Tag: seas stuff

Lyanna Stark: *faces down three teenage boys who could probably have kicked her ass and who are beating/shouting ethnic slurs at a small, vulnerable member of an oppressed Northern minority group*
Lyanna Stark: *explicitly refers to this man just the same as any other Northerner and takes him to her family to recover*
Lyanna Stark: *goes up against a bunch of knights who could DEFINITELY have kicked her ass to defend the honor of this small member of an oppressed minority group*
Howland Reed: *is literally loyal to Lyanna until her death and saves her brother’s life in the process of helping her*
The narrative: Uplifting the small and helpless = chivalry = good.
Fandom: Lyanna was only doing it for herself. She wanted glory. She was selfish and spoiled for being the Knight of the Laughing Tree.
Me: …whut.

A new trend I hate in ASOIAF fandom: “getting back” at old fics that crapped on Elia by blaming Lyanna and basically saying she deserves to be miserable after the Rebellion if it helps her take “responsibility” for what she did. These same people also tend to shake their fingers at her previous actions and say she was selfish or short-sighted or whatever for helping Howland, blaming Robert for his indiscretions, or fighting as the Knight of the Laughing Tree.

Lemme break it down: the percentage of blame that Lyanna should shoulder for the Rebellion is zero. None. The fact that she had a moral compass doesn’t mean she wasn’t taken for a ride by an INCREDIBLY charismatic, older married man who undoubtedly would have taken and raped her if she didn’t go (even if she perceived that she went) willingly.

Lyanna is not the other woman. Lyanna is not a spoiled brat. Lyanna is a girl probably barely a year or two into puberty who’s internalized the dictates of chivalry and publicly defended a bannerman the only way she knew how. Screw what Aerys was doing, that was incredibly brave. She is a good person. She’s not spoiled or an attention-seeker. It’s not feminist or striking back against racism to say that she is so that Elia can get a positive portrayal in fandom, and if that’s the only way you know how to get that done, then you’re doing it wrong.

She would not have deserved to be blamed for the Rebellion or forced into another marriage that would make her miserable if she’d survived. She was a teenage girl statutory-raped and brutalized through an incredibly violent birth by an older man, and she would have deserved happiness and to be left alone if she were fortunate enough to live.

(And no, Elia doesn’t have to never have a single negative feeling towards her or take her under her wing. That isn’t what I’m saying. Just, you know, have a modicum of human compassion towards a rape victim.)

no excuses writing meme, askbox version

professorfangirl:

(Nicked from iambickilometer):

drop one of these bad boys in my askbox and i will post, without editing

  • FIRST — the first two sentences of my current project
  • LAST — the most recently written two sentences of my current project
  • NEXT — the next line. meaning i will finish the sentence I’m on and write a new one, which you’ll get.
  • [insert prompt here] — you post a prompt, and i’ll write three sentences based on that prompt, set in the same time/setting as my current project
  • THE END — i’ll make up an ending, or post the ending if i’ve written it
  • BEFORE THE BEGINNING — three sentences (or more) about something that happened before the plot of my current project
  • POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

Approximately three years after I pulled through abuse and rapidly-developing PTSD to finally pass Anatomy…

A three-year reminder to anyone on the other side of that kind of situation: if you were responsible for someone almost dying (and therefore responsible for their dependents and animals almost dying) and you feel bad about it, you owe it to them to break ties with the people who helped you do it, and possibly publicly denounce them.