#the show canon is very different from book canon

[vidavalor]

<<I tend to think he just saw it all as more space for his books! 😂>>

Oh, babe, he definitely saw it as that, too. 😂 I'm in total agreement there! There are so many books in this shop that the weird, not-often-used rooms in S2 that we saw still just had them piled up everywhere. When I say they have a bedroom up there, I mean that there's a room of books which have been parted enough for there to also a bed.

There was, once, likely even a bookshelf running horizontally on the wall above the bed but Aziraphale got rid of that after the time they rocked the bed into the wall hard enough that Crowley got a mid-coitus concussion from a falling dictionary. Kidding. (Maybe? lol).

I also assume it's the location of Aziraphale's alluded to, ahem, private collections. It probably has a closet which has become home to a variety of random bits and bobs of Crowley's wardrobe going back decades, if the tie & shoes he gave Gabriel are any indication, and the things he doesn't keep at his flat. It's cozy, awash in books, and otherwise pretty normal. We can't see it yet, though, because they would like us to still be theorizing regarding its existence, as you wisely said.

<<It's probably been left so ambiguous because it wasn't important to the show at the time, and they figured it would give us something more to analyze/speculate on and write fanfic about!>>

Exactly. I'm dead serious. Like... we're going to see more of the bookshop but we are in what will be the last bit of the series and that was always the way it was going to go. Doesn't matter if it's a full season or a movie-- it's how they've been doing this since the start. What we see when is by design-- flashbacks, parts of the bookshop, all of it. It's partially an audience engagement tactic. It was in the book, too, but it's even more so in the tv series because that medium is especially great for a story like this.

I think that by telling the story out of chronological order and by being a little coy about what they show, the audience is engaging with its themes more as a result of also trying to solve the puzzle. It makes it more fun for the audience and it's also a more engaging way to tell the story for the people doing so because something we're seeing and when we're seeing it becomes significant to seeing the story.

Everyone can tell it's going to have a good ending to a point that they just basically told us what that ending is lol and they can because that's not at all what's driving interest in the story. No one is like what will the ending be?!; they're all what happened in 1941?! The juice of the story is in the flashbacks.

So, giving the audience that kiss in The Final 15 and leaving them knowing that Crowley & Aziraphale are going to be fine in the final season and what's in the flashbacks in The Finale? What's the twist to upend how we see what we're watching? It has to be that this isn't new because that would single-handedly rewrite all the flashbacks for some people.

What's going to make us see the scenes we've already seen differently once we get to the end of The Finale? If The Vavoom was their first kiss and was back in ancient times, is what.

I really, really think that they're about to drop a single scene that is going to make basically every single fanfic in this fandom need an AU-canon divergence tag and it's going to be amazing. Showing in 2.06 literally the worst kiss they'll have had and will ever have and writing the scene in such a way that half the audience is going to think this is new... but all after planting the seeds earlier in the season via The Vavoom for the twist in S3 when it's shown that it's very much not new? Perfect. 😉

It's not just the kiss-- the whole elevator cliffhanger to me was perfect. Because here we are, ages after the season aired, still chatting about wtf is actually going on in this show lol. There is no actual consensus about what we've been watching and that actually results in us all exploring it more deeply while we attempt to figure it out. It's a thousand times more fun.

Speaking of the bookshop, theories on what could be upstairs?

ooooo the BIG QUESTION.

so we can see a bit of the second floor in all these pics:

basically all we know for sure is there are A LOT MORE BOOKS, both stacked around the railing and on the circle of shelves. neil has decided not to comment on what else might be there (YET 👀) but he’s confirmed that much.

apart from that, we can see from the outside that there are six windows on the second floor:

i’m going to assume they’re part of the shop because they’re Very On Fire when the rest of the shop is on fire. SO. taking all that into account, you end up with something like this:

where the thin grey circle is the railing and the brown one is the bookshelves (as you can see in the first pic, it doesn’t circle all the way around!)

the rest is a complete mystery. i mean i’m sure the actual set was empty because they didn’t need to fill it, but in theory there’s room for some interesting stuff! with the first floor for scale i can imagine a whole flat built around that circle of shelves — a bed aziraphale never sleeps in, comfy chairs, every other angel knick-knack he’s encountered in his life. in my personal headcanon it’s all books and hoarded items covered in dust, which he leaves for authenticity.

thank you for asking!! i’d love to hear other people’s thoughts if they want to share :)

[wen-kexing-apologist]

LITBC Ep. 7-8: Gotta Love an Adaptation

Chiming in from @lurkingshan's book club post

On Episodes 7 and 8

So, I love adaptations. While I don’t always engage with every element of an adaptation (I have read zero of the BL books for the shows I’ve watched, for example) I am always interested to learn about how stories are transferred between mediums and people. 

Love in the Big City has been so fun to watch because I have really enjoyed seeing the ways in which the author of the book himself has decided to adjust his own story as the screenwriter for the show. The original creator being in charge of the story in another medium is rarer than it should be, and I am always more comforted by the changes made to plotlines when I know that the creator was responsible. 

Episodes 7 and 8 for example still followed a lot of Part Four, however it was had some of the strongest moments of divergence from original canon of any section of the series. A number of us have mentioned the T-ara’s as an example of this. I think the loneliness that we feel throughout the entirety of the book is countered in the show by the visual presence of the T-ara’s in all the important parts of Go Yeong’s life. And it is such an interesting thing because we don’t learn about them until Part Three of the book, but in learning of their existence we realize that Young has had people around him for all the shit he’s talked about in Parts One and Two. 

gif by @khunkinn

One of the biggest changes being the ending. In the book we end with Young wandering the streets alone, thinking about all the writing about love that he’s done. We end with the flashback to him and Gyu-Ho’s lantern burning. We end with the words: 

“In the end, I left just two syllables on the lantern.  Gyu Ho. My only wish.” 

In the show we still get the burning lantern, we get Gyu Ho, and we get a one-two punch of having the lantern physically say Gyu Ho (규호) on it in Korean, and the voiceover say “love” because fucking ouch. But we also get Go Yeong watching the fireworks with the T-ara’s, a scene that is very much not in the book. I know in talking with some people that they read that moment as taking away from the healing that Young has been doing, which is an entirely valid read, especially because we know how often Go Yeong fakes a smile to hide his pain. 

But for me, it didn’t feel like having the T-ara’s there with him was getting in the way of his healing. With the addition of the T-ara’s as a link between the story beats I really appreciated that Go Yeong ended the show with all of his single friends, watching this explosion of fireworks. I really loved that we end with some level of understanding that Go Yeong will have people in his life to support him whatever comes his way, who will drag him out of bed when he’s depressed, who will carry his mother’s coffin at her funeral, who will be there to watch his healing and to call out his poor taste in men. 

I loved the addition of Eun Su and the wedding and the way that Eun Su looked straight at Go Yeong when he was deciding whether to say yes or no to the proposal. I loved that we got this quiet moment of tragic helium consumption between Go Yeong and Eun Su in a moment of sobering calm, that we had a moment to let Eun Su cry realizing that he didn’t want to get married and that Go Yeong was there in all of that as a support. I know that Go Yeong doesn’t trust the T-ara’s enough to tell them about Kylie, but I have hope that one day he will. Just as he has been reflecting upon the fact that he loved Gyu Ho and regrets letting him get away. 

On the Adaptation as a Whole

Okay, on to the adaptation as a whole. I want to talk about the decision to use different directors every two episodes and why I think that was a brilliant choice. 

First of all, we know each section of the book is its own period of time, and centered around different relationships in Young’s life. The structure of the parts in the book is really interesting because the readers can realize how important Gyu Ho is in Young’s life in the fact that he interrupts the narrative with Habibi. While I think this show would have been elite if it had released two episodes a week for four weeks, I understand the urge to publish it all at once considering the push back it received in Korea. 

Regardless of that though, having different directors makes each of the four sections feel distinct. It is always really fun to watch shows that have different people behind the camera because you will always get something different. Each director has a different lens, a different style, a different performance they will draw out of the actors. And that is incredibly important in a story such as this one where the main character is changing over time. You can write and perform character growth, but I think each part comes with a change in physicality that- while not impossible -would be really difficult to draw out of a performer who is being directed by the same person throughout. 

In addition, because each part does focus on a different important relationship in Go Yeong’s life, having different people be in charge of directing those relationships creates fresher, more distinct chemistry between each pairing. The kind of relationship that Mi Ae has with Go Yeong is large and bright and loud. It’s full of light, and joy, and a deep connection built on authentic selves only the two of them understand. But look at how Go Yeong interacts with Mi Ae in Episodes 5-6. His relationship to her has changed and while the same director could have helped the actors navigate the changing relationship between them, I think to have a different person with a different visual style direct that scene adds an additional, juicy layer of complexity and separation that you wouldn’t necessarily get otherwise. 

As I and many others have surely noted before, different mediums have different benefits when it comes to conveying information. Books can provide intense description or skip over entire settings depending on their relevance, television must show you everything, the clothing the actors well tell you a lot about their characters, the food they eat, the things they drink, the places they live, all the little pieces of set dressing you might not get, that you don’t get from the book are all in there. Love in the Big City the novel gives you much deeper insight into Young’s psyche than you are going to get in the show. The book feels bleaker, more isolated, and more depressed at all stages of the story than what we get out of the show, for the simple fact that the entire story in the book is narrated. When we are first introduced to Go Yeong in the show we get the exterior version of him, the fakest version of him in so many ways. A version of Young we never get because of the structure of the book. 

But there is something I have been thinking about in terms of the visual progression of the stories with the directors that we get. The show itself gets darker and more introspective over time. In Episodes One and Two we are lured in to the story via quick, snappy, and chaotic vibes. The room we open with is full of light, Go Yeong is begging for sex, and then he’s running out the door because his sex partner’s boyfriend has returned on military leave. The club is bright, his time with Mi Ae is bright, the abortion clinic is bright, Mi Ae’s wedding is bright. Everything is bi and loud and distracting, because this is the point in Young’s life where he is the most detached from his own feelings. The biggest moments of visual darkness in Part One are all surrounding Kim Nam Gyu, they’re dates mostly happen in the dark. Their conversations in the car are in darkness, the date to the lock gate is in darkness, the karaoke place is dark, the exchange of apology marinated crab is in the dark. 

But Mi Ae is the more important and prominent relationship in Yeong’s life in the first two episodes and so darkness is drowned out and more disguised in the first two episodes as a result. 

gif by @themisconceptions

Part Two the darkness starts to take over more. Most of the dates with Hyung also take place in the dark, his apartment is scarcely lit, the light of day is on screen primarily through the windows of Hyung’s apartment, through the fake lighting of the hospital rooms. In times when Hyung and Yeong are out in daylight the sky is overcast and gray, better lit than his apartment to be sure, but still there is something dulled out about the sky when they are together. The brightest moments we really get to my recollection (which to be fair I refuse to go back and comb through the episodes to back up my claim) are Yeong waking up in the hospital after his suicide attempt, and Yeong sitting in the park with his mother’s head in his lap. 

Part Three has something really interesting in it to me in terms of how it plays with light. Go Yeong’s relationship to Gyu Ho starts primarily in the dark, meeting at the club, meeting in the coffee shop after the play, meeting on the steps after the last train. But we start to see more light in these episodes after Go Yeong tells Gyu Ho about Kylie. When he starts that conversation he begins it in the dark, and by the time that Gyu Ho has caught up to him to cry over the fact that Go Yeong is smiling through the pain the light has started to rise. Just thinking visually about this part I feel like we get a good mixture of light and dark, it feels balanced in a way the other parts haven’t, and I think that speaks to the fact that Gyu Ho is the person that Go Yeong actually loved. 

I am talking about the lighting here mostly because Part Four feels so distinctly dark. The curtains are drawn, there is very little light coming in. I think @solitaryandwandering is on to something when they are talking about the lighting feeling more ambient. All the light throughout feels muted somehow, like the camera isn’t picking up as much of it even when it’s there. Light does not exist around Habibi almost at all, his apartment is pretty dark, the stairwell where they do their chase scene feels washed out rather than bright, the hotel where Gyu Ho and Go Yeong have sex, the hotel room he has with Habibi where the curtains close all the way, versus the light that comes streaming through the gap in the curtains in his first hotel room with Gyu Ho. Once again the brightest sections of this part surround Gyu Ho, but even then compared to Part Three the way this director utilizes light feels more muted and reserved, just as Go Yeong spends a lot of his time in this part grappling with deep depression. 

I love that even though we have four different directors I feel like we have a clear visual metaphor through the linear progression of lighting in this. We start out bright with the fakest version o fGo Yeong and we end dark with the realest version of Go Yeong we’ve had a chance to see. He’s still got a way to go, but I like how the directors are able to pull different performances and aesthetics out of the story while still making it feel like one cohesive unit. 

Also, I really wish I could pick Park Sang Young’s brain to learn if and how the last few years since he published this book have influenced his engagement with the source material and if and how that may have influenced any changes he made to the story we watched in the show. 

Also also, hugeee shout out to Nam Yoon Su, that dude fucking crushed his performance as Go Yeong, and I another reason I am glad that there were multiple directors on this is because I want that boy to stay as booked and busy and I think that gets a little easier when he has now shown his acting prowess off to four separate directors.

[sepublic]

According to some FtF storyboards that were cut (presumably for time), Manny met Camila twenty years prior to the start of the series; And since the show takes place in 2022, this would’ve been during 2002. And since Luz is 14, this means Camila and Manny knew one another for six years, and at some point married during that time before eventually having Luz.

Season 1B had an episode that was scrapped called Homesick, which would’ve had Luz discover a Healing Glyph and also reflect on her parents; At this point in production, Camila was a nurse before that got retconned, but it was revealed that Manny was an ambulance driver. The FtF storyboards are much more recent and borderline canon, so we can surmise Manny and Camila did meet at a Cosmic Frontier convention, and their workplaces didn’t happen to intersect.

But if we still want to retain this detail on Manny, you can guess why Camila resonated with him and vice-versa, as people who both had a very compassionate spirit. Manny especially as someone who builds people up.

And there’s a dark irony in Manny always bringing people to hospitals, because he would be quite familiar with those who are on the verge of death, who might be skirting close to it, maybe even people who did die on the way… So he was always aware of mortality and he’d have to consider his own. And so after all this time, he would be the one being brought to a hospital, different ones, it’s why they chose Gravesfield specifically. His life and death, defined by hospitals; His peak and decline, defined by hospitals. How does Luz feel about such buildings now?

Manny would’ve empathized a lot with those in charge, but did he ever imagine he would empathize like this? Sometimes I think of the little fan theory that the Abomaton alarm genuinely triggered Luz because it reminded her of an ambulance that took her father to the hospital during a sudden medical emergency. These alarms are never pleasant anyway, nor is their context, but on some level it must hurt for something tied to her father and how he helped people to just be a reminder of how he couldn’t be helped. The hospital was once associated with her father’s heroics, but now…

On a brighter note, you could say that after helping people, Manny gets helped in return; But in the end it wasn’t enough. Or it did help, because it still got him some extra time with his family, enough to figure something out for his daughter that would keep her alive. Looking at the parallels to his daughter that he consciously taught, I wonder if Manny also wanted to be a hero; Luz’s obsession came from the book specifically, because it came from her dad.

Was Manny drawn to the medical industry to also help people? If so, he actually understood what people needed, which was more healers who could build people up. He didn’t become a cop or anything. And such a mundane and unglamorous way of life is better for the world; Because I think of how Luz wanted to be a hero, but aside from one gag with the Gildersnake, her focus has always been on helping people and not destroying her enemies.

You can see this in the good Luz has done, which comes more from helping others, some of whom were her enemies, than destroying or taking down people; The final enemy she can’t really help, Luz doesn’t even destroy herself, nor directly at least. And I think that hearkens a lot to what her father and mother do, and I wonder if that’s a specific ideal Manny had. Azura, as Luz describes it, is someone who befriends people and even enemies.

So I wonder if Manny actually read though the book, if he thought consciously what his final message was because it’s not just the act of giving the book itself, its what the book says, it’s how he’s choosing to impart his final beliefs by choosing something he thinks reflects them.

He’s not afraid of weird looks, it’s already acceptable for an adult like Mildred Featherwhyle to write this and consider her messages anyhow, so yeah he’ll read it in his hospital bed and place this under a critical lens. If anyone looks at him funny, Manny will snap at them unapologetically, Hey I’m dying, lemme have this! He wouldn’t need death as an excuse, mind you.

So Manny is an ‘author’ in a way, creating a message for his daughter, the other hidden author to Luz’s favorite fantasy. And Luz is the author of her own fantasy. Manny’s already a massive nerd, it’s what led him to Camila, to Luz, of course he’ll give that to her; It’s what leads Luz to Amity.

[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

[ludoka]

Mmm... I don't think he'll take it out on his brothers. I think his temper and extremism are a result of having to take care of everything on his own from a young age. After all, Genya tells Zenitsu that Sanemi behaves the same at home as he does at school. The only difference is that at home Sanemi plays with his brothers and cleans the house:

Sanemi is already aggressive with the students.

So I don't think it's a resentment towards his brothers. Plus Genya shows no signs of being cowed by Sanemi. If we take into account that in the main canon, Genya was VERY burdened by his past attitude. So it's easy to assume that in this timeline, if there was a situation similar to the main canon, Genya's attitude towards his brother would be different. But not.

We only see him scared in the Math exam chapter. And that has more to do with his desperation to recover what was confiscated from him for not getting a 100/100 on the last exam.

BUT...

Yes, I think it could be because of the situation he had to live through when he was young. Masachika implies that Sanemi was known at school for being a troublemaker. And the way he's dressed in the panels and his scars, he got into a lot of street fights. (thinking about the parallel with Hakuji. That he was also problematic when he was in high school. So much so that he let a con man convince him to get into street fights.)

So it can be assumed that part of his conflictual attitude was formed on the streets. (It's also easy to theorize that it's thanks to Masachika that Sanemi walked away from that life.)

I don't know how to explain it without going around in circles. But I think Sanemi's focus on the importance of studying may be due to the idea that studying is the only way to get ahead. So would be very demanding with Genya so that she does not repeat patterns. Sanemi seems to be acting on the idea that Genya does not deserve to be rewarded for something as "useless " as his target shooting hobby. Because it doesn't bring anything to the future. This may also be a reflection of the self-imposed expectations Sanemi must have for himself. He is probably using these same criteria to measure the performance of Genya and his students. Without thinking that perhaps these are very high or disproportionate standards for other people.

I also think you can take into account Aoi and Tanjirou's comments about Sanemi tending to have a rude attitude just to pretend and mask his true emotions. Like the chapter of the lost book, where Shinazugawa is seen yelling at Tomioka but Aoi says that it seems to be all a pantomime and that she will stop the moment there are not so many witnesses. With how stressed he was about the book, he was probably very relieved and grateful that Giyuu found it.

In the giant fish chapter, Tanjirou realizes that Shinazugawa went to the river because he was worried about the boys.

So you must also maintain a hostile attitude in an attempt not to be perceived as weak. Probably a result of his days as a troubled student. Where he should not be seen or perceived as weak before his enemies.

So I would say that his attitude is a mix of different factors. But not exactly out of resentment towards his brothers. Rather, it is more a conflict with their situation and their tendency to project their expectations onto others.

Unhinged theory

Okay so this theory is complete bullshit and doesn't have any merit but I just wanted to get it out of my system.

I wonder why Shizu didn't eat the kids the moment she killed them. Like we know that when you're turned into a demon you're overcome by a hunger so great that you won't be able to think straight.

Like okay, maybe she wanted to finish off Genya before she started feasting but she could have just eaten them, it's not like Genya posed any actual danger and her movements were too calculated like oneshotting all 4 kids including Koto and breaking the lights right before attacking Genya.

So here's my theory, I think Shizu deliberately killed her kids. Why? Because she was tired of them. Y'know how becoming a demon brings out the twisted version of your soul like Akaza's fighting, Dakis obsession with beauty and Gyutaros hatred of humanity, and Hantengu's entire existence? What if Shizu deep down was tired of being a mom? And she low-key resented her kids? What if she was tired of seeing them suffer?

Genya said she was very small but what if in reality she was just very young? Like in her late teens? It's not so out there after all Tamayo is 19 biologically and she had a husband and kids. Shizu could have been 14 or 15 when she had Sanemi.

So this is a young girl, married this older man, probably out of necessity or against her will, and given Kyogo's violence there's a chance that some of the kids were a product of rape.

She's living in poverty, married to an absolute dick of a husband who beats her all while trying to make ends meet and take care of SEVEN kids!

Even for the Taisho era, seven kids is a lot and other people seem to think so too, in the light novel Genya remembers how their landlord's son used to taunt them as 'the poor people with a lot of kids'.

The thing that really cemented this theory for me is the afterlife scene with Sanemi. Her shame. Not sadness or despair but shame. Shame so strong she doesn't even want to alert her kids to her existence and she covers her face and hides when she sees Sanemi. What if that shame stems from guilty? Guilt over her resentment towards her kids?

I'm not saying that Shizu hated her kids, but what if she was just...tired? Tired of being used as a punching bag? Tired of seeing her babies get hurt and go hungry every night? Tired of being treated like dirt and having people make fun of her family? Tired of being judged for circumstances that were out of her control? Tired of struggling? Tired of her life? Tired of everything?

Regarding Sanemi and Genya, I feel like they both have an idealized image of their mother and that's probably why Sanemi refused to accept the knowledge that Nezuko could resist attacking humans by thinking about her family, because then he would have to face the truth that maybe their mother never really loved them? Or that her love wasn't as strong as he thought?

It's a really hard pill to swallow for a lot of us because we don't want to think about the fact that our moms, even if they love us or at least tolerate us, may not have wanted us or may have thought their lives would've been better if they hadn't had us.

This isn't uncommon in real life either. The subreddit r/regretfulparents has over 120k members, then there's this insightful thread where parents who regret having kids share their feelings, there's also experiences from women here and here.

Something to think about. I'm sorry but I feel like the Shinazugawa kids, all they truly had was each other and they didn't know it. They never really stood a chance.

Yea so...

[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

[youturningintodust]

From this, come so many books that were made so unrecognizable as fanfiction that they decided to just go ahead and file those numbers off and publish.

when canon gives you an underdeveloped character and you just have to make do:

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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 perhaps 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 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.

[loveless-arobee]

Loveless/heartless aros: "I wish there was some more books (or other forms of media) that don't center around love..."

Some other aspecs: "Don't you mean romance?" "Here's books about platonic love!" "Reminder that romance=/=love! Aros can still love!" "I think you should switch "love" for "romance" there, OP! :)"

And:

AlloAros/AroAllos/other non-ace aros: "I wish there was some representation for us anywhere :/"

Some aspecs: "Here's ten-thousand characters that I headcanon as AroAce!" "I think all characters should be AroAce :)" "You should read these AroAce/Ace books!"

sigh

Maybe, just maybe, learn to listen to people different from you, and stop making everything about yourself. I know there's also very little AroAce/Ace representation, but that doesn't mean you can make every post about non-ace aros about yourself.

Especially when you come onto post by people who have even less than you. You can make lists of AroAce characters, while I can't even think of one canonically AlloAro character who wasn't only confirmed via word of god (and yes, I'm counting my boy Vargo into that, I love him and it was obvious for me what the authors were intending, but overall his aromanticism is completely ignored by almost everyone who read the books because it "wasn't obvious enough in the text"), and even those who were only confirmed via word of god I can barely think of any besides Vargo who actually show that in any meaningful kind of way in the text, while I know multiple canonically AroAce characters.

And loveless characters literally don't exist outside of villains who don't feel love because they're evil, and are evil because they don't feel love.