#didn't put it in the post but my theory is that this siege might be at harrenhal and not the wall

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

So I don't really have a concrete theory or anything, but...

Dany dreams she is fighting the "usurper's rebel host" (aka Robert Baratheon's army) but these icy enemies are obviously Others; see how they melt away the way Ser Puddles did when Sam killed him.

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened. She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a footfall on the deck above her head. And something else.

Dany III, ASOS

In a later Jon chapter, in the very same book, an "enemy" bursts into the fray to scatter the wildlings. This enemy is a Baratheon king - Stannis. This Baratheon king claims to be the legendary Azor Ahai, but he's not (Dany is, "the dragons prove it").

Trumpets were blowing all around, loud and brazen. The wildlings have no trumpets, only warhorns. They knew that as well as he did; the sound sent free folk running in confusion, some toward the fighting, others away. A mammoth was stomping through a flock of sheep that three men were trying to herd off west. The drums were beating as the wildlings ran to form squares and lines, but they were too late, too disorganized, too slow. The enemy was emerging from the forest, from the east, the northeast, the north; three great columns of heavy horse, all dark glinting steel and bright wool surcoats. Not the men of Eastwatch, those had been no more than a line of scouts. An army. The king? Jon was as confused as the wildlings. Could Robb have returned? Had the boy on the Iron Throne finally bestirred himself?

Jon X, ASOS

I find it interesting that Jon initially thinks it's his brother, a military commander with a near spotless record, coming to rescue him. Then thinks that it should be the king on the iron throne; he's expecting a boy, but it's wasn't a boy who came.

I think that we're going to see a repeat of this in ADOS, with Dany as the real Azor Ahai and king coming to rescue Jon. Upon hearing that the Others have come and receiving Watch's call for aid, Dany will immediately choose to go North. Think of Stannis saying:

"Yes, I should have come sooner. If not for my Hand, I might not have come at all. Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, Davos said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.” Stannis pointed north. “There is where I’ll find the foe that I was born to fight.”

Jon XI, ASOS

Also notice how Dany's Trident dream alludes to a fated battle involving icy monsters.

This is all just conjecture right now but, Jon's chapter has Stannis breaking the wildling siege on Castle Black. In Jon's (obviously prophetic) ADWD dream, he's besieged by a wildling host who turn out to be Others/wights - this dream is literally a play by play of the battle at Castle Black; like to a tee, it's crazy. Jon is fighting alone in that dream, just as he was alone among the wildlings before Stannis came.

So my thinking is Jon gets besieged and he is fighting alone, in need of a helper.....

They are all gone. They have abandoned me. Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. “Snow,” an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again.

Jon XII, ADWD

...then enter Daenerys, who is above all a savior.

“But,” Prince Aegon said, “without Daenerys and her dragons, how could we hope to win?” “You do not need to win,” Tyrion told him. “All you need to do is raise your banners, rally your supporters, and hold, until Daenerys arrives to join her strength to yours.” “You said she might not have me.” “Perhaps I overstated. She may take pity on you when you come begging for her hand.” The dwarf shrugged. “Do you want to wager your throne upon a woman’s whim? Go to Westeros, though … ah, then you are a rebel, not a beggar. Bold, reckless, a true scion of House Targaryen, walking in the footsteps of Aegon the Conqueror. A dragon. “I told you, I know our little queen. Let her hear that her brother Rhaegar’s murdered son is still alive, that this brave boy has raised the dragon standard of her forebears in Westeros once more, that he is fighting a desperate war to avenge his father and reclaim the Iron Throne for House Targaryen, hard-pressed on every side … and she will fly to your side as fast as wind and water can carry her. You are the last of her line, and this Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer.

Tyrion VI, ADWD

Dany dreams her fight is for the iron throne, but she is obviously fighting the Others. Tyrion thinks Dany is coming to rescue Rhaegar's son in his bid for the Iron Throne, but she will rescue him as he fights to save the world (and not doom it with more war). Notice how Jon atop the Wall dons house Targaryen's colors. Notice how he too is symbolized with Azor Ahai imagery, waving a beacon to light Dany's way. It's Aegon the Conqueror reversed. Dany's not here not for the throne. She's here to fulfill a prophecy, which Aegon never did.

TL;DR

Dany will save Jon while he's besieged by the Others :)

(small rant below)

This initially started as a post talking about Dany the war commander and kinda morphed into something else....

But it's funny to me that when people talk about the war for the dawn, it's always Jon and/or Bran who are made to be the natural war commanders or battle planners. And that's not a bad thing...but neither one of them has experience planning for and staging pitched battles. Bran has zero military experience to begin with and didn't receive the same education that Robb did. People assume that he'll be the commander because his skinchanging can be used for reconnaissance and thus battle command, but the one who canonically uses their skinchanging to spy on enemy troops and use the intel is Jon.

Jon, on the other hand, has battle experience but he was defending against a siege and not leading a fight in an open field. And that's not to say that he would be a bad tactician. He did an incredible job in ASOS defending the wall and ADWD also shows us that he can come up with intelligent plans on the fly. Anyway, aren't we told that people get stuck in their castles starving and with nowhere to go? Jon has experience leading sieges so he's the most suited for that. But he's not the most suited for breaking sieges and leading open battles because he doesn't have experience doing so.

DANY is the one who actually has experience as a more well rounded military commander. It's literally in her name: Daenerys, the sacker of cities. She has a spotless record as a military/war leader in Essos. That's Robb Stark level of prodigious ability, yet she does not get nearly enough respect in fandom. Robb will often get touted as one of the top commanders, even making top three/five for a lot of people, but doesn't Dany have similar stats and way more disadvantages? Shouldn't she be up there too? So out of anyone, shouldn't she be the war commander?

I was just annoyed that she has this insane record overturning enemy lines and breaking sieges and no ever talks about how that invaluable skill can be used against the Others. It's always "someone else will command her to go here and do this and do that". When talking about what looks like a war of attrition, why is no one mentioning the human battering ram being the key to success?? Feelsbadman :(

#asoiaf #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #valyrianscrolls #didn't put it in the post but my theory is that this siege might be at harrenhal and not the wall #mostly because of jon and dany recreating rhaegar and lyanna's meeting in that cursed place - plus it's “the seat of kings” #but we have lyanna 2.0 and rhaegar 2.0 meeting and falling in love in a castle that doomed their predecessors #but this time their love saves the world instead of destroying it #plus think of how aegon never sat as king at harrenal so it would be awesome for dany to be there just for a while #it will be kingception in there - jon bran dany playing 'who wants to rule a cursed kingdom?? not me!' #I'm always just thinking thoughts all the time #they swirl around in my head like protons in a nuclear reactor until they combust into crackpot garbage

[mumms-the-word]

The Shadow Curse Events

If you haven’t already, please enjoy my unnecessarily long totally not me avoiding writing an actual dissertation irl thorough deep dives into Ketheric Thorm and the Shadow Curse!

They are…well, very long, but I wanted to incorporate in-game texts and conversations to give an overall “lore-finding” feel to each post as I was working my way through theories and ideas about how these events unfolded in more or less chronological order.

Each post is written with an attempt to combine elements of in-game books, letters, and conversations with my reasonable(?) conjectures about how things might have happened and an occasional foray into stylistic nonfiction-style writing (which, you know, is interesting when you’re writing about things that didn't actually happen in real life). Basically this started as something I thought was cool and ended with me having, perhaps, a bit too much fun in the nerdiest possible way.

Maybe you’re into that and maybe not. But if you are, then welcome! Please enjoy these deep dives, all of which are linked below c:

Shadow Curse Events Part 1

Ketheric, Selûne, Shar, and Aylin

This first part covers Ketheric's descent from Selûnite devotee to Sharran general following the death of his daughter Isobel. Not only does it touch on him building and training a Sharran army, it also goes over the Selûnite resistance building against him, including one desperate mason named Morfred who makes a deal with a certain devil.

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Shadow Curse Events Part 2

Harpers, druids, and the battle against Ketheric

The second post is all about the Harper/Druid war waged against Ketheric and the days involved in the battle itself. I present this idea that the Harpers and druids sieged Reithwin for several days without attacking and then launched a three-day battle against Ketheric. But a lot of this is conjecture since I'm trying to piece together a bunch of differing accounts about the actual days devoted to fighting and surviving the brief war between the two armies.

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Shadow Curse Events Part 3

The first 40 days

The final post is a kind of walkthrough of the first 40 days of the shadow curse from the moment Ketheric dies to about 40 days later. I chose 40 only because it's vaguely symbolic in various cultures, but also because one diary I used to construct the timeline here ends on day 35, and that felt like a weird number to end on too, so...I added a few days. Anyway, this might be the most experimental of the posts, but it was fun(?) to try and place myself in these past events to imagine how the landscape changed into what we see 100+ years later walking into this area with our Tavs and companions.

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In the end, these posts were just for fun and are not meant to try and convince anybody that my theories are absolutely 100% the way things happened. What I find interesting about this little deep dive journey is that it mimics trying to piece together actual history too. Everyone will have a different account or perspective on historical events, so trying to stitch together a narrative 100+ years later becomes an exercise in drawing sensible conclusions and admitting you can't fill all the gaps.

I could very well be wrong in my theories, and someone else could come up with a way better logical conclusion than I did. That's awesome! Maybe these posts will help others come up with cool theories too.

But anyway. Enjoy my long-winded ramblings about fictional events in a video game that I have put way too many hours into :)

#bg3 #bg3 discourse #bg3 theory #bg3 critical #bg3 brainrot #bg3 headcanons #ketheric thorm #halsin #halsin silverbough #jaheira #I mean halsin and jaheira are mentioned in all of these because they were there obvi #also promoting this because i worked hard on these #and because i don't have anything else to promote for a minute #because now i can no longer ignore my dissertation

[imperial-topaz2003]

Fenrisprime ranks SWTOR Romances: Expansion Edition

So, I'm still doing a massive overhaul to my legacy which is..slow, fo I figured I'd pick up on ranking this game's romances. First one here, in case you haven't seen it yet. Quick FYI, Major Anri, Arn, or Rass just yet, because they don't seem to have actual romances atm. I wanna give them a little bit more time to flesh out before I do that. I also won't be vanilla romance options who have interactions in the expansions, since everything I said in the first post still applies. However, I will be doing Vanilla companions who are made romanceable in the expansions. Now, let's get into it!

6. Koth Vortena

I bet some of you didn't even know he can be romanced. I'll be honest, I don't hate Koth. Though he comes close, he's not the most obnoxious companion in the game, and I do like the fact that he calls you out on your bullshit if you're too much of a Dark Sided asshole. On the other hand, he doesn't really show any sort of growth. Like, he could've had a really interesting arc about realizing how terrible of a person Valkorion truly is, but nope.

And that's roughly how I feel about his romance. Not terrible, but pretty lackluster. Mainly because BioWare doesn't really have anything to do with him since KOTXX ended. So, he just kinda sits there collecting dust. If he was on the original list, he'd probably tie with Corso.

So, that's probably not a surprise, but the next one might be a bit of a shocker...

5. Arcann

Okay, I like the idea of being able to romance Arcann in theory. An enemies to friends to lovers pairing is honestly something I have a soft spot for when it's done right. Unfortunately, Arcaan has mixed results for me.

First, it comes off way too sudden. It's like it just sidesteps the 'friends' part and heads straight to the romance. And the confession itself...to me, it just reads like a bad fanfiction. Also, Arcann has stabbed the Outlander, put their friends in mortal danger, and blew up so many worlds, I don't think many would be rushing to make him their boyfriend, unless they're very forgiving or straight up masochistic.

TL:DR, the Arcann Romance idea is great on paper, but definitely needed more work done on it.

4. Khem Val

When I first found out Khem was a love interest in Jedi Under Siege, I literally laughed out loud irl. Like, there are moments in this game that made me chuckle, but this actually had me on the floor.

Like, c'mon, the audacity to make Khem a romance is just downright hilarious. I'll admit, it is somewhat heartwarming. I mean, just because he's a big scary monster doesn't mean he doesn't deserve love and affection, but still. This is roughly how I feel about DS Jaesa's romance. Not something I'd do in earnest, but still pretty damn funny.

3. Jaesa Willsaam (Light Side)

Yeah, this one's pretty great. Unlike her DS counterpart, this one actually feels earned. You can't romance her in the base game, and I actually really like that. It helps you two form a really strong bond together, and it all comes to play when she realizes she has feelings for you, which ignites into a full fledged romance, should you go that route. I also LOVE her confession scene. The VA did an amazing job and you can really feel the passion in her voice as she tears up. NGL, this one gets me a bit emotional at times.

2. Lana Beniko

You know her, you love her, it's Lana Beniko. What is there to say? Lana's a loyal and dedicated woman, regardless of whether or not you romance her. She's calm, collected, and willing to work with whoever need be when it comes to getting the job done, but she also isn't a doormat and can be cunning and pragmatic when the time calls for it. She's great! I personally like romancing her as a Jedi or other Republic class. I love seeing two people from opposing sides set aside their difference and eventually develop romantic interest.

Lastly, we have... 1. Theron Shan

Alright, this might be my bias talking, but I absolutely adore Theron Shan.

He's just this very laid back, chill dude oozing with charisma and affection. And personally, I think he fits just about any class when it comes to romance. Granted, that kinda does depend on your personality, I don't think he'd romance anyone's who's too dark or too light, but with enough tweaks, he could theoretically fit just about every class in the game. Don't have much else to say, so I'll leave things about that.

Again, let me know what you guys think. If you disagree, reblog/comment how you would rank them. P.S. I didn't include Nadia, even though you can romance her for the first time as a female consular in the expansions, but that's because my opinions from the original list remain. Tho if you really wanna romance her, the expansion is probably the best time to do it.

#swtor #swtor discussion #swtor ranking #koth vortena #arcann #khem val #jaesa willsaam #lana beniko #theron shan

[lapeaudelamemoire]

Client with ADHD and who struggles with it telling me that it costs them 8 spoons per email that they write on average when I told them about spoon theory and honestly it hasn't left my head since. Especially as I spent hours today writing them an email with some resources on ADHD. Like. Same though for real.

I spend hours on my emails sometimes or even often because I'm just like. In my head all my professional communications and clinical notes I write as if they are legal documents. Because they are, basically. If I ever need to show or use them in a legal setting I want to know that they are exactly what they say and will hold up in court. I'm slightly more prone to being less formal in Teams messages but even then it's just mood and tone indicators via emojis or little chats, but many of them remain relatively formal.

Anyway I started writing this post because I wanted to say that my brain is very fried but I'm also going to take the opportunity to list the things I have done today, which was:

- Went to get a stat dec done by going to the library and printing that out, filling it out, then getting it signed by a pharmacist.

- Sent it to the profs I'm requesting an extension from via email.

- Finished all my clinical notes for my clients, which I didn't manage to yesterday because of the mad running around trying to sort out the group supervision stuff and my own assignment extension requests, which I have not received a final response for;

- did all the little outstanding client-related admin tasks pertaining to communications for client care, and tying up loose ends;

- sent my client a resource email as mentioned above;

- started work on my assignment that was due tonight that I tried to put in an extension for but haven't yet heard back about,

- worked a little bit more on other assignment I got extended till Friday for.

I think I've done a lot, actually.

Also managed to watch some donghua and cried both times. So I am Tired.

I am doing better today. No dry heaving on the washroom floor before bed, and somehow slightly less anxiety. I mean - fuck it. My mental health is more important than assignments. I'll work through them as they come.

Everyone else I know is also having a Time with trying to get everything done in time, and putting in extension requests or starting them within the week or on the day, missing class to do it; and even my supervisor said she won't have find to look at my draft in the next week even if I submit it. So I might try for an extension on those grounds too for that one.

-

Husband is lying in bed next to me again and I am thinking how lucky I am that I live in this time and age and place and this life that's mine given all the things going on elsewhere in the world right now and also what things were like in the past in a different time and era and place. I am incredibly lucky that where I am there is no war; I am not being shelled; my family are not under siege. I am very lucky that my husband is laying next to me asleep and whole and that my biggest stress of the day and week in my immediate life is assignments and documents. There is a lot of them but even then probably not as much as my supervisor or her peers.

There are many things to be grateful for, despite me finding things hard to keep up with. We can only keep going; do what we can, as my supervisor said today.

#personal