All blondes are now the worst ever. Thanks to the Lannister clan of soulless tow-headed fuckwads, your already precarious opinion of the blondes of planet earth has soured completely. Not only are they all probably the product of unholy incest, they likely also have a blatant disregard for time-honored rights of succession (which in the modern age translates to a higher likelihood that blondes are line budgers). It is becoming increasingly difficult for you to suppress your urge to take out any passing blonde children at the knee and then fish through their pockets searching for gold.

You trust no one. In and of itself, this doesn’t necessarily have to be a byproduct of reading a book series whose entire plot relies on treachery. Trust issues are common enough: Can I trust that my boyfriend really loves me? (Yes, now chill the fuck out). Can I trust that my best friend won’t tell anyone about that neckbeard I accidentally on purpose made out with last weekend? (Nope, sorry, she’s gchatted it to her entire contacts list). Can I trust that my uterus will, in the event of a legitimate rape, clamp shut like an alligator jaw and dissolve my unfertilized egg by squirting my acidic fallopian juices all over it? (Yes, duh, that’s how that works). Common enough.

But immersing yourself in A Song of Fire and Ice will elevate your trust issues beyond rationality. Just to be on the safe side, you have to assume that your roommate, your mom, your half sister, and the chick behind the Starbuck’s counter with the lazy eye are meeting in secret in a dark basement somewhere, speaking in hushed tones about how to usurp your computer chair and declare your bedroom Not Yours. You carry a dagger in your pant leg at all times, on the off chance that any one of those individuals has sent an assassin henchman to claim your life with a poisoned chalice of wine. You have stopped accepting chalices of wine from strangers altogether.

I mean, forget about befriending your friendly neighborhood prostitute. She could be the bastard child of your boss for all you know, luring you in with her heaving bosom and…heaving…loins, I guess? Can loins heave? Chances are she’s relaying all of your deepest darkest to him in order to leverage goodwill, and you’re convinced this whole mess is going to end with your head on a pike. Proverbially or no.

You absolutely hate getting mail. Mail is never good, whether it arrives by raven or mailman. You open your Time Warner Cable bill expecting news that your brother has been slain in battle, and your other brother has claimed his house, car, and dog as his own. Surely hidden in among the weekly Rainbow ads is a declaration requesting your fealty to some dude in the apartment complex across the street, and now you have to go over there and run something sharp through his throat because you’re King of the North…side of this block. You’ve started keeping a small fire in your backyard for the express purpose of dramatically hurling mail into, then thousand-yard-staring at the crackling flames.

You have delusions of grandeur. The upshot to believing that everyone in your life has machinations against you is that you believe you’re important enough to have machinations against. You start to assume that you can claim any land as your dominion, so long as you arrive there by boat. Angry passersby will honk and swerve as you strain to scoot your canoe down the street toward your neighbor’s house, which you’ve decided you want to be King of. You’ve taped your entire collection of cutlery to the head chair at the kitchen table, because very important people sit in very sharp seats. You end most conversations at work by shouting “Bring me the girl!” and when no girl materializes, because the office doesn’t keep a tower full of local aristocratic hostages, you get cranky and stab a pen through someone’s hand.

You’d probably get really mad at anyone who referred to you as “My Lord” instead of “Your Grace,” if anybody actually ever did that, but nobody does. You keep a supply of bread-related puns on a list in your back pocket if ever you need to hurl one at a starving townsperson. You’re secretly really glad that it’s almost September, because now you look less ridiculous when you stand atop whatever grassy knolls you can find around town, sword piercing the ground, and declare “winter is coming” to nobody in particular. Each and every meteorological phenomenon is a sign from the Gods that you were destined for greatness. That shooting star means you’ll produce a litter of powerful children, only a few of whom will murder each other. That fast moving red blinky thing is just an airplane, but it probably also represents the blood of your vanquished foes, so you’d better get to vanquishing.

You wish you had an almost-real name. Is your name Derek? You wish it was Derryk. Is your name Samantha? You wish it was Samanth. is your name Frederick? You wish it was Fred’rick. Almost-real names are how you can really tell if you’re from Westeros. So all you Jameses and Ashleys and Richards and Garys out there can start insisting people call you Jarms and Asherys and Reichurd and Gaurraurie, if it makes you feel better about wearing a heavy cloak.

You want a team of dragons like really fucking bad. Then again, you kind of always did.

–Katie Sisneros