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not-poignant · 4 months

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Out of curiosity, when did the, 'fanfic doesn't need to adhere to canon, everything is valid and good, don't give concrit unless specifically asked for' attitude become the norm? Genuine question.

I was active in fandom back in the LJ days, when sporkings and comms viciously mocking Mary Sues were the norm, but then I sort fell out of fandom spaces for the past (checks notes) fifteen years holy shit. The current attitude seems diametrically opposed to what I remember fandom being like (kinda shitty, it was 'cool' to be an asshole back then), and I'm just curious as to when and how the shift happened. I mean, I assume it was a gradual thing, but is there anything in particular that stick out to you?

(Also, because tone doesn't convey very well through ask, and I don't want to leave you with a poor impression-- this is by no means a defence of the 2000s attitudes, nor an aspersion on the current ones. I'm genuinely only curious about the evolution from one to the other; I hope that comes across.)

Hi anon!

TL;DR because my response got LONG -> Anon this existed before Livejournal as an attitude, in fact modern fandom was literally born out of being not canon compliant (*waves aggressively to Spirk shippers*) and this existed on Livejorunal too and there have always been big pockets of fandom that really frowned on sporking even there, like that was not cool when I was on LJ, unless you were a certain age, or in certain spaces in fandom.

But also AO3 was its kind of final death knell re: making it cool to bully 13-16 yo writers (who were largely the victims of sporking) and killing dreams, which was born out of meta happening on LJ and in other places about like... not trying to make people miserable for writing a free fic out of the love in their heart that someone else didn't like or think was good enough.

Anyway, the longer version of this under the read more!

(For everyone else, welcome to some of the uglier aspects of 00s fandom!)

So there was actually criticism around all the stuff you mention 15-20 years ago as well. I was also on Livejournal during that time and there was a pretty big proportion of people in certain fandoms who recognised even then that like... setting up communities to mock say, Mary Sue writers, was actually a pretty weirdly cruel thing to do to people who were providing free labour and the literal only 'payment' they could get in a kind of energy exchange was people just not being complete dickheads to them.

So things were already changing, especially in many LJ communities and awards communities. There were a lot of big debates over whether concrit should be asked for, and a growing movement of authors who said they welcomed constructive criticism for example, instead of assuming it should automatically apply. There was also a lot of meta around the function of fanfiction and whether it should even be 'good' by published standards if the author was just doing it for themselves, and for fun (esp if they were just going to get punished for it by folks who were elitist, judgemental, grammar purists etc.)

Things really changed around the time of AO3 (2009-2010 - literally around 14~ years ago, you may have just missed the big change anon!), Strikethrough and the Dreamwidth exodus. There was a massive swing away from leaving concrit unless the author specifically asked for it, and fandom became a lot more generally able to recognise that a lot of labour goes into fanart and fanfiction and that paying with public criticism is shitty actually. Also people were just more able to recognise that like most fanfiction writers aren't trying to become professional writers and many don't want to be.

(I would actually say things changed around the time of fanfiction.net too - rude comments there were definitely noticed and could create some pretty forward 'hey why are you doing this on something you literally don't have to read' responses from fellow readers - idk what fic sites you were on. The small indie fic sites where you could often only comment via email for example, definitely drew a lot more critical attention than sites that tended to have public comments).

The 'fanfic doesn't need to adhere to canon' literally exists since the very first Spirk slash fic in modern fanfiction in the last few decades. Literally, as soon as you write Kirk/Spock, you're not adhering to canon. Our fanfiction 'ancestors' literally paved the way for a legacy which is about not adhering to canon in order to see the world/s and thing/s you want to see, be entertained by, by turned on by, or enjoy, from the very beginning. You may not have been in slash circles anon, but the foundation of queer same sex fanfic is in many ways the foundation of fandom. But yeah, this is literally where fanfiction started! As soon as you're shipping characters that aren't canon for fun (or for whatever reason), you're making it pretty clear that you want stories different to canon, and you have to change things to often keep those characters in-character.

So yeah! That's been there for decades. Idk what circles you were in on that front! While it was fairly common for a while to criticise characters for being OOC (Out of Character), imho, a lot of folks started to recognise that they literally weren't paying for what they were criticising, and they could just walk away and potentially not like...blast the fanfic. Some folks started to recognise more that people were writing with ESL, or were teenagers (some 40 yos in fandom realised they were mocking literal 15 year olds in their proto-podcasts and websites and realised actually that's just...mean? Really mean? Not the way to nurture new generations of fanfiction writers. Definitely in no way encouraging), or were writing for themselves, or writing for like one other person, or writing for fun, or writing for free, or writing for personal reasons etc.

'Don't Like Don't Read' wasn't just about political stuff, it was also about just walking away if you feel the urge to slam a fanfic in the comments.

I've been in fandom for around 2.5 decades anon, and there were so many spaces that were not actually as shitty or mean-spirited as the ones you were in? Or ones that at least had a lot of different thoughts etc. Like, sporking (mocking/bullying badfics and sometimes the folks who wrote them) was disapproved of by a lot of people in fandom even while sporking was at the height of its popularity (the Fanlore page goes into more detail about this). It might have just been the fandoms you were in, or the people you were hanging out with (and that might have been dependent on your age or just if you were around people who wanted to be 'cool' back then - in the same way that being an 'anti' is cool among certain crowds today. It's possible to spend years in certain crowds and never get an image of broader fandom for example - we can all end up in spaces like that! I know I have.)

When I started writing fanfiction (which no one will EVER find lmao), generally giving positive comments was normal. Constructive criticism was actually pretty rare and there were already fanfiction aggregate sites that generally disapproved of it in their Rules of Conduct. People were encouraging and polite. And this was around 20 years ago on Livejournal and private indie fanfiction websites.

I would actually say there was never exactly an evolution from 'one to the other' because like thousands of people in fandom already believed this and argued in defense of supporting fanfiction and transformative works via accepting that people are labouring for free and that not everyone wants to become a 'better writer' etc. - the meta was there on Livejournal in the 00s. There were communities where sporking was seen as hip/fun, and communities where it was literally banned or at the very least, super frowned upon.

There were meta fandom communities where sporking was the subject of discussion and you know eventually in a lot of those meta communities, that's where a lot of folks decided actually that calling out the fanfiction of 16 yos as 'cringe' or 'badly done' maybe said more about us as human beings and what we wanted fandom to be, than it did about the actual fanfic itself. By the time AO3 came around, people built it with this in mind.

To this day on AO3 it's mostly considered appropriate to say you want concrit in your author's notes, and to otherwise assume as a reader it's never welcome if it's unsolicited. That started during the LJ era. And it was talked about at great length. There's obviously going to be people who disagree! But for the most part I'm a big believer in compassion and 'not everyone is here for the same reason' and 'they literally gave this to us for free and it's meant to be fun' (like yourself! What we do/think/argue 10 years ago on LJ is sometimes different to what we do 10 years later lol, I used to be against trigger warnings pre-AO3! Times change a lot :D )

So yeah, this was definitely something that was around before you and I came to fandom, and it was something that continued to grow as an attitude during, until finally it kind of won out on AO3. But yeah fandom as we know it was born in people literally not being canon compliant to make some gay dreams come true (Spirk shippers bless them all), at a time when there was no representation.

Even in the earliest days of fandom where comments could only happen via email, one of the earliest phrases authors used were things like 'flames will be used to roast marshmallows.' For those reading who don't know, flames are hate comments, critical 'this fic is bad because' comments etc. Except you emailed them directly to the author, because there was no place for comments on a fic.

And this started because authors in part got death threats for writing gay stuff.

So you know, from the very beginning, authors in fanfic have by and large had a very low tolerance for criticism / hate over something they're doing for free and making no profit out of, when they're changing/altering the canon as they please to create representation (or hotness lmao), that is literally a labour of love in a world of very little representation. From there, things have just grown. The whole 'flames will not be tolerated' existed even before Livejournal did.

Honestly there are still people who love sporking and you could probably find groups and Discords dedicated to that even now (actually you literally can, there's a Dreamwidth group for it), it's kind of wild but it started to get cool again. Just like 90s clothing :D (Which is also wild because I can just take that crap out of my closet and wear it again).

But yeah it also sounds like you may have been in some pretty crappy pockets of fandom! When I was on LJ in the 00s I avoided those places and still got to experience fandom across multiple fandoms (mostly NCIS, Captive Prince, HP, Profiler, The X-Files and some others) and communities.

I was super active in some fandom communities and saw a lot of meta happening, and my view during the early and late 00s was that sporking was largely pretty frowned upon after a very brief (like 3-6 month) era where it was cool for only some folks, and then everyone (including some - but not all - of those folks) was like 'heyyyyyyy hang on a minute.' It was something that the bullies did, and enjoyed, and otherwise folks kind of stayed away from it, especially once they learned people were becoming too scared to write fics, which is the inevitable outcome of mocking/bullying folks and fics that have been made purely out of love for something.

Like, publicly making a spectacle out of what a 13 yo (they were often teens - and it's kind of sad how many 40 yo women were doing the sporking :/ ) wrote out of love, just for fun/clout was not considered cool by everyone even back then, because like, a lot of us saw that as killing new generations of fandom (some folks who sporked considered it a win if a fic or account got deleted, this is not based behaviour), not actually creating good writing, internalised misogyny (Mary Sue hatred and self insert hatred), etc. It's hard to explain because I do really think we were in different corners of fandom at the time, but I don't know anyone personally from my time on Livejournal who actually liked sporking as an idea or enjoyed it or enjoyed listening to it or reading articles mocking fic.

I knew about it from very lively 'is this okay' 'actually no it's not even if it's just for fun this is trying to hurt people and saying 'it's just the fic' is not going to be the bandaid a teenager needs to understand why older folks (generally) in fandom are mocking them for being new at a skill' discussions on LJ in meta fandom communities. So this is how much I could be in fandom and not be a part of it and also have like a wildly different experience to your LJ experience!

I think if I'd been a teenager during that era it would have seemed a lot more appealing (in the same way that many teens are antis now before they grow out of it), and fuck it if I was a more bitter person who was just around people who liked to make fun of what other people created, perhaps I would have enjoyed it too, I can see a lot of reasons why a person would fall into that in LJ -> but I was an adult on LJ trying not to be mean to people or what they were creating, so yeah I was maybe just in very different spaces! (Don't get me wrong, I have my giant fucking character flaws, but I was very scared of people hating me so like I didn't want to do things that would make that happen, lol, and also I was scared to put up fic myself during the era of active sporking. I know for myself that sporkers didn't just scare away writers of 'badfic' - they...intimidated a LOT of people).

Before AO3 I was on FF.net, posting fics on LJ, posting on Schnoogle, gossamer, and a couple of other archives. So I don't think my experience was that 'narrow,' I just think I wasn't around like... anime at that time or other places where it might have been happening. I also avoided like...Draco/Malfoy where CC drama was happening and I know sporking was popular in that specific arena / pairing for a while as well (er, as well as anything to do with Mary Sues).

So yeah! That's about where that is. Generally gatekeeping fandom is just seen as not a great thing to do to people, and that creates other kind of beliefs that are generally upheld as being more inviting/nurturing. After all, if someone truly wants to get better at writing, they can ask, or do courses, but as we all know, everyone has to write some bad stuff to get good at it, but not everyone wants to be good. Folks are in fandom for different reasons. I'm rambling now so I'm going to finish my lunch! :D

#asks and answers #pia on fandom #pia on writing #god i do not miss sporking #but it's still happening tbh in some sections of the internet #and it always will!!!#there will always be fics that piss us off or that are just written painfully #generally speaking it's just encouraged to share that with afriend privately #instead of creating a website and recording an interview or discussion or slam #or writing an article for fandom to see #and using BNF energy to chase fic writers out of fandom #it's wild that it was actually around for as long as it was #on LJ #i feel like that was the mean-spirited click-bait era before click-bait then came around #anyway it's grown in popularity again because of Tiktok!#such is life :D

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puwumats · 1 year

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anyone ever see a headcanon for a character so out of the realm of canon, that you can just tell that the op is going through something and working it out on through the medium of fan fiction? and it's like. obvi i'm not gonna say or do anything mean about it - i can just choose to not interact and go on with my day, live your best life bestie. but its still like. mate. you clearly have either the worst reading comprehension skills, or you just don't even give a shit about canon anymore huh. not me though. every opinion i have about a character is correct and my reading comprehension is flawless.

#obvi im not gonna call out the thing that sparked this post bc that would be mean as hell #but there are some pretty big BNFs whos opinions i Do Not Respect #as well as some v popular fandom headcanons that are dumb as hell lmao #crosstalk #fandom meta #this specific case is a critical role thing #but by god does it happen in some other fandoms

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theminecraftbee · 2 months

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you have 11k followers??? man that makes me feel way better about myself lmao I was under the assumption you had like 500 followers or something and that I was doing smth wrong since my fics would get 50 notes when yours got thousands. you’ve made me feel a whole lot better about myself lmao thanks for that /gen

oh god yeah do NOT judge your numbers by my numbers, I am basically a bnf for hermitblr, I have an absurd reach. and even then! I do have fics that get thousands of notes but most of them get in the realm of 200, which is MASSIVE for fic on tumblr and still something I’m absurdly grateful for, but like, even I can’t afford to predict or compare based on my fics that actually do numbers. “thousands of notes” isn’t even realistic for ME, do NOT make that your comparison point, that way lies madness!

plus. okay. the thing about fic is this: there are a number of reasons it doesn’t tend to do well on tumblr, but it doesn’t tend to do as well as art period. part of this is ease of interaction; a fic takes a LOT longer to engage with than a piece of art by requiring you read it. part of this is difficulty standing out; art is more naturally “different” to the eye and draws it better. so you shouldn’t judge fic by the metrics of other fanworks either. it isn’t like other fanworks and will get different metrics!

(and to be clear: that is not a moral judgement for any of those facts, nor am I complaining about it. that is a “and this is the way of things” statement. over on ao3 every piece of art I’ve seen posted for an exchange gets like three kudos total this is also a platform thing, lol, I am not trying to claim any specific group has it better or worse here.)

but yeah if it helps your scale: I’m around 11.4k followers, I am an absurd outlier in every regard. do not judge your success based off of me. I mean, I guess unless you happen to get numbers similar to mine, in which case you should dunk on me repeatedly about it since you’re doing it without all my advantages,

#answered

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mrghostrat · 21 days

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i just finished BNF and oh my gosh i just needed to let you know how much i lost my marbles. like huge whole ripped in the bottom of the bag they have come tumbling out all over my floor. still rolling.

oh my gosh. your work is so lovely and appreciated i hope you know. genuinely had me thrashing around and giggling and squealing and biting and pacing and telling my friends i love them like OH MY GOD you’ve done so wonderfully.

if i could (and it wasn’t just a teeny bit embarrassing to share publicly to so many people) i would insert the screenshots of me freaking out in dms— i genuinely lost my marbles ALL OF THEM CANT FIND THEM. i could gush and gush and gush and gush.

GAHHH just wanted to let it be known because i get that it can sometimes be nice to just KNOW. YOU KNOW?

hope all is well for you! much love to both you and your art, it’s absolutely beautiful and i love getting to see/read it. absolutely lovely. <3

p.s ace crowley made my heart so full ❤️ representation is sometimes in the little things but the little things can matter a whole lot. thank you dearly <333

IT IS SO DAMN NICE TO KNOW!! thank you, and all the people who continue to comment their appreciation on ao3 🥹 there's so much shouting and grabbing and hugging over this fic and i can't tell u how much it means to meeee

#ask a rat #this kills the bilv

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theteablogger · 2 months

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Why do you think that Andy specifically uses fandom to build cults/manipulate people, rather than more conventional religious or spiritual ideas?

This post is pretty long, but well worth a read, and gives a number of reasons why fandom has been the most convenient avenue for Andy to abuse people. Here are a few excerpted points:

Fandom has an unending, always-increasing, EXTREMELY OPEN supply of victims. [...] In real life, people are very unlikely to come up to you, sobbing, stumbling, and generally in extreme distress, and open up to you about their extensive emotional damage, their deepest, darkest secrets and fantasies, the subjects that are central to their passions, their enjoyment of life, and (in extremity) their willingness to keep breathing for another day - yes here’s the complete list - and their extreme sensitivity to certain stimuli that will quite possibly leave them shaking, their heads spinning, and their minds wide open to all sorts of fuckery - yes, here’s the other complete list. Because that would be giving a predator the keys to the kingdom, and people are distrusting enough in the offline world that they’re hardly going to leave that open for every stranger to examine, digest, and consider at length. On Tumblr, that’s sometimes contained just in the blog header. [...] An abundance of vulnerable teenage girls and naive twentysomethings. [...] A lack of parental supervision. A lot of people in fandom are HIDING from their parents. Excellent! It means the ONLY authority figures are authoritative, wise, kindly BNFs… ones who are so concerned for socially-isolated, mentally-ill teens…

As I noted in my reblog of that post, Andy did add elements of various religions into his cults, especially as a means of explaining how "channeling" worked and why it was a legitimate practice:

Remember, when he was first getting his claws into Abbey, how he went on and on about how a “pagan priestess” told him that elves, hobbits, etc. were real? This was the person who allegedly told him that he was a “Rare Lesbian Paladin” and that these spirits were reaching out and communicating through him. Supposedly the “Great Mother” was connecting to Abbey through Pippin, which makes no sense, and occasionally he would throw in the names of a god or two that was actually worshiped by some past culture. Apparently this evolved into an actual religious…thing. I hesitate to say “practice” because it doesn’t seem to have been organized at all, but in her AMA, Abbey elaborated a little on the Tolkien-influenced “pagan” thing he was doing with her, Diamond, and Little Sam. She also said that toward the end of their involvement, he was trying to get her into Catholicism.

#andythanfiction #thanfiction #andrew blake #andy blake #religion

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esther-dot · 4 months

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I was reading your comments about Jon's chivalry and protecting the vulnerable. This all brought to mind Jon's TV ending of stabbing Dany in the heart while kissing her. While we don't know whether or not this version of Dany's end is close to what will be the written version, it seems as though it's possible in part because of the Nissa Nissa legend. Jon doing that in the books (or something like it) would align with the Azor Ahai story, but in a warped sort of way, leaving events open to interpretation (as is usual with the prophecies and legends). But in any case, Jon killing a woman will be an act that is antithetical to so many of his values that it seems like it would come close to destroying him even if justified within Jon's universe. I wonder if Martin really plans to bring Jon this low, but also how it will be received. The optics of portraying such an ending for Dany given today's sensibilities could be viewed even more dimly than it would have been when Martin started writing the series?

(about this ask)

I'm so sorry that it's taken me this long to respond! I have finally reread some pertinent chapters to situate my thoughts.

First, I just want to acknowledge how upsetting this spec is to some, and remind everyone, no one wants this ending. We all think it's gross, we're just discussing the possibility, not merely because of the show, because it's an old theory. I looked around and saw posts about this starting in 2013 by Dany fans. So, the presence of this myth is substantial enough, even BNFs/Jonerys shippers felt like it had a strong chance of manifesting (although they believe Dany would willingly sacrifice herself) well before D&D committed their fuckery. I suppose all that answers your question. Man killing his lover is a gross trope, being forced to kill a loved one to save the world is overused, so now, I can't imagine anyone reading it and being happy about it.

In trying to look at the context in-canon Martin has created, he's taken it out of the strict man kills lover idea of the AA/NN myth, and is discussing the idea of sacrificing an innocent child to a god which fans have already compared to myth, Stannis & Shireen = Agamemnon & Iphigeneia. This sacrifice hasn't happened yet, but it's been confirmed as a Martin plot point. Stannis is already burning people alive, justifying kid killing, and Davos has already planted the Stannis=AA, kid=NN idea:

Davos was remembering a tale Salladhor Saan had told him, of how Azor Ahai tempered Lightbringer by thrusting it through the heart of the wife he loved. He slew his wife to fight the dark. If Stannis is Azor Ahai come again, does that mean Edric Storm must play the part of Nissa Nissa? (ASOS, Davos V)

Although, rather than this being a justified death, the fans will be horrified as we're meant to be. Davos' thoughts call into question the idea of killing another for your "magic sword":

A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost . . . When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay. (ACOK, Davos I)

and Martin impresses upon us the value of each life:

"Your Grace," said Davos, "the cost . . ." "I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning . . . burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?" The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King's Landing. "If Joffrey should die . . . what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" "Everything," said Davos, softly. (ASOS, Davos V)

The talk of greater good/killing kids reminds me of AGOT in which Ned's story is inundated with the topic of child murder/protecting kids. We have Mycah, his memories of Aegon and Rhaenys, his promise to protect Jon, his guilt over his lies and treason bubbling up repeatedly, his fight against the assassination of Dany, his attempt to save Cersei's children from Robert...we all know, kid killing is wrong according to Martin, so we've already been told that this wannabe AA's actions are contemptible. The myth in which the sacrifice is happy to die, that sacrificing someone is heroic, it's being contradicted by what we're being shown in the Stannis storyline.

Now, while Stannis is being declared Azor Ahai, we're constantly being told he isn't. Jon calls the act a mummer's farce and comments on his cold sword and that is right before a Dany chapter, so the idea is, Dany is actually AA. @trinuviel is the first person I saw lay out the argument for that and contend that being AA is a bad thing (meta parts 1, 2, 3). People have said that Drogo kinda becomes her Nissa Nissa in that scenario. She burns him to get the dragons, and what are the dragons called?

"When I went to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones to beg the Pureborn for your life, I said that you were no more than a child," Xaro went on, "but Egon Emeros the Exquisite rose and said, 'She is a foolish child, mad and heedless and too dangerous to live.' When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." He wiped away the tears. "I should have slain you in Qarth." (ADWD, Daenerys III)

That kinda makes us think, oh, the myth already has a canon counterpart, don't need to worry about it anymore. Only, we've also said Rhaegar impregnating a young Lyanna could be read as a play on Nissa Nissa, with him risking her life to get the prophecy baby, otherwise known as the third head of the dragon. And Jon is not only a kind of dragon, he repeatedly intones that fun little phrase about being a sword, and sometimes, that happens within an interesting context (for speculation purposes):

"I will." Do not fail me, he thought, or Stannis will have my head. "Do I have your word that you will keep our princess closely?" the king had said, and Jon had promised that he would. Val is no princess, though. I told him that half a hundred times. It was a feeble sort of evasion, a sad rag wrapped around his wounded word. His father would never have approved. I am the sword that guards the realm of men, Jon reminded himself, and in the end, that must be worth more than one man's honor. (ADWD, Jon VIII)

So, although there is one character that seems to be Azor Ahai (Dany), I am definitely open to the myth manifesting, or rather, being examined from multiple angles. IMO, that's what Martin is doing and we can use each variation to reassess what he's saying with it. We have Dany and Drogo (the official one/successful one), Rhaegar and Lyanna (not AA, but Jon is born), Stannis and Edric (denied), Stannis and Shireen (he will kill Shireen, but we don't know if he'll get what he wants and we do know he isn't AA)... lots of pics of a similar idea. To emphasize Stannis not being the dude and Dany being the "real" AA, we have that Jon passage and chapter transition:

Even though we have lots of contenders and commentary about this myth with the canon characters, none of it romanticizes human sacrifice, and all works towards the twist that what is said to be a hero/the weapon that will save people brings destruction. If we look back at it critically, Dany has a habit of accepting, or even causing, the suffering of others for her greater good, including sacrificing Mirri to get her dragons. We might even argue that Mirri is a Nissa Nissa for her, as Dany had taken Mirri under her protection before killing her to get dragons.

That being said, even though we're getting told this shit is bad in canon, the indictment of killing innocents and people who depend on you to protect them, it wouldn’t apply if someone were to kill Stannis or Dany. It isn’t on the same moral level as killing a child, or a spouse who loves and trusts you. It isn't the same as invading and then killing people who won't worship your god or accept you as a leader. It isn't the same as killing a slave, simply because, when their times come, Dany and Stannis will be guilty. After their actions, it would be justice for them to die. I think why other parts of the fandom entertain the idea of Dany as NN while also condemning us for entertaining it, is that Dany's vision does have her being grasped at by hands of her "children" and fans have this idea that she is sacrificing herself/her happiness for the greater good already, and in the AA/Nissa Nissa story, it does sound like she offers herself willingly for the tempering of the sword. So to them, it’s part of Dany’s heroism. Dany's death is inevitable to some, at the hands of Jon is ok, but her not dying a hero, that's unacceptable.

But thinking about how it's been discussed thus far, I can't imagine we're gonna get a romanticized version of the AA/NN myth in canon when so far, it's pretty dark/condemned. None of that precludes Jon killing Dany in what you described as a:

warped sort of way, leaving events open to interpretation (as is usual with the prophecies and legends).

which really sticks out to me as the important part of all this.

The idea that Jon might do it and characters recognize it as a tragic love story a la the myth, that fascinates me because of how Martin has written wild rumors into the story (rumors about Dany, Robb, and Sansa spring to mind), and some of us have written reality and what the public thinks into fic as two distinct things because it feels like a potential way the story might go. What is widely known to be true, like say, Jon being Ned's bastard, may not be the truth that we the readers come to know. There's no guarantee that Westeros will know what the readers know about past or future events. We may get a take on AA/NN, the characters in-world may not understand it the same way.

Jon is undeniably a hero, in a world where institutional corruption is rampant and ideals abandoned, he’s a standout in his values. We would expect, and we find, contrasts between him and these other characters (Dany, Rhaegar, Stannis), primarily, his practical actions that are about saving life/protecting life, even from Stannis, so the idea that he would abandon certain values, it's a tough one. The difference is, while Stannis, Rhaegar, and Dany were acting on these prophecies or visions or dreams, things we're repeatedly warned against trusting in the text, Jon would be taking action based on the fact that Dany is a mass-murderer, a threat to all of Westeros. It isn't a sacrifice to an unknown god for some promised mystical good, it's justice. The religious fanaticism wouldn't be a factor, the killing of an innocent wouldn't be a factor, killing a child wouldn't be a factor, killing to achieve a self-serving end wouldn't be a factor. All the things that have been criticized thus far aren't at play.

The moral quandary presented to the audience in AGOT is killing someone who might be a threat, but is a child at the moment, and Martin presents the sneaky assassination / child killing as abhorrent:

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. "My order serves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothers to perish on the end of a spear?" He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. "Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousands might live?" "Kinder," Varys said. "Oh, well and truly spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods in their caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must bleed." Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr stifled a yawn. "When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it," he declared. "Waiting won't make the maid any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it." "Kiss her?" Ser Barristan repeated, aghast. "A steel kiss," said Littlefinger. (AGOT, Eddard VIII)

which is all interesting context for Dany later being assassinated, especially because the first lesson Martin gives us on justice is one that Jon is there for, and then is reiterated in relation to Dany:

Ned had heard enough. "You send hired knives to kill a fourteen-year-old girl and still quibble about honor?" He pushed back his chair and stood. "Do it yourself, Robert. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Look her in the eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her last words. You owe her that much at least." (AGOT, Eddard VIII)

The convo about killing Dany with LF is about a bedding and before that it was presented in terms of a wedding gift, which makes me squint now knowing the AA/NN stuff:

Yes, it's awful, and I do understand, almost agree with you here:

But in any case, Jon killing a woman will be an act that is antithetical to so many of his values that it seems like it would come close to destroying him even if justified within Jon's universe.

but the way it might tie together the initial discussion of killing Dany and the eventual act weighs heavily with me when determining what Martin might do and why/why not.

The other suggestion is that Arya kills Dany. If having dragons is Chechov's gun for KL burning then Arya being a trained assassin feels like a Chechov's gun for killing Dany. But in that scenario, there is no conflict. No inner struggle. We spent so much of AGOT weighing the morals of killing Dany, it's hard for me to believe when the time comes, it's presented without any moral complexity. Arya is already able and willing to take a life, even when it isn't justified. It doesn't feel right to me that killing Dany would be a presented without an inner struggle, that it would be done easily, as easily as Arya now kills. TBH, it removes the drama if someone other than Jon does it because it will be so highly necessary and just when the time comes. Jon is really the only character who can make it squeamish because of the guy killing a woman thing and because it will be kinslaying.

There is a lot of talk about poison, so I think it's totally possible Arya tries to kill Dany with poison first, but I think Jon is more likely to be the one to successfully kill her, and in a way that calls to mind Ned's opinion on it, See her tears, hear her last words. That would allow Martin to make sure we see it as just/moral, bring home the Targ v Targ issue, and it shades Ned's decisions and values in a very interesting way.

After s8 fans said Ned was wrong to fight against killing Dany in s1, but Martin thinks he was right to object to killing children, so for the two Targ children he was protecting in AGOT (Dany and Jon) to come face to face and one kill the other prevents the conclusion that Ned was wrong. It was the same mercy, the same refusal to see the child of an enemy as an enemy, that saved the boy who will in turn save Westeros. IMO, it's a way to uphold the belief in mercy. I tend to think it’s also Martin’s way of addressing one his questions about his beloved LOTR (what about orc babies etc).

If another person ends Dany, we still get dead Dany, but it doesn't say anything interesting? Killing her wouldn't be a sacrifice on anyone else's part, she won’t be loved and she has to go. But, Jon, who so desperately wants to have honor, if he kills her, it's right as well as an egregious "sin." Ned dishonors himself to protect Sansa (and obvy was committing treason to protect Jon), it feels like coming full circle for Jon, who so wants to be worthy of being a son to Ned to follow his path there too. Also, one thing I expect we’ll keep tracking is kinslaying. Kinslaying comes up with the AA/Nissa Nissa issue in the Stannis storyline, so I do expect that to be addressed in Jon chapters:

We have the whole baby switch to assure us, Jon values human life a great deal. All the same, that involves a moment of cruelty on Jon's side, so Martin isn't interested in keeping him perfectly pure. He likes those moments where doing the right thing is very difficult, even compromising in some way. It's why, while we say Ned committing treason for Jon is a no brainer, Martin writes Ned tortured by it. He likes the inner turmoil over decisions, placing a societal good (honor) against another obligation or ideal and asking what is right.

I wonder if Martin really plans to bring Jon this low, but also how it will be received. The optics of portraying such an ending for Dany given today's sensibilities could be viewed even more dimly than it would have been when Martin started writing the series?

Despite all the ways I think it makes sense, yes, I def think this is one of those areas that if he had finished the series as quickly as he'd hoped, would have gone over better. Dany has dragons, therefore, she will be an overwhelming threat to Westeros, so it isn't like Jon will just randomly kill a woman, yet it's distasteful all the same. Martin is looking at things from the context of his story and the ideas he’s already introduced/talking about though which is why I can wince but kinda understand it. There are other issues where my sensibilities diverge from his, so didn’t like it on the show, I don’t like it for the books, still think it’s probably gonna happen. 🤷🏻‍♀️

#dot chat #anti daenerys #anti jonerys #azor ahai #jon snow #asoiaf speculation #anti rhaegar #anti stannis

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la-pheacienne · 8 months

Note

It is certainly true that the show has done a lot to force an unbearable climate onto the remaining book fans, but on the other hand you could also wonder - why is such a large part of this remaining book fandom so hell-bent on fanatically supporting the most stupid, toxic ideas we have seen the show to embrace? I would say as stupid as these plot points were, few of the basic, broad ideas Dave and Dan went for were really things they made up all on their own. Mad Queen theories, the distorted view of so many characters like Arya and so on, these all were echoing things a lot of book fans (the type of milieu many of the people in charge of HBO's output were bred in) always WANTED the story and the characters and their trajectory to be, regardless how well founded these wishes matched the actual text.

The show was echoing bad fanon rooted in the book scene more or less from the beginning, you can trace it directly to how some characters were presented and castings were chosen right from the start. That's also why if you listen more closely to so many of the less bearable people in the book scene, the REAL problem so many of them had with the ideas of the latter parts of the show was that it was done in such a way that the public thought it was trash and didn't accept it. The whole agenda of them is now hoping for the books to emerge as some better written version of the show that finally will convince them all that this worthless trash story that is ironically only loved and wanted by these people alone is actually the correct version of it and its characters everyone should finally accept and digest. As ridiculous as the show was, ironically the most ridiculous parts of it were in truth clumsily made fan service for the worst sentiments that were peddled by and nurtured within the book fandom.

Oh, for sure. Thank you for this ask because you have put into words something that has been turning in my head for a long time.

the REAL problem so many of them had with the ideas of the latter parts of the show was that it was done in such a way that the public thought it was trash and didn't accept it.

After almost a year on tumblr and observing the book fandom and reading the BNFs' metas and theories and fanons and briefly delving into reddit and twitter god forbid, I have to say that I agree with you. I can't say how it was in the past though, I wasn't here. But I am afraid it is exactly as you say it is. I mean, Dany's arc from a hero to a fallen hero to a villain because *she watched her abusive brother die without an emotional reaction, psychopath!*, Jon just randomly exiled beyond the Wall because *subverting expectations*, none of them becoming King/Queen of the Seven Kingdoms/KINT, not even BRIEFLY, not even during the War for the Dawn (ok Jon did), because *throne bAAAAD*, *they're not heroes no one can fix Westeros*, *monarchy bAAAAD*, *subverting expectations*, Sansa getting girlbossified because *subverting expectations*, all of these points that ****supposedly*** sucked in GoT, are the exact same theories shared by a very big and very loud part of the BNF here, if not the majority.

So, what exactly is the internet fandom's problem with the show? Is there any? I literally can't see it, except that it was done too quickly and thus made these stupid theories appear even more stupid than they initially were. I've seen a LOT of posts saying like "oh you should stop wishing for your fav to get the throne, no one will get the throne and no one is 'in the right' (especially in the fire and blood discourse), no one 'deserves' it, the throne will crush and burn, the show has done so much damage to the fandom pitting favs against each other for the throne" etc etc, but that's so funny to me because what they say will happen in the books is literally what happened in the show, at least roughly, and their vibe was the vibe of a huge part, if not the majority, of the show fandom. This super annoying nihilism that I see in (book) BNF right now is the exact.same.nihilism I remember from the show fandom. The exact same one, but with a faux-feminist rosey Stansa touch. That's it. From the "Your heros will not get the throne, losers, Littlefinger will kill them all and prevail, the end" show-only dudebro rationale we went to the "oh nobody can fix Westeros, Dany and Jon will sacrifice themselves (best case, worst case Dany will get all psycho like her daddy and bros), monarchy Targs BAD, Targ feudal system BAD, fuck the Targ lords, team small folk, only coincidentally my fav bbgrl Sansa will actually end up in a conventional and strictly feudal position of power uwu, the end". The common denominator? Nihilism and this obsession for subverting expectations. This parallel is even funnier with hotd, where the show's most non-sensical, straight up delulu plot points are whole-heartedly embraced by, again, a big and very loud part of the BNF (probably the majority). This time the concordance is direct and not even denied, and it's embarrassing when I see their half-ass attempts at criticizing the show, because they literally can't. They actually love it and it's so obvious.

So to get to your point, there are two possibilities here: either the show's nihilistic, faux-edgy, shock value-based direction irrevocably transformed the book fandom, or the book fandom was already in that mindset and the show was based on that and it could very well be the latter.

#anonymous #asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #aspa rambles

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olderthannetfic · 7 months

Note

wait has someone ever written up a history of sentinelverse au's? because this feels like a topic that needs to be discussed

IDK. What's on Fanlore?

I mean, on a very basic level, yes, I'm sure someone has written something, but I'm not aware of any well-researched deep dives into exactly when such-and-such a part of the trope first showed up.

Given the era, I would guess that at least some important developments happened in zines. The internet was taking over pretty thoroughly by the time the show aired, but oldschool writers, some of them popular BNFs, were still doing zines. Sentinel fandom itself had a lot (and I would bet that the AU does come pretty squarely from TS fanon even if it doesn't come from TS canon). It was also an era of mailing lists, which don't have publicly accessible archives.

That big, old Sentinel archive got imported to AO3, didn't it? So at least a decent chunk of stuff will be findable, but I'd bet there's plenty of old Sentinel fic that's just on somebody's hand-coded HTML page from back in the day. And other fandoms of the era are like that too and/or have dead archives that aren't always on AO3 now. And god knows what developments happened in the LJ years.

By the time we get to easily-findable stuff of the last decade or so, the trope was very firmly established. I'm sure people still come up with new takes (there's some BTS fic by people who clearly have heard of the trope but not really read it, for example), but a lot of the history requires digging.

Anyone have thoughts on the evolution of Sentinel AUs?

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longeyelashedtragedy · 6 months

Text

20 Questions for Fic Writers

i was faux-tagged by @prosopopeya ! it was fun reading your answers!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

147...damn

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

434,625

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now i only write "Men's Football RPF," but occasionally i have the desire to write in my previous fandom, and then never do.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

these are all a song of ice and fire/game of thrones fics from way back in the day

drabbles of ice and fire (does what it says on the tin)

captivated (arya/jaqen AU)

ends and beginnings (arya/jaqen university AU)

egg baby (arya/jaqen, au)

arya saves the day (arya/jaqen, the same university AU)

...as you might have guessed, i was THEE arya/jaqen BNF back then, lol. (if you have familiarity with the characters please note these are all AUs because arya is aged up in order to ship her)

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

i try, i really do! comments just get my executive function so snarled up and i wind up forgetting.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

that's most of them. how am i meant to choose? it's hard for me to get through the end of "i tore off the golden branch" without crying even to this day. "like a song on repeat, nothing has to end" has some nice sad transfer window angst, and as i've said, the ending to "visited upon the sons" really slaps. is it cheating to say mare liberum?--that ending only exists on my notes app, and it's more "tragic" than angsty i guess.

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

oh, hmmm. i wanna say... "5.VII." poor dejan, always fearing he'll somehow be alone and unwanted, not good enough, and in that moment at the end of the fic those worries leave him.

“So...that means...these things...These things we do together...” Dejan waits impatiently. No, he’ll be honest with himself. He’s waiting nervously. “We’re just going to have to keep doing them forever, right, brate?” Dejan lets go of the breath he’s been holding and as he does, he feels those wings again, stretching out from his shoulder blades and shaking themselves out and giving him an incredible lightness. He could float away right now with Šime in his arms. They could float away together. “Yes. I guess we will.”

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really, i think they're so poorly written or strange that they just don't get much notice. i did see some "piquira" people back in the day talk about how my fic "soy loca con mi tigre," where shakira pegs piqué (RIP) with sergio watching them on video chat, was "weird." god, it must be painful to be that boring

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

unfortunately yes. i think it's usually pretty straightforward, but maybe not blunt enough to be grimy-hot. i don't like anything flowery. i wish i could write some m/f from time to time, but i have too many gender issues to feel comfortable writing about an AFAB body in a sexual sense most of the time. i am trying to channel this discomfort into writing a fic where jamie jamie jamie takes franko out clubbing to drown his sorrows and they pick up some Girls it is what it is!

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

i used to with my ex, we had an amazing AU where we crossed over a million different punk/metal/alternative musicians with some other rpf type people. oh, and not to forget--my first ever footyfics were crossovers, lol.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i sure have! it was shameless as fuck. however, justice was served because my version got more kudos and comments, so i didn't even bother to start shit. as they say, she thought she ate!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, into russian, chinese, and persian. i have enough fics translated into russian on ficbook to have my own Author Page on there--a point of pride, because i love ficbook :)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes, many with said ex! i would love to do a collab again--anyone? hit me up

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

idk? rakidrić, šejan, movren, xhakarteta RIP, JAVEY from AFI, cersei/jaime, aged up!arya/jaqen. am i missing anything?

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

maybe my really long 'ivan rakitić coming of age' fic, where the running plot is "what is he doing to keep himself at barça even tho he's out of favor?" as you can see, it would be very outdated, plus it was never intended for a wide audience

16. What are your writing strengths?

not sure :/ characters' emotions, good use of repetition and parallelism (i like to think !) and good use of rhythm. i also think i write a good ending. my bff said "the way you describe love and loss is unlike anyone else" which i thought was nice!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

plot, pacing. good porn, being unfiltered (like--my writing feels too repressed lol)

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

it has to make sense so it doesn't feel like tokenization or fetishization and can't be cheesy. the only time i think i was going to include actual multiple lines of dialogue in anther language (spanish), i then changed it so the fic didn't have it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

the first like, true established fandom i wrote for was a song of ice and fire/game of thrones. before that i wrote a lot of bandfic, but mostly for bands and artists who didn't really have any fic or canons. like, 98% of it was private for just me and my ex, but a few of the pieces still exist online here and there.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

i cannot pick favorites. there's so many reasons why something would be a favorite. and i have 147 fics on ao3! plus many things that aren't. plus my unpublished bandfic was some of my best writing. i don't know!

i almost wonder if it's "his return: a story of ghosts" which...i initially wrote as a fic but then changed it up. it was a "magical realism" au based on my undergrad senior thesis, lol. (the most common remark about it in my advanced creative writing seminar was "uh, it sounds like you know what you're talking about.") it's so imperfect, but writing it was SO much fun, and i had a whole soundtrack i listened to as i wrote, and then a few years ago i did a massive edit of it which was even more fun and it's still very imperfect and can't figure out why. i also don't like daniel's name but i named him after 2 ppl i knew at the time and now i can't change it, lol.

OH AND ALSO: granit's first flashback chapter in dangerous AU!

if you write fic, you are tagged, but i definitely tag: @new-berry @protect-daniel-james @fanficburner @purefractals @colorsofmyseason @bsaka7 @arsenalgbt AND ANYONE ELSE I FORGOT please do it if you see it!!!

#fic saga #about me #!!!

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istumpysk · 1 year

Text

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: Davos IV (Chapter 29)

Even in the gloom of the Wolf's Den, Davos Seaworth could sense that something was awry this morning.

I swear to god this guy spends half the story in jail.

+.+.+

Davos rose and paced his cell. As cells went, it was large and queerly comfortable. He suspected it might once have been some lordling's bedchamber.

[...]

The food had come as a surprise as well. In place of gruel and stale bread and rotten meat, the usual dungeon fare, his keepers brought him fresh-caught fish, bread still warm from the oven, spiced mutton, turnips, carrots, even crabs.

[...]

Davos had furs to keep him warm by night, wood to feed his fire, clean clothing, a greasy tallow candle. When he asked for paper, quill, and ink, Therry brought them the next day. When he asked for a book, so he might keep at his reading, Therry turned up with The Seven-Pointed Star.

+.+.+

He knew there were true dungeons down in the castle cellars—oubliettes and torture chambers and dank pits where huge black rats scrabbled in the darkness.

Obligatory rat highlight.

+.+.+

The Den was much older than White Harbor, the knight [Ser Bartimus, chief gaoler] told Davos. It had been raised by King Jon Stark to defend the mouth of the White Knife against raiders from the sea.

King Jon Stark defended the north from raiders? What kind of raiders?

Even before the coming of the Andals, the Wolf’s Den had been raised by King Jon Stark, built to defend the mouth of the White Knife against raiders and slavers from across the narrow sea (some scholars suggest these were early Andal incursions, whilst others argue they were the forebears of the men from Ib, or even slavers out of Valyria and Volantis). - TWoIaF

Oh, raiders and slavers from Valyria.

I wish a bnf was around to tell me what that could mean.

+.+.+

Many a younger son of the King in the North had made his seat there, many a brother, many an uncle, many a cousin. Some passed the castle to their own sons and grandsons, and offshoot branches of House Stark had arisen; the Greystarks had lasted the longest, holding the Wolf's Den for five centuries, until they presumed to join the Dreadfort in rebellion against the Starks of Winterfell.

The name is hinting at Greyjoy, but the history sounds like Karstark.

+.+.+

Reavers from the Three Sisters took the castle once, making it their toehold in the north. During the wars between Winterfell and the Vale, it was besieged by Osgood Arryn, the Old Falcon, and burned by his son, the one remembered as the Talon. When old King Edrick Stark had grown too feeble to defend his realm, the Wolf's Den was captured by slavers from the Stepstones. They would brand their captives with hot irons and break them to the whip before shipping them off across the sea, and these same black stone walls bore witness.

This doesn't feel like anything, but I'm not sure.

How about a reversal! Let's have a friendly visit from the Vale.

+.+.+

"Then a long cruel winter fell," said Ser Bartimus. "The White Knife froze hard, and even the firth was icing up. The winds came howling from the north and drove them slavers inside to huddle round their fires, and whilst they warmed themselves the new king come down on them. Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard's great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes. He took the Wolf's Den back, stripped the slavers naked, and gave them to the slaves he'd found chained up in the dungeons. It's said they hung their entrails in the branches of the heart tree, as an offering to the gods. The old gods, not these new ones from the south. Your Seven don't know winter, and winter don't know them."

Brandon Stark, Ice Eyes? Bran, what are you up to?

Slavers struggling with the cold, and more blood sacrifice. That's all I picked up from that.

+.+.+

"I never knew that northmen made blood sacrifice to their heart trees."

"There's much and more you southrons do not know about the north," Ser Bartimus replied.

Can you tell us.

+.+.+

Davos sat beside his candle and looked at the letters he had scratched out word by word during the days of his confinement. I was a better smuggler than a knight, he had written to his wife, a better knight than a King's Hand, a better King's Hand than a husband. I am so sorry. Marya, I have loved you. Please forgive the wrongs I did you. Should Stannis lose his war, our lands will be lost as well. Take the boys across the narrow sea to Braavos and teach them to think kindly of me, if you would. Should Stannis gain the Iron Throne, House Seaworth will survive and Devan will remain at court. He will help you place the other boys with noble lords, where they can serve as pages and squires and win their knighthoods. It was the best counsel he had for her, though he wished it sounded wiser.

He had written to each of his three surviving sons as well, to help them remember the father who had bought them names with his fingertips. His notes to Steffon and young Stannis were short and stiff and awkward; if truth be told, he did not know them half as well as he had his older boys, the ones who'd burned or drowned upon the Blackwater. To Devan he wrote more, telling him how proud he was to see his own son as a king's squire and reminding him that as the eldest it was his duty to protect his lady mother and his younger brothers. Tell His Grace I did my best, he ended. I am sorry that I failed him. I lost my luck when I lost my fingerbones, the day the river burned below King's Landing.

At least he acknowledges he's an absent father and husband.

His final goodbye to his family, and he manages to sneak in an apology to Stannis. Lol

+.+.+

Glover led him along a darkened hall and down a flight of worn steps. They crossed the castle's godswood, where the heart tree had grown so huge and tangled that it had choked out all the oaks and elms and birch and sent its thick, pale limbs crashing through the walls and windows that looked down on it. Its roots were as thick around as a man's waist, its trunk so wide that the face carved into it looked fat and angry.

When dogs and their owners look alike.

+.+.+

Then there was a blank stone wall that turned when Glover pushed on it. Beyond was a long narrow tunnel and still more steps. These led up.

"Where are we?" asked Davos as they climbed. His words echoed faintly though the darkness.

"The steps beneath the steps. The passage runs beneath the Castle Stair up to the New Castle. A secret way. It would not do for you to be seen, my lord. You are supposed to be dead."

Obligatory secret tunnels highlight.

+.+.+

"Please sit." Lord Manderly was richly garbed. His velvet doublet was a soft blue-green, embroidered with golden thread at hem and sleeves and collar. His mantle was ermine, pinned at the shoulder with a golden trident. "Are you hungry?"

Wyman is!

But not for food.

+.+.+

"How did I die, if I may ask?"

"By the axe. Your head and hands were mounted above the Seal Gate, with your face turned so your eyes looked out across the harbor. By now you are well rotted, though we dipped your head in tar before we set it upon the spike. Carrion crows and seabirds squabbled over your eyes, they say."

Davos shifted uncomfortably. It was a queer feeling, being dead.

I tingle when a character is adamant they're not dead.

This is different, this feels more like something Bran or Arya would think to themselves.

+.+.+

"Wylla." Lord Wyman smiled. "Did you see how brave she was? Even when I threatened to have her tongue out, she reminded me of the debt White Harbor owes to the Starks of Winterfell, a debt that can never be repaid. Wylla spoke from the heart, as did Lady Leona. Forgive her if you can, my lord. She is a foolish, frightened woman, and Wylis is her life. Not every man has it in him to be Prince Aemon the Dragonknight or Symeon Star-Eyes, and not every woman can be as brave as my Wylla and her sister Wynafryd … who did know, yet played her own part fearlessly.

Kind of irritating we didn't get Wylla and Wynafryd on the show.

Who am I kidding, they would have been given the Lyanna Mormont treatment.

+.+.+

"Soon I must return to the feast to toast my friends of Frey," Manderly continued. "They watch me, ser. Day and night their eyes are on me, noses sniffing for some whiff of treachery. You saw them, the arrogant Ser Jared and his nephew Rhaegar, that smirking worm who wears a dragon's name. Behind them both stands Symond, clinking coins. That one has bought and paid for several of my servants and two of my knights. One of his wife's handmaids has found her way into the bed of my own fool. If Stannis wonders that my letters say so little, it is because I dare not even trust my maester. Theomore is all head and no heart. You heard him in my hall. Maesters are supposed to put aside old loyalties when they don their chains, but I cannot forget that Theomore was born a Lannister of Lannisport and claims some distant kinship to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me."

Damn, who needs Varys?

+.+.+

"My son Wendel came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Walder's bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may the Freys choke upon their fables. I drink with Jared, jape with Symond, promise Rhaegar the hand of my own beloved granddaughter … but never think that means I have forgotten. The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer's farce is almost done. My son is home."

Something about the way Lord Wyman said that chilled Davos to the bone.

+.+.+

The lad? Was it possible that one of Robb Stark's brothers had survived the ruin of Winterfell? Did Manderly have a Stark heir hidden away in his castle? A found boy or a feigned boy? The north would rise for either, he suspected … but Stannis Baratheon would never make common cause with an imposter.

Little bit of Arya, little bit of Aegon.

+.+.+

"He is a mute, but we have been teaching him his letters. He learns quickly." Glover drew a dagger from his belt and gave it to the boy. "Write your name for Lord Seaworth.

"There was no parchment in the chamber. The boy carved the letters into a wooden beam in the wall. W … E … X.

The little bird who isn't a little bird is back!

+.+.+

Lord Wyman nodded. "The tale you tell is one we all have heard, as full of lies as a pudding's full of raisins. It was the Bastard of Bolton who put Winterfell to the sword … Ramsay Snow, he was called then, before the boy king made him a Bolton. Snow did not kill them all. He spared the women, roped them together, and marched them to the Dreadfort for his sport."

[...]

"The evil is in his blood," said Robett Glover. "He is a bastard born of rape. A Snow, no matter what the boy king says."

"Was ever snow so black?" asked Lord Wyman.

<- Jon VI

Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart.

Looks like it's time to remind the reader Ramsay is bizarro Jon.

A bastard born of rape. What are you telling me about Rhaegar Targaryen, George?

+.+.+

"Ramsay took Lord Hornwood's lands by forcibly wedding his widow, then locked her in a tower and forgot her. It is said she ate her own fingers in her extremity … and the Lannister notion of king's justice is to reward her killer with Ned Stark's little girl."

"The Boltons have always been as cruel as they were cunning, but this one seems a beast in human skin," said Glover.

A beast in human skin? Wow, that sounds like Jon too!

I guess that means he's going to marry Val to lay claim to Winterfell! Snort.

+.+.+

"The Freys are no better. They speak of wargs and skinchangers and assert that it was Robb Stark who slew my Wendel. The arrogance of it! They do not expect the north to believe their lies, not truly, but they think we must pretend to believe or die. Roose Bolton lies about his part in the Red Wedding, and his bastard lies about the fall of Winterfell. And yet so long as they held Wylis I had no choice but to eat all this excrement and praise the taste."

Sounds like you owe them dinner.

+.+.+

"It was the Bastard who murdered Ser Rodrik and the men of Winterfell," said Lord Wyman. "He slew Greyjoy's ironmen as well. Wex saw men cut down trying to yield. When we asked how he escaped, he took a chunk of chalk and drew a tree with a face."

Davos thought about that. "The old gods saved him?"

"After a fashion. He climbed the heart tree and hid himself amongst the leaves. Bolton's men searched the godswood twice and killed the men they found there, but none thought to clamber up into the trees. Is that how it happened, Wex?"

The boy flipped up Glover's dagger, caught it, nodded.

When he was done he flipped the dagger in the air, caught it, and stood admiring his handiwork.

The mute flipped the dagger, caught it, then flung it end over end at the sheepskin map that adorned Lord Wyman's wall.

What is up with this?

Daggers, the old gods, and hiding in trees. Am I supposed to be thinking about Arya or the children of the forest?

+.+.+

Wex held up five fingers, tapped each one with the dagger, then folded four away and tapped the last again.

"Six of them," asked Davos. "There were six."

"Two of them Ned Stark's murdered sons."

"How could a mute tell you that?"

"With chalk. He drew two boys … and two wolves."

[...]

Davos understood. "You want the boy."

"Roose Bolton has Lord Eddard's daughter. To thwart him White Harbor must have Ned's son … and the direwolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is, should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him.

Placing this much significance on Shaggydog is making my heart sink. It's feeling a little like the show.

+.+.+

That is my price, Lord Davos. Smuggle me back my liege lord, and I will take Stannis Baratheon as my king.

Ha, make him work for it.

My oh my, how the tables have turned for The Beggar King, Stannis Baratheon.

"Be that as it may, my lord," Maester Cressen said gently. "Great wrongs have been done you, but the past is dust. The future may yet be won if you join with the Starks.

[...]

"Lady Arryn owes you her allegiance, as do the Starks, your brother Renly, and all the rest. You are their one true king. It would not be fitting to plead and bargain with them for what is rightfully yours by the grace of god."

[...]

"I make common cause with no one," Stannis Baratheon said. - Prologue, ADWD

+.+.+

"You have better men than me in your service. Knights and lords and maesters. Why would you need a smuggler? You have ships." "Ships," Lord Wyman agreed, "but my crews are rivermen, or fisherfolk who have never sailed beyond the Bite. For this I must have a man who's sailed in darker waters and knows how to slip past dangers, unseen and unmolested."

"Where is the boy?" Somehow Davos knew he would not like the answer. "Where is it you want me to go, my lord?"

Robett Glover said, "Wex. Show him."

The mute flipped the dagger, caught it, then flung it end over end at the sheepskin map that adorned Lord Wyman's wall. It struck quivering. Then he grinned.

For half a heartbeat Davos considered asking Wyman Manderly to send him back to the Wolf's Den, to Ser Bartimus with his tales and Garth with his lethal ladies. In the Den even prisoners ate porridge in the morning. But there were other places in this world where men were known to break their fast on human flesh.

Is he going to a wedding?

There is zero reason to put any hope into this plot.

Somehow I doubt the mostly irrelevant 4-year-old boy and the imposter daughter will be the central Stark figures in the fight for the north. Call it a hunch.

Final thoughts:

That was Davos Seaworth's last chapter in the series.

You get the sense Bran and Rickon are waiting for the rest of the plot to catch up.

-> return to menu <-

#operation stumpy re-read #adwd #davos iv

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ifonlyweknewwhatiwasdoing · 4 months

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So...I have a question, (if you have the time!) because I'm not new to Fandom at all, but I'm not particularly vocal other than commenting. Like I don't respond to other commenters comments, you know? But is it acceptable (as not the author of the fic in question) to call out a commenter who's comment was solely a "hey will there be more of this?" variety? Or would that make the author feel like I'm then stepping out of bounds or starting a fight deal? Bc I think that comment is really not nice, especially when they don't say anything about the story that is posted! But I also know there's alot of etiquette around commenting and I don't want to upset the author even more you know?

Hello!

I think in this case it very much depends. I'm no expert myself but as someone who has gotten a fair bit of comments on continuing things, I think it depends a lot.

Someone asking me if I'm going to continue something—normally in question form or with a compliment attached—doesn't bother me personally. Now, I can't say what other authors may think but in that case, I assume good intentions.

My problem lies with people who are demanding things—or trying to guilt me into continuing something. Some of my fics are finished, some are not. There is normally a reason that I've not continued with something (as evidenced by my own personal ratio of finished to unfinished fics) and a request to finish it isn't a problem but I don't owe anyone anything.

When I originally joined fandom back in 2010, I loved it because of how community-based it was. I like sharing ideas and hearing ideas and bonding over something that was a big part of my life and I feel like we've lost that.

It's like the Tiktok of fandom to write nowadays. Your goal is to pump out as much content as fast as possible to become a BNF and if you do manage to get there, you aren't touchable (which is very not true as evidenced by the loss we've felt in the fandom in the last two years). I think more than anything it would probably be isolating, though I can really only speculate.

I've kind of found the friends and discord servers that allow me to feel the community that I thought was lost and that enabled me to be able to continue with what I do in a way that worked and felt good for me, but I feel as though for every one of me there's got to be so many people that we've lost who aren't able to find that connection.

So all of this is probably a bit off from your original question, please excuse my tangent but with that said this is what I think;

If you believe in someone, if you believe in what they do, your intentions are good and you feel as though they are being stepped on, by all means step in. If they were on the street you'd have said someone should do something. Just because we are behind screens doesn't change my opinion on that but also, be kind. I think that sometimes people don't understand the etiquette and your words matter.

If someone just doesn't understand something, getting angry won't change their mind and neither will unkind words. Trust me I've been there, where you are just tired of the bad and you snap at one person and more often than not I've regretted it. But that doesn't mean it's not a teaching moment. Stepping in to say something isn't cool—or to assure an author that what someone is doing isn't cool has always been something I've advocated for.

Because as fandom has gotten bigger—and by nature more diverse—you're finding more and more people either don't understand the etiquette or they don't respect it.

So if an author asks for critique. go ahead and give it.

But don't just randomly comment something negative on something provided to you for free. Don't create a place where authors are afraid to post because they might get a comment about 'xyz'.

God knows if you check on my first fic and my last fic there's a huge difference. In only three years, I'm miles ahead of where I was. But what if someone had posted a ton of negative shit and I'd walked away?

That's 82 fics gone from the Star Wars tag.

So if someone asks for you to just walk away when you don't like something, do that.

If someone wants to interact with the fandom, interact with them.

Bring back what made fandom such a big draw and you'll find that it will only get bigger. Whether people know it or not there are more people excited for it than against it. Let's start acting like it.

#musicsoul1982 #musicsoul1982 speaks #i'm sorry for my tangent but not sorry for my words #your favorite writers are people too #star wars fanfiction

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