#notes from the showrunner

[ticktockstuck]

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Hi folks.

I wish I was here with a better update but, as you can probably tell from the title of this post, we've got some somber news for today.

Here's the short version: My Mac, where I do most of my work and where tons of documentation and organization for TickTockStuck is kept, has experienced some sudden and unexpected drive issues. At the time of writing I have no way of reliably accessing any of the files on there, which means I'll have to put a halt to any further work on TTS and the TTS Extended Zodiac for the time being.

The good news is that I've been able to confirm all the files are still safe and uncorrupted. I can't access them but they should be able to sit still until I can get the data out and get the Mac repaired.

The bad news is that those repairs will wipe the system memory, so I need to get my files out first. While I've found a place that can help with data recovery it's not going to be a cheap service, and I don't have an estimate for how long it's going to be until I can afford to get the repairs done.

A few things I want to stress at this time:

I'm not opening up donations at this time. Aside from TTS' low foot traffic making me lack confidence in that route, I'm not in such dire financial straits that this whole process should take more than a few months. By the time TickTockStuck hits in 11th Anniversary in July we should be back up and running.

While I'm going to have to put a full stop to the TickTockStuck Extended Zodiac for this period, I don't intend for this main blog to linger idly. I'll be doing what I can to put out content during these troubles, to the extent that I'm able to without access to my usual documentation.

I'm not opening donations but I am interested in possibly opening up commissions at some point in the future. I won't speak to what shape that'll look like if I decide to pursue that route - whether it's TickTockStuck-related work or otherwise - but it's something I've been meaning to try for a very long time.

I'll keep you all updated as this situation develops.

As always, thank you all for sticking around with us through everything. This is your faithful showrunner signing off for now.

[ineedmojoe]

when you take a step back, it really is funny because the creator of the show said, "so, i'm pretty much writing this couple's story as a romcom," and a contingent of people still decided to say, "they're clearly MISERABLE!"

[floaromaxtowns]

my mood, every week checking out this show:

[nyxofdemons]

four years for this show...

[echofades]

LOIS & CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN SEASON 4 (pt 1)

[fratboykate]

Hi, So since you're a writer, how do you feel about the whole Jenna Ortega situation? I've seen a lot of writers taking a dig at and I don't necessarily agree especially in such important moment like now , but Idk, thought?

She deserves every bit of it. You'd be hard pressed to find a writer who isn't rightfully fucking pissed at her horrible attitude and straight up disrespectful comments so unless she's planning on writing every script for the rest of her career I can guarantee you she's going to have a tough time, at least behind the scenes. And I know her stans love to say "Oh but the showrunners haven't said anything bad about her!" Yeah, because unlike her they're professionals 🤷🏽‍♀️

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

EWAN MITCHELL TALKING ABOUT MATT SMITH:

He used to watch Doctor Who with his grandmother.

Idolising Smith-as-the-Doctor turned out to be very useful for playing Aemond, who idolises Smith-as-Daemon.

It is, admittedly, a complicated relationship: Aemond imitates, reveres and despises his uncle.

“I thought there was something interesting in never taking Matt off that podium.”

“I just kept him there, from where I saw him as a kid.”

He found it so interesting, in fact, that he spoke to showrunner Condal and proposed avoiding Smith on set so that the they would only ever interact in character. Smith was up for it.

There is a resemblance between the actors, something noted by his grandmother then and by me now.

ABOUT THE SCENE FROM EPISODE 8 SEASON 1:

“That was the first time I’d looked at Matt or Daemon for longer than three of four seconds.”

“It was lightning in a bottle.”

“We have these two sides of the family, so I don’t really see him.”

“There’s a romance to it in a weird way.”

[randomness-is-my-order]

been seeing alot of discourse ensuing in the fandom about the pjo tv show and here’s the thing: there is alot of impetus about what the show didn’t get right but isn’t it absolutely amazing how much the show did get right????

yes, gabe is a bit different. yes, annabeth didn’t show percy around camp. yes, grover snitched on percy. yes, ms. dodds transforming could be a bit underwhleming.

BUT

we also have this: percy being an actual kid with sarcasm and sadness and anger and trauma. he’s not one-note. he’s just trying his best and his inner conflict is so painfully and wonderfully portrayed. grover being a nervous wreck at times but also sweet and earnest and guilt-ridden and brave in his own way. annabeth being a little girl wise beyond her years, with a stoicism that feels like something she was forced to practice and the spark of a dream driving her actions. luke being a likeable teenager with actual empathy towards percy which will drive home his fall from grace that much deeper.

chiron being a mentor figure who still makes questionable choices and can’t always say the words percy wants to hear, despite his best intentions. mr. d being an asshole who is still likeable, if only for his humor. sally jackson being a fierce mother with both tenderness and strength, who isn’t perfect but might as well be in percy’s eyes. clarisse being the unpleasant bully that she is, with all the rage and pettiness that she held within when we were first introduced to her yet with the promise of something more.

camp halfblood’s set and the cinematography deserve their own medals. they’re quite literally perfect.

soooo, where i’m getting at is this:

i don’t believe that all criticism pointing out inconsistencies with the books is just nitpicking. alot of it is well thought out and politely presented, too, and i think it’s important to point it out so the showrunners know where they went wrong and can try and rectify those errors–however small or big–in the next season. at the same time, undermining the entire show, discounting all the efforts made to remain faithful to the source material just because they strayed from a storyline that didn’t land as well as it could have–that’s a bit overblown, yes?

like it is an adaptation, not a word-by-word recreation from page to screen. of course, there will be changes because some things in a book don’t always translate well in a story told on the screen. for me, most changes aim to enhance rick’s work, not undermine it or take away from it in some misguided attempt to appeal to the larger audience like the movies did.

at the end of the day, it is very important to recognise the 90% of the show that depicted our beloved scenes from the book as faithfully as possible instead of constantly criticising the 10% of it that changed directions for a certain end goal that serves the screenwriting for a tv show. there can be balance of both praise and criticism and i’m very much in support of people pointing out genuine problems with the storytelling of the show but these conversations should also try and acknowledge the myriad of aspects in which the show excelled. like just the fact that i get to see so much of my imagination take form in front of my eyes, through a screen, with so much of the same authenticity that the pjo books are inlaid with–that’s genuinely mind-boggling to me.

[dotthings]

Some spn Cas history (because yay facts!! Facts are fun!!)

Misha was a guest star in S4. Castiel was originally planned to be a 3 episode and done character, but Misha was so electrifying as Cas, had great chemistry with Jensen, and Cas turned out to be such a compelling character, the show kept him around.

Misha was promoted to regular in S5 and continued in S6.

He was dropped from the show for S7 because Gamble and Singer decided to write out Cas. The network did a lot of fans a solid for once, called up the EP's, and went "hahahaha you aren't really planning to get rid of that fan favorite pretty angel are you???? hahaha ok no really bring him back" and literally refused to let spn get rid of him.

There was for sure a listlessness factor in S7 once Cas was removed. J2 were the anchors in the early seasons. In later seasons, J2M really became the show's center supports, more than just J2. (No, this is not arguable. This is reflected in canon story, and Cas's growth as a character and plot role and emotional role and in promotion for many years. No, I don't care who is offended that I said it. It's not a point of argument).

Jeremy Carver took over as showrunner in S8 and brought Misha in for an 8 episode arc, so Misha was a guest star in S8. Carver wanted to rebuild the character and in S9 Misha was promoted back up to series regular, and he stayed at that status the rest of the series.

Originally, Misha's regular status was denoted by having him third in opening credits after Jared and Jensen, before the "guest starring" section. Eventually Misha was given an "and" credit.

The "and" credit is a contract status thing. It's for series regulars of particular note, usually for a particularly noteworthy performance. Tony Head was "and" status on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When he stepped back to recurring, Alyson Hannigan became the "and" status.

Some have tried to paint Misha's "and" designator as a sign of his lesser importance, but it's the opposite. It's a promotion and a sign of respect.

A further note, zero fans have attempted to supplant Jared and Jensen as the "top leads" of the show, but it's abundantly fair to label Misha a 3rd lead, given the proportion of Cas's plot and emotion impact on story and Misha's longevity and status. It's semantics, really. If someone gets offended if you say he's a 3rd lead, they're aren't worth your time. Eh, okay, "main character" isn't wrong either, but I'm suspicious of people who break out in hives over calling him "3rd lead"--but main character is a descriptor for Cas's role. SPN at times had 3-4 series regulars, with J2 as the only two constants the entire run of the show, which is why we say J2 are the 2 top leads. But Cas and Misha's importance are also facts.

Misha was "guest star" in S4, 7, and 8. Eventually he got "special guest star" credit during his guest starring era on spn, another indicator of an actor/performance/character of note, but not a series regular. He was a series regular for S5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. (No this is not arguable. These are production facts. Some people still, after all this time, try to erase his regular/main character status on spn, and they aren't working in facts).

[impidimp]

So we've got

- New, more progressive network

- Showrunner change (aka the Buddie hater is gone)

- Tim posting a bunch of Buddie stills on his facebook before the season even started airing

- ABC choosing Oliver and Ryan to do most of the promo stuff and mostly together

- This picture (just the fact that they took one just the two of them)

- So many interviews talking about Buck and Eddie's relationship

- A bunch of quotes from Ryan including: "we get closer than ever this season", "there's a lot of changes in the relationship", "we're trying to give the audience what they want", "the writers have taken note"

- Tim's use of "right now"

- Tim talking about Tommy as if he's not sticking around forever

- The underlying sexual tension line

- The "you're not planning on jumping ship are you?"

- Eddie being so involved in Buck's self discovery storyline (even when it's indirectly)

- Family Feud???

- Buck being canonically bi

And I'm not supposed to think Buddie is going canon??

[venomous-qwille]

A NOTE REGARDING WIKIS AND LORE DOCS

I've mentioned this in Misutamojis before, but just realised there was nothing about it here so:

Please don't create public lore docs or wikis for GITM.

I totally understand that the story is already sprawling and there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but here is my reasoning behind this request:

GITM is still in its very early stages, there is so little that you concretely know about any of the characters/story that it is likely that any character bios people write will be fundamentally incorrect. Same goes for lore about the worldbuilding and the Sight. It's much easier to spread misinfo than fact, and certain stuff in fic is kept deliberately misleading/vague for fun story purposes.

GITM is not a TV show and I am not a showrunner. I am just another DCA fan on the internet who wants to chat about their OCs, I should be allowed to do that without having my every word indexed. To be clear, as I have said many many many many times in the past: people quoting what I say in discord, analysing my casual art/magmas/drabbles, or screencapping casual convos and jokes to pull them apart to dissect details from it makes me really really uncomfortable. If people started screencapping what I say to stick it on a doc for proof of XYZ thing about a character you guys haven't even met yet... I would probably stop interacting on this server point blank. Please imagine how you would feel if people were screenshotting your desktop background to read your filenames so they could theorycraft. That has happened in this server. More than once. Please stop. Your FOMO is not more important than my boundaries.

The intended reading experience for GITM is... reading GITM. Yes sometimes I share my personal headcanons and tidbits for characters, but I promise that all of this stuff will be discovered in fic. I don't want people to learn about Fool's favourite songs from a google doc. I want you to learn about it from GITM. That is why I am writing GITM: to tell you about these characters.

I would like the opportunity to make a GITM wiki myself at some point in the future.

I understand this might be frustrating, I know the lore is overwhelming as it stands. As always, if you have questions about the characters, you are welcome to ask in one of the discussion channels- I don't mind people @ ing me for that- I love talking about GITM! I am always happy to answer new FAQs at length.

[ticktockstuck]

Apropos of nothing, I’m a big fan of Yugioh (the card game) and have been for years, which I only bring up because two new monsters they announced today are straight-up just minions of the Denizen from the Land of Sweets and Slime.

Like:

These would fit in right next to the Trickey-Lime Piedra. I honestly might work the...candy “tendons” idea the vanilla one has for something of my own, that’s a gnarly visual.

[nudityandnerdery]

[Image Description: A series of sixteen tweets by John Rogers @jonrog1 that say:

1) A moment at the Teamsters/UPS rally this morning clarified our current struggle with the studio CEO's (among other bosses). Teamsters got a lot of wins, but one of the main sticking points is the pay for the 65% of local UPS workers who are part-time …

2) If you read the SAG-AFTRA demands, a truly STUNNING amount of their points involve protecting background actors, and trying to improve conditions for the 87% of their union who makes less than $26,000 a year.

3) As WGA members know, this is not a strike for the showrunners. We're trying to fix the fact the the current younger generation of writers can't even afford housing and their pathway to advancement has been cut off.

4) Like … folks, I'm fine. There are maybe two proposals in there that affect me. I'm walking in 90% weather and losing over 50% of my income for the year because I want the younger writers to get what I got at this stage of their careers.

5) Our unions and the CEO's and various negotiators have a fundamental cognitive disconnect. Because CEO's types only succeed by FUCKING THEIR PEERS.

6) Zaslav, Iger , those types of execs, etc have never gone without so a fellow exec or a junior exec could thrive. A fellow exec failing is the moment to use your own leverage to advance past them, if not destroy them.

7) Part of it is the money but part of this, I think, is a genuine inability to grasp even the concepts of any labor action. Because it is always other-directed.

8) So many people treat capitalism as part of nature red in tooth and claw, but it's not. It's a human construct. There are different rules you can play by -- but not if you want to win.

9) The greatest gift capitalism ever granted was the ability to validate selfish behavior as a virtue because that's "just what's necessary, I don't make the rules!" (Look ma, it's reification!)

10) This is where I usually point out that Adam Smith wrote that you have to overpay workers to keep your labor force up, and you need to take into account the psychic damage of capitalism to the workers, and that admiring the rich is the greatest source of moral corruption …

11) But I'll stave off that diversion to just land with … this is a discontinuity of attitudes which I think was once breached by the fact that management USED to come from people who loved building their company or their trade, even if they eventually did management shit.

12) Now, even that thin thread of SYMPATHY (Adam Smith joke, get it? People?) is gone. The CEO's are working off a different scorecard, practically and morally. We're not just playing by wildly divergent rules, our lives and careers are DEFINED by those wildly divergent rules.

13) To them, we are IN FACT being "unreasonable", as our behavior does not make sense in their moral framework. They don't think they're being evil, they think they're playing by the actual rules, and we're nuts.

14) There's not great conclusion to this, other than to note that the bit about making writers homeless was described as "cruel but necessary" because they genuinely don't understand the meaning of cruel, because they are always on the other side of the power dynamic.

15) And if they're ever NOT on the top of the power dynamic, they're not suffering, they're dead. They are un-people in their own eyes.

16) These men are not irrational, but they are deranged. This isn't about money, it's about identity. And in a fight about identity … they will set billions on fire.

Because they can always get more money. But they'll never shed the stink of losing to their lessers."

end of image description]

[callmebrycelee]

Advice from a Queer Almost-40 BuckTommy Shipper

Over the last several months, there's been a one-sided war brewing between Buddie shippers and BuckTommy shippers. As we get ready for Season 8, I want to give all of you fellow BuckTommy/Tevan/Kinley shippers some advice:

Do NOT let them ruin something truly groundbreaking and special.

I repeat:

Do NOT let them ruin something truly groundbreaking and special.

Let me take you way back to the early-2010s. Glee was quite popular in the cultural zeitgeist. The show spawned a plethora of ships including Finchel, Brittana, Samcedes, and Fabrey. However, there was one ship that reigned supreme on Beyoncé and Al Gore's internet. If you were on Tumblr during this time you definitely remember the chokehold Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson aka Klaine had on the Glee fandom.

Now I'll admit, at first, I was into the two glee club gays being together but then episode 2x06 aired. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, episode 2x06 titled "Never Been Kissed" is episode where closeted football jock Dave Karofsky cornered Kurt in the boys' lockerroom and kissed him. What followed was some of the best storytelling in the history of the show.

Over the next few seasons, we watched Dave Karofsky come to terms with his sexuality, apologize to Kurt for his relentless bullying, finally embrace his sexuality, get outed, and attempt to un-alive himself. Those of us who initially hated Dave and his initial treatment of Kurt became fans of him due to how realistic he was. If you went to high school in the early-2000s, chances are you either knew someone like Karofsky or you were him. That's why he resonated with so many of us in the queer community.

However, the showrunners weren't invested in Dave and Kurt becoming an item. You have to remember, this was the era of listening to the fandom and giving them exactly what they wanted. The fandom wanted Rachel and Finn to be together so that's what we got. The fandom wanted Brittany and Santana to be together so that's what we got. And what the fandom wanted was Kurt and Blaine.

Till this day, I still resent the fact that the showrunners and writers went the safe route when it came to couples on Glee. For the most part, all of their main pairings were expected and boring. Over a decade removed from the show, a lot of folks have come around to the idea that maybe Kurt and Blaine aren't the #couplegoals they initially thought. A lot of us will forever wonder just how different (and possibly better) the show would have been if they took a chance on Kurt and Dave.

Fast-forward to the year 2024. We have, on another Ryan Murphy show, Klaine and Kurtofsky 2.0. The moment Eddie came on the scene back in Season 2, folks on the internet started shipping him with Buck. Nevermind that these two were coded as platonic friends, here we had, once again, two good-looking guys played by two actors who have impeccable chemistry.

Much like Klaine, a lot of us see Buddie as boring. The ship smacks of cis straight women overlly fascinated by two good-looking, masculine guys. It reminds me of the overabundance of m/m romance written by straight women which have little interest in showcasing real queer male relationships and instead serve as fantasy fulfillment for straight women using two queer men as avatars to satisfy what they feel is lacking in their own heterosexual relationships. I don't necessary have a problem with those books existing but I do take issue with that kind of storytelling overshadowing queer male content written by queer male writers.

Whew! Now that I got that out of my system, let me tell you what I loved most about the latest season of 9-1-1. It seems the showrunners and writers of this show took note of what happened with Glee and they decided to go a different route. Instead of listening to the relentless noise on the internet, they have decided to not go the safe route.

Enter: Tommy Kinard.

The romance between Buck and Tommy is truly revolutionary. As someone who grew up consuming the queer media of the 90s and early-2000s, it is quite refreshing to have a couple like Evan Buckley and Tommy Kinard on primetime television. I love that many of the scenes between these two is just slice of life. Very similar to the scenes we get between Athena and Bobby and Chimney and Maddie. I've always said that true equality is when queer people can be just as mundane as straight people. Mission accomplished. Finally, we have two queer characters just existing and being happy. No AIDS. No gay-bashing. No Don't Ask Don't Tell. No epic coming out scene. Buck and Tommy are a shining example of what queer couples can and should look like in the 2020s.

So, back to my original point. When it comes to the great ship war, please do NOT let them ruin something so groundbreaking and special. If the showrunners wanted , they could have made Buck and Eddie a thing years ago. However, that's not the direction they wanted to venture. Thank you Tim Minear for not going the safe route. I look forward to all of the rich storytelling we will get in Season 8 and I have decided that whatever happens, I'm going to enjoy this era of 9-1-1. Oliver Stark and Lou Ferrigno Jr. are amazing actors but so are Angela Bassett and Peter Krause and Aisha Hinds and Kenneth Choi. All of the actors on this show, whether main or guest or supporting, are putting their whole self into crafting the characters we know and love. Regardless of what ship you champion, keep in mind that behind these beloved characters are real, human actors who do not deserve to be bullied and harrassed and threatened due to them simply doing their job. At the end of the day, everything we see on the screen is fiction.

Okay, this has gotten really long. Stepping off of my soapbox. Remember ladies and gentlemen, it's just a show. And although it makes us feel real emotions, 9-1-1 nor Glee is real life.

[the-loststone]

HotD Team Green Defense

The amount of people who fail to grasp Team Green's perspective is honestly staggering to me. So many people are Team Black, maybe out of some (misplaced) belief that they are being feminists and advocating for female power, or something like that, and choose to ignore the very legitimate worries and motivations of Team Green. Admittedly, the show has gone out of it's way to villainize Team Green as much as possible, while victimizing Team Black, and deviating from the source material for this narrative. (I would tell them to be suspicious when showrunners do that because they did the same thing to Daenerys in GoT and everyone was surprised when she turned around and burned a city down in a rushed ending because the show never properly developed her arc.) Nevertheless, despite their efforts to make Team Green the less appealing side, if I had to compare motivations, Team Black is the more villainous.

So many people dismiss the fact that for Rhaenyra to secure her throne, she would have to kill her siblings. They write it off as paranoia of Alicent, or ambitions of her and Otto, that they are making excuses for Aegon to be made king instead of Rhaenyra. But that's just not true. These are very real likelihoods. Even if Aegon did not seek the throne, or he and his brothers decided to gracefully allow the succession to pass to Rhaenyra, it would never be peaceful. Just look at Rhaenys and how Corlys is still bitter and Viserys has been worried that they may come after him since she has a right to the throne. That's one of the main benefits in having Rhaenyra marry Ser Laenor was to join their claims. Or look at how worried everyone was of Daemon, and how he may seize power after Viserys. The only thing keeping him alive was his brother's love for him, the fact that their house was dwindling, and no one was fighting on his behalf over Viserys. So if there is every another claimant, it would be a great worry that the side in power may be kicked off by another claimant. And Aegon and his brothers are men, and just by virtue of having dicks, they have a better claim to the throne. All laws, precedent, and cultures in Westeros have male heirs before female heirs. The king's word does not change that. And note that the King only made Rhaenyra his heir over his brother. So technically, the King said "all my children first, including my daughter, then my brother." (Something already controversial because if it was accepted before, Rhaenys would be Queen and he would be nothing). But he never again made a statement for the lords after his sons births. He never reinforced Rhaenyra's succession as his heir outside the privacy of their own quarters. Alicent even said, let the lords come and decide, and make vows, and he and Rhaenyra reject it because they worried the Lords would choose Aegon.

Rhaenyra knows, to inherit without rebellions every few years from lords who are unhappy with her and want to supplant her with her brothers, she would have to kill her brothers and make sure there are no people who can contest her right to inherit.

And this is just Rhaenyra's succession. Now add in the fact that she's claiming illegitimate children as her heirs. Very obvious illegitimate children. Even if Rhaenyra managed to successfully inherit with no push back from anyone, and no one wanted to supplant her with her brothers so she didn't have to kill them then... well guess what, she'll have to kill them to secure her son's ascension to the throne. (And if she won't then Daemon certainly would). And then, even if she does kill all the Greens, then there's the issue of her legitimate children vs. her illegitimate children. Even if the kids grew up to love each other, someone may say, well the first three shouldn't inherit, let's put the legitimate ones on the throne. And then you have a completely different succession crisis.

Viserys' actions may seem to the viewers as promoting girl power and feminism, but that's not what's happening. He's being an abusive, neglectful shit. He's deliberately putting the rest of his children's lives in jeopardy, and even the Strong grandchildren he claims to love, because by keeping them in the succession despite their obvious illegitimacy invites people to contest that. And that's not to say he couldn't have taken steps to remedy this. He could have changed the rules so that succession passes to the eldest child, regardless of gender. But he didn't. He could have acknowledged that his grandchildren were illegitimate and forgiven it and legitimized them as Targaryens, but he didn't (conveniently usurping Valeryons - and people may argue that Baela/ Rhaena can still rule being married to Jace/Luke, but that's not the same as being able to rule in your own right, otherwise, why not take the offer for Rhaenyra to marry Aegon).

But since he didn't do any of these things, the only way to stop the Dance would have been for him to make Aegon his successor. Something that everyone would have been relieved by because it would have prevented war. But he didn't. And so, Alicent has to fight to keep her kids alive. The Greens have to push their claim to survive. Whereas, had Rhaenyra graciously backed off her claim, saying that yes, she had 3 brothers, and while they were younger, the laws and precedent are in their corner to inherit, then she would have lived. People wouldn't have fought for her claim if she hadn't pushed it. Nor would they fight for an illegitimate heir.

But some may say... Well Rhaenyra has more supporters. She does. She has the Velaryons and countless other houses backing her. So do the Greens. (the Greens have the wealthiest houses). But once it becomes a fight to throne, it's less about who has the right, and more about who can offer you the most. Notice the Starks and the Baratheons agree to fight because they'll get a wedding out of it (and the Starks because they'll have somewhere to send people during their current famine). The Vale because of the blood ties. The Lannisters because of past insults. Once it's decided to be a fight, it's never about who actually has a right to the throne, it becomes about who can give you the most so you can help them win it.

And this is what it really comes down to. Rhaenyra had a choice. She can back off, and her family can survive. Her brothers can live. Her sons will live. Or she can inherit, and her brothers can die. And she is perfectly willing for her brothers to die. And some may say that that's a very jaded view to take on Rhaenyra and she would never kill her family if she could help it... but it would be out of her hands. It would be necessary to protect her son's right to inherit and to keep away possible rebellions.

And you know, fine, that's okay. She wants to fight for the throne, more power to her. She can go after the throne and kill her brothers. But I don't think it's right that people say that she's the aggrieved party. She's not. She's the aggressor.

And that is why I'm team Green. Because Alicent is right. Just by living and breathing, Aegon and his brothers are threats to Rhaenyra. And this would have happened no matter who Viserys married. Sure people can be upset that Alicent married her bffs dad (something that only happens in the show because in the books, Alicent is 10 years older than Rhaenyra and they weren't close), but that doesn't mean her children should die because Rhaenyra is the preferred child. That doesn't mean the realm should be thrown into war because Alicent 'seduced' a widow. (And I say that with heavy sarcasm because Viserys is a grown ass man.)

And then there's the argument of who's the better house because of blood purity. It's a ridiculous argument and I'm honestly annoyed by people who are Targaryen purists and believe in the whole, dragon supremacy. Hightower is badass house. A lot of people don't realize that they've been around since The Wall and Winterfell were built (Bran the Builder built Hightower, commissioned by the Lord / King of Hightower). They've been around since before Targaryen's rode dragons. So spare me the ridiculous arguments of who's got the most Targaryen blood. If anything, Team Green is more Westerosi, you know, the country they are trying to rule.

In the end, the show will do what it does best, and disappoint you. Either they'll continue pushing this narrative of girl-boss queen and fail to show the complexity of the political situation that result from Rhaenyra's decisions. Or they might stick to the book and have a complex issue actually displayed and show both Aegon and Rhaenyra's descent into madness.

There are more issues one could delve into. Like the fact that Rhaenyra married Daemon. That either Corlys Velaryon has so much unhinged ambition that he's ignored deaths in his house to side with those who have literally murdered his family (cough cough Vaemond and Laenor) (and the whole Laenor excuse in the show makes no sense because no way in hell are Rhaenyra and Daemon risking that he's ever found and that their kids are declared bastards; it is much cleaner for them to do it like they did in the books and kill him) or there will be serious repercussions from the deaths of Velaryons and continued discussion of the succession of Driftmark/High Tide.

But that's the main summary of my thoughts. 👍

If you made it to the end of my rant. Thank you.

[ariaste]

I know we've all been entertained by the "Lestat choked Daniel for asking about IWTV" thing but I wonder if that is what is actually happening? The showrunners have already demonstrated awareness of racial issues, so it is not implausible to me that they would show awareness of disability issues too, and it would be a very cool and fresh take on vampirism if Daniel just.... still has symptoms of Parkinson's even after he's turned? Rather than being magically cured?

(from Healthline.com)

Like there's a recurring theme in the books about how you're sort of frozen in time when you become a vampire (everyone keeps all their mental illnesses and political interests and body type and [checks notes] hairstyle) so like... Chronically ill vampire Daniel, anyone???