#i cannot fucking overstate the fact that i am just here having opinions on a game i like

[ruthlesslistener]

For someone who is aromantic, you sure do love seeing headcanons different than yours as shipping. This whole thing would have been avoided if you never did. Although you have good reasons and are allowed to have preferences, you really did just unintentionally label those who headcanon differently than yours as "bad". You made them a red target. Even worse since as another anon had pointed out, you have anti followers. You just gave them something to munch about. An excuse to harass. You think they will listen to you when you say not to? Think again.

How many times do I have to explain that the reason why I thought it was ship content was because the only context I've seen the discussion was for porn. Deadass the only context. I have explained this multiple times and have also explained that I have zero problem with people who headcanon differently than me now that I do have context. I also apologized for the misunderstanding and clarified what is a personal trigger for disgust to prevent more issues in the future, because guess what? When you only ever see something being discussed to excuse underage porn, you sure as fuck are gonna have a strong unthinking negative response to it!! I genuinely feel bad for the people who had no idea that the fandom culture shifted over time, but I'm not apologizing for not having the context in the first place.

As for these anti followers of mine- how the actual fuck am I supposed to know what to do about them other than throw disclaimers when I don't know who they are?? I have over 3,000 fucking followers and I only interact with like five of them, how the actual shit am I supposed to know who's dangerous. Give me a fucking list for me to block them if you're so concerned, because that's deadass the only fucking thing I can do about them. I'm not responsible for people I don't know, all I can really do right now is condone the potential of harassment happening, especially since- again- I have no idea who these people are.

Also god fucking forbid someone have a strong gag response to perceived underage shipping on the internet. Oh nooooooooo it might influence people who I have no contact with or influence over to harass other people, despite me being very vocally hateful of antis and their actions and also LITERALLY BEING IN FANDOM AS A SIDE HOBBY. If having strongly negative opinions on underage shipping is equivalent to painting targets on people's backs then brother I'm bringing out the red paint and I'm slopping all of us with it.

[littlesparklight]

in your opinion whats the worst thing paris has done

In my opinion Paris is my precious 🥺 fluffy-headed son and has done nothing wrong in his life, ever - and if he has, no he didn't. :)

Ok but no.

If one goes with or prefers a version/interpretation where Paris did kidnap Helen (whether or not there was mutual desire before that) and has then been assaulting her throughout the war, then... that would obviously be the worst?

But since I don't interpret/go with that version, but rather that this was a case of seduction and mutual attraction and that, whatever other factors there was on Helen/in her leaving, she wasn't kidnapped, I don't consider that the worst thing he's done. Even when I do think Helen and Menelaos' marriage was good and with mutual affection and desire before he turned up.

(Sorry, I am simply not ever going to not consider the fact that Menelaos can go fuck whoever he wants (and he does!) and Helen can't, whether she elopes with her lover or not.)

So, as shitty as it undoubtedly is to be knowing party to an adultery situation and then running off with said wife, not that.

Breaking xenia, considering he didn't actually need to approach Sparta openly, is bad. Forming any sort of friendship (which I do think at the absolute least in terms of connection happened) with Menelaos in this situation is bad, even if Paris doesn't mean or use it as an intentional way of getting close to Helen. But also, approaching Sparta openly and staying as a guest is basically the only version that allows Helen to begin to know him beforehand. Which is what allows for anything other than kidnapping!

And so, in my opinion, regardless of Ancient Greek cultural reasons, and how shitty that is towards Menelaos, not this either.

And I don't actually think Paris leaving Oinone is particularly bad, either. It's the least bad thing in here; ending a relationship isn't bad. Divorce is a thing. Oinone is a nymph and isn't bound to mortal life and culture like a mortal woman would be, and doesn't "need" him. So this one is frankly neutral to me. (If he was cheating on Helen with Oinone and on Oinone with Helen that would be bad. But he clearly goes from one woman to the other.)

Here it is:

As much as I think that no one who doesn't want to should have to participate in war, and Paris being a coward is nothing I care about, considering that Paris is a prince of his city and thus he has a responsibility to his family, to his city, and to his people, shirking battle is it.

I cannot overstate how little I care about ~ooh he's a coward~ but just looking at it from that he did have a part in sparking the war, and his family (and/or Hektor and Priam, at least) are backing him up by not simply removing Helen from Troy (whether or not that would actually make the Achaeans go away), being unwilling to do his part consistently is... bad. I have understanding and sympathy for it but like. It's still bad. So. This is what I think is the worst thing.

(Do not fucking clown on Paris on here ok.)

[aboveallarescuer]

Dany longing for a home, people to belong to and peace and safety in general

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile all* the book passages demonstrating either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and smart) or aspects of hers that are usually overstated (e.g. that she's ambitious and prophecy-driven).  Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take. (and that's not even considering the double standards and the contradictions with what had been shown from show!Dany up until then, but that's obviously out of the scope of these lists)

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend (or even simply explore different facets of) Dany's character in metas or conversations.

 *Well, at least all the passages that I could find in her chapters, which is no guarantee that the effort was perfectly executed, but I did my best.

Also, people could interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages if they ever attempted to make one, so I'm not saying that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books and use asearchoficeandfire). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully referenced, sometimes not.

I listed the passages back to front because I felt doing so highlighted Dany's evolution better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To justify the existence of this list, let's see examples of widespread opinions that I feel misrepresent Daenerys Targaryen:

Power is what Daenerys wants and that's really all she wants. She lusts after the Iron Throne with a hunger that is truly baffling. She's not from Westeros, or at least she's never really lived there her entire life. (x)

~

Why does she want to be queen so badly? Is it to bring a more just era of rule to the land? [...]

Why? What will she do with this power? Will she be a good and just monarch or will she be more like her father, the Mad King? More and more I suspect that she will be a very bad queen, only interested in doing what is right only if it helps her secure the Iron Throne. (x)

~

Her ruthlessness can't just mean nothing. She's far too power-hungry and far too cold to end up as a good person, ruling magnanimously over a peaceful land. (x)

Never mind that demanding that Dany asks herself why she wants to be queen is not understanding how the Westerosi pseudofeudalistic system works (or that she outright states that "justice ... that’s what kings are for" in ASOS Dany III).

Is power really all Dany wants, to the point of "lust[ing] after the Iron Throne" (particularly gross wording)? Is Dany "only interested in doing what is right only if it helps her secure the Iron Throne"? Is Dany "far too power-hungry and far too cold to end up as a good person"?

I would argue these claims certainly cannot be made after reading the books (some can't even after watching the show's first 71 episodes, but the show can be all over the place and ... I digress), so take a look at these passages.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

The hill loomed larger down here. Dany had taken to calling it Dragonstone, after the ancient citadel where she’d been born. She had no memories of that Dragonstone, but she would not soon forget this one. Scrub grass and thorny bushes covered its lower slopes; higher up a jagged tangle of bare rock thrust steep and sudden into the sky. There, amidst broken boulders, razor-sharp ridges, and needle spires, Drogon made his lair inside a shallow cave. He had dwelt there for some time, Dany had realized when she first saw the hill. The air smelled of ash, every rock and tree in sight was scorched and blackened, the ground strewn with burned and broken bones, yet it had been home to him.

Dany knew the lure of home.

~

Daenerys Targaryen was no stranger to the Dothraki sea, the great ocean of grass that stretched from the forest of Qohor to the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. She had seen it first when she was still a girl, newly wed to Khal Drogo and on her way to Vaes Dothrak to be presented to the crones of the dosh khaleen. The sight of all that grass stretching out before her had taken her breath away. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and I was full of hope. Ser Jorah had been with her then, her gruff old bear. She’d had Irri and Jhiqui and Doreah to care for her, her sun-and-stars to hold her in the night, his child growing inside her. Rhaego. I was going to name him Rhaego, and the dosh khaleen said he would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Not since those half-remembered days in Braavos when she lived in the house with the red door had she been as happy.

~

No, Dany told herself. If I look back I am lost. She might live for years amongst the sunbaked rocks of Dragonstone, riding Drogon by day and gnawing at his leavings every evenfall as the great grass sea turned from gold to orange, but that was not the life she had been born to. So once again she turned her back upon the distant hill and closed her ears to the song of flight and freedom that the wind sang as it played amongst the hill’s stony ridges. The stream was trickling south by southeast, as near as she could tell. She followed it. Take me to the river, that is all I ask of you. Take me to the river, and I will do the rest.

The hours passed slowly. The stream bent this way and that, and Dany followed, beating time upon her leg with the whip, trying not to think about how far she had to go, or the pounding in her head, or her empty belly. Take one step. Take the next. Another step. Another. What else could she do?

~

“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was ... her name ...” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. “I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.”

~

In the stream or out of it, I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home.

Except it wouldn’t, not truly.

Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy’s city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

ADWD Daenerys IX

She pushed herself to her feet, splashing softly. Water ran down her legs and beaded on her breasts. The sun was climbing up the sky, and her people would soon be gathering. She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door, but a queen belongs to her people, not to herself.

~

Treachery on treachery, the queen thought wearily. Is there no end to it?

~

In Westeros the septons spoke of seven hells and seven heavens, but the Seven Kingdoms and their gods were far away. If she died here, Dany wondered, would the horse god of the Dothraki part the grass and claim her for his starry khalasar, so she might ride the nightlands beside her sun-and-stars? Or would the angry gods of Ghis send their harpies to seize her soul and drag her down to torment?

ADWD Daenerys VIII

Every child knows its mother, Dany thought. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves … “They call to me. Come.”

~

Dany slid her arms around him and let him have his way. Drunk as he was, she knew he would not be inside her long.

Nor was he. Afterward he nuzzled at her ear and whispered, “Gods grant that we have made a son tonight.”

The words of Mirri Maz Duur rang in her head. When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before. The meaning was plain enough; Khal Drogo was as like to return from the dead as she was to bear a living child. But there are some secrets she could not bring herself to share, even with a husband, so she let Hizdahr zo Loraq keep his hopes.

Her noble husband was soon fast asleep. Daenerys could only twist and turn beside him. She wanted to shake him, wake him, make him hold her, kiss her, fuck her again, but even if he did, he would fall back to sleep again afterward, leaving her alone in the darkness. She wondered what Daario was doing. Was he restless as well? Was he thinking about her? Did he love her, truly? Did he hate her for marrying Hizdahr? I should never have taken him into my bed. He was only a sellsword, no fit consort for a queen, and yet …

I knew that all along, but I did it anyway.

“My queen?” said a soft voice in the darkness.

Dany flinched. “Who is there?”

“Only Missandei.” The Naathi scribe moved closer to the bed. “This one heard you crying.”

“Crying? I was not crying. Why would I cry? I have my peace, I have my king, I have everything a queen might wish for. You had a bad dream, that was all.”

“As you say, Your Grace.” She bowed and made to go.

“Stay,” said Dany. “I do not wish to be alone.”

“His Grace is with you,” Missandei pointed out.

“His Grace is dreaming, but I cannot sleep. On the morrow I must bathe in blood. The price of peace.” She smiled wanly and patted the bed. “Come. Sit. Talk with me.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

If she had been some ordinary woman, she would gladly have spent her whole life touching Daario, tracing his scars and making him tell her how he’d come by every one. I would give up my crown if he asked it of me, Dany thought … but he had not asked it, and never would.

~

Khal Drogo had been her sun-and-stars, but he had been dead so long that Daenerys had almost forgotten how it felt to love and be loved. Daario had helped her to remember. I was dead and he brought me back to life. I was asleep and he woke me. My brave captain.

~

“...Bring your frog to court tomorrow. The others too. The Westerosi.” It would be nice to hear the Common Tongue from someone besides Ser Barristan.

~

She went to the parapet and stood there gazing down upon the city as she had done a hundred times before. It will never be my city. It will never be my home.

~

It was close to sunset before Daario Naharis appeared with his new Stormcrows, the Westerosi who had come over to him from the Windblown. Dany found herself glancing at them as yet another petitioner droned on and on. These are my people. I am their rightful queen. They seemed a scruffy bunch, but that was only to be expected of sellswords. The youngest could not have been more than a year older than her; the oldest must have seen sixty namedays. A few sported signs of wealth: gold arm rings, silken tunics, silverstudded sword belts. Plunder. For the most part, their clothes were plainly made and showed signs of hard wear.

~

When she saw the name Ser Willem Darry, her heart beat a little faster.

~

This was done in Braavos, while we were living in the house with the red door. Why did that make her feel so strange?

ADWD Daenerys VI

Dany tried to speak and found no words. She remembered Ben’s face the last time she had seen it. It was a warm face, a face I trusted. Dark skin and white hair, the broken nose, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Even the dragons had been fond of old Brown Ben, who liked to boast that he had a drop of dragon blood himself. Three treasons will you know. Once for gold and once for blood and once for love. Was Plumm the third treason, or the second? And what did that make Ser Jorah, her gruff old bear? Would she never have a friend that she could trust? What good are prophecies if you cannot make sense of them? If I marry Hizdahr before the sun comes up, will all these armies melt away like morning dew and let me rule in peace? Daario’s announcement had sparked an uproar. [...] “Be quiet! I have heard enough.”

[...] She wanted to scream, to gnash her teeth and tear her clothes and beat upon the floor. Instead she said, “Close the gates. Will you make me say it thrice?” They were her children, but she could not help them now. “Leave me. Daario, remain. That cut should be washed, and I have more questions for you.”

[...] He kissed her.

[...] “I thought you would be the one to betray me. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love, the warlocks said. I thought … I never thought Brown Ben. Even my dragons seemed to trust him.” She clutched her captain by the shoulders. “Promise me that you will never turn against me. I could not bear that. Promise me.”

ADWD Daenerys III

Dany could feel the warmth of his fingers. He was warm in Qarth as well, she recalled, until the day he had no more use for me.

~

That only made him chuckle. “The Dothraki horselords call the Lhazarene the Lamb Men. When you shear them, all they do is bleat. They are not a martial people.”

Even a sheepish friend is better than none.

~

Dany had never known a home. In Braavos, there had been a house with a red door, but that was all.

~

Westeros. Home. But if she left, what would happen to her city?

~

The next morning Dany woke as full of hope as she had been since first she came to Slaver’s Bay. Daario would soon be at her side once more, and together they would sail for Westeros. For home.

~

Take these ships and sail away, or you will surely die screaming. You cannot know how many enemies you have made.”

I know one stands before me now, weeping mummer’s tears. The realization made her sad.

~

Dany seated herself upon her bench again to gaze across the blue silk sea, toward distant Westeros. One day, she promised herself.

ADWD Daenerys I

She had been dreaming of a house with a red door when Missandei woke her. There had been no time to dress.

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.

Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. Missandei had told her of the Lord of Harmony, worshiped by the Peaceful People of Naath; he was the only true god, her little scribe said, the god who always was and always would be, who made the moon and stars and earth, and all the creatures that dwelt upon them. Poor Lord of Harmony. Dany pitied him. It must be terrible to be alone for all time, attended by hordes of butterfly women you could make or unmake at a word. Westeros had seven gods at least, though Viserys had told her that some septons said the seven were only aspects of a single god, seven facets of a single crystal. That was just confusing. The red priests believed in two gods, she had heard, but two who were eternally at war. Dany liked that even less. She would not want to be eternally at war.

~

The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.

~

She looked away until she heard the doors open and close. Then she sank back onto the ebony bench. He’s gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers, Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died inside me, and now Ser Jorah ...

~

She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.

ASOS Daenerys V

“Khaleesi, it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love ...”

“Do not say that word!” She backed away from him. “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The Undying had said she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised?”

“Varys said ... I might go home.” He bowed his head.

I was going to take you home! [...] Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe?

ASOS Daenerys IV

Dany found herself wondering whether he was right about Daario. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.”

~

Dany looked at Missandei. “What are they shouting?”

“It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘Mother.’”

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned and shouted again, and others took up the cry. “Mhysa!” they called. “Mhysa! MHYSA!” They were all smiling at her, reaching for her, kneeling before her.

ASOS Daenerys I

Across the still blue water came the slow steady beat of drums and the soft swish of oars from the galleys. The great cog groaned in their wake, the heavy lines stretched taut between. Balerion’s sails hung limp, drooping forlorn from the masts. Yet even so, as she stood upon the forecastle watching her dragons chase each other across a cloudless blue sky, Daenerys Targaryen was as happy as she could ever remember being.

~

The narrow sea was often stormy, and Dany had crossed it half a hundred times as a girl, running from one Free City to the next half a step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives. She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well. She liked the dolphins that sometimes swam along beside Balerion, slicing through the waves like silvery spears, and the flying fish they glimpsed now and again. She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. Once on a voyage to Braavos, as she’d watched the crew wrestle down a great green sail in a rising gale, she had even thought how fine it would be to be a sailor.

~

They are my children, she told herself, and if the maegi spoke truly, they are the only children I am ever like to have.

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

It was not by choice that she sought the waterfront. She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother’s womb, and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives? But it was run or die. Xaro had learned that Pyat Pree was gathering the surviving warlocks together to work ill on her.

~

Her bloodriders would sooner have returned to their great grass sea, even if it meant braving the red waste again. Dany herself had toyed with the idea of settling in Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grew great and strong.

~

It was good to hear men speaking Valyrian once more, and even the Common Tongue, Dany thought as they approached the first ship.

ACOK Daenerys III

Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference.

~

“...The Qartheen have a curious wedding custom, my queen. On the day of their union, a wife may ask a token of love from her husband. Whatsoever she desires of his worldly goods, he must grant. And he may ask the same of her. One thing only may be asked, but whatever is named may not be denied.”

“One thing,” she repeated. “And it may not be denied?”

“With one dragon, Xaro Xhoan Daxos would rule this city, but one ship will further our cause but little.”

Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men.

ACOK Daenerys II

She wondered whether Aegon’s Red Keep had a pool like this, and fragrant gardens full of lavender and mint. It must, surely. Viserys always said the Seven Kingdoms were more beautiful than any other place in the world.

The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

But before she could do that she must conquer.

A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys VIII

Dany did not want to go back to Vaes Dothrak and live the rest of her life among those terrible old women, yet she knew that the knight spoke the truth. Drogo had been more than her sun-and-stars; he had been the shield that kept her safe. “I will not leave him,” she said stubbornly, miserably. She took his hand again. “I will not.”

~

“All I can do now is ease the dark road before him, so he might ride painless to the night lands. He will be gone by morning.”

Her words were a knife through Dany’s breast. What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? She had finally found a safe place, had finally tasted love and hope. She was finally going home. And now to lose it all ... “No,” she pleaded. “Save him, and I will free you, I swear it. You must know a way ... some magic, some ...”

AGOT Daenerys VI

“The stallion who mounts the world has no need of iron chairs.”

[...] “It was prophesied that the stallion will ride to the ends of the earth,” she said.

“The earth ends at the black salt sea,” Drogo answered at once. He wet a cloth in a basin of warm water to wipe the sweat and oil from his skin. “No horse can cross the poison water.”

“In the Free Cities, there are ships by the thousand,” Dany told him, as she had told him before. “Wooden horses with a hundred legs, that fly across the sea on wings full of wind.”

Khal Drogo did not want to hear it. “We will speak no more of wooden horses and iron chairs.” [...]

Savage beasts he did not fear, nor any man who had ever drawn breath, but the sea was a different matter. To the Dothraki, water that a horse could not drink was something foul; the heaving grey-green plains of the ocean filled them with superstitious loathing. Drogo was a bolder man than the other horselords in half a hundred ways, she had found ... but not in this. If only she could get him onto a ship ...

~

“My princess. How may I serve you?”

“You must talk to my lord husband,” Dany said. “Drogo says the stallion who mounts the world will have all the lands of the earth to rule, and no need to cross the poison water. He talks of leading his khalasar east after Rhaego is born, to plunder the lands around the Jade Sea.”

[...] “The khal has never seen the Seven Kingdoms,” he said. [...]

“But he must ride west,” Dany said, despairing. “Please, help me make him understand.” She had never seen the Seven Kingdoms either, no more than Drogo, yet she felt as though she knew them from all the tales her brother had told her. Viserys had promised her a thousand times that he would take her back one day, but he was dead now and his promises had died with him.

“The Dothraki do things in their own time, for their own reasons,” the knight answered. “Have patience, Princess. Do not make your brother’s mistake. We will go home, I promise you.”

Home? The word made her feel sad. Ser Jorah had his Bear Island, but what was home to her? A few tales, names recited as solemnly as the words of a prayer, the fading memory of a red door ... was Vaes Dothrak to be her home forever? When she looked at the crones of the dosh khaleen, was she looking at her future?

~

You could never tell what treasures the traders might bring this time, and it would be good to hear men speaking Valyrian again, as they did in the Free Cities.

~

If I were not the blood of the dragon, she thought wistfully, this could be my home. She was khaleesi, she had a strong man and a swift horse, handmaids to serve her, warriors to keep her safe, an honored place in the dosh khaleen awaiting her when she grew old ... and in her womb grew a son who would one day bestride the world. That should be enough for any woman ... but not for the dragon. With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget.

~

But the Western Market smelled of home.

As Irri and Jhiqui helped her from her litter, she sniffed, and recognized the sharp odors of garlic and pepper, scents that reminded Dany of days long gone in the alleys of Tyrosh and Myr and brought a fond smile to her face. Under that she smelled the heady sweet perfumes of Lys. She saw slaves carrying bolts of intricate Myrish lace and fine wools in a dozen rich colors. Caravan guards wandered among the aisles in copper helmets and knee-length tunics of quilted yellow cotton, empty scabbards swinging from their woven leather belts. Behind one stall an armorer displayed steel breastplates worked with gold and silver in ornate patterns, and helms hammered in the shapes of fanciful beasts. Next to him was a pretty young woman selling Lannisport goldwork, rings and brooches and torcs and exquisitely wrought medallions suitable for belting. A huge eunuch guarded her stall, mute and hairless, dressed in sweat-stained velvets and scowling at anyone who came close. Across the aisle, a fat cloth trader from Yi Ti was haggling with a Pentoshi over the price of some green dye, the monkey tail on his hat swaying back and forth as he shook his head.

“When I was a little girl, I loved to play in the bazaar,” Dany told Ser Jorah as they wandered down the shady aisle between the stalls. “It was so alive there, all the people shouting and laughing, so many wonderful things to look at ... though we seldom had enough coin to buy anything ... well, except for a sausage now and again, or honeyfingers ... do they have honeyfingers in the Seven Kingdoms, the kind they bake in Tyrosh?”

[...] Her handmaids trailed along as Dany resumed her stroll through the market. “Oh, look,” she exclaimed to Doreah, “those are the kind of sausages I meant.” She pointed to a stall where a wizened little woman was grilling meat and onions on a hot firestone. “They make them with lots of garlic and hot peppers.” Delighted with her discovery, Dany insisted the others join her for a sausage. Her handmaids wolfed theirs down giggling and grinning, though the men of her khas sniffed at the grilled meat suspiciously. “They taste different than I remember,” Dany said after her first few bites.

“In Pentos, I make them with pork,” the old woman said, “but all my pigs died on the Dothraki sea. These are made of horsemeat, Khaleesi, but I spice them the same.”

“Oh.” Dany felt disappointed, but Quaro liked his sausage so well he decided to have another one, and Rakharo had to outdo him and eat three more, belching loudly. Dany giggled.

“You have not laughed since your brother the Khal Rhaggat was crowned by Drogo,” said Irri. “It is good to see, Khaleesi.”

Dany smiled shyly. It was sweet to laugh. She felt half a girl again.

~

She did take a dozen flasks of scented oils, the perfumes of her childhood; she had only to close her eyes and sniff them and she could see the big house with the red door once more.

AGOT Daenerys IV

Every khal had his bloodriders. At first Dany had thought of them as a kind of Dothraki Kingsguard, sworn to protect their lord, but it went further than that. Jhiqui had taught her that a bloodrider was more than a guard; they were the khal’s brothers, his shadows, his fiercest friends. “Blood of my blood,” Drogo called them, and so it was; they shared a single life. The ancient traditions of the horselords demanded that when the khal died, his bloodriders died with him, to ride at his side in the night lands. If the khal died at the hands of some enemy, they lived only long enough to avenge him, and then followed him joyfully into the grave. In some khalasars, Jhiqui said, the bloodriders shared the khal’s wine, his tent, and even his wives, though never his horses. A man’s mount was his own.

Daenerys was glad that Khal Drogo did not hold to those ancient ways. She should not have liked being shared. And while old Cohollo treated her kindly enough, the others frightened her; Haggo, huge and silent, often glowered as if he had forgotten who she was, and Qotho had cruel eyes and quick hands that liked to hurt. He left bruises on Doreah’s soft white skin whenever he touched her, and sometimes made Irri sob in the night. Even his horses seemed to fear him.

Yet they were bound to Drogo for life and death, so Daenerys had no choice but to accept them. And sometimes she found herself wishing her father had been protected by such men. In the songs, the white knights of the Kingsguard were ever noble, valiant, and true, and yet King Aerys had been murdered by one of them, the handsome boy they now called the Kingslayer, and a second, Ser Barristan the Bold, had gone over to the Usurper. She wondered if all men were as false in the Seven Kingdoms. When her son sat the Iron Throne, she would see that he had bloodriders of his own to protect him against treachery in his Kingsguard. ~

“Please, bring me one of the dragon’s eggs.”

Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands. Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside.

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her ... as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. “You are the dragon,” Dany whispered to him, “the true dragon. I know it. I know it.” And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

AGOT Daenerys III

“Have you forgotten who you are? Look at you. Look at you!”

Dany did not need to look. She was barefoot, with oiled hair, wearing Dothraki riding leathers and a painted vest given her as a bride gift. She looked as though she belonged here. Viserys was soiled and stained in city silks and ringmail.

~

“What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?” she asked him.

“Home,” he said. His voice was thick with longing.

“I pray for home too,” she told him, believing it.

Ser Jorah laughed. “Look around you then, Khaleesi.”

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King’s Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind’s eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind’s eye, all the doors were red.

AGOT Daenerys II

Dany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys would be if he saw her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might react. Food was brought to her, steaming joints of meat and thick black sausages and Dothraki blood pies, and later fruits and sweetgrass stews and delicate pastries from the kitchens of Pentos, but she waved it all away. Her stomach was a roil, and she knew she could keep none of it down.

There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language. Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were too far below to hear her.

So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine, afraid to eat, talking silently to herself.

AGOT Daenerys I

When he was gone, Dany went to her window and looked out wistfully on the waters of the bay. The square brick towers of Pentos were black silhouettes outlined against the setting sun. Dany could hear the singing of the red priests as they lit their night fires and the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future and no feast to attend at Khal Drogo’s manse.

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stone rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords. The Dothraki called that land Rhaesh Andahli, the land of the Andals. In the Free Cities, they talked of Westeros and the Sunset Kingdoms. Her brother had a simpler name. “Our land,” he called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear. “Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers.”

And perhaps the dragon did remember, but Dany could not. She had never seen this land her brother said was theirs, this realm beyond the narrow sea. These places he talked of, Casterly Rock and the Eyrie, Highgarden and the Vale of Arryn, Dorne and the Isle of Faces, they were just words to her. Viserys had been a boy of eight when they fled King’s Landing to escape the advancing armies of the Usurper, but Daenerys had been only a quickening in their mother’s womb.

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship’s black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King’s Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper’s dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar’s heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father’s throat with a golden sword.

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper’s brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

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. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

 [...] “We will have it all back someday, sweet sister,” he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. “The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King’s Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back.” Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

~

“Those three are Drogo’s bloodriders, there,” he said. “By the pillar is Khal Moro, with his son Rhogoro. The man with the green beard is brother to the Archon of Tyrosh, and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont.”

The last name caught Daenerys. “A knight?”

“No less.” Illyrio smiled through his beard. “Anointed with the seven oils by the High Septon himself.”

“What is he doing here?” she blurted.

“The Usurper wanted his head,” Illyrio told them. “Some trifling affront. He sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night’s Watch. Absurd law. A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel.”

“I shall wish to speak with Ser Jorah before the night is done,” her brother said. Dany found herself looking at the knight curiously. He was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. Instead of silks and cottons, he wore wool and leather. His tunic was a dark green, embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standing on two legs.

She was still looking at this strange man from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder.

~

“I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I want to go home.”

“Home?” He kept his voice low, but she could hear the fury in his tone. “How are we to go home, sweet sister? They took our home from us!” He drew her into the shadows, out of sight, his fingers digging into her skin. “How are we to go home?” he repeated, meaning King’s Landing, and Dragonstone, and all the realm they had lost.

Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio’s estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him. His fingers dug hard into her arm, demanding an answer. “I don’t know ...” she said at last, her voice breaking. Tears welled in her eyes.

[moralhymn]

Warning, this is pretty long and it’s pretty opinionated, but I had to put this out there, so... Here we go. Shoving it under a cut so people can ignore it if they want.

I don't even know where to begin on the episode. Maybe let's start with the fact that Square took Ardyn's character and just completely rewrote him. In the game, it's a wonderful motivation; he was given these powers by the Astrals to take daemons from people. He was given the chance to help the subjects of his kingdom and he did his best. The motivation he had? It came about from the fact that he took those gifts and used them as he thought was best, for the betterment of the people of the lands, and in return for this selfless crusade in taking in the daemons? Ardyn was rejected by humanity, by the Crystal, by the Astrals, and betrayed by his brother and humankind alike. He went from altruistic healer of the people to this spiteful, vengeance driven creature and he suffered for over two thousand years because of this, all to wait for Noctis to be born and put an end to him. By the end of the game, he's so very tired, you can see it in him, and he did what no other Final Fantasy villain has done; he wins.

Either he wins and Eos burned to the ground and Noctis is dead, or he loses, he gets the peace he wants, and Noctis is still dead. Either way? Ardyn wins. He gets what he wants out of the situation which he’s managed to set up entirely to his advantage. A lot of people made mention of this during the fight against Ardyn and given that I just beat 15 again the other day, there’s an honestly tremendous tragedy in the fight against him. Ardyn is tired. He’s been suffering for his entire life and he’s tired and wants to rest. Noctis finally gives him the chance for this. It was well done and it was gorgeous and it was painful and tragic and just wonderfully done in the vein of the stories where the hero laid his life down to save the people. Given how much 15 drew from such elements, it was wonderful. You saw, in the end, that Ardyn was as much a victim of the Astrals as Noctis was. That they were both used by the gods. You got to understand this motivation about him. And it was brilliant.

The anime prologue took all of this and they rewrote it entirely.

Instead of exploring the many, many options of like - Ardyn's time as a healer or his need for revenge against the Astrals or explaining how this power came to him or any other interesting topic that I would have loved to have been informed on, they decided to go with what was done in the prologue. They took the spite and the vengeance that was interesting and they shoved Ardyn from "fascinating villain who had once been a hero" and that delicious mix of sarcasm and everything and fucked it up by going, instead, with the whole thing of "this is his episode and it's not even about him really it's about this bullshit romance plot that isn't even a subplot but the entire plot and point of his character" instead.

And then there's Aera.

Aera who, quite honestly, had the character development of a blank sheet of paper with maybe a few scribbled lines on there; if you think that’s overstating it, it really isn’t. Her death produced no emotional response in me whatsoever because I certainly couldn’t find it in myself to be attached to a person without any personality or substance. She was made specifically to just be killed off by Square. Who was, somehow, the first Oracle and founder of the Fleuret line and yet died. All to make Ardyn's motivation for taking down the Lucis Caelum family manpain. Because, apparently, he was in love with a woman he treated with distant politeness and displayed no interest in whatsoever. And while people are saying that he was in love with her, due to how he reacted when she died, that's not good enough. If I had seen someone I cared about being hurt in such a fashion, I'd be losing my shit too; doesn't matter if I only love them or am in love with them. I'd be losing my goddamn mind trying to help them.

Also, there's the fact that she was there, conveniently, to be cut down exactly when she was. You specifically see a shot of Gilgamesh barring her from interfering when Somnus and Ardyn begin hacking at one another and yet, again, for the sake of manpain and angst and convenience, somehow she's in the way when Somnus takes that one cut at Ardyn and he gets to see her falling down and then, again for the sake of shitty plot convenience, she dies in his arms. Huge amount of horseshit right there.

Now, see, if this woman was so important to Ardyn, then surely he would've mentioned her in the game, right? At some point she would have come up. But given that they made her up for the sake of aforementioned manpain and "ardyn's being driven to revenge because his girlfriend died", I just genuinely cannot accept her right now. But in all the datamined information and everything else that people have combed through for the game and whatnot, there's absolutely zilch mention of her at any point, so that furthers the whole fact that she was created JUST to be killed and provide Ardyn with this NEW motivation that he apparently is going through due to what they're saying in the prologue which is a crock of ridiculousness that has me so fucking angry.

Another reason why I'm angry over the prologue is that this whole romance plot was forced upon Ardyn outright and the people who ship Ardyn and Aera have seemed really obnoxious about this. They took this character who had very understandable motivations for his wrath and whatnot and boiled it down to the trope of "het relationship where woman dies for sake of revenge" in 2019. In 20-fucking-19. One artist I follow said that people wouldn't have been upset if it'd been a gay relationship where Ardyn's lover died, if it had been a man or Gilgamesh, since people do ship Gilgardyn, but yes, yes, we would be. We'd be mad because he had been interesting before due to the lack of 'romance hurr lover died hurr revenge revenge revenge hurr'. We’d be mad because gay character death is an awful plot device that too much fiction relies upon. We’d be mad if it was romance, period, because that just does a lot of damage to Ardyn’s character, in my opinion, thanks to the fact that they went with the whole romance thing.

Now, before someone gets offended at me and goes but this is because you’re a shipper and doesn’t this interfere with your ships? and all that, no, this isn’t the reason why I’m angry over the romance. I sincerely believe that had Square given us more than thirteen convoluted minutes of unreliable narration, had they given us time and development on the relationship, then it would be alright. Sort of. I wouldn’t be happy about it, still, because Square obviously pulled this out of their ass, but I could accept it far more easily than I can accept what they gave us in the form of the prologue.

Romance has its time and its place, however, with all of that being said - and I do not believe that it was needed in the prologue. Yes, I can understand the whole “Ardyn was a prince, he would probably have had a betrothed” aspect going on, but making it Aera and pulling all of what they did was such a shit show that I look at the way that they wrote Luna and Noctis and how beautiful that was done ( and I will defend all Noctis ships to the death except one that I don’t ship and will never ship, so leave me be with how much I love LuNoct. ) and then at the prologue and it’s just very, very jarring. It’s very sexist. They made a female character up and then killed her off for the sake of a man feeling emotional pain and nothing more, nothing less. She wasn’t a person. She was just a fluffy bit of plot device they decided to weld, badly, into the canon.

And people are saying that this humanizes Ardyn. People who were apparently fans of his before. And that has me so fucking angry too.

Because anger and spite are very, very human emotions. Ardyn was already humanized. He was already showing such emotions and he did. Not. NEED. A ROMANCE SUBPLOT. TO MAKE HIM SEEM "HUMAN". Ardyn had plenty of motivation. He had so much of it before and to shove this bullshit onto his character and have people say it makes Ardyn more human? It doesn’t. If Aera had actually been intended from the start of the game, if she had actually been important to him, then he would have mentioned her at least once I imagine, if she was actually the reason behind his need to stick it out for two thousand years and destroy his brother’s bloodline. For him to never make mention of her, once, would have made him less human and less relatable as a person. But of course, Square is retconing this, so we’re supposed to just accept it for what it is right now.

The fact that people are flocking to Ardyn now, at all, because he has this "uwu tragic baby angsty baby" facet to his portrayal by Square is outright infuriating. It's taken his character and it's warped it and mucked it up and it was extremely unnecessary for Square to do this. Ardyn was a gorgeous character who had once been a helper and a healer, who was wronged, who wanted retribution for what was done to him. There was no reason for Aera and the romance, none whatsoever, and that really got me so mad. Like, I had been hoping Square wasn't going to do that, low-key anticipating that they would, and was quite disappointed. Ardyn didn't need a love interest to give him reason for his revenge. He already had reason enough due to what had happened to him. Giving Ardyn the bullshit reason of what Square’s saying he had in terms of ‘my brother killed my girlfriend’ is just a genuine insult, not just to Ardyn’s character, but to Aera’s as well.

Now, I know I can’t make an entire judgement on things before Ardyn’s DLC drops, not on his relationship with things, not on Aera, none of that - but there are a lot of issues with the prologue that I am genuinely hoping will be expanded on in the episode and resolved. And if shipping Ardyn with Aera makes you happy, then do so! There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not my cup of tea, I will admit, but not because it’s a hetero ship. It’s because there’s nothing evocative in there for me. However, I am honestly concerned that they’ll keep her undeveloped and nothing more than a creation of fluff and a couple lines and I’m pretty sure they’ll give us nothing of her personality or motivations or anything of what she wanted or any background and that she’ll be there only for Ardyn to be inspired by her death as Square’s making him out to be. I imagine that Somnus will get more development than she will. I’m pretty sure Somnus will have more development than she will.

Who knows, though? I may be pleasantly surprised. But I am genuinely not holding my breath at this moment in time on that.

All I’m saying is that, as much as people seem to be gleeful that Ardyn has a canon ship? Please look at how Square’s set this up and please see how poorly they’ve written this. I know people will make attempts to fix it in fic and art, but the fact remains that this was very poorly written and that it’s utterly bullshit that Square decided to go with the whole “dead woman for man’s pain and motivation” route and that there are so many reasons why it’s worth being mad at this.

Please see that Square really fucked up with doing this to Ardyn and to Aera.

[tyrantisterror]

The Godzilla vs. Megalon of Jurassic Park Movies

My opinion on JW:FK hasn’t really changed so much as it has been refined.  I still think it’s a VERY flawed film, and that acknowledging and analyzing those flaws is beneficial to me as a person who cares about monster stories.  I also still love isolated parts of it, and in fact love them even more despite the fact that the flaws that sit alongside them in this film are just as glaring as they were before.  Sometimes you can both like a thing and yet also focus on its failings.

I was trying to think of a way to better articulate my feelings about the movie because I’m worried people have the impression that I hated it because, y’know, I talked a lot (and will continue to talk a lot) about it’s story telling problems.  I think I found a way to express my true feelings by way of comparison.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the Godzilla vs. Megalon of Jurassic Park movies.

Godzilla vs. Megalon was the first Godzilla movie I ever saw, and to this day it is one of my favorite entries in the franchise.  I loved this movie as a kid - absolutely adored it, to the point where it started a lifelong obsession that has only grown stronger with age.  I cannot overstate the profound emotional effect this movie had on my life.

It is also, objectively and inarguably, one of the worst Godzilla films ever made.  Probably one of the worst kaiju movies in general.  Some have even called it  one of the worst films of all time (though I think that’s incredibly unfair to Godzilla vs. Megalon and also woefully underestimates how bad movies can be.  I spent my teenage years actively seeking out shitty films, so I feel qualified to voice that as an expert opinion on the matter).

Godzilla vs. Megalon was shoddily made.  Its plot is cobbled together from pieces of previous Toho movies - a rehash of Godzilla vs. Gigan and Atragon, essentially - and in a way that is nowhere near elegant enough to keep you from thinking about the better versions of this basic story that already existed in Godzilla canon.  Its low budget results in an over-reliance on stock footage that is edited in an ridiculously clumsy manner.  None of the characters really develop, and a lot of the scenes don’t make a whole lot of sense.  It is campy as all hell and has some utterly absurd plot developments that make for a very inconsistent tone.  It is an indisputably bad movie.

And yet... I love Godzilla vs. Megalon.  I loved it at first sight, and that love endures to this day.  I have seen hundreds of better films than it, and yet I love it more than most of them.

I love Godzilla vs. Megalon because, for all its faults, it has some incredibly endearing qualities.  Some of them are objectively great - the shot of Godzilla and Jet Jaguar surrounded by a circle of fire while Gigan and Megalon menacingly watch them from outside it is an iconic visual, and one of the best special effects shots in the Godzilla series.  There are aspects of it that I think come down to personal taste - a lot of people hate the anthropomorphism of the kaiju in this movie, but honestly I love the idea of a Godzilla who heroically comes to humanity’s rescue from cackling villains at the bidding of a grinning robot named Jet Fucking Jaguar.

And there are some things in this movie that are, well, terrible, but also kind of glorious in how fucking crazy and ill conceived they are.  Is the infamous tail sliding scene a piece of high art?  No, it’s... it’s such a goofy, stupid decision.  Would my life and, indeed, the world itself be significantly less beautiful without that moment of cheesy insanity in it?  Yes.  I believe we would be less impressive as a species if that moment - that scene of Godzilla sliding on his tail to kick Megalon in the dick, TWICE - had never been made.  Humanity is greater for having made it.  It’s terrible, but wonderful.

And that’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom too.  It’s got moments that I genuinely believe are some of the best in the franchise.  It has moments that a lot of people would deride for being “goofy” or “weird” that I personally love because that’s the kind of person I am.  It has a REALLY bad script - just.... just a lot of REALLY big, glaring storytellling issues.  A lot of them.  Tons.  Many that are basic fucking aspects of story telling.

And it has a plethora of moments that are really bad but also really great at the same time - moments that are both horrible and wonderful in how stupid and insane they are.  Truly it is the Godzilla vs. Megalon of the Jurassic Park franchise.

And since I know some of you will ask about it:

Jurassic Park is the Godzilla (1954) of the Jurassic Park franchise.  Both are masterpieces that are landmarks in both the monster movie and horror genres, and also film in general.  Both have some very prevalent flaws (Jurassic Park, like all Spielberg films, has some truly staggering continuity errors, while Godzilla has a couple of scenes that were VERY sloppily edited because of the film’s rushed production schedule and limited budget), and yet both have virtues that are so strong they more than make up for it.  They are rightfully considered classics, and it is an unfortunate truth that none of the sequels will ever be able to shake off the shadow these two films cast.  There just isn’t a way they can be topped.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is the Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster of the Jurassic Park franchise.  It has a way worse reputation than it deserves, and a lot of people - even fans of the franchise - will parrot the many criticisms they’d heard of the movie without actually critically watching it themselves.  Despite its reputation, the movie is actually a LOT better than you’d think, with a lot of creative ideas that take the franchise in a very different direction than the earlier entr(y/ies), and while the change in direction may feel a bit odd at first, it ultimately opened up the story to a lot of new possibilities.  Still flawed, yes, but worth far more than most give it credit for.

Jurassic Park III is the Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla of Jurassic Park movies, in that it’s a mediocre story whose main problem is that it doesn’t really have, like, a reason to exist beyond a desire to get more money from the franchise.  It does nothing to shake up the formula, going through the motions of previous entries except without any enthusiasm or soul.  There are worse movies, sure, but you can feel everyone’s lack of motivation while watching it - everyone and everything involved is keenly aware that there’s not really an artistic reason to be here, and as a result it feels like the movie equivalent of eating stale potato chips.

Jurassic World is... hard to place, honestly.  Maybe the Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II (i.e. the 1990′s one) of the Jurassic Park movies?  That’s at least apt for me - I absolutely loved that film when I first saw it, but upon repeated viewings I slowly realized that it was actually a lot worse than I wanted it to be, and that there was really only one element in the movie that made me love it so much when I first saw it - and unlike, say, Godzilla vs. Megalon, that aspect was nowhere near as prominent as it needed to be.  I still dearly love that one piece of the movie, but my opinion on the movie as a whole has soured considerably.

[minaminokyoko]

A Love Letter to Black Panther

Disclaimer: Y'all gon' get tired of hearing me scream, "WAKANDA FOREVERRRRRRR!"

Because I mean it. Bless this movie, man. This is everything I have ever dreamt of seeing from a black superhero with an all black cast. They couldn't have done a better job. This movie is a vision, fully realized. It's going to leave a very important impact on pop culture at large and I am so here for that. I've been a black nerd since birth, and to be given a big budget film with a 90% black cast that is backed by a studio giant is so gratifying I can see why some people left the theater in tears of joy. It's not that we haven't had black films before that did well. It's not that we're not giving credit to Blade for being a (mostly) successful film franchise with a black hero at the helm. It's all the elements lining up from having Ryan Coogler direct to grabbing actually African cast members to being marketed during the Superbowl--which is the most expensive ad time you can buy on television--to seeing an amazing integration of tradition, science fiction, and modern topics that are relevant to the black community. I sound like I'm overstating things, but I truly am so happy with how this film turned out. It wasn't a cheap cash grab. It was a genuine attempt to weave a story about African and black culture based around a whole lot of ass-whuppin' and I can't wait to dive in. Follow me, Wakandans.

Naturally, spoiler alert.

Let's start with the man himself, the King of Wakanda, T'Challa. First of all, I knew I'd love him since Civil War. Most people went for Tony or Steve and came out of that movie going, "OH MY GOD BLACK PANTHER IS THE FUCKING BADDEST I CANNOT WAIT FOR HIS SOLO MOVIE DUDE." We all knew he was a total badass, but what I left this movie with was a sincere love for the mercy and compassion he showed us in this film. It's very easy in a position with that kind of power to let it corrupt you and become jaded, but the gestures he made in this film were so lovely. I love that he was outraged by his father trying to erase history with what happened to his uncle and cousin. He was genuinely angry and hurt by it all and in the end, he showed so much kindness by letting Kilmonger see the sunrise before he died that it was honestly touching. I love T'Challa because he has such a big heart. It’s an incredibly important perspective to provide, as much of the world still sees black men as angry, dangerous thugs incapable of kindness. He has flaws as well, like his anger issues and naivete, and that's what makes his journey so compelling. It's very easy to write a royalty character as above it all, but that's why Thor: Ragnarok was so well received recently: they knocked Thor off his princely pedestal and brought him down to our level. We understand what T'Challa is going through even though we aren't royalty. He has a homeland to protect and a family to look after in his father's absence, much like we have our own responsibilities trying to tug us in a thousand different ways. I love that he challenged his father and brought about a new era, extending his help to the world. T'Challa is an excellent character and Chadwick Boseman did a hell of a job with him.

As a black woman, you know what's coming next. My girls Nakia, Okoye, and Shuri. Where do I even start? First of all, let me raise my fist for some lovely dark-skinned women getting the spotlight in a major superhero film franchise. Now, don't get me wrong--I absolutely freaking LOVED Tessa Thompson in Thor: Ragnarok. She slayed. But my heart is just bursting with pride at these beautiful badass women who are given weight, agency, and attention in this film. I have absolutely nothing against light-skinned women at all, but I do acknowledge that they tend to get roles easier than dark-skinned women because society still has this idiotic aversion to them because of the establishment's idea of beauty. It was such a rush to see each woman on screen having inner conflict and deciding what side of the line they would stand on. I love Nakia's stubborn nature and her hesitance to join the fray, but the second T'Challa was gone, she switched into spy mode and she did the damn thing. She saved the people who cared about her, she saved Ross, and she stood up for her country as well as the other people out there who needed her help. You are a diamond, Nakia. Okoye is probably going to come out of this film as the runaway favorite, if you ask me. I mean, Danai Gurira is already worshiped for her role as the amazing Michonne on The Walking Dead, but seeing her here, slicing and stabbing and beating the tar out of everyone while struggling with her loyalty to the Wakandan throne just gives me all the feels. I adored her sharp tongue and her grumpy frown and her impossible awesomeness. Then there's Shuri. I can't express my delight with her. She was such an adorable, witty addition to the team. I fully admit that I fell for the low-hanging fruit: the "WHAT ARE THOOOOOOOSE!" joke was hilarious even though I know no one over the age of thirty is going to have a single clue what she was referencing. I loved her calling Ross "colonizer." Shuri was throwing shade left and right and it was glorious. Furthermore, having her be the gadget gal of the film was brilliantly done. I loved her enthusiasm and her amazing tech. I loved that she bravely fought even though she was inexperienced. She was such a great character and I look forward to seeing beautiful little girls idolizing her mind and her strength in the future.

Kilmonger is definitely one of the strongest villains in the MCU so far. Most people ding Marvel for having thin villains, and that's not an unfair assessment. In my opinion, it's Cutting Room Floor issues. When you have to tell a story in two and a half hours, sometimes there's just too much content that you're excited to fit in and you just can't get it in there, so you take out chunks related to the villain to avoid the hero having an unsatisfying character arc. It's not a great idea, because then your villain isn't three dimensional and it can diminish the overall enjoyment of the film. Kilmonger is the answer to that problem. He had a reason for what he did, and while it wasn't an excuse for his cruelty, it definitely made you think about the fact that every good villain is a hero in his own mind. Kilmonger's plan even tempted someone in T'Challa's camp because it had a serious amount of relevance not only to Africans but black people all over the world. Wanting to stomp out oppression, especially in this day and age, is a trap I think a lot of people can fall into. I love the almost Shakespearean tragedy of it all, that maybe this could have been avoided if T'Chaka stayed behind and explained to the boy where he came from and that he had no choice. It probably wouldn't have worked, but just abandoning the kid with his dead father was ice-cold, and it's more tragic that it was done out of good intentions in T'Chaka's mind. I love that T'Challa sympathized with Erik and even offered to save him in the end. That has weight. That's excellent writing. I do admit, though, that Michael B. Jordan is definitely a young actor, because he was hamming it up pretty hard in certain scenes, but overall the kid did well with the role.

The costume design and scenery were just breathtaking. Man, I love the visuals we got to see. African culture is so vibrant and interesting. I'm really delighted knowing millions of people will get some exposure to all the different aspects and traditions it has to offer.

The soundtrack is killer. From the score to the tracks, it was done truly well.

Andy Serkis as Claw (although I don't appreciate the bait and switch, I can live with it; Marvel always kills their villains that are not Loki and even he is probably going to die in Infinity War). I knew he was an oddball in Age of Ultron, but damn, was he a complete nutcase. I appreciate how completely insane he was the whole time with no real explanation as to why. The simple glee on his face when he giggles, "I made it rain!" was just flawless. He might have the market corned for wackiest Marvel villain thus far. I'm sad that we only got to enjoy two performances from Serkis, but they were still entertaining as hell.

The action sequences had me floored. This is one thing I've always adored about Marvel films. The pacing is always excellent and they know how to wow you. If you follow me at all, you'll know one of the numerous reasons I hated the Justice League movie is that there was NO imagination in ANY of the fight scenes. Black Panther offers some of the best and most creative scenes to enjoy, from hand to hand combat to flipping cars with a fucking vibranium spear. I was cringing and twitching in my seat like I was playing a VR of Tekken, for God's sake. These fight scenes were so well done (though I will ding the film for lighting issues; the jungle scene suffered badly from that problem, as did at least one other one to my chagrin) and I loved everyone's various weapons and fighting styles.

MY BOY BUCKY AT THE END CREDITS YOOOOOOOO. I am infatuated with the idea that the Wakandans analyzed him and have been slowly helping him recover from being brainwashed and abused. It made my cold, petrified heart all warm inside when he smiled and looked out over the water. I just want Bucky to be happy, okay?! Leave me alone!

Well, I've gone on long enough, haven't I? I regret nothing, honestly. This is like The Dark Knight all over again: one of those rare instances when the hype for something was so crazy that we were sure it couldn't deliver, but not only did it deliver, it kicked the hell out of all expectations. I can't wait to see where the road will lead from here. My wish and hope is that this movie does so damn well that Hollywood opens its damned eyes and listens to what we have been saying since the beginning: we want diversity and we want it well done and we want it now. Stop relying on the old ideals of a market that we outgrew decades ago. Black people are just as complex and interesting as everyone else on the planet, and it's time you woke up. We've been doing it ourselves with all kinds of various projects from comic books to novels to short films and you can either lead, follow, or get out the way, as Jidenna once said. Your move, Hollywood.

WAKANDA FOREVER.

[retrogaming-archive]

Review for Super Mario Bros. for the NES

The 8 bit era is not known for it's polish in game design. With the bear endless amount of classics, such as Castlevania, Mega Man, Kirby's Adventure, ect, we nearly uniformly accept that a certain amount of jank and typical of the era questionable, even amateurish design. It just comes with the territory, and it's not a bad thing. Part of appreciating art and the evolution of an artistic medium is accepting it's flaws and learning from them.

Such is not the case with Super Mario Bros., which is as near to a perfect game as was possible of the era. The exquisite feel and visceral satisfaction of the game and of mastering Mario's weight and momentum is unmatched in the NES, save for it's very own sequel, Mario 3.

It almost feels like a copout to say that SMB is a fun game, that it's level design is impeccable, that it's influence was monumental, historic and all encompassing. It's an incredibly safe opinion to have, not least because it's true. Donkey Kong was the first ever platforming video game, but it was Super Mario Bros. that wholely defined the genre, on top of the medium and industry. I will not go into it here as the facts are well documented elsewhere, but the existence of this game is as to the gaming industry as gunpower was to ancient warfare.

There's a timelessness to the aesthetics and the gameplay that give this game longevity beyond it's historical importance. Forgoing the prose for a moment, if you'll forgive me, this game's sO FUCKING FUN Holy FUCK you guys!!

Ahem, and it remains the one NES game among all others that I can play nearly perpetually. There are other games that I respect more, that I am more interested in, that I even love more, but the sheer playability of this game is absolute, and cannot be overstated.

Of course, then the question comes up as to how to play it. Original hardware is always nice, but NES emulation is always a very good option. I recommend the NEStopia emulator, and wowroms.com is, at last glance, a safe site to use, if you know how to navigate pop up adds, and it is where I download most of my games. Remember to use your addblock.

Goomba/10, would play again, needs more Princess Daisy.

[pathfindersemail]

Omg you are so kind nonny (wink wink i know who you are lol).

The fact that you decided to ask lil ole me these questions about Dr. Harry Carlyle isn’t lost on me. This of course means you value my opinion; that you find something worthy in what I infer; and that perhaps you see my interpretation of the character worth comparing to yours. I’m by no means overstating it when I say this is a really high piece of compliment I received, and I think it’s also a testament to how good Bioware is at writing side characters (and how bad they are at expanding the universe and lore for them!). 

With all that out of the way, I want to emphasize that everyone should join in with their thoughts and answers as to the character of Harry Calyle. Make a post and tag me, because I am curious what y’all think. I also cannot repeat enough that this is my headcanon, and that whatever I come up with is mere speculation.

So here goes! Read below the cut as this is a long post!

[Warning this post contains NSFW responses]

Answers for lower screenshot:

1. LOL his hair is probably dark brown/black. He’s old up above but young beneath the sheets, feel me? ;)

2. Same answer to the nethers. Like wiry black pubes is what I’m thinking here.

3. Oh my god he had to be a good cook. I imagine anyone who had to go through med school probably picked up real good extreme survival skills, like learning how to make cantonese style noodles from ramen packs lmao. I’d also imagine that - like most doctors - Harry had a more privileged upbringing, so he is probably a food connoisseur and likes to experiment with white wine sauces and shit.

4. Oh he’s totally up for breaks. He may have been a workalic when he was younger, but at this point in his career he sits back, relaxes, and knows when he’s earned it.

5. Well, technically if we’re pairing him with Ryder, I’m afraid one of his kinks includes dating younger people. Usually older men dating younger people have made a pattern out of it somehow (or at least relishes a similar dynamic). I don’t mean to pathologize the good doctor because i love him too, but that’s primarily why I see this ship as a sinking angst ship

6. ASS. Harry is an ASS MAN.

7. Oh yeah I definitely think he has an ex wife who left him like 10 years ago because he was more in love with his work than he was with her.

8. Morning: he gets up to jog around the block before lifting some manageable weights (because like shut up I don’t need a reason to imagine this). Also am I the only one who like HCs that Harry must have lived at one point in Orange County, CA, went on morning jogs near the beach?????

1. Idk and never thought about what Harry’s parents were called. I’d imagine it was something incredibly boring like “Dolores and Harold”

2. This is gon sound fucked up but I hc’ed he nicknames Ryder “kiddo”

3. Shower. Shower. ... because I have thoughts about this LOL

4. OF COURSE HE DID. Who the fuck lifts crates like that in front of two gorgeous people all the while adding in a hip swing?

5. No I think he’s an only child. It would explain his sibling bond/friendship with Lexi imo

6. I think Harry would be a big fan of like critically acclaimed classics/movies that make it to the criterion edition. I bet you he loves Ingmar Bergman or some other auteur like Hitchcock.

7. I think Alec would kill him. Tbh if I were Sara’s parent, I would kill him. because tbf why isn’t he dating someone his own age? Why does he connect with someone so much younger? Is it all just for sex? is he objectifying my kid? Fetishizing them? taking advantage of their younger years? Like I feel like any good parent would think those things, and I think kid!Ryder has to make a really strong case for Alec not to kill Harry.

8. I think at first Harry is a bit worried about what SAM can do, in the same way most people fear something that appears omnipotent and unrestrained. However, I think spending more time with Ryder will get Harry used to SAM. He’ll appreciate his sarcastic humor (which both of them have tbh), and who knows he might grow to get addicted to how helpful SAM is on medical stuff too.

9. I think Harry likes a good reverse cowgirl or doggy style over the kitchen sink/office desk

I MEAN WHAT