Sielutonlampikana - Hi

A random list of weird things I read in GOT/ASOIAF fics, in no particular order:

This one where a dude decided ravens weren’t cool enough and replaced them with eagles. I know I’ve complained about this before, I WILL do so again, eagles are all eye, no brain. Pigeons can actually do the work but no one loves them I am going to use pigeons in one of my works.

The one where Robb physically assaults Sansa after rescuing her from the Lannisters because she, get this, refused to marry a Lannister. You know, the disgraced house that she was held hostage and abused by, that one. For some reason the narrative was trying to blame HER for the conflict, rather than her brother, who was trying to marry off the PRINCESS OF THE NORTH to the house he had already defeated.

The ones where Oberyn “rescues” Sansa by marrying her himself and then Ellaria is just fine with it and becomes basically Sansa’s maid/grooms her alongside Oberyn. If I had a nickel for every fic along those lines I’d read, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice.

The one where Sansa killed her rapist(a Lannister OC) and his supposed good guy son was all mad at her, instead of just being like, “Oh, shit, my dad was a rapist, good thing he’s dead.” I’m starting to suspect this fandom has a misogyny problem.

The one where Catelyn was, like, randomly evil? You know I’m not a Catelyn fan. She is not invited to my dinners. But this one had her being all evil and stupid and decided that Barbrey Dustin(?) was supposed to be the good mom to the stark kids. It was really dumb.

The one where Arya and Sansa switch personalities and Sansa is forcibly married to Jaime Lannister and decides to just have sex with him. When she’s, like, twelve. I wasn’t going to like the fic anyhow bc it’s by that author who likes to pretend quitting a fic is the same as finishing it, but that one was really dumb.

The one where an OC sensed a “secret evil” inside Sansa and decided Sansa was OPPRESSING HER RELIGION by inviting her to a sewing circle. Bear in mind, Sansa had literally just seen the OC, smiled, and invited her to hang out. Amazing. Simply amazing.

There are a lot of fics out there where Sansa randomly decides she was wrong and she IS a warrior with sword after all, and they just make no sense and bother me so much.

There’s this weird thread going thru certain pieces of fandom where they seem to think the problem with book/season 1 Arya is that she doesn’t just submit and become a little tradwife, rather than the fact that she’s an obnoxious little jerk who throws tantrums and treats the people around her unkindly for no reason. Like, there’s a lot to criticize about Arya, but her rejection of traditional gender roles isn’t one of them.

Presumed incompetence. It’s so weird, but despite the narrative having to go out of its way to kill Robb, capture Sansa, do the whole Arianne plot goes wrong thing, etc, etc, fandom seems to have taken this stance that the Starks and the Martells and the other “good guys” are somehow incompetent and stupid for, ya know, having ethics.

Presumed competence. Tywin is a bad lord, father, brother, and son. Danaerys is a literal slaver who only alters her trajectory when she can’t afford the slaves she wanted to buy, as well as a self deceptive hypocrite. Yet many fics out there would have us see both of these different sides of fascism as somehow pragmatic and heroic. In reality, they’re both shitty at their jobs, and even Danaerys is, while sympathetic, not a particularly good person.

Presumed Ned Stark good guy. Ned is a complicated dude, despite fandom’s large dismissal of him as a “too good for this sinful world” tragic hero, and I wont argue that he definitely will do the right thing if presented with an opportunity(unless the right thing involves treating his eldest daughter with actual care and consideration). However, this is also a guy who lives in a country with a large slave soldier penal colony made up of mostly non-violent property crime offenders, who plays favourites amongst his children, and has not only held a teenager hostage since the boy was a child, but also forces him to attend what basically amounts to rehearsals for his own murder. So, yeah. He’s complex.

The idea that the old gods are superior to the new is kind of straight up disputed by the books, yet fandom keeps churning out fic after fic where Sansa(and it’s almost always Sansa despite the fact that she canonically worships both sets of gods) repents of her sin of coming from a multi religion family and turns completely to the old gods. Which is just dumb. They both kind of suck in different ways.

I will never not be OBSESSED with the Famous trope + Found Family trope with the Party 😭 The headlines would be so chaotic? Like:

Famous Rockstar Eddie Munson is seen eating lunch with two time Pulitzer winner Nancy Wheeler, Highest Paid Photographer Jonathan Byers and Successful Entrepreneur Argyle Alvez. How does he know these people???

Three time Grammy Winner Eddie Munson seen in a McDonald's with World Renowned Astronaut Dustin Henderson and New York Times Best Seller Will Byers-Wheeler and Mike Byers-Wheeler. What the actual fuck???

Eddie Munson, seen in a Chicago Bulls game looking confused as hell, mere seconds after finding out his second album just went Multi-platinum, with his husband, Steve Munson. Also seen in pictures, Eddie Munson hugging point guard Lucas Sinclair and his wife, Max Sinclair. How???

MSG Sold Out Performer Eddie Munson seen in Chicago Medical Center with World Renowned Surgeon Dr. Erica Sinclair. Our insiders say that the rockstar is FINE and was only having lunch with the doctor. What in the multiverse is happening???

Eddie Munson and his husband seen in line at the book signing of rising Linguistics Author Robin Buckley. They ended up laughing so hard when they reached the author, they almost got kicked out. Turns out they all knew each other???

Rock Star Eddie Munson bringing packed lunch in pajamas to a small Chicago preschool where husband, Steve Munson and known friend, Jane Hopper works. Why??? How??? What???

Third most followed person on Instagram Eddie Munson, just broke the internet by posting a group picture with Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley, Jonathan Byers, Argyle Alvez, Dustin Henderson, Lucas, Max and Erica Sinclair, Mike and Will Byers-Wheeler, his husband Steve Munson and family friend Jane Hopper. HOW DO THEY ALL KNOW EACH OTHER?! WHAT A WEIRD GROUP?!

The more people speculate, the more they say shit. Like people ask them how they know each other and they all just throw out the weirdest answers.

Nancy gets asked in a press conference how she knows Rock Star Eddie Munson? Nancy answers with, "I was driving myself to California when I was 19 and I picked him up as a hitch hiker along the way. We’ve been friends since then."

Robin gets asked in a lecture how she knows the Sinclair Clan? Robin answers with, "I go way back with Dr. Erica. She once saved me from Russian Doctors trying to cut my toe nails."

Eddie goes on an interview in National TV and the host asks how he's friends with Argyle and Jon? Eddie answers with, "I got kidnapped by a killer clown when I was 17. They saved me by crushing the clown's still beating heart with their own bare hands."

Steve gets bombarded with questions online of how he knows Nancy, Robin, Jon, Argyle and even Eddie (his husband)? Steve answers with, "We were stuck in detention every Saturday when we were in senior year. We all became friends when Eddie Munson started singing Don't You (Forget About Me)."

Will and Mike gets asked in an interview about their friendship with Basketball Star, Lucas Sinclair? Will says, “Lucas once gave my dog CPR, ultimately, saving it’s life and we’ve been friends since then.” and Mike just goes, “Who???”

Erica once got asked how she knew Genius Astronaut, Dustin Henderson. Erica rolls her eyes, “That boy owes me his life. Ask him, not me.”

Dustin gets asked how he knows Eddie Munson. Dustin goes with, “Eddie once saved me from a feral army of bats and almost died. I’ve never let go of him since then.” The fans think this one might actually be true, they’ve seen the scars on Eddie, they’ve got theories and Dustin just gave them a puzzle piece.

Argyle got asked in a Business Magazine how he knows this weird, interconnected group. Argyle says, “Oh dude! Those are my life long friends! It started with a pizza van, a dead man, and a road trip to Utah. There was also a bald girl involved. In the end, the real treasure really is the friends we make along the way.”

Jonathan gets asked how he knows Eddie Munson. Jon gives the softest, sweetest smile and says, “We were in a satanic cult together.”

Jane Hopper gets asked once in public (how she knows all these famous people), someone filmed it and it went viral on Twitter. El says, verbatim, “Oh. It all started when I was kidnapped by an evil scientist who tested stuff on me like I was a lab rat. Long story short, they saved my life and they are my family.” By then people already don’t believe any of them because they all give out the most ridiculous answers. Hopper still grounds her for that even though she doesn’t live with him anymore. (Owens, who hasn't called them in 15 years, reached out with a warning).

oh you think your life is hard? try being a gay rat living in france who hates your dad and just wants to cook

but it’s SO clear that visenya and rhaenys did 99% of the actual conquering and ruling and aegon was just a convenient man to be king. this is why grrm’s work is so compelling and frustrating in turns—he’s WILDLY aware of how gender and gendered violence in feudalism works, but there’s always just one element of critique missing even though he’s clearly aiming to criticize feudalism. and women keep dying in childbirth! and the princess of dorne is still unnamed! and we know more about tyrion’s missing uncle than minisa whent or joanna lannister combined!

Jane Austen in Chapter 1 of Persuasion: We are all well aware of why a widow with a good fortune would never want to marry again. I’m not even going to explain its so obvious.

Now a MAN deciding not to remarry, that requires a full paragraph of explanation…

Sex is weird for me. I talk about it and read about it. Me and my friends talked real fucking much about sucking dick for being 13 & never having kissed anyone back in middle school. We still talk about sex a lot and joke about it.

People are hot and attractive but I haven't really looked at a person and thought "yeah I wanna fuck them". I don't like looking at naked people in a sexual context and touching people who I haven't known for at least 1 year is odd. Reading smut has pretty much been the only thing thay makes me horny. Every time I see porn in some form I think "that's a good drawing! really amazing!" or "that's cool, but how do you breathe in that, how is that done" or something.

This is rambling and not going anywhere but I just feel weird. My friend recently got a boyfriend so now our group talks about sex not in the "saw this last week" or "found out this is a kink, what're your thoughts" way in the same way anymore. It's just got me thinking about it all more.

Idk I just feel weird and don't know how to feel about sex or articulate it in the right way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Steve makes one of those teacher tiktok accounts where he mostly talks about teaching and tips for learning and stuff, he also posts videos like

“You wonder what it’s like to be a teacher? I’m spending my evening doing seating arrangements, the trick is to not let people who have any kind of tension, are close friends, have a crush, lose concentration easily, sit close to each other… so basically I’m playing sudoko but I only have 1, 2s, and 3s… and also the numbers change daily..” you can see him looking down at something wrinkling his eyebrows and then nodding to himself and he’s like “I think I got it though”

the next day he duets it and it’s just him looking tired and in the background you can hear incoherent shouting, the caption just says ‘there’s apparently been a breakup’

for some reason there’s a comment by Eddie Munson, famous rockstar, that’s like “you should let it play out, drama is what high school is about” and Steve has just replied “this is why you repeated senior year twice” not acknowledging at all that this famous Grammy winner commented and everyone are just like ??? ?? what are you doing here ??? and why is this high school teacher roasting u ???

i think i read a post of you that said western leftist can't write conservative religious women without reducing them to being brainwashed or insecure. as a western leftist I'm curious how you would have written alicent for hotd?

You mean how would I personally rewrite Alicent's character? Or how I would have liked to see GRRM's Alicent written in the show?

Either way; I'd say: Western leftists can't write a traditionally religious woman unless she's a hypocrite, brainwashed, or actively using religion to cope or to feel superior. They can't write a religious woman who genuinely and intellectually believes in and is devoted to her own religious conventions and ideals. And when they do - which is very rare - they always feel the need to attach a moral or intellectual judgment on her. She must always be "lesser". Unless she's pagan and they can co-opt her paganism to uplift their own "progressive" ideology 🙄

Anyways, I hated how they made Alicent cling to her faith as a means of "repentance" in the show. She should have clung to her faith as a means of resistance. Of claiming her identity and power back.

This will give the "Green Dress" moment and the "Where is duty? Where is sacrifice?" moment real meaning.

It's not that she can't sincerely believe in her religion and still subconsciously use it to heal her psychological and emotional wounds. It can happen. It's not mutually exclusive. But her ability to use her religion to heal should be originated from and motivated by her sincere belief in her religion.

The Faith of the Seven was always the hard and the soft power that kept the megalomanic, blood-supremacist Targs in check after they conquered Westeros. The Targs were forced to compromise and adapt to Westeros instead of forcing Westeros to be assimilated or fully subjected to Targ culture and religion.

Alicent's ambition should have reflected this spirit. Her need to have her son crowned as King should have been her own way to keep the Targs in more chains. To mold the Targ dynasty to benefit her and her children and Westeros as a whole.

What better way for an oppressed woman to feel liberated than to have the power to put her oppressors in chains? and to have the freedom to live by her own conventions and ideals without sacrificing her dignity and sanity?

I’m not going to explain myself