amethistempress

[amethistempress]

ashara ⭐️⚔️

[amethistempress]

the twins lannister

[amethistempress]

lestat somehow ends up having beef with taylor swift because she released the 15th version of her new album the same day the vampire lestat album came out and made it go number two on the charts. his fans are mad and they say she’s not a ‘girl’s girl’ because they think lestat is secretly using she/her pronouns. this causes MAD discourse on twitter because people say lestans (official name of his fandom) are co-opting struggles of real trans/genderqueer artists and that lestat is clearly just a cis white man who thinks his aesthetic is cool and hip with the times but he’s actually super cringe. lestat has killed his pr team so he tweets himself in response to the drama and says that mademoiselle swiftié is a perfectly fine musician but she’s basically a baby compared to his long relationship with music. swifties ratio him on twitter calling him ‘an old queen’ and ‘world’s worst father’ (this is because they read international bestseller interview with the vampire). lestat has an emotional breakdown and cries for three days and he eats his makeup artist for making him look old. his producers are desperate and they ask daniel molloy to fix him because daniel is the unofficial vampire therapist now. vampire daniel’s idea of fixing lestat is to go on a blood bender with him. somehow this works because in between victims daniel tells lestat to stop being a little bitch and grow the fuck up. here lestat understands for the first time why daniel and louis are friends and asks daniel to telepathically call louis for him because he needs him. daniel tells him to eat shit. as they return to lestat’s shack (yes he still lives there when he’s not touring) they find out that swifties have doxxed him and showed up to the shack to ravage it. lestat starts crying again while daniel falls over himself laughing and records everything and posts it on tiktok. armand likes the video 0.3 seconds after it’s posted. throughout all of this louis is on a beach somewhere enjoying a quiet night, he telepathically asks daniel how lestat’s doing and daniel tells him to not even worry about it.

[amethistempress]

People who excuse what mirri maz duur did to daenerys (violating dany’s bodily autonomy to murder a child daenerys very much wanted) piss me off so much, daenerys was a 13 year old rape victim who had done nothing to mirri, in fact she tried to save her, and mirri manipulated the trust of an innocent child to kill her baby

I agree with you.

I feel sorry for Mirri Maz Duur being raped and losing all her people. I don't blame her for killing Drogo because he was the Khal who let to his khalasar attack and abuse Mirri Maz Duur and her people. However, no matter what anyone has been through, there is no excuse to harm innocent people. And Dany and her unborn child were exactly that.

Dany jumped in and rescued Mirri from her rapists and offered her and the rest of female slaves a shelter under her protection. That was all she could do considering that Dany was herself practically the slave - bride of Drogo and her influence on him wasn't unlimited. Dany did everything within her powers to protect those women and Mirri Maz Duur decided to kill Dany's unborn child because of the sins of his father. And she tried to justified herself by referring to a fucking prophecy. Cool motive Mirri, still murder.

Asoiaf fans, depending on which are their favourite characters and which they don't like, often justify mistreatments of teenager children.And it's not okay. When it comes to Dany haters who often stan house Stark, they will point out all the injustices Starklings have to suffer while they are blameless kids ( which is true!) but they will be blind on Dany also being a child and suffering ( which again is true!).

[amethistempress]

[amethistempress]

on this tully tuesday, i'd like to complain about how much grrm ignores the other side of cat's family of birth, as in the late minisa tully née whent of harrenhal. her given name is used in the books so that's one step up from ned's mother, but otherwise she's almost as much a blank in the story. i don't just mean that catelyn can barely remember her, but how the connection between the tullys and whents is just never considered at all.

that recent marriage bond to their overlord should make the tullys' absence from the great tourney at harrenhal pretty glaring, and we know they were absent bc catelyn only hears second-or-thirdhand tales of ashara dayne and never recalls this historic event in her own pov, yet the absence is never addressed. we can say hoster stayed home in protest thinking jaime's white cloak investiture an insult like tywin did for how it ruined his plans for lysa, but why should fans have to come up with this explanation on our own? shouldn't a grand tourney which in hindsight could be seen as the seeds of the rebellion being hosted by one's own kin be worthy of some thought in-text? and when hoster joined the rebellion and started bringing fire and sword upon his royalist bannermen, what did it mean that his in-laws were so close to rhaegar targaryen? we'll never know.

fans enjoy the connection of sansa being rumored to turn into a bat to escape the red keep, or arya spending so much time in harrenhal, but idt grrm was thinking of the connection to their maternal grandmother's house at all. bran and jon can think of their great-grandmother being a flint, but there's no sign that any of cat's kids are aware or care about her mother coming from harrenhal. hell, not only does sansa fail to note a kindred connection when littlefinger says lady whent has supposedly died or think of her own claim/tie when telling him to give harrenhal to walder frey, not only does arya fail to realize that lady whent was her own mother's aunt/cousin/whatever when yoren first brings her up or even when considering revealing herself to lady whent to get help, but catelyn herself, in whose pov house whent is first mentioned, only notes lady shella whent as the last of the line and her father's leal vassal, not also his kin by marriage and her own kinswoman by blood.

source: asearchoficeandfire results for the name whent in the main tl. the late lady of riverrun is nowhere in those results bc her being a whent is only mentioned in the appendices. that's how much of an afterthought the last family to lawfully hold harrenhal and actually live there with their appropriately goth bats banners AND their blood ties to 4 of the original povs is to grrm.

[amethistempress]

POURING RAIN :

a song of ice and fire | asoiaf

"Argella had pervade with hate as if it was an armor and wasnt willing to give it away. Hate was what made her still stand, during that hours where she was nothing but silence.

All Durrandon carry the storm inside themselves, her father was used to say, and it destroyed them."

* Where the last storm queen looses her realm.

Prologue:

- 1. Ruins.

Even if she tried, wouldn't had been able to sleep.

Argella had got used to unsettled dreams and nightmares, to wake up at the wolf's hour haunted by the thunder' rumble, making her teeth shake. And didn't mattered how much she close the curtains, the dossels, her rooms always were invaded by purple and blue and sometimes white blinding lights. When a child, yet so far of representing human silhouettes or portraits in her sporadic adventures with watered paints, that was the favourite theme of her scribbles: the rain, the lightnings, the destruction that come after it.

The parchments, now unmade by plunder, had become similar to her complexion. Stains and bolts in every colour of the sky, from the twilight to dawn, snaking throught pale forearms and waist, marking heels, wrists, feet and hands with indelible scars. Argella brought in the skin the scarlet of chains when they asked her the consent for a non-consented marriage.

All Durrandon carry the storm inside themselves, her father used to say. Since before their crowns and cloaks, their glories and defeats, the fury ran in that veins: the fury of the sky, fury of their gods, intoxicating them as a poison.

She had said "yes", even with the far echo of memory whispering that vows made at the tip of a sword were not valid. Baratheon had not aimed her a blade, but there still was the threat, underneath his armor. It would remain here by the time he stayed - in his camp, in her lands, in her castle. And the echo of life she owned - she had owned - also distanced itself, so far away from touch. Felt it run like rainwater by hands and fingers. There was no other reply than "yes".

They allowed her to return at her rooms after that, as if it was a favour, an honour. As if she hadn't became a spoil of war after her lord father's death and desertion. Maybe, if she could convince herself that were her own mistakes leading her into fail and fall, would fell less rage, die a little less inside. She couldn't. Scenarios of an honourable defeat in the hands of fire - because roasted bones keep no memories of crowns -, oh, she missed that possibility as missed the father's laugh. A desperate, hopeless, insane death, after her last blow, the only she could aim in the new dinasty of dragon-kings by taking the life of it's lieutenant during the nuptials, was also tempting. One knife was all needed, one knife and the targaryen' bastard would precede her in the seven hells. Just a man he was, in the end. With one knife, Orys would become part of her retinue in the afterlife.

The sun has died, and she wouldn't be able.

She knew it even when the reasoning inside herself seemed as broken as her body. Even wrapping in hate and in the wool dress he provided her hurt, even if the cold hurt more. The cold, the scorn, the learning of how far men goes in their cruelty, everything hurts. 

He had asked her how far they had gone. As if undress her as a whore was not enought. She didn't gave him the satisfaction of a response, of the certainty that he would receive a damsel bride. Was that the only concern of the warrior, after all: don't receive a defective coin. Even when he served tempered wine and his own soup, when wrapped her with a cloack of itchy wool.

Argella had pervade with hate as if it was an armor, and wasn't willing to give it away. Hate was the only thing that made het still stand, during that hours where she was nothing but silence.

All Durrandon carry the storm inside themselves, her father used to say, and were destroyed for it.

What did life mean when there was nothing left to hold on to? What meant death, when there was no one to mourn in it?

Argella said the wrong word, "yes", out of hunger - of life, of how she was and of how she could had been -, of fear and pain. She crossed the sallons that once had belonged to her with a promise in the ears and the remembrance of chains in body. Did not glanced its ruins.

[amethistempress]

Naked, gagged, chained, and seen. She had felt overwhelmingly seen by all, all those years ago. Nowhere to hide. No comfort to be found. No relief to be offered.

Argella hoped Orys felt that same way.

a measure of solace, by Sadhippie

[amethistempress]

the durrandons really started with a goddess cast out but choosing love and beginning a royal bloodline and ended with the forced marriage of their last remaining member that took away their name, kingdom and autonomy...

elenei and argella just frame this line and break it down to that simple fact, huh? once you were kings and we were queens, and now we're only legends and isn't that so much worse?

[amethistempress]

There is a sense of historical parallel as well as irony in the stories of Shiera Blackwood and Argella Durrandon. Where once Lord Roderick Blackwood had attempted to use the Durrandons as a convenient shield against the tyranny of the Teague kings, three centuries later King Argilac Durrandon eyed Lord Aegon Targaryen to serve as a buffer against another marauding Riverlands king, Harren Hoare. Where Lord Roderick had called upon his nuptial ties to the Durrandons (specifically the marriages of his daughters to both King Arlan III Durrandon and his son) in order to defy King Humfrey Teague, Argilac offered a nuptial tie to Lord Aegon - specifically, the marriage of his daughter to Aegon himself - to bulwark his own state against King Harren. Neither Lord Blackwood nor King Argilac seems to have anticipated actually losing his crown (actual or expected) by utilizing such marital connections: Yandel cites epistolary evidence suggesting that King Arlan “planned to restore the crown to House Blackwood, in the person of his good-father Lord Roderick” after overthrowing the Teagues, while Gyldayn asserts that King Argilac “[p]lainly … meant to establish the Targaryens along the Blackwater as a buffer between his own lands and those of Harren the Black”. Yet in both cases, diplomatic unions resulted not in the strengthening of the native states, but in the annihilation of their independence and former political identities (following the deaths in battle of these respective aristocratic fathers): after Roderick Blackwood fell during the Battle of Six Kings, Arlan III assumed direct control over the Riverlands for House Durrandon, and after Argilac Durrandon was killed during the Last Storm, the former Stormlands kingdom became a feudal vassal of the new Targaryen domain. If both Roderick’s daughter Shiera and Argilac’s daughter Argella were briefly considered (or considered themselves) heiresses to their fathers’ geopolitical designs, Westerosi aristocratic misogyny lost the crown for each: “the riverlords spoke out against being ruled by a woman” when King Arlan contemplated acclaiming Shiera as queen, according to Yandel, while “the soldiers of the garrison” at Storm’s End, according to Gyldayn, “delivered Lady Argella gagged, chained, and naked to the camp of Orys Baratheon”. The very circumstances which had extended the Durrandon empire to its greatest reach had also marked its dissolution: just as Shiera Blackwood had received no crown and instead remained only a Durrandon princess by marriage, tied to the dynasty which had swallowed her father’s would-be dominion, so Argella found herself not the Storm Queen but Lady Baratheon, almost literally bound by marriage to the new lordly power which had assumed control of her ancestral inheritance. 

At the same time, there is a meta tragedy to both the story of Shiera Blackwood and that of Argella Durrandon. In each case, the narrative importance, and indeed existence, of each woman terminates at the moment her proposed rule is rejected: Yandel only mentions Shiera in a few brief sentences following his description of the Battle of Six Kings, while Argella completely disappears from Fire and Blood following Gyldayn’s note on her marriage to Orys Baratheon. These women exist exclusively or virtually exclusively to be betrayed by their own neighbors and sworn men. Shiera could not rule as Queen of the Trident because the riverlords - at least some of whom had presumably fought beside Roderick Blackwood during his last battle - would not support their liege being a woman, while Argella was kidnapped, stripped, bound, gagged, and physically handed over to the enemy commander by the soldiers of her own familial castle - and this after Gyldayn had underlined the loyalty of King Argilac’s vassals. If Argella receives the barest characterization - in that the author actually gives her a few direct quotes - neither she nor Shiera have any real interiority, and certainly not after losing their kingdoms. How these women felt about not becoming queens in their own right, what their relationships were like with the husbands who had helped take over their own lands, what these women made of the conquests of their homelands, how they reacted to their respective betrayals - these and all other questions about them go completely unanswered by the author. Having introduced them as gendered victims turned dynastic conduits, the author disposes of each woman in turn; they seemingly only matter as characters to the extent they can be ignored. 

[amethistempress]

Argella Durrandon: The Last Storm Queen

When Orys Baratheon came down the muddy hill with his own men, he found the old king holding off half a dozen men, with as many corpses at his feet. “Stand aside,” Baratheon commanded. He dismounted, so as to meet the king on equal footing, and offered the Storm King one last chance to yield.

Argilac cursed him instead. And so they fought, the old warrior king with his streaming white hair and Aegon's fierce, black-bearded Hand. Each man took a wound from the other, it was said, but in the end the last of the Durrandon got his wish and died with a sword in his hand and a curse on his lips. The death of their king took all heart out of the stormlanders, and as the word spread that Argilac had fallen, his lords and knights threw down their swords and fled.

For a few days it was feared that Storm's End might suffer the same fate as Harrenhal, for Argilac's daughter Argella barred her gates at the approach of Orys Baratheon and the Targaryen host, and declared herself the Storm Queen.

Rather than bend the knee, the defenders of Storm’s End would die to the last man, she promised when Queen Rhaenys flew Meraxes into the castle to parley. “You may take my castle, but you will win only bones and blood and ashes”.

[amethistempress]

lyanna stark ruined me for life, i used to be normal and now i think of a character haunting the narrative and just start crying in the dirt

[amethistempress]

My top 10 favourite quotes from F&B

10. “There will be no progress. I will not spend a year upon a horse, sleeping in strange beds and trading empty courtesies with drunken lords, half of whom would gladly see me dead if it gained them a groat. If any man requires words with me, he will find me on the Iron Throne.” — Aegon iii Targaryen

9. “Dark Sister was made for nobler tasks than slaughtering sheep. She has a thirst for blood.” — Daemon Targaryen

8. “Our uncle calls us Strongs, and claims we are bastards, but when the lords see us on dragonback they will know that for a lie. Only Targaryens ride dragons.” — Lucerys Velaryon

7. “l'II have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker. There's tens o' thousands dead on your account.” — Pate of Longleaf

6. “We have come to die for the dragon queen.” — Roderick Dustin

5. “An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged.” — Daemon Targaryen I'm not saying I agree with anything that happens next (B&C), but for me, this is the moment the dance of the dragons truly starts.

4. “I fed my last husband to my dragon. If you make me take another, I may eat him myself.” — Rhaena Targaryen

3. “Small boys become large men in time, and a babe sucks down his mother's hate with his mother's milk. Finish these foes now, or those of us not in our graves in twenty years will rue our folly when those babes strap on their father's swords and come seeking after vengeance.” — Cregan Stark

2. “You may burn us, my lady, but you will not bend us, break us or make us bow. This is Dorne, you are not wanted here. Return at your peril!” — Meria Martell

1. “A ruler needs a good head and a true heart. A cock is not essential. If your Grace truly believes that women lack the wit to rule, plainly you have no further need of me.” — Alysanne Targaryen