#Assuming she feels more friendly to her in these reimaginings anyway

[vaalthus]

The General's Arrival Reimangined (spoilers)

I KNEW IT! I KNEW THESE TWO HAD SOME FORM OF HISTORY!

*ahem*

For those of you reading this and are likely confused about my outburst, I'm not sorry :P.

You see years back when I initially played this saga as wee-gamer I was a bit confused and a bit put-off by the fact that Alz'Ein was so dead-set on labeling Veyla as a traitor and her inability to resist Wargoth's control as a betrayal.

At the time, it seemed as if she was angry with Veyla, and by some extension the other enslaved Atealans, for no real reason other than the fact that they had been conquered and controlled by the enemy at all, ya know something they wouldn't exactly be to blame for.

Of course, now that I'm older I understand a lot of her abrasiveness, frustration, and anger stems from the fact that their people were forced to flee their burning home, as well as the fact we weren't exactly listening on how much of a threat Wargoth posed to Lore.

However, I couldn't take my mind off the fact that she used the word betrayal. That's not a word you use lightly especially against someone you know. It eventually got me thinking: We don't exactly know all the events that took place on Somorah when Wargoth came to conquer it besides the obvious. As a result, it made me wonder if some of the Atealans deliberately chose to surrender, to bow down, to Wargoth in an effort to save themselves from being annihilated. Therefore, consenting to be controlled as opposed to having their will taken from the by force. My thought process at time was that Alz'Ein witnessed such a choice take place on the planet before they escaped and that was reason why she saw Veyla as a traitor.

Now of course we know now that Alz'Ein and the others don't know what's happening with the other Atealans trapped on Somorah so it's entirely possible that Wargoth did forcibly take control of all of them after all, especially the riftwalkers that were left behind. But I think it's possible that some Atealans may have chosen to submit. Can't wait to find out either way.

[redteabaron]

Different anon… Here is the thing though, Drogo/Dany isn’t a parallel to sansan. People who make that comparison either lack severe reading comprehension, which is not surprising for this fandom, or they want to use it to validate sansan. (Tyrion was the older guy Sansa was forced to marry. Dany and Sansa have opposite journeys and their marriages are a part of that.) But sansan’s mirror is Jorah/Dany. Book!Jorah is an older guy who has a creepy obsession with a teenage girl. He dumps his trauma on her, he projects onto her. But he is also her advisor, her confidante early on, his protector. There are also the same BaTB elements sansans love to talk about. She even refers to him as her bear. But he was lusting after her ever since they met and then he assaulted her. He forced himself on her. She is uncomfortable with his actions, but she doesn’t possess the necessary language and she doesn’t understand consent (we know this because of how she frames her relationship with Drogo but also how she expected Lhazareen women to be ok, even be thankful for being married to their rapists, and her dubcon relationship with Irri) so she recontextualize what happened and chastise Jorah for kissing her not because she is a teenager and he shouldn't and she didn’t consent to but because she is his Queen. That's the language she has, so she expresses her discontent, disapproval, rejection with that. Sandor was verbally, psychologically, physically abusive to Sansa but he also occasionally protected her in King’s Landing. He lusted after her, made sexually inappropriate comments to an 11 year old child but he was also the only one in KL to have honest conversations with her. Then he assaulted her, held her at knife point. She was afraid of him kissing her, killing her, she had nightmare about the assault which she clearly registered as a sexual one despite what his fans claim his intentions were. Sansa has a habit of romanticizing/redefining these things. Sansa thinks Arys Oakheart was preferable, that he was kind because he beat her less hard than the other Kingsguard. She remembers Tyrion as someone who were kind to her, someone better than Joffrey even though he molested her and she had him in her nightmares too. She separates Littlefinger and Petyr in her mind because just like with the other men before him the thought of her sometimes-protector at the same time being her abuser is too much for her. Just like Dany she recontextualizes what the Hound did to her and turns the assault into a song to cope with it.

These two pairings has the same dynamic, the difference is fandom’s response to it. (The slight differences are that Dany had actual amiable feelings for Jorah -not romantic love or sexual feelings but friendly, sisterly love for him- and she as a Queen had a lot more agency than Sansa as a prisoner had. She isn't as powerless as Sansa, she could have easily banished him, punished him, even ordered his death.) But no one in fandom writes essay after essay why and how could and should Jorah and Dany end up together. It’s an outrageous suggestion. Dany is a main character, she is the heroine. She is a Queen. Why should she ever end up with someone as lowly as Jorah? Someone as old, as ugly as Jorah? But Sansa, meh she is not an important character. And she needs to be punished, first because she was a child making childish mistakes. Secondly, she is shallow, she refused to be raped by her older, ugly husband. So she needs to end up with an older ugly guy to humble her. Even when the author expressed his distaste of the trope of a noble girl running away with a lowly guy in medieval stories, nah that doesn’t matter here. Sansa being of high nobility, a princess won’t have any factor at all who she’s gonna end up with. They had to keep assuring themselves that she is not a main character so she could even end up with a villainous character, that she is not a Stark so she could end up with people who hurt/fight against her family. The hypocrisy of this fandom, and their selective reading is most clear when it comes to these two “couples”. Almost all sansans (whether it is the actual shippers or those who think it’ll happen because well it’s Sansa what else she’s gonna do besides being a reward bride for some hideous guy) hate Jorah/Dany (as they should) while trying to justify how and why Sansa should end up with the hound. Let's forget the abuse and pedophile, let's assume those never happened, even then it makes no sense. There is not a narratively satisfying way, a logical reason how Sansa could be with Sandor. But they ignore all that because it doesn't fit in with their vision, with their interpretation of the books and characters. Because admitting Sansa is a main character and more than a reward for their pedo fave has a ripple affect, it challenges all their theories, they all crumble. And they just can't let go of their 2 decades old theories, they just have to be right, they must be right. That's why they all took the show's ending as a personal offense, especially the QiTN Sansa. I just can't wait for the books!

Yeah, agreed. jorah and sandor are mirrors of each other. I mean I hope they both die without any glory or honor, personally. I don't really care if they have sacrificial deaths for the greater good - or whatever framing the show had intended - jorah and sandor were also whitewashed and made more pitiable/likeable.

Whenever dany x dr*go is used to validate literally ANY pairing, I am suspish. In particular when we acknowledge that dany absolutely couldn't consent - she was 13 iirc - and was sold off by her abusive brother to a man twice her age, but Sansa reimagining her trauma about Sandor's assault to something less traumatic is considered being hateful to Sandor because he's unattractive. (And I never really listen whenever ppl give me shit or deny it was assault; pertaining to my job, I'm pretty fucking aware what assault or intention-to-assault looks like, and I think most ppl do to, they just seem to lose awareness when it comes to their ships or certain characters).

I think it has to do with Sansa being the archetypal "Pretty Popular Girl" - the one who like feminine things, sort of fussy, likes feminine colors and just in general is feminine. She seems to remind people of the classic mean popular girl we saw popularized in 1990s-2000s high school movies - the one who gets her comeuppance in the end when the non-feminine girl somehow triumphs in whatever way, or she's the one who learns her lesson and stops being quite so feminine, or hooks up with a most-popular guy. The Mean/Pretty Popular girl has to be humbled in some fashion. Fans who don't like her, tend to view this as a way for her to pay for the error of her ways.

Like being a prisoner of war. Or not wanting to fuck tyrion. Or not wanting to run away with sandor.

I mean...all of asoiaf, beyond the politics and magic, is all about trauma and the human response to it - which is varied and depends on circumstances, personalities, and a lot of other things. One of the more vile things GOT did was whitewash jorah and tyrion the way they did imo. Jorah was a predator, circling Dany, regardless of whether she thought of him fondly, he just happened to not be violent towards her - she cries when he forces a kiss on her. Tyrion was a predator who molested her when he acknowledged she was a child "but he wanted her anyway". I've seen a lot of ppl react more sympathetically towards Dany. I haven't seen much recrimination against dany for refusing him the way we see sansa being hated for not wanting tyrion or sandor, hell, even petyr.

But - Sansa, imo, in the larger or at least circles of the fandom that have been around longer, is a more ideal whipping girl for the outlet a lot of ppl crave. See again the popular girl trope. She can't fight, she has no magical creatures, she is not a Chosen One of any kind. She has her wits and her ability to observe and adapt who has no choice but to navigate survival surrounded by people who have more agency and power than she does. That's it. I guess in a world of amazing abilities and magic and warfare, this is very boring, particularly when she doesn't weaponize her femininity or sexuality, where she's beautiful without being dangerous or magical or erotic. And I guess ppl feel that because of that, she needs to be punished for not being as extraordinary as she should be, OR, because she was the "Mean Popular Girl" (she wasn't) she must be humbled, and the ones to do it are the ones she refuses.

It's really delicious knowing they don't get "to have her" 🤢. Hopefully they just both fuck off to the ends of the world or die, idc they deserve zero thought.

[adhdeancas]

Sunset Sound: Us and Them

Chapter two of my fic is live! thank you again to my buddy/beta reader/on staff cas!girl (masculine) @friedchickenangelwings

Fic Summary:  Everything is the same up to the end of 15x20. Chuck has been “defeated,” but it was all a farce. When Jack absorbed Chuck, Chuck easily took over the 3 year old’s body and acted as if he were defeated. Chuck!Jack then had the Rusty Nail placed in the barn where Dean died, and with Cas gone, Dean didn’t fight it. Chuck did reimagine Heaven, but he’s fed the same lie to them all: that everything is perfect, they are free, they are in real paradise. Except it’s all an illusion insulated by blue skies and endless horizons. Because, just like the Good Place, people make Heaven into Hell for each other. And there’s nothing Chuck loves more than the natural order of tragedy. He “let it slip” to Bobby that he brought Cas back, when he really left him to rot in the Empty. Dean has to find his best friend before it’s too late, and he has to keep a happy face for everyone else, because Chuck is watching. Always watching.

The Empty is alive, and it’s full of chaos. Angels and demons alike battle and bicker. The noise is deafening. It’s overwhelming. 

That’s even without the voice. It’s singular, in his head. It hisses at him from all around. You killed yourself for a man who didn’t even love you. You’re pathetic. You should just lay down and accept it. You did this to yourself, after all. That’s why you’re here.

Cas’s hands are shaking. He holds onto his lapels, but the feeling of the cloth is somehow worse than the shaking. He takes them away and crouches down. He wants to tear his hair out. The Empty isn’t just surrounding all of them, it’s surrounding him. It hates him. It presses in and threatens to suffocate him. He wants to accept it, but then he has one thought. Of Dean. 

Dean Winchester, beautiful even in his desperation, looking to Cas for hope. That’s why Cas is here. Cas can’t lose hope. No, he can’t. Dean wouldn’t want Cas to lay down and die. “Dean. D-d-Dean. Dean.” Yes. That’s a good thought. That will work. Cas pushes back. He stands up. He manages to hold the Empty’s force back and take a breath. 

“Dean. Dean. Do it for… Dean.” 

He doesn’t know how long he holds there, screaming at the Empty, muttering Dean’s name, promising himself he won’t give up. Beings tear into him, pummeling him. The Empty presses bruise after hopeless thought into his head.

A broken toy clinging to its owner. Dean, Dean! It’s sad, really. He’s happy you’re gone. He’s happy to be rid of you. Lucifer’s vessel mocks him, standing in front of him without any real form. The Empty. 

It feels like at least an eternity before the pressure lets up. 

There’s a growl and a tear and the Empty flees. 

“Blimey, Feathers, what’d you do to piss that one off?”

Cas closes his eyes and wishes for a deeper void to swallow him. Unfortunately, none do. He opens them and faces the demon in front of him. “Crowley.” 

Crowley wipes a splash of Empty off his face and pockets his blade. “Castiel. You’re welcome, by the way.” 

Cas crosses his arms. A huge part of him is sighing in relief to see a familiar - if not totally friendly - face in this pit of despair. That doesn’t mean he’s going to show it, though. “Why did you help me?” 

The chaos rages on around them, this time without the added assault of the Empty trying to torture them. Crowley grumbles and shoves a demon that falls into him, turning an annoyed glare at Cas. “I don’t know about you, pretty boy, but it’s a bit cramped for me in here. Fancy a walk?”

Cas frowns at him. “A walk? Where?” 

Crowley rolls his eyes and grabs Cas’s arm roughly. He tugs the angel in a direction he apparently knows. “Away. Come on, I know a spot.” 

Walking through the Empty is confusing. It has no substance and yet it all seems uphill, which is... infuriating. Crowley doesn’t make it much better. He complains about the walk or the fighting and when he doesn’t, he makes sexual innuendos about the people they pass. Through it all, he only stops a few times to mentally fend off some unseen force, the Empty’s undoubtable influence working at his defenses. It’s minute, the flicks and mutters, but for Crowley, the outer signs of weakness are monumental.

“What is it, for you?” Cas asks almost without thinking, his curiosity getting the better of him. Crowley glares, but Cas can’t be scared by his only ally. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetums,” Crowley smiles through clenched teeth. 

Cas sighs. He wants to work with Crowley; he wants to not be so alone amongst the misery. He doesn’t know if that means pressing or falling back. “The Empty. The… regrets. The memories.” 

“Don’t have ‘em.” 

“Cut the crap.” 

Crowley’s eyes flicker to a spot to the right of Cas, and Cas turns to look. There’s no one there, no one that he can see, anyway. “Feathers. You wanna play Hannibal Lector or you wanna get the hell out of here?”

Cas shakes his head and concedes. Crowley isn’t going to speak about it, at least right now. The demon seems to appreciate it, because he turns and keeps going, shoulders set more tightly now. Cas tries as much as he can to ignore the 

“Here we are, home sweet… formless void.” Crowley gestures with a flourish to a part of the nothingness which is oddly devoid of angels and demons. Castiel reluctantly follows after him. It seems like a tunnel to Cas. Crowley stops after a bit and they sit, taking the break for what it is. Cas sits criss cross on the ground, despite Crowley’s condescending looks. The demon opts for leaning up against a darker spot, a leap of faith. It holds him up,  just Castiel’s luck. “So what’s the plan, angel?” 

“Plan?” Cas narrows his eyes. “What plan? You found me.” 

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Word on the street is you had a hand in starting all this. You did, didn’t you?” 

Cas looks away, not wanting to admit it. “It was… my child.” Jack is the only one with the power to wake up the Empty, let alone all the souls resting there. Jack, his child, that he hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye to. 

That’s right. You just left him without a second thought. Some father you are. More like an endless cycle, absent father breeds absent father. He sees Claire, hate in her eyes he hasn’t seen since she was young.

Crowley blinks, forgetting to be smarmy in his shock. “You’ve got a kid? Hell, I didn’t think you-” Cas glares at him. He knows what the demon had been thinking, and he is done with people making fun of him for it. “Oh… your ‘kid.’” Crowley remembers himself. “So what, raised yourself a little mojo machine, did you? Swaddled it and sang it Led Zeppelin in the back of the Impala?” 

Cas grits his teeth and rises up. He has Crowley pinned by his neck against the wall before he can get another word out, and Crowley just raises an eyebrow at him. “If this… alliance is going to work, at all, you are going to drop the snide comments. Understand?” The last look he saw on Dean’s face is still clear in his head, and he will not have it be tainted with taunts.

Crowley seems unmoved. “But pudding, that’s half my charm,” he purrs, batting his eyelashes. 

Cas releases him with a grunt. “You have no charm.” 

“I think your pet human would attest otherwise.” 

“Why did you help me?”  Cas’s patience is wearing thin. Crowley seems to realize it, because he drops his arms, looking annoyed at the end in banter. 

Crowley’s eyes flicker past Cas again, and he is reminded that the Empty is having an effect on the demon as well. “Because I want out of here, you giraffe. And I’m fairly certain that if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my several lifetimes, it is that the Winchesters always have a way out.” He admits it grudgingly. “And you, my fine feathered friend, are my best bet to get to them.” 

Cas stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Well, the Winchesters aren’t here. And they aren’t coming. So you might want to rethink your plan.” 

Crowley rolls his eyes and grabs Cas’s hand, swinging it between them for effect. “Too late, Snookums, we’re hitched. We’re getting out of here, one way or another. So get. On. Board. I don’t have time for your pity party.” He looks Cas in the eye, watches as the defiance slowly drains out of them to be replaced by reluctant agreement. “Great. Now, what are the Hardy Boys up to on the blue marble?”

Cas shrugs. “I assume they are defeating God. As planned.” 

Crowley closes his eyes, trying to find the strength. “God.” 

“Yes.”

“They got on the bad side of God?” 

“Yes, well, Chuck wanted-”

“No, you know what, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” He holds up his hands in defense. “After they deal with God, what’s the plan? How will they rescue Columbo this time?”

Cas sighs. “There is no plan, Crowley. I was being serious.” Crowley is somewhat shaken. 

“Well, fine, but they’re bloody well going to come for you. Aren’t they?” 

Cas swallows the lump in his throat. His mind flashes back to telling Dean he loves him, to the shocked and frozen expression on his face. It didn’t matter to him then, Dean not feeling the same way, but now? Dean might not want him back. But then he remembers Jack, scared and burdened and hopelessly naive to the world. Cas isn’t even sure there will be an earth to go back to, but he is sure that he has to make sure Jack is okay. He has to get back to his child, come what may.

He looks back at Crowley with a frown. This demon is his only hope, now. “Yes, yes, of course.” 

Tag list: (send me an ask/dm to be added/removed)

@dochunterwitch  @justonecitizenoftheearth @gnbrules @purpe @castiel-is-a-cat

[vidimillion]

idk if ur still doing jasico hc but if u r... college aus! what majors, background, etc? i love college aus

i love them too anon. i love them too. (thanks for the req!)

the university library is packed with people studying for midterms. some people are sitting on the floor, with no chairs left. a ways away from the louder parts of the library, by the windows, there's a really cute guy who's got a small table all to himself. the cute guy sees jason desperately looking for somewhere to study and pulls his bag off the other chair at the table, silently offering.

jason sits down and tries to work, he really does. he's got all his architecture and literature textbooks out, and it works for a little while. jason notices that among the guy's textbooks, there's a few open poetry books that he seemed to read on his study breaks.  jason recognizes a few of them and feels a nagging desire to say something smart, something that strikes up an interesting conversation with this really cute stranger, "emily dickinson was a lesbian."

his faces goes red as he dies on the inside. surprising him, cute stranger stares at him and says something along the lines of, "oscar wilde and michelangelo were definitely gay too."

jason learns the cute boy's name is nico di angelo, and it's gotta be one of the prettiest names he's ever heard used by a real human being. he introduces himself and nico tells him his name is pretty. they're both double majors, something they impressed eachother with because they hadn't often heard of other people taking two majors. nico double-majors in economics and psychology, which impresses jason a lot. jason double-majors in english and architecture.

they're fast friends, and apparently great study buddies because they make it a schedule to study together nearly everyday. they meet up at the library, the yard in front of the school, campus gardens, family-owned cafes off campus. they get to know each other a lot, and realize they're in a few of the same psych and classical studies classes. apparently, nico's that one kid who was late to class and scaled the side of the building to climb through the window. nico discovers that jason's the kid who poured a 6-hour energy into a starbucks black coffee with twelve shots of espresso in it.

more under cut

after exams are over, they both feel dread at the thought that they won't meet up as often anymore. well, it's a lie, they're friends now and they ain't ever gonna let each other go.

they figure out they've got a ton of mutual friends— so many it's odd they've never met before then. percy the bio major who's on the swim team, annabeth who's in the same architecture course as jason, reyna who majors in business and polisci and is the only other person they know who's a double-major. they start by hanging out with their mutual friends, then they introduce each other to their other friends. soon enough, practically everyone they know is in the same friend group.

the ENTIRE group ships jason and nico. they want it to happen so bad in fact, that they literally set them up??

the theatre club is planning a modern— and lgbt friendly— reimagination of one of shakespeare's classics. piper and percy trick nico and jason into "helping them make their audition tape", when in reality they're not sending the audition tape for themselves. jason and nico get the parts of the two main characters.

that's a story for another time though. in short, it works, and jason and nico start dating after opening night. piper and percy are proud to say that they're the reason why.

they planned to have their first "date" date at a poetry slam, where nico's friend's band would play. there was a power outage, so both events were cancelled. instead of rescheduling the date, nico got the idea to bring jason to the roof of his apartment building with his ipad and some snacks. they binged a few movies and watched their part of the city light up when the power came back on.

jason's roommate just moved out and he really can't afford his apartment on his own. no matter how appealing the thought of living with nico sounds, it's way too soon to ask him if he'd move in with him. surprising him, nico asks jason if he'd like to move into nico's apartment— the one he lives alone in which is far nicer than jason's and is 50% paid for by his dad. nico says it's because jason's building doesn't allow dogs and he'd want to bring his dog with him if he moved. hazel and reyna know it's because nico would prefer jason to live in a less cramped space. jason agrees anyway.

nico technically has two dogs, one he co-owns with percy who's name is mrs. o' leary. the second one is a pup of his father's purebred rottweiler cerberus— she's half bear hunting dog, retaining ceberus's coloring but is far larger and far fuffier. her name's amelia. jason fucking loves her, but he's a cat person at heart.

jason successfully convinces nico to adopt a cat—  a gorgeous grey ragdoll who he's named tempest the second, after the cat from jason's childhood.

everybody will assume that between the two of them, nico's the sleep-deprived one. they're not wrong, but most people don't know that jason's even fucking worse. his skin is just so perfect that he never gets eye bags. he can go for almost a full week without sleeping. nico hates this but jason says nico does the same thing.

"no babe, it’s not the same, the longest I've gone without sleep is four days and you haven't slept since last tuesday."

nico has a habit of humming and softly singing when he's bored or distracted. once, jason had his head in nico's lap and nico was combing through his hair with his fingers. nico suddenly begins to sing really softly, something italian that jason's never heard before but if he has he can't tell. he falls asleep in like under five minutes, which surprises nico because jason's so stubborn about sleep. at first he doesn't know why jason fell asleep so fast, until a little over a week later when jason asks him to do it again. (nico thinks it's really fucking cute.)

in reality, nico knows why jason doesn't sleep that much.

before nico met jason, he kind of thought that jay was a spoilt rich kid who played lacrosse in high school or something. he always admired that jason was very hardworking— had two jobs and worked his ass off for his grades, and still spared time for his friends. he didn't realize until later on in their relationship that he was kind of right at first— jason hailed from a rich family, but they didn't want to pay for anything unless he was studying to be a lawyer like his dad. nico loves that about jason— he had the option to have his tuition, his rent, everything paid for as long as he studied something he had no passion in. and he decided he'd rather work.

(and when jason told him, it broke nico's heart because he knew what being abandoned by your family like that felt like. hades is a far better father now— he pays nico's tuition, half of his rent and actually enjoys communicating with him— but nico still remembers his life when he wasn't. it's a little bit of the reason why nico asked jason to move in with him, so that he didn't have to work so hard for rent as well as tuition)

that's all i've got anon i don't know anything about the college experience i'm sorry