#and then ned comes back

[sshireens]

okay personal grievance but. grrm making cat get pregnant on her wedding night was just one of the manu cruelties he enacted upon her but arguably the one that goes the most unnoticed. she did not want to have sex with that man

[vivitalks]

we don't talk about it enough but duck and billy's relationship in amnesty is truly a tragic one.

imagine: you rescue a mindless drone. you save his life, you give him autonomy, you give him language. you teach him trust. you protect him at your own expense. you name him billy. he knows three words in your language, and one is your name. you promise to keep him safe, and he betrays his programming to help you in return. he defies everything he was designed to do in order to aid you.

you save him from being a drone, but in doing so, you kill him. he was never supposed to be here this long. you gave him freedom at the cost of rapid decay, and now he's dying. and if he could just go back to his home planet, he would live, but he doesn't want to. because you're here. duck newton, his first friend, his savior, his guardian. you showed him that there is a better way to live - with free will, with pizza and playstations.

he's damned if he stays and damned if he goes. but you can't watch him suffer. that's not who you are. you're duck newton, local beefcake, defender of the disadvantaged. so you wait until he's engrossed in his video game - in humanity, in freedom of choice - and you strike him down out of mercy.

billy reverts to his original form: a four-armed being of light, once a drone, now a friend. he's beginning to disintegrate, but he has unfinished business here. he never finished his video game. and you give him one last gift of mercy: you lie to him. don't worry, you tell him - that character you're worried about? she's fine in the end. no, i know it seems bleak now, but she turns out okay.

you can't give him anything else, so you give him hope. it's the same thing he gave to you, all those months ago when you saved him.

[iangallagherisadeadman]

paul by big thief (masterpiece, 2016)

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ thank you @fionnagallagher and @shamelesscreencaps for the screencaps ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[ladystoneboobs]

no of fence to jon snow fans who for some reason care about his exact age, but these discussions just annoy me no end. not only bc there's no way any weirwood flashbacks bran has to rhaegar/lyanna will come with time/datestamps, but also bc there's always comments like this:

SEVERAL turns of the moon (ie, months)?! have these people never seen a human baby before or just have no concept of their ages? even if we take into account travel time from the toj to wf, meaning jon was not a newborn too fresh out the oven when catelyn and robb arrived, there's still a difference between a newborn and a 3mo and an even bigger difference between those infants and an older baby 5-7mo. there's very good reasons these lines were cut. whatever birthdates can be worked out internally for jon and robb from when they're first mentioned as 15 and 16 don't matter in the end, bc grrm doesn't care about a consistent timeline and the actual text of catelyn's pov and ned's convo with robert about cheating on her should outweigh any guesstimates about jon's official nameday wrt robb's. catelyn may not have cared for jon, but she would sure as hell have noticed his nameday if it came before robb's and made him ned's firstborn. if jon's birthday canonically came before robb's then either ned's cover story would not involve adultery (not impossible for him to sire a bastard before his wedding), or he'd just give jon a new nameday along with his new name to fit the adultery lie. it makes no sense for him to lie about one and not the other, undermining the big lie with a little public clue of his story not adding up. whatever else she was as a stepmother, cat wasn't stupid and a bastard who was actually the eldest son being raised alongside her trueborn heir could be an even bigger insult than whether he was born of adultery or not.

BUT, the unknowability of jon's true birthday is not the only reason this annoys me, it's bc this is all based on the assumption that jon must be older since rhaegar/lyanna ran off together before ned married cat, as if both boys must have been conceived asap as robb canonically was when his parents consummated their marriage. and that's not how human reproduction works! even if you don't understand how fast babies grow in the first year, you should know that people who get pregnant do so through ovulation cycles and a lucky sperm finding an egg and all that, not just immediately getting knocked up as soon as one has p-in-v sex for the first time. not unless you only know mean girls sex ed where if you have sex you will get pregnant and die. (even tho lyanna did die, there's plenty of canon examples where pregnancy did not lead straight to death. also examples of people who did not get pregnant right away and even some who are/were sexually active and childless without always having moon tea on hand.) we can't know how long lyanna was having sex before that sperm+egg match happened or even how long she was with rhaegar before losing her technical virginity. if they were married, doesn't it make sense to think they didn't consummate their relationship until the wedding night either? that's the only leverage there is to ensure a status as wife rather than just mistress.

and while i just said grrm doesn't care about exact timelines and a lot is still foggy surrounding the rebellion and esp rhaegar, there is one timemarker wrt robert's rebellion he voluntarily threw in, time and time again: that stannis was besieged at storm's end for almost a whole year. that siege, which mind you, did not match the duration of the entire war. it only started after robert won his battles at gulltown and summerhall, returned to storm's end, and then went out and lost the battle of ashford, leaving his homeland open to the reachermen. the same siege which only ended when ned made a detour there after the sack of king's landing, before going to the toj. even if lyanna may not have given birth that exact day ned found her, she could only be waiting in that bloody bed for weeks at the most, not months. so if rhaegar knocked her up the very same night he carried her off and jon was still a newborn when ned found her after the siege of storm's end had ended, wouldn't that mean lyanna was pregnant for well over a year? that's not how human pregnancy works either! so, maybe that's proof that jon and robb, whichever order they were actually born in, were actually very close in age as babies, much closer than if they were both conceived asap.

and really, jon's actual birthdate does not matter imho, when he was raised not just as the bastard to robb's trueborn heir, but with robb also known by catelyn and the world as ned's firstborn (which he was, in any case, as jon was ned's nephew by birth). what difference could a birthdate before robb's make (even were there some means of discovery) after ned, cat, and robb are all dead? if one is looking only at his birth parents then he's only a firstborn child on lyanna's side, but definitely a second son on rhaegar's side. maybe he was always meant to be a second son with a not much older half-brother! even if the aegon fka young griff is not in fact rhaegar's son, he'll still be known as aegon vi targaryen, meaning jon will never be known as any father's elder son. if i may reference mean girls again, it's not going to happen.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Saying this an Elia Martell fan from what little we know of her, but I'm really sick of how fandom sees her as nothing but a perpetual victim and/or hater of Lyanna and Rhaegar. Where's fandom content of her being kind to baby Tyrion or headcanons of her plotting with Rhaegar against Aerys? Makes me wish GRRM would write more Fire and Blood books to flesh her out more outside of the "pretty victim" fanon Sansa stans want her to be.

It's actually so frustrating cause there are great conversations + theorizing that could be going on surrounding her character because we know we're going to be learning more about her in the future, but a lot of her "fans" are just stuck on using her as a prop. And honestly? That's because the more we learn about her, the more she moves away from being fandom's favorite passive self-insert character. If George has her doing anything it breaks their idea of her being the perfect victim which is what they love about her. They don't even like her character organically, they just like that it gives them a justification to hate Rhaegar and/or Lyanna. I'm personally neutral-positive about Elia, but I am very interested in learning more about her character. George has kept that portion of the story intentionally vague for a reason and I can't wait to see why.

[catofoldstones]

I'm sorry but the post breaking down the Arya-Jeyne-North angle makes no sense. The Boltons are claiming Winterfell through the marriage to Arya aka Jeyne who is considered the Lady of Winterfell by her own birthright. They're not trying to claim Winterfell was given to them by the crown or no longer belongs to the Starks. Ramsay didn't even want to get married at Winterfell when Roose made the call to move the wedding location from Barrowton. He's claiming himself Lord of Winterfell the same way he claimed himself Lord of Hornwood through the forced marriage to Lady Donella and even Lady Dustin says him keeping his title is dependent on how he treats his wife. He needs the marriages to claim those titles, not the other way around. At no point in Dance is Jeyne ever considered Lady Bolton, she's always called Lady Arya. That's like arguing Sansa's marriage to Tyrion means the claim to Winterfell comes from Tyrion, not Sansa.

You can argue that Jeyne and Ramsay's marriage is invalid because both got married under false pretenses as the bride was pretending to be someone else, but that wouldn't negate Arya's position as Lady of Winterfell if she intends to claim the title. I think it's intentional on GRRM's part to make the question of Stark succession jumbled enough that all five of them can technically stake their claim whether through birth order, sex, legitimized degrees, might makes right and the power behind them, or simply having the claim bestowed on them before the others make themselves known.

Buckle up, it’s a long one.

I am going to go on a limb here and presume you didn’t read the whole post, did you? I literally said it a million and one times that Arya’s claim comes from her being a Stark. That is the entire point of my post.

The north believing that Jeyne is Arya (“Lady Aryq”) doesn’t make Arya Jeyne or the Lady of Winterfell by proxy. Y’all are literally running around in circles here, nothing makes sense. At one point you are claiming that Ramsay is claiming his authority through Arya because she already is the lady of Winterfell and on the other hand you’re saying that bringing Arya to the north and marrying her to Ramsay made her the Lady of Winterfell in the eyes of the Northern Lords and the readers. Make it make sense. Anyway, Lady is a title granted to all noblewomen of higher houses, a lot like how Miss/Mister worked in the 1800s to now (sort of). Arya would be Lady Arya of House Stark regardless of whether she is the heir to House Stark or not. The Lady Stark or the Lady of Winterfell will only be Catelyn Stark as it is a social position granted to the wife of the head of the House. If she had a sister-in-law, say Benjen didn’t go to the nights watch and got married, that woman would also be Lady Stark (or Lady her-maiden-name) but she would not be the Lady of Winterfell, are you getting me? The people here could be referring to Arya as ‘Lady’ because she’s a highborn girl and comes from the most noble house of the north. That makes her one of the people with the highest social standing; which I feel warrants the use of the word Lady, not to be confused with the feudal position.

I know you’re trying to play the whole Arya is the last of Starks and that is why she is the Lady of Winterfell and that is from where the Boltons are legitimising their claim to the north. But Arya is not the last of the Starks. She still has an older sister (that they know is alive when they decided on the marriage) and two brothers whose claim is superior to hers no matter how you argue. On top of that, the girl that is actually married to Ramsay is not even Arya. Arya is in Braavos training with the faceless men. Regardless, never once throughout the books, is she called the head of house stark or lady stark or the lady of Winterfell and have that be given as a reason as to why the North should fight for her. She is ‘Ned’s precious little girl’ and that is enough. Literally pulled Lady of Winterfell out of your ass.

“They’re not trying to claim the north was given to them by the crown or no longer belonging to the starks” is an insane statement to make when the royal decree is literally the only leg they have to stand on, and that they are now the unequivocal lords of Winterfell is literally exactly what they’re claiming. Bruh. Bobby B winning the crown by conquest is still valid but the Baratheons being distant cousins of the Targaryens helped. The Boltons need Stark blood to strengthen their claim not create a claim from a non-existent one, which is why they married “Arya” and which is also exactly why just any girl, and not Arya herself, worked. It is all for show.

Okay, scratch all of that. Let me make it simple. The Bolton’s claim to the north literally comes from being granted the north by royal decree. Marrying “Arya Stark” just gives the loyal northerners less reason to fight against Bolton rulership. So the Bolton derive their authority by literally being given the North by the crown after killing Robb Stark and hope to retain that claim in front of the northern lords by seemingly marrying “Arya Stark”. The former is legally and politically important. The latter is socially important. If the North wasn’t actually granted to the Boltons, Ramsay marrying Arya wouldn’t have done jack to their claim, sorry. Which leads me to the latter, having a political marriage between the Boltons and the Starks reduces the chances of a revolt by the “more loyal” northern lords. “Even Lady Dustin says him keeping his title depends on how he treats his wife”. Yes, so as to not anger the northern lords. If his claim was from the ladyship of his wife, then it wouldn’t have depended on how he treated her. Eg. Lady Hornwood. How are you proving my own point here.

Ramsay doesn’t derive his authority from his wife who is the Lady of Winterfell. He doesn’t even derive it from his wife. He married a “Stark” because it merely quells the rumbling of a revolt and makes the Boltons more palpatable as Wardens of the North. Moreover, if they were deriving the claim from Arya then Ramsay would be the Lord of Winterfell but he’s not, Roose is. If the Boltons really wanted to lay a claim to the north by marrying Arya, then they would have torn apart heaven and earth to find the real one and married the her, and that too to Roose, not Ramsay. But they can’t, because she inherently doesn’t hold that power. This also doesn’t mean that she is less of a Stark so don’t think I am trying to say that.

Do you think if hypothetically Lord Manderly married his son to Arya, would that automatically make him the liege lord of the north? Does marrying Lysa to Jon Arryn make Jon Arryn’s father the ruling lord of the Riverlands? Does it even make Jon the ruling lord of the riverlands? Even if Hoster and Edmure were dead, neither Jon Arryn nor his father would have no claim to the Riverlands. Where is this logic even coming from? It’s clearly not in universe. Your argument about Lady Hornwood holds no water because there was no royal decree that proclaimed him as the Lord of Hornwood. If there was, he wouldn’t need to marry Lady Hornwood herself, even any of her daughters to appease her subjects because her subjects are not noble houses with armies of their own. Hornwood is not the entirety of the North. The North is half the continent and therefore holds much more political sway. Hornwood is a small House. How are you even drawing parallels here? The Boltons won’t just hand wave away the royal fucking decree for no good reason especially when they stabbed and betrayed their own King for it. What made you even think of this???

Lastly, this is not GRRM trying to muddle the Stark succession. This is GRRM trying to show the reader that sometimes people with less social standing and power are abused simply because those higher than them can get away with it. He means to say that this is something that will not happen to someone from a bigger House. This was to highlight the inherently lopsided, power-imbalanced, oppressive system that is cruel to those it deems weak.

[hyperesthesias]

sketch before bed.

[imaginarianisms]

speaking of sansa & childbirth.... man..... it'd be totally awful if. she had a bit of trouble giving birth to cat :))))))))) & ppl thought she would die & it looked like she wasn't going to make it :)))))))))))))))))

[thresholdbb]

Year of Hell is on again, and I'm wondering how the dynamics would have worked if any other combo had been abducted by Annorax

[mintmentos]

Ned nation how we doing cuz im LOSING MY MIND

[bitchthefuck1]

Where are my kanej and pushing daisies fans at

[elaynetrakand]

“Wyman Manderly laughed, but half a dozen of his knights were on their feet at once. It fell to Roger Ryswell and Barbrey Dustin to calm them with quiet words. Roose Bolton said nothing at all. But Theon Greyjoy saw a look in his pale eyes that he had never seen before - an uneasiness, even a hint of fear.”

There is something so deeply satisfying about this quote.

[redflagsandbanners]

You know what guys watching Sophie Turner scream "I don't do coCAIne" while actively rewatching got has actually changed me as a person.

[wallboys]

i think the decades of r+l=j theorizing has made us forget a little that ned made more than one promise to lyanna (one of those promises being him vowing to protect her child is still technically a theory as well). ned also promised to bring her home

[blackladynerd]

In wake of the news about how much of the budget was cut for season 2, I’ve seen people saying the show could’ve used it’s money better by doing away with unnecessary plot points but…I’m honestly confused about what people found to be unnecessary.

I can’t really think of anything that detracted story-wise. What plot points could’ve been cut? 🤔

[fromtheseventhhell]

Jon literally grew up idolizing the Targaryens. He liked to pretend to be Aemon the Dragonknight when he played games with Robb. One of his heroes is Daeron the Young Dragon. And of course Maester Aemon was one of his mentors and one of the people Jon admires the most.

Jon's character literally doesn't matter to them when they come up with these "theories". They're just projecting their personal feelings onto Jon so "Targs evil + Jon good = Jon hate Targ". They also try and bring up Brandon and Rickard as though Jon has ever spared them a passing thought. If he cared so much and was soooo anti-targ he wouldn't have had such a good relationship with Maestar Aemon, like you said. They just want the books to follow their personal feelings and they're gonna be pissed when that's not the case.