#as if the red army was the biggest problem there

[renaissancefailmarriage]

👅 💣 >:3c

HEHE

👅 Ship you find the most sexy: i fully made it up in my head but HRE X VENEZIANO.....i love the dynamic of a flirty horny character poking a bear until said bear SNAPS and the flirt realizes they've bitten off way more than they can chew. aka veneziano is an evil machiavellian little TEASE until he gets flipped over and fucked silly and realizes halfway through that karl has way more stamina than him and a deep well of repressed sadism. have fun you awful little twink. (he will)

honorable mention as well to prufra, (as u know) turkita, hunbelg (its not as cracky as it sounds i promise) spaus aaaaand a very specific flavor of spamano (sorry bby)

💣 Ship that pisses me off: RUSLIET IM SORRY. tbh most russia x baltics but rusliet is most common. im sorryyyy i cant stand pathetic ragdoll wifey lithuania or 2010 sounding cRaZy possessive ivan characterizations, hashtag NotAllRusliet i am sure but whenever i see it i scroll past.

[sluttylittlewaistenthusiast]

╰┈➤ 18+ none of these stories belong to me! this is a masterlist of all the fanfics i’ve read and reblogged! just thought it would be nice to have them all in one spot! (if your fic is on here and you wish not to be, please let me know!) some will have summaries if provided <3

╰┈➤ a/n: 2022 me would skin me alive if she ever found out im being vocal abt liking eddie munson

ᡣ𐭩 how you can help palestine . fic recs m.list

@lokis-army-77

⭒ Cozy

Waking up the day after Eddie has fucked your brains out you have a little more fun.

⭒ Private Viewing

What happens when your favorite camboy is in your class? You should stop watching his content... or should you? What happens when you are eventually paired together for a project? Everything will be just fine, won't it?

@eddiemunsons-missingnipple

⭒ Next Caller

Eddie hosts a late night radio show for his college campus, where he discusses various different topics. He's mostly known for his DnD and sex talk segments. You've been a long-time listener who works up the courage to finally call in for some help.

⭒ You Look Lonely

Eddie finally had it all, success, money, and fame. There was still one tiny problem he had.

@ceriseheaven

⭒ Cockwarming with older!Eddie (blurb)

@natti-ice

⭒ “Let me taste you” (blurb)

⭒ "B-baby please, I'm gonna-" (blurb)

@msgexymunson

⭒ Shotgun

You're on a camping trip with your two friends, and the scariest guy from school: Eddie Munson. A few beers and some weed change the way you look at him however. Maybe he's not so scary after all. Cocky, oh yes, but not scary. Especially the way your legs start to squeeze together at the sight of him. But, does he like you, or is this some cruel game to play on the innocent band geek? 

⭒ Benefits

Your best friend Eddie starts to look very appealing to you, but if you suggest a dynamic change, will he go for it?

⭒ Soft Touches

you and your dealer Eddie get a little closer than anticipated.

⭒ The Ink Shop

Desperate for a job, you answer an advertisement not knowing it's a tattoo shop. It's not particularly difficult work, except for one thing: having to deal with Eddie Munson.  

@eddiethefreakkmunson

⭒ Not So Accidental Invitations

Tired of ignoring your ever growing attraction to your roommate Eddie you "accidentally" send him a partial nude, his reaction is everything you had hoped it would be and more...

@bimbobaggins69

⭒ Love in the Locker Room

you go into the boys locker room with a plan to steal the polaroids your now ex boyfriend took of you to show off to his friends, but the last thing you suspected was to be met with Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson and his very big friend.

@luveline

⭒ Topaz, Lime, Ruby Red

Eddie has a staring problem that you barely notice, though you share an aching, awful crush. One of you has to bend first, and it’s not who you’d expect.

⭒ Is It Getting Too Much?

you finally work up the courage to kiss Eddie for the first time and he can’t cope (even if he claims he can).

⭒ If It Barks

You don’t mean to make an enemy of Eddie Munson — he’s handsome and talented, but he’s the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. Eddie thinks you’re infuriatingly pretty, emphasis on the infuriating.

part one | part two | part three | part four |

⭒ Was That So Hard?

Your best friend Eddie tries to explain what a hickey feels like and finds he doesn't have the words. He could show you, though, if you want?

⭒ Dark Matter

You ask your best friend Eddie to give you your first kiss. Eddie's not really in the habit of saying no to you.

⭒ Something Extra

You're having trouble sleeping and pot seems like the only solution. Good thing your dealer, Eddie Munson, knows of another method that he's willing to to teach you. You get more than you bargained for when he tells you what he gets off to every night - you.

@usedtobecooler

⭒ Desperate!Eddie (blurb)

⭒ eddie "monstercock" munson

eddie ‘monstercock’ munson, who is painfully unaware of the sheer size of his dick.

@munson-blurbs

⭒ Dark and Stormy

A missing key and a terrible storm leaves you and Eddie stranded in the back of his van. What ever shall you do to pass the time?

@eiightysixbaby

⭒ Take A Dip?

eddie wants to get you in the water with him while you're alone at the community pool. he ends up getting a lot more than he bargained for.

@galaxy-siren

⭒ Biggest Fan

@lonelysatellites

⭒ Safe Hands

Sex has never been a pleasant experience for you. Selfish partners, anxiety, and pain have all ruined something that you should enjoy. You’re convinced there’s something wrong with you, but Eddie is determined to prove otherwise.

@eddiernunson

⭒ I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

You and Eddie have both had crap luck on dates lately, nothing that can't be fixed with a strawberry milkshake. However, he gets asked out on a date and it goes well...until it turns your life on its head and he forgets how to pick up the phone. You don't even care that he's dating someone else you just want your best friend back.

⭒ The Splash of Rain on the Roof

you're best friends with Eddie Munson after moving to Hawkins, the new girl who ditches the cheerleaders for the Freaks. A year later, you've fallen head over heels for him, and you're convinced there's no way he has any interest in you. It finally seems confirmed when you find out (more or less) that he's into a fucking cheerleader. Your heart breaks.

@bbyhellfire

⭒ missionary with eddie (drabble)

eddie didn't care for missionary until he meets you

@oneforthemunny

⭒ Soft!Eddie (blurb)

@kiwi-bitchez

⭒ The Girlfriend Experience

Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around.

@/gaybybirth on ao3

⭒ Double Feature

When you're forced to go to a double feature showing of the Halloween movies with your brother and his friends, you find yourself, like usual, interacting with Eddie Munson. But it doesn't take long for the platonic line to be blurred and things to heat up.

⭒ Show Me

You ask Eddie to show you what you've been missing out on after he discovers your boyfriend never went down on you.

@eds6ngel

⭒ Romantic!Eddie blurb

@gxtitobxby

⭒ The Princess and the Freak | Part 2

“I can’t help but dream of his head between my thighs, how his hair would feel against my—”

@/mediocredreams on ao3

⭒ Extra Credit

Your professor offers you a very personal in-home tutoring session.

@/ghostproofbaby on ao3

⭒ Twenty Four Hours

in which eddie munson and you absolutely hate each other's guts. what happens when your friends make a bet that you can't spend more than twenty four hours consecutively together?

(Y'ALL MUST READ IT ISTG ITS SO GOOD)

@/decembersfinest on ao3

⭒ Living After Midnight

Being a perpetual people-pleaser meant that you were constantly putting others before yourself--particularly your parents and the eccentric guests who stayed at their motel. But when a surly and mysterious musician checked in indefinitely, he flipped your whole world on its head.

@littlexdeaths

⭒ Band Practice

when band practice doesn’t go as planned…

@eddiexmunsonlover

⭒ One Step Away From You

You move back to Hawkins after 3 years away to finish out your senior year. Can you salvage the friendship you once had with your ex best friend, Eddie? Will you be able to push down your deeper feelings for him, or will it all come bubbling out in disaster?

@/nerdsarehot on ao3

⭒ A Kiss to Remember

⭒ Flustered

@/GreyPetticoats on ao3

⭒ Wing Man

Steve ‘the Hair’ Harrington is your best friend, and is constantly striking out. Sick of this, you two make a deal; you’ll wingman for each other. Hooking Steve up with dates is easy, but he finds himself struggling to find you a date. At least, until Dustin starts talking about his new cool friend Eddie.

@eddiesghxst

⭒ Riding Eddie drabble

@eddiemunchem

⭒ that puppy dog typa love

eddie is fiercely loyal, doting, and affectionate — when he’s enamored, you’re everything; his whole world. so just don’t mind the fact that he clings to you like a sloth to a tree, yeah?

[astonmartinii]

into the arms of another part two | max verstappen social media au

pairing: max verstappen x reader

part two to this !! part three

yourusername

liked by arthurleclerc, maxverstappen1 and 661,230 others

yourusername: winner winner chicken dinner !! congrats maxy i’m so proud of you always

view all comments

user1: i know charles’ head is hot right now

user2: i hope netflix are taking notes cause this tea is steaming hot

maxverstappen1: thank you baby, helps when i have the prettiest cheerleader in the world

yourusername: i am the sexiest sargent in all of the orange army

maxverstappen1: too right you are

user3: i miss when y/n was the head of the tifosi the red monochromatic fits ate so hard

user4: i need charles to pull his head out of his ass and apologise so we can reclaim her before monza

user5: do not even bring up the fact we may not have custody of her for monza

danielricciardo: leave some for the rest of us maxy

yourusername: no actually i think it’s illegal for max not to win sorry

danielricciardo: will that change if charlie apologises?

yourusername: considering that hasn’t happened and doesn’t look to be happening any time soon - no.

user6: CHARLES PLEASE DO SOMETHING

user7: he doesn’t have to do anything, she’s just bitter cause she’s always been the bridesmaid and never the bride. we ALL know she’s always loved charles and she can’t handle that she’s not the centre of his attention it’s kinda pathetic

maxverstappen1: what made you think you know any of us enough to comment something like this? what told you that you even had a right to talk about y/n like that? she’s everything you could ever wish to be and more and she will never ever deserve the things you people are saying about her. charles would be lucky to have y/n in his life platonically or romantically but it’s his loss

user8: boyf of the year right here

user9: charles take note ^^^ this is how you’re meant to defend your best friend

landonorris: i am once again asking for photo credits i’m not gonna be your personal photographer for free

maxverstappen1: i literally paid for your dinner

yourusername: you’re literally a millionaire

landonorris: i don’t care a man still likes to be wined and dined

yourusername: just to make it clear we are not looking for a third

user10: i promise i can change your mind give me a chance

f1tea

liked by user11, user12 and 2,349 others

f1tea: charles leclerc caught liking this tweet about the situation between him and y/n. seems like he won’t back down on this. what do you think?

view all comments

user13: i need this mans head on a spike i’m so serious

user14: i want to play pinball with the single marble in his head

user15: i think ferrari have genuinely caused real head rot in him cause no way he thinks this is a serve

user16: let's be real charles' biggest rivals are ferrari and himself

user17: not this man at his BIG AGE is liking shady tweets about his best friend

user18: i think it's safe to say they're not best friends any more

user19: also "biggest rival" my ass max and charles are fucking friends now so this whole narrative is complete horse shit

user20: i'm so bored of charles playing the victim bro YOU ARE THE INSTIGATOR YOU ARE THE PROBLEM

user21: the way charles is liking shit like this but max is writing whole ass essays in the comments defending her

user22: and that''s why i'll always back that she ended up with the right man

user23: max is so far in the lead in the championship i need him to take charles out for the narrative

user24: are we in high school? like seriously this is so fucking petty i cannot wait for media day this weekend

user25: he's either gonna be the funniest man in the world or he's gonna bite someones fucking head off

user26: and i'll back it either way

user27: i know y/n is about to have her revenge dress moment in the paddock someone get kym illman ready STAT.

f1wagsupdates

liked by lilymunhe, carmenmundt and 4,530 others

tagged: yourusername

f1wagsupdates: REVENGE DRESS MOMENT !!! y/n y/ln enters the paddock in monza in this stunning black dress, showing the world what a catch she is, oh and that is max holding the umbrella for her, what a gentleman.

view all comments

user28: mother came to slay i cannot even

user29: this right after max came for charles in the press conference is PERFECTION + NO RED IN MONZA !!

user30: i see lily and carmen in the likes in knew they'd be on the right side

user31: girl i don't think anyone is on charles' side

user32: yall see the stink eye from the red bull garage when charles walked past they have y/n's back LOL

user33: the red bull garage been ride or dies for max so it defo makes sense that they would extend that to y/n

user34: christian was defo waiting for a question about it in the press conference

user35: someone on twitter got a clip of him putting his arm around fred going out of the paddock and telling him to get his driver under control

user36: yall are we on the kardashians what the fuck is going on

user37: people may hate christian but he defends his driver so much that he's inserting himself in the relationship drama

user38: i don't even follow f1 but whoever this is this serving oh my

user39: this is so exhausting like i need charles to just apologise so we can get cute y/n x max x charles content

user40: torturing myself thinking about how cute that dynamic could be

f1

liked by yourusername, maxverstappen1 and 1,203,457 others

f1: max verstappen clinches his tenth win of the season at monza, joined by sergio perez and oscar piastri. home heroes charles leclerc and carlos sainz came together at turn one, awful showing for ferrari in monza

view all comments

user41: this narrative is so so poetic

user42: i feel bad for the tifosi at this point y'all get your hopes up every season

user43: charles you aimed the wrong way if you wanted to take max out

user44: the way max kissed y/n after winning god they're so cute

user45: also the way christian got everyone to move so y/n could get to the front to see max

user46: even marko looked happy about it what is going on?

user47: y'all we knew it was gonna be bad for ferrari y/n wasn't wearing red, call me superstitious but every time she's worn red charles has either won or been on the podium

user48: well that's just what he gets for not appreciating her

user49: as fernando would say KARMA

user50: someone check charles' blood pressure please

maxverstappen1

liked by christianhorner, yourusername and 1,304,662 others

tagged: yourusername

maxverstappen1: winning on and off the track, some of you can't relate.

view all comments

user51: parents omg

danielricciardo: fighting words maxy, not pulling your punches

maxverstappen1: i do my fighting on the track, not my fault people can't get past turn one to give me a real battle

danielricciardo: i need to be inside your brain

maxverstappen1: no there's images of y/n in my brain that no other man will ever see

danielricciardo: you crack me up maxy

yourusername: woah who's that fine ass piece of woman

maxverstappen1: she's taken sorry

yourusername: that's a shame, i hope that man is taking care of her

maxverstappen1: i don't believe she's got any complaints

yourusername: wow you sound like a gentleman, she's a lucky woman

maxverstappen1: believe me i am the lucky one.

yourusername: awwww maxy you're literally the sweetest person in the world

user52: if i was charles and i saw this after that race you'd have to restrain me i'm so serious

user53: i'm happy for y/n and max but i need them to stop being happy in my face

alexalbon: ur welcome for that first picture btw

yourusername: lily taught you well

alexalbon: so no thanks?

yourusername: i joke thank you very much sir albon

user54: so like all of the twitch quartet are on y/n's side? awkward.

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, georgerussell63, 706,835 others

tagged: charles_leclerc

yourusername: charles and i have been best friends since i knew what the word meant and it really hurts that is has gotten to this point. when charles got his first girlfriend i chalked it up to the excitement of the experience, but when he routinely got in and out of relationships and falling back on our friendship once scorned, i started to question what he really felt about our friendship. i overlooked it every time even when it made me doubt my worth and hoped our friendship meant more. however, the cycle continued and after being left stranded at a beach in a country i do not know i decided it was the end. i have reached out to you so, so many times and want nothing more than our friendship to work and so we can be life-long friends that we can tell our kids about. but i guess it's not worth that much to you and that's something i'll have to reconcile with. the only positive coming from this the fact that it pushed me to the love of my life, so thank you for that.

comments are turned off.

charles_leclerc

liked by joristrouche, pierregasly and 1,305,783 others

charles_leclerc: i've already got my trophy, sorry not sorry.

view all comments

user56: WHAT THE FUCK

user57: my brain is actually scrambled

user58: charles' must be as well cause no way he thought this was a good idea

landonorris: so this is a low blow

charles_leclerc: since when were you the reference point for morals

landonorris: damn dude, you're in the wrong but go off i guess

user59: why do i actually want to cry for y/n right now? she did this whole ass heartfelt post with no comments so people wouldn't be able to speculate and he replies with a pic of his gf's ASS

danielricciardo: not cool dude

charles_leclerc: i see you all took her side and our friendships mean fuck all

danielricciardo: kinda ironic you bring up respecting friendships

charles_leclerc: spare me the lecture

maxverstappen1: you're a child. but this is the closure she needs. cheers to being an asshole.

charles_leclerc: so you managed to get some of my sloppy seconds, you're welcome

maxverstappen1: she's not sloppy seconds and i can't believe you'd refer to her as that. but if you wanna talk sloppy seconds you can hold the 100 point gap between us in the championship. and y/n will never say this so i'll say it for her GO FUCK YOURSELF

user60: SHOTS FIRED

user61: men are so confusing

yourusername added to their story

[caption: taking some time for myself. thank you for your kind words and know i have an amazing support system around me now]

f1wagsupdates

liked by user65, user66 and 5,430 others

tagged: charles_leclerc

f1wagsupdates: charles leclerc spotted outside y/n y/ln's office with flowers this afternoon. idk at this point, any time i report on this man i lose more brain cells.

view all comments

user67: lol even wag page admins are done

f1wagsupdates: he gives me a lot of content but damn he needs to sort his head out

user68: lol this is gonna be an all time apology tour i can't wait

user69: i honestly don't want y/n to forgive him he doesn't deserve it.

user70: yeah max has proven ride or die for y/n so i know who she should stick with

user71: i need him to donate his brain to science cause in what world is a measly bouquet of flowers gonna cover all of this shit ?

user72: legit he's systematically ditched his best friend, let randomers on the internet drage her name through the mud and then liked it and then flaunted the fact that he didn't care about their friendship for everyone to see

maxverstappen1: lol nice try

user73: my petty king i love him so much

user74: i know y/n is taking a break from social media but i hope she knows how much love she's getting

user75: for real we're all on her side i hope she slammed that door in charles' face

user76: i hope that bouquet ended up in the bin

maxverstappen1 added to their story

[caption: special delivery for a special girl]

note: i know this was heavily requested so here it is!! i really like it and it's defo open for a third part if yall want charles and y/n to reconcile? thank you for reading xx

[c-rowlesdraws]

So my dad is a chef and Ratatouille is his favorite Pixar movie. Less for the story and more for the attention to detail they put in keeping a professional kitchen true to life. The whole "anyone can cook!" motto of the story was kind of undercut by Linguine just...not being a good cook? But there's more to a kitchen than just the head chef! A restaurant, a kitchen can't function without EVERYONE doing their jobs. Even dishwashers to keep things clean and sanitary are critically essential; the person who just chops up the vegetables is a simple job but is crucial when there's a a metric TON of onions that needs prep. And is that not cooking? Is everyone working together, cooperating, keeping people fed and happy what it's all about? Linguine wasn't a good over a stove without Remy, but we saw by the end he was a good waiter - that's important too. A great side arc while Collette learns to re-love her passion as a chef is teaching Linguine that he isn't defined by Gusteau's legacy, and not being a *chef* wouldn't mean his contributions to a restaurant aren't valuable either. It would be a great dual 'finding / refinding yourself' arc for both of them!

“The whole "anyone can cook!" motto of the story was kind of undercut by Linguine just...not being a good cook?”

YEAH OKAY like… my biggest problem with the movie was how confused the message seemed to be. Like— “anyone can cook”, that’s a great smaller message, you can be an okay home cook and not a ✨chef✨ and that’s still cooking, that’s still something to be proud of; and another interpretation of that phrase spoke to the main message of the film: “anyone can cook”/“a great artist can come from anywhere”, as in, you can have the potential to achieve your dreams no matter how humble your origins are. But all that was undercut by the film, for some reason, needing to emphasize that some people are doomed to mediocrity even with the best teaching— I remember feeling like, “wait… what?” at the end of the film when the voiceover said, “not everyone can be a great artist” as the camera focused on poor Linguini. It seemed unnecessarily mean of the movie to separate people into, as it seemed to me, people destined to be singular “great artists” and those destined to fail. After having learned more about Brad Bird and his ego, the confusion of the message makes more sense to me. But yeah—back then and especially now, with my professional bakery and kitchen experience as an adult, I don’t like how a movie about a restaurant, where teamwork from top to bottom is essential and “rockstar” chefs are usually red flags, seemed to conclude by celebrating the idea of the singular genius artist.

I feel like it’s also worth pointing out that animation studios, like restaurant kitchens, make art through an incredible amount of teamwork, so it kind of hits extra dirty for me that this army of creative people were directed to produce a story about a similar workplace, where the message wasn’t really ultimately about teamwork or valuing each person for their own skills and contributions, but about how one little special guy ascended to being the bestest specialist guy of them all.

Also YEAH like. Head chef whatever, important position, makes the Big Decisions and is very cool and etc, but good luck running service without anyone doing prep, taking out trash, or washing the dishes. Everyone, especially the head chef, knows the success of the entire damn kitchen rests on the shoulders of the guy in the dish pit.

[brodygold]

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Eight

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: eight maids-a-milking.

Brody walked along the estate of his family's old farm, taking in the sights. Ever since he transformed his family members into preppy men for the Golden Army, the polo drones had been running things for them. They were everything a worker should be: quick, efficient, unquestioningly loyal. But the problem was there were too many of them. With well over 100 polo drones walking around the place, it was difficult to have work for all of them.

He'd been talking with the leader of another drone hive who had expressed the opposite problem. Brody figured with the holiday season approaching, he'd have the perfect Christmas gift for his friend.

He approached PDU-099, who was working in the barn milking the cows robotically. "Stop what you're doing, 099. I have a new task for you."

Immediately, 099 stopped milking the cow and stood up, its arm going into a crisp salute automatically. "Yes Captain Brody. Whatever you wish."

Brody motioned for the drone to follow him deeper into the barn, towards an old machine that was collecting dust. Brody wasn't the biggest fan of using it, but sometimes things needed to be done for the good of the hive.

"Lower your shorts, drone."

099 immediately obeyed, lowering its black rubber shorts and exposing its cock to the world, already half hard. Brody brought the machine up to its cock and plugged the machine in, causing the drone to moan in pleasure as the machine started to milk it.

"Stay quiet drone. The only pleasure you need is obedience."

099 shut its mouth at the command, feeling the pleasure from obeying the command. As the machine did its job, Brody brought out a special VR headset and placed it over the drone's head. Spirals filled 099's vision, red and black. Words started passing by faster than the drone could comprehend.

DRONE

OBEY

CORE

RUBBER

099 took in every word subconsciously, as rubber started to leak out of the headset and down its body, the machine continuing its work the entire time. Its entire body was soon covered in black rubber, leaving only the mouth area exposed. Red accents on the chest spelled out its new designation: BRO-008. 099 was no more. Only BRO-008 remained. The words continued:

DRONE

CORE

NO POLO

REBORN

008

"Put everything about PDU-099 into your balls. When I tell you to, you will cum and erase who you were. You are no longer a polo drone. You are a CORE drone, serving a new hive. Understand, drone?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Than cum for me. Release who you were."

008 followed the order, releasing thick white sheets of cum into the machine, which accepted it quickly. Brody unplugged the machine and 008's cock was covered up by more rubber, unneeded for a drone.

"State your designation, drone."

"It is BRO-008. It serves CORE without question or hesitation."

"Very good drone. Stay here and wait for your new owner to pick you up. I need to make a call."

Brody left the barn, pulling his phone out of his pocket and bringing it to his ear.

"Hey bro. The process went exactly as you described. The new drone is ready whenever your men can pick it up. Glad to be of service. Hope you can return the favor soon. I'll talk to you later."

Wanted to do something different today. Let me know what you think!

[card1gan]

LETS TALK ABOUT GRANDMA RHAENYRA

okay so the moment one of her sons puts their baby in her arms, rhaenyra is gone. the baby is so tiny and they look so much like her son and his wife (jace and baela, luke or rhaena…). she felt happy when she had her sons, but her life was complicated at the time. now, seeing the product of her sons happiness means that she made it. they’re safe. they’re happy. they’re grown up. and now they’re having babies of their own.

rhaenyra immediately starts crying. a soft, silent cry, as she smiles softly at the baby. and if it’s a girl???? she loses it completely. she wanted a girl for so long. the parents can say goodbye to the baby girl, because her grandma will take her in her arms and never let go.

“mom but you’re going to a council meeting” jace is always saying. but rhaenyra wants to rule with her grandchild in her arms. “she’s the heir to my heir, i don’t see the problem in starting to prepare her already” she says and jace laughs softly: “she’s three months old, mom.”

you thought viserys’ little girl was spoiled? you haven’t seen nothing yet. rhaenyra’s grandchildren are SPOILED. they are well educated, yes, so i don’t mean spoiled in a way that makes them rude or vain. no, rhaenyra simply likes to gift them things all the time. “grandma i already have five pink dresses” “oh but you would look so pretty in this, wouldn’t you?” and it’s not only material things. she gives them hugs and kisses all the time. she doesn’t do it in public not to embarras them, but when they’re in her chambers, lying in her lap and listening to her stories, she showers them with kisses and hugs.

speaking of stories, they only want grandma to read them bedtime stories. all of them. no matter if they’re jace’s kids, luke’s kids, etc, they all want grandma. she has a little army of targaryens holding their baby dragons or their eggs, all sitting in the floor, while she reads them stories.

and rhaenyra wouldn’t treat them differently, i mean, the boys and girls. the girls wanna fight? give them swords. the boys don’t wanna fight? no problem, what would they rather do? no difference. they’re all loved equally and free to do what they want.

but in the end of the day, rhaenyra is their biggest inspiration. all of her grandchildren respect her and want to be like her some day.

oh and a tiny ps: rhaenyra always takes the mother’s side. jace and baela are arguing about which dress the little girl should wear? “baela is right jace, the red one is better”. she’s far from those crazy boy moms

anyways, now im sad. she never got to be a grandma :(

[streetlightyeri]

the misspoken chapter ; scott miller

chapter I of the 28 series

“you took a train to the south side of boston, you showed me where your old man stayed.”

w.c: around 7000

warnings: misogyny, extended writing of being trapped in an elevator, mention of pregnancy in medical setting, not well proofread.

-

Aspen rested her head on Scott’s shoulder as the Red Line railcar thundered back up across the Charles River. His arms were folded across his chest for the beginning of the ride, but his sleepy girlfriend had wedged her arms through his, intertwining her fingers into the hand closest to her. He busied his other hand with grabbing the sliding tupperware of leftovers her parents weighed them down with. It was a short train trip; Scott wasn’t sure how she was able to fall asleep and get so comfortable so fast. It must’ve been her plan from the moment he saw her heavy blinks after dessert.

When they finally got to their stop, he flexed his hand she was holding before shaking it, the movement making her grumble and lift her head. He pressed a chaste kiss to her hair before standing, her arms still wrapped around his. “This is our stop.”

She stood and let him guide her back to the street where the cool air started to wake her up. He let go of her hand to reposition himself on the outside; he flexed his hand in the absence of hers, but her warmth found him again quickly, without him having to ask.

They finally made it back to their shared apartment, their soon-to-be alma mater shining in the distance.

-

The two met when she overheard him bitching at an undergrad she was just helping about how he messed up a line of code and didn’t deserve the second chance to correct his homework for something as simple as a parenthesis. When the student asked what he could do to learn from his mistake, Scott looked through stacks of paper and pulled out a piece with lines of letters and numbers printed on it. “Find whoever this is, and hope they have pity on you to teach you.”

Aspen scoffed from behind her computer screen, recognizing the paper. She never understood why they had to print out coding homework, but Dr Muher was weird. Scott’s eyes narrowed in her direction; the other two students using Dr Muher’s TA’s Study Hour quickly gathered their things and bolted out the door.

“I’m sorry, is another student’s struggle funny to you?”

Aspen stopped typing and shut her laptop as though she had all the time in the world. She interlocked her fingers and rested her chin on them. “No, just that you’re using my work as an example and you don’t even know what I look like.”

Scott looked between the paper and the girl and before letting out his own scoff. “Yeah, I will not believe this is your work.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Why not? Please enlighten me.”

“This is too advanced to be a junior’s work.”

“This is a junior level class, is it not?”

“Yes, but-”

“The name on the paper is Aspen Lee, is it not?”

The TA’s hand tightened around the paper in anger at being defied.

She stood, palms resting on the table. “Why don’t you say what you’re thinking? That it can’t be me because I’m a girl. You’re the TA, why is it my job to teach my peers? I know the army doesn’t pay you shit, but that isn’t my fault. You don’t see my name on a fucking building here, and I’m not making it someone else’s problem.”

She zipped her backpack and wrapped her laptop in her arms. Just before she was out of the door she turned back, hand on the doorknob, “And by the way, his work is missing a bracket, not a parenthesis.”

-

A few weeks later, after very fiery glances being thrown between the two, Dr Muher called the two to her office hours. She sat with perfect posture as she looked across to the two biggest headaches of her entire teaching career, both with their arms crossed and scowls set deep in their faces. “I will not have my TA and my highest performing pupil glaring each other down every second of my class! I do not care what animosity you have for each other, but your rivalry is causing a rift to form in my classroom. You will both give apologies in front of the class for the way you two have behaved.”

Scott went to speak, but the stone coldness of Aspen’s voice lowered the temperature in the room, “No.”

Dr Muher pulled her head back in a mix of surprise and disbelief. “I’m sorry Ms Lee, but did you just say ‘no’?”

“I’m not apologizing when this is his fault.” She jutted her thumb in his direction.

He let out a groan, “What are you, five?”

Aspen rolled her eyes and swallowed hard, standing from her chair and throwing her bag over her shoulder. The professor held her hand up to Scott, warning him to stop, before turning her gaze back to Aspen, freezing her in place. “Ms Lee, I will not tolerate the environment you two have created in my classroom, you must understand this.”

Aspen’s voice was throaty, years of anger seeping into her words. “Why is it me who always has to ‘understand’? And speaking of ‘understanding,’ I thought you of all people would! You are the only woman on this goddamn computer science faculty, you know what it’s like having to prove yourself, downplay yourself, humble yourself, just to make the very essence of you palpable for the men in this field. You’re trying to tell me my work was good enough to rub in another student’s face until he saw that it was me who did it? And you expect me to just lay there and take it? I will not apologize to my peers for something that is not my fault, especially when I have yet to hear an apology from him! And if proving the point that the woman always gets the worse end of the deal requires me failing this class, that is something I am willing to do.”

-

Seven days later, Scott had not apologized and neither had Aspen. She was missing from all three following lectures. Just seeing her name as he transcribed attendance from everyone’s clicker made him grip his pencil to near breaking. After that third lecture, Scott was sitting at his desk in Dr Muher’s office, grading freshman coding assignments. He nearly threw his laptop after the 4th student in a row couldn’t make a circle turn 360 degrees. When Aspen walked in, he pressed the 0 key on his keyboard so hard that the student’s grade input as 000000000/10 and tanked their grade to a negative seven.

Her backpack hung off one shoulder, and she had a single piece of pink paper in her hand. She didn’t acknowledge Scott as she handed the paper over to the professor.

Dr Muher pulled her glasses off her head and perched them on her nose, pretending as if she needed to read what the paper said to know that the Pepto Bismol pink paper was a drop slip. She dropped the paper on her desk with a sigh, “Ms Lee, you are aware that dropping my class this close to the end of the year will impact your financial aid and your transcript?”

“This class isn’t even for my major, I took it as a free elective.”

The professor blinked, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, “Remind me again why you are taking junior level C++ and are a . . . what major?”

“I’m here for coastal engineering. My programs are in MATLAB and Python. I just needed the A from this class. I’ll get it elsewhere. So, can you sign the slip?”

Dr Muher sighed again and sprawled her signature onto the slip. When the door shut behind Aspen, she turned to Scott, pointing in the direction Aspen disappeared to with the end of her glasses. “Fix this.”

-

The first flurries of winter were falling around Aspen as she made her way across campus and into the student union. The snow was a month early; it was only the beginning of November. It was early morning, the first class section still multiple hours away. She paid for a coffee and redirected herself to the elevators to go to the study rooms on the top floor.

An irritatingly tall man in a military uniform walked up next to her, freshly showered but still flushed from a workout. “May we talk?”

Aspen gave him a side glance, refusing to turn to him and have to look up, continuing to walk down the breezeway. “No.”

That made him falter. Scott pursed his lips and took a deep breath, summoning all of the patience he never knew he possessed. He took two steps to catch up with her, shoving his hand in the door of the elevator she had already made it to. His teeth were grit as he spoke, “Please, may we talk?”

“Why, Dr Muher threatened to give you a bad review to your Lieutenant?” She made eye contact with him through the mirrors that surrounded them as the elevator slowly ascended.

“You have to be such a dick all the time?”

Aspen finally looked at him, eyebrows lifted and eyes widened as if to say “oh, I’m the dick?” but couldn’t finish her sentence, the jolting of the elevator before it stopped prevented her from finishing. The fluorescent light above them flickered; the two turned their heads up towards it. “You have got to be fucking joking.”

She was nearest to the buttons, the two having left enough room for a squadron of kindergarteners to stand between them. Aspen pressed the open door button, hoping the stop was a fluke and the pair just hadn’t realized they were already at the 3rd floor.

The door did not open.

“Shocking.”

Aspen swung her head to glare at him. “And if we pressed the emergency call button and hadn’t pressed that, what would we have done if that was the fix?”

Scott narrowed his eyes back at her, shooing her away from the buttons. She tried to resist but his arm pushing her backwards against her shoulders was too strong and she stumbled to the corner he just vacated. His finger hovered against the emergency call button. “No smart comment about how I might tell whoever answers that there’s only one person who needs help?”

“What would they do when they came? Pry open the doors to get you out then snap them back shut and cut the cable line to let me fall to my death?” Aspen swiped open her phone with her free hand but only an SOS signal shined back at her.

Scott mumbled out a Jesus Christ at the morbid quip before pressing the button. The two sat in tense silence for a few seconds before a voice cracked through an unseen speaker. “University Police Department, what’s your emergency?”

“This is Staff Sergeant Scott Miller, a civilian and I-” Scott saw Aspen mouth civilian to herself and quietly snort out a laugh, “are in an unmoving elevator in the student union breezeway.”

Aspen rested her head against the wall with her eyes closed while he continued the call. The mirrors reflecting off each other creating infinite Scotts was too much for her to handle.

“Please prepare to be there for up to multiple hours, as we need to ensure there is nothing wrong with the wiring due to the weather. It is pertinent that you do not open the doors from the inside; the elevator may resume working on its own and can be deadly if one of you is caught between a floor and the elevator.”

The voice clicked off just before it could hear the two of them say, “Hours?”

Then the light went out.

-

It took only a half hour for Aspen to suck her coffee dry and begin to lose body heat. The breezeway elevator shafts were connected to the outside, meaning whatever temperature was outside translated to the inside. The box was slowly becoming an ice locker. Scott was still warm, fully dressed in his three uniform layers that kept in his body heat from his post-workout shower. Aspen looked through her bag multiple times, hoping to find an extra scarf or gloves but was out of luck each time. She breathed into her hands and rubbed them together before putting her hands in her armpits. She kept her head down to blow warm air onto herself.

A camouflage jacket hit her body before falling to the floor. She looked at Scott, who was sitting on the opposite corner of the elevator, feet planted and knees up. She lifted a brow in question.

“Put it on so you don’t die of hypothermia. If I get saved and you’re dead, the military police are going to have my ass.”

-

Aspen was still shivering under Scott’s military jacket. The metal of the elevator was absorbing more of the cold air from outside and turning the cube into a certified meat locker. She pulled out her textbooks and stacked them on the floor so the two of them could avoid putting their cores near the cold metal. She didn’t want to admit that it was Scott’s idea, but he had little to offer for them to sit on aside from cold, sweaty clothes in his duffle bag.

She curled into his jacket, trying to seal in any warmth left from him. Her knees were pulled to her chest and she dipped her head to meet them so her hot breath warmed up her skin through her pants.

After a few minutes, Scott noticed a decrease in her shuddering breathing movements. He nudged her side. “Are you still alive, Lee?”

She let out a grumble. “Yes, Miller. I think I am alive because if I was in hell, it wouldn’t be this cold.”

He snorted, “Going to hell, eh?”

She peaked out of her cocoon, only one eye visible to him. “If I die and you’re there, then yeah, I’m in hell.”

-

“What were you going to say?” Aspen asked, her voice muffled.

“What?”

“What you were chasing me to say.”

Scott sat in the silence that followed for a while. “I wanted to apologize.”

She pulled her head out the cocoon she made, brows knit in surprise.

It looked like it pained him to say it, but Aspen could tell there was sincerity in his words. There was no need for him to be as truthful as he was being. “I was an asshole to you that day in study hour, but I feel like you put words in my mouth. It made me angry - livid, so I figured if you saw me as the bad guy, I might as well let myself play the part.”

“What words?”

“You said I inherently valued your work less because you’re a woman - it isn’t and never was true. I knew that whoever Aspen Lee was, she was a woman, or at least identifying as one, according to MIT’s gradebook. The part that I couldn’t believe was that you were already there, helping him. I heard the way you spoke to that student, the way you pointed out his mistake but didn’t make him feel bad for it but didn’t baby him either. You knew that you were right and were unapologetic about it, but not mean. I’ve spent my entire time in the STEM field learning to cope with being belittled and scolded for a mistake. I think it’s why I do so well in the army - it’s the same shit.

“The company I work for outside of the military wants me to recruit talent in coding, C++ specifically. When I first saw your work, I thought you had to be a graduate student. I think that belief, that refusal to admit that someone younger than me could be so good at something I do day in and day out, prevented me from finding you. I’ve been trying to figure out who you are for months now. Dr Muher refused to introduce us, said something like we were too alike and would either bite each other’s heads off or . . .” Scott trailed off and cleared his throat, blinking away whatever memory came with what he just said, “All of that being said, I understand why you took what I said the way you did, especially here, at this school, but I would never devalue someone’s work based on their gender. What you heard in my voice wasn't misogyny. It was jealousy.”

A sudden wave of guilt washed over Aspen, causing her to hide her face again. She spent so many hours burning with hatred over him only to be wrong. “I guess I’m so used to being seen as someone who’s here to meet a rich man then do nothing with my degree once I graduate that I struggle to see people’s true intentions. And, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but I’m just so tired of people seeing me and thinking they know my future while my male peers get asked what their aspirations are. Dr Muher is such an inspiration for me, and I felt so betrayed by her, like she was doing exactly what everyone else had. When I was in elementary and high school, I was in a STEM magnet school, and I felt so out of place, but when I’d go visit my grandmother in Oklahoma over the summers, I felt like I couldn’t belong there either. So, I’m sorry for my reaction. I think a lot of my anger was projection. But I am not sorry for the emotions I felt after."

Scott nodded, taking in her words. He extended a hand, “Truce?”

She wiggled her hand back into the sleeve of his jacket and shook it. “Truce.”

-

The door creaked and the elevator rumbled after a man shouted what Aspen thought was gibberish or possibly a German sneeze. SNECF. Her head shot up while Scott was already fully up and standing. She followed suit. The doors started to pry apart, the butt of a crowbar sticking out; whoever was prying was grunting with the amount of force it took. Scott kicked his steel toe boot into the crack the man made and positioned himself to push one side out, forcing the mechanisms in the elevator to open the other as well. The face of a plump man in a fire suit peered down at them. He was belly down on the ground, only a small sliver of the elevator was open to the 3rd floor. The rest of the door was blocked by the shaft.

He reached his hand out and waved her up, “Come on, Miss. We’ll get you up first.”

She abandoned her belongings but tried to take the jacket off herself to hand back to Scott but he shook his head, nodding in the direction of the fireman. “Least of my worries right now, come on, get up.”

She understood this was not a time for joking, nor was she in the mood for it, watching as Scott held open her only exit with his body. Aspen lifted her hands and the man took hold of her forearms, pulling her up with the help of another fireman. When she made it out, she felt like she entered a sauna. The heater on the third floor was working overtime, and she was thankful for it. She breathed out a sigh of relief, but her brow knit when she noticed the man who helped the fire chief get her out pick up an industrial fire extinguisher and take a few steps back from the elevator.

All she could see was Scott’s head, but through a tiny sliver of mirror she had access to, she saw a million versions of Scott take a shaky breath and reposition himself in the elevator doors, starfishing himself through them, palms out against the doors. Aspen looked between the two firemen, one who was not helping and another who was face to face with Scott and only held a crowbar between the doors. She quickly made her way over to the doors, but before she could grab a door and help keep it open, the man with the fire extinguisher grabbed her by the oversized jacket and flung her into the opposite wall with his full force. Her temple collided with the drywall, the thin material crumbing around her head as she collided with the stud. Scott leveled him with a glaze that Aspen couldn’t tell was anger or thanks. “If you two aren’t going to help, at least let me.”

“It is too dangerous, Miss.” The man who grabbed her said.

“You guys said you wouldn’t get us until it was clear.” She rubbed at her temple, grimacing as she pulled back and saw her hand coated in red.

No one responded.

Scott hoisted his legs up, holding the doors open with nothing but his hands and the crowbar, his knees rising to his chest. He took a second to breathe before lifting his legs to the patch of floor and sliding his body out, belly down on the floor. The second he let go, the doors snapped the crowbar in half with a ferocious thunder. Then the elevator fell down the shaft with a deafening crack, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. Aspen quickly wrapped her hands around Scott’s bicep, helping him off the floor, opting to not mention the bloody handprint she left on his shirt.

“Jesus Christ, you’re freezing cold.” Aspen immediately shrugged off his jacket and tried to hand it back to him. He dug in his pants pockets and pulled out a cloth, pressing it to her temple, hard. The two firemen were calling in the rest of UPD and whoever else the school deemed in need to handle the fallen elevator. The man who flung her earlier took position at one end of the hallway while the chief took position at the other to direct any passersby away.

He grabbed her by the shoulder with his free hand and walked her away from the gaping elevator shaft. He finally took his jacket from her as she took over applying pressure, sliding his arms through and trying not to react as the smell of cherry vanilla perfume filled his senses and as though there wasn’t a patch of her blood on the collar. Scott barely had time to zip his jacket back up before a man rounded the corner, shouting Scott’s name and title. It was clear he knew who was speaking; his feet shot together as he pivoted, his posture correcting itself, his chest puffing out, and his hands coming to his side.

Aspen took a step back as a man in his mid fifties approached. When he was about 6 steps away, he spoke again, “At ease, soldier.”

Scott’s hands came to rest behind his back and Aspen averted her eyes. It felt weird seeing Scott so obedient, so tame. Her wandering eyes found the elevator shaft; if she focused she could feel the cool breeze coming up it. It was pitch black in the gaping hole in the wall, the other elevator sitting pretty and untouched. No doubt there was caution tape already put up in the breezeway. She was certain that there would be crazy rumors about the incident on the school’s YikYak page.

But as she stared at the shaft, all her brain could play was different imagingings of Scott pulling himself out of there a second too late and going down with it. Her mind conjured up scenarios that made no sense: him headless, him bodiless, all different ways of him dead. All because he let her out first. She must’ve been staring for a while because when someone touched her arm, she blinked hard and turned to see Scott looking down at her. 

“Sergeant Miller, bring this lady to an urgent care. No school affiliated doctors.” He turned to walk away but hesitated, turning back to Scott. “Get yourself checked too, while you’re there. Report back to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

She tried to protest, but his commanding officer had turned to another soldier who came up, giving orders.

“You okay?” He glanced between her and the elevator shaft.

She gave a half-hearted smile and nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I think so. You really don’t have to bring me to urgent care. I’m fine. It’s just bleeding a lot because it’s on my temple.”

He pursed his lips, eyes flickering from hers to the drywall dust sitting in her hair and the roll of blood down her cheek. He didn’t think she was aware there was a strip of blood on the exposed stud. “I cannot ignore an order from a commanding officer.”

-

The urgent care physician had eyes the size of saucers when he was taking down the reason for this visit. He started with Scott who kept a clenched jaw and flared nostrils nearly the entire time. He received a clean bill of health and a hand written and signed note stating he was allowed to continue duty as needed. Aspen on the other hand was given a doctor’s note excusing her from classes for the rest of the week for a minor concussion, only after a few too-nosy questions.

“I do want you to avoid screens and long periods of staring at boards and notebooks, so I’ll write a note excusing you. But Miss, are you pregnant?”

“I was stuck in an elevator for four hours, not an orgy.” Aspen was annoyed. She had already told the nurse that she was not pregnant and had to deny a urine test.

Scott let out a choked sound in the back, but the doctor pushed. “Exposure to the cold for that long can have an effect on a fetus. Are you positive you’re not pregnant?”

Aspen let out a scoff of disbelief. “Exposure to the cold that long can have an effect on me. How many times do I have to say I’m not pregnant until I’m believed? So unless you’re about to get on your knees and pray over my virgin womb for the second coming of Christ, then just write the fucking note.”

Scott gave her the keys to his truck once the doctor finally discharged them. He swiped his card as she climbed into his passenger seat. He joined her a minute later, their printed visit notes in hand. He handed her hers and she glanced over it and snorted before reading out loud, “Miss Lee presents to the clinic today with complaints of a possible concussion and extended cold exposure. Voiced complaints of mild double vision, ringing in bilateral ears, and nausea. Denies any slurred speech. Upon examination has poor eye tracking ability and has laceration on left temple. Cleaned and bandaged.”

“Sounds normal.”

“Yeah, until: Patient is argumentative and vulgar. Pregnancy status remains unknown.”

Scott took his hand off the gearshift, turning to her. “No way.” He’d glanced over his report earlier and the doctor had referred to him as ‘pleasant,’ something he hadn’t been called since his great-grandmother was alive.

Aspen held out the paper for him.

“You’re sure?”

She let out a belly laugh, shaking the paper for him to grab, “I think we were one more ‘are you pregnant?’ away from you watching me have a pap smear. No, I don’t care if you look.”

Scott looked over the report, “I’m taking you to a different urgent care.”

She waved her hand to dismiss the idea, adjusting in her seat to try and escape the beaming sun that came from behind a cloud. He reached out and pulled down the visor before producing a pair of sunglasses. “I’m fine.”

“If MIT sees this, they’re going to try and weasel out of any blame. You need to see a doctor that isn’t going to write off valid points as you being argumentative.”

She inspected the sunglasses, trying to tell if they were actually going to stop UV rays. “If MIT wants me to piss in a cup to prove my unborn child didn’t stop the elevator, I will. But right now I just want my bed.”

“You need to see a-”

She turned to him, fast. “What I need right now is to be alone because quite frankly everytime I see your face my brain plays the sight of you almost dying this morning all because you let me out first. I am holding onto my composure with the thinnest thread of humor right now. Please just take me home.”

She turned back in her seat and put the sunglasses on, hoping it would hide the welling tears in her eyes. Scott didn’t quite know how to react, so he just let her direct him to an apartment building near campus. When he parallel parked, she took a deep breath and went to take the sunglasses off.

“Keep them.”

She lowered her hand back down. “I just realized all of our stuff was in that elevator.”

“I’ll see if anything was salvaged and see if I can get it to you. You have a way to get in?”

“Yeah, my roommates don’t have class until 10, so at least one should be there. I’m in that one.” She pointed to a window on the 3rd floor with a Christmas tree in the window despite the fact it was nowhere near the season for it. A beat of silence passed. Aspen couldn’t find the courage to look at him. “Thank you. For everything, I-”

He held his hand out. “Don’t.”

More silence followed that Aspen didn’t know if it meant she was to leave.

“See you next Monday?”

She gave a small smile before nodding, “Yeah, I guess see you next Monday.”

-

She was freshly showered and no longer smelling like Scott Miller’s stupidly attractive cologne. She swiped open her phone and lowered the brightness, busying her mouth with biting her thumb nail, and typed in what she hoped was the spelling of what she now knows was a command.

SNECF

Nothing besides a few Polish articles about sunscreen.

SNECF command

Nothing aside from dog training and a targeted ad about Polish sunscreen.

SNECF military

Jackpot. But in a bad way. Aspen locked her phone when she saw it and processed what it meant. 

SAFETY NOT ESTABLISHED, CIVILIANS FIRST. This command is given amongst first responder and military personnel when a situation may be dire or serve as a threat to life and/or property, but civilians are present and informing them of said situation may cause panic that would worsen or in some way prohibit the ability of personnel to adequately perform safety evacuations or further assessments.

-

She saw Scott before the next Monday. He knocked on her door three days later. One of her roommates opened the door and waved him in. He wasn’t sure if that meant this girl had no sense of self preservation or if that meant Aspen had explained what he looked like - or possibly even shown the horrible photo of him on the MIT ROTC webpage - to them. The apartment was clean, if a little dilapidated. They had a small Roku TV as the centerpiece of the living room, a tapestry of a shirtless Marvel or DC or some other superhero pinned above the couch with thumbtacks. The area above the cabinets in the kitchen were decorated with empty liquor bottles. It reminded him of the house he shared in undergrad. “She’s in the room with the pink door.”

Sure enough, down the hall, there was a room with a hot pink door decorated with My Little Pony stickers. It didn’t seem to match any of the other door styles in the apartment and didn’t fit in the doorframe currently. The edges of it were sawed and sanded down poorly. He knocked.

Aspen’s voice responded. “Why’d you knock? Just come in.”

Scott assumed she thought he was one of her roommates. It wouldn’t have been fair to walk in. “It’s Scott.”

Shuffling ensued, but after a few moments the door opened to Aspen, still dressed in her pajamas. She gave an uneasy smile, “Hi.”

Scott held up her backpack and smirked, his dimple popping, as he tapped her door with his knuckle, “Hi Pinkie. I was able to convince UPD to give your things back from evidence.”

“My roommate’s boyfriend fell through my door, and I got the Landlord Special. Be careful, Pinkie Pie will give you a splinter.” She took her bag from his hand and opened the door more to let him in. She sat on the edge of her bed, motioning for him to sit wherever. He opted for her desk chair. Aspen pretended to not notice the way his legs spread and his arms crossed. “UPD has an evidence locker?”

“It was mostly confiscated scooters, but yes.”

“God, the only thing UPD does that benefits this campus is infiltrate the scooter gangs. I shouldn’t have to fear for my shins walking to class.”

“They do also save people from elevators.”

She snorted, still sorting through her bag to make sure everything was there and undamaged. “The fire department did that.”

“Then the fire department threw you into a wall so hard you cracked the drywall and got a concussion.”

“My mother would classify that as a symptom of my hard-headedness.”

“She’s got that right.” He muttered. Scott was met with an attempted pillow to the head. Instead, it grazed him and knocked down her pencil cup. He pivoted in the spinny chair to clean it up and to gather his thoughts as he was once again clouded by her scent. He should’ve just given the backpack to her roommate and left, but no - he needed to see her. And good thing he had.

“Just know that hit the other you I see.”

His brows furrowed. For a mild concussion, she should’ve been far on the mend by now. The weeklong excuse was liberal to ensure she was fully healed. “Still have double vision?”

He turned back to her after putting the cup back in order. She shrugged, placing her laptop back in its home at the charging dock on her nightstand. “Nothing worse, just continuous symptoms. double vision is only for stuff not in front of my face, though.”

“So most things on Earth?”

She placed a finger to her lips and shushed him. She went back to looking through her bag, squinting at different items such as chapstick and lip gloss. The room was only illuminated by a floor lamp by her bed, casting the entire room in a warm glow. That response wasn’t good enough for him; he stood from his spot and walked over to her, arms crossed as he hovered over her. When his shadow cast over her, she looked up, head tilting all the way back to take him in. He held a small flashlight in his hand that he produced from one of his many pockets. “Hello?”

“Let me see your eyes.”

She jokingly tucked her hair behind her ear. “At least buy me dinner first.”

“Aspen.”

She gave a little pout but repositioned herself so her feet were touching the floor as he widened his stance to bring himself closer to her. He reached a hand out but stopped short of her jaw. “Are you okay if I touch you?”

She nodded, too nervous to give him her usual snarky comeback. She had curled herself into his jacket in a broken down elevator and was half asleep in his passenger seat after the urgent care, but this was somehow the most intimate moment the two shared. His hand was warm and calloused, rough against the skin Scott was sure she had a 10 step skin care regimen to maintain. He turned the small flashlight with the other hand to the lowest setting he could manage. He slowly ran the light over her eyes, watching her left pupil fail to shrink, staying wide. He tried to ignore the two butterfly bandages on her temple. When he finally let her go, she could barely see his jaw tense amidst the white splotches in her vision from the light. She blinked and looked around the room, trying to escape the splotches but they followed wherever she looked until they dissipated a few moments later.

“You need to go to the doctor again. A real office, not an urgent care. ER preferably.”

She huffed, “Not this again.”

“Really? ‘Not this again?’ Your concussion is bad. You need a CT scan.”

She laughed out loud at that; his expression stayed serious. She held her hands out around her room. “I can’t afford to live in an apartment where I have a normal bedroom door. You think I can afford an ER visit for them to tell me that I need to rest for the next couple of days?”

“I’ll pay for it.”

“What? No. I’m fine. And speaking of-” She reached to dig in her bedside drawer, producing a wad of twenties. She held it out to him. “For the urgent care copay.”

He shook his head, his arms crossed across his chest. “It was $60 dollars. And I’m definitely not taking your money for it when I think that doctor’s a total quack.”

She ran a hand through her hair, “Please take the money, Scott.”

“Not unless you go to the ER.”

She leveled him with a stare. “I’m not saying this to be difficult. I do not think I need to go to the ER. My symptoms haven’t gotten worse, just persisted, which isn’t unheard of from what my Harvard premed roommate tells me. They check on me periodically and make sure I haven’t asphyxiated in my own vomit. Please just take my word.”

He took a deep breath through his nose to ease his emotions. He didn’t understand why he was so concerned about this girl he considered his number one pain in his ass a mere 4 days ago. All he said was “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card that had his name and ROTC office phone and scribbled his personal phone number on the back and placed it on her nightstand, next to a full glass of water and a pack of gum. “Call if anything happens.”

She blinked at him, reclining back on her palms on the bed. “Where do you get these things from? A cloth, then a flashlight, now a business card? And you kept your wallet in your pocket and not in your duffle bag that day. Very convenient. Very Mystery Mousekatool of you.”

“It’s called being in the military. Everyone should have that on them, sans business card.” He took a seat back at the edge of the bed, showing he was only staying for a few more minutes.

Aspen nodded. “Speaking of being in the military, why’d you join?”

“As you so eloquently put it, my name’s not on a fucking building. And Kansas isn’t really known for its rich families who can send their kids to MIT as legacies.”

She sighed, understanding all too well. She readjusted to recline against her pillows. “Too bad you didn’t get stuck in an elevator before the recruitment officer found you. I got a refund check for the semester’s tuition already, along with a promise of all-costs-covered for the next three semesters.”

He sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “You civilians have it so easy. I got a letter stating it was a ‘hazard of the job’ for me, so they will be providing a refunded copay for the urgent care visit that may take 6 to 8 weeks to process.”

She had to suck in her lips to keep from laughing out of shock. The two talked for another few minutes, Scott skirting the topic of what he reported back to his commanding officer (there was no way he was going to tell her that his captain asked how his “girlfriend” was doing and when informed that they were in no way a couple, was told “she should be - she makes you a lot nicer”). They got a few more subjects in before Scott noticed her responses getting slower and mumbled, her eyes fluttering open and closed, fighting sleep until she couldn’t. He quietly stood and turned her lamp off, making sure not to touch the edge of the door before he shut it behind himself.

The same girl he saw earlier was still in the kitchen, prepping her dinner. Another girl in maroon scrubs sat in the chair at the bar, a piece of pizza in one hand as she scrolled on her phone in the other. Both girls glanced at him when he closed the door before making eye contact with each other, having a silent conversation that Scott knew was about him. He figured if they were already talking about him, it didn’t hurt to interject. “Has she been doing okay?”

The first girl pointed her knife at the girl in scrubs, deferring to her. She put her pizza slice down in the box. She nodded as she finished chewing. “Yeah, for the most part. But if her symptoms stay this prominent for another day or two, I’m taking her to the ER.”

He raised his eyebrows, feigning as though he hadn’t tried to talk her into going a few minutes earlier. “ER?”

“I’m more concerned about the vomiting and nausea. She can’t keep anything down. I’m scared she’s dehydrated.”

“If she needs to go, call me, my number is on her nightstand. I’ll take her. I can tell them what happened.”

She tried to subdue her lifting brows and growing smirk. “Will do.”

Luckily, Aspen was on the mend the next day, her vision combining into one big picture again and her nausea slowly subsiding. She was back in class the next Monday and back in Dr Muher’s class for the first time in a while. Students murmured when she walked in, but settled quickly. She gave Scott a smile and took her usual spot four rows back and eight seats in. As Scott graded papers during the class, he found himself searching the faces of the massive class, continuing to land on Aspen’s, except instead of trying to incinerate the other with their gazes, she gave a small smile before turning back to the lecture. After everyone filed out, Dr Muher walked over to his desk, her heels clicking deafeningly on the tile floors. “I told you so.”

Scott fixed her with one of his famous glares.

She held up her hands in mock surrender. “Just remember what I said, you’ll-”

He shooed her away with his hand. “‘-either bite each other’s heads off or get married.’ Yeah, yeah, I remember.”

[misguidedasgardian]

The Dragon's Mistress (15.2)

15.2. The End of the Beginning

MASTERLIST

Summary: Some things unravel, other issues find this ties

Warnings: cursing, mentions of war, mentions of death, humiliation, use of the word bastard and traitor, incest, death, mentions of blood, death of a monarch, might miss some warnings, you know what this it

+18, MINORS DNI

Wordcount:  2.8k

Notes: muahahaha this is it people! I didn’t even realize I was so close to the end until this! a final chapter! then a good epilogue. THIS WAS IT

“It was a dangerous move”, he warned

“But it worked”, said Corlys, “he is letting her go”

“You poisoned her”, he continued

“She was never in real danger, a little nose bleeding, a day of unconsciousness”, he said, “If I wanted to truly hurt her, I would have used some common poison, and not take months to find the proper one, to give her a good scare”, he murmured, looking into the flames, “I would never hurt her, or the baby within her”

“When are we leaving?”, he asked then

“First thing tomorrow”, he continued, “and you are coming with us”, Steffon smiled, relieved, “but then, I will return, after I make sure she is safely within out allies and friends, this isn’t over, this had only just begun”, Steffon smiled, knowingly, he then teached with his hands and the guard received the items he gave him, “you know what to do with these before we leave”, Seteffon nodded,  “oh, one more thing…”

“Yes?”

“Do we still have supporters in Harrenhal?”, he asked with a hint of a smile, almost knowing the answer

“The strongest of our allies reside in the Riverlands, they still hold big grudges against Aemond for burning their fields during the war”

“Perfect”, he said simply, “I´m afraid I’ll need them to burn one last thing before we are done”

Aemond was a complicated man

From the very beginning he tried to keep up to his word, since he was a young boy the thing that mattered to him the most was his honor, especially after witnessing his brother lose it so quickly in wine and whores.

He trained with the sword, he assisted to all his Valyrian lessons until he was fluent in the language of his ancient house, he took classes and read all volumes of history and philosophy in the greatest Library of the realm, the one in the Red Keep

He was a devoted son, and brother, and Prince, never arguing with his grandfather or mother, always doing what he was told

He rode the biggest dragon in the world

He was the perfect prince, a gentleman

Until, she was denied of him

When Queen Alicent had refused Princess Rhaenyra’s proposal of betrothed Helaena with Jacaerys, he thought…

Now is my turn

To take my sweet niece to wife, and put a solution to all the problems of the realm and within the family

He was the one to do it

He wanted to, his niece was the perfect Princess, well versed in history and poetry, rider of a fearsome dragon, and a beauty without comparison.

She was his retribution for everything, the price he had won with his efforts

But he was denied of that too, his brothers took his eye, humiliated him, and Rhaenyra took her from him

He could never forgive her

She, the perfect princess, was going to do what was told, and she was betrothed to Lord Cregan Stark 

No, you belonged with him

You were the only thing he has ever wanted, and the Kingdoms knew it when he burned the Riverlands and entire armies, only to get to you.

And he finally had you

But like they say…

... But some little birds cannot be caged, their souls begin to wither and suddenly they no longer want to sing ...

He wanted you, but you did not wanted him

He thought he could live with it, he had enough love for the both of you, he had enough desire, enough power, to keep you by his side.

But he didn’t

If you didn’t love him back, it didn’t matter what he did, he believed, you were his and that was enough

But it doesn’t work that way.

Now he had a lump in his throat as he saw the servants and guards put all your things in coffers

He had yielded

He was sending you away

He still didn’t understand why you didn’t love him back, as you tried to hide your happiness, but couldn’t

You were happy to leave him

This is what you wanted all along

So he found himself desperate again

He grabbed you in his arms, kissed all over your face, and whispered in your ear

“I will not stop until I find who did this to you”, he whispered, “when I do, I will bring you back to me”, you took too long to answer, concocting a lie in your pretty head, he could see the wheels turning 

“I hope so, my King”, you said faintly

“And when you return, there is only going to be you, no other, no other Queen”, he said, to see your reactions

“I will not wish for you to harm anyone”, you warned, oh, you, always so concerned

For when Floris expelled the babe from her belly… her days were numbered 

He was losing you, he didn’t like that.

He never realized he never had you in the first place

He would never admit it, but a tiny tear escaped his eye when he saw your ship sail away. Thankfully no one saw him, as a loud roar was heard front he skies and suddenly the entire harbor was overcome by a huge shadow, Aemond looked up to see your ever faithful dragon flying above your ship, following his rider home.

His face twisted in rage because he had commanded your dragon to be chained to the pit, clearly, the people he had sent had no luck containing the beast, apparently. 

Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor

A Dragon is not a slave 

Aemond turned around to see Floris, cradling her belly

He was weak a couple of times, and that was the result, he thought bitterly. They lends him a hand, he played it, he played it wrong

But he did not have any time to worry, to cry for your loss, to punch the walls in anger for what others in the dark where still making him do.

A week after your departure…

Aegon died

He exhaled his last breath in a heave of puss and blood, and that is how the man that what going to be known as “Aegon the Usurper” was gone from this earth, taken by the stranger. 

He detested his brother, that was no secret, but there was a day he didn’t.

Some years ago, Aegon was only his brother, his oldest brother, a bit drunk, and a whore, but he was only his brother, and that is when Aemond loved him, he had helped him usurp his sister, because he loved him, and his sister and his family, and he thought that was the way to keep everyone safe

Perhaps he had been wrong

But Aemond didn’t have the strength, nor the luxury of thinking about that, he didn’t dare.

It was what it was 

His mother, Alicent, cried silently as the silent sister worked on Aegon’s body, covered his sick and twisted body with gauze and so many oils and ointments to try and cover the stench, finally, they placed the crown of the conqueror over his covered body.

He had not been the King in a while now, so the ceremony was short, but dignified thanks to his mother, but as like Viserys before him, nobody really payed attention to the burial, but rather, his own coronation

He had been acting like prince regent for a while now, but no matter, the ceremony was great, held in the throne room, instead of the Dragon Pit like Aegon’s had been, other lords of all over the Kingdoms had not been invited, they were only notified of the death of Aegon, and the coronation of Aemond.

Aegon had died, now, he was King, and you were not by his side when Criston placed the crown over his head, he looked around the room, looking for you, expecting to see you there smiling shyly, but he couldn’t find you anywhere, he could finally crown you Queen of the Seven Kingdoms in all your right

But you were not there 

The day

The most important day of his life, and you were nowhere to be found. 

He wanted to cry

He wanted to throw himself into his bed and weep

Only Floris was there, standing by the last step of the Throne, looking up at him triumphantly 

He wanted to throw up

But he couldn’t show it, for everybody in that room, for all those lickspitters and flatterers, they had won, it was him. Aemond, the right choice, the right brother

The one that studied history and philosophy, the one that trained with the sword, the one that rode the largest dragon in the world

The one who had wed two Queens, that now were with his children in her bellies,  the one that worn the conqueror’s crown and held the conqueror’s sword

All the symbols of…

For fucks sake

His grandfather would have been proud

That is what everyone in that room saw, the perfect King

That is who everyone greeted at the banquet afterwards, to the King, the Baratheon Queen, and his mother, the loved Dowager Queen Mother, Alicent Hightower

The court seemed at peace 

But it seemed like the peace before the storm

As the feast was raging on, Corlys Velaryon entered the room with the remains of his family, nephews and far off cousins, but impressive nonetheless

He barely nodded to the new anointed monarch, and sat close beside him, at the side of Floris

“You must be pleased to know, your grace, that your Queen is safe, at the palace we discussed”, he said triumphantly, knowingly souring the mood of everyone at the table, “she send her bests, and wishes to be present in this joyous occasion, sadly that cannot be”

“I agree Lord Corlys, soon, it shall all be well again, and I can have my Queen back at my side”, Corlys smiled, and raised his cup at the King, which he answered back, at the scowl of the Queen, and the frown of Floris

Aemond smiled, more confidently now, he was King now

Now, he was settled in power, with two heirs on the way, he was settling on the charge, he had vanquished one of his most powerful enemies while on power, he had won the war

His chest filled with the sense of victory

One step closer 

One more, just one more

One enemy left to be slain, and it was going to be fine

All of it, was going to be worth it

He was King now

A real King, anointed by the faith, cherished by the people, supported by half of the great families and at least three of the seven Kingdoms

It could be better.

But it didn’t

Days went by and nothing did.

One day, a very respected member of his kingsguard entered his chambers, he looked nervous

“Your grace, following your instructions, I found something in Queen Floris’ chambers”, he said shakily, he knew how much was at stake, specially if he was wrong

Aemond only looked at him severely 

Corlys was sewing scorn, resentment and mistrust in court, and he was not going to stop, until they ripped each other apart

“Queen Floris poisoned our beloved Queen, but she couldn’t do it alone, the question is, why your master of whispers didn’t know it?”, he asked the King as he had called upon him for advice on what to do, “she couldn’t have done it alone, my king”

Reader’s POV

You didn't want to believe it, when Aemond told you he was going to send you away, you didn’t want to get your hopes up, you believed you were dreaming.

But it was real

Maids helped you put your things inside coffers, and a sudden happiness filled you 

it was true, you were going away

Dragonstone? probably, is the only place that made sense for you

You were begging

But any place could be better than this

You would even go to Casterly fucking rock, instead of this place

Ironic, it should be your home, where your mother was born, where you were born

But it became a prison

You didn't want to believe you were finally going to be free of it until you were walking towards the docks, escorted by the entire Kingsguard and Aemond walking by your side

He was angry

He had promised you that you were going to be the only Queen, soon, and you couldn’t wish for anything but the opposite

This worked

You placed your hand in your belly, he had what he wanted, you could only wish you were expecting a girl and Floris a boy, perhaps then he would leave you alone.

 Aemond followed you hand, placing them over yours, as you stopped by when you reached Corlys’ ship at the end of the harbor

“I will send for you soon”, he promised, as he kissed you, you leaned into him, making him believe you would come back

You wouldn’t 

ONce you were weak enough to fight this, but not anymore

You were not going to come back, not against your own will.

You grabbed the small hand of your little brother as you helped him aboard the ship

Corlys held you both once the boat left the harbor.

It was funny

From all your Velaryon siblings, you were the one that liked the sea the most, even if your real father was Daemon Targaryen

You found it calming, reassuring, soothing, but it was also something to be weary of, careful, scared of.

The endless sea

“Thank you grandfather”, you whispered, he kissed the top of your head

“I’m here now sweet girl”, he whispered back, “they will pay for everything they have done to us”

There was a time you cursed him, you believed he had betrayed you and your mother, but he didn’t, he needed to get inside, attack from within, he was the Sea Snake, one of the most dangerous men on the seven Kingdoms

And he was on your side 

“The sea agrees with you”, he whispered, as with the soft sway of the ship you felt more confident as when you were on mainland 

“I got it from you”, you said cheekily, and he smiled warmly

“You are my legacy, history remembers names, not blood”, you only smiled gently 

And those words made sense only when you arrived at Dragonstone, where there was two very familiar silvery heads waiting for you

“Baela? Rhaena?”, you called, your half sisters smiling back at you. You ran towards them, as much as you could since you were heavily pregnant

they held you tightly against them

Once the war had started to collect the lives of your grandmother and then your brothers, Corlys had taken them to Driftmark, where they were going to be safe, you never saw them again.

Your stepsisters, your baby brother, your grandfather.

You looked up at the high towers of the huge castle, just in time when your dragon arrived and flied above it and between.

Beautiful

Safe

Your baby kicked inside you and you smiled warmly, he knew he was home too

 “You don’t have to worry, little one”, Corlys whispered, “you are home now, I’ll protect you”

But as you approached the castle, you realized it was more… lively, that the last time you saw it, more people, ships on the harbor, banners from houses of the Crownlands, no, it couldn’t be, you recognized from afar the house sigil of the Celtigars 

“What is going on?”, you asked

“The Lords are greeting you back home, where you belong, you, your brother, and the princeling”, now Corlys had the winning hand, having all the royal bloodlines under his protection.

When you entered the hall, you were met with all the lords of the Crownlands, everyone bowed when they saw you, smiling brightly at you, you smiled shyly back, as they guided you towards the Dragonstone throne.

Encouraged by Corlys, you took a seat in the throne, something you didn’t even see your mother do.

You gazed at all the lords, who didn’t even look in your direction when you lived inside these walls, when you were the last child of Rhaenyra Targaryen, and they could see how they disappointed you in your face, in the frown in your face.

Many of them started talking, amongst each other, and some towards you, many apologies, a lot of everything 

“We failed you once, our sweet Queen”, one man stood above all the others, “ we will not fail you again”, said Lord Celtigar, taking a knee to you, and all the other Lords followed

“To the Queen, and Prince Viserys!”, chanted one, and everyone echoed it

“For our late Queen Rhaenyra!”, chanted another and once again, your mother’s name was being called in the halls of Dragonstone

WELL, BRING ITTTT hahaha

It is going to be a long epilogue...

[galaxygirl-katie27]

Vector Redesign

Tap for better quality

Notes under the cut!

-Okay so first of all, I had to finally figure out his nationality, so that it would make sense with the story. Which led me to my headcanon of Vector being Turkish-Persian mixed, with his father being Turkish and his mother being Persian. But ultimately he would be the prince, later king, of Persia. I‘d like to make a full post about this topic specifically later, but in short: His father was the second Turkish prince, so in order to be king himself, he married into the persian royal family, who had no male heir, so he could have his own kingdom. So that later, Vector could jut walk through Türkiye with his army to attack Nasch in Greece, because of his blood-relation to their royal family without any problems.

-To the design. I gave him a ponytail, just to try it out, but I just liked it so much, that I had to stick with it.

-He has big eye bags from Insomnia, because of many nightmares almost every night. He has major PTSD from his past, that sill haunts him.

-He has a tooth gap (where he actually lost a tooth) and many scars and bandaids, because this boy is just always hurt (most of it because of the Ray-Way). I once read a headcanon, that all of Ray`s clumsiness wasn’t even acted, Vector is just like that. He still bumps into all kinds of furniture post-series.

-Also he ruined all his pants at one point because of his clumsiness and because the others (Nasch) don’t want to buy him new ones, he just patched them up himself, and yes he did poke himself with the needle multiple times.

-FRECKLES. No elaboration needed.

-Big father issues. Also no elaboration needed.

-This boy never ties his shoes, which also doesn’t help his clumsiness. Also he wears mismatched shoes, but they match enough for him and he just doesn’t think anyone notices. Everyone notices.

-He is one of the people with the most Trauma. If you ask him how he‘s doing he‘d say: „I take antidepressants.“ And he does! He got them perscribed, after an… incident. I wont go into detail, but I think you can guess what happened. And while most of the barians still don’t exactly like him, they don’t want him to die. He also refuses to go to proper therapy. Yuma is his therapy.

-He also has ADHD, which I think he always had, even in his past life. He got it diagnosed post series, when Yuma talked to him about his ADHD (another headcanon of mine) and Vector just heavily related to many things Yuma said and so he proposed that maybe he should get a diagnose. Which tuned out positive.

-Also he‘s a cat owner. I read so many fics, where he just adopts a cat. It’s mostly to spite Rio, when he came across a little kitten box on the side of the road one day. But he got so attached to it, it‘s his family now. It’s a little white female kitten, who is also deaf and her name is Pestilence, Pesty for short. He is also so good at hiding her. The barians only found out about her like 6 months after Vector got her. There was a massive discussion, but in the end Vector got to keep her. She is now his emotional support cat.

-He also reads a bit, but it only consists of the most cliche, sappy, stereotypical romance stories you can find, to make fun of them.

-His past life redesign is like the biggest redesign up until now, since I researched ancient Persian an Turkish royal robes, because even when he‘s the prince/king of Persia, I think his father would still bring some of his Turkish background into the family.

-And since I made him older again (and tanner, because he was more in the sun in Persia than in Japan) I gave him a little goatee

-Also his robes are red to resemble his father, and how he is slowly turning into him (plus the goatee), but he still has blue in his clothes to resemble and respect his mother. I refuse to believe that he stopped loving her after her death. I think he always continued to love her deep inside and actually still misses her post series. He just doesn’t show it.

[maxwell-grant]

So, which of the alien empires do you like better, the Kree or the Skrulls?

I feel mostly the same way about either, in that I don't particularly care for them in their own right, there is plenty I outright dislike most of them, but they can be useful worldbuilding elements to have around and have led to decent things over the years. I guess if I had to draw a straw here I'd say the Skrulls, but the Skrulls have more asterisks attached. I think the Skrulls have aged poorly overall and seem to be more trouble than they're worth.

It simply was inevitable that the Fantastic Four, at the moment of their inception, would have to deal with little green spacemen bent on world domination, these being shapeshifting Red Scare allegories just being part-and-parcel of what alien invasion stories are generally about at core (well that and antisemitism). Invading armies made of alien races are just kind of grandfathered into superhero settings at this point, like one of those things you have to address or do at some point. I'd say my biggest issue with the Skrulls isn't so much that they exist, and less that they are made to embody ideas I find politically or socially or morally reprehensible (although that is an issue, and Secret Invasion was an abysmally fucking ugly chapter in Marvel history, I'll link these articles by Ritesh Babu and Kelly Kanayama who can better elaborate why), as much as I think they really fall apart as a concept that's meant to exist in a shared universe where everybody's gonna be approaching them with different sensibilities and everybody who does so is gonna do some course-correcting on the previous takes to make their new one stand. They are living breathing allegorical embodiments of The Other who are also meant to pose an actual verifiable threat to the planet, and when you treat that idea seriously, when it’s no longer the 60s and this stuff is no longer given a pass for being charmingly antiquated, what do you do with it?

Are the Skrulls refugees? Are they imperialists? Are they warmongering genocide enthusiasts by nature or are they just regular people abused and groomed into war by their leaders? Are they space capitalists or commies? Are they honorable warriors or filthy backstabbers? Are they evil jihadist extremists hellbent on destroying America? Are we supposed to cheer when the heroes enthusiastically destroy them to save the planet or is this an oh-so-sad why-couldnt-we-get-along thing where the superheroes are very sad they have no choice but to kill them all? Are we meant to distrust the heroes when they attack Skrulls who are clearly not the aggressors or is it just an understandable funny misunderstanding? Are they really just gonna keep ping-ponging between perfect aggressors and perfect victims depending on what is convenient? That just feels irresponsible and too discomforting to me.

And I think that discomfort with their past depictions, with Secret Invasion, with the general fantasy orc problem they carry, is very clear in how modern creators tackle the Skrulls, and so they lean more heavily on making the Skrulls palatable, making them warriors torn between their honor and their loyalty to their dying empire, going hard on the angle of them as refugees displaced by war (which only makes the people at conflict with, the Kree and the superheroes, even less sympathetic in a way that never allows that thread to pan out), making conventionally pretty Skrulls like Hulkling to be "the good ones" in charge, drowning them in white savior bullshit that does little to address that fundamental tension and doesn't even last because eventually the Skrulls will be villains again, eventually it's their turn on the list of old pulp tropes superheroes recycle periodically. Even putting Secret Invasion aside, and you can't, the Skrulls are fundamentally a hostile endless race of alien monsters seeking to infiltrate America's borders by replacing it's people with themselves so they can take over the world. Valuable attempts have been made to flesh them out, but you are just not going to bleed that fascistic validation out of them.

The most I ever liked the Skrulls as a concept is probably in that storyline where Ben Grimm gets captured and sent to a Skrull planet where they are all obsessed with imitating Prohibition-era gangsters and forcing several other captive aliens to battle out, simultaneously allowing The Thing to deal with an upscaled gangster problem and a Star Trek problem and a Flash Gordon problem all in one. Skrulls-as-Space-Gangsters felt like it was onto something, a decent middleground power and threat-wise for them to occupy in the cosmic hierarchy with a niche not occupied by anyone else in the F4 rogues gallery and one that might de-emphasize the inherent xenophobia, open up different nuanced takes without needing to defang their value as an imperial power (and frankly Ben Grimm should be punching gangsters more often, he'd be the first to agree). That might be too limiting, so if there were a step beyond that, I'd suggest doing more on the weird exploration side, go big on the Skrulls as a species of copycats who can be anything and allow for weird alternate scenarios and themes and topics to be touched on, some of that weird anything-goes experimentation that made so much of F4 fun to read.

Skrull utopias, Skrull dystopias, Skrull societies that revolve around cooking competitions (maybe there are Skrulls morphing themselves into meals). Skrull planets doing shonen fighting tournaments, Skrull corporations dissatisfied with the Super-Skrull so they start splicing superpowers from a bunch of others hoping to strike big with the next great warrior, planets that are moving backwards because everytime their Skrulls get dissatisfied with modernity they take a step back on their timeline as literally as possible, Skrulls play-acting their versions of Marvel story arcs that center them as the heroes, a planet that is just the Skrulls doing their version of the DC universe, a city of rocky orange Skrulls who worship Ben as the greatest warrior in the universe, serious debates in Skrull circles over what is the worst form possible to take, roving bands of Skrull hippies trying to find the next cool thing to transform into and mold their identities around, Skrull beauty pageants, etc. I guess most of these are ideas better served outside of the Skrull framework and there's not much getting around the core make-up of these guys, but idk, if the Skrulls are gonna be a thing forever then they should be something that isn't just an Other existing in service of white savior/xenophobic fantasies. Give them their own Monkey Meat-esque anthology series about the things these weirdos endure and do when they aren't getting into spats with superheroes or space fascists or their warring governments.

Oh yeah and there's these guys too, I guess. To be honest I don't think I actually even know what's their deal. I know they are distinct enough from the skrulls due to their superpowers and big hammers and imagery, they come in different colors, they take orders from a big weird mostly-evil supercomputer, they have the Accusers as essentially a police force they've used to murder a bunch of planets with, they created the Inhumans by fucking around with cavemen, and their deal a lot of the time seems to be that they are powerful space fascists, and also that they are responsible for Captain Marvel, which doesn't do a lot to dispel the whole space fascist thing. I do think Ronan is okay though. I liked him allright in his FF debut because, given his introduction, given how he spends every line of dialogue in it flabbergasted at the F4 for daring to oppose his authority and resist his judgement and that of his empire and shocked that they won't simply comply and bow and accept death, it made him maybe thee closest you could get to a evenly-matched Fantastic Four vs The Cops story, which I thought was enough reason to justify him and the Kree as an ongoing element. Hickman also does good stuff with him and the Kree in his Fantastic Four and Avengers runs enough that I am broadly okay with them as a thing, along with the whole reocurring cosmic invader bucket they share with the Skrulls and the Shi'ar and whatever. The best one in that alien invader bucket I'd say is Annihilus, but he is his own degree of freak not really comparable to them.

If I was gonna point to anything between the two that I actually love, not just appreciate but actually really enjoy, it would be the guy in that image speaking the thing on my mind most of the time, Super-Skrull. That is ENTIRELY because he is a very entertaining character in MvC3, not just in terms of his playstyle but his general personality and demeanor, and that was my introduction to him, mostly divorced from the context the Skrulls usually occupy I was very on board with this funny green spaceman with such a cool and busted powerset and such an attitude problem. Charlie Adler does so much for his personality, this hilariously unpleasant egotistical jerk who's spitting and snarling everything he says, jeering and stomping the camera or stomping your opponent after they're down, nobody in the game is quite playing the Heel to the extent Super-Skrull is, and I like that some of his lines and ending emphasize how he's not even really that much of a villain. He is the hero his empire needs, even if he nurtures a rebellious streak, and asks you not to look too much into whenever he breaks character.

[informalmajesty]

Jimin is not being sabotaged by his own label

This tag used to be (mostly) fun and now all I see are large text posts pitting Jimin and JK against each other and, look, it’s not as complicated as many of you are making it out to be, nor is there some grand conspiracy to *checks notes* pit JK and Jimin against each other or *keeps checking notes* a SPECIFIC vendetta against ONLY Jimin, their artist who *scrolls scrolls scrolls through notes* went number 1 on Billboard.

So here is a large text post on the woes of American capitalism (yes. Really).

Here’s the reality

Billboard DID Sabotage Jimin

Let’s get the big sabotage that did happen out of the way — BILLBOARD (and friends. Will circle back to this) ARE RACIST SNAKES AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

Billboard has a history of keeping Black artists off of the pop charts. One example, R&B was largely created as a separate chart to move a category of Black artists from the Hot 100 pop charts. It was a big deal—as (1) example—when Boyz II Men crossed over to the pop charts multiple times.

And then what happened? The American music industry caught up and started cranking out white boy bands that wrote and performed R&B but. Funny. Somehow it was now considered JUST pop on the H100 POP charts. They weren’t pushed immediately to R&B and had to work their way over.

This was considered R&B for the R&B charts that was a “crossover”

And this was considered mainstream pop that needed no crossover.

Yeah, Billboard have always been racist snakes.

So flash forward to 2023. We know they tried HARD to keep BTS from the H100. Going into Proof, BB limited digitals, reduced the weight on sales and upped weight on radio. Why? American music labels can control radio. They cannot control sales and it’s legally far more messy for them to do so.

But then. JIMIN happened.

ARMY got Jimin to H100 #1 with the rule change and the American music industry lost their collective shit.

Why do I say COLLECTIVE and not just Billboard? Well.

This is so essential to the punch line of this rant.

American capitalism only cares about its friends.

What does that mean?

I work in Silicon Valley. You want to know why there is a major diversity problem in Silicon Valley? Yes. There is explicit and obscene misogyny and racism, but the biggest problem is less explicit albeit just as systemic.

White men tend to hang out and befriend other white men already in their “circle.” When some rich person or VC firm’s buddy is like “hey I need money for this thing” they are like “yes, of course, buddy, here you go!!” And they get tons of cash without having to prove anything.

I will not say the startup I worked at but it’s valuation was in the billions and their funding was in the billions with NO product built yet. How they got those billions? A well known stunt performer was besties with the then CEO of a major major tech company and he said “hey bestie give my friend over here hundreds of millions of dollars.” And then this startup got hundreds of millions of dollars. Was there due diligence done? Absolutely. But would the CEO of a major tech company give a crap if his best dude didn’t vouch for the startup? No.

Humans are extremely relationally driven. Merit is basically bullshit. Merit is so so rarely considered in anything. Who are you friends with? That’s how most things are done.

So, Billboard has a lot of friends. Those friends are in major record labels. And those friends only care about making as much money as possible while retaining the status quo.

What goes against all of that? A group of non-white, non-American men that they make very little money from because their label is completely seated in a different country.

So when Like Crazy—a solo record by a Korean artist under a Korean label with a Korean songwriting team—comes in and dethrones FLOWERS, Columbia Records’ darling for the year (no hate to Miley or the song, it’s solid, love Miley), oh my god were they SEEING SOME RED.

The MONEY they PAID to see Flowers on top of radio, of playlisting, of cultural consciousness and a NON AMERICAN NON WHITE MAN just dethroned that.

My GUESS (I don’t know, also keep in mind BTS didn’t seem to have the friendliest exit from the Columbia distribution deal) is that Billboard’s BFFs at Columbia threw a fit. And Billboard responded by saying “of course, bestie, we’ll remove the problem.”

And there goes 100k sales in the next week. Deleted. Gone.

Who is going to call them on that? Hybe could propose an investigation, sure, but here’s the thing — it’s not illegal. Billboard didn’t break any law. It’s THEIR completely made up chart that they can change at any time depending on what labels want (this is how Wall Street works too, btw). Everything is made up to appease the same 50 white men. Bleak but true. Music industry is far from the exception.

Okay so moving forward — now we have Jungkook’s Seven coming out. And Billboard a week before release finally decides to tell us the rule they CREATED BECAUSE OF JIMIN (it’s a shitty rule of course but damn Jimin’s power)—D2C sales no longer count.

Jungkoook makes it to #1 anyway because ARMY is freaking amazing AND yes. Yes, Jungkook got more US promotion, help on Spotify, general promo, radio etc than Jimin.

BUT THIS DID NOT HAPPEN BECAUSE BIG HIT FAVORS JUNGKOOK AND SABOTAGED JIMIN

Remember — everything is determined by rich men in power and who they are friends with.

What did Jungkook do? He went to an American producer who is besties with Scooter Braun (Andrew Watt has worked with several of Scooter’s artists including Justin Bieber, namely on Peaches) who has power to contact his besties at Spotify and wherever else.

And what does going to an American producer unlock for Jungkook? A pop track highly likely to do well in America. So then what does Bang PD do? Recognize that because the dude is a billionaire and he likes money and he says (and we know he said this) “this is going to be a hit.” And there you go, you have the Seven marketing campaign that Like Crazy didn’t quite get.

This isn’t “oh my god BigHit / Hybe hates Jimin.” This is “Jungkoook took an easier, more commercial route.”

If Jimin wants to go get a song like Seven….he can go get a song from an American producer who is friends with the right people.

Instead he wanted to work on a personal project with Korean producers and it’s amazing and beautiful and also went number one and was also a huge success.

And Jungkook wanted this really great and incredibly commercial pop song.

Both are valid. Both are going to unlock different resources for the artist. And both Jimin and JK know this. They chose what they chose. That’s it. End of story.

As for Seven v LC album stock— stock is highly likely determined by basic predictive analytics models (exponential smoothing, maaybe a regression, maybe even something as simple as moving avg idk). LC was a sizable increase from Astronaut and other BTS singles. So then Seven likely adjusted to that increase. Again. That’s it guys. That’s literally it.

So can we please have the tag back and stop pitting JK and Jimin against each other and respect that Jimin chose to do a more artistic, personal project while JK (at least for now) did not?

If you want to be mad at something, be mad at American wealthy white men and their friends.

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

So funny that The Red Sowing is literally The Bells Part 2

...As in Targaryen Queen wants the throne so bad they suddenly flip into lunatic who burns innocent people alive en masse - something neither of them ever do in the books. Yet while The Bells is generally accepted as awful writing and an abrupt character assassination, I see The Red Sowing praised (often the same people who criticise The Bells) as making Rhaenyra more interesting.

And part of that is the scale - Dany pointlessly burns an entire city street by street. Compared to Rhaenyra pointlessly herding in a hundred dragonseeds into a confined space and ringing the dinner bell. Rather than letting them go one at a time and not risking killing off all your potential dragonriders in one dumb fiery swoop. So, a relatively smaller dumb pointless kill count = good writing I guess.

Part of that is the relief that after a mostly dull season Rhaenyra is finally doing something. Which wouldn't have been a problem if they actually spent the season letting Jace have his book arc and take the forefront for a bit. Rhaenyra would have taken a bit of a step back, but we would have been able to focus on her grief and it would have been set up for Post-Gullet Rhaenyra. Instead the season is spent with Rhaenyra moping in frustration or dressing up as a nun or kissing Varys Marx Part 2 while Jace also mopes in frustration.

Part of it is the fact that Rhaenyra is a morally more ambiguous and less altruistic person than Dany anyway, so people are more willing to accept it as consistent characterisation. Especially if they've irritatingly got it into their head that Crispy is a rape victim (though thankfully not even the show, for all its other faults, understands him as such). Many who complain that Rhaenyra has been whitewashed by the show even cheer that we are, apparently, finally getting something closer to book Rhaenyra.

Which irritates me because most of Rhaenyra's worst actions take place Post-Gullet.

An event that hasn't even happened yet. And what she does in The Red Sowing is already far more monstrous than anything she ever does in the book. There is a broad spectrum between morally ambiguous, even dark, and... crazy cult lunatic who gives the Mad King himself a run for his money. Rhaenyra's worst actions come about from the loss of her children, from paranoia at losing more. That's a human story. The Red Sowing is an uninspired Targ coin flip.

As for her worst actions pre-Gullet... while there are some valid charges of whitewashing the biggest ones I see are incorrectly targeted. Like Rhaenyra's lack of involvement in Blood and Cheese, or calling Helaena an innocent. That is literally canon. That isn't whitewashing. The Rogue Prince literally sent the 'son for a son' raven from Harrenhall just as Rhaenys and Corlys were sitting the council down to discuss how to respond to Luke's death (Rhaenyra was absent out of grief).

Or Rhaenyra not killing Laenor. She didn't kill Laenor in canon either - for starters Harwin was still alive at the time of Laenor's death. The show switches up and compresses the timeline - the fight at Driftmark takes place at Laenor's funeral in the book, and Harwin is sent away to Harrenhal in the aftermath. So, Rhaenyra wasn't looking to marry Daemon while she was in a loving relationship with a still-alive Harwin.

Using the dragons as deterrence? Outside of an impassioned speech after Jace's death, that literally was the strategy she used in the book. Daemon lured Aemond and Vhagar away from King's Landing, and outside from one small battle at one of the gates the city swiftly surrendered at the sight of the dragons. Which were not used. (So no, Show Baela, when Rhaenyra said 'subdue their armies' she did not mean 'burn innocents').

Which brings me to my next issue with complaints of whitewashing, because it doesn't factor in areas where Rhaenyra had been simultaneously demonised.

Such as being complicit in the murder an innocent bystander in cold blood so she can fake Laenor's death. Or the fact that her arrangement with Laena is erased so a now-whitewashed Vaemond is depicted as the wronged party (erasing a black woman's agency and wishes - thank you for that hotd). Or the fact that she now voluntarily abandons King's Landing rather than being ordered away by her father, and getting passed over as Hand as a result.

Or 'questioned sharply' now coming before Alicent's demand to cut Luke's eye out, rather than being said in response to a threat to her children. Like either way it was a toothless threat, Rhaenyra was just trying to back Alicent into a corner to get her to admit to raising her children to coup. But it makes her the aggressor where she was previously reacting to Alicent's threat. And Alicent already had an understandable reason to flip out herself - her son had lost an eye - both mothers had a reason to lose their heads and say shitty things.

This isn't book purism for book purism's sake. The problem isn't that changes were made, or that changes were even necessary. The problem is that these changes dramatically re-characterise Rhaenyra.

Or, considering her motives are changed from ambition towards Peace Keeping in the name of Altruistic Prophecy of Destiny - temporarily characterised.

The show makes changes, but then doesn't write those changes consistently. And the show doesn't compensate for the way these changes re-contextualise the canon that they do keep.

Take Shae as an example. Show Shae and Show Tyrion have a genuine loving relationship. So genuinely loving that the events of book canon - Shae testifying against Tyrion and Tyrion murdering her in cold blood - no longer work. So in order to fix it, the show assassinates Show Shae's character by turning her into a bitter woman scorned, by having Tyrion now murder her in self-defense.

Sibel Kekilli reportedly defended her character, and asked the writers if they could instead give Shae the motivation that she testified against Tyrion in exchange for clearing Sansa's name. It still would have been a mess, but it would have been more consistent with the version of the character they wrote.

I ultimately think they should have just stuck with the book - if they were going to change or flesh Shae out it should have been done in a way that would have worked with the ending for her character. Making their relationship genuinely loving was a change that ultimately didn't work (as much as I am still moved to rewatch some of their scenes).

But having made that change, the show had to compensate for how the book canon they were going to keep was no longer going to work in a changed context. And they seriously dropped the ball.

So no, changing Rhaenyra's character isn't necessarily bad. But you have to understand what it is you are actually changing and how it interacts with the canon you do keep. And you have to write her consistently.

And when you have a character who is going to have a dark turn, it's important that you get that character right.

Just because a character does morally ambiguous things it doesn't mean that every dark action you can think of is on the table. What actions, why, to who, in what context, at what point in their character arc?

To compare to an actually good show (not that I think the characters are comparable) - Season 1 Walter White almost walks away from cold-blooded murder but ultimately makes his first kill out of self-defense. Season 2 Walter White guiltily lets Jane overdose so she can't blackmail him. Season 3 Walter White gets Jesse to kill another meth cook for him so he can't be murdered and replaced. Season 4 Walter White poisons and hospitalises a child (child endangerment, but not murder) to trick Jesse into helping him kill a crime boss who had threatened to kill him and his family. Season 5 Walter White will willingly work with someone who murdered a child out of cold selfish pragmatism, and will arrange the murder of 13 fellow criminals to keep himself out of prison.

Gus Fring orders a child to be shot to tie up a loose end. Todd Alquist tortures Jesse and shoots Andrea in cold blood just to punish him. Tuco beats a man to death for annoying him.

Walter White is a monster (again, I don't think he is comparable to Rhaenyra) - but he is a consistent one. It wouldn't make sense to have him act like Gus Fring, or Todd Alquist, or Tuco. And you don't prematurely put Season 5 Walter White in Season 2. Where would his character even go from there?

Where does Rhaenyra go after Squid-Gaming a crowd of bastards into a fiery massacre?

You can't have post-Gullet Rhaenyra in the pre-Gullet. And you can't have Mad King Aerys in Rhaenyra's place. Or... you can't have Aemond (burning the riverlands and beheading children) in Rhaenyra's place, or Aegon (burning the shepherd and his followers in a gruesome little light show) in Rhaenyra's place, or Daeron (slaughtering an entire town of innocents even though Maelor's killers had already been executed) in Rhaenyra's place.

To lay it out, not for the sake of book purism, but to detail the original context of her actions:

Rhaenyra reacts to Alicent demanding to cut her kid's eye out.

Rhaenyra leaves King's Landing because her father orders it.

Rhaenyra marries a man who may have killed her husband, at a point where she is grieving and has been essentially exiled from her position at court and passed over as Hand.

Rhaenyra makes an alliance with Laena to secure Driftmark and the Iron Throne for their children, and orders the execution of Vaemond when he falsely declares himself the heir ahead of both their children.

Rhaenyra fails to execute her husband, the father of two of her children and one of her few dragonriders, when he goes behind her back and orders the murder of a child.

Rhaenyra withdraws from her own council out of grief for her son, forcing her 14-year-old child to grow up too quickly (the Robb and Cat parallels hurt me)

Rhaenyra allows her son to let dragonseeds attempt to claim dragons - an inherently dangerous business that was always going to have casualties without squid gaming them into a cave and ringing the dinner bell - because they need dragonriders.

Rhaenyra turns darker after the Gullet:

Broken by the loss of one son, Rhaenyra Targaryen seemed to find new strength after the loss of a second. Jace’s death hardened her, burning away her fears, leaving only her anger and her hatred.

Catelyn doesn't become Lady Stoneheart until after the Red Wedding. Catelyn doesn't murder Jinglebell in cold blood until after she watches Robb die.

It hurts so much, she thought. Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes. Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb … Robb … please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting …

Rhaenyra loses Visenya, then Lucerys, then Jacaerys and, she believes, Viserys. Four children gone, with two children left to protect.

That is the context for the worst of her.

Rhaenyra has Tyland tortured... to try to retrieve the crown's finances, and the failure to do so leads directly to the collapse of her reign.

Rhaenyra executes turncloaks - again after a series of betrayals that had already resulted in the loss of 4 children, with 2 left to protect.

Rhaenyra passes over the daughters of Rosby and Stokeworth... because she couldn't risk alienating the lords. The Greens had bankrupted her kingdom, she was in the middle of a civil war, she had two children left to protect. And idk maybe she had qualms about serving a 6 and 12 year old girl up to be child brides to Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White. Which leads to...

Rhaenyra turns against Nettles and Addam. Her own son's friends... out of classism and racism and... the urging of her own council. On the word of her mistress of whisperers. In the aftermath of one of the most horrific war crimes of the dance by Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White. Is turning against two of your few remaining dragonriders when the other side has just gained two dragonriders a strategically bad move? Absolutely. Arguably, so is risking the possibility of the other side gaining four dragonriders.

Even so, this is Rhaenyra at her worst. It is her at her most paranoid and, if Eustace is to be believed, most vindictive. It comes towards the end of her reign. It comes at a certain point, in a certain context. It is an earned moral decline.

It is nowhere near as bad as, or consistent with, a crazy cult leader Squid Gaming a crowd of bastards into a fiery massacre out of some deluded religious sacrifice.

Now, 'book purism' aside... even with the changes the show makes to Rhaenyra's character, The Red Sowing still isn't consistent with her new character (as inconsistent as her show character already was).

Rhaenyra just isn't set up as a crazy religious cult leader, even with her prophecy of destiny (heck the prophecy of destiny certainly never stopped show Rhaenyra from voluntarily bouncing to Dragonstone and leaving King's Landing for the greens). In the very first episode she acknowledges that the idea of Targaryen's being closer to gods than men is propaganda. She lets the white hart live rather than kill it and use it for political gain. She honours both Erryk and Arryk and is upset by their suicide. She doesn't force Steffon Darklyn to tame a dragon, and is horrified at his death. She is concerned with deterrence and avoiding conflict to the point that she'll disguise herself as a septa and risk everything to stop a war. She advocates intervening between the Blackwoods and Brackens rather than leaving it to Lord Tully because she knows how quick they are to turn to bloodshed.

There is no consistent set up for her being a) a lunatic or b) seeing human life as disposable.

Yes, even with this version of Rhaenyra's willingness to kill an innocent bystander in order to fake her husband's death

Because frankly that's about as consistent with the rest of her character onscreen as Rhaenys' dragonpit massacre is with the rest of her pro-geneva convention character. In both examples, you can see the contrivance by the writers. Their motivation for the dragonpit massacre was, in their own words, "what would be the worst thing to happen at a coronation?" and "wouldn't it be cool if?"

With very little thought of course to Rhaenys' motivation - as is embarrassingly clear in the way they address the glaring plothole their Big Episode 9 Moment created: why didn't she end the war there and then?

Well, it wasn't her war to start! (the greens had already started it, also how is the dragonpit massacre not an act of war?). And... she wouldn't do that to another mother! (she had already in fact done it to many many mothers). Ok well she's a classist who doesn't value the smallfolk as much as she does Alicent (except for 99% of the time when she's pro-peace and anti-violence and lamenting the cost of war, also I'm pretty sure she at least values the survival of her granddaughters over Alicent).

Ok... well she just had a stressful day and the tactic "hand over the crown, I've got a dragon and I'm not afraid to use it" didn't occur to her.

Meanwhile Dead Bystander-Gate... clearly the result of not wanting to bury their gays. Well done show, harmful trope averted, but now Laenor and Rhaenyra are chill with a) murdering an innocent bystander and b) traumatising Rhaenys, Corlys and their children for life with the charred corpse of their loved one.

Now there are other reasons for why Laenor's exit from the show happened the way it did - primarily the structure of the season.

It had just two episodes to fit in the events of before, during and after Driftmark. They needed episode 6 to serve as a second pilot episode, while they wanted episode 7 to focus entirely on Driftmark, leaving no room for the aftermath (Rhaenyra leaving for dragonstone, Harwin's death, Rhaenyra getting passed over as Hand, Rhaenyra marrying Daemon).

So instead they took part of the aftermath of Driftmark (Harwin's death and Rhaenyra leaving for Dragonstone), stitched it in before Driftmark, and used it to set Larys up as an antagonist in the second pilot.

As a result two big character exits get switched around: Harwin dies an episode early and Laenor 'dies' an episode late. Which means cramming his exit into a quick montage at the end, alongside Rhaenyra's marriage to Daemon. A montage of Laenor getting assassinated, Rhaenyra grieving his loss for a few months, then Rhaenyra marrying Daemon wouldn't work - but a montage is all the episode has time for. So to expediate things Rhaenyra has to be in on it, but that would be too jarring a character assassination, so she can't actually have Laenor killed. So fake his death.

So... a big whopping mess, and honestly I think there were plenty of other ways to get around the episode structure - ways that wouldn't assassinate either Laenor or Rhaenyra's character. Or, again, temporarily assassinate.

Either way, 'this character assassination is consistent with another moment of character assassination' isn't a great argument in the Red Sowing's favour.

Same again for the blockade causing a famine in King's Landing,

Which I also see cited as set up for Rhaenyra squid gaming people. Well, the blockade didn't cause a famine in the book, because most of the food doesn't come by sea. It comes by road. Specifically, from the Reach. You know, the bread basket of the realm? Remember, from last time there was a famine on this show, during the War of the Five Kings?

This isn't an argument against exploring the costs of war for the smallfolk. But that comes later, and more realistically, with the taxes Rhaenyra is forced to raise. Right now its valuable screentime that could have been going to Jace, Cregan, Baela, Rhaena, Nettles (another smallfolk character!), Daeron, Marilda (another smallfolk character!), giving Addam and Alyn more personality and agency...

Oh wait we're giving these two random white guys sad backstories now? Sorry my bad.

The ultimate trigger for Rhaenyra's religious delusion seems to be Addam interpreting getting chased by a dragon as a divine sign from the gods...

which I guess was anticipating a cinema sins ding on whether Velaryons can be dragonriders without Targaryen blood? (Just say they're all from Old Valyria and call it a day).

In the book Addam had put himself forward as a dragonrider - demonstrating his ambition, daring and willingness to take a risk. In the show this level of agency and motivation is reserved for the white dragonseeds - leaving us with a passive Addam and a lunatic Rhaenyra.

Which leaves us with 'this bad writing was set up by previous bad writing', which again isn't a great argument in the Red Sowing's favour.

The other set up we've supposedly received for Rhaenyra's fanaticism is... reading history books and doing some light Visenya cosplay. I bet that's how Mad King Aerys got started too.

Or seeing the White Hart as a divine sign. Many people see the White Hart as a divine sign. They don't all go crazy. Putting stock in dreams and signs and portents is a Westeros thing rather than specifically an Evil Targ thing, that often does not result in mass murder.

As for the idea that Rhaenyra believes so fervently that she needs to win the Iron Throne in order to protect the realm from Long Night that she'll sacrifice people en masse for the greater good...

Again a) set that up and b) why are we prioritising inserting a song of ice and fire into a story about female succession? And after we just had 'Daenerys believed in ending slavery so badly she became hitler' do we really need another mad queen on the altruism to mass murder pipeline?

Even then, the sowing of the seeds was already dangerous in the book without squid gaming everyone. If you want to depict it as a fiery sacrifice then... people individually trying to tame the dragons one at a time already had a high casualty. That was already a decision Rhaenyra accepted as a sacrifice for the greater good. Which as moral declines go is less of a rapid descent into absolute lunacy. Again, without risking killing all your potential dragonriders in one fiery swoop. And apparently ordering your guards to let themselves get burnt alive to stop people from escaping?

It does make me wonder what was going on with the dragonkeepers strike. Setting aside the fact that this is an absolute monarchy and they don't have union rights so... Rhaenyra can just order them to do their job lol. When I first watched the episode after hearing some leaks I saw this scene and thought "oh ok so the dragonkeepers are too classist to do their jobs, and that means something is going to go wrong and the dragon is going to get out of control".

But nope, turns out the plan was for the guards to stop everyone escaping a fiery sacrifice... and to be a part of that fiery sacrifice themselves so... the dragonkeepers were refusing to be part of that fiery sacrifice? Rhaenyra was planning to burn all the dragonkeepers too?

Thing is, the Red Sowing sequence is more shocking and cool to watch on our screens

and perhaps it was cheaper for the budget to kill everyone in one go. But if the only way to save on budget is to assassinate your main character then perhaps you need to go back to the drawing board. There were ways around it. Idk, a montage of people going one at a time? A scene of some people giving up and being free to leave, while others decide to stay and risk it? A scene of a dragonkeeper reading the list of casualties per dragon?

You could have had Rhaenyra listening to the list of the dead. You could have had Rhaenyra letting the cost of the greater good sink in. You could have had Rhaenyra try to reassure herself that they did it out of their own free will and... actually explore it as a difficult morally ambiguous decision that a ruler could realistically rationalise. You didn't have to make her a monster.

Which is why it tickles me that I see fans lavish this season with praise for being a reserved pro-smallfolk anti-war story that refuses to glorify violence because... it isn't.

Not that it doesn't have effective anti-war moments (the ground-level view of the battle of rook's rest was very well done!) but:

a) Just because a show tries to address a topic doesn't mean it's doing it well (essay for another day but anachronistic riverlords geneva convention was laughably bad). Just because a show replaces action scenes with dialogue scenes doesn't mean the dialogue is actually any good (I lost count of the number of times the dialogue amounted to "oh tis so hard to be a smallfolk, you high lords do not care for us smallfolk, war crimes are bad").

And congratulations, you explored the sad smallfolk backstories of two white male characters while removing the agency of or flat-out erasing 4 smallfolk of colour! (hey remember how Hugh got Addam's moment of heroism in the Red Sowing?????)

b) The show still adds in crowd-pleasing shocking action sequences, at the expense of all internal logic and character consistency. First dragonpit massacre, then the Red Sowing. It adds in fucked up spectacle where it didn't previously exist, it prioritises shock value.

So no, the show doesn't get the credit for being reserved in it's depiction of the Battle of Burning Mill. An event that actually would have introduced us to the character of Alysanne Blackwood - but instead we spend the season with Willem Blackwood and Amos Bracken (the male characters who died at the battle), and their deaths are replaced with two male ocs for tumblr to ship.

If you're going to have spectacle and action sequences that lament the cost of war... canon already provided opportunities to do so. You don't need to invent war crimes that assassinate characters. (And you don't need Hugh and Ulf to take the place of your characters of colour as our smallfolk viewpoint characters).

And... funny how the canon war crime of Aemond burning random villages is shown only in the aftermath, some flames and screams in the distance... while we get elaborate visceral on-the-ground spectacles out of show-only war crimes for Rhaenys and Rhaenyra.

(but sure, the show is team black bias)

[transthadymacdermot]

Some stuff about the Red Hand, the main anti-Commonwealth rebel group in Hieburne circa the 1690s in my WIP FFAS. heavily based on a combination of real seventeenth century Irish resistance to British colonialism with a bit of the loose cannon mercenaries which roamed Europe after various early modern wars. things about them:

They are also known as "les hommes de la chasse" or the equivalent in the local languages spoken elsewhere in the country for the fact that many members of the organisation, which is heavily geared towards middle to upper class young men, originally excused their preparations for running off to join it with preparing of a hunt of some kind

Their current leader, Faolán Mac Kinard/St John, pictured above, wears no unique gear in battle, so that is actually what most of his men are wearing. There is some variation in colour because they mostly nick uniforms and armour off the various soldiers they kill, but the armour/boots/gloves/face cover/goggles/helmet lineup is pretty much a requirement if one wants to last among them both because they need it for protection and because the environment they live in has a LOT of random radiation. here Faolán's wearing the uniform of the Daltorian army infantry, with a red sash he added himself!

Their 2 biggest distinguishing features as a military force are a rosary wrapped around the left wrist (so it doesn't interfere with the sword. yes I'm aware I drew this wrong so that Faolán would have to use his left hand here idgaf) and the use of the extinct animal H. horridus, which is one of the national symbols of their country, as an emblem (seen here carved into Faolán's gun)

They don't have a consistant base of operations but rather move between various clusters of abandoned cabins in the bogs and fens to the east of the island. this makes them hard to track both because they're constantly on the move and also because due to the previously mentioned radiation problem the army hardly ever enters the area

As alluded to above they are mainly made up of, or at least led by, disgruntled gentry who have had their lands confiscated. foreign mercenaries brought to Hieburne during the Civil War (1640s-1650s) and Third Daltorian Invasion (1620s) also make up a large number of their foot soldiers, along with farmers loyal to the aforementioned gentry and random miners and farmers and refugees who they find and press into service. there aren't TOO many of them, maybe about 100 or so, split up into semi-independent groups of around 20, but there's enough that they're a constant thorn in the side of the administration in Hieburne 🫡

[astonmartinii]

hi!! i dont know if you're still taking requests but if you are, can you please do a max verstappen smau with fem reader, where reader is a huge max fan and they like end up together in the end. i love all of your work and i've probably reread most of your work!! your doing great and i hope you have a good day 🫶

worlds biggest fan | max verstappen social media au

pairing: max verstappen x reader

y/n is the president of the official max verstappen fan club, but nothing can come of that, right?

(this'll probably just be part one so let me know if you want a part two)

maxverstappenarchive

liked by maxverstappen1, victoriaverstappen and 31,239 others

maxverstappenarchive: max took the win at monza this weekend after a late safety car. the dutchman once again showed he’s a mentality king ignoring all the boos from the tifosi. they hate what they can’t have.

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user1: max verstappen the man you are

maxverstappen1: 🧡

maxverstappenarchive: super max 🏆

yourusername: jealousy is a disease get well soon xoxo

user2: i love how she comments like we don’t know she runs this account

user3: SHES THE ADMIN???

user4: i personally love when maxverstappenarchive gets sassy with it like the caption didn’t have to serve so hard

yourusername: someone has to defend him and it’s got to the point i no longer need to argue with people over the internet i need a GUN

liked by maxverstappen1

user5: we can see you by the way max

yourusername

liked by victoriaverstappen, maxverstappen1 and 3,429 others

yourusername: the library knows my face way more than it should :(

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user6: she’s almost too cool to be the literal president of the max verstappen fan club

user7: no i need her to be this cool cause it makes us 10% cooler by association

user8: she single-handedly covers us from the embarrassment from the middle aged drunk men in the orange army

user9: she’s so chill about the fact that victoria and max are just constantly in her likes

yourbff1: i can assure you she is not chill about it

yourbff2: like at all

yourbff1: wow i wonder who takes these lovely pictures of you at the library and conveniently only takes them when you’re not having a meltdown

yourusername: i love yewwwww xxx

yourbff1: you can repay me when you become a wag

yourusername: PLS don’t say that i shan’t abuse my position as president

yourbff1: shame

maxverstappen1 liked this comment

f1

liked by yourusername, landonorris and 552,895 others

tagged: maxverstappen1, georgerussell63

f1: it all got a little much in the baku sprint race as george russell made contact with max verstappen on the opening lap giving the red bull damage for the entire race. the two came to blows in parc ferme with verstappen sending a number of expletives russell’s way. what do you think?

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user15: is mad max back?

user16: he never left he’s always been a big whiny baby, lewis would never

user17: no need to call russell a dickhead, crashtappen can’t handle someone actually racing him for once - just like his dad

maxverstappenarchive: max has never been a “whiny baby”, he may have been a little hot-headed and someone who always spoke his mind but he could never be categorised as a whiny baby. if you have such a problem with drivers calling other drivers dickheads then you should take it up with hamilton who did the exact same a few seasons ago. you simply have a problem with max’s success which is a you problem and there is no reasonable reason for you to bring jos verstappen into this argument, it immediately invalidates your argument.

user18: period oh my

user19: she spilt so hard here

user20: ignoring whatever domestic just happened in this comment section to say that i don’t care who is in the right - i just live for the drama

f1wagsandtea

liked by pierregasly, user22 and 21,341 others

f1wagsandtea: meet y/n y/ln, the president of the max verstappen fan club. she’s a student at UCL studying english literature and french and unapologetically defends max at all times. however people have been taking notice of how she’s never actually been to a race and how max has been subtlety liking comments about their relationship potential. what do you think about y/n and max?

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user23: kinda creepy that she literally runs his fan club but also it’s kinda cute idk i’m having a crisis over this

user24: i need this not to happen cause i’ll become so delusional and think i can pull charles

yourusername: some people are broke i’m working to go to a race but unfortunately i need food and a place to live first

user25: speaking for the broke queens i love you

maxverstappen1: it’s a bit too late to sort tickets for this weekend, but i can do dinner next week?

yourusername: time and address and im there

user26: bro the dms are there for a reason

maxverstappen1: noted

user27: why did you say that i wanted to witness max verstappens rizz :(

yourbff1: i usually hate these accounts cause y’all too nosey for your own good, but you got my bestie a date with her dream man so you get a pass just this once

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, yourbff1 and 6,199 others

yourusername: slow weekend

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user30: she's playing it too cool i'd be a literal puddle on the floor rn

yourbff1: rest assured that she's been screaming about it for at least the last three days

maxverstappen1: 🧡

yourusername: amazing race maxy 🦁

user31: she's so cool but also CAT

user32: my spidey senses are picking up cat play dates with jimmy, sassy and ... the orange one yourusername: his name is moose user32: not what i was expecting but seems fitting user33: was half-expecting his name to be max maxverstappen1: me too yourusername: guys i'm not that bad yourbff2: her old goldfish was named max yourusername: STOP EMBARRASSING ME

maxverstappenarchive

liked by maxverstappen1, yourusername and 47,831 others

tagged: maxverstappen1

maxverstappenarchive: max won the belgian grand prix to take his win tally to 35 career wins! congratulations max 🧡

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user34: so like when is he legit going to be in the goat conversation?

user35: genuinely this dominance is so so impressive

maxverstappen1: see you in a couple days 🧡

user36: leave the flirting to the personal accounts verstappen yourusername: i'm so excited you wouldn't believe

redbullracing: in max we trust

maxverstappenarchive: generational talent

user37: i know they won't but can someone livestream this date cause i wanna watch maxverstappenarchive lose her literal mind

yourusername: no mind will be lost i am a grown woman yourbff1: sureeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

yourusername added to their story

[caption: hot summer nights, mid july]

maxverstappen1 added to their story

[caption: no one tell brad]

note: i nearly got to the photo limit so i'm gonna leave this here but i have a lot of ideas for this scenario so let me know if yall want a second part !! also hope this actually fulfilled the original request ??

[the-darkness-does-not-bargain]

Act I, Scene I: The Wedding

The wedding of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Laena Velaryon was a grand affair, of course.  The ceremony was held in the Sept, with sunlight streaming through the fine glass windows, and the benches were crowded with highborn attendees from all across the continent.  Hoary old Rickon Stark was there with his son Cregan, sitting two rows behind Jason Lannister and his young wife.   The widowed Lady Leonette Tyrell sat beside Alicent’s own family, and all of them were kept away from the representative of House Martell, who had come as a peace ambassador following the war in the Stepstones.  Everyone was talking amongst themselves, and the Sept’s high ceilings created a reverberating echo that only quieted when the High Septon called for the ceremony to begin.  Alicent could hardly think in the noise, but the proceeding silence was just as jarring.

Rhaenyra cut a dashing figure in her wedding attire.  Her cloak was a masterpiece of midnight black velvet with an army of red dragons flying upon it.  The three-headed sigil of House Targaryen was embroidered in the center, encrusted in a mine’s worth of rubies.  Blackfyre hung from her belt, a gift from her father.  It was customary for alphas to wear a sword during their wedding ceremony, but carrying the Conqueror’s sword was an especially pointed statement.  Here is my heir, your future queen, Viserys was saying.  Look upon her and bend the knee.

Laena was stunningly gorgeous in her own right.  Her dress was vibrant, shimmering, and blue as the Summer Sea.  Pale seahorses danced along her skirts, and her arms, fingers, and neck were swamped in silver jewelry.  She was perfectly put together, but Alicent knew she had been up early that morning, having her skin perfumed and her curls tamed.  She’d yawned incessantly all through the breakfast feast, to the gentle chastisement of her mother.

Alicent was in no position to judge, as she’d spent the morning dealing with her own problems.  Three months in, the hardships of pregnancy were already weighing heavily on her.  Her breasts were sore and sensitive, requiring frequent massage, and all her gowns were being resized to accommodate her growing belly.  The dress she wore today had been mercifully altered, but even so, she prayed the ceremony would end swiftly so she could change out of it.

“You look lovely,” Rhaenyra had mumbled when they waited for the wheelhouse.  Her cheeks had flushed when she delivered the awkward compliment, but it warmed Alicent to hear.

At the altar, however, the princess only had eyes for her bride.  Don’t her cheeks hurt?  Alicent thought, watching Rhaenyra’s face split into the biggest smile she’d ever seen.  It barely budged when she recited her vows, and remained in place even after the ceremony as their carriage rode through the streets of King’s Landing.  There was even an echo of it on Viserys’s face, one of the few times Alicent could discern a resemblance between them.

The wedding festivities were many and grandiose, and the following feast was entirely too lavish.  Over 70 dishes were served alongside 50 desserts, and wine and mead flowed faster than water, splashing into cups with such vigor that it made her ill.  The curse of morning sickness had passed a week prior, but Alicent still found her constitution sensitive.  She nursed a single cup of wine through the entire evening, and avoided the punch after she saw a lord of the Fingers pour something into it from a hip flask.  Even when her husband called for toast after toast, she kept her lips dry and her head clear.

The bride and groom were not concerned about such things.  Though neither drank heavily, their inebriation was apparent when they laughed and stumbled onto the dance floor for their first turn as newlyweds.  It was heartwarming to watch.  Or it would be, if Alicent’s heart was a kind or magnanimous thing.  As it was, the sight just made her dour.  She refused all offers to dance, citing tiredness from the baby, and sulked at the high table while the celebration passed around her.  Viserys was her only company.  His health had improved a great deal in recent weeks, but he was still easily fatigued, so he too refrained from joining the throng.

“A few more weeks, and I’ll be good as new,” he assured her.  “Mellos insists I still limit myself to our daily walks, but I mean to host a grand hunt once he gives his approval.”

“A hunt would be exciting, my love, but you must be careful.”  If her response was hollow, she hoped he didn’t notice.  He’d been sweeter to her, of late. The babe had won his attention back for now, and he’d spared no expense in the past three months meeting Alicent’s every wish.  He could be a kind man, when he thought to be.  Yet his expensive presents were paltry compared to the single gift given by his daughter.

Rhaenyra had shown up at her door a day after the Grand Maester confirmed her pregnancy.  “I heard the news.”  Her cheeks had been pink; from exertion or shyness, Alicent couldn’t say.  “C-congratulations, my Queen.”

Alicent’s lips had trembled when she tried to smile.  “Thank you, Princess.  The King and I are very happy, and your well wishes mean a lot to both of us.”

“I’d like to do more than simply offer well wishes,” Rhaenyra had pushed, stepping closer to her.  “If you’ll allow it, I want to give you a promise.”

“A promise?”

“For the babe,” the princess nodded.  “Syrax will soon lay a clutch of eggs.  When the child is born, I will bring one for their crib.”

Alicent had been startled out of her inner turmoil by this information.  “You would put a dragon egg in the crib of ou- of a baby?”

Rhaenyra had grinned so proudly at her.  “It’s tradition.  All Targaryen children have a dragon’s egg placed in their crib.  Father would do it, but he doesn’t venture into the Dragonpit anymore.  So I will.”  

She’d said it with such conviction, and such eagerness too.  She was excited about the babe.  Alicent could hardly believe it.  At best, she hoped Rhaenyra would be kind to her “sibling”, if not close, but even her most far-fetched fantasies hadn’t considered this to be a possibility.

She was happy for their child.  She already considered them a true Targaryen.  She was going to give them a dragon’s egg.

I love you.  The words had sprung to her tongue with force enough to dislodge teeth, and she barely bit them down in time.  Rhaenyra had rambled on about something to do with the Dragon Keepers, but Alicent had been too stunned to pay attention to it.  She only recovered when the princess bid her a cheery farewell and marched away.

Ever since then, the illuminated histories and brand new horse that Viserys bestowed upon her meant next to nothing.

“The bedding!” Someone shouted from the crowd, quickly followed by dozens of raucous, cheering voices.  “Bedding!  Bedding!  Bedding!”

Alicent’s teeth dug into her cheek as Rhaenyra and Laena, still laughing, were shuffled to opposite sides of the hall.  Laena was swarmed by loud, obnoxious alphas while pretty, preening omegas danced circles around Rhaenyra.  

“You could join them,” her husband suggested, to which Alicent quietly balked.

She could join them, yes.  No one would look twice at a mated omega joining the bedding ceremony of her alpha friend.  But she couldn’t bring herself to.  Unlike those silly creatures fluttering about her, Alicent knew Rhaenyra’s body intimately.  She knew how it felt, its curves and contours.  Her touch would be too familiar, and even if no one could possibly notice, Alicent couldn’t shake the paranoia.

Her restraint was also due to jealousy.  She was not so craven as to deny it.  To participate in the bedding ceremony would be to prepare Rhaenyra for someone else, and she would rather die than do that.  So she simply glared as careless, lustful hands stripped away the princess’s clothes.  Soon, Rhaenyra and her entourage were out of sight, and the revelry continued in her absence.  Alicent stayed at the high table, and asked the nearest servant to refill her cup.

[quibbs126]

One thing I’ve been thinking about for the past couple days, but something I’m not the biggest fan of with Kingdom is how the majority of the Cookies of Darkness are played more for jokes than they are for serious. And thus in doing so, the CoD itself doesn’t feel like that much of a threat

Like yeah, I like seeing stuff with the CoD just doing silly stuff, and I don’t need them to be super dark and serious 100% of the time, but like, of the Cookies of Darkness, the only characters that are consistently treated like an actual threat are Dark Enchantress Cookie and Pomegranate Cookie, though even then sometimes she’s part of the gag. And sure, some of the characters in the main story may be treated like a threat, like Red Velvet (despite his one appearance) and Affogato, but then also you’ll have them in a boy band or chilling at the rock festival, totally incognito

And again, it’s not that I don’t enjoy this stuff, but it’s just, how am I supposed to take the Cookies of Darkness as a serious threat when you’re putting them in boy bands and school AUs? Especially when more often than not, it’s the jokey route they use with them?

It’s part of the reason I don’t really see why we need all these Legendaries and Dragons and armies to fight Dark Enchantress, because 80% of the CoD are a bunch of silly little guys. I know realistically DE is powerful and has her Cake Army, hence why they need all that power, but that impression that they’re actually a threat doesn’t typically come to mind for me. But maybe that’s a me thing

And like, honestly I’d say Ovenbreak does it better when it comes to having the CoD seem like a threat. Sure I haven’t seen every event with them involved and I know they only show up like, once in a blue moon, but they usually cause actual problems, and if anything the fact that we see them so little makes them feel more significant, and like Dark Enchantress is more of a looming threat

I dunno, that’s just how I feel