#Sara Cooke

[natteryaktoad]

Penn & Sara Cooke, Day 85

Sara: Don't worry, Spider, the twins will be here to play with you tomorrow.

Penn spent his evening working on stock for his shop.

Penn: I know it just looks like a piece of wood, but it offers so many opportunities for creative and pro-social play. My grandchildren are always teaching their block to do tricks and then tucking it up in bed. It's adorable! You won't regret buying your little boy one!

Penn's still getting the hang of the register. He thinks about getting an employee, but he's not sure the store can sustain one. Maybe if his niece Jude wants a job...?

Spider always seems to have a low social bar at the moment, and both Penn and Sara had wants for another cat, so Penn went out and adopted Ladybird here.

Ladybird had "hiss at Spider" in her queue but he was going to the litter tray and just ignored her.

Aurora: Hi Ladybird! Are you and Spider going to be the best of friends?

Orion: Gwanny, why danci coun in free? Why no coun two? I four I mea. No two! Four! Silly Wyan!

Aurora: Grandpa, can I tell you a joke about aeroplanes?

Orion: Whee! High! High!

Since it was Friday, I decided to move the twins in to stay for the weekend. Probably I'll leave them here for part of the first college rotation (giving Carlo perfect space to take Mimi out for dinner and propose) and then move them back in with Carlo, then back in here again for the weekend.

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

WRITER SARA HESS TALKING ABOUT RHAENYRA AND ALICENT'S RELATIONSHIP IN SEASON 1 AND THEIR MOTHERHOOD FOR VARIETY MAGAZINE.

“I can definitely understand that it’s hot watching complex female characters who have agency and who are trying to navigate the world and understand themselves. Like, that is hot,” nonbinary actor D’Arcy says.

“And is very different from, I suppose, more two-dimensional portrayals of female sexuality.” 

Cooke adds: “I guess what’s alluring, and quite scintillating, is that they all live in quite close proximity to each other,” noting “House of the Dragon” Season 1’s focus on keeping its characters near the Iron Throne in King’s Landing.

“Stealing these loaded looks with someone that you fancy and that’s forbidden, that’s hot. It’s all hot.”

“We had a lot of conversation at the beginning about, is this a feature or a flaw?” Hess says.

“There’s a lot of births, do we want to see a lot of births? My thinking was, every single childbirth I’ve ever seen on television, in any show, in any genre at any time, has always looked exactly the same: the woman lying on her back with her feet in the stirrups and doing the pushing and the baby comes out.”

“In my experience, women give birth in vastly different ways.”

“I thought we should show them all and they be really, really different, separate experiences and not just, now there’s that birth scene and we all know exactly what it looks like.”

FOLLOWING THE BIRTH SCENE IN EPISODE 6, D'ARCY RECALLS SHOOTING A PARTICULARLY REALISTIC MOMENT OF MOTHERHOOD WHEN RHAENYRA FINALLY GETS TO REST AFTER GIVING BIRTH AND IMMEDIATELY GOING OFF TO SHOW THE BABY TO ALICENT:

“She gets in and [her sons] Jace and Luke have gone and got a dragon’s egg and want her to look at it.”

“And I just remember responding, ‘Wow, that looks perfect,’ but not looking at them at all, I was looking in the other direction.

“And that felt like what a lot of parenting is probably like.”

FOR COOKE, THE MOTHERHOOD MENTALITY HIT IN EPISODE 9, WRITTEN BY HESS AND DIRECTED BY CLARE KILNER:

“That moment in the carriage where Alicent’s hungover son asks her if she loves him, and she says it by smiling and saying, ‘You imbecile.’

“Like, it’s so obvious, this is all for you.”

“Everything that I’ve done.”

“Everything that I’ve sacrificed.”

“All the awful things I’ve done in order to facilitate your ascension is because I love the bones of you.”

BUT MOTHERHOOD IS FAR FROM THE ONLY ASPECT OF A WOMAN'S LIFE THAT FEMALE WRITERS LIKE HESS AND WOMEN DIRECTORS INCLUDING KILNER AND PATEL INFUSED INTO THE STORY, WITH MUCH OF THE SEASON FOCUSING ON YOUNG ALICENT (EMILY CAREY) AND RHAENYRA (MILLY ALCOCK) AND THEIR DEEP BOND AND INTENSE FALLING OUT.

“There’s an element of queerness to it,” Hess says.

“Whether you see it that way or as just the unbelievably passionate friendships that women have with each other at that age.”

“I think understanding that element of it sort of informs the entire rest of their relationship… Even though they’re driven apart by all these societal, systemic elements and pressures and happenings, at the core of it, they knew each other as children, and they loved each other and that doesn’t go away.”

Hess continued: “Olivia has told me she believes — and this is her headcanon — that they at some point kissed or made out or had some kind of physical interaction that Alicent’s mother found out about and forbade.”

“And that was Olivia’s head story, ‘Oh, I can’t do that. That’s not right.’ And that’s the background for her in their relationship going forward. I would be 100% down with that.”

COOKE SAYS SHE AND D'ARCY HAVE “DEFINITELY” TALKED ABOUT ALICENT AND RHAENYRA BEING “EACH OTHER'S FIRST LOVE”:

“But when it comes to our iterations of the characters, too much has happened and too much time has passed to probably even recognize those fledgling feelings.”

“But Condal and Hess weren’t “necessarily interested in ever defining” what that love meant in terms of the women’s sexuality.”

“I happen to be a queer woman, but I know straight women who had ‘Heavenly Creatures’ -esque, romantic friendship with their best friend at that age,” Hess said.

“That’s something that I think, probably — I don’t want to stereotype anybody – but it seems to be more a phenomenon with young women than it is with men, probably because whether you’re queer or not, society cares less if you’re physically intimate with each other or hugging or touching each other.”

“You can have sleepovers and sleep in the same bed and nobody cares.”

[boxcarxo]

wakka wakka wakka

[bamsara]

Genuinely having a hard time drawing and writing because the heat is making me sluggish and nauseous. Cries and yells because I have so many Ruin thoughts and art ideas

[thestarlightforge]

So y'all, this video essay is SO GOOD. It's long, but a delightful analysis, I choked on coffee more than once from laughter... Just all around wonderful. Have a look :)

[smallsimmer]

Interrupting the queue for some canon content

[tormva]

No matter how good your actors are, they can only do so much if the script you are giving them is nonsensical. You can have characters who are conflicted and make wrong choices based on their situation. But Alicent giving up Aegon like that, as if her getting in front of Meleys to protect her family wasn't a pivotal point for her in showing her choice to Rhaenys last season? Rhaenyra too shouldn't have even given Alicent the time of day when she already tried and did basically the same as her but got told it was "too late" and an invasion of King's Landing is inevitable at this point. I know they shared a relationship together and do think that even if it was long ago, it still can determine how they interact with each other, but even that being the case, sometimes you need to prioritize some things over others. I don't doubt that Alicent cared about Rhaenyra, but that didn't stop her from advancing her own interests with her family. I don't doubt that Rhaenyra cared about Alicent, but she still put herself and her family first by leaving King's Landing and pretty much never visiting again, even when her father was there wasting away. That's what makes them interesting. The conflict within themselves and choosing one thing over the other. That even if it hurts, some things just turn sour.

Not even mentioning that since it's obvious that Rhaenyra will take the city, this whole interaction could have happened then and with bigger stakes, like Alicent begging for her life and Rhaenyra having to make the choice of whether she dies or is imprisoned or something. 

This whole scene gives me the impression that they wanted a dramatic and emotional scene for the end of the season so they came up with this.

[croftersforlife]

This is how I entertain myself on a travel day

[fatum679]

Do you know if it was the 1st or ending of episode 8 that got leaked? Because if it was just the 1st part of the finale, then maybe just maybe, Heleana decides to go with Aemond.

Hello! Thank you for waiting.

Aemond didn't fly to Harrenhal. Alicent said that he would fly in 3 days, so in episode 1 of season 3 he will still be in KL.

I hope there will be scenes with Aemond & Helaena & Daeron.

I would like Helaena to fly with Aemond to Harrenhal. We have hints that Helaena might fly with him.

"What would you think about leaving this place?"

"Where would i go?"

We were told that Maelor would be born, but Helaena is not pregnant yet. The writers left the door open.

But I'm not 100% sure. Season 2 is a complete disappointment in every sense, and I will not hold out hope that season 3 will be at least on the level of season 1.

[dostyaak]

The odds of winning...

"She has a 15.5% chance of winning the Death Game, the highest among all the participants." "0%... Certain death. I absolutely can't survive this Death Game... That's why... I had to abandon "myself"...!!"

[natteryaktoad]

Penn & Sara Cooke, Day 84

It turns out Penn has a lot of stock for his toy shop - maybe he should go and open it up.

Penn: No, no, I've got stuff here for all ages, not just very little ones.

The shop's growing!

Penn and Sara both ended up going to bed with low fun last night, so an early morning game of red hands it is.

Promotion! And a lot of money!

Sara: Do you ever wonder if Rory and Ryan's alien parent will ever come back to meet them?

Penn: I try not to think too much about the whole situation, to be honest. I don't want to think too much about someone who'd impregnate a fifteen year old...

Penn and Sara had a quiet day. It's very quiet here without Carlo and the twins - maybe they'll have to come and stay the night again soon.

With Penn's promotion money, I added a sauna that he wanted (a bit random, but what's the point of having money if you don't spend it on things you want?). This enabled me to move the twins' bathroom to above the sauna, and make their old bathroom Carlo's bathroom. Then Carlo's old bathroom just made his bedroom bigger, so now there's room for a double bed not up against a wall. If he and Mimi stay together and want more children, I'll probably convert the attic to a couple of rooms and a bathroom for Aurora and Orion. Their current rooms are such awkward shapes, anyway!

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

ME, after watching rhaenicent's reunion in the season finale:

[thephantomcasebook]

Last scene of Alicole was so weird 😭 what are they doing to my parents??

It's because Condal and Hess are acting like Pretentious middle schoolers with no emotional intelligence in their writing.

They've sat around and cooked up all these scenarios and patted themselves on the back about how "complicated" it all is. When, in reality, they've made an incredibly less human experience than ever before.

They've taken the emotion and intimacy out of sex for Alicent and Criston. The two characters in the show in which love and romance would play an incredible part of the reason their doing this. If Alicent and Criston are going to break their vows and their moral code it's not because they're feeling fucking horny. If that was the case this shit would've happened years ago.

It's a vey, very, immature meditation on sex from people who spent way too long in Hollywood. They want to explore Alicent's sexuality as a repressed religious type person, but they leave out the emotional and romantic element that would be the absolute only key to the door of that person entering that place.

Now, they're just basically writing pornography.

Alicent is a strawman understanding of what dumb ass progressive writers would think a Conservative woman's sexual awakening looks like, skewed in a very unrealistic point of view of sex and human relationships. It's like a fucking abomination of retarded sexual revolution logic that has been proven to be unrealistic and detrimental to women for decades.

Alicent and Criston would not be having sex if they didn't love one another, because, the characters have been set up by Season 1 of not giving into base desires. For this storyline to work and make sense, they have to portray Alicent and Criston as being in love, like really - really - in love. This idea of Alicent falling apart and feeling guilty while getting railed in secret is basically the plot of about 35% of pornography.

Alicent is basically the protagonist of a Spicy Detective pulp from the 30's-40's of a good girl turned wanton and getting drawn into crime. But those stories were directed at 13-25 year old males to masturbate too not to tell high art.

Its sex without a story and without understanding human relationships, written by a bunch of progressive political hacks that write like they've never been in love before or have never made love to anyone in their life.

Which, to be honest, wouldn't surprise me in the least.

From one writer to another, "Messy" isn't a story. Messy is code for having a half-ass idea and doing it anyway without justification. Mess is fucking lazy.

[yogurtea]

For a doodle: I have too many ideas but I think I’ll have to go with a cute lil ransara domestic moment- either like them cuddling or cooking together or smt along those lines.

i couldn't decide so take two of em!! i love them so much they're so silly...... thank you so much for the request!

[thestarlightforge]

rhaenicent nation

how we feelin’ 😌

olivia’s headcanon article & emma & sonoya’s commentary on S2 (especially 2x06)

edit: sonoya & emma vanquish the queerbaiting demons, emily & milly’s commentary on S1 & lovely pilot script screengrabs

[too-young-to-fall-in-love]

Amor Magnus Doctor Est

by @cha-melodius <3

✨MEME EDITION✨

more below the cut! (it really is just the main events of Amor Magnus Doctor Est, but as memes). I would recommend reading the fic first, because these would definitely make more sense, but it'd probably be just as fun to read it after seeing these. They are definitely spoiler heavy tho LOLL so if you haven't read it and don't want the ending spoiled, I would 100% recommend reading the fic first!!

as always, all the love to Sara for writing this LITERALLY AMAZING FIC it still lives in my brain to this day <3