I admire fandom meta and commentary writers so much. and they fill an invaluable niche in this social environment. but despite my sporadic efforts to the cause, I know I'm never going to cut it as one because

a) disagreement sends me into a spiral of anger and self doubt and lashing out and existential crisis about 'i could prove them wrong, but at what cost? their happiness and mine?', instead of inflaming me with passionate self-righteousness which I can then turn into mocking rebuttals.

b) rereading even my most unpopular fics fills me with a sense of joy and 'isn't this neat :) truly prose is my most favourite medium for art' whereas rereading even my most popular meta posts makes me want to set my entire blog on fire.

I know asking people to accept that Hawke, no matter how nicely they act, is the leader of a street gang who specifically takes in the most vulnerable people in thedas without friends or families to miss them (elves, mages, foreigners, Anders, Fenris, Isabela, Merrill) in order to exploit labour from them as part of their money laundering scheme with Varric as corroborator and Aveline as corrupt cop contact (and the romances are less romances and more extorting romantic and sexual favors from your followers who are relying on you for their physical safety and can’t say no even if they hate you a la the rivalmances) is basically asking most people to not enjoy the game or the fandom. Which is extremely unreasonable in a ‘never going to happen’ way but AAAAAAA

I know Anders and Merrill are more in danger in Kirkwall from the templars specifically, but I'm kinda blown away that anyone thinks this makes Fenris or Isabela meaningfully more safe or priveledged or hireable or whatever in Kirkwall. Like they are two brown foreigners without any friends or family. They have bounty hunters and raiders out to kill them. Fenris is an elf. Literally nobody cares if they starve or bleed out or die of exposure on the streets. I mean... Sera is full of shit, but she's not entirely wrong when she says the tradeoff of not being a Circle mage is not being guaranteed housing. Like this isn't the oppression olympics and you win no prize for being the most vulnerable, but mages def don't have a monopoly on this shit.

literally so hard to find fanart of fenris without that red favour on his wrist. you guys have no idea.

Curly haired Lannisters tho! I'm admittedly not a very visual person and it's hard for me to really keep track of a lot the characters' visual features while reading a book, but this one stood out because it's something the tv adaptation failed to capture. Enraptured by the thought of cute baby lannisters with curly hair x)

And speaking of rape (sorry, it's asoiaf) was interested to note that the first Jamie/Cersei scene had shades of that, of the 'her mouth said no, but her body said yes' variety. Which I remember was another topic of fandom discussion for a sex scene between them much later on in the tv show. I'm afraid I must defend that scene now. It is very important to me that Jamie is consistently an entitled and privileged scumbag (affectionate. he's one of my top faves.)

last thing of note was about Tyrion. i'll probably have more to say on this much later wrt Penny. but I was noticing and not quite sure how much I should be appreciating the amount of yikesy yikes with him and Sandor Clegane tossing the ableism at each other and Tyrion going on about how grotesque Sandor's scarred face is, while of course being extremely sensitive about how grotesque he himself is seen as by others. Think I will keep my eyes peeled this read for more Tyrion lateral aggressions.

was curious what i'd make of the dany child bride wedding chapter. i remember the differences between the tv show version of the consummation and the book version was a topic of much discussion but... tbh i think both work. the gentle paternalism version of the child rape in the book is maybe a bit more interesting and in line with the general direction i know the story is going - where Dany finds solace from her physically abusive brother with the Khal who, while exploitative in his own way, does ultimately provide the basis for her later empowerment. but otoh I do think it was maybe not a bad move for the show to make the violence of the act itself more explicit?

That aside, I did have one huge beef with the wedding chapter tho. And that was the whole note about a dothraki wedding being considered dull and passe without at least three deaths. just from an anthropological and population dynamics perspective... it's ludicrous. especially if those deaths are coming from healthy respected working male members of the tribe, and isn't merely blood sport between outsider captives and slaves. like... assuming the majority of tribe members get married the way people in most human societies do, that means every marriage has to produce three healthy adult children for the population to break even. and we're talking a society of martial fighters that would realistically have high rates of infant mortality and death in childbirth?

Idk, maybe Dany has misunderstood something that's been lost in translation. That there are only this many deaths, or any at all, because it is the Khal's wedding specifically. But... I understand the central conceit of this part of the novels is that this 'mongol horde'-esque people seem barbaric and upsetting and foreign to Dany, but they end up taking her in and as she learns more about them she finds more to respect in them than those from her own culture. But it also really veers into things that are logistically insane and unlike any actual human society in the process which imho kinda undermines the whole message.

Starting up on rereading/relistening to A Game of Thrones next. Curious to see if I'll revise any of my opinions or at least catch anything new this time - what with the million secondary characters that are extremely hard to keep track of.

So far only really been impressed by how irritating I find both Ned and Cat, both in general and in specific on the issue of Jon Shnyooo. Which is nothing anyone hasn't said before - nothing new under the sun. But Ned placing this burden on Cat without really acknowledging or dealing with the stress it's causing her, and her in turn taking that out on a child because her uwu husband is too loveable (and tbh too dangerous) to call out is just some really ugly dysfunction that always keeps me from completely rooting for them even when their opposition is, frankly, much worse.

Anyhow, I finished reading/listening to SPQR. It was a lot of fun. I think the book was a good balance of like... amusing anecdotes and carefully selected epitaphs and quotes from primary sources, and a very deftly organised structure that conveyed the development of overall social and political trends in this culture without trying to pin it to the minutiae of one specific event at one specific date or the machinations of one or two people rather than the overall change in social landscape. Made it a good mix of educational and entertaining, as the friend who recommended it to me said.

Although I would at times get frustrated with the author going off about how other academics in the field had a bad take or attempting to address my 'misconceptions' of ancient rome when like... I had none, lol. I literally walked into this field blind, knowing absolutely nothing except maybe that Ceasar was killed on the ides of march maybe. But just because I'm dumb about the history of Ancient Eurasia doesn't mean I'm dumb about recognising the fascist dogwhistles your colleagues are throwing out k thx. Which is not really a criticism of the book as much as me being weird and defensive about how it wasn't written for me specifically.

On the one hand I do feel like a huge part of da fandom kinda fails to acknowledge that Merrill is as smart as she is and that the huge passion in her life is restoring Elvhen magical artefacts and trying to forge a future for the Dalish. And also fail to acknowledge the depth of the things she’s up against, having been shunned by her clan and living in a time where her indigenous culture is fading as more and more elves are assimilated and colonialism runs rampant. So it is good to see more takes of her that acknowledge this but also- asdfghjkl; Guys, I don’t want to read about Merrill being the smart and helpful voice of moral reason and support while thirdwheeling in some fandom juggernaut m/m or f/m ship fic. I want her to make problems! I want her to aggress people! I want her to tell other people’s priorities to go hang because hers are more important to her! I want her ask questions specifically to make the people she’s asking uncomfortable! I want to see her hole get stuffed! I’m horny for her! What don’t you guys get?!