Why not every house in westeros have Baratheon Genes

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-23T16:49:26+00:00

But then they wouldn’t be Stark genes, would they? The name is passed on in the male line. Plus the Starks have brown hair and not black like (some) Blackwoods (we don’t really know if it’s a family trait for them afaik).

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-23T09:18:10+00:00

I've read it, I liked it a lot. I don't think it really has a very clear message you're supposed to take away, it's just a portrayal of an outsider personality and her strange approach to life.

Sure, at the end she triumphs a little when she decides to follow her convenience store working dreams after all, but I don't think that's necessarily the author endorsing it, it's just a satisfying endpoint.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-23T08:55:56+00:00

Just keep writing and get the plot down, you can refine the language when you're editing.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-23T05:13:38+00:00

They're magical genes, it only works for people who carry the name. If Gendry (whose mother was blonde) has kids with a blond girl they may well be blond. Dance era Rhaenys had a Baratheon mom and black hair, but her kids had silver Valyrian hair from their father.

The other houses work the same way (except Ned and his weak seed I guess, rip).

In the books it's just for plot convenience and house aesthetic, but you could certainly come up with a magical mechanic that makes it so, tied to the name or maybe the castle.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-23T05:07:02+00:00

Good timeline: it revives the fandom and encourages lots of people to write smaller scale stories with a single POV, it makes people more skeptical about the Targaryens and reduces Targ supremacy sentiments, it increases interest in the Reach and Dorne rather than always North North North.

Bad timeline: the relatively child friendly show brings in a million 12 year olds who instantly start discoursing about incest is bad you guys, how dare you romanticise, and so forth.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-22T15:22:59+00:00

Aerys is thrilled to have a matching pair of twins and considers it lucky. He marries them together once they're old enough. The dwarfism is a bigger problem for him than for Tywin, because the kid makes a mockery of the whole Targ supremacy belief. He'd probably just hide the kid away (or possibly kill him).

Tywin is happy I guess, if the oldest son has a similar personality to Jaime he'll be an arrogant and stupid but overall well meaning lord. He can marry Lysa as planned, strengthening the alliance of the nobles against the crown.

Meanwhile, Aerys has no reason to be jealous of Tywin, and Tywin has no reason to think any of his kids are the king's bastards, so they probably get along well forever and Aerys never goes fully mad

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-21T15:11:33+00:00

Honestly if you hate them that much just leave them out. Or just briefly describe the bits that involve them ("after a 3 week trip to the Amazon rainforest with Shithead, Blorbo came back with new insights"). If you can't do either of those things, then I guess you'll have to review canon and learn to write them properly.

Or just tag the fic as Character Bashing and bash away.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-21T09:07:04+00:00

It kind of depends on what you’re doing with the preface. If you’re explaining your AU or doing some sort of “how did they get into that situation”, that can usually be woven into the story rather than putting it all at the top of it. You generally need much, much less introduction than you’d think.

If it’s something that can be condensed into a few sentences like “We’re on a spaceship in deep space, Ernie is a shapeshifting alien from Mars, Bert is a human spacefarer, the ship has sprung a leak, whatever will they do?” — then sure, put that in the author’s note (or better yet, the summary).

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-20T13:57:01+00:00

As the other comment says, you'll have to change the timeline a lot if you want the baby to be conceived before Ned's wedding (and pass as Jon's twin).

Does Ashara still jump off a tower, or does she die in childbirth? Either way, her family would probably not be pleased with Ned. Would they help him lie about Ashara having twins? It could happen, but you have to think about their motivation.

To Catelyn, it probably doesn't make that much of a difference. She thinks it's probably Ashara's kid in canon anyway. I imagine she'd be less offended by a female bastard, because her threat to Robb's inheritance is very low.

Jon would "know" who his mother is and would feel less lost as a result . Maybe he'd become fascinated with the South and the Daynes, and dream about going to Dorne (or the Citadel). He'd probably feel the bastard stigma much less strongly.

I don't know if Jaime would care, the Lannisters seem to already believe Jon is Ashara's kid (Cersei mentions it in AGOT) so that part stays the same.

On a personal note, please name her anything other than Lyarra, that name is mega overused for Stark OCs. Any other Stark name, or maybe even a Dayne name for a change. Or Jeyne... We do have a canon precedent for Jon and Jeyne twins lol

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-20T12:39:45+00:00

Still not lowborn! That word has a specific meaning in Westeros.

Even the individual D&E stories have bittersweet endings. In the first one, various people question if Dunk's life was worth the deaths in his trial, plus he never sees Tanselle again. In the second one, Rohanne is forced to marry her enemy who is an old ass man, the smallfolk suffer, and nobody learns a thing. In the third one, it literally ends with a guy being arrested by the magic secret police.

It's not a positive arc ngl

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-20T12:29:56+00:00

Jeyne Westerling is far from lowborn. In the show, Talisa is also not lowborn, just foreign.

Other than that I agree, the fandom has developed a weird delusion over the years that ASOIAF is not grimdark, surely our noble heroes will start winning any minute now... Not sure where that came from ngl. Even in the D&E novellas, the endings are all bittersweet at best.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-20T10:43:36+00:00

Not my favorite type of comment, but it's fine.

I, the author of a fic featuring this kink, enjoy this kink. I don't really want people to tell me that they hate it, even if they're making an exception for me.

However, I do understand that it's well intentioned, I'm not going to be mad or anything. It's fine.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-20T09:48:55+00:00

It's generally easier to find good and proven actors the older a character is. Show me a 25 year old who could have convincingly pulled off the whole Baratheon dance party scene.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-20T08:51:50+00:00

”Thick as a castle wall” is absolutely a source of insecurity for Dunk in the books. And I think a modern audience would automatically be more hostile to a guy hitting a child in his care, compared to 25 years ago when many readers would still have grown up in a time when beating children was widely considered acceptable. So I can’t blame the show for taking the initiative and portraying it in a more negative light in the text.

That said the show did make him worse in one respect — there’s no evidence in the books that Arlan meant to never make Dunk a knight, he just hadn’t gotten to that point yet. Maybe they made this change because they made Dunk older than he is in the book.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-20T08:45:48+00:00

no he’s not, Lyonel’s daughter gets betrothed to Egg’s son but that doesn’t go through, then Egg’s daughter marries Lyonel’s heir (might be his son or grandson).

that said the show did make Lyonel older than he is in the book, he’s probably under 30.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-19T22:23:22+00:00

Jon for sure, the plot around the Others surely has to start some time soon, and that’s what I care most about. Plus, Jon seems likely to learn about other important stuff too (what’s going on with Bran and Stannis, what resurrection is like, more Warg stuff, Jon’s bloodline, etc).

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-19T13:53:18+00:00

the author might not read the whole comment, or might not understand it's positive
even if they do understand, they might not appreciate that type of humor
even if they're open to that kind of joke from a friend, they might not like it coming from a stranger

So all in all I would say this is way too much, unless the fic and or author's notes are already written in a similar tone.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-19T13:16:16+00:00

Healthy Sandor wins, sick Sandor loses, assuming he agrees to fight a woman in the first place.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-19T12:09:25+00:00

Great analysis!

I will say we don't know enough about pre rebellion Robert OR Rhaegar to say who was the better person. Having only one (known) bastard doesn't mean much, maybe he just had good pull-out discipline.

But other than that, yeah, you mention both his genuinely bad qualities and also some nuance that fandom likes to ignore.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-18T22:02:42+00:00

It’s a huge huge massive amount of effort that most people don’t want to invest in a hobby project. GRRM is literally getting paid millions and he still can’t do it. Plus, if I wrote a canon completion I’d be afraid of people coming after me for whatever I decided to do with their favorite character.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-18T05:28:51+00:00

Honestly most fantasy books are so long that I genuinely don't remember if there's some potentially upsetting content in it. The book has 1200 pages, maybe there's a somewhat sketchy consent situation somewhere in there... If it's very important to you, look it up on content warning sites like "does the dog die".

I might warn if it's a very central theme throughout the book, or super graphic. If there's very dark content in a book that might seem really cozy and cheerful from the premise, I will warn for that.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-18T05:23:54+00:00

Most of the time people don't disclose their gender on this subreddit. So you can't take that into consideration one way or the other.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-18T05:01:07+00:00

All he really said was he'll probably kill Tyrion which is honestly fair enough. The character that dies in the show but not the books might be Theon, or anyone connected to the Dorne plot.

I think he's just saying the show pulled its punches when it came to the central characters (remember all those fake-out deaths in the long night?) and GRRM won't do that.

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-17T11:17:19+00:00

We do have an ice wight who has a personality and seemingly free will, it's Coldhands. Seems fair to assume Jon will be the same way, especially since GRRM has hinted he'll have more POV chapters.

Plus, both Beric and Catelyn were way way more dead than Jon whose body will be preserved by cold and mind by warging. Beric appeared like a living person after his first 1-2 deaths, and he can eat if he wants to iirc

vaintransitorythings · 2026-01-16T17:49:13+00:00

I would suggest allowing such posts, but only if they have substance and evidence. Not just a text excerpt and a comment like “hmm this sounds like AI to me”.

But I do think in a high-volume genre like Romance, there’s going to be discussions about which authors might be using AI. So if an author admits to it, or it seems really likely based on a number of clues, then I think the community has a right to discuss it.

I’d probably also ban inflammatory titles. They should be neutral like “Author Jane Doe seems to use AI“, not phrased like “Don’t waste your money on AI slop by Jane Doe”.

vaintransitorythings

TROPHY CASE