#blackfish

[kiera-raelyn]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that the blue dragon isn't a parallel to Azula in the show - it's the representation of the FN's current beliefs about how its citizens should be and Azula personified that. The red dragon was Zuko's inherent nature and it was in battle with the blue dragon, which is who the FN/Ozai thought Zuko should be. But that was only in Zuko's fever dream. Blue dragons aren't inherently evil otherwise they wouldn't have taught Aang and Zuko the true nature of firebending. So I don't think Katara bonding with a blue dragon would "muddy the narrative" because the narrative isn't blue dragons = Azula = bad.

However, I don't think Katara should get/befriend her own dragon, of any color because they're fire's animals/great spirits. While she has fire in her, and I think dragons would respect that, she's fundamentally water. She's connected with the moon and ocean. I would rather see her form a bond with an animal/spirit that reflects that.

I like the idea of an orca for her animal companion (which I almost mistakenly called a whale, oops). It's clearly the basis for Sokka's war paint. I've seen fics that explore the SWT's reverence of them and they were called either blackfish or sea wolves. I'm not sure how much of a bond you can form with an orca, though, as a land bound creature. They do range from polar regions to tropical ones, so her being in the FN wouldn't be a problem. Think it would work better in a pirate AU...

I do like seeing her form a bond with Druk, though. Those are adorable moments.

guys how to you feel about the idea of katara befriending her own dragon (blue, of course) as the Fire Lady

[reidmania]

blackfish | spencer reid

summary; being in the early stages of your relationship, spencer has yet to hear your passionate rambles, until you watch a documentary together and the topic of animals in captivity comes up.

warnings; fluff, so much fluff fem!reader, early seasons spencer, marine biology major!reader, start of relationship things, talking about animal abuse, animals in captivity, talks about orca’s and the documentary blackfish (i know the time line is unrealistic use ur imagination please)

an; self indulgent as a marine biology major and someone very passionate about the fact animals should not be used as apart of a circus act. Very very short, and sweet.

Your legs were resting over Spencer’s, the heels of your feet pressing against the side of the couch arm, while his hands massaged the skin of your calf gently, the credits to the documentary you had spent the last hour and a half watching together rolling over the tv. His hands were gentle and hesitate in every one of the movements, a little shy.

“Did you like it?” He asked, turning his head to look at you, thumb pressing against a tender muscle in your calf, the sensation causing a soft sigh of relaxation throughout your body, which contradicted the annoyance that had been filling you as the film went on.

You hummed, unsure of how to answer the question. “It was interesting.” You mumbled out, your head rolling to press against the back of the couch cushions. He smiled slightly as his hands continued to work out the tension in your legs.

“Yeah?” He hummed out. You nodded, interesting was a safe way to describe your feelings on the documentary you had watched. It wasn’t that it was bad, it wasn’t at all. And you had been interested, the entire time. Just the more the details were revealed the sicker the feeling got in your stomach.

He shuffled slightly, “What are you thinking about?” He asked, his hands pausing their massaging movements to instead rub gently over the smoothness of your skin. Obviously he had noticed the slightly sour look on your face and the way your mind seemed elsewhere.

“How horrible the human species are.” You answered honestly although you were aware Spencer was already aware of this fact. He worked to stop all the horrible things the human species did everyday. He witnessed it firsthand.

“Annoyed?” He asked. You nodded.

You shuffled slightly, pulling your legs away from where they had been resting over his thighs to sit up a little straighter, tucking your knees underneath you as your hands came to rest on your thighs.

“I don’t understand how anyone can look at animals in aquariums or even animal’s in zoo’s and think that it’s just.. okay?” You huffed out, annoyance lacing your tone as you spoke, every word coming out just as disgusted as the last. “i mean— These are wild animals and people act so shocked when they act like wild animals. Like that poor orca had been put through hell since the age of two— ripped away from his family and everything he knew, starved, beat up by other orca’s all for what? A quick buck?” You huffed out in frustration.

Spencer hadn’t expected the ramble but it definitely wasn’t unwelcome, your voice was laced with so much passion and intent, every word that left your lips showed how deeply you had thought about this. He had hummed in response, not wanting to interrupt.

“Marine mammals — they are isolated more in captivity than they aren’t which is absolutely insane since every aspect of their being is based on their social and emotional connections— I mean they have a whole part of the brain that human’s don’t have thats dedicated to their emotional bonds. Which means they feel everything probably double the amount that we do” You continued in frustration as your arms came to wrap around your stomach, and irritated pout on your lips.

Spencer raised his eyebrow but nodded, you were right. “They don’t belong in captivity” He agreed simply, you nodded passionately in response to what he had said. He couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto his face as you rambled, because this had never happened before. Normally you were pretty quiet, not in a way that you were shy or awkward, you just didn’t ramble a lot, not like he did. This was a nice change and he couldn’t help the way his heart swarmed at the sight of you getting all worked up over something you felt passionately for. He would listen to everything you had to say, and a million times more.

“It’s— so gross. Like it genuinely makes me feel sick how they take these animals away from their families and then exploit them for money. Like dolphins — Teach them tricks and then act like it’s just an extension of their natural behaviours — it’s not. You know marine mammals in captivity die way earlier than marine mammals in their natural habitats? Especially Orca’s. Orca’s could live up to 100 or even more and they hardly make it to 30 in captivity.” You huffed out.

“I didn’t know that” He did.

“And Orca’s— Oh my gosh. Each family speaks in their own set of vocalisations, no two families will communicate the same way. They literally have their own languages. And— and people want to throw Orca’s from different pods together in a pool and call them a family? They can’t even communicate with each other, or understand each other at all!! You know that can lead to aggression between Orca’s? Nearly half of Orca’s deaths in captivity is because of a different whale being too aggressive—“ You paused when you finally realised you were rambling.

Your cheeks burnt at the realisation, meeting Spencer’s eyes which were filled with nothing but love and admiration only furthered the burning sensation in your cheeks. “Sorry.” You huffed out sheepishly. “I got a bit carried away” you let out a laugh.

He shook his head instantly, his hand reaching out to rest gently against your knee, “No. Don’t apologise. Keep talking, what were you going to say?” He asked, almost desperately begging you to continue on with your passionate ramble, continued to further discover this side of you.

“I-“ you started but your brain short circuited at the look in his eye, pleading, sweet, gentle, loving, admiring. How could he look at you like that and expect you to be able to form a coherent sentence — you could hardly form a coherent thought. “I- forgot.” You huffed out.

He smiled widely, “Whales being too aggressive which can lead to that frustration being taken out on other whales, especially if they feel challenged or uncomfortable.” He finished for you, making your smile widen.

“You’re so smart” you huffed the compliment as if he wasn’t told it so often. He didn’t mind, it always meant more coming from you.

“Go on, angel. What else do you have for me?”

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

This goes for all extremists “animal rights”, Better Dead Than Fed movements but especially for the “Empty the Tanks” activists that continues to block the movement of orcas out of poor conditions and into a better facility because it’s not a sanctuary (sanctuaries for orcas have not been built or established as a viable option in any way)

This is also for all the people whose response to a loved animal dying in human care to be “good, at least he can be free now” or advocating for orcas in human care to be “put out of their misery” if they can’t be moved to a (nonexistent) sanctuary.

Your goal is to get a win, your goal is be right and to assure yourself on how morally superior you are about your stance. And your position on this is only true if the animals are suffering. So you want them to be suffering so that you’re right and will attack anyone trying to educate you otherwise.

You don’t care about these animals as individuals with needs and personalities. They are whatever you project your own miserable thoughts onto.

I’m sick and tired of governments listening to these unhinged lobby groups that are living in a reality that doesn’t exist. Sanctuaries don’t exist. Orcas in human care aren’t longing for the ocean. Most of them don’t know what an ocean is.

Marineland Antibes is objectively not fit to house their orcas anymore, their orca habitat is quite literally falling apart. But the activists want the orcas to stay and be "sacrificed" for their cause.

I'm so tired of this.

French source

[fukutomichi]

Game of Thrones / S06.Ep07 - The Broken Man House of the Dragon / S02.Ep07 - The Red Sowing "Other houses chose dragons, krakens and lions for their for their sigils. We Tullys took the trout, that most terrifying of fish, especially when it leaps out of the water. I suppose you don't have many options when you live in the Riverlands."

[sugargrim3]

Tiktok is now officially banned for me, and I remembered abt my tumblr blog, so here's some orca art

[elycetellsall]

family duty honor

[samieree]

"Dawn of the North || Robb Stark" Masterlist

(fanfiction)(Robb Stark x OC)

[General Masterlist with list of boys I can write one-shots with here] [Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon Masterlist]

[my works are also avaiable on Ao3: Samiere and on wattpad: _Saelin]

Prologue + description

Chapter I ''Beginning''

Chapter II ''Two worlds''

Chapter III ''Walder Frey''

Collages: "two years"

[paintnpending]

Ser Brynden Tully, Brynden Blackfish, Warden of the Southern Marches, Former Knight of the Gate.

"Black fish or no, I am still a Tully. I shall leave for Riverrun by evenfall."

Another revamped mini from the original Hand of The King bonus set that I got from the kickstarter a thousand years ago. I got to reacquaint myself with his horse's infuriatingly red bridle and those grizzled good looks. The fate of the Blackfish remains unknown in the books, though if he proves as resilient as the Riverlands, I have my hopes.

[rhymeswithfart]

Black and white 2

If you see this, look here:

https://gofund.me/56e276f3 help the Alkhaldi family survive in Gaza! This campaign is vetted at #156 on Gazavetters' list. Very low on funds, €798 / 100k ≈ 1%.

Please share and donate if you can. Visit their blog :

aboodomar

[mannyblacque]

Source

[cetuselena]

CA51A2A ‘Astrid’

[torturedbitchesdepartment]

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

The sassy award goes to Oscar Tully. He's truly an ancestor of Blackfish and Catelyn Tully.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

The Whale Sanctuary Project have their sights set on Wikie and Keijo and they want to accelerate their plans and make a bay pen to put them into.

This "revolutionary plan" is exactly like what these whales already have - round the clock vet care, med pools, gated pools, slide outs - but with more stressors and uncontrollable variables than before.

These ~natural elements~ is just the naturalism fallacy being used as a marketing ploy. These whales don't understand this "natural life." You might as well be plucking them out and throwing them on a different planet.

Now, if you haven't worked on and around the ocean before, let me shed some light as someone who had to take a boat out to the Pacific Ocean to work with dolphins every day.

The ocean doesn't take kindly to man-made structures.

It will wear things down, ocean winds will rip your pontoons out and shred them, storm surges don't care about the weighted blocks you put down to stop your net lifting out. The animals will need to be fed in hurricane force winds that pull you off your feet. The net will need to be checked by divers and maintained no matter the season.

Your animals will have to fight daily with currents and tides that tug them around - sometimes those tides can pull them into nets. Wild marine life will harass them for their fish and naive animals will spook and shy away from coral and fish and anything that they haven't seen before (so good luck getting stationing for feeding when there's a weird looking fish around). You have to scoop out trash, cigarette butts and plastic bags and hope to whatever god you have that your retrieval training is enough to stop your animals from eating them. Your animals will very likely eat leaves, sticks, pebbles, anything they can get their mouths on.

(Since the sanctuary doesn't like training, I wonder if they'd even train a retrieval behaviour since it's "unnatural".)

A sea sanctuary is just captivity with a fun little animal rights activist spin on it. It is still captivity, no matter how big you make it. Wikie has been in human care for over 20 years. She has adapted to her current environment and throwing her into a bay pen is going to be stressful for her. She won't know anything about this new environment and there will be only a flood of new stimuli with nowhere to retreat from it.

The beluga Little Grey got stomach ulcers within only a few days of being out in the smaller acclimation bay pens. Little Grey and Little White have only been in human care for a bit over 5 years and they are struggling, even with the chance to decompress in their indoor pool.

Why are we planning this? What is this serving? We have no evidence that a sea pen is an inherently better housing situation for cetaceans.

We started with sea pens when orcas were first being captured! And orcas died there too.

Namu was one of the first captured killer whales and he died in a sea pen. The sea pen doesn't magically fix welfare issues caused by poor management.

"But that wasn't a REAL sanctuary!"

Okay then if sea pens are so inherently enriching and fix all welfare issues, why was Keiko logging for hours in his bay pen? Why did he become overweight and sluggish and sexually fixated on a giant red ball until someone who actually knew what they were doing started a proper training plan for him?

Why did Nami die with 180 lbs of stones in her stomach that she had ingested while living in a sea pen? Aren't sea pens so inherently enriching and stimulating that they don't need enrichment or training sessions? As Lori Marino put it in a bizarre webinar last year: "they'll be enriched by the flora and fauna; they won't need trainer relationships."

Anyway stop falling for these scammers and advocate for actual animal welfare that has science to back it up.

[thebeesareback]

Fuck it, let's talk about Littlefinger

(the ASOIAF character, not just fingers in general. Also, I've said "Brandon Stark" for Ned's brother, and "Bran Stark" for Ned's son)

Trigger warning: rape and forced abortion

So one of the things I've said before is that I love ASOIAF for many reasons, including the complexities and backstories of all the characters. I suppose that's why there's a bazillion characters and the books are so long.

Anyway, one interesting example of narrative framing is the perspective we get on Littlefinger. He's (arguably) the main antagonist in the first book and is responsible for everything from Jon Arryn and Ned's death to the Tyrell marriage to Joffrey's assassination. We see him as a scheming villain, determined to harm our saintly Starks.

Littlefinger was born as a second-generation immigrant and heir to a minor lordship. Thanks to his parents' relationship with fuckhead Hoster Tully, he got to foster at Riverrun, where he befriended Cat, Lysa and Edmure. The books are interested in the "outsider" perspective on power status, hence Jon Snow's POV, and arguably Theon and Arya, too. They live in the home, they're part of the family... kinda. Sansa always thinks of Jon as her "bastard half-brother", Theon knows that Ned might have to kill him, and Arya doesn't fit neatly into her assigned gender role. They see Rob and Sansa and want that, kind of, but know they'll never get it.

Therefore, in his youth, Littlefinger knew that he was smart, knew that he wanted power, yet was keenly aware that it was almost impossible for him to socially climb. He does -- we'll get to that in a bit -- but as a child, he knows it's unlikely. Think of Rob and Jon playing in Winterfell and Jon yelling "I'm the Lord of Winterfell" and Rob just returning "no, my mother says you won't be". It's a horrible situation to be in. We don't get Littlefinger's POV, but if we did, I think there's a good chance he would remember a similar scenario.

Then there's Littlefinger's relationship to Catlyn and Lysa. Little boys often have crushes on little girls, and it's usually pretty sweet and can sometimes become a nice romance or just fade away. We hear that Catlyn is intelligent and beautiful as an adult, so it's easy to see the appeal, and Catlyn also has status through her Tully blood and an understanding of Machiavellian power plays because her father raised her as his heir until Edmure was born. One could easily see Littlefinger's desire for Catlyn being a desire for power and status, as well as her own merits.

Lysa had a crush on Littlefinger, creating the incesty love triangle that GRRM loves so much. I can't imagine playing kissing games with a foster brother and a sister, tbh. Littlefinger himself seems to only see Lysa as a pawn, and uses her feelings to get her to do what she wants. The narrative suggests that, for a time, there's Catlyn, mourning her mother; Lysa, mourning her mother and interested in a boy who doesn't really care about her; Edmure, just being a baby; and Littlefinger, caught up in rules and restrictions: allowed to be close to what he wants, but never truly part of the team.

Events start to occur. Fuckhead Hoster Tully decides to set up marriage alliances for Catlyn and Lysa. Lysa meets Jamie Lannister, who barely pays her any attention (he's distracted by the presence of his hero, Brynden "Blackfish" Tully). Catlyn meets Brandon Stark, who has power, status, a noble house, physical prowess -- everything Littlefinger wants. On the night the Stark-Tully engagement is arranged, Littlefinger gets drunk. He can't cope with the years of complicated class dynamics, he's heartbroken, and he's what, 14? He's immature and acts like it. Then Lysa rapes him.

I'm not a psychologist so I can't comment on the impact of sexual violence, especially when gender and power play into the situation in this way. However, Lysa did an unforgivable thing, and there was nobody Littlefinger could turn to. That's horrifying. I also think that more should be made about Littlefinger's comments about shutting your eyes and getting it over with in relation to being in bed with "an ugly woman".

Soon after, he challenges Brandon Stark to a duel for Catlyn's hand. Catlyn "betrays" him (in Littlefinger's mind) by giving Brandon her favour, Edmure "betrays" him by "squiring" for Brandon, and then Brandon nearly kills him. So we have a teenager who is 1) in huge amounts of physical pain, 2) without friends or allies, 3) was recently raped and 4) considered unimportant and insignificant. Then, Lysa rapes him again. The fact that this poor child didn't have a full mental breakdown is genuinely suprising.

We don't know if Littlefinger knew about Lysa's pregnancy at the time. What Hoster did to her was also unforgivable -- violence begets violence, and Lysa and Hoster's relationship is full of toxicity and harm. Hoster is also just generally monstrous. If Littlefinger did know, that's another layer of complexity where his foster father aborts Littlefinger's baby, a physical reminder of the sexual violence Littlefinger endured.

A few years later Lysa convinces her then-husband, Jon Arryn, to bring Littlefinger to King's Landing. He is traumatised, he is resentful, and he is cunning. He works hard to enter the places he was once barred from, like the court, the Red Keep and the small council. Now he can take his revenge on everyone who hurt him.

GRRM often talks about the futility of revenge. House Martell is the most obvious example of this, and the speech Elaria gives is beautiful and poignient. Littlefinger doesn't get revenge on Hoster or Brandon Stark. He does kill Lysa, but that's more to shut her up. In a story with a different perspective -- and a few characters kept alive -- we could see Littlefinger as a Kill Bill style avenger, ruining the lives and families of all of those who harmed him. It could be easy to root for him, not against him as the narrative sets up.

Revenge isn't simple, and that's why Littlefinger doesn't succed and isn't an inspirational character. He never confronts anyone on what happened to him -- he's too psychologically damaged -- so instead he kills Ned and Jon Arryn, two people who had nothing to do with his traumatic experiences at Riverrun, and then he hyperfixates on poor Sansa, who looks like Catlyn in his memory. He's immature and stunted in his mid-teens. I wonder if Littlefinger and Sansa lived for another 10/20 years he'd find himself losing interest because she moved on and he can't.

Littlefinger will likely die because of Sansa, and nobody will miss him. He's not a good person. He's groomed and lied and manipulated her, and the horrors he inflicted on Jeyne Poole, supposedly her best friend, are even worse. I don't see his future death as triumphant, though, in an unbiased overview kind of way. The Starks will celebrate, because he killed their dad. No one else will really care. The Lords Declarant have got rid of an annoyance, and he wasn't really working with King Tommen or the Small Council any more.

I think there is some sadness, though, for the child who wanted to be included, wanted to be loved, and who was instead hated, abused, ignored and scarred. RIP Littlefinger, a victim of the patriachy and the class structure.

[sugargrim3]

Redraw time! I've been working on this piece for a hot minute (few weeks)