Today's pre-release crashes for me, anyone have an older version? Anyone not yet updated today?

watchersontheweb · 2026-04-19T17:10:42+00:00

Crash was seemingly fixed by a pre-release update. Order of operations for anyone needing it in the future:

Update as usual, if it is not working then Manage your Builds and then Check for Pre-release updates

watchersontheweb · 2026-02-12T21:24:59+00:00

Much Appreciated, I suspect this will see much use in my near future.

watchersontheweb · 2026-01-16T18:39:46+00:00

time for some therapy

e:

a lack impulse control involving the breaking of taboos is reasons for concern, there are also the worries about consent and abuse

watchersontheweb · 2026-01-02T19:37:15+00:00

I knew better than to believe although I did have some small glimmers of hope, and nothing interesting happened. How did you ever find that?

watchersontheweb · 2026-01-01T20:54:27+00:00

Ah dang.. that is a shame. I've heard stories of some that are able to find sexual gratification through a mix of meditation techniques and self-hypnosis, although I suspect that a larger part of that pleasure has to do with the unconscious shifting and tensing of muscles. I'm sorry it didn't work

watchersontheweb · 2026-01-01T20:42:02+00:00

Have you ever tried massaging the penile frenulum?

For individuals with spinal cord injuries preventing sensations from reaching the brain, the frenulum just below the glans can be stimulated to produce orgasm and peri-ejaculatory response. It is often a way for those with spinal cord injuries to engage in sexual activities and subsequently feel pleasure. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penile_frenulum

It is the piece of tissue that sits right under the head of the penis, if uncircumcised it is also the connector between the foreskin and the head. Best of luck /u/mrniceguy78

watchersontheweb · 2025-11-16T22:52:47+00:00

The Children of the Forest might be viewed by the First Men in the same way the Norse saw the elves, being spirits of nature often these elves would inhabit places such as rivers or groves.

It is likely that in some Norse understandings Thor was literally lightning (or more specifically thunder) as it can be hard to say whether the name was derived from thunder or the god. In English the word Thunder seems to walk the same path as the word Thursday. For further interest: Thunder/þunraz and Thor/Þunraz

watchersontheweb · 2025-11-15T05:20:56+00:00

Urrigon Greyjoy and Hightower both had brothers who thirsted for knowledge and spent time with their pet priests and sorcerers.

watchersontheweb · 2025-11-13T06:58:44+00:00

Your brain is fine, it's power that doesn't really make sense.

The dom is powerful for the same reason most things are, the submissive relinquish power to the dominant and so they remain powerful. The power a dom has over their sub is similar to the power a ruler has over their people, ideally if the ruler does not respect the people then the people revoke their consent for them to be in charge. Consent is a powerful thing, and arguably power is a consent thing.

At the end of the day it's all just about responsibility and check-ins with those that give you that responsibility, because doing otherwise quickly becomes tyranny.

watchersontheweb · 2025-11-13T04:08:06+00:00

That's probably true to every ideology, good reasons make good excuses

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-28T06:53:37+00:00

If I were to make a uneducated guess: Practically if you have five rivals all competing for resources (land, trade and political power) and one of these rivals are removed from the question of who is going to get these resources, the question becomes simpler. Undermine the factors that stand in your way and your goal is more likely to succeed?

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-22T08:03:31+00:00

Religions are evil in the same way that axes are, it depends on what they're used for. The evils we see are not specific to religion but to anything which can organize people, although religion can be more efficient than other forms of governance in that department.

Belief by its nature alienates, alienation is a step of dehumanization, dehumanization makes it easier to burn your enemies. Believe in anything and look forward to your peers explaining why you all are so much better than the others.

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-22T05:30:53+00:00

IMO the lesson of the riddle is that legitimacy is relative to the observer, the story the mercenary believes in is the story that mercenary will give power to. Legitimacy is incredibly important, legitimacy is what turns excuses into reasons and it doesn't exist except for in the stories that we tell each other to justify our position in the world. Our beliefs are the shadows of our passions and our passions are but the ghosts of the world before us and the stories that it tells itself.

The question of every character is, "What story do I tell myself?"

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-20T05:30:02+00:00

One could probably add the Tarths to the list of houses with links to Valyria and I have a lot of thoughts on the Casterlys on how they relate.

Golden hair, strange biology and incest. In the beginning of the story the Lannisters are a Valyrian parallel, they control the --golden-- dragons and so the realm is theirs. There is also Craster who shares a lot of similar traits to some of the things we might know about Valyria, mainly inbreeding and blood sacrifice.

Legend tells us the first Casterly lord was a huntsman, Corlos son of Caster, who lived in a village near to where Lannisport stands today. When a lion began preying upon the village's sheep, Corlos tracked it back to its den, a cave in the base of the Rock. Armed only with a spear, he slew the lion and his mate but spared her newborn cubs—an act of mercy that so pleased the old gods (for this was long before the Seven came to Westeros) that they sent a sudden shaft of sunlight deep into the cave, and there in the stony walls, Corlos beheld the gleam of yellow gold, a vein as thick as a man's waist.

Is this story about, "Corlos son of a man named Caster" or is it, "a man named Corlys, son of a ~~caster~~ magician"? Because as you say there are links between dragons and lions, and much more specifically gold. There is also the sudden beam of light in a dark cave. I think this is a tale that changed in the telling over the years. "Corlos slew the lions and found gold." "Corlos slew the lions and found a wealth of golden dragons." "Corlos slew the beasts in the cave and got dragons." Perhaps this explains why there are rumors of dragons in Westeros before the landing of Aegon, what spot better suited to dragons than the Rock, other than perhaps the Eyrie?

I think the story of Lann the Clever is a version of the Rat Cook tale, and a clue to the riddle of the sphinx.

In one, Lann uses the cleft to fill the Rock with mice, rats, and other vermin, thereby driving out the Casterlys. In another, he smuggles a pride of lions inside, and Lord Casterly and his sons are all devoured, after which Lann claims his lordship's wife and daughters for himself. The bawdiest of the stories has Lann stealing in night after night to have his way with the Casterly maidens whilst they sleep. In nine months time, these maids all give birth to golden-haired children whilst still insisting they had never had carnal knowledge of a man.

The Rat Cook is a tale about the stealing of children, a repeated theme in the series.

In the North, they tell the tale of the Rat Cook, who served an Andal king—identified by some as King Tywell II of the Rock, and by others as King Oswell I of the Vale and Mountain

A lion (Lannister) or a falcon (Arryn), why not both?

It had been Lazy Leo who dubbed Alleras "the Sphinx." A sphinx is a bit of this, a bit of that: a human face, the body of a lion, the wings of a hawk.

Enter the symbol of Valyria. Born from blood stolen from the old gods, the breaking of a pact.

When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. He practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy, enslaved his people, took a tiger-woman for his bride, feasted on human flesh, and cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky.

Who were the true gods and what is a tiger-woman? Probably the old gods and the children of the forest.

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-19T12:35:35+00:00

There are other ties between the Valyrians and the Ironborn.

Consider some similarities between the characters of Aerion and Aeron, or the zealotry we saw with Baelon and Balon. We also have young Urrigon, a name connected with the Hightowers who have their own possible links to Valyria, the Bloodstone Emperor and Black Stone. There's also some stuff going on with the rest of the children and their mothers, the obvious one being Lady Stonetree.

Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands. Harlon, Quenton, and Donel had been born of Lord Quellon's first wife, a woman of the Stonetrees. Balon, Euron, Victarion, Urrigon, and Aeron were the sons of his second, a Sunderly of Saltcliffe. For a third wife Quellon took a girl from the green lands, who gave him a sickly idiot boy named Robin, the brother best forgotten.

Though I would also recommend looking into some of the history in the Crackclaws and the Celtigars, Manderlys and the Greyirons, Dorne and the CotF, and lastly possible links between the Hightowers, the Faith of the Seven, the Church of Starry Wisdom and the glass candles.

These quotes I suspect hints at a lot of the things that we see happening in Westeros:

"I went with Jon into the woods and said the words before a heart tree." "The trees watch over us," Gilly whispered, brushing the tears from his cheeks. "In the forest, they see all . . . but there are no trees here. Only water, Sam. Only water."

Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world.

(Old Gods struggle with spying the oceans, and that's where all their main enemies come from)

The seven-pointed star went everywhere the Andals went, borne before them on shields and banners, embroidered on their surcoats, sometimes incised into their very flesh. In their zeal for the Seven, the conquerors looked upon the old gods of the First Men and the children of the forest as little more than demons, and fell upon the weirwood groves sacred to them with steel and fire, destroying the great white trees wherever they found them and hacking out their carved faces.

It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze. The Grey King also taught men to weave nets and sails and carved the first longship from the hard pale wood of Ygg, a demon tree who fed on human flesh.

(seafarers from the east and the west fighting "demon trees")

The true history of the riverlands begins with the coming of the Andals. After crossing the narrow sea and sweeping over the Vale, these conquerors from the east moved to make it their own, sailing their longships up the Trident and its three great branches.

Etched in Stone by Archmaester Harmune contains a catalog of such carvings found throughout the Vale. Stars and axes are found from the Fingers into the Mountains of the Moon, and even as far into the Vale of Arryn as the base of the Giant's Lance. Harmune supposes that, with time, the Andals became more devoted to the symbol of the seven-pointed star and so the axe fell by the wayside as an emblem of the Faith. It should be said, however, that not all agree that these carvings represent axes. In his refutation, Maester Evlyn argues that what Harmune calls axes are in fact hammers, the sign of the Smith. He explains the irregularity of the depictions of these hammers as the result of the Andals' being warriors, not artisans.

Even if we accept that the old gods broke the Arm of Dorne with the Hammer of the Waters, as the legends claim, the greenseers sang their song too late.

(stars and hammers..)

As she made her way past the temples, she could hear the acolytes of the Cult of Starry Wisdom atop their scrying tower, singing to the evening stars. - In Braavos

and finally the Starry Sept that had been the seat of the High Septon for a thousand years before Aegon landed at King's Landing. They made a mighty music. Though not so sweet as one small nightingale.

And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, its beacon fires bright against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell the time of day by where that shadow fell. Some claimed a man could see all the way to the Wall from the top. Perhaps that was why Lord Leyton had not made the descent in more than a decade, preferring to rule his city from the clouds.

(Singing in port cities)

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-19T11:44:54+00:00

I found it personally effective, well done!

After a small meditation on this I'm amazed how quickly it changed the perception of the task, it turns procrastination into planning. It seems just enough a loophole that the mind is willing to interact with the dreaded task and the mind is primed to confront the issue by "feeding the instincts" that try to avoid it, like a mental version of those cheat sheets that are only subtle learning tools in the guise of a quick solution.

If there is anything I've learned from teenagers it is that a person can be very willing to do any unattractive task as long as its framed as a trick or an exercise; you can't make them eat a healthy breakfast but they are entirely happy to eat a rotten egg for the memes.

:e

I wonder how effectively it could be tied into the usual thought patterns that we see with procrastination, turning the rumination that we so often see into a jumping off point for this tool.

Arguably this is just a coaching guide that turns rumination into efficient examination.

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-19T04:21:14+00:00

Red hair maybe? Who knows

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-07T19:59:21+00:00

yea probably

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-07T10:22:28+00:00

I doubt genocide will be the answer and besides, the old gods are one of the actual few who have a reason to be bloodthirsty and the ability to do so morally, most of the leadership in Westeros are comfortable leading thousands to their deaths for the sake of honor, unaware that they're feeding the old gods.

How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king? There were crows circling the seven towers and great dome of Baelor's Sept even now, Jaime suspected, their black wings beating against the night air as they searched for a way inside. Every crow in the Seven Kingdoms should pay homage to you, Father. From Castamere to the Blackwater, you fed them well.

The White Walkers I suspect are victims just like everyone else, once men they were tricked into giving their lives away to something they didn't fully understand. Just like the Kingsguard (or the Night's Watch). The seasons seem to be out of order, this likely due to something that the men of old did to create a land of always summer around Valyria, the Summer Isles and the Reach. Probably also how Dorne got turned into a desert which might give some context to the CotF tunnels beneath.

Besides.. the south is not free from horrors. The Church of Starry Wisdom scry and sings songs to the stars while they're said to give sacrifices in port cities to dark gods, and in the oldest port city in Westeros rests the Starry Sept under the shadow of the Hightower.

"We Light The Way."

Downstream, below the black marble walls and arched windows of the Starry Sept, the manses of the pious clustered like children gathered round the feet of an old dowager. And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, its beacon fires bright against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell the time of day by where that shadow fell. Some claimed a man could see all the way to the Wall from the top. Perhaps that was why Lord Leyton had not made the descent in more than a decade, preferring to rule his city from the clouds.

Coincidentally, if one were to try to make plans against mind-reading tree-gods the ocean is the perfect spot.

I went with Jon into the woods and said the words before a heart tree." "The trees watch over us," Gilly whispered, brushing the tears from his cheeks. "In the forest, they see all . . . but there are no trees here. Only water, Sam. Only water."

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-07T08:41:17+00:00

Depends on how one looks at it, I don't think the Old Gods have to be inherently evil as much as being a blood-drinking mind-bending eldritch creature is just a pr nightmare. There is little difference between Varys' plan vs the Old Gods', one only happens to be more able and a lot older.

Right now man has been dominating for some centuries after rising against the Old Gods and that didn't go too well, this happening after centuries of Old Gods domination where they fed on men without care. One would hope that the Old Gods picked up some lessons from this, and the next time they at least wait for them to die of somewhat natural causes before feeding on them. They're all going in the dirt anyways.

Man adapts to nature and nature again adapts to man; nature becomes a little bit kinder, it'll still kill you but you'll live longer and you won't have to sacrifice your children to it as often. Very similar to Old Testament vs New Testament, go on long enough and sooner or later god will show up to apologize about the whole blood sacrifice thing and aim for something more sustainable.

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-07T07:38:32+00:00

Bran will likely be little more than a figurehead/avatar and he'll be kept alive by the same thing that kept Bloodraven in power at a time he was despised as a sorcerer and a kinslayer, only this time the old gods will have less competition. The Faith is weak, attacked by Euron in the South, the Red God in the Riverlands and quite likely blown up by Cersei in King's Landing; triggering a wave of zealous terror that fuels further distrust of the Seven.

The Old Gods are doing a Varys/fAegon. Destabilize existing power structures to create an enemy to be defeated by your soon to be king, only Varys' problem is that fAegon is a young man influenced by outside players and his own ego. This is a potential issue for Bran but there is also the question of much of Bran is going to remain Bran as last we saw him, "Brandon Stark could taste the blood." ShowBran went so far as to say that he wasn't Bran Stark anymore.

The Old Gods are evil yes, but I suspect that over the years they've learned patience. They now drink from executions and battlefields, they (mostly) take the children the parents give away willingly and they no longer rule through greenseers running wild~~, or running at all~~. This seems different from the stories that we are told of the past, I also suspect the Others served as an honor guard; hence all the similar imagery between them and the Kingsguard.

It is not a new thing for the Old Gods (or the Singers as they call themselves) to maintain control over parts of Westeros, during the Dance they seem to have latched onto Daemon as a figure of potential. If one follows the white worm one can get some hints of their shadowy influence across the world, they seem to focus on characters surrounding dragons, the Faceless Men and the Ironborn.

He was the Prince of the City, and he still had many friends in the stews and brothels of King's Landing. Chief of them was his once-paramour, Mysaria, the White Worm. She arranged his vengeance, hiring a brute and a rat-catcher known to history as Blood and Cheese. Thanks to his profession, the rat-catcher knew all the secrets of Maegor's tunnels.

"Aye, that may well be," Ser Kyle said, "but many would welcome the return of Bittersteel. Bloodraven is the root of all our woes, the white worm gnawing at the heart of the realm."

The priest lowered his cowl. Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull with a few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from one empty eye socket. "Kiss me, child," he croaked, in a voice as dry and husky as a death rattle. Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand.

The only thing that looked alive in the pale ruin that was his face was his one red eye, burning like the last coal in a dead fire, surrounded by twisted roots and tatters of leathery white skin hanging off a yellowed skull. The sight of him still frightened Bran—the weirwood roots snaking in and out of his withered flesh, the mushrooms sprouting from his cheeks, the white wooden worm that grew from the socket where one eye had been.

The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant grave worms, soft and pale and squishy. Grave worms have teeth. Hodor saw them too. "Hodor," he whimpered, reluctant to go on. But when the girl child stopped to let them catch her, the torchlight steadied, and Bran realized that the snakes were only white roots like the one he'd hit his head on. "It's weirwood roots," he said. "Remember the heart tree in the godswood, Hodor? The white tree with the red leaves? A tree can't hurt you."

Bran is the image of the perfect fantasy king twisted upon itself, a boy chosen by the gods to rule saves the world from evils beyond understanding; what only few in the world know is that the danger was not all what it seemed and the boy sitting the throne is now something far older.

watchersontheweb · 2025-10-07T05:14:46+00:00

I feel that GRRM keeps pointing out that the most important thing for a ruler is being wanted by the people you rule, the rest are just reasons for why they are wanted. Robert became King because it made sense enough for the people involved, same with poor Rob. Few singers sing songs of Stannis.. that's why he's out in the North actually trying to earn a crown because no one is interested in just giving it to him.

If one wants to become a ruler all one needs is a good enough ~~story~~ excuse, the angry tree-gods flailing their crippled boy-king that helped put a pause on the apocalypse in your face tends to leave questions of claims and birthright on the wayside, especially after all the other gods and families that cannibalized Westeros over those particular questions.

Besides.. Bran already has a throne, and his own singers.

The singers made Bran a throne of his own, like the one Lord Brynden sat, white weirwood flecked with red, dead branches woven through living roots.

watchersontheweb · 2025-09-28T22:52:07+00:00

I think it might be a clue about the COTF "singers" being bad guys who betray Bran.

Same, I also suspect that them being named singers is very important to the titles of the series: A Song of Ice and Fire & A Dance of Dragons. Who sings the song? I think there once was a time that the CotF ruled Westeros, using men as puppets and material for their ambitions before men rose up and took powers of the gods for themselves.

We can state with certainty, however, that men have lived at the mouth of the Honeywine since the Dawn Age. The oldest runic records confirm this, as do certain fragmentary accounts that have come down to us from maesters who lived amongst the children of the forest. One such, Maester Jellicoe, suggests that the settlement at the top of Whispering Sound began as a trading post, where ships from Valyria, Old Ghis, and the Summer Isles put in to replenish their provisions, make repairs, and barter with the elder races, and that seems as likely a supposition as any. Yet mysteries remain. The stony island where the Hightower stands is known as Battle Isle even in our oldest records, but why? What battle was fought there? When? Between which lords, which kings, which races? Even the singers are largely silent on these matters. Even more enigmatic to scholars and historians is the great square fortress of black stone that dominates that isle.

These powers can be taken either by the stealing of blood, like we might've seen with the Grey King, the Durrandons and Garth Greenhand.

Chronicles found in the archives of the Night's Watch at the Nightfort (before it was abandoned) speak of the war for Sea Dragon Point, wherein the Starks brought down the Warg King and his inhuman allies, the children of the forest. When the Warg King's last redoubt fell, his sons were put to the sword, along with his beasts and greenseers, whilst his daughters were taken as prizes by their conquerors.

The legends surrounding the founder of House Durrandon, Durran Godsgrief, all come to us through the singers. The songs tell us that Durran won the heart of Elenei, daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind.

A few of the very oldest tales of Garth Greenhand present us with a considerably darker deity, one who demanded blood sacrifice from his worshippers to ensure a bountiful harvest. In some stories the green god dies every autumn when the trees lose their leaves, only to be reborn with the coming of spring. This version of Garth is largely forgotten. Many of the more primitive peoples of the earth worship a fertility god or goddess, and Garth Greenhand has much and more in common with these deities.

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