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A List of Things To Come

*a long post*

I was on hiatus for about 5 years, but I think it's worth the risk of coming back. These are some thoughts and hot takes I've had since then up to now. My professional life is busy, but when I have the time, I'll share. Anyone interested?

Here's a preview, categorized by fandom:

A Song of Ice and Fire:

For asoiaf canon, I’ll speculate on what Jon and Val could have been, and what they could have had together, if he had not kicked the bucket. I’ll also contrast it with Jon's dreams of a life with her, and why he put the torch to it. :( Because of the root of her dislike of Mel and Shireen, I figure she will not be pleased with un-Jon.

Game of Thrones:

In GoT canon, Jon did not love Dany as much as the script suggested he would. In fact, they both failed to take responsibility for the other person. I haven't seen anyone make a statement like this before. (The PTSD is real.) But fic writers did pick up on this and tried to fix it in canon compliant stories, with a lot of success.

Supernatural:

In Supernatural s12-s14, Mary should have found her sons to be way more weird, specifically with each other. But given what we see of her in s6, her characterization is consistent. She would have, and did, ignore the red flags for an idea of family.

I’ll share approving thoughts on Sam and Dean's relationship in the final seasons, disapproving thoughts on the final season of Supernatural, and how I speculated it would either go Gencest or Destiel. We know what happened. No one walked away happy and I think the fandom was all the better for it.

Destiel is not canon. It only became a one-sided love confession. (I know there's a lot of speculation on what happened b/w the studio, the writer's room and the post-production team. Idc. Not gonna touch it.) Thoughts on how I think SPN could have made Destiel go 100% canon involve tweaking the execution and balancing out the themes of Sam and Eileen's love story, the big bad plot, and Dean and Cas's 'love' story.

Outlander:

Outlander (show-only) thoughts, foremost on Roger Mackenzie. He has vexed me from the first time he appeared on screen. I love him dearly, but he vexes me, for how he consistently affects the plot and how that defines his role among the main cast. Later on, I'll run through my favorite moments, episodes and narrative arcs.

Miscellaneous:

I'll share a list of favorite ship-centric fics I've collected over many, many, many years. (Gotta be over 10 years' worth). Along with blurbs that explain my recommendation in a non-spoilery way. Fandoms include: Harry Potter, LOTR, Supernatural, The Walking Dead, ASOIAF, Game of Thrones, Star Wars (Sequel Trilogy), The Flash, Shadowhunters [look away book fans <3], Hannibal (show-only).

I'll also post drafts of fics I never got right and never finished. Mostly GoT-canon divergent Jon/Dany fics.

Most importantly, some very dear friends have encouraged me to vent and hype up my Jonerys fic series "We Could Live Together" as I write it. It's GoT-canon divergent, but I alter some of what occurred before 6x09. Then the story re-enters book territory and moves toward ADOS conclusions. I'd also love to break down and discuss songs from the playlists when it strikes me.

This is the summary of Part 1, "A Long Way Home" (published):

After the Battle for Winterfell, Jon was captured by Bolton men then later found by Daenerys not far from Dragonstone. Their meeting blossoms into the most honest love--until Jon suddenly leaves for Winterfell, only to return to Dragonstone months later with more terrifying tales of dead men and Winter storms. When Daenerys chooses to send her armies north to fight the dead, all is certain but the matter of their bond. After the pain they'd endured, can they come together again? Or will separation be too powerful to overcome? *or* A romantic tale of choice and second chances.

This is the summary of Part 2, "Awake For Ever In Sweet Unrest" (in-progress and unpublished):

Winter has come and further fractured the realm. Yet Jon and Daenerys's betrothal and alliance is well known throughout the Seven Kingdoms. The secret that threatened to break them has made their love stronger, casting a fragrance of hope that draws to the last Targaryens all who seek refuge from political turmoil. Cersei Lannister has fled King's Landing in favor of establishing a bank in Lannisport, to guard against her deposition by the Iron Bank. Euron Greyjoy has set up a naval blockade at Oldtown, yet manages to beguile the Hightowers. And Walder Frey's sundown years threaten to pull his House into a civil war. From the Wall, Jon and Daenerys begin to wage war on the Others. Yet the age of wonder and terror, of gods and heroes, leads them and their enemies in the least expected ways. It begs the question: does all happen the way it must? *or* A romantic telling of the new War for the Dawn.

This is what I've been doing the past few years: working, (dating lol), re-reading the books and joining theory discussions on other sites. What touched my heart was readers asking for me to continue the fic series. Even as I considered it, I was conflicted. Since the show and book canon are so enmeshed, I think we were really vulnerable to being whipped and scored by D&D. But we all found ways to lick our wounds. I'm grateful we were able to become closer and stronger. I'm glad to be a part of it.

So that's my preview. If you've read this far, thank you. <3

There's more to come.

Show Jaime:

“I know I just slept with Brienne who I have a deep attachment to, and I’m about six seasons deep into a redemption arch but Ima peace out and get crushed by rocks with my sister wife”

*Book Jaime literally in the middle of reading a letter from Cersei begging him to come and save her:

“I wonder what brienne is doing right now”

Ooo that's a nice chart you got there. Thanks for breaking it down for us. I'd agree. It's hard to notice when first reading. But I noticed this too on a re-read.

Some of my favorite moments are when "Arya's" impending wedding leads Stannis and Jon to discuss who to do about the Karstarks (the only House who've pledged for him). Stannis thinks Arnolf Karstark will keep his pledge. But Theon's chapters tell us everyone at Winterfell knows Arnolf will betray Stannis when he finds Alys, so he can claim Karhold.

As you have described, the tapestry is more tightly knitted together than what D&D did without Jeyne Poole, which increases coherency. It's just another example of the pitfalls of grafting the personality traits, backgrounds and roles of minor characters onto the main characters in a sprawling adaption of a series like this.

Alas. At least we can identify these problems and undo the enmeshment of the book and show plots.

Earlier I had mentioned how ‘Arya’s’ marriage to Ramsay Bolton is the thread that connects all the plots in the North in ADwD and I could not help notice how it’s mentioned or is the driving force for what is happening in four different locations or about 70% of the North plot.

Keep reading

Why do Dany antis think Dany gave herself her titles? Like the amount of times people rant about how she must be "so conceited" to have all those titles, like do they not know how titles work in ASOIAF? This is rhetorical of course, I know the answer, hatred of her character and that shit show. So, since D&D chose not to explain to them in simple terms how titles come to be and how Dany earned hers, I will (don't worry, I'll use small words since they so clearly struggle with media literacy).

So how do titles work in ASOIAF? Simple, their awarded by others. If someone gives themself a title it's not acknowledged by others, simple Medieval European rules. We see examples in Aegon the Conqueror, Maegor the Cruel Jaehaerys the Conciliator, Rhaenyra the Realm's Delight/Black Queen, Aegon the Usurper, Aegon the Unlucky, Baelor the Blessed, Daeron the Young Dragon, Aegon the Unworthy, Aemon the Dragonknight, Daeron the Good, Aegon the Unlikely, and Aerys the Mad King. Yes, I decided to do all Targaryen examples, because why not use Dany's family.

Each of these titles were given because of the attributes or accomplishments of their owners. Aegon I conquered the Seven Kingdoms, Maegor usurped and killed his family members (and much more), Jaehaerys stabilized the kingdom, Rhaenyra was greatly loved by the realm as a child and her faction were called the Blacks after her clothing. I could explain everyone on the list, but that would take forever and we have a lot to get to. However, I believe I have made my point about titles, they are given, sometimes posthumously, by those around them because of what that person has done or what they're like.

Dany's titles are no different, she earned them and/or was given them by those around her. These titles are: Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, and Breaker of Shackles/Chains. I'm going to go in order and say how she got these titles, since apparently that needs explaining. I'll even go into Queen of the Seven Kingdoms (etc) and Queen of Meereen, in case someone wants to bring that up.

Stormborn was given to her by her mother, Queen Rhaella, upon Dany's birth, same for Princess of Dragonstone actually. Dany was born on the night of a terrible storm that destroyed what was left of the Targaryen fleet. She was also born after her family had been almost wiped out and Westeros was in the middle of massive civil upheaval. Hence, Stormborn. Now, Rhaella and Viserys both believed he and Dany were the rightful heirs to the throne after Aerys and Rhaegar's deaths, so Viserys was crowned king of the Seven Kingdoms and Dany was made his heir until he had children. The heir to the throne was traditionally given the title of prince/princess of Dragonstone, so that's why Dany was given it.

Fast forward thirteen (or sixteen in the show) years and Dany is married off to Khal Drogo, this marriage makes her a Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. And since the position of Khaleesi is a bit of a lifetime thing, since after the Khal's death they join the Dosh Khaleen. Therefore, Dany will carry the title of Khaleesi for the rest of her life. She also became the leader of her own Khalasar, making the female equivalent of Khal an appropriate title.

But before she gained her Khalasar, she earned the titles Unburnt and Mother of Dragons on the same occasion. This was, of course, when she woke her dragons from stone. Dany walked into the fire of Drogo's pyre and was unscathed (except for her hair in the book). Because of that her people called her the Unburnt and told others. As for Mother of Dragons, Jorah and her Khalasar call her this first, then it spreads to Qarth, Astapor, and eventually Westeros. As for where it came from, well, she literally hatched three dragons that nursed from her (book).

Next up, the Breaker of Shackles/Chains. This is a title Dany earned after the events of Astapor, where she freed the Unsullied and helped lead a city-wide slave revolt. More specifically this name came from her order to the Unsullied, "Strike the chains off every slave you see," After the events in Astapor, the Unsullied and other slaves named her the Breaker of Shackles/Chains. This name spread across Slaver's Bay, to the rest of Essos and Westeros. Dany makes this name into an official title as a warning to the slavers, she is coming to free the people they enslaved. In Meereen, it's used as a reminder of the new order she was instituting, one that wasn't built on the backs of slaves. In Westeros it's a sign of her achievements and shows her intentions, to help the downtrodden and oppressed, even though the show decided to throw that out the window to "subvert expectations".

Now, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, etc, and Queen of Meereen are the only titles that it could be argued she gave herself. However, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms is her inheritance, at least she was taught it was (if you want to argue about new dynasties and such). She was Viserys' heir, so, when he died, his titles and responsibilities were passed to here. This means that technically the title was given to her lol, but she did choose to pursue it. After all, she was raised by Viserys to believe it was not only her birthright but also her duty to retake Westeros for first Rhaego, then herself. We see this line and thinking time and again in her chapters,

"If I were not the blood of the dragon...this could be my home." (AGOT) This is said about staying in the Dothraki Sea, and the same quote comes up in Meereen. Dany wants a simple life, the house with the red door, but she rejects it because she believes it's her duty to take the IT, her responsibility to her family.

A similar sense of duty is what drives Dany to take Meereen and rule it. At this point Yunkai has fallen back into slavery and Astapor is falling apart, so Dany learns from her previous choices and chooses to stay in Meereen to try to ensure the slaves she freed there don't fall back into slavery. Now the show really fucked up her storyline in Meereen, by removing the threats of Yunkai, Qarth, and Volantis as well as greatly reducing the actions of the Harpy and just straight up trying to make Hizdahr a "good guy". But both in the show and the books, Dany takes Meereen because of the rapant injustice of slavery, why is that so hated by certain parts of the fandom? Well the answer to that is because hatred of Dany is so deep in some people that they will demonize everything she does, even the things that are objectively right. This mentality causes them to be willfully blind to her titles and their significance.

Dany's titles were made to set her apart from her ancestors and contemporaries. The show damaged this by neglecting to actually show how titles work and by not giving any new ones to people who deserve them (Jon Snow for example). But either way, her titles show how Dany has done more in her sixteen years of life (about 20-22) than almost anyone else has done in their 40+. Her titles are signs of how respected and loved she is by her people, they are reasons her enemies should fear her, and they demonstrate how inspiring her character is, no matter how the shit show ruined her.

“Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.”    ―      Euripides  

Love it! And show Jon can try (and will fail) to win her back!

When you start reading a Jonerys fic and then completely go off on a tangent to @nonnyfcknawesome93 on how much you hated GoT s8 and how much s8 Jon didn’t deserve Dany. Then instead of finishing reading the fic, you go off and make a big f* you moodboard to s8 Jon and introduce Haralf Sigurdsson to resurrected Dany… as you do! 🤭

THE MOODBOARD:

And then another:

When S8 Jon didn’t want any of it because he never have or some BS…

And we can all probably agree that Daenerys deserved better. So did Jon (I still love Jon) but for today, just bare with my pettiness in what D&D made him do to her! Hence, Harald Sigurdsson.

The fic I was reading beforehand was @evax3’s CANT LIVE WITHOUT ROMANCE for #joneryswinterwonderland2023:

https://www.tumblr.com/evax3/736435909669634048/for-jonerys-winter-wonderland-2023-hosted-by?source=share

From what I’ve read so far, it was really good and like her other fics, surely another MUST READ and I cannot wait to finish it when I get a chance later today!!!

i hate that the general public has the ideia that sandor only sees sansa as a "little sister" and has a stronger bond with arya… got did irreparable damage to society

I get far less mad at the "He's closer to Arya" thing when the people saying it are honest about refering solely to show as that's the only version of the story they've consumed. What I cannot stand is the people that only watched the show and then try to use it as evidence to claim Sandor was closer to Arya IN THE BOOKS THEY'VE NEVER EVEN FUCKING READ!

Buddy, in the books he beat, threatened and insulted her every other paragraph. He HAD moments of campassion towards her, and Arya did take notice and retribute it sometimes, but their dynamic is overwhelmingly negative and toxic. They're not friends, he doesn't see her as someone dear to him, and Arya was 110% justified in leaving him to die - something Sandor himself acknowledges.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe has good in him, and that he will BECOME a good person, as that's clearly what's being set up, but for 90% of the story he is an absolute bastard, even when actively trying to be nice to the Stark girls - and he has ALWAYS put way more effort to be gentler towards Sansa than he ever did to anyone else on Earth, Arya very much included.

He talks about her all the time, makes his romantic/sexual interest in her very clear, and cries on his "death" about how he failed to protect her. More importantly, while he DID threaten Sansa when offering to rescue her, he was in the middle of a PTSD episode, and all it took for him to breakdown crying and leave her alone was her singing a song about mercy. He never bonded with Arya on that level or ever got even close to respecting her wish to not be around him like he did with Sansa.

And let's not forget why Sansa sang to him: because Sandor demanded a LOVE SONG about the fool-turned-knight that rescued the pretty girl and then became her lover. He wants to be Sansa's hero and wants her to LOVE him. He almost kissed her during that whole mess, and George R.R. Martin has Sansa misremember the event to include an actual kiss, because Sansa was, in his own words, "correcting" that moment - not by ignoring all the awful parts of it mind you, but by making Fantasy!Sandor act on his obvious attraction to her, because the fact that he didn't was more important in her head than him literally threatening her life.

In case that last bit didn't make obvious: the book was not subtle about Sandor NOT thinking of Sansa as his "little sister", but as the object of his lust/love AND the poor, innocent maiden that is waiting for a true knight to rescue her and safely take her back to her family's castle - and despite her not being reckless enough to run off with such an unstable man, Sansa DOES have feelings for him too. Hell, even the show wasn't always unwilling to go there, as they do have some moments that scream "there's something there"

I REALLY need to make a whole separate post on how GOT completely destroyed Sansa and Arya (plus Sandor) as characters, and how their dynamics with "The Hound" were all wrong since Dumb & Dumber clearly didn't get that they were not supposed to side with Sandor's "everyone is awful, so all awful things are justified" mentality.

Resurrection of Daenerys

A Dream of Spring: Wedding on Dragonstone

I read a theory recently that Jon and Dany secretly got married on Dragonstone before leaving for Winterfell, and that Tyrion watched Jon enter Dany’ s cabin because the scene we saw was their bedding ceremony. I love this crackpot because of the parallels to Rhaegar and Lyanna and how it would set their wedding to precede the reveal of Jon’s parentage. So, naturally I had to draw it as I imagined – one last unseasonably warm day and one last moment of simple love and happiness before the long night. I am considering drawing more of this sequence because it’s so beautiful to me.

Sweet OP, why do you fret? What do you mean? GoT did not poison the well for the TV-verse. George knows exactly what he’s doing and never contradicts himself. He learned his lesson and regained a healthy amount of pride in his characters and never allows them to be bastardized anymore. He even joins the showrunner in overseeing the script for each episode of HotD—

Oh.

What a shame!

I agree, George wrote the BOOKS in a way to present Rhaenyra Targaryen as a foil of Daenerys, not a parallel. We are not making this up. Because of her, dragons are in the world again—so the history of The Dance specifically encourages readers to infer that another one is coming, in the form of another Blackfyre Rebellion via (f)Aegon VI. Where Rhaenyra went one way, Dany is set up to struggle with something similar and perhaps follow the course or veer off of it. And yet in the SHOWS, George signs off on aggressive parallels to an already messed up “not [his] ending” ending.

Nothing but mixed signals.

Sometimes I just shrug and let it be. It reflects more on him than it does poor show-only fans and annoyed book fans. We’re dealing with another real human being who, like the Greek tragic heroes and Arthurian legends, struggles to see his own flaws until it’s too late.

I just feel bad for show-only fans of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon sometimes, you know? Because the way that GOT ended, and the way HOTD is going to end, it's...bleak. All of the characters in the Dance of the Dragon saga are doomed; no one we truly love and care about is going to make it through, guys. It's horrible, actually. There is no victor--if that's even what we need anyway--and the status quo remains, crushing everyone beneath it's enormous, never-ending wheel: it's grim-dark and heartbreaking.

ASOIAF was supposed to be GRRM's response to that tragedy. A woman's family is usurped, she will take back what is hers, and achieve what her ancestor could not. But sadly, Game of Thrones is not ASOIAF and if you only watch the shows, you are going to see Rhaenyra go the same way as Daenerys, murdered and once again usurped. George wrote Rhaenyra as a tragic character, there is no doubt, but Daenerys is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE. She is meant change the status quo that tramples the smallfolk/women/cripples/ bastards/and broken things/etc. She is meant to live on and plants trees.

If you only watch the shows, all hope is lost. Nothing is solved. Nothing can truly be achieved. Nothing has changed. The wheel continues to turn. My heart aches to think that you will see the parallels and you'll wonder: is this the same exact thing as before? Did we learn anything?

I just hope book fans can get some relief, you know? Because George's ending absolutely cannot leave us without something to look forward to, without something to be proud of. He said bittersweet: not happy, not tragic, not hopeless. What future can the characters of GOT look forward to with an ending like that?

The Dance of the Dragons is the tragic tale, because ASOIAF is the dream of spring.

“[GRRM] did sort of say things that made it clear that the meeting and convergence of Jon and Dany were sort of the point of the series.”

 - Director Alan Taylor (x)

True! It’s sad because in the books, HotU prophecy causes Dany to specifically look for men she can trust:

The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.

-Daenerys IV, ASOS

The only wrong thing she did was trusting MEN