#but also like. she's the poster child of the whole 'black dragons are the most cruel of chromatic dragons'

[illithilit]

Here we see the humanoid form of Malheirirra the Master, an ancient black dragoness that created and lead the lauth ( the dragon equivalent of a monastery, albeit still slightly to the left ) that trained Yzare into what she is. The lauth itself only consisted of herself, a fang dragon by the name of Gholix, and eventually Yzare. Malheirirra was Yzare's mentor, her 'mother,' and her first victim -- followed shortly by Gholix.

While a particularly cruel individual, the fact that she's Yzare's first real guiding hand is why she's chosen to be Yzare's dream guardian. The fact that the dragoness is very, very dead is a fact that escapes memory until well after the Emperor reveals himself.

[kaypeace21]

Idk if this is possible or not or if you've done it already but could you list all the rainbow references in the show?

Haha- talk about pandora’s box. Sure, personally i think the rainbows have multiple meanings -3 meanings to to be exact

1) Rainbows being associated with psychics + Will’s powers plot twist

*We see in the stranger thing novel 'suspicious minds' when overusing powers you may hallucinate rainbows (which are also associated with the void/ monsters in the series) .

Terry: “Spots bloomed behind her eyelids. Every color … as the sunlight turned to rainbows” ( p44-45), “streaks of rainbow appeared (p47)”,“The rainbow stayed with Terry for a long while, but eventually it faded and in its place: darkness. A pit.”(p. 48). 

Alice (who sees visions of the future) : “Snarling, snapping monsters,RAINBOW LIGHTS playing in the air around them” (p. 121).

cough Will being in the upsidedown/being chased by “monsters”. And Joyce communicating with Will  via “rainbow lights.”

The rainbow room (from s2) also has a rainbow on the door- according to the novel kali drew that rainbow. Similar to Will's rainbow drawing. Kali in the book also creates a rainbow allusion with sunflowers (Terry ref).

Kali: “field of yellow sunflowers  grew up around them. A rainbow arcing over the golden tops.” (p. 139).  “He noticed she’d drawn up there, a rainbow with her colored pencils. Maybe he’d suggest that for the playroom” (the rainbow room we see in s2) (p. 298)

I also already talked about how Terry saying "breath, sunflower, rainbow " is actually a reference to s1 Will- here (in link including pic of Will and Terry being told to “breath”.

*El in s3 also thinks of papa, her mother , and the rainbow room- cause she sees a cereal box with a rainbow (on it).

Dustin and susie sing a song from the film adaption of the book "never ending story". Which indicates how Will is subconsciously creating the supernatural creatures & people in the series . Before they sing, we also see  susie is next to a ‘wizard of oz’ posters & she reads & talks to Dustin about the book "wizard of earthsea'. 2 of the 3 examples have  rainbow-related songs (in their film adaptions) & all 3 hint at Will’s powers.

* wizard of earthsea:

It’s about a pre-teen wizard named Ged who has a bowl cut (Will) who casts a powerful spell, but the spell goes awry and instead he releases a shadow creature (by opening a portal between the living & dead- Will is a zombie boy remember?)! The new Archmage, Gensher, describes the shadow as an ancient evil that wishes to possess Ged. But the ‘shadow’ turns out  to be a representation of the darkest aspects of his personality. It’ only when he calls the shadow monster by his own name “Ged”(cough mf=will the wise) does the monster stop acting out. The only way to save the world is for ged to then  merge with the shadow(and for Ged to accept himself-and “become whole”).This also reminds me of the “Jungian shadow” 

* never ending story: 

Bastian ( who has a bowl cut- and is from single parent house hold) subconsciously creates a fantasy world being over run by darkness (symbolizing the loss of hope and dreams). One of the characters he creates is Atreyu (El). Atreyu ( was the child deemed the ‘chosen one). “Atreyu is knocked into the sea of possibilities. There he wakes on the shore of abandoned ruins. And Gmorick (mindflayer) then latches his jaws onto Atreyu’s (El’s) leg.”Pretty much what happened to El.”The Empress in the story later tells Atreyu, that despite being told he was the chosen one (he never was). And that it was always Bastian (Will) who was the chosen one-since his imagination created Fantasia (so he’s the only way to stop the darkness from over -running it).”

Will has mental health issues and  accidentally writes a “story” about the shadow monster (reflecting his tra*ma). Bastian is depressed (over his parent) and subconsciously creates a story about darkness over-running everything. Like how Hopper describes his depression- like a black hole.

song Dustin & Susie sing:

 “Written on the pages is the answer to a never ending story” (cough the books susie referenced - are explaining the answer to what’s causing the mindflayer/upsidedown/the lab...this story )

“DREAM a dream. And what you DREAM will be” ( Will’s imagination making his nightmares come true)

“Rhymes that keep their secrets Will unfold behind the clouds.And there upon a RAINBOW Is the answer to a never ending story.”

(the lyric “rhymes that keep their SECRETS” purposely pans to Will both times the song is sung). Because the ‘SECRET’ is -he’s causing everything. And thus he’s the only way to stop it- or they’ll all be stuck in a never-ending story. The only way to stop it is for Will to face his shadow/the mindflayer (aka the other Will) who is always shown within the STORM CLOUDS . Will needs to create a RAINBOW (out of those storm clouds). Like rainbows that show up AFTER a storm.He’d do this by accepting himself , his tra*ma/mental health relating to his dad, and or his gay identity- then the story will be able to end.Dustin even says “ defeat his RAINBOW of DARKNESS” (and later says a “rainbow is the answer ”(to the story). st book:”The RAINBOW stayed with Terry for a long while, but eventually it faded and in its place: DARKNESS. A pit.”AKA: Will has to face his symbolic darkness and the storm/and than create a rainbow from it- for the story to end...

When Dustin says ‘rainbow of darkness’ he talks about my little pony- where one of their friends became a dragon.  in d&d wizards can become dragons &Bastian also summons a dragon with his imagination powers in ‘never ending story’. And Will is associated with dragons: s1he  has dragon comic & drawing, s2 Will has dragon poster in his room + watches his friends play dragon game. And again... dungeons & dragons.

Also tw for s.a/parental ab*se (so skip to ‘wizard of oz’  if you prefer ). In the 4th book of wizard of Eathsea (20 years after the original, where ged was the protagonist). The new main  protagonist - was r*ped and burned by her father as a child (and in the sequel she became a dragon as a form of empowerment ). which goes with my lonnie theory-sadly.

*wizard of oz: 

it’s about a Dorothy creating a mythical world based on people she both likes and dislikes . Dorothy sings in the movie a song about a ‘RAINBOW’ and references ‘DREAMS’ coming true in a mythical land -much like the ‘never ending story’ song (referencing “rainbows”/”dreams” coming to life).

“There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby Somewhere over the RAINBOW, Skies are blue, And the DREAMS that you dare to dream, really do come true...”

We see in s1 Hopper cop-partner calls the lab “emerald city”. Murray in s2 says people “don’t want to look behind the curtain” (to see what’s causing the supernatural -in the film what was literally behind the curtain was a wizard-cough like Will). We also have -lion, tiger, and bear stuffed animals (as a ‘lion, and tigers, and bears-oh my!’ quote )from the film. And David harbor (Hopper) when referencing the s4 rainbow room (quotes the song)  and he also quotes a speech from Dorothy-when posting about the cabin the mindflayer destroyed.

2) Rainbow cups (hinting at Lonnie’s return) 

We see 2 rainbow cups in the series. 

in s2) when Mike & Will are sitting together & saying they’re “crazy together” . This cup next to them says “happy birthday” in rainbow. Later that season- they talk about Will’s birthday-rainbow drawing, Mike&Will meeting & Lonnie leaving. And in s2, we also see in Will’s room a card that says “sorry, I forgot your birthday”(most likely from Lonnie). So both Lonnie & Mike are associated with Will’s bday.

in s3) We see a woman yell “I don’t want her in my house!” (while she sits next to a rainbow cup). reminiscent of Joyce saying to Lonnie “get out of my house”. We also know there are rumors s4 takes place during Will’s birthday & Lonnie’s actor may have been spotted on set.  Along with the fact (it’s pretty much confirmed) Mike will be visiting the Byers in s4. However, the woman (next to the rainbow cup)  also says “2 visitor only. 2!″

THE 2 VISITORS ARE MIKE &LONNIE (for Will’s b day). 

Also, in s3, when El is drinking from cup- she sees a rainbow. And what’s the first word she thinks of? “Papa.”

so rainbow+cup= shitty dads (lonnie & brenner) probably returning

*And of course if that’s the case -Lonnie (the same guy who called Will h*mophobic sl*rs) will not be supportive of Mike & Will’s “friendship”. And will not be nice to Mike (to say the least). Like... imagine Hopper in s3 - but we know he’s not bluffing and the audience won’t have the option to take it as a joke... and yes the s4 movies hint at that...

3) gay symbolism

First we have Mike wheeler. He in s1 has rainbows sheets, rainbow bedroom blinds , and in his basement there’s a heart propelled by a rainbow. This is like how in s3 Mike kisses El and there is a drawing that says "Mike'. And on the drawing is a heart propelled by a rainbow. I already explained how its symbolic of him trying to be straight/fighting his feelings for Will, but wherever he goes a rainbow still follows (even when he tries being romantic with El). He’s trying to hide his “rainbow heart” by dating  El- why in s3 (the rainbow-heart in his basement) mysteriously disappeared from his room (but a similar symbol follows Mike even when he kisses El). 

Even in s2 when talking about Will (in the AV tech room): Mike is placed in the center of 2 objects : an object with 11 on it & on the right a rainbow apple (this apple is supposed to be an ode to the gay father of computers- but also about the forbidden apple). Hinting at the love triangle of Mike (with El/Will). PLUS, in the ST book ‘worlds turned upsidedown’ they literally show Mike in the AV room- and  put the caption “FALLING IN LOVE- with tech” (and placed rainbow flags next to the caption). And of course we have Mike & Will pose next to the rainbow apple- in the AV room.

 We also see when Mike and Will says they’re “crazy together” (aka LOVE-as Flo stated) and they’re next to a rainbow cup that says Happy birthday .

And later that season they ref the rainbow ship Will drew for his birthday-which Joyce was "proud" of.  And while dancing with a girl (Will according to the script was looking at Mike instead of her) . That girl is wearing a rainbow heart hair pin. This is essentially a parallel to Mike . Will (next to a rainbow heart) is dancing with a girl, but is secretly thinking of Mike. Mike (next to a rainbow heart) is kissing el but secretly thinking of Will (and immediately goes on a movie double date with Will after this). The lyrics of both these scenes indicate they're not happy pretending to be straight. The lyrics for Will are "every smile you fake". And Mike while kissing el is "just a little uncertainty can bring you down" (and during this lyric is when El puts her hands on him-and he removes her hands from him *aka he’s not as confident in the relationship as he pretends to be.

We see in s4 bts that the rainbow heart hair pin (worn by the girl Will dances with) is also worn by nancy while standing next to Robin (who is gay). So being near a  ‘rainbow-heart’ is prob a hint a character is gay. Aka robin & Will & Mike.

tumblr user “awhstrangerthings” pointed out the nancy -hair clip detail.

In s1 when troy is calling Will h*mophobic sl*rs (in front of Mike) he wears a rainbow shirt. And max while often critiquing m*leven (in s3) (to Mike) often wears rainbow shirts. I talked about how I thought Troy and max subconsciously remind Mike he isn't straight - so they're associated with the rainbow iconography-post here. Like we see Max with rainbow sheets (like Mike) and than she immediately talks to him on the phone. I mean she could be queer- but I lean to that theory at the moment. 

The whole being near rainbows when associating with a queer character makes sense (it’s like a ‘gay-dar”). Similar to Nancy’s hair clip when being near Robin/ that Girl having the same rainbow hair clip when dancing with Will. If we assume this theory than see a pattern with other characters (when speaking about/being near queer coded characters)....

it’s similar to how : When lucas (via subtext) criticizes m*leven- he is also next to a rainbow (in Erica's room). I explained here- why it’s about m*leven.

or when Jonathan says he’s going to hang out with Will (it’s near a rainbow).

This Jonathan moment -Is similar to when Steve ( who has a rainbow bandaid-from the Byers’ house) calls Mike “Nancy” (which is slang for a gay guy)

*another addition: you see in the comments of this post ghostgirlsatin mentioned Dart has a rainbow blanket. But, I noticed a couple of other things. 

notice Dustin says "we have to talk- its about my friend ,Will". As Dustin is near rainbow lights and a rainbow bed sheet. Like how

A) rainbows are associated with the supernatural creatures + Will

B) rainbow lights associated with Will

C) rainbows near straight characters when talking about /near queer characters... similar to how Jonathan is near a rainbow when talking about Will

*also can’t tell if that is a ‘rainbow ship’ poster?

We also see Erica has a sunflower & rainbow drawing in her room... at the moment not sure if its just a random easteregg , foreshadowing something supernatural we're not aware of yet? or just for the m*leven diss?

(although given the fact i think some characters were created by Will- and given all the Max &Billy/Will & jonathan parallels ... the rainbow stuff may be a hint Will created them? I mean they even made a Troy comic just to show his dad is a bully.) But, at the moment, i still lean to (some) characters having rainbow iconography because they’re referring to/are near a queer character.

[marybeatriceofmodena]

You know, I’ve been thinking today about how Alina doesn’t even really work as a Reluctant Hero, compared her to Frodo to see the key differences (since Frodo is pretty much the Poster Child for the Reluctant Hero), and then I realized... 

You know, I think L/eigh B/ardugo wrote TGT as a very black-and-white fairytale, where Alina is the princess, Mal’s the knight in the shining armor, and the Darkling is basically the dragon, except it doesn’t really work because the worldbuilding requires an approach that’s... a lot more grey? 

The thing is, though, I realized... Alina and Mal are basically meant to be Frodo and Sam. Except that, again... it doesn’t really work. 

Frodo works as a Reluctant Hero, because he makes it clear multiple times that he doesn’t want to carry the Ring. He asks Gandalf to do it for him, he asks Galadriel, he asks Aragorn, and they all refuse, because they are (or are called to be) in a position of power, and while them being in a position of power is presented as good, the One Ring essentially represents the fast, easy way to get to it, which will ultimately corrupt them rather than have them fight their way towards their goal. 

Frodo, meanwhile, is the right person to carry the Ring, because he comes from a humble place and he doesn’t really have any aspirations to become powerful. And while he’s clearly burdened by having to carry the One Ring, and that he makes it clear that he wishes the Ring had never come to him, he still goes on anyway, despite all the hardships he faces, because his ultimate goal is to save the Shire and his friends, and that desire is stronger than any fear or greed he may have. 

Now, J.R.R. Tolkien himself said that he didn’t really see Frodo as THE Hero, and that Sam is the real Hero of the story to him. Which makes sense, given how Sam was based off young men from rural England he met while fighting in World War I. But also, the story makes it very clear that without Sam, who’s arguably the most pure-hearted person in all of Middle-Earth, Frodo would have definitely failed in his task. The reason why he resists the temptation to carry the One Ring is LITERALLY because him protecting and helping Frodo is more important to him. Sam doesn’t give two shits about power. Helping Frodo save the Shire and coming back to everything he’s ever loved is more important to him. 

Both Alina and Frodo are pure-hearted orphans who are given tremendous power: Alina is the Sun Summoner, and Frodo carries the One Ring. In both cases, power is represented as a corruptive force, that makes people go mad with greed. It works in the context of The Lord of the Rings, given how the rings were given to leaders of Elves, Dwarves and Men, and that Sauron created the One Ring to rule over and control all of them. The Grisha, on the other hand, unlike the Ring-bearers, are not in a position of power, given they are essentially victims of Fantastic Racism in pretty much every country. While Ravka treats them slightly better than in Fjerda or Shu Han, it’s still not ideal and it’s something that could be taken away from them at any moment. It would be an entirely different matter if the Grisha were the ones rulling over Ravka and viewing otkazat’sya as lesser, and in that context, Alina being the Sun Summoner would be a very obvious road to her becoming corrupted. 

Frodo refusing to carry the One Ring and asking other people to take that burden from him comes from a place of genuine fear of what the Ring might do to him. In his place, we’d probably all do the same thing. That’s what makes his acceptance of his task all the more admirable. Alina, on the other hand, refuses to be the Sun Summoner and to help her fellow Grisha because that stands in the way of her ending up with Mal. She never gives any sign that she’s truly empathizing with the Grisha’s plight, she tries to run away not once, but twice, and most importantly, she never sees herself as one of them. They are othered, but it matters little to her, because she doesn’t want to be othered herself, because that stands in the way of her running off with a boy. It’s basically the equivalent of Frodo being overcome by fear after seeing the fate of the Shire in Galadriel’s mirror, and just demanding to be sent to the Grey Havens straight away to save his own ass from it all and just leaving the One Ring to whoever wants to deal with it. At that point, it’s not being a Reluctant Hero: it’s being a coward at best, a selfish bastard at worst. 

(And that’s why I don’t really buy her when she tells Aleksander that they could have had it all if he had told her all the truth from the start, because... again, she didn’t seem to care about the Grisha that much and Aleks telling her everything would have actually been a sure way of having her run as fast as possible the other way. I know the story is trying to tell me otherwise and that the plot point I’m supposed to see here is that Alina was willing to do something until she felt betrayed by Aleks, which is... not what was shown here, and it’s especially annoying considering how Alina is a deserter in every sense of the word, and that any army would have court-martialed her for running away.) 

So if Alina is meant to be a pure, selfless heroine, who loses her powers because she also refuses to be greedy... that just falls completely flat, because if anything, she’s as selfish as Frodo is selfless, because all of this really just boils down to her wanting to run off with Mal. 

Now, onto Sam and Mal. Both of them are basically Everymen who are there to help the Hero and keep their feet on the ground. As mentioned earlier, Sam is the one who helps Frodo finish his mission to Mordor, and the story makes it clear Frodo would have failed without him. TGT meanwhile presents Mal as Alina’s “True North”... which could work on paper as Alina’s reminder to temper Aleksander’s efforts and to remind him that in order for Grisha to be viewed as people, it is important for them to also remember that balance and peace between Grisha and otkazat’sya will be essential, so resentment and hatred can be healed between both groups. 

The key difference here is that Sam is completely supportive of Frodo at all times. Even when Frodo sends him away in the film, Sam goes back after him the minute he realizes he’s been tricked by Gollum. He never shames Frodo whenever he falls prey to temptation, he simply reminds him of who he is and what he must fight for, and even when he’s climbing Mount Doom, he still carries Frodo on his back despite being probably completely exhausted, because Frodo’s more exhausted than he is. He completely accepts Frodo as both his friend, the Hobbit from the Shire, and the Ring-bearer he needs to help, even if he might die in the process. 

Mal (in the books, that is) makes it very clear that he does not accept Alina as both the girl he knew and the Sun Summoner. He only wants the girl, and whenever Alina makes steps towards being the Sun Summoner, he basically sulks and yells at her for not paying attention to him. Despite Alina becoming othered in the eyes of the world, he refuses to see her as othered, mostly because it is inconvenient to him rather than because he loves her for who she is. That’s why in the end, people feel like Alina lost her powers in order to be with Mal, because Mal would never accept her in her entirety. Sam, on the other hand, accepts Frodo as both Ring-bearer and Hobbit, because if he didn’t, Frodo would have failed. 

And while they made Mal in the show a lot nicer than his book counterpart, he still doesn’t work as Alina’s “True North”, because he cossets her in her selfishness. He may say he doesn’t care about how Alina is a Grisha in this one, but he also doesn’t consider the implications of it all - which is especially glaring given he’s a soldier himself. Like, look, if you’re going to slap in a racism plotline to make Mal/ina work, you’d think that being half-Shu would give Mal a little awareness that people are going to treat Alina badly for being half-Shu AND a Grisha, and given Alina is the MOTHERFUCKING SUN SUMMONER AND A SAINT, maybe, just maybe he’d tell her: “Heh, it’s kinda lame we’ll just run off and let everyone else in the dust, you know, especially since we could make our lives as well as everyone else’s better?” Seriously, if you’re going to make Mal Alina’s “True North”, have him face her duties and her calling whether she likes it or not, don’t coddle her when she wants to run the other way because she wants to hide under a rock for the rest of her life. 

With all that being said, that leaves us with the Darkling, who... I mean, given his whole schtick is that power corrupts and makes you evil and crazy, I guess that makes him Gollum, but sexy. 

Gollum, but sexy. 

That single expression has been haunting me ever since I started writing the above novel and I fucking hate it. You’re welcome. No one wanted Sexy Gollum. Absolutely no one. Fuck this shyte. See, this is why I want Darkling Redemption. I do not want to live in a world where Gollum is sexy. I need brain bleach. 

Even here it doesn’t even fucking work because Gollum hid in a cave with the Ring with a strategically placed cloth because no one wants to see his crusty ass family jewels anyway, while Aleks worked his ass off to give the Grisha a safe place to live and to at the very least ensure they’re useful enough to not be killed like animals. Like, if you’re going to give the world something that’s gonna definitely not make me sleep tonight like Sexy Gollum, at least do it right. 

[weirwoodking]

who do you think will be on the throne at the end? is there a chance it will be a woman? do you agree with the theory that bran will be king in the north bc he symbolizes winterfell? idk if i see dany on the throne bc i don't feel like she belongs in westeros, i think she would be better off with a throne on the other side of the narrow sea but i really don't know what i'm saying

It’s very hard to make predictions for ADOS, because we don’t have TWOW yet. So much can change about the story and the characters in one book, thematically and narratively. Think of how much the plot was influenced by just that final Bran chapter in ADWD. 

But, here I go anyway.

My short answer is: no one. (And no, I don’t mean Arya)

Let’s get into it.

Part 1: How the Show Tainted Everyone’s Brains

Obviously, a lot of people care about the Iron Throne plot. Sometimes too much. I do believe that this is mostly because of how much the HBO show changed everything about the story to make the Iron Throne seem like it was more important than anything else. Like promotional posters of all the actors each sitting on the throne, the name of the series itself being changed to “Game of Thrones”, actors getting asked in every interview “who do you think should get the Iron Throne?” as if it’s the last cupcake at a birthday party that everyone’s fighting over, the final episode was titled “The Iron Throne”. The marketing for everything was “it’s the fight for the Throne!” up through the eighth season. It made the object itself become a huge pop culture symbol.

It almost felt like the show was trying to make it seem like the goal of the Night King (a character not in the books) was to sit on the Iron Throne! The show portrayed it as if the Others were just a little distraction that needed to be dealt with so the characters could get back to arguing over the Porcupine Chair. However, in ASOIAF, it’s the exact opposite. The Porcupine Chair is what’s distracting the characters from the real conflict, the Others.

It’s almost comical how that has somewhat transferred over into the fandom, the “game of thrones” is what’s keeping everyone from focusing on what really matters, the “song of ice and fire”.

Part 2: GRRM’s Quote

It wasn't easy for me. I didn't want to give away my books. Every character has a different end. I told them who would be on the Iron Throne, and I told them some big twists like Hodor and "hold the door", and Stannis' decision to burn his daughter. We didn't get to everybody by any means.

-George R.R. Martin

So, he “told them who would be on the Iron Throne”. Something important about this quote is that he doesn’t say who. And, of course, the Iron Throne gets destroyed at the end of the show anyway. Show!Bran doesn’t really “end up on the Iron Throne”. Show!Dany does. George never said that who “ends up” on it in the books is who ends up on it in the show. He’s said that the Shireen thing and the Hodor thing will “happen very differently” in the books anyway. And, of course, another major part of that quote is “every character has a different end”.

I don’t think that who sits the Iron Throne last is necessarily going to be the ruler of Westeros at the end. For example, Cersei (or Aegon) may be the last person to sit the Iron Throne. Or even Euron (however, even though his goal is to rule post-apocalyptic Westeros as a god from the Iron Throne, I don’t think he’ll actually get there). If wildfire is hot enough to melt iron, I could see the throne being destroyed during whatever fiery shenanigans go down with Cersei and JonCon in TWOW. I think it would be fitting for the fight over the throne to end in the next book. ‘Cause the winds of winter are coming, baby, and it’s gonna be time to start dreaming of spring.

Part 3: The Weirwood King

The idea/theory of Bran becoming King has been around for a long time, long before the HBO show even started airing. This is because of the Celtic myth of King Brân the Blessed, whose name means “Blessed Crow” or “Blessed Raven” in Welsh. Other than the obvious connection with the name, Brân the Blessed’s story involves a magic cauldron that can bring the dead back to life. 

In the myth, Brân’s head is cut off and continues talking (think of how Bran’s most powerful aspect is the magical powers of his mind), because in Celtic mythology the head is believed to be where the soul is.

Celts had a reputation as head hunters. According to Paul Jacobsthal, "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the otherworld." (source)

Catch that? “Otherworld”. There is another myth (Irish, specifically) called the Voyage of Bran, in which the title character goes on a quest to the Otherworld. The Otherworld is a supernatural realm in Celtic mythology. It is also where the sidhe (a.k.a. aos sí) live. Remember, the sidhe are what George has said the Others are inspired by. In Irish mythology, the Otherworld is called Tír na nÓg, Mag Mell and Emain Ablach, in Welsh mythology it’s called Annwn, and in Arthurian legend it’s called Avalon. Fun fact, “Avalon” was the title of the novel George was writing when he had suddenly had the idea of a scene in which a young boy and his brothers see a beheading and then find a litter of direwolf pups in the snow. And so ASOIAF happened.

I’ll leave that there, and try not to go down the great big rabbit-hole of Celtic (and other cultures) mythology connections in ASOIAF. The takeaway is: ASOIAF has been influenced by these myths.

I do believe that Bran is going to be King. Not just because of his ties to this mythology, but also because of symbolism in his own story. The most notable one being…

Under the hill, the broken boy sat upon a weirwood throne, listening to whispers in the dark as ravens walked up and down his arms.

[...]

The singers made Bran a throne of his own, like the one Lord Brynden sat, white weirwood flecked with red, dead branches woven through living roots. 

[...]

His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child. 

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is also the only one of the Stark kids who still thinks of himself as royalty:

What was he now? Only Bran the broken boy, Brandon of House Stark, prince of a lost kingdom, lord of a burned castle, heir to ruins.

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is the heir to Winterfell. It doesn’t matter if Robb named Jon his heir in his will, the will was written under the pretense that Bran and Rickon were dead.

However, Bran doesn’t have any connection to the Iron Throne. It’s far more likely that he would sit on a weirwood throne, because of, y’know, everything about his story. So, if Bran was King of the Seven Kingdoms, I don’t think it would be on the Pincushion Stool.

If Bran is king of the realm, I do think there would still be a separate Lord/Lady of Winterfell, but I do think that there’s a possibility of a Pevensie siblings ending, where all the Stark kids would rule together as the Lords and Ladies and Winterfell.

Something that I’ve never really seen talked about regarding the idea of Bran becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms is the religious differences between the North and the southern regions of Westeros. Of course, the show didn’t deal with this at all. For fuck’s sake, they had Cersei blow up the Westerosi verison of the Vatican and face no backlash. It was so laughably absurd how Show!Cersei’s destructive reign was shown to have like… zero impact on the Seven Kingdoms. 

In short, I’m not too sure that the Kingdom who is majority Faith of the Seven worshippers would react too well to a weirwood-tree-Old-Gods-warg-wizard-king. I mean, when Janos Slynt finds out Jon is a warg he calls him a “thing”, a “creature”, and a “beastling that is not fit to live”, and wanted to execute him not just for being a turncloak but for being a warg as well. And Jojen warns Bran of these things, saying that his own folk may want to kill him if they know what he is.

But… all of that anti-magic attitude might not matter after night falls. 

Part 4: Winter is Coming

I believe that the Long Night is going to be very devastating for the Seven Kingdoms.

Martin is a big believer in making things have meaningful, permanent consequences in his stories. I don’t think that an apocalyptic event like the Long Night is something that’s just gonna get dealt with in a quick snap and have no lasting effect.

A lot of people are going to die. I don’t mean main characters, I mean people that would not survive a normal winter and sure as hell won’t be prepared for this one. Westeros’s food stores have been severely depleted by the War of the Five Kings, and we’ve been told multiple times in the text (particularly AFFC and ADWD) that feeding people during this winter is going to be extremely hard.

Besides that… the whole, uh, invasion of the eldritch ice beings thing might have a bit of an impact on the realm. 

I won’t go into depth about how the Seven Kingdoms will be affected by the Long Night, ‘cause we really have no idea. But, however it all goes down, I do think it will have lasting changes for the people of Westeros. The impact that it leaves may make the concept of Bran being a wizard-king more acceptable. “Oh, well we’ve just seen zombies and winter elves, so what’s too surprising about a magical greenseer warg king?” I think that Westerosi culture becoming more aware and accepting of the existence of magic is the only way that Bran could become the king of the whole realm. The Westeros at the end of the series is not going to be the place that it was at the beginning.

Part 5: Dany: A Home, Not a Throne

To sum up my thoughts on our dragon girl, I don’t think Dany will end up on the Spiky Toilet. I don’t want Dany to be on the Spiky Toilet.

Now, my personal speculation (which a lot of people disagree with, which is fine) is that Dany will never see King’s Landing before the Long Night. I personally don’t think that Dany will ever meet Aegon or Cersei. I don’t see there being enough time in the story for that. Yes, GRRM said that there will be a second Dance of the Dragons, but he also said that the second Dance does not have to involve Dany. He may have originally planned for it to be Aegon and Dany, but probably not once the Meereenese Knot happened.

The Meereenese Knot is what Dany’s ADWD plot is referred to as. GRRM did not intend for Dany to stay in Meereen as long as she has, but because of his “gardener” style of writing, that’s where the story led him. GRRM has said that one of the hardest parts of writing the Meereen plotline (which involves Dany, Barristan, Quentyn, Tyrion, and Victarion) is trying to find a way to cut the plot knot he accidentally got himself stuck in. He has said that Tyrion and Dany will meet towards the end of TWOW, which means that Dany will most likely be spending a large portion of her story with the Dothraki. That part is a completely blank page, but I believe that Dany will meet Tyrion possibly ¾ of the way into the book, and sail for Westeros at the end.

I won’t write a full meta about this here (because that’s not what this post is about), but to summarize my prediction: Aegon VS Cersei is going to be the battle in King’s Landing, a battle which will destroy the city. Dany (who has already rejected sailing for the Throne multiple times) will still be stuck in Essos, dealing with everything she’s still got going on, and will sail for Westeros at the end. Not for the Throne, but to go North for the real fight (remember that Marwyn is also on his way to Meereen to tell Dany that they need her).

Because Dany's purpose is not to fight for the Iron Throne, it’s to fight the Others. Dany (fire, light, and life) VS the Others (ice, darkness, and death) is the main thing the title refers to:

“Well of course the two outlying ones, the things that are going on north of the Wall and Daenerys Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons are of course the Ice and Fire of the title, the Song of Ice and Fire.” 

- George R.R. Martin, 2016

One of the most important excerpts that shows us where Dany’s story is headed is this:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

- Daenerys III, A Storm a Swords

Dany has a short prophetic “this is what I was meant to do” dream. Dany could possibly have more dreams about the Others in TWOW, visions that will make what Marwyn has to tell her more believable. It’s not like that dream was the only one Dany has had that alludes to the winter threat, Dany has had visions about this since book one:

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

- Dany IX, A Game of Thrones

Anyway, there’s just a lot more foreshadowing in the plot that this is what Dany is meant to do. I think adding in another conflict into her story once she leaves Meereen would make the story feel bloated and would severely fuck up the pacing.

I don’t think Dany will ever see the Iron Throne. The themes of her story have never been about her wanting the Iron Throne for what it is, but for what it represents to her. It represents the possibility of a home and of feeling safe for the first time in her life, what Dany truly wants. I think that it’s absolutely fine if Dany never sees the Throne or sits on it, and that it makes more sense for her narrative arc if she discovers that she can find a home somewhere else, not necessarily where she thought it would be. 

Part 6: Final Thoughts

So, in conclusion, I don’t really give a shit who ends up placing their ass on the Forbidden Laz-E-Boy, I care about the War for the Dawn. I care about seeing the characters I’ve followed for the past five books coming together to fight the real conflict of A Song of Ice and Fire. Also, even if we do get a Scouring of the Shire-type post-climax for ASOIAF, it doesn’t matter. People don’t see the Scouring of the Shire as the climax of Lord of the Rings, they see the climax as Aragorn leading the forces of good against the forces of evil and Frodo and Sam throwing the One Ring into Mount Doom. Whatever ending resolution comes after the climax of ASOIAF, it doesn’t change what the climax is.

"Do you think your brother's war is more important than ours?" the old man barked.

Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him. "War, war, war, war," it sang.

"It's not," Mormont told him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?"

"No." Jon had not thought of it that way.

- Jon IX, A Game of Thrones

TL;DR:

My prediction: Cersei will be the last person to sit the Iron Throne, which will be destroyed in the Wildfire of King’s Landing. After the Long Night devastates the Seven Kingdoms, Bran will become the King of this new Westeros that has been majorly affected by the return of magic. Also, it would be real nice if Dany found her red door.

God I hope my rambling made sense

[emhowling]

e m m a   l o u i s e   v a n i t y

basics:

name: emma louise vanity. pronunciation: eh·muh loo·ease va·nuh·tee. meaning: emma- whole & universal. louise- famous warrior. birthday: august 13th. age: twenty-two. pronouns: she & her & they. sexuality: bisexual. siblings: heather, trey, & sage vanity. the pack. parents: darrell & darlene vanity. rosalyn & fenrir greyback. other family: the greyback pack. languages: english. romani. grunts. current residence: trailer in the greyback caravan. hometown: warwickshire.

wizard fun:

hogwarts house: slytherin. year of graduation: 1977. occupation: tattoo artist & piercer at markus scarr’s. pet: beta fish named nicole. blood status: muggleborn. species: werewolf. patronus: leopardess. leopards are graceful hunters. they symbolize elegance in spite of adversity and looming danger. they are great representations of warriors and hunters. it also symbolizes stealth and strength. both traits are good to have if you’re hunting or seeking something. sensuality and passion are usually attributed to them. additionally, they are considered symbols of privacy and secrets.  boggart: emma is very, very claustrophobic. she is always terrified of being locked into a small confined space or being chain up. amortentia:   blackberries. emma doesn’t necessarily love blackberries, but she does love anything that is blackberry flavored. blackberry pies, blackberry cobblers, blackberry jams, jellies, lollipops, and even blackberry wine is her favorite thing to have. they used to grow at the treeline of the playground behind the trailer where she was born. wildflowers. no matter where or what time if emma sees wildflowers growing, she’ll stop to enjoy them. they’ve always been a secret love of hers and frankly, she finds them far more beautiful than any curated flowers. they’re never the same thing twice, but they make everywhere smell infinitely better. whiskey. it isn’t even her drink of choice. if asked, emma would much rather be let loose with tequila. there is just something about the smell of high brow whiskey that reminds her of something happy. wand type: 9 1/3″, black walnut wood wand with a dragon heartstring core, stubborn and bouncy. less common than the standard walnut wand, that of black walnut seeks a master of good instincts and powerful insight. black walnut is a very handsome wood, but not the easiest to master. it has one pronounced quirk, which is that it is abnormally attuned to inner conflict, and loses power dramatically if its possessor practices any form of self-deception. if the witch or wizard is unable or unwilling to be honest with themselves or others, the wand often fails to perform adequately and must be matched with a new owner if it is to regain its former prowess. paired with a sincere, self-aware owner, however, it becomes one of the most loyal and impressive wands of all, with a particular flair in all kinds of charmwork. as a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. while they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner. the dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the dark arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental. affiliation: de affiliated, loyalty only to the greybacks.

appearance:

height: 5′. hair color: brown. eye color: brown. typical hair style: tied up into a bun on top of her hand with a scarf wrapped around it or braided in intricate patterns. fashion style: emma wears a little bit of this and a little bit of that. a lot of her clothes are acquired by just being near her and wearable. she goes through a lot of clothes given how tough she is on the fabric. there is a lot of layering, but there’s nothing emma hates more than being too hot so she had the tendency to shed them until she’d comfortable. [ fashion ] distinguishing features: emma has a lot of scars over her body, some full moon related and other not. she has a few small tattoos. her weight fluctuates somewhat wildly based on the lunar cycle, and sometimes she does look markedly pallid. notably when she smiles, she has deep set dimples.

personality:

positive traits: innovative. nimble. artistic. negative traits: combative. disorganized. tactless. theme song: hungry like the wolf by duran duran.

headcanons:

emma has been drawing for as long as she can remember. if there’s a pencil or pen or quill in sight, emma will pick it up and set to drawing something. her favorite medium is definitely charcoal since it’s the easiest to come by and use quickly.

fuck shoes. if given a choice, emma would literally go barefoot all of the time. she kicks off her shoes at any given opportunity, and especially likes to go running when she is barefooted.

emma is a small girl and perhaps an even smaller wolf. it’s easy to spot her on a full moon as she is particularly small and irritatingly fast on her feet. she’s been lovingly referred to as the runt of the litter more often than not.

biography:

Darrell and Darlene Vanity never intended to be absent parents. Truly they didn’t, but they were young, and they were poor. Four children weren’t cheap. It took a lot of extra shifts, saving, and scraping by to just afford the power and water in their little trailer at the very edge of the park where the fence didn’t quite meet ends. More often than not, they were all four left to fend for themselves. More often than not, there just wasn’t enough room in the confined little trailer. The parents slept in the large bed crammed in the small side room with the eldest two kids, but the youngest two had a kitchen table that converted down so a mattress could slide on top. Needless to say, Emma Vanity always felt a bit trapped in such mundane circumstances.

There was a big hole in the fence around the back that the kids could crawl through while no one was looking. Emma couldn’t remember the first time she snuck through that old rusted metal to the playground on the other side. If asked, she would tell you that it was the first day she learned how to toddle out the front door of the trailer. She would spend hours on the swings, the seesaw, the merry go round, and the slides. Most of the fixtures barely worked, but it was a good escape for the Vanity kids. It was where Emma made her first drawing. It was where she broke her arm for the first time. It was where she first met the Greybacks. 

Only eight years old at the time, and already far too keen to escape her surroundings. Emma skipped school more often than not, it felt like the trailer in too many ways. Small-minded and confined by the walls of a big prison where the adults yelled at you for needing to piss or drawing on your tests or running at full speed down the hall. It just wasn’t a place for someone like her, and she didn’t need to be any older to see it. There was more to her than the other snotty little kids around her. Even if no one else could see it from the trailer trash. She had been busy that day trying to repair the rusted chain of the old swing set with the little bit of that unexplained extra she possessed, which later Emma learned was the beginning of her magic slipping through, when she got caught.

From the treeline, a woman stepped forward. She was perhaps the most beautiful person that Emma had ever seen. The first thing she did was tell Emma that she was special. Well they could definitely agree on that. The woman offered her more. More than a trailer and more than a rusted playground and distant school. More than parents who forgot her and siblings who didn’t notice her. Emma took her hand and never looked back. Frankly, she never even knew if her parents put up missing posters or not. It was probably a relief to have one less mouth to feed. 

Fenrir wasted no time biting her. That first transition was the hardest thing that she had ever had to go through. The pain of shedding her skin will be seared into the very core of her memory for the rest of her life. Yet, there was never any hesitation because she was a child or even any thought that she could not keep up with the rest of the pack. It was just expected that she would, and Emma lived for that independence. The Greybacks held to every promise made to her. They were far more parents to her than the Vanity’s had ever been. They raised her.

It was harder than she wanted to admit to leave them for Hogwarts, but ‘kids go to school’. So Emma went. It was confining at first. There was too much she wasn’t allowed to do again. It wasn’t easy to keep things under wraps, Emma had never been a very good secret keeper. Her first year, she certainly spent more time in detention than she ever did in class. She would spend hours drawing the intricate architecture of the castle and her classmates in various states of distress or joy. That is when she discovered Quidditch. She was hooked. The only reason she started to do her coursework was so that her marks would be good enough to play. A proper chaser in all regards. She even managed captain in her later years. It was likely the only reason she didn’t drop out in her fifth year like her parents had. That and a handful of good friends she wasn’t quite ready to lose. Besides, apparently the accommodations for werewolves had really improved in recent years. It wasn’t unbearable to tolerate the time. 

After graduation, Emma returned to her pack. Fenrir had made a deal with the devil, and that was just fine by her. It wasn’t as if she was particularly keen on a war, but it was always fun to have something to do. It kept her close enough to her school friends too. She trusted him with her life. That included what said life entailed. If he thought it was the right call, Emma would believe him. However, there’s been a building tension about just how right that call might be. In her spare time, she picked up a relatively flexible job at the local tattoo parlor as an artist and piercer, but there is a part of her that is screaming- what’s next?

[vecna]

Oohh for the fandom meme! Dragon Age?

Send me a fandom!

Oh boy, this is going to be spicy.

It’s also very Anders-negative, so apologies up front.

The character(s) I first fell in love with:

I’m actually not sure which was the FIRST, but it’s a tie between Morrigan and Alistair. I saw fanart of them going around at the time Origins first released, and that’s what got me to try the game! 

Alistair was a breath of fresh air, because at the time, I was used to warrior men in games being all Edgy and Rough, and he was the total opposite and a sweetheart.

And Morrigan was just instantly my goth wife, and had Claudia Black as a VA, so I was sold immediately.

Both still hold a special place for me!

The character(s) I never expected to love as much as I do now:

Loghain is the main one. He does a lot of truly reprehensible shit in the first game. But once I sat down and read the prequel novels about young Loghain, plus saw what he’s like if you recruit him, he grew on me A LOT and now he’s a top fave.

Nathaniel I expected to hate as soon as I saw his name + who his father was, but then the expansion came out and I ended up loving that dude almost immediately. I really wish he was around more after Awakening, and also really wish he’d been a romance option, especially for a Cousland haha.

Merrill is a weird one because she was totally uninteresting to me in DA:O, so when they announced her as a companion in DA2 I was like, “Ehhhh.” Then they punked me by making her adorable and sweet and now I love her.

Plus a bunch of side-characters like The Architect? I liked him a bunch in the novel + Awakening – although I found his Plan in the novel much more appealing. But as the years have gone by, I keep surprising myself at just HOW disappointed I am he’s never appeared again haha.

The character(s) everyone else loves that I don’t:

There’s a few, and all of them will get me yelled at, but here we go.

First: Isabela. This one’s a bit complicated, but it really just boils down to her attitude towards how you play your character. I actively dislike characters who are super sexual – regardless of gender. But Isabela in particular bothers me because she’s constantly pushing her lewdness and sexual humor on you, and when you try to discourage it, she admonishes you with, “Well, you’re no fun.” Her whole character is just… like that for me. Super pushy, overly lewd, gets uppity when you don’t have the same ~liberated~ opinions she does, and this is all played up in the writing like she’s this Empowered Woman the player absolutely must love, especially if they’re playing a male character lol. I hate her for the same reasons a lot of people hate Liara in Mass Effect, but with the addition of pushy lewd jokey characters always rubbing me the wrong way.

Second: Iron Bull. I’ve written a lot about why he makes me more uncomfortable than any fictional character I’ve ever encountered, and I just outright hate him, he makes my skin crawl. If you want details, feel free to DM me, I don’t really want to rant about it again publicly.

Third: Anders. Again, I’ve written a lot about him before, but. I hated him in Awakening, for a lot of the same reasons I hate Isabela in DA2. But the changes they made to him in DA2 are just kinda :/. While I absolutely agree with him about Mage Rights, the level of preachiness they added to him drove me nuts, and the fact that you’re painted as a Bad Guy if you don’t like him blowing up the chantry. And from a purely OOC standpoint: He’s become a figurehead for all the aggressive Discourse people in the fandom, and if I see someone list Anders in their sidebar bio, I know pre-emptively that their blog is going to be full of 6 page long essays of meta about how everything is Problematic, and no thanks.

To a lesser extent, I’m also not fond of Zevran. But in his case, it’s not anything major like the others, I’m just tired of Bioware’s habit of making the bisexual characters overly lewd sex-focused rogues/deviants.

The character(s) I love that everyone else hates:

Loghain, lol.

But also Sebastian Vael? There’s so much about him that I find genuinely fascinating, especially regarding his backstory, and his struggles between his feelings of responsibility to his family vs his dedication to the Chantry and bettering himself. He’s such a dear character to me, and such a pivotal part of any playthrough, I’m always blown away when I remember he’s a DLC character and many people don’t have him.

HOWEVER Anders being the fandom darling means that people tend to unfairly shit on Sebastian for reacting poorly to the Chantry explosion. People also like to label him as a poster child of a White Straight Church Boy, while refusing to acknowledge he’s… not straight, and not exactly a church boy either lol.

Also Vivienne, but I think that one’s really self-explanatory. I love her, and she gives a really needed perspective on the Circle, since most of the mage companions previously were apostates. But of course, she gets written off as a Chantry apologist, and an uppity bitch, when people would def love her for the same traits if she was not black lol.

The character(s) I used to love but don’t any longer:

Justice. And by extension, Anders. A lot of people like to rant about how Justice ruined Anders, but I always saw it the other way around.Justice was my favorite character in Awakening. The whole concept around him, that he was a Fade spirit who took human form and was experiencing life for the first time was SO fascinating. I felt like there was so much to explore there with his character.

Buuuut then they had him merge with Anders. With the narrative being that he WAS a spirit of Justice, but the moment he connected with Anders, it corrupted his entire spirit into something he wasn’t anymore. So essentially, the character I used to love no longer exists, thanks to Anders. And it reminds me of that phrase recently, about how the destination is so terrible you can no longer enjoy the journey? I can’t even appreciate Justice in Awakening anymore, knowing what happens to him.

To a lesser extent, Corypheus. He was SO COOL and the premise of him was AMAZING when he first appeared in the DA2 DLC, but then Inquisition had to go and turn him into a weird shallow mustache twirl villain.

The character(s) I would totally smooch:

None? Idk I don’t really have the Smooch Fictional Character gene.

The character(s) I’d want to be like:

MAEVARIS TILANI. May I one day finally have the confidence in my identity that she does, and also marry a sweet bear man who adores me.

The character(s) I’d slap:

Too many to list, really. Probably Anders.

The pairing(s) that I love:

THERE’S SO MANY. And most of them are with the PC, because I generally don’t ship NPCs together. But my top 3 are:

M!Hawke / Fenris is my ultimate OTP in the Dragon Age series, by a long-shot. Not even sure where to start on how much I love it, but two damaged guys leaning on each other to work through their respective loneliness and trauma is MY JAM. And lmao I love silver-sideburned Hawke chillin in retirement somewhere but being a supportive husband while Fenris goes off hunting the Bad Guys, it’s great.

Solas / Lavellan is a close second, with the caveat that I increasingly prefer it with a male Lavellan. Having the Inquisitor in love with Solas just changes the entire tone of the game for me, for the better, and him actually being the villain trying to end the world while in love with this normie elf is just (chef kiss). Too bad I’m burned out by how overly spammed it is.

Dorian / Inquisitor is in third, I will just always be fond of how it’s a story of the Inquisitor helping Dorian be happy with who he is, escape an abusive family, and realize that he’s allowed to be loved. Good shit good shit.

Some others:

Warden / Morrigan is probably my favorite Origins ship, and that only intensified with the way she talks about the Warden in Inquisition, esp if they’re Kieran’s other parent. What a cute goth family, regardless of the Warden’s gender, cause you can pry Bi Morrigan from my cold dead fingers.

Cassandra / Inquisitor might have a lot of Romance Cliches, but I adore it – although, similar others, I increasingly prefer it with a female Inquisitor. I actively dislike the weird no-homo rejection with her, and come on, a lady Inquisitor being her Knight In Shining Armor is just good storytelling.

Cullen / Inquisitor, for a lot of the same reasons as Cassandra. I love me a cliche romance, but I’m also fond of the narrative w/ him of someone he loves helping him heal through the lyrium withdrawals and take time to rest.

Josephine / F!Inquisitor is just adorable all around, and wholesome, and great.

Varric / Hawke COME ON HOW WAS THIS NOT AN OPTION.

On the rarepair end:

Sebastian / Hawke doesn’t seem like it would be a rarepair – you’d think everyone who loves Cullen/Inquisitor would love this one too. I do! But alas. That said, I’m also pretty aggro about this one with a male Hawke because SEBASTIAN IS CANON BI. WHY WAS HIS ROMANCE STRAIGHT.

Maric / Loghain is a rarepair I will take with me to my grave LOL. Never forget the scene where Maric thought Loghain was leaving, and bolted across the camp with almost no clothes on to beg Loghain to stay. Come on.

Nathaniel / Cousland is dear to me, and I love it so much more than Alistair / Cousland haha.

Greagoir / Wynne, I can’t believe this got validated in canon ahhhh.

The pairing(s) that I despise:

Again: THERE’S SO MANY.

Iron Bull / Dorian is my least fave by a longshot. Again, I have written about why I hate this pairing a great many times, but it’s awful and toxic and makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing anything about it ever again. Please keep poor Dorian away from that man. He deserves someone that doesn’t sexually harass him until he’s finally worn down into dubious consent (while drunk) and then outted to everyone about it.

Isabela / Fenris. Sorry, but it’s just bad writing that Fenris bails on Hawke because the physical intimacy triggered his PTSD and he needs space to process, but then will turn around and have a casual sex relationship with Isabela instead. Yikes.

Anders / Fenris. Aveline / Isabela. Alistair / Morrigan. All of the DA2 Hawke/companion rivalmances. I don’t enjoy “these two people hate and antagonize and want to kill each other… but they fuck” in any form.

Cullen / Amell. Yikes.

And basically ALL of the canon wlw pairings in this series suffer from the fact they have men writing them, and as a result they’re almost always some kind of abusive or racist, and skeeve me out. See: Celene / Briala, Leliana / Marjolaine, Branka / Hespith, etc. Please Bioware, I’m begging you to consult some actual queer women. It’s insane how badly they’re treated compared to how the canon mlm couples are written.

FINALLY, I recognize this will be the most unpopular of all, but. As much as I love M!Hawke/Fenris, I just honestly cannot stand seeing F!Hawke/Fenris. There are some pairings where I’m so attached to the m/m or f/f version, I cannot deal with the m/f version anymore, and that’s one of them. (The others are mainly non-Bioware.)

[onepiecesmosthated]

Biggest Coal Getters At Christmas In One Piece

As you know from this blog, I rag on the most hated characters in One Piece. At at this merry Christmas time, I want to show you all the biggest coal getters in this series.

12.  Stelly

With being such an arrogant, self-important, entitled, and asshole brat, Sabo’s adoptive brother, Stelly, makes the first on the list on our naughty list. One has to feel sorry for the Gao kingdom for being ruled over such a spoiled king, who even thinks he can order Garp around because he’s originally from there.

11.  Wapol

 Another king on this list, but one who also is the president of his own toy company is Wapol. Like Stelly he was quite a horrible ruler when he was ruling Drum Kingdom, especially when he left the island to fend for itself when Blackbeard invaded and horded all the doctors so he could force people to pay high prices for them. Though he is currently living high now with his new kingdom gifted by the World Nobles, Santa still is going to leave a nice lump that fits his dark heart.

10. Judge

Just like with the earlier two entries, we have another asshole ruler and this one is the father of Strawhat member, Sanji. The ruler of the Germa 66, a seafaring kingdom that is notorious for conquering islands and being paid assassins, he is a social darwanist, who caused great abuse to Sanji throughout his childhood because he turned out normal. The only reason why he wanted Sanji back into his life was to cement an alliance with Big Mom by offering him as a groom for her daughter, Pudding, which turned out to be a trap because the Yonko planned to kill him and the other Vinsmokes off to get their technology. And at the wedding when the Big Mom Pirates’ true colors are showed, all that previous super macho bravado is melted away to reveal a sniveling coward who cries when someone puts him into the situation that he put others under. And for that the Germa clones will shoveling a lot of coal for a while.

9. Spandam

This guy is the poster child on why we should have anti-neoptism laws. A snively cowardly shit Spandam when he was head of the CP9 tortured Robin all the while she was under his captivity, while arrogantly believing his CP agents were untouchable. He also has little regard for human life when he accidentally triggered the buster call and didn’t care that his subordinates could die. He even called them needed sacrifices. He was also the reason why Tom, Iceburg and Franky’s mentor, was killed due to a frame up job he did in order to obtain the Pluton from him. It’s a bit karmic seeing him be forced to take orders from his former subordinate, Lucci, but even then the clumsy klutz should trip on his black pile of gifts he will get.

8. Hody Jones

Think Arlong, but with none of his few redeeming qualities. Although Hody can be said to be a product of his environment, he’s still a nasty racist shit, who should rot in the jail cell he was put in at the end of his starring arc. With his New Fishman Pirates, they planned on taking over the kingdom and go to Reverie where they planned to massarce everyone there. However, the worst thing he’s done is assassinate Queen Otohime, because she dared to try to aim to bring peace between humans and seafolk. If you think there can be a reason for his racism, then he would answer it himself: “nothing”. Nothing happened to him to make him hate humans personally he just grew up with the toxic belief that hating humans was justified. And for that Hody spends Christmas in a jail cell, while sharing it with the number of coals that can keep him and the other withered New Fishman Pirates company.

7. Mother Carmel

To the world (and to this day, Big Mom), Mother Carmel was a saintly figure who fostered peace between humans and giants plus opened up an orphanage for children of all races. However, underneath that facade lied a wicked slaver, who pretended to be a grandmotherly figure in order to sell children to the highest dollar. Her famed action of stopping the Elbaf crew from being executed was a staged event in order to gain the trust of the giants. Her most notable so-called prized asset was Charlotte Linlin (who would later become Big Mom), who to this day doesn’t know her foster mother never truly loved her and saw her as merchandise to be sold. Even though she’s a deceased character, she certainly deserves to have her stockings filled to the brim with stone, cold coal.

6. Blackbeard

Although he’s more of a love to hate example, we all know that Blackbeard deserves to be on this list. For one thing, if you want to know why the post-timeskip is chaotic as it is it’s thanks to this guy. He for years pretended to be a loyal member of Whitebeard’s crew and acted like one of the family knit setting. However, it’s all an at to get at the Yami Yami No Mi/Dark Dark Fruit. He killed one of his own brothers/crewmates, then went off to form his own crew where he fought Ace and got him handed over to the Marines, so that he could become a Warlord and get into Impel Down. There during the breakout he recruited level six members to his crew, then used them to kill his former captain and father figure Blackbeard. And postimeskip he has been shown to now be hunting down devil fruit users for his fellow crew. There is a reason why people say he’s the anti-Luffy and what a real non-romanticized pirate is like. So, I have a feeling Santa will be stopping by on Hive Island with some hefty packages that could fit his namesake.

5. Ceasar Clown

Although he’s shown as a butt monkey after his first appearance, the record of his misdeeds cannot be forgotten. On his island he kept children captive after a mole in the marines lied to their parents about them dying at sea, which he then proceeded to experiment on them with drugged candy which made them grow giant sized and shorten their live spans. All the while pretending he was actually curing them when he couldn’t give a shit. He also is notorious for making chemical weapons of mass destruction which is used by amoral individuals like the Beast Pirates. In other words, Santa strap this asshole to a big lump of coal and drown him.

4. Doflamingo

One of the most popular villians in the series is Donquixote Doflamingo, former Warlord, top broker, and King Of Dressrosa. Man, you could have a long list of all the shit he’s pulled throughout his career and life. On the outside he might look like a gaudy Elton John rip off, but on the inside bleeds one of the scariest and ruthless characters in the series. No wonder because he was born of the World Nobles, who are a sociopathic and psychotic bunch. From his take over to Dressrosa to funding Ceasar Clown’s research, he certainly can make you scared of the color pink. And that is why we have to heep this birds feathers with a black sheen.

3. Orochi

While Doffy is pretty to look at and is flamboyantly fun, Orochi just embodies “hate sink” stereotypes. He’s just made to be obvious that this guy is not going to be a good person. Spoilers ahead: I know he was influenced into becoming an asshole but he is still an asshole who sold out his country for his own benefit. Not to mention currently it was shown he was heavily implied to be the one who killed Suriyaki and lied to everyone about being named a successor with the help of that strange woman. His 20 years of terror have caused nothing but hurt to everyone under his rule as he causes a famine due to the occupying forces of the Beast Pirates. All of his because he believed he was entitled like his grandfather to be Shogun. He also wastes food, as his country is starving and feeds a whole village of hungry people failed “Smiles” so that they can quit crying about their dead loved ones. I know Santa would know of a way to get into this closed off country, so that he can deliver this shistain a coal that is as big as a mountain.

2. Kaido

Here is the man of thousand beasts and leader of the Beast pirates. Even though Blackbeard himself is no saint, he doesn’t seem to want to destroy the world like Kaido does. An unstoppable juggernaut, he sees suicide as a way to kill boredom and is often on his ass drunk. He’s ruled over Wano through Orochi for 2 decades, as he has decimated it into a famine wide place except the capitol where the rich and his toadie lives. He uses the land to function his own war effort and has caused many of the Wano people to go through great periods of grief. Like with Blackbeard, he’s an unromanticed version of what a pirate is really like. So, Kaido be prepared for Onigashima to reign coal like it’s no tomorrow.

1. World Nobles (Celestial Dragons)

By default, you know these shitty bastards would top the list. The biggest reason because of the fact that they are above the law and are allowed to do anything they like because they are so-called “gods”. They treat the general population like crap, while blatantly owning slaves when it was supposed to have been illegalized 2 centuries ago. They are also supported by a thing called heavenly tribute which country of the world government has to give continuously, lest they get kicked out and have no way of defending themselves from pirates or slave traffickers. So I can say the biggest coal getters go to these fat pigs in their towers. Better yet they should coal statues made in (dis)honor of them.

[annes-andromeda]

You haven't really talked much on the Lannister's in your AU (aside from Cersei a little). What are your plans for them? Is there a Lannibowl coming? Are you going to copy over Tyrion's Hand story with Daenerys (but hopefully better)?

Unfortunately, since this AU is only just beginning and not even halfway done yet, I can’t reveal too much. But don’t worry! I definitely have something planned for the Lannisters! I’ll go over some major points that I’ll detail more in the story.

The Lions of Lannister

As you know, I’ve given the Lannisters pet lions, which is parallel to how the Starks have their direwolves. And just like the direwolves, the lions are extensions of their owners souls/personalities:

Everan (the black lion) is Cersei’s. He’s ambitious and ferocious like his master, and is the oldest of the three (once again, like Cersei). Everan is considered almost like a first child to Cersei, aka the one thing in her life that made her genuinely happy (not even Jaime or Joffrey gave her that much satisfaction). The lion pretty much represents her childhood innocence that she never had, and ultimately the one thing that brings out the ‘motherly love’ in her.

Rohar (the white lion) belongs to Jaime. The lion is loyal and protective like his owner. His name is a play on the Rhoynar, since Jaime did have dreams of being a knight. Similar to Jon (who Jaime has a lot of parallels with), Jaime owns an albino. Fun fact: Rohar is actually a Hrakkar, a white lion found across the Narrow Sea. Just like Everan, who represents the inner motherly (almost nonexistent) love of Cersei, Rohar represents Jaime’s dreams of honor and glory (that eventually get shot down the drain)

Finally, there’s Cira (the cream lion), who belongs to non-other than Tyrion Lannister himself. Ironically, Cira is actually the largest of the three lions, despite being the youngest and female. Just like Tyrion, Cira can be witty and even playful. And also like her master, she has a scar across her face that left her blind on one eye. If you’re wondering what Cira represents, well she represents what Tyrion wishes to be seen as: tall, mighty, and overall loved and respected (since you don’t fuck with lions)

These three lions ultimately make the pride of Casterly Rock: a pack that can almost rival the Lannister guards. They’re a force to be reckoned with, and god help anyone who hurts their masters.

The Lannister Children

Now, for the three disasters that are the Lannister children. Definitely an interesting bunch, who all deserved more that what they got in the show (just like every other character):

Cersei/: Now Cersei is definitely an interesting character when looked at a certain angle. Book!Cersei is absolutely unredeemable, but Show!Cersei managed to be slightly empathetic (just slightly, though). Since she is the oldest Lannister next to Jaime, Cersei holds The Dusk, Virtue of Dark and Shadow. We already know that Cersei is ambitious and ruthless (and stupid). She will do anything in the road to achieve power (just like a certain dragon Queen), which means going to the extreme (again, like a certain silver haired lady). My Cersei is pretty much a mix of book and show version, like the AU in general. She’s overall irredeemable, but you can feel some sort of empathy for her. Especially when it comes to Everan, and little of her children. All I can say for now, is that while Cersei won’t be the final villain in the AU, she’s definitely not going down without a fight. And if she’s going down, she’s taking everyone with her.

Jaime/: Oh boy, this man. He’s certainly had an arc, hasn’t he? In the books, he’s finally getting his head out of Cersei’s ass, while in the show... let’s not talk about it. Jaime’s story seems to be debatable for me: most fans claim his story to be a redemption arc. However, after reading a post here on Tumblr, I’ve come to the conclusion that Jaime’s story is not a redemption arc, but an identity arc. Basically, trying to find out who he is outside of Cersei and the Lannister name. Like Cersei, Jaime holds the Dusk, a power that adds to his hidden PTSD. One thing that seems to bother me, is how barely anyone seems to acknowledge the abuse and trauma Jaime went through. Just cause he was the poster child, doesn’t mean he got a free pass from Tywin. When it comes to that time, I want to explore Jaime’s inner conflict: to show how his time with Aerys and childhood with Tywin has forced his mind to become a prison. How he’s locked away all his emotions and made himself want to be unloved. Another that hasn’t been explored is Jaime’s time with his children. In the AU, Jaime is still distant from Tommen and especially Joffrey, but has a close bond with Myrcella. She’s practically the one thing in his life that truly gave him joy.

Tyrion/: Tyrion is definitely a debatable character in the GOT/ASOIAF fandom. Some fans love him, others hate him. For me, it’s a 50/50. I honestly wouldn’t mind if in the books he went dark (I just want an ending that makes sense). The show definitely did him a disservice by diminishing his intelligence. One thing that pisses me off, is how the minute that Tyrion met Daenerys, he became a secondary character. His dreams, ambitions, and thoughts? Gone. His whole character revolved around Daenerys and her pursuit of the Iron Throne. In the AU, he does meet Dany, but he’s considerably changed a bit. After killing Shae and Tywin, Tyrion is understandably in a dark mental state. And yes, he does learn of Tysha from Jaime like in the books. That moment is definitely a turning point for Tyrion, so I wanted to include it. Tyrion is rightfully pissed at his family, and wishes to get revenge on them. And after learning of Daenerys and her infamous cruelty towards the masters and of her dragons, Tyrion decides to join her council. Not because he believes she can make the world a better place, but because she has the means to destroy the people who have wronged him. Mainly, Cersei. So, I gave him a more complex and personal reason to join her. Tyrion doesn’t really believe in her ‘breaking the wheel’ propaganda, but he does ultimately underestimate her violent tendencies. Unlike the show, Tyrion does not revolve his life around Dany and has his own story outside of her. But unfortunately, I can’t reveal much right now.

Will there be a Lannibowl?

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: It’s complicated. Since the last two seasons were oddly short, it gives me more free range to add storylines to certain characters. And the Lannisters are no exception. After Jaime leaves King’s Landing, Cersei wishes to get revenge on him, which means going to the extremes. Jaime joins the Starks in Winterfell to fight against the NK’s (another character I’ve made more complex) army. However like I’ve stated before, he’s trying to figure out who he is outside of Cersei. That he’s more that just a “Kingslayer” and a “Man Without Honor”. His story is also about finally facing his trauma and shattering the prison within his mind and opening himself up to people. And as for Tyrion, he’s finally figuring how much of a danger Daenerys poses to Westeros, and pretty much making a name for himself aside from “Dwarf” or “Imp”. Pretty much both of the Lannister brothers have somewhat of similar story arcs in the AU version of S8.

That’s it for now! Sorry, this became more of a meta, but hopefully this answers your questions! Thanks for the ask!👋

[ofcloudsandstars]

It is Gemini New Moon and I am back! (for now) My life is still a maelstrom but the dust is starting to settle.

I’ve been getting more into different forms of divining and I bought a pendulum while I was in Amsterdam that I would like to try out. I will probably give more info on that later. 

Some highlights from when I was away:

Aries Season: New Moon I had to leave the apartment cause my roommate was being extremely noisy again. I went to a gallery where some witches and artists had their things and a witch I met at Treadwells when I first moved here remembered me and we made friends. She offered me some free sound healing sessions at her place since she wanted to practice. I also met a wild aries witch who is an aries poster child in everyway, she also has short white hair and paints red markings on her face (I thought it was for tonight its an everyday look) and has futuristic tribal blade runner vibes. When I got home at 1pm I exploded on my roommates who wanted to have a party (They knew I had to get up at 5am for work) and declared I was moving out. Did a million find a new home spells and started hunting

Learned how to make bioplastics and bonded with the teacher at the design museum over alchemy. Making bioplastics is so similar to what alchemists were doing in their hunt for stripping down something to it's core elemental material and reshaping it to whatever they like. It also sparked my potential new interest for diving into industrial design as a career.

Went to see my sister in Paris and saw the Notre dame burn. The night air smelled like fire and brimstone

ended Aries season with a bang when my sagittarian witch friend was going through a breakup and bought me to an easter/spring inspired fetish party where everyone was dressed either as catholic gay kings, floral nymphs in pastel bondage or frisky rabbits. They had berlin DJs and the top floor was flooded with red lighting. I ran into the Aries witch there near some ritual of people in pig masks rubbing paper on someone's latex to cause some friction. I got home at 2 and had to get up at 8am for work.

Taurus Season After intense pressure hunting I found a new home though I knew I wouldn't be satisfied there. The woman who owns the house turned out to be pretty christian and doesn't want anyone bought over without her permission. So the house hunt continues.

Beltane was spent with some nice witch friends in the Heaths (of course) we found a nice clearing in the woods that was super secluded with bluebells growing everywhere. We had a blanket and bought everything from floral incense, to crystals (I got a jade crystal ring for everyone to charge and wear) to flowers (we each bought so many that we ended up casting a circle with flowers like roses, bluebells, carnations etc), and foods! I made truffle oil melted cheese sandwhiches and beetroot pea and spinach sandwhiches and sandwhich cookies with rose buttercream and matcha with gold dust and lemon curd lavender with silver dust. I also bought grass vodka to be mixed with elderflower soda. My friends bought a lot of things from blueberries to flower wines to weed to scented oils and candles. I also finished the last of my shrooms with them and the trees felt very much like sentinels though in the sense that they seemed to be watching us in our witchy shenanigans instead of a sense that they were protecting us. We each lead part in a ritual and told stories but I bought black heart candles to purify us from any attachments we had from former relationships to bring clarity or a fresh start. A new witch friend I made who was invited made us do some estatic dancing in the circle (in truth she was cold cause it was cold) but it was a great way to get the energy going and moved our sacral energy upwards when she made us twerk to attract love to ourselves lol. Then my sagittarian witch friend anointed us with oils for clarity and love and we all smelled really nice like nectary flowers. We stayed until it got so dark that the distant city lights were the only thing giving us light. We packed everything up and didn't leave a trace.

Eros moving into virgo amongst other aspects has made my sexual frusterations intense plus that venus mars square was really painful to go through. I got closer to my work crush who seems to like me too but it wouldn't work out as a FWB unless we kept it really secret because of our work position. So I decided to do a lust spell to attract another lover with a lust candle I made back when I lived in NJ. I gathered it when I was taking some stuff back during christmas and realized the love spell candles I made during last valentines day magic fair still had a lot of energy. There was only 1 lust spell candle left cause they all sold (The candles were all heart shaped and the size of your hand. The black was for cleansing relationships and was ylang ylang scented with added charcoal, the violet was for new friendships with lavender, the pink was for romance with rose oil and the red was for lust and hookups with red rose and cinnamon.) The history with the lust spell candle came from a previous successful lust spell when I used a huge red dick shaped hoodoo candle to attract a FWB on the taurus full moon and it was very successful but I still had a lot of the candle left over so I recycled the successful spell into the red wax for the new lust candles. Anyway I was going into this back story because I burned this on the full moon and it burned bright and strong the whole night into the next day for 13 hours straight. When it reached the end no wax was left, it instead grew into a massive flame which split into 3. I was mesmerized watching it, it seemed like the middle flame was me or someone having to make a decision. It went for a smaller flame on the left and they grew into a bigger flame as the little one died down then BANG!! the disk it was on E X P L O D E D and shards of glass flew Everywhere... There were pieces of dried rose petal which was the last fragment of the candle the fire had to burn on that scattered in the air like a mini meteor shower and lit little fires on the carpet of my bedroom floor. As I was cleaning I wasn't sure how to process the meaning. It was supposed to be a road opening spell to attract a FWB my way but the aggression seemed like an intense conclusion. So far I will see how it unfolds. My official Eros Return is the 10th of this month.

While I found a really cool dream apartment by the heaths I wasn't sure if it felt like the right place. I found a magical tree that was like it's own altar or temple in the woods. It had blood red leaves and the light underneath it shown like autumn. Stepping under it's cavernous-like red canopy felt like entering another realm. Underneath the ground was littered with shells from some dead seeds and the trunk of the huge tree had a large open mouth with thick saucer-sized brown mushrooms growing out. It looked like an altar so I prayed to it to help find me a home. A week later I found a nicer apartment on the east side to the park.

Gemini Season

Gemini season started off aggressively and with a lot of confusion.

I went to Amsterdam this past weekend! It's a beautiful city with big fairy energy. They are obsessed with flowers, you can buy bulbs everywhere and flowers are growing from every corner, there is nature everywhere, you can get shrooms and weed everywhere, the homes are old and beautiful with details that remind of you fairytales or iced gingerbread houses, the air is filled with sounds of chimes and bells from everyone's bikes, you have alluring enchantresses ensnaring dumb tourist men into their lairs as men glue themselves to the windows peering eagerly into their other worlds, you have shops with no clocks with the most comfortable seating to sell you joints for 4 euros while you sit there for god knows how long in a perpetual high as you eat snack after snack. Also since its the lighter half of the year the sun sets at 9:30PM and the sky isn't completely dark until 10:15. I tried to look into their urban planning and architecture centers to learn more about the city's design. It's so harmonious with nature its inspiring. I took home some shrooms (One I am excited to try is called Roaring Dragon which would be appropriate for Litha lol), some wizard like long wooden pipes, a mini mermaid tarot deck, a crystal pendulum, some goblin incense I was enticed to buy cause I was dumb high in this fairy themed shop (and in truth I wanted to buy everything cause I was dumb high and thought everything was GREAT) and a love attraction candle.

Now here I am ready to start a new moon cycle. I am really overwhelmed but I want to get my feet back on the ground lol.

[daebakinc]

Finding His Princess

Pairing: Johnny x Female OC

Genre: Royal!AU, Angst, Romance

Summary: A servant and a prince can never be. Or is there some truth to the tale of Cinderella?

Wordcount: 2.7K

A/N: This was just supposed to be a drabble... until it wasn’t. OTL Inspired by this post by @hyuckio.

If anyone else looked at this room, they would doubtlessly be caught up in the splendor.

The warm mahogany panels of the walls and floor, polished daily, covered by hand-sewn Persian rugs and oil paintings in gilded frames alike. The four-poster bed with its one-of-a-kind blanket filled with the softest down in the land and embroidered with real gold. The heavy silver inkstand on the desk that’s worth more than most people’s yearly income.

           But, having grown up surrounded by such wealth, you are blind to it. You only see the hints of the room’s owner.

           The piano in the corner whose keys have edges rounded by love and practice, but he won’t replace. The stacks of CDs and albums organized by affection rather than alphabet or genre, so he can find them according to his mood. The old white whale doll with mismatched eyes tucked safely beneath the pillow.

           Your eyes burn with the pain growing and spreading in your chest as you take it all in for one last time. You wish you could see his smile one more time, hear one more of those stupid jokes he loves to tell. One last chance to look at the man you love and can never have.

           For how can a servant girl, a part time one at that, marry a prince, even in these modern times?

           Easy answer: you can’t.

There’s only one task left to do. One task left before you leave him and the palace behind to try to reconstruct your heart into the resemblance of a working one. A heart that does not belong entirely and forever to the heir to the throne, Johnny.

Yet you cannot force your fingers to place the cerulean hoodie in its proper place in the dresser drawer. Instead, they tighten around the fabric, bring it to your face. The smell of him surrounds you and summons memories like a beautiful, taunting demon.

When Johnny hugged you to chase away your tears after you skinned your knee in the days you were both younger and so innocent as to believe you could be friends forever. When you held him as he cried the night after his mother’s funeral, alone in the shadows of her favorite rose garden. When your head rested on his shoulder while the two of you—

The bedroom door slams shut and you guiltily drop the hoodie. Johnny leans against the door, eyes shut. He looks so handsome in his official uniform of a navy-blue military jacket with gold trims and epaulets, fitted white pants, and tall black boots. A true prince.

But the gold crown nestled in his dark hair seems to weigh down on him, pushing his forehead so it creases in exhaustion. Johnny sighs, long and hard, and rubs his temples. You ache to replace his fingers with yours, but you stay still. He isn’t yours to touch, let alone desire.

Johnny opens his eyes. He takes a step further into the room, removing the crown. His frown deepens as he looks at it. His arm raises as if to toss it onto the bed, but hurriedly returns to his side when he notices you.

An earnest grin springs onto his face. “_____. I didn’t see you.”

“Crown Prince Johnny,” you reply, bobbing a curtsy and using the movement to hide your closing the drawer. “I’m sorry, I was about to leave.”

“Crown Prince?” His smile incrementally fades. “Since when have you bothered with that title when we’re alone? We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

Friends. How much pain that word brings your heart. You attempt a smile. “We are, but since you’ve begun looking for a bride, it isn’t very proper to do so, Your Highness.”

Johnny’s smile disappears entirely. “Proper.”

“Has your search for your missing princess been successful?” you ask, even though your heart twinges. You already know the answer.

“Only in finding a number of charlatans and gold-diggers.” He sighs again and crosses the room to slump in the overstuffed, velvet chair. “I’m ready to give up and accept the princess my father chose, ______. His deadline is only a few days away and I can’t find the girl from the ball. I thought we had something, but why would she have run away if that was true? Why wouldn’t she have come back? Maybe I and everyone else at the ball was hallucinating and she never existed.”

Your body moves out of habit before you realize what you’re doing. Coming beside him, you turn on the small stereo and select the playlist that Johnny always listens to when he needs soothing. As his father nears retirement, those times are becoming more and more frequent. You ignore the emerald dragon mask also sitting on the desk, its empty eyes watching you accusingly.

“I hope you find your happiness,” you say.

When he doesn’t answer, you glance to the door. You want so badly to lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder, to run your fingers through his hair. You should probably leave before you give in.

But again, your body betrays you, your mouth blurting out, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Leaving?” Johnny’s head comes up from where it had dropped to his hands. The concern on his face is genuine and all the more meaningful for it. “Is your mother sick again?”

“She was fine during my last call home, thank you. I’m leaving the palace for good.”

His features, so normally schooled to control every emotion, betray his alarm with his widened eyes and deepened frown. “Just like that? Why? Did something happen? Did someone do something to you?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just… time for me to move on.” You try to give him a true smile as you back away from him. “Thank you for all your kindness over the years, Your Highness. I will… miss you.”

You turn away to go before your courage fails you, but Johnny’s hand snakes out to grab yours. “Wait!”

He says nothing else. You risk a look over your shoulder and find him staring at your joined hands. The electric tingle winding up your arm starts your heart stuttering. It tap-dances in your ears as your cheeks heat. You need to get out, run away, but you’re frozen.

“Johnny,” you murmur.

He meets your eyes at his name. After another beat, he lets go of you and picks up the soft hairbrush sitting on his desk. “Could you help me fix my hair, please? I have to meet with the interior ministers soon.”

“Surely your manservant would—”

“_____, please.”

Although you aren’t looking in his eyes, you cannot deny him nor yourself such a small thing. You accept the brush from him. He turns in his chair for you.

As you pass the brush through his hair, Johnny’s shoulders loosen, relax under your steady strokes. You smile to yourself. Johnny’s mother use to brush his hair when he was a child before he went to bed. Even now, the motions calm him like no other. He was surely meant to be born a big cat, like a puma, and only became a human by mistake.

Even after his hair is returned to its perfect appearance, you continue brushing. You cannot help the small indulgence. It will be the last time you are with him so.

The thought jars your practical side back into place. This is foolishness. Abruptly, you put the brush back down on the desk. “I think you’re done, Your Highness.”

Johnny doesn’t look back. Lifting his crown from his lap, he says, “Put this on for me, please. From the front so you’re sure it looks alright.”

With slow steps, you circle the chair and take the crown from him. You cautiously place it back on his head, avoiding his eyes that you feel so intently on you. You know if you look, your resolve may crumble in the face of the entire world he holds there. Your world.

Satisfied with your work, you lower your hands and say, “You look like a true prince.”

Johnny stiffens. “Strawberries,” he murmurs.

“What?” His sudden comment forces your eyes down to his in surprise.

“You smell like strawberries,” Johnny repeats.

He lurches to his feet, so you stumble backwards against the desk. Your heart thumps hard, once, twice, as Johnny’s probing gaze commands yours. It purposefully roams your face until you’re afraid he can see your every thought.

“Hug me,” he says.

“Wh—what?”

“Hug me.”

You remain frozen, mind racing to comprehend. You take too long.

Johnny steps closer and sweeps you up against him. You should break away, run away. Run before you give in to your heart’s desire and stay by his side.

Your bodies fit together like puzzle pieces lost and reunited. His arms hold you tenderly, fiercely. His cheek presses against yours, breath on your neck raising goosebumps on your skin.

A shaking breath escapes you. You close your eyes and let your head rest against his chest. Just for one moment, you can be weak. Soak it, him, in to create a precious memory to lock away in your heart.

Johnny lifts his head. Again, you can’t look away when his eyes find yours.

He studies you a breath longer. Softly, his words a puff of air against your mouth, he says, “It’s you, isn’t it?”

All the warmth flees your body. Your heart stops and drops to your feet. How…? Of course, you should have known. Beneath Johnny’s carefree manners lies a quick and observant mind.

You shouldn’t have let him get this close. You hadn’t meant for it to go this far.

All the kingdom had been invited to Johnny’s birthday ball. Nobles and commoners rubbed elbows and traded jokes from behind masks that rendered them all equals for the night. You had just wanted to go to the ball, experience the glitter and elegance for yourself. In a dress borrowed from the royal castoffs and a mask borrowed from the royal theater troupe, you watched from the sides.

Then, Johnny was in front of you. Even with his face hidden behind a black panther’s snarling face, you knew him. Dressed in all black, sleek as the creature of his disguise, he held out his hand. And, with no other choice, you took it.

It seemed a dream, a marvelous, sparkling, floating dream. The colors and sounds fading into the background until only you and Johnny existed in the whole world. Johnny’s strong arm at your back, his large hand cradling yours like a delicate bird. His eyes gazing into yours with a kind of wonder that left you breathless.

When he led you into a secluded section of the garden, away from curious whispers, Johnny’s eyes shone even brighter with the moonlight. Somehow, it made his words sultrier, more adoring as well as he whispered them.

When he kissed you, you were lost, completely and deeply. That secret love you had held for Johnny for so long burst into life like the full bloomed roses surrounding you. His kiss was more perfect than you could have ever imagined.

Above you, the bell in the clock tower tolled. The brassy tones shattered the spell like a brick does stained glass.

With a gasp, you pulled away. This was Johnny Seo, Crown Prince and future king. He was meant for someone greater than you, a nameless face in the sea of palace servants.

Ignoring his cry, you fled. You felt him reach for you, grasping. He tripped and the knotted ribbon holding your mask in place pulled, then broke. You ran faster, face in your hands to hide both it and the tears flowing down your cheeks.

He would never know it was you, but now… you have nowhere to hide.

Johnny plucks the mask from behind you, keeping one arm wrapped around you. You stop breathing as he settles it on your face.

“It is you,” Johnny says again, his voice barely above a whisper. “Tell me what I said to you in the garden.”

The thought to lie and deny him still dies in your throat. Your voice trembles as you cling tighter to his coat. “You said… that you felt that our hearts are connected under the same sky.”

You have a second to glimpse the blinding smile on Johnny’s face before his mouth swoops down to yours. His kiss is jubilant, eager. With that kiss, he takes your heart, your body, your everything. If you weren’t caught between him and the desk, you would assuredly be a melted heap on the floor.

When he at last allows you a breath, you can’t help but stare up at him. All words and thoughts robbed from your mind. Johnny strokes his thumb across your cheek, down to the swollen pout of your lips. He kisses you again, softer, but still as soul-claiming as the first.

“Johnny, we can’t,” you protest weakly. The bright crown on his head catches your eye, reminds you of his duties. “You’re supposed to marry a princess, preserve the integrity of royal line—”

“Whoever marries me will become a princess, royal blood or not,” he interrupts. Johnny cups your face in his hands, confidence and stubbornness shining in his eyes. “This is modern day, not the Dark Ages. My father gave me his word; you heard him. If I found the girl from the ball, I could marry her.”

Hearing the word ‘marry’ makes you almost as dizzy as Johnny’s kiss. To be able to be with him as best friend, lover, wife… only yesterday you would have thought it impossible.

“But why me?” you ask in a daze.

Of all things, Johnny laughs. He kisses the tip of your nose. “Because I love you.”

“You love that girl from the ball.”

“Who was also you. I was just too stupid to realize.”

“Johnny.”

He refuses to let you turn away. “No. I love you, _____. Does that really seem so unlikely to you? You were a vision at the ball, an angel I thought had sprung from my mind and one I saw slip through my fingers. But you are the angel who’s been by my side and who’s in front of me now.”

Tears spring from the corners of your eyes. How could any of what he’s saying be true. You grew up together and not once did he show you more affection or consideration than any other. Or were you blind to his affections too?

“_____, do you know how crazy I was when you went away to university?” he asks. “Every day I missed you, and I told myself it was because you were, are, one of my dearest friends. When you came back, I made sure you got this job, so I could see you every once in a while, if not every day.”

You stare back at him, speechless.

“Marrying anyone wasn’t in my head at that point. Then my father brought it up and started parading all those possible matches in front of me like some twisted fashion show and… I don’t know. I got lost, I guess. I didn’t want to get married yet.”

“So you don’t want to get married at all?”

Johnny winces. “That didn’t come out right. I didn’t want to get married to any of them. I didn’t feel anything for them. I don’t want a marriage of convenience or alliance. Politics doesn’t create and keep a family. That’s not what I want with my life. With you, it wouldn’t be that way. It’d be…”

“It would be what?” you murmur when he doesn’t continue.

“Do you know what my father once told me?” he offers instead.

You shake your head.

“He told me that sometimes, the treasure you seek is lying right beneath your nose.” Johnny smiles. “And he was right. I want to spend the rest of my life rediscovering it. Do you forgive this fool for taking so long to see you?”

You lick your lips. Presented with the opportunity for such happiness, especially a happiness you never thought possible, could you refuse? Looking into Johnny’s eyes, all the worries and reasons you two could never be vanish like shadows in the sun.

Reaching up, you adjust his crown. Then, meeting his eyes, you shyly nod. “I think I could if you kiss me again.”

And he does.

[obsidianarchives]

Dean's Journey Home

Dean slipped his hand into the hidden pocket inside his windbreaker, checking for his wand. It was the fifth time he’d reached for it since leaving King’s Cross Station, an old nervous tick made that much more intense by the shocking events of the past few days. Dumbledore was dead, and Voldemort was creeping back into power. The last thing Dean needed was to drop his wand on the tube.

That wand was one of the first things his mother had purchased for him when they’d entered Diagon Alley six summers ago. Marjorie Thomas, who was rarely at a loss for words, was stunned into silence when she saw little silver sparks shoot from the end of the third wand her son tried.

“The wand chooses the wizard,” Ollivander had said with a smile. He explained that Dean’s wand was 11 inches, made of beech and with a single unicorn hair at its core.

“This is a wand for a wizard with promise. A kind wizard who will go on to do good things,” he said. Dean remembered his mother’s sigh of relief, the way the tension seemed to drain from her body if only just a bit. Just a few short weeks before, they’d both thought magic was the stuff of fairy tales, and now here they were standing in a wand shop, on a street hidden from non-magical eyes, preparing for Dean’s first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She could at least take solace in the idea that her oldest son was still the sweet boy she’d always known, regardless of his new-found abilities.

Dean smiled at the memory and gave his wand a grateful squeeze before his thoughts drifted back to the troubles that lay ahead of him. How would he explain any of this to his mother? Voldemort, the Death Eaters, Dumbledore’s murder? For the past few years – since Harry returned from the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament carrying Cedric Diggory’s lifeless body – he’d kept her in the dark about the troubles brewing in the Wizarding World, afraid that she would withdraw him from Hogwarts. Although he loved his family and understood the danger of Voldemort’s return, he couldn’t imagine attending a Muggle school when he knew a place like Hogwarts existed. How could he, when he’d spent years learning to cast spells and make potions? When he’d seen unicorns, hippogriffs, and dragons? How could he leave the place where he’d learned to fly?

Before Cedric’s death, the Wizarding World had felt like a dream. Paintings moved and ghosts existed. He could literally brew liquid luck if he wished. Returning to the Muggle world at the end of each term was bittersweet. He missed his family desperately when he was away, but he still found himself longing to wake up in his four-poster bed in the Gryffindor Tower, Seamus, Neville, Ron, and Harry snoring softly around him.

His mother was the only person from his non-magical life who knew the truth about Dean’s school. She’d told his family and friends, including his step-father and half-siblings, that Dean had been granted a scholarship at an impressive boarding school in Switzerland. His brothers and sisters spent a great deal of each school break teasing him about becoming posh. Dean pretended to be annoyed, when all he really wanted was to tell them the truth, Statute of Secrecy be damned.

Things would never be the same, he thought. For one, Dumbledore was dead, and although Dean had always known that he was quite old, Dean hadn’t imagined a time without him there to protect and guide Hogwarts. The first time Dean had seen Dumbledore with his long, sweeping hair and his colorful robes, he’d thought, “Now, that is what a proper wizard is supposed to look like.” Dumbledore, Hogwarts, the Hogwarts Express, all of it had made it clear: magic was real, and Dean was someone who could wield it. Dean Thomas was a wizard.

The safety that Dumbledore provided was also gone. It was common knowledge that Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort ever feared, and Dean could imagine why. He hadn’t had many interactions with the late headmaster, but he’d often felt that Albus Dumbledore could see right through him. If it weren’t for the kind twinkle in the elderly wizard’s eyes (or, the fact that Dean didn’t have much to hide, in general), Dean supposed he would have feared Dumbledore, as well.

What was to stop Voldemort from his mission to bring the Muggle world to its knees, now that Dumbledore was gone? Voldemort’s hatred of both Muggles and Muggle-borns was a known fact, and Dean was fairly certain that he came from a completely non-magical family. What would become of people like him? People whose blood was considered “dirty” by pureblood wizards who had been inbreeding since the time of Merlin?

Of course, he could never truly be certain of his family lineage. His father, Samuel Thomas, had disappeared when he was just a baby and had no other family to speak of. His mother always said that she was never sure she got to know the “real” Samuel, anyway.

“I supposed he showed me what I wanted, and I wanted to believe it was all true,” Marjorie Thomas would say, whenever Dean asked for her to talk about his dad. He did that less and less over the years, not wanting to drum up any painful memories. But to him, it sounded as if they’d had a perfect relationship before his dad disappeared. Marjorie often said that strange happenings tended to take place when Samuel was around. There was that time when Dean had almost fallen down the stairs, and somehow, had landed safely in his father’s waiting arms. Marjorie raved about Samuel’s cooking, but she always said that he seemed to make these amazing meals in no time at all. Then, there was the timing of his father’s disappearance.

For years, Dean had just believed that his father got tired of having a family and decided to skip out on them. Or, if he was feeling more generous, he spun himself wild stories about his father slipping on a patch of ice, banging his head, and waking up in a hospital with no memory of his life or his wife and child. But the more he learned about Wizarding history, the more he started to wonder. His father’s disappearance lined up almost perfectly with the first rise of the Death Eaters. Was it possible that he’d run afoul of them somehow? Or, worse, that he’d died while in their service?

When he’d tried to look up his father in the Wizarding family records Madam Pince kept in a dusty corner of the Hogwarts library, he’d come up empty. If his father was a wizard, there was no way to prove it. At one point, he had started to doubt whether or not “Samuel Thomas” was even his dad’s real name.

Dean shook his head, startling the older white woman who had sat down next to him on the tube. He’d been so deep inside his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed her presence. He gave her an apologetic smile, but she frowned at him and moved her handbag to her other arm. Dean felt his anger flare. At Hogwarts, he’d had to worry about Slytherins stage-whispering “Mudblood” whenever they caught him alone. Out in the Muggle world, he was a Black teenager, growing into a Black man. He supposed both forms of hatred came from a place of fear, and he honestly wasn’t sure which one was more dangerous.

“Excuse me,” he muttered bitterly and moved to another seat on the other end of the train car. He had five more stops to go, and he wasn’t going to spend that time watching her clutch her handbag for dear life. He wanted so badly to be home already, to be back around people who loved him. It had been a rough few weeks, after all, he thought, as his mind drifted toward what felt like the most frustrating problem of all: Ginny.

He hated himself for thinking about a girl at a time like this – even if it was Ginny Weasley – when the entire Wizarding World seemed to be falling apart, and yet, he couldn’t help himself. Everything seemed to remind him of her. The red-headed woman who’d boarded the train a few stops ago. The Firebolt pin she’d given him to fasten to his school bag (it could hover a few feet off the ground if you unpinned it and said “Up”). Another teen couple who he’d seen cuddling on a bench at the train station, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a whole world existed outside of their embrace.

Ginny hadn’t been a perfect girlfriend, by any means. She had a habit of getting annoyed at all of his attempts at chivalry. He supposed that she was right. Some of the “polite” things he’d assumed she would find charming could be a bit much, but he hadn’t been trying to help her through the portrait hole the day they broke up. It wouldn’t have made sense, as she’d been climbing into the Gryffindor Common Room since long before they’d become an item. Then, there was the way she had looked at Harry, when she didn’t think Dean could see. At first, he just thought that she was intrigued by him like all of the Gryffindors seemed to be when Harry wasn’t being accused of being the Heir of Slytherin or being made out to be an attention-hungry prat in The Daily Prophet. But then, her brother, George, had made a joke about Ginny swooning over Harry every time he turned up at the Burrow, and Dean had felt a strong urge to punch Harry in the face.

Ginny was the first witch who seemed to notice that he existed, and he’d fallen for her harder than he’d expected. Occasionally, Muggle girls’ heads turned when he was back in his old neighborhood while on holiday, but at Hogwarts, he had often felt invisible. He wasn’t really sure if it was because he, like the rest of his roommates, so often fell into the shadow of the Famous Harry Potter, whose own popularity (or, more often, infamy) seemed to be a near-constant source of personal turmoil for him.

Other times, Dean wondered if it was simply because he was one of only about ten Black students in the entire school. It was something he’d wanted to talk about with the other boys in the Hogwarts’ Black Student Union, but it never felt as important as their talks about white European wizards’ disdain for African wizards and their wandless magic, or the discomfort that Blaise felt whenever his fellow Slytherins expected him to join in on their bigotry towards Muggle-borns. Frustrated and unsure, Dean had ruled out dating altogether, until Ginny.

And now, she had taken up with Harry Potter, of all people. Harry, who she’d told him not to worry about. Harry, who he’d caught shooting envious glances at he and Ginny whenever they were around. Harry, who he’d defended when Seamus accused him of lying about Voldemort’s return. Harry, who he’d remained loyal to, even when he had been suspected of being capable of pure evil.

Dean had tried and failed to hate Harry over the past couple of weeks. But now, in light of all that was happening, Dean knew that he would have to let it go. Harry was rumored to be the Chosen One, the one who would finally defeat He Who Must Not Be Named. Deep down, past the jealousy and betrayal he felt whenever he thought about Harry and Ginny kissing for the first time that day in the common room, Dean knew that it was his duty to support Harry. When the time came, he must be prepared to fight. Even as the train arrived at his stop, and he began to make the walk to his mother’s home, where he was sure there would be a delicious meal and several crushing hugs from his brothers awaiting him, he began to plan his escape back into the Wizarding World and into the war.

[aion-rsa]

Game of Thrones at 10: The Series That Changed TV Forever

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During the Game of Thrones series finale, there’s an exchange between Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister that is as much about the series’ legacy as it is the characters’ inner turmoil. Only a handful of scenes earlier, these same two men conspired to murder the woman they called their queen, Daenerys Targaryen. Now living with the consequences of that heavy deed—with Jon again banished to the white hell Beyond the Wall and Tyrion conscripted to a lifetime of public service—a tormented Jon asks his friend was it right what they did?

“Ask me again in 10 years,” Tyrion says tersely. After all these years, the craftiest of Lannisters finally has learned he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know—and who really knows how the decisions in the here and now will appear to posterity? It’s easy to speculate that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt the same way about their controversial ending to Game of Thrones. And like Tyrion and Jon, they probably could not anticipate the entire fallout that was to come.

It’s been two years since the contentious farewell to the series that defined its pop culture decade. But define it, it did. Running from 2011 to 2019, the show’s rise and fall traces eerily close to the rhythms of its era, perhaps more so than any series ever produced. It launched as the biggest gamble in premium cable history, and it ended as the most popular televised phenomenon of the 2010s. Some have argued Game of Thrones was the last of the “watercooler shows.” Even the divisiveness of its finale was monumental, shaping the next era of TV in still unseen ways. Pop culture really does live on in the realm forged by HBO’s fire and blood.

So while it hasn’t been a full 10 years since Tyrion dodged Jon’s question, a decade has passed from the moment three riders in black emerged from an icy gate, and Game of Thrones premiered on HBO. That’s more than enough time to ask what did Game of Thrones mean to us and the television landscape it shaped?

The Coming of Winter

Television was a different universe in April 2011. Netflix was still that mail rental/streaming company which didn’t produce its own content, storytelling was full of cynicism, and cable television remained king. But within that fiefdom, HBO was facing a problem: the once undisputed ruler of premium cable drama was now seeing challengers for its throne.

“HBO was still coming out of The Sopranos, The Wire, and Deadwood,” Michael Lombardo, then-HBO programming president, told James Hibberd for Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, an oral history on the making of the series. “We were getting questions like, ‘Why did you not get Mad Men? How come you didn’t pick up Breaking Bad?’ We had been the place for all things quality drama and were looking to regain our footing. But Game of Thrones didn’t seem to fall into our category.”

In retrospect, it obviously should have. Based on George R.R. Martin’s sprawling A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the show was pitched (somewhat inaccurately) as The Sopranos meets Lord of the Rings. Martin may have written his novels to be unfilmable, but at HBO, Benioff and Weiss would create an impressive facsimile of his Westeros on a budget.

Very much a product of its time, Game of Thrones came out at the tail-end of the “antihero” era of television, the period where HBO led the way in populating TV with flawed if not outright repugnant protagonists. A reaction to television being defined by network censorship for all the decades before the 21st century, the sliding spectrum of lapsed morality between Don Draper (Mad Men) and Tony Soprano was exhilarating in its time. But unlike all those series, Game of Thrones was offering a vast tapestry of protagonists in its ensemble, which provided an even greater range of moral complexity than most popular American shows at that time.

There were fantasy stalwart heroes like Lord Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) and his oldest sons, but also enigmas such as Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), antiheroes who were introduced as full-on villains (read: most of the Lannisters), and young heroines whose nigh transcendentalist adventures belied darker traumas, such as Arya Stark (Maisie Williams). It was both of its moment and a far cry from the cynicism of other popular shows, not to mention the popular image of fantasy, which on the small screen was closer to Xena: Warrior Princess than Lord of the Rings.

“There were a fair number of reasons not to do it,” Carolyn Strauss told Hibberd about the show’s early days at HBO. As the former HBO programming president who first greenlit the Game of Thrones pilot, and then became executive producer on the series, Strauss can recall the apprehension she felt toward the idea of making a fantasy series for adults. “There are many ways a fantasy series can go south. Any show that relies on a mythology that isn’t thought out in enormous detail can go off the rails. You’re maybe good for a season or two, and then after that you start running into brick walls.”

Yet it was Thrones’ moral complexity in such a dense, heightened world that caught Strauss off-guard. “The way [Benioff and Weiss] told the story in the meeting made it sound much more involved and character-driven than I usually feel from fantasy stories. It was not good vs. evil, but characters who had elements of both things.”

That level of nuance was shocking when Game of Thrones premiered in 2011. Nowadays the series is often reduced by TV critics as being simply the show that introduced convincing blockbuster spectacle to the small screen. But in its early seasons that really wasn’t the case. While Benioff and Weiss were quietly aware of how massive in scope Martin’s novels eventually became, they sold the series to HBO as a “chamber piece,” not a symphony. It’s about intimate family drama—at least in the first season/novel—not magic and battles.

In that first episode, there was hardly an unsullied viewer who didn’t gasp when sweet 10-year-old Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) was pushed out a window by Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). The thrill wasn’t seeing dragons lay waste to armies; the excitement was found in character moments or decisions with drastic repercussions on every other scene that followed. At its heart, it was a fantasy series drenched in human psychology and human history (particularly that of the English War of the Roses), and those hooks made the eventual ice and fire spectacle that much more extraordinary five years down the line.

Game of Thrones didn’t come out of the gate as a culture defining event—its series premiere netted just 2.2 million viewers, about 1.6 million less than HBO’s similarly epic and ill-fated Rome—but like the armies of one silver haired queen from the east, it’s rise seemed blessed to gradually, and unwaveringly, build until the bloody end.

A Golden Crown

The moment that personally got me wholeheartedly invested into Game of Thrones, however, wasn’t Bran’s fall from a Winterfell tower, nor was it Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion verbally humiliating his demon seed nephew. The scene where the show fully clicked was in the sixth episode, “A Golden Crown.” Up until that moment, the series was dense on world-building and lore, but the narrative was so finely tuned, and hidden in such a tightly wound coil, that it could feel impenetrable at first blush. It also seemed to be built on a certain set of fantasy archetypes, such as the noble hero Ned Stark and the old fat king, Robert (Mark Addy).

Another seeming archetype was Viserys Targaryen, a malicious blonde-haired misanthrope played so ably by Harry Lloyd that one would recoil when he was on screen. Technically, he’s a lonely exiled prince whose family lost its dynasty. But as seen through the eyes of Clarke’s put-upon and abused Daenerys, Viserys’ younger sister whom he mercilessly abused, Viserys was really just an ugly bully. The kind you might imagine Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy growing into, except with the creepy addition of a leering, incestuous gaze. Also like Draco, I feared Dany would have to endure his pestering for the rest of the series.

Then “A Golden Crown” occurs, and Viserys is plucked from the series like leaden dead weight. Moments before his death, Viserys has realized that no matter how much he calls himself king, no one will follow him. Meanwhile Dany has won the hearts of the Dothraki, a nomadic warrior culture. She now rules as their Khaleesi (queen) alongside Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), the husband Viserys sold her to. Viserys expected Drogo to become his mercenary, but by episode 6, that obviously is never going to happen. So his simmering resentment seemed to suggest Viserys would undermine Dany’s fledgling power and character growth at every future opportunity. But at the end of “The Golden Crown,” the self-styled king threatens Daenerys before the whole Dothraki court, and perhaps more chillingly in Dany’s eyes, threatens to cut out the baby growing inside her womb if he does not get his way.

Drogo ultimately gives Viserys what he wants: a crown. Only it’s made from the molten hot liquid gold he’s melted down to pour on the wretch’s head. Daenerys watches the gold slowly boil before the deed is done, and she sees her brother begging for his life. But the moment he raised her hand against her unborn child, the man was already dead to her. After Viserys’ head is crushed by the burning gold running through his skull, she doesn’t even blink. Rather Clarke says with maximum disaffection, “He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.”

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This hard left turn in the plotting was so sudden and shocking that it signaled what the series would become: a narrative where every character’s action and decision (at least pre-season 7) had potent consequences. Narrative conventions could be cut short in an instance. In this case, it was one that left viewers thrilled, but a few episodes later the same creative instinct would shatter them when the series’ main lead, poor Ned, lost his head. Such twists led me to buy all of Martin’s books and read them within a few months.

However, there was something more unsettling about the sequence. Daenerys Targaryen, our ostensible hero in her own storyline, did not flinch or bat an eye at her brother’s demise. He was rotten to the core, but Dany was no more affected by his death than she would be at the sight of hundreds of strangers crucified along a road on her order (an event which would occur later in the series).

The ambiguity of some of these characters, including Dany who in the early seasons was initially presented as an impending threat to the Starks and Lannisters a world away in Westeros, is what gave the drama so much life. There were reasons to root for nearly every faction and reasons to have pause with each character. You knew, eventually, your favorites would be in mortal conflict. While featuring a greater array of heroes than any of the other popular cable shows of the early 2010s, Game of Thrones also wallowed in moral relativity and bleakness. In 2011, it was like a high; in 2021, that kind of televised storytelling has largely fallen out of popularity.

Thrones also had a hand in that shift.

“Tits and Dragons”

For all of Game of Thrones’ good qualities, they cannot be extracted from its sins. Ten years ago, premium cable networks indulged in heavy use of obligatory nudity (mostly of young women) to keep viewers watching. Game of Thrones didn’t invent this, but it pushed it to its limit in the early seasons, even leading to the new term of “sexposition,” which describes when a show cynically includes images of naked women, usually portrayed as prostitutes in Thrones’ case, in the background during dry exposition.

Even before Thrones ended, these elements had aged badly, and were notably toned down in the later seasons. But they still occurred, even as gags, up to and including the final year. Neil Marshall, who directed two battle episodes on the series, even recalled in 2012 a disquieting note he received from an executive on the episode “Blackwater.”

“This particular exec took me to one side and said, ‘Look, I represent the pervert side of the audience okay?’” Marshall said. “‘Everybody else is the serious drama side, [but] I represent the perv side of the audience, and I’m saying I want full frontal nudity in this scene.’”

This cavalier attitude about using (some might say exploiting) young actresses who are anxious for a job on a popular series in such a gratuitous way contributed to the creation of a new profession in Hollywood: the intimacy coordinator. The actual HBO series which finally triggered this was The Deuce, not Game of Thrones. Still, Thrones most famously contributed to that sensationalism on television. So much so one of its most lauded guest stars, Ian McShane, deadpanned the show was only about “tits and dragons.” It became the figurehead for a media culture so problematic that there needed to be a reckoning at all networks and streamers in the post-#MeToo era.

That those elements on Game of Thrones were so often used in association with rape or sexual violence has led to a long overdue reevaluation of how stories with women are told in popular media—particularly from writers’ rooms dominated by men.

In truth, Game of Thrones has a litany of fascinating and complex female characters, many of whom end up in positions of power during the final seasons despite the grueling restraints of a medieval patriarchal society. Stars like Sophie Turner, whose Sansa Stark concludes the series as Queen in the North, has argued the series is actually quite feminist in its depiction of a wide range of nuanced female leads navigating medieval misogyny. And Clarke has said the show has taught her to “embrace her feminism.”

Yet both actors’ characters were forced to endure scenes of rape and sexual assault on the series, quite graphically in Clarke’s case during the first season. Even 10 years ago, viewers were rightfully disturbed by that. Clarke’s own thoughts on the use of nudity in the first season have also evolved. These elements, which only seem more glaring to the modern eye, have inspired a shift in how all “adult” stories are told, as well as how fantasy stories and historical dramas are received by audiences increasingly critical of one-sided titillation.

Those scenes likely contributed to the fan backlash when Clarke’s Daenerys, who suffered so much early on only to remake herself as a godlike savior, was revealed to be painfully mortal… turning into the villain of her own story.

A Legacy of Conflict

Game of Thrones began as a gamble for HBO, but even in its first year the bet was paying off when the fantasy show with dragons and ice zombies was nominated for Best Drama Series at the Emmys. Dinklage would go on to win his first of four Emmys for playing Tyrion that year, and even as the show lost the top prize then, it would eventually win Best Drama Series in four subsequent years.

It’s also worth noting that Dany’s dragons were barely present in the first season. Before the 2011 finale, they were creatures of a bygone age that, we’re told repeatedly, have long gone extinct. But in the final minutes of season 1, her ancient dragon eggs hatch, and a scene of biblical import plays out when she emerges from ashes as the Mother of Dragons. With each following year, Dany’s children grew larger in size, as did the pyrotechnics they unleashed. They were not much bigger than cats when they burned down a city of slavers in season 3. By the show’s end, they were the size of 747 jets while laying waste to Lannister armies.

As the creatures grew, so did Game of Thrones’ budget and, just as importantly, its audience. No other series in the modern era grew bigger with each season, from the cradle to its grave. In an age where Netflix invented the term “binge watching,” Game of Thrones remained the rare holdout of old school appointment television, with most audiences simultaneously watching live when the episode premiered on Sunday nights. Entire cottage industries based on fan speculation were born, and reading Martin’s books like they were sacred texts with hidden meanings that only the most learned scholar could translate became a pastime.

The first season premiered with 2.2 million people watching; the final season debuted with an audience of 17.4 million viewers. The finale brought in 19.3 million viewers. By comparison, the most popular scripted drama series on network television in 2019, This is Us, was averaging around 7-8 million viewers.

Yet as its popularity grew with its dragons, so did a vocal sense of dissatisfaction. There was a confluence of factors involved, many of them having to do with showrunners Benioff and Weiss running out of Martin novels to adapt. While they had a rough outline of how the series would end, the final two seasons of Game of Thrones arguably felt at points like just that: an outline the series was hitting by bullet point in each episode, often without the intricate plotting that made the early seasons and novels so addictive.

Yet it was really only during the series’ final two episodes, as a long built-up dragon fulfilled his destiny, that the rift between audience expectation and artistic intent erupted into a social media outrage. After watching Dany’s power build and build, and spending the final seasons with her pivoting from a threat to the Starks and King’s Landing to their ally against the Army of the Dead, Dany did what the series had long been famous for: she took a hard left turn.

In the final few hours of the series, Daenerys burns down the Westerosi capital, kills tens of thousands of people, and takes the Iron Throne in fire and blood, just like her ancestors. It was not the ending audiences, including myself, wanted for Dany, and it was an ending that disappointed even Clarke. Especially Clarke.

Read more

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Game of Thrones Season 8: This Was Always the Ending

By David Crow

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Game of Thrones: George R. R. Martin on How Hodor’s Origin Story Was Changed for TV

By Louisa Mellor

In many ways, it is one of the most Martin-esque elements of the series’ final years. You were promised high fantasy excitement and then got the cold, harsh reality of death and suffering. The fairy tales and fables which inspired modern fantasy are often derived from uglier histories and troubling sides of human nature. This is what conquest looks like, be it by dragon or sword.

Unfortunately, the execution of the ending left something to be desired. And there are plenty of write-ups out there to unpack the problems with the final season. Nonetheless, it is fair to wonder if for the first time in the series’ whole run, the show was finally out of step with the zeitgeist, and the subversion that was celebrated a decade earlier was no longer of the moment? When the show premiered, it was a realpolitik fantasy about the corrupting influence of power and how it can be wielded. When the series ended, corrupt abusers of power were on the rise around the world. Even Martin noted it was like King Joffrey had come to the White House.

The series not only denied viewers their favorite theories for the series’ end, but also a sense of escape from a world that was feeling uncomfortably closer to Westeros than it had eight years earlier.

In its own realm though, Game of Thrones was a series that shaped the modern television landscape. Spectacle on a scale comparable to Hollywood blockbusters is now deemed as attainable by content creators with deep enough pockets. Amazon paid $1 billion for the television rights of Lord of the Rings alone. But the industry has also reacted to Thrones and the antihero era it came from with a growing sense of wariness, too.

One of Game of Thrones’ contemporaries from its heyday was The Walking Dead. As another gritty, violent, and at times nihilistic genre show that became a mainstream hit, The Walking Dead started in the same TV season as Thrones. And one of its most pivotal writers from those earlier glory days, former showrunner Glen Mazzara, recently tweeted about the change in the industry’s tenor.

“TV development today is all about optimism,” Mazzara wrote. “Buyers don’t want anything dark or bleak.” While he then went on to add that he’s nonetheless writing the “darkest [and] scariest” thing of his career, the point remains that what was once the most popular thing on television, first as austere dramas and then as gory spectacles in shows like Thrones and The Walking Dead, is out of step in a modern TV landscape that has reacted to those shows.

Ironically, genre is more popular than ever, but the moral ambiguity and relativity that attracted HBO to Benioff and Weiss’ pitch is not. Rather than antiheroes, television is increasingly dominated by good natured and heroic individuals (Marvel Studios is even making the most popular shows). Characters, meanwhile, are proactively trying to solve social problems, not reveling in how broken things are. Creative spaces are also thankfully becoming more inclusive, giving a platform to a wider range of voices, including writers’ rooms where someone might be able to say the equivalent of, “You know, maybe Sansa shouldn’t be raped by Ramsay Bolton?”

This environment is a reaction to the popularity and then backlash endured by Game of Thrones. Which means our relationship to the series is far from over, even as the show’s run becomes an increasingly distant memory.

And yet, there’s (clearly) much to be said about what Game of Thrones accomplished in its time, right down to ending the way it did. It’s hard to imagine a show becoming that popular again and existing with such artistic freedom, and for its creators to be allowed to end it where they would like. Even in the 2010s it was rare, hence The Walking Dead lumbering onto an eleventh season this fall as a pale shadow of its former self. When that series ends, it also really won’t be the end, with more spinoffs, movies, and other forms of content planned.

Under new management, HBO has signaled they’ve developed a similar temperament, even with Game of Thrones. Benioff, Weiss, and apparently Martin saw their story end exactly the way they wanted to (even if few agreed with them). But the network has announced five live-action spinoff series in various stages of development, plus an animated one on HBO Max. In the age of endless streaming content, it’s easy to imagine that every corner of Westerosi history will be explored if WarnerMedia thinks there is an appetite.

Our feelings toward the legacy of Game of Thrones have evolved over the last 10 years, and will likely continue to do so for another 10. But it was a show that hit the right beats at the right time, and changed the culture while doing so. It burned brightly and then snuffed out its candle on its own terms. You don’t have to wait a decade to appreciate how rare, and unforgettable, that really is.

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[thewaywedo33]

Wynonna Earp 2x06 Thoughts and Faves

Well, we’re officially halfway through the season, and oh what a ride it has been so far. Time to rundown my (overdue) thoughts and faves from 2X06.

Let’s start with a quick mention of the badass Wynonna door kick in scene. If I was still hesitant about this whole pregnancy storyline thing, it was blown out of here right along with that door. (Also, every other damn thing in the episode allayed my fears).

Bobo left a big coat to fill as the season baddie, and the widows are starting to fill it nicely. It turns out Dani Kind has a delicious ability to play a villain. I’m sad we didn’t get more time with actual Mercedes, and I wish Wynonna was able to keep what was shaping up to be a fun friendship, but the storyline is working for me.

Underrated moment of the episode: Faux Mercedes looking down at her ass when Wynonna asks if she has a silver spoon stuck up there again, because she doesn’t know the phrase is now used as a euphemism and takes it literally.

Wynonna and Nicole, man, I feel like I’m going to be writing about them every single week. Not only do I love their dynamic and the potential that comes with it, but I also think their relationship could be extremely important for both characters. Wynonna really does need a friend besides her sister, and things are always going to be complicated with Doc and Dolls, so they can’t really fulfill that role. With Nicole still newish in town, I think she needs a friend too, even if it is her girlfriend’s sister.  Hey, Purgatory is a small town.  

Anyway, the end of last week’s episode was a turning point for Nicole and Wynonna. It cemented for Nicole that she can count on Wynonna to protect and save Waverly in the important moments. I don’t think Nicole has ever questioned Wynonna’s love for her sister, but it seems reasonable to assume she harbored doubts about her ability to do what’s in Waverly’s best interest sometimes, due to her drinking and flippant seeming attitude. 

We know Wynonna finds Nicole bossy and somewhat overbearing, but up to this point she was willing to overlook those things because of how obvious it is that Nicole loves her sister. After this episode, Wynonna is starting to understand Nicole’s better qualities for herself.

I’m in love with the scene where Nicole walks in to discover Wynonna’s pregnancy. The first, and most important, thing for her to ask is if Waverly knows, and boy do I love that, because it’s a tiny moment to indicate just how well Nicole knows her girlfriend. It would kill Waverly to be kept in the dark about such an important thing concerning her sister. Once it’s confirmed Waverly knows, Nicole quickly moves right past the confirmation without asking further questions when it’s clear Wynonna doesn’t really want to talk about it (she is incredibly observant after all). I have such an appreciation for the way Wynonna’s eyes widen when she realizes Nicole understands she doesn’t want to talk about it, or have anyone else know yet, and that Nicole is actually going to respect her wishes. Wynonna hasn’t had that experience much in her life, so it really resonates with her. We know it does, because she THANKS Nicole, something that Wynonna doesn’t do often.

They clear another hurtle in the clock maker’s mansion when Wynonna has to ask Nicole to deal with Tucker and let her worry about keeping Waverly safe, and Nicole listens again. “Thank you for saving our girl”, that’s what Nicole said last week, and it’s exactly why Wynonna asks Nicole respectfully to trust her to save Waverly again this week. 

These two started out this season somewhat reluctantly united because of their mutual love for Waverly, but they are moving one step at a time towards a bond that is based on their respect and admiration for one other.

Now it’s time to talk about Nicole and Waverly. I’m going to try to keep this on track, because part of me wants to just smash on my keyboard in all caps and call it a day, but I won’t.

Never in my lifetime did I think I’d see a show where the female/female pairing is the ‘A couple’, but that’s exactly what we have here. Granted, I haven’t watched every single show with a f/f relationship, but I’ve watched enough of them to know we have something special going on.

Consider this: In Season 1, Wynonna and Doc have a couple sexy scenes, which are lovely, but compare that to what we’ve gotten so far with Nicole and Waverly. They get together in episode nine, and a lot of (most) shows would have then relegated them to the background ‘B couple’ role from there. Instead, we’re getting a complex, nuanced progression of their relationship, and absurdly chemistry-laden, sexy scenes. A lot of them. How is it possible that the barn scene has become distant memory? (I’m just kidding, that scene will never be a distant memory, but I think you know what I mean

Honestly, bless Dominique and Kat, because absolutely nothing about their physical scenes feel stilted or forced, and we’re getting more than a chaste pressing of closed mouths together on occasion. Normally, I wouldn’t explicitly comment on something like this, but it’s actually a big deal and pretty ground breaking on a non HBO/Showtime/Cinemax show.

I won’t pretend I don’t think Nicole and Waverly still have important things to talk about, because I do. But if Emily Andras tells me they’re in a really good place right now, I’m taking her word for it. I’m actually okay with it if they don’t address all the issues at once, because honestly, that’s how people are in real life. We don’t pull out a list and say ‘And now I will recite everything I’m feeling insecure about so we can talk about it at length’. I trust that things will play out in their own time.

They did address the most important issue at the moment though, and that’s the question of Waverly’s consent. Nicole was so worried and upset by the idea that Waverly wasn’t herself during their sexual encounters. Not only is it extremely in character for her, but it’s something that SHOULD matter, and I appreciate the show for acknowledging it.

The progression Nicole goes through in that scene is amazing to watch, by the way. She goes from so blissfully happy that Waverly tastes like ‘her’ Waverly again, to pulling back because she needs to know if it really was Waverly during their previous times together, to eagerly jumping back in when Waverly says yes the first time, to (reluctantly) pulling back again because she needs to be SURE, and it’s all so incredibly well done. The pain on her face is visible when Waverly admits she doesn’t remember things when the demon was in control, and it’s beautiful to watch  it slowly melt away as Waverly speaks softly of remembering ever kiss and touch. The way these two gravitate towards each other is something else, and I’ll never stop yelling about it.

Speaking of being something else, EARP SISTERS. Another week, another gorgeous and breathtaking Earp sister scene to end the episode. The Earp sisters are the cornerstone and heart of this show, just as Waverly is for Wynonna.

I do find it interesting that Waverly is constantly giving Wynonna exactly what she herself needs and wants, which is unconditional love and support. Sure, she’s the town sweetheart and everyone ‘loves’ her, but that’s predicated on Waverly playing the roles everyone wants her in, and suppressing anything that might not gel with people’s view of her. But that’s a whole separate post I’ll maybe write someday, which will include the way Nicole Haught was able to really ‘see’ Waverly from the start, and how important her “as long as you want me, I will be by your side” is for Waverly to hear. But now is not the time for that little detour.

Something else I’ll find interesting is when Wynonna and Waverly inevitably reach the point in their narrative arcs where they’re on opposite sides of an issue. It has to happen, because it’s pretty much a staple narrative beat of a television relationship like theirs. When it comes, I hope it doesn’t hurt too much, and that we get a satisfying rebuild between the two of them. Knowing this show, it will, and we will.

Okay, rapid fire favorite lines and random thoughts:

-“God really is dead.” – this show is just so top-shelf.

-Tucker Gardner is literally a walking MRA poster child. Why did he feel the need to put on a mask for the clock maker’s mansion when he just takes it off after a minute? Probably because he wanted to live out some black ops fantasy situation in his head. I’m glad the dude got shot.

-Speaking of Tucker getting shot, I will never stop laughing at Nicole’s reaction when he jumps out the window. Which is to say, she didn’t have one at all. Not even a glance out the window to see if he ran, or is dead of a broken neck, just a ‘well anyway’ holstering of her gun and moving right on.

-“Don’t talk about my partner’s ass.” Did anyone else love when Doc referred to Dolls as his partner? There’s going to be tension from the Wynonna pregnancy reveal, but gosh I want these two to work through their issues and continue to work together as they compete/snark at each other. It’s fun.

-"When, when you were in like, labor?" I understand Dolls' shock, and I'm sympathetic to it, but dude kept the fact that he's part dragon a secret from Wynonna, so he better get right with her hesitation to tell him about this real quick.

-Oh Jeremy, sweet, summer child, holding the walkie talkie like a gun on the stairs at Shorty’s, wondering what The Rock would do, never change.

-Shout out to Nicole’s continued use of “the worst.” The list of things she considers the worst is now up to boy men, girlfriends fighting, and Tucker Gardner.

“I do judge you…judge you to be unexpectedly awesome.” RISE brotp.

-With the Stone Witch decapitated (screw you Tucker Gardner, you really are the WORST) does this mean we’ll get an again mortal Doc Holliday? My money says yes.

-“Tell me I’m wearing clothes this time.” – Funny Nicole Haught moments are magical.

-Doc’s ‘I’m all in’ note was a right kick to the heart, and also randomly reminded me of Juno.

-Wynonna, sweetie, darling, I understand why you initially associated the woman in black with Willa. Shoting her weighs heavy on your mind, and you thought of her first when you smelled Shalidelle. But…Willa liked the scent because your MOTHER wore it. I think Mama Earp is coming y’all, or at the very least, she’s going to wind up being at the center of a very important reveal.

-I’m ready to start the official fan campaign to get Scrofano nominted for an Emmy. Pick any individual aspect of her acting and it would make her worthy of the accolade ALONE. Now combine all of the aspects, and it’s just absurd to think about her not getting her fair due. Literally, every cast member on this show levels up when they do scenes with her; that’s a rare, special thing. Tatiana got hers in 2016, let’s get Mel one in 2018, shall we?

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got in me for this week. Not as in depth as I could have gone, but I’ll admit I kind of burnt myself out a bit writing that angst parade of a story that shall not be named.  I’ll be back after this week’s episode with more thoughts (that will probably center a lot around Nicole/Waverly, Nicole/Wynonna and the Earp sisters again, let’s be honest).

Who’s ready for drunk(?) Nicole and Wynonna at a Strip Joint, and protective, pissed off, yet still adorable, Waverly?  Everyone, right?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

[faithandfairies]

I had a hunch, so I looked up “dragon and lesbianism”. Did you know there is at least one bible verse on dragons and that there is actually a book that connects dragons and beasts to lesbianism? It’s called “The Dragon’s Tail; The Many False Prophets”.

I was just thinking about Mal’s story line with Regina and Lily. And then this happened.

I thought about how Mal’s entire relationship with Regina oozed sex. How Lily was also a dragon.

How there is literally an episode named “Enter the Dragon”. And how Emma and Regina were terrified of a dragon-trying to outrun it- that the Split Queen sicced on them.

They were completely defenseless and in the end the dragon was not defeated, they were just able to leave the room they were in with it through their son’s help, only to never talk about the experience again. Only for the dragon to be caged and then not much later for the Split Queen to be turned into a snake and caged. Snakes are also conveniently the poster child animal for temptation and giving into it. Biting into the apple from the tree of knowledge and whatnot.

In season 1 Regina basically has a wet questionable dream about Emma and tries to kill Emma for fear of “dying at the hands of Emma”, after which Emma actually kills a dragon. Then she and Regina are separated. After that they try to patch things up but instead their relationship basically deteriorates, if that’s even possible, only for it to be resurrected at the end of season 2. 

Then the dragon is resurrected at the height of their friendship (two thirds of he way through season 4). And Regina makes it clear at that point that she’d go to the ends of the earth to protect Emma, even if it killed her. 

Then Regina comes on to Lily, who at that point is a representation of Emma’s dark side/”riled up savior darkness”. Only for Lily and Mal to both disappear from the story at the same time.

At that point the whole Regina and Emma hiding behind their men thing happens after half a season of Emma and Regina “bonding”.

Then the dragon only reappears again once Regina starts to struggle with her emotions. People basically being terrified her emotions will go on the fritz when seeing Emma and Hook together. Regina basically admitting that her “inner Evil Queen” wants to choke the life out of Hook. I’m not even making any of this up. “Fighting a noble inner battle” as the dragon put it. A battle that was supposed to stay on the inside. Only it didn’t. And now the dragon, after being caged/trapped/controlled by the Split Queen and he failed to...whatever in the mirror world, has once again been disappeared at the hands of Regina. Along with the Split Queen.

According to this book, the dragon reference in the bible is all about letting the dragon/beast take over. Giving it authority. Worshiping it. About two of the same creatures (like women) worshiping each other. Letting it happen instead of suppressing it, I guess.

On top of this Revelations 13:2 actually mentions an animal that’s part leopard, part lion and part bear. All animals that have been alluded to on this show. Merida’s bear (taking over), Robin’s lion tattoo, an actual lion poised to attack Zelena only for her to run it off and Regina’s recent leopard print clothing and lion-like hair, not to mention the Aesop’s fable. I don’t know the significance in the bible though. But I thought to mention it all because this show has a LOT of biblical references.

(Also, dude says says that lesbianism and homosexuality are most detestable to God only to say/write that he’s not judging. 

Me: “Yes, yes you are.”

Did you hear God say that? Are you sure you didn’t misinterpret his words? Hell, I might be misinterpreting yours right now. 

Don’t have your own opinions and then project them onto God. At least own up to what you believe yourself. But don’t say that God believes that. This has been a problem since the beginning of time. It’s how slavery happened. White colonialists telling black slaves that God himself (God didn’t write the bible, you guys, man did-the bible is just a human’s opinion on God’s actual words, but I digress) made black people to be slaves and white people to be superior. They actually used God’s name and religion to oppress humans. Wasn’t not doing that like one of the Ten Commandments? 

But anyway, my beef with humanity and them projecting their own beliefs onto God is a whole other post.)