#whitegownsandflowercrowns

[atopvisenyashill]

Never apologize for hating Jaehaerys.

[kazz-brekker]

Spotify Wrapped, #47

You Are the Apple by Lady Lamb

[whitegownsandflowercrowns]

My Top 10 TV Episodes (First Watch) of 2023:

“Connor’s Wedding” from Succession (2018-2023)

“Long, Long Time” from The Last of Us (2023-Present)

“The Renaissance Will Not Be Televised” from Cunk on Earth (2022)

“The Heirs of the Dragon” from House of the Dragon (2022-Present)

“America Decides” from Succession

“With Open Eyes” from Succession

“Aloha” from The White Lotus (2021-Present)

“Cherry” from The Boys (2019-Present)

“Church and State” from Succession

“Pilot” from Yellowjackets (2021-Present)

[pathetic-girlwoman]

My top nine first watches of 2024!

Thank you for the tag @whitegownsandflowercrowns!! Sorry it’s been a month. (￣▽￣*)ゞ

No pressure tags: @stellewriites, @forbiddenpondrocks, @pumpkinrootbeer, and anyone who wants to participate! <3

[kimwexlers-brownhair]

URL song tag game

Thank you so much for the tag, @whitegownsandflowercrowns 

RULES: spell your url with song titles and then tag as many people as there are letters.

Keep On Livin' - Le Tigre

I Miss Those Days - Bleachers

Missing Words - The Selecter

Werewolf Heart - Dead Man's Bones

EARFQUAKE - Tyler the Creator

X Gon' Give It To Ya - DMX

Lovely - Billie Eilish, Khalid

Every You Every Me - Placebo

Remember When - Wallows

Stop Your Sobbing - The Pretenders

Boomin' - Mindless Self Indulgence

Rat-at-at - The Skints

On a Mission - The Skints (is it illegal to do the same artist twice?)

Without You - Harry Nisson

Novacane - Frank Ocean

Heaven - Talking Heads

Angel in Flip-Flops - Steve Martin

I Am Nancy - Jamie Coon

Romantic Homicide - d4vd

@costis @jimgandolfini @daenerysoftarth @daenerysthevampireslayerr @myplasticadversary @cauldronofmorning @doodoocumfart @owlishgirl @kimberly-wexler @michaelmandog @yunabot @seraphtrevs @operation-annihilate @karlavhh @jovial-gender-jester @heartshapedtrap @oreganosbaby @livesonthebside @theparallaxview @tinylilvalery @dubiousvoices

EDIT: I actually turned this into a playlist because I'm deeply silly.

[atopvisenyashill]

@whitegownsandflowercrowns no you’re right, like firstly, there IS a difference in like, showing daemon just hanging out at a brothel AFTER he’s been established vs oberyn and tyrion literally being introduced mid orgy, there’s a certain level of disrespect for tyrion & oberyn’s intelligence and alienation from society (as a disabled and queer man, respectively) that isn’t there with daemon (or laenor for that matter). AND there is a level of respect for the girls in hotd that isn’t there in got. hotd has, imo, a lot more respect for sylvi & mysaria as women, as smallfolk, as working girls, than got ever had for shae or ros despite shae & ros having what feels like more screen time. even knowing how mysaria's story ends, she gets to have some sort of agency, a push to be seen as something other than a tool in the hands of a powerful man (or powerful woman) whereas ros is ultimately relegated to nothing more than a piece in the war between littlefinger and varys. and that's not bad as a story inherently but when ros' inner life is not given any air time, what you get is a story where she is sexually mistreated until she's offed for shock value, rather than a tragedy of a low born woman attempting to climb up the social ladder until she is torn down violently by the people around her. and the same with shae - whereas sylvi even in limited screentime is given the room to have her own feelings about aemond and aegon, every criticism shae makes of tyrion is completely undercut by the writers refusing to Go There with him and his marriage to sansa, which is the crux of his issue with shae.

and there's also like. the use of pornographic actresses. tbc i'm not saying i'm opposed to this - i think i've said this before but tbh getting actual sex workers to play sex workers isn't a bad move at all! and especially in the case of a character like shae, who often is naked or partially naked, i think having an actress that is simply more comfortable Doing Acting with her top off is just a better idea, and i don't think it's wrong to think seriously about artistic nudity in a series so focused on sex. there's frankly a lot of pornographic actresses who can act and want to act (or model) but didn't or couldn't for whatever reason. and i think sybel absolutely proves herself as being a very excellent actress! COMMA BUT. it sure is notable that shae, ros, and that other actress who shows up a lot in the background are all from adult film/burlesque esque stuff, and were treated by and large like absolute crap, but both sonoya and michelle seem to be treated with much more respect.

but also YEAH i have long suspected that the reason tamzin was dropped was not because she was bad in the part, or even that she couldn't get ahold of the conlangs, but rather that she didn't like doing so much of the series naked and when she pushed back against that, they dropped her for an actress that had no experience on a project like this because they knew they could bully her into shutting up and getting naked and that's exactly what they did for four seasons until emilia's contract was up and she got to renegotiate so she didn't have to be naked so often. like yeah i'm SURE her acting was weird - it was because the sex scenes were constant and exploitative and she didn't feel particularly safe on set!

[atopvisenyashill]

I saw a fic with this premise and I’m curious on your take: Helaena is the only child of Viserys and Aemma. Rhaenyra is the only daughter of Alicent and full sister to Aegon, Aemond and Daeron. How does the story change?

Hmmmm.

So I think this depends mostly on how Viserys & Helaena get along. Viserys’ stubborn pride & love for rhaenyra is based on a few main things. I think the fact that her egg hatched was seen as a huge sign, losing Aemma, and his relationship with Daemon being so tense. If we assume Helaena still bonds with Dreamfyre, then her egg doesn’t hatch - that Might be taken as a sign BUT I think Aemma (at least show Aemma) would point out that if Viserys’ bond with Balerion was seen as a sign, then Helaena’s with Dreamfyre should be seen as one also. We know Helaena in the book (i’m ignoring the show for that one) loved to ride Dreamfyre, and Helaena taking to Dreamfyre as easily as Rhaenyra takes to Syrax is likely to endear her to Viserys. And of course, eventually, Aemma will die because Helaena is still a girl. Does Viserys still dig in his heels here?

Well...it depends on how stable Helaena is. I do think part of Viserys' own determination to keep Rhaenyra as heir is both how much Rhaenyra wants to stay heir (as in, she looks to him for validation) and how much Rhaenyra attempts to rise to the occasion. Honestly, I think no matter what, Viserys is going to get pissed off about the "heir for a day" comment, and probably take Helaena down to see Balerion's skull and attempt to tell her the prophecy. If we go with the show and Helaena is a dreamer, she's bound to be receptive and if she is receptive, and gives answers Viserys is looking for, he will name her and nothing short of Helaena asking to be unnamed or having a breakdown is going to make him change his mind.

As for how Helaena herself deals with it...I do think it would make her a little crazy because she can see all the ways its going to go wrong and can't stop it no matter what she does. On the other hand, I think a Helaena who has had responsibilities put on her and a parent who has more faith in her ability to withstand it would mask better than the one we have in canon. I do think she'd be just as suspectible to Daemon grooming her though - the visions are likely to make up for whatever lack of anger & paranoia issues that differentiate her from Rhaenyra but I think they would have a much more Laena/Daemon esque relationship in that I don't think Daemon is as destructive of an influence on her personality because Helaena herself does not wish to be a man or heir in the same way that Rhaenyra does so she's not trying to emulate him so much (in a mirror to Laena in that like - she already has two parents lmao she didn't need Daemon to be her father, whereas Rhaenyra very much sees Daemon as a sort of protective and paternalistic force in her life) and that in turn probably makes Daemon's obsession with her a fair bit healthier on his end - which isn't to say that he doesn't still have a fixation on her, because he absolutely would, because she still represents Daemon getting back into the family. I actually think it's not unlikely that she does still resort to having a bastard child when she marries Laenor, but a) the child is probably born later than Jacaerys is, likely closer to Lucerys' age and b) because she can see the future, she probably isn't going to choose Harwin or any sort of permanent lover at all, but rather just try to have a silver haired child to ensure the line. Given Helaena's "oddness" and the way it can manifest as a sort of rude frankness, I think it's not unlikely Helaena turns to Rhaenys over this, even given that Helaena is likely to see the Velaryons as political rivals still (the way Rhaenyra - and her father - do) which might help in the long run.

With Rhaenyra as Alicent's daughter and Aegon's wife however. I think she's likely to be worse honestly lmao. I think she struggles a lot with her place as nothing more than a brood mare and I think she chooses to lash out at Helaena, the same way that Rhaenyra lashes out at Alicent over Viserys. If Helaena doesn't have children for several years, you can bet Rhaenyra is making a comment about it. Probably the stories in canon about Rhaenyra's ~lusts~ turn into like, bawdy Alyssa-type stories about her really enjoying fucking Aegon, and Aegon's ~lusty wife. Probably Helaena winds up garnering some sort of frigid, Selyse esque reputation in contrast to this - well of course Laenor can't get it up, his wife is too cold in bed, yada yada, and Rhaenyra is probably quite hostile about that as well. I think Alicent would struggle with Rhaenyra for a daughter - having a girl that is very improper, and not in the Helaena way where she can be infantilized but in a much more angry, in your face way is going to chafe a lot with the "but look at my perfect heir and his perfect sister-wife" thing. Not unlikely to me that Rhaenyra and Aemond wind up pretty close and fixated one each other. I do think where the Velaryons and Helaena get a leg up is that imo, this is a situation wherein the greens are going to be very outwardly, tackily hostile and Helaena isn't going to be hostile or tacky back the way Rhaenyra does - she's just going to freak out and shut down. Maybe this makes her look worse but I think Rhaenys and Corlys (and Laenor) are smart enough to captilize on like "look at how they mistreat her, they're so cruel to our future queen" but I don't know if Helaena wins a lot of allies if she's considered "unstable."

[atopvisenyashill]

Saw someone say that their theory on why TWOW and ADOS are taking so long is because GRRM has realized that he can't meaningfully end slavery AND send Dany to Westeros in the timespan of the two books and I'm curious what your thoughts are on that

It’s definitely ONE of the things tripping him up in my opinion but I don’t think it’s the only thing.

For one thing - I don’t know that Dany is going to “meaningfully” end slavery. Regardless of her ending - whether she dies a hero, a villain, or something in between, whether she lives and pulls a Nettles, whether she lives and goes back to Essos - I don't really see her "meaningfully" ending slavery in the Ghiscari bay before she leaves. To be frank, I think by the time she gets back to the bay, she's going to be over the whole thing. I don't think she's going to leave them high and dry necessarily, but I do think it's likely she leaves things in a bit of a lurch. With that said, leaving isn't going to be as easy as rounding up the Unsullied and her khalasar within a day and getting them onto the boats - there's likely to be a battle, some sort of wrap up (however bitter or unfinished of a "wrap up" it may be), and then the logistics of actually leaving that's going to take a lot of time. And that's just while she's in the bay. That doesn't even count what she's doing before she gets there, which is a lot. It's why I don't think she's getting to Westeros until literally the epilogue of twow at the earliest (and also why I don't think she's going to have a meaningful hand in defeating the Others - once again, she will simply be too late).

But like...that's not the only thing happening lol. There's whatever the fuck is happening with Euron, whatever the fuck is happening with Stannis, there's Cersei and Qyburn's plans, there's Varys' kingmaker plot, there's Arya and the Faceless Men plot, there's Jaqen's plot, there's getting Bran south of the wall, there's Jon's ressurection, there's Sansa's journey out of the Vale, there's Davos in Skagos, there's the Dornish plot, AND there's the entire mess in the Riverlands. That's a lot of shit to do, a lot of really complex shit! And yeah, we probably have like four thousand pages with which to tell it but the sheer amount of moving parts is crazy to think about. So like yeah, part of it is "how do you at least partially resolve the issues in the bay" but there's so much more going on and it all adds up to a lot of strands George has to pull together and that takes time and intricate planning and plotting.

[atopvisenyashill]

Sorry, but I saw your tags on an Alicent post and I am now using your inbox as a way to rant about the reaction to the Viserys praise in Season 2.

Because no, we probably didn’t need a once-an-episode mention of how great he was. But people acting as though that’s out of character for Alicent or that the show is engaging in abuse apologia really annoys me.

First, in the context of Westeros, none of what Viserys did to Alicent is recognized as abuse. While she was slightly under the Westerosi age of maturity when they married, she had almost certainly had her first period by that point and was therefore seen as appropriate to marry. Marital rape is not a concept for them, and even if he hit her (which I think is unlikely from what we are presented) no-one is going to punish him. He is the king. So while she clearly knows that she doesn’t like “having sex” with Viserys, it’s likely that she (consciously) sees it as less of “he’s forcing me to do this” and more as “I am bearing my marital duty as best as I can, perhaps this is how it is for all women” or at worst, “I’m a bad wife.” As for the emotional abuse: even our modern society is really just discovering that concept. Either way, given the context of Westeros and how she was raised, I think it would be very unlikely for her to recognize his treatment of her as abuse and subsequently rail against it. My guess is that she sees him as a kind of typical husband: she wasn’t in love with him, but she liked him sometimes and he was sometimes nice to her, and he was never overly violent in a way that she would recognize. In her mind, he was a fine husband and a good king.

Second, the idea that abuse survivors feeling anything less than murderous rage towards their abusers is “abuse apologia” really pisses me off. Especially when we’re talking about Alicent in the context of being a victim of grooming, which is done specifically so that the victim sees nothing wrong with their abuse. I see this with Rhaenyra about Daemon sometimes and it just…that’s just not always how it works. Not every single survivor of abuse is just going to hate their abuser with no complicated feelings (which there’s nothing wrong with to be clear) and oftentimes, they are going to have a lot of complicated feelings. So the idea that she should just plainly hate Viserys seems very reductionist to me and just further feeds what I’ve been feeling about the way that a lot of people seem to want Alicent to be a perfect victim.

Yeah first - I wish we had gotten an equivalent of Rhaenyra's "we became one person he could love" speech for the greens. I think that speech went a long way in telling us how Rhaenyra feels about her father (and Daemon, and vice versa) and how he's negatively impacted them and their lives without being an ooc "wow maybe my dad did suck all along" sort of thing. I don't think the greens really get that - I think it makes sense for Otto to compare Aegon disfavorably against Viserys at this point (Aegon is acting kinda wild) and for the smallfolk as well to look disfavorably on Aegon and Aemond (Viserys never dragged them into a dumb fuck war, did he) but at the same time, these comments are not made in a vacuum and I think especially when it comes to Viserys' neglect of his kids and the domestic violence Alicent experiences, which is not only kind of, idk, subtle I suppose (subtle for a general audience, anyway, bc even people real deep in discourse in fandom don't understand dv lol, let alone random joe schmoe just watching his dragon show), but also it's not a thing they have words for or context for in the show, and i think there should have been more spice there when discussing him. but that gets into how the greens writing fell off right around regent/smallfolk.

But secondly - YES. God last season it annoyed the SHIT out of me because I watched a) the throne room scene and b) Alicent crying alone over him, and I FELT that shit. It all rang so true to me - Viserys making a grand gesture at the 11th hour that makes him feel good but ultimately does not really help Rhaenyra's cause in any sort of meaningful way, and Alicent who feels so duty bound to be A Good Wife left crying alone in her room after her shitty husband dies because she HAS to mourn him, that's what a good wife does. And I saw people describe it as "rhaenyra needs viserys to save her" "why does alicent care about that rotting idiot" "why can't rhaenyra/alicent be strong on her own" and it made me want to scream.

Viserys is integral to understanding their characters! Arguably he is the influence on the way both of them develop as people, in both the book and the show. Rhaenyra loves her father - and I will say it again because I don't think people understand that Rhaenyra loves her father. When she's angry with him, when she argues with him, it is because she feels rejected by him, not because she hates him! She does not resent him for putting her in this situation - or, she does, but that resentment does not point towards him and frankly, it never will! It's the same reason Sansa cannot resent Ned, Cersei can't hate Tywin, Arianne is so desperate for approval from Doran. I think often people want Rhaenyra to reject Viserys completely because they think it's what they would do (no, they wouldn't, but alright, u can lie to urself here) but feeling like you've been backed into a corner and reaching for a parent, even a flawed one, to come rescue you, and he does (sort of, kind of, in a way that makes him feel better and is flashy but kind of useless) makes sense when you think about where Rhaenyra will end up which is following this thread and this inheritance she gets from her father to a bitter, violent end!

And then Alicent. Alicent who spells it out literally right on screen that her whole life is about serving ideals she thinks are above her, outside of her, greater than her. And what are these ideals? Family, duty, sacrifice. And who is the living embodiment of family, duty, sacrifice? The patriarch! Her husband! She is duty bound to love him, to mourn him, and so she does, because even in the privacy of her own room, the privacy of her own mind she is incapable of separating her self from her husband, her sons, her duty. She uses Viserys as a cover for her own feelings and desires constantly. And like you said - I mean, nothing that happens between them passes any sort of line in Westerosi society. I think Alicent is the sort of person who would force herself to find things to love about him and she very much seems to love the things in him that she loves in herself - his propensity for quiet, for reflection, his reluctance to act rashly, his perceived lack of violence. Of course she loves him. He practically raised her. Do we not love our fathers, even when they are imperfect?

It very much ties into all these ideas about being a "good victim" but people don't want to really talk about the way our concept of a "good victim" has shifted over the years. Now, when people love their abusers, when they don't rage against the abuse they experience, when they don't realize they're being abused, when they crave the abuse back, it's seen as being weak, unfeminist, bad writing. Real victims rage and seethe. Real victims plot to escape. Real victims may fawn in the moment but deep down they never loved their abusers even a little. That's just not true and it's especially not true when it comes to domestic abuse such as spousal or parental abuse, and because Rhaenyra and Alicent love and crave the abuse heaped on them because it is done by people who they love, by people who love them in return (however selfish that love may be!), it means the writing is bad. No, it's not actually. Sometimes, your dad sucks and you know he sucks and he never gets better and you love him anyway.

[atopvisenyashill]

ASOIAF: brOTP

GOT: Least favorite plotline

HOTD: Sum up your feelings in one sentence

F&B: One thing you’d change about canon

AKOTSK: Favorite plotline

ASOIAF brOTP: does sansa/arya count. i don’t know that i brotp things in this series, i p much want one huge orgy to happen. OH WAIT qyburn/cersei, they are soooooo sweet!!!!! underrated dynamic!!!!

GOT Least favorite plotline: the monstrosity that is the riverlands arc.

HOTD Sum up your feelings in one sentence: It’s mediocre but not for the reasons everyone keeps saying it is, the reasons everyone says are stupid.

F&B One thing you'd change about canon: im cheating 😊 and saying change the entire conceit of the story to be a history of the targaryen QUEENS, preferably as written by a septa or dornish maester (like archmaester brude) but if i MUST have it written by gyldayn, fine.

AKOTSK Favorite plotline: im sorry but nothing beats the very first book, nothing tops duncan yelling “ARE THERE ANY TRUE KNIGHTS AMONG YOU” that shit is TOP NOTCH

[thewingedwolf]

this was fucking brutal omg 🤧🤧 thank you for the tag ❤️❤️

i’m tagging @songxiaos @woongminrome @sirenascelestiales @monstersandheartache @whitegownsandflowercrowns @lovecolibri @breanime

tagged by @angelsnfuselage to publicly expose my music taste

👉👉https://volt.fm/roast

tagging @save-a-horse-amen @antiquesintheattic @bl00dslushie @blue-honey @olympianess @ribscarvedlikebutterflies @phrear @probablymoons @freakoutgirl :3

[atopvisenyashill]

Top 5 smallfolk characters?

NICE QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE COURT ATOP VISENYA'S HILL BABEEEEE. I'm making Sylvie, Essie, and Gaemon all one bullet point here so they don't dominate the whole thing but I love them so so much. The family they build against all odds, the desperate attempt to gain some sort of control over a king’s landing that has descended into chaos, the reforms they attempt to push - and the way their own reforms are SOO popular that it forces the other two Kings to start offering food and safety as well!! - and the sad, tragic end of Essie and Sylvie while poor Gaemon looks on. The way all three are denied dignity even in their dying.

Davos Seaworth. LOOK the rest of the nerds in the fandom can call him boring as much as they want but you will never catch MOI calling our only insight into the smallfolk boring, EYE have class solidarity unlike the rest of these posers. I find him equal parts frustrating and engaging; he is so clear eyed on the moral issues that people face yet covers his own eyes when it comes to Stannis' deficiencies. He is determined, always, to keep going, keep fighting. He's a flawed man with a flawed relationship with his wife and sons but he loves them so dearly, so normally. His greatest achievement is that he learned to read. He is so so dear to me.

Mya Stone. MY GIRRRRRRRRL I love how protective of Alayne Stone she is, I love that she knew she had to figure out how to protect herself and provide for herself and learned how to deal with the mules. I love that she had lofty dreams of marrying so far above her station, I love that she's forcing herselfto take the rejection in stride. I think I want a realistic happy ending for her, but a definitely happy ending - I want her to marry for love, I want her to be safe, I want her to feel fulfilled by her life, because she enjoys living, she doesn't take it for granted!

Shae. SHAE FOREVER AND EVER. I prefer her show counterpart - which, I do think they were trying to imply that she was higher class in Essos but ran away, but whatever, ignoring that - but that's largely because we really get to know Shae herself, through her own eyes. The way she grows to love Sansa, is desperate to protect her even against Tyrion! The way she chooses safety and comfort over love and testifies against Tyrion (the way the actress believed - and I do too!!!! - that she would have chosen Sansa, to protect Sansa, had she not been written by Those Dudes). "Your horse eats better than his children" is just an amazing line and she never lets Tyrion or Sansa forget that even with the troubled lives they've led, the smallfolk have a very good reason to resent them! And book Shae!!! She's just a young girl!!!!! She's a teenager picked out of the crowd by Bronn to be Tyrion's mistress, except she doesn't get to have all the safety and power that usually goes with being a mistress and she can't say no. She tries so hard to see the good in Tyrion, to see the intelligence, to get to know him, and she only stops when he gets physically violent with her. All she wants is safety, stability, and it's all ripped away from her before she's even reached twenty years old. She's treated like a pawn, both versions of her, a piece to be moved about by more important people, but she wasn't a piece, she was a girl, a woman, with her own dreams!

blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hard to narrow it down i’ll say KYRA (with the keys). She’s such an interesting, tragic character to me. The way she maneuvers to be Theon’s mistress, only for her trust in him to be completely betrayed when he assaults her. The way she very smartly realizes she can’t get home without Theon, and manages to rescue him and get SO CLOSE to freedom. She’s very much a quintessential sort of smallfolk character - she tries to rise above her station and is repaid by sexual abuse, literally hunted down for sport and gruesomely murdered. But at every turn, she tries so hard to assert her own agency!

Special mention because i debated that fifth spot a lot but Gendry, Nettles, and Alayaya are very close to my heart as well. I didn’t count the wildlings otherwise Ygritte and OSHA would be number two and three.

[atopvisenyashill]

Favorite Hamilton song?

i’m gonna warn everyone that i talk about lin manual miranda like some people talk about andrew lloyd webber. i think he’s talented i’m obsessed with his mind i would fight him in a parking lot i do think he’s a cringe nepo baby that doesnt mean he’s untalented.

it’s too cliche to say satisfied but man that song gets me HYPE now mind you i listened the cast recording the day it dropped but i didn’t See It for several years because musicals are expensive (did i watch several bootlegs. yes lmao but again, it’s not the same, and same for the cast filming, which i also watched the day it dropped). and actually watching the staging, from the moment angelica starts rapping blew my mind. seeing everyone moving backward on the turntable thing, really hearing the distinctions in voices as they sing backwards, and of course the entire thing resting on the chemistry between the actors, to SELL IT they have to click and they DID. vanessa nadal miranda deserves co credit on every award lin has won for the show for suggesting that angelica raps. so funny that most other angelica’s have to do this song slightly slowed down, renee is simply THAT good. this woman has egot talent and hollywood fumbled her & broadway scooped her up and that’s THEIR loss.

battle of yorktown is probably number two but they switch sometimes, it’s such a bouncy song like it gets you REALLY amped up, i think lin’s obvious best strength in songwriting is a long narrative song, often one that combines many callbacks to other melodies & motifs - blackout, carnaval del barrio, we don’t talk about bruno, where you are. i think this one is the best one in hamilton. it’s witty it’s funny it’s one of those songs where if u have a hamilton who can sing it’s gorgeous & if it’s lin there’s so much room for him to show emotion in his struggle-sing voice. and the choreography……..i watched the tony’s live that year (it was a STACKED year tbh) & when they made the decision to not use guns and just mime holding them…everyone tearing up singing during the world turned upside….it’s visually spectacular.

also farmer refuted > all the king george songs, “oh my god tear this dude apart” and “don’t modulate the key then not debate with me” make me chortle every time.

[atopvisenyashill]

You know, I was thinking about what you said about the possibility of things going down in HOTD the way they do because that’s how Condal would have done it in the main series (ie if Rhaenyra fakes her death you think Daenerys’ chances of survival shoot up), and I was wondering:

Could Daemon’s Harrenhal arc be Condal’s roundabout way of going “Well SOMEONE’S got to go through the House of the Undying?” (I know logistics were probably the biggest reason but I could see this)

LJADJLKFKDF yeah i can fr see that, and in fact i DO think the focus on the prophecy and the magic of harrenhal does have to do with Condal and Hess being like "well EYE liked the prophecies in the main books idk what the fuck those other dudes were doing." and some of it does make sense to me tbh, like i've talked about the book similarities between rhaenyra and stannis and obviously there's a lot of similarities between rhaenyra and both dany & cersei, and a lot of similarities between alicent & cersei as well, and they were all VERY involved with prophecies and magical plots so it makes sense to me that you'd deepen those similarities by giving their parallel characters another prophecy to work with (and despite how goofy they did it, it IS a canon prophecy, both tptwp and aegon's dream so it's not a far stretch!). And since Daemon already sets up shop in Harrenhal, it makes sense to try to dig into those magical aspects. Especially because...I imagine George gave them a basic outline of how Alys is going to go? And I know they love to mislead my man about their writing but I can see them wanting to incorporate some of her magic and story into the dance in a more overt way.

[atopvisenyashill]

Just wanted to pop in here and say that I was looking through people’s comments on the “who do you possess to stop the dance” polls that I posted in August and I didn’t realize that you reblogged all of them. I’m here because I wanted to let you know that the phrases “I’m cleaving to Rhaenyra babeeee daddy can get FUCKED” and “YOU WANT TO FUCK AROUND FIND A POST MENOPAUSAL MILF” have lived rent free in my mind since then

lkajkdslfjklsadjfk AND YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT TOO. YURI AND MILFS WILL SAVE US!!

[atopvisenyashill]

@whitegownsandflowercrowns I’ve actually talked a little about the possibility of Sylvi being Sylvenna! I think it could still work even though we haven’t seen her with Essie or Gaemon yet too, there’s nothing in s2 that imo contradicts that. And tbh they’ve been really inconsistent with how the Dornish are portrayed - Pedro Pascal is Chilean (and doesn’t, afaik, make any sort of claims to being a PoC but i could be wrong about that), Alexander Siddig is Sudanese, Indira Varma is Indian, Keisha Castle-Hughes is Maori, Jessica Hennick is Chinese (and Lady Nym was originally conceived of as Black), and not only did they give Indira Varma & Pedro Pascal a white ass baby in Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, but the dunk & egg show cast some whack ass looking white folks as all of Myriah’s kids while Fabien Frankel is Iraqi & Indian. Michelle Bonnard seems to play like ~ethnic white people~ a lot of the times (Polish, Bosnian), which could mean she’s of a similar background OR it could mean she’s just ethnically ambiguous - my man Tahmoh Penikett regularly plays ~ethnic white people roles bc he’s light skinned but still obviously clockable as not white (he’s First Nations). So she could be Dornish, basically, there’s nothing saying she can’t be, and as you say, Sylvi is a nickname for Sylvenna!

I think Sylvi being Sylvenna is fascinating as a concept when you factor in her relationship with Aemond. Like, this crying silver haired teenager naked in her lap who looks just like the boy she calls her son, feeding from her breast just like Gaemon did when he was too little to be stolen off into the pits. Telling that crying prince whose virginity she took too young - how could she say no? she was paid for by Aegon already! but he was so young, too young, and he didn't want to be there! - to remember the smallfolk, to guilt him over his part in kicking off the war, doing all this to protect her little boy and her Essie, hoping Aemond is listening, not sure if she's helping him or hurting him. And what does she do when the city breaks down because the high lords have forgotten the smallfolk, just like she predicted they would? She bases her own kingdom on the hill named for the woman that shared Aemond's dragon. She hates him but he's part of her, part of her story, and there's part of her that hurts to know that his body will never be returned to his mother, part of her that holds little Gaemon close and thinks about how devastating it would be to be parted from him.

I've seen some people think they're gonna montage everything post fall of KL, and I am slightly worried about that in light of the Nettles cut (especially because HBO clearly wants this shit wrapped UP asap which is, again, deeply mindboggling to me), but I think if they stick with the "crazy battle in ep 4" thing they have going (crabfeeder & rhaenys so far, i'm guessing jace & the gullet are happening around ep 4-6 as well), the god's eye could be ep 4 of season 4, which leaves a lot of room for the Moon of Madness to be properly fleshed out, as well as Baela & Aegon's face off, Rhaenyra's death, Aegon's death, and the Hour of the Wolf (I'd honest to god love if the series ends with Jaehaera's death - everyone talking about how they've finally ended the war, oh there'll be peace, and cut to Jaehaera either being murdered or jumping, and the cycle continues).

Ryan actually walked back the Nettles cut because he saw me go from defending him by saying he wouldn't be that stupid to dragging him for weeks over cutting her, actually.

i’m so jazzed about the storming of the dragonpit and the moon of the three kings bc the way they did the smallfolk uprising with the sparrows in the show sucked ass AND they cut the entire bwb schism with lady stoneheart while also sucking ass at adapting the bwb themselves, i avtually think that IF condal & hess decide to adapt the moon of the three kings it will fuck SO hard but i also think there’s a pretty even chance they don’t show any of that at ALL and i will have a perpetual tummy ache until it is revealed which route they go for