#they're my favorite giant dysfunctional family

[forestcat222]

So I've seen AU concepts where Rhaegar becomes king and stays married to Elua, or gets married to Lyanna, or gets married to Cersei, or (my favorite) him marrying all of them

Now I hate Rhaegar. I despise that man, and the idea of him marrying all these women who are too good for him doesn't exactly please me buuuut.....

Think of the kids, imagine you keep all the Canon kids (Aegon, Rhaenys, Jon, Joffrey, Myrcella, tommen) that means they're all siblings.

Joffrey has three older siblings fighting with him constantly. Tommen has two sweet older brothers and two sweet big sisters who will protect him. Jon and Joffrey are both the middle children. Myrcella has an awesome big sister who she can spend time with. Aegon is the oldest brother and gets to tease all his little brothers. Joffrey teases Jon about being shorter than him.

The sibling interaction potential give me life!!!

I think I might need to write an AU for this. I love the idea of this giant absurd dysfunctional family!

[kabillieu]

This is a very long and rambling post about our house-buying process in Alabama, so here's a cut for courtesy.

We are in the process of buying a house in Prattville, AL which is a suburb of Montgomery.

We flew into Atlanta on Saturday, rented a car, and drove to my parents' house, which is an hour from Montgomery. We spent all day Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday touring houses. I had no idea what to expect. Unlike when we bought our previous two houses, we didn't really have a favorite going into this process. We also had many more constraints and mismatched desires, as well. And the market is much more expensive. We also think that we might be in this house for many years, maybe forever. There was just so much pressure to make the right choice, but I didn't even really know what would be right for us. I *did* know we couldn't buy a historic home in Montgomery because Montgomery public schools are too dysfunctional and underfunded to accommodate our ASD kid. That left the suburbs, and we have never lived in a suburb before.

I've been having a low-key identity crisis about all this for a while because for 20 years I've defined my adult personality based on living in urban and walkable communities. I had to ask myself if I would be okay living in "the country" or in a new-build community with an HOA next to a strip mall. I asked myself why I had constructed my identity the way I had. What was wrong with living in a brand new house? Why couldn't I be okay in a small neighborhood 15 minutes outside of town? I'm still not sure I know the answers to these questions, especially the question of why I don't like brand new tract housing, but it became clear to me while we were touring all these houses that I absolutely needed to live in a neighborhood that is big and safe enough (by which I mean it has sidewalks) to walk for 45 minutes or run for 30 minutes. So that ruled out country houses. We saw a lot of nice and very expensive tract houses in giant new neighborhoods, and although these houses do not feel like they're *for me* that is honestly just a matter of not liking their vibes rather than any real reasoning of logic or consequence.

Dominic and I also had differing values and desires going into this house hunt. He wanted something newer and much bigger. He wanted a bonus room and four bedrooms. He wanted a big master suite with a big shower and big closets and lots of storage space. He had even gotten really close to building a new house, and we did a test build with builders and had a house, floor plan, and everything picked out. I wasn't super comfortable with this, which I know is crazy because it's such a big commitment, but I went along with it because it was difficult for me to articulate what *is* important to me. Dominic was just a lot more certain about what he wanted, and I trust him, so I decided to be okay with trying something new. But then at the last minute he decided he didn't want to build with this company in that specific location, and that's when we realized we were going to have to fly down here and house hunt.

We saw so many houses. Most of them looked the same. They were all expensive and nice. We looked at a lot of properties with pools because that was one thing we agreed was important to us. We also looked at a couple of rambling old ranches near the historic downtown. They were both intriguing but too much of a project, especially at their price points. We also looked at a newer house near downtown as well. The owner was there for that tour, and she talked about how cute downtown Prattville is (it's just an L-shaped strip, but it *is* very cute). She said there were a couple of nice parks nearby and her family was always walking all over the neighborhood and walking downtown for parades and festivals and even tubing in a nearby creek. I didn't like her house very much, but I loved the idea of living so close to the historic downtown area, and the neighborhood is big and mixed with newer and older homes. The landscaping is established with trees and bushes and grasses and flowers.

I was interested in this house based on the location, but Dominic didn't really care for the house, and it really was just okay. I didn't feel great about it or bad about it. It was just a house built in 2012 or so, and it looked like every other house we had looked at except slightly smaller. So I let the idea of living near downtown go, and we kept looking.

But the very last house we looked at was another 70s ranch in the same neighborhood. I was certain it would be weird or need a lot of work or be too small for Dominic. And then it was kind of perfect. It was updated enough with new paint, appliances, and granite countertops, had original hardwood floors, a formal sitting room with glass French doors, a living room with a fireplace, a dining room, an eat-in kitchen, four bedrooms, three full baths, and a pool in the backyard. It even had a built-in wet bar in the living room, a period detail which I found hilarious and charming. It was also priced dramatically lower than the other houses we had seen, and it was one hilly but walkable mile from the historic downtown, which is comparable to our house in Omaha.

To me, it immediately felt like home. Like, this was emotional logic, not rational logic. It was not Dominic's first choice, and not nearly as big and updated as he wanted, but he agreed to it, and now we're in the process of buying it. Of course, it could fall through, but our offer has been accepted and we've put earnest money down and have a closing date. And I genuinely love this house. I was not expecting to feel anything but acceptance about this move. To feel genuine excitement about the very last house we looked at is amazing. This 70s ranch would be nothing special to many people, but to me it's wonderful. I hope we're able to close on it in May, and I hope my family and I will be very happy there for many years.

[fayesdiary]

You know who I haven't talked about for a really long time? The Annas!

I wanna talk about Annabelle (the playable Anna from Fates for the unintiated about this whole Anna Clan thing), since after all this time I finally got a good grip on who I want her to be!

Considering how many children Mother Anna and Jake have, some of them were bound to have middle child syndrome. Annabelle constantly compares herself to her sisters, feels the rest of the family barely notice her, and she's desperately trying to find her place in it.

This is why deep down she values her rivalry with Annalise (Awakening): while the two constantly bicker with each other, Annalise pushes her to improve in a way that the idealized versions of her sisters never could, even if it's out of spite. Also, well, she appreciates the attention.

Annalise loves to call her "Dumbbelle". She's still trying to figure out an embarassing nickname of her own as payback.

Ironically, while she feels she's not as good a merchant as her siblings, she's one of the sneakiest Annas, hence her default class being an Outlaw, wielding a bow and her Xenologue in Fates. Her main career is treasure hunting and permanently borrowing riches from bandits.

In general, Annabelle developed quite the snark, but she can be really sweet and grateful to those who appreciate her.

Also, the six fingers in her artwork were surely an art error, but who cares? She has twelve fingers now because I said so.

[i-cant-sing]

What are your favorite story tropes?

Hmmm these are my fav story and character tropes:

Okay, 1000000% I'm all for the big, ridiculously strong yet dumb himbo man that just wanna makes s/o happy but often fails to think things through and thus ends up causing problems for s/o- ahh I just LOVE the pain and thoughtfulness going hand in hand so much.

The villain/troublemaker that is mean to everyone, ready to murder them for so much as breathing the same air as them, but for their s/o, they have goo goo eyes and they're just so uncharacteristically soft for s/o- look I'm a simple woman. I see a simp, my brain go BRRRR.

Characters snapping that make you go "ABOUT GODDAMN TIME QUEEN!" or "FUCK HIM UP, GIRLIE."

When they give the villain that spicy backstory that finally makes you understand why they do what they do, and you start thinking of society and/or the hero is being unfair to the villain, and you begin rooting for the bad guy... only for the said villain to sacrifice himself for you and all you can do is sit there holding their head in your lap and wonder if they even knew you loved them before they died... yes, I like to make myself suffer.

Goofy villain x literal sunshine s/o

When the hero is exhausted because of all the work the higher ups give him and he inevitably faints and its the villain who nurses them back to health.

A group of characters that are highly UNSUITABLE to take care of a child because of all their weapons/"villainous" powers/ anything that doesn't fit them in the society's frame of what a perfect family should look like but they look at the child and decide they'd be far better parents than the child's biological ones and hence, child ends up with a very dysfunctional yet LOVING family who will not hesitate to burn down the world for the reader- *cough* like Yandere RE8: TRP *cough*

Self sacrifice- duh.

That guy/alien or something that is either mute or doesn't know the language or how to express himself properly, who wants to tell you that he loves but doesn't know how to so he just tries his luck on physical affection, like suddenly holds your head in his giant hands and just stares into your eyes for a long time and you think he's gonna kiss you but he blushes and just pats your head before walking away embarrased. But its on you, completely on you to figure out that he was saying he loves you in his own way. You're 100% to blame if you can't figure that out on your own.

Medieval/old era protagonist ending up in the modern era magically and falling HARD for the modern darling who is not putting up with his misogynistic bull but helps him anyway because they remind me of someone. And the whole time this protagonist (who most likely is a prince/king from his era) has heart eyes and you make his heart skip beats because of all the normal things you do because he didn't know kindness could be so free and readily available. Of course, when you help him finally get back to his timeline, he definitely pulls you along and traps you in there with him <3

And anything that's well written and has me squealing at the cuteness. I'm definitely missing a couple more but these are all that come to mind rn.