Holly: how do i know youre not a monster?
Max: your brother is super cringe
Holly: so true bestie

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PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
we're not kids anymore.
dirt enthusiast
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if i look back, i am lost
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KIROKAZE

shark vs the universe
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izzy's playlists!
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Three Goblin Art
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wallacepolsom
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@t2towers
Holly: how do i know youre not a monster?
Max: your brother is super cringe
Holly: so true bestie
one of the worst feelings in fandom is when the canon version of a character is one of your favorites ever but their fanon interpretation is just something you want to dropkick into a dying star and watch it all go supernova hopefully from close enough that it will obliterate you and your memory of what the fandom did to them in the process
Another horrible feeling in fandom is when it's a long-running series/franchise and eventually someone ends up writing for it who had soaked in that fanon interpretation and bases their understanding of the character off of it, so it actually ends up becoming a part of the canon
Season 2 -> Season 4 -> Season 5
ASOIAF POVs by EtceteraArt
please consider donating to the north gaza cruelty-free kitchen/camp + cruelty-free water project
when you try to bring up stranger things to someone and theyre like “wow its been so long i dont remember anything” like damn whats it like being normal
kendalicent roytower. you can’t even hug your own children. what have i done but what was expected of me? maybe the poison drips through.
will is having true sight here.
everyone else seems confused and frightened by the lights flickering (it’s not in the video but el especially looks confused and frantic). will does not. he is shuddering and his eyes are rolling (he may even be wearing contacts but i seriously can’t tell/doubt it).
i believe he is having a true sight-vision of karen and holly being under attack. (just like harry in the order of the phoenix when he dreams of arthur weasley being attacked by nagini)
will has broken out of true sight on his own before, so he will likely do this to inform them, but by then it will probably be too late. he knocks out before he can give details.
nancy and el rush to the wheeler house
and…
THE CHILDREN OF KING VISERYS I AND QUEEN ALICENT HIGHTOWER
quote by katie maria/ “portrait of a gentleman” attributed to george romney, late 18th century/ “study of a young girl” by sophie gengembre anderson, 19th century/ unknown portrait/ “portrait of a boy” by albert anker, 1874/ fire and blood by george rr martin, 2018.
what succession always did well was that it’s crudeness never felt performative or there for shock value or to illicit audience reaction or to be edgy or experimental it was because the characters actually Would fucking say that and Would fucking do that for convoluted reasons laid out to us over and over again in show like this guy isn’t going to psychosexually ironically unironically call his dad’s 65yo corporate lawyer ‘mommy’ because hes the funny one it’s because 80 years ago a four year old and a five and a half year old were speaking with their eyes in the hull of a u-boat fleeing from the war
wake up besties house of the dragon season 2 was nominated for absolutely zero emmys, making it 1) the only season of the franchise to get no nominations and 2) the least accoladed season by the academy, followed only by season 1 which received one single nomination for best drama and didn't win
crazy how obsessively favoring and absolving targaryen characters sucks all the nuance, logic, and thematic coherence from the writing, hence causing the failure of the franchise
do u ever forget that apart from literally everything else asoiaf is a zombie apocalypse story
oh i’m sure
can the surprising twist be that everyone lives except for vecna, Mike and will ride off into the sunset, eleven doesn’t have to exhaust herself everyday to fight, max is out of her coma and on a movie date with Lucas, Dustin and Steve are okay, Nancy and Robin have scenes together, Jonathon doesn’t die
Sorry but it’s extremely questionable to me to claim to be a GRRM fan and then outright ignore the clear dissatisfaction he has expressed with an adaptation of his art. Not to mention the outright disrespect he’s endured.
Just call yourself a Ryan Condal & Sara Hess fanfic lover at that point.
Mind you this ignoring the elephant in the room which is how wildly disproportionately racist the writing for this show has been. Not to mention YES misogynistic and frankly disgusting in its treatment of canonically queer characters. Oh and I forgot ableist…for all his faults GRRM didn’t write the disabled character having a sexual fetish that relates to his disability and involves showcasing to the audience a female character being assaulted for…what?
Is it me or is the High Tower and the Citadel giving off Orthnac vibes?
There stood a tower of marvelous shape. It was fashioned by the builders of old, who smoothed the Ring of Isengard, and yet it seemed a thing not made by the craft of Men, but riven from the bones of the earth in the ancient torment of the hills. A peak and isle of rock it was, black and gleaming hard: four mighty piers of many-sided stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into gaping horns, their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged as knives. Between them was a narrow space, and there upon a floor of polished stone, written with strange signs, a man might stand five hundred feet above the plain. This was Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, the name of which had (by design or chance) a twofold meaning; for in the Elvish speech orthanc signifies Mount Fang, but in the language of the Mark of old the Cunning Mind.
-The Fellowship of the Ring, The Road to Isengard
Impossibly high tower made from nigh-indestructible black stone? Doesn't seem it was built by humans?
Even more enigmatic to scholars and historians is the great square fortress of black stone that dominates that isle . . . for its massive walls and labyrinthine , interiors are all of solid rock, with not hint of joints or mortar, no chisel marks of any kind, a type of construction that is seen elsewhere . . . The dragonlords of Valyria, as is well-known, possessed the art of turning stone to liquid with dragonflame, shaping it as they would, then fusing it harder than iron, steel or granite. -WOIAF, The Reach, Oldtown
The original keep of the High Tower stands on "an isle of rock" with four sides of fused black stone with a tower hundreds of feet high. Not to even mention that the maesters' HQ is literally named "the Citadel." Note, it's not something like "Library of Oldtown" or some other name the emphasizes that it is a place of learning, but a military installation within a city akin to Isengard's name itself meaning "enclosure of iron."
"Who do you think killed all the dragons the last time around? Gallant dragonslayers armed with swords?" He spat. "The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons. Ask yourself why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste his life upon the Wall, when by rights he should have been raised to archmaester. His blood was why. He could not be trusted. No more than I can." -AFFC, Samwell V That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us." -ADWD, Bran III
“A new Power is rising…We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way…As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time…deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order. All the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish…There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.”
-The Fellowship of the Rings, The Council of Elrond
Once allied with Sauron, Saruman turned the resources of Isengard towards waging war against the free peoples of Middle Earth and even the trees themselves. He industrialized Isengard, and turned to breeding Uruk-hai and waged war on Rohan. The Citadel's mission implied by Marwyn is to eliminate magic. The maesters are very much the prime proponents of science in Westeros, and are actively working to eliminate magic. Could it have had something to do with the Hightowers (starting with Dorian) quickly allying with the Andal invaders and accepting the Faith represented by making Oldtown the center of the Faith? That war on magic includes not just the dragons, but by extension, the Children of the Forest, greenseers and possibly giants, whom the Andals following the Seven fought against. In other words, is the Citadel is continuing a mission that started long ago? Especially since "wizards, alchemists and sorcerers" were among the original learned men of the Citadel.
"If I were queen, the first thing I would do would be to kill all those grey rats. They scurry everywhere, living on the leavings of the lords, chittering to one another, whispering in the ears of their masters. But who are the masters and who are the servants, truly? Every great lord has his maester, every lesser lord aspires to one. If you do not have a maester, it is taken to mean that you are of little consequence. The grey rats read and write our letters, even for such lords as cannot read themselves, and who can say for a certainty that they are not twisting the words for their own ends? What good are they, I ask you?" "They heal," said Theon. It seemed to be expected of him. "They heal, yes. I never said they were not subtle. They tend to us when we are sick and injured, or distraught over the illness of a parent or a child. Whenever we are weakest and most vulnerable, there they are. Sometimes they heal us, and we are duly grateful. When they fail, they console us in our grief, and we are grateful for that as well. Out of gratitude we give them a place beneath our roof and make them privy to all our shames and secrets, a part of every council. And before too long, the ruler has become the ruled. "That was how it was with Lord Rickard Stark. Maester Walys was his grey rat's name. And isn't it clever how the maesters go by only one name, even those who had two when they first arrived at the Citadel? That way we cannot know who they truly are or where they come from … but if you are dogged enough, you can still find out. Before he forged his chain, Maester Walys had been known as Walys Flowers. Flowers, Hill, Rivers, Snow … we give such names to baseborn children to mark them for what they are, but they are always quick to shed them. Walys Flowers had a Hightower girl for a mother … and an archmaester of the Citadel for a father, it was rumored. The grey rats are not as chaste as they would have us believe. Oldtown maesters are the worst of all. Once he forged his chain, his secret father and his friends wasted no time dispatching him to Winterfell to fill Lord Rickard's ears with poisoned words as sweet as honey. The Tully marriage was his notion, never doubt it, he—" -ADWD, The Prince of Winterfell
Lady Dustin's description of maesters with Maester Walys "pouring poison" in Lord Rickard's ears and working towards their own agenda brings to mind Gandalf's description of his royal advisor Grima Wormtongue.
"And ever Wormtongue’s whispering was in your ears, poisoning your thought, chilling your heart, weakening your limbs, while others watched and could do nothing, for your will was in his keeping."
-Two Towers, The King of the Golden Hall
The villainous advisor to Theoden intentionally gave him bad counsel on behalf of Orthanc's agenda as well as subtle poisons given as apparent remedies for old age. Her words effectively describe maesters as an army of sleeper Grima Wormtongues. They are often top advisors to their lords and constantly in communication with one another and the Citadel, and she suggests that the Citadel has its own agenda.
The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man's dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. Do you think that might be useful, Slayer?" -AFFC, Samwell V
Magic dark stone used to see far off places and communicate in far off distances brought from a long-dead advanced magical empire that fell to a cataclysm?
Now it appears that, as the rock of Orthanc has withstood the storms of time, so there the palantír of that tower has remained. But alone it could do nothing but see small images of things far off and days remote. Very useful, no doubt, that was to Saruman; yet it seems that he was not content. Further and further abroad he gazed, until he cast his gaze upon Barad-dûr. Then he was caught!
-The Two Towers, The Palantir
It's clear Martin is pulling out of his little hat of Tolkien references for this one. And of course, no Orthnac would be complete without a Saruman.
"You're wrong," said Leo. "There is a glass candle burning in the Mage's chambers." -AFFC, Prologue "He could not be trusted. No more than I can." "What will you do?" asked Alleras, the Sphinx. "Get myself to Slaver's Bay, in Aemon's place. The swan ship that delivered Slayer should serve my needs well enough. The grey sheep will send their man on a galley, I don't doubt. With fair winds I should reach her first." -AFFC, Samwell V
Saruman studied the One Ring, expermineted with the palantir and he became enamored with the One Ring as a result and got the attention of Sauron. He went rogue and betrayed the White Council and his fellow wizards, openly declaring for their enemy of Mordor. At the Citadel we have Marwyn the Mage, whose field is the study of the higher mysteries, and he has been using the glass candle lately. Perhaps, he managed to communicate with a certain magical figure with one red eye?
Saruman hoped to supplant Sauron, and even forged his own ring in emulation and wanted to take the One Ring for himself. Marwyn is going to Daenerys, the Citadel's secret enemy and she will undoubtedly need a Grand Maester for her small council. His fellow Archmaesters will undoubtedly hurls cries of treachery at him, and accuse him of wanting to usurp the Grand Maester chosen by them and by extension, their traditions.
I understand everyone’s frustrations, I do. I’m just trying to offer alternative perspectives because I’ve already seen people saying no one should watch it and it should be cancelled already.
My thing is, I think GRRM shot himself in the foot with his own writing. I don’t care for him or the books, but I know that he has said the books are written in the viewpoint of the maesters so it’s essentially both sides writing what they believe to be the truth: kind of like how much of history sometimes is. So I think that’s why the show runners have kind of done their own thing and veered away from that cuz 1.) it’d be weird to watch a show narrated by the maesters 2.) it would get confusing.
I was a super fan of GOT since it began and was furious at how they boogered the last season, so I get it. But I mean we can’t just assume it’s gonna suck before it even comes out yanno? Maybe I’m just an optimistic pessimist lmao
that's true, the book is super dense bc it is, essencially, an history book. It happems the same with The white Queen/princess, the spanish princess and the tudors. They are INCREDIBLY innacurate shows, because their story are part of history. Something similar happens with HOTD
The issue with hotd in my opinion, is that we do have the facts while GOT had the whole thoughts, personality and points of view of the facts as well.
(this is pure rambling and my opinion)