#amateur drag king | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sp1cy-t0ss · 2 years

Text

Antares

https://archiveofourown.org/works/45534721

The first thing Nightwing hears upon regaining consciousness is ominous chanting. A man’s voice rings out over the rest, ranting about an Eternal King, infinite power, and -- oh boy -- sacrifices. He tunes it out to assess the situation.

He’s in an old warehouse. Robin’s here too, looking even more annoyed than Nightwing feels, and both of them have their hands and ankles bound in rope. His comm is on silent, just as he left it, like an idiot. The ranting man and his followers in matching robes are gathered around a ritual circle in the middle of the floor. Yeah, that tells him all he needs to know. They need to get out, now.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly when the leader finishes his speech and turns to them.

“So,” the man asks with a cruel smile. “Which of you ‘heroes’ will have the honor of bringing our Lord to this plane?”

“I will.” Robin’s voice is sharp, unyielding.

The man is obviously surprised to receive an actual answer to his taunt, but obliges. He pulls Robin away without another word.

“What?! No! Robin, you can’t--” Nightwing’s protest is cut off with a punch to the stomach from one of the robed lackeys.

“I have my reasons, Nightwing; it must be me.” Robin’s face reveals nothing, but he gives a subtle hand signal: I have a plan.

Nightwing forces himself to calm down. They’ll get out of this. He just has to trust his Robin. While everyone’s eyes are off him, he quietly works at the amateur knots.

The leader drags Robin into the circle without a fight. He raises a jeweled dagger, intentions clear...

But Robin is faster. He bites his own wrist, hard, and spits his blood into the circle. The runes light up in terrible Lazarus green, and Robin pushes himself upright with a malicious grin.

The lead cultist scrambles back from the circle and into a deep bow. The chanting stops as his minions follow suit. Robin continues to look far too smug for his situation. Nightwing feels a headache coming on somewhere under his renewed panic.

This is his plan?!

There’s a blinding flash of light. When the spots clear from Nightwing’s vision, the Eternal King is floating in the circle, mere feet from the bound Robin.

The Eternal King isn’t quite the grotesque horror he expected. Their body is a glittering black void, a sleek humanoid shadow with misty white hair and bright, bright eyes of toxic green. A cold fog rolls off of their body in waves.

“Antares,” the shadow rumbles, and Nightwing feels static thrum in his bones with the sound. The room is painfully cold, but the King doesn’t seem aggressive yet. Maybe they really can bargain their way out of this mess.

Robin doesn’t flinch. He looks the Eternal King right in the eyes, utterly fearless, and smirks. “Hello, Beloved.”

What?

The King stares silently, floating closer. For a long moment, no one moves. No one speaks.

“My lord, does the sacrifice please you?” The ringleader cuts in, standing up with a greedy gleam in his eyes.

Something in the air changes as the King turns toward the man. Something cold, electric, heavy under the skin. Nightwing suppresses a shiver as he works through the last of the rope.

“You d̵̢̛a̵̼̽ṙ̴͎e̵͙̐.”

The leader pales and falls to his knees. “My Lord, if this offering is insufficient, we have another--”

The King s̴̱̖̺̺̓͊̕̕ć̵͇͇͔̈r̴̥͐e̸̥̬͌̂̌̊a̴̭̔̓̀̔͘m̵̯͑̋͌͠s̵̗̤̻̭̍̿, a furious howl that blurs Nightwing’s vision and claws his ears. The sound is everywhere, driving him to his knees. Growing shadows seem to absorb his little brother just as Nightwing realizes he’s blacking out.

They’re falling, they’re falling someone help they’re screaming he’s screaming make it stop dead on impact blood and bones make it stop make it STOP--

When he comes back to himself, it’s quiet. Nightwing blinks tears from his eyes, gasping for frigid air that pierces his lungs like knives. The floor outside the circle is covered in blood splatter. The cultists have all been struck down, and many aren’t moving.

But he’s not looking at them.

Because the monster is coiled around Robin like a snake, eyes burning as it surveys the room. Robin seems unharmed for now, but he has to get his baby brother away from that thing.

He steps forward, and those endless green eyes lock onto him. It snarls at his approach, revealing multiple rows of teeth. Claws subtly tighten on Robin’s shoulders. Nightwing sinks into a combat stance, and the creature braces itself to leap.

Pure, animal instinct screams that Nightwing won’t survive this fight.. It doesn’t matter. He’ll give his all like he always has, and Robin can escape. The others will find a way to take it down. He just has to buy time.

“Dove, it’s alright.”

To Nightwing’s amazement, the creature freezes. It turns to look at Robin, warbling in apparent confusion before turning back to Nightwing with a hiss.

Robin grabs its face in both hands and forces it to look at him. “No. That’s Nightwing, remember? He will not harm us. I am safe. We are safe.” His voice is steady, soothing as he gently presses their foreheads together. A spark of awareness slowly returns to ‘Dove’s’ eyes.

“Come back to me.”

The monster sags in Robin’s grip, slowly folding in on itself until a nearly-human teen with snowy white hair is left floating gently in its place.

Robin smiles, gentle and shockingly warm. “There you are.”

‘Dove’ is shaking. Their eyes are locked on Robin, as though he’s the only thing in their universe. “Antares,” they breathe, before wrapping Robin in a tight hug.

Robin briefly looks to Dick, gesturing toward the cultists. He then returns his attention to the distraught being, resting his chin on their head and both hands on their back. The obvious dismissal makes Nightwing uneasy, but the kid has a point. They'll just have to check him for hypnosis or mind control back at the Cave.

Now that Nightwing is actually looking at the cultists, their injuries are horrific. Deep lacerations, stab wounds, frostbite, severed limbs...none of them seem likely to die with medical treatment, but every last one is maimed.

The ringleader is worst of all. His eyes are gouged out, and his hands ripped off and cauterized by the same unearthly frost that burns scattered marks into his skin. An unfamiliar symbol has been clawed into his chest.

Nightwing looks back to the circle, where Dove is quietly sobbing. Their face is tucked securely into Robin’s neck, and Nightwing hears whispers of I was scared and can’t lose you too.

This is the same person?

By the time the cultists are all secured and the police have been called, Dove seems to have calmed down. Time to play the diplomat. Again.

Damn, maybe Steph has a point about Eldest Daughter Syndrome.

“I, uh, hate to interrupt, but we should probably get out of here, yeah? GCPD will be here in a couple minutes,” he proposes with a friendly smile.

Dove wipes their eyes. “Right.” Then they look around the room and wince. “Uhm, sorry you? Had to see that? I...panicked. You’re okay though, right? Not hurt or anything?” The question is disarmingly earnest, and there’s nothing but concern in their eyes. Hm.

“Nah, not a scratch,” Nightwing dismisses. Then he remembers he’s apparently talking to a king. “Thank you for saving Robin, Your Highness,” he adds with a bow of his head.

“Nuh-uh, no titles. Gross.” The King makes a face, then smiles with renewed cheer. “Call me Phantom. He/him, ghost, and general pain in the ass, at your service!” He floats higher and punctuates his announcement with a midair flip. “You might as well know, since we’re gonna be seeing each other a lot now.”

Crap. “I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Nightwing ventures.

‘Phantom’ exchanges a meaningful look with Robin. Nightwing barely has time to register the mischief on both their faces before Robin pulls the being down into a kiss.

A deep kiss now. Really deep. Yeah, they’ve definitely forgotten he’s here.

When they finally separate, Robin looks quite satisfied. Phantom, however, sticks out a forked tongue and scrunches his face. “Blech, blood. What did you...” His eyes land on Robin’s still-bloody wrist, then the droplets still in the circle.

“You didn’t.” A grin creeps across his face. “You have me on soul speed dial and you still hijacked a whole-ass summoning!”

“Tt. I was making a point.” Robin crosses his arms.

Phantom cackles. “You are literally the most dramatic person I’ve ever met!” he crows.

Robin raises an eyebrow and gestures to the warehouse full of mangled cultists. Phantom opens his mouth to retort, but it’s at this point that Nightwing finally manages to pull his jaw off the floor and speak.

“Robin,” he says with deliberate calm. “What the fuck.”

And then they hear police sirens. Fantastic.

“Crap. Don’t worry, I got it!” Phantom declares as he rips a green hole in existence. Robin is unfazed, which is rapidly getting less and less surprising.

A woman in the corner stirs. Phantom makes a ‘one moment’ gesture before he stalks over and yanks her forward with a growl. “You’ve kept your tongue for a reason. Spread the word: Robin is mine.” (Robin stands taller, obviously pleased by that extremely concerning statement.) The woman nods frantically, and Phantom drops her to the ground.

Without further preamble, Phantom zips back over and shoves both vigilantes through the rip.

Just like that, they’re all in Damian’s bedroom. The two boys immediately sit together on the edge of the bed, while Dick remains standing. Dick doesn’t even know where to begin, so he can only give a helpless ‘why’ sort of gesture. Thankfully, Damian seems to take pity on him.

“Richard, this insufferable fool is my Beloved. His name is Danny, and he is seventeen.” Then he smirks. “You may refer to him as High King Phantom of the Infinite Realms; The Tyrant’s Bane, True Balance, Son Of Stars, Pride of Time, Death’s Chosen--”

The ghost groans dramatically, flopping across Damian’s lap like a wet noodle. “Oh my gawd, Dames, why would you tell him that?”

"It is very important that Richard recognizes your position and authority.” Damian says, not even trying to sound convincing.

Danny reaches up and pushes at Damian’s face. It brings to mind a pair of cats, especially with Damian doing his best to look annoyed instead of fond. “Betrayal! I want a divorce!”

That’s the last straw. Dick chokes on his own spit and has to thump his chest a few times to breathe right again. With monumental effort, he manages to wheeze out a strangled “Are you MaRriEd?!”

Danny tries to sputter out a reply, but Dick is distracted by Damian laughing. It’s a low, light sound, with no attempt made to disguise it.

“Of course not,” Damian says. He cards a hand through Danny’s hair, the other boy sighing contently and looking up at him with adoring neon eyes. “We've only courted for seven months now. It will be another three years before we wed.”

Dick is just. Gonna ignore that last bit. For his own sanity. “Wait, how did you keep a whole boyfriend secret for seven months? In this family?”

“Bribery.” “Threats.”

Yeah, that sounds about right. Babs and Duke probably know then.

“Cool, good to know. One more question.” Well, more like a billion, but he may as well start with an icebreaker before the inevitable interrogation. Besides, it’s a big brother's duty to embarrass his siblings. “Why Dove?”

Damian says nothing, but his deep blush is almost audible.

“Because I’m cute and fluffy!” Danny chirps.

“Hardly,” Damian scoffs. “It’s because you are raucously annoying and constantly crash into windows.”

Literally everything about this situation is baffling, but Danny looks so offended that Dick can’t help but laugh.

“You lying asshole!” Danny screeches.

Damian turns to Dick. “He attempted to use a grapple three times and broke eleven windows; four of them with his face. I have videos.” Danny gasps, the two start bickering, and Dick is left to his thoughts once more.

Even as the pair separate to point fingers and trade increasingly creative insults, their body language is completely relaxed. As much as Dick is panicking about a powerful undead monarch around their family, Damian is happy. He has been for months, now that Dick thinks about it. He’s been loosening up a little, leaving the manor more, and even mentioning a few new friends (though he refuses to use the word.)

Whoever or whatever Danny is, he’s been good for him.

“Well,” Dick cuts in, interrupting an inventive declaration about overripe cheese. “We’ll obviously need to talk about this. But for what it’s worth,” he smiles. “I’m happy for you, Baby Bat.”

With that said, Dick walks out of the bedroom. Danny gives him a grateful smile, and a quiet thank you, Richard can be heard as he closes the door behind him.

Dick walks away at a leisurely pace until he reaches the end of the hallway, where he promptly breaks into a sprint toward the Cave. Checking the Batcomputer to make sure Damian hasn’t noticed the planted bug yet, he turns on his comms. Unsurprisingly, the entire family is yelling and demanding answers.

Well, at least he won’t be the only one having a heart attack tonight.

#dp x dc #dead serious #they're 16 and 17 #danny says he wants a divorce at every mild inconvenience #danny has dozens of titles and damian has memorized every last one entirely to annoy him #they alternate between adorable cats and those heckling muppets #spice writes #dc x dp #danny x damian

2K notes · View notes

warwickroyals · 2 months

Text

↬ Warwick Wives (2/7) | royal wives during the reigns of Louis III & James I, 1817 - 1857

Both Louis III and James I were unpopular, their reigns were characterised mostly by the royal family's struggle to produce a male heir. In the mid-nineteenth century, the middle-aged, promiscuous and ill-tempered sons of Louis II, vied for the throne. They scrambled to marry and have children. This power struggle divided their young wives, who over the years became jealous, power-hungry, and cunning.

E L I Z A B E T H was the daughter of a wealthy American merchant, the first of House Warwick's many American brides. She married Hereditary Prince Frederick, the only child of King Louis III, in 1826. Criticized as morganatic, the marriage was harmonious but deeply unpopular. Elizabeth was tiny but fierce, with Frederick calling her his "Pocket Artemis" due to her spirited personality and uncharacteristic love of hunting. During her time as Hereditary Princess, Elizabeth was a strong voice for social reforms, although her activism was pointedly ignored by the staunchly conservative king and royal dukes. Elizabeth and Frederick had no children at the time of his early death, sparking a succession crisis. Elizabeth remained close to her in-laws, but later remarried and had four children, the eldest of which was named Frederick.

C A R O L I N E married fifty-three-year-old James, Duke of Lennox when she was twenty-six. The marriage was chiefly a political one, in light of Prince Frederick's death and King Louis III's unhappy marriage with Queen Mary Caroline the Duke was increasingly likely to succeed to the throne. James despised his younger brothers, the Dukes of Glenciarn, Bessarion, Westminster, and Keele, and saw them as a threat to his inheritance. When a healthy son, the future Louis IV, was born in 1840, James was relieved.

Caroline herself was miserable. Her marriage to James had also produced several children who were stillborn or died in infancy. With her health permanently weakened, Caroline was isolated at Lennox House, where she lived with Louis separately from her husband. German by birth, she spoke broken English (although many historians believe this was an act to appear unassuming) and had a hard time adjusting to life in Sunderland. When she became Queen, her situation improved, but she attracted the ire of the Duchess of Glencairn by snubbing her son. Their rivalry would haunt Caroline for the rest of her life. While she was an affectionate mother to Louis, Caroline was intentionally cruel to James's numerous illegitimate children. She promptly banished them from court after James died in 1857.

Caroline has the great accomplishment of being the first woman to serve as a regent. During Louis IV's minority, she governed with a surprising level of competence; but she was unable to control Louis, who had grown temperamental and spoilt.

I M O G E N was stern and grim, with a sharp, unsmiling face. Despite this, in 1837 she left her home in England for the man she loved—the kindhearted Prince Henry, an amateur playwright and the third son of King Louis II. Imogen was passionately in love with her husband and she took pride in her two children. The couple's youngest, George, was the first male-line grandson of Louis II since Hereditary Prince Frederick's death, and Imogen was convinced he would be king someday.

Imogen was crushed by Henry's early death in 1840; after which she became paranoid, controlling, and antagonistic. For the next eighteen years, Imogen clung to George, fearing that his uncles would murder him to secure their own claims. When King Louis IV was enthroned in 1857, with Imogen's arch-enemy Queen Caroline serving as regent, Imogen returned to London, dragging her reluctant teenage children with her. By the time George became king in 1860, Imogen was estranged from him. The pair only reconciled after George became a father in 1862.

E L I Z A B E T H was another German princess who married a son of King Louis II. Prince Reginald's horrific reputation preseeded him, and the seventeen-year-old Elizabeth trembled on her way up to the altar. Reginald was a career soldier who lived a Spartan lifestyle and the rumours surrounding him ranged from off-putting to abhorrent. Luckily for Elizabeth, these rumours were mostly conjecture, and Reginald treated his wife with a "passing indifference". Reginald's military career was sporadic, and he left Elizabeth alone at his city estate for increasingly long stretches of time.

Elizabeth ran a carefree but lonely household. She was often seen picking flowers around the mansion's perimeter and trying to befriend the serving girls and vagabond women who passed through the estate, often giving away her possessions to win their friendship. In her later years, Elizabeth was aggravated by her late husband's debts. While Queen Alexandra, dismissed Elizabeth as peu de chose (not much), King George I was saddened when Elizabeth died.

J A N E had a habit of chewing on caraway seeds. She was pleasant, but known to pry. She came from a family of Sunderlandian aristocracy, a descendant of the Prussian entourage that followed King Louis I and Queen Whilmenina into Sunderland in the 1780s. Her family name Smith was adopted after King Louis II anglicized his own name from the German Hohenzollern to Warwick—an attempt to distance himself from Prussia. Jane married King Louis II's youngest surviving son, Prince Robert, who was fifteen years her senior. Robert was polarizing and widely despised for his controversial stint in the House of Lords. Despite this, the marriage was a happy one and Robert doted on his wife. Jane was the favourite aunt of King Louis IV but his successor, George I, had little love for her and his mother distrusted her.

M A R T H A was a large and domineering woman. Despite marrying the fifth son of King Louis II, she had a bravado that outpaced her station. Unlike her sisters-in-law, Martha remained a prominent member of the royal family during the reign of her nephew, King George I. Known to be an extravagant hostess, Dear Aunt Westminster drank and ate in excess, and habitually burned through her generous pension. She also quarrelled with Queen Alexandra, who thought her impertinent. Family drama quashed Martha's high ambitions in the later half of the 19th century. Her elder son was disinherited after marrying his mistress and her second entered a loveless political union that produced one daughter, Anne. Martha died at the age of ninety-five in 1911, making her one of the longest-lived members of the royal family. Just two years after her death, her granddaughter Anne married the future King George II.

#warwick.extras #warwick.wives #tw pregnancy loss #gif warning #✨#ts4 #ts4 story #ts4 royal #ts4 storytelling #ts4 edit #ts4 royal legacy #ts4 legacy #ts4 royalty #ts4 monarchy #ts4 screenshots #ts4 historical

78 notes · View notes

texasobserver · 1 year

Text

From “‘Drag is so Healing’: Austin’s Queens Won’t Back Down” by Digital Editor Kit O'Connell, originally published in the September/October issue of Texas Observer magazine. Photography by Cindy Elizabeth:

In an orange prison jumpsuit and chains, a tall, lean drag queen writhed to a cover of “War Pigs” by Brass Against, which sounds like someone swapped Black Sabbath’s lead singer for a woman and added a highly caffeinated marching band. As she lip-synced, Hermajestie the Hung completed a dramatic strip tease down to an army fatigue jacket and fishnets, all to riotous cheers and a rain of dollar bills.

It’s April at the Swan Dive on Red River in Austin’s club district, where “Tuesgayz” night LGBTQ+ gatherings—which include “Queereoke” sing-along sessions—are a tradition. For over a year, the Black-led drag troupe Vanguard, with an informal membership of about a dozen performers that includes both drag kings and queens, has opened each show with the same invocation:

“On our stage we proudly proclaim that Black lives matter, trans rights are human rights, no human is illegal, all bodies are beautiful, and my body, my choice.”

Hermajestie—who described herself as a “postbinary, polyamorous, pansexual pot-smoking parent” and goes by “any pronouns but he/him”—explained later that she started each night the same way because she “realized that once I mention these things, the trash usually takes itself out.”

(We are using performers’ stage names in this article to protect their privacy.)

Vanguard, she explained, serves as a “declaration and celebration of queer freedom, queer love, queer existence and queer solidarity.” The space she has created is often politically charged. Each night, she recounts the latest legislative attacks on queer rights, urging her audience to get involved. Tuesday’s routine culminated in her holding aloft the severed head of former President Donald Trump and hurling it into the audience (a similar stunt that earned comedian Kathy Griffin public censure shortly after Trump’s election).

The members of Vanguard represent an evolution in drag. While elder performers were often cisgender, gay men, many of today’s queens are transgender or nonbinary and explore their identity through the art form.

Austin’s drag scene is thriving: From the heart of downtown to the Hill Country, patrons can attend events every day of the week, including late-night revues and brunches on weekends. One monthly show highlights new, amateur queens, another the elders of the community. Drag has made inroads in non-LGBTQ+ spaces as well—queens frequently perform at birthday parties, fundraisers, and, last year, at a new student orientation at the University of Texas at Austin.

At the same time, drag is under attack. Senate Bill 12, scheduled to go into effect September 1, will levy fines against venues that host performances appealing to an ill-defined “prurient interest in sex” where minors are present; performers could also face up to a year in jail. The legislative affront goes hand-in-hand with protests and harassment from right-wing activists outside of nightclubs and on social media, where drag performers are frequently doxxed. While most performers remain defiant in the face of oppression, the growing pressure leaves them concerned for their future.

(Editor’s Note: As of September 18, 2023, SB 12 is under a temporary restraining order while a judge rules on a lawsuit led by the ACLU of Texas.)

Read more at the Texas Observer.

#texas #drag queen #drag show #austin #lgbtqia #lgbtq #texas legislature #transgender #queer community

133 notes · View notes

myohmine · 5 months

Text

Taylor Swift’s TTPD Song Theory: The Alchemy

I believe The Alchemy is about Karlie Kloss showing up at the Eras Tour postpartum, while Travis Kelce is another red herring.

He’s a counterfeit; She is 24 karat magic in the air~

This is Taylor writing from Karlie’s perspective:

The Alchemy

This happens once every few lifetimes.

It’s how IVF works. Not all embryos get implanted. Not all pregnancies are viable. (Higher miscarriage rate than traditional conception). It feels like a miracle when it results in a healthy baby.

These chemicals hit me like white wine./He jokes that it’s HEROIN but this time with an ‘E’

Epidural used to assist childbirth can make you feel drowsy. That’s where the ‘E’ comes from. Mama also had to give up white wine due to pregnancy, so she hadn’t felt tipsy in a while.

Heroin + e = Heroine

Taylor in Don’t Blame Me: My drug is my baby I’ll be using for the rest of my life

Reputation muse is her heroine.

Also, how sweet it is to call your wife a heroine for giving birth to your child. I’m grinning from ear-to-ear every time I hear this line.

What if I told you I'm back?

The hospital was a drag

Worst sleep that I ever had

This is Karlie showing up at The Eras Tour concert only days postpartum.

I circled you on a map

Confirming that she was a muse for reputation. (End Game: I buried hatchets but I keep maps of where I put them.)

Or, even sweeter interpretation: They drew circle around their baby in the ultrasound pictures taken during pregnancy. Taylor’s baby in Karlie’s tummy. That’s the most adorable mental picture ever.

I haven't come around in so long

But I'm coming back so strong

Remember Karlie at the reputation tour? That was after kissgate and love blackout. So many people were saying they hated each other then. And so many people mocked her for coming to the Eras Tour. How strong is she that she refused to let anything stop her from coming to support Taylor? Not the public opinions, nor recent childbirth can stop this mother.

So when I touch down

The continuation of Call It What You Want: My baby’s fly like a jet stream

Call the amateurs

I’m biased and think this line is about Swifties who chased Easter Eggs but couldn’t see Karlie embed into the heart and soul of Taylor’s songs.

And cut 'em from the team

bridges burn, I never learned

Ditch the clowns, get the crown

All the jokers dressing up as king

Baby I'm the one to beat

This is so cute. Taylor wrote from Karlie’s perspective here and really said Karlie KNOWS with absolute certainty that she is the King of My Heart.

Cause the sign on your heart

Said it's still reserved for me

Again with the ‘Karlie knows I am in love with her so utterly and completely, always

Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

And the sweetest thing about this being from Karlie’s pov is that, she already made damn sure Taylor knows, that Karlie doesn’t blame her at all for the bearding/fake love for the crowd. That’s how Taylor gets the confidence to write this whole song in such a way that could be attributed to the guy on the chief. He’s not the real muse, like the alchemy that doesn’t make real gold.

Hey you, what if I told you we're cool?

That child's play back in school

Is forgiven under my rule

This is Karlie at the Eras Tour responding to Taylor’s inability to hide how smitten she was for Karlie, especially during ‘betty’ performance. James is down bad.

I haven't come around in so long

But I'm making a comeback to where I belong

Again a reiteration of Karlie showing up to support Taylor at her concerts since 1989 to reputation tour, and now The Eras Tour. It’s as reassuring as the repeating chorus. But do you know what changes? The two lines about giving birth to IVF baby that she opens and closes the song with. In the beginning, there’s only one leading vocal. At the end, there are two vocals in harmonies. Like how Taylor and Karlie have transitioned from being moms of one kid to two kids. And they’ve been so in love through it all.

These blokes warm the benches

We been on a winning streak

Once again with the reassurance. Karlie made sure that Taylor knows no matter how much bearding they have to do, the love they have for each other never wanes.

Shirts off,

The many outfits change Taylor does in every concert.

and your friends lift you up over their heads

I Did Something Bad Choreography: Go ahead and light me up.

Beer sticking to the floor

Shout out to swifties drunk on alcohol AND fun during the concert

Cheers chanted,

ONE, TWO, THREE, LET’S GO BITCH among many others

‘cause they said

There was no chance, trying to be the greatest in the league

Again, with reference to reputation era and how Taylor was not the mass media’s favorite at all, at the time.

Where's the trophy?

Not Taylor calling herself Karlie’s trophy wife. HAHAHAHAHAHAHSJK

He just comes running over to me

James is still just as down bad for Betty now as ever.

Thank god for Travis’s team winning, otherwise this sweetest song would’ve been scrapped for being too obviously not about him.

#taylor swift #Karlie Kloss #my roman empire #kaylor #the tortured poets department #song analysis #the alchemy #line-by-line #mine

22 notes · View notes

tossawary · 1 year

Text

I usually grab my AO3 stats for my own personal record-keeping and celebration of achievements on December 31st / January 1st (end of the year) and on August 19th (the day I first started posting), but I was out of town this year on AUG 19 and kept putting it off. (I feel like I've been so, so spacey and busy this year.) So, I'm posting them now! What's a month between me and my blog?

Since my last check-in, I wrote and posted... "Stepping Up" (90,263 words), "First Contact" (7,166 words), and "if words could make wishes" (31,424 words). The "Scum Villain Stories" series is now at 1,216,156 words and 24 fics, which will make "Servant to a Different King" lucky number 25, it seems.

I don't write for the stats and don't track them outside of these little "hey, I should acknowledge the passage of time so it doesn't fall into one big blur" posts, but I think it's neat to take them and hold them up against both specific (SVSSS) and general fandom preferences. (Which fics attract clicks in which fandoms? Why? Why not? It's fun to speculate wildly and possibly wrongly.)

Hm, I really should write more rarepairs so I can broaden and continue my amateur, extremely biased, essentially useless data analysis of these things... (joking) or so I'll say to defend my decision to forcibly drag everyone onto an unusual rarepair ship with me someday (intended humorously, but I am seriously interested in exploring some rare pairings for their own sake). I'll be like a reverse-kraken. Instead of monstrously dragging sailors off the ship and into the depths of the sea, I'll be scooping innocent beach-goers from their swimming and putting them on my boat.

User Subscriptions: 1,924 Kudos: 59,584 Comment Threads: 13,690 Bookmarks: 21,036 Subscriptions: 7,573 Word Count: 1,223,304 Hits: 802,844

pride is not the word I'm looking for (408,395 words) Subscriptions: 1,215 Hits: 230,634 Kudos: 6,410 Comment Threads: 4,439 Bookmarks: 3,165

A Child Once (100,736 words) Subscriptions: 1,214 Hits: 109,140 Kudos: 6,892 Comment Threads: 1,447 Bookmarks: 2,650

Stepping Up (90,263 words) Subscriptions: 1,042 Hits: 61,069 Kudos: 3,987 Comment Threads: 1,516 Bookmarks: 1,704

hey, share the weight a little (70,355 words) Subscriptions: 527 Hits: 46,467 Kudos: 3,616 Comment Threads: 1,537 Bookmarks: 1,689

dreams that had never come true (13,824 words) Subscriptions: 260 Hits: 37,087 Kudos: 4,554 Comment Threads: 314 Bookmarks: 1,498

Babe in the Woods (19,265 words) Subscriptions: 625 Hits: 30,039 Kudos: 4,006 Comment Threads: 328 Bookmarks: 1,423

Catch a Falling Star (121,938 words) Subscriptions: 72 Hits: 29,499 Kudos: 1,876 Comment Threads: 429 Bookmarks: 1,098

Sit With Your Soul (61,447 words) Subscriptions: 836 Hits: 27,528 Kudos: 2,905 Comment Threads: 588 Bookmarks: 1,555

Nothing to Me, Nothing to You (59,893 words) Subscriptions: 267 Hits: 26,823 Kudos: 1,921 Comment Threads: 424 Bookmarks: 779

love to the ones I've never met (82,834 words) Subscriptions: 277 Hits: 25,488 Kudos: 1,768 Comment Threads: 711 Bookmarks: 405

it must follow, as the night the day (26,341 words) Subscriptions: 385 Hits: 25,302 Kudos: 2,375 Comment Threads: 247 Bookmarks: 753

forgiveness for whose sake? (47,712 words) Subscriptions: 164 Hits: 22,299 Kudos: 1,600 Comment Threads: 710 Bookmarks: 274

Horns (11,284 words) Subscriptions: 91 Hits: 19,189 Kudos: 2,814 Comment Threads: 133 Bookmarks: 970

every haircut I've ever had has been a bad haircut (5,689 words) Subscriptions: 33 Hits: 16,013 Kudos: 2,572 Comment Threads: 87 Bookmarks: 540

anxiety and caffeine are having a cockfight in my brain (1,772 words) Subscriptions: 32 Hits: 14,554 Kudos: 2,750 Comment Threads: 71 Bookmarks: 485

if words could make wishes (31,424 words) Subscriptions: 236 Hits: 13,928 Kudos: 1,205 Comment Threads: 275 Bookmarks: 304

ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real (6,842 words) Subscriptions: 49 Hits: 12,559 Kudos: 1,552 Comment Threads: 53 Bookmarks: 166

this point of pale light (18,435 words) Subscriptions: 27 Hits: 9,868 Kudos: 838 Comment Threads: 61 Bookmarks: 333

the ability to remain sober and gracious (4,383 words) Subscriptions: 11 Hits: 7,346 Kudos: 1,055 Comment Threads: 33 Bookmarks: 199

you had me at hello (5,156 words) Subscriptions: 53 Hits: 7,055 Kudos: 985 Comment Threads: 49 Bookmarks: 73

System Icons (2,701 words) Subscriptions: 38 Hits: 6,665 Kudos: 411 Comment Threads: 25 Bookmarks: 253

Absolutely Ineffable (10,058 words) Subscriptions: 31 Hits: 6,633 Kudos: 906 Comment Threads: 48 Bookmarks: 269

The Red Cabinet (7,536 words) Subscriptions: 35 Hits: 5,499 Kudos: 767 Comment Threads: 36 Bookmarks: 165

but that’s fine because I like a hot mess (3,408 words) Subscriptions: 4 Hits: 3,332 Kudos: 521 Comment Threads: 22 Bookmarks: 135

Scum Villain Relationship & AU Request Stickers 2021 (2,345 words) Subscriptions: 8 Hits: 2,427 Kudos: 245 Comment Threads: 14 Bookmarks: 19

Scum Villain Valentine's Day Cards 2021 (578 words) Subscriptions: 4 Hits: 2,388 Kudos: 352 Comment Threads: 26 Bookmarks: 37

First Contact (7,166 words) Subscriptions: 34 Hits: 2,093 Kudos: 446 Comment Threads: 50 Bookmarks: 70

MXTX Pride Flag Character Stickers 2021 (1,524 words) Subscriptions: 3 Hits: 1,920 Kudos: 255 Comment Threads: 17 Bookmarks: 25

#tossawary ao3 #ao3 stats #tossawary svsss #tossawary updates

70 notes · View notes

presidenthades · 9 months

Text

Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 4!

For this chapter’s title, I picked the Crone’s lyrics from “The Song of the Seven” because Old Willow—who is a crone, as a wise older woman—is so important to this chapter.

Detective Aegon was one of the things I was most excited about as I wrote this fic. The idea was born when I read that TGC interview where he said Aegon is “intelligent and has a keen eye for the weak spots for others.” I extrapolated that as Aegon being observant about what makes people tick, which made me think about Sherlock, then I realized my version of Aegon would love being a detective. He gets to run around the city, meet interesting people, and feel a bunch of adrenaline/endorphins/dopamine.

I think Aegon is also very driven by the pursuit of dopamine. In canon, this manifests in his heavy dependency on wine and sex. In this verse, he gets tons of dopamine from his interactions with Jace. But since Jace is preoccupied with the pregnancy and governance and court, he’s deprived at the moment. So in this chapter, he explores his newfound detective hobby which makes him a bit less dependent on Jace for gratification—but not much. Still a simp for his wife 🥲.

Aegon is a night owl, Jace is an early bird. This isn’t an issue in the early days of their marriage because…well, they’re pretty much having sex whenever they’re in the bedroom, and sleep is optional 😂. But the honeymoon period tapers off right around when they discover the pregnancy, and it’s also when Jace’s LIWs are getting accustomed to their roles. The LIWs in particular are jarring for Aegon. LIWs are supposed to have lots of access to their mistress’ rooms, which isn’t a big deal in a traditional marriage where the husband and wife keep separate rooms, and the husband usually sends a message in advance if he wants to “visit” his wife at night. But Aegon has moved in with Jace, and whereas he views the LIWs as intruding on his private time with his wife, the LIWs view him as impeding their ability to do their job.

I decided that Arryk likes Aegon more than Erryk does (another reason the twins choose different sides in the Dance), and that’s why Aegon thinks Arryk is more fun. Erryk was more judgmental during Aegon’s debauchery days whereas Arryk was more chill. As a result, Aegon learned to tell the difference between them, because he wanted to be sure which twin he’s been saddled with. But Aegon likes to mess with people, so he deliberately gets Erryk’s name wrong because Erryk is annoying/inconveniencing him by dragging him to Viserys.

In the show, Aegon/TGC throws some truly hateful glares at Viserys, but at the same time his dialogue shows he longs for his father’s approval. Here, Aegon clings to that resentment (simmering not burning) but is much less interested in Viserys’s approval. He has plenty of approval and affection from Jace, so even though it stings that Viserys doesn’t care, Aegon can shrug it off more easily because he has something/someone better.

Viserys’s story in the show about the horses and coloring, and various comments about how he would’ve been happier as a simple country lord than as king, inspired me to give him amateur agricultural interests. He’s never done any actual farming, but he likes to read about it and daydream about his alternate universe life.

As I hope I made clear in the scene, Viserys is having this conversation for Jace’s benefit rather than Aegon’s. His favoritism for Rhaenyra’s line continues to abound in this universe, and he follows the old-fashioned school of thought that pregnant woman should refrain from having sex, ostensibly to protect the fetus.

In an early draft, Alicent was the one who had a similar conversation with Aegon to leave Jace alone. Alicent’s desire for this conversation was born from her own experience of being relieved not to have to continue having sex with her husband while pregnant. But I changed it because a) Alicent already has enough haters and I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, and b) it was more thematically appropriate for Viserys to have this talk, since this is a story about Aegon’s journey to fatherhood and I always planned for him to have some kind of “confrontation” with Viserys near the end of the fic. So I needed another scene that highlights the friction between Aegon and Viserys…also I had a lot of fun with the agricultural metaphors 😂.

When Aegon wanders the city at the beginning of this chapter, he is content but aimless. Although he thinks this is exactly what he wants—freedom to do nothing of consequence and just run around—deep down he wants something more purposeful. He needs some kind of goal/target or he falls into a bored malaise, as he does later in the chapter. The detective adventures eventually fill this need, then later taking care of Jace after her kidnapping, then eventually assuming a role in the game to protect his family.

House Tyrell has no history of being kings, and they still seem like they’re finding their footing as lord paramount of the Reach at this point in time. House Hightower is a very old and revered house with a history of being kings, so I feel like Aegon and his siblings may have inherited an ancestral disdain of the Tyrells 😂.

Jace loves roses, but I imagine a Tyrell lady at the garden party getting snooty about how “roses are so very Tyrell.” Similar to Jace’s feelings about colors, she feels like sigils—especially something as common as a rose—shouldn’t belong to any one family.

I did a lot of research about pregnancy for this fic. I came across a few stories of pregnant people getting nauseated during sex because of the jostling movements. I thought that would be very unfortunate for Jace and Aegon…so I made it happen 🙈. And it adds to Aegon’s growing feeling that his presence is a burden during Jace’s pregnancy.

The LIWs are there to make Jace’s life easier, not Aegon’s. So Jace views them as very helpful while Aegon (who is actually a “private” person at heart re: how he wants to live his life) sees them as intruders. This change isn’t sudden but gradual, taking place over the span of several weeks, like the frog in boiling water metaphor. It doesn’t occur to Aegon to protest until it’s too late, and even then, he sees how the LIWs are helping her a lot and he doesn’t want to take that from her. So he doesn’t say anything to Jace.

The LIWs have a designated solar they could hang out in, but they’re eager to stay close to Jace while she’s ill and nauseated. I also think they’re following Rhaena’s example, and Rhaena is used to having free rein to Jace’s rooms. And I don’t want to throw even more shade on Elinor, but her crush on Aegon is compelling her to go to Jace’s rooms fairly early in the morning in the hopes of catching him shirtless 🤭.

Overall, the line “there was no room for Aegon in Jacaera’s chambers when her ladies occupied it” encapsulates a lot of his feelings of being squeezed out of Jace’s life while she’s dealing with so many other things.

I read in a fanfic somewhere (no idea which fic) the theory that dragons are assumed male until they show signs of gestation or lay eggs. I like this theory because it helps explain why so many dragons seem to be male, and F&B has a line quibbling about the rumor that Vermax laid eggs at Winterfell (I think it’s Eustace who lambastes the theory that dragons can change sex). If Vermax did lay eggs, the “assumed male until otherwise proven” theory jives with him being called male previously. Also, I don’t know how dragon anatomy works, but one can assume that it’s difficult to tell males and females apart as hatchlings, and by the time they develop reproductive parts, you don’t really want to be examining them too closely.

I also wanted to make Vermax female so she and Sunfyre could parallel Jace and Aegon. Jace’s first pregnancy coincides with Vermax’s first gestation, and there’s some foreshadowing with Vermax’s three eggs later 👀. Also, I make the dragons’ personalities reflective of their riders’. Vermax is very docile and calm, while Sunfyre is a horny daredevil.

In this chapter, Aegon is still struggling to come to terms with impending fatherhood. He can’t help but feel like the pregnancy has been coming in between him and Jace rather than bringing them closer together, he’s got a lot of his own daddy issues to work out, and he’s still in a “I do what a want, no responsibilities” mindset. But even now, he secretly wants to grow and mature out of this; he imagines placing a dragon egg in his child’s cradle, and it gives him some warm fuzzies.

I imagine there’s a lot of conflict between the maesters and Targaryens whether it’s safe for pregnant women to ride dragons. The maesters wouldn’t consider it safe to ride horses, and riding dragons seems even more dangerous. Meanwhile the Targs are confident in their dragon bonds protecting them. My headcanon is that Rhaenyra and other female dragonriders, unless they’re exceptionally bold/reckless, at least spend their first pregnancy on the ground to be safe. But if that pregnancy goes well, they’re a lot more confident about flying during later pregnancies. Jace is already a cautious person by nature, so she would abide by the maesters’ recommendations.

Jace honestly doesn’t need to/shouldn’t do so many Small Council things right now, but she’s an overachiever. In the modern world, she’s the kind of person who volunteers for all the extra projects at work so she can prove herself. Aegon calls himself a lazy person with a skewed sense of what is urgent, but in this case, he’s actually right about Jace doing too much. One of his weaknesses: he thinks Jace is so perfect that he hesitates to tell her when she’s in the wrong.

Ever since the witch shouted at Joff during the wedding parade, Joff has been thinking a lot about her. She’s been trying to research what the witch said but she’s reached a dead end, so now the only avenue is going straight to the source. I dropped hints in Chapter 2 of the Handbook that Aegon was Joff’s curse tablet dealer, so she goes to him for help. Aegon is a skeptic about witchcraft at this point in the story, but we know that changes later.

Joff has a talent for insulting Targ men where it hurts. Daemon bore the brunt of it in the Handbook, but now it’s Aegon’s turn with the “big baby” comments 😂.

I’ll probably come up with more backstory for Old Willow in Joff’s fic. I imagine her to have genuine powers of some sort (foresight/prophecy at the very least). She isn’t super powerful, but the people around her respect/fear her as the real deal. She makes her money mostly by doing non-magic witchy things, like brewing moon tea, which is in higher demand and more affordable than the occasional curse tablet.

Joff has a prickly personality, but she can and will fight people in defense of her sisters 🤺.

The puncture wounds on Old Willow’s body are from the longshoreman hook that the Tyroshi sometimes carries around. Her death is over-the-top because, as is established in later chapters, the Tyroshi is a sadist. He decides to kill her because she supplied the love/beauty charm to the whore Daisy, so he deems Old Willow guilty as an accomplice.

Because Joff has been thinking about Old Willow a lot, she’s also been thinking about the curse tablet she used several years ago. I’ve deliberately been ambiguous in the story text about what exactly Joff did with the tablet, but many readers have pieced together that Laenor’s death was involved somehow. So Joff has been thinking a lot about her father’s death, and the guilt she’s feeling seeps into her reaction to Old Willow’s death. Old Willow’s death does greatly inconvenience Joff’s little quest, but Joff is also feeling a lot of things about murder victims and the loved ones they leave behind.

Old Willow’s murder was very different in early drafts. Originally the Tyroshi wasn’t involved at all, and Daisy was the murderer because she blamed Old Willow for the love/beauty charm wearing off, and the random whore on the street played a bigger role in helping Aegon investigate. But as I reassessed how I wanted the second half of the fic to go, I reorganized the side characters’ roles and reduced the unnecessary minor characters so they didn’t distract too much from the main story.

Aegon sometimes makes questionable decisions (is it really a good idea to bring a 9-year-old princess to Flea Bottom without any guards at night?), but he has a few “eldest sibling” instincts that foretell what he’ll be like as a father. He tries to keep Joff out of actual trouble (don’t anger the locals, don’t open the bottle that might be poison), shows empathy to her (realizes this must be the first dead body she’s seen even though Joff acts dark and morbid), and gives Joff time to sort through her messy emotions about the witch’s death (lets her investigate the hut instead of immediately dragging her out—although he could also be criticized for letting a kid linger around a dead body). Basically, as a big brother/uncle/good-brother, he’s pretty indulgent and lets Joff explore her interests so to speak, but he intervenes if he suspects imminent danger. After Cheeseball is born, Aegon is understandably very protective of him. But when Cheeseball grows old enough, I see Aegon as being willing to let him run around and potentially fall and scrape his knees, because that’s just a natural part of life and relatively harmless—but Aegon would absolutely stop Cheeseball from running off the edge of a cliff.

I made Joff an early bird because I wanted to thwart the trope that dark witchy character = night owl 😄.

Bethany likes teasing Elinor about her crush on Aegon, hence the little exchange about Elinor making a good posset. But if Bethany suspected Elinor actually wanted to seduce Aegon (which she doesn’t), I think Bethany would draw the line and might even tattle on Elinor. We see in Chapter 5 that Bethany takes her duty to Jace seriously when it matters.

Aegon is right about Jace not enjoying gruesome murder stories, and telling her about his and Joff’s adventures right then would’ve kept her awake for a long time. But his quality time with Jace is limited so he doesn’t get a chance to tell her about it before the feast disaster. The miscommunication trope can be tricky because it’s so easy to make the people involve ridiculously stupid for plot reasons, so I was trying my best to lay the foundations for genuine reasons they wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk to each other. And the miscommunication doesn’t last for long. I think it’s a week at most between Aegon and Joff going to Flea Bottom and the feast.

Just like Vermax and Sunfyre parallel Jace and Aegon, I wanted Syrax and Caraxes to parallel their riders. Rhaenyra has plenty of thoughts about Aegon as Jace’s husband, but she views it as a good thing if a couple has a healthy sex life, hence Syrax’s lack of concern. Meanwhile Caraxes shares Daemon’s antipathy toward Aegon/Sunfyre 😂.

Gyles is jittery because the Tyroshi has been increasing his demands for payment, which Gyles can’t fulfill. A little foreshadowing for later in the chapter.

I priced a bottle of moon tea at three pennies because that’s the price of a fresh fruit tart during Robert’s reign. Ignoring things like inflation, I thought that was a good benchmark: affordable for the smallfolk, but for a whore who’s barely making it on the streets, she has to choose between the moon tea or eating that day. Aegon has selfish motivations when he gives her the entire crate in exchange for information, but it’s a huge windfall for her, especially if she can sell or trade the moon tea she isn’t using herself.

Old Willow warns her customers that magic always has a price (a recurring theme in ASOIAF). I’m sure she warned Joff when she first bought the curse tablet, and the consequences of that event led Joff to stop digging as much into magic the last few years. But Joff is tempted when she gets her hands on the glass candle, and she learns that lesson again later in this fic.

Aegon compares the whore to a courtier because he’s realizing that all people are fundamentally the same, they just wear different clothes and have more or less money. No matter what level of society, everyone loves gossip/scandal.

The rumors of Daisy’s death are not entirely true, but they’re not too far off the mark, and you can see how the rumors developed based on the true version (as told by the madam). Usually the rumors are worse than the truth, but in this case, parts of the truth are even worse than the rumors.

The description of the Garden’s building is intended to evoke a sense of lukewarm attempts to prettify something miserable at its core, like the girls who work there. I added the detail of the woman drinking on the roof because if she falls and breaks her neck, oh well, it’s not like her life was that great 😢.

Undercover!Aegon is the obvious next step in the evolution of Detective!Aegon. Other than his hair color, he doesn’t have as striking Valyrian features like Aemond and Daemon, and he’s mingled enough with the commoners that he can imitate their mannerisms. (Just imagine Aemond trying to pull off that disguise 💀.)

Even though Aemond is right there, Daeron chooses to run to Aegon for advice on girls/women instead. Aegon actually managed to marry the woman he wanted while Aemond is stuck in a flirty limbo, so Daeron concludes that Aegon is the more successful brother 😂. S2 might change my mind, but S1 Aemond is NOT a womanizer/smooth talker/expert on the fairer sex. The same applies in this AU, although Aemond is fairly well-versed in one particular woman…but even so, he still puts his foot in his mouth a lot.

Aegon is NOT shy about nudity lmao. He seems pretty content to loaf around in various states of undress in canon, and so is he here.

I love writing parallel scenes. In Chapter 3, we got Jace having sisterly bonding with Joff and Helaena, and now it’s Aegon’s turn to have brotherly bonding with Daeron and Aemond. And again, Aegon’s traits as a brother foretell what he might be like as a father. He caves underneath Daeron’s puppy face and indulges Daeron in a city outing so he can buy presents for Joff, but when they’re about to enter a sticky situation with the investigation, he tries to send Daeron home. Just imagine what Aegon will be like when Cheeseball gets his first crush 🥰.

Aegon’s statement “I never make Jace angry” was the universe setting him up to make her angry 💀. But Aegon was also kinda right about how groveling stops Jace being angry, because we see him talk his way out of the doghouse in Chapter 5.

I am convinced by the Episode 8 last supper scene that Aegon and Aemond have some brotherly telepathy going on, and that telepathy is even stronger in this verse where they’ve spent more time together in the Stepstones. Hence their ten-second silent exchange where they plan what to do about the mysterious noise in the hatch.

Notice that Aegon instinctively reassures Ronnel and cleans him up a bit. Big brother/dad instincts coming in 🥰. Aegon categorically refuses to help Ronnel with the bathroom (Ronnel wasn’t asking for help anyway, he was asking permission to go), but when it comes to his own kid? See Chapter 10 and how Aegon very studiously helps Cheeseball pass gas 😂.

Gyles and Ronnel know who Aegon is, but they call him “milord” because they aren’t used to interacting with highborns and they figure that address is suitable for anyone of noble birth. Aegon isn’t fussy about addresses and titles so he never corrected them.

Aemond has been doing his homework about dockworkers while at Driftmark. He wants to impress his future grandfather-in-law 😆.

Daeron and Ronnel are the same age, but Ronnel looks younger. Daeron has grown up on a rich diet and ample physical training. Ronnel has never gone hungry, but he doesn’t get as much variety in his diet as Daeron does, and the physical labor that Ronnel does (helping his father make pies) isn’t very conducive to body-building.

Daemon followed the Targbros because he’s nosy and curious about what would get all three of them out of the castle on an important day for Aegon. He got bored during the shopping trip and but became intrigued again when they discovered the abduction, and now he’s piecing together why Aegon has been acting so oddly the past week. Daemon is sticking around for the adventure so he can gather more information about Aegon’s doings, and because a kidnapping ring in the city is something that would interest most people. But also I think Daemon has been bored with domesticity and he wanted a bit of adventure 😂.

This is the point when Aegon forgets about the feast. His acquaintance/sort-of-friend has been violently kidnapped. That’s a big deal! And this is the kind of adrenaline rush that he enjoys. If he did remember the feast, I think Aegon would still embark on the rescue mission, but he would’ve at least sent a message back to the castle (or convinced Daeron to bring the message back).

I am sorry (not really), but I couldn’t resist making the pun “a stream of grizzled seamen trickled through” the brothel 🙈.

Yes, the madam got very excited by the prospect of three pretty Targaryen men. Can’t really blame her.

The madam mentions her “halfwit” guard. This is actually the brother she mentions in Chapter 6, whom the Tyroshi kidnaps to force her into helping him. I imagine the brother as a sweet and innocent guy, so I like to think he makes it out of the ordeal just fine and returns to the Garden. All the girls there like him, and he’s a large guy (I keep imagining someone like Hodor), so he can intimidate most customers who get too rowdy.

Currency fluctuates a lot in the ASOIAF universes, but at one point a gold dragon is the price of a horse. So that’s a lot of money Aegon is offering the madam, although of course as a prince, it isn’t much money to him. 100 gold dragons is apparently a reasonable ransom for a younger son of a noble family, so when the madam asks for 50 gold dragons for the building, she’s basically saying two of her building is equivalent to a ransom for Oscar Tully or Garmund Hightower.

Aegon claims not to care about royal titles or privileges, but he can still be a snob about things like carrying around a ridiculous amount of money (he’s got people for that). As Queen Clarisse Renaldi once said, “It’s not appropriate for royalty to jingle.”

“Help me, I’m drunk” was 100% inspired by “Get help” from Thor 3. I feel like all the distraction names are pretty self-explanatory. But in pretty much every variation, Aegon is the distraction because he’s a showboat, while Aemond ninja murders everybody.

One of the warehouse guards uses the phrase “pretty girl,” which is Aegon’s pet name for Jace, so that triggers him in addition to everything else.

The rescue is when Gyles becomes Aegon’s number one hype man. I had to delete some scenes with Gyles later in the fic because they didn’t flow well, but there’s a scene where Gyles says he wants to teach his son good values like loyalty, and he cites his loyalty to Aegon as an example.

The Garden’s girls stick around to watch the arrests. The night’s events improve their opinions of the Targs (Aegon in particular). There are other factors, like Aegon’s chill managerial style and him selling the brothel for almost-free to Liane, but this is part of the good karma that pays off later when Jace needs help.

Aegon does enjoy the gratitude he receives for the rescue, similarly to how in canon he laps up the crowd’s adoration during his coronation. So that dopamine hit adds to the appeal of continuing his detective work.

The Gyles & Ronnel reunion makes an impact on Aegon because it’s the first time he’s really seeing a loving father-son relationship and affection. It’s sort of a turning point that plants a seed in his mind of what sort of father he wants to be to his unborn child, because now he has evidence there’s an alternative to what he grew up with. Also, note how Aegon feels like a voyeur to this emotional intimacy, but he’s entirely unaffected by physical intimacy like what happens at the brothel.

Originally the chapter dragged on longer with a scene where the Targs help Gyles and Ronnel move their stuff into the Red Keep, because Aegon offers Gyles a job on the spot. There was a whole comedic bit where Gyles reveals the giant cheese wheel that got him into trouble with the Tyroshi. But I decided it would be better to end the chapter where it did, with Aegon realizing his mistake 🤭.

Chapter 5 commentary here

#my writing #meta #house of the dragon meta #hotd meta #fanfic meta #aegon ii targaryen #female jacaerys velaryon #the golds

22 notes · View notes