#nettles thoughts

[ride-thedragon]

I do love the fact that Nettles is just seemingly both aware and empathetic. Because the men around her are celebrating a victory, while others are mourning Driftmark and what was lost, some become hardened by the personal stakes losts and she's at the centre of it all with no one around her for comfort and she just cries. It's recorded as it being for Jace, but she just fought in a battle, burned the place she grew up, and was met with nothing. Unlike everyone else she can't be knighted and isn't given titles.

My preferred instance is in Maidenpool when the Queen of the Realm says she must die and the men contemplate for all sorts of reasons. Fear of Daemon, fear of Rhaenyra, fear of the destructions of dragons and curses that held men to oaths of centuries and when it comes to Nettles, the person who could cause them so much strife, their defence for her and her life is that she's a child. She's an innocent in all of this no matter what she is accused of, rightfully or not.

That's not a quality we get from members of the small folk often. It's a quality mocked in Sansa and Arya and Daenerys. She's aware of the world and circumstances. She's branded as a thief with a visible scar and whore, the daughter of one even. She's empathetic and innocent. She leaves the narrative and is forever haunted by the politics of the world, but she leaves alive because of who she is inherently.

[drumlincountry]

If your life is horrible and you need a new source of meaning and direction.... Do NOT find religion. Learn to identify plants.

[ride-thedragon]

George was on something when he wrote her. I'm thankful for it every day.

And he gave her the best dragon to cement it.

what i think could be incredibly narratively interesting about nettles being as far removed from targaryen/valyrian-ness as one could be whilst still being an accomplished dragonrider is what her concept of character says about the mythos of valyrian-ness and targaryen-ness.

there will of course be discourse about her lineage, but i don’t think it matters! what we’ve seen with the targaryens is this carefully curated mythology and an entitlement to a divine right to rule based on that mythology, and a sense of exceptionalism based on that mythology. and it’s self fulfilling in an ouroboros kind of way.

they are dragon lords because they are valyrian and because they are valyrian only they can be dragon lords and because they are dragon lords they are entitled to absolute power.

but then here comes this girl with no surname, who doesn’t look valyrian, who tames a dragon all on her own because she just figured it out how much like the first valyrians (which is kinda ironic— she’s valyrian at their beginning, the targaryens are obsessed with valyria at its end). she wasn’t given an egg, she wasn’t trained to ride. nettles just worked at it and did it.

and that’s what threatens rhaenyra by the end because what nettles represents is the shattered illusion of their dynasty, their exceptionalism. the proof that the targaryens arent special. the white hair and pale skin doesn’t make them special. it’s that there’s no one to stop someone like nettles from becoming as great or greater than the targaryens think they are.

this black girl from the gutter shook the entire foundation of the targaryen dynasty simply because she did what they promised the rest of the world was only unique to them and that’s why they were entitled to be their overlords. and in doing so, exposes the fallacy of hereditary feudalism. the fact that’s all this and black is just a bonus for me especially

[fluentisonus]

nettle soup

[garlandoroses]

(X)

[iiiknowplaces]

nettles travis martinez ⋆⭒˚.⋆

cuddling up in bed at night with your lover was supposed to be an event you should look forward to. for you, it meant fear. fear of how your mind torments you while you're sleeping. night terrors were common with you and travis. the wilderness really did a number on the both of you, and even years later, most of your nights are plagued.

tonight's was a bit more harsh. normally, your nightmares consisted of things that actually occurred in the wilderness, not usually straying from that. but tonight, what woke you up was more startling.

you were back in the wilderness, standing outside of the burning cabin, the rest of your teammates with you. though, when you looked around, one person was missing. travis. he'd never gotten out of the cabin. you could feel your heart begin to race, as you shoved your blanket off and rushed into the heat of the fire. you'd felt a first flame touch you, before it engulfed you.

that's when you opened your eyes, shooting up into a sitting position. your heart was beating so fast, and your breaths seemed more like strangled gasps. one hand flew to your chest in an attempt to calm your breathing, the other blindly patting around behind you in the sheets before finding travis, and you let that one rest on his chest for your own comfort. it seemed the touch woke him up, because his eyes opened to see your back, and your hand on him. it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. after all, he recognized the panicked breathing as it frequently happens to himself.

"hey, what happened?" his voice was groggy and hoarse from sleep, yet he still forced himself up to sit beside you. you didn't respond, yet he continued. "what was it about this time?"

"you... you died, travis. it was terrible." you didn't know when your eyes suddenly filled with tears, and when warm streams of them began to fall down your cheeks, but it happened.

"it's okay. i'm right here. i'm not going anywhere." his arms pulled you in to his embrace, something that you'd always found soothing. your sobs soon calmed, and he gently pulled you to lay back down, his hold on you never faltering.

yay another ethel based fic!!! also this one is rlly angsty sorry bout that </3 also this is ur reminder i'm taking reqs for pretty much every yjs girl (+ travis) so if u have any ideas i'd be happy to make them :)

[qyburnsghost]

They deleted Nettles to make Rhaenyra look better, but invented Dyana to make Aegon look worse!

[malaiikka]

The news about Rhaena/Nettles legit managed to erode all the excitement I had about season two during the past few weeks in a matter of seconds.

Nettles is canonically the only non-Targ dragonrider, her story and arc is so important in challenging the beliefs about dragons and Targaryens and blood magic incest that exist in Westeros and among the Targaryens, why would the writers look at such a character and decided to mesh her storyline with Rhaena’s?? Are they just so uncreative they couldn’t figure out something for Rhaena to do in the Vale?? Or can this show only handle no more than three black characters, all the while they continue on cooking up new storylines and arcs for the white characters that don’t exist in the book??

[llovemeplease]

You'll go fight a war, I'll go missin'

I've warned you, for me, it's not that hard

─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───

[groenendaze]

hiiiiiii sorry for the radio silence life is wild. anyway. here’s the dogs from yesterday

[prettyundeadgirl]

THE LAST OF US ⋆ (1/?) → Joel Miller (Nettles - Ethel Cain)

[ride-thedragon]

NETTLES AND RACE.

It is a shorter analysis but a needed one. The way that Nettles race plays into her interpretation throughout the narrative is interesting.

Obviously, she is a mystery throughout the narrative. We don't know much about her, and what little we do know is often contradictory within the written narrative. But her race plays a part in that.

When we look at who's writing the story, we are being told what occurred through very specific lenses. Septon Eustace, Maester Gyldayn, and Mushroom are all men, from different backgrounds, but men in this world none the less, white men (andals) at that.

So we see their bias when it comes to Rhaenyra no longer being beautiful because she kept the weight after having children.

Or with their depictions of Alicent and Helaena or the twins with their one isn't fit to be heir she won't listen, yadda, yadda, yadda....

Bias occurs.

With Nettles in the narrative, however, her being a woman, poor and black, all play a role in the intersection of her identity.

There is nothing about her when it comes to her description that suggests she's dirty, filthy, or promiscuous, and the people who describe her as such weren't around her in the time period they were describing.

'She slept with shepherds for sheep' while having the markings of a thief in their world.

She is filthy, yet the only time we get an in world description of her cleaning habits, she's bathing with a prince and getting things (hair brush, mirror) to maintain her appearance.

Like, I hate to be the one to say it, but let's think about these conclusions logically.

There would be an intersectional bias with Nettles in the narrative. She's looked down on because Septon Eustace decides to play guessing games with her backstory and then uses his own unconfirmed deduction to say what could've happened in Maidenpool.

Even in Maidenpool, they call her the brown child, Daemon cares for.

I don't think this is something that exists in a bubble, and I think the narrators of fire and blood are given a clear bias so before we jump to conclusions about Nettles, remember that the way she is written isn't from her perspective or with her input. It's by men who didn't know her and never recount an in person interaction with her. Not even a quote she might have said.

Also, not to hype up George, but the man clearly loves his history, so I beg anyone who thinks I'm reaching to look up how black women (any woc could work) are written by white scholars and then how mistresses are written about in history and let the thought marinate.

[tragedy-peanut-gallery]

Sometimes friendship is a teenage girl with her minecraft grass block dragon

[vaguely-concerned]

...the 'almond room' thing in the unwanted guest IS a reference to/play on words on amygdala, right? (amygdala comes from the greek word for almond!) I didn't read that wrong? it is stupid sexy Ianthe coyly inviting Palamedes into a different chamber of her brain, as it were?

(also the pieces of meat -- the feeding or kissing, it's hard to say which of it all -- being present right from the beginning... ianthe DOES know exactly what has happened to her, doesn't she. palamedes is just cutting his way through her layers of denial and repression all merciless and scalpel-like to get her to admit it. or, she knows subconsciously at least -- each person comes in and feeds her something that she's helpless to stop from becoming a part of her even in her coffin, with bloody kisses. oh baby love is feeding me bad meat and I have no choice but to swallow it down. like yeah I suspect that is how human contact can feel when your sense of self and boundaries developed to be a specific kind of Fucked Up lol. that shit could make a person dream of being a diamond in a glass of wine; perfect, inviolable, untouchable, eternally separate and safe. In the words of Andrea Gibson in Prism:

They say the womb is where we learn love is knowing the cord that feeds you could at any moment wrap around your neck

that is quite literally ianthe's first introduction to love -- her sister, a cord around her neck. Corona is Ianthe's other self, a second soul running around outside of her body, and she seems to consider herself as responsible for (and entitled to) the preservation of Corona's soul as her own. the way this mirrors that growing up, Ianthe had to be two necromancers in one body to let them stay together. (twins and ghosts all the way down I guess.) she's still just trying to do the same thing, I think, she's simply put on some bigger boots about it. the central problem of lyctorhood, self vs. connection/love, rears its head once again -- Ianthe existentially wants total self-contained self-sufficiency, perfect control, sovereign sway and masterdom over her soul... but she wants that at the same time as being in uninterrupted (uninterruptible!), eternal and indelible intimacy with her sister, whose soul also cannot be allowed to change. which, you know. freedom and love don't coexist the way you want them to, Ianthe, no matter how clever you are there won't be a way to get what you want. (especially not with a sister whose idea of what love is seems to go more towards being consumed, made one, by whatever violence necessary -- 'she could have taken me'.) man. Ianthe is a spectacular and ongoing piece of work, but sometimes it's hard to see how she could ever have turned out otherwise considering the conditions she was born and raised under haha.

the two-way street of the horror of digestion, whether you're the devourer or the devouree. part of you in me, part of me in you, whether either of us likes it or not we're both changed by this. bad news: you can't get out of interconnectedness by finding the cleverest loophole around it, ianthe. nice try, though)

[marsskaterboii]

Nothing is more gratifying to me than witnessing how much Bee hates the royal lifestyle at Buckkeep. Kettricken, Chade, Dutiful and especially Nettle insisted that Fitz should have raised her as befitted her, at court. His whole reason for keeping Bee at Withywoods was to protect her against court politics, and guarantee her freedom. Countless times he was told how that's silly, just look at Nettle and all the things she missed by not having been raised at court. But what happens within 5 minutes of Bee living at Buckkeep? She's pulled into court politics and looses her freedom. And she hates it, knowing that her Da was right. Bee truly is Fitz's daughter and I wish she'd had the chance to tell him he was right. It would have made him so happy.

[powerlinevalley444]