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2016-08-26, 09:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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2016-08-26, 10:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Ah yes, all that hard work of having a butler dress you and going to parties. It's practically slave labor I tells ya.
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2016-08-26, 10:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Don't think of them as parties. Think of them as verbal battlegrounds where a House's future can be won or lost by the choosing of a pair of cufflinks. And then there's the scheming. Oh, the scheming. And only a simpleton would have his butler dress him. That's what valets are for.
Last edited by An Enemy Spy; 2016-08-27 at 12:04 AM.
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2016-08-26, 11:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Like 4X (aka Civilization-like) gaming? Know programming? Interested in game development? Take a look.
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SpoilerSaberhagen's Twelve Swords, some homebrew artifacts for 3.5 (please comment)
Isstinen Tonche for ECL 74 playtesting.
Team Solars: Powergaming beyond your wildest imagining, without infinite loops or epic. Yes, the DM asked for it.
Arcane Swordsage: Making it actually work (homebrew)
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2016-08-27, 12:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Spoiler: MatI always figured that it started in book 4, when he spends a while schmoozing with Tairen lords, and it turns out that they're mostly a bunch of jerks. He'll take their money, but he doesn't want to be part of their little club. In fact, I think this might be the first time that someone calls him a lord and he brushes it off?
It doesn't kick into full gear until book 5, of course, and the incident where he accidentally leads an army to victory while trying to desert. That's what lordship means to him, after that: getting caught up in war and politics.
It probably also helps that Mat can win lots of money by gambling. Turns out that having enough gold to avoid poverty and manual labor is the only part of lordship he actually likes.
Good old Galldrian and his campaign platform of wild parties, big statues, and not provoking the nearby Mongol-Zulu-Fremen-Elf superwarriors.Last edited by The_Snark; 2016-08-27 at 12:22 AM.
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2016-08-27, 02:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
RE : Aes Sedai Face - I think it is an physical characteristic
SpoilerSiuan and Leeane both lose their "Aes Sedai face" when their are stilled and thus detached from the Oath Rod.
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2016-08-27, 03:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
And RE nobles vs. peasants, I'd say that it's not really about the things that a person has to do. Politicking and farming are both difficult in their own ways.
Noble life is better because of the privileges it gives you. Using A Song of Ice and Fire as an example (because AES has read that), you'd have to concede that Sansa Stark has a hard life, but you'd rather be in her position than Kyra's or Tysha's or that of Mycah, the butcher's boy.
Or consider the Night's Watch, where high- and low-born are theoretically equal. See how Jon Snow waltzes in, with his literacy and years of sword training, and his ability to speak to the knights and lordings that (surprise, surprise) make up most of the Watch's leadership. Having been brought up as a nobleman gives him big advantages wherever he goes.
And Davos, the onion knight. He grew up on the streets, but look how hard he fights to make sure his sons and grandsons get to be nobles. You don't see anyone working hard to go the other way.Last edited by Ninja_Prawn; 2016-08-27 at 03:43 AM. Reason: Oh, autocorrect. You do make me laugh.
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2016-08-27, 04:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
There are nobles who work hard. Ingtar is a good example of one. There are way more nobles who basically do nothing though, even within this series.
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2016-08-27, 08:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Yeah, Cairaihen, Tear and Andor are bad about Nobility playing games but they are also generally the only stable nations in the setting so they are the only ones who can afford to screw around with crap like Succession and the like. Most other nations don't really play those games as often..or are Tyranical Dictatorships who rule by the power of a Ter'angreal.
-cough-
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2016-08-27, 12:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Ingtar is fairly typical of Shienar (and the Borderlands in general). The Borderlanders expect their nobility to lead their armies against the Blight. They don't mess around with Game of Houses nonsense because they have to be able to trust the guys on their flanks.
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2016-08-28, 03:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Chapter 33: A Message From the Dark
Hurin's got good news and bad news. The good news is that he's tracked the Darkfriends' and Trollocs' trail to a walled garden. The bad news is that Mat isn't actually hurt. Mat has even worse news. He's searched this place from top to bottom and can't feel the dagger's presence at all, which means that Padan Fain has almost certainly left through the Waygate already. Rand tries to reassure Mat like any good friend would, and Mat reciprocates by bitching about having to pretend to be a servant and implying that Rand is going to go mad. What a loveable rogue.
They get Lioal and sneaky-sneak off to the garden(Ingtar has been snared in an insidious net of society women, and Verin was busy talking to Barthanes and gave Hurin a nasty look when he tried to approach her. Now what would Verin be saying to a known Darkfriend that she wouldn't want Hurin to see? Let's just file that little tidbit away and see if it comes up later.). They make it to the garden without a small army of Trollocs and Darkfriends jumping out to kill them, and it turns out that yes, the baddies have gotten the hell out of Dodge City. The Waygate looks similar to the last one they saw, a stone wall with the tree Avendasora carved into it.
No sooner does Rand open the Waygate than we meet a familiar friend. Machin Shin, the Black Wind. It's right at the inside of the gate, and it's coming for our heroes. But the Black Wind is trapped in the ways, isn't it? I mean, it can't come out into the real world and start stealing souls right?
Right?
Our heroes aren't in a scientific mood right now and decide not to put that hypothesis to the test. Rand summons the Void to combat the Black Wind with the most powerful blast he can muster. His power makes the Black Wind slowly inch backward, allowing Loial to close the gate on it. Much to Rand's relief, Loial ends up getting all the credit for this since nobody realized he was using the One Power.
So it looks like the Ways aren't going to be an option. Tey go and tell Verin what happened, and she tells Barthanes that it's time for them to go. As they leave, Barhtanes pulls Rand aside and tells him that Fain left a message for him. Fain is waiting at Toman Head for him, and if Rand doesn't follow then he'll go hunt down everyone Rand cares about. Barthanes doesn't know what's going on, what Fain has or why he has Trollocs with him, and he wants Rand to tell him. I'm guessing Barthanes has assumed that Rand must be a high ranking Darkfriend, which makes me wonder if his conversation with Verin helped give him that idea. Is Verin a Black Ajah? She's one of the only people who knew that Moiraine would be at that house where the Draghkar attacked, and we don't know who sent it. If Moiraine's conspiracy has been infiltrated by a Darkfriend, then who knows what will happen? Suddenly every command Verin gives now has an aura of menace about it.
Rand tells her that the Horn is at Toman Head, but Ingtar doesn't buy it. After all, if you were attempting to hide a powerful artifact from your enemies, why would you tell them where to find it? Of course, we the reader already know that the plot is moving toward Toman Head and the Seanchan, so of course that's where the Horn is. "And once again probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service drama as would a copper-piece harlot."
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2016-08-28, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Nice. When even the reader sees Darkfriends/Black Ajah in every shadow, imagine what it must be like for the characters in the story.
SpoilerAES even gets it right (but also totally wrong)! Did we accidentally spoil too much by talking so much about Verin? My guesses on first reading the series were much worse. I suspected Thom right until the end, after his "miraculous" survival at Whitebridge in book 1.
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2016-08-28, 04:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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2016-08-28, 06:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
I think what we can all take away from this is that you shouldn't get corrupted by an all powerful soul tainting artifact around Spy. He will not tolerate your resulting snark.
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2016-08-28, 07:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Hey hey hey, turning evil because of the influence of a soul-eating demonic artifact is no excuse for rudeness.
Originally Posted by Lord Magtok
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2016-08-28, 09:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
I finally got around to reading your chapter Spy. I liked it better than the first one I read. If I had to pick out a criticism, I didn't really feel much urgency during the dream sequence. Maybe because you told us it was a dream up front. It was pretty good overall though.
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2016-08-29, 12:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
The lack of urgency was intentional. I was trying to create a sense of detachment between the reader and the events on the page, much in the same way that Orph is detached from his own actions within the dream. In real life, dreams are essentially just a sequence of unconnected images our subconscious mind is conjuring up and rarely have any meaning, but in a story every scene has to have a purpose or else it's superfluous and needs to be cut out. How many stories have you read where the main character is being menaced by some danger, usually right at the beginning, only to wake up at the last moment, and for it to have no bearing on the plot or character? It's a cheap device used by hack writers to create false drama. It's the dream version of using a cat scare. Predictable, hackneyed, and only done for a momentary fakeout. It's garbage, and I try to stay away from that kind of thing. A good fakeout comes from playing the long con, when you give your readers a basic assumption about how the story is going to work, only to pull the rug out from under them at a critical moment.
Anyway, a good dream sequence serves one of two basic purposes. I'll refer to to them as reflective and prophetic, and don't think for a second that they are mutually exclusive. A reflective dream is one that gives insight into the mind of the character and reveals some of what they really think under the facade they show to the world(and everyone shows a facade. Nobody just says out loud every single thought they have) and more importantly, the facade they show to themselves. In the case of our friend Orph, the dream is a warped version of an actual memory, and it's a dream he's had many times in the past. No matter what route he chooses, he will always come back to that tree because in a way he's never really left that place. Also, he can't stop himself from taking the knife and killing Lyra with it. Now assuming Lyra isn't some kind of undead creature Orph has reanimated using some kind of dark magic, we know that of course Orph never actually cut Lyra's throat at any time in the past, so it's up to the reader to interpret what that is supposed to mean. Is it his anxiety that he won't be able to protect her from harm, effectively killing her through a failure to act? That I will leave up to you to interpret.
A prophetic dream is... prophetic. These should only be used in special occasions due to their inherently supernatural nature. While a reflective dream comes from within the character's psyche, a prophetic dream is being sent by an outside source. I like using prophecy in dream sequences because many cultures have believed that the future could be seen through dreams and because I like using the surreal imagery that dreams allow. Be sure that your prophecy doesn't spoil the plot. Keep it vague enough to raise more questions than it answers and never ever have the story play out exactly as the prophecy says it will. Subvert that bitch up. Giving away the game early on is poor form.
It's tempting to want to use lots and lots of dream sequences because playing around with dream logic is fun, but always remember, every part of the story must serve a purpose. Your readers want to get a great story, not just watch you masturbate words onto a page. Sorry for the imagery there, I was thinking of Terry Goodkind when I wrote that sentence. There are sequences in his books where I can just hear his heavy breathing. *shudder*
tl;dr: lack of urgency in dream was intentional, plus a bunch of pretentious rambling.
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2016-08-29, 02:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Remember Fain isn't just Corrupted by the dagger. He is corrupted by the thing that corrupted the city that corrupted the dagger, as well as having been touched by the Dark One himself, and Mordeith is as bad as if not worse than the Dark One. Word of God placed Mordeith as something that is unique to this specific time around the wheel.
SpoilerAlso holy crapped he pegged to Verin being Black. I haven't seen anyone do that before or say they ever did.
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2016-08-29, 02:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
SpoilerI blame us. As in this thread. Verin not wanting Hurin to intrude on a conversation with Barthanes is an incredibly thin rope to hang her on, and the only other suspicious thing I can remember her doing before that was her snooping around Fain's cell after the attack on Fal Dara.
I accidentally read that she was black on the wiki towards the end of my read through book 2, I think. And to be honest, I haven't seen any clear evidence of it so far, despite increased vigilance. I figure her willingness to use Compulsion on the Aes Sedai serving Rand is supposed to be a clue - indeed, the fact she knows the weave at all is suspicious - but even that I don't think is conclusive evidence.Lydia Seaspray by Oneris!
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2016-08-29, 02:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Spoiler: Guessing (Nested)Keep in mind that lots of folks peggedSpoilerVerin as Black while reading this book. It's not that much of a mindscrew after all - her first outright lie is revealed here.
The only reason nobody really believed it was because she's so damn effective at screwing over the Shadow. Lanfear is a close second, but that was due to appallingly incompetent tsundere-ness rather than Verin-style machinations.
It's more than just "the plot wills it" though. We know, and Rand knows, that Fain doesn't give two moldy rolls about the Horn. His goal since the end of book 1 has always been killing Rand, to free himself from the compulsion to chase him down to the ends of the earth that the DO crammed into his head in between nonstop torture. So Fain being very open about where he's taking the Horn makes perfect sense.
The part that makes somewhat less sense is going to Toman Head with it when he could have just hared off to Shayol Ghul, or sat in the Ways until the Last Battle happened, but never let it be said that the Shadow Prophecies were any less dumb than those of the Light.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2016-08-29, 02:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Fair enough. I got the impression that a sense or urgency was intended, but it could have been the half bottle of vodka muddling my perception as much as anything.
Spoiler
There was a lot of speculation on it back in the day. Mostly because you can actually catch her in a lie in the novels. So much so that Jordan actually went out of his way to tell the fandom she wasn't a darkfriend (which is barely technically true).Last edited by Anteros; 2016-08-29 at 02:52 AM.
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2016-08-29, 02:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Spoiler: SECRETSFans knew/suspected something was up with Verin pretty early on, I believe, though I don't think anyone guessed exactly what. (I mean, possibly someone's guess happened to match the truth, there are a lot of people out there, but there wasn't any kind of consensus.) It becomes increasingly clear as time goes on that she has some kind of secret agenda: she gives Egwene the dreaming ter'angreal but deliberately refrains from giving her the documentation, she secretly uses Compulsion on captured sisters, she considers poisoning Cadsuane...
I think the biggest clue (if not the most obvious) is in this book, actually: when she catches up with Ingar and company she claims Moiraine sent her, but Moiraine later denies this. None of the characters catch it, but it's strong evidence that she isn't bound by the First Oath.
Fain hates/fears the Dark One too, though, and sitting in the Ways wouldn't get him any closer to Rand. Why he picked Toman Head I have no idea, but neither Shayol Ghul nor the Ways would have appealed.Last edited by The_Snark; 2016-08-29 at 02:58 AM.
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2016-08-29, 03:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
SpoilerIf this thread is anything to go by, that's not much of a crime...
Besides, there's no oath against poisoning people!
Spoiler: The First OathI think most people just discount this when thinking about the Black Ajah. Non-black sisters are so adept at sidestepping it that it's not worth the effort to figure out whether a statement is a technical lie or not. And the RAW for the oath says it's not a lie if you sincerely believe it, so a sister saying something we know to be untrue isn't necessarily good evidence that she's black.
Oh, and... does the reader (at the point where AES is) even know that the black sisters are not bound by the oath rod? I didn't think that was explicitly revealed until the Liandrin/Suroth debacle (loved that scene, by the way). I appreciate that it's obvious that they must be able to lie, but I don't think AES can know at this point that all three oaths are literally removed.Last edited by Ninja_Prawn; 2016-08-29 at 07:53 AM.
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2016-08-29, 07:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Spoiler: SECRETS!she considers poisoning Cadsuane...SpoilerI consider that to be a point in her favor.
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2016-08-29, 08:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
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2016-08-29, 08:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
SpoilerEven if not explicitly stated, it's easy to infer logically:
After all, murdering people would require violating the third oath. (I do find it odd though how much torture AS can get away with without the power being considered a weapon. I mean, a whip is a weapon isn't it? Elaida in particular, especially in New Spring and TGS, does some really nasty stuff with it, and we know she's not Black.)
But yeah, I think Jordan was trying to put in some cool foreshadowing but instead tipped his hand too early. Liandrin lied and was proven to be Black, and then he called attention to Verin's lie and it put people on the scent way too quickly. But yes, his response that Verin was not a darkfriend is technically correct. Trust the creator of Aes Sedai to give an Aes Sedai answerLast edited by Psyren; 2016-08-29 at 01:15 PM.
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2016-08-29, 09:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
Last edited by Ninja_Prawn; 2016-08-29 at 10:28 AM.
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2016-08-29, 10:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
SpoilerHey, guys? I'd argue that talking about how AES has been quick to infer things in the latest chapter summary is a spoiler that he's on to something important here.
It's like how I hate it when movie trailers mention that the movie has a twist ending - even if they don't reveal what the twist is, revealing the fact that there is one in the first place reduces the effectiveness of the twist.Take your best shot, everyone else does.
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SpoilerMy original avatar and much better ones by groundhog22 and a Winter Olympics one by Rae Artemi.
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2016-08-29, 10:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
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2016-08-29, 10:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time II: Randy's Horny Hunt
SpoilerIt was more your unspoilered part combined with NP's originally unspoilered response.
AES just started talking about a possible Black Ajah member and now we're all talking about an Oath and what AES could know about it. While not really a spoiler in itself, it's kind of spoiler-adjacent like my movie trailer comparison. I think NP adding the spoiler section to that reply is sufficient (assuming that the damage isn't already done).Take your best shot, everyone else does.
Avatar by Guildorn Tanaleth. See other avatars below.
SpoilerMy original avatar and much better ones by groundhog22 and a Winter Olympics one by Rae Artemi.