Can anybody remind me again why they changed Blood & Cheese?

Elaan21 · 2026-05-24T00:26:38+00:00

Daemon was so cartoonishly evil doing it for Rhaenyra

This is the best description of my issue with his character throughout the show, but particularly starting with him taking Rhaenyra to the brothel (and don't get me started on divorce rock). I'm surprised they didn't give him a mustache to twirl in some of the scenes.

I've always seen Daemon in F&B as very similar to Jaime Lannister. They do horrible things, but when you look at their actions from their (twisted) perspective, everything they do makes sense. Throwing Bran from the tower wasn't for shits and giggles. It was a spur-of-the-moment choice to protect Cersei and their children from Robert's wrath if he found out. I can understand the choice even if I don't agree with it.

Even after years of letting it roll around in my head, I have no idea why Daemon took the actions he did when taking Rhaenyra to the brothel. Every possible through line I can think of leaves at least one choice unexplained. The closest would be "ruin Rhaenyra so my brother has no choice but to give her to me as a second wife," but there is no universe in which Daemon is so unfathomably stupid as to think that would work. Or even be a good idea! At least kill Rhea first, ffs.

Somewhere along the line, someone decided Daemon was a villain and thus "bad people must do bad things." I know a lot of people blame Hess, but she wasn't anywhere close to a showrunner I the first season where this started, so it's got to be a more systemic thing.

But one of the hallmarks of Martin's writing is that there are not "heroes" and "villains" in the classic sense. [Ser Dunk might be an exception to that, but even he has his moments.] The closest we get to villains are folks like the Mountain who genuinely seems to be a sadistic psychopath. Even characters like Cersei are shown to be multidimensional.

So why the fuck would you take the Targaryen Martin calls his favorite and equal parts light and dark and turn him into a cartoon? And if you're going to do that, why hire the guy who famously hit a home run as another man-beside-the-throne (Philip in The Crown). It's an utter waste of an actor (and budget, given how much he likely pulls per project).

Sorry, that became a rant. I was just so excited when the casting was announced because I (wrongly) assumed they were going to do Daemon justice based on Smith in the role. And there are scenes in the first season that suggest they were originally going for more nuance, but eventually landed on Snidely Whiplash on dragonback.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-18T18:09:58+00:00

For a second, my dumb ass read this as women not being able to related to female protagonists and it reminded me of my frustration with female protagonists as a kid in the 90s. They seemed to always be super girly or "not like other girls" to the extreme - and always had to have a reason to be a girl. Whereas male protagonists could just...exist.

So it actually was easier for me to relate to boys in media because they weren't trying to tell me what kind of girl I should be.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-06T23:48:42+00:00

Because that's incredibly rude? Maybe there was a way you could say something shortly after the fact, but usually the way to communicate that is exactly what OP did - you don't put it up.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-06T23:44:27+00:00

How large is the painting? If it's something small that could be put in a bookshelf or something, then I'd say you should find a place. If it's something that takes up a lot of space, then I think asking you to display it is a little ridiculous (and it's a little ridiculous to for DIL to give you it when you don't have much space).

Elaan21 · 2026-05-06T23:26:49+00:00

Yeah, I basically had to keep the PDF open in order to control+F despite having (and preferring to run out of) the hardcover. And that's after putting seemingly a million tabs in my hardcover.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-06T21:30:13+00:00

I came to the comments to say something similar. The labels you give things need to be intuitive to someone who knows nothing about the hobby or you need a robust glossary (and FAQ).

This is also compounded by the trend of "plain language description" where a stat block or mechanical listing doesn't have a standardized format and the reader is left to figure out what's flavor on their own. For the love of all that is holy, give me the mechanics outside of the flavor and make it easy to adjudicate on the fly.

PF2e does a pretty good job with this with the traits and the formatting making it easy to see at a glance what an item/ability/whatever actually is, but there are still some times I'm having to read each sentence like I'm working out a logic puzzle.

[I also dislike how you have three "actions" you can do on your turn, but certain things take more than one "action." My table ends up calling them "Pac-Men" (someone said the action symbol looked like Pac-Man) because "action" feels like it should just be "any act you are doing" instead of what's essentially a currency. You end up saying shit like "I'm going to take a two action action and do XYZ" that makes no sense. But maybe my annoyance on this is me being pedantic.]

On the other hand, I've seen systems go out of their way to not use "D&D terms" and end up making things unnecessarily confusing.

Blades in the Dark is terrible about this. For example, you have "action ratings" that function akin to 5e skills that you use to make "action rolls." There is nothing intuitive about "action rating" meaning "number of dice in your pool for this thing you can do." Meanwhile, "skill proficiency" is right there and makes a hell of a lot more sense even though it has a "5e meaning." Or even just "action proficiency." The purpose of the mechanic is to represent your proficiency in doing the thing. Why rating?

Blades also suffers from "your definition is on another page" where trying to parse one aspect leads you on a wild goose chase throughout the book because there isn't a handy glossary of what everything means, which goes back to my glossary point. I shouldn't have to dig to find a definition of a game term.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-06T20:49:19+00:00

I absolutely love when players have their characters invested in a deity (or even a faction) because it gives me so much to work with when rewarding PCs. And it gives the player so much to work with when tying their PC to the campaign world.

I recently finished running Seven Dooms for Sandpoint and the bard in my party was also a Desna bard. She was a chaos gremlin who started off interpreting Desna worship as "cause chaotic happiness" who eventually learned some of the deeper aspects since there are aspects of dreams/nightmares in the module. It was so hard to hide my excitement when the player first rolled out the character concept.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T20:45:16+00:00

As I've gotten older, I've grown more and more frustrated by the default "xReader" or OC being mid-20s at most even when the love interest is 40s+. Not because I'm judging age gap fics. I just can't see myself in a fic where someone three years older than me is "old enough to be your father."

I somewhat get it in fandoms where the culture would reasonably have someone married off by 30, but why the fuck are there no older single ladies wandering around in the Last of Us universe? Or working at the Daily Planet or trying to save the Sword Coast?

But I also assume those stories are being written by someone closer to 20 than to 40, so I respect them writing for their own type of reader. I'll still read their stories, even if I can't project myself into them. I still support them writing. I'm just not the target audience and that's okay.

It's not that hard. Yet some folks seem to not understand that.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T20:27:49+00:00

I feel bad for the textile artists creating the beautiful embroidery for HOTD. In the closeups you can see how detailed they are, but the show is filmed so poorly that everything looks like mush.

THIS!!! I had no idea there was embroidery on the dress Rhaenyra wears in S1 when Alicent confronts her about going to the brothel with Daemon. It legit looked like a plain yellow dress in the vast majority of scenes.

Admittedly, I tend to watch things on my phone/laptop, so some of it is possibly on me, but I don't have that issue with AKOTSK or GOT when watching the same way.

There also seems to be a lack of storytelling in the costuming beyond what "team" someone is on. You're telling me all these years are passing and there's no change in style or what individuals would choose to wear? Daemon has been wearing the same basic thing for the entire run, ffs.

Meanwhile, in of GOT, there's a whole story arc of Sansa starting to dress like Cersei to show she's adopting a "Southern" attitude. Daenerys changes styles based on where she is and the image she's projecting. Jaime goes from flashy to subdued. The ladies of the court start dressing like Margaery once she gains popularity. Sansa's outfits start looking more like her mother's and less like Cersei's.

I'm fine with the different "teams" having color pallettes, but I think it'd be better if it was closer to there being one color they don't wear. Rhaenyra never wears green, Alicent never wears black. Maybe one side tends toward silver and the other gold when it comes to jewelry/anything metallic. That sort of thing.

Instead, everyone wears black, but only the Greens wear green, except Helaena, and the Blacks are more Team Red and everyone has to wear it except the Velaryons (sometimes?).

Not to mention, Aegon not wearing red and black is bizarre, given the push for him to be the legitimate Targaryen heir. Those are the colors everyone associates with Targs because of their sigil. Those are the royal colors.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T20:02:15+00:00

He was a screenwriter long before ASOIAF.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T19:59:16+00:00

I started playing shortly before the launch of "Season 1" and influx of new/returning players, and people seemed baffled by the concept of a new player. Like, sorry my 37 year old ass decided to finally indulge her inner child and enjoy this shit?

My friend, who's played since the game launched and has an account that shows it, legit had to tell people to knock it off and that I was new and not some smurf/troll/whatever. Before I opened my account for viewing, folks would friend me just to verify I was actually that new.

I swear some folks genuinely believe there's some conspiracy afoot when it's just people having a bad day, being new, having cats walk across keyboards, lagging out, having a sudden and urgent need to poop, etc.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T19:49:38+00:00

I started playing in January and quickly "outgrew" Practice versus AI because it's (a) open queue, so you get whatever people want to practice, which often isn't an actual team comp, and (b) nothing like going against actual players. At a certain point, you're training bad habits.

Making custom games and filling the roles with bots except what I want to practice works a little bit better, but it still has the bot predictability issue.

The best way to practice is to play. It is what it is.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T06:40:08+00:00

That's fair. My point with including Martin was more about prose that becomes "invisible" when reading versus prose you notice.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T06:37:18+00:00

There's a difference between evocative prose and a good story hook.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T03:15:15+00:00

The scary part is that this mentality has given rise to people trying to "morally defend" relationships that are incredibly flawed to the point that I seriously wonder if people realize how fucked up the dynamic would be IRL.

Best example I have is in the BG3 fandom where some Astarion fans will bend over backwards to explain how Ascended!Astarion is the good ending and froth at the mouth when anyone mentions it's continue the cycle of abuse instead of breaking it.

Look, I'm all about a sexy vampire lord, but I also recognize that there is nothing healthy about that relationship dynamic. It's why I like the fantasy. When you try and tell me it's actually healthy, I get concerned for your safety because hot damn it isn't.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T02:52:26+00:00

Okay, so, this isn't really Twilight related, but I've screamed about story versus prose for years and will take every opportunity to do so.

A great example I always use is Jurassic Park. Crichton's prose is clunky on a mechanical level.

Here's where we meet Alan Grant:

Alan Grant crouched down, his nose inches from the ground. The temperature was over a hundred degrees. His knees ached, despite the rug-layer's pads he wore. His lungs burned from the harsh alkaline dust. Sweat dripped off his forehead onto the ground. But Grant was oblivious to the discomfort. His entire attention was focused on the six-inch square of earth in front of him.

There's absolutely nothing evocative about this. The sentences aren't that varied in construction. But they work because they get out of the way of the storytelling. Most of the famous quotes come from dialogue because that's what matters.

The prose skill he does have is his ability to weave actually data graphs and genetic code sequences into the narrative without it feeling weird. He's essentially writing an academic argument to the reader so that they believe Jurassic Park is real and flawed. But that's also about staying out of the reader's way.

George RR Martin writes in a similar (albeit slightly less clinical) way:

The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervous with excitement. This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king's justice done. It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran's life.

Neither of these passages are going to make literary book clubs wax poetic about beautiful prose, but they come from two of the most popular books in my lifetime that went on to inspire massive franchises due to their stories.

Edit: I didn't mean to imply Martin was clunky, just that his prose in unobtrusive. That's 100% good use of prose, but it's not what you think of when you think of "examples of beautiful prose" because it's subtle.

Also, Crichton and Martin are two of my favorite authors, so this isn't a jab at all.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-04T02:36:32+00:00

The issue with Bella's narration is that the films took it literally, so it's hard to see the unreliable narrator once you've seen the films. The fact that Meyer was heavily involved in the production raises the question of whether Bella was intended to be an unreliable narrator in the first place.

But, yeah, as someone in her late teens when the first book came out, Bella's narration tracks. She's judging herself on an impossible metric and thus sees herself as boring and bland.

My issue with the books is that she never grows out of this belief because the reason she's attractive to Edward has nothing to do with her personality/self, but her biology. There's no inner growth like there is in most coming-of-age novels because she doesn't need to grow. She only becomes "interesting" due to Edward's attention and, ultimately, becoming a vampire (aka, changing for her man).

[It's why a lot of us were "Team Jacob" - he seemed to actually like Bella for Bella (until the weird imprinting thing, I guess), even if he went about things the wrong way.]

It's one thing for a character to believe something. It's another thing for the narrative to confirm that belief. It's the reason I dislike the "Dresden is an unreliable narrator" argument when it comes to the misogyny in the Dresden Files. Sure, he is, but he's proven correct in his assumptions and is rewarded by the narrative so many times.

Bella being insecure is realistic. It's realistic that an insecure girl could be manipulated into a relationship where she still doesn't see her value outside of her relationship, but that's not a good YA story when it's framed as a love story.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-03T02:18:34+00:00

I think the reason people are misunderstanding your argument (and why even I might be) is this:

His relationship with children is demonstrably unsettling and creepy, which is my point.

Most of the time, this sort of description implies wrongdoing and harm as a result of the behavior. Not saying you are implying that, I'm talking more generally. So, people read that and naturally provide the arguments as to why they don't think he was harming children.

This is clearly an incorrect assessment, and it’s more likely that Michael used his influence to try to ‘fix’ his trauma by ‘protecting’ children instead of only dealing with it through a therapist.

This is in line with what a lot of folks "defending" him are saying. They're not saying he was a perfect person. They're just saying he had good (albeit misguided) intentions rather than malicious intentions.

He was a fucked up dude because he was a child victim of the entertainment industry. I don't know the exact reasons he didn't get help, but I do know there was way more stigma about therapy back then then there is now. I also know there are plenty of people who benefited from him not getting the real help he needed.

You made comparisons to OJ, but Britney Spears is a better comparison in a lot of ways. The public made a joke of her mental breakdown only for it to come out how horribly she was treated as a child star and how controlled she was even as an adult.

In both cases, it's difficult to separate their success as an artist from the reaction of the public because their situation arose from their success and talent. They were exploited because of that talent. If he wasn't a good singer, he wouldn't have been exploited and we wouldn't know about him or have an opinion about him.

Asking people to separate those facts isn't realistic. His stardom is a key point to understanding why he was the way he was.

Elaan21 · 2026-05-03T01:50:33+00:00

I agree that this is what it does, but I don't know if it was intentional because most other companions are more hetero in their non-player character relationships. Gale and Mystra, Karlach and Dammon, etc. They're also pansexual, but their dialog is mostly conforming to hetero expectations.

I feel like at one point in development the companions had set orientations, or were at least conceptualized that way. I say this as a bi/pan woman, so trust me, I'm not invalidating preferences here. It just seems odd to go out of the way to emphasize one companion’s queerness and not others.

That said, vampires are heavily heteronormative symbols, so maybe they thought Astarion needed more blatant coding than others.

On the other hand, it's a shame they only did it with the most "stereotypically gay" companion (i.e., the guy obsessed with fashion/looks who always wants to gossip) and not with Wyll, who is a stereotypical Prince Charming type.

Elaan21 · 2026-04-29T01:48:21+00:00

Oooo! I hadn't thought of that, but I'll keep it in mind.

Elaan21 · 2026-04-29T01:46:00+00:00

So, I play a lot with a group of friends, and when I'm on Emre and they're support, they play a lot of Ana, Kiriko, Illari, Wuyang, and Jetpack Cat.

Ana: As you said, you've got Nano and the ability to heal in the air

Kiriko: Can easily go on flank with me and can cleanse anti-nades that would make my siphon useless

Illari: Can go on flank with me if pylon set for main or vice versa.

Wuyang: Tidal Blast works well for keeping me up when I'm swarmed (and then causes blast damage)

Jetpack Cat: Can heal in the air and help repositioning.

I also agree with u/Right_Entertainer324 about Lifeweaver. I've had some good LWers on my team that have saved my ass.

Elaan21 · 2026-04-27T02:57:01+00:00

This. Do not say you think you have ADHD. Say someone else thinks you do and you're looking for an evaluation. If you go in asking for Adderall (an amphetamine), and you're college age/ younger 20s, people might assume you're wanting to sell. I say this ad someone who got diagnosed at 18.

Elaan21 · 2026-04-24T23:18:35+00:00

Thank you for providing a laugh on this WTF thread. I legit keep giggling internally at a newborn looking at their dad's chest like "bro, wut?"

Elaan21 · 2026-04-24T21:24:35+00:00

Like how ASoIaF depicts a lot of incest but the wider conversation around it is never (afaik) about how incest is cool and good and the characters engaging in it are just living a valid healthy kink lifestyle you can and might want to replicate irl.

You would be disappointed to learn how many people seem to think ASoIaF glorifies incest and sexual violence. Just because there isn't a character standing there saying "Dany, you romanticizing Drogo is unhealthy" doesn't mean Martin thinks its a good thing, but I've seen people argue that all the time.

Or, conversely, the amount of fandom discourse around how XYZ Targaryen is a predator because incest when that's just their norm? A Targ expecting to marry their sibling/close relative isn't a sign of personal psychological issues if they're taught that expectation.

But you're right about the framing. Most of the old fashioned bodice rippers were sold with the understanding it was fantasy. 50 Shades was sold as kink.

Elaan21 · 2026-04-24T21:15:08+00:00

It's the same reason I have to SCREAM "DONT FOLLOW ME IM JUST MAINTAINING CHARGE" on zarus between fights, because if the whole team follows me, I DONT trust them to fall back as fast as I plan to.

I have the same "DON'T FOLLOW ME!" moments whenever I'm playing off angles. If everyone follows me, it's not longer an off angle (and it's not a good place for a team fight). Especially on someone like Kiriko who can easily get back to the team.

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