#main series

[valyriansource]

Regions of Westeros: the Riverlands

Stretching from the Neck to the banks of the Blackwater, and east to the borders of the Vale, the riverlands are the beating heart of Westeros. No other land in the Seven Kingdoms has seen so many battles, nor so many petty kings and royal houses rising and falling. The causes of this are clear. Rich and fertile, the riverlands border on every other realm in the Seven Kingdoms save Dorne, yet have few natural boundaries to deter invasion. The waters of the Trident make the lands ripe for settlement, farming, and conquest, whilst the river's three branches stimulate trade and travel during peacetime, and serve as both roads and barriers in times of war.

[blluespirit]

A thing about Zuko that is criminally under-talked and underwritten about is his absolutely dry sarcasm. Everyone hyper focuses on how he can’t tell a normal joke to save this life - true - but zuko’s strength is complete deadpan snark. In Zuko Alone when Li throws the egg at the soldier’s head and they think it’s Zuko and they keep pestering him and Zuko just stands there like 😑 maybe a chicken flew over. ICONIC!! The Boiling Rock when Sokka wants to take Appa and Zuko responds with oh yeah definitely I’m sure the most infamous fire nation prison in a VOLCANO will take care of him in their reputable sky bison day care centre 😡 or when they’re at Ember Island and Aang is spiralling abt murdering Ozai and poses his insane gluebending thought and Zuko’s like and then you can show him his baby pictures and that’s going to cure his chronic disease of being a fucking bitch🙄

[dailysansastark]

Sansa waited in King’s Landing with the hope that Robb would be her knight just one more time. // "I won't free him, not even for Arya and Sansa."

[thenorthsource]

@thenorthsource for Palestine, Lebanon, and Sudan: @sayruq donated to Mohammed Qassas and requested Catelyn and Sansa

[suittehearts]

my skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. sansa v — a storm of swords.

[four-swords-dub]

Did somebody ask for Chapter Nine? Well okay then!

[bayofwolves]

Rereading Immortal Guardians

It's been a minute...

At long last, I have begun rereading my favourite arc of the series, part one of Fall of the Beasts. Have a look at some of the notes I compiled as I went, if you fancy.

I like how Greenhaven is depicted on the cover. It looks much cosier than the grey stone castle I usually imagine. I don't understand the elk heads, though. They look cool, but why do the Greencloaks idolize Tellun so much? All he did (as far as we know) was imprison Kovo and Gerathon after standing by and letting the Four Fallen die, all while supposedly being their leader. If anything, we should be hearing about statues and decorations erected in the Four Fallen's honour. Replace those elk heads with wolf heads; Briggan was the one who originally shaped the Greencloaks into a real army. Have a stone statue of each of the Fallen guarding the four corners of the castle, like they stood with the Greencloaks in life. Briggan to the north. Uraza to the south. Jhi to the east and Essix to the west. Looking out towards their respective homelands.

It's always a bit of a shock when I remember how young Conor, Abeke, Meilin and Rollan are canonically. They start out a bit older in A Revised History of Erdas, and a lot more time passes over the course of the first three arcs.

In the canon timeline, it's been six months since The Evertree. Not long at all! (My timeline has the world at peace for a much lengthier period of twenty-two months.)

"'Someday our survival will rest upon knowing all about ancient Hellan rock decorating, and you're going to thank me,' Meilin said..." This line is funny to me because in the end, it was a creation of the Hellans that saved them.

The hidden section in Greenhaven's library is so intriguing. The librarian has been collecting literature about Stetriol and storing it there, and only certain people are granted access. Not even the Four Heroes knew about it. I don't think Olvan knew either, because he couldn't tell the kids anything about Stetriol when he sent them there. I wonder what other secrets are kept in there -- maybe stuff about the bond tokens? The location of the key to Gerathon's ancient prison? Records of the Stetriolan Genocide (if it truly happened)? Knowledge that might pave their way forward? The Four definitely need to dig into this.

The cover of the mysterious book is made of black snakeskin... which makes me wonder if the creator of the book was referencing Gerathon. How much did she know about the Wyrm, anyway?

All the pain and horror of Conor's infection could have been avoided if they had just amputated his arm at the elbow... but these books aren't based on logic.

Conor has moonbeam decorations on his ceiling! Someday I'll finish my blueprints for the Four's rooms.

When Conor, Meilin and Takoda make it out of the tunnels, I'm betting everything I have that they're all gonna have mad claustrophobia.

I'd argue that the Abeke Rescuing a Baby Animal saga continues in this book with the yak that she saves from the cougars. I just love the heart she has. To think nothing of herself even as blood is pouring out of her neck, only focused on protecting the vulnerable baby. Abeke, you will always be famous.

Anda has a baby sibling!

Anda was named healer for his tribe because Tellun came to him. It's interesting because in ARHoE, Tasha is chosen as Stetriol's next ruler for similar reasons.

Phos Astos is so much cooler than I remembered. The people live in giant mushrooms! They farm spiders (possibly using their silk for clothing and their venom for weapons or medicine)! It's lit by pretty colours and warmed by the earth itself! Amazing.

The Sadreans have spirit animals but no access to the Nectar, meaning they would have suffered from the bonding sickness until recently.

The Hellans and their Sadrean descendants were inspired by the ancient Greeks! Phos indeed means "light" in Greek. Xanthe itself is a Greek name. There are other similarities and references to Greek civilization/mythology later on (like Atalanta and the Meleager).

The Sadrean carvings reveal that Briggan, Uraza and Jhi were close even before their alliance in the First Devourer War! Interestingly, Essix isn't included.

While the chance of Shane meeting Xanthe while in Sadre is slim, it's not out of the question. Phos Astos is an ocean away from southern Amaya, where Shane entered from, but Xanthe is a wanderling and has been all the way to the Evertree before. It's possible that she's journeyed to other far reaches of Sadre, like the tunnels underneath southern Amaya -- or that Shane travelled quite a ways and met her somewhere in the middle. We're not told anything about his venture underground, so anything is possible.

On that note, it seems like different regions of Sadre have different coloured vegetation. Phos Astos is home to pink and green fungi, but the mushroom Shane found was purple.

Jhi has the power to stop sound. This panda is overpowered.

"Meilin turned her head in time to see [Takoda's] tattoo quiver and then disappear." Oh, the tattoos coming alive for a brief moment when the spirit animal enters or leaves the passive state is such a neat detail. I'm definitely keeping that.

Arax charging Abeke in the final battle harks back to Wild Born, when he cornered her after she stole his talisman. Since she was shown to have an affinity for the Granite Ram, I like to see connections being drawn between them.

Conor x Xanthe could have been something, actually. He seems quite enchanted by her, which I find sweet, but when I think about it some more, they have the potential for real depth. Imagine the internal struggle that could have arisen when she discovers he's infected, but by that point has already caught feelings for him. Something I'll explore in an AU, perhaps...

This was a great book. There were a lot of elements introduced that I really enjoyed: The overarching apocalypse, the Sadreans, the lore, the cool cast of new characters, and, of course, King. I have always favoured the aboveground team, but was pleasantly surprised to find the underground plot far more engaging than I remembered. I like Xanthe and Anda, but I'm not so sure about Takoda so far. He's alright, but I can't get a good read on him. His personality was all over the place in this book. I think I need to read some more chapters from his perspective. Thankfully, that is coming! And next time we are introduced to one of my all-time favourite characters: Tasha!

This is part of an ongoing series.

Wild Born | Hunted | Blood Ties | Fire and Ice | Against the Tide | Rise and Fall | The Evertree

Immortal Guardians | Broken Ground | The Return | The Burning Tide

Heart of the Land | The Wildcat's Claw | Stormspeaker | The Dragon's Eye

Tales of the Great Beasts | The Book of Shane | Tales of the Fallen Beasts

[raijin-tribe]

Color Page for Chapter 545!

Source: Fairy Tail Chapter 545 [FULL COLOR] | Imgur [7/29/17] The English colored version of the entire final chapter was made possible by the awesome people (u/AmazingSpiderMan & u/11thDoctr) over on Reddit! And was actually released 7 years ago today!

[sleazyjanet]

ilyn payne commission for @kingslayerstew 🙏

also if you want to support me and my art and also get a pack of awesome cards, you can dm me and get a deck (and if i have time, an extra bust commission of a character of your choice) or commission me

[dracomelody]

A lot of people don't play Zelda games for the story, and that's perfectly fine. But I think we all have to admit that a good story can only make the game better, right?

1) the story beats in almost all 3D Zelda games are happening throughout the game. This gives you motivation to both keep playing (because now you're given a task to complete) and so you can see what happens next.

2) the story beats (memories) in BotW and TotK take place in the distant past. And you can beat the game without ever seeing them, so they don't really make a difference to the gameplay or your desire to keep playing.

3) the memories can be gotten in any order, so you might end up spoiling yourself by accident.

BotW saved the final memory until after all of the previous ones were found, so it was fine in terms of spoilers.

TotK didn't do that, and the key for the order of the memories isn't outright said to you, they're pictures on a wall that 1) you might miss, 2) might delete the photos you took of them on accident if you're filling out your compendium, or 3) you may not even have the camera app when you come across it (I was too chicken to go into the chasm at that part in the game, so I thought I could do the dragon's tears first, but I didn't have the camera so I did them out of order thinking the spoilers would be saved for last like in BotW. Nope.)

BotW's plot with the divine beasts wrecking havoc on the world was good. I liked their effects on the neighboring environments and the races who dwell there. The threat of a great flood, a neverending sandstorm, a volcano's constant eruption, and the Rito being potentially maimed if they fly too high. You prevented disasters and helped save people, and you gained useful abilities from the characters who used to be fight alongside, which ties them into the memories. The Master Sword in BotW was what let Zelda know Link could still be saved, and retrieving the Master Sword as a means to beat Ganon was mentioned after every dungeon, stressing the importance of it as a weapon that can't be broken.

All in all I liked BotW's story because of this.

But there were only four divine beasts (excluding DLC), so it was short lived compared to how massive the game is in every other regard.

TotK handled the dungeons better, but it had a similar problem, and some of the plot just doesn't make sense. As Yunobo would say: "Why'd you do it?!" Fake Zelda getting the Gorons addicted to marbled rock roast serves what purpose, exactly? It just makes them lazy?

Zelda turning into a dragon to restore the Master Sword serves what purpose, exactly? We saw in the beginning cut scene that dehydrated Ganondorf could shatter it, so what good is that weapon against a fully powered Ganondorf?

The sage abilities you get in TotK are cool, but they're mostly passive, so you're not in direct control of what the sages avatars do. Activating 3/4 of their abilities requires you to interact with them by pressing A, which is hard to do if you're in the middle of life and death combat and they're running away with you. In BotW the abilities were tied to buttons you could press at any time without this issue.

TotK followed the exact same route as BotW: find shrines, find memories, and beat dungeons. The dungeons also follow the same exact route as BotW by needing to activate terminals to reach the boss.

TotK had better gameplay mechanics with the building options and the amount of dungeons and their designs. But the story just doesn't make sense, and then it's shoved down your throat after each dungeon. It's even worse if you try to see where it fits into the timeline, it's like they went from not caring about the timeline to directly contradicting it with the founding of Hyrule. Especially after they advertised Skyward Sword HD and TotK to have some sort of tie-in.

TotK is easily the Zelda game with the least amount of thought/care put into its story, and no matter how cool the gameplay is, the story is a huge detriment to it.

[blackberreh-art]

I wish I cared about Stain, generally his kinda character would be right up my alley, and yet

[valyriansource]

Daenerys + her female ancestors

[blluespirit]

i keep thinking about zuko during the day of black sun, starting down his father who's goaded him into staying by torturing him with details of his missing mother, only to use that opportunity to try and kill him again.... only for Zuko to use a technique Ozai did not even know possible, flowing through motions that are distinctly not firebending demonstrating a power so different and deeper than Ozai could ever fathom... idk man just zuko

[dailysansastark]

@sansastarkmonth2024 day 4: love/marriage.

[thenorthsource]

Bran stared resentfully at the sweating boys below. "If I still had my legs, I could beat them all." He remembered the last time he'd held a sword in his hand, when the king had come to Winterfell. It was only a wooden sword, yet he'd knocked Prince Tommen down half a hundred times.

A Game of Thrones - Bran VII

@thenorthsource for Palestine, Lebanon, and Sudan: @sayruq donated to the Khartoum Kitchen and requested Bran Stark

[justatinybunwriting]

Lullaby

Prompt 22 focuses on a rare moment when Jac is feeling particularly small, thankfully Richard is there to help her to drive away the sads, at least for a little while.

'Child, you are my little ray of light

Like a fire that glows in the darkest night.

If you find me I will hold you tight

Never letting go

I promise I'll be there for you.'

Jac had awoken to the voice of her mother as she whispered into the young woman's ear- her sound echoed with such clarity that she almost thought it was real. But much to her despair, that couldn't be further from the truth. As she gradually opened her eyes, she realized the full moon was still shining through the curtains as she found herself within the shelter of Richard's hand. The Wile giant was sound asleep, yet he had subconsciously brought her up to his chest. On an ordinary night, his would have provided maximum comfort for the smaller human, but this time she was unable to feel the joy that this level of affection would normally bring.

Jac couldn't shake off the feeling that was began to well up from within her chest. It had been months since she had relapses of the visions of her mother in dreams, so for one to just show up unexpectedly and with that particular song no less? This had put a damper in her spirits and unearthed unspeakable anxiety that was shaking her to the very pit of her core. She had fought hard to weather her fluctuating emotions, but in the end, she was unable to hold back hot, stinging tears.

Richard steadily opened his eyelids by the sound of Jac's various gasps and wheezes. He looked down at the small woman who was curled up in the dip of his right palm, his eyes gradually shedding off some of their drowsiness as he began to realize that she was actually crying. The Wile giant's keen ears was able to pick up on her sobs despite the tiny human's best efforts to try and hide them.

"What's wrong?" He spoke softly, his tired voice still lingering.

Jac was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to pay mind to what was said, although she did quiet down somewhat. Perhaps she just chose to not answer him.

Richard wasn't surprised to see her like this, but he could never get used to it. This exact scenario would play out every once in a while for about as long as he could remember; the trigger was apparently always the same, but he was never given the details as to exactly why. After seeing what this has been doing to Jac, and always getting the same dodging reaction whenever he had brought it up, over time he felt that it was better not to question it. Or perhaps he had become too afraid to ask.

Instead, Richard brought his other hand behind the one that held Jac. He then slowly but surely placed her all the way against his chest, his hands completely covering her up as she was nestled onto the fabric of his shirt. He then began to start humming a sweet melody of his own.

The tune was pleasant, as gentle as the giant could muster with his voice. With variables ranging from a cheerful, upbeat track to a quiet, more graceful sound, Richard had many a song to hum to. After a few short minutes, Jac's sorrow had begun to dissipate, as she listened intently to the giant's voice as her mind spawned new visuals that tapped into her imagination. It wasn't long before she finally spoke.

"What are these songs? They all sound so... refreshing."

"They're Wile giant hymns," Richard whispered, "passed down from generations. They have different meanings but nowadays they're more commonly used for lullabies."

"Do you know the lyrics?" Jac yawned, as she wiped the remaining liquid off of her eyes and nose.

"I know of some. Many of them are probably difficult to comprehend for you, but I'll try to think of one that I can sing."

Richard paused for a moment, before he found one that he thought would be easy enough to share with the human. He cleared his throat, and began in a near whisper.

"Why are you crying dear child

The heavens bring the stars and the moon

The wolf in the forest, the birds in the trees,

the night flies dance in the twilight

there is much to see"

"What do the words mean?" Asked Jac, her eyelids getting heavier by the minute.

"I did say that they were cryptic," Richard chuckled, "but yeah... I think it's meant to be interpreted in different ways. But I personally think it means that even if there is stuff in the world that makes you feel sad, there's still enough beauty in this planet to not want to... give up."

There was a hint of concern in Jac's face, which the Wile giant picked up on right away.

"I'm sorry. It's just... this was one of the many things I've used as a coping mechanism growing up."

"It's okay, I understand."

Jac looked down on the indents of the giant's hand momentarily. Her mind was drifting once more, but this time with a new resolve.

'Perhaps that's what mother was trying to tell me all along.'

The beginning of new tears started to form on the base of her eyes. Richard realized what was happening and worried that it could have been his own fault, but instead of dwelling on it he chose to switch focus onto a more pleasant tune.

"Ode to the bush warbler building his nest

sweet songs that he sings, the cherry he brings

on route to gather many food in his crop

bring them home to seven mouths without stop."

That got a laugh out of the smaller woman, which brought a sense of relief to the giant.

"Is that a real Wile giant song?"

"No, you got me. I just made it up on the fly."

"That wasn't too bad though for something you thought up in a few seconds. You should record that!"

"Nah, I had already forgotten most of it."

The two friends laughed it out, before Richard continued to come up with different songs to hum. The new tunes ranged from an array of Japanese folk songs to popular music slowed to an almost music box pace. Jac chose to quietly listen through the rest of this special little concert that her friend made just for her, but it wasn't long before she fell back into the world of dreams again- this time with the clouds from before long gone, bringing with it clearer skies. Shortly after Richard followed suit while in the middle of a tune- he had apparently sung himself to sleep.