#sansa said oop

[rodulv]

@lannisther asked: ❝ Women like us do not get to choose, little dove. ❞

It   does   not   seem   fair   and   her   face   reflects   it.   The   queen   seems   rather   stoic   today,   more   wine   on   the   room   than   other   times   and   she   knows   well   why.   Myrcella   is   to   return   to   King's   Landing   but   everyone   knew   she   comes   with   scars,   and   the   betrothal   to   Trystane   remains,   so   in   the   eyes   of   Cersei,   Myrcella   is   not   yet   safe.   She   would   be   safer   in   Dorne,   she   thinks.  

"If   we   could   choose,   you   could've   married   Prince   Rhaegar."   Sansa   speaks   as   she   stares   back   for   a   moment,   swallowing   back   before   looking   back.   "Father   often   said   your   father   wished   for   the   match   but   Rhaegar   chose   Elia   instead."

[thestarlightforge]

In honor of this re-listening, your cordial Game of Thrones-show reminder that Sansa and Theon had way more business being in love in GoT S8 than Arya and Gendry ever did (or Arya and any boy, for that matter)

[auxmodi]

Can you write a one-shot about Jon Snow set in season 8 or afterward, where the reader is a Targaryen and a relative of Daenerys? Make it fluffy and slow burn, please, with some smut!! I love the ones you've written, especially the Jon headcanon! I'm crying because there are barely any fanfics about him 😩

yESS ANON!!! i hear you loud and clear, its set before ep3 s8, sorry if its too long oops (not really sorry)

summary: a targaryen in winterfell, you’re no stranger to war. but when jon snow’s quiet intensity pulls you in, the tension between you both becomes impossible to ignore. tomorrow, the world might fall apart, but for tonight? you’re his. SMUT AT THE END

word count: 2.7k

tags: smut, p in v, needy sex, unspoken tension, battle/war feels, wholesome interactions

the northern winds howled through winterfell, relentless and biting, a constant reminder that the north was a land apart. inside the great hall, the fire crackled and the warmth of the hearth couldn’t quite chase away the chill that seeped into your bones. you’d been here long enough now, a targaryen among wolves, but it still felt like winterfell was trying to remind you that you didn’t belong.

still, you made yourself useful. you weren’t like daenerys, all fire and commands. you’d grown up on the edges of war, your hands more comfortable around a blade than a scepter. you fought, trained, strategized. it’s what earned you some begrudging respect from the northerners. even sansa, sharp as the frost on the castle walls, had softened toward you. she’d become an unexpected ally, her wit and your determination meshing in a way you hadn’t anticipated.

tonight, she sat across from you at the long table, quill in hand as she reviewed plans and lists. you worked on your sword, sharpening the blade with steady movements. the quiet between you was companionable, broken only by the occasional crackle of the fire.

“do you ever rest?” she asked, her voice soft but teasing.

you smirked, not looking up. “rest won’t help me when the night king gets here. a sharp sword might.”

she rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. “you and jon are more alike than i realized.”

at the mention of his name, your stomach did this annoying little flip. you shrugged, trying to play it cool. “jon is… focused. he’s a good leader.”

before she could respond, her gaze shifted past you. “speaking of jon...”

you turned your head slightly and saw jon standing near the doorway, his dark eyes fixed on you. he didn’t look away when you caught him, just gave a small nod before returning to his conversation with davos. your stomach twisted, though you weren’t sure if it was nerves or… something else.

“he’s always watching you,” sansa murmured, her tone light but her expression curious.

“shut up,” you muttered, focusing back on your blade. but your fingers faltered, the steady rhythm of your sharpening disrupted.

jon was always there. not in an obvious way, he wasn’t the type for grand gestures or attention. but you’d notice him lingering on the edges of your vision, a glance in the training yard, a quiet nod in the strategy room. it was infuriatingly subtle, and yet you felt it every time.

one evening, you found yourself in the godswood, seeking a moment of peace. the red leaves of the weirwood swayed gently in the wind, their whispers lost in the frost-bitten air. you leaned against the trunk, your breath visible in the cold, when the sound of boots crunching on snow caught your attention.

“out here alone?” jon said, stepping into view. his voice was low, like he didn’t want to disturb the quiet of the godswood.

“yeah” you replied. “just… thinking.”

jon’s eyes softened slightly as he stepped closer, his breath visible in the cold air. he looked at you for a moment, then at the weirwood, as if trying to understand your thoughts. "the dead?" he asked, his voice quiet.

"everything," you said honestly, your tone heavier now. "the dead. The living. what it’ll mean when it’s over... if we’re still here to see it."

his jaw tightened, the faintest flicker of emotion crossing his face. “we’ll see it.”

“you sound certain,” you said, glancing at him.

“i have to be,” he replied. his eyes met yours then, and for a moment, it felt like the world had narrowed to just the two of you. the weight of his gaze was heavy but not unwelcome. it was grounding, in a way.

days blurred together, preparations for battle consuming your every moment. jon’s presence became something constant, even when he didn’t speak. you found yourself looking for him in the chaos, your eyes scanning for him like instinct.

one night, after a particularly grueling day, you found yourself in the library. it was empty save for a few flickering candles, the air thick with the scent of old parchment. you sat at a table, a book on northern battle tactics open in front of you, though you weren’t really reading it.

the door creaked open, and you glanced up to see jon stepping inside. his hair was messier than usual, and the shadows under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights.

“can’t sleep?” you asked, your voice breaking the quiet.

he shook his head, moving to sit across from you. “mind won’t rest.”

“join the club,” you said, gesturing to the book. “i thought this might bore me to sleep, but no luck.”

his lips twitched, the closest thing to a smile you’d seen from him in days. “you’re too stubborn to let it.”

“same to you” you shot back, earning a soft huff of laughter from him. the sound was rare, and you found yourself wanting to hear it again.

for a while, the two of you sat in companionable silence. it wasn’t awkward, just… quiet. jon’s presence was steady, like the calm before a storm. eventually, he broke the silence.

“do you miss it?” he asked, his voice low. “the south?”

you thought about it. dragonstone, the endless sea, the warmth of the sun on your skin. but the memories felt distant, like they belonged to someone else. “sometimes,” you admitted. “but not as much as i thought i would.”

he nodded, his dark eyes studying you. “the north suits you.”

“does it?” you teased, though your voice came out softer than you intended.

“it does,” he said simply, his gaze steady. there was no teasing in his tone, just quiet certainty.

you stood on the battlements, the cold biting through your cloak, but it wasn’t the cold you were feeling. it was everything else, the soldiers, the coming battle, the weight of it all. and then, as always, jon’s presence behind you. quiet, steady.

"it won't be easy" he said, his voice cutting through the silence.

you didn’t answer right away, there was nothing to say, you both knew what was coming. it wasn’t about words anymore.

finally, you turned slightly, enough to catch the moonlight on his face. his jaw was set, his eyes dark, already on the battlefield in his mind. you didn’t know when you’d started to understand him so well, but you did, better than anyone else here and it made everything feel heavier.

“is anything easy?” you finally mutter, your voice quieter than you meant it to be. it’s bitter, but you can’t stop it. you don’t know how to soften the truth right now.

his eyes meet yours, and it’s like the air shifts, just for a second. something unsaid hangs between you, heavy and unspoken. raw. vulnerable. you want to look away, but you don’t.

then, without warning, his hand brushed against yours. just a touch, a test. but it sent something through you, something sharp, undeniable. you froze, your heart racing, as if the world had paused for just a second.

his hand lingers, just for a second, like he’s waiting for you to pull away. but you don’t. you stay there, your fingers brushing together, and for the briefest moment, you wonder if he feels it too, the weight of it. the way something inside you shifts at the simple act of contact.

“stay close tomorrow,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper, like he’s afraid of the words. but they’re out there now, hanging in the air between you, and you both know the unspoken truth. he needs you. and maybe you need him, too.

you don’t say anything at first. but then, almost without thinking, the word slips out. “always.”

it’s too soft. too quiet. but it’s the only thing you can give him right now. a promise, but still, yours.

he doesn’t answer right away. instead, he steps back, his gaze lingering for a second longer, like he’s searching for something in your eyes. and then, he’s gone, disappearing into the shadows of the castle, leaving you standing there, your heart still pounding in your chest.

the promise you made hangs heavy in the air, and even though your feet are rooted to the ground, your mind races. tomorrow, you know, everything changes. but for now, it’s the quiet before the storm.

you make your way back to your chambers, the chill of the stone grounding you. your thoughts keep drifting to jon. his eyes, the heat of his touch, the way he looked at you, like you were the only thing that mattered in that moment.

just as you’re about to close the door behind you, you hear it: a soft knock. you freeze, hand still on the knob

you turn the handle, open the door a crack. it’s jon, his silhouette stands there, dark against the dim hallway light. his eyes meet yours, full of something raw, desperate, something you can’t escape.

“couldn’t sleep,” he says, voice low and strained, like he’s holding back.

you nod, too overwhelmed for words, the quiet between you both heavy, full of anticipation.

he steps closer, just enough for you to feel the heat of his body. you don’t pull away. you don’t want to. you aren’t sure if this is really happening, or if you’ve imagined the way he’s looking at you, like you’re all that matters.

his hand brushes yours, the spark between you instant, impossible to ignore. the air thickens with tension, electric and suffocating, but it feels right. your breath catches.

“jon,” you whisper, like saying his name is the only thing that matters now.

he steps closer, no words needed. his hand cups your face, thumb brushing across your cheek. you wonder how you ever survived this long without him touching you like this.

before you can think, his lips are on yours, urgent, needy, like he’s been holding back forever. you gasp, but he deepens the kiss, pulling you close, his hands finding their way to your waist, drawing you toward him.

you let yourself melt into him, your hands sliding over his chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath his tunic, you could feel the way his body reacted, the way his breath hitched every time you touched him.

you wanted him, now, but you didn’t say it out loud. instead, you let your fingers trace the edge of his tunic, pulling it from his body with the slow urgency of someone who couldn’t wait anymore, but wanted to savor every second of it.

you pull away just enough to rest your forehead against his, breathless, caught in this moment. “tomorrow,” you say, your voice soft, “it could change everything, we could…”

he stops you with another kiss, silencing your words. when he pulls back, his eyes are fierce but soft, vulnerable. “tomorrow doesn’t matter,” he murmurs. “not right now, just this, just us.”

his hands grip your waist, pulling you back to him, and in that moment, everything else fades. the war, the fear, the promises of the future, none of it mattered as your lips crashed together.

jon’s hands followed the movement of yours, pushing your nightgown off your shoulders, leaving your skin bare beneath his touch. his lips trailed down your neck, and you shivered at the feel of him, the heat of his breath against your skin.

when he finally got the gown off, exposing you completely to him, his breath hitched, and for a moment, he just stared at you, his eyes dark, filled with something primal.

his fingers grazed the curve of your waist, your hips, his touch light but leaving a trail of heat behind. when his hands brushed your breasts, his thumb running over your nipple, you couldn’t help but gasp, the feeling radiating through you like lightning. jon froze for a second, eyes wide, like he couldn’t believe he had made you react that way.

"gods," he muttered, voice rough as he traced the curve of your body with his eyes. "you're beautiful."

before you could respond, he was pushing you backward, guiding you toward the table. you caught the edge with your hands, the cool wood contrasting with the heat building between you.

jon’s hands slid down to your hips as he bent you over the table. the position made your pulse quicken, a thrill running through you at the sheer dominance in his actions.

his hands pressed against your back, bending you slightly as he took a moment to adjust his position.

you felt him shift behind you, heard the rustling of fabric as he finally freed himself from his trousers. his cock suddenly pressed against you, teasing, making your breath catch.

“shit,” you whisper, your hands gripping the edge of the table in front of you as you feel the tip of his cock press rub against your entrance.

one hand gripped your hip, holding you in place, while the other found your shoulder, he entered you slowly, inch by inch, as if testing the waters, and you couldn’t help but bite your lip at the stretch, the fullness. jon groaned, a deep, guttural sound, his face tight with concentration.

“i've wanted you like this,” he muttered, his voice low, almost strained. “for so fucking long.”

you pushed back against him, urging him to move. his pace remained agonizingly slow, his thrusts deep, controlled, his hands holding you firmly in place.

with each slow stroke, your body grew tighter, more desperate, the tension in your stomach building until it felt like you might break. jon was relentless, his movements never wavering, only deepening as the seconds stretched out into eternity.

“fuck, jon,” you gasped, your body arching into him as your own hands gripped the edge of the table, nails digging into the wood. "f-faster." you could feel him pulse inside you, the friction driving you higher.

you’re both too fucking needy for this to be slow. his thrusts become harder, faster, each one more desperate than the last. the sound of skin on skin fills your chamber, and you can’t stop yourself from meeting every push, every pull, your body craving the release that’s building.

you can barely form a coherent sentence, the only thing you can do is hold onto the table, each thrust making you just forwards. everything is too much, but in the best way. "f-fuck" you gasp, "don’t stop."

he doesn’t stop. ofcourse he doesn’t.

“you’re killing me,” jon growls, his hand slides down your back, fingers digging into your skin, and you know he’s holding you there, keeping you in place for himself.

you don’t answer, can’t answer, just a breathless moan slips past your lips as you feel the first wave of your orgasm starting to crash over you, the way your body tightens around him, the way he’s fucking you through it.

"gods" he whimpers, the words barely making it past his lips as he forces you to take all of him.

his hands are tight on your hips, pulling you into him, every inch of him is buried deep, and you can feel him in places you didn’t even know existed, making you gasp with every move, every shift.

his breath was ragged now, his groans a constant hum in your ear as his rhythm faltered, his control slipping. “i can’t—gods, i can’t stop now.” his voice was strained, desperate, and you knew he was at the edge.

then, with a final, brutal thrust, he snapped. his whole body jerked above you, shaking as his release hit. you could feel the heat of his seed inside you, leaving you breathless and trembling beneath him.

you could feel the slickness between your legs, the evidence of what had just happened, and though it should have felt overwhelming, it only deepened the sense of connection between you two.

jon’s breath was steady against your neck, and after a moment, you heard him chuckle softly.

jon’s fingers traced light circles on your back as he pressed a kiss to your neck. “guess I was wrong then,” he teased, his lips curving into a smile. “the dragon’s not so bad after all.”

“just remember,” you added, your voice low as you turned your head to meet his gaze, “targaryens don’t take kindly to being underestimated.”

jon’s chuckled at your words, the corners of his mouth twitching with a hint of something close to respect. “i’ll keep that in mind.”

[lavalais76]

I found this on Reddit, and thought it to be an excellent read. I’m quiet sure most of you won’t believe some of the things said here, but it really has one thinking….

WoW RyanBarns13,

I think it's been a really thorough discussion. I just wondered where do you get your ideas from?

RyanBarnes13

OP•2yrs ago

Rhaegar and Lyanna never fit Jon’s story of Winterfell and being a Stark. And Ned and Ashara never fit cause he could just tell everyone. Honestly it’s from the The welcoming feast. When Jon said Sansa was “radiant”. Who says that about his sister? And they never had a parting scene from winterfell, but the more you dig into the more you realize they are the story of the North. And the 1993 letter or whenever it was had Arya Jon Tyrion love triangle. But every link and foreshadowing points to Sansa. Then Martin hides clues behind words. But the only combo that would work for that is Rhaegar or another Stark. Ned can’t be the father. Here’s two, Tyrion described Septa Lemore as handsome.... sounds like she is ok looking. We use it to describe men only nowadays. But look for synonyms for handsome describing a woman and it’s the opposite of what we think. Here’s some,

Handsome synonyms for women aesthetic (also esthetic), attractive, beauteous, beautiful, bonny (also bonnie) [chiefly British], comely, cute, drop-dead, fair, fetching, good, good-looking, goodly, gorgeous, knockout, likely, lovely, lovesome, pretty, ravishing, seemly, sightly, stunning, taking, well-favored.

The two main women described as like that is Ashara and Cercei from the Roberts rebellion. So why hide the eye color from us? Who else has purple eyes? Not much of anyone. But he gives us every clue but the eyes.

The other one is honey colored hair. That is one of the biggest tricks in the books. It’s whenever you see those words you should think like admiral ackbar. “It’s a trap”, basically honey ranges from blonde color to reddish brown. The bear and the maiden fair? You would think dany and Jorah. He is a Mormont bear, she is the maiden fair with honey in her hair. But it’s actually Jon with the bear symbols.

He is adopted by Mormont through the giving of Longclaw, basically replacing Jorah as his son, he is being trained as the old bears heir as lord commander, the white bear skins in numerous chapters of Jon’s. Who is his maiden fair with honey in her hair? The one maiden with reddish-brown hair who keeps calling for a knight to save her, but she gets a bear. It’s played over and over in her scenes. Sansa. Many people hate realizing hearing it, but Jon’s story is built around Sansa and her his.

The proof where Jon flat out says he loves her. Most people have missed it, but Arya is little sister since the very first of the book. Sister always means Sansa. Martin never deviates from that. And he hides the truth many a time by getting people to read about Jon’s sister and thinking Arya instead of Sansa. But go reread the first few chapters, it’s always sister, little sister. Now the proof,

Do not despair Lord Snow […] Your sister is not lost to you.”

“I have no sister.” The words were knives. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?

Melisandre seemed amused. “What is her name, this little sister that you do not have?”

“Arya.” His voice was hoarse. “My half-sister, truly…”

“… for you are bastard born. I had not forgotten. I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will.” -Jon, A Dance with Dragons

She is talking about Arya, he is thinking Sansa and his heart, his SISTER. Then she is amused as she realizes, what’s the LITTLE SISTERS name? Oh shit Jon thinks silently, Arya. Oops of course Jon.

What I am getting to with all this is Jon’s story is the north. Winterfell is his end game. It’s what he dreams about. You can only make the story work if you accept the character arcs as written. He is not the PTWP, or all that. He is Lord of Winterfell, King of Winter. Everyone wants him to be king of 7 kingdoms, ride dragons, that’s Aegons, Danys, stories. His queen is set up to Sansa. Most people reject that, but go back and read just their chapters, they parallel in trials, dreams, everything. End game is winterfell and kids named Robb, Bran, Arya, Rickon. Dany is the Rhaenys character, Aegon is Aegon character, Val is the Visenya character, but with a spear instead of a sword.

Martin used fairy tails in the story, Beauty and the Beast, the pig boy. Sandor, Tyrion false Beasts. Jon is the beast. If you notice his wounds correlate to Sansa’s suitors. Sandor is burned, Jon is burned. Willas Tyrell (think I remember his name right) is lame in one leg, Jon gets shot by arrows and limps, tyrion and Sandor get scarred faces, Jon’s whole side of his face is scarred by the eagle.

The pig boy gets the princess stories, Jon is the pig keeper. Sam is the piggy, Ser Piggy even, Dolorious Edd tells Sam he’s thinking of roasting Sam. The prologue of one of the books has a Nights Watch character trying to escape but is thwarted by snow and Jon and his pig taking his spot with maester Aemon.

As for putting it all together, look at the Middle Ages. It’s all there. But everyone forgets it’s written from a certain point of view. Obiwan kenobi, talking to Luke about Vader killing his dad, everything I told you was true. From a certain point of view. All the stories of Jon’s mother are true, when you look at it from the characters points of view, Wylla, Ashara, fisherman’s daughter, you just have to fit them into the slots.

Sorry I’m rambling

[copaganda-clobberfest]

WELCOME

TO THE FIRST ROUND OF THE COPAGANDA CLOBBERFEST!

“You know that trope? That one trope *Everyone* hates? The trope in which a well meaning antagonist to our heroes, one looking out for the good of a certain community, suddenly does something horrible and drastic to make not only them, but the ideology they stand for the most villainous of all?”

NOW IS THE TIME TO BATTLE THEM OUT! Like Ken dolls, fighting for survival! Like your Polly pockets discarded in the closet, we’ll see which of these bitches jumped that slippery slope harder! Whose character did numbers on y’all, and blew up a bunch of grandmas and babies and hospitals with it!

ROUND ONE

DAENERYS TARGARYEN from GAME OF THRONES vs PRINCE LOTOR from VOLTRON (LEGENDARY DEFENDER)

Dany propaganda (TW: domestic abuse mention, slavery):

“Sold off as a slavewife to a warlord in another country. Slowly rises up gaining the love and trust of the warlords people, eventually becoming their leader after his death. Goes on to conquer another nation and free all the slaves. Deals with her quickly growing list of real and perceived enemies in increasingly awful ways. More stuff happens. Eventually she makes her play for the throne of Kingslanding and forced a swift surrender… but instead snaps… over…? and instead starts killing everyone in the city indiscriminately because the only way to build her great version of the world everyone who even remotely likes the current one has to die.

And then her sorta bf kills her.

Its kinda funny how the US was also founded on a revolution lead by people with Not Great Morals and its media industry loves to now churn out stories where revolutionary figures turn out to be bad guys, actually, so you shouldn’t revolt and just accept your place in their world. Is this actually a British psy-op to get americans to accept the error in the ways and rejoin the UK?”

“daenerys propaganda: the literal in-text justification d&d gave for dany always being secretly evil and destined to massacre innocents was that she was too mean to the slavers that crucified a bunch of children. so they had this domestic violence survivor die of yet more domestic violence. they couldn't even let her go down in battle, she had to be assassinated by her lover in a moment of physical intimacy. (and tyrion, who literally strangled his gf to death and burned a fleet alive, suddenly became the audience avatar fretting about ethics.) the only woman permitted to retain power at the end of the show (sansa) was the one who said being raped and abused made her strong; dany, who explicitly condemned physical and sexual abuse and took steps to eradicate the perpetrators and break the wheel that crushed the oppressed, had to go crazy and die. the script explicitly condemned what they referred to as "liberation theology." d&d are the ultimate centrists and they turned dany into a fox news caricature of an activist.”

Lotor propaganda (TW: xenophobia):

“He wasn't exactly presented as a straight-up villain initially, more like a rogue agent. He wanted to reform his father's evil empire to be less tyrannical and xenophobic (the 2nd one is especially relevant because he's only half Galra. He went from an enemy of the heroes to an ally, then oops! turns out he's actually been a genocidal mass murderer with a god complex this whole time and then he dies in the most horrible way. It's been a while since I watched the show but I will never stop being mad over how they did my boy dirty.”

Always feel free to rb with more propaganda :)

[kingsansa]

oop harry was dating someone while flirting with sansa… was that messy ass man still with her when he and sansa got together?

Harry did not see that girl as his girlfriend. He was messing with several someones at the time and that just happened to be the one that Sansa was aware of. When Jon said Harry was plotting on her, he was actually very much telling the truth. Despite knowing Sansa was in some kind of relationship, he was fully confident in his ability to wreck that home, for lack of better phrasing. When said girl came up in conversation, having ascertained that Sansa would (a) be put off by the fact that he was regularly hooking up with these girls and showing no interest in commitment and (b) no longer feel comfortable talking to him if she knew he was single, he told a white lie. What Sansa doesn’t realize, even to this day, is that she’s the only person that Harry has ever considered his girlfriend. He even waited six months into their relationship to start cheating on her—not that she knew. And to him, that was the height of romance! He loved her enough to hide it well! But then he got comfortable and complacent and well…you know the rest.

Did Jon know the extent of Harry’s machinations? No. Was his suspicion of Harry half based in insecurity and paranoia? Yes. Was he wrong though? Absolutely not.

[sikudastoner]

For Darren: Sansa, Jenny, and Nadya👀

oop-

“I don’t think Lady Stark can hold her own in a fight.” Darren answered as if he thought of this already. “She’s quite delicate, I’ll give her a kiss. I think Jenny can throw a good punch plus she’s a known bastard so it wouldn’t be frowned upon, so I’ll fight her. Obviously, I’m going to court my wife in said scenario.”

[isefyres-archive]

oops i did it again.

NEW ADDED MUSES.

ISOLDA ELESHAM. lady isolda from the vale. she is known as the vale's mistress as she had been bethroded 4 times and none had come to fruition. some think she is cursed and others know it's just bad luck. she served lady lysa tully in the vale to house arryn and now is part of sansa stark's ladies when she was in the vale under a disguise.

DYNNA DUNN. dynna of house dunn is known as the wielding of the reach, because infamously, her mother is said to be a wielding of the north who her father took home before the start of the rebellion. dynna has the famous kissed by fire hair and wordships the old gods, as well is fluent in the old tongue of the north. she trains to become nurse during the war.

STEFFAN DONDARRION. lord steffan is the new lord of house dondarrion and berric's younger brother. known as the red knight, because he is known for having cast aside the faith of the seven and follow the red god, r'hllor after pledging his house to king stannis. upon reaching north, steffan is among those who witness jon snow's ressurection. he is, however, always pledged to house baratheon.

[mysticnightmarewrites]

Gendrya Kinktober 2023 Day 8: Tongue/Clothes On

When Lover’s Day came, almost unexpectedly, it made things awkward. For Arya, at least. She’d nearly forgotten it even existed until she woke up one day to nauseatingly sweet social media posts. Robb had surprised his wife with breakfast in bed, and Sansa was celebrating with her friend, Margaery, at a fancy brunch – likely trying to get over her recent messy breakup.

What am I supposed to do? Not knowing exactly where she and Gendry stood – they weren’t dating after all, not really – made things so confusing. She went through the motion of classes and a study session at the library in a fog. They were more friends with benefits, weren’t they? She could probably get away with not mentioning it. 

Once she’d settled on trying to avoid Gendry the rest of the day, she’d packed up her books and headed through the park on the way back to the dorms. It was cold, and the wooded area seemed practically deserted. She pulled her puffy winter coat tighter around her. That was when she heard Gendry’s voice calling out to her from the other side.

“What are you doing out here?” she shouted, laughing at his attempt to run with a drink in his hand.

He caught up to her and held the drink out to her. It smelled like chocolate and steam escaped upward into the clear winter sky. “I know we’re not like together together, but it is Lover’s Day, so I thought I’d bring you some hot chocolate for your study session.”

Arya blushed. “Thanks.” The cup warmed her bare fingers, and she took a sip. “I didn’t get you anything,” she admitted.

“That’s OK. There’s only been one thing on my mind all day, anyway. Looks like you already wrapped it up for me.” He started to play with the zipper of her jacket.

Now warmer than the cup in her hands, Arya set it down on the arm of a bench and dropped her bag to the ground. “Such a shame it’s too cold out here for you to take my clothes off out here.”

“I’ll have to make do. Now get up on the bench, woman,” he said playfully, and Arya rolled her eyes. Grabbing her hips, he lifted her up until her feet were solidly on the wooden boards. “You look so sexy in those leggings.”

Arya held onto his shoulders for dear life as he ducked his head down to her clothed pussy and licked into her heat.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Arya moaned, checking both directions for potential passersby. It felt too good to pull his head away, and she gave into the sensations. “Don’t stop.”

Eventually, one of his hands wandered up from her waist and unzipped her jacket just enough to reach her chest.

“You’re not wearing a bra.” He groaned. “You trying to kill me or something?” Moving his way up her body, he wrapped his mouth around the fabric of her shirt, sucking one of her nipples at a time.

Arya’s head was spinning, and she gasped when Gendry moved a finger to rub at her clit through her soaked leggings.

“So good, so good, so good.” Her grip on his shoulders tightened as she came.

After a few breaths, Arya stepped down from the bench, accidentally knocking the drink to the ground.

“Oops. Good thing you gave me something else to keep warm, huh?”

“Wanna spend the night at my place?” Gendry pulled her closer, his hard-on unmistakable, pressing into her. 

“Beat you there!” 

The pair took off running through the trees.

[daenerys-targaryen-moved]

tumblr out here really recommending me blogs that have me blocked lmao

[adreamofspring-archive]

WAIT WAIT WAIT! You mean to tell me that the same people who hate Daenerys are hating on Emilia? You mean to tell me that the same people who stan a ~ certain character ~ are mocking her for being upset? You mean to tell me shippers of a ~ certain ship ~ are making anti Emilia Clarke posts and saying she’s stupid for ‘not seeing the signs’ ? You mean to tell me that the same people who defend Sophie Turner because she was bullied for the character she played are now making hateful posts towards Emilia because she says she stands by the character she’s played for a decade?

GEE I would have never guessed!!!!

[witchthewriter]

💀👯📺📚✨🐐🗡️🧇🧨🧤.

You don't have to answer these questions if you don't want to. I hope you are having a lovely day.

I wanna say thank you to @brilligbroilledbooks for coming up with this!

Of course, I want to answer them! Thank you for taking the time to send in the ask! Also, I'm not sure if all the questions are in relation to the Grishaverse??? So I'm just going with whatever...I want lol oops

💀 Favorite villain?

I mean The Darkling was a pretty good goddamn villain but the best ones are when you start to agree with them. When their perspective starts making sense, that's when you know you have a good villain. So with that being said, I guess ... the Joker? I mean the Darkling is a DAMN good villain, so yeah he will always be one of my favourites. But also I love a good female villain so Jennifer Check from Jennifer's Body?

"Jennifer! You're killing people!"

"No, I'm killing boys-"

It really is a cult classic.

👯Favorite ships/duos/dynamics (friendships are also ships!)?

Me & Money (lol just kidding...👀), Katniss & Peeta, Nat & Wanda, Nikolai & Zoya, Jesper & Nikolai, Buffy & Faith, Sansa & Dany, Sansa & Margaery. These are all romantic ones though - friendship ones are; Inej & Nina, Genya, Alina & Zoya, Buffy & Willow, and Peeta & Finnick.

📺Favorite tv show quote/scene?

I think would have to be Carmy's scene in The Bear, when he's at the AA meeting and finally opens up. I just related so much, he says he didn't have friends growing up, he had a stutter, never had a girlfriend...here's the scene if you want to watch it. Trigger Warning though! And then at the end of the series ... god I don't want to spoil it for you, but I have never cried and laughed so loudly and so much at the same time.

For Grishaverse -

When Jesper and Kaz are taken to see Dresden (or whatever his name is) but it's really to see Nikolai and just ... god the interaction, the witty banter. Kaz's side eye with Jesper about knowing about him being a durast.

📚 Favorite book quote/scene?

In William Shakespeare's play, 'Much Ado About Nothing,' the scene where Beatrice and Benedick are talking and she yells, "O if I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace!" (Here's the scene if you want to check it out). I got it tattooed actually, except it says "I'll eat his heart in the marketplace." To me, in the play, it means the social constructs are obstructing Beatrice from standing up for her cousin, but my tattoo means ... f*ck the social norm, f*ck tradition - I can and I will call anyone out. Let me know if anyone wants to see the tattoo... if no one cares, that's totally chill as well lol

For Grishaverse -

My favourite quote would be Genya talking about her abuse from the King. It's so much more hard-hitting than in the tv show. I cried and cried while reading it. Because I think the King was still alive, and she got to say it to his face while Nikolai was there as well.

✨Which Grisha order would you belong to?

Oh my god! I'm always thinking about this. On one hand, I would love to be a summoner, but one that doesn't exist - I wanna be the main character like that tehe oops. But then again, being a durast would come in handy!!! But then there's also being a Heartrender, and no one can survive without their heart so I just want to be the most powerful 👀

🐐Who/what is your emotional support goat?

Jesper - whenever I feel overwhelmed, I'm like 'Jesper would be laughing right now, I need to chill.' But also my pets - Baloo (my lab cross rottie) and Silly (my cat who is currently asleep on my bed). Also...The Hunger Games series is my emotional support movies??? I think that says a lot about me ...

🗡️Wraith, what are your knives' names? (Moral principles that you value - yes, also name the knives)

I would name my knives like they name their swords in Game of Thrones.

Maiden Death

Fate's End

Vicious Hope

...Bad Luck

My moral principles are:

Everyone is equal and has equal opportunities (except for those who have done unforgivable things - that's a whole other discussion).

I think we should Eat the Rich - no one needs that much money

Water should always be free - everywhere

Abortions need to be legal and accessible (everywhere and without hassle)

Religion has no place in government

Marriage equality is an obvious yes - I can't believe we're still arguing about this

Guns need to be banned

Education is free, yes that includes university degrees

Medical care also needs to be free as well

Okay so that turned into opinions rather than principles...

🧇Heartrender, if you had to betray your country for food what would it be?

Okay so I don't know if you guys have these outside of Australia but we have these chocolate bars called Picnics. They're a wafer covered in caramel, then nuts with Cadbury chocolate. They're what waffles are to Nina - I would eat these for the rest of my life. I can easily eat a bag of 12 in less than 30 minutes. They're ... delectable. I'm actually eating them right now ahahah oh my god

🧨Demo-expert, how do you code your experiments? (Favorite hobby)

My fav hobby is ... this. It's this account, writing for you guys, making moodboards, researching astrology signs, mbti, pair ups, headcanons. This, as well as learning about witchcraft and tarot. Reading, and extending my writing abilities.

🧤Dirtyhands, what's your weakness?

Um... being ridiculed/insulted. But also talk sh*t get hit amirite ladies?! I think it's being rejected, looked down on, and thought of as disgusting. That's my weakness. But if we're talking...how would the enemy get me to do anything, it would probably be kidnaping my family???

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ASOS: Jon XII (Chapter 79)

My little snow knight! ❄️🥰

Here we go. It's time for the one-two punch.

Iron Emmett was a long, lanky young ranger whose endurance, strength, and swordsmanship were the pride of Eastwatch. Jon always came away from their sessions stiff and sore, and woke the next day covered with bruises, which was just the way he wanted it. He would never get any better going up against the likes of Satin and Horse, or even Grenn.

Remember when Game of Thrones made this teenager the greatest swordsman in all of Westeros?

+.+.+

He was almost ready to lower his blade and call a halt when Emmett feinted low and came in over his shield with a savage forehand slash that caught Jon on the temple. He staggered, his helm and head both ringing from the force of the blow. For half a heartbeat the world beyond his eyeslit was a blur.

Was that a preview of something?

+.+.+

And then the years were gone, and he was back at Winterfell once more, wearing a quilted leather coat in place of mail and plate. His sword was made of wood, and it was Robb who stood facing him, not Iron Emmett.

[...]

They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne."

"Sweet one," her father said gently, "listen to me. When you're old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me." - Sansa III, AGOT

x

AGOT: Sansa IV (ch. 51) -> Jon VII (ch. 52)

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother's queen. - Sansa IV, AGOT

x

ACOK: Jon VI (ch. 51) <- Sansa IV (ch. 52) -> Jon VII (ch. 53)

She called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard. - Sansa IV, ACOK

x

"No doubt you're right. So why don't you just eat your broth like a good girl and wait for Symeon Star-Eyes and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight to come rescue you, sweetling. I'm sure it won't be very long now." - Sansa V, ACOK

x

The gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as Longclaw, did not make him a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen. - Jon IX, AGOT

+.+.+

That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell."

I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken.

In the end Halder and Horse had to pull him away from Iron Emmett, one man on either arm. The ranger sat on the ground dazed, his shield half in splinters, the visor of his helm knocked askew, and his sword six yards away. "Jon, enough," Halder was shouting, "he's down, you disarmed him. Enough!"

No. Not enough. Never enough. Jon let his sword drop. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "Emmett, are you hurt?"

Oops, the rage twins lost full composure again.

"Is there gold hidden in the village?" she shouted as she drove the blade up through his back. "Is there silver? Gems?" She stabbed twice more. "Is there food? Where is Lord Beric?" She was on top of him by then, still stabbing. "Where did he go? How many men were with him? How many knights? How many bowmen? How many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many? Is there gold in the village?"

Her hands were red and sticky when Sandor dragged her off him. "Enough," was all he said. - Arya XIII, ASOS

+.+.+

Why am I so angry? he asked himself, but it was a stupid question. Lord of Winterfell. I could be the Lord of Winterfell. My father's heir.

It was not Lord Eddard's face he saw floating before him, though; it was Lady Catelyn's. With her deep blue eyes and hard cold mouth, she looked a bit like Stannis. Iron, he thought, but brittle. 

Rip. Stannis.

If that 'iron, but brittle' thought was an assessment of Catelyn, he's getting tagged with another unreliable narrator. That lady is all steel, sometimes to a fault.

+.+.+

She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at swords or sums or most anything. Who are you? that look had always seemed to say. This is not your place. Why are you here?

I could take this seriously, and try to offer meaningful insight, but this Catelyn vs. Jon topic bores me to death, so instead I'd like everyone to look at the word sums. :D

+.+.+

It was short walk to the bathhouse, where he took a cold plunge to wash the sweat off and soaked in a hot stone tub. The warmth took some of the ache from his muscles and made him think of Winterfell's muddy pools, steaming and bubbling in the godswood. 

Jon doesn't have moments of clarity in hot steamy bathhouses, he needs his natural habitat.

+.+.+

Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.

Do I need to point out who famously builds a castle in the next chapter?

I can't with this fandom.

+.+.+

You can't be the Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born, he heard Robb say again. And the stone kings were growling at him with granite tongues. You do not belong here. This is not your place. When Jon closed his eyes he saw the heart tree, with its pale limbs, red leaves, and solemn face. The weirwood was the heart of Winterfell, Lord Eddard always said . . . but to save the castle Jon would have to tear that heart up by its ancient roots, and feed it to the red woman's hungry fire god. I have no right, he thought. Winterfell belongs to the old gods.

Shhhh. It is your place. Wait.

It's absurd when you think about it. Burn a piece of the castle to save the burnt castle.

+.+.+

Outside, he found he had no idea where he was going. 

[...]

He could feel the cold around him, the weight of all the ice above his head. 

[...]

He walked past the place where Donal Noye and Mag the Mighty had fought and died together, through the new outer gate, and back into the pale cold sunlight.

Only then did he permit himself to stop, to take a breath, to think. 

[...]

A wind swirled against the Wall, tugging at his cloak. He could feel the cold coming off the ice the way heat comes off a fire. 

See! His natural habitat.

(pale cold sunlight. hehe.)

+.+.+

On the edge of the haunted forest, where the tents had been, Jon found an oakwood stump and sat.

Ygritte wanted me to be a wildling. Stannis wants me to be the Lord of Winterfell. But what do I want? The sun crept down the sky to dip behind the Wall where it curved through the western hills. Jon watched as that towering expanse of ice took on the reds and pinks of sunset.

But what do I want?

The sun

Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. - Arya II, AGOT

x

The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. - Sansa VI, ASOS

x

"Snow," the moon called down again, cackling. The white wolf padded along the man trail beneath the icy cliff. The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins. Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense.

"Snow," the moon insisted.

The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. - Jon I, ADWD

+.+.+

Would I sooner be hanged for a turncloak by Lord Janos, or forswear my vows, marry Val, and become the Lord of Winterfell? It seemed an easy choice when he thought of it in those terms . . . though if Ygritte had still been alive, it might have been even easier. Val was a stranger to him. She was not hard on the eyes, certainly, and she had been sister to Mance Rayder's queen, but still . . .

rofl.

Jon seriously looked at the empty suitcase, and thought to himself, "Maybe if she was Ygritte."

How do you, the cardboard box, ever recover from this embarrassment?

How do you, the lost shipper, expect the author to pair them after that?

And they lived happily ever after. Not as happily ever after if she had been someone else, but sometimes we have to make do.

+.+.+

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister's son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly's boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We'd find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance's son and Craster's would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me.

She pictured the two of them sitting together in a garden with puppies in their laps, or listening to a singer strum upon a lute while they floated down the Mander on a pleasure barge. If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya. - Sansa II, ASOS

x

"I might get her with child."

"Aye, I'd hope so. A strong son or a lively laughing girl kissed by fire, and where's the harm in that?" - Jon II, ASOS

+.+.+

It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.

Unlike other characters in the story, Jon gets hungry when he's thinking about love and family.

+.+.+

It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. "Ghost?" He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. "Ghost!" he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run.

[...]

The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Jon's face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns.

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre's. He had a weirwood's eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they'd found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow.

He had his answer then.

I'm sorry, how does one manage to miss the painfully obvious symbolism here?

He has to leave his direwolf behind to be with Ygritte. The direwolf returns, and Jon instantly finds the wisdom to reject Stannis and his poison apple. Hello??

I don't know, maybe Jon and Ygritte wasn't a love story. Maybe the lamppost who thinks children with illness should be killed isn't a catch. Maybe Stannis isn't the Mannis.

+.+.+

Beneath the Wall, the queen's men were kindling their nightfire. He saw Melisandre emerge from the tunnel with the king beside her, to lead the prayers she believed would keep the dark away. "Come, Ghost," Jon told the wolf. "With me. You're hungry, I know. I could feel it." They ran together for the gate, circling wide around the nightfire, where reaching flames clawed at the black belly of the night.

Good man, circle wide. Avoid that fire.

+.+.+

As he walked toward the armory, Jon chanced to look up and saw Val standing in her tower window. I'm sorry, he thought. I'm not the man to steal you out of there.

So, in case anyone missed it, in this chapter Jon follows his heart.

The not-Val option.

+.+.+

Lord Janos was red-faced and quivering. "The beast," he gasped. "Look! The beast that tore the life from Halfhand. A warg walks among us, brothers. A WARG! This . . . this creature is not fit to lead us! This beastling is not fit to live!"

Fuck you, the beast will live.

+.+.+

Maester Aemon answered, from the far end of the hall. "Your name has been put forth as Lord Commander, Jon."

That was so absurd Jon had to smile. "By who?" he said, looking for his friends. This had to be one of Pyp's japes, surely. But Pyp shrugged at him, and Grenn shook his head. It was Dolorous Edd Tollett who stood. "By me. Aye, it's a terrible cruel thing to do to a friend, but better you than me."

Smartie pants Samwell Tarly, Jon's lady love, knew he couldn't be the one who put Jon's name forward.

+.+.+

The Eastwatch man was pounding his fist on the table again, but now he was shouting for the kettle. Some of his friends took up the cry. "Kettle!" they roared, as one. "Kettle, kettle, KETTLE!"

[...]

A few of the brothers were already queueing up by the token barrels as Clydas took the lid off and almost dropped it on his foot. With a raucous scream and a clap of wings, a huge raven burst out of the kettle. It flapped upward, seeking the rafters perhaps, or a window to make its escape, but there were no rafters in the vault, nor windows either. The raven was trapped. Cawing loudly, it circled the hall, once, twice, three times. And Jon heard Samwell Tarly shout, "I know that bird! That's Lord Mormont's raven!"

The raven landed on the table nearest Jon. "Snow," it cawed. It was an old bird, dirty and bedraggled. "Snow," it said again, "Snow, snow, snow." It walked to the end of the table, spread its wings again, and flew to Jon's shoulder.

BRAN?!

+.+.+

When the count was done, Jon found himself surrounded. Some clapped him on the back, whilst others bent the knee to him as if he were a lord in truth.

[...]

"Lord Snow," said Cotter Pyke, "if you muck this up, I'm going to rip your liver out and eat it raw with onions."

Ser Denys Mallister was more courteous. "It was a hard thing young Samwell asked of me," the old knight confessed. "When Lord Qorgyle was chosen, I told myself, 'No matter, he has been longer on the Wall than you have, your time will come.' When it was Lord Mormont, I thought, 'He is strong and fierce, but he is old, your time may yet come.' But you are half a boy, Lord Snow, and now I must return to the Shadow Tower knowing that my time will never come." He smiled a tired smile. "Do not make me die regretful. Your uncle was a great man. Your lord father and his father as well. I shall expect full as much of you."

Was Rickard Stark a great man? I'm not questioning it, I actually don't know.

Denys Mallister opens his mouth and comes dangerously close to exposing Samwell right in front of Cotter Pyke. I would have enjoyed Samwell's internal thoughts during this moment.

+.+.+

He walked across the castle, wondering if he were dreaming, with the raven on his shoulder and Ghost at his heels. Pyp, Grenn, and Sam trailed after him, chattering, but he hardly heard a word until Grenn whispered, "Sam did it," and Pyp said, "Sam did it!" Pyp had brought a wineskin with him, and he took a long drink and chanted, "Sam, Sam, Sam the wizard, Sam the wonder, Sam Sam the marvel man, he did it. But when did you hide the raven in the kettle, Sam, and how in seven hells could you be certain it would fly to Jon? It would have mucked up everything if the bird had decided to perch on Janos Slynt's fat head."

"I had nothing to do with the bird," Sam insisted. "When it flew out of the kettle I almost wet myself."

Then how'd that raven get in the kettle!? Hmmm???

+.+.+

So Jon Snow took the wineskin from his hand and had a swallow. But only one. The Wall was his, the night was dark, and he had a king to face.

Good practice for the future, they're almost the same person.

Final thoughts:

Silly folk get distracted by all the Val noise.

Smart folk turn the page and put two and two together.

-> return to menu <-

[madamebaggio]

Notes: Previously...

***

“Come on! We need to get you dry.” Sansa pulled Jon into the bathroom.

“I can dry myself.” He pointed out, even though he was grinning.

“Yeah, but do you know where the towels are?”

“Good point.” Jon conceded to her.

“Here, hold this.” She passed him her -empty- glass.

“What were you drinking?” He eyed the glass.

“Margarita.” Sansa said as she opened the closet and grabbed a towel. “Loras makes some awesome margaritas.”

Jon grunted an aknowlegement as he put the empty glass on the sink. He’d been swimming -more like floating around the pool -until Sansa convinced him it was late and he needed to dry himself before he got sick. He wasn’t sure why he agreed with her, other than this was Sansa and he was tipsy.

“Here.” Sansa came back with a towel that she promptly threw on his head.

“Hey!”

“Don’t move.” She commanded as she -kind of -dried his hair with the towel.

“I can’t see anything.” Jon protested.

She pulled the towel back. “Better now?” She snorted.

“Yeah, now I can see you.” Jon grinned at her.

“You’re so silly, Snow.” She was grinning back at him. “Let’s finish drying you up.”

As Sansa carried on drying Jon with the towel, it never ocurred to any of them that maybe Jon could do that himself. Even as Sansa started drying his chest.

“You got so strong.” She sighed, then put a hand on his chest.

“You got shameless.” He teased, putting a hand on her waist and pulling her to him. He dropped a kiss to her neck.

“Me? You’re the one always pawing at me.” She giggled.

“Yeah, and you like it.” He dropped another kiss to the same spot.

Sansa let go of the towel and hugged his waist. “I do.”

There was some heavy knocking on the door. “SNOW, YOU BETTER NOT HAVE YOUR HANDS ON MY SISTER!” Robb was screaming from the other side.

Sansa looked at him and grinned. “Oops.”

[beeblackburn]

The Philosophy of Reading Tag

Tagged by the bracing @books-and-doodles, who knew full well how much of a long-winded shit I am. Can’t warn one who tagged me, knowing full well of that. 😎

cracks knuckles, y’all buckle up, this is a 11,500~ words post

1. What’s most important…a good character, plot, or message?

I think the fact that I got into A Song of Ice and Fire when I was 14, primarily on the basis of Sansa Stark and Jaime Lannister’s character developments, then fell into the rabbit holes of the other well-developed characters, probably says a lot about my priorities out of the three choices, even from adolescence.

For me, my guiding light is that: I can have a bland or cookie-cutter plot (Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself or The Heroes aren’t hugely revolutionary in that aspect) or messages that I don’t agree with (some of the The First Law’s more cynical ruminations), but so long as I have strong, memorable, thorny, and complex characters that I can attach to, I will care far less, because my readership can rest on the weight on characters I care about. And character psychology is timeless.

That’s not to say I don’t care about plot (okay, maybe not plot, The Goblin Emperor was reasonably plot-less and I did not care a lick because Maia 😍) or themes, or that it’s that simple a divide. What I love in a book is an accumulation, from characterization, the nuts-and-bolts of sentence craft or broader sweeps of writing, themes, plot, point-of-view structure, and setting. They inevitably synthesize into how I take to a book.

But if we’re talking about importance of those three? Of course it’s characterization that’s first and foremost. If I can’t care about the people I’m following, why should I care about messages or plots, conveyed through them? But I can certainly care about a book with a strong message and lesser characters and plot, if not to the same degree. I’m not sure I can say that for a strong plot and lesser message or characters.

I also wonder if there’s something to be said about a cross-genre approach to this question, but then I remembered that I don’t hugely take to romances, mysteries, or science fiction, the former two super reliant on structure and pacing, and all of whom don’t hugely boast the greatest variety of characterization. Oops. Except maybe science fiction, but I really need to dip my toe more in that pond.

2. Should one read books about ideas or opinions they disagree with?

So long as you keep an open mind and that the book in question is engaging in good faith, sure. I will never read a book that tries to promote the pseudo-scientific discrimination against genderqueer people for a start, because the author’s clearly engaging in bad faith and I don’t particularly feel inclined to mentally bloody my knuckles against a book for the right of my existence, when it should be matter of fact to me by dint of pragmatism. 

However, I could absolutely see myself being fascinated by the institution of Catholicism alone, despite being an agnostic and the horrors of the Catholic Church. I’m not sure I fully agree with or could follow Buddhism’s tenets, but it sounds like something I’d dig in the reading. You can read a polemic you don’t agree, and, at least, come out of it more informed of another side. No one says you have to swallow it wholesale. You still have a brain and cause to concede or disagree with an idea.

And, putting aside that, you can read a thing and study how the author presents their case, their writing craft, and the arguments or tools (case examples, anecdotes, ad hominem, and/or strawmen fallacies, for one) used. There’s plenty of merit in seeing how another side sees and presents their side of the world by approach alone, beyond content, and using that to add to your knowledge, toolbox, and critical thinking.

At heart, all you can do is be curious as best as you can, about the ideas/opinions in flux that you’re unsure of or feel you could change your mind on, and avoid books that cannot offer the basic respect of your uncertain position, given your own good faith. If a book cannot give you that, then you’re not going to have a good time, nor will you be convinced by a book that demands your agreement, solely on their bad faith. You can’t sacrifice yourself for that.

3. As tech advances, what do you think will be the role of books?

As primitive bludgeoning weapons, if Sanderson will have his way with page count, for a start.

Okay, for the serious answer, we’ll still have books, we already have audiobooks and ebooks as bodies of content alone. And while I don’t take to them as a reading medium, I know plenty of people who wouldn’t have tried out the texts by themselves without them, so the more, the merrier.

Given environmental costs of books and e-readers’ growing energy efficiencies and evolving out the growing pains of its initial user interface, there will likely come a point where paperback/hardcover publishing houses will have to slow down or change up things to contribute as little environmental damage as possible. However, we all thought the advent of e-readers, the original one in the 2010s, would kill the paperback books business and it didn’t, for an abundance of copyright and technological limitation reasons. So that time won’t come anytime soon, but I suspect it’ll come eventually.

That being said, if we’re talking “books” in this question to mean hardcover/paperback formats, as a paperback proponent... well, they’re never going to die entirely. The presence of small publishing houses that service a niche will make damn sure of that. Some people respond well to the tactile feel of them, there’s a physical stimulation to the papery touch that we can’t quite get with the smooth feel of screens, there are scientific papers devoted to how paper books allow us to more substantially build up our memories of them through the physicality of turning pages, like mental footprints. I’m not sure any amount of future technology’s going to change up that. Beyond that, even in the future, there is no way paperback books won’t have a retro element to them that make them delightful collectible items for people.

To quote one of my favorite anime villains:

I don’t think tying ourselves solely to that medium of content is necessarily feasible or good, mind you. Because some people take to visual or audio medium better, there’s plenty to be said the evolution of content to be more accessible to those from far-reaching areas and disabled people. If technological advances allows for more people to take in content that they wouldn’t have before, paperback books can take a backseat for that allowance.

However, there is one consideration that makes me utterly chill at the advent of ebooks, in light of that: the idea that you don’t actually own your ebooks. If you “buy” them, you just license them. And that if something happens to a retailer or business and they decide to shutter off their ebook section, you are fucked and have just lost all the books you own. Hell, if your Amazon account just violates some term, you can lose all the ebooks you bought from them. In that regard, I would much rather stay with paperback publication, solely on the basis that it’s something I own own, and that years from now, when some technocrat demands I pay them a monthly fee for continuing to license books, I will have physical copies that I can read at my own leisure and/or can give to a library so others may enjoy them for free.

4. How important are summaries, review, and art in your book choosing?

Summaries... well, Assassin’s Apprentice is pretty bare-bones in terms of plot summary, and its synopsis really undersells what I love about that book (its interpersonal dynamics, characterization, slice-of-life beats, and meandering pace). I really doubt summaries hold that much weight to me, because if summaries couldn’t do my favorite series justice, well, then what’s the point of them as a means for book choosing? I think summaries/synopsis can help with a foot in the door, but you can have a great synopsis and the actual execution of it in-text can be utter dogshit different from your first impression.

By art, do you mean cover art, illustrations, or fanart? Because, if we’re talking cover art, I definitely checked out Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Devin Madson’s We Ride the Storm, and Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune on the strength of those covers. They can absolutely attract me to a prospective read, though they’re still mostly a foot in the door in the way summaries/synopsis are. I mean, it’s not like George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire’s paperback covers light the world on fire.

If we’re talking inner illustrations... eh. I mean, it helps, especially if they’re great, but they’re like. Only maybe 1-5% of a book’s body? And that’s being really generous most times. That’s not a major enough sway to base buying a whole book over, especially if the book sucks.

If we’re talking fanart though... well, I did buy Gideon the Ninth, solely on the basis of its fanart. Seriously, I know way more about the fanart than I do about the book’s content at this point. Then again, I also bought it because of the hype, so there’s that to consider.

Reviews are where the importance lies in me with choosing a book. They’re certainly not the end-all of how I decide what books I choose. I buy a book out of impulse a few rare times, or a creator I trust is attached to it. How a reader, or even a plurality of readers, took in a book certainly helps me decide what I should be expecting out of a book and whether I’ll enjoy it or not. It helps with expectation management and knowing things that’ll piss me off beforehand. And, in some cases, it tells me something the synopsis omitted or how an author executed it ahead of time, like with Alex Pheby’s Mordew, which a reviewer pointed out, the attractive premise doesn’t hugely kick in until the last hundred or two pages. 

5. Should one ever skim or scan a book?

I mean, I generally do that my first read. I think there’s merit in your first read with not getting hung up on the smaller details in an attempt to discern future developments or reveals. I mean, I won’t deny it can be fun to try and piece together future developments ahead of time. I’m the kind of reader who either gets spoiled ahead of time, which means I just enjoy the craftwork of sentences and how well characterization or foreshadowing holds up, or just skims the entirety of the book my first time, then delights in the details I missed in my future reread.

Also, skimming to avoid excessive scene-setting and authors painting in too languishing strokes? Totally valid. I did that for patches of Christopher Paolini’s Eragon and definitely most of his Eldest, as well as a huge chunk of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. In which case, yeah, if it’s slowing down your reading progress and you don’t feel like you’re getting anything substantial from it, just skim. Epic fantasy alone can be pretty damn replete with overstuffed descriptions and landscape-painting, and unless those sentences are works of art, why get hung up on them, so long as you appreciate the greater whole?

I think you can always slow down and take note in a reread, you won’t note or appreciate them in their totality your first read anyway. There will be a sentence or passage or two that takes my breath away in the first read, but that’s because even with the skimming, I’ve caught them and they were poetry to the scanning eye alone. Granted, all this advice is for rereaders. Some people genuinely don’t have time for that. In which case, you should probably take your time, because you won’t have another read to appreciate all the beauty and nuances of the prose.

6. Should reading always be enjoyable?

Absolutely not. At bare minimum, it should be engaging, either with your emotions or your mind and the pillars inside it, but plenty of dark reads I’ve taken in haven’t been enjoyable in the emotional pleasant sense. It’s bracing, and it helps strip away a cloistering feeling that potential more enjoyable readings can foster by accumulation. 

To read less-enjoyable books, even just once in a while, helps us look at and cope with the humanistic unpleasantries and ugliness inward, or in the world around us through knowledge and/or emotional catharsis. 

Granted, there are limits to reading unpleasantness. I’m not sure I hugely take to R. Scott Bakker‘s Second Apocalypse for sheer awfulness. At some point, a book has to tonally balance its darkness and bright spots to work for me.

7. Is it important to be well-read?

By the Merriam-Webster definition of well-read, “well-informed or deeply versed through reading,” ... depends on what your goal is. I’ve heard prospective authors need to be on the pulse with the genre they’re publishing in, so that they can get in on a fad, or tailor their queries to comparisons from contemporary published books, to give readers something to hang their expectations on. In that sense, yes, it’s crucial to be well-read in your genre.

As a hobbyist writer who just wants to improve... yes, if to learn via example about sentence craft, how grammatical rules are established (and broken for effect), intimacy or distance of point-of-view, how to build characterization, scene-setting, genre trappings, textual sketching of visuals, and sensory engagement, all that and more. You can also learn a lot of running themes and motifs of another’s culture if you read a wide breadth of books.

As someone who just wants to learn information... not necessarily. Podcasts, long-form video essays, televised panels, and other wells of information and discussion exist. At the end of the day, books or essays or research articles are just mediums to communicate through, and no medium is superior to another. We all take in information differently, I know that I’ve got a tin ear for audio learning, for a start.

I think it’s fair to say you shouldn’t limit yourself to one medium of information, if you’re not barred from them. You can miss out so much, if you willfully close yourself to other wells.

And if you just read for fun, who gives a flying fuck about being well-read. Just read the stuff that makes your brain all engaged and that jazz without compunction of being ignorant of a wider field.

8. What is your book buying process?

I’ve actually answered this, to an extent, awhile ago here. Though, that doesn’t cover the different considerations I have for nonfiction and comics, because the former is a field I’m not hugely capable of discerning fact from crap and need others to recommend on, while the latter... is a land-mine of creators who need all the profit to fuel their ongoing titles or indie books. Also, non-fantasy books, which is a whole other field of research.

That being said, I’ll tackle all four right now:

With fantasy, I take a look at releases of the year, maybe divide or filter it by subgenres, see a title or cover I like, read the synopsis and see if it scratches my interest (maybe I catch a review of it on Strange Horizons or Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together first and it piques me), maybe read a preview to get a sense of the prose/storytelling, read reviews to get a sense of the book’s execution or lack of, think about my current wallet’s money content, decided whether it’s worth it or not, and wait for the next major sale period at my bookstore’s online catalog. I’ll also consider debut authors, particularly marginalized, non-white, and/or underrated authors, and carve out a little space in my wallet for considering them, especially since other more established authors will get by just fine if I delay my purchasing of their books. Who knows, I might find a new author that I delight in, if I look around hard enough. Granted, if it’s a favorite author, it’s an instat-buy, no questions asked.

With non-fantasy, the above, with some additional caveats. I’ll also take a look at the tropes involved (I’ve got pretty hard lines with what I’ll consume out of my romance with its Love at First Sight or science fiction having technobabble up the wazoo). And I definitely want to search around and read whether the book I’m about to buy has good characterization or not, specifically. I can mind not the best characterization in fantasy. It’s not my ideal, but the fantastical concepts alone are in my genre wheelhouse that I’ll generally be game for it. When I’m in unknown genre waters, my tolerance for genre trappings alone lowers and my demand for solid characterization to buoy the narrative rises. 

With nonfiction, I either ask a historian on my fandom server for recs and she supplies them or I look around top ten lists online, leaf through the choices to see if anything interests me, see if it’s a memoir, personal account, or a history. If it’s the former two, I’ll read reviews and decide there and then, maybe wait for my bookstore’s online catalog sales, which has some nonfiction sales from time to time. If it’s the latter... definitely will consult the r/AskHistorians sub at reddit and whether it’s credible or not, or ask my historian fellow on whether they’ve read it or not. If it is, I’ll definitely consider getting it. If not, why burn money for shoddy historical sources? I can get that from online assfucks telling me that the medieval times were realistic for having gratuitous sexual violence or that queer people didn’t exist then, so stop being a SJW. 😒

With comics, I definitely take a look at what’s the buzz on Comics Twitter (that I follow), taking special note at particular creators, with a focus on writers (Al Ewing, Kieron Gillen, Grant Morrison, Chip Zdarsky, Kurt Busiek, Simon Spurrier, and Alan Moore, for starters), then at their non-Big Two catalogs, Image Comics, Boom Studios, Oni Press, Dark Horse Comics, etc., and scan around for interesting books that they have. If there is, I immediately decide to buy/pre-order it, future sale pending. I try my best to engage with the fantasy genre here, but a. the comics scene, even the indie section, is lacking in fantasy titles, compared to science fiction or superhero titles, and b. I’ll admit that if a creative team or premise seems strong enough, I’ll ignore staying in my genre wheelhouse to try something new out. These creative teams really need all the profits they can take from me. I might dip into Big Two comics themselves, but I usually take a look at mini-series, rather than ongoing titles, for things to buy. This isn’t always the case, because if there’s a creative team that I really like on an ongoing title, I’ll at least buy the first volume to support it and play my part in stopping it from getting cancelled prematurely.

9. What is your reading process?

What reading process, y’all think I read? 😂

I mean, it’s been a bit of a rough two years, in terms of reading. I just felt so apathetic and lethargic with the act of reading and I keep putting it off. Some of that might’ve had to do with potential (untreated) depression. Likely to do with a listlessness of life, an ennui that might’ve a decent amount to do with gender thoughts. More recently though, it’s been work that’s drained my motivation and enthusiasm for reading. Whenever I crash back to home, I just wanna play a game or rewatch a show (it’s Ted Lasso right now). Something that doesn’t require chewing through something new.

That being said, for my reading process when I’m less a sack of shit? Well, I definitely start slowly, given the above, but once I get revved up... I will definitely steamroll through entire chapters, one book at a time, because I want to know more, whether because the book is engaging me, or if there’s going to be more interesting stuff later on. I’m not sure if what I do can be considered skimming, considering I seem to catch and ruminate on way too much random details or bits of foreshadowing or sharp character morsels, especially with my favorite authors, but I definitely would sacrifice a more detailed read for speed and getting the broader picture of the entire novel first and foremost. After that, I give some thoughts to my friendly acquittances at the fandom server I practically live in, either to get a second opinion or just share how much I liked/loved a book. Then I consider if I want to reread it, whether now or down the line, depending on if it’s a book that benefits from my immediate re-experience or needs to sit a bit before revisiting.

I think I need some specific conditions to get into a mood of reading, though the past two years muddles things a bit there. Some of why I don’t read nowadays is:

Being scared of missing a message either direct or from the fandom server. I’m the kind of person who gets very scared about making someone feel like they’ve been ignored, so I try my best to answer as soon as possible, and that means, if I’m reading... I’ll either get interrupted a decent amount, if the conversation I get into goes on for a bit, or I’ll leave someone unreplied to for hours. Granted, the fandom server’s members have timezones that are convenient for a nightly read, but I also know a friend who’s available at that time as well, and I’m afraid of not replying right away to any message she gives my way. What if that friend or DMer is distraught and I’m not there to help them? And I’ve abandoned them to silence? It’s almost too much to bear.

Attendant anxiety at my family calling for me and interrupting me from a reading session. I like to do things in large, uninterrupted chunks of time, and that also goes for reading (I finished both The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance in a solid 13-15 hours stretch), and when my family interrupts me... it breaks my groove. It’s like an engine that got turned off and is slow starting back up. And it does not help that my father has a quality to his voice, borne from childhood experiences, that legit makes me wince. It’s a killer to my motivation to read, because I have to dread him asking me for something else that only I can do (lol, no, I just do it at a faster pace than them). Though, the problem with this is that my parents were reasonably not around during their work shifts in the half-year in-between me finishing university and getting my current job, and I still didn’t read. At the very least, the idea of being interrupted is a sizable part of the problem.

Needing rain or rain ambience. It’s a nice white noise to fill the air and I love me some rain. The smell of petrichor, the chill of a coming rain, the foreboding darkening outside the windows, the sound of pitter-patter against the rooftops, and the repetition of it against the walls, mmmmmmmm. Just a perfect atmosphere for reading, as if I’m the master at a gothic library.

I also prefer a comfy chair, but given that I was reading Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man during my transit commutes during the day and night from home to school, and I was managing at least 30-50 pages per one-two hours, it’s not essential. I miss those bus-readings, honestly. There was a practical vibe to them that reading in a coffee shop or McDonalds or at home doesn’t. Given those bus readings, I do seem to have a preference for reading at night. If I read during the day, I have so much to anticipate like classes, parents, changing buses, that I feel less in a mood to read as a result. If I read during the night, well... I might have homework or (often last-minute) exam-studying, but the evening feels like an unwinding time for me, by comparison. The end of a day, free from petty consideration and annoyances.

I actually wonder how well I’d do with future buddy read/book clubs, to be honest. Because the last time I tried it, N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, I... out-paced the others by like half a book while they were around a third or half-way through. Granted, I was circumspect about spoilers, but still! I wouldn’t mind doing it more, I think discussing things with another makes me more engaged to actually think about the minute details of the text, and catch things from others that I missed myself.

Either way, I’m generally a slow-starter and I need to start revving my engine this year, if I want to make a sizable dent in my growing library with far too many books, nooooooooooooooooooo. 😂

10. How do you use what you read?

Oh, lots of ways! Far too many.

My first use of it was escapism, and while that’s lost a bit of its shine nowadays (The Fifth Season and The Trouble with Peace aren’t exactly escapist reads), I’ve come to take to a similar interpretation as J. R. R. Tolkien’s meaning of escaping into what he called “fairy-stories,” with regards to reality: “Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?” We can envision more, different worlds, through reading them in fiction, free from the confines of reality, and think how best to use it to add to the tools of our minds, and I use it to try and envision a better world through me.

My primary use nowadays, as a means to strengthen my empathy. The nature of fiction and its point-of-view structure, attaching us to many characters, is that I can know and connect to an abundance of different people, know their emotions, their trains of thought, their hurts and glories, and their virtues and vices, all filtered through culture and individual psychologies. I try to use that fictional lens to give more real-life people the benefit of the doubt, that people are complex and multi-faceted, and might even have their reasons, good or bad. To hear them out, if my heart can give for fictional characters. Of course, I can’t always exercise that. I fail or I’m embittered by repeated empathy burnings by the same type of people. But I still try and use seeing through fictional eyes to see matters through the eyes of others in real life, those who don’t deserve my distrust.

Another primary use is to study the tools of a writer’s craft through reading them. There’s plenty to be said about disassembling the prose and word craft of another’s writing, and chewing them over, how a writer uses their tools to engender empathy in the quarrelsome and difficult, nurse negative emotions towards asshats, seep world-building out like a quiet leak in a pond, paint a word landscape in succinct strokes, place motifs looming like silent gargoyles over the greater work, tighten their tones as a virtuoso’s fingers tinker minutely their violin strings, construct characterizations through the bricks of stream-of-consciousness prose, or withholding personal information in the narrative until its relevance. I’ve studied from a decent breadth of authors, and try to take the lessons I’ve had to better my writing. To learn from their mistakes and their triumphs to make my own writing the best it can be.

Another primary use is to give me questions about life to ponder on. From Martin, to Abercrombie, Hobb, Moore, and Jemisin, for example, they’ve given me heavy topics and lingering questions to contemplate in life. Does life ever end? Can the ends justify the means? Can lasting change occur inside us? Can we work inside our institutions to change them for the better? Can we ever love something and live that love without hurt? Will knowing everything rob an foundational aspect of us, to kill our wonder and curiosity? I’m a person who loves to ask many questions, of myself and others, and I do enjoy mulling over whether my answers change over the years or getting another’s perspective on said questions.

A less omnipresent, but still crucial, reason for nonfiction: as world-building/thematic or just characterization fodder for my own works. I mean, I do try to use what I learn from nonfiction works in terms of rewiring my mindset on a general level, but in terms of my particular focus? I use what I’ve learnt by giving my works the frisson of substance from historical experience. If I’ve read a book about Catholicism? I want to use it to pen a story about the struggles of one’s belief in their Church and personal faith. If I’ve read a book about fencing? I want to use it to write about vengeful fencers in the Renaissance Period. If I’ve read a book about domestic relations in the medieval times? I want to use it to punch up the nuances of my almost-post medievalesque fantasy. 

Adding to that, I can use what I’ve read out of something as incentive to find more topics to read into. If I’m reading about pasta, maybe the tomatoes in it can lead me to studying the agriculture of tomatoes in contemporary times. From there, what other plants or fruits can be studied? Grapes? Great, I’ll study grapes and their history throughout the world. I see something about how modern viticulture came to be? Then I think about how the villas with their vineyards were run and look into the structure of them, and it’s just a bunch of rabbit holes. In a fun way, granted! But definitely losing myself in a bunch of Wikipedia posts and peer-reviewed papers as a result.

Also, a slightly important reason, especially with fanfiction: to gain greater appreciation for the canon text (or what the canon could be, if it had more attentive writing, or different talent behind it). A different interpretation on the same source material can make such a difference on my feelings for the source material. I’ve consumed some fanfiction that tries achingly hard in their own way, even more so than maybe the source material itself, and have such quality packed into it, and love it in a way the canon text never approaches.

11. If you could download a book to your brain, would you still read?

The entirety of Hobb’s The Farseer, Tawny Man, and the Fitz and the Fool trilogies, as well as her Dragon Haven, along with Abercrombie’s The Heroes and his The Age of Madness trilogy are burnt into my brain through rereading, anyway. I still reread them. 

Mind you, I think there’s a difference between reading a thing before your eyes or knowing it through the mind or memory. I’m not sure I’d be used to “reading” a book in that sense. We’re more used to traditional ways, our brains aren’t wired to have books downloaded into our brain and remembered that way. Maybe the next generation, more enmeshed in the notions of downloading books into their brain, might enjoy it without feeling growing pains. 

I’ll stick to reading. There’s a sort of... intimacy with leafing through the pages, looking through the words at your own pace, you control how you take in a word, a sentence, a passage, and it changes how you feel about certain parts of a book, and it will change your impression per reread as well, that sense of experience and how fluid it can be. That’s something the instant gratification of a book downloaded into my brain wouldn’t give me.

12. What are your views on rereading a book?

Well. I’ve reread Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora at least thrice, Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor thrice as well, and Abercrombie’s The Heroes five times, for a start. I get the faint sense I’m one hell of a rereading proponent. Who’d thunk it.

On a more serious note... I think rereading a book can be an interesting experience, for the variables you can control and those you can’t.

For starters, just from the off-set, you’ve finished a book and you’re coming at the reread with knowing (either faintly and with a vice grip) details and threads that are going to tie together to make a wonderful pattern at the end. Meaning you’re already coming at this experience from a far different vantage point, almost like reading a tragedy: instead of being surprised by the plot or characterization elements, you’re taking stock of the railing tracks that lead you to the inevitable end of the road.

Secondly, you can change up your pace. If you read fast your first time, you can go slower and help yourself absorb all the smaller details, considering you might have been overwhelmed trying to follow the plot your first read. You can focus on different aspects of the writing, characters, or world-building notes. The tiny slivers of subtle humor you missed the first time. It changes your perspective of what the book was in a way your first read missed and gives you a better understanding of the work construction altogether.

Thirdly... we all age. We change. Perhaps we even grow up. Every time we reread a book, we’re different people, even if we reread right after the first time. I definitely remember, after years of being suffocated by grander, bigger stakes in fiction with diminishing returns in my emotional investment in the characters, returning to Abercrombie’s Red Country and being impressed by how small his stakes were, how little the people involved here were, no kings or queens or lords or ladies, either facing a kingdom-ruining crisis, or an impending empire on the horizon, or the end of the world by some overpowered assfuck. Instead, they were just random strangers wandering the Far Country, trying to be (or stay) better people. And those years of mine before returning to Red Country, were also spent reflecting on the nature of financial security and legacy for me, personally, and you know? It struck me far more potent, bittersweet with that lovely hurt, than it did my first time during my mid-teens. We can even view a book through a different lens and get something valuable out of it. A child’s eyes, viewing with innocence, are different from a young adult or a grown adult’s, the latter more worn by time, knowledge, and accumulated hurts.

13. What makes a book good?

It says something about the particular gears in my brain that I left this and the next question for last because boy, these questions are a lot tougher for me than you’d think, because I delineate between decent, good, and great, and strangely, what differs between them isn’t just a matter of literary quality by itself.

Great books go without saying: the majority of Realm of the Elderlings and The First Law, half of A Song of Ice and Fire, and individual books like The Fifth Season and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. Books that have the highest caliber of characterization, interesting enough worlds or settings, and timeless and weighty themes executed sharply, things that will linger years later in my mind and urge me to reread, I need that synthesis of the above, that entrenched memory, and that hunger to reread multiple times for a book to become great to me.

Decent books are a little trickier to define for me: they’re the popcorn books. Stormlight Archive, any of Anthony Ryan’s books, any of Michael J. Sullivan’s books. They’re not meant to linger in my mind beyond the periods I read them, they pass and go almost immediately after, but they have enough quality character substance and dynamics and aren’t hugely problematic enough for me to write them off as bad. I will say, though, that the lack of lingering memory and drive to reread them entirely even once definitely crowbars them away from being “good.”

As for what actually makes a book at least “good,” in my opinion? Well, quality of characterization, themes and execution of them, and interesting enough world-building, for a start, but if that were the case, what separates the good books from the greats beyond the nebulous quantifying of characterization quality? 

Is it willingness to go into their fandoms? No, I joined up with Wings of Fire’s fandom and while I still believe its first arc is Good, Actually™, I stayed even after its quality abruptly turned to shit really badly by its second arc’s Talons of Power and it never came back from that. And while I did join up (and still very much enjoy!) the The First Law’s fandom server eventually, I’ve been a bit hesitant at joining the Realm of the Elderlings’ fandom server.

Is it whether it’s capable of generating discussion that’s beyond an hour or two’s time in one sitting? Not a bad rule of thumb, I can talk The Black Company, The Dagger and the Coin, and The Memoirs of Lady Trent alone for under two hours in one sitting, if someone gives me the chance, but I’m not sure I could continue past that, where I could talk and bleed hours of rambling from the stones of all three of my all-time fantasy greats.

Is it how much textual/subtextual meat there is in the content? Hmmm. I’d say there’s plenty of world-building, thematic, and character meat in The Curse of Chalion and The Traitor Baru Cormorant to chew over alone, perhaps equal to the accumulation of quality meat of The First Law alone, and yet I wouldn’t consider those among the greats, though they edge close to them. There’s some wriggle room there.

Is it the lack of problematic material? It doesn’t hurt, but honestly, all three of my all-time greats have some pretty 😬 problematic moments, and not in the way that makes one chew over things. Hobb has her narratively endorsed pedophiles, Abercrombie has his handling of Terez and Cathil, and GRRM... has all the racist elements of Dany’s plotline, exploiting sexual violence as a bit of a prop at times, and sexist world-building that enables the sexualization of teenage girls, sometimes without a thoughtful approach or lens on it (and it happens! Cersei alone is full of angry resentment towards that). They’re still greats in my eyes.

Really, I think what makes a book just good to me, what separates it from decent and great, are two points of personal criteria: 

Will it stay in my mind past the first reading, and for years to come? Large swathes of Realm of the Elderlings, The First Law, and A Song of Ice and Fire have practically imprinted onto my mind ever since my first reads, way back in my mid-to-late teens. With decent books, they immediately faded from my memory like a passing wind. With good books, though, I will remember the best parts, and around half of The Black Company, The Dagger and the Coin, and The Memoirs of Lady Trent, but the strict plot progression will elude me, whereas I’ll generally know, note-for-note, how things progressed in The Age of Madness alone. And I don’t trust my memory to retain the events of just-good books in years to come, whereas I won’t have that problem with greats. 

Do I want to reread this only once or twice, and am I driven to do so? With a great book, I want to reread it all the time, even if I remember a majority of it, and with a decent book, I don’t even wanna reread it in its entirety once. I might reread select parts, but the whole thing? Gods no. With a good book, I wouldn’t mind rereading the entirety of it once or twice, but I’m in no driving rush to do so. I might have a taste for it, and I'll reread select chapters to refresh my memory of the excellent bits inside, but the entire text’s not going anywhere and I can afford to wait. Granted, technically The Lies of Locke Lamora and The Goblin Emperor both exceed this, but I don’t remember all the strict plot progression of either for them to count as great.

I think the broad strokes of what makes a book good to me, are its literary quality, especially its characterization, its ability to generate one sitting’s discussion for an hour or two, how long the memory of it lingers, and whether I want to reread it at least once to get something new out of the experience.

14. What makes a book bad?

Same as the prior question, I differentiate between bad and mediocre. 

Mediocre book can have crappy plot resolutions, bland characterization, bad dialogue, unfun prose. As much as I railed against Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, it’s just pathetic and mediocre in the end. He’s not espousing evil or actively shitty sentiments, so much as wanking off to his White image of the 1980s. Eye-rolly, yes, but not hugely worth getting angry at or stamping with a bad label. It’s not just a matter of problematic material presence, as established above, my all-time trio are no bundle of cheribs there. It also has to do with pure incompetence from pure writing craft.

For me, what makes a book bad...

Out of character writing, and not in the “they’re very complex and inconsistent that way” manner. I can take a degree of bland characterization, so long as it’s consistent, but the moment your main character has done an out-of-character action and not hugely earned it, you have broken my immersion into them and my willingness to invest in them and that’s a deal-breaker to how much shit I can swallow, once I know you’ll treat your characters as interchangeable pieces to move plot.

Espousing a contemptuous philosophy through the narrative without narrative pushback or good faith. Gone with the Wind was a downright evil book. The Wise Man’s Fear genuinely had Kvothe defend vivisection for the stupidest of reasons. Sword of Truth was vile Randian dogshit that increasingly caricatured its opposition. I can find a book mediocre, downright stupid, or pathetic, but most times, they’re not worth getting furious over. Not those three above, which made me fume with rage for the sheer odium involved with their thematic runtime.

Does it make me want to destroy the book, and not by intent? See, if Sword of Truth or Gone with the Wind wanted to rub how assholish and scummy everyone in their books were by design, that’s another thing altogether, because I can enjoy wanting to hate antagonistic people. I like tearing into and gnashing my teeth against Prince Regal, Kyle Haven, and Hest Finbok! And I sure do love hating Galen and Nicomo Cosca. But if the author wants me to treat the characters like saints, when they’re dumpster fire people, and not in the fun way? I absolutely resent my feelings being forced like that, and I end up wanting to destroy it for sheer gulf between intent and execution.

I can find a lot of books being mediocre or decent, but just not my thing, but those are 100% three of the forefront reasons why a book is bad to me. Bear in mind, I don’t like even bruising books, so that’s how hot my fury gets with a bad book, if I’m seriously contemplating book destruction.

15. How do you feel about not finishing a book?

Honestly? Deeply uncomfortable with the notion.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely get the practical logic behind it, and it’s a fair approach to treating books, when you only have so much time alive, and you might as well treat that time to a good book. There are perfectly valid reasons for dropping a book (getting triggered by intense content, not liking the writing or characters for a good stretch of time, seeing a sexually repulsive action that was narratively endorsed). I’m not hugely judging anyone for DNFing a book. A small part of me would want someone to try out the entire book before condemning it, but that’s ultimately their call to make.

But, for me, who usually pays for a book, having researched enough of a book’s premise, prose, and reviews, to get a decent sense of what I’m getting out of it... well, I keep a book long enough that I can’t really return it anymore. So I’ve already spent the money on it and I’m not getting it back. Not reading and finishing it would feel like a waste of that money. Granted, I could save some time, and that’s not an unfair rebuttal to make against how I grind through. To me, there’s usually merit to most not-good books I read, even if it’s just serving as a case lesson of how not to write or “so bad, it’s good” quality. 

But I am much more okay with DNFing previews or sample excerpts. I didn’t pay for it, for a start, so I don’t feel like I wasted my money if I don’t continue. Also, it’s small enough a body of text that I haven’t put a ton of emotional investment into it. It’s a sampling, the intent should be to sample a thing to see if it’s your taste. If not, no harm, no foul. I bounced really hard on Gardens of the Moon thrice and that was a whole-ass book (I don’t hugely regret giving money to Erikson, mind you, but it sucked to bounce off so badly), and A Memory Called Empire’s excerpt, I bounced real damn hard off of, because of all the technobabble from the get-go. I didn’t feel huge guilt over those two.

That being said, I 100% DNF’d Ready Player One and not a single regret was had, if not for the fact that I kept going until that point, expecting it to get better, hoping beyond good sense that it would and just giving up. Well, goes to show we need the exception that proves the rule.

16. Should the author’s personal life matter at all?

In terms of the business end? Honestly, absol-fucking-lutely yes. Giving money to a known popular transphobe like J. K. Rowling who’s the sole creative force behind her main work, and outwardly uses her profits to actively contributing to the misery of people like me? You can’t expect me not to, at bare minimum, side-eye the hell out of anyone for doing that, if they know that. You can’t divorce the personal life from the business end, if the person is living, because the latter feeds into the former and has consequences that current people will live with. J. K. Terfing herself will have to rip the pennies from my cold, dead, non-binary hands before she gets any money from me.

That being said, someone like Joe Bennett, who’s not only supported a transphobic remark on his instagram awhile back, and had a popular shitting-his-pants of sneaking in antisemitism into his sequential art? Well, fuck him, but he also worked on the same title of The Immortal Hulk with Al Ewing and colorists who seem like pretty cool people who didn’t seem to know about his behavior prior, and when it was brought up to them, absolutely vocally ripped against his bullshit and took responsibility for that. It’s, at least, a little trickier when the asshole isn’t the sole creative force behind a book and I can see myself trying to figure out ways to read or get the book without actually fattening Bennett’s wallet (discount bins, secondhand bookstores, and libaries exist!)

However. Someone like Warren Ellis, Geoff Johns, Cameron Stewart or Eric Michael Esquivel? The former three inappropriately abused their position as comic creators or higher-ups to hook up with young women, (or even fucking groom late-teens in Johns case, the fucker!) The latter is a known rapist and emotional and sexual abuser. No matter how nice the other people on the creative teams they were a part of, and I’m sure they were horrified enough once they found out that shit, and whether my money, or lack of, towards those (popular, in the former three’s cases) books would make a difference or not, those are just hard lines I cannot financially support out of a creator. I’m sorry, I can pay for the other creative members’ past or future books, but giving money to the above men? Fuck no.

Same goes for people like Paul Krueger, Sam Sykes, and Myke Cole, who are all the sole creative forces behind their works, and sexually inappropriate assfucks, by the way. I’ll just quote what I said back in my Anti-TBR tag post, “fuck all three of these men and the idea that I’ll pay for their stuff. While I can’t demand any of you not buy from them and I’ll hardly claim to be a saint in terms of ethics, purchase-wise, I would beseech you all please don’t buy from these three authors who have a history of inappropriateness.”

(Trust me, with all the scumbags in comics, I’ve given this question, and similar considerations in ethical consumption and purchasing, lots of thought, if not ink. Up to a point, every major comics publisher is compromised alone, we all live in an ethical quagmire and we all have to draw our own lines in the sand with buying stuff, given how much shady shit capitalistic corporations get into on a far more widespread reach than most authors will ever do. And sometimes we have to decide, case-by-case, how much our principles will bend, depending on the what negative stuff we’ve heard about a creator and how much damage they’re doing. And it’s fair to point out that “said something really fucking dumb” can be radicalized into demonizing someone’s entire character and, please, let’s exercise some good sense there. At the very least, I’d request people to treat “not a sexual harasser/rapist/pedophile” as an perfectly achievable baseline. I mean, being a transphobe or a Chinese racist alone certainly puts a creator on my shitlist, personally, but being a non-rapist/pedophile is something 99% of people just are.)

In terms of analysis of the text? No, only if you want it to matter. I certainly ascribe to Death of the Author myself, but reading the socioeconomic factors out of an author’s life, their beliefs, and relations, certainly makes connections in one’s works pop. George Eliot’s life is a treat to read and, just from a cursive look, you certainly get a ton of where her themes, premises, character archetypes, and general writing were going, once you get that context.

(Also, she was pretty damn wild, having an affair with a man in an open marriage of his! Also, she got a Queen to commission fanart for her works. I wish I was as cool as her.)

And Martin’s writing of the Targaryens as exiled nobility alone gets really interesting and a little soberingly sad, once you get into his familial history of having been formerly wealthy, but cast down and lost it all in the Great Depression. Also, his religious beliefs as a lapsed Catholic really sheds quite the context to his writing of Stannis, Thoros, and the High Sparrow, and the bitter ruminations of Sandor, Jaime, and the Red Lamb.

Also, Hobb marrying her high school sweetheart at eighteen... actually suggests a lot about how she approaches her fictional romances (not in a great way, mind you, but it sure explains a lot!)

Like, even if you didn’t touch any of those personal life details, you’d still get something satisfying out of the textual analysis, of course, but it doesn’t hurt my understanding and love for texts to know those things. Even the negative details, so long as they’re not utterly horrific. If anything, the personal details helps imbue more understanding into my final analysis.

17. If you could only read one genre for the rest of time, what would it be?

looks at my bookshelves, full of a sprinkling of historical nonfiction, a dash of science fiction, a smattering of literary fiction... oh, and just a tiny sliver of being 90% stuffed with fantasies

I choose to read the blueberry genre, of course. Can I also pick the bilberry subgenre too?

Okay, on a serious note, I don’t know. Picking fantasy alone... feels like it’s cheating, because fantasy can cover a whole bunch of different subgenre grounds. You want to read a Western? Weird West subgenre. You want to read some science fiction? Science fantasy subgenre, bruh. You want to read a romance? There are romantic fantasies up the wazoo. You want to read about crime? Fantasy Noir or paranormal mysteries are a thing. Add in my personal stake in loving my genre wheelhouse so much that I literally spend hundreds on dollars on it every year? Of course I’m going to pick fantasy. Why wouldn’t I pick fantasy?

So, I’m going to try and answer the spirit of this question by narrowing it down even further and answer which fantasy subgenre I’d read for the rest of time: low fantasy, as defined in the link. I love the stripped-down scope of its world-building, the lessened (or dangerous and unknown) presence of magic, the realistic storytelling focus, the shades of gray it implicitly promises, and the characterization, painting less in broader archetypes, and more in the nitty-gritty of the non-fantastical, plausible psychologies. Plus, all three of my utmost favorite fantasy series are entries below, The First Law, Realm of the Elderlings, and A Song of Ice and Fire (as well as Glen Cook’s Black Company and Marie Brennan’s The Memoirs of Lady Trent as well!), so I already know I’m going to be comfortable reading this subgenre until the end of time (meaning getting comfortable in my cyborg body).

Heroic fantasy doesn’t hugely do it for me, along with the general attendant racism and sexism of its entries. High fantasy is... well, I could go into a laundry list, but really, all I can say is that I only truly love The Lord of the Rings, Earthsea, and Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn out of that subgenre, and they’re not my utmost favorite reads, the rest I’m not hugely attached. Yes, I am including Sanderson’s Cosmere in that rest grouping. Historical fantasy... possible, but I’d prefer a flat-out different world, not just our real world with some of the place names changed up. Keep some of the wonder of a new world with me. And, as much as one would think dark fantasy would scratch my itch, I generously only utterly love Abercrombie’s The First Law out of that subgenre, and he’s got more levity with his grim tone, to boot. Not to mention how rampant sexual violence gets in an attempt to get across as edgy and dark and realistic the works are. Ugh. Spare me.

Therefore, low fantasy’s my pick.

18. Do you ever read a book without knowing anything about it?

looks at the answer for 8. Hahaha.

I mean, I will generally instat-buy from favorite authors, but even then I check out the synopsis, at bare minimum. It’s not a matter of trust, so much as I wanna know what I’m getting from them. Even with comic creative teams, I still at least take a look at the premise and read some preview pages, at least. 

I mean, if we’re talking about something that fits the spirit of this question... The Spirits Up by Todd Babiak is the closest thing that fits. I saw the cover, read that if you love Schitt’s Creek, you’ll love this book, and that it was discounted at 30% off, I snagged it up without much thought. I can impulse-buy sometimes.

Granted, I haven’t actually read it yet, so... who knows. Down the road, I might pay closer attention to reviews, instead of diving head-first into this book. Generally, 99% of the time, I’m meticulous about studying everything about a book before buying and reading it, so I know I’m guaranteed a decent read.

19. What author, genre, series, or culture can you just not get into? Why?

Well, I’m definitely tackling these, one by one.

Authors:

Terry Goodkind Terry Goodkind Terry Prickin’ Shitkind: You know, I almost didn’t put him here, half because I originally put in Leigh Bardugo on here before realizing that since I liked Six of Crows enough, that probably disqualifies her, and half because since he’s dead, it almost feels like punching down on a man after he can’t respond from his grave. Then I remind myself this is the same Randian pretentious fuckclown who increasingly caricatured his political enemies into fictional strawmen antagonists to cartoonish levels, ratcheted up the amount of sexual violence towards women in his books to the point of wallpaper, and, most damningly of all, mocked Robert Jordan’s dying condition to the point that Jordan noted it in his last ever blog post. I have nothing good to say about the man’s writing and the biggest positive thing he added to his net worth as a writer and person? The act of dying. Good riddance.

Neil Gaiman: I don’t hugely get Gaiman’s popularity. I do get it to a point, but I feel Gaiman rests on aesthetics of being creepy and/or weird and people just gravitate to that sort of vibe, rather than any sense of substance of his writing. His prose strikes me reasonably straightforward and full of child-like wonder, rather than being poetic and gorgeous as fans of his would espouse it is. Thematically, he loves to wank off to the power of stories and change, which, okay, I don’t disagree. I just ironically wish his storytelling was better. Also, Grant Morrison wanks off to similar, and they had Santa Claus get visited by psychedelic aliens, to boot.

Brent Weeks: He makes up a White Male Trio with Anthony Ryan and Brian Staveley, in terms of being bland white-bread popcorn fantasists (Sanderson is pretty popcorn to me as well, but he’s got enough imagination and neat narrative turns to elevate him), but darker in tone, so They’re Cool™ in a grimmer fantasy landscape. There’s not a lot to say about Weeks as a writer, he’s basically Sanderson, except darker, meaning more needless sexual violence. Of course. I’ve heard that he’s a cool enough dude from a few decent gestures, but the quality of his work leaves so much to be desired and I don’t get why people like him, when there are better popcorn fantasists.

Patrick Rothfuss: I mark this with almost 100% sincerity when I say The Name of the Wind is one of fantasy’s best comedies. It is hilariously “so good, it’s bad” quality. The prose is pretty decent enough, but then Kvothe looks at a woman and/or the characters actually start talking and it all goes to shit so badly, my ribs. The premise alone feels like a bodice-ripper without the integrity to admit itself as such. The Wise Man’s Fear is also pretty amusingly bad, given the scene where Kvothe out-bangs a sex Fae, but also genuinely, gut-wrenchingly, bad, given said sex Fae effectively raped Kvothe and then the discussion of vivisection and how Kvothe’s effectively pro-vivisection of countless citizens because it advanced medical science and that last part makes me Groan so hard, my first name’s become Titus. Just. God, I 110% don’t get Rothfuss’ popularity at all. I legit think it would’ve been better for everyone, including him, if he didn’t get blown up to the hype he got.

Steven Erikson: I really tried thrice with Erikson. It really isn’t personal with him, his series does sound interesting and complex, but Gardens of the Moon’s prose was so overwrought and self-consciously emulating this needlessly grim vibe, and these characters seem to talk, not to actually explain shit, but tease meaning for the long narrative game. And while my peek into Deadhouse Gates showed that the prose was much better there, I’m not really sure I’m up for trying to chip through 500+ pages, just for the potential of better. Granted, I’ve heard plenty of people talk about how good Malazan Book of the Fallen is, from a world-building and character level, especially its later books, but gods, I just don’t see it now. It doesn’t help that Erikson insisted on publishing a first book whose writing quality was ten years before his actual better foot forward. Revision, Erikson, the art of it exists for a reason!

Genre:

I’ve actually talked about romance once before here, and most of it remains utterly true to me, especially in the fact that it’s usually an entire genre revolved around the build-up to a relationship and that’s always going to annoy me when I even try to crack open a typical romance book (I want my money back after the few first pages alone, hell, after the free preview alone), however... I think I need to cut my teeth on more queer romances and Jane Austen’s works before giving up on the genre wholesome. Queer romances because, you know, I’m queer, and it might, I stress might, be possible queer writers will do things differently from heteronormative writers, so I might take a look at Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material, and Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue and One Last Stop before judging the genre harder (I wouldn’t mind looking into some AMAB genderfluid romances, mind you, but those are the ones that were personally read by a fandom member I trust). And Jane Austen, because, you know, it’s Jane Austen. I own most of her books anyway.

I also find mystery’s drier function and more episodic nature... kind of limiting to how much long-term characterization can be done, outside the detectives? The structure of the genre effectively means the amount of characterization you can get out of the suspects is filtered through the mystery, meaning it ends up feeling like a jigsaw puzzle of figuring out how all the clues fit together, either through process of elimination (in which case, who gives a shit about the characterization of a suspect once you’ve ruled them out?) or genuine detective reasoning (which, fair enough, but that’s harder, and from the mysteries I’ve read and didn’t like, they’re reasonably without the guts of characters). The only mystery I can more than stomach is Umineko no Naku Koro ni, and that’s partly because the cyclical, yet differing, nature of the catbox means you get the broad strokes, but different nuances of tragic assholes with each iteration, and its focus on the “heart,” the raw, ugly, achingly heartbreaking, yet terrible motives behind the murders. I’m not sure that even counts against my apathy towards the mystery genre, given it’s so different from the rest of the genre.

Series:

Malazan Book of the Fallen for all the reasons I’ve detailed above, which is a bit of a shame, because I think it’s not a bad series. Just not for me, even though I haven’t given up yet.

The Cosmere, and I differentiate between this and Stormlight Archive. I like Sanderson enough, and, as tedious and long as Stormlight Archive can run, those books did not need to be 1000+ pages long, the characters and imagination and plot developments in that series are enough to keep me going, if not enthusiastically. The Cosmere itself as a meta-series, though? I think it took Rhythm of War’s Zahel sparring session for me to realize I don’t much care for the Cosmere as a whole. Not when it’s throwing terms like “Type Two Invested entity” in my face. And yes, the in-universe character it’s being thrown to doesn’t get it either, so Sanderson’s got enough self-awareness to know not everyone’s going to get it, but it’s clearly meant to be a sly wink to the readers who are in the know with having read Warbreaker, and boy, even if I did read it, the Easter Egg would’ve broken my immersion into the world, given it’s dependent on me having read an entirely different book of his. At least, the Ghostbloods and Odium add to the story without needing to read other books, while being connected to a greater whole. Zahel’s inclusion just feels like “hey, you know that guy, right?” interconnectivity for the sake of itself and I don’t care that much for Sanderson’s non-Stormlight Archive or The Emperor’s Soul works to get the full context.

The Kingkiller Chronicles, for all the reasons above, because I can handle “so good, it’s bad” writing, but when you’re claiming your male virgin is So Good at Sex that he can satisfy a sex Fae his first try, and vivisection was Good, Actually, and likely using that as the example of a bad act in service of a greater good, leading towards the titular king killing, as if you can morally equivalate the two at all? Well. I can see the writing on the wall and refuse to be suckered into a sunk-cost fallacy.

The Dresden Files, because while I love fantasy and the themes of noir, noir’s had an entrenched problem with sexism, and fantasy’s not hugely better in that department, but at least more progressive people pen more in it. And from what I’ve heard of Butcher’s later writing, he apparently doubled down on the sexism. Just a case example, there’s a woman who orgasms in a morgue and two men nearby find it arousing (then asks if the woman is underaged) and. Well. That sure ain’t a good look for my chances of getting into the series.

The Dark Tower, partly because @books-and-doodles pointed out that Stephen King’s revealed himself to be a bit of a douche in his memoir/writerly help book, but more crucially, someone on my fandom server DM’d me about King’s long-standing issues with mental health exploitation and his voyeuristic misrepresentation of them, some in his The Dark Tower series itself. Needless to say, it didn’t leave me with a dying hunger to cut my teeth on his works.

Culture:

I mean, I’m game for 99% of all cultures. I might take issue with the storytelling focus, but if lots of people of color authors and Guy Gavriel Kay have any say in the matter, it’s that any culture can and should be made interesting and worthwhile, and they should all have their chances to be written about. However, I wouldn’t mind more Medieval European-centric fantasies breaking out of that mold. It’s what first attracted me about The Age of Madness and what appeals to me about Discworld’s growing world. The world changes, we should move forward from the old ways of the Medieval Era or the Middle Ages.

20. Do you think everyone should read? Why?

Fuck no. Just from personal preference, I have a tin ear for audiobooks, so others might not have an eye for reading. There are different mediums of content, tv shows, podcasts, movies, documentaries, all that good stuff, to take in for fun or information. If you don’t take to reading, there’s plenty of other platters of delicious story or content at the feasts. I think it might be nice to read, but some people just aren’t readers. That’s okay.

I think everyone should develop better critical thinking, at least. It doesn’t matter if you read, watch, or listen, if you’re approaching what you’re consuming without any consideration of authorial bias or ability to evaluate how the creator(s) crafts their content and the message and intent behind it, then it won’t matter if you’ve consumed one or one thousand bits of papers, documentaries, shows, or podcasts, etc., you’ll always remain an ignorant frog in the well in your mind.

I mean, I’ve hung around academia and trans circles enough to know that there are and will be university-diplomate professionals who fudge their methodology and study design in service to higher money for the former, or use shoddier sample sizes or incomplete context to weaponize their transphobia and demagoguing it under the veneer of diplomate-grade research for the latter. Reading isn’t cracked up to be the silver bullet to ignorance we’d like it to be.

In the end, we all take in different forms of content in our own ways. But we should, at least, be more mindful of how and what we take in. Otherwise, you get horseshit opinions like “Red Country was character assassination of X and Y!” or people thinking vaccinations cause autism without proper comprehension of themes or research study methodology, which would help one see the truth of those bits of content.

Tagging: @xserpx, @vera-dauriac, @autoapocrypha​, @doublehex, @random-jot, @jumpydr4gon, @bloody-wonder, and @mytly4 and whoever else that is following me and wishes to do this tag (I’d like to read your posts, so please tag me! :D)

[the-king-andthe-lionheart]

Babe, puritanism is a form of religious extremism that got women and lgbt people severely abused or killed. It’s not some teenagers or CSA survivors on the internet telling you your weird ass ships are weird, you're an old hag, grow up, children in real life can't bully you 😂 You won't be forced to perform a walk of shame or be publicly whipped because you read Wattpad fanfics about a 14 yo boy being sexually attracted to his 9 yo sister or fantasize about a 11 yo little girl being a rehabilitation center for morally repugnant adult men and drunkard rapists (you hate Sansa, why ship her with “honorable” male characters that you worship and prioritize lmao ? Besides thinking she needs to be humbled and wanting to put her in her place of course). Go to therapy or go ship Lolita and Humbert Humbert (who knows, him wanting to eventually get Lolita pregnant so he can rape his daughter Lolita the Second, and rape his granddaughter Lolita the Third may be a proof of his everlasting love), Daenerys zealots victim complex is so far removed from reality it’s not even funny, stanning that awful and boring white girl destroyed your brains, y'all sound like Polanski/Woody Allen defenders (whose attraction to underage girls was immortalized in his film Manhattan oops) or reactionary white men who said the #MeToo movement has lead to the spread of "man-hating puritanism.” 😭

Y'all want racial, feminist and lgbt representation in media cause representation matters but then turn around and romanticize pedophilia and incest and say that fiction doesn’t affect reality and fiction is created in a vacuum ? Make up your damn minds, which one is it. 😂

So let me get this straight, an obviously white Stansa, is trying to school me about oppression? Did you not even read my bio? I'm a bisexual, bi-racial indigenous woman. You do know that the Puritans persecuted Native Americans right? That they helped perform cultural genocide against Native Americans? That they were part of the reason why Native children were torn away from their families, their tribes, and shipped to abusive boarding schools in order to "civilize" them? Or how about when they imprisoned hundreds of Native American's on an island only for many of them to die from disease and starvation? So you need to shut your racist ass mouth. How condescending do you have to be to talk over me and to try to "correct" me. I have to say that it's very typical of a white girl who thinks they hold the moral high ground when they don't.

This whole message was downright deranged, but I highly suggest you go outside, touch some grass, reevaluate your sanctimonious, condescending bullshit, and grow the fuck up you literal child. I also highly suggest that YOU go to therapy. Obviously you have a hard time separating fiction from reality if you think reading and engaging with something in fiction will overwrite an adults moral code. I also highly suggest reading some books that are more your own speed. Obviously GRRM's material is too mature for you.

Pro-tip: If you don't like something in fandom, blacklist the tags and block the people you don't agree with. That is the sane course of action, but obviously your not actually sane if you think it's perfectly acceptable to instigate drama, to harass others, over fiction. Seek help.