something i think would make a lot of historical romance more accurate & interesting is the realization that people are less likely to totally disparage the ethical & social values of their time than they are to use those values to defend whatever it is they want to do
a woman is less likely to go "it's stupid that women are expected to be modest" than she is to go "there is nothing immodest about a woman going out without a chaperone" or even "i can go out without a chaperone because i am so modest"
people also seem less likely to see someone's shitty behavior as reflecting a shitty society than they are to view that behavior as being out of accordance with that society - e.g. a father who's excessively controlling of his daughters' marriage prospects isn't, in her mind, acting that way because he lives in a repressive patriarchal culture, but is actually outdated in his values - his cruelty is unmodern, ungentlemanly, stuck in the past, barbaric. we might think he's upholding the values of his culture perfectly, but the people around him who took issue with his behavior probably wouldn't see it that way
Canon Baekar being reborn in a modern au and this time they grow up extremely distant from each other because Maekar remembers his last life and he just can't bring himself to be anywhere near Baelor. What if he hurts him again
Baelor who also remembers his last life and doesn't understand why his favorite little brother hates him in this life but wants to respect his decision anyway. They didn't get choices like this in their first life, and even if Maekar doesn't remember that, Baelor wants better for him in this life then they had in their first. He wants him to grow up without the burden of a war they had to fight so young, children they had to raise so young, duties and responsibilities they had to deal with since they were children themselves; and if Maekar having a better life means that now the two of them have nothing in common to bring them close and make them be friends, then Baelor is ok with that
Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”
So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”
Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.
Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.
#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)
adrian just keeps getting bigger and bigger with every passing fanart so might as well take it to its logical extreme. rocky and his skyscraper-sized gender-neutral mate-wife <3
if it's not clear already from the everything about my posts, this is of course all happening in a baelor lives au where dunk takes service with house targaryen.
it's established that thunder is already getting up there in years in the hedge knight, and by the mystery knight the guy that beats dunk in the joust is like yeah your horse is worthless to me.
point being, that sometime in the near future Dunk needs a new horse (in my crack fic version thunder dies but baelor has to lie and say they sent him to a nice farm in the stormlands to retire so dunk doesn't sob about it).
anyways, Dunk needs a new horse and baelors like well you are in service to my house so we'll get you a proper mount from our stables. love thunder and all, but he was kind of jank, you need a real war horse now that you're not a hedge knight anymore.
but Dunk doesn't want that on principle. to him it's a matter of pride, he's like a mans horse should be his own and I'm going to go and get one myself, and he's not completely shit broke anymore, so he can actually buy one.
off we go to wherever people buy horses in westeros, and dunk sees the most beautiful animal. it's absolutely massive and grey, and just has a regal bearing about it. he's like this is the one, this is the steed of a true knight, it's got to be mine.
he haggles with the seller a little, and ends up getting a sick deal. he's real proud of himself too, like wow I have elevated my station so much. I have a prince to serve and a great horse, life is good.
well it turns out the horse was cheap for a reason: it's fucking stupid. like spooky as all hell, low key afraid of other horses, eyes on top of its head all the time. dunks riding it back from the market and it sees a cart coming down the path and just spins dunk off and dips. so then dunk has to go chase his brand new horse around the countryside, meanwhile the guy that sold it to him is like no taksies backsies it's your problem now.
but dunk is a true horse girl, so he's going to fix this. and all the other knights are making fun of his for his wack ass horse, and even baelor is like I'm a prince we can make the guy that sold it to you take it back. Dunk is so stubborn though, like no I love my fuck ass horse.
cue a training montage, with dunk getting dropped every other time he gets on this damn horse, and egg just chases it down like a dutiful squire each time, and they just won't quit on this thing.
and then, finally, a tourney! in addition to training his horse, in this world dunk actually can fucking joust. and even down to the last second egg is like ser I don't know if your horse is up for this, like maybe you shouldn't enter the lists. but dunk is going to prove himself so we just full send. and like he doesn't win the whole thing, but he does a fine job, does house targaryen proud, the whole nine yards.
it goes on to serve him faithfully for many years before retiring to the same nice farm in the stormlands with thunder
you can lie on the floor in your home and the Soft Baby who lives there will approach you. this will increase your chance of contact with Nose Wet by 75%
The headquarters is going to Utah. Every regional office is being shuttered. The research program is being destroyed.
“More than fifty research and development facilities across thirty-one states. Gone. Consolidated into a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado. And ‘consolidated’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, because what it actually means is that decades of place-based, long-term ecological research—the kind that literally cannot exist anywhere else because it depends on specific forests, specific watersheds, specific ecosystems studied over generations—will be snuffed out.
You cannot move a thirty-year watershed study. You cannot relocate a decades-long old-growth monitoring program. You cannot box up a forest and ship it to Colorado. When these facilities close, the experiments die. The datasets end. The partnerships with universities that took generations to build collapse. And the institutional knowledge of the scientists who ran those programs walks out the door, because the administration damn well knows most of them won’t follow a forced relocation to a single consolidated office that has nothing to do with the ecosystems they’ve spent their careers studying.”
I've been host to a brainworm that's telling me I should start a French Mistake style dunkbaelor AU. Here's a preview! Let me know if you think I should run with it! Fair warning, there are graphic descriptions of gore and injury under the cut.
“A queer troubled look passed across Baelor Breakspear’s face, like a cloud passing before a sun. He raised his hand and touched the back of his head with two fingers, oh so lightly. And then he fell.”
- George R. R. Martin, The Hedge Knight, p. 182
Dunk caught Baelor, just barely fast enough to cup his torn and bloody shield hand around the back of the dying prince’s head before it could hit the ground.
One broken thing holding another, he thought morbidly.
Dunk's many wounds throbbed anew at the weight of a tall man covered in plate and chainmail landing limp in his lap.
“Up,” he cried desperately as his blood slowed in his own veins, icy with pain and grief. “Up, up.”
As the prince’s body stilled in Dunk’s arms, two-toned eyes fixed sightless upward and mouth agape, the light around them suddenly swelled so bright that Dunk had to raise his free hand to shade his eyes.
A strange clamor arose, the din of many voices and footsteps. No screaming or wailing, as there should be with the heir apparent to the Iron Throne lying dead in a hedge knight’s arms with only half a skull. There came sounds of clicking and snapping, wheels rolling, and questions being thrown back and forth. There was a loud snap and someone called out sharply, "Cut!"
Cut what, Dunk wondered. What new trickery is this?
Stunned and confused, Dunk lowered his hand to see what queer occasion made such light and sound. At first, he could not believe his eyes. This was not the place he was before.
Rather, it was the same breezeway, the entry to the stables, but everything else was changed. An army dressed in strange, unmatching cloth swarmed around him. Some hoisted devices of unknown purpose, while others packed and removed black, glossy contraptions from a great number of bags and trunks. Odd stands were propped up everywhere, holding aloft lanterns that seemed to burn with no flame, and shiny silver sheets. He'd only just begun to look around when the head in his hand moved.
No, he thought with dread, it cannot be. This isn’t real.
Baelor’s skull had been shattered, falling away in grisly pieces when Steely Pate and Raymun removed his helm, and Dunk’s gory hand had been desperately cupped over a place where pale, soft matter was trying to push outward. Now he felt a hard, unbroken curve beneath his torn glove, and the small movements of life returning to the body in his arms.
Baelor’s wide eyes blinked once and his chest rose with a breath of air. As Dunk watched in mute horror, Baelor’s eyebrows pinched together, slowly forming an expression of confusion. “Your Grace?” Dunk asked tremulously. Baelor’s gauntleted shield hand slowly and clumsily rose to tap against Dunk’s arm.
“Guys, hate to interrupt - that take was great, but we’ve got to go again.” A stranger crouched down in front of them, one hand pressed to their ear. Dunk couldn’t see them clearly for his swollen eye and the blood running down his face. “Ira wants to see if you can be more demonstrative with your grief, Peter. And he asked that you to keep to the script this time,” they continued curtly. “We all agreed that the book lines won’t land with the viewers as well.”
Baelor interrupted with an awful rough and panicked noise, not unlike the one that Dunk made when his agonizing got the best of him. He’d made it a minute prior to the gods-be-damned trial, in fact, just before he'd vomited over the side of Thunder’s neck. Watching a dead prince wake in his arms, he felt about ready to make it again.
Dunk attempted to haul Baelor into a more upright position, crying out hoarsely at the strain on his injuries. Try as he might, he could not move swiftly enough to keep the man from retching all over the both of them. Dunk numbly noticed that there was blood mixed in with the thin bile. “Oh shit,” someone gasped from behind them, “Bertie’s just been sick everywhere. What the fuck, is he vomiting blood? Hey you, get the paramedics on set. Go! Hurry!”
Bertie, Dunk thought deliriously. Peter? I might be a lunk, but I know those aren’t the names we had at the start of this accursed day.
He did his best to hold Baelor up so he wouldn’t choke on his own gorge, resting his weight higher on Dunk’s chest. The change in position pressed the sharp edge of Baelor’s pauldron into Dunk’s lance wound, and the strange scene around him turned first yellow and then grey at the edges.
“Your Grace,” he said again, his voice coming out thin and shaking with agony. “Prince Baelor, can you hear me? Are you truly awake, m’lord?” He couldn’t keep his hands from clutching at him, trying to feel the warmth of life through dented armor.
The man in his arms gave a rattling cough and long groan, trying and failing to wipe the back of his gauntlet across his mouth. Miraculously, Baelor replied with great strain. “Ser- ," his head wobbled weakly as he tried to turn and look up at Dunk. He heard Baelor’s throat click as he swallowed hard. "Ser Duncan,” he rasped, “What happened – what is this place?”
That was the last he remembered before his wits left him, pain and confusion fading as he was dragged down under the unyielding weight of unconsciousness.
The idea hit me what if not everyone is blessed with double sided bond.
The bond between Soulmates is considered incredibly sacred like no one can bring you more happiness then your soulmate.
When some who especially blessed when they lose their Soulmate their is a chance they will get a new Soulmate with another who had lost their Soulmate.
Everyone is born with one soulmate their whole life. However depending on how they live they may be cursed with a one-sided bond.
So Dunks soulmate was Rafe he had her name on his arm and they just knew felt the bond and so when she died Dunk was devastated and felt his whole world fell apart.
Aerion has Dunks name and well Dunk obviously does not have his so while Aerion will feel a bond Dunk won't feel anything.
And Aerion is so arrogant he'll be upset that his soulmate is a commoner while Dunk won't understand why this Prince is so upset with him.
Dunk just ignores him and continues on his way but Aerion get pissed that he's ignoring him.
The real reason why Egg wanted Dunk to change his name Duncan is so that he will miss Aerion. He does not know that they are not mutual soulmates.
Dunk is trying to live his best life while trying to ignore this prince who is suddenly everywhere and is so rude to him.
Egg is hiding in the bushes trying to figure out a plan to get rid of his brother.
Aerion attacking Tanselle is more because hes jealous that Dunk seems to be crushing on her hard while his "Perfect Soulmate" is right in front of him.
Imagine Grace defined his name as the elegance definition of grace and Rocky spends years thinking how fucking ironic this clumsy leaky space blobs name is.
Until Grace slips out a sentence along the lines of "could you give me a little grace here" and Rocky immediately points out he used a word wrong so Grace has to explain that yeah, grace means elegance but it can also mean mercy sometimes too.
And Rocky has to suddenly reconcile that the clumsy leaky blob that saved his life twice, that almost certainly doomed himself to come back for him, name is Mercy.
