#when i say carcosa i mean the place at the end of the show its just more fun to say carcosa

[simmaster]

my latest true detective season one autism activities have been making a map of louisiana (and a bit of texas) marking off every place the characters are said to have visited and a timeline of everything that happened to them that we have specific years for (some of them aren't from the year being said but from characters saying like "four years ago") which i definitely could have made look a lot less terrible but i was more focused on accuracy than it looking nice maybe i'll remake it idk

[reds-writings]

Hey!!! I wanted to start this out by saying that your writings for Rust has been nothing short of amazing ! There aren't enough fics out there for Rust, and yours have honestly been getting me through it.

Now, idk if this is the type of ask you were looking for, but with Old Man Rust, especially when he was in Alaska all that time- I've always wondered the details about his time out there (besides the obvious/what we already know). I mean- it's Rust we're talking about, and that poor tortured man...it couldn't have been great.

I know he spent most of his childhood up there alone with his father and such, but this time around? After everything happened? I've always assumed his self-isolation was probably at the highest it'd ever been, especially with how he talked about it.

Idk- I've always wanted to know his thoughts/feelings about so many different scenes/things within the show, but this is definitely one of the biggest ones. Even if you relate it to the jj universe- I think adding a partner adds layers to my curiosity on his experience/thoughts/feelings. I know when you answered that fluff prompt ask, them being away from each other for all that time was talked about; he still loves her very much, and is incredibly troubled about all of it.

Anyways! I feel like I've gotten a bit carried away, so I'll stop before I keep going 💀. You definitely don't need to feel obligated to respond or spend time on this, but know that your contribution to the true detective community on here is greatly appreciated 🥺.

Howdy! I love this ask!! The more detailed the more fun! And thank you so much for the love ahhh!!

(this will include some spoilers ahead for the JJ universe pls don't kill me lol)

I love the dissection of Rust's reasoning for returning to Alaska, of all places, after the big fight of 02. My fave idea being that he did it as a form of self-punishment for taking part in hurting his only companions in Louisiana. Applying these events to the JJ universe: the incident with Maggie will still be taking place sadly. But hear me out!!!!

In 02 with the resurgence of the Yellow King/Carcosa Rust easily found himself obsessively spiraling back into the Dora Lange case. With all the frustration and lack of support from the department (and Marty), he resorts back to nastier habits and ways of regarding those around him with JJ!Reader unfortunately being in the crossfire more often than not. It places a heavy strain on the relationship to the point where she reaches a breaking point bc tbh he is not being a very good partner at all (stress and frustration can only be an excuse for so long). They break up with her telling him to practically get it together if he wants them to ever continue but of course, shit just spirals more out of control with his hurt and anger so of course it reaches its crescendo with him having to quit then Maggie using their incredible emotional vulnerability to an advantage which he ends up regretting immediately of course because even if he's not currently with JJ!Reader it's no less of a pathetic form of betrayal.

When the fight goes down and he loses Marty it's one thing. Seeing the reader and the tie between them being severed completely with no one else but himself to blame is just about as close to dying as he'll get in that moment. He shit on her trust once and for all and took a friend from her in the process. He knows that there can be no forgiveness even if he were to beg with whatever last bit of reverence he had or sell his sorry soul.

Alaska is a bitterly lonely time for him and from tidbits he mentions in the show he didn't do much to change that loneliness while he was away. Circling back to before I think it was his way of extreme penance and if it weren't for another resurgence in the case he would've probably let himself die there alone with all the drinking/carelessness and wouldn't have had it in him to feel sorry about it if it happened.

Coming back to Louisiana things have changed plenty with Marty, Maggie, and the reader. I think the way he prioritizes his crumbled relationship with Marty (for both the case's sake and his) versus how he passively regards Maggie in the bar will forever be interesting to me. I feel like he'd be scared as hell to even come near the reader knowing she still harbors hatred and pain but Marty the Meddler drags her back in because he knows the two will never be able to truly stay away from each other. It takes a lot and the relationship may never be exactly what it once was but he'd selfishly rather have her near in some capacity than never at all once he's gotten a taste of her presence after so many years. I can't wait to write all that angst and yearning bc we love tension 🤭

Now that was a ramble omg! Hopefully, I didn't stray too off course!

[ofthemuses]

True Detective Sentence Meme: Season One (another of my favorites, well, the first season at least.)

WARNING: Triggering content, NSFW content, religion/death/violence/sex/drugs/suicide mentioned. Lots of foul language 

Regular Quotes

I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist...

Oh, just a regular type dude... with a big ass dick.

People out here, it's like they don't even know the outside world exists. Might as well be living on the fucking Moon.

It's all one ghetto man.

Stop saying shit like that. It's unprofessional.

So what's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

I tell myself I bear witness, but the real answer is that it's obviously my programming. And I lack the constitution for suicide.

Let's make the car a place of silent reflection from now on.

Can I ask you something? You're a Christian, yeah?

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Can you get pills pretty easy?

Listen, when you're at my house, I want you to chill the fuck out.

There's nothing I can do about it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but... I'm gonna have a drink.

Given how long its taken for me to reconcile my nature, I can't figure I'd forgo it on your account.

Hmm. That sounds God-fucking-awful.

Isn't that a beautiful way to go out, painlessly as a happy child?

Trouble with dying later is you've already grown up. The damage is done. It's too late.

I can be hard to live with. I don't mean to, but I can be... critical.

Sometimes I think I'm just not good for people, that it's not good for them to be around me. 

Such holy bullshit from you. It's a woman's body, ain't it? A woman's choice.

Girls walk this Earth all the time screwin' for free. Why is it you add business to the mix and boys like you can't stand the thought? I'll tell you. It's cause suddenly you don't own it the way you thought you did.

Is shitting on any moment of decency part of your job description?

Nothing man, sorry, forget it.

You got some self loathing to do this morning, that's fine, but it ain't worth losing your hands over.

What's your deal?

I don't have "a deal".

You're kinda strange, like you might be dangerous.

Of course I'm dangerous. I'm police. I can do terrible things to people with impunity.

Now what do you mean exactly... these visions you mentioned.

Shiiiiit, just what have you two heard about me?

What the hell good is cake if you can't eat it?

You know, throughout history, I bet every old man probably said the same thing. And old men die, and the world keeps spinnin'.

What do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh?

Just observation and deduction. I see a propensity for obesity. Poverty. A yen for fairy tales.

I think it's safe to say nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom.

You see that. Your fucking attitude. 

 Not everybody wants to sit alone in an empty room beating off to murder manuals.

Yeah, well if the common good's gotta make up fairy tales, then it's not good for anybody.

Well, I don't use ten dollar words as much as you, but for a guy who sees no point in existence, you sure fret about it an awful lot.

I mean, can you imagine if people didn't believe, what things they'd get up to?

Exact same thing they do now. Just out in the open.

Bullshit. It'd be a fucking freak show of murder and debauchery and you know it.

If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit; and I'd like to get as many of them out in the open as possible.

Well, I guess your judgment is infallible, piece-of-shit-wise.

You figure it's all a scam, huh? All them folks? They just wrong?

People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time.

Do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?

World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

But I think I'm all fucked up.

You don't have to fall in love at first sight, you know.

Every time I think you've hit a ceiling, you, you keep raising the bar. You're like the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.

Fuuuck! Hell of a bedside manner you've got.

Ahh, you know, being stupid is different than going in sick, and this is a bar, not a fuckin' bedside.

All the dick swagger you roll, you can't spot crazy pussy?

So, enough with the self-improvement-penance-hand-wringing shit. Let's go to work.

Oh God damn it, I am so done talking to you like a man.

What the fuck you think I want with you, huh?

I'm sorry. What are you suggesting, exactly?

I will skull-fuck you, you bitch!

This is none of my business... I don't want to hear it.

Do you know the good years when you're in them, or do you just wait for them until you get ass cancer?

What always happens between men and women? Reality.

Someone once told me time is a flat circle.

The newspapers are gonna be tough on you.

No, buddy, without me... there is no you.

Yeah. Fuck this. Fuck this world.

You know, people that give me advice, I reckon they're talking to themselves.

A man's game charges a man's price. Take that away from this, if nothing else.

I'm the person least in the need of counseling in this entire fucking state.

Thought maybe we should talk.

If you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself.

Hey, man, look. Why don't you just get out of here, please? I don't want to get arrested. Just - just get... before I do something to you.

I slept with someone... And you know him/her... You're close.

Oh... Now, what-what are you saying?... What - what are you - what the fuck are you saying to me?

Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.

If you were drowning, I'd throw you a fuckin' barbell.

Why would I ever help you?

Hey. You better get those jumper cables ready, the motherfucker is lying.

Get on out of here, you're classin' the place up.

My family's been here a long, long time.

He ain't gonna talk with you.

I got a car battery and two jumper cables argue different.

A man remembers his debts.

Fuck, I don't like this place... Nothing grows in the right direction.

What happened in my head is not something that gets better.

Well you know what, I just got here; I was gonna leave, but then you woke up - Jesus, what's your fuckin' problem?

Not a care in the world.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Yeah... well, I'll come back by tomorrow, buddy.

Don't ever change, man.

Agh. Ah, fuck. Ah, he got me pretty good...

Do I strike you as a talker or a doer?

You'll rip out your fucking stitches. Stop it.

This is the place.

Everybody's got a choice, ____... Shit, I sure blamed you.

There you go... Everybody's got a choice.

It's hard to find something in a man who rejects people as much as you do, you know that?

Come die with me, little priest.

The DEEP SHIT™

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution.

There can be a burden in authority, in vigilance, like a father's burden.

I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal. 

This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory is fading.

I contemplate the moment in the garden; the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.

I don't sleep, I just dream. 

You got kids? I think of the hubris it must take, to yank a sole out of nonexistence into this meat; a force of life into this thresher.

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Yeah, back then, the visions, yeah most of the time I was convinced... Shit... I'd lost it. But there were other times... I thought I was mainlining the secret truth of the universe.

I mean, it's like somethin's got your name on it, like a bullet or a nail in the road...

People... so goddamn frail they'd rather put a coin in the wishing well than buy dinner.

This... This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean when I'm talkin' about time, and death, and futility.

They welcomed it... not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an unmistakable relief. See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to just... let go.

All your life--you know, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain--it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person.

And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it.

You see, we all got what I call a life trap - a gene deep certainty that things will be different...

Nothing's ever fulfilled, not until the very end. And closure - nothing is ever over.

I have seen the finale of thousands of lives, man. Young, old, each one so sure of their realness. You know that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual with purpose and meaning. So certain that they were more than biological puppet. The truth wills out, and everybody sees. Once the strings are cut, all fall down.

In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So Death created time to grow the things that it would kill.

And you are reborn, but into the same life that you've always been born into. I mean, how many times have we had this conversation? Well, who knows?

When you can't remember your lives, you can't change your lives, and that is the terrible and the secret fate of all life. You're trapped by that nightmare you keep waking up into.

I can see your soul at the edges of your eyes. It's corrosive, like acid. 

Sometimes... this feeling like life has slipped through your fingers... like the future is behind you, like it's always been behind you.

There's a shadow on you, son.

I saw you in my dream. You're in Carcosa now with me... He sees you... You'll do this again... Time is a flat circle.

There's no such thing as forgiveness. People just have short memories.

All my life I wanted to be nearer to God. But the only nearness - silence.

Some people, no matter where they look, they see themselves.

You see, sometimes people... mistake a child as an answer for something, you know, like a way to change their story.

Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgments: everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that... You're livin' wrong.

Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning.

[foundcarcosa]

cxciii.

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? >> I’m not sure. I’ll name six songs I listen to a lot, at any rate: Black Out Days, Phantograms; Emperor’s New Clothes, Panic at the Disco; Power, Kanye West; Noll, kent; Some Time Ago..., Dethklok; No Resurrection, AFI.

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? >> Oh, I don’t know. Stephen King, maybe. But without the opportunity of long conversations with a couple six packs while sitting in rocking chairs by a river, I don’t see why I would bother.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. >> “Mrs Massey’s real. She leaves pieces of herself. You saw them. So did Mom... and she doesn’t shine.” - Doctor Sleep

4: What do you think about most? >> I don’t think any subject is most prominent.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? >> It was the new router password.

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? >> I usually sleep with some garment or another on. The type of clothing varies with season.

7: What’s your strangest talent? >> None of my skills are strange in my perspective.

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) >> Girls just wanna have fun. [The] boys are back in town.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? >> I’ve had a poem written about me.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? >> I usually play air drums.

11: Do you have any strange phobias? >> No.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? >> No.

13: What’s your religion? >> I don’t have a religion, because I’m an avowed syncretist (not to mention technically atheist, although it’s not that I don’t ‘believe in God’ so much as that I have an indefinable and constantly shifting concept of the numinous).

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? >> Walking, smoking, looking at stars, getting some fresh air, exploring, being nosy, who knows.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? >> In front of it.

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? >> I don’t have one single favourite band. I lost interest in trying.

17: What was the last lie you told? >> I don’t remember.

18: Do you believe in karma? >> I think the original concept of karma is interesting, and the veracity of it doesn’t really matter much to me either way.

19: What does your URL mean? >> It’s a play on “Lost Carcosa”, although its personal meaning is a little beyond that by now.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? >> Curiosity. (Yes, it fits both.)

21: Who is your celebrity crush? >> Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Aisha Hinds, Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, that guy who played Billy on Sirens, that guy with the great smile who hosts Celebrity Ninja Warrior...

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? >> No.

23: How do you vent your anger? >> I prefer not to vent it. It runs its course much easier when I simply don’t give it any attention, negative or positive.

24: Do you have a collection of anything? >> No. I don’t grok collecting.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? >> I prefer video chatting if I must choose between the two.

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? >> I am happy with constantly becoming.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? >> A sound I hate is people sniffling, especially if they do it constantly; a sound I love is the distant roar of traffic on a clear summer night.

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? >> Not sure.

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? >> I don’t believe in ghosts personally, but I do believe in extraterrestrial life. I think aliens just interest me more than ghosts.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. >> A beer bottle. A counter.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? >> Nothing specific.

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? >> I don’t know.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? >> I’m not familiar enough with both coasts to have an actual opinion.

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? >> ---

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? >> The meaning of my life is constant change and constant curiosity.

36: Define Art. >> The meaning of art for me is whatever excites my senses and invites an emotional response.

37: Do you believe in luck? >> I believe in synchronicity, and I think luck falls into that jurisdiction.

38: What’s the weather like right now? >> Sunny and warm.

39: What time is it? >> 5.58p EST.

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? >> No.

41: What was the last book you read? >> The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. Finally finished it.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? >> Yes, quite. Not in abundance, though, or for long periods of time.

43: Do you have any nicknames? >> Dio, Rev, Eddie.

44: What was the last film you saw? >> The Thing (the 2011 remake).

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? >> A facial laceration.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? >> Nope.

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? >> My current active special interests are comparative mythology, the Dark Tower, eldritch stories and concepts, theology and mysticism, social evolution, and supermassive black holes. (I’m watching a show about that last one right now.)

48: What’s your sexual orientation? >> I like dicks and I prefer them to be nonhuman. (I don’t have a solid sexual orientation. The only)

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? >> Not that I recall or know of.

50: Do you believe in magic? >> I suppose I do, don’t I.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? >> No. Grudges don’t interest me in the slightest.

52: What is your astrological sign? >> Gemini Sun (and Moon, and Mercury); Scorpio Rising.

53: Do you save money or spend it? >> I spend it when I can and save some when it’s possible.

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? >> Netflix’s monthly payment date was today.

55: Love or lust? >> Both are delightful.

56: In a relationship? >> Am I in one? Yes.

57: How many relationships have you had? >> Enough to know I’m not done having them.

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? >> Nope.

59: Where were you yesterday? >> At home.

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? >> Sparrow’s mouse and phone case are both mostly pink.

61: Are you wearing socks right now? >> Yes.

62: What’s your favourite animal? >> Snakes, spiders, capybara, otters... dogs...

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? >> I don’t use any special weapons to get someone to like me. I want someone’s appreciation of me to be organic-- based upon a perception of me that’s as untainted by my influence as possible.

64: Where is your best friend? >> In Xibalba, my ‘headspace’.

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. >> I’ll name five random blogs I love looking at for various reasons: arashi-of-ota, thisherelight, ruth-threadgoode, arielshepard, and elfyourmother.

66: What is your heritage? >> My father is Black American and Native, to his understanding; my mother is Haitian.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? >> I was probably on tumblr.

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? >> Why would Satan need a surname?

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? >> Of course?

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? >> Yes.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? >> That depends on how confident I am that losing that job won’t be a huge loss. And honestly, a job has never been of utmost importance to me, so I’d probably end up saving the dog in any case. Or at least finding someone that can, if the canal is too treacherous for my non-swimming ass.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? >> In a case of terminal illness, I’d tell the people in my social circle and then try to come to terms with it in whatever way suits who I am at that time. And yes, I’d definitely be afraid. Hopefully, by that time, the fear would be less of an issue. Hopefully, O’Dim and I will be closer friends by then.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. >> This is such an unimaginative idea.

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? >> Seven Years in Tibet by David Bowie has a pretty good track record for this.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? >> 6463.

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? >> That depends on the people involved, not my opinion. What makes my current relationship effective is communication, investment, and compassion.

77: How can I win your heart? >> It’s not a prize. You don’t win it, you cultivate it, encourage it, inspire it.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? >> In my experience, my creativity is a direct result of my insanity. However, that doesn’t seem to work in every case, so don’t necessarily expect it to.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? >> It’s an interconnected set of decisions, both mine and others’, that create a life. No single decision is responsible for how my life is.

80: What size shoes do you wear? >> 8.5, I think.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? >> I don’t care. Whatever would please those left behind, I suppose.

82: What is your favourite word? >> I have way too many favourite words.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. >> I imagined an anatomically realistic heart.

84: What is a saying you say a lot? >> “son of a whore”

85: What’s the last song you listened to? >> I don’t remember.

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? >> I don’t have favourite colours.

87: What is your current desktop picture? >> It’s a slideshow. Right now, it’s a still from Interstellar.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? >> No thanks.

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? >> I don’t know.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? >> Stare at them for a while, trying to figure out how to proceed.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? >> The ability to manipulate organic and inorganic matter without limit.

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? >> No, thanks.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? >> Why would I need this.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? >> One who’s clean, good in bed, and nice to look at.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? >> Meh.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? >> Not to my knowledge.

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? >> Nope.

98: Ever been on a plane? >> Quite a few times, yes.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? >> “Whaddup, y’all...?”

[i-just-like-commenting]

Final Thoughts While Reading “The World of Ice and Fire” (part 6)

"Some of that is, Here there be dragons," Martin cautioned. "It's beyond the world they know."

Once you get beyond Westeros, the tenor of the book starts to change. You get a lot more talk about things being “exotic” or bizarre or mysterious. Martin himself has said that the further you get from Westeros, the less seriously you should take what the book says, because the more Yandel is relying on hearsay and third- or fourth-hand accounts. You wind up with different levels of knowledge:

The six coastal Free Cities, Braavos, Pentos, Lys, Myr, Tyrosh, and Volantis, all of which have extensive trade and interaction with Westeros directly

The three interior Free Cities, Lorath, Navros, and Qohor; the Summer Islands; and Ib, which while they trade with Westeros are much more reclusive and harder to reach

Central Essos and the Basilisk Isles, which Westeros is more likely to trade with via intermediaries

East of the Bones, and Sothoryos, which are mostly rumor and speculation

Also, this section of the book can be hard to follow unless you have a nice big map of the Known World that came with The Lands of Ice and Fire, which a certain someone just so happened to get for Christmas:

…so let’s started.

How many weird-ass societies can you come up with?

There are a ton of orientalist overtones in this section of The World, but that is, I think, intentional. It is imitating the tone of European works on “the East” for the presentation of Essos. Within the books, too, there tends to be a POV-derived sense of things being mysterious/exotic/bizarre. The characters who are just sojourners there, like Tyrion in Volantis and Dany in Qarth very much have these ideas in their minds. In contrast, Braavos (though not the Faceless Men) becomes more and more ordinary the longer that Arya lives there. I’m looking forward to her reverse culture shock when she comes back to Westeros.

What I do find impressive about this description of Essos is how Martin, for the most part, tries to avoid doing direct one-to-one parallels with real-world cultures. Especially with the Free Cities there’s a strong sense of their situatedness within his own universe and history that defies attempt to make them perfect analogs of anywhere in Europe or the Middle East. The Summer Islands, Sarnath, Ib, Hyrkoon, Qarth, the Dothraki…they all take cues from cultures in real life, but are so mish-mashed that they don’t feel like fantasy counterparts of anywhere real. Some are problematically culturally monolithic (especially with the Dothraki), but at least this particular snarl is avoided.

The one major exception is Yi Ti, which is China. Or rather Cathay, the Medieval image of China as it was received passed down and exaggerated by travelers. Setting aside the fabulous extravagances, there are similarities to Chinese history with its periods of long dynastic stability interrupted brutally by civil war. The monosyllabic nature of most names and words hints at a tonal language ala Chinese (though the consonants, with the inclusion of non-nasal final consonants, are very different from modern Chinese). It’s not a particularly offensive fantasy-China, however, so I’ll let this one slide.

The oddest culture is Hyrkoon, dominated by women who supposedly castrate all men but a handful they use for breeding. It would be great to know more about their history and how much of these tales is true, but unfortunately Yandel’s only real source is Addam of Duskendale (the Marco Polo of Westeros), who

instead spends most of its time finding ways to remind readers that the warrior women walk about barebreasted and decorate their cheeks and nipples with ruby studs and iron rings.

In other words, rather than give cultural background and history, he was too obsessed with just talking about the sexy~~~ bits and I think this might be Martin throwing some shade on the show, especially since this was written around the same time that the notorious Dorne arc happened in seasons 5.

Where do dragons (and other creatures) really come from?

The Valyrians say that dragons were born naturally out of fire and that they were the first to tame them. In Asshai it is said that some pre-Valyrian people tamed them in “the Shadow” and later taught the Valyrians. The maesters assert that there were dragons of some kind in Westeros long before they were tamed in Valyria. And Septon Barth says that dragons were created by Valyrians using fire magic out of the monstrous but not particularly supernatural wyverns that live in Sothoryos.

A good rule of thumb is that Septon Barth is probably right, but that means having to figure out how all the other pieces fit together. Some can be dismissed as self-aggrandizement, but there seems to be a common root in several of the stories, namely the importance of fire magic. Asshai is a major source of fire mages; if they had worked with Valyrians to create the first dragons, it could have served as the basis of their respective myths.

But that leaves the question of whether there were really dragons in Westeros before the Valyrians created them. I can come up with three major possibilities:

Septon Barth is wrong and there have always been fully functional dragons all over the place. I think we can dismiss this one out of hand.

The maesters correctly attribute things like knighthood or seven references to anachronism, but don’t with dragons. In reality dragons only appeared in Westeros as strays from Valyria much later in history.

The “dragons” from ancient Westeros were very different from Valyrian dragons – maybe related to the wyverns of Sothoryos, maybe even “feathered” to give rise to the idea of griffins. These extinct creatures took on the attributes of Valyrian dragons by later singers.

I’m partial to the third idea, because it would take care of multiple questions, and the best theories are usually the ones that explain the most data points.

Of course, griffins and wyverns are far from the only mythical creature that one finds in Essos. There are also mentions of centaurs, which are dismissed with the same argument given in our world, namely that people who didn’t know about horse riders got the wrong idea. Whether or not ice dragons in the North are real remains to be seen, but it would be interesting if “cold” became another element in the magical universe – it would certainly fit the Others more than the elements of earth or water. The brindled men of Sothoryos (who are seen in the fighting pits in Meereen so they’re definitely real) seem like another surviving hominid offshoot like the Ibbenese (who are clearly Neanderthals). Shrykes and winged men are probably mythical, given how far east they are. Tiger-men sound like skinchangers. The Jhogwin and Ifequevron may be proof that giants and the children of the forest were native to more places than just Westeros.

Indeed, a lot of what this does is put the local history of Westeros into a global scale, and on that note…

…let’s see if we can catch all the Lovecraft references!

The Deep Ones and the Drowned God’s famous words are really obvious Lovecraft references, so obvious that most people quickly notice them. There are others here in The World – lots of them, in fact, some of them fairly obscure.

BUT GUESS WHO’S GOT TWO THUMBS AND A SERIOUSLY PROBLEMATIC FAVE! I’ve added numbers on them, see if you can figure out why before the end. (cw: racism/anti-semitism/xenophobia on all these links, because it’s Lovecraft and he was a bigot)

Church of Starry Wisdom: originating in Yi Ti (4) but found throughout the world, including in Braavos (1), it originates in Lovecraft’s The Haunter in the Dark

The Black Goat of forested Qohor (2) seems a pretty clear reference to one of the titles of Shub-Niggurath (don’t think too hard about how that name is pronounced), “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”

“Ib” (2) references “Ib” in The Doom that Came to Sarnath

The idol of “a gigantic toad of malignant aspect” on Toad Isle (3) is a shout-out to Lovecraft’s version of Tsathoggua, an “amorphous toad-like god” dwelling in N’kai

The lizard men of Sothoryos (4) are a possible nod to the inhabitants of The Nameless City, though lizard people have a long history elsewhere

The lost city of Sarnath (3), as in The Doom that Came to, from above

The people of the Thousand Islands (4) worship “squamous, fish-headed gods,” included because nobody uses the word “squamous” unless they are doing Lovecraft pastiche, even though he only used the word once

N’ghai (4) might refer to N’kai, since N’kai is an underground city like Nefer

Carcosa (4) with its yellow emperor is an obvious nod to the pre-Lovecraft stories An Inhabitant of Carcosa and The King in Yellow that is sometimes used in Cthulhu mythos stories (though not by Lovecraft himself)

K’dath (4) is Kadath from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and if you have not read that novella, it is bizarre but one of my favorite Lovecraft tales and reads a lot like an RPG campaign

Leng (4) reference the Plateau of Leng, which is also in The Dream-Quest, but appears in At the Mountains of Madness and The Hound as somewhere in the waking world, in Antarctica or Central Asia. The people of Leng revered the Old Ones in ages past, a very obvious reference to the Great Old Ones, extremely powerful and long-lived aliens that serve the Outer Gods

I may have missed a few in the weirder names, too, since a few of these have messed up spellings. Now, with this many references, man, it might seem that this is straight-up part of the Cthulhu mythos, but there’s a reason I have those numbers. They correspond to the concentric rings of knowledge I started this entry out with, and as you can see, the references get more and more common the further you are away from Westeros and the closer you are to “here there be dragons.”

And on closer look, a lot of these references don’t amount to much more than name-drops. The exact nature of the Black Goat in Lovecraft is unclear, and was probably him ripping off another story called The Great God Pan; Qohor’s religion owes as much to ideas of Baphomet and Satanism as it does to Lovecraft. The Cult of Starry Wisdom didn’t worship a fallen asteroid, as they do in Essos, but rather a device they could use to see between worlds. Tsathoggua didn’t preside over merrow-human hybrids as on Toad Isle. The Neanderthal Ibbenese in no way resemble the green-skinned, bug-eyed, voiceless Ib. Sarnath’s doom is from a very mundane Dothraki invasion rather than being transformed into monsters. Carcosa should be a lost ruin. Leng is a cold barren plateau populated either by people with horns and hooved feet or by “a corpse-eating cult,” not a tropical island with tall beautiful humans. Kadath exists only in the dream lands – and the dream cycle is also where you find Sarnath, Ib, and sometimes Leng, all explicitly imaginary places in a string of Dunsany-esque fantasy stories with minimal connection to the rest of the Cthulhu Mythos.

The only real exception are those Old Ones in Leng, trapped beneath the earth in sealed underground caverns. One of the reasons I doubt the show’s explanation of the origin of the Others is the one from the books is that it’s so local, entirely driven by the children vs First Men conflict, whereas in the books the Long Night was worldwide. I don’t know how the show intends to reconcile this provincialism with the prophecies of Azor Ahai; how could Asshai care about this if it happened on the other side of the world? And it’s far from the only culture with Long Night myths. Yi Ti has a fairly elaborate one, and the book gives many names for Azor Ahai: Hyrkoon the Hero (Hyrkoon), Yin Tar (Yi Ti, and a woman), Neferion (N’ghai?), and Eldric Shadowchaser (Andal? First Men? The name is a Michael Moorcock reference so who knows); we can probably add the last hero of Nan’s tales to that list.

That there might be another sealed evil in a can under Leng doesn’t seem impossible, but the series already indicates what they might be: the Others. It is entirely possible that the Wall is not the only barrier keeping whatever caused the Long Night from once again covering the earth; it may simply be the most vulnerable because Westeros no longer believes in magic and myth as it used to, and everyone is too busy with local politics to care about another hibernal apocalypse. Martin has created his own strange mythos, with giants that are radically different from our own legends, monstrous merfolk, the strange child of the forest that rather than elves, and the unearthly and ethereal white walkers with their armies of undead and giant ice spiders. Frankly it would be a disappointment if he grafted on someone else’s stories.