One Of Things That I Think Is Missed A Lot In The Fandom (I Honestly Blame The Show For This), Is That

One of things that I think is missed a lot in the fandom (I honestly blame the show for this), is that when she is not in an extremely traumatic situation, Arya really is a cheerful, extraverted little girl who names babies and picks up flowers for her father and makes friends with everyone.

And the thing is, if they didn't want to adapt her first chapter at all (which is a shame because it establishes a lot of her relationships and themes), instead of having her take the shot from Bran while her parents look on fondly (which... I love Cat and Ned but they would not react like that to her doing this at all) they could have her with Jon on the side, looking like she wants to join and tries what Bran is doing without doing so, and have them (Jon and Arya) bond in episode 1 on the outside, or actually have her pick up flowers outside while the boys are training.

And then instead of making her late because she is looking at the knights arriving, make her late because she was in the kitchen, talking with the cook, trying to figure out a name for the new baby, have them call her Arya Underfoot to show that it's something she does usually anyway or in the stable talking to the stableboy, being friends with him or just something that shows Arya Underfoot.

Mental Crop Rotation

When farmers grow the same crop too many years in a row, it can leave their soil depleted of minerals and other nutrients that are vital to the health of their fields.

To avoid this, farmers will often alternate the crops that they grow because some plants will use up different minerals (such as nitrogen) while other plants replenish those minerals. This process is known as “crop rotation.”

So the next time you find that you need to step away from a project to work on something else for a while, don’t beat yourself up for “quitting” that project. Give yourself permission to practice “mental crop rotation” to maintain a healthy brain field.

Because I’ve found that when that unnecessary guilt and pressure are removed from the process, a good mental crop rotation can help you feel more energized and invigorated than ever once you’re ready to rotate back to that project.

twow theory

Yes yes yes yes the tdp lore is deep and consistent and I love the show for it

obsessed with the long-game payoff of "Hearts of Cinder" rn tbh

like not just in a narrative mirroring/parallels way, showing in s3 how far Viren had fallen and closing that arc in s6, or with how Soren and Viren's positions reversed, but like... either they planned this for Viren literally from the beginning or it came about through a startling commitment to lore depth and consistency

because like

a) Back in s3, the "Hearts of Cinder" spell is... weird. Like not so weird that it clashes with the setting as we know it, but at the time we're only just being introduced to things like the Draconic corrupted Sun rune spells, or the role the Staff of Ziard plays in dark magic. It's got an incantation that, at the time, is kind of unusual in the context of other dark magic spells but slots in with the series' overall recurring heart motif such that it can't really be called wrong. It's not a Spiders Georg-level outlier, but it definitely feels like there's something we're missing.

b) That's because someone planned it out in deep detail: "Hearts of Cinder" is, in hindsight, the only dark magic spell we see that is clearly intended for war with Xadia. It's a spell that comes from a much more brutal era both politically and magically, when armed conflict with dragons was high and "make your army immune to dragon fire for the low, low cost of one human sacrifice" was a deal people were willing to take. We know that's intentional, because it's right in the incantation: dark magic incantations frequently reference the spell reagent, as with "Slithering Steel" or "Ash of Fallen, Rise Again." So someone knew as far back as s3 that this spell normally used a human heart for its magical power.

c) This confirms so much stuff that it's like they put it in there for me, tumblr user kradogsrats, special interest: dark magic. The on-screen exposition drop that the Sunforge Staff contains a Sun primal stone. Confirmation that you can use a primal stone as a source for dark magic. Confirmation that you can use human essence as a source for dark magic. Another consistency example of the Staff of Ziard being used to empower dark magic spells. Confirmation that there are dark magic spells built on human sacrifice.

like... that's all stuff I knew, or at least suspected and wanted to be true, but having it all right out there like "hey who wants some resolution in the lore arc of dark magic? kradogsrats again?" just has me like

In love with this

the frequency of jaime referring to brienne as wench (and other names) from from their first meeting to the bear pit rescue