twilight-sparx - Tumblr blog

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Good morning SasuSaku Shippers❤️💍

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Aemond: Fine! Judge all you want but...

Aemond, points at Rhaenyra: Married a gay.

Aemond, points at Alicent: Married her best friend's father, sorry mom.

Aemond, points at Criston: Fell in love with the princess just bcs she kissed him or something like that, man wtf.

Aemond, points at Viserys: Married his daughter's best friend?!?!? I mean- Hi, father.

Aemond, points at Daemon: Honestly, there is no need for me to give examples of him. My uncle is his own warning.

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Caraxes was Rhaenys' father's dragon.

Meleys was Daemon's mother's dragon.

But it's a problem when Aemond claims Vhagar?

You don't even need permission. Dragons are creatures of their own right that choose whoever they want upon encountering them. It's either it likes you or it burns you!

Imagine locking Vhagar away for months trying to force her to accept Rhaena? And robbing Vhagar of her agency? Makes no sense if you ask me.

Daemon had just lost his wife to Vhagar's flames. I don't think putting his daughter up for a second suicide mission (RIP Laena) was something in his cards.

Aemond had a death wish going out there: to prove his bullies wrong or die trying.

Rhaena wasn't ready and I don't blame her. But to say that Vhagar 'belongs to her' is just false.

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i hate that criticizing rhaenyra or the black team means i don’t think she should inherit the iron throne. she should. she’s the oldest child of viserys. my problem is that rhaenyra should have accepted that her father changing history for her, and making her the first female heir, would also come with a responsability. obviously things aren’t always stellar for rhaenyra either, but i think that if she tried to be a bit more mindful of the limits, she would have been queen for a longer time. 

maybe it’s not very girlboss of me to say but in a patriarchal society like in westeros you don’t win first time queenship by coming in guns blazing saying you’ll do whatever you please because you’re no different than a man. because you might think that and you’re esentially right, but society does not change like that, the people around you do not change like that. (and you win only shortime and only because you have a father like viserys that named your heir and supported you.)

if laenor was infertile she should have spoken with viserys about it, maybe even rhaenys to find some way to have at least one child that there would be no rumors about. 

and also, i know, you are the rightful heir as the oldest, but there should have been more discussion on what that means for alicent and aegon and how realm might take it when the time comes for viserys and rhaenyra might take over as the first woman to rule westeros 

like i feel there’s nuance here and i feel that if rhaenyra was being a bit more mindful of the historical impact of her being named heir as a woman then maybe this could have been avoided,

obviously this isn’t just her fault. viserys obviously just thinks things get resolved if you don’t talk about it, if you order people to not talk about it or if you just pretend everyone’s a big happy family and rhaenyra should have been taught more about what it means to rule, diplomacy, etc etc by all the lords at the court but especially her father. and again, otto hightower obviously has his interest here, but tbh that’s to be expected. okay so it wouldn’t have been otto and it would have been someone else

i mean blame stuff on alicent all you want and larys is in her court but larys literally killed his entire family when alicent didn’t even hint that’s what she wanted. if lyonel had died of something else and larys would have taken over then rhaenyra would have had to deal with larys

i guess my point is that one way or another, otto or not, alicent (who out of all the men everyone blames) or not, rhaenyra would have had to deal with some sort of oppossition or scheming, either because she’s a woman and men don’t like it when you take their place or because of other rule breaking that wouldn’t sit well with people 

it’s like when viserys named her heir but she still had to carry their cups and stuff instead of sitting down at the table and learning some things. 

anyway idk where i’m going with this but i hate that everything is blamed on alicent while at the same time people do not understand that being strategic when you’re the first woman named heir matters because you will have enemies or contesters or whatever regardless.  

just because i’m mad at rhaenyra for how she acts with the rest of her family doesn’t mean i think she isn’t the rightful heir.  

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how interesting that when Rhaenyra looks at a maimed boy whose eye was gouged out by her own son and says "he must be sharply questioned" (aka tortured) for repeating things about her that she knows are 100% true, and when Alicent is horrified that an insult to Rhaenyra (which is, again, 100% true) is considered more important than her son literally being maimed and whose broken skin is currently being stitched up as they speak, Viserys chooses to support Rhaenyra. He walks up to his bleeding brutalized son and orders him to tell him where he heard such lies. He offers him no comfort or reassurance as a father, just an order. "Your King demands an answer."

(and frankly, he expected them to say Alicent. Look at the way he looked at her. He was almost expectant. He wanted her to be condemned)

and both of them prove completely unwilling to obey him. they look at this piece of deadbeat shit right in the eye and say: "We know, Father. Everyone knows. Just look at them."

And now that the accusation has turned back to Rhaenyra, does Viserys choose to listen and do something about it? does he? no, lol.

Instead he declares: "This terrible infighting must cease. We are family." How convenient. how fucking convenient. when Rhaenyra wanted justice (aka the further torture of a maimed kid for telling the truth) Viserys is fully willing to indulge her. He wasn't Aemond's family when he questioned him: he said it himself, tell me by the order of your King. But when his children refuse to listen to him, when the issue turns back to Rhaenyra? We're all family, let's reconcile and put this behind us :)

and that is when Alicent asks Viserys for justice of her own.

just look at Alicent's tone. Rhaenyra was the one who flat-out demanded that Aemond be questioned. Alicent isn't demanding anything, she is pleading. You think she cares about taking Luke's eye? (just minutes later, it's Rhaenyra she goes after. and when Larys asks her flat out if she wants him to do the deed for her, she tells him that it won't be necessary). Look at what Alicent says after this: "He is your son, Viserys. Your blood." This fucking asshole has raped her and abused her, and she is begging him to at least care about his children with her. And he does not.

He displays, for the whole court to see, that he does not give a fuck about his wife and their children. His young son has been horrifically maimed, but shielding and coddling his adult daughter from completely justified "accusations" is what he is most concerned about.

"This matter is finished," Viserys says. And right after? "Anyone whose tongue dares question the birth of Princess Rhaenyra's sons should have it removed." So essentially: the matter is over, everyone should make goodwill, but his precious daughter is always right and will always be his first priority. partly to soothe his own guilt over murdering his previous wife, and partly because Rhaenyra is a Targaryen which, to him, will always make her more worthy than Alicent.

and so it is his wife and other children - including the one who is bleeding in the same damn room - who pay the price for that

And thus, all of Alicent's well-founded fears about the life of her children and herself if Rhaenyra takes the throne are completely solidified. She and Rhaenyra do not share equal culpability for this conflict in the show, because Rhaenyra begins by fighting for power and Alicent begins by fighting for survival. The blame is fundamentally unequal.

you CANNOT tell me that Alicent was unjustified in how she reacted. you CANNOT tell me that she wasn't 100% right in grabbing that knife and going right to Rhaenyra, demanding justice.

"and now you take my son's eye, and to even that you feel entitled" She is right. She is absolutely right. (She has no idea how right she is, actually, because that entitlement will lead directly to Rhaenyra's downfall someday)

Alicent Hightower finally snapped. GOOD FOR HER.

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From a 21st century perspective, yes Rhaenyra's sons do not need to be biologically her husband's sons to inherit from her, that wouldn't even be a question. It's a scenario we cannot understand, regarding it with modern values but Westeros does not share our modern values. Westeros first and foremost is a patriarchal society.

Women in this world are meant to marry, give their husbands children and make heirs and above all else obey, that is it. This society routinely shames women who enjoy sex, who engage in sex prior to or outside of their marriage. Men can do as they like. Illegitimate children however, who are born from these dalliances, are not looked upon kindly in this world. They are seen as inherently sinful for being born from "sin". There is a huge stigma against them simply for being. They face huge prejudice based their birth amongst the small folk, let alone amongst the nobility. Remember how Jon Snow was treated. The stark contrast between how people treated him compared to Robb. Catelyn's hatred of him for what he represented (ie Ned's betrayal of her). That is all still very relevant despite the 100 year time jump between GOT/ASOIAF and HOTD.

Rhaenyra and Laenor privately have an arrangement but publicly she is shamed by this society as she is dogged by rumours regarding the night in the brothel with Daemon, the fallout between herself and Criston Cole, her relationship with Harwin and her sons clear Strong looks. She is viewed as cuckolding Laenor, dishonoring and shaming him, his house, her father who arranged the match and the faith of the seven. Alicent's "three is an insult" line is the view held by many in this world. By remaining heir even though she is a woman and her father now has sons, Rhaenyra is seen as an usurper taking what - in this world - should've been Aegon's by right since his birth. Viserys has done the unprecedented in this world (outside of Dorne). The question of her sons' paternity and their obvious Strong looks, has people regard them as usurpers too for taking their uncles' places in the line of succession despite them being illegitimate, while their uncles' legitimacy has never been in doubt. It doesn't matter that Laenor claims them, it's about the perception. Many in Westeros would simply assume he just didn't want to admit that he'd be cuckolded by his wife.

Appearance and reputation is everything, no matter who 1 has a claim and 2 wants to ascend the iron throne, they will need backing from the lords. At the great council, Rhaenys had the stronger claim but the Lords choose Viserys because he was male. They choose to overlook not just Rhaenys' but also Laenor's claim to the throne, establishing that the male bloodline is preferred over the female one. Alicent's sons inherit their claim to the throne from Viserys, Rhaenyra's sons inherit their claim throne from her. Automatically, whether they were legitimate or not, many see Rhaenyra's sons as having the weaker claim compared to Alicent's sons. If any Lord were to overlook the boys' paternity and back them as heir, they wouldn't do so as long as a legitimate male heirs still lived (in this case either Aegon, Aemond or Daeron), and at that, even if all of Alicent's sons dead and childless, were Helaena to have a legitimate son, that may be the claimant the lord's back rather than one of Rhaenyra's illegitimate sons.

"But it's Viserys' will that Rhaenyra!" Viserys is not a well man, few Lords will adhere to his will, believing his sanity to be question due to his illness and putting his insistence that Rhaenyra be his heir as a symptom of his illness. He's for instance calling Alicent by Aemma's name and has to receive assistance in order to do a speech. When he dies, he is no longer king, what he wanted and what he decreed will no longer matter. In real history, Edward VI declared Lady Jane Grey to be his heir. After he died, Jane was Queen for nine days before being executed by Mary I. Mary had the stronger claim (as a daughter of Henry VIII rather than a descendant of Henry VIII's sister Mary as Jane was) and the backing of the lords. She was the oldest child but she had to wait for Edward, her father Henry VIII's only legitimate living son to take the throne first. Elizabeth I, whose mother was charged with adultery (there's heavy debate on whether any of the charges brought against Anne Boleyn were true but nevertheless the perception of her at the time was less than positive), had to wait for her brother to ascend the throne and then Mary, who was also declared illegitimate by their father but who's mother was remembered fondly and as the one who was wronged by Henry VIII, to become Queen before she was considered an actual candidate for the throne because she was the last legitimate descendant of the male bloodline of Henry VII (his eldest son Arthur died young and Elizabeth I was the last of Henry VIII's kids) and Mary was unlikely to have children with her absent husband. Before someone says that's irrelevant, GRRM takes heavy inspiration from history especially medieval England and the wars of roses and the Tudors.

Looking at HOTD with a modern gaze without considering the cultural context within the story means we can misinterpret and misunderstood what is unfolding on screen.

I'm not going to justify or defend Alicent's behavior because I can't (welcome to Westeros, every single character is flawed and problematic and a majority have dubious or questionable morals. Yes even your fave. Spoiler alert no one by the end of the dance is an unproblematic hero. They all do horrific things, some of you could do with remembering that), but if you take in the world and society she exists in, it's no freaking wonder she thinks that way. I'm not saying her behavior is without pride or snobbery because it isn't, she, like many in Westeros, believe Rhaenyra's sons to be fundamentally beneath her but to pretend her reaction to them is somehow ridiculous or incomprehensible means you're ignoring the cultural and societal norms of this world, norms that are integral to this story in particular.

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Aemond and Jace, son of Alicent and son of Rhaenyra, the only two children of both women who are vividly aware of this surmounting tension waiting to implode. Jace knows that he's a bastard and the son of Harwin Strong, Aemond knows that Aegon will be crowned despite Viserys wishes and that one day Helaena will be his queen. Both are intimately aware of the treasons each mother has committed, and little by little they thread themselves into those treasons. They are their mothers sons. Perhaps that is why Aemond approached Jacaerys, in a moment that was fleeting and awkward but knowing, a slight nod of acknowledgement, and only that. Anything more and he'd risk being met with rejection, reproach, anger. All of these things that he expects from the boy who used to pick on him with Aegon.

It was a strange moment, not one that I expected but I did enjoy it, even when I knew what was to come. I saw it as Aemond wanting to comfort Jace but he was so afraid of being rejected, because in his mind, even in grief Jacaerys wouldn't want his comfort (also comforting him over the death of Harwin would be an admittance to Jace's true heritage). And then there's Jacaerys, who watches him walk away, in what one might suspect is disappointment and sadness. He wanted Aemond to comfort him, allowing him the space to grieve and actually talk about that grief, because no one else would.

It makes me wonder what would have happened and how things would have turned out differently had Aemond actually went through with comforting Jace.

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Alicent Hightower - House of the Dragon

She had no blacks, so she chose a dress of thick brown wool. The bodice was decorated with freshwater pearls, though. The cloak will cover them. The cloak was a deep green, with a large hood. She slipped the dress over her head, and donned the cloak, though she left the hood down for the moment. There were shoes as well, simple and sturdy, with flat heels and square toes. The gods heard my prayer, she thought. She felt so numb and dreamy. My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. 

- A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

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TikTok is convincing too many hot people that they're funny

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Does anyone have a link for the episodes from where I can download. Or if there is a google drive share.

My Internet connection isn't great so watching live on sites is difficult.

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i applaud the people who made phineas and ferb because there are 189 episodes and EVERY single one has two boys and their summer experiments getting destroyed by the evil scientist that their pet platypus who is an undercover spy sabotaged right before their older sister could expose them to their mother. like how do u come up with the same concept 189 different times.

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this is the only valid twitter thread

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The "If you were over 6 feet tall and living in Wellington in 2001 you didn't have a choice my dude" is killing me, like I'm just picturing the LOTR casting directors running around Wellington with a measuring tape, black-bagging tall guys and shoving them into vans.

"You're a Lord of the Rings extra now."

"No! Please! I have a family! I'm supposed to work the closing shift at the Pita Pit tonight!"

"You serve at the pleasure of the Steward of Gondor now."

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Why, it is Tommy Shelby, isn’t it? (ponytail included - don’t ask.)

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Every time I start a new show