The Princess and the Septa
'Septa Eglantine's duty was to accompany Myrcella to Dorne. Princess Arianne's duty was to graciously receive her. But neither woman was quite prepared for the other.'

 

Can you add some of your own words to that? The summary gives me nothing at all, which makes me want to click this, is the point of the fic really some Nun-lesbian thing as it sounds?

 

Black Fish Out of Water Would you look at that. A self inset that ISN'T a tech uplift. It's about 18 chapters in, and still early in the story. Greyjoy rebellion hasn't happened yet. It's basically an SI being Blackfish, starting his own sellsword company using the Swiss Pike square tactics and stuff.

A Dull Affair is the 3rd story in that series where Jon Snow becomes Stannis Baratheon's squire (I think they were called Squire of Dragonstone and Knight of Storm's End?)

They Lost Their Wolves Don't really know how to describe this one. It's dark, with Jon Snow being kinda mentally fucked up since his resurrection. Sansa is being forced to go South to fullfil her obligations as Lady Lannister. Anyway, it's written by that person who writes Ties of Blood and Fire where Aegon rapes Sansa and is an all around dick.

Those are the 3 decent fics I've seen in the last few months. Anymore out there?

 

Sir Rabby's I am Fire, I am Death if you're desperate. It's a self insert with amnesia born as a talking dragon. I hated Sir Rabby's other stories, but so far I've found this one tolerable.

 

I'm really enjoying The Open Way by Oberon Sexton. It's a realistic treatment of the result of a Targaryen victory in Robert's Rebellion and it's done really well. The realm is half broken, there's maneuvering everywhere and Rhaegar still searches for the prophesied future. It's been around for some time, but he's updated a few times in the past months to finish the second volume.

His other stuff is decent as well.

 

Swiss pike formation without ample ranged support by anti-armour weapons is retarded, specially in a era where knights were the main force is asking to be flanked or hit by behind, or worse, suffer through a rain of arrows, devastating when they are in such a tight formation.

Since I’m posting here, I might as well say that I’m planning a Steffon Baratheon Quest in an AU universe (the final kinks are still being decids, and I should post them here for people to see and criticise in a few days. Anyone that has nay ideas or suggestions or notes on events between 233 and 259 are very welcome.

 

The Open Way just keeps dragging on and on and on.

Lost its appeal to me quite a while ago.

And now Jon, Aegon and Rhaenys have baby dragons.

So I imagine a lot more is going to be dragged on in order for those dragons to grow.

 

The only ASOIAF SI that is actually good is Drakensis's Wearing Robert's Crown.

You can tell the quality of a story from the first few lines, especially for SIs - Drakensis's is the only one that didn't make me cringe one sentence in.

 

No, it's really not.

There's a conversation about it that starts here: https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?p=915004&postcount=779

TL;DR: It's just as awful as the rest.

 

Has ariel2me stories being recommended here? While nothing special, with the sole exception of Times like These which is fantastic, she is a solid author woth a great talent for characterization. She has a tendency to overdramatize people and events and forgo medieval mentality for a more modern, sentimental one, but she does an amazing job at expandimg the universe and keeping them act concisely.

She has around 200 stories I think? Nothing long or too complex, but good time wasters rangimg from 3-4/5. Almost everything is Baratheon or Targaryen related I think.
http://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me

 

Why do they always start inventing stuff like that?

If you're going to do a SI, don't fucking act like you've got all that knowledge just so conveniently stored in your head. It always starts with printing presses and then goes even further.

Granted, this SI at least hasn't started trying to invent gunpowder.

Another complaint is how everything seems to turn out so well for the SI. I'm not saying I want to see him or other characters in the story getting shat on from up high with grimdark and tragedies and murders, but doing so well just kills the fanfic overall.

I honestly have no idea why he's bothering with the Viserys/f!Aegon side-plot, when it's fairly obvious he (the SI) is going to be five steps ahead of everyone involved.

 

You submitted one to the Library a year ago: Times Like These

And there's this discussion about In Good Company after Mattsilver recommended it earlier ITT: https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?p=613577&postcount=84

 

Umm...the Swiss Pike formation is famous for NOT needing ranged support and being generally unflankable, if that's even a word. And the pikes themselves, when held at a certain position, can help deter arrows. Of course, a few bowmen certainly wouldn't hurt. But the Lannister pikemen are based primarily on the Swiss. It's not anything new and amazing for the setting.

 

I was really, really disappointed by the Blackfish out of Water story, because the author is the same guy who is writing the Hermione in Slytherin story and that one is just amazing. This story, however, is not.

The Blackfish/Si himself is rather unlikeable. His two character traits are that he likes fucking (and is amazing at it) and being good at military stuff. Now, whether or not his changes and methods are effective is neither here nor there, I really don't give a shit whether or not it is historically accurate or not. Fact is, either way, it's boring and the idea of this amazing pwnage sellsword company is just lame.

Then there are these really cheesy (in a bad way) scenes like him killing Ser Darry at a ball and then fucking his wife right there because it just turned both of them on so much that I can't believe he got away with, both as something in story and as a writer.

As a whole, sex and fucking is rather predominant in this story, in a rather offputting way. I've read porn/smut stories that didn't mention fucking that often, one way or another.

Dunno, a thoroughly unpleasant read for me so far. I like the Blackfish now less than I did before I've read this one.

 

We really do not know enough about the Lannister pikemen to give a definite answer. At one time or another everyone has used pikes. The Swiss though were known for their ferociousness in attack and holding against numbers.
They were made obsolete by artillery. The ability to deflect arrows is also overstated, they would not be affected by missiles because of the armour that would be worn by such troops( the Swiss would not really be cheap).

 

The unsupported Swiss Pike formatio was basically a square macedonian phalanx, but with plate armor (something insanely expensive in westeros, not so much in 16th centure Europe), whose weakeness were exploited by the romans to a devastating effect in the battles of Cynoscephalae and Pydna. The true differential was that, as professional armies the swiss were much more experienced and adaptable, being able to quickly reform and change their formations, not unlike the romans. The differential is not the formation, but the training.

Massed longbow fire would and did devastate massed infantry like that, its just what the english did to the Scot pikemen.

And I fail to see how a densely packed formation of men carrying huge spears can't be outflanked, specially by light cavalry. Unless the terrain doesn't allow it.

Ugh. Sorry for the derailing. Here's the doc archive with my ideas for Steffon Quest, anyone is free to comment on it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IqVRcv5lX897wLKgOUqsJ7la0FL2_zLCvnmMYWU8ifE/edit?usp=sharing

 

I wrote a few chapters of SI (sort of, certain character traits amplified for entertainment value and because I'm vaguely disgusted by the fact I'm writing one) months back mostly as a response to the extreme tech advance/being smarter than ancient generals/being a saint pushing modern values with nobody questioning it stuff. My guy is a coward and a narcissist (albeit not a sociopathic+murderous one) with 0 plans to uplift tech even if he had a clue how, whose main goals are to survive and have a good time, relying mostly on money, lies, and a pretty face to do so. Barely anything has happened yet, but some of his plans have already fucked up, and certain ones down the line will get fucked up massively. Plenty of people in universe don't like him much.

With that said, it's the first non work or academic writing I've done in years, and I did it drunk with limited proofreading+single draft per chapter since it's more a stress relief thing than a serious writing attempt, so the writing quality and style are p weak imo. Between that and the glacial update pace I hesitate to recommend anyone actually read it, but if you've read all the Flashman books (and then every half-baked ripoff of them) and are still desperate for something vaguely similar or set in ASOIAF, go for it: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/honestly-id-rather-not-pay-my-debts-asoiaf-si.366125/