phantom reality

Hi, this is serymn's fandom and writing blog | Serymn @ ao3 | 18+ Writing tag: #serymnwrites Thoughts, text posts & brain rot tag: #serymn.txt

[pookiebearsnookums]

also helaena choosing to keep her pregnancy from everyone bc she wants to keep maelor safe💔 she loves him

[welightthewaysource]

House Of The Dragon Season 3x05: "Unbowed and Unbent"

[dmcmercy]

Loved this devastating Alicent and Helaena scene. Alicent, so desperate not to lose her, starts grabbing Helaena and yelling at her, the exact treatment she tried to prevent back in 2x08 with Aemond (and notably exactly how she treats Aegon in 1x06). She struggles so much with her kids but tries to be good to Helaena, yet can't help but fall back into that old habit.

(I also love that she calls moon tea a blessing. The underlying resentment of her forced motherhood?)

And for Helaena's part, she finally gets to make a choice for herself for once. She raises her voice for I think the first time ever. Their relationship is rapidly fracturing and I think it's so key that it's because Helaena is prioritizing her own agency. She's disobeying a parent the way Alicent would've never done with Otto when she was a girl.

[serymn]

HotD s3s5 thoughts

My helaegon heart seemed to be resurrected this episode. Yes, season 2 was bad but I love that we're getting a little bit of everyone, even the scenes with Baela and Addam. I also loved Alicent this episode.

For one, Helaena mentioned Jaehaerys again. So the writers remembered him huh. Also her insisting she won't abort her pregnancy with such emotion! Alicent did say "Aegon's heir" so I don't think anyone else is the father. Will Aegon ever find out? What I wonder about is how they will handle Maelor, will he be there or he will somehow die in childbirth or some other way? Also Helaena, stay away from those windows! That gave me so much anxiety.

A subtle sun/moon reference? Did we just get the crumbs I was looking for?

[phiarucci]

“A dragon so beautiful they named him after the sun itself.” “I need to see the moon.”

helaegon with their sunmoon symbolisms tethered!!!

[adreamerscrown]

something abt phia talking about helaena's pregnancy “i think she doesn't tell alicent because she feels so powerless in her own life. it's something that just belongs to her. and it is extremely sacred to her. and also because her son in season two was a casualty of this war, and she is not willing to sacrifice another child” and aegon saying “abed! instead of safeguarding the sanctity of my family!”

KILL MEEEE

[greenqueenhightower]

The Alicent I know and love is back. We have Alicent proving once again that, at her core, her driving motivation has always been her children and that she would do everything to help them. She has accepted that she may not be able to save everyone in her family, but no one can accuse her of not trying. No one can say she didn't exhaust every possibility or use every ounce of influence she still possessed to protect them. She once again got herself into machination gear and had them cogwheels turning in this episode when:

a) she got Orwyle to secretly deliver moon tea under the guise of a remedy for period cramps,

b) urged Helaena to take it because she didn't fall for Rhaenyra's "you know I would have spared him, right?" delulu narrative as she very well shouldn't because she knows all too well the brutal logic of power and that Rhaenyra and her council would be forced to eliminate all rival claimants to the throne regardless of their age to secure her position,

c) initially outwitted Mysaria by drinking the moon tea herself, sacrificing her own health, reputation, and safety to save her daughter, despite how violently ill it had made her before,

d) traded away the seven-pointed star necklace which she had been wearing since forever and which was synonymous with her faith and her own longing for her mother, to ensure safe passage for herself and Helaena,

e) once again did the impossible arithmetic of motherhood and decided that saving Helaena and her unborn baby's lives at the expense of Jaehaera was better than losing Helaena, the baby, and Jaehaera altogether in "a true MOTHER counts the cost to her CHILDREN" tragic calculus fashion she's been forced to make all her life,

f) wasted zero time in manipulating Mysaria once caught and used her wiles and any remnants of influence she could grapple with to appeal to Mysaria's opportunism and self-interest and entice her to exchange silence with the opportunity to play both sides,

g) as soon as she got another chance, she made a run for it with Helaena.

All she's been doing all the time is her best with the options that she has. She has NOT given up, she is not merely a prisoner who laments her fate, but she believes herself still actively responsible for her children's fate and survival, and so she continues to act and sacrifice pieces of herself as a real mother would.

[visenyaism]

because Ormund Hightower getting in his teenage nephew’s face and coke ranting about the glory of the Hightower Reconquista that he has made up in his head that they are divinely ordained to accomplish to because of their special blood and no one understands but them IS exactly how Daemon was moving with fifteen year-old Rhaenyra in the first season of this show. kind of insane

[greenqueenhightower]

Oh, the Dearon x Alicent parallels ATE in this episode. What if they were both taken away and grew up in castles that were never really homes. What if the adults around them called it an honor which was a prettier word for captivity. They both have red hair and soft hands and gentleness mistaken for weakness. They both believe that kindness is strength, mercy is strength, justice is strength. They both pray and believe the gods reward sacrifice. They both believe that if they are good enough, dutiful enough, obedient enough, the people they look up to will finally look at them with something that resembles love. They are instead rewarded with more duty, more sacrifice, more expectations. Alicent exists to preserve Otto's vision of the realm. Daeron exists to restore Ormund's vision of the past. Neither is asked who they want to become. Neither is allowed to want anything at all, because clay does not choose the shape of the potter's hands. And they let themselves be molded because children believe the people raising them know better, because children mistake control for care. Because if your father tells you that your purpose is larger than yourself, isn't refusing him the same as refusing your family, refusing your gods, refusing your duty? What if Alicent's greatest flaw was that she loved Otto too much. What if Daeron's greatest flaw was that he loved Ormund too much. What if neither of them ever realized they were being loved only insofar as they were useful. Two red-haired children who wanted fathers. They wanted someone to say "you are enough exactly as you are." Instead, they were told "you will be enough once you become what I need you to be". And somewhere along the way, the kind little girl disappeared, somewhere along the way, the kind little boy disappeared. They traded themselves for approval that never came. What if the tragedy of Alicent was that the son she wanted to save from herself became like herself. What if the tragedy of Daeron was that he inherited his mother's face and fate to become a pawn in House Hightower's hands.

[serymn]

We were all looking for Daeron. Now he's here. But at what cost -

[serymn]

I have a feeling that they're going to the rhaena and aemond route this season? While I still feel bad for Nettles and Morning getting deleted, I wonder where they will take rhaena's story now. As of episode 4, she's flown somewhere unknown, aemond is nowhere to be found too (unless alys did something). I really feel for rhaena in the scene with daemon though, but I feel like rhaenyra also feels that daemon is lying.

If rhaemond doesn't happen, we can always have fic (I haven't touched my rhaemond fic in months, I know, but this is such an underrated pairing!)

[serymn]

Will they ever give us a helaegon crumb this season? I'm scared that they will give Helaena a Rhaenyra parallel again and lose Maelor in childbirth. I'm really not sure how I feel with how they're treating her this season.

[wolfienation]

many otto and alicent parallels with ormund and daeron this episode. so incredibly tragic that the son who is most like their mother is the one who she hoped would be raised away from the toxicity of the red keep and instead winds up a pawn on the board for ormund to move about, pawn ormund seeks to make king in the same way otto sought to make alicent queen. the poison always drips through. no matter if you try to stop it. it always, always drips through

[alvsanne]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 3.04, "Tumbleton"

[podcastwizard]

LIKES TO CHARGE REBLOGS TO CAST

[the-goddess-of-annoying]

you people aren't CASTING

[the-goddess-of-annoying]

NO

[phiarucci]

the helaegon grief sex scene that was promised

[stylesthesunflower]

“My life as a nineteen year old wife” baby you are a hostage