#also this post made me actually think about the forgotten island and more importantly

[iwishiwasisabeau]

You'll never guess what I immediately started writing after I got off work that day XD it'll take a little bit but by GOD siffrin divorce and surprise child is fucking hysterical

filed under "this is just me talking and having a fun time in my brain" but it would be really funny if the island memory disappearance event happened like 5 years prior to canon instead of 10 because then siffrin would have been an adult when it all went away. and i'm laughing at the idea of siffrin traveling with the party for the whole time and then getting a memory blast out of dormont like "hey guys. i could be misremembering but i think i have a toddler 👍" cue screaming

how this happens could range anywhere from "wishcraft baby" to "siffrin got attached to another bonnie-aged kid in their early 20s adoptive parent style" to my favorite option, "siffrin's secret divorce"

[itsclydebitches]

re: that ask you posted a couple days ago about the male and female representation in RWBY, part of what makes RWBY's whole 'girl power' thing ring exceptionally hollow to me is the fact that there are like... no women in positions of real power in remnant. like at all. except the big bad.

winter is second in command to james. glynda is second in command to ozpin. all of the headmasters are men (for no discernible reason, imo; why theodore and not dorothea?). the leader of the ace ops was a white man (and then winter seemed to take over clover's position instead of either of the women of color on the team, and she was still second to james). RWBY is an all girl team, but JNPR was led by a boy despite a girl arguably being far more qualified (pyrrha). the happy huntresses are all women, and robyn had no real power to speak of--she didn't even manage to win the election, because jacques rigged it, and then the council ceased to matter. there was one (1) woman on the council, but she was so inconsequential that i can't even remember her name. (i suppose we're lucky it was the guy and not her who james shot lol) jacques controls the SDC instead of willow, even though he's not even a schnee by blood and actually married into the family for power. (and we don't even know how he got it over his wife.)

and then there's the white fang, which ghira led and not kali--and it's ghira who leads menagerie itself, while kali seems to be a housewife. sienna had five minutes of screentime before being brutally killed and her position assumed by adam, a man. cordovin is basically a one off lackey we haven't even thought about before or since. neo was second to roman. you have cinder, sure, who is a second but to salem, a woman, and raven as the leader of the branwen tribe--but what does it really say about your 'girl power' narrative when the only women with genuine systemic power in your world are villains or antagonists with massive bodycounts??

atla has the same sort of problem--a couple great female characters, but all the leadership positions are men (except the kyoshi warriors, an all girls group, and even then the leader of their island is an old man) and the one female mentor figure also turns out to be evil--but it at least has some great writing to help overlook that fact, and it came out in the mid-00's and so has some sort of excuse of being a product of its time. but rwby didn't even start until 2013 and it's still going and still making these kinds of decisions well into 2021.

where is this supposed girl power, exactly? am i really supposed to overlook the very patriarchal worldbuilding just because the title characters are girls?

That's an excellent summary of the situation, anon, and as with so much in RWBY, it comes down to the full context. Any one of these examples isn't necessarily going to mean much on its own. It's when you look at the pattern that you can start making a case for those conclusions: Why is the show marketed on "girl power" set in a world where men hold the vast majority of that power? And, more importantly, why is that setup not the point? We could easily have a story where that lopsided gender dynamic is the problem that the girls are looking to fix, but... that story doesn't exist. Like the problems discussed with Jaune, the supposed point here exists only on the surface. Dig just the tinniest bit — the above — and you hit on a lot of structural problems with this "girl power" world.

To add just a few details to what you've already said:

Salem indeed has power, but she's never allowed to fully use it. Each volume the frustration with this grows as Salem accumulates more abilities and then just sits on them. From literally hiding out for a thousand years to worries that she won't use the Staff in Volumes 9-10, Salem really isn't allowed to be the threat she's presented as on the surface. And yes, this is absolutely due in part to the "She's too OP and the writers don't know how to let her be that powerful while still having the heroes win" issue, but again, context. That problem doesn't exclude others occurring simultaneously.

Same double explanation with Summer. Yes, dead moms are an incredibly common trauma to dump on a protagonist, but it still left Yang and Ruby with Tai as their primary influence. And Qrow. The uncle becomes the extended family influence while Raven is the absent one/eventual antagonist. It's personal power as opposed to political power, but Tai, Qrow, Ozpin, formerly James... most of the mentors are men. Maria, a key exception, has been ignored in that regard. The story announced that she was Qrow's inspiration, setup her being Ruby's new mentor, and then... nothing. Nothing has come of that. She disappeared for a volume and then went off to Amity and was literally forgotten by the story when evacuating everyone was the finale's whole point.

Like that Endgame moment I mentioned, the Happy Huntresses feel a little too forced to me. Yes, it's the same basic idea as in ATLA, but ATLA, as you say, has a lot more going for it. The Happy Huntresses feel... on the nose? Idk exactly how to explain it. Like, "Here they are! Another team of all women! Isn't this how progressive storytelling works? Just ignore how this is a one-off team of minor characters compared to the world building issues discussed above." And if you're not paying attention, you miss just how insignificant they are, with a side of Robyn being, well, Robyn. The Kyoshi Warriors, at least, are based off of Kyoshi. A woman avatar who is a significant part of their history. That is, presumably, why they're an all women warrior group (but who notably still teach Sokka). The Happy Huntresses are all huntresses because...? There's no reason except that meta "We want to look progressive" explanation. Just like having all the women superheroes team up for a hot second so people get excited and ignore the representation problems across, what? 21 films? Don't get me wrong, I love that May is among the Happy Huntresses. I think including her in the explicitly all-women group was one of the better things RWBY has done in a long time, but the rest is still a mess.

RWBY is arguably about these smaller groups as opposed to systematic power (despite the writers trying to work that in with things like the White Fang and the election. Not to mention the implication that everything in Atlas is fine now that evil Ironwood has died and taken the symbol of wealth (the city) with him. We saw a human holding hands with a faunus after all. Racism and corruption solved, I guess.) So yes, our group is dominated by women... but Whitley is the one saving Nora, helping to defeat the Hound (plus Willow), thinking of the airships, and providing the blueprints they need to escape. Salem is our Big Bad, except Ironwood is the one the volume focuses on. Ruby is our leader, but Jaune is the one leading the group into the whale and getting praised for how heroic he is. Ren does more to shake things up, even if he's painted as the one in the wrong. Oscar gets to confront Salem and destroys the whale threat. Ozpin provides the information they need to evacuate. Meanwhile, when the girls do things in Volume 8 it's almost always followed by a long-stint of passiveness. Nora opens the door so she can be unconscious for most of the volume. Penny keeps Amity up so she can also be unconscious for a good chunk of time. Ruby sends her message and then sits in a mansion. Blake fights so she can tearfully beg Ruby to save her. Weiss, as said, takes a backseat to Whitley (and Klein). They forward the plot, absolutely, but comparatively it doesn't feel like enough.

It's that pattern then, no one specific example. More and more the personal power, not just the systematic power already built into Remnant, seems to be coming from the men. Not all the time, but enough that scenes like the tea drinking moment feel like a part of a much larger problem. Pietro taking control, Watts hacking, and Ambrosius literally remaking her when Penny is supposed to already be in control of herself and her fate. Winter being presented as the active mentor to Weiss, only to turn around and claim that Ironwood was actually responsible for everything. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and May straight up commenting on how awful things are out there while Yang, Jaune, Ren, and Oscar lead the charge against Salem — with the latter three doing the most to forward that mission (no fear, semblance, cane). As others have only half-joked, Yang's supposedly badass moment was bringing up a mother she's ignored for six volumes and briefly blowing up the immortal woman for a couple of seconds (with Ironwood's bombs). Even Marrow is arguably the most significant Ace Op after Clover. Vine isn't actually a character, Elm slightly less so, Harriet is there to go crazy and try to drop a bomb (notably before admitting to never-before-existed feelings for Clover), but Marrow? He's the one who breaks out. Who is meant to heroically stand up against Ironwood. Who comments on how awful it is that teenagers are fighting and, regardless of how messed up the moral messages are, is supposedly pushing for active change while all the women in his group, including Winter, insist on maintaining the status quo. Look at all these choices as a whole, it makes throwaway worldbuilding choices like "All the Maidens are women" feel pretty hollow. Why does it matter if Amber is a Maiden if she dies in a flashback so Ozpin can struggle to pass on the power? If Pyrrha dies before becoming one so Jaune can angst about it? If Raven is one and then disappears from the story entirely? If Winter has enough power to break Ironwood's aura, but supposedly had no power throughout every other choice she made getting here? If Penny is one, but is continually controlled by men and then asks another man to help her die? It's just really unconvincing, once you look past the surface excitement of a woman looking cool with magic powers.

When you do consider the whole of the story — both in terms of our world building and who is forwarding the plot in the latter volumes, getting the emotional focus, being proactive, etc. — there are a lot of problems that undermine the presumed message RT wants to write. They say, "girl power" by marketing RWBY with these four women, but too many of the storytelling decisions thoroughly undermine that, revealing what's likely a deeply ingrained, subconscious bias.

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #17

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Play of Color

Shaved ice.

A summer that everyone, from kids to adults, knew about. But how to say this in English? I’d never been taught that. Could I even say it to begin with?

The beautiful man responded clearly to my offhand doubts, “‘Shaved ice’. Other options such as ‘ice frost’ and ‘snow cone’ also go into the category, but if you are to to regard the context of ‘ice that was shaved’ as important, then I believe ‘shaved ice’ is appropriate.”

“I see, so it’s a direct translation for ‘ice that’s been shaved’. Got it... A-Aaah! Didn’t you put too much syrup? Ah—”

“I will add more ice.”

A rattling sound echoed through the jewelry shop, where there was nobody but the shopkeeper and his employee. Sitting on the tabletop was an ice shaving machine. As one would expect, we couldn’t commit the barbarianism of placing it directly on a glass table, so three cloths were stacked under the machine’s legs. It wasn’t the manual and nostalgic type but an electric one.

A customer had come over with a paper bag from a famous home appliances mass retailer and bought a glittering yellow diamond that they had reserved, but on this occasion, they ended up forgetting the bag from the electronics retail store. The shopkeeper immediately noticed it and contacted them by phone, but they were in the Narita Express, going straight to Bali for vacation. Apparently, they would only be coming back in the beginning of autumn. What luxury.

The customer who was heading to the southern island had casually said, “You can use it if you’d like—actually, please use it and tell me how it went”, then bid goodbye to Richard with a lighthearted voice and hung up. Inside the paper bag was a brand-new ice shaving machine. It also came with small syrup bags. Seven types of them. The mango, ramune, cola, lime and peach ones were a shock to me, as lived in a world of strawberry, melon and lemon ones. So people could enjoy even things like the pleasure of actually visiting stalls at home nowadays?

That was how we decided to choose at our own discretion a time on the following day when there were no reservations, and began holding a shaved ice party for just the two of us. However, when I said in a joking tone that I honestly never thought we’d really get to be the first ones to use something that a customer had forgotten, Mr. Richard Ranashinghe de Vulpian sighed grievously.

“After what happened yesterday, he contacted me to inform that he had arrived in Bali. He posted on social media, ‘I forgot my ice shaving machine, so I asked an acquaintance to try it out. I’m looking forward to it’, so it seems we need to take a video of the shaved ice as fast as possible. Think of this as also a kind of service.”

“There’s all sorts of jobs out there these days.”

Marketing that introduced new products on social media wasn’t something uncommon these days. But I heard that this sort of business was strict about many things, such as obligations and deadlines, so it might be serious stuff in its own way. I thought up until this point, but then my head whispered, “No, hold on” to me. If this was really the case, then bringing along an ice shaving machine immediately before going to Bali didn’t make any sense. Could it be...?

“Did that person leave this here on purpose? It’s clearly something that you can’t bring into an airplane and would get in the way during the trip.”

“That is possible. But it is not something for a single jeweler to judge. There is a possibility that they thought they would be able to enjoy shaved ice at a beach resort but were mistaken, and are now feeling down. Oh... oh, mgh...”

“Ah, the ice turned into water. Didn’t you put a tad too much syrup?”

“Nonsense. From the market price, it is obvious that the more syrup, the merrier.”

“You told that wholesaler who came to buy a ring with lots of decorative diamonds the other day that ‘more doesn’t equal better’, though.”

“Those are two different things,” he said in an eloquent, beautiful Japanese that sounded like it had been cut and trimmed, at which I prostrated myself with a “hahaa”.

Despite the force in his eyes being certain, he seemed to be having trouble putting an appropriate amount of syrup. When he put an abundant amount of the mango, ramune, cola, lime and peach ones all together, the ski slope-like white canvas turned into a color that looked like that of Shinjuku’s gutters during a downpour. Richard would surely call this shade of gray “smoky quartz” or something like that. The fluffy pile of ice was gone, leaving a sleet – or just plain water – in the glass bowl. It would’ve been fine if he had added them little by little, but on second thought, I was thinking this way because I was Japanese, so I was used to the way we added shaved ice syrup to some extent.

As the jeweler, not discouraged, put his bowl under the ice shaving machine, pressed the button and added more ice with crunchy noises, I called out to him, “Hey. Can you lend me that for a bit?”

“I do not mind.”

I took the bowl of water in my hands, adding the syrups of each type little by little. I felt like the jeweler was staring fixedly at me, like, “You’ll only use that tiny little bit of them? Seriously?” but I ignored him. As they said, the last drop makes the cup run over.

The result was...

“Tadaaah.”

A snowy mountain had changed its form into a richly colored shaved ice. I thought it was pretty good, if I could say so myself.

His eyelashes fluttering as he blinked for a moment, the gorgeous jeweler whispered, “Hoo. Excellent. Beautiful.”

“Well, being told that by someone who’s like an incarnation of the concept of beauty is flattering.”

“Ahem. Anyway, this color is extremely tasteful. It bears a close remembrance to ammolite.”

“‘Ammo... nite’?”

“Not ‘ni’, ‘li’. ‘Ammolite’. Ammolite is a gemstone that derivates from living creatures, of which the components obtain an iridescent effect during the many years of fossilization.” Saying this, Richard opened a video on his phone and handed it over to me. I exchanged it for the bowl of shaved ice as if it were an assembly-line system.

What appeared on-screen was a cross-section view of the ammonite. It was split vertically like a CT image taken at a hospital. The contents were a rainbow-colored stone that sparkled brightly. A gradation of red, green and yellow. It changed depending on what angle you looked at it. A while ago, when I heard about the opal, it was revealed to me that this kind of effect was called “play of color”. Still, to think that the inside of a shell could go through such a transition. There was too much depth to the things that happened in nature, and they were immeasurable.

“So can this be called... a stone too...?”

“This would be something that happened about forty years ago, but it was classified as a ‘gemstone’ by the Gemological Society of America. Of course, I do not think it should be pushed through, even if the costumer themselves happen to say that ‘this is a fossil’.”

It apparently depended on how you thought of it. Thinking back, this applied even to the general idea of gemstones.

I flicked the phone’s screen, head-over-heels for the prism-like shells that showed up one after another. Some people used them as pendants or brooches by processing the glittering part with gold.

“How pretty. Hey, do we also have ammolites here in Etrang... eh?”

“There is a possibility that we will one day. Something the matter?”

The beautiful jeweler had been scooping the shaved ice with a tiny spoon and eating it. He wasn’t eating it in a rushed way at all, but half of the iceberg was already gone. With perfect moderation, so that the proportion of the colors of the syrups that I had added one by one wouldn’t crumble.

“D-Did you like it that much?”

“I have never eaten shaved ice at Japanese stalls. Having a frozen desert in a refreshing place like this has a nostalgic air to it.”

He had never waged shaved ice at a stall. Did that mean he had eaten shaved ice at some fashionable shop? Probably not, I thought. A normal Japanese person wouldn’t eat shaved ice at that pace. The reason went without saying. This pace was – how should I put it? – dangerous.

“Richard, hey, listen well. Shaved ice is—”

“Why are you coming close?”

“I’m telling you something important. You have to eat shaved ice at a high pace.”

“But why are you shortening the distance between us? You are too close.”

“Don’t get hung up on minor stuff. More importantly, you already ate a lot of this shaved ice, right? Aren’t you tired of it? I can eat the rest.”

“It is terribly disconcerting to hear this from the father of this work of art, but I do not see any reason for that whatsoever, thus I humbly decline.”

“Aah! Don’t gulp it down! I said don’t gulp it down!”

“I am not. I do not eat that way.”

“Like I said, that’s not what I’m talking about...”

“It is impolite for me to eat by myself. Hurry and make yours to eat as well.”

“Whatever happens got nothing to do with me...”

Glancing backwards at the jeweler as he gave me an aloof nod, I began making my own shaved ice.

Later on, after Richard pleased the customer by sending them pictures of the shaved ice, he reported back to me. He probably reported because the pictures he had sent to the customer was of the shaved ice that I had made for myself, on which the colors were scattered in the form of a whirlwind. I smiled back, replying that I was glad, and not saying anything else. I also didn’t tell him that, by the time he remembered we had to do a photo shoot of it, the beautiful jeweler was making a face that looked like a boy having a worrisome migraine due to some anguish towards the meaning of life and death.

Summer was not yet over. We also didn’t know yet whether or not the customer in Bali would come to retrieve the ice shaving machine. Etranger wasn’t that big, so Richard was probably troubled that it was left there. But if they didn’t come to get it, I might be able to enjoy eating shaved ice with Richard in the summer every year for a while, I thought. And each of these times, I’d be sure to make a shiny mountain of ice in the colors of a rainbow, just like an ammolite. Just like the sparkly smile that Richard showed, I thought that it’d be great if such a summer came around and was looking forward to it.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

Ok, so I’ve tried and tried several times to get this posted, we’ll see if this is the time it goes through. Half the reason why this review series has slowed down is not just the multitude of real life stuff I have to deal with, but also Tumblr just refusing to work with me and deleting my posts. I also can’t save my work else where due to Tumblr messing up the formatting. It’s been a frustrating mess and so far no one @staff​ has come up with a tech solution or work around. 

Summary: Rapunzel helps to rebuild Old Corona, (after its near destruction from the Black Rocks) which will become the permanent home of Red and Angry, who have returned to Corona to settle down. However, she begins to notice strange footprints around the area, as well as the livestock becoming more unruly and fearful. The group comes across a monster hunter named Creighton, who explains to the group that the area is being stalked by a werewolf, who possessed one of Corona's citizens. Aiming to save this person rather than kill them, Rapunzel sets out to find who it is. 

When Was This Decided?

No seriously, when was this decided? It’s a pretty big leap go from ‘the rocks makes various towns inhabitable’ to ‘let’s rebuild!’ What’s changed here? Cause the rocks haven’t been removed and Rapunzel failed in her mission to nullify their power. In fact the rocks were not only reawaken in the second season finale but shown to be under the power of someone who’s intentions were made unclear to the heroes.

So I ask again; who thought this was safe thing to do now? What provisions have been made to accommodate the rocks? They blocked the well, remember, and destroyed the fields; how are the people getting food and water? 

And most importantly why wasn’t the audience informed beforehand? When you change up the status quo in a story you need to provide just cause to the viewers. I legit thought I had accidently skipped an episode when I first watched because this plot point was not set up properly.  

Why Were They Ever Left Alone to Begin With?

In a story where neglect is a central theme and motivating factor for all the main characters, it is super tone deaf to have those same characters perpetuating neglect themselves. The decision to live on their own should not be left up to Angry and Red because they are children. Children are not mature enough to provide for themselves neither emotionally nor physically and when placed in situations where they have to do so it psychologically damages them. Which the series already showcased with Varian so why is this suddenly deemed ok? 

This Completely Undermines the Past Two Seasons

The entire conflict of the past two seasons was the rocks forcing people out of their homes. Eugene was made an orphan from them, Varian lost his entire support group because them, they drove out the Saporians from their encampment which prompted them to invade Corona, and Rapunzel and company spent an entire year on the road trying to find a way to stop them from spreading supposedly. 

All of that has now been flushed down the drain with this decision. And its super insulting to watch because it’s the writers telling us that we’ve wasted our time caring about this plot for two years. You don’t resolve major conflicts off screen and without explanation; it’s lazy!  

Also Where Is Varian and Quirin During All This?

This is not only their home and legal charge, but it’s also the ending to their ongoing story, and they’re not even here in a silent cameo. 

Wouldn’t Quirin be overseeing the rebuilding of his town? Wouldn’t Varian be using his skills to find workable engineering solutions for them, fulling his season one goal of saving his home and making his village better with his inventions? Also wouldn’t Edmund want to catch up with his brother and help out now that he’s here? 

In fact not a single person who actually lives in Old Corona is to be found in these opening shots. 

Oh, But We Do Get Earl

Earl might be from Old Corona, or he might not be. We’ve literally never seen him before. The artists had to create a brand new character model for this character, the writers had to write new lines for him, and the casting director had to hire an actor and have him record these lines for only less than a minute of screen time, never to be seen again. Even though they legit had shepherd models already to go from season one that they could have used. It’s a waste of resources and a prime example of the mismanagement going on in this show. 

It’s Too Late In the Series to Waste Time On a New One Off Villain

Speaking of a waste, Creighton might have more story reasons to appear in this episode than Earl does but her inclusion is still a poor decision. The show already has an overabundance of villains, so many in fact that they shipped the bulk of them off in season two, and this is the final season; the season where we should be wrapping up plots and minor characters stories not kicking off new ones.

Taken on her own Creighton isn’t a bad character presa, she works for the episode, but when we could have gotten a resolution to Caine’s, Hector’s, or the Disciples’ story arcs instead it highlights how misused the series assets are. 

All This Lore Will Be Forgotten In Just a Few Episodes Time

We finally get like some magical rules and backstory only for future episodes to ignore it from here on afterwards. Red can turn into a werewolf whenever she pleases, night or day, with little explanation as for why.  

Just Arrest Her Rapunzel

You’re the acting queen. You have the power and the right to arrest or even merely detain someone who is threating your citizens and refuses to leave. In fact it’s kind of your job. You don't even have to throw her in a dungeon if you thought that too cruel. Just lock her up in a nice room somewhere in the castle until you’ve sorted out the mess yourself. 

The series wants to treat Rapunzel as the underdog when she isn’t, and her failure to wield her power effectively doesn’t make her look ‘nice’ it just makes her look stupid and grossly incompetent. This is a conflict that didn’t need to have happened and Rapunzel let it happen.  

Oh, So Now Y'all Riot

You didn’t complain when the king orphaned children with his crack down on crime. You rolled over as he dolled out overly harsh punishments to poor people who committed minor offences. You gleefully went along with the royals as they  scapegoated a child for their mistakes, even as they endangered your homes.  And ya’ll sat on your asses while invaders pulled off a coup and enslaved you. 

But this is what you get mad over? A rumor about a mythical creature existing that your princess has zero control over. Seriously? 

Man, I hate the townspeople in this show. 

Pointless Dream Sequence Is Pointless

This scene tells the audience nothing new and just wastes screen time. 

This Is the Wrong Lesson to Focus On Rapunzel

We do not tell the 12 year old to unload their phycological issues onto their baby sister!

You’re telling me parents were involved in writing this show? What the hell!?

Rapunzel you are the adult here. At 20 now you should be more adept to handle listening to the deep seated emotional traumas of a little girl than a fucking 10 year old! And if you’re not, or don’t want to, then it’s your job to find another adult who will. 

That’s the core problem with this entire episode. It treats Red’s and Angry’s problems as some eternal issue that they need to work out and not as the inherent failure of the adults around them that it is. 

It is neither Red’s nor Angry’s decision on weather or not they get live on their own. Nor is it their responsibility to be each other’s therapist. Yes, a change in living arrangements is always stressful and for children with abandonment issues it can be hard to readjust, but that’s when you need to step it up and deal with the problem; not shove it off onto the kids themselves! 

Monty Is Useless

Is this all Monty is good for? Being a red herring in ridiculously simple mysteries? Is this why we wasted a whole episode introducing him back in season one? Really?

Why Are We Still Treating Old Corona As Being Separate from Corona Itself?

Look, I get that it’s a joke, but it’s a joke that highlights how poorly thought out the worldbuilding is in the series. Is the Coronan government in charge of Old Corona or not? If so then you can just make those lease laws yourself as the acting regent Eugene. If not then Frederic shouldn’t have had any say in the matter of relocating Old Corona’s citizens nor putting a child outside of his jurisdiction under arrest.

But more importantly this is a just a repeat of that vague level of responsibility Rapunzel has for people who live off the island. She can’t order a whole village to be rebuilt while simultaneously claiming that she bares no accountability for Varian and Quirin’s problems in season one. 

Replacing Guns with Crossbows Isn’t the Safe Option That the Censors Think It Is

I find it kind of amusing that censors will ban showing a 17th century blunderbuss but allow it to be replaced by a weapon that is still mass produced today and can be bought in any Walmart across the country. Like I’m a major advocate for gun regulation in real life, but even I have to find this to be a bit silly. Crossbows aren’t some fantasy weapon. People still own and use them. But it would be seriously hard to get ahold of a working antique firearm.  

Seriously This Is How the Girls Have Been Living and the Adults Haven’t Done Anything About It Until Now?

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse by now, but it’s so engrained into the episode I have to keep bringing it up. The show itself is visually telling us that Red and Angry can’t keep living this way, but it never wants to call Rapunzel and the other adults out for not rescuing them from this life sooner. 

So All This Tells Me Is That Rapunzel Could Have Easily Checked Up On Varian In Painter’s Block, But Didn’t.

Remember they’re right next to Old Corona; meaning that Janus Point is also right next to Old Corona. Meaning that Rapunzel could easily have checked up on Varian right after Painter’s Block and choose not to. With each passing episode Rapunzel has less and less excuse for her behavior in season one. 

Yeah Remember that Plot Point That Wound Up Being Entirely Irrelevant to the Story?

In jokes don’t cover your ass when you make poor writing choices. Quite the opposite in fact as all you’ve done is remind the audience of all the various dangling plot threads that you will fail to follow up on. The disciples plot goes no where and serves no purpose, and it should not have been introduced as this big important thing if you weren’t going to do anything with it. 

Nice Idea, Poor Execution

I’ve heard fans of this episode tell me that they enjoy it because of this scene with Red. If you’re a naturally introverted person or neurodivergent and have trouble communicating at times then Red’s speech here can strike a cord. Which is cool; I’ll never deny someone’s feelings and if a piece of media speaks to you on a personal level for whatever reason that is great. What I’m here to discuss though is story structure and whether or not the story’s themes are presented well in context of what it’s set up. 

The conflict here does not work from a pure structural standpoint because it’s a surface level deflection of the real issues. Red’s problem isn’t that she is being ignored, it's that she’s been abandoned. Now communication issues can arise from that abandonment and feeling heard can be step forward in working those issues out, but Red’s central trauma isn’t going to be magically fixed by people ‘listening’ to her, i.e. being granted whatever she wants, but by providing her with a real home and with a real guardian to look after her. 

Because what Red wants on a surface level is harmful to her, and the reasons why she wants what she wants needs to be addressed more so than then sedating her angry outbursts in the moment. This is treating the symptoms not the cause.

So What Is or Isn’t Real About the Curse?

Once again, we finally get some actual lore and rules for magic and the writers are already throwing it away during the same episode they are introduced. I now have as little context for how the wolf curse works within the Tangled world as I did before the episode started. 

This Is Sweet, But Once Again Context Brings It Down.

So just to reiterate, this a surface level resolution to the conflict of the episode that doesn’t actually address anything. It might feel like an appropriate ending but only if you ignore the fact that Red and Angry are orphans who’ve been abandoned but the adults. 

Angry apologizing here to Red does not solve any of their problems, especially since Angry, as a child herself, is not responsible for her sister’s behavior, feelings, nor well being. That falls to the adults and they fail to address Red’s core issues and their own failings to her in their apologies as well. Not to mention that the very next scene undermines any optional progress that could have been made here. 

Listening to Someone Does Not Mean Giving Them Whatever They Want

This does not fix anything. Red and Angry are still left to live on their own without any real supervision. Giving them a big play house is not providing for them, it’s spoiling them. Would you let all the other orphans in the local orphanage roam free without an adult to take care of them? No!? Gee I wonder why? Could it be because letting a 12 and 10 year old raise themselves is a very stupid idea? One that will potentially damage them later in life assuming that they don't get themselves killed in the meantime. 

Moreover this is yet another example of the series overall problem with not understanding that compromise and resolving conflicts does not mean rewarding the characters at the end with everything that they want without having them work for it. That’s not how life works and it’s not how good story telling works. 

This Is Beyond Irresponsible

No! Bad Show! Bad! 

You do not get to pretend that negligence is the same thing as compromise. Yes I know Eugene said to come to him when they have a problem, but as demonstrated by this very episode children do not always know when to ask for help nor can they always find it when needed, that is why parents exist!  

Nor does the show get a free pass for turning it’s main characters into child abusers who neglected three minors multiple times now. Even when they themselves are victims of that same abuse!

How utterly blinkered do you have to be to not see the problem here? 

It’s the Return of the Pointless Parallels

Let me count the ways for how stupid this is. 

Red and Angry’s conflict has no impact on the on going narrative. Even with them now being reoccurring characters they still manage to contribute nothing to the future storylines involving Cass. 

Neither Rapunzel nor Cassandra learn anything from Red and Angry’s spat; Rapunzel because she refuses to acknowledge her own flaws and Cassandra’s not even here for any of it. 

The sister’s dynamic between Raps and Cass is not well established and the writers mange to piss all over it by series end because of gay baiting and poor writing. Therefore relying on lazy parallels to other siblings in the show to bolster this connection falls flat.  

Red and Angry’s argument has nothing in common with Rapunzel and Cass’s current fighting. One is about abandonment issues and the other is about shallow validation. Trying to tie these two themes together actually winds up undermining both conflicts. 

Red and Angry are children. Rapunzel and Cassandra are not. That very much matters. 

Red and Angry didn’t drag innocent people into their petty bitch fight and endanger them because they wanted to feel special. 

This Makes Zero Sense

I don’t know; she looked pretty happy during Crossing the Line. 

She was also able to control the rocks just fine then, so what happened? 

Not to mention soon after this Zhan Tiri is telling her she needs some sort of incantation to control the rocks, despite being able to already control the rocks.... 

It’s almost as if the writers are full of shit and don’t actually know what they’re doing. 

So Are We Remembering the Burnt Hand or Not?

Does the hand matter or not? Is it ever a motivating factor in what Cassandra decides to do? Is her waning control over the rocks connected to her burnt hand; even though having a burnt hand is what allowed her grab the moonstone in the first place? Did the moonstone heal the hand? Does Raps singing the healing incantation later on heal it? Does Cass have a forever burnt hand? 

Who the fuck knows! 

Not the writers that’s for sure, cause it never comes up again. 

Don’t introduce plot points and then not resolve them. That’s writing 101 guys. 

Wait if she needs the incantation to control the rocks and the angry thing is a lie, then how the heck is she controlling them just now? Make up your dang mind show! 

I swear I lose brain cells whenever I have to rewatch the evil Cassandra plot. It is so dumb  you guys.... so, so dumb. 

Conclusion

It’s not the worst thing ever but series has far better episodes on offer than this one. Even in a season as suck ass as season three. 

So there’s praying that this review posts this time and if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me in my projects feel free to leave a tip on my Ko-Fi. Thank you. 

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[theparanormalperiodical]

Is The Love Island Villa Haunted?: The Ghosts and Myths Surrounding Majorca’s Most Famous Bae-cation

It’s been eight weeks of flirting, fighting, and fanny flutters.

That’s right, Love Island 2019 is officially over.

The winners have been crowned, the 50k already transferred to the suitable bank accounts, and we can finally stop pinning our own commitment issues on forced and fake relationships.

But it turns out something nearly as terrifying as the loud make-out sessions maintains a permanent residence at the villa.

Joanna Chimonides – a controversial contestant from this year’s show – claims the Love Island Villa is haunted.

Giving a gaggle of exclusives to the appropriate tabloids, she claims the figure of a woman with blonde hair would stand over the beds of her and her fellow islanders.

Rocking back and forth over the sleeping contestants, the apparition clearly got these TV personalities talking, and was nearly as dramatic as Joanna walking out on her ex-bae, Michael.

And it got me thinking: could the Love Island villa be, like, totally, actually, haunted?

It turns out that Majorca – the location of Love Island’s iconic villa - is actually drowning in death.

From Napoleonic prisoners, to long-forgotten fishermen, the list of the long-deceased leaves us with a lot of ghosts to chart.

Given this, there is a strong chance that the Villa has a lot more going on than Joanna was aware of.

And so, in today’s post we are going to be discussing Majorca’s many myths and hauntings, and how they might prove that our dear Islanders might have been shacking up with something supernatural.

First things first (well, ok, aside from me being the realest), let’s talk about Majorca:

Majorca is like, seriously old.

And clearly this is the first step to becoming a spook-tastic location, but seriously.

Think back before Thomas Cook packages, and before holiday resorts where every restaurant within a six-mile radius has a menu in English.

The beautiful Island of Majorca – split between mountains and the coastline – has been a regular tourist haunt since the 19th century. Even today 8 million visitors will touch down in Palma de Mallorca airport every year to enjoy the wonders on offer.

And these 8 million will encounter a lot more history (and a lot more horror) than the dodgy cold meats in the breakfast buffet they signed up for.

During the Napoleonic Wars no less than 9000 prisoners of wars were shipped there, and its these prisoners who make regular cameos upon the island.

The Myths behind Palma de Mallorca

The capital of Majorca might be bustling with tourists, workers, and plentiful cosmopolitan vibes, but the visitors are far from alone here.

In fact, many legends – aside from ghosts - still make claims to the city.

First up is the dragon of Na Coca:

This over-sized reptile used to make residence in the sewers back in the 17th century, and according to local legend would drag unsuspecting Majorcans to their deaths.

In response to the fatalities, the governor of Alcudia challenged the dragon to a death match, and conquered the mighty beast.

Another myth that might interest you is the hunchback of Na Joana.

A hunchback (surprise surprise) was sent out by his mother to collect firewood. On his way there, he heard the soft chanting of a group of witches in a cave.

They invited the hunchback to join them, and upon enjoying his chanting talents, and offered him a favour by removing his hump.

Following this miracle, a local woman sent her hunchback son to find these witches and be unburdened of his affliction.

During the chants he became angry, and changed the lyrics.

Yep, this motherfucker decided to have a rap battle with a bunch of witches.

Na Joana – the main witch (#HeadBitchInCharge) – gave him a hump on his chest in punishment.

Our final legend is rumoured to still haunt the island today.

The ‘Bad Count’ as he is now known, haunts a nature reserve, and is probably still searching for those who punished him for his injustice.

Ramon Safartesa – ‘the bad count’ – was cruel to those that worked his land, and he made the lives of his peasants unbearable.

Following many failed assassination attempts, the peasants came together and burnt his castle to the ground.

In 1922 it was rebuilt, but the locals were offended by the celebration of Safartesa, and it was once again reduced to the rubble that still lies there today.

The Ghosts of Bellver Castle

Love Island is host to a playlist of sounds.

Kissing, canoodling, and the ruffling of sheets all figure within this sexy soundtrack of the summer.

And by ‘sexy’ I mean deeply uncomfortable for anyone watching.

Anyway – it turns out our favourite villa isn’t the only iconic Majorcan building with moaning oozing out of its walls. 

Bellver Castle is known for the moaning and the clanking of chains, claiming the title of ‘the most haunted building in Majorca’.

Built 700 years ago to commemorate Christianity’s claims to dominance over its rival religion, Islam, it was be used for royal residence, refuge from the plague, and most importantly as a Prison.

Visitors can still see the graffiti written on the walls from those who were once held against their will, and 2 deadly sites are potential hubs for paranormal activity.

Torre de L’Homeage was a place where they were actually imprisoned, and Olla?

Olla was an area – not unlike a small outside garden – that lay underneath a trapdoor.

Prisoners were to be dropped through this trapdoor, and left to freeze in the winter temperatures, or swelter in the summer heat.

Next up is the ghost of Johannes Bocher

It is said that in the dead of the night, a man walks the lanes of Cabrera Island. Those that walk by him are often asked if he can be buried in his homeland instead of where his body today lies.

This is the ghost of – you guessed it– Johannes Bocher.

Having crashed in 1944 after being shot by an RAF fighter, his corpse was kept in La Cruz de Los Franceses.

This memorial also contains the tomb of another lost soul: En Lluent.

This fisherman and Prisoner of war lost his life during the Napoleonic Wars as so many other hauntings have stemmed from.

En Lluent reportedly appears at the cemetery and cries, asking to be returned to his grave.

And so there we have it

Majorca might be dripping in young-20-something-influencers looking to boost their insta followers, but it’s also drenched in the less than living residents that have stayed more than 8 weeks.

So, whether you’re looking for your summer getaway, or considering submitting your application so you too can end up on Celebs Go Dating and sell teeth whitening kits, Majorca might just have more in store than a random scottish bloke narrating your holiday flings.

Like dead people.

Have you ever seen a ghost on your vacay? And do you think Joanna is just using the story to boost her Love Island Legacy?

Let me know down in the comments!

[pinkletterday]

Notorious

Pairing: Barry Allen/ Iris West.

Rating: Teen

Warnings: drug use, addiction

Status: WiP

Summary: Iris West reluctantly faces the challenge of her career as a publicist - saving up and coming alt-rock sensation Barry Allen's career from himself.

"People like notoriety. Studios don't like uninsurable flight risks. The money is in the sweet spot between the two."

Prompt taken from this post and altered.

"Hi, I'm gonna kill you."

Iris's boss, Leonard Snart, swivelled in his chair to face her as she stormed into his office, heedless of the transparency of its walls.

"Good morning to you too, Iris," he said wryly. "I wouldn't mind if you do kill me, I have meeting with Accounting in ten minutes. But why am I to be executed?"

"Why would you put me on the Allen account?" Iris demanded, eyes flashing angrily under wide-rimmed glasses. "More importantly, why am I being taken off the Queen one? I brought in that client, Len! And now you want me to baby-sit ANOTHER self-aggrandizing man-child AFTER I helped QC Records pull off a complete image revamp?"

"We're a entertainment PR firm, West, they're all self-aggrandizing man-children. We'd be out of business if they weren't," Len waved her away and went back to collecting his papers. "And I put you on the Allen account because Oliver Queen likes you."

"What?" Iris stopped, non-plussed.

"When you pull off the impossible, people reward you by giving you something more impossible," said Len in his usual air of imparting some grand wisdom upon the newbies. It did nothing to assuage Iris's bad humour. "You got the public to see young Ollie Queen, heedless playboy in the club scene, as a savvy charismatic businessman able to lead his father's empire without running it to the ground. Now he wants you to do the same for his good buddy Barry Allen."

"Why didn't he just ask me?" said Iris, only slightly mollified.

"Probably didn't want to be around for the kicking and screaming," said Len, leaning his head sardonically at her. Iris flushed. Snart was such an asshole. "And don't worry, Queen's paying the retainer fee."

"Why is Oliver paying for Allen?" she determinedly strode behind him as he headed out to the elevator. "Barry Allen's already got two singles in the Billboard Top 40 and a contract with QC. Can't he afford to pay us himself?"

"Ah, there's the rub, darling," Len smirked at her. "Part of the deal is that you convince young Mr. Allen that he needs you. And judging by the recent tabloid coverage - boy, he really does need you."

Iris stared at him. "You can't be serious. He doesn't even want a - Len, he needs rehab not a publicist!"

"No reason why he shouldn't have both," said Len stepping into the elevator as she stood outside, stupefied in disbelief. "Don't worry, Iris. I have every faith in you." The elevator doors closed on her boss's infuriating Chesire cat grin.

"I don't even know anything about alt-rock!" she yelled fruitlessly at the closed steel doors.

"So, I guess this is a bad time to tell you I got the QC account," Sara approached waving a folder at her, her expression not much less disgruntled than hers. "Any tips on how to handle Queen?"

"Yeah," said Iris, pivoting angrily on her heel and marching away. "Kick his fucking ass."

***

For someone with a talent for both music and being splashed across the tabloids, Barry Allen had a rather unconventional arrangement. He was not represented by any major talent agency, even Snart Associates was more entertainment-corporate oriented than talent. He had been "managed" this far by a personal friend in the music industry, a Cisco Ramon, whose own success had made it impossible to focus on Allen's. Iris figured that some well-meaning yet complicated friend negotiations had taken place behind the artist's back for this clusterfuck to land on her desk. She fumed. She was a professional. Even when she had had to contend with Oliver Queen at his worst (the fact that much of the worst had been a ruse was small consolation) it had been saving of the company she had been tasked with. She hadn't gotten an MBA on her own money by twenty-four while working her way up from a mailroom to end up playing nurse maid to entitled white boys.

It was her ire that made her square her shoulders, wipe the sneer off her face and beard the proverbial lion in his den alone. Ramon had asked her to wait for him outside the unimpressive square brick building in a bad part of town ("probably to fit his boho aesthetic," Iris thought uncharitably) but he was now ten minutes late, so screw him.

There was no security or buzzer at the entrance so Iris was able to simply walk into the alarmingly large and clanky elevator that took her upto where Allen lived on the top floor. She stepped into a hall of bare brick with thick wooden sliding door staring at her. There was no buzzer to be seen here either. Iris was about to bang on the door when it opened by itself.

"- all right, fine, I'll let myself out, you jerk. Thanks for the sex and the coffee, I guess!" an irate blonde in dishevelled clothing appeared in front of her, coat and one heel still in hand, facing away to yell at the occupant. She turned around, came face to face with Iris and stepped back in surprise. "Who're you?"

Iris stared awkwardly at her. "Um."

She snorted. "Yeah okay, whatever, good luck." With which ominous benediction she pulled on her shoe and clattered down the stairs, apparently unwilling to wait for the elevator.

"Hey Kathy - Katya - whoever - could you close the door please? Thanks!" called a male voice.

Iris stepped in and complied.

The studio was kind of a bachelor cliché, bare brick, high ceilings, stainless steel counters and leather sofas. A vague smell of weed hung stale in the air. Dull grey sunlight flooded in from the large square windows overlooking the brick and mortar part of the warehouse district, on which gentrification had not encroached. A sad little pocket of impersonal luxury in a sadder, almost forgotten place.

A tall, lanky white man in a tattered tee shirt sat in profile at the far end, eschewing the sprawling sofa behind him in favour of sitting on the floor rug in a tangle of long legs, intermitently strumming on a guitar and scribbling on a note pad on a coffee table strewn with mugs, cans and paper.

"Mr. Allen?" she said tentatively.

His head whipped up, startled. "Huh? Who're you?"

"My name is Iris West. Oliver Queen sent me," said Iris, brisk and no-nonsense, adjusting her glasses.

He blinked slowly at her. Then a lazy grin came over his face. "And here I thought Ollie wasn't gonna send me strippers anymore," he said, eyeing her appreciatively, "he still definitely knows my type."

Iris gaped at him. "I am not a stripper!"

"Oh," he looked befuddled. "I'm sorry, but he really has sent me strippers before and one of them was actually dressed all school-teacherish like you - um. Although come to think of it, he hasn't done that in a few years. Sorry, um. Did uh, the other lady leave?"

"Yeah, she left just as I came in," Iris felt even more nonplussed, no idea which end of that ramble she was supposed to start with. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked around blinking as though not sure of his own surroundings. Or what time it was. Possibly which year.

"Are you high?" It was only ten in the morning, Jesus Christ.

"Um. Only on coffee. And Redbull. Lots of Redbull," he said, going back to work as though her presence in his apartment was not really of much concern to him. "Sex really gives me an endorphin rush and I had this idea - couldn't really go back to sleep after that. I think I made Katya -uh, the girl - mad. I just really need to focus, y'know? Like, if I don't it get done while I'm in the zone I can't ever get it back again?" He never tooked up, talking as though mostly to himself.

Iris approached him cautiously. "Huh. Well, coffee and Rebull I can work with. As long as it's not coke or something."

"Out of Coke. Might have some Pepsi," said Allen absently.

"I meant cocaine."

"Yeah, out of that too."

Iris breathed out slowly.

"Uh, so if Ollie didn't send you, why are you here?" Allen looked up at her, finally seeming to register that this vital question had gone unanswered.

"I said Mr. Queen did send me," she said patiently. "I'm your new publicist.

"Oh." Allen absorbed this. Then closed his eyes, hummed and began strumming his guitar.

Iris felt a headache building behind her eyeballs. "Mr. Allen? Did you not hear what I said?"

"I did, thank you," said Allen, "but I don't need a publicist. I'm sorry you wasted your time."

"I'm sorry about that too," said Iris, temper flaring out her nostrils, "but I am used to being treated with respect, client or not. Something apparently neither you, Oliver Queen or even Mr. Ramon seems capable of."

To her surprise, Allen's eyes flew open and he seemed genuinely dismayed. "Oh. You're right. I called you a - and then. Oh my God I'm sorry," he scrambled up, coltish legs unfolding almost comically to reveal himself a full head taller than her, pale and almost gangly but for an unconscious grace. "Um, please take a seat. Can I get you a drink? I can make more coffee. What do you mean Ollie and Cisco were rude to you?"

She stared after him as he bustled over to the kitchen island at the other end of the studio. Her past experience with Queen's associates and the tabloids had prepared her for a womanizing druggie manchild. It wasn't that Barry Allen had unchecked any of those boxes, exactly. Just kept checking them slightly to the left of where she expected.

"Well for one, Mr. Queen didn't notify me of my change in clients himself, and Mr. Ramon is now fifteen minutes late to our meeting," Iris slung her coat over a barstool and firmly sat herself on another, emanating a stern "will not be dislodged" aura, "I haven't had a briefing and also been told that I have to convince you to let me be your publicist. This is beyond professional discourtesy."

"Agreed on all counts," said Allen, smiling ruefully at her over the sink where he was rinsing the coffee pot. Unbecoming scruff aside, it was a very cute and disarming smile. "I'm sure Cisco has a good explanation, but I'm afraid Oliver is just an asshole like that."

"Believe me, I know," Iris snorted.

Allen's amusement deepened. "You aren't worried about calling your client an asshole in front of his friend?"

"I've called him worse things over the last year," she rolled her eyes, "and I can promise you I am going to call him many things as soon as his plane lands and he turns his phone on. I worked my ass off to save his company. I thought that meant something to him." The hurt she had been trying to ignore twinged despite herself. She had thought, after everything, that she and Oliver were at least friends.

Allen snapped his fingers in realization. "Oh, hey! I know who you are! Oliver talked about you all last year!"

"He did?"

"Yeah! Mostly complaining," (Iris snorted) "but in an impressed, complimentary way, you know?" Allen leaned his elbows on the counter and bent toward her with earnest blue eyes.

"I can imagine," she smiled wryly. "And he signed on with me willingly."

"Well, he got his money's worth. People finally get to see him like I've always seen him - not just a selfish party animal. You've done good work, Miss...?" he trailed off uncertainly again.

"West," she reasserted. "But you don't feel in need of my services?"

A distant door shut behind Allen's open, friendly eyes. "No, Miss West, I don't. It's not a reflection on you, it's just personal reasons."

Iris shrugged. "All right."

This seemed to surprise him. "Really? You aren't going to try to persuade me?"

"Do you want to be persuaded?"

"Well, no. I just thought -"

"Mr. Allen," Iris rubbed the headache away from her eyes, "a publicist is an integral, almost invasive presence in a company or someone's life. I need to know who you are, I need you to trust me so that you will come to me with everything and anything so that I can head off any media shitstorms or rumour mills, I need you ready and willing to take my advice on important life choices. I can't force my way into that position. Either you really want to rework your image or you don't."

"Why do I need to rework my image?" said Allen, blue eyes growing stormy. "I'm a musician. It would be weird if I weren't into sex and drugs."

"Sex and drugs, yes. Not making a fool of yourself by turning up high for your Jimmy Fallon interview, being arrested for solicitation and making it plain to the world that you are one drunken orgy away from an OD."

Allen was quiet as he poured the coffee into mugs. They were gaudy novelty ones with silly puns, incongrous with the sobriety of his interior decor. He slid one over without looking at her. She wondered whether he had deliberately chosen the bright-eyed unicorn saying "Go To Hell" in rainbow colors for her, but then he had his (long, graceful) hands wrapped around a mug where a slice of cheese announced "We'd be gouda together!" so she let it slide. "It doesn't matter," he said quietly.

"Oliver's been bailing you out of your worst jams, but now he's under extra scrutiny by the board. He can't keep you signed on for another album, even with two hit singles, if you look like you're going to be more trouble than you're worth."

Iris regretted saying it so baldly when she saw Allen flinch.

"I'm making trouble for Ollie?" He said it in a small, lost sort of way that made Iris feel like she'd kicked a puppy.

"I'm saying you're probably making life pretty difficult for him at the moment, yeah," she ploughed on, determined. "And that's probably why he hired me. Besides the fact that he obviously cares about you."

Allen peered quizzically at her over the rim of his mug. "Oliver talked to you about me?"

She snorted. "Yeah no. Cagey as hell, that guy. That's kind of how I know. The closer he is to someone, the less he talks about them. The opposite of the rest of the world."

"So you know he cares about me because he never talked to you about me?" Allen grinned as she drank her coffee. Her amazing, rich, life-giving coffee.

"That, and another thing."

"What's that?"

Weak silver sunshine cast half Barry Allen's lean, stupidly tall frame in shadow. It turned one of his eyes a light hazel and one side of his stubbly, hollowed cheek marble pale as he smiled down at her, both beautiful and uncanny.

I saw the financials for the out-of-court settlements he'd made to keep you off the news, for what good it did. If even one of them had been for sexual harrassment I wouldn't have touched either Queen's account or yours. I told him to void your contract last year and he shut me down. You have no idea how hard he's working to save you.

Iris grinned back. "He gave you the best damn publicist he had ever met."

***

[brigdh]

A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee. A YA novel starring Monty, eldest son of an Earl in mid-1700s England, his childhood neighbor/best friend Percy, and his sister Felicity. The three of them are just about to begin a Grand Tour of Europe, their last summer of freedom and fun before Monty has to buckle down and behave like a noble heir, Percy starts law school, and Felicity is shipped off to a finishing school. Unfortunately none of them are particularly looking forward to their futures. Monty is very cheerfully bisexual, and has engaged in romps, gambling, drinking, and drugs to the point of being kicked out of Eton. Percy is mixed-race (the son of a plantation owner, though raised by his aunt and uncle, minor gentry) and though he's tolerated, his existence isn't always well-regarded in their circles. Felicity is pissed off about being doomed to learn embroidery and manners instead of going to medical school to become a doctor. Oh, and Monty is desperately in love with Percy, but is afraid to tell him and lose his friendship. This is just the beginning – as the book gets going, there are also revelations about epilepsy, child abuse, insane asylums, and more. It's not all serious, though. In fact, most of the book is light-hearted fun: there are encounters with highwaymen, battles with pirates, parties at Versailles, Carnevale in Venice, villas on Greek islands, operas, fortune tellers, hostage exchanges, escaping thieves, and basically every adventure one could imagine in 18th century Europe. There's even a plot about alchemists and an elixir of immortality which, to tell the truth, felt a bit out of place in the otherwise historically-based book. And, of course, there is lots and lots of pining as Monty and Percy engage in the most excellent sort of romantic-comedy suspense, yearning and avoiding telling the truth about their feelings. A++, that bit. My main complaint with the book is that Lee tries very earnestly to handle appropriately the issues of social justice she includes (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia), but every one of the ensuing conversations feels very 2017-approved, with every term the correct vocabulary, every checkbox checked, every privilege painstakingly unpacked. Not that such views couldn't – didn't! – exist in the past, but the way Lee portrays them doesn't seem to relate to the characters or setting at all. They don't arise out of the environment of the book, but are dropped in wholesale from an outside perspective that wants to be sure we know the right way to think. And then there's the moment where one character tells another about how the Japanese mend broken pottery with gold seams, see, so that the broken places end up more beautiful than the whole, and it's meant to be a profound moment but it's just so embarrassingly like this person in the 1700s is reading off a tumblr post. But nonetheless it's a funny, sweet book, if not quite as good as I expected when I heard "Gay Roadtrip through 18th Century Europe". What it reminds me most of all is reading an AU from a fandom you don't know. Maybe the characterization and setting isn't always that great but you don't care because it's not your fandom. It has the tropes you love and you can't wait to see the couple get together at the end, so you stay up late reading it on your phone. A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is that experience in original fiction. Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer. The sequel to Too Like the Lightning which I absolutely LOVED. However I really should not have waited seven months to read this one, because I'd forgotten some of the characters and plots and this is a series jam-packed with multitudes of characters and plots, and you better have every miniscule bit of such details ready at your fingertips to have a chance of following the action. To briefly summarize the plot (a task that's probably impossible, but I'll try to hit the main points) in the 25th century the world has more or less become a Utopia. Nations have been abolished, religion banished to the private sphere, and gendered distinctions made it illegal; to all outward appearances, it is a world with no reason to go to war. Unfortunately it turns out that all of this has been made possible through carefully targeted assassinations, picking off key individuals to guide the world away from war, riots, major economic downturns, etc. Not many – about nine a year, on average, for the last two hundred years. This information sets off a flurry of activity as the characters take sides, variously trying to figure out the conspiracy behind it, hide the perpetrators, uncover proof, keep the public from finding out, and broadcast the secret to as many people as possible. When several world leaders turn out to be involved, chaos breaks out worldwide. It's not just drama, though; behind the action scenes is the frequently repeated question of if it was such a bad plan after all. Is it worth losing a few lives to prevent the millions of deaths that would happen in war? Seven Surrenders is all about the philosophical dilemma. In addition to the one above, we get multiple debates over the riddle, 'would you destroy this world to save a better one?', and 'If God has revealed proof of His existence, why did He chose you above every human who's ever prayed to believe? And, more importantly, why now?' There is speculation about the power of gender, of sexual attraction, of the effect of raising children as experiments, of the role of Providence in life, of what it would mean for two Gods to meet, of how one conducts a war when there are no living veterans to teach the next generation. But there's plenty of action too – the book includes revelations of secret parentage, long-lost loves, a revenge story worthy of the Count of Monte Cristo, bombs, murders, resurrections, suicide attempts, cute kids, so many disguises, sword fights, gun battles, horse chases, and more. Ultimately I didn't like it as much as Too Like the Lightning. It just didn't feel as deep or as grand, possibly because so much stuff was happening that none of it got enough exploration. One of the most best character arcs (Bridger's) happened mostly offstage, and many of the other characters were too busy reacting to the constantly changing political winds to have a real arc. I still recommend it, because it's just so different from everything else and I have to support an author who mashes up transportation science with Diderot's philosophy. But if you read it, definitely don't wait months between books. The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry. A murder mystery, the first in a series set in Victorian London. Charlotte is the middle daughter of a middle-class family, believed by all to be firmly unmarriageable but happy enough with her staid life. The book opens with the murder of a young well-off woman, then Charlotte's maid is also murdered, as are several others. There is no apparent connection between the victims except that they're all young woman, all live nearby, and all were strangled. Inspector Thomas Pitt is assigned the case, and he begins to spend a great deal of time talking to Charlotte – first just to interview her regarding the murders, but then for her own sake. But will Charlotte's family allow her to marry a... policeman??? There are several interesting things about the book. Set very specifically in 1881 (which is to say, before Jack the Ripper) the very idea of a serial killer – as opposed to a thief who murders for money – is new and shocking to most of the characters. So is the concept that such a criminal could appear "normal", that rather than being a dirty, lower-class raving lunatic, it could be a respected neighbor or even a member of their own family. These are such self-evident ideas to modern people (and most characters in mystery books) that seeing Charlotte and the others wrestle with them, discuss their ramifications, and feel guilty for suspecting their husbands and fathers was pretty fascinating. I also liked that the family was so solidly middle-class. Historical fiction has a habit of gravitating toward extremes: everyone is either upper aristocracy or enduring the most grueling poverty. A family of boring bank clerks actually made for a refreshing change. Unfortunately those are the only good things I have to say about the book. The middle 2/3rds of the story drags along interminably, as nothing happens except for characters having the same few discussions over and over again. Charlotte suspects her father! First she must have a conversation about it with her mother. Then her younger sister. Then her older sister. Then her mother and the older sister talk. Then the older sister talks about it to her husband. Then... Well, you get the idea. And it's not as though each new character was bringing a fresh perspective and insight to the issue! No, we just get the same few protests and agreements recycled over and over in slightly different wordings. It's such an awful slog that I nearly abandoned the book. However, I stuck it out to the end, only to be rewarded with the reveal of the killer (warning for spoilers, I guess): a lesbian who has been driven mad by repressing her sexuality! You know, I don't think I've ever actually encountered this awful cliche in the wild before. It would almost be exciting, if it wasn't so offensive. Though there's not a lot of time to be offended, because the reveal, motivation, attack on Charlotte, rescue, and arrest all happen in the last two pages (literally) so none of it is exactly dwelt on. It's probably all for the best that I disliked this book. It's the first in a 32-book series, and now I don't feel any desire to read the rest.

(DW link for easier commenting)(Also goddamn, I am so far behind on putting up my book reviews, you guys. So prepare for a lot of that.)

[godsofterror]

The Many-Faced God: Part 2

This is the second part of a Gods of Terror theory that posits that the Many-Faced God of the Faceless Men is the Cthulhu Mythos Outer God Nyarlathotep. Review Part One here for more background about how this connection was made and how he has manifested in a major character.

Part of the meta-analysis encompassed by the theory is that GRRM is showing that he can write better than most other heirs to Lovecraft. I think he took the ideas of the Cthulhu Mythos and extended them to include other myths such as the Green Man, and extended it to include his world building from the Ice Dragon and other earlier stories.

For example, he married the masks/forms of Nyarlathotep to create the Many-Faced God, worshipped by the Cult of the Faceless Men. He created the Drowned God to represent memories of Cthulhu. And there are tons of other examples that exhibit GRRM’s vast knowledge of the extensive Cthulhu Mythos stories and characters.

For me, the connections to the Cthulhu Mythos are more than just world building. Sure, it seems at first to be background filler… but the closer I look, the more I realized that the filler is in the foreground as well. If the gods of Terros are directly imported from the Mythos, are worshipped by the people of Terros for their powers as exhibited in the Mythos, and obey the ‘rules’ of the Mythos, than A Song of Ice and Fire takes place within the Mythos.

What does that mean for A Song of Ice and Fire? Importantly, it means that these “gods” are real, and that they are not “gods” in the religious sense. They are actual cosmic beings that exist in the universe of ASOIAF, that have appeared on Terros but mostly live in outer space.

It is important to understand that these cosmic beings mostly hate each other and have great wars that threaten the lives of humans and other lesser beings. These cosmic beings care very little about humans (except Nyarlathotep, who love to torture humans), and humans are caught in the middle of these wars.

Every time humans encounter these beings, horrible things happen, but the power demonstrated by these beings invokes terror and wonder, and the human religions of Terros spring up to worship the beings they have encountered. The Cult of the Faceless Men worship Nyarlathotep, while the Iron Islanders worship the Drowned God, who correlates closely to Cthulhu. The Storm God, the Toad God, the Lord of Light, Shub-Niggurath, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named: all Great Old Ones, and all worshipped by different groups on Terros.

The Cthulhu Mythos also helps explain the presence of the giant black blocks of stone found throughout the world:

“Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the speculations of theosophists and made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed. There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity.” - HP Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”

Within the Mythos, Nyarlathotep is special, as all of the other Great Old Ones are sleeping or banished to space. Nyarlathotep can still walk among humans, and he takes many different forms on Earth as he works to spread terror through fear, torture, and pain. As I explained in Part One, Nyarlathothep has been present on Terros throughout history, and is currently inhabiting a number of avatars to work towards his dark ends.

The Long Night and the Bloodstone Emperor

As I wrote in Part One, the Long Night was started by the Bloodstone Emperor, who worshiped a black stone that fell from space. The story The Haunter of the Dark tells of the Shining Trapezohedron, the black stone used to call a god of terror known as the Haunter of the Dark, who is a manifestation of Nyarlathotep. This direct link between the horror of the Long Night, and the Church of Starry Wisdom, which was founded by the Bloodstone Emperor, spells ill omens for the future of the story.

Euron Greyjoy has been taken over by Nyarlathotep. He has either been driven mad by an interaction with Nyarlathotep, or has been taken over completely by the Faceless God.

He is working to secure the Shining Trapezohedron, which I believe is housed in the Hightower of Oldtown, where it has been watched over by the descendants of Uthor of the High Tower, who slew a dragon and established his house on Battle Island in the mythical past of Westeros. Uthor is a corruption of Ulthar, the Mythos god and son of Sothoth sent down to Earth (or Terros) to watch over the Great Old Ones as they sleep.

When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious surrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, for Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals. - HP Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”

In this passage, we can uncover a lot information that relates to the Great Old Ones (the group of cosmic beings to which Cthulhu has been assigned by Lovecraft), and also relates to the prophetic dreams of the Dreamers, whose actions may be influenced by these psychic waves eminating from the mind of Cthulhu as he sleeps in R'lyeh.

The most important bit of information is that someone, or something, must awaken the gods because they are sleeping using spells that prevent them from waking themselves. It has been theorized that after a great battle in the past, the Great Old Ones were put to sleep by the Elder Ones. Could this battle have been the great battle for the Dawn?

The Outer God Ghroth (the Harbinger), an entity introduced by Ramsey Campbell (a Mythos writer and friend and editor of GRRM), is described as a red sphere that passes through space, singing a siren song known as the Music of the Spheres. As he passes through space, he awakens any sleeping Great Old One on the planets that he passes. This has been the cause of mass extinctions on Earth.

Ghroth reminds me strongly of the red comet at the beginning of A Clash of Kings. Perhaps Ghroth passed by Terros, and helped to weaken the spells of the Elder Ones, and awaken the magic of dragons, but the spells require a great blood sacrifice to end them once and for all. With the help of Nyarlathotep and his avatars, the Great Old Ones will be freed from the spells that bind them.

Blood Ritual

As we see in the Aeron sample chapter, Euron is preparing for a blood sacrifice in the sea off Oldtown. He has strapped holy men of many different religons onto the bows of ships, including his own brother, Aeron Greyjoy. What is his endgoal with this sacrifice?

Euron’s treatment of Aeron, and of the 4 warlocks of Qarth, are perfect examples of his ability to torture men to madness. He kills one of the warlocks, to show that he meant business, and then chained them up and made them eat the dead warlock (and probaly themselves). In “The Forsaken”, we see what’s left of Pyat Pree: a man without legs, who has clearly been driven mad:

Last were two warlocks of the east, with flesh as white as mushrooms, and lips the purplish?-blue of a bad bruise, all so gaunt and starved that only skin and bones remained. One had lost his legs. The mutes hung him from a rafter. ?Pree,? he cried as he swung back and forth. ?Pree, Pree!?

His speech to Aeron displays his desire to kill men and replace the gods recalls the role of Nyarlathotep as a trickster gods of terror. Lovecraft’s epic poem Fungi from Yuggoth gives clues about how Euron’s blood sacrifice will begin the descruction of the world, as the “idiot Chaos”, or Nyarlathotep, births death from the sea.

Soon from the sea a noxious birth began; Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold; The ground was cleft, and mad auroras rolled Down on the quaking citadels of man. Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play, The idiot Chaos blew Earth’s dust away.

I think that this passage portens both the terrible doom that is about to befall Terros, and the nature of the gods involved in the coming Long Night. The second line (“Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold”) invokes the Westerlands and the gold of the Casterly Rock, and the fourth line (“Down on the quaking cidadels of man”) I associate with Oldtown, home of the Citadel.

Towers By The Sea

It’s no coincidence that Euron is preparing for the invasion of Oldtown. In fact, it has been hinted about by many major characters.

Melisandre has visions of a tower by the sea overwhelmed by a dark tide that rises from the depths:

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. (ADWD, Melisandre)

I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. (ADWD, Melisandre I)

Moroqqo, who I have also associated with Nyarlathotep after his transformation in the sea (check out the difference in how he is described between the Tyrion chapters and the Victarion chapters), mentions a similar vision in this exchange with Tyrion:

“Have you seen these others in your fires?” he asked, warily. “Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.” (ADWD, Tyrion VIII)

Euron’s ultimate goal is not just to drive men mad and to spread chaos and fear. He is the harbinger of doom, Death, the Lion of Night, here to remake the world again. And he will do this by calling back from the dead the terrible Great Old Ones.

He will have some help with his terrible mission, from a mysterious and dark House of Westeros.

Oldtown and the Hightowers

The plot of The Winds of Winter promises to focus on the taking of Oldtown by the Ironborn. This ancient city, long the domain of the even more ancient Hightower family, has two notable features: the eponymous Hightower, a stone tower built on top of an mysterious black stone fort on Battle Isle, and the Citadel, the major center of learning in Westeros, where all maesters are trained and where Samwell Tarly has been sent at the end of A Dance with Dragons.

I have long suspected that the Hightowers of Oldtown, that ancient family that traces back to Uthar Hightower and Maris the Maid, were involved in worship of the Outer Gods. Not only are they ancient - much too ancient, really, for any of the timelines of the arrival of the First Men to make sense - but they are also known to dabble in sorcery.

Anytime that a wizard or sorceror is using magic in the Cthulhu Mythos, they are attempting to communicate or call one of the Great Old Ones or the Outer Gods. Usually, it takes blood sacrifice to get the attention of the gods. I suspect that the rumours of sorcery by the Hightowers (in particular Leyton Hightower and his daughter, the Mad Maid), are related to the desire to awaken the Great Old Ones.

Ulthar

If you have been following the Gods of Terror theory to this point, it should come as no surprise to learn that there is a Cthulhu Mythos diety named Ulthar (or Uldar or even Ultharathotep), who is a son of Yog-Sothoth and is considered and “Elder God”. Ulthar, according to the (fictional) Sussex Manuscript was sent to Earth to keep a vigil over the sleeping or banished Great Old Ones/Outer Gods.

The words of House Hightower: “We Light The Way”. What way are they lighting? For whom are they lighting the way? It’s worth noting here the definitions of “vigil”:

wakefulness maintained for any reason during the normal hours for sleeping.

a watch or a period of watchful attention maintained at night or at other times:

a period of wakefulness from inability to sleep.

Could the words of House Hightower relate to a vigil for the sleeping Great Old Ones?

Killer of Dragons

Uthar Hightower, according to legends, killed a dragon roosting on Battle Isle and then worked with Bran the Builder to build the Hightower on top of the ancient black stone fort. He then claimed (or stole) Maris the Maid from a giant (who swore revenge on Uthar) and founded the line of Hightowers that continues into the contemporary story.

The Church of Starry Wisdom

Euron and the Hightowers are not the only players in the mission to call back the Great Old Ones and remake the world.

As seen in The Haunter of the Dark, the Church of Starry Wisdom has the Shining Trapezohedron stored in the high tower of the creepy church. And the cultists of the Church perform blood sacrifices to The Haunter of the Dark, the terrible avatar of Nyarlathotep with a three-lobed burning eye with wings.

The Church of Starry Wisdom is present throughout Terros in the modern era, worshiped at port cities by sailors and others. It has been mentioned in A Dance With Dragons and is also hinted at in A Feast for Crows, as it is suspected that Marwin the Mage visits their temple in the port of Oldtown.

I suspect something else. The Shining Trapezohedron, the black stone that fell from Earth and was worshiped by the Bloodstone Emperor, which he used to call the Lion of Night, could be in the Hightower. It would explain Euron’s desire to capture the Hightower: his plan to awaken the sleeping Great Old Ones. With the help of the Hightowers and blood sacrifice, Euron will invoke Nyarlathotep, the Lion of Night.

…and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

The Citadel

The Citadel was founded by decree of the second Hightower, who declared that its mission was to learn the arts of man. It is known to be anti-dragon, and is also suspected to be complicit in the downfall of the Targaryens.

I don’t know the degree of control over the Citadel that the Hightowers hold, but there is a deep association. They were founded by them, and have collected information about the lords and the laymen of Westeros from that beginning. In fact, in reading the Princess and the Queen and The Rogue Prince, there is a lot of innuendo about their role in starting the Dance of the Dragons.

Why do they hate the Dragons so? Is it just because of their institutional aversion to magic? Or does it go much deeper?

Faceless Men and Braavos

Are they an international cult of assasins who are working to hasten the return of the Great Old Ones? I do have my suspicions. The Faceless Men have been trying to get the book on killing dragons, and they probably helped to cause the Doom of Valyria, so they do seem to have it out for the dragon people who might oppose them, whatever their ultimate goals might be.

War Between The Gods

After deep study of the world book, it seems clear that the founders of Norvos and Qohor, while Valyrian, were not dragon-riding Valyrians. In Norvos, they stuck with Hastur, The Great Shepherd. In Qohor they switched to The Black Goat. In Volantis, they worship the Lord of Light.

The followers of the Lord of Light hate the followers of the Norvoshi religion and the Qohorik religion, and the feeling is mutual. While I think that the Norvoshi worship Hastur, the Magnum Innonominandum or He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-named, the Black Goat is Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. (It’s worth noting that in “The Mound” by Lovecraft, Shub-Niggurath is described as the wife of the Not-To-Be-Named One, who is Hastur.)

Importantly, the enmity between the followers of R'hllor and these other religions represent the greater war between the Gods of Terros. I don’t say this lightly; I’ve devoted a ton of time over the last few years trying to understand what is really going on in Westeros and Essos and Sothoryos and Leng and beyond; this Tumblr is the result. But this was all building to this point: that these gods are not make-believe, but are instead powerful beings beyond the understanding of humans, that are at war with each other.

Indeed, we see the war between Cthulhu and Hastur in the hatred of the Ironborn for the Storm God; and the battles at Storm’s End between Durran Godsgrief and the Storm God. We see the death cult of the Many-Faced God arise in Valyria as Nyarlathotep battles Cthugha (the Lord of Light), which may have resulted in the Doom of Valyria.

Perhaps some of these beings have aided humans in the past, to score a victory against their rivals? I suspect that may be a possibility, as it is a large part of the Cthulhu Mythos. For example, in the introduction of Cthugha in “The Dweller in Darkness”, August Derleth (a Lovecraft disciple) pitted him directly against Nyarlathotep.

The relationship between the dragonriders of Valyria and the Lord of Light deserves its own essay, but for our purposes here, I’ll just mention three interesting tidbits. Cthugha is a giant ball of fire and is served by the Flame Creatures of Cthugha. Most importantly, his only protegy is Aphoom-Zhah (a Lin Carter diety; Lin is another of GRRM’s friends and editors), who is also known as the Cold Flame, a “vast, cold, grey flame that freezes whatever it touches”.

In a story of Ice and Fire, deep within the Cthulhu Mythos, these two gods are going to be significant.

Conclusions

Why does all of this matter to the story? Isn’t this a story of humans, dragons, ice demons, and telepathic paraplegics?

I suspect something else. The story will have a twist so massive that it’s taken years to get it right.

As Leo Tyrell says in the beginning of A Feast For Crows, the story has changed, and an age of wonder and terror has begun:

Dragons and darker things. The grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the mastiff sees the truth. Old powers awaken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes.

As the Others have been lurking over the story for five books, it is both perfectly normal for them to be seen as the old power that have returned. But I suspect that it is a feint, a ruse even, by George, as cruel as that may be to his readers.

In fact, I believe that the Others will not be the ultimate evil faced in the story, and Old Nan will be proven wrong once again. Instead, the evil will come from the “gods” themselves as they seek to return to Terros.

I believe that the great war that will end A Song of Ice and Fire will not happen in the North, against the Others, but will instead be centered around Oldtown and the Riverlands.

Tinfoil Time

Here is my predictions for how all of this will be set up in The Winds of Winter (I’ll save my A Dream of Spring predictions for next time):

Euron’s blood sacrifice will be used to awaken an ancient evil: the Deep Ones. He will call an army of these terrible hybrid beings to help him invade Westeros. The blood sacrifice will not be strong enough to break the spells keeping the Great Old Ones sleeping, but the Deep Ones, the half-human/half-fish descendants of the gods, will come above water en masse for the first time since the Battle for the Dawn. These beings are known as the squishers in the east, silkies in the far north.

He and his hybrid minions will strike at Oldtown, where they will overwhelm the defenders of the city. Euron will capture the Hightower, where he finds a willing partner in the Mad Maid, Malora Hightower.

Euron and Malora will join forces to perform a blood sacrifice using the Shining Trapezohedron. But they need a person with incredibly powerful blood to sacrifice: Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons.

Euron has already set his plan in motion to capture Dany, by sending Victarion to Slaver’s Bay. Using the dragon horn, Victarion will bind the will of a dragon, but he will not capture it himself. Instead, Euron has enchanted the horn to make the dragon respond only to him. Victarion thinking himself strong enough and desiring Dany, will blow the horn and die, and the dragon will fly off to find his new master: Euron.

Dany, mother of dragons, will suspend her war in Essos and her planned invasion of Westeros to find her dragon. She will follow the dragon to Oldtown and will be captured by Euron and the Mad Maid. Her fleet and army will follow, but may be too late, for the blood of kings flows through her veins, and only that magic can break the spell and awaken the Great Old Ones……

End Scene

Post Script

This theory borrows and extends PoorQuentyn’s Eldritch Apolocalypse theory, so I must give him credit. But I’m taking it further, into the Land of Lovecraft, because that’s where I see the ultimate twist occuring: the form of the ultimate evil, and the role of the “gods”, who I believe are the cosmic beings of the Cthulhu Mythos.

More to come!