#cheater speaks

[poppy-metal]

need art to spin his wedding ring around his finger while I'm asleep on his chest after he just fucked me again when he said he wouldn't - thinking of how horrible he is, thinking of his wife and child back at home, how he should be going home soon. how he won't give in again, he'll be better - but then you shift against him and wrap your arm tighter around his bare stomach and his heart squeezes. has anyone wanted him this much? has his wife ever held him in bed like this after he fucked her? has his wife held him like this period? he places his hand on your head, his ring glinting at him, and sinks his fingers into your hair. he'll tell you this can't happen again just to feel better about the situation, but he knows he'll find himself here again with you. lips press against your temple - his tenderness with you now a sharp contrast to how he fucked you earlier, punishing and mean - and he just lets himself feel good for a few more moments.

[prisonhannibal]

did they ever say if daniel molloy cheated on his wives or not? I don’t remember. maybe they didn’t need to say it.

[awesomecooperlove]

🌊🌊🌊

[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.

[crmsndragonwngss]

About the Dave Grohl cheating on his wife and having a kid thing, yeah, that’s a douchebag move but eh. He owned up to it, and he didn’t force his baby mama to get an abortion, and he’s working on repairing his marriage, so whatever. Not really anybody’s business how the man lives his life

[elliesbelle]

you CALL ME UP AGAIN just to BREAK ME LIKE A PROMISE

[bugwolfsstuff]

Every time I see a bad take about greek mythology Prometheus gets his liver eaten

[eusuntgratie]

tripped and fell and wrote some ryliver. it was bound to happen.

thirst trap. M. 400ish words.

[slytherinshua]

y'all see this.... 😟😟😟

[poppy-metal]

kinda want shitty!boyfriend patrick to meet villian!reader and they just become this cyclone of toxicity just horrible people who have such cataclysmic sexual energy between them it blows up everyone else around them thats close. like - patrick being in a relationship and hes not the greatest boyfriend but hes not the worst, either. yet. you coming along and because you have a problem with the girl patrick is dating you seduce him at a party that they came to together. 'seduce' being a strong word, because all it took was for you to meet his eyes as you walked up the staircase and he was on your trail.

and it should throw him off that when you pull him close you say, "im only doing this because i think your girlfriends a fucking bitch who can be taken down a peg or two. she doesn't get to have a boyfriend who's loyal and has a big dick" it should. but he just grins and licks hotly into your mouth. he wasn't really planning on dating her that long anyway. if the inevitable breakup was bound to happen -burried balls deep in the hottest girl he's seen in awhile, maybe ever - is a pretty fucking fine way of doing it in his eyes.

"you think i have a big dick?"

"i dunno, zweig. why dont you show me."

[aijiology]

playing love and deepspace when-

honestly not well babes, i dont think ill be seeing u for awhile.... make sure beel is well fed and mammon doesnt start borrowing money from loan sharks🫡

[zappedbyzabka]

Mmm. Brain not working. Johnny’s harem being soooooo jealous over him.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Look, I have no skin in this game, and also luckily nobody reads this blog, but I'm just saying, for all the potential takes that Taylor is being unfair to Joe when she hasn't spoken his name or referred to him at all and is merely talking about how she feels and how she's grown in recent years as she's healed from the trauma of growing up in the spotlight and of 2016 specifically is curious, as if his team weren't also capable of slinging mud with being "distraught and slighted" and accusing her of cheating to jump on the M*tty backlash train before quickly backtracking when it was obviously untrue...

I'm just saying, yes there's a power imbalance, but just because there's an imbalance doesn't mean the feelings aren't valid or that she's escaped this unscathed. People shouldn't go after Joe, that's dumb. They should leave him be. But there was only one party hurtling public accusations in this breakup and it wasn't Taylor.

[juneberrie]

THE BOAT SCENE???

[chaos0pikachu]

I wish I had polls so I could ask ppl who they would ship Tay with after he breaks up with his cheating ass boyfriend