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rainhadaenerys · 4 years ago

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A Response to the Dany/Sansa "Pawn to Player" meta

@lordofthesevenkingdoms and I talk a lot, and we usually discuss metas that we read. Some time ago, he showed me this meta from the "Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa Stark" project, named "The Mother Role Model and Its Impact on Character Development: The Case of Daenerys and Sansa". This meta is a very good example of how Sansa stans have been demeaning and mischaracterizing Dany to prop up Sansa for a long time.

Some people seem to have this notion that Sansa stans attacking Dany is a new phenomenon in the fandom. Some seem to think that the fight between Sansa stans and Dany stans only started because of the show and because of shipping wars (Jonsa vs Jonerys), and that book Sansa stans/non-Jonsa stans were always angels that never hated, demeaned or mischaracterized Dany. This meta that @lordofthesevenkingdoms showed me is an example of how this is not true, how Sansa stans attacking other characters like Dany to prop up their fave has always been a thing. The meta compares Dany and Sansa to talk about how Dany supposedly "lacks" as a mother because she doesn't have female influences in her life like Sansa, how Dany supposedly is a failure as a politician and diplomat because she lacked those influences, and, of course, how Sansa is better than Dany.

This actually isn't a meta I was planning to write. I just wrote a lot of rage comments as I was reading, so I decided to post them. Basically, this is me commenting all the stupids ideas in almost every paragraph of this meta.

First, a comment I made in a paragraph from the meta right before this one (because they're all in the same page and I ended up reading the end of the meta that comes before the Dany/Sansa one)

Westeros will receive but it doesn’t need any more kings and queens fighting for power and a throne. While there’s no doubt that Sansa would make a competent Queen who would employ love, and not fear, to inspire her subjects’ devotion, the evidence in her arc highlights that her power will not reside in traditional Queenship, but expressed through the aims of peacemaking. As we saw with Jon, Westeros needs peacemakers: people who can resist violence and reconcile differences.

Wtf. "No doubt Sansa would make a competent queen"??? Where did we see this? When did Sansa rule anything for us to have "no doubt" that she would be competent? Oh, because she said once that she would want to be loved if she was a queen? I'm sorry, but thinking "I want to be loved" doesn't guarantee that one will be competent, and love isn't all that is needed for a ruler (Dany is loved by her people, but that didn't make her queenship easy). Not to mention that this description of Jon's arc is already too simplistic. Jon's arc isn't about just "being a peacemaker". Jon's arc, just like Dany's, tackles both the benefits and the downsides of both peace and war, and love and duty. It isn't as simple as "peace=good, war=bad". This meta that came before the Dany/Sansa one isn't even about Dany, but we already see the digs at Dany here. "Westeros doesn't need more people fighting for power" (but it's totally ok if my fave fights for power/Winterfell, huh?), "Westeros needs peacemakers" (unlike that Dragon bitch that is incapable of peace and is good only for war) "Sansa will use love and not fear" (unlike that dragon bitch that uses fear to rule in the imaginary alternative ASOIAF book that I read). You can try to defend them by saying that the meta isn't saying this, but it's very much implied (especially considering that this meta already talks about "mothering", something the Dany/Sansa meta will accuse Dany of not being good at), and it was these ideas that were used for years to vilify Dany.

The Vale’s army: Could be deployed as a sort of peacekeeping force; I don’t see a scenario where they trek North to reclaim Sansa’s birthright as LF foretold. Doing so would mean going to war, starting with the death of SR. It’s fundamentally incompatible in light of Sansa’s personal and political mothering efforts.

*rolls eyes* This is ridiculous. So war=bad, it's the great wisdom Sansa stans keep repeating. So much that Sansa won't even go to war to reclaim Winterfell. I guess Sansa will just ask the Boltons politely to give her Winterfell and they will be so impressed by her political genius and courtesy and "mothering" that they will just give it to her. Or, most likely, Sansa will get Winterfell because Stannis has already reconquered it, which is a very convenient way to keep Sansa's hands clean, and it also makes it very convenient for Sansa stans to vilify any character (like Dany) who needs to go to war, who won't just be given things in a silver platter because of narrative convenience.

So yeah, I just commented on these two paragraphs that came before the Dany/Sansa meta because they already set the tone for the criticism that the next meta will level against Dany. You will see the same stupid logic and arguments being used against Dany. So let's start with the Dany/Sansa meta properly. I'll skip the first paragraphs of the meta because they are just describing obvious stuff like "Dany had no home, Sansa had a home, Dany had no mother role, Sansa had a mother role, Dany had no education, Sansa had an education", etc.

Much is made of Sansa’s initial naïveté regarding stories, but Dany only gets those stories as a wedding gift from Ser Jorah; she lacks even fairy tales as basic guidance. (to contextualize, the meta is trying to say that Dany has no experience or education, and therefore is unprepared while Sansa is prepared, blah, blah, blah)

Uhh, first, what's the evidence of this??? I find it incredibly unlikely that Dany has never heard a fairy tale in her life before she was given those books. Viserys certainly heard and knew fairy tales. And in fact, Dany tells her how he told her tales of the Seven Kingdoms:

Viserys had been stupid and vicious, she had come to realize, yet sometimes she missed him all the same. Not the cruel weak man he had become by the end, but the brother who had sometimes let her creep into his bed, the boy who told her tales of the Seven Kingdoms, and talked of how much better their lives would be once he claimed his crown. - Daenerys I ASOS

And we know that Viserys has taught Dany a lot about the history and culture of Westeros and the Targaryens (see here and here), so there's no reason to believe that Dany has never heard a story in her life. We also have other examples of Dany stating that she knows many songs and stories:

She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. - Daenerys I ASOS

One of her forebears, the third Aegon, had seen his own mother devoured by his uncle's dragon. And there were songs beyond count of villages and kingdoms that lived in dread of dragons till some brave dragonslayer rescued them. - Daenerys II ADWD

So this idea that Dany never heard songs and stories is ridiculous, and Dany doesn't lack any of that formative experience. This is not something that Sansa has and Dany doesn't.

When she initially finds Vaes Tolorro, a mother’s choice, a place to plant trees, she doesn’t embrace it as a home. She only embraces Meereen as “home” after seeing the destruction her intended method of claiming King’s Landing has brought upon Astapor.

Ugh. What is Dany's supposed "intended method" to claim King's Landing and Astapor? War? I guess Dany should have asked politely for the slavers to give up on slavery. I guess this shows how bad Dany is in comparison to Sansa, huh? I bet if Sansa was here, she would have used her charm and courtesy and would have convinced the slavers that slavery is bad, right? Unlike bad Dany who uses violence. It's the same argument that Sansa stans use to vilify Dany nowadays: violence=bad, Dany=violence, Dany=bad. These old metas were already creating this sort of mentality in the fandom, so this idea that book Sansa stans were angels before show stans and Jonsas happened is nonsense. Not to mention that this is a huge misunderstanding of the political, economical and military situation in Astapor. First, it was not Dany's "methods" that caused destruction in Astapor. The destruction of Astapor was caused by the slavers. Blaming Dany for this is blaming Dany for the actions of the slavers (a tendency that this fandom has, as this meta explains). Also, Dany's failure in Astapor has nothing to do with her "bad methods/violence" of conquering Astapor/how she plans to conquer King's Landing. Dany's failure was because she lacked experience to know that she needed to leave a garrison in Astapor, and none of her advisors advised her on this (see more here and here).

The role of Mother is defined by children and “home” is the place in the world a mother makes for those children. Dany didn’t recognize a home when she stumbled upon it because she never truly had one. With no female role models at all, she can only rely on the meager guidance of the two male figures who came closest to providing her with safety—Viserys and Khal Drogo. So it is little wonder she tries to carve out a place for her children with fire and blood.

What a bunch of bullshit. So for Dany to prove that she is a "real mother", she has to decide to stay in Vaes Tolorro, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere? Dany wanting more for herself (and for her people) is somehow a sign that she is not a "good mother", that she "doesn't recognize a home". UUUUGH. I wonder what Sansa would have done (since this essay seems to try to argue that Sansa is somehow a better mother figure than Dany because she had a mother figure that Dany didn't have). If Sansa was in Dany's place, would she have stayed in Vaes Tolorro? Would Sansa have stayed in the middle of nowhere, since this essay seems to say that this is what Dany should have done and that Sansa is better than Dany? Something tells me that Sansa would not be very content to stay in the middle of nowhere. In fact, we have quite a few examples of how Sansa would not be content with a place so desolated:

Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth. - Sansa I AGOT

“Cheerful, is it not? I fear there’s no safe anchorage here. We’ll put ashore in a boat.”

“Here?” She did not want to go ashore here. The Fingers were a dismal place, she’d heard, and there was something forlorn and desolate about the little tower. “Couldn’t I stay on the ship until we make sail for White Harbor?”

[...]

Sansa, but you are no longer a child. You’re a woman grown, and you need to make your own home.”

“But not here,” she said, dismayed. “It looks so . . .”

“. . . small and bleak and mean? It’s all that, and less. The Fingers are a lovely place, if you happen to be a stone. But have no fear, we shan’t stay more than a fortnight. I expect your aunt is already riding to meet us.” He smiled. “The Lady Lysa and I are to be wed.” - Sansa VI ASOS

The essay says bullshit like "'home' is the place in the world a mother makes for those children", implying that Dany is incapable of "making her own home" while Sansa is capable (because how dare Dany not want to live in the middle of the desert), but Sansa, when told she needs to "make her own home", rejects the idea of staying in a desolate place. So yeah, this argument of this essay makes no sense and has no ground to stand on.

Sansa is quite different. In an emotionally cruel captivity in King’s Landing, she can find comfort in the Sept and the godswood, both religious traditions and beliefs that recall her parents with the latter also being a strong reminder of home itself. She never simply yearns for the place but also the company of family and the people of Winterfell in general.

Another bullshit. Sansa doesn't feel at home in King's Landing (or in the Eyrie, for that matter). In fact, she constantly yearns to return home, specifically, to Winterfell (a place):

Home, she thought, home, he is going to take me home, he'll keep me safe, my Florian. - Sansa II ACOK

I pray for Robb's victory and Joffrey's death . . . and for home. For Winterfell. - Sansa III ACOK

"That will need to be determined. For the moment, you shall remain here at court, as our ward."

"I want to go home." - Sansa VIII ACOK

"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."

"But . . . my lord, you said . . . you said we were sailing home." - Sansa VI ASOS

"As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home."

She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell. - Sansa VII ASOS

The Eyrie was no home. - Sansa VII ASOS

So this idea that Sansa "never simply yearns for the place" is bullshit. And Dany also wants family and company just like Sansa. I won't bother to show examples here because @lordofthesevenkingdoms has already made a huge compilation of the moments of Dany yearning for company here.

She is able to tap into memories of Bran while she encourages Tommen.

Uhh, Dany also has memories of her brother. Not to mention that, if the argument here is that Sansa's positive memories of her family inspire her to be a good person (like encouraging Tommmen), then it's an idiot argument, because Dany doesn't have as many positive memories and yet she is still a good person. She didn't need her family to inspire herself to be a good person, she became a good and kind person by herself. So the lack of these "memories" was in no way detrimental to Dany and in no way made Sansa better than Dany.

She is able to disregard her surrogate mother Cersei’s advice because she has a different role model in Cat (something Dany can’t do with MMD or the Green Grace because these are her first real female encounters ever).

???? No…? lol, Sansa had a female role model and she still fell for Cersei's deceptions. Sansa is not immune to being deceived and betrayed lmao. Dany being betrayed by Mirri or by the Green Grace is a question of political game and it simply shows that nobody is perfect when it comes to seeing through other people's intentions. What the author is probably referring to when they say that Sansa "is able to disregard her surrogate mother Cersei’s advice because she has a different role model in Cat" is the moment where Cersei advises Sansa to rule through fear, and Sansa thinks that if she becomes a queen she wants to be loved. If this is what the author means, then well, Dany didn't need a role model to learn this. Dany has decided that she doesn't want to rule through fear all by herself, despite the fact that she had no role model to teach her that:

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. - Daenerys II ACOK

"I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn't have done that. He wasn't just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?" - Daenerys III ASOS

"No, Magnificence." Reznak bowed. "Shall I send these rascals away, or will you want them scourged?"

Daenerys shifted on the bench. "No man should ever fear to come to me." Some claims were false, she did not doubt, but more were genuine. Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs. The more they eat, the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and the larger they grow, the more they'll eat. Drogon especially ranged far afield and could easily devour a sheep a day. "Pay them for the value of their animals," she told Reznak, "but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis." - Daenerys I ADWD

So not having a female role model didn't make Dany worse than Sansa in any way.

She’s had a mother and younger siblings, so she can become the person Colemon and Lothor Brune seek help from in dealing with Sweetrobin.

lol, apparently Dany has never taken care of anyone, huh? She never took care of Missandei, she never worried about Belwas' health, lol, nope, Dany never did anything of the sort. Only Sansa takes care of people, apparently.

Even when Littlefinger lies to her about taking her home, she is able to rebuild Winterfell in snow and draw strength from it. She is stronger within the walls of a Winterfell she built for herself in exile.

LMAO, so…????? That doesn't mean literally anything…? I mean, all characters have certain things that they do that inspires them to find strength and move on???? So what if Sansa finds strength in Winterfell's snow castle? Dany draws strength from stories of her brother, she draws strength from her hrakkar pelt, she draws strength from her feeling of responsibility over her people… what does this person even want to say with this????

This sense of home allows Sansa to mother herself, while Dany’s lack of it plays into her frustration, depression, and arguably her need for Daario’s companionship when a part of her believes she should avoid it.

Uhh, Dany's depression has to do with her political situation and her much bigger responsibilities. I don't even understand what this person is trying to say here. What do they mean with "Sansa mothers herself"? Is the author trying to say that Sansa is stronger and more resilient than Dany because she has a "sense of home" that Dany doesn't have? This is ridiculous. Because Dany is incredibly strong and resilient, only an idiot would say that she isn't. Dany has survived rape, she has survived losing her brother, her husband and her son, she has survived seeing her people die in the desert and be killed by the slavers, she has survived different assassinations attempts (the wineseller, the Sorrowful Men, Mero, the poisoner in Daznak's Pit), she has conquered cities, freed thousands of slaves, taken care of thousands of people, and is still standing against slave masters that want to take her down and enslave her people. Dany has survived all of this and her spirit hasn't been broken, she is still fighting for her people and for what she believes is right. How can anyone say that Dany "isn't as strong as Sansa" because Dany "doesn't have a sense of home"? Not having a home didn't make Dany weaker. Dany is just as capable of "mothering herself".

And the Daario mention is also ridiculous. This is just like those misogynistic dudebros who think Dany is "stupid" for having a crush and sleeping with Daario. Dany has never let her feelings for Daario influence her decisions (see here). The assumption that a teenage girl having a crush or sleeping with someone makes her "stupid" is a sexist assumption, because no one would say the same of a male ruler who decided to have a lover.

Dany’s marriage fortunes turn out fairly well despite it all (sure, there’s ample room to quibble, but not when Viserys is the starting point…). Drogo seems to genuinely care for her and she begins to develop a sense of belonging, if not “home.”

No comments. Just… no comments.

Yet Dany still lacks any real role models; her only female companions are her handmaidens who are in truth slaves. While Sansa learns about dealing with men from Septa Mordane who is an authority figure placed over her by her mother, Dany learns about men from a former whore who serves her as a slave given to her by her brother.

Wtf again. Why the fuck is Sansa better than Dany because she has "female role models"? What exactly those role models gave to Sansa that Dany doesn't have? Because it seems to me that despite not having "female role models", Dany turned out pretty great. Not to mention that this is a circular argument: "having female role models made Sansa better than Dany. Why is Sansa better than Dany? Because she had female role models". It's a circular argument.

It's also a sexist argument, by the way. This idealization of womanhood, as if women were the only people who could ever be good, as if the only way to turn out good and intelligent is by having women to teach you, is sexist. It's a form of benevolent sexism that puts women in a pedestal while also enforcing traditional gender roles as the only thing acceptable (as an example, there's the idea that only woman are capable of being caring and nurturing, so they need to assume that position and they are the only ones who could teach how to be caring).

Dany has no equals or superiors among women and no exposure to a social hierarchy. In fact, I don’t think Dany recalls the name of a single female in her life prior to the events we see.

So what....???

Sansa has her mother and Septa Mordane as authority figures, and her sister is her equal other than the minor factor of a small age difference. She has Jeyne and Beth in her circle of friends, who she learns to treat as equals despite the station difference, and maids among the smallfolk who are at a lower level.

"Jeyne and Beth in her circle of friends, who she learns to treat as equals" -> Where is this said in the books? We don't know how "egalitarian" Sansa's treatment of Jeyne and Beth was. We don't have that information in the books for the essay to make this statement. And considering the classist ideas that Sansa has in the beginning of the books (and still has even as far as the ending of ASOS, when she doesn't like the idea of being a bastard), I find it hard to believe that Sansa treated them as "equals", especially considering how aware of social distinctions Sansa is.

Old Nan has no station of note, but is respected for her age and service to the Stark family. And almost immediately, Sansa is exposed to a Queen and Princess who while in her social stratum are her superiors. A huge part of motherhood is guiding children on the path to finding a place in the world, and to do that one must first know what those places are. We see Sansa clearly exposed to and comfortable with understanding how people fit into those places, while Dany’s experience is limited to being a slave and a free person with slave-owner authority over others and little if anything in between.

LMAO, so this Sansa stan is saying that Sansa is a better maternal figure because she accepts traditional hierarchies, "knows her place" and "knows people's places". WOW. Besides, Dany did have people in her life that were superior to her. She grew up in the streets, for fuck's sake. In each nobility house she and her brother were received, she was less powerful, living there as a favor, and inferior in hierarchy. And those noble houses that received her and her brother certainly had women that were superior to her. Not to mention that it doesn't freaking matter whether Dany has women that are superior or inferior to her in hierarchy, because she did know people who were both inferior and superior to her in hierarchy in her life, and that's more than enough for her to understand how hierarchy works. These people don't need to be women for Dany to understand hierarchy (what even is this argument?). Besides, just because a person doesn't have people who are inferior or superior to them, that doesn't mean they won't understand hierarchy, LMAO. Everyone who lives in a society understands social hierarchy! Unless, I guess, if you're autistic or have a lot of difficulty in understanding social interactions, but this is not the case for Dany. It's practically impossible for people to live in society and not understand social hierarchy. Dany not having women superior to her doesn't prevent her from understanding basic facts about how a society works. And in fact, Dany excels when it comes to social interactions, understanding different societies, etc. We literally see Dany being capable to adapt and understand the culture of every place she goes. This includes understanding the hierarchy of each culture, and we have plenty of examples of Dany understanding hierarchy of different cultures (X, X, X, X, X). Not to mention that we do see Dany talking about hierarchy several times in the books. Remember when Dany was sad that Daario wasn't highborn enough to marry her? Or how he was not fit, by her society standards, to even buckle the spurs of a landed knight? Or how she thought Jorah had crossed the line when he kissed her, because she was his queen and his birth was too low for her? Honestly, this argument was ridiculous. Saying that Dany is not as capable of understanding society and hierarchy as Sansa is just because she supposedly didn't have women superior to her in her life is ridiculous.

We see the results of this repeatedly throughout the series. Despite being in a position of extraordinary weakness in King’s Landing, Sansa is able to engage those around her. Tyrion is impressed by how well she navigates social functions, and her skills in this regard play into the Tyrell women finding her a desirable asset for their House even if less than benevolent in their motivations—a role they’ll reject Cersei for. We see Sansa dance at her own miserable wedding and socially engage those around her.

Well, thankfully, I wrote a very long meta demonstrating how Dany is also very good at courtesy and social skills. So I won't bother with a longer response on this topic. You can read the meta here. As always, this meta made another nonsensical and unfounded argument.

Dany is in a position of power in Meereen, but does very little socializing even at public events.

Apparently, listening to hundreds of petitions in court is not socializing in a public event. Apparently, having councils where freedmen participate (like Rylonna Rhee, or the leaders of the freedmen fighting companies) is not socializing in a public event. Apparently, her conversation with Xaro and the reception she prepares to receive him and for his dancers is not socializing. Apparently, having dinner with the Green Grace and Hizdahr, ordering the graces to be entertained while she and the Green Grace speak, none of this is socializing. Apparently, we should measure Dany's ability to socialize by that one (1) party in which she was frustrated with the peace and didn't want to talk to anyone. The thing is, that one moment does not define Dany and it does not speak to her political abilities in socializing, especially considering that Dany had no need to socialize at that party, because as Dany herself notes, she wasn't worried about socializing at that party because Hizdahr was already doing that for her (which is more his role than hers anyway, because he is her consort, while Dany is a ruling queen):

So Daenerys sat silent through the meal, wrapped in a vermilion tokar and black thoughts, speaking only when spoken to, brooding on the men and women being bought and sold outside her walls, even as they feasted here within the city. Let her noble husband make the speeches and laugh at the feeble Yunkish japes. That was a king's right and a king's duty. - Daenerys VIII ADWD

Also, the quote above shows very well that Dany does understand the political need to socialize: she says herself that entertaining guests was a king's right and a king's duty. The only reason she wasn't doing it herself was because Hizdahr was already doing and she saw no need to go there herself (she wasn't in the mood because the peace deals meant she would have to accept slavery outside Meereen, and if Hizdahr was already doing it, then she doesn't really have to).

Besides, Dany did do the basic, because she know that she had to. She mentions how she was drinking and smiling with these people, because she knows it's necessary even though she hates them:

I hate this, thought Daenerys Targaryen. How did this happen, that I am drinking and smiling with men I’d sooner flay? - Daenerys VIII ADWD

So Daenerys clearly understands the need of socialization and courtesies. She's not such an incompetent idiot as this Sansa stan wants to believe. And if this Sansa stan is going to claim that Dany has bad social skills because she brooded at one party (despite all the other many examples of Dany having good social skills), I could do the same to Sansa. I could take all of Sansa's slips and mistakes in courtesy and claim that Sansa is also has bad social skills. Just to give a few examples:

"Leave her alone," Joffrey said. He stood over her, beautiful in blue wool and black leather, his golden curls shining in the sun like a crown. He gave her his hand, drew her to her feet. "What is it, sweet lady? Why are you afraid? No one will hurt you. Put away your swords, all of you. The wolf is her little pet, that's all." He looked at Sandor Clegane. "And you, dog, away with you, you're scaring my betrothed."

The Hound, ever faithful, bowed and slid away quietly through the press. Sansa struggled to steady herself. She felt like such a fool. She was a Stark of Winterfell, a noble lady, and someday she would be a queen. “It was not him, my sweet prince,” she tried to explain. “It was the other one.”

The two stranger knights exchanged a look. "Payne?" chuckled the young man in the green armor. - Sansa I AGOT

“Oh,” said Sansa. I am talking to him, and he’s touching me, he’s holding my arm and touching me. “The Queen of Thorns, she’s called. Isn’t that right?”

“It is.” Ser Loras laughed. He has the warmest laugh, she thought as he went on, “You’d best not use that name in her presence, though, or you’re like to get pricked.”

Sansa reddened. Any fool would have realized that no woman would be happy about being called “the Queen of Thorns.” Maybe I truly am as stupid as Cersei Lannister says. Desperately she tried to think of something clever and charming to say to him, but her wits had deserted her. She almost told him how beautiful he was, until she remembered that she’d already done that. - Sansa I ASOS

I could point out how impolite it was for Sansa to publicly say that Ser Illyn scared her. I could point out Sansa's slip in calling Olenna "Queen of Thorns". I could use these mistakes to make an exaggerated claim that Sansa has terrible social skills. But of course, Sansa stans wouldn't like this, and would point out all the other moments in which Sansa displays social skills. So why is it that Dany is deemed incapable of social skills because she brooded at one party, despite the fact that Dany has plenty of other moments in which she displays great social skills? That's a double standard and intellectual dishonesty.

It isn’t that Dany fails to personally win over political players so much as that she doesn’t know that she should be going through certain motions to even try.

What. The. Hell. Did this person even read ADWD???? The very quotes I showed above already show that Dany understands very well the need to go through these motions (she knows she needs to smile, she knows that it's a king's duty to entertain the Yunkish and only doesn't do this because Hizdahr is already doing this for her). And the entirety of ADWD is Dany thinking of being polite, thinking that she needs to have dinner with the Green Grace (and entertain her guests at the same time), being courteous at court, sending Hizdahr to negotiate the support of the nobility, thinking she has to be courteous to Gallaza's cousin, marrying Hizdahr to gain support, thinking that she needs to unite freedmen and former masters to bring peace… the entirety of ADWD is Daenerys trying to be courteous, diplomatic and make peace. And this is just ADWD. In ACOK Dany is courteous and flatters the Pureborn. In ASOS, Dany is courteous to Kraznys in order to conceal her intentions in Astapor. This Sansa stan just has no idea what they're talking about. (And again, here's the link to my meta about Dany, courtesy and social skills).

We don’t ever see Dany dance at a celebration, or make others feel at ease with little compliments, or even just chat.

Wtf. First, this kind of comparison can't really be made between Dany and Sansa, because we only see Dany at one party. Dany's story is different from Sansa's, which means that Dany just doesn't have as many parties like we see Sansa go. This is not Dany's fault, they are simply different narratives.

So Dany's story only has one party shown (the peace celebrations), and no one is mentioned dancing. Actually, the only people mentioned dancing were Yunkish dancers, that is, professional dancers, and they are said to be slaves. So that's another thing that needs to be considered if you're trying to compare Dany and Sansa's social skills: they are navigating different cultures. We don't actually have full information about this, but considering that the only people mentioned dancing are "dancers", the slavers probably consider dancing to be something done by the slaves to entertain their masters. Meaning that Dany dancing at that party would be really out of place. So saying that Dany "doesn't dance" and that Sansa "dances" really isn't a good measure of how their social skills compare. Similarly, in the feast of Xaro's visit, we also see dancers entertaining them, and those dancers were also slaves. Once again, this is not an appropriate moment for Dany herself to dance: they are supposed to only watch the dancers (and when the dance ends Dany is very polite, praises the dancers and arranges baths and food for them, which shows that she has very good social skills).

As for Dany trying to make others feel at ease with compliments or chatting, we actually see Dany doing this many times. As already mentioned above, Dany praises the dancers. When Dany meets Quentyn, she makes a jape to ease the tension in the room. And even after she marries Hizdahr, she still goes to have a private conversation with Quentyn, because she still wants to be in good terms with him and still wants his support for when she goes to Westeros. So this shows that Dany understands very well the political importance of chatting, compliments, etc. In my meta about Dany, courtesy an social skills, there are even more examples of Dany using compliments, chatting, etc.

A great deal of the flat portrayal of the Meereenese is Dany’s failure to gossip, to learn there is a Lancel-like sick son she ought to inquire after or even discover that two families have a feud like the Brackens and Blackwoods. Sansa is fully armored, the garb of Westeros, in courtesy while Dany only thinks to put on floppy ears—a token facsimile of being Meereenese. Part of the maternal social role is to know, as Cat described it, the hearts and hearths issues of other families, and Sansa is fully engaged in this respect, but Dany isn’t because she’s never even seen another woman in a social environment.

Uhhh, maybe because gossip isn't relevant for Dany's narrative??? See, Dany's narrative goes beyond trivial matters and machinations that we see in the Westerosi narrative. Dany is trying to make a revolution, to replace an entire economy, and she is dealing with a nobility that is mostly her enemy. Not because Dany has "failed" in making them friends, but because of the very different nature of their interests (Dany wants to end slavery, the slavers want slavery back and are organizing a terrorist organization that is killing Dany's people). So it's very unlikely that they will want to have any kind of nice chats and meetings with Dany, and even more unlikely that they would be gossiping with her and revealing secrets to her. The very nature of Dany's political situation and narrative makes it impossible for her to have a close relationship with the nobility, and this is not Dany's fault, it's not Dany's failure, it's because the slavers have very different interests that they won't let go. So trying to compare this with whatever gossip or close relationship that Sansa has with nobles that aren't her political enemies is completely unfair.

Not only that, but despite not seeing "gossip" properly, we do see Dany receiving, listening and caring about information regarding the noble families of Meereen. After Dany has just taken Meereen, she already knows who is related to who, to the point that she knows that the family Pahl will oppose her fiercely because she crucified one of their family members and another was killed in the battle to take Meereen. That shows that even in the beginning of Dany's stay in Meereen, she is already gathering information about Meereenese society. When Grazdan comes to her court, she knows the importance of being courteous to him, because she knows he is a cousin of the Green Grace. In her very first chapter of ADWD, she already knows not only who Hizdahr is, but that he has many friends in many cities, that he is very influential, and that he has bought the fighting pits in order to make money. She knows her child hostages personally and knows from which families each of them came. She knows that Skahaz is hated in Meereen, which leads her to conclude that marrying him would gain her nothing. All of this shows that Dany is very much aware of Meereenese society. Sure, she doesn't always get all the nuances, like understanding the importance of Hizdahr's ancestors and how the Loraq family is more prestigious than the Kandaq family, but that doesn't mean Dany does nothing to understand the society of the city she is ruling. And I would bet that if Sansa was in Dany's place, she also wouldn't understand all the nuances, because just like Dany, Sansa would also be an outsider to that society and would need time to adapt. It's only natural that Dany doesn't yet understand all nuances of Meereenese society, but we do see that Dany knows plenty and makes an effort to learn more. She is not ignorant and she is not unwilling to learn.

And again, this argument that "part of the maternal social role is to know, as Cat described it, the hearts and hearths issues of other families, and Sansa is fully engaged in this respect, but Dany isn’t because she’s never even seen another woman in a social environment" is a ridiculous argument, because once again there's this assumption that only women are capable of social skills and courtesies, and that because Dany "didn't have a female role model", Dany will never be capable of that. It's a sexist argument that once again enforces traditional gender roles and gender essentialism, because it assumes that, unless someone has a woman teaching them, they'll never understand these things (and as we see with Dany, this is not true, she has learned all of these things without having a "female role model").

Finally, using the rivalry of the Brackens and Blackwoods as an example of how Sansa knows more gossip than Dany is hilarious and stupid, because Sansa never mentions the rivalry between the Brackens and the Blackwoods in her chapters lol.

Has Dany ever even held a baby? I can’t think of where she has or would have. Sansa has her younger siblings with her mother’s example to begin to learn how to be a mother. Arya used to come up with names for the smallfolk’s children, and while Sansa frowned on her sister’s fondness for associating below her station, newborns in a community like Winterfell are celebrated, so Sansa likely had the opportunity to coo over each newborn and also got to witness the mothering practices of all the families in Winterfell. We see this difference in background play out in their stories.

"Has Dany ever even held a baby? I can’t think of where she has or would have." -> If this Sansa stan can just assume with little evidence that Sansa was "cooing over newborns" from all Winterfell, I can also assume that Dany has probably held a baby of one of the rich families that took her and her brother in. If Sansa stans need no evidence to make their statements and can make assumptions on so little, then so can I. Besides, how the hell is this even relevant???? Dany holding babies or not doesn't make her less maternal, and it doesn't make Sansa superior. For fuck's sake. Also, whether Sansa held a baby or cooed over a baby in the past doesn't really determine how maternal she will be. I am an older sister who had a younger brother that was almost 9 years younger than me, so I did get to hold him quite frequently, and yet, years after, I don't think I still know very well how to hold a baby and I wouldn't consider myself very "motherly". Honestly, none of this determines anything, and we do see Dany being motherly throughout her entire story. This is a freaking bullshit argument.

Barristan trains knights for Dany; he has 27 boys he thinks of as “his orphans,” yet Dany has never come to see them train or practice. These orphans have entered the service of the one they call “Mother,” but Dany isn’t aware of how to offer motherly encouragement to them like Sansa is—or even aware that she should.

Princess Myrcella nodded a shy greeting at the sound of Sansa’s name, but plump little Prince Tommen jumped up eagerly. “Sansa, did you hear? I’m to ride in the tourney today. Mother said I could.” Tommen was all of eight. He reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe.

Sansa would have given anything to be with him. “I fear for the life of your foeman,” she told Tommen solemnly.

Tommen gave a shout of joy and ran off to be readied, his chubby little legs pumping hard. “Luck,” Sansa called to him.

Sansa found herself possessed of a queer giddy courage. “You should go with her,” she told the king. “Your brother might be hurt.”

Joffrey shrugged. “What if he is?”

“You should help him up and tell him how well he rode.” Sansa could not seem to stop herself.

“He got knocked off his horse and fell in the dirt,” the king pointed out. “That’s not riding well.”

The result is this contrast between the very personal motherly attention Sansa gives Tommen with this distant maternal archetype of a woman that inspired these orphans’ calling, but who doesn’t even know their names.

Again, this is nonsense. This example with Sansa encouraging Tommen and telling Joffrey to go to him doesn't work as a point of comparison, because the situation is circumstantial: Sansa was there at the moment, so obviously she would encourage Tommen. But she didn't go there for the sole reason of encouraging Tommen.

Besides, it's not true that Dany never encourages/praises people or that she never acts as a "mother":

Smoke hung between the purple pillars. The dancers knelt, heads bowed. “You were splendid,” Dany told them. “Seldom have I seen such grace, such beauty.” - Daenerys III ADWD

“They said no.” The wine tasted of pomegranates and hot summer days. “They said it with great courtesy, to be sure, but under all the lovely words, it was still no.”

“Did you flatter them?”

“Shamelessly.” - Daenerys III ACOK

So above we see two examples of Dany praising people. But not only that, but there are also moments in which Dany does go to people to encourage them:

Children ran behind their horses, skipping and laughing. Instead of salutes, voices called to her on every side in a babble of tongues. Some of the freedmen greeted her as “Mother,” while others begged for boons or favors. Some prayed for strange gods to bless her, and some asked her to bless them instead. She smiled at them, turning right and left, touching their hands when they raised them, letting those who knelt reach up to touch her stirrup or her leg. Many of the freedmen believed there was good fortune in her touch. If it helps give them courage, let them touch me, she thought. There are hard trials yet ahead … - Daenerys V ASOS

Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. "I will not turn away from them," she said stubbornly. "A queen must know the sufferings of her people."

[...]

“Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you.” Dany vaulted down from the horse. “I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares.” - Daenerys VI ADWD

Just because we didn't hear anything specifically about these orphans, that doesn't mean she never encourages anyone, or that she never thinks about the political importance that this has (as the quotes above show, she does understand the political importance of encouragement and showing that their mother cares). Besides, who's to say that Dany never went to them? Who's to say that Dany doesn't know their names? Dany constantly makes a point in remembering people's names. She remembers Hazzea, she remembers Rylonna Rhee, she remembers Stalwart Shield, she remembers Mossador. Remembering and giving importance to people's names is something very important to Dany's character, so who is to say that she didn't know their names? Most likely, the fact that we never hear their names in Dany's POV is simply because GRRM didn't think it was relevant to mention at the moment. In case some people forget, this is still a story, you know? No writer is going to write every single thing that happens in a character's life, no writer is going to name every single character that is mentioned in a story, and just because we don't see something, it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. So saying that Dany never went to visit the orphans is not really a proof that Dany doesn't think about encouraging her people, especially considering that we do have other examples in which Dany does encourage her people, and does act like "a mother" to them.

Also, even if Dany had indeed never gone to visit those orphans and never knew their names, that doesn't mean that she never acts maternal/encourages her people, or that she never thinks on the political importance of this (as the quotes above show). Not to mention that if Dany never went to visit the orphans, it could have been for many different motives. Dany is a ruling queen, not a consort. So she has many other duties (like, you know… governing) and it could very well mean that she had no time to go. As a ruling queen of a big city, Dany really can't go to every corner of her city to personally encourage every single person in her city. While a queen consort could go from place to place more often, a ruling queen can't always do this. And actually, it isn't really her job. It's something no one would chastise a male ruler for not doing, but since Sansa stans are obsessed with traditional femininity, they go on about how supposedly "politically incapable Dany is" for not visiting one group of orphans, which is ridiculous considering that we do see Dany encouraging people. Ugh.

There’s also the dynamic with other women. The closest thing Dany has to an equal or a friend is Missandei. When they have one of their most personal talks, Missandei tells Dany about her home, and Dany offers to get a ship to send her back, but Missandei prefers to stay. Dany offered the best thing she knew how based on her experience, she wanted to give the closest thing she knew to her own house in Braavos memory; but it is fairly clear that Missandei has moved well beyond her old home and needs to build a new one, to find her place in the world much like Dany’s own struggle. Even though Dany is fairly consumed with her own future husband, she never thinks to try and provide for Missandei in this regard, something that comes as second nature to Sansa.

UUUUUUUUUUGH. Where do I even begin. Well, first, what's the implicit premise of this argument? Well, it's trying to say that Dany is too self centered to see Missandei's real needs or wishes, and that instead, she only suggests to Missandei what she herself would have wanted, which is to go home. So this makes Dany a bad mother who is incapable of providing for Missandei. And then they go on to say that Sansa, unlike Dany, is good at this, because Sansa, of course, has had "female influences" that Dany didn't have, which makes mothering second nature to Sansa while Dany is a failure. This argument is on the same level of the Jonsa arguments that distort the text to claim that Dany only cared about Doreah when she was dying because Doreah taught her how to please Drogo (as if Dany couldn't feel grateful AND feel empathy at the same time, as if it could only be one or the other). It's the same level of intellectual dishonesty. And honestly, what a bullshit argument.

First, because it's not Dany who is failing to understand Missandei, the person who wrote this essay is the one who is failing to understand Missandei's motivations. It's a completely natural thing that Dany would offer Missandei to go home. Missandei's brother had just been murdered! Dany literally tells Missandei "I will send you from this awful place", because she is worried about Missandei's safety, because Meereen is a dangerous city, and she is asking if Missandei would want to stay in a city in which her brother has just been murdered! Like… asking if Missandei wants to leave this city and go home is a very normal and logical thing to ask! Anyone with common sense and empathy would have asked the same, it's not a "failure" on Dany's side to understand Missandei's wishes (I bet the Sansa stan who wrote this meta didn't even remember the context in which Dany offers to send Missandei home. They probably didn't even remember that Missandei had a brother. So the one who is being oblivious about Missandei is this Sansa stan, not Dany). Also, it's not "fairly clear that Missandei has moved well beyond her old home and needs to build a new one". Quite the opposite, actually. When Missandei refuses Dany's offer to go back to Naath, it's not because she doesn't want to return to Naath or because she loves Meereen (pfff) and wants to build a home in Meereen. It's because Missandei is too afraid to go back to Naath, afraid that she would be taken by slavers again. She literally says this in the scene!

And Dany IS trying to build a home for Missandei! In this very scene, she talks about how she wants to protect Missandei! And Dany is trying to build a new world, a new Meereen, rebuild an economy, defeat the people who are killing her people, bring peace, she is doing all of this to build a home for Missandei and for her people! Honestly, it's so ridiculous how this person tries to distort Dany's genuine compassion and worry for Missandei after her brother was killed into "oh, Dany is so self-centered and doesn't understand Missandei, and Sansa is better than her". But this is what Stansas always do with Dany. Distort all the good things Dany does or thinks into something bad somehow. (And as you can see, this is not a recent thing, is not just Jonsas or show stans that do this, so let's stop with this bullshit about how the ASOIAF fandom was better before the show stans, or how Sansa stans were little angels uwu).

Of course, Jeyne had been in love with Lord Beric ever since she had first glimpsed him in the lists. Sansa thought she was being silly; Jeyne was only a steward’s daughter, after all, and no matter how much she mooned after him, Lord Beric would never look at someone so far beneath him, even if she hadn’t been half his age.

What the fuck does this person want to prove with this quote? That Sansa is perceptive and sees what Jeyne really wants (unlike bad mother Dany that doesn't see what Missandei supposedly wants?)? Well, we have a ton of examples of Dany being perceptive and seeing what people want. If Dany was self-centered and not perceptive as this person tried to imply, Dany would have never realized that the weaver from Astapor was angry with her, she would think everything is fine. She would never realize Illyrio's small smile that Viserys doesn't notice. And so on.

We see it again with Lothor Brune and Mya Stone. Sansa notices he always smiles when he speaks of Mya, and then wonders what Mya thinks of him. She assesses him and concludes that he’d be a good match for her as a person and for their mutual stations; and wonders if Mya could do better and thinks if her father had acknowledged her that she could, but as an unacknowledged bastard Brune is a good choice so long as Mya is content with the match.

Again, we have a ton of examples of Dany being perceptive. We also have examples of Dany thinking of social hierarchies and how it affects marriage. Just because Dany is not involved in romantic gossip (because her narrative is not about this), doesn't mean Dany is an idiot that doesn't see anything. Not to mention that this does seem like this Sansa stan is trying to imply that because Dany is not traditionally feminine and doesn't care about things like romantic gossip the way Sansa does, she would be a worse politician than Sansa. Which is a sexist tendency of the Sansa fandom to demean or even demonize any female character that doesn't perfectly fit into traditional femininity. Also, you know, it should be perfectly ok if Dany's personality is different from Sansa and if she doesn't care as much about romantic gossip. She doesn't have to have the same traditionally feminine personality and interests as Sansa in order to be a good politician and ruler, and she is perfectly capable of arranging a political marriage even if romantic gossip isn't a natural interest of hers (which is actually debatable, there aren't many situations from which we could infer whether Dany is interested or not in these things).

Without a stable family background and role models, Dany doesn’t know how to do this or even that she should be doing this maternal role. She doesn’t think to take Missandei to watch one of Selmy’s training sessions to see if any future knights and Missandei exchange smiles. She doesn’t think of making matches for Irri or Jhiqui when they’re going through their “it is known” spat over who Rakharo likes more. Missandei’s choice to not go home is a choice to build a new home elsewhere, and Dany empathizes and identifies with her, but despite her own inner desires to find love never thinks to embrace that facet of the matriarchal role and find a match for her.

Again, this is nonsense. This is not Dany's role. First, why the hell would Dany take Missandei to "exchange sparks" and seek marriage with Barristan's orphans? Missandei is freaking 11!!!!!! And why would she try to arrange marriage for Jhiqui and Irri considering that Dothraki society is so different and has different values? Not to mention that, despite the fact that Dany is close to Jhiqui and Irri, they are still servants. Did every "good" Westerosi Queen go around arranging marriages for all of their servants? Arranging marriage for them not only is not necessary (Missandei is 11 and Jhiqui and Irri can find someone themselves), but it's also not politically relevant, because none of them come from rich or influential families that would allow Dany to make political alliances through marriage. No Meereenese noble would accept to marry former slaves and servants. Finally, Dany not being a matchmaker doesn't make her less maternal, as there are plenty of other moments showing how maternal Dany is, and it doesn't make her a bad politician (as we see that Dany understands very well these matters, but finding a match for Missandei, Irri or Jhiqui really isn't Dany's pressing concern at the moment. And neither should it be. Her people are dying, for fuck's sake.

There is also an interesting contrast in their relationships with “old women.” Dany tried to be maternal with Mirri Maz Duur and was rejected and betrayed. She is trying to be a mother to the Green Grace’s city, and finds another hostile reception if not the very Harpy that plagues her. In the first, Dany advocated Dothraki marrying the Lamb women, and in the second Dany herself is going to marry a Ghiscari. These older women do not see or identify with Dany as a maternal figure or welcome her maternal influence into their realms. In Sansa’s case, though both Cersei and Olenna’s intentions toward her were less than benevolent, both of these older women sought Sansa out not just as a marriage for their House but the favorite son/grandson and heir as well. They want Sansa as the matriarch of their next generation.

This is nonsense. Mirri and the Green Grace are Dany’s enemies. Olenna Tyrell is not Sansa’s enemy (and Cersei is keeping Sansa as a political hostage). Mirri Maz Duur wanted revenge against Drogo. Olenna didn’t want revenge against Sansa. The Green Grace wanted slavery to come back to Meereen, which is why she is a political opponent and has different interests from Dany. Olenna doesn’t have different interests from Sansa. Mirri or the Green Grace “not seeing or identifying with Dany as a maternal figure” or “not welcoming her maternal influence into their realms” has nothing to do with any failure on Dany’s part, it has nothing to do with Dany not having good “motherly instincts” or with Dany not having good social skills. It has to do with the fact that they were never going to support Dany, no matter what Dany did, because they either wanted revenge or had radically different political interests. Also, Olenna wanting to marry Sansa to Willas has nothing to do with Sansa’s social skills or “motherly instincts”. She wants Sansa to marry Willas because of Sansa’s claim and because of her own political ambitions. As soon as Sansa is married to Tyrion, the Tyrells drop her, that is, Sansa’s “charm” and “courtesy” was not enough for them to fight for her or want to help her (I mean, Olenna cared so little for Sansa that she didn’t care that Sansa and Tyrion would take the blame for Joffrey’s murder). And with Cersei is the same. She accepted Joffrey marrying Sansa because Robert wanted. But she had no problem in replacing Sansa when it suited her, and Sansa was just a political hostage after that. Sansa’s “charm” and “courtesy” didn’t prevent Cersei from being horrible to her.

So while Dany’s arc touches on almost every maternal theme in a literary sense (and quite powerfully, I would add), Dany herself struggles as a mother largely because she has nothing even close to a role model, and is so ill-prepared by her prior life for the task. She approaches motherhood from the deficits fate and experience have imposed upon her. She wants to protect “her children” from her own negative experiences, but is unaware of how to nurture them, to treat them as family or create a home for them.

Bullshit. Dany does not "struggle as a mother". Dany is not “ill-prepared”. She is perfectly capable of nurturing her children, as plenty of examples show (you can see in this meta, as well as the examples mentioned above), and it’s not her fault that the person who wrote this essay didn’t have the slightest knowledge of Dany’s character and forgot everything that Dany did. And once again this idiot comes with that stupid argument of how "Dany is self centered and wants to protect her children only of the things she lacked, blah, blah…”. Stupid.

It takes the counsel of another woman for her to think of her own political marriage, but she never considers offering a Brown Ben Plumm or others lordships to start families of their own with a series of marriages to unify her divided people. Her first marriage was a sale of chattel to buy a home for her brother at the cost of her exile, and not the unification of two Houses. She’s willing chattel in her second to buy a paper peace, but the transactional and sacrificial nature are much the same. Sansa’s betrothal was for the good of the family including Lysa, Sweetrobin, and Edmure. It is the maternal Cat that makes this point, not Ned, and later again we see a maternal recommendation that Robb and Arya marry to help save Ned. These marriages are shared sacrifices to protect the family and all recommended by the matriarch. Dany’s past experience leads her to believe her children ought to be protected from such marriages to the scant extent she thinks about her responsibility to arrange marriages at all.

Another idiocy. First, Dany’s political marriage with Hizdahr is not “the counsel of a woman”, it’s a suggestion that literally everyone gives Dany, and something that was being discussed for some time. The essay seems to imply that the marriage being the suggestion of a woman shows how female influences are important, and that if you have no female influences you couldn’t possibly understand the importance of political marriage. Which is in itself a ridiculous notion (you don’t need to have female influences to understand political marriage), but also, we don’t know if the initial suggestion came from the Green Grace, for the essay to imply that. Second, Dany arranging marriages or not doesn’t actually mean anything for her. Dany doesn’t have that power over the slaver families to be able to arrange marriages for them. Dany grew up poor and gained her power by herself, meaning that none of the people in her entourage actually has political power to be of use for political marriage (as already explained, marrying Irri or Jhiqui wouldn’t bring Dany any political benefits). About giving lordships, who gives lordships to sellswords??? Catelyn (the one the essay praises) certainly wouldn’t do that. Most rulers wouldn’t, and in the rare case it happens, it’s usually in special circumstances. Sellswords are called sellswords because they are paid, you know? Basically, Dany’s political situation and narrative are so different from the political situation and narrative in Westeros that it doesn’t make sense to talk about these things.

Finally, this essay is supposed to talk about how the “maternal influence” that Sansa had made her more appropriate as a maternal figure than Dany, but Sansa also hasn’t arranged any marriage. So with what basis does this Sansa stan claim that Sansa is better than Dany??? Saying that Catelyn arranged marriages doesn’t mean Sansa learned this “lesson” and that Catelyn’s influence will necessarily result in Sansa arranging the political marriages that Dany supposedly “failed” to arrange.

Dany’s rebirthed an extinct species to become the mother of dragons and is an icon of motherhood for the oppressed of a continent, but struggles to mother herself and those most dear to her. By the end of Dance with Dragons, we see her embracing Fire and Blood over planting trees, which is not surprising considering Viserys and Khal Drogo are her two primary role models in life. Her experiences in Meereen do make her more of a veteran which somewhat diminishes the vital nature of role models, and it seems likely that she’ll have additional advisors when she heads to Westeros. Yet in her immediate future she still seems to lack a “crone” figure, which may be cause for concern. She’ll need to embrace that Fire and Blood when she lands in Westeros, but she’ll still need to make alliances which do require an element of planting trees or at least seeds. Westeros needs a maternal figure like a Cat who is willing to let old grudges and a Jaime go if the realm is ever going to have peace.

This is such a simplistic understanding of what fire and blood means for Dany’s arc. It does seem like this idiot just read the Meereenese Blot and thinks that because of this they know everything about Dany. This shows no understanding of how the peace was unjust (X, X), how Dany is indeed capable of planting trees (X, X), and in fact, we literally see her planting trees in ADWD (X, X). And it definitely shows no understand Dany’s characterization, because Dany is capable of being diplomatic and “letting go of old grudges”, she is not a violent person at all and always strives for conciliation. Also, I’m rolling my eyes at this person saying that JAIME would be better for the future of Westeros than Dany, and that JAIME is someone who "lets go of old grudges" (he totally didn't kill Jory and a bunch of innocent people just for revenge lmao, oh, and he totally didn't try to kill Bran and Arya).

As Brashcandy’s essay points out, Sansa seems to be the one most likely to fill that peacemaker role. We see her leadership when Cersei leaves during the Blackwater, and a willingness to pray for Tyrion despite her misery in the marriage. Pragmatically, she’s one of the few characters with a personal relationship with virtually every faction and probably the only one with a positive personal relationship to each faction. Her personality is a significant factor, but without the skill sets of her courtesy armor and Cat as a role model she couldn’t have survived to this point with so many potential allies among the North’s enemies. We’ve seen Sansa’s tendency to gauge marriage prospects since Game of Thrones, and continue to see it on her trip down from the Eyrie with Mya Stone and Lothor Brune. She seems inclined to find the best possible happiness within the restrictions of her station. We’ve seen how Robb’s first inclination was to consider assaulting the Twins rather than paying the toll; and he was also unwilling to trade Jaime for Sansa and Karstark preferred revenge for his sons’ deaths to getting his last son back. In both these cases, it was Cat who sought a peaceful alternative and Cat who preferred to let injustice stand so that her family might live. If Sansa parallels Cat’s path in this peacemaker regard, she may succeed in persuading other matriarchs and reach an accord that Catelyn could not with Cersei.

Uhhh, as if Dany had never felt compassion for her enemies (she has), or as if Dany didn’t know anything about courtesy (she does). As if Dany had never sought conciliation and peace and her first instinct was to always attack (as this essay implies when it mentions how Robb’s first instinct was to attack and how Catelyn stopped him). Quite the contrary, Dany’s first instinct IS conciliation (see this meta). Not to mention that this entire essay seems to imply that because Dany isn’t hyper feminine and doesn’t constantly think about marriage, that she is somehow incapable of conciliation, incapable of ever making a political marriage or having what’s necessary to rule in peacetime. Which is ridiculous. Sansa is constantly thinking about marriage because she is a romantic person and very traditionally feminine. Dany literally has other things to worry about instead of dreaming about marriages and matchmaking. Just because her personality isn’t like Sansa’s personality, that doesn’t mean she is incapable of understanding political marriages or incapable of being a political agent for peace. But this essay suggests that only traditionally feminine women can be peacemakers (which is a common sexist bullshit amongst Sansa stans). This is ridiculous, and no one would say the same thing about a man. Jaehaerys I wasn’t constantly arranging marriages, that was mostly Alysanne’s role, and yet, I don’t see people saying that he was incapable of peacemaking or conciliation. He was the conciliator, for fuck’s sake. Dany is a ruling queen, not a consort. She has the same role as Jaehaerys, so why is she being held to different ridiculous standards about traditional femininity?

In conclusion, this essay is ridiculous. The lack of “maternal figures” or “female influences” didn’t make Dany incapable of understanding social hierarchy, having courtesy, social skills, it didn’t make her less maternal, it didn’t make her incapable of being a peacemaker or of planting trees. Not having maternal role models doesn’t make Dany unfit to rule or to be a mother. Actually, Dany is quite politically capable and has all of the necessary skills that this essay claims she doesn’t have. Also in conclusion, this essay is a very good example of how Sansa stans didn't start hating and demeaning Dany only with the show or with the Jonsa vs Jonerys war. This entire essay is all about how Dany is a supposedly horrible politician and how Sansa is supposedly better than her, without the slightest understanding of Dany’s narrative, Dany’s political situation and Dany’s characterization. And Sansa stans wonder why we are pissed off at them.

#fandom wank #asoiaf meta #daenerys targaryen #sansa stark #my meta

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umbraja · 4 years ago

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Body Hair Positivity: Good or Gross?

It’s been a trend lately to embrace a more diverse image of beauty. Freckles and muffin tops, dark skin and curly hair, scars, tattoos, unusual proportions, crooked teeth, pretty much anything is supposed to be accepted under the banner of Body Positivity.

But what about body hair?

And I’m not just talking about armpits or legs. I also mean unusual body hair. The kind people don’t talk about. The kind women aren’t “supposed” to have: chest hair, happy trails, beards, back hair. The kind that doctors call hirsutism and is often associated with hormonal imbalances from things like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, Cushing Syndrome, medication side effects, menopause, or even just genetics. It affects somewhere between 5%-10% of women depending on the region surveyed but may be higher as it can often go undiagnosed.

It’s not like we’re taught how healthy body hair should look.

Humans have been removing body hair since before recorded history. Archaeologists have found evidence of early humans using clam shells and shark teeth to remove body hair. Ancient Egyptians are well known for their full body waxes. Ancient Greeks considered it “uncivilized” for a woman to have pubic hair. Roman boys celebrated their entry into manhood with a mandatory first shave. And medieval European Ladies plucked daily to remove all hair from their brows, temples, and neck - some even plucked their eyelashes. The “New World” was no stranger to body hair removal either. Thomas Jefferson, and many others, wrote of some Native Americans’ depilatory obsession.

“With [Native Americans] it is disgraceful to be hairy on the body. They say it likens them to hogs. They therefore pluck the hair as fast as it appears.” - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

In the non-native US, body hair removal wasn’t really a big thing until the 20th century when we did a complete 180 on the subject. Before that Puritan values made sure that most body hair was covered by clothing so few bothered to remove it since no one was gonna see what was under all that cloth. Now recent studies say that 93 to 99 percent of American women regularly remove their body hair, making it one of our most widely practiced beauty norms. Girls as young as 10 are pressured into shaving, waxing, plucking, threading, anything to remove errant hairs as soon as they start to sprout. Refusal to do so leaves us open to bullying, both on the playground and in the office. Visible body hair can cost a woman jobs, promotions, and relationships so most of us remove it, no matter the cost. Which one study worked out to be more than $10,000 over the course of her life for the average American woman who shaves. If she waxes instead the bill goes over $23,000.

So what happened?

“Where eighteenth-century naturalists and explorers considered hair-free skin to be the strange obsession of indigenous peoples, Cold War-era commentators blithely described visible body hair on women as evidence of a filthy, ‘foreign’ lack of hygiene.” - Rebecca Herzig, Plucked, a History of Hair Removal

The driving forces behind hair removal in America are the same three that cause most of the nation’s problems: greed, sexism, and racism. Let’s go in chronological order.

As the “Age of Enlightenment” began to secularize European politics, Imperialists needed a new excuse to justify their expansion into non-European territory. Naturalists like the still famous Charles Darwin handed them pseudoscience. It’s debatable whether or not these naturalists intended their work to be used as the foundation for white supremacist ideology that still plagues us today but there’s no question about how racists interpreted it. They saw evolution as a line that went from ape through colored people and ends at Aryan. Real science tells us that’s not at all correct and if anyone is closer to cave man it’s white people who often have Neanderthal in their DNA. But they didn’t have genetic sequencers back then so they used physical traits to “prove” it instead. Part of this was a gross mischaracterization that body hair could be used to determine a person’s place within the line of human evolution. They claimed people with coarse, dark hair were closer to apes and those with thin, light hair were more evolved. Guess who picked up on that concept in the 20th century.

Darwin further complicated matters in his attempt to explain why some white people were hairier than some indigenous populations by associating hairiness with evolutionary backsliding and mental illness.

“[Hairiness in Europeans] is due to partial reversion; for characters which have been at some former period long inherited are always apt to return. We have seen that idiots are often very hairy, and they are apt to revert in other characters to a lower animal type.” - Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

Other scientists and even medical experts of the time ran with this idea and before long the educated elite considered hairiness (along with other non-Aryan traits) to be a symptom of disease, insanity, and criminal violence. The uneducated masses were more familiar with freak show displays of unusually hairy people as “missing links” to our primate ancestors. Both cases considered having body hair to be a very bad thing. They’re also very bad science and not at all true.

Despite these very strong, racist feelings about body hair, it still wasn’t common for American women to remove it beyond the upper lip, neck, jaw, or between the eyebrows. Most women don’t have much hair there and those that did rarely had time or money to invest in removing it. Also they wouldn’t be caught dead admitting they had to so historical records might not be accurate about how many women actually plucked. For the first half of American history peach fuzz and other light hair was seen as normal and clothes covered the rest. But the 20th century not only saw women wearing less cloth and showing more skin it also saw them calling for gender equality. Critics of women’s liberation often accused suffragettes of sexual inversion - aka acting too much like men, which they saw as an abhorrent threat. To really drive this point home they often depicted women’s rights activists as being hairy, thus politicizing our pits. Pair this with the “hygiene” movement’s embrace of already mentioned racist views on body hair and you have a recipe for weaponized shame.

“Self-consciousness brings timidity, restrained action and awkwardness. The use of Del-a-tone relieves the mind from anxious watchfulness of movement.” - 1919 Del-a-tone depilatory advertisement

Enter Capitalism. Producers of hair removal products wanted to up sales so they did the exact same thing that was done with every other beauty product on the market - shame women into buying their stuff. It’s debatable if this was motivated purely by greed, in an attempt to reach an untapped market, or if the resulting gender oppression was intentional but men were spared of this aggressive shaming (until recently at least). Women, on the other hand, were flooded with advertisements for body hair removal products. From the first “razor for women” in 1915 to 21st century laser hair removal ads, women are constantly being reminded of our body hair. It doesn’t take a genius seeing ads that call smooth skin “attractive” or “sanitary” to extrapolate the opposite - that body hair is ugly, and dirty. A series of ads for Del-a-tone depilatory products even called it “necessary” for sleeveless fashion and suggests that not using their product will lead to social anxiety. Pair that with only ever using shaved models in all of fashion advertising and you send a pretty clear message: female body hair is something to be ashamed of. Advertising works. Now most American women actually feel gross if they’ve missed a shave, despite body hair being perfectly natural and not at all dirty. This disgust is so strong it has even bled over into an aversion toward male body hair which has seen a sharp decline in popularity since the shaggy chested disco days. Now men are being inundated with “manscaping” advertisements and expectations of manicured if not completely removed body hair.

So that’s the background but where’s this going?

While female body hair removal is firmly ingrained in western beauty standards, a new generation of women are rebelling against those ideals - body hair included. Recent studies have shown a shift in body hair trends among young women. Only 77% percent of women 16 to 24 reported regularly shaving their pits in 2016 and 85% shaved their legs, down from 95% and 92% respectively just two years prior. Since then we’ve started to see models, celebrities, and everyday women with unshaven pits and hairy legs. Body positivity campaigns have even gotten a few advertisers to include body hair in their ads. Now you can see razors actually shaving hair from women’s bodies instead of inexplicably running over baby smooth skin.

Women have always told ourselves that hair removal is a choice but we’ve never before been encouraged to choose not doing it. Instead we’ve been brainwashed to think it’s dirty and disgusting and that no one will accept us for being hairy. Today’s young woman is actually presented with a choice, “to shave or not to shave” and a lot of them are choosing not to. Which is great news for people like me who have hirsutism and are sick of being shamed for how nature made us.

But we’ve still got a very long way to go before I can be confident that my neck beard won’t hold me back both socially and professionally. A lot of the women who have publicly displayed body hair in recent years have come under attack by people calling them various shades of “gross” and some have even been sent death threats. It’s one thing for a rich and famous Hollywood movie star to take that kind of risk but for an autistic office worker living in a conservative backwater that’s a whole different game.

Whatever your thoughts and feelings on body hair, America still hasn’t escaped the shame of the last hundred years. Women are still very much judged for being hairy. A lot of people still think it’s gross. I’m not one of them but I’m full of unpopular opinions.

#body hair #body posititivity #history

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linklethehistorian · 4 years ago

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Randou and the Sins of Season 3's Fifteen Adaption (Part 18/???)

Episode 28 — Only a Diamond Can Polish a Diamond (2/5)

If there is any nitpicking at all to be done about this segment, I suppose it could be that a bit of nuance was lost on the topic of a certain boy’s heartless and sadistic attitude towards the redhead, but contrary to popular belief, that boy is actually not Dazai, for once; it is Shirase, and, by extension, the gang of which he is a part.

I know many people in this fandom are probably going to be extremely irked by that statement, considering just how strongly some of them tend to stand by and cling to this greatly perpetuated myth that Dazai really had Sheep killed in the book instead of sparing them, but really, before you criticize me for failing to acknowledge what you may perceive to be the gospel truth, at least hear me out, and truly take a moment to consider what I am about to say; yes, what I had to say on this matter would once have only been based on speculation due to the wording of Lea’s post and my interpretation of it, but this is no longer the case.

I realize that this apparently may not be immediately obvious to everyone just from reading that one post as it had always been to me, but as someone who has finally read the full tale myself, I will tell you right now that the only people who would stand by and further spread that “Sheep were killed” narrative are the ones who have never genuinely laid eyes upon it themselves, because the wording and context were pretty much exactly the same between both renditions; there was absolutely no ambiguity involved whatsoever as to their fates or Dazai’s actions regarding them, and if you have any doubts at all, I invite you to simply take a look for yourself and see:

Believe me, if it isn’t already intensely obvious from the very fact that this article exists, I have no intentions nor desire to cover for any of the terrible, ridiculous changes Bones has made in this adaption, or the mischaracterizations that spring out of them, but even if it’s true that there are many, many examples of that here and many of them at least half-center around Dazai, this is really and truly not one of them, and no matter how much I may resent their other choices concerning Fifteen, I’m not just going to sit here and nod in agreement while they are accused of the one thing they actually did not do. I am not here to dig their grave without any care for if the methods I use and the grievances I have are legitimate; I am simply here to tell the truth and spread awareness of that truth to the best of my ability.

Dazai honestly did spare the Sheep, and he had always planned to, long before he had ever put the illusion of choice in Chuuya’s hands — not because he was kind-hearted by any means or cared at all about their lives, but because, as is typical of him, he had already foreseen and predicted the decision that Chuuya was going to make. Now, sure, if Chuuya had somehow called Dazai’s apparent ‘bluff’ and recklessly betrayed that prediction, I’m sure that Dazai absolutely would have changed his orders and had them all annihilated, but that obviously never came to pass, and, in spite of what a lot of people seem to think, Dazai had nothing to gain in committing that sort of needless cruelty under those specific circumstances.

Yes, as I’ll further explain at a later point, it’s certainly true that the bandaged brunet does enjoy tormenting people simply for the sake of watching their reactions — I won’t argue with you there at all; however, he is not so recklessly bloodthirsty as to put himself at a severe disadvantage purely to provide himself with a very, very temporary, momentary amusement, and that’s exactly what he would have been doing if he had killed Sheep despite Chuuya taking his bait in order to save them. If Dazai had made such a deal with the redhead only to immediately fail to hold up his end after the terms were mutually agreed upon, Chuuya would no longer have any incentive to honor his side of the obligations, either, and regardless of how detached and merciless the bandaged teen may be, that is absolutely not something he would want — no matter how much he may like the idea of torturing and emotionally devastating his peer.

So long as it benefits him to do so, in these types of negotiations, Dazai always holds up his end of a negotiation, which is something that he has even said directly to this very same individual during the first arc of the main series — a statement which his by then ex-partner didn’t protest at all, because he knew it was true.

Overall, this scene was astoundingly well adapted — not just when compared to the rest of this mini-arc, but all on its own merits apart from it, as well, and I could not think of any major way in which it could have truly been improved.

Undoubtedly, as I’d begun to say earlier, even though it may have played out relatively the same, Shirase’s betrayal — and, by extension, the betrayal of Chuuya by Sheep as a whole — was presented in rather vastly different lights between the two versions in certain ways, partly due to simplification in dialogue, but also in some of the ways he and the other members of the organization were represented and portrayed visually, as well.

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eligos-venator · 5 years ago

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In regards to Villainy

I’ve been watching the villain post make its rounds and reblogged it earlier quietly with a small rant in the tags about personal concerns of my own. It’s shown up multiple times since then to where I feel some clarification is required on my part personally, as Eligos’s writer.

Communication and mutual agreement is required on all sides in RP, and nobody gets a free pass to do whatever they please because of some label that helps define their typical position in a roleplay. My gear gremlin was made for me as a player to enjoy watching him learn and grow as a person, and to provide minor inconveniences for other players should they wish him to get in their way as a way to help provide character growth for their muses. Not to be some big bad boss who gets their jollies by harming others. And I will not change him to suit anyone’s personal tastes but my own.

Read on if you want to see my whole take on this. Or not.

Let’s start with what the definition of villain actually means, given it’s a vaguer concept than most would like to think:

Definition of villain

1: a character in a story or play who opposes the hero 2: a deliberate scoundrel or criminal 3: one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty

These definitions are a rough guideline, but overall, all it takes to fall into the category of being a villain is a willingness to oppose a hero, regardless of reasoning or intent. Even in a clash of two heroes, you could call one the villain in that particular story for how they oppose the other. It’s a matter of perspective. One could be the villain of a story merely because they aim for the opposite goal of the hero of that tale, even if both end goals are suitably noble in the scheme of things. We often see in literary works that the villains of stories oft have either selfish or noble intentions, and in the case of the latter, what turns them into villains is how they view the world and how they may have let other important aspects fall to the wayside in their single-minded devotion to their goal.

Rarely is it that a good villain is written to be cruel and harsh for its own sake. The villain’s view of the world may be twisted, but there’s always an element of logic and reason, the same as you might see in a heroic character. Even initially good motivations and desires can be twisted into something absolutely horrendous and monstrous with the right pulls of the string in a character’s history. Some can have their world views changed for the better with time, while others struggle in vain to understand to the bitter end. But that’s how the cookie crumbles. Not all endings are happy, and not every character deserves a happy ending in a story book, especially so when considering how many that they have made suffer through their actions. But by that consideration, heroes aren’t above similar karmic justice as well, simply because they wore the mantle of hero. Nor are they automatically entitled to their happy ending. Harming others, regardless of role one sees themselves in a story, inevitably begets wrath and a desire for similar harm upon the one who originally inflicted it. And while that may lead to interesting interactions, it doesn’t always unfold in a way where things work out where each party gets their just desserts as people believe they should. We watch what happens as a story unfolds, and the job of the mun in roleplay is to portray the character as their motivations, desires, and ethics would bid them do, be it for weal or woe.

But there are additional aspects to keep in mind when roleplaying, and it isn’t simply limited to keeping to the character. Communication ahead of time, and discussing what is acceptable, what isn’t, and what one expects to come of roleplay with another, must all be done in order to ensure things go in a manner both parties are ok with what may happen and are on the same page. There never should be any ‘well that’s what my character would do’ bullshit when it comes to discussing boundaries and hard limits on what one finds acceptable versus unacceptable in roleplay. If you feel your character would not be able to be played in a manner in which you prefer due to said boundaries or rules, it is best to find roleplay elsewhere. To push or pressure one into ignoring their own personal comforts and boundaries is unacceptable. Even when walking up to someone, there still is an expectation of some communication on an out of character level should you intend to harm their character. This isn’t reserved only for villains to do. That’s placing undue burden on one player type while relaxing standards for the rest. All players must heed this if communication is to be healthy, in order to avoid crossed wires.

Which brings us to concerns people run across in roleplay. There indeed are players who play a character type due to the power fantasy, and do not properly communicate with their fellow players, nor keep in mind what they may face for their actions. Please note how I did not specify sides. In my time in roleplay, I have seen many players of heroes pull the same exact thing that they are so quick to accuse villain players of: ignoring what consequences they would logically face for misdeeds and attacking others in the street, as well as attempting to kill without communication or agreement on an OOC level, on top of trying to maim and cripple characters in permanent ways over small slights, such as spilling a beer on them, or harsh words exchanged. All of this, with not a single word of communication or planning ahead of time. One person falling into one side or the other between ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ does not give them a free pass for such behavior. It’s reprehensible behavior no matter who does it, and using the OOC information that someone happens to play as a character on the other side of what one considers good or evil as reasoning for a free license to do so is even moreso. Actions have consequences, no matter what side you are on. It is better and more interesting roleplay to roll with the consequences of a muse’s actions than it is to straight up ignore them. Talk shit, get hit. Hit someone, be hit in return. No party should expect a blanket immunity due to what they consider themselves. But neither should players feel they are given an automatic pass or ability to control the fate of another’s character. That’s still up to the writer of the character themselves, regardless of how much you may dislike the character being portrayed.

In particular, I’ve seen a disturbing number of individuals who feel it is within rights to execute player characters with zero communication out of character, and it’s mostly the players who play the ‘good’ characters saying this. If you feel you have an innate right to execute a character played by another, without any sort of communication ahead of time, you may be better off writing by yourself than with others. No player is allowed to force character death on another, regardless of the roles played. You may discuss and plan, and plot ways any encounter may go, but the moment one tries to bully or force another player into killing their character off, regardless of why, they have gone too far and should not be surprised if the player in question chooses to remove themselves from the roleplay or ignore it entirely.

In regards to the claims of that the guards would not allow such characters in, that is ignoring just how vast a city is and the limited number of troops that would be there to patrol, in comparison to the rest of the populace. What we see ingame doesn’t necessarily correlate to the actual size of each location, as areas have been limited in size both due to technical limitations of the game as well as to ensure a relative amount of convenience for the players.

Certainly, should a character with a bounty and known face get noticed for their deeds or a guard is called for, they should be prepared to potentially face consequences for their actions or try to escape. Actions have consequences. But one cannot simply whip up a dozen super-powered city guard NPCS to try to execute another player simply because they dislike that the player is not playing the type they want them to. Especially if the character in question may not even have a wanted poster or have done anything that would warrant the guard’s attention. That is gatekeeping roleplay at its finest, deciding who should be where based on personal preferences with little regard to others beyond personal feelings. By that sort of standard, any player who disliked someone else could do the same and merely claim that the face is close enough to a bounty that they should be killed on sight. Better to alert a player of a guard character and let them handle it, if you do want to have guards interfere, or plot with said character’s player to see how guards can be involved and then step in if they are agreeable to such. If not, drop it and either watch, or ignore. Whipping up random NPCs to do your bidding and to try to force someone out of roleplay without any discussion will not encourage people to do as you expect, and instead is more likely to earn you a spot on the block list.

Often times, a player character that falls on the villain side of the spectrum may not necessarily have a bounty because they have handled their personal situations or misdeeds in a way that keeps them under the radar, or they are skirting the line between legal and illegal. Assuming that all deeds are known and skipping straight to confrontation is poor form at the least and is considered metagaming. No player gets a free pass to do that. Many villain players have rules that one must adhere to when engaging their characters precisely because as players we’ve all seen people assume what our character would and wouldn’t be let known, or what they would say, and then run with it without even a word to us as the player of said villain. The rules we have are used to avoid such mischaracterization and help ensure that communication is healthy on all sides. Players of both sides get particularly upset when key details are left out and things they do not want nor did they agree ahead of time to are sprung on them.

Finally, a character does not represent the writer. A character may adore strawberries and peanuts, but the writer may be highly allergic to where they are sent into shock even on mild contact with either of them and thus loathes them. And what a character may think of said foods may also differ drastically between what the writer thinks of them as a result of those differences. This is the difference between in character and out of character. I explain it as such as I have seen the community grow progressively worse over time in understanding that what one’s character may do may not necessarily reflect the writer’s view in real life at all. Too many see a character that is morally questionable and believe that the writer behind them will behave in the exact same way as the character, and that how the character may see things is no different than how the player does. If you struggle to comprehend that a character does not necessarily represent the player, then you misunderstand what roleplaying is. It is not merely and only inserting yourself into a game setting down to the last detail. You may do that, but others have just as much right to write out something different, and approach a character not from a perspective of how they themselves feel, but from a point of analyzing of how someone who experienced the history forged for the character might behave and in doing so explore the resulting mindset.

Such history may scar a character or traumatize in a way that brings out behaviors that the player themselves would never consider till they sit down and consider just how the character may respond after all factors are taken into account. Just because one character hates something or someone does not mean that the writer does as well. Darker characters and villains often have traumas that skew their views to some degree, but just because the writer has taken the time to consider what that may result in does not mean they require therapy themselves as a person or that they share those same views or ideals. To say so and paint all players with such a broad brush and claim them to be mentally unwell is disgusting and indicates that, as a player, one cannot separate themselves from their character enough to comprehend that others are able to portray views other than their own personal set of beliefs held as a person. It also discourages dialogue, as it shows an innate, hostile bias, and there are not many that are willing to put up with such hostility and narrow-mindedness as it is being aimed at them as a person and attacking them as a person rather than disliking the character forged. You cannot expect someone to willingly listen and try to see your side when attacked on a personal level for little more than having made something you dislike seeing in your personal roleplay. If you dislike it, don’t interact or involve such a character in your plot line. If they ask for your view, you can always provide constructive criticism, but if you offer it unbidden you should not expect it to be listened to or taken. Especially if it is very clear from how you approach it that your problem is personally with the player and not the details or how they portrayed the character.

As a personal example, Eligos would be categorized as a villain. He works for whoever pays him the most as a minion, and while he mostly does perfectly legal work, he absolutely has done less-than-legal work and then carefully covered up his misdeeds after by pulling the strings of the people who owe him favors. He is considered a villain mainly as he will do whatever he is allowed to within his contract in order to succeed, and often times finds himself working for the wrong [losing] side because his messed-up priorities led him to see the extra money offered as indication of good faith in his abilities and also valuing him as an asset, and not being able to see why acting on behalf of someone he thinks valued him more is a bad thing. He will work with anyone if he’s given a good enough reason or money, or against them if someone else makes a better offer. He won’t kick puppies or harm kittens, or hurt anyone unnecessarily, and if it does boil down to combat, it’s something I absolutely discuss ahead of time to find out limitations and also what one desires to see happen, so that personal growth for the character he is facing off against or with has that opportunity to grow and learn as a person. If someone says they dislike something? That’s now off the table and no longer up for discussion, period. But by virtue of his poor life choices and habitually finding himself on the wrong side of conflict due to his values, he is a villain, through and through.

But playing a character like him isn’t a simple power fantasy made to flex virtual muscles. There’s easier and simpler options, and if I wanted to do that, I’d have just made a hero, as those characters tend to not be analyzed so hard for compliance as villains are. If Eligos had been made to be some stupid power fantasy and nothing more, he’d not be yeeted into a wall half as often as he has by both those around him and his own tools malfunctioning. Nor am I mentally unwell and think the same way he does, simply because I let him say and do the shit that he does. I personally dislike many of his life choices, but do find it amusing to watch him go, and then pile on karma later for all of his misdeeds so he regrets his actions later. He’s an arrogant little gear gremlin who exists to help further stories of others while providing entertaining moments. Just because one individual personally may not see the karma carried out or get to execute him simply as they dislike him doesn’t mean he gets away with no consequences for his actions. As the player, I decide how to punish him. Not others. Him being a villain does not strip me of that right and give it to you simply because you dislike seeing him around.

#mun speaks #mun rants #villain

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96thdayofrage · 4 years ago

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Just a theory: the Pan-Africanists who hate #ADOS don’t hate #ADOS because of the latter people’s actual politics. Pan-Africanists hate #ADOS because the people who are involved in that movement are pointing out something that no one else will: that Pan-Africanism in 2021 feels like a response to a question that basically no one really even asks anymore. That for all of their grand pronouncements—the epic and almost mythic sense of their project’s historical certainty—it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore how Pan-Africanism today just sort of feels in a lot of ways like the soggy nub of a joint being passed around at a dwindling party.

Think about it. Does the strangely visceral opinion about #ADOS held and oft expressed by Pan-Africanists really spring from the former’s politics? Yeah? Really? Well, what is it about the #ADOS political agenda specifically that they so hate? Is it that they would like the U.S. government to continue holding onto the trillions of dollars that it owes these people? Is it that they approve of chemical plants and refineries and waste dumps being strewn throughout black American communities in such a way that basically ensures those residents—simply by going outside and inhaling oxygen—contract what are 100% lethal diseases?

Or is it more likely that these people feel somewhere deep down that ADOS are like some kind of apparently lower form of oppressed subjects? And that, as such, they simply aren’t entitled to (or even capable of?) determining their own fate. Is it that they feel ADOS are being insubordinate and unmanageable and refractory and childish? Is it that in their assertion of agency and in their unsparing critique of the international movement that has patently failed them ADOS are hurting the feelings of many people who are—let’s be honest—way too emotionally overinvested in what’s mostly become just a quaint area of scholarship in our universities’ Africana Studies departments?

Just a theory! But doesn’t that seem like maybe a more honest answer?

Maybe those Pan-Africanists just hate that #ADOS has been quite successful in its reparations advocacy despite the movement’s refusal to conform to Pan-Africanist orthodoxy. And maybe it’s that these Pan Africanists have a faint notion that wounded pride isn’t exactly a sophisticated reason to critique #ADOS, so they instead invent some bullshit political pretext about how #ADOS’s advocacy is ‘ahistorical’ or totally reactionary or that those in the movement are corrupted by a strain of American exceptionalism or whatever.

That, anyway, is the basic defensive crouch position from which Broderick Dunlap writes his recent article, “A Dose of Reality for the ADOS Movement”. Adhering tightly to what is now the standard formula for a Pan-Africanist-Critique-of-the-#ADOS-Movement think piece, Dunlap’s essay is deeply fucking boring, stiff, and backward-gazing. It is obsessed with identifying earlier modalities and pointing out the completely obvious fact that #ADOS’s approach does not correspond with them (which, given the failure of those forms of identity and resistance to offer a bulwark against something as basic as inadequate sewage treatment, let alone unify an entire continent, well, duh!). But mostly Dunlap’s essay just aims to persuade the reader that reparations isn’t about money; that the real and most vital question that black people in America need to consider (black people who are forced to live under regularly occurring boil water advisories, mind you!)—is: “what will it take for Black folks to forgive the United States?”

It is true that, in the #ADOS political literature, this inquiry into the capacity of black people to forgive their victimizer is never raised. It also seems true that it is difficult to imagine a less radical and more insulting position than that, but, anyway, I digress. Thirdly, the suggestion that the only thing that #ADOS is concerned about is a simple transaction of overdue funds—after which they just sort of dust off their hands and raise a glass to victory while beginning to contemplate their new investment portfolios—is totally absurd, very easily disproven, and yet another example of the strong tendency among Pan-Africanists to feel that it is their right to define the #ADOS movement however they like.

But if the demand for monetary compensation to be paid to their group is what makes #ADOS a supposedly purely avaricious movement—if that is why they must be vilified and opposed and viewed as a blasphemous and debauched form of a black liberation movement—then what is one to make of similar demands for material redress made throughout the diaspora directly to that nation’s former colonizer? Here’s one such example involving Barbados’s demand for the United Kingdom to pay it reparations. Or when Hilary Beckles, chairman of CARICOM’s reparations commission explains that the organization of Caribbean member states is “focusing [our reparations claim] on Britain because Britain…made the most money out of slavery and the slave trade – they got the lion’s share,” where is the prolonged outrage from the Pan-Africanists who would otherwise decry the omission of other diasporic groups from this one-nation-in-the-crosshairs look at who owes who what? Why don’t the people making the argument for those reparations get accused of merely wanting “crumbs” from the old imperialistic British pie or whatever? Again, we are asked to believe that the Pan-Africanist antipathy toward #ADOS is rooted in a fundamental political disagreement, or like some inviolable set of internationalistic beliefs. But when demands that are analogous to those of #ADOS receive effectively none of the hostility and outright disdain that the #ADOS’s demand for reparations appears to singularly attract from the rest of the diaspora, it sure becomes hard not to see a more cynical motivation at the core of the their ‘critique’ of the movement’s political aims.

Here’s what I think: I think that the refrain of reparations not being about money is a slogan that is 100% designed to sheepdog would-be serious reparations advocates into supporting business as usual forever here in America. I think once you say something like that you have been brought right into the Democratic Party’s orbit and the DNC will make short work of turning your little proclamation of righteousness and purity or whatever the fuck it is into a feel-good campaign of money-free ‘justice.’ I think the accusation that monetary reparations for ADOS are viewed by that group not as the seeds to self-determination but rather as the harvest itself is a lie concieved in malice and spite—that it is a mischaracterization that strives to bastardize a project that has only ever argued the need for a significant restructuring of the (highly group-specific!) maldistribution of wealth in America before their group could ever meaningfully participate in any kind of internationalism. But what I really can’t account for though is why ADOS saying that activates some serious lizard brain shit in a whole lot of people. Or why those people apparently feel the need to gussy up that brute emotional response in some bogus political principle that they can’t really criticize without hypocrisy: it is OK for CARICOM to explicitly exclude ADOS from their reparations claim against imperial powers (and merely refer them to another organization trying to make additional pecuniary arrangements for Caribbeans), but it is a cause for moral outrage when #ADOS tries to take their group’s case to the U.S. government? I don’t know. That sort of unevenness of application strikes me as people who are motivated way less by actual ideas and more by the people themselves who are doing what they’re doing. And what are ADOS even doing that’s so totally unconscionable anyway? Turning to one another and becoming passionately invested in their shared experience instead of performing a committment to something that is no longer really a relevant force in the world but which will get them meaningless approval by lots of strangers? Again, I don’t know. It just seems like a lot of the time that what governs opinion about #ADOS involves a lot more high school lunchroom behavior than what those people would like us to believe.

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lastsonlost · 5 years ago

Link

After the first episode of "The Mandalorian," the Disney Plus series in the Star Wars universe that became the top streaming hit of 2019, aired on the platform, some Twitter users expressed frustration at how few women spoke, and how few female characters there were in general.

Some of those who tweeted, including well-known feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, were met with dogpiling and waves of harassment across social media platforms.

The harassment largely stemmed from anti-feminist Star Wars fan accounts who rounded up and highlighted tweets under the pretense that those complaining were "outraged" social justice warriors trying to tear down a successful Star Wars franchise.

The harassment is just the latest instance of feminist fandom voices being shut down online.

Anita Sarkeesian is no stranger to online harassment,

YEA SHES VERY GOOD AT MAKING THEM.

being one of the central figures in Gamergate, the online harassment campaign that resulted in her receiving numerous death and rape threats, along with bomb and shooting threats at her events. But even she was surprised at the amount of vitriol her tweet about "The Mandalorian" received.

After watching the first episode of the Star Wars series for Disney Plus, Sarkeesian tweeted asking if she was just tired, or if there wasn't "a single female speaking character in the first episode."

She was exhausted, Sarkeesian told Insider — missing the one scene where a woman spoke and making a typo in her tweet. In the replies, Sarkeesian corrected herself. Then she went to bed. In the morning, the tweet had more than 3,000 replies. It currently has close to 7,000.

"Maybe you should switch to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills... I'm sure you'll find much to relate to there...." one top reply read.

"No wonder you're so tired. They say you should stretch before making such reaches, especially at your age," said another, with more than 1,400 likes of its own.

It's an example of dogpiling, a type of online harassment where, on Twitter, someone's replies outnumber likes and retweets, and are mostly filled with repetitive, hurtful comments.

"It's ironic. Women, especially feminists, get accused of being emotional and angry and all of these things when all we said was 'Hey, I noticed this thing. And it's kind of a problem, and I think it's really bad for our society,'" Sarkeesian told Insider. "If they didn't reply to it, my tweet would have just been gone. They made it a much bigger deal."

Sarkeesian is the most prominent figure facing dogpiling and harassment in response to her criticism of the series, but she's not the only one.

People with and without large Twitter followings, some who are verified and many who are not, have found themselves overwhelmed with anti-feminist replies and messages across platforms after tweeting about how few women are in "The Mandalorian."

Specifically, in the first episode, there's one female character wearing a mask who speaks, and two female characters total, along with a few women spotted as extras in the background of shots. More female characters are expected to play larger roles in future episodes.

"Even if you want to give the show the benefit of the doubt and say there's some big, wild justification that's going to come around in episode 7, it feels wrong that the vast majority of this world is populated by men or male-identified characters," Sarkeesian said.

Star Wars fans have a history of harassing women online when faced with criticism

Online harassment in the Star Wars fandom, particularly of women, is nothing new. Actresses like Daisy Ridley and Kelly Marie Tran of the latest Disney-owned Star Wars trilogy have recently talked about the negative aspects of the Star Wars community.

Ridley, who stars in the newest Star Wars trilogy as Rey, "cut off" her Facebook and Instagram accounts "like a Skywalker limb" due to harassment, and Tran faced racist and misogynistic harassment after appearing as the first woman of color in a leading role in the Star Wars franchise.

"It wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them," Tran wrote for The New York Times after deleting her Instagram posts in 2018. "Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories."

In the case of "The Mandalorian," almost anyone who tweets about the show from a feminist perspective is at risk of being targeted, because Star Wars fan accounts are rounding up tweets that criticize things like the amount of time it took for a woman to speak in the first episode.

One account rounded up 33 of these tweets with the caption "SJW's are outraged over the 'lack of female characters' in the first 2 episodes of The Mandalorian. A show with 3 female characters. Feminists only care about counting the number of minutes women are on screen in Star Wars."

Insider spoke with two people whose tweets were featured in the round-up, who said their tweets were mischaracterized, inspiring a wave of online hate.

Both of the people who spoke with Insider said they liked "The Mandalorian" and will continue watching it, but wanted to point out that it could be better in terms of female representation.

One woman who spoke to Insider anonymously, because she is trying to distance her name from the situation, says the harassment began several days after she posted her initial tweet about a lack of women in the first episode.

After receiving anti-feminist replies on Twitter, she also started getting harassed across platforms, in part because other anti-feminist Star Wars accounts picked up screenshots of her tweet after it was first included in the round-up and distributed to an even wider audience, including on Instagram.

One person even left a violent message for her in the email submission form on her professional website. It reads "People like you don't deserve a f---ing opinion, but at least I'm glad you can voice it. Doesn't prevent me from calling you f---ing r-----ed for spouting your misandry. HOW DOES IT F---ING FEEL C---? I hope you expire and never have children."

"I had to put everything on private, for my own mental health," she told Insider. "I just had to shut down my profile. I will never, ever, ever tweet about Star Wars again. And I love baby Yoda so much. But I can't. They won. Life's too short for me to fight this fight."

Even after setting her accounts to private, she was inundated by hundreds of follow requests on Twitter, along with DMs sent to her private Instagram.

Those who tweeted about female representation in 'The Mandalorian' stand by their words, despite the harassment

The person who tweeted the round-up of critics didn't want to share any identifying information with Insider, but did stand behind the tweet, and said they didn't participate in or encourage harassment, but the reach of the account became clear once Insider asked for comment in the replies. Within a few hours, a video had been uploaded about this article (which had not been written yet) to YouTube from a channel with more than 130,000 subscribers.

The video in question has been viewed more than 33,000 times and highlights the mentality in at least one corner of the Star Wars fandom that is male-dominated and is aggressive toward diverse media representation.

"What SJWs do is as soon as this kind of thing happens, they identify [the Twitter account that posted the round-up] as hostile to their narrative [...] I would call them left-wing garbage," the voiceover of YouTuber ComicArtistPro Secrets says in the video. "They are going to come in and write an article smearing [the Twitter account], 'Don't you dare shine a light on these cockroaches in such an effective way ever again,'" The YouTuber mocked, referring to the feminist critics as the "cockroaches" in the situation.

"This is a strategy that these sorts of anti-progressive, very regressive cyber mobs have used for years," Sarkeesian said. "They try to use social justice language against us when we try to bring these issues up but it's so transparent and so obvious what they're trying to do, by undermining our point. It's very bad faith."

Writer and programmer David Ely, a male who's tweet was included in the roundup, told Insider that his replies were pretty tame in comparison to Sarkeesian and the other woman Insider spoke to, although he did receive one unspecified death threat from an account that he blocked.

"Part of the response seems to come from a belief that Star Wars needn't be political. That it be pure entertainment," Ely told Insider. "Star Wars is a made-up universe. If gender inequality exists there, it's either on purpose, or because the creator's biases meant they didn't notice it. Either way, that's political."

Sarkeesian also stood by her original point that "The Mandalorian" should have more female characters, and said a lot of the negative response was because there's so much pushback from people who have historically been over-represented on the screen, and are hostile to the changing expectations for diverse characters that represent the diverse Star Wars fanbase.

"We are so accustomed to male-dominated narratives that it's easy to not even notice glaring omissions," she said. "Unlike if the entire cast had been women, I suspect everyone would have immediately noticed that regardless of what one's opinion would be on that casting choice."

MAYBE ITS NOT FOR YOU ANITA....

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a-baleful-howl · 6 years ago

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I’m about to go full-on petty mode. So if you don’t care about my personal gloating and back-patting, scroll on by lol

This post contains spoilers for episode 1 of season 8, and also spoilers for my fic The Lone Wolf Dies.

I recognize this post is really only for me. I’m a salty bitch.

This is fanart the wonderful and lovely @cathcacen drew for me when I was at my lowest and receiving the most hate I’ve ever gotten for a fic.

I ranted about it for a bit, deleted the worst of the flames I could off of FFN, and I haven’t actually been back to FFN since this all happened. Don't think I havent noticed the love and support I got from the JonsaFam, either. I very much appreciated it, and I know many people enjoyed my fic (and are begging me to finish it...).

Here’s some highlights of the comments I received on FFN accusing me of being “unrealistic” or of committing “character assassination” (sad thing is, these aren’t even the worst reviews I got):

“Arya would never let Sansa or the Northern Lords do that to Jon[...]This story is making Jon a bit of a wimp and Arya willing to betray him even though she loves him more than Sansa.” [saphirablue25 on chapter 1]

“Another story about Jonsa, and Anti-Dany, and pro-norte and pro-stark? these crap stories are becoming common since season 7.[...]and this kind of stories, without any artistic or literary value, just deserve to be vilified. is just another excuse to be myopic and criticize character without reason, especially when it is already something practically canon that Jon / Daenerys will be in the books too, as one producer of the HBO series said, who was told George Martin. waste of time.” [flayjunior15 on chapter 1]

“this story is rubbish, more crap without sense…” [guest on chapter 1]

“This is character assassination. Arya Stark would never betray Jon Snow; no matter what;[...]Of course now it’s a Jon and Sansa pairing ignoring everything that happened in season 7 b/c why not?[...] The leaps you Jonsa writers take to mischaracterize daenerys just b/c you’re not getting the ending you want in the show or the books is a little ridiculous. You can’t write a story that’s based on show-canon and then ignore all obstacles presented in said canon just to put your two favorite characters together. That’s not how good storytelling works.” [FanofLogic (lol) on chapter 1]

“I don't think Arya would ever betray Jon, it's just not plausible.[...]There are gaping plot holes, that need to be seriously addressed, the writing and the punctuation are fine, it’s well spaced and makes sense in a linear sense, but in terms of plot and story, it crumbles to dust before you even finish reading the chapter in its entirety.[...]I don’t want to stop you from writing, that’s not my intention, you just need to sit back and ask yourself, if it really makes sense.” [carpenoctem20 on chapter 1]

“Well, I read your story. It is sad really because your writing style is good and enjoyable but the stupidity of your character's actions[...]Too bad, your writing is promising but the story lacks logic…[...]Also, thank you for butchering Arya’s character - she is my favourite and you completely ruined her.” [malb901 on chapter 1]

“I realize that this story is an AU because our characters are written not how they are portray in television or books…” [GUEST VIII on chapter 1]

“If your goal was to write Arya completely out of character and Sansa as a short sighted idiot with the northern lords as her peanut gallery...then good job. Otherwise your characterization needs a lot of work.” [guest on chapter 1]

“Arya...well how she is written is so absurdly offbase from canon you would have been better off write my that part as an of to avoid having preconceived about the character.” [guest on chapter 1]

“What a load of complete garbage. So much character assassination across the board is an injustice to GRRM’s work!” [guest on chapter 1]

“Another junk Jonsa story, I see that many of these losers, are very salty, because their crackship (because that’s the Jonsa, a crack) shipwrecked last season.[...]The author of this story is another salty loser with no sense, just like all the Jonsa fans of this crack ship.[...] even Arya has a stronger relationship with Jon than with any member of her family, she would care less about the North, even threatening to kill the Northern Lord, if they hurt Jon. Only two idiots of Jonsa, defend this story.” [JonsaSucks on chapter 1]

“Highly questionable characterization and plot holes big enough to fly a dragon through...pass” [guest on chapter 2]

“With Arya, she's so OC in this that it would have made more sense to make her a new character. She would never choose Sansa over Jon.” [saphirablue25 on chapter 2]

“So disappointing! This story is a complete disservice to anyone who is not a blind Sansa worshiper.[...]The plot holes don't do you any favors either.” [Zmrzlina763 on chapter 3]

“Poorly written, plot holes, unrealistic” [guest on chapter 3]

“What a pile of crap. So many plot holes and character assassination. You should be ashamed to publish such garbage.” [guest on chapter 4]

“I hated this story...thought it was really ridiculous.” [guest on chapter 4]

“I would highly recommend rereading GRRM’s work as it’s obvious you are basing your characterizations on contrived reimaginings with no basis in the work you claim to be a fan of. Please do us all a favor and quit polluting the fandom with this nonsense.” [guest on chapter 4]

And finally, for the piece de resistance!

“Oh boy that story became retarded real quick” [guest on chapter 1]

Now, I might be biased but my brain kept pointing out similarities to the first episode of season 8 and my fic - which I never claimed to be writing what I thought was really going to happen, but that this what I wished in a best case scenario would, my interpretation of all the info we got from Season 7, and it was always only ever supposed to be a Jonsa one-shot but it kept growing.

Now, one of the biggest complaints I got was “character assassination” - saying that the characters would never behave the way I wrote them to. This is mainly what I want to focus on as clearly the fic is not exactly the same as the episode - and I never expected it to be. Fanfic is fanfic for a reason. For one, Sansa and the North refuse Jon and Dany, and that's kind of the catalyst to everything else that happens in the fic. Thats a big change - so I’m not saying ��My fic was exactly like the show!!” I just wanted to point out all the moments while watching the show I was like “See! I didn’t assassinate anyone’s character!” since that’s apparently a crime I was committing against all of fandom.

If you haven’t read the fic, I highly suggest you do since many of these quotes are small snippets taken from a bigger context.

All the text is from my fic, the pictures are the moments I thought were similar from the show.

Daenerys had chosen to forgo her dragons to mount a horse instead, as a show of equality and peace to the Northern people.

The Hound, Sandor Clegane, rode beside them, seemingly reluctant to be there, in his own way.

“Greetings,” she announced. “How gracious for you to meet us.” Though her words were not sweet - they never were - and she measured the air between the two parties cautiously.

“You’ve traveled very far,” Sansa responded, her horse shifting impatiently under her. Her voice did not waver, and it carried loud and clear across the void. “It would be rude of me to not turn you away personally.”

Daenerys remained silent.

“We know no King, but the King in the North whose name is Stark.” Lyanna Mormont bellowed from her own steed. Her eyes were glowering, stern and furious. Not little Lyanna…

“First the Wildlings, and now a foreign whore,” Lord Glover spat, his horse just as wide as he was. “You’re not a Northerner. You’re anything but.”

He looked to Sansa for an answer. Surely Sansa would not leave him to the wolves. Yet she avoided his eye.

“I missed you too, Jon…” she called back, and his heart knew that she meant it. “But Starks stick together. I know that now. What would Father think?” His heart broke. If only they knew…

Jon had warned her. He knew before heading to Dragonstone that the Northerners were not likely to kneel to a foreign ruler. Sansa had said so herself many times. He resisted the urge to gloat, to remind the Dragon Queen of his words.

“Sam?” he whispered. Surely he must be imagining it. Sam was here? In Winterfell? The round man came stumbling towards him, his arms waving madly by his sides to catch Jon's attention.[...] The two clasped each other in a strong embrace for a moment before Jon pulled back. [...] “Gilly?” Jon asked absently. “And the baby?” “They're fine!” Sam answered, finally with a dim smile. “They’re here.”

Arya . Oh, Arya! She’s safe. He frantically grabbed her, sweeping his hands over her hair and face, feverishly kissing the top of her head, thanking the old gods that she was here. Thank the gods his little sister was alive. She had wrapped her arms so tightly around him he could barely breathe.

“You leave him alone!” Arya barked, running swiftly down the hall towards them.

“Don’t you understand what this means, Jon?” Sam insisted. “You’re the heir to the Iron Throne.”

Jon didn’t care about that. Not now. Suddenly everything he thought he knew was a lie. His father- no, his uncle... had lied to him his whole life. This meant that Daenerys was his aunt by blood. And Sansa was his…

He suddenly felt very ill.

[...]Everything tasted bitter to him now. Everything he had ever known was a lie, but oddly, it made sense. Eddard had gone south to save his sister and had returned with a child. It made sense. How - how - had he not seen it before?

[...]People die and stay dead. That was a fact. Unless he had believed more lies than the one his uncle had told him his whole life.

He had traveled on horseback many times, but never alone. [...] When he drew nearer to Winterfell, the snow and winds were so strong he was forced to cover every inch of skin but his eyes.

“You look like you’ve seen the seven hells.”

“You don’t look any better,” Sandor replied. Jaime tried to ignore the slight. It was true he was unshaven, unwashed and frozen to the bone.

“It’s too late,” Bran interrupted. Jon’s blood ran cold at the words.

“What do you mean it’s too late?”

“The Wall is gone. Eastwatch is gone. There is a dragon that breathes blue fire.”

Now, I’m not trying to say “I’m Nostradamus and I guessed the entire first episode.” No. That is absolutely not what I’m saying. I thought I made an informed guess into how the characters might react to the events in season 7 and amongst each other, and used my own opinions on the characterizations to write a story based around one thing: Jon realizing he loved Sansa because she died. Everything else was secondary to me.

It’s only because I got such immediate and hostile push back to something I saw as obvious foreshadowing that made me feel so vindicated when the first episode had so many similarities to what I wrote. Anyone could have come up with these same lines as I did - because the evidence was there and the Jonsa fam was pointing it out the whole time.

I just reallllly hate how fanfiction, especially in ASOIAF and on FFN, has the default accusation of “character assassination” to use when you just hate a story, when all fandom characterizations are just opinions. Only the author of the original source material can decry character assassination. Fanfiction is everyone’s personal choices when it comes to things like this, and it appears that a whole shitload of Dany Stans descended on my story, and instead of saying “I hate Jonsa and Dany can do no wrong” they personally attacked me for horrible writing - when in fact I was the one more on point than they were. I never expected Sansa and the North to literally turn Dany and Jon away at the gates - but thats why I wrote a fanfic about it. Because that was the only way I was going to see it told.

I was so upset by this (can’t you tell? lol) that seeing this episode really made me feel good and feel more proud in what I wrote.

okay. rant over.

#original #text post #s8 #8.01 #my fics #the lone wolf dies #long post

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itsclydebitches · 6 years ago

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I think the reason why the gang hasn’t shown sympathy towards Oz is because 1) there’s a limited runtime and stuff like the Bees, Ruby protagonist status , Maria and Qrow needed focus. Oz would have taken too much screentime.2) is that if you read any V5 criticisms, one of the biggest was that the gang completely trusted Oz and no one questioned him. Since the show has made it clear he’s keeping secrets and is somewhat shady, many wanted someone to call him out or not fully trust him.

Yeah I totally get the time limitation, which is why halfway through this volume I started looking for a single line. Literally that’s it. Someone at the farm references Ozpin’s trauma in a vaguely sympathetic manner. Ruby expresses a single sentence of regret during her talk with Maria. Anything that would acknowledge that they’re beginning to think about these things, that these emotions exist, and that the show will tackle them once Ozpin actually comes back. It’s preparation, establishing the existence of something while letting your audience know that we’ll come back to it later--in this case during volume 7, since it looks like Ozpin isn’t coming back until the final episode, if then. I was waiting for the setup and so was legitimately blindsided by “we never needed Ozpin” instead.

Also that criticism of volume 5 makes absolutely no sense to me. For two reasons. 1. Ruby and the others had no reason to distrust Ozpin back then. Just because the fandom has assumed he’s evil from the get-go doesn’t mean it makes sense to foster those assumptions off onto the cast. The show made it clear to us (the audience) that he’s keeping secrets by virtue of showing us the inner circle meetings, and we assume Ozpin is shady because of a real-world archetype (kindly figurehead isn’t as kindly as he seems). Neither of those apply to a group of kids who know Ozpin only as an honest headmaster who playfully bent rules for them back at school. The only exception might be Jaune because he blames Qrow and company for “forcing” Pyrrha to take on the role of Fall Maiden, but even he backed down once Qrow re-emphasized that no, we gave her a choice. She chose. This is another example of the fandom thinking that characters should react to information that we only have by virtue of our status as viewers.

Much more importantly though: 2. Didn’t we get this with Yang?? People calling out Ozpin/not trusting him was the driving force of the volume’s second half. We got long conversations of Raven characterizing him as a powerful manipulator. Yang learns not to take anything at face value. She ploughs into Haven fully distrusting Ozpin and that distrust doesn’t lessen, not even when she learns (from an Uncle she does trust) that Raven horribly mischaracterized their situation. We see Yang’s distrust quickly spreading to the group. We see her demanding a promise of no more secrets. We meet Hazel who blames Ozpin for his sister’s death and tries to paint him as a murderer. We meet Lionheart who has lost all his faith in Ozpin. Who watched volume 5 and somehow missed the number of people who were questioning, accusing, or outright betraying Ozpin?

Volume 5 is largely about distrusting Ozpin and all of that came to a head in the first three episodes of volume 6. Which is why I was then expecting the beginnings of a changing tide. Unless they really plan to have Ozpin remain a supposed antagonist that the group is going to ditch, we’re at the point where they should be realizing their mistakes. “Hmm... Raven implied that Ozpin forced some horrible curse on my family, but Uncle Qrow proved she was lying. Maybe Raven is the manipulator here.” “Hmm... we all assumed that Ozpin had done some horrendous thing if he was trying to keep it secret from us, but really it was just his incredibly personal, traumatic backstory and the knowledge that he doesn’t have all the answers to an impossible problem. He didn’t want to let us down because we’ve always expected perfection from him. Maybe he deserves a bit of sympathy and respect for what he has accomplished...”

I mean yeah sure, we can keep dragging the arc out, but at this point--without that setup and with the knowledge that Ozpin will most likely be forgiven somewhere down the line--the writing is just painting the kids as stubbornly cruel.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas #Anonymous

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rainhadaenerys · 5 years ago

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Daenerys Meta Masterpost Part 7 - ASOIAF

This is part 7 of my Daenerys Meta Masterpost. I’ve compiled more than 2000 metas about Daenerys, both about the books and the show, and I intend to constantly update this post with more metas. The metas listed here will be linked to their reblogs in my blog, (since many people tend to change their usernames, and I don’t want the links to stop working in this case). Of the metas linked here, the ones that I wrote are in bold text. It’s also important to note that the metas here reflect my own opinions about the characters, I don’t claim to be listing every meta that was ever written about Daenerys.

In this part 7, I’ll list metas about the following topics:

BOOKS VS SHOW

“NOTHING WITHOUT HER DRAGONS” DISCOURSE

FANDOM

DOUBLE STANDARDS

GRRM INTERVIEWS

This is a list about the books, but there might be a few metas that mix books and show if I think they bring up interesting points about the books.

Link to the complete Masterpost: HERE

Last update: May 5 2023

OBS: This post has reached (or is close to reaching) the limit of links established by Tumblr (250 links). To read more metas about the topics of this part 4, see the PART 7B.

BOOKS VS SHOW

Daenerys - Books vs Show - Sexism and Bad Writing in the show

Daenerys - Books vs Show - Season 8

Defense against the accusation that Dany is darker in the books and that I “omitted” it in my Books vs Show meta

In the books, Dany's advisors don't control her violence tendencies, it's the opposite, she controls their violent tendencies

Daenerys burning food - books vs show

A Dance With Dragons, or: Daenerys Targaryen Cares about feeding her people, miss me with your BS

Dany - books vs show: (1) (2)

Daenerys and her War Strategies

Show!Daenerys is not an idealized version of Daenerys

Show!Daenerys is more passive

Dany’s reaction to Drogo’s speech about invading Westeros is show-only and understandable

Dany’s conversation with Hizdahr in the fighting pits that frames Daenerys as a tyrant who kills those who disagree with her and that treats slavery as “tradition” doesn’t happen in the books

The show stripped Dany of her warmth and humanity

Unlike the show, Daenerys is not compared to her father in the books, she’s compared to Rhaegar

Differences between book!Meereen and show!Meereen storylines, and book!Hizdahr and show!Hizdahr

In the books, the former slaves don’t turn against Dany like in the show

Edit and tag meta illustrating how show!Dany’s personality is very different from book!Dany

How the show changed the dynamic between Dany and Viserys to demonize Dany

Daenerys and trust - books vs show

Why what you just watched with Dany was totally unearned (Book 5 vs Season 5)

About the show's attempt to portray Daenerys as someone with a sense of superiority: Books vs Show

ShowDaenerys vs BookDaenerys

The Nice Guy trope - Dany and Jorah - Books vs Show

Unlike the show, book!Dany never styles herself as "First of her name" and "Protector of the Realm"

Dany's Wardrobe: Show vs. Books

Which Dany chapters were adapted in which episodes of Game of Thrones

Dany freeing Missandei - Books vs show

How Jon's ambition in the books was erased in the show in order to demonize Dany

Differences between Season 2 and A Clash of Kings

How Dany’s ACOK storyline was poorly adapted by the show

Book!Dany wouldn’t be offended by Daario and Grey Worm gambling

The changes in Jorah’s character and how it affected Dany’s character in the show

Why it’s dangerous to attribute show-only quotes or moments to book!Dany, and how they were used to vilify her

Tag rant about how the Telltale Game of Thrones game mischaracterized and demonized Daenerys

How the changes in Jorah’s character in the show made Dany less sympathetic

So pretty much the entire story about Dany's madness is contrived

Books vs Show: the scene where Dany exiles Jorah

Killing a dragon - books vs show

Which character was ruined the most in the show? Jon or Dany?

Daenerys - Books vs Telltale Game

The changes to Hizdahr’s character in the show

List of Show!Dany quotes that are not in the books

Tag meta about Dany and Daario's relationship in the books and the show

Daenerys Targaryen in ASOIAF vs Game of Thrones - Episode by Episode:

Episode 3.1: Valar Dohaeris

Episode 3.3: Walk of Punishment

Episode 3.4: And Now His Watch Is Ended

Episode 3.5: Kissed by Fire

Episodes 3.7 & 3.8: The Bear and the Maiden Fair & The Second Sons

Episode 3.9: The Rains of Castamere

Episode 3.10: Mhysa (& 5 things to understand why Dany's character and storyline matter)

Episode 4.1: Two Swords

Episodes 4.3 & 4.4: Breaker of Chains and Oathkeeper (& Siege and battle of Meereen)

“NOTHING WITHOUT HER DRAGONS” DISCOURSE

What is Daenerys without her dragons?

Why saying that Daenerys is nothing without her dragons is offensive

Daenerys deserves credit for having dragons

The importance of dragons in Dany’s storyline (and of direwolves in the Starks’)

The importance of direwolves to the Starks, and how Dany's dragons cause many problems and give her huge responsibilities and challenges

Dany wasn’t handed her dragons, and she is not “nothing” without them

What saying that Daenerys is nothing without her dragons actually means

Dany doesn’t need to be able to defend herself to not be considered “nothing”

Dany’s AGOT arc is a good example of how Dany is not nothing without her dragons

Dragons are not a Deus Ex Machina, and the Stark direwolves help the Starks just as much (or even more)

Stannis was more helped by magic than Dany, and yet the fandom never says that he is "nothing without magic"

Why Dany was always important to the political plot, and why you can’t say that she is nothing without her dragons or name

Double standards against Dany: the Starks also would be dead without their direwolves

Not being able to physically defend herself doesn’t mean that Dany didn’t earn what she has

Daenerys didn't have it easy just because she had dragons: (1) (2)

FANDOM

Why Dany is hated/disliked in the fandom: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

Are both sides to blame for the discussion about Dany being so polarized?

Is everything up to interpretation? Is every opinion about Dany valid?

Dany can’t win in the fandom no matter what she does

Dany can't win in the fandom no matter what

The contradictions of Quora

Antis can never offer better suggestions about what Dany should have done, they only criticize her

GOT/ASOIAF fandom: sexism in the Google Search: Part 1 / Part 2

Reasons why Dany hate is sexist

Part Four: Dany, Violence and the Double-Standard

About the fandom’s tendency in feeling insulted when Dany and Arya are described as masculine: there’s nothing wrong in being gender non-conforming

Reason for dark Dany theories: people are used to sexist tropes and come to expect them

No one ever looked for a girl: why the fandom never considers Dany to be AA/PTWP

People hate women whose power is realized and not just a fantasy

On the fandom’s tendency to idolize traditional femininity and hate on Dany for being “masculine”: (1) (2)

When we say Dany is not a villain, we are not defending our “right” to like her, so stop telling Dany fans that “it’s ok to like villains, you can like Dany as a villain”

Dany hate and countertransference

Why do many WOC like Dany?: (1) (2) (3)

Why would Indian feminists like Daenerys?

Why “Jon Snow becomes King of the Seven Kingdoms” is more predictable than “Daenerys Targaryen becomes Queen of the Seven Kingdoms”

The Mad King Revisited: Jon Snow’s descent into madness (or: using the logic antis use against Daenerys to show that Jon could be seen as a villain by that logic - this is not supposed to be an anti-Jon meta, btw)

Dany fans shouldn’t have to defend that Dany is the most revolutionary ruler ever

Unpopular opinion: The stans will always understand the character better than the antis

Dany is the Most Popular and Iconic Character: (1) (2)

Dany’s most important relationship is with the audience, and she goes through a variety of roles

Dany fans don’t have to like Jon equally to be true Jonerys shippers

Fandom sexism against Dany: (1) (2)

The ten commandments on how to write a proper anti-Dany meta

Edit: What is the definition of a Mary Sue?

About the Meereenese Blot and how it changed the fandom's perception of Dany's ADWD storyline

Dany is the only character whose characterization gets completely reversed by fandom's interpretation

Dany hate and how it's related to the fact that she's a proactive character

Why Dany haters are wrong for saying that Dany is "irrelevant" for not having many POV chapters

The fandom's reaction to Dany is exactly what people in real life talk about revolutionaries

On whether we should listen to word of god or not

Personal post by thatprettymuslimgirl: why she relates to Dany as a muslim

Anti-Targaryen people aren't really anti-Targaryen, they are anti-Dany

Anti-monarchy ASOIAF fans aren't really anti-monarchy, they are anti-Dany being queen

Why Martell stans hate Dany

Fandom history: Dany hate throughout the years

Similarities between Dany hate and Tyrion, Arya and Cat hate

People are usually ok with Targaryen restoration if it's not represented by Dany, and there's a lot of blood purity beliefs involved in this thinking

Why Dany doesn’t have as many fanfics as other characters

The misogyny of Jon stans agaisnt Dany stans in the Jonerys fandom: (1) (2) (3) (4)

Everything Dany stans have to deal with in the fandom

Things weren't better in the Dany (or Arya) discourse before the "post show stans" arrived.

Dany antis and Unreliable POVs

I Know What Love Is: Fan Fiction and Resurrecting Daenerys Targaryen (show-based article of Dany's influence in fandom)

Since Sansa stans keep criticizing Dany for everything and claiming that Sansa is better, I would like them to tell me what Sansa would have done in Dany's place

The different types of Dany antis

Not all sides of the fandom are "equally toxic"

Pro-Daenerys opinions are not “extreme”, and claiming that it’s necessary to find a middle ground to find the truth or be nuanced about Dany is a logical fallacy

Why people waste more time criticizing teenage girls instead of the villains and why this makes sense

The distinction between the terms Meereenese Knot and Meereenese Blot

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Is it fair to judge Daenerys by different standards?

Double standards between Dany and male characters when it comes to being rulers

Double standards against Dany wanting to reclaim her home

How the fandom expects Dany to give up everything for Westerosi characters and hate her if she doesn’t, but doesn’t expect the Westerosi characters to give up anything for her

Double standards regarding Dany and Jon and their Targaryen heritage

Double standard regarding characters’ belief in hereditary rulers

Tag meta about Dany, Alysanne and arrogance

Double standards against Dany - feudalism in ASOIAF

Sexist double standards - how fans are willing to judge other characters by medieval standards, but won’t extend the same courtesy to Dany

Male chosen ones, female chosen ones, and fandom’s reaction

Tag meta: Double standards between Daenerys and Zuko

Double standards between Dany wanting to regain what belonged to her family, mourning her family and wanting revenge, and the Starks wanting the same thing

Double standards between Dany, House Stark, and Cersei in their politics

Double standards between Dany and House Martell, and this idea that Dany should “care more about Elia”

Double standards regarding dragons and direwolves

Dany and Jaime, self-awareness and double standards in the fandom

Double standards from people who accuse Dany of being stupid for trusting the Green Grace or marrying Hizdahr

The double standards of the criticism that the slaver’s bay arc would have been better if we saw it from the perspective of a slave rather than a Queen

Double standards between Dany and male rulers and how they would not have been better than Dany in her place

Dany and Sansa are both unaware about systemic injustices in the beginning, but only Dany is called "arrogant" by the fandom because of it

Double standards between Dany and the Starks finding strength in their beasts

Double standards in the fandom regarding Dany's armies

Double Standards and hypocrisy regarding the Targaryen claim of Dany and Jon

Double standards between Dany and Young Griff in the fandom

Daenerys is condemned for acting as expected of a medieval leader

Dany antis who call Dany stupid and reckless for a few mistakes and then complain about Arianne being called stupid and reckless for a few mistakes

GRRM INTERVIEWS

Thoughts on GRRM saying that dragons are destructive and don’t enable you to rule

Thoughts on GRRM’s interview that dragons don’t enable you to rule

Interview about independence vs unification: (1) (2)

Dany’s anti-slavery campaign in Slaver’s Bay is not a parallel to the Iraq War

GRRM never intended for Dany’s story to be a critique or to tell the story from the POV of Essosi characters

GRRM didn’t say that the Starks are THE heart or THE heroes of the story

A few GRRM statements that go against anti-Daenerys claims

GRRM doesn’t hate the Targaryens

GRRM thought about making the Targaryens black

GRRM on the ending of the show: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)

GRRM on Dany's show ending

GRRM on the necessity of using force: (1) (2)

GRRM on the theory that Dany will burn the Water Gardens

GRRM on Targaryen incest

GRRM and redemption

GRRM on Dany wanting equality

GRRM on how ruling is hard: (1) (2)

GRRM on the Jonerys relationship: (1) (2) (3) (4)

GRRM on Dany and Cersei being foils

GRRM saying Dany and Arya are his second favorite characters

GRRM on the white savior argument: (1) (2)

GRRM on how he identifies with Dany: (1) (2) (3)

GRRM disapproving of people hating on Dany and saying they want her dead

GRRM on dragons being like nuclear weapons: (1) (2)

GRRM on learning (the interview and link is in the meta)

GRRM doesn’t want things to be shocking for the sake of being shocking

GRRM’s original outline

GRRM on what makes a hero

GRRM on who will be the third head of the dragon

GRRM wanted the Targaryens to have pyrokinesis instead of dragons, and was convinced to add dragons by Phyllis Eisenstein

GRRM said that the Second Dance of Dragons doesn't have to mean Dany's invasion

GRRM mentioning the A Song of Ice and Fire directly or indirectly

More interviews about the meaning of the title

GRRM on Vietnam and the Realities of War

GRRM on his leaked outline

What GRRM thinks of changing the story at the last minute for the sake of being unpredictable

GRRM interviews about (or mentioning) Dany - Part 1 (compiled from So Spake Martin)

GRRM questions/answers (reported by masha-russia)

GRRM posted a Frederick Douglass quote on his blog about the necessity of violence

GRRM on how a character named "Stormborn" should be controversial

A Bittersweet Ending (an analysis of GRRM's interviews about the ending)

GRRM on grey characters, contradictions and unintended consequences

Fire and Blood in Fevre Dream

GRRM saying that Dany and Drogo’s first time “wasn’t rape”

GRRM's and other people's comments about the ending of ASOIAF in James Hibberd's book: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

GRRM talking about Azor Ahai and Prince that was Promised as if they're the same prophecy, and implying that the Faceless Men might go after Dany's dragons

Mysterious TWOW synopsis that appeared years ago on Amazon and Google Books

About GRRM's interview before the ending of the show saying that the ending of the major characters would be similar

So Spake Martin Search Engine

Sample chapters released prior to AGOT: Blood of the Dragon

GRRM has said Dany and Tyrion are suitable rulers, and has compared Dany to Hillary against Trump

James Hibberd says that, based on what he was told by GRRM, the ending of the books will be very different from the show

About GRRM describing Dany as a threat and what does this mean

GRRM about the "white savior" controversy in Dany's storyline

When did GRRM come up with the title “A Song of Ice and Fire” and what does it mean

GRRM about Targaryen's supposed immunity to fire

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf #books vs show #masterpost #daenerys meta masterpost #my meta

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latetothegreysparty · 7 years ago

Text

Step Back

Hello, dear friends! I’ve finally managed to get something written. Though it took me over a month (I think), I finally have the next chapter of my post-divorce multi-chapter fic. It’s the one that began with Family Dinner. If you’d like to read or reread the first three chapters, they’re here, here, and here. I’m still looking for a name for this one. I’m tentatively think of calling it Mosaic. What do you guys think of that? Anyway, here it is. It’s kind of long, so settle in.

Step Back

Owen let out a deep breath as he walked out of the exam room he’d been in. The patient had been hit by a car while riding his bicycle, and he had sustained a variety of injuries. Owen didn’t think he had any internal injuries requiring surgery, but the patient was displaying a few neurological symptoms. “Will you page Dr. Shepherd?” Owen asked the resident who stood outside the exam room with him. The resident nodded wordlessly and stepped around the corner to complete the task he’d been assigned.

Owen walked over to the desk, grabbed a tablet, and let his mind wander as he began updating the patient’s chart. He was hoping he could catch Amelia for a moment when she came down for the consult. She’d been avoiding him ever since their argument 5 nights ago. It seemed like any time he entered a room she was in, she quickly found an excuse to leave. He’d tried at least once each day to start a conversation with her, but each time, she’d rushed off without even making eye contact. He was becoming increasingly frustrated with her evasiveness. “Dr. Hunt,” he heard the resident say. Owen looked up, wordlessly encouraging the resident to keep talking. “Dr. Shepherd says she’s swamped and can’t make it down, but she’s sending someone else from neuro to evaluate the patient.”

Owen sighed in exasperation. “Of course she did,” he said, clearly frustrated. The resident furrowed his eyebrows, obviously confused by Owen’s comment, but Owen had no interest in explaining the situation to the resident and making himself and Amelia the subject of the latest hospital gossip. “Gomez, can you stay with the patient and let me know what neuro says when they come down to evaluate the patient?” he asked the resident as he set down the tablet and stood up from the desk. “I’m going to go talk to Dr. Pierce for a moment.”

The decision to seek out Maggie was a strategic one. He was sure Amelia had told both Maggie and Meredith that she was avoiding him and enlisted their help in staying away from him. However, he wanted to find Maggie specifically because she was far easier to read than Meredith. His eyes scanned the ER, and they eventually landed on April Kepner who was approaching the desk. “Kepner, have you seen Pierce?” he asked.

April nodded. “Yep, she’s in exam 3 right now with a patient.”

“Thanks,” Owen said, already heading in the direction of exam room 3. He stopped about 5 feet away from the door and busied himself with checking his email. Within minutes, the door was opening and Maggie was walking out. “Pierce, do you have a few minutes?” he asked.

He could see Maggie’s eyes go wide for a split second, but she quickly recovered. “Oh, um, yeah, do you need a consult?” she stuttered. Owen said nothing in response. Instead, he merely began to walk toward exam room 6, which he knew was empty. Maggie followed him into the room, and once she stepped in, he closed the door. “Owen, what are we doing in here? There’s no patient,” she said, her voice betraying her nervousness.

“Where is Amelia?” Owen asked, cutting right to the chase. “I really need to speak to her, and I’d appreciate it if I could catch her for a moment without her avoiding me like she has been for the last five days.”

Maggie’s eyebrows raised. “Why would you think I-” she began, but he didn’t allow her time to finish her question.

“You’re her sister, Maggie. I know she’s told you that she’s trying not to see me. But we need to talk to each other sooner or later. You know that as well as I do. So could you please tell me where I might find her?”

Maggie averted her gaze, taking a moment to weigh her options. In the end, she agreed that Amelia was going to have to face this one sooner or later, so it might as well be now so Maggie didn’t have to continue to be placed in the middle of whatever this was. Still, she huffed. “Amelia’s going to kill me for this.” When Owen didn’t respond, she continued. “She’s up in her office updating charts right now, but she has the blinds pulled so nobody can see that she’s in there.”

“Thank you,” Owen said, already on his way out of the room. Maggie sank down into the chair in the corner of the room and sighed. Amelia probably was going to kill her.

Amelia sat in her office, absentmindedly typing into a patient chart from this morning. She was in no hurry to get this finished, that was for sure. As she continued to lazily complete the task, she was startled nearly out of her chair by the sound of her office door opening. Nobody had knocked on her door, of that she was certain. “What the hell-” she started to say, but she was interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice.

“My goodness, Amelia, you really are swamped,” he said, the condescension thick in his voice. “I can certainly see how you didn’t have time to come down for a consult.”

Amelia narrowed her eyes, half tempted to stand up from her chair so she could get in his face and go toe to toe with him. “Your patient received a neuro consult, Dr. Hunt. The department of neurosurgery fulfilled its duty to your patient. As the chief of neurosurgery, I am perfectly within my rights to delegate some tasks to other physicians in my department. Contrary to what some of the entitled physicians in the emergency department may think, you are owed only a consult from somebody within my department. You are not entitled to cherry-pick the surgeon who does the consult. It is the responsibility of the chief of the department to divide up the work of the department, not the responsibility of self-important physicians in other departments who think they are entitled to a consult from the head of the department for every damn case that walks through the door.”

Owen folded his arms, just barely controlling the urge to begin yelling. “Cut the crap, Amelia,” he bit out. “You’re avoiding me, and you’re pissed because I came and found you.”

“No,” she argued, “I’m pissed because you entered my office without knocking.”

Owen let out a humorless chuckle. “Right, of course. Look me in the eye right now and tell me you’re not avoiding me.” She said nothing, merely picking back up the tablet she’d set down to continue with her charting. “Amelia, this is ridiculous!” he said, his voice beginning to rise. “This is exactly what you did when we were married, and this is the reason we’re divorced. We have one tense conversation, and then you just walk out the door and refuse to speak to me about anything, no matter how many times I try to talk to you. How can you ever expect to resolve our issues if you refuse to talk about them every single time?”

She slammed the tablet down on the desk, quickly losing any calm facade she may have had when he walked in the door. “Me? How can I hope to resolve our issues? What about you?! You storm into my office without knocking and then tell me that the failure of our marriage was all my fault. Do you think that makes me inclined to talk out our problems with you? Yes, Owen, I’d love to have a conversation with you so you can tell me more about how every single thing that has ever gone wrong in our relationship was my fault. While you’re at it, why don’t you tell me about what a shitty physician and sister I am?”

Owen opened his mouth to yell back, but quickly snapped it shut. If there was any hope of saving this from becoming another extremely long rough patch in their relationship, he needed to shut down this conversation right now. “Amelia, you were right,” he said, letting out a sigh as he struggled to stop himself from responding to the way he felt she’d mischaracterized his words.

Amelia’s eyes snapped to his. That definitely wasn’t what she expected him to say. “Excuse me?” she asked.

He took a deep breath, steadying himself to calmly lay out his point. “You were right last time we spoke. You said that we needed to figure things out. We do. And standing here in your office screaming at each other and seeing who can cut deeper is not going to help us figure anything out. We need to set aside a time when we’re going to talk about this. We have to come into the conversation prepared to talk about our issues, and we have to do our best to stay calm and not do what we did just now. Can we agree to a time to talk?”

Amelia rubbed her forehead with her palm. This is exactly what she was trying to avoid. There were so many problems between the two of them, and just the thought of trying to begin to work through those was exhausting. “Owen, I really think we should just let this drop,” she said quietly. “Clearly this isn’t meant to work out. Every time we get more than 30 seconds into a serious conversation, it all goes to hell. I think this is our sign that we just need to leave whatever there was between us in the past.”

He was tempted to say: “Wow, that’s funny coming from the woman who, just five days ago, accused me of being the one who walked out on our marriage too quickly,” but he didn’t think that would go over well. Instead, he said: “Amelia, I’m just asking for one more try. There was so much love there, and I think there still is. I don’t think I can let that go without giving it one more try. Especially when he haven’t even given it a single good one yet. All we’ve done are haphazard conversations when we were both caught off guard. I’m asking for one where we collect our thoughts beforehand and make a conscious effort not to get angry and hurl accusations. Just one more try. And if that doesn’t work out, then maybe you’re right that it’s time to let it go.” That last sentence had tasted bitter in his mouth, but he felt like he needed to say it if there was any hope of her agreeing to a conversation.

She stared at him for a few long moments, weighing his proposal in her mind. Finally, after what felt like an eternity to him, she spoke. “Okay,” she began, but quickly continued upon seeing his eyes light up, “but only by my rules. It has to be at your house, and I have to drive myself over there. That way, I can leave whenever I want.” He looked alarmed by that request, so she quickly explained so he wouldn’t think she was accusing him of being the sort of man who would hold someone hostage. “Not because I think you’re some sort of crazed abductor or something,” she said in a rush. “I want to be able to leave whenever I want, and I want there to be no argument about it. As soon as I feel like the conversation is over, I am leaving, and so help me, you better not try to convince me to stay. As soon as I’m done with the conversation, I’m walking out the door, getting in my car, and leaving, and you will let me be finished with the conversation without argument.”

Owen’s heart sank a bit at her stipulations. It sounded like she didn’t hold out much hope for having a productive conversation. Still, she had agreed to have a conversation with him. This was much further than he’d gotten when they were married. He figured he had to take what he could get. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I can do that. Does tonight after our shifts are over work for you?”

She looked surprised. “Isn’t that a bit soon, Owen?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we take some more time to think about it?”

“I don’t think so. If we think about it too much individually, we’ll overthink everything and it’ll be far more complicated than it needs to be,” he reasoned. “And this doesn’t need to be. Complicated, I mean. I don’t have any delusions that we’re going to solve every single problem we’ve ever had in one conversation. It’s going to take a lot more than one night to fix everything. But we have to start somewhere, and we might as well start tonight.”

She nodded. “Okay, if that’s what you want, then we can do that, but my rules still stand.” He nodded reluctantly, hoping she would give the conversation more of a chance than her conditions seemed to suggest she would. “I guess I’ll see you this evening, then,” she said, and then she turned to face the door. He took her not-so-subtle hint and left her office, already mulling over how he would tee up the conversation so that she wouldn’t be walking out his front door 3 minutes in, already choosing to give up on their relationship for good.

Owen paced restlessly in his living room. It had been over an hour since she’d left the hospital. He’d finished his shift before she did, but he’d puttered around the hospital, finding tasks to busy himself with so he would know when she was done with her shift and could leave at the same time as she did. It was bad enough to have the thought of this conversation looming over his head all afternoon, but he thought he might actually go crazy if he didn’t at least know what time to expect her to arrive. So now he paced around his living room, wondering where she could possibly be. She really should have been here by now. Did she decide not to come? Did she get into a car accident? Just as he was debating the idea of calling her and seeing what was going on, he heard a knock at the door. The nerves he had been feeling all night reached a new level as he realized that this was the moment: they were about to find out whether or not they were going to give this another try. He took a deep, calming breath to steady himself before walking to the front door and answering it.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” he said quietly as he opened the door. She said nothing as she stepped inside and began removing her shoes. He wasn’t encouraged by her demeanor. “Can I take your jacket for you?” he asked with a smile, hoping to lighten up the tense mood a little.

She smiled a weak smile that didn’t really reach her eyes. “Sure, thanks,” she said softly, taking her jacket off and handing it to him. As he hung her jacket in the closet, she made her way to the living room and sat down on the couch. She was just getting settled as he came in to join her. He looked her pointedly in the eye and then looked at the space next to her, hoping like hell she wouldn’t actually make him ask her if it was okay if he sat next to her. She nodded, and he moved to sit down. A little voice in the back of his brain told him that this was exactly why he needed to get this right. They understood each other. Most of the times they didn’t even need words; they just understood each other. That was rare, and that was worth saving.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She dropped her eyes to the floor and nodded. “Do you want to go first or should I?”

He paused for a moment. He already knew what he wanted to say, but maybe it would be better to hear her thoughts first. “Why don’t you start?”

She nodded and then sighed. “I’m just so tired, Owen,” she said softly. “You were right earlier. I love you. I really do. But I’m just too tired. It seems like every time we start moving in a good direction, we end up right back where we left off last time with the yelling and the fighting and the leaving. I know I’ve done my fair share of running, but you have too. We can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep getting back together and then tearing each other apart and running away as soon as things get hard. I’ve been hurt too many times, and I can’t keep doing it. If this is going to hurt me so deeply every time we try it, I need to walk away before it becomes the thing that breaks me for good.”

Owen nodded, feeling a tear form in the corner of his eye. She didn’t even seem angry, just resigned. That was worse than angry. An angry Amelia was passionate, willing to fight, and full of life. Sure, she drove him up the wall, but he knew that it was possible to harness that energy and make something of it. But this dull shell that was tired and resigned made him doubt that there was any way he could bring them back together. He hoped she’d listen to what he had to say and give it a shot.

“I think we’ve been going about this all wrong,” he said. “We’re trying to do everything at 100 miles an hour because that’s the sort of people we are. We do everything full on, with passion and emotion and all of our energy. But if we do that here, we end up in a constant pendulum between euphoria and heartbreak. I don’t think that’s sustainable for either of us.”

She nodded slowly, agreeing with what he’d said so far, but not fully understanding what he meant by it. “Okay, so what are you saying?” she asked.

“Instead of trying to work everything out from the start, I think we need to take a step back. We’re not going to solve several months and an entire marriage’s worth of problems in one conversation. If we try, we’ll just end up yelling and hurting each other like we have before. I think we need to start fresh in our relationship and take things slow. Then, when things come up, we need to commit to approaching them with fresh eyes instead of rehashing the past. Clearly whatever way we tried to handle things didn’t work before, so why bring it back up? We need to look at each issue through a new lens whenever it comes up and try to solve it as it stands now rather than cutting open all of our old wounds.”

Amelia eyed him skeptically. “So you’re basically saying that we should agree to just pretend like all the bad stuff never happened? That sounds nice in theory, but people’s memories don’t work like that. We can say we’ll forgive and forget, but it’ll be there in the back of our minds. That’s even worse than fighting over it. We’ll be angry and resentful, but we won’t be able to say we are.”

“No, I’m not saying we forget about all of it,” he replied. “Of course we’ll always have those memories. I’m saying that we wait until each problem naturally comes up again to deal with them individually instead of trying to knock it all out at once, and that when we do have those conversations, we agree to try to start the conversation over rather than pick back up where we left off. That way we’re not blaming and pointing fingers. I’m sure there will be some residual feelings of hurt and anger about what happened when we were married, but maybe we can both do our best not to bring up the ways we both went wrong in the heat of angry moments. It’s not perfect. I know that. But I don’t think there is a perfect way to do this. If there were, this wouldn’t be so incredibly hard.”

Amelia drew in a deep breath and tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling as she considered his suggestion. On one hand, he was right that the way they had been trying to work through things had been failing in a rather spectacular fashion. It probably wouldn’t hurt to try something different. On the other hand, the way he was proposing sounded far too simple and idealistic to work. It was fine to make that kind of commitment now when they were both calm, but what would happen in the heat of the moment when they were actually trying to address these issues? Knowing their two tempers, it seemed inevitable that the past would begin to creep into the mix. “I don’t know Owen,” she whispered, her mind spinning as she tried to figure out where to go from here.

He grabbed her hands before he could question whether or not that was a wise move. “Amelia, I’m not asking you to commit to the long haul right now. I’m just asking for a chance to start over, take it slow, and see if we can do better with a different approach. Maybe we can’t. If not, then we can walk away. But isn’t it worth one more shot?”

He was starting to wear her down. It really did sound nice to have one more chance. However, she couldn’t ignore the little voice in her head that told her that it would probably hurt even more the second time around if it ended poorly. She opened her mouth to tell him that, but the word that came out was, “Okay.”

He couldn’t help the way his face lit up when he heard her response. He knew his wide smile was probably overwhelming her, but he just couldn’t do anything to stop it. He did his best to temper his words, though. “I’m really glad to hear that,” he said gently. “I hope I can do better this time.”

She nodded numbly, still confused as to why she’d said what she did. “Me too,” she whispered. She sat staring at him for a few long moments as he continued to beam, and then she just couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to get out before his hope and optimism freaked her out enough to tell him that didn’t want to give it a try after all. “I think I should be going,” she said as she stood up from the couch. She didn’t miss the way his face fell when she said this.

He recovered quickly. “Yeah, of course,” he said, standing up to go grab her coat from the closet. He helped her into her coat and then watched her walk out the door, get into her car and drive away. He wasn’t sure how to feel about her response. She’d agreed to try again, but her demeanor had seemed far from enthusiastic. He wasn’t sure she completely believed this could work. Part of him wondered if she was just humoring him. One thing was for sure, though: it could’ve gone much worse than it did. At least, that’s what he continued to tell himself for the rest of the evening as he replayed the conversation in his mind.

#omelia #omeliafic #omeliafanfic #amelia shepherd #owen hunt #grey's anatomy #greys anatomy

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