Ryan Condal: What Shall I Do With My Cheating Traitor Asshole Daemon And My Loyal Asshole Aemond?

5am thoughts: on the one hand, hotd expects its viewers to be smart enough to magically realize that s2 took place over the course of six months, pick up on the subtlest most nothing clues to deduce that laenor died offscreen, that rhaenyra had a religious reawakening to the gods of old valyria offscreen, that aemond went from devastation at becoming a kinslayer to gleefully burning entire regions of his kingdom as prince regent, and that alicent, who once stepped in front of a dragon for her son, is now willing to see him publicly beheaded at rhaenyra's earliest convenience, among a score of other things, but also dumb enough to not nitpick inconsistent timelines, geographical errors, and abrupt episode-to-episode changes in the characters.

sure, jan

Aemond baby, get behind me.

“ but the day was as black as prince aemond's heart [...] ”

READ HIM TO FILTH BABYGIRL

OMG OMG OMG OMG GUYYYYSHSHDSJHSHSHSHSSHSHSJSHSJSJSJSSJS IM FUCKING SHAKING

FUCKING HIGH VALYRIAN!!! The way I moaned 😳 like Im actually dripping rn, horny and proud idc

AAAAAAAH EWAN AND TOOM PLEASEEE I NEED MORE its just too sexy

The Forest Beauty | (Aemond x f!modern!reader) (intro/?)

Summary: time traveler decides to live her new life out in the kingswood, avoiding the new world she finds herself in until an encounter with a certain one-eyed prince changes her life.

Warnings: dark!themes, dark!aemond, obsessive!aemond, book!aemond, no intimacy (smut starts with part 2), intro and first part are kinda a slow burn to introduce the storyline & character Non-Canon Storyline: 3 years post war – greens won, Aegon's only son was k*lled and only has two daughters remaining, he cannot produce more heirs, Helaena is alive but depressed, Aemond serves as prince regent ever since Aegon got injured during the war and is chronically sick and getting weaker, Aemond is to inherit the iron throne soon, Aemond k*lled Alys Rivers along with all other strongs, Aemond broke the betrothal to Floris Baratheon when he became Prince Regent and won the war (Also, I'm not a native english speaker, please be patient with me)

Divider @targaryen-dynasty

masterlist part 1 >

It was another ordinary day in your life, your small and peaceful life that you had built yourself after you were thrown back into this ancient time. Luckily you grew up on a farm, homeschooled and away from cities.

All the skills you learned there and your fathers passion for bushcraft and fishing, that he started to force onto you teach you passionately at the tender age of six, being the thing that kept you alive and safe, allowing you to live freely and without fear, deep inside this thick and abandoned forest.

Throwback:

You arrived here two years ago. Before that, you lived a happy and content life on your parents’ farm, being homeschooled and focusing your home study on biology and philosophy, as these were your passions, apart from nature and animals.

You worked with horses – having grown up with your own and having learned traditional practices of horsemanship and hoofcare from your mother, who also taught you a lot about herbalism. You earned money this way, training horses for other people until one day, your own died of old age. It left a big hole in your heart, an emptiness that none other could fill. In your grief, you lost your passion. You could no longer enjoy the work with horses, every time you looked at one the fresh wound in your heart would bleed again, dulling all your senses.

That’s when you decided to leave the farm and venture into the big city of Kings landing, attending college there to study anthropology and philosophy. You felt out of place, the stuffiness of the city air plaguing your nose everyday on your commune, the loudness of the city drowning out all thoughts you had. Luckily, you did enjoy the studies, spending most of you time in the massive library filled with more knowledge than any human could ever obtain in a single lifetime.

But without your work, you soon needed to find a way to provide for yourself. That’s when a rumor spread through the school about an open position in the physics department. What at first seemed like easy money would soon be the worst mistake of your life, or so you thought. Looking back, you should have become suspicious when, instead of having you sit in the machine in your everyday clothing like always, they would start to put you in linen clothing and have you hold a bag with unknown contents. You didn’t worry though – This is all a gimmick, you were convinced. Nothing but the unrealistic dreams of some nutcases that had too much money at their hands. Fine by me, you thought. You could comfortably pay all your bills and even have some extra cash left over. It was a day like any other, months of studying, sitting in a weird machine and going home afterwards – although this time, you didn’t. Everything turned dark and when you woke up, you found yourself laying inside a forest. Panicking you look around. It didn’t take long for you to realise what happened, it actually worked. You check the bag, some water, food, two knifes, some rope, some other bits and ends – and a few coins, hopefully accurate recreations of todays currency, you think. You get up and walk, walk and walk until you find a way to a close by city.

Kings Landing, you recognise a few landmarks, mainly the castle that towers over the entire city. You had toured it when you first arrived in Kings Landing, back in your time, of course.

You roam the streets for a while, just people watching as you try and figure out how the people of this time function and how much your coins are worth, what you can actually afford with this. Disappointed, you realise it wasn’t much after all. A few weeks of food, but only if you didn’t have to pay for accommodation. With it, a few days, perhaps a week at most. This won’t work, you recognize quickly. And how would they find me if they come looking?

Staring out into the the busy streets of the market you notice a carriage next to a store, the fabric covering the loading bed pulled back and revealing a few tools. An axe, a pickaxe, a small shovel and more. You remember all the times you build bushcraft shelters with your dad, an axe being the only thing you are missing to be able to do so now. You’re not proud of it but you look around, making sure no one is watching and quickly take a few tools, hiding them between your cloak and dress as you hurry away, making sure no one saw what you just did.

You return into the forest, kingswood its called, venturing off beaten paths and building yourself a small shelter in the general area where you woke up in. I hope they come get me soon, you think to yourself as you sit in front of a small campfire that evening, eating some of the food you found in the bag.

But they don’t. No one comes. You wait days, then weeks, then months. The daunting realization of being stranded here alone made you sad at first but your survival instinct soon took over.

You found your way around this forest fairly quickly, locating a better place to live far deeper into the forest. A big river isn’t too far away and the thick growth shows that no one ever comes here. A perfect place to hide from unwanted visitors.

You build another shelter, a small shelter dug into the ground, the walls, roof and ground made of slim trees and branches you cut, a small firepit that you made with stones and clay you made by mixing the river water and dirt. You covered the top of your shelter with leaves and moss. Its hidden away nicely, no one would notice your little home even if anyone were to stray so deep into the forest. You cannot stand in it, only crouch and sit up, but its best this way. I need to stay safe at all costs.

And this becomes your life. You learn to adapt, using all your knowledge and skills to make sure you’re safe and always fed. You do venture into the city or out into the countryside every now and then, making friends with a few farmers and learning how to trade your skills and knowledge with horses and herbs for money or goods. Buidling a smoker out of pine tree branches and wood you can smoke the fish you catch and also smoke bellpeppers that you then dry and turn into spices and sell to other merchands, earning you a small, yet reliable income.

The winters are cold, but your small shelter heats up well and with the money you make during the summer you can afford warm clothes and food when you are unable to catch or grow it yourself.

And so you live this life, a quiet and peaceful life. You're content but you would be lieing if you said you weren't wandering the forest mindlessly from time to time, looking around for anyone that might be coming for you. Will I live like this until the end of my life? You wonder often, trying to invision what your future will hold.

Throwback ends

You wander around the woods, returning from another day of working in the city and coming closer and closer to your home when you start to feel uneasy, as if you’re not alone in the forest. You stop and listen, noticing the sound of footsteps close by. With careful steps you approach the sounds, noticing a head full of silvery hair between the trees and watching it carefully.

A man with an eyepatch, dressed in black leather clothes and carrying a long, sheathed sword on his hip. You monitor him carefully; his hands behind his back as he is gazing out into the treeline, he seems to be taking a stroll. But this deep within the forest?

You stalk him for a while, trailing his steps as you make sure to stay hidden. Too busy with staring at him you don't notice a branch on the ground, stepping on it and causing a loud *krack* sound.

The silver haired stranger turns around quickly, facing you and making eye contact. You know it's too late to hide now, as his lilac eye meets yours and a wicked smile forms on his lips

“Hello there, little one. Are you lost?”

Do you know where "the book is team green propaganda" came from? I often see this in the fandom in discussions

The showrunners themselves said this 🫠

Ryan Condal specifically called at least Blood and Cheese and the Aegon/Sunfyre bond propaganda, as in, he believes that women lie about their trauma and Alicent somehow got to the historians through all of this and lied about what she and her family went through (and apparently made up a grandson 🥴) with the specific purpose of slandering her ex bestie of three years/enemy of decades, despite the fact she apparently would kill her sons to reconcile with her... and he says the stuff about Sunfyre being beautiful and Aegon choosing his golden banner based on their strong bond was "Westerosi historical propaganda."

Basically it's their justification/shutdown of critics for what they view as their own superior writing changes to the story. These writers are high on their own fumes and their ego is so inflated that they think they can write ASOIAF better than GRRM himself (despite the fact that Sara Hess admitted she never even watched Game of Thrones and took no consideration of the universe when creating her own narratives in this show).

This also stems from this "maester conspiracy" where people believe a select group of people high up in society are secretly controlling things from the shadows and calling the shots... and like all similar conspiracy theories, this is actually deeply rooted in antisemitism.

It's very unlikely that a large number of people, even maesters, could collaborate in secret and all agree on set things in order to completely rewrite history... and there's the fact that the historical textbook Fire and Blood was written by GRRM as the in-universe definitive source on the real history, using a variety of sources including historians, eyewitnesses, survivors, and royal household staff, in which there are people sympathetic toward both sides of the Dance.

Despite all of this, writers and fans are convinced that somehow all the sources that paint TB in a bad light are fictitious propaganda while at the same time accounts that paint TG in a bad light are taken at face value, and vice versa: parts of the story that recount TG as doing something for realistic reasons, being Targaryen dragonriders with bonded dragons, or even being a loyal united front as a family are apparently lies and stolen from TB in order to make TG look better, so the show "corrects" this by giving it all to TB.

Really wild that anyone can think the author of a series known for his anti war, all characters and sides are morally gray, and each character is conflicted in their heart about love and duty stories apparently purposefully wrote a story where war is justified due to actual prophetic divine right... some characters are completely good and others are completely evil... and their motivation really changes whenever the plot or writers need it... and he did all of it by purposefully crafting a story based on lies for no reason.

And well, we already know that GRRM has some opinions about how stuff like this has failed the story.

I am in blood Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more Returning were as tedious as go o’er

House of the Dragon S2 (Aemond Targaryen) + Shakespeare

What did Aemond say to Cole (about his mother?) ? I can't really make out what he's saying before "That makes her a fool"

“Alicent still has love for our enemy and that makes her a fool”

Disrespectful little toad should support his mother’s right to a lesbian life partner.

Reminder to everyone here that the actors have no control over the writing. None.

Tom Glynn Carney went round and round with Sara Hess about making Aegon a rapist. He lost greatly.

Nikolaj Coster Waldau had an interview a few years back where he talked about going to D&D and the rest of the writers time and time again, begging them to stop making Jaime such a big waffler. They told him he is an actor and to act, let them do the writing.

The actors have no power. They are contracted for multiple seasons as actors and if they tried to quit, they'd be sued for breach of contract.