#you know it would have served Jon well to know the terms and conditions of going to the Wall

[viiisenyas]

the more I re-read A Game of Thrones, the less I like Ned and Catelyn 🙃

[jackoshadows]

For all his talk of ‘Aragorn’s tax policy’, I find GRRM to be incredibly lacking in terms of trade, taxation, use of revenue, allocation of funds etc in his world building. IMO, Robert Jordan did a far better job in his world building for the Wheel of Time regarding trade between the different kingdoms, intermingling of people, revenue for the crown and the cities and towns that come under it etc.

For example, the lack of funding for the Night’s Watch makes no sense to me considering how important it is for the Starks and the North as the whole.

There  are abandoned castles along the Wall, I've heard," Jojen answered. "Fortresses built by the Night's Watch but now left empty. One of them may give us our way through."

The ghost castles, Old Nan had called them.  Maester Luwin had once made Bran learn the names of every one of the  forts along the Wall. That had been hard; there were nineteen of them all told, though no more than seventeen had ever been manned at any one time. At the feast in honor of King Robert's visit to Winterfell, Bran had recited the names for his uncle Benjen, east to west and then west  to east.  - Bran, ASoS

So the Stark boys are supposed to learn about all the castles at the Wall, and yet for some reason subsequent Stark Wardens of the North do nothing about the decrepit condition of these castles. What’s the point in memorizing their names and being tested on them, when they are pretty much useless and require infrastructure support and manpower?

Surely Benjen would have at the least brought it up and insisted that Ned Stark do something to help, considering he was First Ranger and knew how dire the situation was.

The Halfhand helped himself to an egg and cracked it on the edge of the bowl. "These kings will do what they will," he said, peeling away the shell. "Likely it will be little enough. The best hope is Winterfell. The Starks must rally the north."

“Yes. To be sure." The Old Bear unrolled a map, frowned at it, tossed it aside, opened another. He was pondering where the hammer would fall, Jon could see it. The Watch had once manned seventeen castles along the hundred leagues of the Wall, but they had been abandoned one by one as the brotherhood dwindled. Only three were now garrisoned, a fact that Mance Rayder knew as well as they did.

"Ser Alliser Thorne will bring back fresh levies from King's Landing,  we can hope. If we man Greyguard from the Shadow Tower and the Long Barrow from Eastwatch . . ."

"Greyguard  has largely collapsed. Stonedoor would serve better, if the men could  be found. Icemark and Deep Lake as well, mayhaps. With daily patrols  along the battlements between." - Jon, ACoK

If the Watch is sending Thorne to KL for levies, I wonder, couldn’t Ned Stark have requested funds from his best bud Robert Baratheon for whom he put down Greyjoy rebellions. Or Ned could have taken a loan, however it looks like Westeros does not have a central bank (Like the Iron Bank in Essos) for some reason.

The Crown had a lot of funds and yet it is only in AGoT that Ned questions where all the money went.

Ned was aghast. “Aerys Targaryen left the treasury flowing with gold. How could you let this happen?”

”My royal brother loves tournaments and feasts,” Renly Baratheon said, “And he loathes what he calls ‘counting coppers.’” - Eddard, AGoT

We know that Littlefinger deliberately borrowed heavily at high interest rates to put the crown in debt, but the idea that the rest of the kingdoms had no idea this was happening and had no connection to KL’s finances makes no sense to me. And what was Jon Arryn doing during all this? Didn’t he keep an eye on things as Hand? Was LF money laundering? Where did all that money go (According to Tywin the coffers were overflowing with three times the money during Aerys time)? I doubt it was all spend on Robert’s feasts and tourneys.

I would also think that in feudal monarchies, the king (or his Hand in this case) would have levied higher taxes or expected more taxes from their richer kingdoms like the Reach/Highgarden from ex. instead of taking loans.

I think others have already expounded on how ridiculous the Iron Islands are as a concept (We do not Sow! - well good luck then on feeding all the people living there). As all the Viking shows have told us, the Vikings were also farmers and were often looking for lands to farm on their raids.

Or forget even loans and funds, Ned could have implemented his plans to settle the Gift with new lords paying taxes to the Watch in the 15 years that followed Robert’s Rebellion. With his bestie Robert on the throne and his mentor Jon Arryn as Hand of the King, they would surely have no objection to Ned dealing with the Watch as he saw fit.

Honestly, at this point it feels like the Targaryens did more for the Night’s Watch than the Starks themselves considering that’s the only period where it looks like funds were actually used for the maintenance of the Watch. Alysanne recognizing the poor condition of the Nightfort, paying for Deep Lake with her own jewels, her decision regarding the Gift and rewarding extra land (Against the wishes of the Starks).

The current problems Jon Snow is facing as Lord Commander feels so insurmountable now because of subsequent generations of Starks ignoring how run down the Night’s Watch has become.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter twenty-five: orion’s belt

a/n: i hope this one clears up any confusion from the last couple of chapters. if it’s any comfort at all, it kinda snuck up on me. 🤷🏻‍♀️ but i did what i could: this fic is all about the human condition, anyway.

“Happy birthday, Sam.” The words crept over her like the body of a snake.

It was the day after her birthday, but Cliff had finally showed up to her drawing class. The modeling for the first level had been canceled for a reason that neither Sam nor Marla had been told about, and Miss Estes told them it was because of money, but she never elaborated on anything further than that: she had hoped to see a little more of him before Christmas break, but she never could because of Metallica's new record. But the two of them put it behind them once Cliff himself showed up to their second tier drawing class, a class which included easels, perfect for that sort of drawing.

He had found a new free little spot in between the New Year and the first date of their tour. He called her the night before on her birthday to tell her about it.

“Consider it the first of my birthday gifts to you,” he told her, “my other one'll come—at some point. I can't remember. I didn't tell you about the modeling because it happened kind of at the last minute and then I just—kinda forgot about it. I also didn't know when it would come up again. That's why I didn't mention it once when we were at your parents' house.”

“It's okay—it happens,” she assured him. “I was just happy to see you when we spent Christmas together.”

He had strolled right into the middle of the room with a filmy little robe over his body. A stool stood there in the middle of the floor, right before her and Marla with their easels propped up before them. The latter had put on a thin white coat over her clothes even though it was with graphite instead of paints.

His light hair spread across his shoulders: he held onto the lapels of his robe as if they were about to get away from him.

“So do you think I can do it already?” he called out to Miss Estes.

“Well, I have to take roll call and then you can let the robe drop,” she replied from behind Sam and Marla. The former glanced over at the latter with a raise of her eyebrow; Marla nodded at her. It had snuck up on her and it also couldn't come to her at a better time. She needed to hide her love away under something like that smock, but she had nothing more than her little thin white sweat shirt. Just so long as she kept her arms close to her breasts, she hoped Cliff couldn't see her.

“Okay,” Miss Estes said from behind the two of them. “Now—for our first model for Drawing Two, we have Cliff here! First off, let me apologize for all the run around—” To which Cliff shook his head in reassurance. “—second, it's nice to know that we have someone so eager for doing it for us.”

Sam peered up at him while she kept her head bowed down; it was really happening.

“Eat all the cake, Sam,” Cliff mouthed at her.

“So, let it all hang out now,” Miss Estes continued, and he opened the lapels and at long last, Cliff revealed his bare body to Sam. His chest was toned and his stomach was flat. His hips had a nice little curve to it, and his thighs were slender but sinewy at the same time: his lower legs had a nice gentle but toned look to them. His large, narrow feet were bare. And then there was his skin: clear and soft looking from his better habits.

Sam brought her attention to his genitals, much larger than she had imagined in that room in the subway. She pursed her lips together as she picked up her pencil. To think they were so close to each other in her bed not even a couple of weeks ago, and yet they had no way of touching each other. They never touched each other once while they were at her parents' house and there was no explanation, either.

And right there she understood why, especially when he winked at her and took his seat on the stool.

Of course! Away from her parents! At least that was what went right through her mind right then as she gazed on at his body as if it was a true piece of art in and of itself. She brought the graphite to the paper and she scrawled out his hair first.

The crown of hair and then the square shape of his face. The narrow shape of his neck. His slender tailored shoulders. Then his body.

She closed her eyes for a few seconds as she thought about her struggles with shading the weeks before. With her eyes closed, she brought the side of the graphite down to the paper. She thought about the strange man in her dreams and the void upon his head. He gestured for her to come on closer to him and her pencil made its way over the paper.

Like he was guiding her. Leading her through the darkness on the backs of her eyelids.

Why didn't Cliff mention the cancellation the few months before? Why didn't Cliff do anything more for her over the Christmas break?

She opened her eyes and she beheld the sight of his hips and thighs within a mere few feet from her. So close and yet so far from her. She skimmed over the paper and the dark shading had made its way onto the curvature of his hips and thighs.

She stared on in between his hips and she let her hand do the talking, complete with the pencil. She ran the edge of the pencil over the spot in between his hips and thighs. That skin looked smooth and even delicate. She thought about how she felt him in that little closet in the subway.

Smooth and delicate, like a stick of butter. She noticed a slight crease on his waist, right under his belly button and over his hip. A crease left over from wearing a belt so much.

She made her way down to his legs. She paid no attention to everyone around her, not even Marla. Sam kept her pencil at an angle over the paper so the shading would be consistent; she pressed down a bit so it would be darker in comparison to her struggles from the previous term.

She dropped her gaze to his feet and his ankles. Nice, smooth curves. They were bare but tight and perfect.

She returned her attention to the paper before her and she gasped at the sight of the drawing.

“Whoa,” Marla breathed, and Sam looked over at her with her eyebrows raised.

“Amazes me, too,” she said.

“Wow, Sam,” Miss Estes declared from behind her. “You've come a long way since the fall.”

“I know!” Sam added as she peered over her shoulder at her.

“I'm eager to see,” Cliff told her; she signed her initials at the bottom of the page, right under his left foot. But he never did get to see it, even when he returned to Jon and Marsha's house for the evening and when he returned to the Bay Area.

A full two months had past by the time she heard another peep from him, and the whole entire time, she wished to show him that drawing: every time she looked at it, and she took her easel out of the rack on the side of the room, every day in class, she wished to show it to him. There was so much more she wanted to ask him because none of it made any sense to her, either.

In the two months following her twenty first birthday, Belinda was eager to serve her a cake courtesy of the baker down the street from where she and Marla both used to live down in Hell's Kitchen. She had spent the day with them as well as Frank and Charlie given she had no class that day, but that entire side of New York City had been slammed by a blizzard, and Marla hadn't received her grant money at that point, either.

“When it comes, I'll get you something nice,” she vowed as she left that evening. Sam told them she need not any more sweets given her jeans fit her a bit more snugly than before and her new hectic schedule didn't help matters as well: her otherwise slim waist filled out with a gentle curve over the course of those eight weeks. It also didn't help matters that Cliff ordered her a slice of cake from the bakery in Hell's Kitchen in honor of his twenty fourth birthday, and yet she took it regardless. It came from him, after all.

The weight crept onto her body, and she could feel it all the while: and her face slowly became rounder and fuller with each day. She put on her little sweat shirts and fitted tops and the fabric around her waist felt a little more tight: indeed, when she peered into the bathroom mirror, she made sight of a little more of a curvature to her body. She thought about Cliff and the way in which he touched her while they lay in her bed together.

She wished for a touch of his hand as she finished her slice of cake. She wondered if Joey could stomach a couple of slices for himself with a thought back to his birthday and the donuts he had eaten over Christmas break. So many sweets for each of themselves and it started to show upon her, especially when Belinda took a seat next to her with a plate of cake upon her lap.

“You're not fat,” Belinda assured her. “Just a little fluffy because of the winter time. In fact, you actually look better with some weight. Besides, if there's anyone who's getting chubby, it's me.” Indeed, she had a slight roundness to her face but to Sam, she just looked like good old Belinda.

“I dunno if I want to look like this when we go see Metallica, though,” Sam confessed with a shrug of her shoulders; she peered down at her waist as it gently poked out from over the band of her jeans.

“You look great, though,” Belinda insisted. “Like I said, you actually look a lot better with a bit of weight. I always thought you could use some weight, too. I always thought it always looked like you were starving.” Sam frowned at that, but it was a compliment nonetheless: she took it with a sigh and a bit of a nod as well.

“Did we get tickets for one of their shows, though?” she asked her.

“I dunno if we need tickets, to be quite frank,” Belinda admitted as she took another bite of cake, and Sam thought of Frank himself right then. “At least that's according to Marla.”

“Do you know where Marla is, though?”

“I think she could be downstairs with Frank right now. I saw her violet hair as I came up and brought the cake up here. It was courtesy of the two of us. The two of us and Charlie.”

“Charlie, too?”

“Yeah, he felt bad about the day of your birthday because it just snuck up on us and we couldn't find a cake, either. You know, it being the middle of January and everything.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

There was a gentle knock on the slightly ajar door.

“Come on in,” Sam called, and Marla poked her head in through the space there: the rich violet color was still very much intact from the winter months but Sam could make out the sight of her dark roots at the crown of her head.

“Hey, we were just talking about you,” Sam told her as she set her plate on the coffee table in front of them.

“And what better timing, too,” Marla said with a twinkle in her eye. “The five of us—you two, myself, Aurora, and Zelda—have been cordially invited to see Metallica and Anthrax both in upstate New York.”

“Where in upstate New York?” Belinda asked her as Sam stayed leaned forward in order to hide her body from Marla.

“Syracuse,” she replied, “either that or Rochester. Charlie has to check the dates first, but yeah—we're gonna do upstate New York for the bunch of us.”

“And Zelda's coming along, too,” Sam stated.

“She might see them in Providence with the Cherry Suicides, but—who knows, really?”

“Why exactly Syracuse?” Belinda asked her.

“We'll have to go on the weekend, though,” Marla pointed out, “'cause of school and whatnot. And the only dates they have around New York and Pennsylvania are in the middle of the next month. Yeah, they can't do it for spring break coming up here. We'll bounce up the road to the Syracuse on Friday for the show on Sunday and then we'll come home on Monday. We'll have to miss class. They are gonna be here in the Big Apple in—August, I think? But I dunno if Anthrax are going to be with them, though. I'm just going by what Charlie told me so far.”

“I dunno if I can wait 'til August, though,” said Sam with a shrug of her shoulders. “You know, my whole thing with Cliff and whatnot.”

“Right, right, right! Okay, so Syracuse it is. We'll have to miss class, probably.”

“The two of you might,” Belinda pointed out, “I'm just gonna be an aide for Mondays this spring.”

“We'll be taking glass together,” Marla announced with a glance over to Sam.

“Yes, we are!” she added. “I'm taking another drawing class plus sculpting.”

“Oh, boy!” Belinda clapped her hands together. “All kinds of extra physical arts. I hope I can get to aide for the two of youses.”

Sam then turned her head back to Marla.

“Care for a slice of cake?”

“Please!”

It would be another week before Metallica and Anthrax embarked on their tour together, and it was right in the midst of spring break no less. The official first day after was when Sam and Marla resorted to Belinda for advice on stained glass and the approach to the material and the class itself. Two months Sam couldn't ask Cliff of anything more, and she couldn't show him the drawing, either.

Belinda had brought them back to her bright but small studio apartment in Hell's Kitchen: a table stood on one side of the kitchen, one which she referred to as her “handy lady table” given the tools strewn upon it and the sheets of glass tucked behind the legs to protect them from the outside world. She demonstrated on how to cut glass on a spare little piece: she explained on how she didn't want to do it on her good textured glass.

“I'm gonna make a slit here,” Belinda started. “A little slit and then this little orb here—” She showed them the glass cutter, which had a small blade on one end and a metal ball on the other; “—on the back of the cutter will make it so it doesn't cut so much.”

“A little slit?” Sam asked her.

“A little slit. Make you look right at it.” Belinda had a smirk on her face when she said that.

“I'm gonna look right up a slit,” Marla joked.

“I'm gonna look right up your slit, Marla,” Sam chimed in, and Belinda burst out laughing. She brought her attention back to the glass and she kept on thinking about Cliff and that drawing back in her class. She hoped she could fetch it out of the hiding place in the class by the time her third level drawing class started that Monday. She could fetch it out for him. She could take it backstage with her and she could show it to him when she found the chance.

Indeed, she had thought about it so much that she could hardly pay any attention to Belinda's commentary and demonstration of the glass. She even had to step outside to the cool spring rain so she could clear her head. She peered up to the gray sky and she felt something cool on her waist: the thin black fabric of her sweat shirt rode up a little bit on her body. She tugged it down over her filled out waist.

“I gotta lose weight,” she muttered to herself. She thought of Cliff and the way in which he looked at her from that stool. Naked and exposed on a stool.

“Sam!”

She glanced down to the sidewalk and the sight of Joey's crown of black curls.

“Hey!” she called out to him, and he held up two big brown paper bags. “What you got there?”

“Big bowls of pho!” he replied as his voice echoed over the sidewalk and the apartment buildings around them. She awaited for him at the top of the stairs and he made his way up with a smile on his face.

“Good thing it's pho,” she said even though she kept her body close to the balcony.

“Pho is good.” And then he hesitated. “But why, though?”

“I'm trying to lose weight,” she told him.

“Why?” asked Joey as he knitted his eyebrows together. “You look great. You look healthy. Real healthy, and a little round, and full—how a girl should look.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Move on out and show me your body.”

She sighed through her nose and she turned to her side. She showed him the slightly full shape on her waist and the widened shape of her hips.

“You have a ways to go before you're considered fat,” he confessed. “A long, long ways to go. You look gorgeous, actually.”

She gasped at that. Cliff didn't even call her gorgeous, but he did remark on her shape. She could find the beauty of those two boys, and yet she couldn't see it with herself.

“Now, c'mon in—I wanna give you ladies something before we leave for Kansas City tomorrow.”

She couldn't ask Joey about anything that involved with Cliff but she needed to ask something, however. It started to itch, the need to ask him about the feeling at her parents' house and why he never made note of it one time to her in that time. Maybe it was because they were at her parents' house and they had no way out of it. Maybe that was really why he spat at her when she made that joke.

Maybe that was the driving force behind their argument. All the questions and all the possibilities made their way through her mind as she ate up her bowl of beef pho.

She thought about bringing up the idea of a full body drawing to Joey again as well at one point, but it slipped from her mind when Belinda gave another demonstration with the glass.

Maybe it was the lack of genuine touching paired with the intensive school work, but Sam could not recall a time in which she felt more distracted and in over her head. What she felt to be important took a back seat to everything else. All the things she had to remember for her classes as well as her own artistry, and as a result, Cliff fell by the wayside. She handed in the full body drawing as well as her other projects over the course of the winter to Miss Estes for a grade and she was on her way to the higher levels for herself. And yet, something still didn't add up to her. It all seemed to sneak up on her, from her realization that Cliff never touched her in her bedroom to their fight to his trust issues with her.

She remembered what he had said about himself and Lars, how they began to drift apart prior to the making of their new album, and it made her uneasy to think about. She needed to talk to him when she saw him again. No phone call: it had to be done in person.

There was the date in Syracuse, or in Rochester. The one chance she had to ask him about it before they left for the rest of the country followed by Europe. Months and months without seeing him again. Such was the life of a metal bassist's girlfriend.

Indeed, when that Friday came along, and she, Marla, Belinda, and Zelda piled into Aurora's car and they made the four hour drive up to Syracuse, she wondered as to how she could phrase it out to him. They were going to be backstage with all of them, with James, Lars, Kirk, and Cliff, as well as Joey, Frank, Scott, Dan, and Charlie, even if it wasn't for long. Even if it was only for a few moments.

There was always New York City later that summer. But her questions might have become water under the bridge at that point. Sam had to relish every minute she had with Cliff there in Syracuse.

Given Metallica had ramped up their way in the music world, and they were hot on the heels of their new record, security had tightened quite a bit on the venue. Add to this, both bands had a show down in Pennsylvania that Saturday and so they never showed up to Syracuse until three in the afternoon. Marla called Charlie from the hotel and he replied from the phone on Metallica's bus, and the second she told the four of them that they were an hour outside of town, Sam and Aurora darted out of the hotel room together, much to Zelda's amusement.

The very second she recognized Cliff on the sidewalk behind the arena, Sam almost climbed out of the front seat of Aurora's car while it was still moving. But once they parked right behind the bus, she hurried up the sidewalk with her hand upon the strap of her purse.

“Cliff!” Her voice echoed over the street. He turned around with a puzzled expression on his face, but then he recognized her and his face lit up.

“There's my girl!” he declared, which brought a laugh out of Kirk, who stood right behind him with his guitar case slung over his shoulder. Sam opened her arms for him and they embraced one another right there before Metallica's bus. Cliff shoved his tongue down her throat: the fuzz over his upper lip grazed onto her skin.

He then held back and he set his hat upon her head.

“I'm so glad you could make it,” he told her; out of the corner of her eye, Marla and Zelda climbed out Aurora's car with smiles on their faces. “I'm so glad you girls all could make it!”

“This is driving me nuts,” she started in a low voice, but she was cut off by James and Lars laughing about something right behind them. Marla and Zelda joined them, followed by Aurora, who proceeded to talk to one of the guards near the back door. Cliff guided her away from the bus, into the bushes.

“Well, something is driving me nuts,” he retorted to her.

“What's that?” She brought her gaze to his hips, at the sight of the shiny silvery belt, complete with studs made from old bullet casings. So fierce and fiery, and yet she knew the truth about him. She had seen the real him, underneath those clothes and underneath those bullets. She had seen the real him for herself on a sheet of paper as well as the backs of her eyelids.

“It's how you never showed that drawing to me yet.”

“Oh, you mean the full body drawing I made for my class?”

“Yeah.”

“I just haven't been able to get it out of there and towards you,” she confessed. “You being on tour and me being in class. By the way—is there a reason why you never touched me at my parents' house? Like, right before we got into that fight. You touched me a little bit, but that was about it.”

“'Cause we were at your parents' house,” he replied, “it was also why I didn't touch you when we met my family, either. Also—don't take this the wrong way—maybe that's why you're also gaining weight.”

“Gaining weight means there's been no touching,” she muttered.

“Although—but understand, I think you look amazing, even when I haven't been able to touch you and you haven't been able to see me, either. Absolutely amazing. You can rock curves so well. Come here—” He held her close to him again.

“I don't want us to drift apart,” she confessed to him.

“We won't,” he promised her. “We'll always be close. You, my parents, and my sister are all I have.” He held back for a better look into her face.

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I feel like I'm slipping away with them. I have a bad feeling about this tour, too—like James and Kirk are gonna force me to lay it down on Lars at some point.”

“But James and Lars were laughing just then.”

“Don't let it fool you,” he told her. “If we lose Lars, I'm out, too. I can't deal with that.”

“What would you do?”

“Be with you,” he said in a low voice.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. There's no way I can do this long distance thing, Sam. I have to be with you. I need to be with you!”

“Do—they even know about me?” she asked with a gesture to the bus.

“They do. I tried to hide it but I had to tell them about it. It only made sense to talk about it. It was the only way I could be heard to them anymore...” His voice trailed off, and Sam began to wonder if their argument about trust was at all warranted given she told Joey about the two of them.

“Hey, Cliff!” James called out, and he turned his head in the other direction, where he and Aurora both awaited the two of them.

“I have to go,” Cliff said to her. “I think Aurora got you guys into the best seats in the house, too.”

Sam sighed through her nose again as he leaned in for another kiss on her lips. That time he tasted sweeter than ever. She had finally seen him for herself, and right in front of her classmates as well. Right in front of Marla as well. And no one knew about it!

She was about to hand him back his hat but he waved her off.

“Keep it,” he said to her in a low voice, and they both bowed out of the bushes. They walked side by side but they never held hands or touched each other, lest James or Aurora see them.

“I hope we can see you again,” she told him.

“New York, baby,” he whispered to her with a lean closer to her ear. “We're gonna be in the Big Apple in the middle of August.”

“That hat looks cute on you, Sam,” Aurora remarked as they came in earshot.

“Looks better on her, doesn't it?” Cliff told her, and James gestured for him to follow him into the arena. Once the two men ducked inside, Aurora turned her attention to Sam.

“What were you guys doing right there, anyway?” she asked her in a low voice.

“I—needed to ask him about something,” Sam replied, given Aurora was still in the dark about her and Cliff as far as knew. “It's nothing important.”

Aurora showed her a thoughtful smile and then she guided her into the cool, quiet side of the arena. Within time, that place was going to be packed full of people. It was going to be even louder than she could imagine compared to that night she and her parents saw them in San Francisco. The whole feeling before hand was enough to launch her into space.

[artcenterstories]

Experience Seeker: Meet Artist/Author Dominick Domingo

ArtCenter: What inspired your current creative project? Dominick Domingo (Illustration ‘91) arist/author/designer: A prolonged hospital stay and the proverbial brush with death. Being in touch with my mortality has lit a fire creatively and put legacy at the forefront. My latest IP, mythic fiction novel The Seeker is a parable of my recent trials and a portrait of all I’ve learned about the spiritual journey we are all on.

AC: What have been some of the most memorable twists and turns in your professional/creative journey after graduating ArtCenter? DD: A month after graduation, I began work at Disney Feature Animation on a small film to later known as Lion King. Having interned there between fourth and fifth terms, I visually developed the film during preproduction, then went on to paint production backgrounds. I continued on with Disney Feature for 11 years, in L.A. and Paris, painting backgrounds and creating visual development art for Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Little Match Girl and One By One.

I then attended New York Film Academy and began making independent live-action films as an auteur. My films won awards in the festival circuit and garnered distribution. Original screenplay credits on SAG/IMDB films led me to put my lifelong love of writing on the front-burner, while keeping one foot in animation by freelancing for major companies like Mirada, Blue Sky, Dreamworks TV, Nickelodeon, Disney Interactive, etc. The electives I offered for 20 years at my alma mater, ArtCenter, became the foundation of what has diverged into today’s Entertainment Arts and Entertainment Design tracks.

My essays and short stories have been included in anthologies and collections, some winning awards (most recently Writer’s Digest 2020 and Craft Literary 2020). My young adult trilogy, The Nameless Prince, launched in 2012 through Twilight Times Books. The Seeker marks my debut in the mythic fiction-meets-visionary fiction genre. I’ve had the good fortune of crafting a career that spans various formats and genres, all expressions of a drive I consider essential to the human condition: storytelling.

AC: What’s been the most unexpected or valuable takeaway from your ArtCenter education? DD: I am grateful for the ArtCenter legacy of excellence, and its stellar reputation in the fields of art and design; both have served me well. The demanding program and high expectations of instructors like Gary Meyer, David Mocarski, Jon Conrad, Harry Carmean and Burne Hogarth taught me to strive for excellence, believe in my potential, and push boundaries. At ArtCenter I learned nothing less than the art of alchemy and manifestation, to co-create with the universe and use my authentic gifts to contribute to our collective transformation.

AC: What’s the one tool you can’t do without? DD: My imagination. Like many artists, I consider myself a storyteller with different modes of expression. Whether editing a film in Final Cut, modeling in Maya or SketchUp during visual development or painting concepts in Photoshop, the common denominator is my imagination! My fingers come in pretty handy as well. And my eyeballs.

AC: What design cliché are you most tempted to use? DD: In my teaching, I've heard myself say, "Know the rules before you break them!" With regard to figurative and representational work, I am a big fan of buckling down and applying the discipline to master foundational principles at the outset. Whether Chevreul’s laws of color theory or Gestalt studies, internalizing theory with the faith it will become second nature is precisely what eventually allows one to take risks and explore. In developing one’s authentic voice, a framework of regiments and a clear vision can, in the end, free up the intuition to orchestrate magic that may not occur if one is struggling with technique or "finding one’s way…"

AC: What’s the first site you look at when you open your computer in the morning? DD: I tend to check e-mail and (UGH) Facebook first. But NEVER before putting caffeine in me and getting a change of scenery. As a long time freelancer/independent contractor, I like to get a walk in and listen to inspirational content (blogs or podcasts) before settling in front of the computer. Novelty is crucial for the ol’ dendrites and for brain plasticity!

AC: If you could trade jobs for a day with anyone, who would it be? DD: Pretty much anyone at Laika, as I would kill or die to get in there. I love their brand, its spirit, and the content they produce. As a kid who once knew every dinosaur that ever walked the earth and the period in which it lived (although they’ve changed them all), I'm often baffled I did not make every attempt to work with Stan Winston on Jurassic Park. I guess I was busy at Disney, but I often kick myself as that ship has clearly sailed… Also, Peter Jackson — he is living my dream!

AC: What books are on your bedside table? DD: Rather than imposing my recommendations (like "all artists should read Letters to a Young Poet or all humans should read The Alchemist,) I will give an honest answer: I don’t have a bedside table. However, on my coffee table currently: The Kybalion, Giant, 12 Years a Slave, and Jane Fonda’s autobiography, My Life So Far. Jane is an inspiration: the fact that she still gives a damn and gets up every morning and walks the walk. I also admire her tackling ageism head on, the societal ill I am most passionate about rectifying at over half-a-century. As a writer, I read a wide variety of genres. Neil Gaiman, Junot Díaz, Davy Rothbart, David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs are also huge influences.

AC: What is your prized possession? DD: I have two. One is an amazing painting titled The Three Muses painted by the formidable John Watkiss, with whom I worked on Disney’s Tarzan and who has since passed. The other is the traditional animation desk I had commissioned in the '90s using Disney’s patented design. There was one architect in the world with the Mouse’s blessing to use the patented design. But none of that is what makes it a prized possession — the reason is this: I nearly lost it in a fire. But unbeknownst to me, rather than taking the charred thing to the dump as discussed, my father secretly took it home and brought it back from the dead. Refurbished every bit of charred wood, every molding, right down to the laminate and the proper finish. Like new.

AC: What’s your best piece of advice for an ArtCenter student who’s interested in following your career path?​ DD: Remember why you do what you do. There are plenty of times in life when we must keep our noses to the grindstone and work can feel like drudgery. But inspired work energizes — the opposite of drudgery. Whatever is paying the bills, I would be sure it’s something that contributes to your personal transformation on the micro level and to our collective evolution on the macro. The artistic journey is lifelong: We may find our authentic voice, but it’s ever-evolving. I would encourage all artists to take stock now and then, and assess whether that voice has been married with a sense of purpose. And whether that purpose contributes to the dialectic of our human potential!

[agentrouka-blog]

Hey! Wat are your opinion on Dany fertility? When rhaego was born some says it is same as rhaenyra but it involves blood magic. Do you think next she becomes pregnant there are chances of Shadow baby? Also do you think jon possibly sterile after Resurrection?

I don’t think Jon will be sterile after the resurrection. We don’t know how he will be resurrected, etc etc. I am no kind of expert on the subject, though. It’s merely my certainty that Jon is destined to be a father.

I also don’t think Dany is sterile so much as she has trouble carrying a pregnancy to term so shortly after a traumatic birth at a young age. It’s heavily implied (though perhaps it’s a misdirection) that she had a miscarriage in connection to her affliction with dysentery while wandering the grasslands in her final ADWD chapter. 

Am I dying? Then she saw the pale crescent moon, floating high above the grass, and it came to her that this was no more than her moon blood. If she had not been so sick and scared, that might have come as a relief. Instead she began to shiver violently. She rubbed her fingers through the dirt, and grabbed a handful of grass to wipe between her legs. The dragon does not weep. She was bleeding, but it was only woman’s blood. The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she told the grass, aloud. Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. “Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. “I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.” Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children. Her belly was empty, her feet sore and blistered, and it seemed to her that the cramping had grown worse. Her guts were full of writhing snakes biting at her bowels. She scooped up a handful of mud and water in trembling hands. By midday the water would be tepid, but in the chill of dawn it was almost cool and helped her keep her eyes open. As she splashed her face, she saw fresh blood on her thighs. The ragged hem of her undertunic was stained with it. The sight of so much red frightened her. Moon blood, it’s only my moon blood, but she did not remember ever having such a heavy flow. Could it be the water? If it was the water, she was doomed. She had to drink or die of thirst. (ADWD, Daenerys X)

It’s clear Dany is struggling herself with the idea that this might be a miscarriage. 

There is no way to be certain whether or not Dany even has fertility issues at all, considering that - IF she is miscarrying - a bout of the bloody flux would easily explain it. For all we know Dany has no fertility issues at all. If she has them, there are plentiful “normal” explanations for them. Dany is so focused on the curse, on being barren, that I am pretty sure she isn’t. Or that’s just what GRRM wants me to think. Right?

Reading all this and considering her history of pregnancy --> failed poison attempt --> birth/miscarriage during dramatic conflict --> Waking the Dragon, it is easy to suspect her eventual descent into full-on murderous and violent destruction (and her death) will be tied to pregnancy as well. 

I just always wondered how that was supposed to work. 

“When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before." (AGOT, Daenerys IX)

That’s pretty specific. Her womb quickens again. Bear a living child. But if Dany bears a living child, that’d probably be the one thing to STOP her from going all inferno on everyone. And a miscariage would contradict this condition. Dying IN childbirth with a living child would just be lame. I mean, the drama comes from Dany choosing to be a monster, not from Dany dying in childbirth and her dragons going nuts.

So if the cycle is to be repeated, either a living child is killed or there is a twist that makes it all work. 

The shadow baby might be a huge twist. 

“Yes. Beneath. But we can go no farther. The portcullis goes all the way to the bottom. And the bars are too closely spaced for even a child to squeeze through.” There was no answer but a soft rustling. And then a light bloomed amidst the darkness. Davos raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat. Melisandre had thrown back her cowl and shrugged out of the smothering robe. Beneath, she was naked, and huge with child. Swollen breasts hung heavy against her chest, and her belly bulged as if near to bursting. “Gods preserve us,” he whispered, and heard her answering laugh, deep and throaty. Her eyes were hot coals, and the sweat that dappled her skin seemed to glow with a light of its own. Melisandre shone. Panting, she squatted and spread her legs. Blood ran down her thighs, black as ink. Her cry might have been agony or ecstasy or both. And Davos saw the crown of the child’s head push its way out of her. Two arms wriggled free, grasping, black fingers coiling around Melisandre’s straining thighs, pushing, until the whole of the shadow slid out into the world and rose taller than Davos, tall as the tunnel, towering above the boat. He had only an instant to look at it before it was gone, twisting between the bars of the portcullis and racing across the surface of the water, but that instant was long enough. He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who’d cast it. (ACOK, Davos II)

Next chapter: Jon.

This doesn’t sound very like a living child. It sounds like a monster. Like Dany’s dragon children. Like Drogon, who keeps being described as a shadow. 

(It also sounds like a metaphor for Jon’s birth. The mother, whose body is not ready (possibly to narrow in the hips) for childbirth, the massive shadow (i.e. power) cast by the child that comes forth. Jon’s shadow. The shadow that is destined to stabbity stab someone.)

But back to Shadow Baby Targ.

Considering all the lovely speculation surrounding Dany and Euron lately, (read everything by @shieldofrohan !), as well as Euron’s massive magical aspect, as well as this plans for Dany, methinks he would be central to that: 

"And who are you, child?" "Falia Flowers, Lord Hewett's natural daughter. I am to be King Euron's salt wife. You and I will be kin, then." Aeron Damphair raised his eyes to hers. His scabbed lips were crusted with wet porridge. "Woman." His chains clinked when he moved. "Run. He will hurt you. He will kill you." She laughed. "Silly, he won't. I'm his love, his lady. He gives me gifts, so many gifts. Silks and furs and jewels. Rags and rocks, he calls them." The Crow's Eye puts no value in such things. That was one of the things that drew men to his service. Most captains kept the lion's share of their plunder but Euron took almost nothing for himself. "He gives me any gown I want," the girl was prattling happily. "My sisters used to make me wait on them at table, but Euron made them serve the whole hall naked! Why should he do that, except for love of me?" She put a hand on her belly and smoothed down the fabric of her gown. "I'm going to give him sons. So many sons..." "He has sons." "Baseborn boys and mongrels, Euron says. My sons will come before them, he has sworn, sworn by your own Drowned God!" Aeron would've wept for her. Tears of blood, he thought. "You must bear a message to my brother. Not Euron, but Victarion, Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet. Do you know the man I mean?" Falia sat back from him. "Yes," she said. "But I couldn't bring him any messages. He's gone." "Gone?" That was the cruelest blow of all. "Gone where?" "East," she said, "with all his ships. He's to bring the Dragon queen to Westeros. I'm to be Euron's salt wife, but he must have a rock wife too, a queen to rule all Westeros at his side.  They say she's the most beautiful woman in the world, and she has dragons. The two of us will be as close as sisters!" 

(…)

"Brother," he said, "you look forlorn. I have a gift for you." He beckoned, and two of his bastard sons dragged the woman forward and bound her to the prow on the other side of the figurehead. Naked as the mouthless maiden, her smooth belly just beginning to swell with the child she was carrying, her cheeks red with tears, she did not struggle as the boys tightened her bonds. Her hair hung down in front of her face, but Aeron knew her all the same.

(TWOW, The Forsaken)

But Euron doesn’t care about heirs, methinks.

Falia is his “Lady”, i.e. a sacrifice on the command of an Evil monarch like Lady the direwolf?  And she and Dany will be close as sister? Like, share a fate kind of close? 

Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all. Victarion was turning to go when the Crow’s Eye said, “A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver’s Bay and bring my love to me?” I had a love once too. Victarion’s hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter on the floor. I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. “You have sons,” he told his brother. “Baseborn mongrels, born of whores and weepers.” “They are of your body.” “So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that’s worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware.” “What dragon?” said Victarion, frowning. “The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silvergold, and her eyes are amethysts … but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver’s Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me.” “Why should I?” Victarion demanded. “For love. For duty. Because your king commands it.” Euron chuckled. “And for the Seastone Chair. It is yours, once I claim the Iron Throne. You shall follow me as I followed Balon … and your own trueborn sons shall one day follow you.” My own sons. But to have a trueborn son a man must first have a wife. Victarion had no luck with wives. Euron’s gifts are poisoned, he reminded himself, but still … “The choice is yours, brother. Live a thrall or die a king. Do you dare to fly? Unless you take the leap, you’ll never know.” (AFFC, The Reaver)

Euron manipulates Victarion beautifully. Victarion is the one who cares about wives and heirs. Euron considers his progeny to be excrement. He wants Dany, but hardly in order to make trueborn drakens to inherit an uncomfortable chair.

I think IF Shadow Baby Targ is going to be a thing with Dany and the twist around the “Living Baby” clause, I think Euron will be involved in that, and the whole nightmare potential of that is scaring me already. It may not even matter if she is truly infertile or not if that level of dark magic is involved. Or Euron just wants to sacrifice a baby, Craster-style.

If Jon is involved, I really don’t think it would be a willing participation. Yikes. 

Brr. 

Seriously, that stuff gives me the absolute creeps.

[asoiafdrabbles]

II.38

Now that Elia knows Jon exists, she'll stop at nothing to bring him back to Dorne. 

Gen (Elia lives AU)

Sometimes, Elia still woke up to nightmares of watching Aegon beaten in front of her, his tiny little body beyond recognition. Sometimes, she could still feel Clegane's hands on her flesh, could feel how helpless and useless she was under him. Sometimes, she imagined what Rhaenys' screams must have been like, how alone she must have felt.

Nothing could ever fix that. Not every comfort in Dorne could make her forget it, her homeland where she was so 'graciously' allowed to retreat to when Ser Jaime pulled the Mountain off of her and she lived.

Doran offered her keeps, land, anything to get her to leave the few rooms she haunted in the Water Gardens. Oberyn plied her with stories of Essos, of adventures they could have. Her nieces and nephews, too, tried their best. For years, nothing could move Elia.

And then she heard news, filtered through Doran's spies, about a child living a lie. Being forced to live that lie.

"Ned Stark doesn't have a bastard," she insisted and Doran had looked at her, surprised at hearing anything like passion in her voice.

"He does, the boy's name is Jon Snow, he's--"

"I'm not saying the boy doesn't exist. I'm saying he is not Ned Stark's son."

Her brother stared at her. "And how would you know?"

Elia blinked, remembering a grinning face on a white tree and blue against dark strands. "Because he's Lyanna's."

Doran sucked in a breath, looking back down at the report he'd been lazily reading to her. It had been his wish she engaged with something, but he could have never guessed this would be what did it.

"He's my step-son, Dore. He's my-my children's little brother. And he's living like a-a beaten pet in the frigid North!"

"...I had heard the boy was born in Dorne." Doran glanced at Areo, then back at Elia. "Perhaps we could use that, to bring him here?"

Licking her chapped lips, Elia imagined it, the lies they could weave, the stories they could tell. It all made her blood boil. That boy should be sat on the Iron Throne, serving justice to those who killed their family. Instead he was being raised a bastard.

"I'll go." Doran's mouth fell open, even his practiced masks not able to stand up against her finally, finally offering to leave the Water Gardens. "If--if we lie based on him having a Dornish mother, it won't be so odd that I go."

"Except that the North is still spewing lies about what happened with Lyanna. They'll question what you want with someone of Stark blood."

Her hands curled into fists, nails digging into her palms. The boy would be growing up thinking the worst of his parents.

"I can't reveal who he really is. I can't say he's Aemon Targaryen," she muttered, remembering the baby names that she, Rhaegar, and Lyanna had written back and forth about, "but that doesn't mean I can't give a reason for why I'd have a connection to him." And, truly, there was even a built in excuse, one that she wouldn't be surprised to learn that Ned Stark had used. "We can claim he is Ashara's child."

"...Would she agree to that?"

"She is my best friend, she would do far more than face a former lover and claim a child as her own for me. People knew she left King's Landing because she was pregnant, as long as no one thinks too deeply about when that was or how old the boy is, it will work. And we only need to uphold such an excuse until he is within our borders. What will Stark do, declare war on another kingdom over a bastard?"

Doran seemed deep in thought and she waited, letting her older brother work out the details for himself. "Lord Stark would certainly be put in a difficult position. He can't admit who the boy's mother truly is without risking both his nephew's life and his own, and possibly even the position of the Starks as the high lords of the North."

"Robert Baratheon would consider harboring 'dragonspawn,'" she spat the term, seeing red at the memory of his dismissals, "as an act of treason."

"...Perhaps you can also state it in public, where the boy can hear. Then he may very well want to go with you, surely, and Stark would have to use force to keep him there."

"...I could bring some of Oberyn's daughters. Perhaps Ser Daemon, too, show the North how respected bastards are in Dorne."

She would play any games she had to, manipulate the Northmen however she needed to, if it meant bringing the last of Rhaegar's children to safety. She'd raise him as the prince, the king, he was meant to be, a rallying cry for all the loyalists who stayed in the shadows.

Whatever way Ned Stark had tried to ruin him, Elia would fix. Whatever poison they'd dripped into his ears, she would cure.

"Letting the boy think he has a mother, then revealing he doesn't, is somewhat cruel."

Elia glared. "He does have a mother. It will only be that we pretend it's Ashara, at first."

Doran raised his hands in surrender. "I know, Ely, I'm sorry. We'll get him home, don't worry. Whatever the traitors have planned for him, we won't let them go through with it."

"Thank you." She set her hands on his shoulders, gently, as much of a hug as she dared give him with his condition.

This was the beginning of a new era. Of the justice the spirits of her Rhaenys and Aegon cried out for.

[khaleesirin]

Daenerys Targaryen is The Great Other

Before anything else, this post perhaps should be read as a response to @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly‘s instructive and beautifully nuanced understanding of Daenerys’ characterization as well as her probable endgame in light of/ in response to what happened to the show, and in accordance to her role as a hero rather than a villain. 

And how it’s still, for me, an uncomfortable possibility. I’m not talking about the sacrificial role that she may ultimately choose to save humanity, but the problem I have with the whole sequencing of events, particularly in Dany’s situation. Her character arc, which was supposed to parallel Jon’s, is centered around her fight against this actualized presence of slavery-- a form of slavery that transcends borders and is so deeply institutionalized that it becomes the moral norm. I find it problematic that in her situation, the entities that she must realize as her ultimate enemies (as part of her own redemption arc or a reorientation to heroism) are essentially the metaphor (The Other) of the exact reality she was fighting in Essos, with an implication (not of nobodysuspectsthebutterfly’s, but what Martin’s text may effectively does ) that the great slavers and her situation in Slaver’s Bay only serve as a ground for lesson and an analogy to what will be her ultimate battle: The War for The Dawn. 

One of the many criticism against white fantasy in literature is the need to make a fantasized representation of real social problems we deal with everyday as an attempt to (ironically) “democratize” and “localize” (or well, white-wash) these social struggles for the intended viewers to better understand and/or be made aware of the social dimension of the hero’s personal battle. It’s alongside those snide remarks that white people seem to only understand the problems of racism better if it’s transported in the fictional world and not presented as a pervasive presence in our real, mundane life. This is made effective in part because it allows the viewers to imagine themselves as a vehicle for change without making them aware that this is also the guilt they have to carry. If Martin intends The Others to be the ultimate representation of slavery itself (which I actually agree), he made the wrong move by making Dany’s storyline a soberingly honest reflection of real life situation and a re-imagining of our own enduring, worldly sociopolitical struggle. It defeats the purpose of the presence of this unreal but objective evil that the heroes must fight as their common enemy to preserve life. 

Dany’s storyline stands in contrast with the whole narrative surrounding the existence of The Others because when it comes to her, the realization we should be having is not that we need to gather / forge light (the heroes) to ready for a the fight against the real, ultimate darkness that’s about to come; Dany, as a hero and a revolutionary, came into view because in Arendtian terms, we have been, and are already in dark times. It means, the bringer of lights come into play not because they were designed to fight evil, but because they become aware that something is actually oppressive, realizing that we live within a social structure that maintains the process of othering and dehumanization (even when the world tells them it’s not) and decisively chose to end it. It’s born out of social reflection and not out of prophecized destiny. There’s a reason why Dany’s character is so closely read as a revolutionary figure whose consciousness to fight for change, to end slavery, happens not because of her predetermined role, but because of the experiences she accumulated. It’s a fundamentally broken logic for me to make Dany’s entire anti-slavery campaign in Essos a secondary struggle, when shouldn’t it be the ultimate battle? Since, in the words of Melisandre and in the backdrop of the conversation between Dany and Mirri Maz Duur about what life truly means, it’s the fight for life itself. 

There’s a conversation here about what makes evil, evil, or how evil is brought about. Martin is certainly not Manichaeian, but the presence of The Others allowed for a more comfortable avenue to locate who the objective enemies are in the series, which entity our heroes must fight for the sake of humanity. The popular narrative that the fandom tends to follow is that unlike the squabbling for lands and power, it’s different this time because the ultimate price of defeat is life. Yet, if we think about it, isn’t that what Dany has been fighting all along in Essos? She may fight for the Iron Throne, she may conquer lands and proclaim herself the queen, but ultimately these are all her way to save and preserve life. More importantly, her story pushes us away from the comforts of The Other, and towards what we should have come to know all along: who are responsible for the enslavement of people? Isn’t also us, humans? Aren’t we the creator of the monstrosity in this world? Unlike The Others whose narrative purpose is to present evil as a sort of future that will come upon us, as a sort of rare event as when “magic” comes back (to imply that it’s outside the realm of human existence) whose entire otherness makes our common humanity more cogent,  Dany’s story makes for an argument that evil is a part of our history, it’s in the past, it already happened, that we made this happen. Because of our own superfluousness, our own thoughtlessness, through our own creation of  the other (be it class, gender, or race), it’s often forgotten that collective responsibility is a response to our own collective guilt. There’s a reason why it never occurred to Dany to hold individual trials for the deaths of 163 children, why she doesn’t allow Barristan to make a case to differentiate between the Lannisters, the Baratheons, and the Starks, because be it by action or inaction, they did play a part in Dany’s own isolation, in the same way that her action and inaction put many of her people in despair and in total isolation (again, to say that Mirri Maz Duur has a point: Dany didn’t really save her). Here, she presents a more astute understanding of human condition. So while Jon is fighting this in the north, she is already fighting the same thing in the east. When you have two heroes whose stories run in parallel with each other, if you make someone march to the other side to join the other half, you are already making a value judgement: Jon’s fight against The Others will always be seen as the most crucial fight in comparison to Dany’s battle in Essos, when, again, like I argued, it shouldn’t be the case and to do so would carry highly problematic implications. 

Dany understood this humanity’s own tendency to bring evil upon themselves, their own collective guilt, precisely because she is The Great Other in her own storyline. She is marginalized as a woman, marginalized as a child, isolated both geographically and in terms of how she’s the only protagonist among the key five who has no family to speak about or to protect anymore in a story that is about family. She has no nation to call home, marching from one place to another she can’t really belong. She is in perpetual exile,  A Conscious Pariah; her own statelessness, her complete otherness and her constant preoccupation with the question who is she? allowed her to understand the plurality of identities, the constructive appearance of our world, and how inaction in the face of darkness is as evil as death; that our own lack of reflection with what we’re participating in spreads evilness around even though we don’t intend that to happen. As a third-culture kid, as a woman, as someone who has been othered throughout my life to control my behavior, to make me less “abhorrent” to “tame” me, to “discipline” me, I identify more with Dany as this stateless woman who’s trying to end slavery using her monsters more than anyone else, or any plot line, in the series. Her anger over the fact that slavers forget the names of the slaves that they claim are their most priced possession, the whole act of forgetting, of reducing someone to “slut” to “whore” to “monster,” is also my story. This is why many people of color are also seeing themselves in her position. 

Dany is The Great Other, because her monstrosity casts shadow from above,  that this time the ones you use for your entertainment are speaking for themselves now, reclaiming their identity, changing our worldly exterior so that the monsters won’t be seen as the others, that the people who are doing the othering are also the monsters, that slavery itself breeds this dehumanizing human connection. So Dany tries to help her people be less bad, as she over and over reflects on her own guilt. She is not letting anyone, including herself, off this hook. This degradation of human existence, this dehumanization, is our human problem; there should be nothing foreign or strange about it. 

This is how rich her storyline is in Essos so much that when it turns out she will have to head West and join Jon to fight The Others, much more to choose to sacrifice herself to fight this abstraction of evil, I’m afraid it will ultimately cheapens the critical points in her storyline that speak for the humanity, the humaneness, the individuality, of the other that she happens to represent. 

So, even if she becomes the hero, she is also ultimately defanged. 

[seoulsborne123]

The Forgotten Queen: Prologue

The discovery of the ancient city called Yharnam was supposed to be the biggest archeological find of the decade. But perhaps some secrets are best left well alone...

A Ghost Hunt and Bloodborne crossover. Set about two years after the events of Akumu no Sumu Ie.

Prologue

Illuminated only with the dim light of their emergency candles, Joanna couldn’t help but feel the unease creep in. It was not a problem in daylight, or even when they had working lamps that provided a constant source of light, but with the flickering flame the shadows turned the Gothic embellishments on the pillars and doors from being grotesque to outright nightmarish. And despite the roominess inspired by the open archways and the high vaulted ceiling that gave the impression of rising high into the heavens, she couldn’t help but feel stifled.

She shook this feeling away and cleared her mind, trying to focus on the game before her. 

"Check."

Her opponent pulled his lips to the side and studied his hand intimately though his eyes seemed to land on nothing in particular. As if sensing her studying his every move, he cleared his throat and feigned confidence, jutting out his chest a little more than usual. Joanna, for the meantime, forgot her unease. He was being too obvious. Normally she would wonder if he was attempting reverse-reverse psychology, but although she’d only known him for a week, she knew that Nick would be too simple and straightforward to consider that option. It could only mean two of the same things: either he had a very low hand, or none at all.  

"Yeah, I'll raise the bet," he said, holding up two coins and making a big show of slamming them down on the table. The noise it made echoed obnoxiously loud.

"You do know how poker works, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

She shook her head. "Suit yourself. They’re your chocolate bars to lose..." She threw in another coin to match what he put down.

"Okay, let's see what you got."

Joanna revealed a seven of hearts and a four of diamonds. Counting the community cards on the table, she only had a pair of sevens. It wasn’t exactly the greatest hand, but she knew it would be enough to beat her colleague.

"Damn, again…"

"Oh Nick, you aren't very good at this." She laughed and added three more tick marks on her notebook, the little rush from winning made her completely forget the unease she felt moments ago. "You owe me 12 pieces now. You’ll need to stake another item; I won't care very much for your chocolate bars any more if we keep going at this pace and that'd be a shame."

Nick rolled his eyes and gathered the cards. "Oh be quiet. I've got—" but a sudden loud thud in the distance made the two of them nearly jump out of their seats. They whipped their heads back and tried to search the darkness beyond what their candlelight could illuminate, but saw nothing out of place. Joanna remembered everything again.

"Must have been the wind," Nick mumbled.

"I'm pretty sure the sound came from inside that door and you know there is no chance of wind behind there. "

"Okay, structure settling."

"Stone settles?"

Nick sighed. "'Okay, then what, ghosts?"

"I don't know, maybe," she answered with an edge to her voice. "With everything that's happened, don't you think… don’t you think it may be supernatural after all?"

Nick let out a breath, unsure of what to reply.. "Come on, Jo. You don’t really think that? It's an ancient place. Nothing about… this… screams haunted..." As he said this, the two of them looked warily around their immediate vicinity: ghastly figurine statues of cloaked women interspersed along the edges of the room, hands outstretched towards the heavens in a plea; empty clay jars scattered about, which they thought must have been used to hold wine, though recent findings point to it actually having once hosted blood; a giant lancet window framed with elegant tracery that let in what little of the obscured moonlight there was, which only served to cast formless shadows all around

Nick looked at Joanna again and repeated with less confidence, "Yep, looks normal to me. We should be okay. And it's a holy place. Don’t ghosts fear Jesus, or something?"

"What? Ghosts can be in churches. And churches can be creepy, especially long abandoned ones. Have you not seen any horror movies?" Joanna retorted, wondering how it was possible for this to not be common knowledge. 

"No, come on, look let’s be logical about it. Have you been to other dig sites before or is this your first rodeo?”

Joanna deflated and admitted, “No, this is the first.” Although she was only a third year Archeology undergraduate student, her work and track record had impressed her professors and they fully endorsed her in joining this short expedition.

Without turning haughty or dismissive, Nick nodded and simply said, “Then okay, I get it. But let’s consider the facts: a giant city in the middle of a dense forest, abandoned and hidden for over two centuries. Of course it’ll be overwhelming. The buildings here may look like they’re in good shape, but sometimes we can’t see all the damage, which might be causing all the random noises we can’t understand. It could also be rats, or something.”

"But that's the problem, isn't it? We should have at least seen some rats by now. I haven't even seen bugs. Have you?"

"Well it’s a bit too nippy here, probably."

"But rats should—" Once again, their conversation was cut off. This time it was the long, baleful howl of a wolf that made them shudder. Eerily on time, the clouds that obscured the full moon parted and bathed the church in its pale, luminescent light. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it made Joanna question whether she preferred the figures partially hidden in darkness, or exposed fully in the moonlight. 

A new thought hit her. "What if this is how it all starts? The last time Professor Gimmel and the others disappeared, wasn't it also a full moon? What if Jon's just the first?"

“Full moon? First ghosts, now you think witches are involved? Or do you mean werewolves?"

"Well, why not?" she snapped, annoyed more at herself, knowing full well how ridiculous she was being. "That was undoubtedly a wolf, and nearby too by the sounds of it, but everyone keeps insisting there are no wolves around here. How does that make sense? Nothing in this place makes sense."

"You know yourself that there's been no signs of wolves around here. None of us have found footprints, or droppings, or old kills in the area. They would have left some kind of trace in the woods outside. Besides even if they were outside, we’re still safe within the city walls since they’re definitely not in here." Nick gathered up the cards and resumed shuffling. "I don't know. Maybe it was an owl."

"That’s just ridiculous. What about that weird singing choir we sometimes hear at night? Kyle and his group heard it, too. I’ve also read mentions of it in the old reports.” 

She leaned in closer and whispered, “I think this is a cursed place. Those jars and the bottles we’ve found… I think it’s becoming more obvious that a blood-borne disease led to a slow collapse of this town. Look at those countless graves outside— people had time to bury their dead. The manner of those blood rituals are still unclear, but usually that would point to pagan worship, right? Yet the significance of the Church and religion in this city leads me to think it’s actually something sanctioned by them. To have the Church’s sacrament be twisted... There must have been something seriously wrong with this place.” 

“I actually agree with your points, but we can’t just jump to conclusions. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the lab has been able to transcribe those old texts...”

As if completely unaware he even spoke, Joanna continued her denunciations and was steadily growing in urgency until she reached a fevered hiss, “And that creepy nun! Where the hell did she come from? I don’t trust her. And now Jon’s missing and we could be next. Just remember that three years ago the others investigated this place and disappeared without a trace."

“You don’t need to remind me of that, Jo.” 

His tone made Joanna stop and look up. His face was grim. 

In her delirium she forgot that Nick was personally connected to the events three years ago. How could she have been so callous? She was trying to formulate a way to properly apologize when to her surprise, he quickly recovered his composure and resumed as if she hadn’t misspoke.

"Jon's always been the kind of 'not always there' type of person though, hasn't he? Maybe he wandered off and got lost. The others will find him and when they do, we'll be right here ready to radio for help."

Joanna groaned. "Nick, something is wrong with this place." She cast another look at her cards and muttered, "I'll raise."

Nick thumbed his cards absentmindedly before calling her raise to stay in the round.

"Again, in terms of its odd history, I agree with you. But to say that what’s happening now is due to supernatural causes? That’s too much, Jo." 

He revealed the fifth card on the table and took in a sharp breath as she put down yet another coin to stay in the round. All he had was a pair of twos. 

Was it worth to continue on? He shook his head. ”Okay, I fold." 

He revealed his cards. She revealed a losing hand.

"Son of a—" but for the third time that night, the sentence was cut off by the sound of the doors opening and heavy footfall fast approaching. It was one of their colleagues who had gone out as part of the search party. He stood before them completely out of breath as if he had sprinted for miles.

He was clearly shaken and quite manic as he gasped out, "They found him! My god, they found him!" Unable to elaborate further, he resorted to gesticulating wildly and pointed outside.

Fearing the worst, Nick immediately stood up and radioed for an ambulance. Unfortunately their heavily secluded location meant that help can reach them twenty minutes at the earliest provided good road conditions. As he spoke to the operator and gave detailed directions, he grabbed one of the first-aid kits nearby and threw it towards Joanna, who caught it and rushed outside with the researcher.

Many scenarios played in Joanna's head, the kind of accidents Jon could have gotten himself into. The current expedition was only meant to go on for two weeks at most and thus their patron did not think it necessary to send out a qualified field doctor with them. At the very best, they had an avid hiker among their group who was trained and volunteered to be their first-responder, but she only knew how to take care of minor injuries. She wondered if Cecile was already at the scene and whether the kit she carried would even be of any use.

However when they reached the plaza, Joanna stopped in her tracks.

It was not Jon.

Most of the group were already gathered, looking on just as surprised as she was. Cecile was already hunched down with him, checking for any serious signs of injuries.

"Who…?" she asked in a whisper, more to herself, and in the still air her voice carried but no one spoke a word.

"What in the--Professor Gimmel!"

Joanna frowned and spun around. Nick had finally caught up. He stood beside her, speechless and confused.

"The Professor? But it's been three years since… Are you sure that’s him?"

Nick finally snapped out of his stupor and slowly approached the sickly, pale man. "Professor Gimmel, are you hurt anywhere? It's okay now. Help is on its way. Are you able to walk further? Our base is at the church nearby." When the professor wouldn't respond, Nick looked to Cecile. "What’s happened? How is he?"

"Shocked, I reckon. Hasn't spoken a word nor looked at anyone in the eye, really. I don't even think he realizes we're here."

Joanna listened to their conversation while her head buzzed with a million questions. She looked the professor over. 

He was bony, disheveled, reeked of something foul, but otherwise he appeared unharmed. Where had he been all this time? How had he survived out here for that long on his own? From the looks of it, it didn't seem like he'd had much to eat, and with the absence of any animals and edible vegetation around, how was he able to provide enough sustenance to keep himself alive for so long? But then again, didn't the nun live here on her own as well and was somehow able to survive? Perhaps the nun had known of his whereabouts all along? Where were the others?

She only knew him by name: a distinguished professor from Cambridge who led a team of seasoned archeologists, crewmen, and a handful of graduate students to study the newly discovered ancient city called Yharnam. It was meant to be the next biggest discovery, but in the end it had to be kept hushed up due to the tragic story of the original excavation team. They had been working for half a year before most of the crew, fifteen people including the Professor, suddenly disappeared without a trace. 

The case was cold. No leads, no suspects to consider. Work on the site was temporarily put on hold, but eventually another wealthy patron stepped up and fresh, willing workers eager to sign up for an adventure were found.  If it weren't for the appeal of the occult and the dig site's macabre history, Joanna would have passed on this opportunity. Alas, though she thought herself not spiritual in the least and refused to believe in supernatural phenomena, the fear of the unknown both excited and scared her. Like a living contradiction, the more outrageous the circumstance, the more she refused to believe, and yet the more mystified she became, the more it terrified and thrilled her to think it could be supernatural. 

Her attention switched back to Nick, who, after having no luck extracting any information from the professor, turned to the rest of their colleagues and asked, "Where did you guys find him?"

"It was Adella who found him," answered Thomas. "Karen and I were on our way towards the area below the Cathedral when we came across her and the Professor. She said she found him down there."

"Well where is she now?"

"Slinked off somewhere. You know how she is. The Professor here has been unresponsive to our questions so we just took him here as soon as possible. All he kept talking about was something about some 'big one' or other. Don't seem to realize we're here at all. We need to get him out of here as soon as possible."

As if on cue, the Professor collapsed on the ground, prostrated himself, and suddenly shouted in excitement, "Oh, Amygdala! Amygdala! Oh… what a pleasure it is to see the divine!"

The clouds had cleared once again and the moon illuminated the forgotten city, the towering Gothic buildings, weathered and ancient. The town was a mess: rubble, gravestones, and coffins strewn about, rotted of old age. Though the addition of a new light source was most welcome, the sight of a large, full moon unsettled everybody.

Joanna tried to follow the Professor's gaze. He seemed to be focusing on the rooftop. Whatever he saw there moved him almost to tears, but she saw nothing. A hallucination, perhaps?

The voice of Evan, one of the younger contractors, broke her train of thought. He had just arrived with two others.

“Thomas, we checked the area to corroborate what Adella said, but no one else there, just him."

Thomas whipped around. "What about the Gate? Was it still open?"

“Open?” Joanna interrupted incredulously. The others around her were just as surprised at this information.

"We didn’t venture too close to it, but we saw it was still open."

"Since when and how?"

"Don't know, kid. It wasn’t open yesterday when the others checked.”

Thomas turned to the others. He was the most senior ranking member of the team and was responsible for everyone’s safety, but this new opportunity was just too good to pass up. Previously inaccessible, now its gate lay wide open. What new discoveries could they find in the lower area? Moreover, there was a good chance they could find the remaining missing people there— alive or dead. He shuddered.

“What do you guys think? Shall we take a team down there?"

Nick answered, "I've already radioed in for emergency; they're on their way. The sky's clear now so we can take advantage of the moonlight. Probably best not to venture out too far though, but if the Professor got out, the others may not be far behind."

"Agreed. We'll go with a small team for now. Cecile you're in charge here to make sure evac goes well. Jon might still be out there, too. If you don’t need that kit, we’ll take it with us. Mike, Evan, Karen, Nick, let's go."

“Take me with you!”

Thomas turned around. Beside him, Nick shrugged and said that she wouldn’t make trouble. With a sigh, he also motioned for Joanna to follow along. 

The trek was a long one. After climbing several sets of stairs and winding along dark alleyways, they finally arrived at the Grand Cathedral, the tallest, most grandiose building in the city, but instead of heading inside the group turned right, following the narrow pathway around the building and found themselves by a cliff side. Following the long stairway down led them to the central plaza of a small community of decrepit houses, where it's been suggested clergymen and nuns must have once lived. But the trek didn't end there. Further along there were more stairs leading even lower below, leading to a hollowed out, possibly man-made cave. The group was forced to huddle in closer together due to the tight space, the feeling of claustrophobia setting in and making everyone's heart beat a little faster until they all finally emerged on the other side.

From the distance, they could see the atrium that housed the aforementioned gate that sectioned away a part of the town no one had ever managed to step foot in.

Thomas held his hand up, halting their advance. He himself took a few steps forward and frowned.

The Gate, which was the name they've baptized the set of gigantic double doors towering approximately forty feet high, was sealed completely shut as it had always been.

[sailorshadzter]

JIMSA

all of the “jim frost” posts have been making me laugh so i decided to write about it. 

post season 8 with tyrion still as hand to bran because he’s the best one to troll with this kind of shit lmao. i also love imagining him going back to king’s landing to bran like “umm  jim frost?” & bran being like “yeah man totally, jim frost. what a good guy.” 

anyways, enjoy!

When the queen stepped into her court with a swelling belly on display, her people could do little but cheer for her good health and the future of their kingdom. After all the North had been through, their young unmarried queen having a baby out of wedlock was the least of their worries. In truth, they were overjoyed that their beloved queen was finally happy. Besides, it was well known who the father would be, though the queen would often remark her child was sired by the wolves, and none could be displeased with her choice.

She settled upon her throne and held her head high as the double doors opened, revealing her latest visitor. Tyrion Lannister had written some time ago to tell her he wished to make a goodwill visit to the North on behalf of her brother, King Bran, who sat upon the throne in Westeros. As Tyrion approached, he too noticed the swell of the queen’s belly beneath her dark green gown. “Your grace,” he bowed low before her throne, raising himself only when she spoke a greeting. “You look… Well.” He said, trying to choose his words as carefully as possible, recalling the young queen’s quick wit and temperament. He would regret dearly upsetting such a woman, especially in her condition.

Sansa can’t help but to laugh, her smile easy going as she leaned forward on her throne. "Thank you, my lord. I welcome you to Winterfell." She is as he remembered- charming, beautiful, her mid stage of pregnancy offering her a radiant glow Tyrion had never before seen in a woman. It gave her an ethereal look, in truth. "I hope your journey was not difficult, now that spring has come, I imagine the roads must be easy to pass." Spring had shown its face some months ago, the very same day she had first woke to the morning sickness of the same child she carried.

"Indeed, your grace, my journey was quite enjoyable." Tyrion responded, already enjoying this queen, finding her far more agreeable than the last he served. Though he was Hand to her brother, Tyrion found himself loyal to House Stark overall, and so he would serve this young woman as much as he served her brother. There was much to discuss with her and her lords, but he found he was much more curious about her growing belly than state politics. Though here in her court was the last place to speak so freely.

"I have had chambers prepared for you," Sansa says, her voice bringing him back from his own mind. "I'm sure you want to rest. I will have food sent to your rooms. Tomorrow, we can meet again, there is much to discuss between us." Her words are final and her smile dismissive, though her sapphire eyes are gleaming as she looked down upon him.

"Thank you, your grace," he replied before rising back to his full height and with a wave of her hand, he turned to walk back towards the doors he'd come in through. He paused for only a moment to glance back, surprised to see that Sansa had already risen from her throne, ducking out of the great hall on the arm of a dark haired man. A very familiar dark haired man, at that. Impossible, Tyrion thought before he pushed out the doors, though he was smirking as he shook his head. Though, perhaps not impossible at all.

[ x x x ]

"Might I ask a question?"

Lord Royce paused in his exit from his chambers, turning back to face the Lannister man with a nod. "Your queen... She is with child, but she's unmarried." Lord Royce does not respond but his expression is rather stony, which Tyrion at once can tell his directed at him and not the fact the queen is carrying a bastard. "And I have this strange notion that I saw Jon Snow leaving with her just moments ago, though he is banished to Castle Black."

"Jon Snow? Here, at Winterfell? Preposterous." Lord Royce says, shaking his head. "You must mean Jim Frost."

Tyrion doesn't know if he's being made fun of, but from the look on the Lord's face, he is quite serious. "Jim... Frost?" Really?

"Yes, he is the emissary for the Night's Watch, you see." Tyrion could swear the lord's lip twitched with a smile. "Jim has sworn fealty to our queen and he remains here at Winterfell, though he makes a monthly trip back to Castle Black."

Though he wanted to ask more, Lord Royce bids him a good night and now all Tyrion can do is ask the woman herself.

[ x x x ]

It took only a few short hours for the two of them to come to terms on a few things- namely trade between their two kingdoms. Securing peace between nations had been the utmost importance since Bran took the throne of the remaining six kingdoms and it had begun by the oldest practice in the book: weddings. Sansa had already agreed to wed Alys Karstark to one of Bran's own lord's oldest sons, the union already agreed on by the pair themselves. There had been talk of Sansa marrying the young Prince of Dorne, though such a thing was certainly out of the question now, though peace would not suffer for it. The Prince of Dorne would have a bride and someday, perhaps he would have a son or daughter to wed Sansa's own, should the gods wish it so.

"You know..." Tyrion's voice brings her from her own thoughts and she looked up at him, sitting across from her with a goblet of wine in hand. "I've been wanting to ask you..." Sansa chuckled at his expense, noting his uncomfortable expression. "About the... Father of your child."

Ah, she thought with a smile, leaning back to press a hand against the curve of her belly. "It is a child of the wolves," she spoke cryptically, reminding him of the king he'd left behind in King's Landing. "A new young, white wolf to someday rule the North when I am gone." She could already feel in her bones that this child would be a boy, a son with the Stark look, a son she would name Robb after the brother she had lost.

Tyrion took a long sip from his goblet before speaking on. "Yes, well... I have seen a familiar face among your court." Sansa arched a brow at his statement, but her rosy lips are still yet curved into a smile as she looked back at him, nodding for him to go on. "I am quite certain I saw Jon Snow on your arm just yesterday."

Sansa supposed she should have known he would find them out at once- this was Tyrion Lannister after all. And well, she and Jon had not been hiding so well now that her pregnancy was too far advanced to hide from the public. Her lords had long suspected her relationship with Jon since the first day he had returned to Winterfell, some six months after his banishment to Castle Black. "Jon Snow is at Castle Black." She spoke with that same smile, tilting her head, red hair cascading over her shoulder. "You must mean Jim."

"Jim Frost? Lord Royce mentioned him."

When the young woman laughed, Tyrion knew he was being fooled. "Indeed, Jim Frost." Her blue eyes gleamed as she settled back against her chair, hands pressed against the curve of her belly. "I don't blame you for mistaking him for Jon- he is as dark haired as any Stark, but I assure you he isn't Jon." When her gaze settled upon him, Tyrion knew the conversation was over.

And he also knew one other thing... Jon Snow was certainly the father of the queen's baby.

[ x x x ]

It was as he climbed into the carriage to leave, having said his goodbyes to the queen and her court, that Tyrion turned and saw them. Sansa was leaning on his arm, her red head tipped against his, laughing at something he was saying. As if feeling his gaze upon them, both she and the man turned for one last look, and that was when Tyrion caught sight of the man's face. Jon Snow raised his hand in a wave and Sansa smiled at him from where she stood, but then they both turned back and went on their way, leaving Tyrion to climb inside with a smirk on his face.  Jim Frost, indeed.

When he arrived back to King's Landing and reported back to Bran, the first thing the king asked was about his sister. "She is pregnant, is she not?" Bran asked as Tyrion poured himself a goblet of wine, his tone implying he already knew the answer to his own question.

"She is." Tyrion replied as he settled into his usual chair at the table.

"And it is Jon's?"

Tyrion can't help but to laugh. "She says the child was sired by wolves, though she hangs upon the arm of a man that looks remarkably like Jon Snow." Bran blinked and shook his head, the look upon his face that of amusement. "They call him Jim Frost as if no one knows." It is Bran who laughed then, a sound unfamiliar to Tyrion- the usually stoic king rarely even smiled, let alone laughed. "They care so much for your sister that I think they would call him a horse if she asked."

"It would seem a pardon for Jon Snow is in order."  Bran gestured for a piece of parchment, which Tyrion slid to him but a moment later. "I think he has been punished long enough, don't you?" Tyrion gave a single nod and watched as Bran leaned over the parchment, his handwriting scrawling across several lines before he looked up again. "See to a wedding gift." Is all he says before sliding the now folded and sealed parchment back to Tyrion, who gives another nod. He got up and crossed the room, to the window where a single raven sat waiting and he tied the scroll to its leg, watching as it soared out into the blue sky.

[ x x x ]

No one was surprised when just a month later, a raven arrived announcing the marriage between the Queen in the North and Jon Snow, now Jon Stark, the new King in the North. Even less surprising was when two months into their marriage another raven arrived to announce the birth of the North's crown prince, already called the Young White Wolf by his people. It was rumored for all of his life that the prince had been born of the wolves, just as his mother had always said, though others would gossip about a supposed wildling lover the queen had before marrying her king. A wildling named Jim Frost.

[stormbornspawn]

Season 8 Game of Thrones predictions

These predictions are entirely my opinion. Would love to hear thoughts, but please be kind in the comments. Just because I don’t support a theory or storyline is not a reason to attack. Adult, civil discussion is always welcome. I am operating under the assumption that Friki’s information is legit and that Tyrion will be a part of some kind of betrayal.

Arya Stark - 90% survival rate - she fights until the end and will possibly help The Hound take out the Mountain - he is still on her list. The only way I can see her dying is in some kind of surprise attack, but she is supposedly present in the DP according to Friki’s info.

Sansa Stark - 80% survival rate - i don’t foresee her picking up a sword, but she will be instrumental in the battle of Winterfell in preparing the common folk, being ready to retreat with a certain signal, getting people out through the crypt tunnels, and exacting the retreat plans. Beyond her getting people out safely and retreating south - The Vale, maybe, I can see her being important in the politics of things and possibly uncovering information about Tyrion’s betrayal. The only way I can see her dying is if Cersei gets hold of her or she falls during the WF battle. Again - she is supposed to be present at the DP as well.

Bran - 90% survival rate - he will be instrumental in tracking the Night King’s movements and will be fiercely protected. He will also find out how to defeat the NK, whether that is how to forge Lightbringer (no Jon will not stab Dany), or something they have to do at the Altar of Winter, I don’t know. If he does fall, it will be as a sacrifice to the NK to save humanity - but he’s supposedly present at the DP.

Jon Snow (Aegon Targaryen) - 50/50 survival rate - he’ll be in the thick of things until the end, but may fall trying to save his family. I lean towards safe because he’s carrying huge plot armor having died once already. He’s legendary status whether he lives or dies. I am liking the theory of him giving himself up to Cersei and double crossing her with the Golden Company. She thinks she’s won, but they end up declaring for the Targs because they offer them back their lands and titles.

Daenerys Targaryen - 50/50 survival rate - she has baby plot armor and I really can’t see her dying in childbirth. What a horrible ending for her. It would be 100% bitter giving her a child and then she can never be a mother to him/her. Not okay and I really don’t see this happening as I believe that BoatSexBaby’s info is correct in that the baby is endgame. If she dies it will be post-birth by sacrificing herself to save the realm or to save Jon. There’s also a possibility that she is killed by someone she trusts or they attempt to kill her. She will also hold Legendary status whether alive or dead.

Jon/Dany relationship - there will be some initial tumult, but they will stay together and fight together no matter what because they promised each other and they are people who take their oaths seriously. I think the romance part will cool off some after the parent reveal as they stand in limbo with their relationship, but after the baby reveal, none of it will matter - they are the last Targaryens and it’s no coincidence that they found each other and fell in love - it’s a fate/destiny thing. I know the incest freaks some people out, but this is not a 2019 modern setting. It’s meant to be like a medieval society and those types of relationships were typical to retain lands and grow houses. So, if that bothers you - sorry, but it’s not going to matter in the long run. And if you really want to get technical, take a look into the British monarchy - loads and loads of incest and that’s real life, folks.

Tyrion Lannister - i believe Friki’s info to be true and with that assumption, Tyrion will 100% die. The only question is if Dany or Jon will pass the sentence. I think this is the big shock that is going to leave the fandom numb, shocked, and in need of therapy. If Dany passes the sentence, which I think she will, that will further divide the fandom especially those who already see Dany in a negative light. She’s my fave, but she’s not perfect. I welcome civil discussion o that point, but won’t tolerate blatant Dany hate (or any hate of a character really). I believe his betrayal will stem from the want to protect Cersei’s unborn child and he will set something in motion that rests on her having the baby - which we all know isn’t happening. It will blow up in his face. Some may think he was correct and the rest will think he deserves to die - this is what will fuck people up.

Jaime Lannister - 100% dead. He has to fulfill his redemption arc, so I think he will die saving either the Stark girls or Dany. Sorry.

Cersei Lannister - 100% dead - no question. It’s only how she dies that is a mystery. I like the theory that she kills herself with poison so that nobody can have the satisfaction of killing her. She’s going out on her own terms. She will fuck some shit up though. She will not go quietly into the night. :)

Mountain & Hound - dead

Brienne - 90% survival rate - she will mourn for Jaime, and no, I don’t think they will hook up - they might admit their feelings, but I don’t see that happening on screen - she will serve the Starks for the rest of her life. If she does die, it will be protecting Arya or Sansa

Gendry - 100% survival - restores House Baratheon through legitimization. Not sure if he and Arya will take things to the next level.

Pod - dead

Bronn - dead and likely complicit in Tyrion’s betrayal somehow

Davos - 100% survival rate - I will have it no other way. He’s supposedly present at the DP.

Qyburn - dead

Robin Arryn - 100% alive - present at DP and probably won’t see much more of him beyond a few scenes

Tormund - dead fighting the White Walkers

Beric - dead but not before resurrecting someone, maybe Dany or Arya - restitution for him selling Gendry to Mel

Melisandre - dead fighting the NK

Varys - dead - possibly part of the betrayal

Missandei - 100% lives - ride or die

Greyworm - 50/50 - alive because he’s a badass mother fucker; dead because it’s war and shit happens

Jorah - 100% dead - saving Dany or Jon

Ghost - 100% dead - don’t even talk to me

Rheagal - 100% dead - for real, say nothing

Drogon - 50/50 - I will lose my shit

Jon and Dany’s kid - 100% happening and surviving

I think the birth of the baby will happen concurrently with the trial. In essence, the rebirth of a great house and the death of another.

I think the iron throne will be gone and the it will be a parliamentary type government where each realm holds its autonomy but agree to certain inalienable conditions.

[fortunatelylori]

I thought a Jonsa marriage would be for Jons protection more than anything. Bringing the Tyrion reason into it takes away from that. I can't see Sansa suggesting a marriage to Jon because of Tyrion. And I sure can't see Jon suggesting a marriage to him after all she's been through. Idk I kind of see that the sole purpose of a Jonsa wedding is for his protection. Something that Sansa really wants to do for him. I go back and forth but atm I'm seeing that 703 scene added with Brans scene

as reminders of her marriages and how she didn’t want them. Both shams. By itself I would lean more towards Sansa/Tyrion wedding talk foreshadowing but together it makes it more about Sansa. Also there’s just too much going on with WW rn to worry about political alliances. That’s what Jon is suppose to be doing with his sham relationship. I can’t see Jon, show Tyrion or Sansa and with the whole North behind her even entertaining the idea. Dany would just look crazy if she suggested it?

Hey, nonnie!

At the risk of repeating myself, my speculation post on season 8 and how that will play out in terms of Jonsa is just that: speculation. It’s based on information we’ve gotten and theories that are circulating at the moment and it’s my best attempt at trying to bring that all together into a cohesive narrative. At the end of the day, it’s no more than just one woman’s opinion. We don’t have enough solid information about season 8 for me to debate and support that speculation against all other possible scenarios so I’m not even going to attempt it. 

What I will do is try and give you some reasoning for it. 

You say: 

I thought a Jonsa marriage would be for Jons protection more than anything.

I did mention in my post that Jon’s parentage reveal would play into the secret Jonsa wedding I speculated on. I just included more reasons for it than that. The way I see a Jonsa secret wedding playing out is that there are a few circumstances that lead to this choice instead of it being a calculated move taken calmly and reasonably by Sansa and then her convincing Jon to go through with it. The Tyrion marriage in my scenario serves as an inciting incidents which forces Jon and Sansa to act at that particular time rather than later. It’s essentially a time constraint. That doesn’t exclude the fact that by marrying him and making him a Stark, Sansa is protecting Jon from D*ny. 

I also placed the Jonsa reveal, kiss/admission of feelings and the play on the love triangle prior to the secret wedding because by adding some personal, emotional stakes to the whole thing, it makes the secret wedding more plausible. Namely it makes it different from Sansa’s other weddings as well as explain why they would take the risk of going through with a marriage in secret.

 Because a secret wedding is not entirely a rational decision and also not necessarily a safe one on Jon and Sansa’s part. By going behind D*ny’s back and marrying in secret, Jon and Sansa are essentially antagonizing her while she’s still in the North where they need her to stay put for the WW fight. 

I was also playing off of the Lyanna/Rhaegar parallel where we have a similar secret wedding that came about for several reasons: Lyanna and Rhaegar falling in love (in show canon at least), Rhaegar wanting his third dragon head/prince that was promised as well as Lyanna wanting to get out of her marriage to Robert. 

In the scenario that you are talking about where Jon and Sansa marry because Sansa wants to protect him, you don’t need a secret wedding at all. You can have a scenario where Sansa marries him to protect him as well as bring together all of the factions they have at their disposal in order to fight back against D*ny. I don’t see any reason for a secret wedding in that scenario at all. As a matter of fact, it would make much more sense for it to be public so everyone is aware that Jon and Sansa have essentially joined their claims in marriage and that Jon is now a Stark, not a Tragareyen which would go a long way in minimizing Westerosi rejection of Jon. 

Again, different strokes for different folks and all that. 

As for this:

Also there’s just too much going on with WW rn to worry about political alliances. That’s what Jon is suppose to be doing with his sham relationship. I can’t see Jon, show Tyrion or Sansa and with the whole North behind her even entertaining the idea. Dany would just look crazy if she suggested it?

I have to say I disagree. Jon’s reasons for bringing D*ny to the North are indeed solely based on his need of men and dragons to fight the NK and his armies. But that’s not D*ny or her camp’s sole reason for being there. D*ny only came North after all of her conditions were met, namely: Jon bending the knee and a truce with Cersei. 

Well, we already know that Cersei doesn’t have any plans to honor that truce. Jaime is already on his way North so she’ll find out pretty quickly that Cersei has called on the GC and she will not be sending her tropes to aid in the WW effort. 

In addition to that, D*ny believed that if Jon bent the knee, his people would follow through with what their king had agreed upon. That’s not likely to happen. 

So D*ny is going to, very quickly, find herself in a position where she doesn’t have a truce with Cersei which means that the more she stays in the North, the more ground she’s losing in the South. In addition to that, her new alliance with her Warden of the North will prove useless because the Northern Lords will reject both her and Jon, and coalesce behind Sansa. No matter how much Sansa tries to keep them in line at Jon’s insistence, there’s bound to be conflict there which will trouble her. 

So yes, they’re all there to fight the WW but I think at several points that conversation will be deviated towards what D*ny’s worries and desires are, which are not in line with what the North wants. 

And if D*ny and her camp realize that the true power of the North is in the Lady of Winterfell’s hands and not her Warden, then her focus will inevitably shift to making sure Sansa is under control and that’s where a marriage proposal with Tyrion would come into play. 

I very seriously doubt the WW attack will find the people of Winterfell united and on the same page. I think they’ll barely be prepared for the battle because their personal interests and squabbles will stop them from focusing on the dead army threat as much as they should be, much to Jon and Bran’s, I suspect, frustration. 

Thanks for the ask! 

[patriotsnet]

How Many Seats Do Republicans Hold In Congress

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-seats-do-republicans-hold-in-congress/

How Many Seats Do Republicans Hold In Congress

Republicans Secure Half Of Total Us Senate Seats

WASHINGTON – U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won reelection Wednesday, assuring Republicans of at least 50 seats in the 100-member Senate for the next two years, while leaving control of the chamber uncertain until two runoff elections are held in Georgia in early January.

After slow vote-counting in the northwestern-most state of the U.S. after the November 3 election, news media concluded that Sullivan had an insurmountable lead over Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who ran as an independent candidate with Democratic support. The contest was called with Sullivan, a conservative, ahead by 20 percentage points.

With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.

Two conservative Republican lawmakers Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.

Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist who narrowly lost a 2017 race for a seat in the House of Representatives before trying to oust Perdue from the Senate seat he has held since 2015.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Who Are The Winners And Losers

Maine Democrats had high hopes of unseating Susan Collins, the 67-year-old moderate Republican who had been trailing her Democrat rival in the polls for months.

But Sara Gideon, 48, conceded in a call to Ms Collins on Wednesday afternoon.

So far, Democrats have managed a net gain of one seat in the Senate election.

Democratic former governor John Hickenlooper won a key Colorado seat from the Republican incumbent Cory Gardner.

Mr Hickenlooper, who stood for the Democratic nomination for president, was governor of Colorado for two terms from 2011 until last year. His rival was considered particularly vulnerable because of his allegiance to President Trump.

In Arizona, former astronaut Mark Kelly defeated Republican incumbent and former fighter pilot Martha McSally. Mr Kelly earlier said he was “confident that when the votes are counted, we’re going to be successful in this mission”.

However, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump ally Lindsey Graham have both been re-elected in their seats of Kentucky and South Carolina respectively.

And in Alabama, Republican candidate Tommy Tuberville took a seat from the Democratic incumbent Doug Jones.

Democrats Path To Senate Control Narrows As Republicans Hold Onto Critical Seats

Democrats path to seizing the Senate continued to narrow Wednesday as Republicans held onto a cluster of seats in critical states and the two parties continued to fight to control the upper chamber of Congress in close contests across the country.

Democrats won a crucial seat in Arizonaearly Wednesday, with Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, defeating Senator Martha McSally, after former Gov. John Hickenlooper defeated Senator Cory Gardner Tuesday night in the high-profile fight for Colorados Senate seat. Those victories were essential to Democrats push to take the Senate majority.

In Georgia, the Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, a Democrat, advanced to a runoff election against Senator Kelly Loeffler, the Republican incumbent. The other race in the state, between Jon Ossoff, the Democratic challenger, and Senator David Perdue, a Republican, was too close to call.

And early returns showed Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, with a lead over his Democratic challenger, Cal Cunningham, in a seat that strategists in both parties identified as a possible tipping point.

There were still several crucial Senate races that were not yet called that Democrats hope to win, including Maine,and Democrats remained bullish on their chances in Georgia.

The 2018 Congressional Retirement Tracker

Here’s a running list of all the lawmakers calling it quits this year.

If you want to see a political wave forming a year before an election, watch the retirements.

Theyre often a leading indicator for which direction a party is headed, and so far, 2018 is shaping up ominously for Republicans, who will be defending 40 open House seats this fall compared with the Democrats 20. By far the biggest and most consequential retirement announcement came in early April, as Speaker Paul Ryan told his colleagues he would not seek reelection to his House seat.

Far more Republicans are leaving Congress voluntarily than Democrats, putting the partys control of the chamber in jeopardy. Several veteran Republican lawmakers in competitive districts are calling it quits, depriving the GOP of the advantage of incumbency in races that could determine control of the House in 2019.

Mcconnell Not Troubled At All By Trump’s Suggestion Of Supreme Court Challenge

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended Mr. Trump for falsely claiming that he won reelection, although he acknowledged that the presidential race had not yet been decided.

“It’s not unusual for people to claim they have won the election. I can think of that happening on numerous occasions,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. “But, claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting.”

“Claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting,” Mitch McConnell says, adding that Americans “should not be shocked” that Democrats and Republicans are both lawyering up for the close races https://t.co/fxHKy8hSEp

CBS News November 4, 2020

He also said he was “not troubled at all” by the president suggesting that the outcome of the election might be determined by the Supreme Court. The president cannot unilaterally bring a case to the Supreme Court, what it’s unclear what case the Trump campaign would have if it challenged the counting of legally cast absentee ballots.

McConnell, who won his own closely watched reelection race on Tuesday evening, expressed measured confidence about Republicans maintaining their majority in the Senate. He said he believed there is a “chance we will know by the end of the day” if Republicans won races in states like Georgia and North Carolina.

Could Flip Under The Right Conditions: Michigan Iowa Montana Kansas And Georgia Special Election

Michigan: Michigan is one of the most hotly contested states in the presidential race, and the reelection bid of Sen. Gary Peters will get caught up in that. Democrats say the fact that the coronavirus has hit Michigan hard makes it more likely Biden can win this state, which was crucial to Trumps 2016 victory. In the Senate race, Republicans have made a big deal out of John James, an Iraq War veteran and conservative media darling. James has outraised Peters for three straight quarters and is close to having as much money as Peters in the bank. Democrats argue Republicans are too bullish on a candidate who also lost a Senate race against a Democrat in 2018. Polls have shown this race close between the two.

Montana: Can a popular Democratic governor who won in Trump country unseat a sitting Republican senator? Term-limited Gov. Steve Bullock , a former 2020 presidential candidate, is running against Sen. Steve Daines . Bullock is the Democrat with the best shot, given hes won three times statewide, including when Trump swept the state in 2016. And in 2018, Sen. Jon Tester won a tough reelection fight. But can Bullock unseat a sitting Republican senator in a state that some strategists estimate could vote for Trump by as many as 20 points?

Its Not All Bad News For Democrats

While it was unquestionably a good night for Republicans, Democrats still held onto most of the seats they won in 2018 and will continue to be the majority party in the House. Thats in part because they retained most of the suburban districts they picked up in 2018.

Of the 233 seats that Democrats held coming into the election, 186 of them were in districts that were predominantly or partly suburban in nature, according to density categorizations by Bloombergs CityLab. Thus far, Democrats have lost seven of those seats, but they captured one GOP-held suburban seat around Atlanta. And thanks to redistricting, theyve also won two formerly Republican seats around Greensboro and Raleigh in North Carolina, which reflect the partys strength in more populous areas.

Because of their relative success in the suburbs, Democrats kept many seats in places President Trump won in 2016. Coming into the election, Democrats held 30 seats in districts Trump carried in 2016, and they wouldve lost their majority if theyd lost more than half of them . But theyve won 18 of them so far and picked up one from the GOP . In fact, more than half of Republicans gains have come in seats representing places that Trump won by a pretty sizable margin in 2016. Well have to wait a bit before data can tell us how congressional districts voted in 2020, but for now it seems many Republican gains were made by picking off the lowest-hanging fruit.

An Incoming Class Of History

Several of the newly elected state representatives are making history. 

The Republican Madison Cawthorn, 25, who beat the Democrat Moe Davis to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, will become the youngest member of Congress in modern history.

The Democrat Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman from Missouri after winning in the state’s 1st Congressional District.

The Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres will also be the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, after winning in New York’s 17th and 15th districts respectively.

And nine out of the eleven Republicans who have so far unseated incumbent Democrats are women wins that will drastically expand the representation of women and especially of women of color in the House Republican caucus.

Currently, there are just 13 voting female Republican representatives in the House and 11 female Republican incumbents who ran for reelection in 2020.

Collins Says Gideon Called To Concede

Senator Susan Collins of Maine told supporters on Wednesday that her Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, had called her to concede the race. Without taking Collins’ seat, Democrats have little change of claiming the Senate majority. 

“I have news for everyone. I just received a very gracious call from Sara Gideon conceding the race,” Collins told supporters on Wednesday afternoon.

Collins, one of the more moderate members of Senate, was considered particularly vulnerable this year. If she had received under 50% of the vote, the race would have proceeded to a runoff, under Maine’s system of ranked-choice voting.

Gideon significantly outraised Collins, and hit the senator repeatedly for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

Republicans Are Well Positioned To Take The House In 2022

Although we dont yet know the winners of some House races, we can already look ahead to the 2022 midterms and see a fairly straightforward path for the GOP to capture the House. Midterm elections historically go well for the party thats not in the White House, and the out-of-power party is especially likely to do well in the House, since every seat is up for election .

Since the end of World War II, the presidential party has lost an average of 27 House seats in midterm elections, as the chart below shows. No matter how many seats Democrats end up with after 2020s election at this point, they will probably end up somewhere in the low 220s a loss of that magnitude would easily be enough for Republicans to retake the House.

The recent history of midterms in a Democratic presidents first term seems especially promising for the GOP, too. Following Bill Clintons election in 1992, Democrats lost more than 50 seats in 1994, and after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, Democrats lost more than 60 seats.

If Democrats had added five to 10 seats this year, they could have survived a 20-seat loss in the midterms. Instead, Republicans will probably need to win fewer than 10 seats to gain a slender majority in 2022.

The Number Of People Each House Member Represents Will Change

The number of residents represented by each House member will mostly grow in 2022, though it will decrease per representative in some states. 

Since Montana gained a representative, its two House members will now split the state’s population currently represented by Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican. The addition of another House seat means Montana’s House members will represent the least amount of people compared to House members in other states.

Delaware’s sole House district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, will be the largest in terms of population.

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New Yorkers Become First Black And Openly Gay Members Of Congress

 Tuesday night will be historic in part because of the diversity of candidates elected to the House. Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones, both of New York, are the first Black and openly gay members of Congress.

Meanwhile, Republican Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina is leading in North Carolina’s 11th district, a safe Republican seat. Cawthorn, 25, won the June primary against a Trump-backed candidate for the seat vacated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows . He has come under fire for visiting Hitler’s retreat and for his campaign launching a website which included a racist broadside against his Democratic opponent.

Maine Senate Race A Toss

 With polls closing at 8 p.m., the hotly contested Maine Senate race remains a toss-up. Senator Susan Collins, running for her fifth term, is considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, but she is facing considerable skepticism from Democrats and independents who previously supported her. State Speaker of the House Sara Gideon is the Democratic candidate, and has posted record fundraising.

CBS News projects that Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts have both won reelection. Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also won reelection.

The Alabama Senate race is leaning toward Republican Tommy Tuberville, who is taking on incumbent Senator Doug Jones, the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate. 

The Tennessee Senate race is also leaning Republican. The Mississippi Senate race is likely Republican. The Senate races in New Hampshire, Illinois, and Rhode Island are lean Democratic, and New Jersey is likely Democratic.

Cori Bush Becomes Missouri’s First Black Congresswoman Cbs News Projects

Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat and activist, has become Missouri’s first Black congresswoman, according to CBS News projections. With 88% of votes reported, Bush is leading Republican Anthony Rogers 78.9% to 19% to represent the state’s first congressional district, which includes St. Louis and Ferguson.

Bush, 44, claimed victory on Tuesday, promising to bring change to the district. “As the first Black woman and also the first nurse and single mother to have the honor to represent Missouri in the United States Congress, let me say this: To the Black women, the Black girls, the nurses, the essential workers, the single mothers, this is our moment,” she told supporters in St. Louis.

Read more here. 

Republicans Are Expected To Gain Seats In Redrawn 2022 Congressional Maps But Democrats Could Be Worse Off

U.S. Census data released Monday will shift political power in Congress, reapportioning two House seats to Texas and one each to Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, and Montana and stripping a seat from California , New York , Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia. Florida, Texas, and Arizona each controlled entirely by Republicans had been expecting to pick up an additional seat.

“On balance, I think this reapportionment offers a small boost for Republicans, but the bigger boost is likely to come from how Republicans draw these seats in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia,” the Cook Political Report‘s Dave Wasserman tells Axios. “Reapportionment itself means little compared to the redistricting fights to come.” It won’t exactly be a level playing field.

“Republicans control the redistricting process in far more states than do Democrats, because of GOP dominance in down-ballot elections,”The New York Times reports. “Democrats, meanwhile, have shifted redistricting decisions in states where they have controlled the government such as California, Colorado, and Virginia to independent commissions intended to create fair maps.”

House seats broken down by final redistricting authority :

– Republican: 187

Dave Wasserman April 26, 2021

More stories from theweek.com

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What Is The New Balance Of Power In The House

House Democrats held onto their majority but lost seats to Republican challengers.

More than a dozen incumbent Democrats lost re-election bids, despite earlier projections they could gain up to 15 seats.

Democrats took the chamber after they netted 41 seats in the 2018 midterm elections, their largest single-year pickup since the post-Watergate midterms of 1974. But some of those new Democrats were among the partys losers in 2020.

Just How Bad Was The 2018 Election For House Republicans

On Thursday, Democrat Jared Golden beat Maine Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin, marking the 33rd seat pickup for Democrats in the 2018 election.

There are seven races in the House left uncalled all are Republican-held seats; Democrats lead in five of the seven. If they win all the races where their candidates are winning at the moment, Democrats will net 38 seats. If they lose them all which is very unlikely they will hold at a 33-seat gain.

In an interview Wednesday with the conservative Daily Caller website,  President Donald Trump insisted that by his aggressive last-minute campaigning across the country he had saved House Republicans from seat losses that could have numbered into the 70s. I think I did very well, he concluded.

So did he? As compared to history?

Not really, is the answer.

Theres no question that Trump did not suffer the massive seat loss that his immediate predecessor Barack Obama did in his first midterm election in 2010. In that election, Republicans netted an astounding 63-seat gain, the largest since Democrats lost 72 House seats in the 1938 midterms.

But more broadly, the 33 seat loss by Republicans in 2018 places this election firmly in the upper echelon of House-seat losses by a presidents party in modern midterms.

Read Thursdays full edition of The Point newsletter, and sign up to get future editions delivered to your inbox.

I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver

sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Bidens overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats midterm chances.

nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldnt even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

One thing is for sure, though whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think were stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bills fate for at least a while longer. 

sarah: Lets talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. Its still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that arent grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or woke will help them win.

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.

Th Congress 2007 And 2008

The 110th Congress is noteworthy because its members were elected by voters frustrated by the protracted war in Iraq and the continued loss of American soldiers. Democrats were swept into power in Congress, leaving Republican President George W. Bush and his party with diminished authority.

University of California political scientist G. William Domhoff wrote:

“The unexpected Democratic victory hobbled the right wing of the power elite and returned moderate conservatives to the central position they had held on policy issues for decades until the Republicans took control of the White House in 2000 and then both houses of Congress in 2002.”

Said Bush after the results became clear in 2006:

“I’m obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election, and as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility. I told my party’s leaders that it is now our duty to put the elections behind us and work together with the Democrats and independents on the great issues facing this country.”

White House: Republican

House: Democrats held 233 seats, Republicans held 202 seats

Senate: Democrats held 49 seats, Republicans held 49 seats; there was one independent and one independent Democrat

*Notes: U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut was reelected in 2006 as an independent candidate and became an Independent Democrat. U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont was elected in 2006 as an independent.

About The House Of Representatives

The United States is also divided into 435 congressional districts with a population of about 750,000 each. Each district elects a representative to the House of Representatives for a two-year term.

As in the Senate, the day-to-day activities of the House are controlled by the majority party. Here is a count of representatives by party:

How Are The Results Reported

The election results on this page are reported by the Associated Press . AP call the winner in a state when they determine that the trailing candidate has no path to victory. This can happen before 100% of votes in a state have been counted.

Estimates for the total vote in each state are also provided by AP. The numbers update throughout election night, as more data on voter turnout becomes available.

Th Congress 2015 And 2016

The 114th Congress was notable because Republicans won their largest majorities in the House and Senate in decades after voters used the midterm election in 2014 to express dissatisfaction with a Democratic president, Barack Obama. Democrats lost control of the Senate in the 2014 elections.

Said Obama after the results became clear:

“Obviously, Republicans had a good night. And they deserve credit for running good campaigns. Beyond that, I’ll leave it to all of you and the professional pundits to pick through yesterday���s results.”

White House: Democrat

House: Republicans held 246 seats, Democrats held 187 seats; there were two vacancies.

Senate: Republicans held 54 seats, Democrats held 44 seats; there were two independents, both of whom caucused with the Democrats.

[genewolf]

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[statetalks]

How Many Seats Do Republicans Hold In Congress

Republicans Secure Half Of Total Us Senate Seats

WASHINGTON – U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won reelection Wednesday, assuring Republicans of at least 50 seats in the 100-member Senate for the next two years, while leaving control of the chamber uncertain until two runoff elections are held in Georgia in early January.

After slow vote-counting in the northwestern-most state of the U.S. after the November 3 election, news media concluded that Sullivan had an insurmountable lead over Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who ran as an independent candidate with Democratic support. The contest was called with Sullivan, a conservative, ahead by 20 percentage points.

With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.

Two conservative Republican lawmakers Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.

Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist who narrowly lost a 2017 race for a seat in the House of Representatives before trying to oust Perdue from the Senate seat he has held since 2015.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Who Are The Winners And Losers

Maine Democrats had high hopes of unseating Susan Collins, the 67-year-old moderate Republican who had been trailing her Democrat rival in the polls for months.

But Sara Gideon, 48, conceded in a call to Ms Collins on Wednesday afternoon.

So far, Democrats have managed a net gain of one seat in the Senate election.

Democratic former governor John Hickenlooper won a key Colorado seat from the Republican incumbent Cory Gardner.

Mr Hickenlooper, who stood for the Democratic nomination for president, was governor of Colorado for two terms from 2011 until last year. His rival was considered particularly vulnerable because of his allegiance to President Trump.

In Arizona, former astronaut Mark Kelly defeated Republican incumbent and former fighter pilot Martha McSally. Mr Kelly earlier said he was “confident that when the votes are counted, we’re going to be successful in this mission”.

However, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump ally Lindsey Graham have both been re-elected in their seats of Kentucky and South Carolina respectively.

And in Alabama, Republican candidate Tommy Tuberville took a seat from the Democratic incumbent Doug Jones.

Democrats Path To Senate Control Narrows As Republicans Hold Onto Critical Seats

Democrats path to seizing the Senate continued to narrow Wednesday as Republicans held onto a cluster of seats in critical states and the two parties continued to fight to control the upper chamber of Congress in close contests across the country.

Democrats won a crucial seat in Arizonaearly Wednesday, with Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, defeating Senator Martha McSally, after former Gov. John Hickenlooper defeated Senator Cory Gardner Tuesday night in the high-profile fight for Colorados Senate seat. Those victories were essential to Democrats push to take the Senate majority.

In Georgia, the Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, a Democrat, advanced to a runoff election against Senator Kelly Loeffler, the Republican incumbent. The other race in the state, between Jon Ossoff, the Democratic challenger, and Senator David Perdue, a Republican, was too close to call.

And early returns showed Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, with a lead over his Democratic challenger, Cal Cunningham, in a seat that strategists in both parties identified as a possible tipping point.

There were still several crucial Senate races that were not yet called that Democrats hope to win, including Maine,and Democrats remained bullish on their chances in Georgia.

The 2018 Congressional Retirement Tracker

Here’s a running list of all the lawmakers calling it quits this year.

If you want to see a political wave forming a year before an election, watch the retirements.

Theyre often a leading indicator for which direction a party is headed, and so far, 2018 is shaping up ominously for Republicans, who will be defending 40 open House seats this fall compared with the Democrats 20. By far the biggest and most consequential retirement announcement came in early April, as Speaker Paul Ryan told his colleagues he would not seek reelection to his House seat.

Far more Republicans are leaving Congress voluntarily than Democrats, putting the partys control of the chamber in jeopardy. Several veteran Republican lawmakers in competitive districts are calling it quits, depriving the GOP of the advantage of incumbency in races that could determine control of the House in 2019.

Mcconnell Not Troubled At All By Trump’s Suggestion Of Supreme Court Challenge

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended Mr. Trump for falsely claiming that he won reelection, although he acknowledged that the presidential race had not yet been decided.

“It’s not unusual for people to claim they have won the election. I can think of that happening on numerous occasions,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. “But, claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting.”

“Claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting,” Mitch McConnell says, adding that Americans “should not be shocked” that Democrats and Republicans are both lawyering up for the close races https://t.co/fxHKy8hSEp

CBS News November 4, 2020

He also said he was “not troubled at all” by the president suggesting that the outcome of the election might be determined by the Supreme Court. The president cannot unilaterally bring a case to the Supreme Court, what it’s unclear what case the Trump campaign would have if it challenged the counting of legally cast absentee ballots.

McConnell, who won his own closely watched reelection race on Tuesday evening, expressed measured confidence about Republicans maintaining their majority in the Senate. He said he believed there is a “chance we will know by the end of the day” if Republicans won races in states like Georgia and North Carolina.

Could Flip Under The Right Conditions: Michigan Iowa Montana Kansas And Georgia Special Election

Michigan: Michigan is one of the most hotly contested states in the presidential race, and the reelection bid of Sen. Gary Peters will get caught up in that. Democrats say the fact that the coronavirus has hit Michigan hard makes it more likely Biden can win this state, which was crucial to Trumps 2016 victory. In the Senate race, Republicans have made a big deal out of John James, an Iraq War veteran and conservative media darling. James has outraised Peters for three straight quarters and is close to having as much money as Peters in the bank. Democrats argue Republicans are too bullish on a candidate who also lost a Senate race against a Democrat in 2018. Polls have shown this race close between the two.

Montana: Can a popular Democratic governor who won in Trump country unseat a sitting Republican senator? Term-limited Gov. Steve Bullock , a former 2020 presidential candidate, is running against Sen. Steve Daines . Bullock is the Democrat with the best shot, given hes won three times statewide, including when Trump swept the state in 2016. And in 2018, Sen. Jon Tester won a tough reelection fight. But can Bullock unseat a sitting Republican senator in a state that some strategists estimate could vote for Trump by as many as 20 points?

Its Not All Bad News For Democrats

While it was unquestionably a good night for Republicans, Democrats still held onto most of the seats they won in 2018 and will continue to be the majority party in the House. Thats in part because they retained most of the suburban districts they picked up in 2018.

Of the 233 seats that Democrats held coming into the election, 186 of them were in districts that were predominantly or partly suburban in nature, according to density categorizations by Bloombergs CityLab. Thus far, Democrats have lost seven of those seats, but they captured one GOP-held suburban seat around Atlanta. And thanks to redistricting, theyve also won two formerly Republican seats around Greensboro and Raleigh in North Carolina, which reflect the partys strength in more populous areas.

Because of their relative success in the suburbs, Democrats kept many seats in places President Trump won in 2016. Coming into the election, Democrats held 30 seats in districts Trump carried in 2016, and they wouldve lost their majority if theyd lost more than half of them . But theyve won 18 of them so far and picked up one from the GOP . In fact, more than half of Republicans gains have come in seats representing places that Trump won by a pretty sizable margin in 2016. Well have to wait a bit before data can tell us how congressional districts voted in 2020, but for now it seems many Republican gains were made by picking off the lowest-hanging fruit.

An Incoming Class Of History

Several of the newly elected state representatives are making history. 

The Republican Madison Cawthorn, 25, who beat the Democrat Moe Davis to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, will become the youngest member of Congress in modern history.

The Democrat Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman from Missouri after winning in the state’s 1st Congressional District.

The Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres will also be the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, after winning in New York’s 17th and 15th districts respectively.

And nine out of the eleven Republicans who have so far unseated incumbent Democrats are women wins that will drastically expand the representation of women and especially of women of color in the House Republican caucus.

Currently, there are just 13 voting female Republican representatives in the House and 11 female Republican incumbents who ran for reelection in 2020.

Collins Says Gideon Called To Concede

Senator Susan Collins of Maine told supporters on Wednesday that her Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, had called her to concede the race. Without taking Collins’ seat, Democrats have little change of claiming the Senate majority. 

“I have news for everyone. I just received a very gracious call from Sara Gideon conceding the race,” Collins told supporters on Wednesday afternoon.

Collins, one of the more moderate members of Senate, was considered particularly vulnerable this year. If she had received under 50% of the vote, the race would have proceeded to a runoff, under Maine’s system of ranked-choice voting.

Gideon significantly outraised Collins, and hit the senator repeatedly for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

Republicans Are Well Positioned To Take The House In 2022

Although we dont yet know the winners of some House races, we can already look ahead to the 2022 midterms and see a fairly straightforward path for the GOP to capture the House. Midterm elections historically go well for the party thats not in the White House, and the out-of-power party is especially likely to do well in the House, since every seat is up for election .

Since the end of World War II, the presidential party has lost an average of 27 House seats in midterm elections, as the chart below shows. No matter how many seats Democrats end up with after 2020s election at this point, they will probably end up somewhere in the low 220s a loss of that magnitude would easily be enough for Republicans to retake the House.

The recent history of midterms in a Democratic presidents first term seems especially promising for the GOP, too. Following Bill Clintons election in 1992, Democrats lost more than 50 seats in 1994, and after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, Democrats lost more than 60 seats.

If Democrats had added five to 10 seats this year, they could have survived a 20-seat loss in the midterms. Instead, Republicans will probably need to win fewer than 10 seats to gain a slender majority in 2022.

The Number Of People Each House Member Represents Will Change

The number of residents represented by each House member will mostly grow in 2022, though it will decrease per representative in some states. 

Since Montana gained a representative, its two House members will now split the state’s population currently represented by Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican. The addition of another House seat means Montana’s House members will represent the least amount of people compared to House members in other states.

Delaware’s sole House district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, will be the largest in terms of population.

Theres Never Been A Better Time For Civic Engagement

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New Yorkers Become First Black And Openly Gay Members Of Congress

 Tuesday night will be historic in part because of the diversity of candidates elected to the House. Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones, both of New York, are the first Black and openly gay members of Congress.

Meanwhile, Republican Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina is leading in North Carolina’s 11th district, a safe Republican seat. Cawthorn, 25, won the June primary against a Trump-backed candidate for the seat vacated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows . He has come under fire for visiting Hitler’s retreat and for his campaign launching a website which included a racist broadside against his Democratic opponent.

Maine Senate Race A Toss

 With polls closing at 8 p.m., the hotly contested Maine Senate race remains a toss-up. Senator Susan Collins, running for her fifth term, is considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, but she is facing considerable skepticism from Democrats and independents who previously supported her. State Speaker of the House Sara Gideon is the Democratic candidate, and has posted record fundraising.

CBS News projects that Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts have both won reelection. Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also won reelection.

The Alabama Senate race is leaning toward Republican Tommy Tuberville, who is taking on incumbent Senator Doug Jones, the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate. 

The Tennessee Senate race is also leaning Republican. The Mississippi Senate race is likely Republican. The Senate races in New Hampshire, Illinois, and Rhode Island are lean Democratic, and New Jersey is likely Democratic.

Cori Bush Becomes Missouri’s First Black Congresswoman Cbs News Projects

Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat and activist, has become Missouri’s first Black congresswoman, according to CBS News projections. With 88% of votes reported, Bush is leading Republican Anthony Rogers 78.9% to 19% to represent the state’s first congressional district, which includes St. Louis and Ferguson.

Bush, 44, claimed victory on Tuesday, promising to bring change to the district. “As the first Black woman and also the first nurse and single mother to have the honor to represent Missouri in the United States Congress, let me say this: To the Black women, the Black girls, the nurses, the essential workers, the single mothers, this is our moment,” she told supporters in St. Louis.

Read more here. 

Republicans Are Expected To Gain Seats In Redrawn 2022 Congressional Maps But Democrats Could Be Worse Off

U.S. Census data released Monday will shift political power in Congress, reapportioning two House seats to Texas and one each to Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, and Montana and stripping a seat from California , New York , Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia. Florida, Texas, and Arizona each controlled entirely by Republicans had been expecting to pick up an additional seat.

“On balance, I think this reapportionment offers a small boost for Republicans, but the bigger boost is likely to come from how Republicans draw these seats in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia,” the Cook Political Report‘s Dave Wasserman tells Axios. “Reapportionment itself means little compared to the redistricting fights to come.” It won’t exactly be a level playing field.

“Republicans control the redistricting process in far more states than do Democrats, because of GOP dominance in down-ballot elections,”The New York Times reports. “Democrats, meanwhile, have shifted redistricting decisions in states where they have controlled the government such as California, Colorado, and Virginia to independent commissions intended to create fair maps.”

House seats broken down by final redistricting authority :

– Republican: 187

Dave Wasserman April 26, 2021

More stories from theweek.com

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What Is The New Balance Of Power In The House

House Democrats held onto their majority but lost seats to Republican challengers.

More than a dozen incumbent Democrats lost re-election bids, despite earlier projections they could gain up to 15 seats.

Democrats took the chamber after they netted 41 seats in the 2018 midterm elections, their largest single-year pickup since the post-Watergate midterms of 1974. But some of those new Democrats were among the partys losers in 2020.

Just How Bad Was The 2018 Election For House Republicans

On Thursday, Democrat Jared Golden beat Maine Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin, marking the 33rd seat pickup for Democrats in the 2018 election.

There are seven races in the House left uncalled all are Republican-held seats; Democrats lead in five of the seven. If they win all the races where their candidates are winning at the moment, Democrats will net 38 seats. If they lose them all which is very unlikely they will hold at a 33-seat gain.

In an interview Wednesday with the conservative Daily Caller website,  President Donald Trump insisted that by his aggressive last-minute campaigning across the country he had saved House Republicans from seat losses that could have numbered into the 70s. I think I did very well, he concluded.

So did he? As compared to history?

Not really, is the answer.

Theres no question that Trump did not suffer the massive seat loss that his immediate predecessor Barack Obama did in his first midterm election in 2010. In that election, Republicans netted an astounding 63-seat gain, the largest since Democrats lost 72 House seats in the 1938 midterms.

But more broadly, the 33 seat loss by Republicans in 2018 places this election firmly in the upper echelon of House-seat losses by a presidents party in modern midterms.

Read Thursdays full edition of The Point newsletter, and sign up to get future editions delivered to your inbox.

I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver

sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Bidens overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats midterm chances.

nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldnt even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

One thing is for sure, though whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think were stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bills fate for at least a while longer. 

sarah: Lets talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. Its still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that arent grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or woke will help them win.

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.

Th Congress 2007 And 2008

The 110th Congress is noteworthy because its members were elected by voters frustrated by the protracted war in Iraq and the continued loss of American soldiers. Democrats were swept into power in Congress, leaving Republican President George W. Bush and his party with diminished authority.

University of California political scientist G. William Domhoff wrote:

“The unexpected Democratic victory hobbled the right wing of the power elite and returned moderate conservatives to the central position they had held on policy issues for decades until the Republicans took control of the White House in 2000 and then both houses of Congress in 2002.”

Said Bush after the results became clear in 2006:

“I’m obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election, and as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility. I told my party’s leaders that it is now our duty to put the elections behind us and work together with the Democrats and independents on the great issues facing this country.”

White House: Republican

House: Democrats held 233 seats, Republicans held 202 seats

Senate: Democrats held 49 seats, Republicans held 49 seats; there was one independent and one independent Democrat

*Notes: U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut was reelected in 2006 as an independent candidate and became an Independent Democrat. U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont was elected in 2006 as an independent.

About The House Of Representatives

The United States is also divided into 435 congressional districts with a population of about 750,000 each. Each district elects a representative to the House of Representatives for a two-year term.

As in the Senate, the day-to-day activities of the House are controlled by the majority party. Here is a count of representatives by party:

How Are The Results Reported

The election results on this page are reported by the Associated Press . AP call the winner in a state when they determine that the trailing candidate has no path to victory. This can happen before 100% of votes in a state have been counted.

Estimates for the total vote in each state are also provided by AP. The numbers update throughout election night, as more data on voter turnout becomes available.

Th Congress 2015 And 2016

The 114th Congress was notable because Republicans won their largest majorities in the House and Senate in decades after voters used the midterm election in 2014 to express dissatisfaction with a Democratic president, Barack Obama. Democrats lost control of the Senate in the 2014 elections.

Said Obama after the results became clear:

“Obviously, Republicans had a good night. And they deserve credit for running good campaigns. Beyond that, I’ll leave it to all of you and the professional pundits to pick through yesterday’s results.”

White House: Democrat

House: Republicans held 246 seats, Democrats held 187 seats; there were two vacancies.

Senate: Republicans held 54 seats, Democrats held 44 seats; there were two independents, both of whom caucused with the Democrats.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-seats-do-republicans-hold-in-congress/

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In some cases, the dog may also exhibit symptoms other than accumulation of black wax in the ears. Mold can be particularly problematic for those with asthma, allergies, or other respiratory conditions.. “I am more agile when I’m drunk.” He turned to the proprietor. “I joust, I sing, I say amusing things. I have fancy, but you have reality. I am sure you won't have time to realize that you don't have any work. By degrees she made me understand all her ideas, all her views of life; she’s such an earnest, such an enthusiastic girl! She talked nike jean jacket of duty, of our mission in life, of how we all ought to serve humanity and, as we thoroughly agreed, after five or six hours of conversation, we ended by swearing eternal friendship, and that we would work together all our lives!.

[myrish-lace-love]

im not sure if you take requests but i was wondering if you could write a jonsa fic where sansa goes to the meeting at the dragon pit and cersei says the only way she’ll agree to jon/dany’s terms is if sansa stays in KL?

(thank you for this amazing prompt nonny! TW: brief speculation of implied violence - don’t worry, Sansa’s all right!)

***

Sansa did not sway as the crowd gasped. She would not give themthat satisfaction. Instead, she held her head high and gazed serenely at apoint on the horizon.

But shetwisted the ring on her index finger, once, before she caught herself.

No, Jon thought, no, this iswhy I pleaded with you not to come. Because I can’tprotect you. From Daenerys, or from Cersei.

Thenagain, Sansa was accustomed to Jon’s failures. Jon was Warden of the North now,not a king any longer, and sworn to serve Daenerys Targaryen. He’d bent theknee to save their kingdom.

And yet, they were still trapped, waiting on Cersei Lannister’spledge, because Daenerys Targaryen’s encounter with the Night King had not quelledher ambition for the Iron Throne.

Cerseidrummed her fingers on her chair, awaiting Jon’s answer. The audience hadfallen silent, and only the occasional dragon’s cry overhead filtered throughthe muggy air. Sansa tried to catch Jon’s eye. Perhaps this was a sacrifice shewas willing to make. Perhaps he should not take that choice away from her. Shehad as much right to offer herself up for the North as Jon did.

But Jonwas selfish, and weak, and could not let her go.

Cersei clearedher throat. She was not a patient woman. “What is your answer, Jon Snow?”

Hewanted to say: You will never have her.“In the matter of this Great War, we need to come together. We need to trusteach other,” he said to Cersei. And Sansa.

Sansa. Please.Hear me. Remember. I will not leave you here to die.

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Cersei smirked,a quirk of her lips like a self-satisfied cat. “No alliance can proceed withouttrust. I would, of course, trust Ned Stark’s son to keep his word.”

Jon swallowed,a bitter taste in his mouth mixed with the dust of the Dragonpit. He needed tobe smarter than Robb. Smarter than father. A slow realization overtook him. Hehad a currency he could spend. A legacy he could lean on. For the first timeduring this cursed parley, he felt a glimmer of hope.

He could lie, and be believed.A gift from Ned Stark, beyond the grave.

In astadium of hostile players, each doubting the other’s words, his promise would be takenas true. Cersei’s mistake was assuming Jon was still bound to his word. Thatshe’d boxed him into doing his duty.

Butwhen Jon saw Sansa twist her ring again, he knew that duty was dead to him, ashin his mouth.

“Thenwe accept,” he said, checking only for Sansa’s reaction as the crowd murmuredaround him. He saw the faintest of smiles on Sansa’s lips, and that emboldenedhim. “On one condition. We take Jaime Lannister in exchange for Sansa Stark.”

Cerseipressed her lips into a thin line. “He is the commanding general of my armies.”

And your lover, Jonthought. You will suffer too, Cersei,because pain is power, and power is all you understand. “Aye. Armies youhave pledged to the defense of the realm until the Northern threat is dealtwith. He would be an honored member of our war council.”

Cerseifolded her hands neatly in her lap. “Very well. Sansa Stark will be an honoredguest in King’s Landing as long as Jaime remains safe.”

Jon wasno fool. Cersei had no intention of keeping her end of the bargain. Jaime’ssafety might stay her hand for a while - Jon was counting on that much - buther cruelty and malice would win in the end. He saw the greedy light in hereyes when she glanced over at Sansa.

Cersei curled her hand underher chin. “Sansa will be well taken care of. We’ll ensure she has accommodationsbefitting her rank.”

Like Arianne Martell? Aquestion Jon had wanted to ask, before Daenerys had stayed his hand. Jon didnot know what had happened to Arianne, but he could guess. Were her bonesrotting in the Red Keep now? Or was she still screaming for her life as herflesh burned?

You’ll never win this way, Jon. You’ll onlydrive yourself mad. Your fears will not help you get Sansa back. Stay focused. 

Theonly way to win was to give Sansa up, even if it broke his heart to do it. Heprayed to the gods that this was the right choice.

“Then we accept,” Jon said.

Cersei inclined her head. “Done.”

“May we say goodbye?” Sansaasked, voice trembling. There were tears in Sansa’s eyes. For one horriblemoment Jon thought he’d misjudged, and Sansa hated him for the choice he’d made.

Then understanding coursed through him. The tears were to please Cersei, to seal the bargain, and to sell itsvalue.

Cerseinodded graciously. “Yes of course. I’ll take a moment to bid my brothergoodbye as well.”

Cersei took her brother’s hand, and kissed Jaime deeply as low murmursreverberated through the arena. Even Daenerys was distracted, her mouthhanging open.

Sansawalked calmly over to Jon. “Goodbye, brother,” she said. She held out her armsand Jon walked into them.

Sansa huggedhim gently. Jon’s body was on fire, but that was his shame to endure. Hetried to memorize her scent, the sweet feel of her in his arms, because nothingwas certain in a time of war.

I’ll come for you, hewanted to say, but it would only disappoint her.

Sansa whisperedin his ear. “Well done, Jon.”

“I hateit,” he said hoarsely, aware that but for Cersei’s display, all eyes would be fixedon the embrace he and Sansa shared. He was holding her too close, had his handwrapped in her hair, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. “I hate leaving youhere Sansa. You’ve lived this nightmare before. I never wanted you to have tosee her again.”

“We allhave nightmares to face,” Sansa said, and she sounded like Catelyn in thatmoment, like Ned. “Winter is here, and so is the Night King.”

“Briennestays with you,” Jon said fiercely. “You need protection.”

“Brienneis not yours to command,” Sansa said, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Her braveryand strength, in the midst of their enemies, was a mystery and an inspirationall at once.  “She is my sworn shield,remember?”

Jon wasabashed. “I do. But please, ask her to stay with you. Sansa I-“ His throatclosed. “I can’t bear to think what they’ll do to you. Inflict on you.”

Sansapaled slightly. “Brienne is a valued member of your war council.” She glancedover at Cersei, who was talking to the monster that was the Mountain.

Please, Jon begged silently. Please keep Brienne by your side. Give methat much comfort.

Sansaswallowed as the Mountain shifted in his clanking armor. “Yes, she’ll stay withme. But you mustn’t worry about us Jon. Win our home back. Save the north. Saveour people.”

“I will always worry, Sansa,” he said, and herface softened.

He wanted to get down on oneknee in front of her. He wanted to kiss her hand, and her mouth, to clutch hertightly to him.

But she was his sister, and hewas a warrior, and they both had parts to play.

“Thenwin quickly,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek. It was a deliberatecontrast to Cersei’s display of affection – chaste and proper. It was a move inthe game, and he did not close his eyes to savor it. She stepped back, and was instantlysurrounded by Lannister guards. Jon flexed his sword hand to keep from drawingLongclaw as Sansa was swallowed in a sea of red and gold.

Brienne dropped Jaime Lannister next to Jon. Jon could have sworn Brienne had carried Jaimeover by the scruff of his neck, and Jaime hadn’t minded.

“You’ve made Robb Stark’s bargainat last. The Kingslayer for Lady Catelyn’s daughter.  Well struck, Lord Snow.” For all his bravado, Jaime Lannister still lookedshaken by the wight that had clawed for Cersei’s face. He was a seasoned battle commander.He understood what one hundred thousand undead soldiers meant. As much as Jondespised him, his insight would be helpful.

“IfCersei harms her, I’ll cut your head from your shoulders,” Jon growled.

Jaimetilted his head. His green eyes danced. “No death by dragon fire? Pity, I’dbeen hoping for a more dramatic exit.” A man who doesn’t fear his own death,Jon thought. Then again, neither did Jon. He only feared the deaths of those heloved.

Withthe players moved across the cyvasse board, the details of the truce weresettled. Jon, Cersei and Daenerys exchanged ringing words about trustand commitment and the safety of the realm. All of them were well-spoken lies. Jondug his fingernails into his palm to keep his eyes on Cersei, rather than Sansa.

The pact sealed, Jon’s partymade preparations to go. He held himself together until the Lannisters left the Dragonpit. The sight of Sansa’s auburn hair fading into blackness, asthe maw of the arena door swallowed her whole, tore Jon apart. They’d wonback the North, only to trap her here in the South.

***

Tyrion and Daenerys bothpraised him on the way home.

“You’vefinally learned to play the great game,” Tyrion said, raising his glass astheir boat swayed on the rough sea. Jon smiled tightly, and said nothing.

As soon as he had Daenerys inplace and committed to flying North, as soon as his forces were set in motion,he would steal Rhaegal, and fly to the Red Keep.

Because Sansa Stark belonged withhim, in Winterfell. Jon needed her in the very marrow of his bones, even if hedidn’t understand the why of it, and he was willing to forsake duty and honorand the war itself to bring her back.