Previously a character blog for my ridiculous night elf Etharion Longsight. Now just sort of current hyperfixations.
Fics posted on AO3 under username Varghona.
okay say what you will about Owen Lars (bc I know no one is talking smack about Saint and Saviour Beru Lars), but that 'Anakin was a smuggler' line is genius.
Like, Luke your father was a drug smuggler and so we don't talk about him. Your father was a drug runner and he crossed the line from Good Person to criminal and drug peddler and brought shame on our family. Luke, your father was a drug dealer and he was involved in shady things and it really hasn't been that long and people are probably after him to this day and we have to keep our heads down and stay safe. Luke, your father made it so that we have to pay the consequences of his actions. Made it so that you, Luke Skywalker, can't sing with the stars that call your name because of what he did whilst racing among them.
Luke, your father was a bad man who did bad things, but they were choices, and you can make different ones. You share his last name but you don't share his greed. Luke, addiction is genetic but your father wasn't a drug addict. He was a drug smuggler. He chose to became part of a system that exploits pain and fear, but his decision isn't running through your bones. Luke, you're kind and good and have reached nineteen, on a planet made to break things, whole and gentle.
Maekar: Some men will say I meant to kill my brother. The gods know it is a lie, but I will hear the whispers till the day I die. And it was my mace that dealt the fatal blow, I have no doubt. The only other foes he faced in the melee were three Kingsguard, whose vows forbade them to do any more than defend themselves. So it was me. Strange to say, I do not recall the blow that broke his skull. Is that a mercy or a curse? Some of both, I think.
Duncan: I could not say, Your Grace. You swung the mace, m'lord, but it was for me Prince Baelor died. So I killed him too, as much as you.
I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture.
All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line?
The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy?
Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess.
I want the fat left it.
I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence.
Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."
What AKOTSK characters are bringing to the potluck:
So this is just some silliness rattling around in my head, as I try to sort out the AKOTSK/BG3 crossover fic that's been haunting my every waking moment for the past few weeks:
You organize a potluck. What does each character show up with, and is it edible?
Dunk - I see him bringing sports bar food, probably wings. Simple, honest, and a crowd-pleaser.
Egg - Brings chocolate pudding cups sprinkled with crushed Oreos to look like dirt, with gummy worms on top. He made them himself and he's very proud of it. Theyāre absolutely adorable.
Daeron - It's a non-alcoholic event, but he still brings a frat party's best friend: red Solo cups.
Plummer - Has to show up with something so he brings soft drinks; minimal effort, canāt really be bothered. But he's overworked and underpaid and you sort of get where he's coming from.
Rowan - I think she makes a great crockpot chili, hearty and delicious and comforting.
Raymon - Apple pie. You can tell he made it himself. The crust is a little overworked and the crimping's a bit clumsy, but it still tastes good and you appreciate the effort.
Steffon - Shows up empty-handed. Prick.
Tanselle - Brings homemade cupcakes, with perfectly piped icing, topped with edible flowers, sitting in decorative paper liners. Almost too pretty to eat, but you do eat them, and they are incredible.
Ser Lyonel - Was told no, you cannot bring a keg, Daeron's in rehab. He arrives with a dozen pizzas, really good pizzas from the local artisan pizzeria, the one with the big wood-fired oven. Theyāre hot, fresh, and oozing with cheese. The wrinkle is that this agent of chaos ordered pineapple on all of them. Whether or not he likes pineapple on pizza is irrelevant. He just did it because he knows it will rile half the guests.
Baelor - Swans in carrying a Dornish tagine, one of his motherās recipes. Itās absolutely delicious, lots of complex flavors going on, but he didnāt actually make it himself. He started to, but got called away to mediate some shit going down between the Blackwoods and Brackens, so he had to ask the royal chef to finish it. Was determined to bring some kind of main course because he guessed, correctly, that most of the offerings would be snacks or desserts.Ā
Maekar - Shows up late and tosses one (1) large package of Kingās Hawaiian rolls on the table. He makes sure everyone knows how much trouble he went through to find them because the first two stores were sold out.
Aerion - This motherfucker is the one who brings potato salad with raisins in it. He actually likes it that way and doesnāt give a shit if everyone else knows that potato salad with raisins is the work of Satan. Itās probably made with Miracle Whip, too.
Valarr - Puts together a really nice charcuterie board. Kiera helped him fold the sopressata into little rosettes.Ā
Ser Donnel and Ser Roland - Provide a fruit tray and vegetable tray, respectively. They just grabbed them at the same grocery where Maekar finally found the rolls.
Steely Pate - Brings guacamole, pico de gallo, and tortilla chips, but they're the best damn guac, pico, and chips youāve ever had. The avocados are creamy, the tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and cilantro are fresh and sliced by hand into small, perfect cuts. Itās all perfectly seasoned, laced with fresh lime juice. The tortillas are handmade, hand-cut, and freshly-fried, dusted with just the right amount of salt. Itās ājustā chips and dip, but itās made with love and skill.
Ser Robyn - Arrives on his own schedule and places a bag of salad greens on the table. Not even a salad kit. Just lettuce.
Ser Humfrey Hardyng - Brings a tray of barbecue. Itās really good. But heās cagey when you ask what kind of meat it is.
Ser Humfrey Beesbury - Definitely brings something honey-related, but a bit fussy, probably brie en croute with honey and walnuts.
Ser Arlan - (Heās alive, just go with it.) Arrives with a perfectly serviceable spinach artichoke dip in a bread bowl. Problem is, he forgot to get chips for scooping, so Ser Rolandās veggie tray and Steely Pateās tortillas end up doing double duty. Untilā¦
The Seer - Shows up with chips because she foresaw the party running out. Store-bought, but she kind of saves the day here.
Lord Ashford - Springs for an elaborate catered sushi buffet that looks amazing and impressive but almost no one eats.
Gwin Ashford- Makes deviled eggs, because they're her favorite and she knows deep down they're everyone else's favorite too. Theyāre kind of a hot mess, they didnāt peel smoothly so the whites are mutilated and in some cases outright torn, and the yolk filling is distributed unevenly among the whites; some eggs have huge gobs of filling and others just a little dab. And the paprika is kind of all over the place. But you know what, nobody cares, they eat them because theyāre deviled eggs.
The Innkeeper - Brings some of her good lamb in a crust of herbs. Very tasty, but for some reason you have questions about her food safety practices.
Ser Manfred - Provides a supermarket tray of finger sandwiches and thinks he did something impressive.
ā¹Ā What do they want vs what do they need.Ā these should not be the same thing. what they want is the surface goal ( the job, the person, the revenge, the answer.) What they need is the thing underneath that they can't name yet. The story is what happens in the gap between those two things. if they're identical your character has nowhere to go.
ā¹Ā What are they wrong about.Ā Not morally wrong necessarily. just. what belief do they hold that the story is going to test. What assumption do they make about themselves or the world that turns out to be incomplete? A character without a wrong belief is already finished. They have no arc, give them something to learn even if learning it hurts them.
ā¹Ā How do they talk when they're nervous.Ā Do they go quiet or do they talk too much? do they deflect with jokes? do they get weirdly formal? do they ask questions instead of answering them? the way a person behaves under pressure is who they actually are. And it should be different from how they behave when they're comfortable.
ā¹Ā What do they find funny.Ā this one sounds small and it is not small at all. Humour is worldview. What makes someone laugh tells you what they value, what they're afraid of, how they handle pain. A character with no sense of humour is just flat. even the gravest person finds something absurd. find the thing.
ā¹Ā What are they ashamed of?Ā not their tragic backstory. their actual shame. The small ugly thing they would never say out loud. The time they were a coward. The feeling they pretend not to have. The desire they think disqualifies them from being a good person. Shame is where the most interesting character work lives and most writers skip straight over it :(
ā¹Ā What do they do when no one is watching?Ā how do they move through a space alone. What do they reach for when they're sad. What do they do with their hands??? Public behaviour IS performance. Private behaviour is truth. you don't have to show all of it but you have to know it or the character will feel hollow in a way the reader notices without being able to name.
Your action hero just got shot in the shoulder, stitched it up in a motel bathroom, and is now running through a forest. I need you to know that a shoulder wound severs muscle, nerves, and sometimes bone, and the human body's response to that is not "mild wincing followed by full range of motion." here is what injuries actually do to peoplee...
ā¹ Adrenaline is REAL and it does allow people to do extraordinary things immediately after injury, BUT it is a loan, not a gift. you borrow the function and you pay it back later with interest. Your character might genuinely be able to run for twenty minutes after being stabbed. and then the adrenaline drops and everything the body was delaying arrives all at once. the collapse is NOT weakness. it's biology collecting its debt. write the debt collection. it's more interesting than the heroic sprint anyway.
ā¹ Blood loss changes cognition before it drops you. you don't go from "fine" to "unconscious." you go through a whole middle stage of confusion, poor decision-making, emotional dysregulation, a strange calm, tunnel vision, difficulty forming sentences. Your injured character making a bad call, saying something they normally wouldn't, becoming suddenly and inexplicably gentle--that's blood loss. use the middle stage. it's dramatically rich and almost nobody writes it.
ā¹ Recovery has a timeline and the timeline is long and boring and inconvenient to plot. a broken rib takes six weeks and during those six weeks sneezing is a genuine emergency. a concussion means no screens, no reading, no bright lights, and symptoms can persist for months. a stab wound to the abdomen means weeks of infection risk, limited mobility, and a specific kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with sleep. Your character being sidelined and frustrated and useless for a long time is not a narrative problem. it's the story.
ā¹ Pain also affects personality in ways writers skip. chronic pain makes people short-tempered and then guilty about being short-tempered. it makes concentration difficult. it makes intimacy complicated, both emotional and physical. a character who was patient and warm before their injury and is now snappy and withdrawn is not a character regression. they're in pain. pain is exhausting in ways that don't show on the outside. the people around them noticing and not knowing how to help is a whole story in itself.
If you look closely at Baelor, he reminds me of Aragorn. The heir to the throne who is so gentle with everyone because he knows his own power.
Aragorn in LOTR, is a Messiah figure, like Jesus. And Baelor too has that almost holy aura about him. However he dies, never to return because in his case the sins of his family are too much. It makes so much sense that he dies because of his own family, directly and indirectly, from daeron lying about egg's disappearance, Egg running away with Duncan, Aerion assaulting and torturing an innocent girl to Maekar hitting the blow which claims Baelor's life. Baelor breakspear who defeated Daemon blackfyre, one of the best ever fighters in ASOIAF universe twice, loses his life to his own kin because he has to. He's holy in a family of sinners and he has to pay that price. He has to die for the sin of others.
Heās the beautifullest
Fragilest
Still strong
Dark and divine
And the littleness of his movements
Hides himself
He invents a charm that makes him invisible
Hides in the air
Can I hide there too?
Hide in the air of him
Seek solace
Sanctuary
Excerpt from a letter from Simon to Philomene Asteris:
I came to know him, a little, in Duskhaven. We worked alongside each other, tending to the refugees. He worked himself to physical and mental exhaustion, sometimes passing out on a bench for a scant hour or two of rest before the next wave of frightened, displaced people arrived. I was clearly Cursed by that time, forced to wear a worgenās body, unable to change backābut he showed no distaste in working with me or any other Cursed Gilnean. His example went a long way towards our acceptance, in those days immediately after the city evacuation.
your thoughts on ls tracing AKOTSK men's features while they're asleep....? š
*explodes*
oh, these made me YEARN like a mf.
BAELOR.
Baelor sleeps wrapped around you. One arm under your neck, the other banded around your waist, his chest a broad steady heat along your spine. This man doesnāt just sleep next to you. He gathers you, hoards you, his forearm snug across your middle as if heās shielding something from sight. Some part of him still doesnāt quite trust the world not to steal you while he dreams. So to trace his features you would have to disentangle yourself, slowly, without waking him, which is its own minor heist in truth. And when you finally got your hand free, what you would find, in sleep, is a face that has finally let go of duty.
His brow unknits. That crease between his brows (the one that lives permanently in the daytime, the crease that comes from carrying a kingdom on his shoulders) is gone. You would touch it lightly with your thumb because the absence of it is so striking. And you would trace the line of his nose, the slight bump where it was broken once in a tourney mishap he refuses to discuss. You would map the shape of his mouth, which in sleep falls slightly open, vulnerable in a way it never is when he speaks. You would touch the silver at his temples that the southern light at the Red Keep kisses, as if the gods simply meant to mark him there. And you would feel, with a sharp and unbearable tenderness, the thinness of the skin beneath his eyes. The bruised hollows of a man whoās not slept properly in years until he started sleeping with you. The wonder of it would land on you like cold water: I am the reason this man rests.
He would catch you at it. Baelor sleeps the lightest of any of them despite being the most exhausted, because part of him is always listening for the realm. His hand would close gently around your wrist mid-trace and his eyes would crack open. That strange mismatched gaze, dark and pale, dazed with sleep, and he would smile, slow, delighted. What are you doing, wife? And you would, mortified, try to retract your hand, and he would not let you. No. Carry on. I should like to see what conclusions you reach.
MAEKAR.
Sleeps like a soldier. On his back, one hand resting on his stomach, the other near where his sword would be. Even now, even in your bed, even years into a marriage heās come to want with all the fierce surprise of a man who didnāt expect to want anything again, he still sleeps in formation. Braced. His body has not unlearned the war. And to trace his face in sleep is to trace a map of every fight heās been in, because Maekarās face is evidence of them. The faint pox scars across his cheeks. The new split scar along the ridge of his knuckle from a sword hilt that bit him years ago. The cut along his cheek that has faded but not gone from Redgrass Field.
His hands are the part that would steal your breath, though. Rough, scarred and callused from years with a sword in his hand, from battles heās had to fight. You would lift his hand from where it rests on the coverlet and you would turn it over in yours and you would map the calluses with your fingertip. The place where the pommel sits, where the reins lie, where the bowstring pulls. And somewhere in this, he would wake. Maekar wakes fast. Soldier-fast. He would wake with his other hand moving toward where the sword should be, and then he would register it was you, and the readiness would drain out of him in a single long exhale, and he would look at you with that gruff bewildered tenderness he can never quite hide and he would grunt, voice rough with sleep: what. Not a question, exactly. More a statement of presence. And you would say, softly: go back to sleep, husband. And he would, but only after pulling you closer, his big hand settling at the small of your back, his face turning into your throat where he can smell you.
AERION.
Catastrophic. And not in the way youād expect, because Aerion doesnāt sleep braced or guarded the way a man with his obsession ought to. Aerion sleeps curled toward you, every line of him already oriented your way, like a flower that grew toward the sun in the dark and has not bothered to dissemble about it. One hand fisted in the fabric of your shift. One leg hooked over yours. His face turned into the pillow you share, lashes pale against fever-warm skin, breath stirring the loose hair at your temple. And the moment your fingertips graze his cheek (the moment you have the audacity to touch him while he sleeps)he doesnāt startle, doesnāt flinch. He leans into it.
Greedy is the only word for him. Aerion in sleep is greedy for you, in a way his waking self has spent years trying to disguise. Awake, his obsession comes barbed, sneering, costumed in cruelty so he doesnāt have to admit how badly he wants. Asleep, none of that machinery is running. So when your thumb traces the line of his jaw, he turns his face into your hand. Open-mouthed. Half-conscious. Like a dragonling rooting toward heat. His lashes flutter. He makes a small, rumbling sound in his throat. And he moves. That lean dangerous body shifting closer, closer. Until you understand heās not simply asleep beside you but winding himself around you, leisurely and deliberate. His face is inches from yours and his forehead nearly brushes yours and youāre nose-to-nose in the dim, his breath on your mouth.
Presenting himself. Offering himself. Look at me, the whole shape of him says, even in sleep. Map me. Mark me. It has always been yours.
And so you do. You trace the cropped softness of his hair at the nape, where it grows in stubble-pale from the time he cut it for you. You touch the scar on his jaw. Smooth your thumb along the high arrogant ridge of his cheekbone, the place that goes flushed when heās feverish or furious or wanting. You touch the corner of his full mouth, and his lips part for you, automatically, the same way they parted for the cup of water you held to them when he was sick. And his eyes are open by then, of course they are (Aerion sleeps shallow, the dark thing in him will not let him sleep deeper than that) and theyāre pale and blown wide, fever-bright in the dark, watching you map him with the desperate attentiveness of a man whoās been waiting for this his entire life and would die before he admitted it.
He doesnāt speak. Doesnāt break the spell. He simply lies there, curled around you, face inches from yours, and lets you have him. Lets you claim him. The whole tableau of it. The hot dragonish body coiled into yours, the parted mouth, the eyes that have not blinked in what feels like minutes. Heās a man being handed over to you in the only language heās ever been able to speak: the language of stillness while you do what you like. Heāll be vicious about it tomorrow, say something cutting about your sentiment. Your softness, your northern habits. He will perform the disdain so you canāt take from him what he was unable to refuse you tonight. It wonāt work. And the next night heāll be curled into you again, fiercer, before the candle is even out.
VALARR.
Sleeps boyish. Thereās no other word for it. For a man so polished in waking (the careful cultivation of charm, the lingering look he gives you across rooms, the deliberate way he holds himself even at rest) Valarr in sleep is softened to the point of foolishness. His mouth is slightly parted, dark hair mussed. The white streak at his temple is a pale slash through the tousle. The polish that defines him by day has completely deserted him, and whatās left is a man in his twenties with a small crease between his brows and an unguarded face that you canāt stop looking at.
So you touch him. Just your thumb at first, smoothing the crease between his brows the way youāve wanted to all day. And Valarr (whoās the most attuned to you of any of them) doesnāt so much wake as soften further under your hand. He makes a small sound, sleep-thick and pleased. Turns his face into your palm, slow, instinctive. His lashes donāt lift. His eyes donāt open. Heās still mostly asleep. But his mouth finds the pad of your thumb, and his lips trace it, unhurried, half-conscious, learning the shape of you with the same devotion he gives every other inch of you when heās awake.
Then he nuzzles deeper. His cheek against your palm. His nose at the heel of your hand. A man who is, you realise with a quiet jolt, presenting himself for petting. Presenting himself to be claimed. Iām yours, take stock, do as you like. Said with no words, only the small shameless tilt of his head into your hand, the tiny kiss he plants in the centre of your palm when his lips happen to find it. And when his eyes finally do crack open, mismatched and unfocused, they find your face and his whole expression breaks open into that helpless unguarded delight you only ever see from Valarr in sleep. The man under the prince.
He wants to be kept. Thatās the secret of Valarr in sleep. The performance is intricate, the polish is real, the immortalising gaze is genuine. But underneath all of it is a man who wants to be a thing you keep on the bed and stroke when heās good. And tracing his features while he sleeps gives him exactly that, and he goes utterly liquid under your hand. Heāll let you do it as long as you want, and heāll purr small wordless sounds into your palm, and somewhere in this hour youāll understand that you have ruined him for any other woman whoās ever lived, because no one else has ever touched him like this. Without performance, without ceremony, without payment due, and no one else ever will again.
DAERON.
Oh, oh, oh. Daeron sleeps with his hand curled near his face, knuckles white, holding something back. And his face in sleep is the only place you ever see him young. Waking, Daeron is older than his years. Wine-aged, dream-gnawed, carrying the weight of visions that crawl out of him in his sleep and walk into the world. He has a face thatās going to be ruined by drink before heās forty if no one stops him. But in sleep, before the drink hits, before the dreams come, before the hand pours the next cupā¦ Daeron looks young, handsome. He looks like the boy he was before the gift cracked him open.
So to trace his features in sleep is to map the wound the dreams have been chewing on. You would touch the dark crescents under his eyes. Deep, blue-black, constant now. You would touch the soft hair at his temple, damp at the roots. You would touch the corner of his mouth, which in sleep does this terrible thing. It twitches, downward, as if the dreams are already starting, as if even unconscious heās bracing. And you would know, with a sinking that is its own kind of love, that you canāt save him from what is in his head. You can only sit with him afterwards. You can only hold him while he sweats it out.
He will wake mid-trace. Heāll wake with his eyes already wet, dream-disturbed, half a word in his mouth that he swallows when he sees you. And he will look at you for a long moment and then his face will crumple (just briefly, just for a heartbeat) and then heāll laugh, that bitter wine-aged laugh, and say darling, you should not look at me like that, youāll spoil me for the rest. And you will say, levelly, Daeron, and heāll stop laughing, his hand coming up to cover yours where it rests against his cheek. Heāll hold it there for one long silence, and that will be the closest thing to I love you heās capable of giving you.
LYONEL.
The opposite of all of these men. Lyonel sprawls. He sleeps the way he laughs: loud, generous, taking up the entire bed and apologising for none of it. One arm flung above his head, the other across your waist with a possessiveness so unselfconscious it reads as thoughtless, his frame radiating heat like a hearth. Heās the man who falls asleep faster than anyone you know, because Lyonel doesnāt lie awake worrying. Lyonel has never lain awake worrying. Thatās one of the great gifts of being Lyonel Baratheon.
So to trace his features is a different kind of project entirely. Itās not heartbreak. Itās wonder. Heās almost obscenely beautiful in sleep. The stagās pride of him, the strong jaw gone slack, the dark lashes fanned against tanned skin, the mouth thatās always grinning in waking finally at rest. You would map his face slowly. The small white scar through his eyebrow from a tourney. The flattened bridge of a nose broken twice. The soft place at his temple where his pulse beats steady and unhurried. And Lyonel, who sleeps deeply and long, would not wake. You could trace him for an hour and the man would simply continue to breathe, mouth open, lashes still.
He would wake eventually (late, slow, irritated by sunlight) and he would catch your hand without opening his eyes and bring it to his lips and kiss the palm and rumble whatāre you about, she-wolf, and when you told him, I was looking at you, he would crack one eye open, grin like sin, and say aye? And whatās the verdict? And you would have to lie to him, because Lyonel doesnāt need to be told heās beautiful, Lyonel already knows, Lyonel will dine out on it for a week. So youād say the verdict is you snore, and heād roar with laughter, and pull you on top of him, and that would be the end of any further tracing.
DUNK.
Dunk is the only one on this list who sleeps completely undefended. Dunk, all seven feet of him, all knotted muscle and scarred knuckles and broken-nosed sweet-eyed enormity. He sleeps like a child. On his side, one big hand tucked under his cheek, his face slack and peaceful in a way that takes your breath. The largest man you have ever seen, and in sleep heās the softest, and the dissonance of it is so profound that the first time you saw it your eyes burned.
So you trace his features slowly. Oh so, very slowly. Because Dunk is a man whoās been touched without tenderness his entire life. Bruised, broken, struck by others, and to be touched gently while he sleeps is something heās never received, ever, not in all the years of life. You would trace the cauliflowered curl of his ear, scarred from training. The ridge of his nose, broken so many times it has settled into its asymmetry. The pale lines of old scars across his cheek, his jaw, his brow. And you would touch his mouth last, most gently, because Dunk has the softest mouth of any man you know, and in sleep it lies parted and trusting like a boyās.
And Dunk would wake. Slowly. Blinking up at you in the dim light, confused at first, his big body stirring carefully because even half-asleep Ser Duncan the Tall is afraid of breaking small things. And when he registers what youāve been doing (when he understands youāve been touching his face) he would go still, the way he goes still when something gentle happens to him that he doesnāt know how to receive. And his eyes, which are honest blue and absolutely without guile, would fill. Genuinely fill. And he would say, in that quiet rumble of a voice, mālady. You donātā¦ you donāt have to do that. And you would say, I know. And he wouldnāt be able to speak after that for a long time.
And he would, carefully, very tentatively, lift one of his enormous hands and lay the back of it against your cheek. A fraction of the gentleness you just gave him, a fraction of the same gift returned in his clumsy, sincere way, and he would not say anything, but you would understand that heās just made you a private vow no septa would recognise but every god in the seven heavens would.
Thoughts on the AKOTSK boys being told how beautiful they are during dirty talk? š
BAELOR. Baelor has spent his life being told heās good, honourable, dutiful and brave, never really beautiful. Half-Dornish at a court that whispers about his motherās blood, the heir who carries the weight of legitimising his fatherās reign, the man who canāt want for himself because wanting is what Aegon the Unworthy did. Nobody has ever looked at this man as a body to be admired just for himself, only a king-in-waiting to be measured. So when you tell him heās beautiful (and you have to whisper it, soft against the line of his jaw, your hand on his face so he canāt turn away) he stills. completely. like the word doesnāt quite compute. and then his eyes change, that particular flicker, where the dark one goes almost black and the pale one goes almost silver, and he says your name, low and rough, because the praise is too much, because he doesnāt know how to receive it without it feeling like he doesnāt deserve it. So you have to make him take it. Press your mouth to his ear and say it again, you are so beautiful, my love, and feel him shudder like youāve struck him.
MAEKAR. Scoffs. Scoffs. Genuinely canāt accept it without deflection. You say youāre beautiful, husband, and he grunts and says donāt be daft, woman, and shoves his face into your throat to hide the fact that his ears have gone pink. But youāll feel his hands tighten on you. Youāll feel the way his next thrust comes harder, deeper, like heās retaliating for the compliment, like he has to fuck the embarrassment back into you. Maekar has been the spare and the soldier his whole life, the gruff one, the not-Baelor, beauty is for his eldest brother, his older brothers, never him. But you keep saying it. You say it when heās flushed and breathing hard against your collarbone, you say it when his silver hair has fallen out of its tie and stuck to his temples with sweat, when heās looking at you like heās afraid youāll vanish. And one night, very late, heāll mumble into your hair say it again and you will know youāve won.
AERION. oh, catastrophic. This is a man whoās weaponised his beauty his entire life because itās the only thing about himself heās ever been allowed to like. He knows heās beautiful. Heās been told it, casually, by every courtier and serving girl since he was a boy, and he holds it at armās length like a coin he doesnāt trust the weight of. Compliments from strangers slide off him. But from you? From his wolf, from the woman who saved him, the woman whose mouth heās imagined the shape of for years? Whe you tell him heās beautiful (properly tell him, with your hand splayed against his cheek, looking him dead in the eyes, you are so beautiful, Aerion) he will break apart. Heāll go feverish, his pupils will blow wide, heāll grip you too hard and bury his face in your neck because he canāt let you see whatās happening on his face. Heāll say something cruel about it after (careful, sweetling, Iāll grow vain) but youāll feel him trembling. Youāll feel the truth of it in his hands. And the next time you fuck, heāll be worse. Needier, more vicious, more desperate to extract it from you again, because now he knows youāll give it and heāll spend the rest of his life chasing the high of it.
VALARR. Hereās the trap of Valarr: praise is his native language. He gives it constantly, generously, without thought, because (as we established) heās been worshipped his whole life and has therefore developed no real defence against being wanted. He tells you youāre beautiful at least four times a session. So when you turn it on him? Youāre beautiful, Val, look at you, look at how good you areāhe glows. He genuinely lights up, that golden boy grin breaking across his face, and heāll laugh, breathless, delighted, and say yeah? like a man being handed a present. But hereās the thing: it doesnāt unmake him the way it does the others. Valarr has heard it before, many times. What undoes him is the who of it (that you said it, his impossible-to-impress wolf, his northern queen who never gives anything she doesnāt mean) and so the praise is less devastation than confirmation. I knew it. I am. I am, for you.
DAERON. Daeron has spent his short life being told heās the disappointment, the wine-soaked one, the prince who sees too much in his sleep and not enough in the world. He has a beautiful face (Targaryen-soft, fine-boned, dreamy) and absolutely no idea what to do with it. Tell Daeron heās beautiful and he will flinch. Heāll think youāre mocking him. Heāll go quiet and watchful, a little sad, because he doesnāt believe it, because his fatherās disappointment lives in his chest where pride should be. Youāll have to say it again, and again, and mean it, hold his face in your hands and make him look at you, you are beautiful, Daeron, you are, and watch his eyes well up before he laughs it off and turns his face into your palm and kisses it, pretending the moment didnāt gut him. It gutted him. Youāll feel it for hours afterwards in how carefully he holds you.
LYONEL. Roars with laughter. Genuinely, genuinely laughs. Head thrown back, that big stormlands bellow, his stagās-pride mane of black hair shaking. He loves it. He eats it up. Heāll grin down at you, all teeth, and say aye, mālady? say it again, louder, I want the bloody guards to hear it. Lyonel has zero shame about being beautiful. He knows, leans into it because praise from you is fuel, not unmaking. Heāll demand more (what else, wolf, tell me what else, tell me what you like best) and heāll fuck you stupid trying to earn each new compliment, his eyes bright with delight, his hands shaking your hips because heās laughing in the middle of it. Heās the one man on this list who can take a youāre beautiful and turn it into a game youāll lose.
DUNK. See, Dunk genuinely believes heās ugly. Has believed it his entire life. Seven feet tall and not a handsome bone in him, thatās how he thinks of himself. A hedge knight with cauliflower ears and a broken nose and hands like shovels. Nobody has ever told Ser Duncan the Tall heās beautiful. Nobody. The word is not in his vocabulary as it pertains to him. So when you say it (and you would have to say it carefully, you would have to say it without any joke in your voice youāre beautiful, Ser) he will go absolutely still, this enormous mountain of a man, still. His face will soften in a way that youāll feel in your sternum. He will think, briefly, that youāre teasing him. Then heāll see your face and understand that you are not. And then this huge quiet man will bury his face in your stomach, your chest, wherever he can hide it, because he canāt let you see his eyes shine, and heāll hold you so carefully, so carefully, like youāre the most precious thing thatās ever told him a lie that turned out to be true. And he wonāt say anything for a long time. Not a word. And then heāll say, muffled, you shouldnāt say things like that to me, mālady. itāll go to my head.
Hey, man, c'mere. Listen. Get in real close, this is important.
You're gonna make stuff again. You're gonna make stuff you're proud of. You're gonna make stuff you're excited to share. You're going to feel that overwhelming drive to create, not just the frantic I want to want to you're stuck in now. You're going to have awesome ideas, and you're going to make them into reality. You're going to create again. You're still an artist. You're still a writer. You're still home to the same passion you had before. You'll find it again. It's not gone. It's just resting. Let it rest. You're going to make stuff again. I promise.
A post about Baelor Targaryen's hands and their significance for the story. Or, why do I believe Baelor's hands have a storyline of their own? Here's why.
In good storytelling small details matter, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is proof of this. It shows a lot in the way characters are presented. Now, since it's Lyonel Baratheon who's responsible for male nudity (and partially Dunk), the Targaryens, who are the opposite of Baratheon in a sense (especially Baelor) look very reserved. They only show their faces and hands. Needless to say that the show's creators have done a great job here.
Here's the frame that's always worth mentioning. You instantly know where to look, your brain knows, and it's thanks not just to our hero's good looks ā it's also thanks to the lighting and values. Artists are taught this. And here the center of immediate attention is not even Baelor's face, it's mostly his hands. And both look fine (how dare he look so fine), but his hands are somehow so particularly fine that we just can't get over them. Nature's been very generous indeed to Baelor Targaryen/Bertie Carvel. The director and the cinematographer have made all the right choices.
So there he sits, playing with his ring absent-mindedly. And he does this thing a lot (probably the actor's choice). The first time we see him, he's eating something (most likely grapes), and he twiddles a grape with the air of a man who just loves to have something to play with in his fingers. Probably a piece of characterisation ā because Baelor is a fun guy. But also, his sense of touch is obviously important to him. And I also see this as a part of his general agility and, in a sense, his training as a fighter. Heightened senses ā agile limbs ā hallmarks of someone who's good with a sword.
But anyway, for some reason these beautiful hands with long nimble fingers become important. We know them, we remember them, we admire their owner.
Fast forward to the last scene where Baelor's talking to Raymun Fossoway.
He's received the fatal blow, he's dying, while still remaining on his feet. And he's obviously noticing some sinister signs ā something's not right. But he doesn't say "The headache is killing me", or "I'm getting sleepy", or "I'm cold", though all of these would have been accurate. He says, "My fingers feel like wood." It's the first thing that comes to his mind, something that surprises and unsettles him most of all.
Something that's been important to him for all of his life, an integral part of him is leaving him, and he doesn't know why. He most probably does feel something's gone very wrong by this point, but he cannot know the full extent of the damage. All he knows ā he's in pain, he feels weird, and now his fingers feel like wood. For him it's like saying "I don't feel like myself anymore, there is something wrong with me, and I probably need help" without saying it.
Baelor is someone who is surrounded by and constantly burdened by duty, and as a result, is definitely someone I can see feeling melancholy about how locked out of the rest of the world he feels.
Now, with the song Black Beauty, it portrays the feeling of loving someone who is distant, burdened, and unable to fully let joy in. AKA Baelor, feeling the pressure and weight of the realm to the point where he is scared to fully let another person in so that they too don't feel so burdened by it as well.
It's why i think he never remarried after Jena - duty killed her and a part of him. And it's also why he lets Valarr have it easy. Obviously, we don't see the full lengths of their relationship, just what Egg sees - but Baelor, in my mind, wants Valarr to feel unpressured by the realm and to live a life not living up to the expectations Baelor grew up with. It's why he's given easy challenges at Jousts and isn't burdened with politics until Baelors dies.
He is someone who has everything but canāt feel it - literally what Baelorās position as heir and prince is, he has the power, respect, and purpose, yet his life is dictated by responsibility rather than desire. Thereās an emotional distance in him, not because he doesnāt feel, but because he canāt afford to indulge those feelings.
Honestly, the whole song could be linked to someone who loves Baelor singing it about him, and how they are watching him give everything to duty while quietly losing parts of himself.
His ādarknessā isnāt cruelty or volatility, but the slow, constant weight of expectation. Someone who is shaped by a life of honour that comes at a cost of his personal happiness and is forced to accept obligation over love.
so yeah, it reminds him of me too, like, actually perfectly.
using the English literature degree i dropped out of rn to analyse this
