#nettle speaks

[artisticdysfunction]

i don't really understand the seemingly strict separation of traumagenic and origins of otherwise for alters in mixed origins systems? for us, our alters live in the context of our brain and will inevitably be changed by all the origins in some matter. there's not really the. strict walls? people seem to have. even with our alters that came into existence via ITBPC, they have been changed at least a little bit by our non-traumagenic origin. there is no separation for us, they both work together and inform the existence and continued existence of every alter in our system. and to some definitions, we are a complex system.

[pricklenettle]

[lefunnymoncey]

OKAY. GUYS...

the adults only obviously, characters im thinking of making dateable are:

Cedric

Miss Nettle

Princess Ivy

Prisma

Baileywick

Greylock maybe??

anyone else, if you have a request you can comment or reblog

if its just a few like 3 or 4, ill probably make all of them really long. unless you guys just want cedric, then ill make it all focused on cedric romancing

update: go follow @stfdatingsimupdates for updates and polls to vote on things for the final game :3

[ride-thedragon]

Nettles and Race.

George is great at both analysing and subverting genre tropes. We see this with his portrayal of the Targaryens as bad white blonde powerful elf like people. Or his understanding consistently in his works that beauty doesn't equal morality. This is surface level, and he does have his shortcomings (how he portrays the Dothraki in a lot of aspects, etc) but I find it really interesting the amount of tropes and conventions he addresses and subverts with Nettles specifically in such a short span of the book. George uses specific racial imagery with Nettles that we don't see often from him, in short. Here's a list:

Implementation and Subversion

1. The most unlikely is, the most unlikely:

Oftentimes, in fantasy stories, the least likely is a white disenfranchised person. The majority of the time, it's because they are poor or treated poorly. Nettles is a black girl who is poor, orphaned, and marked for thieving, and none of that hinders her own feat of claiming a dragon or the accepting initially that she does. She's unlikely, extremely unlikely, the most unlikely choice.

2. Black girls are allowed to feel:

Nettles cries and grieves. Of all the dragonseeds, she's the only one positioned to feel remorse and loss after the Battle of Driftmark. She is foul-mouthed (though not written into the narrative) and fearless. Often times their is a need for black women to be strong (not have access to their emotions) or angry (the only emotion they're allowed because they're "loud"). Nettles is crass and sensitive. She's multifaceted.

3. White people don't center black narratives:

Typically, black characters in fantasy are centred around white protagonists. Nettles distinctly isn't when you focus on her. This is different from being impacted. To be impacted means you're a part of the plot. To have someone be centred in your narrative would be for your existence in the narrative to entirely depend on your relationship with them. You don't exist outside of them. Nettles does. She has an entire life up until she claims Sheepstealer without any intervention from the Targs, and after she leaves the main narrative of Fire and Blood, she has a life. This is even in a Targaryen history book.

4. Black girls deserve to be protected and loved:

Nettles is protected by the men around her in the narrative. Oftentimes, this is something not afforded to black characters, far less for black women in fantasy narratives, but she is protected. Not just by Daemon, who is someone who has extreme emotional stakes with her but by the men of Maidenpool and Lord Corlys. All of whom are white in the books. Nettles is protected by men unquestioningly. They may decide how to do it or have a bigger motive, but protecting her is never a question.

5. Promiscuity questioned:

Nettles is never shown to be a promiscuous character through an unbiased lens. Every time a person brings up Nettles' sex, it's through the lens of necessity or heavily implied to be a dramatic assumption. The two biggest cases, "her raising her skirts for sheep" by Septon Eustace is counteracted by the fact that she's marked as a thief and claims a dragon called Sheepstealer who she's likened to in the narrative and by Rhaenyra who is disproven from her "she seduced the prince with spells" theory by both the men of Maidenpool who don't believe her and Daemon who let's Nettles go. Anytime her promiscuity is presented, it's immediately questioned by who we are told she is.

6. White women tears:

Historically and in fiction, the tears of a white woman are enough to derail any existence of a black character permanently or are at least meant to. Black people, fictional or real, are consistently tormented with the notion of white woman tears or emotional outbursts. Their actions cause a major consequence with white women. With Rhaenyra, this would be Nettle slowing her head for her suspicions. Nettles does not and gets away from. The narrative. This is unheard of. In fantasy doesn't occur because most times, the black woman would be punished, but in fandom, this idea is also reflected in the call for Nettles to be replaced.

7. Relationship with the lead man:

Daemon, for better or worse, is the lead man of the dance. Nettles finds herself attached to him in a relationship that seems, for lack of a better word loving. They seem comfortable, happy, and he's doting towards her. They spend all their time together, and it's paralleled with his other 'living' relationships as well. She's portrayed as his last great love and in the universe, the singers say as much. Issues aside, this is rare. (Martha Jones, I'm sorry I wasn't your writer)

8. Power and Worship:

Nettles is worshipped and seems to become a Goddess in her own right at the end of her narrative departure. Nettles is viewed as a deity because of the power she claimed by herself. Revolutionary. Also it isn't some blink and you can avoid it thing. It ties into the main story of Game of Thrones and her clan, the Burned men helping Tyrion Lannister.

9. Mammy, Sapphire Jezabel ext:

Mammy: Maternal black woman. Lives to serve white people and nothing else.

Sapphire: Rude, loud, stubborn, malicious, 'dumb' black women, nothing else.

Jezabel: raw, sexual, can barely restrain their sexuality and live to tempt (white) men. Nothing else.

Not once does Nettles tie into any of these tropes without it being questioned in the narrative or simply ignored in her story. So many representations of black women, especially in fantasy, fall into the first two or friend not lover trope, help mate trope, etc. anything that justifies their existence by tying them to white characters with no other outlook. Nettles subverts this.

10. Season of the Witch:

Black witches and their history save me. Black witches and their history save. This aligns itself with African spiritually and the otherness assigned to enslaved women who practised both 'witchcraft' and medicinal herbology for lack of a better word.

Witchcraft is also often tied to the imagery of the irresistible black woman as it's almost inhuman to be that attracted to black women when white women are available.

So when it's said that Nettles is a witch, imagery similar to the justifications of white women during slavery are being invoked but not followed through because no one believes her.

11. Disposable Black Love interest

This is also a big issue across genres with black chapters. It happens with Laena in the show as well. When the plot calls for it (or in a lot of cases fans) you dispose of the black love interest in place of a white one. Nettles removal from the narrative immediately calls for both Daemon's and Aemond's removal from the narrative. She isn't disposable. She's a linchpin. Also, Daemon does not go back to Rhaenyra after Nettles leaves. He just dies.

12. Nothing Special:

Magical black negros that helps the protagonist, welcome to your tape.

The magical black negros trope is this convention within fantasy where a black character will appear only to be an aid to a white character by their use of magic. They don't exist or have a life outside this purpose. Nettles could've fallen into this trap.

The idea that she isn't Valyrian could have easily been tied with the spells angle outside Rhaenyra’s bias. Instead of that, however, we get the idea that Nettles is just smart and interesting. She's allowed to be smart and interesting. The narrative defends her being smart and interesting.

She might not be Valyrian. She might not be a witch or seductress. She might be just a really clever girl who defies the odds and conventions.

Conclusion

I think Nettles was both an active effort on George's part to defy conventions and subevert stereotypes and tropes as well as a way to question his reader's bias. Nettles is often reduced to trivial, replaceable, and minor when she's not. You just have to want to pay attention to her.

[zazikels]

ok ok its my fault for being on reddit but r/houseofthedragon rn full of people arguing that demon and his 99% neck lizard have a stronger bond than aegon and sunfyre and it's so fucking frustrating that its entirely condolt's fucking fault that this is even a fucking argument because he thinks the greatest bond between a dragon and his rider to ever go that fucking hard in this universe is pRopaganda and gives dae mon and car ax es more screentime. i'm just so fucking done man. never showed us sunfyre TRULY until it was time for demon jr the anime edgelord to attack him and aegon, never get the fact that sunfyre is literally on aegon's arms, never got the coronation flying, DIDN'T GET ANYTHING UNTIL IT WAS TIME TO FUCK HIM UP FOR THE PLOT.

i wish this mf would get fucking fired before he has a chance to touch these two anymore because I don't think i can handle how he will underplay and butcher the fact that this dragon literally fought tooth and claw with a broken wing to find his way back to his rider.

[awkward-sultana]

Fans are going to see a huge difference in how Alicent treated Dyana versus how Rhaenyra will treat Nettles.

[killpilled]

i don't want to be a hater because i think they are dividing nettles' plot between addam (connection with the commoners, dragonrider without targaryen blood, battle of the gullet) and mysaria (connection with the commoners, relationship with daemon) but BOY i do think it sucks what they're doing with rhaena. why would rhaena of all people get sheepstealer?? scrappiest dragon on earth? she's a full noblewoman?? what is she doing wandering around, is no one looking for her?? will she also soil herself with blood like everyone else, loosing what made her unique in f&b? what makes her different from baela now??

maybe there could be some potential in her relationship with daemon, maybe she takes nettles' place in some way, but so far her plotline is not compelling and being written at the cost of a much more interesting, original character

[juniorfor2]

It’s kind of insane to me that the ONLY reason that people watch HotD is because of Nettles. According to them, if Nettles is cut out, then “what’s the point of watching the show, I only watched because I wanted to see Nettles dunk on VaLyRiAn SuPrEmAcY.”

I mean, they seriously only watch a series that they KNEW would be about the Targaryens, was focused on Targaryen history and themes, with a Targaryen protagonist that spans 30 years, just for a girl that’s barely part of the book.

It’s not even confirmed that she’s non-Valyrian!!! It’s a theory made up by FANS, I’m fairly sure it isn’t even suggested by GRRM. Glydayn, Munken, and Mushroom are definitely racist, but their only theories are to disparage the idea that Nettles could be viewed as pretty or accomplished because of her skin color. Their ideas were used to suggest that Nettles was a whore, or to then backtrack to say that she was “a skinny brown girl” that oBvIoUsLy couldn’t be attractive.

Nettles is definitely important, but (at least in my opinion), her ambiguity is the most important thing about her story. How others perceive her, not just in-universe by maesters, but by the fandom is more important than her origins. How the audience allows their theories around her to be guided by the racist thoughts of maesters, all while claiming that they themselves aren’t racist, is more important her actions.

Even the HOW of people deciding whether or not Nettles was Daemon’s lover or his daughter, is more important than the actual truth of the matter.

In the actual story, Nettles really doesn’t do that much. Her main thing is being loyal and flying around with Daemon to hunt Aemond. The only conflict she (supposedly) causes is between Daemon and Rhaenyra. And while it actually is fair criticism to say that Nettles’s story only being important as black girl causing conflict between two white people is a bad plotline, people then using a person of color to alienate and insult other people of a foreign culture is not ok. People conflating GRRM’s unfortunate internalized racism (that yes, he tries to go against, but occasionally fails at) with the personalities of the characters themselves is not ok.

People need to let their ideas of Nettles go. She’s important, and she certainly should not merge with Rhaena as if black women are interchangeable, but she is not an avenue of debunking Targaryen “supremacy”. HOTD is racist, but I honestly think that the way some people are reacting is almost more racist/xenophobic itself.

[seaworthee]

like not to be That Guy but it wouldve been nice if one of the textually black characters couldve made it to the show

[libraryleopard]

I think I don’t understand what people consider “cozy fantasy” because I just saw someone describe Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher as that and it’s literally a fantasy novel with a dark fairytale feel, a strong core of anger about the mistreatment and abuse of women under the patriarchy, and elements of horror. What.

[navree]

i hate twitter i did NOT just see someone comparing jace and baela and rhaena to the conquerors, the disrespect

[pricklenettle]

I finally had the time and the mental clarity to get around to organizing and unboxing my books, which have been in a sad, shameful state since I moved. I am just so so happy about it, I feel like I officially actually live here now—- but anyway I found an old (very old) drawing in a sketchbook for an event in my otgw fic, I thought it would be fun to share

Bonus: my pretty kitty helping me take down everything

[lefunnymoncey]

help HELP ME IM FERAL OVER THE MAGIC OLD PEOPLE AGAIN THIS IS JUST FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGHSCHOOL ALL OVER AGAIN

[maidragoste]

I thought of a dialogue about Sea Dragon talking about Nettles with Rhaenyra BUT I'M DUMB AND I DIDN'T WRITE IT AND I WENT TO SLEEP AND NOW I DON'T REMEMBER IT 😭😭😭

This was in my drafts months ago because I was hoping to remember it but I don't 😭😭

[paladinbaby]

library of lensa or talking to god in her own bedroom

session notes / @paladinbaby / are you satisfied, marina / @vixvigil / @paladinbaby / if i believe you, the 1975 / session notes / you asked for this, halsey / iris murdoch / edvard munch

[Image Description: ten images of text.

1: Messy cursive on notepaper “i hope this shows you some context you wouldn’t have had to be introduced to the library but the stakes are so high even if i don’t want to ruin your life its what i have to do bc my hands are tied as a god”

2: ‘like fundamentally I do think nettle is a good person but I think she wants to be convinced otherwise

she wants someone to talk her into chaos so that she doesn’t have the responsibility on her shoulders"

3: “Are you satisfied with an average life? / Do I need to lie to make my way in life?

High achiever, don’t you see? / Baby, nothing comes for free / They say I’m a control freak"

4: “tired of being brave about things i will now be openly pathetic”

5: “i don’t think i want to talk to you right now.”

6: “And if I believe you / Will that make it stop? / If I told you I need you / Is that what you want? / And I’m broken and bleeding / And begging for help”

7: A handwritten note on lined paper. “to lensa

lensa, i cant talk to you as a god so i’m gonna talk to you like a friend or a colleague. you let us down”

8: “I want to ruin all my plans / I want a fist around my throat / I want to cry so hard I choke / But I want everything I asked for”

9: “He had to stay cool, to stay cold, so as not to expect too much, not to expect anything, not to imagine the future at all.

-Iris Murdoch, from the Book and the Brotherhood”

10: “”From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.” -Edvard Munch

Tags: death, eternity” End ID.]

[absolutelybatty]

Its either funny or disturbing (depending on how you look at it) that the cult did so little to try and replicate the original Clare Nettles.

Like

1999 in Sal's flash back

Clare Nettles during Sal's interview, presumably a year later at most.

My best guess is that, at that point, the cult had so much of the town under their thumb that it didn't even matter that these are clearly different women.