Not today Justin
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Andulka
Keni
Cosimo Galluzzi
Claire Keane
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
YOU ARE THE REASON
Today's Document
Xuebing Du
#extradirty
occasionally subtle
The Stonewall Inn
RMH
trying on a metaphor
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
d e v o n
NASA
Sweet Seals For You, Always
hello vonnie
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Pakistan
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Italy
seen from Russia
seen from Singapore
seen from India
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Thailand
seen from Colombia
seen from Morocco
seen from Brazil
@asherforrester
LAMB , 22 ♡ any pronouns ♡ ironraths .
welcome to my sideblog for telltale's game of thrones & grrm’s a song of ice and fire! i’m a decade ( & more ) late but i’m here nonetheless. on this blog you’ll find rambles, musings, art, writing, and whatever else tickles my fancy! feel free to send in asks <3 my ass loves to chat!
currently reading : asos, fire & blood, and a knight of the seven kingdoms !!
fic links under readmore :
In the scene where Beskha locates and assaults Dezhor zo Raza, Telltale had the pair's opening dialogue in Meereenese Valyrian switch very quickly to the Common Tongue. I know that the Doylist reason for this was giving the VAs an easier time, especially for an extremely raw scene where the emotional punch of each line delivery is key for the scene's effectiveness. But I do really appreciate that, via blocking and structure, the writers/animators offered a Watsonian reason for the characters doing this as well. One that stood out to me on reflection.
Beskha meets Dezhor's desperate offers of money by tossing him out into the street, where Asher and Croft have caught up. Dezhor sees them, and they see him. Most Meereenese would probably infer right away that they were men in Daenerys's service (visibly Andal, visibly warriors) assisting her siege through an evident stealth manoeuvre. But breaking into random Masters' properties clearly isn't in the script, and so Dezhor switches to Common Tongue - "Why are you doing this?!" - for their benefit, even while addressing Beskha. Probably an attempt to encourage the two to restrain their straying comrade. And Beskha immediately switches to Common Tongue when he does, as if in a countermove; them hearing everything won't make her relent one bit.
After a lot of self-loathing and terse silence about her past, I imagine it was pretty cathartic for Beskha to look Dezhor in the eye and verbalise all her fraught hatred, in a language that her family of one can understand. If her and Asher's relationship has been bad - e.g. the player saving Malcolm in the cave over Beskha - it comes off as a sort of semi-conscious, self-sabotaging push against Asher's limits, forcing him to look at her and all the bile and sewage she's been carrying and no, you will not go on pretending this part of me isn't here. The part that dreams of tying a man up to be mauled by dogs, the part that doesn't fucking care about Daenerys's mission, the part that really, really, really hurts every day. If their relationship has been good, owing to player choices thus far, it comes off as Beskha taking a kind of solace in Asher's presence. A way to tell her abuser: I'm not all alone anymore.
shout out to the person who had this ranking, btw. absolutely obsessed with the dedication to some of ttgot’s finest!
n: is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?
many. all of my wips are fair game. in fact, i dream of a metaphorical writing fairy coming into my life and magically finishing all my scrivener projects. wouldn’t that be something? i’m just abhorrent at finishing things … usually, when a fic nears completion, my mind completely taps out of the wip and wishes to move onward towards another idea. and then said fic rots away until i return to brave it again, only to be filled with fears of not being able to match my own style, or to match the skill, or something equally exhausting. i do not say this to pity myself, but rather because i find it interesting and to also further illustrate how much i’d love to just. have someone else finish my wips.
as for someone writing something i’d want … here’s a list of things i haven’t seen yet:
- rodrik’s route after the events of season one. thankfully, i have little desire to see this for asher’s route, given from the ice dragon’s shadow on ao3. amazing, stellar work that i’d love to see replicated in a rodrik route of some kind!
- after belatedly realizing the similarities between duncan and littlefinger ( although, naturally, duncan is far better morally than petyr ), i’ve been itching for a sansa/littlefinger-esque fic where duncan happens upon mira post morgryn and has them totting around westeros as other people. i’m fond of mira being disguised as his daughter, since that’s how duncan views her, but i’d also find it hilarious if people mistook mira as his super young, far-too-pretty-for-him wife, and duncan couldn’t correct them but would beg for mira’s forgiveness behind closed doors … stuff like that. i think out of all of sansa’s plots that i could see mira emulating, it’d be sansa’s alayne arc. simply because she’d be wanted post-canon, by either morgryn ( if she fails to deal with him ) or the whitehills. bonus points for an exploration of a dynamic very underutilized in canon as well!
- asher still has an unwise affair at seventeen but it’s not with gwyn. i’ve always been curious about what would change if asher’s advances went somewhere else … my top candidates for this are usually karl ( blank slate, still whitehill, and his and asher’s love story is doomed by karl’s death ) or gared ( knew all the forresters, raised with them, plus the duncan crashout if revealed ). i’d want it to be someone still non-conventional, purely because everything would fall flat if asher just … messed around with an unbetrothed maiden of house branch, or something. it’d also be fun to see how asher would be influenced by the other person during this very sensitive time.
- any fanfics set in pre-canon. i would love more pre-canon fanfics in ironrath, highpoint, essos, rillwater crossing, or highgarden depending on pov. i would literally devour anything re: this, even if it’s ‘boring’ stuff like gwyn doing her chores. i just love seeing the building blocks for later canon.
- future things … i love season two stuff from writers, but i’m more interested in the aftermath of everything. i know this is particularly hard to do given how asoiaf remains unfinished, although i don’t mind writers fudging details or leaving things ambiguous. what is mira doing with her life? how’s ironrath? did rodrik or asher have heirs, and if so, with who? i once wrote a f&b-like snippet for this ‘the forresters and related parties some years later’ concept ( which i’ll place below! ), and i’m still very in love with it. but on the off-chance i never return to said concept, i’d love to see it written by someone else.
lord rodrik sired a handful of daughters and two sons, many of which bore the rich, dark hair of house forrester — their eyes fields of green, shadowed by icy blue or left clear, and they carried their grandmother’s strong southron genes deep into their bodies. a smattering of blondes and browns were rodrik’s children, with hardly any bearing strong resemblance to his lady elaena. only one daughter is said to take after her, with hair like smoldering fire, a small sign of their lost glenmore heritage.
- modern au stuff. i’m not normally a huge modern au fan myself, but i’m still surprised by how little modern universe fanworks there are for ttgot. i have a variety of ideas, both indulgent and non-indulgent, for this concept, but i’d truly just be fascinated by anything at this point. i think finangling canonical events through a more modern lense is just really fun.
- asher and beskha get las vegas married … but in all seriousness one of my first ideas for ttgot fanfic was to have asher and beskha marry post-canon, in a world where asher fumbled gwyn. asher would mainly offer to do this in order to properly give beskha the name forrester, which i suppose would mean little to most people, yet would be a rather big gesture from him to her. they go into this marriage not out of some big, romantic love or anything, but because they’re just it for one another. it’s a mesh of strong, platonic feelings and some more codependent ones. asher and beskha growing old together, with beskha being respected forever as asher’s family, irrefutably, and as his partner, is something i find a lot of promise in. i’d also like it if beskha idly contemplated becoming a knight as well to further assimilate into westerosi culture … i think she’d like protecting the innocent and, furthermore, would use the devotional nature of knighthood as another ‘vow’ to asher. is it obvious these two are just using sacred and honored labels / ceremonies as pretty little bows for their relationship? lmao.
- a fanfic that follows the non-canonical death of asher and rodrik at the ambush, where the two of them ( unwisely, stupidly, and very selfishly! ) decide to essentially die in a suicide pact. i’ve said before that i’d love to write / see a fanfic that would deal with the repercussions of this act. with the whitehills having an assured victory, via killing both rodrik and asher, how would ironrath’s occupation happen? how would the characters handle rodrik and asher for putting them in this tricky, unfair situation? many things to explore!
and there’s probably a thousand more fics i’d love to see someone write, but i don’t want this to become an exceedingly long post. just know that i’m also rooting for small things like: mira in essos, gared healing after becoming a shadow of himself, more forrestercest fics or fics with implications, etc. i’m sure if you took a glance at my blog, you’d find a hundred more fancies of mine for this sort of thing!
thinking about me and @lost-lords house forrester adjacent ocs … i want to talk more about them so bad!!
t: any fandom tropes you can’t stand?
to be more ttgot specific with this one, i suppose i can’t stand fics that are tagged ttgot ( or, worse, with a ttgot character name! ) and then have absolutely nothing to do with the game whatsoever. i know i’ve brought this up a lot recently, but it’s truly my biggest pet peeve. i have no idea if this is a trope or not! if it is, then i hate it and loathe it with a thousand suns. just … why? no fanfic about game of thrones needs the extra reach, trust me.
on a similar note, i’m not a huge fan of the trope of, ah, ‘(insert male character here) has their way with every female character to ever exist in asoiaf’. i’m not against porn or self indulgent writing, although these fics are always a little cringe and boring to me. especially because mira is a victim to them! i’ll click on one of these tropey fanfics just to see her, and then be subjected to similar, dissatisfying characterization of mira being your average whore, or whatever. maybe lord gregor forrester gets a mention as her father. maybe ironrath is a place that exists and is spelled right! but those are just fanciful backdrop pieces … she is just another body for the megachad robb stark or jon snow to pump and dump, and it just makes me roll my eyes. the trope itself is very misogynistic! actually, a lot of mira fics are. she is the sex object of the ttgot scene. privy to tropes like the one i mentioned above and ones of a similar vein, like her learning to love morgryn’s amazing sex skills … or getting broken down by his magnificent manhood … the personality of a woman and the horror of her situations are replaced with porno levels of unreality and silliness and alpha male stereotyping. again! i will always fight for authors to write what they want and to write the smut of their choosing! but i can also be sad about it, when mira fanfic is already so rare. my general rule for smut is that i love it, want more of it, but it always has to be a character or relationship study of some kind.
i’ll never be a fan of the ‘gregor is an amazing father’ take. this particular mindset really spawns a lot of asher ideas that i’ve never agreed with. normally, i can let differing opinions go! but the stances i’ve seen about child abuse and such have bordered on disgusting, in my opinion. seeing people blame a child or teenage asher for stressing gregor out or humilating him, and then pitying the parent more than their clearly unwell child, is a little … much. poor gregor this and poor gregor that. as if asher’s attention seeking behavior ( aimed at his father specifically, mind you, as the codex says ) is something he just developed for fun. as if a boy making a habit out of severe violence and sex doesn’t imply something going on at home! i’ve legitimately seen people assume asher was just ‘born that way’ … as if gregor nor elissa could’ve ever done wrong to him even by accident! it just irks at me. i don’t need gregor to be an abuser per se, but many parents do irreparable damage to their children without trying to, and while still being decent parents despite that. this topic is one i’m really passionate about due to some of the Takes I’ve Seen.
those are perhaps the only tropes i’m really passionate about in terms of straight-up dislike, and even the mira one was pushing it a little. i have many tropes i just don’t agree with! but i can typically read something and enjoy it despite that.
s: any fandom tropes you can’t resist?
what does and what doesn’t classify as a ‘trope’ is always something i struggle with, but i’ll try to answer this to the best of my ability!
i’ve mentioned in passing that i’m primarily drawn towards romance in fanfic, and thus i’m very interested in a variety of romantic stories. i adore slowburns! i love one night stands, friends-with-benefits, or exes getting back together after a devestating breakup / seperation. i’m not a particularly fluffy person by nature, so my favorite tropes consist of a lot of internal strife, miscommunications, and so on. love is never easy, so i like it when love doesn’t come easily to my characters … when they have to fight for it, fight each other or themselves or the world at large … i enjoy codependency and obsession too. asoiaf is full of love stories that are not ‘simple’. there is always something problematic bubbling underneath due to the nature of grrm’s world, which is why i like seeing that emulated in ttgot fanfic.
besides love stories ( or horror stories disguised as love stories, given some of the more toxic elements ) i’m into missing scenes or rewritten scenes. if someone wants to write elaena and rodrik during those weeks between arthur’s death and asher’s arrival? then i’m interested! i’m very, very interested actually! ttgot in particular has so many random timeskips and i’d like seeing that space filled by the fandom. what were they doing? or, if we knew what, how were they doing it? what conversations were being had? things like … seeing more of malcolm and beskha clashing from yunkai to meereen … or talia scribbling away at her music as she stays holed up in rodrik’s room while he sleeps … or, i don’t know, seeing mira recieve all the information she does and getting to react to things such as ethan’s death … the missing scene trope is a favorite of mine. my golden child, lowkey. i don’t care if it’s 700 words or 700k! it’s just something i gobble up, lol. especially in medias where there’s so little we actually get to see.
hum. i’m drawn to homecoming fics, too. characters returning to a place after a long time, or even reuniting with a person … i suppose this is why the eldest three forresters are among my favorites! especially asher, who legitimately has a ‘return’ arc of sorts. post canon explorations also hit for this very reason, along with all the new trauma these characters must now deal with or face. obviously, i’m an angsty with a hopeful ending kind of fan … i can read unhappy endings just fine! but, normally, i want at least some hope in there, somewhere, after all the conflict.
besides those major favorites, i can’t really think of anything else! i’m not too picky in terms of what i’ll read. usually my fandoms are so meager, and so i’ll pour through every scrap of content, whether it appeals to me or not!
how old do you think the main characters (plus any others you might choose) are?
oh, this is an easy one! @asherforrester and i have actually ironed out some canon ages for many of the characters, and while i won’t share them all, i will share the forrester-whitehill-glenmore ages! bear in mind that a lot of these ages differ from popular fandom opinion, but, put simply, i just like it better this way! for the ttgot cast to be really similar in age to the starks in show canon feels like retreading old ground, and with the themes as they are in ttgot, it just doesn't feel quite right for the forresters to mirror the starklings where age is concerned. i also just think there's intrigue in having main characters who were alive and sentient during targaryen rule, as all of the starklings were born during or after robert's rebellion. to make some of these ages work, we've done a little bit of jostling around with regards to canon, mostly where interpretations and conflicting information in the codex is concerned. so without further ado! here are the ages of many of the canon characters in order from oldest to youngest!
gregor forrester, 54 years old at time of death
livya whitehill née woolfield ( ludd's former wife ), 36 years old at time of death, but would be 56 in canon
zelda forrester née branfield ( gregor's first wife and elissa's older sister ), 31 years old at time of death, but would be 49 in canon
ludd whitehill, 47 years old
elissa forrester née branfield, 42 years old
rodrik forrester, 32 years old
karl whitehill, 26 years old at time of death, but would be 30 in canon
ebbert whitehill, 29 years old
asher forrester & torrhen whitehill, both 27 years old
elaena glenmore, 26 years old
arthur glenmore & gared tuttle, both 25 years old
josera snow, elsera snow & gwyn whitehill, all 24 years old
mira forrester, 23 years old
gryff whitehill, 20 years old
britt warrick, 18 years old
ethan forrester & talia forrester, both 15 years old
ryon forrester, 7 years old
with this model, we really only have three characters that were not alive during robert's rebellion, which i quite like! i think the rebellion really changed a lot of mindsets and traumatized a lot of people, so for the forresters to be as haunted as they are but also as severe as they are makes sense to me considering their age ranges. for reference, ned is just a bit older than rodrik. i find that sort of thing delightful! it's also really fun to play with a family like the forresters, in which there is a very diverse age range -- and i feel like there's no contesting that in canon anyway. there's just no way that rodrik's, like, 20 or something like that. no way in hell. and i think that adds to some of the oddity where the forresters are concerned, what with all the children being unmarried and unbetrothed save for rodrik, who by all means should have had, like, four or five kids by now. i think it adds some flavour to them and gives something to analyze!
i was going to add some more little timeline things in here, like when people got married, a little more on torrhen's family and some other things like that, but i fear that i have already gone beyond the scope of the question by adding so many characters! but thank you for this ask! it's much appreciated and forced me to refamiliarize myself with the timeline my wife and i are going to use in our ttgot rewrite, haha!
i did not think i gave a fuck about mira and tom like that but when mira ran off and left him to drown i got PHYSICALLY ill. im a completionist but somehow this is what got me to lay down in my bedroom in the dark to stop myself from crying or throwing up
mira leaving tom to die in the most violent way imaginable, and just sort of moving on with her life without checking up on that situation even once, is both evil and plain silly. in an entirely uninteresting way!
however, tom both burying that feeling of resentment to tell mira he’s glad she’s alive ( something she doesn’t even tell him! ), and implying damien deserved to get his head bashed in via rock for damien’s crimes against mira ( but not against tom ) is particularly heartbreaking.
this is literally how people talk about mira </3
ethan, much like mira and asher, also behaves unbecoming of what his gender dictates because his insistence to be a merciful lord, to prioritize his siblings, and overall him clinging to his kindness and lute is him being ‘different’. it’s him respecting talia’s desire for him to not change. it’s him refusing to be gregor, who may have been a good lord, but whom was still a man who took fingers from thieves and possessed a capacity for anger. it’s him understanding what people want to see but being both unable to and unwilling to conform. ethan is portrayed, quietly and subtly, as an abnormality … not just as a forrester lord, but as a boy overall.
elissa: “you have many fine qualities, but … you do not have that anger inside of you.”
ethan: “i’m not like that. but i don’t need to be, do i?”
he does not possess the male trait of violence or anger! it’s because of this lack that elissa thinks he needs a bodyguard and keeper, someone violent, someone willingly to be manly and do man things for ethan if he won’t do it himself. royland thinks him indecisive and inexperienced in leadership due to him never holding a sword.
royland: “he’s just a boy who can barely hold a sword. he knows nothing of how to lead men.”
even talia, whom tells ethan to ‘not be like them’ ( aka their brothers, who grew serious and angry and masculine, and are remembered as men first and foremost ), still insists he needs to learn his way around a sword.
talia: “ethan, you should let ser royland teach you how to wield a sword. like … like a man.”
it takes ethan standing up to ludd with just firm words and him dying as a protecter to cement his place and to prove people wrong — a feat he accomplishes without violence, without fighting. i know i’ve talked of mira’s and asher’s gender role fuckery before, but ethan’s is just as prominent, and perhaps the most intentional.
okay so i LOVE your thoughts on your blog, it’s so admirable how you analyze the game and the characters in it
what’s your process for getting into the character’s heads? usually i see blogs posting about just one character but you have a really holistic view of like, everyone?? which is so cool and makes for really nuanced takes
so basically i was wondering how you do it since id love to analyze ttgot in that way too without being biased by my faves
aaah, thank you! you’re so, so sweet haha. but before i give some advice or explain my thought process re: analysis, i do just want to say that everyone can think whatever they want forever. there is no ‘bad’ analysis. i may not agree with something but that doesn’t make me inherently more righteous, or whatever. people will always interpret characters or relationships somewhat differently ( or completely differently ) and that’s totally fine! i like that even, for it helps me see new perspectives and cement my own thoughts. i may use strong language in this post or imply i’m more ‘canonical’, but that’s purely because you asked for my advice and what my head looks like. please know there’s always different ways to analyze characters or text because, if there wasn’t, analysis would be rather cut-and-dry instead of collaborative and fun. there are some ttgot blogs i constantly reblog from that have just as amazing opinions ( if not more amazing ) as me!! just … do not mistake my tone as being dismissive of other people’s views or being mean spirited.
although without further ado : i actually feel like i’m not as vast as i want to be when it comes to analysis for the ttgot cast … like. i have favorites. and it does show. i’m very ship-rotting in the brain and it does stunt my analysis a bit, i feel. some parts of the characters are foreign to me, or are entirely out of my reach, or i’m just too shaky in my understanding, too insecure, to delve much further. i think the best thing for analysis is to be subject to change, but also rather firm in the foundations you’ve set and have come to love. if there’s an aspect of the character you adore, stick loyally beside it! build around that with details and things. i find that a lot of the finer stuff stems from a core, and that the core is usually an obvious aspect of the character, meaning it’s less scary … for example, gwyn is obsessed with peace between the whitehills and forresters. this is her core, and therefore informs a lot of her personality, beliefs, and relationships. it’s not all she is, and there’s the question of ‘where did this trait come from?’, but it’s a good place to start, you know? these cores help me stay unbiased, somewhat. these are canon pieces that are unshakable. i try not to change these at all or like … remove them.
i think blogs focus on one character because it’s simply easier and is the most indulgent form of fandom. i also do this so i cannot and do not judge lol. asher is sort of my guy, my center, my ship wheel and the one whose relationships i think the most about … but i understand this is all pure indulgence and so i sort of seperate it in my mind. but like, it does help me, having asher as my favorite. a lot of my understanding of gwyn and beskha has come from the mere fact asher must have Thoughts and Feelings and a relationship with these women. perhaps even thoughts and feelings and relationships i don’t agree with nor like. i think this is where analysis gets tripped up or ‘biased’ ; people just don’t like thinking of things that upset them or irritate them, and so they must devalue those traits or relationships or characters to cope with their dislike. i, however, cannot do this. it feels like a betrayal, almost? it’s my job to instead understand and make these dynamics and characters, lackluster as they are, interesting and human. i find that devaluing characters ( especially due to biases or ship wars or equally petty grievances ) is the quickest way to lose sight of a good analysis. like … i know the fandom loved to devalue gwyn and gwyn/asher, mainly because nobody shipped them or liked gwyn, but in doing so they miss a lot of interesting ideas and themes … i think it’s alright that asher and gwyn genuinely liked each other rather than just having a flirty, impulsive rebellious phase, and because i think this, i can then understand that this avenue makes the most sense because gwyn isn’t a rebellious woman ( in That way, anyway ) and asher already had his avenues of rebellion, and also hates the whitehills. it’s easy to write off a nothing relationship as a nothing and immature thing. but in doing that, gwyn and asher both become uninteresting and dull, and their relationship makes no sense.
it’s stuff like that? like. you must be willing to put bias aside and dislike aside. i think it’s so telling that rodrik lives truthers get asher wrong for example. they are too obsessed with hating asher, with choosing rodrik over him, that they dull asher down comically and almost turn him into a trope ; like rodrik’s yang, his shadow, his antithesis. asher becomes a warmongering devil. uncaring, apathetic, deeply irresponsible, violent, etc. and rodrik is like. sooo logical and perfect at leading and this is his story so rodrik’s a hero, etc. this sort of bitterness towards asher changes him in the minds of the person viewing him, but also it eventually changes rodrik as well … he becomes something he isn’t: a stereotype, the good guy to asher’s bad one, and this also affects their relationship too. i cannot imagine how people who view rodrik and asher like this view their relationship, but i imagine it isn’t one i agree with nor feel like is backed up by canon. like. it’s important to keep a level head, i suppose? don’t get bribed by silly things.
i try not to hate characters as a principle because of this. or, if i don’t like them, i try to see their role in the story and try to be faithful towards it. it makes this all easier, lol. and thankfully i don’t have to be jealous of other canonical ships because i’ve successfully rewritten ttgot in my head to be purely about asher-rodrik-mira and now all their other relationships will always echo each other. that curbs the jealousy and helps me win the ‘ship war’ so to speak, haha. more people should utilize haunting as a means of stomaching ships or dynamics they don’t like, imo. it also helps me find intrigue within other relationships i otherwise would dislike … like, i can write gwyn/asher, and i can write them religiously, because gwyn is so obviously a vassel for mira and rodrik. i can stomach elaena and rodrik knowing that rodrik has some untapped feelings about his siblings and goes into this marriage not out of love anyway ( which, to me, is just canon, seeing as he is pressured to woo elaena for his survival rather than any love they shared / rodrik went to war instead of staying back to marry ). i can stomach toying with mira and her trail of blonde boys or cripple boys because her type is quite literally her Brothers now. it makes characters i would otherwise struggle with due to jealousy reasons bearable.
of course, they can’t just be vassals. they must be characters, fully formed, on their own feet. i think i find this through relationships though … sometimes. i, ah, don’t know how i analyze the characters that i do? for the young three forresters, i just love them so much. i like thinking about them. i also listen to a lot of music too and pace and this helps … it influences me, sort of? so much of ethan’s character and, ryon’s and talia’s by extension, has come from a tale of two brothers remix and also from playing a plague’s tale. sometimes i don’t steal scenes or characterization, just vibes. it’s like. i enjoy hugo’s realistic childishness and one minded view of things, especially surrounding his Caretaker. i see ryon in that. i wish ryon was that too, on top of everything else. reading other media, watching it, listening to music … it helps. i think my constant thought process of ‘how would i have wanted this character thing to play out?’ helps me find answers and, thus, analysis. almost all of my thoughts are based off of cliff notes in ttgot. i wanted rodrik’s insomnia to be a thing, i wanted him unable and unwilling to sleep, always staving it off, always in pain and triggered by nightmares ; using insane means he normally wouldn’t in order to soothe, like nonstop sex with elaena for example. i want this for rodrik because the game has slivers of implication that rodrik’s sleep is a restless one. he wakes to the sounds of the red wedding twice over. he’s found staring at a window after sex with elaena and she mentions how little sleep they’ve gotten, but it’s implied rodrik has gotten even less, because he’s the one up early and she’s not, and elaena doesn’t find this sight odd or concerning. stuff like that.
realizing what disappointed you and why this disappointed you helps. it ties back into canon nicely and makes your analysis feel more realized and real. it means your headcanons are closer to canon than one would think, which feels nice.
besides consuming, i just replay ttgot a lot. not just physically, but also in my head. if there were scenes that tickled me after playing, i replay them over and over. i try to understand why they intrigue me, and when i do, i sort of keep that nugget. it means something and says something about the characters, always. for example, i hate playing arthur’s death. i avoid episode five like the plague. some scenes are just too much for me, or embarrass me, or infuriate me, so i don’t play them often. yet i noticed something while playing those scenes and it haunts me … it’s elaena crying over arthur’s body and saying that her little brother was everything, he was everything. this obviously informs arthur and elaena’s relationship, but how could my brain not wander to rodrik and asher as a result, especially given ep5’s ending and their reunion? this scene haunts me because it sucks, because it’s emotional, but also because it says something … elaena inadvertently kills arthur over her own selfishness and because arthur loved and trusted her and wanted to fight her battles with her. she regrets this tremendously. rodrik inadvertently kills asher over their family’s selfishness and because asher loved his family, especially rodrik, and couldn’t let rodrik die. rodrik regrets ( or should’ve regretted this ) tremendously. the woes of killing your younger brother, who was, by literal dialogue, ‘everything.’ i replay this game scene over and over and mull on it, and thus, come up with thoughts and analysis so to speak … i find the foreshadowing and the irony ( rodrik ‘kills’ elaena’s brother and thus dooms his own — think kenny from twdg, where he kills a son and believes he doomed his own as a result ; also, same company. i find looking at other telltale games ALSO helps with analysis, since a lot of those teams shared writers ) and i extrapolate.
i actually genuinely cannot stress enough how important it is to replay scenes in your mind religiously, scenes that caught your eye and mind for whatever reason. it’s just as important for analysis as replaying the game. like … think. analysis is just thinking about the source material. just think about it as much as you can, turn it over again and again, the same thing, just. on repeat. see every angle and just think. understand it and yourself. most of my thoughts don’t see the light of day and that’s maddening, yes, but every thought — no matter how simple or obvious or silly — helps shape these characters into more solid figures. and, since ttgot is such a meager media, it’s fine to also throw your wants and wishlists in there. who cares. go wild. just … keep important things in mind.
i let thoughts come and go, and more importantly, i approach this cast with wanting to understand and develop them all. i think my approach and eagerness helps my thoughts for everyone flow more nicely. sometimes, if i’m really struggling, i just reach for a random ship for some reason ( a ship that pisses people off and i want to like, suddenly ) and go okay, how would this work. actually, shoving two random characters together might just help develop them, when you’re thinking of all their ins and outs. the old ttgot fandom wasn’t prone to doing this, as don’t most fandoms … they cannot stand multi shipping or ships that don’t fit a mold. every rodrik rper or lover refused to ship him with anyone but elaena for ‘purity’ reasons and because they were ‘so perfect together’ … same for elaena, and they both sort of suffered as a result. more people should’ve shipped something like gwyn and rodrik for fun or for genuine interest, because then maybe so many gywn haters would realize they hate her for petty reasons because she is just so like rodrik lol. maybe they would’ve realized that the real reason gwyn/rodrik is impossible isn’t because gwyn is evil or rodrik is ‘too in love with elaena’ but is actually because rodrik is an insane control freak and gwyn is also one. rodrik is borderline misogynistic. he’s loving, yes, but he is also a lordly heir …. a firstborn … he’s fine with gwyn being helpful and by his side, fine with her politicking, but the second she tries to rise above her station or seems thirsty for his role … the second she shows her ambitions and wants to push rodrik to do something, he Will Flip. this isn’t even addressing the fact that rodrik clearly blames gwyn for asher’s absence. like … the asher of it all … but this all, for one, has to acknowledge gwyn’s and rodrik’s flaws and better strengths and people usually cannot handle that.
people should experiment outside their comfort zone more i say! me being willing to see things keeps me unbiased and helps me comb through a large cast. me also being insane helps. there are no limits or bounds to my creativity … i don’t behold myself to a ‘standard’ of purity and goodness. these characters can be flawed, fucked up, mentally unwell, or evil — i don’t care. i just want them human. thus, my thought process spreads to every corner, entertains every thought. having that freedom and ‘big space’ is so important i fear. don’t clip your wings!!! just think things and try them in your head. you might find something worth while.
this is all fiction and characters are messy and complex and not real. explore them!!! don’t be afraid to do this due to weird binaries you yourself have created. mira only eyeing and being tempted by short, blonde haired men with beards isn’t, on the surface, very queer of her. it’s moreso indicative of her relationship with asher, perhaps. in fact, her relationship with other women is nonexistent and small … but this doesn’t mean you can’t ship mira with a woman or view her as queer, but what does shipping her with a woman mean? what does it do for mira, who has possibly never been in love with a woman? what’s her type? does she not have one, because she’s just fucking around and finding out? etc. think about it all. people’s insistence for their ‘beskha is a man hating lesbian’ hc completely miss the oddness of asher’s and beskha’s super intense, codependent relationship because it implies something they’re not comfortable with. the idea of beskha and asher fucking is horrendous to them. but, like, why? this shackles beskha to this idea that she, somehow, views sex in this super personal light rather than just taking the edge off. it implies that beskha is ‘picky’ or cares more for her attraction to women than her attraction to asher as her comfort object, as an obsession. it’s silly and very uncomplicated. it’s a trope because it keeps people safe and comfortable, and thus refuses to acknowledge beskha as her own person and as a fully formed, complex, flawed woman. instead she is just a Trope People Like. sad. and also makes her feel less 3D. again, nothing wrong with this hc obviously, and beskha can definitely be a lesbian ( i think she is one, most likely! ), but how did she discover this about herself during a lifetime of abuse, being in survival mode and being slowly killed by survivor’s guilt, and while stuck with an ever changing cast of company? does she know she’s a lesbian? it’s okay to experiment and have beskha’s sexuality be unconventional, like the rest of her character is. it’s also okay to see beskha’s sexuality as anything else, since canon doesn’t say anything outside of her having whores.
i guess people are too simple. don’t be simple. be crazy. think about everything with these characters and let it air. sometimes characters feel things or do things or are things that are uncomfortable or are socially unacceptable. gared is quite literally homoflexible which is like, so offensive and probably homophobic to so many people, and yet i can’t pretend his odd chemistry and odd fawning for talia just isn’t there. just like i can’t pretend that the game doesn’t constantly sexually harass gared via men ( like finn, frostfinger, jon ) and use homosexual language to describe him and his relationships lol. he is Gay. but he would also marry a forrester woman asap because he does love them and could bear it and also he wants to be a forrester bad. is this insane? yeah. but oh well …. that’s just who gared is …..
i hope this makes sense, haha. like. just be open minded, be obsessive, think and think even if you’re thinking bad thoughts or ‘awkward’ thoughts … don’t let those thought go, just keep thinking, and i promise they’ll go somewhere and maybe reveal something. consume media and think about the cast. think about your desires and disappointments. think about putting two characters in a room with a blaring ‘fuck or die’ trope and think about what would transpire. put them in a box. put them in an au. think about all their choices and opinions and senses of self. don’t feel bad for cutting things that make no sense / are disappointing but replacing them with something better or what makes more sense to the character you’ve formed. again, ttgot characters are so one dimensional, you can do what you want and still push it as canonical analysis. just love the cast the best you can and try to be open minded, and feed your indulgences often, yes, even the ooc ones, because that helps with remaining unbiased in actual serious analysis. don’t be afraid to change things or have awkward phases for the characters, to let old ideas go. it’s all fine …..
just have fun and be nuts i suppose. that’s where i am at the moment, nutty and fun.
M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?
ah, i have a million wips and one. my personal torture is having an unending well of premises and yet the slowest writing pace known to man. i’ll share the ones i’ve been working on the most, and some that haven’t made it to scrivener but haunt my thoughts nonetheless.
trying to mend a broke wing.
essentially set vaguely in my rewrite verse where the episode five ambush never occurs, or at least doesn’t end in the death of rodrik nor asher. none of those details really matter for the fic though, seeing as it focuses primarily on asher and gwyn being allowed to meet ‘in secret’ before anything blows up. this is born from my general irritation that a lot of asher and gwyn remains unresolved or undetailed because they’re never allowed two seconds to breathe without the highest of stakes holding them at sword-point. essentially, gwyn immediately latches onto asher the second she knows he’s safely in westeros, for she’s convinced he’ll be more reasonable than rodrik’s been, and arranges a meeting to recruit him to her cause for peace. asher, however, isn’t so easily moved. lots of mimicking of their canonical scene but in a way where i think both gwyn and asher can breathe more, you know?
this was, i think, my first fanfic ever for telltale’s game of thrones, and writing the three thousand words or so i managed to put down really cemented gwyn as a favorite of mine. i won’t lie: this fic is entirely just asher and gwyn standing around in the groves and talking while they ache and yearn, which is sort of why i haven’t finished it yet … i don’t exactly think it’d be the most riveting fanfic out there, lol, but i delve a lot into some highpoint lore and obviously some of what gwyn’s and asher’s relationship looked like to me. i’d really like to share this premise someday!
the girls in towers.
another gwyn fic that takes place entirely in game canon, following rodrik’s route exclusively. she is resuming control of highpoint in the wake of everything and is at her peak disillusionment with her family … how could she not be, after what they did to asher’s body? after they ripped ryon from her care to make him carry his brother’s head? i think there is many things gwyn can excuse or ignore, but the actions in rodrik’s route affect her personally, and thusly she must face that horror and understand ( perhaps for the first time! ) how awful her family truly is. ludd is killed and gryff fashions himself as lord of ironrath, and gwyn remains steadfast at highpoint and goes through various stages of dissociation. she tries not thinking about it: the forresters, asher, her father, and how blind she’d been. but when elaena glenmore is brought to her at highpoint, she can’t exactly keep burying her head in the sand. in the face of elaena’s mistreatment and eventual pregnancy reveal, it is less about gwyn debating on if she should help and more about gwyn convincing elaena to accept her help, as well as gwyn basically taking elaena and making a run for it. she has no desire to see her home be given over to torrhen, anyway.
much of this premise came to me initially as an gwyn/elaena slowburn of sorts, although i think it’ll be more ambiguous than i had planned ( or end in some gwyn/rodrik/elaena implications ). i mainly wanted to explore elaena and found it best to do so with someone as distant as gwyn is! i also mourn the utter lack of bonds between a lot of the northern girls, and wanted to add some history between gwyn and elaena.
jo march quote.
this fanfic will start out with a quote by jo march from the movie, little women: “you will be bored of him in two years, and we will be interesting forever.” which, if you swapped the ‘him’ with a ‘her’, is very much the quiet ( or loud? ) heart of this work.
the backdrop of this premise is the strong, pulsing codependency between asher and rodrik, especially on asher’s side. he is utterly dependent on rodrik emotionally, and has taken an unfavorable stance on elaena as a result. he is jealous but can’t admit he’s jealous, for that would make asher seem unreasonable, and so he spends most of his time during an elaena visit dragging his feet and inwardly bitching. he is scared of elaena as a harbinger of change and for her to have rodrik in ways asher cannot — or, worse, to take her role at rodrik’s side where asher typically stands. selfishly, i love asher disliking elaena when, if rodrik were not a factor, they’d honestly be fast-friends! his hatred of her is entirely irrational and forced … and is something he will outgrow in time … but for now, he dislikes her heavily. although it’s during this one particular visit that he finds himself stuck with elaena’s kid brother, quiver, and they obviously butt heads as a rodrik mega fan vs an elaena mega fan. quiver is also taking elaena’s relationship with rodrik weirdly ( for he is also elaena’s best friend and has a subservient role in elaena’s life ) and him and asher kiss a bit about it. definitely normal activities for them to do!
to me, quiver is a gay man and asher is deeply bisexual, so i find the prospect of having them brush lips when young viable and a tad cute. it’s also ironic because quiver will really want to kiss rodrik later but, alas, only ever kisses the other forrester brother instead, lmfao. this isn’t exactly a ship fic, but more so an exploration of asher’s Many Issues and the start of a foundation for a future elaena and asher dynamic. can you tell they’ve been on my mind lately.
ethan in the dreadfort.
my no good, purely evil, extremely dead dove fic that’s mostly marinating in my brain as of yet. one of my favorite ethan-centric fics ( and one of the few! ) on ao3 deals with ramsay actually taking ethan as hostage, and since then i’ve been interested in writing some version of that myself. but it was only after discovering a specific dialogue scene that i actually found an avenue for which i could, plausibly, see ramsay abandoning his plan to kill ethan for some ‘fun’ hostage moments instead.
basically, ethan is taken on as ramsay’s ‘ward’. he initially believes he’s saved his family further harm, but ramsay still tells ludd to take ryon as well to further assure forrester loyalty — much to ethan’s anguish. he is taken to the dreadfort and lives long enough to also see ramsay’s legitimization and marriage to ‘arya stark’. ethan, who grew alongside the stark children, obviously knows arya is actually jeyne poole and thus feels conflicted about keeping this a secret. he’d also have an interesting relationship with theon as reek … i’d imagine a lot of people would see ethan as having immediate sympathy, but i think that a.) royland’s strong ironborn hatred, and b.) the knowledge that theon killed both bran and rickon, would utterly sour ethan to theon’s fate. this is the same kid who has internalized asher’s message of ‘anyone who betrays us or becomes a threat to my siblings is my enemy’, and so i think ethan would be a mixture of apathetic and horrified initially. but the abuse he’d endure by ramsay’s hand and the arrival of jeyne would see ethan thawing towards theon — for he’s good at heart and a lot of his ‘well, theon deserved it’ is very performative.
his relationship to ramsay similarly grows and changes, with ramsay doing abhorrent things to ethan while simultaneously cultivating a ‘brotherly’ bond with his highborn ward. ethan is just a fifteen year old kid at the end of the day and so he’s easily broken down by his captor … not enough to forsake his family, mind you, but he begins ‘caring’ about ramsay. it doesn’t help that ethan starts off comparing ramsay and asher within his head as a means of stomaching ramsay’s violence. said asher is definitely trying to murder his way to ramsay snow i’m sure, lol.
i have a lot of little ideas and such for this fic, but since so much of it is extremely dark i won’t talk about it in depth here. it’s essentially an ethan character study at its core, and one that challenges a lot of ethan as a person versus as a forrester. think of talia asking ethan to promise he won’t change! there is a lot of things he’s suddenly forced to turn his back on or to reevaluate … and this sort of premise still holds ethan’s emotional core for me, which is that he chose love over duty and has ‘paid the price’ for it with his life. a love that’s being tested over and over again now that he lives, for his sacrifice is basically rendered meaningless once ironrath falls.
i also think it’d be fun to make a oneshot for the aftermath of all this where he perhaps reunites with mira, who has also spent many a moon in torment with a captor who passed himself off as a loved one, and is now forever changed and feels ‘evil’ for said changes. after all, since this would follow a mix of show and book canon, if ethan were to make a run for it as jeyne and theon do, he’d happen upon stannis and likely realize that ironrath’s been reclaimed by forrester forces ; seeing as lady glover sends stannis forrester scouts. this means he could, theoretically, get back to his family with ease … but will i let him survive ramsay? or will he leave the new and established winterfell via some sort of ill-advised asher rescue mission? or does he ask stannis if he can go home and stannis makes him continue on with his army instead, since ethan is a thirdborn boy who’s no longer even his brother’s heir? many endings to consider, but i’m still ever fond of the potential for mira and ethan bonding.
the rest of my premises/wips: quick addition.
i know i said i’d only share a select few, but i’ll do quick rundown of everything else on my scrivener. why not!
‘blegh’ : talia and elissa branfield visit elissa’s elder sister, zelda, at ironrath. mostly a branfield family study.
‘and we the bedfellows’ : asher and mira ficlet. asher is unruly and restless at night, and mira steals into his room to sleep for the very first time.
‘coma baby’ : ethan, talia, and ryon in ironrath during the war. ethan and talia are going through music together before being interrupted by ryon, who’s been growing emotionally unstable due to everything happening.
‘like any unloved thing’ : talia pov fanfic that was born out of a need to explore her relationship with her mother, elissa. it’s also set in ironrath during the war! talia has many complexes and issues, and desperately wants elissa to take her to the harvest happening in winterfell. elissa, naturally, is considering only ethan and ryon.
‘winter is over, so thaw’ : mira’s travel to highgarden, as well as her beginnings there! i showed off all i had for this premise, as well as talked about it, here.
‘crude figures’ : ryon character study during his time as a prisoner in highpoint.
‘brother in the morning light’ : modern au where, after rodrik is crippled during service and now stuck at the forrester family home, ethan decides to rekindle his relationship with his estranged brother, asher.
‘shame about the neighborhood’ : karl whitehill fanfic where i throw a bunch of headcanons at the wall about whitehills and greyscale. karl is essentially destined to become the grey lord <3 he dreams horrible grey dreams.
watched some of my favorite critique videos these past few days and it really makes me appreciate critique as a labor of love. i know most of my posts about ttgot sort of veer into criticism whenever i talk about the game itself, but my seemingly endless passion for ‘complaining’ just shows how deeply i care! i would not be so thorough in my many disappointments if i believed ttgot was simply just bad. ttgot has a lot of potential. house forrester and ironrath as a whole still remains my favorite setting and house despite me being waist-deep in asos … the potential of the game’s plots, their characters and the implications of them, are among my favorites for the world and always will be: and that’s a very high compliment given the vastness of westeros and the more purposeful intentionality of grrm’s writing!
me caring and being vocal about the writing choices that let me down the most is not to call the writers stupid ( as many of that was less them and more of executive issues ) but to highlight all the ways in which ttgot as a game deserved better than what it got. more time. a better, more cohesive writing process. more attention from fans and more praise. more of the writers being allowed to do what they want without thirty constrictions or a different pace. ttgot is pretty good as it is, and i spend a lot of time analyzing what’s already there, author’s intent be damned, and that is me praising and loving it. i may not list the things i like as brazenly as i list my critique, nor will i likely make posts outwardly complimenting the game, but any of my analysis posts is my respect. me making this blog, writing thousands and thousands of words about ttgot, replaying the game an obscene amount of times, etc., is the praise.
for fun ( and for my personal anniversary’s sake ) i made a sortr for telltale’s game of thrones! feel free to take it :
have fun ranking your ttgot characters from most favorite to least! if your obscure favorite isn’t on here, i’m sorry! i excluded some that
See Lambjock's ranking of TELLTALE’S GAME OF THRONES: CHARACTERS. Top 3: 1. Ethan Forrester, 2. Rodrik Forrester, 3. Asher Forrester. View t
feel free to take a peek at my rankings!!
asher leading men: you deserve better than the hand you were given! join me, and you can have a life and a future!
rodrik leading men: alright everyone group suicide in ten minutes.
for fun ( and for my personal anniversary’s sake ) i made a sortr for telltale’s game of thrones! feel free to take it :
have fun ranking your ttgot characters from most favorite to least! if your obscure favorite isn’t on here, i’m sorry! i excluded some that
