#Financial Benefits

[jessesemmensuk]

Legal and Financial Considerations When Starting an Accounting Partnership

An accounting partnership offers financial benefits but requires legal and tax planning. This guide explores key legal considerations, profit distribution, tax compliance, and best practices to ensure a thriving business.

[sandeepk2]

HDFC Life: Is It a Good Way to Save Money?

HDFC Life, a prominent name in India’s life insurance sector, offers a wide variety of savings and investment plans aimed at helping individuals achieve their financial goals. From retirement planning to wealth creation, the company's offerings blend life insurance with financial security. But the real question is: can HDFC Life plans effectively help you save money? Let’s delve into the details.

Understanding HDFC Life’s Savings and Investment Plans

HDFC Life provides a comprehensive range of savings and investment plans tailored to varying financial needs. These plans combine life insurance protection with wealth accumulation, ensuring a dual advantage. What makes these plans attractive is their flexibility in terms of policy tenure, premium payment options, and coverage.

Types of Savings Plans Offered

HDFC Life has segmented its savings and investment products into several categories, each targeting different financial objectives:

Traditional Savings Plans: These offer a fixed return with minimal exposure to market risks, suitable for risk-averse investors.

ULIPs (Unit Linked Insurance Plans): Combining insurance with investment, ULIPs allow you to invest in equity, debt, or balanced funds, depending on your risk appetite.

Guaranteed Return Plans: Plans like the HDFC Life Guaranteed Savings Plan promise an assured payout, making them ideal for long-term savings goals.

Key Benefits of HDFC Life Savings Plans

HDFC Life’s savings plans come with distinct perks designed to enhance financial security:

Tax Benefits: Many plans qualify for tax deductions under Section 80C and offer tax-exempt returns under Section 10(10D). Read more about the benefits of life insurance.

Flexible Premium Options: Choose between monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annual premium payments to ease the financial burden.

Guaranteed Returns: Certain plans assure returns, enabling predictable financial planning and goal setting.

Who Can Benefit the Most from These Plans?

HDFC Life plans are versatile but particularly suitable for:

Young Professionals: Ideal for those starting their savings journey while seeking life insurance coverage.

Families: Plans build a financial safety cushion for households with dependents.

Retirees: Some plans focus on generating a steady income post-retirement, which is pivotal for financial independence in older age.

Evaluating the Financial Advantages of HDFC Life Plans

Choosing where to save money depends on balancing returns, risk, and flexibility. HDFC Life positions itself as a reliable platform for achieving these goals, especially when compared to traditional saving options.

Comparison with Traditional Savings Instruments

HDFC Life plans, such as HDFC Life Sanchay Par Advantage, offer more than just life coverage; they can deliver competitive returns, particularly in ULIPs. When contrasted with fixed deposits or recurring deposits, HDFC Life provides tax advantages and dual benefits of protection and savings. However, traditional instruments have better liquidity, which is an essential consideration.

Long-Term Financial Security and Wealth Creation

Whether you’re planning for your child’s education, purchasing a home, or saving for retirement, the long-term focus of HDFC Life plans can deliver financial security. ULIPs, for instance, can be an excellent choice for wealth creation, though they are subject to market risks. The maturity benefits and life coverage in some options guarantee stability even amid adversities.

Online Tools and Resources for Financial Planning

HDFC Life offers several online calculators and resources to assist with financial planning. These tools simplify complex calculations, allowing users to determine premium amounts, savings potential, and tax benefits. Learn more about their financial planning tools.

Potential Drawbacks to Consider Before Investing

No financial product is perfect, and HDFC Life’s plans have limitations that potential investors must weigh against their benefits.

Cost of Premiums and Charges

Some plans, particularly ULIPs, involve higher charges, including fund management fees. These can eat into overall returns, making them less suitable for low-income groups. Details about ULIP advantages and disadvantages can provide clarity.

Limited Liquidity and Accessibility

Unlike savings accounts or fixed deposits, certain HDFC Life plans involve lock-in periods. Early withdrawal could result in penalties or reduced returns, creating liquidity challenges during emergencies.

Conditions for Guaranteed Returns

While guaranteed savings plans advertise assured returns, these terms frequently come with stipulations. For example, guaranteed returns may only apply after a certain number of premium payments or policy years.

How to Decide if HDFC Life is Right for You

To determine whether HDFC Life aligns with your financial needs, consider these actionable tips:

Assessing Your Financial Goals

Develop a clear understanding of what you’re saving for—be it retirement, a child’s education, or a financial cushion for emergencies. This clarity will guide you toward appropriate savings plans.

Understanding Your Risk Appetite

Assess your comfort with investment risks. For instance, ULIPs may suit those willing to tolerate market fluctuations, while traditional plans are better for conservative investors.

Consulting with a Financial Advisor

When in doubt, it’s worth seeking professional advice. A financial advisor can evaluate your overall portfolio and suggest HDFC Life products if they fit your specific needs. Understanding common mistakes to avoid in term plans might also help you make informed decisions.

Conclusion

HDFC Life offers a blend of life insurance and tailored savings products that suit diverse financial goals. With options ranging from guaranteed returns to market-linked plans, there’s something for nearly everyone. However, its limitations, such as higher charges and limited liquidity, warrant careful consideration. As with any major financial commitment, assess your goals, risk tolerance, and liquidity needs before investing. HDFC Life can be a good way to save money for those who value protective savings, long-term planning, and dual financial benefits.

[anik211]

CATL's Tianxing-B Battery: Revolutionizing Electric Buses with Financial Benefits and ROI 🚌🔋

🔍Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) has unveiled its latest innovation, the Tianxing-B battery, specifically designed for the electric bus sector. This cutting-edge battery not only boasts an impressive lifespan of up to 1.5 million kilometers (932,000 miles) and a warranty of 10 years or 1 million kilometers (621,400 miles) but also offers substantial financial benefits that…

[poojahedge5]

Build a greener future, Decarbonization in real estate projects with eco-friendly, sustainable solutions for lasting impact.

[majaurukalo]

Disability benefits shouldn’t be tied to the income of a disabled person’s partner/spouse/parent.

Do you hear me?

DISABILITY BENEFITS SHOULDN’T BE TIED TO THE INCOME OF A DISABLED PERSON’S PARTNER/SPOUSE/PARENT.

This is the straight forward way to deprive a disabled person of their financial freedom and independence and trap them into possible abusive relationships.

[powerexec]

Why Self-Employed Individuals Should Explore SETC and FFCRA Benefits

Why Self-Employed Small Business Owners Should Explore SETC and FFCRA Benefits As a self-employed small business owner, gig worker, or 1099 contractor, managing finances can often feel like walking a tightrope. Between fluctuating incomes, rising costs, and complex tax regulations, it’s easy to overlook potential benefits that could significantly ease your financial burden. Among these benefits,…

[productiveandfree]

5 Compelling Reasons to Switch to a Nursing Career

A nursing career is a highly fulfilling profession for individuals with a heart for service. If you’re considering a career change to nursing, here are five reasons to help solidify your decision.

Nursing Jobs are in High Demand

For years, the demand for nurses nationwide has been constantly increasing. While the nursing job market remains competitive, the great need for nurses continues to grow. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts a 6% growth in the employment of registered nurses from 2022 to 2032.

Registered nurses will continue to be in demand in different healthcare settings, making nursing a viable career option.

Employment Opportunities Are Vast and Diverse

Another effective reason to switch to a nursing career is the vast and diverse employment opportunities. Compared to other professions, you have a variety of workplace settings to choose from. For instance, if you thrive in a large setting, working in a public hospital might be a good fit for your skills.  

If you prefer a more intimate workplace environment that provides one-to-one patient care, you can opt to be a home health nurse. You have the freedom to choose where you want to work and the role you want to fulfill.  

Since you already have a prior degree, you can easily transition to nursing by pursuing an accelerated bachelor of science in nursing program. With these types of online programs, you get the chance to continue earning income with your initial degree while pursuing a second one.

Lucrative Financial Benefits

One significant advantage of a nursing career is its high earning potential and lucrative benefits. Since registered nurses are in high demand, healthcare facilities are more than willing to pay a competitive salary to experienced and qualified nurses. Getting a higher nursing salary is also possible if you pursue higher education.  

Many employers also offer attractive non-salary benefit packages, such as tuition assistance, wellness and mental health services, paid volunteer days, childcare services, paid maternity and paternity leave, cross-training programs, and concierge service. A nursing career can give you a steady and strong financial future, which may not be possible in other professions. 

Job Stability

Job stability is another compelling reason to switch to a nursing career. Regardless of how strong the influx of technology is, it is highly unlikely that nurses will be replaced by innovation anytime soon. Unlike some occupations with a high level of uncertainty, nursing is an integral profession not only for the healthcare industry but also for society as a whole.

A Highly Fulfilling Profession

Nursing is unquestionably one of the most gratifying professions you can pursue. If you want to make a significant impact in others’ lives, being a nurse can provide you with that opportunity. You get to be in the frontline, helping patients to the best of your abilities. 

Instead of working in an eight-hour office shift, you have the chance to work directly with individuals in an environment conducive to care. A career in nursing gives you a unique opportunity to save and enhance the lives of others, a luxury that is not available to most occupations.

Endnote

Nursing is a multifaceted profession that offers numerous benefits to all types of individuals. If you’re looking for a more challenging and fast-paced job that provides you with meaningful work and personal development opportunities, and a steady income, nursing may be the best fit for you.

Share in the comments below: Questions go here

[lovingazhomes]

The American Dream

Homeownership Is Still at the Heart of the American Dream Owning your own home is a big deal, and it’s still a major part of the American Dream. It’s more than just having a place to live – it gives you a sense of belonging, stability, and freedom. Many Americans believe in the value of homeownership for a few good reasons. Click Link For Details ~Under $400,000 Keep reading for insightful…

[m00n-jellies]

I need them...

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How finfluencers destroyed the housing and lives of thousands of people

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The crash of 2008 imparted many lessons to those of us who were only dimly aware of finance, especially the problems of complexity as a way of disguising fraud and recklessness. That was really the first lesson of 2008: "financial engineering" is mostly a way of obscuring crime behind a screen of technical jargon.

This is a vital principle to keep in mind, because obscenely well-resourced "financial engineers" are on a tireless, perennial search for opportunities to disguise fraud as innovation. As Riley Quinn says, "Any time you hear 'fintech,' substitute 'unlicensed bank'":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

But there's another important lesson to learn from the 2008 disaster, a lesson that's as old as the South Seas Bubble: "leverage" (that is, debt) is a force multiplier for fraud. Easy credit for financial speculation turns local scams into regional crime waves; it turns regional crime into national crises; it turns national crises into destabilizing global meltdowns.

When financial speculators have easy access to credit, they "lever up" their wagers. A speculator buys your house and uses it for collateral for a loan to buy another house, then they make a bet using that house as collateral and buy a third house, and so on. This is an obviously terrible practice and lenders who extend credit on this basis end up riddling the real economy with rot – a single default in the chain can ripple up and down it and take down a whole neighborhood, town or city. Any time you see this behavior in debt markets, you should batten your hatches for the coming collapse. Unsurprisingly, this is very common in crypto speculation, where it's obscured behind the bland, unpronounceable euphemism of "re-hypothecation":

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/10/rehypothecation-may-be-common-in-traditional-finance-but-it-will-never-work-with-bitcoin/

Loose credit markets often originate with central banks. The dogma that holds that the only role the government has to play in tuning the economy is in setting interest rates at the Fed means the answer to a cooling economy is cranking down the prime rate, meaning that everyone earns less money on their savings and are therefore incentivized to go and risk their retirement playing at Wall Street's casino.

The "zero interest rate policy" shows what happens when this tactic is carried out for long enough. When the economy is built upon mountains of low-interest debt, when every business, every stick of physical plant, every car and every home is leveraged to the brim and cross-collateralized with one another, central bankers have to keep interest rates low. Raising them, even a little, could trigger waves of defaults and blow up the whole economy.

Holding interest rates at zero – or even flipping them to negative, so that your savings lose value every day you refuse to flush them into the finance casino – results in still more reckless betting, and that results in even more risk, which makes it even harder to put interest rates back up again.

This is a morally and economically complicated phenomenon. On the one hand, when the government provides risk-free bonds to investors (that is, when the Fed rate is over 0%), they're providing "universal basic income for people with money." If you have money, you can park it in T-Bills (Treasury bonds) and the US government will give you more money:

https://realprogressives.org/mmp-blog-34-responses/

On the other hand, while T-Bills exist and are foundational to the borrowing picture for speculators, ZIRP creates free debt for people with money – it allows for ever-greater, ever-deadlier forms of leverage, with ever-worsening consequences for turning off the tap. As 2008 forcibly reminded us, the vast mountains of complex derivatives and other forms of exotic debt only seems like an abstraction. In reality, these exotic financial instruments are directly tethered to real things in the real economy, and when the faery gold disappears, it takes down your home, your job, your community center, your schools, and your whole country's access to cancer medication:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/08/greek-drug-shortage-worsens

Being a billionaire automatically lowers your IQ by 30 points, as you are insulated from the consequences of your follies, lapses, prejudices and superstitions. As @pixelpusher220@dmv.community says, Elon Musk is what Howard Hughes would have turned into if he hadn't been a recluse:

https://mamot.fr/@pixelpusher220@dmv.community/112457199729198644

The same goes for financiers during periods of loose credit. Loose Fed money created an "everything bubble" that saw the prices of every asset explode, from housing to stocks, from wine to baseball cards. When every bet pays off, you win the game by betting on everything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_bubble

That meant that the ZIRPocene was an era in which ever-stupider people were given ever-larger sums of money to gamble with. This was the golden age of the "finfluencer" – a Tiktok dolt with a surefire way for you to get rich by making reckless bets that endanger the livelihoods, homes and wellbeing of your neighbors.

Finfluencers are dolts, but they're also dangerous. Writing for The American Prospect, the always-amazing Maureen Tkacik describes how a small clutch of passive-income-brainworm gurus created a financial weapon of mass destruction, buying swathes of apartment buildings and then destroying them, ruining the lives of their tenants, and their investors:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-05-22-hell-underwater-landlord/

Tcacik's main characters are Matt Picheny, Brent Ritchie and Koteswar “Jay” Gajavelli, who ran a scheme to flip apartment buildings, primarily in Houston, America's fastest growing metro, which also boasts some of America's weakest protections for tenants. These finance bros worked through Gajavelli's company Applesway Investment Group, which levered up his investors' money with massive loans from Arbor Realty Trust, who also originated loans to many other speculators and flippers.

For investors, the scheme was a classic heads-I-win/tails-you-lose: Gajavelli paid himself a percentage of the price of every building he bought, a percentage of monthly rental income, and a percentage of the resale price. This is typical of the "syndicating" sector, which raised $111 billion on this basis:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-housing-bust-comes-for-thousands-of-small-time-investors-3934beb3

Gajavelli and co bought up whole swathes of Houston and other cities, apartment blocks both modest and luxurious, including buildings that had already been looted by previous speculators. As interest rates crept up and the payments for the adjustable-rate loans supporting these investments exploded, Gajavell's Applesway and its subsidiary LLCs started to stiff their suppliers. Garbage collection dwindled, then ceased. Water outages became common – first weekly, then daily. Community rooms and pools shuttered. Lawns grew to waist-high gardens of weeds, fouled with mounds of fossil dogshit. Crime ran rampant, including murders. Buildings filled with rats and bedbugs. Ceilings caved in. Toilets backed up. Hallways filled with raw sewage:

https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

Meanwhile, the value of these buildings was plummeting, and not just because of their terrible condition – the whole market was cooling off, in part thanks to those same interest-rate hikes. Because the loans were daisy-chained, problems with a single building threatened every building in the portfolio – and there were problems with a lot more than one building.

This ruination wasn't limited to Gajavelli's holdings. Arbor lent to multiple finfluencer grifters, providing the leverage for every Tiktok dolt to ruin a neighborhood of their choosing. Arbor's founder, the "flamboyant" Ivan Kaufman, is associated with a long list of bizarre pop-culture and financial freak incidents. These have somehow eclipsed his scandals, involving – you guessed it – buying up apartment buildings and turning them into dangerous slums. Two of his buildings in Hyattsville, MD accumulated 2,162 violations in less than three years.

Arbor graduated from owning slums to creating them, lending out money to grifters via a "crowdfunding" platform that rooked retail investors into the scam, taking advantage of Obama-era deregulation of "qualified investor" restrictions to sucker unsophisticated savers into handing over money that was funneled to dolts like Gajavelli. Arbor ran the loosest book in town, originating mortgages that wouldn't pass the (relatively lax) criteria of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This created an ever-enlarging pool of apartments run by dolts, without the benefit of federal insurance. As one short-seller's report on Arbor put it, they were the origin of an epidemic of "Slumlord Millionaires":

https://viceroyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Arbor-Slumlord-Millionaires-Jan-8-2023.pdf

The private equity grift is hard to understand from the outside, because it appears that a bunch of sober-sided, responsible institutions lose out big when PE firms default on their loans. But the story of the Slumlord Millionaires shows how such a scam could be durable over such long timescales: remember that the "syndicating" sector pays itself giant amounts of money whether it wins or loses. The consider that they finance this with investor capital from "crowdfunding" platforms that rope in naive investors. The owners of these crowdfunding platforms are conduits for the money to make the loans to make the bets – but it's not their money. Quite the contrary: they get a fee on every loan they originate, and a share of the interest payments, but they're not on the hook for loans that default. Heads they win, tails we lose.

In other words, these crooks are intermediaries – they're platforms. When you're on the customer side of the platform, it's easy to think that your misery benefits the sellers on the platform's other side. For example, it's easy to believe that as your Facebook feed becomes enshittified with ads, that advertisers are the beneficiaries of this enshittification.

But the reason you're seeing so many ads in your feed is that Facebook is also ripping off advertisers: charging them more, spending less to police ad-fraud, being sloppier with ad-targeting. If you're not paying for the product, you're the product. But if you are paying for the product? You're still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#adfraud

In the same way: the private equity slumlord who raises your rent, loads up on junk fees, and lets your building disintegrate into a crime-riddled, sewage-tainted, rat-infested literal pile of garbage is absolutely fucking you over. But they're also fucking over their investors. They didn't buy the building with their own money, so they're not on the hook when it's condemned or when there's a forced sale. They got a share of the initial sale price, they get a percentage of your rental payments, so any upside they miss out on from a successful sale is just a little extra they're not getting. If they squeeze you hard enough, they can probably make up the difference.

The fact that this criminal playbook has wormed its way into every corner of the housing market makes it especially urgent and visible. Housing – shelter – is a human right, and no person can thrive without a stable home. The conversion of housing, from human right to speculative asset, has been a catastrophe:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Of course, that's not the only "asset class" that has been enshittified by private equity looters. They love any kind of business that you must patronize. Capitalists hate capitalism, so they love a captive audience, which is why PE took over your local nursing home and murdered your gran:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

Homes are the last asset of the middle class, and the grifter class know it, so they're coming for your house. Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is" and We Buy Ugly Houses defrauds your parents out of their family home because that's where their money is:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

The plague of housing speculation isn't a US-only phenomenon. We have allies in Spain who are fighting our Wall Street landlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#fuckin-aardvarks

Also in Berlin:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

The fight for decent housing is the fight for a decent world. That's why unions have joined the fight for better, de-financialized housing. When a union member spends two hours commuting every day from a black-mold-filled apartment that costs 50% of their paycheck, they suffer just as surely as if their boss cut their wage:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

The solutions to our housing crises aren't all that complicated – they just run counter to the interests of speculators and the ruling class. Rent control, which neoliberal economists have long dismissed as an impossible, inevitable disaster, actually works very well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

As does public housing:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/red-vienna-public-affordable-housing-homelessness-matthew-yglesias

There are ways to have a decent home and a decent life without being burdened with debt, and without being a pawn in someone else's highly leveraged casino bet.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Image: Boy G/Google Maps (modified) https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

[the-shifting-long]

I intended for the post these tags are on to be the last thing I say about fandom misogyny for a While because I felt like I covered everything already but oh my god YES I agree So hard

In general, while I do think Princess/TLQ are permanent partners, they're also not...human. they certainly act human, but they don't carry the same societal baggage that we get saddled either by virtue of being born surrounded by other humans.

And then "marriage" as a concept is one that is so vastly different in so many cultures and time periods, and at least for the kinds of marriages I'm familiar with, there are a Lot of benefits for abusive partners and Especially men to obtain legal and financial power over their partner through marriage. Like, so much of marriage, on top of its symbolic and romantic value, is also its legal and financial ones, as well as social positioning/maneuvering-"wife" carries more weight than "girlfriend", serves as a status symbol. I don't think the Princess and TLQ would really care for that.

HEA doesn't touch on the complicated socioeconomic issues that come with marriage, especially traditional/heterosexual marriage, but it does touch on so much of the domestic unhappiness that comes with it, especially in regards to how you, the player, and the Smitten keep her in this unhappy, stale situation she's Supposed to be happy with. Opportunist even calls her "our queenly wife."

So like on top of marriage being a distinctly human construct/invention I'm not sure those two would vibe with when they can literally merge their souls together at any given moment. HEA in particular would fucking hate it. She's already Been trapped with a partner in a situation all too similar to the Traditional marriage. I could see arguments for other princesses. for a modern-AU Prisoner using marriage for tax benefits and secretly being delighted when she signs the papers, for Tower or Nightmare to make the player legally her pet in a similar fashion, for the Wounded Wild to accept it...

Never HEA. And yet the majority of StP marriage content is HEA, because she's their favorite and she's wife. Never mind how much she hated it. Never mind that her whole route is about how much she hated it. She's wife! We love her! She loves us! Of course she'd marry us, there's no other option! We HAVE to symbolically own her and tie her to us forever! Right???

[elliesgaymachete]

anyway i think networking is classist and ableist and should Not be the cornerstone of every single working industry

Networking oftentimes requires paying for something, whether it be an event fee, or even just lunch/dinner/drinks/coffee with someone where you may or may not be expected to pay, not to mention having the financial means and physical ability to get to the place in question (whether by driving, walking, public transit, rideshare, etc.) and the act of networking itself can be especially difficult for neurodivergent people who might have difficulty interacting with people, overstimulation in crowded, public environments, or just general social anxiety

[mswyrr]

the Sept scene was fully in character for Rhaenyra & Alicent

I've seen fans--even Rhaenicent fans!--saying it was ooc or "fanfic." It wasn't. The original scene was much shorter: Emma and Olivia, two very talented actors who know their characters well, expanded it. They weren't just wasting time or suddenly lacking in talent and insight. They knew what they were doing and it connects all the way back.

So let's go all the way back! Where do we begin? Episode 1x01, King Viserys wants a son and male heir; he has wanted a son for so long that Rhaenyra, his 14-year-old daughter says (ep 1x01) "For as long as I can recall, it’s all he’s wanted." What has this done to her? Well, for one thing, it has made her mother, who has difficult pregnancies, in ill health for most of her life. This ill health means that Aemma did a lot of lecturing (and trying to keep Rhaenyra from flying and doing other risky things while she was sick) and not a lot of getting to spend quality time with her daughter. A distracted father, ruling the realm, and a mother sick with trying to give him the male heir he prioritizes above his wife and daughter.

Who has been there for Rhaenyra? Alicent. Alicent was hers. When Rhaenyra flies on her dragon, experiencing freedom from all her worries and power and joy, she wants ALICENT to be there with her, high above the sea, looking out over the city:

[source: 1x01 script]

When Rhaenyra had to have a difficult conversation with her mother, it was Alicent she looked to for comfort and emotional support -- in an act a cut scene from the script *explicitly calls "flirting"*. Rhaenyra relies on and longs for that "disarming kindness" she says Alicent has.

And it was Alicent's lap that Rhaenyra flirts about loving to lie upon. Alicent is so much to Rhaenyra that she dreams of running away together, just the two of them and Rhaenyra's bonded dragon Syrax.

Alicent was her cherished girl, her comfort and her chief supporter and advisor. She was Rhaenyra's heart's rest. And, yes - it was a friendship blossoming into flirtation and desire as the two matured. They were on the cusp of something. They were the world to each other.

[source]

Emma and Olivia get it and have always gotten it. Rhaenyra has this gorgeous yang or solar energy that finds balance with Alicent's yin or lunar energy. They're a sun and moon couple, balancing each other's strengths and weaknesses. With Alicent, the sword of Rhaenyra's intense energy has a sheath. A resting place. Her fire has a hearth. And Alicent isn't drained by people (like Viserys would later do...) who just take and take and take -- hurting her and draining that "disarming kindness" of hers until she's broken and ruined inside. Rhaenyra gives and cherishes in a way that made Alicent feel whole and appreciated.

Rhaenyra goes from being angry (angry the way a jilted lover would be - calling Alicent a "whore" for what she felt emotionally imo as Alicent cheating on Rhaenyra with her father) to instantly deeply protective and possessive once she learns more. See the cut scene after Viserys reveals his engagement to Alicent:

[script pages source] [photo source]

Rhaenyra is ready to take on the whole Seven Kingdoms to protect her girl!

Rhaenyra liked being the focus of Alicent playing the "lady beloved" role - reading soothingly to her, supporting and encouraging and admiring her, teasing her for being naughty, advising her about her political situation. She found rest and comfort there - and then Viserys took her mother, cutting her open to get his precious son out. And then, in his remorse and grief, he took comfort in Rhaenyra's girl (who was forced to give him that precious kindness of hers by her father) and her father *stole her girl too*. Not only did he steal her girl, he put her own status as heir into question by having a firstborn son with her - after wounding Rhaenyra deeply by chasing a son as far back as she could remember!

All the "she should be over it" stuff about Alicent... if Rhaenyra were a male character people would recognize the wound of having his crush stolen out from under him by his old man at the same time his old man refuses to fully back his status as heir - it's archetypal! It's gd Greek. Your old man trying to keep you from the girl you want, from your desires and destiny as an adult.

Rhaenyra makes total sense in the Sept scene - she has the primal wound of a girl who is an HEIR - who wanted to have things and act and possess and stand tall and be the lover to a girl's beloved in a way only boys are allowed in this society... and whose father took her girl away from her as well as making her feel uncertain of her status in a deeply wounding way. Rhaenyra correctly locates, emotionally, her rupture from Alicent as where it all went wrong. The Sept scene is about all of that emotionally and it makes total sense. It is also about Rhaenyra's sheer desperation and comprehension of the horror coming... and the most heartbreaking longing to return to a time when Alicent's heart was her home.

Alicent's heart was Rhaenyra's home. And her father stole the girl she loved. He took her and savaged and used and broke her and made her give birth to children she didn't want (at least not with him) from decades of sex she did. not. want. because even men who think they're nice in this society are allowed that - to cut a wife open for a son, to use a girl young enough to be his daughter. He vacillated between wounding and affirming Rhaenyra, never fully able to honor her as his heir because she was not a boy. And he couldn't even conceive of her feelings for Alicent because this is a deeply homophobic society - but he was also, even seeing it in a platonic light, selfish and inconsiderate of her feelings for her best friend.

He kept putting his feelings and needs first, over his wife, over his daughter, over her best friend.

I don't care if nobody else gets it - the way Emma plays it? They get it. They're an extremely talented actor who wasn't going "ooc" in the Sept - they were playing *that*. My father inflicted these primal wounds on me because my coming of age was more like a boy's--like things that should be allowed girls but are denied them-- and he thwarted me and yet I love him. And I love Alicent and I long for her heart, though it's full of poison and broken things now. Why does it all have to be like this? Why does it have to hurt so much?

The Sept scene is entirely in character for both of them. It is not "fanfic." It is not OOC. It is the broken heart of this tragedy bleeding before our eyes.

[mintaikkcorpse]

Financier, who upholds truth and doesn't want her and the Clotted Cream Cookie's reputation to be tarnished: "Consul, I believe that the public is spreading rumors about us being in a relationship."

Clotted Cream, who would lie about being in a relationship with her for a free ice cream or literally marry her for the tax benefits: "Okay, and?"