#victims of their parentage

[english-history-trip]

The day before his execution, Charles I was permitted to see two of his children one last time. Elizabeth and Henry Stuart had been in the custody of Parliament since they were six and two years old, and were now thirteen and eight. The rest of Charles's family were in exile in France, aside from his eldest daughter Mary, who had married the Prince of Orange.

At her father's instruction, Elizabeth later wrote an account of the meeting. An onlooker recalled that she was weeping so heavily that "the king said 'Sweet-heart, you'll forget this,' but that she promised that she "shall never forget this, whilst I live," and pouring forth an abundance of tears, promised to write down the particulars."

Charles instructed her that she was to obey her eldest brother as the new king, and named her some Protestant books to read to "ground her against Popery," also gifting her a bible. He advised her to forgive his executioners, "but never to trust them, for they had been most false to him and to those that gave them power." More personally, he asked that she "tell my mother that his thoughts had never strayed from her, and that his love would be the same to the last."

Turning to the young Duke of Gloucester, he set the child on his knee, saying "Sweet-heart, now they will cut off thy father's head." He explained that Parliament might try to crown him as a puppet king, but warned "thou must not be a king as long as thy brothers Charles and James do live; for they will cut off your brothers' heads when they can catch them, and cut off thy head too at the last." Little Henry assuaged his father's fear by exclaiming "I will be torn in pieces first!"

Elizabeth would die in her captivity a year later, catching pneumonia after being made to travel while already sickly, allegedly found with her head resting on her father's bible. Her simple grave in a local church was marked only with her initials, ES. Henry would remain in custody for another two years, finally joining his family in exile. Elizabeth's story - the innocent princess becoming a forgotten casualty of war, became a popular subject for Victorian romanticists, with Queen Victoria herself commissioning a marble statue for her tomb. The statue shows Elizabeth with her head resting on her bible, an iron grate in front being lifted away.

[elegantwoes]

People who sing Rheagar and Lyanna is a love story are not getting a subject of the story their story echoes, Bael and the bard. In the current timeline, we have two other stories, that echo that Sansa and Jon, who were both held hostage and had to comply under the threat of death Sansa was molested on her wedding night, Jon was just raped and yes, in both stories, there was a kidnapping. both Sansa and Jon’s marriages did protect them and so did their status as a bastard protected them from death so if you look up on regarding Rheagar Lyanna‘s marriage, protected her from something and having a bastard did(from what I don’t know) but she was raped and she was kidnapped. our author has always pointed that when adults put children in sexual positions when they’re too young, for it didn’t die by that Lysa died to Peter because she raped him Drogo, and Viserys died to Daenerys  because they put her in that position. let’s not romanticize this not even an author does that 

Well said, dear anon. People often seem to forget that the Bael the Bard story is a negative story and being associated with that tale is not a good thing. We have three, actually four if we include Jon’s gender reverse version, bard figures (Bael, Rhaegar, Baelish, and Ygritte). Three of the four of them are outright villains who prey on a ‘Stark Maiden’. Based on that it makes sense that the second tale is as equally fucked up as the rest. Rhaegar and Lyanna are not a love story. To assume that it is, is an insult to poor Lyanna.

[justfandomwritings]

Who Hurt You? (Aemond Targaryen - Part One)

Pairing: Aemond x Niece!Unknown Parentage

Word Count: 7.6k

Warnings: This is a "Who Did This To You" trope so the OFC was a victim. It is not described in graphic detail, but please keep it in mind before reading if that may be triggering for you. Also Targaryen-typical cest.

Summary: There was no father in her life from whom she could seek protection in that moment, no father who could rush in and save her from this evil, who could swear to her it would never come for her again. But there was a voice, quiet and gentle and caring, which called out to her "Who hurt you?" and for a moment she thought that perhaps someone cared enough to listen to the answer.

“Princess?” 

How different might the world have been if Viserys had let Rhaenyra marry Daemon that night he’d bedded her in the brothel? How different might the world have been if Rhaenyra had run away with Criston Cole when he asked her to flee with him? How different might the world have been if Laenor had not been forced to marry her mother? How different might the world have been if Rhaenyra had not taken Harwin Strong into her chambers? How different might the world have been if she knew who her father was?

“Princess!”

Her features were a mixed bag, some that may have been Daemon, some that may have been Criston, some that may have been Laenor or Harwin, some that appeared to come from absolutely no one at all. Each of them had, at one time or another, looked at her with that sense of possibility, that she might be theirs or their worst enemies. All she could pinpoint were her eyes and her hair, Valyrian to her core. Many pointed to them as evidence of Daemon’s fatherhood of her. Her mother loudly touted it as proof that she was Laenor’s. She doubted it was proof of either so much as it was proof of Rhaenyra’s motherhood. Their hair, their eyes, were exactly the same shade. From the back, many had mistaken her for her mother over the years.

“Princess who did this to you?”

Some nights, when she was feeling particularly lonely, she would play pretend in her mind, decide which man was her father and play act at him loving her. She would pretend Daemon took her up on dragonback back and taught her to fly. She would pretend Ser Criston snuck her sweets and hugs whenever the court's backs were turned. She would pretend Laenor… Well, she never had to pretend with Laenor or Harwin. They had always loved her in their own ways, as much as they could anyway. 

“Princess? Who hurt you?”

If she knew her father, if she had a father at all, maybe she could go to him now. She could run inside to find Daemon; she could slide under the wing of Caraxes’ protection where she knew no one would ever hurt her again. She could run to Criston and beg him to take her away as he’d once offered her mother; he could draw his steel and beat back those who tried to hold her there. 

“Princess, who did this?”

Someone was grabbing her, shaking her. She felt it in a sense, but in a far greater sense she didn’t feel it at all. She knew it was happening, but she didn’t feel the hands that gripped her shoulders, that tugged her back and forth. The same with the voice, calling out to her. She knew it was there, knew what it was saying, but she couldn’t process the words.

“Princess, look at me.” 

Something had happened. Something terrible. She knew that much. She knew the rest too, but by the by it would not come to her. Something had happened to her. 

“Princess, you’re bleeding.”

Yes, she rather thought she was. Not a great deal, but certainly enough to be noticed. To be noticed by… someone. Did she even want to know who?

“Alarra!”

She heard that word. She knew that word. Her name. Laenor had given her that name. He had been so kind to her all the years she knew him. He had always treated her as a daughter, claimed her as a daughter, cared for her as a daughter, loved her as a daughter… at least from what she remembered. Perhaps those memories were colored rosy by death. Perhaps Laenor would not have made this situation any better; perhaps Harwin, perhaps a father of any kind, wouldn’t have either. Perhaps Ser Criston or Prince Daemon would have only made things worse. Perhaps this was simply her fate. 

“Alarra, who did this?”

She knew that voice. She’d known it the whole time, but she recognized it now. 

Tears welled up in her eyes, and Alarra blinked them away. Her eyes, against her will, regained their focus and brought her out of her daze. They brought her back to the world around her. She didn’t want them to. She wanted to stay there, in her head where she felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing. People couldn’t hurt her in her mind. In her body, people could hurt her. 

She must have been crying for some time without realizing while she was stuck in her head. Her eyes were already overwhelmed with tears, and she could feel their dried tracts down her cheeks. 

Aemond was more blur than man, hunched over in front of her, little more than overlapping shades of silver and black in her watery gaze. Yet even in her current state, there was no mistaking him. The details of his face were gone, but the vague black circle where an eye should have been marked him for who he was. 

“Alarra, who hurt you?” Aemond’s voice was quieter than it had been when it called her back to her body, like he knew then that she couldn’t hear him and knew now that she could. 

Of course it would be Aemond. Of course he would be the one to find her at her weakest, at her most vulnerable. He had a way of doing that, finding her weak spots. 

“Who did this?”

In response, Alarra’s body racked with a sob. Her shoulders were shaking with the force of how hard she cried, and it made some still disassociated part of her mind wonder if Aemond had touched her at all, if Aemond had actually shaken her shoulders as she thought or if it had been her body crying the whole time.

“Alarra, I’m going to take you to the Maester now.” Aemond touched a gentle hand to her upper arm, a far gentler touch than she had ever felt from him before, far gentler than she thought him capable of. 

“NO!” She jerked back the moment she realized what he said. Her hands clutched her dress to her chest to keep it from falling as she frantically skittered back on the ground away from him. “I can’t- you can’t- they’ll- no- no- no-”

Why couldn’t Jace have found her? Or Luce? She would give anything for one of her brothers to be here. She would even take her mother or, gods forbid, Daemon right now. 

The bush at her back poked and scraped against her bare shoulders and kept her from moving further away. It reminded her of her present state, of the dress barely clinging to her form and the bruises already coloring her arms and the cuts still bleeding at her collar. 

“As you say,” Aemond held up his hands in a mock surrender. She could see him now, the panic clearing her eyes of tears. His own eye was narrowed, though not judging or angry, for once, merely cautious. 

“No maester…” He stayed there, frozen and unmoving until Alarra ceased, till her feet stopped slipping and sliding uselessly over the ground, pushing for every inch of distance she could win away from him, till her shoulders stopped curling in on themselves hiding the more vulnerable parts of her body from him in favor of her partially exposed back. 

Even when she stopped trying to put distance between them, when she relaxed with the surety that he wasn’t going to force her to the Maester, he did not move any closer, did not break the silence in the air. 

He watched her patiently, as he so often did. And she, as she so often did, looked away. 

“If you take me to the Maester…” Alarra hiccuped around another tearless sob. She felt a need to explain herself to him, to explain before he jumped to his own conclusions. 

She hiccuped again as she prepared to subject herself to the mercies of one of the most merciless creatures she knew. “If you take me to the Maester, they’ll say my virtue — He didn’t. I swear he didn’t, but they’ll say he did— What with the rumors about my father, they will say… They will...” 

Neither of them needed to address the fact that Aemond was very much included in the ‘they’ whom Alarra feared talking. 

Aemond had long questioned the Velaryons’ parentage. He had relished toying with her brothers’ features that clearly weren’t Valyrian, basked in the opportunity to avenge a childhood of mockery and wrongs. She had never before been the subject of his wrath, mercifully spared by a childhood friendship, but the gods knew this opportunity would be too good to miss if she didn’t confront it.

“They will…” She couldn’t help mumbling the incomplete thought under her breath.

When Alarra found the courage to meet his gaze again, Aemond’s one eye was already boring a hole through hers with its intensity, and Alarra thought, not for the first time, that perhaps the gods themselves had plucked out Aemond’s eye. If for no other reason than to quell a potential challenger. 

“Please,” she wasn’t sure if there was enough air left in her lungs to voice the word, but she tried to speak it anyway, pushed it out between her lips like a quiet prayer to the gods, a quiet prayer to Aemond.

Aemond looked to be calculating his own course through these uncharted waters just as much as he appeared to be studying her reactions. 

“We cannot stay here, Princess,” Aemond spoke in a very stilted, calculated tone, like one reading facts from a book. “You are injured. Your appearance is disheveled. Your dress is in tatters, and if I was as without honor as your family thought I was I could see every inch of your front simply by glancing down.”  

Alarra subconsciously clutched her torn dress tighter to her. It was true. The blade had sliced clean through the neck and shoulders of her dress as it cut across her skin. The front would have fallen off long ago if not for her hand, and the weight of the damned thing and lack of support had long exposed huge swaths of skin to the cool night air. 

Though, admittedly, up until Aemond’s arrival her dress had been her least concern. 

Alarra turned her eyes down to her dress for the first time, again to avoid Aemond’s gaze. It was destroyed. The sleeves were gone; the embroidery was pilling and torn; the skirt was caked in mud; and worst of all, what remained of the neckline was soaked in her blood.

Without warning, Aemond stood.

Alarra’s eyes shot back up and her whole body tensed for a moment before she realized what he was doing.

Aemond wrenched off his black, Targaryen cloak and in the same flourish draped it over Alarra. She grabbed for it as it fluttered down, holding it to her chest. 

“Th-Thank you,” she stuttered out the words. 

Aemond’s cloak. She was wearing Aemond’s cloak. 

Aemond ignored her platitudes, which was just as well for her since she wouldn’t have known what else to say to him. “I’m going to touch you now, Princess,” Aemond said in warning. “I won’t harm you, and there will be no Maesters. I’ll only carry you to your chambers through the servant’s halls.” 

It was a chore, to force herself to calm enough for him to touch her, but she knew it was the best course. Her dress was well torn and would trail in ribbons behind her, and she was not sure she could walk. There was no physical damage to her legs, but she did not relish the idea of trying to rise to her feet in this state. Her upper body quaked even now; her legs would no doubt collapse if she so much as attempted to use them. 

Aemond approached slowly, cautiously. He looked like a predator about to put his prey out of its misery. She knew he wasn’t going to hurt her, at least not physically, but by the gods Aemond couldn’t help looking like the hunter. There was something to his face. Power perhaps, a touch of ruthlessness, the confidence he had lacked as a child. 

His hands slipped around her, one high on her back while his other dipped under her knees. He was ever so careful in the placement of his hands, tucking the cloak around her in his grip to avoid touching any skin.  He stood with her in his arms, and she thought of anything else to help even out her breathing as she felt a man’s touch brushing against her even through fabric.

Being at home on the rocky beaches of Dragonstone. The soft feel of braiding her mother’s hair. The sound of a crackling fire in her room. The smell of the salty, ocean breeze off the water. The taste of her favorite wine on her tongue. 

Every hall Aemond turned down she made a new list, and her breathing remained steady so long as she kept thinking of things. 

Balerion’s skull on a pedestal lit by candles. The dowse of warm water as Jace threw her in the sea. Caraxes’s roar when he flew overhead. The scented oils anointing her baby brother’s skin. Luce’s piss poor attempt at roasting rabbit as they camped in the woods.

Aemond said nothing while she made her lists. Perhaps he was calculating some plan of his own; perhaps he was simply giving her the space to think. Before tonight, she would have presumed the former, but now she was unsure.

Viserys on the throne. The soft threads of her embroidery. The nurses singing lullabies. The awful smell of the stables. A morning cup of tea. 

They walked in absolute silence, and Aemond took every precaution not to be seen. He ducked down the hidden passages known only to those who had truly mastered the keep; he stopped at the sound of every approaching footstep and hid behind pillars or corners. At one point, he pulled her into an abandoned meeting hall for several minutes as two servants stopped outside to chat. 

That had been a particularly painful few minutes, and she had refocused her efforts to list those things that meant the most to her.

Witnessing Daemon and Rhaenyra’s wedding. Vermax’s rough scales under her fingers as Jacaerys introduced her to his dragon. Harwin comforting her with sweet words after a cruel bout of insults about her father. The smell of smoke when her mother took her up on Syrax. The odd tasting fish Laenor cooked for her every nameday.

“Princess,” Aemond’s voice, as surprisingly gentle as it had been before, called out to her, “would you get the door?”

It was the first thing Aemond said on their walk. 

She mindlessly pushed open the door of her chambers, not even realizing that they’d reached them. “You can right me here, Aemond.” 

Aemond didn’t hear her, or perhaps he ignored her. He did not deposit her in the doorway as she asked; he crossed the room and set her gently back on the edge of her bed. 

“Thank you,” she said, more out of habit than anything. She owed him her thanks to be sure, but her mind was too occupied with other things to mean it. 

“Of course, Princess,” Aemond fingered the edge of the cloak still covering her. “I can leave this with you,” he offered, “but people will question why you have my cloak. It is your choice.” 

Alarra released her death grip on the fabric, and Aemond didn’t tug it away until it seemed she had firm grip on the dress beneath. 

Aemond stood to his full height and turned to leave. “I will leave you to your night. We will talk again when you are well.”  

She watched his back retreat for only a few steps before she could resist no longer.

“Please Aemond,” Alarra whispered into the night air as if the silence were glass and her words a falling hammer that might break it were she not gentle enough. 

Aemond paused at her door and turned back. 

She wasn’t sure what possessed her to speak, to ask. It was too much to ask. She knew it was too much to ask, especially of him.  “If you ever cared for me at all, as friend or family… do not tell anyone about tonight?”

His eye was not as intense as it stared at her now. It was softer, more discerning. 

That, or more likely the distance buffered the spear of his gaze.

“You are owed justice, Princess.” Aemond replied as he stepped back from the door and let his hand fall from the handle.  

Alarra had expected a simple yes or no, even if the yes was a lie. But then, she hadn’t expected him to find her in the garden. She hadn’t expected him to help her if he did. And she certainly hadn’t expected him to care if she received justice. 

Aemond crossed the room in long strides and knelt down before her, resting a gentle, almost hesitant hand on the top of her exposed knee. “You are owed justice, and you shall have it.”

“But I…” 

Aemond didn’t understand. And how could he. He was a man. He could fuck his way through half of Flea Bottom, and Viserys wouldn’t bat an eye. Aegon already had, and the greatest repercussions he’d faced had been the occasional cold shoulder for his lack of decorum. Aemond was a man, and unlike women, men could demand justice when they were wronged. 

“If I say anything… the rumors… I’ll be ruined. He will say he ruined me, and no one will believe me, not over a man. The moment he opens his mouth, it will be my fault, and I will be ruined.” The tears in her were hardening into something more as her voice became more clipped, “No assurances from the Maester that I am untouched will be sufficient to quell the mongers. My first child will be a bastard no matter when he’s born or to whom, and no man will have me accompanied by such a stain.”

This, of all things, was what Alarra was complaining about, what she was forced to worry about. It made her sick. She felt the bile rising in her throat even now, and she tried to swallow it down. 

This was not what she truly cared about. Alarra wanted nothing more than time to grieve herself, grieve her pain, grieve what had been done to her, but she could not have it. And not simply for Aemond’s presence.

It would have been the same if it were any other man who found her. It would have been the same if it were the queen or even her mother. And even if she hadn’t been found at all, it would have been the same tomorrow, or the next day, or whatever day that monster of a man finally came forward and opened his mouth about what he’d done to her. 

She would be expected to be unshaken, unperturbed by any trauma. Her first and only concern would be expected to be her house, her reputation, and her family, not her own wellbeing. 

The council, monsters that they were, may even demand she marry him, to be sure of the bloodlines.

The tears began to fall again, and she mourned not just what had been done to her and taken from her, not just her sense of safety and security, not just her sense of self, but also the mask she would have to wear come morning. She mourned because she knew it was her last chance to mourn. She mourned because she knew that even now she wasn’t supposed to mourn, for Aemond was watching.

“Leave that to me, Princess.” Aemond’s hand reached up, and a thumb gently brushed away her newest tears, “I swear to you, on my life and my dragon’s. No one will question your honor.”

Alarra scoffed. Such a fond notion. If it came from her brothers she might have thought them naive enough to think such a thing could be done. If it came from her brothers she might have thought them sweet enough to try. But this was Aemond, and he was not sweet. And he was certainly not so naive. 

“You can’t promise that.” Alarra closed her eyes to avoid looking into his.

“I can. I have my ways, Princess. Do not concern yourself with such trifling things as other’s expectations of you now. I will see to those. You need only worry after how to feel yourself again.”

It was as though he’d read her mind and pulled out the exact thing she wished he'd say. If he were Jace, she would have leaned into his hand on her cheek and fallen asleep, not trusting that all would be well by morning but trusting at least that he would be by her side when it wasn’t. 

But this was Aemond, and another tear slid down her cheek from behind her eyelids. She wasn’t sure if she could trust him, but by the gods did she want to. 

“Alarra, tell me. Who did this to you? Name the man who forfeited his life tonight.”

For a moment, her breath caught in her throat before…

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“You violated guests' rights, broke into a lord’s bedchambers, dragged him out of bed, drew your blade on him, carved out his tongue, and left him to be found by the servants who heard his cries!” 

For the first time in many, many years, Viserys Targaryen looked like a dragon.

It was enough to quell the room to a still silence. It was enough to make the young ones quake with something akin to fear.

The Targaryens and Velaryons, the family, were the only ones called into the throne room for this particular trial. It was not, as so many usually were, made known to the nobility or even the entirety of the Small Council. Even the Kingsguard, save Cole, had been asked to wait outside. The King had kept it quiet, assembled the necessary parties, and immediately begun questioning his second son the same morning the young knight had been found dismantled on the floor of his guest chambers in the Red Keep. 

Aemond stood firm in front of his father’s rebuke. Arms tucked behind his back, feet shoulder width apart, he said, as though he were discussing the weather, “I also knocked out all his teeth.”

Aemond thought he might have heard Aegon snort.

“HE IS A TYRELL!” Viserys lurched to his feet, cutting his palm on the throne he moved so quickly. His finger stabbed at the man, leaning on Ser Criston for support, looking ever the pitiful victim. “A TYRELL! AND THE GUEST OF YOUR KING!”

The pain of the blades did not seem to register to Viserys, and even the usually attentive Alicent did not move to help her king as blood ran down the tip of Viserys’s finger.

On Aemond’s eye’s side of the hall, the Velaryons formed one strong line in his peripheral vision, ever the picture of courtly decorum even as Jacaerys and Lucerys no doubt wanted to jump with glee. They were all quelled to a state little more than statues by the severity of the moment.

Only Alarra stood out of line. Only Alarra was not frozen in stone. She stood behind her mother, peaking out at him between Rhaenyra and Daemon’s shoulders, watching him with a gaze that flashed between awe, pity, shame, and something akin to desperation.

Aemond looked away. He did not let his gaze linger long on her. Much as he wanted to dissect the moods haunting her every feature, he refused to draw the kind of attention to her that observing her would require. 

“Not an important one. Second son of a third son,” Aemond shrugged nonchalantly. “I assure you House Tyrell will not be greatly aggrieved by his loss.”

Viserys’s frame shook as though it could not contain his rage within his body. “On what grounds, Aemond!” 

Aemond stood firm. Truly, his father could yell all he liked. When he wanted to be, Aemond could be a terrifyingly patient man. His patience would far outlast his father’s anger. Not merely for the fact his father was too physically weak to maintain this rebuke for long. 

“I apologize, my King,” Aemond endeavored at civility, “but the grounds are not mine to say.”

That seemed to take Viserys back. Something cold, dark, came into his tone. “You would dare refuse your King.”

“I do not refuse my King. I have freely admitted to what I have done.” Aemond answered with an equally deadly calm.

A pin could have been heard dropping on the stones as Viserys took a shaky step down from the throne. “The Tyrells will make you take oaths for this, and I will not refuse them. They will ask to send you to the Wall.”

Aemond swallowed down his pride, swallowed down the urge to rage that it was the Tyrell who should be sent to the Wall, swallowed down the urge to cut through his father’s presumptions about the night. 

With a bitter taste in his mouth, Aemond bowed his head, “If my king commands.”

“Aemond,” His mother finally broke the silence of the rest of the room as she hissed at him, “Defend yourself.”

Aemond’s eyes stayed straight ahead, watching his father. 

“You heard your mother! Explain yourself boy!” Viserys commanded. “You have dishonored this house; you will give your reasons for this!”

“My reasons are my own. If the Wall is the price of his tongue so be it. I will not-“

There was a commotion amongst the Velaryons as all eyes turned to see Alarra pushing past Rhaenyra and jerking out of the grip her good father tried to clasp her in. 

“He was defending me, your Grace,” Alarra called even as she crossed the room. Daemon and Rhaenyra’s attempts to stop the girl halted as she loudly made her declaration.

Alarra dropped into a short curtsy next to Aemond before taking a similar stance to his beside him. Awaiting judgment. 

Aemond clenched his jaw tightly. He thought he might’ve felt a tooth crack. He did not glare down at his niece, much as he wanted to, nor did he chase her back behind her parents, much as he wanted to. 

Resisting the urge was not without complaint, and a huff slipped past his lips. The whole point of cutting out the man’s tongue had been so he could not speak of what he’d done to her. And now she loudly declared it in open court.

Was she trying to save him? Really, did she think Viserys would actually send him to the Wall? He would order it done then change his mind and settle for some brief exile or other. He would go to Essos, fight a war, become the next Daemon. 

“You must forgive Aemond for any impertinence.” 

Yes. She was trying to save him. 

Alarra’s head was hung as she addressed her King. “It was merely for the sake of protecting me. Ser Wendell attacked me in the garden last night, your Grace. Aemond was my rescuer. That is how Ser Wendell came to lose his tongue. If the Tyrells demand an oath, let me give it in his stead. Aemond has acted with nothing but honor.”

There was a quiet after Alarra finished speaking. Somewhere outside, knights in armor were walking past the throne room. 

The first sound to break the silence was a wordless, toneless groan.

Ser Criston had let go of Ser Wendell, and Wendell had swayed on the spot for a moment before Ser Criston had kicked the man to his knees.

“Attacked you!” Viserys stumbled back to sit in his throne, breathing heavily, seemingly exhausted as the anger within him at his own son quelled in the face of this new revelation. “In what way, dear girl, has this knight attacked you? Has he dishon-”

“No,” Aemond cut off the King before he could finish voicing the word. He had promised no one would question her on this. “I saw what was transpiring from the balcony. At first it seemed nothing more than a spat. When I realized he’d drawn a blade…” He was cut off by his sister’s loud gasp. “I came to her aid as quickly as I could. I am sorry to say I could not prevent all of what transpired, but I assure you my niece’s virtues remain entirely intact. I would swear to it. His honor was the only thing destroyed last night.”

Wendell, on his knees in front of Cole, made loud, wordless noises and gestured wildly in the direction of Aemond and Alarra. 

Aemond sneered and rested his hand back on the hilt of his sword, the blade letting out a threatening ‘shink’ noise as he unsheathed the first inch. Wendell shrunk back, his arms freezing though his mouth still blubbered on. “You can still lose your hand, Ser Wendell.” 

“Or your head.”

All blubbering ceased.

For all of his bluster and rage and shouting and for all the silence and fear it evoked, there was nothing Viserys could do to chill a room like those three words said by that voice. 

“Why does he live?” Daemon continued. His voice was as cold as the Stranger’s embrace, and his eyes glaring across the hall at Ser Wendell just as steady.

The question was for Aemond, he knew, but Daemon made no move to address him directly.

“The coward fled even as I arrived. Alarra was quite merciful in her pleas that hunting him down to slaughter was not justice. So I quelled my anger with his tongue.”

“And his teeth,” Aegon muttered under his breath. 

Aemond’s head jerked around, and he sneered at his brother. “His teeth were incidental. If he hadn’t so resisted losing his tongue, he’d still have them. They had to be gotten out of the way.”

Daemon paid no mind to the bickering between the brothers. He sauntered forth, like a lion stalking its prey.

“Alarra wished to have justice?” 

Daemon stopped then, in front of Wendell, staring down at the man. 

Aemond’s eyes flitted to the woman in question. 

Alarra was watching Ser Wendell almost as intently as Daemon watched him. The way Aemond remembered she used to watch the bugs that frightened her as a child, like she had to know where he was at all times, like she had to keep him in her sights or he may sneak up on her some other way, even tongueless and on his knees with the man visibly pissing himself.

“Yes, she did.” Aemond answered for her.

“He has no tongue,” Daemon mused. His head tilted to one side, and from where he stood Aemond could see the tug at the corner of Daemon’s mouth. “I suppose the only fair trial he will have is by combat.” When he wanted, Daemon’s smile could truly be a thing of evil. 

Alarra looked ready to be sick.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a chore to escape her rooms that night. Her mother had posted two guards to her door in an effort to make her feel more comfortable, but when the unfamiliar faces introduced themselves and took up their station it only made her feel more cut off, more alone. She felt suffocated by the presence of these strangers she did not know or trust blocking her primary exit from her room. 

Climbing out the window had seemed the logical thing to do. 

She could not sleep and had not eaten at dinner. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to do either, but she was sure she didn’t want to feel trapped. 

Her feet took her around the back halls of the palace, wandering paths where no one would dare to look for her. It was around the fourth or fifth hall, in front of the room they had stopped for minutes on end, that she realized the path her feet had been carrying her along. She made no attempt to stop it. Or maybe she did and her feet didn’t listen. 

The garden was beautiful, if a little more terrifying. The moonbeams that had always made the water in the pool seem to glint now only seemed to cast shadows under the hedges. The flowers which were so beautiful and richly hued at twilight had bigger thorns this week than last. 

“I would have thought wandering the keep at night was not to your taste anymore. Least of all here, Princess.”

Alarra did not so much as jump when she heard the voice. If anything, her shoulders seemed to loosen their tension.  

“I could not sleep. My feet brought me here, and I-I cannot say why I did not leave.” She answered the unasked question. 

Aemond came to stand beside her against the bannister, putting his back to the garden and instead facing her. “We all fight our battles differently, I suppose.”

“I appear to be losing mine.”

Aemond chuckled humorlessly. “On the contrary Princess, I think you are the champion of House Targaryen.”

Alarra finally tore herself away from the spot on the grass she had been trying to burn with her eyes alone. “I feel like the Queen of Fools. I keep thinking of everything I should have done, ways I could have stopped him, things I wanted to say.”

Aemond paused for a long moment, quietly considering his response.

“Even if there are things you could have done, that does not make you the Queen of Fools… though I understand why you would think such a thing.” Aemond assented. His head turned so his eye could stare out at the sky, and Alarra watched his profile in detail. He cut a far less intimidating figure tonight than he usually did in the light of day. “I am the same with my duels with Ser Criston. I berate myself for weeks after each loss, picking them apart in my mind. I play each out a hundred different ways. It helps at first, helps me become a better fighter, better swordsmen. I study it until I know I will never make the same mistakes again. But eventually, I have to move on.”

Aemond turned his eye back to her. “For one simple reason, Princess. Those are all things I know to do differently now, but I did not know them then. One day, you will wake up and realize that the only thing you could have done that night, with what you knew then, is exactly what you did. Every idea you think of you can apply if the situation arises again, but you cannot expect yourself to have known those things before you knew them.”

Alarra pulled her eyes away forcefully and stared down at where it happened. He was right, in a way. She just wasn’t sure that made anything better. 

“Do not trouble yourself with moving on now, Princess. The last fight isn’t over until I’ve stopped thinking about it, and I can’t win the next one until it is… but if it takes me weeks to move past something as petty as a lost duel, I wager you are allowed more than a night to move past this.”

“And how many nights can I go before I collapse during the day?” Alarra asked quietly. “This is the second night I have not slept, and my mother’s solution is to put my life in the hands of men I know no better than Wendell.”

That did seem to make Aemond pause. He always thought before he spoke, and the man thought hard now for what to say and how.

“I can-if it please you of course-think of one alternative.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“She will not harm you, Princess,” Aemond assured her. 

Alarra stared up at the dragon looming over her. Her feet had frozen to the ground the moment she realized where Aemond was taking her, which given her distracted, absent state of mind had not been until they were standing on the beach with the dark, hulking mass of Vhagar casting shadows in the moonlight illuminating their skin.

She swallowed and shrunk back further into the meager protection of her cloak as Vhagar shifted and grumbled in her sleep. A puff of smoke floated away on her exhale.

“Princess,” Aemond stepped between her and Vhagar, his back to the creature. He caught her chin between his fingers and tilted her head so her gaze was forced to meet his eye. “Princess, do you trust me?”

“Trusting you is not the issue at the moment, Aemond.” Alarra mumbled.

“You’ve been around dragons many times.”  Aemond said it as both a statement and a question.

Alarra nodded. “Yes of course, but never Vhagar.”

“She’s no different than any other dragon.” Aemond stipulated.

“Only that she’s thrice as large and thrice as deadly. She's so large Arrax could sleep in her jaw.” Her tone was more biting than she meant for it to be. 

Alarra’s eyes wandered back over Aemond’s shoulder. She couldn’t help it. Not with her sleeping right there. 

"I'd be a fool not to be warry, Aemond. We all would be. She's conquered kingdoms. She's killed dragons."

"None of yours." 

"Well, I don't have one to kill."

Aemond rolled his good eye. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course.” Alarra bit back immediately. It was an instinctual answer this time. An instinct that had formed over the course of only two days, but an instinct nonetheless. If she had been thinking clearly, Alarra would have lied and said no or at least pretended to consider her answer before she tacitly agreed to trust him. Yet with the figure silhouetting Aemond, it was impossible to take time to think and consider anything seriously. 

Something softened, only slightly, in Aemond's expression as he heard her response. “Come.” She hadn’t realized till his hand dropped away that he had been cradling her chin the whole time, drawing her eyes back to his as it did. “I would never hurt you, and she does as I bid. If it helps, keep your eyes on me.” 

Aemond took Alarra’s hand in his and turned. Staring at him did help. Alarra glared daggers into Aemond’s back as he pulled her along towards Vhagar. Though, t he daggers turned to spears as her peripheral saw the beast open its’ eyes. 

“Do not look.” Alarra whispered to herself.

Aemond chuckled, shoulders shaking, and she realized she’d spoken the reassurance out loud. 

“Easy to laugh with the most fearsome creature in all the world under your control.” Alarra snipped quietly at him. 

Aemond squeezed Alarra’s hand in response, as he had so many times that night, so many times since he found her in the garden. “Tonight she is hardly mine.”  Aemond stopped a mere arms length from the head of the dragon. 

Vhagar had not moved but to open her eyes, and Alarra felt them watching her as she stared intensely at the space between Aemond’s shoulder blades. If she didn’t look, didn’t challenge the dragon, maybe she would make it out of this alive. 

“Hello Vhagar,” Aemond’s free hand reached up and trailed over the scales on the underside of her snout, the only place he could truly reach.

Vhagar huffed in response and tilted her head ever so slightly towards Aemond’s palm. Alarra clutched his hand more tightly in response.

“Konīr iksos nykeā hāedar nyke jaelagon ao naejot rhaenagon.” There is someone I want you to meet. Aemond said the words to Vhagar gently, reverently, asking her permission as much as telling her.

“Oh Aemond,” Alarra tugged at the hand he was holding. “I can’t. I’m not-“

Aemond didn’t loose his grip. He clenched down and tugged Alarra out from behind him. He pulled her under his raised arm and tucked her into his side, never letting go of her hand on the other side of her body, instead choosing to wrap his arm around her. “Alarra,” by necessity given their difference in height, Aemond leaned down towards her ear, “I know. Trust me. I know.”

Of course he knew. Everyone knew. The Targaryen who couldn’t ride a dragon. The would-be queen who couldn’t claim a mount. The undeserving heir. 

Alarra’s head dipped slightly away at the reminder. 

Aemond lifted their entwined fingers and took a step behind Alarra. For a moment her heart leapt being alone in front of Vhagar, but Aemond quickly pressed himself into her back, shuffling her forward to reach the dragon. He placed Alarra’s palm on Vhagar’s snout where his had been moments before. 

Vhagar huffed, and Alarra tried to retreat her hand, but Aemond held it still. 

“Easy girl.” Alarra didn’t know whether he was talking to her or the dragon. 

“Gīda, Vhagar. Gīda.” Aemond leaned over Alarra’s frame, pressing her even closer to the dragon, and laid his forehead to one of Vhagar's scales. 

The dragon's chest rumbled and she nudged back against him. Alarra’s hand twitched in Aemond’s grip under the shifting scales, but she made no move to pull it away. 

“Vhagar, bisa iksos Alarra.” Vhagar, this is Alarra . Aemond pulled his forehead back and began running his hands, the free one and the one trapping Alarra in its grip, over the beast. 

With the sound of his voice telling her to calm, Vhagar’s gaze shifted to her rider with a wary eye, and being out from under the dragon's gaze took a great deal of the weight from Alarra’s chest. 

“R-Rytsas.” Alarra hesitantly addressed the dragon. 

Aemond smiled appreciatively down at Alarra and let go of her hand.  She kept it there on Vhagar’s snout though she stopped her stroking. 

Alarra stayed frozen where Aemond left her waiting instruction on how to proceed while the dragonrider stepped out from behind her. Aemond stood under the edge of Vhagar's snout and held his arms out in what would have been a hug if the dragon were smaller.

Aemond's tone was soft as he spoke to his dragon. “īlon jāhor sagon ēdrure kesīr rūsīr ao.” 

Alarra’s head whipped around and her hand fell in shock. 

We will be staying with you tonight. 

Aemond paid no mind to Alarra’s shock. addressing only his dragon. “ Ziry iksos aōha āeksio sir. Mīsagon zȳhon rȳ ry. ”

Treat her as your master as well. Protect her at all cost.  

There was a pause of several moments before Vhagar’s gargantuan tail lifted from the sand and smacked back down. Whatever passed between Aemond and the dragon, he seemed to understand this as acceptance. “Thank you Vhagar.” 

Aemond scooped up Alarra’s fallen hand and tugged her down Vhagar’s length away from her snout and towards her belly. “This should do for now,” Aemond said over his shoulder. “Sand is not as soft as a bed, but it is a far cry better than wandering the keep all night.”

Aemond let go of her and dropped down on the beach, looking up expectantly at Alarra.

Alarra remained standing above the prince staring down at him in stunned silence. 

Aemond watched her shock for a long moment before he said. “You've said yourself Vhagar is the most fearsome creature in the world, Alarra. Yes?”

Alarra nodded numbly. 

“Well?” Aemond gestured around them. Vhagar’s tail had flopped in a ring closer to her head, leaving the pair of them in a nearly perfectly closed loop encircled by the most powerful creature in existence. “I assure you anyone that makes it past Vhagar won’t make it past me.” 

Alarra wasn’t bothered by that notion. No, she was fairly certain this was precisely what Daemon and his loyal guards frequently joked about as ‘overkill’ when discussing old battles. She didn’t feel safe in her room, and instead of suggesting she get to know her guards or offering her Criston for the night Aemond had taken her here, to a veritable fortress of his own making, safer than anything Maegor had ever built. 

No, it wasn’t the threats outside of the circle that gave her pause. It was those within, or rather the lack thereof. 

“Aemond…” Alarra remained on her feet even as he offered her a hand down into the sand. “Aemond…”

Aemond raised an eyebrow. “If it is being alone with me that causes hesitation, I can return for you before morning. Vhagar will keep you-”

“ Āeksio?” Master?

Something washed over Aemond then, trading the pause from Alarra to him.

Alarra spoke quietly, as though she was afraid someone would overhear what Aemond had just done. “Ao gīmigon skoros bona udir means. Ao daor gūrogon bona arlī.” You know what that word means. You know you cannot take it back.

Aemond’s brow furrowed. He seemed to think for a moment before deciding to respond, in equally flawless Valyrian. “Nyke jāhor daor jaelagon naejot.” I will not wish to.

Alarra, still as stunned as ever, took the hand he offered her then and followed him to the sands.

[willicebattlecatsblog]

AU scene that takes place when Hollyleaf is believed to be dead in the tunnels !

i've always been bothered by how Brambleclaw burned the bridge so easily with his adopted kits just because they weren't biologically his. They were victims in the situation, just as he was, and the fact that he never tried to understand that is just baffling to me ???

We see Squirrelflight and Leafpool actively trying to talk it out with Lionblaze and Jayfeather, but Brambleclaw never attempts to reassure them. He just says a few lies when Hollyleaf comes back to defend her, and we are meant to believe that it means he still loves the Three, despite ignoring them and not caring for them over several books ???

The isolation Jay and Lion feel in their chapters in genuinely saddening at times, their own clanmates judge them, they have to deal with their real parentage, and their adoptive father has decided to stop caring about them because they aren't related. I wish Jay and Lion told Bramble how much of a douche he is for abandoning them while they were obviously in need of support and comfort :(((

Fun fact I like to imagine that Jayfeather has a big growth spurt at some point and he is just really long and skinny while Lionblaze is short and stocky and is 90% fur (forbidden lionblaze body type)

[the-daily-dreamer]

I know Cersei Lannister would be team black. But not in an in universe “Rhaenyra deserved the crown way”. Rather a team black fandom kind of way.

Like yessssss! Bastards aren’t really bastards if the king or their father accepts them! Hair color means nothing about parentage, genetics are funky like that! Of course murdering a political opponent who calls out your children as bastards is totally justified and right! It’s putting the children in danger! Absolutely we should be angry at any naive teenage girl who doesn’t violently claw her way out of being a victim! Screw innocent teenage girls, they deserve it! Incest is so totally chill and cool, in fact birthing out of your house taints your blood and when you’re #special you can’t have that! And of course, madness from incest isn’t real! As long as your children are physically perfect and beautiful that’s all that matters!

Like I just know Cersei would be kicking and screaming reading the team black blogs because you’re telling me everything she believes and wants others to believe is just unironically spouted by team black? You’re telling me all she had to do was be a Targaryen and everyone would be doing backflips trying to protect her every choice?

I know she would be a number 1 team black blog spouting off their talking points and then not so subtly posting about herself like “hey come to think of it Joffrey and Tommen aren’t bastards either. Right? We should all support them. And also fuck Sansa Stark” and they would EAT IT UP.

[kataraavatara]

team green discourse is so wild because on tumblr it’s “alicent was a victim of rhaenyra’s MENTAL ABUSE because rhaenyra did not tell the truth about her son’s parentage” and you’re like ok someone has a victim complex they’re projecting onto fictional characters moving on and then you get to team green TikTok and they’re making aegon ii edits to hitler speeches and then you’re just like. oh.

[arabellasleopardcoat]

Canvas of imagination (Daemon Targaryen x Reader)

Summary: On the eve of Rhaenyra's wedding, Daemon decides the best gift he can give to the father of the bride is a dreamer. A shame said dreamer does not seem to share the joy of the occasion.

Warnings: Kidnapping. Period typical misogyny. Violence. Unflattering depiction of characters (You might hate me for this)

A/N: Remember please, Daemon is an unreliable narrator. Here is where things start to get dark. I researched genetics for this and ended up really insecure. Read the previous part here.

There are many ways of silencing women. Murder is, of course, one. It’s not an elegant solution, but it is an effective one. It ensures the victim takes her secrets to the grave. Daemon likes to think himself more elegant than that.

There is, too, the possibility of a ruined reputation. But that strategy is one that is only effective towards women of a certain standing. You can hardly ruin what are already damaged goods, and a bastard certainly counts as damaged goods.

Daemon still could chuck you off Caraxes mid-flight. Yet, it does not seem like a good idea, either. Each one of your servants saw you get chained to his saddle. Not even Viserys’s intervention could save him from the angry mob of commoners that would await his return to the Vale.

Besides, he likes you there, mounted on his dragon. For once, quiet, too scared of screaming and disturbing Caraxes. Daemon likes the lack of noise, but he likes your presence much more. It would be foolish to silence a dreamer forever.

You need other kinds of chains. To tie you to him. Silencing you, when he does not want to hear. One often used for Targaryen women.

Marriage. A Bronze Bitch for another. But not exactly, is it? Not if you can truly see the future.

Perhaps this was meant to happen, then. As a way of honoring his ancestors. Grabbing a pretty maid, one with Valyrian gifts and…

Well. Children are another kind of chain, right? He is still not sold on the perks of bedding you. You are wrong. Too dark, too different. Nothing like Rhaenyra, and slightly older than her. But Daemon knows the children you will birth him will be strong. The gift on you is, after all.

To be able to look so far into the future speaks of a power unseen before. Targaryens have not been blessed by many dreamers in the last generations, and the few times they were, their gifts were fickle and weak. Not far enough to allow them to see further than days. The last time someone was able to look further was in the age of Aegon the Conqueror.

It must mean Valyrian descent. Nothing else is an acceptable answer. Even if you don’t look it.

Daemon mounts behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. You feel soft in his arms. Perhaps bedding you will not be as bad. He had been afraid that you would be like Rhea. Those inquisitive eyes of her, the body as hard as the body of any man. They were not features he enjoyed on a female partner. It always turned him off.

It was not that he had refused to consummate the marriage. He wasn’t able to bed her, the awful bitch. Not only were her features off-putting, but her attitude. She was constantly trying to sit on his hips, push him down, and he couldn’t stand it. Daemon felt trapped. Emasculated.

He had to chase the shame, the powerlessness away, somehow. That was how he got started fucking whores, collecting maidenheads. It was much better when women were maidens. Easier. He likes the contrasts, Daemon has realized. Half women, half children are always more entertaining to play with.

You are not Rhea. You feel different in his arms. Your body is soft, all sweet limbs. There are no harsh muscles on your arms, and you smell like fresh baked pastries. Rhea always smelled of horse.

You are a girl, not a warrior like your sister was. Yet, you share her wild spirit. All the delicious curves of womanhood are already formed, a delicious pair of tits and hips that could drive any man to insanity.

Your parentage is a bit more undesirable, though. As the daughter of a whore, your innocence could be sullied. Daemon would have to ask if you were passed around when younger. He doubted it, but just in case. If you had not, bedding you would be the most fun he had in years. Open-minded, hot-blooded, but pure. It was not often you found that in a woman.

You try to squirm, but are too well bound. Getting too comfortable for his liking.

“Soves. ” He orders. Caraxes obeys. You shriek in terror, and Daemon hugs you harder against him. That, too, he likes. The helplessness, the honest reaction of someone who was denied her birthright. The amazement, once you settle down and notice that Caraxes will not drop you.

Riding Caraxes is always a thrill. It’s even more thrilling when he has a captive audience. There is something about it that does it for him. Showing others the might of true Targaryens always makes him proud.

He wants to show you all the things you have missed, being born of a whore and a Royce. It’s clear you don’t belong here, among the bronze piles of the Vale. You belong with him, on dragonback. And no one is taking you away from him.

The servants, your servants, according to the Bronze Bitch’s will, can only watch as the dragon rises in the air. No one dares deny Targaryens anything, not when faced with the truth of their strength.

Daemon perches his chin right on top of your head, so close his chest is flush with your back. Your screams do not bother him. You might be terrified, after a life spent living on the ground. But Targaryens are born to be in the skies. You will get used to it.

“Oh, Lady Cuffs, you have much to learn.” He kisses your temple, once you have screamed your throat raw and finally quieted down.

The first time he had ridden Caraxes, Daemon had, too, screamed until his voice gave. He had thought back then, like many Targaryens did, that if his egg didn’t hatch, he would get no dragon. The moment is clear in his memory. Heart beating loud in his chest, screaming commands in High Valyrian, and the absolute certainty that Caraxes was going to burn him to a crisp. Then, as he came down from sheer terror to amazement, he understood why his egg didn’t hatch.

It was a lesson. To take what he wanted, what was his by right. Targaryens were conquerors, not whiny children. It was what had got him thinking about Lady Laena, in the first place. The amount of confidence one needed to claim a dragon that big, it spoke of a power within.

Not as yours was, of course. You may lack the confidence, but you had power in spades. Dreamers were often like that. Or they were supposed to be, according to his studies. Daenys had been. A fragile little thing, scared of shadows and set on leaving Valyria behind. It had been what saved them, in the end.

Daemon wonders what it must be like to be haunted by terrors in your sleep. Some real, some imagined. How could one possible tell the difference between the two? It would lead a fragile mind to insanity.

What had it done to you? Seeing your sister’s death, thinking it a nightmare, and then watch it come to life in front of your eyes?

Fear. Horror. A cornered animal reaction, wanting to fight an opponent that could crush you like a bug if he so wished. Your loyalty to Rhea was commendable, though.

The thought of you having to go through that makes him uncomfortable. Something about the death of a sibling upsets him. Viserys. Oh, Viserys. Can’t live with him, but can’t live without him, either.

No. He needs a distraction. He is not willing to go down that road now.

“Dracarys!” Daemon screams, fighting to project his voice over the wind. As expected, you flinch and let out a tiny scream. He hides his smirk in your hair. He wonders if you would squeal like that when he took you.

A bit of fear makes for a better fuck. Lovers tend to turn pliant in the face of pain. Women's cunts flutter delightfully when choked. And you are already so responsive.

“This cannot be happening.” You mutter, under your breath. Your voice sounds small and confused. Lost. “This defies all the laws.”

“Targaryens have married sisters before,” Daemon speaks over your ear. Despite knowing that's not how dreamers work, he can't help but taunt you. It's amusing to him, how you struggle and huff. “You must have seen this already. You will make a good wife, in time.”

“I am not a dreamer!” You scream, and if he could see your face now, he would bet you are scowling. It matters not, really. Whatever you say. You would do anything to get him to let you go.

Daemon knows the truth. He has done his investigation about you. It would be no good, if he were mistaken and presented Viserys with something less. His good gesture would be ruined.

You would earn him his forgiveness. Daemon is willing to share you with Viserys, if that's what Viserys wants. He wants to keep you, so Daemon wouldn't gift you to him. But share you? It's a good gesture to show the honesty of his words.

Let it not be said that Daemon Targaryen is not humble in victory.

“Deny it all you want.” Daemon turns a finger over the middle of your back, making you shiver and try to move away from the touch. Oh, such a fierce spirit. A shame it's wasted, with how well you are tied to the saddle. “You have some Valyrian blood in you.”

“I do not!” You scream, and tilt your head to the side to glare at him. You have pretty eyes and the most enchanting nose. Closer to a goddess than a woman. How can you not be a Targaryen?

Your hair is the wrong shade. So are your eyes. But most of the time, First Men features overpower Targaryen ones. Dammed your father. Useless rat, that Yohn Royce. But at least he had given him you.

“You will birth me silver haired babes.” Daemon can do the math. With you being half Valyrian, the odds of you giving him what he wants are higher. He places his hand on your stomach, sneaking it behind the apron and touching the soft linen dress you wear.

Daemon imagines what it will be like, to see you swell with his child. The skin over your womb is warm and soft. You are young, closer to Rhaenyra's age than his. You look healthy and strong. A good environment for a child to grow in. And by the look of your bosom, you would produce good milk, too.

The thought makes him suddenly hungry. His cock twitches in interest. Ah. Good to know that your coloring won’t bring forth the same performance issues Rhea’s had.

This time, you squirm harder. Your ass rolls against his hips. Daemon rolls his hips against you, delighting in the friction. "Oh, you temptress.” He laughs.

He can't wait to have you, pinned under him and forcing you to take and take until his seed breeds true. How you would struggle, hips trying to escape him before surrendering to the sheer pleasure of it all.

“You are disgusting!” You buck against him, all wild mare. You have yet to be mounted and it shows. He bets once he does, you will be all sweet. Daemon is not cruel enough to deny you the pleasure. But you seem upset, and so he tries to reassure you.

“Just think, how strong, how true our children will be. With the blood of Old Valyria, flowing through their veins.”

It seems like the thought is not as reassuring for you as it is for him, since you start tearing up. He will have to tread more carefully. It’s clear your time with the Bronze Bitch has affected you. Perhaps, too, growing up in a whore’s house. You must have some strange ideas of women not needing marriage, or men, to lead their lives.

It was good, that Rhea got you when she had. You could have been sold or auctioned like any other woman. Taken up the profession of your mother. But you hadn’t. He knows it by the way you flinch, when he trails his hands over your ribs, when he presses his lips to your temple. Whores are used to touches like those. They melt into them. Not you.

“I’m not Valyrian!” You scream, trashing. Daemon smooths your hair down, tenderly. Perhaps this will soften you, he thinks. Many bastards share the longing for learning about their origins, after all. You should be no different.

“Your mother was, though.”

“What? No, she wasn't!” Your shrill tone makes him flinch. Gods, what a pair of lungs you have. And you are so set on disguising your origins, too. As if Daemon can’t tell. As if he can’t recognize one of his own when he sees them.

“I asked the servants about you.” He squeezes your shoulder, trying to sound encouraging. He wonders what it must be like, to carry so deep a shame you are set on denying the obvious. If Daemon had been born of a whore, without his Targaryen blood, he would be ashamed too. “They said you bathed every day. Only whores do that. And you don’t keep male company.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Your voice comes out high and questioning, confused. Oh, his poor, sheltered girl. Thinking your behavior was normal.

“You must have learned it somewhere.” He brushes his thumb against the shell of your ear. It’s a tiny thing, and soft. You give a sweet shiver, and it confirms his suspicions. You have not been touched in such a way before. Not a whore. Only the daughter of one. "Your father was said to frequent a brothel in King’s Landing, one that I’m well acquainted with. They only have Valyrian stock.”

You splutter, and whip your head to the side. You are not allowed much movement, with your binds. But gods, you try. The sliver of your face he can see is twisted in righteous anger. Similar to when he confessed to finishing the Bronze Bitch.

“Stock? How can you refer to women like that!” And it comes out so righteous, so fierce. His little warrior. Yes, it’s clear he is right about your origins. No one else would launch themselves in such a passionate defense of whores. A shame, he can’t seem to resist to riling you up.

“Oh, I have much lovelier names for women. I called your sister the Bronze Bitch.”

You let out a fierce little scream, now bucking and twisting and shifting, trying to get any kind of retribution for the slight. What a joy you must be in the sheets, all that unbridled force and passion, turning into a single objective. You just have to learn to aim it right.

“Don’t you dare speak of her like that! She is the most…” And you choke up a sob, realizing that Rhea was, not is. You do not speak the words, curling into yourself like a scared child. Hurt and sad for the first time since he took you.

“Was.” Daemon says, very quietly, and this time he is unable to distract himself from the thought. Daemon thinks of Viserys, of how angry he would be were someone to hurt him. No matter if they had parted in anger, no matter if they had not spoken a word.

He hugs you to him. You fight him, at first, but then you are sobbing too hard, too panicked to do anything about it. He presses a kiss to your nape. Even in tears and sweaty with your efforts, you smell perfect. All sweet pure maiden.

Eventually, your body sags. Daemon wonders if you accepted your fate or merely fell asleep. He doesn’t ask. The rest of the ride is uneventful. You wake up, later on, squirming in your bounds before sagging in defeat. No more words are exchanged between the two of you.

Landing is quite the interesting experience. Lyonel Strong, wearing the Hand's brooch. Next to him, stands the Kingsguard and a couple of Citywatchs.

“Is that a serving girl?” Crispin, Chris, whatever his name is, asks. He must think himself so sly, muttering under his breath.

“You were vanished.” Lyonel deadpans, eyeing you with vague interest. You scowl at him and tug on your bonds, again. Admirable persistence.

“Ah, Lyonel.” He gets off the saddle and carefully unchains you from it, making sure that your hands remain bound. Daemon keeps a tight grip on the chain from your cuffs, as he pulls you down into his arms. You kick and scream. The Kingsguard look vaguely concerned, but the gold cloaks don't even blink. They had been his men a few years back. They are used to such things.

He is not getting any younger, Daemon realizes. With you, he might need to get a better training regime because he is winded from the struggle. It's almost thrilling. You will keep him on his toes.

Daemon addresses Lyonel once again, dragging you forward.

“Summon Viserys, would you? I have something to show him.”

Good thing it’s not Otto Hightower anymore, or else he would have been detained on the spot. Lyonel is slightly softer to him, too honor-bound to let his personal feelings get in the way.

“Another of your whores?” The man asks, face unchanged. He would look at ease were it not for the way he is pressing his lips together in a grim line. No doubt remembering the Mysaria episode.

You keep struggling, rubbing your poor wrists raw. Daemon will have to tend to that later.

“Help! Help! Please!” You plead to Lyonel, once he is close enough. His lips twitch. Ah, the Strongs. Always ready to jump in rescue of a fair maiden. Your cries seem to be weakening the resolve of the Hand, and Daemon can’t have that.

Daemon places a possessive arm over your hips, showing you off. The possessive gesture will distract Lyonel from his rescue attempt, he is sure. No one gets between a Prince and his lovers, willing or not.

“No, actually. This time, the Lady is still a maiden. Although she won’t be much longer.” He smirks.

You flinch, your whole body tensing under his grip. Lyonel looks torn. He can’t order Daemon to let go of you, as for all he knows, you are but a serving girl. If you were a Lady, what he is doing might mean war. No one here cares about commoners.

Surprisingly, your rescuer is another. The dornish knight, jumping in, without the bow of his commander or the Lord Hand.

“I’ll go get the King, Lord Hand.” Good gods, what were they teaching the dornish these days? Not an ounce of respect on that one. He was getting too cocky for Daemon’s liking. He might have unseated him, but he lacked manners.

Daemon glares at Lyonel. Lyonel glares right back. The Kingsguard square behind Lyonel, menacingly, but the City Watch remains undecided on the side. Daemon grips your cuffs harder.

Crispin, Chris, whatever, comes out again after a few minutes, with an aggravated looking Viserys. You start shrieking, again, and trying harder to escape. No one pays you any mind.

“I told you I didn’t want to see you again.” Viserys says, but his eyes crinkle. He has cooled down. Daemon lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He still has everything to play for. Forgiveness is on the way.

“I think she might earn my forgiveness.” He tugs at your cuffs, bringing you slightly forward. You scowl, fiercely. “A gift, brother.”

“You come to offer me a whore? You are insane. Or drunk. Or both.” Viserys arches an eyebrow, but takes a good look at you. Daemon can’t blame him for it. You are a pretty thing, young and healthy.

Despite someone who claims offense at being offered a whore, Viserys surely looks interested. He steps closer to him, trapping you between them both. It’s Viserys, in quite the bold move, who tilts your chin up with a finger. You snarl at him, bucking backwards and right into Daemon’s chest.

“Careful. She bites. Special breed, from the Vale. All bitches.” And it’s not even funny, but it makes Viserys laugh, and that’s all that matters to him. Viserys’s laughter prompts the rest of the sycophants knights to do so as well. Only Lyonel and the dornish man remain disapproving.

“I’m quite busy at the moment, brother.” Viserys steps back, giving Daemon a long look. Unable not to twist the knife because otherwise they wouldn’t be related, he adds. “I’m in the middle of planning a wedding.”

“Ah. Congratulations are in order, then. Think of this as a wedding gift to the father of the bride.” Daemon pushes you forward, and then, insistently, to kneel. You resist, impudent little thing that you are. He pushes harder, until you kneel in front of Viserys with a sullen expression. “What better omen for a marriage than a little dreamer?”

Viserys goes suddenly serious, the hint of a smile at his antics long gone. This time, when he looks at you, his eyes are much more searching. First, to your hair. Then, your eyes. Then, to his face, incredulous.

“If this is your idea of a joke, Daemon…”

Daemon gives him a look. He would not joke about it, knowing how much Viserys has longed to be connected to that side of their heritage. He never understood it. Dreams were a powerful tool, but could be hard to differentiate from just nightmares. And what had made them conquerors had not been dreams, but dragons. That had been the part that interested him.

They had talked, once, of sharing a woman. Back when they were much younger, much less troubled. He tried to let that shine in his eyes, too. This was not something he was keeping to himself, it was a gift to his brother. If Viserys asked, Daemon would say yes in a heartbeat. Anything to make him happier. To protect him. Your dreams might not get him another kingdom, but would help keep Viserys safe and secure Rhaenyra's claim.

The silence stretched. Then, Viserys, looking absolutely fascinated and dumbfounded, stepped aside.

“Inside the throne room. Anyone else, leave us!”

As the guards scrambled to obey, Daemon tugged you inside. Viserys entered the room first, and grabbed the chain, as Daemon made sure to close the door after them. Working together with a fluidity not seen since the days of their youth.

Daemon smiled. Not even a day in your company, and you were already fixing things in the way he had wanted you to.

Viserys let go of your chain, eyeing you with quite a bit of precaution. All for naught. Instead of attacking, you tried to flee. Daemon grabbed you, and spun you to face him.

“You say she is a dreamer.” Viserys sits down on the throne, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“She is. The bastard sister of my newly deceased wife.” Daemon can’t help but boast. He is proud of finding you. Of the smile that has formed on Viserys face. “You know how it was. Yohn Royce and his precious Silver Dragon.”

“Lady Rhea is dead?” Viserys frowns. Still, he doesn’t look too upset. Perhaps a bit angry, but Daemon knows he will forgive him for it. What is the murder of a woman no one loved to the acquisition of a dreamer?

“He killed her!” You scream, unable to help yourself. Ah. Curse him, he was mistaken. Someone loved the Bronze Bitch. But it didn’t count. You were her sister and she had rescued you from a brothel. You were morally obligated to. It didn’t count.

“Shut up, little girl. I didn’t.” Which, yes, he had, but it would be better to give Viserys plausible deniability. Safer that way.

“Yes, you did. I saw.” You grin at him, menacingly. Daemon arches an eyebrow. It seemed your nap had given you the energy to be defiant. Again. Good gods, you were like a child. Having to be put to bed, pacified, taken care of. On and on the list went. Daemon was not sure that he was ready for the responsibility of parenting a recently legitimized Targaryen. Your manners were atrocious, and you were so young and so soft.

Rhea had taught you nothing of use. Perhaps to read books and ride horses, but it was clear she hadn't hardened you as she was. You had no idea of politics or respect for your King. Soft. Sheltered. A blessing in disguise? Or a curse?

“That will be a problem, dreamer or not.” Viserys interrupts. It’s clear what he means. Daemon has to fix it. Because the Seven forbid Viserys is the one to get his hands dirty. He likes to believe he is above Daemon, in that sense. That he has some sort of morals that go beyond caring for Rhaenyra.

He has not. His tastes are the same as Daemon's. Fire and blood and all that came with it, but with the delusion of having some great sense of morality.

“Give her to me. The Bronze Bitch left her everything she had. I can keep the Vale and the little girl in line.” Daemon quickly says, ignoring your indignant yelp and trashing. “I’ll marry her.”

“Allow you to own a dreamer?” Viserys raises his brows, looking doubtful. “Don’t you think it’s too much? If she truly is one, of course…”

“Show him, Lady Cuffs.”

You remain in obstinate silence. Daemon feels the urge to scream. Clearly, the Royce genes ran strong because Seven Hells you were infuriating.

“Didn’t you say you could keep her in line?” Viserys taunts, amused. Oh, if Daemon could, he would spank your pretty arse red from that defiance. Little brat that you are, it would be a fitting punishment.

He can’t do much more, not without endangering you. Neither Viserys nor him are experts on dreamers. They have been oddities during the history of their house. Their lessons on them were far less detailed than on dragons.

The upkeeping and care of one would require research. But some things are clear from the start. Dreamers shouldn't be hurt. Or too traumatized. They might get nightmares, and that would make their powers wane.

Daemon needs to scare you into thinking he will hurt you, but not actually do it. How to scare you into compliance and punish you, but not hurt you? He looks at the Iron Throne, and suddenly, an idea sparks into his mind. You are, in many ways, a child. And a man is allowed to discipline his wife.

Daemon unsheathes his sword, making as much noise as possible. You flinch, clearly recognizing the sound. He bangs it against your vulnerable behind, making you jolt forward and yelp. Not only it must have hurt, but the sound echoed in the throne room. You turn to look at him over your shoulder, surprised and a little teary-eyed. Viserys smiles.

"Answer his question. Properly." Daemon orders. You look between him and Viserys, clearly unsure. He gives you a few moments, but when you are taking too long for his liking, Daemon raises his sword again. The words nearly tumble out in your haste to speak.

"I… Your wife. Aemma, she held on to you and begged you to not let them cut her. You held her down. Monster.” You say to Viserys, now openly crying. Daemon blinks. Now that was something he didn’t know.

Viserys’s anger at the “heir for a day” comment is suddenly framed in a new light. Guilt. The fool. Daemon would never do something like that to you. A dreamer is too valuable of an asset.

“Something more pleasant.” He orders, swinging the sword. You try to dance away from the hit, but you are unable to. You give another cry.

“You have a dagger. With Aegon’s dream. And the Lady Alicent visited you in your chambers, wearing one of her mother’s dresses, after Aemma passed.” This time, Daemon keeps a close eye on Viserys’s face, instead of you. His face is slack, jaw hanging open. Apparently, you are telling the truth. He wonders what other seedy secrets about him you know.

Daemon raises his sword, ready to hit your bottom again.

“That’s enough, Daemon. You proved your point. You can marry her.” Viserys says, voice shaky. He is clearly overcome by what you know and by the methods needed to extract the information from you. Viserys is about to give you to him. He has realized he will not be able to handle you.

Daemon doesn't mind. To be kept safe, every King needs someone willing to get their hands dirty. He has done much worse, and that was not even in the hopes of protecting Viserys and Rhaenyra.

“No, no, no…” You protest, pitifully. Your whole face is streaked with tears.

“Thank you, brother.” Daemon answers, smirking. Never has he felt more victorious. He gives another slap to your behind, this time with his hand. Viserys nearly smiles at your indignant shriek. “Oh, Lady Wife, no one asked for your opinion.”

[nyracel]

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.

[sokkastyles]

The thing is, talking about Ursa as a bad mother implies that it is her job to stop abuse from happening. The whole thing about having her memories erased is so nebulous anyway because even the idea that she could have done "something" to save her children after she had already been banished is always going to be abstract, and there's nothing to say events wouldn't have happened in exactly the same way without her memories being erased.

But the same argument applies to people calling her a bad mother for lying to Ozai about Zuko's parentage. That's a more tangible situation where we can say that her actions were likely to make Ozai angry, and make him lash out at Zuko, but that's still the responsibility of Ozai for being an abuser. The idea that Ursa should have changed her own behavior to appease a violent abuser is not an argument I can ever accept.

Ozai's actions were never the responsibility of his victims. But we do see that Ozai himself is willing to use his victims' actions as an excuse. Ursa did not make Ozai abuse Zuko, what she did was give him a convenient excuse, but abusers are always going to find those excuses, whether they have any tangibility or not. If not for the letter it might have been that Ursa was spending "too much time" with Zuko or teaching him to be too soft.

Ursa could have never left and Ozai would still hurt her children. She could have been right there and not have been able to save them. She could have sacrificed her own life and it still might not have been enough. She could have watched Zuko be burned and it still might not have made a difference (like Iroh did in canon), except that fandom would feel even more entitled to judge her as a mother. Probably even more than the blame already nonsensically spewed at Iroh, who was a powerful bender and trained military general and still wasn't able to stop Ozai from abusing his children.

As it is, Ozai manufactured a situation where the only way Ursa could offer a modicum of protection to her children is by being forced into a situation where she couldn't protect them any longer.

As a mother, Ursa was obligated to try and protect her children the best she could, but the fact that she could not protect them from an abuser is not evidence of bad parenting on her part. It's evidence that Ozai is an abuser who is perfectly willing to gaslight and manipulate Ursa into a position where she couldn't protect them from him, and then make her feel like that was her fault, too, which is another facet of his abuse of and control over both her and her children.

I also think it's not considered how much danger Ursa and her children might be in if Ozai were to find out that instead of leaving the country as he ordered, she'd shacked up with the same guy she told Ozai was Zuko's father. Ozai might decide to take that out on Zuko just as easily out of nothing but a sense of bruised ego, but again, that's not because Ursa did anything wrong. It's because Ozai wants excuses to hurt and control people.

[applepie2523]

"I feel like some of this criticism towards the show being pro-Black is unfounded, but there is truth to the sentiments, specifically in how key moments in the narrative have been framed and brushed over, while similar things have been focused on in a different manner

For example, the dichotomy between focusing on the girl Aegon rapes vs completely disregarding the person that Daemon killed to let Laenor escape his life

We get a lot of focus on Dyana and get showcased Alicient's veneer of hypocrisy- she who veils herself in religion but covers up her son's heinous crimes. Then we get a scene of her disparging her son for his vile behavior and hugging Helaena for the shame Aegon brings to others and his own marriage.

On the other hand, when Rhaenyra and Daemon plan for the fake-death of Laenor, the guy Daemon kills is a completely throwaway moment, and the focus of the scene is how there plan allows for Laenor to leave Westeros behind and live a happy life

Simply put, these two scenes where two random, "unimportant" people are victimized are presented in completely different manners which provoke completely different reactions from the audience. With the Laenor scene, the audience walks away happy because Rhaenyra and Daemon don't kill Laenor like it seemed they would from their speech and the focus is triumphant and just. The dead guy doesn't matter in the slightest. With Dyana, it completely shatters any sort of character arc or sympathy that Aegon may have had and firmly places him- who is the figurehead of the Greens- to be a character that is reviled by the audience and whose downfall is something to look forward to. Who the hell can even possibly support a rapist? Murder is something audience members can forgive, justify and accept- rape never ever

There are other moments throughout the show that are along the same lines. For example, giving Rhaenyra the opportunity to propose a marriage between Jace and Helaena as a peace offering that is rejected places her in a more sympathetic light as someone who was genuinely trying to reach out and make amends. I understand that this is an adaption and things are justifiably changed, but in the books, Corlys immediately has Jace and Luke bethroed to Baela and Rhaena so his true blood ends up on the throne and the insult of trying to pass off Strong bastards as true-born Velaryons is lessened. By making Corlys literally not care about blood and names, it gives the show an opportunity to make Rhaenyra look better

They also remove some of the brutality and ruthlessness of Rhaenyra. Instead of ordering the death of Vaemond and feeding his corpse to Syrax for insulting the parentage of her children, Vaemond is killed in court. And although violent and sudden, it is framed in a "good" way to the audience, since it directly follows the amazing Viserys sequence of coming to the throne and defending his daughter, along with the incredibly touching Daemon-Viserys moment of helping him to the throne

Likewise, the "questioned sharply" line following Aemond's mutilation is not framed in a way to express to the audience that Rhaenyra meant for Aemond to be tortured. She says he must be questioned sharply and then that transitions to Viserys simply questioning Aemond

This is kind of what, for me, makes the show pro-Black. If I had to characterize the show, I would say it's pro-Black and goes out of its way to make Alicient sympathetic. But overall it doesn't care too much for the Greens

I also feel like they slightly undermined the story that they themselves were trying to tell and set-up prior to the episode 6 timeskip and change-up of the actors. The show was clearly setting up that the primary motivation of the Greens was Alicient fearing for the safety of her children and family from Rhaenyra (with the rift starting by Rhaenyra's lies at the Godswood and Otto's departure in the rain) and the danger that Daemon posed

This would have required the Blacks and Daemon to be more unsavory and vicious in the post-timeskip episodes than they ended up being at all, because the show went out of its way to avoid that kind of stuff. For example- and this is a huge point that I think has been overlooked- the whole point of Rhaenyra and Daemon faking the death of Laenor was to signal to their enemies- ie Alicient and the Greens- that they were dangerous and should not be messed with.

The death of Laenor should have struck some fear in Alicient over what the two newly weds could have done to her own children. But narratively, literally the only consequence of Laenor's death was to introduce some temporary tension between the Blacks and Rhaenys that is ultimately resolved in the very same episode. The potential impact it should have had on Alicient is just not present

Another consequence that was completely ignored was the impact Rhaenyra and Daemon's marriage should have had on Viserys. It was already set up that he greatly disapproved of whatever was going on between the two of them in the earlier episodes, but there was no payoff to that once they got married. In the books, this is what causes Viserys to kick Rhaenyra out of court, but the show instead wanted to focus on the positive relationship between Rhaenyra and Viserys and Daemon and Viserys in his last episode

Now I'm not saying that that decision was a bad one- it was really touching and incredibly emotional- but paired up with everything else, I think the post-timeskip show has definitely tilted the narrative to be pro-Black and undermine what earlier parts of the story was trying to set up. It's doing this while also trying to maintain some sympathy for Alicient

The one very stand out thing that they have done is Aemond's character though. Obviously he will be a villain, but they've done an incredibly good job at making him sympathetic and understandable (I will fiercely maintain that he has done absolutely nothing wrong so far in the show). I wish that were extended to the rest of the Greens as they could make them the obvious villains they should be in the narrative, while still making them sympathetic and understandable." -- by a random person on the r/asoiaf subreddit

[dragonagecompanions]

Dragon Age: Inquisition. Companions react to romanced companion and Inquisitor's child getting hit on in front of them. (ex. Dorian and Inquisitor's adopted child, Sera and Inquisitor's adopted child, Cullen and Inquisitor's child, etc.)

Cassandra:

She is torn between the protective rush of a mother whose child needs a shield and sword to protect them from the world, and the romantic rush of young love playing out before them. Her beloved's gently guiding hand lets the second instinct win the day, but there is no question that her child's admirer is met with the image of the Lady Seeker and Herald of Andraste in the distance watching their every move.

It is a very honorable exchange.

Solas: As he does not love the inquisitor enough to contemplate a family, he is not gifted the benefits of protecting one.

Blackwall: Thom Rainier was a feckless and faithless young man, and Blackwall has no intentions of his child being exposed to anything like that. The proverbial papa bear, such exchanges are cut short by a firm hand and a conversation on just what exactly this vagabond (no matter their birth or station) thinks they are about.

It will take the work of someone serious in their intent to get past those shields, but he will respect a sincere effort.

Dorian: The victim and recipient of some early flirting attempts of his own once upon a time, Magister Pavus constrains himself to simply listening around the corner with his amatus-- both to cringe together at the early attempts at young love and to keep their very precious child from any true harm. His attitude is jovial, their whispered remembrances of the first steps their own love in Skyhold took a loving memory between them.

And in the hand kept behind his back no one else will ever see the corrosive fire kept in check, in case this suitor takes even a step out of line towards the heir of House Pavus and the child he had never even dared hope for.

Iron Bull: Like Dorian he knows his way around some awkward flirting, and is generally content to let young people figure things out for themselves as long as they are safe and boundaries are respected.

It's the Chargers this young upstart needs to be afraid of.

Sera: Ha, knob wants to make kissy faces at her little love, they've got arrows and pies and all kind of shite coming their way! No it doesn't matter that if they hadn't flirted on their own she wouldn't have her herald, thats not the point! Arrows! Pies! No one talking to her child!

Thankfully both child and wife know Sera well enough to lure the argument away, and so by the time Red Jenny turns on the admirer both they and the object of their affection have scattered. This means words, 'quisitor.

Cullen: Maker's breathe, no. Assemble the armies of Skyhold, his child will not be pursuing a romance until they are forty!

Josephine: Before the day is over she knows their lineage, their parentage, how they take their tea and the worst secrets in their family for four generations.

Let them have their moment, if that moment is respectful and honorable. If not, divine or otherwise Leliana will have a situation to handle.

Mod Fereldone

[thehyperfixationspeedrunner]

The Batfam Case

Sooo, I started watching batfam posts on tiktok, decided for funsis to try to understand the lore. It's been two days, I'm too invested I'm about to infodump you what I know and I may pass from tiktok to tumblr.

RULES:

I cannot search any question that I have, everything has to come naturally on my fyp

Non of y'all can say anything, if I say the wrongest shit ever you're not correcting me

DISCLAMER:

I don't know shit about DC. I watched a single movie and that is lego batman. No series, no comics, nada and I will not be watching until I crack this shit, so yeah, my facts may be super wrong.

I will start with characters analysis in this structure: name - vigilante persona(s) - age - personality/ general backstory - love interest(s). This will be followed by the events that I know of in chronological order (years will not be included, I'm not that much of a mad woman, instead they will be put in different Robin eras).

Ed3: I've decided that at the end of each day I will edit the original post with the mark: Ed(day number), I will not erase anything but I will scratch. I will also be adding parentage as a category in the characters (that goes from biological to emotional and their life status)

Ed4: don't know where else to put this but DC apparently stands for Detective Comics and Batman is considered the best detective of his time.

Ed6: I'm going to put a separator here because this post is getting toooo long. Also I feel like I should add, the villains have an habit of calling the Robins "little bird".

CHARACTERS:

Bruce Wayne

Vigilante persona: Batman

Age: DILF

General background: apparently has two personalities, I thought he was just Broody all the time, but apparently, he is also a nonalcoholic version of Tony Stark (at least I'm pretty sure he's not an alcoholic), genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist and all of that jazz (Ed4: has been a victim of the so called "toxic comic bros" who just want him to beat people up, because he's batman and he has a deep voice and he doesn't show emotion, when in reality he's really family orientated and would literally do anything for his kids and he learned how to show it verbally/physically throughout the ears of robins, thanks for coming to my ted talk)

Love interests: Damian's mom? Idk apparently he has game (another thing I was not expecting of batman) (Ed3: superman, those two have definitely fucked, I saw a scene of an animated series that had batman on top of superman and it was raining and superman had the most bedroom eyes I have ever seen)

Parentage: Biologically, don't know their names, they were rich, they are dead (and maybe involved in an organised crime? Still have to fact check this one). Emotionally, Alfred

Richard Grayson

Vigilante personas: OG Robin/nightwing

Age: grown ass man

General background: sunshine incarnation, smiling while threatening someone to kill their entire family kinda person, hot as fuck, flexible as shit (advantages of having gymnasts parents), oh yeah, grew up in a circus, dead parents (oopsie daisy, the trauma needed to start somewhere I guess), also his nickname is Dick? Who chooses that nickname? (Ed4: very overlooked trauma, mainly because of the sunshine energy, oldest sibling syndrome, probably had some kind of burnout at the age of 15/16)

Love interest(s): someone named starfire (?) (Ed3: I now know who starfire is and apparently their those annoying couples that are always breaking up and coming back together), also there's this red head that is connected to flash because his suit is an ugly version of flash's, I think (Ed3) his name is Wally?, idk if he's a friend or something else (or he could be starfire, who knows) (Ed3: his name is indeed Wally and he was a childhood friend and maybe a bit more but it doesn't matter because he's dead and their last conversation was a fight. ✨️Trauma and Drama✨️) (Ed4: There's also Barbara apparently (the only thing in my mind is the audio "name a more inconic duo that a twink and a red head") and a girl named Zatanna)

Parentage: Biologically, they were acrobatics and acrobated to their deaths (this word is going to be common in this section). Emotionally, Bruce and Alfred. Legally, maybe Bruce, I mean the kid was a child when he became Robin, who was his legal guardian? (Ed4: apparently Dick was just Bruce's ward :(, he never adopted him)

Jason Todd

Vigilante personas: ex-Robin/Redhood (Ed3: maybe phoenix, still trying to decide if that's true or not)

Age: another grown ass man

General background: happy, naive and cute when young /instead of unplugging and plugging his life back in he decides to do a whole factory reset/ basically batman's personality but without the morals part, also hot as fuck (jesus christ, how can a drawing be so hot), from what I understand, he's the fandom's sad little meow meow (Ed6: he wears a mask under his helmet. I feel like that's important information and he's the only one who can cook (besides Alfred))

Love interest: Roy (Green lantern's kid, who is apparently named Oliver (Ed6: apparently there is another green lantern named Hal???? That is not important to the batfam but i feel like I should mention it) and is also a billionaire. The more you know) and they have a child! I don't their name or gender but batman's a grandpa! (Ed4: Her name is Lain :D)(Ed3: Honorary mention to the girl who he said he had to go to a funeral to escape a date)

Parentage: Biologically, no fucking idea (Ed4: I think Jason had a semi-decent relationship with his father. Also I'm pretty sure that Talia is his mom and she sold him to Joker, which draaammmaa (Ed6: pretty sure that title actually goes to Shelia)). Emotionally, Bruce, Alfred and apparently he has like 5 mother figures including Damian's mom (Ed6: one of them is named Selina (she's nice 👍) and there's a Shelia who I'm not sure is biologically his mom and a Catherine (she's also nice) and a Nocturna (not sure if this is just the vigilante name of one I've mentioned before)). Legally, again who was his legal guardian if not Bruce? (Ed4: I'm pretty convinced that he was adopted by him) (Ed6: his step mom died of overdose, which damn)

Barbara (Ed3: Gordon)

Vigilante personas: bat girl/Oracle????????? (Ed3: my questions have been answered, she is the Oracle)

Age: pretty sure she's around the same age as Jason (Ed4: considering recent developments, I'm going to believe she's around Dick's age)

General background: I barely know shit about her, I know she's a hacker and I think she has some kind of motor disability (this is a big shot in the dark) (Ed3: but a fucking correct one, I was right bitches) (Ed4: she seems like the one holding the brain cell 90% of the time and I know she's ti-red of this train wreck of a family. Gonna say it here because I have no idea when it happens but I have this theory that she was batgirl until she suffered an accident(in or out of the job) that affected her legs, amking the vigilante shit hard, so she decides to go behind the scenes and becomes Oracle)

Love interest: no idea, but if she's free I don't mind stepping in (Ed4: this people love incest bc her and Dick were a thing) (Ed6: apparently my baby has no other love interest besides Dick 😔✊️)

Parentage: Biologically, no idea. Emotionally: Bruce, Alfred and that's all I know (there are very few people talking about my girl, seriously people step up)

Tim Drake

Vigilante personas: ex-Robin/Red Robin

Age: late teen/young adult

General background: literal physcopath, too smart for his trembling morals, literal gremlin, a little shit, Tired all the fucking time, already a child of rich people before becoming another one of Bruce's children, I'm pretty sure his parents were alive when he became Robin (they didn't stay alive for long, but it's progress) (Ed4: I think at some point he may have been Joker Jr??? Wtf???(Ed6: I'm super confused because one video said it wasn't cannon and the next one used it as if it was))

Love interest: I don't know if my boy has time for them (Ed3: a superboy I forgot his name, I'll have to go through my reblogs for info (update I was thinking of the wrong Wayne-Kent relationship, I have no idea this guy's name), also apparently he had a thing with Stephanie? Incest, much) (Ed4: apparently he's in a poly ship because, besides the Kent kid (whose name is Kon btw) he also has a thing with some kid named Bernard)

Parentage: Biologically, they're rich and were killed by Boomerang. Emotionally, Bruce, Alfred. Legally, I will ask the same question once again WHO THE FUCK IS THIS KID'S LEGAL GUARDIAN?? (Ed4: I'm almost certain that Bruce adopts him)

Stephanie (Ed3: Brown)

Vigilante personas: ex-Robin(hilarious)/Spoiler (what kind of name is this)

Age: probably not much younger than Tim

General background: no fucking idea, (Ed4) I just need to point out how fucking hilarious it is that the other Robins were all young boys with black hair and then a blonde girl just shows up one day with the costum and everyone rolls with it (Ed4: she's another gremlin together with Tim and I know if those two are left alone for five minutes they will start world domination. Also she starts drama for the hell of it.)

Love interest: she gives me bi vibes, idk what else to tell you (Ed3: I'll repeat the incest with Tim) (Ed4: Cass :D, I love that for them (Steph, is your kink incest?))

Parentage: I don't know and I'm getting ultraged by the lack of content the girls have, seriously people

Damien Wayne(?) (Ed3)

Vigilante persona: Robin

Age: tween

General background: he has a sword? I need to start with this, a trained assassin (I'll repeat he is a tween (I think)), the child of the family, has everyone wrapped around his little finger, Bruce's bio child (Ed3: the one who is most likely to kill someone, a wild fact considering he's the youngest one, also he has fangs???? For some reason? And people call him hell spawn so there is some history here, also he has a bunch of animals and I just love that) (Ed4: was a prince before he came here, that's all I have to add)

Love interest: he's a child (Ed3: another superkid, the Waynes have a type, his name is Jon)

Parentage: Biologically, Bruce and this Talia woman (and they are both alive, shocker I know). Emotionally, Alfred.

Cass(andra?(Ed3)) Last Name Unknown (Ed3: Cain)

Vigilante persona: still looking for it (Ed3: black bat)

Age: teen, I think (Ed3)

General background: another one I barely know shit about, she's deaf, she gives me sassy little girl vibes (Ed3: she is some kind of Michael from the Naturals (where are my 3 the natural fans at?)) (Ed4: she's a sneaky little bitch who need no weapon, just her two fists, super quiet, but super deadly)

Love interest: no fucking idea man (Ed4: Steph :D, idk why but I love this idea so much I don't even care if it's not canon, it's canon to me)

Parentage: speaking again about the lack of content about women (Ed4: still less close, just know that she has mommy and daddy issues, so they're probably not great) (Ed6: her mother sold her to someone who made her into a killing machine. Tense.)

(Ed3: the whole duke section is new, my bad I knew nothing about him)

Duke Thomas

Vigilante persona: signal

Age: teen

General background: he seems like a genuine calm nice guy, it's a contrast from the rest of the family

Love interest: not that I know of

Parentage: Biologically, I'm pretty sure they're dead but that's not new. Emotionally, Bruce and Alfred. Legally, I have given up on the question by this point (Ed4: also pretty sure Bruce adopts him)

Alfred (Ed4: Pennyworth)

Vigilante persona: I don't think he has one, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did

Age: old

General background: incarnation of "terrifying calmness", I don't think there's much more to say really, excellent cook, insaaaannnneeee lore

Love interest: THE QUEEN OF ENGLAN?????? FOR SOME GOD FORSAKEN REASON

Parentage: he had a sister (or daughter) and her name is Julia but they don't have the best relationship

Shout out to the guy in a yellow bat suit, I just saw you in pictures, but I will find out your name. Also there's a kid named Duke, I think he is gonna be Damien's replacement

(Ed3: lmao who's tell past me, also gonna add the name Domino here, I saw it somewhere I'm not even sure if it's a super hero or a villain name)

(Ed4: adding another name to the "I heard this once but I feel like they're important": Ortiz, they're the love interest of someone, I feel like is Duke but there were no context clues; Kate Kane, aka Batwoman, will make a character analysis when I have more information than name/vigilante name)

(Ed6: another one to the pool. His name is Terry and he is barely mentioned in the fandom. Also Slade, he's a villain and has beef with every single Robin. And a guy named Lex that every single one of the batfam hates, he has the opposite company of WI and he may or may not be a supervillain. Someone help me there are three batgirls. And I saw a post where Jason called Cass his "big sister". I'm gonna cry)

EVENTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

Pre-Robin

Dick living happily with his parents in a circus at the age of 8

Parents die in front of him (and Burce, I think)

Picks up a costum and start beating criminals twice his size

Dick Robin era

Batman's like "someone needs to put that kid under control. No one volunteers? Okay, I'll do it. No, there's no need to insist I'll do it." That or they keep having encounters until Batman gets attached. (Ed3)

Mentor/mentee shenanigans

Boom Dick's too old, no idea if he just leaves the title, gives it up to Jason or Bruce just says he likes them young (Ed3: the most hilarious option won)

(Ed6:Jason is homeless because his step mom died of and overdose)

Also no idea how Jason got himself in the middle of this mess. (Ed3: why the hell am I still clueless about this?) (Ed4: apparently he tried to steal the tires of a batmobile and that's how they met? Amazing I love it) Anyways,

Jason Robin era

Somewhere in the middle of all of this Dick becomes nightwing

More mentor/mentee shenanigans

(Ed4: Dick goes to space on a mission)

(Ed3: Jason decides to go rogue and look for his mother, which, somehow, leads to:)

Jason dies (like really dies, he got buried and everything) by the hands of Joker (Ed3: with a crowbar, very important information, but seriously, that's violent as fuck) D: (Ed4: because Jason's mother (that may or may not be Talia) sells him out)

Batman almost kills Joker :D

Superman stops him D:

Anyways, Batman goes batshit crazy

(Ed4: Dick comes back from space to a dead brother, an angered dad and a random stalker (read Tim) asking him to come back as Robin)

Tim - superhero stalker - notices and becomes the Robin that steps up 💪 (by this I mean he blackmails Bruce into becoming Robin)

Tim Robin era

(Ed3: Tim and Dick have hallucinations of Jason? For some reason?)

(Ed4: Joker decides that it is a good idea to taunt Nightwing with Jason's death. He was wrong, Nightwing beats him to death, as he should)

Jason comes back from the dead, because... of an act of God? Idk, but guess who's back, back again (Ed4: apparently there's something called "Lazarus Pit", that's what he uses, whatever the fuck that is, wasn't Lazarus the friend of Jesus that he literally ressure- oh wait I'm seeing a pattern here. Who knew that knowing the bible was gonna be useful here)

Jason is used as a weapon against batman (still trying to verify the truth of this one)

Jason becomes a crime lord that takes down other crime lords aka Redhood

(Ed3: Jason beats the shit out of Tim in a Robin costume to prove that he's the better Robin and when he asks half-dead-Tim about it he just says no? Wild shit and I love this)

Even more mentor/mentee shenanigans

Batman dies???????

Tim tries to bring him back (intrepert that however you want)

Tim gets replaced by Damien who just shows up at their doorstep one day I guess (Ed3: somehow Stephanie Robin era happens between this two but I'm still trying to figure out how when where or why) (Ed4: still not sure how it happens but I now know it lasted a week)

Damien Robin era

Tim manages to bring batman back (seriously, was it a "he's not really dead kinda situation", did he perform some satanic ritual, what happened?) But not his position, hey yo!

Tim gets promoted to red Robin, which from what I understood is basically Dick's Robin (which is cute, full circle moment)

Father/son bonding time through fighting crime

(Ed3: Jason retires from Redhood? Not sure how true this is)

(Ed3: Also, gotta mention this incidents even though I have no idea when they are

STEPHANIE, DAMIEN AND TIM ALL DIE AT SOME POINT? WHAT IS IT WITH THIS FAMILY AND DYING)

Where is Stephanie's era you may ask? Idk I know she's on the younger side so she couldn't have been Dick's replacement and I am pretty sure about the other changes of Robins and I think she's older than Damien so she couldn't have been his replacement. (Ed3: still very unsure on this part) (Ed4)

Will keep you guys updated

Ed3: I feel like the more information I have the more confusing it gets

Ed4: I swear I must sound like this in this post:

[sofoulandfairaday]

for @monicafave who asked me about my opinions on Lucius Malfoy.

TW: very brief mention of sexual assault (DE crimes).

Honestly, one of the (few) improvements the movies made on the books. Jason Isaacs is hot. And has so much charisma when playing the villain I cannot see anyone else doing the character justice in the remake. Also, Lucius doesn't have long hair in the books, but it's the only way I imagine him (my headcanon is that Draco grew his hair out eventually too). Also, the choice to make him unshaven in the last movies? Gold. 10/10.

He wore his hair a little shorter in the First War, but still long enough it could be tied back with a ribbon.

Is a victim to one of the worst takes in the entirety of the Harry Potter fandom of all time, which is of course abused!Draco. It angers me more than abused!Black Sisters, or abused!Remus... grrrr, it makes me so mad. If there is one (1) character in the entirety of the Harry Potter fandom, only ONE that we can be sure wasn't abused by his parents, that was Draco. Where - where? - do people get the absurd idea that Lucius was a cruel father and husband, who routinely cheated on his wife and beat her and their son?

(Also, imagine beating/cursing Narcissa Black, who was not only vicious herself, but also the beloved only sister of Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Like. Who would do that? Madmen wouldn't do that.)

Abusive Lucius for the sake of being cruel makes me laugh. It makes me giggle. The man wouldn't be able to correctly use a Stinging Jinx, never mind the fucking Cruciatus Curse, on either of them if Lord Voldemort was pointing his wand directly between his eyes. Although-

Yes, he is a coward. Which, by the way, there is a big difference between being unable to actively hurt your family members and passively standing by when they are threatened/tortured. The big, realistic failure of Lucius, the one that would sour his image in both Draco & Narcissa's minds by the end of DH, is not that he hurts them directly, it's that he says nothing, does nothing, when his son is branded by the Dark Lord and sent on a suicide mission, is that he says nothing, does nothing, when his wife and son are openly mocked by the Death Eaters, who do as they please in his own home. If Voldemort threatened to torture either of them, Lucius would probably fall to his knees, beg for mercy, but he would not, could not bring himself to stand up and dive in front of the curse. He would watch, horrified, as they are tortured- that is what spoils their view of him in the end.

As the author herself has said, the Malfoys' saving grace is that they love each other.

His fault is cowardice, not cruelty (to family at least) and that's the hill I'll die on.

Lucius, as a character, represents the banality of evil. Indifference. Cowardice. Casual cruelty. Upholding of unjust systems. Not sadism. If you don't understand the difference, you're a bad writer.

Moving on.

He was highly competent in the First War. And by competent I mean competent. There is no way this guy was Voldemort's... second in command (?) or at least one of his top-ranking Death Eaters if he acted anything like he did post-Voldemort's rebirth.

I don't know whether to cry or laugh at his character, actually. He's so petty (he tries to ban The Fountain of Magical Fortune from the Hogwarts Library because it depicts the relationship between a witch and a Muggle, which he deems obscene, and when Dumbledore replies “Nu-uh, suck it, I know about all the Half-bloods in your family tree you hide”, the response prompted several further letters from Lucius, consisting of "opprobrious remarks" on Dumbledore's sanity, parentage, and hygiene).

He's a simp for his wife, whom he loves more than anything in the world (except maybe for Draco). He tries to send Draco to Durmstrang, where Karkaroff is headmaster and no Muggleborns are allowed, and Narcissa says “No, I want my son close to home” and that's the end of that. He puts up with having Bellatrix in his house (she really doesn't like him), and the two of them don't kill each other merely for Cissa's sake.

In my headcanons, they didn't hate each other in the First War. They weren't best friends by any means but they respected each other well enough and had a somewhat cordial if a bit prickly relationship (although, I love fics that get their bickering right). But then Halloween 1981 happens. I have a lot of headcanons for that night and I don't think I've ever really detailed them, so I will now.

They have an early dinner all together - Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan - and then the Lestranges leave. After the clock strikes ten, they feel a searing pain in their forearms. The Mark is gone. There are a few minutes of what the fuck do we do now and two very distinct ideas pop up. Bellatrix would rather die than forsake Voldemort, she's willing to battle every soul in Britain if it means finding him. He is not dead, he is not. He is immortal. They have him, they've captured him with some weird trick and are holding him hostage. Lucius, on the other hand, takes a good, hard look at his left forearm and decides well, this fucking sucks but at least we had a good run. He is not about to risk his family name by picking duels with the Aurors. The second after he's waltzing in the Ministry, telling everyone who'll listen that he's just woken up from the Imperius Curse, and blackmailing/bribing/threatening his way out of Azkaban. You must do the same!, Lucius and Narcissa tell Bellatrix. Traitors, backstabbers, vermin, is the reply. She is truly, seriously, hurt and furious that they would denounce the Dark Lord. To her, it's the most horrid of betrayals.

This is when she loses her second sister. It's the moment Narcissa makes it clear that not only she will denounce Voldemort with every breath, but she will stop Lucius from going after a dead master. We have a son, Bella, he is our priority. We have a son, and you do not. You don't know what it means. It's a nice little parallel to the end of Deathly Hallows - I cannot stress this enough: Narcissa's lie to save her son causes her sister's death. Narcissa indirectly kills her. Bellatrix and Narcissa's relationship is never the same after that.

On a lighter note. It's canon that Lucius has little hobbies: peacocks and collecting Dark artefacts!

Also, he has a sick interior designer because the secret chamber beneath their living room is a marvellous idea, I need one of those.

A bit of a germophobe.

Cruel, but again: casual cruelty. Yes, he enjoys tormenting Muggles because they are less than human to him; no, he does not enjoy watching little Mudblood children get bitten by Greyback or Muggle women being raped (and no, before you ask, he would never lower himself to something like that, even if Narcissa wasn't in the picture).

Inspired by the movies, of course, but he has great fashion sense.

He was nice looking, definitely not incredibly handsome (unlike my boy Rodolphus who is hot) but he was very charismatic, so much so that Narcissa Black fell desperately for him, much to Andromeda's dismay and Bellatrix's perplexity.

Elaborate courting ritual (peacock-like, get it? ah ah).

The second most extravagant wedding of the century (Bella & Rod take the cake on that, you have no idea).

I am fascinated by his relationship with Voldemort. By the end of the second war, the two pretty much despise each other (and if Cursed Child is to be believed - which I don't - Lucius had a Time Turner tucked away and never once tried to use it to bring Vold back). But what about during the first war? Lucius' loyalties were always to the Cause more than to the man, and yet he is given the Diary. First War Lucius must have been fascinated by Voldemort - we see a hint of this in GoF when he asks Voldemort to tell them how he managed to survive the Killing Curse.

I think Voldemort saw this fascination and somehow, in his usual arrogance, misunderstood it. You see, the way I think of (and write) the Death Eaters is very Succession-y: everyone wants to be Voldemort's favourite, the one to sit to his right, the closest to him. During the First War, Lucius would have sold his mother to be closest to Voldemort. His entire worldview shifts when Draco is born, and as Lucius grows to love him. The same went for everyone else, including Snape. This is why, to me, Voldemort doesn't see their betrayals years later: he is used to thinking that they would do anything, sacrifice anyone, for him. He doesn't see that the love they feel for others is stronger than whatever fucked-up bond is there.

And, if you think about it, the two Death Eaters that are truly, fanatically, loyal above everything else are the two that are in love with/love him. Bellatrix and Barty.

Stopping now because my head is falling on my keyboard from sleepiness. Hope you enjoyed! I probably have more somewhere.

[mxtxfanatic]

It's interesting how Madam Yu is so adament about Jiang Fengmian hating Jiang Cheng because he's her son, and yet she... Doesn't do that with Jiang Yanli.

Of course, we understand that it's because JYL does not have a lick of her personality, but also. Madam Yu's been saying that since before WWX came to the sect. Probably their entire life.

Do you think she ever said such things to Yanli too, when she was younger? Or did she only start with Jiang Cheng because she barely considered her daughter as her actual kid due to the internalized mysoginy that I feel she's definitely suffering from?

That the only kid that matters is her son, and so she made her son to be (like) her, because I feel like the kids were too young to exhibit such behavior consistently enough for Madam Yu to see that only her son acted like her.

It's a very interesting thing to think about.

Why did Jiang Cheng never realize the dissonance between what Madam Yu said (Jiang Fengmian hates you because you're my son) and how Jiang Yanli was treated by both of her parents, both so different with her than with him? Did he think that JFM hated Yanli too? Or did it just never occur to him because, like to his mother, Yanli didn't ACTUALLY matter as a person?

I feel like this is an entire new can of worm opened here. So much to think about.

Idk, I think Madam Yu just dissociated from Jiang Yanli because from the moment her daughter was born, she was "someone else's wife." No need to live vicariously through a kid that's gonna eventually end up in someone else's household. Instead, she spends the few times we see her intact with Jiang Yanli admonishing the poor girl for acting "beneath" her station (interacting nicely with Wei Wuxian). Jiang Cheng is the child who will eventually inherit the Jiang Clan. Better to sink her claws into him so that her influence on the Jiang Clan is unshakable.

I don't think Jiang Cheng thinks Jiang Fengmian hates Jiang Yanli, but he realizes that Jiang Yanli has a better personality than him and his personality is why he doesn't get along with their dad. But also like, Jiang Cheng's logic around Jiang Fengmian's parentage is that as his actual children, they deserve his love and affections exclusively. Jiang Yanli is Jiang Fengmian's daughter, so she deserves to have a good relationship with him, meanwhile he is robbed of the affection that is "rightfully" his "because Wei Wuxian, the outsider's child, robs it from him." In the end, Jiang Cheng is truly his mother's child: he knows the reason why things are the way that they are, but to accept it means that he has to accept that he is at fault for the consequences he has reaped. He doesn't want to acknowledge his responsibility in his own failed relationships, so he believes in the lie that paints him as a victim to others' scheming.

[agentrouka-blog]

I find it significant when Jon compares his situation with Ygritte, to Ned's dilemma and decides to return to the Watch, which he likened to Ned's duty towards Catelyn. Jon knows his father did wrong by betraying his wife even though he returned to her, so what is going to change when he finds out his real father did that too and he didn't even return? The only thing different is that Jon doesn't feel anything for Rhaegar like he does for Ned, in order to give him a pass.

(post referenced)

The sad irony is, of course, that Jon's situation is far more comparable to his own mother Lyanna than to Ned.

Jon assigns himself a level of agency in his "betrayal" that matches what he perceives for Ned with his unknown mother, imbuing himself with the illusion of choice and the blame of "stumbling".

Of course, that's neither true for Jon, nor for Ned, funnily enough. Ned never did betray Cat at all and remained faithful to her always. While Jon is never given any choice in whether he wants to have sex. It is presented as a decision made for him. But it's more bearable to compare himself to his strong and honorable father Ned than it is to feel caught in a trap with no recourse. Ned "stumbled" but then did the right thing. That's admirable, that's a display of control and growth.

That's a comforting comparison. That's not the unbearable uncertainty of victimization, after all.

It all exists in a false reality, and a false understanding of honor and dignity. Jon lies to himself in order to live up to the comforting image of another lie. He will call it "love", when it is no such thing.

The truth is far more painful, but also far more beautiful.

Who was caught in a trap with no recourse? Who was victimized? Who never got the opportunity to rise above this point in her life? Lyanna. Jon's mother.

And who set that trap? Rhaegar. Jon's biological father.

And, bittersweetly, it is Ned doing the right thing, however imperfectly, that is what gave Lyanna back her humanity and dignity in the end. He promised and comforted and took charge of her boy, and she could die in peace. Ned never "stumbled", he deliberately chose to lie and forsake his duty to his king in order to protect his nephew. For love. Jon remains at the center of that.

No matter how painful a blow the knowledge of his parentage might be, it cannot be divorced from how, far from a mistake, Jon was a choice for his uncle. The man who raised him was true to love in every sense, even secretly so in his marriage. Not honor, not duty. Love. (His biggest failures involve deviating from that.)

And that is something comforting and true that Jon can and will live up to.

So, while Jon is the product of a man who abandoned love and honor for some self-perceived duty to a prophecy, and this will burn him badly, he is equally the product of love and honor. Not his father's love, but his mother's and his uncle's. And he is far closer to them, far more like them, in every way.

[childofchaosnic74]

Rant time: hotd spoilers ahead

This is my personal opinion, you're free to disagree, just be civil about it.

I don't agree with those who say that it's impossible to "defend" Alicent here after episode one with Alicole happening (and I say this as someone who is not a fan of the pairing)

Cause honestly, she did her duty for years, she sacrificed everything, her whole life and self, for her husband, for her children and for the realm, so now that she has fewer obligations in that sense I think it's perfectly ok for her to seek something for herself. Side note, having her be unecessarily "punished" again and made to feel guilty (after b&c) for the one time she has a consensual relationship is such an uninteresting choice imo (we've seen more than enough of that in s1).

And as to the argument that she's a hypocrite because she slut shamed Rhaenyra and then had an affair with Criston, I find it kinda irrelevant, cause of several reasons, the way I see it that was never truly the point of her criticism of Rhaenyra and also, so many other characters in this story are "hypocrites" but that doesn't make them bad or unlikeable or any less compelling (ex: Rhaenys, Rhaenyra, Otto, Daemon, Criston and a good chunk of the other characters too) .

As I've said before, the way I see it, Alicent was angry at her because Rhaenyra acted selfish and entitled several times, not thinking about the consequences to other people (examples: Rhaenyra almost sleeps with Daemon and then with Criston, is seen and risks her position as heir, Alicent defends her and that ends up costing her her greatest -perceived-ally -Otto- then Rhaenyra sleeps with Harwin, producing obvious bastards that will inevitably weaken her claim, therefore putting Alicent's children in even more danger, and doesn't even acknowledge it, fast forward Aemond loses an eye because of Rhaenyra's refusal to admit the truth -even to her children, causing them, especially Jace, to develop a huge complex about their true parentage-, so we see that again and again the people who suffer the consequences of Rhaenyra's actions are almost always others, mainly Alicent and her family). It's like Rhaenyra does whatever she wants and it's always Alicent that pays the price for her actions. Of course she's gonna be frustrated and angry and the teachings of the faith are mostly a convenient way for her to justify her feelings to herself and to others without showing just how much she cares and how wounded she is by this chasm between them.

Also if we follow the logic that Alicent is awful and deserves to be hated because she's a hypocrite for shaming Rhaenyra, then Rhaenyra should get just as much hate cause she was the one who slut shamed and victim blamed Alicent for marrying Viserys first even though she had no choice in the matter at all.

I personally think that reading the "where is duty, where is sacrifice?" line and Alicent's criticism of Rhaenyra as just Alicent slut shaming her is quite reductive and does not do justice to the characters and the complexity of their relationship.

To me it's clear (as Rhaenyra says) that Alicent "hides beneath the cloak of her own righteousness" (the faith) because her real reasons to resent Rhaenyra are way more personal and vulnerable and ugly, but admitting that betrays how deeply she actually feels for Rhaenyra.