going away inside: the "game of thrones"/jaime post that you've been warned about

lately i've been trying not to think of stuff. it's a natural reaction. when people say i think too much, they don't really mean...oh, hell knows what they mean. they mean i take things too seriously. but it depends what these things are.
i don't take my life too seriously now because i used to, and look what i made of it. so this year i've just...pulled back a bit. which is bad because i haven't progressed, but is good because i'm less scared and, i'd like to think, not as easily scarred.
everytime i talk to people about my recent obsession with "a song of ice and fire" (the book)/"game of thrones" (the series), i qualify it by saying it helped me through breakup trauma, which is sort of true. but only sort of. it helped me through summer, through loneliness and insecurity and the seriousness of   it all, and through being still in cluj when it was way past the time to go.
but the fact that i clung to it and escaped in the bubble of that universe doesn't mean that the book isn't excellent in itself. it doesn't mean that when i recommend it it's not from my 30-year reading experience.

seriously, in this book there are some of the best written characters that i've met overall in literature, with really nuanced perspectives and real, compelling voices. this is what interests me most when i read a book, so of course i was taken.
i crushed hard on jaime lannister, the idea of him, the way his character is done, the potential of it. (i don't know if i'd feel the same, with the same crazy intensity, if the series had been finished, the arc closed.) the fact that he's been built up from hearsay for 2 books before you get to read his perspective   and maybe reconsider things (maybe not) is...a literary miracle. i keep saying GRRM had no idea it was going to work so well.
i can't talk too well about the things that i love. the people i love either. the fictional characters i love either, apparently. i can't convince anyone of anything, can only maybe spark some interest once in a while. it's okay.

this was always going to be a happy post ("game of thrones" made me happy) and a not-so-serious post. i hope it reads as was meant. i have props, you guys: some of my most personal statements of involvement. also, my friends' involvement, because we live in a happy bubble.

dressed up in house lannister colors, with the only accessory i possess that might adequately signify a throne. 

game. of knightly figures. i almost requested a pic of me hugging a "white" knight, then shame got the best of me. but still.

my first reaction to this: "it looks like harrenhal!"
also re: harrenhal: jaime lannister has helped me reconsider the idea of baths, thus making a cleaner person of me. in all possible ways.

weirwood earrings. i've decided i don't want to buy typical GOT merchandise, but whatever fits the bill  by chance is welcome in my life.

whatever is handmade by us is even better. let me blow your mind with some amazing stuff now:

"tyrion" and "jaime", two of giulia's new chairs. tyrion is smaller and has some un-evenness and different shades of blue, and a lannister stripe as a scar. jaime is white for the kingsguard, has an actual scar (bandaged in red) and a real-golden stripe. i did the golden stripe!

and these are the main panels of a collage that giulia made for me, featuring sonia&dana:

1. carmen in her natural state:

2. carmen on finding out she has residency (with the girls saying goodbye)

3. carmen happy, somewhere in the future, on receiving a letter re: ASOIAF from george r.r. martin

can you imagine my future room in montreal, with this on the wall? i can't, yet. trying not to think of it.
c.