#I’m a Jon is going to live truther

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

More recently, the dominant fandom narrative that’s been cropping up is the idea that ASOIAF isn’t a nihilist story but is instead a rather romantic story at its core. Or better yet, fans have come to accept that while it takes a more realistic approach to medieval fantasy, ASOIAF is essentially a tale about earned romanticism.

In the same story with Roose Bolton and Tywin Lannister, we have Davos Seaworth and Ned Stark and Brienne. The same story with dangerous ice elves who ride the waves of winter to threaten humanity with death and enslavement has characters like Bran Stark whose soul in animal form is called Summer (the opposite of winter) and Daenerys Targaryen who is the mother of dragons (representing heat and passion and life) and a liberator of slaves. So the idea that even in the face of evil and darkness, goodness and light still exist and will eventually prevail, right?

Ok. 

So tell me why people then use death and tragedy to define Jon Snow and his story even though he’s morally closer to Brienne, Ned, and Davos, and shares the same magical destiny as Bran and Dany? Why do people keep ascribing tragic endings to him and say he has the most probability to die (where are these statistics coming from)? Or they say that because he dies at the end of ADWD, then he’ll also die at the end of the story?

Jon’s death and resurrection (which happens during winter, mind you) is the idea of life everlasting. Even in death, life will continue to persevere. Jon’s great destiny is to fight the Others. It’s why GRRM made him the main POV in that magical war. His arc has always been related to the greater conflict that is coming. So Jon’s death and return to life is also going to be related to that conflict, right? 

See as the Others come riding the winds of winter, death follows. Of course this will affect the world. People may die and the land and its fertility might die as well, but ever persevering is the dream for spring. The dream that after a period of death and darkness and winter, life and light and spring will be restored. Jon, the main POV in the fight against the Others so far, is the embodiment of that. 

The next book is called The Winds of Winter and we can expect death and devastation to follow, but we can also expect new life to emerge. That new life is Jon Snow’s resurrection. He will be reborn and will gain new life in spite of winter. Jon’s rebirth in this book is a mirror of the life that will eventually be restored to the land after winter. Jon is literally a dream for spring and it’s actually quite poignant that these words are only ever said in his POV.

And, Jon’s mythological parallels are usually about life after a period of death. Usually there is death and sacrifice but then there is the promise of everlasting life that comes after. Jon is connected to spring and fertility and rebirth! 

He is the Corn King, a fertility god who dies and is reborn to bring about the rejuvenation of the land (spring). He is Persephone whose descent into the underworld is accompanied by winter, but whose ascent back to the world of the living brings about the spring. Other mythical parallels like Osiris are presented as gods of fertility who are connected to the promise of life after death. Not to mention the obvious messianic undertones that are everywhere in his story; a savior who dies in the place of his people and is reborn to ensure that they too see life after death. It goes on and on but a majority of the mythological influences in Jon’s story have to do with the concept of fertility and vegetation; NOT death.

So as I see it, the struggle between life and death is personified with Jon Snow. Jon’s death at the end of ADWD coincides with winter arriving in Westeros. But then he won’t stay dead because he will be brought back to life; though we’re not sure how it will happen, only that Jon will have a chance at rebirth. 

And Jon will be reborn during winter. Isn’t the idea then that even in the face of death, life prevails? That’s why it’s so thematically relevant that as the cold sweeps through Westeros, a bastard boy is brought back to life near the lands of winter so he can then beat back death. It’s what makes Jon the King of Winter. Not that he represents death but rather that he conquers it.

It’s thematically meaningful for Jon, one of the main heroes of the story, to actually wrestle with death and come out on top. So him dying again at the end of the story or having a tragic end, what’s the point of that? How does that track with the current thematic elements in the story? Yes, this is even if he is to die in an act of self-sacrifice. Jon has already done that at the end of ADWD. What will a second death show that hasn’t been done with the first one? What new understanding will we gain of the character?

I don’t understand why this fandom goes out of its way to deny Jon the romanticism that they ascribe to other characters, even though GRRM puts him at the heart of that struggle between life and death. It’s so vital that out of all the prophesied heroes in the story, Jon is the one who literally tastes death but ultimately defeats it through resurrection. Eventually, that has to mean something to the larger themes presented in the story.

So the point is not that Jon died. The point is that he died but did not stay that way. He lived. The boy lived. So stop using death to define Jon’s story!

[atopvisenyashill]

You said that you don’t like Jonerys, but do you see it happening in the books? Do you see them actually falling in love?

there is nothing about their personalities that has ever lead me to believe they’d be capable of tolerating each other for more than 10 minutes before a slap fight started. nor do i think jon will be amenable to making any more alliances with targaryens after aegon vi dies, especially with the North in such peril due to the others. that + sansa’s distrust of The Great Game & the people who play it + arya spending half her storyline in a city that hated valyria & it’s legacy of slavery + bran telling br he can take his borg hivemind and shove it all leads me to believe that the starks are gonna be petty at best & actively hostile to the iron throne at worst by the time dany lands.

and by the time dany lands…we’ll have the burning in vaes dothrak, which is likely to be a huge moral turning point for her bc as george said, her being unburnt was a once in a lifetime magic event. she’s likely ordering drogon to burn the khals which is so much different - and more villainous! - than just lighting a torch & watching the place go up in flame. we’ll have “to go west you must go east” which is going to involve her sacking a city with the dothraki. we’ll have the battle of fire in meereen & a team up with a greyjoy which just spells disaster. then she lands in westeros with an army made up of dothraki screamers, unsullied slaves, and headed by jorah fucking mormont and a greyjoy. i’m not even sure when she has the time to meet jon let alone get dicked down by him!

(part of my “snowspear is real” trutherism is that i think dany in the show was given like half of aegon vi’s plot. considering arianne is going to meet them at storm’s end, which is a hop, skip, and jump away from dragonstone, it makes way more sense to me that the main targ the starklings would be dealing with is aegon. i also think that jon finding out he’s lyanna & rhaegar’s as he’s dealing with rhaegar’s trueborn son & has completely thrown his lot in with the north is gonna hit way more emotionally than jon finding out he fucked his aunt. george does a lot with romance, this is true, but the main relationships in this series? they’re siblings! they’re parents & children! cersei & robert are haunted by the ghost of lyanna but lyanna has always been a stand in for robert’s love for NED. cat & ned’s relationship is doomed before it even starts by LYANNA and JON, not by a former lover! all three lannister kids wonder how their lives would have turned out if their mother had lived!! it’s about ~these ties that bind us~ it’s about the human heart in conflict with itself! i just don’t see how you pass up two unknown half brothers meeting & clashing & then finding out they’re related in favor of…a very predictable, very boring romance between your fire & ice coded mains).

tldr i still generally feel no bc i’ve never thought they’d get along very well, plus there’s no time, but i’m pretty ready to eat my words on that one and cringe my way through a sex scene between them.

[sing-me-under]

Can I talk about my two favorite Damian ships for a second? No? I’m going to anyway.

I think Damian x Colin and Damian x Jon are super adorable. I’m just a big fan of all Damian relationships, whether they be romantic, platonic, or queerplatonic. I think that Colin and Jon especially have a lot of potential and bring out a lot in Damian as a character.

However, I’m an endgame DamiJon truther, further exacerbated by their wonderful co-parenting of Lizzie Prince.

I think that Colin would be like the middle school best friend who Damian started dating in high school and into college but they kind of just fall apart for whatever reason. They’ve grown up together and helped each other grow as heroes and as people, but now they need space to grow as individuals. They’ve always fallen into a comfortable silence together, but after all these years, it just feels a little too tight, like a shirt you’ve just grown out of. They’re still best friends but now it’s awkward sleeping in the same bed of the apartment they share because they’re not dating anymore but nothing really changed either even though it feels like it really really should have.

And then Jon is the other best friend who was long distance (and simultaneously developed through forced proximity via their parents) so the connection didn’t build as naturally or as strongly as it did with Colin, but well, Damian was kind of getting sick of the awkward tension and he wasn’t going to be the one to kick Colin out of the apartment so he just escapes for a bit to Jon’s place. Cue Damian unofficially moving to Metropolis while house hunting in Gotham then just never moving out. Damian and Jon have very good chemistry that’s always existed but skewed when Jon got aged up and started dating Jay (at this point, Jon and Jay would’ve broken up and moved on in their individual love lives). Now that they’re in the same state of maturity, they just kind of click into place again.

Anyway, I like the idea of Damian and Jon not being romantically involved for like however many years and then one day, someone asks how long they’ve been together and they never officially started but they’re basically married at this point so like why not. There’s no drama or build up. It’s just them being soulmates.

[ao3feed-briennejaime]

the winds of winter/a dream of spring

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/jV5hm7w

by tabbags

basically how i think these books would go. a lot of the first book is based on season 7, but there are significant rewrites. (a similar fic is posted on my account in screenplay form, but i'm planning on making adjustments to a dream of spring) daenerys and jon are gonna get married and have a kid, i'm sorry if you don't ship them, georgie boy does. the only change i'm making that i think he won't is that i'm a sansa/theon truther. i also don't want jaime going back to cersei, so i'm not writing it. so most changes are romantic attachments, not major plot points.

Words: 21864, Chapters: 1/2, Language: English

Fandoms: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

Categories: F/M

Characters: Sansa Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Petyr Baelish, Jorah Mormont, Tyrion Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, Euron Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy, Gendry (A Song of Ice and Fire), Davos Seaworth, Grey Worm (A Song of Ice and Fire), Missandei (A Song of Ice and Fire), Podrick Payne, Bronn (A Song of Ice and Fire), Bran Stark, Three-Eyed Raven, Samwell Tarly, Gilly (A Song of Ice and Fire), Yohn Royce, Lyanna Mormont, Asha Greyjoy | Yara Greyjoy, Robett Glover, Tormund Giantsbane

Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Euron Greyjoy/Cersei Lannister, Grey Worm/Missandei (A Song of Ice and Fire), Gendry/Arya Stark, Arya Stark & Sansa Stark, Jon Snow & Sansa Stark, Sansa Stark & Daenerys Targaryen, Missandei & Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont & Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa Stark & Brienne of Tarth, Podrick Payne & Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark & Brienne of Tarth, Jon Snow & Arya Stark, Davos Seaworth & Jon Snow, Davos Seaworth & Sansa Stark

Additional Tags: POV Sansa Stark, POV Jon Snow, POV Daenerys Targaryen, POV Tyrion Lannister, POV Theon Greyjoy, POV Brienne of Tarth, POV Jaime Lannister, POV Cersei Lannister, POV Arya Stark, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Endgame Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, Daenerys Targaryen Lives, Eventual Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Pregnant Daenerys Targaryen, Married Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/jV5hm7w

[esther-dot]

I actually don't understand those Jonsa shippers who stan Dany. They claim that we who believe in Dark Dany only because it comes between our ship. We hated Dany irrespective of our ship. Yes she did come between Jon and his relationship with his family and friends and tried to alienate him from them. Then they mock us for thinking Pol!Jon is true. It's not us who are petty for believing in Jonsa and Dark!Dany but them for creating false perspective of our fandom.

I’m going to assume a few things are going on there, anon. The most important being, people engage with ships in a lot of different ways. Some don’t care at all about a ship being canon, they’re only here for fanon content. For Jonsa specifically,

some shippers never thought or wanted Jonsa to be canon in books or show

some thought Jonsa would be a political arrangement with no romantic feelings between the two (at least initially)

some thought Jonsa wasn’t a show thing but would be a book thing

some thought it was a show thing and not a book thing

and then with each of these you had the additional elements of Dark Dany/PolJon:

some were Dark Dany/PolJon/Jonsa truthers for the show

some were Dark Dany/Jonsa truthers, but not into PolJon

some people hung out with Jonsas even thought they didn’t like Jonsa but they did believe Dark Dany and PolJon

some never thought any of it was real but enjoyed the theories

You get the idea. Lots of ways to subdivide our corner of the fandom. I can understand that if you didn’t buy into Dark Dany, like, if you didn’t see it coming at all, and then you watched s8, it would be easy to get sucked into thinking it was a last minute twist and sexist in nature. I mean, most of us hate having a man kill his lover. It’s gross. As an advocate for curating your fandom experience, I know just how easy it is to be insulated form opinions you don’t like. So, it’s a real possibility that they didn’t read any of the good meta and assumed the worst about those of us who liked Dark Dany/PolJon etc. And the last season, especially the last episode, was so bad, people didn’t have much motivation to revisit different interpretations, so for some people, we were living in parallel universes, theirs more influenced by Dany standom.

Now, we have a wealth of Dark Dany meta, we have the predictions for it in the show and the fact that it happened just as predicted, but, even so, a lot of people don’t accept it. This post which shows the Nazi imagery in Dany’s scenes across several seasons to me ends the discussion about it being a last minute thing, but for others, it doesn’t. Not believing it is likely correlated with being involved in the fandom early on, when Dany was unquestionably a, if not the, hero, and the accepted endgame was a Targaryen restoration. So, Jonsa kinda had to be a non canon ship for them. After s6, there was an influx of people who thought it was real, because of how show Jonsa was clearly, intentionally, paralleled with NedCat, and the Dark Dany thing had really become more widespread so it didn’t conflict with the accepted endgame (there were a lot of different ideas then!), so it seemed like a possibility. But if you’ve already created your bubble, you aren’t necessarily open to new interpretations. And, it has to be said, as much as I believe that Jonsa was implied visually, the same way Dark Dany was communicated visually, Jonsa was never acknowledged. So you and I were wrong too. I mean, I still think it was a thing, but if I’m gonna say that, I can’t be too angry other fans don’t want to admit they were wrong. I’m technically wrong too!

As for PolJon, if you’re a person who believes Dany is a hero, that there was never a chance for show Jonsa, then a theory like PolJon could seem like a desperate attempt to get what you want. “Why would Jon be using Dany (a hero)? That would be awful of him!” I agree with you that that’s a misunderstanding of us, and there were a lot of people who weren’t Jonsas who thought PolJon had to be a thing, but they all believed Dark Dany too. I can understand that if you think of Dany the way I think of Sansa, it’s a theory that would seem disgusting to you. I’m disappointed that people didn’t/won’t acknowledge the main motivation was that we knew Dark Dany was coming and we were trying to figure out how Jon fit into that and we figured he was the betrayal for love so 2+2=4. But again, if you never consider Dark Dany as a seasons long story, people can’t accept it.

Anyway, I hate it when people willfully misunderstand me too, but try not to let this get to you. It’s annoying to be mischaracterized, but the main people who say that are angry Dany stans who hate Sansa—not Jonsas. Among the active Jonsas now, we have a blend of all the possibilities I mentioned and it makes no difference to me what their personal interpretation of GoT is. I enjoy their metas, edits, fics regardless!

[soup-is-here]

Okay so I don't know if the tapes were split between realities, the tapes are only in their reality, or if for every tape in their reality, there's one in ours, but I'm still a firm Alternate Reality Tapes Truther. Based on the girls' closing lines, I'm going to assume either the first or last, since they've been smashing all tapes, yet we get to hear them still.

My theory is that Jon Sims, the archivist, when he was stabbed, didn't necessarily die, but did cut the tether that was keeping him and Martin there. It's like making a mini black hole; they only last for a few seconds, but don't have enough mass to keep growing and fade out. Martin was just close enough to get sucked in with Jon, but I don't think either of them died in that. There were no bodies found and no proof that Martin's stab was fatal, especially with how instant the portal opened. It's much more likely they split between dimensions and while their current body "died," their consciousness lived to inhabit everywhere the portal took them. Since time and space doesn't like doubles, they were sent to whatever dimensions and took over the bodies of the Jons and Martins there. For example, our Jonny Sims being this universe's Jon. We don't know who's our Martin. There's some universes where they know each other and fall in love, there's some where they don't. This one is one where they don't.

We now have the tapes, or some connection to the tapes, meaning the fears were transferred to our world. But, because we're in a universe where the keys to starting the ritual don't add up, (i.e Jonny not having a bf named Martin, the Magnus Archives not really existing, etc. etc.) we're most likely safe from the ritual happening. There's also the fact that we have the tapes so we know how to stop things just in case. I'm personally leaning more towards the One Here, One There theory since we do get the aftermath of everything. I don't know if it's a reciprocal relationship or not, since we don't have the apocalypse happening here. It seems like since they were the "birth place" of the tapes, then when they make a new tape, one also spawns in every dimension the Web traveled to. I think the fears still technically live there too if they have remaining tapes, but basically were reset to how they first started. People are more angry than scared of these things now.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Hello! Nhthcth brainworms have slowly started taking over my mind ever since I read it and I’d like to inform you that your brain is huge and sexy. With that established, I’d love to hear your opinions and thoughts on tma canon!! Favourite episode, character hcs, what entity you’re most aligned with, most terrifying entity, etc.

Hi! 

God, I love all of TMA so much. My favorite episode is definitely MAG 165: Revolutions. I’ve listened to it probably ten times by now. The Jane Prentiss statement is a close second. They both just really lean into some really evocative, poetic language and I go feral for it every time. 

Okay, so like, the thing is. I know what entity I would be most aligned with. And I’ve always hated it but it’s super true. I would absolutely be Corruption-aligned. I have like, the exact opposite of trypophobia. I love all of those like, weird niche medical gross out videos on Youtube. I would stumble on some Corruption stronghold and I would just stare in mindless fascination and my soul would be yoinked by the evil germ god. Like I’m deeply aware of the dumb way my soul would get Snatched. 

Absolutely the Web for the most terrifying entity. They’re just so insidious and nigh-impossible to beat, and the thought of losing control like that? Terrifying. They also have the physical threat component down of like, being a giant spider who will consume you. They exist in this weird intersection of mental and physical horror and it’s a terrifying time.

Character head canons:

1) My personal headcanon about Season 2 Jon is that his paranoia was both a product and a cause of his own Becoming. I have no idea how much of this is canon? Because I think that the only thing that was explicitly stated as the cause of his paranoia was Not!Sasha, but also it’s been a hot minute since I listened to Season 2/3. I know Jon explicitly states that the paranoia was because of Not!Sasha in the Guest for Mr. Spider Statement, but I can’t remember at all if it was commented on further. 

The thing is, the explicit fear of being watched/paranoia generally is the Eye, not the Stranger. A good deal of it would come from Jon’s spooky spider senses constantly tingling as something not being right (that being the Not!Them), but it would be the Eye itself Feeding on that Fear. And the thing is, Jon’s choice in response to that is to obsessively watch those around him and inspire paranoia in them, Feeding the Eye even further. So I personally think that stalking the rest of the Archives and actually Feeding the Eye in that way did more to make him Become than reading the Statements did. 

The other big thing for me is just that the process of Becoming has always seemed so painful to me, specifically in a manner that Feeds the Entity trying to claim them. Oliver spent the beginning of his visions trying to make sense of them and even prevent them, in the case of his father and the statement giver who saw the Grifter’s Bone concert and even Gertrude, and then he just... stops. He settles into the visions and his role with the End with a sort of inevitability that’s just very End. How afraid was he, when he started to figure out that there was nothing he could do to change what was happening? How much did the fear of being unable to change the future--for others and for himself--Feed the End with his own Fear? And then his Becoming really happens when he chooses to lean into the future, and personally bring all of the boat to their ends. We see that with most of the Avatars--Jane had an entire statement about Corruption infesting her and how afraid it made her, Jude had that whole burnout empty-life thing going before she leaned into it, Annabelle feared the Web her whole life before Becoming. Becoming seems to Feed on the soon-to-be-avatar first and really happens when they lean into it and inspire the fear in other people, and so for me, I always thought that the paranoia was specifically because of the Eye feeding on him, exacerbated by Not!Sasha, and that choosing to stalk the rest was what pushed him over the edge into properly Becoming. 

2) I know the like, fandom consensus was that Jon and Georgie had a really long and involved relationship that ended poorly, but I like to think that their relationship was really short-lived. They went on like, maybe three dates, emphasis on maybe. One of them was just when they ran into each other at a Tesco Express, felt weird shopping separately now that they knew the other was here, awkwardly gathered their things together and called it a date. Georgie said “I think we should stop dating” and Jon said “yeah that’s fair” and then they just hung out as friends afterwards and got really close that way. Relationship ended because they just sort of ended up in different jobs and both got busy and then like, once a certain amount of time passed, it just became weird to ring up the other when you’ve been ignoring them for like, eight months. They always call each other their ex though because they’re both assholes who think it’s funny to bring their blind date home and be like “this is my ex, we’re flatmates.”

3) I am a “The Mechs Were Jon’s University Band” Truther

4) I like to think that Tim and Jon became friends in Research because Jon had poor people skills and a bad attitude, and Tim was riding off losing Danny and didn’t want to be near people, and someone told Tim on his first day that if he wanted a good conversationalist for a desk partner, he should avoid the empty one by Jonathan Sims like it was covered in thorns and dipped in shit. He plopped his stuff down not five minutes later, and the rest was history. Jon was safe, at first, because he was so seemingly different from Danny that Tim felt more comfortable leaning into a friendship. He was funny in an asshole sort of way, and dressed like a librarian, and was a total workaholic, and it was safe to find comfort in Jon because Jon never reminded him of Danny. But then he figured out Jon’s reckless streak, and his total disregard for the law, and his weird skill at B&E, and he realized Jon would have gotten along with Danny like a house on fire. Jon sort of became a pseudo little brother for him after that, and one of the reasons why Jon’s betrayal hurt so much was because Tim had lost one brother already and would have let Prentiss kill him to protect his second, and Jon still stalked him. 

[analogscum]

ROCK N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE (1987, d. John Fasano)

Rock n’ roll is dead. I’m sorry to have to break the news to you, my dear Scumbags, but it’s true. If I’m being honest, for awhile, I was feeling the same way about ROCKTOBER.

Just look at today’s musical landscape. The youth of now don’t want to listen to killer riffs and epic drum solos. They want to listen to shiny, overproduced country ballads about driving your truck down to the river at night. They want to listen to shiny, overproduced pop songs about how being a woman is awesome and there’s no night like tonight because tonight is the night that we’re all gonna be women. They want to listen to shitty, underproduced hip-hop made by rapists with facial tattoos about how they want to kill themselves because they either have no drugs, or they have too many drugs, I’m honestly not too sure. On a commercial scale, what does that leave us rockers? The Black Keys? Uggggh. Mumford and Sons? Blecccch. Imagine Dragons? Imagine my itchy taint.

Point is, I was feeling about ROCKTOBER the same way we’re all feeling about the state of rock n’ roll today. I wanted to do something fun and weird for my favorite month of the year, but the first two movies I selected, well, they were lacking. They simply didn’t rock enough. But then I realized, you can’t lose the faith. If you wanna find the good stuff, you’ve just gotta keep digging. And just like that, a stiff, demonic wind blew in from the great white north, and saved ROCKTOBER, just when we needed it the most. Thank you, Canada. And thank you, Rock n’ Roll Nightmare.

We open on a quaint little farmhouse. It’s morning. Mom is downstairs making breakfast, Dad is shaving off that stubble, and Junior is getting ready for school. How picturesque this familial scene is! Mom opens the fridge, and there’s a glowing red light and a growl! Oh no, is it Zuul?! Dad hears this growling and his wife screaming, so he saunters downstairs at a leisurely pace. But when he gets to the kitchen, Mom is gone! Hey, what is that in the oven? Dad opens it up, and it’s Mom’s goopy skeleton! Wow! It reaches out and tries to grab Dad! Junior sees this and screams! Then an Evil Dead first person camera demon zooms around the house as the credits roll, because THAT is how you start a goddamn movie!

Now we cut to a van driving down a rural highway. But this is not any ordinary van, this van is a total shaggin’ wagon. It’s white with shiny red stripes, the interior is all red velour, and to top it all off, there’s a pair of handcuffs dangling from the rearview mirror. You can practically smell the vapors of bong water and old genitalia coming off of this thing. The van screams down the highway for about the combined length of the driving scene in “Manos: The Hands of Fate” and the driving scene in “Solaris,” which is to say, for way too long. Would it surprise you to know that they shot this sequence when they realized the film’s runtime was too short?

Anyway, the van pulls up to the quaint little farmhouse from the beginning, and for the first time we meet The Tritonz, the most bitchin’ heavy metal quintet from the United States and definitely not Canada! There’s our banshee vocalist and fearless leader, Jon, played by Jon-Mikl Thor, whose Wikipedia page describes him as a “bodybuilding champion, actor, songwriter, screenwriter, historian, vocalist, and musician.” Now that I’ve seen this movie, I take issue with a few of those descriptors, but anyway. We’ve also got Stiggy, the Australian drummer, Max, the guitarist, Roger, the bassist, and Dee Dee, the keyboardist. Along for the ride are Jon’s girlfriend Randy, Roger’s new wife Mary, Stiggy’s girlfriend Gwen, and Phil, the band’s manager. As Jon explains, they’re going to be staying in this farmhouse for the next month while they work on material for their new album. The barn has even been converted into a 24-track recording studio for them. When someone asks why this farmhouse on the outskirts of Toronto, Jon replies thusly: “Toronto is where it’s happening, man! The music, the entertainment, the arts…” So, in other words, Rock n’ Roll Nightmare is the world’s weirdest tourism commercial. Neat! Gwen immediately starts complaining that they’re in the middle of nowhere, and that they don’t have roadies to carry their luggage for them, because Gwen is the character in the movie who gets angry and annoyed about everything. We then meet the groundskeeper, who looks just like Ken Burns. Phil tries to get the keys from him, but Ken Burns just keeps rattling on about Alice Cooper, and I think this scene was supposed to be funny, but whoops, and then Ken Burns gives Phil the keys and walks out of the movie. Bye, Ken Burns! We get an overhead shot of the house, and an ominous musical stinger…but then everyone just walks into the house and nothing happens. Get used to this, because I really think that they let shots go on about three to five seconds longer than necessary in a desperate attempt to pad the runtime out, and I won’t be convinced otherwise. I’m a Rock n’ Roll Nightmare truther!

So they divvy up the rooms, and Gwen complains that they’re gonna have to eat Phil’s cooking for dinner, and witheringly refers to Mary as a “housewife.” Cool. Jon announces that he’s going to go lock up the van, and then we watch him do just that, in real time. At one point, he sees a shadow behind the curtains in his bedroom, and looks concerned, but then it’s just Randy. She cups her breasts in his direction, as if to say, hey, look, I’ve got tits! And he just kinda smiles in a way you do when you wanna be nice to spare someone’s feelings. Cut to, dinner has just ended. Phil is wearing an old timey paper hat like he’s behind the counter of a soda fountain for no reason, and I’m HERE FOR IT. Jon makes a toast to making their best album yet. Then Gwen pressures Stiggy into giving a toast, thinking he’ll be like, here’s to my girlfriend Gwen who is super awesome and not an asshole at all, but because Stiggy is kind of a dummy, he’s like, ummmm, here’s to Phil for cooking us an awesome meal. Gwen of course gets mad, and then refuses to clean dishes, because, as she puts it, “I’m not a HOUSEWIFE.” I really don’t understand where Gwen is coming from here. Is she jealous of Mary? Does she think Mary is a goody two shoes? Or is she against the institution of marriage in general? Sadly, only lil’ Baby Jesus knows for sure, and he ain’t talkin’. Anyway, Phil and the other two ladies wash dishes while doing a funky little dance and giggling like they’re in a Nancy Meyers movie, before deciding to head over to the barn and watch their menfolk (plus Dee Dee, who is a lady) rock out.

And rock out they do! We’re treated to the first of many Jon-Mikl Thor originals here. This one is entitled “We Live to Rock,” because of course it is. While the Tritonz are melting faces with their wattage (kinda), that gosh darn Evil Dead first person camera demon starts zooming around again. To my surprise, we then get to see said demon, and well, there’s no polite way of saying this, so here goes…it looks like a penis. It just does. It looks like a penis with one googly eye and a big dumb mouth right underneath the tip. I could not even believe it. So then it drools (calm down, everyone) right into Phil’s beverage, and we see him take a sip, and ewwwwwww. As they finish the song, Stiggy breaks one of his drumsticks. His bandmates get on him as if he just ruined the entire song, which, like, drumsticks break all the time, guys, relax. Phil is like, hey, I’ve got a bunch of drumsticks in the basement, I’ll be right back. But when he gets down to the basement, Gwen is waiting for him. She’s like, hey Phil, you look like the host of an early 90s Nickelodeon game show that only lasted one season, let’s fuuuuuuuuuuck. Phil is deeply confused by this, because, let’s face it, he’s Phil, but he goes along with it, at least until Gwen’s face becomes a zombie demon face and bites a chunk of his shoulder off! Oh nooooooo! Everyone upstairs hears Phil yelling, so they run down to the basement, but Phil is nowhere to be seen. Jon decides that, hey, we definitely heard the yelling coming from down here, but maybe Phil is in the attic? Uhh, what? Anyway, then they discover that their shaggin’ wagon is gone, so they’re like, hey, Phil probably went into town to buy some drumsticks, typical old Phil, That’s So Phil, etc. etc. etc.

Night has fallen. Randy desperately wants Jon to slip her his Mikl Thor, but he’s too focused on his songwriting, his art, his craft, maaaaaan. Max and Dee Dee also wanna freak each other nasty, but they’re too shy to admit it. You know how 80s rock stars were notoriously sexually timid, right? Roger and Mary make sweet love and talk about how much they love being married and isn’t it great to be married and we’re so glad that we’re going to be married for a long time and definitely not turned into zombie demons off screen anytime soon, because yay marriage. We catch up with Stiggy just as he’s blasting a load into Gwen, and he seems very satisfied with himself. After he excuses himself to go to the bathroom, Gwen refers to him as “the one minute wonder,” because Gwen gonna Gwen. Stiggy is flexing in the bathroom mirror and doing a terrible Schwarzenegger impression, when all of a sudden a bodacious buh-buh-buh baaaaaaabe that we have never seen before is standing in the doorway. Instead of being like, umm, who the hell are you and how did you get into our house, Stiggy is like, oh, awesome, tits! But then the buh-buh-buh baaaaaaabe turns into a zombie demon creature. It kinda looks like Goosebumps’ The Haunted Mask crossed with Night of the Creeps. It puts it’s hand on Stiggy’s mouth, so now Stiggy is possessed, I guess? He goes back into the bedroom and Gwen is like ugh, what do YOU want? And Stiggy is like, dat ass. And he gets on top of her, and then from outside the room we hear Gwen screaming with orgasmic delight, so I guess demonic possession DOES have its upsides?

Now there’s a dumb and unnecessary scene where a bunch of teenage girls who are in the “Mississauga Chapter of the Tritonz fan club” or some such nonsense show up at the house and are like, Ohmygawd, it’s 2am, let’s go wake them up and…I guess ask for autographs or something? But who should answer the door? It’s Phil! Ummmm what? And Phil is speaking like an upper crust weirdo because I guess that’s what the movie thinks a possessed person would sound like, and he’s like, ok girls, the band will be down “in twenty minutes” (???), how about you take them titties out! And these girls, one of whom we just heard drop the word “retarded” in a derogatory way, are shocked that a rock band would wanna see some nude breasts. Phil gets angry at the lack of exposed lady nips, the girls leave, the camera pan down…Phil has a zombie demon hand! Cue the Vincent Price laugh, I guess!

Morning comes, and Roger and Mary are like hey its our first time washing dishes as a married couple and we’re totally married and being married is awesome, oh whoops, some zombie demon hands pulled us offscreen and now we seem to have zombie demon hands too! Drat! Over at the barn, Jon is like, hey, where’s Roger, off being married or something? Oh well, guess I’ll strap on this totally tubular headless bass which will never go out of style, so that we can play our next song, “Energy!” Gwen is happily rocking out, because Stiggy’s demon dick turned her frown upside down. When the song is over, everyone is like, wow Stiggy, your drumming sounds great, we’re not even concerned that your Australian accent has inexplicably vanished! Then everyone gets a case of the hornies out of nowhere. Stiggy is like, hey Gwen, let’s go down to the lake so I can give you more of that possession nookie. Max and Dee Dee decide that now’s the time to finally seal the deal vis a vis knockin’ them damn boots. Randy is like, hey Jon, we should probably fuck the color out of each other’s hair, right? And Jon is like…nah, I’d rather work on some lyrics. Sorry, Randy!

Down at the lake, Gwen takes her top off and is like, hey, here are my boobs, let’s do this. Stiggy, in his new, non-Australian accent, is like, OK, and then his stomach rips open and a devil hand pops out! Neat! Gwen screams as the demon hand cops a feel, and Max and Dee Dee hear it, but assume that it’s a scream of ecstasy. Now the movie turns into a softcore porno for like ten or fifteen minutes. Max and Dee Dee have a slow, passionate bonk sesh. Randy stops beating around the bush and is like, hey look, Jon-Mikl Thor, I’m naked, let’s go have a super awkward sex scene in the shower. Jon-Mikl Thor is like, sounds good to me, and they go have a super awkward sex scene in the shower. It’s so unfortunate, you guys. There’s gross tongue kissing and weird acrobatic poses. Like, movies love make it seem like shower sex is totally easy, but no no, I beg to differ! Anyway, Max and Dee Dee finish up their romantic porking and get dressed, when they spy Junior! From the beginning of the movie! What���s that lil’ rugrat doing there?! They chase after him, ending up in the barn, where, to their horror, he turns into what looks like the love child of Bud Cort and a Shar-Pei, and zombie demon murderizes both of them. Which I hear is way worse than being murderized by a human. My uncle told me.

Anyway, Jon-Mikl Thor is super annoyed that everyone has mysteriously vanished, so he goes over to the barn to work on some lyrics, just in time for Randy to encounter Junior herself. Our hero is working on those darn lyrics of his and enjoying a nice crisp refreshing Coca-Cola, when all of a sudden, the penis devil returns! But not only that, there are now a bunch of penis devils! One looks kinda old, one is greenish blue, one is even smoking a cigarette, can you even imagine?! What’s strange is, Jon-Mikl Thor doesn’t seem to notice any of them, even the one that’s sitting literally right next to him. Then Randy enters the barn, and it’s like, ok, she’s obviously possessed. She gets up in Jon-Mikl Thor’s face and is like, face it, all your friends are dead, everyone’s dead! To which Jon-Mikl Thor is like, nope, don’t think so. At which point, Randy is engulfed in a flash of red light…and turns into a giant rubber Satan puppet! Holy shit! Eat your heart out, tiny-ass Satan puppet from Prime Evil! Weirdly enough, Jon-Mikl Thor seems completely nonplussed by ANY of this. Cool as a cucumber with a feathery viking haircut.

Now, my dear Scumbags, we come to perhaps the most batshit guano crazy town banana pants plot twist I have ever seen in a movie. I’m not exaggerating. SPOILER ALERT, FOR CHRISSAKES. SPOILER GODDAMN ALERT.

Satan puppet is like, haha, I turned all of your friends into my zombie demon minions or whatever. Jon-Mikl Thor, still completely unshaken, is like, nah bro, you didn’t. To which a perplexed Satan puppet is like, umm, no dude, I’m pretty sure I did that shit, homes. Then, Jon-Mikl Thor drops a goddamn bombshell: 

“You killed no one, Bub. Or is it less familiar to call you Beelzebub? Or do you prefer Abaddon? Or, as the Hindus called you, Shaitan? Or, as you are known to answer to, Ahriman? Belial? Apollyon? Asmodeus? Because, you see… I do know you.”

IN OTHER WORDS, NONE OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE MOVIE WERE REAL!!!

Wh…wh…wh…

THEY WERE ASTRAL PROJECTIONS, CREATED BY ME, JON-MIKL THOR, TO DRAW YOU, SATAN PUPPET, OUT INTO THE OPEN SO THAT WE CAN DO BATTLE!!!

Wh…wh…wh…

AND I DID THIS BECAUSE I’M NOT REALLY JON-MIKL THOR, LEAD SINGER OF THE TRITONZ, I’M ACTUALLY TRITON, THE ARCHANGEL, THE INTERCESSOR!!!

AND JON-MIKL THOR RIPS OFF HIS CLOTHES TO REVEAL A SHINY CAPE AND A METAL CODPIECE!!!

And so the fight between Jon-Mikl Thor and Satan puppet begins, and oh my word, it is so goddamn charming. It’s like an Ed Wood fever dream. While the epic strains of our last Tritonz number, “We Accept the Challenge” blare triumphantly over the soundtrack, Satan puppet throws some rubber squid monsters at Jon-Mikl Thor, which he holds to his oiled chest while screaming in pain, as if they’re real, but then he rips them off and tears them to shreds! Yaaaay! Then he kinda gets Satan puppet in a chokehold for awhile, but then Satan puppet bitch slaps him and he falls to the ground! Oh noooooo! But then Jon-Mikl Thor gets Satan puppet by the ankles, and somehow gets him in a chokehold again? Ummmmm? Then the song ends, which means it’s time for the scene to end, so Satan puppet is like, you win this time, guess I’m going back to Hell until I find another Canadian family to harass with penis devils! To which Jon-Mikl Thor cooly replies, “I’ll see you again, old scratch.” Old what? Excuse me? What is any of this?

We then cut to a dark graveyard. Dark as in they seem to have forgotten to light this scene. Jon-Mikl Thor wanders up to some tombstones, we don’t know whose because he doesn’t say and again it’s dark, and he’s like, hey, good news, I choked out the Satan puppet, so you guys didn’t die in vain, anyway, byeeeee. Then we cut to a seemingly random shot of what looks like a suburban home, and then the movie ends. WOWZERS MCZOWZERS.

Simply put, Rock n’ Roll Nightmare is fucking awesome. I had an absolute blast watching this ridiculous cheese log of a movie. Having read the review, you may not be shocked to learn that, in addition to starring in the film and providing all of the music, Jon-Mikl Thor also wrote the screenplay and produced the movie himself. One may be tempted to call a film in which you cast yourself as a literal rock god who vanquishes the devil a vanity project, but I’m not sure that I would. I think a big part of a vanity project is a lack of self-awareness. Tommy Wiseau and Neil Green make vanity projects. To me, anyway, it seems like Jon-Mikl Thor is at least somewhat in on the joke here. The guy comes from the metal world, which is all about embracing over the top silliness, so of course he would make a movie that is chock full of over the top silliness. While I was watching it, I couldn’t stop thinking of Panos Cosmatos’s “Mandy,” another film that I recently saw and loved. Despite the fact that Cosmatos is somewhat of a visionary, and Thor and his director, John Fasano, well, aren’t, both films feel like the acid-soaked daydream of a teenage metalhead dude circa the mid 1980s. And I mean that in the best way possible. Sure, the dialogue is borderline alien, the acting is mostly awful, and the editing is beyond subpar, but when you’re dealing with a movie this fun, this weird, and this full of imagination, none of that stuff really matters. Hell, that ineptitude can sometimes even elevate what you’re watching, when there’s heart and soul. Which is all a long winded way of saying, hey hey, my my, rock n’ roll can never die. Thankfully, neither can Rock n’ Roll Nightmare.

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Question for Jon stans: so I think a lot of us expect Jon to leave the watch at some point in his story, whether in Winds or sometime in Dream. I tend to think he’s going to straight up desert the Watch, like going ‘fuck it I’m done here’ much like Bloodraven and Mance, instead of leaving on a technicality (i.e., a ‘he’s dead so he’s technically done his service’ type of thing). 

BUT the question is, does he go north or does he go south? I think it’s reasonable to assume either direction works narratively.

We have this:

Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.”

Plus he’s been set up to parallel Bloodraven and Mance both of whom go north, and there’s this quote from AGOT that could be foreshadowing:

Far off to the north, a wolf began to howl. Another voice picked up the call, then another. Ghost cocked his head and listened. “If he doesn’t come back,” Jon Snow promised, “Ghost and I will go find him.” He put his hand on the direwolf’s head.

“I believe you,” Tyrion said, but what he thought was, And who will go find you? He shivered.

(Tyrion III)

There’s also symbolism in him embracing the name “Snow” and living in the snowy north….

But then we these quotes from AGOT as well that’s essentially about him finding the Wall to be stifling and equating freedom with the south:

“Yes. Cold and hard and mean, that’s the Wall, and the men who walk it. Not like the stories your wet nurse told you. Well, piss on the stories and piss on your wet nurse. This is the way it is, and you’re here for life, same as the rest of us.”

“Life,” Jon repeated bitterly. The armorer could talk about life. He’d had one. He’d only taken the black after he’d lost an arm at the siege of Storm’s End. Before that he’d smithed for Stannis Baratheon, the king’s brother. He’d seen the Seven Kingdoms from one end to the other; he’d feasted and wenched and fought in a hundred battles. They said it was Donal Noye who’d forged King Robert’s warhammer, the one that crushed the life from Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He’d done all the things that Jon would never do, and then when he was old, well past thirty, he’d taken a glancing blow from an axe and the wound had festered until the whole arm had to come off. Only then, crippled, had Donal Noye come to the Wall, when his life was all but over.

(Jon III)

He had no destination in mind. He wanted only to ride. He followed the creek for a time, listening to the icy trickle of water over rock, then cut across the fields to the kingsroad. It stretched out before him, narrow and stony and pocked with weeds, a road of no particular promise, yet the sight of it filled Jon Snow with a vast longing. Winterfell was down that road, and beyond it Riverrun and King’s Landing and the Eyrie and so many other places; Casterly Rock, the Isles of Faces, the red mountains of Dorne, the hundred islands of Braavos in the sea, the smoking ruins of old Valyria. All the places that Jon would never see. The world was down that road … and he was here.

(Jon V)

And if Jon is to live his best wildling/crow-deserter life, it’ll be about finding freedom - just like Mance.

Plus there’s the whole thing with him seeing three different trees which could serve as representing his arc in the series, and the final tree faces south… 

Just north of Mole’s Town they came upon the third watcher, carved into the huge oak that marked the village perimeter, its deep eyes fixed upon the kingsroad. That is not a friendly face, Jon Snow reflected. The faces that the First Men and the children of the forest had carved into the weirwoods in eons past had stern or savage visages more oft than not, but the great oak looked especially angry, as if it were about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after them. Its wounds are as fresh as the wounds of the men who carved it.

(Jon V, ADWD) 

So which one is it?

Also if you think he goes south, where does he end up? 👀