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[bandulin]

HotD decided to remember that Criston is dornish but only because they wanted Gwayne to be an ass to him. Wow. Thanks for reminding us, do you want to talk about how his heritage affects him? No? Okay, guess you don’t care about how his heritage affects him, you just want characters to be mean to him.

Who on the writing team hates Fabien so much?

[bandulin]

Well 👀

[bandulin]

The invasion has gone even better than Slade planned.  Bludhaven is a minor kingdom compared to its richer neighbor, Gotham, but Gotham has a sharp king and well-guarded borders, and Bludhaven's ports make this conquest more desirable.  Years of corruption have left Bludhaven vulnerable and recent management changes have done the rest.

Bludhaven is supposed to be ruled by Prince Richard, the prince that ran away from Gotham to set up his own kingdom, but it appears there was an internal coup some months before.  Roland Desmond was the one sitting on the throne when Slade's forces marched in and no one's seen hide or hair of Richard since the coup.

There was no record of execution, nor is the body swinging from the ramparts, and the very nervous nobles suggested that the royal quarters might be a place to look.  Apparently Desmond let no one up there after he claimed the rooms for himself.

The royal apartments look deserted and Slade motions for the guards to fan out as he heads for the bedroom.  The office will have valuable papers but the bedroom is where people usually hide things.  A secret compartment, or a lockbox, or—

Slade isn't expecting the room to be occupied.

It takes him a moment to figure out what he's looking at.  The body is sprawled on rich red sheets, face down, hands pulled above their head and knotted to the headboard with rope, and one ankle has a chain fixed to the leg of the bed.  The main reason for Slade's confusion are the vivid colors splashed across the figure.  It takes him several seconds to realize that the young man is naked, and the colors are wounds.

Bruises decorate his thighs, fading  green and dark purple and some a vicious black.  Whip marks shine red and jagged across his back, with bite marks near his neck.  Slade doesn't need to examine the fluids crusted on him to understand that this young man has been brutalized.

"Isherwood!" Slade snarls, drawing his knife and stalking to the head of the bed.  "Get a blacksmith!  And a doctor!"  He doubts the key is in easy reach—judging by how swollen and red that ankle is, the shackle has likely never been taken off.

The young man doesn't stir until Slade slices through the bonds holding him to the headboard—his wrists are in no better condition, so raw he must've been struggling against them quite hard.  He turns towards Slade, movements slow and sluggish, and Slade tightens his grip on the knife at the sight of the massive black eye on the kid's face.

"Who is that?" one of the guards asks, poking his head into the room.

"Desmond's bedwarmer, presumably," Slade says, gaze wandering over all the bruises and marks, some scarred, some half-healed.  "Hey, kid, can you hear me?  What's your name?"

The kid just blinks at him, slow and puzzled.

"Mother of God," the guard breathes out, horrified, when he fully steps into the room.  "What did he do to him?"

Slade's ease in taking the kingdom is making more and more sense.  The kind of man that needs to chain his prostitutes to keep them from running away is not the kind of man that knows how to run a country.

"Kid."  Slade snaps his fingers in front of the kid's face to focus his attention.  "Can you hear me?"

"Who're you," the kid rasps hoarsely instead of answering the question.

"I'm the guy that just conquered this kingdom," Slade says simply.  "Your old king is dead."  The kid's eyes go wide in disbelief.  "Got a name, kid?"

"Dick," the kid breathes out, sounding faintly stunned.  Like he can't comprehend what's happening.

Prostitutes and their often literal names.  Slade manages to keep from rolling his eye.

"Hello, Dick," he says, keeping his voice even.  "I'm Slade.  We're going to get you to a doctor, okay?"  The kid still looks disbelieving.  "Roland Desmond is dead," Slade says again, wishing he'd made it slower.  "He can't hurt you anymore."

~#~

Dick feels like he's in a dream.  It has to be a dream, one of the elaborate fantasies he's constructed when he retreats from the agony and humiliation and torture.  The dreams where he's saved, where he's freed, where Roland Desmond is murdered or perhaps Dick does it himself, where he finally gets out of the room that's driving him insane.

It was the fifth escape attempt.  That's when Desmond put the shackle on.  That's the one Dick regrets the most.  Along with not realizing Bludhaven's council was scheming against him, not realizing that his allies were being picked off, not realizing that Desmond's ugly sneer translated to a desire to see him broken.

So this has to be a dream.  There's a doctor checking him over and smearing antibiotic cream on his wounds, and he gave Dick something to drink that made him feel all fuzzy and the pain distant.  It has to be a dream that Dick's wrapped in a nice warm blanket while a blacksmith snaps the shackle around his ankle, freeing it for the first time in—days?—weeks?  It has to be a dream.

But his dreams were about Bruce rescuing him.  His friends from other kingdoms.  His old allies in Bludhaven, the military general that installed him on the throne in the first place, his supporters, someone.  Not a conqueror Dick remembers distantly hearing about when he was back in Gotham.

But maybe that's a dream too.  Because Slade Wilson is supposed to be clever and vicious and ruthless.  He isn't supposed to be arranging for Dick to be unshackled for the bed, for his wounds to be treated, for—what is the doctor saying?

"Do you have anyone in the city you can stay with?" the doctor asks patiently.  "I will need to discuss treatment options."

Dick mutely shakes his head.  He is—these are his rooms, the royal rooms, but Dick absolutely doesn't want to stay here.

"Alright," the doctor says calmly.  "We'll have rooms arranged for you in the castle and you can come see me for treatment."

Dick stares at him.  He can't keep up with the pace of things happening around him.  The shackle is off and the blacksmith tries to remove it carefully, but Dick still hisses as it frees his swollen ankle.

It looks....bad.  Swollen and red and Dick isn't sure if that's pus mixed with blood, but it looks bad.  Stomach abruptly roiling, Dick barely manages to lean over the bed before retching.  Nothing comes out but bile.

"It's okay," the doctor says soothingly.  "I know it looks bad, but it'll be okay, I promise."  The pain's coming back and Dick makes a choked sound when the doctor prods at his ankle.  "I'll need to drain the infection," the doctor says briskly to an attendant, and there's another flurry of motion, and now Dick's dry-heaving.

The doctor does something and the pain makes everything white out for a moment.  He thinks he screams.

"It's okay....hold him....take a moment...."

Dick tries to struggle against the hands holding his arms but they don't move, and the pain goes from agonizing to excruciating, and he just.  Disconnects.

It still hurts but it feels less real when he's floating.  Like it's happening in a memory.  He blinks up at the ceiling, slow and hazy, and lies limply, and takes the pain.

He thinks he was having a dream about freedom.  He thinks it was a nice one.

"...how.....leg.....okay?"

"....healing.....rest....nowhere to go...."

"...room....castle.....ask him questions.....awake...."

"....patient, Slade....healing...."

The voice drift away as the world goes darker and darker, and Dick lets the pain take him.

He wants to dream of freedom again.

[bandulin]

The Law of Surprise being a thing in the normal universe. So Slade ends up accidentally saving Batman's life and when Bruce asks him what he wants, he uses law of surprise to basically mean 'let me escape before he comes to his senses'.

The next day, Dick's guardianship papers come through, a whole month ahead of schedule. So Dick grows up knowing that he belongs to Deathstroke and he's only with Bruce because Deathstroke hasn't claimed him yet.

Years later, Deathstroke captures Robin and is very confused when Robin doesn't try to escape. Dick thinks that Deathstroke's finally come after his law of surprise and now Dick is legally his and Dick just wanted to go home and Deathstroke is like 'why the fuck is this kid acting like he lives here this is supposed to be a hostage situation??'.

Slade: :lays down hostage rules:

Dick: :thinks that these are the normal house rules:

Slade is also very confused that all his ransom demands are going unanswered.  Bruce thinks that Slade is just being cruel.

Slade, after like three days of this shit: alright you can leave. fuck the ransom

Dick: what

Slade: go. shoo. scurry back to your nest.

Dick: but--

Slade: but what

Dick: but I belong to you

Slade:

Slade: WHAT

Slade has a minor crisis. He drops Dick off at Wayne Manor before disappearing into the night. That is not his child, Dick Grayson is not Robin, and Bruce Wayne is not Batman.

Of course, Dick won't let this lie, because living with Bruce is only temporary and he belongs to Deathstroke, so Slade has to make this whole thing out of avoiding him. Adeline finds out, so Dick ends up gaining a sorta-stepmother. And a bunch of sorta-stepsiblings.

When Ravager shows up, he's furious that the Teen Titans are treating him like a rebellious cousin and not a real threat.

[bandulin]

Dick smoothed the silks where he’d been crumpling them and took a deep breath.  He needed to keep his calm.  Even and level-headed.  Not emotional, or hysterical, or any of the other adjectives they lobbed at him in those condescending tones because he was an omega, because he was pregnant, and he had to work ten times harder to overcome the inherent bias to carve out the respect he was due.

He found himself crumpling the clothes again and let go, curling trembling fingers into fists.

Slade respected him.  Slade trusted him.  Dick had to remember that.  He just had to stay calm.

A perfunctory knock on the door and Dick straightened as it opened to let in his guards.  “His Majesty the King has summoned you,” the one on the left said and Dick let out a slow breath.

He’d seen the banners from the window, the shouts, the clamor.  The King was back home, returning after his three-month-long campaign against the outlaws in the north.  Victorious, judging by the sound of his welcome.

Dick didn’t care.  He was just glad that Slade was back.

The tower stairs were steep and unending, Dick was winded by the time they were halfway down and he had to considerably slow his pace.  Even then, he was dizzy when they reached the bottom and the guards didn’t wait for him to recover, pulling him along to meet the King.

The last time he saw Slade, he’d been happy.  Hopeful.  A child would solidify the alliance between Gotham and Defiance and Dick was beginning to believe that he could truly make this work.  That he could build a life here.

And then Slade had left.

And the snakes had slithered out.

Dick took another deep breath to calm his nerves, preparing to face his husband.  He’d spent all morning preparing what to say, what to do if Slade didn’t believe him, how to convince the King that some of his closest advisors had been part of the plot.  Whatever else, Dick didn’t want to spend another night under the same roof as the people that threatened to murder his child and hang him for treason.

The guards stopped and Dick looked up—only to freeze.  This wasn’t the King’s office.  Or their rooms.  Or the council chamber.  This was the throne room.

“His Highness King Consort Richard!”

This was the entire court.

Something cold slipped down his spine as Dick forced himself to unfreeze and keep walking, expression blank to conceal his shock.  The relief in his stomach was souring fast as his heart rate increased, his gaze flicking from the curious nobles watching him, to the blank-faced guards, to the council members with impenetrable gazes, to Wade LaFarge and his self-satisfied smirk, to the King.

Slade watched him approach, expression grave and eye narrowed.  There was no kindness when he looked at Dick, no softening when his eye moved down to assess Dick’s large stomach, no warmth when it moved back to his face.  His face could’ve been carved from stone for all the emotion it showed.

Dick’s stomach sank.

“Your Majesty,” Dick bowed.  “I am happy to hear of your safe return.  I have missed—”

“It’s been a long ride back and I don’t have the patience so let’s just get straight to it,” Slade leaned forward on his throne, cutting off Dick’s carefully prepared opening.  “King Consort Richard, you’ve been accused of adultery and treason.  How do you plead?”

Dick gaped at him.

Suddenly, this felt like a nightmare.  The whole thing, the weeks of being locked away in a tower, his inability to find a single ally, the malice at every turn, and the dangling of hope before it was snatched away.  Dick stared at the King of Defiance, at his mate, and wished desperately to wake up.  Please.  Before the dream got any worse.

“I don’t have all day, Your Highness,” Slade said, a hard edge to his voice.  The tone of an alpha that was used to being obeyed.

Dick opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak, struck dumb by the shattering of his plans, of his rose-tinted view.  He had never imagined that Slade wouldn’t believe him.  He hadn’t planned for the King to turn against him too.

“How.  Do.  You.  Plead.”

It was Wade’s smirk that finally jolted him out of his stupor, the flash of rage that that smarmy smugness always inspired.  “Not guilty, Your Majesty,” Dick said, hoarser than he liked.  He could feel his eyes burning and he gritted his teeth against it.

Not here.  He wasn’t going to give Slade’s court a show.  Wade had spent weeks laying the groundwork for Dick to be dismissed as a flighty, impulsive, headstrong omega with no thought for duties or responsibilities, and Dick wasn’t going to give him more fodder.

“Very well.”  Slade leaned back, his expression growing further shadowed.  “The trial will be held at the end of the week.  You’re dismissed.”  The noise of the court exploded into mutterings as Dick stared at his mate, at the one person he thought would help.  “Your guards will be replaced,” Slade beckoned forward a couple of his personal guards, as though he needed elite guards to keep Dick from running, “and you will return to your current accommodations.  You must present your list of witnesses tomorrow.”

[bandulin]

“Rose,” Dick said very seriously to the girl perched on his hip, “You need to shift.  Now.”

“I can’t,” she said, tightening her grip on him.  Dick cursed under his breath—the sound of footsteps was getting closer, and the blood trail would lead them straight to him.

But that was fine.  He’d be fine.  The merling clinging to him would not, and he just needed her to shift back to fins.

“Rose,” he said as soothingly as he could, and finally gave up and slipped into the water.  It was cold, and it stung badly in his scraped-up feet.  Rose shrieked and clung even tighter to him, nearly strangling him.  “Rose, please, your pod is right past the rocks.  Just shift and swim.  You can do it.”

Rose’s breaths were coming short and fast, and she—she was shaking.  Fuck.  She didn’t even try to deny it again, just tightened her grip with nails that were too hard and sharp to be human.  The footsteps were getting closer, accompanied by shouts.

Dick could try to hide with her, somewhere in and around the pier.  Safe waters.  For a human.  Hide until the poachers went away and he could calm her down and talk her into shifting and swimming out of the bay and towards the coves, where he knew the Wilson pod lurked.  It would be fine.

Or the poachers would find them, and he’d get Rose captured all because he wouldn’t swim out into the waters of a pod that’d nearly killed him once.

“Okay,” Dick swallowed, and tried not to think about dark claws and one icy blue eye and the scars that stretched down his back.  “Okay, I’ll take you home.”

~#~

It wasn’t easy to swim out of the way with a human-shifted merling clinging tightly to his back.  Dick was losing breath faster than he should, though that might’ve also had something to do with the way his heart was pounding.

They’re not going to try to kill you this time, he tried to tell himself.  Last time he and Grant had nearly killed each other, and Slade had been planning on finishing the job before Joey stopped him.  Last time they’d had a reason.  This time, he was returning their lost merling.  He was helping.  They wouldn’t attack him.

“Come near my pod again, and I’ll strip the flesh from your bones.”

They might attack him.

It was slow-going with Dick’s frequent stops to remember how to breathe, and saltwater getting into all his wounds and stinging them badly, but he forced himself on.

Out of the bay, water turning colder when they hit open sea.  And then back towards the rugged shoreline, wild and untamed.

Gods, he hoped they hadn’t moved.

The waves were turning choppy, and Rose whimpered, wrapped around him like an eel.  “Rose,” he murmured, “We’re almost there.”

She didn’t even raise her head from his back.

By the time the shoreline was in reach, Dick was wheezing for breath and barely treading water.  He needed to just—drop off Rose.  And leave.  He was willing to walk through the wilderness with torn-up feet if it meant not having to swim back.

He stilled.

Something crawled unpleasantly down his spine.

“Where are they?” Rose whispered into his ear, eyeing the same, ominous, empty waves.  They were close enough to the coves that someone should’ve greeted him.

Greet him they did.

With a hand around his ankle.

Rose shrieked as they plunged down, and Dick yanked at her arms the same time he kicked at the fingers wrapped around his leg.  He couldn’t protect her, not from a mer, and ripping her arms free meant her nails scored long, stinging gashes on his shoulders, but he managed to break her grip and shove her at the surface.

The fingers around his ankle squeezed, claws biting deep a second before something in his ankle cracked.

Dick’s scream was lost to air bubbles.

The water was dark and roiling, and his eyes were stinging, but he could make out blond hair and orange fins.  An all-too-familiar snarl was below his captive foot, and as Dick watched, the viciousness transformed to something more malicious.

Grant bared long, sharp, serrated teeth, and twisted Dick’s broken ankle.

Pain shot up like a fiery dagger, and Dick didn’t have the momentum to kick out at him.  There was another blond, another set of orange-and-black fins and Dick signed help right before they crashed into him, claws first.

It punched the last of his oxygen out, and Dick wheezed helplessly, stuck underwater, dark spots covering Joey’s angry face and furiously flashing signs.  Dick couldn’t read them, couldn’t understand—they really were going to kill him this time, an unarmed human against even a single mer was no contest.

The darkness covered more and more and—his ankle was free.  Dick kicked frantically at the surface with one working leg, and ended up choking on seawater when he finally broke for air.

No amount was enough, Dick couldn’t draw deep enough a breath to stop coughing, and his treading was beginning to slow as his muscles burned.  Shore was too far away, a blurry smudge in his vision, his path blocked by silver hair and a scarred face.

Rose was clinging to her father, still in human form, so at least Dick had succeeded at getting her home safe.

He just wasn’t going to succeed at getting back alive.  No matter how desperately he clawed at the water, he couldn’t hold himself up forever, not with stinging wounds and a leg radiating fire and his face was wet with more than seawater as he gasped for air.

The only member of the pod who had helped him last time had already attacked him, and Dick didn’t have the breath to beg.

He didn’t have the breath, period.

His nose dipped before the waves, once, twice, thrice before Dick could no longer force it back up.

He blinked, and there was water above him.

His lungs were burning.

His muscles were burning.

Everything went slowly, creepingly, suffocatingly dark.

~#~

“No!” Rose shrieked, directly into his ear, and Slade had to grab her before she launched herself into the water.  “No, he’s drowning!”

Slade made a sharp, irritated sound, and the human was pulled to the surface again.  Completely limp, but still breathing.  Grant’s face was poisonously dark as he supported the human’s face just above the waves, but Rose’s half-garbled explanation had insisted that Dick had saved her and brought her home.

Slade was not inclined to think charitably of a human, especially a human that had once already attacked his pod, but Joey’s expression had gone from furious betrayal to confusion, and Slade knew he had no choice.

“You can’t kill him,” Rose insisted. “He helped me and brought me back.”  She turned to face him, eyes wide.  “Papa, please.”

His daughter had been kidnapped for days, she was still not calm enough to shift back into mer form, and Slade couldn’t even have the pleasure of tearing his claws through human flesh?

“Are you sure he helped?” Grant asked darkly.  “This could be just a trick.  Get close, and destroy all of us.”  His grip tightened on Dick’s throat, and the human’s breathing grew more labored.

“He saved me!  He got hurt protecting me, and you just attacked him!”

Slade had weathered enough tantrums to know when one was starting, and his annoyed click cut through the rising squabble.  “Enough,” he said shortly.  “Take him to the cave.  We can ask our questions when he wakes up.”  He was bleeding as well, Slade could smell it, which meant they had to treat his wounds.

Humans were so annoyingly fragile.

Slade clutched Rose tighter, and let the knot of worry slowly loosen now that his daughter was back in his arms.

~#~

Everything hurt.

From the stiffness in his chest to the brief flickers of stinging pain all over his body, he felt like a wrung-out towel.  He could smell the sea, and hear the sound of waves against stone, and even taste the salt on his lips as he dragged his eyes open, exhausted enough to fall straight back to sleep.

Rose.  The poachers.

No—he’d taken her home.

But then where was he?

Dick pushed himself up on an elbow—cold, hard stone underneath him—and nearly collapsed back down when the world spun dizzyingly around him.  His stomach was gnawing at him, his throat felt ragged and dry and on the verge of a cough, and he had to curl over and put both hands against the ground to shakily push himself up.

He was—in a cave.  On slick, wet stone, shivering and trembling, the water a few feet away.  His shirt was gone, and there was a blue-green paste smeared over his shoulders and his chest, covering slices made by mer claws.

“You’re awake,” a voice said coldly—a voice he recognized, and Dick was scrambling back before he recognized the silver-haired figure pulling himself out of the water.  No long, powerful tail, poisonous orange splotches on black scales, but Slade looked terrifying in human form as well, tall and broad and muscled.

Dick forced himself up, but he didn’t realize just how slick the stone was, and his broken ankle woke up with a vengeance when he accidentally shifted his weight onto it.  He nearly cracked his head open as he crumpled, but he landed half in the water instead of completely on the stone, and, in the jolt of icy shock, he slipped all the way in.

Run, screamed some part of him ancient enough to recognize a predator, and Dick ended up swallowing seawater in his panic.  He was more flailing than swimming, but as long as he got away from Slade—

A flash of orange-and-black scales in front of him, and Dick immediately back-tracked.

Orange-and-black behind him, cutting him off from the mouth of the cave and the grey skies beyond.

A dark, glaring face beside him, teeth bared in threat.

Getting into the water had been a mistake.

Orange-and-black spun around him in whirling flashes, neatly blocking any escape, and all Dick could do was press against the cave wall, trembling all over.  One attack by that powerful tail could break his ribs.  One slash of those sharp claws could gut him.  If they didn’t just pull him down and watch him choke and splutter and drown.

Dick didn’t realize he was clawing at the wall behind him until his fingernails started stinging.

Everything was blurry.  Someone was making a sound like a dying fish, gasping and breathless and frantic.  Dick was slipping into the water again, or maybe the water was rushing up to meet him, his heartbeat deafening in his ears, his lungs burning.

Something slammed into him, hard enough to bruise, and Dick wheezed as bands of iron tightened around him, holding him fast.  “Stop it!” snapped a familiar voice.  “You’re scaring him!”

Dick tilted his gaze until he could see long silver hair.  Below them, an orange-and-black tail flicked idly.  “Rose?” he rasped.

[bandulin]

Omega Batman hit with pollen and immediately adopting this little tire thief he comes across.

Years later, omega Batman does the very same thing--only this criminal is a lot bigger and a lot more defiant. (Still doesn't save him, though.)

[bandulin]

i think tony stark would be agressively anti-family vloggers and would financially help the kids escape and would take steps to make sure his computers and tech aren’t used by family vloggers.

Because he knows what happens when a child is in the spotlight. and he knows what it feels like for your parent to be your employer.

[bandulin]

Baela being fostered at driftmark instead of luke is such a huge deal

luke is supposed to be the future lord of the tides, he's supposed to become the head of house velaryon after corlys's death and command the velaryon fleet. the fact that corlys and rhaenys didn't take him in as their ward is insane. how can he rule a house he has no connection to? i mean sure, he's been to driftmark a few times but that's it. the rest of the velaryons don't know him ( would vaemond speak out against him if luke had lived with him in driftmark for years? if he actually had the time to bond with him and get to know him? ), he doesn't know anything about ships \ fleets \ commanding a fleet.

he should've been in driftmark with corlys learning his craft - also, corlys is an old man, luke is prob going to inherit driftmark in a few years - but how can he do that when he doesn't know anything about ships? when he barely knows driftmark? and the fact that rhaenyra believes that she can prepare him for his role is crazy! how girl? what do you know about fleets?

corlys and rhaenys's decision to foster baela over luke ,or even to not foster both of them, really shows how they don't actually consider the strongs as their grandsons. they tolerate them, they won't speak out against them, they might even like them - but they are not their family. they don't want them around especially after laenor's "death" - the velaryons main connection to rhaenyra & her sons.

also, luke not going to driftmark only reaffirms the "rumors" that he's a bastard. i mean look at baela in ep 8 - wearing the velaryon colors, at rhaenys's side - that should be luke! but he's hiding behind his mom dressed in targ red and black - looking nothing like velaryon.

[bandulin]

question why is the pregnant and holding a baby alicent standing.

GET YOUR ASS UP OTTO AND VISERYS FUCK IS YOU DOING!??!??!

[bandulin]

I stand by this argument: a lot of Rhaenicent content is blatantly anti Alicent Hightower.

I just saw a Rhaenicent post with this poem:

In a dream I saw my mother with the love of her life and no children. It was the happiest I'd ever seen her.

It’s awful and sickening that Alicent was a victim of spousal abuse, it’s also heartbreaking that so many women before and after her were subjected to the same fate. Difference is I don’t see long posts about Naerys not loving Daeron and Daenerys or Rhaella secretly resenting Rhaegar and Viserys. Why is the thought of Alicent loving her children despite who their father is so controversial???

What’s most ridiculous is these fans wouldn’t even consider a world where Jace, Luke and Joffrey don’t exist. Rhaenyra is allowed to have Harwin and her boys, Alicent is simply happy to be in the picture because she’s not allowed to have children of her own.

They think happy Alicent is where her entire life revolves around Rhaenyra, Alicent loves Rhaenyra more than her own children, Alicent doesn’t care her grandson was slaughtered right in front of her, Alicent doesn’t care her daughter went insane, Alicent doesn’t have any political ambition other than being secretly Team Rhaenyra etc.

Well sorry to break it to you, but this is the real Alicent Hightower:

Alicent Hightower drove the Blacks out of Kingslanding.

Alicent Hightower raised a coup against her stepdaughter.

Alicent Hightower crowned her son King.

Alicent Hightower told her granddaughter to slit Rhaenyra’s son’s throat.

Alicent Hightower cried for her children on her deathbed, begging to be reunited with them.

The real Alicent Hightower gave 0 fucks about Rhaenyra Targaryen, the only “love of her life” were her four children.

[bandulin]

Alicent sweeeeeep !

[bandulin]

having a dysfunctional relationship with your father does wonders for writing irondad

[bandulin]

Otto Hightower has always been an Andal law supporter. Sons before daughters and daughters before uncles. So Otto never betrayed Rhaenyra, he was just following the commonly accepted laws of inheritance of his homeland. Sadly colonizers have always struggled understanding the customs of the colonized.

[bandulin]

He's black, proud and won't bow down to white thieves. Where's the problem in that? 🤨

And just remember, the writers had to add the sexist insult 'whore' just so they could take the blame from Rhaenyra and JUSTIFY the murder of a black man with a right to the throne of his ancestors!!!

[bandulin]

his majesty's faithful dog

[bandulin]

The reason why I always frown upon the “Viserys and Otto are equally to blame for the dance” stance is that Otto’s only crime is “offering” Alicent to Viserys. ( I think it’s been established that with or without Otto’s support of Aegon’s claim the existence of a male child of Viserys already set the dance in motion. If it were only Otto and Alicent supporting Aegon the dance never would have happened because there would have been no one to fight for the greens)

The reason why I find Otto’s “crime” no where near as grave as both sides make it out to be is that he objectively didn’t have almost any reasons to believe Viserys would choose Alicent.

I’ve recently come across a post about what other marriage prospects Alicent would have had if Viserys hadn’t chosen her. And the truth is, being the daughter of a second born son with no inheritance she wouldn’t have even had a chance with any of the other great houses. She probably would have been married to some minor lord from a small house or even to a knight. She doesn’t have much to offer in a political alliance between powerful houses. She doesn’t bring any lands, properties, armies or dragons to the table.

Therefore the fact that Viserys chose her was quite shocking especially when Leana offered a perfect candidature and a possibility of combining Viserys and Rhaenys’ line once and for all. Not to mention the Velaryon fleet.

Otto had no reasons to believe him sending Alicent to Viserys rooms would actually result in anything because all the odds were against it.

And even if it weren’t so it was still Viserys’ decision to marry again and have more children that would threaten Rhaenyra’s claim. No matter which lady he chose to take to wife her family still would have supported her son over Rhaenyra. If he had married Leana Corlys and Rheanys would have supported. At the end of the day who he married was of no consequence.

Therefore the idea that they are equally responsible for the dance is very unfounded in my opinion. The notion that they are both equally responsible for Alicent suffering on the other hand I can agree on.