#will forever remain salty they never expanded her character

[naomimakesart]

Tagged by @chaos-of-the-abyss! Thanks for the tag I love answering questions about ASOIAF!!!

1. Who is your favorite character and why?

I think I’ve answered this a lot, but I love Daenerys the most out of ASOIAF characters, but I’ll sum up the reasons here: I can relate to her story while not completely projecting myself onto her, I believe she genuinely has a kind heart, I can criticize that she does not always make good decisions but she learns from them and she is a survivor and I admire that the most.

2. Have you ever felt any sympathy for Cersei at all?

Yes I can sympathize that Cersei has been constantly treated as less by her father for being a girl and I understand her frustration about that. Cersei is a really interesting character to me because she doesn’t do a lot of redeeming things but I don’t hate her? I enjoy reading her chapters, she can do/think things that I find really entertaining. I do think that she gets ahead of herself a lot though.

3. If you could choose, which character would you take as your ruler?

Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons.

4. Your opinion of Rhaegar Targaryen?

So this is a really loaded question. This is a question that I haven’t answered before, but I’m going to keep things simple. I do like Rhaegar’s character and I can do that while also being critical of his actions. Do I approve of everything he did, or the way he went about things? No. Do I wish things had turned out different? No. Because had he not done what he had, we wouldn’t have the story that we do now. Would Daenerys be the first female head of House Targaryen or feel responsible for their restoration if he hadn’t? Would Jon even be here? In the simplest words I can possibly muster his actions progressed the story so much, and gave us some heart-wrenching conflict and as a reader I couldn’t ask for more. 

5. Favorite historical Targaryen?

Favorite historical Targs are Visenya, Alysanne, Daemon and Bloodraven. 

6. What do you think of Young Griff so far?

I like Young Griff, but I kind of believe he’s a Blackfyre. I still like him though. I actually think it would be great if Daenerys married him and Jon, is that an unpopular opinion? I think it would be a great reverse of Aegon/Visenya/Rhaenys. Daenerys can be Aegon, Jon can be Visenya and Young Griff/Aegon can be Rhaenys. Lets just squash the conflict between house Targaryen and House Blackfyre with marriage. lol That’s too simple of a solution but can you imagine Dany with two cute husbands?? She deserves it!! 

7. Your opinion on Shae?

My opinion on show-Shae was that she wasn’t half bad, but book-Shae was..........an acquired taste. I thought it was a little redundant for the show-runners to expand her character when they were just going to give her the same ending as she had in the books? I liked them giving her more dimension but at the same time they kind of baited us with a tragic backstory and then never delivered. 

8. Who is your favorite actor in GOT?

I love Emilia, but the actor I think that was absolutely perfect in every scene and I will never forget is Charles Dance as Tywin. What a perfect perfect choice, he deserved a damn Golden Globe, and I have actually missed him so much since season 4. I think Tywin would be more of a force to be reckoned with for Dany if he was still around though, so I’m not too heartbroken over his absence. 

9. Who do you think is Cersei’s “younger, more beautiful queen”? Daenerys, Margaery, Sansa, or someone else?

I honestly think it’s Dany, but it could be Sansa too? I think Cersei really believed it was Margaery, and I think she probably believed it to be Sansa for a while as well, but never expected it would be Daenerys bc Dany wasn’t even on her radar and that’s why I believe it’s Daenerys. 

10. Who is your favorite member in Daenerys’ court (aside from Dany herself)?

Missandei is cute, in the show and the books, I love how smart she is and her innocent humor is very adorable too. After Missandei I really loved Barristan Selmy and will forever be salty that D&D killed him before he was supposed to die. I hope we have a lot more interaction with Barristan in the remaining books and that GRRM decides to keep him alive for a while. 

11. Who is your favorite couple?

In just ASOIAF or the entirety of GRRM’s universe? I have always liked the aesthetic of ice and fire ships like Rhaegar/Lyanna & Jon/Daenerys but I am also a huge fan of Targaryen ships like Bloodraven/Shiera, Aegon/Visenya/Rhaenys, Jaehaerys/Alysanne, Baela/Alyn, and Daemon with every woman lover he ever had I guess haha. I’m also a huge fan of Cregan Stark and Black Aly Blackwood. My favorite I guess would be RxL because I’ve drawn them so much and consistently since 2013. 

Now, I’ll ask my own questions:

1. What are your top 3 favorite houses in Westeros?

2. If you could live during one era in GRRM’s universe what era would it be? (Age of Heroes, Valyrian Empire, Conquest of Westeros, Dance of Dragons etc.)

3. What is your favorite episode/scene from the Game of Thrones TV Series? 

4. What ruler do you think brought about the most change in Westeros, be it good or bad? 

5. If you could ask GRRM one question what would it be?

6. If GRRM could write a short novel/series about one other family or historical time (besides the Targaryens) in his universe what would you want it to be about? (My choice would be Nymeria’s Journey!)

7. What was your first introduction to ASOIAF/Game of Thrones? Did someone tell you about it, did you see it online or did you come across it at a store/shop?

8. What’s one thing that bothers you about GRRM’s series?

9. What’s one thing you unabashedly love about GRRM’s series?

10. What are your feelings about the prequel series in development at HBO right now for the Long Night? 

I’m tagging: @chillyravenart, @thousandeyesand-one, @joannalannister, @madaboutasoiaf, @ofwickedlight, @xxthewolvenstormxx, @thenightsmellsofjasmine, @vxsxnyx, @lastxdragon and anyone else who’s interested! Also feel free to ignore, I tagged people who interact with me a lot and I’d like to see your thoughts! 

#asoiaf #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire

[stillness-in-green]

Yuletide (+Updates)

Hello again, my gracious, patient followers.  After my traditional year-end hiatus, I return with two IBO stories and a Ronin Warriors one, as well as some updates about what I’ll be working on again now that the holidays (and a New Year’s stomach bug) have finally released me from their clutches.

The Urgency of Care:  The long cough is one of those childhood diseases that everyone gets vaccinated for as a kid, but there are always people who slip through the cracks. Some of them are pretty bad at taking help when it's offered, too.

Some sickfic for Chad and Yamagi, also featuring Kudelia and Atra.  Post-canon, starring Chad’s persistent low self-esteem, Yamagi being prickly and also Very Tired, Kudelia wrangling politics in the background, and Atra doing her best.  

Hey, it turns out that when you fail to vaccinate a significant subsection of your population because they’re literally regarded as subhuman garbage, your planet is sometimes going to have crisis-level disease outbreaks.  Whoops!  I look at this as kind of the kick-to-the-ass Makanai needed to start seriously working with Kudelia on the Human Debris Abolishment Treaty.  

The World Takes:  Aston survives, and goes back home. Isurugi survives, and lands in military prison. Somewhere along the way their paths cross. That may be important, in the end.

This one is a bit of a weird one.  I love Isurugi, so I knew I wanted to write something for whoever requested him for Yuletide, but paralleling him with Aston...?  How to even approach that?  “Go really AU,” is the answer, it turns out.  I ended up kind of falling in love with this story as I wrote it, though.  

I think Aston and Takaki were about three significant conversations away from dating in the show, and they would have been great together, so getting to write that was a complete treat.  And I fell hard for the concept of Isurugi and Todo being Almiria’s right and left hands during my vaguely-conceived Almiria’s Adolescence Apocalypse timeline, so much so that I’m actually pretty frustrated that it can’t ever be canon!  

The Paperweight Problem: Talpa won, but no one wins forever.  Dais—abides.

Half-dreamed, half-real meetings between a dead man and one who is doing his best to stave off madness, trapped in a paralyzed body with an all-too-conscious mind.  

I love Dais, and I love the warlords’ implied backstory, so I was all down to write some Dais+Anubis, but what in God’s name was, as the requester’s letter put it, “the paperweight problem”?  Once I figured out what the letter was referring to, I basically couldn’t NOT write it.  This is heavy enough on imagery and feelings that I kind of think of it as less a fanfic of the show proper and more a transcription of one of those really wispy, ethereal doujinshi.  (I hope this description does not turn tag-surfers off completely--I promise Dais is still a sarcastic shithead!)

So that’s the new stuff.  If you’re just tag-surfing, or just want finished product, enjoy the assortment!  If you’re curious at all about what else I’m working on, hit the jump!

So, firstly, I’m trying to finish up the other half of that Odds-n-Ends post.  I have a few more chunks to write, and then the rest should be quite quick.  ETA: a week or less?  I would likewise love to get back to the pair of McGillis and Gaelio analysis essays I’ve been working on on and off, but those are much longer, so I don’t have much of a projected time for them.  Other perpetual essay topics include an overview of religion and spirituality in the setting, as well as a consideration of the shows’ female characters, their agency, and their treatment by the narrative (with a scathing comparison to Gundam Thunderbolt’s women, if my saltiness regarding the latter gets the better of me).

On a fanfic front, I have long been considering a several-part-installment series detailing how Chad and Yamagi get together, that would do some double-duty as tracking how Tekkadan gets from the climactic fight with Arianrhod to their relatively-comfortable-looking epilogue.  I think making that whole thing one story is far beyond my reach as a sporadic maker of content, but perhaps I’d do better by making it a series, in which I could jump around and change focus as the mood hit me?  We’ll see.  I also find I write a somewhat less poverty-stricken post-series Tekkadan than seems to be the norm, and it might be nice to lay out my timeline on that a little better.  

I also have two things from the Yuletide writing period that I’d kind of like to expand on.  

Firstly: I’ve always had two ideas for how Kudelia and Atra’s getting hitched came about, one pragmatic to a fault and the other far more romantic.  When my assignment hit my inbox with a request for fic about said marriage, I thought, “Oh, cool, I’ll use this as an excuse to write the big romantic wedding and save the more practical telling for that Chad/Yamagi series!”  A fine idea, right up until the story hit 6K with no end in sight, and I realized I was never going to finish it on time.  (The 8K sickfic would probably have been even longer if not for my blowing half the writing period on the wedding fic, yes.)

I still really like a lot of what I have, though, from its melting pot approach to marriage traditions to its navigation of some of the relationship problems lingering around Kudelia and Tekkadan.  It is, by nature, going to be half-fanfic and half-bullet point list, but I’d like to see if I can wrangle it into something presentable anyway.  

Secondly, that portion of the Aston+Isurugi story that concerns Isurugi’s time in prison being subjected to weird mad science experiments that leave him on the verge of a complete identity breakdown?  That is my JAM, total id-fic, and I have a terrible temptation to expand on it, even knowing it would be pure self-indulgence.  If anyone is at all interested, let me know; otherwise it will likely just remain buried on my hard drive.

If you actually hit the jump and read all this stuff, as ever, thank you very much for your continued interest, even as (to judge by the fandom response this year) the show itself fades in the rear view mirror.  As I’ve said before, I’m not done with this world yet, and I appreciate anyone and everyone who hangs around to continue to explore it with me.

#gundam ibo #mobile suit gundam: iron-blooded orphans #g tekketsu #ronin warriors #yoroiden samurai troopers #chad chadan #yamagi gilmerton #kudelia aina bernstein #atra mixta #aston altland #isurugi camice #takaki uno #dais #anubis #my writing #ficcing

[evenstevensranked]

#19: Season 3, Episode 15 - “The Big Splash”

Louis surprises everyone by joining the diving team, but then surprises no one by only doing cannonballs. This eventually leads to Louis reevaluating the future he envisions for himself. Should he remain a class clown forever? Or should he start taking life more seriously? Meanwhile, Ren’s on a mission to win “Best Smile” in the yearbook.

We start our episode with Tawny, Twitty and Tom (oh wow I just realized that all of Louis’ friends names start with the letter T lol) sitting in the stands at a school dive meet. Louis told them to go, yet he’s suspiciously nowhere to be found. Until a mysterious hooded guy walks out with LJH’s team, dramatically takes off the hood and… yeah. It’s Louis. Louis is apparently good at diving according to Twitty and Coach Tugnut (“Stevens, you don’t stink so bad!”) but he decides to squander his talent for laughs instead by doing cannonballs. It’s so cringy. Not only because doing cannonballs at a dive meet and soaking the entire audience & judges is beyond immature -- but, because his cannonballs are so fake lol. There’s the initial surface splash, and then an immediate second one that looks like a freaking nuclear bomb. Unless we’re all watching this from the perspective of Shallow Hal and Louis is actually 600 pounds, it makes no sense. I know it’s just for the lulz... but still. The gang gets a kick out of it.

We cut to the subplot where we see Ruby rushing around and tallying people’s votes for yearbook superlatives. Ren finds out that she’s a lock for “The Big Three” -- Most Likely to Succeed, Most Intelligent, and Best Personality. Is it just me, or is Best Personality a little debatable? (No offense, Ren.) Monique asks who’s in the lead for Best Smile and Ren gets salty when she finds out it’s some random chick Kelly Kerwin. Sooo, now Ren is determined to beat Kelly for Best Smile, as if she doesn’t currently hold the title for literally everything else. Seriously, girl. Let some other people get their time to shine. Dang. 

After school, Ren lets the cat out of the bag to Steve and Eileen about Louis joining the diving team. Steve is beyond excited and tells Louis he’ll try to make it to the next meet. Clearly, Louis does not want his family to attend and witness his latest goofball stunt. 

Next, we get a time-lapse of Ren being her own personal dentist in the bathroom before school because god forbid she doesn’t win Best Smile. It then cuts to Ren having a smile showdown at school with Kelly. This is the second time in the series where we get that annoying sepia, cowboy standoff thing. This cliché never works for me, ever. This goes on for 1 minute and 14 seconds which might seem like a short amount of time, but my god does this scene crawl by. Definitely the lowest point.

Steve decides to attend Louis’ next dive meet and brings his boss, Mr. Kupchack, along with him. Oh, boy. Tugnut compliments Kupchack’s fancy blazer and he responds “Thank you. It’s the finest Italian suede” and all Tugnut can say is “.........too bad.” HAHA. Of course, Louis gets up there and does another massive cannonball, completely soaking the audience... Including Mr. Kupchack and his fancy Italian blazer. Steve is livid and rightfully so. 

Louis’ guilt is starting to sink in... 

At home that night, Steve has a serious talk with Louis. He tells him that he was incredibly proud before the meet, (hence why he brought Kupchack along) only to be disappointed yet again. Louis tries to brush off his immature decisions by saying “I’m a kid. That’s what I do. I have fun.” But, Steve poses the question “It may be fun now… But where are you gonna be 10 years from now?” This really resonates with Louis. It cuts to a dramatic shot of him looking at a crap ton of “Class Clown” trophies later that night. Uh… When did Louis get all those trophies?! Where does he keep them? They don’t really let us see lol. It seems like they have their own private display room! Do schools even give out trophies for prestigious accomplishments such as “Seventh Grade Class Clown”? That’s the real question here. Anyway. This fades into a daydream Louis has of a 10 Year Lawrence Jr. High reunion.

As a kid, I always thought 10 years was too small of a time jump. Especially because Louis imagines Tom married with two kids and another on the way. But, 2017 marked the 10 year anniversary of my own middle school graduation. Now I'm 24 and a recent college graduate. Not to mention a lot of my friends are already getting married, having kids and starting their careers of course. So… Looking back at this as an adult, it's actually pretty accurate.

I love how since Twitty is a musician, they had to give him a ponytail down to his freaking butt.

I’d also like to point out that Tawny is a fashion designer, wearing rope lights as part of her outfit, and talks about spending time in Rome. Was Disney Channel under the assumption that clothes featuring rope lights are a high fashion ~Rome~ thing? Exhibit B:

Louis’ daydream is so depressing... but I absolutely love it. He basically imagines himself as a total screwup man-child. He can’t relate to his accomplished adult friends because he never grew out of being his middle school jokester self. It’s too real. You just cringe the entire time because everyone is trying to have a mature conversation and Louis is literally incapable of doing so. One by one, they all become annoyed by Louis’ antics and make up an excuse to leave. Twitty’s the only one left in the end and asks for Louis’ email to keep in touch. We reach the final straw when Louis says: “It’s [email protected]..... With a K.” OHHHH GODDDDDD IT’S SO BAAAAADDDDD. I just wanna die of embarrassment. Twitty is fed up at this point too and peaces out. Louis snaps out of the daydream and whispers “No...” to himself -- clearly deciding against a future like that. 

The moment Twitty lost all hope. 

That whole sequence is definitely the standout moment of the episode for me. Not because of how funny it is (like you might imagine a standout Even Stevens moment to be), but because of how not funny it is. It’s something we’ve never really seen on the show before. I think taking a peek into Louis’ potential pathetic future was so great. It’s almost like they expanded on what they started in Uncle Chuck. This profound moment segues back into the pointless Best Smile drama. I think it’s kinda interesting how Louis’ plot is very existential here and Ren’s is very superficial. I wonder if that was intentional or not. 

Since Ren was so desperate to win and forced herself to smile non-stop, her facial muscles end up getting stuck in a rather disturbing grin lol oops. She’s scheduled to sing the school song at the dive meet in 5 minutes. This somehow leads to Ruby giving Ren a makeover to “distract from the mouth.” She also gives Ren the brilliant advice to cut through the steam room on her way to the pool. The end result is the long lost sister of Pennywise. Ren, The Singing Clown: 

Hiya, Georgie!! (No, but really. She looks terrifying.) 

Even though he wishes Louis would take it seriously, Steve still goes to the meet to show support. Kupchack also makes another appearance because his first-grader son (Played by Hayden Panettiere’s little brother) wants to see “The Cannonball Kid!”

Louis has built up a name for himself apparently. There’s a massive crowd there to see him! I would imagine these are the same kind of people who stand right next to the log flume ride at amusement parks just to get soaked while fully clothed for whatever unimaginable reason. 

You can see that Louis is under a lot of pressure to either give in to the weirdos in the crowd and give them the cannonball they want -- or to take the first step towards seriousness and do an actual dive. In the end, his decision to do a real dive is so admirable!!! I love it so much. But, naturally, when he emerges from the pool and declares “You know what? From this day forward... Let it be known: I am not a clown” we see that he’s standing there as naked as the day he was born. 

I was going to ask why Louis is the only team member who wears trunks instead of a speedo... but I guess this is the reason why, haha. He needed to wear something flimsy so it could fly right off of him later I guess? lol. I’d also like to point out Tawny’s freaking FACE: 

Um... okay, gurl. I always thought it was weird how she (along with, like.. 50 other people) saw her future boyfriend naked in public like that.

Anyway, Louis scurries off embarrassed and that’s it! The “final minute” bit is Ren coming home from school with a copy of the yearbook already??? She won The Big Three... and the last minute honor of “Best Class Clown.” It’s like Louis and Ren swapped stories in the end. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET, REN! That’s what you get!!! This is also the second time we see Ren wanting to achieve perfection in the yearbook and having it totally blow up in her face. 

I love this episode. It was actually the one I was most excited to rewatch while I was organizing my list. Since Louis is my favorite character, this one obviously gets a lot of “personal favorite” points for me. As I mentioned, it isn't even necessarily funny. As soon as Louis does his first cannonball, I get kinda depressed actually lol. The reason I'm ranking this one higher is because I just really love the plot-line and this more serious side of Louis which is seldom seen this prominently. In contrast to Uncle Chuck though, this episode spins the depressing factor into a positive and leaves you feeling optimistic about Louis’ future. You get the sense that he’s actually going to finally make an effort moving forward.

This episode would be even more effective if they actually aired it in production order!! “The Big Splash” is #320 in production. “Model Principal” is #319 — Ya know, the episode where Louis acts like an actual clown and singlehandedly turns the entire school into a circus??? Yeah. They decided to place that episode 3 episodes after this one. If “Model Principal” aired the episode before “The Big Splash” — LIKE IT WAS MEANT TO — it would’ve been so much better. We would’ve seen the height of Louis’ ridiculousness followed by the sobering episode where he decides to knock it off. The episodes leading up to “The Big Splash” in production order are all next-level zany Louis stuff. The few episodes that follow don’t include too much over the top stuff from him, so it would all make total sense. Instead, we get a really solid episode for Louis’ character development, later followed by a total regression of that development. Curse Disney’s f’d up schedule! WHYYYY?!?!?!

Thanks for reading!!

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope you all had a nice holiday. I took a break for Christmas, so yeah. I was actually so mad that the Christmas/Hanukkah episode wasn’t next on the list. It would’ve been perfect timing to review it last week. Oh, well. That episode is really good and deserves even higher than #19 ;) 

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#rank #even stevens #shia labeouf #louis stevens #season 3 #louis plot #ren stevens #disney channel #old disney #review #tv #tv shows #tv review #steve stevens