#i WILL reblog lady mire

[warpedlegacywrites]

Bottles of Thedas Prompts

Personal version of the prompts list found here. Please like and reblog the original version. I will try to keep it updated with links to fulfilled prompts.

Butterbile 7:84, Hinterlands, found on a table in the locked round house; see side quest Blood Brothers

Carnal, 8:69 Blessed, Hinterlands, on the first floor of Master Dennet's home located on Redcliffe Farms.

Vint-9 Rowan's Rose, Hinterlands, on the second floor of the Winterwatch Tower tavern.

Vintage: Bethany Hawke, Carver Hawke, (or) Warden Steed, Hinterlands, Redcliffe Village, inside the locked Wheelhouse located near Redcliffe Village's entrance.

Vintage: Warden Anras, Storm Coast, southeast of the Small Grove Inquisition Camp, on top of the cliff overlooking Long River (on the northern side of the river).

Vintage: Warden Riordan, Storm Coast, east of the Driftwood Margin Inquisition Camp, found in the same hut as the Warden-Commander's Badge and Wardens of the Coast objective.

Golden Scythe 4:90 Black, Forbidden Oasis, at the bottom of Spiral Mine.

Dragon Piss, Fallow Mire, In the second house northwest of the fourth beacon.

Garbolg's Backcountry Reserve, Fallow Mire, in a house northwest of the Fisher's End Inquisition Camp. -Hawke/Rose in Skyhold Cellar

Vintage: Warden Gibbins, Crestwood, from the drained lake area of Old Crestwood and south of the North Gate Inquisition Camp (near the Flooded Caves entrance and the Mayor's Old Home) head west from the house with the locked door to the damaged house near the lake.

Vintage: Warden Daedalam, Crestwood, south from the Fisherman's Hut landmark (in the drained lake area of Old Crestwood) found inside the broken down house with a chest visible from the doorway on the right.

Hirol's Lava Burst, Crestwood, from the drained lake area south of the North Gate Inquisition Camp (near the Flooded Caves entrance and the Mayor's Old Home in Old Crestwood), head into the house with a closed door, search inside on the left.

Antivan Sip-Sip, Crestwood, Found in the Glenmorgan Mine region near the Guide of Falon'Din landmark. Head inside the cave just east of the astrarium that is located in the same area.

Alvarado's Bathtub Boot Screech, Exalted Plains, inside a tower on the Eastern Ramparts.

Finale by Massaad, Exalted Plains, in the basement of the Riverside Garrison.

Vintage: Warden Korenic, Exalted Plains, In a yellow house by the river in Ville Montevelan.

Vintage: Warden Tontiv, Exalted Plains, southwest of the Riverwatch Inquisition Camp in a burning red house.

West Hill Brandy, Western Approach, In the tower located between the Craggy Ridge Inquisition Camp and the Underground Cavern above the astrarium cave, climb the east side and head up the ladder (Giant's staircase. Also features skeletons and a giant wheel of cheese)

Vintage: Warden Jairn, Western Approach, In Dustytop Fort.

Vintage: Warden Eval'lal, Western Approach, In the Ritual Tower.

Absence, Emerald Graves, on top of some boxes in a small room located inside Argon's Lodge.

Chasind Sack Mead, Emerald Graves, Lyrium Inquisition Camp north of Southfinger Tower.

Mackay's Epic Single Malt, Emerald Graves, at Bear Cave north from Chateau d'Onterre.

Sun Blonde Vint-1, Emerald Graves, on the river bank at Silver Falls south from the Direstone Inquisition Camp.

Abyssal Peach, Emprise du Lion, inside Suledin Keep past the cages and the first giant encounter, prior to the lyrium tents.

Legacy White Shear, Emprise du Lion, in the Sahrnia Quarry tower near the entrance.

Aqua Magus, Hissing Wastes, outside the Burial Grounds Tomb, south of the Logging Inquisition Camp; see side quest The Tomb of Fairel.

Flames of Our Lady, Hissing Wastes, northwest of the Sunstop Mountain Inquisition Camp in the quarry structures.

Silent Plains Piquette, Hissing Wastes, In the Venatori Camp southeast of the Sunstop Mountain Inquisition Camp; see side quest Sand and Ruin.

[obsidianfr3sk]

Rise of the Renegades (Chapter 4)

Summary:  Heroes come from the most unexpected places. Heroes sometimes feel a little too different, a little too scared, a little too alone. But heroes also know when enough is enough, and that before saving the world, they need to save themselves. And they cannot do it alone.

They were going to be the hope of the world. They were going to call themselves the Renegades. Even if they didn’t know it yet.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26246812/chapters/64945570

Wow, Obsi, you’re not posting at 11PM? No, I’m posting during online classes. That’s how much I love y’all. 

Reblogs and likes? Love them! 

Tag list: (Tell me if you want in or out!) @nodrianbcyes @healing-winston-pratt @lethughandsimonkiss @aceslytherinwinchester @plain-jane-mclain @jacihayle @cindersnightmare​

Don’t be a hero

The sky could be falling, the seas could be rising,

the whole world would end, and you’d still be there smiling.

You laugh in the face of the dangers you see.

Oh, thank goodness you’re out here with me!

Hugh

“So the first step to our redemption is to stop stealing.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “Sure, that's easy. Next time our families need food, water, or medicines, we will walk to the supermarket, take out our credit cards and—”

“Okay, I get it,” Hugh interrupted, “we don't have any money.”

“Not a single penny. All the money my dad makes goes to the medicine fund,” Simon explained. “Do you remember when Sophie had a stomach infection during the summer? That's where all the money he had raised for two months went.”

The truth was that Hugh was not very aware of how much medicines actually cost. He rarely got sick and his aunt...

When he told the owner of the store he didn't know what his aunt had, he wasn't lying. Just six months ago, she had gone to the last remaining hospital in all of Gatlon City that had not yet been taken over by the Anarchs or some gang. She left in the morning and returned hours later, with a box of cigarettes she finished that same night.

Yes, she was sick. No, there was nothing to worry about. She would be fine. And she never bought cigarettes again after that. (Good. It was a terrible habit.)

“What medicines—”

“Oh, I don't need medicine,” she replied. “It’s only a matter of time. And I'm serious. If I see that you spend money on medicine for me, I will punish you.”

It would be the first time his aunt punished him. He didn't want to smear his record with it, so he decided to believe her.

Everything would be fine.

“We will have to find a way,” he replied. “But we can't steal anymore.”

They continued walking down the sidewalk. Classes were over. The autumn wind ruffled their hair and flushed their cheeks. It was a sunny and kind of hot day, but it didn't bother him at all. After all, he had always preferred warm climates.

“We could drop out of school,” Simon suggested, “and get a job.”

“Drop out?”

“It's not like someone is going to stop us,” he replied with a shrug. “Would your aunt mind you drop out of school? I think my dad would be happy to have someone else bring money to the house.”

Hugh tightened the straps on his backpack. Simon had told him walking like that made him look like one of the dwarves from Snowhite. “I had never considered dropping out of school,” he replied. “I don't know what she would say.”

“Think about it.” Simon carried his backpack on one shoulder and walked with his back hunched and his eyes down. “I know you hate school as much as I do. It's not like we learn anything anyway. Also, if we stop stealing and start earning an honest living, we would stop contributing to the crime and anarchist culture that destroyed the city in the first place.”

Hugh stopped walking.

“What’s wrong?” Simon asked.

“That— that makes a lot of sense, actually,” he agreed.

When did you get so smart?

Simon smiled at him and tapped his temple. “And I didn't learn that in school.”

They stopped a few steps from the door of Joe's Basket. He felt a wave of remorse wash over him. That man had been so kind to him. He had given him a chocolate bar, talked to him, sent greetings to his aunt...

And they had been cruel. Nothing but cruel.

He reached into his pants pocket and felt the money he kept there.

An honest purchase might not solve all the trouble they had caused, but it could be a good start.

Simon opened the door for him. The owner of the store recognized him immediately and greeted him. Hugh smiled at him and headed toward the shelves. He and Simon stared at the articles for a while. He was glad to know that he had been able to restock since their last visit.

On one hand, he wanted to spend those five dollars and seventy cents on a couple of cans of real food. But on the other, those fruity bubble gums looked great. Hugh hadn't bought gum in a long time after Mr. Westwood told him they cause cavities.

“If you drop off school, what job would you get?” Simon asked.

“What job would you get ?”

“I do not know, that's why I ask you. We’re brainstorming.”

He laughed underneath. “I think… I could sell chromium stuff, right? Like cutlery. I could start my own chromium cutlery business!”

Simon looked at him skeptically. “Sure. The market for cutlery is in full swing during this time of the year.”

The two of them fixed their gaze on two chocolate bars that were left at the bottom of a small cardboard box at the same time. They immediately knew where they would spend their money. Stars, they could even buy that fruity bubble gum. The hell with cavities.

Being good felt… good.

Simon reached out for the chocolates when three men entered the store, one by one, leaving a strong smell of tobacco and glue behind them. They wore brown leather jackets and had their right ear covered with earrings.

Roaches.

As the Roaches approached the counter, Hugh and Simon ran to hide behind other shelves.

“We have to go,” Simon whispered in the lowest tone he could manage.

Hugh looked at the counter. The shortest of all had to be of the same height as him. He was missing a lot of teeth and his fingers were yellow. His face, haggard and wrinkled, made him look more like a rat than a human. He leaned confidently on the counter, conversing with the owner as if he were an old friend. But the owner did not look at all pleased with their presence.

“Simon, we have to help him.”

Simon turned translucent. “Help him?”

One of the Roaches turned in his direction. Hugh managed to duck just in time so they wouldn't see him.

“They are armed,” Simon stressed. “I saw their guns when they entered.”

Hugh almost laughed out loud as he removed his glasses and handed them to Simon.

Guns were the least of his problems.

He could create a weapon with his powers. A metal bar thick enough to hit the bigger guy on the head. He would hit him so hard that he would end up completely knocked out. Then the bald man would have the same fate. By that time, the shortest would have drawn his gun and shot him straight in the chest. But what would be his surprise when he realized that the bullets did not hurt him.

It would be so heroic.

“Guns, sure,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “Do you think some guns can stop me?”

Simon pursed his lips.

Then he remembered that he had not come alone. That his friend was there. That the guns could hurt him.

If something went wrong, even the smallest thing, he would lose Simon.

“It's a stupid plan,” Simon whispered. “Don't be the hero.”

Simon gave him the glasses back.

Hugh put his glasses on. “I will not be a hero. Turn invisible.”

The hallway was clear. If they walked silently to the door and ran as fast as their legs would allow them, the Roaches would have no chance to catch them even if they wanted to. And with Simon being invisible, they wouldn't even notice him and couldn't hurt him in any way.

That one was not a stupid plan.

Simon followed him. They were getting closer and closer to the exit. The Roaches had no idea what was happening. Hugh reached out to open the door...

But a girl with dark skin and curly hair did it before he could.

For a second, the two of them looked into each other's eyes, and Hugh felt like he had already seen her at another time. He was so focused on trying to remember why her face looked so familiar that he barely noticed that Simon pushed her away and ran.

Before he could follow him, a voice talked.

“Lady, come in. And you, kid... You stay.”

The girl entered. And Hugh stayed.

Georgia

The only time Georgia had come face to face with a villain had been when Mr. Rae broke into her home the day after Tamaya escaped. She and her mother were quietly having a cup of black tea and sour toast for breakfast when he threw down the damn front door like the maniac he was, ran into the dining room and started yelling at Georgia to tell him right now where Tamaya was. Georgia instinctively flew up to the dining room ceiling.

Her mother managed to throw Mr. Rae out of the house by threatening him with a knife.

After Mr. Rae left, her mother asked, “Do you know where Tamaya is?”

Georgia shook her head. She wasn’t lying. And her mother knew.

“Do you have something to do with her running away from home?”

Georgia nodded.

Surprisingly, her mother didn't scold her. They finished their breakfast as if nothing had happened. Before leaving for work, she told her not to leave the house and to finish the calculus lessons she had left on her desk. Georgia managed to get so distracted doing math problems that she hardly thought about Mr. Rae.

When her mother returned, she made her promise never to get in the way of an evil person again. Georgia didn't want to promise that.

“But Mom, Mr. Rae is a villain!” she exclaimed.

“Of course he is, Georgia,” the woman agreed. “But you are not a hero. You can't save everyone.”

Like I couldn't save my dad, right?

Georgia promised. Mr. Rae never looked for her again. That had happened over a year ago, and so far she had managed not to get in the way of any villain, and she was very proud of it.

Yet, she had been so mired in her happiness that she hadn't thought about what to do if a villain got in her way.

So Georgia did nothing. She just obeyed.

She and the boy took a few steps away from the entrance.

What a lousy day she had chosen to look for a job.

The big Roach extended his hand. Georgia hugged her curriculum tightly. What did he want from her?

The leader realized her confusion. “Give him your money,” he explained.

“Now,” the bald man seconded.

Georgia reached into her pants pockets and handed him her last fifty dollars. Her mother would be furious. But she'd be more furious if Georgia risked her life for a measly fifty dollars.

“What I wonder is,” said the bald man, “how is it that a girl with perfume as expensive as yours ended up in this part of town?”

“I—“

“Are you lost, darling?”

“Enough, Hound,” the leader ordered with a laugh. He toyed with a couple of coins. “Don't flirt with the hand that feeds you.”

Hound stopped.

The taller one then turned to the blond boy who was next to Georgia. He held out his hand. “Money. Now.”

The boy didn't move a muscle.

“Are you deft?” exclaimed the leader. "Now!”

“No.”

Leader raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying no to me?”

Georgia turned to see him. She was asking herself the same question.

Did you say no to him?

“No,” he repeated. “I refuse to listen to a villain like you.”

So he noticed it too. He also noticed they were villains.

But why did he think he was a hero?

Hound and Big Roach walked towards the boy, but Leader stopped them with a wave of his hand. “A villain?” he scoffed “What makes you think I'm a villain?”

“Well, certainly, robbing stores is not a very heroic thing to do,” the boy emphasized. “And you didn’t even say please when you—“

Leader put the gun to his forehead. The owner opened his mouth to speak out, but Hound gave him such a look that it silenced him before he said anything. Georgia dropped her curriculum.

That kid was going to get himself killed right in front of her. Georgia knew she had to do something, but she didn’t understand why her body refused to listen to her heart.

Just like that night.

“What do you think now?” the leader asked her, with a hideous smile.

“Will you say "please”, Mr. Roach?”

Leader stuck the gun to his forehead. “What the fuck, no, I won’t!”

And then, the kid—

The kid freaking smiled at him. “Then shoot.”

Leader froze. He lowered his gun, puzzled at the boy's reaction.

Was that it? Was that how you defeated a villain?

By smiling at them?

Incredible.

But before Georgia could process what happened, Leader placed the cannon on her forehead. She stifled a sob that threatened to come out of her mouth.

The boy's smile disappeared immediately.

“Oh, excuse me, Captain, could you repeat your last order?” Leader asked with mockery. “Did you order me to—“ he put his finger on the trigger “—shoot?”

If only Georgia could grab the man by the wrists and snatch the gun from him in one move. Take that stupid Roach by surprise, point his own gun at him, and give him a little taste of his own medicine. He would never expect it from a pretty, defenseless girl like Georgia.

But she did not move. Again.

The boy took the money out of his pockets. Several coins and two dollar bills. The big man snatched it from him with an almost piteous expression.

Seriously?

“Were you about to risk your life for five dollars?” Hound asked as Leader tucked his weapon into his belt. “How pathetic.”

The boy lowered his head and turned to see her. If Georgia could speak, she would have thanked him.

“The backpack,” ordered Big Roach. “We also want the backpack.”

“But—“

“Give me the backpack. Now.”

He gave him the backpack. Big Roach opened it and raised his eyebrows. Hound rolled his eyes and scattered all of its contents to the ground. The textbooks opened at random pages, one of the notebooks ended up under a shelve, and the metal pencil case made a ruckus as it smashed against the store tile.

However, what caught her attention was the comic.

Georgia flinched when she saw his back cover.

A man was wearing a blue mask and a tight uniform and had Ace Anarchy's helmet pierced by a silver spear.

Hound handed the backpack to the owner, saying something about putting all the money he had there. Leader squatted down and took the comic as if it were a vile gossip magazine.

“Do not touch it.”

Leader made a military salute. “As you order, Captain,” and opened the comic.

Georgia didn't understand why the boy was so upset. His pupils had dilated and his hands were shaking as much as hers. Each page that Leader turned, the boy flinched as if it was an unwanted touch.

He hadn't acted like that when they had literally pointed a gun at him, but now he did? Now he freaked out?

Then she thought it would make her nervous too if they touched her books. Especially the ones she hid under her bed.

She wanted to say that she understood him.

But she couldn't speak.

Then, Leader stopped at a particular page. “Hey, guys, check this out,” he laughed. “It turns out that our captain is also an artist. Look what he did,” and pulled out a drawing of a battle between the same superhero and Ace Anarchy.

Georgia didn't have to be a detective to know right away that the boy had drawn it.

Hound joined in the taunt, but Big Roach was only as serious as she was. Leader tore off the back cover of the comic and threw it to the ground along with the rest of the notebooks. Suddenly, he took Georgia by the arm and put the two pictures on her face.

“What are the similarities between these two pictures?” he asked with his cigar breath. Georgia had the drawings so close that she couldn't distinguish them. “Did the Phantom Feline eat your tongue, lady? What are the similarities?”

“They're both a drawing of the same characters...” she muttered.

Leader pushed her. The owner passed the backpack to Hound, and he and Big Roach headed for the exit. “I thought you'd be smarter, lady,” Leader said, shaking his head. “I'll tell you what the similarities are. They're both going to end up with someone dead.”

He stopped right in front of the boy, put the drawing on his face, and tore it in two. “Just not today, Captain.”

The tension didn't go away when they left, but Georgia felt that at least she could breathe peacefully now. She collapsed into a plastic chair that was awkwardly perched next to a broken soda machine and hid her face in her hands.

She was safe. The villains were gone.

She was safe.

But at what cost?

At the cost of being a coward.

“Are you okay, kids?” asked the owner. “Good heavens, I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

Georgia raised her face. He was an old man, with gray hair and parched skin. His wrinkles became more noticeable with his concern. "I'm fine,” Georgia said. “Don’t worry.”

“And you, son?”

The boy adjusted his glasses. “I’m fine too.”

With mechanical movements, he bent down and quickly gathered his things. He took Georgia’s curriculum and shyly handed it to her. Georgia noticed how his expression changed when he took the comic in his hands, battered and with folded and wrinkled pages. The boy tried to flatten it out as best he could and tucked it between his heavy Algebra and Geometry books.

“Where is your friend?” asked the owner.

“He came out before they saw him,” he replied.

The owner frowned. “I didn't see him come out—“ Immediately, the owner seemed to understand. But instead of getting mad, he just shrugged. “Oh, all right... Well, I'm glad everything is fine. I am so sorry, if I knew they were coming, I would have closed the store. Anyway, I think you should go with your friend, right?”

“Yes,” the boy stammered. “I have to go with him.”

“Don't you want to take—“

“Oh no, really.”

“For the inconvenience.”

“It’s okay.” He pressed the books to his chest. “I have to go with my friend. He must be very worried. Goodbye, sir.” He looked at Georgia for a second. “And bye... ma'am.”

Ma’am?

The owner shook his head when he left. These kids, really. “What do you have there, miss?”

Miss was a better term.

Georgia handed it to him. The owner smiled. “A curriculum. You have beautiful handwriting, miss, I assure you.” Her mother would be very happy to hear that. “But at the moment I don't have any vacant positions. Sorry.”

Georgia took her curriculum back and smiled at the man.

Why did she feel like she hadn't smiled in years?

Was she so affected by what just happened?

“However, I doubt that you are going to decline my offer to take anything from the store,” he continued, smiling as if she had been practicing it all her life. “How about a chocolate bar? I've heard that chocolate always helps us forget our sorrows for a moment.”

He was right. “A candy bar sounds great,” she replied.

The owner walked over to the shelves. “I’m glad to know Phantom Feline did not actually eat your tongue.”

Georgia laughed. Her eyes saw the red notebook that was below the shelf. She bent down to get it out of there. On the cover, it had “Hugh E.” written in permanent marker.

She opened the notebook. On the back of the cover, there were a lot of unfinished doodles and random to-do lists. In the corner, someone had written in purple pen, “If you find this lost notebook, return to 4491 Atha Drive. Be careful, the owner is a bit of an idiot. Proceed with caution.”

And the owner (probably this Hugh E.) had added with a blue gel pen, “Not true. My aunt says I'm very charming. Please give me back my notebook.”

His handwriting was way too pretty for a boy.

Georgia tucked the notebook into her cloth bag. When she returned her gaze to the ground, the gray eyes of Ace Anarchy's drawing met hers. It was when she realized that Hugh E. had not taken his drawing with him.

Georgia decided to return him his notebook and drawing as soon as she could.

After all, he said "please".

[arielseaworth]

Thank you so much for all your likes, reblogs, comments, kudos, bookmarks and translations, I really appreciate them <3 <3 <3

||ASOIAF FICS|| 

Sunrise 

Arianne Martell & Quentyn Martell, happier moments.

A Great Unrest

His death was a mishap, almost certainly, and it is written that Prince Maekar always bitterly regretted Baelor’s passing and marked its anniversary every year. (The World of Ice and Fire)

Maekar Targaryen marking the twelfth anniversary of his brother’s death, during the first year of his reign.

The Picture

Laena Velaryon, Laenor Velaryon, and a gift for their parents’ tenth wedding anniversary.

Remember Me (Chapter 3)

Mothers, daughters, and the words said and unsaid.

Chapter 3: Mellario of Norvos & Arianne Martell

Loren of the Rock

He was Loren the First and then Loren the Last, and in between, he fought the Targaryens and lived to tell the tale, a fate he sometimes considered to be worse than death.

The Son

And Addam Velaryon, lately Addam of Hull, sought out the Sea Snake after the battle; what they spoke to each other even Mushroom does not say. (Fire & Blood)

What was said and not said between Addam Velaryon and Corlys Velaryon after the Battle in the Gullet.

Unbetrothed

Lady Elissa had been twice betrothed, once at twelve and once at sixteen, but she had frightened off both boys, as her own father admitted ruefully.  (Fire & Blood)

The two broken betrothals of Lady Elissa.  

Or, how Elissa Farman frightened off her betrothed, not once but twice.

The Knighting

“Aegon is to return to my castle at Summerhall. There is a place there for you, if you wish. A knight of my household. You’ll swear your sword to me, and Aegon can squire for you.” […] “I will take your son as squire, Your Grace, but not at Summerhall. Not for a year or two.” (The Hedge Knight)

Duncan the Tall requesting a boon from Maekar Targaryen before swearing his sword as a knight of the prince’s household.

Onion Soup

[Stannis] sat at the high table as a dish of onion soup cooled before him, hardly tasted, staring at the flame of the nearest candle with those hooded eyes, ignoring the talk around him. (A Dance with Dragons)

Stannis, Davos and onion soup.

Nameday Wish

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her “Little Princess” and sometimes “My Lady,” and his hands were soft as old leather. (A Game of Thrones)

Daenerys Targaryen, Willem Darry and a nameday wish.  

Riverlings

Nonetheless, during all those years of Catelyn’s girlhood, it had been Brynden the Blackfish to whom Lord Hoster’s children had run with their tears and their tales, when Father was too busy and Mother too ill. Catelyn, Lysa, Edmure … and yes, even Petyr Baelish, their father’s ward … he had listened to them all patiently, as he listened now, laughing at their triumphs and sympathizing with their childish misfortunes. (A Game of Thrones)

The first time Catelyn ran to her uncle with her tears and her tales.

and they shall know you by your ghosts

When Alysanne asked if she would return to Greenstone, Rhaena shook her head. “There’s a ghost there as well. A kinder ghost, but no less sad.” (Fire & Blood)

It wasn’t so much that love ended. It was more the fact that it remained mired in the past. The ghost of how easy they used to be with another stalked them every step of the way, on this small island Larissa had made her new home.

The Banker

The Hightowers had not entrusted so much as a groat of their gold to the Lyseni, and thus remained one of the wealthiest houses in all Westeros, second mayhaps only to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, and Lady Sam wished to learn how to put that gold to better use. Thus was born the Bank of Oldtown, which has made House Hightower richer still. (Fire & Blood)

Samantha Tarly and the founding of the Bank of Oldtown.

The Cold Light of Day

And yet it was to Archmaester Vaegon that the Old King turned now, summoning his last son to King’s Landing. What passed between them remains a matter of dispute. Some say the king offered Vaegon the throne and was refused. Others assert that he only sought his counsel. (Fire & Blood)

What transpired between Archmaester Vaegon and Jaehaerys Targaryen.

Clever Wives

Lord Redwyne was incredulous. “The Tyrells are dolts,” he said. “I am sorry, Your Grace, they are my liege lords, but … the Tyrells are dolts, and Lord Bertrand was a sot as well.” (Fire & Blood)

The Tyrells were dolts, it was sometimes alleged, but they had a knack for marrying clever wives.

Growing

“Egg wanted me to help him rule, but I knew my place was here. He sent me north aboard the Golden Dragon, and insisted that his friend Ser Duncan see me safe to Eastwatch.” (A Feast for Crows)

Maester Aemon and Ser Duncan saying goodbye at Eastwatch (and reminiscing about the first time they met).

The Sun and the Moon

Baela Targaryen, Rhaena Targaryen, Moondancer, Sundancer and Morning.

The Man Who Was Not There (Chapter 2)

Stannis Baratheon, Tywin Lannister, and a tense exchange during the wedding of Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister.

Chapter 2: Tywin’s POV

Remember Me (Chapter 2)

Mothers, daughters, and the words said and unsaid.

Chapter 2: Ellyn Reyne & Rohanne Tarbeck

||ASOIAF DRABBLES||

Daenaera Velaryon/Aegon III Targaryen

Daemon Targaryen/Laena Velaryon

Brandon the Burner & Brandon the Shipwright

Jonquil Darke & Daenerys Targaryen

Arya Stark, Old Nan & Black Aly

Plumm and Egg

Rhaelle Targaryen/Ormund Baratheon, white harts and roast stags

Brandon Stark & Rickard Stark, the boy who hated stories

Jocelyn Baratheon/Aemon Targaryen

Stannis, Cassana and baby Renly

Cregan Stark/Alysanne Blackwood, beginning

Quote Swap: Argella Durrandon + She wanted a storm to match her rage.

Daeron Velaryon/Hazel Harte (the parents of Daenaera Velaryon)

Rhaena Targaryen & Baela Targaryen, dragonriding

Rhaena Targaryen & tears

Aegon III Targaryen & Viserys II Targaryen, reunion

Egg, Daella and Rhae talking about the first Aegon and his sisters

Rhaena Targaryen/Melony Piper

Baela Targaryen & Laena Velaryon

Alyssa Velaryon celebrating the birth of her granddaughter (and great-granddaughter) Rhaenys

Oscar Tully & Kermit Tully

Alysanne Blackwood & Benjicot Blackwood

Jonquil Darke & Alysanne Targaryen

Anya Weatherwax

Myrielle Peake

Aegon III Targaryen & the “secret siege” of Maegor Holdfast

Cregan Stark/Arra Norrey, beloved companion

Rhaena Targaryen/Larissa Velaryon, reserved

Aegon III Targaryen & Viserys II Targaryen, stars

Baela Targaryen/Alyn Velaryon, marriage proposal

The Boy Who’d Sooner Have A Clout Than A Wife

Maekar’s Guilt

Lyanna Stark & Benjen Stark reenacting the duel between the Scarlet Shadow and the unnamed wildling woman

Rickard Stark & Ned Stark discussing the Pact of Ice and Fire

Argilac Durrandon & Argella Durrandon, tell me

Argella’s reaction to Orys resigning his position as Hand of the King

Doran Martell & Mellario of Norvos, “My mother had sent for him, I learned later.”

[p-redux]

As Promised...A Little Tea Spillage...(sorry I didn’t put stuff under the cut, but my computer wasn’t cooperating)

@contemplatingoutlander CO decided she liked to live dangerously, or I guess she thought I was bluffing when I asked her to “stand down,” leave me alone, and I would leave her alone, ‘lest more tea would be spilled about her past fandom sins. Perhaps she mistook my great restraint, in not defending myself against her vendetta against me, for weakness. But today she poked the lioness one too many times, and the lioness decided to give a little warning bite back.  

Sooooo, here goes. Remember when CO made her proclamation that she’d been approached by an insider source--supposedly a friend of Sam’s? And that this friend of Sam’s had been looking at Tumblr blogs for awhile, decided CO was “the chosen one,” and confided in her that Sam and Mackenzie had broken up, and even given her “permission” to publicly post this very personal news. Yeah, well, if you believe that, I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell you in Nebraska. 

BEHOLD, CO’s FAKE Sam insider source.   👇

~~~You know what made me suspicious of SouthernBlonde--SB97 for short? I kept seeing that she would comment on CO’s posts, saying snippy or negative things about me. And she would also go to my posts and say negative things directly to me. Below is just one example of many.  👇

~~~At the same time she was making positive comments to CO and reblogging ALL CO's posts 👇

~~~So I DMed SB97 to reach out, and let her know that I'd noticed she'd left negative comments specifically about me, saying she’d "heard" stuff about me, etc., and that if she had any questions about me I’d be more than happy to answer them so she wouldn’t just get one side. Much to my surprise, when I DMed her, suddenly she did an about face and was super nice to me and talked shit about CO 👇 What?!

~~~So I thought she was cool and maybe trying to be neutral, attempting to see different sides, but NOPE. She showed her duplicity when publicly she continued to defend CO even after she had talked shit about her privately in DMs to me. 👇

~~~And notice the bottom right screencap 👆 That's CO saying her Sam source told her she'd looked at NST blogs and didn't like the nastiness she saw and did like CO's willingness to dialogue...mhm that started to sound similar to what SB97 was saying. So I started to pay attention...

~~~And I looked at what SB97 was saying that was similar to what CO said her Sam source said 👇At that point, SB97 started to actively defend CO.

~~~CO said her source was a friend of Sam's. And someone who had been reading Tumblr blogs for awhile. Well, as I showed in one of the screencaps above, SB97 supposedly lives in Scotland. She reiterates that in the screencaps below. And oh look, she works in the entertainment industry. Allegedly. And she's been around since the Abbie-Saltire days, which means a couple of years at least 👇 This was all fitting in now to SB97 being CO’s Sam “source.” 

~~~After that, my Spidey senses went into overdrive and I really started to pay attention to similarities between what CO had said about her Sam source and what SB97 was saying. After CO blogged her post about a Sam source telling her she could post that Samzie had broken up, that’s when SB97 literally reblogged everything CO posted, something she hadn’t done before.  

~~~BUT the piece de resistance that clinched it that SB97 was CO's supposed Sam source was this 👇

~~~Well, well, well, isn't that interesting. SB97 threatened Paul Camuso saying he didn't want her "airing the bit of truth I have" about him, and also said he wasn’t really Sam’s friend...JUUUST like CO said her source told her. BINGO! But there's more...

~~~So, Paul saw that and shot back with this...

~~~mhm, again, just like what CO is referencing her source said. Now, who hates Paul, hates me, and doesn’t want Sam and Mackenzie together?  Why, an Extreme Shipper of course. And CO was a sitting duck since she also hates me, hates Paul, and had been touting that Sam and Mackenzie had broken up. Picking CO to be the one to blast me, blast Paul and conveniently announce a Samzie break up was like taking candy from a baby---so easy it’s laughable. And since CO likes her ego stroked, she fell right into the fake sources trap who made her seem like she was specially chosen. 

~~~Ladies and gentlemen, that's how you get played. And that's how CO got played by her fake Sam source. 

~~~And guess what? After I started posting hints that I knew who CO’s source was, and after Paul set the record straight that SB97 was FOS about the accusations she was making about him? Guess who vanishes? Poof. SB97 has never been heard from again. She stopped posting, commenting etc.

I’m sure CO will deny it, or find a way to explain it, and maybe SB97 will make a reappearance and try to justify it too, BUT you know, and I know exactly what happened here. 

What I posted here is just the tip of the iceberg of the LIES CO is mired in. If she stands down now, stops mentioning me altogether on her blog, I won't post the Vivid stuff. (Either CO has amnesia or she doesn’t realize the extent of how incriminating the screencaps I have on her are in reference to that). This lioness got poked one too many times by CO today, like I said, consider this a little warning bite. But keep poking me, writing crap about me, and I will bite back and hard. I’ve been saving this little “CO got played by a fake Sam source” morsel all this time, imagine what else I have saved, just waiting for the right moment to pounce. What happens next is entirely up to you, CO. Choose wisely....

[kickthecan-revolution]

Happy New Year!

It is sunny and warm and beautiful. 

OK, my place is starting to take some semblance of clean now. I took the tree down, all the garbage and recycling out and gave the little ladies a proper romp. Pets continue to fascinate me; they seem to match the energy of their owner, when I’m peppy, they are, when I’m not well, they seem to be content to sleep the day away. Animals are truly gifts to me.

I’m glad the holidays are over, to be honest. They bring out how different I am from other people, how isolated I am (my own doing) and now non-normal I often feel but am not super connected to and try not to dwell on. In a weird way, I’m glad I was sick; the last few years have been pretty rough emotionally this time of year and I’m kind of glad to have had a distraction. 

The thing is, there’s an ideal optimist in me that loves the new year. I love to hope, I love to remind myself to dream. And the really cool thing after one is sick is that waking up to feeling better, being so acutely grateful for my health. This sounds so dramatic but the entire time I was ill, I had this pulsating pain in my left abdomen that I tried to just ignore, assuming it was one of those aches one gets with a bad flu. It was persistent through, and it got worse; I looked it up and saw all of the bad things it could have been (like a heart attack or pancreatis, something to do with my spleen, etc etc) and finally told BND via email in case it was something bad. He confirmed all of the bad stuff it could be and told me to go to urgent care. I would have - probably - if it continued another day, but it’s practically gone now. Though it was so bad, I changed all of my emergency contacts and cleaned my apartment in case someone had to come take care of the cats. I’m SO FORTUNATE to be so healthy, that my body heals on its own. I’m glad to have dropped a lot of weight this year and will finish that off soon. As soon as I do, I can’t wait to start running again. 

The thing is, I don’t have any excuses to not be living more of a life than I am now. I’m not using this *life* that I have, mired in stress and worry.  

As I read the archives of 2014-2015, there was some really serious shit that went down in my family, at work, my tax scare, etc. Last year marked the beginnings of stability, where I was building up from the inside out; I didn’t have a crush that I was desperate over, no massive drama with exception of some serious work stuff that I overcame and my tax bill. This year could be the build on top of that. 

Happy new year sweet friends. Here’s to really good and abundant introspection for all of us, here’s to using our Tumblrs as a place to explore ourselves more, discover some beautiful people and to connect in hard and light places and everywhere in-between. Thank you so much for reading. Sorry for the reblogs. I’m going to write more. I love that I started my Tumblr to chase a boy but ended up finding more of me. Isn’t that always the way? 

[gunlord500]

Fun with final causality

Another critique of Edward Feser’s Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy for you today, my friends. I must start this off with a bit of a disclaimer: If you happen to come across this post in the “edward feser” tag, you’ll notice it’s a response to a quote some other Tumblr user posted. Vagueblogging is in poor taste, I agree, but in this case I think it’s justified--the other user is a “traditional Catholic” woman, and if I directly reblogged from her, it would probably start an argument and cause a lot of drama and annoyance. It is admittedly ungentlemanly to vagueblog, but even more ungentlemanly to inconvenience a lady, so I hope you understand if I took the former route. This is, of course, not to imply that I am at all a gentleman, but given my, ah, ‘reform’ I figure it couldn’t hurt to make the attempt. XD

Anyways, the quote I refer to is this:

“The delight we take in sexual relations is intended by nature to function as a kind of emotional superglue.  Sexual desire is meant to direct people out of themselves and their personal interests and to seek completion in another person, and sexual pleasure is meant to bond a person tightly with that other person once he or she is found.  Like literal superglue, it doesn’t always succeed, but this binding function is still its point, its final cause.  And like literal superglue, if it gets applied in the wrong way there will be serious problems.  It will “bond” you to the wrong thing or at the wrong time”

The quote itself comes from his blog here:

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/02/mired-in-roiling-tar-pits-of-lust.html

However, he has said essentially the same thing in several of his published books, like The Last Superstition and Aquinas: A Beginner’s guide. Since those books dwell on the subject of final causality at a respectable length, this little quote from Feser’s blog affords me a piquant opportunity to leap into a more sustained critique of final causality as a philosophical concept. Allow me to begin with a very brief overview of it.

Aristotelians like Feser say everything has four causes: Material (what any given object is made of), formal (what pattern a given object takes or how it’s shaped), efficient (how it came to be in the first place), and most important of all, final (WHY it was made in the first place, or its purpose for existing). Nowadays, we don’t put much stock in final causes in regards to pretty much anything that’s not man-made (what is the “purpose” of a rock or the forces of gravity or any other natural phenomena?) but Feser says this is a mistake and that inanimate objects DO have final causes! You see, even inanimate objects evince sorts of regularity rather than randomness. For instance, an inanimate object like a glass of water will always and invariably produce steam when you heat it up enough (under the right pressure, of course). It won’t occasionally produce lilacs or freeze into ice or anything like that. An inanimate object like the moon “regularly” orbits the earth in a specific pattern--it doesn’t just stop in its tracks on Tuesday and zip across the sky on Wednesday or otherwise behave randomly.  (The Last Superstition, pages 60-69).

According to Feser, inanimate objects could only display this sort of final causality of an intelligence was directing them to those particular ends, and, of course, that intelligence would be God. This would be Aristotle’s God, and guys like Thomas Aquinas would say that Aristotle’s God was also the Christian God, it just so happened that the Big A didn’t know it yet. If it weren’t for God constantly directing everything to particular ends (their Final Causes), we’d live in complete chaos, with water occasionally turning into lilacs instead of evaporating or the moon zipping all over the place randomly with no rhyme or reason. Now, you’d probably think Aristotle, Aquinas, and Feser are going a wee bit too far with the idea of final causality, and I’d agree with you. You might also say it’s pretty weird to lump in two very different concepts--inanimate objects displaying regular behavior and human artifacts being created with intent and purpose--under the exact same label of “final causality,” and conflating intent with regularity in order to argue for God. I’d agree with that too, and we’ll come back to the second point later. But for now, we need only understand what Feser is getting at in order to more closely examine how his idea of final causality relates to his *Catholic* sexual morality.

OK, so let’s be nice and agree with Feser that everything has a “final cause,” and also that God wills those final causes. So God wills water to produce steam, and God wills the moon to orbit the Earth. Now, keep in mind we haven’t even gotten to the Bible yet--according to Feser, basic logic alone can prove the existence of Aristotle’s God, and it takes a bit more historical rather than solely philosophical argument to prove that Aristotle’s God is also the Christian one. But that’s all off in the weeds for now, we only need to think about Aristotle’s God, because according to Feser, Aristotle’s God also has particular ends, or Final Causes, in mind for human sexuality.

After all, if everything--every THING--has a final cause, human sexuality, or our sex organs, or whatever, have final causes too. They’re things, right? And in any case, Feser says that bodily organs are the most obvious examples of final causes in nature. A “final cause” is, as we said above, “why a thing was made in the first place” or “why a thing exists,” and it seems obvious organs have these final causes. Why does a heart exist? To pump blood. Why do lungs exist? To distribute oxygen to the body. If either of those organs don’t fulfill those purposes, the organism as a whole dies, so it seems reasonable to say the final cause of the heart is to pump blood, and the final cause of the lungs to breath oxygen.

So, then, what is the final cause of our “sexual faculties?” Feser uses this word rather than “genitalia” specifically because he knows our genitals have multiple purposes (penises both pee and ejaculate). But our “sexual faculties,” that is to say, our testicles, ovaries, and arousal centers in the brain combined with the genitals to be considered as one thing, would also have a final cause--their purpose for existing, why they were made (evolved, in this case) in the first place. And, of course, that “final cause” is what Feser says: To bind a man and a woman together so that they not only make babies but raise them as a couple.

Why is that important? Well, also according to Feser, to contravene or subvert the “Final Cause” of anything is bad, evil, and in defiance of God’s will. This is an extremely complex subject, and I don’t have time to get into it fully here. You’re just going to have to trust me on this. So if the final cause of human sexuality is to have children and bind men and women together, it is bad and evil to do anything that prevents that Final Cause from being fulfilled, and we could figure this out even without reading the Bible. Condoms prevent procreation from occurring, therefore condoms are Bad and Evil and piss God off. Masturbation and homosexuality can’t produce babies, so they’re right out. Finally, having sex with lots of different partners prevents you from being Binded to any of them and raising healthy children together, so that’s Bad and Evil as well.

Well, I think I’ve done enough to fairly acquaint my beloved Regular Readers with Feser’s arguments. We are ready now to explore the problems and inconsistencies in those arguments.

First, there’s the epistemological problem of discerning what the “final cause of our sexual faculties” really is. Once again, I draw the reader’s attention to the fact that none of these arguments revolve around, or even mention, the Bible in any way. You don’t need religious texts to tell you that the Final Cause of the moon is to orbit the earth, or that the Final Cause of a heart is to pump blood. But how, then, do we discern that the “final cause” of sex and sexual pleasure is to bind a man and women together monogamously? That is far from clear, and nothing I have read--either in Feser’s blog or in his books--has satisfactorily made the case. In The Last Superstition, he tells us “sexual pleasure has as its own final cause the getting of people to engage in sexual relations, so that they will procreate.” (page 142). Easy enough to understand--if a heart exists for the purpose of pumping blood, the sexual faculties exist for the purpose of conceiving children. But none of this has anything to do with the “binding” Feser refers to in his blog entry.

Even if we were to agree with Feser that any “non-procreative” sex is bad, it could still be the case that the “Final Cause” of sex is *simply* reproduction, with bonding entirely ancilliary to it. That is to say, it would be perfectly in keeping with the “Final Cause of our sexual faculties” for men to have sex with as many women as they wanted without monogamy or “binding” with any of them. The argument Feser gives initially in The Last Superstition undercuts the one he gives in his blog. The fact that sex is pleasurable does not necessarily mean its Final Cause is to bind heterosexuals in monogamous relationships. As Feser himself points out, the “final cause” of sexual desire and sexual pleasure seems to be getting people to have a lot of sex and therefore a lot of children. 

Why, then, should we believe sex has any “binding” component at all? How could we determine this *without* recourse to what the Bible says? Remember, we can tell that the final cause of the moon is to regularly orbit the sun, or that the final cause of water (when exposed to heat) is to evaporate, simply by observing these things. But when we observe people having sex (Voyeurism is unseemly, I use “observe” in a general sense, for those of you with minds in the gutter), the “final cause” of the activity seems much less clear. Yes, one final cause is obviously having children. But both children and sexual pleasure can and often do exist in the total absence of any kind of “bonding.” A man can have great, pleasurable sex with a woman at night and never wish to see her again in the morning. A woman can have sex with a strapping specimen, bear his child, but never know or care about his name after that one-night stand. In such instances, sexual desire and sexual pleasure would seem to have the “final cause” of kickstarting sexual activity, but not binding anyone to anything. This means that non-monogamous sex (as long as it’s heterosexual) is actually not bad and evil and does not contravene God’s will, at least if we take God’s will to be “fulfilling the Final Causes of things.”

Feser might think he has an answer to this. On page 143 of The Last Superstition, he tells us that pregnancy and the helplessness of young children mean that women cannot take care of babies on their own, and that they desperately need the father around to provide and protect them. Therefore, the Final Cause of sexuality MUST also be binding, because human beings would not be able to procreate successfully without fathers being binded to mothers--the babies would just die!

Alas, this strikes me as a profoundly unsatisfying argument. Much to the conservative Feser’s dismay, it is very, very far from self-evident that fathers are as absolutely necessary as he claims. I’m sure he’ll tell us that it’s literally and physically impossible for a woman to take care of children on her own, and that single mothers are absolutely and utterly incapable, under all circumstances, of successfully raising children to adulthood. OK, whatever. But what about the multitudes of other childrearing possibilities? What about a young woman and her mother? Kids might have a better chance to survive with their grandmother around, even if the father is absent, since Granny also has a vested interest in the propagation of her progeny. What about kids being raised by the state? The Spartans, if I recall correctly, took children away from both their father and their mother and put them into a communal military environment where they would become loyal servants of the state above all else. Plato explicitly argued that “marriage, the having of wives, and the procreation of children must be governed as far as possible by the old proverb: friends possess everything in common” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-politics/). Feser doesn’t like Plato quite as much as Aristotle, but he’s a big fan of the guy too, if the opening chapters of The Last Superstition is any indication. It’d be amusing to see how he reconciles the, ah, “interesting” family values of the Father of Western Philosophy to his own decidedly more buttoned-down ideals, but that’s his problem. The point I am making is that the proposition, “Fathers are absolutely necessary for raising children” is nowhere near as self-evident as the proposition, “procreation is the purpose/end/Final Cause of sex.” And without that first proposition, you simply cannot prove, with any degree of certainty, that any sort of “binding” is a Final Cause of our sexual faculties. If Feser wants to argue for that, he will need to perform much more historical--and sociological, and economic, and God knows what else--analysis to prove that the monogamous male-female pair bond is superior to any other alternative when it comes to raising kids. 

2: More generally, Feser’s examples of sex also seem to demonstrate some rather troubling problems with “final causality” as a coherent concept. Remember what we discussed above: Final Causality in nature can be seen in the moon invariably orbiting around the Earth, or water invariably turning into steam under the right conditions. But sexuality, as with most phenomena involving living things rather than inanimate objects, is much less reliable. Feser himself notes that sex can and often does fail to “bind” people to one another. Since the “binding” function of sex is far, far less reliable than the orbit of the moon or the evaporation of water, it would seem reasonable to conclude that “binding” is not in fact a Final Cause of sex.

Feser tries to get around this by using an analogy with superglue, and by shifting the definition of “Final Cause” from “a regularity” to “a purpose or intent.” Yes, he admits in his blogspot, sex often fails to bind people, but superglue also occasionally fails to bind things together--sometimes it goes bad, or loses its adhesive properties, or whatever. But the purpose of superglue is still to bind. Similarly, even if sex fails to bind people together on occasion, its overall purpose is still to bind.

But, again, this is not a good argument. We can easily discern the purpose or intent of superglue simply by looking at its packaging. The box or bottle or whatever will literally tell you straight up that this stuff is supposed to be an adhesive. There is no corresponding packaging or instruction manual for human beings. The only way we would be able to conclude that “binding” is a Final Cause of sex would be to observe the process and results of sexual behavior throughout history, and as I pointed out above, the historical examples of the Spartans and Plato’s ideal society argue against male-female binding being a Final Cause of sex.

2b: Even worse for Feser, even if “male-female binding” regularly accompanied sex, it STILL wouldn’t prove that binding was the “Final Cause” of sex, because regularities can be and often are completely divorced from any given thing or artifact’s “Final Cause,” as Feser and Aristotle might have it. Take a hammer. The purpose of a hammer is, as we all know, to assist in building things by driving in nails. But there are also a host of other regularities associated with hammers. For instance, if you pound it down on something, it will regularly make noise, as opposed to being silent or producing lilacs or whatever. Thus, under Feser’s reasoning, we could say that the “final cause” of hammers is to produce noise. But this is obviously absurd. 

What value, then, does the concept of final causality have? in The Last Superstition, Feser made a big deal of how “directedness to an end or ends,” or in other words, causal regularity, exists even in the absence of any human consciousness. However, the example of the hammer shows that causal regularity can exist entirely tangential to and divorced from intent or purpose--that is to say, divorced from what Feser considers to be Final Causality itself! It is beyond me, at least at this point, to understand how Final Causality remains a coherent concept. 

If you haven’t realized it yet, this has dire consequences for Feser’s sexual morality. Even if binding regularly accompanied sex, that wouldn’t in and of itself prove that binding is the final cause of sex--it might simply be something regularly associated with sex, but not the actual purpose of sex, just like noise is regularly associated with hammers, but the actual purpose of hammers is not to make noise. More importantly, if regularity of some sort can be associated with artifacts without necessarily being intentional, why should we not assume regularity in general can exist without being associated with any kind of intent? There may certainly be a reason why water regularly turns into steam or why the moon regularly orbits the Earth, but, at least IMO, Feser has failed to demonstrate that reason must be some divine being’s conscious intent, or any kind of intent at all. And without intent, “Final Causality” becomes meaningless, and we see the moderns Feser dismisses were themselves actually correct to dismiss Aristotle--his theory of causality apparently doesn’t help much in understanding the world.

Phew! A long entry, but that’s all I wanted to get through today. I hope y’all enjoyed it!