Untitled

SanSan, and historical costuming, and psychedelic transcendence!

[trippyl0ngstocking]

I’m doing digital art now! And making bath and body products to sell. Mayhaps I’ll do some SanSan related art soon :)

[racefortheironthrone]

What would people pray to the stranger for?

Release from pain. 

[goodqueenaly]

Some relevant quotes:

Tyrion lingered after his cousin had slipped away. At the Warrior’s altar, he used one candle to light another. Watch over my brother, you bloody bastard, he’s one of yours. He lit a second candle to the Stranger, for himself.

The Mother’s altar and the Warrior's swam in light, but Smith and Crone and Maid and Father had their worshipers as well, and there were even a few flames dancing below the Stranger’s half-human face ... for what was Stannis Baratheon, if not the Stranger come to judge them? 

Cersei was kneeling before the altar of the Mother. Joffrey’s bier had been laid out beneath the Stranger, who led the newly dead to the other world. 

“Oh, he has tried. Lord Manderly has sent his letters on to us and replied with evasions. Stannis demands White Harbor's swords and silver, for which he offers ... well, nothing.” One day she must light a candle to the Stranger for carrying Renly off and leaving Stannis. 

One man had died at the feet of the Stranger, a single candle flickering above him. She could feel its heat, and the scent that it gave off tickled her nose. The candle burned with a dark red flame, she knew; for those with eyes, the corpse would have seemed awash in a ruddy glow. Before summoning the serving men to carry him away, she knelt and felt his face, tracing the line of his jaw, brushing her fingers across his cheeks and nose, touching his hair. Curly hair, and thick. A handsome face, unlined. He was young. She wondered what had brought him here to seek the gift of death.

As Attewell noted and from what we see in the House of the Undying, the Stranger can definitely be prayed to for death’s release. As Cersei’s wry joke about Renly and Stannis notes as well, some people may pray to the Stranger specifically to see someone else die, or in thanks for a particular enemy’s death. At the same time, because the Stranger represents death, there also seems to be some tradition of praying to him to keep someone from dying (hence, perhaps, why Tyrion prays to the Stranger “for himself” before the Blackwater: since he doesn’t fit neatly into the Westerosi ideal of the warrior - as Jaime so pointedly does - Tyrion’s protection will come instead from the arbiter of death himself deciding to keep him alive). This patronage for the Stranger goes hand in hand with Sansa’s and Jaime’s observations - Sansa’s of Stannis as the embodiment of the Stranger “come to judge them” and Jaime’s of Joffrey’s bier’s position “beneath the Stranger, who led the newly dead to the other world”. If the Stranger is the one who ultimately decides who lives and who dies among humanity - who judges on what day each individual person will breathe their last - then someone might pray to the Stranger that today isn’t their or another person’s day, that the Stranger should pass over them for judgment and divine smiting. 

I think this is yet another area where our lack of knowledge on the Faith’s theology and teachings both limits an answer and allows for creativity in, say, fic writing or general worldbuilding. I could definitely see where, for example, the Stranger would be prayed to if someone just died, as judge of the afterlife, to judge that person fairly but mercifully, and let them into whatever heaven that person has merited. 

[trippyl0ngstocking]

I always thought that Tyrion lighting a candle to the Stranger was because that’s the face of the Seven that Tyrion himself most identifies with. The Stanger is the outcast, the exception, the person who has no place in the social hierarchy -he’s not a parent or unmarried girl, he’s not a warrior not elderly, not a craftsman. He’s the other. And Tyrion *is* an outcast, both within his family and in society at large. A stranger in a sense.

TL;DR: Tyrion’s identification with the Stranger is a reflection of his own sense of alienation.

[turtle-paced]

If Tyrion was meant to ride a dragon why do you think the show left it out?

Mostly I think it’s because the show cares more about the political aspects of the story than the fantastical aspects of the story. Tyrion’s the guy they set up for politics. He does politics. Nothing else.

Along with a lot of Tyrion’s interiority in the last half of the show, we lost Tyrion’s desire to have people see and acknowledge his achievements. Riding a dragon is pretty hard for people to overlook.

That, and the show really needed some way to bring the Wall down. Zombie dragon’s as good as anything.

[mytly4]

The comprehensive answer to any such question along the lines of “Why didn’t the show do X?” is: D&D didn’t give a flying fuck about the books beyond their shock value, and the thing they most wanted to adapt was the Red Wedding. Once they got past that, they stopped caring about anything in the books, to the point that by season 5, they were literally contradicting the themes and characterization in the books (Revenge is awesome! And Ellaria Sand especially loves it!!). They barely adapted even a quarter of AFFC and ADWD. And by the time they got past the books (for a given value of ‘past’), the only things they pretended to be adapting were the ~shocking~ moments like Stannis burning Shireen or ‘Hold the Door’. Oh, and they finally included the Tower of Joy scene (which should have been in season 1), only to turn into a mystery/action scene (Arthur Dayne dual-wields longswords! What’s in the tower?!! Ned Stark was dishonourable!!!), rather than the tragedy it is in the books. So why the hell does anyone think that they care about any particular plot point in the upcoming books? No matter how important that point may be to the story, theme or characterization, they have shown over and over again that they’re happy to ignore it or butcher it, if it doesn’t fit into their narrow idea of storytelling.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

The way I look at it is this. What is more unlikely? That GRRM wouldn’t follow up on all his careful foreshadowing(“a small man can cast a very large shadow”, “the dragon has three heads”, etc.)? Or that D&D would just flat out drop a major plot point? Hmmm, which option seems more prima facie plausible to you?

Me too.

[ao3commentoftheday]

i'm a new fanfic writer but i've been writing stuff for a long time now. my brother knows this and offered to beta my first fanfic. long story short, he really didn't like it––suggested cutting/changing almost all of it––and also told me that i shouldn't ever use "the" or "then" to start sentences. he was really brutal with my fic, and his advice has me anxious and self-aware whenever i now try and write. i won't ask him to beta anything else, but how do i write with all these new worries/rules?

Never start a sentence with the??? I’m sorry but what? I’ve heard ‘rules’ about not starting sentences with words like Then or But and that kind of thing, but no writing rule is ever true 100% of the time. If you read any given answer on this blog, I start with But or And or Then or Next. And I don’t care.

(see what I did there?)

Doing things like that is helping you establish your style. You need to experiment with different things in order to find the way of writing that feels like you. Sometimes that will mean following the rules, and sometimes that will mean breaking them. But I think Barbossa said it best:

[thebluelemontree]

Anon needs to find a beta reader who understands and supports their goals for the story they want to write in the way they want to tell it.  Sounds like the brother was wanting the fic re-written in the way they would have done it.  Seriously, his rules are bunk.  I think anon can safely disregard their criticisms.  A good beta should be helping you to stay on track for your writing goals.  Any criticism should be the constructive kind for moments when your choices have undermined your expressed intentions for the story or characters.  And still, you aren’t required to take their advice if it doesn’t feel right.          

I think the only “rule” I follow for myself is to make sure the sentence structure is varied in each paragraph.  I wouldn’t want too many sentences starting with a pronoun or the or then.  Not because it’s wrong to write like that, but I personally feel that it gets boring as a reader.  Sentence variety feels more stimulating and engaging to read.  Too many long sentences?  Break a few down into shorter sentences.  Too many simple, everyday words?  Add some spice by expanding the vocabulary where appropriate.  I love semi-colons to join two related sentences – usually two medium-sized sentences or one big and one small.  Em dash is a beautiful thing too. ;)  And I don’t think there is anything wrong with starting a sentence with and or but; however, I just wouldn’t do too often with my sentences.  The main thing is that when you read it back to yourself, does it flow in a way that keeps your attention on every word?  Or do you feel an urge to skim through it until you find something that catches your eye? 

Also, read other people’s stuff and make literal notes of sentences you love.  Chances are, the way they were phrased or structured within the paragraph had a lot to do with why you loved to read them.  Make a study of why those sentences work.  The more you do this, the bigger the well you have to draw from when it comes to creating your own style.        

[trippyl0ngstocking]

^good advice

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Busy, busy, busy.

However.

In a state of heightened consciousness, I offered to make my best friend a pair of stays for her Halloween costume.

This may seem like a bad idea, and in many way it is(the weeks and months leading up to Halloween is a hectic and stressful time for costumers. It always is. I’ll surely be busy constructing my own costume). But I’m also going to learn a lot from this. I’ve never fitted a corset on another body, and I’ve never made stays before this current series of mockups I’m doing for myself. And I had my friend try on my most recent stays mock-up. It actually fit her remarkably well, so I won’t have to make a lot of changes to get her fitted. And the ways in which her figure is different may be highly instructive. Her bust is larger than mine, for example. With her permission, I am going to publish a few photos of her in the mock-up with my thoughts about the fit of stays.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

I haven’t had time to work on the stays mock-up at all, but there was an interesting development of the 18th century stays project. See, I am majoring in philosophy(so far I haven’t written anything about it on this blog, but philosophy is my jam!), but I’m taking a pattern making/drafting class on a pass/fail basis just for fun. My lovely teacher(whom I had last semester for couture sewing), upon hearing about this stays project, gifted me a copy of Redthreaded’s 18th century stays pattern in “medium”. Another student had left it at school. I have to look up how Redthreaded’s pattern sizing works to figure out what, if any, resizing would need doing. Mind you, I’ve already got my own pattern(very loosely based on a Simplicity stays pattern; it’s more like the Simplicity pattern is a distant ancestor who contributed some small parts of their dna to the current pattern), and I feel I’m only a couple more mockups away from being happy with it. But then I am quite curious about this Redthreaded pattern.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Again, sorry for the lack of posts lately. It’s my first week of school, so I’ve been very busy. However, I am definitely going to write a piece about Lindsay Ellis’s take of GoT, since I’ve already been hashing out a little essay in my mind.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Just realized that the stays mock-up is causing “cup runneth over” to happen with the boobs. I didn’t post the pictures where it’s most visible(for modesty’s sake. Yes, I do have at least some modesty.), but it’s quite obvious in some photos. I didn’t realize it till now because it’s never a problem I have even come close to needing to consider. The most padded push-up bra could never give me cleavage. My breasts aren’t even all that tiny, so I’m not sure what the problem is(if they’re just wide set or something). Meaning these stays are doing an impressive job of lifting and supporting the bust.

I have also realized to my dismay that one breast is slightly larger than the other 🤨

P.S. is it just me, or does it seem like I spend an oddly high amount of time talking about my breasts on this blog? It’s a bit weird to think about. Even though there’s a perfectly reasonable, well.. reason for it. Corsets and stays are designed to, among other things, support and push up the breasts, and this series of posts is devoted to fitting stays. One of my engineering problems I have to solve for this projects is how to get the stays to lift and support my bust.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

18th Century Stays

Mock-up No. 5(or is it 6? I’m losing track)

More improvement. The big change I made is that I made the side piece much wider at the top at the back edge(the edge that joins to the side-back piece). This made the stays much roomier in the back-of-the-armpit/side-back region. And that makes all the difference.

The stays had formerly been too tight in that region, and that left the fat around the side of my waist and ribcage with nowhere to go. A well-fitting pair of stays/corset when tightly laced redistributes flesh(aka fat) around the body to create a more hourglass shape(or whatever shape the corset is designed to create). Incidentally, that’s the main reason why cheap modern off-the-rack corsets tend to be uncomfortable. Usually, the corset is extremely tube shaped. Meaning it doesn’t have enough hip spring(aka it’s too tight in the hips). The corset should be displacing flesh from the waist, pushing it upwards and downwards. But the corset is so tight in the hips that it leaves nowhere for the displaced flesh to go(and it’s probably causing unsightly fat bulges underneath the bottom edge of the corset to boot). Such a corset won’t be able to cinch the waist very small.

Anyway, my stays are now tight in the waist, but roomy in the armpit/side-back region. This encourages flesh from the waist to go upwards into the roomy armpit area, allowing me to cinch the stays tighter, and giving a more flattering silhouette.

I think it could stand to be even a bit more roomy in the armpit. That will help give the stays a more conical silhouette too.

The other major change I made was to make the sweep of the front even more curvy. I had read that the front/side-front seam is what provides the bust shaping, and many 18th century stays have a front with a highly curved convex line, whereas the side piece the front joins to is a straight line. Like this:

Looking at where the front and side-front join together, notice that the front has a slight S curve, while the side is a straight line. I have seen other examples where the curve of the front is far more exaggerated.

So I made the curve of the front more exaggerated, since I read that that curved line meeting the straight line of the side pushes the breast upward. I also added two more rows of horizontal boning(which, let me tell you made sewing the boning channels for this mock-up a big pain in the a**).

I also made the neckline in front a bit lower, and more rounded. In fitting corsets, I often have the problem where my boobs are being pushed into my armpits. And the last mock-up, besides just generally not fitting well around the bust, had a minor degree of this problem. It probably would’ve been worse, only the stays were barely pushing up my breasts at all. But in observing the fit of extant stays and reproductions made by other costumers, I noticed that the straps seemed to be helping to keep the breasts from being pushed into the armpit. Those wide set straps go round the outside of each breast, gently pressing them towards the center. By making the stays neckline more rounded, I was able to facilitate this effect. In general the stays show great improvement in the fit of the bust, and I feel like I now have a better understanding of how 18th century stays fit and support the breasts.

The stays also now look a bit less small waisted from the side. This is a good sign. Generally with stays and corsets, you are shooting to creat an hourglass or small waisted silhouette. One of the ways this is achieved is by displacing the flesh at the sides of the waist towards the front and back. This creates a small-waisted silhouette when viewed from the front, but the waist looks slightly larger when viewed from the side.

Lucky me, the lacing gap is narrower at the waist then it is at the ribcage/bust/upper back. This is because I am now able to lace tighter since the displaced flesh now has somewhere to go(because of the armpit region being roomier, as discussed above). Lucky me, because this means that I can either make the waist smaller, or make the bust bigger(or both), and of course this will help make that conical, wasp-waisted silhouette more extreme.

I am also toying with the possibility of making the stays just a bit longer in the waist. I have gone back and forth on this a bunch, lengthening and then shortening the waist. But it does feel like it could stand to be just a bit longer at the sides. On the other hand, it looks good as it is, so maybe I should just leave well enough alone.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. I am getting ready to move to a new house, *and* school is about to start again. Busy week. But there will be another stays mock-up post(the mock-up itself is in progress), and I want to give a few thoughts on Lindsay Ellis’s video essay on GoT, now that part 2 is out. Also, I’ll have plenty of money in a few weeks to make that psychedelic Spoonflower print dress I did a mock-up for(with the raglan sleeves). I should really think about fitting a pattern for another psychedelic dress, too. I have some idea for some flower child-ish Gunne Sax-inspired dresses. But before I can make my psychedelic dreams come true, I have to deal with moving.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

I’m sorry but if you can defend all the shitty things stannis does yet hate renly you’re just wrong and pressed

Well, at least I “defend all the shitty things Stannis does” with actual arguments instead of lashing out from behind a mask of anonymity

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[whitepeopletwitter]

[nanse-but-personal-deactivated2]

Also, pants weren’t invented. Pants evolved from hose (basically stockings that were tied to something at your waist) until they decided they might as well just sew on a covering for you ass on that (which meant you should only go to the bathroom before getting dressed in the morning or after going to bed. Otherwise you’ll have to sew your pants to your shirt again and no mediaeval dude has time for that)

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Yay fashion history knowledge FTW! Also pants only highlight the shape of your body if they are tight fitting. Duh. Same applies to a tight fitting dress. And why are tight fitting pants on a woman considered provocative, but tight fitting pants on a man are not?

Also, this seems like it should be obvious, but the purpose/meaning of garments changes over time. High heeled shoes were originally exclusively menswear, and their purpose was to keep your foot in the stirrup while riding. From that they gradually evolved to the point where(in Europe anyway) they were considered exclusively women’s wear, and exclusively ornamental(the opposite of sportswear). But a high heeled shoe is just a shoe with a spike on one end. There’s nothing about it that is inherently feminine, nor inherently masculine. We associate a particular garment, like high heels(or pants) with a specific gender, but that’s just cultural convention. The association of heels with femininity or pants with masculinity is no more inherently, objectively “true” than our association of the color “red” with “stop” and “green” with “go”. It could just as easily be the other way around. Red means “stop” only because cultural consensus decided it does. And cultural consensus changes. If Roosh ever pulled his head out of his a**, he would notice that, for the last 60+ years, pants have no longer been exclusively considered menswear. In our culture, they are a unisex garment.

The meanings of words change over time. Cultural meanings and associations do too. To suggest that pants MUST FOREVER be menswear because they were “invented”(lol) for men is just as ridiculous as suggesting that the only correct usage of the English language is Old English, and therefore everyone should go back to speaking like 10th century Anglo-Saxons.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Stays Mock-up No. 4 Adjustment

Since the stays were squeezing flesh up into my armpit, I slashed the stays at the front/side-front seam about 4-5” down, and added a makeshift gusset to give my underarm area more room(and also to hopefully make the silhouette more conical).

It definitely fixed the problem. It also made the silhouette more conical too. The problem is that it also threw off the fit of the bust and neckline.

The stays aren’t doing a good job supporting my breasts anymore. And the neckline in front just feels like it fits awkwardly. I’m going to have to ruminate on this for a bit to figure out what to do next.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Simplicity-ish 18th Century Stays Mock-up No. 4

I am falling in love with 18th century stays just from trying on these mock-ups. With all those bones(plus the shoulder straps), they are really supportive! Just your normal modern waist training corset gives a good amount of back support, as do Victorian mid-busts, but 18th century stays are a on a whole other level. I think modern people tend to associate sartorial comfort with garments being loose fitting and stretchy. And they associate tight fitting, structured, restrictive garments with discomfort. But a good pair of stays/corset can feel great in its own way.

Anyway. The changes I made to the last mock-up were minor. I lengthened the waist at the “side” seam(the seam betweeen side-front and side-back), and at the seam between side-back and back. I made the front piece just a bit narrower at the center front. And I made the back about an inch higher.

These small changes mostly mitigated or helped with the problems they were meant to address. The longer waist gives the stays a more graceful silhouette when viewed from the front. The narrower front helps push up the bust more. But the changes also somehow threw off the fit of the back so that the pieces don’t sit smoothly the way they did with the last mock-up:

Apologies, my back pictures are not great quality. But if you look closely, you can see that the back piece is pulling away from my actual back at the top(right around my shoulder blade). Also, the lacing gap isn’t as even as it was with the last mock-up. Odd, since I didn’t change any of the measurements significantly. The bust is a bit smaller than on the last mock-up, so if anything the lacing gap should be wider at the top instead of narrower. The waist measurement is the same, yet the lacing gap is wider at the waist than the last mock-up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can see this mock-up does a much better job of pushing up the bust than the last one. This is easily the most flattering view of these stays. They look pretty great from this angle IMO. But there’s trouble in paradise. Even though my boobs are being pushed up, it also kind of feels like they are being flattened as well. It shows more from other angles, but even in this picture right breast(the viewer’s left) looks kind of flattened if you look carefully. It looks like it’s being smooshed upward but also flattened if you know what I mean. It would almost be giving me quad boob, except the front of the stays themselves are so flat that any breast flesh underneath the neckline of the stays is being completely flattened. I could really use some guidance for how 18th century stays are supposed to fit the bust. I’m not even sure that this isn’t just how stays are supposed to fit.

This is why I chose to do this mock-up without a shirt underneath. Even a fairly tight fitting shirt can disguise issues with the fit. Without the fords of a shirt, it was far easier to see that the stays are flattening my bust. And there was another issue I would likely never have spotted if I had worn a shirt. The stays are pushing flesh up into my armpit region. This is an issue I had with my Victorian corset(though fortunately I fixed it in the mock-up stage). There’s not enough room in the ribcage at the sides. It can be confusing, because sometimes a corset can be too big in the bust measurement, but still too tight at the bustline under the arms. This may prove a tricky problem to fix. But in a way, it’s an encouraging problem to have. These stays don’t have nearly the broad cone shape of my inspiration stays. Making them wider at the sides will help create this silhouette.

And here’s my main inspiration, for reference:

Notice how much more conical the shape looks than my mock-up. I just really want to recreate this shape. Perhaps I will add more horizontal bones to the front and see if that helps.

[turtle-paced]

I know there's a lot of people who assume for some dumb reasons that Elia was on-board with Rhaeger's plans(she's Dornish! Daeron 2's wife & daughter-in-law being cool with their husbands' other lovers is SO well-documented). OTOH, we don't know that she WASN'T, if she had a guarantee from him about her children's inheritance being protected... would that be a possibility or would such a revelation trash her characterization, in your view? Either way, I don't think it justifys his actions.

I don’t think Elia has enough characterisation to trash, sadly. We don’t know all that much about her. That said, I would be disappointed if she was on board with Rhaegar’s agenda, given the embarrassment he inflicted on her. I’m really hoping that when we get that characterisation, Elia turns out to have self-respect and her own pride. At least enough to make it clear to Rhaegar that her dignity should not have been so carelessly injured.

Moreover, I don’t think Rhaegar could guarantee what would happen to Elia’s children, if he had children with Lyanna. Everything about Rhaegar and Lyanna screams of actions spiralling out of the control of the protagonists. If Elia was willing to accept Rhaegar’s word that he wouldn’t do anything that could harm their children, after making it clear that he intended to pursue another woman publicly and have a child with her, well…I’d be inclined to think that either Elia was less intelligent than reported, or fooling herself.

My headcanon is that maybe Elia knew about Rhaegar’s obsession with prophecies, but she just dismissed it as her Targaryen husband being a little eccentric like other Targaryens had been eccentric in the past.

I can see that.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

It’s interesting to me that people seem to love to entertain the idea of Elia knowing about Rhaegar’s plans for Lyanna to some extent or other and being on board with it. Almost all the asks Turtle Paced gets about Elia seem to involve this question. To me it seems implausible. And even if it turned out to be true, like Turtle I would be disappointed that GRRM didn’t see fit to give Elia more intelligence and self respect. But nevertheless, this idea of Elia being to some extent onboard with Rhaegar’s actions is clearly very appealing to a lot of people. I’m curious as to why. Some people who like this theory seem to just support it because they think it makes Rhaegar look better. Although why people want Rhaegar to be a good(or at least decent and well-intentioned) guy is also beyond me.

[leonalmalsy]

I’ve always taken their logic of Elia being involve as a way to make Rhegar and Lyanna’s relationship more palatable. They can basically write off Robert because he got some woman pregnant in the Vale and that means he wouldn’t be faithful to Lyanna in their marriage, ignoring how hypocritical it is to call out Robert on cheating when Rhegar is cheating on Elia with Lyanna. Brandon threatened Rhegar when he yelled “come out and die” and therefore, it’s okay that he and Rickard were punished.

Then there’s the show, (the fucking show). GoT has framed it as “Robert’s Rebellion was based on a lie”, that Lyanna was not abducted by Rhegar and that she went willingly and married him legally and secretly. The writers basically ignored all logic in trying to make it work and it would be hilarious were it not so infuriating. See below video as Elio and Linda (the writers of the World of Ice and Fire) deconstruct Annulment in Westeros. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZTfVpNnRQo

But Elia can’t be ignored in the same way as everyone else. She’s basically the “other woman” in her own marriage, a wife who nearly died twice giving birth to Rhegar’s kids. She did everything right in the marriage but she and her children die horrible deaths. Enter the conundrum. “We like Rhegar and Lyanna but Rhegar cheating on Elia makes him the bad guy. How can we resolve this so Rhegar is still the good guy?” This is where you hear the excuses. Elia is Dornish and you know how the Dornish are with sex and bastards. Except while the Dornish don’t have the same prejudice concerning bastards as the rest of Westeros, it doesn’t mean that Dorne is an orgy. Then they try to make it personal. Look how Oberyn is. Surely Elia takes after him. Except Oberyn isn’t married and there’s no expectation of him to be faithful (not to mention his sexual escapades have caused more than one problem in his life). No one goes “Look at Doran. He’s only been with one woman (we know of). Why doesn’t Elia take after him? So with that, they have to go to the next reasoning. Elia couldn’t have another child after Aegon but Rhegar needs another child for his prophecy, so she gave him permission to pursue Lyanna. Except that makes no sense. Elia has to know that any child of Lyanna’s could endanger Aegon’s chances of sitting the Iron Throne. I’m sure she knows of the Dance of the Dragons and the Blackfyre Rebellions that center on the question of who should sit the throne, especially when she has to know that Dorne is the weakest of the Seven Kingdoms with no natural allies and the Reach as a buffer state. And this Lyanna girl comes with the North and possibly the Riverlands and the Vale through her brothers. All for some vague prophecy that she most likely doesn’t believe in? Yeah right.

In the end, I don’t think the question of Elia matters that much to them when it comes to Rhegar and Lyanna’s relationship because it’s all about Jon Snow. “Jon Snow is Westerosi Jesus.” He can’t come from the product of abduction and force. He has to come from a loving but tragic relationship. And nothing else matters. Not the fact that innocent people died needlessly. Not that a wife was wronged. It’s all worth it because Jon Snow is here as he shouts Mighty Mouse’s catchphrase “Here I come to save the day”. But if Jon were a dickwheel, many of the same people would be disparaging Rhegar for causing a war to create some douchenozzle. Here’s the main point. While Rhegar may be Jon’s flesh and blood, he isn’t his father. Ned is. Ned is the one who raised him (at great cost to himself) and instilled him with the values readers love him for. What you see in Jon is the reflection of Ned Stark, not Rhegar Targaryen. There is nothing inherent in Jon that isn’t the result of Ned’s teachings and upbringing. So if one likes Jon, they must thank Ned Stark.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Well said!

[racefortheironthrone]

I can't decide whether or not I want ghosts to be a real thing in ASOIAF or not. They often end up being corny or just a convenient way of getting information that is otherwise unavailable (see Harry Potter Book 7), but I think GRRM could probably pull off "legit" hauntings if he decided to, like Lynn Flewelling in the Tamir Triad. What's your opinion (or preference)?

I think GRRM is going to leave ghosts squarely in the realm of dreams. 

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Yeah I think he wants to leave it ambiguous. Having “ghosts” appear in visions or dreams allows him to sort of have them, yet they don’t lose their mystique(here I am thinking of, e.g. Aeron’s vision of Urri in “The Forsaken”, Tyrion’s dreams of Tywin, and both Ned and Jaime’s dreams of Arthur Dayne and the other KG). Mostly the point is what it says about/means for the POV experiencing it, GRRM has too much skill to use the “ghosts” to just to deliver needed plot information. The appearances are all character driven in purpose. The stories about the ghosts of Harrenhal and the Nightfort are more just a function of GRRM loving a good “ghost story”. I don’t particularly doubt that ghosts do in fact roam the halls of Harrenhal -it *is* obviously cursed, after all. But explicitly confirming the existence of said ghosts in the text would spoil the fun, I think. Part of the mystery is not knowing.

[trippyl0ngstocking]

Simplicity(-ish) Stays Mock-up No. 3

(I can’t ever remember what the pattern number is, and it’s getting to the point where I am too lazy to Google it everytime)

Well. Sometimes things seem to just roll your way. I could already tell when I was putting the mock-up together that I was onto something. The angles of the bones, the proportions of the pattern pieces, and the emerging shape. It all just looked more like the period stays I’ve spent so much time staring blankly at pictures of in my Pinterest. The front pieces are wider, and the front/side pieces jut out at a very steep diagonal. Before I even tried it on, I could just kind of intuitively tell I had achieved a more historically accurate shape, things just looked and felt right.

Look at the steep diagonal of the bones in the side-front piece. They wrap right around the ribcage.

Also, that horizontal bone just under the neckline seems to be crucial. At least for creating the 1780s-early 90s shape.

You can see it creates a nice triangular silhouette from the front.

It gives me great pleasure how smoothly the back pieces fit over my body. No gaping, no digging in where it shouldn’t, and the lacing is pretty close to even.

If I were less of a perfectionist, I would say this pattern is ready to be made into the finished product. But I am tempted to play with it a little more. It doesn’t push up my breasts as much as I would like. And I might see if I can make look even more triangular from the front. It still isn’t quite as flattering a shape as my inspiration stays, these:

I also think this design would benefit from a very rigid bone in the center front, to keep the front from bowing inward. But generally, I am very pleased.

Oh one more thought. I also used more bones in this mock-up than I have in past ones. I think it helped.