#nettle lore

[zurriko]

Grown up Nettle writes her diaries as a teenager, and Breeze criticizes his pupil for the ugly handwriting😆

[lagosbratzdoll]

Ryan did a bunch of interviews recently that I've been reading and I have some thoughts. You can find the interviews here and here.

There's a lot of terrible stuff in it but I don't have the time or inclination to bother with all that. I'm going to be focusing on two things he said in the interviews.

Starting with this from the House of the Dragon podcast which I've linked above.

In it, Ryan talks about why he decided to contrast the lives of Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White with the lives of the privileged Targaryens. It was fascinating to get a peek into his head.

Ryan reads a rapist and thinks "this is a person worth deepening. We need an in-depth exploration of what goes on in this rapists head. We need the audience to sympathise with them."

Which wouldn't be so bad on its face, there's always room to analyse a fictional rapist. The problem is that he then reads about a little Black girl who raised herself on a tiny island rising up to become a dragon rider on her own merit. A little girl whose Valyrian heritage is constantly debated and discounted. He reads that and decides that there's nothing worth exploring there. Her story isn't unique. She isn't unique. In fact, she's so common that while we adapt and humanise not one but two rapists, we're going to erase one Black girl and turn the other into everyone's punching bag.

Then I read his puff piece from Big Think.

This is a fascinating glimpse into his thought process. I read this and Ryan Condal's baffling decisions began to make a little more sense.

By his own admission, Ryan's ideal show is one where Black women are erased, flattened and ignored. He claims to write powerful women but we've not seen hide or hair of these women. In Ryan's show, nothing is ever deliberate and the women are largely passive participants in their own lives.

In Ryan's ideal show there's no room for a little black girl to claim a dragon with nothing but faith and her wits. In Ryan's ideal show we need all of the rapist men but the Black women are interchangeable AND replaceable.

In Ryan's ideal world, it is too much to ask that a Black girl be adored, have songs written about her and knights joust for her favour. In Ryan's ideal show, Black people aren't fully developed characters, they're props that he forgets about for episodes on end.

And that is why the show will continue to drop in ratings. When I saw the Nielsen numbers for the premiere, I laughed until I cried. The biggest streaming day ever for Max and they couldn't beat The Boys or Your Honour. The most recent numbers are even funnier.

But don't worry gang, House of the Dragon is doing great. It's now number three. It finally beat a four year old show! Everything is fine.

[silvixel]

he only praises the action but literally criticizes the story and the writing, they are destroying the lore he is establishing in his books, but he is so hypocritical that he is the one who sold his work.

[inmydrcams]

this is racism.

[the-dist-ortionist]

Btw if you become curious about oc lore because of something I post please ask I will ramble

[bohemian-nights]

GOT S5 Histories and Lore: Daemon & Nettles

[actualjenna]

writing a comic currently! ive missed doing portraits so here are the main characters, olle, nettle, ines, and pyrus!

[silkhorse]

what about myrrh? what's his story? how'd he end up with a literal schoolhouse following him around lmao

This will also be quite a long post!

Myrrh lived in this small town near the base of a mountain. The temple there, and most of the other towns in the area, worshipped the Sun and Moon as the main, true gods. They did this because it practically snowed all year around, but with the Sun, it brought light and warmth. With the Moon, there was rest and tranquility, and it represented death in some ways as eternal sleep, but was mainly worshipped for peace.

However, there was also Order and Chaos, like light and shadows, one could not exist without each other. Mainly, the world was made up of humans, which they dubbed themselves as 'Orderly' and 'Meant to Be'. Everything 'supernatural' (were-creatures, shapeshifters, hybrids, etc) were all deemed as born from Chaos.

Which leads us back to Myrrh and all the kids in his care. He owned a makeshift orphanage near the outskirts of the town, which mainly housed abandoned supernatural kids. He worked alone for a while, and the business was going really well. All the kids adored him and were all treated equally and with tons of care, no matter where they came from or what they were (especially since he was a werewolf himself and understood their struggles).

Eventually, a mercenary stops by the town with his Saint Bernard, Macbeth. The mercenary, Vien, turns out to be a vampire, one of the more prejudiced against supernatural, and was *reluctantly* accepted into the town. However, as he looked for work in the town, the people didn't exactly trust him near their produce or workers. Vien eventually found the orphanage at the end of town, and despite not being fond of children, he helped out.

Vien was getting used to living in the small town and working at the orphanage after a year, but he knew he couldn't stay in one place. This was essentially made harder because he and Myrrh were starting to fall for each other and stuff. While Vien was considering just disappearing, the old priest at the temple retired and was replaced with one from the capitol.

This new priest was a lot less lenient in the teachings of Order, Sun, and Moon and consciously left out all information about Chaos that wasn't discriminatory. This basically led to the people who weren't human to start being treated as less — which included Myrrh, Vien, some of the orphans, and others in the village as well.

It got bad to the point where the new priest rallied up the humans and started chasing everyone else out. This escalated quickly as one of the humans pushed away one of the supernatural kids under Myrrh's care a little too hard. The kid fell and hit their head very hard on a rock, knocking them unconscious. Being as protective as he was, Myrrh shifted into his wolf form and started attacking the humans.

Despite supernaturals having a bit more strength than the average human, there were just too many humans. This ended with Myrrh fleeing up the mountain with the surviving orphans and Macbeth while Vien acted as a distraction. Myrrh and the orphans end up safe in the comfort of the mountains (in an old, abandoned cabin), but at the expense of Vien's life.

Occasionally, Myrrh leaves the kids in the cabin with Macbeth and Nettle (he's the most mature) in charge so he can go down the other side of the mountain to go hunting or foraging. Sometimes, he even goes to a different village to look for any other mistreated kids or orphans to basically snatch them up and take him to his cabin. Myrrh doesn't allow any other adults up the mountain in fear that they will eventually come and take away his kids again.

It's a but of a lore dump, but I hope that answers your question!!

[decidueyedreamer]

A Nettle redesign! There’s an alternate version that I do consider to be a bit more canon, but it’s a bit more grim so I’m not showing it here!

The reason they’re so withered is that they released Wo Chien, and then died… Yveltal managed to bring them back via blessing them, but there were consequences, and now they carry the curse of killing plant life.

[cbrownjc]

The problem is, HOTD only put thought into adjusting Rhaenyra's age but didn't put any work into adjusting the ages and timeline of anyone or anything else in the show to fit around that.

Again, sorry for comparing it to IWTV, but when that show decided to adjust and move up the timeline for when Louis was turned, it's clear it's not only Louis' character they looked at when adjusting that timeline. They clearly put thought into what Lestat would be doing for that extra 150 years; what Armand was doing during that extra time; how things would be different with Louis, Lestat, and Claudia staying in NOLA from 1910 to 1940, etc.,

The showrunner and writers of IWTV actually put thought into the implications of the timeline moving up not just for Louis' character but all the characters and the story as a whole. Meanwhile, with HOTD, I can't find any indication that the show took the timeline into consideration in any way beyond aging up Rhaenyra, because everything else is just so off.

It's lazy. It's lazy worldbuilding and writing. And throws things into the lore that were not there in the source material just to make one character seemingly look better than another for no reason other than that. Which, again, is just lazy.

Especially for those who are now screaming that Meleys chose Rhaenys and rejected Daemon, and this is canon because that was said so in a stupid show.

Rhaenys was born in 74 year after conquest, Daemon was born in 81. Rhaenys became a rider in 87 year a.c., when Daemon was six years old.

Baelon the Brave was mentioned as a loving and caring parent so I highly doubt he would allow his youngest son to try to tame a dragon in such young age.

Daemon did not try to become Meleys's rider, and she did not reject him for Rhaenys. At least in canon. I don't know what's going on with the characters' ages and timelines in the show.

[zurriko]

I am glad to introduce you my oc👀

Rainwing Shamrock(he/his) and sandwing Hyena(she/her)

[horizon-verizon]

On this here day, GRRM wrote an entry clarifying several things about the dragon lore in his novels, and it vindicates so many Dany stans/Daenerys as the Azor Ahai:

Saying dragon "mysteries", in-world, will be revealed in the last two books AND Septon Barth got a lot right. I'm taking that to mean that dragons change sex (Viserion, here you come, baby!), like two particular Twitter mutes I have (danylanzhou and Branwynwitch). It also seems like he's confirming that dragons and the first 40 Valyrian families (which include the Targs, then and now) mixed dragon blood with their own in some long past ancient event AND that only these families, therefore, can bond with dragons to rides them safely or befriend them.

Which means Nettles is definitely of Valyrian/Targ-descent, which really should have been obvious. One of my mutuals also asserted that this makes the idea of Nettles-Sheepstealer/Rhaena-Morning being interchangeable for their supposed HotD merging GRRM-disapproved bc he makes a point to say that dragons don't tend to move far from their lairs that are usually very high up in mountains and volcanos. Sheepstealer can't be going to the Vale while having a lair in Dragonstone:

As for the thought of Sunfyre flying miles to get to Dragonstone...this is where he/they were born and where the real magic that sustains dragons is coalesced from hundred of years. It makes sense for him/them to fly to this castle even if Aegon weren't there after he had been bodied by Meleys/Meleys & Vhagar, looking for recovery. This is where the Targs get most of their eggs/dragons and it is near where most dragons in Westeros make their lairs.

Note that he says, in the very last paragraph, how:

Fantasy needs to be grounded.  It is not simply a license to do anything you like. Smaug and Toothless may both be dragons, but they should never be confused. Ignore canon, and the world you’ve created comes apart like tissue paper.

It appears he is VERY not happy about something to do with dragons in the show's second season, how they bond in the show, how a certain dragon is "explained" to have traveled a too-long distance for a certain pale-locked young girl who has been trying to hatch her own dragon for years...I see you GRRM, fighting for Nettles AND Rhaena I see.

Oh, and just bc he said he liked epi 2, doesn't mean that he cannot critique anything about HotD ever again...he is the writer and creator of this universe that they are capitalizing on. As long as a writer of any genre stays logically consistent and relatively undiscriminatory in their original writing, they definitely can tell any of us readers what is real and not real or possible in their own creations! That this is even up for debate is a travesty to logic.

Mind you, this is the same man who said the show and the book are two separate canons AND that adaptations "nowadays" tend to fail bc the adapters think they can make the story "better" and ignore critical lore details. And in his latest commentary on HotD's S2 first two episodes, he says, and I quote:

“Rhaenyra the Cruel” has been getting great reviews, for the most part.   A lot of the fans are proclaiming it the best episode of HotD, and some are even ranking it higher than the best episodes of GAME OF THRONES.   I can hardly be objective about these things, but I would certainly say it deserves to be in contention.   The only part of the show that is drawing criticism is the conclusion of the Blood and Cheese storyline.   Which ending was powerful, I thought… a gut punch, especially for viewers who had never read FIRE & BLOOD.   For those who had read the book, however… Well, there’s  a lot of be said about that, but this is not the place for me to say it.   The issues are too complicated.   Somewhere down the line, I will do a separate post about all the issues raised by Blood and Cheese… and Maelor the Missing.  There’s a lot to say.

Note that the latest post was about epi4 and this one I just linked is only abt epi 1 &2....so where are his thoughts for the hated/comedic epi3?! (we see each other, George). (BTW, I gave my thoughts on his thoughts about 1 & 2, HERE.)

I'll say it once again: though GRRM praised the portrayal of grief, defended Cheese being lost, and loved the dog (the last I don't fault anyone for, I also loved them) in the Blood & Cheese episode, he also expressly talks AROUND how Blood & Cheese and Helaena actually interacted and comments on the Maelor-lessness (therefore the lack of Sophie's Choice) that many people--inclu myself--have been saying was a huge problem.

Now we have two different sources that seem to support the ideas of:

GRRM both not being as "involved" with the actual writing of this show for a bit AND not approving of a lot of critical changes

HotD's writers cannot create anything truly "canon" or "real/true" for this universe, it only can make any sort of "sense" if it also retrieves information from the original tale, which is not really just F&B but THE ENTIRE SET OF AVAILABLE BOOKS!

[the-dist-ortionist]

Remember when a girl named asali was part of that mildly popular indie band❓️neither does she‼️

[theoxenfree]

NIGHTFALL

elk god x ranger!reader | wc; 759

no one dared to question why you chose the night shift; it was simply superstition that it was better not to ask. but, you were always in good company.

warnings; brief mentions of gore, ritualistic/cultish stuff, some lore things that may be confusing if you aren't aware of the series, roughly proofread

repost from 2kmps ➔ theoxenfree. would love to know if you guys would be interested in a full story!

No one dared to ask questions of you when you had volunteered to take up the lonesome night shift at the ranger’s station.

Workplace superstition wasn’t one to discriminate, whether that meant you were tweaking a bullet out of someone's chest in the operating room; sterile gowns splattered with carmine like a rorschach inkblot, adrenaline dampening the noise in the room while the surgeons honed into that sweet spot of impenetrable focus, or you were reclined in a creaky wooden chair, prodding agitatedly at your phone screen with a thumb because the service had turned to shit for the fifth time that night.

The reason why you were so adamant to burden the staggering quietness of the Atticus Forest behind aluminum walls that'd amplify the whispering winds and long claws of trees’ appendages trying to gain purchase into the metal went unchallenged, incurious—if no one knew why, they would be spared of knowing about you, bonding with you, catching your eye and expected to act in sympathy if you were to ever change your mind about the arrangement.

You, however, used the cover of nightfall, the endless shroud of darkness produced from a sprawling canopy of lush treetops to roam freely, uninhibited by the daytime shuffle of campers and hikers and other rangers scouting the trails for no-good-doers.

Every night you wandered out some ways from the station, somewhat nettled by the fact you were leashed from going far from the radio, needing to standby in case of contact, and whistled tunefully. It was a sweet sound that aroused the owls and sleeping doves, sometimes the tree frogs would chirp after you, suddenly turning the vast, placid place into a euphony of colorful sounds.

Only when the forest was at its noisiest did he come out from hiding. He did not know shame or fear of the sun, nor quail at the concept of walking among humans, but he preferred to share the forest with the untamed creatures and your company alone.

“Orruth,” you greeted the lumbering thing as he came away from the trees; the gray of his skin, and gleaming white elk skull were a seamless blend in the inky black all around. “Are you in the mood to walk tonight?”

He did not speak any human tongue, not any that you were aware of at any rate. You were no linguist, but the things he said couldn’t have been mistaken as latin nor some other dead language from forgotten empires and cultures buried by concrete and gentrification. They were guttural, strong echoes that anchored you with awe, overwhelmed by power, the unfathomable words of an ancient who always tried so desperately to converse with you. There could never be a middle-ground between what he said and what you understood because you were never meant to know.

So, he whined instead, lowered his hulking form close to the ground for you to reach his face. You felt the fissures in his long nose, how dry and brittle the bone felt under your fingertips and observed the glowing pupils within hollow sockets staring back at you. Apart from his arms and legs, which were long, sinewy, and gray, his head floated mysteriously by a thick vapor you had ever shied from touching and he seemed to not want you to touch.

“I heard a complaint about a fire about eight kilometers away. I'm hoping it's just a few campers thinking they're above the law of the land, but we can never be too sure.” You explained this while he tucked the flat bone of his nose into your chest, mindful of the sprawl of his antlers as you adjusted to petting him around the eye sockets. “We keep finding animals—gored, disemboweled, almost ritualistically at some campsites. If your old followers keep this up, they may try to ban people from camping out here at all.”

He would probably like that, you thought in hindsight once he had had his fill and pulled away from you. In his own tongue, he tried to say something else. It remained indecipherable to you, but you could have from how he nearly flattened his body to the ground that he was offering you a ride.

“Just try not to throw me into a bunch of tree branches again, yeah?” you sat on the broad shelf of one of his shoulders, arms wound in the network of forks and beams of his antlers as he rose to full height, walking onward off the trail and through the trees towards distant piles of smoke.

[whinnyornot]

This was the fifth of my revamped Whinfell designs. 🐎✨ Originally posted on my alt instagram account.

Meet the Enfys Whinfell. 💐

The name Enfys is of Welsh origin. It is the word for "rainbow," and started being used as a name in the 19th century. I actually picked out the name before I even began finalizing the design for this horse because I was so dead set on having a rainbow-related name. It was this horse that made me decide I wanted all of the Whinfells to have color themed titles. Lore:

"The Enfys Whinfell are easily identifiable by their alluring iridescent bodies, which perfectly emulate the sky at dawn and dusk, when the Enfys is most active. This Whinfell typically inhabits temperate deciduous forests and meadows where their favorite food, stinging nettles, grow. Despite its dainty appearance, this is a hardy subspecies that has developed very rough skin on their muzzles and tongues that make it virtually impossible for them to be hurt by the nettle's hairs, but if you'd rather try to gain an Enfys' trust with another less pointy plant, they also enjoy hops blossoms.

The Enfys' magical coat was based on the Mother of Pearl moth, while their neutral coat is a dark mushroom (a dilution currently only found in the Shetland pony breed, though the test is available for miniature horses and some other breeds).

You may also notice the neutral coat has a dorsal stripe and a small spot on its forehead. This was intentional. The Enfys may be able to magically hide its form, but these are tiny giveaways to their true selves."

Whinfell redesigns: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

References:

Star Stable Online, Normalhorse.jpg, digital art, 754 × 373 pixels (7.854 * 3.8854 in), Star Stable Wiki, October 24, 2018, https://starstable.wiki.gg/wiki/Whinfell/Gallery#/media/File:Normalhorse.jpg.

Star Stable Online, Magichorse.jpg, digital art, 754 × 373 pixels (7.854 * 3.8854 in), Star Stable Wiki, October 24, 2018, https://starstable.wiki.gg/wiki/Whinfell/Gallery#/media/File:Magichorse.jpg.

Jennifer Hoffman, “An Interactive Introduction to Equine Coat Color Genetics," horse.jenniferhoffman.net. accessed August 12, 2022, http://horse.jenniferhoffman.net/horse-color-genetics.html.

Frank Vassen, 13807526503_14bb78f755_o.jpg, photograph, 3913 * 2935 pixels (7.889 × 5.917 in), flickr, November 30, 2013, https://www.flickr.com/photos/42244964@N03/13807526503/.

Clai Elizabeth, Mother of Pearl_ Clai Elizabeth_ Flickr, photograph, 500 * 336 pixels (5.208 × 3.5 in), flickr, April 15, 2007, https://www.flickr.com/photos/clairephilpott/5492815282/.