#tumblr replies

[madlori]

ok at first I was like "wtf did they do to the replies" because they look weird but then I realized that the replies are now THREADED which is actually...an improvement?? in this economy?!?

[goodqueenaly]

@althaeaofficinalis reblogged your post “One aspect of Baelor’s reign that I find...”

A part of me, familiar with this level of religious zeal in both history and irl, wonders if perhaps Baelor's choices (still earnestly meant through his own zealousness and belief in his ecclesiastical kingship) didn't also serve to place the Faith by his own direction. By which I mean: the High Septons Baelor had divine revelations about were a) conveniently not septons at all and b) were in no way educated or mature enough to navigate the poltical or religious function of being High Septon in their own right, and so by necessity would have to rely on Baelor himself to maneuver through those political minefields. This isn't to say that Baelor didn't believe in his own proclamations (really that's up for debate, on a sliding scale of cynicism, but I'm inclined to believe he genuinely believed in his own visions) - more that hmmm isn't it crazy how his divinely inspired visions led him to candidates who would be wholly reliant on himself to lead the Faith?

It’s an interesting consideration, whether Baelor was being deliberately ambitious and/or calculating in his choices for these two successive High Septons. I do absolutely see Baelor as an ambitious person, and I certainly think Baelor was not interested in simply allowing the Faith to run the country while he entered de facto monastic retirement. Still, I tend to think that Baelor saw himself as almost in a way above the Faith - again, a sort of divine right of kings, where he was to some extent on a pedestal above the Faith, receiving the instructions of the gods directly and then transmitting them to both Faith and people. He wasn’t trying to run the Faith himself, necessarily, but rather he was going to transmit to the Faith how the gods had told him they wanted the Faith to be run

I could also see where Baelor’s goal may have been less about attempting to control the Faith himself via a convenient puppet (or two) and more about forcibly humbling the Most Devout, perhaps in line with his own zealous humility.  Rigorously ascetic himself, and certainly willing to chasten the haughty - demonstrated in that anecdote of the “proud Lord Belgrave” made to "wash the beggar's ulcerous feet" by the king - Baelor may have been disappointed in or distrustful of the Most Devout if he saw this body as too comfortable, too removed from what Baelor may have believed were the fundamentals of the Faith of the Seven. If Baelor saw himself as a divinely appointed king charged with shepherding his wayward subjects back to the Seven - and I think he did, given his attempts to (as he saw) correct public morals by banning sex work and burning risqué and “sorcerous” books - then there may have been no reason, in Baelor’s mind, not to extend that purification to the Most Devout.

In turn, perhaps Baelor saw the remedy outside the Most Devout as an institution, a solution apparently validated by the gods themselves. If Baelor sought the will of the Seven beyond the persons of the Most Devout, then there may have seemed no better symbol than the Smith supposedly incarnating himself in a common stonemason, and then the Seven supposedly zoomorphizing themselves to appear before a draper’s son. The Seven, so. Baelor may have seen it, were using the lowest of his subjects, those people whom Baelor himself had emptied his treasury to provide for, to present themselves in the world, perhaps not unlike how they had in the days of Hugor of the Hill. Their appearance, as the king may have seen it, did not simply confirm Baelor’s rightness in caring for the smallfolk, but also seemingly proved that only the meekest and lowliest in his realm would receive the favor of the Seven. Just as the gods had, Baelor may have believed, struck down the Targaryen dragons to punish the Targaryens for their heretical Exceptionalism, so perhaps the gods had removed their favor from the Most Devout and designated the successors of the High Septon among the common people in order to show that even those at the highest levels of the Faith could be chastened if they were not pure and humble enough, the way that these smallfolk were. 

If Baelor was thinking along these lines, then perhaps there is a comparison to be made to the ascension of the High Sparrow in ASOIAF. Like the stonemason Pate and the draper’s son, the High Sparrow was very obviously not a member of the Most Devout, and was like them almost certainly a commoner himself. If the election of the High Sparrow - when “the sparrows came pouring into the Great Sept with their leader on their shoulders and their axes in their hands” - was something of a “vox populi, vox Dei” moment for the Most Devout (at least in terms of the election’s spiritual justification), Baelor I think may have seen the same in his choices for High Septon - the voice of the Seven spoken, supposedly literally, through the mouths of these, to borrow the High Sparrow’s turn of phrase, “humblest and most common of men”. Just as the High Sparrow - who himself seems to hold Baelor in high regard - set the Most Devout septon Raynard to scrubbing floors and confined his Most Devout brother Torbert to a penitent’s cell, so perhaps Baelor also saw his reign’s Most Devout as needing similar correcting from a humble source. If Baelor would not literally hand the members of the Most Devout a scrub brush and a bucket (although I could see him doing that too), he might, nevertheless, have felt it prudent to set above them a master (or two, consecutively) who was (and were) from the lowest levels of Westerosi society, the better to remind them of their abasement before the Seven.

(To continue my pastime of paralleling Baelor and brother Daeron, to see them as more alike than they might appear at first blush - perhaps we can draw a broad parallel between Daeron’s governance of Dorne following the Submission of Sunspear and Baelor’s choice of first Pate and then the draper’s son as High Septons. Daeron had received the ostensible fealty of the Prince of Dorne and his vassals at the Submission of Sunspear, but clearly he was not interested in leaving Dorne in the hands of the Dornish following (what he saw as) the completion of his Conquest; instead, according to Yandel, “Lord Lyonel Tyrell was given charge of Dorne after the Young Dragon returned in triumph to King's Landing”. Just as Daeron had set above his (would-be) new subjects a governor not of their own body, as a sign of the king’s favor toward one of the most fervent supporters of his war, so Baelor set above the Most Devout two High Septons not from their own number, chosen for the divine favor seemingly shown to Pate and the draper’s son. Too, just as Daeron’s choice may have been intended to humble the Dornish and bring them forcibly into the feudal structure of his realm - putting them under the rule of a Reachman, despite or rather because of the historical animosity between Dorne and the Reach - so I think Baelor’s choice was designed, at least in part, to humble the Most Devout to the physical and spiritual meekness Baelor himself emphasized and prized.) 

I’m also reminded a little bit - I know, it me - of the seventh novel in The Accursed Kings, The King Without a Kingdom. The narrator of the story is Cardinal Hélie de Talleyrand, a very high-ranking and aristocratic French prelate. During the novel, the cardinal describes the three papal elections at which he, the cardinal, was eligible to be elected pope but always somehow missed the tiara. The election which clearly bothers him most is that of 1352, following the death of Pope Clement VI. Cardinal Talleyrand moans that during the 1352 conclave, “my impediment was … the fact that I was too princely … [t]oo grand seigneur, too extravagant”, and notes that “[t]here are occasions when the Church is seized with a sudden passion for humility, for modesty”. According to Cardinal Talleyrand, his fellow cardinals “wanted a man of the people … a simple soul, a humble being, a plain one”. While the cardinal, somewhat self-satisfied, remembers that he was “barely able to prevent their electing Jean Birel, a holy man – oh! most certainly, a holy man – but who hasn’t an ounce of a mind suited for government”, he concludes that he “managed to have Étienne Aubert proclaimed Pope, he who was born to poverty”. 

[crewdlydrawn]

We’re all having A Time, I see. 👍

[silvermoon424]

Woah, when did they roll out this new reply system? It'll be weird to get used to but I think it will make tracking conversations on popular posts easier.

[boofindoopin]

Thank you @rey-diem. This made me giggle more than I should have, and reminded me of my love for this app.

[harpysix]

Tumblr what sort of shenanigans are you up to now?

[mathsbian]

Replies have gotten so spammy like. Everywhere. And I just remembered there are settings to restrict who can reply to your posts (forcing people who really want to say something in response to reblog instead and be more visible with it).

So my replies are a bit tighter now. Just in case. Sick of seeing so many bots and shitty blogs from random corners of tumblr everywhere. More people should consider this.

[tumbl-comments]

[writingwife-83]

I’ve been a bit quieter on this app lately, but I gotta say I love the change they made to the reply format within posts. Like when you reply to a reply, now it’s grouped together. Definitely better imo! 👏

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Why do you turn your comments off? Are you afraid of someone challenging the basis of your posts?

I genuinely have no idea why people think they should be entitled to vomit random nonsense onto blogs they don't follow or otherwise engage with. Or why people should be so gullible as to fall for such a weak manipulation attempt.

Even if I had them turned off, that's my business. I'm not obliged to entertain your opinions. That's for your blog, not mine. My freedom of speech does not obligate me to platform you or give you a leg up through my follower base. Much less facilitate drive-by comments.

The problem with today's world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense! -- Professor Brian Cox

Next time you don't know how a Tumblr feature works, maybe check the Tumblr Help first. They have a whole website that can answer your question. And if you have a problem with this feature, take it up with their developers.

[bloodbonnieking]

Are replies not working for y'all too?

[fangirl-nadir]

Hey Tumblr, what does "replies are restricted for this post" mean? Is that just your new way of saying "replies are turned off?" I am so confused

[goodqueenaly]

@windriverdelta reblogged your post “You said you were worried about Jeyne Westerling....”

Another thing worth adding is that it's not clear whether Tom O'Sevens knows that Jeyne Westerling is innocent. If he doesn't, then Lady Stoneheart won't be forewarned and instead assume that the Westerlings were all in on the Red Wedding, in line with her indiscriminate approach. In that case, it might be her that kills Jeyne rather than Prester - which is more dramatic and thematically appropriate IMO. If he does, then it gets a bit murkier - @turtle-paced and @goodqueenaly do we know whether Tom O'Sevens was around for Jaime's meetings with the Westerlings?

It’s unclear where Tom o'Sevens was exactly, physically speaking, between the end of “Jaime VI” (when Jaime leaves Tom to sing “The Rains of Castamere” to Edmure as Edmure is in the bath) and near the end of “Jaime VII” (when Jaime reencounters Tom as the latter listens to Emmon Frey’s long speech to the people of Riverrun). While there is certainly no mention of Tom being present when Jaime speaks with Jeyne and her mother (or, rather, to Jeyne and with Sybell) - only the nameless guardsman who notifies Jaime of the Westerlings' arrival and the guardsman (who may be the same individual) who escorts Lady Westerling from Lord Tully’s solar - it’s certainly at least remotely possible that news or rumors of this conversation reached Tom somewhere within the castle or the surrounding camp. Of course, even in such a scenario, you might think Tom or other onlookers would have noticed and/or heard about either Jeyne’s tearful declarations of her devotion to Robb or her small but spirited attempt to show herself in mourning for her husband - a pretty solid piece of evidence in Jeyne’s favor against any condemnation by the brotherhood.

In any event, I tend to see Jeyne’s death, as I mentioned, coming not at the hands (or rope) of Lady Stoneheart and the brotherhood but rather at the hands (or arrows) of Ser Forley and his men. For one, I don’t see any indication in the books that Lady Stoneheart and/or the brotherhood without banners believes that the Westerlings were in on or responsible for the Red Wedding. Certainly, nothing in either Merrett Frey’s or Brienne’s encounters with the brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart seems to imply that the group is looking for the Westerlings. Lem tells Brienne that Lady Stoneheart wanted “the men who killed [Robb] dead”, whom Lem himself identifies as “Freys and Boltons”. Too, while the brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart were certainly willing to hang Brienne and her companions, the obvious (though far from simple or sinister) connections between Brienne and the Baratheon-Lannister crown generally - the ultimate architect and beneficiary of the Red Wedding, of course - and Jaime specifically - that is, the man Roose Bolton wryly referenced before stabbing Robb - might hardly make Brienne (much less Tyrion’s former squire and Randyll Tarly’s former sworn man) appear innocent in the hardened, merciless eyes of either the brotherhood or Lady Stoneheart (again, the actual inaccuracy of such judgments notwithstanding). Yet what would Lady Stoneheart remember of the Westerlings except Jeyne’s devotion to Robb (coming from both Jeyne’s conversation with Catelyn and Jeyne’s unwillingness to part from him), the apparent attempts by Sybell to encourage Jeyne’s fertility with Robb, the open insults against Jeyne and the Westerlings lobbed by the Freys - and, of course, Raynald Westerling’s own death at the Twins? (Not to mention Brynden Tully’s devoted guardianship of Jeyne and her family in the aftermath of the Red Wedding.) Without the inside information we as readers know about Sybell’s plot against Robb and the Stark cause - and even then, Jaime’s conversation, as well as Jeyne's appearance thereafter, would have made it pretty obvious Jeyne herself was not a willing participant in her mother's plan of betraying the Starks - I’m not sure the brotherhood would see the Westerlings generally and/or Jeyne specifically as any more guilty for the Red Wedding than, say, Edmure, who will be in the convoy as well, to be joined eventually by his Frey bride.

More to the point, I think the author not very subtly highlighted Jeyne’s fate at the hands of Forley Prester and his men in “Jaime VII”. There seems to me very little point to have Jaime quite frankly tell Forley Prester that Jeyne would be “twice as dangerous as Edmure if she were ever to escape us” and demand that Forley “keep some archers near” Jeyne (not to mention Jaime’s decision to quadruple the escort’s numbers from its original setup) if the very crisis Jaime envisioned would not seem (to Forley and his men) to come to pass. Whether or not the actual intention of the brotherhood will be to free Jeyne from the Lannisters (and again, I’m not even sure what the brotherhood knows about Jeyne and/or the Westerlings at this moment), the mere appearance of the brotherhood attacking the Lannister convoy will I think be enough to scare Forley and his men into thinking that the “twice as dangerous” Jeyne is the target of a rescue attempt. 

Too, I don’t think it’s narratively unfitting for Jeyne to die in such a fashion. Indeed, Sybell had previously trusted in a Lannister promise to keep another one of her children safe: as Sybell admitted to Jaime, Raynald “knew nought of any … [sic] of the understanding with your lord father”, and expressed her hope that Raynald was “a captive at the Twins” - an idea mocked by Edwyn Frey and Walder Rivers, who reveal to Jaime that Raynald “took a quarrel in his shoulder and another in the gut” before falling in the river during the massacre. Just as Sybell and Walder Frey had each made pacts with Tywin Lannister, but not with one another, regarding the Red Wedding, so Sybell and Forley Prester have each had conversations with Jaime, but not with each other, about the future of her children - and just as the Lannister-sanctioned violence of the Red Wedding allowed the Freys the opportunity for family vengeance against the Westerlings, so I think the Lannister order to eliminate Jeyne in a possible future crisis (in Jaime’s mind) will win out over the life or lives of one or more of Sybell’s surviving children. Forley Prester neither knows nor, I think, would care about any agreement Sybell may have made with Tywin to give Jeyne and her sister Eleyna “worthy marriages” to “[l]ords or heirs” (not to mention any remaining reward for their brother Rollam); he had been given a mission by Jaime as the representative of the Lannisters and the Iron Throne, and as a hardened Lannister veteran, Forley I think would have every reason to prioritize such an order no matter what Sybell may think or say. Having helped arrange the betrayal of Catelyn’s son, at the hands of his ostensible bannermen, for the ambitions of Tywin Lannister and his regime, Sybell will I think find herself punished in kind - watching her own daughter (and perhaps her other children as well) be killed on the orders of of her own ostensible allies. 

Which is not to say the brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart might not hang anyone. Indeed, if Sybell is our POV for the prologue of TWOW - and I very much think she will be - then I could imagine Sybell may herself be hanged by the brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart at the end of this chapter. Her far from charitable attitude toward Robb - both dismissively referring to him as "the rebel" and admitting, at least to Jaime, that she had purposefully denied him children - will I think find her no favors with the woman who had not only in life been Robb's devoted mother but who herself still carries and contemplates the crown her son had worn - the very crown whose mate Sybell had roughly taken from Jeyne's own brow. (So much the worse for Sybell if she, Sybell, still has Jeyne's crown on her and asserts that it is no more than a "little crown" made for her by a dead rebel.) Just as Merrett Frey had attempted to justify first the Red Wedding and then his role in it, so perhaps Sybell will attempt to justify her own role in the pre-planning for the Red Wedding - a justification that would, It think, end for Sybell just as it did for Merrett.

[rayraygo1267]

hii! how are you? i'm currently asking people random questions. yours is:

if you were a cat, what color would you be?

afssfafsf

<3

Hi! I’m doing good! Hope you’re doing well too! <33

To answer your question if I were a cat I feel like i’d probably be either brown (because that’s my hair color) or gray because I just think gray cats are sooooo adorable!

Imma throw in this picture of Chat Noir cause I can hehehe

[malrieoni]

Can we have edits in our reply !!!!??? It's annoying when I have to delete my reply then re-type again because of a wrong spelling.

[doctorqueue]

“Replies are turned off for this post”, but it’s every post

Ok, every post I click on, no matter the type or who from, when I click into the notes it’s labeled “replies are turned off for this post”. Most of these DO have many comments, yet there is no comment option for me at all.

I searched up how to check if you’re shadow banned, but I could search and find my account when logged out on the tumble browser, I can still access messages and am still receiving notifs from people liking and following.

I can’t find any similar issue on google, I’m not sure what to do?

If anyone recognises this problem, it’s been going for a while and I’d really appreciate some pointers :(.