𝕴 𝖆𝖒 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉

[brazenbaela]

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Baela the brave

★ 【brazenbaela 】 — an independent, highly private & selective, canon-divergent lady baela targaryen of hotd writing blog. with inspiration from both book and show. as well as being an exceedingly personal headcanon-based account of baela. she's pretty much my own oc now and i have claimed her.😤 adored by mems. minors kindly dni. 18+ only. mun is 30+. blog est. on 16.07.24. kindly read rules before following!!! / this blog contains dead dove do not eat content and that includes incest, obvsly since muse is targaryen.

DASH ICON AND ALL GRAPHICS ON THIS POST & PROMO POST WERE COMMISSIONED BY @petalsprompts thank you💖 / icon credit: ©

a take on : the willful fearlessness of the eldest child of daemon targaryen. considered more boyish than ladylike. dragon twin. bold. daring. brave. fiery. but also wild, willing and fearless. she was her father's daughter. a tempestuous temper, impulsiveness, deliberately provocative, pride of her lineage, recklessness and a love of doing things not expected of a lady — a mask to hide her sensitive side. a warrior & leader with a daring demeanour. strategic. calculating. fiercely family-oriented. looking out for her loved ones. uncaring of seeking approval from anyone yet caring of the opinions of those closest to her. effects of losing her mother as a child while dealing with an absent father and how history repeats itself. the effects of losing her betrothed, her beloved dragon and her elders during the dance. rejecting an unwanted marriage and abandoning it for her own choice. THE GIRL WHO FELLED A KING.

carrd. / memes. / rules. / headcanons. / study. / AKOTSK verse.

[storiesofthenight]

At his own question, he had not known what her answer would be. Aemond had to admit to himself that he didn’t actually know the person sitting before him for they had not really spoken in years. Even without the war, the animosity between the two sides of the family would have kept them apart, especially after he had claimed Vhagar. There had been no chances to speak, or to know each other, though he had never thought of it, or even rued it up until perhaps this moment. 

Her admitting she was not certain however, despite being unable to predict it, did not come as a surprise. Who was ever truly certain of anything in life? Nothing was ever clear or certain and predictable. But then again words followed that made him still. The burying is where the weakness lives. It is exhausting.

Oh it was indeed exhausting. Every waking day, he would rise from his bed and pretend that he felt nothing, that the deaths by his hands were but a speck of dust on the shelves that were his memories. But he remembered every single one of them. Every scream, every look of terror, every whispered prayer for life. It was not only exhausting, it tore at him. At the gentle child he had once been, eager to learn and grow, unaware of the horrors that lay before him. That child lay hidden within now, behind walls and doors bolted with steel bars simply because it was the safest way.

“Be as it might, I have no choice. No good would come from letting things free.” There was a frown on his brow as he thought over the words. Even as a child, he had not been accepted for being the way he was, so why would there be a change now? It was a time of war, and he was supposed to be the dread of the enemies. The one they feared most. Him and Vhagar, the beautiful and dreadful beast that she was. And while she made him feel powerful, for it was impossible not to feel it when such an old and giant dragon listened when told to burn the things before him, in the end … even now, he was still terrified.

Whatever this is, it has not brought me trouble tonight.

The words drew him back to reality. To the truth that they were not there as friends or even old acquaintances, but as prisoner and captor. He tilted his head and turned to look at her slowly. “Whatever this is, it has never happened.” He spoke, the walls she had broken through coming back up quickly and as solid as they had been before his thoughts had broken the silence earlier. His posture shifting, the tone in his voice still soft but firmer than before. “You’d do best to finish your meal so I can return to my duties.” He had already been here too long, if he remained much longer people would start asking questions.

[brazenbaela]

She had expected it.

That was the thing — she had seen it coming, had watched the walls go back up in the particular way of people who had spent so long building them that the motion was entirely automatic, entirely without thought, the way breathing was without thought. He had been somewhere honest for a little while and now he was not, and she understood that, had no quarrel with it, had done the same thing herself in more rooms than she could count.

She looked at him for a moment after he spoke.

❛ Very well, ❜ she answered quietly.

She felt the shape of their peculiar reprieve already shifting — into something careful, something that acknowledged the walls going back up without making him feel the observation of it. Because she had understood instinctively from the beginning of this strange and unintended conversation that Aemond Targaryen required the particular courtesy of not being watched too closely when he was in the process of retreating from something.

And then she felt it.

The specific and entirely unwelcome awareness of her own body making itself known in a way that brooked no argument and cared nothing for the inconvenience of its timing. She stilled for just a moment — not visibly, or not much. It was the kind of stillness that would read to a casual observer as simply a pause in thought — and made the rapid and silent calculation of someone who had learned to manage such things with the minimum possible disruption to whatever else was happening around her.

But that calculation it seemed did not resolve favourably.

She looked at the meal. Then at him.

And moved to rise, which was itself a careful operation conducted with a dignity she was determined to maintain regardless of circumstance.

❛ I find, however, ❜ she continued, with the particular composure of someone managing two separate conversations simultaneously — one with him, one with her own body, which she was currently losing, ❛ that I will need to excuse myself before the meal. ❜

A pause. Brief and precise.

❛ My moon blood, ❜ she said, because there was no artful way around it and she had never been the sort of person who tied herself in knots attempting one, ❛ has chosen this moment to make itself known. With, I think you will agree, exceptional timing. ❜

She looked at him then — directly, without embarrassment, with only the faintest quality of dry resignation around her eyes that might, in another life, in another room, have been the beginning of something almost like shared exasperation at the fundamental inconvenience of being alive.

❛ If you would send for—❜ she paused, ❛ —something. I would be grateful. ❜

The last word cost her nothing. And that surprised her slightly.

[brazenbaela]

✨Tis analysis time of the scene(s) between Baela and Addam✨ Let's go!!! Okay, so you know I have beef with the writers of this show regarding how they handle their non-favs. But they actually did something profound here with Addam's character that made me stop and sit up and take notice. And that's great character work that I can get behind!!! I actually think that the exchanges they wrote for Adam work because he doesn't do what a lesser writer would have him do. Which is to be dismissive.

A weaker version would be: "Don't worry. It'll all work out."

Or: "You'll be queen someday."

Or even: "Forget Jace."

Instead, he does something much more emotionally intelligent. Yes we love an emotionally intelligent King in this house. Yes, we do. Props. 🤌🏽👌🏽🖤

Baela says: "I was to be queen one day. My path lay straight before me and now..."

But she can't even finish the sentence. And what does Addam say?: "The path has vanished."

So, notice what he doesn't do. He doesn't contradict her. He doesn't minimise her loss. He doesn't rush to optimism. He actually names the reality of her situation. The one where she's living and has her punishing herself for it, and that's empathy.

It's only after he's acknowledged her grief that he offers another possibility to her. One that she can get behind, knowing who she is: "...So it has been replaced, perhaps, by adventure."

Notice even the word "perhaps" is doing so much work. He isn't prescribing her future. He isn't telling her how to feel. He's simply opening a window she can't yet see. It's hopeful without being dismissive. And that's difficult dialogue to write well.

I also liked how that word "adventure" is such an unexpected word. When he could have easily said,

Freedom / a new beginning / a different future

But that word reveals something about Addam. "Adventure" feels like Addam. It tells you something about him. He sees uncertainty and thinks, "Hm, interesting."

Meanwhile, Baela sees uncertainty and thinks, "Everything I've lost." Neither of them is wrong. They're simply standing on different emotional ground at the moment. And that's why the conversation has movement. And I think this is also why their chemistry landed so quickly!

Their dialogue wasn't really about romance, like some people are insinuating. It's about shifting one's worldview. A change in perspective. Addam lends Baela his perspective without trying to replace hers. That's a subtle but important distinction.

Both scenes weren't romance scenes. They were both care scenes. Some people are reading it as, How dare?! The writers replaced Jace. But I'm seeing it as, The writers finally FINALLY!!! let someone see Baela.

And here's the clever bit. This line quietly echoes his later scene. Earlier, he tells Rhaenyra: "The Lady Baela has not eaten or slept for days."

And Later, he jokes: "But only if we eat first."

It's not only a beautiful circular callback moment (which I adore!!!), but it also shows he's been paying attention the whole time. The joke isn't random. It's continuity of care. And the callback tells us this wasn't a one-off observation. It's become something he's carrying in his mind. And that, my friends, is beautiful character writing.

Because it's the writers letting him shine. And that's the difference between writing behaviour and revealing character. And what's even more beautiful is that the writers didn't invent kindness in that moment. They revealed that Adam is the kind of man who notices, reframes, and quietly takes care of people.

And that's revelation, not manipulation.

[drunkenvows]

Independent and Selective Daeron "The Drunken" Targaryen...

“I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest.”

[mythshire]

favorite micro-trope: one muse fixing the other’s collar, tie, necklace, or armor while both of them become painfully aware of the distance between their hands and throat.

[brazenbaela]

I'm the girl in your life, I'm the one you call wife And I need to know, are you feelin' me yo Is there anyone else? That can do it the best Give you things you need, Well it must be me I've got very big dreams And the fantasies But I need to know are you feelin' me yo

[mythshire]

⋆ · 𖤓 · ⋆ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 ··· a collection of sunburnt skin and borrowed time, summer love that knows its own expiration date, the ache of wanting someone between June and September. genre: romance, slow burn, angst, summer melancholy.

You've been looking at me all night. Are you going to do something about it or are we just going to keep pretending?

I don't think about you. Except every time the wind picks up. And every time the sun goes down.

You're leaving in August. I know that. I'm choosing not to think about it yet.

I don't know what this is. I do know I don't want it to stop.

The screen door keeps slamming and you keep showing up on my porch and I keep not telling you to go.

Three months. That's all this is. Tell me you understand that.

I've been trying to talk myself out of you for six weeks. It's not working.

Stay for the sunset. That's all I'm asking. 

Dance with me in the parking lot. 

This is my favorite version of you. Sandy feet, no plans, laughing at nothing.

You fell asleep on my shoulder at the drive-in and I didn't move for two hours.

I picked these for you on the walk over. They're a little wilted. I think they're still pretty.

I've never had someone look at me the way you look at me in the morning light.

Every song on the radio sounds like it's about you and I'm losing my grip on reality.

The fireflies are out. Come sit with me. Bring the blanket.

You wrote your number on a napkin like it's 1997 and it's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done.

You make ordinary days feel like something worth remembering.

September is going to ruin me and we both know it.

I'm not ready to talk about when you leave. Can we just have tonight?

You said this was temporary. You promised me it was temporary. Why doesn't it feel temporary?

This is the last bonfire of the summer. I need you to know what this meant to me.

I can't keep your sweatshirt. If I keep it I'll never get over this.

The house is going to feel so empty when you leave. The whole town is going to feel empty.

I keep driving past the place we met like it's going to bring the summer back.

The lake looks different without you next to it. Everything looks different without you next to it.

I don't regret a single day. I regret that there weren't more of them.

Take something of mine with you. So I know part of me is wherever you are.

Get in the car. I'm not telling you where we're going. Trust me.

You navigate. I'll drive. We're not stopping until the tank is empty or you fall asleep.

We got lost three hours ago and I've never been happier.

You look good in my sunglasses. Keep them. 

Pull over. Right here. I want to remember this exact sky.

[buteverybodylovesmee]

why the Strongs lowkey running shit

rhaenyra/ser harwin

aemond/alys

aegon/larys

baela/jace

rhaena/luke

daemon/simon

like damn everyone got one

[timbllr]

[darkwishmoonside]

[myladyship]

When I see Baela and Alyn interact, I feel like screaming!

"Girl, he's going to cheat on you! With your niece! And her parents are still in diapers!"

[gameofthronesdaily]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON | Season 3, Episode 5, "Unbowed and Unbent"

[witchyxwoo]

time. it felt so much of it had been taken away from him and it felt so much of it had spent doing tedious things. deep down he mostly wished that he'd had time to feel part of this family sooner and longer. he remembered his mother marilda and all that she'd taught him and his brother alyn. in a state like this he wondered what she'd say seeing him in the company of nobility. he also wondered how she would've felt seeing him on dragon back with seasmoke and being knighted.

he'd been in such a reflective state of mind after the war had ended and being to have a moment of peace with baela had truly been a calming effect. their topics may be heavy and vulnerable, but they were friendly with each other. he would always be grateful to have been introduced to herself all those months ago. their dragons had flown together in the skies only briefly and it had been a beautiful sight. at least when it was a peaceful flight. part of him wished he could've been just a plain old dragonrider and not a fighter. but then he also knew that it had been the right thing to fight for the queen. he just felt torn because of losing seasmoke.

"i will always think about him for as long as i live," he nodded his head a couple times, "and about the rest of the dragons lost." even the ones on their enemies' side deserved to be remembered. addam would never back down from that thought. he may not have known all of them, but he'd still try to keep them in his thoughts. he'd probably go back to driftmark and rebuild his life with alyn. but he'd try his best.

the more baela spoke up the more he felt like keeping her close. he didn't really have anyone he'd been close like this except for alyn and his mother before she passed. in truth it hadn't been easy and he'd put all his focus on making sure he'd been as good a shipwright as possible. he'd done his best to repair so many ships over the years and part of him believed he'd be headed back to a similar life now. another part of him hoped for something different. maybe with baela there, if she felt open to it of course.

"baela," he kept his voice low as looked down at their hands and then back at the sea ahead. "i understand and i've lived like that. alyn and i had each other for the most part." that had been obvious and he'd already been thinking about for a while now too. but at least now it had spoken out loud. "but i'm glad i got to know you, despite that time having been spent in a war. i may go back to driftmark soon, but i will stay here in this spot as long as i can." he had another idea, but it felt a little small.

"now, i promise i'm still not leaving," he paused as he let go from the embrace. addam took a moment to himself before moving to stand at her side. a few more seconds passed before he sat down and looked up at baela. he invited her to sit next to him and continue to stare out at the sea before them. he kept it silent, but his eyes revealed all. really he just hoped to stay off his feet a bit and this way they could stay in each other's company.

[brazenbaela]

She looked down at him for a moment when he settled onto the ground, this man who had been a shipwright before he had been a dragonrider, who had learned to build things before he had learned to fly them, and who was now sitting in the dirt of a harbour looking up at her with that particular quality of openness she had come to understand was simply how Addam was — without showmanship, without the need to be strategic. He was simply himself, despite everything surrounding his birth. He hardly let it overshadow him and was just himself, all the way through. In the way nost people she knew never had the luxury of being otherwise.

She sat.

Not immediately. There was a moment in which she simply stood there and felt the decision happening somewhere beneath conscious thought, the small interior shift of choosing to stay, to lower herself from the particular altitude at which she habitually kept herself and simply — be here. In this spot. With him.

She sat beside him and looked at the sea.

It was very quiet. The harbour sounds, the distant creak of ships, the water saying what water always said — all of it familiar, all of it the same sea she had known her entire life, and yet somehow different in this particular light, with this particular person beside her, in the particular aftermath of a war that had taken so much from both of them.

❛ Driftmark, ❜ she said eventually, softly, as though testing the shape of the word. ❛ You should go. You and Alyn both. It is — ❜ she paused, and something moved across her face, quiet and complex. ❛ It is worth going back to. Even when it is hard. Perhaps especially then. ❜

She had not been back yet herself. She was not certain she was ready. But she knew it as truth nonetheless. The way she knew certain things without being able to say precisely how she knew them.

Her eyes stayed on the water.

❛ I used to think, ❜ she said, after a moment, ❛ that the people you kept close were the ones who would always be there. Who had known you from the beginning, before you were — any particular thing. Before the world had decided what you were and written it down somewhere permanent. ❜

A breath. The sea moved.

❛ And then the war happened, ❜ she said, ❛ and most of those people were gone now, and the ones who remained — ❜ she stopped. ❛ And then there were people like you. Who came into it sideways. Who I never would have — ❜

She did not finish the sentence. Did not need to.

Her shoulder was almost against his. The same proximity they had kept all evening, close enough to mean something, neither of them having moved to change it.

❛ Addam, ❜ she said. His name in the particular register she used when she meant what came after it entirely. ❛ When you go to Driftmark — ❜

She paused. And here was the Laena in her, that warm boldness of choosing someone underneath the armour, coming through in the slight softening around her eyes, the way her voice lost its careful edges when she was with people she had decided to trust.

❛ Come back. ❜

Simply. Without qualification or explanation or any of the careful architecture she usually built around the things she actually meant.

❛ That is all. Just — come back to me. ❜

[gameofthronesdaily]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON | Season 3, Episode 5, "Unbowed and Unbent"

[storiesofthenight]

In all honesty, when he had offered to bring Baela’s meal to her, he had not had the intention to speak to her. He had simply wanted a moment away from everything he was used to. From the people who would say the same things day in day out, praise his skill with the sword, or how he and Vhagar had handled some thing at some place, or … from the people who did the opposite and would berate him for his temper that would sometimes take over. But he was of the blood of the dragon, the fire was in him and sometimes there was just no holding it back.

He’d sat down to wait and make sure she ate, after all what good would a starved prisoner do, with every intention to just do that. Wait. But waiting and silence lead to his mind wandering and where else could it wander than the enemy in this matter? The Blacks, the war … the war he had started. The kill he had made that had changed everything more than it had already been changed.

I don’t imagine they would.

Her words struck him, catching him off guard and making him realise that he really had been speaking out loud, voicing emotions that he usually kept buried deep within. It was easiest that way, to keep them far from the light of day where people would only judge him if they knew. Nonetheless, he did not react to her words, his eye still fixed on something unimportant in the distance in the room. That way, in a sense, he could pretend none of the words had been said, but she did not let him linger in that pretense and smashed the wall that had already begun to reform with her words. 

I have turned things over too.

There were things she regretted, that was clear from her words, from the atmosphere that seemed to wash from them. Things she would turn over until there was nothing of her left to do the turning. He too felt those things would not leave his mind until he was no more than dust in the wind. 

His eye had closed by the time she said it didn’t make him weak. Unsettled by the similarities in their minds even though they were most likely over different matters. For him, it was his first kill that would haunt him forever. It had been unintentional and had left him sick in his chambers that night until someone, he had no clear recollection of who, had picked him off the floor and washed, clothed him and brought him to bed. 

He did not believe that it did not make him weak however, after all it had left him vulnerable and he could not allow that. Not in this family, not in this city with these people. So he had made the walls higher, stronger … so why was she, Baela, the one to break through them? Perhaps it was because they had once, as kids, known each other before the war had begun, before everything had begun to change. Or was it because of what she had said? For once, someone hearing his words and seeming to read the meaning behind them? And even more so, relating to it. His family did not do that, they only saw him as the cold and stoic prince he had built for them to see.

“How can you be certain that it is not weakness?” He spoke eventually, glancing at her so briefly as if he worried she would see right through him if he gave her a long enough look. “If it brings only trouble and conflict, is it not best just put aside? Buried and never seen again?” But it had been seen, … and once seen, could he ever truly bury it again? “Those things never bring anything good with them.” Was he a fool for continuing this conversation? Perhaps, ... but truth be told, it was the most honest conversation he had had in ages, even despite how few words had been spoken so far.

[brazenbaela]

She considered him for a long moment before she answered.

The meal sat between them, half-finished, and she was aware of the particular irony of it — Aemond Targaryen, who had set in motion the chain of events that had brought her to this room, this captivity, this diminished and chained version of herself, sitting across from her now and asking her about weakness as though she were someone he might trust with the answer. As though the walls between them had not been built from specific and irreversible things.

And yet.

She thought of her father. Of the armour he wore so completely that most people never questioned whether it was armour at all. She thought of what it had cost him, quietly, over the years — what it still cost him, in the spaces between his certainty where she alone had sometimes been permitted to look.

She thought of herself.

❛ I am not certain, ❜ she said at last. Quietly and without the accomplishment of certainty she might have offered someone else. ❛ I have never been certain of it.❜

She looked at her hands briefly. The chains were a fact she had stopped registering in the way of things one simply learned to carry.

❛ But I think — ❜ she began, and stopped, and began again, more carefully. ❛ I think the burying is where the weakness lives. Not the feeling itself. The burying of it. What it requires of you, to keep it down. What it takes from everything else. ❜

She did not look at him directly when she said it. Gave him that, at least — the same courtesy he had given her, the ability to receive something without having to be seen receiving it. ❛ It is exhausting, ❜ she said simply. ❛ In my experience. The keeping of things buried. ❜

The silence settled around them again, the particular silence of this room, of this strange and impossible conversation that neither of them had intended and neither of them, she suspected, quite knew how to stop.

She thought, briefly and without meaning to, of Lucerys. Of what he had looked like as a boy. Of the fact that the man sitting across from her carried that too, whether he permitted himself to feel it or not, turning it over and over in the dark the way he had described — unable to escape it.

She did not say any of that.

Some things were true and also not hers to say.

❛ You asked me how I can be certain, ❜ she said instead, after a moment. ❛ I told you I am not. But I will tell you what I do know. ❜

She looked at him then. Directly. Just briefly, as he had looked at her.

❛ Whatever this is — ❜ a gesture, slight, that encompassed the room and the conversation and the strange territory they had somehow wandered into together, ❛ — it has not brought me trouble tonight. ❜ At the very least, she could offer that truth.

[brazenbaela]

my poor girl has given up on her targ side and taken up her Velaryon colours. since nyra sucks and so does daemon tbh

[myfandompromptsside]

Seasmoke & Moondancer