blackcat419

[blackcat419]

I think of one Ned’s funniest moments is when Cersei slaps him and he repeats to her what she said to Robert after he slapped her

Like… your accusing her kids of being bastards and your JOKING right now????

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Ryan Condal looking between the two options of following the book and staying friendly with GRRM or making his own fanfic and fighting GRRM

Needless to say he chose violence

BIG RHAENA CHANGE!

This is a comedy to me. They should've just cast Nettles instead of whatever this is! 😂

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I’ve been thinking about scenes I want to add to the rewrite of HotD and two ones that have just stuck in my brain are around Helaena and Aegon.

The first scene would be Aegon and Helaena sneaking into the dragon pit to see the dragons. Probably talking about how they didn’t get dragon eggs and have to claim dragons the traditional way. The two find Sunfyre and Dreamfyre and claim them taking them for a nighttime flight. Alicent would be worried sick when they land and Aemond would be jealous that he didn’t get to go with them.

The second scene is their wedding night where Aegon and Helaena just sit in their new room together realizing this is their life now. Aegon would apologize and Helaena would ask ‘what for’ and he’d say, ‘I don’t know, I just feel it’s my fault’ just a sad scene showing how Targaryen sibling marriage really messes up the kids.

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After deep diving into the politics of the dance, I’m confident in saying that the real winners are the Velaryons.

Yeah, Corlys lost his wife and kids but his granddaughters hold a lot of political power in Kingslanding and over their half brother Aegon 3 along with having him marry a Velaryon. Driftmark also passes down to his grandson (son) Alyn so the title stays in the Velaryon family. He also gets his goal at the end of the war of Aegon and Jaehaera wedding.

So yeah, Corlys and the Velaryons made it out of the war with the best outcome possible.

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Politics of the dance Part 2

Part 1 here

At the beginning of the Dance, it seems that Rhaenyra is in the more powerful position. It’s only when the Baratheons break their historic alliance with the Velaryons by siding with the greens through the betrothal of Aemond to a Baratheon daughter that the greens are placed in an equally powerful position. The ties between the Baratheons and Velaryons were set with Rhaenys’ mother Jocelyn but Borros is too far removed from her to ally with the Velaryons for Rhaenyra just based on kinship.

This sets up the Greens with the following powers

- the Hightowers (through Alicent and Otto)

- The Lannisters and the Westerlands (through Tyland Lannister)

- The Baratheons and the Stormlands (through Aemond’s betrothal to one of the four storms)

The Blacks have the following powers

- The Velaryons (through Corlys)

- The Arryns and the Vale (through Rhaenyra and secured with Rhaena and Jeoffrey)

- The Starks and the North (Through Jace promising marriage between his future daughter to Cregan’s son and Jeoffrey to a Manderly daughter)

The Crownlands, Riverlands, and Reach are left in dispute because their leading houses haven’t declared or are at war directly.

The first goal of each side is to secure these disputed lands. Daemon is sent off to secure the Riverlands and Daeron sets off to secure the Reach. When Aegon and Rhaenyra are in power, they attempt to secure the houses of the Crownlands.

The battle above ship wreckers bay, blood and cheese, and the Cargyll twin duel are all more personal murders that focus on avenging past grievances. These events solidify that there is no peaceful solution to the war.

Criston’s campaign in the Crownlands is to secure it and probably also to draw out Rhaenys. The Green’s have lost Helaena as a viable dragon rider due to blood and cheese. They know Caraxes is in the Riverlands with Daemon and that only Rhaenys has a dragon large enough to pose a threat to Vhagar. By sending both Vhagar and Sunfyre with Criston, the greens can ensure they’ll take out a major threat, which they are able to do.

Rhaenys’ death is when the crack between the blues and blacks fully become breaks. Corlys did not act this way when his daughter, son, nephew, or other family members died. Especially with Luke dead and Goffrey next in line, betrothed to a Manderly instead of Rhaena, ensuring Driftmark won’t pass on to a Velaryon. From this point, we’ll see Corlys acting in the best interest of the Blue faction instead of the Blacks.

With the death of Rhaenys, the Blacks are left with only one fighting dragon, Caraxes. Rhaenyra can’t fight after the stillbirth and Syrax isn’t a martial dragon. She doesn’t want to risk Jace after Luke’s death. And Baela, Jeoffrey, and Aegon the younger’s dragons are not big enough to ride. Especially with Daemon not on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra needs riders for the extra dragons now for protection. They don’t have time or access to noble families with Targaryen blood and thus have to rely on the bastards of Dragonstone.

Because the Greens believe that Daemon and Caraxes are the last fighting dragon the Blacks have, Aemond feels confident in leaving the city undefended to ensure he takes down his last threat. But with the dragon seeds and Daemon slipping away from Aemond, the Blacks are able to take Kings Landing.

After the loss of Luke and Jace, and Jeoffrey being betrothed to a Manderly, Corlys’ main goal shifts from getting his granddaughters in power through the strong boys to just keeping Driftmark in the Velaryon family. This is why he pushes for Addam and Alyn to be made his heirs because they’ll carry the Velaryon name and be of his blood. The rift in the Velaryon family between the lesser branch and Corlys must still be there if he’s willing to elevate Addam as his heir instead of wedding Baela or Rhaena to a cousin. It probably helps that Addam is a dragon rider as Corlys wants that power for house Velaryon.

Daemon fled Harrenhal either from a tip from someone in King’s landing getting a message out ahead of the marching soldiers or because he realized he needed to regroup with Rhaenyra as the only one with a fighting sized dragon left. He probably sent the host at Harrenhal to keep the Westermen from joining with Aemond and Cole’s army.

The Riverlanders are able to hold the Riverlands for the Blacks despite their loss at Acorn hill due to the support from Sabitha Frey and the winterwolves. Aemond is left deaf to his ally’s calls for help due to Red Robb Rivers shooting down their ravens. Most likely, Aemond wants to stay in the Riverlands because he doesn’t want to give up the Riverlands to the blacks and feels he can gain control because he has Vhagar and Harrenhal. Criston sees that the battle for the Riverlands is lost and decides to leave to join Daeron in the reach. He ends up surrounded and dying because the Riverlanders know they can use guerrilla warfare to win against him.

Daemon begins to break away from the Black faction when Rhaenyra sides with Corlys in giving Stokeworth and Rosby to the sons instead of wedding the daughters to Ulf and Hugh. Rhaenyra sides with Corlys for multiple reasons, the first is to keep him in her good graces as the blacks are not tied to the blues by marriage anymore. The second is that she doesn’t want her lords to distrust her by creating the precedent that the king can choose who inherits for another house.

Bartimos Celtigar raises funds in the quickest way he can by taxing merchants and making public executions pay per view. Unpopular but they are desperate for funds to continue the war effort.

Aemomd abandons Harrenhal to burn the Riverlands as he can’t hold the castle with his limited army and no supplies and can cause as much damage as possible by burning the Riverlands.

The lord of Maidenpool is put in a politically tricky situation with Rhaenyra ordering Nettles’ death so he avoids it by letting his Maester warn daemon and Nettles and switching to the greens. Daemon engaging in a dragon battle with Aemond to the death does remove the Green’s most powerful dragon but also removes the Black’s main dragon. Daemon most likely did this to ensure Nettles a safe escape.

Rhaenyra decides to focus on killing her half brothers to ensure no further wars will rise surrounding them before pardoning her enemies.

Ulf and Hugh decide to side with the greens because they feel slighted by the Blacks and believe they can gain more by joining the greens. The other dragon seeds, Nettles and Addam, are drawn into suspicion because they are both bastards and don’t have strong political ties to either faction, leaving open the possibility of them switching sides. Corlys assists Addam in fleeing as he has weak ties to the Blacks and is focused on ensuring his own house’s line of inheritance.

The riots of KingsLanding happen because the city is already unstable with starvation and overtaxation affecting them. Helaena’s death acts as a spark to light the timber. The three groups that arise in this riot are the Shepard, the religious anger and furor directed at the Targaryens, Gaemon Palehair with the sexworkers and disenfranchised looking for equality, and Trystane Truefyre is propped up as a pawn by Ser Perkin and Larys Strong to keep some sway and hold the red keep. Ser Perkin killing Mysaria by having her whipped to the Red Gate also hints at his allegiance to Larys as he removes the Blacks’ Spy Master.

With Aemond dead and Aegon believed dead, the green cause lands with Daeron as candidate for king. The Greens realize they need to take out Ulf and Hugh as the two are wild cards with dragons bigger than Daeron’s Tessarion.

Addam’s attack on Tumbleton makes more sense as an attack supporting the Blues instead of the Blacks. He doesn’t want to join the greens as he risks Corly’s death and a sneak attack on a camp with three dragons while he has two is the smartest strategy. Addam doesn’t flee because his loyalty is still to the Blues and he feels he needs to prove his loyalty to the blacks on a heroic sacrifice.

The remaining greens in the Reach take down Ulf to prevent him from trying to become king.

Rhaenyra fleeing to Dragonstone shows how her allies have turned against her. The Rosby daughter refuses her entry, the Stokeworth daughter only grants hospitality for one night, and Lady Meredytg Darklyn only allowing her to stay a short time. With no powerful dragon or army behind her, her allies feel no need to offer support or hospitality. This full flip in allies is seen with Alfred Broome assisting Aegon with overthrowing the remaining black loyalist in Dragon Stone.

Even after Rhaenyra’s death and the death of the black faction, the blues still remain with reason to fight the greens to free Baela and Corlys.

Lord Borros Baratheon finally joins the fight by appearing outside Kingslanding. He most likely stayed in reserves as he was waiting for the greens army with Daeron to meet up with him and didn’t want to move his army because it made it an easy target for dragon attack.

Larys swears Ser Perkin and his gutter knights to King Aegon, again showing that he was the main force behind Trystane Truefyre taking the Redkeep.

Borros Baratheon easily gets the city back under control for the greens, removing the three Kings.

Peace between the Greens and Blues is made with Corlys swearing fealty through Alicent to Aegon. The Blues are still a powerful threat with the fleet led by Alyn primed to invade Dragonstone and possibly kill Aegon if needed. This allows Corlys the power to negotiate for Aegon the younger and Jaehaera to be betrothed.

Aegon returns to Kingslanding, passing judgment and imposing ransoms on the Crownland Lords Rosby, Stokeworth, and Darklyn for still flying Rhaenyra’s banners. This leads to the resurgence of the Black faction as with two new armies from the Vale and North along with River lords not wanting to pay the ransom because their treasuries have already been drained by the war.

Larys seems to switch over to the Blues and Blacks by warning Corlys of the council’s plan to placate him before executing him and pushing for lenience for the the remains Blacks and Blues. This is most likely because he sees that the Greens only have 1 army while the blacks have two (plus whatever remains of the Riverlands) and the Blues have a complete fleet. Aegon refusing to surrender and using Baela and Aegon the younger as hostages causes Corlys and Larys to fully flip with the men loyal to Aegon being killed, Alicent imprisoned, Baela freed, and Aegon poisoned.

Corlys and Larys surrender the city to the Lads who seem all good to let them back into their party. That is until Cregan arrives with his northerners, taking control of the Black faction. He doesn’t accept the surrender of Corlys and Larys, using the justification of them murdering Aegon but most likely he sees them as unreliable allies willing to turn and backstab at any opportunity.

Cregan quickly moves to seize power by pulling age on the Lads and shaming them for not killing all the enemies of their side. He also monopolizes access to Aegon III by locking him up and having himself declared Hand. His monopolization of power is challenged when Rhaena and the Vale army arrive, posing a credible threat to Cregan taking full power. Rhaena and Baela are able to get Corlys pardoned because of their pleading, the Vale army backing up Rhaena, and the Velaryon fleet backing up Baela. The military power of the Blue faction allows them to take control of the capital again and in the end, be the ones that truly win the war.

With the marriage of Aegon III and Jaehaera, the last remembers of the blacks and greens are sealed together and led by members of the blue faction. Aegon III’s second marriage to Daenaera Velaryon also furthers shows the power the blue faction holds after the war.

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Modern AU were Caetlyn takes the stark kids to Costco (Jon and Theon as well cause they’re the primary guardians for Jon and Theon just likes living with them) and directs each kid to an aisle with a shopping list. She’d have them organized down to a science so the only thing she has to do is walk down the end of the aisles and have the kids put the food in the shopping cart.

Record Costco shopping time and they get hotdogs and ice cream at the end.

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Rewriting HotD: The Politics of the Dance Part 1

The Parties

The dance actually consists of three major political parties instead of just three.

We have the blacks led by Viserys and Rhaenyra with the goal of Rhaenyra becoming ruling Queen.

The greens led by Otto, Alicent, and Aegon with the goal of Aegon becoming king.

The Velaryons (the blues) led by Corlys with first the goal of placing one of his family members on the throne turning to the goal of keeping Driftmark within Corly’s bloodline.

Then there are our political figures who are not clearly aligned with a party, Daemon, Larys, and Mysaria. These three act in self interest over a political goal and generally cause chaos. Their motivations will be further explored in their respective character breakdowns.

Before the Dance

The roots of the dance are first found in the Great Council of 101 A.C. with the question of who will inherit the iron throne, Viserys or Laenor. Viserys is supported by Daemon, the Arryns through his marriage to Aemma Arryn, and other great houses favoring a man inheriting over a woman. Laenor is supported by the Velaryons, the Baratheons through his grandmother Jocelyn Baratheon, and their allies in Blackwater bay. Because the vote is kept secret, this prevents the factions from knowing who they could trust if they were to go to war. This is also when the Blue faction is formerly created with the clear goal of putting a Velaryon or someone with Velaryon blood (specifically Corlys’ descendent) on the iron throne.

Naming Rhaenyra heir and passing over Daemon formally forms the Black faction. Because Rhaenyra’s claim is very tenuous at the time, Viserys decides to marry Alicent over Laena for the political reason that he doesn’t want the Blues to have a rival claim against Rhaenyra and because he knows they’re already motivated to put their descendants on the throne over Rhaenyra. By marrying Alicent, he ensures he has spare heirs but also that his children by Alicent don’t have a great house and sworn houses behind them. This is probably why he also chose a girl from the second son line of Hightowers so he could distance her from her Hightower relatives and their power.

So why did Viserys have Rhaenyra marry Laenor? To tie the power of house Velaryon to her claim and ensure they wouldn’t side with the greens. Viserys most likely had Aegon and Helaena wed to cut off marriage options for them and did not betroth Daeron or Aemond for the same reason.

Daemon wedding Laena, tying himself to the Blues and thus ties himself to the Blacks. Laena and Rhaenyra betrothing their children when young also further ties the factions together as it ensures that Corlys’ great grandchildren will sit the throne and Jace will carry his name. The betrothals also sooth over the slight of Rhaenyra’s kids being bastards, because if they were truly Laenor’s kids, wedding them to potential allies would secure the Black faction’s power.

Daemon wedding Rhaenyra lets him tie himself to more power but it also puts the strong boys in a politically unstable position as they now have true born siblings. This also alienates Corlys because now both his children are dead and Daemon and Rhaenyra are suspect in Laenor’s death. It’s only the betrothals of his granddaughters to the strong boys that keep him there. The blues are further alienated after Vaemond’s death and the muting of the silent five.

With the death of Viserys, the Greens move quickly to secure the city and ensure that Aegon is crowned before Rhaenyra to reinforce his claim of legitimacy over hers.

The Kingsguard knights stay loyal to the side they’re on when Viserys dies except Steffon Darklyn because house Darklyn is a major supporter of Rhaenyra Targaryen.

With the king dead and two successors crowned, the Kingsguard split, and the crownlands divided, the sides now have to gain allies in the seven kingdoms not directly sworn to their cause.

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Wrap it up y’all, imaginaryvane and the lake lily alchemist have decreed that all Lyanna discourse MUST stay in 2014, brb as I invent time travel to tell middle school me to read GoT so she can be allowed into Lyanna discourse before it gets all locked up :(

Also Rhaegar totally isn’t prophecy obsessed despite all the times we’ve had people say he was, or saw him be so in visions, or just… him being a targ who are notoriously obsessed with prophecy. Totally not into prophecy at all, nope!

Oh and can someone find where I blamed Lyanna for Robert’s Rebellion? No? Oh…. Well I must be blaming her somewhere, they wouldn’t just be hallucinating it XD

The main reason I think Rhaegar and Lyanna couldn’t be a love story is because Dany thinks it’s a love story. Same thing with it being kidnapping because everyone thinks that’s the answer.

George likes to give us many red herrings before revealing the truth to us. Prime example is Jon Arryn’s death. Is it Hugh? Cersei and Jamie? Pycel? Nope! It’s Lysa who you wouldn’t think would want Jon dead after how she reacted in book 1 to his death even though she did it.

So we know Rhaegar loving Lyanna is a red herring and Rhaegar kidnapping Lyanna is a red herring. Now we need to ask, who alive will be affected by this revelation? Dany and Jon. Her brother wasn’t actually this gallant hero but some guy willing to risk the fate of the kingdom so he could have a third child. His mother seemingly chose love over duty and died for it along with thousands of others!

That would alter how these two view themselves in this world and change their approach. Will Dany be willing to follow prophecy if it’s what led to her family being destroyed? Will Jon be willing to abandon the nightswatch again (if he comes back, which he probably will) if he knows it’s what caused a war before?

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The show doesn’t want to admit that Viserys is a deeply unhealthy character. His goal is to have ‘peace’ in his family, but he has no motivation to actually solve anyone’s problems because he lies to himself that his word as king will just make things magically better.

The show falls for his own lie and believes that if Alicent just did what he said, it would all be better. That’s why they have her believe Viserys wanted Aegon to be king because that’s the only way they see conflict as possible between Alicent and Rhaenyra.

i’ve always hated the way the show went about Alicent and Viserys relationship, it feels like the only way they could justify Viserys keeping Rhaenyra as heir is if he just straight up didn’t care about Alicent but that’s clearly not the case and i think it would’ve been more interesting to watch Viserys try and balance his love for both Alicent and Rhaenyra.

Viserys puts Alicents comfort and feelings above Rhaenyra multiple times in f&b. she’s practically exiled to Dragonstone after the eye incident which is why i think his decision not to punish Luke is a lot more understandable in the books, he allegedly decides not to make Rhaenyra his hand because of Alicents discomfort with the idea but at the same time he never wavers in his decision to keep Rhaenyra as heir and fired Otto in the first place because he he as pushing for Aegon to be heir.

Viserys clearly holds Alicent in high esteem since she’s basically his regent but that decision doesn’t really make sense in the show because the writers go out of their way to show he doesn’t like her nor respect her so why was she made his regent over Rhaenyra? since show Viserys would never put Alicents comfort over Rhaenyras.

it’s especially irksome because they went out of their way to make Viserys negligent and borderline abusive but they refuse to actually acknowledge that he was Alicents abuser in the show and continually have her sing his praises which might make sense if they had a good relationship except for the issue of Aegon vs Rhaenyra but they didn’t.

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Sansa Stark in every episode s01ep05 · the wolf and the lion

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Since I do love to upset people.

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Victoria secret is evil.

They only make bras that go up to a triple D, which is fine, many bra companies only make bras for 4D or 5D breasts and there are companies that only make bras for 4D+ breasts.

But instead of Victoria Secret saying ‘hey, we don’t have your size, here are some places that do carry your size’ they decide to put you in your ‘sister size’.

A sister size has the same cup volume but is a band size up, so if you’re like me and have a chest 4D or up, you’re gonna be placed in a band one or two sizes too big.

This means that the band can’t support your chest and all your breast tissue weight is put on your shoulders. It also means your bras wear out quicker as you have to place it on the tightest hook for any secure fit.

I’ve had multiple women come to me looking for a bra without underwire or one that doesn’t dig into their shoulders and when I ask their size, I immediately know they’re wearing the wrong bra size. Once they’re in a bra that fits, they’re blown away that bras are comfy!

[blackcat419]

Hot take but I think one of the reasons Ned is so neglectful of Sansa is because she reminds him of Lyanna in a way that can’t be idealized like how Arya reminds him of her. Sansa embodies the child like innocence and fantasy about life being good and things turning out good because you’re a good person. Maybe Lyanna had that same type of idealism around Rhaegar and that’s what got her killed.

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Why Blood and Cheese does not work

Blood and Cheese is the moment in Dance of the Dragons where all bets are off on this conflict being resolved without violence. The book does an amazing job of conveying the horror of this act.

So why is it so underwhelming in the show?

First, I’d like to say that it is okay if you, yes you reading this, don’t have a strong reaction to watching your kid get murdered infront of you. You are human and humans react in a variety of ways to trauma. But here’s where everyone gets tripped up, characters are not human, they are not real people. Characters exist first and foremost to get the audience to react.

What do I mean when I say ‘blood and cheese doesn’t work’ what I mean is that the sequence of blood and cheese killing Jaehaerys and the fallout afterwards fail to convey the emotional horror these characters are going through. The act is horrific and the sound effects do help drive home how scary the things happening on screen are but the way Helaena, Alicent, and other characters act after the event fails to convey how they’re effected.

Helaena is supposed to be the key emotional figure for blood and cheese. She is our gauge to how we should react to this event. We don’t know the kids so we are not emotionally attached to them. Hell, we barely know Helaena and I’d say half of watchers are not emotionally attached to her.

So the show can’t rely on us knowing these characters and loving them for the scene to be tragic, it has to rely on the tragedy of a mom being forced to pick between her kids. But it also fails at that.

Helaena offers a necklace instead of her own life making this seem like a small meaningless bargain instead of a desperate attempt to try and save her kid. When this doesn’t work, she just points out Jaehaerys. Now this is crazy, even Blood and Cheese are shocked that she’d so willingly give up her kid. But she did. No fight, no lie, no attempt to save them both, just cheese having a heart to heart with Helaena to understand that yes, she’s giving them her son without a fight.

The only part of the sequence that does try to get us hooked in the horror is Helaena running with Jaehaera. She tries to hide her line of sight so she doesn’t see her brother being killed and she’s running to try and find help. But all tension is turned into a joke when she runs into Alicent having sex with Cole. The show treats this as a joke and this all tension is removed because the audience is shocked that we literally just walked in on Alicent and Cole having sex after we heard a kid getting killed.

The show could have salvaged this with Helanea telling them that Jaehaerys is dead, but instead all we get is a dead pan ‘they killed the boy’. This one line reveals what the whole scene was actually about, not the horror of a mother having to choose between which child died, not the fear she feels fleeing with her surviving child, no. It’s all about, ‘did she pick the boy or girl to die’.

Blood and Cheese fails because instead of trying to show the horror of the scene from the book, they decided that the murder of a child is actually a great place to have a suspense plot on whether or not these two killers took out the right kid. There is no emotional weight to this because the writers did not want you emotionally invested in Helaena, only if Blood and Cheese got the right kid.

[blackcat419]

She just needs some apple bottom jeans and a club that’s all looking at her to complete the look XD

One of the few upsides of having a pet in and out of the vet is that both of her front legs are partially shaved so it looks like she's wearing fuzzy boots.

[blackcat419]

If your shoulders hurt when you wear a bra, the band is too loose.

If the wire digs into your armpits, the cups are too big.

If your breast pucker out of the cups, the cups are too small.

If you feel like you can’t breath when you wear a bra, the band is too tight.

If you got sized at Victoria Secret, it’s wrong.

Your bra should support your breasts, not hurt you. If your bra hurts, you are wearing the wrong size. All you need is three high quality bras in your size and they will last you till your breasts change size.

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Boots with the fur

With the fur

One of the few upsides of having a pet in and out of the vet is that both of her front legs are partially shaved so it looks like she's wearing fuzzy boots.