#she deserves the best day always!

[shining-m00nlight]

Brothers Pride

This is chapter Two of "It's tragedy that binds us". Ned thinks about how Brandon reacted to their father telling them that Ned would marry Catelyn. It's my dear Theas birthday and this is her gift!! Happy Birthday @ladycatofwinterfell !!!

Here is a link if you want to read the first chapter too.

"Brother!!!" Brandon Stark's voice boomed over the drawbridge of Riverrun. Obviously not caring for etiquette or courtesy, he crashed into Ned to

force him into a hug. Not having expected such an enthusiastic greeting from his brother Ned stumbled back, pulling Brandon with him. The pair of brothers had to try really hard to stay up right and not fall onto the ground in front of the whole staff of Riverrun and the small host of people the Starks had brought with them. If Ned was a person who would easily blush, he was sure he would have.

His brother's hug had surprised him a lot. He was sure Brandon would still be angry with him. He had been when their father had announced that Ned would marry Catleyn Tully instead of Brandon. 

--------------------------Flashback--------------------------

"What? No way am I allowing this!" Brandon yelled at their father after Rickard finished explaining to his sons what he and the new Lady Tully had agreed upon. 

"You will not have to allow anything! As I am your father and the Lord of Winterfell and as such I do not seek your approval but I am informing you about a decision I have made and you two will abide by. And you will do so in a manner fitting to

your station without bringing shame to the family

by yelling about a castel we are guests in!"

Brandon did not seem as if he wanted to heed

their fathers words.

"Well apparently Ned will not be a guest here for long. Rather he will be the Lady of this castel, spreading his legs to bear little trouts for the Riverlands." 

At that Rickard  Stark struck his son in the face. 

"You will not speak such crudness to me boy! You might think you're a man grown but don't you dare forget who I am and who we are! You will not speak about your family in this manner ever again! Not in front of me and not in front of anyone else. Am I understood?" 

Brandon still frowned at their father but nodded.

"This alliance is important for this family! I will not lose it because of your childish temperament or your hurt ego. Lady Tully's brother is dead, her sister not fit to be the Lady of Winterfell so Ned marrying her and staying at Riverrun is how we keep this ally!"

Rickard Stark ended his speech, looking more at Brandon, then at Ned. Brandon looked back at their father, pouting. The slap his father gave him obviously having bruised his ego more than his body. While it was clear he still wasn't agreeing with his father, he apparently had decided it was better to keep his thoughts to himself. Something that truly only their fathers authority could accomplish, Ned thought to himself. 

The Lord of Winterfell now turned to his second son. 

"You, Ned! You will marry the Tully girl and represent our house with pride here in the south! I know you haven't expected any of this but I am confident that you will be fine and make me proud son." 

Ned nodded: 

"I will do my best, father. I will marry Lady Tully as you command." 

"Good! I knew that I could trust you to do the right thing for our house. Lady Tully will be a good wife to you. I am sure of it. She is smart and capable. I l am almost disappointed that she won't be Brandon's wife but she does live by her house's words. "Family, Duty, Honor" and to her it's her duty to stay in Riverrun and to her it's what's best for her family. Which I have to agree with. 

You might not know much about your future bride, son but you know that she will be a good mother to your children and the rest you will learn in time" 

Ned nodded again. If he was being honest he hadn't really thought about his future wife all too much since his father told them the news an hour ago. He had been too distracted by Brandon glaring at him, as if he was personally responsible for the deaths of Edmure and Hoster Tully. 

All of Ned's thoughts were concentrated on Brandon and on trying to figure out what he would do l or say when their father wasn't with them anymore and how he should react. 

Ned was fairly certain that Brandon was not in love with the Lady Tully. The times Brandon and Ned had seen eachother in the years since Brandon and Catelyns betrothal Ned had never heard Brandon to declare deep love and devotion to the young maiden. He had talked about her beauty, that was for sure but he never talked of deeper, more meaningful things. 

On the contrary Brandon's words had often gotten more crude the more he drank and his descriptions became less and less fitting to be used for a lady of a great house. But of course Ned couldn't be completely certain, maybe l Brandon did love her. Which would mean that he would hate Ned forever. 

Ned was just about to direct his thoughts more towards the young women who would be his wife within the next few days when his father spoke again.

"I think everything has been said for now. I shall retire for the night. Tomorrow we will finalize the plans and the agreement and then everything will hopefully go on smoothly till we depart for Winterfell again. I expect of you to behave properly and go to your assigned chambers soon as well. And please remember that Riverrun and especially the Tully family is still grieving a great loss! So act accordingly. Good night boys" 

This time Rickard Stark didn't wait for the reactions of his sons but turned around immediately and left the study the Tullys had provided them with. 

Ned wanted to follow hoping he could give his brother some time and space to calm his nerves but Brandon had a different idea. When Ned tried to step out of the study the older Stark grabbed his arm and pulled him back in. 

"You can't honestly agree to this" 

He wasn't yelling. it was more of a growl. At least he was aware enough that their father was still so close that he would come running back should the shouts of his oldest reach his ear. Probably not hesitating to correct his behavior again in a less than gentle way. Ned tried to stay calm. 

"It is what father decided. There is nothing for me to agree or disagree with Brandon. Father and the Lady Tully made a decision and we must abide by it." 

Brandon grunted:

"The "Lady Tully" ,he said, his voice dripping with condensation, "the day before we arrived she was still Lady Catelyn or even the Tully girl and now she suddenly is "Lady Tully"

"Because she is Brandon. Because her father and her brother died! Or have you forgotten?" 

The look of guilt flashed over Brandons face but it only stayed for half a second then it turned back to spitefulness.

"Oh come on Neddy you can't tell me your honestly ok with Her and father deciding over your future without even consulting you!" 

It certainly wasn't Neds' favorite thing in the world, knowing that once again other people had made a decision affecting his life forever without as much as a word of warning. But he had the feeling Brandon meant that he would have a specific problem with the word "her" in his sentence which Ned couldn't confirm to him. 

Ned did not see what difference it would have made if instead of Lady Tully, one of fathers bannerman would have been the other party not consulting him on his future or wishes for it. The difference would have been his fathers words after making an agreement but the thing Ned would have liked to have been different, his involvement in the negotiations, wouldn't have changed. 

Not that Ned was ungrateful or didn't understand

his fathers decision. It was a good way to keep the alliance despite the tragedy that had occurred. He also wouldn't dare to complain about being married to the beautiful Lady of a great House but for once it would have been nice to at least been asked if he was fine and not just told he would be. 

He could not voice these thoughts to his hod headed brother though. Duty might have been one of the Tully words but Ned also understood its meaning.

"Again it is not my place to question father and it is my duty to marry for our house and listen to fathers commands." 

The small hope that those words would end their conversation died immediately when Brandon, now a bit closer to yelling and Ned's face, spit out. 

"Your duty is to fuck my girl then huh?!" 

Ned was uncertain what he could answer his brother and tried to think of a response. However Brandon didn't even give him the time to say one word before continuing to get in Ned face to complain some more. 

"It is your duty to get what I have been waiting for, l for so long? Oh I'm sure it was hard for you to take on such hard duty, getting to live a nice life here in the south with nothing to do as you have a wife that will be responsible for everything important in the castle and in the Riverlands. Being able to just relax and enjoy your life must have been such a hard thing to have to agree to."

Brandon didn't seem to see the irony in first accusing Ned in hiding his displeasure at the situation and changing it to accusing him of eagerly wanting it. He just continued ranting. Had Ned paid closer attention to his brother's face he might have noticed the change from anger to something a bit more calculated.

"Though now that I think about it little brother it might become a difficult duty to accomplish for you as I believe pleasing your Lady shall be part of it. From seeing how you interact with the fairer sex I am sure she will be disappointed outside but especially inside the bedroom. Considering she will compare you to me!" 

Ned stood there in silent shocked at his brother's words. Brandon had apparently decided that his words would end their talk as walked out of the room leaving Ned behind. 

Ned still tried to comprehend his brother's words. Did his brother just confess to taking Lady Tully's maidenhead? Surely he couldn't have been this stupid. If their father or worse, Hoster Tully would have found out, they would have had Brandons head. How could his brother have been so reckless?! 

Ned's head began to pain him the more he thought about not just Brandon's words but every word spoken in the last two hours. Slowly Ned's head started to swim and his thoughts overlapped and got out of control. 

In his probably last coherent thought of the day Ned decided it would be best for him to go to bed and deal with everything tomorrow as his father had said before. The next morning he hadn't been quite sure how he had found his chamber but he had been glad he did.

-----‐--‐------------------Flashback End-----------------------

After that day he and Brandon had barely talked. All of their interactions had been short and in the presents of others. The few exceptions were when Brandon would whisper crude japes in Ned's ear, most insinuating that Ned is displeasing to all women by simply standing near them.

Therefor Ned was understandably confused to be

greeted by his brother this way and so he only cautiously hugged him back to welcome him.

"Welcome to Riverrun, brother" 

Ned said as their hug entangled. Then he turned to his father. Though curious to find out what had changed his brother's attitude this drastically, surely time couldn't be the only factor, he could not forget to greet his family properly as was expected of him. He didn't want his wife to think he would scorn duty in the face of family and forget that he represented Riverrun when greeting guests. 

His wife, who had still been standing right next to him when Brandon had crashed into him, was already greeting Rickard Stark. The rest of his siblings standing right beside them. 

On her face a true smile that made her eyes sparkle and could only mean she was already reporting to them how little Robb was faring. Fitting to her eyes, her hair was shining thanks to the sun. 

She was a true beauty, his wife. Brandon had not exaggerated when speaking about it. But Ned had also come to learn that there was so much more about his wife. Things that Brandon either didn't know or didn't think were important enough to tell Ned about. 

Before Ned could further dwell on his wifes many qualities another of his siblings yelled his name and ran into his arms.

[izzystizzys]

TW: discussion of something approximating suicidal tendencies but with the usual crack programming of this blog

“Ah, High General Windu”, says Fox, pleasantly. “So we meet again.”

High General Windu raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, Fox thinks, though it’s getting hard to tell with all the blood rushing to his head. “If I let you go, will you try to throw yourself out of another window?”

Fox makes a vague shrugging motion - or tries to, anyways. It’s hard to tell where any of his limbs are going, hanging upside down in the air as he is. “I am willing to discuss terms.” A bridge will do just fine.

Impossibly, the High General’s eyebrows climb even further up his forehead. “A compromise, then, esteemed Commander.” And so, he righths Fox the head way up in the air, but leaves him floating just above the ground, at which point several painted shells come skidding around the corner followed by billowing robes and screeches.

“WHAT”, says Kote, calmly, “THE BANTHA-KARKED, FORCE-LOVING KRIFF, FOX.”

“You’ll short out your helmet mic”, Fox advises him, sagely. Fondly, he thinks back to decimating his own on only his second time in the newly-christened official Coruscant Guard Scream Closet. He’d just received the comm about the Zillo Beast being transported to 000, and made sure to take his bucket off thereafter to improve the quality of his closet time.

High General Windu’s face does something complicated between sympathy and constipation.

Because the Galaxy doesn’t hate Fox enough already and Cody wasn’t enough on his own, Wolffe elbows his way through their batch to plant himself in front of him, shoulders squared and shaking with repressed rage. “If you try that again, dickhead”, he begins, in a low growl that quite frankly sounds more cringe that intimidating, “I’m going to resurrect you and then kill you again.”

“Ah, Wolffe”, Plo Koon says, in his deep, shivery timbre, “Remember our conversations about effective conflict resolution and communication of needs?”

Wolffe’s eyes narrow at Fox, because all non-Guard are sweet summer children who walk around buckets off on 000 like absolute lunatics. Fox prays they never have to find out why that’s a bad idea. “I feel”, his ori’vod presses out between clenched teeth, “that if you make me watch you throw yourself out of another window, I’m going to jump after you and strangle you on the way down, you little bitch.”

“That’s fair”, says Fox, and watches High General Kenobi bury his face in his hands. Wolffe twitches in place and makes an aborted groaning noise, the hypocrite.

“Excuse me, High Marshall Commander Fox, but I fail to see what’s so dire about this situation that the Jedi High Council and your brothers cannot help you solve”, says Windu, the only sane one left on this Force-forsaken bloated corpse of a planet. Behind the gaggle of Jedi and ori’vode already gathered in front of Fox, the rest of them come veering around the corner in a commotion that’s quite frankly embarrassing. High General Yoda is mounted on Skywalker’s back like he’s a race-Eopie, which is Fox’ only consolation.

He got up this morning at 0300, bleary-eyed and with a pounding headache as always, and all was right in the world. And then Fox got called into the Jedi High Council’s chambers and was ceremoniously informed that in the wake of Chancellor Palpatine’s unfortunate demise (hah), and through the emergency state of the Senate, as well as several invented promotions foisted on Fox to make the delegation of any and all paperwork less shady, he was now next in the chain of command and-

Well, Fox is the acting Chancellor, in short.

Haha, he had said, and been meet with several seconds of silence, until it got both awkward and exceedingly painful. Wait, he’d said. You’re kriffing serious.

Kriffing serious, we are, had said High General Yoda, and thus Fox launched himself out the first best window with a maniacal cackle of, you’ll have to catch me first!

And catch him, High General Windu sure did.

“The will of the Force this is”, Yoda interrupts Fox’ train of thought. He scans him thoughtfully from beneath his wizened brow, and hems to himself. “Shake things up, this will. Determine the fate of the Galaxy, this shall. A feeling, I have, that a good Chancellor you will make. A better one, hmmm.”

“That’d be high praise, if not for the fact that a dead lemming would make for a better Chancellor than the last one”, says Fox, drawing and indignant gasp from Skywalker. He doesn’t bother with either that or the green goblin’s cackle, lost in the deep sense of resignation that settles over his shoulders like a suffocating blanket.

“Alright, then, get me Thorn on the comm. As my first act in office, I’m firing all the Jedi. No offense, but you’re kind of a disaster. Then, someone get me to the Chancellor’s office, I’m calling Dooku to let him know the war’s off. And please get me Judicial, they’ll be up all night working on my datafolders - I’m having the Senate arrested.”

“Who - is - arresting - “, Bly pants, hands on his knees from where he’s just come sprinting around the corner with his Jedi.

Underneath his bucket, Fox smiles a smile that’s all teeth. “The Senate”, he says, sweetly, wondering if he’s just imagined the shiver that’s gone through the room. “I’m suing the Senate, and taking them all into temporary custody for abuse of sentient rights.”

[i-d-e-g-a-f]

i ache for katara so deeply, she deserves so much better than her canon fate. i cannot express in words how much her story and how the fandom views/treats her physically hurts me

[knockknockitsnickels]

Alya ma'am you don't look like a hot topic employee I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to leave the paris special

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Man if Marcy keeps ending up with like child protection services in all these fics over her parents being slightly distant then my parents should be in JAIL

[shinybulbasaur]

the internet is evil because when I found out my neighbors who had recently immigrated had had a successful birth, I tried to look up "iranian baby customs" to see how I could congratulate them in a way that might feel like home, and all of the results were about bombs and assassination plots

I ended up buying them a cake and looking up the most appropriate way to say "congratulations" in persian

[mer-se]

at golden/blue hour the other day 🌕🍂

[skrunksthatwunk]

found out that rascal's owner took him again while i was out, and he's probably not gonna be back since the semester's almost over. i don't even know if his owner's coming back next semester, if i'll ever see him again. if he'll ever see me again. why do they wait until im not around to do this? why do they never let me say goodbye to him?

[teafiend]

Let me make a detour from my usual KDrama rare pairs to fangirl scream about this pairing. This show has tropes galore to make a shipper like me go squeeing to high heavens. Love this for me and the show, truly❣️

While not wholly a rare pair as this pairing from the drama itself has a number of high quality FMVs to fangirl over - and the overwhelmingly more popular ship with viewers - and there exists a tiny amount of fics in Korean, on Ao3, the fics (in English) for this pairing is basically nonexistent. A sad state of affairs, certainly, but the main female character is generally beloved, and the number of FMVs enough to tide me over for a time, so all in all, this is a very wonderful ship for me to have fun with.

Compared to some of my other rare pairs, this ship is unironically a major, major comfort! There is extremely little frustration to be had although fan content is not in abundance either. A lovely, sexy and peaceful ship 🥰🥹

[kasandor]

genevieve o’reilly outstanding lead actress in a drama series. to me.

[magicmagica]

Literally. My friends dog is OBSESSED with me and I have 0 clue why

I'm walking her while she's out of town and momma J is keeping her in her house.

But if my name is even mentioned this dog goes off the walls crazy!

Last night ma had her hooked up outside on her lead cause she mentioned I was coming over and Baylee almost destroyed the living room bouncing off the walls

She did that weird dog thing where she got so excited to see me she grabbed my hand in her mouth and just held it while we walked to the door together. We were holding hands!!!

Scares the living shit out of me sometimes (dog trauma from my vet assistant years) but like. On purpose? Like she's got these pranks she pulls off

Honestly growing up my family just sorta had me? Around? If that makes sense. Never talked to or played with we moved so much I didn't have other kids to play with. But I had my dog and we did everything together

She'll charge and growl and then kangaroo jump an inch from you. And if you jump or spook she dead stops and just grins at you and rolls around like she didn't just do that

She just has so much emotion and thought behind her eyes it drives me fucking crazy when science bros try to push the only we have thoughts theory like come the fuck on. Go outside and touch some grass you're not even an apex predator

She's a pit hound mix and waaaaay too smart but still such a dog. The ultimate dog. Her only thoughts are dog

I've never experienced so much dog in 1 dog

And chatty like a pit but opinionated like a nose hound. She looks like someone took a pit and stretched it out a little. Ears awkwardly goblin long weird long nose but pit jowls. Talllll hound skinny legs but thick pit body and waste.

And when she sits or lies down she looks 100 ibs over weight but when she stands she has a great body condition for an 11 yesr old dog like

I'm not sure this dog is a dog and not just something wearing a dog suit

[simplyghosting]

Filling out a pain scale at the PT office and realized I may have said something wrong when I cheerily asked the receptionist what level she would consider a “not quite at crying, but you can’t have a proper conversation because the pain is so distracting.” and she looked very concerned.

[rzeckism]

loving dazai on this fine sunday evening. will be loving dazai monday morning. the dazai madness is delightful. i do hope she’s not dead

[asterdeer]

told the therapist about how shitty it makes me feel being inundated with this new approach to mental illness being "at some point if you're still depressed it's because you're not trying to be not-depressed hard enough, you have to go talk a walk and do hobbies and talk to people or else you're making other people uncomfortable" and she basically said "yeah that works for some people. but also you don't have mild depression so that's not going to work for you in isolation. you're severely depressed you dumb bitch [affectionate]." and my kneejerk reaction was huh? no i'm not. i'm just a weak cowardly piece of shit looking for excuses to be miserable. which is probably exactly what a severely depressed person would say

[luvxiem]

i had such an awful day today but luca is so cute on stream rn lol

[tvrningout-a]

I’M EMOTIONAL bc after what peach wrote, it’s making me realize!! that if people around kaiya went, “ it’s alright if you can’t accept yourself now, ” vs. getting noticeably upset or pitying her, she’d be more likely to be open with them. but i think most people around kaiya don’t bc they want to take care of her, they want her to be happy, so they get sad and sometimes try to change her mind then and there. she just has that kind of personality -- she’s so gentle and soft that most people get up in arms when she’s hurting ( i know sei and chinatsu certainly do ). but that isn’t what she needs.

kaiya has a negative perception of herself already, and causing others to worry only makes it worse, so getting upset when it comes out how she thinks of herself? it doesn’t help or make her think differently. it just kind of reaffirms that she’s someone who causes trouble and pain for others, and she’ll just think that she doesn’t deserve someone caring that much in the first place. instead, kaiya needs someone to simply accept her feelings. you can tell her she’s wrong bc she is, but it’s all about delivery!! something like, “ your mistakes don’t define you, and one day you’ll see that. ” 

you can comfort kaiya, but how much it truly helps depends on how you do it. the more positive you are, the more accepting, the better :’ )