#so anyway yeah my life in westeros could go two ways

[transassdemon]

Also, I wondered how i would deal in world (either just in the past or in a fictional world like Westeros) if I didn't have my meds. And I would either don't do anything, have a constant breakdown and quickly die, or I would become one of the villains. Maybe I wouldn't flay people but still, I would cause some problems.

Quick question? Would portraying Ramsay as having BPD (I've read a lot of headcanonc from folks that make sense) be considered as 'woobyfying (I don't even know how to spell that) him, or even being an apologist? Cause I dont wanna do that, but I'd like to portray him as such.

Hmm, I don���t think it’s woobiefying (I don’t really know how to spell that either lol) to search for behavioral explanations of characters you like and even if it were, I don’t think it’s a crime to woobiefy a character (as long as you know that you’re doing it). Your headcanons are yours. 

The bigger problem I see with attributing real mental illnesses like BPD to fictional characters such as these, especially if done by neurotypical people, is more because it’s, well, kinda ableist? While I do think that the BPD diagnosis in theory fits Ramsay eerily well, it also kind of furthers the stereotype of people with BPD being inherently violent, abusive and just a huge danger to others, which is not really the case. People with mental disabilities suffer much more from ‘normal’ people, than vice versa. That’s why imho it can be very problematic (for lack of better term) to attribute a diagnosis like this to a fictional character like that.

If you want to talk a bit more about BPD Ramsay, dontflaywithmyheart actually has BPD themselves and also likes to headcanon Ramsay with BPD for their own coping. They might be able to tell you a little more about it (and especially about the do’s and don’ts, as I am really not someone who’s an authority about these matters).

[cbrownjc]

HOTD possible spoiler (as well as some Fire and Blood ones) under the cut:

The person who posted the initial rumor/leak/spoiler is clarifying/sticking to it.

I've already talked about my problems with how this show has handled its black characters here (wrt Laena) and here when this Nettles rumor/leak first happened a few days ago.

Honestly, if this rumor really is true, I will pretty much be done with the show. Because aside from the racist angle the show just falls right into by doing something like this, it's also just lazy AF writing.

If the show wanted to make Rhaena a more active participant in the war that very easily can be done without making her a dragon rider. They could have her play a bigger role in helping in the survival of her family members, seeing that she, her sister, and her two little half-brothers are the only ones who do so (along with Corlys). Let her become the more politically savvy twin, using her status as a princess and such to form alliances, keep the Vale on the side of The Blacks, and things like that. Maybe even leading up to things like having her take the lead in ensuring that Corlys doesn't get executed for treason after the war is over.

But nope. Just make her a dragon rider during the conflict too. And hey, since she's black now, just have her replace the only book-canon black character in the story of the Dance, who was already speculated by some to be Daemon's bastard daughter anyway. Because all black people are just interchangeable anyway, right? 🙄 (That is if we're even bothering to give them character and story arcs in the first place; especially in comparison to their originally white book counterparts *cough*Laena*cough*).

So yeah, NGL I was already growing apathetic about the show before this, given how Leana, Rhaena, and Baela's characters were all handled in Season 1. Cutting out Nettles and just having Rhaena take her place? When the two characters are nothing alike, personality-wise?

Yeah, if this really is true then no thank you. I'll check out clips of the big moments -- Rook's Rest, Blood and Cheese, and whenever The Battle Above the God's Eye happens in some later season -- on YouTube or something. But actively watch episodes in full? Nope.

Again, I'll wait to full-out rant on this when it's 100% confirmed in some way. (And yes, such a rant very likely would include talking about how color-conscious casting & writing > > > > > > color-blind casting & writing; and using that to properly world build -- because yes that is possible even wrt a fantasy world like Westeros, which already has established places in its world where black people prominently lived and originated from.) Maybe waiting to do so is just me being in denial, IDK. But I'm kind of having deja vu wrt how I felt about the rumors circulating about Season 8 of GOT again. I just couldn't believe the writers were going to be that level of hack-lazy. And yet . . . .

I really had hopes that HBO had learned from that mistake and that the writing team and showrunners for this show wouldn't do something similar. But ever since I saw what happened to Laena's character, (and how her role in Rhaenrya's life -- when they were young -- was basically given to Alicent), I've been questioning if they really have . . . . or ever did. 🤷🏾‍♀️

[daenystheedreamer]

hi can we know more about your ocs please....... i'm fascinated.

ABSOLUTELY i love thinking and talking and being crazy about them. putting all this under a cut cos ooo boy im not burdening your TLs with my rambling and omg it is. DEEPLY embarrassing. i go into canon oc danelle lothston and omaegorverse!

my specfic iteration of danelle comes from this thread of a fic i want to finish where she's got like Genre Awareness and can see ghosts both past and future and harrenhal is very house of leaves. like she sometimes watches the tourney at harrenhal she watches the doom of rhaegar lyanna elia and she grew up seeing the ghosts of alys harroway/alys rivers/rhaena targaryen/harren the black around the castle. she goes to the gods eye time vortex and exchanges sentimental items (her beloved deceased maids' stuff...) for shit thats fallen into the lake (its like genshin gacha, she's aiming for dark sister but she keeps getting aemond's sapphire eyeball -_-)

also harrenhal is unmapped and grows and shrinks and opens new passageways. also its sooo goofy but the library is like A Library Of Everything and has all information past present future and hence danelle knows she is doomed!!

its mostly me building my canon oc danelle lothston and viewing her through the eyes of the person who will one day doom her and hence take on the harrenhal curse and also they are horrible lesbians and danelle is visenya kin (wears armour all the time, does blood magic, is a lesbian)

OMAEGORVERSE oh omaegorverse my beloved beloathed...

maegor 'fixes' things with the faith by going okay targaryens will have a westerosi wife in the way of the faith and a targaryen wife in the way of old valyria. then all the kids can fight it out and whoever wins gets westeros and clearly whoever wins is blessed by your gods so if you say no i guess it means you disagree with your gods :/ he spends his time subjugating lords and probably doing prima noctus not cos he wants to fuck women but just to cuck men lol. basically making everyone's life absolute hell ESPECIALLY for his wife-husband viserys

viserys is utterly totally and absolutely traumatised, constantly dissociating, not even one foot in reality hes got like one toe in reality entirely devoted to his abomination children. i havent chosen exactly how i want visenya/alyssa/jaehaerys/alysanne to figure into this au but rhaena chooses to 'side' with maegor in order to protect viserys (plus some aerea/rhaella stuff) and possibly alysanne is forced into the faith and she too stays by viserys' side. anyway viserys is a wet and sad kicked kitten in this au he has The Worst Fucking Life Ever

JAEHAERYS: hes the first son, jaehaerys died for his birth and warning that will make this paragraph VERY confusing cos theres two jaehaeryses. viserys abjectly refuses to accept the death of jaehaerys because he feels totally responsible for it and he basically treats jaehaerys (his kid) like jaehaerys (his brother). imagine being the heir to a kingdom and your dad is like hi little brother how are you how is our wonderful and totally still alive mother alyssa :) and you are like who tf is alyssa YOU are my mother?? hence he has some identity issues. he was promised to aerea from birth to shore up inheritance and keep rhaena in line. he looks exactly like jaehaerys(son of alyssa) since whatever blood magic they use has to lilke make up for the fact maegor is infertile so its a combo of viserys+maegor+visenya+a sacrifice in this case jaehaerys. maegor thinks hes kind of a pussy cos hes not built like maegor and as a 3 year old he wasnt like wooo murder hell yeah!! hes very psychosexually freudian too he is VERY weird like imagine growing wth an omegafied mother-father i thikn that would make you a bit weird. i think he had a tysha-like sexual humiliation incident in the past too.

DAENYS: daenys my beloved i could go on forever. im not sure exactly where/what i want her to go/do. im biased wanting her to go to harrenhal but i think the hightower would make sense, to make up for the whole ceryse deal and keep them on maegor's side. gosh i♡examining the horrors of being a feudal child bride and growing up knowing thats all you are hee hee<3 she has a dragon but it's the runt of the litter it's like Large Horse sized (shes a horsegirl its her only friend!) rhaena used to take her flying on dreamfyre<3 aerea and rhaella were her only friends cos she was too scared of other people partly because viserys+maegor are insanely paranoid and partly because she was terrified of women because she had lesbian thoughts and thought she was evil for it. she's viserys' favourite she's his little dreamer his dream and hope and escape and that DEFINITELY didn't make her weird at all... maegor mostly ignores her cos she's not his heir and not the cooler daughter(viserra)

VISERRA: viserra is visenya kin through and through but also tyanna of the tower was used during her blood magic birth ritual so she's got double the insane womanism. she worships her dad! shes the first to claim a dragon and its huge and bigger than her brother's and she's a better fighter than him and taller. she's maegor's favourite (cough cough shes just like his mommy!!) and that made her crazy lol youve heard of girldad get ready for dadgirl. she haaaaates jaehaerys she thinks hes a pussy and she wants to fight him for inheritance + hates aerea cos by rights as jaehaerys' sister she should have married him and been queen. thinks daenys is a weird freak and feeds into daenys' insecurities and calls her a freak for having lesbian tendencies(homophobia♡) its a bit of a joffrey situation too like she could have been normal but unfortunately menace of the millenium maegor was like no youre my favourite youre the best youre the greatest youre my spiritual heir youre basically a god and because maegor is the ultimate evil patriarch and has isolated this horrible family of his she's like yeah well he's right about everything i guess i AM a god!!

[dontbipanicjonsa]

Been thinking about Dark!D*ny and

I think for me, it comes down to two things:

The utter hypocrisy re: her supposed abolitionist ways

The escalation of her power and the destruction she wreaks

Because I can't really fault her for smothering Drogo. I can't really fault her for letting Viserys die. I can't really fault her for murdering the shit out of Kraznys. I can't fault her for freeing slaves (as if). I can't even fault her for wanting revenge.

Let me explain-

I think if we compare the capture of the Lhazareen and the capture of Meereen, it paints a very clear picture of where D*ny is headed.

The Lhazareen

Ok. First, the whole 'D*ny has no power' argument has to stop. She's the khaleesi. Her husband is the khal. Of course she has power.

I'm NOT saying Drogo isn't absolutely monstrous to her. I'm not saying she chose to marry him. I'm not commenting on their relationship at all.

In a patriarchy, (upper class) women gain property/power/control over others in exchange for sexual/reproductive service. So D*ny, simply by virtue of being the khal's wife, or simply because she's pregnant with his kid (neither of which were her choice) has power.

For comparison, Cersei, who is abused by her husband, the king, still derives power from her position as Queen and mother of the princes/princess. See what I mean?

?? Drogo decides they're gonna sail to Westeros and gives his rousing speech because D*ny was almost assassinated. The attack on the Lhazareen was done in service of D*ny's conquest of Westeros. Let's repeat.

The Lhazareen were attacked to further D*ny's interests.

The Lhazareen were attacked to further D*ny's interests.

No, it wasn't for Rhaego, he's a fucking foetus he doesn't HAVE interests. It's not for Drogo, he doesn't give two shits about Westeros. IT"S FOR D*NY. And that is her 'power' in action. Her power, that she derives through her husband, because PatRiarChy. But power.

And you know what? Sure. It's fine. She didn't know what a bloodbath it was going to be. That's not her fault. And yeah, she IS ready to accept the bloodshed as necessary collateral. That is...a bit more questionable. But she does try to help some women.

Does she only help them because she can see their suffering? Probably. There's plenty of suffering not in her direct line of sight that she allows. But ok. Sure. It's not her job to save everyone (nevermind that they're suffering to further her interests).

The whole 'save them by marrying them to their rapists' thing makes me more sad than enraged. It's tragic. It's D*ny, making women marry their rapists in the same book where she married her rapist...thinking she's ok, thinking they would be ok too. It's the cycle of abuse in motion, right before our eyes.

This is an explanation I accept. All that bullshit about how powerless D*ny is? Pls. Women and children are being enslaved right there on the same page, so D*ny can win the IT, and she's powerless ?? stfu

Ok. I get it. She's not powerless, but how far does her power extend? COULD she have gotten away with getting all the newly enslaved Lhazareen freed? We'll never know. Does that absolve her?

Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver's Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne.

NO.

This- the capture and enslavement of the Lhazareen people- is a direct consequence of Viserys' ambitions, which is a torch that D*ny has now willingly taken up. THAT ^^^ is a price she's willing to pay, or rather- make others pay.

Buuuut it's fine. She's inexperienced, and her power is certainly limited, and hey she tried. Sure. Moving on.

Meereen

(TW: mentions of rape)

Fast forward four books and D*ny is approximately 100x times more powerful than she was in the Lhazareen scene. Let's see how she does now-

A boy came, younger than Dany, slight and scarred, dressed up in a frayed grey tokar trailing silver fringe. His voice broke when he told of how two of his father's household slaves had risen up the night the gate broke. One had slain his father, the other his elder brother. Both had raped his mother before killing her as well. The boy had escaped with no more than the scar upon his face, but one of the murderers was still living in his father's house, and the other had joined the queen's soldiers as one of the Mother's Men. He wanted them both hanged.

I am queen over a city built on dust and death. Dany had no choice but to deny him. She had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack. Nor would she punish slaves for rising up against their masters.

xxx

A former slave came, to accuse a certain noble of the Zhak. The man had recently taken to wife a freedwoman who had been the noble's bedwarmer before the city fell. The noble had taken her maidenhood, used her for his pleasure, and gotten her with child. Her new husband wanted the noble gelded for the crime of rape, and he wanted a purse of gold as well, to pay him for raising the noble's bastard as his own. Dany granted him the gold, but not the gelding. "When he lay with her, your wife was his property, to do with as he would. By law, there was no rape." Her decision did not please him, she could see, but if she gelded every man who ever forced a bedslave, she would soon rule a city of eunuchs.

SO anyway how is D*ny rating on the 'tried to prevent rape' scale?

She even went so far as to summon Irri, hoping her caresses might help ease her way to rest, but after a short while she pushed the Dothraki girl away. Irri was sweet and soft and willing, but she was not Daario.

Oh look she's in the negative :/

How's she doing on the slavery front? She's got all the power now...

"Your slave Missandei." Jhiqui had a taper in her hand.

"My servant. I have no slaves." Dany did not understand. "Why does she weep?"

xxx

There was no slavery in the free city of Pentos. Nonetheless, they were slaves.

...

D*enerys spends five books gaining power. How does this affect the condition of her people? Is the condition of the Meereenese better than the condition of the Lhazareen had been, all the way back in the first book? No. It's worse.

People have still been raped. People have still been enslaved/remained enslaved. People have starved. People have been brutally murdered. And at a much larger scale than book 1.

This is what it comes down to. D*ny is a villain because her climb to power is characterized by death and destruction, always. Isn't that the trademark of a villain?

D*ny is a girl who truly believes in her own PR, but when you look at her words and actions-

"The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh," Dany told the girl, "but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me . . ."

"They would kill him out of hand and bring her his head, tell her that," the slaver answered. "Other slaves may steal and hoard up silver in hopes of buying freedom, but an Unsullied would not take it if the little mare offered it as a gift. They have no life outside their duty. They are soldiers, and that is all."

xxx

"No," she pleaded. "Save him, and I will free you, I swear it. You must know a way … some magic, some …"

...how much of her actions are truly altruistic? How much is performative?

Despite her anti-slavery rhetoric, D*ny consistently benefits from slavery- and slavery flourishes.

Despite her 'oh no I don't wanna bring death and destruction anywhere', her actions continue to bring exactly that- and it never stops her from doing it all over again the next time.

Not to dismiss her internal struggle. But really. Being upset at the thought that you might be a bad person doesn't make you a good person. For that matter, being worried if you're going mad or not...doesn't mean you're not (not that I'm saying she is). Seriously, where did that logic even come from? Ultimately, her internal struggle makes her a more compelling character, sure, but it doesn't actually make her a better person.

The point is, her story is absolutely rooted in hypocrisy. Her destructiveness only escalates with her power. Her so-called good intentions never pan out- because her own actions undermine them. And because she has the self-awareness of a pigeon, she never gets better.

She IS the villain who thinks she's a hero. She isn't just a villain because she's done bad things, but because she's utterly unaware (or deliberately obtuse) of the bad things she's done, and so she's incapable of learning, and so she's only getting worse.

Take a step outside her POV and it suddenly becomes clear.

Let's recap.

D*ny has-

Wayy more power in Meereen. Less in Lhazareen

D*ny did-

Less to prevent rape in Meereen. More in Lhazareen

D*ny benefitted from-

Slavery in Meereen. Slavery in Lhazareen

D*ny was-

A slaver in Meereen. A slaver in Lhazareen

D*ny wreaked-

Death and destruction in Meereen. Death and destruction in Lhazareen.

D*ny, riding high on her power-

Ordered the murder of children. And much more.

Power is NOT good for D*ny.

[janiedean]

if you ever wrote that rant about grrm making jon his chosen one deconstruction i'd be very happy to read it 👀

hello anon sorry for the lateness but here we go *deep breath*

sssooo, I had once ranted about it though not mentioning the thing I mentioned in those tags so lemme see if I can find the op and like... cp the main argument and amend it bc it was long, but okay so I found it, original anon asked me: why is Jon considered to be one of the most special characters grrm created? Why is he not the typical hero of fantasy books?, my original answer was here if anyone wants to go there but basically lemme just cp the first part making it shorter and then I'm adding:

first thing, the Typical Post-Tolkien Chosen One With A Shitty Life Before He Finds Out He Is Chosen™ character (I’m saying post-tolkien because every fantasy writer in existence who copies tolkien thinks that lotr went like that and instead it didn’t) usually goes through the following steps: his life sucks up until the beginning of the series, his family generally hates him/her or doesn’t appreciate them or abuses them or anyway doesn’t make their life easier and they’ve never known any different, but *something* never quite worked right and they always knew something was missing in their life, they just didn’t know why. suddenly someone who knows they were Chosen™ shows up and tells them that they’re actually Special because of this this and that and they have a quest to go on to save the world or something. our hero/heroine obviously is finally validated and while their quest is hard and full of hardships and maybe they lose a few friends along the way, finding out that they were Chosen gives their life meaning, they usually find love/friends/everything they didn’t have before until they fulfill the Prophecy™ and live more or less happily ever after, possibly after hooking up with the Person Of Their Dreams with whom they had UST up until the last twenty pages of the book. basically: being Chosen™ in regular fantasy novels is a good thing because suddenly you’re special and all the crap you suffered acquires a new meaning and in the end it made your life better.

jon snow is a complete overhaul of about everything in this sense because

instead of having a family who hates him he has a family who actually mostly loves him, and with ned it’s arguably so much that he risks royal treason by keeping him hidden from his *best friend* - sure, there’s cat and peripherally sansa, but his issues stem from the fact that he feels lesser because he’s a bastard (as far as he knows) and it’s a *class* issue, not a *my family hates me* issue not counting catelyn obv but that's what gives him freudian issues more on that in the emended part later

no one actually knows that he’s Chosen™ - like mel could get there and probably will and someone will put two and two together when his parentage comes out in the open, but he doesn’t have a gandalf or mentor who shows him The Way Towards His Quest

so instead of going from ‘my life sucks but I’m going on a quest which is gonna be a+’ he actively chooses to leave a fairly decent situation (a household he knows, siblings who love him - ned actually hoped he’d become robb’s counselor or right hand man or something from what we can gather) because he feels like he has to prove he’s better than his name and goes to the Crappiest Place In Westeros. like idk if people grasp it, but the wall is basically a prison and at the ripe age of fourteen he decides that it’s totally a good and honorable choice (his only choice actually) to go defend the realm in the freezing cold along with a bunch of criminals/derelicts/rejects of society

at which point he makes friends among said rejects and let’s remember that it’s the point where he actually has to do his first an only privilege when donal noye made him go like hey you were brought up with nobles these ppl are here because they stole bread, and that helps making him more into the person he is rn but like your tyopical fantasy hero who has had a shitty life doesn’t usually have to acknowledge that other people might have had it worse

then he goes on the Quest where he finds his first One True Love, and that’s where it turns even worse because usually the quest is where things start to go right for the Hero™, instead for jon they start to go wronger, because first he has to go undercover which pretty much tests most of his belief/code system, he falls in love with a girl he has to betray, half of his friends and his lord commander die along the way, while he’s off doing his thing winterfell gets taken/burned and robb dies when jon openly stated that he also was going to the wall to defend his family and keep them safe (yeaaah worked out real well), when he goes back to the wall he has to fight the people he lived with for months, the woman he loves dies in his arms and he can’t do anything about it and he’s aware it couldn’t have gone any other way, people put defending the wall on him and then put his loyalty in question, when stannis shows up with a legitimization (which is everything he ever wanted) he refuses because he doesn’t want to accidentally steal his siblings’s inheritance (which was what cat was so worried about hahaha) and actively chooses the crappy defending the realm life all over again. also in all this time his being Chosen™ hasn’t manifested or helped him in any way whatsoever - actually all his honor-moral code related baggage is what  moral dilemmas come from that. like, your usual chosen hero™ would always take the right decision and it all turns out good eventually, jon takes the morally right decision and it all turns SOUR eventually

at this point he finally gets elected LC, thanks to his friends also pitching in, which is about the one fantasy hero™ thing that’s happened for now. should be good, yes?

lol no, because he ends up with THAT hellish responsibility at sixteen, since he thinks that he has absolutely to be even better than that now and he has very specific notions about how you should lead and he knows he has to take unpopular decisions/decisions that he doesn’t necessarily like, he ends up either having to send his friends away forreal (sam) or detaching from them (pyp/grenn/the likes) and when as far as he knows he learns that his sister is married to ramsay he can’t do anything about it

never mind that it’s the same situation as when he had to pick the watch or robb in book one - he went there to defend his family and now being there actually prevents him from helping them in person. ops. meanwhile he’s trying to implement a new vision of things which is modern and smart and actually makes sense because why fighting the wildlings when you have ZOMBIES coming. your usual Chosen One™ would get people to approve just because he’s the Chosen One

instead jon gets stabbed to death - okay, that was also because he wanted to go get arya but it was the last straw, people were pissed over the wildlings plan first and foremost

so basically he’s gone through all the Chosen One™ steps but in reverse - he loses his family which did love him instead of finding another one that makes the first pale in comparison, he does find a new one who loves him but has to alienate most of its members for responsibility reasons as a consequence of what should have been the crowning achievement of his life choices (which eventually is NOT one), he falls in love and they don’t drag the UST forever but they never get a chance to be together without small print in between, he chooses the admittedly most masochistic life he could for his family as well and half of them die and he can’t do a thing for the other half, every other mentor-like figure he runs into after ned dies, instead of finding validation he ends up having to isolate himself and on top of everything HE STILL DOESN’T FUCKING KNOW HE’S THE CHOSEN ONE™

so instead of his life going better the more he learns stuff and matures as a person, he gets murdered. by the people he trusts and who were supposed to be his new family. haha?

never mind that when he finds out he’s the Chosen One™ it won’t bring him closure because all he ever wanted was being full stark like his father/siblings and then bam he’s going to find out his father’s actually targaryen and what does that even mean to him?

on top of that being AA will just be a pain because I don’t believe for a second he’s not going to get leftover ptsd and who the hell is gonna help him deal with it? or how is he ever getting over his *brothers* murdering him? and people are going to ask stuff of him all over again and he’s gonna have to go slay a mythical monster and if I know grrm it’s not gonna be fun, pretty or cathartic FOR HIM

on top of that, Chosen Hero™ fulfills the prophecy and gets a realm to rule and everyone lives happily ever after. money is that if jon does get that realm (and I think he is because he has the best claim if he's legitimate and most likely it'll turn out he was on the targ side but ROBB also legitimized him so he has double the legitimization), he’s going to hate every second of it and he’ll take it because a) duty, b) literally no one else is available, and like this guy didn’t want to rule a realm or be a king or anything he just wanted to be a stark, and instead he’s going to have to after all that shit thanks to Magical And Noble Heritage he hadn’t even known he had and probably didn’t even want up to that point because since when jon wanted to be a targ? yeah since never

obviously I hope he manages to be somewhat happy regardless because the alternative is too miserable, but basically being a Chosen Hero™ is what makes jon’s life worse rather than better and the fact that hew went through all the regular self-discovery journey for the fantasy hero list doesn’t mean he’s not flipping that over in his sl. the fact that he stayed a decent person more or less throughout it and that he hasn’t turned into a bitter asshole also doesn’t change the main point XD

tldr: jon snow is not a typical fantasy hero because he deconstructs that trope into tiny little bits same as robb deconstructed the arthurian flawless king hero trope

now ^^^^^ THAT was what I originally wrote for that meta but adding on to what I said in those tags

okay so... there is a certain tendency to also make the chosen one™ special in the sense that he's kind of goals - good looking, rich or set to inherit, gallant, takes the initiative, he's like.. social or anyway immediately makes friends etc and all that jazz which jon... doesn't really fit

like jon is an introvert who immediately makes friends just with outcasts and his siblings also bc he feels like one but he's hardly a social butterfly and charms everyone wherever he walks by

I mean ffs says all that the only person he charmed in that sense is stannis who is the literal only person in charge in the books who is more introvert than him and has worse communication issues and appreciates ppl going straight to the point

on top of that in the book he looks like ned.... and arya looks like ned and ned isn't described as being particularly handsome that was brandon so he's not even like... I mean kit h. is v. pretty and I think he was a good choice for the role and I'll die on the hill that he was born to play that character and he did it well but book!jon doesn't have that kinda pretty face so the concept that he's the HOT alternative to anyone to me is kind of iffy bc he's not

he's shit at social interactions and at PR which is why robb and him would have been a key winning ticket like he has a better idea of the larger picture but robb would have actually made sure ppl didn't turn against them bc he actually was good at that but like he doesn't go around rallying armies in his name does he

the one time he's been with a girl it was ygritte and like he courted her without realizing it and then she had to pursue him and he barely knew wtf to do on top of the fact that they slept with ghost in the middle of them like a sword which..... is.... I mean sleeping with the sword in the middle was a thing to make sure the maiden stayed a maiden and he's the one who is like i CAN'T HAVE SEX WITH HER EVEN IF I WANT TO BECAUSE I'M TECHNICALLY SPYING ON THEM like... he's not... gallant-knight coded

never mind that the moment they do the do she basically does everything until he decides to try the oral which I mean... isn't exactly alphadominatingmale out of jon which is not a given with the trope he's supposed to represent like he's not smooth he's not suave he's like WHAT THE FUCK when ygritte tells him he has a pretty face bc most likely no one else told him that and he like... doesn't pursue people like that in general which is also not exactly 100% what that trope usually goes for

we can add that he has a lot of passive-aggressive little shit sarcasm in him that they didn't let him go for in the show but like... usually chosen heroes™ don't think what he thinks about selyse in general

we can also add that he's not automatically above being better than his position like... he doesn't take winterfell bc ygritte is dead but he did think he'd have taken the deal sansa or not if stannis had said he could marry her and not val and if she wasn't dead, he basically went off the rails at the dude he was fighting with thinking about robb telling him that he couldn't be lord of wf because he was a bastard and he's absolutely not in the frame of mind of 'well I was born a bastard who cares it doesn't define me'

he's obsessed to the point of unhealthy with actually being defined by it which is why he was better off with the wildlings aka the only idiots in the realm who don't gaf about that

and that's like... I mean usually if chosen ones™ have parental issues it's like 'you were an orphan and raised by asses who weren't your parents but your parents loved you and you'll find out at some point and you'll be happier for it and make your own family', jon is like... he has the mommy freudian issues of the century bc of how cat treated him, on the other side he's obsessed with living up to ned's/his father's name and he hates that it makes him not-belonging or that he feels like he doesn't even if he does with his siblings, and at the same time when the truth about it comes out he's going to get the cold shower of the century bc like - he's spent all that time thinking BUT DID MY MOTHER WANT ME WHO WAS MY MOTHER and he's going to find out of who it was and how he was born and honestly considering that lyanna most likely did regret running with rhaegar the moment he finds that out and that she died birthing him how is he going to feel? - also he spends his life wanting to live up to his 'father's' name aka ned aka someone known to be honorable to a fault and then it turns out his bio father is... the dude who started that entire rebellion not doing a very honorable thing? - also if jon*erys is a thing idt that he'd take 'I fell in love with my aunt' so nonchalantly as he did in the show tldr: he's never gonna get over his parental issues in a short time and when that particular brick hits him in the face it won't be pretty

like the entire point of jon is that he goes through all the chosenone™ cursus honorum as we'd call it in high school when studying latin but each step that means smth good for the usual chosenone™ to him is something bad, being one is not going to make his life better and throughout the entire thing he does not fit that stereotype when it comes to look, personality, basic traits and familial history and like hell he's going to have the happy ending tied up with the bow - like I think he gets a bittersweet one and eventually goes off with the wildlings bc he belongs there after being jon snow first of his name (bc like hell he's not reclaiming his bastard background at the end of this entire mess I'm eating my hat if he doesn't) after splitting the seven realms and fixing things but that's hardly the neat happy ending the chosenone™ usually gets so that's my two cents

... christ this was long *raises hands*

[sweetestpopcorn]

Love the blacks and the greens, and very much looking forward to how Rhaenyra changes versus canon. I'd say in canon during the time she sat the throne she was a terrible queen (imposing taxes on the common folk of KL and throwing lavish feasts while the smallfolk starved, ordering Addam Velaryon and nettles to be arrested for treason without proof, arresting corlys and losing her most powerful Ally, etc) but then again at that point she'd lost two kids and was just going down a very dark path altogether. I hope that she gets a happy ending in your fic, she didn't deserve to go out the way she did, in front of her son no less. :(

Hi :D 

Thank you so much! Your words have made my day 💖🤗 it is an honour to share my fics with such amazing people as you are! 

Well, I think that like you say Rhaenyra did a lot of terrible choices during her time as queen, yet I think we never got to see the real Rhaenyra on the throne. By the time she became queen she had lost two sons, her son Viserys was missing presumed dead, her daughter Visenya was lost in a horrible miscarriage (giving birth for three days?! I mean... this is awful), not to mention she was betrayed by the same people who once pledge their fealty to her and when she did become queen she found herself poor as dirt - since the Greens left the coffers empty on their way out. I think by this time she was severely depressed and pretty much was a shell of her former self, living only for the Throne she had sacrificed so much for (real Rhaenyra would never allow Daemon to bang other women on her watch, she was proud! - yall can fight me on this one). Septon Eustace’s bullsht claim that she cut herself on the throne? Yeah I don’t buy it, if she did it was probably from gripping it too hard when she thought of all she lost - and this breaks my heart so much... That being said I have to give her some praise and say at the beginning of the shtstorm, she was still capable of making fairly good decisions and we have some insights into that, for instance, she surrounded herself with advisors and when Corlys gave her an advice and Daemon another, she took neither and instead chose something in between, which to me suggests she was not a tyrant at heart nor someone who was not willing to compromise - she very much could do this. Of course that as time went by, and sht pilled up, she lost herself more and more and in the end... oh gods...

Well anyway XD done ranting. As for my fic I will argue she has so far lived a happier life than she did in canon (yall can also fight me on this one). She was not married against her will to Laenor, and instead got to marry the man she always loved, Daemon Targaryen the Rogue Prince *music playing in the background* which meant, she never had bastard children, never had to hide them and did not live for several years tied to a man she did not want to wed and having an affair with another.

Spoiler not spoiler, of course I won’t give her the horrible death she had in canon! Not on my watch is “Goldfyre” (reference to how I have Daemon calling him in my fic) eating our one true queen of fashion and Westeros! No freaking way! So while I won’t promise like a Disney Happy Ending, I will promise that I will to the best of my abilities try and make it satisfying and I think Rhaenyra will have a much better ending than she did in canon- let’s face it the bar on her ending was as low as it could get XD.

Thank you so much for your question -3- and thanks for reading.

[fandomjuxtaposition]

Arya’s behavior vs. Gendry’s

I’ve been thinking about this a lot today, and I want to clarify something I said in response to a post recently. In discussing the way Arya is portrayed in fics, I said something along the lines of I understood why fic writers have trouble dealing with the behavior we were shown on screen. Trying to explain it, rationalize it, etc. Because the Arya Stark that occasionally popped up in season 8 was absolutely not the Arya Stark that I know and love, and I said that Arya’s behavior was, in my mind, worse than Gendry’s and that he had the right to be angry with her, and I feel like I need to explain what I meant, because I do not mean her behavior as a whole. I mean one very specific thing, and that’s the way she left him vs. the way he left her.

Putting the rest of this under a cut because I am very wordy and don’t want to make you scroll endlessly if you plan to ignore this.

When Gendry left her in season 3, as far as they both knew, she was about to be reunited with her family. With her mother and her brother who was the King in the North. Gendry was absolutely correct that she would not have been allowed to be his family. She would have been removed from his company and she would have been "m'lady." 

Their class differences as a highborn lady and a baseborn bastard would have been glaring, and there's no way Catelyn Stark would have let him have any kind of relationship with her. He would have been relegated to the sidelines of her life, and he was well aware of that. So he chose to remove himself before that could happen. 

And he had no way of knowing what was going to happen. He had no way to know that he would be sold or that her family would die, or that she would end up all alone. To his mind, finding a home with the Brotherhood probably seemed like the best option at the time. And he regretted it, you could see it in the way he spoke to her, in his body language. He was sorry to have to do it. But he did, and he told her he was doing it.

Yes, it hurt her. It hurt her very badly because she couldn't see it. In her mind, he was rejecting her, not the unfortunate circumstances, but her, and that hurt. And I'm not saying Gendry was wrong or right to choose to stay or she was wrong or right to be hurt by it. Because there's two sides to it, and they're both valid.

Now, if we look at solely what was shown on screen, Arya's leaving of Gendry, to me, doesn't compare in the same way. I'm not talking about her rejection of his proposal, although the way they had her just turn and continue shooting was needlessly cold. And I'm not saying she should have accepted it as it was worded on screen. (Let's be honest anyway, that proposal existed solely to break them apart, it simply doesn't make sense.) 

What I'm talking about is the after. They never interact again on screen. He's left standing there heartbroken, and they make her out to be almost indifferent to it which I think is completely and utterly wrong. So, I try to rationalize it that she's not indifferent, she's suppressing all those emotions because she's scared of what they mean, and her heart eyes and the way her face falls could be interpreted that way (Thank you, Maisie Williams for the way you played those scenes). 

But her not speaking to him ever again? Just sailing off and completely ignoring the man who had once meant the world to her? That's hard to explain, and that's the thing I mean by worse because there's no good reason for it. Not at all, no matter how you look at it. And Gendry would not be wrong to be angry or hurt about that.

He would understand why she turned him down. He's not an idiot. He knows he said things the wrong way, but to have a friend, a very good friend with whom you underwent the trauma they did together, the only person you could really trust at one point, to have that person ignore you? To walk away and (going by what we saw on screen) never look back? That shit hurts, and it's completely understandable for him to be hurt/angry/upset by her on screen behavior.

Now, if they had shown the two of them having a conversation after that stupid proposal, something where they had some kind of closure or just anything that acknowledged their shared history, their friendship that existed before they slept together, then I don't think we'd have so much to try to explain. But we got nothing. No resolution, no logical following of story structure, no explanations. 

Instead, we got Arya who had spent years trying to get back to her family, just sailing away because according to the script she's no longer Arya Stark, and that's BS. If we had gotten that conversation, then I don't think Gendry would be angry when she returned, but because we didn't, because the last thing we saw between them was Arya turning her back on him and then never speaking again, then I think he's allowed to be a little angry and hurt, even when he's thrilled she's back.

Because people are allowed to be angry when someone they love hurts them. It doesn't make them bad people or mean that the one who acted poorly needs punishing, but real people apologize when they hurt someone. Especially when they hurt someone they love. It's part of growing as a person, admitting when you've done something wrong or hurtful and owning up to it and accepting that there are consequences to said behavior. 

And I don't think it’s wrong to look at Arya’s on screen behavior and think she acted poorly. It was shit writing, and the character of Arya Stark would never behave that way, but that's what we were given. And that's what I meant when I said I understood how difficult it is to reconcile it.

Do I think he'd hate her for what she did? Absolutely not. Does she need to be punished? Hell no. But apologizing is not punishment. Recognizing that you hurt someone is not punishment. Having someone upset with you is not punishment. Not immediately getting over something is not punishment. They are human reactions, and in my opinion, completely understandable ones. 

So, yeah, considering all of this, I think that if you compared the way they left each other, Arya’s behavior is worse then Gendry’s. That doesn’t mean I hate Arya or think she deserves to be treated badly, or that Gendry should punish her for leaving that way. I think when she shows back up in Westeros (because she is coming back, none of this Arya sails off the edge of the world nonsense), he might be mad for about a day. Occasionally, he might be reminded of the hurt he felt and need a little space to brood about it, but ultimately, none of it matters because he loves her and he’s more than willing (and happy) to get over his anger and hurt because he wants her and she wants him. 

[secretlyatargaryen]

Don't respond if you don't like talking about specific/individual ppl or are irritated by such asks, if so I apologize. So do you have any thoughts on the Tyrion narratives put forth by content creators like PoorQuentyn/BryndenBfish? I know u wrote on Brynden's "monster" piece, but I searched Tyrion/Tysha on twitter and have followed other NotACast Tyrion discussion,and it all seems to be aimed at framing him villainously,and since they're influencers, it sets the tone for all Tyrion discussion.

I do want to answer this question, but I don’t want to start discourse directed at any specific person so I thought about blacking out the names. But as you said, I’ve responded to these specific people before and written my own counter-meta so it’s no secret what I think about their theories. And they do have influence in the fandom and this interpretation of Tyrion is a popular one so it’s not like I’m dog-piling on a small minority by making a different argument. And you’re right about it setting a tone, and I think we need to be aware of the tone we’re setting when it comes to a visibly disabled character like Tyrion, and I think a lot of people aren’t aware of this or refuse to be sensitive to it. It’s better than it used to be but the ableism in this fandom is still shockingly bad. I mean, I saw a post recently calling Tyrion the “most vile” character in the books. Really? That vile dwarf, amirite?

I will say first of all that any argument for Tyrion’s villainy that claims him as “the monster he was told he was” or any iteration of that phrase should be dismissed outright on the grounds of gross ableism. Even if Tyrion ended up as the biggest villain of the series, he would not be the monster he was always told he was because he was told that because of ableism, by a society that thinks that disabled people are less than human, and that is fundamentally wrong.

I know we use the word “monster” in a moral sense, to describe a person who does acts that we consider so heinous that they seem inhuman, but not only is that fundamentally wrong - because even people who commit horrible acts are still human, despite what is comforting to think - but there’s a connotation of ableism there even without taking into account how it’s used in the text to demonize Tyrion, and used by his family and others to justify abusing him.

Like, if I can go on a tangent for a second, I started thinking about this when I used to be a big “Dexter” fan, before I’d ever read asoiaf or seen an episode of GOT. Dexter is a ridiculous show and not very good (but I love it), and it suffers from the same problems that a lot of villain discourse in fandom revolves around. Dexter is a bad guy but in the context of the show, he is a hero. Dexter, the character, often calls himself a monster in the show, and yeah, he’s reprehensible. He’s a serial killer whose one redeeming quality is that he kills other killers. He’s more reprehensible in the books and the earlier seasons before the show got too in love with the idea of him as the good guy, but even before that, I started noticing something really interesting. The ways that Dexter refers to himself as a monster have less to do with his serial killing habits and more to do with how he is mentally different than others. I don’t mean in the “sociopathic” sense, either, because early Dexter would talk about himself in ways that are recognizable to a lot of neuroatypical people. Dexter talks about pretending to be a real person and not a monster the way that my college roommate and I would talk about pretending to be real people when we would work up the spoons to go out to a party.

After I realized this, I began to be really uncomfortable every time I heard the word “monster” on the news, used to describe some person who’d committed some terrible crime. I get why people use this word, because, as I said above, it’s comforting to distance these sorts of people - rapists, murderers - from humanity, to pretend they’re inhuman. I’m not asking anyone to find the humanity in a rapist. I’m not saying that disabled people are just like serial killers. What I AM saying, though, is that using the word “monster” to describe a canonically disabled character who, throughout his life and throughout the series, has suffered horrible abuse because of ableism, carries a lot of unfortunate implications. We use this word to distance humans from their humanity. Tywin and Cersei also use this distancing language to justify poor treatment of Tyrion. He’s not Cersei’s brother, he’s not Tywin’s and Joanna’s son, he’s a monster. The slavers use it to refer to the slaves in Yezzen’s menagerie, which includes disabled people and an intersex person. And we should all know that the best way to justify enslaving and abusing others is to dehumanize them. Don’t call Tyrion a monster. Don’t.

The same thing needs to be said about arguments that use Tyrion/Tysha as evidence for Tyrion’s villainy. I’ve written extensively about this and I’m not going to argue with anyone on whether Tyrion should be blamed for what happened there, because he was a child being sexually abused by a parent and any attempts to retroactively assign blame or link this to theories about Tyrion’s future villainy is completely and absolutely wrong.

Now, as far as what I have to say about the narrative that Tyrion is a villain / will be by the end of the series? That depends on a lot of things, and one of them is what we mean when we say a character is a villain.

A lot of people, when they talk about this, are of course talking about the theory that Tyrion will somehow lead Dany astray and manipulate her into blowing up King’s Landing. Unless you’re one of those weirdo people who also think Dany is a villain, but that’s a whole different story and I don’t feel the need to address that because it’s complete nonsense. Anyway.

But here’s the thing. In asoiaf there’s multiple conflicts in every POV narrative, and in Tyrion’s story here’s what I see as the two major big ones: the internal conflict, Tyrion vs himself and his desire to prove that he is not a monster / his desiire for goodness / love / acceptance; and the external conflict, the more immediate of which is Tyrion getting back to Westeros / whatever role he plays in the war of five kinds / whatever role he plays in the song of ice and fire / the conflict with the others.

The things that people often cite as making Tyrion villainous are personal villainies. They’re part of the internal conflict. And in this conflict, Tyrion himself is his own villain. GRRM says that killing Shae is “the great crime of his soul” (and I would also add raping the woman in Selhorys) and those are part of Tyrion’s internal conflict because their role in the narrative is the effect they have on Tyrion mentally. I don’t mean that what happened to these women isn’t important, but from a narrative perspective, they are important for how what happens to them affects Tyrion. Now, we could talk about how that’s problematic, but it’s problematic from a narrative perspective, and that should be lain at the author’s feet. And the problematic aspect of it is that it’s NOT there to make Tyrion a villain. It’s there to provide conflict for Tyrion’s internal struggle, which he will need to resolve in order to participate in the external conflict. I think that’s the real reason why some fans hate Tyrion, but I wish we could be honest about that instead of pretending the author intends him to be a villain, because that’s just not how Tyrion is written.

Now, when I say the internal conflict has to be resolved, I don’t necessarily mean that it will be solved, or resolved in a good way. I think it would be like GRRM to have Tyrion play a major part in saving all of humanity and still be terrible on a personal level, but I don’t think that’s where he’s going with Tyrion either. I mean, in the latter half of ADWD he has Tyrion say things like this:

An honest kiss, a little kindness, everyone deserves that much, however big or small.

Which is…just not the statement of a character who is being written as a villain. If GRRM were writing Tyrion as becoming a villain in Dance it would be a gradual progression to more and more villainy. Instead he has Tyrion vacillate between depression, apathy, and cruelty and kindness and heroism. In fandom spaces we used to call this Heroic BSoD, Joseph Campbell called it The Innermost Cave. This is the part in the story where you don’t want to hear the end, Mr. Frodo, because how can the end be good, after all that bad has happened?

…You get the idea. GRRM is darker and grittier, and we can argue about whether he goes too far, especially when it comes to his unfortunate habit of fridging female characters, but that’s a different issue.

So, my thoughts on whether I think Tyrion will cause Dany to blow up King’s Landing? I mean, I don’t necessarily think it unlikely for GRRM to go that route, but if he does it won’t be that simple. Like I said, there’s a difference between the internal, personal conflict in Tyrion’s narrative and the external, wider conflict that is going to come to the fore in the next two books. Will Tyrion try and convince Dany to blow up King’s Landing because of his own desire for revenge on his family / the city that turned on him / people in general? Maybe, but that won’t be his only motivation, and Dany isn’t going to be his hapless puppet. If that happens, here’s how I see it: I think Tyrion, when he finally meets Dany and sees the dragons, is going to buy into what she is selling. Yes, Tyrion is incredibly cynical about Dany, but he’s also intrigued and even a little hopeful, and there’s also that inner part of him that’s going to be all “dragonsdragonsdragonsDRAGONSGDSDrasfGonSSDRGRRAGONSS.” So if he has a hand in getting Dany to torch the city, it will be because he actually thinks it’s necessary or that it’s an acceptable sacrifice for the world Dany wants to create (a world where even a dwarf can look down upon the world on the back of a dragon) with maybe a side helping of revenge because here’s Dany, the rightful heir to the throne, who wants to make the world a better place and who trusts and values him, and here’s the city full of corrupt people who hate him, who almost executed him for something he didn’t do. Tyrion’s crime there might be convincing himself that it’s an acceptable sacrifice to make, for the greater good, but that’s not that different than decisions many of the rulers in the books have made, and that’s a scenario in which he, Dany, and anyone else at play are equally culpable, and a far cry from the theories about how he’s going to be the villain leading Dany astray. GRRM is too good of a character writer to pull anything else with one of his major POVs, especially not his favorite who he has often stated is “the grayest of the gray.”

It would also be like GRRM to have Tyrion commit war crimes and still save all of humanity on the back of a dragon as his final act of love, resolving the internal conflict once and for all. I have problems with this too, because I find it incredibly uncomfortable for a disabled character whose narrative deals so personally with a desire for love end with him dying in a selfless act of sacrifice / have some kind of epiphany about how his desire to receive love on a personal scale is not important. I go back and forth, but really, the only thing I’m sure about is that GRRM is not going to make it so easy for us to categorize Tyrion in the end.

[nyangibun]

GoT S08E01 Thoughts

It’s been so long since I did one of these I really don’t think I’ll have that much to say because I didn’t keep notes during the episode. 

Disclaimer: This is a very Jonsa/Sansa/Pol!Jon-tinted thoughts. 

But here goes...

This first one was like Welcome Folks to the Reunion Episode!!! So many reunions. Wow... But let’s start from the beginning. That entire intro with the troops marching into Winterfell and Jon and Dani riding in together like they’re already king and queen was a direct parallel to Robert and Cersei riding into Winterfell in S01E01. There was even a little boy running around reminiscent of Arya running around trying to get there in time. Look, I know I have Jonsa-coloured glasses on, but the fact that they paralleled the two couples isn’t a good sign for Jonerice. 

Robert and Cersei, as we found out, was a complete and total sham of a marriage. They were not in love and it was a completely political marriage, but what’s interesting aside from the obvious is Cersei actually went into the marriage with Robert full of naive romantic hopes. He was her “dream guy” so to speak, but Robert slashed that all to crap because he was still madly in love with and mourning Lyanna Stark. Now, with my Jonsa-tinted glasses on, that could absolutely suggest Dani being way more into Jon than he is into her, ie. not at all as he’s still in love with another Stark woman: cough cough Sansa. Taking off my Jonsa glasses for a moment though, there’s still very little chance that Jon and Dani will end well considering the parallel and as we all know parallels in GoT aren’t coincidences or should be taken lightly. Everything that’s a parallel cinematically has its place and reason. 

And there’s also the whole Robert and Cersei as King and Queen but Cersei and Jaime, her own sibling, on the side -- which is, if we’re talking with Jonsa-glasses on, could suggest Jonsa. Jon and Dani on the forefront and Jon and Sansa in the background and the shift between those dynamics will come in due time.

Moving on, Jon’s reunions with his siblings-cousins. Bran: Well, that’s about as much as I’d expect tbh coming from CCTV!Bran. I do love that we finally get to see Jon showing how much he loves them. The hug with Sansa was perfect especially the way she looked at Dani the entire time. It was a very cutting way of displaying a territorial claim. He is our family, not yours; he is our Jon, not yours; this is my home, not yours. The fact that that is coupled with her “Winterfell is yours, your grace” is even more cutting imo. But okay, Jon’s reunion with Arya was everything! I loved that immediately post-hug, they were just talking about swords like old times. But I also love Arya sticking up for Sansa and telling Jon not to forget whose family he belongs to. He needs reminding, that numpty -- unless Pol!Jon is real and he’s doing all of this for them, which I really want to believe considering this would be way more in line with who he is. 

The Great Hall scene was fantastic. I wanted a little more snarky Sansa but she was strong and the way she commands the North’s respect was exactly what I wanted. I especially loved little Lord Umber’s: 

“My Lady... My Lord...”  

As soon as he did that, it gave me all of the Jonsa feels. I love that for a second, he is calling Jon and Sansa both his lady and lord as if they were one ruling power. In fact, even after he added “my grace” it still sets them up as one ruling power and Dani as the Other that has come. It again feels like drawing parallels to that first episode with Ned and Catelyn as the Lord and Lady of Winterfell but the distinction that Robert is their king and separate from them. This is what it felt like to me. 

I also love that Sansa brings up the food problem. I think a lot of people gloss over the fact that food is scarce and Dani burnt all the food last season. When you have all these people looking towards the big picture, towards a ‘fight or die’ scenario, you need someone like Sansa to ground them and look at the practicals of ‘yes, we need to fight to survive but we may not even get to fight if all our men starve to death before the battle’. It also brings up a great question of how the hell are they gonna feed the dragons? Dani’s “they’ll eat whatever they want” is so petulant and so short-sighted. For me, it establishes that she cares more about her dragons than she does about the people. Sure, they’re her children but if she’s going to be their queen, she needs to also ensure that her people are fed and will survive the winter. Do you know what other queen cared only for her children and not for the people? Yeah, Cersei, and I think we can all agree on she’s not the best ruling party. 

Dani is short-sighted. She cares about herself and the handful of people in her circle, which makes you think she’s a good person, but anything beyond that falls away from her view. Her meeting with Sam, for instance, proved that. When she met him, she was kind and generous because Sam saved Jorah’s life so therefore he is a slightly more important person in her eyes. But she executed his dad and brother because she didn’t care about them. They were treasonous in her eyes and thus deserved to die, and not just die by execution but by fire which is infinitely and unnecessarily more painful. She had never spared a second for those people nor did she hesitate. If people didn’t subject themselves to her, they were not worth her time. However, that’s not right by Sam and he is clearly upset by this news. His anger and distress come through when he talks to Jon later. He reminds Jon that he wouldn’t have done the same, that he has spared others. This reminds the audience of the very distinct governing styles between Jon and Dani, and how instead of a pair that will unite as one ruling body, they are two separate ones. This is emphasised even more by the reveal. Jon is the rightful heir to the Targaryen throne, not Dani, and Sam brings up a good point. If the roles were reversed, would Dani give up the throne to Jon for the good of the people? We all know the answer to that question: no, she absolutely would not. There’s another distinction. Jon thinks of the people. Dani thinks of herself. Saving the people from the Night’s King isn’t altruistic, it’s entirely to guarantee her the throne after the war. 

I know I’m not going in chronological order but I forgot to take my usual notes while watching so I’m just going by ear lol. So onto Jon and Sansa’s conversation. Did anyone notice the darkened room and candles lit up everywhere? I’m just saying... whenever they’re arguing heatedly, they are usually in some kind of darkened room with candles. As for the argument itself, there are two things I find really interesting. One, when Jon asks Sansa if he has any faith in him and she answers he knows she does. I think what I find intriguing is the use of the word ‘faith’. Don’t get me wrong, it could mean Jon is asking Sansa to trust that his judgment about Dani is good, but then he could also say ‘I trust her so trust me’. But he’s asking her to have faith. He is asking her to have ‘complete trust or confidence’ in him. He’s no longer her king and nor does he have the command now as Dani is their queen, but he’s asking Sansa to have faith in him, specifically, which suggests he knows exactly what he’s doing. I grant you that this could mean a number of things but in these narratives, you usually ask someone to have faith in you when you’re doing something you can’t tell them about and you’re asking for their blind belief. 

The second thing that intrigues me is Sansa asking Jon if he has bent the knee because he believes in Dani or if it’s because he loves her. The question itself doesn’t intrigue me but the fact that he doesn’t answer and it cuts to a new scene does. If Jon’s love for Dani and/or belief in Dani as a queen is doubtless then the answer should be easy. Even if he feels shame about loving her when he should be focused on the people, he could simply say that he believes in her as a queen and that his feelings are irrelevant. All simple answers, so why cut to a new scene and leave the question unanswered? That makes me think it leaves it unanswered because the answer is something he can’t say and that makes me wonder: why can’t he say it?

Bouncing around the episode again, I want to touch on something Sansa said to Tyrion. When they’re talking about their positions and Sansa says “depends on the queen” to Tyrion, I don’t know if it was as obvious to others that she is referring to Dani, not Cersei, but I really liked that line. I also love Sansa’s leaving remark that she once thought Tyrion was the smartest man in Westeros because it’s frankly true. Last season, Tyrion hardly did anything that would warrant such a claim and that is incredibly disappointing considering who he’s been over the course of this show. But the way Tyrion reacts to any sort of doubt over Dani’s ability to rule as of late has felt defensive and/or contemplative unease. Like he too is concerned, that she is beginning to cracks ever-so-slightly at the seams. After all, when a Targaryen is born, the Gods flip a coin to see if they’re mad and there are two Targaryens alive in this show. One is Jon, who has not displayed any signs of madness, and then there is Dani, who derives pleasure from burning her enemies. 

Anyway, there’s a lot more to touch on but I’m tired and hungry and I’ll end it here. Thanks for reading if you did!! 

[wackygoofball]

Gwenspiration: The Wacky Version Vol. 3 - The Moodboards

So, here I go again parading myself and tooting like there is no tomorrow.

As people still brave enough to follow me on Tumblr will know, I do a lot of moodboards, or at least I call them such. Others call them collages or storyboards or pictures with random text. Either way, for me, moodboards became a neat tool to somehow capture story ideas not yet anywhere near a level that I could write fic about them - or serve as inspirations for fics I am actually writing.

And it gives me opportunity to hoard unhealthy amounts of Gwen and Nik pics, in the name of moodboards. And science. And stuff. Whoozah!

So yeah, in this post, I want to share some of my personal favorites. A lot of them actually, because I can’t decide, really.

I will start off with a group of moodboards which took inspiration from the Marvel universe, since the Marvel universe was my gateway into the more active parts of fandom.

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An all-time fave is the Iron Man AU... I mean, what not to love about a JB AU with Jaime as sassy Tony Stark and Brienne as the not-taking any shit from you army doctor, am I right? But yeah, seriously, Jaime *is* the Tony Stark of the GOT universe, and I can’t be convinced otherwise. And neither should be you.

Also, the Iron Man suits just totally fit the color scheme for both, which made creating the moodboards all the better for me. Jaime and Brienne were made for armor, now in medieval or modern times, let’s not kid ourselves.

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Another Marvel fave has got to be Captain Westeros. Because if there is a female GOT Version of Steve Rogers, it’s gotta be Brienne of fuckin’ Tarth. This one is really close to my heart because it gave me a lot of feels coming up with plot bunnies for it, and the tragedy of those two people missing each other in time over and over again, always trying to protect one another, only to end up on opposite sides because of the machinations of others... *sigh*

And I mean, one guy loses an arm. The other is blond and strong... I don’t make the rules but this delivers me enough material to re-imagine this as a JB AU... so yeah, I do kinda make the rules after all. Anyway.

Since I realized that this post’s gonna get even looooonger, I decided to make a cut here and put the rest below, so not to have you scrolling for five hours.

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Although it’s not the most popular moodboard amongst my followers (you brave people, I can’t parade you enough for staying through the madness lol), I really, really love that Fantastic Four moodboard and the concept behind it. And I just know a lot of effort went into making Valyrian Steel Brienne, which took all of my three computer editing skillz brain cells. But yeah, here again, I liked to play with the idea of them not admitting to their love until shit hits the fan and then they hide behind that because... drama, angst, feels, pining, yadda.

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And we go from Marvel to DC little quick. Because Brienne is, most certainly, a Wonder Woman. Nuf said.

Now, let’s move on to other big movie franchises that give me all the JB feels:

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Jurassic Park (aka Valyrian Park) evidently holds a special place in my heart because JB fighting dinosaur-dragon hybrids and kicking ass while being disbelieving about what was bred out in Valyria thanks to some certain someones to rescue Brienne’s adoptive daughter Arya is just... a thing? For me anyway.

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More down memory lane, I don’t know how often I watched the LOTR movies, suffice to say it was a lot a lot. We had the extended versions DVDs of the first two and basically it was the one thing to watch when nothing was on (which was the case a lot). Either way. JB in MIddle Earth long after the days of Frodo et al. - why? Because I just loved the idea (and aesthetic) of Jaime as a ranger and Brienne as a knight of Gondor working in disguise. And Hobbipod. I mean, Pod as a Hobbit. Come the fuck on. And Tyrion as an asshole wizard. What could possibly go wrong? This moodboard was very time-consuming as I had to do a lot of edits (pointy ears, tiny up people, smudge Brienne’s face on a lot of Boromir and Faramir images, smudge Jaime’s face on a lot of Aragorn images, you name it). So yeah. No matter its popularity... I dig it. Despite not having read the books yet (I know, shocking), I continue to ogle at the idea and go like: Must. Write. But. Must. Resist. Either way. Mood.

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So yeah, I grew up watching these movies a lot, too (I grew up watching a lot of TV, period). And when Gwen was cast as Captain Phasma, I got a lot of JB juices flowing as a result. Mehe. I found it was a fun idea to play with, to basically *kill* Phasma so *Brienne* can come into play and assume her identity. And a rundown Jedi!Jaime who’s lost faith in himself and everything else safe for his partner in crime/resistance is just... I needz. So you gotta cope with it. I still adore this concept a lot even if others may not. :)

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This one’s just... gah. Feels. And I really liked the color scheme lol. And I watched Horse Whisperer A LOT. Because of feels. And horses. And Honor is a horse and he deserved better than be barbecued at Highgarden, dammit.

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The No Reservations AU definitely has to be in this post because I live for this dynamic. Brienne taking care of the girls, not knowing how, though, constantly doubting herself while always trying to be perfect and composed, not just in life but on the job as well. And Jaime being the laid-back guy who’s just a darn good chef but may carry his own baggage of problems that keep him from his happy ending story is just... mah jam.

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This one was a lot of fun to do because you don’t really think about Erin Brockovich when you say Brienne of Tarth in terms of character. But when you scratch away the boob jokes and the differences in where they come from, what you find are two hard-working women who fight for justice, so I found that close enough. And it was excuse enough for me to go down the lane of biker!Jaime because... dayum.

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Music and Lyrics is an all-time guilty pleasure romcom of mine. It’s so light and easy and I kind of love how everyone is basically a bunch of awkward losers. All the more perfect for Jaime as a singer (we need that in our lives after the infamous video Nik was in to sing to us about global warming...) and Brienne as the unexpectedly gifted songwriter. What I like about the moodboard per se is how the color scheme turned out because it’s all warm and bright and... makes me happy.

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Very much in contrast to the former stands this one. I still love the overall mood of it and I dig the story idea because I dug both The Prestige and The Illustionist because they presented something dark yet very different, which made it all the more appealing to put into a moodboard for me. While not the most well-known moodboard of mine, I keep going back to it time and time again to basically lust at all the illusions and magic and drama. And blue butterflies.

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What is there not to love about a Pacific Rim AU for JB, am I right? Right?! JB ain’t just compatible when it comes to the Drift, yo, that’s all I’m gonna say. Reasons why I like the moodboard a lot is that it’s very different, flashy colors, gigantic robots, and I was mostly alright with how the edits turned out. It is tough to get images that fit the angles, yo.

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Jumping back in time once more, I really adore this one even though it’s not one of my popular moodboards. I dug the fusion of elements from Cinderella Man while granting Brienne as the female lead more space to develop as a character and make her a badass sniper nurse who is about to get her doctor’s degree. And Jaime doing anything to make it work because he owes her a debt (and his love) by boxing his way to their shared life is just... nice.

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Another supposedly lesser known moodboard is this one, though I really adore it for its premise and the amount of work I put into it (all the giffing and moodboarding). I also found use for that image of Gwen with what looks like the veil of a nun, which was probably what had me inspired in the first place lol. The plot bunnies revolve less around Se7en and more the novel El ùltimo Catón (2001) because it has a nun solving a mystery revolving around Dante’s works. But Se7en gives us the Seven, which is a delicious parallel too hard to ignore. For me at least. If only I knew how to write crime, dammit.

Now, to  move more into the serial (smooth transition from serial killer to serial TV shows, I know, I know) way of life, here is some moodboards inspired by TV shows (although some have since gotten movies which I also took inspiration from... yadda):

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Childhood memory galore. I spent many weekends watching The A-Team with the whole family. When the movie came out, I was happy about the feels it gave me (and the “you spin my head right round” scene still cracks me up more often than it should). Either way. I found it absolutely necessary for Jaime to be Face, for Tyrion to be Hannibal, for Bronn to be B.A. and cuss at everyone and everything and Brienne giving us the strangest genderbend of a Howling Mad Murdock. It added some angst, which I always need because I am a thirsty hoe for it. In case no one noticed yet. Ha.

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This one is very remotely inspired by The Bletchley Circle and the Imitation Game (because both feature encryption and one features Charles Dance already, yo.) I just really dug the idea of Brienne being so good at this because she is such a straight thinker but being underestimated because “she a woman.” And of course her not being done just encoding messages but getting into action, very much to the dismay of the stupid soldier wanting to defend the bae from harm. What could possibly go wrong? Right. A lot.

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Then. Elementary. Let me count the ways in which I love that show... ALL THE WAYS. And I really dig it as a JB AU. I have so many thoughts and feelings, I can’t even begin to tell you. I especially had my fun basically making Jaime Sherlock without making him really Sherlock because that guy was the one who taught him how to be an investigator before disappearing and fucking up his life for bad. And Brienne as the army doctor turned sober companion turned private investigator turned love interest is just too delicious to ignore.

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Pants down I mean hands down, this may be the actual favorite (currently) amongst them all for the plain reason that I also grew up watching that series and still watch it and keep obsessing about it. Ever since Discovery launched and has since given me both joy and grief, I found myself intrigued by the premise of a JB Star Trek AU where Brienne would be standing *with* the Klingons during the war around the time Discovery takes place, and Captain Jaime Lannister having lost far too much to this war already to truly trust anyone, even less so a woman who ran to the Klingons, for what it seems.

You would not believe how many ideas I have for a fic based on it. You wouldn’t believe that I basically have a sequel to that fic already in mind. And you would definitely believe, knowing me, that I am nowhere near writing that fic. But a fangirl can dream and moodboard, right? The moodboard was such a fun way of going about it, not only for the edits but because I could sneak some secret Klingon messages in there. :)

Now, on to the last part, which are the moodboards not inspired by movies or TV shows primarily but really just spewed out of my wacky, wacky brain:

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This has a special place in my heart because it combines military and the traumas it comes with for JB and.... the aesthetic of farming. And both finding a kind of peace they didn’t know they were looking for as they struggle to adjust and find their way back “to normal” after the horrors they have both seen in war. And did I mention the aesthetic? And Jaime in plaid? All dirty and sweaty? Do I have to say more?

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Why this one? Because it combines angst and romance and falling in love twice because DESTINY. And paintings. I love me my artist AUs. So that was my go at it, combining it with the “mystery” to be uncovered about what history Jaime and Brienne actually share as he tries to put his memories back together.  Also. This moodboard gave me opportunity to try out new filters and create JB paintings. :)

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This one’s gotta be on the list since I also added the Horse Whisperer. Now it’s Dog Whisperer Jaime and Brienne who won’t give up on her dog who’s seen some shit in the warzone (as did she, but Brienne will put it all aside for her doggish best buddy, of course). While it’s not a very popular moodboard of mine, I really enjoy the premise of it and how the dynamics can so easily change between the two of them if you see it in comparison to the Horse Whisperer AU. Also. I just really think Jaime is a total pet person.

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Another lesser known moodboard, I’d assume, but I really dug the premise of it (still do), and it was intriguing to do some edits to make Jaime’s hand *truly* golden lol. With people having developed strange mutations which aren’t nearly as much fun as they are in Fantastic Four AUs. What I liked about it was the idea that Brienne would have a kind of mutation/ability that links to the mind, since she is such a physically strong fighter that she may rather rely on that than on her own mind, fearing that she cannot control that with discipline the same way she can train her body with it. What unites the two is their strong wish to protect the people in their care, in a world on the verge of collapse forcing two unexpected allies together (okay, I totally expected it, but they didn’t). Either way. Much love for this one. :)

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Aaaand the last one (not of all the ones I made but the ones I picked for Gwenspiration). I really, really, really adore this one because I was so happy with how the aesthetic turned out and how the colors all match. And I dig the premise. Like holy moly do I dig it deep. Jaime and Brienne both serving in military, but on different fronts, and almost accidentally ending up writing each other letters? I mean... the PINING. And Brienne having to decipher Jaime’s chickenscratch. Yeah no, but for real. I just love the idea so much. That they are both committed to the cause while also yearning for a home, for peaceful times, for sweet, sweet love. And them meeting up and acting like stupid teenagers, only for drama to keep hitting because. It’s eh me angsty Wacky.

Either way. I dig the premises of a lot of my moodboards (in fact... basically all of them or else I wouldn’t be making them, I guess). I spared you listing all of them, though I listed a whole damn lot already. Moodboards are an awesome means for me personally to visualize and (re-)imagine. And since quite a few people seem to continue to be onboard with them, I am all the happier to keep making them.

That’s all for today.

Much love! ♥♥♥

*flies away*

[sailorshadzter]

JIMSA

all of the “jim frost” posts have been making me laugh so i decided to write about it. 

post season 8 with tyrion still as hand to bran because he’s the best one to troll with this kind of shit lmao. i also love imagining him going back to king’s landing to bran like “umm  jim frost?” & bran being like “yeah man totally, jim frost. what a good guy.” 

anyways, enjoy!

When the queen stepped into her court with a swelling belly on display, her people could do little but cheer for her good health and the future of their kingdom. After all the North had been through, their young unmarried queen having a baby out of wedlock was the least of their worries. In truth, they were overjoyed that their beloved queen was finally happy. Besides, it was well known who the father would be, though the queen would often remark her child was sired by the wolves, and none could be displeased with her choice.

She settled upon her throne and held her head high as the double doors opened, revealing her latest visitor. Tyrion Lannister had written some time ago to tell her he wished to make a goodwill visit to the North on behalf of her brother, King Bran, who sat upon the throne in Westeros. As Tyrion approached, he too noticed the swell of the queen’s belly beneath her dark green gown. “Your grace,” he bowed low before her throne, raising himself only when she spoke a greeting. “You look… Well.” He said, trying to choose his words as carefully as possible, recalling the young queen’s quick wit and temperament. He would regret dearly upsetting such a woman, especially in her condition.

Sansa can’t help but to laugh, her smile easy going as she leaned forward on her throne. "Thank you, my lord. I welcome you to Winterfell." She is as he remembered- charming, beautiful, her mid stage of pregnancy offering her a radiant glow Tyrion had never before seen in a woman. It gave her an ethereal look, in truth. "I hope your journey was not difficult, now that spring has come, I imagine the roads must be easy to pass." Spring had shown its face some months ago, the very same day she had first woke to the morning sickness of the same child she carried.

"Indeed, your grace, my journey was quite enjoyable." Tyrion responded, already enjoying this queen, finding her far more agreeable than the last he served. Though he was Hand to her brother, Tyrion found himself loyal to House Stark overall, and so he would serve this young woman as much as he served her brother. There was much to discuss with her and her lords, but he found he was much more curious about her growing belly than state politics. Though here in her court was the last place to speak so freely.

"I have had chambers prepared for you," Sansa says, her voice bringing him back from his own mind. "I'm sure you want to rest. I will have food sent to your rooms. Tomorrow, we can meet again, there is much to discuss between us." Her words are final and her smile dismissive, though her sapphire eyes are gleaming as she looked down upon him.

"Thank you, your grace," he replied before rising back to his full height and with a wave of her hand, he turned to walk back towards the doors he'd come in through. He paused for only a moment to glance back, surprised to see that Sansa had already risen from her throne, ducking out of the great hall on the arm of a dark haired man. A very familiar dark haired man, at that. Impossible, Tyrion thought before he pushed out the doors, though he was smirking as he shook his head. Though, perhaps not impossible at all.

[ x x x ]

"Might I ask a question?"

Lord Royce paused in his exit from his chambers, turning back to face the Lannister man with a nod. "Your queen... She is with child, but she's unmarried." Lord Royce does not respond but his expression is rather stony, which Tyrion at once can tell his directed at him and not the fact the queen is carrying a bastard. "And I have this strange notion that I saw Jon Snow leaving with her just moments ago, though he is banished to Castle Black."

"Jon Snow? Here, at Winterfell? Preposterous." Lord Royce says, shaking his head. "You must mean Jim Frost."

Tyrion doesn't know if he's being made fun of, but from the look on the Lord's face, he is quite serious. "Jim... Frost?" Really?

"Yes, he is the emissary for the Night's Watch, you see." Tyrion could swear the lord's lip twitched with a smile. "Jim has sworn fealty to our queen and he remains here at Winterfell, though he makes a monthly trip back to Castle Black."

Though he wanted to ask more, Lord Royce bids him a good night and now all Tyrion can do is ask the woman herself.

[ x x x ]

It took only a few short hours for the two of them to come to terms on a few things- namely trade between their two kingdoms. Securing peace between nations had been the utmost importance since Bran took the throne of the remaining six kingdoms and it had begun by the oldest practice in the book: weddings. Sansa had already agreed to wed Alys Karstark to one of Bran's own lord's oldest sons, the union already agreed on by the pair themselves. There had been talk of Sansa marrying the young Prince of Dorne, though such a thing was certainly out of the question now, though peace would not suffer for it. The Prince of Dorne would have a bride and someday, perhaps he would have a son or daughter to wed Sansa's own, should the gods wish it so.

"You know..." Tyrion's voice brings her from her own thoughts and she looked up at him, sitting across from her with a goblet of wine in hand. "I've been wanting to ask you..." Sansa chuckled at his expense, noting his uncomfortable expression. "About the... Father of your child."

Ah, she thought with a smile, leaning back to press a hand against the curve of her belly. "It is a child of the wolves," she spoke cryptically, reminding him of the king he'd left behind in King's Landing. "A new young, white wolf to someday rule the North when I am gone." She could already feel in her bones that this child would be a boy, a son with the Stark look, a son she would name Robb after the brother she had lost.

Tyrion took a long sip from his goblet before speaking on. "Yes, well... I have seen a familiar face among your court." Sansa arched a brow at his statement, but her rosy lips are still yet curved into a smile as she looked back at him, nodding for him to go on. "I am quite certain I saw Jon Snow on your arm just yesterday."

Sansa supposed she should have known he would find them out at once- this was Tyrion Lannister after all. And well, she and Jon had not been hiding so well now that her pregnancy was too far advanced to hide from the public. Her lords had long suspected her relationship with Jon since the first day he had returned to Winterfell, some six months after his banishment to Castle Black. "Jon Snow is at Castle Black." She spoke with that same smile, tilting her head, red hair cascading over her shoulder. "You must mean Jim."

"Jim Frost? Lord Royce mentioned him."

When the young woman laughed, Tyrion knew he was being fooled. "Indeed, Jim Frost." Her blue eyes gleamed as she settled back against her chair, hands pressed against the curve of her belly. "I don't blame you for mistaking him for Jon- he is as dark haired as any Stark, but I assure you he isn't Jon." When her gaze settled upon him, Tyrion knew the conversation was over.

And he also knew one other thing... Jon Snow was certainly the father of the queen's baby.

[ x x x ]

It was as he climbed into the carriage to leave, having said his goodbyes to the queen and her court, that Tyrion turned and saw them. Sansa was leaning on his arm, her red head tipped against his, laughing at something he was saying. As if feeling his gaze upon them, both she and the man turned for one last look, and that was when Tyrion caught sight of the man's face. Jon Snow raised his hand in a wave and Sansa smiled at him from where she stood, but then they both turned back and went on their way, leaving Tyrion to climb inside with a smirk on his face.  Jim Frost, indeed.

When he arrived back to King's Landing and reported back to Bran, the first thing the king asked was about his sister. "She is pregnant, is she not?" Bran asked as Tyrion poured himself a goblet of wine, his tone implying he already knew the answer to his own question.

"She is." Tyrion replied as he settled into his usual chair at the table.

"And it is Jon's?"

Tyrion can't help but to laugh. "She says the child was sired by wolves, though she hangs upon the arm of a man that looks remarkably like Jon Snow." Bran blinked and shook his head, the look upon his face that of amusement. "They call him Jim Frost as if no one knows." It is Bran who laughed then, a sound unfamiliar to Tyrion- the usually stoic king rarely even smiled, let alone laughed. "They care so much for your sister that I think they would call him a horse if she asked."

"It would seem a pardon for Jon Snow is in order."  Bran gestured for a piece of parchment, which Tyrion slid to him but a moment later. "I think he has been punished long enough, don't you?" Tyrion gave a single nod and watched as Bran leaned over the parchment, his handwriting scrawling across several lines before he looked up again. "See to a wedding gift." Is all he says before sliding the now folded and sealed parchment back to Tyrion, who gives another nod. He got up and crossed the room, to the window where a single raven sat waiting and he tied the scroll to its leg, watching as it soared out into the blue sky.

[ x x x ]

No one was surprised when just a month later, a raven arrived announcing the marriage between the Queen in the North and Jon Snow, now Jon Stark, the new King in the North. Even less surprising was when two months into their marriage another raven arrived to announce the birth of the North's crown prince, already called the Young White Wolf by his people. It was rumored for all of his life that the prince had been born of the wolves, just as his mother had always said, though others would gossip about a supposed wildling lover the queen had before marrying her king. A wildling named Jim Frost.

[ashleyfanfic]

See, what we’re not going to do is act like Daenerys Targaryen is only her last act. We’re also not going to pretend that her burning King’s Landing made any kind of sense. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it a thousand times, it would have made more sense for someone like CERSEI to go crazy because of bells. Not Daenerys. Cersei who was hounded down the streets by Unella shouting SHAME! And how fucking horrible was it that Cersei was punished in such a way and yet the man she was doing this with, Jaime, got away scott free. Not only that, Jaime got another woman and then went back to Cersei and everything was just forgiven. Excuse me while I throw up. My Cersei would have tried to kill him cause that’s the vengeful bitch she is and that’s why I love to hate her. 

On the other side of that coin, you had Daenerys. Dany who freed slaves even after she was tricked by one of the slaves she tricked. Dany who tried to make the most of her life after her brother fucking sold her for an army he didn’t even get! Dany who negotiated to free Missandei before she ever gave them the dragon. Dany who freed the Unsullied with her own wits and cunning. She out thought the men in her employ. She followed her own instincts. It was Dany who freed Yunkai and was called Mhysa (which I will remind you means MOTHER). Dany who took over Meereen and instead of going to Westeros, she stayed to make sure the people didn’t go back to slavery. She even listened to one of the former slaves argue that he wanted to go back to being a slave because he liked teaching and it was the only way he could still keep his job. She LISTENED and even though she hated it, she allowed him to do as he wished. She’s the same woman who locked up her own dragons after the bones of one child was laid at her feet. With no proof other than charred bones. She protected people for as long as she could in the best way she could. She killed the Khals (who freaking deserved to die) and took in the Khalasar then freed Meereen for good. She treated with Yara and Theon, even though they had a smaller armada and made an alliance with them. She made an alliance with Ellaria and Olenna. And let’s face it, if Olenna thought that Daenerys was dangerous for the seven kingdoms, she wouldn’t have backed her no matter what Varys said. 

Then we have Jon Snow who came to her and admittedly, they might have been attracted to one another when they met, but they also frustrated each other. Dany eventually won him over to her side by being the person she is, dedicating herself to a cause that cost her one of the things that meant the most to her. She pledged herself and her people to a battle that they hoped they would win, but who really thought they could? And it was Jon’s choice to bend the knee. She was willing to go North and fight the dead without any sort of declaration from him. Because Dany was a bigger picture person. Once she saw it, she knew the truth. The Iron Throne was important, but defeating the dead was more important. 

Yeah, they had Dany go mad. What would have happened in Tyrion had kept his damn mouth closed. He knew that Varys was already looking sideways at Daenerys and he just pushed him over the edge. I don’t know that Dany actually had Varys’ loyalty. I think it was more he went with Tyrion to Essos because he couldn’t stay in Westeros after helping Tyrion. The Lannister’s wouldn’t have let that go. Jaime knew that Varys was helping him escape, so he’d have someone to point the finger at. Varys went to her because she was his ONLY option. He acquired her two powerful allies and because of that, she gave him a small chance. She didn’t have to, she could have had him killed immediately, but she didn’t. She allowed him to live and be part of her council. And he turned on her the first chance he got. Missandei died, Rhaegal died, Jorah died. Tyrion, Varys, and even Jon betrayed her. Some crimes more heinous than others. At the end, her grief and pain ruled. That’s it. She wasn’t mad. How many times did people tell us “she’s not her father”. Because she’s not and pretending like she is doesn’t make it true. 

Jon didn’t give Dany a choice. He didn’t tell her we’re going to put you on trial OR you can abdicate. He didn’t tell her if you do this then I have to do this. He became one of the things he hated. He watched a city be slaughtered. But at no point did he make a true plea to understand her, to even really talk to her. Tyrion was upset as he’d just seen that his brother and sister died together as well as what happened to the city. To think that it didn’t have some place in what happened would be foolish. “Ask me again in ten years” is the most disgusting line in the entire series of the show because it’s such bullshit. If you didn’t know that killing her was right, why send Jon to do it?

Anyway, as I said, we’re not going to pretend like that last season made sense. I knew when they let Arya kill the NK that things were going to go bonkers. I just didn’t realize that on the way out the writers would destroy every single character. Tyrion, Dany, Jon, Arya, Sansa, Jaime, Brienne, and even Cersei. The real disservice is to the fanbase of that show. It was the most popular show on TV and they ruined the potential rewatch value that people would have. 

I was talking to a co-worker yesterday about the show. She was like “I heard such good things about it” and I was like “Watch it but skip the last season. It’s awful.” Now she’s not going to watch it because she doesn’t want to get invested in a show that ends badly. That’s what they did. I would have sung it’s praises from here to kingdom come, but no. Now I will tell everyone I come into contact with not to waste their time. That’s the legacy of game of thrones. That’s what we’re left with. 

[bonesgadh]

My take on Arya Stark’s ending in Game of Thrones (a.k.a why I firmly believe she is going to return to Westeros eventually)

Disclaimer: I still don’t agree with the way D&D chose to end Arya’s arc—and probably I never will. However, I wrote this very long-ass meta because I’ve been trying to find a meaning behind her ending, and in case you are still in denial as I am I hope this helps you get some closure.

Let’s begin (as I just said a very long-ass meta coming right up, I promise it’s the last one):

The last two weeks have been rough. Now that my mom™ has given up on GOT I’ve been forced to keep my theories and headcanons to myself (although I’ve shared my rants with you it’s not the same because it’s not a proper conversation with actual feedback). I’ve spent a good portion of my days thinking about how shitty the GOT finale was and how stupid it was for Arya to leave her family and her home behind just to sail into the unknown. I know there’s people out there who are pleased with her decision, saying that Arya was always a free spirit and is not meant to be bound to one place for long, and that she is destined for greatness and a life of adventures. There’re also others out there (like me) who are not happy at all because even though Arya is a free spirit, she is not a lonely wolf. She is fierce and independent but she also has strong bonds with her family and her home and there’s no way she would give that up to follow a life of uncertainty away from those she loves. Anyway, everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

That said and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ll proceed to make the following statement: I’m a complete Arya Stark stan. Arya is one of my three favorite fictional characters ever and I have loved her ever since I first saw her on screen ruining her embroidery. I love how she talks, the things she says, how she thinks, how she loves and feels. I love the way Maisie Williams portrays her and speaks on her behalf in interviews and bts videos; she gets Arya in a way no one does and that’s what a good actor is supposed to do, to become its character’s custodian (like Carrie Fisher was Princess Leia’s).

I have spent years studying Arya. Profiling her, analyzing her, trying to get inside her head to understand her motivations. “What is Arya thinking in that scene? What motivates her to do what she is doing? What are the real reasons behind her actions?” I’ve used all my training as a psychologist to get to know her better, to love her more. When I study a character I like to pretend we are in therapy; I’m their therapist and they are my patients.

Now, why didn’t I support Arya’s decision to go find out what’s west of Westeros? Because for the first time since I started watching GOT I couldn’t understand why she wanted to do it. I couldn’t. Obviously because her leaving brings a sad end to the Stark rhetoric of “the lone wolf dies but the pack survives”, but also because I just didn’t get why someone who had finally embraced life would embark in such a suicide mission. I was left speechless (and yeah I know she mentioned wanting to make that trip before but she did it once and at a time of her life when she thought she was alone in the world).

As a Gendrya shipper I didn’t like her rejecting Gendry’s proposal but I understood her reasons. I knew she had something else to do, besides she had never been drawn to the life of a lady because that’s not her (even though I strongly believe changing your mind about something you said when you were a child is completely valid and it doesn’t mean you’ll become a different person but whatever). Besides it made sense after what Maisie said about Arya being torn between life and death. It hurt but I knew why she did it. That didn’t happen to me during the last episode.

Arya leaving to see what’s west of Westeros didn’t make sense to me because it seemed as if she was embracing her “no one” persona again. What makes you ‘”someone”? Your home, your family, your friends. What makes Arya Arya? Winterfell, her siblings and those she holds dear (besides her family, Gendry is the only meaningful relationship she has now that the Hound is dead). Arya choosing the life of a reckless adventurer meant giving up her home, her family and her friends. I couldn’t stop scratching my head at the thought of Arya going back to being no one because it pretty much destroyed her entire arc from at least seasons 6, 7 and 8 (her returning home after years away, reuniting with her loved ones, finally embracing life and recovering her humanity).

Arya’s decision has haunted me for two entire weeks. I couldn’t stop asking myself: “Why?” Well, after sleeping for approximately 70 hours over the last fourteen nights I think I finally have the answer:

Her choice goes beyond wanting to see what’s west of Westeros, beyond a longing for an adventure that she gets to choose for once, beyond living wild and free.

Arya is looking for the meaning of her life.

For years, Arya‘s list worked as a lifesaver. She held on to it as tightly as she could and it’s what helped her survive all the shit she went through. In “Man’s Search for Meaning” Viktor Frankl says:

Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any 'how’.

When you lose whatever gives meaning to your life (your partner, your children, your parents, your job) you suffer the most serious existential crisis of them all.

Arya’s entire existence revolved around getting revenge, about avenging her family and making those who had hurt them pay. However, with her list gone, Arya has now lost the “why” Frankl talks about. Chances are she can’t stop asking herself what happens next, followed closely by:

”Who am I without my list, a list that gave meaning to my life?”

For those at Winterfell she is a hero, the slayer of the Night King, the savior of the world. For Gendry she is the woman he loves, the one he wants to marry. For Jaqen and the Faceless Men she is a girl, a girl that is no one. For those who have known her for most of her life she is a lady.

But Arya rejects all of the above. She said it herself to the Hound: she doesn’t like heroes. She doesn’t see herself as one even though she is. She rejects Gendry’s proposal because she is not interested in being a Lord’s wife (although she has feelings for him she doesn’t want to live in a man’s shadow). She rejects the identity set on her by Jaqen because she knows she’ll never be able to let go off her thirst for vengeance. She rejects being a lady because that’s not her.

It seems to me Arya is very aware of the things she is not, but she doesn’t know what she is.

In that case, who is Arya Stark? What is her?

“Who are you?” is probably the hardest question you can ask a person to answer. My guess is Arya doesn’t even know it herself. That’s why her whole plot with the Faceless Men makes sense and it’s not really about her learning cool skills, it’s more about her trying to learn who she is. Even though she knew she was Arya Stark of Winterfell what does that even mean? Strictly speaking it’s nothing else besides her name and the place where she was born. However, things with the Faceless Men would never work because if there’s one thing Arya knows is that she is not no one. She defended her right to her identity until her last day in Braavos.

I mentioned earlier three of the things that make you you are your home, your family and your friends. Let’s break them down:

Home

A crucial part of Arya’s overall arc was her constantly trying to return to Winterfell, her very long road back home. However she abandoned her quest and went to Braavos instead, and for a while she seemed to have forgotten her earlier wish. A year and a half later she told Jaqen she was going home after she decided to leave the Faceless Men, but she wasn’t planning on going back North. She only decided to head there after she heard her family had recovered Winterfell. She told Nymeria she was going home because at that moment she thought the North was her home. 

But then why did she leave without saying goodbye after the Great War? Perhaps she didn’t want to worry her family by telling them what she planned to do, or maybe (and for the record I don’t agree with what I’m about to say) the months she spent there made her realize Winterfell was not her home anymore—or it didn’t quite feel like home yet—. When she and the Hound were inside the Red Keep and he told her to go home, my guess is Arya had no idea where to go. The place she believed to be home was not anymore, so where was she supposed to go? That’s why she didn’t really abandon King’s Landing after she rode away on the white horse—she only used it to leave the immediate destruction but chose to return to check on Jon, because she had nowhere else to go.

Family

Now, let’s compare Arya’s position in the finale with that of her siblings:

Jon left to live with the wildings, the people he loves and who love him in return. He is meant to be with them and maybe even lead them, Bran kind of hinted at this during their goodbye after Jon apologized for not being there for him when he needed him. I don’t remember the exact quote but if my memory doesn’t fail me he said something like “You were exactly where you were supposed to be”, and that’s what gave Jon the idea of permanently leaving with the wildings.

Sansa was crowned Queen in the North. She is officially the leader of the pack and the alfa, and her new mission is to protect and guide her people. Thanks to her the Starks recovered Winterfell, she fought for independence and the northerners love her.

Bran was elected King of the Six Kingdoms and he will help rebuilt the realm after the war’s atrocities and prevent everyone from reprising their mistakes.

Strictly speaking her siblings don’t need her right now, the three of them are relatively safe and they have all found the meaning of their lives and their place in the world. Arya, on the other hand, hasn’t. Her list gave her a meaning for years, but now that it’s gone for good she is trying to find a new one. You would think killing the Night King would give her some sense of purpose, but I honestly believe finding out you were born to save humanity would give you an even bigger existential crisis than anything else.

”Hey, but didn’t the ending already establish finding out what’s west of Westeros is the new meaning of her life?” You might ask.

The answer is no, it didn’t. The way I see it, Arya wanting to know what’s west of Westeros is like an item from her bucket list. A few weeks ago I found a very good post that said it would be great if Arya replaced her killing list with a “living” list full of things she wants to do. “Seeing what’s west of Westeros” definitely sounds like a bucket list item to me.

Also just take a look at each of the Stark’s endings by the time the credits roll:

Jon, Sansa and Bran’s endings are very “final”, sort to speak, while Arya’s was the most ambiguous of them all. When you get exiled you get exiled for life; if you are King or Queen you are until you die. However, a journey is, by definition, a temporary thing. Arya can’t—and won’t— spend the rest of her life travelling to nowhere. A person that has been as hurt as Arya has needs stability, something safe to hold on to, and living an errant life is the exact opposite of this.

Besides she is Sansa’s heir. Even if Sansa is young too we can’t know for sure if she’ll ever get married and have kids and therefore it’s way too risky to make their entire lineage depend on her. That’s why a King or Queen’s siblings try to have two-three children themselves, just in case they come in hand.

Goodbyes

GOT is a show that puts a lot of emphasis in goodbyes. When they wanted to close a storyline, most of the times they gave those involved a closure scene (this doesn’t include Gendrya because their final scene didn’t give them closure at all, but that’s another story). The ones I can remember now:

Daenerys never got to meet Rhaego and still she was able to say goodbye to him and Drogo during her vision.

Davos giving the wooden stag to Shireen.

Sansa telling Ramsay to his face how much she hated him and how his house would go extinct after his death right before giving him to his own dogs to eat.

I would dare to say the scene where Talisa and Robb talk about their baby right before they are murdered during the Red Wedding serves as a goodbye between them.

Theon and Yara’s final scene from 8x01. 

Jaime and Brienne’s conversation before he left for King’s Landing.

Obviously the Hound and Arya’s moment at the Red Keep when he encourages her to save herself.

Tyrion thanking Jaime for being kind to him before helping him escape

I was pissed we didn’t see Arya saying goodbye to Sansa. They wasted a good two minutes on Tyrion rearranging furniture but they didn’t give us the Stark sisters wishing each other good fortune? I call bullshit. Nevertheless I now believe it was probably a good thing we didn’t (if you are a Gendrya shipper this applies to them as well).

The reason why we saw Sansa, Arya and Bran saying goodbye to Jon was because it was meant to be the last time the three Starks would see their half brother/cousin. However we didn’t see Sansa, Arya and Bran saying goodbye to each other because they will definitely reunite in the future. Theirs is not a permanent goodbye while the one with Jon was, and that’s why they showed it during the episode (besides Arya’s exact words were: “I’m not going back North” but she didn’t say she would never return. The way I see it she meant: “At this moment I don’t intend to go North.”)

Some parting thoughts

I don’t know if what I wrote makes any sense and no matter how much I try to understand it, I’ll never agree with D&D’s decision of sending Arya away and giving her that ending. However, because I think I know her I want to believe she chose to embark on her little suicide mission because she needs to clear her mind and gain some perspective about what she wants to do with her life. I’ve seen some people refer to it as her taking a gap year before college, others say she just went on sabbatical, I personally like to call it a Rumspringa-like trip around the world.

As I mentioned in a previous meta, sometimes we forget Arya is still a very young woman because she is such a badass. She is only 18 years old and she has her whole life ahead of her. She will use her journey to see what’s west of Westeros—which apparently is Asshai in the books’ canon—to discover who she is, instead of what she is not. A recurring theme in Arya’s arc has been her being forced to repress her own identity (pretending to be Arry instead of Arya; pretending to be a boy instead of a girl; pretending to be a mason’s daughter instead of a Lord’s; pretending to be no one just to be accepted into the House of Black and White; pretending to not being scared about potentially dying). But now, she’ll get to construct her identity at her own pace, without being constantly afraid of everything being taken away from her. 

She will arrive at Asshai and discover the known world is round, but she’ll decide to travel across Essos instead of simply turning back. She’ll visit Qarth, catch a glimpse of the Red Waste, go to Dragon’s Bay and stay at the cities Dany was in. She’ll sneak a peak of the Dothraki Sea and Vaes Dothrak, and then she’ll sail for the Valyrian Peninsula. She’ll go to the Red Temple of Volantis and the red priests and priestesses are going to be delighted to meet the person who ended the Long Night. She’ll travel north to Myr, Pentos and Braavos and finally, after a year or two of backpacking through Essos she’ll reaffirm Winterfell/Westeros is her home, and she’ll be ready to return to her family and loved ones as a healed new woman *If you are not a Gendrya shipper you can stop reading right now* First she’ll go to Winterfell to catch up with Sansa, then she’ll go to King’s Landing to say hi to Bran and finally she’ll make her way to Storm’s End.

And Gendrya will get the soft epilogue they were denied in the final episode.

[fortunatelylori]

J0nereys in Winterfell: Let’s make this as uncomfortable as possible for everyone, shall we?

Right before the premiere, the Ds decided to stoke the dying ambers of the J0nereys relationship by saying that they didn’t have time to develop Jon and D*ny’s relationship in season 7, despite dedicating almost 5 episodes to it. But, now, they say, now we’re really going to see Jon and D*ny’s relationship blossom.  

So let’s see how Jon and D*ny spend their time now that they’re “together, together”.  (lolz ... they sound like toddlers).

Jon and D*ny share 5 scenes in this episode and they run the gambit from the strange and ridiculous to the deeply, deeply disturbing. And as with most of their scenes, they’re never really alone. Something always encroaches on the relationship in order to add another new layer of just sheer and utter desolation.

The “skip the awe and go straight for the fear” scene: 

Gods, this scene is unsettling! Everything from the bleak lighting, to the subdued military music, to the rivers of soldiers marching towards Winterfell. There is nothing triumphant or feel good about this scene. 

In order to fully understand this scene and Jon and D*ny’s reactions, I think we need to remember what D*ny said in season 7. There’s two important lines in there that come into play here. 

The first one is in episode 2 of season 7: 

Tyrion: On a night like this, you came into the world. 

Varys: I remember that storm. All the dogs in King’s Landing howled through the night. 

D*ny: I wish I could remember it. I always thought this would be a homecoming. Doesn’t feel like home. 

Since the start of season 7, D*ny has been chasing an elusive sense of belonging in Westeros while the people of Westeros seem hell bent on denying her that. 

No one in the North is acting directly hostile towards her. They’re just subdued, apprehensive and suspicious, as anyone would when faced with 100.000 foreign soldiers marching through their streets. But D*ny is unable to cope with this reality or even attempt to see things from the Northerns perspective, particularly since at the end of season 7, this is how she viewed her relationship with the North: 

D*ny: I’ve not come to conquer the North. I’m coming to save the North. 

The North has, unfortunately, not been informed of D*ny’s benevolence so D*ny is left feeling slighted by the long faces. Jon, who has now been completely colonized (at least in theory) by D*ny, is so attune to her crazy that he’s quick to offer an explanation and a pained smile: 

Jon: I warned you. Northerners don’t much trust outsiders. 

Yeah ... you also told her that they would come to see her for “what” she is, Jon. Which in D*ny’s world can only mean they will fall in love with her the moment they set eyes on her. No wonder she’s dissapointed. And you have only yourself to blame. 

So ... in the absence of masters to crucify and a crowd of brown people to surf, what is D*ny to do to get that validation she so desperately craves? 

Ah, yes. Good ol’ faithful!

In season 7 D*ny also said this: 

D*ny: They [dragons] were terrifying, extraordinary. They filled people with wonder and awe. 

Let’s see some of that wonder and awe, Winterfell!

People are literally hugging the walls! So I’m assuming not so much wonder and awe but certainly extreme emotions of terror. Well, she got, at least, 1 right. 

The Northerners she’s come “to save” are running away in fear and screaming. D*ny’s reaction: 

How does Jon feel about his “new love of his life” terrifying the people he claims to fight for? Who knows. D*ny’s ego blows him off screen. 

The “diplomacy for dummies” scene: 

You know what it’s like ... first time meeting your partner’s family. You’re sitting right across from them while they ogle you like you’re some kind of alien coming to abduct their precious offspring. You smile and pretend to be deeply invested in washing the dishes even though you eat off plastic plates at home. Hell, you even say you love ironing even if you send everything to be dry cleaned. I mean who has time for that shit, am I right?

Well, D*ny hasn’t had this extremely important life lesson hoisted on her until now. Luckily Tyrion lent her his copy of “Diplomacy for dummies” right before they arrived in Winterfell and she manages to hobble together something akin to a galaxy overlord feigning interest in the mere mortals around her: 

D*ny: Thank you for inviting us into your home, lady Stark. The North is as beautiful as your brother claimed. As are you. 

Honestly, the thing I find most insulting about this line doesn’t even have anything with D*ny, but with the Ds. They’ve already pulled this “woman fake complimenting another woman in order to appease her” shtick with Sansa and Lyanna Mormont. At this point, it seems to me they have no idea how women greet each other. 

Of course, D*ny’s attempt is shut down by a Sansa Stark that has decided to go all yolo on everyone’s asses this episode: 

Bitch, please! I’m way hotter than you. I’ve only spent the last 8 hours getting ready so that Jon eats his heart out when he realizes he’s having sex with the wrong relative. 

This frosty look is followed by a tortured: 

Sansa: Winterfell is yours, Your Grace. 

that has D*ny deciding real quick that in fact the North sucks, Sansa is a traitor and she’s not getting her adoration quota met at all by these ungrateful bastards that she’s come to liberate ... aaa ... save ... aaa ... conquer: 

How does Jon think the meeting of his queen/lover/aunt and his sister-cousin/owner of his heart/bane of his existence went? ..... Footage missing. 

The “Roasting of Jon Snow” scene: 

There is one key line in this scene that encapsulates the entire Jon/D*ny dynamic in this episode and it’s delivered by the Ds favorite misogynistic mouthpiece, one tiny Lyanna Mormont, to Jon Snow:  

Lyanna: Your Grace? But you’re not, are you? You left Winterfell a king and came back a ... I’m not sure what you are now. A lord? Nothing at all? 

Jon: It’s not important. 

Jon is doing his best karoake version of Nothing else matters in this scene (careful, Jon! Metallica is famously prickly about their copyrights) but the fact still remains. Through out this episode, when it comes to his interactions with D*ny, Jon is, in fact, nothing at all. He doesn’t express any opinion, he doesn’t react. He’s essentially dead inside and the woman whom he’s supposedly in love with has cost him everything: his position, the respect of his people, his relationship with his family and, ultimately, even his voice. 

In order to exist in D*ny’s world, Jon needs to make himself small because “it’s not important”. He isn’t important. Only D*ny is important. 

I’m sorry but the Jon Snow I know is a proud man. He’s the guy who was ready to kill someone for calling his father a traitor. Which is why, perhaps, he can’t help but slip in this scene and say this: 

Jon: I had a choice. Keep my crown or protect the North. I chose the North!

Perhaps we can now put to rest the argument that Jon didn’t need to bend the knee since D*ny was already willing to help with the apocalypse. And we should put it to rest not just because Jon basically gives everyone the cliff notes to the political Jon theory but because, most significantly, D*ny doesn’t contradict him. 

She doesn’t stand up in this scene and say: Actually I was ready to fight for you all without Jon Snow bending the knee. 

She also doesn’t take the opportunity to ask Jon about it later on in the episode. That’s because she knows she wouldn’t be in Winterfell if Jon hadn’t bent the knee. 

Tell me again how any of this is romantic? Especially when it ends with: 

Sansa: May I ask? How are we meant to feed the greatest army the world has ever seen? While I ensured our stores will last through winter, I didn’t account for Dothraki, Unsullied and two full grown dragons. 

Hold on there, missy! Where do you think you are? In some kind of democracy where you’re allowed to question the glorious leader?!? Besides, I’ll have you know that D*ny is the very smartest leader evah and she has totally prepared supply chains for her humongous army and ... 

Oh ... Well, Sansa, if you must know I have it on very good authority from D*ny’s stans that the loot train attack was a strategic move on D*ny’s part and she didn’t actually burn any of the food. And now she’s going to tell you just how you’re going to feed all these people, ok? 

Sansa: What do dragons eat anyway?

D*ny: Whatever they want. 

.....

Yeah, sorry, Sans. D*ny’s a little busy at the moment eating Jon’s soul so you’re going to have to figure it out. 

You know ... when Emilia Clarke said that D*ny would try to make the Starks and the North like her despite the fact that they clearly don’t, I thought it would last more than 5 minutes of screen time. It basically took one frosty look and the smallest bit of attitude for D*ny to begin to threaten the Northerners and Jon’s family members with death via dragon. 

You might wonder how Jon reacts to all of this? And if you are ... what the hell is wrong with you?!? The man is “nothing at all”. We’ve already established that. 

The “expiration date” scenes: 

Davos, bless him, is attempting to save Jon’s reputation and crown despite the brooding bastard’s best efforts to rid himself of both by proposing a marriage alliance between Jon and D*ny at the end of the war. Tyrion is, surprisingly, subdued in this scene despite knowing that Jon and D*ny rubbed love organs together. 

But it’s Varys that really shoots down the idea for whatever reason. It’s a bit early to really figure out why Varys isn’t keen on the idea of Jon and D*ny marrying but he does utter the best bit of J0nereys foreshadow in the whole episode: 

Varys: Respect is how the young keep us at a distance. So we don’t remind them of an unpleasant truth. 

Tyrion: What is that? 

Varys: Nothing lasts. 

Yeah, I’d say there’s more than one unpleasant truth lurking about in Winterfell, my dear Lord Spider. 

I’m pretty sure that at least a few people had an orgasm when the marriage alliance was proposed, feeling as if this all but ensures that J0nereys is endgame. 

But here’s the thing: this idea of a marriage between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targareyen is being introduced too late into the game. This would have made sense back in season 7, before Jon bent the knee. 

Right now, the damage to Jon’s reputation is already done and the whole world is about to find out he’s a Targareyen. How do you think the people of the North will feel about two Targs on the throne? It’s not going to happen. Not only that but since Jon’s claim supersedes D*ny’s, she would never be able to marry him and rule as Queen of the 7 kingdoms. She would have to pick one over the other. 

Which means that all this scene can hope to be is a pleasant smoke and mirrors technique to distract everyone from the fact that J0nereys is essentially whiling their time away before the inevitable grave of the parentage reveal. 

At this point, we’re about halfway through the episode. We’ve already been informed that Jon and D*ny’s relationship won’t last. D*ny is just about ready to let the dragons loose on Sansa and we have yet to have an actual scene of these two people talking. 

So ... what is on our love birds minds? ... Sansa, of course. 

D*ny: Your sister doesn’t like me. 

Jon: She doesn’t know you. If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t like me either when we were growing up. 

When I first heard this line, it really stung that the first piece of personal information Jon shares with D*ny on screen is a rehash of the old “Sansa was mean to Jon when they were children” show invention. However, I’ve come to reconsider this line and for reasons I will touch upon tomorrow in my Jonsa meta, I find this kind of adorable. 

At the moment, let’s just say Jon is trying very hard not to antagonize D*ny and Sansa’s reactions to her are making it difficult which in turn frustrates Jon.

Speaking of: 

D*ny: She doesn’t need to be my friend. But I am her queen. 

(pointed pause)

D*ny: If she can’t respect me ... 

D*ny gets interrupted by the Dothraki that have been sent to feed her dragons so she never finishes what she was going to say. But ... what was she going to say? What kind of punishment does she believe is warranted for Sansa’s frosty reception and food question?

While Sansa is making it very clear she doesn’t like D*ny, she has yet to disrespect her. But as we’ve come to see with D*ny, she no longer knows the difference. Something Jon is painfully aware of. Otherwise why wouldn’t he be more outwardly concerned about his lover threatening his sister to his face? Talk about disrespectful ... 

Also: 

Sansa: What do dragons eat anyway? 

Dothraki: Only 18 goats and 11 sheep. 

Yeah ... let that sink in. 

The “It looked easy when Hiccup was doing it”scene: 

This scene hurts my souuuuuuul! You’d think with the kind of money HBO sunk into this TV show and into the Ds, they’d manage to come up with something other than a lame rip off of How to train your dragon for Jon’s first time riding Rhaegal. 

The cutesy tone feels anachronistic here for several reasons: 

D*ny’s dragons are not Toothless! Toothless is an angel on Earth and I love him to bits. He does not go around burning people to a crisp or killing little girls. The dragons in GOT have been called weapons of mass destruction not just by GRRM but by the Ds themselves. I’m not sure trying to parallel Hiccup with Jon really works in the context in which Jon is basically riding an atomic bomb. 

Also, this is a momentous moment for Jon. He’s about to ride the dragon that was named after his father. You’d think they’d go for something more emotionally fraught and majestic but no. We’re playing this for laughs, guys. 

In a romantic context, this scene is also deeply frustrating. Because just like in every other J0nereys scene, the Ds have taken a trusted trope (a couple bonding over one of them teaching the other something) and completely wrecked it. 

D*ny does encourage Jon to ride the dragon. It’s actually one of their cuter moments, with Jon being awkward and unsure and D*ny being cocky:

Jon: I don’t know how to ride a dragon. 

D*ny: Nobody does. Until they ride a dragon.  

Jon: What if he doesn’t want me to? 

D*ny: Then I’ve enjoyed your company, Jon Snow. 

The banter is cute ... for about 10 seconds. Until Jon is hoisted into the air, it becomes clear D*ny has no intention of teaching him anything and Jon is flinging around, inches away from being thrown off the dragon and into the abyss of death. Then it becomes less cute. 

Jon eventually lands, somewhere, next to a waterfall that has magically appeared in what is Siberian tundra because ... reasons. 

Despite looking like he was in some kind of never ending nightmare through out the ride, Jon ends the exercise with: 

Jon: You’ve completely ruined horses for me. 

No worries, Jon. She’s also about to ruin your sex life and your will to live so there’s a lot to look forward to. 

In the behind the scenes footage, the Ds said that this is the place where Jon used to hunt as a child and he decides to show it to D*ny. You’d think this kind of romantic motivation would somehow find its way into the actual dialogue in the scene but no ...

Instead we get this generic line that is not really given any kind of context:  

D*ny: We could stay 1000 years. No one would find us. 

The interesting thing about this scene is that Jon has shared a similar moment with someone in the past that gave off the whole “1000 years” feel. Let’s have a look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XQ1eTpPL6c

Unfortunately, I can’t embed the scene here but this is Jon/Ygritte atop the wall. There are no lines of dialogue in the whole scene. However, with Ygritte, Jon initiates contact and actually leads her to the other side of the Wall, to show her the expanse of the 7 kingdoms, something Ygritte has never seen. All of it is filmed just as the sun sets around the two kissing, with music swelling in the background. It’s all very clearly romance coded. 

So how does Jon respond to D*ny echoing the same kind of feeling: 

Jon: We’d be pretty old. 

That Jon Snow, huh? He really has a way with the ladies. 

They do kiss in this scene so that’s something but it’s at D*ny’s invitation: 

Jon: It’s cold up here for a Southern girl. 

D*ny: So keep your queen warm. 

They’ve shared 2 one on one scenes in this episode and D*ny felt the need to remind him she’s the queen in both of them. I guess titles aren’t important when it comes to Jon. When it’s D*ny’s titles, they are very, very important. 

You know what they say: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. 

And because this scene wasn’t odd or awkward enough already, it ends with this: 

Many people have speculated on what Jon’s thought process is during this stare down. Most have come to the conclusion that Jon is thinking about how to get D*ny’s “kids” to like him. 

Except that any romantic kiss where one partner opens their eyes mid-kiss, is a a huge red flag that the person in question isn’t actually into it. So I’m thinking he’s inwardly screaming: The moron just handed me a dragon on a silver platter! Let’s get this dance started!

*thanks for reading, guys! We will reconvene tomorrow for the Jonsa edition of this episode

*none of the artwork in the meta is mine; thank you to all the content creators! 

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

Hey! I recently found your blog and saw you believed in N+A=D, which is a theory I read a few years ago and really enjoyed,, I plan on reading your more in dept analysis on your site when I have time, thanks for putting it together! I really like this theory since it mirrors J and D even more and it also removes the rape and Aerys' madness in general from D. Now a question: do you believe this theory will be discussed in the show (only 2 eps left) or is it gonna stick to the books if it is true?

A woman after my own heart!  This theory is the dearest to my heart! @ktwrites and I have expanded the theory much more than wherever you last heard it, I assure you. (For anyone wondering, this is our site)

First, thank you SO much for recognizing that this theory mirrors Jon and Dany even further!

That’s the part that hooked me in, too. If Jon is rumored to be born of rape but actually born of love, shouldn’t Dany be, too? I think the pair of them having parents with star-crossed, tragic love stories is actually perfect for a pair that comes together to break the wheel that drove their parents apart in the first place.

All of the anti arguments about Daenerys vanish, since let’s face it, they usually come from (homogeneous) Stark stans. Dany gets the blame for what Aerys did before she was born, gets accused of sharing his madness, and also, the incest. If this theory is true, Jon and Dany are downgraded to cousins rather than aunt/nephew. Fucking everyone in Westeros are cousins. Rickard & Lyarra, Tywin & Joanna…

Also, then these lines about “I am the last Targaryen,” and “A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing,” and “The last dragon.” Then actually mean something literal.

I do have a page on the site about show clues, but fuck it - I’ll add some here.

The Dragon and the Wolf?

But… Jon’s a dragon. I don’t make the rules. He is Aegon Targaryen - Dragon, fire. Sure, he has Stark blood. But if Jon is a Stark, then Sansa, Arya, and Bran are Tullys (I don’t make the rules). So… who is ice and who is fire? Right now it’s more like The Dragon and the Dragon and A Song of Fire and Fire.

Curiously, the new Mother’s Day card (I know, I know it has Targ symbols) features an icy border:

And okay. Dany’s aversion to fire, which many relate to her being a Targaryen… maybe it has more to do with the ice in her veins? After all, we see Jon burned by fire:

And later wearing a bandage on his hand:

Meanwhile, we have Jon able to survive a deep dive in freezing cold water that probably would’ve killed a normal person - maybe the fire in his blood? This is all wild speculation now, so I’ll stop lmfao. One other thing though, in Fire & Blood, Alysanne’s dragon Silverwing refused to go past the Wall, it sounds almost like there was some sort of magical barrier there. Meanwhile, Dany has no problem getting past it. Which could just be plot convenience, admittedly.

Like in the books, the fallen direwolf (symbolizing Ned) at the beginning of the series has six pups. Ned has five children (so far as we know).

Dany and the color blue:

Now, I know what Michelle Clapton says about Dany always wearing blue - “Dothraki power color” Which is strange to me, since blue is one of the rarest pigments during this time period. I know, it’s just a show. Dany looks good in blue. Maybe that’s all it means.

But Stark women have a tendency to wear blue, likely as a nod to the blue ‘winter rose’, in which the Stark lady in the Bael the Bard tale is literally referred to as a winter rose.

Likewise, Dany wears greys and purples (if she is Ashara Dayne’s daughter, then purple would be her mother’s house color):

The Starks have a tendency to ride white horses. White is a Stark color. Jon has always ridden a black horse, which is a Targaryen color.

(Yeah, Dany rides a black horse beside Jon in S8, but she also tends to wear red colors while in his presence… bride of fire, eh?)

While Ashara Dayne is never mentioned on the show (I don’t think Rhaella is, either… despite Dany always wearing that ring, which is never explained in the show proper, rather in BTS stuff or interviews). Ashara Dayne is mentioned in the history and lore for the Season 6 DVD Extras.

Daenerys’ costume also shares similarities with Ned’s, in the way she wears her cape as well as the diagonal chain across her chest:

Ned has interesting reactions toward Dany’s assassination attempt. He doesn’t seem to give two shits about Viserys, telling Robert that if he makes it to Westeros, they’ll throw him back in the Narrow Sea, meanwhile Ned is chin-wobbling upset after hearing it’s too late to reverse the hit on Dany’s life. Arguably more upset than he was after seeing the dead body of a freshly murdered child, Mycah (though that’s debatable, I’m sure). There are some interesting transition scenes between Dany and Ned, particularly my favorite:

And then there are early promo photos where Dany and Ned are put together:

In season 7, Daenerys says Dragonstone does not feel like a homecoming, and she goes and touches Dorne on the Painted Table immediately thereafter:

There’s a curious line from Cersei during the Dragonpit meeting, saying basically she couldn’t trust Dany’s word, but could trust Jon’s word because he’s Ned Stark’s son. The shot hangs on Dany as she speaks the line about Ned Stark’s son (watch the clip here):

We’ve got other lines too, about how when Jon is elected King in the North, Lyanna Mormont says, this:

“I don’t care if he’s a bastard, Ned Stark’s blood runs through his veins.”

(But it doesn’t…) Even Dany is talking about Ned:

“I was born at Dragonstone. Not that I can remember it. We fled before Robert’s Assassins could find us. Robert was your father’s best friend, no? I wonder if your father knew his best friends sent assassins to murder a baby girl in her crib. Not that it matters now, of course.”

Varys knows damned well Ned tried everything in his power to prevent her murder (I wish he’d fucking tell her, whether or not she’s Ned’s secret bastard).

There are rumors we’re getting Robert’s Rebellion/Tourney at Harrenhal flashback next episode (I don’t know whether I believe it), but Wilf Scolding did have a mysterious deleted Instagram post indicating he was filming - so maybe we’ll see Ned and Ashara, too? Fingers crossed.

If everyone is talking about how Jon and Dany parallel Duncan and Jenny, which is a pairing comprised of a common girl and a dark-haired Targaryen prince… then just maybe Jon gives up his claim for say, a bastard girl? Dany being a Stark bastard and associated with flowers/roses, possible CotF relation via Stark blood… might make her have more in common with Jenny than if she were a Targaryen? 🤔

There may be more, I haven’t done a full, proper rewatch in a while, I admit. Probably too late now, lol. I’d say that there is a big “WTF” twist coming so there’s a chance - many attribute this to a leak involving Tyrion but… I feel like that was something that was foreshadowed, unlike Hodor/hold the door.

All that said though, I’d say the likelihood of this ending up on screen probably is slim. But again, we have a wealth of evidence on our site that must mean something. GRRM basically admits that the lemon tree mystery means something (and no, I don’t buy that it means the betrothal to Quentyn because he was more or less a non-issue anyway).

And there may be a chance GRRM is saving twists for his book, especially considering this:

My best guess would be Barristan Selmy, since in the books, over in Essos, nowhere near Jon, he’s bringing up that Dany looks like Ashara’s daughter, and by this point we don’t really need a red herring for Jon Snow’s mother, since most readers had figured it out.

[janiedean]

crack prompt inspired by all the tvd talk on your blog: damon, jaime, tony stark all walk into a bar alone and end up drunk oversharing ~~

(if you wanna include ships in it anything with delena/dalaric/bamon; brienne; pepper/bruce/strange/rhodey is okay lmfao so pretty much anything goes, i just want them being each other's therapist because the timeline collapsed for some time and their universes interacted somehow lmfao)

*spins the wheel* AAAND hello anon we can absolutely try that u__u

ten years on tumblr anniversary prompt post | buy me a coffee | commissions open

Well, now I really did bite off more than I could chew, Tony thinks as he shakes his head and hopes that he and Bruce didn't fuck up the entire fabric of reality.

Well.

He's not in New York and he wasn't in the span of five seconds since they got the machine turned on, but - but well. Bruce isn't here, so hopefully he'll figure out where the fuck he ended up. Maybe we should have been sober when trying to work out that whole different timelines and multiverses thing.

Now, damage control. He should probably try to not go anywhere, but in case he actually just... teleported somewhere, maybe he should just ask where he is. He glances at his back. He's in front of a bar named Mystic Grill, which... okay, shitty name, but he could be anywhere in fuck-all-middle-of-nowhere Idaho for all he knows. He takes out his cellphone, and there is zero reception.

Bad news.

He sees a blonde kid with a police badge coming up the road, so he clears his throat and stops him.

"Uh, officer?"

"Hello," the kid says, "I don't remember seeing you around here."

Yeah, because I'm not from this world, most likely. "Eh," Tony lies, "I was driving my car but it broke down outside town and the way I got in, there wasn't a sign. Would you mind telling me where exactly I ended up?"

"Mystic Falls," the guy says, "I didn't know the damned State of Virginia now took us off the maps, too." That was sarcastic, Tony can hear it, but.

He's sure that there is no such place where he comes from.

"Right," Tony says, "I'll, uh, be out to find a mechanic then."

The kid gives him instructions to reach one, Tony thanks him and lets him go. Well, he can't certainly go anywhere now, but at least it seems like they fucked up just his -

"What the fuck," he hears from his left side -

Just in time to see a blonde guy wearing a white armor and a white cloak fall through a portal just the same as his own, that disappears a moment later. The blonde guy has green eyes, Tony notices, is lacking a right hand because he has a rather heavy golden prothesis on it that looks tacky also for his own tastes and looks completely out of his depth as he moves to his feet.

"Uh," Tony says, "I imagine you aren't from... here."

"Certainly not," the guy says, sounding... near hysterical, as he takes the surroundings. "What - what are those things anyway?" Cars. Oh fuck, he's looking at cars. "How are you dressed? What - what are these houses?"

"Er," Tony says, "humor me a moment. What's your name and where do you come from?"

The guy rolls his eyes. "Jaime Lannister, and I come from Westeros, thank you very much, now where the hell am I?"

... Great, Tony thinks, now it's not even someplace where the USA exist. "Er," Tony says, "in another world. Listen, it's my fault, I, uh, sort of caused it, and my colleague will most likely fix it, but it's really better we don't go anywhere so he can locate us more easily. Tell you what, can I buy you a drink while we wait?"

"Another world?" The guy blurts, and then - then he stares at Tony, then at his surroundings, then rolls his eyes again.

"You know what," he says, "I've had a shit long day. What can this be on top of fucking undead Catelyn Stark? Buy me the fucking drink."

I'm not doing drunk science anymore, Tony vows to himself as they walk inside the place, and he really hopes he can spin some story as to why the guy with him is wearing bonafide armor -

"And who the fuck are the two of you now?"

So: Tony had not taken into account that there would be just one person in the bar and that this person would be of course not human because no one human could pin the two of them to the wall in a split second and hold them there with such strength, and that's how he finds out that pretty guy with blue eyes, dark hair, pale skin and homicidal face is a damned vampire.

Except that the moment Tony explains it - Jaime or whoever he is is just keeping his mouth shut, wisely - the guy stares at them, and then more, and then -

"With everything I've seen in the last years," he says, "honestly, that's not even the most fucking stupid. So, you just want to lounge around until your friend shows up to fix whatever the fuck you did?"

"Er, yes?"

"Whatever. I'm Damon. I can cover your drinks and compel the bartender to forget your face. I sorely fucking need some myself."

He lets them go, but then - "Get that armor off," he tells Jaime, "this isn't New York City."

"I can't just leave my armor around!"

"Just leave it in the bathroom and take it back later," Damon shrugs, and then nods towards what's most likely the bathroom.

Jaime shrugs and goes, muttering something about maybe having drank too much milk of the poppy, and Tony doesn't want to know whatever the hell that is.

--

"Listen," Jaime says later, wearing an attire that's still obviously Middle-Ages-like but at least doesn't stand out too much, sipping at the bourbon Damon shoved at them, "I'm choosing to think I'm making this all up, but if I'm not, how long will it be before I can go back where I come from? Because you dragged me away from a rather fucking delicate situation."

"No idea," Tony shrugs, "but he's good at his job. And he was less drunk than me. We might get you back at the point you left."

"And what would that delicate situation be?" Damon asks. "Entertain me."

"And why should I tell you?"

"First, I bought you that alcohol and you're definitely enjoying it. Second, this is my town and I could tear your throat open if I wanted to." Fuck. He just showed fangs at the both of them. What the fuck. "Also, my murderous former girlfriend who is the cause of all my problems just finally fucked off this planet for good after possessing my current girlfriend who looks like her but really is the whole contrary and my best friend just came back to life after being dead for a whole lot of time and it's a complicated situation and I need a distraction or ten."

"That... sounds like something," Tony mutters, sipping at his alcohol. It's good, at least.

"Believe me, it is. So, what's the poison from Middle Ages here?"

"Ah, fuck that," Jaime says, takes a drink, and starts talking.

--

Half an hour later, Tony thinks that he and Damon are equally staring at the guy with the same disbelieving face.

"... Was that the undead woman that got you like this?" Jaime asks, blinking. "Considering that he seems like he's some kind of living dead, that's a tad hypocritical."

"No," Damon says, "that's the least of my problems. How haven't you frenched this Brienne person already?"

"I frenched?"

"Dude, he's from the Middle Ages," Tony takes pity on him. "He means put your tongue in her mouth."

"I - what - she's not - I'm not -"

"Listen," Damon cuts him, "I've been there. I mean, thinking I couldn't live without an arse who didn't give a fuck about me, which you admitted. But you do realize you spent at least five minutes of your charming tale describing us exactly how this Brienne of yours is ripped and has pretty eyes and was about to die for you?"

"Yeah, uh," Tony says, "let it come from someone who had the right people in front of him for ages and didn't let himself go for it, you really don't wanna drag it any longer."

"That's - she's a knight, that's not -"

"Oh, sure, all knights are shit where you come from, you said that, but suddenly someone would rather hang than kill you and you're here jittering because you got sucked here while she's dealing with a zombie that wanted you dead but I have to think you don't wanna french her?" Damon rolls his eyes again, pours himself another drink and honestly, Tony has cut down on the alcohol lately but he's gonna just make a damned exception. "Please."

"He's right," Tony says, "and also, let it come from someone whose dad was loaded on money and fairly shitty and still way better than yours, whatever he said about you is wrong."

"How do you know -" Jaime starts, half-blanching.

"Told you," Tony shrugs, "loaded on money, shitty father, at least I missed out on the shit sister. Honestly, man, just fucking drop her like hot coal and follow your gut. And let it come from someone who's fucked around a lot to get distracted, if you wanted to bone her in that bath then you're into her."

"I -" Jaime goes red in the face, finishes the drink, "it's not like it ever happened with anyone else before, it was a mistake, most likely -"

Damon gives him a look that looks halfway worried.

Tony thinks he just matched it, except even more worried.

"My vampire friend," he says, "are you thinking what I am thinking?"

"I'm afraid so," Damon says, and then looks back at Jaime. "Newsflash," he goes on, "if you get hard looking at a naked woman most likely you find her attractive. Also, you can find more than one person attractive in your life. And let it come from someone who's been there in the sense that I thought I could only love fucking Katherine, you really don't want to keep on doing it."

"I didn't say I wasn't done with Cersei," Jaime replies, somewhat weakly.

"Good," the two of them reply at the same time, and Tony has to snort.

"Look at that," he says, "for once I'm the one with the healthiest relationship history sitting at a table. Who'd have thought?"

"Fuck this," Damon says, "I'm getting more bourbon."

"Please," Jaime says, and - well. Seems like when Bruce comes to collect him, Tony won't be sober.

--

"Wait," Jaime says, "wait, wait, wait, she possessed your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, well, as if," Damon shrugs, "honestly, sometimes I think I should have just run away to New York after deserting."

"You deserted what?" Tony asks.

"The fucking confederacy," Damon shrugs. "Well, what are you staring about? I'm a vampire, I've been around ages, I'm from fucking middleofnowhere Virginia, you think I got drafted with the unionists? But I disagreed and I hated it and I never wanted to go, so I fucking deserted. I hope you aren't here judging me, or -"

"Please, I used to build weapons for the army and stopped when I realized it wasn't what I wanted to be, and honestly, that just means you have a conscience, so -"

"Wait, you did what," Jaime says.

"Deserted. An army. Back in the day. Risked my neck for it, and I came back and met Katherine and honestly I should have just gone North, but -"

"Hm," Jaime says, drinking, and then - "you don't regret it?"

"No," Damon says at once, "best decision I ever took. Why, you want to do that, too?"

"Sure he wants to," Tony says when Jaime doesn't immediately reply. "Let me guess, not just your army. You want to desert the whole shebang, don't you?"

"I don't know what a fucking shebang is, but yes. So what?"

"Well, if you want my been there done that advice, do that," Damon shrugs. "From what it sounds like, your entire world is collapsing because of zombies anyway, what do you have to lose? Your sister? You're better fucking off without."

Jaime stares down at the glass, then knocks it down. "Can I have another?"

"Sure," Damon says, and generously tips it.

--

"So what," Tony says, "now that your best friend you had a thing with while your girlfriend was with your brother is back to life you're having trouble adjusting?"

"She also hadn't been possessed by my murderous ex until then," Damon shrugs.

Jaime just looks at them, then drinks some more. "Who am I to judge on that anyway," he says, "but that sounds like a lot of work."

"You wouldn't believe," Damon shrugs, knocking down some more of his bourbon. "Never mind that Stefan won't get over brooding instead of fessing up to the girl he is in love with now, but it's not like I hadn't expected it."

"Tell him to," Jaime says at once. "I let my father fuck things up for my brother once and I hate that I ever did, just - don't."

"This is getting fucking eerie," Damon says.

Tony, who is currently feeling very thankful he doesn't have siblings, takes another sip. Then -

"Man, if it's complicated just date the both of them. If they both like you and aren't the kind of super monogamous people that can't handle a threesome once in a while, they won't have a problem."

"... And what do you know?"

He shrug. "Well," he says, "my steady girlfriend was in front of my eyes for years. Took us a while to get over ourselves. The guy I was doing drunk science with, well. Was an instant hit and I didn't let myself drag it in the centuries and guess what, we have a nice lovely arrangement where I'm with both of them, they commiserate about how much of an idiot I can be and sometimes we all occasionally have sex. It's grand. You should try it."

And I really hope Bruce shows up soon.

"Huh," Damon says, "maybe it has merit. For me. Not for you."

Jaime sputters. "I said nothing!"

"You shouldn't even think about threesomes. I can see it in your face you're not the type. And certainly not including your sister."

"Fuck you," Jaime replies without meaning it, "I was not considering that." Huh. Now he sounds offended Damon implied it. Maybe he really will fess up to the other one when he's back.

"Then it means this enlightening talk has enlightened you," Tony grins. "Mind telling us more about that hand?"

"And why?"

Tony shrugs. It's not like he doesn't have time to waste. "What if I could help you with that thing?" He says, nodding towards Jaime's stump, and then - well. Time to test if he can summon the armor here, too.

--

"God," Damon says a while later, "I'll have to compel that poor bartender so hard, but fuck this is something."

Sure it is, Tony grins. "Hey, I managed to fuck with quantum reality, I'm not the first idiot that passes by."

"Seven Hells," Jaime says, "I have no idea what it is you're putting on me but if it works half as well as that thing you have, I'm going to show back up in King's Landing just to show my sister who has the useless hand now. If she didn't get herself killed."

"Well, now that is one reason I could approve of," Tony laughs, "and don't fucking move."

Sure, building a prothesis from the rests of whatever nonfunctioning electronics the bartender had lying around is... somewhat a challenge, but as stated, he has time to waste and it's not like he's wanted anywhere soon.

"By the way," Damon says as he watches him tinker around with the toolkit he found him in the backroom, "do you need advice in the whole I fucked up and want my brother to forgive me department?"

"What if I do?" Jaime replies through his teeth. "Because now that would distract me from how much this entire thing is fucking hurting."

The more they talk while he tinkers, the more Tony decides he's absolutely glad he was an only child and that his father only fucked one son up.

--

"You're doing this while not even being fucking sober?" Damon knocks back more bourbon. "You sure you don't wanna stay here and turn into an immortal? You'd be useful."

"Thanks but I like my life as it is," Tony snorts. "But if you need tech tinkered with, you can ask while I'm here."

Jaime is just staring at the steel-colored hand coming to life while Tony puts piece after piece together, his throat working up and down.

He drinks some more. "Fuck, if only I had such a thing when I realized what the fuck Aerys had turned into."

"Wait, who's Aerys now?" Damon asks.

--

He hadn't told them that part in detail.

When he's done and Tony is at the fourth finger, he kind of wants to hurl, but mostly -

"Do we really have to stay here," Damon says, "or you think we could sneak him to a VA? I can compel them to just hear that he's talking about Vietnam or something."

"He's not old enough for Vietnam, but you know what, I think we could risk that."

"What in the Seven Hells is a VA?"

"Someone I really could have used in the nineteenth century," Damon sighs, and then just as Tony moves to the last finger -

"Tony, what the hell is this?"

--

Turns out, where Bruce comes from it took him two days to figure this out. He also immediately spots three different improvements Tony could do to that hand, and when he hears the entire shebang he raises his hands and says that he can send Jaime right back when he left at any point and he and Tony, too, but he supposes that if they want to compel the VA before they leave it's not like he's in a hurry, and wait, vampires?

Damon ends up asking him if the threesome thing is really working out as well as Tony says.

While he does, Tony manages the finishing touches on the sort-of-steel-and-iron-hand he cobbled up together, and thank fuck Bruce showed up because he had been the one studying how Barnes's arm worked, back in the day, and gave Tony the pointer he needed to make sure the entire thing was... well, connected to the nervous system without needing to rip Jaime's wrist open.

"Right," he says, "try to move the fingers."

Jaime holds them in a fist.

It works.

"Seven fucking hells -"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a genius. Just keep it out of too many lines of fire, but if you're from the middle ages it should withstand most stuff. You're welcome. And go french that knight of yours instead of waiting, really."

"I think in between him and you, you've made a case. Uh, thank you, I -"

"Nonsense, I was the reason you're here, I might as well have helped out. Hey," he says, "so, what about a last round before we drag him to the VA and Bruce here settles everything?"

"I'm so down for it," Damon says.

"Do I even have a choice," Bruce groans, but then he does sit down at the same table and lets Tony fill his glass.

"Oh, don't look like that," Tony says, "after all I didn't destroy the universe and made some friends, it could have gone worse."

"Wouldn't know about that, but I could have done worse, too," Damon says, and orders more bourbon.

"I sure as the fucking Seven Hells will never manage to explain this to anyone," Jaime says, "but I guess I'm not too disappointed, either."

"Tony," Bruce groans, "did you manage to somehow end up with two people with - never mind. Of course you did. We're never doing drunk science again, hear me?"

"Maybe so," Tony agrees, though... well.

Maybe he will want to check on them, once in a while.

But he can think about how to convince Bruce to make sure they can later.

For now, he'll enjoy his last round.