#failed robert's rebellion

[unseentravler]

Fic of the week

283 AC.

Rhaegar takes an uneasy seat on the Iron Throne.

His daughter has been born, accepted willingly by his wife, who stares down on her with kindness despite the whispers. The Usurper has been driven off to Essos, fleeing with the death of his so-called beloved. His father is dead.

He's gotten what he wanted-

So why does he feel so empty?

-

Amidst the red sands of Dorne, a She-wolf breathes her last, and a prophecy is fulfilled.

Visenya grows up knowing the love of her mother, Elia, the absence of her mother, Lyanna, and the cold indifference of her father, Rhaegar. And dreams of green eyes and black scale. With the Targaryen dynasty weaker than it has been since the Dance, enemies in the west, and a looming threat in the north, fate finds itself nestled firmly between the teeth of monsters as they scrape the land anew

This is the best GOT I have ever read. It's a fascinating take on a common AU, with fantastic characterization and storytelling, especially when it comes to Robert Baratheon. It is currently ongoing and updates regularly.

10/10 Highly recommend.

[la-pheacienne]

Continuing my post about Jaime and Rhaegar’s respective roles in the sack of KL, let’s talk about Jaime and Rhaegar’s last conversation which I didn’t mention in that post and it deserves its own analysis. I find it extremely funny how both (some) Lannister stans and (some) Targ stans seem to think that the last convo between Rhaegar and Jaime was actually like this :

"Jaime, a sack is about to happen very soon. Elia and my kids are in a high risk of getting brutally murdered inside the very capital by the orders of your father who has ghosted us for some time but is deep down an enemy planning all of this in secret. Meanwhile, my father is planning to blow up the entire city any minute now because reasons. I’m leaving you here, alone, to take care of all this and keep all these people, my wife, two kids, father and the people of the city, safe from harm. If you fail to do any of that at any point, you’re incompetent, a traitor and a coward. Now I have to leave to do my thing with the others, don’t forget your duty and your vows, bye".

While it was actually like this :

"Jaime, there’s a war, we are in a pretty tight position and I gotta go to battle taking some men with me. Unfortunately my father wants to keep you close because he believes Tywin will not turn against him this way, and he’s kind of insane so there is nothing we can do about it without risking an even bigger outburst. Give me some time to get out of this mess, and then I’ll come back and we’ll fix this. All this will be over soon, bye".

So the first reading of Jaime and Rhaegar’s last convo completely misses the mark in many ways.

Some Lannister stans are screaming crying throwing up that Rhaegar left a literal cHiLD with all tHiS rEsPoNSIbILIty he doesn’t give a FUCK about anyone how dare he what kind of tHOUGhT PrOCesS is that !!!! Some Targ stans say that Rhaegar gave specific orders to Jaime to protect his father, wife, kids and city against multiple and opposite threats and thus honor his vows, and Jaime failing to do that means he is basically a traitor and a coward. And incompetent.

None of this is correct, because this isn’t what Rhaegar asked him to do, at all. Rhaegar did not know, could not know, could not possibly conceive or imagine or suspect that a sack was about to happen at the orders of Tywin no less and that his family was in immediate danger in.the.very.capital. Nobody.knew. That is why this sack is so horrifying. Also he may have been well aware that his father was insane but not to the point that he could expect him to literally want to blow up his own city. That is a whole other level of insanity he very legitimately didn’t expect. Thirdly, Rhaegar had no power to take Jaime or his family away at this point (« I dare not » is not an epheumism. He literally dares not. We’re talking about Aerys here).

All he asked Jaime to do is wait for Rhaegar to come back and in the meantime try to keep his father at bay. That.is.literally.it. Rhaegar said : « Give me some time, I’ll come back and fix this » And Jaime did wait and he did hope that Rhaegar would come back, but Rhaegar didn’t come back not because he decided to go on vacation with his new chick but because he got killed. Nothing went according to plan, and Jaime had to take matters in his own hands.

So :

Rhaegar did not leave """""all that responsibility""""" to a """"literal child"""".  He left his father the king with the one member of the Kingsguard the king specifically wanted with him, and he told that member of the Kingsguard to literally, wait it out and be a KG. Apart from the fact that Rhaegar couldn’t take Jaime away because Aerys wanted him there, Jaime was not a random child, he was a member of the KG. Him staying with Aerys is technically what he was supposed to do as a member of the KG anyway, there is nothing abnormal or particularly stupid or outrageous or naive in this """"thought process"""", despite Jaime’s age. That order seemed both inevitable (it was Aerys’ order) and reasonable (Jaime was a KINGSguard after all), at the time.

Likewise, Rhaegar did not reasonably expect Jaime to go all Superman on both his father and Tywin’s men and save like the entire population of KL including his own family, all by himself. Again, what he actually told Jaime to do was literally wait for him to come back and try to keep his father at bay. He hoped Jaime’s presence would satiate his father until he comes back. That’s all. He did not know that Aerys would want to blow up KL, he did not know what Jaime would be forced to do and he did not expect the sack and the fact that his family would be murdered in the capital. He didn’t entrust Jaime with all these things simply because he wasn’t expecting these things. All these things were definitely not part of """the job""" Rhaegar gave him. Rhaegar’s GHOST saying to Jaime in his dreams "I left my wife and children in your hands" is manifesting Jaime’s guilt for not being able to save the family. It is a ghost in Jaime’s dream. This doesn’t mean that Rhaegar literally expected Jaime to prevent his father from blowing up the city and simultaneously protect his family from an entirely different threat that wasn’t even remotely a possibility then. Jaime failing to do all of the above by himself doesn’t make him a traitor, an incompetent loser or a coward.

The distortion of their actual convo led the entire fandom to engage in a strawman argument ad nauseam. Lannister stans are attacking Rhaegar for leaving "all this responsibility" to Jaime and Targ stans are attacking Jaime for failing to honor this responsibility, while "all this responsibility" was never part of their actual conversation to begin with because none them had the slightest idea of what was about to happen in the first place.

It is such a pity because this last convo between these two men is so tragic and haunting and beautiful, Jaime (grrm) describes his last visual memory of Rhaegar in an unusually poetic manner, and the fact that deep down he is still waiting and hoping for Rhaegar to come back makes me insane. « The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate ». « So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom ». « It is not Aerys I rue, it is Robert ». « I almost mistook you for Aegon the Conqueror ». « How much can a crown be worth when a crow can feast on a king? ». And instead of focusing on that and the symbolism of it all and that fact that it’s literally foreshadowing Dany’s or Jon’s « return » and their meeting with Jaime (Rhaegar will come back in the end in some form or another, all hope is not lost) we’re reiterating bad takes about a supposed conflict between them ad infinitum. It is boring, reductive and uninspired.

Be serious, read the text and stop spreading misinformation about either side. This is not a football game. We all love a fandom fight occasionally but it is important to actually engage with the themes of the story from time to time.

[eddardofthehousestark]

The Ned Stark tag is about to be the worst.

So many idiot "Cregan fans" will be going on about how Ned is a wimp compared to Cregan, when Ned actually fought in the wars he took part in, unlike Cregan who showed up after the Tullys and Blackwoods already did most of the heavy lifting. But honestly both of them made the right decision for the respective situations, Cregan did the right thing in the Dance and Ned did the right thing in the Rebellion. Hell, even comparing their handships is kind of stupid because both situations are completely different. If Ned was put in Cregan's situation, he would probably succeed, just like Cregan did. You put Cregan in Ned's position, and he would probably fail, just like Ned did. The two main reasons Ned really failed at hand was because he didn't fully understand the power of the hand, and because Cersei got help from God(GRRM) when it came to her assassination of Robert. Not because he wasn't "badass" like Cregan. The reason Cregan succeeded was because he entered the handship with the most intact army in the realm behind him, and was able to do some excellent clean up work for a couple of days. But even then he had to be talked out of continuing the war by smarter people who realized that his plans to siege the remaining Green loyalists were just horrible.

[raventreehall]

kinda crazy that joffrey is set up as a comparison to aerys (if and how it's warranted or not can be debated i guess). like it's an obvious message—it's not the house that's in power that matters, it's hereditary monarchy and a violent, stratified, patriarchal society that's the core issue—but the way it reflects on the characters... ahhhhhh!!!! robert looking at the kid he believes to be his son knowing that when he dies the whole rebellion will all be for nothing, the next in line is just another aerys (and he thinks he gave birth to him). and jaime!!! his son is a reincarnation of the king he killed. he's sworn to protect him again AND to see him die again, knowing that joffrey's death is for the good of the realm just like aerys' was. OH and tywin too. aerys made a fool of him so he helped put robert on the throne and married his daughter to him just for robert to turn out to be an oaf, and then put his grandson on the throne over robert just for his grandson to turn out to be another aerys... snake eating its own tail moment, epic cringe fail

[bucknastysbabe]

i love your writings, i love reading dom!reader fics so much and your sub!viserys III fic was so😫😫😫 can you write more stuff with dom!reader/sub!viserys?

TA-DA!!! Lmk how you liked it :)

Rating: Explicit

A/N: This is a big ole AU where roberts rebellion doesn’t occur and Rhaegar took over. Henceforth Arianne marries Viserys

Tags: Open relationships, sub!Viserys III, afab sex worker reader, bi reader, implied relationship w Arianne Martell, pnv!sex, Viserys is a bottom who tries to be top and fails miserably, man tearsssss

Egotistical

Arianne’s big brown eyes stared into your own quizzical orbs. She hummed in that lilting accent of hers, “Can you make it work or no? Gods know he’s temperamental. She lounged on the bed in your room, clad in a silky dress. Your gaze studied her curvy body, distracting any thoughts.

The Dornish princess wanted you, a whore she employed, to fuck her husband. For reasons unknown. Prince Viserys was handsome but by all accounts a complete arse. You sighed, “Why do you exactly want me to seduce your husband?”

Her full lips split into a smile. “Because he needs it. I think some,” she waved her hand, “Carnal pleasure would do Vis some good.” You barked a laugh while your fingers nervously picked at the pillowcase. Cocking your head you asked, “Why can’t you do the trick?”

Arianne replied, “It’s not in my nature to dominate. I like to be fucked by big strong men and women, not do the fucking,” she leveled you with a look, “That’s what the little bitch craves. So I bring him here and you do it, yes? Plenty of coin involved.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled the olive skinned woman towards you, groaning out, “Fine.”

-

You could hear the prince’s annoyed tone down the hall. You laid naked in the bed, toying idly with your hair. Candles and incense made the room smell fragrant and herbal.

“Arianne, what is all this? I don’t fancy myself getting a pox tonight!”

The Dornish hissed back, “Just shut up and go in there, I’m tired of you bitching all the time Viserys!”

The blonde made an indignant splutter, stumbling as he was shoved in the room. Arianne’s curls bounced as she laughed, “Good luck, play nice Vis.” Viserys stared in shock at your naked frame while she slammed the door behind him. You purred, “Evening, m’lord.”

He was dressed in fine wool, emblazoned with the three headed dragon. Wide lilac eyes gazed upon you, his mouth twitching but no sound came out. You ran a hand up your body, sinking your fingers into the soft flesh of your tits. His dark brows pulled together as Viserys stuttered, “W-what is the the- the meaning of this?”

You raised a brow, elaborating, “The princess said you need a special sort of care.” His lips pulled into a frown, but you spotted the Targaryen’s cheeks flushing up nicely. He hissed, “So my dear wife set me up with a whore?” You shrugged and sat up, laughing, “Yes I suppose she did. You want me to fuck you or not, pretty princeling?”

His cheeks darkened further, nervousness flitting over Viserys pale features. He wanted it for sure, but pride was holding the indignant thing back. You cooed, “You don’t have to hide, I know what you need sweet boy.” The Prince made a soft noise, purple orbs searching your eyes. You curled a finger to beckon him over, shifting your legs open to display your wet cunt.

“Fucking seven hells, f-fine,” he grumbled.

You grinned at his sullen pout, curling your hand into his silky blonde hair as Viserys shucked off his boots next to the bed. You said, “All of it off,

good boy, yes.” He huffed and divested himself of the clothes in jerky movements, frustrated at the pace his shaky fingers were going. You held back a laugh at his demeanor, obviously the prince was not very experienced getting ordered around in bed.

You eyed his slim body as it was revealed, all pale unblemished skin. “Beautiful.” Viserys made a soft sound, putting a knee on the bed. His cock was reddened and at half mast, you wrapped your hand around it and pumped. The prince gasped and bit down on his lip in response, prick jumping. You sighed, “Pretty cock m’lord, you’re so beautiful.”

He whimpered softly, lashes fluttering as you jerked him off in slow strokes. Viserys swung his other leg up, moving forward to practically straddle you. The prince kept his eyes averted from your lustful gaze, embarrassment making pallid skin flush down to his chest. One of your hands gripped at his ass, amusedly remarking, “All that bravado is a front isn’t it? You’re shyer than a flowered maid.”

He whined, “Gods- no!” The prince pushed you back onto the bed, taking a position of power. You snorted at his pitiful attempt to take charge, letting the fool smother you with a hot kiss. Obviously Viserys was not aware of what you could do regardless of his bluster. You lapped at his lower lip, grinning at his hitched breath. Viserys voice cracked as he tried to growl, “I’m the blood of the dragon! I take what I want!”

You nodded. “Yes my prince, you are very powerful.”

You wrapped your thighs around his slim waist, goading the prince on, “Go on, take it like the dragon you are.” His lips trembled in anger, lilac eyes cast with self doubt. You thumbed at his long neck, digging the digit into his thumping pulse. His cock rubbed against your slick pussy, Viserys hips making little jerks.

He insulted you in a whiny tone, “You’re a bitch.” One of his hands groped your breast roughly, the other guided his cock inside of you. You moaned lowly at the feeling, breathlessly laughing at the prince’s mouth falling open on a whorish moan. His eyes shut tight again, hips stilling. You knew he was trying to hold off from coming.

You rubbed one of his boney shoulders, whispering into his ear, “Poor princeling, just let me take over, hm?” He whimpered lowly, cock twitching deep inside of you. Viserys panted, “I- I can’t, oh gods!” He tucked his face into the crook of your neck, trembling and overwhelmed. You took the initiative to start fucking yourself on his cock, sighing in pleasure at the stretch. He was well made, you could say that. Always the tall and skinny ones.

Viserys cried out louder this time, shivering at the feeling of your cunt sheathed around him, wet and velvety. His hands grasped at your flesh frantically. You moaned, “I’ve got you sweet Prince, feels s’good!” He began to fuck back into you in sloppy thrusts, gasping and whining pathetically.

“Fuck, gods, fuck you’re s-so wet mmm!”

You purred in excitement, he was falling apart in your arms so easily, “Just for you m’lord- hah, poor thing just needed a strong hand.” He babbled in agreement, sensitive tip rubbing against your insides. You yanked his hair to get a look at Viserys flushed face, the man whining like a bitch in heat.

You took in the beauty of his disheveled state, red and sweaty from minutes of fucking. His lips trembled and gaped from constant little noises you were milking out of the blonde. You inquired, “S’that feel good my Prince? You like how wet my pussy is for you?” He nodded miserably, purple eyes rolling around. You clenched down on his length harder, rocking your hips in a quicker pace.

He cried out and latched his mouth on your collarbone, helplessly sucking and biting at the thin skin. The angle you were at was hitting the good spot in your cunt, moans of delight echoing. You demanded in a soft voice, “Touch me dragon, let me come around you, it’ll feel like heaven.” He nodded disjointedly, long fingers circling around your swollen bud.

The prince had let go of his ego with abandon by now, consumed by your tight heat. He begged softly, “You’re s’perfect, oh don’t stop!” His lips sucked a blooming mark into your skin, fingers moving faster. You were panting now, fucking yourself faster and faster until slapping filled the room. Heat coiled in your lower belly, ready to pop.

Viserys whined at the squeeze, “Fffuck! M’gonna cum in you, oh please take it! Need it!” You bobbed your head in agreement, orgasm imminent, Viserys pretty little noises ushering you along. You snapped your hips up and grabbed the prince’s ass to sink fully inside of you— snapping that building coil. With a cry you tightened and convulsed around his cock, cunt pulsing in waves.

The prince fell apart at the sensation, babbling and breath hitching like sobs. Tears pricked his lilac eyes while you thrashed under his slim frame, moaning wantonly. He babbled, “So tight so tight so tight!” You sunk your teeth into his lower lip, Viserys spasming and emptying into you. He hiccuped and sobbed, tears rolling now. You sighed at his load filling up your pussy, still gently gliding along his twitching length.

You squeezed his ass again before sliding your palms up Viserys heaving frame, cooing soft words and praises. He sobbed and slid out, curling into your smaller frame. The prince whimpered, “Thank you- fuck- thank you.” Arianne slid through the door silently, her full lips quirking up at the state of Viserys.

You lazily smiled at her and pressed your lips to his pale hair. He nuzzled your neck, still offhandedly babbling. Arianne slid onto the bed to join the sweaty pile, cooing, “Oh, sweet Vis, she wore you out no?” He turned his reddened eyes to her and nodded wearily, pulling the Dornish into his side. You grinned, quite happy at being smothered by two royals.

“He’s a good boy, did so well,” you praised.

[duchess-of-oldtown]

The thing about Stannis that people often forget that he was only 17 when Robert's Rebellion started. His parents are dead, his older brother who was meant to be in charge and head of the family has practically abandoned him with all the responsibilities of being Lord of Storm's End, being head of the family and raising Renly who was 3 or 4 at this time. He's seventeen and all of a sudden he has to make a choice between what he knows is the "right" thing to do which is staying loyal to the Crown or standing with his brother, who he no doubt loves despite his later declaration in ACOK. He's seventeen and there's an army outside the walls, everybody inside those walls has to rely on him when he knows that they really want Robert, he is in charge when doubtless he wants Robert back. He's the one who is meant to be in charge after all, the one with the experience, he's only 17. He has to watch Renly grow thinner and thinner, likely going without food himself just to give Renly an extra mouthful here and there. He has to see people turn on House Baratheon from inside the castle, probably knowing them all his life. He has to punish them or end up looking weak, he can't afford weakness. Not when there are hundreds depending on him. And Robert. He's depending on him too, afterall. Then comes the news that Rhaegar is dead, King's Landing is Robert's and he's King now. Weeks later, Stannis gets news that the Siege is about to be lifted. Doubtless he looks out over the walls and sees who has come to save him. It's not Robert. It's Ned Stark, who Robert went to war with, who Robert sees as a brother, far more than he's ever treated Stannis. And even then Stark has to run off for another duty, leaving Stannis to deal with Storm's Ends recovery. Then when things are settled, the Baratheons unite. Robert has a task for Stannis rather than a thank you or an apology. Stannis grits his teeth and gets on with it. He fails to capture the last Targaryens. He returns only to hear Robert's grumbles. And when comes time for dealing with succession, Renly- who is only a child - gets Storm's End. Stannis gets Dragonstone, the reminder of his failure not his achievements. It breaks Stannis's trust in Robert. In the following years, Robert becomes more and more of a disappointment. He beds Delena Florent at Stannis's wedding ruining the nuptials which are nothing more to Stannis than a political move no doubt recommended by Jon Arryn. He becomes more lazy, more distant, less and less of somebody to look up. To make matters worse, Renly who Stannis protected, starved for and practically raised, still looks up to Robert, pushing Stannis away. By AGOT, Stannis is isolated by his own House, trapped in a loveless marriage, weighed down by duties he never asked for, responsibilities that he has to shoulder because Robert won't, crushed under the knowledge of the Lannister Twincest and its repercussions and he's just been pushed aside again by Ned Stark, this stranger who Robert idolises so much. Its the last straw so he leaves. Months later, Robert is dead, Renly is at the heart of trouble and the Realm is bleeding again. Stannis declares himself King, not only because Melisandre wraps the shroud of messiah around him or he really feels any sort of higher calling or ambition. He does it because that's what he does, he cleaned up Robert's messes, he steps into Robert's shoes and does his duty. Just has he's been doing since he was just a child.

[mariacallous]

“Don’t mention the word ‘liberalism,’ ” the talk-show host says to the guy who’s written a book on it. “Liberalism,” he explains, might mean Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to his suspicious audience, alienating more people than it invites. Talk instead about “liberal democracy,” a more expansive term that includes John McCain and Ronald Reagan. When you cross the border to Canada, you are allowed to say “liberalism” but are asked never to praise “liberals,” since that means implicitly endorsing the ruling Trudeau government and the long-dominant Liberal Party. In England, you are warned off both words, since “liberals” suggests the membership of a quaintly failed political party and “liberalism” its dated program. In France, of course, the vagaries of language have made “liberalism” mean free-market fervor, doomed from the start in that country, while what we call liberalism is more hygienically referred to as “republicanism.” Say that.

Liberalism is, truly, the love that dare not speak its name. Liberal thinkers hardly improve matters, since the first thing they will say is that the thing called “liberalism” is not actually a thing. This discouraging reflection is, to be sure, usually followed by an explanation: liberalism is a practice, a set of institutions, a tradition, a temperament, even. A clear contrast can be made with its ideological competitors: both Marxism and Catholicism, for instance, have more or less explicable rules—call them, nonpejoratively, dogmas. You can’t really be a Marxist without believing that a revolution against the existing capitalist order would be a good thing, and that parliamentary government is something of a bourgeois trick played on the working class. You can’t really be a Catholic without believing that a crisis point in cosmic history came two millennia ago in the Middle East, when a dissident rabbi was crucified and mysteriously revived. You can push either of these beliefs to the edge of metaphor—maybe the rabbi was only believed to be resurrected, and the inner experience of that epiphany is what counts; maybe the revolution will take place peacefully within a parliament and without Molotov cocktails—but you can’t really discard them. Liberalism, on the other hand, can include both faith in free markets and skepticism of free markets, an embrace of social democracy and a rejection of its statism. Its greatest figure, the nineteenth-century British philosopher and parliamentarian John Stuart Mill, was a socialist but also the author of “On Liberty,” which is (to the leftist imagination, at least) a suspiciously libertarian manifesto.

Whatever liberalism is, we’re regularly assured that it’s dying—in need of those shock paddles they regularly take out in TV medical dramas. (“C’mon! Breathe, damn it! Breathe! ”) As on television, this is not guaranteed to work. (“We’ve lost him, Holly. Damn it, we’ve lost him.”) Later this year, a certain demagogue who hates all these terms—liberals, liberalism, liberal democracy—might be lifted to power again. So what is to be done? New books on the liberal crisis tend to divide into three kinds: the professional, the professorial, and the polemical—books by those with practical experience; books by academics, outlining, sometimes in dreamily abstract form, a reformed liberal democracy; and then a few wishing the whole damn thing over, and well rid of it.

The professional books tend to come from people whose lives have been spent as pundits and as advisers to politicians. Robert Kagan, a Brookings fellow and a former State Department maven who has made the brave journey from neoconservatism to resolute anti-Trumpism, has a new book on the subject, “Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Again” (Knopf). Kagan’s is a particular type of book—I have written one myself—that makes the case for liberalism mostly to other liberals, by trying to remind readers of what they have and what they stand to lose. For Kagan, that “again” in the title is the crucial word; instead of seeing Trumpism as a new danger, he recapitulates the long history of anti-liberalism in the U.S., characterizing the current crisis as an especially foul wave rising from otherwise predictable currents. Since the founding of the secular-liberal Republic—secular at least in declining to pick one faith over another as official, liberal at least in its faith in individualism—anti-liberal elements have been at war with it. Kagan details, mordantly, the anti-liberalism that emerged during and after the Civil War, a strain that, just as much as today’s version, insisted on a “Christian commonwealth” founded essentially on wounded white working-class pride.

The relevance of such books may be manifest, but their contemplative depth is, of necessity, limited. Not to worry. Two welcomely ambitious and professorial books are joining them: “Liberalism as a Way of Life” (Princeton), by Alexandre Lefebvre, who teaches politics and philosophy at the University of Sydney, and “Free and Equal: A Manifesto for a Just Society” (Knopf), by Daniel Chandler, an economist and a philosopher at the London School of Economics.

The two take slightly different tacks. Chandler emphasizes programs of reform, and toys with the many bells and whistles on the liberal busy box: he’s inclined to try more random advancements, like elevating ordinary people into temporary power, on an Athenian model that’s now restricted to jury service. But, on the whole, his is a sanely conventional vision of a state reformed in the direction of ever greater fairness and equity, one able to curb the excesses of capitalism and to accommodate the demands of diversity.

The program that Chandler recommends to save liberalism essentially represents the politics of the leftier edge of the British Labour Party—which historically has been unpopular with the very people he wants to appeal to, gaining power only after exhaustion with Tory governments. In the classic Fabian manner, though, Chandler tends to breeze past some formidable practical problems. While advocating for more aggressive government intervention in the market, he admits equably that there may be problems with state ownership of industry and infrastructure. Yet the problem with state ownership is not a theoretical one: Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister because of the widely felt failures of state ownership in the nineteen-seventies. The overreaction to those failures may have been destructive, but it was certainly democratic, and Tony Blair’s much criticized temporizing began in this recognition. Chandler is essentially arguing for an updated version of the social-democratic status quo—no bad place to be but not exactly a new place, either.

Lefebvre, on the other hand, wants to write about liberalism chiefly as a cultural phenomenon—as the water we swim in without knowing that it’s wet—and his book is packed, in the tradition of William James, with racy anecdotes and pop-culture references. He finds more truths about contemporary liberals in the earnest figures of the comedy series “Parks and Recreation” than in the words of any professional pundit. A lot of this is fun, and none of it is frivolous.

Yet, given that we may be months away from the greatest crisis the liberal state has known since the Civil War, both books seem curiously calm. Lefebvre suggests that liberalism may be passing away, but he doesn’t seem especially perturbed by the prospect, and at his book’s climax he recommends a permanent stance of “reflective equilibrium” as an antidote to all anxiety, a stance that seems not unlike Richard Rorty’s idea of irony—cultivating an ability both to hold to a position and to recognize its provisionality. “Reflective equilibrium trains us to see weakness and difference in ourselves,” Lefebvre writes, and to see “how singular each of us is in that any equilibrium we reach will be specific to us as individuals and our constellation of considered judgments.” However excellent as a spiritual exercise, a posture of reflective equilibrium seems scarcely more likely to get us through 2024 than smoking weed all day, though that, too, can certainly be calming in a crisis.

Both professors, significantly, are passionate evangelists for the great American philosopher John Rawls, and both books use Rawls as their fount of wisdom about the ideal liberal arrangement. Indeed, the dust-jacket sell line of Chandler’s book is a distillation of Rawls: “Imagine: You are designing a society, but you don’t know who you’ll be within it—rich or poor, man or woman, gay or straight. What would you want that society to look like?” Lefebvre’s “reflective equilibrium” is borrowed from Rawls, too. Rawls’s classic “A Theory of Justice” (1971) was a theory about fairness, which revolved around the “liberty principle” (you’re entitled to the basic liberties you’d get from a scheme in which everyone got those same liberties) and the “difference principle” (any inequalities must benefit the worst off). The emphasis on “justice as fairness” presses both professors to stress equality; it’s not “A Theory of Liberty,” after all. “Free and equal” is not the same as “free and fair,” and the difference is where most of the arguing happens among people committed to a liberal society.

Indeed, readers may feel that the work of reconciling Rawls’s very abstract consideration of ideal justice and community with actual experience is more daunting than these books, written by professional philosophers who swim in this water, make it out to be. A confidence that our problems can be managed with the right adjustments to the right model helps explain why the tone of both books—richly erudite and thoughtful—is, for all their implication of crisis, so contemplative and even-humored. No doubt it is a good idea to tell people to keep cool in a fire, but that does not make the fire cooler.

Rawls devised one of the most powerful of all thought experiments: the idea of the “veil of ignorance,” behind which we must imagine the society we would want to live in without knowing which role in that society’s hierarchy we would occupy. Simple as it is, it has ever-arresting force, making it clear that, behind this veil, rational and self-interested people would never design a society like that of, say, the slave states of the American South, given that, dropped into it at random, they could very well be enslaved. It also suggests that Norway might be a fairly just place, because a person would almost certainly land in a comfortable and secure middle-class life, however boringly Norwegian.

Still, thought experiments may not translate well to the real world. Einstein’s similarly epoch-altering account of what it would be like to travel on a beam of light, and how it would affect the hands on one’s watch, is profound for what it reveals about the nature of time. Yet it isn’t much of a guide to setting the timer on the coffeemaker in the kitchen so that the pot will fill in time for breakfast. Actual politics is much more like setting the timer on the coffeemaker than like riding on a beam of light. Breakfast is part of the cosmos, but studying the cosmos won’t cook breakfast. It’s telling that in neither of these Rawlsian books is there any real study of the life and the working method of an actual, functioning liberal politician. No F.D.R. or Clement Attlee, Pierre Mendès France or François Mitterrand (a socialist who was such a master of coalition politics that he effectively killed off the French Communist Party). Not to mention Tony Blair or Joe Biden or Barack Obama. Biden’s name appears once in Chandler’s index; Obama’s, though he gets a passing mention, not at all.

The reason is that theirs are not ideal stories about the unimpeded pursuit of freedom and fairness but necessarily contingent tales of adjustments and amendments—compromised stories, in every sense. Both philosophers would, I think, accept this truth in principle, yet neither is drawn to it from the heart. Still, this is how the good work of governing gets done, by those who accept the weight of the world as they act to lighten it. Obama’s history—including the feints back and forth on national health insurance, which ended, amid all the compromises, with the closest thing America has had to a just health-care system—is uninspiring to the idealizing mind. But these compromises were not a result of neglecting to analyze the idea of justice adequately; they were the result of the pluralism of an open society marked by disagreement on fundamental values. The troubles of current American politics do not arise from a failure on the part of people in Ohio to have read Rawls; they are the consequence of the truth that, even if everybody in Ohio read Rawls, not everybody would agree with him.

Ideals can shape the real world. In some ultimate sense, Biden, like F.D.R. before him, has tried to build the sort of society we might design from behind the veil of ignorance—but, also like F.D.R., he has had to do so empirically, and often through tactics overloaded with contradictions. If your thought experiment is premised on a group of free and equal planners, it may not tell you what you need to know about a society marred by entrenched hierarchies. Ask Biden if he wants a free and fair society and he would say that he does. But Thatcher would have said so, too, and just as passionately. Oscillation of power and points of view within that common framework are what makes liberal democracies liberal. It has less to do with the ideally just plan than with the guarantee of the right to talk back to the planner. That is the great breakthrough in human affairs, as much as the far older search for social justice. Plato’s rulers wanted social justice, of a kind; what they didn’t want was back talk.

Both philosophers also seem to accept, at least by implication, the familiar idea that there is a natural tension between two aspects of the liberal project. One is the desire for social justice, the other the practice of individual freedom. Wanting to speak our minds is very different from wanting to feed our neighbors. An egalitarian society might seem inherently limited in liberty, while one that emphasizes individual rights might seem limited in its capacity for social fairness.

Yet the evidence suggests the opposite. Show me a society in which people are able to curse the king and I will show you a society more broadly equal than the one next door, if only because the ability to curse the king will make the king more likely to spread the royal wealth, for fear of the cursing. The rights of sexual minorities are uniquely protected in Western liberal democracies, but this gain in social equality is the result of a history of protected expression that allowed gay experience to be articulated and “normalized,” in high and popular culture. We want to live on common streets, not in fortified castles. It isn’t a paradox that John Stuart Mill and his partner, Harriet Taylor, threw themselves into both “On Liberty,” a testament to individual freedom, and “The Subjection of Women,” a program for social justice and mass emancipation through group action. The habit of seeking happiness for one through the fulfillment of many others was part of the habit of their liberalism. Mill wanted to be happy, and he couldn’t be if Taylor wasn’t.

Liberals are at a disadvantage when it comes to authoritarians, because liberals are committed to procedures and institutions, and persist in that commitment even when those things falter and let them down. The asymmetry between the Trumpite assault on the judiciary and Biden’s reluctance even to consider enlarging the Supreme Court is typical. Trumpites can and will say anything on earth about judges; liberals are far more reticent, since they don’t want to undermine the institutions that give reality to their ideals.

Where Kagan, Lefebvre, and Chandler are all more or less sympathetic to the liberal “project,” the British political philosopher John Gray deplores it, and his recent book, “The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), is one long complaint. Gray is one of those leftists so repelled by the follies of the progressive party of the moment—to borrow a phrase of Orwell’s about Jonathan Swift—that, in a familiar horseshoe pattern, he has become hard to distinguish from a reactionary. He insists that liberalism is a product of Christianity (being in thrall to the notion of the world’s perfectibility) and that it has culminated in what he calls “hyper-liberalism,” which would emancipate individuals from history and historically shaped identities. Gray hates all things “woke”—a word that he seems to know secondhand from news reports about American universities. If “woke” points to anything except the rage of those who use it, however, it is a discourse directed against liberalism—Ibram X. Kendi is no ally of Bayard Rustin, nor Judith Butler of John Stuart Mill. So it is hard to see it as an expression of the same trends, any more than Trump is a product of Burke’s conservative philosophy, despite strenuous efforts on the progressive side to make it seem so.

Gray’s views are learned, and his targets are many and often deserved: he has sharp things to say about how certain left liberals have reclaimed the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt and his thesis that politics is a battle to the death between friends and foes. In the end, Gray turns to Dostoyevsky’s warning that (as Gray reads him) “the logic of limitless freedom is unlimited despotism.” Hyper-liberals, Gray tells us, think that we can compete with the authority of God, and what they leave behind is wild disorder and crazed egotism.

As for Dostoyevsky’s positive doctrines—authoritarian and mystical in nature—Gray waves them away as being “of no interest.” But they are of interest, exactly because they raise the central pragmatic issue: If you believe all this about liberal modernity, what do you propose to do about it? Given that the announced alternatives are obviously worse or just crazy (as is the idea of a Christian commonwealth, something that could be achieved only by a degree of social coercion that makes the worst of “woke” culture look benign), perhaps the evil might better be ameliorated than abolished.

Between authority and anarchy lies argument. The trick is not to have unified societies that “share values”—those societies have never existed or have existed only at the edge of a headsman’s axe—but to have societies that can get along nonviolently without shared values, aside from the shared value of trying to settle disputes nonviolently. Certainly, Americans were far more polarized in the nineteen-sixties than they are today—many favored permanent apartheid (“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”)—and what happened was not that values changed on their own but that a form of rights-based liberalism of protest and free speech convinced just enough people that the old order wouldn’t work and that it wasn’t worth fighting for a clearly lost cause.

What’s curious about anti-liberal critics such as Gray is their evident belief that, after the institutions and the practices on which their working lives and welfare depend are destroyed, the features of the liberal state they like will somehow survive. After liberalism is over, the neat bits will be easily reassembled, and the nasty bits will be gone. Gray can revile what he perceives to be a ruling élite and call to burn it all down, and nothing impedes the dissemination of his views. Without the institutions and the practices that he despises, fear would prevent oppositional books from being published. Try publishing an anti-Communist book in China or a critique of theocracy in Iran. Liberal institutions are the reason that he is allowed to publish his views and to have the career that he and all the other authors here rightly have. Liberal values and practices allow their most fervent critics a livelihood and a life—which they believe will somehow magically be reconstituted “after liberalism.” They won’t be.

The vociferous critics of liberalism are like passengers on the Titanic who root for the iceberg. After all, an iceberg is thrilling, and anyway the White Star Line has classes, and the music the band plays is second-rate, and why is the food French instead of honestly English? “Just as I told you, the age of the steamship is over!” they cry as the water slips over their shoes. They imagine that another boat will miraculously appear—where all will be in first class, the food will be authentic, and the band will perform only Mozart or Motown, depending on your wishes. Meanwhile, the ship goes down. At least the band will be playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” which they will take as some vindication. The rest of us may drown.

One turns back to Helena Rosenblatt’s 2018 book, “The Lost History of Liberalism,” which makes the case that liberalism is not a recent ideology but an age-old series of intuitions about existence. When the book appeared, it may have seemed unduly overgeneralized—depicting liberalism as a humane generosity that flared up at moments and then died down again. But, as the world picture darkens, her dark picture illuminates. There surely are a set of identifiable values that connect men and women of different times along a single golden thread: an aversion to fanaticism, a will toward the coexistence of different kinds and creeds, a readiness for reform, a belief in the public criticism of power without penalty, and perhaps, above all, a knowledge that institutions of civic peace are much harder to build than to destroy, being immeasurably more fragile than their complacent inheritors imagine. These values will persist no matter how evil the moment may become, and by whatever name we choose to whisper in the dark.

[neonsentient]

So we ALL agree that there was no law that said that a son came before a daughter inheritance-wise, right? Perfect! With that established (or rather, not established) we do know that Viserys did decreed Rhaenyra as his heir, he made the whole ceremonial shabang and all that, and a royal decree is pretty much a law. So why, knowing that they had no legal backup and that they were pretty much breaking the law, why, in the name of the Titan of Bravoss' shiny ass, why did the Greens did not prepared better for an all out war?????

Otto and Alicent pretty much waited last minute to gather allies (the Triarchy, Dorne, basically the majority of the Great Houses). I know they couldn't invite people over out loud, but there are more ways than one to create an alliance.

Alicent and Otto could've arranged way more advantageous marriages for the TargTowers (with other Great Houses, like Rhaenyra with the Velaryons), they could've raised Aegon II waaaay better (dunno, maybe raise him into someone worth following or at least into someone likeable for starters), you know, have the people truuuly divided into thinking "Oh yes, Rhaenyra is the heir, but Aegon II is the better person." Like how people wanted Robert to overthrow Aerys (before becoming the post-rebellion Robert we know ._.)

Seeing the Greens constantly come up with plans that fail miserably (Conquering Harrenhal while leaving KL defenseless, taking Rooks Rest only to loose it again later and leave Aegon II crippled for life, not waiting to regroup only to have the heavey hitters; Aemond, Criston and Daeron, die on their own) feels more like watching a slap-stick level of comedy instead of watching a tragic downfall.

Like, come on, if you're gonna start a war and not gonna be prepared for, the very least you can do is put up a good show and go out with dignity.

[calisources]

A   SONG   OF   ICE   AND   FIRE   &   HBO'S   GAME   OF   THRONES.   sentence   starters   taken   from   both   the   source   books   and   the   hbo's   adaptation   of   a   song   of   ice   and   fire   from   george   r.r.   martin.   change   titles,   names   and   pronouns   as   you   see   fit.

 "Tell them the North remembers. Tell them winter came for House Frey."

"Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe."

"I'm not a lady. I never have been. That's not me."

"Nothing's more hateful than failing to protect the one you love."

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."

"An unhappy wife is a wine merchant's best friend."

"What good is power if you cannot protect the ones you love?"

 "So we fight and die or we submit and die. I know my choice."

"I thought if I could make something so good, so pure, maybe I'm not a monster."

"Power is power."

"I'm not going to stop the wheel, I'm going to break the wheel."

"Do you understand? I'm no ordinary woman. My dreams come true."

"It's not easy to see something that’s never been before: A good world."

"I believe in second chances. I don't believe in third chances."

"As long as I'm better than everyone else I suppose it doesn't matter."

"When enough people make false promises words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies."

"If you only trust the people you grew up with, you won't make many allies."

“Winter is coming. We know what’s coming with it."

"It is a big and beautiful world. Most of us live and die in the same corner where we were born in, never get to see any of it. I don't want to be most of us."

 "I wonder if you’re the worst person I've ever met? At a certain age it's hard to recall. But the truly vile do stand out through the years."

"Know your strengths, use them wisely, and one man can be worth ten thousand."

"Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you."

"I try to know as many people as I can. You never know which one you'll need."

"No one is very happy. Which means it’s a good compromise."

 "Men decide where power resides, whether or not they know it."

"Give us common folk one taste of power and we're like the lion who tasted man—nothing is ever so sweet again."

"But it's you and me that matters to me and you. Don't ever betray me."

 "I want to be the queen."

"Any man who must say, I am the king, is no true king."

"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword."

"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."

"Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder."

"A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is." 

"Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word." 

"If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. "

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."

"People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up."

"Every man must die, Jon Snow. But first he must live."

"We look up at the same stars and see such different things."

"I need you to become the man you were always meant to be. Not next year, not tomorrow, now." 

"It's a neat little trick you do. You move your lips, and your father's voice comes out. "

"Tell me something, Varys who do you truly serve?"

"They’re dragons, Khaleesi. They can never be tamed."

"Love is the death of duty." 

"Thousands of men don't need to die. Only one of us. Let's end this the old way."

"I Am not beholden to my ancestors vows."

"Robert's rebellion was built on a lie."

"We're children playing at a game, screaming that the rules aren't fair."

"With respect, Your Grace, I don't need your permission. I am a King."

“The world is one great web, and a man dare not touch a single strand lest all the others tremble.”

“Black and white and grey, all the shades of truth.”

“In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”

“There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.”

“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.”

"The war continues, Davos Seaworth, and some will soon learn that even an ember in the ashes can still ignite a great blaze.”

 "He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.”

"The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid."

[agentrouka-blog]

Jaime didn't feel the connection with his children unlike Cersei. His reaction on Joffery's death is really weird. Not only that he mocked Joffery death while having sex with Cersei near his body.

I wrote a post about that whole mess a while back, which basically sums it all up as "Jaime projects the loss of their mother onto Cersei and views his own children as competition".

He can't be a father unless he finally chooses to grow up and stops blaming other people for his own choices. Including Cersei.

Over and again he keeps comparing himself to or projecting himself onto teenagers: Loras, Peck, Lancel - and yes, Brienne as well. He is stuck in the past, a perpetual adolescence, because he remains stuck in the trauma of growing up as Tywin's child (same as Cersei and Tyrion) and the trauma of the Rebellion that made him a kingslayer at age 17. In this regard, he is no different than Ned or Robert or others, who also never quite learned how to move past the violent end to their youth and the losses they had to bear. It informs how these people act as parents - if they do at all.

We see him try and start to take on an adult, parental role with Tommen. But it barely moves anywhere and it exhausts itself in telling Tommen to pretend away a disturbing fact, and before long he is on the road, stuttering and failing to reinvent himself as "Goldenhand the Just", enforcer of Tywin's legacy, denouncing Cersei like he washed his hands of Joffrey.

But that weak small beginning with Tommen seems, to me, to be the true path forward with him. It's the only original thing Jaime can do as a character: actually see Cersei with compassion and take responsibility for his own choices for once, including the children he chose to father.

And now he's dead. He pictured Joff lying still and cold with a face black from poison, and still felt nothing. Perhaps he was the monster they claimed. If the Father Above came down to offer him back his son or his hand, Jaime knew which he would choose. He had a second son, after all, and seed enough for many more. If Cersei wants another child I'll give her one . . . and this time I'll hold him, and the Others take those who do not like it. Robert was rotting in his grave, and Jaime was sick of lies. (ASOS, Jaime VII)

Jaime will have to choose and it won't involve starting from scratch. Only his own self-created messes and being actually honest with himself for once.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Daenerys is often compared to Aegon the Conqueror throughout the books. One thing I've noticed in rereading the ASOIAF books is that Dany's conquest of Slaver's Bay shares some similarities with Aegon's conquest of Westeros. One thing I really want to focus on is how both Dany and Aegon made the same mistakes.

Both make pretty huge concessions to try to appease the nobles. Aegon converts to following the Seven and allows the Great Houses nearly the same amount of power they had originally, even letting them make laws in their regions. Dany marries a Meerenese noble in a traditional Ghiscari ceremony, reopens the slave pits, and allows the Yunkai'i to continue their slave trade. Both these decisions come back to bite them in the ass. Aegon allowed the Faith so much power they literally marched against Maegor with almost zero consequences in the future. His decision to assimilate also planted the seeds of the future rebellions (the one against Aegon V and Robert's Rebellion). By the end of ADWD, Yunkai, Volantis, and Qarth are beginning to seige Meereen, the Harpy is more powerful than ever, and now Dany is stranded in the Dothraki Sea.

However, Dany has a chance to be better than her ancestor. Now I don't believe the whole "Dany is the antithesis of House Targaryen", but I do think she and Jon are going to succeed where their House has failed. Aegon's vision to unite the Seven Kingdoms and stop the Others will be fulfilled by both of them. Daenerys is going to come back from the Dothraki Sea fully embracing her heritage and will do what Aegon couldn't. She will not compromise anymore, she will rule with Fire and Blood.

[la-pheacienne]

Hi! Just dropping by to say that Elia Martell's death has one main narrative purpose, and that is to make us question the previously almost undisputed legitimacy of the new post-Targaryen order! Thanks bye

[lowercasebreezy]

BANG BANG BODHISATTVA releases May 9th, 2023.

Okay, I think it’s time I made a full roundup post.

An edgy, queer cyberpunk detective mystery by an exciting new trans voice from New Zealand. Someone wants trans girl hacker-for-hire Kiera Umehara in prison or dead—but for what? Failing to fix their smart toilet?   It’s 2032 and we live in the worst cyberpunk future. Kiera is gigging her ass off to keep the lights on, but her polycule’s social score is so dismal they’re about to lose their crib. That’s why she's out here chasing cheaters with Angel Herrera, a luddite P.I. who thinks this is The Big Sleep. Then the latest job cuts too deep—hired to locate Herrera’s ex-best friend (who’s also Kiera’s pro bono attorney), they find him murdered instead. Their only lead: a stick of Nag Champa incense dropped at the scene.   Next thing Kiera knows, her new crush turns up missing—sans a hand (the real one, not the cybernetic), and there’s the familiar stink of sandalwood across the apartment. Two crimes, two sticks of incense, Kiera framed for both. She told Herrera to lose her number, but now the old man might be her only way out of this bullshit... A fast-talker with a heart of gold, Bang Bang Bodhisattva is both an odd-couple buddy comedy that never knows when to shut up, and an exploration of finding yourself and your people in an ever-mutable world.  

You can read the first chapter here.

ARCs are currently available for reviewers through Netgalley.

Preorder links should start to appear soon through retailers here--please note that the release date is currently showing erroneously as 2022, due to an error. I am working to get this fixed.

I am on Goodreads.

“I am ecstatic to be working with Rebellion Publishing, the home of JUDGE DREDD, to bring my hopelessly queer cyberpunk-buddy-comedy-noir-mystery to print. If you’re a fan of 80s anime pinup girls, Daft Punk, Robert Patrick as the T-1000, hormone replacement therapy, the Nintendo Virtual Boy, a neat whiskey or a fruit-flavored cocktail, Philip K. Dick, lo-fi hip-hop beats to chill/study to and/or the prospect of hope for humanity beyond the next seven to ten years–I hope that Bang Bang Bodhisattva will hit just right.”

[drconstellation]

Brazil and The Dream of Escape

I was delighted to find in the Xtras that the machine created to be used by Furfur to use to find out how many demons Shax could requisition for storming the bookshop was inspired by the movie Brazil. This is another nod to Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, who directed this film, and who almost directed the failed GO film in the 1990's.

I love this film. Always have. Yes, I was around when it came out in 1985. I'm that old. It's always been in my top 5 favourite films. And its totally relevant to Good Omens.

Brazil can be described as a dark dystopian story based on the novel 1984. It doesn't have a happy ending, but its funny, horrific, ludicrous, romantic and timelessly beautiful all at the same time. Its so iconic that when ever I see its influence in other productions its been unmistakable.

It stars Jonathan Pryce long before he was a James Bond villain or the head Sparrow in Game of Thrones, a comedic turn from Robert de Niro and a handful of other famous faces that you are bound to recognise, such Bob Hoskins, Ian Holm and Jim Broadbent.

Pryce, as Sam Lowry, lives in a world that is strictly controlled with paperwork that comes in multiple copies, where people are routinely arrested and tortured and a long running unexplained terrorist campaign sees bombs explode in the most random of places. Sam has dreams of a beautiful woman floating in the sky, and he is a sliver-armoured winged hero trying to rescue her. He eventually finds that she is real, and finds out her name through various means via his work and contacts. He tracks her down, but that is where it all starts to unravel as she is mixed up with an unfortunate case of mistaken identity.

Its easy to see the common themes and elements that run through the film with GO: the desire to run away and escape (that doesn't work,) a totalitarian authority controlling the masses, propaganda, piles of paperwork, an undercurrent of rebellion, torture and abuse, forbidden love between classes, a villain hidden in plain sight.

There is an art deco aesthetic to the film that also carries over to other films and shows it has influenced, and the busy work floor scene that stops on a dime to watch the tv show de jour while the boss isn't looking is one of the highlights of the film.

It was a reference of this that caught my eye in the Cohen Brothers modern fairy tale The Hudsucker Proxy, where they copied the busyness of the work floor for their mail room scenes, but also the art deco aesthetic. That's another film that is always in my top five films, and could go a round of comparisons with GO - its got time stoppage, an angel appearance and a near-godlike manipulator.

It also appears, surprisingly, in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The casino at Canto Bight is Brazil inspired, in the way its introduced to us, its decor and the music. I know some people hate this film because of what they did to Luke, but I love it, the whole thing is just utterly gorgeous to look at.

And if you've watched any of Loki recently, since S2 of that show finished not long ago, you would also seen some influence from Brazil in the retro look.

I love the classic art deco style. my grandparents had an art deco house that I spent many of my childhood hours in. The style itself is a clean, unadorned look, and often is meant to give a look of movement, speed or strength. A classic example of this is the Bentley, of course, which comes from the height of the art deco era in the 1930's.

Hell is the other place we see the Brazil influence in GO, where is looks like it's constantly several decades behind the times, with overhead projectors and manual typewriters and odd looking not-quite steampunk contraptions.

Brazil is available to stream on Disney at the moment, if you'd like to take a look. I highly recommend it, its one of those influential films that once you know it, you see its long reach in the most unexpected places.

[labuenosairesfrancaise]

Grimsthorpe Castle

Hi guys!!

I'm sharing another grand english state! 

House History:  The building was originally a small castle on the crest of a ridge on the road inland from the Lincolnshire fen edge towards the Great North Road. It is said to have been begun by Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln in the early 13th century. However, he was the first and last in this creation of the Earldom of Lincoln and he died in 1156. Gilbert's heyday was the peak time of castle building in England, during the Anarchy. It is quite possible that the castle was built around 1140. However, the tower at the south-east corner of the present building is usually said to have been part of the original castle and it is known as King John's Tower. The naming of King John's tower seems to have led to a misattribution of the castle's origin to his time.

Gilbert de Gant spent much of his life in the power of the Earl of Chester and Grimsthorpe is likely to have fallen into his hands in 1156 when Gilbert died, though the title 'Earl of Lincoln' reverted to the crown. In the next creation of the earldom, in 1217, it was Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester (1172–1232) who was ennobled with it. It seems that the title, if not the property was in the hands of King John during his reign; hence perhaps, the name of the tower.

During the last years of the Plantagenet kings of England, it was in the hands of Lord Lovell. He was a prominent supporter of Richard III. After Henry VII came to the throne, Lovell supported a rebellion to restore the earlier royal dynasty. The rebellion failed and Lovell's property was taken confiscated and given to a supporter of the Tudor Dynasty.[2]

The Tudor period

This grant by Henry VIII, Henry Tudor's son, to the 11th Baron Willoughby de Eresby was made in 1516, together with the hand in marriage of Maria de Salinas, a Spanish lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon. Their daughter Katherine inherited the title and estate on the death of her father in 1526, when she was aged just seven. In 1533, she became the fourth wife of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, a close ally of Henry VIII. In 1539, Henry VIII granted Charles Suffolk the lands of the nearby suppressed Vaudey Abbey, founded in 1147, and he used its stone as building material for his new house. Suffolk set about extending and rebuilding his wife's house, and in only eighteen months it was ready for a visit in 1541 by King Henry, on his way to York to meet his nephew, James V of Scotland. In 1551, James's widow Mary of Guise also stayed at Grimsthorpe. The house stands on glacial till and it seems that the additions were hastily constructed. Substantial repairs were required later owing to the poor state of the foundations, but much of this Tudor house can still be seen today.

During Mary's reign the castle's owners, Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk (née Willoughby) and her second husband, Richard Bertie, were forced to leave it owing to their Anglican views. On Elizabeth's succeeding to the throne, they returned with their daughter, Susan, later Countess of Kent and their new son Peregrine, later the 13th Baron. He became a soldier and spent much of his time away from Grimsthorpe.

The Vanbrugh building

By 1707, when Grimsthorpe was illustrated in Britannia Illustrata, the 15th Baron Willoughby de Eresby and 3rd Earl Lindsey had rebuilt the north front of Grimsthorpe in the classical style. However, in 1715, Robert Bertie, the 16th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, employed Sir John Vanbrugh to design a Baroque front to the house to celebrate his ennoblement as the first Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. It is Vanbrugh's last masterpiece. He also prepared designs for the reconstruction of the other three ranges of the house, but they were not carried out. His proposed elevation for the south front was in the Palladian style, which was just coming into fashion, and is quite different from all of his built designs.

The North Front of Grimsthorpe as rebuilt by Vanbrugh, drawn in 1819. Vanbrugh's Stone Hall occupies the space between the columns on both floors.

Inside, the Vanbrugh hall is monumental with stone arcades all around at two levels. Arcaded screens at each end of the hall separate the hall from staircases, much like those at Audley End House and Castle Howard. The staircase is behind the hall screen and leads to the staterooms on the first floor. The State Dining Room occupies Vanbrugh's north-east tower, with its painted ceiling lit by a Venetian window. It contains the throne used by George IV at his Coronation Banquet, and a Regency giltwood throne and footstool used by Queen Victoria in the old House of Lords. There is also a walnut and parcel gilt chair and footstool made for the use of George III at Westminster. The King James and State Drawing Rooms have been redecorated over the centuries, and contain portraits by Reynolds and Van Dyck, European furniture, and yellow Soho Tapestries woven by Joshua Morris around 1730. The South Corridor contains thrones used by Prince Albert and Edward VII, as well as the desk on which Queen Victoria signed her coronation oath. A series of rooms follows in the Tudor east range, with recessed oriel windows and ornate ceilings. The Chinese drawing room has a splendidly rich ceiling and an 18th-century fan-vaulted oriel window. The walls are hung with Chinese wallpaper depicting birds amidst bamboo. The chapel is magnificent with superb 17th-century plasterwork.

More history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimsthorpe_Castle

This house fits a 64x64 lot and features several impressive rooms, more than 29 bedrooms, a servants hall and several state rooms!

I only decored some of the main rooms, for you to have a glimpse of the distribution. The rest is up to you, as I have stated that I do not like interiors :P

Be warned: I did not have the floor plan for the tudor rooms, thus, the distribution is based on my own decision and can not fit the real house :P.

You will need the usual CC I use: all of Felixandre, The Jim, SYB, Anachrosims, Regal Sims, TGS, The Golden Sanctuary, Dndr recolors, etc.

Please enjoy, comment if you like it and share pictures with me if you use my creations!

DOWNLOAD (Early acces: June 30) https://www.patreon.com/posts/grimsthorpe-101891128

[reddancer1]

BREAKING: Democratic star Representatives Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez team up to hammer Chief Justice John Roberts and demand immediate action on the Supreme Court's blatant corruption.

This is how you keep the pressure on...

"Since you have refused to meet with Congress, we question what steps you are actually taking as either the Chief Justice or the presiding officer of the Judicial Conference to investigate these glaring episodes of political bias and lack of disclosure," AOC and Raskin wrote in a new letter to Roberts.

The letter refers to the shocking MAGA behavior of Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, who flew insurrectionist flags outside of their house not long after January 6th.

Justice Clarence Thomas has been caught up in scandals of his own, as it was revealed that he has been taking bribes in the form of luxury trips and travel from a powerful Republican megadonor.

Thomas's wife Ginni was also involved in efforts to overturn the election after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. The conflicts of interest on display is staggering.

AOC and Raskin demanded that Roberts explain how recusal decisions are made on the court, since Alito and Thomas clearly can not be trusted to rule on cases related to Trump.

"Investigative journalists and Senate investigators — not the Judicial Conference — have been the ones to break the silence and reveal Justices Thomas’s failure to comply with basic disclosure requirements," wrote AOC and Raskin.

They demand a response from Roberts by July 5th.

Keep the heat on! Chief Justice Roberts’ court has a lot of ethics issues and he has failed to address them. The nation is paying all these justices salaries; however, they are refusing to do their job to the highest ethical standards. Go figure! Does a President have absolute immunity even in a question where he has led a rebellion to overthrow the government of the United States of America? Is a criminal felon qualified to run for US Presidency? Can professional organizations (AMA, ABA), employers, renters and public agencies now accept felons into their organizations, employment and accommodations?

If every democrat and every independent make it a priority to vote in November, we can win. The republicans have the MAGA cult and the billionaires, together we outnumber them. In the last few presidential election some sat home thinking we will win without their vote, I’m telling you we can’t think that way. There are 331 million men and women in this country all of voting age. Biden got 82 million, Trump got 72. Sorry but those numbers aren’t even close to 331 million.

If you’re not registered, get registered, if you don’t have the time make the time. We can’t sit this election out.

The young people, please vote Blue for your rights will all be gone if you vote for any Republican. Girls they won’t let you get anywhere in life, they want you barefoot and pregnant that’s a promise. Us elderly are making sure you have a decent future, please be part of this historic election. You don’t deserve a dictator, an authoritarian government or no government at all. You deserve better than that. I deserve better than what the mad cow GOP wants to give us.

My wish is to give Biden votes well over 150 million. The women in this country add up to 168 million females in this country but I’ll settle for 150 million. Trump will get his 73 million again because he doesn’t want new voters. We must add to the Supreme Court and/or impeach the two who have lost their way and their oath to country.