#after a year of him bullying her and trying to railroad her every decision and being an asshole to her

[navree]

I think it is very funny (and by funny I mean infuriating and appalling) that people's reactions to a mother being terrified to death for her children's lives is "boohoo Alicent is stupid!" and not "poor thing, that's not how a mother should be made to feel by HER OWN FAMILY"

This is such a problem with literally any TV show or movie, which is that people forget that we are an omnipotent audience. We see everything, we know everything, we are the only people involved in the story that have complete and utter control over all of the information of the story. None of the other characters do, and that's why they make the decisions they do, and if they seem somewhat nonsensical to us that's because we know everything and they don't.

(seriously, as someone who was in The Originals fandom for a time, season 2 was the hardest time to be Hayley fan when half the audience forgot that her decisions made total sense if you just looked at the information she had access to, not all the information of the entire story.)

Alicent's information is this: 1) Rhaenyra lied to her (lies by omission count as lies), and then 2) appears to have leveraged those lies to strip away the last of Alicent's support as well as anyone partial to her children's place in the line of succession. 3) Rhaenyra is then callous enough to drive a man to suicide and, in the process, get another man killed, with no outward remorse. 4) Over the next ten years Rhaenyra commits at best a huge social faux-pas and at worse an outright treason and 5) the products of that treason are cruel to her own sons which Rhaenyra has done nothing to stop (or really do anything to bridge any gap in their relationship) until 6) she proposes the Jace/Helaena marriage, which just looks like an attempt to take Alicent's only daughter hostage when you have an uncharitable view of her. 7) Rhaenyra then does nothing about her son maiming Alicent's and in fact 8) demands that Aemond be tortured for having eyes that can see and 9) vocally approves the plan to maim Alicent's son and Alicent herself for also having eyes that can see, because it helps her succession and that of her sons. And the coup de grace is in 10) Alicent seeing Rhaenyra murder her husband so she can marry who she wants and gather more strength to her side.

That is all the information Alicent has on Rhaenyra as heir to the throne. That she is callous, thoughtless, bloodthirsty in the pursuit of getting what she wants, uncaring towards others, with the capacity towards coldblooded murder to anyone who gets in her way (and who are in her way? Alicent's Targaryen children, especially Alicent's firstborn Targaryen son), and no remorse or thought to consequence for anything she does. Of course, we, the audience, see things from more than just Rhaenyra's point of view, we know that her thoughtlessness is borne out of being sheltered, that she's lighthearted and playful, that she is genuinely just trying to find love within the confines of an incompatible marriage, that the faults in her relationship with Daemon lie with Daemon as the adult and senior figure, that her attempts to reach out are genuine, that she's held the best belief in Alicent for a long time ("I do not believe Alicent is capable of cold blooded murder") that she did not murder Laenor, and that she has no intention of hurting Alicent or her kids and genuinely wants to be a good ruler and pass down the Targaryen legacy/Song of Ice and Fire (whether she can be a good ruler is debatable at best, and also God I hate the stupid prophecy fuck it so hard).

So to the audience, yeah Alicent's reactions can seem irrational, but most people with basic competence and understanding of storytelling can also understand that the impression we have of the story is something no one else in universe does, it's why I'm also willing to give grace to Rhaenyra for sometimes thinking the worst of Alicent because she doesn't have access to the information that we do.

But let's be real, ASOIAF/GOT/F&B/HOTD and all adjacent fandoms have been horrifically toxic and misogynistic, a mindset that extends far beyond characters and even to the actors, no matter which side of certain debates you fall under (yes this is a fandom wide callout I've seen all teams be gross as Hell), as I'm of the belief that insulting Matt Smith's looks and harassing his mother is in fact just as bad as bullying Emily Carey off Twitter, and relentlessly castigating Sophie Turner for no reason including when she was a child is in fact just as bad as mocking Emilia Clarke's brain injuries, this shouldn't be controversial. So I'm not surprised that this toxicity exists towards the character, and there's a lack of understanding in how yeah, Alicent should not be made to feel that her children are in active danger due to the actions of not just their sister but also their literal father, her husband (and that the worsening of the relationship post-Driftmark is entirely on Team Black for not doing anything to make amends for what happened to Aemond whatsoever and refusing to even be contrite years after the fact, Vhagar eating Luke was too merciful for him I said what I said).

A lot of the people who think this way are mostly casual watchers, or just really die-hard Team Black Twitter stans, so we can at least take comfort in the fact that most people with media literacy, whether they be regular fans or even critics, are more willing to extend Alicent the grace she deserves, and us Greenies can stan her hard enough to power a major metropolis in the meantime.

#personal #answered #anonymous #yeah this isn't an hotd specific issue unfortunately enough #the originals season 2 was just.......bane of my existence #'hayley's so evil for running away with hope' klaus confessed to murdering her friend for no reason (and when he didn't even! he's stupid!) #after a year of him bullying her and trying to railroad her every decision and being an asshole to her #after already having a thousand year old reputation of being a remorseless monster #like yeah no shit she eventually decided to cut and run with her kid #the information she had was that this guy was toxic as hell and couldn't be trusted around her or her child #it's only because we saw more than just her pov that we understood where klaus was coming from #i mean god i don't think anyone on the internet understands the concept of POINT OF VIEW #like you know how in the books we the audience know the lannisters are shits but in the first one sansa doesn't in her pov #because she's a child and she doesn't have the information we do about how bad they are #or how dany tends to refer to her marriage to drogo as a love story when we the audience with a modern lens and viewpoint are like uhhhhhhh #god people are dumb

[shepherds-of-haven]

No thoughts, just the Shepherds playing monopoly

I could have sworn I answered this before, but apparently not! Get ready for some chaos...

Blade: he is peak... him when playing Monopoly, because he keeps insisting on playing it like a war game and waging guerilla tactics against his competitors in order to bankrupt their “forces” and claim their land as his own. No one knows if he’s doing it out of malicious compliance from being forced to play, or if he’s sincerely, earnestly unable to play a game without making it about battle and violence. Anyway, he won one time and was silently insufferable about it--nothing is more irritating than the Commander’s stoic face looking just slightly smug without him saying anything--so no one wants to play with him anymore, which suits him just fine because then he can stay a champion without having to constantly defend his title. He also has fairly bad luck when it comes to gambling, so the dice seem to conspire to screw him over quite a lot. 

Trouble: he gets excited and jubilant to play every time, but hits a breaking point when the other players start playing “dirty” and not “playing fair”--IE using tactics and techniques that he can’t keep up with or manipulating him. Then it’s the time for Rage and shouting and violence and indignation. He insists on keeping a “judge” or referee around whenever they play so the referee can comment on whether or not certain moves are fair and allowed, but he always ends up bullying the ref and yelling at them, too, leading once to tears on Shery’s part, which led to Briony and Ayla getting into an all-out brawl with him. He won that fight, but has never won a single game of Monopoly. Still, his dogged determination to keep playing never wavers. More on his violence in the other entries.

Tallys: she played with them one time before realizing how unhinged they all were. Here’s part of her journal entry for that day: Never before had I contemplated what a thread-thin line it is that separates us from the demons. Each of us possesses the power to bring an entire city to its knees, and it would not take very much to tip us over that precipice. Even a mere game is enough to tempt us to the path of darkness. Pride cometh before a fall, and I fear we are all balancing precariously on the edge of a knife.

Long story short: she has the smarts to win, but it’s just not worth it.

Shery: she is actually very competent at Monopoly and is good enough strategically to keep up with Red, Lavinet, and Riel, sometimes showing an unpredictable streak of merciless logic. However, she tends to feel bad about rubbing things in or making others feel bad, so she sometimes quietly makes wrong moves and mistakes towards the end of the game. Riel called her out on it once, and she admitted she likes commiserating with everyone and having fun with them instead of winning, because everyone loathes the victor lol. But she could destroy at Monopoly if she wanted to! She puts on a pot of calming tea whenever they decide to play, but assures everyone it’s caffeinated lol. Regardless, it never helps...

Riel: he is not allowed to play with them. He is horrible with Monopoly. But not in that he’s bad... in that he’s way too good. And competitive. And ruthless. And the whole “he can think twelve steps ahead of everyone else” intelligence and analytical skill is combined with an insufferably condescending attitude (not even really on purpose... that’s just how he is). Imagine having an opponent who absolutely destroys you every time you play with him-- sometimes yawning while you play, sometimes sighing and explaining to you what exact moves you could have made to actually put up a fight against him or even have a chance of winning, and exactly what you did to go wrong. Imagine buying a Monopoly property and glancing across the table at Riel, who looks like:

One time Trouble physically reached across the table, grabbed him by the shirtfront, and dragged him across the board game to throttle him. The worst part about it was that, when it upset the game pieces and overturned the board, Riel commented that he had memorized every piece position and each player's money exactly, so there was no need to stop the game. Another time, Ayla actually stood and gave him a black eye for buying Reading Railroad when she had been saving up for it (well, it was really when he answered, “I know.”). This violence shocked Riel--who had never really been physically hurt by another person before--so deeply that he didn’t speak for the rest of the game. However, he still won, even with only one good eye. 

After that, it was decided that Riel can only play the game through a proxy, and to cap him further, that person has to make half of the decisions while Riel is allowed to suggest the other half, with no discussion between the two of them. Unfortunately for Riel, the only person who would want to be his proxy turned out to be Caine, whose blithe spiritual resilience and enjoyment of winning allowed him to withstand Riel’s controlling demeanor. However, he also drives Riel insane because he’s 12 and makes the unpredictable moves of a 12-year-old boy. 

Chase: Truth be told, he never learned how to play Monopoly or what the point of the game is, because any time anyone tries to explain game rules to him longer than five seconds, his eyes glaze over, or he even get bored and wanders off. Now he plays only to amuse himself by trolling the others; his favorite past time is to replace other players’ pieces with stupid things and see how long it takes for them to notice. The thimble becomes a button, the dog becomes a nut, and etc. Interestingly, he has extremely good luck, and whether by cheating or fortune, he can make the dice roll to any number he wants. Briony, Lavinet, and Red regularly bribe him to help them out with important rolls; thus, another rule has been instated that he can only roll another player’s dice once per game. Typically, they bribe him with more stuff to replace their game pieces with.

Red: he has a strategic mind to rival Riel’s, but he lacks the desire to crush his enemy under his bootheel in order to win at all costs. He tries to make it light-hearted and good, wholesome fun, but it never really goes that way. Still, somehow things work in his favor anyway, and he can cheerfully go, “Oh, I can buy Park Place!” as if just realizing it, an attitude which drives most others crazy. After Riel, he is technically in second place for most games won; he would be tied with Shery if she actually won the games she was in the position to without pretending to lose. However, everyone else being so competitive has made him reluctant to play, so typically he can only be persuaded to if everyone is extra nice to him and promises not to scream to the gods for the others to drop dead on the spot. 

Ayla: you might think Trouble is the likeliest to flip over the game board/table, but it’s actually Ayla. She gets easily confused and irritated, bending over the pieces and scratching her head furiously like “wtf is going on??” This makes her angrier, and when Riel starts to gloat, she’s lunging across the table and having to be held back by Briony or Blade; one time she even tried to bite him. She doesn’t even want to play nowadays, but can’t stand to be left out. When she's not so angry the room is spinning, she does alright, and generally can do second or third-best if Riel or Lavinet are not involved (for some reason she does better against Red or Shery).

Halek: are you joking? you think he would play an hours-long game with those maniacs? as soon as he hears the rattle of the game board, he dissipates into the air like smoke

Briony: Briony’s got the spirit of things, but she’s not quite cut out for Monopoly. She keeps trying to bend the rules to work on teams with other people, proposing combining their finances and working together to win the game, like “yay okay let’s be allies ❤!!!” This works out in her favor like 50% of the time; sometimes someone like Red or Shery agrees, even though that’s not really how you play, and they might win; sometimes she gets absolutely burned, notably once by Lavinet, because her partner will then betray her in some way. This drives her to hysterical tears, but otherwise, she can generally handle losing with a smile and a desire to keep the peace. However, she can get riled up when the others get riled up, like “okay Trouble stop yelling and settle down, you’re going to knock over Shery’s tea...” *Trouble knocks over Shery’s tea* *Briony tackles him* “I SAID SETTLE DOWN!”

Lavinet: Behind Riel, Red, and Shery, she’s the best at the game, since Monopoly is fairly similar to the work she does for the fiefdom. She’s also the best at manipulating the others and occasionally even flirting her way to Pennsylvania Ave. She doesn’t care about winning as much as the others--she is very good at dismissing any loss as “just a game” or “it’s not that important, darling”--but is a smug winner just like the rest of them, unleashing her ojou-sama laugh at the moment of her impending victory. Trouble once described that laugh as “the shrieking of a thousand harpies”. Other than that, though, she’s a fairly normal player, though she barely bats an eye at the violent extremes everyone else takes it to. 

#Shepherds of Haven #monopoly #board game #silly #all characters #anon

[seethedivide]

Y'know I actually might be cool if Virgil was the only super mutant in the game as long as the rest of the ones swarming the commonwealth were gone. It does irk me a bit that the Institute had FEV, but I could buy after 200 years managing to recover small samples of it on the surface. Certainly not enough to make a freaking army of them. Plus virgil would've been a much better companion than Strong imo, since Strong is basically a walking meme. But just one of many problems in FO4, unfortunately

Okay, I think I legitemately froze when you suggested the idea of Virgil as a companion. Because holy shit - yes, you are absolutely right?The Institute obtaining small samples of the virus just a few years ago would also offer a better explanation as to why they are studying it at all. Because even though the game kind of suggests that they used their FEV research to boost the technologies needed to create synths, you really have to dig for that information, and if you don’t then their interest in FEV just doesn’t make much sense - you just have to accept it and live with it. But if they got their first samples a few years ago (Doctor Lee, anyone? This could have been her “payment”, something that convinced the Institute researchers to take her), the interest in the FEV research is a totally valid thing. 

And man, Virgil is a character with a personality, opinions on factions, skills that go beyond combat, he even has a personal quest. There are bits and pieces suggesting that he was a victim of workplace bullying. He could have been a pretty cool companion character.

Imagine the part he could have played in Curie’s personal quest. Not necessarily saying that he’d be the one to help her get the new body, but he’d definitely have opinions on it. What would those be? What would he think, watching how Curie changes and adjusts to new, human sensations and feelings, how she enjoys having a normal body and all the things she can do with it while he is trapepd in this monstrosity and is losing a little bit of control over it every day. 

Also to consider: they are both researchers, the talks they could have had, arguing about things others don’t get but are - for some reason - incredibly important to them. Because did you ever watch two profs trying to prove something to each other? The world is going to burn around them, and they will still be at it.

Nick! He has first-hand knowledge of everything synth-related, and he may know how Nick’s body works better than Valentine himself. And after a period of initial distrust, Nick might have been the one to come to Virgil for help because “my wires do this weird thing” and “is the blood supposed to be that dark? it’s freaking me out but it’s not like I can go to a human medic and have them check me”. Basically, Virgil becoming a synth doctor.

All the drama with X6. Oh, the drama. 

Virgil in Far Harbor would be probably like “I think I’m going to faint, is this actually DiMA? Is this real life? Am I losing my mind in this goddamn body?”

Virgil having idealogical fights with Deacon because Virgil doesn’t agree with the Railroad, and the Sole Survivor being, unwillingly, in the middle of it all. 

Virgil knows about what happened to Hancock’s brother and that he’s been replaced with a synth. The backlash he’d have to deal with when/if he told Hancock the truth. 

And his ending could have depended on so many details, and little things, and side quests and conversations: because he is totally against you killing everyone in the Institute in the game, and depending on how you maneuvered the fights he had with Deacon, or how much attention you paid to him during the game (thus either making him feel like a part of the group or just some green mountan of muscles that nobody cares about) he’d react to your decisions differently. Will he stay with you? Is he going to attack you, and you’ll have to kill him? Is he just going to leave, resigned and lost? 

I… This has so much potential. 

#ask #text #my text #virgil #fallout 4 #Anonymous