#selkiesstories

[duxbelisarius]

I've been meaning to ask: what's your take on the Red Sowing? Good tactics and bad strategy? A sympton of the post Jaehaerys mindset?

It's one of the few things I think the Dance got right, initially at least; of course if you've got a surplus of dragons with no dragonriders, you would try to find riders for them.

'Good tactics; bad strategy' is probably how I'd put it; a complete failure to utilize the dragons en masse to the greatest effect, following the Gullet and the fall of KL. I'm spoiling future parts of my analysis here, but the dragons alone should have secured Rhaenyra's victory after the city was taken: Daemon, Nettles, Hugh and Ulf together could have solo'd Aemond in the Riverlands, and wiped out Daeron and the Hightower host (though my boy would have taken one or two of them with him). If it's true that Borros was afraid of the dragons and that's why he didn't intervene earlier, then Rhaenyra has three bachelor dragonriders (Ulf, Hugh, Addam) that she can send to marry his daughters and win his support, or threaten him with annihilation if need be.

Don't even get me started on Addam abandoning his father so that he can prove his loyalty to the woman who jailed his father, ordered his arrest and that of his friends, and is oppressing her own people, all so he can give his shounen protag speech to the Riverlords and supply George with his eighth deus ex machina of the story.

The dragonseeds were a cool idea that was ruined by George's 'munted' execution, to use the Australian term, and you could apply that to the dance as a whole: Interesting ideas, 'munted' execution.

[mejcinta]

I noticed you watched OTH so 1-who's your favorite pairing and 2-what do you think of Lucas?

Fun reveal. I was around 13 when I first watched the show. I have very little recollection of the plot points and was hoping to perhaps watch it with fresher, grown up eyes. 🤭

Anyway, the pairing that stood out to me was Hailey and Nate. The transformation the latter underwent from a brat of a bully to just the tenderest man, all thanks to Hailey anchoring him in reality, was touching for me, even as a kid.

I also absolutely love Lucas. But again, I don't clearly recall what he did wrong or what he did right. I will need a deeper dive to make up my mind on him, but I've never had many problems with him lmao. He's an okay guy, a humble protagonist...and his relationship with his mom was heartwarming to watch.

Thanks for asking. When I catch up with the show (I did not watch all seasons) I'll post my opinions here, because I know I'll have loads of them. 🔥🔥

[lemonhemlock]

My take on Jacemond is pretty simple- we actually saw Jace putting in a smidgen of effort into his responsibilities in learning Valyrian and there’s his going around saying he doesn’t care about what anyone thinks only to go from 0 to 100 at the first hint of being called a bastard 1/

Jace was also the one who brought the knife to the fight and attacked Aemond first; I feel like this is generally under-discussed because Luke took all the spotlight. But Aemond should also have beef with Jace - this is a little evidenced at the dinner table where Aemond is paired with Jace during the fight and Aegon is the one who gets to slam Luke.

Until the show runners inevitably ruin it I’m prepared to like Jace because he has the most potential to figuratively slap Rhaenyra with some uncomfortable truth + the implications of his potential of a relationship w/ Sara. Also he doesn’t seem to like Daemon- the enemy of my enemy is my friend- and all that 2/

Shipping aside-with the amount of fics that have an abused Green kid running off to Rhaenyra who then rescues Alicent from an abusive Otto which results in Alicent tearfully apologizing to Rhaenyra for everything & super Mom/sister Rhaenyra helps bad mother Alicent learn to relate to her children…- I just want ONE fic that has Jace trying his luck with Alicent bc she was once his mom’s BFF to rescue her from Daemon & Rhaenyra getting the learning curve treatment. (I don’t care if it’s a canon era or modern AU, it may actually work better as a modern AU but the point still stands) /3

I never actually considered Jace being the defector actually, that's how prevalent green defection is in fics. 😅

I'm still not super convinced how jacemond might actually work - like that anon said recently, albeit it was about lucemond, that it's just a lot of work to think up a believable dynamic for these two. Ultimately, I feel like there's nothing these two pairings have to offer that isn't already immediate and more satisfying in aegond.

[alicentsgf]

So that feast where everyone “exchange kisses and break bread” & Alicent and Rhaenyra wear each other’s colors and “make declarations of love” (totally different meaning in Medieval times but if you ship them go for it) it’s THAT dinner the one where Aemond toasts his three Strong nephews

yep aemond says pretty much word for word the same thing in the book so its definitely the show's interpretation of the event, right down to jace and helaena dancing and the fight at the end. tbh the only bits missing are the elements included in the book which serve to make rhaenyra and alicent somehow come across as even MORE gay for each other that night than they do in the show and that will never not be funny to me

[navree]

Just for fun: if Tywin was in Otto's place for the Dance but with Alicent as his daughter instead of Cersei, how do you think it would have played out?

I think a lot of pre-Dance stuff would play out largely the same, given that there are similarities between Otto and Tywin and how their lives played out and what they wanted. But there's a key difference between them: Otto's very much focused on personal advancement, placing Alicent as an option for queen and Aegon in the line of succession for king is all about how that can help him get as much power as he wants (cuz Second Son Complex I guess), while Tywin is all about family advancement. He has his personal cares and his personal wants, yes, but Tywin's primary focus is on advancing the Lannister name, the Lannister glory, the Lannister agenda. So while yes, Tywin would likely also want Alicent to be made queen, and would want to do whatever possible to make that happen (much like how he was all about getting a grieving Robert to marry Cersei without care to the fact that Robert was the worst man living), it would be all about family for him, about the advancement of the House.

An interesting thing of note is that Tywin is...I don't want to say less manipulative than Otto, but less personally conniving than him. Think about it: we see Tywin primarily through Tyrion's eyes, given that Jaime only gets one or two scenes with Tywin while he's still living, and Cersei none as her POV chapters start when he's already dead. So we're seeing Tywin as a character through the eyes of someone who loathes him, and who he loathes in return, but the image we get is an interesting one. Tywin isn't as overtly hostile in the books as he is in the show, and while he's clearly contemptuous of Tyrion and hates him, he is, in a strange way, able to recognize the virtues Tyrion has, and is able to be honest and frank with him. I mean Hell, Tywin admits to Tyrion, in detail, exactly what his culpability is in Elia's death (rip Elia, every single corner of this fandom does you dirty in so many different ways, I will treat you better Queen). And that's with a kid he hates.

So with a kid like Alicent, someone who's less of a letdown than Jaime, less of a constant source of irritation than Cersei, and less personally despised than Tyrion, Tywin would likely be as close to Alicent as he can be with a child of his. I mean, he's a clear narcissist and misogynist and kind of a shitty person even, but still the best character, and while he might be less openly affectionate than Otto is, we know that Tywin could form personal relationships with deep ties for him, like his love for Joanna and his affection for Kevan (and if I think about Tywin and Kevan for too long I do cry), so he and Alicent likely would be on good enough terms to be in lockstep with each other during the Dance.

How Tywin would play out during the Dance, in Otto's place, is a bit hard to game out, because the show hasn't gotten there yet and we don't know how they're going to play out certain events, but I'll theorize nonetheless while trying to keep within the events in the Fire&Blood canon. For one, Tywin would be more militantly minded than Otto was, though still working just as hard on the diplomatic front, given the cunning genius that he is, so the Greens would get an additional military commander in the field to their advantage. And because Aegon is more inclined to listen to his mother (I'd say that currently he's less trigger happy than his book counterpart too, but that might not last because of What Happened To Aegon happened to me I'd go on a murder spree for a full decade), along with Tywin being a more intimidating force than Otto, Tywin likely wouldn't be dismissed as Hand of the King, leaving Aegon with a great advisor and Tywin with a king who will listen to him and a daughter-queen who will back him up.

Ending it can go one of three ways. Either a) Tywin, as an able military commander himself, goes into the field and is killed in battle, though likely at great cost to the Blacks, b) Tywin is still in King's Landing when Rhaenyra takes over and, like Otto, is beheaded for treason or c) Greens win. If Tywin doesn't die, then he would likely help the Greens emerge victorious. We'd see marriage alliances like we do with the Tyrell marriage and the Martell marriages (given that Jahaera and Maelor can be betrothed though I don't imagine Jahaera getting married in anything but name given that "eight going on four" characterization, and he definitely would take better care keeping them safe, and Daeron's of marriageable age, and I've decided to live in a fantasy world where this means Aemond also lives and Alys gets to be Lady of Harrenhal somehow and Tywin is magically cool with this because that means they get the loyalty of Harrenhal and a great grandson as the future Lord of Harrenhal), back alley deals like with the Red Wedding with sweeteners to get wavering supporters of Rhaenyra's over to his side, and his general ability to get shit done and make them go his way means that the Greens emerge victorious and the Blacks are likely to be roundly defeated, either through out and out death like Robb, or through such a trouncing there's no choice left but exile and disappearance, like they think with Stannis.

I think we should picture that for a minute. Tywin victorious after the Dance, him at the helm of his kingdom with his daughter ready to aid in whatever way she can, Aegon is king and hopefully healing from wounds, he and Helaena start to heal and focus on raising Jahaera and Maelor, Aemond's there with his wife, Lady Alys of Harrenhal and their son, Daeron off doing whatever he does (likely after being fostered at Casterly Rock/Lannisport instead of Oldtown), Criston’s watching over them all in peak guardian stance, alliances strong, marriage pacts brokered, kingdoms being restored, Hell I'll even throw in Aegon the Younger as a nicely kept hostage for good behavior with a betrothal to Daenaera Velaryon in the future, cuz this is my happy ending with Tywin as de-facto god emperor of the world and I want it.

[septembersghost]

Have you ever listened to Josh Groban? And if you did, what do you think?

this message made me giggle and also made me feel like i am failing to represent myself properly in some way if the answer to this isn't apparent! i know for sure i have some posts about the revival of sweeney in which he's currently starring on here, and i am SO proud of and happy for him achieving that dream!, but i definitely have not mentioned him enough? 😂 i've listened to josh literally since his debut in 2001. my mom heard him sing the prayer with celine (the version with andrea boccelli is one of her favorite songs), and that was it. in the summer of...2004? i did a little job for my mom's boss at the time (inputting data into spreadsheets because he thought a young person would be able to do it quickly/easily, and it would've been frustrating busywork for my mom, plus i got the bonus of watching their dachshund), and his wife gave me a copy of josh's sophomore album as a gift (also hayley westenra's debut). you raise me up was used as my high-school's graduation song (for reasons i still don't understand, but it was pretty). when i made playlists/fanmixes more often in the 2010s, you could guarantee i'd sneak a josh song in there. his music is a constant in our house (and a staple at the holidays). anyway, yes, i love him to bits and he has the voice of an angel and it's been fun following his career for such a long time!

[lemonhemlock]

the actual stays we saw indeed seemed alright to my amateur eyes (i'm no expert lol), so there's that, at least. as for lacing, i found this article that says that the lacing was done from the bottom up if helped by someone else, but if you were to do it yourself, you'd go about it from the top to the bottom

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story + Costumes

Queen Charlotte’s green & purple undergarments, white shift and blue & silver and orange & white dressing gowns in Season 01, Episode 02, 03 & 04.

// requested by @nasyanastya

[sassyandclassy94]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like).

Tagged by: MYSELF cause WHY the heck not DARNIT?! (No one else is gonna tag me anyway)

I’m gonna cheat and do two though because I’m literally working on two stories at a time right now.

“My guess is she’ll be happy to do anything as long as she’s with you.”

-the untitled Part two of my ‘He’s Progressed and She’s Impressed’ series (May or may NOT be Bobby giving his friend more positive words of encouragement)

She rasped as she brought her hands up to grab his hair and with groans of his own, he maintained his pace. 👀😉

-“I Feel Like Gold” - Part four of ‘He’s Progressed and She’s Impressed’ series (Like I said… things will be heating up for Don & Kate in part 4🥵)

Tags: (and please my fellow writers, no pressure) @solo-pitstop-vibes @redbone135 @selkiesstories @fictional-at-heart @ljf613 @swanfireprincessmydear @coneygoil and anyone else who follows me/is a mutual that writes and wants to do this

[duxbelisarius]

I have to ask: what’s your opinion on “F&B” is Green propaganda”? Because I read F&B and reread F&B and tracked all the primary accounts through Viserys reign and the Dance itself and I DON’T SEE IT

@navree has the right of it I think, in that Fire and Blood is a HISTORY, not propaganda. The in-world lore is that Gyldan began writing Fire and Blood late in the reign of Aerys II and continued into the reign of Robert, so he's definitely not writing it as Targaryen propaganda. As regards the Dance, no one emerges from that part of the narrative looking very good, and Gyldan goes out of his way to compare and contrast Septon Eustace, Maester Munkun and Mushroom to extract the most likely turn of events between them, when a propagandist for either faction would not have done so. As to whether it can be considered GREEN propaganda, absolutely not; two of the three sources that Gyldan uses are favourable to Rhaenyra (Munkun and Mushroom), albeit not always (eg. The Brothel Queens).

[hellsbellschime]

It is! Obviously GRRM does like reusing names so it's not surprising that two women from the Reach would have similar/the same name, but it is interesting either way.

I find it interesting that we find out who Alicent's mother is in hotd compared to the books where we still have no clue who she was. Episode 1 of this season had alicent lighting candles for the deceased and we find out her mother's name was Alyrie of House Florent. I wonder if GRRM had any input in that?

Yeah, it is interesting because it doesn't seem like necessary info, so it's surprising they added it in. Maybe GRRM had input or he just didn't care.

[mejcinta]

I’ve been dragging Rhaena’s costumes and wig a lot recently so as a palate cleanser which of Queen Charlotte’s gowns would you like to see Rhaena in?

Haha. I will have to actually finish watching QC so that I share my opinion. Let me see which one I will prefer...when I get there. 🤭🤭

[lemonhemlock]

I’m at the point where I feel that the only way to explain to SOME PEOPLE why Rhaenyra passing off her children as legitimate is to oversimplify it as her committing inheritance fraud with the children being both the crime and the evidence- she really did not do those kids any favors

come to think of it, inheritance fraud is a very good descriptor 💅

[alicentsgf]

I didn’t include it but Rhaenyra’s reaction to Alicent stating some rather uncomfortable truths was to either threaten to have her tongue torn out for “lies” or the Brothel Queens incident so yeah I can’t see how you come away from that exchange thinking Alicent is evil

I fully believe Mushroom made the brothel queens thing up (and I'm also just Hoping because I really really don't want to see that shit in the show) but yes like even the tongue thing is bad enough... like why is Alicent's whole point undermined just because she called Luke and Jace 'bastards'.... is that worse than the brutal murder of babies??

[heatherfield]

#they were my OTP before I knew what that was (via @selkiesstories)

Aogg reread and 🥰gilbert blythe🥰

[navree]

I’m almost afraid to ask: what is the Sara Snow debate? Do I need to brace myself for another Jonsa vs Jonerys type showdown 😱

SPOILERS INCOMING for anyone who wants to kept in the dark and experience the story naturally:

So, as we know, Jace starts off the Dance by going to Winterfell, where he meets with Cregan Stark and asks him to pledge his sword to Rhaenyra. According to one of the chroniclers who makes up the narrative of the Dance that we get in Fire&Blood, while there Jace meets Sara Snow, Cregan's bastard sister, and immediately falls passionately in love with her, and the two end up sleeping together, which pisses Cregan off until Sara reveals that she and Jace were really in love and had gotten married in accordance with the old gods in front of a weirwood tree, and then promptly got down in the Winterfell godswood.

All well and good, except for one minor catch: we don't know if Sara Snow ever actually existed. The only person who writes about her is Mushroom, a court fool who is seen as notoriously unreliable, and often embellished or just flat out made stuff up, and any of the more salacious rumors about the Dance was likely shit he wrote down for the fun of it. In particular, the Archmaester Gyldayn, who's "writing" Fire&Blood (given that it's an in-universe history book), seems very dismissive of the fact that Sara Snow ever existed, or that Jace would ever break his vows to Baela for her (though he does concede that if Sara did exist Jace likely could have had sex with her, but not married her), but he also doesn't help himself from sounding biased due to describing her as a "half-wild, unwashed Northern bastard" of "uncertain virtue", which, like, dude OK then.

So the big debate is a) does Sara Snow exist (and as such will she be in the show) and b) is Jace going to fall in love with her? There is one side who says no, that Sara was an invention of Mushroom's and that Jace would never do Baela like that, and another side who says that Sara could exist and Jace could well have fallen for her. For reasons that absolutely baffle me, the side that absolutely hates Sara and any thought of her existing, let alone having an affair with Jace and being the other woman to Baela's betrayed spouse, tend to be Jonerys shippers, while the side that's really into Sara and her potential relationship/love story with Jace are Jonsa shippers, and I'm very confused because, like, again, it's the prototype for Jonerys, it's hitting the same notes just at a different octave, and I don't understand why the roles aren't reversed here.

I think they might go with Sara, just for a few more female roles, and whether or not they go with the Mushroom account or switch things up is debatable (they've eschewed a lot of Mushroom stuff, but not all Mushroom stuff), but I think it would make Jace a bit more interesting, because right now the younger generation for the Blacks is the most boring, cardboard cutout group of people in this show, name me one personality trait either Baela or Rhaena have, or anything about Luke that we didn't learn in episode 10 when they remembered that they needed people to feel literally anything for him before he died.

(Personally I'm just over here casually curious and praying furiously that the Helaena/Aemond people stay calm when Alys Rivers shows up, power to all ships and y'all do y'all but I'm here to watch Aemond ride-or-die in love with his hot witch wife and I would like for there to be no insane rivalries or people getting weird or referring to women as "unwashed" for no reason other than you don't like that they might get in the way of a ship)

[wounds-seen-and-unseen]

Augusnippets Day 2: Path of Comfort- Bathing/Hair Care

My entry for @augusnippets Day 2: Bathing/Hair Care (it is actually a bath ad a shave, but hey)

Set in this universe of mine, maybe @selkiesstories as well as @starlightasteria may like this snippet. It is set after Jaime loses his hand, approximately a day or two before he goes home. the muse ran away with me on this one. I meant it to be around 500 words, but it ended up being almost double that, sigh. (Word count: 972 words)

Taglist: @ba-bhump and @dreamer-in-sleep I do not think this needs many trigger warnings except of course, of Jame’s casual dismissal of himself.

Joanna, folding her son’s prized uniform shirts herself, halts at the distant crash. Although it did not sound like anything has broken, she nevertheless sets the shirt down carefully. Situated as they were in a makeshift hospital setting, such a sound could mean any manner of things. She heads in the vague direction of the sound, walking into one of the bathrooms, only to stop short.

An all too familiar golden head is bowed almost to the floor as he tries to regulate his breathing, his left hand scrabbling at the bathtub, right arm on the floor. She does not need explanations to understand what has happened.

The sight in front of her is self-explanatory. Her son is on his knees next to the slowly-filling bathtub, the loose dressing-gown he is wearing bunched up almost to his thighs as he tries to stand but falls back, biting down a sound of pain.

She knows her Jaime to be fiercely protective of his privacy. Shocked as she is, she knows she is quiet. Yet, he stiffens, turning his head towards her. His shoulders straighten, his face clearing into a smile in spite of the sheen in his eyes. “Hello, mama,” he says softly, affecting a casual demeanour. “I suppose I should learn my way around a bathtub as well. My apologies, I seem to be making quite a muddle of it, but I never was the cleverest Lannister.”

“Jaime,” she keeps her voice soft, allowing the earnestness to show. She knows how to reach her son, to break through the façade of humour he hides behind. “You know that you should still largely be in bed, little lionknight. Am I supposed to tell Cersei and Tyrion that you got hurt because you were being careless?”

The smile drops from his face. “Cers and Tyrry…they deserve to see their brother, mama. As he is in their memories. Not”- his left hand gestures to himself, head to toe. -“this mess.” “Jaime”- she intends to reassure him that they all love him for who he is, but he continues to speak. “I just…want to be me. Someone who is worthy of my family, as I was. Not an approximation of a homeless man. Not a burden.” He scoffs. “What a spectacular job I am doing of it. I can’t even take a bath on my own.”

She hates the loathing she sees in his eyes, yet is helpless to stop it. She tries nonetheless. “Jaime,” she repeats his name, “Would you think of me as a burden, if ever I need your help because I got hurt, or in my old age?” He is shaking his head before she completes her question, his curls fast becoming tousled. “No! Mama, how could you even think of…you are my mother. If you need my help, it would be my honour to aid you.” He grants himself another wry look. “As I am, I would be more of a hinderance than aid of any kind, but I will learn, if you need me.”

She cups his chin in her hands, bringing his eyes to the level of her own. “Then, surely, you would understand why I think of helping you as the honour it is and not a burden.” He swallows. “…thank you, mama.”

She smiles at him in return. “However, it is true, I do enjoy the sight of you as the dapper young rascal you usually are. I suppose a bath is in order. Lest your infamous manly pride be aroused, let me remind you, I have bathed you more times than you can count.”

He raises a brow. “I was a child then.” She keeps the smile on her face, laughter in her voice. “You are always my child, little lionknight.”

Thankfully, he raises no further objections as she shuts off the tap, loosening the ties on his dressing gown. She still has to work to keep the grief out of her face at the sight of barely healed wounds on his torso, the ribs that are still too easily seen. The knowledge of his gaze following her every movement, every minute change in her expression keeps her going, smile in place. She takes utmost care to be gentle as she washes his hair, the blond strands, shimmering almost like sunlight, softening as she works them through. He has been far too hurt, her little boy. She stops him when he scrubs too hard on his skin, turns away when he lowers his gaze, leaving him to his devices and getting a warm, fresh towel for him.

Steam is still rising off the dirtied bathwater when he emerges from the bathtub, her hand on his shoulder assuring her of his warm, steady presence. When he turns to face her, she has the razor ready.

She makes short work of the beard that hid too much of his beloved features, the smile on her face growing more genuine as his jaw clears of hair, and he begins to smile slightly, an echo of the dimple cheeked grin she so loves.

When she finishes, he dresses in his nightclothes, looking half a boy, as young as he is. More important than anything else is the slight smile that persists when he looks at himself in the mirror. “There we have it,” Joanna murmurs softly. “My handsome young man.” Hints of red tint his cheeks, but he moves closer to her. “Thank you, mama,” he says again, quiet, sincere. She just ruffles his hair, revelling at the trust in his half-lidded gaze.

“The young women will work themselves in a tizzy, you will see,” she replies. He grins. “That, if Cers does not bite off the head of any woman who dares look at me.”

They laugh as one, and for that moment, all is right in the world.