#there's got and hotd characters living here too

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

darilaros (princess) │ Chapter 2: Dolls

terms of endearment ‘verse: see my Masterlist for the correct series order!

Chapter 1 │Chapter 2 │Chapter 3 │Chapter 4 │Chapter 5 │Chapter 6 │Chapter 7 │Chapter 8 (COMPLETE!)

Synopsis: As the second daughter of King Viserys, you experience firsthand what it means to belong to the House of the Dragon. You attend your very first tourney in celebration of your brother or sister’s impending arrival. 

Hello! My apologies for the wait. There was a whole mess of stuff that killed my drive to write for a few days. BUT, I’ve managed to write this one, featuring baby!Babey as a POV character! I’ve tried hard to keep it in a ‘small person’ voice, which got real old real fast, lol. Keep in mind that she’s around 3 years old in this one, so she’s not hella mature or anything. My thanks to @ewanmitchellcrumbs​ for reading this asshole over, lol.

TRIGGERS: child doing child things, child narrating Episode 1 of HotD, character death.

Once upon a time, there lived a girl called Hana. Hana was the prettiest girl in the whole kingdom, and she wore fancy dresses with gold and silver necklaces and rings, and she had a pearl hairnet in her red hair. There was also another girl called Marya who was very pretty too, but not as pretty as Hana. When Hana and Marya were lit—

“Ah,” Mama says. “Rhaenyra!”

From your place on the floor in the corner, right in the middle of a patch of sunlight, you see that ’Nyra has come. It’s not nice to have your story interrupted, but ’Nyra’s visits are always fun, so you don’t mind. She is dressed the way she does when she goes to visit Syrax, which means she will smell funny and make Mama cross.

“You know I don’t like you to go flying while I'm in this condition,” Mama adds.

“You don't like me to go flying while you're in any condition.”

Alicent, ’Nyra’s best friend, stands in the doorway. She is very very pretty, you think, with red hair like Hana’s and a blue dress that makes her look like a girl from one of the old stories you like to listen to. “Your Grace,” she says, smiling.

“Good morrow, Alicent.” Mama sighs. She sounds very tired. She has put her coat back on, even though it’s so hot in the room and she’s fanning herself to try and dry the sweat on her cheeks and her brow.

“Did you sleep?” ’Nyra asks.

Mama laughs, quick and soft. “I slept.”

“How long?” ’Nyra takes a seat on the stool beside Mama’s feet.

“I don’t need mothering, Rhaenyra.”

“Well, here you are, surrounded by attendants, all focused on the babe. Someone has to attend to you.”

That is when Mama’s eyes go to you. “I have my own right here, so there is no need to fear.”

’Nyra turns to look, too. Her frown goes away and she smiles, wiggling her fingers at you to say ‘hello’. Even though she’s your sister and that means you love her, you don’t go over to her. She is older, so she doesn’t care very much about dolls or stories or little sisters who don’t have dragons.

Mama keeps talking to ’Nyra while you listen. “You will lie in this bed soon enough, Rhaenyra. This discomfort is how we serve the Realm.” None of it makes sense, but you like the sound of their voices.

’Nyra makes a rude noise. “I'd rather serve as a knight and ride to battle and glory.”

Mama laughs. “We have royal wombs, you and your sister and I. The childbed is our battlefield. We must learn to face it with a stiff lip.”

Why would a child’s bed be a battlefield? My bed is nice and big. And what is a stiff lip? Is it something that Maester Mellos should give his herbs for? Are there bones in a lip? Can those bones break like big bones can?

You have lots of questions, but you don’t say what you’re thinking out loud, of course. The Maester only said you could be in here if you were good, so you mustn’t talk unless Mama asks you something or starts saying things to you.

“Now,” Mama says to ’Nyra, “take a bath. You stink of dragon.”

’Nyra stands up and bends down to kiss Mama on her head. Then, she comes over to you and gets on the floor so she can give you a hug and a kiss, and she is warm and smelly like Mama said she is. You like the smell, though, because it is what ’Nyra always smells like.

’Nyra leaves with Alicent, and for a while it is very calm. Mama takes a nap by closing her eyes and leaning with her head back, so you make sure to be very quiet when you continue telling yourself the story.

Once upon a time, there lived a girl called Hana. Hana was the prettiest girl in the whole kingdom, and she wore fancy dresses with gold and silver necklaces and rings, and she had a pearl hairnet in her red hair. There was also another girl called Marya who was very pretty too, but not as pretty as Hana. When Hana and Marya were little, they were best friends, and they played dolls and sang hymns and learned their letters together. But when they became older, they started to fight.

Marya was jealous of Hana. Lords from all over the kingdom wanted to marry her because of how pretty and how kind she was. That meant that not many lords wanted to marry Marya, even though she had lovely dark hair and knew all the names of the Houses and could sing even better than Hana did! So, Marya thought and thought about how she could make more lords want to marry her. She decided to hide all of Hana’s nicest dresses and shiniest jewels.

Naughty, naughty Marya. That’s not how proper ladies act. It was very nasty of you to—

“What are you and your ladies up to?”

You don’t like being interrupted for a second time, but it is Mama who is asking. Everyone’s been using soft voices since ’Nyra came to make a fuss and then left to wash the dragon-stink off. Mama’s question is louder than them all, so it must be for you.

Turning your head, you see that she is looking at you with a small smile.

“Marya hid Hana’s dresses and her best necklace and rings,” you say, holding her up high so Mama can see. You frown at the doll. “She needs to say sorry, so I’m telling her to.”

Mama laughs, but you don’t know why. “Oh, dear. How unkind of her! Why did Marya do such a thing?”

“All the lords want to marry Hana,” you say, “and not Marya. She’s very angry, but—but it’s not Hana’s fault. So I’m going to tell her that, too.”

“My, my.” Mama looks tired, like she has ever since baby Baelon-or-Visenya started growing in her belly, but she still seems happy that you’re here. Her eyes are warm the way they get when she sees you. “Quite a responsibility, you have.”

You nod. “I’m her Mama, like you’re mine. I have to teach her to be good.”

This makes Mama smile even wider. She holds her hand out to you, so you put Marya down beside Hana, making sure they’re not too close together. It would be bad if they started fighting after you’ve been busy telling Marya off so much. Making sure your skirts are neat like a proper lady, you go to take Mama’s hand, letting her pull you close-close so that you have to get up onto the daybed with her. Her skin is hot like fire is when you get too near it.

“Are you going to teach your little brother or sister to be good, too?” she asks, bringing your hand to her belly. When you touch it, you feel the kicking. It’s like a tapping from under a very thick blanket.

“Yes, Mama. I promise. I’ll sing all the hymns so they learn them, and make sure they eat all their supper, and—and say ‘no running’ and ‘no hitting’ and give them lots of hugs and tell—tell them they are naughty if they don’t liste—”

“Well,” she says even louder, smiling so wide you can see her teeth, “you already sound like a wonderful big sister, my dearest.”

Then, a new voice speaks out from the doorway, catching your interest. “Hakorje mandia kesā, sīlāvose.”

It’s one of your favourite people in the whole world.

You scramble out of Mama’s hold, nearly tripping over your dress. “Kepus!”

He chuckles as you race toward him, arm out so that he can catch you and lift you up. Mama hasn’t been able to do that since her belly became big, and Papa is too busy now. Oh, how you’ve missed it!

Uncle Daemon sits you on his hip so that you can stare straight at his face, at the way his eyes scrunch up with how much his mouth stretches. “What about you, Princess? Have you been a good girl since last I saw you?” he asks.

“I’m always good, kepus,” you say, pushing out your bottom lip to show how rude you think his question is. “But—but you haven’t. You’re naughty. You’ve been gone for so, so, so long!”

Even though his brow raises, he sounds like he finds you funny. “Ah-ah. A moon’s turn, nothing more or less, is all the time I’ve spent away. I was here for your name day celebrations, was I not?”

“That was ages ago!”

There were lots of people in the Keep for the party, and you don’t think you really knew most of them. But, because Papa is King and you are a Princess, they were invited to come and wish you a happy name day and give you gifts and eat and drink lots. It was nice at first, but the more they ate and drank, the louder they got, and soon you had to sneak off and find Uncle so that he could take you back to your rooms where it was quiet. He sang a song in High Valyrian, the language that your House has spoken for thousands of years, so that you could fall asleep even after eating so many little frosted cakes. Soon, you had to say farewell to him because he had to go back to Runestone and visit his lady wife, the one he hate-hates but Mama says he has to see.

Thinking about High Valyrian makes you stop. You can’t speak it, but there are some parts you know. Kicking Uncle in the side for being rude, you say, “And—and I’m not ann—annoying. I’m good!”

He looks sorry when you say that. “Of course you are. And I hope you’ll forgive me for returning after such a long time.” Behind his back where you can’t see is his other arm. He brings it out, showing you what he was hiding in his hand.

Oh! A new doll! And this one is special because it has pale hair and purple eyes just like you!

“Please accept this as a token of my apology, sweetling,” Uncle Daemon says, offering it to you. “Perhaps—Marya and Hana, was it?—could do with another friend.”

“Thank you, kepus!” Keeping your new doll pinned between you and Uncle, you wrap your arms around his neck so so tight and squeeze so he can feel how happy you are! You kiss him on the cheek, wiggling very close and smiling when he squeezes you back just as tight. “Thank you, thank you! I missed you so much!”

“Silly girl.”

Uncle pats you on the back once, twice, and then crouches down so that you can stand on your own two feet again. Sometimes, this makes you sad, because his hugs are your favourite and you wish they would never end. But he has to say ‘hello’ to Mama, too. Besides, you have a new lady to introduce!

“How about you play,” he says, “while I speak with Mama?”

“Okay!” You’re already thinking about it anyway.

When you go back to Marya and Hana, you can see that they’ve been good girls and not moved at all. You rearrange them both so that they are sitting, and place your new doll—Alysanne, you decide, after Papa and Uncle’s grandmama—between them, fussing with their hair so that it lies neatly. They are very pretty, you think, red and dark and silver all together.

“And how is Lady Rhea?” Mama is asking, brow lifting.

Uncle makes a noise and curls his lip meanly. “Who the fuck—who cares?” he says, rolling his eyes when you gasp. He said a bad word. “It’s not as though we spent any time in each other’s presence. Think I’d rather the company of sheep, anyway.”

“You were there for an entire moon’s turn, Daemon”—Mama frowns the way she does when ’Nyra says something rude, and ’Nyra does that a lot—“and you refused to even speak with her? She’s your wife.”

“Not one I chose. You would know that all too well, cousin.”

Mama goes quiet, looking to you. Uncle does, too. Then, she starts whispering to Uncle, and Uncle whispers back, and you return to your game.

Dolls make far more sense than people do.

You don’t like tourneys. You don’t like them at all.

It’s loud, and hot, and there are too many smells—of different perfumes all swirling around and clogging in your nose, of dirt and manure from the ground below, of something sharp that clings to the walls that box you in and shield you from being able to see anything interesting. The horns ring out and so many people cheer that it feels like a buzzing in your head. It makes your teeth hurt.

“Be welcome!”

Papa looks happy today, so much happier than he was the last time Mama said a babe was in her belly. That babe was dead, she told you. It went away from inside her and never came back. That’s what death is, and everyone is very, very afraid of it all the time. But you didn’t know that babe like you know Mama and Papa and ’Nyra and Uncle, so you weren’t sad or scared. You wonder if this babe will go away, too.

The sound of clapping is like thunder. “I know many of you have travelled long leagues to be at these games,” he says. “But I promise, you will not be disappointed.”

You watch from beside Papa as ’Nyra sneaks to her seat, but she is not so sneaky because she is wearing a bright red dress that looks beautiful. She sits beside Alicent, her friend and Lord Hightower’s daughter, and tries to make herself small in her chair so that Papa won’t get angry.

After a pause, he keeps speaking. “When I look at the fine knights in these lists, I see a group without equal in our histories. And this great day has been made more auspicious by the news that I am happy to share—Queen Aemma has begun her labours!”

There is so much noise that you have to hold your hands over your ears to quiet it just a little bit. Brella pats your shoulder, trying to make you feel better.

“It’s alright, Princess. We can play in just a moment—how about that?”

“I want Mama,” you say sadly, your bottom lip wobbling and your eyes feeling hot like they do when you really want to cry.

Mama has been locked in her chambers since last evening, when the Maester said the babe was nearly ready to come out. You asked and asked Papa, but he wouldn’t let you in to see her. When the door had opened and you tried to go inside, you were too surprised to move at the sound of her yelling. You think that the babe must have been hurting her very, very much. It makes you afraid. But then, Uncle took you away to your rooms and read you a story in High Valyrian, which sounded nice even though you didn’t understand it all.

“May the luck of the Seven shine upon all combatants!” You are not listening to Papa’s words very closely.

“Soon, Princess,” Brella says, stopping for a moment when the horns echo out again. “You must wait for the babe to be born, first. How exciting—a new little brother, all for you!”

You don’t want a brother if it means that Mama has to be in pain. Papa would be very happy—you are three whole name days but you still know he wants the babe to be a boy and not a girl, that you were supposed to be a boy and he was sad you were only a second daughter—but you are happy with the way things are.

It would be very rude to say so in front of Papa, so you keep quiet and nod, letting your nursemaid bring you off your seat and down to the floor so that you may sit amongst Alysanne and Hana and Marya.

It has been very difficult to teach Marya to be nice to Alysanne, because she doesn’t like it when Hana makes new friends and Alysanne is a very pretty new friend. But she has decided she rather likes Alysanne after all, and so you can serve their tea without being scared of anyone being silly or bad to each other. Brella is very helpful in braiding Marya’s hair to look like ’Nyra’s does, and then she pins Hana’s back like Alicent’s. You decide that Alysanne should have hair that looks like yours because you look nearly the same, like she is your baby and you are her mama.

You are interrupted very quickly when Septa Marlow bends forward to speak straight into Brella’s ear. “It is unseemly to coddle her so. She is nearing the end of her infancy—you ought to be preparing her to pass over into my care, not indulging in frivolities!”

You shiver. Septa Marlow is mean. The last time that ’Nyra said something rude to her, she was rapped across the palm by Septa’s willow switch. It left a bright red mark that made you cry when you saw it, but ’Nyra only muttered something nasty under her breath and smiled in a not-very-kind way. You wish you could be as brave as her.

“When she is five summers old, she will pass into your care,” Brella says. It is polite, but the way she looks at Septa makes you think she is not being so nice after all. “Until then, I shall do as I see fit. And that means allowing the Princess to indulge in these frivolities while she can.”

Septa wants to say something rude back, you can tell—but then, the whispers start. It makes you look out onto the field so that you can see what’s happening.

“… of House Targaryen, Prince of the City, will now choose his first opponent!”

Uncle rides out on his horse—a great stallion named Varlet that you sometimes give apples to if he is very, very good and doesn’t buck anyone out of the saddle—wearing his nicest armour with the tail of feathers that comes out of the helmet. You think it makes him look a bit like a bird from one of those old books in the library. Uncle takes Varlet up and down the line of men on their own horses, but you don’t know why. You cannot see his face.

Your dolls don’t seem very exciting anymore. You pass them back to Brella and move past Papa to where ’Nyra sits at the very front. Even though there is an empty seat next to Alicent, you go to ’Nyra anyway.

All you have to do is hold up your arms to her and she smiles. “Do you want to see Uncle’s bout?” she asks.

“Yeah,” you say, nodding. You can hear the sound of hooves on the dirt, which means you are missing it, so you stamp your feet and wiggle. Maybe she will hurry up if you do. “Please, please!”

“Oh, alright.” She rolls her eyes and lifts you up so that you can sit on her lap, tucking her head next to yours and wrapping her arms tight around you so you don’t fall off. She is warm like Caraxes and Syrax are, like a dragon, only this time she doesn’t smell like smoke and rotting meat but like flowers and soap. “Can you see?”

You look down. Uncle is at one end of the field and the man he has chosen—Ser Gwayne, you think, from the green he has on and the funny shape of his helmet, like a tower—on the other, their jousting poles held out in front of them. “I can see,” you say.

When Uncle and Ser Gwayne start riding, you really do try to keep your eyes open. But, as they get closer and closer, you cannot help but shut them because you don’t want to see anyone get hurt, or worse­—the horses. Sometimes, it happens. All you can see is the insides of your eyelids when a big CLANG happens, but ’Nyra doesn’t clap so you think it might not be finished yet. Then, you hear a horse neigh and a big thud, and lots of applause. This time, ’Nyra does clap, so you open your eyes and see that Uncle is still on Varlet but Ser Gwayne is on the ground.

Your sister stops clapping when she sees Alicent with her hand over her mouth. Ser Gwayne is her brother, so she must be very worried for him. You reach out and pat her arm, which makes her stop and stare at you for a moment before giving you a small smile. ’Nyra grabs at her hand, too, which seems to help.

Uncle brings Varlet right up to the balcony with his jousting pole all the way up high, so ’Nyra puts you down and grips your shoulder to steer you forward. You are still very small, so the railing is too tall for you to reach, and that means you could fall very easily if you lean too far down. You grab onto your sister’s skirts.

“Nicely done, Uncle,” she says, holding onto the rail.

“Thank you, Princess.” Uncle looks at you, and his face changes—he is friendly now where he wasn’t exactly when he was looking at ’Nyra. He doesn’t say anything to you, but he does wink, which makes you giggle and him smile. He turns to Alicent. “Now, I’m fairly certain I can win these games, Lady Alicent. Having your favour would all but assure it.”

She goes toward the table where two wreaths lay, one for her and one for ’Nyra. You are not old enough for your own yet, or so Papa says. Taking the green one in her fingers, she comes back to the balcony. Instead of putting the wreath on the jousting pole, though, she holds it out to you. “Perhaps your niece would like to give you my favour?”

Beaming, you accept the wreath and let Alicent pick you up under the arms. It doesn’t feel very nice, but it makes you tall enough to put the favour over the pole and watch it slide all the way down to the bottom, near where Uncle is holding it. He grins, then rides away to have another bout.

’Nyra takes you back to where she was sitting, placing you back on her knee. “Are you going to thank Alicent? She was very nice, letting you give Uncle her favour.”

“Thank you, Alicent,” you say.

She brushes some of your hair out of your eyes. “You’re welcome, Princess.”

You find it strange when Papa rises from his chair after something Lord Hightower says in his ear, a troubled look on his face. He was the one who had been the most excited about the tourney, so why is he getting up to leave?

’Nyra doesn’t notice, holding tight to you when you start squirming. For a while, you stay with her—but the jousting starts to get frightening. When the knights knock each other off their horses, they start using swords and axes and maces and trying to really hurt each other, striking and kicking so hard that it makes your heart race really fast in your chest and your belly rock like it does when you need to be sick. To take your mind off it, you start listening to Lord Corlys and Princess Rhaenys talking to each other.

“…and we expect them to act with honour and grace,” the Princess is saying to her husband. The sound of her voice makes you shiver a little. Whenever she stares at you, it is unkind. You don’t think she likes you very much. “It’s a marvel that war didn't break out at first blood.”

Everyone gasps when the knight below brings his axe down on the man below him, hitting him over and over so that blood sprays everywhere. The man twitches at first, then goes still, the dirt below him turning dark red very quickly.

You cry and cry, loud and ugly. You don’t like it here anymore. You want to go back to the Keep and find Mama and let her hug you until this cold, awful feeling goes away and warmth and happiness comes back.

“Nurse!” ’Nyra says, but you aren’t really listening. You can see that people are pointing at you from the stands and whispering, which makes you even more upset because you truly tried to be good and quiet and not make a fuss this time.

“Oh, Princess.” Brella lifts you off of ’Nyra’s lap and carries you to the back of the royal box, past Papa’s Councilmen and all the lords and ladies that are gathered, heading toward the stairs. “Come now, my sweet. Time for a nap, don’t you think?”

“I want Mama,” is all you can say. “I want my mama!”

It is darker than normal when you wake up from your nap. Usually, the sun is still up, the colour of Papa’s crown as it shines through your window, hot and blinding even though supper is not far away. But now, you have to blink a few times before you realise that you cannot see because night has come.

Your chambers are empty, save one other.

“Papa?” you ask, rubbing your eyes and yawning. You can just barely see him through the shadows. “What—what—”

There is a sharp clack and a fizzle of orange fire, which Papa cups in his hand and takes to the candle beside your bed. As he lights a small flame, you look at his face. Even in the darkness, you can see how sad he is, the shine that forms lines down his cheeks and the red puff of the skin around his eyes.

Oh, no. Something bad has happened. Something… something terrible.

“Whe—where’s Mama?” you ask, voice wobbly. It feels like a hand has reached down through your throat and your stomach to peel your insides out, to turn it all over so that you’re bleeding and broken where the Maester cannot see. “Mama—”

“Sh, my girl.” He is trying to sound soft and kind, but you hear how he cracks a little, how the words seem almost stuck on the tip of his tongue. “Listen to me. Come here.”

You still don’t know why it is, but the rule of life is that you obey ’Nyra who obeys Mama who obeys Papa, which means that you have to obey Mama and Papa even when the others aren’t there. So, when Papa asks you to do something, you have to listen. You’re a good girl, after all.

Kicking away the covers that have made you too-too warm, you crawl on your hands and knees to the edge of the bed where Papa sits. He is solid and real under your fingers, smelling like the Maester’s medicines as always, but also like something sour. Like metal.

He grabs you and puts you on his knee like ’Nyra did before, during the tourney, only the hand on your back is large-large, almost covering from your neck to your bottom. You can feel his thumb moving up and down as he speaks, up and down, up and down.

“Something… something has happened. To Mama,” he says, taking lots of pauses and shaking under you like he is cold. You reach up to pat his face. Your hand comes away wet.

“Is she okay?” you ask. That horrible feeling comes back, and you have to swallow so that you don’t get sick all over Papa. “Where is Mama?”

“Mama… she couldn’t bring the babe out. A boy—Baelon.” This time, you can hear him cry, but it’s quick, not long and loud like yours.

A brother. I have a baby brother. It doesn’t feel very special or interesting. Maybe meeting the babe will make you more excited?

“Where is he?”

Papa cries more. “He… he lived for three hours. Three. Then he—”

“—died.” That’s the word for when someone goes through death. Papa didn’t look like he could say it, but you can. “Sorry,” you tell him quietly. You know how much he wanted a boy. “Mama must be sad, too.”

“She—she—Mama didn’t survive the birth.”

You frown. What does that mean? “So… she is sick?”

Papa shakes his head, eyes scrunching. “No.”

“Where is she, then? I want to say ‘sorry’ to her, too.”

“She—died. She’s dead, my girl. Only, she passed before Baelon.”

You have to stop and really think, think so hard that your head hurts and you feel dizzy from holding your breath. Being dead means going away and never coming back. Mama is dead. Which means…

After Papa says those terrible, awful, horrible words, he pushes his nose into your hair and hugs you so so tight until you feel his tears sliding over your head. You hug him back, pressing your face to his chest and letting his shirt soak up all the crying from your eyes. You don’t know if you understand it all—but you know one thing for certain, one thing that makes you cold and sick and afraid.

Mama went away. Mama will never come back.

Mama is gone.

Read on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48798151/chapters/123751342

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#terms of endearment │ daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen #daemon targaryen fanfiction #daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen x oc #daemon targaryen x you #house of the dragon #hotd #house of the dragon fanfiction #hotd fanfiction #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire fanfiction #asoiaf fanfiction #game of thrones #got #game of thrones fanfiction #got fanfiction #targaryen #matt smith #dance of dragons

[lemonhemlock]

2023 CHARACTER WRAPPED

I was tagged by the lovely @hellshee to share my top nine characters of this year.✨

This is so interesting, I've never done any tag game like this before. Thus I've been hit with the realisation that I really didn't have the time or patience for a lot of media this year. 😅 So here it goes:

Kendall Roy, Succession

no 1 boy always & forever will never be over him!!! he's!!! so!!! 😍☠🤧

2. Alicent Hightower, House of the Dragon

Mother, etc <3

3. Aegon Targaryen & 4. Aemond Targaryen, House of the Dragon

I know three whole characters from HOTD is a bit much, but this kind of brainrot explains the present blog. :))

5. Barbie, Barbie

I really think this movie is a lot more meta-textual than people give it credit for.

6 & 7. Betty Cooper & Cheryl Blossom, Riverdale

Will miss them so!!!

8. Alice Warren, Don't Worry Darling

Genuinely wasn't expecting this movie to go as hard as it did, but I really appreciated Florence Pugh's work here. There are a couple of hiccups and the reveal + denouement could have been handled better, but this really kind of lives in my head for the vibes.

9. Cassandra Bowden, The Flight Attendant

Didn't enjoy season 2 as much as the first one, the plot got too Mickey Mouse for my taste, but Cassie has always been well-crafted with a strong personality and a hilarious internal monologue.

And, as a bonus, I'm gonna slide Charles Macauley from The Secret History at #10, as he's my favourite from the one book I've managed to become obsessed with this year.

tagging @ichooseviolence @aifsaath @maliaraeken @melodymidway @asoiastarks @aegonette @starstrucksnowing @rabiosass @sugerapplefairy @merryhaze @jotterjots @esther-dot @julyzaa @ai-megurine @fearthhereaper @kenicat @alicuntisms @starlight95tonight @henriettadreaming in return! ✌

#in better times this list would have included loki; obi-wan or the tenth doctor #but i haven't been impressed with the latest media they appeared in 😅 #tag games #hellshee

[mendes-bae]

A fair exchange — part four

series masterlist ; part three ; part five

Part four summary: Velarys and Aemond's daughter is born, everything should be happiness, right?

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x (F) Targaryen!reader

Warning: NSFW 🔞 incest, angst, kissing, smut, PiV sex, unprotected sex, CHARACTER DEATH, depression, trauma, grieving, bittersweet chapter ending.

Author's note: ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE! this is my first time writing a fic in English, so beforehand, i'm sorry 👀

All the rights belong to the showrunners of HOTD and George R.R Martin, author of Fire and blood & Song of ice and fire series‼️

Word count: 2390

At least eight moons had passed since Aemond and Velarys Targaryen were joined in marriage. They had discovered that they were very happy together, the prince adored his now very pregnant wife and she adored him even more.

Velarys was stroking her swollen belly as she read a book about healing ointments and medicines when she heard the door opening.

"I have excellent news!" Aemond said as he entered the chambers he shared with his wife.

"What's going on?" Velarys asked, settling down on the sofa carefully because every day that pass moving was more difficult: her stomach didn't stop growing.

"Vhagar gave birth to three beautiful eggs"

Velarys smiled, many of the dragon keepers said that the dragon was too old to have babies.

"It worked then... put our dragons in the same pit"

"Well… it was a bit of a rough match" the prince laughed, sitting down next to his wife.

"Why?" She looked at Aemond curiously.

"Vaghnar got a little bit excited and hurt my dragon" he smiled mischievously.

"Vaghnar has lived wild most of his life, you can't blame him. He has improved a lot temperamentally, and his relationships with other dragons are more civilized now"

Aemond showed the dragon eggs that he was holding in his hands: their shells were silver resembling Valyrian steel, dark blue almost black, and pristine white.

"The matter is that our daughter will have her own dragon egg," Aemond said, stroking Velarys's belly.

The princess smiled.

“How do you know that is a girl?”

"I just feel it"

"Well... in a couple of moons we'll find out."

Aemond smiled as he imagined a baby in his arms. He get closer to Velarys and kissed her slowly.

The princess caressed his ribs and in a blink her hands entered her husband's pants.

"Lady Dorella says that having sex during pregnancy helps ease pain and contractions" said Velarys moving her hand over Aemond's cock "I'm willing to try that method"

The dragon prince growled.

"And who am I to deny anything to my beloved wife?"

Aemond bit his lip and moved closer to the princess.

Velarys got up from the sofa and the prince thought that they would take the fun to the huge bed in the center of the room, but the white-hair woman surprised him: she raised the linen gown to her hips and exposed her sex while she was on her hands and knees.

"Do you want me that much, wife?" Aemond asked pulling his pants down.

"Always, my love" she replied in moans, wishing him inside her.

"So much that you want me to take you here and not in our bed... where we conceived our child and where we will conceive more?" he nestled his erection against her butt.

Velarys moaned and pressed against him, beginning to rub against his manhood, wanting to tease him further.

When she least expected it, his member entered inside her. For a while, he did nothing else than rub her back and moaning at the feeling of being inside her, but then he began to move quickly.

In the room, only their groans and moans could be heard, as well as the noise of their skins colliding.

"Faster, Aemond" the princess begged.

A desperate Aemond began to move wildly heeding her request, while her hands squeezed his ass, giving him pleasurable pain.

In a couple more thrusts, the prince made both of them came. Aemond cupped Velarys's large breasts and caressed them gently.

"I love you, Velarys" the prince confessed for the first time.

His sweaty forehead was on one of his wife's shoulders, his eyes were closed waiting for her answer.

"I love you too, Aemond" replied the princess crawling into his arms.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Aemond came back from Old Town as fast as Vhagar's wings could fly. He was visiting his younger brother, Daeron, at the Hightower ancestral castle and Velarys had been unable to accompany him due to the advanced stage of her pregnancy.

When the raven arrived Old Town, Aemond left everything behind and didn't care who he might offend with his hasty departure.

Aemond ran up the Red Keep steps and even from the lower floors he could hear his wife's cries of pain.

In the hall, Alicent prayed for her daughter-in-law and the coming baby to the Seven, beside her Helaena rocked Jaehaera lovingly as the little girl slept.

"Aemond!" his mother said when she saw him appear.

The prince ignored her and tried to enter the room where his wife was.

"Aemond, the Mestres are taking care of her, you don't want to go in"

"That's up to me, Mother" he said, wriggling free of the queen's grasp. "my wife and our child are inside, I must be with them"

His mother and sister didn't say a thing since neither of their husbands had been at any of their children births.

Aemond opened the huge doors and immediately saw Velarys exhausted and flushed, her white hair was drenched with sweat, the sheets and her bed gown were bloody.

He ran to his wife's side and took her trembling hand.

"You came" said Velarys between sobs.

"I came as soon as I can, my brave wife" he replied kissing her hand.

Velarys cried out when a contraction showed.

"I see baby's head... white hair as the clouds in the sky" said the Mester.

"This hurts like hell" the princess complained.

"I know, my love" he kissed his wife's temple "you can do it"

"Once again, my princess, push!" ordered the old man.

The baby's cries filled the room and the royal couple closed their eyes in relief.

"Is a beautiful girl, your highness" said the Mester wrapping the baby with the blankets that Rose Westerling gave him.

The new parents smiled at the news.

"Bring her to me" said the mother extending her arms.

Rose walked up carefully to her lady with her daughter in arms and handed her over.

"She is so beautiful" said Velarys with tears in her eyes.

"Yes, she is" answered Aemond admiring his sweet daughter "Just like her mother"

Aemond lovingly kissed his wife's lips.

The room doors opened and the King and the Queen entered.

"Congratulations, blood of my blood!" Viserys said with a big smile on his face.

The new parents couldn't help but staring the little girl in her mother's arms.

"She is a beautiful girl, Velarys" Alicent praised looking at the baby "How will you call her?"

"Ellarys" replied the white-hair woman with her daughter's little finger curled around hers.

Aemond smiled at her lovely name.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Ellarys was indeed a sweet girl: the light in her parents' eyes, they loved her too much.

And although the young Targaryens would face anything for the little girl, there are enemies that were invisible: Ellarys had the misfortune to fall ill with a terrible disease that affected the Westeros youngest ones, ravens said that children in Winterfell had passed by this disease, even in the south of the continent people were grieving their children.

Ellarys suffered from fever for days, red spots spread all over her body and cough didn't let her sleep at night. Velarys and Aemond felt the world fall at their feet each time her daughter breathed in pain.

Velarys spent the night by her side, holding her tiny hand, Aemond was on the sofa in front of her bed dozing because his sleep was winning him over. At some point in the late morning, the princess was also overcome by exhaustion and when she woke up she noticed that her little daughter's chest was not moving.

"Ellarys!" The Mestres entered the girl's room alarmed by the princess's screams and tried to do something to help her, but it was too late, the girl had left this world.

Velarys blamed herself for the death of her little daughter. If she hadn't fallen asleep, she might have called the Mestres and they could have saved her.

The young mother could not assimilate what was happening: the wrapped body of her little two-year-old daughter was on the pyre in the same meadow where her mother and brother were burned to ashes years ago.

Velarys could only think that she would no longer see her in the gardens or jumping through the Red Keep corridors, that she would no longer braid her hair or she would never sing her to sleep again. Her heart was squeezing with pain.

Vaghnar and Vhagar silently watched their riders, awaiting for instructions. Beside them was Silverfyre who moaned in pain as he didn't feel her little mistress.

Silverfyre followed Vaghnar as if he were his shadow and even though Velarys was not her rider, the creature obeyed the princess's orders.

Aemond held Velarys's hand tightly, trying to contain his tears because he must be the support of his sad wife.

With broken voice Aemond ordered Vhagar:

"Dracarys!"

Velarys screamed, got free of her husband's grasp and ran to the pyre.

Aemond wrapped his arms around her and both of them fell to their knees in front of her burning daughter, the young mother crying out for the child's loss.

The Targaryens mourned with Princess Velarys the death of the innocent little one and all of Realm's fallen kids.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Velarys had not been the same since Ellarys had died, almost a moon ago.

She no longer laughed or sang, and most importantly, she no longer rode her dragon.

She cried until she had no more tears to cry. She hardly ate or drank and spent her days in bed, she didn't comb her hair or wear other clothes than her night gown. She didn't let anyone enter the room, except Aemond but she didn't even say a word to him.

She was a ghost, Aemond's heart ached because of his little girl lost but he felt that in a way he had also lost his wife.

Aemond entered the room and saw Rose Westerling (the only person besides him who could be with her) spilling water on her hair.

"Leave us" he ordered the maiden.

The princess's lady-in-waiting stopped what she was doing and she left the chambers.

Aemond knelt beside Velarys and admired her wife's profile: as usual, she was staring the wall and barely blinking.

The prince took her hand and placed a kiss on it. He dropped her hand and took the vanilla soap that was set aside to clean his wife's shoulders.

Aemond gazed at the princess's body with pain, her bones protruding from the little bit of food she ate and her skin extremely pale from lack of sun.

He was washing his hair when he heard Velarys say in a whisper:

"Do the Gods hate me?"

Aemond put down the bar of soap and studied her carefully.

"What have I done to face their anger?"

"You haven't done anything" Her husband replied brushing her hair "The Gods are unfair sometimes, it's not your fault"

"She was a good girl" she said referring to Ellarys. "she was a sweet and kind girl. She didn't deserve it"

"Of course not" Aemond caressed her cheek.

"I want to die" she said suddenly between sobs.

"Don't say that" the prince sat up over the tub, his shirt sleeves getting wet.

"I want this pain to end, I just want to be with my little girl" she closed her eyes.

Aemond cupped her cheeks.

"Velarys, I love you with all my heart" he confessed "if you die... if you leave me alone in this world, a part of me leaves with you"

The prince didn't mind being dressed, he made room behind Velarys and entered the tub to hug his wife tightly.

They held each other until the water cooled, Velarys stopped sobbing, and her bare skin turned cold.

He could hold her for hours, days, and whole moons if it meant she wasn't going to leave him.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Velarys watched Aemond fight Sir Criston like every morning, the way he dealt grief. She watched for a long time without anyone noticing her. Aemond saw her and immediately dropped his sword. It was the first time that Velarys had left their chambers.

"Shall we take a dragon ride?" The princess asked shyly.

Aemond nodded softly and walked with their hands linked.

When the couple entered the dragons pit, they noticed the silence reign in the cave. Velarys was walking by inertia and got scared when a little beast no bigger than a cow ran up to her.

The princess snapped out of her shock and realized that the creature was Silverfyre, little Ellarys's dragon. She had never been able to ride it because she varely knew how to speak well, but the beast had been hatched between her blankets when she was born and when the girl got her first tooth, the shell of her egg broke. From the time it hatched until the last days of her child's life, the little silver-scaled beast had been by her side, the bond between them was stronger than any other rider and their dragon.

As Velarys reached the little Dragon, Silverfyre wrapped her tail around the princess's arm and with her head sought the warmth of the white-haired’s chest.

“Nyke ozmijegon yel” I miss her too.

Aemond heard Velarys said as he watched them from the cave entrance.

Aemond approached them and when he was about to climbed Vhagar’s back the princess said:

"For this time, will you ride with me?" her husband looked at Vaghnar "I want to be next to you"

Vhagar roared from across the pit, implying that she didn't mind, Aemond didn't need him to say it twice.

They flew for hours, Aemond tightly hugging Velarys's waist. He stroked her hair which was blowing loose in the wind and thanked whatever God was listening to have Velarys by his side.

"I love you" he said in her ear.

"I love you too" replied his wife.

Part five

Taglist

@mynameisbaby9 @princessmiaelicia @sustisama @daddysfavoritesexkitten

@deeeeexx @zverea @tempo-rary-fix

@stargaryenx @filmelunar @yor72

@tivedetek4869 @maviee @remuslupinwifee @fuckinglittlekitten @may-machin @kaitieskidmore1 @zillahvathek

@marvelita85 @25falsafielisa

@solacestyles @polireader

@mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @loomipee

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[cdragons]

Truce Part 2

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Pairing(s): Ikaris x Persephone!Reader Word Count: 1.8k Prompt/Summary: Part 2 of Truce Miniseries! Warning: Neurodivergent reader is neurodivergent, Hecate!Reader bestie is her own warning, Ikaris was kind of a douche Note: Thank you to everyone who takes the times to read my writing even through it is likely way too self-indulgent to be considered in-character! Special thank you to the most amazing and incredible beta editor in the world, @valeskafics! If you have not, please go check her works! She mostly does HOTD, GOT, anything Ewan Mitchell, and literally EVERYTHING she writes is incredible! Also a HUGE shoutout and thank you to @ethereal-athalia, who is literally my psychic soulmate when it came to thinking of literally ANYTHING for this AU! She was a major part in figuring out the plot and events of this world, and provided me so many ideas that I would not have been able to create any of these works for Sephia and Kaetlyn if it weren't for her help.

As moments passed since Kaetlyn and Druig left together, hand-in-hand, Ikaris was caught up in the sudden realization that he was now alone in a very public courtyard of the Hanging Gardens with you.

And with each moment passing, it was brought to his attention that he hadn’t even the slightest clue of how to act around you, let alone what to say.

“Fuck,” he thought, “this is getting awkward.”

Noticing your friend’s shift in demeanor, you immediately assumed that his discomfort must have been caused by your sudden appearance. So, you attempted to remove yourself from his company so to not cause him any further distress.

“Um, Ikaris,” you started, “if you had other engagements, I really don’t mind walking back to the Domo myself. I know that Kaety sort of pushed me to you, and I don’t want to make you uncom-”

But Ikaris quickly interjected with so much panic that his voice actually cracked, “NO!” Upon hearing his own voice, he flushed in embarrassment before clearing his throat before continuing, “I mean – no – I don’t mind at all.” Not wanting to further embarrass himself in front of the women who held his heart, he shut himself up before he could continue to stammer like an idiot.

“Thank Arishem that Druig and Kaetlyn are not here to witness me in my current state,” he thought to himself, “I would never be able to live with the humiliation.”

Staring at the man before you, you took advantage of the silence to take in all his features. It was a rare sight to see Ikaris so flustered, especially when one considered the sheer number of Deviants he’s killed is only rivaled by Thena and Kaet. You ended up letting out a very unattractive snort as a small grin crept up the corners of your mouth, and upon seeing Ikaris’ perplexed reaction, you couldn’t help continuing to laugh at his very evident confusion.

“No, no, I’m sorry,” you tried to explain, “I am not laughing at you-well, I suppose I am laughing at you, but it is not so much you that I am laughing at, but the situation.” You could hardly breathe with how hard your body shook in hysterics, leaving your explanation much to be desired by the Eternal whose confusion only increased at your reasoning.

Raising a singular eyebrow, Ikaris’ expression was a mixture of equal measures of distress and incredulity as he was forced to witness to the love of his immortal life laugh at him. Scoffing in response, he couldn’t help but comment with a slightly bitter tone, “Forgive me if I find that very hard to believe at the moment.”

“No, no, no- I promise,” you tried to explain. Taking a deep breath, you finally stopped laughing while still maintaining a bright smile that cause Ikaris’ body to flush for a very different reason, “Alright, I’m very sorry, that was rude of me. It’s just that- I’m not so used to you being so…not you?”

With a deadpan expression, mouth lines pursed together to further showcase his lack of amusement, he decided to at least hear you out, “Go on?”

“It’s just that,” you paused to find your voice, “I’m not used to seeing you act so different from yourself. You’re usually so overly confident and can be a bit arrogant. So, seeing you flustered and a bit vulnerable, it’s nice! It makes me feel closer to you. And it makes me so happy seeing this way now, compared to how you were at the beginning.”

Ikaris let out a massive groan while pinching his nose bridge. He knew that you had no intention of offending him, but it pained him in hearing your early opinion of him several millennia ago. Despite your shy personality, you were brutally honest and straightforward. A lesson he learned the hard way and a little late to his embarrassment.

He could still feel the sting on his face after you slapped him for his insensitive comments toward your powers, and the role you played in humanity. Ikaris was immediately struck dumb by your temper. Despite being a thinker, you had the ferocity of a fighter. The events that followed the uproar caused an immediate shift in dynamics amongst the fighters. Kaetlyn practically made it her life’s mission to make Ikaris’ life beyond insufferable. She and her shadows played a number of cruel pranks that would scare the life of any human. If it weren’t for his superior physical durability and strength, Ikaris was sure that he would be knocking on death’s door with each passing day. Ashamed to admit it, it took several attempts for you to truly forgive him.

The first could at best be described as a reluctant admission of harsh words that were exchanged, along with the guilt of how Ikaris’ words made you feel. It goes without saying that you were less than pleased, and refused to even pretend that his meager words were sufficient enough to even qualify as an apology.

The second time was when Ikaris approached you whilst you were instructing the humans on how to properly harvest and store the crops as food storage in preparation for the off-seasons. Try as he did, you refused to even spare him a glance as you remained steadfast in your work to prepare the Earth for the bountiful gifts it provided to humans as a result of your tender care.

The third time could not really qualify as an apology, as Ikaris was fed up with your attitude despite his multiple attempts of reconciliation. Outright demanding that you stop your childish behavior, he was struck dumb by your cool composure. In a steady voice, you explained that he had never once showed genuine remorse for his behavior, only how you felt. As a result, he made no action to change his actions, and continued to behave as if he were superior to you. Even when Ajak tried to conciliate, she was promptly stopped by Kaetlyn physically stepping in front of her; and in a low tone, she warned their leader of the unspoken consequences should she intervene. You proceeded to express your displeasure with him by further announcing that you had no interest in being forced to endure the company of someone whose only interest in her work was so that he would have an easier time to seduce Sersi. When you were done, you swiftly turned away to your quarters, eager to put as much distance as possible between you and him.

Kaetlyn followed after you, but not before snickering at the stupefied expression on Ikaris’ face. She certainly lived for the moments where the man’s overwhelming hubris got him in trouble.

It was the most mortifying experience in Ikaris’ existence. Being Ajak’s second-in-command, he was unused to the idea of being questioned, let alone outright dismissed. To bear witness to your fire, you both humbled and ensnared him with your words. And on that day, he was determined to make a true effort in gaining your loyalty and friendship. Upon changing his ways, you graciously gave him another chance, albeit still keeping him at arm’s length. But he had never been so grateful for his decision, as it marked the start of a friendship between mutual respect. And if he dared to hope, perhaps it could possibly lead to more.

Taking in his embarrassment, you decided that you’ve teased Ikaris enough, and wanted to make amends.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” you quickly apologized- hoping to keep the atmosphere light and not spiraling to depressing, “Please, let me make it up to you! I packed a picnic for me and Kaety to share, but since she’s- OH NO!” Your sweet tone shifted to distress as the realization that the basket that carried all the products of your labor and research was carried by your friend, who was now long gone to who knows where with her telepathic lover.

Seeing your afflicted expression sent warning signs to flash across Ikaris’ mind, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The picnic basket! I forgot that Kaety was the one carrying it! She wanted to test out a new spell she learned from Lady Frigga!” Your eyes were filled with agony at your absent-mindfulness, now how were you to make it up to Ikaris?

“Sephia, I don’t understand. Why is the basket so important?” Ikaris was sure that there was nothing dangerous enough that would possibly cause so much worry, but he never knew with you and Kaetlyn.

“That basket was filled with crops that I personally cultivated in my lab at the Domo! I was planning to show them to Kaety so that she could taste them, and we would discuss how to possibly integrate them into their lifestyle! I even had Gilgamesh’s help in preparing some of the dishes with the new herbs and spices I developed to be paired with the vegetation!”

Taking a slight pause to gather your thoughts, Ikaris was enthralled at the pink tint blooming on your cheeks as you stammered out your next words, “And- well- I figured that since Kaety would now be spending the day with Druig, I thought that it would be nice if I could share them with you as an apology for laughing earlier. And, I figured that it would be a good idea for you to taste them. Since- well, I do value your opinion- since that- you are my friend.”

Touched that you trusted his opinion of all people on a matter so important to you, Ikaris immediately softened his tone as he walked forward to grasp your shoulders, and lowered himself to face you at eye-level.

“Sephia,” he whispered out- his rich accent was so warm but somehow leaving you with chills- “you have no idea how honored it would make me to try your creations. But you don’t need to apologize for anything. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Tracing his hands from your shoulders, down your arms, and stopping to grasp your hands, “Whether you like to believe it or not, I do know you enough to know that you aren’t the kind of person to intentionally ridicule others at their own expense.”

Despite melting at your Ikaris’ comforting statement, you still felt a twinge of guilt stubbornly creeping into your heart. Summoning all the courage in your heart, you stood on the tips of your toes to ask something a bit forward for your standards.

“Ikaris,” you breathily purred out, “come with me to my room.”

Taken back, Ikaris thought that his mind had conjured up your voice. Jumping back to look into your eyes, only to see that you were completely serious.

“Sweet Sephia,” he thought out, “you will be the death of me.”

Tagging: @valeskafics, @ethereal-athalia, @aphroditesmoon, @asa-do-your-thing, @vikingqueen28, @justmymindandstuff, @spacetalbot, @beananacake, @grimbunnie, @bellamys-girls, @lex-g-t, @mimireaken, @futureartpresaon, @spacetalbot, @beananacake, @its-actually-minicika, @junopur, @vikingqueen28, @dreaming-for-an-escape, @allisonoops12, @bibissparkles, @karimac

ps: if I bolded your name, I couldn't find the link (sorry)

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#marvel eternals #marvel x reader #eternals x reader #ikaris imagine #ikaris x reader #ikaris x oc #ikaris x female reader #ikaris x eternal!reader #Richard madden #richard madden x reader

[atopvisenyashill]

since falling into my hotd brainrot ive been reminded of one of my gripes which is this misunderstanding that daenerys lived in "abject poverty" (to use the language from an ask you got not that long ago) before her introduction and this is just... not true?

That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever."

people living in abject poverty don't have access to servants or their own rooms. does this mean their time here would equal the upbringing viserys and daenerys would have had in the red keep? absolutely not. for one thing, daenerys wasn't tutored by a maester or septa which is pretty standard for most noble children of a similar standing, let alone a princess.

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper's hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one.

they would have needed coin for those ships.

At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last Targaryens to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the Usurper continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother's crown had gone. 

what happened with ser willem was absolutely terrible but this idea that daenerys and viserys were living on the streets is inaccurate when their targaryen name is what allowed them to live with the likes of magisters and merchant princes. nor was this something that happened overnight, as indicated by the "years past". they also had "treasures" (meaning jewels) which again no person living in abject poverty would have. those treasures were a lifeline for them but it was a lifeline that a character like nettles never has.

Her brother Viserys had once feasted the captains of the Golden Company, in hopes they might take up his cause. They ate his food and heard his pleas and laughed at him. Dany had only been a little girl, but she remembered. "I have sellswords too."

people living in abject poverty don't feast captains.

it just irks me because when you compare it to the details of nettles' life, it feels wrong to me to believe that both these girls lived in abject poverty. that was nettles. that being said though, that doesn't mean daenerys had an easy time living in exile with viserys. he was a monster to her and she deserves sympathy for that. but while daenerys and nettles' upbringings were similarly tragic (orphaned etc), they were still worlds apart in their differing levels of privilege. it also irks me when they try to use this to compare daenerys to sansa (funny how its often just sansa and not the other starks)

yeah those are all definitely good points. as you say, I don't want to discount that Daenerys had an incredibly stressful childhood (to say the least), much more stressful than The Average Noble by far because she and viserys were actively thinking about and worrying over where their next meal will come from, how to keep a roof over their heads, and they aren't learning jack shit because they don't have a maester, a guardian, a parent, or a single person in all of Essos looking out for them. but it's also like. first of all, we have two canon characters that actually do experience real poverty, the first being davos though he doesn't experience it on page and the second being arya - she's actively avoiding capitalizing on the stark name so she's actually living the life someone who is born poor would live.

and one thing about dany's life - which i've touched on before re: noble girls getting sold in marriages in what a previous anon referred to as slavery - but her last name and the class she was born into if not the class she lived in cannot be disentangled from the life she lived. i pointed it out there that for example, if poor jeyne poole found some dragon eggs in the crypts, used ramsay's dead body to hatch them, and started burning shit down, she's just not amassing the sort of following dany would because she doesn't have the name. and you can see that directly with Nettles, as you point out - despite everyone seeing clearly that Nettles manages to claim Sheepstealer, has a strong bond with her dragon, because she's lowborn and Not White (and not even an acceptable Not White, like dornish, but some ~random brown girl~ from nowhere with no claim to any specific heritage in canon) she's still seen as a temptress, a whore, a witch, all because she claimed a dragon and had some old married dude following her around. dany and viserys regularly trade away their jewels, hype up their titles and heritage, in an attempt to gain basic necessities and this is certainly a marked difference from the way other nobles have lived and important but arya, gendry, hot pie, lommy - they don't get that. lommy just gets killed. and he's not even running his mouth the way viserys is in vaes dothrak. he's just a dumb kid whose leg is broken and asks to be carried and he's murdered for it. hot pie is a normal ass kid who has to learn how to defend himself because it's literally life or death while dany regularly has some sort of guard protecting her.

and again - it's not to say dany doesn't experience a lot of trauma and instability that other nobles will never face that gives her an understanding of violence and war that others don't have. but just like you can't say she was truly "sold" as a slave to drogo because her class is tied to the concept of these nobly born child brides, it's not exactly true that she lives in abject poverty either. it's something a lot more complex than that.

#i'm sorry to start dany discoursing again i'm clearing out my asks #anti daenerys targaryen #i was gonna link to that child bride post but i'm lazy. if u kno u kno alsdkjf #asks #anons

[merlot-and-chardonnay]

The Slighted Sons: A Character Comparison of Aemond and Zuko

Okay, here I am writing another character comparison analysis between two characters from two different shows. This time I'm going with Aemond Targaryen from HotD and Zuko from AtLA.

Now you're probably wondering what could these two possibly have in common.

Well, there's plenty actually. Both surface level and a little deeper.

So, brace yourself, and let's go over them.

Also I realize I'm making this post the day the live action remake of AtLA is released on Netflix, and I actually didn't know. I swear I must be psychic or something.

First a quick character synopsis for each.

Prince Aemond Targaryen is the second born son of King Viserys and Queen Alicent. From an young age, Aemond desperately wanted to have a dragon of his own, even more so when his brother and nephews started tormenting him for being the only one without. He eventually got his wish when he claimed the dragon Vhagar, which his cousins and nephews beat him up for that and...well we don't need to go into what happened next. After that, Aemond became known as the One-Eyed prince and as he grew, he invested in studying his history and philosophy as well as training intensely with the sword.

And then we have Prince Zuko, the oldest son of Firelord Ozai and Ursa, whom left under mysterious circumstances when Zuko was still a child. When Zuko was invited into a war meeting at the age of thirteen, he spoke out of term, angering his father, whom Zuko had to fight in an Agni Kai to restore his honor. Refusing to fight, and being subsequently scarred as punishment, Ozai banished Zuko, saying the only way Zuko could restore his honor and return home is to capture the Avatar.

So, on the surface, Aemond and Zuko are both princes, royalty, and they were physically traumatized in one way or another as children, with Aemond taking a dagger to the eye, and Zuko getting burned by his own father.

Oh my god, I just realized both Aemond and Zuko's injuries are in the exact same place, over the left eye. I did not notice that until now! :0

But, as I mentioned before, there's more to compare to:

1. Dysfunction Family Dynamics

Okay, I best cover this part first. Both Aemond and Zuko's family are pretty dysfunctional, but in different ways.

One thing that is similar is the ways they were treated by their fathers.

Aemond is the second son, and in Westeros, second sons don't have much to claim in terms of land or title, they often have to make their own way. He trains with the sword and pays attention to his lessons. Even if that wasn't the case, Aemond is still overlooked by his father in favor of his sister Rhaenyra. If we recall from episode 7 of HotD, the night Aemond lost his eye, Rhaenyra, who was trying to cover for her sons when it came to light Aemond called the boys bastards, she demanded of her father that Aemond be 'sharply questioned' so as to learn where he heard such slanders. And it looked like Viserys was prepared to do all this, despite his sons' maimed state.

Much how Viserys often favors his oldest daughter, we saw similar dynamics between Zuko and his own father, whom often favored Zuko's sister Azula. Despite being the oldest child and Heir Apparent, Zuko was constantly overlooked by Ozai, especially when Azula surpassed Zuko in her firebending. As Zuko mentioned in the season finale of Book 1, he brought up how Azula was a firebending prodigy that everyone adored, and that his own father had told him this:

"She[Azula] was born lucky. He says I was lucky to be born." -Zuko; AtLA

Now, I want to make clear, I am NOT saying Viserys and Ozai are the exact same people; Viserys may have been a shitty parent, but he was in general a good man, albeit, a man who made passive decisions in attempts to please everyone in his court. Ozai in contrast is just a ruthless and cruel man overall, and it showed in his parenting to Zuko and Azula too.

Ozai was harsher on Zuko presumably he saw him as weaker, and he doted on Azula, probably because her personality was similar to his, being sadistic and taking pleasure in putting fear in others. But as we saw in the series finale, Azula had a heavy burden placed on her in order to please her father, probably because she did see the way Ozai treated Zuko, and she knows not to get on her father's bad side as a consequence.

Ozai's abuse towards Zuko was direct, while Viserys was more indirect. Viserys was not the one to cause physical harm to Aemond as Ozai caused to Zuko, but Viserys didn't seek any kind of recourse, instead demanding that his sons and grandsons make peace and put the incident behind them...

Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. She said sarcastically.

Oh my god, I actually want to see Ozai and Viserys put in the same room and hear them criticize each other on their parenting styles. OOOOHHH the irony!

Another similarity is the way Aemond and Zuko are doted on by their mothers. Say what you will about Alicent, but the woman was the one who would do anything to see that justice was served to avenge the loss of her son's eye. She was also the one who comforted Aemond when he was bullied by his brother and nephews for not having a dragon, and she was the one who was frantic with worry upon hearing Aemond lost his eye.

And in the AtLA episode "Zuko Alone" we got to see the way Zuko's mother Ursa doted on him as a boy, being the one to comfort Zuko when he tried to demonstrate what he learned in terms of firebending before his grandfather. She was the one who told Zuko she loved watching what he learned, and that it was okay that he wasn't as ahead in his training as his sister was. And in the comic, "the Search", we saw Ursa take the fall for the death of Firelord Azulon, doing what she needed to do to see that her son and, her daughter even, would be safe and out of harm's way.

And of course, before continuing with the similarities, I have to talk about the difference in Aemond and Zuko's relationships with their uncles.

Uncle Iroh was basically the father to Zuko his own couldn't be bothered to be, being there to support Zuko during his exile era (even when Zuko would push him away at times), and being there to embrace Zuko when he lost way and found it again. We stan Uncle Iroh in this household...and his tea making, the guy is a true GOAT, just saying:

It's more than what I can say about Aemond's relationship to his uncle Daemon. Daemon never really cared about his brother's children with Alicent, presumably because it was an extension of his loathing hatred to Otto Hightower.

And for anyone who has read the Fire and Blood novel, we all know how that ended with Daemon and Aemond fighting each other on top their dragons above the God's Eye.

We also stan Daemon in this household, our toxic problematic Rogue Prince :P

Now, I want to see Daemon in the same room as Ozai. They're both second sons, yet Ozai was pronounced the new FireLord in place of his father. I want to see Daemon take notes on how that was accomplished.

Also, quick note, while Aemond didn't have his uncle to rely on as a father figure, the closest he would get to that is probably Criston Cole, whom Aemond trusted enough to convey his true feelings about the thought of Aegon being king back when he and Criston were looking for the guy in Episode 9

Okay, moving on.

2. Hot Temperaments

Both Zuko and Aemond had shown to have rather firery tempers at times, especially Zuko in Book 1. Aemond is usually a little more calm and collected, better at masking his emotions, but even he has breaking points, particularly in season finale when he demanded that his nephew Lucerys put out an eye to repay the one he lost, and he snapped when Luke refused.

And, as we've seen, their hotheadedness got the both of them into a lot of trouble at times, be it Zuko when he challenged Zhao to Agni Kai in his anger to prove he was not the disgraced prince, or Aemond when...he chased Luke on dragonback and, unable to control Vhagar (cause dragons are not slaves), accidentally killed Luke and his dragon, consequently starting the domino effect that led to the Dance of Dragons.

Oh yeah, speaking of Dragon Dances.

3. Dragons!!

Even though we didn't see Zuko riding any actual dragons till season 3 of Legend of Korra, I still think it counts.

I think Zuko could've had a chance to become a rider, if his great grandfather Sozin never started the tradition of hunting dragons in the first place. Even still, dragons do hold a certain level of cultural significance to the Fire Nation and the FireLord's family.

Uncle Iroh, after all, was known as the Dragon of the West, having earned that title when he supposedly slayed the last dragon before Zuko was born.

Spolier alert, that wasn't actually how it went down.

Even though we never saw Zuko ride a dragon during the duration of AtLA, we did get to see him and Aang learn about firebending from the dragons, having mastered the Dragon Dance, and getting a better understanding of the element of fire and its true nature. Dragons also hold significant sway for the Targaryen family, and they also held cultural significance for Old Valyria before the Doom. Aemond's ancestors Aegon the Conqueror, and his sister-wives Rhaenys and Visenya, wouldn't have been able to unite the Seven Kingdoms successfully had they not had dragons at their side (Seven minus Dorne, who refused to kneel to the might of Dragon Fire for as long as they had even after Aegon's official conquest, kinda similar to how the Earth Kingdom refused to bow to the might of the Fire Nation even after the Fire Army's conquest of Ba Sing Se).

One of the dragons that was part of the initial conquest was Vhagar, whom Aemond claimed at the young age of 10, and it's a feat Aemond takes particular pride in, especially when he had gone as long as he had without while the rest of his family had dragons left and right.

Although, Aemond did learn a rather hard lesson from Vhagar, that dragons cannot never truly be tamed, they will do their own thing, and to try and think otherwise can result in deadly consequences.

4. Honor Oriented

Both Aemond and Zuko are heavily duty bound and place varying levels on emphasizing honor.

Zuko, obviously, started off in the series determine to restore his honor by capturing the Avatar, and we saw the lengths he would go to see that through.

Aemond considers himself an honor bound man; while he never had to go on any quests to restore his honor, he was duty driven, taking his school lessons and sword training seriously, refusing to indulge in deprive acts as his brother Aegon had.

5. Sibling Rivalry

Zuko was often pitted against his sister Azula, courtesy of his father, and Azula took pride in being able to master firebending techniques at a faster pace than Zuko could hope to. And it was something Azula would snubly rub in Zuko's face, even more so when the two would actually fight, such as in Book 2, when Zuko went after Azula for lying to him, and Azula pointing out how much of a disappointment child Zuko is to their father.

Their rivalry, I would also like to point up, was dialed up compared to Aemond's rivalry with his brother Aegon. I mean, Zuko and Azula had a physical fight in the form of Agni Kai during the series finale, which would also determine who would become the next firelord.

While Aemond never had such fights against Aegon, the guy did resent the fact Aegon was firstborn, and because of that, he was expected to become king in the eyes of the Greens, even though Aegon was not deemed fit by Aemond to be king due to his excess indulgences in wine and women and the fact Aegon shirked away from his duties and training, while Aemond surpassed Aegon in all these things.

Aegon didn't exactly make things easy for Aemond too when they were children, especially with the Pink Dread prank Aegon clearly convinced Jace and Luke to pull on Aemond.

Aemond knows he is better suited to the position as king, but he is a second son, so there's no chance of that happening (that is until an tragic accident at Rook's Rest during the Dance left Aegon critically injured and unable to perform his kingly duties, leaving Aemond in charge as Prince Regent).

The resentment is there nevertheless.

6. Fan Favorites

Be honest, you had the biggest crush on Zuko when you first saw the show...well, I did anyway.

I was in middle school when AtLA first aired, and I would like to credit Zuko as the first fictional guy whom I really crushed on as a girl who was slowly moving into my teen years. This scene especially, I'd like to credit for...definitely awakening something in me...;)

I also know for a fact people felt similar tingly feels when we saw Aemond as an grown man.

Certainly helped with actor Ewan Mitchell's portrayal and how he brought adult Aemond to life, especially with this scene:

Be honest, you felt things too about Aemond...I certainly did.

Actually I know this is fact, why else would there be so much smut related content around Aemond on this sight?

Conclusion

Aemond and Zuko are princes of prominent royal families who are also slighted sons; one was firstborn and the other is second born, but both slighted nonetheless, by their families, especially by their fathers

Much so that they had to find father figures in other people.

Both were heavily doted on by their mothers, both received physical scars by their family members, and both learned different lessons from the dragons, whom hold cultural significance to their families as well as their ancestral lands.

Both were pitted against their siblings, and both have fiery hot tempers that got into trouble on more than once occasion.

And both Aemond and Zuko are fan favorites to the point where numerous fans write fanfiction on both characters, be it reader inserts, or ships, etc.

We love and stan our brooding, tragic princes, no matter how toxic and angry they may be.

Also, I really want to write a crossover between HotD and AtLA, but I would probably do like maybe two chapters possibly (I say that, but knowing me, that would probably extend into a longer story, and I already have enough of those to work on as it is). I would like to see what it would look like if Aemond and Zuko were put in the same room.

Have a nice day, y'all :)

#hotd #atla #aemond targaryen #zuko #prince zuko #aemond #house of the dragon aemond #iroh #aegon ii #atla azula #Youtube

[readychilledwine]

💜 Get to know me 💜

I figured this is a little overdue. I just wanted to introduce myself a little:

The personal real life things:

My name is Elizabeth, and I'm 27. (Old for the fanfiction writing world to some, the perfect age to others.) My friends call me Liz. I've been reading fanfiction since the dark day of Quizilla, and I've been writing it since high school, so over 10 years.

It started with me writing it for my friends and adding them into stories to allow them to live out their fantasies with characters they loved and adored. After a pretty serious car accident that left me bedridden for over a month last year, I started writing it for me for escapism. The number of stories hidden in my Google Drive is insane, lovelies.

I recently started posting due to my pregnancy, which, according to my partner, only happened because I wouldn't stop reading fairyporn, on here and in books. Fairyporn he now also reads (blows on nails before cleaning them on my shirt.) Due to pregnancy, I've been home more after making the choice to switch my hours at work to allow us to adapt and prep for the arrival of our little.

The stories and writing

I consider myself part of several Fandoms and would take requests for any of the following:

✨️ Lord of the Rings / The Tolkien Universe

✨️ACOTAR and the SJM Universe

✨️Harry Potter

✨️The Bargainer Series

✨️Game of Thrones / House of Dragons

✨️ The Witcher Series

✨️ Percy Jackson

✨️ The MCU

Please just keep in mind, we may not like the same characters, so I cannot promise a mind blowing adventure for every sutuation. I will post a characters I love writing for breakdown in each Fandom if asked for enough.

I will write the following

🥵 smut (please see rules)

❤️ Fluff

🥺 Angst

🥰 platonic relationships

Tropes I ADORE

🥰 Fated Mates

🥰 Grumpy Sunshine

🥰 Mutual Pinning

🥰 Enemies to Lovers

🥰 Friends to Lovers

🥰 Slow. Mother fing. Burn

🥰 Second Chance Romance

🥰 Revenge F

Tropes I dislike (but am open to writing)

😑 forced proximity or marriage

😑 one bed (seriously. Imagine. You've been traveling for hours. No food. No rest. No shower. You're fucking exhausted. You aren't banging the person laying with you. I'm sorry but you're not.)

😑 damsel/daddy in distress

😑 pregnancy

Tropes I absolutely will NOT write:

😞 bully turned lover

😞 step siblings/parent trope

😞 minors in grooming situations

😞 changing sexual preferences due to a bad experience

😞 Tropes relating to me making a known character cheat with my OC/Reader characters - I will write my fake character being cheated on, though

😞 Too dumb to live (I do not like using females as plot points for male characters)

Rules regarding smut

✔️ I will not write smut for characters who are underage in the universe they reside in. Meaning, I won't be feeding the Percy Jackson lovers, Harry Potter Lovers, or some cannon GOT/HOTD lovers smut. I am personally uncomfortable aging up characters for the sole purpose of making a smut scene for them. I do not care if the actor playing them was 18+. Daniel Radcliffe may have been 22 in the last Harry Potter film, but Harry was 17 at the beginning. I am more than happy to do romance with underage characters, though.

✔️ I do not have many kinks I consider hard boundaries, but I will not write water sports, scat play, or anything of that nature. Most other things are fair game. I am active in the kink scene, lovelies. If I haven't played with a kink you'd like written, I have a friend who probably has and will help me. Send me those anonymous messages, and let's bring your fantasy to writing.

✔️ I will write monster fics

✔️ I will write orgies, 3somes, 4somes, all the somes, swapsomes

✔️ I will write ff/mf/ffm/mmf, I will not write mm, simply because I am a female and have not watched two males doing the deed just the two of them. I'd want to do the piece justice and I have no rights to write an emotion/feeling/stimulation I wouldn't understand or have experience with

✔️ I will write dub/con and dark sexual fantasy

Am I open to taking requests?

Do you have a specific question?

Ask me 💜

#aboutme #readychilledwines introduction #rules

[horizon-verizon]

Honestly it's not just writing that it's bad in this show . it's also costumes , wigs -my god ugliest wigs ever- and the design choices of dragons , crowns -specially the conqueror's crown- everything in this show is done without an ounce of creativity and is so soulless. Makes me wonder , why they even think this show is "best show in 2022"??

*EDITED POST* 9/23/23

.........................................................................................................

The Clothing

I talk about the costuming of not only HotD but also GoT HERE. And I agree that the costumes were not good, but I say they weren't good because they don't make sense for the context instead of just how it looks and whether it is good design. 

Though there are a few costumes I actually hate the design of, just aesthetically: 

Alicent’s wedding dress [the scene was thankfully deleted; this one was actually just bad in of itself, the personal taste comes in with me hating the sleeves in of themselves...3/4 sleeves are not my thing]

epi 1 Rhaenyra’s first dress’ frill collar (yeah collars like these existed, this is not about period accuracy, it's about personal likes/dislikes, as already stated)

epi 4 Alicent’s red and black dress (Halloween costume and the sleeves make no sense/lack of consistency)

epi 9 Alicent’s sheer shoulder(?)/panel over the chest connecting the sleeves to the shoulders and neck -- too modern as well

Valyrian Appearance & the Wigs

I am a very selective person when it comes to adapting distinctive visual features from fantasy/scifi novels into TV. (As I’m sure you all will be able to tell.)

That the Targs always have bleach-white hair in HotD and there being no variances from “white” to pale blonde twists my nerves. And yes, there were only a few wigs that were in mid-to-good condition: Young & Older Rhaenyra, Daemon’s episodes 3 & 4. 

The worst ones (condition and design) were for the black characters/the Velaryons. For our black characters, where are our braiding that’s afforded to the white characters?! 

If you’re going to have black actors, modify wigs better to how actual black people would want them presented. And introduce Afro-braiding!

I also -- no matter what the obstacle to the show production/post-production/overall budget -- need the purple eyes, again with all variances. Again, with variances of shades and types of purple.

The Crowns

Disliked Viserys/Rhaenyra’s crown....excuse me, Jaehaerys I’s crown was a crown with the 7 Seven/7 Westerosi regions-symbolized gems placed into it. Something like this:

🎨: amok

In a different vein, as long as the live-crown both looks simple in the context of crowns AND has the gems, I would have been satisfied. Like these:

🎨: naomimakesart; 2nd & 3rd - chillyravenart; last - elenastripe

And it’s pretty symbolic and ironic that Rhaenyra, a woman, gets to crown herself the same crown that Jaehaerys both wore himself and would never have wanted her to wear.  He had a history of trying to assimilate more into the Andal patriarchy more than the kings before him, as well. 

But having just a generic and applicable-to-all and having no context crown with engravings of dragons and geometric patterns? Where is the original story, the personality?!!!

Finally, Aegon’s crown....honestly how do get this:

from any of these?:

🎨: 1st & 2nd amok ; Magali Villeneuve (AWoIaF)

Where are the rubies?!

#asoiaf asks to me #hotd costume #hotd comment #hotd critical #asoiaf costume #valyrian appearance #asoiaf #hotd

[westofessos]

About Me:

I’ve had quite a few new followers these past few weeks, so I thought I would make a little about me post, just so you all know what you’re getting into.

First off, hello! My name is Madison (she/her), I’m 19 (will be 20 in January which is. . . something I’m not thinking about at the moment), I’m bisexual, extremely liberal (racists, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, etc. can fuck off and die), and I live in Saskatchewan, Canada. My favourite thing in the world to do is write, and I love to read as well.

Here are some of my favourite things, sorted by category:

Star Wars

Favourite characters: Leia Organa, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ben Solo, Hera Syndulla, Ahsoka Tano, Din Djarin, Captain Rex, Poe Dameron, Rey Skywalker, Satine Kryze, Luke Skywalker, Asajj Ventress, Luminara Unduli, and many, many more

I love every movie, and every TV show (I was admittedly not a fan of Andor, but I’m so happy that so many people loved it so much!), and I’m working through some of the canon novels

This is my first fandom, one of my first loves. No matter how deeply I fall in love with other things I will never love them like I love Star Wars

Marvel

Favourite Characters: Natasha Romanoff, Loki Laufeyson, Bucky Barnes, Wanda Maximoff, Kate Bishop, Jennifer Walters, Steve Rogers, Carol Danvers, Sylvie, Marc Spector, Valkyrie, Peggy Carter, Yelena Belova, and many, many more.

I love every movie and TV show (to varying degrees, but nonetheless) but my favourite movies are Endgame, Infinity War, No Way Home, Eternals, Winter Soldier, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Ragnarok (not necessarily in that order), and my favourite shows are Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Loki, Werewolf by Night, Hawkeye (not necessarily in that order)

I also very casually read Marvel comics (just a few here and there whenever I find some that pique my interest)

DC

Admittedly, not nearly as much as Marvel. There isn’t a lot of emotional attachment. Honestly it’s bordering on contempt at this point, especially after spending money to go see The Flash in theatres

But I love The Batman, Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, the Dark Knight trilogy, Harley Quinn, and Batman (1989). I am cautiously excited for many of their upcoming projects under James Gunn’s leadership

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is my all-time favourite comic book and honestly just one of my favourite books of all time. It’s truly a beautiful work of art.

Lord of the Rings

I’ve seen all three movies and 2/3 Hobbit movies, and I’ve read Fellowship of the Ring (planning on getting to the other two soon). I also watched and absolutely adored The Rings of Power.

My favourite characters are Éowyn and Aragorn, but I love Merry, Pippin, Legolas, and Gimli too. And Galadriel, Elrond, Durin, Elendil, Miriel, and Halbrand in TRoP

I’m admittedly not the most well-versed in LOTR, but I do really enjoy it.

A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones:

Don’t even get me started on those goddamn shows. Seasons 7 and 8 of GoT and HoTD infuriate me on a daily basis but goddamn it I love this world so much. Westeros is so important to me

Favourite characters: Daenerys, Jaime, Cersei, Jon, Arianne, Brienne, Robb, and more

Favourite Targaryens (it’s the best house, fight me): Visenya, Aegon I, Rhaenyra, Daemon, Rhaena the Queen in the East/West, Alysanne, Daena the Defiant, Aegon V, Rhaegar, and probably more I’m forgetting

Movies:

Almost Famous (my favourite of all time)

Good Will Hunting

Memento

The Usual Suspects

Frances Ha, Mistress America, Lady Bird, Little Women, Barbie (anything with Greta Gerwig involved)

Dazed and Confused

Tombstone

Tick, Tick . . . BOOM!

Father of the Bride 1 & 2

You’ve Got Mail

When Harry Met Sally

Palm Springs

Before Sunrise

The Princess Diaries

Dogma (anything Kevin Smith, really)

Anything John Hughes

Garden State

His Girl Friday

10 Things I Hate About You

The Princess Bride

Disney movies (I grew up on those princesses and damn it, I still love ‘em)

Scooby-Doo (it’s just so dumb and comforting after a long day)

Also just 80s/90s movies, particularly comedies

TV Shows:

Lost (my favourite of all time. I could talk about it for hours on end)

Roseanne (my favourite sitcom. Roseanne Barr might be a piece of shit but Roseanne and Dan Conner raised me)

The Walking Dead (very close second favourite show)

The Sandman

Good Omens

Community

Gilmore Girls

That 70’s Show

Daisy Jones and the Six

Friends

Seinfeld

Once Upon A Time

Ted Lasso (even though they fucked it at the end)

Superstore

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

The Good Place

Sons of Anarchy

Peaky Blinders

Scrubs

Bridgerton

Golden Girls

Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley

The Umbrella Academy

Schitt’s Creek

Only Murders in the Building

The Last of Us

Band of Brothers

Succession

Bojack Horseman

Grace & Frankie

Way, way more I can’t think of. I watch way too much TV. Just ask, I’ve probably seen it.

Music:

The Beatles (my all-time favourite band. I saw Paul McCartney in 2018 and almost died)

Pearl Jam

Phoebe Bridgers & boygenius

Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots

Anything from the 50’s and 60’s pretty much (i.e. The Beach Boys, Petula Clark, Jay and the Americans, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, Simon & Garfunkel, Herman’s Hermits, The Zombies. Just ask, I probably love it.

Fleetwood Mac

Taylor Swift (I’m not a full Swiftie, but I’m getting there)

Olivia Rodrigo

The Chicks

Elton John

Billy Joel

Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child

ABBA

KISS

The Cranberries

Led Zeppelin

The Mountain Goats

Honestly it would probably be quicker to say who I don’t listen to in some capacity

Musicals:

Hamilton

Hadestown

Heathers

Wicked

In the Heights

Six

Grease, The Sound of Music, Mamma Mia, and other movie musicals

Books:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab - never before has a book seemed like it was written just for me. And it’s so beautiful. Schwab is just my favourite author of all time, I’ll read anything of hers

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas - I read these as the last few were coming out and I still have such an attachment to them

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - my favourite movie is Almost Famous so naturally, this was perfect for me. Goddamn did I love it.

A Song of Ice and Fire, of course

Classics: A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, The Handmaid’s Tale, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The entire Grishaverse series by Leigh Bardugo

That’s just off the top of my head. There are many, many more, and I’ll always take recommendations!

Basically just fantasy. I love fantasy books more than anything

All Elite Wrestling:

My most recent obsession

I’m watching it through from the beginning so I haven’t seen everything just yet

Favourite wrestlers: CM Punk, MJF, Orange Cassidy, Kris Statlander, all the Best Friends honestly, Adam Cole, Cody Rhodes, Danhausen, Thunder Rosa, Juice Robinson, Toni Storm, Sting, Christian Cage, Eddie Kingston, Jon Moxley, Hangman Adam Page, Willow Nightingale, Hikaru Shida (not necessarily in that order other than the first 5, and there are more)

(I would love to have more women on that list but the women don’t get any good storylines or promo time or character development so I don’t form as many emotional attachments with as many of them. Book. The. Women’s. Division. Better.)

Favourite storylines/feuds: AdaMJF, Punk/MJF, Cody/MJF, Orange Cassidy/Chris Jericho, anything involving the Best Friends, everything with Hangman (from the very beginning all the way to where I am now, where he has just won the championship), probably more but that’s just off the top of my head

And that’s me, essentially. If you made it this far, I salute you. If there’s anything you want to know, feel free to ask! My asks and dms are always open, whether you’re a mutual or a complete stranger. Never be afraid to say hi!

#aew #all elite wrestling #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #star wars #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #dc #lord of the rings #lost #roseanne #the walking dead #community #gilmore girls #that 70s show #seinfeld #once upon a time #daisy jones and the six #the beatles #pearl jam #phoebe bridgers #boygenius #fleetwood mac #beyonce #the chicks #billy joel #elton john #led zeppelin

[uzdef-ump]

Nobody here is into HOTD but I'd like to talk how I actually came to love the complexity of Alicent character. She came for innocence to being the one who ruined her only daughter's life, just like Alicent's father did to her. She is hurt, scared, powerless and extremely jealous of Rhaenyra, because she have more power over her fate and did found comfort in the arms of men who truly loved her. Alicent is jealous because all of Rhaenyra's kids were wanted and loved by their fathers. It's really painful to see how only Rhaenyra's son Jace was able to bring some joy into Haelena's miserable existence just by a single dance. I like to think that deep down in Alicent's soul she regretted that she didn't allow Jace and Haelena to be married, when she watched her daughter dance and smile with him. Alicent isn't exactly evil, she was just forced to think that other women have to suffer like she did to be "worthy". She thinks like that because it's unbelievably painful to even allow a thought that maybe she herself didn't have to go through all of this at all. It was just her father's ambitions that ruined her life and nothing more. I like her character this way more than just "insane woman who wants power" which her book version is. I still don't like her, because she made other people's lives miserable. She's not good, but she's not pure evil. I really don't like how she turned the situation with Aemond about herself btw. This is just ugh. But that tells us a lot about her character. She only focus on HER suffering, not others. She doesn't really cares anymore about other people. Otto and Viserys ruined her completely, but it doesn't take away her responsibility for her own actions. She's responsible for spreading rumors about legitimacy of Rhaenyra's sons, whose rumors might got them killed. She's responsible for making Rhaenyra's life miserable, starting with ruining her former best friend's wedding and making the bitter rejected sir criston pussy her closest ally and after so many years she made Rhaenyra make a choice: let her newborn son be taken away from her arms or suffer all the way to that chamber where Alicent was. Is that really a choice for a loving mother? I'm sure Alicent would give Aegon away without blinking an eye, but Rhaenyra? Alicent poisoned her kids with the idea of usurpation from the very begging, we can see that when Aegon and Aemon talk about Haelena and Aemond calls her "future queen". Aegon himself didn't have any ambition to become king even in the show, never mind his line from the book " What kind of a brother steals his sister's birthright?". That not speaks that screams. Alicent makes mistake after mistake and her final years being locker up alone, mad after what she's done, hating the color green for the rest of her life is exactly what she deserves for her actions. She lost Aemond, Haelena, Daeron, her grandkids, her oldest son is a cripple who was poison by his own men. All of that because the injustice in her life make her blind. Otto is the one to blame for her downfall too, but she's still responsible for her decisions.

#house of the dragon #alicent hightower #just my opinion about her #my heart hurts for young Alicent but when she's older there's nothing i can say to justify her actions #I can understand but never justify her and that is exactly what is so good about her show character

[ladyfenring]

Thank you @lord-aldhelm for the tag! 💜

How many works do you have on AO3?

132!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

Apparently it's 1,585,653.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently just TLK, but every now and then HotD or whatever period drama I'm currently watching will catch my fancy.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

gonna be honest, every time this question comes up on an ask meme it makes me cringe a bit, because 3 of them i don't feel are remotely worthy of the honor and I think I just posted at the right time. anyway they're all GoT/asoiaf fics.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to, unless the comment is like, idk, annoying or completely incomprehensible.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh man. I've written a lot of angsty endings...I think I'm just going to go with the most recent, which is The House That Godwin Built.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

also going with the most recent here since there are too many to choose from, too tempting not to touch

8. Do you get hate on fics?

yeah 🥲

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

All kinds babeyyyyyy

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have written exactly one crossover as a dumb joke and it was where Steve Harrington was Jean-Ralphio and Mona-Lisa Saperstein's biological father

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

It used to happen a lot but not so much anymore

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times! It's a really nice feeling :)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

@itslaurenmae and I co-wrote Stolen Sweets together!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

eadith x eardwulf aka flowers in mercia i am so deeply unwell about this ship i made up in my head but also it's real I'm so Pepe Silvia about it

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I started this Barkskins fic literal years ago that went into the loup-garou thing that is CONSTANTLY coming up in the narrative but tbh i had no idea where to take it after "yeah they're werewolves" so I feel like. I shall never finish it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I say, perhaps overconfidently. I attribute it to my theatre background but I'm always reading and, for that matter, writing dialogue with a voice in mind. I also speak a lot of the dialogue out loud to myself to make sure it sounds right, which is why I now live alone. I also know my basic editing (spelling, grammar, punctuation, tenses, etc) is almost always in good shape.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am SO BAD at writing descriptions, it's something I'm actively working on. Action scenes are also something I struggle with, my eyes glaze over those scenes in books and television, and if you've ever read my fics, you'll notice I like to pull a GRRM and knock out my characters whenever possible.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If it's not necessary to the plot, why confuse the reader when you can just as easily say, "He said to the woman in sunglasses, this time in Russian..." or, "He didn't understand the two men, who sounded as though they were speaking in French..." Unless that dialogue is relevant to the plot, I guess I just don't see the need.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I'm pretty sure it was Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

The House That Godwin Built will always have a special place in my heart 💜

tagging @ivarthebadbitch, @stannisfactions, @wildwren, @wexpyke, @abnerkrill, @skatingthinandice, and anyone else who wants to play!

#i'm sorry i've literally blanked on all my beautiful moots who write fanfiction i do this every time and yet i learn nothing #cue me scrolling frantically through my activity feed

[witheredoffherwitch]

hello there! just wanted to send an encouraging ask as I very rarely look at any hotd-related content on here (due to the lack of critical thinking that can be found and the pure vitriol spewed through anonymous messages - many lovely mutuals have also received horrendous anons telling them they should be physically harmed since they do not enjoy an incestuous crackship and that’s absolutely unhinged!) and you’ve handled these absurdly obnoxious, transparent anons in your inbox with grace and eloquence. it’s been a year and many moots on twitter have learned to keep to themselves regarding opinions related to alys/aemond and how it could possibly be interpreted as a gothic tale/romance (as they keep tabs over there too) but it’s truly pathetic and unsettling to see how a certain part of this fanbase CONTINUES to spew their hate and try to incite a reaction. rooting for a female character to be sexually assaulted simply because one is bitter over an incestuous crackship not happening is the definition of childish and frankly very odd. there’s already more than enough of that in this whole franchise and aemond taking a woman by force is simply not in-keeping with how they’ve characterized him in the show (as you’ve aptly acknowledged) and is very unlikely to happen (much to their displeasure). their relationship is not a fairytale but that doesn’t mean it has to include that at all.

anyhow this ended up being way too long but wanted to commend you for dealing with this pure nonsense from Those shippers! I’ve turned my anon option off to avoid this sort of behavior and moots who think alys has alot to offer as a character have received tons of hate while minding their own business. it’s been a year and they are STILL insufferable. seems they cannot cope with the fact that she will be in the show and that their ship is not happening. very sad. in any case, gayle seems like a very dedicated actress and she and ewan are surely to have an interesting screen presence together. can’t wait to see what they bring as a duo chemistry-wise and their performances! 🥰

Ahhh Cecilia!! I'm so sorry for getting around to your message so late, but I am all the more grateful to you for reaching out at the time. Aside from those two anons (to whom I so eloquently requested to throat my cock), I think I did a pretty good job at handling this ongoing dissent. Thank you so much once again!

I am so sorry that you guys had to deal with this kind of nonsense before, BUT I seriously hope that these anons have not deterred your enthusiasm for any Alysmond content. We barely make for a moderately-sized Kpop girl group -- and I hope the few remaining girlies are still active to keep this small hive humming and buzzing. Alysmond is a ship that will sustain irrespective of what the show follows - i mean, we have other crackships that are still going strong after all. We should grant ourselves a bit of freedom to express our creative interpretations of the narrative.

Coming to what you said about Aemond's depiction in the show, I 100% stand by that take. He's not shown to be an unreasonable brute who will take someone by force. Moreover from whatever leaks we've got till now (though I would take them with a grain of salt), Gayle's Alys is also made to come off as a very kooky character. Regardless of what they show on-screen, I am already drowning ten-feet deep into these headcanons -- IMAGINE the first interaction between Alys 'a barn owl cursed to live in human form' Rivers and Aemond 'tis I who studies philosophy' Targaryen. I don't care what anyone says because that's a recipe for deliciously dark and romantically gothic meet-cute. That's our quirky cursed witch and menacingly tortured kinslayer! If Condal messes it up, then we have enough material to draft multiple fucking AUs for ourselves. LOL I've even suggested earlier how we only need Gayle in Alys' costume -- because rest assured, we'll do the rest with moodboards and countless video edits.

I am extremely tight on schedule since I am doing my Masters while working a full-time job -- and because of that, I am short on producing the kind of content I'd like BUT hopefully, I can get something out by the end of this month. To be very honest, I actually don't really mind crackships (I read them all the time and have shared links to some of my favorites) but what really annoys me is this constant need to put down other ships to justify your own little delulu headcanons.

Anyway thanks for reaching out once again, and you are welcome to take a nice cushy spot in our coven.

Love, Kalki. 🤗

#anon asks #lovely sisterwife 💕 #alysmond hive #coven convening #hotd fandom #shippy discourse

[icecream-junkie]

Fate: The Winx Saga - Season 2

Spoilers for FTWS Season 2

I only recently discovered Fate: The Winx Saga and, to be honest, I had not expected to enjoy it as much as I did.

There were many things I liked about season 1, but what really drew me to the show were the adult characters, specifically Farah and Saul. I was intrigued by their shared history and how obviously they cared for each other. Sure, the show focusses on the students, but I had hoped to learn a bit more about the teachers as the story continued.

Despite how season 1 ended, I still went into season 2 somewhat optimistic. After all, it’s a show about fairies and magic, so there could have been a way to bring Farah back to life. I had fully intended to stay away from spoilers, but I think I managed to get to episode 2x04 before I caved and went online to see whether Farah would come back or not. And I’m glad I did, even if it was just to avoid being hit by the full force of the emotional rollercoaster that was her brief return.

Clearly, I would have liked her to stay on the show, but if it wasn’t to be at least we got closure and a proper goodbye. I can live with that and I do appreciate the effort that went into making those final scenes possible.

What I do have issues with though, is Saul’s behaviour in season 2. Season 1 established that Farah, Saul and Ben went through a lot together. They are friends. Farah and Saul had a lot of shared scenes in season 1 that showed just how close they are. And suddenly in season 2 Saul doesn’t seem to care anymore. WTF?!

I have a feeling season 2 may not have been what the creators had originally intended. They had to recast some roles because the actors couldn’t return due to scheduling conflicts with other work they were doing and Eve Best got cast in HotD, which probably (understandably) sealed Farah’s fate. I’ve also seen other posts on here saying that they originally announced 8 episodes, rather than the 7 the second season now consists of. So it seems like they had to make some changes that weren’t necessarily planned and that may have impacted the story they were able to tell.

If they had to cut down the number of episodes, they would have had to condense the story. It’s understandable that they would do so where the supporting characters (e.g. the teachers) are concerned. After all, the show isn’t about them. But did they really have to do it to an extent where Saul seems OOC compared to season 1? It wouldn’t have taken much, just one or two lines to show that he actually cares about what happened to Farah. A noticeable reaction to the news of her death… But there was nothing and that really bothers me.

The same goes for why he ended up working for Rosalind btw. I mean, yes, I can come up with all kinds of reasons for all of the above. For example, at first, he was too busy to escape to go look for Farah. After he got captured, he worked with Rosalind to protect Sky. When they finally found out about Farah, Rosalind was dead, he had the Blood Witches to deal with and maybe he tried to keep it together in front of the students. Those are all good reasons that may have worked, but the show didn’t give us a single one of those. Instead, they made him seem very different from the Saul we saw in season 1. And while I’m all for headcanons and fanfics, I don’t like having to come up with them just to make sense of what happens on the show and I don’t think I should have to. That’s the show’s job.

#fate the winx saga #ftws #ftws season 2 #saul silva #farah dowling #silrah #farah x saul #farah dowling x saul silva #ftws spoilers #fate the winx saga spoilers #spoilers

[esther-dot]

I feel like GRRM's update for the first time confirms that not all will be the same in the ending as we have seen on screen. Bc what else can we make abt the deaths? Who died we cared abt? Rickon, Jamie, Cersei, Daenerys, Theon (oh, Euron too, lol). Any of these surviving changes the story significantly, as well as any death that we haven't seen on screen (looking at you, Tyrion!) What are your thoughts on this update Dot?

Don’t laugh about Euron, anon, @istumpysk will come for your ass. 😂

I read that update and wondered what prompted him to write that because it gave me a similar feeling to reading his post GoT finale post. @kazetoame saw my tags and filled me in:

Thank you @kazetoame!!! I didn’t know what was happening but it felt prompted by something specific. Now we know!

On the positive side, I think he’s making progress because he’s thinking about the reception of the book and I definitely felt like this was his effort to get the audience hyped. Now knowing that may be to benefit HOTD rather than be about TWOW arriving soon...well, I don’t know. I’m still pleased by the vibe. However, I’m doubtful this is as new/exciting as we want it to be as far as it giving more information.

Here’s part of his post GoT blog from May 2019:

And this is part of the one he posted today:

He also talks (again) about his characters that weren’t included or D&D killed off

To me, the two posts sound fairly similar. Even the discussion of the ending feels about the same to me. Now he says “Some things will be the same. A lot will not.” Back in 2019 he said:

I understand why people want to latch onto “Characters will live! Others will die! A lot will be different!!!” But I suppose I’m hesitant to think he means what we want him to mean because even today he was still saying this:

He prefaced all the talk about characters living/dying and when with this comment, so I don’t think he’s changed his mind about what his endpoints are or even the major beats. How things will transpire, sure. But those important moments he’s had in his head for years/decades? The things he has told us time and again over the course of years that he told D&D? The things the fandom wants to believe are strictly their fuckery? Like say, Stannis burning Shireen, King Bran, Dark Dany? I still think that’s all from him. The endpoints? I still think those are his. That may just be my pessimism speaking, and I am certainly not trying to persuade anyone to agree, I just read that and thought...this is (almost) the same post.

My thought about ASOIAF characters not making it to the end who did in GoT was Cersei, which @kazetoame said as well:

Our minds! Although, my one hesitancy there is that I always thought Jaime and Cersei died together, and for some reason I didn’t think he’d be axed before seeing Tyrion again? But it could be Edmure, Davos, Gendry, Tormund (who for some reason feels like a very safe bet to me)…I mean, it doesn’t have to be one of the characters that is preeminent in our minds. I thought Cersei because in my head Aegon takes KL before Dany arrives and is winning over the people and that plays into why Dany kabooms the place. The Dany v Cersei idea seemed like a show thing to keep fans from realizing Dany was the final baddie, not Cersei. But like I said, it could be a number of characters. I’m not sure that someone dying sooner necessarily means a remarkable difference in the endgame. It may mean certain things (like the burning of KL) make far more sense though.

I also thought the comment about characters living in ASOIAF who died in the show is (potentially) a very misleading idea. I already see people hoping Dany survives, but it could be someone like Melisandre, we could see Benjen again, Edd could survive, Missandei could live, I reblogged a post suggesting Selmy. I know he doesn’t mean it badly, he’s just doing his job and trying to help the shows set in his world succeed, but it seems cruel to bring up this idea in such vague terms when we all know the fandom at large only cares about Dany surviving so they will take it as the confirmation of that. I am sure that isn’t the person he’s thinking of. Fingers crossed Rickon lives! And if he does, a lot of fans have pointed out that Sansa should be Robb’s heir as she is older, that progress means less sexism and that the eldest regardless of gender should inherit, so I’m not sure that Rickon surviving has to change her ending. I’m not counting on it, but it’s nice to think about. My point is, Martin can be honest, but his honesty still leaves a lot of room for us to deceive ourselves. I’m trying really hard not to.

So, to me, the post felt similar to what he wrote after the GoT finale only a little more focused in his desire to hype people for his books and convince them TWOW is still worth reading. He knows how the end of GoT went over, and I think that’s part of why he’s again trying to point out that there will be stuff we don’t know in his books, and he really did spend a while emphasizing that. Yay! But I also think there are reasons other than just trying to be nice to us that leads him to make these comments, and I’ve already seen articles pop up saying he is reassuring fans his series will end differently...and I just don’t know that that is an accurate reflection of what he was trying to say. There will be a lot of differences in the particulars, I know that. But will the things we really care about be dramatically different? Sadly, I’m still doubtful.

#ask dot #grrm

[iamthenerdqueen]

His Star - Prologue

Aemond Targaryen x Targaryen!OC, GOT AU (Daenerys is a good Queen fight me), HOTD AU

CW: minor character death, Targcest 

~Part 1~ 

The walls of the Red Keep stared back at Daenerys Targaryen, cold and full of judgment as they had every man and woman who had sat upon the Iron throne before her. Unlike those who had inhabited the throne since the fall of her father, the stone walls of the keep felt like a welcome home. 

But still, to the newly coronated queen,  this home felt foreign. A place she had read about, and studied from afar, but now she could learn this home. As a child, she had been fascinated with the untold stories and the whispered tales that existed only within these walls. The new queen smiled, grateful she had returned to the throne without having to burn the city as she was prepared to do and thankful that all she had dreamed each night before sleep as a small girl was hers—belonging once again to the House of Targaryen. 

The silence was broken by the sound of footfalls, ones the young queen had come to recognize as those belonging to her hand: Tyrion Lannister. The man had become a great comfort to her in the weeks leading up to her ascension and now directly after her remained a pillar within her vastly different landscape. 

With a bow of his head, the short man greeted her with a smile, “It is quite late to be in here, my queen. The hour of the wolf meets little comfort in these halls, I have come to know that better than most. I have spent many nights wandering the halls of this Keep and -” 

Tyrion’s voice trailed off as his smile turned into a smirk, his voice pitching up in humor. 

“And what, Lord Hand?” 

“And wandering the brothels of Flea Bottom. There was one point in my glorious youth, a handful of years ago where I could name almost every whore on the Street of Silk.” Laughter echoed off the walls and for a moment the two felt the weight of their ever-growing responsibility leave. 

“Lord Tyrion, I want to know this place. As a small child, I would look upon the stars and imagine my ancestors. Their lives beyond what is written in the histories, and the tales whispered among the small folk. I am a Targaryen in name, in blood, by right of dragon, and yet I feel so alone in this world.”

A deep sigh left the queen before she continued, “I feel alone here as if after all this time, I do not know my own family.” 

Tyrion looked upon his queen, and his thoughts shifted to his favorite tale of the Red Keep. One he thought she may just like. 

“Have you heard of your ancestor, The Strangers Mistress? Her tale is my favorite to have happened within these walls.”  The Hand of the Queen knew her answer before he asked, very few remembered the Lady Valaena, and even less wrote of her existence. Her title, given by the small folk was unfortunately accurate, her whole life had been spent under the gaze of the Stranger. 

“No, I am not familiar.” 

Her tone told Tyrion just how curious she was in this world she had been ripped away from before she was even born. In those moments, Daenerys’ age showed. The young and curious mind peaking from behind the walls a queen had built to protect herself. 

“I would be more than obliged to tell you. I found a journal that told me much about her life during my previous time at the Red Keep, it is rare for her story to be spoken. It has become known as a way to call the Stranger’s eyes to glare upon you. The Strangers Mistress, whose true name was Valaena Targaryen, named after the mother of the Conqueror himself. She was born just two months after Prince Aemond Targaryen and would live to see her family’s deadly dance.”

The hand stopped his narration to reflect on the tragedy that was the Dance of the Dragons. The blacks against the greens, a family at war with each other. It all seemed too familiar to him now, the ghosts of his father and siblings still lingered in his mind each day. 

 With a glance and breath, Lord Tyrion began again, “Her mother was the youngest child of Prince Aemon Targaryen and Lady Jocelyn Baratheon, Princess Daenys who was born 90 AC and sister to the Queen who never was.” 

In the seconds between the Lord Hand’s words, Daenerys paused in the open passageway they were walking through. The sky had finally cleared, no longer was there smoke in the air and the only thing that lingered in the cloudless sky was her children. Perhaps, they too were mourning their long-gone family. 

“Lady Valaena’s father was the youngest brother of King Viserys I, Prince Aelor. The surviving twin of the stillborn Prince Aegon. He was the mirror image of his mother Princess, with one eye of violet, the other a brilliant green color. A bright and happy boy, he earned the name the Realms sun. Given to him by King Jaehaerys I, who held great affection for the young boy. After the passing of the Old King in 103, Prince Aelor claimed the Bronze Fury while the Princess Daenys had claimed her grandmother's dragon, Silverwing.” 

A small smile grew on the Targaryen’s face as she thought of the two sharing a great love and their dragons being just as devoted as they were.   

 Tyrion continued, “It is said, in the last moments of his life as he lay dying in the Stepstones, the Prince Aelor cried out to the gods begging them to keep his family in their palms and safe from harm. Most believe when he called to them the Stranger was the only one listening and turned his gaze unto the unborn daughter of the Prince. The first time Lady Valaena Targaryen opened her eyes, one of violet and one of green, the Stranger marked her just as her father had begged.”

Tyrion stopped for a moment, thinking back to the literature he had come read about this tragedy. As he looked toward his Queen, she had her eyes on him invested in his story. 

“Prince Aelor was known as the realms sun and the Princess Daenys was the realms moon. The small folk called the day Daenys went into labor The Great Eclipse as she brought a starling into the world. It was said that during her labor, her cries so loud her sister could hear her all the way in Driftmark.”

The Great Eclipse, the twentieth day of the sixth month many years before...

 Fourteen hours had come to pass since Daenys had received the raven detailing her beloved's death, impaled in the gut by the savages of the Triarchy. Only moments later did her cries of sorrow turn to cries of pain as the news sent the pregnant Princess into labor three weeks too early. 

King Viserys I Targaryen waited on the Iron Throne, heartbroken at the news of his youngest brother's death and anxious as his cousin fought to bring a child into the world. His daughter refused to leave her favorite of her father’s cousins and his young wife could not find peace through the screams of the struggling Princess. Alicent stared at Aemond, thinking back to his birth only a few months prior. The small Prince, not even half the size of his older brother Aegon, now sleeping unbothered by the chaos that had overtaken the Red Keep. 

The cries of Daenys stopped just as suddenly as they began, and the King was filled with panic in the following moments when his daughter entered the throne room face red with tears, a small bundle hidden within her arms. 

“Fa- Father” Rhaenyra choked out, looking up at Viserys through wet lashes

“Father, I present to you the Lady Valaena Targaryen.” As she finished her sentence, Viserys crossed the room to stand close to his daughter and the babe in her arms. Slowly he took the child Rhaenyra had stretched out to him. He couldn’t help the tears that formed as his mother's eyes stared at him. His youngest brother’s eyes now belonged had passed on to his daughter, striking against the tufts of dark Baratheon hair already on the babe's head. 

“She will be a great beauty of the realm, a perfect mixture of her parents. Come Rhaenyra, it is late. I am sure, Daenys wants her little one back into her arms at once. We shall congratulate and thank her for giving us a lasting piece of Aelor.”

Before he could turn to walk toward Daenys chambers, the broken sob of his daughter stopped him. One he had heard before in an eerily similar situation.  

“The Princess Daenys does not wait for us, Father.” 

The King did not know how it was possible, but his heart shattered for the second time that day. He knew that she could not bear to be in this world without Aelor, their souls were one and the same. 

It was within the walk to the nursery, to find a wet nurse that Viserys decided that he would protect the child and raise it in his Keep. She would have all the luxuries of his own children, she was a dragon and he would see she was never alone. 

The small babe began to wail as they reached the nursery, an inconsolable cry for her mother and father who would never hear her. This cry caught the ear of Queen Alicent, still inside watching the rise and fall of her youngest son's chest.

With a slight bow to her husband, the Queen came to his side, “Your cousin has completed her labors?”

The question clung to the thick air within the Keep that night, the sound of the orphaned babe filling the air.

Attempting to soothe the babe with a gentle bounce, the brokenhearted King spoke, "Yes, the Princess Daenys gave the remainder of her soul to bring life to their little Starling. She has gone to meet my brother in the arms of the Stranger."

The King's words carried a great tragedy, and the babe wailed louder waking her cousin in his crib. A sound came from the Prince –  nothing more than a babe's coo –  but for some reason unknown to the King and Queen: that one sound calmed the dark-haired newborn. Carefully, the King handed the newborn to the wet nurse to be fed. Requesting that she be placed next to his infant son for comfort after. A dragon egg that would turn to stone taken from the crib to make room for the girl. The ruler and his consort left the infants under the watchful eye of the wet nurse, and when she was placed beside him, the small Princeling turned toward his new crib mate. At peace with one another, both babes fell into a slumber. 

AN: Hi it’s me... back in another fandom :) Anyway might cross post this later to Wattpad who knows. Let me know what you think and if you like where this might go. Also, Team Black all the way but I do love my crazy murders. Again this is not proof read, so just ignore any 

#aemond fic #hotd aemond #house of the dragon aemond #aemond one eye #aemond x you #aemond fanfiction #aemond x original female character #aemondxoc #aemond x oc #hotd rhaenyra #hotd viserys #team black #princess rhaenys targaryen #vermathor #silverwing #targaryen #daenerys deserved better #queen daenerys #danerys targaryen #tyrion lannister #tyrion #aemond imagine #aemond targaryen imagine #hotd imagine #imagines #drabble #hotd au #hotd drabbles

[dedalvs]

I posted 135 times in 2022

That's 135 more posts than 2021!

80 posts created (59%)

55 posts reblogged (41%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@belovedlittlecorpse

@quothalinguist

@frattynattyladdie

@zjofierose

@mandaloriandy

I tagged 83 of my posts in 2022

Only 39% of my posts had no tags

#conlang - 58 posts

#language - 43 posts

#valyrian - 24 posts

#high valyrian - 22 posts

#hotd - 20 posts

#house of the dragon - 19 posts

#got - 12 posts

#game of thrones - 11 posts

#orthography - 9 posts

#langtime - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 47 characters

#the vowels that are untouchable like eliot ness

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Hi, welcome back to Tumblr! Your Trigdasleng posts back in the day were fascinating, even though I never watched the show they're from. Keep on keepin' on.

Thank you! It's good to be back, and this is as good a place as any to talk about why I'm here and what I'm doing.

First, I left Tumblr when many others did when they instituted their infamous "female-presenting nipple" policy. It's not as if my Tumblr was ever a nsfw blog, or as if I had any female-presenting nipples, but I felt it was the wrong response to the difficult situation they'd been put in. It was something that hurt a lot of people who had a lot less of a voice and not much of a platform, and so I felt it was my responsibility to use the platform I had to take a stand, even if ultimately it didn't change anything.

As it happens, years later, Tumblr has finally reversed the policy (well done, @staff!). Tumblr may not be the wild west it used to be, but at least they aren't targeting anyone presenting a specific gender unfairly. I've missed my time away, and the people I got to know here, so I'm happy to be back!

As I see it, I'll probably be reblogging stuff less here, even though that's how I made my name way back when, and instead responding mostly to asks in my inbox.

To give myself a fresh start, I have deleted all 3,999 of my asks. I'm starting fresh—with this one, which was the first! My inbox got too overwhelming, so this was needed.

To answer some questions some may have, if you haven't followed me elsewhere recently:

I'm most active on Instagram, where I am @athdavrazar.

I have a YouTube series with partner and significant other Jessie Sams, who is @quothalinguist on Instagram. That series is called LangTime Studio, and we create a language from scratch together live on camera (we work on two hours a week every Thursday at 2 p.m. Pacific).

Jessie and I work together almost exclusively now, and we've done work on Freeform's Motherland: Fort Salem (which I hope you loved, Tumblr!), Peacock's Vampire Academy, the second season of Shadow and Bone (forthcoming), Amazon's Paper Girls (though you can blink and miss our stuff), and the second Dune film.

I worked on HBO's House of the Dragon, and got to create a writing system for High Valyrian, which I'm very excited about.

I created the Sangheili language for Paramount+'s Halo with Carl Buck, who is on Instagram as @tlacamazatl (he's on Tumblr as @tlacamazatl too!). We are presently working on season 2.

I worked with Christian Thalmann on Shadow and Bone seasons 1 and 2. The breakdown is this: Christian and I jointly created the Fjerdan language; I created the Ravkan language and orthography as well as the Kerch and Zemeni orthographies exclusively; Jessie Sams and I created the Shu and Zemeni languages jointly; Christian created the Shu orthography. I can't wait for you to hear and see our work in season 2!

Yes, I left Twitter (quite a bit ago). I'm now more active on Discord, where I'm on a few servers.

I created a wiki for all my languages, and am unevenly working on all of them, and some languages have a team of people working on them (in particular High Valyrian).

Despite being double-vaxxed and getting not one, not two, but three boosters, I got Covid in June, and that PoS hasn't completely left me alone since. (Note: I'd only had one booster before I got it; two have come since then, including the new one, which will hopefully be the last!)

I am traveling again, so I hope to announce those here when they happen.

If there's anything I missed, you let me know. I look forward to answering asks again, and joining in the general silliness of Tumblr! <3

139 notes - Posted November 13, 2022

#4

The Elder Runes from The Witcher

See the full post

157 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

#3

198 notes - Posted November 13, 2022

#2

Well now I HAVE to ask how to say/write "chicken" in your various languages!

Oh here we go...

🐔🐥🐤🐣🐓

Azrán: upózh

Bodzvokhan: dǝq

Castithan: chikano (< English)

Dothraki: jiz

Hen Linge: mak

High Valyrian: ñoves (rooster), qulbes (hen)

Irathient: tisese

Kamakawi: iki (animal), i'iki (food)

Méníshè: t'òdír

Noalath: vokach

Övüsi: kuge

Ravkan: shuk (rooster), shuka (hen)

Trigedasleng: omi (generic), egleya (hen)

Yulish: bökki

Zemeni: wela

Zhyler: levžel

That's not all of them, but that's a lot of them!

(Btw, I was sitting here coming up with this list, and @quothalinguist glances at it and is instantly like, "You're coming up with words for 'chicken'? Méníshè's got one!' And, of course, she was right!)

682 notes - Posted November 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Do you have any thoughts on the translation scene in Goncharov? I haven't seen a lot of people talking about it but it's a pretty pivotal scene and given that what they're doing is not dissimilar to a conlang imo i figured you might have some good insights

*sigh*

I figured someone was going to ask this eventually...

So listen, the whole translation scene in Goncharov is not technically conlang-related. It's actually even more brilliant, but it's hard to explain.

Since the tutor doesn't speak Russian and the nurse only speaks Italian, the aphasiac Soviet spy has to use an impromptu series of hand gestures to indicate that he either does or doesn't understand. I mean, you can glean that from the subtitles, so that's no big revelation.

But this is where it gets weird and...I mean, linguistically controversial, to say the least, but it was the 70s.

As the tutor and the nurse attempt to communicate with him and each other, they begin to winnow down their vocabulary to words that are cognate between Italian and Russian. And through this back and forth, the languages seem like they're blending, but what they're actually doing is reversing the sound changes of Italian and Russian until they both end up, improbably, at Proto-Indo-European. It's like something you'd see in Fantasia, but aural! It's...utterly bizarre.

And, of course the final word that the nurse and the tutor utter simultaneously, the one that brings the spy to tears, is *bʰewdʰ- "awake, aware"—which, I mean, knowing how the rest of the movie goes...yeah. Bombshell. And it's crazy to me that they didn't subtitle it! Like, you pretty much have to be a PIE scholar to get that, and the entire subplot hinges on it! I mean, bold isn't the word for it. Unfathomable. Cannot believe they got away with that...

Rumor has it that Morris Halle consulted on the film, but he's adamantly refused to talk about. (For years, he'd end all his guest lectures with, "Are they any questions about anything other than Goncharov?") He never once confirmed whether or not he was involved (of course, he wasn't credited, but that wouldn't be unusual for the time even if he was involved).

I can see why you'd think it would be a conlang, but the reverse-engineered sound changes were so precise, and the whole thing so by the book, that there really wasn't any actual invention. It was all Indo-European!

2,227 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

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