#and there are valid criticisms of it

[causeimanartist]

I have a favorite character type and it's depressed men

[bajoop-sheeb]

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

[bread-wizards]

Yasha, I'm so sorry to objectify your wife, but how do you work out? Like, what do you do? Because this such an amazing-- the abs.

[productofmtwundagore]

🫢

[olessan]

Essek and the rest of Bells Hells: Okay, we're going to Eiselcross, an icy, glacially-locked wasteland. Everyone grab some stuff to dress accordingly.

Dorian, Imogen, and Ashton:

[shorthaltsjester]

when people think delilah just completely takes over and laudna has no control. when people think jester is just an uwu child who has been manipulated by every man she’s met. when people think vex is an empty husk of daddy issues without her brother by her side. when people think fjord is an arrogant asshole who doesn’t pay attention to the party around him. when people think scanlan saying that vox machina doesn’t care about him is an accurate assessment.

[buckycap]

i think we all moved on from orym being dorian's first love too quickly and how bc dorian has been so sheltered his entire life he didn't even know what lust or love felt like until he met orym and how him not knowing those feelings was one of the reasons dorian was so hesitant to express them. i think a lot of people, me included, were really wondering why he was so hesitant to express his feelings towards orym and thinking that it was simply about it not being the right time or wanting to give orym space to mourn his husband and while i'm sure that all played a factor in it, i don't think anyone really thought that part of why it took so long was bc dorian was falling in love for the first time and was overwhelmed and unfamiliar with what he was feeling

[widogast-ta]

The Bright Queen is such an interesting contrast to Ludinus, because by his worldview, she should be on his side. 

She was also alive during the Calamity. She also lived with the immediate post-war devastation of the fighting (we don’t know where Ludinus lived for sure, but she’s arguably even more familiar with it. It’s called the Wastes of Xhorhas for a reason). She doesn’t worship any of the gods; indeed, Lolth personally hates her! She has plenty of reasons to hate the gods, or at least not care if they die.

But critically, she knows that Ludinus is a huge dickhead, and knows he is her enemy.

[strangesmallbard]

please reblog to increase sample size!

EDIT: i definitely should have included some sort of “multiple of these” option, so if that applies, you can click “yes and [something else]”!

EDIT 2: feel free to also include your location!

[essektheylyss]

Losing it over the fact that Caduceus was ready to Bane and Zone of Truth Braius if he didn't seem like he was going to be forthright. He seems from an external perspective like he's being kinder than, say, Fjord and Beau, but he is just as prepared to be mean in pursuit of growth. Do not ever forget that Caduceus, for all he makes an effort to come across as kind and helpful, is every bit a member of the Mighty Nein. And the Mighty Nein are so ruthless and such bastards and I love them for it.

[johnnyspells]

+ bonus

[imperial-cat]

Reading Orym discourse on twitter is kinda funny, "it's unfair that he has a trump card and can shut down any conversation with it", like, I don't know but, if I don't have a counter argument in a discussion, maybe this means the other person has a valid point?

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[who-always-pays-their-taxes]

Why do you (as in the royal you) as a member of a fandom,, seem to believe that things need to be,,, canon??? in fanfiction??? why would? that ever be? if you wanted to read pure canon, you could,,,, idk,,, read canon? pick up the source material,,, and if you wanted to read pure canon fanfiction just search the ‘canon compliant’ tag. that’s how ao3 works. so silly.

[synchodai]

HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics

So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.

The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.

Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.

Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.

Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.

(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)

In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.

Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.

Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).

In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.

Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood

the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens

hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.

Here are the arguments for Aegon II:

many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]

Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92

the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter

Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”

Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).

For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.

Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.

And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?

This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".

[spineless-lobster]

I love reading my own writing like wow this story has everything I want in it it’s almost like it was written for me or something damn that’s so crazy