#but i mean alice is just a girl

[melandrops]

there is a shocking number of posts that think alice is some mastermind of the oiar and its like are we listening to the same series because. come on

[amaltheas-garden]

I miss when Alicent was allowed to have emotions

the range 🤌

[lonelyspire]

another tidbit that is making me emotional in the septa scene is that rhaenyra has been so stiff since the beginning of the season, rigid with grief and having to hold herself in check because her council keeps undermining her, so she doesn't allow herself to emote very much besides expressing her sorrow but like. the second she's with alicent, particularly when speaking of the scenario of being found out and slain, she's back twenty years, making faces. the first few seconds especially, she's frowning and raising her eyebrows and scoffing etc but there's also an undercurrent of like rolling her eyes, of being facetious almost. and it's not an intensity that stems only from the urgency of the situation, it really is just how she reacts to alicent all the time, whether in the same room or miles away, there's always emotion bubbling out of her when it comes to alicent, and a fondness that can't be kept at bay, even when she's literally threatening to kill her (sort of in a jest) like. they're bound to destroy each other but also alicent is bringing something out of her that pierces through her heartbreak.

[navree]

"rhaenys could have ended the war by dracarysing all the greens right there" yes because a distant relation to the throne deciding to barbecue an anointed and publicly positively hailed king and his entire family who is well loved within the city and in multiple other parts of the country for the sake of the succession of a far-away princess no one was ever on board with who hasn't been seen by the populace in literal years, her psycho husband, her three obvious bastards, and two toddlers from the psycho husband would go over super well with westeros and especially in king's landing where scores of the still-cheering population were killed for no reason by that same dragon who would do the barbecuing, because when targaryens act unilaterally without thinking of how the people would react there's never any problem, which is why the storming of the dragonpit and robert's rebellion were actually just collective delusions dreamed up by readers who hate rhaenyra and not key parts of the story and house targaryen's history that directly contributed to their demise and are intrinsic to the plot

truly team black stans are made up of only the most genius and media literate amongst us

[14106]

last one says "How do you sleep at night knowing that you can't save everyone?"

hii!! it's the 1st time i do one of these for any kinda media, i thought it'd be way more fun to answer w doodles! it's veeery messy and i dont have the hottest takes or anything i know lol ion care tho!! :p

found the template here <3 but lemme know if u know the actual source!

(by the way has anyone out there made/found an instrumental version of the smallest church in saint saëns bc i need it real bad...)

[buffysummers]

Alicent expecting the green council to back her as queen regent is hilarious like girl you plotted with that council to remove Rhaenyra as heir to the throne SIMPLY because she’s a woman… like Rhaenys said to her, you built your own prison. Now she’s gotta live with it. Poetic justice if you ask me

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

When I see stuff like this I kinda want to bash my head into a wall:

To start off, I’m not sure whether this person was commenting on book or show Cersei, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter because she’s so much more than the ‘ambitious villain’ or the ‘murderous girlboss’ tropes in both the book and show.

(Of course, I do have my issues with the way Cersei was written in the show like most people but this is simply a rant post so I’m not going to go through the differences of Show vs Book Cersei)

Cersei is a female character who was shaped by her environment, who’s insecurities were created by her environment, and she’s a woman who’s idiotic mistakes can be traced back to how her environment shaped her. She’s much more than a murderous girlboss, she’s both a victim of the system and also a beneficiary of it, while also acting as an agent of it to keep the status quo while also desiring what the system denied her.

Cersei is NUANCED and complicated and even now people hate that about her and want her to have been a purely evil woman handcrafted in a vacuum, ignoring the context of her life because readers would rather not engage with Cersei’s victimhood and nuances because that ruins their idea of: She Was The Problem and Always The Problem. (People would rather say that she deserved her walk of shame instead of interacting meaningfully with the theme of systematic gender-based violence that is so prevalent in Cersei’s story. The exploration of patriarchal violence in Show Alicent’s story is done so horribly in comparison.)

And what really pissed me off about these tags is that this person has clearly decided that they don’t care to interact with the nuance of Cersei and are fine with flattening her, and yet they shit on others for not liking Alicent.

Because of the way Alicent is written in this show, she almost always has a ‘woe is me I can do no wrong’ attitude, which of course drives people away from the character (woe is me I deserve to take a child’s eye 🥺). However, what actually annoys me is how she’s made out to be stupid, foolish, ignorant, and inconsistent due to the horrible writing of this show, all of which are deviations from her book characterization. Also, I despise it when people want me to support writing decisions and changes made in adaptations that are downright misogynistic and are meant to attract the male gaze.

But what pisses many people, including myself, off is how the changes made negatively impacted many other characters. Alicent’s terrible characterization is like a black hole that distorts and warps the whole story! It’s annoying af!

So when people like this say: ‘She’s nuanced and people just can’t handle it 🙄;’ I say: No. She’s horribly written and a different character from the book and people have a right to be critical about these changes that stripped a female character of 1) her agency and 2) her intelligence!

And the thing is, there was little reason for the writers to have made all these changes to Alicent’s characterization! In the book she is an interesting character with clear motives and understandable reactions. She’s cunning and ambitious and acts the way a noble lady who became queen would. And despite her clear ambitions and dislike of Rhaenyra, she still makes a comment wondering about who would protect the Princess from Ser Criston, and yet she then takes Cole into her service after his falling out with Rhaenyra. That’s a perfect example of nuance! Show Alicent could never compare to book Alicent’s clear moral values and consistent disregard of said moral values in pursuit of power.

And because of this, Book Alicent isn’t easy to stomach. It’s hard for most people to come to terms with a character like her and it’s even harder for people to feel sympathetic for her at the end when she went mad with grief.

On the other hand, Show Alicent was designed in a way to garner pity, and when the writers felt like her current arc wouldn’t be enough to garner the specific reaction they wanted they would then throw in a time skip and suddenly she’s completely different and yet still Thee victim. She’s designed to be as sympathetic as fucking possible! The camera angles, the background music, and the lighting is set up in a way to make sure you the viewer feels pity or sympathy for her! Cause that’s her role in this series! She’s thee Ultimate Victim!

But too bad for the writers as many people are fed up with this kind of inconsistent writing. Even when the writers created a whole new challenge for Alicent where she’s shitted on by the green council and forced to face the beast she helped to raise, I and many others could never feel any satisfaction as it was clear that once again Alicent was being made to be Thee Ultimate Victim who was just led astray by the patriarchy and was a victim of it and was only just realizing it so don’t you pity her don’t you feel sad for her and now she’s trying to do the right thing so pls pls pls pity her 🥺~ So it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are annoyed by these eNLiGhtEnEd changes that have led to a complete deviation from the source material.

To summarize: Cersei is an excellent fucking character who’s by no means easy to stomach, and because she’s not easy to stomach she’s often reduced to annoying ass tropes by dumbasses who are reading above their comprehension level. But when you actually try to understand her, you can easily see why she turned out the way she did and you can feel sympathy for her while understanding that she’s both victim and perpetrator! On the other hand, Show Alicent is a mess and HOTD is trying to make her serve a different narrative role than she did in the books so ofc people are going to be unhappy with the changes as book readers are once again faced with the annoying reality that the writers don’t give a fuck about the source material.

[dirtytransmasc]

^^ screenshot, not actually my post, I could never say such a thing ^^

I don't really get this take, it's not the first time I've seen it, and it's just... I don't even know.

green is the color of war for her house, but it's also just her house's color, and for a girl ripped up from her life as a hightower and made a Targaryen Queen of all things, she started wearing her house colors compared to her color (blue) or the Targaryen colors (red) probably to cling to some sense of normalcy and identity.

not only that, but from a costuming perspective the symbolism is right there, you're just missing it. it's not about war, that one dress had been war, that's why the comment is made. the color is Alicent no longer trying to be a Targaryen, no longer changing herself and ignoring the pain she's in, and instead being her own person despite her position. she starts wearing green instead of red, the two colors being opposites, when she stops trying to pander to her lost friend, stops trying to fit in and be this new person. she took a stand with that dress, she declared 'war' on this false identity and the fruitless effort she had put in to try and smooth the tensions in the family.

after that, the green is showing she remains herself, a Hightower. not a Targaryen.

I love her green, I love how she holds onto that piece of her, she doesn't let anyone take it or change it. she holds true to herself in this one simple way as to wear her house colors.

also how can you deem a character boring just based on the colors they wear... it's just such a boring and outlandish take.

[alicentzwaitinglady]

alicent keeping her pious energy in season 2.

she wears more veils and a lot of seven-pointed stars. she prays a lot even when not in a sept and is surrounded by septas. speaking about how she prays for the blacks and that they'll see the truth/come to a bloodless understanding.

being so pious that others at court are annoyed. so religious that when speaking to someone she finishes their sentence (like she says the quote from the seven pointed star before they can).

alicent feels like her position at court is vanishing, so she seeks comfort in the faith. she buries herself in prayers and scriptures.

organizing jaehaerys's funeral procession and praying for him (and those long lost).

[lady-green-sleeves]

If Alicent had slept with Viserys the night of Aemma’s funeral like Rhaenyra and Daemon did the night of Laena’s funeral you all would be calling her so much worse than Alicunt and going on and on about how awful and gross and evil she is even more than you already do. But when Rhaenyra does it she’s a girl boss and you’re cheering her on bc somehow that makes her a feminist…..🤡

[restinginpiecesofpizza]

NOT trying to start an argument here, everyone is allowed to have their own opinion and you are allowed to dislike things just because you dislike them, (I just like having discussions about media, sue me) but I don't think Rhaenyra's visit to kings landing was supposed to be "smart". I think she's a woman who is slowly losing her grip and the only people who are even remotely listening to her are women and she doesn't have a single idea how to stop this war and her last hope is just to go to her former best friend and plead for her to listen. No, it wasn't a "good plan", because it wasn't a plan it was a hail mary. Rhaenyra sees no way to stop this so she goes to the only person on the other side who might even consider listening to her and begs "please, show me a way". Alicent sent her the page, SHE sent the invitation and yes, Rhaenyra is late, and yes, they've both lost so much, but Rhaenyra still came and she wants to find a way to make it right and for the last time, Alicent tells her that some things can't be fixed, and that's why it's important. Because they're just playing out the same story over and over. Rhaenyra will never learn that there are wounds that cannot heal and Alicent will never fight hard enough to see if she could heal from them. They are a rabid wolf and a loyal dog and no matter how hard they fight it they will always fail themselves by giving way to their lesser nature. Anyway this has gotten away from me but... ya know, if you find anything worth chewing on in here go ahead, I love hearing other people's thoughts.

[shimmerluna]

WAIT Elle has box braids in s3??? I could cry

I don't think she had bad hair in s1 or s2, but I'm excited that they're actually giving the Black girls Black hairstyles instead of having them wear it out.

Before, it felt like the (all-white, for context) hair department was just ignorant about Black hair, so they put wigs on the Black actresses and only did styles that also work on nonblack hair for their own sake/convenience. This theory was especially supported by the fact that Tara, whose 4c hair couldn't really be styled the same as nonblack hair, wore a twistout that would take literal hours to do every day, but she had box braids in s2! and Elle has box braids now!! I'm so excited!!!

I also feel like this fits her bold, fashion-loving personality so much better than leaving her hair out. Our hair is basically its own accessory, and the long box braids are very feminine. Again, I'm not saying not having a protective style isn't feminine or fashionable (I myself am a fashion girlie with an Afro), but having one is another outlet for her creativity, and I'm glad they're recognizing that now.

[sevensinswithin]

working on the outline for the alicent & laenor lavender marriage au and holy shit i didn't realize that i spent over 4 hours working on it

[elizabeth-mitchells]

what the fuck...

[navree]

you know if they didn't want us to root for the greens they shouldn't have 1) made all the members of team black both very boring and very stupid (or in daemon's case the most awful asshole to have ever lived in the kingdoms at this point in time) and 2) made all the members of team green desperately hot

[juniperhillpatient]

I hate “love at first sight” or like instant infatuation in most cases but I think it’s a trope that CAN be done super well it just rarely is. there’s nothing exciting or interesting about two hot people who see each other & instantly fall in love all by itself nonsensically like idk I just don’t believe in that & find it dull. but there’s a way to do it where it’s like “YEAH that makes perfect sense” like two people who suffered something brief but absolutely insane together & can never let go of the thought of one another or someone who saw someone else do something crazy or really fucking cool or stupid & can’t let it go or someone totally isolated who’s decided to make the first person they’ve interacted with or who helped free them into this total savior who walks on water like it CAN be such a neat trope you just gotta sell it right.