Hanging out with old people rules because after a while they trust you enough to confess to murder totally unprompted
as i remember it most GoT fans at least had this grudging respect for people who were "playing the game" like we all pretty much agreed littlefinger was a shitstain of a human being but there was respect because he played like a pro. and its because there was this general consensus where we'd all agreed to register that these characters absolutely have to maneuver through their world as it exists. that they ideally should be aware of the pros and cons of their social circumstances, never ignoring that the game MUST be played, always looking ahead and moving their pieces into position.
but people are mad at ME for applying these same conditions to HotD. for recognizing how poorly Rhaenyra plays the game, and judging her for it. I enjoy Rhaenyra a lot, but she is totally politically inept and im going to continue to vent my frustration about it. Having obvious bastards was a bad move. Not preemptively making alliances or involving herself in governing was a bad move. Being hostile toward her siblings was a bad move. Idc if you think her defying social expectations was just so girlboss of her. It put literally everyone around her in danger, especially her own children.
Some fans are only too happy to suspend their modern social lens for all the incest, grooming, and marital rape yet they apply it to literally everything else, especially rhaenyra and alicent's characterisations.
no but really why does mike get blamed for every little thing it's not funny anymore. why is he inherently more culpable than the rest of them. why is he the one they always expect to know everything. why does he usually actually know everything or have the key to figuring it out. why is he personally responsible for any given disagreement even when 3+ people are involved and all acting out of line not just him. why is he the heart why is he the bad guy why why why
Me: *Removes my cat from my lap to do something else.*
My cat: Father is...evil? Father is unyielding? Father is incapable of love? I am running away. I am packing my little rucksack and going out to explore the world as a lone vagabond. I can no longer thrive in this household.
Mad Men doesn't have a significant fandom because aside from the period setting there is almost nothing fantastical about it. No action, limited violence, mystery mostly cleared up within the first season, no overarching love story you're pushed to root for, the rich people use their money to live comfortable, pretty unremarkable lives, most of the action takes place inside on sets we're familiar with. So then what you're left with is the nuance of reality which uh, people don't like, especially when it results in them relating to people they saw do bad things. Obviously in fandom villains and antiheroes are often glorified (and/or blorbofied) but that usually comes with some trappings of separation from our reality.
People wonder why Mad Men never got the treatment Succession is getting. Ostensibly they're extremely similar, but Succession and its constantly changing scenery and helicopters and ease of access to influence over politics are much, much farther away to us than the time period of our parents and grandparents and the people who are our parents and grandparents. When you look at the way people talk about Mad Men characters, they are very afraid to come right out and say they like them. There's usually a justification and disclaimer coming with it that no one feels the need to apply to their enthusiastic comparisons of Tom Wambsgans to Princess Diana. People are afraid that if they just say they love Pete that denotes condoning his actions whereas it's implied you don't condone anything bad the Roy siblings do. And this is not a Pete defense post but he's outspokenly liberal and means it, yet people stay terrified of identifying with him because that might mean they're also capable of hurting people they care about in the fruitless search for finally getting something they really want, all at once. Identifying with the Roys mainly involves sympathizing with their reactions to things that have been done to them while eschewing thoughts of the harm they inflict, because they inflict harm on a scale you could never actually achieve.
As an aside I also think those of us that love Mad Men enough to rewatch and rewatch get hooked on it from the humor which is simply not going to hit for the average viewer, as harsh as that is to say. How often do you hear people who watched it as part of their golden age of television curriculum mention that it's funny? Usually doesn't come up
a twitter thread that actually killed me
every fucking day i think about bruce springsteen pretending to be gay to avoid the draft and the conscription officers were like. “um. yeah, well. anyway, you had a concussion from a motorcycle accident, which means you failed the physical but. uh. thank you. for that.”
Many people are claiming "Just way for Blood and Cheese, justice will be served" That's nasty,what justice? Luke was an 18 yo adult ENVOY with a fire-breathing WMD at his disposal,making him an active participant in the conflict of Blacks VS Greens. His war machine was the one who attacked first and died on an accident. Jahaerys,Jaehaera and Maelor were not combatants. They had quite literally 0 sway on the conflict.They were 5 and 2 years old. Who's on the sane mind could call that "justice"?
These stans are so dumb. Look at the reaction to Luke's death - it was far from the reaction to Ned's death. People were shocked and devastated when he died, it literally put GoT on the map. No one really cares about Luke. He is more like an NPC than a character. When he died, we were making jokes about it - Vhagar having bad eyesight, Aemond going home in silence, Alicent's horrified reaction to the news, Aegon's oblivious reaction to Aemond's remorse, etc.
People were making fun of Luke for coming to Storm's End so unprepared. A good amount of people were thirsting after Aemond like their lives depend on it. All of this is largely in part thanks to Aemond and Luke's ages being close and their pre-established beef that resulted in Aemond's disability.
Blood and Cheese will involve 2 toddlers and a mother who is at the very least coded as autistic. The kids were made even younger than they were in the books. In the show, they babble instead of talking that's how young they are.
You also have Helaena who is sweet and shown to be childlike. When the two assassins threatened to rape one toddler and murder the other, all while their poor helpless mother watches, who will laugh at that? What jokes can you even make about a situation like that? You don't even have to care about any of these characters, they can be NPCs too but this is a horrifying act involving babies. Plus, in the books you can pretend Daemon cares about Luke but in the show, he has a contentious relationship with Jace so it's doubtful he had a good relationship with Luke.
So no, Blood and Cheese won't be seen as 'justice' by anyone besides a small group of weirdos.
Sex is weird for me. I talk about it and read about it. Me and my friends talked real fucking much about sucking dick for being 13 & never having kissed anyone back in middle school. We still talk about sex a lot and joke about it.
People are hot and attractive but I haven't really looked at a person and thought "yeah I wanna fuck them". I don't like looking at naked people in a sexual context and touching people who I haven't known for at least 1 year is odd. Reading smut has pretty much been the only thing thay makes me horny. Every time I see porn in some form I think "that's a good drawing! really amazing!" or "that's cool, but how do you breathe in that, how is that done" or something.
This is rambling and not going anywhere but I just feel weird. My friend recently got a boyfriend so now our group talks about sex not in the "saw this last week" or "found out this is a kink, what're your thoughts" way in the same way anymore. It's just got me thinking about it all more.
Idk I just feel weird and don't know how to feel about sex or articulate it in the right way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
— jack veasey, “loving”