#This is why Seasick episodes are slow

[sarcasticratsims]

Roy...wtf where are your manners

@amaranthinessims

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Love Sea - Episode 1

Like I said before I'm feeling chatty today so I'm just gonna write while I watch and then decide if I'm gonna post. I'll probably post. If you're reading this I obviously did. Anyway I've had dinner and now I have my coffee. How are we feeling about another Mame show? I haven't read anything about this one. I went into Wedding Plan sceptic, to say the least, and it was a wonderful surprise. Although Love in the air part 2 was not a pleasant experience, I will do my best to have an open mind. OK. Let's do this.

-The sea is always a plus. I miss it so much. -LOL the slow-mo. We get it, we're suppose to be drooling. -This is an important pen. ok maybe not. is it just for the title shot? -This place is gorgeous. Heaven indeed. -No one will get this, but I just rewatched Barakamon and this is exactly what happens when Handa gets to the island as well. Heaven for some. Hell for others. -Are they gonna write 'southern dialect' on top of the subs every time he speaks??? -See I don't know thai, so how different is the southern dialect really? If anyone knows please tell me. I'm really curious now. -I don't think it's because he has a pretty face though. I'm sure he suffered some trauma and that's why he's an asshole. -Oh her. I missed her. Is she gonna be a couple too? Does this have a gl side couple? -oh hello Ja. you're here too? I'm pretty sure I watched the trailer for this but apparently I don't remember anything. -This hostility feels so forced. Like they are creating the enemies in 'the enemies to lovers' as we speak. -I'd like a Martini. But I don't have vermouth. Life is so unfair. -I like that he keeps speaking in dialect. It's so petty I love it. - That backfired now but I'm sure this is all atitude and Mut will actually be thinking about this moment later. -Declarations like this in a bl are guaranteed to mean exactly the opposite. -It's because of people like this guy that hotels have so much food waste. That's probably the most depressing think about working in a hotel. Also costumers like him. -'Money can't buy me.' That's just something people say. How much? 5000 bhts? let me just quickly google how much that is. 125,65 euros as of right now. Just to not speak the dialect? I think you can get more. 7000... 10 000… 15000… so that's around 376 euros. Not bad for basically doing nothing. -This whole convo is reminding of Auto in DR. 'Yeah, throw money at me. Screw dignity' -I'm really enjoying Fort. The sarcasm is delicious. -I really miss the beach. -This proposal sounds..indecent. -The last man on earth thing again. You're just asking for it now. -Yiwa is back. I know that's not her name here but it's too soon. Rehearsing in front of the mirror. I should do this. I'm sure it would save me some headaches. -Second person in a ql that can't change a lightbulb. Oh wait she's lying. Is this like Dee? She pretends she can't change the lightbulb just so the girl does it for her? Very mysterious. What is she planning... - I also don't get it. What does having sex have to do with anything? -That was fast. Already thinking of him? I guess if rude is your thing who am I to judge? or have they met before? have they met as kids??? The plot thickens. just in my head tho. -Never trust auto-save. Just when you need it, it will let you down. -That was so dramatic. Like I get that this is probably a trauma response but that was a lot. He's been an asshole this whole time, how am I suppose to empathise? Mut is a better person than me. -I choose clams. I love clams. But on land. I'm getting seasick just from watching. The End oh wait. there's more. wait what did he say? There were no subs for that bit. Oh well he's already smitten.

That's a nice background for the credits. I wonder if it will change with the episodes. Like Gaya Sa Pelikula. Probably, right?

Well that was...okay. Too early to say much but I'm enjoying Mut. And Yiwa is back on my screen! And I'm really happy to have a show set on the beach. I shall continue watching this for now.

I won't do this every time though. Today is an aberration. It was a weird day but I have too much energy.

I should check on the elections, I'm sure that will bring my mood right back down. Oh but tomorrow is a holiday so I can do nothing all day. I'm happy again. Ok. bye.

[papermoonloveslucy]

THE BOUNDING MAIN!

Nautical Lucy ~ Part 1

There’s nothing as joyous as being on the open water! Whether it be a lake, a river, or the ocean - Lucy was as funny on the sea as on land. Here are some early maritime escapades! 

“I’m Building a Saleboat of Dreams” (1939) ~ by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin, sung by Desi Arnaz. 

In real life, Desi Arnaz loved fishing and owned a boat called the Desilu. Being from Cuba, he had a special affinity for the ocean. 

Lucy and Desi leaning over the rail of a motorboat in 1943. 

Meet the People (1944) ~ The Commander (Bert Lahr) names his boat after Julie (Lucille Ball). It was formerly the Lana Turner! 

“The Quiz Show” (1948) & “Lucy Gets Ricky on the Radio” (1952) ~ To make sure he wins, Lucy steals the answers, but then they change the questions!  The same nautical question was first used on “My Favorite Husband.” 

ORIGINAL QUESTION: Why was the steamship Ile de France put in dry dock recently? FISHBOWL QUESTION: Why did the French people put Marie Antoinette under the sharp blade of the guillotine? LUCY’S ANSWER: To scrape the barnacles off her hull.

“Secretarial School” (1949) ~ An episode of Lucille Ball’s radio show “My Favorite Husband” references “On A Slow Boat to China” a popular song by Frank Loesser, published in 1948. In October and November 1948, it was recorded by no less than five artists: Kay Kyser, Freddy Martin, Benny Goodman, Art Lund, and Larry Clinton. 

GEORGE: “Now explain this last shorthand mystery to me: a circle, a ship, and laundry ticket.” LIZ: “That’s the title of a phonograph record I want to buy - 'A Slow Boat To China’.”

“Liz’s Radio Script” (1950) ~ An episode of “My Favorite Husband” references the inventor of the steamboat and the 1929 musical Show Boat. George makes fun of Liz’s radio script. 

LIZ: “Go ahead and laugh. They laughed at Robert Fulton, too, you know!” GEORGE: “Robert Fulton? What did he write?” LIZ: “You think I don’t know? ‘Show Boat’”!

Show Boat’s most famous song, “Old Man River”, would be referenced on several Lucille Ball sitcom episodes. 

On August 9, 1952 Lucy and Desi were featured on the cover of TV Digest, a competitor of TV Guide as part of their inside story “Visiting The Stars on Vacation”.

The cover photo was part of a larger photo shoot of Lucy and Desi in a motorboat.

“Lucy is Envious” (1954) ~ When a wealthy high school chum (Mary Jane Croft) puts the bite on Lucy for a charitable donation, lucy fibs about owning a yacht. 

CYNTHIA: Where do you go in Florida? Miami or West Palm Beach? LUCY: Uh, you go West Palm Beach, huh? CYNTHIA: Miami. LUCY: Oh, we go West Palm Beach. CYNTHIA: But, darling, the harbor's so small there. What do you do with your yacht? LUCY: To make it fit, we crank down the smokestack and squeeze in the poop deck.

“Nursery School” (1955) ~ The first painting Little Ricky does is interpreted as an elephant sailing a houseboat. Lucy says he will be another “Grandpa Moses”!

Dell’s “I Love Lucy Comics” (1955) ~ published a story about Lucy and Ethel and a cruise ship - very different from the one on the television show. 

“Staten Island Ferry” (1956) ~ To make sure Fred won’t get seasick on their transatlantic crossing, Lucy accompanies him on a test sailing on the Staten Island Ferry. 

Although the episode was filmed in Hollywood, second unit footage of the real Staten Island Ferry was used. The ferry seen in the episode is named the 'Gold Star Mother,’ which entered service in 1937.

Full of dramamine, both Lucy and Fred conk out on the deck! 

“Bon Voyage” & “Second Honeymoon” (1956) ~ To get the gang to Europe, the show goes by sea on the S.S. Consitution, which was a real life transatlantic liner operated by American Export Lines.

In a last minute deal, the line agreed to supply Desilu with technical support and branded props. This was similar to the deal Desilu made with Pontiac for the trip to California. 

ETHEL: This sea air makes me hungry. FRED: We haven’t even left the dock yet. (To the others) Wait till she finds out the food’s free. She’ll be the biggest bundle Britain’s ever seen.

No actual filming was done on the Consitution. Desi Arnaz recreated the ship on the Desilu soundstage, one of the most expensive sets in television history. 

Second unit footage of the actual Constitution in New York Harbor was intercut with studio footage, including aerial footage of the Constitution, the pilot boat, and the tug boat. In “Second Honeymoon” (set entirely on the ship), the plot emulates the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, ending with Lucy stuck in a porthole, just like Marilyn Monroe in the film. 

LUCY: Ethel, what’s the name of this boat? ETHEL: The S.S. Constitution, why? LUCY: From the way everybody’s paired up, I thought maybe it was the S.S. Noah’s Ark!

“Deep Sea Fishing” & “Desert Island” (1955) ~ While vacationing in Miami Beach, the Ricardos and Mertzes make use of a Cruis Along fishing boat.  Although Lucy and Desi had actually visited Miami the previous summer, this episode utilizes extensive second unit footage using doubles for the cast.

FRED: This Cruis Along is a dandy little boat, Rick!

In addition to the logo being clearly visible on the boat, Fred’s line gives the company verbal advertising. At some point, the company became a subsidiary of the Century Boat Company, which is still in business today.

The fishing boat scenes were re-created on a California sound stage using a water tank and rear projection for sea and sky.

“Lucy Takes a Cruise To Havana” (1957) ~ The very first hour-long adventure of the Ricardos and Mertzes tells how Lucy and Ricky met when she took a cruise from New York to Havana with her friend Susie MacNamara (Ann Sothern) in 1940. As usual, the episode combines studio footage and insert shots of the actual ship. 

The ship that Lucy and Susie sail on is the R.M.S. Caronia, which was a real-life Cunard Line vessel. However, the ship did not enter service until 1949 and this episode is set in 1940. Cunard was then known as Cunard-White Star Line.

Single Susie calls the ship the S.S. YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). Bachelorette Lucy mentions that she heard that this was the ship’s 'maiden’ voyage – making a pun about the lack of available men on board. Coincidentally, Fred and Ethel Mertz are on the ship as well – on a belated Honeymoon cruise - even though they were married in 1928!

Also sailing is crooner Rudy Vallee, who jumps overboard to escape his female fans. 

CRUISE DIRECTOR: “If Mr. Cunard ever hears about this I’ll be demoted to the Albany Night Boat.”

While filming second unit footage in and around Havana, revolutionary violence broke out. Desi instructed his crew to get out of there fast!  

Forever Darling (1957) ~ Lucy and Desi play Susan and Lorenzo Vega. Chemist Lorenzo is developing an insecticide and plans to test it on a camping trip with Susan, but rafting on the lake to collect specimens lands them both in the drink!

“Lucy Goes to Mexico” (1958) ~ The end of this hour-long episode is set aboard the U.S.S. Yorktown, one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the US Navy.

The Admiral of the Yorktown says he’s been leery of actors ever since he saw The Caine Mutiny, the action of which is set on the U.S.S. Caine. The 1954 film starred "I Love Lucy” and “Comedy Hour” performers Fred MacMurray, Claude Akins, and Van Johnson. The stage play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial was mentioned by Miss Hanna (Ellen Corby) in “Lucy Meets Orson Welles” (1956).

“Lucy’s Summer Vacation” (1959) ~ Lucy and Ricky escape to a lakeside cabin in Vermont. Unfortunately, it has been double booked - with Howard Duff and Ida Lupino. Howard and Ricky want to do nothing except fishing. Lucy drills holes in the row boat to keep the men in the cabin, not on the lake. 

The Arnaz family boarding the French Line’s S.S. Liberté in New York in 1959. Greeted by a line of the ship’s bellhops, one of who holds Lucy’s fur coat for the photo. Liberté was featured prominently in the Jane Russell film The French Line. Liberté made an appearance in the opening credits of the 1953 film How to Marry a Millionaire, as well as the 1954 classic film Sabrina, starring Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. She was scrapped in 1962.

Facts of Life (1960) ~ Lucy and Bob Hope play married folks - but not to each other - who are flirting with infidelity. Abandoned by their spouses and a third couple for deep-sea fishing on their Acapulco vacation, Larry and Kitty bond on the high seas. 

“Lucy Buys a Boat” (1963) ~ Lucy talks Viv into buying a boat that’s barely seaworthy. When they finally get it on the lake, it slips away from its moorings, trapping a seasick Viv and a bossy Lucy without a sail. 

An ad in the Danfield appeals to Lucy, who said when she was a little girl she practically lived on boats.

Answer the call of the seven seas!  An unforgettable adventure for your whole family! For sale: 26 foot sailboat, sleeps 5, large galley, complete with trailer, only $100 down.  

Lucy says that Viv has brought enough seasickness pills for the Queen Mary. Lucy Ricardo also brought a supply of seasickness pills when sailing on the S.S. Constitution (above). 

Then the leaks start springing up!

Nautical Vocabulary!

VIV: “I’m afraid I’m just a landlubber at heart.”

Landlubber ~ Lubber is an old word (dating from the 14th century) meaning a clumsy or stupid person. The term landlubber refers to an unseasoned sailor.

VIV: “I’ll bet this is the first time anybody’s been shanghaied on a lake.”

Shanghaied ~ force someone to join a ship lacking a full crew by coercion or other underhanded means.

JERRY (to LUCY): “You’d better give us a rest, or you are going to have your first mutiny.”

Mutiny ~ an open rebellion against the proper authorities, especially by soldiers or sailors against their officers. The most famous in popular culture was in Mutiny on the Bounty, so Jerry is continuing the analogy of Lucy to Captain Bligh.

VIV (to LUCY): “Oh, go shiver yer timbers.”

“Shiver Me Timbers” ~ is an exclamation usually attributed to the speech of pirates in works of fiction. The word ‘shiver’ means “to break into small fragments or splinters” while the ‘timbers’ refer to the wooden support frames of old sailing ships. So the saying was most likely alluding to the shock of a large wave or cannonball causing the hull to shudder or split asunder.

LUCY (into telephone): “We’ve been working on her for days and she’s really yar!”

Yar ~ When a boat is trim, responsive, and in all ways lively in handling. In The Philadelphia Story (1940), Kate Hepburn’s character famously says about a boat “My, she was yar!”

In 1965, Lucy and Gary Morton attend the premiere of the film Ship of Fools, based on the book by Katherine Ann Porter set aboard an ocean liner from Germany from Mexico in 1933. The film was a punchline in “Lucy and the Little Old Lady” (1972). 

[aboveallarescuer]

Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.1: Valar Dohaeris

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Scene 1

Summary: show!Dany and show!Jorah are on a ship. The two discuss a) the dragons' growth, b) whether it's worth being complicit in the slave trade or not and c) the Dothraki's seasickness.

We begin the episode with this conversation about the dragons:

JORAH: They're growing fast.

DAENERYS: Not fast enough. I can't wait that long. I need an army.

Is it true that Dany needs the dragons to conquer Westeros and wishes they were bigger than they are at this point in the books? It is:

Another year, or perhaps two, and he may be large enough to ride. Then I shall have no need of ships to cross the great salt sea.

But that time was not yet come. Rhaegal and Viserion were the size of small dogs, Drogon only a little larger, and any dog would have outweighed them; they were all wings and neck and tail, lighter than they looked. And so Daenerys Targaryen must rely on wood and wind and canvas to bear her home. (ASOS Daenerys I)

However, that's not all there is to their relationship. Dany loves them as she would love her own human children:

They are my children, she told herself, and if the maegi spoke truly, they are the only children I am ever like to have. (ASOS Daenerys I)

Because she loves them like a mother would, she pays attention to how they grow and develop and act like a mother would:

Dragons always preferred to attack from above, Dany had learned. Should either get between the other and the sun, he would fold his wings and dive screaming, and they would tumble from the sky locked together in a tangled scaly ball, jaws snapping and tails lashing. The first time they had done it, she feared that they meant to kill each other, but it was only sport. No sooner would they splash into the sea than they would break apart and rise again, shrieking and hissing, the salt water steaming off them as their wings clawed at the air. (ASOS Daenerys I)

That level of care and attention (and her own cleverness in the choice of the word "dracarys") is what allows her to figure out how to order them to breathe fire on her own:

She took a chunk of salt pork out of the bowl in her lap and held it up for her dragons to see. All three of them eyed it hungrily. Rhaegal spread green wings and stirred the air, and Viserion’s neck swayed back and forth like a long pale snake’s as he followed the movement of her hand. “Drogon,” Dany said softly, “dracarys.” And she tossed the pork in the air.

Drogon moved quicker than a striking cobra. Flame roared from his mouth, orange and scarlet and black, searing the meat before it began to fall. As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal’s head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother’s jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration.

“Stop that, Rhaegal,” Dany said in annoyance, giving his head a swat.

“You had the last one. I’ll have no greedy dragons.” She smiled at Ser Jorah. “I won’t need to char their meat over a brazier any longer.”

“So I see. Dracarys?”

All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word, and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. “Be careful with that word, ser, or they’re like to singe your beard off. It means ‘dragonfire’ in High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like to utter by chance.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

She feels a lot of pride for them and knows how to distinguish each of them:

Every man of them, from captain to cook’s boy, loved to watch the three fly … though none so much as Dany.

[...] Viserion’s scales were the color of fresh cream, his horns, wing bones, and spinal crest a dark gold that flashed bright as metal in the sun. Rhaegal was made of the green of summer and the bronze of fall. They soared above the ships in wide circles, higher and higher, each trying to climb above the other.

[...] Drogon was aloft as well, though not in sight; he would be miles ahead, or miles behind, hunting.

He was always hungry, her Drogon. (ASOS Daenerys I)

Now, does this scene prevent any of these aspects from being true for show!Dany as well? No. That being said, not only these aspects don't come across as strongly in this scene (aside from how proud she is of them), it's also important to notice the show's priorities: they would rather focus on how show!Dany is dissatisfied with their slow growth because of her need to wage war and take back the Iron Throne (which, as I said in this post, is only a means to an end rather than the end that Dany really wants). Benioff describes Dany as "fiercely ambitious" and says in this video that "what she wants, more than anything, is to return home and to reclaim her birthright". I can't agree with these descriptions, so I need to call out this scene's priorities.

*

Related to how Benioff feels about Dany, we also have show!Dany saying this:

DAENERYS: Not fast enough. I can't wait that long. I need an army.

At this point in the books, Dany isn't even thinking of that, she is thinking that she will go to Pentos and meet Illyrio.

“From Meereen I am sold to Qohor, and then to Pentos and the fat man with sweet stink in his hair. He it was who send Strong Belwas back across the sea, and old Whitebeard to serve him.”

The fat man with sweet stink in his hair ... “Illyrio?” she said. “You were sent by Magister Illyrio?”

“We were, Your Grace,” old Whitebeard replied. (ACOK Daenerys V)

(Now, it could be argued, like @rainhadaenerys​ did in this meta, that show!Dany has more agency than Dany when she realizes, on her own, that she needs an army. It's a valid perspective that can coexist with what I'm saying here.)

This change doesn't bode well with the fact that they are choosing to portray the Iron Throne as show!Dany's most important goal when, like I just said, this is not what primarily motivates Dany. They are making show!Dany more ambitious (which, again, is not a bad thing in and of itself) than in canon and will have her pay the price for that later on.

*

JORAH: We'll be in Astapor by nightfall. Some say the Unsullied are the greatest soldiers in the world.

DAENERYS: The greatest slave-soldiers in the world. The distinction means a good deal to some people.

If D&D were following Dany's characterization, she wouldn't be aware of how deplorable and unacceptable slavery is at this point:

“...In Astapor you can buy Unsullied.”

“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons, and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride horses, and most of them are fat.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

Some people could argue that show!Dany's awareness of these issues from the get-go is a good change. However, I think it detracts from Dany's character development quite a bit. As @khaleesirin​ says here:

Dany’s supposed arbitrariness and hypocrisy ranging from “why wasn’t she against slavery earlier?” to “why did she leave Astapor?” stem from the fact that her beliefs, her core principles, were “anti-foundational”; they didn’t come from some pre-existing knowledge she adapted as a priori truth. They were all a result of her actual experiences. (x)

With this change, show!Dany misses out on the chance to receive this sort of growth; it detracts from her arc being of someone who develops her political goals and moral values along the way and may actually later validate claims that Dany is too self-righteous (she never was). Now, to be fair to the show writers (and I know this can be hard), particularly to Weiss (who, at least back in 2013, seemed to be much more sympathetic towards Dany than Benioff), he knows that Dany was a slave herself and that that informs her feelings and eventual actions against the masters (And so does Emilia Clarke). Even so, I have to say: I don't think Dany would have gone to Astapor if she were fully aware of the implications of being complicit in the slave trade.

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In these passages, we find out that witnessing the Unsullied's training is so hard for Dany that it makes her cry. It makes her question Jorah's honor as a knight for having thought that it was okay to bring her there. It makes her want to leave Astapor and never look back. I would say that Dany is an accidental queen (in the sense that she only became one for very specific circumstances, namely that all the men around her died) and, similarly, an accidental revolutionary - not in the sense that her haters argue (i.e. she just wanted an army and it became convenient to free the slaves), but rather because she only ended up in Astapor for very specific reasons: a) she didn't know how wrong slavery was and thought that slaves were treated like normal servants and b) she needed an army (not because of her "ambition", but because she realized that she shouldn't depend entirely on Illyrio and remain a beggar queen).

Show!Dany, on the other hand, knows that slavery is unacceptable and still sails to Astapor. Some things remain like they are in the books despite that change: like Dany, show!Dany still feels empathy for the slaves and risks a dragon solely because she wanted to free them. However, on a superficial read, it gives a bit of weight to the notion that she is too ambitious or that freeing the slaves was only a secondary goal to that of getting an army. Even if show canon can still disprove these claims, it's frustrating because they would be even easier to debunk if the show writers had been more faithful to the books.

*

JORAH: Do those people have any better ideas about how to put you on the Iron Throne?

DAENERYS: It's too beautiful a day to argue.

One of Dany's core traits is that she is open-minded and accepting of feedback, both positive and negative.

“A queen must listen to all,” she reminded him. “The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“Your Grace, I did not mean to give offense.”

“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

This characteristic, however, doesn't come across in this scene, in which show!Dany is brushing off any discussion and trying to retain her own opinion on the matter. 

Now, this is not to say that there aren't moments in which we see show!Dany listening to her advisors and following their counsel (there are many) - heck, even now, she is following show!Jorah's advice since she is still going to Astapor despite her misgivings. 

However, considering that:

a) the show is, in this episode, adapting parts of ACOK Daenerys V and ASOS Daenerys I and II (all of which contain explicit moments of Dany asking for advice and feedback and truth from her advisors, even if they disagree with her),

b) the show will later try to paint show!Dany as reckless or dangerous when she doesn't listen to her advisors and

c) there's a widespread misconception that Dany (especially the show version) is unable to consider other people's perspectives... I end up looking askance at this scene. 

They could have written many others (such as any of the three examples from the books that I showed above) that would have left us with a different impression of Dany. Worse scenes will come, of course, but I'm taking note of every single thing that may have helped to mischaracterize Dany in the eyes of the general audience.

Also, unlike show!Dany (who isn't shown onscreen offering either counterarguments or "better ideas" than show!Jorah's advice to turn Astapor), Dany is shown onpage making lots of questions to Jorah's counsel before deciding to follow it:

“How am I to buy a thousand slave soldiers? All I have of value is the crown the Tourmaline Brotherhood gave me.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

“Those are Illyrio’s tiger skins,” she objected.
“And Illyrio is a friend to House Targaryen.”
 (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

“There will be dangers on such a long march ...” (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

“What if Captain Groleo refuses to change course, though? And Arstan, Strong Belwas, what will they do?” (ASOS Daenerys I)

While it could be argued that Dany is not offering "better ideas" here either, that's not my point: my point is that Dany is being shown here as an active player who takes part in discussions of which course of action to take, which is not what we tend to see in the show. Indeed, there are plenty of moments in which the series has show!Dany follow her advisors' counsel with no objections or complements of her own at all. That's why there are lots of different flavors of misconceptions about Dany: when it comes to whether she listens to people's advice or not, some argue that she can't think on her own and depends too much on them, some argue that she is too self-absorbed and never listens. In D&D's case, they have said that show!Dany has only relied on the men around her for the first two seasons, which is blatantly untrue in the books - see examples of Dany making her own decisions in both AGOT and ACOK here and here. Their misunderstanding of Dany is what makes me wary of this scene (for it is informed by said misunderstanding), so it's necessary to point out that what it intends to convey about show!Dany isn't what the books intend to convey about Dany.

*

Then, we have this:

DAENERYS: It's too beautiful a day to argue.

(Dothraki man vomiting)

JORAH: You're right. Another lovely day on the high seas.

DAENERYS: Don't mock them. They're the first Dothraki who have ever been on a ship. They followed me across the poison water. If they'll do it, others will. And with a true khalasar ...

JORAH: The Dothraki follow strength above all, khaleesi. You'll have a true khalasar when you prove yourself strong. And not before.

This exchange may be brief, but it is wrong and offensive on so many levels.

First, show!Dany seems to suggest that she is interested in expanding her khalasar when she says that "if they'll [follow her across the poison water], others will", which is something Dany never expressed any desire to do in the books.

Second, both show!Dany and show!Jorah think that the former doesn't really have "a true khalasar". Why doesn't she have a "true khalasar"? Is it because they are too few? Is it because show!Dany hasn't proven herself strong (as show!Jorah puts it)? In any case, both suggestions are bullshit. Dany does consider her "meager" group (as she puts it) a khalasar:

“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. (ACOK Daenerys I)

~

Yet even as her dragons prospered, her khalasar withered and died. (ACOK Daenerys I)

~

Aggo, Jhogo, and Rakharo were brave warriors, but they were young, and too valuable to risk. They kept her khalasar together, and were her best scouts too. (ASOS Daenerys V)

Also, while I've criticized the underdevelopment of Dany's khalasar before, each of them have different reactions to traveling at sea, so the show's portrayal manages to make their lack of characterization even worse:

Her brave young bloodriders had stared off at the dwindling coastline with huge white eyes, each of the three determined to show no fear before the other two, while her handmaids Irri and Jhiqui clutched the rail desperately and retched over the side at every little swell. The rest of Dany’s tiny khalasar remained below decks, preferring the company of their nervous horses to the terrifying landless world about the ships. When a sudden squall had enveloped them six days into the voyage, she heard them through the hatches; the horses kicking and screaming, the riders praying in thin quavery voices each time Balerion heaved or swayed. (ASOS Daenerys I)

Perhaps more importantly, unlike what show!Jorah says, Dany's khalasar is already devoted and faithful to Dany ever since she walked out of the pyre unscathed with three dragons. They already think that she is strong:

She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away ... yet she was unhurt.

[...] The men of her khas came up behind him. Jhogo was the first to lay his arakh at her feet. “Blood of my blood,” he murmured, pushing his face to the smoking earth. “Blood of my blood,” she heard Aggo echo. “Blood of my blood,” Rakharo shouted.

And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo’s. (AGOT Daenerys X)

~

“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo’s people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law. (ACOK Daenerys I)

~

Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki-fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. “I have won no victories,” she tried telling her handmaid when the bell tinkled softly.

Jhiqui disagreed. “You burned the maegi in their house of dust and sent their souls to hell.” (ACOK Daenerys V)

At this point, Dany doesn't have to prove herself as a leader to anyone because she has already done so. However, D&D seem to think that show!Dany still has to. What's even worse is that this plot point will be forgotten; show!Dany's khalasar will only make a brief appearance in season four and then disappear until she's captured and later unites all the khalasars to her cause. Then, when show!Dany crosses the narrow sea in season six, the Dothraki's fear of the "poison water" will no longer be an inconvenience (even though she is carrying thousands of them). It's lazy writing that, nonetheless, undermines Dany's character.

Finally, while at least they have show!Dany empathizing with the Dothraki the way Dany also does in the book, I wish the writers had made show!Dany empathize with the Dothraki based on her experiences like Dany does, because it highlights that Dany is humble and views herself as an equal to them:

The Dothraki distrusted the sea and all that moved upon it. Water that a horse could not drink was water they wanted no part of. They will learn, Dany resolved. I braved their sea with Khal Drogo. Now they can brave mine. (ACOK Daenerys V)

This scene may last for less than two minutes, but, as you can see, there's still a lot of wrong (or at least questionable) to dissect in it.

Scene 2

Summary: show!Dany is given a tour of the Unsullied barracks by Kraznys while show!Missandei translates his Valyrian into the Common Tongue. Show!Dany is outraged by their training, but show!Jorah still urges her to purchase them. On the way to the ship, show!Dany is distracted by a child who turns out to be an assassin sent to deliver a deadly manticore to kill her. Show!Barristan impales the manticore with his dagger and the child leaves. Then, show!Barristan introduces himself to show!Dany and offers her his service.

Considering how other aspects were poorly handled, I think Dany’s discomfort with the Unsullied’s training was translated relatively well from the books to the show. Even so, I wish they had added more of Dany's emotional reactions:

“What is he doing?” Dany demanded of the girl, as the blood ran down the man’s chest. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“How can that be?” she demanded through the scribe. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what the Good Master said? They have no names?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that. Did he see, or is he blind as well as cruel? She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say, “Whose infants do they slay?”

“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.”

She was feeling faint. The heat, she tried to tell herself. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”

When the translation was made for him, Kraznys mo Nakloz laughed aloud. “What a soft mewling fool this one is. Tell the whore of Westeros that the mark is for the child’s owner, not the mother. The Unsullied are not permitted to steal.” He tapped his whip against his leg. “Tell her that few ever fail that test. The dogs are harder for them, it must be said. We give each boy a puppy on the day that he is cut. At the end of the first year, he is required to strangle it. Any who cannot are killed, and fed to the surviving dogs. It makes for a good strong lesson, we find.”

Arstan Whitebeard tapped the end of his staff on the bricks as he listened to that. Tap tap tap. Slow and steady. Tap tap tap. Dany saw him turn his eyes away, as if he could not bear to look at Kraznys any longer. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Even the part where show!Dany is horrified by the discovery that the Unsullied are forced to kill a baby while its mother watches (which at least the show writers rightly focused on) doesn't convey a lot of emotion like in the books... It doesn't seem like show!Dany is struggling to hide her revulsion or that her blood pressure is lowering because of her anxiety in the moment. I understand, however, that the directors never allowed Emilia Clarke to express too many feelings in her portrayal of show!Dany, so I don't tend to blame her.

I also want to take note of what is in line with the Unsullied's training in the books:

The Unsullied are forced to stand for a day with no food or water to prove their discipline and strength.

The beginning of their training, the drilling from dawn to dusk and the mastering of the weapons.

The Unsullied not being considered men.

The Unsullied not moving even after their nipples are cut off.

The Unsullied needing to go to the slave marts to kill a baby before its mother’s eyes.

There are some things that were changed or omitted, however:

Even more Unsullied die during their training: only one boy in four survives rather than one boy in three. (Which makes it even more disgusting that they will try to frame "conciliation" with and "mercy" towards the slavers as the better path in the later seasons)

No mention of the “wine of courage”, which the Unsullied drink in the books to feel less pain and endure any torture.

No mention of the puppies that the Unsullied are given only to be forced to kill a year later (and, if they don’t, they are fed to the surviving dogs).

No mention that their names are changed every day so that they lose their sense of individuality. This will be included on episode 3.5, however.

Kraznys is not shown whipping Missandei and other slaves.

Overall, the show gave us enough reasons to understand why show!Dany's rebellion against the slave masters is righteous.

The biggest problem of the scene was replacing Barristan for Jorah as the advisor who is with Dany when she meets the Unsullied: it gives room to the perspective of a slaver, who attempts to normalize the masters' treatment of the Unsullied. This undermines how abhorrent and unjust their training is. Right off the bat, we have our first sign that the show will turn into slavery apologia (to the point of later comparing Dany to the Nazis and the Ghiscari slavers to the Jews via subtext).

In the books, there is a Doylist reason as to why Barristan is with Dany when she meets the Unsullied for the first time: his presence and opinions emphasize how wrong and unacceptable the training of the Unsullied is.

“I call that madness, not courage,” said Arstan Whitebeard, when the solemn little scribe was done. He tapped the end of his hardwood staff against the bricks, tap tap, as if to tell his displeasure. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“You have lived long in the world, Whitebeard. Now that you have seen them, what do you say?”

“I say no, Your Grace,” the old man answered at once.
 (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

Arstan Whitebeard’s face was still, but his staff beat out his rage. Tap tap tap. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“Bricks and blood built Astapor,” Whitebeard murmured at her side, “and bricks and blood her people.”

“What is that?” Dany asked him, curious.

“An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them.”

“I can well believe that,” said Dany.

“Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

That's not to say, of course, that he was the one who motivated Dany to begin her abolitionist campaign (that's her decision and only hers), only that his appearance influences the framing of the scene (just like show!Jorah's appearance does). It also has negative implications for show!Dany's characterization, since, as @yendany​ said here, Dany may have unconsciously desired to have someone with an anti-slavery stance (like hers) by her side when she chose to have Barristan accompany her to meet the Unsullied.

Also, having show!Jorah be with show!Dany when she sees the training of the Unsullied means erasing the fact that, in the books, Dany left Jorah on the ship because he forced a kiss on her and she no longer trusted him enough to be alone with him. Erasing this event from the books means that Jorah's creepy and disrespectful behaviors toward Dany are, in the show writers' opinion, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, which is horrible. I will talk more about this issue in the post discussing the things from the books that the show completely left out, but I still felt the need to briefly address this here.

Replacing Barristan for Jorah also led to one of Dany's best assertions to be cut:

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In the books, this scene highlights a few things:

Dany is not looking for an army because she is "fiercely ambitious", but because she lived in poverty for years and saw her brother not getting the help he needed (something she also experienced in Qarth, despite having dragons). She knows it's not a good idea to rely entirely on others, which is why she went to Astapor. (besides her ignorance, which I already explained above and in this post)

Despite empathizing with the slaves' plight, Barristan did not go through what they went through (he is a well-intentioned ally, as you will). Dany, on the other hand, did. She was a sex slave once and does not need to be reminded that being complicit in the slave trade is morally wrong. She still remembers "how it felt to be afraid".

Show!Jorah would never say that it's "better to come a beggar than a slaver" because he is okay with slavery, making it harder for this assertion to be added. It wasn't impossible for the show writers to have added it, however - they could have simply had show!Dany be less confrontational and say, by her own initiative, that she knows what it is like to be sold and that she hasn't forgotten how it felt to be afraid. To be fair, as I already said, Weiss shows awareness that Dany's empathy is informed by the fact that she was a slave before, but there isn't any scene in the show explicitly making that point, which is quite a shame. Instead, most of the scenes seem to communicate Benioff's reading of the events:

Benioff: Idealism is wonderful, but it's not gonna happen if you're idealistic, you gotta be a realist. She feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing is gonna prevent her from achieving it. (x)

~

Benioff: For Daenerys to win, ultimately, she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso. (x)

This idea that show!Dany needs to be a "realist" makes it very likely that Benioff (and who knows which other writers) sides with show!Jorah on this discussion. This also explains why his perspective is being favored to the detriment of show!Dany's and show!Barristan's.

Also, I've already written an entire post about how Dany is not primarily driven by prophecies or destiny or, as Benioff puts it, a "divine mission".

Also, he misses out on the fact that Dany's idealism in the books (and even in the show) actually pays off. As I said here:

Like with Viserys and Drogo, Dany is influenced by both of their [Jorah's and Barristan's] recommendations and apply them in different ways while forging her own path: she will not help to maintain the oppression of the slaves like Barristan advised her, but she won’t play by the rules (because they view human beings as objects to be sold and invalidate her moral values, so they shouldn’t be acknowledged as such to begin with) like Jorah advised her: she will break the rules because of her moral duty (as she sees it) to free the slaves.

And yes, this act of rebellion will have negative (and unintended) consequences later in ASOS and ADWD, but it was still righteous and necessary for it to have happened for the reasons expressed in these links. To summarize them, ending the supremacy of the masters will always be a good thing, and this wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Dany's idealism. The books validate her idealism instead of belittling it.

*

DAENERYS: How many do you have to sell?

MISSANDEI: She asks how many Unsullied are for sale. (Kraznys points eight fingers) 8,000.

KRAZNYS: Tell the Westerosi whore she has until tomorrow.

MISSANDEI: Master Kraznys asks that you please hurry. Many other buyers are interested.

I'm singling out this part of show!Dany's talk with Kraznys and show!Missandei because I don't think the show writers really understood why Dany asked "how many do you have to sell?" in the books. First, let's see the context in which she made that question:

“Tell her it is well she came to Astapor, then. Ask her how large an army she wishes to buy.”

“How many Unsullied do you have to sell?”

“Eight thousand fully trained and available at present.[”] (ASOS Daenerys II)

As I said in this post, Dany doesn’t ask how large an army she wants (though she admits she needs soldiers), but rather how many Unsullied he has to sell. This is one of the several hints that she wants to rescue them all (not her interest to buy an army), even she must go to extreme lengths to do so. See also this passage:

“I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

She doesn't have to find a way to buy eight thousand of them. Jorah himself had only advised her to buy a thousand. But then, again, it's because she wants to free them all.

In the show, this doesn't come across. Aside from her uneasiness about the training, the show cuts all of the other moments hinting that Dany will do against the slave trade rather than be complicit in it.

“The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh,” Dany told the girl, “but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me …” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all. (ASOS Daenerys II)

It wouldn’t have been hard to have her say it out loud that she will take “more than a hundred, if any at all” or that she can’t leave the city now. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to ask Kraznys about what would happen if a hypothetical enemy offered freedom to the Unsullied.

*

To be fair, we also see show!Dany saying this to show!Jorah while they are going back to the ship:

DAENERYS: 8,000 dead babies.

Like the Dany of the books, show!Dany is also distressed at the systematic killings that allowed for the Unsullied to become who they are, so I can't say that they are only making her motivations be about the need to get an army (though, as I showed above, they overfocused on that need too). Anyway, this brings me to this part:

DAENERYS: 8,000 dead babies.

JORAH: The Unsullied are a means to an end.

DAENERYS: Once I own them, these men ...

JORAH: They're not men. Not anymore.

Unlike in the show, Dany is the one who reminds Jorah that the Unsullied are no longer men. However, the reason why she does so is completely different from show!Jorah's:

“How many men do they have for sale?”

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

I will quote myself on the significance of this scene:

Here, Dany recognizes that no human being should ever have to undergo the sort of systematic abuse and torture that the Unsullied were forced to experience in order to become as subservient as they are. Dany recognizes how dehumanizing and unacceptable that sort of treatment was for making them “like one man” meant for sale (or “not men” at all) - that’s why she tells Jorah to not call them men: she asks that he doesn’t erase their suffering and talk as if the way they were treated was, in any way, acceptable.

Jorah doesn’t understand any of this, though. While his advice for Dany to go to Astapor ultimately paid off because of Dany’s actions, we should remind ourselves that he did her no favor. I’ve already shown in another post how he still has no problem with slavery even after being exiled, and you can see that in the next passage below: he can’t understand why would Dany be angry at him for advising her to go to Astapor to buy them nor why would she be appalled by how they are treated, so he tries to normalize the situation by focusing on how effective as a force they can be (“the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained…”). That’s enough for Dany, who rightfully slaps him in the face.

She makes it clear here: if he were her true knight, he wouldn’t have brought her to Astapor. (And that he forced a kiss on her and looked at her breasts without her consent makes her anger even more pronounced, rightfully so.) Thankfully, Dany is a true queen, but not because of him.

Does any of this come across in the show? No. For one, as I said above, show!Dany is given less agency because she needs to be reminded that the Unsullied are no longer men and her righteous anger toward Jorah is erased. For two, show!Jorah's perspective is again prioritized and never called out as immoral like in the books. (Again, the show writers' bias in his favor is showing).

*

Their dialogue goes on like this:

DAENERYS: Once I own an army of slaves, what will I be?

JORAH: Do you think these slaves will have better lives serving Kraznys and men like him or serving you? You'll be fair to them. You won't mutilate them to make a point. You won't order them to murder babies. You'll see they're properly fed and sheltered. A great injustice has been done to them. Closing your eyes will not undo it.

While it's true that Jorah also gives arguments as to why Dany should buy the Unsullied, they are different ones:

“I saw King’s Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they’ll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

We'll see some of these arguments from ASOS Daenerys II being expressed in episode 3.3, but that's not my point: my point is that the show writers prioritized show!Jorah's point of view so much that they created new arguments for him to make show!Jorah seem, as Benioff puts it, "realist". In the books, for instance, Jorah never acknowledges that “a great injustice has been done to them” - he only focuses on how they'll be useful to Dany and how they'll cause less collateral damage (which is what Dany wants). So, again, we had foreshadowing for the show's turn into slavery apologia right from the beginning of show!Dany's storyline, especially when one compares it to the books (which are far from perfect; I've already criticized, for instance, the books' lack of attention to the freedmen's perspectives. Even then, however, I doubt they'll be justifying slavery any time soon).

*

Then we get to the scene in the docks. Honestly, I don't understand why they changed it so much. I’m not even referring to the fact that it takes place in Astapor rather than Qarth, but rather to other two major divergences.

First, in the books, Jorah notices that he and Dany are being followed:

As they made their way toward the next quay, Ser Jorah laid a hand against the small of her back. “Your Grace. You are being followed. No, do not turn.” (ACOK Daenerys V)

Dany makes plenty of questions and observations about the followers as she observes them:

Dany let her glance sweep over the strangers. The brown man was near as wide as he’d looked in the platter, with a gleaming bald head and the smooth cheeks of a eunuch. A long curving arakh was thrust through the sweat-stained yellow silk of his bellyband. Above the silk, he was naked but for an absurdly tiny iron-studded vest. Old scars crisscrossed his tree-trunk arms, huge chest, and massive belly, pale against his nut-brown skin.

The other man wore a traveler’s cloak of undyed wool, the hood thrown back. Long white hair fell to his shoulders, and a silky white beard covered the lower half of his face. He leaned his weight on a hardwood staff as tall as he was. Only fools would stare so openly if they meant me harm. All the same, it might be prudent to head back toward Jhogo and Aggo. “The old man does not wear a sword,” she said to Jorah in the Common Tongue as she drew him away. (ACOK Daenerys V)

She also has a very funny scene with a merchant; he wants to sell a platter for an expensive price and she keeps asking for it to go down, but she is actually only using the platter to pay attention to how the two men following her look like and what they will do. It’s a scene showcasing both her cleverness and her sense of humor:

“A most excellent brass, great lady,” the merchant exclaimed. “Bright as the sun! And for the Mother of Dragons, only thirty honors.”

The platter was worth no more than three. “Where are my guards?” Dany declared. “This man is trying to rob me!” For Jorah, she lowered her voice and spoke in the Common Tongue. “They may not mean me ill. Men have looked at women since time began, perhaps it is no more than that.”

The brass-seller ignored their whispers. “Thirty? Did I say thirty? Such a fool I am. The price is twenty honors.”

“All the brass in this booth is not worth twenty honors,” Dany told him as she studied the reflections. The old man had the look of Westeros about him, and the brown-skinned one must weigh twenty stone. The Usurper offered a lordship to the man who kills me, and these two are far from home. Or could they be creatures of the warlocks, meant to take me unawares? (ACOK Daenerys V)

Second, in the books, a Qartheen offers Dany a jewel box:

A Qartheen stepped into her path. “Mother of Dragons, for you.” He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.

Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. “You are too generous.” She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. (ACOK Daenerys V)

It makes sense for Dany to fall into this person's trap because she was receiving gifts from the Qartheen and people from other regions all the time during her stay simply for being the Mother of Dragons. (Which is not to say that they ultimately helped her; they did not)

In the show, a random child somehow captures show!Dany’s attention enough so that show!Dany follows her for no reason and then gets fooled. It doesn’t make much sense and actually portrays show!Dany as someone who is easily distracted by things. The only detail that is salvageable is that show!Dany is able to guess that the assassin was sent by the warlocks, just like Dany applies the knowledge she had previously received of the Sorrowful Men to correctly identify the person who tried to kill her as one.

*

Finally, we get to show!Barristan's introduction.

DAENERYS: You know this man?

JORAH: I know him as one of the greatest fighters the Seven Kingdoms has ever seen and as the Lord Commander of Robert Baratheon's Kingsguard.

BARRISTAN: King Robert is dead. I have been searching for you, Daenerys Stormborn, to ask your forgiveness. I was sworn to protect your family. I failed them. I am Barristan Selmy, Kingsguard to your father. Allow me to join your Queensguard and I will not fail you again.

First, as I said above, the show erases most (if not all) the moments in which Jorah attempts to isolate Dany from other men and make her distrust them. This moment is one of those:

“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.

“I saw him perhaps a dozen times ... from afar most often, standing with his brothers or riding in some tourney. But every man in the Seven Kingdoms knew Barristan the Bold.” He laid the point of his sword against the old man’s neck. “Khaleesi, before you kneels Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who betrayed your House to serve the Usurper Robert Baratheon.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

Jorah's description of Barristan in the books is much less flattering than the one from the show because Jorah is hellbent on isolating Dany from other men.

Second, I know most fans think that having Barristan reveal his identity right away was ultimately a good choice for practical reasons (i.e., it would be too easy for the fans to remember Barristan's actor and figure out his identity), but I think this change ultimately did far more harm than good.

How did show!Barristan track show!Dany? Why would he think she was going to Astapor? How could he have known if he didn't have Illyrio's (or anyone's) support?

How was he aware that the warlocks sent an assassin after Dany? In the books, he saves her on a rush, after the manticore left the jewel box. In the show, he drops the ball before the manticore leaves it. For some unknown reason, he already knew that it had the intent to kill her.

In the books, Barristan is supposed to serve as a positive contrast to Jorah's negative behaviors when they are both put on trial for betraying Dany's trust. Because show!Barristan reveals his identity early on, the contrast is lost.

Barristan is the one who tells Dany about Jorah's betrayal in the books. Since it wouldn't make sense for show!Barristan to only tell show!Dany about this later on, the show writers had the Lannisters randomly think that Dany is a threat, that Dany and Jorah are a good duo that must be separated and that sending a letter pardoning Jorah would necessarily do the deed. Not only that's stupid (Jorah received and sent letters without Dany's knowledge in both mediums), it also validates the idea that show!Jorah is good to show!Dany (something that the showrunners think is the case). These are all unfortunate consequences that arose from the early reveal of show!Barristan's identity.

By revealing himself earlier, show!Barristan loses his arc from the books, which was partly about finding a liege who was morally worthy of being served after he spent years in the service of bad kings. (He might say later in episode 3.5 that he's looking for the right person to follow, but his actions don't show it in any way.) That Barristan hid his identity and only pledged his sword to Dany because he realized that she was more than Rhaegar's sister, but also a queen in her own right, speaks volumes to his character development and to how we're supposed to see Dany in a sympathetic manner. Unfortunately, the show writers (especially Benioff) don't like Dany very much. As this review hopefully shows (and others will make it even clearer), they go out of their way to undermine her intelligence and empathy and humbleness and all of the other traits that make Dany who she is, while GRRM goes out of his way to portray Dany in a sympathetic light, with this chapter review from @turtle-paced​ showing a perfect example of how he does so.

Third, I don't understand why the show made the question of whether show!Dany would accept show!Barristan's service as the episode's cliffhanger. First, book readers would already know that she would. Second, show!Barristan won't be treated any differently in the next episodes than he would be if they had met earlier (aside from show!Jorah's distrustful remarks). Third, I don't like how leaving this scene as the episode's cliffhanger makes us wonder if show!Dany will be merciful or not. We can point to her later actions and realize that she will be, but this shouldn't have been a question in the first place. It helps to mischaracterize Dany in the eyes of the public audience and doesn't convey that some of Dany's core traits are being open-minded and forgiving.  

In the books, Dany doesn't really feel angry with Barristan. It's more that he becomes collateral damage after she finds out that Jorah, the person she trusted the most at that point in time, was lying to her from the very beginning:

“...And since the day you wed Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, trading whispers to the Spider for gold and promises.”

He cannot mean ... “You are mistaken.” Dany looked at Jorah Mormont. “Tell him he’s mistaken. There’s no informer. Ser Jorah, tell him. We crossed the Dothraki sea together, and the red waste ...” Her heart fluttered like a bird in a trap. “Tell him, Jorah. Tell him how he got it wrong.”

“The Others take you, Selmy.” Ser Jorah flung his longsword to the carpet. “Khaleesi, it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love ...”

“Do not say that word!” She backed away from him. “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The Undying had said she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised?”

“Varys said ... I might go home.” He bowed his head.

I was going to take you home! Her dragons sensed her fury. Viserion roared, and smoke rose grey from his snout. Drogon beat the air with black wings, and Rhaegal twisted his head back and belched flame. I should say the word and burn the two of them. Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe? “Are all the knights of Westeros so false as you two? Get out, before my dragons roast you both. What does roast liar smell like? As foul as Brown Ben’s sewers? Go!”

Ser Barristan rose stiff and slow. For the first time, he looked his age. “Where shall we go, Your Grace?”

“To hell, to serve King Robert.” Dany felt hot tears on her cheeks. Drogon screamed, lashing his tail back and forth. “The Others can have you both.” Go, go away forever, both of you, the next time I see your faces I’ll have your traitors’ heads off. She could not say the words, though. They betrayed me. But they saved me. But they lied. “You go ...” My bear, my fierce strong bear, what will I do without him? And the old man, my brother’s friend. (ASOS Daenerys V)

Before she knew about Jorah's deception, Dany is more puzzled and surprised about Barristan's identity reveal than anything else:

She was more confused than angry. He has played me false, just as Jorah warned me, yet he saved my life just now.

Ser Jorah flushed red. “Mero shaved his beard, but you grew one, didn’t you? No wonder you looked so bloody familiar ...”

“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.

~

“Why are you here?” Dany demanded of him. “If Robert sent you to kill me, why did you save my life?” He served the Usurper. He betrayed Rhaegar’s memory, and abandoned Viserys to live and die in exile. Yet if he wanted me dead, he need only have stood
aside ... “I want the whole truth now, on your honor as a knight. Are you the Usurper’s man, or mine?”

~

“Quiet,” said Dany. “I’ll hear him out.”

In this sense, I think Emilia Clarke's expression manages to capture how the Dany of the books must have felt when Barristan's identity was revealed; perplexed, but also grateful that he saved her life.

Also, they have show!Dany ask show!Jorah if he knows show!Barristan without the proper context: in the books, she only makes that question because he made an unpleasant comment about Barristan. In the show, she asks if he knows who he is in a way that makes her seem more dependent on him than it would have been if they had been faithful to the books.

My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.1

Benioff: For a great leader who is doing something unpopular for a certain segment, whether it's the Warlocks or the slave masters or whatnot, she's creating a lot of enemies, and powerful enemies, and those people are going to try to stop her regardless of how powerful she becomes, and it's something she's actually, in a weird way, used to, because she grew up running from assassins with her brother, you know, from the time, from the earliest time she can remember, she was being spirited from one city to another one step ahead of Robert Baratheon and the assassins, because there were so many people who wanted to destroy the Targaryen family and make King Robert happy and now there are thousands out there for all sorts of different reasons because she's made even more enemies, but, I think in her mind this is just the price you pay for being Daenerys Targaryen, for being the last of the Targaryens, and it's not going to stop her.

Benioff is not entirely inaccurate when it comes to Dany feeling that she's always been on the run:

It was not by choice that she sought the waterfront. She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother’s womb, and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives? But it was run or die. (ACOK Daenerys V)

ASOS Daenerys V is particularly heartbreaking in that sense when she decides to leave her tent and interact with her people only to almost be killed by Mero:

She had no enemies among her children.

~

“Your Grace.” Arstan knelt. “I am an old man, and shamed. He should never have gotten close enough to seize you. I was lax. I did not know him without his beard and hair.”

“No more than I did.” Dany took a deep breath to stop her shaking. Enemies everywhere.

However, Benioff forgets Dany's very first chapter:

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper’s hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one. (AGOT Daenerys I)

I've already written an entire meta on how Dany's PoV is not entirely reliable and this is one of the instances. I imagine her thoughts on the matter changed because of this:

“A letter to Viserys, from Magister Illyrio. Robert Baratheon offers lands and lordships for your death, or your brother’s.”

“My brother?” Her sob was half a laugh. “He does not know yet, does he? The Usurper owes Drogo a lordship.” This time her laugh was half a sob. She hugged herself protectively. “And me, you said. Only me?”

“You and the child,” Ser Jorah said, grim.

“No. He cannot have my son.” She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself ... (AGOT Daenerys VI)

It seems that Dany unconsciously and retroactively changed history in her mind after Robert tried to have her and her child assassinated (something that I forgot to talk about in my meta), which is quite interesting. I guess it's a detail that is easy to miss, so that's forgivable.

What's less excusable is the way that Benioff talks about Dany's mindset.

Benioff: I think in her mind this is just the price you pay for being Daenerys Targaryen, for being the last of the Targaryens, and it's not going to stop her. (x)

It's true that Dany is aware that she is the last of her family:

With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget. (AGOT Daenerys VI)

However, I look askance at the possible interpretation behind this statement. One could switch "Daenerys" for "Viserys" and it would be just as fitting. It's left ambiguous on its own, but, considering how he overfocuses on how "ambitious" she is or how she wants "more than anything" to "reclaim her birthright" or how "the only threat she poses is her name" until she frees the slaves in Astapor... I have to assume that he wants us to think that show!Dany is both arrogant and entitled for being a Targaryen. All of these mischaracterizations have been exhaustively refuted by @rainhadaenerys​ in this meta.

My comments on Anatomy of a Scene: Daenerys Meets the Unsullied

Weiss: Dany spent the first two seasons of the show leaning on men - her brother, Drogo, Jorah Mormont, Xaro Xhoan Daxos. She came out of season two realizing that the only person that she can completely trust is herself.

Benioff: Dany has her lovable side, but she is also ruthless, and she is also fiercely ambitious. What she wants, more than anything, is to return home and to reclaim her birthright.

Clarke: She needs the manpower to go back and conquer the Iron Throne and to be able to right the wrongs that she sees going on around her.

Minahan: She's been brought to Astapor, where she's reluctantly going to meet with slave traders. Her quest in this is to build an army without taking slaves.

Comments from Charlie Somers (location manager) and Christina Moore (supervising art director) that don't have anything to do with the storyline.

Benioff: The Unsullied were kidnapped as babies from their home countries and brought to Astapor and trained in the ways of the spear and castrated.

Emmanuel: They won't do anything without the command to do so first.

Comment from Tommy Dunne (weapons master) that doesn't have anything to do with the storyline.

Clarke: She's being introduced to the Unsullied by Kraznys, the slave master in control of them.

Emmanuel: Kraznys is being quite insulting to Daenerys. And Missandei very cleverly smoothes out her translation, just her initiative doing that shows her intelligence.

Clarke: Dany sees a lot of herself in her and can kind of see that it's a young girl who's capable of much more than the position she's in. She's his No 1 slave. If you were in the UN, she would be the translator for everyone.

Weiss: Kraznys speaks a version of Valyrian that's been bastardized and mixed with other local languages.

Comment from Majella Hurley (dialect coach) that doesn't have anything to do with the storyline.

Clarke: She's struggling with the moral aspect of the way that these cities are run. And it's something she's been grappling with because they are an army of slaves, which she fundamentally has moral issues with due to the fact that she herself was a slave.

Weiss: The only way she can make the world a better place is to become the biggest slaveowner in the world.

Benioff: She's put into a difficult position, and she's got her advisors whispering in her ears.

Glen: Jorah encourages her to get over her moral scrupules, with taking an army that were duty-bound to follow whatever leader it was, and that could change in an instant.

Benioff: Idealism is wonderful, but it's not gonna happen if you're idealistic, you gotta be a realist. She feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing is gonna prevent her from achieving it.

Weiss: What she wants to do isn't just conquest for the sake of conquest, but it's really conquest for the sake of making the world a better place, and she's a revolutionary in that sense.

Benioff: For Daenerys to win, ultimately, she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso.

My comments about their statements:

Clarke: She definitely understands Dany better than Benioff and maybe even Weiss. My only nitpick is that there's no No 1 slave for Kraznys ... In the books, he repeatedly whips Missandei and has no problem giving her away to Dany as a gift. Even in the show, he still constantly disrespects show!Missandei.

Weiss: I've already said this above and will repeat: Weiss is wrong when he says that "Dany spent the first two seasons of the show leaning on men". Or at least that's certainly not what the Dany of the books (i.e. the character show!Dany's should ideally be based on) does, as my posts here and here showcase how competent a leader she's becoming and how much agency GRRM gives her. His comment about how Dany wants to "become the biggest slaveowner in the world" to make it a better place is also distasteful (though I don't think he meant it as negatively as, say, Finn Jones), so here goes @rainhadaenerys​'s meta disproving the claim that Dany is a slaver. As for "conquest for the sake of making the world a better place", I kind of agree with this, but I've already showed above how it does a disservice to show!Dany's character development to paint it as if she's always been aware of these injustices, because the Dany of the books was not. In hindsight, that change makes me wary because I know they will later try to sell show!Dany as someone who is morally inflexible, which she never was in the books.

Benioff: I've already criticized his claims that Dany is "fiercely ambitious" and wants "more than anything" "to reclaim her birthright" in many moments of this meta. I also condemned his opinion that Dany needs to be a "realist" when I explained how the show overfocused on Jorah's point of view. As for his point that "she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso" to win... Considering how they made her choose the more ruthless option in the end only to punish her in the most traumatizing manner for that very choice (which made no sense and was completely OOC, no less) ... Fuck him, seriously. It's clear how the show made it impossible for show!Dany to win based on contradictory standards that only viewed her unfavorably. If she is merciful, she is stupid. If she is ruthless, she is a danger that needs to be stopped to save humanity.

Show!Dany's clothes

This episode adapts events from three chapters (ACOK Daenerys V, ASOS Daenerys I, ASOS Daenerys II). The first is the only one with a detailed description of her clothes:

If the Milk Men thought her such a savage, she would dress the part for them. When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest, and a curved dagger hung from her medallion belt. Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki-fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. (ACOK Daenerys V)

In ASOS Daenerys I, Dany is only described using a coverlet to hide her nudity when Jorah comes to talk to her. 

In ASOS Daenerys II, we don't know how Dany dressed when she went to meet with Kraznys, only that her garment had a sleeve.

In the series, we see show!Dany wearing this blue dress:

It's meant to pay homage to the Dothraki, so it's at least spiritually faithful to how Dany looks in the scene on the docks ... Well, more or less. Not only blue isn't a special color for the Dothraki despite what Michele Clapton might say, look at how Barristan reacts to seeing Dany for the first time:

“I regret if we caused you alarm. If truth be told, we were not certain, we expected someone more ... more ...”

“Regal?” Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly. (ACOK Daenerys V)

This little scene displays both Dany's frugalness and how she doesn't take herself that seriously, for she doesn't mind if her subjects see her looking less than regal. That doesn't come across at all in the show, to the point of some people thinking that show!Dany never allows herself to look anything but perfect, which is certainly not true of the character she is based on.

[sickandvomiting]

List your top 10 sickfic tropes and tell us why you like them? :)

Oooh this is tough because they are constantly changing. But I will do my best! In no particular order.

10.) The Good Samaritan trope, where a stranger comes and helps out someone in need. I especially like it if it’s the start of a long and wonderful friendship but like it’s still a good trope without it.

9.) Being too weak/too sick and just making a mess. Like they are too sick to move so they just turn their head to the side and puke on their bed. Similarly, the one where they are sitting propped up, and throw up all down their front.

8.) Getting help with a bath. I don’t know why I like this one so much, and it’s almost never used, but like being too weak to bathe themself, and getting a friend/SO/caretaker to get them settled in the bath and wash their hair and body and the embarrassment and intimacy of that action are just HOO BOY. Bonus point if they’re super shaky/wobbly getting out and the other person catches them when they slip and almost fall.

7.) Public illness. When they are somewhere completely inconvenient and embarrassing and can’t leave for whatever reason. Or they got dragged out when they were already feeling unwell. Or just decided to push through it but realized halfway through what a bad idea that was because now they are in a spot of trouble. I love it.

6.) This one is really specific, but like when a sick person gets up to go throw up in the bathroom, and they can’t quite make it and throw up once in the hallway outside or something, but the action makes them super dizzy and they stumble and almost collapse against a wall, but then get their bearings and make it to the toilet/sink for the rest of the episode. I know, super specific. It’s not even a trope. It’s just a situation that’s been getting me recently.

5.) In a similar vein, stumbling dizzily and having to be supported by another/support themselves on something. Amazing and good. The stumble carry is a personal favorite.

4.) High fevers causing weird shit. Delirium, nightmares, sleepwalking, vivid weird dreams, language lapses, super frequent chills. Just high fevers man.

3.) When one person is sick and gives it to the other person and the other person just won’t let them live it down but they just kinda buckle down and take care of each other between teasing. That’s rull cute.

2.) Crying. I just like crying though, bc I’m a bit of a dacryphile as well…. but like not baby crying just because. Like when it all gets to be too much or they’re in a severe amount of pain/discomfort and just break down. Bonus points if they don’t normally cry. Extra bonus points if another person holds them and strokes their hair and rubs their back. EXTRA EXTRA BONJS POINTS IF THE SICK PERSON ACCIDENTALLY THROWS UP ON THE OTHER PERSON BECAUSE THE CRYING WAS MAKING THEM FEEL EVEN WORSE AND THEY ARE SUPER EMBARRASSED.

1.) Seasickness. I LOVE seasickness. I don’t know why. I think it’s because my emeto roots were there, watching seasickness videos when I was young to help myself get over my crippling eme//topho//bia. This worked, but also had an… interesting effect in the fact that I now…. run this blog….

Honorable mentions: multiple symptoms, slow burn buildup, caught by surprise, and that thing where the character wakes up as they are vomiting and scrambled to spew over the side of the bed but ultimately makes a mess anyways.

Thank you so much this was fun!! ❤️❤️

[kitten1618x]

GoT Afterthoughts 7x07 The Dragon and The Wolf (Jonsa Edition) SPOILERS

So here we are -the finale. I’d like to bitch about how badly we’ve been ripped off by D&D, but I don’t want to be repetitive. lol We begin our episode outside the walls of Kings Landing. It looks like the Unsullied have abandoned Casterly Rock for a display of power and muscle, and are quickly joined by the Dothriaki -whooping and hollering in a most obnoxious way (I truly dislike them). Jamie and Bronn watch from atop the ramparts for some lively “cock banter”, ya know, since D&D are epic writers and such. Side note: I love how they slowed down Dany’s theme song here. At least the musical score is never disappointing. We get a nice aerial shot of Euron’s huge fleet, as what’s left of Dany’s sails towards KL. Jon, ever a Northerner, is NOT impressed with KL.  Stay true to your roots, Jonny boy. Suspiciously (not really), Dany is absent. Gee … I wonder if she’s planning on a flamboyant dragon-styled entrance? The Hound goes below deck to check if Bones is resting comfortably. The box is quiet -must have been that Dramamine they gave him to counter his seasickness. Nope -he’s awake, and clearly feels their hospitality leaves something to be desired. Side note: I wonder if Jon inquiring how many people live in KL is a foreshadowing of a future disaster there? Remember that there are casks of Dragon fire buried everywhere beneath the city. I’m almost positive that will come into play next season. We jump quickly to Cersei in the Red Keep who’s been informed that Dany isn’t with her entourage. How much you wanna bet that Cersei’s thinking the same exact thing I wrote above? She informs Ser Gregor that if anything goes wrong, he’s to kill the silver haired bitch first, then her brother and then the bastard who calls himself King. Now we’re back with the entourage, and we get a bit of a history lesson about the dragon pit ruins, and Jorah says something I perceived to be very important (as well as synonymous of Dany and her conquering Targ ancestors): Jorah: Dragons don’t understand the difference between what’s theirs and what isn’t. Land, livestock, children. CONQUERORS! We learn how over time, with entrapment, the dragons withered away to nothing, small as dogs. This particular part didn’t serve any purpose, other than to reunite the original brotp3, Pod, Bronn and Tyrion. We see that they all still have a fondness for each other -and perhaps a foreshadowing that Bronn will be switching allegiance soon. The Hound and Brienne also have a surprisingly friendly reunion, as they bond over their adopted daughter, Arya. I’m glad they brought her up, and I’m so very excited to see a Hound/Stark girls reunion next season! So, we’re in the Dragon Pit now, and truthfully -this entire 20 minute scene was utter garbage, and I’m pretty pissed that they wasted nearly the entire finale on this flaming dumpster, tbh. Clegane bowl is coming. Cersei is annoyed with Dany’s theatrical entrance (and truthfully, the extra-ness of it all was kind of lame). I guess it was necessary to put Drogon in the dragon pit? But when he flew away, let’s be honest -his wings would have sent those canopies hurling away and knocked everyone on their asses, too. Euron’s a dick. Tyrion attempts to open the floor for Jon, Cersei is her usual snarky, skeptical and extra self (I fucking love her), and finally Sandor releases Bones, and ……  the Dramamine must have kicked in? Time for a jump scare! Bones charges Cersei and is yanked back just in time. The Hound cuts him in half, but he keeps on coming until Jon does his sales pitch demonstration (how sad do you think Kit was that they made him do this terrible scene?) of fire and dragon glass (thanks Davos, for your assistance). Euron peaces out -all but throwing up deuces upon his hasty exit, but not before propositioning Dany. Cersei agrees to the truce -tell me honestly -did you all REALLY believe her? She suddenly became so reasonable, which is schiesty as hell, if you ask me. She throws some shade at Dany, and asks Jon to stay neutral. Cersei specifically evokes the honorable Ned Starks name, insinuating that she can trust the son to be as honorable as daddy dearest. Did this jump out at any of you? Because of course Cersei does know that Ned was honorable -yet, she also knows that he had forsaken that very honor in the end, for his daughters -at the request of Sansa (per Cersei) to save his life (and probably hers) which was all for naught because Joffrey was a cunt, as Sandor would say -but you get the point to this clunky run-on sentence, right? And not only that, but he LIED to everyone, and especially the people he loved and cared about (his wife, best friend, family) to save the life of his nephew -and he went to his grave with that secret. So what am I saying? Honorable Ned wasn’t above lying for the greater good, or to protect the ones he loved. Does that put some things in perspective for you? Back to our story (however shitty it is for the time being) Jon declines. Choosing this moment to back Dany, and again “figuratively” bending the knee to her -this time publicly.   Side note: Dany’s face in this moment. She’s so smitten with Jon. Cersei basically tells everyone to fuck off, and exits stage left. Brienne attempts to slap some sense into Jamie, uttering two words that stop him dead in his tracks: FUCK LOYALTY. This isn’t about honor and following whomever you’re loyal to -it’s about humanity. Did she appeal to his better side? Methinks so. Now everyone takes the time to belittle Jon for doing the very thing that they haggled him about for the entire season. But Tyrion the KING of bad ideas this season, has yet another -he’ll go talk to Cersei alone. He magically warps to the Red Keep, somehow making it through the city and the castle without being murdered for the hefty price on his head, but …. that D&D logic, tho. He and Jamie say “goodbye” one idiot to another (hey, you guys said it -not me), and as foreboding music drones in the background, the standoff begins. But, so I guess that Jamie and Tyrion decided to let bygones be bygones? And to one of my favorite scenes of the episode -my God, Lena and Peter SLAYED THIS SCENE! After the accusations fly, Tyrion tells Cersei to have him killed -the Mountain reaches for his sword and begins to unsheath it, but the order is never given. Cersei looks torn. Perhaps she isn’t as heartless as she tries to portray? Perhaps a tiny part of her does have affection for her little brother? Or maybe she just doesn’t want anymore Lannisters to die? I’m not entirely sure of her motivations, but she certainly looked gorgeous in this scene, though. After Tyrion collects himself (and likely wishes for a clean pair of shorts), he downs a goblet of wine and pours his sister a cup. We know now that he does regret killing his father (despite deserving it), and that Tyrion really doesn’t want to see the end of his family. Is he lying? Doubtful. He loved her children as she did (except for Satan incarnate, Joffrey). He realizes that Cersei is once again pregnant, and somehow appeals to her better senses …. And I’m just here SCREAMING at the TV: why do you all believe her??? This is Cersei -the son Tywin always wanted -but with a vagina (oh, the irony)!! We jump back to the Dragon Pit where Jon is back to brooding as he shuffles through some dragon bones. He lets his disappointment in the turn of events known, as Dany decides to join him. She tells him she respects what he did (is that what we’re calling it now? did ya’ll see her face when he announced his allegiance with her? It’s cool Dany -I “respect” Jon snow sometimes when my hubby isn’t around, too 😂) and then begins telling him how the end of the Dragons is what really spelled the end of her house. The dragons made them extraordinary -without them, they are just like everyone else. (BINGO). This leads to Jon complimenting her -she’s not like everyone else and her family hasn’t seen its end because she’s still here. Dany follows up that she can’t have children -in case you missed that last episode Jon, when she said the Dragons are the only children she’ll ever have, and then you nodded your understanding when she point blank asked you if you understood. Remember? Oh, are you just double checking? Okay my son, carry on …. *So this is important: J: Who told you that? D: The witch that murdered my husband. J: Did it occur to you she might not have been a reliable source of information? (Because clearly it’s occurring to Jon). D: You were right from the beginning. If I’d had trusted you everything would be different. J: So what now? D: I can’t forget what I saw north of the wall, and I can’t pretend that Cersei won’t take back half the country the moment I march north. So -let’s do a bit of reading between the lines here, shall we? What we know now: Dany fully trusts Jon, when she didn’t before. When Jon asks her “what now?” It’s pretty clear that he’s unsure whether or not he can trust her to prioritize the NK and his army over Cersei and the Iron Throne. And her answer lets him know that he’s in the right with his suspicions. J: It appears Tyrion’s assessment was correct, we’re fucked. You sure are, Jon. Better think of something quick -because apparently just “bending the knee” may not be sufficient -and you do need those dragons and army. As if by cue, Tyrion returns -Cersei and her entourage in tow and she agrees to help and delivers one of the most epic lines of the evening: “perhaps you’ll remember that I chose to help with no promises or assurances from any of you.” YOU LIE LIKE A RUG CERSEI, BUT SLAY YOU UNAPOLOGETIC BITCH -I LOVE YOU!! Now I want to ask if ANY of you caught the look that passed between Jon and Tyrion here? Admittedly, I didn’t on my first watch -but it’s plain as day. Remember it -I’ll return to it later, because I actually think it may be important. Now we take a ravens POV, flying through the heavy snow towards Winterfell. Sansa sits irritatedly tapping her message from Jon on her desk. She’s not happy about the news she’s received. Seems like Jon finally decided to write home and let her know he bent the knee. You broke up with the North in a text message? Really Jon?   Little Finger does what he’s always done -acts like he’s on everyone’s side while sewing his seeds of doubt and dissension. For those of you who were waiting for the crypt scene payoff: here it was … While discussing Jon’s “reasons” for doing this, he drops the bomb that the Dragon Queen is rumored to be very beautiful. Why? My guess is he’s wondering if Sansa has the same subconscious affections for Jon that he displayed in the crypts. S: what does that have to do with anything? LF: Jon is young and unmarried, Daenerys is young and unmarried. S: you think he wants to marry her? (the thought obv never occurred to her, due to her reaction). LF: An alliance makes sense. Together they’d be difficult to defeat. He was named KitN, he can be unnamed. S: Even if I wanted to (she doesn’t) Arya would never go for it. Shut down AGAIN, LF -Sansa isn’t going to turn on Jon. So, he switches gears back to Arya, thinking that’s the key to driving a wedge between her and Jon and setting the crown on Sansa’s head -get Arya out of the way. He continues his little mind game, encouraging Sansa to play along, and by the scenes end, we’re made to believe she’s fallen for it and is on board. Really -unbeknownst to him, he just planted the solution to Jon’s birthright situation in her lap (when it’s revealed). Unite the North and South by marriage -together they’d be difficult to defeat …. hello Jonsa season 8! And we’ve warped back to Dragonstone. They’re planning their strategy to head to Winterfell. Jon suggests that they sail together, and Jorah thinks Dany would be safer flying Drogon. Of course because she’s hot on Jon -she’ll take his suggestion -especially since we ALL KNOW the Northerners will NEVER see her as an ally. But she’s all: I’m going north to save them, not conquer them. 😏 So many nervous glances here amongst all the men … The meetings over, and Theon catches Jon and Davos as they pass through the throne room (anyone else curious about what they may have been talking about?). Okay, and OMG, another important conversation with so much hidden in the narrative! (I may paraphrase a bit here) T: What you did in KL, you could have lied to Cersei about bending the knee to Daenerys. You risked everything to tell an enemy the truth. But …did he? J: We went down there to make peace, and it seems to me we need to be honest with each other, if we’re going to fight together. See above. T: You’ve always known what was right. Even when we were all young and stupid. Every step you take  …it was always the right step. J: It’s not. It may seem that way from the outside, but I promise you it’s not true. I’ve done plenty things I regret. T: Not compared to me you haven’t. Clearly, he’s referring to betraying the Starks. J: No. Not compared to you. Clearly he has no intention of betraying his family like Theon did -although I do believe he intends to betray someone. T: I always wanted to do the right thing. Yada yada. It always seemed like their was …an impossible choice I had to make. Stark or Greyjoy. Confirmation here. Jon’s angry. He’s angry that Theon betrayed their father -who although may not have been his true father, he treated him like a son-better than Theon’s own father -sound familiar? J: Our father was more a father to you than your own father ever was. T: He was. J: And you betrayed him, betrayed his memory. T: I did. J: But you never lost it. He’s a part of you, just like he’s a part of me. Jon may as well be having this conversation with himself next season! Well - at least parts of it. T: But the things I’ve done … J: Its not my place to forgive you for all of it. But what I can forgive, I do. You don’t need to choose. You’re a Greyjoy and you’re a Stark. *I love this little nugget, because I feel like it gives credence to my Wars of the Roses meta theory -that Jon will combine both sides of his heritage/houses into one. Although, the deeper meaning behind it, is he’s allowed to be both without betraying the other. And …. he will always be a Stark. The conversation continues with Theon explaining that Yara tried to save him -she needs him now. And Jon gives Theon his blessing to go get his sister: “So why you still talking to me.” This scene with Jon was truly beautiful, with true healing quality for Theon. A little bit of old Theon emerges when he doesn’t stand down to one of Yara’s men and takes a hell of a beating (damn, he really is a Stark -can’t keep my babies down!) and succeeds in rallying the men behind him. Not for him -for Yara! We return to Winterfell where a very forlorn Sansa stands upon the ramparts in her and Jon’s “spot”. Is she thinking of him? I believe so -but that might just be my pesky shipping goggles. Sophie Turner has looked exceptionally beautiful this season -like bewitchingly so. She’s always been lovely -but damn. Shaking off her sadness: my skin has gone from porcelain, to ivory, to steel -she steels herself for what must be done, and orders the guard to have her sister brought to the Great Hall. We flash to the Great Hall. Arya is escorted in, as Sansa and Bran sit like they’re about to judge her. Arya and LF share a “fuck you” stare, and Arya asks Sansa if she “really wants to do this?” Sansa replies that honor demands it, and after Arya’s “get on with it”, Sansa rattles off charges, and then flips the script on LF, leveling the charges on him. Haha! He blinked so hard, I thought he was about to fall over! As Sansa annihilates him with charges, he stumbles with excuses, but all 3 Starklings gangbang his ass, and he’s done for. Using his own lessons and words against him -the student has surpassed the teacher. “I am a slow learner, it’s true -but I learn.” SAVAGE. MY QUEEN IS SAVAGE. And with a nod of Sansa’s head, and despite his resorting to crying and begging, Arya slits his throat before he even realizes what hit him. For all his scheming, what was his legacy …? I would have liked to see him go out with a bit more fight -but maybe that’s the point. BY THE WAY -I WANT FUCKING RECEIPTS!! I TOLD YOU ALL MY GIRLS WERE PLAYING HIM!!   To the Starks, who fought to make it back to Winterfell and each other -family is everything. They’re a united front. We jump back to KL for the last time this season. Jamie is going over battle plans with the Lannister soldiers. Cersei dismisses them and asks Jamie what he’s doing- he tells her that he’s planning his expedition north. Cersei resorts to her usual cruelty: “you really are the stupidest Lannister.” She tells him it was all a ruse, and Jamie’s not happy about this. After accusing him of conspiring against her and telling him that Euron didn’t really tuck tail and run, but instead went to pick up the mercenaries she purchased with the help of the Iron Bank, Jamie finally grows a pair! He pledged to ride north and he intends to. Cersei’s last bit of treachery is FINALLY the straw that broke the camels back! Cersei threatens his life -reminiscent of her earlier scene with Tyrion. Jamie calls her bluff, and again she doesn’t act on it. And as our hero leaves for the North, Winter has finally arrived at KL. (Told you better things were in store for my Golden boy … can he really be TPTWP?)!! We head back to Winterfell -Sam and Gilly have arrived and Sam seeks out Bran. Not gonna lie -this part confused me a bit, because I thought Bran was all knowing ….yet, he asks Sam WHY he’s come to Winterfell. Also -it’s Sam who informs him that Jon isn’t a bastard. Also -why has Bran told this to Sam, and not his sisters? Unless he has? And we just haven’t seen it? Like the Starks conspiring against LF? Makes me wonder of the other things that may have happened offscreen this season, too …. Bran does what he does and goes back in time to witness Lyanna and Rhaegar’s marriage -Roberts Rebellion was built on a lie. Jon’s real name is (barf) Aegon Targaryen, and he’s never been a bastard -he’s the TRUE heir to the Iron Throne -all of this over boatbang, sucking all the romance out of the coupling and painting it in an ominous light -just as I suspected. Remember when I told you all that CONTEXT was everything, and that there was a reason we found out about Jon’s parentage prior to boatbang -and the reasoning behind overlapping R/L’s wedding wasn’t to depict this EPIC romance, but to instead imply incestuous overtones and foreshadow the future Targbowl? Yep. That’s about it in a nutshell. But, more about boatbang towards the end -as well as my suspicions … We return back to Winterfell, where our Starkling sisters are perched upon the ramparts. Here they confirm their bond, both understanding the true strength of the other, and that despite each others quirks -they love one another and will take care of each other ….just as their father would have wanted. “When the Snows fall and the White Winds Blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”  Despite their losses, the Starks are a pack, and they will endure. Lastly, we shoot to Eastwatch, where everyone’s favorite ginger is perched atop the lookout post -probably daydreaming of Brienne. A horn blows as the NK’s army has finally reached the wall. Viserion, gorgeous blue eyes shining soars through the air with the NK on his back, and shooting flames to match his eyes -the wall begins to crumble. We see people getting caught up in the destruction -hopefully not Tormund, because I’ll fucking riot, as the wall falls and the dead march forward into Westeros. Winter is here. Okay, so back to boatbang. Aside from the basics I outlined above -let’s break the scene down. Jon stands before Dany’s door. His expression is troubled. He heaves a heavy sigh, then he lifts his hand to knock on the door -yet he hesitates before actually knocking. Why? After Dany bids him entrance, Jon closes the door and we see Tyrion emerge from around the corner. Unless he’s been stalking Jon -he has perfect timing. Why is this? Could it be that Jon was just with Tyrion? Could that look they shared at the Dragon Pit mean something? Could Jon be the means as to which  Varys suggested Tyrion find a way to make Dany listen? Tyrion’s expression doesn’t look like jealousy to me -he looks concerned, worried even. Has he conspired against his queen, knowing how smitten she is with Jon, to stay the course and maybe feels guilty because he knows she’s falling for Jon and he’s playing her? Have secret discussions been going on offscreen, like with the Starks, only to be revealed later? You’ve kind of gotta wonder this season … Look, whether or not you subscribe to the undercover lover theory or not, you’ve got to admit that there’s been a lot of oddness surrounding this rushed romance. Two episodes ago, Jon was ready to hightail it out of Dragonstone and never look back (and he didn’t, although Jorah did), and we’re suddenly supposed to believe he’s smitten? I guess If I shipped them, I’d want to believe that -but what about Jon’s odd behavior? The fact that while Dany has literally poured her heart out to him, yet he’s managed to share absolutely NOTHING personal with her is a HUGE damn red flag to me. Not.One.Damn.Thing. Could he be attracted to her? Sure. She’s quite beautiful and he’s not blind, but it seems that D&D have been hiding little clues within the narrative -they’ve also managed to successfully sabotage this relationship before it even got off the ground -with the parent reveal last season. The way I see it, is we’ve got a strong case here, and a 50/50 chance that this is all for show and Jon’s actually LISTENED to Sansa -that he’s being smarter than father and Robb, that he’s NOT a Northern fool -and he REALLY does know how to play the game. All this talk of Ned, and honor? OR, he is truly a damn fool and Jon Snow really does know nothing …. I just can’t stand by this. If I’m wrong, fine -but everything screams at me that that Jon knows Cersei was lying, or just doesn’t trust she’ll follow through. Jon knows that  once Dany figures that out, she’ll probably want to go back south with her dragons and armies -pledging himself to her clearly didn’t work (as witnessed by her words at the Dragon Pit) -but clearly she’s smitten with him …he’s seen her heart eyes. What’s a sure-fire way to get her to commit to the war and assisting the North in fighting? Why, committing to her man, of course. So, back to analyzing the sex scene. There was no lead up -no first kiss, no tender caresses -just a closed door and then BAM two naked (damn Kit, daaayum!) people. Dany seems to have taken the aggressive stance on top. Jon  flips her into missionary, and before he thrusts, STOPS -again, like at the door, he’s hesitating as he looks down at Dany, regretful -like he’s not sure he should do this -NOT because he doesn’t want her (he IS a man, after all), but because he’s feeling guilty about what he’s about to do (to her), as she stares up at him all dreamy-eyed and awestruck, and he doesn’t feel the same way. Make no mistake that I do believe he likes her as a person, but love is not reciprocated here. He heaves yet another heavy sigh, with this same haunted expression, and then pants as he steels himself to go on -seemingly forcing himself to continue, squeezing his eyes shut as he kisses her. All I heard in my head was Arya saying “get on with it”. This was not romantic epic love. Jon didn’t look at Dany like she hung the moon. We’ve all seen the way he’s looked at Sansa -

Vs. a very intimate moment with the woman he “supposedly” has fallen for?

Nope. I may be wrong about undercover lover, but I think that there was so much more than meets the eye here. Buckle up babies -we survived season 7 and boatbang. Season 8 is ours and Jonsa is STILL endgame. It is known. 😘

[severalbakuras]

i have made it.... i can watch the first episode of season threeeee.

i might do one episode a day to make it feel like less time until s4 comes out.

here we goooo

no new intro pffffff

red space best space

the beep noise kinda sounds like a heart monitor.

allura my girl <3

good speech coran

that’s a lot of blades are they like the shock troops for voltron now? are they robotic?

WE ARE FIGHTING DREAMERS TAKAMI WO MEZASHITE

another sick slow mo shot for lance (he looks like seasick after tho with all those blue lines)

THAT’S MY MAN HUNK

slightly less impressive alien designs like just spikes and doggie ears but at least they’re colourful.

‘oh hunk!’ joke counter: 1

wait so how long has it been since season 2 then bc kolivan seems surprised to learn that they can’t form voltron anymore like dude you know this right?? you should’ve had the ‘this cannot stand!!’ thing before this mission i think??

i feel like this suspicion towards the blades is not going to end well.

why do i feel like pidge hasn’t slept for weeks.

ARE THOSE KAMINA GLASSES CORAN

noah fence pidge but i don’t think matt would be happy to know you weren’t safe at home with mum just sayin

‘oh hunk!’: 2

keeeith ;A; TELL US HOW HE MET SHIRO I WANNA KNOW

HAGGAR BABE

“but he totally needs me looming over him it’s not creepy”

oOOH NEW GIRL. and she can stealthmode interesting.

i don’t think this counts as an oh hunk moment cooking is good encouraging boys to cook is good. (i know the #discourse on professional/celebrity chefs skewing male and shit but like for normal kids it’s a life skill that isn’t taught enough and especially to boys so yeah)

just... a galaxy? that is a v. small empire like i know galaxies are Huge but you could try harder zarkon sargeras has most of the universe down or on his side at this point along with like all the gods who created it (until they need a filler raid/instance boss lol).

fuck i should write my au thoughts on a warcraft crossover at some point i want some poor unlucky galra soldiers to crash into ice crown and find out why you don’t want to build anything out of saronite. i want allura (and coran) to meet velen and they can connect to him as a fellow leader escaping genocide and i want pidge and hunk to lose their minds at all the magi-tech and gnome vs goblin technology ‘war’. idk what lance and keith would do i guess keith would see if there’s any blacksmiths on azeroth who might’ve encountered a blade like his although he’s kind of the spelunking exploring type i bet either the explorer’s league or the reliquary would happily poach him to check out titan ruins. lance would probably... idk my first instinct is that he’d head to goldshire on the basis of considering himself a Cool Dude with an interest in cute girls but he’d probably take two selfies right at the front door to the inn and then immediately leave and spend the night sat by the lake feeding murlocs.

did i mention that some of my favourite aliens were the ones who had organic bodies and robotic voices or was it vice versa either way more of those please.

well keith’s not wrong tbh. tone’s harsh but he’s lost like The Most Important person in the world to him so i can’t blame him for getting upset. like also this dude asks to see voltron like he’s asking to see the new wheels on his coworker’s car or something.

and like. they do need to fight for themselves too like the symbol can live forever but even before they could form voltron it couldn’t be everywhere at once. voltron’s a robot he rusts and corrodes probably one day he will need to go to a space garage for his MOT or to fix his tail light and everyone will have to take care of themselves for a while.

so public opinion of haggar is not good if these two highly ranked generals are chitchatting in a galran sports bar.

exiled? lotor what did you do.

‘he fights alongside his men and isn’t entirely racist ugh what a twat’

(i’m not denying that he’s a twat because look at his fucking design and ‘permitting’ conquered worlds to live in pretty much the same way as they did pre-conquering was exactly what gengis khan did to keep control of his territories iirc i’m just saying these guys sound so petty hahaha)

he’s prettyyyy. fucking shit goddamnit. i hope you have beefy friends for me to love bc i have enough problematic prettyboy faves.

(fuckin give me some problematic prettygirl girls and beefy girls one day all i have for the latter is jasper and all i have for the former is sylvanas)

got that kingly presence i’ll give him th WHAT WAIT NO. WARCRAFT ORCS. LIKE ALL THIS HONOR IN COMBAT AND MIGHT = RIGHT AND HOW BEING A SNEAKY BINT IS SHITTY ETC ETC. dude heralds the warsong.

lotor you better not start any mak’goras i’ll be watching you.

(i’ll stop with the warcraft now)

(that’s a lie)

DREAMWORKS... HOW DID YOU KNOW...

hey invisigirl

can’t tell if the cat’s the general with their meat puppet or a cool faceless alien or an alien with a mask

youuuuu look like keith. like dead to rights that’s styled hair blue keith with lipstick.

lotor is possibly the most anime of the whole cast at this point.

he’s got lines under his eyes like he just wants to go to bed and honestly #mood

oh you sneaky bitch lotor. now how did he meet those four i wonder they seem to like him on a personal level given by the smiles. like they’re all stated to be half-galra kinda. so our options are the unpleasant garona halforcen-esque one which makes the galra Really Fucked Up (probably not) or the lotor style conquering which is Still Kinda Fucked Up (this one is the discourse bait and a little more likely) or like lotor tracks down civilian populations of galra on non-galra home planets that might not even know there’s a war going on all the way on the other side of the galaxy and recruit from there.

like say............... EARTH, MAYBE????????????

(LISTEN LOTOR MAKES A POINT OF STOCKING HIS TEAM WITH HALF GALRA PEOPLE.)

(KEITH IS HALF GALRA.)

(i’m just SAYIN.)

(d. do i ship lotor and keith. am i one of Those People. i mean i have my ot4 of keith/shay/allura/hunk which is The Best (and i’m literally the only person who ships that so my city now) but i’m allowed one incredibly shit ship per fandom right?)

(what is the ship name i hope it’s leith so i can make leaf puns but it might already be in use as an alternative to klance)

(can’t be as bad as jaina/garrosh right?????)

be still my heart is dreamworks going to let keith and lance have an emotional moment without immediately throwing a joke about it in afterwards?

... kinda? it’s a good step for lance but i don’t think it really helps keith out. like ‘oh man wasn’t shiro the best? now i didn’t know him anything like you did and i totally hero-worshipped him and i think this is what he’d think’.

allura gets it though good job a+ mirroring his words to pidge back when she tried to leave voltron too iirc.

new black paladin im not.... ready,.,.,.,.,..,,,.

[painpro]

quick tfk update before vacation...

episode summaries 22+23

Episode 22: Ebb and Flow

The KC returns to King's Watch- but not after discovering a strange, ruined camp within the Friman Woods. Cezall finds black arrows and a large black feather, and they also find strange ice covered skeletons left behind. They are eerily similar to some skeletons they had encountered before, months ago, in the temple of Mephistopheles. But, after that, the group returns to their home city. Magic items are commissioned, friends are talked to, and Ezita, the fortune telling dragonborn, gets many visits. Cik finishes a couple gifts for Maedis and Bell, and Cezall tries unsuccessfully to make things right with Maedis. Then, they take their next contract: one about a missing daughter from the wealthy Bendeft family named Eloise. They find her diary, which mentions falling in love with a man and planning to run away with him. He is only referred to as "S", and its mentioned he says hes from Morvannon. Bell and Cik immediately get a bad feeling, but start to investigate further. They ask around at the Redtail Theater and Fortune Haberdashery- with not very helpful results. Along they way Karlina joins their search effort. The only real headway is made when Cik and Orna go to the docks. There they meet Harry, a salty old sailor who says he saw Eloise and a man charter a ship a while ago. He seemed to allude to the man using some kind of magic on the captain, and said they set a course for the Deadlands, the mysterious wasteland continent north of Imura. The KC quickly gathers their things and follows suit, taking the 12 day journey north. On the trip, Bell has bouts of seasickness, Cezall enjoys the breeze, and Cik tries his drugs. The ship stops about 2 miles off the shore of the Deadlands, and the KC is made to row to shore. There they hit the strange ashen lands, and find the remains of The Blessing, the ship that Eloise and her beau had chartered. It hit land, and the entire crew is dead and missing their heads. All feeling very uneasy, the KC and Karlina continue their journey forward, spotting a strange large, tall and dark structure in the far distance...

Episode 23: Dying Light

The KC and Karlina makes their way across the Deadlands, encountering horrible flying heads that attack and swarm them. After taking them down, Orna recalls they are called Varoguilles, and are quite possibly the cursed heads of the beheaded sailors they found on the Blessing. The party pushes forward, camping for one night after Cezall realized hours had passed. Nothing bothered them during the night (but Orna does take a dose of the drugs Cik offered her), but the next morning they found odd stone statues which Bell determined were of Mephistopheles. The castle they had been heading towards is seperated from the rest of the land by a deep chasm with only a rickety wooden rope bridge to cross. Selxi almost falls while crossing, but Orna saves her with a Fly spell. The rest cross without issue, until it gets to Cezall. The bridge breaks under the half-orcs weight, sending him cascading down the chasm- but Orna swoops down once again and saves him. Cezall develops a fear of heights. They take a short rest, sizing up the creepy castle while they do. After breaking, they enter through the unlocked front door and find a sprawling building. They go from room to room, slowing piecing together that the man who has kidnapped Eloise (and possibly several other women) is in fact Symon Devilles, the man who is courting Bell and Karlina's younger sister, Marie. They also find a strange dried out corpse of a woman that causes despair to Cik and Orna. After they round the corner they find jail cells- and Eloise Bendeft, the girl they have been looking for, inside. To their shock, she begs them to kill her, showing that she has been bitten. From this and from Karlina's knowledge, they determine that Symon is indeed a vampire. And one other thing Eloise tells them- Symon has a sister named Lorna. And she's much worse than him. Bell prays with Eloise while Cik beheads her. Karlina becomes full of rage, swearing to kill Symon. They move further into the castle, finding an empty ornate coffin, which Cik tells Clair to burn up. They continue looking around, eventually encountering what look like fledgling vampires- all women. Feral and bloodthirsty, a fight in a cramped space ensues- and the KC is victorious without many injuries. And then, the final room they enter. They see Symon and apparently Lorna standing there, looking neither threatened nor afraid. Symon informs them, very condescendingly, that Marie will miss them. When pushed as to why he's doing this by Karlina, he shrugs and grins, simply saying "It's fun." Bell says 'fuck you' for the first time, and everyone prepares to do battle...

[emetophobiahelp]

Rockman.Exe Masterpost (S1-S4)

Hello! I watched the Rockman.Exe anime over the course of our lockdown. There are 5 seasons (2 have been localized) and I'm only going to cover up to S4 because S5  hasn't been fully subbed yet. There are no actual v* scenes but per usual, I'm just gonna list some sensitive stuff :) Note: I will use the japanese names for characters and I will refer to the subbed version of the anime since that's what I watched (and some episodes are left out in English). All of these are on Youtube so I will use Youtube timestamps. Slight spoilers and stuff.

Before I start for a general warning, more often than not, Netto overeats and ends up running to the bathroom but there's no implication that he t*u* so it's still safe. S1- Rockman.Exe (Megaman NT Warrior S1) Episode 11- Netto overeats while waiting for the Grand Prix to start back again. He looks s* and leaves go find a bathroom and accidentally runs into the girls restroom. He apologizes and runs out and goes into the men's bathroom but it's closed for cleaning (it's implied that his stomach is hurting in the other way instead of v*) and Rockman refuses to help him find a bathroom.

Episode 28- While in Ameroupe, a group of boys steal Rockman while Netto is at the ceremony. Netto chases after them and one of the boys squirts spicy mustard into Netto's mouth to slow him down. His face turns really red and he coughs and breathes fire but he doesn't get s*.f

Episode 30- Count Elec is drunk the entire episode, but nothing becomes of it. Episode 31- Netto gets an overseas trip to Namas(u)te for placing second place in the N-1 Grand Prix. The trip is an all you can eat curry tour, 88 dishes in 3 days so he pretty much stuffs himself for the first 5 minutes. Afterward he complains of feeling s* while Rockman fusses at him. If you want to skip the food binging all together it's fine around 6 minutes once it switches to the World Three's plans. By then Netto is back to normal (instead of all chubby and bloated). Episode 52- The navis and PETs get sucked up by a virus controlled vacuum cleaner and are stuck in the spin cycle for a really long time (most of the time they're just screaming while in the vacuum). When Netto finally retrieves Rockman he asks him if he's okay but Rockman is too dizzy to talk. S2- Rockman.Exe Axess (Megaman NT Warrior S2) Episode 25- After fighting a bunch of playback clones of himself, Rockaman says that he feels s* (I really don't think navis can p* but I just wanted to mention it still) Episode 32- Commander Beef/Masa comes back to Japan to visit everyone along with the two net police ladies, Miyuki and Saloma-San who are in their usual disguises. At the very end at 22:17 Miyuki and Saloma-San are shown on the boat heading home, hunched over buckets with their hands over their mouths. There's actually no v* and no audio, they just complain about being seasick and why Masa didn't warn them that they were travelling by boat. It ends 22:27 and switches back to Masa and then the outro comes on. S3- Rockman.Exe Stream: Episode 8- At 8:08 during the helicopter flight, Rockman complains about feeling dizzy and sick. You can hear it in his voice that something's wrong. Blues also complains about feeling strange. Dr.Hikari takes the PETs and notes that their high precision timing chips are off. Later on, this is revealed to be due to the ripping of the time space continuum caused by the crater. At 14:32, Rockman and Blues are driving the abandoned truck into the crater and Rockman looks s* and he asks Blues if he can feel it too. Blues says that the feeling has gotten worse. At 14:42 Dr.Hikari explains that the time distortion is the real reason why Rockman was feeling airsick. Episode 12- Netto runs into Dingo at the Maha Ichiban curry shop. The two have an eating competition which starts at 5:00. They binge eat curry and then attempt to have a netbattle, but because they're both chubby and bloated now, the fight becomes awkward since they can't operate their navis. It ends at 9:40 when they both go their separate ways. If binge eating, face stuffing, and extremely bloated characters make you uncomfortable you can skip this part completely. You'll miss the netbattle since it shows Netto and Dingo a lot but there's nothing important. Episode 15- Ivan Chilliski drinks a lot while trying to complete his failed research, but nothing becomes of it. He does hiccup a few times throughout the episode. Episode 16- Two criminals named Mac and Harry use Gravityman to trick Ms.Manabe into thinking she is putting on weight excessively so she stops eating and goes on a really strict diet, not eating anything for many days. She gets really weak and embarrassed and passes out thinking her weight is causing everything to malfunction. At the end of the episode she is stuffing herself with food and Meiru-Chan asks if she should stop. She says that she can eat a ton without putting on weight so she keeps eating and Netto joins her in binge eating, seeing her as competition. S4- Rockman.Exe Beast: Episode 16- Aragaki Kojirou is jealous of all the attention Netto is getting so he tries to sabotage him in small ways. At one point he douses his food in super spicy sauce and Netto's face turns red and he breathes fire. He has a reaction to the heat but once he gets water he calms down (and Pakuchi-San yells at them to stop playing with their food). I think that's everything! If S5 gets subbed completely, I'll make a note for it. Until then enjoy and stay safe! :)-

Blue Anon -Blue Anon