dalasteller

[dalasteller]

my pathetic babygirl

[dalasteller]

i actually like it when one half of a ship kills the other half. that’s like texture

[dalasteller]

aegon and helaena can't be in the same room together bc the genre awareness gene is simply too much to handle between them without things getting petty. helaena will murmur prophecies about her own future downfall to her pet larvae and aegon will theatrically roll his eyes and be like i Think We Are All Doomed by The Narrative. you're not special. next to them alicent is like what narrative?? dont be silly my dearest. there is no narrative. we are fine. We Are Fine. aemond got his eye cut out before he could reach the age of Having The Vision but thats okay bc he doesn't need fatalistic knowledge of his own ouroborosesque future to be absolutely off the rails unhinged. iconic of him kinda

[dalasteller]

you WILL give my son a pickle-less bun!

or: criston is the green kid's dad and you cant convince me otherwise

[dalasteller]

As someone who prefers the Green characters, I don't actually hate Daemon and Rhaenyra. I hate the way they're written and the way the vast majority of the fandom reacts to them. It seriously makes me wonder if we are watching the same show, or if the writers even realize the implications of what they wrote.

Like, Rhaenyra is written as a lazy, reckless, arrogant, cruel, and a kind of idiotic woman. These are fine traits for a character to have. I have adored plenty of characters like this. But there's such a disconnect between what they write her as, and how they frame her in the story. She is depicted as the heroine of the show, the rightful ruler of Westeros, her coronation is deliberately shown as an emotional triumphant moment we are supposed to cheer and smile for. But... are we really?

She has barely shown traits of actually being a good ruler. She has done nothing to solidify her claim, gain allies, or help her father rule from King's Landing. She shows zero skills in politics. Instead she makes the worst possible decisions, treats her little siblings like shit, and runs off to Dragonstone every time tensions rise in court (tensions that are a direct product of her shitty decision-making). She leaves her father to suffer and rot for years, then comes back and insults the woman (his rape victim) who has been taking care of him all this while. She doesn't comfort the girls who have lost their mother, and instead fucks the deceased's husband on the night of her funeral. She plans for her son, who by the rules of this world has zero claim to Driftmark, to usurp Rhaena's inheritance, reducing her to the role of mere consort. This would also put her son in serious danger, but she apparently doesn't think that far. She asks for her freshly maimed and now permanently disabled little brother to be "sharply questioned" over harsh words that were 100% true. And NONE of this is supposed to tarnish her character in the eyes of viewers.

Her story of feeling trapped in her womanhood and an unhappy marriage, and finding forbidden love that ultimately dooms her is sad and could be sympathetic... but because the show gives zero insight into what she was thinking when she had not one, not two, but THREE obviously bastard sons and pass them off as trueborn in a system that would put these kids to the sword if found out, and a world that is explicitly shown to have methods of contraception...... yeah, she comes off as a fucking idiot who has just doomed her own children to a life of constant fear and the threat of execution, for no good reason. Was I supposed to cheer when she got crowned? The emotional inspiring music and the way the scene is shot certainly think so. But I sure as hell didn't cheer.

Instead of feeling like "the more qualified and competent female heir is getting passed over for an incompetent male fool" as the show wants us to think, it feels more like "two incompetent and idiotic siblings are fighting for the throne they feel they're entitled to without putting in any of the work to actually be somewhat deserving of it".

And Daemon... I actually really liked him in the first few episodes when he was a gross little freak running around desperate for his brother's love and attention. He was entertaining and fun. But his character kinda took a nose dive from there, when the writers just had him standing in the corner vaguely smirking, and not saying or doing anything that would pique my interest or give me insight into what he was thinking. He was turned into a cardboard cutout that suddenly comes alive and swings his sword at someone when they needed him to. His fight against the Crabfeeder's army was one of the most ridiculous scenes I have ever seen.

And yet, the vast majority of the fandom either worship him as some badass "alpha male" Jaime Lannister-esque character and bend over backwards trying to defend his ridiculous plot armour moments, or as a swoon-worthy women-respecting malewife and bend over backwards defending his various abusive actions towards women ("he's not sexist for killing Rhea, they were equally mean to each other!!1!1!!"). These insane fan reactions have pretty much soured his character for me.

Not only that, the only fleshed out relationship he has right now is with Rhaenyra. He is given zero scenes or dialogue with or about anyone else that would clue us in on his other relationship dynamics. What does he even think of his kids? How does he treat them? From what the show gives us, it would seem the answer is... he doesn't give a single solitary fuck about them, never speaks to them, and just ignores their existence 24/7 apparently (except when counting how many dragons his side has). And when the kids themselves are not given any sort of characterization or meaningful scenes, the whole thing just feels so painfully boring. There's nothing there for me to be engrossed by. (Remember how intriguing the unloved kids/shitty dad dynamics were in GOT?)

Rhaenyra's and Daemon's characters deserve better handling. Both are played by talented actors. But actors can only do so much when the writing is weak and muddled. Both had so much potential to be fascinating complex characters that I adore watching, but both have fallen short for me.

[dalasteller]

[dalasteller]

1.05 | 1.07 | 1.08 | 1.09

[dalasteller]

my favorite bits from liv and emma’s ew interview but especially nyra feeling a violent quality of vengeance from being chosen publicly by viserys….. the fireplace scene!!! exactly!!!!!!

[dalasteller]

This hit home, and I think it will resonate hard with all my creative friends, here. You are amazing and brilliant and I BEG YOU to keep creating!! ❤️❤️❤️

[dalasteller]

AEMOND TARGARYEN HOUSE OF THE DRAGON — 1x10: “The Black Queen” (2022)

[dalasteller]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON #1.09 - “the green council”

[dalasteller]

do you think alicent sees aegon as the nail in the coffin that determined the rest of her life. like she was married to viserys and that was bad enough but i wonder if she thought at the start of their marriage what reconciliation with rhaenyra would look like and how far away it was, how maybe if she was infertile or maybe if she only had girls maybe there was still something, some impossible chance that one day she wouldn’t have to face the choice that birthing a son would bring—to watch him either be put to the throne or rhaenyra’s sword. i wonder if every night of her first pregnancy chipped away at her hope. i wonder if when she had aegon she knew nothing could ever be the same and tried to bury it nonetheless. but then to watch him grow into this thing that he is and to love him because he’s her son but resent him because he’s a man who does exactly what other men did to you, and he turns other girls into the girl you once were, it’s like—when does the resentment overpower the love? how can they coexist? or do they have to coexist because every love you’ve ever had has been tinged by resentment and any other kind no longer makes sense? how else do you love? what do you have to do to deserve it? what does reconciliation look like, how far away is it????? and now on his deathbed the man who put you here, put your son here and never once cared, who hammered the nail in your coffin, tells you something that makes you believe that maybe it was all worth it. maybe the love can be bigger than the resentment, just this once. so rhaenys is standing in front of her on a roaring dragon and alicent would die for her son without question in that moment (in any moment, i think, but especially now) because despite being the worst thing to happen to her, he’s also the only evidence she has that what she went through meant anything at all.

[dalasteller]

So many anti friend groups are just straight up cults and it's genuinely terrifying to see and be part of.

If you're scared of your friends for whatever reason, it you're scared of liking being in a specific fandom or liking a specific ship because you think you'll lose all your friends over it, if your friend group is essentially built on the idea that you're all good and everyone else is bad, if your friends use social ostracization and online stalking and harassment campaigns as threats and weapons, if your friends use fear and moral panic to keep people in line. . . . .

Please get out of there. This isn't even about shipping or fandom or whatever, it's about staying safe and not getting sucked into a literal cult. Cut them off, block them on all your social media, remake accounts if you need to, and make new friends who don't leave you feeling like you're walking on eggshells around them. Just stay safe.

[dalasteller]

“The beacon on the Hightower. Do you know what color it glows when oldtown calls its banners for war?”  Green.

[dalasteller]

sorry i’m not howl movingcastle. sorry i can’t be him

[dalasteller]

“WRITE IT BADLY. Write it badly, write it badly, write it badly, write it badly. Stop what you’re doing, open a Word document, put a pencil on some paper, just get the idea out of your head. Let it be good later. Write it down now. Otherwise it will die in there.”

— Brandon Sanderson on overcoming writer’s block to create a first draft as a professional author (via almost-always-eventually-right)

[dalasteller]

C. 1930s,

Photograph of two women kissing captioned "Um-m! that kiss! Guess I still love you! Jus' can't help it!"

(via)