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[nezumylove]

i can't believe i'm doing a book review... well, it's sort of anyway. and i only have negative things to say about this never mind! it turned out to be a rant

it was in my recommendations since i read and liked FitA and forbidden, both of which i enjoyed and were well-written

brother/sister by sean olin just read like mad ramblings, and i could never get attached to any of the characters, especially the two main characters- ashley and will

while i could sympathize with them, they were both just very unlikable and i wish to get the 24 hrs of my life back that i wasted on reading this book.

on top of the subpar plot and characterizations, i really disliked the narrative style. this may sound like a minor issue, or me being petty, but honestly, i couldn't go one sentence without cringing. prior to reading this, i didn't know that a narrative style could be such a squick for me lol i don't know if that's this author's signature style, or if they dropped the ball on this trying to write teens coming from a broken family. in either case, i'm not planning on reading anything else from this author

[nezumylove]

With so much shared parallels and imagery, do you think we will get Jonsa in TWOW or ADOS ? I mean full blown feelings like the one in the parentage reveal fic of yours ( Btw ❤️ that fic). It obviously doesn't have to be exact.

Haha, thank you for the compliment! I can never be 100% sure...but I think we’ll definitely get the beginnings of Jonsa in Winds, because I think when they inevitably meet it is going to be pretty significant for several reasons, even for non-shipper readers:

They will be the first Starks to reunite, so that is, without a doubt, going to carry emotional weight for the characters, as well as the reader — For all that the show is beneath contemptable in its plot choices, having Sansa go north and having her reunite with Jon feels faithful to the direction she’s heading in, bookwise. 

 Reuniting with Jon coincides with Sansa’s journey north, her journey home — That, again, is very emotionally weighted, tinged with relief and joy, but also sorrow for a past, a version of home, that can never truly be recovered. That is very bittersweet, heartswelling but also heartbreaking. 

It will coincide with, or follow, Jon’s resurrection, his rebirth and return to himself after a violent, traumatising death — To quote The Princess Bride, we all know that Jon is “only mostly dead”, having almost certainly warged into Ghost, but we don’t know how he will be revived, or how he’ll behave when he comes back. But the trauma of his murder (not just death, murder), the trauma of having confined yourself to the body of a wolf lest you die for real, on top of the trauma of having to come back into that murdered body...it’s going to be heavy, to say the least, and Sansa is going to be around to witness that struggle towards recovery, if not aid it.

All the above will, I believe, come across quite strongly on the page, those factors will very much be at the forefront of that reunion, and will be obvious in their significance to the reader. Even, if say, Sansa arrives before Jon returns to his own body, that won’t hinder the emotional power of her arrival at (most likely, though not definitely) Castle Black, it will just extend it to include three poignant, separate but connected, moments: (1) her return north, (2) the first Starks to reunite, (3) Jon’s resurrection. Their individual chapters, without a doubt, will be incredibly emotive, and with that emotive power fuelling them, PLUS all that foreshadowing, all those implicit parallels...well, buckle up kids, we’re going to be heading down a one-way track towards Jonsa town. 

That first meeting is going to be so so sooooo loaded, so narratively, thematically, and emotionally significant, and it will inform all the interactions they have after that, even discounting the possibility of romance...but of course, the possibility of romance is heavily foreshadowed. So, I suppose with that force behind them, GRRM may choose to ride that emotional wave and start picking up the pace, establishing a close bond between them that straddles what is appropriate behaviour between “half-siblings”, facilitated by these factors:

The desire for trust, for familiarity, after betrayal/uncertainty/abuse;

The lack of a strong sibling dynamic/bond between them, or any established dynamic at all really;

A mutual, and deep desire for kindness, acceptance of self, and love, which could lead to a confusion between the familial/platonic + romantic;

The lingering trauma of having had to be someone else for an extended period of time — for Sansa, as Alayne Stone, and more confusing still, with Jon as Ghost. 

Just going back to their reunion, I think there’s a reason why the Jon and Sansa reunion in the show felt so emotionally powerful, despite never having seen these two interact, or really reference each other on screen. E.g. there was no, to my knowledge, because I stopped fully watching due to s5, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa”, or “Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again”, or anything that really foreshadowed them meeting again on an emotional level. Nevertheless, their reunion is arguably the most emotionally satisfying moment of the entire show, a moment that isn’t fuelled by vengence or one upping someone, instead it is fuelled by love. 

Indeed, no matter the overall grimdark, frankly punishing message GoT tried so hard to push to appear edgy and unpredicatable, the moments that most resonate, that are most satisfying to watch, were actually the ones with real love behind them. Just imagine what it will be like in the book...

I mean, she’s a religious fanatic who we aren’t meant to fully trust, yet Melisandre does kind of have the right of it here:

"The heart is all that matters. Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you." – ADWD, Jon VI

Not to get too Frankie Goes to Hollywood here, but the power of love is...well, it is powerful stuff! We shouldn’t shake our heads, nor roll our eyes dismissively (not that Jonsas do), when Sansa thinks to herself: 

There are gods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the stories can't be lies. – ACOK, Sansa IV

If love is a lie, if a belief in love is a sign of idiocy, if all we are meant for is to be born, betray or be betrayed, not trust anyone, suffer, then die...what is the point? Life isn’t a bed of roses, but likewise, it is completely devoid of roses either. What everyone is experiencing right now in the books is the very very VERY bitter, we haven’t yet got to the sweet, and it has to be some significant sweetness, I think, it has to restore some faith in humanity, to even just slightly alleviate all that pain and relentless loss. Because otherwise, what is the point? Not just in life, but narratively too. 

Yes, maybe things will continue to go pear shaped for the Starks, maybe Jon and Sansa will never find the love, the sense of home, and acceptance they truly crave, maybe GRRM’s philosophy is that real and lasting love is ultimately an unachievable goal. Maybe...but we don’t know for certain, do we? 

"[...] That was when Stark said, ‘In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true…but what if we prevail?’ My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. ‘If you lose,’ he told Lord Eddard, ‘you were never here.’" – ADWD, Davos I

I think this is such a key quote, and a far more realistic philosophy for life, spoken and believed in by none other than Eddard Stark. So yes, it is possible that these two statements, for example, will prove to be accurate:

 No one will ever marry me for love. – ASOS, Sansa VI

You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell. – ASOS, Jon XII

But...what if they aren’t? What if Sansa does marry for love? What if Jon does become Lord of Winterfell (or KiTN to S’s Q)? What if Jonsa does happen in Winds? What if we prevail? What if love prevails? Arguably, the first step towards this will be Jon and Sansa reuniting, because it will prove this assurance to be false:

Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. – AFFC, Alayne II

Back to your question though, coz I got a bit carried away there philosophising! Do I think we’ll get mutually acknowledged and acted upon Jonsa in Winds or Dream? I mean...if not in Winds, then in Dream, yes. I think it will depend on the parentage reveal and when GRRM chooses for Jon to become aware of it and what he chooses to do with that information. In my fic, I played around with Jon experiencing grief and anger over this revelation, because:

It essentially confirms his greatest hang-up, that “he had never truly been a Stark, only Lord Eddard's motherless bastard, with no more place at Winterfell than Theon Greyjoy,” (ASOS, Jon III). But worsened by the added pain of also not being Ned’s son. It’s an identity crisis in waiting.

It completely dispells any glimmer of hope Jon might have had that his mother was alive, living somewhere far away, yet loving him. Again, it confirms a hang-up — that he truly is motherless. Lyanna is dead. 

He was lied to, ostensibly for his own good, his whole life by the man he admired most, even when he was set to dedicate his life to a glorified penal colony. Even if it was done to protect him, that must still hurt. 

But I also played around with him feeling a twisted sense of relief, and then guilt at feeling that relief. This would rest on whether or not he has developed romantic feelings for Sansa prior to this revelation, which because of the above factors, I think is likely. If that is the case, then his dragonblood both saves him and damns him, because:

 On one level, the truth of them being cousins alleviates his shame, it makes a union between them legally and culturally possible. 

 On the other, however, the fact that he did believe himself to be attracted to her whilst she was still seemingly his half-sister makes him far closer to a Targaryen than I’m sure he’d like. 

It just makes the reveal so much more fraught and emotionally weighted, so much more narratively meaningful, if these are the kind of emotions at play. So, yes, love can prevail, but sometimes not without difficulty, not without adversity. It’s not wholly good, but nor is it wholly bad either, and ultimately it’s which side you choose to lean into that matters in the end. Jon could let shame, guilt, anger and grief rule him...but what if he doesn’t? 

In my fic, because I was writing it over two chapters — the second being requested in the comments because I made ch. 1 end too angsty, lol — I probably resolved things between them faster than might be realistic. It’s one thing to consider the circumstances in which Jon will discover his true parentage, it is another to consider when Sansa will. There might be some time between Jon’s discovery and Sansa’s, and then some time before we come to a mutual understanding between the two. 

But as I said, I think the set up for there being a blurring between the platonic/familial and romantic is solid, but as Jon is the more “romantically” experienced of the two, I see him realising the true significance of that blurring a bit sooner. Both are adept at concealment, but I think it’s notable that we’ve seen Jon being continuously offered not quite romance, with two separate women, in fact. But both are thwarted by circumstance and the character of the person involved. 

In Ygritte’s case:

Her behaviour was coercive, she pressured Jon into a sexual relationship;

For all her winning smiles and husky singing, Ygritte is a remorseless killer, a facet of her personality that Jon cannot rationalise, nor condone. She is also notably violent and aggressive towards Jon;

Any continuation of their “romance” is ended with her death. 

With Val:

Again, we have this ease with violence that does not sit well with Jon;

She is also “a stranger to him”, there is no depth of feeling there, no love;

To marry her would be to allow the burning of Winterfell’s godswood, and it would be stealing the rightful inheritance from Sansa, thus confirming all Catelyn Stark’s worst fears about usurping bastards. It would not be honourable. 

The above don’t represent real, fulfilling love. They wouldn’t give him what he truly wants, which is the love of a lady, the lordship of Winterful, all without the burden of shame. We see that buried romantic desire projected first onto Ygritte:

If I could show her Winterfell...give her a flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and show her the stone kings on their thrones. We could bathe in the hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods watched over us.

The dream was sweet...but Winterfell would never be his to show. It belonged to his brother, the King in the North. He was a Snow, not a Stark. Bastard, oathbreaker, and turncloak... – ASOS, Jon V

And then again with Val: 

[...] marry Val, and become the Lord of Winterfell? It seemed an easy choice when he thought of it in those terms...though if Ygritte had still been alive, it might have been even easier. Val was a stranger to him. She was not hard on the eyes, certainly, and she had been sister to Mance Rayder's queen, but still...

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister's son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly's boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We'd find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance's son and Craster's would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. – ASOS, Jon XII

I think Jon is more attuned, having been through the above, to what it is he desires romantically, because he’s been offered chances, but they’ve been ultimately lacking (whereas Sansa will not be). Sansa, on the other hand, has been presented with...not even chances at love, because they’ve been forced upon her and are all awful, or at the very least pretty subpar. I just think she’s had such an awful time of it that just Jon being a safe, trusted, loving presence will be a big deal for her, but she won’t necessarily cotton on to the romantic desire that will be simmering beneath that. But Jon will. 

Looking at their previous brushes with “love”, both their arcs, I am convinced, have been preparing them for...well, for true love. For love and Winterfell. For family and for home. For something meaningful and momentus, because afterall:

This is true love, you think this happens everyday? – The Princess Bride (1987)

Because you know, lines like this:

Can coexist with lines like this:

They can even be spoken by and, with equal measure, be believed in by the same character. Because life, and love, is contradictory like that. And equally, just as GRRM can be writing murders, assaults, and war crimes, left, right, and centre...he can also be a fan of The Princess Bride:

But I’m getting off topic again! I just can’t stop philosophising about love! Basically, in Winds, I think "full blown feelings” will depend on when, and probably how, Sansa finds out about Jon’s parentage, then how she responds. I can see the reveal being a catalyst for her consciously acknowledging her love for him — I think Jon will have realised this beforehand, resulting in all the mixed emotions I discussed previously. But is Sansa going to find out from the horse’s mouth, or through another source? In what context will she find out, how will she be feeling at this time, will she suppress her feelings for a bit, unsure whether he returns them? If it’s from another source, it could be politically motivated, i.e. this throws Robb’s will out the window, who do we want to inherit now? But if it comes from Jon? Well, that’s what I chose, because it’s more interesting to write...because it’s more emotionally loaded, especially if a love confession is thrown in there too, but those could equally be separate reveals. 

I guess the issue with drawing things out, prolonging Sansa’s discovery, prolonging their mutual understanding, even within Winds, let alone into Dream, is...well, the emotional momentum will already be getting interrupted by the book’s structure of multiple povs, working on differing timelines, and in differing places. With all that emotion, all that foreshadowing behind them, foreshadowing that has been building up across books, across narratives, across years...GRRM will want to make the most of that, but likewise, he won’t want to botch it. It will be a delicate balance of seeing the first shoots of those long ago planted seeds starting to finally come up, nurturing them, making the possibility of Jonsa more and more explicit, and then seeing those plants bear full blown romantic fruit. You don’t want to rush things, but likewise, you want to keep the tension high, and you don’t want to skimp on impact.

So...you know what, yeah, maybe we will get “full blown feelings” in Winds, but I think it’ll be near the end, I think it’ll act as a possible cliffhanger, leading us into the next book, leading us into A Dream of Spring. Thematically, narratively, that could work quite well, because even if they acknowledge their mutual feelings, there will probably still be several obstacles in their way, e.g. the marriage to Tyrion, the impending, or then happening, Westerosi Ragnarök, etc. 

The last thing I’ll say on this, coz I really have rambled on, is that I think the ball will be in Sansa’s court when it comes to making Jonsa happen. She’s been on the receiving end of so much unwanted, abusive attention, it would be a powerful thing for Jonsa to be her choice, e.g. if they kiss (come on, they gotta) it will be Sansa that makes the move, as a contrast to all those forced kisses. I mean, that’s what I chose to do in my fic, because it is a powerful act for both of them. For Sansa, it is finally giving her romantic agency, it is giving her choice, and for Jon, it is him being chosen, it is him receiving the message that he is worthy, worthy of a lady, of true love, of his dream girl, Sansa (and Jon has always wanted to be worthy). So why skimp on something that impactful? Why water that down? It would be inconceivable ;) 

(This is why I’m slow on answering some asks...coz I will ANSWER)

[nezumylove]

omg same!!! and like, the horrible thing is that it was somewhat foreshadowed… at least all that horrible fiasco that led to that end 😭 i’m still heartbroken!

as if the flowers in the attic franchise wasn't enough heartbreak and torture, i have my eyes on another incest book! it's called forbidden by tabitha suzuma

unfortunately, i haven't managed to find a pdf for this one yet 🥲

[nezumylove]

i just finished reading it and… i gotta say- despite your warning hints, i was NOT prepared. i’m DEVASTATED. my god

as if the flowers in the attic franchise wasn't enough heartbreak and torture, i have my eyes on another incest book! it's called forbidden by tabitha suzuma

unfortunately, i haven't managed to find a pdf for this one yet 🥲

[nezumylove]

Sometimes i make dumb shit like this :3

Chris does NOT approve of Cathy and Paul’s relationship 😤 not when it gets in his way lol

[nezumylove]

we are approximately two youtube scandals away from a family channel flowers in the attic situation

[nezumylove]

Thinking about how in the original Flowers in the Attic manuscript, the kids were locked up for SIX years 💀💀💀

Cathy from the time she was 10 to 16

The twins from the time they were 3 to 9

[nezumylove]

You’re always running from me, Cathy, and you can’t ever run far enough or fast enough because I’ll be right at your heels loving you. Whenever anything good happens to me, I sense you by my side, clinging to my hand, loving me as I love you, but refusing to recognize it because you think it’s sin. If it is a sin, then hell would be heaven with you.

[nezumylove]

Complicated Women in Literature I Love (1/?): Catherine "Cathy" Leigh Dollanganger

"We lived in the attic: Christopher, Carrie, Cory, and me. Now there's just three."

[nezumylove]

antis whenever there’s gothic horror in the gothic horror series:

[nezumylove]

Do you see either Chris or Julian teaming up with Amanda to prevent Paul and Cathy from marrying?

Definitely not Chris especially since in the og petals manuscript he killed someone for shit talking cathy 😂

Julian i feel would only team up with Amanda if she was hot lol

[nezumylove]

[nezumylove]

Ohhh not sure if you'll like those aus but Past Our Satellites is a No Robert's Rebellion au but with an interesting twist to canon, I won't spoil much, there are dark elements because it's based on Allerleirauh: All-Kinds-of-Fur and Cinderella.

Ancient Fire is a rebirth/transmigration/time travel fic set in the Dance of Dragons and the Starks + Jon are trying to prevent the Dance and save the dragons to prepare for the long night. It also tackles the Hightower conspiracy.

Hey anon! I’ve not read fanfic in a couple of years but they both sound very interesting 👀

[nezumylove]

[nezumylove]

i love you ghostfacers footage of sam and dean

[nezumylove]

Shipping fictional characters isn’t representative of your moral values. It’s representative of your particular psychic damage and the themes and motifs that haunt you. Hope this helps.

[nezumylove]

I thought we were friends. As did I.