there’s genuinely no point in taking certain fans of That character seriously because they’ll be the first to purposefully misunderstand the story in order to uplift their own useless fav + any other female character with the slightest bit of autonomy is reduced to a girlboss caricature.
it’s basically the ‘masculine’ vs ‘feminine’ women trope and how all of these women suffer from the same system but some have fought their way towards having basic bodily sovereignty and others have assailed themselves within their circumstances, “you desire not to be free but to make a window in the wall of your prison,” and either perpetuate the abuse they deal with OR sit back and take it like a ‘good’ woman, hence the lack of culpability the stans of said character allow her to be responsible for. the mentality at play here is ‘she is a victim but she cannot possibly ALSO be a victimizer’ but both *can* be true at the same time.
rhaenyra is fighting to be the first ruling queen of westeros, a position that has been set in place before (aerea/rhaenys), but never come to fruition. her heirship has been contested since day one simply on account of her womanhood, not her political prowess or the dubious parentage of her first three sons. this is a fact, and the consequences surrounding her ascension have facilitated a civil war all in the name of the status quo. one side is attempting to honor the wishes of a deceased king, the other wants power, and uses the patriarchal standards already in place to further that goal. this leads to the death of rhaenyra, all but two of her biological children (to her only one survived), her former good mother, her husband, and the assured extinction of dragons.
rhaenyra is looked down upon by a certain portion of this fandom because the concept of protofeminism doesn’t exist to them. the idea that a woman being allowed to take a position of power during the medieval ages might lead to greater precedents involving women’s rights, which is exactly on par with westeros relying on the precedence of male preference primogeniture and the ruling made by the great council of 101ac. rhaenyra, obviously, didn’t make significant changes to women’s positions in westeros because she only ruled for a six month period in king’s landing and was beset by betrayal and treachery consistently during this period.
she was involved in a war that annihilated almost her entire family for the baby step progress of ‘daughters can inherit over sons,’ there was no time to help others when she was losing allies left and right to this very war. cases like the rosby and stokeworth situation are used to back up this take, dispite it being agreed upon rhaenyra verbatim chose to pass over them for fear of losing even more allies AND to protect the girls from being sold to violent misogynistic rapists as war prizes, not just because she believed herself to be the exception to the rule (corlys, in fact, is the one to state this). we also have no definitive proof showwise, either, that she truly believes in the system of men come before women -always- when the only thing said in regard to this is a throwaway line of jacaerys and baela’s sons inheriting the iron throne followed by her stating lucerys and rhaena’s children will inherit the driftwood throne, which is most likely a poor writing choice behind the scenes rather than any concrete proof to the latter.
brave baela, named after her grandsire baelon ‘the brave’ TARGARYEN, daughter of daemon TARGARYEN and laena velaryon, who had TARGARYEN ancestry, granddaughter of rhaenys TARGARYEN ‘the queen who never was,’ rider of the dragon moondancer, identifies completely with her targaryen ancestry and it is an integral part to understanding her character. she is of blood and fire, not salt and sea, and believes driftmark should pass accordingly to someone who corlys would value much more than her, the little girl he’s constantly overlooked on account of her gender.
baela is fighting to put rhaenyra on the throne and in turn jace and herself as the future king/queen. it’s not just for herself or for her stepmother, but for those who have now fallen as well. “i grieve my grandmother who loved me, but i carry her on with me. i will see rhaenyra ascend the iron throne, as rhaenys wished. as rhaenys HERSELF should have.” this cause is bigger than baela, bigger than rhaenyra herself, and baela knows this. yet somehow she’s ‘boring’ and ‘cringe’ in her dialogue or ‘nothing but a cheerleader,’ because she does not carry hatred in her heart for her kin over things they themselves cannot control.
what they have in common is their will, their wants, their ambitions; something that can’t be said for the other character because the writers want her to be a lead but don’t know what to do with her. she’s been relegated to nothing more than her hypocrisy, her self righteousness, her victimhood. she sleeps with a man whilst not married, she takes abortive teas against her religion, she abandons her children in their need for comfort, she’s spat on by the men around her and her own sons when seeking to place herself back into a familiar position of power. this isn’t the first time she’s experienced misogyny, but it is the first time she’s feeling the full ramifications of ridiculing and conspiring against the female claimant redirected at her, on account of the same reasons she took advantage of to propagate herself and her eldest son.
in the grand scheme of things rhaenyra and baela wouldn’t even typically be considered ‘masculine’ women, they’re just outspoken, assertive, and proactive; prone to not taking every bad thing that happens to them without at least some type of their own get back, and it doesn’t revolve around abusing other women to uplift themselves and the men they surround themselves with. which isn’t to say that the ‘feminine’ women’s strifes don’t matter, but to certain stans if they aren’t sitting back and being a pretty passive victim their struggles as a woman don’t count, for whatever reason.
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i made a joke post about raphael being unconcerned, unbothered, moisturised, staying in his lane, etc when haarlep fucks someone else even though he can feel every second of it
except i am thinking about it so much actually 😳
because when you're given raphael's boudoir invite, you're told it's where he conducts business and pleasure. you're explictly told to share yourself with haarlep
if you give yourself over to haarlep entirely, they say that you're going to be a loving doll for them and their master, that you're going to pleasure all the beasts in the hells
why would he be concerned about haarlep fucking anyone in his house when it is always a good outcome for him. he's creaming his pants in some devil meeting(tm) on a different plane and maybe he gets a brand new toy
good lord the man may not get fucked by anyone except haarlep but he's into an endless list of gloriously fucked up shit
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#22.4 Result
Even though his team had more members, Khun did not anticipate the speedster in Agni's team who managed to steal the princesses' tags in just a few seconds. Basically leave half of his team's fishermen immobile right from the start.
Khun managed to stop Dan with lighthouse flow control, and Rak was able to steal Dan's black tag. Yet Agni managed to undo the flow control and free Dan before Rak could take back the tags that Dan had stolen.
Endorsi was then given Laure's tag and fought with Gyetang, while Anaak was given Shibisu's tag and fought Agni along with Rak. Ran didn't lose his tag and had been countering Novick since the start of the game. Surprisingly, they seemed to be on par with each other. Khun didn't know who won by the end, since he was too busy trying to catch Dan, who managed to steal Hatz's tag at one point.
Suddenly, his lighthouse was no longer being interfered with by Agni, and only then he saw that Endorsi had joined hands to fight Agni after rendering Gyetang immobile. With Agni's attention diverted by three main powers, Khun was finally able to immobilize Dan. However, he only managed to retrieve one white tag, since all the other stolen tags were already handed over. He gave the white tag to Hatz to get him back into the game, but by that time Gyetang was also back on his feet, so they were sent to fight each other.
Ten minutes went by too fast. Khun slumped to the floor and finally took some deep breaths. Clearly, Agni's team didn't go easy on them, and he was lucky enough to keep his tag.
"I see you've given your best." Agni said as he caught Ran in his arms before he fell face flat onto the floor. Ran must've swallowed the lightning pill halfway through the fight, and Khun didn't really know how to feel about that.
Khun looked up to the second floor balcony where Bam and Grace were talking. He could feel the corner of his lips pull up when he saw Bam looking bashful as Grace ruffled his hair.
"Gather up everyone," Agni called them, still holding Ran's limp body. He looked like he was about to pass out himself, though. Handling both princesses and Rak all by himself while still assisting his other team members was really impressive in Khun's opinion, even if it was only for ten minutes.
Everyone, including Agni's team, sat down in a loose circle, exceptions being Ran who was laid down in front of Agni and being tended to, and Laure who was sleeping soundly on the floor behind Hatz. Most of the others looked worn out and some were even hiding a limp, but the moment Gyetang and Dan started to excitedly recount and compliment everyone, his team was easily drawn into the conversation.
Bam and Grace came to join them a moment later, bringing bottled water and a first aid kit. Grace offered to check on each one of them, which unsurprisingly started from Agni. Though Khun declined his offer when it was his turn. He didn't get any bone-shattering hits, so he was fine. Grace didn't look happy with it, but he moved on.
Meanwhile, Bam distributed the water, bandages and ointment. Then he decided to go sit near him and Rak, to Khun's delight. It felt like their missing puzzle piece was finally fitted back into place.
"It's nice…to be with everyone again." Bam mumbled to himself, yet Khun heard him clearly. And so did their friends, who were looking at Bam wistfully.
Bam was holding his knees that were folded close to his chest, making him look small and closed up. Golden eyes were shadowed from view by his long bangs. It was like there was still an invisible wall that divided him from everyone else, keeping him unreachable. Khun itched to touch him, to get rid of that wall and pull Bam back to him, to what they used to have.
There was so much yet so little to talk about, and Khun felt himself hesitating, especially with this many eyes on Bam. He finally understood why Agni set the tag prizes as is.
Khun touched Bam's arm with his fist, and smiled tiredly when Bam turned his head at him. "It's good to have you back, Bam."
Many emotions flashed in those golden eyes; disbelief, fear, sadness, hurt, longing, relief, joy. Even though he had heard the story from Bam, Khun still couldn't imagine how much suffering Bam had gone through during all those years they were apart. How lonely he must be, and there was nothing Khun could do to fix what had been done. But when Bam finally smiled back, crooked like he just fixed himself back together, Khun vowed that he'd never let anyone take anything away from Bam ever again.
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