#these two still dont belong here and i still feel guilty betraying them

[saikyouiku]

[blookmallow]

and finally, the conclusion of the dark brotherhood questline 

i have been through so much and lost so much but i gained the one thing that matters most of all.....  cicero’s heart 

-----

well

these aren’t the real emperor’s clothes but i have this still,

i put it on the dawnstar sanctuary mannequin with the jester hat lmao

:( my favorite guard friend who hangs out around the shops in the mornings with me is onto me 

hes not hostile or reporting me to the jarl or anything at least tho 

Dont woRRY About It

i did have guards after me for a while (i had. several just go ‘ok ill let you off this time :)’ bc. i. asked nicely. after attempting to assassinate the emperor of skyrim) but eventually just paid my bounty and they were like ok you’re good and now apparently everyone has completely forgotten That Time I Tried To Murder The Fucking Emperor 

anyway after the fucking massacre that happened at the sanctuary i was absolutely Out For Blood

i mean like....... i realize maro is completely justified here. we are in fact a league of assassins guilty of murdering A Lot of people, we very much did make a real attempt on the emperor’s life (and killed his double, who was less important but still like, an innocent guy, presumably)(or even if it was like that death note thing where its actually a criminal on death row anyway, like, we clearly didnt know that) and i did personally murder maro’s son and ruin his reputation, so. like. we are the bad guys in this situation no matter how you look at it lmao but STILL THOSE WERE MY FRIENDS, FUCKER

so i decided to murder him out of pure spite, but. uh

I DONT REMEMBER WHAT I DID TO CAUSE THIS BUT I ACTUALLY GOT THE SOLITUDE GUARDS TO MURDER HIM FOR ME LMAO I DIDNT EVEN HAVE TO DO ANYTHING

im trying to remember what the fuck even happened here im clearly. underwater, i think maybe i like. confronted him and he got hostile but i jumped off the pier and the guards were like “woah that guy’s losing it” and intervened but he fought them too or something ??? ??  I DONT KNOW BUT THE GUARDS KILLED HIM FOR ME :’) thanks guys 

then after everything we still kept the contract, and... the new plan.... was for me to sneak onto the emperor’s ship before he leaves skyrim and kill him there.... WHICH I COULD HAVE FUCKING. DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE. THIS IS SO MUCH EASIER THAN... KILLING SOME OFFICIAL’S SON AND PLANTING FALSE EVIDENCE AND TRACKING DOWN THE GOURMET AND MURDERING HIM AND IMPERSONATING HIM TO TRY TO POISON THE EMPEROR AND IMPLICATING A RANDOM CHEF WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AND

EVERYONE IS DEAD!!!!! WE COULD HAVE AVOIDED ABSOLUTELY ALL OF THIS. WAS ASTRID GETTING ME ALL MIXED UP IN THIS WILD GOOSE CHASE ON PURPOSE FROM THE BEGINNING ?? ? ? SORRY!!! IM ANGRY

i got all the way here without anyone even seeing me (i used a couple invisibility potions for the really tricky spots, but still) i could absolutely have just done this and avoided the entire everything. god 

anyway i again dont really understand the politics of skyrim but. the real emperor was expecting me to find him one way or another. he had already accepted his death and made peace with it. it was. actually kind of sad. i dont know enough to say whether he was actually a decent guy or not but he seemed like he was. i couldnt bring myself to steal his clothes so i still just have the duplicate emperor’s clothes but it looks the same anyway

i took a war axe from one of his displays though. i dont remember if i already mentioned my ongoing tradition of always taking something from my victims and enchanting them later to mark who it belonged to, but thats a thing ive been doing. little murder scrapbook

im not really sure how murdering the emperor counts as “serving the empire�� but sure ok 

i also killed this guy lmao the emperor’s last wish was for me to kill whoever it was that betrayed him and i dont like this dude in the first place so i was like yea you got it 

i built a memorial with the weapons rack in my room in the dawnstar sanctuary

enchanted special weapons for each of our fallen members (left to right it’s astrid, arnbjorn, festus, gabriella, and veezara) (i also later added another dagger for lis bc i had one space left) 

theres also gemstones on the floor beneath each weapon but they keep sliding out of place :’ | 

ANGEL DARLING SONG OF MY HEART LIGHT OF MY LIFE YOU’RE ALIVE

you can see the game autosaving in the corner bc i had Just come out of the sanctuary lmao thats how lightning fast i reacted to this 

[sobbing] baby boy.... baby.... i was SO WORRIED

i murdered the fucking emperor of skyrim bc i was so desperate to continue this questline to see if cicero would come back I DID ALL OF THIS FOR YOU.....

(he pranked me and pretended he was gonna kill me at first. i almost lost it thinking he STILL wouldnt forgive me but it was ok :’) u got me, ) 

sniffs...... best friends forever........ this is the best possible outcome this is all ive ever wanted it was all worth it for this 

we got our window back!!!!! also ft cicero subtitle photobombing me with his boundless enthusiasm for murder but i forgive him 

oof we also have... a bunch of torture victims hanging around now too :’ ) oh

i kinda feel bad about them but there doesnt seem to be an option to let them go, 

i mean i could just kill them all i guess. i killed one guy to see if i could. you Can. his body is still there. nobody seemed to care that i killed him

I TURNED AROUND AFTER NAZIR SAID THAT AND CICERO’S JUST. LOOKING AT ME LIKE THIS,

i fuckign love this cute little shit. what the fuck. this is such justice too everyone was so rude to him, everyone made fun of him and talked down to him, everyone wanted him dead after he went after astrid, but she sold us out and got everyone killed, he was RIGHT, and now hes the right-hand-man to the Listener who is now ALSO the leader of the brotherhood. he’s basically second in command to the entire organization now and nobody can do a goddamn thing about it bc they all KNOW not to fuck with me now 

i also realized hes taller than me and i dont like it, :’)

im still deciding medea’s taller than him anyway i dont care. she would be taller than the character model is allowing for

he likes to randomly start singing/humming really off key/dancing around its SO cute.... im lov him...............

darling..... calm down, :’) 

hes so completely devoted to me now im in pain

i realized i could tell him to go to sleep and he actually did it the absolute madman 

he gets up if you try to sleep beside him though

i mean. not that i tried that or anything

he stands SO close to me all the time.... i turn around and hes right there beaming adoringly at me. i cant do this 

he kept saying mother needed some flowers so i took him out to collect some nightshade for her n dropped them around her feet 

���whats the point of thievery lol like..... just kill them?????? stupid” 

having cicero constantly two feet behind me jus making cute comments and/or half singing The Weirdest Shit I Have Ever Heard is absolutely delightful 

ur so cute when you’re threatening people

he also hates the forsworn see we’re in sync

I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE AGAIN

me, the leader of the brotherhood, in full brotherhood armor, with cicero following right behind me giggling to himself about murder:

[joannalannister]

Have you written anything on Jaime's decision at the end of AFFC? Because it's so associated with "Jaime breaking free of toxic Lannister (especially Cersei)" and I just didn't get that vibe from it?

Hi! I don’t think I’ve ever written anything about it because this topic is the wankiest of wank bait, but yeah, like you, I’ve personally never felt that Jaime was “breaking free” of the toxicity of House Lannister from his chapters in AFFC/ADWD. 

(I don’t know who or what you’re quoting in this ask, and I mean no offense to whoever is saying that. This is just my opinion on Jaime’s FeastDance chapters and obviously some people interpret it differently and that’s cool. I’m really not looking for wank here.)

So when you say “Jaime’s decision at the end of AFFC” I’m assuming you mean this one?

“No, my lord. The bird was from King’s Landing. I took the liberty … I did not know …” He held the letter out. 

Jaime read it in the window seat, bathed in the light of that cold white morning. Qyburn’s words were terse and to the point, Cersei’s fevered and fervent. Come at once, she said. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once. 

Vyman was hovering by the door, waiting, and Jaime sensed that Peck was watching too. “Does my lord wish to answer?” the maester asked, after a long silence. 

A snowflake landed on the letter. As it melted, the ink began to blur. Jaime rolled the parchment up again, as tight as one hand would allow, and handed it to Peck. “No,” he said. “Put this in the fire.”

To me, this passage reflects how Jaime really doesn’t have the answers, at least right now: “He found himself wondering what his father would do to feed the realm, before he remembered that Tywin Lannister was dead.”

Cersei makes herself plain: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

But how does Jaime feel about Cersei? Does he hate her? (And speaking of feelings, what does Jaime feel toward his father, who told him that love was useless? And what of Tyrion, the brother he loved? And what of Br*enne, a true knight from the stories come to life?) Can Jaime even help Cersei? Does he love her? (“The question is, who are you?”) (”Would you sooner have a father or a chair, lad? Jaime wished he knew the answer.”) Can he save her? Does he love her? Does he need her? Does he love her?

Jaime’s a whole mess of conflicted emotions right now, and he wishes things could be like they were:

There was a time, not long ago, when he might have been out making snowballs with the best of them, to fling at Tyrion when he waddled by, or slip down the back of Cersei’s gown. You need two hands to make a decent snowball, though.

But Jaime has only “One hand, clasped tight around the sword hilt. Only one” and really, literally, Jaime has no answers at the moment. So he delays, he demurs. “Put this in the fire.” He is not ready to answer Cersei yet.

“The sooner we are done with Riverrun, the sooner I’ll be back at Cersei’s side.” What Jaime would do then he did not know.

Consider:

“There is sitting and there is sitting, […] Each one [Tywin/Robb] waits for the other to move”

and:

Cersei gave him a lingering look. “You know,” she said, “for a moment you [Jaime] sounded quite like Father.”

I think you also have to consider the context of this decision. The maester reads his mail, and Jaime’s squire who admires and adores him “was watching too” so how could Jaime respond, even if he did have answers? ”Would you sooner have a father or a chair, lad? Jaime wished he knew the answer.” // “The question is, who are you?” // “We are not Targaryens!”

Also, everyone believes that Jaime is still a fearsome swordsman. I don’t think Cersei (or most people, for that matter) realizes that Jaime can’t be her champion. If Jaime were to champion her, Cersei would lose her trial (bad), and Jaime’s secret would be revealed (also bad). Jaime’s relying on his reputation. (And Genna said Jaime wasn’t Tywin’s true heir. Heh.) 

How can Jaime explain that he cannot help Cersei, cannot save her, and in a letter, no less? A letter read/written by Vyman, who served Edmure Tully, and Hoster before him? A letter that could easily be intercepted? No, he could not give Cersei an explanation in his letter. He could only give her a refusal, and that would infuriate her. (Does he love her? Does he love her? Does he love her?) 

He says these things in ADWD:

Past time this was ended, thought Jaime Lannister. With Riverrun now safely in Lannister hands, Raventree was the remnant of the Young Wolf’s short-lived kingdom. Once it yielded, his work along the Trident would be done, and he would be free to return to King’s Landing. To the king, he told himself, but another part of him whispered, to Cersei.

He would have to face her, he supposed. Assuming the High Septon had not put her to death by the time he got back to the city. “Come at once,” she had written, in the letter he’d had Peck burn at Riverrun. “Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.” Her need was real enough, Jaime did not doubt. As for the rest … she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know … Even if he had gone back, he could not hope to save her. She was guilty of every treason laid against her, and he was short a sword hand.

(^^This “She was guilty of every treason…” sort of makes me worried, as if Jaime is perhaps deflecting all the blame for his own treasons onto Cersei, like it doesn’t take two to tango….) 

Anyways … I personally wouldn’t describe this as Jaime ~breaking free~ of the Lannister regime when a part of him is looking forward to returning to Cersei. 

But I think there’s another part of Jaime that doesn’t want to return to Cersei, which is why he so readily jaunts off with Br*enne to chase his dreams of true knighthood. 

That’s the thing about Jaime imo. He’s a man divided. Torn between Lannister crimson and Kingsguard white, between his (older) sister and his baby brother, between Cersei and Br*enne, between one vow and another, between his loyalty to the Lannister regime and his aspirations of true knighthood. 

“So many vows … they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.“

Jaime’s the middle child, Beauty and Beast both. We first meet him wearing black, but he’s renowned for his kingsguard white, but allegedly “it was that white cloak that soiled” Jaime and reduced him to this grey liminality. He vacillates back and forth, an ever swinging pendulum. One moment he is angered that Gregor would smash Pia’s teeth in, another moment fantasizing that he “smashed his sister’s teeth to splinters with his golden hand, just as Gregor Clegane had done to poor Pia.” 

I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s like Jaime is trying to ride two horses in the Riverlands, and he can’t ride two horses. He’s trying to hold on to everything, Cersei and Tyrion, honor and glory, all that, but now he has only one hand, and he can’t hold on to two things at once any more. “Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”

But Jaime hasn’t come to that choosing yet. “Throw this in the fire.”

In ADWD we see the pendulum swing toward Br*enne, but what will happen in TWOW? How will Jaime feel when he learns his true knight has lied to him, and that even true knights can be grey? I imagine Jaime will feel betrayed. I suspect a second litany of betrayal for Br*enne, analogous to the one for Cersei: “… she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know …" 

“False as fool’s gold.” 

After escaping Stoneheart, Jaime will go to King’s Landing at last:

Once he found the Blackfish, he would be free to return to King’s Landing, where he belonged. My place is with my king. With my son. 

But I think Jaime arrives to find Tommen dead, and Cersei fled with Myrcella to her last stronghold, Casterly Rock, since KL is about to be destroyed, entirely. And Jaime will have failed yet another king. 

Nothing in AFFC/ADWD suggests to me that Jaime’s abandoned the Lannister regime, despite how angry he is at Cersei. He still supports Tommen, and I will bet money that Jaime follows Cersei to CR after the wildfire explosion at the end of TWOW and that he eventually recognizes Myrcella as his queen in the beginning of ADOS.

And I don’t know what’s going to push Jaime over the edge, but I will bet money that Jaime will valonqar Cersei at Casterly Rock in ADOS. I think this is Jaime’s choosing, and I think he will actively choose Lannister toxicity. Strangling your sister/lover sounds like a pretty toxic thing to me, no? idk I could be wrong, who knows.

But I don’t see Jaime actively working to bring down the Lannister regime. idk what happens with Jaime after Cersei’s death, all bets are off once she dies, but at least right now, there’s nothing to me that suggests that Jaime recognizes that Tommen has no right to the Throne, that the Lannisters have no right to sieze Riverrun, no right to hunt the Blackfish, or that the entire government is corrupt, things which I think would be necessary for Jaime to distance himself from the evils of House Lannister?

(I think it’s Tyrion who is beginning to understand that the Lannister regime is wrong, he was the only one calling out Lannister bullshit even when he was in the middle of said bullshit. Tyrion hasn’t yet escaped from Tywin’s dark, toxic shadow, but I think it’s Tyrion who does that, not Jaime.) 

TLDR - nope, im like you, i dont get that vibe either. Maybe I’m wrong tho *shrug emoji*

[viralhottopics]

Why sex and love dont belong in the same bed

Theres never anything profound about erotic contact. Sex is purely a hormonal act, whereas love, as expressed in a hug, brings true intimacy

Sex sells, they say, and Im as guilty as anyone of finding headlines such as How to keep the sex alive in your marriage irresistible. I pore over these articles, never quite trusting their advice, but still discussing them with my girlfriends ad infinitum.

But is sex really about love, about connecting with your partner in some mysterious, profound way?

No, I dont think it is. I think the 20th century made the whole story up, and we bought it because it suited us. We went from sex-shame to sex-worship in a few heady years.

We are told again and again that sex is communicative. I always think, What are they talking about? Have I ever communicated anything during sex? I dont think so. Some women are confident enough to tell their partners exactly what they want in bed, so yes (I mustnt be totally cynical), you might just communicate as well as you do to a plumber, explaining where a leak is coming from. And just being naked with someone is a real act of trust. But beyond this, I have absolutely no idea what is going on in my partners head when we have sex, and he has absolutely no idea what is going on in mine.

I once risked asking my partner whether he thought sex could ever be spiritual. Spiritual! he laughed. The spirit doesnt enter into it. Sex is about lust, about desire, about a particular physical experience that is intensely pleasurable. Its about Spurs coming top of the league, a good day at work, a way of dealing with surplus emotion which makes you able to sleep well. Sex has never been about the spirit, not for a day!

One of the most alarming things about sex, I find, is the role of fantasy within it. Regardless of whether it is true, we are still taught that sex is about love. There seems to be a huge conflict here. Having sex with one man, thinking of another am I persuaded that counts as loving?

In the early 80s, as part of my training as a probation officer, I learned how to be a sex therapist in a week. No mention of the word love, incidentally: it was all technique and teaching my clients how to fantasise about film stars.

At that time, I thought it was all quite amusing. I was in my 20s, and quite happy to share erotic stories with my then husband, about innocent virgins and their seduction. But now I am 56: and thank God I dont know what goes on in my husbands head.

We were lovers, first, at 20. Is he remembering how smooth and silky and firm my flesh was then, as he feels my middle-aged spread? Is he thinking of the lovely young woman whos just started at his work, the one who is turning everyones head? Or is he just away with the fairies? I once asked him what it felt like as a man to have sex and he told me he felt like a bicycle tyre being blown up. Oddly, I found this hugely reassuring. It could have been so much worse.

And what if he could see what was in my head? What if he knew I was thinking of a scene from a Japanese pornographic movie I saw yonks ago? I complain that sex is not communicative except in the most mundane ways. But what if it really was? What if, at the end of the sex act, we swapped printouts of what we were honestly thinking about, whether that consisted of shopping lists or secret objects of lust? Would we feel closer, more loved by our partners? Or would we feel undermined, betrayed, jealous, appalled?

Sex is not about souls. We have sexual desire when we want to have sex, not when we love someone. If that wasnt the case, it would be the oldies who were all having rampant sex after 40 years of a happy marriage, whod be the writers of agony columns advising those poor young people how being kind and considerate and bringing a cup of tea to their partner in bed will really get the pulse racing.

The older I get, the more sceptical I get. Sex is a neutral and colourless thing, and a higher or lower sex drive is caused by hormones that are hard to control. For hundreds of years, societies and religions have tried to harness this drive. But for the past 60 years, we in the west have been quite sure we know best: every other age and culture has been wrong. We are right. Sex is the most profound form of human love, the deepest expression. What a load of nonsense. How were we ever taken in? Because we wanted permission to have a good time.

Sex is not about souls, its about bodies, and the thing about bodies is that they are objects: dont complain about men treating them as such, we women treat them like objects, too. We pierce them, tattoo them, adorn them, beautify them to our hearts content. I was bemoaning this fact to a gay friend of mine, saying: Its dreadful and destructive what modern culture would have us believe. By conflating sex and love, we have young people wanting plastic surgery to change their bodies. They think that by having surgery theyll become more shaggable, and therefore more lovable. Isnt that pathetic?

He said to me: Of course sex is about bodies. And what are the young people who dont want surgery so complacent about? We have the technology. They should be having surgery, too.

I am such a romantic. I believe in love from the bottom of my heart. Theres a couple in our village who have been married for 60 years: I watch them walking their dog every morning, hand in hand. Where has that kind of love gone to? Will we ever get back there again?

Nowadays, for people who have been married for a long time, sex is the minefield that separates them. Everyone feels they ought to be having it, ought to be enjoying it, that it ought to be an expression of their love. They are too tired for groundbreaking sex, but they hunger for affection. Human beings crave to hold and be held, but we stay on our side of the bed in case a sexual performance is demanded. Its all a very sad and sorry story.

How did we get here? Where did we go wrong? Why are so many relationships just so fragile?

Love and erotic love are two very different emotions I would argue they are almost contrary. Love proper is to do with the other person: it is about the care, respect and understanding of that human other. Love like this grows, it cannot help it. The more of yourself you invest in another person, the more you receive. You become as one: their pain is your pain, their joy, yours too.

Erotic love, on the other hand, is about wanting something.

The French are right: you cannot desire what you already have. In fact, another article I recently devoured was written by a French sex therapist. It was about how to have a fulfilling sex life in your 60s. I wanted to disparage it, as I do all the others, but she was absolutely right: keep yourself in trim, buy sex toys, watch pornography, have an affair if you dare, keep yourself aloof from your husband, sleep in a separate bed, use a separate bathroom. And certainly dont allow your husband into your innermost thoughts.

I put the paper down and I thought, Thats all very well, and true, but who would want a marriage like that?

Marriages all about me fail: every time, its unbearable to me, the children are always distraught as mine were when I divorced and sex, in one guise or another, is always the reason. Either one of the partners has fallen in love with someone else (ie, fancies someone rotten and wants to pursue it), or there is simply a mismatch (and perhaps only temporary) of libido. I just dont buy the deep incompatibility malarkey love and sex being bedfellows, the one reflecting the other. Its far more likely youre working too hard or have got young children.

If you want a good marriage, forget the hysteria about sex. Just take care of your partner, have a good chat, make sure theyre OK, and give them a good, felt, daily hug.

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