#while trying to make a compelling character

[claidi]

Scrolling through Apothecary Diaries posts and seeing the Jinmao and Shimao (I also saw this referred to as Pesticide shipping lol) ship war, I kinda want to give my take on it

Like Maomao cares about Both of them, but their relationships are very different. I'm not even talking romance here- Shisui started as someone Maomao could be on an equal level to, they're friends. Meanwhile, Maomao may have been avoiding how high ranked Jinshi really was, she did keep her distance due to the class difference between them. Now, Jinshi has been able to break though that a few times, and they do trust and depend on each other, but it's still a very different relationship. Jinshi is her employer. Shisui was supposed to be safe in a way Jinshi couldn't be. She started as a friend of a friend and it was super effective for getting close to Maomao.

Interestingly, Jinshi and Shisui are actually pretty alike in some ways. They both have their relationship with Maomao under an assumed identity of lower status. Both are trapped by the expectations of their family and enjoy getting to goof off a little while Maomao remains unaware of who they actually are. Maomao also gets annoyed by their antics at times in ways that for example she doesn't for Xiaolan. Jinshi has his ridiculousness and Shisui has her bug fascination lol. Also, they both use Maomao in their schemes. I haven't forgotten all the times where Jinshi and Gaoshun have discussed how she make a valuable pawn, meanwhile Shisui seems to have used her kidnapping to bring ruin to her mother. It's just... They do end up actually caring for Maomao beyond that.

However, to Shisui, her plan is more important than Maomao. She's sticking to it, even when it's put Maomao in danger and Maomao herself is trying to make her turn back.

Jinshi? He'll adjust. He may have just completely burnt his Jinshi identity for her and lost the freedom that comes with it (anime only here so I don't know all of the ramifications yet!). I know there were other factors as well and I'm sure that there are limits in what Jinshi will do for Maomao, but it's an interesting parallel.

All of this to say- Maomao's relationships with these characters are both complex and intriguing. I think both deserve to be explored and discussed. In my opinion, I appreciated that both relationships were given weight last episode. When it showed that as much as she tries to claim she doesn't care, she feels strongly. When she tried to deny Jinshi's royalness until she honestly couldn't. It's complicated. So complicated and tumultuous and neither of them are quite the person Maomao thought they were before. Jinshi is the one who came to save her and Shisui is the one she can't save. The friendship that was supposed to be safe put her life in danger while her high ranked boss who she's literally given requests for how to kill her if he ever executes her showed up to protect her. Liars who slipped through her cracks., that while they held different identities- they were closer to their true selves with her than the masks of who they were born to be. It's compelling. Both are important to Maomao's character and honestly I'd like to see the contrast be explored more.

[jade-pendragon]

we don’t own rick riordan anything

I don’t trust people that unironically don’t use any critical thinking skills when actively consuming/engaging with content just because their “favorite author” wrote it.

oh look! rick riordan just published a new book.

am I gonna read it? yes, probably.

does it mean it will automatically be good? absolutely not!!

it’s okay for you to like some of his books while still acknowledging the fact that not all of them have the same quality (or, god forbid, are even good to begin with). not even the greatest authors out there have the capacity to keep shooting 5/5 books with this level of consistency, he’s no different.

this fandom has a weird sense of loyalty to him, and I get it, really. these books have shaped me into I am today and I am happy they exist but rick riordan is not just a poor uncle trying his best :( — he’s a millionaire. a fucking millionaire making shit tons of money with every new release he makes (and I’m not even considering the series).

his books sold more than a 100 million copies worldwide. yes, 100 million. that’s more than a whole country’s population. that level of international acclaim can only be achieved in most author’s wildest dreams.

we, as fans, not only can but also have the right to analise and criticize his work — we engage with it, we spend money on it — and, most importantly, should be able to acknowledge when it is not… it.

there’s nothing wrong with liking an objectively bad/cringe book (or other piece of media) but in order to do so, you must admit that it is one. if his writing quality has dropped or if his characters don’t feel like themselves of if the writing sounds cringe and extra fan-servicey, we should be able to acknowledge it. admit it. we don’t own him anything.

many many amazing authors are out there waiting for someone to read their books. books that can be compelling, diverse, mature, funny and with all types of characters and narratives that don’t use poc/lgbt characters and themes just to check their inclusivity quota for the book.

i still love the riordanverse, but let’s just reflect on who we’re giving our attention (and money) to.

[mintedwitcher]

im sure im not the first one to say it but i kinda hate the fact that the whole "bucktommys hate eddie!!!" thing took off at whatever point. bc like... admittedly, i don't like eddie NOW. but when i first got into the show (which admittedly it hasnt even been a year yet lmao admittedly a bucktommy clip popped up on my dash and i found them cute so i decided to watch the show from the beginning), i enjoyed him. i thought rg is good with comedy, and while i liked eddie, he just wasn't my favorite by any means and that was fine! i didn't really have any character that i disliked for the most part (even the antagonistic characters like doug and jonah were both in the ballpark of 'i love you because you're absolutely terrible and not being painted as anything other than that, i <3 drama and conflict' kinda like loving villains for being villains rather than woobifying em as a wittle misunderstood guy) aside from maybe one, and its heavily dependent on what season i'm watching.

but like idk. i think the end of s8 just ruined eddie for me, especially with the bts stuff and the fact that ppl have (imo) rightfully called out the fact that eddie's anger tends to just kinda get swept under the rug a lot by the show itself. fans excusing shitty behavior is normal fandom bullshit, nothing new, but idk it just feels like the show brushes it off and then has eddie rarely address his problems, at least not fully considering the whole "i gotta go be a dad to chris again" thing didn't even touch on the reason why christopher went to texas to begin with. he went from "guy who i was excited to hopefully see growth from!!!" to feeling stupid for hoping that eddie would take accountability for the kim stuff and apologize to his son.

but like. i never hated eddie before all of it. like i said, he just wasn't my favorite, and i just liked the way tommy and buck mesh together to the point where if they decide they want a new love interest for buck that they're gonna have to try really fucking hard to make someone better than tommy. hell, i liked all of buck's love interests even if i didn't really see any of them as endgame. i liked ana and marisol! i was pissed actually that eddie fumbled marisol so hard because she was cute and fun and i think she could have had so much more done with her!!! im not touching on shannon btw she's dead so there's no real point in bringing her (or kim) up imo.

is there no non-main woman safe from tim minear's writing (and thats being polite because (looks at henren mom problems) (looks at henren 'work-life balance' problems) (looks at the fact it kinda feels like maddie is reduced just down to 911 operator and milf just one chance maddie (and also chim) please /lh mom)) /j

idk it just sucks to get all the "why do you even like tommy he's barely on screen" bc the time hes "barely on screen" is more compelling to me than whats mostly on screen sometimes. i got attached to a background character with three lines who was only in ONE season of his show lmao like sometimes... whats not canon can be more compelling than whats canon if the writers fumble canon enough times. and for me, the writers have fumbled eddie one too many times :/ the grab + flinch "you make everything about yourself" bullshit was just the final straw for me and made me turn on a character i'd been neutral toward

👏👏👏

no words nonnie, you said everything that needed to be said here.

[ilikekidsshows]

This isn’t talked about a lot, but isn’t it kind of messed up and sexist it that for being so important and wonderful, we never saw Emilie or heard her voice until season 6? I mean she’s supposed to be the whole reason Gabriel is trying to destroy Paris, yet we know next to nothing about who she really was outside of being Adrien’s cool mom and Gabriel’s wife, and that’s it. I guess we know she ran away and wanted to become an actress, but outside of that nothing. Was she really a good person? Why would she lock Adrien away and prevent him from going to school? Why did she never throw a birthday for him? Was she really in love with Gabriel? Or was he just a good time for her? Did she love Adrien? Or was he just a dress up doll? I mean she did create him instead of adopt, and his lifestyle isn’t something new and began while she was alive. Who was she?

I’ll tell you what she was. A MacGuffin. An object. A means to tell to the story of the men in her lives with no thought into her actual character.

Honestly, it’s very disappointing she wasn’t explored more because it would actually be very interesting to find out she wasn’t the saint everyone believed her to be. After all she created Adrien to be perfectly obedient and never fight back, which shows how she sees parenting and Gabriel changed literally everything about himself to fit her standards. Frankly, she’d make for a compelling evil villain with all these ideas, but no. She just dies and that’s it.

What a shame.

You for this feminist show, they sure treat the women of it aside from Marinette as objects or appendages to the men around them more often than not.

---

Yeah, like, the in-universe explanations I had before it became pointless were 1) she's evil and complicit and 2) she’s a fellow abuse victim. Like, even with the reveal that Gabriel changed his very identity for her, making it clear he values her comfort above all else, she could have come to him conveniently pre-abused (we saw Emile) and ready to smile and call Gabriel so smart when he says they don't have time for a birthday party so let's not have one.

But, like, with the way the arc ended, with her dead body almost purposefully desecrated by Marinette in her usual careless approach to collateral damage, and her only voiced appearance is asking Nathalie to take on her motherly duties, it becomes apparent that Emilie is a concept and not a character. The writers intend her to be the saintly mother archetype, where just mothering a child makes a woman beyond reproach. It's not the only time Miraculous emphasizes the idea of inherent goodness over looking at a character’s actions, but it's extremely blatant with Emilie specifically because we don't really get her opinions on things, except for a conveniently noncommittal “Gabriel went too far” statement. She only renounces her misdeeds on her deathbed without making up for them and we’re expected to treat her like a saint for it.

Emilie is an idea, and a scapegoat, but one they try to absolve of all guilt to make us sorry for her death. She's the reason Gabriel is doing what he does, but she wouldn't have approved. And the writers think that's enough instead of showing her as an actual fictional person.

[wanderingmind867]

Well, I just thought of a possible character for an earth-one infinity inc. Meet Gravity (Ramona Loring), child of Ray Palmer and Jean Loring.

Ramona Loring was born in 1983, the same year Ray Palmer abandoned his wife to go live in the amazon jungle. Jean Loring and her new husband Paul Hoben raised Ramona instead. Ramona had a fairly loving childhood, raised by two parents who loved her dearly (despite her horribly neglectful biological father, who didn't even know she existed). But all things considered, Ramona had a decent childhood.

Well, until she turned 10. In September 1993 (shortly after her tenth birthday), Ramona began manifesting strange powers. She began attracting floating off the ground at random times, strangely. So Jean and Paul got her tested. And the results came back revealing that the white dwarf star material in ray palmer's bloodstream actually led to his daughter having strange mutations. Specifically, she had the ability to control gravity.

Now that her parents knew this, they knew they couldn't really leave her without training. If her powers intensified and she got out of control, Ramona could make a human being experience zero gravity and fly up into space. That's very deadly. So they send her to Snapper Carr and Red Tornado, hoping they can help train her to manage her powers and use them for good.

It's only around this point in her life that Ramona even learns that Paul Hoben isn't her real dad. And she's devastated. Paul was the only father figure she had. Ray Palmer left her! For a stupid tribe of microscopic people in the amazon! His own daughter was abandoned! She's so hurt that she frankly never wants to see him again. He's not her father. Paul Hoben is her father. He's just a man to her.

And when Ray Palmer finally does leave the amazon (after a massacre of the tribe there by pollution leads him back to america in 1999, on a quest for vengeance), Ramona finally meets her dad. And her powers get out of control and she nearly reverses gravity on his entire body, turning him into mush. He's dead to her! And despite any attempts he might make to reach out to her, it's not gonna work. He abandoned her! She's had an absentee father for her whole childhood. You don't just get over that.

[amber-angel]

What's the POINT?????

I half expected Misty's fucking chocolate martini to be poisoned, that's how out of left field these stupid plotlines are getting

[lizzybeeee]

Me watching my Inquisitor walk off with Solas at the end of the game like :) "aw cute ..hey if Mythal hadn't told you to stop would you have murdered her,," (I haven't played the other endings yet).

This!!!

(Obviously, not murdered her personally, but he absolutely had no qualms about doing the ritual once more - knowing the consequences of it.)

Let me preempt this by saying that I wanted there to be a happy/fulfilling ending to Solas and Lavellan. I'm not a blind hater! Just someone who finds it very hard to put my own Lavellan in the place of the 'Lavellan' provided to us in DATV.

The Solas/Lavellan relationship already was kind of iffy (power imbalance, constantly dragging her culture, removing her vallaslin/then dumping her, constantly lying to her, etc...) but DAI did a great job of making you feel sympathetic towards his plight - especially after Trespasser! He woke up in a world so divorced from his own that it was unrecognizable - the people he had done so much for were suffering from the consequences of his actions, justified as they may have been at the time (stopping the evanuris). His actions led to great suffering in the pursuit of preventing even greater suffering.

Even after we learned of his plans in Trespasser, it was very much: "cool motive, still murder."

I felt sympathetic towards Solas and the implication that we could change his mind, given to us in Trespasser, gave me hope that we would be able to convince him of another path. That he could find a place in Thedas as it is now and look to the future. That was why I chose the option to try and get through to Solas, despite knowing that his plan would lead to mass death/terror if it went ahead.

I always expected the Veil to fall at some point, but i was hoping there'd be some more nuance to it than: veil gone, demons everywhere, lots of people die. Well, I was very wrong lmao.

But, if anything, the game made me entirely unsympathetic towards Solas.

The moment he started his ritual he chose the old elven empire over Lavellan - over her family, friends, home, culture, and anything else she may have loved/valued.

And he did this twice.

He chose to pursue lowering the Veil - knowing that thousands would likely die. For all his insistence of 'minimizing the damage' he went in knowing that many more people would die because of his actions. There was no justification of stopping the evanuris this time either - no excuse of not knowing the potential consequences of his actions like the first time.

He chose to begin the ritual that ended up releasing the Elven Gods - knowing full well the risks it entailed.

He killed Varric - whether by accident or not, it was by his hand.

He chose to use blood magic to manipulate Rook into thinking that Varric was alive - puppeting his corpse around in Rook's eyes and putting his words into Varric's mouth.

He chose to manipulate, mold, and guilt Rook into the old 'switcheroo' in his mind palace/regret prison

He chose to 'free' the elven people by bringing down the Veil - regardless of their feelings about it (elven Rook can call him out on this!), never mind the consequences or ramifications of a bunch of people suddenly having their bodily autonomy overwritten by now being magic/having immortality.

He looked at the devastation caused the by the Gods and still went ahead with trying to bring down the veil again.

These are the thing he does in-game - not even mentioning making the dwarves/titans tranquil, creating the blight, started the chain of events that led to SOUTHERN THEDAS BEING DESTROYED, and taking my good gear from Inquisition!

Aside from the 'all lore leads to Solas' reveal just being really dull it also does nothing to help with making me sympathetic to him as a character. The audacity of this man to say: "it was like walking in a world of tranquil" when he fucking lobotomized the dwarves/titans is wild in retrospect.

If he didn't do the ritual at the beginning, if something else went wrong and that resulted in the God's being released, I could understand why a Lavellan would still want to get through to him. It would make sense - she could stop him from doing it again at the end too! You can still have him conflicted and torn between the restoring the past or pursuing the future - but this doesn't happen!

He never chose Lavellan in this game! Hell, it's Mythal who convinces him to stop?!! He owes her nothing! He's learned nothing from this!!! He's only stopped because Mythal 'pardoned/freed' him - once again showing that he values the ancient elves/mythal over her!!!

How impactful would it have been to have him choose Lavellan over Mythal! To show us this! Mythal, who 'crawled through the ages for a reckoning' (which was retconned to her being sad about the elves lmao) telling Solas to go through with the ritual and him touching grass and saying 'no'.

It's something I feel was wildly out of character for him as well - he never came across in DAI as being subservient to Mythal, if anything the ending cutscene gave me the impression they were equals?!

After everything he did in this game - after all we learn about what he did in the past - I had no interest in reasoning/appealing with his ass. None whatsoever. My inquisitor/Lavellan asking if Solas can be reasoned with only made me regret making that choice - perhaps other people's inquisitor's would say that, but mine would not, especially after everything that happened in game.

She came across as delusional: standing on the ruins of a blighted Minrathous, the south blighted to hell, dead all around them, blight tentacles everywhere, a gaping hole in the Fade right next to them:

Lavellan: "I forgive you! All you have to do is stop." Solas: "But I cannot."

Boom! There it is.

At this point it's not romantic, it's just sad! Sad that she's spent 10 years pining after a man who seemed to learn nothing at all from what happened in DAI.

------------------------

There should have been some sort of a dialogue option with Lavellan right before you go into the big fight - she can ask you what you think of Solas, if he's truly regretful for everything that happened, and then you can give her an answer that can 'change' her approach to Solas in the end - giving the player some agency as to how their Inquisitor would actually respond to this.

Ending One: Bye Bye Bye

Rook: "HE'S A GUY."

alternatively, "Look around you! Look at what Solas has done - what he's threatening to do even now after all of this! You gave him every chance to turn away from this path. So did Varric...and look at what he did!"

Lavellan is bitter/angry with Solas: "It seems we never were people to you after all."

Refers to him as 'Fen'harel' and not Solas - dig the knife in deeper, give us angst!

"Just go. You love the Fade, don't you? Enough to do all this - enough to kill Varric for your pride in a dead world that no longer exists. We were never 'real' to you, were we?"

Solas says his goodbyes, expresses his love, and Lavellan steps back.

Solas leaves voluntarily, his 'situation-ship very much over', to stew in his regrets for the rest of his life.

Ending Two: Bittersweet Goodbye

Rook: "Girl, it's been 10 years."

alternatively, "You loved him once, perhaps you still do even now - after all he's done - but love wasn't enough. Love does not excuse this."

Lavellan is firm with Solas, does not excuse his actions, but has a bitter sweet farewell: "I had hoped…it doesn't matter what I hoped. You made your choice - it wasn't me. It wasn't our friends. It wasn't this world. You can make a choice now - if I ever mattered you. If I, if our friends, were ever real to you."

They can have a final goodbye, a goodbye smooch, and then he can go off to the Fade.

Bittersweet ending - acknowledge what they had and then provide closure.

Ending Three: Happy Ending (?)

Rook: "He didn't mean it babe. He's tots sorry."

alternatively, "He seems to regret what's happened - I've seen his memories, his regrets. He believes this is the only path he has. Perhaps you can convince him to find another."

Default Lavellan ending basically

"There is no fate but the love we share" blah blah blah

As happy an ending as it can be when you have Lavellan fuck off to the Fade - leaving behind her life, friends, family, and whatever remains of the world for an eternity.

I'm being mean but I genuinely wanted a happy/fulfilling ending for them both too - despite the fact that this game seems to want that ending as well, it did little to convince me of that. :(

I genuinely liked Solas in DAI - despite his flaws, I thought his romance was compelling and I was hoping to be able to convince him to change/alter his path. I can see what they were trying to do with him in DATV but it's so hard to feel sympathy for him when we see/know the results of his actions. The story in this game is doing anything but convincing me to give him a 'happy ending'.

'Love' can't excuse what he did and neither would my Lavellan.

Also RIP Sandal's Prophecy about the Fade lmao

[clowndensation]

wait explain to me the destiel hatred i’m curious what abt it angers u that doesn’t apply to the other two ships

great question! the answer would unfortunately require 3 hours and a powerpoint presentation, so i will try to do a brief summary:

a ship sucking only ever has about 25% to do with the ship itself. destiel is bad in the sense that i think dean winchester is an annoying character that gets treated with kiddie gloves by the narrative, which makes him irritating to see on screen, because i personally dislike it when "men are angry and abusive because they just love too strongly, and don't know how to express it :(" is played straight as a character's primary internal conflict. especially over 15 seasons. it's boring, he's boring, and 35 year old men shouldn't be going to colleges trying to figure out which freshman girls are legal or not. hate him.

however the real sin of destiel, beyond the fact that dean winchester and i have beef that will only ever resolve when i get to reincarnate as the rusty nail that kills him, is that the fans are so so so fucking annoying. like yes the narrative frames dean as a golden boy who can either do no wrong, or "well, i guess he did wrong there, but what about how tortured he is :(" but good god. at least the show isn't trying to convince me that destiel is some groundbreaking lifechanging love story, complete with "omg this moment" montages where they romanticize scenes that feature dean either insulting, threatening, or humiliating cas. like this entire show (post season 5) is dean chronically either infantillizing and attempting to keep cas under his control, or holding him up as the only person he can rely on, thus giving cas expectations that are impossible to fulfill.

and don't get me wrong! people can like a shitty person and a fucked up ship. that's basically everything i enjoy on here. but at least like. acknowledge it. aldfkjalka. and if you're gonna like a shitty person and a fucked up ship, at least write about it in an interesting way. 90% of fic and posts written about destiel aren't even about destiel as presented in canon, they're about two generic men with generic personalities who suffer from the world's most generic tropey problems. cookie cutter ass basic relationship. the high school au of ships. boring.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

the fool 🤝 jin guangyao being easily the most dynamic and compelling characters in their respective canons, likely for reasons that were substantially if not entirely unintentional on the part of their respective authors

[amelikos]

It's really interesting seeing moments where Liko is overly careful with her words, to the point it feels like she is walking on eggshells and prefacing her thoughts with "it's fine, I really think it's fine but..." even around her friends.

[azirowley]

98% of fic writing for me is just trying to figure out how to get the character to do what I want them to. It's just endless questions. I want Frost and Gricko to argue a little bit so I need to make Gricko mad at Frost, what the hell could Frost possibly do to make Gricko mildly annoyed by him... I want Frost and Torbek to be alone together, how do I get the rest of the guys out of the equation for a minute... Etc etc

[gromky]

poor pussy instead of coffee shop aus. a thought

[im-still-a-robot]

M. It was impossible to make their name look good 😔

Notes:

- Main outfit based off the orginal skin for them (minus capelet). I might do a better design at a later point but I am out of outfit brain power atm

- They like nicer clothes (like sweaters and button ups) but are often annoyed by the lack of mobility

- Mask only comes off when alone or with people they trust. Their headscarf, on the other hand, is used to protect their hair, so they might take it off in public, but usually only briefly, to adjust it.

- The Moofia was important to them. Even after its effective dissolution, cows were very dear to them. Also cow axe :]

- Prone to annoyance and nervousness in equal measure. An asshole on bad days and tricky bastard on good ones.

Thats mostly it. I am going to be thinking about them for weeks to come <3

Diamond (the fox!) belongs to @twodragonsinatrenchcoat

I genuinely don't remember who the child was- feel free to tell me if you know :]

[dreamy-demons]

me when i find people that make hate posts and then tag them with all the relevant fandom tags so it will show up on your dash when you follow the tag

[bigboobshaunt]

It's like, not Not A Problem that they keep giving Zelda the role of Damsel In Distress but I think trying to single out Fujibayashi as a director as responsible for this is a bit... farcical considering the games he didn't direct... also do that, tracing back to the very first one.

[dulcewrites]

TW

When I was an HARDCORE team black fan, I was into that then over the months, by learning stuff from Fire and Blood and reading posts, then shifting my interests in general made me realize how messy is the Targaryen's dinasty.

The Targaryens aren't cool people that will do anything for the family but THEIR HOUSE, THEIR LEGACY: they are blood supremacist, misogynistic people that harmed each other for the throne and they are supposed to be FAMILY?!

Reminds me of the writer's explanation regard dragons: They aren't friendly creatures, They are WAR MACHINES, THEY ARE GOING TO DESTROY WESTEROS and if that's not a metaphor of the Targaryens' dynamics, I don't know.

Also I drifted away from Hotd fics in general for the whiteness(🤣kinda tired to hear about Visenya and Aemma get into it with Aemond) Alicent's villanization(I deleted a bunch of fics because it was always: " Nyra is a great mother and a feminist while Alicent is abusive and misogynistic")a child bride that for the love she felt for her children, she started a war and people there will be like: "well Rhaenyra wouldn't harm her children.."

She demanded a child to be tortured,let's not talk about her husband who hates Hightowers and sent blood and cheese to murder and rape a child.

Ah also Daemon abandoned his wife to save Nettles, her supposed daughter; while Nyra was losing her mind and grieving the death of his children(Malewife indeed)

So I don't know why Alicent wouldn't trust any of them???hmmm seems pretty clear for me.

I’d honestly get it, and then at the very least would know to avoid it, if people would tag properly/be honest about what they are writing. Tag it Alicent bashing and call it a day lmao. Like I said in the tags of the post I made, it’s just so disingenuous to have fics claiming to be fix its where you see Alicent being the sole blame for everything while all the men (namely Daemon and Viserys since they are ‘team black’) get turned into plucky tv sitcom dads lmao. Or fics where for some reason Alicent’s children would hate her or Alicent is some cunt for standing in the way of ‘love’. It’s misogyny really, bc nothing Alicent has done would even rank her in the top 5 worst characters. And that goes for the book and show. You’re fixing the timeline by punishing/shitting on the child bride and not the creep who married her, maritally raped her and ruined his daughter’s claim in the process?? Yeah makes perfect sense

Imo it seems easier and frankly more fascinating to actually lean into the family dynamics that plague Targaryens as a whole, and BOTH team green and team black in specific. We literally get Rhaenyra in the first seen of the show saying that the only thing that can bring down the house of the dragon is the house itself. Turning team black into the Brady brunch does so much disserve to their characters as a whole. Idk if I was a targ stan or even someone who wanted to write for team black, which I do not and don’t see myself ever being, I would much rather just run with the messiness 🤷🏽‍♀️

Plus, like you said, the overwhelming amount of whiteness in fics is exhausting. This goes for literally every fandom under the son unfortunately. But it’s compounded in fantasy/sci-fi related media fandoms bc people hide behind bs reasons like ‘historical accuracy’ or ‘well the author [insert something the author never said]’. Mind you, they have no problem writing about Dragon and witches and shit