#her faith is pretty much a cornerstone for her

[canadianno]

The random cultist refs are done!!!

9 of these were done on one canvas, exception being Maon because they're my favorite and I also made it a few days ago.

Character rambles are under the cut!

vv Down here!

🐱 Fena: Fena used to be the head farmer in the cult, undeniably fantastic at their job despite her low faith. She's been in the cult for a few years at this point, and their faith has steadily grown. Enough that, when the time came, Fena was tasked with managing Leshy for the first few hours of his indoctrination into the cult. Fena was- worried to say the least, but.. he wasn't really violent. Or even that mean. He was just scared, and.. they understood that pretty well. The Lamb let Fena keep the job, since her and Leshy seemed to get along so well. They haven't failed at corraling the bishops yet, but all 4 being in the cult might finally break her. Might.

🐸 Dreiden: Dreiden is the first child ever to be born into the cult, instead of taken in from outside it. He's about 10 years old, and there's been quite a few kids born in the cult since, but everyone is especially fond of him. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to get to his head that much- likely due to his parents. Dreidens parents are Eligos and Mertre, which to many is an odd pair. Eligos, a past disciple of Heket, known generally to be closed off and outcasted- and Mertre, the best lumberjack in the cult, well respected with high faith. Dreiden is best friends with Tratta and Webber, two similarly-aged kids in the cult who he's taken it upon himself to take care of.

🦇 Tratta: Tratta was found as a toddler in Silk Cradle by a missionary. It was said that they found her in a destroyed village, but the clothes she was wearing suggests that really- she was the child of a heretic who was killed by the missionary. Tratta, in the story, is about 7 years old. Tratta has always had poor eyesight, being a bat, but it was only recently, after a bad bout of sickness, that she went fully blind. She's been struggling to get used to it. Tratta doesn't have a guardian, instead residing in the nursery with Webber and a few other unclaimed children. She's been in the nursery for long enough that she's figured she'll never be adopted.

🕸 Webber: Webber is a strange case. A 'ressurection' that the Lamb did not consciously preform, welcomed into the cult nonetheless. Webber crawled out of a grave barely a toddler, and has been in the cult for a few years. Webber is about 8. He scares the other cultists quite a bit, always holding a wild spider or two, and never seeming to get hungry. He is very close to Tratta and Dreiden, being the third cornerstone of their little friend group. Webber is extremely close to the Lamb, pushing any who wanted to adopt him ever further away. The Lamb is... aware of this, to say the least, but they haven't mentioned it aloud- and never publicly seem to favor him over any other. Publicly, that is.

🐮 Mertre: Mertre is one of the most well respected cultists in the settlement. Strong, noble, faithful and fair, Mertre is popular among the public. There is only one thing about her people do not like- and that is her choice of wife. Mertre is the wife of Eligos, a former disciple of the bishop Heket. Mertre loves her wife alot, and through her is quite close with most of the other bishops' disciples. Mertre is the best lumberjack in the cult, and was a rescue from Helob the spider. Mertre lived in Darkwood before indoctrination, but no one's quite clear on what her life used to be like. Mertre is a loving mother to her son, Dreiden, and is certain to often remind him of how well he has it here- and that things outside of the cult are much worse. She makes sure that Dreiden knows to be kind to all that come from the outside.

🐢 Puno: Puno is an elderly disciple, and the first of two head disciples in the cult. Well- as it stands, one of the ONLY two disciples in the cult. Puno is the only disciple to survive the battle with TOWW, being the only disciple who stayed behind to watch the cult. Puno has watched silently as the rest of the disciples and most faithful who he once knew have rotted from the palms up inside of the healing tent. Puno is unquestioning, though, and has little a complaint. Her only complaint is that she's growing ever older, and cannot continue to do her job for much longer. They have conferred with the Lamb, and Puno believes they have chosen the correct cultists to become the newest disciples. He hopes he chose well.

🦐 Treyson: I cannot explain this character to you chat. Please don't ask me about him he's a half joke made by my best friend and we love him too much to get rid of. He gets a wife later and everyone in the cult finds him strange and scary- except for the Lamb, who sees absolutely nothing wrong with this guy.

🕷 Nurse Fear: Fear is relatively new to her job as the head nurse, and she knows she's only the head nurse because the Lamb cannot make a bishops' past disciple anything of high rank, lest they face mass dissent among the flock. Nurse Fear was initially called something else, but decided to change her name to the nickname the cults children gave her. She thought it was funny, and found it more fitting than her old name. Nurse Fear is skilled at her job, but still often turns to Kallamar's disciples for advice. She doesn't always get it.

🦊 Tymer: Tymer has been in the cult for a relatively long time. No one's quite sure how he's managed an extended lifespan like he has, seeing as he has no skull necklace. Tymer is the cult bartender, and also often works in the kitchens, known to be a talented cook with knowledge from a past life in Anura. Tymer is known to have a deceased child with an unknown second parent, but.. she never seems to be that bothered by it. Tymer is... well known. To say the least. And is a very familiar face in the healing tent, despite her protests each and every single time. They often get into physical fights with Maon- and, they just have NO idea WHY Maon hates them so much!! It's such a complete and utter mystery!!

🐶 Maon: Maon is one of the Lambs most beloved followers. Maon has been in the cult since some of its earliest days, him and his twin brother having been ressurected multiple times. Maon has pined after Barbatos since the centpides indoctrination, and the two are known as a couple. Kinda. Maon is a cult guard, and the only one who remembers that they were originally found surrounded by the lifeless bodies of other heretics in Darkwood is the Lamb. Maon is very protective of the Lamb, and earned the silent favoritism by sharing stories told to them and their brother by their grandpa- who was a sheep guard dog in Concolor, before the genocide. Many assume Maon would have been made a disciple by now, but their constant fistfighting with Tymer is costing them the role. Maon hates cheaters, and is ENEMIES with Tymer.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

"stained-glass window in my mind" is such a great way to describe something that has distorted how you see things now. That description also explains A LOT of how Taylor struggled to understand a healthy relationship dynamic because at 19 she had a relationship that distorted her for years.

Which is why WCS is song of all time and why I keep saying that it’s going to end up being one of the cornerstones of her discography like All Too Well is.

The stained glass window line says sooooooooooo much and the way you said it distorted her memories is great way of putting it. The memories can never be fully blocked, no matter how much she may have tried, because they always filter through like the light whether she wants it to or not. But it’s like she can’t fully access them either, can never get the full picture, because it isn’t a clear window she can look through. The light (memories) peek through but they aren’t a reflection of what’s really there but distorted through the refraction of the light through the coloured glass. There may be this beautiful picture in the frame that the faithful revere, but it hides the sun. She can’t trust what she sees. (Trauma do be like that.)

But then there’s also the religious imagery, which I’ve already said earlier is one of my favourite themes in her work. The song touches on religious guilt and loss of faith, and the stained glass windows in her mind could also paint an image of her alone in this metaphorical chapel searching for salvation or peace, getting no answers, instead only being wracked with guilt.

(I know there’s also the added icky detail of the actual subject’s then-home which adds another disturbing layer to it.)

My heart aches for 19 year old Taylor because I don’t think she was equipped to deal with what she went through (no one would be) and it sent her down a path in relationships that ended up hurting her for years. To be the butt of jokes for something that would be seen so differently these days must have been so painful and the fact that she’s managed to overcome so much and lead a pretty happy and healthy life these days is such a testament to the work and healing she’s done and the support system she has.

[meltypancake]

hellooo !!

i’m curious how eliane gets along with the rest of the blue lions ? or just any other significant relationships she has with any students at the monastery haha :0

hallo!!! thank you for the ask, it activated so many braincells c:

i'll cover her relationship with the blue lions in the early academy days for now ♪(´▽｀) ranked by friendship level, here we go!!

people she's close to ↓

annette 😊💖💖 precious pal

A+ study buddy and the true reason why eliane hasn't missed the majority of morning classes

she has caught herself removing the pebbles off a road, thinking annette would and could trip on them (´。＿。｀)

there are too many pebbles in this world. she'll just have to settle with catching her friend every time she stumbles

ashe 🥹😊💖 fun to tease

eliane felt an instant kinship with ashe! fellow commoners with a shared interest in herbology make for a great team (^^ゞ

much to his chagrin, she's also way into the spookies. tales of ghosts haunting the monastery really get her going and he would like none of that, thank you very much

she makes him a potpourri pouch filled with ghost-repelling herbs. he ties it to his evil-repelling amulet.

mercedes😊💖💖 provider of snacks and comfort

being around mercedes makes her feel so cared for, she's the older sister she's always dreamed of (´▽｀)

they are both waaay too easy-going for their own good though... empires will rise and fall while they munch on homemade sweets

on friendly terms ↓

ingrid 😋🥔 bonding bites

these two have the most riveting discussions about which tavern offers the juiciest cut of meat. they find time to record a whole tier list of dining hall dishes in a shared journal

ingrid is her best, most faithful taste tester! food truly is the cornerstone of society

dedue 😯🙂 a greenhouse regular she's curious about

she always assumed he was some kind of plant magician. apparently magic isn't his forte, so what the heck is up with that green thumb?

he makes sure to teach her the basics of gardening (before she can ruin the flower bed). the first time her seeds actually end up sprouting, she runs all over the monastery looking to show him

(adding him in the list for completion's sake) dimitri 🙂 nice, but a little uptight

rather distant ↓

felix 🙂 amicable (entirely one-sided)

he's so blunt unlike the whole lot of flowery nobles, there's no second-guessing the meaning of his words which eliane likes. she's pretty fond of him! he finds her rather annoying though (oﾟvﾟ)ノ

eliane will seek out felix for a spar, get obliterated until he's fed up entertaining small fry and he shuffles off as she lays defeated (though not disheartened). rinse and repeat

any verbal abuse goes in through one ear and out the other with her. what a gremlin

sylvain 😐🤨😑 ?????

eliane has incredibly mixed feelings about sylvain which get progressively worse the more she gets to know him

he ping pongs between being genuinely helpful and sensible while also making girls cry on a daily basis... and it would make her life a lot easier if he could just choose one and stick with it !!!

any attempts to flirt with her get shut down. on a different note, she's a little miffed he never trains or studies yet still gets better grades than her

at the end of the academy phase she's become more or less close to everyone in the blue lions, except maybe felix. he's not the type to be all buddy-buddy anyway (‾◡◝)

thank you for reaching the end!!! c:

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

ship what you want but inserting a fu hua and mei interaction just to boost a ship that is largely fanon-made (there isn’t anything wrong with that) is an interesting choice when you excluded her interactions with kevin and senti who are really important to her growth?

Assuming this is about the rewrite…

Mei and ER Hua were really close, with Mei mentioning multiple times how much she trusted her, staying up all night talking with her the night before Elysia disappeared, etc.

Mei’s also known Hua for a fairly long time, almost as long as Bronya and Kiana, but they never get to talk one on one, we’re just supposed to assume they are friends from statements or offscreen interactions.

I don’t like that! Show me how they’re friends, don’t just tell me! >:V

So I think there’s potential for fun we’ve been missing out on, it’d be cool to have them actually TALK and while we’re at it have Mei actualize about Hua after spending so much time with her ER counterpart. Seems pretty important, as Mei being ER’s heir but ignoring the alive Fu Hua makes no sense.

I didn’t talk about Kevin and Senti because they only get to meet up with Hua later in the timeline, on the moon 🤡 Why would I mention these interactions at this stage???? Kevin is brooding in the WS HQ and Senti’s in hiding somewhere. Excluding their interactions with Hua is not an “interesting choice”, it’s barely a choice at all.

Anyway, now that I’ve addressed your, err, concerns, I’m going to politely ask you not to take that condescending tone with me. I know the average reading comprehension skill on tumblr is LOW but you’re fooling no one with your little disclaimers.

If there’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing:

Why are you STARTING with “ship what you want but”?

Why are you reducing a writing choice to shallow ship pandering(“inserting”, “just to boost”), as if that had to be the only reason I included it, and a bad thing?

Why are you describing that ship as “largely fanon-made” as if that’s a bad or uncommon thing? You wouldn’t specify “nothing wrong with that” if you didn’t think/know it sounded bad, so why add it in the first place?

Why not be open about your opinion if you’re going to send an ask criticizing my decisions? I’m not naive enough not to pick up on the sarcasm in “interesting choice”. What you mean is “a choice I don’t like but don’t want to admit I think is bad openly”, except the coverup of your feelings is so terrible that they’re still completely transparent. I may be autistic but I’ve gotten pretty good at this, yaknow? That’s not using euphemism to be polite, that’s being a veiled kind of mean, just implied enough to be somewhat socially acceptable.

Why assume my intentions are manipulating(?) the public? “inserted(…)just to boost a ship” ? I mean, I’m all for more meihua fanworks! But like, kinda weird to assume that’d be the goal and not a side-effect to putting together a compelling narrative? not to mention I’ve written meihua works before, so it should be hardly surprising that I’d take an opportunity to let them interact… I LIKE writing them? l… “Boosting”???

Anon, it would have been a lot more polite to simply ask “I think they’re really important to her growth so will you be including Senti and Kevin’s interactions with Hua?” or “Do you want to make Meihua canon in your rewrite?” or whatever else you had in mind when you wrote your ask. As it stands, the language you’re using is the sneaky kind of contemptuous and I am highly displeased with it.

If you don’t like my takes, that’s totally fine! Write your own, point out what you think are cornerstones, give good faith suggestions or alternatives, whatever you like— but this kind of attitude is unnecessary and will only make you an unpleasant person.

[eternal-echoes]

Do you think a Russian Orthodox and a Catholic could have enough commonality to get married?

As far as I know the Eastern Orthodox Church is a lot stricter when it comes to interfaith marriages than the Catholic Church is. I believe that if an Eastern Orthodox Christian wants to get married to a non-Eastern Orthodox, he/she will get excommunicated. While a Catholic wanting to marry a non-Catholic can get a dispensation from the Bishop and let his/her non-Catholic spouse know that he/she plans to raise their children in the Catholic Faith.

So right of the bat there’s already a major hurdle.

I have Eastern Orthodox friends and for the most part we’ve avoided talking about our major theological differences (I don’t think anyone should hope to convert another person through arguments alone anyway). So far we’ve gotten along just fine. But friendship and marriage are two completely different things. With friendship there is still boundaries in between but with marriage you’re planning a life together with them and raising children together. Those things are incredibly hard to do without the foundation of having common values. And from what I’ve heard from most Catholic apologists is that interfaith marriages have higher rates of annulments and divorce. (I believe that a Catholic wanting to separate from an Eastern Orthodox spouse wouldn’t have grounds for annulment.) Some people try to justify interfaith marriages by saying that they’re trying to convert their spouse to save them but we’re not suppose to get into a relationship in order to change the other person, and trying to convert someone pretty much falls in that category. That’s only a recipe for disaster. I think someone said on here that when being in a interfaith relationship you’ll have to accept the fact that they may say no to the Faith.

Having said that, I’m not absolutely against to interfaith marriages. Because there are times when it did work. I just think that it’s a matter of individual discernment whether or not God has put that person in your life so He can use you to help that person convert to the Catholic.

This has gone on tangent to interfaith marriages in general rather than if there’s enough common ground between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church to get married. But I believe the above points are important to remember.

While it is true that the Eastern Orthodox Church is a lot closer to the Catholic Church than other protestant churches, their theological differences are still pretty huge, some are considered the major cornerstone of the faith. There’s the issue of using the Gregorian or Julian calendar. I think some rites in the Eastern Orthodox Church use the Gregorian calendar so they celebrate Christmas with us but for those who use the Julian calendar marrying a Catholic would mean two different time zones in the same house. Then there’s the issue of celebrating the feast day of saints. There have been a lot of saints canonized by each churches post-Schism so honoring them might be considered inappropriate or downright idolatry by the other church. The doctrine of Immaculate Conception is a huge one that can be considered a cornerstone of the Catholic Faith. This essentially flows from the different understanding of Original Sin. Then there is the issue of tollhouses that even among Eastern Orthodox circles there are disagreements. Then of course, the papacy. Would the couple stan with the Pope or not? Personally, I’ve decided that I wouldn’t marry a Catholic who is constantly critical of the Pope because why should I submit to a man who wouldn’t submit to someone above him? Fr. Chad Ripperger mentioned that, “Very often you see trads disrespecting authority and then trads wonder why---traditionalist parents will badmouth the Pope with their badmouth some priests or something and then they wonder why the children have no respect for their parents. Excuse me, but grace flows downhill. If you want your children to have the grace to be obedient and respectful of you, you have to be obedient and respectful of those above you.” I think I would be denying myself grace for marrying a man who doesn’t have an attitude of submission to the Magisterium. (The whole submission in marriage thing has way too much nuanced to be discussed in a blogpost so I’m not gonna discuss it here but please don’t take that too literally.)

I’m not gonna say that a marriage between a Catholic and an Eastern Orthodox Christian will absolutely not work because I’m not a psychic. I think what this essentially boils down to is if you believe that the Catholic Church is right about where the Eastern Orthodox is wrong and if you want to pass on that knowledge to your children. You need a Catholic spouse for that.

[trashbinbackyard]

🍁🍂🌻🌿🌳🌲🌠 for vanessa, anze and trias

watch me start writing this and then get distracted, again

🍁 Where does your OC go when they need to have some time to themself? Would they ever have their own “comfort corner” filled with all the things they like? Do they have a favourite spot outside that feels like its theirs and theirs alone?

Vanessa pretty much lived her entire life in the temple, so her Place was her room or the garden, the garden was always in bloom, it was located in the middle of the temple  but it felt secluded enough. Her room was pretty small before she became the head priestess and it only had a bed and desk in there, she filled the bed with pillows and the desk with all things shiny

His private quarters is pretty much the only place he gets to be completely alone, even his office has clerks coming and going, he has books piled next to his bed for those rare nights he gets to rest. Outside he always feels like stepping into someone else’s place, be it the public or a specific person, to protect and serve right?

She finds herself a nice bridge to camp under or a rooftop to climb, she doesn’t have a place she would consider home or hers. She tends to have all kinds of stuff in her pockets so she’ll just toy with them when alone.

🍂 Does your OC enjoy hugs? What do they do as a show of affection for: their friends, their family, their significant other(s) or for strangers? Over all what are they like with recieving affection from others?

She does. It’s her way of greeting her friends, comforting people and saying goodbye. They range from very casual to full of emotion. She reads people well adjust the to her friends preferred methods of affection, but hugs are always part of it. Deanoh know she likes physical touch so whenever he pays a visit he’s always within arm’s reach of her if not always touching her (there’s not that many places they can be together so it’s her quarters (they only became a thing after she became a high priestess) or the garden in the dead of the night) (it’s also amusing to him bc it’s Very Mortal of her to like that)

He’s pretty indifferent, though if you’re gonna hug him always make sure he knows, otherwise he kinda freezes up and it becomes uncomfortable for both of you. He does show affection but its hard to pick up if you’re not Nics, whom he kisses an lot. He’s checking up on his men to see no one is having troubles. As for receiving, pretty much the same he shows, just check up on him, nothing too fancy

Her first reaction to a Real Hug was “Krea what the fuck are you doing”. But she quickly learned to like them. Her way of being affectionate is making sure the other is having a fun time, or pestering them. It’s very tongue in cheek with her. She’s still a little awkward at receiving affection if its not goofing off so yeah

🌻 What little things do they notice about people or the world around them that make them happy? What tiny little treasures do they find in the normal every day that makes the world seem a little brighter for them?

She’s happy people find comfort in the strangest things, a mother who lost her child holds onto a rock the kid brought to her, a widow fondly remembering their spouses jokes. How people in the towns near the temple come together to mourn someone they barely knew, the unity of it all, how people take care of other people. And knowing Deanoh is guiding the souls safely

The bond his men have always looking out for each other, sharing joys and sorrows, having sibling-like rivalries all in good nature. The fact that these people will trust their lives to their comrades any day

People just living their lives, going out to bars and clubs, having fun and making the outer rim seem like just another place to live, she’s seen some horrors but it’s comforting that not everybody has or ever will

🌳 What is your OC’s favourite way to relax after a stressful day? Do they have a favourite book to curl up with? A hobby? Or do they have a nice bubble bath and have an early night to bed?

She likes taking longs baths, just melt all that tired away and smell some nice herbs and make her skin and hair super smooth and shiny. Go to bed all clean and nice, pray to deanoh and have a chat with him before dozing off to sleep

He settles u all nice and comfy on a settee in his room and read. Alternatively: go out for drinks with the captains, unwind in good company, play games (he’s the moderator) and just catch up on his people

Hit the clubs to find the best drugs or hit up shyn and go do silly stuff. After a full day of heavy legal work and pretending to have a stick up her ass for Krea’s sake she gotta let loose

🌲 How deeply does your OC feel? Are they typically empathetic or do they have a hard time connecting with others in this way? What are they like when offering support and comfort to someone they care for?

She tends to be a very empathetic person but has to cap it out when working with dying people or people who have lost a loved one. She does genuinely feel for them but not as deeply as she would for someone she knows better. She’s a very warm and calming presence, knows what to say and offers her support

He’s a bit distant. Very straight to the point and bit helpless when he’s supposed to show support, he’ll do the pat on the shoulder “there, there” but you can sense he’s really trying, offers to buy you a drink or go on a walk with you, tends listen more than talk

For a long time she felt no empathy and she became kinda numb to suffering around her, she just didn’t care and later she just didn’t have the energy to. Now she tries, oh my god does she try, because now there are people she genuinely cares for, she’s still very awkward.

🌠 On a scale of 1 - 10 how Baby is your OC? BONUS when asking this question rate the OC yourself as see if the reply matches up!!

like, a solid 5/10, a medium baby

1/10, this man, no baby, he’s had a tough upbringing and now is all around tough guy

on the high 8/10 baby, never grew up, is kinda loud and annoying

[aotopmha]

Attack on Titan in 2020

I've sort of dropped doing detailed chapter posts on the series because that type of writing wasn't very fun for me anymore and I have taken a liking to a bullet point kind of approach where I list the elements that stood out for me in the chapter or make a separate post for some specific topic I'd like to talk about in it.

I've started like 10 different posts to attempt to talk about AoT this year and I always end up with incoherent rambling because of all of the elements I'd love to to talk about.

This year's chapters were 125-135 and this year's episodes episodes 1-4 of season 4.

The anime episodes in particular have given me a lot of food for thought, so I'm just saying fuck it.

I think the biggest misstep of the story for me will forever be the fact that it decided to use fairly specific historical imagery.

The Eldians are clearly supposed to have allegorical equivalency with Jewish people, but the Jewish people were never the oppressors. There weren't any Jewish empires. That's conspiracy theory bullshit.

But on the other hand, the series clearly takes great effort to not stereotype any of the groups it's portraying and gives complex reasons for what both sides do. It's one of the few Japanese series that I've seen not stereotype Middle Eastern-coded people (Ramzi and Halil) or black people (Onyakapon). Everyone are people, it says. It even champions diversity:

(Chapter 118)

It is also very much true that a bunch of fascist states use long-term history as an excuse for their actions:

(Chapter 127)

Nation did X 2000 years ago therefore our conquest of them is justified.

This makes discussion about the series' themes like a minefield.

The people who are very critical about its imagery are right, but the people defending the series aren't wrong, either because it condemns all of those nasty ideas of conquest and hurting innocent people.

You can't have a more clear-cut condemnation of genocide:

(Chapter 127)

If you combine all of these details instead of zoning in on them one by one, to me what the story is saying is that *even if* all of that conspiracy bullshit is true, innocent people don't deserve to be slaughtered no matter the reason because they are still people who have their own feelings, thoughts and wishes.

The story clearly gets the baseline, but fumbles the details. I decided to look up some more discussion surrounding this these past few days and I just wish there was more good faith discussion about it. A lot of it feels like a moral superiority contest.

I think it's these kind of flawed stories that actually deserve detailed scruitiny over stories that are rotten to the core because they are *almost there*. Talking about them is a good topic starter in what to do and not to do in a story like this.

Speaking of rotten to the core, I think the absolute highlight of the chapters this year is Eren and some of the chapters this year finally gave me a pretty clear picture of what is going on with him.

Context from 123 certainly helps, though:

(Chapter 131)

This is about Eren's perspective. He can't accept the destruction of Paradis.

It's not that this solution was inevitable looking in from the outside (which is one of the interpretations I see around for Eren's actions), it's that *Eren* can't see any other way out of this except the most extreme because of all of the horrible things he has seen from the outside world. It is very similar to the way suicidal people can only focus on the negative.

You can tell them everything is going to be okay, but those words won't reach them because their mind won't let them and loops them back to those negative thoughts.

Eren can't see the ice cream or silly clowns. But he can see how the other Eldians in the league of Eldians are willing to push Paradis under the bus. He can see how Grisha's sister was killed. He can see how racist and cruel Marley is towards the Eldians in Liberio (and how the people have racist leanings towards other nations, too).

He can only see those bad things. But he also understands how everyone outside of the walls are human just as the people inside of the walls are.

So he is torn to pieces by guilt.

He doesn't want to do this, but he can't see any other solution.

This is why I also think he can't rob his friends of their agency. He is fighting for them to have a good future:

(Chapter 133)

(Chapter 131)

What really stood out to me on a revisit is that Eren considers himself much worse than Reiner.

I've seen criticism on how the story pushes the narrative of both sides being the same and this detail is really important to me because this is the story acknowledging that what Eren is doing is worse and gives all of the following exchanges about this the context of it being a similarity in principle.

Both sides have killed for what they think is right and have to deal with how they have killed people. This is such an important detail in the Uprising arc, too, where Erwin firmly acknowledged that overthrowing the government might not actually be the right choice by him. It was simply what he saw as right. On a narrative level this avoids absolute truths and preference of one character perspective over the other and once again makes it about individual perspectives.

The theme of individual perspectives is so ingrained in this story at this point in my eyes that it's another cornerstone in understanding what is going on with Eren to me.

I think it's great.

I also really appreciate Annie and what was done with her in this chunk of chapters.

(Chapter 127)

There has been this narrative going around that proposes that the story is in Eren's corner too much. But these chapters are nothing but questioning Eren and Annie is one of the main voices in this. It's the Marleyan girls, really and I think this is a very necessary part of making the narrative work. Once again, it separates the narrative and character perspective.

It says that the Paradis side caring is about character perspective, not what the narrative sides with and Annie is even sympathetic to Mikasa in that instance.

She gets it. Unexpectedly, I think Annie might play a bigger role in taking down Eren than expected. Her character arc about deciding to no longer go with the flow because she doesn't want any more tragedy to happen is basically calling for it.

(Chapter 128)

Another element I've seen brought up is the fact that nobody seems to address the Bert-sized elephant in the room, but some of our characters are certainly thinking about him.

This is such a thematically strong element and really interesting because Connie joined the military to make his mom proud and be a good soldier. This is the motivation behind his claim when he says they are going to save the world. But what does becoming a good soldier mean, exactly?

Well, apparently possibly gunning down people you care about.

This moment is so good because it's another moment where the idea of glory in war is taken down a peg.

The moment with Connie declaring they're going to save the world is so often criticised, but it is actually turned on its head in 128. There is no heroics in this. This is actually Connie's big "killing a person" moment because it strips away the final bit of comfort in killing in war, the excuse of killing for good moral reasons.

It is also a wonderful complex evolution of the series' themes. Trost was about fighting monsters. In the Female Titan and Clash of Titan arcs some of those monsters turned out to be human. In the Uprising, Return to Shiganshina and Marley arcs all of those monsters turned out to be human and here in the War of Paradis arc, everyone is human and the only separating system is what everyone views as right.

I really hope the anime will let this chapter breathe a little bit more.

Moving on, I guess it is time to address the rumbling.

I love it as a horror spectacle.

(Chapter 130)

And I really I think it needs to be non-CG when animated. CG is fine in spectacle battles, but not in horror settings because it is too clean.

The rumbling needs to be disgusting and dirty.

Chapter 132 gave me one of the few moments in which I truly cared about Levi. I think him telling Hange to dedicate her heart was a very good moment to cap off their relationship. He sent another SL commander to fulfill their duty.

The speech about hatred in chapter 134 also stood out to me. I think it definitely should be fitted in there somewhere in this, but I also see a bunch of criticism for it.

I want to point out that this is the side of present Marley talking here. It's the military dictatorship.

It's the Nazis. I think the Nazis should feel regret for exploiting innocent people and admit they're wrong.

I also like how the horrors here are undoing the brainwashing and showing the truth to the citizens.

I guess you could read it as heavy-handed, but it is also something that needs to be addressed and in principle, it's not wrong.

I'm also going to put a mention of Historia here. I've talked about how this is my biggest and most glaring problem with the series because of how thematically unfitting it feels, but I've also talked about it in many posts. I wanted to focus more on other stuff in this post.

So now, we make it back to chapter 135.

I think having stewed on it for a month now, I like the element of mindscrewing our cast with the Titans of the people they love is the strongest element of it. It's making them face their personal traumas and we also get some great character moments and payoffs from it.

Mikasa ended off the year in a very good note in my eyes.

Even this deep in the story, this chapter left me in a situation where I have no idea how things might turn out.

I might have rough ideas, but not anything specific and that's fun.

Well, this is it on my retrospective.

2021 is confirmed to be AoT's final year of publication as volume 34 is set to be the story's final volume.

Those who hate the story can finally be free of it and those who care for it, can look back on it with fondness and sadness and many other emotions and evaluate.

It's been 7 years for me. What a wild ride.

So, I'm asking everyone, what are some of your observations on AoT in 2020?

Is there anything you'd like to add or do you have any observations or counterarguments for anything I've said?

I'd be curious to see what everyone else thought of AoT in 2020!

[your-dar-ling]

G:L Season 2 Episode 2 Re(Cap/View)

Better than the premiere. Not gonna waste time:

Dri and Roberta

I loved their plot but the slap was a bit much. Dri is great in this episode, and she's pointing out the obvious flaws in her mother's philosophy. Lines like "He's fighting them" just hold so much weight to me. I'm not exactly sure why.

Roberta has a very believable quality to her faith, they all do. She embodies a very common (and annoying) parenting sentiment: The "I'm the parent so my beliefs are ultimately most important" Clause, and its corollary "Fine. You don't have to believe me but here's a ridiculous ultimatum that will either force you under my heel or irreparably alienate us to one another." I think alot of religions play into such a binary system, and I think the Union is most fun when it is finding the commonalities between how religions present higher powers.

Brother Tate

OMG thank God he actually believes in what he's saying. I don't think I could take it if "The Flow" had no merit to it at all. I'm sick of stories that present the "religious option" as just crazy people. Now is it a death cult? Yea, kinda. But there's no self-serving motives. Unlike the Polity, who is legit just making things up, the Union actually thinks they are humanity's salvation. The truth in that is....well it's unclear. And I appreciate that the show doesn't jump directly to the villainization of the Omnifaith.

Chase

Thematically Chase being the cornerstone of the Union is SO good. Julius Caesar, Jesus, I mean Brother Tate's speech at the end perfectly summed it up. Chase's idea of heroism is filtered through his suffering, and the horrifying revelation is that without death, there is always more of himself to lose. The truest of horrors of war stories.

However Chase lacked the emotional depth he needed in this episode. MBJ does a phenomenal job voice acting him for the most part, he shows a remarkable amount of emotion. But the way the show implements it feels uncanny somehow. I can't exactly describe it but the editing is off.

Yaz

I find it very gripping how the Union converts her through breaking her. It's honestly kinda sucky that the nature of the Union -- and many (especially Abrahamic) religions, too -- presents itself as the one and only option. It's such a morbid and cynical servitude. No one is actually concerned about convincing her, they just keep guilting her until submission. And when she finally gives up? The flow keeps her alive? I don't quite know. But yea this recontextualizes alot of her behavior in Season 1 in a positive way (narratively speaking of course. I don't feel good about it).

I don't think the show is in a place to explore this, but I appreciate the irony in the "you have no proof of the afterlife" line from a person of (presumably) Muslim faith. It may have been an oversight, but it's one I feel is thematically appropriate.

(I think it would have been more interesting if she did believe in the Omnifaith itself, but not as literally as the suicide pact demanded by it's organized religion. But I digress.)

Polity

Nice save on Marin, there guys lol. It's too late, I already think she's a bad guy.

I think one thing that makes this show so viscerally unsettling sometimes is its sheer willingness to connect itself to modern day Earth. When I heard that the Polity was a rebranded (and equally useless) UN I legitimately buffered for a moment. How horrifying. How likely. It's almost as if G:L the show itself is prophetic of what is to come. Speculative fiction at this point is just a reality that hasn't happened yet. And from that standpoint, I'm with Chase. I'm scared.

TLDR: The Union is some AMAZING world building. This G:L crew is truly making the best of this mess of a production that they can, and I appreciate that.

Final Score: 7/10

P.S.: IM PUTTING WARNER IN THE DEATH NOTE for messing with reaction videos. RT (the company) is also pretty damn close to filling the blank space. Like are you serious???

[fitzefitcher]

honestly i've been seeing bastion as like a Buddhist-ish place with ancient greek aesthetics, bc letting go of your earthly attachments to be enlightened is pretty Buddhist. 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. If you meet your father, kill your father.', that kind of thing. i haven't thought of it as a Light place at all, though i can see why others do.

so there's. a lot of things I would like to cover in answering this, and I'm honestly dreading it a little lmao buuuuut I will do the best I can. I have a lot of thoughts about Bastion, and about the Light, so I'm going to take this as an opportunity to explore that. so: content warning for discussion of religion and religious trauma, esp in regards to identity erasure.

full disclosure: I'm an american queer that was raised roman catholic (specifically, roman catholic within the confines of a heavily irish-italian community) and currently identify more as like. an agnostic apostate, would be the closest thing to describe it, I think. generally, while I'm not really crazy about organized religion as a massive institution capable of doing absolutely wretched things to the people it alleges to helping (and by no means am suffering under the delusion that it hasn't and won't continue to do these things so long as oppressive systems of power are in place, just like it would be in any other area, not just religion), I also acknowledge that there's a lot of good in it, too, and it's the cornerstone of many people's community, culture, and identity. ultimately, my opinion is that religion is a tool, and whoever's holding that tool decides its purpose and intention. it's. a complicated matter lmao.

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on buddhism, here. obviously this was not the religion (or any of the many cultures its beliefs are centered in) I was raised as, and honestly even the research I've done for this feels like it's barely scratching the surface. so, rather than try and argue or explain something that is really out of the realm of what I'm familiar with or have experience with (esp. something that's not really mine to claim), I will try and explain things from my own experience as a queer AFAB person raised as roman catholic. and speaking from that perspective, it is very incredibly obvious to me how much of bastion was lifted from christian theology. not just the aesthetics of it, all of the weird identity conformity shit, too. the way that kyrian ideology is being used here, is as a tool to enforce this conformity.

same with how the Light as a concept has been developed in recent years- there are no longer any significant differences between the way individual factions use and interact with the light, even though as cultures their views on it should be radically different, or at least different enough that they don't feel like homogenized versions of each other. like, there's no real difference between how the humans view the Light, and how dwarves view the light, and how gnomes view the Light, and it doesn't really feel like there ever was. Nelves' view on it used to be characterized pretty strongly and differently, as did trolls and draenei, but the longer the years go on, the more that they sort of blend together. to get back to your statement, "I haven't thought of it as a Light place at all," I find that very difficult to parse as a statement, as Bastion as a whole has been developed from base concepts of the Light. Like, Kyrians were designed from spirit healers, spirit healers are now confirmed to be Kyrians (for some reason), and all of the aesthetics of their magic, their clothing, their environment are all heavily priest, paladin, and light-inspired. everything is golds and marbles and sky blues, when they become "corrupted," they suddenly become shadow-themed, like all greys and blacks and purples, their wings turn black, etc. but the similarities, and all their short-comings, go much farther than that.

so the general story thread of each area of the shadowlands in this expansion is that things aren't as they seem, right? that their individual systems are beginning to fall to internal corruption and are crumbling under their own weight. and we see this in each of the trailers- the houses of maldraxxus are starting to eat each other, ardenweald is slowly starving to death, revendreth's citizens are being choked with heavy demands from the aristocracy, and bastion is struggling to adjust in the face of new, unprecedented problems, unwilling to change their ways, even when it's explicitly obvious how badly they need to change. like, I've talked about this a little bit before- the trailer and the way it's structured led me to believe that we, the players, are meant to be hanging out with Devos and Uther, trying to help them convince Devos' boss that very obvious bad thing that's happening, is happening. And this is about how it goes for the other trailers- we learn about the betrayal of Draka's house in maldraxxus, and the maldraxxus storyline is centered on helping her figure out what happened and pick up the pieces. We learn about Ardenweald's rapidly shrinking resources and dying environment, and the ardenweald storyline is centered on figuring out what the cause of this famine is. We learn about Revendreth's aristocracy and how they're demanding more and more of the common people, and the revendreth storyline is centered on overthrowing the increasingly tyrannical cruelty of their current leaders and helping the common people, with the help of a leader favored by the common people. And I feel like, given the state of things, and how the IRL world as a whole has been going the past couple years, helping Devos and Uther get to the bottom of this, maybe even helping Bastion adjust and change in the face of these new challenges, would have been a very good, insightful storyline, and very appropriate for the times we're in.

This, clearly, is not what happened lmao. Whether or not they'll decide to develop bastion further, at least in terms of addressing its failings with its own people, is up for debate, but based on WoW's previous history of similar stories, I'm not very confident lmao.

so I will touch on that statement of bastion being a "buddhist-like place" for a moment, I did look into buddhism a bit, and while I very quickly realized that there wasn't really a way that I could discuss this at length in a way that's fair (esp. with how many variations and cultures there are centered around it, again, I am not an expert, I am doing the best I can with the information I have), the very very bare bones basics of buddhism that I can find more or less boil down to, yes, letting go of earthly attachments to attain enlightenment. but this is not really a nuanced assessment of buddhism, and tbh, isn't really the goal of the kyrians' purification rituals. sure, at first glance, it seems to line up- shedding the burdens of their mortal lives in order to achieve ascension- but ascension here, is not enlightenment. buddhist enlightenment, from what I can find, seems to be the act of breaking free from the cycle of death and rebirth and from mortal suffering. kyrian ascension is the act of, not breaking free of that cycle, but tying yourself to it for an eternity of service. and living your life (even  an eternal one- especially an eternal one) in the service of others is a really strongly christian concept. and the kyrian's concept of virtues only strengthens this. the fact that kyrians have virtues at all is heavily christian-coded, and on top of that, the virtues they have feel like they've been lifted directly from christian beliefs. also like. they're literal fucking angels, trying to earn their wings. like. there's not much else I can think of that's that heavy-handed lmao.

let's talk more about those virtues, though.

the kyrian virtues are as follows: purity, humility, courage, wisdom, and loyalty. There are a number of variations on christian virtues, but here are two of the main sets: one set lines up as the ideological opposite to the seven capital sins (or seven deadly sins if you're an FMA fan lmao), and the other is more-or-less what is accepted in contemporary belief. This is what I was taught in sunday school/CCD, so this is what I'm a little more familiar with.

so set 1, the heavenly virtues, are: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility, and set 2, the contemporary virtues, are split further into 2 groups: the cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and the theological virtues, charity, hope, and faith.

So humility, courage, and wisdom, are pretty straight-forward in terms of what they represent, and line up pretty neatly with humility (lol) from the heavenly virtues, and fortitude and prudence from the contemporary virtues. To touch on those briefly, humility is exactly what it says on the tin, and acts as an ideological opposite to the capital sin of pride, fortitude is bravery and endurance as well as patience, and prudence is reason and self-discipline, esp in terms of handling yourself and how you interact with others. And these are perfectly fine as principles. the ones that set off alarm bells for me, though, are loyalty and purity.

as kyrian virtues, they don't really line up to any christian virtues from either set. but tbh, this is beside the point- the fact that purity and loyalty are considered virtues, at all, especially in combination with each other, at best feel very suspicious, and at worst openly hostile. and the way this is covered in game only enforces this. purity is only obtained by sloughing off pieces of yourself that the kyrians consider obstructive to your ascension and how you can serve the Purpose, and questioning this or any other aspect of their ascension ritual gets you sent to the temple of loyalty to, ostensibly, stay there until you Get Your Priorities Straightened Out lmao. Like, there's no exploration of why these purity rituals are being questioned to begin with, there's no examination of why the rituals are necessary to begin with, and seemingly, prospective kyrians are punished for even asking. like, for a faction that seemingly prides itself on helping their members becoming their best selves, it feels strange that the reaction to their unsure members is punitive instead of therapeutic.

at this point, the link between the kyrians' beliefs and christianity should be readily apparent. it's no secret that over the centuries, christianity has used as a tool for oppressive systems to dominate marginalized groups, both within its ingroup and without. "purity" in christianity is less a virtue and more a heavily enforced, wildly contradictory idea, hiding itself in mealy-mouthed platitudes about being a Good Person or Becoming Your Best Self while simultaneously, stringently punishing its own members for daring to step a toe out of an extremely arbitrary line. like, I remember going to church growing up, and in the same breath that the head priest said to pray for various members of the community (thoughts and prayers, lmao), pray for [insert local sports team here] to win for their upcoming game, he also said that yes, democrats are corrupting the country. yes, homosexuals are going to hell. mass was an exercise in enduring misery most of the time, and a big reason I stayed closeted from my family for the majority of my life is because of this, and I still am, in many ways. I still have to divvy myself up in bits and pieces to become Socially Acceptable enough to appease my extended family, and there are certain family members that I will go to my grave never having come out to them, because I know they will never accept me for who I am, truly. so to have purity be a kyrian virtue with no further examination, no trace of irony, and to have loyalty as a virtue to back it up, feels, at best, extremely tone-deaf.

when you quest alongside kleia and pelagos, you see these purity rituals, and you see how large a toll they take on them. you see pelagos struggle, and you as the player help him overcome the difficulties he faces- difficulties he could not overcome himself. you see kleia, over time, becoming more and more disgruntled with bastion's governing body as a whole, and finding more and more cracks in the kyrians' concept of purity. but no lessons are learned, from either of these. nothing is examined further, and I have doubts that it ever will.

you, the player, see other kyrians, who previously were orcs, tauren, trolls, draenei, all these non-humans, being stripped of their identity, ostensibly for the reason that it will make them more just and fair a judge, a concept that rapidly falls apart the longer you look at it. the idea of all these sentient creatures from all these walks of life, particularly the ones heavily coded as BIPOC, are to be stripped of their cultural identity and made into Homogenous Standard (white-coded) Blue Human is so intrinsically malicious that it is genuinely baffling that it was even seriously considered as an idea, let alone greenlit and put into the game. prospective mortals are scouted to be kyrians theoretically for the lives they lived in service of others, in justice and kindness and wisdom, and then they are made to give up more and more pieces of those lives, rendering whatever they've learned, whatever experiences they've gained, that made them this person that the kyrians sought out in the first place, an utterly pointless and redundant endeavor. things like kindness, wisdom, courage, are not inherent qualities. They are things that have to be learned. They are things in which the context of them is paramount to how they will be measured. So to say that it is Necessary to do this, to make them Fairer, to make them More Just, feels both stunningly nonsensical and just pointlessly, nihilistically mean.

so what does this have to do with the Light?

well, in recent years, it seems to be steering more and more towards the idea that only correct religion within WoW is the Light, and there's only One Way to be Light. Early on in WoW's development, it was established that yeah, shadow has a bit of a reputation and can certainly be misused, but nobody's arguing that the Light can be misused, too, and that neither shadow nor light are inherently good nor inherently evil- they just Are, and each serve their own purpose in this world and its way of things. I had written a post about this like. several years ago, and a lot of it hasn't aged very well (I will not link to it bc woof, it was Pretty Rough to look at again after seven years lmao), but the gist of it was that Light and Shadow, are less like good and evil, and more like the Force from star wars. Well, a more nuanced force- again, Light is not Strictly Good, Shadow is not Strictly Evil. They are merely opposite sides of the same spectrum, but they are not inherently antithetical to each other. It was less a religion/belief system with an established deity, and more just reverence for the universe and its workings as a whole. Yes, it has the markers and drapings of christianity, particularly in its aesthetics, but the actual belief system didn't really lift anything from any particular christian belief system, and didn't really match up to any one of them, besides, again, the aesthetic of it. The Light now, however- now it does have a lot in common with christian beliefs. or at least, it and the church of the light have a lot in common with the mentality of those with strong christian beliefs. Which is to say, again, there is only one Correct Religion, and it's Light, and there's only One Correct Way to be Light. other religions within wow are either condemned, painted as savage, violent, heretical, or watered down so much that they either don't matter or function as mere Extensions to the light.

last summer, when I was reading the "before the storm" novel as research for my sylvanas essay, one of the many, many things that made it a difficult read was how like. unintentionally, thoughtlessly intolerant Golden had written it. Anduin, one of the main characters in it, despite having a history of kindness, compassion, curiosity, and understanding, is kind of shunted into being a 1-dimensional Good Christian Boy(tm). Like, he struggles with interacting with the forsaken, despite them having been in existence for over a decade at this point, and more than half his lifetime, and despite having dealt with them before, and orcs, and tauren, and a great number of other non-human creatures, while still treating them with grace and dignity, and respecting their perspectives, experiences, and beliefs. like, he's painted as thinking that the netherlight temple would be an alliance-only, church of the holy light only affair, and is really surprised, even stunned, at the thought of having to interact with non-alliance, non-light priests. and something that really really stuck with me while reading this, was that Anduin, this compassionate, intelligent, understanding person, could only learn to interact with priests of other factions and species, despite having already done this before, many, many times in his life, on the basis that They, Too, Are Servants Of The Light. and there's just. no examination in this. no irony. Light is Right, Others are Not. No lessons were learned.

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

Defending Jon Snow’s Honor

Re: "Jon Snow is Trash": Because if you accept the season eight depiction of Jon Snow as credible, then you might as well admit that Daenerys was mad all along.

Disclaimer: This is not a defense of Jon Snow's actions in season eight, but a refutation of his portrayal.

To begin, we must confront the elephant in the room: In season eight, the character of Daenerys Targaryen was butchered both literally and figuratively. It was such a brutal and heinous maiming of her character that by the end of the series, it was impossible to suspend disbelief and accept the inane and illogical choices of the writers.

But when you then turn around and insist that Jon Snow has always been "trash"—it's no different than the people who insist Daenerys has always been mad. The hit job on Jon Snow was, admittedly, a bit more subtle. But it was a hit job nonetheless. Do not let two talentless writers convince you that Jon Snow, at any point in season eight, acted within the bounds of his established character or even within in-universe show logic.

Because he didn't.

And no, I won't put any of this under a cut. Let the sheer length of this post serve as proof, itself, of just how dirty David Benioff and D.B. Weiss did Jon Snow.

The Real Jon Snow

While the writing on Game of Thrones suffered the further the story strayed from the books and from its original creator, George R.R. Martin, season seven—for all its faults and imperfections—still seemed to follow the natural progression of the story. Everyone still felt more or less in-character, particularly Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen.

So, that's where we'll start. To me, season seven Jon Snow is the rough culmination of exactly where I believe his story arc will lead—and it's a great season to help showcase his qualities.

Regardless of any personal preference for characters, in season seven, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen are equals. She is a queen and he is a king.

When they meet, she appeals to her power and her claim by inheritance in order to convince Jon to bend the knee. Of course, it was never going to be that easy. Jon's a stubborn man and he has no reason to put his blind faith into well, anyone.

It is only upon revealing her true nature—her selflessness and willingness to use her power to help others—that Daenerys earns not only his respect, but his heart.

To say that "Jon Snow was always trash" is an insult to Daenerys and her judgment.

Dany's love for Khal Drogo was born of adaptation, to make the best of a situation she never asked for. Unlike Jorah Mormont, Jon's devotion to Daenerys had nothing to do with her looks. Unlike Daario Naharis, Jon's devotion to Daenerys had nothing to do with her power or status... and everything to do with who she is fundamentally. Jon Snow pledged to fight for Daenerys based on the content of her character rather than her beauty.

Further, Daario Naharis really stood face to face with Daenerys Targaryen, the Mhysa, and said "fuck the people". Meanwhile, it is Jon Snow's mysterious scars that prove he and Daenerys harbor similar ideologies—demonstrating that Jon is willing to stop at nothing for his people—even if it requires giving his own life.

Many have called Jon Snow "stupid" for exactly this, completely missing the point that there are qualities that deserve to be held in higher esteem than self-preservation or cleverness.

Compassion.

Self-sacrifice.

Humility.

Dignity.

Honesty.

When Jon Snow declares his loyalty to Daenerys in the Dragonpit in front of everyone—this is yet another moment people like to point to as "stupid", yet...

"I'm not going to swear an oath I can't uphold. When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies."

Jon Snow's integrity is more important to him than lying just to save his own hide. After all, he tried that once before, and the only thing it resulted in was heartache and regret. Jon Snow more or less asserts that a life wherein he must pretend to be something he isn't—isn't a life worth living.

This is as profound a revelation as it is bold.

Whether or not you agree with his convictions... Jon Snow's moral foundation is as unyielding as Valyrian steel. It is no wonder that this was the man who ultimately won the heart of Daenerys Targaryen. A man whose favor cannot be bought or exploited.

One fundamental change in Jon Snow's character from page to screen, however, is his ambition. This emphasis on his reluctance in ruling becomes an unfortunate cornerstone of season eight. But if Jon Snow's book counterpart—the one who dreamt of becoming Lord of Winterfell, of conquering and leading men into glory—lacks this hesitation, and instead, takes leadership so seriously that he only celebrates becoming Lord Commander with one gulp of alcohol... then what impact could his ambition have on the story?

Upon learning that Jon is Rhaegar's son, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that he'll suddenly start vying for the Iron Throne. But if Jon Snow pledges himself to Queen Daenerys in the books, then we have every reason to believe his word is as good as gold. Jon is not a man who takes his oaths lightly. Nor is he a man who is easily manipulated.

Jon Snow deciding to swear fealty to anyone is momentous.

Take, for instance, Stannis Baratheon. Jon's 'father', Ned, pretty much died in support of Stannis' claim to the throne, so he approaches the boy and appeals to Jon's deepest desire—the first thing he can remember wanting—to become a Stark.

All he had to do was say the word, and he would be Jon Stark, and nevermore a Snow. All he had to do was pledge this king his fealty, and Winterfell was his. All he had to do ... was forswear his vows again. And this time it would not be a ruse. To claim his father's castle, he must turn against his father's gods.

This is not an easy decision for Jon Snow. He spends a great deal of time considering the offer from just about every angle one can. Admittedly, it's hard to showcase deep internal reflection on a television show, so we didn't really get to see that process for Jon on screen. But it's always been apparent that two men of privilege—David Benioff and D.B. Weiss—struggle in writing from the perspective of a bastard. Fundamentally, they cannot fully inhabit Jon as a result, because they've never experienced a lifetime of unprovoked contempt, resulting in an unfortunate lack of depth in Jon's translation from page to screen.

Even so, we do get some insight into the depth of Jon's character in season seven when Theon Greyjoy says to Jon:

"You've always known what was right. Even when we were all young and stupid, you always knew. Every step you take, it's always the right step."

In turn, Jon replies:

"It's not. It may seem that way from the outside, but I promise you, it's not true. I've done plenty of things that I regret."

So, by the time that Jon must decide whether or not to accept Stannis Baratheon's offer, he does so with the consideration of future regret. It is in a reflective moment that Jon decides that his greatest desires are not worth the moral expense.

And so, Jon refuses to betray his father's gods, and remains a Snow.

The Kinslaying Problem

Speaking of gods... Way back in his wildling heyday, Ygritte recounts the tale of Bael the Bard to Jon Snow, in which she reveals a curious detail:

"The gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing."

While you could make the case that this foreshadows Jon as a kinslayer regarding Daenerys... considering it was their kinship that drove a wedge right through their relationship in show canon, it's safe to say season eight Jon knew full well he was kin to Daenerys when he killed her. So what else could this quote mean?

The "kinslayer who kills unknowing" probably won't refer to Daenerys at all—but the mysterious figure known in the books as the Night's King, of whom all records have been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

But... Old Nan insists we do know his name. At least one of them:

"He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down."

Keep in mind that it's Bran she tells, not Jon. And her words even echo the kinslaying element between these mysterious and legendary figures in and around the North.

Interestingly, one of the most prominent kinslayers in the story is the one who, in season eight, ultimately convinces Jon Snow to murder his queen. And somehow, it takes virtually no effort on Tyrion's part to persuade Jon Snow to commit not only regicide, but kinslaying (whatever happened to "The man that passes the sentence should swing the sword"?)

This may mean nothing in the show, but in the books it's reiterated over and over again we're told how accursed such an act is. And we have a pretty good example that it might be true. Rickard Karstark warned Robb Stark prior to his execution by the Young Wolf's hand:

"We are kin, Stark and Karstark. Old gods or new, it makes no matter. No man is so accursed as the kinslayer."

And we all know the fate that befell Robb Stark.

The Incest Problem

Speaking of kin... let's talk incest! While there's no question that on earth, discovering you've been copulating with your aunt might be a cause for surprise... In Westeros? It's not even considered incest. No, not even in the North, where we're given two examples of uncle-to-niece pairings:

"In Westeros incest is only applied if father lays with daughter, mother lays with son, or brother to sister, and the children of such unions are considered abominations. The views regarding marriages between an uncle and a niece (or an aunt to a nephew) might differ between the Faith and the old gods. In the north, Serena Stark had been wed to her half-uncle, Edric, while her sister Sansa Stark had been wed to her half-uncle Jonnel Stark."

In the original draft of the story, Jon was supposed to have a romantic relationship with Arya Stark—his cousin by blood, but who, for all he knows, is his sister. Seeds of this are still scattered in early chapters of ASOIAF, as illustrated by the sheer tenderness of their relationship in A Game of Thrones.

For years, Arya Stark was the only woman who treated Jon with respect. It's no wonder that his feelings for her have always bordered on romantic (and let me make a clear distinction here—I said romantic, not sexual). Considering that it was George's original plan, it's pretty safe to guess that being a willing participant in an incestuous relationship is not necessarily out of character for Jon Snow, as was predetermined by the man who created him.

Jon Snow is a polarizing character for people who love Targaryens and hate Starks—and vice versa. Whether or not you like it, Jon Snow is a Targaryen. And thus, the Doctrine of Exceptionalism applies to him, which states:

"The Targaryens wed brother to sister as the Valyrians had always done, and as the gods had made them this way, it was not for men to judge." 

While the show canon did next to nothing with Jon Snow's true Targaryen lineage—never forget that the entire reason David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were given the rights to Game of Thrones was that they could correctly answer the question "Who is Jon Snow's mother?"

An incestuous scandal was the best that the lackluster show writers could come up with. And to then accept that the only reason George R.R. Martin penned this central plot twist in his medieval fantasy story exclusively to create some modern-era incest drama is, frankly, insulting.

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are creatively barren. As barren as... um, Daenerys apparently?

To further exploit the show's lack of logical reasoning—it turns out that, yes, according to show canon, Daenerys was barren the whole time. While Jon doubted the validity of Mirri Maz Duur's claims... he was wrong. And Daenerys was straightforward with him that their union would produce no offspring. And apparently, despite all the wasted dialogue used to foreshadow, she was right.

This means that even within the boundaries of the show's broken logic, the anti-incest angle never held water.

So... if season eight Jon Snow's rejection of Daenerys is what ultimately causes her to "snap", yet it's unlikely that book Jon Snow will feel the same strong aversion about their relation... will she "snap" at all?

The Execution Problem

When it comes to the 'old way', Ned Stark has taught his sons well, Jon Snow among them:

"We hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die."

When Jon encounters Ygritte, he can't bring himself to kill her despite the command to. She reminds him of his sister, Arya—the girl he loves the most in all the world. And so, he asks Ygritte to yield. Jon Snow, simply reminded of a girl he loves, cannot bring himself to kill Ygritte.

Later, we directly witness Jon applying Ned's logic to his execution of Janos Slynt. After advising Janos on how best to achieve a quick death, he says:

"If you have any last words, now is the time to speak them."

"Please, my lord. Mercy. I'll … I'll go, I will, I …"

No, thought Jon. You closed that door. Longclaw descended.

Like his father before him, Jon advised Janos to speak his last words. And upon hearing them, deemed him fit to die.

This is Jon Snow's execution style.

We see it repeated even in season six when he executes his murderers:

"If you have any last words, now is the time."

Patiently, he waits for each of his four murderers to speak before letting them hang.

This is Jon Snow's execution style.

Alternatively, we see another style of execution when it comes to Jon Snow's own murder, as carried out by Alliser Thorne. Let's just go ahead and refer to this style as dishonorable and cowardly (two qualities that we've now established that Jon Snow does not possess).

Jon Snow was led, unarmed, into a false sense of security—where he was then cornered and stabbed in the heart by his enemies, left lying in a pool of his own blood.

The change in Jon Snow's execution style to suddenly emulate the way in which he was murdered is a cold-blooded betrayal of Jon's character.

But back to Janos.

On the surface, Jon Snow made a snap decision to execute Janos Slynt for disobeying a command—though if we're being honest, it was more-so because Janos was an entitled and sniveling Lannister loyalist that couldn't be trusted, or, a clever political move to ensure Jon’s future safety as Lord Commander.

Jon then severed the man's head as he cried and begged for his life.

You expect us to believe that this man...

...would be bothered by the execution of attempted murderer and traitor, Varys? A man who openly suggested they collude and commit treason?

While the above gif looks a little more like the Jon Snow we know, it’s not. Especially considering the writers tried their hardest to make us believe Jon Snow is incapable of dishonesty and lying, even by omission, he neglects to tell Daenerys of Varys’ treasonous ways. He cannot lie to his siblings or to Daenerys about his Targaryen identity, yet he can omit a very troubling piece of information regarding one of the allies of the woman he loves and is pledged to. What?

Further, compare the execution below with the above gifs of Jon Snow's two executions. He even shows more satisfaction in the deaths of the lives he’s taken than Daenerys did. Varys surviving means Dany’s life will forever be at risk. Not only is Varys an oathbreaker, but he attempted regicide by poison. Having Jon Snow judge Daenerys for this action is a blatant double standard that makes zero logical sense.

And speaking of attempted murderers... Let's discuss Randyll Tarly.

Randyll Tarly is no stranger to Jon Snow. Sam told him all about his father way back in episode four of season one:

"You're almost a man now, but you're not worthy of my land and title. Tomorrow, you're going to take the black, forsake all claim to your inheritance and start north. If you do not, then we'll have a hunt, and somewhere in these woods your horse will stumble, and you'll be thrown from your saddle to die. Or so I'll tell your mother. Nothing would please me more."

So, you're going to tell me that Jon Snow is suddenly perturbed by the execution of a man who both threatened to murder his own son and who betrayed his liege lord?

To fight alongside the Lannisters, no less?

According to the books, this is what Jon Snow thinks of the Lannisters:

"It's death and destruction I want to bring down upon House Lannister, not scorn."

And in case you missed it, this is how Jon Snow punishes those who betray their liege lords:

Maybe you’re itching to argue that it’s Dany’s execution style that is the problem. That perhaps, 'death by fire is heinous and cruel! Beheading and hanging and punching someone to death are all "merciful" deaths!' Because, stupefyingly, that's a popular argument for those that (also stupefyingly) defend Randyll Tarly.

That argument might work if not for the fact that Jon instructed his men to launch flaming arrows at the Battle of Castle Black, thus using fire as a means to kill.

The Arya Stark Problem

We've already discussed Arya Stark a little bit in terms of her deep bond with Jon Snow... but in order to truly show how out-of-character their reunion was, we need to backtrack a little bit.

Upon gifting her Needle, Jon and Arya have this exchange in the books:

"And whatever you do..."

Arya knew what was coming next. They said it together.

"...don't ... tell ... Sansa!"

Not only do the pair have an understanding which excludes their sister or trusting her with sensitive information... when Arya is caught with Needle later on, this happens:

Arya chewed her lip and said nothing. She would not betray Jon, not even to their father.

And when Arya attempts to shed her identity at the House of Black and White, she can't bring herself to part with Needle, because:

Needle was Jon Snow's smile. The Many-Faced God can have the rest, she thought, but he can't have this.

Arya Stark refuses to part with the physical representation of Jon Snow's smile.

For the most anticipated reunion in the entire show, it fell flat. Don't get me wrong, it was exhilarating to see Jon Snow and Arya Stark embracing after being apart for a decade—and Kit Harington and Maisie Williams did their absolute best with the poor dialogue they were given.

But this was not the reunion of two characters who survived some of their toughest challenges by merely recalling the memory of the other. Jon and Arya shared a bond that nothing could tarnish—not even time. A bond that no one—not even their fellow family members—could penetrate.

The nerve of the writers making Arya Stark, one of the cleverest characters in the books despite her age, say that Sansa Stark is the smartest person she's ever met? No. For one, Arya Stark did not need to live as a bastard in order to empathize with them—which means that even as a little girl, she possessed wisdom that is years ahead of her elder sister's.

Much like Jon Snow, Arya Stark is not a character who is easily persuaded by the opinions of others. Which is why she and Jon are close at all—she never once believes the stigma attached to his bastardy, because it's so blatantly obvious to her that his character simply doesn't fit the rhetoric.

I'd be willing to bet that Jon's incredibly loyal sister would trust his judgment in pledging himself to Daenerys. And I won't for a minute believe that the girl who said to Gendry...

"I can be your family."

...would suddenly regress into intolerance, particularly not at someone else's behest.

I won't believe for a minute that the girl who said...

"The woman is important too!"

...would turn around and suggest that the woman who provided her armies, dragons, and resources to save the North should then be discarded afterward.

I won't believe for a minute that the girl who makes allies and friends everywhere she goes would turn around and argue that allies aren't important.

I won't believe for a minute that the girl who named her direwolf after the warrior queen Nymeria, the girl who said...

"He killed the slave?" That did not sound right. "He should have killed the masters!"

...wouldn't at least give the person she loves the most in all the world, Jon Snow, a few minutes to explain why he supports and believes in Daenerys.

Lastly, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Arya Stark would ever betray Jon Snow. It is an insult to one of the purest and tenderest relationships in the entire series to suggest otherwise.

The Winterfell Problem

Even on Jon Snow's AWOIAF Wiki page, he is described as "quick to sense a slight", as well as observant, "a trait he developed on account of being a bastard".

Yet, during the feast following the Night King's death... Jon Snow is suddenly portrayed as oblivious all in service to the plot to alienate Daenerys. Jon Snow's sudden disinterest in the woman he spent season seven so intently studying was both frustrating and compromising to his character traits.

After all, the most impressive leader Jon Snow has ever witnessed followed him into his homeland to save his men for nothing to gain (and in fact, to sacrifice her own men and resources), not just for the man she loves—but because it's the right thing to do.

The writers really expect us to believe that this man, who turned Janos Slynt's insubordination into an example of what happens to men who openly disrespect him and his orders...

...is going to suddenly sit idly by while his own people make a fool of him by disrespecting his chosen queen, and by extension, him.

Don't let the writers believe for an instant that he would stand for it.

Taking a step further back, what in seven hells was going on during that battle?

The betrayal to Jon Snow's character is the most glaring during episode three of season eight, in which the writers really decided to sideline the most talented and quick-thinking swordsman in their cast (next to Furdik—who, by the way, was also sidelined).

Jon Snow conveniently forgets virtually everything he learned from defending the Wall in season four and reclaiming Winterfell in season six. The King in the North who travels all the way to Dragonstone for not only dragonglass, but in hopes of gaining the help of the queen and her armies is really going to let one of those armies gallop head-first into the army of the undead with metal weapons? Jon Snow is the first character in the show to learn that regular weapons don't work against wights!

And while it may not be Jon Snow's fault that the trebuchets managed to make it to the front line of all places, he certainly would've pointed out the flaw in that decision. As well as the placement of the trenches—which physically severed the troops from the safety of the castle upon retreat. Retreat, if necessary, would be a priority for Jon Snow especially, as he, above everyone else, knows that every fallen man means one more undead soldier they must deal with.

And speaking of the trenches...

To add insult to injury, the writers really decided to add a shot of Jon Snow sitting idly next to the trenches on top of Rhaegal, a dragon that he was just using to light the dead on fire, as Melisandre struggled to light them with magic:

What? You mean this Jon Snow?

The Jon Snow that once used his quick-thinking to discover that fire kills wights... doesn't think to use dragonfire to light a trench on fire? Come on.

And since when has Jon Snow ever balked during battle? Of all the characters, he's one of the few who actually understands what the Night King is, how big his army is, what the odds are, and what it's like to be in the midst of not only battles—but ones that are going really poorly.

Yet at Winterfell—the place he fought so hard to reclaim and that he reluctantly went south to rally support for in order to protect it—he suddenly has no idea what to do? He's historically one of the most quick-witted and innovative fighters in the entire show, if not the most.

And speaking of battles...

"We find our true friends on the battlefield"

Whether or not you agree with the writers' choice to have Sam attempt to persuade Jon to commit treason against his queen... I just cannot accept that Jon Snow willingly turns away from his oldest friend in a moment like this:

Even in the most hopeless of situations, Jon Snow won't hesitate to save someone he loves. Like when he tried, against all odds, to save Rickon.

Even with complete strangers, Jon Snow has shown his gallantry.

As well as his aptitude for forgiveness.

Whether or not Samwell Tarly offended Jon, he would never leave him to die. Their principals may no longer converge the way they once did... but never forget that when, in the books, Chett suggests Thorne should kill Sam for being weak, Jon speaks up on Sam's behalf:

"Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can't make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people. You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean tin is useless."

The Night King Problem

Speaking of the battle for Winterfell... By denying Jon Snow the climax to his story arc—squaring off with the Night King—and instead, granting that honor to Arya Stark (who has no relation to anything happening north of the Wall in either book or show...) it disrupts the natural conclusions for both characters.

Jon Snow and the Night King had unfinished business—at least, that's what all those long and intense stare-downs seemed to indicate. Even in the books, the only POV chapters that mention the Night's King are Jon, Bran, and Sam.

Kit Harington was very gracious when trying to explain why he would've liked to get the killing blow:

"I was a bit pissed off, only because I wanted to kill the Night King! I think I felt like everyone else did, in that it had been set up for a long time, and then I didn't get to do it."

But even in all his graciousness, Kit points out that it's been set up for a long time. And you know what George R.R. Martin has to say about changing your plan mid-stream:

"If you planned your book that the butler did it and then you read on the internet that someone has figured out that the butler did it and then you suddenly change in mid-stream and it was the chambermaid who did it? Then you screw up the whole book because you've got this foreshadowing early on and you've got these little clues you've planted and now they're dead ends... and you have to introduce other clues and you're retconning. It's a mess."

Yet... The fact that Jon Snow vs. the Night King made sense was exactly why the writers chose not to do it!

"We hope to kind of avoid the expected and Jon Snow has always been the hero, the one who's been the savior. But it just didn't seem right to us for this moment." 

Sure, Arya Stark killing the Night King "subverted expectations" (I'm so sick of typing those two words together at this point, but it's impossible not to do when trying to discuss season eight)... but at what cost? The cost of any emotional impact.

Just like virtually everything else in the last season. 

(As an aside, if the writers really felt Arya Stark was the right person to land the killing blow, they should've had Jon lose the swordfight and before the Night King is able to finish him, his ride-or-die sister comes flying out of the darkness to save his life. The audience gets what they were promised and Arya still gets to be the hero in a way that not only makes sense, but fits her character…)

Of course, the showdown with the Night King was not the first major plot point that was teased over the course of the series to be ultimately robbed from Jon Snow.

Nor would it be the last...

The Prophecy Problem

To claim that Jon piercing Dany's heart with a quick sneak attack has any resemblance to the legend of Azor Ahai is a gross oversimplification. Let's take a look at what the legend actually says:

"He summoned his wife. 'Nissa Nissa,' he said to her, for that was her name, 'bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.' She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel."

Yes. Daenerys was stabbed in the heart. That is the only similarity her season eight murder bears to the above legend.

Where was the declaration of love? Where was the permission asked? Where was the consent given? There was no cry of anguish and ecstasy—there was a gasp and a gurgle. Dany's life was not given in exchange for anything, it was simply taken. There was no transference of courage or strength—just a quick and (troublingly) unimpactful "shock" death.

Of course, it's important to point out that Azor Ahai is never even mentioned in the show. And while The Prince that was Promised was mentioned (as late as season seven)... So far as show canon goes, this prophecy meant absolutely nothing in the end.

That makes two of us, Kit.

Jon Snow (and Kit Harington) Also Deserved Better

Aside from George R.R. Martin, the man who knows Jon Snow best, Kit Harington, was overcome with heartache, disbelief...

...and frustration upon reading the treacherous turn his character took in the season eight script.

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss completely neutered Jon Snow's character.

Figuratively and well, maybe literally? Year after year, they have shown themselves to be petty and spiteful with various cast and crew—from Kit Harington to Ian McElhinney to Alexander Siddig to George R.R. Martin, himself.

Remember that stupid dig at Jon Snow's penis size upon his resurrection? Just a dumb joke, right?

Or was it?

It was sure important enough for them to go on record with major publications and clarify that, no, it wasn't just a joke, but canon! Pay very close attention to how it's worded:

"He just had the look. The brooding intensity; the physical grace; the chip-on-the-shoulder quality that we always associate with extraordinarily short people.

There has to be some downside to being Kit Harington, right? It's impossible not to like him. Maddening. The one thing we can do is saddle his character with a tiny pecker."

This isn't about Jon Snow's penis. It's about taking Kit Harington down a peg. Not only did they give Jon Snow a canonically "small penis", they had to give Daenerys lines about how he's "too little for her", to poke fun at Kit's height. You know, because he's apparently "extraordinarily short".

Utterly juvenile.

Much like with Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow's cleverness far exceeded that of the men who were in charge of writing him—and they failed to replicate it. And so, the further Jon Snow strayed from his creator, George R.R. Martin, the further his IQ dropped until, by season eight, he was reduced to a bumbling idiot shouting at dragons and saying little more than "muh queen". Why? Because if you're actually an idiot, you cannot write a clever person.

As for the books, Jon Snow's true fate remains to be seen. And for as much as I don't want to get my hopes up for a better ending, I cannot ignore that Jon Snow's foreshadowing just doesn't point to futility, and that if it does—George R.R. Martin sure put in a lot of work to convince us otherwise.

As the man, himself, recently said:

"People know an ending—but not the ending."

It is as much an insult to Jon Snow to have Daenerys descend into spontaneous madness as it was for the fans who loved her. Over the years, Jon has proven himself to be a great judge of character—and this was the man who assured Daenerys, in her most vulnerable moment, that she does deserve to be the queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

After all, there’s just no denying their similarities as characters:

"From the very beginning, Jon and Daenerys' stories have paralleled and contrasted each other, with both starting from a position of weakness and insubordination before ascending into leadership roles. Both had to maneuver their way through the difficulties of power while maintaining their sense of justice, and in doing so, had to face many hard decisions along the way. Both were mocked, attacked, and betrayed for doing the right thing. Both reached their low points and were figuratively reborn at the same time, both coming out stronger as a result." -Brandon Jacobs

If you loved Jon Snow prior to season eight, you were never wrong or misled, nor was your judgment unsound. I hope that, somewhere in this post, there was at least one example that reminded you of why Jon Snow was able to win your heart in the first place. Writers who don't understand the most fundamental qualities of a character should not be given the power to rob you of your love for them.

I am willing to bet that like me, and like all of Jon Snow's fans... you know him better than the two men who were granted the honor of writing his television canon. An honor they proved in season eight that they never deserved.

Please do not grant these two incompetent writers and poor storytellers the power to turn you against one character while praising the other, especially when both were ruined beyond repair or recognition.

Forgiving Jon Snow as a character ≠ condoning what he did in season eight, just as forgiving Daenerys Targaryen ≠ condoning mass genocide.

Like Daenerys, Jon Snow deserved better.

[anakin-skybreaker]

A Brief Analysis of Clone Wars Characters Via Knights Radiant Orders

Ahsoka Tano:

It’s been stated that the Edgedancers are the most religious of the Knights Radiant orders. Faith, I believe, is a cornerstone of Ahsoka’s character; faith in the Jedi Order, losing that faith and gaining it in herself, not to mention her faith in Anakin.

A good chunk of her character arc is centered around the common man, learning the plights of the disenfranchised and living up to what the majority of people believe Jedi to stand for without the restrictions of political alignments. Edgedancer ideals fit Ahsoka’s overall arc.

Second Ideal: “I will remember those who have been forgotten.”

Third Ideal: “I will listen to those who have been ignored.”

Edgedancers have the ability to ignore friction which I feel would be well-suited to Ahsoka’s fighting style.

“...they were elegant things of beauty. They could ride the thinnest rope at speed, dance across rooftops, move through a battlefield like a ribbon on the wind.” – Edgedancer, page 4.

“When Simol was informed of the arrival of the Edgedancers, a concealed consternation and terror, as is common in such cases, fell upon him; although they were not the most demanding of orders, their graceful, limber movements hid a deadliness that was, by this time, quite renowned…” – Words of Radiance, page 20.

Captain Rex:

This might be a controversial choice considering what we know of clones, but Rex is a bondsmith. Sure Honor is a whole, veritable, god on Roshar but Rex is a bondsmith and you can pry that from my cold dead hands.

What do I have for evidence of this? Why, the Second Ideal of course.

“I unite instead of divide. I will bring men together.”

Rex watching his brothers being forced to break their oaths of honor and kill their spren all for Palpatine’s agenda. That hits different, bro.

Honestly, I don’t think I need to go any further but for the sake of it I will.

Having a clone, who many consider to be less than, climb the ranks and become a must in terms on long term warfare just feels good. Long story short, Rex is irreplaceable and he deserves an order which maximizes how irreplaceable he truly is.

Commander Cody:

Here we have our first windrunner proper.

Cody is a good man, a loyal man, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t suffer the same ideological differences and hypocrises that plague the Republic. The side he serves condemns slavery and yet he himself and his millions of brothers are a slaves. He is a tool for war yet trying to bring peace. He fights to end the war and yet the Republic refuses to open peace talks. 

He’d be the closest to Kaladin, in terms of practically everything; Cody is a child of Honor.

Cody knows how the universe works so he settles on his own code of honor. He will protect those who cannot protect themselves, regardless of his personal feelings toward them. He knows he can’t save everyone, but what’s most important is that he try. Somebody needs to.

Padme Amidala:

Like Rex, Padme would be well-suited to the bondsmiths. She aims to unite instead of divide. But given her role in TCW, however, and her role as the one who steps up to call out people and be the one to spend her life trying to better society, Padme is an elsecaller.

She’s a diplomat at heart, individualistic and esoteric. Padme follows her own logic and goes out on the front line when she deems it necessary. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what Anakin or the Jedi or the Republic says, Padme abides by her own moral compass and what makes sense to her.

“...the Elsecallers were prodigiously benevolent, allowing others as auxiliary to their visits and interactions; though they never did relinquish their place as prime liaisons with the great ones of the spren…”

She is a senator who creates connections between peoples.

Queen Padme Amidala and Queen Jasnah Kholin, while having a lot of political differences and different approaches to warfare, would get along famously.

Padme contributes to the war effort by soulcasting food, medicine, and other necessary materials.

Anakin Skywalker:

Here’s where things get complicated.

If we’re going purely by plot, then Anakin is a skybreaker since that is one of the only orders that suit his personality which would still allow him to “fall to the dark side” while maintaining his oaths.

Also, I’m not going to slide past it. My URL is anakin-skybreaker for fuck’s sake. It would be a crime against nature for a man named Skywalker not to have gravitation manipulation like come on, he was born to fly. 

It’s just too good, too fitting. I can also see Anakin saying some variant of Kaladin’s line in Words of Radiance, but during a version of the Rako Hardeen arc. “You sent him to the sky to die, assassin, but the sky and winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.” Though entirely separate, the two have roughly the same amount of melodramatic entrances.

On the other hand, if we’re going for what’s best for Anakin as a person then he’d be either a windrunner or a dustbringer (releaser). The Fourth windrunner ideal says more than I ever could. “I accept that there will be those I cannot save.” Anakin is fueled by ambition so there’s no way he wouldn’t make it to the fourth ideal and then be forced to come to terms with himself and his fears or risk stagnation (or worse breaking his oaths and killing his spren).

As a dustbringer, Anakin would be taught how to control and channel his destructive/violent impulses. Dustbringers get a bad reputation because of their capabilities for mass destruction and because of that shared prejudice, I feel that might help Anakin settle in even quicker than he would in the other orders. Like if he were a windrunner, Anakin would be forced to confront aspects of his personality and truly learn restrain and responsibility.

“Most Dustbringers were tinkers who liked to take things apart to see how they work.”

Dustbringer spren canonically love to break stuff. So, Anakin making friends with a spren that wants him to break stuff because it wants to know what’s inside? 10/10

Obi Wan Kenobi:

A lightweaver in personality and a windrunner in mentality.

It hardly needs saying that Obi Wan is an honorable man. It would come to the point where, even as a renowned lightweaver other people would make comments on it. How he’d be better suited to the windrunners, how “I could’ve sworn you bonded an honorspren” and stuff like that.

Lightweaver ideals are tailored towards the individual, but generally follow the pattern of admitting personal truths. Obi Wan has more than a few truths to admit to himself. He and Anakin would be having an argument, only for his liespren to chime in to call him out going, “mm, lies” and forcing the two to actually talk out their feelings.

He would be Grand Spymaster of the Republic. Obi Wan is already known as the Negotiator, so he’d arrive at the palace of a government he needs to win over for the Republic dressed to the nines, positively glowing, standing at imposing six foot five, where underneath the lightweaving he’s going on three hours of sleep, is wearing yesterday’s clothes, and hasn’t combed his hair in three days.

He’s a lightweaver, but for the life of me I cannot get the image of Windrunner Obi Wan vs. Skybreaker Anakin, battle of Mustafar style, out of my head because the concept of them both being able to control gravity while representing opposite ideologies slaps okay?

Plus, Obi Wan would look immaculate in Kholin blue.

Anakin being busy blowing stuff up, turning canons to dust while Ahsoka skates past him as if solid ground were made of ice cutting through squads of droids while Obi Wan wears the face of the enemy leader and convinces them to surrender? 20/10

Maul:

This one is a lightweaver too and for the same reasons as Obi Wan.

He’s a charismatic bastard and he’d used his abilities to their maximum destructive potential. Just like in Clone Wars, he’d topple governments and overtake civilizations from the inside out. 

Lightweavers are not bound by honor so Maul can pretty much do what he wants so long as he’s able to admit truths about himself. Whether he’s successful in doing so remains to be seen.

An important sidenote, Maul has Nightblood.

Maul would have Nightblood and everybody would be in danger.

[astriiformes]

Thoughts on Narnia?

Oof, complicated. Largely for symbolic reasons but the darn thing’s an allegory so you know, that probably tracks.

Full disclosure, Narnia was my Absolute Favorite thing from ages probably, like, 6/7-9-ish. I re-read our copy of Voyage of the Dawn Treader (which was my favorite) so many times it fell apart and we had to find an identical copy to match the rest of our boxed set as a replacement, and the rest of the series over and over again as well. I was obsessed with Reepicheep especially, and he was the first fictional character I ever remember crying over. And the books were my first intro to fantasy, which is obviously a genre I took to hard, so I do owe them that. Even after I wandered into other interests, I thought pretty fondly of them. I loved the first movie adaptation, then ripped into the Prince Caspian one, then like Dawn Treader a bit better, I dressed up as Lucy for Halloween, I put Narnia quotes up in my room and wove myself elaborate metaphors about how they represented life and faith-based stuff for me, I read biographies of CS Lewis, you name it. Not all at once, mind you, I certainly had lots of other interests in that period, but it was just one of those things for me that I came back to again and again and felt was a formative/cornerstone piece of fiction for me.

For reasons I won’t really go into though, I had a pretty messy falling out with Christianity in late high school (which, as is probably clear from the fact that I was a big Narnia kid, had been a huge part of my life before -- I was raised very Evangelical, so much so that most of my friends nowadays are pretty baffled by the childhood I talk about when it comes up). And it wasn’t like all the culturally Christian or even really overtly Christian ideas/media that I still had a fondness for soured for me overnight, but it’s been a letting go process as I realize that the stuff they represent for me is a lot more complicated.

And I wouldn’t say I hate it now or anything. But it feels like something that an entirely different me loved, and that the current one has no connection to at best and at worst sees as a part of a mourning process for a version of myself that doesn’t exist anymore. Sometimes I find myself having really strong feelings about it for different reasons now -- the biggest one being the way people talk about Susan, probably unsurprisingly. I can’t listen to any analysis of her arc that ignores the fact that, first and foremost, she was written as an allegory for people leaving the Church, not like, just an example of sexism or something. People trying to turn it into anything else is just one of those bad pop culture takes that consistently bothers me (although, not coincidentally, it’s also of of the main reasons I cry my eyes out any time I hear someone sing Wicked Girls live). But as that probably evidences, it’s not a story I can ever distance from the authorial intent, and to me is always going to be emblematic of parts of my past I’ve left behind

That might be more than you were asking for, haha, this is just one of those topics for me. I don’t talk about religion all that much here, so I imagine a lot of people probably didn’t have all the background for my thoughts. To be entirely honest, I’ve been in a really complicated place spiritually since late high school. And I’ve finally gotten to a place where I think I know what to do with that by looking at a different option, which is nice. But it also tells me -- and this is probably the best way I can summarize my feelings about the books -- that even if I’ve got some nostalgia tied to the series and its place in my childhood, the end of my story doesn’t involve going back to Narnia

[welcometomy20s]

March 21, 2021

The Straight Dope - Urusei Yatsura

Okay, I really don’t have anything to talk about, so I’ll talk about something I have thought a long time ago, but never really had the time to write it out.

(I actually might have written this before... oh, sorry about that. This is probably just practice writing these kind of post later on... coming soon, kind of.

Urusei Yatsura is an early work by Rumiko Takahashi published from 1978 to 1987 on Weekly Shonen Sundays. It is one of the first parody of Magical Girlfriend genre, and set the trend of many other Magical Girlfriends and Harem shows as well. The plot is supposed this - Ataru Morobashi is the most unlucky and perverted man in the universe and he is selected to compete in a game of tag to determine the fate of the earth. The person he needs to tag is Lum, the daughter of the Oni leader, who likes to wear her distinct tiger-striped bikini. Lum might be one of most iconic magical girlfriends in anime, with references stretching from the comic’s interception, to today. Ataru is obviously going to fail until he gets a marriage promise from Shinobu, his childhood friend. Lum believe it was her Ataru wants to marry, and so the story begins.

Many of the points I just made are true, but there are some key points which eludes to the otherwise. Because the first two volumes of Urusei Yatsura is not like the rest of the volumes, or the anime, which everyone knows. There are some intriguing difference which hints at the true story of Urusei Yatsura.

You see, in the first two volume, Ataru Moroboshi is not the most pervert man in the universe. In fact, he is a normal teenage boys, with a normal teenage boy’s attitude towards perversion, as in he does have his perverted moments, but he’s not defined by it, far to the contrary. 

Shinobu is less of a sympathetic person in the first two volumes. She has absolutely no faith in Ataru and doesn’t not believe a word of what Ataru says. And her temper is much more prominent, and yet her super strength barely exists. In fact, this Shinobu girl reminds me of a different Rumiko Takahashi heroine, one whose romance is one of the cornerstone Shonen romance.

Lum is more more aggressive, vindictive and possessive of Ataru, of course this gets toned into a bumbling well-meaning Magical Girl... wonder what happened to her to make that such a change... well, the final change might give a clue.

In the first two volumes, Ataru and Shinobu was the official couple in the series, and Lum is treated as an obstacle for their relationship. In fact there is a time-travel story where it is revealed that Ataru and Shinobu are happily married and have a child, much to Lum’s horror... Lum, who is kind of described as a villain in this early stage of the comic... wonder how that description turned around.

The question that would be anyone’s mind when watching this rip-roaring series is the question, ‘Why does Lum love Ataru?’ Ataru might be the worst person to love, as I said before Ataru is the most perverted man in the universe... but I told that wasn’t originally the case. Ataru was a normal teenager, who happened to turn into the most perverted man in universe. Now, suffices to say, you don’t become the most perverted man in the universe out of nowhere. There must have been some supernatural means in which Ataru perversion slowly rose from a normal teenage boy, to the point he becomes the most pervert man in the universe... and who in Ataru’s vicinity have such immense power to do such a diabolical deed, perhaps the original villain... Lum, daughter of the Oni leader.

Now what does Lum do in the myriad instances that Ataru lusts for a different woman. She shocks him. This is odd, if you believe that Lum loves Ataru. Shocking the person seems like a pretty harsh thing to do to your lover, and if they do, we might assess that Ataru might be in an abusive relationship.

But Ataru is the most perverted person in the universe, but as I said before that was the case in the beginning... so sometimes in their relationship, Ataru just started ogling at other woman and Lum decided to just shock for their behavior. I mean you wouldn’t make that a signature move, unless you like it somehow...

Hmm, I think we have a very twisted sadist in our hands. Someone who might influence a certain ordinary young man into indulging in his perversion, even though it comes at the cost of the shocks, even as Ataru loves Lum, although that might be a Stockholm syndrome case. Just raises some hormone here and there at the right time, and we can make the most pervert man in the universe.

Now, the second question that everyone will ask while watching Urusei Yatsura is why Ataru never proclaims his love for Lum. Famously in the finale, Ataru has the chance to save himself and the world if he proclaims his love for Lum. Ataru can’t do it and he gets beaten as a result. So, even in the most dire of circumstances Ataru cannot admit his love to Lum. Why would that be the case?

Well, let’s consider if Ataru did admit his love to Lum. Let’s say Ataru acts perverted again and Lum shocked him. Wouldn’t you think that would have been too excessive? Considering Ataru does truly love Lum, it would be odd to be so protective of him, considering Ataru does love her. Perhaps people might start to get the idea that it might be Lum that’s the troublemaker, not Ataru.

Well, Lum can’t have that. She wants the charade to continue, so she cannot have Ataru proclaim his love, although he probably really wants to. Lum have programmed him to never be able to express his tru-ish feeling... if he has true feeling to begin with, considering Lum’s other manipulations.

But, do you know who also wants the charade to continue? You! The audience! You want to see Ataru being shocked after ogling after a girl. You want to see Shinobu using super strength to beat up Ataru, and you know what, Lum wants that too. Honestly, Lum is the one who is running the show here. Don’t blame the supply, blame the demand as some economist would say...

So, I guess the real true villain was us all along, and Lum is the caricature of our desire... and hence why she is so loved. And that’s straight dope.

[naromoreau]

Crime Does Pay

A Far Cry 5 fic Pairing: Sharky Boshaw/ Female Deputy Rating: Explicit Words: 5121 Also on AO3 Note:  Another super self indulgent oneshot of my now fave pair, because I have no life. Also big thanks to @shelbypnw (love you sweetheart!) and to the Awesome Far Cry Discord (YOINK you guys!) for pushing me to post this long ass thing. 

============== Summary:  In the aftermath of Faith's demise, the Resistance has a bit of solace and Rook is finally confronted with her feelings for the pyromaniac.

art by @colonelrogers

“So, honey, care to tell me when are you jumpin’ those bones?” Adelaide took a sip from her beer, sitting cross legged on the stool at the bar, while Mary May chuckled, cleaning a jug absentmindedly.

Rook flushed up to her ears, green eyes open wide and mouth hanging. “I-I dunno what you mean Addie,” she stuttered flashing glances to Mary May as if she was looking for a savior. Her pulse quickened slightly as she fiddled with the glass in her hand.

“O’cmon Dep, you ain’t that dense,” Mary May intervened, lips curled in a crooked smile. “Girl, you have it bad.”

She flicked her tongue across her lips, to gain some time, brow furrowed and boot tapping against the wooden panel of the bar. “Seriously you guys, I have no idea what you’re--” she was almost slurring, and she knew it. Damn .

“Stop that love,” Adelaide cut her words, waving a manicured hand in front of her, “I’m old enough to know you want to drag that pretty mouth of yours all over my idiot of a nephew.”

Rook spilled her drink gracelessly, eeking a faint yelp followed by a grunt as she hid her beet red face on her arms. “Oh for fucks sake, Adelaide!” she whispered agitatedly, lifting her head slightly, catching a glimpse of Sharky and Hurk standing by the pool table.

“Nah, honey, you no need to worry,” Adelaide said patting her head with one hand and taking a sip with the other. “I’m just sayin’ I don't get why you’re still here and he’s there, like don't you want to be spanked or somethin’?”

Rook grunted, straightening on her seat, trying not to shrink before Adelaide and Mary May intense gazes. “It’s not that simple,” she said taking a gulp of stale air, diverting her eyes to the dance floor, where Kim and Nick swirled at the rhythm of an upbeat tune. “I’m his best bud, and I can't do this to him, I mean -- I don't think he sees me like that--”

For the second time her words were cut short, but this time by the ringing laughter of Adelaide and Mary May combined.

“Oh hon, you’re a good deputy, but you’ve no idea ‘bout this,” Adelaide said bumping her shoulder with her own, “you should trust me and put to good use that cute outfit of yours.”

“I don’t see how--” Rook felt all the blood on her body pooling on her now scorching cheeks. She was completely sure she’d kept her crush for the pyromaniac in check, even if half the time her eyes swept his ass or the front of his pants, gaze cautiously hidden behind her sunglasses. God bless sunglasses. She would’ve known if what they said was truth, but in fact all his comments lead to believe that thought was a very far fetched scenario. “I don’t wanna embarrass myself,” she said taking a swig of her drink, putting it back on the counter with excessive force, the glass hitting wood with a hard click, “he’s definitely not into me.” Oh damn, was she bitter?

“Okay now,” Mary May chimed in, “that’s where you’re wrong. Haven’t you seen his goo-goo eyes whenever you’re around? He checks your ass at least four times each hour, and it’s a non-stop screwball when he talks to you.”

“And Mary here hasn’t been around us on the field, sweetheart,” Adelaide offered, with a wicked smile, “that’s just pathetic to see-- I mean, Charlemagne is not the most subtle individual around so I think even Hurk Jr. knows by now. Seriously honey, we all could be dead tomorrow, or-- are you waiting your chance with Johnny Boy?”

Rook cackled at the last sentence but it didn’t deter her mouth of going dry, the tip of her fingers numbed by a sudden rush of adrenaline. She shot a glance towards the pool table, eyes fixed on the familiar green hoodie for a second. Oh, she wanted him bad . A hot curl uncoiled between her thighs, her heart thumping under every inch of her skin.

“So?” Mary May said, elbows on the counter, staring at her with an amused expression, “what you waiting for?”

Rook cleared her throat. Fuck, just do it.

“Can I have some liquid courage first, Miss Fairgrave?” Rook asked, offering her empty beer mug to Mary May, but she took it, putting it aside and offering her two shots of tequila in return. No salt. No lime.

“Trust me dear, this is better.”

It was now or never. The semi-unplanned gathering was the perfect frame to get rid of that thorn on her side. She gulped the shots, one after the other, furrowing her brows and squinting. “‘Kay. I’m all geed up so bring it.”

She stood up, adjusting her black skirt that seemed determined to roll up her thighs. She heard Adelaide and Mary May laughing and clapping at her back, like fucking teenagers. Really . Nevermind. No one would notice. The music was loud and the alcohol had everybody focused on their own stuff.

She gave slow steps towards her target, where Sharky was apparently arguing with Hurk. It’d been a matter of events, one intertwined after the other and she couldn’t help to fall for him. He had the most beautiful smile she’d seen, and he was always so keen to follow her without question, it was heartwarming. And when he held his flamethrower bustling around her, laughing and yelling at the rhythm of peggie bullets, it made her feel alive. And, was she about to spill all those things in front of him? Her breath was shallow, and she felt sweat breaking on her palms. It was stupid really, now that she thought about it. What if Addie and May were wrong? But the rational part of her brain that screamed to back off, was muffled by alcohol and blood buzzing in her veins.

She was thinking that maybe it was just better to take her own ass back to where it came from, when Hurk lifted his face from his drink. She didn’t fail to notice how he digged Sharky in the ribs before she stepped in front of them, trying to pull her no bullshit facade out her ass.

“‘Sup Dep?” Hurk scratched his forehead beneath his banana, looking a bit high, “so are you sure Faith’s dead huh?”

“Pretty much Hurk, why?”

“I dunno, I was just thinkin’- it’s sad man, ‘cause she had this potential to be Mrs. Hurk Drubman Jr. y’know?, what a cute little thing she was,” Hurk said taking a long swig from his drink.

“I don’t think your mom would’ve approved that, Hurkie,” she said snorting, and quickly added, “maybe you should go there and ask her what she thinks, and bring me a beer on your way back, ‘kay?”

Hurk blinked for a second before perking up again. “‘Aight Dep, sure, sure, I got you babe, you gotta celebrate your victories!”

When he was gone, she closed the inches away from Sharky, ignoring the whirring sound in her ears, and her skin tingling, every breath more heavy than the last.

“Man I love Hurk but his screws are way loose,” she said, standing next to him, hopping on the pool table.

“None of that Shorty, he’s a fucking genius!,” he said as he took his beer bottle to his lips, and her hands tugged at the hem of her flannel to draw away her need to reach a hand and touch him. “‘Cuz’s been around a lot, and he kicks ass, he’s like-- like a one man army. Damn I wish I was more like him y’know?”

“What you talking about Boshaw? Your scrawny ass is the cornerstone of the resistance, man.” She chuckled, breathing in, breathing out, trying to quell her nervousness. “And by the way, never thanked you for saving my head from being blown up by peggies today, that was a swell move, man.”

“I got you shorty, I’m like--- I’m smooth like a ninja,” he said turning slightly with the same smirk he flashed everytime they blew up some outpost and it caused breath catch in her throat. “Gotta be your protector ‘cause your reflexes ain’t that good, but don’t feel bad, not everyone is like me y’know? I’m like-- I’m like the lovechild of Bruce Lee and James fucking Bond.”

Rook almost bent over with laughter. Damn she loved this man. Wait, what? She kicked the thought to the back of her mind. That path was just trouble and then some.

“Woah, woah easy there, you heathen,” she said hopping down the table with a fake scowl on her face. “My reflexes are much better than yours-- I’m a fucking officer with training and I’m gonna fucking prove it to you.”

Without giving it much thought and before her words could sink in his inebriated brain, she stood on her tiptoes and swooped his hat from his head, grasping it far behind her back.

“Hey! That ain’t fair, give it back, that’s theft!”

He extended a hand but she swatted it away, like if it was a pestering mosquito.

“Uh huh, you want it, you gotta take it from me,” she said shaking a dainty finger at him, leaning forward with a mischievous grin.

“Oh yeah? Well, bring it on chica.”

He tried to pounce at her by her right side, but she dodged him, giving a few steps back, away from the pool table. She giggled as he strode in her direction trying to clasp her arms, but she swirled around a table, bumping into a chair.

“You ain’t going free amigo! Hey Joey, handcuff the Dep!” He yelled in Hudson’s direction, but Joey rolled her eyes and shook her head, continuing her conversation with Pastor Jerome, unbothered.

“No one can help you, Boshaw,” she said with a smug grin, retreating into a small corridor out of everyone’s sight. She almost lost her footing, skirting around. Damn, the alcohol was kicking in.

He followed her close behind, but she didn’t relent. She jumped back when he tread to her, a half smile on his face. When her butt hit the wall, she understood her mistake.

“Got ya!” Sharky leaned forward, extending a hand in her direction. “Give it back, shorty, crime don’t pay.”

She exhaled a shuddery breath. He was so close her cheeks were flushed, heat that she didn’t know if came from the situation or the booze in her system, pooled in her belly.

“I said, you gotta take it from me,” she dared, boldly.

A question popped in his eyes, and she held up the cap and glasses in her hand. When he leaped forward, she swiftly hid her hand again. He slanted pressing both palms against the wall for support, her body now bracketed between his arms.

She was already dizzy from his scent, leathery and musky, a tinge of sandalwood and propane climbing up her nostrils. She moved a leg slightly upwards, to brush his inner thigh.

“Ah, Dep? You okay?” He wetted his lips, his words hiding an undeniable tremor.

She put his hat on her head, tilting her head up. Even with her high heeled boots she barely reached his chin. “More than fine,” she said placing her hands on his shoulders.

“Shit, I-- I think no more drinks for you tonight,” Sharky said, but his voice was lower and huskier that she’d ever heard before. He dipped his head an inch and stopped, lips slightly parted.

His breath was hot and moist, and she could feel it puffing against her lips. She flicked her tongue out, sweeping her lips, locking eyes with him. The dark hue of his usually bright blue eyes sent a shiver down her spine, a curl of need drifting down her groin, as his gaze fleeted from her lips, down her neck, up her eyes again.

“I’m not drunk, if that’s what you think Shark,” she said whispering practically into his lips.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he went down the last stretch, pressing his thin lips against her full ones. It was a timid kiss, nothing more than a chaste peck, before he pulled back.

“Jesus fuck Dep, you sure ‘bout this?” He asked, fanning her face with breathed words. “‘Cause I’m totally into this, but you’re like, you’re-- you’re ten football stadiums outta my league and I’ve been wantin’ to-- been wantin’ to do this from since fuck knows when.”

She gave him a lopsided smirk, and caught his lips with hers, sucking and nipping at his bottom one, pushing her tongue into his mouth, earning a soft groan from him. She felt him loosening up, his right hand now holding her tight at the small of her back, pulling her flushed up with him with an eagerness that made her moan. Wetness spread on her panties at the feel of his erection rubbing against her stomach, trembling as she thought of his calloused hands grazing her over sensitive skin, dipping into her. Fuck.

She felt her knees buckling and held onto the hard line of his shoulders as his tongue circled and pressed against every corner of her mouth, his ‘stache and beard tickling her chin and jaw.

“Ain’t you gonna bust our asses for public indecency po-po?” He said between gasps, his lips nibbling the rim of her jaw, sucking on the soft skin of her neck.

She smiled, lost in the tingling sensation of his tongue against her skin, craning her neck to allow him better access. And boy, oh boy, as much as she liked to be fucked against the wall by the pyromaniac of her dreams, they definitely needed a better spot.

“Mary’s office is-- is just right there,” she managed to stutter between sharp gasps, signaling to the door at their right.

He said nothing, pulling her into a tight embrace, ushering her inside the dark room. When the door closed behind them, he crashed her mouth with his and picked her up from the floor sliding his hands down to cup her ass. He squeezed gently making her gasp into his mouth as she felt each one of his fingers digging into her skin. Her parted thighs closed around his hips, skirt rolling up, as he moved her to the sturdy desk in the corner, placing her on top. His hard on rubbed against her panties and she grinded her hips, coaxing a growl from him that she swallowed eagerly, tongues tangled in a wet mess. He rolled his hips in response, cajoling a loud moan from her.

“All good Dep?” He smirked breaking an inch apart, his pupils blown wide with hunger of her, flaring up her own desire.

She didn’t remember to have wanted anyone as she wanted him, in that knee-weakening, panty-drenching, make-you-shiver all around kind of way.

“You ass.”

He gave her an eyebrow waggle that elicited a chuckle from deep within her belly. God, she was screwed. She fucking loved this idiot and he--. Don’t go there .  She finally surrendered her trophy, taking his cap off and her fingers skidded under his hoodie, digging into the lean muscles of his shoulders, licking his jaw, and pressing flat kisses in every inch of exposed flesh she could reach. She couldn’t believe how wet she was already, a sodden patch on her undies that was probably soaking the front of his pants as well. A pink flush bloomed on her cheeks at the thought. He unbuttoned her flannel, slowly, taking his time as he sucked her earlobe without stopping the infuriating roll of his hips. It was something she wasn’t expecting. Sharky jumping her bones like a rabbit in heat? Yeah. Sharky being all smooth and devouring her one course at a time? Definitely not.

“Fuck, Sharky,” she said huffing a moan and tugging at his chestnut hair, while he finally opened her shirt and unclipped her bra, stripping them off her.

He traced the rose tattoo on her upper left breast with flitting kisses, his beard adding to the pleasure of it. “Shit babe, you’re beautiful.” His raspy voice scrapped across her skin, flaring goosebumps all over her, and she tilted her head back, mewling when he closed his mouth around one nipple.

Her fingers carded in his hair as he sucked, tongue circling and lapping at it, while his hand groped her other breast, kneading it gently as his thumb rolled over her nipple. The pace of his tongue had her rolling her eyes, as he licked the valley between her breasts, mouth now moving and closing around her other hard nipple.

“Jesus fuck, shorty, you got such a nice pair,” he said squeezing both in his hands, before giving two hard sucks to her pert peaks, “could eat them all day long.”

“Ah! Glad you-- like them,” she whimpered.

He pulled back, taking off his shirt and hoodie, and she admired his flame tattoo going up his arm, joining to a skull on his right pec. She propped up on her elbows, humming when her fingers grazed the toned lines of his abs and chest, not too buffed but just enough. Just right .

He rolled up her skirt, bunching it up at her waist and hooked his thumbs at the sides of her black panties. Her cunt was already throbbing in anticipation and she bit her lip watching him getting rid off her underwear.

“Grab onto some shit babe,” he said kneeling in front of her, grinning with teeth at her, “Imma give you the Boshaw special.”

She barely had time to brace herself before he hoisted her legs up on his shoulders and his lips skimmed along her inner thighs, fingers stroking her damped folds, sliding along her slit.  

“Fuck Dep, you’re so fucking wet.” He was almost purring, one hand now palming on her mound to squeeze gently while the other spread her open, two fingers slipping easily inside her.

She shivered, spilling broken words, digging nails in his scalp and her thighs tensing around his head. He started thrusting his fingers in and out of her, controlled and steady movements building up her orgasm, lips and tongue teasing her vulva, nuzzling the patch of wiry hair.

“Man, look at ya, you’re perfect y’know?,” he said planting fat kisses along her inner thighs, lazily pumping his fingers into her, his other hand grabbing her hip, thumb drawing circles on her skin.

She grunted as any response. Her whole body was on fire, every last nerve raw and feeling his every move. He started scissoring as her breathing became ragged, chest going up and down as he now sucked on her labia. He stopped suddenly and she mewled in disappointment, before she felt his tongue at her entrance. He gave big, broad strokes along her slit, finally pushing his tongue all the way in, curling it, following the angle of her walls.

“Holy shit-- shit, man, ah!” She yelled and her voice sounded like a screech in her own ears. He was tearing her apart, one thrust at a time, her throat unable to emit more than cracked moans and whimpers. She writhed on the desk, her body now covered by a thin sheet of sweat.

She groped and squeezed her breasts, pinching and rolling her nipples, her hips bucking instinctively into his mouth.

“Holy fuck shorty, you put my porn collection to shame,” he said with a hoarse voice glancing at her, eyes fixed on her fingers teasing her nipples, his gaze almost searing her through and through.  

His cheeks were flushed as he finally closed his lips around her clit, making her holler louder than before. Fuck! His fingers filled her again, before her walls complained at the loss of his tongue, and he let out a moan that pulsated on her clit wrecking her completely.

Her head was spinning, heart thrumming in her ears as he sucked the nub, adding his tongue to the mix, alternating between light flicks and steady strokes. She was positively thrusting her hips forward. Her stomach tightened, the ache in her core now a pulsing beat she was closer to topple.

“Ah-- shit Shark, you’re amazing, ah, shit!”

She entwined tense fingers on his hair, pulling his face closer as his rhythm quickened, licking and sucking her more frantically. His teeth raked at the bundle of nerves, then sucking again and his fingers curled inside her hitting against that sweet spot. Her vision blurred and with a loud, keen cry she finally came on his face, gushing out all over him. When he stood up, licking his lips and cleaning his mouth with the heel of his hand and a cocky smile plastered on his face, she knew she needed him. All of him.

“Jesus Shark, I-- that was some good shit ,” she panted, the quivers still raking over her body, her legs feeling like jello.

“Told ya I wasn’t kidding, babe.” The look on his eyes was feral as he pulled her up, kissing her roughly, biting her lower lip, and pushing his tongue inside her mouth. She melted in his embrace, tasting her own salty tinge in his lips.

His bulging cock still trapped in his jeans rasped her over sensitive skin and she arched in his arms.

“Can you-- can you fuck me now?” she almost begged when they broke apart.

“Don’t need to tell me that twice, shorty.”

He unbuckled and unzipped his pants as fast as he could, and his cock sprang free in no time. Her walls clenched at the sight. It was thick and longer than she’d thought, the perfect curve at the tip sending a bolt of lust to her cunt.

He pressed his body against hers, rubbing his tip along her entrance, coating himself in her wetness. They kissed slow and thoroughly, his hands clasping her waist.

“Can we change scenery?” she whispered a scant inch away from his ear eliciting a gulp from him.

“What you got in mind?”

She guided him to sit in a padded chair, and he flopped down with a thud, his pants pooling at his ankles. She shimmied her hips, shucking off her creased skirt, bending over before him with her back turned.

“Now that's just cruel Dep,” he drawled.

She faced him, giggling as she straddled him, sitting high on his thighs, his hard dick pressed between them, his tip brushing below her navel.

“That's better,” Sharky said and she hummed in approval.

He cradled the nape of her neck, pulling her down for another kiss, as his other hand crept up her thigh grabbing a handful of her ass.

She closed her hand around his cock, her thumb smearing down the pre-cum beads from his tip. His tongue glided across her lips as she pumped him slowly, gulping down his moans and throaty grunts.

When she lifted her body off him supporting with a hand on his shoulder, he looked at her almost in awe and a tide of prideful lust beamed inside her. Yes, he wanted her, maybe as much as she wanted him. He lined him up to her entrance until his tip grazed her folds. Sharky bit his lower lip, his fingernails now almost scratching her skin. She sank down slowly, both staring down at his cock disappearing inside her to the hilt.

He let out a strangled moan, tilting his head back. “Oh shit.”

“Damn, Shark,” she whimpered.

He filled her just right, the stretch stinging slightly but not painful. She moaned rolling her hips, adjusting at his size.

“You okay babe?,” he asked between a low moan and a heavy grunt, clasping her hips and steadying her on his lap.

“Mhm,” she mumbled, closing her eyes for a second, reveling in the sensation of his erection throbbing inside her.

She started bouncing with a slow rhythm, savoring how he spread her wide every time she dropped down on his cock. Her toes curled, and a myriad of small gasps whiffed against his neck as she buried her face into his maddening scent. He shifted his position a little to angle into her, meeting her thrust for thrust, rocking his hips upwards.

“Oh, fuck Dep, you’re so fuckin’ tight, so fuckin’ tight--,” he said brushing her ear shell with moistened lips, “best fuck I’ve had, shit!”

“You’re- ah, you're not so bad yourself,” she said with a smirk, feeling the layers of his control tattering with every clench of her cunt around his cock.

He shot her a wolfish smile, a hand sliding to cup her breast, taking it to his mouth. She cried out when he sucked hard, his teeth grazing her nipple, and fingers massaging the surrounding swell.

Damn, he was good. With a strong hand on her ass cheek he guided her movements as she kept plunging onto him harder and faster. She arched into his touch when he snapped at her breasts and then anchored his hands at her bottom.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!,” she yelped almost singing her curses when he grounded her down on his lap, licking and sucking at her collarbone.

“Shit Dep,” he moaned between airy grunts, “wanna-- wanna fuck you forever babe, you’re fucking delicious.”

She was barely listening at this point. The way he angled his hips to ram into her, knowing exactly where to hit was making her vision bleed to white, her cries probably loud enough to let anyone outside know what was going on there. His mouth seeked hers, kissing her softly, almost sweetly, in complete contradiction to their hard fucking. When they broke apart, foreheads touching, he looked at her breathless and longing. Her heart flitted in her chest, getting all fuzzy but she stomped the feeling down. Live the moment . And so she did, closing her eyes focusing in the rippling pleasure bursting inside her in wild flames.

“Look at me Dep,” he begged her, pressing his thumb flat against her clit, and she cooed while his hips jerked against hers. “Wanna see you come on me, shit- you’re more than beautiful.”

He circled her nub with steady movements and she leaned back supporting on his thighs for more leverage, pushing down harder and faster until it was too much.

“Oh, shit, shit, fuck Shark, holy shit! ” She crumbled forward, scratching his shoulders, walls clamping down on him and boy had he been right all along, she was hollering her lungs off.

He kissed her, pounding steadily still, whispering words she was too far gone to catch and held her tight as she rode the waves of her orgasm, her skin prickling with random bursts of pleasure flooding her like a tidal wave. His fingers now threaded in her hair, another hand spread wide on her back as he chased his own release, mouth wide open against her neck.

“Fuck babe, I’m close,-” he grunted.

Shit . Her mouth watered at the thought of having him all over her, so she rotated her hips when he wanted to stop, lifting her ass and dropping down, still managing to fuck him how she wanted.

“Please, Dep, I can’t--” he begged digging his fingers in the plump flesh of her hips.

When she felt the tremor in his body, she pulled off of him as he growled, letting him pump out his load, hot and thick, on her breasts.

He looked at her slack jawed, almost awestruck, as she slid a finger through his cum, tasting him with a moan. “Fuck shorty, you’re amazing,” he panted, milking the last spurts of his throbbing dick onto her. “I fucking love you-- shit, fucking love you.”

She felt her cheeks burning, as her brain fumbled with dignified responses for that scenario. It was probably just the afterglow talking, she decided, so she tried to compose herself and smiled at him.

“I love you too Shark,” she said, standing up and kissing his forehead, amicably enough she thought.

She quickly searched for her flannel and something to clean with, to try and make a hasty retreat, but she found nothing. She picked up his cap from the floor and grunted, making short use of her shirt, not yet deciding if framing it or burning it later.  

She heard the ruffle of his jeans and the clicking of his belt at her back, so she quickened her movements, putting on her panties and skirt.

“You mean it?” He grabbed her hips, turning her to face him.

If she could, she would’ve melted in a puddle of goo under his bright eyes, but she spur herself to not let her knees betray her. She placed the hat on him and rehearsed a confident smirk, one that she was far to feel as she stood in front of him, shirtless and emotionally wrecked.  

“Yeah, hon, best pals, right?” She gave a gentle tug to the bill of his cap, but he didn’t relent.

“C’mon Dep, y’know what I’m talking ‘bout,” he said and she trembled feeling his thumbs drawing circles on her hip bones, “‘cause I was dead serious.”

She gaped at him, as he towered over her and-- Maybe she didn’t get that right.

“I don’t understand Shark,” she said blinking as if she had been staring at the sun for too long.

“Jesus fuck Dep,” he bristled, “I’m tryna telling ya I love you!”

She blinked again, frozen in place and she felt his hands sliding off her. No, no don’t go.

“Wait, Shark!” She reached to hold his hand, and took his fingers to her mouth, kissing them softly. “I do-- fuck, by now saying I love you it’s an understatement.”

An all teeth smile broke on his face. “Shit, for real?”

“Real deal,” she said, tenderly caressing his face as she had dreamed so many times before. Fuck, it was finally true.

He smiled at her with unbridled love and kissed her, slowly, tracing the line of her jaw with his thumb.

“So, what now?” She asked looking around, when they parted, “I can’t leave in a jizz-covered shirt.”

“It’s cool, babe. I got you.”

He reached for his shirt and hoodie, giving her the latter. When she put it on, it almost covered the hem of her skirt.

“It looks like a fucking dress on me,” she complained.

“Nah, you look fine as hell, Mrs. Baeshaw.” He slid a hand around her waist, nuzzling her ear, unable to erase the foolish smile from his face.

She gave a short laugh. ”Pet names and all uh? You look awfully pleased with yourself Boshaw,” she said quirking a brow.

He chuckled, hugging her tightly. “Hell yeah, finally nailed it babe, you’re the fucking jackpot.”

[bookjonsa]

Some thoughts on Sansa and Jon, by Tze

Sansa and Jon are, as far as I can tell, the only two Starks we never actually see interact in "present" time, and I don't think that's a coincidence from a literary standpoint. Everything we know of their past interactions comes via someone's reminiscences, so each is present in the other's life, but only in the past, never in the present. If Jon and Sansa meet in the future, it will doubtless come across to readers, in a very real way, as their very first meeting. Given the changes they've both undergone since their last meeting, that type of dynamic makes a certain amount of literary sense.

At the beginning of the series, Jon and Sansa seemed to sit at two opposite ends of the "Stark" children's cultural spectrum: Sansa is viewed by other characters as the most culturally "southern" of the children, (and she did initially seem to value "southern" courtly culture more than Northern culture), while Jon is viewed as the most culturally "Northern" of the Starks because he does not associate with southern-based institutions. Sansa was the Stark child most heavily and explicitly associated with the Faith of the Seven (she was always with her septa and she's the Stark child we see actually worshiping in the sept the most), while Jon was, at the beginning of the series, the most heavily associated with the Old Gods (given that he's the only one of the children who does not keep the Faith at all, not to mention Ghost's physical resemblance to a weirwood tree). Of the boys, Jon looks the most like Ned, while Sansa looks the most (out of the girls) like Catelyn---superficially, readers were encouraged, in the beginning, to associate Sansa and Jon with two different "regions", one with the South and one with the North.

In AGOT, Sansa and Jon occupied two very different, inherently non-overlapping worlds, and each person's understanding of how "the world" worked implicitly contained no real "place" for the other. By that I mean: Jon loved to fight, occupied a world in which fighting was the primary activity, and at the beginning had a great deal of difficulty interacting with people incapable of fighting. Look at his initial attitude toward Tyrion as well as the other Watch recruits, for example. Sansa is the one Stark child inherently incapable of fighting. She loved knitting, dancing, listening to singers, things that Jon had no use for---there was no room for Sansa in Jon's "world".

And Sansa's "world" contained no real "place" for Jon. She believed that knighthood and its accompanying (southern) chivalric code were the celebrated foundations of the world, and interpreted everything she saw through that cultural lens. Sansa knew her "world of chivalry" clearly viewed a bastard like Jon with suspicion, and because of that, I think Sansa probably had difficulty holding what seemed like two contradictory notions in her head: on the one hand, Jon was her brother, raised along with her and someone she never seemed to have any open conflicts with (unlike Arya, for example), and on the other hand, as the occupier of a "place" (bastard) that her social code condemned.

Now, I think it's worth noting that, although bastards have far lesser status in Westerosi society, there are "places" that can be carved out for them nonetheless, especially for paternally-acknowledged highborn bastards like Jon: we're told that bastards have served in the Kingsguard, a bastard (Sam Stone) serves as Master-At-Arms for House Royce of Runestone, a bastard ends up on Cersei's Small Council, at least one bastard served as Hand of the King, bastards freely join the Citadel and the Faith, etc., etc. But the issue with Jon is that Sansa, during AGOT, pretty clearly viewed knighthood as the central aspect of a man's worth. To "properly" occupy an honored place in "Sansa's world", Jon would have to first be a knight---not just a fighter, but an actual anointed knight, with all of the accompanying chivalric duties and responsibilities. (Look at how she thinks about Jory vs. how she thinks of Alyn in AGOT for an illustration of this.) Jon clearly had the fighting ability to attain knighthood, but unlike the other Starks, he has never kept the Seven at all. Knighthood was never a real possibility for him, as it was for Robb/Bran/Rickon, and presumably Sansa recognized that. I think it was difficult for her, especially early on, to really find a positive place for Jon in her understanding of the world, because he obviously couldn't be a septon, he couldn't join the Citadel (she would have recognized Jon wasn't exactly a bookworm), he was not in line for lordship, and he wasn't going to be a knight . . . but deep down she loved him nonetheless. So what was he? Where did he fit? How could she believe that knighthood and chivalry were the cornerstones of her society while simultaneously having a relationship with her non-knight bastard brother? I think this is why Sansa was, in the beginning, so very, very keen on pointing out Jon's exact relationship to her: her half-brother, a bastard. I think deep down Jon really confused her, and this was her way of repeatedly clarifying to herself exactly who Jon was, of seeking a measure of control over a relationship that must have confuzzled her greatly, because its very existence contradicted her understanding of how the world was supposed to work.

Because while Jon and Sansa seemed to have the most "distant" relationship of the Stark children, it's pretty clear that Jon and Sansa did always love each other deep down. At the Wall, Jon mentioned that he missed Sansa. In ADWD, when he thinks of his lost siblings, right before he starts making plans to head to Winterfell, an image of Sansa brushing Lady's coat and singing is included. And even in AGOT, though Sansa rarely thought about Jon, when he did enter her thoughts we saw her seem to subconsciously want Jon to occupy a "positive" position in her understanding of the world order. We know from Jon that Sansa tried to teach him how to talk to girls, and though he mentions that she always called him her "half"-brother, there's no indication she tried to ignore or insult him, as other trueborn children might have done to a bastard. Her love for him was clearly not as "free" as Arya's love for him was---Sansa's world of chivalry and knighthood was a stumbling block to such a relationship, so it's easy for readers to overlook that she did love him. But even in AGOT, look at her reaction to Yoren:

She had always imagined the Night's Watch to be men like Uncle Benjen. In the songs, they were called the black knights of the Wall. But this man had been crookbacked and hideous, and he looked as though he might have lice. If this was what the Night's Watch was truly like, she felt sorry for her bastard half brother, Jon.

It's easy for readers to focus on her calling Jon her "bastard half brother" here, but if we look a little deeper, we notice how she also thinks to herself that the singers called the Watch "the black knights of the Wall". This is important because we know what a huge premium Sansa was putting on the idea of knighthood. Though religion seemingly prevents Jon from attaining knighthood, Sansa seemed to subconsciously look for a loophole there, and found one in the songs: her beloved singers could "grant" Jon a sort of honorary knighthood as a member of the Watch, so that is the route her thoughts took.

(And here we also see that Jon and Sansa, though superficially incredibly divergent, actually did look at the world in somewhat similar ways: each believed in the stories and songs, in honor---just different stories and different methods of honor. Each believed Benjen Stark was the prototypical Watchman. Jon believed all Watchmen were true and honorable, Sansa believed all knights were true and honorable. They each had specific ideas about how a specific place was supposed to be (the Wall and the South), and each of them had those ideas dashed by reality.)

As ASOIAF has progressed, we've seen Jon and Sansa slip into each other's roles, into each other's shoes. Jon becomes a Lord in ASOS, the same book in which Sansa ceases "being" a Lady. Robb disinherited Sansa at the same time (if the will says what many suspect it does) that he declared he wanted Jon to inherit. Becoming Alayne meant Sansa became a bastard, just like Jon, (and Jon could very well have been declared trueborn by Robb's will, which would mean that Sansa "became" a bastard and Jon "became" a trueborn Stark). Sansa began her story by loving singers, and has progressed toward disliking them (Marillion), while Jon initially seemed to have no use for singers . . . until he met the singer Mance Rayder. The Littlefinger/Lysa/Sansa dynamic played out almost as a vicious, over-the-top caricature of the Ned/Catelyn/Jon dynamic, with Sansa forced to literally stand in a (heavily skewed and sensationalized) version of Jon's shoes: Catelyn saw Jon as a living representation of another woman that she feared Ned loved more than her, and Lysa saw Sansa as a living representation of Catelyn, the woman that Lysa (rightly) feared Littlefinger loved more than her. Sansa seemed to have a much closer relationship with her mother than with her father (the exact opposite of Jon), but "Alayne" had a much "closer" relationship with Littlefinger than with Lysa---Sansa takes on with Littlefinger (a much skeevier version of) the relatively close father/child relationship that Jon had with Ned.

In her final chapter of AFFC, Sansa thinks to herself:

She had not thought of Jon in ages.

Or so Sansa tells herself. But I think there's a pretty good chance Sansa had actually been subconsciously thinking about Jon ever since she took on the Alayne Stone identity, because Sansa seems to be subconsciously patterning her "Alayne Stone" persona around Jon Snow. Sansa wants "Alayne" to be 14 years old, because "She had decided that Alayne Stone should be older than Sansa Stark". How old was Jon the last time Sansa saw him? 14 years old. She becomes worried at the prospect of dancing, because she seems to think that, for some unexplained reason, Alayne Stone might not enjoy dancing:

What would she do when the music began to play? It was a vexing question, to which her heart and head gave different answers. Sansa loved to dance, but Alayne...

Dancing is a pretty popular activity among women of all social classes and we know it's an activity very close to Sansa's heart, given that she was able to dance even at her own terrible wedding. But then in ADWD we discover that Jon does not appear to enjoy dancing---he refuses to dance with Alys, and Alys teases him about it when she brings up previous dances they were forced to dance together at Winterfell. If Sansa is subconsciously patterning "Alayne" on Jon Snow, then the fact that she's concerned that Alayne might not enjoy dancing makes quite a bit of sense, given that Jon's apparent dislike of dancing seems like the sort of thing Sansa would have picked up on. (In other words, if "Alayne" is patterned after Jon Snow, then the "real" reason Sansa fears Alayne won't like dancing is because Sansa knows Jon, on whom Alayne is molded, dislikes dancing.) Sansa thinks of Alayne as "bastard-brave", and since she barely knows Mya, what bastard does Sansa want Alayne to be as brave as? The obvious answer is Jon. And we see "Alayne" take on the type of caregiver role with Sweetrobin that the other Stark children (Bran and Arya, especially) seem to have associated with Jon, a role that Sansa herself seemed to take on with people like Beth Cassel and Jeyne Poole in Winterfell, but not with her own younger siblings.

He was only her half brother, but still... with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again.

This is Sansa's thought process once Myranda Royce tells her about Jon's new position as Lord Commander of the Watch. If I'm correct and she's had Jon on the brain throughout AFFC, then this right here actually serves as a breakthrough for her, because Sansa goes from subconsciously longing for Jon to explicitly longing for Jon. And her thought process here is a pretty useful distillation of how far Sansa's come from AGOT, a semi-culmination of her ideological journey thus far: the main issues she once had with Jon---that he was a bastard, that he didn't "fit" the world of knights and chivalry that Sansa loved---have been essentially nullified. She starts out with the "old" Sansa's thought patterns ("He was only her half-brother"), but then she immediately (and pretty substantially) switches gears and starts openly longing to see Jon again, expressly thinking about how she's now a bastard too. The ideological barriers between them are basically gone.

Indeed, Sansa's entire arc had been bringing her closer and closer, ideologically, to the forces (winter, the North, and the Old Gods) represented by Jon. Sansa started out in AGOT preferring the Faith of the Seven, loving knighthood, loving the south, and losing her direwolf. By AFFC, we see her (far) more heavily associated with the Old Gods, favoring a non-knight (the Hound), and in an overall sense, switching gears from the epitomization of a "summer's child" to (IMO) someone on the path to becoming a "winter's child". Jon and Sansa become the Starks who we see most heavily drawing their inner strength from the cold and the snow: Jon mentions on more than one occasion that Ghost loves the snow, we see Jon frequently seeking out the cold (not the heat) at the Wall. We see Sansa literally drawing strength from the snow and the cold at the Eyrie. In the beginning of AGOT, Sansa wanted only to be a queen in the hot south. By AFFC, we see her building a scale model of Winterfell and drawing spiritual strength from the forces of winter.

Given the way Sansa seems to have been sliding more and more "toward" Jon as her arc has progressed---given the way her arc has been bringing her closer to him both ideologically and thematically---I wonder what implications Jon's stabbing (and the potential future that stabbing could bring for him) have for Sansa's future. Because the myth of Persephone looms large over both Jon and Sansa, and given what happened to Jon at the end of ADWD, I'm very, very curious what GRRM has in store for Sansa's arc, especially now that winter has come.

Both Jon and Sansa encounter "the pomegranate": Sansa is offered a literal pomegranate by Littlefinger, while Jon's rulership arc in ADWD was confronted at every turn by the Old Pomegranate, Bowen Marsh. The pomegranate, in Greek mythology, is what causes Persephone to become Queen of the Dead in perpetuity, and it's the reason winter comes in the first place---winter, in Greek mythology, being viewed as Demeter's grief at her separation from her daughter when Persephone descends every year to rule in the Underworld. The pomegrante causes Persephone to undertake two disparate roles, to become a creature of two separate worlds: she is both the Goddess of Spring and the Queen of the Underworld simultaneously (and concurrently), she rules in both the sunlight and the darkness. That idea---of a person moving between two contradictory spheres of existence, of a person gaining strength by a capacity to move between the darkness and the light---is a theme GRRM has played around with in other works, so there's an excellent chance he's exploring it in ASOIAF as well.

Both Jon and Sansa choose to reject "the pomegranate": Jon rejects the Old Pomegranate's demands for the future of the Watch, Sansa rejects Littlefinger's attempt to have her eat an actual pomegranate. But look at what happened to Jon in ADWD: he refused to acquiese to the Old Pomegranate's wishes, but the Old Pomegranate would not quietly accept rejection, choosing to physically attack him: there's been a lot of speculation on these boards that the attack on Jon will lead to some death-based transformation, that he (like Persephone) might find himself transformed (and possibly occupying a new leadership role) because of the Old Pomegranate. GRRM apparently had some Sansa chapters prepared for ADWD, but he pushed them back to TWOW. I'm very curious about what those chapters contained.

Because winter has now come, and in winter, Persephone rules over the dead. Sansa's arc has tracked Persephone in some pretty substantial ways: at the beginning of AGOT, when summer was in swing, she was the Stark most heavily associated with the warmth and frivolity of the South, just as Persephone was the flower-loving Goddess of Spring; Sansa was forced to marry, against her will, a man heavily associated with worldly wealth (in Greek mythology, Hades is associated with wealth because gold, silver, and jewels are drawn from beneath the ground, and Hades of course rules the Underworld). As winter approaches, Sansa loses her childlike innocence and naivete. And winter has now hit Westeros, and will presumably hit with a vengeance during TWOW---so what will Sansa become in the winter? Where winter is a time of imprisonment for Persephone, with spring/summer freeing her to walk the warm world above, it seems that summer was a time of imprisonment for Sansa, and winter might end up freeing her. And the story of Persephone ends with Persephone holding dominion over the dead during the winter. This might be a hint toward our pomegranate-associated characters' future, especially given the heavy associations both Jon and Sansa have with the living dead. (With Jon, those associations are obvious---he's a living man who wears black, his direwolf is named Ghost, he's fighting wights. With Sansa, the associations are less obvious but no less profound: Sansa's direwolf is dead (and since the Starks "are" their direwolves, Sansa is both alive and dead simultaneously because part of her is dead while part of her lives on), Littlefinger associates her with Catelyn reborn (and Catelyn has literally become the walking dead), not to mention the Hound: "The Hound is dead" we are told, and this "dead man" of course hated fire---I doubt it's a coincidence that this description of the Hound, as a walking dead man who hates fire, sounds quite a bit like a wight.)

And then there's this bit from AFFC:

All around was empty air and sky, the ground falling away sharply to either side. There was ice underfoot, and broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains.

It's easy to forget sometimes that AFFC and ADWD were originally meant to be one super-book. Could Sansa have been "sensing" Jon's "death" here? Is the "ghost wolf" Ghost? Or is there a hint here for Sansa herself? She's become a Stone, and she's been told that a stone is a mountain's daughter. The cold winds are howling, and she thinks the cold winds are becoming a ghost wolf---is Sansa, she of the dead direwolf, en route to her own eventual death and resurrection?

[vvivacious101]

Re-rewatching S04E10 - Godzilla & Mothra

Dean: What do you think?

Sam: I think Anna’s getting more interesting by the second.

This episode should get an award for introducing one of the most useful things on this show ever - the angel banishing sigil. I am actually sad Castiel is not the one who introduces it to the show because, in his entire arc this sigil crops up at many significant points and is in fact the star that marks his journey down the path he will choose.

I really liked Pamela, Anna and Ruby in this episode. They are like the three most diverse group of characters you can have in a room and the entire combination of these three along with Sam and Dean created an explosive dynamic.

In this episode, Anna transforms metaphorically and literally. In the very beginning of this episode, she relearns her past and in doing so her character completely changes. She goes from being a scared human to being a confident badass former-angel and Anna is badass. She disobeyed something she considers is one of the worst sins an angel can commit and there are not many. Its disobedience and falling in love with a human, those are literally the most egregious sins an angel can commit.

Anna and Dean have become a little weird for me over the years. There is something unsaid in their entire time together in this episode. We see Anna & Dean bond over missing fathers but the ball that gets the conversation rolling is not Anna herself, its curiosity, specifically Dean’s curiosity about angels, something that can only be attributed to Cas, the very first angel he met, someone he has started to grow curious about and someone Dean is still trying to understand. They go from there to absentee fathers to later having sex. That sex scene is weird, not because of any other reason but because of the fact that somehow Anna manages to drag Cas into the scene and it’s a sex scene, so why does Cas need to be recalled at this point. The callback is not subtle, Anna superimposes her hand on top of Dean’s scar from Cas’ hand which is literally what Pamela used to contact Cas, like you can’t not think about Cas after seeing that scar, and they could have done the entire sequence without even showing Dean’s scar but instead they gave this weird emphasis to it. In the very next scene that features Dean, we see him walk into a barn and find Uriel turns out this is a dream, something that Cas first uses to talk to Dean in 4x02 and it is where we get this line.

Uriel: Castiel? Oh, he’s uh... he’s not here. See, he has this weakness. He likes you.

This is later even more evident when Anna and Dean kissing directly cuts to Cas like what is the story here? Also, it’s weird they cut to Cas in the middle of the kiss and then again when it ends which is when he averts his eyes like he feels ashamed or guilty but of what?

There is a lot of visual story-telling going on here. Dean tells Uriel that he doesn’t break easy to which Uriel counters with “Oh, yes... you do. You just got to know where to apply the right pressure”. Which is immediately followed up by a scene of Alastair torturing Ruby and in an episode that has already brought by Dean’s deed in Hell, this is pretty telling because applying the right pressure seems to be a euphemism for torture if I ever heard one.

There isn’t a lot of Cas and Dean in this episode. I mean not overtly even though the subtext seems to be brimming with them but let’s talk about the scene that is there. Dean and Sam’s plan this episode is to let the angels and demons fight it out basically let them take out each other, but when it seems like Alastair might do just that do Cas, Dean literally jumps in to save Cas. One, that wasn’t plan, Two, we have already seen Alastair survive Cas which instantly proves that he is a powerful demon and therefore a human is no match for him, Three, we don’t know this yet but Alastair is the one who tortures Dean in Hell and is the one who later makes/guides/helps Dean to do the same to other souls, Four, Dean is already shit scared he was drinking and panicking before the showdown begins and he looks really scared but he still takes that piece of metal and smacks Alastair in the head, knowing full well it isn’t going to do anything to Alastair, all just to save Cas. I mean Cas might like Dean but at this point I think it’s safe to say that Dean likes him too.

Something that I found very interesting is the different reactions Sam and Dean have to Anna powering up. Sam thinks Anna must be happy but Dean doubts he. I think in a way this is the point Dean really begins to understand angels, in the beginning of this episode he sees them as all-powerful creatures who never have any doubts and that’s something great because doubts are all that Dean’s has but, when Anna tells him that angels are actually supposed to take it all on faith and if they don’t they get killed for it. It really strikes a chord because Dean also can’t seem to find faith and thinking that angels might struggle with the same makes it easier to undertand these creatures and specifically maybe it makes him undertsand the gravity of Cas’ confession in 4x07. I feel like this empathy he has for Anna helps him to ultimately get Cas on his side in 4x22 and commit what Anna calls the angels’ murder one.

This episode ends with Sam and Dean wherein Dean finally tells Sam the truth about what happened in Hell and reveals just how much he struggles with his feelings with everything that happened in Hell. This scene is a cornerstone of this story, it is also an important aspect of what needed to happen to get the ball rolling in the apocalypse because while there are multiple seals the first and the last seals are fixed and Dean breaks the first just as Sam will break the last. The beginning of the end bookended by the Winchesters.