#which style of Kingship is all to what you prefer

[dduane]

While preparing the background for the “Food And Cooking of the Middle Kingdoms” recipe for Honey Roasted Apples

I... genuinely wasn’t expecting prose. 

***

“It may sound very romantic in the poems,” says Freelorn of Arlen, turning his glass around a couple of times on the table. “Seven years an outlaw, always on the run with his little band of loyal followers, living off the bounty of empty lands…” He shakes his head, glancing up. “But when you get right down to the logistics of it…? It's not much fun at all.”

We ran into the King at one of his preferred locals, the southernmost of the dozen or more public pleasances built around Prydon city—this one looking down from the southeastern city walls where the Bluff starts to slope down toward the wooded Menaskh and Talsasmë townlands. The view from here across the river Arlid toward Darthen is quite beautiful, even on a somewhat misty day, and it’s understandably a popular spot. When we arrived, the place was already full of City and “outwall" people who didn't mind the climb up to a park and dining space famous for its Arlene country-style food.

Predictably, King Freelorn declined to tell us whether this particular local was his favorite. It's well known in the City that he's got several favored taverns and eating- or drinking-spots scattered around Prydon, but there’s no way under the Goddess’s sky that you’ll get him to admit which one he most prefers. “Does it really matter?” he says when you press him. “The whole point—besides wanting to get out somewhere different for nunch—is to be someplace where people can just walk up to you as if you were anybody else out for a bite or a sup of an afternoon. They’ve got a right to know that I take my responsibilities seriously: and my work… which is being here for them.” He chuckles softly. "And making sure they know that I'm not afraid to be alone with them."

“So you don’t visit with a retinue, then.”

He looks shocked. “Absolutely not! If I'm a good king, it's my people’s business to keep an eye out so that no one makes off with my life without them having a say. And it’s my business to trust them to do that. If I'm a bad king—” He shakes his head. “Well, we have legal remedies for that, if the Goddess or the Lion don’t step in themselves to handle it. Either way, it can get pretty gory before matters are settled. But fortunately that doesn’t seem to be a problem for me at the moment.” The smile is both relieved and wry—the expression of a man who knows from experience how quickly things in politics, or kingship, can change.

The King has a drink of his wine. "But that's not what you were really interested in talking about, was it. Eating on the road…?”

He rubs his brow, then shakes his head with a rueful look on his face. “At first it was interesting, even exciting,” he says, “when the bloom was still on it. When we all thought that the people who’d exiled me would see sense, in weeks or months, and there’d be a recall. But weeks got to be months, and months leaned toward a year… Soon enough we came to realize that being the romantic sort of outlaw that turns up in the old songs—dodging into town and out again for necessities, slipping into taverns in disguise—wasn’t an option that was real, these days. If it ever had been.” His expression is that of a man who can’t believe what an idiot he was. “Once you’ve tried it once or twice and felt the tension—trying to eat like a normal person while you can’t help listening to every voice around you for an accent or a dialect that means they might have reason to be a little too interested in you—” He rolls his eyes. “In the songs, the common people are always on your side. But in my case? When times have been getting hard, and the price on your head's more than most people would need to live on for five years at a time...?”

A laugh of pure amusement at his own witlessness. “So. There we were, just the five or six or seven of us… running for our lives. Or—let’s be truthful—mostly running for mine.” And the smile he’s been wearing goes very dry indeed. “So we were always traveling very light, because packhorses have to be fed, not to mention stabled if you’re anywhere near people… which we learned not to be, pretty quickly. Ducking casually into some town’s market? Not when you might be recognized, and never in a group. Even one person alone had to be careful, because… Well, if you’re a townsman, and somebody you’ve never seen before comes into the local half-month market and buys as much food as one rider can carry, and then rushes off with it? Country people get curious… and suspicious. Who wants outlaws in their neighborhood, after all?” He shakes his head. “That kind of behavior gets that lone rider followed, and then…”

He heaves a long sigh that seems to boil down to meaning “serious unspecified trouble.” “...So that’s something you learn not to do. Especially when, even if you could afford a market run, money’s still always an issue. You’re thinking ‘If we spend it now, what about next month?’ ...And even when you can afford it, it’s not smart to be carrying a lot of food when at any moment—in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of the night—you have to throw everything onto the horses and just go, because some local opportunist whose lands you’ve recently ridden over has put it all together and figured out who you are. Or made an educated guess.” He shakes his head, laughs at himself again.

“So all that comes to mean that you resign yourself pretty quickly to living off the land—the unpeopled land—as much as you can. And you learn a lot of things in a hurry… and some more slowly.” He has a drink of his wine, looking thoughtful. “You learn to harvest wild grain, if it’s ready; and how to fire it so you can eat it green, if it’s not. You learn to bake flat bread in a pot over the fire, and get over it bringing up memories of town-bakery bread you've loved and won’t get to eat again any time soon. You get really good at killing game, and learning how to dry meat over the fire for another day, another week. You learn that if you try to live too long on just rabbit, you’ll get very ill indeed. You learn that you’d better have at least some vegetables with all that game, or your insides rebel against you and make it really hard to ride. You learn to forage, and to be smart about it—for example, not to pick all the viol-head fern you find, no matter how much you want to, because you might wipe out a supply you'll need again, some day. You learn that fruit helps keep you from getting sick, and you learn how to deal with drying that too, when you can.” He sighs. "All the while, you learn never to assume you're going to find enough to eat. And how to distract yourself from an empty stomach."

He sips his wine, puts it down, gazes into it. “But sometimes conditions are kind,” the King says. “We spent a lot of time in Steldin. Funny, you might think, when the Steldenes were the ones who were hottest to collect the bounty on my head! But between the climate and the terrain, the far south of Steldin near the Peaks is some of the loneliest country in all the Realms. And because of the weather up there, in the summers there’s a lot of good fruit scattered around, free for the taking. Apples, especially: not something you can get every day… especially not down north. Moris came up out of nothing with this dish, one time…and after that, sometimes we all practically lived on it, because it was nearly all there was, and we didn’t even mind. Apples pot-roasted in honey, with belly pork roasted in with it if you’ve got some.” He shakes his head and grins, apparently at himself. “Goddess, it’s ridiculous, we must’ve lived on that for days at a time, over the years, and it’s still making my mouth water—!”

The pleasance’s taverner is passing by, and the King catches her eye, picks up the empty pitcher sitting on the table, waggles it at her. She rolls her eyes at him, nods, and moves on. “And Stelet,” he calls after her, “wait a breath! Are the roast turnips on today?"

The taverner looks back at him, her eyes crinkling in amusement. “Small or large, King?”

“Large, please.”

The taverner nods again and walks on into the pleasance-house to see about his refill. “I missed breakfast...” says the King. "Anyway, we all got to be pretty good cooks as regarded simple things. Probably Moris was the best cook of us all. But then he worked in the kitchen at the Black Palace for a while, did you know? The Queen’s always teasing him about it. After him, Lang would probably have come in a close second—a natural talent. He even wound up teaching Segnbora how to cook. Until he got to work on her, she was no good at that at all.” His eyes went a little distant. “Of course, the two of them were getting quite close at that point." A sidewise look out of hazel eyes. "I expect you know about that, though. I know a chronicler when I see one."

“Oh. I’m sorry, I’ll—”

His eyebrows go up: an amused expression. “What? No, just sit down, for Goddess’s sake. This happens oftener than you might think. It's not as if the biggest library and document repository in the Kingdoms isn't just up the hill...”

After that for a few moments the King says nothing, just turns his glass around and around a few times on the table’s polished stone. 

“…Seven years of it, though,” he says eventually. “Of never being sure of where your next meal, and your friends', is coming from. And of not knowing whether getting it is going to somehow get you killed... or one of those friends. Don't get me started on the wild pig stories.”

“Ah. Well. I'll make a note to avoid those.”

He laughs. “Do. But what a life like that does for you, again and again, is show you how hard the people you rule may be having it—not just sometimes, but a lot of the time. What you're doing, they too must often do if the weather's been bad for the crops. So when you finally take up the job to which you were born and bred, you do whatever you must to make sure there's always grain in your people's storage bins to grind, and that their markets, and the movement of food from region to region, are protected. And subsidized, when they need to be. Because that's what the Queen of the World gave you this job for: making sure your people are fed. Ideally, you do that with your brains, and your realm's money. But if that's not working out, then you do it with your heart's blood ploughed into the ground to make the fields bear.” His expression, as he says this, is strangely gentle.

“...Surely that doesn't happen very often, these days."

“These days? No. Normally if the land doesn't bear for a couple of seasons running, the Four Hundred press whoever's sitting in the Throne to step aside in favor of someone else in the royal line better suited. And they do. Because if you're on the Throne at present, the price of your rulership is being ready to do what the Realm needs...even if it kills you.”  

Freelorn stretches briefly, then settles again on the bench. “Meanwhile, if these days the King has a bit of a reputation for enjoying his food,” he says, “I'd say that’s just fine. Because it means that every time he sits down to a meal where he doesn’t have to be looking over his shoulder to see if someone sitting a few tables over is trying to work out whether his head’ll fit in the bucket of brine they brought with them…” He shrugs. “Then it means that, every time, he’s got leisure to think of the friends who made sure he got this far—and to thank Herself for them.” And he leans back, tilting his glass, and twists it just enough to let a drop's worth of libation fall on the paving: then drinks.

“...But enough about me,” he says, as the new pitcher of wine arrives and he puts his glass down again. Those hazel eyes glance up from it and without warning become very sharp, very focused indeed, as he pushes the spare glass over and pours it half full. "With an accent like that,” says the King of Arlen, “you're not exactly from around here, are you? Let's talk about you.”

[jeannereames]

Hi there, this may seem like a random question, but do you think Alexander would have liked sitcoms, like a show like the Big Bang Theory? He seems to have been a serious person, but also a people-person?

What were his favorite plays? Did Greek stories ever delve into daily life and relationships between friends? I've never wondered about this sort of thing with a historical figure, but Alexander's personality interests me.

Let’s begin with a quick summary of what sorts of entertainment were available in the theatre (or elsewhere).

Greek plays were either tragedy or comedy. We also had rhetors and epic poetry which might be performed in more private settings (or during some of the Contests, such as the Pythian Games). A serious shift in plays occurred between the Classical and Hellenistic Eras, in part owing to political changes instituted by Alexander. But Alexander, himself, was a product of the (late) Classical period. That was his “entertainment” world. That was the era of classical tragedy and Middle Comedy.

Both epic poetry and Greek tragedy were rooted in myth, and cyclic stories well-known to everyone. Even in old-style epic, most of these are “tragic” tales. Consider the Iliad. Does that really end well for anybody? Seven Against Thebes? Jason and the Argonauts? The Herakles Cycle? All of these, even if there’s a temporary victory at points, end badly for most of the participants.

Yet this was the popular stuff!

I think it a very important distinction to recognize for the Archaic and Classical world, as opposed to later periods, never mind popular genres today such as genre Romance, action-adventure, or dramady.

Comedy then (as now) required a “happy” ending. The original form was Old Comedy, which would be much closer to “Saturday Night Live” or Monty Python, than “Big Bang Theory” or “Black-ish.” It was POLITICAL. The settings were largely ridiculous, and meant to be, in order to highlight political satire. It was about ideas, not people.

Following the Peloponnesian War, the sharp sauce of Old Comedy stung overmuch, and comedic theatre moved into Middle Comedy. Here, we come a bit closer to the modern sitcom. Unfortunately, we have almost nothing from this period, just a little bit of Aristophanes at the end of his reign, and I’m not too sure we should use even his “Plutus” as an exemplar. We have more examples of New Comedy, where Romance took over. It’s hard to say if that was also true of Middle Comedy. But both sorts of comedy are sharp departures from Old Comedy. They represent more “escapist” entertainment.

We don’t know what his favorite play was, but we DO know Euripides was his favorite playwright, and, as with Homer, he could recite whole chunks of Euripidian content by heart. Then again, Euripides had a long-standing connection to the Macedonian court, having lived there as a guest of King Archelaos after the Peloponnesian War. Similarly, Alexander’s favorite poet was Pindar, another literati with connections to Macedonian royalty, in Pindar’s case, to Alexandros I, king during the Persian Wars.

There’s no real evidence that Alexander was a fan of comedy—but also no evidence he didn’t enjoy it. That said, we might understand why tragedy might have appealed more to him. If tragedy was about the fall of great men (according to Aristotle), it did focus on “great men”—heroes. In contrast, comedy (Old or Middle) tended to be about the average person and their foibles. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Alexander, who emulated the heroes, might prefer tragedy.

So, would he enjoy "Big Bang Theory"? Hard to say. It's a very geeky sitcom, and would take a fair bit of cultural knowledge to "get." But I do think, if he enjoyed comedy, he probably preferred wittier plays. We should also recall that Macedon might have been a bit behind the times due to the political/cultural chaos following the murder of Archelaos, when the kingship was passed around among various branches until Philip's father Amyntas (III) was able to keep it a while. Yet even that wasn't all that stable a period. Not until Philip secured the throne do we see a new influx of Greek culture from the south. Ergo, the average Macedonian may have found New Comedy less appealing than Old Comedy, as it was less familiar.

[ridiasfangirlings]

I've read your recent meta about Munakata, Fushimi, and Mikoto, but I'm still not convinced that Munakata is better King than Mikoto. Munakata is quite manipulative don't you think? Like on Fushimi's case, he's aware about the virus but he didn't tell directly to Fushimi nor he destroyed the phone but he deliberately made Fushimi lured Hisui out so Munakata can 'save' him. He also planned Kusuhara's death so Scepter 4 can develop (I felt so sick while reading that). Mikoto while he's maybe too lazy to remember every HOMRA member, he generously gave his power for people who need it like Eric, Anna, even Yata and Fushimi. He's also protective toward his clansmen.

Also I think that if only Fushimi didn't feel afraid toward Mikoto and he was willing to be more open with Yata, he should stay in Homra. The poor dude never have a family before, right? He came from a cold house, why does he join a cold clan, that even Jungle feels warmer than Scepter4? Like you said, Munakata only chose people who was 'useful' for him, isn't it unhealthy to see people by how much they're worth? I don't think Fushimi with his low self-esteem will be fine in environment like that. Homra's family dynamic can give Fushimi what was missing from him on his childhood. On Homra, everyone is equal and there's no talk about "useful" and "useless" member, for example Totsuka is the weakest, yet he was respected. Kusanagi and Totsuka also care about Fushimi so much, and of course he can be with Yata, the most (maybe only) important person in his life.

I'm sorry for long ask, I just love Sarumi and HOMRA so much so I hate Munakata for separating Sarumi on LSW and he acts like an ass toward Mikoto and HOMRA.

I'm gonna answer this one out of order because I have thoughts and want to answer it while the thoughts are still happening XD So firstly: I'm not sure where you're getting that Munakata 'planned' Kusuhara's death. Munakata clearly had plans for Kusuhara from the start but my impression was never that those plans meant for Kusuhara to die – on the contrary, I think Munakata was pretty clearly planning for Kusuhara to be his Zenjou, more of less, to be the one who uses his swift reflexes to cut off Munakata's head when the time comes. A failsafe, basically, because Munakata leaves nothing to chance. He brought Zenjou into the fold largely for that reason, the only one of Habari's Scepter 4 really offered a prominent position, and when Zenjou went to the Records department instead Munakata simply found himself someone who he felt might have the potential to do the job just as well. That Kusuhara's reflexes would cause him to jump in front of a bullet meant for Munakata – and which wouldn't have killed him, because Munakata's aura would have kicked in, but Kusuhara moved quicker than that consideration – was not part of Munakata's plan (in fact if we're talking responsibility for Kusuhara's death I would put that on Hisui's head. Side Blue the novel hints at it and 7Stories is even clearer in showing Douhan as the sniper who tries to take Munakata down later, that Hisui was testing whether or not he could take Munakata out via a third party). In DOB Munakata mentions that Scepter 4 is more 'complete' for Kusuhara's loss but again, I don't take that as Munakata admitting he plotted this – it's Munakata considering after the fact, making the loss into a positive for the clan and considering that perhaps it was a thing that had to happen to make 'his Scepter 4' complete but that is not at all the same as saying 'he planned Kusuhara's death.' (The rest is under the cut because for some reason Tumblr kept eating my first few paragraphs otherwise.)

As for the idea of who's a 'better' King, there's a difference in my mind between which Kings are objectively better than the others and which are better for a specific person. Both Munakata's and Mikoto's approaches have their own merits. Mikoto offers power to anyone brave enough to take his hand so yes, he does offer power to weak people or people who need it like Eric and Anna. Mikoto values free will, and so if someone has the will to take his hand he will offer it to them, give them the option to risk death if they so choose for power. On the other end, this leads to guys who act outside of Homra and can cause trouble (like the guy in R:B, for example). It also means that Mikoto might have actually killed people who didn't fit the Red power, which is no less a tragedy even if it was a risk they were willing to take.

Munakata by contrast only offers his sword to people that he knows are worthy. As Fushimi puts it in LSW: “Taking precaution to make sure he’s only granting power to those who will succeed. That’s quite Munakata’s course of action.” That said though, Munakata's idea of who is 'worthy' isn't necessarily just a specific obviously useful type, S4 isn't filled with just serious characters like Awashima, Akiyama and Benzai. Munakata saw fit to give power to those who thought they wouldn't belong in such a place, like sushi chef Kamo, or those who thought they might just live a 'normal' life, like Hidaka. Munakata's clan contains the heir of a dojo (Doumyouji) and a former NEET (Gotou), and someone who thought a job was just something to pay for your hobbies (Enomoto). It contains people who may have thought “surely, I'm not someone who would belong in such a place.” But Munakata saw potential and pursued it, and I don't think that's objectively any less 'generous' than Mikoto giving out his Red to anyone brave enough to reach for it, it's just going about Kingship in a different way.

And as for the idea of 'useful' vs 'useless,' keep in mind when I discuss that in regards to Fushimi's position at Scepter 4 in particular I really do mean that as Fushimi's perspective. Now, Munakata does choose people based on how he feels they would fit in his Scepter 4 – their use – but that's not just a simple thing either. Like you mention Totsuka being weak yet still equal to everyone else in Homra, however despite Totsuka's physical weakness he does very much have a use in Homra: he's Mikoto's 'stopper,' he's the mood maker of the clan, he's the one who often deals with troublesome people. That's a use, despite his weakness. Munakata's way of creating a clan is different from Mikoto's but I don't think that makes it worse, or less of a tight knit clan. Munakata does have his manipulative side of course, and may do and say things that could draw out dissatisfaction within the ranks of his own clan, but at the end of the day everyone in Scepter 4 is able to feel that they have been chosen by their King for a reason and that he believes in their abilities, from third in command Fushimi to even members of the rank and file like Yayoi. (And from a simple practical perspective too, Homra's a loose knit gang while Scepter 4 is an actual government agency with duties and expectations placed upon them. Munakata will make a place for those he feels worthy, but he needs people who have abilities because otherwise someone could easily feel like they don't fit in this place or have no worth in the clan, because this workplace is not for them. But because Munakata picks only who he believes will fit in his Scepter 4 no one has to feel that way, because they wouldn't have been chosen if they had no talent.)

Now, as to the matter of Fushimi. Like you mentioned, Fushimi grew up without a family so surely Homra's family atmosphere should be good for him, right? But it isn't. I think it's best expressed this way: trying to run before you can crawl. Basically, at the point Fushimi joins Homra, he is not in the headspace to accept the idea of 'family.' This is where the disconnect between him and Yata happens too, because Yata always wanted a huge family where he belongs. Yata has his biological family, of course, and they love him, but he still feels like an outsider. However precisely because he has a loving family he knows what that feels like, he knows how he felt like when it was just him and his mom he belonged, how he belonged when he was with Fushimi. Homra is an extension of that, the big family where everyone is together and the days are easy and he belongs. But then there's Fushimi, who says it himself in LSW: “Solve everyone’s misunderstanding, you say? Who ever said that I don’t want to be misunderstood? Why do you want me to be understood by everyone when you yourself don’t? … If YOU understand me, I would be content.”

Fushimi's a kid who was always rejected, even by his own family. He clings to Yata as the only one to ever care for him but at the same time, look at how Fushimi vocalizes his understanding of their relationship. “Looking at me with eyes shining and saying 'amazing.'” Fushimi is quantifying Yata's affection, that Yata cares for him because Fushimi is amazing, because Fushimi is wounded enough that he can't trust in Yata's sincere affection. So when they join Homra this is a blow to Fushimi, who has hung so much self esteem on Yata's 'amazing,' because now Mikoto is amazing and Fushimi is just Fushimi, and why should that be enough to get Yata to stay? Just being 'Fushimi' has never been enough for anyone to remain by his side.

Homra would have happily accepted Fushimi into their family and given him what he lacked, but Fushimi isn't in a mental state to accept it because Fushimi is the one who quantifies emotions for his own safety. The neglected and unloved kid still can't believe that family won't reject him, that he can actually have a family, and so Homra's atmosphere suffocates him even beyond Mikoto's presence. Fushimi doesn't want to be equal to everyone else because if he has nothing to offer, why would anyone want him around? Just being himself has never been enough before, why should it be enough now? Especially when he sees how Yata fits in and how much he doesn't, where he's afraid of Mikoto and can't wholeheartedly call this person his King, where he doesn't really talk to anyone and often irritates people when he does. When Kusanagi tells Fushimi he wants Fushimi to stay in Homra and be his successor Fushimi doesn't see this as a compliment, he sees this as 'you wouldn't have to say this to Yata because there would be no question about his loyalty, so clearly you question mine.'

Then enter Munakata, and Scepter 4. Where Homra wanted Fushimi to run, Munakata's letting him learn to crawl first. On the one hand yes, Munakata wanted Fushimi for his own reasons, because he believed Fushimi's talents were being wasted in Homra and that he would do well in Scepter 4. But Munakata also saw in Fushimi that there was so much potential not being realized, someone who was in a way like himself. Case Files: “still, the way the two of them felt out of place and alienated by those around them due to how outstandingly capable they were was very similar.” Munakata sees in Fushimi someone who is dissatisfied with the world and offers him a chance to change that world to his liking instead, rather than miserably clinging to a place where he feels he doesn't belong. In Scepter 4 Fushimi has a job and a use and sure, it may not be on paper as warm and inviting as 'family' but it's also what Fushimi needs – he doesn't have to deal with worries and doubts about his place, or feel like he doesn't belong.

Fushimi can focus on his work and let himself really reach his potential, he can be challenged and use his mind, and at the same time if he ends up interacting with the other members and softening towards them, and making friends, more the better. In Homra they may be a family but it's easy for Fushimi to remain on the fringes, wandering off by himself at amusement parks, but in Scepter 4 he has to interact with others in order to do his job. And we do see some of that softening in canon – the little 'thanks' to Hidaka in DOB 1, the way he talks with Akiyama, his interactions with Awashima and Munakata are all clearly 'easier' than he was with pretty much anyone outside of Yata and maybe Kusanagi in Homra. Yata himself says it in ROK: “The Blue King was your King all along.” For Fushimi, Scepter 4 and Munakata were what he needed in order to develop beyond that lonely kid still clinging to the idea that he doesn't belong anywhere (and yes it separated him from Yata but at the end of the day that was more Fushimi's issues talking than anything, because Awashima and Kusanagi pretty much show that yes, someone from Homra and someone from S4 can be friends. It was Fushimi himself who chose to break things, not because Munakata made him but because at the time Fushimi believed that his precious thing was going to break anyway and as I said before Fushimi can't bring himself to believe in Yata's sincere affection).

(Also I couldn't figure out where to put this in, but regarding Munakata not telling Fushimi about Hisui's illusions, that to me shows once again that Munakata does actually understand Fushimi pretty well, because if he told Fushimi then Fushimi loses. Look at that moment versus Mikoto saving Sarumi during the jungle surprise party: Fushimi is miserable walking home, because 'I failed.' His plan didn't work, he had to be saved by someone else, and then he gets to see Misaki crowing over how cool the person who saved him is. By contrast, if Munakata simply told Fushimi 'Hisui Nagare is controlling your PDA and making you see illusions' and then destroyed the PDA, Fushimi would not see that as a good deed. Fushimi would see that as him being too stupid to figure this out on his own and needing to be saved by someone 'above' him, another one of his failures. By only giving him a hint Munakata allows Fushimi to make the connection on his own, play the game against Aya and win. While Munakata steps in to confront Hisui, because there's no way Fushimi can go toe to toe with a King and anyway Munakata called dibs first, Fushimi is the one who ultimately claimed the victory. He figured out the trick, he played against Aya, he won the game stacked against him. Munakata may be testing Fushimi in his own way too, sure, but he's doing it in a way that he knows will actually be better for Fushimi's self esteem. While, say, Mikoto finding out and destroying the PDA right away may seem like the more 'correct' move, saving his clansman from pain, all that would make Fushimi think is that he wasn't good enough to figure it out on his own and he had to be saved again like a useless person. Munakata though understands how Fushimi thinks and realizes that for Fushimi, not being told is better because it allows him to win on his own terms with his own intelligence rather than having to rely on someone else.)

[dailyaudiobible]

05/29/2020 DAB Transcript

2 Samuel 14:1-15:22, John 18:1-24, Psalms 119:97-112, Proverbs 16:8-9

Today is the 29th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we continue the journey forward step by step, day by day, right, paddle by paddle however…whatever metaphor we want to use. We’re moving forward systematically, stably, every single day moving forward through the Bible. And man, we’re ending another month almost and it's just…well…I don't even want to start on that. Let's just kind of dive into where we are. We’re picking up the story of David's family. David is the king of Israel, the second king of Israel and we've kind of gone through the ups and downs of his reign in his kingdom and how we came to be and sort of the deterioration that is happening inside of his family because of some of the choices that he's made is…one of his sons, Absalom, is estranged from the king living in Geshur with his grandparents. He's estranged because he killed one of his brothers, Amnon and he did this because Amnon raped his sister Tamar. So, yeah, some issues going on in David's family. And we’ll pick up the story today. Second Samuel chapter 14 verse 1 through 15 verse 22. And we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we are in an ongoing narrative. In other words, every day's reading kinda builds upon the day before and the story is being told in second Samuel of David's life and his reign and his family. And, you know, in other parts of the Bible we’re…were dealing with other genres. So, we may be leading…reading lists of things or we may…may be reading prophecies of something. But this is laid out in story form. And, so, we’re following along, and each day reveals a little bit more of the story. And you see how these things looks, like what's going on now, how they developed over time and over choices, right? So, this whole thing, kind of what's going on now begins with David and Bathsheba and we've already talked about all of the things that happened in that sordid deal. Like, David committed murder by allowing Bathsheba's husband to be killed in battle. Like some things really, really bad or happening. People are seeing this including David's own family. And then David's daughter Tamar gets raped by David's son, Amnon. And David does…doesn't really do…like doesn't really do much about it. It's Absalom…Tamar’s brother, another of her brothers who waits two years. Like, there's two years here for David to deal with this and he doesn’t, and Absalom does and kills Amnon and then flees for his life to his grandparents because he’s the son of a royal union. This is kind of how things would work. A king would…would marry a princess, the daughter of a king from somewhere else. She would come to live with him and be his wife and they would have children together, but this would kind of cement an alliance. Like, what king is going to go to battle with another king who is married to his…like who has in his possession his daughter, right? So, this is how these things go. And Absalom is the son of royalty. His grandparents are royalty in Geshur. And, so, he goes there and that's where he is for these years. And then we saw the whole plot of the general, Joab, to get Absalom back to Jerusalem and…and he does but then David ignores Absalom for two more years. Meanwhile, Absalom's out on the street, making friends and influencing people, stealing the heart of Jerusalem away from the king. And, so, we leave today's reading with Absalom having gone Hebron to initiate a coup against his father, the king of Israel. And David, he's been down this road before, right? We followed in the paths of David when he is fleeing from Saul. So, David kind of knows how to smell the danger and he's on his way out of town. Like he is fleeing from his own son who intends to take the kingship and the kingdom from his father. And on so many levels it appears that so much of this unrest that we’re seeing right now comes from systematic choices that David's making to ignore dealing with the issues within his family.

Meanwhile, in the book of John, Jesus has been arrested. And I keep pointing this out and I…I…I will keep pointing this out until we conclude John. This is the last time we’re comin’ around this way this year. This is the last time we’re going through this story this year. In fact, the days of us kind of moving along with the disciples and hearing Jesus minister and watching Him, those days are coming to a close, because we are coming to the end of the Gospels. We’ve only got a few chapters left in the gospel of John, which is the final gospel we’ll encounter this year. So, may we pay close attention and allow it to plant itself in our lives and in our hearts as we prepare to move forward in the New Testament.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for all of the different ways that we encounter Your word, all the different kinds of styles of writing and genres. And, as we’re moving through second Samuel we thank You for this narrative story and we can see the disrespect that has grown between Absalom and King David and we can see even why and we begin to see the disintegration here. And if we take enough time to just think back over our lives, we find parallels. And, so, we invite Your Holy Spirit to continue to lead us forward into all truth. And as these stories reveal themselves, we ask that wisdom would reveal where the paths that we are choosing is going to lead us. This is what we need. We need Your direction in our lives and then we need to obey it and humble ourselves before You and obey You. So, come Holy Spirit, show us where we’re going because of the choices that we’re making we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

[houndofbel]

Re: Pan-Celtism and Celtic Descendants

Hi @aira-of-the-circle

I’m making my response in it’s own separate post as tumblr isn’t that great of a place for academic discussion, as I that’s something I prefer using the Gaulpol Discord for.

For those looking to follow the earlier part of this discussion, you can find it here:

https://aira-of-the-circle.tumblr.com/post/180820801915/once-again

Much of this confusion surrounds, the question of what exactly is a Celt? The word actually comes from ‘Keltoi’ what the Gauls called themselves, which means ‘descendants of The Hidden One’.

I understand your opinion of Celtic is that of an umbrella term for the religions/memories of religions of Celtic speaking nations and asserts that is in fact a label that exists beyond simple linguistics. I disagree, as the the Continental and Insular Celts (living in the times before, during and after the Roman occupations) actually had a super diverse ethnicity and religion, and the only thing that actually connected them was their language.

From Jean-Louis Brunaux’s Les Druides. Des philosophes chez les Barbares (French Edition):

“We wondered a lot about the reality of this little divine family. Was it conceived in this form among all Gallic peoples? The ethnic diversity of the peoples, the no less great of their political regimes and their strong particularisms make it doubtful. The Gallo-Roman epigraphic and statuary testimonies, certainly late, confirm in any case a religious geography of Gaul very contrasted if the figure of Mercury is very present at the beginning of our era in many regions of Gaul, it is often competed by Mars, Apollo, less often by Jupiter and in many cases by local or indigenous deities who do not find exact correspondent in the Roman pantheon.”

“As has been suggested above, Caesar himself could not forge this image of the Gallic gods by producing a synthesis based on the various information he could have obtained from the very mouths of Gauls encountered during his expeditions. He simply drew it from the work of Poseidonios.”

This dude is legit, as he is a researcher for CNRS and has done a bunch of excavations of Gaulish sites as part of his career.

If we think of Celtic in how archaeologists do, as an ancient people sharing a common material culture and distinctive (and cool) art style, Celtic would include the people of Central Europe (not just Gaul!) and British Isles in the late Halstatt period and all the way down to the Roman conquest, makes the argument that the Celts are dead entirely defunct because there are surviving languages, as well as material cultures.

Most Celtic scholars assign Celtic a linguistic significance for a reason. (Bettina Arnold goes over this. Her background: https://uwm.edu/anthropology/people/arnold-bettina/ as does Kim McCone, his background: https://www.amazon.com/Kim-McCone/e/B001K8513M) It’s done to eliminate the discrepancies I previously mentioned (through there are still a few issues). This means the people living in the six modern Celtic countries (Ireland, Scotland Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and Isle of Man) or who currently speak / had ancestors who recently spoke a Celtic language are in fact Celtic. Not just Celtic either, but also the identity relating to their Celtic nation, like Gael or Cornish.

When it comes to the the past Celtic religions are inseparable and intertwined, many people see this initially and become stuck in the idea due to lack of appropriate knowledge. It ignores and dismisses the separation of each unique Celtic people by time, region, and cultural shaping events.  Basing the idea of a singular Celtic religion on a few cognate deities (some of which aren’t actually found in each Celtic speaking territory) Lugh, Llew, and Lugus come to mind but it’s important to keep in mind that Lugus isn’t actually directly attested in Gaulish speaking lands.

Are there similarities in each religion? For sure. Does that mean these unique traditions should be thrown together in a single melting pot that is Pan-Celtism? Absolutely not. 

Trying to sploosh the deities together doesn’t work. Ralph Häussler (his background: https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/staff/ralph-häussler/) talks about Interpretatio and how complex it is among the Celtic speaking people, showing that these religions are individualized multiple levels:

https://www.academia.edu/7952176/R._Haeussler_Interpretatio_Indigena._Re-Inventing_local_cults_in_a_global_world

The thought might occur that an argument one might have for pan-celtism is how they all liked druids, so here is our boy JLB from before who talks about that in his book Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries, specifically p. 59: “There are no grounds for maintaining that the druids, of all the peoples, held identical beliefs. Everything suggests the opposite: the diversity of pantheons and of social and political situations must have been reflected in druid philosophy and mythology. It is not even certain that druids existed everywhere. They are not mentioned in Galatia, where there is talk of priest-kings. In Cisapline, only vates are mentioned. The term druid seems to have been understood in two senses by ancient authors. One is a misleading generalization referring to priests as a whole. The other, more instructive sense only takes the category of great priests into account. In fact it is in this sense the word was used in connection with the Germans. This also seems to be suggested by the etymology of the word, if druid is derived from dru-uid, meaning 'very wise'. However, it could originally have been a term of difference by which the Celts themselves addressed these extraordinary figures. According to Caesar, druidic doctrine came from Britain. He added: 'even today those who want to study it in depth generally go to Britain for that purpose'. The last of the great druidic functions was the administration of justice. Caesar gives us an example when he says that during their great assembly at the centre of Gaul in the territory of the Carnutes, the druids arbitrated in international but also private disputes. These surely involved the most delicate matters that only affect the powerful. Minor judgements must have been given in each civitas. This justice, dispense during the greatest religious ceremony on a Pan-Gallic scale, had a preeminently ritual characters. This mixture of the sacred and the civic, which was never divided into two distinct spheres among the Celts, extended from the juridical to the legislative.The druids, as guarantors of institutions, supervised both their workings and renewal. The power meant that the druids had to be recruited almost exclusively from the nobility. Caesar tells us that many students came forward of their own accord, from personal conviction, but that many young Gauls were also sent by their families. In effect, each family wanted to keep an eye upon this body of priests and to participate in it's power through the agency of one of it's offspring. The daily life of the druids is practically unknown to us. Were they vowed to celibacy? Did they live in communities? the texts only seem to indicate that they could found a family and preserve their fortune. We only know for sure that they lived in sheltered retreat apart from the common crowd, without being disturbed either by war, work or dues of any kind. The druids had an internal hierarchy, found upon position in the curriculum of apprenticeship and later upon reputation for wisdom and personal charisma. Above them was a chief-a sort of Grand Druid- whose moral authority earned him this position. He was chosen by his peers, but sometimes there was a disagreement that might be settled by force of arms. These different bodies of priests were structured into a complex hierarchy. In fact, besides the druids, the ancient authors mention gutuatri, dates, bards, and so on. Each category occupied a position relative to the others, but it also seems that each individual had a determinate place within his category. The hierarchy, which allocated roles within ritual, shows up clearly in the different functions that the authors attributed to the druids. The druids were actually in a great variety of matters, from philosophy to sacrifice and from education to justice, and it seems hard to imagine that the same people consecrated the king and took charge of the maintenance of the sanctuary. Instead, the ancient texts give the impression of a crowd of priests sorted into grades, each of which had a determinate function. These different categories seem to have been structured and rigid, but certainly age, reputation and perhaps even political maneuvers inspired by the system of clientage permitted ascent on this hierarchical scale. Those who were not druids, but lived within their sphere of influence or were historically antecedent, surely had more flexible forms of organization. This could have taken the form of fraternities or secret societies, who initiation ceremonies served at once to give access and ensure cohesion. Social access to them was also wider. It is likely in them the plebs could find means of giving free rein to their sense of religion. It is an illusion to imagine a united druidic society - a society within a society - upon which all cult matter devolved and all of whose members had similar powers. This illusion was derived from descriptions of druidic assemblies in the forest of the Carnutes, which nineteenth-century historians wanted to interpret at the first stirrings of a nation. Instead, the situation of the priesthood was very similar to that of political forces: in full process of change in Caesar's time, it might differ in every detail from one people to another. The history of the druids closely linked with the destiny of kingship and the development of the civitas.”

So while Druids were cool, they were not central to religion, nor were they universal among the Celtic groups. 

While the Celtic religions may have sprung from a single progenitor religion, each of these traditions are separate. (Hence my interest to proto-Indo-European polytheism), but it’s fine if someone wants to take various gods from different Celtic speaking cultures and begin a new tradition with them. 

However, this does not make it ancient Celtic religions the same, or gods pan-celtic (I’m looking at you Wicca!). Additionally, I’d like to re-emphasize that Modern Celts exist, and still have their own separations. The Welsh aren’t Irish, their gods aren’t Irish, and their language isn’t Irish. 

Cheers,

Cunobelinus.

[misunne]

loki and worth.

(don’t reblog!)

“loki, why are you doing this?”

“to prove to father that i am a worthy son!”

okay so my boy and the idea of worthiness. worth. being of worth.

it’s always been sort of stunted. his understanding of worthiness is really rather political, based on his utility to the people and the state. pretty obvious, considering he’s the son of the king. his childhood was spent with the understanding that he wasn’t as prized as much as thor. odin preferred thor, the warriors three + sif were around for thor. thor was the center of attention. it was thor (featuring loki). it was almost like his worth was piggybacked onto thor’s. frigga tried to give him some of his own by teaching him mastery in magic, but that seemed to only give him a reputation. still, it was something of his own. something he was proud of. something that set him apart. a master of magic. it’s something. not only that, but he is a prince. a royal son of odin, prince of asgard. even if he’s the second son, it still holds weight. should thor be unable to fulfill his duties as king, or should something happen to him, loki was raised and trained to be a king. it was never really his goal, but he was brought up with the acknowledgement that the necessary succession came to him, he would have the right to it. that alone gives him a great deal of worth. personality aside, his position in the hierarchy is a high one. it gives him dignity. a place, a role, a sense of innate worth that’s born into his blood.

then come thor 1, and he learns what he is, who he is, and where he’s from. he’s not a son of odin at all. he’s not a royal asgardian prince. he’s an unwanted bastard of laufey, the crippled enemy. he was born worthless. he was born without any rite to rule, and in this world where hierarchy and lineage and birth is everything, this is catastrophic. family bond is only convenient. it’s only sentiment that odin sees him as a son, that thor sees him as a brother. in this world. it’s not something SOLID. odin’s love can’t give him the innate, inborn right to rule. for all intents and purposes, he’s a ward, but doesn’t belong to the royal household. in the line of succession, a blood cousin has more right to the throne than he does. he wasn’t meant to be a son. he was meant to be a link. a tool.

it’s a huge drop. he never had the intention to act on his title, but it was so core to his identity that he possessed it. he knows who he is and his role in things – but now that all of that is a lie, his identity thus far is also a lie. he’s nothing. born to be nothing, raised to be nothing, taught that he’s everything. what does he do? he tries to fix it. he tries to earn his place back into the role he thought he had by birth. frigga names him stand-in king, but he knows he’s not. but damn it, he’s going to take advantage of it while he has it and prove that he as a person, rather than a born prince, has the right to rule. when odin awakes, he wants him to wake to a peaceful and triumphant asgard because of him. an asgard without the threat of a jotun attack ever again, safe and victorious from any dangers. he’ll have proved himself a worthy son, acting as the prince he’s always been told he is.

but it doesn’t work. his ambition is skewed. he thinks seeking out peace is the same as keeping it. offensive maneuvers have never been his style. he’s trying to be someone he’s not. every time we see him fight or talk or do anything, it’s always a passive action, where he fights by making his enemy work against themselves. he creates illusions to trick his opponent. he draws his opponent into him to attack them with engaged-range daggers. he causes mischief and makes jokes that will call others into action. attacking jotunheim is not an act of his own nature, but an obsessive desire to prove himself as something he knows he’s not, which is a worthy son of odin. but by doing so, he proves that he will never be someone worthy to be the royal prince son of odin. not by blood, and not by ambition. odin refuses his attempts to earn his place. loki falls into the void.

he’s burdened with the remnants of trying to be someone with any sort of worth. someone who has fulfilled the role he was raised to be, which is a king. a ruler. even if odin refuses him, maybe he can prove it to himself. but in the back of his head, he still wants to try to prove it to odin, because he never truly stops trying. so he’s found by thanos and the other. this powerful creature, poisoned and twisted and corrupted and confused by his own destroyed self-worth and obsessive ambition to be someone, has fallen into thanos’ lap. he can use this guy. he can give him an army and give his ambition a focus. an aim. thanos needs something on earth. he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. he can set this enraged pawn to do his job. and it works out really well. 

turns out loki already has vendettas against earth, the house of the tesseract. earth is the beloved planet of his brother thor, and loki uses thor as a scapegoat for all of his rage. the favored son of odin, the one who IS worthy, the one who seems to breathe usefulness each each inhale. he has worthiness born into his blood, and he’s successfully earned it. two goals loki could never seem to achieve. it’s nothing that thor did that causes loki to hate him. loki doesn’t hate him as a person. he loves thor. he grew up with an underlying resentment whenever thor pushed him aside, whenever thor downplayed him, whenever thor kept him down to rise above. he uses these slights, which were upsetting and damaging but overall forgivable, as the focus of his hatred. 

so thanos uses this corruption and complexity, applies the mind stone (along with a substantial amount of torture), and amplifies this. makes all of his wrongs and injustices ten times more intense. thanos hurts loki, tears him apart, rips him and rebuilds him into a deadly point with all this resentment as its poison. he gives him an army, a mission, a weapon, and a target, and releases him.

loki attacks earth, thinking that if he doesn’t have the right to rule asgard, a kingdom of the gods, he can at least rule earth, a kingdom of man. man, who is so frail and delicate, who a god should not love because they will be gone within a heartbeat of their lives. man, who exalted them as the mightiest back in the day. loki is told that he is superior to mankind. of course he believes it. he was there when the aesir were worshiped by the nordic people. he was exalted as a god. that, at least, is some comfort. if he’s not a royal prince, at least he’s still a god to mankind. he’ll rule them, and he’ll deserve it. after all, he’s a god. surely, he must be worthy of THIS at least.

targeting thor as the source of loki’s rage at odin, his injustice, and his rising, boiling hatred for himself. he’s enraged at him when thor says the throne would be bad for him, that he shouldn’t be king, because it’s speaking to the things he already knows. the things that he’s trying to fight, to prove wrong. ‘i am a king!’ ‘i was and should be king!’ ‘the rightful heir!’ he’s overcompensating. he hates that thor’s right.

but yet again, he’s failed. he couldn’t possibly defeat a team of clever, powerful beings. essentially, all he has is his own original cleverness and an army of kamikaze mercenaries without an ounce of cleverness between the lot of them. he knows that war isn’t won by force. he’s known that his entire life. that’s the exact opposite of how he proceeds. again, we see him denying his own nature, trying to push forward directly with pretty obvious subterfuge and offensive strategy. this entire time, loki is working against himself. that never works out well. he’s simply not himself. he’s still under control of his own blind ambitions and thanos’ direction. 

we see him wake up a few times, usually involving thor. on the cliff, when thor invites him to come home, but loki says he doesn’t have a home. he has no home that he feels wants him. jotunheim? asgard? to him, these aren’t homes. these are remnants of his false identities that he never truly knew. he’s rejected from one, unworthy of the other. we see it again on stark tower, when thor tells him to look around at the chaos, and ask if he thinks it’ll really end with his rule. loki actually listens. he might have scoffed at him if this was all his plan to start with, that this is exactly his intent. but it’s not. he listens, he looks around at the chaos, and there’s that flash of fear and ‘what have i done?’ with that same fear in his eyes, he smiles that false smile of his. he cries. he stabs thor. he scoffs at his sentiment. his false brother’s sentiment means little in weight (though his love is still there).

that didn’t work. he’s brought back to asgard for the first time since really acknowledging that he has no concrete worth. he’s failed twice in an attempt to earn worth he was not born with. promised, but not inborn. even odin, who once said that his birthright is to be a king, now says his birthright was death and unwantedness. loki is perceived as being vain, that he’s owed kingship. but really, it’s just what he was raised to expect, that he was promised all his life. fundamentally, it’s a lie. a life-long lie that made up the core of him. now, odin has to completely, entirely rejected him and proved that he is worthless. in a very obvious ‘rock bottom’, he’s tossed into prison, where lives the people with no worth in the state, and he already has no worth in the eyes of himself. this has been a twisted thorn in him since the events of thor 1. in the back of his head, he’s always known frigga was there. to her, and perhaps to her alone, he has had worth. she has never shown reason otherwise. after all, she was the one who tried to help him gain worth by teaching him magic. but then, she’s gone. there’s no one left. no safe haven left. his ambition, as well as thanos’ control of him, is broken. he’s broken. he’s nothing and he’s nobody. he’s settling with the fact that he has no identity. he takes his fury out on himself and the room around him, and he’s reduced to dwelling on the ground, maintaining a feeble sense of pride by keeping up an illusion.

then, when he needs it most, thor gives him the offer of revenge. thor is obviously desperate; why else would anyone seek out this failed monster? it sparks something in him. he has an aim again, small though it is. someone thought of him. and not just someone. thor thought of him. in a tiny way, it’s almost like having his brother again, going off on some dumb scheme. even if thor doesn’t see it that way, even if he hates having to trust loki who has repeatedly betrayed him, loki’s pretty excited about it. taking out the elves can be a minor balm of the agony that is his stolen worth, identity, and mother. i bet when he kills big scary guy (i forget his name right now), he sees thanos’ face. for a second.

but this is really where we see this chain broken, his obsessive need to regain what he felt he’s lost. trying to be who he was. but he’s beginning to realize that that person is dead. that person was a lie. but at the same time, ragnarok begins to open his eyes as to how much of that old identity actually can be salvaged, but merged into a new one. he doesn’t need to be loki odinson, nor laufeyson. he can simply be loki of asgard. god of mischief, but also more than that. rather than seeking worth politically or outside of himself, he can do so through redemption. he’s given himself the identity of ‘villain’, which was never his intention. that may have been thanos’ intention, but it wasn’t his. he never wanted to destroy or kill or enslave on a grand scheme. this isn’t the title he wanted.

maybe he can work to get another one.

[thessaliah]

holdharmonysacred said: If you don’t mind me adding to this - I THINK another reason why Protag/Romani is popular is because of Protag being the self-insert character, and people are just shipping their self-insert with the doctor (as weird as it sounds). How awkward it is probably depends on if the shipper in question thinks of the protag as Guda the self-insert or Ritsuka the actual character.

Absolutely, I left that implicit. Most of the times, Ritsuka/Gudako is a self-insert and stand in for the player. Because a character is popular among the yumejoshi and otome inclinied female fanbase, and he’s a popular pairing choice (along with Dantes, who appeals to completely different taste and he, unlike Roman, does have romantic pandering with the female protagonist who is Haydee Mk II).

Although not always. There are girls shipping Gudao/Roman, after all, so I doubt they take male protagonist as their self-insert, even if it’s nowhere as popular as Gudako as pairing partner. And there are quite a few men who ship Gudako/Roman. Several of the Romaguda doujin Rated +18 ranks high on male rankings and male-oriented sections, while the one ranking high in female ones seem to be more vanilla.

That’s my first impression, I don’t really pay a lot of attention because I don’t care much about the pairing. It’s cute and the art is good, but I don’t even read fanfic about it. 

Next is pairing talk that is a spoiler, so I’ll hide it under a cut.

I do like a bit the Solomon/protagonist variant, assuming Ritsuka gets a characterization and if Solomon is a separate entity of Roman (just Alter Ego it), or starts anew without the mentor baggage Roman has; it becomes the king/protagonist pairing which archetypical of Fate. Also the aesthetics are better because Roman and Gudako look kind of vaguely related. I need more contrast in for aesthetics.

Naturally, it’s not my first pick either. Not even for BL sake. My preferences are unusual:

1. Da Vinci/Roman. OTP.

2. Marisbilly/Solomon. His true Master. 

3. Goetia/either version. This one is obviously the most unhealthy but has so many issues that makes it fascinating dependency (of Goetia’s side) and mixed feelings. Most artists and authors like to portrayal Goetia as Solomon’s twin and that’s fine, aesthetically, based on his king of humanity form, but Goetia is a genderless magical formula whom Solomon made, his vessel was Solomon’s body after his death... so I wish they explored more about shapeshifting and get more creative. What if he came to him in a dead wife’s corpse or possessed a living one? There’s so much mess up issues about this pairing they can do and Blond Solomon clone is the most vanilla choice. Ever. It’s still nice to the eyes, tho.

4. Lion King/Roman. I thought it was really interesting he was the one who made her smile and laugh and she became more helpful to give tips after that (before she was hostile with the protagonist and Mashu). I’m not sure if I want to it to be completely romantic, but I feel there was a special unspoken kinship between Roman and any version of Arturia. After being looked down by fellow kings or even disregarded by the fandom sometimes, it meant a lot to me as her fan too, that Roman seemed not just approved but admired and subscribed to her way of kingship. He might have not gotten a choice like she did to toss away his life for his people as Solomon (he was that kind of ruler since birth without a choice about it), but that’s what he basically did as Roman. He destroyed his chance of normal happiness for the sake of others and led them to save humanity because he had hoped they could be happy as they were. The small things about how she never bullies him, or how he’s paternal with Saber Lily (as he is with Mashu, for example, about her short skirt, disapproving Merlin’s habits). Or how Lancer Arturia consults him and opens up with him first before bonding with the protagonist. Or heck, Arthur immediately hits off with Roman as if they were on the same page and hold mutual trust at first sight. I feel there was potential to explore them, maybe not romantic, maybe as king pals. The fandom prefers to pair him with Merlin and Gilgamesh due to the clairvoyant connection and that’s fine, but he strongly disagrees with Gilgamesh’s kingship (Archer one at least) and would probably be disgusted with his FSN version, in particular UBW (who has the opposite views of Roman about modern humanity lol). It doesn’t mean to ignore this aspect because they are canonically peers who feel a tacit brotherhood, but it would have been rich to also address the styles of leadership too and have him side with Arturia (and Arthur). Now why Lion King as pairing potential and not other Arturia? Because she was the opposite of Solomon and thus Roman: a person who lost her emotions as a godlike being vs a godlike being without emotions who became a normal human. Also, there’s no Shirou involved either (but there’s Agravain, whom I OTP with but that’s another issue). That’s why if there’s a pairing possibility, she’s the best candidate of the Arturias to write fic about, IMO.

I mean sure, I don’t mind Merlin or the protagonist but they aren’t my first choices, even if they are the most popular ones. I’m fairly chill as long it’s not super offensive and it gets pretty art?

[wendynerdwrites]

Recovered Jonsa Fic #18: I’ve Only Ever Loved...

Next on my fic repost project!...

Anonymous asked: Littlefinger sneaks into Jon’s room to find incriminating evidence to use against him, but has to hide in a closet when Jon returns early to bed an unknown woman. He is horrified when he finally recognizes the woman.

HELLO HELLO do you remember when petyr killed lyssa, he told her “i only love one woman.. your sister” can you do one where karma is a bitch and sansa told him she only loves jon and then push him through the moon door? :D

Decided to kill two prompts with one fic. Kind of.

Normally, Petyr would not get his hands dirty.

Things are desperate.

But Sansa has forgiven and continued to love the bastard, despite his ascension at her expense. She is by his side every day, supporting his kingship, facilitating his reign. She drafts his letters and edicts, she holds court with him, she monitors and moderates the accounts. She bloody commissioned and designed his bloody crown, and crowned him herself before all the vassals of the North and the Knights of the Vale out in the bloody godswood.

Since the news of the Frey Massacre, she has been reaching out to every lord in the Riverlands to help her recover her uncle, reinstall him in Riverrun, and secure their loyalties to the new King in the North. Her brother Robb had been named King of the Trident as well. She seeks the same title for the Bastard, despite the lack of a single drop of Tully blood in his veins.

Sansa is not stupid, though, she knows that getting the Riverlands to swear fealty to the product of Ned Stark dis honoring Catelyn Tully is a long shot, so she proposes to make Edmure a king as well.

A similar proposition is put to her cousin in the Vale. With the Knights of the Vale having cried out King in the North as well, with so many of them still in the North, including Bronze Yohn Royce, she has an easier go of it. She entertains them, trying to get these men to write to their young lord and convince him to swear allegiance to Jon of House Stark, First of His Name, King in the North.

She’s legitimized him formally. The bastard, despite his title, has proclaimed Sansa the Head of the House Stark proper, claiming to be of a “branch house” himself. He has proclaimed her Lady of Winterfell, Lady of the Dreadfort, his Hand, his designated regent, and his heir. So, he may be King, but “Princess” Sansa rules the Royal seat, holds more land than any lord of the North while the king is a branch Stark who holds no land of his own (the spoils of the conquered traitors of Umber and Karstark given to the “Free Folk” and House Mormont as rewards for their loyalty). The chains of command are scrambled, and Sansa is queen in all but name. And the King has gone out of his way to leave no doubt about that in the minds of the North.

So she is by his side, ruling with him, helping him avoid or fix his idiot mistakes, securing his throne, building his war. She even has a throne crafted for him, styled like the Lord of Winterfell’s chair which she herself sits: a seat of bronze and steel, with cushions of silver and ivory brocade. She places it beside her seat. The only difference between the two is that the image of the direwolf’s head that rises up atop the back of the chair wears a crown like the one she also had made for him. He sits a throne now, with her by his side.

Petyr wishes to scream and gnash his teeth. He goes to her in the godswood once more, finding her sitting upon her preferred low branch perch, embroidery hoop in her lap.  He tells her that the Bastard has stolen her birthright, that he’s using her, that she should not trust her half-brother, that he has taken the power and position that should rightfully be hers and that she should not follow him.

She laughs in his face at this. “You may have brought me the men I needed, Petyr, but in return I have kept your secrets. And every one of your ambitions for me, every one of your plots, have involved carting me off somewhere to be someone’s prisoner. First it was my aunt in the Vale, then married off to Ramsay. Your ‘dream’ for me is you sitting on the Iron Throne with me by your side. I presume as your queen? Yes, such power, security, influence, and happiness you offer me, leaving the home that is everything I have yearned, suffered, and fought for since my father was arrested standing beside you in the same place where my father was killed and Joffrey had me stripped and beaten in public for his amusement, to be queen to you. Just as Naerys was queen to Aegon the Unworthy, as Rhaelle was queen to Aerys the Mad, just as Daena the Defiant and her sisters were to Baelor the Blessed, just as Ceryse Hightower, Tyanna of Pentos, and Arys Harroway were to Maegor the Cruel, just as I was ‘Wardeness’ to Ramsay. You promise me everything I am too wise to ever want again.”

“You would be the Alysanne to my Jaehaerys the Wise!” He insists. She laughs again.

“Yes, because you have proven yourself an honorable, honest man, especially where I and my role in your machinations go. You claimed to take me home, you take me to the Vale. You say you’ll take me to the Fingers to be safe, you take me elsewhere. You speak of a marriage proposal, and wait until we are all the way to Moat Cailin to tell me you’re going to marry me off to the son of my brother’s killer. You tell me that the plan is for me to no longer be on the sidelines, act, and take revenge, but give me no means to do it, and leave me there without protection, your only plans being ‘wait until Stannis wins and if he does not, make Ramsay mine and end up continuing and legitimizing the Boltons and their hold on Winterfell just as they want.’ You leave me to be locked away, tortured and raped in a dark room, taking no measures to make sure that the family that betrayed and murdered mine, that literally had the flayed man as their sigil, would not mistreat me. You promised to make me Lady of Winterfell and Wardenness of the North, taking back my family home. But instead you almost made me into my mortal enemie’s plaything and brood mare.”

“The North is rightfully yours!”

“You didn’t feel like speaking up and saying so that day in the Great Hall when they proclaimed Jon king, so clearly you’re not all that committed to it. Now Jon, on the other hand… He could have used that opportunity to marry me off, as you did. He’d bind the loyalty of a House to him, he’d have me out of the way to secure a hold on Winterfell and do away with my claim. But he didn’t. In fact, he did the things you promised. He had it set in stone that not only Winterfell and the prime authority of House Stark was mine, but also took the marriage I suffered thanks to you, and used it to give me yet more power, wealth, and security by giving their lands to me and making me the largest landowner and most powerful vassal in the North. He named me Hand so that I’d carry all of the authority of the crown, and named me his designated regent so my rule would continue even when he is not around to reinforce it. He’s named me his heir, so that a crown may end up being mine regardless. He puts actual power, actual affairs, in my hands. He tells me everything, everything he is planning, and plans with me. He has granted me information and powers no one else has. He is only at Winterfell because I urged him to. And while I am by the side of a king, it is in a seat of authority of my own, with full independence of my own. Thanks to Jon and what he’s done, no one arrange for me to wed but myself, no one can tell me where to go or what to do but myself, no one can dismiss me again, or shut me out of power. I hold authority in my own right, something no one has ever, ever offered me, let alone given.”

He shakes his head. “He’s using you. After a few years of your unwavering support, he won’t need to keep you happy anymore. And then… I thought you’d be smart enough to realize that he could easily strip you of it all the moment it becomes convenient to him.”

“It already can and would be. He didn’t even have to give me the Dreadfort. He could have used it to draw the loyalty of some other vassal. No one would have batted an eye. I certainly wouldn’t have. I actually advised him to do exactly that. But he gave it to me for no other reasons than that he loves me, wants me to have something for all I suffered, and cares about my rights and well-being above his ambitions. He marched an army of two thousand against an army of six thousand for me.”

“It was the forces I brought that won that battle.” He hisses furiously.

“We both know you have every reason to give me what I need that has nothing to do with love. I could have secured those forces from you by threatening to tell Yohn Royce or my cousin or any number of Vale Lords the truth about you.” Her eyes narrow. “I have kept these secrets for you, Littlefinger. Even though you do not deserve it. Yet you have the nerve to try and turn me against Jon and call him untrustworthy.”

Petyr sneers. “You think him a hero. But no one is, Sansa. You should know that by now. If you don’t realize it soon, it will be too late.”

But she dismisses him with a wave of her hand.

There has to be some proof. There has to be. Sansa is naive to think the Bastard is an open book with her, but everyone has secrets. He needs to find the Bastard’s.

Unfortunately, setting up a suitable network in Winterfell is harder than he anticipated. Most of his personal men are of the Vale, and they already don’t trust him. The Northerners are absurdly loyal. It was the Starks who saved them from the cruelty of the Boltons, and they have been well-treated since. They will not risk that.

So it has to be him.

An opportunity comes, of course, when the king announces a week long trip to patrol and survey the Wolfswood. Bloody Bastard still acts more as a ranger of the Night’s Watch than a king. Sansa falls ill two days after he departs, leaving the regency of Winterfell to Ser Davos Seaworth and the court out of sorts enough for one’s actions to easily go unnoticed.

Actions like acquiring a key to the king’s chambers and sneaking in there to find or plant whatever he needs to make Sansa realize the truth. It takes a few days to get the key, but it is worth it.

When he enters the man’s apartments, he cannot help but scoff. His own guest quarters, though smaller, are more luxurious. The Bastard gave Sansa the Lord of Winterfell’s chambers, and took the rooms that belonged to the late Robb Stark instead. There is a solar crammed full of weapons and armor, with worn out drapes and rugs, marked maps lining the walls in place of tapestries or art, and meager wooden chairs by the fireplace. As unkingly a set of rooms as could exist.

He looks around a bit to find no papers, no real useful personal effects, and ventures into the bedchamber. The bastard’s bed is clearly one he inherited from his half-brother too: though it is not a child’s bed, it’s not especially large. Clearly built for an unmarried adolescent. The drapings, at least, look new. But they’re not overly grand. Grey embroidery on white wool. Even the desk, piled high with papers, is far too small.

The trappings of power had their use. Too bad the bastard was too proud of his own supposed humility to see that.

Petyr heads right for the desk and begins shuffling through them, scanning everything at top speed. The desk is such a mess it makes it quick and easy: there’s no way the bastard will notice that anything’s been disturbed.

Half an hour later, and Petyr has found nothing that serves his purposes yet. Letter drafts that say all manner of things that are of no use to him. Edicts. Accounts with no discrepencies. Nearly all of it had at least a few notes in Sansa’s elegant script. He scowls and eyes a desk drawer. It’s locked, but he can pick it. He justs needs a little—

A thudding sound startles him, as do footsteps. Petyr freezes. He cannot be found. He eyes the bastard’s wardrobe and hurries in, burying himself behind doublets and tunics. It’ll serve for however long this servant will take. He leaves the wardrobe open just a crack and looks out. There are voices as whoever it is opens the door. He hears the voice when the door opens. No… It can’t be…

“…Desperate for this…” It’s hard to see much, but there he is: the Bastard. The supposed King in the North. The dutiful white wolf, not on his scheduled patrol, but backing into his bedchamber with swollen lips as he yanks off his doublet. There are smacking sounds. Petyr wishes to get a better look, but moving too much is too great a risk.

But still, this is interesting. This, potentially, is leverage. Sansa would be very interested to hear that her honorable, honest, dutiful brother was shirking his duties to bed some whore.

Petyr moves as much as he can to follow the small sliver of the couple he can see across the room. He watches as the woman backs her kings toward the bed. For all her kirtle is ugly, common brown wool, she has a lovely curtain of crimson hair. Petyr had heard about the wildling woman. Apparently the man still had a preference for redheads. It seemed they had one thing in common. He watches as the bastard loses his tunic and kicks off his boots, as the whore quickly unlaces the front of her kirtle and lets it pool at her feet, revealing long, shapely legs, a glorious arse, and a disquieting array of scars marring the porcelain skin of her back.

Their mouths are glued to one another until the whore brings the Bastard to the foot of the bed and pushes him down on it, forcing him on his back. The Bastard grins as the whore moves away from his lips to pull his breeches down of his legs. She takes the smallclothes he wears too, and a Petyr gets a quick glimpse of the Bastard’s cock. It’s bigger than his.

The whore climbs up onto the bed and kneels beside him, squealing. “Finally!”

The Bastard chuckles. “Eager, are we?”

“No more than you are, My King.”

Petyr’s blood runs cold. No… It can’t be…

“True.” The Bastard gazes up at the whore in downright reverence and reaches for her hips, drawing her over him and upwards, towards his mouth. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve longed to—”

“To what? Jon, what are you—– OH! OHHHHH!”

She’s straddling not his hips, but his head. She cries out his name. She shouts. She writhes. Petyr keeps telling himself that it’s not her. It can’t be her.

But then she throws her head back. For a few seconds, there’s her face, and Petyr can deny it no longer. It’s her. It’s truly her.

He’s lost another Tully girl. And this time, she prefers her brother to him, in literally every sense.

It’s worse than Brandon. Catelyn chose Brandon to marry, as per her father’s wishes. Sansa… Sansa has chosen Jon based on nothing. He is her brother. It is a risk, not a duty. Still, she rejects Petyr in favor of being bedded out of wedlock by her brother.

No wonder he has such a hold on her.

Petyr stares, mouth agape, as Sansa throws her head back once more, hands between her legs, and cries out even louder than before. There is a look on her face of something within her snapping in the most delicious way.

That should be a face she makes for him, and him alone. He sees the Bastard’s hands on her hips, slowing urging her down his body as she quivers. When her hips come close to his, she kisses him. “I love you,” she says to her brother, “And I need you inside me. I’ve waited too long.”

How long has he dreamed, ached, yearned to hear her say those exact words? And to hear it like this, said to him.

The Bastard’s hands stay planted on her hips as she eases herself down. She moans, grabs his hands, plants them on her breasts, and begins to ride him like a stallion.

Petyr can look no longer. He shuts his eyes and covers his ears, trying to muffle the sound of their cries, willing for himself to wake from this nightmare. But it keeps going and going. The sounds get ever louder, ever more passionate. Surely this is one of the Seven Hells.

Their cries reach a certain pitch and end. It’s over, yes, but Petyr still feels bile rush to his mouth. It is over because the Bastard has finished. Even now, his seed was being released within Sansa, filling her, possibly to succeed where Ramsay’s failed and find purchase within her. And then what?

He almost hopes it happens. So that Sansa can see what this man has truly done for her. So she can come crawling to him, probably to get him to marry her so she can pass her bastard off as his. She’ll have to be married off after all.

Petyr opens his eyes and uncovers his ears, waiting and watching for when they finally get up, get dressed, and leave. Perhaps… Perhaps he can use this. Expose them. Or threaten them, anyways.

Sansa remains sitting atop her brother. The Bastard reaches up and plays with her hair.

“Gods…” He gasps, “Look at you, brave as you are beautiful. My Queen. My wife.”

Petyr almost collapses at that. No. Not possible. Sansa giggles and moves to lie down next to him, curling up to her brother. She wags a dainty finger at him. “Not quite yet, King Jon. We still must wait a bit.”

Petyr feels his mouth fall open. What can they possibly mean? Surely, they didn’t dare. They were Starks, not Targaryens. There was no way in the Seven Hells the Northerners would accept this.

The Bastard grunts in indignation, looking into her eyes and stroking her hair. “For Lord Reed and the announcement and Bran and the lords to all assemble before the stupid bloody Heart Tree so that we might say a few words that somehow make our love more legitimate somehow. But sod them all. I’ve made my choice, so have you. How are you not my wife already? If I wish to call you such when we’re alone, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. You’re in my arms already, in my bed….” He trails off, then cups her cheek. “…My brave girl. I almost didn’t… After what happened to you… You know you didn’t have to, right? I’d wait a hundred years for you to—”

“You did as I asked, My Love. You stayed beneath me, kept your eyes on mine, spoke my name. I am not going to let Ramsay take this away from me. He doesn’t get to be a barrier to my happiness anymore. With you, he can’t be. You’re you. And I… I wanted this. I wanted to feel good. I wanted to prove to myself that what he did couldn’t keep me from loving the way I wish to.” She grins and squirms. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing this with you.”

Petyr’s mind races. He tries to piece their words together. Lord Reed? Howland Reed, obviously. Old friend of Ned Stark’s. And.. Did the Bastard say ‘Bran’? If he meant their brother Bran, the one the Lannisters crippled, then… But Bran was missing, likely dead, was he not?

“Mmmmm.” The Bastard grins. “I’m so happy he accepted it. You don’t think he saw it, do you? And that’s why he understands?”

“It’s possible.” She shudders. “I’m so afraid for him, Jon. I hate that we have to do this. But… Gods, what could possibly have been done to him? Things like this… They don’t come without a price.”

Petyr’s eyes narrow. What could they possibly be talking about?

“I know,” replies the Bastard, sighing, “I sometimes wonder if the only reason I’m alive is because the Red Woman burned Shireen. She thought she was doing it for Stannis’s victory, but what if really it was meant to give her the power to bring me back?”

“You mustn’t blame yourself for that, Jon, please don’t. You have no control over it.”

“But if so, what’s Bran’s price? He’s lost his legs, his wolf, his home, his parents, his brothers, what more could possibly be taken from him?”

“Perhaps he’s already paid his price.”

The Bastard shudders. “The gods are cruel, either way. But… The best thing we can do for him is to keep this a secret for as long as we can. At least until he figures out what it all means.”

“Right. Which is why we must wait. Lord Reed arrives in Winterfell with his daughter, tells everyone the truth about you, then Bran can come home with no shocking, inexplicable revelations that would make people think he’s anything but a normal boy who has simply been through horrible things. Bran arrives a fortnight after everyone knows the truth, we can make our announcement in a timely manner, and all the lords of the North can see our decision validated by our little brother’s approval. And then…” She strokes his chest, “We’ll be wed before the eyes of gods and men.”

He takes her hand and kisses it. “Mine. Forever. No one else’s. I’ll be able to take care of you for the rest of your life.”

Her smile falters slightly. “I hope. If you come back to me.”

“Sansa, you know I must…”

“I know. And I won’t let it ruin this right now. We have so little time.” She pauses. “But… I hope you’ve seeded me. I hope I’m with child as soon as possible. If I am, maybe I’ll be able to have it in time before you leave, and so, at the very least, you can go into battle having met your child. You deserve that.”

Petyr wants to die. She truly loves the Bastard. Loves him madly. How?

The Bastard pulls her closer. “You know, before the battle with Ramsay, I told Melisandre not to bring me back. If we lost, there was nothing to come back for. Not if I’d failed you. And I thought it was wrong for me to return. Unnatural. But… I swear to you. I am never making such a request again. I’ll march off to war with a dozen Red Priests, come back a thousand times if it means coming back to you. I swear it.”

“You had better keep that vow, Jon Snow. You can break vows to anyone or anything you like, but not to me.”

The Bastard smiles. “You were who my vows were meant for. Not the Watch, not the bloody winter crown. You. You and the life we’ll create together.”

Petyr still wants to vomit. But he also still wants to know what is happening. What secrets have they been keeping? Bran returning? Magic? Marriage? What was happening? What was this truth they were speaking of?

He has to know. He has to know. He has to—-

He doesn’t even realize he’s moved. Not until he falls. Falls, crashing out of the wardrobe onto the floor.

In seconds, he’s on his back and there is a crushing weight bearing down on his throat. Sansa screams. The Bastard is on top of him, glaring at him, his forearm crushing Petyr’s windpipe.

There’s a long, semi-silent moment, where the two men glare at one another. It is broken by Sansa calling for Jon to let him up. “I must speak to him.”

He gasps for air as the Bastard gets up and pulls him to his feet to face her.

She sits up in the bed, magnificent. Her knees are close to her chest, and from the chest down she is covered by furs and linens. Her red hair is loose and gloriously mussed, her lips swollen, her eyes bright and so very, very blue, her porcelain skin ever so slightly flushed. How many times has he dreamt of seeing her in exactly this state?

But she looks upon him coldly. “This is an issue, isn’t it, Littlefinger? You heard every word. Now, what is to be done with you?”

A chill runs down his spine. He realizes, at this moment, that there is no hope. That there hasn’t been any hope since the day he wrote Roose Bolton. Not only is there no chance in all of the world that Sansa Stark will ever love him, but that she loathes him. She’s likely loathed him ever since Ramsay first laid his hands on her. Perhaps even longer.

He realizes, now, that she has no reason not to kill him. That she would, gladly. Perhaps she’s simply been waiting for the right moment.

Perhaps that moment has arrived.

“Sansa…” He says, “You don’t understand… Can’t you see? How is he any different? He wants you just as I want you. He sees you just as I see you. He’s your brother, and he’s seduced you! He’s reduced you to being your own brother’s whore!”

His nose breaks under the force of the Bastard’s fist. He doubles over and clutches it, trying to stem the flow of blood. And she laughs.

She laughs.

“It seems with each passing year, Lord Baelish, you grow more of a fool and more of a hypocrite. One would think a brothel keeper would know what a whore is. A person whose body is sold to someone for money or services, usually sold by some sort of pimp. You put me in Ramsay Bolton’s bed in exchange for an alliance with the Boltons. You’re the most prolific pimp in Westeros. You did more to make me your whore than Jon ever could. You just were so sloppy in your efforts that you gained nothing from it. I was with Ramsay because of a pimp. I am with Jon because I want to be. Not for any goods or services, not for the profit of someone like you. Because I yearned for his touch. He made me his lover, not his whore. And soon, he’ll make me his wife as well.”

Petyr straightens up and spits some blood. “If you think for a second that’s true, then you truly are a stupid girl who never learns. You both know that if you two tried to wed, the Northern Lords would rip you apart for incest. Unless they’re Targaryens, not even a king can get away with wedding his sister.”

The two lovers exchange glances, then burst into laughter. It hurts as much as the punch. Fury grips him.

“WHAT IS SO FUNNY?!”

Sansa smirks. “That ‘truth’ we were discussing earlier? The one Lord Reed is supposed to reveal? It’s about Jon. He’s not my brother after all.”

Petyr freezes. “What?! Of course he is! He’s Ned Stark come again! Look at him!”

“Aye, I look very much like my uncle. I got my mother’s Stark looks,” says the Bastard, his lip curling.

“What—?!”

“Remember my Aunt Lyanna? Remember what happened to her?”

And it all comes together. Petyr stares at the Bastard, scanning every inch of him. Trying to recall everything he can from that day at Harrenhal all of those years ago.

And when he looks this closely, he sees it. It’s not obvious, but it’s there. The shape of the eyebrows, the cheekbones, the jawline, the lips, the way the hair curls… Even the way he’s seen the Bastard move is Rhaegar Targaryen come alive again, now that he thinks of it.

He steps back, gaping. So that’s it. Sansa grins. “You always prided yourself on knowing secrets. But I’m afraid that’s the last one you can be permitted. We’ve been tolerating you long enough, Baelish. I’ve let you live after what you did to me. But now you may endanger my loved ones as well. I can’t permit that.”

Petyr tries, tries so hard to get to the door. But the Bastard is faster, stronger than he is. He’s yanked by the collar, he’s flying towards a bedpost, and then… He wakes, freezing, lying in the snow. He opens his eyes to find himself lying atop the ramparts of Winterfell, Sansa and the Bastard standing over him. The Bastard yanks him to his feet and pushes him to the rail, holding him over the edge.

“I am about to kill you, Petyr Baelish,” The Bastard informs him, “I’m going to throw you off the wall and you are going to fall to your death. And we’ll say it was an accident. And while it will look suspicious, no one will care. You know why? Because there isn’t a single person in the North that doesn’t distrust or outright detest you. There’s not a person in the world that will care that you’re dead. And they will care even less when Sansa here, finally no longer having to be afraid of you, admits what you did to the world. What you did to Joffrey, to Lysa Arryn, to her. And then everyone will celebrate your death, then forget all about you. And Sansa and I will marry, because there’s nothing in this world either of us want more than each other. We’ll win this war and fill Winterfell with our red-headed children. We will rule the North and be remembered for centuries to come. The only thing sung of more than our heroism in destroying the White Walkers will be of our love. And no one, no one, will ever speak the name ‘Petyr Baelish’ again. All you did to win, all you did to harm others, it brings you to losing everything you ever wanted, and dying on Stark soil. Brandon Stark’s nephew finishing the job he should have all those years ago. Only this time, the Tully girl you’ve lost to him can’t wait to see your corpse.”

Sansa walks over, smiling. “I’m sorry, Littlefinger, but whatever you may have wanted to believe, the truth is, I’ll only ever love one man. My brother, Jon.”

And with that, he flies.