#because WHY is the set up so bad

[maybeiwasjustjade]

Alright y’all, place your bets on the timeline for the rest of the show.

This season has been a mess and a half, and if the new leaks are through then this season has been basically a boring filler for over half of it. Rumor had it that the Fall of King’s Landing happens in the finale. New leaks have come out that nothing of the sort seems to be happening until S3.

Assuming the show lasts five seasons, how do you think each season will pan out?

* 5 seasons because I think there’s too many battles and events for it to end in 2 more seasons, and HBO does not have the budget for a dragon battle almost every episode after 3x01. Also half the cast would be dead by s3 ending alongside almost all the dragons. Even if the show ended with Rhaenyra’s death, a lot of fan favorites will die in quick succession to make up for the shit storytelling. And knowing how pro TB the writers are, I doubt it’ll end before Aegon III is crowned.

What I think:

Season 3:

King’s Landing falls within the first 2 episodes. Aegon is snuck out by Larys alongside Jaehaera. There’s a minor timeskip during the season to prolong Rhaenyra’s reign because the writers seem to be obsessed with her. And because it gives the child characters time to grow up enough for certain events

Maelor is born in captivity, and then snuck out during the chaos of the aftermath of the Gullet.

Honeywine is mid-season episode, and the true introduction to Daeron and Tessarion

Butcher’s Ball will probably happen this season too

The Gullet happens at the penultimate episode. With Joffrey being so young still, he’s sent away with bby! Aegon and Viserys to Pentos. The battle happens; Aegon barely escapes, Viserys is lost, and Jace is more than likely going to be killed by trying to get to Joffrey on time (who probably also dies). Rhaena-as-Nettles feels insurmountable levels of guilt; Rhaenyra blames her for Jace (which leads to the Nettles-Daemon part of the arc).

Finale is Aegon conquering Dragonstone and killing Moondancer. Baela’s fate is left up to interpretation (for now)

Season 4:

Maelor is killed in the premiere as a shock value. Doubt the writers are brave enough to go the Mushroom route of the Brothel Queens arc, but who knows if Rhaenyra goes insane after all but one son is killed. His head is delivered to Rhaenyra. Helaena goes insane. First Tumbleton happens.

Considering the show seems to be trying a little too hard to redeem Daemon at the moment, and if Rhaenyra does go insane after the Gullet, then Daemon might actually go the Nettle arc for Rhaena. Gods Eye happens as the mid-season arc; Aemond and Daemon are both killed.

Second Tumbleton will probably happen before the Dragonpit, making that event the damning end of the dragons. Daeron, Addam, Hugh, and Ulf are all killed, and their dragons too.

Driven to insanity over what happened to Maelor (because it was too similar to Jaehaerys) and the deaths of nearly all her brothers and her daughter and Aegon still ‘missing’, Helaena jumps to her death in the penultimate episode.

The Storming of the Dragonpit takes up most of the finale. Depending on whether Joffrey and Tyraxes do die at the Gullet (or just Joffrey) then Joffrey is lost in the chaos, and all King’s Landing dragons killed. Rhaenyra and bby! Aegon escape.

Season 5:

The premiere episode will probably end with Rhaenyra and Aegon arriving on Dragonstone.

Episode 2 is Rhaenyra’s death. Knowing the show they’ll probably make it that she tries to tell Aegon bout the damned Prophecy while she’s dying. Followed by Sunfyre’s. Chaos reigns in King’s Landing. If the show follows through with the existence of Trystane Truefyre, then he and Gaemon will make an appearance.

Aegon returns to the capital by the end of episode 3. Episode 4 will probably be about Aegon trying to hatch another dragon + agreeing to marry Cassandra Baratheon. The Battle of the Kingsroad begin.

Aegon is poisoned and killed in episode 5. Aegon III is crowned. Cregan Stark and his army arrive at King’s Landing.

The Hour of the Wolf would take up over an episode so maybe 6-7

Series finale will be the marriage between Aegon III and Jaehaera, and the regency of Aegon III. Morning hatches to signify that it isn’t the end of House Targaryen (it is). Alicent dies, representing the death of the Greens.

Alternatively, Rhaenyra dies in the premiere, speeding up the events. Aegon dying and bby! Aegon is crowned as part of the mid-season episode. Aegon III and Jaehaera are married by episode 6, and Jaehaera is killed by episode 7 when Daenaera Velaryon is introduced. The series ends with Viserys’ miraculous return (because Condal and Hess just loves TB that much)

*Hilariously, before the season began I was so sure it wouldn’t last more than four seasons. Rook’s Rest would be 2x04, the Dragonseeds by 2x06, and the Gullet in 2x07. Honeywine and The Fall of King’s Landing by the finale. But for that to happen Maelor and Daeron would have to exist…2 years ago in the writers room.

Then Butcher’s Ball, Tumbleton, Gods Eye, and Dragonstone falling by the end of s3. The ending shot of s3 (or even rhe beginning of s4) would be Aegon claiming Dragonstone after being missing for over a season. Then s4 would just have to deal with Tumbleton redux, and Helaena dying by episode 3. 4x04 would be the Storming of the Dragonpits. 4x05 is Rhaenyra and Aegon III’s mad dash to Dragonstone only to discover that it has been taken. Rhaenyra dies, then Sunfyre. 4x06 deals with Trystane Truefyre and the Kingsroad Battle, Aegon’s agreement to marry Cassandra Baratheon, and then Aegon’s poisoning. 4x07-08 is the Hour of the Wolf, and the series ends with Aegon III and Jaehaera being forced to marry.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

[imvec]

Sequel to Sunshade

[eikichi-supremacy]

If nothing else Koenma is a Kuwabara stan and I'm right there with him o7 (I need to write the kuwameshi fic that goes with this fr)

[artemisxrose]

FUCK Liam Payne! I will no longer support OT5 and I don’t even want a 1D reunion anymore. It’s so disgusting how so many of you defend these boys actions, but especially Liam, in light of everything that has come out. Maya Henry has every right to speak about her experiences. And it’s gross that I’m seeing literal threads and tweets upon tweets of people calling her a liar and saying all these horrible things. You’re proving Liam right! “No one will believe you anyways and the fans will always defend us!”

Is that not absolutely horrifying to yall? That this man is weaponizing his fanbase against women that he has treated poorly? And yall continue to enable him! Everything Maya said in her recent TikTok was true! Yall defend this abuser because of boy band nostalgia? What the fuck is wrong with some of yall? It makes me sick. It’s always “believe women” “believe victims” until it’s your fave, right?!

We don’t know these people! “He would never do that…” YOU DONT KNOW HIM! These parasocial relationships are going too far.

What’s scary is based on some of the stuff Maya said, I wonder if this is only the tip of the iceberg with Liam. He’s probably done so much shit we don’t even know about. Maybe even the other boys???

I know I’m ranting and no one probably cares but some of the tweets I saw defending Liam were so triggering and upsetting. Trending hashtags like #FreeLiam and #WeLoveYouLiam when a woman CONFIRMED that he abused her is just so sickening. This is why women don’t come forward. This is especially why victims of celebrities and people in power don’t come forward. Because this is how they’re treated. Maya literally even confirmed that Liam and his team have tried to silence her and didn’t want the book to come out. I just… there are no more words.

This whole situation is so triggering… I’m so angry and upset.

Fuck Liam Payne and Fuck all of yall defending him.

[thoumpingground]

So when Darcy went to fix the Lydia/Wickham situation, he first tried to get Lydia to return home, only bribing Wickham into marrying her when she wouldn't. This is sensible by modern standards, but we know from everyone else's reactions Lydia *failing* marrying Wickham would bring the Bennet family shame. Darcy knows this, and doubt he planned to leave the situation as is. So how did he originally plan to fix it?

I think Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy was gonna channel his inner Emma Woodhouse (didn't have to dig far, they're very similar people) and play matchmaker. In my headcannon Darcy checked his "Possible Husbands for Georgie" list against his "People who owe me Gargantuan favours" list and offer whoever came up money to marry Lydia.

Now, he would want to spare the Bennets of as much of the scandal as possible, and wouldn't want to take the merit in front of Lizzie, so all would most likely happen discreetly through Mr. Gardiner, while Lydia was in London, and she would move to her husbands immediatly after.

However, I wanna propose a different scenario: Lydia returns to Meryton. Scandal ensues, the Bennets are disgraced. Then, within two weeks, a random well-off man shows up intent on courting Lydia and *only* Lydia. He heeds nobodys warnings and gives no explanations. Lydia loves it. Every other mum in Meryton is furious. The Bennets are confused and paranoid. Imagine the drama. The intrige. The million questions still unawnsered long after Lydia eventually gets married and leaves. Bingley marries Jane (cause of course Darcy still told him he'd been wrong to pull them apart, and Bingley would) and Darcy's still somewhat around. Maybe him and Lizzie get together, maybe not, but every time the topic comes up he gets all sheepish and awkward and she gets suspicious and it's a thing. It's their new dynamic.

[commsroom]

honestly, i wonder a lot about eiffel's past relationships, when 1) the way he describes his relationship with kate gives the impression it was intense and burnt out quickly (though i can definitely imagine they were very on-again-off-again for quite a while as well), 2) if we go by gabriel urbina's estimate that he imagined anne was about ten by the end of the show, eiffel was about 23 when she was born. they broke up before anne was born, and i don't think they were ever together again after (i would imagine kate was probably adamant about that, and about prioritizing anne's well-being), but eiffel was obviously still in her life, in some capacity, until kate got full custody.

eiffel's got that line in a matter of perspective: "i've been awake for twenty-six hours straight, half of it because i've been sitting by the phone waiting for a call that never came. it's like my teenage love life played out on an intergalactic scale." and while it's a self-deprecating joke, it's probably not... entirely untrue about his dating life in general? we know why his relationship with kate was toxic (the implications of "things get real sid and nancy" speak volumes), and eiffel strikes me as the kind of person who prefers emotional intensity to casual indifference, even if it's terrible for everyone involved. i don't like to lean too much on things the writers have said - not least because gabriel urbina has been very clear that nothing that isn't in the show is strictly canon - but this is all speculation anyway, and the idea that eiffel was a "tv is my parent" kid who grew up unsupervised has always explained a lot about him, to me.

kate is his most significant ex because she's the mother of his daughter, obviously, but i'd be surprised if there were many other people he was that involved with for... a long enough period of time. like, don't get me wrong, i think eiffel has had plenty of hookups, one-or-two-dates, and even ex-girlfriends, but these aren't people who stay in his life; he comes on too strong for casual and doesn't have the day-to-day stability for someone who wants commitment. he's a lonely, stimulation-seeking person - he was a teenager who didn't have luck in love, and then a young adult who made a lot of bad choices (and didn't maintain any stable friendships), and then just... kinda a guy with a lot of baggage. a lot of things just kind of fizzle out because he assumes disinterest from people who don't meet him with that immediate intensity, or, otherwise, he says he's fine keeping things casual, but then he hooks up with someone once and he gets weird whenever he sees her from then on like, wow, crazy that you're here and i'm here... just two people who are both here... hanging out... like friends do. yup. and he tries to put his arm around her and she blocks his number.

[combefier]

the thing that really gets me about how bad the writing for rook in particular is is that it would take so little effort to make it better. and it would probably make the writers' jobs a lot more interesting, too. you should be able to piss off your companions. in every other dragon age, you can piss off your companions. you can piss them off so badly that they try to kill you. if you just sort of fail to impress people one way or another in da2, you can end up having to fight your best friends to the death, or have one of them peace out after prompting an invasion of your city. the ability to have conflict with your companions wasn't always handled WELL (trying to talk to cullen about mage rights in dai comes to mind, as does trying to talk to dorian about slavery beyond the one conversation), but the option was there. it seems like the only way you can piss off your companions here is by making tactical disagreements they don't like. there's no room to have a personality some of your companions find off-putting, even though there are multiple points where your companions are put off by one another. purple hawke we're so not back. and the reason can't be "well you had to be someone varric would choose," because varric's best friend was hawke and there can be very many different kinds of hawke.

you're given a fascinating backstory and it will not come up beyond occasional comments relevant to your faction. mourn watch rook why does your backstory almost never come up i would tell people that story all the time. it's like dming for a player who came up with the most rich backstory you've ever seen and then watching them ignore it every time you dangle plot hooks in front of them. bioware do you remember what you wrote. bioware u good???? the sanitization of various factions aside because that's its whole own post, it would be so easy to give a dialogue here and there where rook could show more of what sort of rook they are by letting them reflect on their backstory. it would be so easy to write aggressive answers that are actually aggressive.

i've spent enough time in editing that i've just been trying to figure out if there's any possible motivation beyond a lack of investment in their own story, or a shocking paucity of good editors in their work environment. is it because the way they designed the game necessitates that everyone be there at the end? but you can still fuck up the ending by making the wrong choices there, à la me2, and you were allowed to piss people off in me2. if you can get people killed at the end anyway, why not let the choices you made and the responses you chose matter beyond "did you do enough sidequests?"

at a certain point, it's just confusing. they know how to do this, even if they don't always do it well. the lack of any real room for agency or personality or conflict is just... odd. this is also leaving aside how easy it would have been to incorporate SOME past choices from past games per their previous work. bioware i just want to talk

[kwyoz]

wow, i love when the dragon age fandom is very normal about veilguard's companions being pansexual and totally not being lowkey really fucking pan and bi phobic.

[uncanny-tranny]

Other people have discussed this more eloquently, but the thing people don't always seem to get about "passing" (think "cis passing" or "straight passing", for instance) is that the concept of "passing" relies on more than just appearance.

Take me for instance, where I do pass as a man, but I have never (and will never) pass as a cishet man. People know I am queer, even if they don't see that I am a trans queer man. Passing is more than wearing certain things or saying certain things. My mannerisms are queer, my speech is queer, my inflection is queer, my stance is queer. People pick up on that. There's nothing wrong with me being seen as queer, but I'm still treated like a queer man, for better and worse. It seems that people forget that, you know?

My point is that passing is very conplex, nuanced, and individual. I use myself as an example, but that by no means indicates that I have a standard experience. I've noticed, however, that many people have over-generalized these conversations, and I think that doesn't do us - as a community - a service.

[bigskydreaming]

The thing that kills me about the Star Wars prequel trilogy and why I will die on my hill that my problem is not that Star Wars is a tragedy, its that its a badly written tragedy, is that Anakin Skywalker was at his closest to being a good Jedi when he was ten years old.

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

.

[leham-n-daavocado]

Just finished the third season of Bridgerton (it was an incredibly frustrating watch)...People have said that Penelope is named as such because of her nickname Pen and her being a writer... but has anyone thought of the reference to the Odyssey and Penelope being the wife of Odysseus? You know, she had to be loyal for 20 years while Odysseus gallivanted across the globe and was distracted/cheating on her Circe? I feel like it goes with the whole Polin narrative too. She's the one who had to wait for him to get a clue. And if you've read the Penguin version of the Odyssey, you know everyone is like omg! Odysseus, so amazing, the sacker of cities etc. Which parallels Colin's "glow up". Totally think it's more of a literary reference since the two of them are writers...

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[starjunkyard]

"Im not even sure anymore if we get to choose who our friends are" There is a part of me that resents you for making me a worse person than i want to be but i am inexplicably uncontrollably drawn to you. You make me a worse person which is the last thing i want yet i want you in every way. If i could leave i would. Maybe i can but i dont want to. I have fun with you. You challenge me and you captivate me and you push me and pull and run circles around me and it makes me feel like a younger man. For the price of being a worse person i get to feel truly, wholly alive. You are the blood that runs through my veins; vital, inseparable. I was reborn when i met you and you are the womb that haunts me. You are the one person on planet earth who knows me. I wish i could leave, move on and be the man im supposed to be but my heart is tied to yours in a gordian knot. There is a part of my soul that rests in yours, magnetic. For as long as i love you i cannot be better than i am. But maybe thats something i can learn to live with. Gregory House-- I think you're worth it.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently