#THAT'S RHAENA THE LESBIAN'S INFLUENCE!!!!

[atopvisenyashill]

In a Rhaenys as queen, given that her cousins would have permanent places at court due to them being dragon riders, do you think l think Aemma would be encouraged to try her hand at one? Dreamfyre is in Arryn colors.

Great question.

I think especially after Balerion has died, Rhaenys would approach Aemma about having her own dragon. It would be a way of reaching out emotionally to her cousins and depending on how Rhaenys comes to her throne, that would be needed; even in a perfect scenario where Aemon outlives his father and passes the throne to Rhaenys in peace, I think Rhaenys would still want to reach out to her cousins. It's not just that they're family that was raised together (before Jaehaerys completely cleaves this relationship in two) but making sure that a competing branch feels loyal to you is important; there's a reason why Alysanne attempts to get Aerea back to court and why Jaehaerys refuses to give Rhaena her own seat after all! I can see Rhaenys looking at how Aerea specifically was handled and decide that Jae and Aly misstepped there and that the key to getting Viserys, Aemma, and whatever children they have loyal to her is if she gives them just enough freedom that they don't chafe under Rhaenys' rule the way Aerea and Rhaena did. All three of them - Viserys, Aemma, and Rhaenyra - having dragons is risky as hell (it's where Viserys as King imo missteps compared to Jaehaerys the most - not having such an iron hand over who gets to ride a dragon so that there aren't so many riding around who don't like your heir is such a silly mistake) but with Balerion dead and Syrax/Rhaenyra so young, it's not a terrible idea to offer it to Aemma. Especially since neither Rhaenys nor Aemma have very many children to grab up the dragons.

[I know in book canon it's Laenor who would technically be ruling but I feel fairly certain here that Rhaenys would be Queen Regent for a while, and Corlys would be Hand, kind of similar to Alyssa/Rogar/Jaehaerys or the way I think Cersei wanted things to go with her/Jaime/Joffrey&Tommen].

I don't know that Aemma would take the opportunity but I do think the offer of it would go a long way to make her feel both loyal to Rhaenys and to encourage a kinship between Laena, Laenor, and Rhaenyra. Aemma has Targaryen blood and I think the offer despite her not being a born Targaryen would really touch her, perhaps make her feel emotionally close to her mother. I can see, for example, after several years, that Aemma has had so many miscarriages, hasn't been able to have a son, is so incredibly young yet creeping up on 30 and feels like she's old because her child bearing years are passing her by, that Aemma might take her up on the offer as a way of feeling better about her own "deficiencies." Maybe she can't birth a son, maybe most of her daughters die in the cradle, maybe her husband couldn't win the throne, but SHE can be a dragon rider and HIS dragon is long dead now. Dreamfyre would be such a great choice too, with Rhaena's status as being the widow queen of Maegor, the wife of poor dead Aegon the Uncrowned; a gentle sort of dragon that has already bonded with a widow and mother, bonding again with another mother but this one sickly, unsure of herself, but ready to figure out who she can be outside of child birth.

It doesn't inherently butterfly effect away her death but Viserys probably isn't impregnating her so often because Rhaenys has two children, Rhaenyra and Laenor are probably betrothed from a young age, I'm sure everyone's being picky about Laena's husband specifically because if Laenor dies/can't have kids there's precedent for Laena to become Queen Regent for her own son instead of the line of succession going straight to Viserys, so there's not a huge need to have their own son, because Rhaenyra will be Queen Consort one day. To be honest, I think it's even possible that if she's not having as many miscarriages, she gets some freedom and stability from not worrying about the line of succession, and then Rhaenyra & Laenor are betrothed and Aemma is perhaps feeling herself a bit in her bond with Dreamfyre, she might even get healthier, perhaps healthy enough to carry a child to term. We do see that the dragon bond can help settle someone who is a bit unsure of themselves - Quicksilver and Aenys, for example, but even Rhaena and Dreamfyre have a similar type of ~growing into their own together~ thing that may apply to Aemma. And there's a lot of reasons for why Rhaenys would want Aemma to be confident, the same way she'd want Rhaenyra to be (and I do mean confident and not like, hiding behind extreme violence to make up for feeling unsafe and unstable) - having a strong, educated, compassionate Queen Consort is just a good thing, as we see from Alysanne. Plus this helps head off potentially fertility problems with Rhaenyra/Laenor - if Rhaenyra feels close enough to Rhaenys that she can go to her good mother or her still living actual mother and say "I don't know how to get Laenor into my bed" or even "Laenor comes to my bed but nothing is happening, we keep having problems, are we even doing this right" that makes their marriage and Laenor's ascension so much easier to handle.

There is one little risk with this and it's Aemma's son. If she manages to have a son that lives, she may expect him to be given the chance to claim a dragon and that could become a problem. It might not! Especially if, idk, he's young enough that he can marry one of Laena's kids or one of Rhaenyra and Laenor's kids, or born early enough that he can just marry Laena, and they can keep that dragon in the family. But as we see with Daemon, with Aemond, even with Maegor, and what Jaehaerys (erroneously) believed could happen with Dreamfyre/Rhaena and Aerea, a second son having a dragon can be dangerous if he's not kept close and under control.

[visenyaism]

Just saw someone tag baela from if fire and blood was good and between this normal jack and the saint discourse you never beating the influencer allegations

many of my stupid isms such as rhaena the lesbian, normal jake, st sebastian criston cole, daemonomics, and the ontological framework of visenyaism itself will outlast me. even now it seems into the groundwater of spaces i am not in. ozymandias if the whole thing was just dumb

[strangesmallbard]

i do wish we’d see an adaptation of jaehaerys i’s era bc it’s like. gyldayn depicts it as the Golden Age of Targaryen Rule—the king’s road, alysanne’s influence abolishing the first night law, general prosperity across westeros, etc. meanwhile all of jaehaerys’ daughters experience patriarchal horror upon patriarchal horror before most die horribly (except for maegelle, who becomes a septa, and saera, who escapes) while rhaena the lesbian is roaming harrenhal and the specter of aerea targaryen’s trip to old valyria haunts the entire red keep.

what does that juxtaposition tell us about the targaryen family’s propensity for both doom and survival? how empire functions in asoiaf and on general? perhaps some foreshadowing to the tragedy at summerhall and dany’s rebirth in the flames years later? the adaptation should be gothic horror obviously

[15-lizards]

heyy, first of all i ADORE your fashion hcs! they are so coherent and practical yet so fun, george could never serve like that. anywayy, i was wondering about your thoughts on fashion in jaehaerys era since it lasted so long and the most prominent women at court were so different from each other. no one can convince me that what rhaena the lesbian wore at his early reign is the same alysanne wore at her golden years, that is FOR SURE not like what any of her daughters were wearing, specially viserra and saera.

In my mind, fashions were not very eye catching in Jaehaerys’ early reign. They were just coming off of Maegor, and no one could really afford excess and bright clothing when the country was in disarray. Rhaena was the leading lady at court at the time, and her fashion consisted of simple rounded skirts, scooped necklines, plain bodices, and flat sleeves. Even after she left, the women of the court still followed in her footsteps until the small council began to fill the coffers and fund court life more

Once Alysanne gets older and gains more influence as the queen, things get more lively. Sleeves are rounder and firmer, necklines and wrists are trimmed in lace, bodices are now decorated, and the skirts are lined with embroidery. Feathers, peals, and bows are popularized too in more voluminous hair. Alyssane starts dressing in a manner that’s gentle and pure but also regal, as the court is able to become more excessive

By the time Aly is a mother multiple times over, she sheds the girlish look for something a bit more mature and regal. The bodice and skirts are still the same, but sleeves are a bit more fitted and necklines are square. This is also at the peak of Jaehaerys’ reign, meaning that the court has more than enough money to spend on frivolity. All of her clothes are painstakingly crafted with golden damask patterns, perfectly start her collars, detailed lace linings, and her weights worth in jewelry. But somehow it never looks tacky on her (also I know I’ve used the right gown before for the dance but it just fits also maybe Rhaenyra fished it out of storage when she wanted it idk)

Once Aly’s girls start growing, they start shedding the conventional fashions of the court. Viserra especially thinks everyone looks ridiculous in their over the top gowns and giant hairpieces. Her and Saera start a new trend among the younger women of a silhouette similar to the ones their mothers wore but with a “sexier” twist to it. The bodices are tighter, the skirts are slimmer, their hair frames their face in “provocative” ringlets, and their shifts are peeking out from their gowns. The high septon rails against this new age fashion but it takes hold anyway

[rhaeblack66]

my favorite targaryen women

rhaena l

lesbian icon. rode dreamfyre. all around badass. she should’ve inherited the iron throne after maegor’s death and jaeherys usurped her (would she have been a better ruler? probably not. but like the throne should’ve gone to her ya know?). knew how to survive.

aerea

she’s such a little badass. rode balerion!! she was maegor’s heir and jaeherys’ before he had kids. what happened to her was fucked up but also like creepily fascinating.

alyssa

literally love her she’s my icon. rode meleys and refused to abide by women’s stereotypes. she trained with her sword and kept up the whole keep on her wedding night.

laena

the way laena had no role in hotd makes me so mad. like she claimed vhagar and was one of rhaenyra’s best friends and they reduced her to a plot device for daemon? my girl deserves better.

rhaenyra

fucking love her. did she do some fucked up things? yeah. but like her descent into madness and rage from grief is so interesting. how she’s passed over again and again with no support and then blamed for all of it.

baella

A FUCKING BADASS LEGEND. we better see how amazing baella is in the show because i love her. she took down sunfyre and injured aegon with moonfyre. climbed out of the red keep so she wouldn’t be forced into a betrothal she didn’t want. my girl is daemon and laena through and through.

rhaena ll

the last dragon rider! i love morning. her character art is beautiful. her and baella were both popular in kings landing.

daena

known as daena the defiant. her brother baelor placed her and her two sisters in the maiden vault to “protect their virtue” and daena was not into that bullshit. she escaped three times and then gave birth to a bastard by her cousin aegon lV, daemon blackfyre, whose birth caused baelor to fast until he died.

elaena

the youngest sister of daena, her greatest beauty was known to be her hair. when baelor confines her to the maiden vault, she cut off her braid in hopes that she would be allowed out without her defining feature. it didn’t work, but after baelor’s death she married three times and had an affair with her cousin, alan velaryon. her second husband sat daeron ll’s small council, but she was the one entrusted with the work. she gained influence in court. manipulating the system, you go girl.

daenerys

enough said

[kazz-brekker]

top 5 lesbians in media

5. rhaena targaryen from fire & blood. iconic lesbian dragonrider granddaughter of aegon the conquerer, had a dramatic string of girlfriends throughout her entire life including a famous sea voyager. fed one of her husbands to her dragon. once had a break-up so bad in majorly influenced the plot of the main series when her ex stole 3 of her dragon eggs. maybe not as important as the other gals on this list but i do love her.

4. peredur from spear by nicola griffith. lesbian knight who kicks ass and has a GREAT romance with nimue and is in a story about the welsh origins of king arthur my beloved. i'm reading perceval the story of the grail for class right now and i just keep being like "man i should reread spear even though i read it only a few months ago."

3. marianne from portrait of a lady on fire. i'm a different person than i was before i watched this movie. it permanently altered my brain chemistry and i wrote an entire paper on it in my gender studies class. marianne trying to paint a portrait of heloise but not getting it right until she falls in love with her … that's cinema to me.

2. csorwe from the unspoken name by a.k. larkwood. orc girl with a sword just doing her best, loves her mage girlfriend very much, has the best gay-lesbian hostility relationship with tal that i have ever encountered in fiction. i adore her and it's a crime i haven't read the sequel yet.

1. gideon nav and harrowhark nonagesimus from gideon the ninth. i know they're two people but i can't pick between them. locked tomb is a Series Of All Time and i will be thinking about the tall dumb sword lesbian and the sad goth nerd lesbian necromancer for the rest of my life. i can't think about the necromancer-cavalier bond for too long or my brain overloads.

[theredpharaoah]

Excuse my grammar. I might come back and fix this shit up later but I gotta get this out. I’m sorry y’all, but I was just on Reddit where ppl are arguing that Jahaerys is not a misogynist cuz he let Alysanne in council meetings, and was a lot better than the other men. That we’re at fault for judging him through our cultural lens and he’s one of the least misogynistic kings. That he can’t be blamed for his culture. First off Jahaerys, Aenys, and Aegon are the most misogynistic of the Targ kings. The reason? Unlike every Targ that comes after the Dance, Andal culture isn’t their fucking culture. It had only been a little under a hundred years since the Doom when Aegon landed, and we can clearly see by how the early Targ women acted - particularly Alysanne - that this misogyny was not the norm. I have my own theories about Valyria, but one of my main ones is that they practiced Absolute Primogeniture. If they hadn’t practiced it from the jump then they probably borrowed it from the Rhoyne. It just makes sense. We know they allowed both women and men to claim dragons, and I highly doubt they didn’t allow both to learn magic. What power could the men wield that the woman couldn’t? The only tool they would’ve really had to use against women was childbirth. Also, Dark Sister. Dark Sister was clearly made for a woman - before the conquest. I doubt either of those blades aren’t ancestral blades from Valyria. This tells us that they had nothing against women fighting. Visenya and even Rhaenys also don’t seem to be subservient to Aegon in any way. Rhaena did whatever the hell she pleased and no one batted an eye. Rhaenys II went to battle at will and no one gave a fuck. Jahaerys was quite honestly the worst misogynist of the 3 if you ask me. He could come up with a doctrine of exceptionalism for Targ incest but not one for Targ women to rule? I think the latter would’ve been a lot easier than the former. So I call bullshit on the argument that he was trying to appease the lords by not naming women heirs. He could’ve easily said that Targaryen women weren’t regular women and cited Daenys, Visenya, Rhaenys, Rhaena, Alysanne, Alyssa, and Rhaenys II as proof of that. Then he could’ve sent out his lil preachers to get the people going. He also was not the saint ppl make him out to be. Who argued for clean drinking water for the masses? Alysanne. Who fought to end the right of the first night? Alysanne. And who fought for the rights of their women children? Alysanne. The way Alysanne didn’t even question that her eldest daughter/granddaughter would inherit the throne definitely leads me to believe they weren’t raised with male primogeniture as the norm. And I call bullshit on him being influenced by Andal culture. House Targaryen were big on preserving High Valyrian culture, and no one was more pious than Alysanne. Yet somehow, she still didn’t end up being a misogynist. There’s a couple other moments that I really don’t like from him. The one that immediately comes to mind is what he said at Rhaena’s funeral: “My brother Aegon died at the hands of our our uncle in the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye. His wife, my sister Rhaena, was not with him at the battle, but she died that day as well”…huh?! Why did she die that day Jahaerys? Cuz the man she was married to died that day? First of all Jahaerys, Rhaena was a full time lesbian BEFORE she married Aegon. She mourned a brother, not the love of her life. If anyone was the love of her life it was probably Dreamfyre. And she lived so much life after Aegon died. She had so many lovers after he died. Everyone knows it has heard of a Jahaerys. He’s the man who dotes on his daughters and granddaughters but is still an annoying ass misogynist. And he’s not slick. He knew who tf those lords would choose at that grand council.