#nettle speaks

[pricklenettle]

[pricklenettle]

I would like a cup of tea soooo big I could drown in it, please (⚉ˆ ⚉✿) Yes, dive all the way to the bottom and sink into the tea dust sediment

@jackson-imbecille @neurotraum @worthlessprotoplasam

what do the 4 people who always like my posts want for christmas

[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.

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

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.

[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.

[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

[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

[navree]

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

[theflintwarlock]

So I looked at a few different tumblr posts and websites about stinging Nettles' uses in Witchcraft and I haven't seen much mentioned about the historical context of the plant.

Yes, in medieval times it was used for various medicinal purposes, but there is one context in Irish history I haven't seen spoken of in Witchcraft circles:

It's uses during the great famine.

Stinging Nettles are really common in Ireland, and during the great famine they were eaten when there was no, and I mean no, food available by poor Irish people. There are a few other foods know as famine foods that grow wild in ireland that were eaten to prevent starvation for the lucky ones who could find them and have enough to survive. Nettle soup is literally just stinging Nettles and water, so it was very much a meal when you had nothing else. It is a dark part of history, no doubt, but to me the plant is heavily assosiated with the famine and the people that lived and died through it. You might wonder why, then, would a celtic practitioner want to work with it? Because the fact that that plant helped to sustain those people through such hard times, to keep you alive when nothing else was growing, is a great strength of the plant. Because of this history it has great heritage of survival through hard times, of strength that runs throughout Irish culture.

One of my favourite Irish rebel songs is Down by the Glenside (the bold fenian men), written by Peadar Kearney, who was a member of the Irish republican brotherhood and co-founded the Irish volunteers in 1913. The song is about the fenian rising of 1867, so it took place just over 10 years after the great famine/the great hunger (1845-52). But the reason I mention it is because it references Nettles explicitly in the lyrics

"Twas down by the glenside, I met an old woman

A-plucking young Nettles, she ne'er saw I was coming"

The song is really worth a listen.

Anyway, I say all this to say that the history of this plant goes way beyond medicinal uses. This is just what I've picked up knowing the little that I do about Irish history. It was used by poor people to supplement a proper diet for hundreds if not thousands of years. Not just protection, but survival and renewal, given how the plant can spread over any fertile ground, producing strong roots year after year even in harsh winters. Just like our celtic peoples have, though our languages have been beaten out of many, our people have been killed and our traditions lost to us, we still re-learn those languages, those traditions, and survive.

[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

[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 😭😭

[lefunnymoncey]

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

[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.

[nonbinary-ghost]

Ya know, one thing i dont often see talked about with regards to being low/no empathy is the overcompensation that can come with it

Like. I spent so much of my youth othered and demonized for not being empathetic and behaving insensitively. So i learned. I learned how to look at someone or something and over analyze everything about them - how they might be feeling, how they might react to something, why they might do something or act a certain way, how an action i take could impact them etc. I dont feel empathy, but i can understand how something might make someone feel or how feelings can drive someone to behave a certain way.

And it has been driven into me again and again that making something more difficult for someone is wrong. Hurting someone's feelings is wrong. Being selfish is wrong. So when i do something, i have to analyze it to make sure it could never feasibly hurt or inconvenience someone else, even if that means taking on extra work. I have no way of knowing when it is appropriate to prioritize myself or inconvenience someone else because i was taught that it is ALWAYS necessary to prioritize others.

And then people who DO feel empathy go around doing and saying shit that does hurt or inconvenience people, seemingly with no sense of irony or self awareness. It baffles me to no end. Is there a script here im missing?