#the songs in order are:

[omegaverse-bfdi]

ii + blixemi lyrics

[gatoburr0]

Wdym this is a totally serious song for their gym playlist

Sound on please

[thatone-highlighter]

I love you albums. I love you songs connected by similar themes. I love you listening to songs in a specific order picked by the artist. I love you reoccurring motifs throughout the same album. I love you album covers. I love you albums with extended editions. I love you songs that reference each other.

[tfisathoughtfulnickelbakeryfire]

Ooh fun!! I don't have Spotify actually but wtv it's all the same to me.

she knows this feeling all too well

did I mention that I'm in love with you?

when I was six years old, I broke my leg

그런 날이 있어

they got me cornered, got me tongue tied

Istanbul was Constantinople

I don't really give a damn about the way you touch me

전해주고 싶어 슬픈 시간이

you're keeping me up, keep me up, keep me up

I stay out too late

can't say I wasn't expecting the Korean songs lol. I'm actually kind of proud of myself that I can read and write it by myself now instead of copy-pasting

anyways. @mundrakan @miceymoose @sun-moon-and-stars4 @mrcrabsworld @mmmmmmmmicrowave if u feel like it :)

put your spotify on shuffle and write down the first lyric of the first ten songs that come on, post the poem that results - tagged by @kore538

today is my birthday and i'm riding high

two hearts fading like a flower

i put one foot in front of the other

i've been thinking, thinking it over

there is a house built out of stone

get me out

me, i've come apart and you made me

talk to me and watch me crumble

check out my melody

i'm searching for something that i can't reach

not sure that made much sense but alas 😂 tagging anyone who wants to do it, cba to tag anyone specifically

[driften-sea-snake]

level 1 fantasy author: what if you could fuck your clone lol?

miyazaki and grrm: your clone ceases to be an exact copy of you a second after it enters existence. the subjective nature of consciousness means that a different experience of reality is created. a unique history inevitably results in a different person with their own memory and desires. you and your clone would immediately be separated by the vast, lonely distances of individual consciousness. and even if you were to merge again, you would not find the comfort of yourself but the horror of being known by another. holding your hammer before the ring of life, the same strike would express contradictory yearnings for rebirth and stagnation

also miyazaki and grrm: just to be clear, in this scenario you're still fucking your clone, you're both getting divorces to do it, you're making clone babies, you're making your clone bark like a dog,

[synchodai]

HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics

So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.

The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.

Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.

Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.

Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.

(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)

In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.

Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.

Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).

In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.

Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood

the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens

hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.

Here are the arguments for Aegon II:

many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]

Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92

the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter

Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”

Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).

For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.

Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.

And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?

This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".

[transsongtaewon]

[u3pxx]

seeing double

[tombstoneswerewaiting]

something about how ioh, folie, mania, and smfs are all connected and i’m not normal about it

[omegaverse-bfdi]

ii characters + the songs they remind me of !

[artoutforblood]

Decided to compile my comic into one

[divorcedfiddleford]

and you may say to yourself: "my god! what have i done?" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful wife!" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful house!" and you may ask yourself: "well, how did i get here?"

time isn't holding up, time isn't after us, time is a pony ride! (images described in alt text)

[liquidcrystalsky]

Last shitpost before i start ripping things again

inspired by this video which is personally iconic to me and you should all see (very loud at the end)

[tiffanyachings]

it would have been very beautiful. camilla would have had to cook (horrible bone soup)

[sshannonauthor]

‘The night we met, I saw your face and knew that you could be the end of me. This night, I fear the same.’

-

I’m beyond delighted to reveal the cover of The Dark Mirror, the fifth book in the Bone Season series, designed by Carmen R. Balit and illustrated by Ivan Belikov, with art direction by David Mann. 

I couldn’t love this cover more – it fits perfectly alongside the other books while also having a fresh, nocturnal palette for this brand-new instalment of the series. I can’t even imagine how gorgeous it’s going to look when it’s foiled. Endless thanks to Ivan, as always, for his exquisite illustrations.

The Dark Mirror will be published in hardback, ebook and audio format on 25 February 2025. Signed copies are available to pre-order now from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble; more special editions to be announced.

Pre-order links here.