Continuing my post about Jaime and Rhaegar’s respective roles in the sack of KL, let’s talk about Jaime and Rhaegar’s last conversation which I didn’t mention in that post and it deserves its own analysis. I find it extremely funny how both (some) Lannister stans and (some) Targ stans seem to think that the last convo between Rhaegar and Jaime was actually like this :

"Jaime, a sack is about to happen very soon. Elia and my kids are in a high risk of getting brutally murdered inside the very capital by the orders of your father who has ghosted us for some time but is deep down an enemy planning all of this in secret. Meanwhile, my father is planning to blow up the entire city any minute now because reasons. I’m leaving you here, alone, to take care of all this and keep all these people, my wife, two kids, father and the people of the city, safe from harm. If you fail to do any of that at any point, you’re incompetent, a traitor and a coward. Now I have to leave to do my thing with the others, don’t forget your duty and your vows, bye".

While it was actually like this :

"Jaime, there’s a war, we are in a pretty tight position and I gotta go to battle taking some men with me. Unfortunately my father wants to keep you close because he believes Tywin will not turn against him this way, and he’s kind of insane so there is nothing we can do about it without risking an even bigger outburst. Give me some time to get out of this mess, and then I’ll come back and we’ll fix this. All this will be over soon, bye".

So the first reading of Jaime and Rhaegar’s last convo completely misses the mark in many ways.

Some Lannister stans are screaming crying throwing up that Rhaegar left a literal cHiLD with all tHiS rEsPoNSIbILIty he doesn’t give a FUCK about anyone how dare he what kind of tHOUGhT PrOCesS is that !!!! Some Targ stans say that Rhaegar gave specific orders to Jaime to protect his father, wife, kids and city against multiple and opposite threats and thus honor his vows, and Jaime failing to do that means he is basically a traitor and a coward. And incompetent.

None of this is correct, because this isn’t what Rhaegar asked him to do, at all. Rhaegar did not know, could not know, could not possibly conceive or imagine or suspect that a sack was about to happen at the orders of Tywin no less and that his family was in immediate danger in.the.very.capital. Nobody.knew. That is why this sack is so horrifying. Also he may have been well aware that his father was insane but not to the point that he could expect him to literally want to blow up his own city. That is a whole other level of insanity he very legitimately didn’t expect. Thirdly, Rhaegar had no power to take Jaime or his family away at this point (« I dare not » is not an epheumism. He literally dares not. We’re talking about Aerys here).

All he asked Jaime to do is wait for Rhaegar to come back and in the meantime try to keep his father at bay. That.is.literally.it. Rhaegar said : « Give me some time, I’ll come back and fix this » And Jaime did wait and he did hope that Rhaegar would come back, but Rhaegar didn’t come back not because he decided to go on vacation with his new chick but because he got killed. Nothing went according to plan, and Jaime had to take matters in his own hands.

So :

Rhaegar did not leave """""all that responsibility""""" to a """"literal child"""".  He left his father the king with the one member of the Kingsguard the king specifically wanted with him, and he told that member of the Kingsguard to literally, wait it out and be a KG. Apart from the fact that Rhaegar couldn’t take Jaime away because Aerys wanted him there, Jaime was not a random child, he was a member of the KG. Him staying with Aerys is technically what he was supposed to do as a member of the KG anyway, there is nothing abnormal or particularly stupid or outrageous or naive in this """"thought process"""", despite Jaime’s age. That order seemed both inevitable (it was Aerys’ order) and reasonable (Jaime was a KINGSguard after all), at the time.

Likewise, Rhaegar did not reasonably expect Jaime to go all Superman on both his father and Tywin’s men and save like the entire population of KL including his own family, all by himself. Again, what he actually told Jaime to do was literally wait for him to come back and try to keep his father at bay. He hoped Jaime’s presence would satiate his father until he comes back. That’s all. He did not know that Aerys would want to blow up KL, he did not know what Jaime would be forced to do and he did not expect the sack and the fact that his family would be murdered in the capital. He didn’t entrust Jaime with all these things simply because he wasn’t expecting these things. All these things were definitely not part of """the job""" Rhaegar gave him. Rhaegar’s GHOST saying to Jaime in his dreams "I left my wife and children in your hands" is manifesting Jaime’s guilt for not being able to save the family. It is a ghost in Jaime’s dream. This doesn’t mean that Rhaegar literally expected Jaime to prevent his father from blowing up the city and simultaneously protect his family from an entirely different threat that wasn’t even remotely a possibility then. Jaime failing to do all of the above by himself doesn’t make him a traitor, an incompetent loser or a coward.

The distortion of their actual convo led the entire fandom to engage in a strawman argument ad nauseam. Lannister stans are attacking Rhaegar for leaving "all this responsibility" to Jaime and Targ stans are attacking Jaime for failing to honor this responsibility, while "all this responsibility" was never part of their actual conversation to begin with because none them had the slightest idea of what was about to happen in the first place.

It is such a pity because this last convo between these two men is so tragic and haunting and beautiful, Jaime (grrm) describes his last visual memory of Rhaegar in an unusually poetic manner, and the fact that deep down he is still waiting and hoping for Rhaegar to come back makes me insane. « The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate ». « So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom ». « It is not Aerys I rue, it is Robert ». « I almost mistook you for Aegon the Conqueror ». « How much can a crown be worth when a crow can feast on a king? ». And instead of focusing on that and the symbolism of it all and that fact that it’s literally foreshadowing Dany’s or Jon’s « return » and their meeting with Jaime (Rhaegar will come back in the end in some form or another, all hope is not lost) we’re reiterating bad takes about a supposed conflict between them ad infinitum. It is boring, reductive and uninspired.

Be serious, read the text and stop spreading misinformation about either side. This is not a football game. We all love a fandom fight occasionally but it is important to actually engage with the themes of the story from time to time.

I just finished Tulin's storyline and excuse me while I bawl about this game further cementing the fact that Revali made himself a Champion. He was no descendant of an ancient Sage nor did he have a loving family to train him (that we know of). There was no power destined to be his: he crafted his own version of wind control without any support or spiritual guidance and excelled at it and then he and the other Champions went into battle without the special helms, without a sacred tear/charm to further enhance his abilities, without the certainty of two rulers (and a sage from the future) with god-like powers that could back them up if things went awry. Because of this, the original Sages survived where the Champions did not.

Revali was doomed from the start and if he'd known he would've still honed his craft and piloted Medoh with his beak held high and I am in shambles about it

Hey. Hey, do you ever think about the fact that if Legolas hadn't been stricken by the Sea-Longing, if he had still had "peace under beech [and] elm," he would almost surely not have gone to the Undying Lands until many, many years later, long after all his mortal friends were dead?

Do you ever think about the fact that if he hadn't heard those gulls, if he hadn't spent the whole length of Aragorn's reign plagued by the ache in his heart ever pulling him West, he wouldn't have gone until long after Gimli was dead, too? And Gimli would have surely never even thought about asking to go with him, if Legolas's heart wasn't being ever drawn away by that call; it simply wouldn't have been a thing that would have ever occurred to either of them, without the weight of the Sea-Longing hanging over them both for so many years.

Do you ever think about how the only reason they get to have their forever-ever-after happy ending on the other side of the Sundering Sea is because of the wound that the cry of those gulls lanced through his heart?

Because I do.

Reblog if you're a threat to humanity.

hi im ranting (positively! this game kills me but in a good way) about breath of the wild again

i know it's controversial but i love the way the story of the game is told. because you start the game in the middle, perhaps near the end, of the story. the game is entirely through link's perspective and he wakes up knowing and remembering nothing. in turn, the player starts off knowing nothing. the past is revealed as the story goes along, and the player learns about the past and about the land as link does. there are little tidbits about hyrule and about the calamity scattered across the land. an old woman in hateno village tells you of an age of desolation that she grew up in. the travellers you see on the road are younger people because they're described by older characters as more bold, whereas the older characters grew up being told to never leave the village, it's too dangerous outside (compare this even to tears of the kingdom, where travellers are more common because the land has been safer. even older characters have left their home to travel elsewhere (not including the lurelin villagers)). battlefields are still strewn with old rusty weapons and deactivated guardians that no one but monsters will go near. myths and legends about the princess and hero have been passed down, to the point where their legitmacy is questioned and everyone has a different opinion on them.

it's environmental storytelling. it's things like seeing drawings and a bow in zelda's study and seeing a child reading a storybook with a hero that wears a blue tunic similar to link's. it's the stories that the villagers share about old myths that turn out to be true. it's the ruins scattered across the land, long since overtaken by monster camps but still unmistakably being houses that people once lived in. it's the utter lack of civilization anywhere remotely near the castle and the feeling of dread in the ruins of the town that surrounds it. it's a kingdom entrenched in its past, with no ability to move away from it until the calamity is finally defeated.

Honestly, every single time the whole 'poppy playtime is a bendy rip-off' stuff ever shows up I find it all extremely unconvincing and silly.

For one thing, rip-off usually is meant to imply that it's a cheap lazy copy of a better more polished thing, and uh. Sorry but even from chapter 1? Poppy Playtime is a better game than Bendy, it has a simple but understandable story, the game manages to be thrilling, creepy, and very intense at times... I mean that Huggy chase in the vents ALONE puts it way above Batim for me.

I mean BATDR had the most slow stupid chase I've ever seen [and every other encounter with the ink demon is text telling u he's there and then a timer goes down and u get jumpscared] and batim's chases were either silly or just not nearly as theatric or terrifying as that.

When making the vent sequence I mean not only is it absolutely horrifying to realize how fast Huggy is in there but also it's so theatric and cool? The fact that you round a corner after thinking you escaped only to see a terrifying animation of that thing crawling toward you is awesome! I wish Bendy had stuff like that!

And all the stuff it shares with Bendy are generic things Bendy ripped from other horror games/media anyways. I'm not saying Poppy Playtime isn't inspired by Bendy I for sure think it is but Bendy is such a generic story that somehow fails to do tropes 100 other horror games have done any comparison only makes Poppy Playtime look better.

"It has employees being sacrificed for their company" That is not a concept Bendy invented, literally look at any of the sci-fi horror series Bendy is very inspired by. This is literally a twist in the original Alien.

"It has a scary woman forcing you to do tasks for her" Once again, not a concept Bendy invented, a scary mysterious person forcing you to do fetch-quests is a concept found in tons of horror media. And at least Poppy Playtime gave you a chase with her and let you defeat her, look at poor malice. She's barely on screen for more than 10 minutes before she gets stabbed.

"It has a cult worshipping the monster" This is something tons of horror games and media have done too. I mean In The Tall Grass has a guy who worships a giant magical rock in the middle of a grass maze, Bioshock [which Bendy has only been taking more and more direct inspiration from while failing to grab any of the compelling parts] also had a lot of themes of religion and cult-ish behavior, almost every horror media franchise has at one point done a cult thing.

Bendy couldn't even come up with a reason Sammy worships the ink demon, the best motivation we've ever gotten is just that 'he's crazzyyyy the ink made him insaneeee'. Who is the cheap rip-off here?

At least Poppy Playtime gave their cultist a motive for worshipping the monster + a proper boss fight that feels intense and looks awesome! Bendy didn't even let you kill Malice [she got stabbed in front of you and then just collapsed on the floor how thrilling] meanwhile you get to kill three of the villains in Poppy Playtime and the gameplay and action in those scenes have only gotten better as the game went on.

I mean Sammy walks into a room and goes "AAA SCARY I'M BEING MURDERED" then later shows up and for NO REASON sees a normal human man and assumes it's the ink demon before once again someone else kills him for you. In Poppy Playtime you defeat Catnap as he floods the world with this horrible nightmare-inducing gas that intensifies the color palette and his design. Fight off versions of him that are illusions that you need your flare gun for, then watch in a wonderful animation as he mistakes the monster for his savior before getting killed by it, in a brutal way I might add, which game are we accusing of being cheap, lazy garbage again?

I just find this argument to be people who Really Really need to find a reason to hate Poppy Playtime which I think is silly. The devs being weird, shady people is already enough reason to dislike the game, you don't need to invent reasons why secretly every part of the game is malicious or bad. But esp when I see Bendy fans saying they don't support Poppy Playtime or dislike it bc of its devs or even saying its cringe ummmm.

I have bad news about the fact Bendy's devs are worse and it took not one, but TWO over an hour long videos to cover it all. Plus the Bendy games are just the worse games in every aspect, if I could sell my batim copy for a copy of Poppy Playtime I wouldn't hesitate at all.

Saying this as a bendy fan, we have no right to be super judgy towards Poppy Playtime. If Poppy Playtime is embarrassing cringe, Bendy is too and is way more embarrassing of an interest. We shouldn't spread misinformation just because we all want to hate Poppy Playtime, you can dislike Poppy Playtime without making up a bunch of nonsense to justify it.

Honestly seeing people just blatantly be unfairly mean to Poppy Playtime only makes its critics look worse and makes it hard to take any backlash to the games seriously. Because surprise surprise if you spread misinformation to make a point people will quickly stop listening to Anything you have to say bc they won't trust you're telling the truth anymore.

i know a few of you are waiting for the next chapter of desecration and i promise it’s still in the works but i’ve just been so exhausted and overwhelmed and overworked lately :/

i also have a wedding i’m attending friday — sunday so i desperately want to get ch7 posted before then because ch8 will certainly be posted late too

thank you for being patient with the skewed scheduling <333

I like the atmosphere and tension in Psycho so much. Could never fully enjoy it since the core horror here is trans people.

Oh absolutely, it broke a ton of ground for cinema. The sets, the shots, the build-up, the bait-and-switch protagonist. All extremely cool! But also...yeah. Kind of set the tone for a Certain Trope.

Need an edgy*** serial killer? Easy! Just have this GUY be LADY and do murders about it!!

Psycho: 'Man dresses like his mom and kills people! Scary!'

The Silence of the Lambs: 'Man kills women so he can BE a woman! Scary!'

Sleepaway Camp: 'Boy forced to pretend he was his SISTER! Girl life! Killed about it! Scary!'

Insidious 2: 'Serial killer did serial killing because his mom made him dress like girl and have girl name! Scary!'

Behind Her Eyes and Suitable Flesh: 'Man possess lady body? On purpose?? FOR EVIL AND MURDERS AND STEAL UR MAN??? Scary!'

tbh i think oda meant to reach wano and make it all about zoro the same way he reached whole cake and made it all about sanji. I mean like, at the very beginning, back when he made him japanese and then said "there is a country that's one piece's japan, btw, and that's not where zoro's dojo is" - I think that's why his original backstory is so simple, it was supposed to follow the same trend as luffy's and sanji's and turn into this whole grand thing once they reached wano and discovered that he's the only direct descendant of one of the last daimyo and also of the greatest samurai ever lived, those are great bases to start some form of conflict on? tbh? and also directly mirror our finding out that sanji is some form of prince himself, but then instead we got to wano and the only thing we found out on page was that kuina's relatives were from there, and everything about zoro is revealed in a sbs family tree with oda going "I don't think I'll ever say this in the manga at this point so here". Imho what happened was that oda wanted to form some kind of conflict between zoro's family rights/what was expected of him in wano and his belonging in the crew, but then the way he evolved as a character through the story made it so that his only plausible reaction to finding out all that would be some form or another of I don't care and you don't really write an arc on that, do you. zoro's so simple minded and goal oriented that it's impossible for him to have any serious drama that's not about luffy, at this point. I do prefer it like this, though? everyone in the fandom likes to draw comparisons and parallels between zoro and sanji one way or another but my favourite one is the narrative foils one and zoro's lack of a proper backstory and complications to his being part of the crew make for a great black-and-white situation with them. something like sanji's story being all about running from his past and zoro's being all about running towards his future, I love that so I'm glad this is the zoro we got in the end

still, would be cool to know what oda had planned for him exactly

more asoiaf comparisons, parallels & antiparallels to the first dance of the dragons vs the second & final dance of the dragons (& possibly the sixth blackfyre rebellion): the blacks being daenerys i targaryen's supporters, the golds being aegon vi targaryen's supporters, tommen baratheon being a close equivalent to gaemon palehair & his mother essie & sylvenna sand which may be interpreted as a parallel with queen cersei lannister & taena merryweather of myr, trystane truefyre being a close equivalent to aegon/young griff & perkin being jon connington & the shepherd being the new high septon the high sparrow, dalton greyjoy being euron i greyjoy's ancestor & the latter surpassing him, alyn waters later alyn velaryon resembling aurane waters later aurane velaryon & finishing what their ancestors started. history repeats itself.

Very funny to think at the same time the supernaturals of New Orleans are bickering about who should be in charge and how to get more power, the Mystic Falls lot are fighting against the literal unravelling of all magic in the world

i’ve never been one for apocalyptic stories/aus but the idea of like. a group of immortals living in the wastelands of what once was humanity, piecing together the stories and history of the lands they traverse to the best of their abilities, without the dread and doom of most apocalyptic settings…. it intrigues me

My favorite part about Salmon Run, you know--beyond just the camaraderie and gameplay, is seeing the beautiful and wonderful Splatoon 3 physics engine make Splat Bombs bounce out of Flyfish in ways I could never imagine

Alright, I’m back to making crackpot ASOIAF theories and today’s theory is that Jon Snow will be the subject of the ADOS epilogue; he may not be the actual POV, but will be the main subject (if that makes sense). My reasoning for this comes for a very important (but very vague) hint about ADOS.

Daniel Abraham, he guy who did the comics, stated that there is a throwaway line in AGOT that would be important to the last scene in ADOS.

There are things about this story that only [GRRM] knows, and they aren't all obvious. There was one scene I had to rework because there's a particular line of dialog -- and you wouldn't know it to look at -- that's important in the last scene of "A Dream of Spring."

He reaffirmed this again in 2019:

I know some details about A Dream of Spring because of the conversations we had about A Game of Thrones. I mean, there were things he was setting up in early chapters in A Game of Thrones that are references to the end of the series.

So we wonder, what is this important line of dialogue that will be referenced in the last scenes of ADOS? Well, I have a candidate:

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.”

“Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just the hint of a smile.

- Prologue, AGOT

This is the very first line in the series. One could say that it’s the series opener. It features a ranging up North headed by Waymar Royce - a hot headed 18 yr old who’s as inexperienced as they come. This prologue mainly introduces the Night’s Watch and the Others (the series main antagonists). There’s also mentions of the wildlings, who have been warring with the Night’s Watch for quite some time.

So why is this important? Well, fans have made the connection between Waymar Royce and Jon Snow. In fact, there’s a very convincing theory out there that Waymar (in this prologue) is meant to be a Jon Snow stand in. And part of the theory is that the Others who come upon Waymar and the ranging party were looking for the Last Hero….they were looking for Jon Snow, whether they knew it or not. Like, how Waymar is described in the prologue is how Jon is described in the next chapter (Bran I). Their personalities are even a little similar in that book. Both are young, rash, hot headed and inexperienced. The difference is Waymar’s story is ending and Jon’s is just beginning. Jon won’t stay that way because he develops as a character throughout.

So think about it. Wouldn’t it be quite fitting for the series closer to mirror the series opener and be about a ranging up north? But this time, it’s not going to feature a fight with the Others since they’ll already be defeated - with Jon Snow being one of the leading figures. There won’t be talk of fighting with the wildlings because the Freefolk have already been brought over - by Jon himself. It won’t feature death (of the ranging party or the emergence of the Others) but will be about life - the new ranging party will be going out to look for signs of spring (life) and not death.

Where the series opener (prologue) is about death and war, the series closer (epilogue) will be about life and peace. Where we have a hot headed 18 yr old Waymar Royce to lead this small party, we’ll have 18 yr old Jon who’s wiser, more capable, and more experienced; Jon is forever 18 since you know, he died (probably) and is essentially stuck in time and what not). Unlike Waymar, Jon will be an agent of reconciliation, spring after winter, life after death; all these things define his arc and leadership.

Plus, Jon’s arc will come full circle. He’ll be a ranger, steward, and builder all at once; ranging to find new land for people to occupy after the WfTD, a builder of new nations, and a steward to rule over the land he has found/conquered. He’ll be the lord commander of a new Watch (but this one looks for signs of spring/life not winter/death). He’ll be the king too (a new version of the king beyond the wall but not a 1:1 of what Mance was since there probably won’t be a wall anymore, so he’ll just be the king). He’ll still be watching and seeing, important motifs in his arc throughout the series.

And it’s not too far fetched to say that Jon may go on a ranging up north sometime in the future. In fact, there might be sufficient foreshadowing.

Far off to the north, a wolf began to howl. Another voice picked up the call, then another. Ghost cocked his head and listened. “If he doesn’t come back,” Jon Snow promised, “Ghost and I will go find him.” He put his hand on the direwolf’s head.

“I believe you,” Tyrion said, but what he thought was, And who will go find you? He shivered.

- Tyrion III, AGOT

So yeah….

The TL;DR of this is that the series epilogue will feature a ranging to go find signs of spring (life) headed by Jon Snow, the Last Hero and the true king; not a stand in like the prologue, but the real deal. And maybe he’ll go further and further up north until he reaches the Land of Always Winter/the Heart of Winter where he will take guardianship/rulership of it. Honestly, I guess I’m just kind of obsessed with the idea of the boy named Snow going north to become the true King of Winter when all is said and done.

Hi mootie, pls share one hc you don’t share often but you love it regardless c:

The headcanons I love the most happen to be the most batshit insane ones... this is especially so for the Pjmoon hcs

Anyway one of those hcs is that the msgical girls used to be LobCorp agents who died and got tossed into the Well to make new abnormalities (and, in Library of Ruina, eventually take on a strange sort of familiar-summoner relationship... similar to a kwami-wielder relationship from Miraculous now that I think about it)

i think “the palestine/israel conflict is complicated” gets utilized in a lot of violently dismissive ways that make ppl understandably wary. i still think it’s worth acknowledging as complicated, not in the sense of both side-ism (bro we have been watching the systematic genocide of civilians for 3 months but also 70+ years)—because israel’s actions, policies, and resources all originate from within the playbooks of the fuckin white supremacist exploitationist Imperial Core, bc the state of israel and zionists produce powerful propaganda and strategically tap into other discourses (like associating zionism -> the state of israel -> The Jewish People and therefore critique of israel is anti-semitism). did you know there are evangelical christians in the US who truly believe peaceful coexistence between jewish and palestinian communities in this region is a sign of the actual biblical rapture? that endless warfare is because groups of human beings are diametrically, existentially opposed to each other’s well-being?????? and the reality is just land grabs, and murder, and blood on israeli hands just like there is blood on american hands for a nation state shaped on violent colonialism. like the complicated part is this is a hyper visible atrocity and it’s not an isolated issue, not in time or space or anything :(