#the show canon is very different from book canon

[valar-did-me-wrong]

Adar and Sauron are very different characters with very different motivations.

1. Adar wasn't the lord of Mordor for 3k years.. he spent those 3 k years trying to find a way to get his children to have a home where noone will experiment, torture & breed them like Sauron & Morgoth or kill them on sight like the elves & men.. that is a VERY FUNDAMENTALLY different reasoning to become a Lord of land than Sauron "power over flesh" The Dark Lord

Adar took over Southlands because he wanted a home & there was No Other Way for it.. Yes it was a horrendous way in which he chose to do it & that's why he isn't a Hero, he's an anti-hero.. he did many many wrong things..

But at the same time you cannot push a whole people into a corner to rot in torture & abuse for millenia, refuse any help or understanding & not expect them to hate you & fight back in desperation, so there's a reasoning beyond greed & power for his actions.. which cannot be said for for Sauron in most of the story imo..

Also he's the lord of Mordor literally from S1 to S2 not 3k years xD

2. We know for a fact Sauron wasn't kissing orcs on the head and giving them funerals, it's literally in the show's S2E1.. Sauron was experimenting on them like lab rats & the orcs hated him & Morgoth since the very beginning of their race.. mentioned in the books too.. they wouldn't have done that if he was giving goodnight kisses (seeing as they did not kill Adar untill he stood by them & actually cared about them instead of killing Sauron)

3. Orcs slaughtered him & left him in a cave to rot because he bred them like animals for millenia, kept them as slaves & used them as lab rats.. and tried to blackmail them into submission by making them believe noone will accept them ever so darkness is their only option, which was proven wrong by Galadriel in S2E8

4. Adar killed and tortured people. Yes bad. No doubt. No question. But for a bunch of people who love to find complexity in Sauron, I find it very missing in you guy's Adar character readings for some reason.. like there's this very insistent push for months to read a VERY clearly actively created morally grey character as the same as a Dark lord of 2 whole ages who choses to become & remain that way even after getting second chances..

To the point that you people actually go out and call the show writing bad instead of understanding that Adar's redemption required his efforts too instead of a simple magic ring..

Not very nuanced take

5. Adar killed all his enemies where?? He didn't kill much of his enemies??

He actively doesn't kill Elrond & Arondir in S2E7

Adar killed Sauron & he deserved that at that time.. rewatch the S2E1 flashback scene a few times you'll get it..

Celebrimbor was killed by Sauron.

Waldreg was killed by Sauron.

Glûg was killed by Sauron.

All the guards in Eregion who fought Annatar were killed by Sauron.

Bronwyn & that teen are probably the only 2 named characters Adar killed directly..

He did cause a lot of death indirectly but he interestingly didn't kill any elf directly in the series if I remember correctly..

6. Contrary to the comments & reblogs on this post.. Adar did much much better & different than Sauron. That's why the show gave him a way to redemption and not Sauron. That's why Galadriel accepts his offer of an alliance but not Sauron's..

That is the whole arc of S2 Adar.. The show again & again tried to show how he isn't exactly a villian & neither are his orcs just canon fodder evil.. so many scenes are there in the show just to highlight this..

I'm not saying Sauron is irredeemable forever, but in the Show's Story he isn't choosing redemption or healing or humbling but instead power & control..

While Adar since day one in the show has been shown to choose Love for his children (who are a result of his torture & who noone else loves in the world but still he does), he actually accepted his mistakes after wearing Nenya in S2E8 & was willing to put in effort to fix it & heal..

These are two very different characters.. both wrong in their own way for millenia yes, but only one of them actually on screen & canon tried to do something about it & the other deceived himself in the end & became a Dark Lord of Arda because redemption required actual self reflection and humility

Starting to see something more and more in other fandoms but it’s also brewing within Sauron fandom which is I don’t get villianfuckers who are deluded or in denial about the fact their fav is a villain.

Then woobify them to the gods until they resemble very closely of the “good” ML they hate lowkey which is funny.

Your fav did some pretty heinous fucking shit and should be either dead or punished severely for it and that’s what I advocate for in my villain favs cause I ain’t a PUSSY

Sauron is a villain. The reason we like him is because he’s a villain. He chooses villainy when he’s given many chances not to. I genuinely don’t get the urge of wanting to redeem him. Yes he’s complex with a lot of feelings and nuance but he doesn’t want to be redeemed. He’s not an ambiguous anti villain by the time we are in Second Age/Third Age. He’s not Adar

The serious woobification (not the semi-joking kind) needs to stop and frankly it’s lowkey insulting.

[autismmydearwatson]

I'm reading the Trollhunters book and I'm in love with book Claire <3 in the show she's a thin white Hispanic girl called Claire Nunez and she's badass but in the book she's British (a step down tbh) and her name is Claire Fontaine and she's FATTER and punk rock enough that she's not accepted by the popular kids I dearly dearly want to hear more

[ofswordsandpens]

I'm sincerely very happy for anyone who is enjoying the show but every time I see takes that the show has improved the book characterizations or that the book characters are underdeveloped in comparison to the show...

[navree]

"can we stop pretending the evil stepmother trope is bad and boring" oh my FUCKING GOD just reread the book!!!! just reread the fucking book!!!!!! if you want the book canon so bad it's right there, go read it!!!!! you've got to have it in your possession since you talk about it all the fucking time and i'd be astounded if someone this fucking pressed hasn't actually read it!!!!!! the change to rhaenyra and alicent's relationship has been known since they first cast the fucking show!!!!! it's been there since episode one!!!!!!! if you don't like it don't watch the show and just REREAD THE FUCKING BOOK!!!!!!

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

because im less breakable than you

[twinsarekeepers]

It always gives me the ick when y’all try to say there’s a specific book canon, especially concerning only the show, because that’s not true. The “book canon” has been changing since literally the very beginning of the series. From tlt to som, Rick changed so many things not just about the lore in his universe but the characters too. He did it from PJO to HOO as well. This is a consistent writing pattern of his where he changes physical and personality traits of his characters depending on his whims and that’s just the way the pjo verse is. This is why the whole “book canon” vs “show canon” thing does not make any sense because firstly, the books are like 50 steps ahead of the show. The show characters are literally in the first book phase of their character arcs and it’s relatively the same other than minor plot changes. And secondly, the books have so many conflicting character moments for all of the characters that the fandom was having arguments about what was book canon long before the show was even announced.

while i love and adore the new percy jackson trilogy so far, i have to admit that i am both disappointed and a little upset at the mischaracterisation of the characters, specifically the main trio. percy, annabeth, and grover, are no longer percy, annabeth, and grover. not their book versions, anyway.

i know that rick has said this before; that he is writing these characters now with the actors in mind, and i do understand that, but it’s not working. the books and the show are two very different things. while both are wonderful and i love them (and the movies!!), they are different. and that is okay.

but yes, there are so many moments (more in wrath of the triple goddess than in the chalice of the gods i think) especially regarding percabeth, where it just… isn’t. that isn’t my percabeth. it’s a weird mix of book canon and show characteristics, and it’s just a mess when you do that.

i love and respect rick riordan with all my heart, and i am not in any way against him or his writing, but i don’t think that the way he is writing these new book is even remotely a good decision. i think it needs to be changed. book canon should be remaining book canon, and the show versions portrayed by walker, leah, and aryan should remain their portrayals. (which are incredible, they are perfect for their roles but they can never be the book versions. they are different).

[imaginarianisms]

i was just thinking of this &. i think helaena would've reconciled with viserys for her children's sake bc she'd want them to have a good relationship with their grandfather.

[jaehaeryshater]

Gilly, Ygritte, and Monster in Winterfell

art by @shebsart, commissioned by me

Shebsart came through once again guys!!! I’m so excited ^_^

For about a year and a half, since I got into ASOIAF, I have admired Shebsart’s work. Their Theon in particular is the closest I’ve ever found to my vision of him, I adore his hooked nose (Asha’s too!). They also have such an amazing Barbrey design and the Starks, including Jon, are amazing. I have paid for some Ygritte commissions before with other artists, and I have liked all three of them, but when it comes to the closest look of what I think of when I imagine her book counterpart is some of Shebsart’s old pieces of her (and Jon). I was looking for someone to draw Gilly and Ygritte and there was nobody whose opinion that I held in higher regard than Shebsart, as they were my favorite ASOIAF artist, so I asked them if they had any recommendations of who had their commissions open. They told me they actually considering opening their commissions and I have been working with them ever since, even though as far as I know they have not formally opened commissions. Shebsart has been really great to work with and patient, even though there’s been some trouble with payment barriers since we live in very different parts of the world. They’ve been professional and worked hard.

I have long imagined the possibility of Gilly and Ygritte as friends; I thought it was high time I got it depicted in some way. I think it would really benefit Gilly if she had some female influences that weren’t family members. Of course, she does receive this to some extent, but I think it would be very interesting for her to find companionship with a girl around her age that shared the general Freefolk culture, although of course her upbringing was wildly different than Ygritte’s. We know that Ygritte has some sort of soft spot for young children, or at least some sort of moral code that keeps her from killing them. This is one trait shown in both the books and the show. In the show, while I don’t consider anything that happened to it as canon, she specifically spared Gilly and Monster knowing that the others around her would not. I don’t think it would be much of a stretch that Ygritte would grow attached to Monster and have a soft spot there, even though we know she hates incest and would therefore consider his conception an abomination. Everyone in ASOIAF is misogynistic to some extent and some of the things Ygritte says about women are toxic, but I would like to think she wouldn’t victim blame Gilly or call her a whore as Stannis did. I definitely see Ygritte as a strong woman who would want to protect and stand up for someone like Gilly. And Gilly has great compassion and is all around a good person, so I think a friendship would be good for the both of them.

In the depiction above, Ygritte is Queen in the North, consort to Jon. This fits in the same AU as my previous Jon and Ygritte commission by shripscapi. I’ve said this many times, I respect people who hate Jon x Ygritte and they have very valid reasons, but knowing Jon’s character, as long as Ygritte lives, which she would have in this AU as the Battle of Castle Black does not happen, there’s no other choice in Jon’s mind for consort for him as King Beyond the Wall. For the timeline of this art, Jon was first crowned King Beyond the Wall and he went South with his people to get away from and prepare to battle the Others, seeking help from other rulers. His men battle the Boltons and because neither Rickon or Bran have been found yet, he is declared King in the North as well for the time being. His residence is temporarily taken up in Winterfell and the Freefolk settle nearby in close quarters. Jon goes towards the Vale as he’s heard word about Sansa, but Ygritte stays behind with some of the Freefolk. This is when Gilly is her lady-in-waiting. I wanted to show that Ygritte’s clothes are nicer than Gilly’s, but I still wanted both outfits to be respectable. I wanted the fashion to be reasonable for a Northern climate, so that meant furs. Besides, they are both Freefolk and furs mean a lot to them culturally. I sent references for clothing and Shebsart went from there. Some people say Ygritte would never wear a dress but I disagree if it was comfortable enough and she was able to boss people around and be smug, I think she’d wear it as long as it was advantageous for her. And besides, I imagine that Jon designed the dress herself and that’s flattering enough for her to like it. What I did like to show is that Gilly is taking more towards traditional “ladylike” activities like embroidery, while Ygritte isn’t interested. She’d rather sit around and talk and laugh.

Oh, and isn’t baby Monster precious????

Edit: I’ve seen someone say they think Ygritte would hate her life if this is what it was like, and I’m not mad at it or anything, but I don’t agree!!! To clarify more about this AU, Jon becomes King Beyond the Wall because the Freefolk believe that only someone with Stark blood would be able to negotiate with the Others, so they’d be doomed without him. So therefore it’s not just about her feelings for Jon, she’s married to the person she believes will be able to save her people. The influence she has on him is also major and a source of pride for her. In the art above, she is living in Winterfell and yes she’s wearing a dress, but that isn’t her life forever. The reason she stays and doesn’t go with Jon to the Vale is not because she’s a woman and he refuses to let her fight, but because in the main timeline she has a child already (this art has a bit of a fudged timeline, if I were to write a fic on this idea she’d already have had a child before they breached the Wall) and if Jon were to die, the child still has Stark blood and would still be the only hope against the Others. If she had been South and had died with Jon (Jon doesn’t die at this point, but the prospect is why she stays behind), the child would have a regent with their own motivations and wouldn’t have its interests at heart like Ygritte would. This is an important role that I do think at the end of the day, despite Ygritte not being the smartest person, she would take pride and be protective over. It’s not simply that motherhood has changed her and is a role that took over her previous personality, because that’s not true. It’s that there are greater things at play and she’s a key part of protecting the source of the realm’s salvation, so to say. She doesn’t live at Winterfell forever and when at Winterfell, she does boss around some Lords but doesn’t do any chores that she would find tedious. The most she does is sew together a wolf plushie for her child, which was incredibly poorly done. When Bran and Rickon are eventually found and thus Jon doesn’t have the title of Winterfell, they settle in lands previously ruled by the Umbers and she doesn’t wear a dress anymore, I have another commission by shripscapi that shows her usual attire but it is furs, she does hunt, she teaches her children to hunt and falconry. Her traditions are not stomped out in favor of Southron traditions. Her home is not a castle, but a small home slightly more impressive than the huts of the rest of her people, inspired by architecture during the Norman invasion. All in all, she’s really happy. The most important thing to her is that her people are safe, the Others are going to be defeated, and they’ve gotten past the Wall, a goal of her people for a long time. I guess I’ve just had a different view of Ygritte and the Freefolk than majority opinion. I think the Freefolk are more adaptable than people in the South generally are, and it’s impressive how they rallied together despite their differences when faced with the Others. I don’t think the Seven Kingdoms would be able to do that. So I feel as if she, as well as most of her people, would be very happy and feel a sense of accomplishment for being able to live on and live among people that, before the threat of the Others, would never be able to tolerate them and vice versa.

[arabellasleopardcoat]

To Conquer (Daemon Targaryen x Reader)

Summary: Incest is common amongst Targaryens, Daemon assures you. Unfortunately, Alicent got to you first.

Warnings: Mentions of sex. Cursing. Arranged marriage. Periods. Daddy issues. Religious guilt. One death aside from canon ones (Daemon murders a man)

A/N: In which I rewrite the scene of my first encounter with incest in a book. If you get it, you get it.

YOU NEVER dared call Alicent mother out loud. But in your mind, she was.

The woman who had birthed you had passed away the same day you had been born. Out of her womb you had been pulled, alongside your twin. He had not survived the day.

Queen Aemma Arryn was a mere name to you, a woman who existed in paintings and shadows, a ghost that lurked on the Red Keep. Your father never once spoke of her too you, too consumed by guilt and grief. In fact, he did his best to never speak to you at all.

You were an uncomfortable reminder of the crime he had committed. Robbing a woman of life so a man may live. It hadn’t even worked in the end. Your brother had faded from this world, nothing of him remaining.

Against all odds, you had. You had clung to life, the Maesters would later say. Fought tooth and nail to stay in this world. And somehow, it hadn’t been enough. Your father avoided you like the plague, but Alicent, guilty, scared, lonely Alicent, did not. She was all you had.

You stared at your reflection in the mirror. Despite your dramatic entrance to the world, and your eventful first few months of life, your life had turned out to be quite lackluster. There were no exciting adventures or claiming of dragons, much less a moniker attached to your name like there was to Rhaenyra or Daemon. You wondered why this, out of all things, had to be different.

The robes looked graceful enough on you, you supposed. Your father had called you a true Valyrian beauty, the very image of your mother. You knew it wasn’t true. King Viserys didn’t remember her. How could he, if he had done his best attempts to erase her? He had replaced her at once, and he never once spoke of her again. At least, not with you.

His presence in your life could be defined with one word: Absence. But he had thought it fair to reappear when he needs you to do something for him. The least he could have done would have been asking for your input about the wedding.

If you had been asked, you would have chosen a traditional wedding ceremony, with a Septon and a hand fasting. You would have worn a Targaryen cloak… To be exchanged for another Targaryen cloak. No. Perhaps it had been for the best, not to desecrate such a beautiful ritual with this nonsense.

Still, you couldn't shake the feeling of not being really married. You didn’t like it. And you liked the man who was waiting for you on the other side of the door much less.

“Are you done, niece?” The knock on the door forced you into action, once again. You reached into the basin, watching the cool water shift under your fingers. There was something about the cold that cleared your head, helped you think. You took a deep breath, and tried to focus.

Alicent had told you that you should obey him in all things. That you had to do your duty, just as she had done hers. But you had seen the fear in her eyes when you were getting ready for the ceremony, and how her hands had grasped at you desperately during the feast. It had taken Ser Otto’s intervention to make her let go of you.

Your bedtime stories had not prepared either of you for this. When you were a young girl, plagued by night terrors, she would sit at the foot of your bed and pretend to read your destiny.

“One day, you will fly to the moon wearing spiderwebs as wings.” She would squint at your hand, making a show of reading the lines there.

“Tell me more!” You would squeal, fears forgotten. Despite not being the motherly type, she would always indulge you. Perhaps, because she saw herself in you. Another little girl, her mother dead, her father defined by his lack of presence.

“It says here…” Alicent would tickle your palm. “That you will grow up into a beautiful, beautiful princess who will marry a handsome lord. He will love you very much.”

Out of all the lies you had been told, it was your favorite. Each night, you would ask to hear it again and again, and think, tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow I will be all grown, and the lady of a great castle. My father will love me then.

It had been a consolation you had clung on through all your childhood. You were a princess, worthy of being appreciated by your future husband. He would love you, you knew. You would build something together, something only yours. You would raise your children to be better than you, following Alicent’s example. You would be happy.

You had never realized how much she had clung to that thought too. Her frustrated dreams for herself had been turned into hope for your future. Alicent had spoken them into the night like an enchantment, as if she could bring them to life by repeating the words over and over. So you could have what she hadn’t had. Like all parents wished.

What both of you had imagined wasn't this. You wanted to scream from rage.

“Just a bit more.” You said, your resolve hardening. The faith of the Seven dictated that laying with a relative was a sin, the same for laying with a man who was not your husband. They barely recognized Valyrian wedding ceremonies.

Had you really married him? Your High Valyrian was sloppy. Your mother had not taught you much, and your lessons had often been interrupted because of Aegon. Out of all your siblings, Aemond had been the most proficient one. He had not been present at the ceremony, being judged too young to attend.

It had been your parents, Daemon, Aegon. An intimate ceremony, just as they liked. Could your father betray you so? Give you away as a whore to appease his brother?

You opened the table’s drawers. Daemon’s bathing room was unfamiliar to you, but he must have used something to shave and you would find it. You riffled through various oils and soaps before finding the blade you were seeking.

With your non-dominant hand, you bunched the robes up. Bracing yourself, you used your other hand to slit your upper thigh. At first, you didn’t draw blood, despite feeling the sting of the blade. Your grip was too shaky. But your determination didn’t waver. Your father had asked too much of you already, there was no power in the world that could force you to share your Uncle’s bed.

Your second attempt was much more successful. Despite having tensed the muscles of your thigh anticipating pain, it didn’t hurt as much as you expected. Blood rushed out. You grabbed a rag and rubbed it on it. You examined it, coldly. No matter how Valyrian, you bled red, like any Andal.

You schooled yourself into faux embarrassment before you spoke.

“Could you… Husband…. Could you fetch my mother?”

Despite your calculations, you make the mistake regardless. The noun slips from your tongue, unprompted. A slip. The first of many to come. The temperature dropped in the room, Daemon’s anger a near palpable thing.

“Your mother is dead, niece.” He stressed the last word in a way you didn’t like. Despite the door separating the two of you, you could tell his mood had shifted from bad to something much worse. You feared what he might do to you, were you to backtrack in your plan. “Whatever Alicent has been teaching you, you should know you are not hers.”

“Queen Alicent.” You corrected, annoyed. How did he dare criticize the way she had raised you, when there had been literally no one else around up to the task. How did he dare speak down to you, as if you were a simpleton? You fought to keep your tone steady and stomped on the anger bubbling up. “I have… lady troubles.”

“Lady troubles?” Daemon asked, sounding puzzled.

You pondered the merits of skirting around the issue. You weren’t in the mood to enter a euphemism’s discussion, and so, decided to be more graphic.

The bloody rag was held gently between your fingers when you opened the door. No more words were needed. Daemon cursed and went to get your mother.

HE DOESN’T dare ask at first. Daemon understands that women’s bodies work different from his own. He has never bedded one in her moonblood, and doesn’t intend to start with you.

Despite your beauty, Daemon felt oddly disappointed. He had hoped, with you being fully Rhaenyra’s sister and not half, like his younger nephews, that you would be similar to her.

You weren’t. You lacked her fierceness and the respect for your heritage. The only thing Valyrian about you was your looks. You didn’t even have a dragon of your own, and were so damn timid, he might confuse you with a mouse rather than a Princess.

Because of that same reason, he let you be during your moonblood. While Daemon didn’t object to some blood, he doubted you would be the same. Bedding unwilling maidens wasn’t his thing. He preferred his girls willing, be it from the promise of coin or delirious from their own lust.

Somehow, he was getting the feeling you weren’t going to be the second type anytime soon. Every time he attempted to kiss you, you squirmed away, as if he were initiating something sinful and not simply trying to kiss his wife.

“Seven Hells, would it kill you to remain still?” He asked as you nervously avoided his grip on your waist. “I am not trying to initiate anything. I know you are still on your courses. Stand still. I command it.”

“I… I…” You had looked at him, all hesitant eyes. Alicent had done scarcely any things right when raising you, but at least she had instilled you obedience. But blood couldn’t be denied, and every so often your Valyrian nature reared its head. Mostly, playing against Daemon rather than in his favor. Little dragon that you were, you weren’t keen on following orders.

Ah, but bring you a Septa. Then you were jumping out of your seat to offer the damn woman your chair and observing her earnestly for non-verbal cues, tending to her every need like a commoner. Ridiculous.

“The Mother obeys the Father, from what I understand.” Daemon kept his tone matter of fact. He wasn’t certain that the Seven Pointed Star said that, but it sounded right, and it suited him, so he spoke the words with as much conviction as he could muster. In truth, Daemon had never opened the damn book in his life. A waste of time. The Septons he knew were a bunch of cunts and their followers weren’t any better.

“Maidens are supposed to be demure.” You protested. “Not indulge on indecent displays.”

“You are not meant to be a maiden any longer.” He grabbed you by the waist regardless, coaxing you to stroll next to him. “And wives obey their husbands.”

While you remained unconvinced, you allowed him to lead you around the Red Keep’s gardens. He kept a constant stream of chatter, using all his best lines, but you answered in monosyllables. Not only did Daemon wish to cultivate a better relationship with you, but he also wanted to flaunt his new bride. It was only fair that the other cunts here got a look at Targaryen superiority. Kept them from being too uppity.

Like everything else in this marriage, though, that too proved elusive. Soon, whispers began to circulate about his virility. One of your maids had a loose tongue, it seemed. The whole castle was snickering about it not even a week later. You, like usual, were oblivious.

In a fit of anger Daemon would later not be proud of, he got all the little chits whipped. But their attitudes about your moonblood made him begin to suspect something was amiss. A fortnight of bleeding seemed… Strange. While he was never particularly interested in women’s bodies beyond fucking them, something had to be wrong. An inquiry with the Maester proved him right. Apparently, over a week was unusual, a fortnight near impossible.

That night, he sat on the foot of your shared bed, watching you fret around the room. Daemon had asked for shared chambers, thinking it would bring the two of you closer. With his constant exiles and marriages, and the fact that Alicent had coddled you during your whole existence, you were a stranger with a familiar face. He had hoped to entice you by appealing to your curiosity about marital duties. Safe to say, it didn’t work.

You had put up barriers. Both metaphorical and physical ones. Right now, you were at it again. Laying down a towel on your side of the bed and a pillow in the middle of it. As he watched you, he found himself struck by the beauty of your hands. They were firm and precise in their movements, fixing down the towel and then neatly delimiting your side of the bed with the pillow.

You were wearing the most hideous nightshirt know to man, more adequate for a Septa than a newlywed. Slightly bent over, fluffing up your pillows, Daemon noticed that it was as white as fresh snow. Now that he thought of it, all your shifts were. And yet, none of them had ever been stained. Nor had the towel you placed on the bed and loudly proclaimed it was to avoid leakages. An effort to make yourself more unappealing, perhaps?

Somehow, the realization didn’t anger him. Instead, it made him more curious. Was this your way of rebelling? Were you scared? What went on behind your eyes, inside that skull of yours?

“Wife.” Daemon finally spoke, when you were starting to kneel for your nightly prayers. You paused, kneeling gracefully. You looked up at him, all curious eyes and nervous smile. “Have your courses always been this long?”

This time, he watches your reaction closely. During these past days, Daemon has not pressured you about it. But now, he waits on bated breath.

Your eyes widen. The hands you have clasped in prayer get even tighter pressed together.

“Oh, you shouldn’t… These are womanly concerns.” You are a terrible liar. He would laugh, were it not such a cruel thing to do when in the face of a little fool.

“I insist.” Daemon arches an eyebrow at you. You squirm on your knees like there are ants on your shift. You are visibly distraught. Does it pain you, pious girl that you are, to be committing a sin?

“Yes, they are.”

Another lie. He had asked some of the fools in Viserys’ employment. Yours didn’t last more than a week. But Daemon finds all the twitching you are doing entertaining, and so, decides to give you more rope to hang yourself.

“And yet, your father promised that you were fertile.” He drawls, cruel amusement almost leaking into his tone. He can’t help the way his lips twitch. This is too entertaining. It’s like toying with a mouse before eating it.

“I… I am.” You weakly defend yourself. Your face is looking more distressed by the second. And is that..? Oh, wonderful, you are starting to sweat a little.

“No, you are not. You are either lying about that, or about your moonblood.”

“I am not!” You protest, finally getting up from your kneeling position. A shame. You looked positively delicious in your predicament.

“Yes, you are! But I am giving you a chance to tell me the truth. Which one are you lying about?”

“I am not.” You look about to flee the room, so Daemon gets up and places himself on your path. You flinch a bit, but stubbornly refuse to admit the truth. His amusement at your attitude is starting to turn sour. Not only it is unflattering that you are making up excuses to avoid bedding him, but they are so stupid half the court is laughing at him behind his back about it. And you, absolute fool, can’t admit it.

“Wrong answer, niece.” He steps closer, trying to intimidate you. “I know the truth.”

“You do?” You startle. You take a step back, nearly tripping on the hem of that ugly nightgown. Daemon reaches to steady you, his grip on your arms punishingly. You twitch, as if sensing that you are caught in the maws of a hungry beast that could pounce at any moment.

“You are not on your moonblood. You can't be every single day of the moon!” He shakes you a little, making you yelp. But then, the most astounding thing happens. Because instead of going very still, as the frightened bird that you are, you shove him hard.

“What would you know!” You scream at him, pointing one finger at his face. Daemon wishes to say he is unbothered by your hysterics, but instead, he grabs your accusing hand and tugs it. The delicate bones shift inside his hand, threatening to snap, and you're left with no choice but go towards him or break your finger.

Wisely, you choose the second. You are breathing hard, and looking up at him in righteous indignation.

“Brute!”

“I asked your maids.” Daemon smirks at you, something ugly appearing on his face. In truth, whatever you see spooks you because you deflate a little. “So? Shall you tell me the truth? Or must I find it myself?”

He makes it as if to lift your shift. You bat his hand away, hard. Interesting enough, you harden then.

“What else is there to know? Beyond that I am not on my moonblood?”

“We can start with why you lied. Or why you don’t wish to lay with me.” Daemon suggests, gripping you tightly so you cannot escape. He brings his face closer to yours.

Your eyes are wide. Your face is frozen into a terrified expression, like you are realizing all your lies are catching up to you.

“I didn’t want you to force me.” You say, voice barely a whisper. Who do you think he is? Some sort of monster? Your depraved half brother, perhaps? Daemon had already heard the exploits that one was up to. Jerking off in a window, of all things.

“Force you! If I wanted to force you, I could already have.” Daemon rolls his eyes. You were not trained in any sort of combat, and you were the kind who had her head in the clouds more often than not. You were not a match for him. If Daemon wanted to force you, he just had to pin you down or pull out Dark Sister.

You stay quiet, perhaps coming to the same realization. You have gone to bed next to him for nearly two weeks, only in thin shifts. Every day, you have woken up untouched. Doubt starts to cloud up your face, as if you are noticing how vulnerable you truly have been and how well Daemon has behaved.

As if he were going to be deterred by a little blood. He was a true Targaryen. It was in his house’s words. Plenty of maidens bled when being split open on his cock. Your moonblood would not be very different.

Daemon decides to appeal to your more… Hightower side. Perhaps that would get you to yield to him. He uses his more Otto-like tone, trying to sound as cunty as possible.

“It’s your duty.”

You shake your head, frantically.

“We can’t. It's not right. You are my uncle.”

Your words are spoken with such conviction, he has to fight the urge to scream. That was your problem? You? A daughter of the house of the dragon, complaining about incest?

“It is not unprecedented. Our whole line begins because Aegon the conqueror had his sister wives. And then, Maegor married his niece, too.” Daemon’s words are sharp. He lets go of you and starts to pace the room. Good Gods, what had Alicent done to you? Had she twisted your mind so, you now thought marrying him was wrong because you were related?

“And their marriage was cursed. No child was born out of their union.” You reply, with an ugly smile. He wants to slap it out of your little face. Smug little girl, thinking she knows everything about the world.

“Jaehaerys married his sister, the Good Queen Alyssane. They had plenty of children.” He insists, trying to get you to notice the flaws in your argument. Everyone knew that the only way to preserve the Valyrian bloodline was by marrying other Valyrians. Otherwise, the magic in their blood would dilute, and they would no longer be able to claim dragons. It was common sense.

“All of them turned out very… queer.”

“My parents..!” But you interrupt him before he can finish.

“Exceptionally queer, too.”

Daemon feels his face heating up. No one before has managed to infuriate him so. He wants to shake some sense into you. His hands itch for something to punish you with. Impudent little thing, daring to suggest his parents had been queer!

Queer! The queer one here was you! A Targaryen who opposed incest!

“Listen here, you awful little…”

“Stop that. Stop insulting me, by the Seven. You won’t change my mind.” You raise one of your hands, in the universal halt sign. “I will never share your bed.”

At that, Daemon thinks actual steam must be coming out of his ears. Never. As if. You would change your mind, he knows it. No one can resist him for long. He is experienced, charming, and handsome. A prince and a true dragon. What more could anyone want?

He would make you regret your words. He would show you. Under all your repressed, Hightower ways, you were a dragon. Targaryen blood ran thick. Daemon would have you eating out of the palm of his hand before you could realize. Before, he hadn’t really been trying. But now? He was ready for war.

“Come here.” He orders. You stare at him, and do not move. “You will disobey me in this, too?”

You step closer, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I wish to make a deal.” Daemon says. You cross your arms over your chest. “You don’t have to bed me if you don’t want to. But you will have to give me something in exchange.”

“What?” You tap your foot against the floor, impatiently. Yet your face, as always, betrays you. His offer has made you lower your guard, interested in what he has to say. Probably because you are seeing a way out of this whole issue.

“I want you to let me be as affectionate as I wish with you.”

“Fine.” You snarl at him, trying to look fierce. But you are too new to this game of pretending for Daemon to not see through your mask. You are confused.

He steps closer. He gathers you into his arms, and hugs you.

At first, you tense. Your arms remain glued to your sides, body stiff in his arms. Daemon enjoys the feel of it regardless. You smell like innocence, sweet and young. Your body is soft and feminine, nothing like the hard muscles of his first wife. He allows himself to relax into you.

Eventually, your body sags a bit. You relax into the hug.

“I wish… I wish….” You start speaking, face hidden in his shoulder. Daemon doesn’t let go. His gut tells him that whatever you are going to say, it is important. “I wish I wasn’t ashamed. And that… In our wedding ceremony, I would have liked to know what was being said.”

Daemon’s heart aches. His poor little Hightower, denied of her birthright. And then, a giant grin spreads on his face. Here it was. The opportunity he needed.

“I will teach you.” Daemon whispers, against your hair. He kisses it. It’s a lovely thing, an icy blonde that doesn’t fit your warm personality. Now that you are not fighting him, he is starting to notice you are very sweet natured. “I promise.”

“You will?” You look up at him, wary. “And what will the price be?”

Daemon chuckles.

“No price.” He caresses the bridge of your nose, tracing your features. You seem bashful at the attention, and it is so adorable, he can’t help but kiss you.

You startle. All coltish, you nearly elbow him in your haste to move away.

“What are you doing? We said no bedding!”

“I know.” Daemon smiles at you, indulgently. Now is the time to tread carefully, less you spook, and he ends up losing all his progress. “I just want to kiss my wife. Affection, for the sake of it. Kissing doesn’t need to lead to anything.”

You nod. You don’t seem convinced. But he soon discovers your hesitance comes from something else.

“I have never kissed anyone.” You whisper, almost ashamed.

“Then let me teach you that too.” And he is leaning in, and capturing your mouth with his.

“I GOT you something.” Daemon suddenly says, one morning. You lift your gaze from your book, an historic account about the doom of old Valyria, and watch him with curious eyes.

Your husband is carrying a bundle of cloth on his arms. He is back from his usual shenanigans in the city. Betting and drinking, but no longer any whoring, he assures you. The Lord of Flea Bottom is no more, or so he says.

It is quite early. You have just broke your fast with your mother, after the two of you did your morning prayers together. It is a ritual you find great comfort in, despite Daemon doing his best to discourage you. He doesn’t like that you worship the Faith of the Seven.

He has grown slightly more tolerant of Alicent as time goes by. You cannot say the same for her. Despite the fact that Daemon treats you well, she still can’t seem to get over the fact that he is Daemon Targaryen, the same man who had terrorized her father, courted her best friend and possibly murdered his last wife.

The bundle of clothes moves in Daemon’s arms. You place your book down, and creep closer, wondering about its contents. It’s then that you hear it. A soft, quiet mewl.

A grin spreads across your face. You cross the distance between the two of you, and watch as a small paw reaches out from the cloth, flexing its tiny claws. It is covered in white fur, the cushions on the bottom of it a soft pink.

“A kitten!” You say, delighted. You take it from Daemon and cradle it against you. The kitten can’t be older than a few weeks. His eyes are already open, a cloudy gray that takes your breath away. It’s love at first sight. “Oh, husband, thank you!”

“I saw it when I was coming back this morning. Thought you would like the damn thing.” Daemon says, gruffly. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“I will name him… Quicksilver!” You say, cheerily. It makes his lips twitch a bit, unable to hide his amusement. This week, Daemon has been helping you practice your High Valyrian by reading a more recent text, accounting the times of King Aerys.

The language practice has brought the two of you closer. You are no longer as resentful or scared of him as you once were. You spend nearly all your evenings with him, pouring over gigantic tomes written in the language of your ancestors. Daemon patiently corrects your pronunciation, teaching you the right way of rolling the vocals, and how to accentuate your consonants.

You would have never thought you would enjoy learning so much. He is a very compelling teacher, clearly passionate about the subject yet stern enough to make you do all your assignments before their due date. Daemon is patient and encouraging, willing to explain things to you over and over again until you understand them fully.

The kitten yawns, showing a row of tiny white teeth and a pink tongue. You coo.

“Tiny but fierce.” Daemon smirks. “The Seven preserve us all.”

“How pious.” You tease, and Daemon steps closer. He grabs your waist and pulls you in for a kiss, Quicksilver still in your arms.

Despite having kissed him many times before now, you feel as weak to his advances as you had felt the first time he had kissed you. Daemon kisses like he is conquering, nipping at your lower lip until you open for him, and taking complete ownership of your mouth. His hands grasp at your nape, holding you against him. There is no escape from his kisses, and it fills you with a thrill you had never expected to feel before. Daemon wants you. He desires you, as a man desires a woman. There is no headier feeling than that.

At first, you had thought he was lonely. Why else would he ask for affection, when he was able to ask for anything else from you? That night, when he had found out you had been lying to him, Daemon could have asked for anything, done anything to you. Not a man in the realm would have judged him for it.

His behavior after that only seemed to confirm it. When the two of you were in public, his hands would linger on you, as if fearing you would leave his side. When someone told a funny joke, his eyes would seek yours before laughing, making sure you were still there.

It was an urge you understood too well. Abandonment was something you had learned to fear as well. Your mother had left you unwillingly. Your father and sister had both been eager to wash their hands from you. You guessed Daemon’s life had been a bit like that, too. From what you had heard, his mother had passed when he was a child. Your father had grown tired of him. And your sister… Well. That had been his fault.

When you grew up like that, you clung to every kindness, to every slice of warmth you could get. It was no wonder Daemon clung to you as hard as he did. It was difficult to live like that, not knowing what kindness feels like, grasping desperately to any scraps of it until you can almost piece together what the real thing feels like.

Despite having all reasons not to, Daemon’s attention never turned suffocating. Perhaps, you too, were starved for affection. You had gone your whole life with no positive male attention, being overshadowed by your sister and forced into almost a Septa-like life by your mother. His touches were never beyond the proper attention a man would show his wife in public. It felt almost… fatherly.

As a child, your father had never sat with you, or listened to anything you said. Daemon, instead, seemed to pay close attention to everything you did or told him. He sat for hours with you, pouring over myths and historical accounts, correcting your pronunciation of High Valyrian, teaching you the meaning behind old rituals.

It was as if a door had been opened for you. One you could use to glimpse inside his mind, and your father’s and even Rhaenyra’s. You understood now much more about how they behaved, and why they did. You didn’t necessarily agree, but you understood.

Some confusing feelings had begun to arise with all this new information stuffed into your head. You liked Daemon’s attention. He was charming, and it made you feel good about yourself, being able to keep someone as worldly and cultured as him interested in you. It made you wish, sometimes, to have been his daughter instead of King Viserys’. But at the same time, the way you felt and the things you did with him weren’t the kind of things you imagined daughters feeling for their parents.

When Daemon kissed you, as he did now, you felt your stomach swoop. His skilled mouth made your skin tingle, and all your hairs stand up on edge. It made you feel ashamed of yourself. You weren’t supposed to feel such things for your uncle. No matter how Valyrian, it was just not right.

What made you feel even more ashamed was the fact that sometimes, when he kissed you for too long, the place between your legs would get slick with arousal. You wanted him too, you realized, with the utmost horror. You wanted him like a woman desires a man. A wife desires her husband.

It is then the game starts. Daemon kisses you, and you kiss back, eagerly exploring his mouth and learning how to play his game. You make out with him for what feels like hours, until you feel drunk from his kisses and become as pliant and soft as clay being molded in his hands. It is then that you let him touch you a bit more, push the boundaries your previous truce has set. His hands grasp at your hips, his lips mouth at your neck. And when the edge of your shift starts to ride up, or his lips trail too close to the neckline of it, you jolt out of your stupor.

Shame licks at your spine, grabs tightly at the back of your head. Makes you stiffen under him, body set into a hard line. How can you be so wanton? Why do you behave in such whorish ways? You struggle then, overcome by the embarrassment you feel at your own behavior.

Daemon tries to subdue you. Sometimes, you fold, other times you spend the night tossing and turning on the bed, trying to get the upper hand. Sometimes, he wins, and pins you down on the mattress. But instead of forcing you, he kisses you again and the game begins anew.

You spend the nights like this. Kissing and struggling with anxious violence, until it has begun to replace the act of love. You can tell Daemon enjoys your struggles, the feel of your buttocks against his clothed crotch. You can feel the weight of him against your hip, burning hot and hard.

Eventually, he tires and heads out. You don’t know if he pleasures himself then, or if he just ignores his arousal until it goes away. You prefer the second when it comes to yourself. For hours, you stare at the ceiling, willing the heat in your blood to go away. Sleeps evades you, yet when it does not, it feels even more torturous. You dream of him, of the act, conjuring lewd positions and thoughts, until morning comes, and you feel like you have not slept at all.

This precarious balance could never last. You are not good at the court’s games, having been a wallflower most of your life. You are a stranger to waging tongues, and malicious comments, but Daemon is not. He is doomed to always be the center of attention, this husband of yours.

Someone notices that almost three moons after marriage, you are still a maiden And someone remembers Daemon’s lack of children with his first wife. One plus one makes two.

He comes to find you in the Royal Sept, as you are lighting candles with your mother. He grabs you briskly by the arm and drags you away, the match still alight between your fingers.

“Have you heard?” Daemon asks, breathless. It is clear that he has rushed to you. “What they are saying about me?”

You shake your head.

“How would I?” You are, after all, as isolated as you were before the wedding. Your only companions are Quicksilver, Daemon, your mother, and your siblings. And Aegon is at that terrible age, where he behaves like a little deviant. The others are too young to provide true companionship, Helaena stuck on her imaginary worlds and Aemond not quite a boy, not yet a man.

“They say I am impotent. That your womb has not quickened because I have not taken you. Because I am unable to.” The crude words Daemon speaks make your eyes widen. You have grown protected from the nastier side of court life, forgotten as you were. You cannot believe how someone would dare comment on a married couple’s bedroom activities, which are meant to be one of the more sacred things to happen between man and wife according to the Seven. Much less, how someone would dare to utter such poisonous slander.

“We know it’s not the truth.” You place your hand on his arm, trying to soothe his wounded pride. Daemon is, above all, impulsive. You fear he is about to do something rash, even if you do not imagine yet what.

Isn’t it enough that the two of you know the courtiers are in the wrong? You have felt the press of his member, hard against your hip, in the nights the two of you struggle. You have felt his hips rutting against yours, as his kisses mapped unknown constellations on your shoulders. What does it matter if Daemon hasn’t taken you? How can these people dare interfere, or even mention what the two of you do or do not do?

Shame, once again, grips you in its clutches. You feel your face warm at the thought of how these strangers must view you. Queer. Twisted. You wonder if they blame his inability to perform on your blood ties. If they think the Seven are cursing your marriage, just as they had with the ones of King Maegor.

“It isn’t.” Daemon says, coldly. He walks away, a tense line on his shoulders, and you walk back inside the Sept.

Alicent is still lighting candles. You sense that there are not enough of them to make a difference for what is about to happen.

That night, a disgruntled looking Harwin Strong wakes you up. He tells you how he is there to supervise your packing. You are leaving the city, he explains, to your bewilderment. Effective immediately.

As you place your dresses inside some linens, and ready Quicksilver, you manage to coax the story out of him.

Daemon had been at his usual haunt in Flea Bottom, betting on some cockfights. You could picture the scene clearly. Daemon, lazily counting his winnings with that infuriating smug look he got when he was proud of himself. An angry patron, getting up and on his face after losing to him.

“Maybe that cock will work for your wife!”

The whole establishment erupting into laughter. Daemon, cold smile on his lips.

“Go to your manse, and arm yourself. Because I am going to kill you tonight.”

After that, there was little he could say in his own defense to King Viserys. It had been a premeditated act, in front of multiple witnesses. No way of denying it, or trying to shift the blame.

You stood outside the city gates, observing Caraxes. He looked as done with Daemon’s antics as you felt. In front of you, stood the world.

Daemon strode by, being dragged by Ser Harwin. He was chained, but managed to look as carefree as any free man.

“You know the rules.” Ser Harwin said, unchaining him, before turning towards you. There was a bit of sorrow in his brown eyes, perhaps feeling pity for you. “Farewell, Princess.”

“Where to, Lady Wife?” Daemon asked, cheekily. There was no hint of remorse on his face. It seemed exile reinvigorated him like nothing else.

Your lips pursed into a thin line. You didn’t want to leave. It was scary, the thought of being away from home. The times you had been outside the Red Keep could be counted with the fingers of your hands alone. And what were you to do, friendless in the big world that opened in front of you?

You wanted to punish him. If he was giving you a choice, you were going to give him a lesson.

“To the North. Perhaps that hot blood of yours will fare better there.”

“ARE YOU sure?” You ask him, all pleading eyes. Daemon nods, already sitting inside the hot spring. You are strangely fearful of the warm water, perhaps, having already grown used to the cold of the North.

“If this scalds me alive, I will come back to haunt you.” You warn, turning to face away before beginning to undress. Daemon can’t help but let his eyes linger on your body, despite knowing how indignant it would get you were you to notice. He has promised to avert his eyes, after all.

Naive as you are, you never check to see that he actually does.

He watches as you remove your furs, and unlace your dress. It has taken him quite some effort to get you to feel comfortable enough to be naked in his presence. There might come a day when you are desensitized to nakedness, but Daemon guesses you are still far away from it. He has to keep trying.

You are worth the effort, though. His precious niece, sweet as the Maiden herself and twice as pretty.

“Dragons don’t burn.” He answers, absentmindedly. You are only wearing your chemise and your hoses, and as you lean down to remove those, he gets a perfect view of your cute rear.

“Perhaps. But I am no dragon.” You pull the chemise over your head, unaware of the fact that you are being watched. Daemon drinks in the sight of your naked legs, strong yet delicate, leading up to beautiful hips and a soft back. As you pull your hair up, he notices how the muscles of your arms and back move in a graceful combination that can’t be anything more but a natural gift. He spends a few seconds mesmerized by you, before you start to turn around and Daemon remembers he is supposed to be averting his eyes.

He fixes them politely on the other side of the hot spring, careful to not let you catch him looking out of the corner of his eyes. You are becoming sloppy in your old age, he scolds himself. Daemon can't help it. Lately, he feels more like the boy he once was than the man he is. His attempts at seduction are fumbled, he gets carried away by his passion, a single one of your smiles can render him tongue twisted.

Everything that you do is charming. The slight sway of your hips as you walk, the way your eyes light up when you laugh, but most of all, your personality. Freed from the cage of Alicent’s judgmental stares, you seem to be growing into yourself. Life on the road seems to suit you, despite your fearful nature. Surrounded by strangers, you no longer feel the weight of being judged for imaginary sins.

“You are. Just one with a more…. Fragile constitution.” How he wishes to be able to turn back time, sometimes. Gather the girl you once were into his arms and soothe all the old hurts. Raise you the right way, give you all the attention you had desperately needed and watch you bloom into an impressive woman. You were already a creature of impossible beauty. How much better could you have been, if they hadn’t stunted your growth?

You were too much of a Hightower, Daemon himself had thought once. But Alicent had thought you not Hightower enough, and she had tried to mold you into one, keeping you well away from what she thought of as queer customs.

Who had told you weren't a dragon? And how had they made that awful lesson stick, until you felt adrift, and belonged nowhere?

The sudden sound of water shifting, and you hissing makes him jolt out of his contemplation. Daemon turns his head the barest bit, managing to catch sight of your hips sinking into the water, and the shape of one of your breasts. There is one puffy nipple crowning it, hard and proud and begging to be bitten. He fights the urge to pounce on you, and instead remains sitting on his side of the natural pool and tries to relax into the warm water. Patience is of the essence in seduction, after all. You need to come to him convinced it is your idea.

“Ready.” You say, sounding a bit too close. He turns and there you are, right in front of him. You sit on the shallower end, water covering you to nearly your collarbones. Daemon playfully reaches out with his foot and touches your leg, making you jump. He laughs.

“It isn’t so bad, is it?” Daemon’s voice still carries a bit of mirth. He can’t help it, you have such cute reactions.

“No. Almost like a warm bath.” You fan your face with your hands. Seeing you lose your composure a little, Daemon feels a bit guilty about pressuring you to enter the pool. It’s true you are not as used to extreme heat as he is. He rushes to your side, uncaring of his own nakedness.

“Too hot?” He asks you, wiping away a stray drop of sweat before it can get into your eyes. You mumble something incoherent, so he presses a hand to your forehead. He doesn’t want you to swoon from heat exhaustion, out of all things. But your temperature is normal. It is then he realizes your eyes are fixated on his chest.

Ah. Poor thing. Daemon can feel his lips stretching into a proud smile. Finally, succumbing to your lust. He should press his advantage, but he finds himself hesitating to do so. Despite how appealing he finds you, he understands that you are different. A being that walks the world of the divine and the mundane that skirts the two but was not made for the more carnal things.

Instead, he commits the sight to memory, for when he decides to touch himself. Perhaps tonight, even. It is something he has been doing more and more often. Daemon has found intercourse with whores is nowhere near as fun as laying on the bed, with you by his side, and tugging at his cock until completion.

He is never quiet about what he is doing. Soft grunts and moans fill your chambers each time he does. You pretend to be asleep, but Daemon can tell you are listening. The next day, you turn fevered with lust. It is you who kisses him, who rakes her claws along his back.

There is no consummation yet. But it is becoming clearer than once fully freed from the judgment of your family, there will be.

You sway slightly. Daemon opens his arms, and lets you curl into him. He guides the two of you into a sitting position, placing you firmly on his lap. Your hair falls into a mess of curls thanks to the humidity, up do barely resisting. He fixes it for you, tightening the ribbon keeping it up. Then, he starts massaging your neck and shoulders.

The pleasure of your bare skin under his hands is undescribable. It’s a luxury he has worked hard to get, and for that, tastes even sweeter. Your sweet little face is scrunched up, in a rare show of pain and pleasure. Daemon wonders if it is the face you would make when he spears you open on his cock.

An annoying hardness begins to make itself known in his groin. He feels like a mere boy, getting excited about the smallest touch. You are driving him mad. And Daemon is enjoying every second of it.

Almost as if listening to his inner monologue, you shift on his lap. Something seems to be bothering you. You can’t get comfortable, and you squirm on his lap more than a seasoned whore. Daemon can pinpoint the exact moment you notice what you are squirming on. Your eyes go wide and you freeze. An embarrassed look takes over your face.

He fights the urge to laugh, wrapping his arms more firmly around you and encouraging to rest against his chest. Daemon could spend years like this. Denial is a fun game. Months have passed, and he has yet to grow tired of it, of taking away your innocence little by little.

You lean in. You give him a playful little smile, and you bite, hard. The pain from your teeth blooms on his shoulder, making his cock throb.

“Impudent little thing.” He chastises, softly. “I should spank the defiance out of you.”

You laugh. You have come to realize that he is not as much of a brute as everyone painted him to be, and that he is too soft to make good on his threat. Ever since your argument, Daemon has never hurt you. He likes you too much for it. He wouldn’t force you to bed him, nor would he willingly do anything to upset you. Not even if you announced you didn’t want him touching you ever again.

Was this what love felt like, he wondered? Being happy with just sharing the same air you did, watching you play with your cat, being honored that he was trusted enough to feed the damn thing?

It probably was. But hell, if he was going to let it stop this corruption of your innocence. No. Instead, Daemon grabbed you by the shoulders and bit down on the hollow of your throat, playfully. You made a small sound, like a caught animal. He could tell you were getting ready to succumb to pleasure once more. His hedonist little wife, always ready to be put in a kiss drunk state. You turned liquid in his arms when it happened, going lax over him.

Daemon could tease you some more. Or… He leans in, breathing in your scent, before blowing a giant raspberry by the side of your neck. You shriek in laughter, squirming on his lap. Water is sent flying everywhere. He peppers your face and neck in kisses as you do, laughing st your squeals and squirming.

“Daemon.” You say, after a while, when the both of you have calmed down. Your head rests on his shoulder, expression hidden.

“Little niece.” He whispers, and you tremble at the endearment.

“I have decided something.” You whisper back. Somehow, your voice feels loud in the cave of the hot spring, nothing but the soft murmur of water being heard.

“You have?” Daemon asks, heart thumping in his chest as if he has just taken to the skies in Caraxes. He pulls you out of hiding, lifting your head towards him.

“I want to marry you right.” You say, shyly. You look deeply embarrassed. “Under my faith. So we can…” You trail off, averting your eyes.

“So we can..?” Daemon asks, feeling a triumphant grin spread over his face.

“Have a child.”

And oh, it is the most wonderful thing he has even heard. He will buy you a cloak, and a couple of ribbons for the hand fasting. He will find the two of you a home. Daemon says all this, as he presses his forehead against yours. Not even his conquest of the Stepstones felt as sweet.

[fairsweetlonging]

hear me out, svsss extras au where, some part after canon, when the original luo binghe shows up, shen qingqiu does go with him (whether forcefully or willingly) to the other world. of course, bingge being bingge he immediately starts planning a wedding and trying to take shen qingqiu to bed, but his spouse-to-be isn't having it. he has this thing called self-respect, you know!

so, shen qingqiu, trying to buy himself time, tells bingge he'll need to be properly courted first. after all, how can you marry a guy you just met? (frozen ref). bingge, though reluctantly, agrees.

and generally in my head it's a bit of a feel-good fic, in a way? at least before the angst begins. shen qingqiu is sweet and kind to bingge but strict and aloof enough to not be a different person entirely, and when shen qingqiu (teasingly) tells him to perform the qing jing sword drills, bingge blooms under the praise he's given when he performs them flawlessly, and there is something very calming about walking into shen qingqiu's suite and finding him curled up on the cushioned window sill with a blanket, a cup of tea and a book he's helplessly engrossed in.

in this au shen jiu is still alive, locked in the dungeons of the demon realm castle. with the new shen qingqiu here he's been severely neglected, mainly because bingge hates to taint his new image of 'the kind shizun' with his hateful despicable old shizun, clearly this is how it was always meant to be, and shen jiu can rot for all he cares. at first shen qingqiu (yuan) thinks shen jiu must be long dead and gone, but then he overhears two guard demons bickering about "food for the prisoner", and he gets curious.

it's a scene à la 'belle and the beast' where shen qingqiu goes to the forbidden wing dungeon, finding shen qingqiu chained up, bones broken, cultivation crippled. one of his arms is gone, and shen qingqiu doesn't want to look too long at the rotten remains in the corner of the cell. shen jiu is barely conscious at this point, but shen qingqiu spends a little time with him anyway.

when he has dinner with bingge later that night, he asks after shen jiu, saying he wants to see him. binghe gets a little paranoid, worried about them teaming up against him or that this shen qingqiu will think he's a monster too. but shen qingqiu knows to spin it in such a way that it basically amounts to "wouldn't it be great to have two nice shizuns?" (shen yuan knows how important closure can be). and. yeah. bingge does like the idea of two nice shizuns.

so then shen qingqiu gets to take care of shen jiu (who does have to remain in the dungeons for now), and if bingge hadn't seen it with his own eyes he wouldn't have believed shen jiu took to shen qingqiu so quickly, being the pitiful pile of broken bones, starvation and torture trauma that he is, but, clearly, the way he allows shen qingqiu to touch him, stroke his hair, how his face falls, just slightly, when shen qingqiu has to leave, he's getting attached. something in bingge's xin-mo influenced mind delights in the idea of something else he can take away from his old shizun (shen yuan won't let him).

there's a bunch of endings to this, whether shen qingqiu and bingge find love and get married, or maybe binghe comes to save his shizun and they take shen jiu back to their world, or shen qingqiu acts like a catalist between original binghe and original shen qingqiu for them to be together, or idk maybe everyone goes to the other (svsss) world and they become some insane quartet, take your pick!

[t00them00n]

Canon!Bakugo Bf Hcs

Thinking abt a man who values dignity, self respect and ambition mmmmmmm I hate it when they’re a bum

- I love when people write him realistically bc his character is genuinely so intricate

- u don’t even need to ship bkdk to at least see the conflict he had trying to go from bullying to friends w deku

- he’d 1000% have crazy miscommunication with u in the beginning

- with u guys actually dating his affection would be rly specific

- I think he’d struggle a lot with verbal affection like any words of affirmation

- it’s not even just that it would be difficult but he’d find it too cheesy

- he’s definitely more of an acts of service man, quality time or dare I say gift giver😮

- the acts of service go tg with gift giver actually - I can imagine his gifts being an act of service

- like he’d build u a car how Dean did in Gilmore girls or something 😭

- his affection to u is shown in what he’d never do for others and there’s not much in the first place

- I wouldn’t say he does the minimum it’s just he has his own standards and personality that I think typical affection doesn’t fit him

- he definitely has a toxic masculinity problem (but it’s lowk beneficial)

- he’d never let u book a plumbing guy or any sort of construction worker bc he has that whole ‘I’m the man’ complex where he MUST do it all for u

- this is what I mean by ‘not typical affection’ bc yes there’s the ‘I must do it all to show my love for u’ but bakugos is ‘I must do it all to prove I’m good enough for u’

- hes a very ambitious and driven person and he definitely would admire that in you

- this is also why I never see him with an airhead type because I think he wouldn’t tolerate it

- considering how he needs to excel to no.1 everywhere, he’d consider anyone with differing aspirations as a disadvantage

(Not proofread)

[mmani-e]

Hello! After all this effort, behold:

DANGANRONPA DEMIX, THH EDITION!

Dr Demix 2

Finally got the talentswap designs I have for the THH characters one and done with! You can click through the read more section for some fun design insights. I'm intending on uploading a doc containing short lore bits about them eventually.

Kyoko Kirigiri - Ultimate Affluent Progeny

So Kyoko's design was both kinda simple, kinda not, wanted to give her a very fine and regal kinda attitude to her but not arrogant as that's very much Byakuya's thing. Her story is that she loves her dad more than the family business and her grandpa so she abandons detective work and just uses her brain to help her dad out.

Makoto Naegi - Ultimate Novelist

Makoto is a wonderful guy, just great all around. He loves writing children's books and happy stories. This is his main coping mechanism so he doesn't have to process any negative emotions he gets, the rest he can't process… well they go into a murderous psychopath alter.

Aoi Asahina - Ultimate Lucky Student

Shoujo protagonist Aoi. Cute, headstrong, affective, competitive, these are all the traits that make her fight for her friends and clash with Kyoko (and more often than not Byakuya) in the killing game, even when all hope seems lost… she pushes through, unafraid to let tears spill from her eyes for all those lost, but pushing all the same.

Byakuya Togami - Ultimate Detective

This one, I wanna go into more lore territory, cause I kinda memed around his last desc I gave him so here goes:

"A disgraced heir of the Togami household, Byakuya lost the competition that would've secured his riches. Disdainful and bitter, he sought out to get to the bottom of why he lost, uncovering a rabbit hole in the process. By the end, he proved his sibling a cheater, but it didn't matter because by the end as he found the sweet satisfaction of uncovering secrets and crushing liars and cheaters under the weight of their hubris far more satisfying than any inheritance."

Sayaka Maizono - Ultimate Spirit Medium

So Sayaka isn't a clairvoyant at all like Yasuhiro, in fact her entire skillset is completely different, first of all she is like an actual psychic, and I based her design off of the japanese Itako, quite loosely. Very interesting group, look it up, also she'll never use these powers in the killing game because I dunno how to even approach these rituals or what they look like or how to write them while remaining respectful, so she won't do it in a killing game for the express reason of her not having the right tools available and not wanting to disrespect her traditions.

Leon Kuwata - Ultimate Swimmer

I really wanna draw him again, all these characters again tbh, and I wanna show off the patterns on his wetsuit. It's a whole coral reef under there, that anemone and clownfish bit is only one part of a whole reef stretching his midline.

Sakura Ogami - Ultimate Programmer

Sakura has installed chips into her body to help optimize her body processes and also cause why not. As for the muscles, she's an Assembly programmer, the programs she's made can run on calculators she loves it.

Chihiro Fujisaki - Ultimate Martial Artist

Chihiro's design here with the two belts is an explicit nod to his preferred martial art - Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, so unlike Sakura in canon who'd be easy to imagine cracking someone's skull in half with a chop, Chihiro's approach is more crawling onto someone and bringing them down to the floor with grappling like an angry halfling monk. As for the belts themselves, on his head is his final junior belt, while around his waist is his current belt, he's not a black belt yet because he's still too young for it.

Celestia Ludenberg - Ultimate Baseball Star

Celestia actually isn't a legend in this AU, Taeko is. Celestia hates that and wants to start a baseball career going international, whatever the hell that means is up to her own definition, but she wants to be remembered forever as Celestia, not Taeko. Also extra sentence, but this is the SINGLE hardest design I've ever had to deal with here, I think in the future I'll be drawing all her little accessories and I have an alt costume for her I have in mind.

Hifumi Yamada - Ultimate Pop Star

So I changed Hifumi's story as I originally outlined in the OG post with him. He was friends with Aoi all his life, pretty much his only friend at all, and ever since he was little he had an obsession with writing songs, because he was obsessed with stuff like anime openings and was content to just keep the songs to himself. It wasn't till Aoi convinced him to share some of his songs that he started his journey to success, but bc he's not traditionally attractive, his first hits were literally just… his voice being played over other more attractive singers and it wasn't until very very recently that he even performed a song of his for the first time.

Toko Fukawa - Ultimate Fanfic Writer

So while Hifumi was clearly a Doujinshi but due to weird translation, ended up as fanfic creator, Touko is straight up a FF then Wattpad then AO3 girl, who would get obsessed with this really shitty, tripe manga that she didn't even like reading. It did however have super hot dudes in it, so she wrote good stories of those characters when she got frustrated with the actual authorial content - which was always.

Yasuhiro Hagakure - Ultimate Gambler

Quite LITERALLY the never stop gambling meme personified into a guy. He can lose 3 mil on slot machines but always comes out fine because it means if he keeps gambling he'll eventually run into his 1/3 and win giga millions, what he needs to pay off his debts. It isn't just with luck though either because his personality and lack of intelligence or understanding of most the rules of the games he plays means he'll never react the way he should when getting a good hand in poker or a bad draw in blackjack, so he wins those games almost always through just… stupidity.

Mukuro Ikusaba - Ultimate Biker

She's number 16 in her gang, and is easily the most loyal enforcer and taskman of the gang. She does anything she's told, to a grim and disciplined degree not typical for hooligan bike gangers, she doesn't really desire a seat as top dog of the gang though, after all she's got school to worry about, and her sister.

Mondo Owada - Ultimate Warlord

So his relationship and Kiyotaka's is gonna be interesting, because I don't want him to be exactly like Mukuro at all, who was just sort of an all-obsessed Yandere. It's more like he's always chafing under Taka, who is less than friendly with him in this AU, really the main way he even lets Taka boss him around is because he pays incredibly well and helps keep his gang members from devolving back into the unstructured, chaotic criminal life, the same that took his brother years ago.

Oh and yeah, he still looks like Guile, as he should.

Sparkling Justice - Ultimate Killer Killer

Yeah it's a reference to Killer Killer, sue me I love the manga. He has Hajirahara's ahoge, and I thought it'd be cute to also give him a mask just like the other Makoto from a Kodaka game series (Raincode.) Also, while Genocide jack stuffs all her scissors in her skirt, Makoto keeps a truth gun with "truth bullets" as his main weapon, the gun he stores inside the big book in the chibi of just Makoto, and the bullets kept on his person as the red buttons all over his body, which he pulls out when he needs to reload.

"Kiyotaka Ishimaru" - Ultimate Fashionista

Unlike Mukuro and Junko, Mondo absolutely cannot hide the fact that he acts nothing like Kiyotaka, though this is surprisingly fine to everyone else, because unlike Junko who plastered herself onto literally everything, Mondo always obfuscated himself from the public spotlight, at most showing only his suits while he hid his face behind something conveniently placed. Which played primarily to his vision of an ultimate fashionista, who was above everyone and catered to the rich and powerful.

Junko Enoshima - Ultimate Moral Compass

This was a fun one, I decided to let her have her red hair because I believe it to be the "natural" look of her hair, while attaching little clips of dyed hair to her buns as a replacement to keep her shape sorta and keep the strawberry blonde somwehere on her. Understand that while she is the "moral compass" she is still pretty deranged, and the only reason she focuses so much on keeping everyone on their best behavior is because it's endlessly entertaining to her to make her fellow moral committee members upset when she blatantly makes a mockery of the rules while still keeping kids on their best behavior to make a point.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru - Ultimate Fashionista and Tyrant, the Iron Hand of Despair

Taka's design I wanted to sort of focus on this sort of, holier-than-thou idea, where I wanted to make him look a lot fancier and upper-class than Junko does in his standard highschool fit compared to him. I wanted him to have an upper-crust sort of look

If you're reading this after reading this all, thanks! You're a wonderful person :) Signing off...

Mani

[metamatar]

In 2005, the tellingly named studio After Stone wall Productions released a film titled Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World. Featuring interviews with various LGBT activists from different countries outside the West, spliced up and lumped together haphazardly, the film delivers the following overarching messages: that it is not safe to be queer in the "developing world," that what queer spaces do exist in the "developing world" are to be found in certain metropolises: Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, Calcutta, Rio de Janeiro—and that these sites trace their genealogy to the Stonewall riots. Furthermore, according to the film, queerness/gayness and sometimes transness (when it is acknowledged) were invented in the West. Epistemic breaking points such as the Stone wall riots and canonized locales such as San Francisco and Greenwich Village are the originating points of this innovation against the backdrop of a timeless, pervasive heterosexism. This cosmopolitan gayness/queerness then "spreads" from the metropole to the periphery, forming a web from city to city This coincides with Jack Halberstam's (excruciatingly white) analysis in his book In a Queer Time and Place: the idea of "metronorma tivity" that "the rural is made to function as a closet for urban sexualities in most accounts of rural queer migration" and that "the metronormative narrative maps a story of migration onto the coming-out narrative" (2005, 36-37). We can extend Halberstam's analysis further and see the ways that the closet/rural/(post)colony as well as out/urban/metropole get col lapsed onto each other—the queer is always pulled closer to the heart of capital.

The overarching savior narrative occurs towards the end of the film, when each interviewee, in clips spliced together, tells his or her story of emigrating to the West. After a particularly heart-wrenching story of Ashraf Zanati's departure from Egypt, the narrator comments that "Ashraf Zanati left Egypt. Ashraf had become part of a planetary minority." Although the film purports to care about the status of queers in the "developing world," it actually forms a wounded attachment that fetishizes displacement and bifurcates the queer from his or her society. This narration of non-Western countries as inherently unsafe for queer subjects produces the very displacement it describes, in a manner similar to the ways nine teenthcentury colonial archaeology laid the foundations for Zionism and the dispossession of Arab Jews. Writing about the European "discovery" and destruction of the Cairo Geniza—a building that had housed pieces of paper documenting centuries of jewish Egyptian history—Shohat (2006) shows us that the discursive/ archival dislocation of Egyptian Jews by the forces of European/Ashkenazi colonialism anticipated the later dislocation of Egyptian Jews. This dislocation would form part of the backbone of Zionist historiography's production of a "morbidly selective 'tracing the dots' from pogrom to pogrom." The fetishization of queer displacement, as projected by Dangerous Living, performs a similar historical flip to the one Shohat documents: "If at the time of the 'Geniza discovery' Egyptian Jews were still seen as part of the colonized Arab world, with the partition of Palestine, Arab-Jews, in a historical shift, suddenly became simply 'Jews'" (Shohat 2006, 205). Through various colonial practices, there was a discursive bifurcation between the "Arab" and the "Jew"; in the case of case of Dangerous Living there is a similar bifurcation between the "Egyptian" and the "Queer."

Papantonopoulou, Saffo. “‘Even a Freak Like You Would Be Safe in Tel Aviv’: Transgender Subjects, Wounded Attachments, and the Zionist Economy of Gratitude.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 1/2, 2014, pp. 278–93. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24364930. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

[phantasmicfish]

Just some more Dune Part 2 things that I thought were interesting with a specific focus on Feyd-Rautha:

- just… the way that he’s so very accurately portrayed as a psychopath adds a level of grit I didn’t get reading when the book

- the scenes with him and Lady Fenring got me good. The book mentions that he finds her attractive, definitely echoed in the movie. There weren’t explicitly written scenes in the book of how Lady Fenring slept with him (but this was confirmed through dialogue), so I liked the movie’s interpretation of her luring him using her Bene Gesserit abilities

- I would have liked to see Feyd-Rautha tested by the Gom Jabbar the same way Paul was. In the book (and I think part 1 of the movie?) it’s specified that Paul has endured the most amount of pain anyone can handle from the test, but given that movie Feyd-Rautha seems canonically a sadist + masochist, I wonder how long he would have lasted?

- overall the vibe and aesthetic of the Harkonnen’s was terrifying and great. The black and white visuals, dimly lit rooms, flashing lights… There are a lot of different villains in Dune, especially in Part 2 — The Emperor, Jessica — but the most clear-cut ones by far are the Harkonnens. I think the visuals definitely amplify that. I find it rather interesting that the Harkonnens are portrayed to be evil as an entire house. The fact that they all had bald heads gave them a mass identity, served to make them seem more alien and less human, all capable of committing heinous crimes. Even Feyd-Raytha’s servants or whoever eat human organs

- I think it was an interesting choice to have Feyd-Rautha actually stab Paul during their final fight. We have a character who people think is the messiah. And then we see the blade actually hurt Paul, penetrate his skin, we see Paul gasping for breath, we see Paul struggling for survival. I believe the book made the fight seem more cut-and-dry, that Feyd was a formidable opponent but he didn’t actually stab Paul (though he does draw blood). So I sorta felt the fight was a good contrast between showing Paul as still human while he maintains this cult status. I could see how his ability to survive this fight, despite his injuries, also elevate his messiah status among the Fremen

[amandacanwrite]

I would like to share a few head canons for Gale Dekarios being in love with tav/you. If you liked this one and have a request for another character let me know. These ones have just been percolating for a bit.

In Battle

He tries very hard to stay near you. He doesn’t like it when you go off on your own. He knows he doesn’t quite have the strength of Karlach or the sure footedness of Astarion, but he’s not just going to let you fight everyone on your own.

Sometimes he gets a little hurt that you always put yourself in harms way/take so much of the damage on the battlefield. Don’t you know that losing you would destroy him?

You have never witnessed it, but according to the other party members he goes feral if you’re knocked unconscious.

When you wake up it’s always with your head cradled in his lap as shadowheart works on the worst of the wounds.

He does this thing with his magic where he makes his hands really cold. It feels nice on your feverish skin as he gently smooths your hair away from your face, you don’t know why you feel so nauseous and sweaty after you black out but this little gesture helps you come back smoothly.

He has a hard time sleeping after a rough encounter. He keeps waking up and making sure you’re still breathing. In the end he gives up on sleeping and just reads by the fire, calming his nerves to the sound of your steady, stable breathing.

In Camp

He is hilariously fussy about what you eat.

“No, you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT subsist off of a loaf of bread, three olives and a bottle of wine. We are no longer young scholars barely SCRAPING by—“

Very resourceful when it comes to what you can scrape together out of barrels around camp. You were very skeptical when you watched him putting a variety of different bones into a cauldron as you left him back in camp one day. But you came back to a rich stew full of potatoes, some wild rice and even some cut up apple in the mix.

He likes it when you play with his hair. But he has to very pointedly avoid it if he’s in the middle of reading up on something.

“Darling, are you certain you’re not practiced in the arcane arts? I do think you’ve got some magic in those fingertips of yours, at the very least, with how quickly they can put me to sleep.”

When You’re Alone

It’s simple. He worships you. Perhaps it’s because his last lover was a goddess but it seems to come easy for him; the reverent words, the gentle touches, the utter devotion. Sometimes you catch him just… looking at you. His eyes softly hooded, a relaxed curve to his lips. It’s your favorite to ask what’s on his mind when he looks at you like that.

“Hm? Oh, nothing much. I’ve just been observing. Did you know you purse your lips when you’re reading something that you disagree with? Yes—hah—just like that.”

He loves to read WITH you. Especially loves to show you some of his favorite tomes. He’ll get you all nestled up against him and hold the book down in front of you. He reads much faster than you, so he busies himself kissing behind your ear or playing with your hair until you turn the page.

Gods does he love it when you ask him questions about something to do with magic. He loves watching the glint in your eye when he’s helped you understand something.

You love it when you get him rolling on a topic of theory that you know he doesn’t get to talk about much. Sometimes he loses you when he gets into the minutiae, but he’s so damn cute when he’s ranting about the wonder in the world.

In Intimate Moments

(Potential NSFW below.)

Of course it is not a surprise that he’s a generous lover. What is a surprise is how demanding he can be when he feels like it. He knows you are no stranger to a challenge and he loves to make things more exciting by presenting you with one.

“Of course I’m aware of our companions in camp. But it’s not as if we can afford ourselves more privacy. You’re just going to have to quiet those lovely little sounds you make while I touch you… let’s see… it was here wasn’t it? Ah, ah… shhhh, my love. Those pointy ears of Astarion’s might pick even that tiny sound.”

Gods does he know how to string words together to leave you completely undone.

Sometimes foreplay is mostly talk. He can get you going without even touching you.

“My love, I’ve not been able to stop thinking of the ways I want to touch you all day. Shall I tell you what’s been on my mind?”

His breath tickles against your ear as his hands smooth over your clothed body, telling you how he wants to take you. It’s all the more flustering when you know he always keeps his word.

Love making always starts with a kiss, deep and slow.

You feel him smile into the kiss when he slips his fingers into the front of your trousers and he feels just how aroused he’s made you.

“You are exquisite. A delicacy of the highest quality. Do you know that?”

He’s not one to bang it out for a quickie. He doesn’t like to feel like he’s stealing his time with you, or like he’s a young man again and hastily getting whatever he can before heading back to the dormitories. Every touch, every word, every thrust is slow and deliberate. He wants to relish the feeling of it all. He wants to soak you in.

Somehow, he always smells good. Like cinnamon and tea and… some earthen, herbaceous scent you cant place.

So many cuddles after you’re done.

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

"Appropriate" responses to the Gaiman issue

TLDR: This isn't a Rowling situation, be wary of internalized purity culture.

He's a predator. I'm glad a proper journalist followed up where police have failed (and possibly given victims a better footing for future charges).

But I have a problem with the knee-jerk responses targeting the fandom.

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about insulting The Predator. This is about how you treat people who have/do/will enjoy the stories that unfortunately came into the world through his keyboard.

Fans aren't intrinsically evil/uncaring for continuing to participate in associated fandoms.

This is not another Rowling situation. Why? Let me clarify. The consequences of consumption are very different. Rowling is ACTIVELY using her popularity and income as a creative to target one of the most vulnerable minorities in the world. Buying official merch/books/movie tickets prove to the powers that be that she remains a good investment, so they'll give her even more money. This perpetuates the cycle - new movie/book deals, more income, more hate, rinse and repeat.

The push to avoid Rowling's work in full is driven by the fact that she has FACED NO CONSEQUENCES and is still powered by her creative properties. It's fandom/consumers trying to bring justice.

Gaiman, on the other hand, knew he was doing bad shit on some level because he kept his abuse hidden. His status and reputation let him get close to vulnerable fans and essentially intimidate authorities from going after a celebrity. He is FACING CONSEQUENCES. I would personally like to see criminal charges brought against him, but that's out of the fandom's hands. Things we could've influenced (his Disney deal appears to have gone to shit, he's been booted from the truncated final season of GO, and there's no news on Sandman 3) are already in motion. If his publisher doesn't drop him, I'd say avoiding his future works is beyond valid (I certainly wouldn't buy them). But I'm going to watch the new season of Sandman. And once I've taken time away, I'll probably finish my active fics.

"Judging" people who still enjoy his work stems from good intentions that grew out of the fetid ground of purity culture rhetoric.

Writing fanfic and enjoying shows that are already made do not make people soulless accomplices. The idea that unproblematic stories by saintly creators are the only things you're allowed to enjoy is not only flirting with censorship, but it's also impossible.

If you think people should have nothing to do with Gaiman's works, you better throw out anything Weinstein touched. That includes Jackson's LOTR trilogy, FYI. Also, anything his company officially produced (which still gives him money in some cases) should never, ever grace your screen. That includes some of the better Stephen King adaptations, The Orphanage (which was a breakthrough Spanish-language film in Western markets), The King's Speech, The Imitation Game, Woman in Gold, Paddington, and It Follows.

If you aren't willing to publicly announce your "disappointment" in anyone who continues to enjoy any of those films, then kicking up a fuss over how other people process and interact with problematic content from a fallen celebrity who is in the process of getting his dues is pure hypocrisy.

Personally, I'm maliciously complying with Gaiman's famous quote about how once a story is out there, it doesn't belong to the author anymore. Well said, Predator, these are mine now, and I shall fuck about with them as I see fit.

Attacking or snobbishly looking down your nose at the fandom also erases YEARS of beautiful critique and thoughtful exploration of existing, acknowledged problems in works like The Sandman.

People in these parts already know how to handle complex issues in complex pieces of media. Gaiman isn't our god. His canon is not our bible. He didn't teach us morality, as is apparently the case for a lot of people who grew up reading Rowling's works as a child.

If you have a problem with the censorship comment I made, I'd like to point out at least one writer friend is LEANING INTO the fandom as a way to process their own trauma. Suffice it to say they survived a very similar situation. They see it as empowering to take the stories away from the abuser and use the characters/settings to make something new.

I get the ick. I have it right now. But I'm not burning every copy of his work I own (full disclosure I have... *checks shelves* a copy of Neverwhere and The Sandman series). Doing so is totally valid, and if that helps you process and feel better - go for it!

But this is not the same as Rowling and the only ones you hurt by declaring your "judgement" is a complex group of individuals who are able to enjoy fiction, remain aware of potential social consequences, and found a place that doesn't align with your black/white morality.

With that said, judge away! I better not see any stories from Charles Dickens, anything in anyway associated with the Weinsteins, Nickelodeon shows, Charlie Chaplin references, or Francis Ford Coppola films touch your feed. If you scratch the surface, you'll find more things to judge others for enjoying, and they will inevitably find something to judge you for, too.