Fires of the Faithful by Naomi Kritzer

Today's sapphic book of the day is Fires of the Faithful by Naomi Kritzer!

Summary: "For sixteen-year-old Eliana, life at her conservatory of music is a pleasant interlude between youth and adulthood, with the hope of a prestigious Imperial Court appointment at the end. But beyond the conservatory walls is a land blighted by war and inexplicable famine and dominated by a fearsome religious order known as the Fedeli, who are systematically stamping out all traces of the land's old beliefs. Soon not even the conservatory walls can hold out reality. When one classmate is brutally killed by the Fedeli for clinging to the forbidden ways and another is kidnapped by the Circle--the mysterious and powerful mages who rule the land--Eliana can take no more. Especially not after she learns one of the Circle's most closely guarded secrets.

Now, determined to escape the Circle's power, burning with rage at the Fedeli, and drawn herself to the beliefs of the Old Way, Eliana embarks on a treacherous journey to spread the truth. And what she finds shakes her to her core: a past destroyed, a future in doubt, and a desperate people in need of a leader--no matter how young or inexperienced..."

was on break and did a bunch of AC6 renders for myself. this is truly self care

had a horrible realisation the other night

People saw Visenya and maegor fight against the faith of the seven and assumed that the faith doesn’t exists within house Targaryen and that alicent having the faith as her religion is fucking horrible.

Alysanne literally sent her daughter Maegelle to become a septa as a thanks to the mother for giving her many children. her son Vaegon became an archmaester and studied at old town.

Aegon the conqueror was literally crowned by the high septon and so was Jahaerys I. Princess Daella didn’t marry Royce blackwood because he believed in the old gods instead of the faith of the seven.

So the faith of the seven isn’t just something alicent brought into the house Targaryen to go against them. By her time, most of them were already part of the faith and believed in it.

Also having her faith is not a bad thing! Just because she decorated the castle with the faith symbols doesn’t mean she was changing everything! The Targaryens symbols were still everywhere, which are dragons.

The dragons are the symbol of house Targaryen and the faith of the seven is everything to house Hightower. And Alicent is the current queen and a Hightower who has Targaryen children. So it’s not wrong to combine both symbols of the families.

I love drawing niche AU things that cater to ME — I’m just bringing y’all along for the ride 👌🏼✨

( scene is from Wonder Woman: Bloodlines )

Been thinking about the X-Files recently. A show I have a hazy, but fond memory of.

The Hound had hacked handfuls of her hair off only two days past. He was an even worse barber than Yoren, and he’d left her half bald on one side. Robb won’t know me either, I bet. Or even Mother. She had been a little girl the last time she saw them, the day Lord Eddard Stark left Winterfell.

ASOS, Arya X

shout out to the asoiaf wiki for giving the insane statistic that jaime has the second-highest named character kill count in the series. number one is maegor the cruel which is more fucked up because jaime's still alive and will almost certainly kill again he could overtake

Alicent finds solace in religion from an early age because:

she had a difficult childhood/upbringing

the death of her mother was traumatizing (and religion was probably important for her mother too)

she felt like a foreigner at King's Landing and this was a way for her to embrace her heritage and reconnect with her roots

she felt pride in the faith of the seven hailing from Oldtown the same way the Targaryens feel pride in the "blood of the dragon"

she yearned to be heard/understood by a higher power

she was looking for help and guidance in her life to deal with anxiety and her domineering father

she is haunted by the fatal flaw of self-loathing, as is evident from her skin-picking disorder

she uses religion as a way to escape reality: "you desire not to be free, but to make a window in the wall of your prison"

What a complex and compelling character for real <3

Open Faith

This effing AC's cranial unit, pilot's name and voice.... but mostly THIS FACE

Targ stans who go on and on about "The blood of Old Valyria" and "filthy Andal blood and traditions" always manage to baffle me when they start talking about religion in Westeros.

Like, High Valyrians with their Valyrian Gods partaked in human sacrifice, human experiments, unimaginable types of torture, slavery, eugenics, all types of familial incest and were basically fantasy nazis in their society built upon the enslavement and forced hard labor of the races they saw as "lesser" but clearly, the evilest religion is the one where people pray to the humanoid aspects of their God and read their bejeweled little book.

hubert learns(?) faith

She knelt before the Mother. “My lady, look down on this battle with a mother’s eyes. They are all sons, every one. Spare them if you can, and spare my own sons as well. Watch over Robb and Bran and Rickon. Would that I were with them.”

Catelyn IV, ACOK

Starcatcher Gregor and Moloch -- there might be rambles in the tags

I LOVE NIMONA SO GD MUCH. WTF ANIMATION GOLDEN ERA. 😭😭😭🙏🏼

It was the perfect movie. It was so good. “I don’t know what’s scarier. The fact that everyone in this kingdom wants to run a sword through my heart or that sometimes I just wanna let ‘em” MADE ME FUCKING SOB ACTUAL TEARS THE HORRIFIC REALIZATION WHEN SHE WAS NEAR TO THE STATUE BECAUSE I THOUGHT I THOUGHT SHE WANTED TO DESTROY THE SYMBOL OF OPPRESSION AND BIGOTRY But of course. Of course, it was worse than that. It was a gigantic painful trek to an end to that would be less painful than what she’d been thru NIMONA U GAVE ME SECONDHAND TRAUMA IM FUCKING CRYING GDI. And it took. And all it took was one single person to see and accept her for who she is and suddenly she was phoenix rising ready to take on the world and rewrite the narrative. Just the one person to make her believe and be believed in return. WTF THIS MOVIE IM GOING TO WATCH IT AGAIN WHEN IM NOT GONNA BE HANGOVER FROM FUCKING EMOTIONS OHGOD