kestrelsansjesses

[kestrelsansjesses]

Ygritte and Jon Snow from Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire

A scene from before where they climb The Wall seen shadowing them in the background.

A huge experiment for me, stylistically and compositionally and technically. I’m so happy with it.

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I think there's something to be said for the Proudwing/Shireen connection- something Stannis has put love and time into raising, only to (possibly) abandon or sacrifice them when pointed out that they don't fit the mold that something belonging to a Baratheon- to a prince or a king claimant- should.

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Rhaena the Lesbian remains a top tier asoiaf glup shitto though. “What if there was a Targaryen who was a lesbian with like sixteen girlfriends who everything bad in the whole world ever happened to her like dead husband, evil husband who killed the dead one, switched her twins which kind of killed one, wife left her, other husband serial killed her girlfriends, every other lesbian hates her guts, younger brother sucks, it’s so over” is such a wacky premise for an otherwise not that bold or dynamic book.

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Windfucker Kestrel study. I love their lil goth faces!

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the relationship between bran and osha is very mother-child but what i think is interesting is it’s not as forced as you’d think. she’s a prisoner in winterfell, and her ability to assimilate into the winterfell household is completely predicated on her behavior towards them. but osha is not called upon to do typical motherly things - she is first called upon because of her physical strength. bran wants to go down into the crypts but hodor is afraid so osha is called. it is notable her legs are still shackled though her hands have been let free - they are letting her know they may let her join the household but she is still an Outsider and Other. but osha doesn’t carry bran in her arms; of course she doesn’t, she’s not as big as hodor. she carries him on her hip like a toddler. and bran makes it a point to not complain because she’s doing something kind for him. and that’s where it starts, the thawing between them. bran is too old to be carried on someone’s hip but old enough to not complain about something nice someone is doing, and osha agrees to carry the acting lord of the castle because she’s the only one around that’s strong enough.

what’s even more interesting is that when theon takes the castle, and osha steps forward to join his side, she explicitly rejects the idea of some sort of sexual relationship. she knees a guy who goes for it in fact. but why does she step forward? well, she says it’s to protect herself but the reality is she is already plotting on liberating the boys & hodor. again, what osha is called upon to do ultimately cements the protective bond between her and bran but osha relies on her strength to protect him rather than any sort of ~womanly wiles~ and this is both because she has calculated it’s More dangerous for the men around her to see her As A Woman (and she’s not wrong) and because what bran needs from her IS someone who is physically strong - he cannot walk, he cannot fight in a traditional sense. he needs a mother that is a warrior and osha is in the perfect position to be this because she is much older, much more experienced, and very strong.

but it’s not coercive! she does these things very willingly despite the situation being inherently coercive. her physical strength is asked of her but all of the warmth is given freely. this is in part BECAUSE of the inherently coercive situation - bran does not depend on her as a mother, but rather sees her as A Subject Of Winterfell. she’s an outsider, but now so is he, and she’s his responsibility, as much as he is hers. i think bran not imposing his own love on osha is what allows love to flourish. because she isn’t forced to sleep with someone for safety, because she isn’t a nursemaid, or a nanny, she can hold this boy on her hip and feel how he is small, and delicate, and there is no one else around to hold him. and so bran can love her, for being strong, and osha can love him, for needing her strength.

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I know, 'reddit mod is weird' is very 'water is wet' but we need to talk about how deeply weird the main moderator for the House of the Dragon subreddit is, because dude is every bad stereotype of a reddit mod rolled into one. It's off season, so the subreddit is slow, which is kind of to be expected. I guess he feels the need to keep the subreddit alive by... repeatedly reposting the same threads and memes again and again, every couple of weeks, despite reposts being against subreddit rules. Maybe it's easy to forget what you've already posted when you moderate dozens of TV focused subreddits. If he's not doing that, he's taking down posts made by other people if they get to news ahead of him and reposting them under his own account, to make sure he's always the one who gets to post anything new. If he's not doing that, he's just blatantly making things up, like saying images of the cast from years ago, are 'new photos' and then deleting comments politely informing him that those are actually a few years old. It's cool though, the transphobic and racist comments against cast members often stay up for hours and hours though, if they're removed at all- and the misogynistic comments against characters are almost never removed. But you know, god forbid you beat him to posting news, or if you post a meme he'd rather repost under his own account- those are deleted almost immediately. A few people even thought he might have been a bot, so they looked into it, and it's a real dude who appears to be a failed content creator who pivoted to moderating hundreds of subreddits instead when that didn't take off for him. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter much, except that it's taking one of the larger platforms to discuss a piece of media and basically making it unusable, but also like, fair warning if you browse reddit, because there's some serious fuckery at play.

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Dragons need fancy horse show culture, but in the sky

there should be large aerial beafts for dragons to herd

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roommate who has not and will never read fire and blood just looked over at me and said “blood and cheese? those are nonbinary names for real” and went back to work without knowing the gravity of what they just said…..

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why is sansa stark hating so common. like she's a little girl. she's terrified, she's trapped, she's being handed from one pedophile to the next, she saw her dad's head get cut off, she's alone, all her siblings are dead, her mom is dead, she's 11 years old, she's supposed to be making rubber band loom bracelets and listening to one direction, she's just a kid. all the most evil characters in the book hate her for no reason other than she's ned's kid. she's also a very smart, polite, and kind girl. she's preppy in the first book, but her greatest sin is what? being a girl? being a little girl? being a bit snooty (which she quickly gets beaten out of her anyway)? yall are horrible

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- It would seem that I am doomed to always come too late.

rhaena (queen in the east)

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It's funny how many people interpret Shiera as somehow leading Bittersteel on when we have no evidence of it; I feel like it was the classic case of 'dude gets obsessed with a woman but she's afraid that if she says no too meanly he'll stab her.'

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I run a tiktok where I talk about ASOIAF stuff that's slowly becoming more popular, which is great, except now I get people having prolonged, vicious arguments with each other in my comments like every third video please stop

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I cannot emphasize enough having a private group chat with friends to send shit going 'lol look at this bad take' will keep you sane in fandom spaces.

Visenyaism I've started engaging in fandom spaces and I'm losing my shit daily at how fans will shrug off the murder or potential murder of CHILDREN.

The three wee Lannisterlings, Daenerys and Viserys, Rhaenys and Aegon, Daenerys' baby... GRRM spelled it out for them that killing children is NEVER OK for any reason, especially political gain, and yet I still have to fight off demons who think it would be fine for the good of the realm. Am I talking with Tywin Lannister on discord or something???

This is always easier said than done but. Other people being wrong or having bad opinions in fandom space does not have to be your problem unless you make it your problem. You don’t have to engage with everyone. Post what you want. Block. Keep it moving. Curate your space.

I think arguing about whether or not something like murdering children is good is not a great use of your time and energy. Obviously it’s bad like one of the worst things a human being can do. The books are also clear about this. But it’s much more interesting to examine the ways in which the characters complicit in that kind of violence justify it to themselves.

Why would you keep yourself at the “is killing children good debate” level when you have the reading comprehension necessary to choose to move yourself to the “what does it say about westeros that the entire sociopolitical system hinges on child hostages, child weddings, and child murders” level. You can leave the room and go to the honors class it’s down the hall. Open the door and walk out

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I'm trying to percolate some thoughts I have about Maegor, Visenya, and Frankenstein's monster and the role we play in forming our own creations and I feel like I am SO close to cooking but not quite there yet.

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"𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩."

"𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘴?"

"𝘕𝘰. 𝘙𝘩𝘢𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘳."

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I'm sorry you had that experience! I no longer go on Twitter at all, but from what I've seen of screenshots, it's full of people who read the wikipedia article for the books or one of the chapters and base their entire opinion on that and then throw in some right-wing reactionary ideology and decide that's canon despite the fact that it flies in the face of anyone with basic reading ability. Like I cannot emphasize enough how much ASOIAF twitter is a right-wing pipeline.

The funniest genre of Reddit ASOIAF discussion post is someone going "omg have you been listening to those people on TUMBLR they're the worst they just say bullshit" and then you go to the various subreddits for the series and at least half the posts are some variant of "who is the best fighter" "who is the manliest man" "why is x woman character such a slut." No platform is perfect, but the quality and insightfulness I've seen in Tumblr posts, as well as the originality in the way people examine the books, is so far superior to Reddit that it's pretty laughable. And at least you can actually discuss the women of the series without it devolving into the typical way reddit views women, which ain't great.

[kestrelsansjesses]

Fun fact but according to historians, tamagotchi were a popular commodity for noble ladies in the 14th century