#century kings

[retrokid616]

dorian after that walk off to the spider queen like!

[bet-on-me-13]

Dan is Trigon

So! The Teen Titans had been chasing down a Cult lately, and they had finally managed to track down their main bases location.

Unfortunately, they got there just a bit too late and the Summoning Ritual they had been preforming was finished. The Being they had been calling crawled up and out of the Circle drawn in Blood on the floor.

And Raven felt her heart Stop. Because that Being crawling it's way out of the Summoning Circle looked almost exactly like her Father's True Form. But also different.

Where her Father's hair was a White Flame, this one's hair looked like Freshly Fallen Snow. Instead of her Father's Blood Red Skin, this being had Icy Blue Skin. And most strikingly, In place of her Father's Piercing Red Eyes, this being had Lazarus Green Eyes.

But even with all those changes, she could still the similarities in the Bone Structure, the shape of the Jaw, and most importantly the Untold Power radiating off of them.

Before they could react, the Being turned its attention to the Cultists.

"Who Dares Summon, the Ghost King?"

"We do, Out Lord Pariah Dark! We Beseech Thee, take this unclean world and tear it down! Cleanse the World of its Filth!"

"Oh Goddammit, not again." Said the Being, "Look, Pariah hasn't been in Power for Centuries. I, am Phantom. And I don't do the whole 'Destroy all Worlds' thing, you want your own constellation? I'm your guy. Otherwise? Bite it."

"Bu-But my Lord! We summoned you to-"

"Yeah how about no." Said the unimpressed God, "Here, let me send you guys Home. I'll give you guys some riches or something as compensation, but that's it."

And with that, the God snapped its fingers and the cultists disappeared.

"Now, who are you kids?" He turned to them.

Robin stepped forward, "We are the Teen Titans, and originally we came to stop them from Summoning you. Now, I honestly don't know what to do..."

"Oh, you guys are Heroes! That's interesting, I don't come across worlds with Heroes very often." Said the Ghost King, "The last one was the one with those Revengers or whatever they called themselves. The Spider Totem was fun to talk to, and Thor is always..."

As Phantom mumbled to himself, Raven stepped up. "King Phantom, I have a Question. Why do you resemble the true form or Trigon so closely? As his Daughter, I can recognize your similarities easily, and I was curious."

The King stopped dead.

"...daughter?"

"Oh, yes. Trigon is my father, though obviously I haven't talked to him recently." She explained.

"...that asshole." He said, "How could he not tell me I had a NIECE!?"

Wait what?

[phoenixkaptain]

I really want to explore Tim “rich kid” Drake spending time with his friends and them just slowly realizing that Robin is even weirder than they thought.

Like, Arrowette complains about some press event or something that her mom wants her to go to and Robin just starts listing off advice and unspoken rules and tells her to absolutely avoid the shrimp cocktails unless she wants an early out, in which case the correct amount to eat is one and a half shrimp with only a bit of cocktail sauce, which will be enough to change her complexion and convince people she doesn’t feel well and allow her to escape to the restroom, then she just needs to slip out one of the windows-

Or Wonder Girl commenting on, like, a science fair project or something and he just goes “Science fairs are the worst. Everyone wants to buy your services to make them something, not understanding that you’re richer than they are and that an insult to you could lead to you buying their parents’ companies if they don’t shut up. They’re lucky I have an even temper…” WG: “…wat.”

Superboy is like “man, Superman’s trying to convince me to clean my room. What should I do?” and Tim just stares blankly at him because nobody has ever told him to clean his room before and he’s never cleaned his room before and he had no idea Clark was so cruel and-

Impulse: “Hey, Rob, pass me a can opener.”

Robin, staring into the drawer, fifteen can openers right in front of his eyes: “We don’t have one.”

I just want Tim to inexplicably not know some things because he’s never had to know them. I want him to explicably know things because he had to know them. I want the things he does know and the things he doesn’t to be totally backwards to everyone, who are all wondering why Robin knows how to hotwire a car but does not know how to work a vacuum cleaner.

[cuties-in-codices]

an unpleasant awakening

in a copy of konrad von würzburg's "trojanerkrieg", ca. 1441

source: Nürnberg, GNM, Hs. 998, fol. 15r

[20th-century-man]

Sherilyn Fenn / Zalman King’s Two Moon Junction (1988)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 249

Danny tilts his head. The masked figure across the roof tilts their head back, a gold similar to Tucker’s eyes shimmering, though he knew it wasn’t him. He lets out a curious chirp, inaudible to the living, and the masked figure stills, as silent as a corpse for several moments before letting out two clicks. 

A greeting in turn. 

Danny smiles, letting green bleed into his eyes and scurrying over with a croon from his core. I’m here, I’m here, their own core clatters like metal against bone as his responds with the drone of a blackhole. I see you, I see you. I’m HereHereHere. 

Yet another twitters in turn, clicking echoing across the city from shadow to shadow until it’s as though the city itself has a heartbeat. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. I’m here, I’m here, not alone, I’m Here. 

[atomic-chronoscaph]

art by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1910s)

[synchodai]

HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics

So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.

The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.

Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.

Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.

Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.

(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)

In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.

Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.

Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).

In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.

Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood

the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens

hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.

Here are the arguments for Aegon II:

many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]

Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92

the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter

Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”

Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).

For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.

Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.

And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?

This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".

[balleater]

yussa might have the funniest brand of wizard hubris ever. dude isn't trying to have the most power in the world or overthrow gods and all the shit that the age of arcanum wizards and the assembly do. he's just the type of guy to see something called the "archmage bane" and think it couldn't possibly apply to him or that he can just take a little trip to the astral plane after getting told everything there is fucked and be fine. literally no one is doing it like him.

[sanvees]

If people knew you married a man, they'd speak ill of you. That's fine. It's my life.

[venustapolis]

Young King of the Black Isles (Maxfield Parrish, 1906)

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Attributed to Domenico Fetti (c. 1589-1623) "David with the Head of Goliath" (c. 1610-1620) Oil on canvas Baroque

[ylissebian]

HAPPILY PHOREVERAFTER 💗

[wonder-worker]

A central element of the myth of [Eleanor of Aquitaine] is that of her exceptionalism. Historians and Eleanor biographers have tended to take literally Richard of Devizes’s conventional panegyric of her as ‘an incomparable woman’ [and] a woman out of her time. […] Amazement at Eleanor’s power and independence is born from a presentism that assumes generally that the Middle Ages were a backward age, and specifically that medieval women were all downtrodden and marginalized. Eleanor’s career can, from such a perspective, only be explained by assuming that she was an exception who rose by sheer force of personality above the restrictions placed upon twelfth-century women.

-Michael R. Evans, Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine

"...The idea of Eleanor’s exceptionalism rests on an assumption that women of her age were powerless. On the contrary, in Western Europe before the twelfth century there were ‘no really effective barriers to the capacity of women to exercise power; they appear as military leaders, judges, castellans, controllers of property’. […] In an important article published in 1992, Jane Martindale sought to locate Eleanor in context, stripping away much of the conjecture that had grown up around her, and returning to primary sources, including her charters. Martindale also demonstrated how Eleanor was not out of the ordinary for a twelfth-century queen either in the extent of her power or in the criticisms levelled against her.

If we look at Eleanor’s predecessors as Anglo-Norman queens of England, we find many examples of women wielding political power. Matilda of Flanders (wife of William the Conqueror) acted as regent in Normandy during his frequent absences in England following the Conquest, and [the first wife of Henry I, Matilda of Scotland, played some role in governing England during her husband's absences], while during the civil war of Stephen’s reign Matilda of Boulogne led the fight for a time on behalf of her royal husband, who had been captured by the forces of the empress. And if we wish to seek a rebel woman, we need look no further than Juliana, illegitimate daughter of Henry I, who attempted to assassinate him with a crossbow, or Adèle of Champagne, the third wife of Louis VII, who ‘[a]t the moment when Henry II held Eleanor of Aquitaine in jail for her revolt … led a revolt with her brothers against her son, Philip II'.

Eleanor is, therefore, less the exception than the rule – albeit an extreme example of that rule. This can be illustrated by comparing her with a twelfth century woman who has attracted less literary and historical attention. Adela of Blois died in 1137, the year of Eleanor’s marriage to Louis VII. […] The chronicle and charter evidence reveals Adela to have ‘legitimately exercised the powers of comital lordship’ in the domains of Blois-Champagne, both in consort with her husband and alone during his absence on crusade and after his death. […] There was, however, nothing atypical about the nature of Adela’s power. In the words of her biographer Kimberley LoPrete, ‘while the extent of Adela’s powers and the political impact of her actions were exceptional for a woman of her day (and indeed for most men), the sources of her powers and the activities she engaged in were not fundamentally different from those of other women of lordly rank’. These words could equally apply to Eleanor; the extent of her power, as heiress to the richest lordship in France, wife of two kings and mother of two or three more, was remarkable, but the nature of her power was not exceptional. Other noble or royal women governed, arranged marriages and alliances, and were patrons of the church. Eleanor represents one end of a continuum, not an isolated outlier."

[20th-century-man]

Jayne Mansfield / King Donovan’s Promises! Promises! (1963)

Released as the Hays Code (aka the Motion Picture Production Code) began to be applied erratically and before the MPAA film rating system was introduced in 1968, this film was the first mainstream Hollywood film of the sound era to feature nudity by one of its lead actors.

[badly-drawn-doflamingo]

shout out to thriller bark! 🦇