ReptileRae

1. they know how to shut up. the animals know how and when to shut up. yes, even the comic relief one. do you have any idea how important this is? yes, they play it for laughs when diego first confronts manny and they fight and then diego stops, clears his throat, and asks manny politely for the child (which was brilliant, by the way, i laughed aloud), but aside from that, when there’s a serious moment, they let it be serious. when manny accepts the baby from the mother, when he sees the paintings of the mammoths on the cave wall, when he returns the baby to its father, these are moments where everyone is dead silent, even sid, and the music is soft and heartwrenching and the next line is rarely, if ever, a joke that undercuts the prior moment. they let these scenes linger and it really makes this feel like an emotional, somber, serious movie with fun character interactions rather than a comedy that makes cheap appeals to emotion.

2. the way they characterize manny at the beginning is SUPER interesting to me. by the end of this movie, we know manny is a big softie who was deeply wounded by the loss of his family. we as the audience don’t know this yet, though, and the first time we catch a hint that there’s something deeper going on here, it’s when manny firmly, sharply insists to sid that partners should be loyal to each other. it’s not an obnoxiously blatant “hey i have trauma” flag, since it could be interpreted as the writers playing with the monogamy of mammoths and promiscuity of sloths, which i’m fairly certain they bring up in this movie, if not one of the others. still, though, it strikes that perfect balance of not making the Oh Frick Manny Had A Family reveal later on completely blindside us while also not telegraphing it too obviously. at the beginning, manny is clearly a loner who wants nothing to do with sid, but to avoid making him come off as a straight-up jerk, they make it abundantly clear in the introductory sequence that he has a strong moral code that he holds himself to (”I don’t like animals that kill for pleasure”). i just thought this was really well done, opening the movie with a scene that demonstrates both that manny is a complex character who comes off as cold but cares deeply (which sid basically sees straight through and i love it) and that sid is incredibly unlikable and as such nobody likes him. i didn’t realize it at first, but that’s such an interesting move. we open the movie with sid getting abandoned by his family, but then we find out how annoying he is and go “oh, well that explains it.” but then he tells manny all about how they regularly do their best to ditch him and it’s so clear that he’s just too pure and innocent to hold any malice towards them. under it all, though, it’s clear that he’s lonely, too, and has been for a while. these characters have depth, and feel like people, and every quiet moment just drives it home even more that they really don’t have anyone except each other.

3. DIEGO! we stan. i think it’s really interesting how instead of just throwing these characters into the world together, the writers make it clear that they had other people, before, but those people either were toxic and ditched them (sid’s family), were toxic and needed to be ditched (diego’s pack), or were loving but torn away by circumstance (manny’s family). i dunno, it just adds a really interesting layer of depth here. but anyway, diego’s arc was just really well done. he’s only there to get the kid, and though he does start to enjoy himself, he still has his mission. but when manny risks his life to save diego’s and sid makes that comment pointing it out, you can SEE how he starts to linger, starts to dread, the guilt builds up until he TELLS THEM. that’s so important! he tells them!!! there’s no stupid, “liar revealed” plotline where they figure out that he’s been tricking them because he comes clean himself, without provocation or pressure, and they do eventually forgive him and that’s SO important. diego wasn’t being honest with them, was living a lie and planning to betray them, and he made the incredibly difficult decision to stop in his tracks and come clean on his own terms because he knew it was the right thing to do. there were So Many Ways the writers could have handled that reveal, but to have diego just stop, think, change his mind, and confess was SO GOOD. also the dynamic between the three of them was just really, really great. i’m so emotionally attached to these early-2000′s CGI creatures okay.

4. speaking of which, this movie is surprisingly good-looking. like it came out in 2002. that is IMPRESSIVE. manny’s fur holds up shockingly well and my suspension of disbelief was never fricked up by poorly rendered CGI graphics. props to blue sky, man.

5. okay point five is lowkey the whole reason for this rant because it’s a really really cool point i only noticed on my second watch through: the parallelism. why does diego have to kidnap this baby? because his pack’s leader (soto, apparently) wants to eat it alive as revenge for the humans killing half of his own. why does manny want to rescue this baby? because he, too, is a parent who lost a child and doesn’t want the humans to go through that. but, wait, hang on a minute, how did he lose his child? oh, yeah, the humans killed it and his wife right in front of him. both soto and manny lost most of the people they care about to the humans—these humans, specifically, since they seem to be the only community in the area—but where soto swears revenge, manny doesn’t want them to go through what he went through, even though this very act could be what perpetuates that. and they acknowledge it in the movie. diego mentions how this baby is gonna grow up to hunt them and sid counters that maybe the fact that they saved it means it will remember their kindness and things will change. but the whole movie carries the somber atmosphere of a tragedy because, as someone else mentioned above, the humans are steadily encroaching and all of these creatures are going to go extinct, and this one act of kindness may not have the intended effect and may soon be lost to the uncaring tides of history, but that doesn’t make it any less worth it. manny isn’t doing this to try and make a statement or change the humans’ behavior, he just wants to prevent them from going through what he did. calling this story one of “breaking the cycle of violence” cheapens it, i feel, because the humans are hunting the mammoths, not out of malice, but out of necessity for furs and meat and bone and tusk. it’s nothing personal—they’re predators. but still, manny seeks them out to return their baby to them. and when the baby’s father is raising his spear at manny when he’s trying to return it, you can just see that look in manny’s eyes, that he’s begging this human to understand, but he’s prepared to get speared if it means this kid gets to be with his father and MY HEART, YOU GUYS.

6. FOUND FAMILY FOUND FAMILY like i know found family isn’t really all that hard to come by, but this movie is REALLY explicit about it in a good way! they make the distinction between a pack—a group who wants you for what you can do for them—and a herd—a group who regularly looks out to see what they can do for you. and a saber-tooth tiger leaves his PACK to join this HERD! and they joke that this is the weirdest herd they’ve ever seen, but a carnivore has just joined a herd and that makes me feel SO MANY FEELINGS

ultimately, ice age is a movie about choices. manny’s choice to return this kid to its parents, even though he lost his own kid to those very parents, diego’s choice to come clean about his betrayal and his choice to join a herd even though he’s a carnivore, manny making the choice to risk his life to save diego, diego making the choice to return the favor, and all three of them making the choice to not give up hope that they can find a new family again after losing what they had before. this is a movie in which characters are more than the way they were born, are more than the circumstances of their lives, are more than what happens to them. they make choices and their choices matter and they choose to be kind, even when they have absolutely nothing to gain from it and everything to lose from it.

i guess you could say this movie aged nicely.

Some marks happen instantly others form over time

The kings-guard contrary to popular belief do have soulmates, not only amongst themselves but often also with members of the royal family, (as well as their own families). Admittedly a kings-guard having the soulmark of someone outside their own family or the one they’re sworn to, is frowned upon (mostly by certain kings) but there isn’t really a way to prevent it. Daeron the good is pretty chill anyhow.

So one day when one ser Donnel of Duskendale had some free time he went on a stroll through kingslanding. Actual kingslanding not the posh parts the nobles kept to, he was after all but a crabbers son at heart. And on this stroll in a secluded parts of town, he happens upon a woman in her labours, this woman is refusing to let him go and get help believing she will die before it arrives and not wishing to die alone.

Now set Donnel is a knight so naturally he stay after all his vows require him to do- something. So that’s the story of how one Ser Donnel of Duskendale, knight of the kings-guard, son of a crabber, ends up delivering a baby in a random alley on his day of.

Now he doesn’t think to much about it until the next day when he is preparing to put on his armor and go about guarding the king, that he notices as he is about to put on his gloves, the mark of a tiny root circling his little finger, connecting to an equally tiny elmtree now branding the side of his hand. A tiny tree rooted to the place the tiny baby had grabbed his hand.

He panics, the guy is at most 25 and he hasn’t been a kings guard long be he got inducted under Aegon and that guy would absolutely have had his head. It’s fine, his brothers explain, so long as he doesn’t plan to abscond from his duties to search out this soulmate or help his new soulmate commit treason it’s fine. King Daeron is after all Chill Like That.™️

Over the years the tree grows and grows and soon it nearly covers half his arm. But it’s fine, it’s chill. And that means that his soulmate is alive and well, and that Donnel isn’t needed by their side, so he doesn’t even have to have any moral dilemmas over his oaths and duties.

Now-

Dunk of flea bottom, has always had white crabs marking his back, the very first one, that he has always had, if what he can recall from his mother and her stories is true, is the one that sat just where his head and neck connected. It was given to him by the kind knight who kept his mother company when he was coming into the world.

Dunk of Fleabottom knows his age only because every year, presumably on his birthday, a new white crabs appears, alongside his neck or his back or his shoulder, without fail.

Sometimes Dunk wonders if it belongs to his father “keeping company” seems like a polite way of referring to your baby daddy out of wedlock in a world marriage matters very much. Rafe also thinks this is likely, and she’s rather smart, and his only other soulmark. So she’s probably right.

Idk how this ends up when we get to ashford but I just really like my mans Donnel of Duskendale okay, and Dunk deserves to have a father-ish figure.

Extra points if spearhedge happens because damn that has to be wild for Donnel man

Sort of a sleeping beauty situation

Aegon IV's voracious appetites are well known, but beyond lust & gluttony, he craves magic. First of the first generation of the blood with no dragons worth speaking of. So along with all the mistresses and courtesans, over the years he welcomes wizards, alchemists, sorcerers, and mages to the Red Keep. Most are frauds, some are mad, but a few have a touch of real power.

By this point his son Daeron has married Myriah and they've had Baelor. Aegon IV hates all three of them. There’s a sorta bloodmage in Court these days whose powers are real tempting, even if their deaths would look suspicious as fuck now that he's also got favored bastard son Daemon.

Second best thing to do? Put a curse on his grandson.

"He's anti-Brexit!" Good.

"He's anti-Trump!" Good.

"He's anti-establishment!" At this point I think you're just trying to make me like him more.

"His manager once called Farage a horrible cunt!" Well Farage *is* a horrible cunt, what's your point?

"He's making a joke of British politics!" Well that's very appropriate given that current British politics *are* a fucking joke.

"He's a left-wing liberal elitist!" I don't know if you can be all of those things at once, but I do know that Count Binface isn't the one getting millions in donations from cryptocurrency billionaires sooooooo...

Let me explain:

Grotesque fascist grifter, Nigel Farage, is the leader of Reform, the racist far right party he created because UKIP got what it wanted (Brexit) and it sucked.

Having tried and failed to be an MP many times (but somehow getting more screentime than any Liberal Democrat or Green politician), he finally succeeded in the last election because people were so overwhelmingly pissed off with the Conservatives, and many right-wing people saw Reform as the new Conservative Party; partly because it's full of rejects from the Conservative Party.

Speculation: he doesn't really want to be an MP, he wants to be a fascist grifter. He's annoyed by suggestions he do things like Be In His Constituency and Serve His Constituents.

He's recently been caught having accepted a VERY large amount of money from some unsavory people that he insists was a totally legitimate 'donation' and not breaking any rules.

Only it did break the rules and it's very clear that it did and things are in motion to hold him to account.

To avoid this, he has resigned as an MP, saying this is a protest at his treatment by the 'establisment' (he is a rich fascist grifter, but he likes to cosplay as a Man of the People). This has triggered a by-election, in which he is standing, with the hope that the people of his constituency will either elect him in a resounding win, indicating they don't care that he's corrupt (having not heard everything the investigation is uncovering), or someone from Labour or the Conservatives will win and he can swan off to America, free to grift again because of what the 'establishment' did to him.

Only, all the major political parties have agreed not to stand, stating openly that this is an obvious stunt and they won't legitimise it. So if he doesn't win, he can't say it was because he was too much of a rebel and the Establishment went against him, he'll just be a loser, which doesn't play too well with the right-wingers he wants to grift. And if he does get back in the investigation will go forward without any kind of 'mandate' from his constituency buoying him up.

But. There is another option.

COUNT BINFACE IS RUNNING.

Count Binface is part of the grand British tradition of joke candidates who stand as a protest option. They usually don't get enough votes to get their deposit back (which is supposed to deter unserious people) but they don't care, because DEMOCRACY.

Of course, Count Binface has never won, but it is hilarious to see a completely serious pathetic fascist concede defeat while standing next to a man with a bin on his head to whom they are democratically equal.

But if nobody else is standing. And if enough people in Clacton-on-Sea are finally cheesed off enough with Farage not doing anything for them, there is just a chance that one of the funniest things to ever happen in politics will happen.

Imagine. Imagine for just a moment that the Grotesque Fascist not only loses, but loses to Count Binface.

Recently, Nigel Farage (the Member of Parliament for Clacton, and the frog-faced leader of right-wing fascist party Reform UK) has come under scrutiny for receiving a £5 million "gift" from a crypto billionare, and being unable to give a consistent answer for why. He has denied any wrongdoing, he has threatened reporters for asking questions about the matter, and he is currently under investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commission.

If the Standards Commission finds Farage in breach of conduct, he will likely face a recall election in his district in September. He is unhappy with this possibility, so he has decided to "resign" and trigger a special election now. I say "resign" in quotes because he is standing in said election, and intends to remain in Parliament. Theoretically, winning this election will demonstrate that he has a mandate from the people in his district to continue representing them in spite of the allegations against him.

This is idiotic for several reasons. First, resigning now does not permanently shut down the Standards Commission investigation; if he is re-elected, the Commission can still find against him later on and still force him to face a recall election, meaning the Clacton constituency might have to hold two elections in the space of a few months.

The other problem for Farage is that essentially nobody else is bothering to entertain this farce. No major party is running a candidate against him, arguing that Farage is throwing a tantrum and wasting public money in the process. Only one opponent of note has put their name forward: intergalactic space warrior and perennial satirical candidate Count Binface.

The above image gallery is, at time of writing, the entire slate of candidates for this election.

This gambit has backfired spectacularly on Farage. He thrives on media attention, but with no serious candidates standing, this campaign won't receive any. No journalist who does cover it will bother asking him policy questions, so they will have to ask him about the £5m "gift" instead, which he hates discussing. He cannot run his usual shtick of presenting himself as the "anti-establishment voice", because the only thing more absurd than running against a comedian with a dustbin on his head is referring to said dustbin comedian as an "establishment politician". He cannot even attack Binface for not being local to the district because, to quote Binface himself, Farage "spends more time in America than in Clacton". The whole process will humiliate Farage --doubly so if Binface (as the sole protest candidate) garners a significant portion of the vote -- and one of the few things that fascist politicians cannot stand is humiliation.

Baelor brings his own armour to Ashford so Valarr can fight for Dunk, too. Then no one dies during the Trial of Seven, but that's not the end of the story.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Valarr remains at the party, after he's sent Baelor off after Dunk. He has a greater time than he counted on (even considering that he doesn't remember parts of it come morning time).

New pairing (to me, at least) time! Except that i realised in the writing of this that I actually like leaving it before it's revealed who Valarr was with for reasons that become clear, but you will find out soon enough. So look forward to that.

Also, I want to specify that both people involved here are stupid drunk. So while they are both definitely enthusiastically saying "yes" in the moment, neither of them should really have been asking the question in the first place.

Also, this is very adult, if not completely explicitly described.

All of the gods have chosen champions, who represent them in the world. A champion doesn’t lose their powers until their own death, even if the god that gave them the powers dies (their pantheon ceased to be worshipped etc). A champion is supposed to follow the will of their patron god. A champion can voluntarily surrender the powers they’re given by converting to a new religion, but there is no guarantee at all that they’ll be blessed by any of the gods in that new religion.

The Fourteen Flames still have champions running around because the pantheon of the Fourteen are being kept alive by the propensity of the Essosi cities to offer shrines to various different gods, regardless of how many followers there are in the city. Each of the Fourteen gifts their champions with different things.

The Red God has one champion, and his champion has minions (the Red Priests and Priestesses) that get some measure of power from him, but nothing their champion will be able to call upon.

The Drowned God has one champion; it drives the Iron Born nuts whenever the champion isn’t one of their number (last time around the champion was a Velaryon)

The Old Gods have any number of champions scattered across the lands, each with a different power. Brynden is the champion of the Old God known to the ancient First Men as the Three Eyed Raven.

Then we have the Seven… Baelor was born as the champion for the Warrior. He only admitted it to himself (and the Realm) at Redgrass. He used the power of the Warrior to win the field, and though they sing his and Maekar’s praises, he knows that without the Warrior’s power, there was every chance his brother would have died that day, at the very least.

He’s never met any other champions for the Seven… until he meets Dunk. Baelor has no idea which of the Seven Dunk champions, but he can feel it on him. He thinks, after the mess with Tanselle and Aerion, that Dunk is a champion for the Maid. But Dunk didn’t defend Tanselle because she was a woman, it is part of it, but no. No, no, Dunk defended Tanselle because she was innocent, and Dunk is charged to defend the young and innocent. His champion is the Mother. Baelor only realises this when he’s dying in Dunk’s arms, the ghostly hand of the Stranger reaching down for him. He finds it's fitting. He defended Dunk, because Dunk was innocent, too.

Dunk’s never really used the power of the Mother. Sure, he’s nurturing, good with children, and animals, and all of that sort of thing, but that’s a passive use of the Mother’s gift. That comes with him everywhere, he doesn’t have to focus for that, but there are other gifts from the Mother, he knows. Some he never has intention of using, like the gift to give him a womb so he can bear children if he ever wants them (he currently does not) and the gift to take the womb away again after, once he decides he’s done with childbearing (he’s done with childbearing right now, thank you, Mother). There are some gifts that he hesitates to use, like the gift to bring a new burst of life to something that is dying. He only ever really tried with Rafe, she survived the attack from the Gold Cloaks, but she is mute and has very bad scarring on her throat (Arlan taught them a signing language so they could communicate). He also tried it a bit in the Reach, that one year there was a terrible drought, all the fields he could get to, he gave a burst of life, to encourage them to grow faster and stronger, even without water.

Dunk would have been content to go the rest of his life without using that aspect of his gifts on another person, again, but as he cradles Prince Baelor in his arms, the hand of the Stranger reaching for the prince, he realises he has no choice. He does not want Baelor to die, not like this, not for him. Not Baelor, who surely must be the Warrior’s own champion. So, he pushes a burst of life into Baelor, prodding his body to kickstart its own healing, flooding Baelor with life until the wound has healed enough that he can survive on his own.

Afterward, when news of Dunk being the Mother's champion spreads, Valarr begs Dunk to please, please, please bless him and Kiera, they’ve been trying for a kid for sooooo long, please!!! Dunk blesses them maybe a little bit too much and Kiera ends up giving birth to twins... and then the next pregnancy she has twins again, too, but it’s fine, it’s cool, they all live and everyone is happy. The Spring Sickness might or might not happen, but Dunk’ll probably save Matarys, even if it does happen… and Baelor is busily trying to do his own bird mating dance with Dunk but he’s in competition with Lyonel, even if only the two of them know it (Dunk is blissfully unaware). Baelor wins eventually, purely on accident.

He was lamenting to Dunk that he never got to be a girl dad, and Dunk absently asks if he’d like to be one, and then has to explain about the whole ‘hey, yeah, I can have a womb if I want one’ thing, like

“Yeah, the Mother keeps reminding me that I can have a womb if I want one, even though I’ve told her a million times I don’t want one. But, if I was gonna have one, then I’m only having one after marriage, because I’m not birthing any bastards. Not if I’m making a life at court!”

So Baelor has to go off and talk to the High Septon about recognising marriage between the champions of the Warrior and the Mother when both of them are men… the High Septon is going on Pilgrimage to Andalos afterwards, because holy fucking gods, he doesn’t get paid enough for that...

Baelor gets all of this sorted and then asks Dunk when he wants the marriage to be. Dunk is very confused, and Baelor has to be like 'so we can have a baby?' and Dunk is like 'oh. Wait. You actually want to marry me?!' and Baelor's like 'yes?!?!? I've been trying to get in your pants since Ashford!!!' and Dunk is so flustered. He's been nursing the Mother of All (heh) crushes on the prince since the moment he saw him, but he figured it was never gonna go anywhere...

And anyway, that's how Dunk becomes the Queen Consort.