Love me, or leave me alone!

so transparent

period and they also only made criston's ethnicity relevant when gwayne started insulting him (because of course only the evilest of evil hightowers make microaggressions against poc, never rhaenyra or daemon), and then they made gwayne the level-headed voice of reason in battle. it's PAINFULLY bad but no one seems to give a fuck!!!!!

And of course I was waiting for hotd to show that. And unfortunately got crumbs. But let's get to the main point. What I didn't realize when there were only books and not much has changed since the series came out. It's Jace and Baela. These two as a couple never interested me in the book or the show. And given the current agendas, fans of the Jace/Baela pairing are especially "aggressive". Because if you're a jacegan fan, you're automatically a racist and misigonist. But.... I didn't like her when she was a white canon Targaryen. I have no hatred or anything like that. The character just didn't hook me, nor did their connection to Jace. On the show, I'm sorry, Baela barely has a chance to develop as a character in season 1. Season 2 has some cool moments with her, but she's still more of an appendix to Rhaenyra and Jace. And yes, I'm sorry that such a character is neglected, as well as many other interesting characters, but given the format of the show and the number of episodes, they have to sacrifice something (the jacegan line is almost completely cut). And back to the serialized Baela and Jace. Their pairing is more of a favorable union for me. There's no spark, no love, no passion. They literally haven't seen each other in years since Rhaenys took her away. Then they met and were unexpectedly announced to be engaged. And there was a shaky situation all around. There was no room for any romance. Then the diplomatic mission, Luke dies and the whole of season 2 Jace is busy with anything but Baela. She's the one who's more of a comforter. And the rare "cute" moments are improvised by the actors who are trying to create/show some kind of relationship in place of the writers, because they are engaged. But it doesn't help, imho, for me personally. I just see two early matured people who are in a stressful situation. They support each other as best they can. I'm sure their marriage would be strong, secure because they are more like friends/family than lovers. And that is my main complaint. I'm sorry, but even in Jace and Cregan's 3 minute scene, there is more chemistry through looks than in the entire time Jace and Baela interacted. Of course that's still a matter of taste. But then again, why would anyone allow themselves to criticize another person for their tastes and hobbies? Why is it that if I'm not interested in Jace and Baela's pairing, I'm immediately misogynistic and racist, and don't support the characters' geth, but cling to white men in homosexual relationships. Like...what do you want? I don't want to be a hypocrite. I just don't care for Baela's character and her relationship with Jace in either the books or the show. That's it. 

Jace and Kregan's relationship is much more interesting, colorful, tragic and carries more meaning and love. I won't describe it in detail, because there are some great methinks on the blog. And that's it.

Wow...uh... I sincerely hope you feel better getting that off your chest, anon. Thankfully, I've never interacted with people who react negatively to my jacegan posts or fics. I'm sorry you've had that experience and thank you for taking the time and effort to share it with me. If you encounter people like that, you should really block them and not allow them access into your mental space.

If your question was what I feel about jacaela, then I don't really feel strongly about it either way? I was also neutral to jacegan until I started writing about it, to be fair. I mainly got into it because I wanted to explore the idea of Sara Snow being Jace and/or Cregan and relate that to masks, identity, and performance of masculinity/femininity/gender.

I'm willing to bet if I start a jacaela project, I'd see the merits of that ship, too. I probably won't write about show!Baela though, because she doesn't have much of a personality and seems to be more loyal to Rhaenyra than Jace? She only ever speaks for Rhaenyra's interests and never Jace's. Honestly, her one scene with Rhaenyra made me think she's more enamored with the mom than the son. When Jace was having valid issues about his legitimacy, Baela was quick to dismiss him as "pouting" even though both their lives and positions rely on the strength of his claim to the throne. It was honestly baffling. If I was gonna write for show!Baela, I'd ship her with Rhaenyra before Jace — makes a lot more sense with the text.

In the book, Baela was eager to get married to Jace and had some really compelling tension with him. Him delaying their wedding after going north? Really juicy stuff. Baela is only noted as getting more promiscuous after Jace's death (and after she was left alone in Dragonstone) — so another writer (who isn't me) could explore the conflicting emotions of feeling free of the shackles of arranged marriage while also grieving a future that Baela very likely once dreamed of. There's also the incest angle, the fact that Rhaenyra and Daemon's marriage could have only happened if the parent they both loved died, how Baela doesn't want to act like a lady/princess but Jace desperately wants to be seen as a lord/prince — lots of places a competent writer can take it for sure. It can be a great friends-to-lovers, shared trauma/mutual healing, marriage-of-convenience-turned-real kind of thing. Baela as a tsundere, Jace as an angsty anime protag.

Funny enough,Jace is the one who supposedly breaks the betrothal, not Baela, yet almost every fic where this is written about, somehow Baela is a power-hungry bitch when she is the polar opposite of that. She's angry that she isn't or wouldn't be Queen when the true Baela isn't fighting solely to rule. Or as I said before, she is ignored. Baela is the one risking her life in a war that doesn't concern her. She is the one who urged Rhaenys to fight for Rhaenyra, and in turn saving their asses as House Velaryon is very much needed as one of Rhaenyra's biggest allies. Corlys and Rhaenys were ready to leave, Baela stopped them. She's fiercely loyal, a fighter, dragon-rider and she has a big heart, yet this is never written for her. So, yes, I call bullshit on those saying they aren't racist. Baela had never been depicted this way in this fandom until the show aired and fans learned she'd be black.

She's Jace's literal rock in season two and she gets virtually no respect. it's so bad that a part of me wished she hadn't stopped Rhaenys and Corlys. If the disrespect towards a family ALLOWING Jace (and his brothers) to USE their name can be so blatant, then I believe they should have declared neutrality. They owe Rhaenyra nothing, let her fight her own battles. A broken betrothal to Baela is a huge insult to not only House Velaryon, but also her father. And this would be strike three for House Velaryon. It's like in many fics, Baela (and Rhaena) are ignored, villainized or flat out treated like shit, yet the Velaryon's are still on Rhaenyra's side, in these fics. Like, on what planet?

And please don't take this as an attack, it's just extremely frustrating when people play in others faces and gaslight. Not being racist means that you are treating Baela fairly, not completely changing her entire attitude and presence to fit an agenda because for whatever reason, you simply don't like her. Has Baela even done anything to be disliked? Lol

I don't get the fascination with Jace/Cregan, but I don't have to because I am never going to shit on them. But it's clear fans would ship Jace with the devil before they imagine a Black girl becoming Queen.

You're so stupid! lmfao

Knowing this, these idiots attacked Aemond in a crowd, beat him, cut out his eye and made him disabled. You are such clowns!

With Jace and Cregan, somehow, we've managed to discredit mlm relationships by saying it isn't cheating or that Baela would be okay with it and allow for male friendships and mentor roles to go unfulfilled for the sake of romance.

It's funnier when you think about the people saying that Daemon and Nettles shouldn't be romantic because it would lessen the narrative between them of they are romantic or that we need more male female friendships that aren't romantic. It goes off into the tangents of a mentor mentee relationship and father daughter one as well. Then, we can't prioritize romance because of Rhaenyra and Daemon's relationship.

See why I'm having a hard time believing y'all care about them? A lot of you would rather these men stay and regress in these relationships than establish them in character building relationships with black women.

We prioritize friendships between people who take baths together but not with men who want to marry their kids to each other and make blood pacts to keep that promise.

With Sara as well, in the show timeline, Jace is 2 days into his engagement with Baela, a role which he prioritized immediately after it was announced. So, about a month into it, he's just stepping away? During a war, when he knows those marriages just secured house Velayron?

His biggest characterization is his insecurity about his bastardy. Would he go out of his way to get with one and then marry her? Making her his queen?

Not to me tonight, Mr. Dragons recognize blood, not titles with his dragonseed plan, making a huge mistake and miscalculation with giving peasants dragons, makes enough mistakes in his life, for me at least.

I don't see how adding Sara romantically adds anything at all, other than a romance that doesn't play into anything later on.

(If you feel the need to explain, go ahead, but it doesn't make sense to me for his character or the timeline in the show. )

I just would like to say it's strange behavior to go out of your way to justify taking relationships and character developments away from black characters for the sake of white ships.

Firstly, Vhagar is the most powerful dragon in the current world, is over 150+ years old, and is not property to be owned and passed on. She had several owners Visenya Targaryen, Baelon Targaryen, Laena Velaryon, and Aemond Targaryen. None of whom were parent child relationships. The entire concept that Vhagar was a birthright is laughable at best. Dragon’s are not hereditarily acquired or passed down. Rhaena Targaryen had no more claim to Vhagar than anyone else who could become a dragonrider.

I can understand that as a young child grieving the loss of her mother, Vhagar is much more valuable to Rhaena and she would assume she could make a claim to her. But in the end, she didn’t. Vhagar wasn’t naturally hers to inherit. Dragons are not property; they are powerful creature that must be earned. And Aemond did just that by being the bravest ten year old and gaining the respect and trust of the most impressive dragon in the show.

Secondly, Aemond was bullied by his shitty brother and (even shittier) cousins, and he proved them all wrong. I keep seeing Targ, or more specifically Rhaenyra, stans talk about how sweet and wonderful Rhaenyra’s kids are, but last I checked sweet kids don’t bully and humiliate their cousin for the fact that they don’t have an extremely important family gift. They know he’s embarrassed by it. They know it bothers him. And they decide it hilarious to further humiliate him by giving him a pig: “the pink dread”. The kids are assholes, and Aemond proved his worth with his action of claiming Vhagar.

I already established he did nothing wrong by claiming a free dragon. But I think it’s even more important to show why he did it. Aemond was bullied and taunted by his cousins and brother for not having a dragon, and he decided to prove to himself and the kids who bullied him that he is brave enough and worthy enough to have a dragon. And not just any dragon, the greatest dragon. It’s a power move to prove himself against his, and he did it masterfully.

Thirdly, Aemond didn’t start the fight. That fight was started by Rhaena and Baela and joined by Jace and Luke. They all sought him out and started picking a fight with him. Rhaena is the one who made the fight first turn physical, and while I never agree with boys hitting girls, I also don’t agree with girls hitting boys. Violence is violence. Rhaena charged at Aemond with intent to hurt him and he pushed her off. He defended himself. Baela then charges at Aemond and punches him, when all he did was push her sister off him. He swings back (not cool but like...you try getting beat up and just taking it). Then all hell breaks loose. The conclusion on this point is that Aemond didn’t start shit. The other kids sought him out and started attacking him. Aemond simply defended himself.

Fourthly, and most importantly, the fight was completely and totally UNFAIR. Four against one is not a fair fight. All four kids circled him while he was on the ground and were mercilessly beating him. Again FOUR. Four kids, eight hands, punching him over and over. He pushed as many as he could off him and grabbed a rock for protection. And then when everyone stopped beating him, he lowered his hand with the rock. He clearly wasn’t going to beat Luke with that rock.

The only time he goes to be violent again is when Jace pulls out a fucking KNIFE on him and goes to stab him over being called a bastard (which is 100% true. The boys are bastards). Only then, when Jace has a knife does Aemond go once again to defend himself with that rock. Only to then get his eye cut out by Luke. Where in that scene does Aemond have anything fair? He’s the same age as these kids. He didn’t instigate anything, he was unfairly being fought by four kids (and winning too), and he defended himself against a knife.

Essentially, Aemond Targaryen is a child, and really didn’t do much wrong in this situation. He was bullied and harassed by his shithead brother and cousins for not having a dragon. He proved himself by gaining the mightiest dragon, which was his right as Vhagar was free to claim and isn’t hereditary property. He was sought out by the same shithead cousins and the Velaryon girls who instigated a physical fight with him and then all ganged up on him and beat him. And then he had his eye cut out for defending himself against a kid who pulled a knife on him.

No, I would never say Aemond deserved to lose his eye, what child does? But to paint the others involved as monsters who just wanted to hurt Aemond is ludacris. Every parent and guard there failed those kids that night. Too busy fucking around or expecting others to watch them.

I really hope the writers do Sara justice and make it a compelling storyline that adds depth to Jace’s character and Rhaenyra’s relationship with her presumed heir.

Firstly, I am a Stark stan through and through, and I want the Starks in this show to be adequately represented.

Secondly, Jace is a very dull character and has nothing to him. I don’t understand how black stans can look at Jace and think he’s a compelling character when half the fandom can’t even tell him apart from his younger brother. Having us care even the tiniest bit about him through a relationship will make his death actually matter. As opposed to Luc who got like five mins of forced character development so people would care.

Thirdly, and most importantly of all, the situation with Jace and Sara will challenge Rhaenyra in new and interesting ways. With Viserys gone, Rhaenyra is directly responsible for anything that goes wrong now. She no longer has her father to defend her or make sure any mistakes she or her family makes are fixed. Now, Rhaenyra will have to deal with the political implications of her son breaking his betrothal with their greatest allies. She will have to look in the mirror and see she never disciplined her children or prepared them for the responsibility they would have to bare. Rhaenyra will be met with the same insolence and trouble she used to bring as a teen.

I think Sara could be the best thing that could happen to Jace’s storyline and the team black storyline. She could add romance, drama, a strong female character, and interesting and complex conflicts between many characters. I guess that’s just what happens when Starks are included in a plot, everything gets much more interesting. The power they hold is unmatched.

And yeah. Let people ship a Jace and Sara. She could actually give him some sort of character. Because clearly incest didn’t give him anything noteworthy lol.

And I'm team Stark all day, everyday. I've defended Sansa and the North vehemently despite many fans believing they're evil and racist. But, no. Nothing Sara Snow does will ever compare to Baela "I'm taking on Aegon and standing up to Cregan Stark when he wanted to execute the men who released her from imprisonment" Targaryen.