#bc i have this one children’s book that i was obsessed with in my childhood

[scoobydoodean]

the way bronlies are so obsessed that they’ve just become sam in the way they don’t like/won’t allow dean to have other friends 😭

it’s crazy to me, especially for a question whose different answers are both true to an extent bc your definition of “knowing somebody” is totally subjective!

lol that said, i am curious, soo… who do you think knows dean best, sam or cas? somebody else? do you think it changes over the seasons?

One of my friends was just saying that about bronlies and Sam sjhbfhsdhjf. Truly tho they're more insufferable than Sam's ever been. Bronlies are every spoiled child antagonist in every children's book. The Veruca Salt's of fandom. Miserable little cry baby brats screaming throwing tantrums trying to hit everyone with their baby rattlers... over Supernatural (2005) POLLS.

Their indignantion at that poll is pretty hilarious, because Sam doesn't start out the series actually knowing who Dean is at all. He thinks he knows who Dean is, but he doesn't, and this is illustrated to us over a dozen times in season 1. I do think Sam grows to understand who Dean is better over time, but he still sucks at understanding Dean for the vast majority of the series, because in many ways, he doesn't actually care to stop and think and study who Dean is and ask himself whether he actually knows him. He prefers an image he's made up in his head of who Dean is instead—an image that comforts him or bolsters his own self-image in some way. Dean is smart when Sam wants him to be smart and stupid when Sam needs to feel smarter (1.10, 1.16, 4.12, 8.14). Dean is strong when Sam wants him to be strong and weak when Sam needs to feel like the strongest person around (4.10, 4.11, 4.14, 4.16, 4.20, 4.21). Dean isn't opening up enough (2.02, 2.03, 2.04), then Dean is too emotional and soft and needs to get over it (2.10, 2.11, 2.14, 4.14, 4.16). Dean is a protector and nurturer who is failing to nurture and/or protect Sam adequately (3.09, 4.04, 8.23), then Dean is smothering (5.07, 8.20).

Basically, because Sam spends so much time trying to force Dean to fit into the shape he wants Dean to fit into, instead of actually trying to understand who Dean is, he often (unknowingly in some cases) completely lacks insight into who Dean actually is, and I'd say while he gets better at recognizing this, and better at understanding who Dean really is over time, surrounding certain subjects (especially things like grief), this refusal to see the actual real Dean continues through the entire run of the show (ex: 13.04).

I guess the question is then... is Cas actually better at understanding Dean than Sam is? And for me? Honestly I think it's a wash. I don't actually think either of them is Mr Amazing Perfect Dean Understander to be quite honest with you. I mean—practically Dean and Cas's entire schtick is perpetual misunderstandings bolstered by their own insecurities? They understand the important parts like that they each have good intentions and are good hearted, but I don't think Cas ever really understood how their repeated cycle of conflict made Dean feel. I don't think he ever understood how deeply entwined Dean's well-being became with his own, to the point that Dean was Not Fucking Okay when Cas was dead. I think Cas had a leg up in getting genuine insights into Dean's feelings straight from Dean for a long time because of the childhood dynamics and previous events that have made using Sam as a confidant uncomfortable and/or unsafe for Dean (2.03, 2.11, 4.14, 4.21, 5.01, 5.02, 5.03). I think Cas also understands Dean’s feelings more than he lets on and often acts on his perceptions of Dean's feelings without communicating those perecptions to anyone (and sometimes he's right... but sometimes he's also very VERY wrong).

We get a sort of back and forth with Sam and Cas understanding or not understanding different aspects of Dean's feelings or behavior. Think about "Nihilism" for example, when Sam and Cas walk through the darkness of Dean's mind, and Cas is shocked by the amount of trauma in Dean's mind and Sam just says, "Well. Yeah." But then compare that with 10.03 "Soul Survivor" where Cas was able to explain to Sam why demon Dean didn't want to be cured no matter how much blood they gave him. Sam didn't understand, but Cas understood Dean's perspective immediately (and that entire episode was a scathing commentary on Sam's lack of insight into Dean tbqh).

All of that said, I think I did vote in that poll and I picked Cas, and I would do it again. :) In fact, I will vote against Sam in any moment of uncertainty in any poll I see going forward, because bronlies are pathetic cry baby brats victimizing themselves 24/7 over Tumblr polls and can get fucked.

[atopvisenyashill]

fanfic recs part deux

i wanted to post this forever ago but i’ve been reading soooo slowly lol and i still have like 30 fics bookmarked that i want to read ntm trying to find old fics i liked but didn’t bookmark. i think most of these are one shots altho some of them are series or multi chapter. i put a lil star next to the ones that are multi chapter if you’re someone who wants something long to read. also, the ones that are pretty colors are the ones i’m very fond of.

ALSO, i am always trying to recreate the absolute high i get whenever the fire of our blood and the black widow update. i like to rec them bc i love them but also bc one is very pro greens and ones very pro blacks and i personally love how differently they approach the question “can the dance ever actually be avoided?” with their stories. Also best part (imo) is no one gets butterfly effected away!!!

but okay onto the fics i've read and enjoyed let's goooo-

AUs where someone is butterfly effected away

viable alternatives by madina -> ✨dance au where rhaenys decides to get involved in the life of her son a little bit earlier, and researches a way to artificially inseminate rhaenyra. it deals a lot with the childhoods of daemon, viserys, and rhaenys, and features a lot jacemond and jacegon. butterfly effects away the dragon twins. also, if you like the series, there's some cute art made for it.

wrestling with snakes by madgirlslovesong -> ✨imagine book canon but viserys has the personality of viserys ii instead of viserys i. it's interesting, and intricately plotted out, and i love fic where you can see the work the author put into detailing everything. butterfly effects away all the kids, also, there's art here.

from ashes to embers by ladyalianora -> ✨rhaenyra is reborn just before viserys takes a wife, told by the gods she must attempt to stop the war. plays kinda fast and loose with timelines and canon (it's a mix of show and books). i adore the characterization of rhaenyra in it. butterfly effects away all of the kids.

all you have is your fire (and the place you need to reach) by sunchaser -> ✨rec-ed by @camagueyys rhaenyra and qoren are engaged in order to bring dorne into the realm. as part of the agreement, qoren comes to foster at king's landing until rhaenyra is of age, where they will move to Summerhall, which will become rhaenyra’s seat to pass onto her children. except, of course, people die and the line of succession for dorne and the iron throne starts getting very complicated. i love the concept of rhaenyra marrying qoren and i like the way this fic explores that, and also i love how aemma and alicent are written in this.

longing comes running by theicedragon -> ✨wherein rhaenyra's first born is a daughter named velaena instead of a son named jacaerys. velaena becomes rhaenyra's heir and develops an interesting relationship with her uncle aemond. this is my new obsession. i love the way the fic really digs into how gender and legitimacy intersect and the ways that would impact valaena (and rhaenyra). i reblogged a graphic for it a while back too, show the author some love if you're interested!

An Excerpt From Chapter Two ("The Heiress and the Eldest Son”) of Maester Orwyle’s History of Rhaenyra I's Reign by lamelessnes -> incredibly short (like 350 words) but it’s written in the style of fire and blood and i think it’s fun. AU where Rhaenyra is forced to marry Aegon.

writ in blood by zzbkit4 -> ✨rhaegar wins on the trident but the war is a long way from over. i’ve mentioned this one before because it’s an au scenario a lot of people love to think about and it’s REALLY well done. mostly catelyn’s pov with a fair amount of dornish povs, as well as lyanna, benjen, and rhaella.

AUs where love saves the day and anyone who doesn’t like it gets stomped into paste

fear in his eyes by raybyanothername -> driftmark au. daemon notices aegon seems scared of otto, then catches otto smacking aegon around just before the fight. this one is all sweetness which is perfect if you're in the mood for that. i really loved the lucemond dynamic especially; i think it's a very realistic portrayal of the way two small kids would deal with the fallout of a violent incident like that.

when first we faced, and touching showed (how well we knew the early moves) by mrdcai -> rhaenyra pushes harder for jacaerys and helaena to marry, so alicent is forced to allow the two to spend time together to see if they suit. there's a heavy focus on romantic rhaenicent that i love in this one, and it’s also just (imo) well done in how the relationships all develop. i’m very fond of this one!

breakdowns by raybyanothername -> a bunch of aus where person a has a breakdown in front of person b and it avoids the dance. the pairings were really fun and interesting!!

a knight of the north by stevem1 -> au where the kingsguard do their goddamn duty and there’s midwives taking care of lyanna & baby jon. i love daynes, i love starks, this has daynes and starks. i wish it wasn’t just a one shot tho bc lyanna, ashara, and ned all in winterfell is so interesting to me.

main canon/canon compliant

even to the edge of doom by lilith_morgana -> rec-ed to me by @riana-one . joanna's life as she grows up, falls in love with tywin, has children, and then dies. i enjoyed it a lot, i thought it was a really great take on joanna as well as great way of depicting tywin.

before the day is done by crossingwinter -> ✨rec-ed to me by @allyriadayne . an overview of elaena targaryen’s life from her time in the maidenvault to her old age. i loved it a lot!!!! multi chapter AND focused on my girl, amazing ten stars out of five.

the queen of love and beauty by catelynstark956 -> ✨otherwise known as the harrenhal au where ned and catelyn meet at the harrenhal tourney and fall in love. i adore this fic sooooo much, so romantic, such a great read on the dynamics between everyone in the lead up to robert’s rebellion.

the dunk & egg universe by ariel2me -> ✨a bunch of ficlets set during the time where dunk & egg are traveling westeros together. i really liked it, got the more adventurous/humorous tone down very well.

post canon/twow speculation

in the midst of the ruins by iday -> jonsa fic, post war for the dawn. while living out his days out of sight and out of mind, jon gets a raven from winterfell with only two words: "come home." so he does. brienne and podrick are also there. very cute, contained little story, and an older jonsa fic.

varg-hamr/wolfskin by undercovercaptain -> a take on jon's ressurection and sansa as the girl in gray that i think is well done and also roughly what i predict will happen (leaving room for some crazy grrm-ness tho, obviously)

saw you in the snow by sleepingwithwolves -> another girl in gray esque take but with bran coming to sansa in a weirwood dream as well as jon. my soft spot is "bran helping his siblings through dreams" so!!

[borgialucrezia]

omg i read blood and beauty and its sequel last week bc it had been on my reading list for months!!!! and is this a safe space where i can just say that it hit the nail on the head for all of the borgias without unnecessarily vilifying one or the other (i mean basically considering how most writers hold some vendetta against juan) and i loved how u could really see lucrezia's growth from her childhood innocence to being forced to mature and grow up AND obsessed w any media that portrays cesare as ferocious and sharp and ruthless and juan finally got his flowers bc they obv showed his flaws but without making him the big bad evil when instead he also started off a kid but ended up being dragged to the bottom of the river by his father's ambitions 😔

i wish the 2nd book had progressed a little further to lucrezia's childbirth bed death so the story could come full circle and sometimes the pov switching was confusing for me but aside from that, the borgias will always be famous to meeeeeeeee and i love a good book that portrays them well!

ive been on the hunt for more borgia-centric books so if u have any recs......... <3

zaynab omg hello!!!!! i was kinda waiting for someone to talk to me about this book because it's my absolute #1 favorite historical fiction book <3

i'm so happy you enjoyed reading it! the way miss dunant brilliantly humanized the borgia family by creating striking and compelling narratives for them was truly *chef's kiss*. it's safe to say that her portrayal of them has even made her my favorite author as well (and made me want to check out her other work, lol). the way she made them so sympathetic is truly admirable to me, which is also a standout aspect of the book as we manage to develop a deep understanding of their motivations and complexities through her nuanced portrayal, you know? i say it could've been done more when it came to lucrezia, as she is truly one of the most compelling figures in history (and my all-time favorite). i'm not criticizing dunant for lucrezia's portrayal!! but it's more like i wished she added more of lucrezia's lore...but alas! other books did her more justice, i must say!

my favorite theme of the book is the immense love the pope has for his children. the way [spoiler] juan was taken too soon from him is profoundly melancholic and it added emotional depth to the story and it highlighted the power of a father's love and the devastating impact of losing a beloved child. also, YEAH, the book felt like a breath of fresh air when it came to juan borgia! he was unfairly demonized with no reliable narrative and mostly used as a prop to hype up cesare at his expense *yawns*… but dunant made him an individual, likable character in the book, countering the unjust treatment he always receives. her portrayal of him allowed us to discover the vulnerability and sensitivity that lie beneath his outwardly arrogant and handsome demeanor. we really can't help but feel deep empathy and pity for him as we read about his inner struggles and emotional depth. he became a truly compelling and sympathetic figure within the borgia family, especially when his death is met with cruelty and brutality. the tragic nature of his demise evokes an even stronger sense of empathy and sorrow in the narrative of juan losing himself and being overwhelmed by the heavy task he was entrusted with…

and cesare, of course, was portrayed as that sulking, bitter, cruel but incredibly intelligent, cunning, and charming guy! lowkey a recurring theme for him, but the flavor in making him extra dark in the slayest way possible made me insane in a very positive way! you should watch "los borgia (2006)" for a delicious portrayal of cesare (and personally, i think it's the most historically accurate).

more books? i'd recommended emma lucas's 'lucrezia borgia' and maria bellonci's 'life and times of lucrezia borgia' - both are biographies btw! their work is a solid read, very unbiased without any manipulation of the letters about/between the siblings to push certain narratives (hello sarah bradford!!), well-researched, sheds light on the family's complex relationships and their rise to power, and is highly sympathetic to all of them. you won't be disappointed!!

for historical fiction, i'd recommend mario puzo's 'the family' ...you will never be disappointed after all it's by the dude who wrote the godfather!

i hope you enjoy them <333 i'll be waiting for your feedback :)

[lollytea]

in a hypothetical toh/Peter pan au (bc the parallels are interesting to explore) The Collector is probably the closest equivalent to Peter (eternal child who's repressed all their troubles in the name of Fun and Whimsy and has an ambivalent approach to morality) (though keep in mind I'm not a scholar and it's been a while since I last interacted with a pan adaptation. You're the more knowledgeable one here feel free to correct me)

And then Wendy's closest equivalent as the viewpoint character who learns the main lesson about growing up and moving on and while not losing the part of yourself that made childhood seem so wonderful would probably have to be Luz (though obviously if we're going for this lineup then the peter/Wendy dynamic would have to be decidedly not romantic. Probably lean more into the "mother" thing from the book or Luz and Collie's like. Babysitter and baby dynamic)

Though again I'm very interested in what you, Lollytea, local Peter Pan scholar and toh enthusiast has to say and whether or not I'm off the mark on these ideas. P.S I feel very seen w/ u obsessing about an early 1900s western children's Isekai (/j) bc I did the exact same thing w/ the wizard of oz.

Okay okay okay okay okay okay this is a huntlow AU for my little huntlow brain but I decided to develop the universe a little and give some info on where all the main characters currently are and what they're doing.

Yes absolutely the Collector is this universe's version of Peter. The island adores them for mysterious reasons and their mood and temperment has complete control over the elements. All his whims and dreams and fantasies become a reality here so the place is very chaotic. I'm imagining that the island has the same starry sparkly aesthetic as the BL in S3.

The Collector is heaps of fun and the Lost Boys love hanging out with him and going on adventures. However....he's also prone to tantrums and his tantrums can have devastating consequences so.....none of them are really his true friends either. They're afraid of him, they tiptoe around him, they try to keep him happy.

His only real friend is King, a Neverbeast whose species is as ancient as the Island itself. King has a depthless cavern of power that he just....hasn't really developed yet. He might be a few centuries old but he ages similarly to the Collector. Just a pair of babies. Boys will be boys.

Luz is the most recent Lost Boy in a whole village of Lost Boys. You know how they had that epic village in Hook (1991) Yeah that shit was so cool, I'm giving them one of those. Anyway Luz's reasons for taking the Collector's offer are very similar to her reasons for choosing to stay in the BL. Fantasy as a form of escapism, struggling with the conventional education system and also grief and her mom trying to get her help that she doesn't want. It lands her here.

Amity is a girl who used to be frequently visited by a fairy named Willow when they were both little kids. However, Willow's friendship influenced Amity's overzealous imagination. She was drawing pictures of and writing about fairies and the stories her friend told her about Neverland and this got her in trouble with her parents. Cracking under the threat of more severe punishment, Amity got into a huge fight with Willow, ending in her declaring "I don't believe in fairies!" before slamming her window shut. This is the most cutting thing you could possibly say to a fairy.

Now, years later, Amity is residing in the world she tried so hard to forget about all those years ago. You see, she was at the age where her parents were preparing to send her off to finishing school and were having discussions about future arranged marriages. But Amity is not ready for that just yet. She wants to be a teacher!! She wants to be an inventor!!! So she runs away to Neverland where she can live out her dreams for a while until she's ready to return home.

She's currently running a "school" for the Lost Boys and is affectionately referred to as "Miss Amity", while also tinkering in her spare time. She feels very comforted by the order and control she has over her life now.

It's Luz's arrival that throws it all into disarray. Luz doesn't agree with Amity's style of teaching and though she doesn't deliberately try to interfere, a lot of Lost Boys do end up gravitating towards her, preferring her strange anecdotes and insane hyperfixation infodumps to Amity's lessons. This ends up putting the two of them at odds.

Gus is a Lost Boy....with a gift!!! The Collector was initially drawn to Gus because of their fascination with his primative human "Magic" tricks. Cards, coins behind the ear, cute silly stuff like that. He chose to go to Neverland because the stress of his Dad's high expectations was getting to him and he wanted a bit of a break (a case of miscommunication between father and son).

However, after being spirited away, Gus became Neverland's official Magician, knighted by the Collector himself. And by that I mean the Collector went "Haha I like you. I wonder what you could do if you had real magic!" and then proceeded to snap their fingers and gave Gus powers beyond his comprehension. Like waaaaay too much power. Gus is currently struggling to control his new magic and it tends to come out in uncontrollable bursts and its actually more of a curse than a gift. But he's pretty optimistic about his ability to eventually master it. And also the Collector refuses to change him back so....[shrug]

Willow and Gus? Besties. They're kinda like Peter and Tink in that Willow's favourite place to chill is atop Gus' shoulder or in his pocket.

She does not tell Gus about her secret romantic rendezvous with a certain pirate because that pirate tried to kidnap her once and Gus is very protective of his best friend.

Eda is.....a lot.

Okay. Originally a rebellious but insanely intelligent human girl, Eda and her sister were preparing to take on the world together. They were both aiming to attend the same university on a scholarship, but due to circumstances, the opportunity was only available to one of them. Eda's sister Lilith, panicking about all her dreams being ruined, wound up doing something she'd regret.

She snitched. She told a representative of their dream school of one of the delinquent acts Eda committed. Things quickly got out of hand. One person told another, things getting warped and exaggerated and other people who knew Eda personally began chiming in with their opinions of her. Some things were true. Others were not. But the most hurtful thing is that everybody was willing to believe all of it, because that just seemed to be the person Eda was. All of a sudden, it felt like the whole world had turned on her.

Life became very difficult Eda, she felt isolated and detested. She felt like a monster. This resulted in her running away to Neverland, but she carried her outcast feelings with her. She continued to stew in her own self loathing but that had terrible consequences.

Neverland is unpredictable. Its wishy washy. Its very attuned to imagination and dreams. Because Eda felt so strongly about being a monster, she gradually became a monster.

The Owl Beast is like the Crocodile to Belos' Captain Hook. She sees him as a reflection of the way she was treated back home, while he views her as everything vile and disturbing about this wretched island. Plus when he looks in her eyes, she reminds him of somebody he used to know. Somebody he hates with his whole heart and soul. He needs her dead. She needs him dead.

A huge part of Luz's goal in this AU is uncovering the mystery of the Owl Beast and eventually bonding with her and maybe even helping her return to her human form.

Anyway so yeah thats what's poppin on the island if anybody was interested. We can have our fun with this stuff, incorporate it however we want. I'm very focused on huntlow being silly tho. It's fun to me.

[autisticlancemcclain]

please do tell about these childhood shenanigans /nf

why yes of course. for reference i am the oldest (20) then giosi (18) then hannah (16) then maria (12) then tony (10). most of these are about me and giosi and hannah tho lol bc we were all kids at the same time.

1. when me and giosi and hannah were all very young, our aunt went to disney world. she sent us back postcards. my postcard has princess aurora on it, who was giosi’s favourite, and when i did not give her MY postcard that was addressed to ME when she demanded, she grabbed one of my pigtails and yanked so hard i smacked my head on the floor. i still bring this up and she is still unapologetic (how dare i steal her fave princess)

2. my nonno and nonna were both seamstresses. they had a sewing room in their basement so they could work. we were forbidden to go in alone but as children we would frequently sneak and and play a game called needles, wherein we would see who could slide the most amount of needles through the first layer of skin on our fingers until someone fucked up and made themselves bleed. then we would chase another relative (usually younger) around the house and convince them that we were magnetic aliens who would come for them next

3. all of us were obsessed with making potions. this would frequently be done either outside with leaves and dirt and worms and shit or inside with slime materials. often we would dare each other to taste the potions.

4. hannah used to eat paper as a toddler. none of us know why. she would literally like devour any paper in her vicinity so she couldn’t be left alone with craft supplies. once she ate like nineteen napkins when my mom looked away (giosi and i counted)

5. follow up on the paper thing. this last easter maria very carefully made paper name tags for everyone at the dinner table and arranged them so she wouldn’t have to sit near giosi’s boyfriend (whom she despises), and hannah decided to eat them just to make maria go ballistic. it worked. maria made more name tags in a rage. hannah waited until she turned away to eat them again. hannah’s boyfriend watched this whole thing and is still in love with her somehow. she was sixteen at the time

6. maria and i used to share a room. we had this weird bunk bed that my dad made where my bed was vertical and hers was horizontal. maria used to wake me up by jumping from her bunk onto my poor unsuspecting body. we don’t share a room anymore but occasionally she ventures into my room in the early hours of the morning just to do this

7. when my sisters discovered i was being teased and name-called at school they decided that they would help me by calling me worse names so the names at school hurt my feelings less. they called me jack-e-coli for years. this worked

8. hannah was once angry with me so she stole and hid my favourite book at the time (the hunger games). she denied it when i threw a fit about it. i could never prove it so i gave up. one year later i was messing around in her room and i found my boom THAT SHE FORGOT ABOUT. she laughed herself to tears and i was so mad that i threw her pillow out the window

9. when i was in grade seven and maria was in kindergarten, there was this asshole in my class and on our bus who loved to terrorize us. i beat him up a couple times but it didn’t do much to stop him. once, he got out of class before me, and ran to the kindergarten cage to get to maria before i could. he stole her backpack and taunted her with it. maria, five years old and like three feet tall, simply glared at him, reared back as hard as she could and kicked him in the shins. he collapsed immediately. she yanked her backpack out of his hands and spat on him before running over to me lmfao

10. at our nonno’s funeral me and all four of my siblings gathered away from everyone else (bored) and played poker incorrectly. if you lost you had to take a shot of black coffee or toss back a packet of salt. it was disgusting. it was also funny and to this day i know my nonno would have laughed

11. giosi and hannah used to have this giant chain of elastic bands that they called their ‘bungee chord’. sometimes they would tie their monster high dolls to it and have them bungee jump over the railing. other times they would hang the dolls by execution

12. once they beheaded a doll and decided to hang that doll from my ceiling fan like the little freaks they were and are

13. bonus weirdo story involving my mom. for maria’s sixth birthday she had a dora piñata. i was the last to get a turn wackiness it because i’m a) significantly stronger than anyone else bar my father and b) hugely uncoordinated. the piñata was stubborn as hell and was not bursting open so my mom finally gave me the broomstick and put on my blindfold. i swim full force and felt my stick hit something and felt that something give, but no one made any noise, so i took off my blindfold to see that i had cleanly beheaded poor dora in front of a group of horrified six year olds. my mom laughed herself hoarse and told them to get the candy already. in the middle of the night she snuck into my room and hung the dora head on my closet, which scared the shit out of me when i woke up, but i since i’m autistic i deadass developed an attachment to the head and it stayed on my closet for two years

14. once at a hotel, me and hannah and giosi were awake playing cards while the youngest two were asleep, and then out of nowhere maria shoots straight up out of bed, completely dead asleep, faced us, sighed, and then said “hannah hannah hannah hannah.” then she giggled (STILL DEAD ASLEEP) and then fell back asleep. this was a couple months after the incident at home where she sat straight up in bed, pointed to the dark corner of our room and sighed “nice man over there.” i left her there and slept in the bathtub

15. i only had friends over like one time in grade ten to make gingerbread. halfway through my friends all looked at each other and went upstairs as i was taking stuff out of the oven, u followed them only to see them all losing their entire shit laughing because my seven year old brother was in his room, on his mini drum set, banging the hell out of them with zero rhythm and screaming at the top of his lungs

[wyiicb]

I've been thinking of starting a Peanuts acc with my own hcs too but I haven't worked up the courage >.< What's some of your headcanons?

SO GLAD YOU ASKED ME!! <33

the list is endless, but here are a couple of them im super passionate about:

• Charlie Brown taught Sally sign language (ASL) all throughout her childhood. She can ‘speak’ full sentences fluently and DEFINITELY uses it to her advantage (signs curses when the teacher isn’t looking /jj). The signs come in handy when Charlie Brown goes non-verbal (selective mutism)

• Lucy has terrible hearing and has had to wear hearing aides since she was like 5. Charlie Brown keeps stressing that she should learn ASL in case of emergency, but she always refuses (“I’d rather DIE than have to learn English again.” /j)

• Schroeder and Patty are cousins; his dad and her mom are German/Polish. Schroeder’s mom is black (Somalian) and Indian, and Patty’s dad is Swedish and Kazakhstanian. Patty bonds over Schroeders love for German history and loves teaching him about their family heritage (schroeder zones out until beethoven is mentioned)

• Lucy has a separate birth dad (Balkan) than Rerun and Linus’ dad (Irish). All three of them have the same mom, who I think is a Chinese immigrant who moved to America (along with their “blanket hating Grandmother”). Linus and Rerun are both “Rainbow children”, due to their mother losing a baby before Linus was born

• I saw somebody on tik tok say that Snoopy was Filipino-American, and honestly i cant unsee it /hj

• Marcie was born in Korea and was adopted by French immigrants in America. She grew up primarily learning French and a little bit of English due to the books in her house. When she met P. Patty at the summer camp, she was taught the ins and outs of American culture and still relies on her every once in a while (marcie calls her “sir” solely because she didn’t know the feminine English pronouns for an authoritative figure)

• Frieda and Heather (the little red haired girl) are half siblings. They share the red hair and the sharp nose trait (i think theyre both roman-italian bcs of it). Heather has the coveted “nAtuRAllY CuRLy HaiR” trait as well, she just burns it straight every single morning (i like drawing it frizzy asl)

• Violet is of Native American descent (mother’s side) and Black Irish (father’s side). When she first moved in in the comic (1951), she lived with both parents, but around late 1951, she moved AGAIN, so that makes me think her parents got a divorce between those two moves. Her mom quickly married a British person (ew /j) who hated all the tom-boyish crap violet was always seen doing, so he started to push his uppity customs onto her. This, I think, is why she’s so upset at Pig Pen all the time for him being messy, despite her literally being OBSESSED with mud-pie making in her first set of comics. She just has a random change there, and a different (british) influence is the only explanation /j

• Franklin LOVESSS space and science. He aspires to be an astronaut when he grows up. He often gets in arguments with Lucy about the validity of aliens existing, and it’s one of the few things that REALLYYY tick him off. Lucy revels to see him so stressed out, but she also likes getting the last word in.

• Peggy Jean (who? /jj) and Schroeder are besties, i think. They bond over talking crap about the other peasants and Peggy loves pissing him off. They have a kind of sibling relationship, where they outwardly insult each other and wish the lather were dead, but lets be real, they would die for each other.

• Peppermint Patty is originally from Australia and met Roy through a foreign-exchange program (Roy is originally from India). They were besties at camp and when P. Patty’s dad decided to live there, she offered to let Roy stay with them. They lived together for a long time until Roy moved out with his parents (now in America) and they kinda drifted away. It’s just whenever I recall that one scene in “He’s your dog, Charlie Brown” when Roy is in P. Patty’s house for some reason, im always confused, so this is canon now/jj

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING AGAIN!!! i love spreading my opinions out there and i salute you if you read up to this point (also yes all of these are canon to my AU /gen)

[dumbasswhatever]

Responding to your unrecomendation, mine would be scum villain self saving system. It's a Chinese bl novel. It's about a reader, Shen Yuan, who got isekaid into the novel he hate-read, as the villainious teacher, Shen Qingqiu, that abuses the protagonist. Ofc he strives to do the opposite within the limits of ooc. So why it would be my unrecomendation is three point:

1. Resolving the protagonist dilemma.

So the protagonist, Luo Binghe, in the og novel is a tyrant with 300+ wives so he's kinda fucked bc of his childhood trauma. He's a paranoid, power hungry and lust hungry. So ofc Shen Qingqiu tried to treat him better in this one. Except that the author doesn't extend more than that. This kid has no friends other than his childhood bestie. Where's his other friends? Classmates? Bonding between children that can help foster good emotional connection and be a normal teenager? ZERO. Author wrote him to only rely on Shen Qingqiu emotionally and never addressing his previous trauma under the og villain. It's still there!! And it effects the whole novel!!! He's emotionally unstable.

Luo Binghe was so obsessed with him he literally kept Shen Qingqius corpse in his bedroom for five fuckin years, while SQQ junior tried to get him back for a proper burial. When he did find SQQ, Luo Binghe feed him a parasite that can track him anywhere. WTF.

2. The harem.

In og novel, all women are his wives. So what happened to them in this one? Well. They do get mentioned. But barely. One was an airhead but she got more sensible and thats it. Thats all??? I know bl has issues with how they treat their female casts but damn author you could've made them lesbians at the least.

3. Shen Qingqiu himself.

Personally I see him as someone who views the protagonist as a son/student so when people said "oh the characters said that SQQ is mourning for Binghe like a widow mourning for his husband >><<" i get pissed cause father mourns too!!! Teachers mourns as well!! Does platonic relationship means nothing?? Also even if Shen Qingqiu is an unreliable narrator, I can still read that how he views Luo Binghe. Definitely not romantic. Also the fact that he was forced to became Binghe's stay at home wife when he's literally THE Head of Scholarly Peak?? Who loves to explore and record weird plants and animals? Sir. What's the damn difference than a normal het novel then?? Other than no baby and pregnancy. What's the damn difference than the og protagonist having 300+ wives who were shut in his palace than this Binghe with a man who became a shut in? HEAD IN HANDS

I have so many grievance with this book cause it could've been better. Not even counting the teacher-student relationship and many other red flags that are flying actively in this book. I am tortured with visions. Everyday im gripping the sink, saying "It could've been better. But it DIDN'T."

Definitely do not recommend 0/10 dont do this don't read this book. Its better to read other things like a textbook maybe. Sorry if this is long i can only hope that you're entertained. Best regard.

i am very entertained holy hell thank you for the essay. also this book is O_O huh. the basic concept (like making a story/character happier out of spite) sounds like it could be a very fun read but then every single other detail you listed is like hoooooooly shit. this guy's got 300 wives and doesn't have a single relationship with any of them

[raeflora]

Your recent answered ask got me thinking... what are your thoughts on the family dynamic after Chair baby #2 arrives? (I have a soft spot for the HC that their second child is baby girl Grace 🥹) How do Blair and Chuck take having another baby, and do you think they'd have differences in their parenting if it's a girl? How is Henry as a big brother (omg), especially as they get older and into their rebellious teens?

hi!! omg I love this question tysm 🫶🏻🫶🏻 SO in my fic 525,000 (moments so dear) (which I am finishing sksfjksk ch 2 is coming soon) I'm gonna try to cover them discussing the changes of having a second child so some of this might be repeated there but I think they always wanted 2 children if they could bc they're both only children and they wouldn't want henry to feel alone. they'd be a lot more confident than they were with finding out about having henry bc they already know they can raise a wonderful child and they'd be less nervous about it.

in terms of their parenting dynamic I think they'd be fairly similar in how they treated henry as they wouldn't want him to feel jealous or anything as they grew up. I do think blair would be even more into matching outfits and co-ordination bc she can have matching hairbands and dresses with grace (grace eleanor bass my beloved 🤍). I also think she'd be v conscious of treating grace the way she wasn't treated as a little girl so no commenting on her appearance negatively or making her feel bad about herself, and she'd emphasise how much she loves her and how beautiful she is. chuck would probably be slightly more nervous having a girl bc like he doesn't wanna be an overprotective girl dad but also u mess with his little girl and ur out of ny!! but he tries not to go too stereotypical about it. I do think he'd be kinda different as a girl dad than a boy one bc he wants grace to feel like she can go to him too with stuff while also understanding how important it is for blair to have a strong relationship with her too (obviously this is the same for henry but blair understands how important it is for chuck to have a strong bond with him so they respect that about each others' parenting needs bc of their childhoods)

henry as a big brother is something I'm so excited to explore and write about 🥹 I think he'd be a good one first and foremost. my headcanon is that blair was pregnant at derena's wedding (I think it was also suggested by eric daman in his fashion book where he wrote about blair's dress possibly hiding a bump or that it was something they considered) so as henry's 3/almost 4 when grace would be born there's a good age gap for him not to be too jealous of a new baby and be more involved. when grace is still a baby he takes being a big brother v seriously to the point where he basically follows blair and chuck around to check that grace isn't too hot or cold and she's clean and comfortable. he definitely tries to play with her when she's still too small so it's like him driving his little cars around her play mat while she babbles and blair watches like a hawk so neither of them get hurt. as they get bigger I think henry would definitely be the kind of brother who includes grace in things, like playing basketball with chuck, and in turn he joins in with her tea parties. I also think they'd have their own l'il jokes and sibling things, and chuck and blair are so happy bc they never got anything like that.

when they're teenagers I imagine henry being a lot happier and less... chaotic than either of his parents were sksfjksk but he definitely has a l'il wild side and loves a party (but he's not into drugs or anything). grace is less obsessed with ruling constance than blair was, but she kinda ends up being v popular regardless. henry's definitely quite protective of her (and any other siblings he may have 👀) and helps with her homework if he can or helps her scheme against her classmates. I think they'd always be close though, and grace looks up to him and is proud to be his younger sister. of course they do argue like siblings do but it's kinda over silly stuff like they don't have huge fall outs or anything.

overall I think they'd be a happy family and having a second child would be so special for them (if ur interested my full hc is that they have 3 children eventually but baby 3 is a little less planned skafjhksk) like they'd feel more complete

[sixofravens-reads]

7 and 12 for the book asks, please 😀

Hi!!

7. What book do you love but usually not recommend because it’s weird or intense, etc?

Hmm, it's hard to think of one because I don't get asked to rec books very often 😅 I wouldn't often rec true crime tho, since that's hit-or-miss for people, so I'll say Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule. It's about Diane Downs, a sociopath who attempted to murder her children back in the 80s because she thought her on again-off again boyfriend would give up his wife for her if she was childless.

12. What book have you re-read most often?

Haha this one is also hard to say, because as a kid I would reread books constantly. I'll say it's likely a tie between these ones:

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket and Nightmare by Christin Harris - we went on a family vacation when I was 12-13ish and I was the only kid, and was bored out of my mind bc all the adults wanted to do was fish or lie on the beach or go for long drives. I also super under-packed bookwise, and therefore ended up rereading those two books over and over for about 2 weeks. The Bad Beginning one day, Nightmare the next. Never have I been so happy to get home.

The Unicorn Series by Vicki Blum - a childhood favourite and some of the first books I owned. Reread many, many times.

The Song of the Lioness, the Immortals, and the Circle of Magic/the Circle Opens by Tamora Pierce - the first Pierce I discovered/owned that I read obsessively.

[obsessioncollector]

hi!! I wanted to thank you for all the notes on my little book blog, your vibes are excellent and I'm honored that you're following me <3 would you like to tell me about some of your favorite books, or recent reads that you really enjoyed?

hi! this is so sweet omg, also i just saw your post about the sparrow--i've been meaning to read it and now i really have to!!

I recently did a post with my faves from this year so far (here), so I won't repeat the books I mentioned there but I have lots of favorites so I'm happy to have the chance to mention more! I added a little about each book for context but my blurbs do not give them justice at all, I just didn't want to throw a bunch of titles with no explanation at you :) Under the cut bc it's a long list w/ the blurbs.

EDIT WAIT IM SO DUMB I FORGOT TO SAY THAT MY GOATS ARE NABOKOV, DOSTOEVSKY, [TONI] MORRISON. I didn't want to mention all the books I loved by them bc that would take forever but yeah they are the best <3

FICTION:

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston: Just re-read this one after several years and it’s even better than I remembered. Comprised of several shorter stories based on stories the Kingston’s mother told her about her relatives in China growing up, with Kingston imagining her own version of these family legends. The final story captures the fear and anxiety and shame of childhood so well &lt;3

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson: An old favorite. Centered on 18-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood, who lives with her older sister Constance and sickly uncle Julian after the mysterious deaths of the rest of her family. Oddly tender considering that premise :)

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih: Read this one in a single day—among its many wonderful qualities, it’s a page-turner! Reminds me of psychological thriller movies. It’s narrated by a Sudanese man who has recently returned to his hometown after spending time in Europe. Back home, he meets a mysterious stranger who’s also been to Europe and becomes obsessed with him.

The Lover by Marguerite Duras: Based on Duras’s relationship with an adult Chinese man when she was a teenager growing up in colonial Vietnam, but despite the title, it’s clearly focused on the teen girl character. Reflective and haunting.

The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie: Better than Midnight’s Children imo. Rushdie’s books are always tough to summarize I think, the plots are often convoluted and yet they’re also more than the sum of their parts. This one is about the son of a wealthy Indian family divided by a conflict between the businessman father and pioneering artist mother.

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai: Dazai is one of those male artists who captures young women surprisingly well. This short novel is centered on a woman from a fading aristocratic Japanese family. So emotional and quietly eloquent.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood: Absolute classic of the stories-about-stories subgenre. The protagonist���s sister was a writer who died young with a devoted feminist following, and the protagonist resents others’ attempts to capture her sister’s legacy. Coming-of-age as she recounts growing up with her sister, but also intersperses the sister’s work.

Trieste by Daša Drndić: Centered on an elderly Italian Jewish woman haunted by her family’s complicity in the fascist order around them. Drndić’s body of work often focuses on characters obsessed with historical atrocities and is consistently fascinating, but this is my favorite of hers.

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector: For the longest time I felt like everyone was telling me to read Clarice Lispector and I did and yet her novels did not click for me! These stories finally made me a Lispector stan—gotta reread her novels now :) Hard to sum up since it’s a long collection, but completely worth it.

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung: I’m biased bc I saw Bora Chung speak and she seems like such a sweet and modest and offbeat-in-a-good-way person—would be a good tumblr mutual :) But I loved this collection even before then, it’s surreal and haunting and most of the stories don’t sound like they’d work on paper but they absolutely do.

NONFICTION (I am actually a fraud when it comes to nonfiction bc I’m a novel girl at heart but some books I love…):

Twelve Who Ruled by R.R. Palmer: I just started re-reading this after a couple of years, it’s so fascinating! It’s history centered on the twelve members of the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution. Super interesting period in history IMO and the book is also a great study of personalities, it makes me want to write my own (fictional) characters lol.

Literature and Evil by Georges Bataille: A collection of essays on the works of a variety of writers—Blake, Kafka, Proust, etc., all the good guys.

A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib: THE music book. It’s a collection of essays around the theme of Black music in the US. Abdurraqib’s writing is so eloquent and touching, and whether I knew the musicians’ work well or not, I loved all the essays. He does a great job of interspersing the musicians’ stories and their significance with his own perspective and experiences.

Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois: Extremely important from a historical perspective--Du Bois eviscerated the dominant racist + neo-Confederate school of historiography regarding Reconstruction in the U.S. Also just incredibly well-written--since it's a technical work, it can be tedious with the statistics etc at points, but Du Bois's prose is so stunning. The chapter “Transubstantiation of a Poor White,” focused on Andrew Johnson, is absolutely brutal (complimentary.)

Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard: Kierkegaard is so fascinating, this is a daunting read (at least to me) but totally worth it. You do not have to be Christian to be a Kierkegaard enjoyer :) It’s focused on the Biblical story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac, but also tackles much more.

[evansbby]

you know that video where chris is reading the kids storybooks?

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

Have you read the Mahabharata? If you did, what do you think about the way Arjuna was characterized in FGO? As far as I know (I haven't read it but I'm considering it), he's considered one of the big good forces and a close to ideal hero for the majority of the book, so I was wondering what people make of Fate's decision to give him his conflict about "appearing as an ideal hero."

i keep meaning to read it and then getting distracted by other shiny things (drawing) and. Not reading it. But I do know of the General Plot lol. Honestly at this point I’m legit thinking I’ll just buy a physical version bc I think I do better w that-like when I found a physical version of the Bhagavad Gita at a library I got through half of it in one sitting you know? It’s just uh. Getting out in a pandemic :’) scary

as for fate’s version….uh I’d say it’s a mixed bag? Since I basically didn’t know anything about him before I discovered the fate version I wasn’t really familiar w his changes…

I do think having his character focus on the guilt he feels for what happened in his life and his own personal responsibilities in regards to what happened isn’t actually a bad take tbh-the Bhagavad Gita is basically him going ‘uh I don’t want to Murder My Family’ and his Friend who is God has to convince him of his duty as a warrior and human to continue moving forwards and do what he’s supposed to be doing, but even after all that it doesn’t seem unrealistic to assume he has regrets given like. 3 of his children die most of his family die he kills his brother etc etc like. This isn’t an interpretation of him that comes out of nowhere, even after the war most of his relationships end in tragic ways the dude just couldn’t catch a break and it makes sense that it weighs on him-there’s a whole thing about how even though he’s Krishna’s closest friend he still wasn’t able to be enlightened! bc he’s only human, yknow.

The problem is that in fgo his conflict starts and ends with him shooting karna. Like in his bio

3/5 of the descriptive boxes mention Karna (they also have some other random inconsistencies. His human father was NOT called king kuru). There’s no mention of his childhood living with ascetics in the woods, or the multiple times the kauravas tried to kill him and his brothers when they were young, or the many ordeals and trials he went through to EARN the gifts he received from the gods-even his friendship with Krishna is just a footnote they add one to clarify that he’s different from arjuna’s mind demon. They make a single vague mention of his other brothers and mother-not even by name, and then dedicate the rest of his bio to karna. Not the family he lived with, but a guy who was, and I’m sorry to say this, really not that important to the general plot of the mahabharata.

In comparison karna’s own profile only mentions arjuna three times. Total. :-) despite the fact that when I look at the original text he seems much more obsessed with arjuna that the other way around but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ anyway my theory is that arjuna wrote his own profile in a depressed haze at 3 am and that’s why it’s so bad and also makes no sense and is heavily pro karna for basically no reason bc otherwise wtf

This is also reflecting in his in-game writing, especially early on, and it’s something I consistently see people who are more familiar with non-fgo arjuna complain about lol. If they acruallly branched out more into the conflict he had and how it continues to haunt him (why not bring up bhisma’s death? He was much more important to arjuna? And arjuna also had to kill him?) he’d be a great character, but as it is they still struggle to move on from the karna thing. Even in the junao cbc event they couldn’t fucking resist leaving karna out of it lol

Though tbh if you ignore his profile and lb4 arjuna is a pretty decent character? The karna but needs to be dropped but even when they have him as an enemy (too often) he always pulls through and does the right thing in the end

This is starting to fall apart but basically: the bones of his character are good, but they need to

A.) rewrite his fucking profile

B.) stop with the karna vs arjuna shtick we get it we get it please fucking explore literally anything else fucking ask karna’s thoughts on it about it even just stop going ‘haha what if…they….fight!🤭’

C.) GIVE HIM MORE LINES why the hell was karna the first one to bring up their mother. Why was karna the first one to bring up their brothers by name. Arjuna LIVED with his brothers. He actually got ALONG with them. Why does he never talk about them?? Lasengle PLEASE

D.) just like do more stuff about his life that has absolutely nothing to do with karna. I’m not even joking this would fix his character. He has so much to work with that they don’t touch

[funkymbtifiction]

Hello! Can you help me decipher what function stack is this?

I feel that I passed all of my childhood and teenagehood searching for answers of why things work the way they work. Why people say it's disrespectful to not insist when someone say you didn't need to do something, why people dislike politics, why adults don't listen to kids' opinions, why there is misogyny, racism, homophobia and things as such, why our social system works as to children being obligated to go to school and adults being "obligated" to work, why there wasn't any change of this system no matter how many centuries passed through, etc. I also was really obsessed with puzzles and trying to figure out their systems, I'm talking about sudoku, anagrama, chess even 2048 or things like that. In another sense, to me math was easy but it wasn't something I liked.

I was so concern to know the logic behind everything that my brain muddled when I had to deal with feelings and persons. Like I didn't know how to act, I didn't know what I was feeling or why I made people cry just bcs I gave them a tip on the best way to approach something. In my mind I was trying to help a friend, this is something correct, so I couldn't understand the person's reaction, it didn't any make sense! Y[...] Bcs things HAVE TO MAKE SENSE IN ORDER TO EXIST!!

[...] but at the age of 21 I finally understood that the universe doesn't follow the man-made rules. Instead, we invented the rules to understand something that doesn't make sense to us. And from that, my approach to life changed. I still overthinking too much, but now I'm able to acknowledge that there's plenty of things that doesn't make any sense and still are valid.

To me this is Ti, but it could be Te tho, since I was trying to understand the external world.

Yes, it's Ti. Specifically, ITP. Needing everything to make sense, trying to build an inner framework, having low emotional affectation and understanding, is Ti / ITP.

Another thing that bugs me is that, at the same time that I was wondering the why's and how's, I was also collecting information. My ideia was to create a dataframe to know what to do the next time I come across similar things (for this one I'm talking mostly about society-nature things). So could this be Si? Or is it just my 6 core in function? Thank you?

It's hard to tell from this what your perceiving axis might be, because a lot of this is just Ti -- an ISTP friend of mine would say that she also collects information to create an internal data-frame, but she is also purely Se in that theoretical things are of no interest to her; she prefers to be active in hands-on-learning. So you would need to ask yourself, am I more of a theorizer who cares about ideas for their own sake, or do I want to make my ideas into reality and learn through being hands-on with things (body learning as opposed to theoretical knowledge -- the INTP will read a book on scuba diving, the ISTP will want to go scuba diving).

[kellyvela]

Has GRRM ever said in any interview or on his blog that he hates Sansa's complete storyline after 4th season? I dont really follow all of his fan/media interactions but from what I can recall he has spoken abt how LF in books wont give sansa to ramsay or how noone had issue when Jeyne was given the Ramsay storyline in books etc. Asking this question to you bcs you rightly point out how ppl misunderstood his interviews/posts ( sansans/targ stans etc) & I cant recall him ever saying he 'hates' sansa's story in the later seasons of the show ( not s5 in particular but even s6 to s8).

Capclave 2013:

A change that has repercussions for season 4 is Marillion’s tongue removal from the first season. Martin said that the change was made (from an anonymous singer being the victim of a de-tonguing) because they wanted Joffrey to maim someone the audience would recognize. He believes this is an issue because of the part the singer plays in Sansa’s storyline, how he affects her interactions with others in the book, and he doesn’t believe another character will be fulfilling that role on Game of Thrones.

—GRRM talks season 4 & beyond - Winter is Coming - October 13, 2013

2014 Fan Reports about Capclave 2013 (*):

In a convention panel this year, George said on the record that he had no idea what they were doing with Sansa or where they’re taking her storyline, which now makes sense perhaps. He was not pleased when he was talking about it, so who knows what’s going to happen with her! Knowing GRRM, that could mean they’re going off the canon reservation, and/or that they’re going to be making a lot of shit up

I have notes I’ll be responding to (thanks!) but enough people commented about Sansa that I thought I’d share that tidbit, since it happened back in September iirc (was the same panel where he criticized the exclusion of Tyrell brothers)

—starkalypse - June 3, 2014

GRRM’s comments at capclave about Sansa (which I was in the third row for, for those asking about legitimacy) were among others during the panel that had a general theme of dissatisfaction with show changes. He was not in good spirits for that con and didn’t really have anything positive to say regarding the show. So take it with a grain of salt; there are deviations away from the books in the episodes he gets writers credit for, so maybe they’re doing something stupid or they really don’t have a gameplan!

—starkalypse - June 4, 2014

(*) These reports were posted in June 2014, during the airing of Game of Thrones Season 4, about Capclave 2013 that happened in October 2013.

Just after the rape episode:

How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? Three, in the novel. One, in the movie. None, in real life: she was a fictional character, she never existed. The show is the show, the books are the books; two different tellings of the same story.

There have been differences between the novels and the television show since the first episode of season one. And for just as long, I have been talking about the butterfly effect. Small changes lead to larger changes lead to huge changes. HBO is more than forty hours into the impossible and demanding task of adapting my lengthy (extremely) and complex (exceedingly) novels, with their layers of plots and subplots, their twists and contradictions and unreliable narrators, viewpoint shifts and ambiguities, and a cast of characters in the hundreds.

There has seldom been any TV series as faithful to its source material, by and large (if you doubt that, talk to the Harry Dresden fans, or readers of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the fans of the original WALKING DEAD comic books)… but the longer the show goes on, the bigger the butterflies become. And now we have reached the point where the beat of butterfly wings is stirring up storms, like the one presently engulfing my email.

Prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, different requirements.

David and Dan and Bryan and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can.

And over here I am trying to write the best novels that I can.

And yes, more and more, they differ. Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose… but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place.

In the meantime, we hope that the readers and viewers both enjoy the journey. Or journeys, as the case may be. Sometimes butterflies grow into dragons.

—The Show, the Books - Not A Blog - May 18, 2015

Report about the last Game of Thrones Script that GRRM wrote:

No Wedding for Sansa and Ramsay: Without question, one of the most controversial changes the show made in trying to streamline the books was by slotting Sansa into the role of Ramsay’s wife and rape victim in Season 5. In the books, Ramsay marries and assaults Sansa’s best childhood friend, Jeyne Poole—who is being forced to impersonate Arya—instead. (You can actually see Jeyne briefly sitting next to Sansa in the show’s pilot.)

At the time Martin wrote this script, though, substituting Sansa for Jeyne was not yet the plan. Martin has Roose Bolton tell his bastard son: “We have a much better match in mind for you. A match to help House Bolton hold the north. Arya Stark.” It should be noted, however, that in Martin’s script, Sansa isn’t free from menace either. At his own wedding-day breakfast, Joffrey still threatens to rape the older Stark sister—once he’s “gotten Margaery with child.”)

—Game of Thrones: The Secrets of George R.R. Martin’s Final Script - Vanity Fair - December 7, 2018

A month before the Game of Throne S8 Finale:

Sansa’s story, in particular, has really deviated from the books. Ramsay Bolton — that marriage obviously was with a different character. When they start deviating like that, did you initially have any emotional reaction, even though you worked in Hollywood for many years yourself?

GRRM: Well, yeah — of course you have an emotional reaction. I mean, would I prefer they do it exactly the way I did it? Sure. But I’ve been on the other side of it, too. I’ve adapted work by other people, and I didn’t do it exactly the way they did it, so ….

Some of the deviation, of course, is because I’ve been so slow with these books. I really should’ve finished this thing four years ago — and if I had, maybe it would be telling a different story here. It’s two variations of the same story, or a similar story, and you get that whenever anything is adapted. The analogy I’ve often used is, to ask how many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? Do you know the answer to that?

I know it’s different in the book and the movie …

GRRM: Three children in the book, one by each husband. She had one child in the movie. And in real life, of course, Scarlett O’Hara had no children, because she never existed. Margaret Mitchell made her up. The book is there. You can pick it up and read Mitchell’s version of it, or you can see the movie and see David Selznick’s version of it. I think they’re both true to the spirit of the work, and hopefully that’s also true of Game of Thrones on one hand, and A Song of Ice and Fire on the other hand.

—George R.R. Martin on the Stark Sisters and Ending ‘Game of Thrones’ - RollingStone - April 22, 2019

James Hibberd’s Book:

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: Jeyne Poole was included in the pilot—she’s shown giggling next to Sansa—but she’s never seen or referred to again. I actually wrote Jeyne into “The Pointy End,” my first script, when Arya killed the stableboy. I had some stuff with Jeyne running to Sansa being all hysterical and dialogue in the council chamber with Littlefinger saying, “Give her to me, I’ll make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.” That was dropped.

DAVID BENIOFF: Sansa is a character we care about almost more than any other. We really wanted Sansa to play a major part in that season. If we were going to stay absolutely faithful to the book, it was going to be very hard to do that. There was a subplot we loved from the books, but it was a character not involved in the show.

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: I was trying to set up Jeyne for her future role as the false Arya. The real Arya has escaped and is presumed dead. But this girl has been in Littlefinger’s control for years, and he’s been training her. She knows Winterfell, has the proper northern accent, and can pose as Arya. Who the hell knows what a little girl you met two years ago looks like? When you’re a lord visiting Winterfell, are you going to pay attention to the little kids running around? So she can pull off the impersonation. Not having Jeyne, they used Sansa for that. Is that better or worse? You can make your decision there. Oddly, I never got pushback for that in the book because nobody cared about Jeyne Poole that much. They care about Sansa.

—Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series by James Hibberd - October 6, 2020

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: My Littlefinger would have never turned Sansa over to Ramsay. Never. He’s obsessed with her. Half the time he thinks she’s the daughter he never had—that he wishes he had, if he’d married Catelyn. And half the time he thinks she is Catelyn, and he wants her for himself. He’s not going to give her to somebody who would do bad things to her. That’s going to be very different in the books.

—Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series by James Hibberd - October 6, 2020

I hope it helps you.

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[handern]

Devy this is a weird question but you're my only mutual I know who speaks French. Do you have any recommendations for french language children's books? Especially geared at like 6-10 year old readers? I'm trying to practice my language skills, but my french isn't quite good enough yet to read the book reviews. There's "adult readers", but they have a startling lack of anything at all fun in them. I want dragons and spaceships and shit, not sad people buying groceries

Oh I'm going to pull out my list of french writers books I read when I was 7/10 but I'm not sure if it's really what you're searching for?

Even when they're aimed at kids french books by french authors can have a lot of very pedantic words no one uses on a daily basis

Also keep in mind that most popular books written in english out there have probably been translated into french at some point !

Erik L'Homme :

- Le Maître des Brisants (just read book 1 and 2, the 3rd one was a mistake sorry mister Erik sir) : Steampunkish scifi, I don't remember the whole plot but it was pretty epic and I think it was about a boy coming on a spaceship for an internship? Now I need to re read it

- Le Livre des Etoiles : a young boy training to become a mage in a world that was part of ours and is still linked to ours but through a very small gate. It has celtic themes and epic fights but in a more modern way than most fantasy books

- Phaenomen : four kids in a "hospital for children with special needs" realize they have some powers while they go searching for their favorite doctor who vanished one day without a word. Kind of a modern take on changeling kids, smh it gave me a coping mechanism for ADHD and sensory overload that I still use haha

Pierre Bottero : all his series are linked somehow so here's the publication order, which is not the chronological order

- Ewilan series : a girl finds out she has the power to cross from our world to another one, and also that she's the most powerful magic user born in that world. She goes in search of her biological parents trapped somewhere in that world along with a very eclectic band of weird people. It was some of my favorite books ever.

- L'Autre : set in our world, it follows two heirs of some 7 or so families of people who can use magic, they have to learn to control their powers and I also forgot the main plot but hey the girl can turn into a panther and at some point she murders someone which was very cool of her

- Elana : following my childhood hero, Elana from the Ewilan series. It starts with her as a toddler being raised in the jungle after her parents' death (the best book) then it follows her growing up and being trained as a Marchombre (less interesting but still good) which is a thing that would take too long to explain like, they could be assassins but they're not and they could be thieves but they are not but also they're both assassins and thieves for most of them except they're not, they follow a goal way more important than just assassinations and thievery, of spiritual and physical perfection. I started practicing climbing bc of these books.

Erik L'Homme and Pierre Bottero :

- A comme Association : monsters hunting monsters (4 first books are by both of them, the rest is Erik L'Homme alone). It's pretty fun but I didn't get the end at all. But it's pretty fun yes and makes me very emotionnal bc Pierre Bottero was my favorite author and he died right after the 4th book's completion. The characters are really cool and very fun, and of course there's some monsters befriending

Serge Brussolo : each of his series has like 10000 books, I have no idea how this man writes so much but I'm pretty sure his writing rate should be illegal somehow

- the Peggy Sue series : my grandpa gave me the second book instead of the first by accident and thank goodness he did because the first book absolutely TERRIFIED ME, the rest is really kids books but the first one is horror. It tells the story of a girl who can see ghosts and they make her life miserable for it like, literally try to murder her and her family. She ends up travelling through weird places/worlds, it's pretty cool but jesus christ the first book. Warning for graphic murders, mind control and cannibalism in the first book. Some kids get almost boiled alive to be eaten in the second book but you know what? That's tame compared to the impression the first book left on me! There are sheep who eat people in the 5th book also if I recall correctly

- the Sigrid series : A girl born and raised in a weird submarine realizes that something is wrong and weird, ends up travelling through very eerie worlds where she has to learn the rules very fast to survive, it's also kind of horror-like, but less horrifying than the first Peggy Sue book. There are some spaceships, submarines, ghost boats and a lot more

Fabrice Colin : this man is a genius but also sometimes a dirty little copycat man I love him so much. He wrote a lot and not all of his books are equal in quality but when it's good it's really excellent

- Les Enfants de la Lune : set during WWII, a child who lives with his grandmother finds a letter adressed to his grandfather who died 10 years ago, he goes to the meeting to announce it to the people who wrote the letter and ends up meeting the last elves trying to leave our world before the last portal closes. It's very bittersweet and has absolutely amazing characters including a crocodile who probably ate a nazi at some point, evil pterodactyles and a mechanical kraken in the Seine. I spent 10 years hunting for a copy of this book, I would borrow it ten times a year at the local library

Eric Sanvoisin : I was absolutely obsessed w the atmosphere of his books. Horror but not scary? Kind of intriguing and creepy but in a very cosy and familiar way?

- Les buveurs d'encre : vampires but they drink books ink

- Les chasseurs d'Ombres (type in the author's name or you'll just get the Moral Instruments in the results) honestly it's been so long I don't remember much except that I harassed my parents until they bought me the book after I read it at the library. I think it has vampire-y vibes too with investigations

I also read every single book of the "Autre Mondes" collection by the Mango editor, which has really cool scifi books but there are so many it would make this list way too long so I'll just recommend "Les Abimes d'Outremer" which is about space whales being spaceships, but this collection is a goldmine if you want well wrapped together short-ish novels

[judesstfrancis]

please tell us more about the hot goth he/she/they character 🙏 jude, right??

kendall I owe u my life truly thank u <3

yes, their name is jude!!! full name jude hollis, named after my favorite book character jude st francis and hollis adventurezone, the podcast character who transed my gender

she was originally just supposed to be a side character to fill my Every Good Horror Novel Needs A Hot Goth agenda but then I got attached bc when I was 13 I was really into gothic romance and now she is like. the heart of the story basically

he's best friends with the main protag of the story, mari! it's a summer camp horror and they met originally the first time they attended camp as actual children. they are extremely close and mari frequently refers to jude as the love of her life bc it's simply the truth

(jude is also extremely aro and sometimes she Worries. but she shouldn't. it's as much of a reassurance as it is the truth)

(I also have a funny line in my head that I would never be able to squeeze in naturally but it's mari, jude, and the third main protag, carter (mari's eventual gf) at an event somewhere and carter introduces the three of them as "I'm carter, that's my gf mari, and that's the love of her life jude." they all live together post canon and carter loves their love ok)

my favorite tiny character trait of jude's is that they're just obsessed with nature documentaries. absolutely cannot get enough of planet earth. just 24/7 watching animal planet. imagine a big six foot tall goth crouching down to talk to children at eye level and just patiently answering all their questions about different animals. I'm in love with them

jude also has kind of a tragic backstory like childhood trauma wise that I will not get into rn but part of it is that their parents never let them get one of those cute little 90s caboodles bc reinforced gender roles so when he gets older he carries them around all the time bc dude why not! that's what your adult years are for! big tall scary goth carrying around all her scary goth jewelry in just the ugliest 90s caboodle u have ever seen. once again: I am in love with her