#dragon war story

[spitedemon]

i really don’t think it’s “typical dragon age fandom nonsense” for people to be genuinely upset about the world state choices. combat, level design, art direction, gameplay gimmicks, those have all varied across each dragon age game. the one thing that’s remained constant are nods to our previous choices.

i wasn’t expecting my HoF to come riding in on a griffon, but i can’t find a monument dedicated to warden tabris somewhere around the anderfels? lucanis couldn’t have some lines about the time that one arainai boy was stirring up trouble in antiva city? you’re gonna tell me that making a mage the new divine wouldn’t have some impact on nevarra and antiva? on the anderfels, the supposed most devout militant andrastian nation in thedas? you’re saying nobody in the north is paying attention to who rules orlais or ferelden? come on.

[ponypickle]

I will never not be sad by the de-fangification of our female characters on hotd. we could've had all of them serving cunt and warfare/bloodthirstiness but instead they are all 'peaceful' and everything is the men's fault 🙄🥲.

a cersei-esque alicent dead set on having her kids on the throne at all costs because she believes it's their gods given right, ready to slay everyone who gets in her way

rhaenyra asking her feral husband to eliminate anyone and anything that offends her, like vaemond, a son for a son, etc. stopping at nothing to get HER throne because SHE wants it, not stopping at anything to achieve her goals

rhaenys ready to ride into war for her queen to slay all her enemies instead of feeling bitter as she came across in the show a lot of the time

baela truly being the embodiment of her father in female form, being feral and ready to eliminate everything at once, etc.

oh, the show we could've had if they just weren't scared of the audiences reactions to powerful decisive women that aren't apologetic about their claims to power and what they believe is their's.

[synchodai]

When I say Tyland Lannister is my favorite character...

I am being 100% dead serious. Here is why I prefer this seemingly average nobleman over the many many many fan favorites in Fire and Blood.

Tyland Lannister is a second son in a story about second sons. Whether his feelings on this are as strong as Aemond's or Daemon's, we never know for sure in the books, but it's obvious that he's subservient to a mirror image of himself who only has more authority because of a few seconds separation between twins. It's a great display of both the arbitrariness and rigidity of succession.

His initial role in the Dance is as the master of coin for the greens. He's depicted as a typical Lannister: charming, comely, and cunning. He did what any savvy accountant would do and divided the crown's treasury amongst different allied regions for safe-keeping, ensuring that if King's Landing were sacked, their enemies wouldn't loot their coffers dry and they'd still have plenty of gold for their war efforts.

And of course, King's Landing gets sacked. Tyland is put in the black cells and ordered to be tortured by Rhaenyra to extract the gold's whereabouts. Winter is coming, people are starving and rioting, her army is dwindling, so she desperately needs that gold. Tyland is gelded, maimed, disfigured, and blinded but the torturers get nothing out of him.

Mind you, this man has been a rich, pampered bureaucrat all his life and he endured all that without breaking. When Aegon II releases Tyland from those cells, he has no fingernails, his eyes have been gouged out and/or sewn shut, this man who was once known for his good looks doesn't look human anymore — but he still manages to maintain his wits so much so that he plays an important role after the Dance.

Even with Rhaenyra dead, there are still armies raising their banners for her eldest surviving son, Aegon Trois. Tyland tells Adult Aegon to kill Child Aegon because obviously, the latter threatens the former's claim and Tyland's understandably angry over what his mom did. Aegon Dos is like, nah, I'll keep the boy hostage instead — that'll keep the armies at bay more than outright killing him.

So Tyland volunteers to go to Myr to hire sellswords for Aegon 2 since their armies are pretty much kaput after six years of this civil war. Tyland is blind at this point I remind you — there is a huge chance this man will never get to go home again. But he does it anyway, because even after years of fighting, he keeps his unwavering loyalty to the monarch he declared for.

Aegon II dies while Tyland is in Myr, and Tyland goes back to Westeros just in time to see Cregan Stark use his powers as the new Hand to marry Aegon III and Princess Jaehaera to unite the green and black sides. Cregan dusts off his hands, says my work here is done, warns the boy king not to trust anyone, then leaves for the North for everyone else to sort this mess out.

Now comes the part where Tyland shines as a character. He becomes the Hand of Aegon III and when you see his policies detailed in the book, it's clear that his goal is focused on repairs and renumerations. After what happened to him, he has every right to be spiteful and bitter against the blacks, but instead he "claimed a curious failure of memory, insisting that he could not recall who had been black and who had been green." He abolished the heavy taxes imposed on the smallfolk, sent out gold to lords whose holdings had been devastated during war, and set out to rebuild the Realm's granaries and fleet. Cleaning up is a tedious, unglamorous job — and because of his monstrous appearance and former allegiances, Tyland was looked upon with distrust.

And yet, while other regents grasped for power and tried taking advantage of the 13-year-old King Aegon III, Tyland seemed to be different. If he wanted power he could have married his twin brother's widow and convinced the boy-king to route more resources towards Casterly Rock and the Westerlands. But he didn't.

Instead, he genuinely seemed to be a father figure to Aegon III.

Tyland Lannister, blind and crippled, had always treated the king with deference, speaking to him gently, seeking to guide rather than command.

And for that, many lords saw him as a weak Hand. But Aegon, who cared for very little and never laughed and was always sullen, seemed to care for Tyland.

When the plague ravaged King's Landing, Tyland dutifully prioritized it over quashing the Ironborn raids at Lannisport. He was the last person to become afflicted with the Winter Fever, and the king sat by his Hand's side during his final hours. When the council starts discussing who should be the new Hand, Aegon (the boy who rarely ever speaks) says:

I would have Lord Rowan as my Hand. Ser Tyland thought well enough of him to offer him my sister’s hand in marriage, so I know he can be trusted.

This boy trusted Tyland, the man who only years ago wanted him dead.

So it's easy to imagine that this man saw Aegon III as the boy he was responsible for, as the son he could never have because of what the war had done to him. Tyland Lannister was a broken man who despite losing everything, his king and his brother and himself, kept a broken Realm and broken boy together when everyone else swarmed like vultures just trying to pick at carcasses.

What motivated this man's loyalty for a boy whose mother mutilated him? Did he regret pushing for the death of an innocent child and this was his penance? Did this man who gave everything for his cause think that this boy was something that could still give all that sacrifice and tragedy meaning? Was the mercy and kindness he afforded an apology for the horrifying trauma that scarred this boy — did he feel responsible for his mother's downfall and the failure to save his uncle? Did his disfigurement and blindness allow him to let go of the man he once was and become someone capable of seeing the folly of pride and power?

Here is his obituary in Fire and Blood:

Ser Tyland Lannister had never been beloved. After the death of Queen Rhaenyra, he had urged Aegon II to put her son Aegon to death as well, and certain blacks hated him for that. Yet after the death of Aegon II, he had remained to serve Aegon III, and certain greens hated him for that. Coming second from his mother’s womb, a few heartbeats after his twin brother, Jason, had denied him the glory of lordship and the gold of Casterly Rock, leaving him to make his own place in the world. Ser Tyland never married nor fathered children, so there were few to mourn him when he was carried off. The veil he wore to conceal his disfigured face gave rise to the tale that the visage underneath was monstrous and evil. Some called him craven for keeping Westeros out of the Daughters’ War and doing so little to curb the Greyjoys in the west. By moving three-quarters of the Crown’s gold from King’s Landing whilst Aegon II’s master of coin, Tyland Lannister had sown the seeds of Queen Rhaenyra’s downfall, a stroke of cunning that would in the end cost him his eyes, ears, and health, and cost the queen her throne and her very life. Yet it must be said that he served Rhaenyra’s son well and faithfully as Hand.

Tyland wasn't extraordinarily badass, noble, or even skilled. He was an excellent politician but no way the best. But I think that's what makes him compelling to me — that he's this down-to-earth depiction of a POW, a war veteran by all accounts, trying to pick up the pieces and slowly glue what remains of the Realm and himself back into something vaguely human.

We tell so many stories about the glory, the tragedy, and the losses of war. But I think it's important and beautiful to tell stories of those bravely and optimistically choosing to keep living in the aftermath as well.

[crucifiedfaerie]

just gonna leave this here. no other notes.

[short-wooloo]

i forgot to post this a week ago...

Its 2025 now, which means this year these all turn 15!!

[intimidatingpuffinstudios]

I uh...I'm pretty sure Rai is going to be a full RO, folks.

You know what this means? 10. Routes. In total.

10!!!!

I AM A FOOL, A WEAK FOOL!!!

[birb--birb]

me, starting up da2 again: man idk if I'm still as emotionally attached to this game as I was back when I did my first playthrough, I mean I was going through it TM when I first played da2 so maybe it's not as important to me anymore also me, 5 minutes later: *in tears over the backstab sound effect*

[fabuloustrash05]

My favorite trio trope is “the main character who is also the 3rd wheel”

[kalbaishakhi]

I know a lot of people think Rin embodies female rage, but I genuinely think that Venka is the one who truly experienced it. Like @rinsrighthand mentioned in their post, Rin's anger was more because of the racism she faced and how her being a speerly came before any other portion of her identity.

Venka was SA-ed. And the fate she met in Golyn Niis was only because, quoting Rin, she had "the body of a woman". If she wasn't a woman, she would've been killed, or tortured, but certainly not been put through what she suffered. She stayed alive because of her hatred towards her abusers. She could not leave the earth till she had her revenge. This decision held a lot of weight considering the warped perception the Nikara had of SA in general - hence why the other girls who survived Golyn Niis drank lye to take their own lives, most of the women who were assaulted during the war blamed themselves and her own father nearly disowned her.

Then came the news of her pregnancy, and her mother's order to keep the fetus because it was against her "religion" to abort a child - even if it was conceived because of her abusers. The amount of trauma, pain, grief and rage Venka went through is unfathomable. But she kept living. She performed the abortion herself. She kept fighting for justice for all those women, for herself.

The reason why Venka joined Rin was because she was the only one with the balls to punish her abusers (even though she burnt the entirety of Mugen down in the process), even burning a Hesperian man alive for assaulting a woman. Rin gave her a second chance to fight, when everyone else deemed her "broken". After Rin won the war, she made Venka the general of her army, after which, the one law she wanted to establish was a death penalty for those who dared assault someone.

At her core, she was angry. Angry because of how women were punished simply for being women. Angry because of how women were blamed for being abused. Angry because of how many men got away with doing horrific, monstrous things. Angry, because no one came to save her.

If that isn't female rage, I don't know what is.

[pandaspwnz]

I was 19 when Inquisition came out, and the Solavellan romance affected me in a way no video game romance had before or since, not only with how much it emotionally destroyed me (crestwood and trespasser it is on sight), but also with how much I absolutely fell in love with Solas' character and his dynamic with Lavellan, and for how long afterwards I stayed fixated on them with 0 breaks.

So anyway, I finished Veilguard yesterday and

[tidetower]

Nautilus: Seahorse Love Works in Mysterious Ways by Till Hein // Fire and Blood, George R.R. Martin // Ocean Conservancy: 7 Wild Facts You May Not Know About Seahorses by Katie Hogge // Mating Pair on SeahorseResearch - unknown // Project Seahorse: Reproduction // @/superorganism // Bones - MS MR // Seasmoke vs Tessarion by pedrohenryq // This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone // Project Seahorse: Pair Bonding // Not A Blog: Here There Be Dragons by George R.R. Martin // SeahorseResearch: Mates // Eclectic Array: A Sea Horse Kind of Love // Without You - Ursine Vulpine & Annaca // unknown

THE DANCE OF THE DRAGONS, otherwise known as the mating dance between Tessarion and Seasmoke

[timelesslords]

“Was Daedalus really stricken with grief…? Or just disappointed by the design failure?”

Fun Home, Allison Bechdel // House of the Dragon, HBO // Abraham’s Daughter, Arcade Fire // The Avengers’ Calendar, scifigrl47 // Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, Sean Stewart // Funny Story, Emily Henry // Sun Bleached Flies, Ethel Cain

[whereserpentswalk]

There is a cave that contains a dragon. He is an old dragon, twice as ancient and twice as powerful as most dragons you'll ever meet, his fire hot enough to melt a faerie's exoskeleton, and his mouth large enough to swallow a kraken whole. But he is a restful dragon, he spends most of his time in his cave, sleeping, or reading, or looking after his eggs. But it is said in an ancient contact with humankind that whenever the land needs him most (it is unclear what counts as the land), he will finally exit his cave and lend his power to humanity.

There was a time when a great general came to the dragon and said, "great dragon! We are at war and we are losing, our country has many brave men and the best of guns and tanks and planes, but the enemy outnumbers us. We have set up conscription, so if you are truly as loyal to your country as you are said to be you shall join us, and set our enemies ablaze." Yet the dragon slept so soundly the general thought him nothing more then stone, and the general left, thinking himself a fool.

Some time later the country's bishop came to the dragon and told him, "great dragon, Saint of the cave, you have been a Saint in this country since conversion, now may you awaken by the power of God for the sake of this land. The younger generations of this nation have turned from the church, and have become atheists and idol worshippers. Awaken and turn them to the light." But the dragon slept so soundly that the bishop thought him a creature of stone, and cursed him as a false idol as he left. The dragon was decanonized after that.

A few months after that, the ceo of a major corporation came to the dragons cave and told him, "my dear freind the dragon! You defend our nation right? Well, our industry is going downhill, the companies overseas are manufacturing faster then we ever could. Pretty soon our mining companies, our car companies, even our banks will be making less then those across the ocean. Come out and do something and you'll show yourself to really be loyal." But the dragon slept, and the ceo thought him to be nothing but stone, and the ceo spat on him, not caring for ancient artifacts.

The one day a young woman came to the dragon, with no where else to go, and whispered to him, "Please, I'm sorry if this is strange, but I wish someone could help. My mother plans to kick me out of my only home. She caught me sleeping with a woman, and said I have two weeks to leave. I have nowhere to, and fear soon I'll be on the streets. She won't even talk to me now. I know I am an adult, and it is her right, but I don't want to be cold this winter." And though it seemed to be no more than a statue, the young woman swore she could hear the words "it will be done" echo from the cave, and a yellow eye open for just a momment.

The next night the young woman's mother died, they say while she was out driving alone a fireball shot out from the sky at her, burning her alive. Nobody knows where the fire came from. But the young woman inherited the house, and the land was well protected.

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

Wound care - a way to show that you care (Part 2/?)

Goodbye, Mother

A Boss And A Babe

Where Your Eyes Linger

My Story

Love By Chance

Big Dragon

Hidden Agenda

War Of Y

Love Bill

Choco Milk Shake

Part of my favorite bl-tropes collection, as always in no particular order.

[fierlyamber]

tonight tpw overthinking session is sponsored by how Rin got shot by lightning in the chapter 34.

we all knew she was insane and deranged by the end, and she realized that too after her connection to the Phoenix was closed by Kitay. she also made her final decision AFTER she got shot by the Hesperian's lightning, she said: "The lightning vanished her divinity, and all that it left behind was utter horror at what she'd nearly done." it made me sick to the stomach because while Rin's circumstance has always been awful and all the betrayals she's been through pushed her to made all those horrible decisions, she might not be that 'insane' if there's no Phoenix wrecking her mind, idk if this is a dumb realization … because I kinda trusted Chaghan in TDR when he said Rin is "the most stable" he's ever seen, and how Kitay had been blocking the "direct" connection to the Phoenix makes me think Rin has been kinda "safe" from the influences but she's not. she got drunk in that power instead, and TBG happened.

[king-k-ripple]