#marital arcs

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Jaune: I am the Last Straight man on the planet.

Ren: Hello.

Jaune: There are no more straight men on the planet.

[harmonylight]

A bunch of ponies based off @pilot-boi ship palettes

This is part 1 btw

[clownsuu]

no silly 😔😔💔

Spooki month gettin REAL spooki this year 💔🥄🥄

[eliotquillon]

rewatching s1 of house and the first time wilson talks to cameron (ep 4, maternity) he calls her ‘allison’ . wilson and cameron have tons of early season heart to hearts (most notably about her not being able to cheat on her husband) but as far as i know he never does this again. Um.

[writerthreads]

Super detailed character profile chart

Character Name:

First Name:

Last Name:

Nickname (if any):

Basic Information:

Age:

Gender:

Date of Birth:

Place of Birth:

Nationality:

Physical Appearance:

Height:

Weight:

Build:

Hair Color:

Eye Color:

Scars or distinguishing marks:

Personality Traits:

Positive Traits:

Negative Traits:

Background and History:

Family Background:

Parents:

Siblings (if any):

Childhood:

Education:

School/College/University:

Major/Area of Study:

Favorite Subjects:

Least Favorite Subjects:

Career/Profession:

Current Occupation:

Previous Jobs (if any):

Career Goals:

Hobbies and Interests:

Hobbies:

Interests:

Relationships:

Marital Status:

Romantic Relationships (if any):

Friendships:

Closest Friends:

Relationship dynamics:

Strengths and Weaknesses:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Goals and Ambitions:

Short-term Goals:

Long-term Goals:

Fears and Insecurities:

Common Fears:

Insecurities:

Quirks and Habits:

Quirks:

Habits:

Beliefs and Values:

Religious or Spiritual Beliefs:

Moral Code:

Political Views:

Favorites:

Favorite Foods:

Favorite Books:

Favorite Movies/TV Shows:

Favorite Music:

Favorite Color:

Dislikes:

Disliked Foods:

Disliked Activities:

Pet Peeves:

Miscellaneous:

Talents or Skills:

Secrets (if any):

Motivations:

What drives the character forward?

What are their ultimate aspirations?

Character Arc:

How does the character change or evolve throughout the story?

Feel free to adapt and expand upon this template!

[brucewaynehater101]

I just want good angst about Bruce desperately trying to parent Tim but realizing he fucked it up

or Bruce realizing he kinda sees tim as a father figure in a weird way

or the bats all realizing how Tim’s been forced to mature quickly so he can take care of them, and he won’t stop trying to be the adult in situations even after the bats try to make it so he doesn’t have to

There are a few fics out there that center around Tim and Bruce's relationship after Bruce realizes how bad he treated Tim. "Grudge (I hold none)" by reinersbigtits. "Just How Much I Love You" by sElkieNight60. Honestly, a bunch of sElkieNight60 fics have Bruce trying to be a better parent. Their fic "Redraw Our Expectations" showcases Bruce trying to parent Tim and the teen finds that strange, weird, and restrictive. They chat about it.

I sadly haven't seen any fics where Bruce considers Tim to be his father. I have seen a few that describe Tim as his closest confidant or mental support, but none about the father hc/au :(

If you want some quick angst about Bruce seeing Tim as a father figure, here's an idea:

Bruce is ruminating on his kids. As he's going through his mental list of the kids (perhaps trying to remember where they all are), he realizes that it's an effort to add Tim to that list. At first, Bruce clocks it as the older man being a horrible parent to Tim or needing more time with his son. Bruce wants to fix this and sets out to do so. He tracks down Tim to spend some time with him.

Halfway through the hangout, Bruce starts to relax. They are both having a good time, chatting and laughing. It only changes when he notices Tim's subtle nods, his slight mannerisms that encourage Bruce to keep talking, and the scrunch at the corner of Tim's eyes that indicate he's proud. It's an errant thought of the older man, but one that rapidly changes his worldview.

Tim acts like Alfred.

Tim acts like a father to Bruce.

Tim has always acted like a father to Bruce.

What has Bruce done?

The comment about Tim continuing to be the "adult" or "mature one" in the situation because that's all he's known hurts. If you add that hc to the one where Tim is constantly told to "be the bigger person" when it comes to being insulted by his traumatized family members, that's painful.

Alright, let's build on this hc/au. I'm going to use subtle canon background clues to create a probable psychological assessment on Tim's behaviors. The reasonings are all hc.

Tim was emotionally neglected and abused by his parents (not nearly to the extent of fanon and his parents did love him, but that doesn't change their emotional distance or the harm Jack did after his coma). One could hc that, due to the limited time he spent with them before they left again, Tim tried to keep the peace when they were there. He wanted to spend the time with his parents not fighting, even if that meant choking down his own emotions/needs, placating his parents, and overall keeping a pleasant demeanor around them regardless of passive aggressive insults (looking at Jack here).

If his parents had marital issues, like fighting and insulting each other in front of Tim, the child might have tried to mend their fights and solve their issues in order to spend more time with happy parents. It's a helpful behavior that could've been praised by Jack and Janet, leading to Tim continuously uptaking a mediator role.

This would morph into a people pleasing attitude that heavily clashed with Tim's independence and lack of authority in his life. This is what enables him to be suited for kicking a depressed, angry Bruce into his healing arc (enables, but doesn't excuse Bruce's reliance on a child nor condone it). Tim would probably insert himself into Dick and Bruce's relationship.

Unlike his parents, Dick and Bruce probably weren't happy an unrelated kid was mediating their relationship or getting in the middle of their arguments. Because of their contant rejection to Tim's efforts, the kid's behavior could morph into a more subtle and subterfuge manner. This comes in handy when Jason and Damian come around (because they for sure would not listen to Tim's advice).

Tim, because he's spent his entire life managing other people's emotions for them, would understand where Damian and Jason are coming from as they hurt him. It is painful, and he may hold some resentment towards them (and a frozen anger), but he's used to yanking back his emotions and shoving them into an overfilled box. That's the easy part.

What's burdensome for him is the family. After realizing the lengths Tim goes to in order to ensure their bonds stay strong, they keep pressuring Tim to release some of his responsibilities. They want the relationships to be more equal.

Tim can't, though. If he lets go of his tight grip on holding the family together, he'll have to face that box of emotions he shoved down. He'll have to work through all the pain, anger, betrayal, grief, and desolation all of his family members gave him. If he accepts that he shouldn't be taking on so much emotional labor, he would have to face that he shouldn't have been subjected to so much abuse (from the Drakes or the Waynes).

Tim can't do that without falling apart.

He can't keep his hold on the family's support beams either.

It's not healthy nor productive for Tim to keep his position. Without releasing the pressure from his back, Tim will collapse and take the Waynes with him. He's too scared to let go, though. Will he survive the break? Will he have a place with the Waynes if he's not holding them up?

[watchyourbuck]

okay so just watched the new ep, here’s my 911 s7 ep 1 thoughts:

nearly broke down watching Shannon read the letter to Chris. “I love you, even from a distance.” I’m unwell.

the bucktalia breakup explanation was funny, but what was funnier and gayer was Eddie’s reaction to it sjdjdj

there’s absolutely no chemistry between Marisol and Eddie.

the whole Bathena marital struggles™️ arc doesn’t convince me too much tbh (although I understand Athena’s thought process & concerns).

Chris putting the Shannon frame back up and Eddie’s heart visibly repairing in front of us will forever haunt me btw

“never seen a man turn off a woman with such skills.” “it’s a gift.” fuck off u homosexual

during that same scene, Buck staring longingly and lovingly at Eddie will also forever haunt me

Buck saying the sexual tension line and Eddie almost passing out is very in character

I genuinely felt bad for Bobby during the whole episode

Madney dating and then not dating makes me fuzzy inside, they’re so obviously in love

shirtless Eddie and drooling Buck <3

Eddie eavesdropping on Buck & Chris and scrunching his face in pain made me stop the ep, sit down on the floor and scream

[theloneliestblackgirlblog]

Girls when they think about how this current Spy x Family arc started with a “filler” episode on Loid listening to his patient’s marital problems and Yor listening to her coworkers’ marital gripes to it ending with Loid and Yor on the floor reassuring each other about their role in the marriage and family…

[finlaure13]

CANADA

Ontario to exempt planned Highway 413 from Environmental Assessment Act

JEFF GRAY QUEEN'S PARK REPORTER

TORONTO

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 24, 2024

Ontario has tabled legislation that would exempt its marquee proposed Highway 413 project from the need for a full-scale environmental assessment, prompting some critics to renew calls for Ottawa to do more to ensure the protection of endangered species along the 52-kilometre route.

Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria’s bill this week also includes new measures that would make it easier for government officials or contractors to inspect land they intend to expropriate for the highway. Under the legislation, anyone who tries to block a site inspection along the route of the 413 could face up to $10,000-a-day in fines.

In 2022, Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government made the planned 413, which would arc through protected Greenbelt land around the Greater Toronto Area west and north of Toronto, a centrepiece of its re-election campaign.

But efforts since to get shovels in the ground have run into roadblocks, including a now-abandoned move by the federal government to do its own lengthy, detailed environmental evaluation of the project. Despite demands from environmental groups and opposition leaders, Ottawa has so far declined to revive this review.

Ontario’s new bill, tabled Monday, would exempt the 413 project from the province’s own Environmental Assessment Act, which would have required a lengthy study that considered the highway’s impacts and looked at alternative options.

The new bill would still require the government to produce a report on how it intends to mitigate the project’s environmental effects. But it would also allow the government to keep any studies that “contain information about sensitive natural or cultural heritage matters” out of the public eye.

The construction of Highway 413 would negatively impact the environment, not help it, say scientific researchers

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Sarkaria said the legislation would allow construction on early works to start sooner. He also again declined to provide a cost estimate cost for the 413, citing the need not to tip off bidders for the contract to build it. The province’s Auditor-General pegged the likely bill at $4-billion in 2022, but critics say the final price tag could be double that.

Tim Gray, executive director of the group Environmental Defence, said that, while the government had long said it intended to streamline the environmental assessment process for the highway, this bill would essentially gut it.

“It’s pretty perfunctory window-dressing. They’re getting rid of any of the substantive work that they were actually planning on doing and just saying, ‘We’ll publish a report,’” he said in an interview.

Mr. Gray said the federal government needs to step back in and redesignate the project for more extensive environmental scrutiny under its newly rewritten Impact Assessment Act, an idea supported by Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles and Green Leader Mike Schreiner. In an e-mail, Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie would not say whether Ottawa should step in but said she would investigate the highway if she became premier.

Earlier this year, the federal government agreed to back off its battle with the province over the 413, after settling a court challenge that had been initiated by Ontario over whether the impact assessment Ottawa had imposed on the highway was overstepping. Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled that the federal Impact Assessment Act strayed too far into provincial jurisdiction, but Ottawa has since rewritten the legislation to narrow its scope.

The federal government had agreed to set up a working group to deal with Ontario on the 413 and ensure effects on endangered species are mitigated. And to build the highway, the province will still need to seek federal permits under endangered species legislation.

In an e-mail, Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Agency said Ontario’s bill would not affect the federal-provincial working group. However, the agency also said requests to designate projects for a full federal impact assessment would be addressed on a “case-by-case basis.”

Ontario’s new legislation also includes changes that would allow the government or its contractors sweeping powers to go onto land on or near the highway’s path to do site inspections, soil sampling or other such work – without any objection from landowners. Anyone who hinders such an activity would face up to a $50,000 fine for a first offence, plus fines of up to $10,000 a day. A second offence could cost up to $100,000.

The government would also be allowed to seek an order from a justice of the peace, rather than a Superior Court judge, authorizing it to enter a property or a dwelling or even take possession of land it “has the right to possess.”

Veteran Toronto expropriation lawyer Shane Rayman said the changes will likely speed up preliminary work and the land acquisition process. However, he said, the new powers would be “unusual” in Ontario and give the government more of an upper hand with landowners facing expropriation.

“This act gives the government remarkably broad powers to possess land, to enter properties and to put down resistance,” Mr. Rayman said in an interview. He warned that if the new powers are not exercised fairly, it could “be fairly harmful to property owners.”

@allthecanadianpolitics

[superiorsturgeon]

Backfired!

Neo: *waves and signs* Hey, Invincible Girl…! Looks like we’re working together now! 😏

Pyrrha: *folds her arms* Hmph! You may be working with me and my friends now, but I know you helped destroy Beacon, and I don’t trust you! 😠

Neo: Oh…? Sure you want to talk to me like that? Even when I know your embarrassing little secret? 😈

Pyrrha: I don’t know what you mean! 😤 I’m a warrior with integrity and I have no secrets you could ever-

Neo: *takes Pyrrha’s hand and lifts it to her cheek*

Neo: *shatters and transforms into a custom-made plush Jaune Arc with red lipstick marks all over it and a tag labeled “Property of Pyrrha Nikos”*

Neo: “❤️ Oh, my dearest knight, Jaune the Arc, how I wish you would see that we were meant to be together~! If only you would come away with me to be partner in more than combat~! ❤️”

Pyrrha: 😨

Neo: “…how I would ravish and ride you! And the things I would let you do to me on our marital bed all night long-“

Pyrrha: *lifts her other hand and grabs Neo’s face*

Neo: ???

Pyrrha: *yanks Neo close so their faces are an inch apart*

Pyrrha: *hellish snarl* I will crush your skull like a GRAPE!! 🤬

Neo: 😨 W-wait! This isn’t how blackmail is supposed to go! Abort! Abort!

[lemonhemlock]

honestly it’s a bit annoying how people are bending themselves into a pretzel to justify this writing but are claiming that they’re somehow smarter for getting it like dude you can’t flipflop like if you think Alicent should be allowed to resent her child and get him beheaded cuz he was the result of marital rapr but somehow when it’s brought up of Alicent not the narrative acknowledges viserys being somebody that did that then it’s that oh Alicent is a character of that time so obviously she has buried that resentment deep inside but it’s the resentment conveniently reaches the surface when it’s time to press forward the rhaenicent ship.

I’m trying to be understanding but honestly what I’ve personally observed is that the only people that seem to love this are rhaenicent shippers and that’s it cuz how come oh all of this war was pointless and that’s the point all along but it’s like dude come on a character not acknowledging their grandchild was beheaded in their sleep is not an example of how well it shows the war is pointless cuz how is the mother of that beheaded child helping the man that got him murdered. How come the narrative doesn’t acknowledge that daemon did that and rhaenyra is still allowing that man back into her team like yeah let her do that but let the narrative acknowledge that she’s selfish for it and that she doesn’t truly care about what happened and what happened to helaena either.

I was willing to think people just have different interpretations and leave it at that before but the writing has become so blatantly biased that when people don’t even acknowledge that I genuinely feel like I’m being gaslit here like excuse me what

no, i totally get it and it is SO frustrating. bending themselves into a pretzel is such a good way of saying it. people love the IP and the asoiaf universe so much that they are willing to gaslit themselves that it's not bad.

but what's the point? it's bad execution after bad execution, a whole continuous string of them. you can't fundamentally change characters like that without making huge adjustments to the plot and to their fate as well - they won't naturally hit the same story beats! a character with show!alicent's personality would never do the things book!alicent did! a character with show!rhaenyra's personality is never going to do the things book!rhaenyra did!

they want to reconstruct these characters from the ground up, shove their dumbass life philosophies and first wave understanding of feminism in there, then NOT do any of the work that might allow them to depict an organic character arc. they still have to hit the same plot points, so ofc it's going to be circus-level flip-floping bc the motivations will not make sense if you change their core self so much.

this is especially evident with how the show REFUSES to admit viserys was a rapist. but at the same time implying so badly that alicent didn't want these children and is shackled by them. if she didn't want them, how did she manage to produce 4?? of them? who put those children into her body? if she didn't want them, then it was done against her will, no? can we examine that before we get to the point of gleefully handing them over to be executed bc you want to "be free"? no, ofc not, bc that would make viserys look bad 🙄 so how can you accept that supposed motivation of alicent's if it so half-baked? i hate it so much. and i hate it that people are going "fans are triggered by bad mother characters, but that's not feminist, women should be allowed to be villains and unpalatable on screen REEEEEE"

and another thing i find frustrating is this (mistaken IMO) attempt at a distinction between wanting explicit media vs media where things are left open to interpretation, and how hotd is supposedly the latter and we just don't understand that some people prefer having to fill in the gaps themselves. i don't want media with neon signs pointing if something is """"bad""""" or """""""good"""""". i am not asking for the booktokification of asoiaf!

no one in Succession is looking at the camera and saying "i am doing X thing bc of Y" and there are enough points where the show supports multiple interpretations, but the character work and attention to detail is stellar with similar amounts of screen time. i wish i could word this better but hotd does this annoying ass thing where it skips the fallout of important moments and then never addresses them, then pretends that's subtle character work instead of what it actually is: a lazy hack job.

i mean, honestly, i can't believe we ever complained about season 8 in the first place if these are the new standards. genuinely, i would encourage everyone to go back and re-watch those last episodes and make a bullet-point list about what's actually bad about them while trying to defend hotd s2 with the same arguments. because at least dany has a very clear, if rushed, progression there: she has a clear goal, an obstacle, suffers some losses she considers harrowing (an escalation), she is shown to be depressed and getting paranoid, there's a trigger point, she gives into violence and finishes off fanatical about her own self. where is the problem?

[bibibbon]

Hot take but I kinda find it annoying how people try to use Rei to lift up endeavour, What she did to Shoto was awful (and if Shoto never forgave her 100% valid imo) but she was having a breakdown and we immediately see her rush over and try to undo what she did whilst apologising yelling what had she done , Idk but I don't think you can compare that to endeavour purposely beating the shit out of Shoto bcus of some one sided beef (sorry for the rant)

Iam sorry but why is this considered a hot take when it's straight up facts!!!!

People (specifically enji apologists and stans) love to use Rei and what she did to uplift enji. SOME even go as far as to denying a lot of things like enji committing marital r@pe and assault or they love to misinterpret this moment of enji "caring for his child's development" when in my opinion he only cares about making shoto a perfect tool/machine so he wants him to be properly developed as he thinks the actions Rei committed will hinder shoto.

Yes Rei is a victim but she also did bad things (that horikoshi has made her realise yet he never gave her a redemption/atonement arc and made the focus on enji).

Rei was practically sold she had no autonomy or agency in that household and she had to face a horrible ton of abuse by both her family and her so called husband. However, even with that she tried to protect her children (even if it wasn't enough or she might of done more harm than good) she still tried to intervene even if it meant that she got hurt in the process.

Heck enji literally abused her to the point she went insane, to the point she felt like she was going insane, to the point she realised that she was going insane and desperately sought and pleaded for help. She felt herself crumbling she literally said it that she couldn't take it anymore (that's not something that happens overnight that's a slow but painful process of things piling up little by little until everything cracks)

Also, I think there's something so tragic about the fact that the side Rei poured the hot water on shotos face is heat resistant. Shotos scar isn't a heat burn but an ice burn. Shoto's scar wasn't because Rei poured hot water on him but because out of pure panic she chose to use her quirk to ice the burn (icing burns actually makes them worse and can turn it into an ice burn so always make sure to use cold water for burns and not ice!!!).

She screams and cries showing that she still has care for her children. She panics and her panic is what causes his scar. Unlike enji she shows regret, she is a complex character and victim, shows remorse, doesn't seek anything and she still wrote letters to her children even if shoto didn't answer she still cared for him and she regretted all she done the minute it happend (not like enji who took him until he achieved his dream to finally realise that he needs family for his life to be good or some bs)

alas, we deserved and needed a Rei himura redemption and attornment arc.

[rhetoricalsoapbox]

Dammit this is one of netflix's few shows like this to actually get an ending, and it felt so wasted.

I could be entirely wrong, but I feel like some of the "celebrity/well known actor popups" from Nick Offerman and David Cross were there to make up for some of what the writing lacked. There were some well written moments, memorable scenes, etc. but sometimes the bad outweighed the good and it just came across as poorly written and lackluster.

There's so many plot holes left that will likely never ever have an answer to them, and I think that's been a consistent issue with the writing as the show has progressed.

It's good to leave your audience with questions to keep them curious and wanting to see more, but you have to answer those questions. Scrolling through the tua tags makes me feel horrible because there's just post after post of people's lists of questions to unfilled plot holes and unanswered questions.

I have a ton of questions too! If they needed everyone's to counteract the durango, why weren't the other 35 needed, and what happened to them in the new/correct timeline? Did they just spontaneously disappear without knowing it would happen? Or are they not even relevant in this conversation?

Again, it isn't bad to leave an audience curious for answers, but you have to provide them with those answers or at least give them hints and clues to figure it out.

I feel like some issues wouldn't even be getting discussed right now if it weren't (again) for the quality of the writing. Nearly every character seemed as if they'd been written by someone who just glanced at their story and character sheet without knowing much about them. You seriously expect me to believe that Five never would have caught scent of the fact that there were Keepers in the CIA? And you just want me to believe in general that he ever even would work for the CIA?

Klaus had a poor/unfinished character arc, Luther never got to have closure with Sloane and was just made practically to be a joke the whole season, Lila was a mary sue, there was such a rushed conclusion to how Diego and Lila handled their marital issues and the whole Five debacle, and so many other off-putting things.

I'm just sitting here with my head spinning. Like??? I'm still trying to process what I just watched, not because I'm clueless about it, but just because it was so

urgh.

[agentrouka-blog]

Sometimes I think GRRM is much more sensitive to Sansa than he is to Dany, regarding their dynamics with older men.

I think he's trying to say something about Dany by the way she perceives these men and their interactions, and not in an unsympathetic way.

The Stark children aren't somehow inherently better or "made different" than other characters in the series. We see them face horrible things, but often times we also see them magically spared from sharing a fate that is depicted happening to their mirrors. Take the miller's sons dying in the place of Bran and Rickon. Take the horrible tales of rape and murder that Arya only ever overhears. Take Lollys vs. Sansa during the riots. Some of it is happenstance, some of it is their noble status, some of it is prior relationships, some of it is simply plot armor.

But the key of their emotional resiliance lies in the fact that their parents loved them, modeled a reasonably stable and loving marriage, and raised them with attention and principles. They were not perfect by far, and utterly products of their time, but they were solid and they were present. The Stark children have a sense of how the world can work and they have a sense of self that is fairly secure, even through hardship.

Characters like Dany, or Tyrion, or Cersei, tend to become what they are because they are not spared in key ways. And they did not have that crucial foundation.

Dany is not raised lovingly. She is not spared marital rape. She has no home to cling to in her memories, no model of healthy family dynamics - and literally no one who ever bothers to try and genuinely help her for her own sake.

So she doesn't know what healthy dynamics are. Not true justice, not consent, not a relationship of equals, not genuine tenderness. She can't take refuge in her inner child, she killed her in chapter three. She has no healthy outlet for her grief and her rage. She has no concept of a happy future that isn't tied to power. She has no framework for a different reality. And that is what we see play out in her arc. And that is also why her relationships with men are depicted as they are. The misery she experiences in reality is unmitigated by even a sense of injustice and validation of her pain by anyone around her. So she erases that misery from her reality. She invents an uneasy pretense of equality based on her queenship and later her dragons that leaves her feeling empty and powerless without understanding why.

She may never ever understand why.

It's a tragedy. It's the tragedy, that, I think, GRRM is trying to tell through her. She should have been given help. Any scrap of love, and she may not have become what she did.

So when Sansa is spared and emotionally survives on a privilege of having been loved, we must also imbue her character with the obligation to pass it on, to show mercy, to love, to help. Same with the rest of the Starks.

And when they fail, like Robb did, they will not prosper.

[hermajestytak]

Just to clarify, I'm NOT in the ZaDr side of the fandom

HOWEVER, if someone out there was insane enough to write a divorce arc between middle aged adult Dib and Zim where the whole joke is how absurdly mundane their marital conflicts are, I'd read the shit out of it because that's comedy gold potential.

If they aren't arguing over stuff like laundry, grocery shopping, or Dib's god awful taste in music, I'm not buying it. Simple as that.

Bonus points if Zim's literally only in it for the green card and/or the whole fic is written in the overdramatic style of 90 Day Fiancé

[top-rhaenyra]

the contrast of rhaenyra's and alicent's experiences with motherhood is so fascinating

I’ve always argued the storyline of being wary of motherhood and childbirth would’ve worked better with Alicent than Rhaenyra.

Alicent doesn’t get to choose who the father of her children is, she doesn’t have access to contraceptives nor can she refuse Viserys when he calls for her.

The themes of forced motherhood and the consequences of this would work so much better with women like Alicent: struggling to love children forced on you, not understanding why you’re not overcome with maternal affection, suffering from undiagnosed postpartum depression etc.

With Rhaenyra it just doesn’t work because unlike Alicent she can choose her children’s father and she can decide when she wants to be pregnant. In the books she has three back to back pregnancies and then stops for 4 years, whilst in the show she has Joffrey eight years after Luke which means she intentionally had a third child. Either way it all comes down to Rhaenyra having bodily autonomy; if she didn’t want to be pregnant she wouldn’t be pregnant.

Also having Rhaenyra be the one who expresses her wish to not have children honestly feels more sexist because the writers are implying not wanting to be a mother isn’t normal, so once Rhaenyra gives birth to Jace she realises the error of her ways and happily has five more. This implication doesn’t sit well with me.

so i wasn’t fair to you anon, and i’ve let this sit in my inbox since may. the reason for this is because i wanted to see how alicent and rhaenyra’s relationships to their children were developed, explained, and expanded on in season two.

regarding alicent and her children:

i think we officially got your wish anon (mine too). while some people may be unhappy with her arc in season 2, alicent has always had a deep-seated love-hate relationship with her children. i’d argue that in season one we also got glimpses into the just…visceral revulsion that she cannot shake when she looks at her children, aegon in particular. but in season two i think she’s truly confronted, in a noticeable tangible way, with the facts of her sons.

obviously, i wish we’d been able to see more of this kind of dynamic back in season one, especially with a younger alicent. however, there are season constraints and we can only see so much in ten episodes (side note: 8-10 episode seasons with a two year wait in between is a rant for another time, but know i’m not being like “yay season constraints!”).

the problem with alicent’s arc and struggle is that so fucking much of it is internal. it is so incredibly hard to show on screen and i find the way its been done so far admirable. up until luke’s death, alicent is lying to herself over and over every day about her relationship to her children, aemond and aegon particularly. once the war starts i believe the tower of lies she’s told herself (this is morally correct, i’m just doing my duty, i was treated well, i’m protecting my children like any mother should) start to crumble. i hate so much that we never got her reaction to aemond killing luke for this reason.

also, to a certain extent she may not ever truly come to grips with her trauma. there are no words for what she went through—marital rape was not a concept then. it still manifests, obviously, but i think we can tell with her repeated insistence that viserys was a decent husband and man [loud incorrect buzzer] that she still thinks she’s the one who’s done something wrong. i’ll be interested to see if the writers ever actually have alicent come to grips with the fact that viserys was, in fact, not a good person or king. personally, i don’t believe they will, but we can always hope.

anyways, all this is to say that: i do believe the themes of forced motherhood and its lifelong consequences are well done and explored with alicent (thus far). people will disagree, perhaps even you, but her eventual rejection of aegon and aemond; her desperate, almost chaotic protection of helaena; her ideas about daeron; all of it really speaks to the struggle she’s had and is going through as their mother.

regarding rhaenyra and her children:

this is more difficult that alicent lol

before i get into my gripes with her story, i do want to push back just a little bit on the idea that rhaenyra truly has bodily autonomy. regardless of when or with whom she gets pregnant, she’s still expected to get pregnant and have children. while its unfortunately not explored, she does need to produce heirs.

now. i agree with you for the most part. rhaenyra’s relationships to her children really make no sense. the only one that’s fleshed out is jace, and while that is interesting in the “she’s doing to him exactly what viserys did to her,” it is not complex internally (in the same way alicent’s is). i also personally see joffery as an oops baby, but who really knows. i don’t even know how to explain her children with daemon. they were plot necessary i guess lmfao

the problem with rhaenyra and her children is that almost all of the critical moments in their relationships happen off screen during the time jump. its a structural tv show problem and it brings up these kinds of issues when looking deeper into the relationships she would actually have. i think the writers did a good job this season of making the internal conflict and intrapersonal strife within team black better, but this is just one of those things thats never going to be explored. in this sense we’ll never really know her true feelings or the development that could’ve happened—which is a massive shame.

my personal headcanon (so take with a grain of salt and don’t come for me), is that rhaenyra isn’t against the idea of children as a teenager, she’s against the childbirth. i believe this both because of the horrors of watching her mother’s repeated miscarriages and eventual death while in childbirth, and her consistent refrain of the desire to be a man. i think she wants, to her core, freedom and, as a woman, having a child requires much more sacrifice than having a child as a man.

i don’t personally see the change from not wanting children to totally wanting children as misogynistic, but i don’t blame you for seeing it that way because of the utter lack of canon explanation for it. again, i wasn’t really fair to you keeping this until season two was finished, but i think both alicent and rhaenyra’s relationships to motherhood were developed well.