books Ngram Viewer, “dollop” usually goes with gooey things but even “dollop of water” isn’t a totally unknown combination. “Dollop of milk” has been in the top 10 since 2014*. And “dollop of vinegar”, while rare, does see some use as well.
Yeah the key thoughline is I think the shapeless aspect or rather not having enough of a stable shape to be more than a vague form. Which generally aligns to stuff you would need a spoon, bucket, etc to hold like liquids. And tiny particles all held together that essentially act like liquids, your salts, spices, etc.
As a further hindsight thought, considering Siobahn was rather specifically using her Ravens for dreamless sleeps they may be some of the optimal targets for first using legions spirit constructs on. Both in plain logistics and magically as dreaming sleep seems another vector for easier interaction through the spirit realm.
I love how much discussion there is around the weirdness of dollop 
Maybe it might be a British vs American thing? The native speakers I consulted were British and I tend to watch British cooking shows rather than American.
I also realised that where you said a spoonful, I was imagining a larger spoon (like the kind you might use to dollop mashed potatoes onto a plate) which also struck me as odd, because one only needs a drop or dash of vinegar to curdle milk rather than a substantial dollop. To my mind it was a rather larger amount and my googling has made me realise Americans tend it use it for smaller quantities.
(The other day I heard someone American refer to shagging lessons - apparently you have a dance called the shag. Shagging lessons would be something quite different in the UK.)
