Walking Squares: Belfast Botanic Gardens

Again, much thanks to Life of B for this month’s Squares Challenge: Walking Squares! So much fun to create a gallery of memorable walks!

In April, self finally crossed Belfast off her bucket list. She’d been wanting to go ever since she got into Game of Thrones, the HBO series. She was a huge Gendrya fan, and every time Joe Dempsie showed up in Belfast she would cheer!

She stayed at the Europa Hotel, which was fantastic, and each day she explored a different area of Belfast. One day, she went to Queen’s University and explored the botanic garden, right alongside:

Skywatch Friday: Gorgeous Weather Today in Belfast!

Weather today in Belfast is brilliantly gorgeous. There’s not a cloud in the sky. Amazing.

Self walked around, returned to her hotel just to dump her books (she ordered five books while she was in River Mill) and dashed out again. The best way to get one’s sea legs in an unfamiliar city is to walk, walk without a plan. She’s already seen a number of things. And signed up for an all-day Game of Thrones tour (Don’t @ self. Even though she is over her Gendrya obsession, come on: the Dark Hedges? the Giant Causeway? This might be her only chance!)

Posting this for Skywatch Friday.

Stay tuned.

Gendrya: HOARFROST IN HER EYES, Ch. 1

• She turned on Gendry with an expression of such shock, such anger he knew he should start running. She inched toward him and said in that same high, cold voice from before “Gendry Waters …. Baratheon now apparently. Gendry Baratheon.” He backed away slightly, like you might try to escape from an enraged wild animal. The courtyard seemed to quiet. Maybe Jon was saying something to Arya but she unsheathed Needle and held it at her side, advancing faster now. He took out his loaned longsword and held in front of him. It wasn’t his hammer but he’d take anything in this moment. Their weapons clanged and he just stopped her from slashing his face. She was so fast. She parried and started dancing around him while he frantically tried to block her. “Gendry” she said with a laugh and nicked his shoulder. “Gendry who know ‘Arry.” Slash. “Gendry who would never work for a lord.” Slice. “Gendry who wouldn’t serve those overgrown high-borns.” Slash. “Gendry the smith. Gendry the bull-headed fighter. Gendry who couldn’t stand the thought of subservience to a Stark brother.” She was laughing now, manically, laughing with a smile that did indeed reach her eyes. They shone with bloodlust. She disarmed him. His sword flew. She lauched herself at him, jumped on his back, wrapped her legs around his throat and brought him down. She pinned him and continued laughing saying “Gendry, Gendry, Gendry, the bastard smith. Gendry the bull-headed, bastard son of a whore.” Jon was yelling now, but Gendry didn’t make out what he was saying. Arya leaned in and whispered “Gendry wouldn’t have come here. Even the bull wasn’t that stupid. I know what you are,” and then she brought something hard and heavy down upon his head.

Oh Hey There, Arya’s Left Eyebrow

Season 8, Episode 2: A Sort-of Review

Those nasty nasty showrunners knew from Season 2 that we would end up here. The minute Season 8 Gendry stuck his sword into that vat of whatever-sends-up-steam-like-a-veritable-fog-machine, it was Gendrya, all the way. This scene has happened before, only back then Arya was 11 or 12 and Gendry had never been with a woman. Now, Arya is 17 or 18, and post-Melisandre Gendry has apparently not been traumatized for life because he admitted to Lady Arya that he’s been with three women. THREE! (Self loves the moment when Arya oh-so-casually drops the “Was that the first time you’ve been with a woman” and Gendry’s astonished “What???!!!!” Gendry, and all the viewers who’d seen 12-year-old Arya making heart eyes at Gendry’s abs, were STUNNED! STUNNED! But surely we wouldn’t have wanted another unrequited love — like self’s other favorite ship, Brienne and Jaime! — for our Dear Little Murder Child!)

Looking forward to this Sunday. For these specific reasons:

1. More of Arya’s raised eyebrows. When Arya’s eyebrow goes up, it means she’s ready for business.
2. More of Gendry, in any shape or form, though preferably hot and sweaty in the forge, with exposed clavicles.
3. Crypt turning into a foodfest for White Walkers — what can self say, she really likes The Walking Dead! Since no less than six different characters (Gendry, Jon, Dany, Sam, Gilly and Ser Jorah) were made to state out loud (in Episode 2) that the crypts were “the safest place,” the feeding frenzy will probably be worse than an American high school cafeteria at lunch!
   

Season 8, Episode 2 joins self’s favorite Game of Thrones episodes of all time:

the one where Brienne is about to get eaten by a bear, otherwise known as The Bear and the Maiden Fair

the one where the Kingslayer goes au naturel in a pool with Brienne and then very conveniently faints in Brienne’s arms (Unfortunately this episode marked the high point in their relationship, for Jaime subsequently returned to his sister’s loving arms, and self lost all respect for the character and wished he’d crawl off somewhere and die)

Self knows not why Season 7’s Gendry was so wimpy. In Season 8, he is decidedly NOT wimpy. He’s back at the forge, where he can be observed (by Arya. And the viewers) in the best possible light (steamy, with sparks of metal upon metal: self could go on).

Stay tuned.

 

Five Years and Half a Dozen Gendrya Fan Fiction Later, GoT S8:E2

And I couldn’t even watch it, I was in London.

Thank God for Twitter.

All my Gendrya feelz!

This is a better ship than anything else on the show, and I will maintain that till the day I die, come @ me.

The corniest outcome ever would be Gendry to die and Arya be pregnant with his child, ala Terminator.

But the show is not corny, so don’t even go there.

 

A CLASH OF KINGS: pp. 491 – 492

Since self began writing Gendrya, she’s been learning just how different the Game of Thrones fandom is from the Hunger Games fandom.

For one thing, in the Game of Thrones fandom, minutiae matters to an obsessive degree.

Self learned today (from reading GoT fan fiction) that the language the White Walkers speak is called ‘Skroth.’ It supposedly “sounds like the cracking of ice.”

So if you’re planning to write Night King dialogue (or inner monologue, or whatever) you’d better know your Skroth. Just saying.

To help give her Gendrya more texture, self has been reading the books. There was one in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and another from a friend’s son’s bedroom. The one she has with her in Mendocino is the one that belonged to the son of her friend. And it’s A Clash of Kings. Which is thrilling as all get-out (She’s also reading Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust, Vol. One: La Belle Sauvage, and that too is pretty exciting, so she’s in the equivalent of Reading Heaven right now)

Conversation between Sansa and Tyrion:

“My guest.” He was wearing his chain of office, a necklace of linked golden hands. “I thought we might talk.”

“As my lord commands.” Sansa found it hard not to stare; his face was so ugly it held a queer fascination for her.

“The food and garments are to your satisfaction?” he asked. “If there is anything else you need, you have only to ask.”

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

 

Trying, Not Succeeding

Self has moved on from Everlark.

She is still part of the fan fiction universe, only she’s switched allegiances to a new ship, Gendrya.

She is in complete awe of those fan fiction authors who drop Game of Thrones place names (Dragonstone, King’s Landing, Westeros, Highgarden, Casterly Rock, Stormsend, Braavos, The Red Keep, Winterfell, Volantis) as casually as bon bons.

She’s actually attempted doing a one-shot, but her lack of cred is immediately apparent because she’s only read one of GRRM’s books.

She doesn’t like AU Gendrya, it just doesn’t go well with the Bastard identity and Faceless Assassin plot lines. In the meantime, she lurks.

The number of Gendrya fics are about half the number of Everlark fics. But there are new ones appearing every day, because the ending of GoT Season 7 was so inconclusive.

Which brings us to:

The Books section of the Wall Street Journal, 12 – 13 August, 2017.

In Black Ships Before Troy, Rosemary Sutcliff (a rock star in her field) re-tells the Iliad. Now, the 1993 book has been re-issued and so it is with great pleasure that self adds the book to her reading list. It begins:

• In the high and far-off days when men were heroes and walked with the gods, Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, took for his wife a sea-nymph called Thetis.

What. A. Fabulous. Opening. Sentence.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Other Textures

Been reading Gendrya all day in preparation for tonight’s Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 4. Which self knows already from all the leaks has NO. GENDRY. Nevertheless. It is reportedly spectacular. There is a scene in which . . . but, no. THERE SHALL BE NO FURTHER SPOILERS.

She’s posted twice on this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge TEXTURES. Now it’s time to appreciate these beauties from other WordPress bloggers!

• A royal elephant studded with capsicums!
• Crocodiles glimpsed on a river tour!
• Irish sunset, Enniscrone
• textile tapestry
• Close-ups of Nature (Gorgeous!)
• Images (Mostly Close-ups) from a Chateau in Blois
• Late afternoon sun on a headstone

Kudos to the bloggers!

Stay tuned.