Weirdly curious why HOTD/GOT fandoms* seem to think that if you like Rhaenyra, you automatically like Daenerys, and if you like Sansa, you automatically like Alicent. I love Sansa. I think she had the best character arc out of everyone on GOT & truly deserves recognition for growing and learning as a character. I despise Alicent. She spends 10 years tormenting her former bestie and refuses to see her father is a self-serving jerk who manipulated her against Rhaenyra, causing Alicent to become an equally shitty parent, manipulating her own children against their sister. If it’s not obvious, I’m a huge fan of Rhaenyra. Despite her (considerable) flaws, she’s a loving mother and daughter & would make an amazing Queen (since she’s been trained for it since childhood). I used to like Daenerys, but her later behavior (even before S8) completely changed my perception of her. After awhile, she began to believe she is owed obedience and loyalty just because of her family. While this argument could also be made against Rhaenyra, she never believed she was owed the Iron Throne and honestly seemed happiest at Dragonstone w Daemon and their delightful, blended family. She accepts the crown because it’s what her father wanted, but you never truly see Rhaenyra expecting blind obedience from people, while Daenerys is offended when she isn’t given automatic loyalty. Anyway, this was my very brief rant concerning this weird fandom situation & the strange assumption that those who like Sansa must like Alicent & those who like Rhaenyra must like Daenerys. Despite some interesting parallels, they’re four VERY different women, who each add something interesting to their respective shows.

EDIT: Maybe this is just my utter frustration at trying to have civilized conversations online, but if you’re a dick in the comments, I will block you. This is a rule I have across all social media platforms. It is not worth the energy or anxiety to argue with people when they’re clearly just looking for a fight. Since I’ve only recently started using Tumblr (despite having an account for a decade; thanks, porn bots, for forcing me to make a real page), I had hoped it would be different than Twitter or Instagram, where people can be wildly toxic. Guess I was wrong.

*Strictly TV fandoms, as I haven’t read any GRRM & refuse to wade into those hurricane-tossed waters

I’m sure you’ve been asked this a million times, but is there a specific meta (or metas) that you feel sufficiently explain the pol!jon theory?

Kit's face.

Obviously, that's kinda a joke, and I'm gonna link more stuff for you, but to me, that is one of the most compelling arguments for it. Not merely because he failed to communicate love in his scenes with Dany (although that's true), but because, there are a hundred other emotions he was conveying in their scenes that we have to ignore or deny if we're to accept that he was enraptured with Dany, trusted her, or thought she would be a good queen. If you look at that gifset, in many pivotal scenes, he's torn, worried, disappointed, afraid. All sorts of emotions that simply don't fit in with the "fool in love" storyline.

Another of my favorite posts on the subject is this gifset in which D&D create parallels between Dany and LF, JonDany/LF&Sansa, some, or all of this, clearly intentional. Or this parallel from s7 that uses repetition of a line to indicate, Jon and Dany are not friends, they are in fact, opposing forces. Or this scene in s8 showing us that Grey Worm doesn't trust Jon, which again, is saying, Jon isn't as loyal as he's supposed to be. I mean, I knew that, but again, it doesn't fit with the story. Those speak to D&D’s plans, things completely beyond the actor’s control.

I'm linking a number of gifsets right off the bat because what they chose to put on our screens is more compelling than the words I use to try to argue my opinion. For example, this gifset of Sansa being the power in the North, look at who Jon (nonverbally) recognizes as the person he should show deference to. It's a weird detail that we know they orchestrated to show a specific thing, but again, it doesn't fit with Jon being a Dany convert or believer in her status as their true queen.

ANYWAY, far as I can tell, everyone had a different version of the theory, some of which, I didn’t like much, some of which, I still think are the best explanation of what I watched, but this gifset is basically the summary of it. Jon heard Sansa, he purposed to be smarter, and was unwavering in his loyalty to the North. Simple as that. This, I think, is the meta that best explains the political Jon storyline in s7. There were many wonderful metas on this, sadly, many of my favs are no longer accessible because bloggers deactivated (my pol!jon tag has some posts in it still), but basically, I think it was an interpretation that showed more respect for Jon and Dany.

Dany sliding into paranoia and isolation is something they tried to speed run in s8, and it was presented as a kind of "madness," but if Dany was right, that Jon wasn't loyal to her, that she didn't have love, it's a more sympathetic story for her, as well as a darker but more coherent story for Jon. It reminds me of Aerys and how he was "paranoid" in the end, but we do have lines that sound as if, yeah, people were wanting to dethrone him (potentially even his son), which in no way justifies the horror he wanted to unleash, but does create a more nuanced scenario, something Martin is very fond of.

Dany realizing the person she trusted can't be trusted could have been (I thought was) a critical moment in her choosing fear as her path to power in 8x05, and I didn't think it served her well to pretend that was all in her head when it clearly wasn't. I wrote this post finale to explain my thoughts on show Jon, what happened to him, the parallels I saw, the meaning behind it.

the targaryens were built to burn themselves down and thats why i truly believe if Dany does take the throne in the end of asoiaf it should be without her dragons. the targaryens are conquerors. their house words are 'fire and blood'. those are not the words of a peaceful ruling house.

'we light the way' 'winter is coming' 'unbowed. unbent. unbroken.' these house words speak to longevity, not war. its why i'll never be a fan of the idea of a targaryen on the throne, no matter who it is. the most intelligent thing viserys probably ever said was 'dragons are a power men should never have trifled with'. you cannot rule peacefully if you're constantly threatening your people with fire from above.

I've realised something sad about Game of Thrones...

“All Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.”

I was talking to a friend a while back who had only watched the show about Daenerys and he said it was super strange that I was calling her Dany instead of Daenerys or Khaleesi and I didn't understand what he meant but after a while, I realised that the show watchers only hear "Dany" when Viserys refers to her as that in S1 while in all the books she refers to herself as that. And in the fandom, a large portion of book readers refer to her as Dany over Daenerys while hardly any show watcher uses that nickname when talking about her.

And that struck me because so much of what I connect with the character is related to these inner monologues - Dany's thoughts

In the show, they show us Daenerys as a Queen, a ruler, A Khaleesi, a conqueror, the Mother of Dragons, and she is all these things, but she is also Dany and Dany doesn't want the Iron Throne, or at least she doesn't want it the way Viserys wants it.

Dany's dream is the house with the red door and show watchers never got to see that, even though it is such a big theme that followers her right from the beginning of A Game of Thrones to the end of A Dance with Dragons.

It defines her character as much as any dragon and any throne and the fact that that was lacking from the show really saddens me because when I look at the character, I see Dany first and when the show ended in the final season the way it did, I mourned Dany, and not Daenerys.

Independent of whether the books will be all too similar to the show, it is clear that she will die trying to fulfill her idea of her destiny and a dream that wasn't truly her own, because all Dany ever wanted was the House with the Red Door and the Lemon Tree outside her window.

Cersei or catelyn

this one is super easy:

in the books? CATELYN.

in the show? CERSEI.

they're literally the best each version had to offer, bar none :P

make me choose between any two things

hmm tempted to overanalyze this latest season of you but also at work

Omg, Did you see the Woman King trailer yet? Looks so good!!!

I just did and uh, I got…thoughts

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

FUCK

god i love my friends. shout out to people who love their friends. this is a post for friend lovers

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?

Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.

All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)

But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.

But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.

I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?

It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.

Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.

Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)

*Married life playing in the background

This idea was probably funnier in my head

bust... or maybe i'll take it all!

so i read there are no plans for a new season of mandalorian. i know there's gonna be a movie but they haven't even started filming yet, a lot of people weren't happy with season 3 but i miss it seriously the whole environment of mando universe i need it again!! also the movie needs to have mando take off his mask more, we need pedro in that role disney you got the money!!