#asoiaf verse discussion

[wanderingandfound]

I have missed the vast majority of the "cozy horror" discourse and like, I'm fine with that because I don't really care all that much about publishing labels and subgenres. But like, I do believe in only using the broad labels if it applies. A book is not Romance (the genre) if it does not have a happily ever after/happily for now. A book is not Horror if it is not trying to be horrifying. Romantic and horrific plots and elements can be part of any story and any genre, but elements do not a genre make.

Anyways, disclaimer done, the point of this post is that as someone whose main genre is fantasy, I love reading about ghosts in non-horror stories. Give me more fucked up creatures and musings on personhood please.

[lemonhemlock]

how do you think helaena's arc will play out in the show? i don't see how she'll get the same ending as the book one, unless that theory about jaehaera getting maelor's storyline turns out to be true

so, this is going to be a bit of a contradiction from the helaena discourse i've seen

i think it's time we nuanced the discussion around her a little bit. yes, she is a nice person and quite jolly, too, in the books, and everyone likes her, but she IS a dragon-rider at the end of the day. so can you truly, truly be an innocent little flower when you're partaking in and perpetuating this practice?

it's no secret that i don't think so. i have written essays already explaining why i think that, essentially, accessing dragon power cannot be done without compromising part of your soul and humanity. in order to gain supernatural powers, they made human sacrifices in old valyria and practiced incest. the targaryens ditched the human sacrifices but retained incest as a practice. dragon-riding is NOT implied in asoiaf-verse to be a "good" thing.

certainly, you can argue that helaena was married against her will to her brother and she doesn't know anything else, but no one made her claim a dragon and, even IF she only did it out of social inertia, because that's what was expected of her as a targaryen princess, i don't believe you can forge a bond with a dragon and remain unchanged and unblemished as a person. and this is ultimately what fans nearly always shy away from when discussing characters like helaena and nettles, because they don't want to see their beloveds tinged with any kind of darkness at all. and i just don't think that tracks with the way asoiaf is written.

it's also no secret that helaena doesn't really have much of an arc in Fire & Blood and that that's one of the weak points of the book. she is there to fulfil the theme of the gruesome cost of war. after jaehaerys dies, she is essentially excluded from the narrative (and probably taken out of commission bc grrm has to explain away why the greens can't use dreamfyre)

and now i see there is some pushback against the idea that helaena should join the war effort because it's not feminist™ to girlbossify every character and that's just not her personality. again, i kind of agree and kind of don't. no, helaena is not a warrior lagertha-type and it wouldn't make sense to turn her into one with one more episode to go. but she IS a dragon-rider, we know that, it's book canon, too. the writers just never bothered to show her interact with dreamfyre because they are incapable of caring about anyone else other than daemon. so, in this case, seeing her on a dragon might be sudden and certainly a shock, but she DOES have that ability and she CAN and HAS flown.

i haven't seen the scene, but this particular suggestion of aemond's - i don't think it's that outrageous. yes, she perhaps would be reticent to join in battle, but she CAN at least do reconnaissance flights like baela does with moondancer, come on. they decided against having her catatonic with grief after b&c, but they're not even going to show her flying on her dragon? like that's somehow too much. that's where we draw the line. what what the entire point then? she has nothing to do. as of now, with one single episode to go, she has no arc and nearly no opinion on anything. her conversational input is about the same a talking to Siri or Alexa. she's barely even a character (and this is not to hate on helaena, but that is how they are writing her)

[viserya-firstofhername]

Listen, I thought I would survive this season lurking on the sidelines, but I can’t. Jace broke my heart tonight after surpassing any and every character GRRM ever created in my brain and heart since reading Fire and Blood, and I need to talk about 2x07.

Strong words, yes, damn ugly, when Jace is calling people ‘mongrels’ (no we ain’t letting it slip, no, but the rest of men are sometimes getting away with whores, mothers-of-bastards, are we good with these now cause its common speech or smth). Imagine that tho, classist Jacaerys going through calling himself things in his head every day of his life while looking at his beautiful visibly not-silver curls getting in his eyes. Just imagine for a second. So distinct.

It’s bubbling in him for years. And his entire family - his mother, his father, his other father, his third father (the epitome of Targaryen legacy if there ever was one), his grandfathers, every person that his young heart wants to trust - refusing to talk to him about it. While every ‘family’ member deemed unsafe - read - Aegon, Aemond, Alicent (even fucking Cole) is out there ready to discuss the obvious with anyone at any given time, including Jace himself. Why does his mother play pretend for 16 years not once speaking to him about it? How often does he ask himself? Alicent has dark hair, why does Aegon look like a true Targaryen? How often does Jace lose sleep over this thought.

I have news for you babes. He got his first perception of what ‘mongrel’ is from the mirror. If you need him to spell it out, you haven’t been paying attention.

I’ve slowly shifted to preferring his show characterization to the one in the book (he is my favourite Targ in asoiaf books and shows verses, and I know I know book!Jace had the whole little pet project with the Dragonseeds and he had two dozen powerpoint presentations and a huge spreadsheet document about it, and a separate spreadsheet he made just to calculate and weigh in benefits and negatives of offering such power to bastards. Yet. YET). He sees what neither Viserys nor Rhaenyra allowed themselves to see, blinded by their entitlement, classism and feeling of supremacy. Jacaerys, mind you, everyone that is calling him a bastardphobe and whatnot, realizes that if anyone—anyone—I repeat—ANYONE—outside direct family is to claim a dragon, in 25 years he himself will be in the exact same situation as his mother. Vermithor or Silverwing alone are no lesser treats than Vhagar, and as his mother like to remind him, Vermax is young. If a man (pay attention) claims any of the two, Jace’s inheritance will be out the window, no matter how many silver-haired babies he has with his cousin-step-sister, Rhaenyra's intentions would die with her last breath.

So what is he to do? Is he to lay abed, eat cake and dangle his feet, waiting for the inevitable to come? No. He is to do exactly what he has been doing since he was 8 (younger even!) – learn High Valyrian, train with the sword, be impeccable in dragonriding, in diplomacy, in manners, while nourishing the relationships with all his younger siblings, preparing them to be his closest allies (half of which we have never seen Rhaenyra display, except the proficiency in the only two skills that are explicitly Targaryen, nigh a feeble attempt at diplomacy once when she tried to betroth Jace to Helaena, and after her ex now stepmom turned her down she fled to the nearby island). Not to mention he was doing fine managing amiable connection with Aegon and to some extent Aemond before the grown-ups and their big fucking heads laid the seeds (ha!) for the feud to continue in their generation.

Read the above paragraph again. He does it all, for years, as well as he can, while also taking care of and shielding his brothers. And so far, instead of acknowledging his accomplishments we’ve only seen Rhaenyra respond with slack filler statements like “No worries Jacey, precious, it’s far in the future, don’t push yourself too hard” (listen, I know we can’t be certain just because it wasn’t on-screen, and she definitely did good raising her kids, but I’m getting the vibe she isn’t one for words of affirmation, she ain’t really good at that iykwim, and it’s his language), and Jacaerys bows his head, says ‘Yes, Mother’ and then proceeds to pressure himself beyond his limits (and Luke as well – as we saw in 1x10 – because he realizes how delusional and naïve the ‘no pressure’ statement is.)

Gods oh gods, and imagine, this is just one layer, but he is also a young man, and a young man’s ego.. Well. I feel like I should also quote bby boi Jon Snow, and his reasoning on why he won’t lay with women (ironic how that turned out).

Now layer all the above with the following. He is born with black hair. Luke too. Joff too. Obviously Jace as the oldest will take care of them and shield them. But then, but then, the moment she gets the opportunity, Rhaenyra marries Daemon. And of course. Names her first silver-haired son Aegon. (her channelling her father here SO much i can't even). Do I need to start a counter of the fucking number of daggers in Jace’s heart by now?

One more Rhaenyra says. One more dagger should be fine, he is her bestest most perfect boy, nothing can hurt him. Nothing can hurt him, so she leaves him to deal with the Small Council on his own repeatedly. Nothing can hurt him so she conspires with a rando and refuses to keep him in the loop. Nothing can hurt him, so she flies out alone and comes back with her shiny new dragonrider and doesn’t even acknowledge Jace, he has to go reach out to her first. (good gods, imagine if Addam had silver hair).

He can take one more, the most perfect boy, Rhaenyra says. (I wrote this one before Emma D’arcy’s new interview where they directly confirm Rhaenyra felt justified to choose herself over Jacaerys).

Let me dive you for a second in Jace’s POV for this one (in the magical method of David Lightbringer): Imagine you are the first born child. You have studied and build yourself to be deserving of being your Mother’s son, but you never quite get proficient enough to change your physical features. Then. Your grandsire dies, your uncle steals everything from your Mother, and your first proposal on any counteraction gets your little brother killed.

You blame yourself, you feel tremendous guilt - how did this happen - you were always the perfect son (you don’t even acknowledge the small victories you win for your Mother, you were always good at these skills you honed pedantically for years, it is not an achievement). You do not let yourself grieve, instead you have to make it up for the loss you caused.

But your Mother continuously keeps you in a cage allegedly for your own wellbeing, which brings its own amount of frustration at the age of 16. But you sneak out and win another small victory – the only price you need to pay is your late father’s rightful inheritance. You get recognition for a second, but then Mother complains that her ails for being caged are greater than your ails for being caged, and you as a good son try to figure a way out for both of you.

So, after keeping you in this cage for safety, which you are not asking for - on the opposite - your idea gets transmuted by some rando into a plan that will take away the last pillar of legitimacy you see in yourself. Imagine now, not only have you been stripped of it, but Mother scolds you for complaining.

And you finally break – no mother, if you do this I am exactly the mongrel I was told I was all my life, I called myself – but it comes out jagged and aggressive and immature, and you become a little entitled primadonna. But either way you ask, beg, plead for one thing, just this one thing – truly for yourself – you must deserve that much, one need for your very being to remain whole and for yourself to be able to keep your feet on the ground and mind whole. That one thing, that one time, you ask her to pick you over herself. And Mother choses herself.

In Jacaerys’ mind this last decision of hers invalidates all her arguments of keeping him safe, because ultimately, he realizes she is keeping him safe to satisfy her own needs, without realizing 1) what damage she is doing to him as a human being, and most importantly 2) she is preserving himself only while she lives – she ultimately does not care what will happen to him once she is no longer alive.

It is very rude way to put it, but it is a very human and very real thing real parents do sometimes, especially when their (eldest) kids are severely parentified. And Rhaenyra, bless her, not putting the blame on her entirely, is in an impossible situation too, but is also immature more often than not. It’s in the genes. And has been lonely and abandoned often, and believes if there is one man that will never abandon her, it’s her bestest boi Jace. And no one told her a firstborn son is not supposed to fill the role of a partner. I am however very saddened to see she did not learn a single lesson from her interactions with Viserys – especially that she seems incapable of realizing she’s shutting out Jacaerys brutally, just as her father did with her. For 20 damn years, she has been subjected to abandonment and being left all alone (by all the men in her life), and she can’t realize she’s doing the same to Jace, while also keeping him on a leash, caged with her, unable to seek refuge anywhere.

Truly heartbreaking.

I think that ought to be enough layers to cover the strong classist word for y’all. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

(I feel a quick exclaimer is needed. As a viewer I find that development extremely juicy, it fed me well and I am relishing and relating to both, not criticizing. But Jace is also my best boi, so there you go.)

[w101-worldbuilding-ideas]

You know how in our world we have different size of cats & dogs? What if in 101 verse we have different size of dragons?

The Fire Dragons of the first world, being the size of Balerion the Black Dread from ASOIAF

And throughout the Spiral we slowly ended up somehow getting all different types of dragons in all different shapes & sizes?

Like we have dragons from the pet shop that are probably the size of small cats & dogs.

Mount dragons the size of horses.

The final dragon we ride in DragonSpyre the size of extinct mammoth.

I wanna write about this & I honestly think we should engage in discussing this more.

(Yes I did in fact get this idea after rewatching GOT & HOTD)

[scaly-freaks]

If you had to write a sequel after TGOWARL with amaras son as the main character, how would you go on abt it? Who would be his love interest, how would his relationship with his parents look like, would you even keep amara and aegon alive or would you do something tragic abt them, and most importantly: WOULD HE BE A HOT VAMPIRE?!

Took me an embarrassing few seconds to figure out what TGOWARL was *-*

Tbh I wouldn't write a sequel as it would basically be an OC novel so I just don't feel the point of writing that in the ASOIAF verse. Not against discussing it though.

But also hmmmm...so in Burning Jasmine, Valerion was one of the most batshit Targaryens possible. The only way he could be more batshit in this version is if he was preying on his own sister, which Jaehaerys already will grow up to do. There are plot points I can't betray currently, so the relationship with his parents can't be fully unfurled, however, he isn't Aegon's favourite by any means, I will say that. He reminds Aegon of Aemond, but he also comes off more "Uller" than Targaryen because of the black hair (which does have a white mallen streak).

Amara's parental situation..........is not as perfect as it seems, which will be explored in the next chapter, and it's kind of the reason why she herself isn't the best parent in this fic as compared to Burning Jasmine. She gets overwhelmed easily, or becomes "friends" with her kids which isn't the correct way to discipline them. Aegon on the other hand is always the disciplinarian and not a friend, but only because he wants to exert control over his children the way he knows Viserys didn't over him (he probably fears children like himself to rebel against him).

Aegon's parenting throws everything more into imbalance than Amara's though, because she at least tries to give them all love equally even when depression hits and she just wants to pretend she doesn't have kids and retreats into herself (parenting is a 24/7 job and not everyone is ready for it).

But Aegon favours Jaehaera heavily. The topic of spousification of a child is a difficult one, but it happens all the time. And I think if Amara died or just withdrew emotionally from Aegon, he would spousify Jaehaera (who will grow up to have mental health/behavioural issues of her own which can get very violent, but with her dad, she's always sweet). Theres quite a fair bit of Electra complex with Jaehaera when she's in her teenage years, so it's something that travels both ways and gets unhealthy, especially when their attachment as father-daughter starts to alienate his sons (especially Jaehaerys, who only ever had Aegon once his mother died).

Jaehaerys's obsession with Jaehaera stems from the basic element of she has everything I want, she is everything I want. She has Amara who is his pseudo-mother figure, she has Aegon who is his father, she has the love of everyone who sees her because she's the Targaryen princess who was legitimised and hatched her egg before she was even born. Half of it is Jaehaerys wanting to cut off her skin and wear it, and the other half is obviously sexual/emotional/mental (I need you to need me so I can convince myself I'm worth something - but if you don't do it the way I want, I hurt you).

Compared to his two older siblings, Valerion is relatively ignored. Which obviously mean he develops a personality all by himself, explores the world himself, learns how to regulate his emotions on his own. In that sense he's sort of like Aegon aka visiting brothels young because a friend suggested it. Hanging out with a group outside his family all the time and learning how to be a man from them (with disastrous results). He would also go for the biggest dragon over keeping the egg he was given as a babe (which would never hatch). He probably wouldn't want Vermithor for this personal belief that because the dragon hasn't seen heavy war, he's "useless." He'd want a dragon like Cannibal, simply because he enjoys the thought of the beast hunting out his siblings' mounts for sport. He's sadistic to a fault, and if he ever became king, he'd make Maegor look like a fun time in the park.

p.s. I don't understand the vampire question 😭

[fromtheseventhhell]

Asoiaf TikTok is the worst when it comes to people skipping chapters, the amount of people boasting about how they skip bran chapters then complaining about how they can't understand skinchanging, greenseers etc.

That's not surprising considering this fandom is built on accommodating people who haven't read the books. There are a lot of self-proclaimed experts and neutrals who haven't entirely read the books, or at all, and the only thing they're actually well-versed in are popular fandom ideas. People skip entire sections and plotlines and then come to the conclusion that they're inconsequential. You can really track what parts get skipped by the discussions in fandom too. I even have a post in my drafts talking about how little speculation there is on warging, greenseers, the direwolves, etc. because people don't see those as particularly important. It's so notable and it's obvious why.

Bran isn't... completely ignored in fandom, but he is definitely one of the characters whose importance gets downplayed. When he gets talked about it's often as an accessory to someone else's plot instead of being given his own focus. He's just gonna be some emotionless tree who's gonna use his powers in some capacity to save the day, and that's all people care to come up with for him. Even show truthers who think the books are gonna follow the same story think the biggest change is that he isn't going to be King. People will skip his chapters, some of the most magical chapters in the books, and then talk about how unimportant magic is to the plot😑. It just blows my mind that this has just become an acceptable way to "read" the books. People skip chapters and then think that what they don't know isn't important. And it somehow seems to be the most acceptable when it comes to the key five characters.

[esther-dot]

So to jump in regard to the 'hot chick with a dragon' ask. GRRM's depiction of Drogo and Dani is one of those things that fandom can't wrap their head around because, yet again, they fail to see that Martin is not the woke writer they think he is and fail to remember that he conceived of this plot in the 90s. I feel like a lot of the fandom isn't well versed in scifi/fantasy books written by white men in the 80s/90s - those books are very, ummmmm....how do I put this....let's just say a lot of those writers used their fantasy books to explore certain taboos and fetishes for titilation, not necessarily as a woke moral lesson in their fictional world. I am in no way saying this makes them bad people, or that they would act inappropriately with women/minor girls in real life, because fiction is fiction, but yeah...

The Dani/Drogo relationship is literally that swords and sorcery trope from the 80s/90s where Hot Nubile Princess gets 'sold' to Hunky Barbarian, they proceed to have a ton of hot sex, and then fall in love. The fact that Martin couldn't even bare to make Dani at LEAST 16 (which still would have been disgusting) makes me side eye him a lot. But people thinking he meant for this relationship to be some dark psychological exploration of stockholm syndrome is hilarious. Do I think there might be some amorphous critique of girls being sold into unwanted marriages? Yeah, sure. But a lot of that relationship is just straight up the Hunky Barbarian trope that's why the wedding night is a 'seduction.'

A lot of discussions about these books would be easier if people just admitted Martin is a little bit of Freak when it comes to his depictions of relationships and sex and uses the fact that 'WelL ThIs Is tHE mEdIeVAl WoRLD' to depict minors in situations like this not because he's critiquing the patriarchy or whatever, but because it's taboo and therefore titilating. A lot of fans really like this series and don't want to admit a series they are really into has super problematic elements especially a series that is 30 years old which I think is silly. People can enjoy it while critiquing the author.

(about this ask)

The fact that from the inception of the story Martin was gonna have a hero/heroine engage in some fauxcest says at a minimum the man is a lil…quirky. Actually, no, I think most Jonsas would say he’s a little freak which is why we still think he’ll go for it. 😂

You’re right about the tropes of the era and having to accept problematic elements in the older generation of writers. Stephen King infamously wrote a sex scene with eleven year olds. Writers sometimes write weird shit. For something that’s finished, people can memory-hole the weirdness, for us, we have to wrestle with it a little more. I don’t like to be publicly critical of fellow Jonsas because we have nowhere else to go. The rest of the fandom has radically different ideas and have pointedly excluded us, but I don’t see a problem with voicing criticism of Martin here. It has no impact on him, his feelings or career, whatsoever. It’s tumblr, we’re not even in danger of something trending and a journalist asking him a question that breaks the wall between fandom/creator. I like reading all of the metas and different ways of analyzing ASOIAF our fandom comes up with because I don’t feel like I alone have cracked the code, but there is a danger of kinda, white-washing Martin’s problematic choices. I didn’t fully appreciate that before.

Actually, back to the tropes, I was reading some Angel Carter recently, she was an important feminist writer, but she too wrote one of those young girl & “barbarian” stories which has beats that are similar to Dany/Drogo. I’m not gonna read that one because it sounds even more racist, and grotesque in how it handles rape than ASOIAF. Long review that explains some cultural and literary context for it. People can write fucked-up, deeply offensive things and also write things we like. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[mvndrvke]

MVNDRVKE ; independent selective multimuse, written by luna ( 29; they/he )

A STUDY IN : ignoring canon, incoherent opinions on random muses, reimagining myth, musical references, adhd periods of hyperfixation, failing to answer messages consistently, forming complex dynamics between characters, and more.

MYTHOS AFFILIATED WITH @nosestealer & @fateschnge & @whinedarksea & @ga1adriel & @moltolavoro & @valorums & @ofprevioustimes & @bauresurrected & @lovehoned

mobile muse list under the cut.

ACTIVE MUSES. the favorite kids, the ones that get the most focus and have the most consistent muse.

literature.

MYTH. penelope of ithaca & iphthime of ithaca & orpheus & poseidon & hades PJO. nico di angelo* & cecil markowitz THG. effie trinket LOTR. celeborn

television / film-based

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. meg giry HOTD. theldry strong & marin royce GOT. shireen baratheon* & rickon stark* STAR WARS. shmi skywalker

LOW-ACTIVITY MUSES. still adored but get less consistent attention.

literature

MYTH. achilles & neoptolemus & menelaus PJO. annabeth chase* & mai castellan THG. johanna mason TWILIGHT ( anti-smeyer ). carlisle cullen & bella swan LOTR. haldir

television / film-based

BRIDGERTON. edwina sharma HOTD. harwin strong & joffrey velaryon SHADOW & BONE. harij ghafa & inej ghafa ( primary verse is asoiaf ) STAR WARS. satine kryze* & seril jinn DOCTOR WHO. martha jones AVATAR. kiri augustine

REQUEST / RETIRED. muses that aren't active anymore, but i'd still love to write. we don't need to have discussed it for you to send a meme in for these muses, they're just not really active anymore/not muses i focus on without expressed interest from a writing partner.

literature

PJO. paul blofis & grover underwood THG. haymitch abernathy

television / film-based

STAR WARS. ahsoka tano MARVEL. peter parker GOT. arya stark*

TEST. new muses i want to try out before i add them to my muse list.

ARCANE. isha & viktor ( s2 spoilers present & tagged arcane spoilers ) MYTH. medea

[valanvar]

━━ VALANVAR / ✷ SAURON, LORD OF THE RINGS, ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL. ANNATAR, THE LORD OF GIFTS, HALBRAND, THE NECROMANCER, THE ONE ENEMY, THE DARK LORD OF MIDDLE-EARTH.

INDEPENDENT,   MUTUAL   EXCLUSIVE   AND   SELECTIVE   BLOG   FOR   SAURON/HALBRAND/ANNATAR FROM J.R.R TOLKIEN'S THE LORD OF THE RINGS AND PRIME'S THE RINGS OF POWER. HEADCANON BASED AND UNAFFILIATED WITH THE MAYORITY OF THE TOLKIEN PURIST FANDOM.   CST + 3.   SHE/HER.   WRITTEN   BY   CALI. (#) MAIN VERSE SET ON THE RINGS OF POWER TIMELINE.

psa:   due to the nature of the show's lore and the exploration of sauron's backstory and multiple verses, this show contains adult mature material. nsft will be tagged accordingly but topics like: torture, death, body horror, the groteque, luciferian imagery, evil vs light, power play and more are at play in this interpretation. sauron is pretty much OP during most of his existance though his disguises keep him unknown.

And after what seemed endless thirst and hunger… I saw it. His servant's face. Sauron's face. And it was beautiful. He offered me wine, red as a blood moon. He offered me wine, and on that dark and nameless peak, I drank it. I drank it all.

temporary rules under the cut:

1.Cali. 25+, I run many blogs across many fandoms, mostly A Song of Ice and Fire and Cobra Kai. GMT+3 timezone. I have a job and I study so replies are sporatic.

2.  My  interpretation  is based on Prime's Rings of Power and what I know of the Tolkien lore through the movies and the wikia. I am not that knowlagable on the lore besides the movies and trilogy book and the hobbit. What I know of his backstory is from reading entries and forums and my own interpretation. Do not come after me if I get something wrong because it might as well be my own interpretation of the lore.  I follow mainly the Rings of Power continuity and the movies and the lore I know, which I am aware the main fandom might not like, but bare in mind, the show is approved by the Tolkien state and things are simple, if this does not appeal to you, do not follow. And if I ever bore you, please softblock me.

3.  Best way to interact with me is through memes or discord talk. I am a middle ground roleplayer meaning too much plotting puts me off but also I enjoy having a base of what we will do together. This blog will be crossover friendly, specially with ASOIAF fandom and similar high fantasy shows.

4.  I usually format my things with a post divider, icon and then the reply, with a few words highlighted or cursived and double spaced. If you need me to stop doing this, let me know, as I am aware it can be hard to read to some people.

5. Galadriel  x  Sauron  is the main ship on this blog and it does involve topics like power play, toxic behavior and dark vs light. The attraction between them is obvious and might have some evidence in the text itself and it is obvious on the show, favoured by both actors who play them. Other ships will be accepted but do know that they have to be discussed prior to being written as Sauron is prone to manipulate those around him to gain favor and what he desires, and this will include making someone fall for him if he must.

6.  Softblock  if  you  unfollow.  Reblog  from  the  source.  Don't send anon hate and if you have a suggestion, do send it with kindness. As well, remember, I am not Sauron. I am not evil, at least my therapist tells me. I'm a english as a secondary language teacher, not a man who wants to conquer middle-earth. Separate writer from muse please.

7. Heavely affiliated with Mari's Galadriel as well Saint's muses on this fandom and others. They are my friends and we built together. Do not come at me for having friends. I practice mains and affiliated but not exclusives except for certain dynamics so I am always open for plots.

[sowthetide]

heyyyyyyyyy im back (this is TeaInABowl). this is a bit late i guess but i havent been online in a few days (✨family crisis✨) snd just got caught up in reading the other asks. i wish you luck with your own family issues, little brothers are just Like That sometimes (i would know).

honestly the quen-verse is real. and its fucking with my mind. but i also have been having brainworms abt how much the story would shift with genderbending other characters. i dont want this ask to get too long and i know this is a sideblog for your quen fic but oh gids can i talk abt it pleaseeee

also you must have put some sort of spell on this story, i think. bc (here it comes) i dont ship throbb. and i dont like genderbent aus. yet… here i stand (???) i dont even remember how u found this fic, but it has me rooting for a ship that i found annoying on a good day???? ok maybe i should clarify, i dont like genderbent aus in modern settings, but asoiaf is such a gendered world tgat theyre actually interesting if done right (as you have!!!) and i dont HATE throbb i just. wasnt very fond of it. but one thing i DO love is whatever sort of gender fuckery theon has going on, so when i saw your story i thought “screw it, who cares abt the pairing, hell be at war snyway lmao i wanna see how many more problems squidboy can have” but now i want him back???? come home???? wheres the boy?????? our boy???

as for song recs, i have too many, and probably need to compile them in a more cohesive ask. in the meantime, its not quen related but i dare you to listen to “house of gold” by twenty one pilots while thinking of catelyn and robb. i fucking dare you.

"I should have known better. Asha knew how it went with little brothers... A little brother may live to be a hundred, but he will always be a little brother." Sigh. Truer words have never been written. I hope your family issues work out too! We are Fellow Strugglers in that.

The Quenverse is so real!!!!!! It's something goddcoward and I have discussed at length, including (but not limited to) full genderbend Throbb (with Quenlyn & Robyn) and the Ironborn-Tully "Let's Fuck Nasty" Initiative (with increasingly unhinged pairing up of Greyjoys/Harlaws and Tullys. This includes Alannys/Catelyn, Rod the Reader/Brynden the Blackfish, Gwynesse/Lysa, Aeron/Edmure, etc.) goddcoward also has a bunch incredibly fun AUs, including what has been affectionately dubbed "sigil furries", where the Greyjoys are actual humanoid cephalopods and the Starks are werewolf-maxing. Not to mention goddcoward's AU take on Quobb with arranged marriage, which they're still working on... ;-)

PLEASE talk to me about your vision!!!! Also PLEASE send any song recs you've got!!!!

I'm so incredibly flattered that this fic got you to like Throbb, even just for the purposes of this story. Also, confession: I didn't really like genderbends either- that is, until I started writing this story lol. I think it's just because I didn't feel like genderbends were often well-handled in ASOIAF fics, even for a world as Gendered as Westeros? (Not to say they all suck, I've just run into a few that I thought were... Ungood.)

Theon's experience with gender is so incredibly fascinating, and the prospect of him being born female raises so many interesting questions about who he would even be (and thus this fic was born lol). See vivacissimx's theon's gender was always broken, which is prob the #1 Theon Gender primer.

I'm also glad you came around to Robb, haha. You're sounding like Quen in my inbox: "now i want him back???? come home???? wheres the boy?????? our boy???" For a long time, I was mostly interested in Robb as a compliment to Theon and Catelyn's characters, but I've really come to appreciate him in his own right. I can't wait for all the tender Quen-Robb moments in the endgame of this fic 🥲

[extra-venomous-tentacula]

Brienne of Tarth x Jaime Lannister

SO... I just realised my answer didn't post yesterday, so I'm writing it down again 😅

Anyways,

Ship it!

What made you ship it?

So, I went into the ASoIaF-verse completely blind. I was in uni, people were discussing the show openly in class, and I decided to catch up because I was getting spoilers either way.

I devoured it, and I wasn't even sure Jaime/Brienne was a thing people shipped, but the pure chemistry Gwen and Nikolaj have got me invested from the very first episode they appeared together. Wanting to figure out what was going on with the two of them was actually what got me to read the books!

What are your favourite things about the ship?

I think there's a reluctance towards romantic feelings from both of them. Neither wants to feel it, both think they're not supposed to (he should love Cersei, that's what Cersei has always made him believe! And she should guard herself from yet another disappointment!).

But they're both constantly thinking of each other, he dreams of her on the Weirwood tree stump... it's a dynamic I absolutely love, and I can't wait to see it play out (should we ever get the books) when Brienne will have to make her choice between loyalty to Catelyn/Stoneheart and Jaime.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I have a maybe unpopular theory about the Maggy the Frog prophecy?

I think the "Queen you shall be... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear." line 100% refers to Brienne, and it predicts the Jaime/Brienne relationship.

I think Brienne is that "another" who is younger (canonical, 17 in the books), and more beautiful (a play on words, based on the sarcastic "Brienne the Beauty").

[melrosing]

Anon from yesterday 👋. Sorry irl stuff got in the way. I'm not super well versed in your content but so far I do think you talk about her in a way that isn't "Cersei is an evil bitch just because" and i deff said as much in my first ask. I also fully understand the internalized misogyny in a mother not liking her daughters as much as her sons and that's where you were going with for Joanna. What I noticed when i saw your AU was that BOTH Joanna (her thoughts/feelings) and the AU itself (themes etc) are more outwardly negative and less symphatetic towards her than the others.

And IT'S SO HARD FOR ME TO EXPLAIN THIS VIA ASK BOX but i am basically going to reemphasize what I said before and also say that i think there is a bias for imagining AUs that put cersei in a more negative (and less…idk kinder? gentler? considerate?) light than her brothers whether it's one dimensional or complex and I noticed that in your AU as well, as if she was always doomed to have a dark cloud over her head while her brothers got even a tiny bit of shine and light. I can provide examples if you wish to continue the convo. Anyways I don't mean to overstay my welcome so i'll just leave this as a case of us having very similar ideals but different ways of interpreting them. And btw that other anon was dead ass wrong about what they said about me. Like I promise I don't see her as a sweet angel victim and ignore how ugly and fucked up she is (esp the book version). I am genuinely SO sorry this ask got as long as it did.

no worries, I'm happy to discuss! but honestly, I'm kind of at a loss with what choices I made in this particular AU led you to ask whether I even liked Cersei as a character.

the whole thing (at least where concerns Jaime and Cersei) is based on the conjecture of what might happen to the relationships between the twins and their mother if she had gone ahead and shipped Cersei to Dorne - which, had Joanna survived, I think is highly likely to have happened, i.e. it was on the verge of becoming a canon event. and I think it only makes sense to conclude that Joanna and Cersei's relationship would take a semi-catastrophic hit if it did. like, that is a very heavy thing to do to a seven-year-old, and Cersei has always had a keen sense of injustice and sure can harbour a grudge, so I think she'd take it especially hard.

then of course the misogynistic motherhood is just something that I thought made Joanna's relationship with both Jaime and Cersei more interesting, because it means she can't truly see either of them clearly. in my mind it just makes sense for a Lannister, certainly for the wife of Tywin, and what we know of Joanna makes me feel she had some level of reverence of patriarchal structures. so, threw that in.

and also tbh, it's just more interesting to me than the notion that all the dead ladies of asoiaf would've been these girlboss mums teaching their girls to be lovely ladies or feisty villainesses, like it's just.... so boring to me lmao. like one thing with Catelyn (who I do adore) is that I kind of wish GRRM would go harder on her relationship with Arya. sounds like there's some tension there, old man. well, bust it open!!

so there's my reasoning: I picture Joanna as a deeply flawed mother who, in a moment of both protectiveness and prejudice against her daughter effectively exiles a seven-year-old who won't forgive her for it, and everything else spins from there.

and I guess I just feel like we're splitting hairs a bit here because I don't think I've produced anything that much happier in the AU for Jaime or Tyrion?? like I said of Jaime that he essentially has a distant relationship w his mother for the rest of her life, gets hitched to Lysa in an entirely loveless marriage, and lives probably a quite unfulfilling adulthood. Tyrion in the meantime.... I mean basically all I've given Tyrion is a different kind of abusive relationship with a parent lmao, and a life of isolation and toxic companionship. again, I think it'd be boring to have Joanna purely adore Tyrion or utterly despise him, so why not both.

and idk. I don't think either of the above is me gifting the Lannister boys something I'm refusing Cersei? like sure you could take it that way, but I suppose I'm just surprised that this disparity has struck you so much so that you think I must dislike Cersei to have even written it. you're welcome to provide examples if you like, bc honestly I figured it must be something substantially more than this AU that led you to send me the message - which is why I asked if you had some familiarity with the rest of my Cers posts, I assumed you must've read more than just this AU to make you ask that??

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Tagged by @batrachised. Thank you!

1-How many works do you have on AO3?

102. We will not discuss the number of fics posted on the ff.net account I maintained in high school.

2-What's your total AO3 word count?

298,956. Lower than I would have expected, actually. My longfic days were primarily, again, in high school, so on AO3 it's mostly shorter one-shots.

3-What fandoms do you write for?

Currently on a Blue Castle kick. Previously my main fandom was Les Mis, mostly bookverse, and prior to that I spent a decade or so as a Harry Potter girl. I have dabbled in other things, but none of them deeply enough for me to consider them actual fandoms that I am in.

4-What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

In the darkest time of year -- Hadestown, post-canon. I believe this is also the fic with the most notes on tumblr.

The Black Sheep and the Mad Muggleborn: a love story -- HP, post-canon. I really liked writing this one and, like all my HP work, now have deeply conflicted feelings about it.

And I could be enough -- Power Rangers 2017, character study. I only wrote 2 fics for this movie and I adore them both so much.

Stormforged -- ASOIAF, alternate ending. This was written for Femslash February and represents the sum total amount of time I have spent thinking about ASOIAF since reading the first four books in a week during standardized testing week back in high school.

We rose with voices ringing -- HP, alternate post-canon. Can you tell I default to song lyric titles a lot and also enjoy musicals?

5-Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I am trying to be better about this! For a long time I didn't because I hated everything I wrote the moment I published it and the only way I could publish at all was to throw a fic out the door and never think of it again.

6-What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

You know, I'm not sure. I haven't done full on angst in a long time. Probably either Waiting for sunrise (LM) or With nothing to remember (also LM). Honorable mention goes to Real in its consequences (still LM) which exists solely to take a ridiculous premise seriously.

7-What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It's new and still my beautiful child, so this one goes to Ties That Bind, Bonds That Strengthen (TBC).

Oh! Honorable mention to The title of citizen (LM Animates-verse). It's... it just has to be read to be understood, tbh.

8-Do you get hate on fics?

Not since the old aforementioned high school era ffn account, where I once got flamed for writing het. Ah, the good old days. (It wasn't even endgame het, lol.)

9-Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nope. I've played with some fade to black and a couple, like, sensuous bed scenes, but I find it boring to read so I don't write it.

10-Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have come to love crossovers, honestly. I like putting characters into Situations. Can't think of any particularly crazy ones though.

11-Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I've ever found or been told about, although realistically with how much I've written and how long I've been doing it I'm sure there are some out there.

12-Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, but I can't off the top of my head remember which ones, unfortunately.

13-Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No. I am a dreadful co-writer. I will, however, build a world with you at the drop of a hat. Shout out to @steelplatedhearts for the PoTC mermaid worldbuilding we did years and years ago that I still think about fondly.

14-What's your all-time favourite ship?

It varies. Right now unfortunately it's the two leads from the Forbidden Hugs story, which is unfinished original fiction. Fandom wise, I still like me some Logic and Philosophy.

15-What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Anything started earlier than this year, unfortunately.

16-What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I have gotten decent at having an entertaining narrative voice without it being too distracting.

17-What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot? What plot? Plot is when people sit in rooms and have conversations about their feelings, right? What do you mean Events must occur? I'm calling my manager, this doesn't sound right at all.

18-Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Mostly feels needlessly pretentious, honestly. I don't know if I've ever really even considered it.

19-First fandom you wrote for?

HP, starting at age, oh, 14 or so.

20-Favorite fic you've ever written?

Again, Ties That Bind is still my beloved child, but I have a huge soft spot for both Power Rangers (2017) fics. Oh, and underdog fav status to Never go anywhere, never see anyone, the nichest of niche crossovers where Mary Bolkonskaya befriends doesn't-even-get-a-canonical-first-name Aunt Gillenormand.

Tagging @lemeute, @manyswarmsofbees, @amarguerite, @ohhgingersnaps

[selkiewife]

Hi, for the WIP ask game

Things just as bad or worse

Theon and Jon in the Crypts

Pretty please 🥰

Thank you so much @owlsinathens!

tw: Drunk driving, vehicular manslaugher, child death

Things just as bad or worse

This is hilarious that it is the first one I am being asked about and yet it is the hardest to explain maybe? But that is why it is a WIP lol. This idea has definitely grown over the years. It originally began as an RP modern verse on @theon-sea-reek where Theon had killed two children- Jack and Billy Miller while driving drunk. But now... it has morphed into something... weird. Basically now the idea is that Theon is in prison in Modern Times (Still deciding whether I am making it our world or modern Westeros. Probably our world. I am also not sure if I am going to try to make the Miller's boys deaths closer to canon, or if I even can- we'll see.) Theon begins to make up stories in his head in order to detach from the reality of prison- which includes Ramsay in some form- and from his own guilt. These "stories" begin to take shape as the asoiaf canon we know but different versions of it. Things that happen in the modern prison reality begin to affect how the story in his head goes and it switches- sometimes it is book canon, sometimes it is show canon, sometimes it is more fanon. The stories eventually become "just as bad or worse" as the reality he is trying to escape. Theon begins to wonder if these stories are actually happening the more real they become and the more lost in them he becomes. Is he losing his mind? Which version of him is true? Does it matter? I have a LOT to plan and consider with this one but I'm really excited about it.

Theon and Jon in the Crypts

This was originally supposed to be written for Greysnow Week. (Alas!) It is a missing scene fic for Season 8. Jon is in the crypts staring up at Lyanna's statue and having extreme angst over Ned and the reveal of his true parentage. At some point he realizes that he is not alone in the crypts... Theon has also come to visit Robb's statue and they have a discussion together that mirrors their Season 7 discussion but also turns it on its head. A bit of it is below:

His mother is a stone statue and his father is a lie. Jon stands in the Crypts seething in anger. Ungrateful. He knows he is ungrateful to feel this way, when Ned Stark sacrificed his honor to protect him. But all he can think about is the last time they spoke. The last time he saw the man he thought was his father. 

“The next time we see each other, we'll talk about your mother, I promise,” he had said. Would he have eventually told him? After he had already taken his vows and was safely out of the way? He certainly had no issue with him living out his life in frozen exile. He sent me to the wall without a second thought. 

And what of his true father? What would he have wanted him to become? Would he have loved him? Would he have truly accepted him as a trueborn son, as Sam insisted? Or would he just be another shameful stain on his father’s honor, a lone bastard boy in yet a larger castle?

And then there is the loss… the hollow feeling of losing Ned twice. Loss and love mixed with this new feeling of betrayal. It is too much. And what will Daenerys say? What will his sisters say? He doesn’t need this right now. 

(cue Theon... to be continued lol)

[sweetestpopcorn]

Anon is right about shipping Daemon with others. Its fine because you’re allowed to ship whoever the hell you want but to use those ships to undermine Daemyra and Rhaenyra is not okay! Rhaenyra and Daemon didn’t get married in a Valyrian ceremony and risked the ire of not only Viserys but also the Velaryons just for people to say they are not each others great love or that they are purely just to gain power. Personally, Mysaria is a character I will never ever like or have sympathy for, Laena I never even cared about but I now dislike because of her fans that continue using her to undemine Daemyra and Rhaenyra and for Nettles I don’t like because of the rumors and her fans also undermine Daemyra and Rhaenyra. I don’t understand why people dislike Daemyra so much, what have they done other than fall in love and fight for Rhaenyra’s throne?

We have no mention in the books that Daemon and Rhaenyra married in a Valyrian ceremony. That's redacted content only, sorry, even because please recall Lenny, Renada's husband, was still alive, so their marriage if performed on a sept would not valid by Westerosi standards. Such a thing does not apply to Daemon and Rhaenyra, who were both widowers (Laenor and Laena were dead) so they were free to wed through the Faith of the Seven that the Targaryens embraced.

No Targaryen since Maegor wed in a Valyrian ceremony as far as we are told, and we have no reason to believe Daemon and Rhaenyra would be an exception. Even because they weren't idiots and they knew that doing so might risk people not perceiving their marriage as real. For instance, Viserys II Targaryen did not wed Larra in a westerosi ceremony under the light of the Seven, and her family, upon returning him, was quite concerned about the marriage being set aside. These things weren't a joke like the "worldbuilding" of redacted made it seem.

We also have significant evidence that Rhaenyra took the religion of the Seven seriously enough. If we refer to Fire and Blood pag. 408:

I am sorry but I am not your go-to place everyone to mix Redacted and ASOIAF content. I don't do this. I understand that there are two canons, and like multiple people have noted, Redacted is not meant to answer any question concerning Fire and Blood. The only thing so far George has confirmed was Aegon's Prophecy, so that I would be willing to discuss, however, as Elio noted:

I have said it before I will again. I only care about ASOIAF and if anyone has any doubt, let me remove them. I don't ship Renada and Matt. In show verse, I want them all dead and I thought that "Valyrian ceremony" was almost as much as a joke as Matt and Renada. They knowingly turned notAegon and not Viserys and notVisenya into bastards and further gave strength to the Greens and further made Renada look like an idiot. Apparently she knows all about the great threat and the importance of keeping Westeros together and is making canon Rhaenyra - who did not know about any such prophecy - look extremely competent and careful by comparison. What. A. Joke. I cannot wait for her to be eaten by notSunfyre.

PS: Any ask including or attempting to mix up show and book content will not be answered. I also don't care about fanarts of the show and of notVisenya. Thank you :)

[esther-dot]

Hey, do you believe the Snow sequel will actually happen at this point? There doesn’t seem to be much progress happening. Is there an actual release date? Love your blog ❤️

Thank you so much! 💗

Yes, I think it will. No release date yet, as far as I know, but HBO seems invested in building out their ASOIAF-verse. Martin talked in one of his blog posts about how long it takes to get a show into production, years and years, and they weren’t ready to announce SNOW. Someone let the cat out of the bag and everyone went nuts until GRRM confirmed it in a blog post last June.

Yes, it was Kit Harrington who brought the idea to us. I cannot tell you the names of the writers/ showrunners, since that has not been cleared for release yet… but Kit brought them in too, his own team, and they are terrific.

Various rumors are floating around about my involvement, or lack of same. I am involved, just as I am with THE HEDGE KNIGHT and THE SEA SNAKE and TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, and all the animated shows. Kit’s team have visited me here in Santa Fe and worked with me and my own team of brilliant, talented writer/ consultants to hammer out the show. (link)

So, I think maybe our timeline expectations were skewed by learning about it before we were meant to? Last Fall Kit was saying he couldn’t talk about it, but by December when he gave an interview at a convention he talked about GoT/where Jon was emotionally, and the way he was talking seemed pretty comfortable and confident about where we will find Jon and what was in store for him. No details about the show’s plot, he just seemed to have fairly specific thoughts about Jon’s traumas, formative life, current circumstances, his future. To me that indicated things were chugging along.

I imagine all the chaos at the company may have some impact on things, the writers strike too, there’s also HBO’s decision to order full first seasons for some of these shows, not just pilots, so we may still have a ways to go before ever seeing it, but apparently, it’s been discussed since shortly after GoT ended, spearheaded by Kit. I can’t imagine HBO letting the opportunity of a sequel, essentially, with one of the stars from the og series slip through their fingers.

Also, I just saw this article this morning:

(link)

which amused me because this has been what Jonsas have been saying since we heard the rumor. Honestly, this reads just like some of our posts! But according to @sherlokiness ‘s rude anon, we can’t imagine what the sequel will be about because we hate Jon, not because a lot of us love stories and are acutely aware of the difficulties plaguing this concept. 🙃