People really are missing the point of a character like Nettles. Being the a non-Valyrian dragonrider is what makes her different(in every positive definition of that word) and helps to serve a larger purpose in this story.
Valyrian blood is not special. It’s not needed to do great things. No one is special because of what family they happen to be born into.
A non-Valyrian Nettles shows that we are more than the circumstances which we are born into. Our birth, our names, and our very blood does not define us. Our actions are what do. We can overcome so much and rise to become absolutely extraordinary with a little bit of determination, patience, and a dash of help along the way. Nettles exemplifies that to the fullest extent.
She's more than a Black Valryian. She doesn’t have to be Valyrian. She shouldn’t have to be Valyrian.
She’s a survivor. She’s a final girl. She’s a Black low-born girl likely without a drop of dragons blood that tames a wild dragon with patience that killed countless others who had dragons blood. She survived the Dance where others high and low alike fell and perished to become a firewitch to the Burned Men.
Her legacy is immortalized in the history books(and by the Burned Men cause they still worship her) as one of the last(if not the last) dragonrider(s) before Dany all without having any known Valyrian ancestry.
693 notes
·
View notes
One thing that TotK does constantly but really doesn't land for me when compared to BotW is that every NPC loves Zelda so much.
She is the sweetest, and she loves animals and is the very best at them, and she goes to every major landmark to spend time there and also she teaches the people secrets about the lands they have always lived in and they're like woow thanks zelda incredible I'll change my entire ways because you were just SO enlightening (Lurelin + Gerudo Town feeling particularly questionable here for obvious reasons), and she's so wise and beloved and talented --to the point that nobody (beyond the Zora King) even dares to question her actions when she starts acting off.
(Yunobo please stop letting her walk all over you, like it's alarming that you understand she basically brainwashed you and your entire race, and you're still running after her like a lost puppy for an explanation that will surely make everything make sense instead of, like, punting her into the sun? I know it's the eeeevil zelda, but that this situation could even remotely begin to happen feels... so offputting.)
In BotW, the rare mentions of Zelda worked because 1) she was an ancient figure and the modern hylians knew very little about her and would build her up as a legendary figure accordingly, 2) she was literally giving her life for them (I mean she kind of still does here but people do not know that or cannot infer that in any way --which is its own sort of problem), 3) she was extremely hard on herself, felt like a failure and... kind of was one (and she was given shit for it).
(also in BotW we are in a post-Hyrule kingdom world, while here we're living its re-foundation, and so it feels very... convenient that they excavate a previous version of their perfect kingdom to boister up the hylian claim upon the lands also --but that's beyond the topic)
So for anyone to give her grace and compassion in BotW, while a little eyeroll worthy at times, was endearing and made sense. None of this was her fault; she may have extreme power, but she didn't directly yield it --her imperfections the byproduct of a stressful situation every champion was being forced into due to the tides of fate. Also the king was criticized for being a little ruthless and asking too much of his subjects, including his own daughter. There was solidarity between you and everyone else at the same level.
But here? I don't know, it feels like the entire kingdom is terrified that the sheikah secret police will drag them back in the Bottom of the Well if they breathe wrong when talking about their beloved princess, it's so unsettling. I liked BotW Zelda, but... I don't know, I'm literally more comfortable around fake Zelda than the real one. Fake Zelda feels more like a real person that she does.
286 notes
·
View notes
...I know people in this day and age think any collaborative effort can fix things, often despite reality (ex. the MULTIPLE tumblr blackout protests over the last like 10 years across different owners of tumblr that didn’t change shit),
but I think going out of your way to buy things from tumblr en masse as a “well then they’ll be profitable and won’t have to change things to resemble profitable sites!” as if the CEO/higher ups are personally going to see this and not AT MOST just go “oh we made money, sick, Anyway.” is just. the most naive and frankly 5-year-old level of problem solving unrealistic idea if you think about it for more than 5 seconds. People are just so blinded by naive optimism it’s painful.
Staff isn’t going to see your purchases and go on a full redemption arc and restore porn in spite of payment systems’ massive stigma against it or Apple’s restrictions and never ever try to mimic Twitter or TikTok again, or whatever the fuck you’re expecting, they’ll keep focusing on shit tweaks that resemble other sites because those are what keep investors who think they know tech and user wants hooked and they think new people from other sites will come over for that instead of the fact these people are typically escaping those kinds of features.
Staff isn’t your friend, their vying for support like they’re your buddy who is hitting hard times and has been here holding your hand all these years is deliberate corporate marketing, they’re an arm of a corporation that spits in the face of LGBTQ+ people and especially black people for daring to post about themselves while touting themselves as The Queer Site! A diverse site! Look at this AMA we’re doing with someone about Black History Month! and you’re doing nobody a service when you’re unintentionally rewarding a service for getting worse because they will not know nor care about your motives, they just care that they got money and will continue making it worse regardless of you. They’re a corporation, not a small business ran by 10 people who are trying their best. People throwing money at Staff already encourages them, let alone when you buy into the weird parasocial shit they try with us which will continue as they see success with that method.
Like the mere idea of everyone buying the crabs to gift to make the site profitable is just unrealistic (especially in this economy with such terrible inflation and in NA there are issues with the weather and fires, on a site that mostly consists of groups of people who are typically low income or unable to work???), it feels very much like the gofundme pages people set up to raise money for celebrities who have debts who will be fine regardless and definitely don’t need your help. Corporations and CEOs are not your friends, they never will be. They do not care about you and they’re not some poor uwu victim of circumstance.
TL;DR half-assed blackouts aimed at companies that don’t care (that I have seen over and over) and “cr*b day” type efforts are incredibly dumb and will change nothing, and they will not change anything, just encourage them since they see they’re making money during their current marketing schemes, if they notice at all. You pitying them like they’re a poor innocent person is exactly what the corporation wants.
If you want to make a difference give that money to an artist or lgbtq+ people who basically get flagged as mature for Existing, or people who get their posts flagged for criticizing the site, or something, someone who gets screwed over by this site on the regular. It will do far more good than that whackadoo type pipe dream and sit down and think for a second, please.
198 notes
·
View notes
hrmhrmhrm. the foundry is spewing steam and people are running away and screaming and auggie says "we're going TOWARDS where everyone is running from??" and howard says "these are the moments we decide- in, or out" and auggie says: "out, honestly". but charlotte says "stay" and then he can't, stay out. a spirit rips through auggie but everyone fights to keep him safe, to get the attention away from him. charlotte says: "i need you safe" and auggie says: "i understand."
they ask if he wants to join and auggie says: i dont know. this was- a bit much. and arlo says "you were fantastic, though!" and charlotte says: "if you'll be in danger id rather you be in danger next to me."
and auggie says: well. alright.
258 notes
·
View notes
No because all the anons talking about the Aemond x TB OC self insert fics are so real. Because those are so ridiculous derivative it is crazy
-White haired Targaryen looking child of Rhaenyra, probably named Visenya is either 1- takes after her mother because genetics don't exist 2-is the one trueborn daughter of Laenor and Rhaenyra who was conceived during consummation
-Can sword-fight, ride, talks like a 21st century woman, is a #girlboss and a 3rd wave feminist
-Takes Aemond's eye out as children instead of Luke being the one to do it
-Aemond somehow falls head over heels in love with her because she is #notlikeothergirls and just really really super hot
-Aemond abandons his family, his brothers, his sister, his mother and all the people he cares about to go fight for Rhaenyra because apparently the SI is just so hot and he is so in love with her
-They probably repeatedly have amazing super hot poorly written pre-marital sex but SI ofc doesn't get pregnant but there is no explanation like moon tea or anything
-Aemond calls his family out for being misogynistic haters or something for some reason????
- 639363 pages of Alicent bashing
-Aegon is the devil himself
-SI and Aemond get married and have children with white hair who they name after Rhaenyra and Daemon
-Author somehow managing to sneak in their own opinions that Rhaenyra is the one true heir and her and Daemon are innocent little saints who do no wrong
Just explained the plot of like a min. of 50 of Aemond x TB OC fics
i mean.... yeah :)) good for them for having their fun, but, bless their hearts, i had to check out
at the end of the day everyone can relate to this feeling of frustration when the majority of fics skew in a direction you're not a fan of. and every author should absolutely feel like they can post whatever they want and enjoy themselves; the target audience isn't always you and that's fine. but i simultaneously feel like venting these annoyances with like-minded people in your own space is also not a crime. sometimes we don't like stuff and want to gossip about it. it's really not that serious, everyone has the thinnest skin imaginable these days
it's like we've forgotten how to interact with one another. not liking something is not a personal affront to the person who does like it. it does not require outrage at the expressing of an opinion. it does not require a silencing campaign. you shouldn't expect others to keep quiet all the time just so your feelings won't be hurt. the fuck. especially when, i repeat, the tags can always be muted. what are you even doing interacting with the posts if the mere act of verbalizing a dislike bothers you so much?
there's a world of difference between occasional banter and sending authors hate, leaving disgruntled reviews, telling people to kms or insinuating that on your blog, casually accusing them of being illegal sexual deviants and whatever other deranged insults stans trade like candy and we definitely should stop acting like these two things are the same. you don't have to turn everything into a fight in the trenches
Anonymous asked: Yeah while I don't expect Alicent to be portrayed in every fic as the best mother who has no bad qualities since nobody is perfect it's becoming tiring to constantly read about how she's always trying to actively destroy her children's lives and is to blame for most things including the upcoming war while Rhaenyra is an amazing mother who truly loves her children and can do no wrong, like the worst she'll do is maybe arrange some unwanted marriage to her OC daughter or betroth her to another man who is not Aemond. I've come across to stories in which Alicent was abusive to Aemond for no reason other than she's a bad mother, was physically recoiled by his lost eye, turned and indoctrinated him into a religious extremist just like she's always portrayed in many fics or even tried to have Rhaenyra's daughter be assassinated just to prevent Aemond from defecting to the other side by marrying her and not the Baratheon daughter the greens want him to marry.
To some extent I do believe it's very hard to avoid some OOC-ness from these characters since they're being put into new scenarios that didn't happen in canon and everything about this is being left to the author's personal interpretation which will naturally spark some debate whether or not what a certain character's actions are believable within their universe, however, due to the formulaic nature of a lot of those fics most characters (especially green ones if we're talking about Rhaenyra's daughter OCs) are brought to insane levels of OOC just to make their story work. Like yeah, if Aemond has constantly been abused by his mother (not physically necessarily), by Aegon, by his grandfather and, on top of that, Alicent and/or Otto try to have his beloved OC assassinated well, chances are this will make him denounce his family and switch sides sooner or later. Something that would've never happened under normal circumstances. Oh and I've also noticed a trend in quite a few of these fics of using Alys in cheating tropes and always turning her into an evil witch and seductress who tries to separate Aemond from the OC and use him for her own benefits…all I'm going to say is you don't want to see how demented and misogynistic people get about her in the comment sections.
Anyway I'm sorry about extending this discussion about Aemond x OC fics and I hope it hasn't attracted too many weirdos who are spewing hate in your inbox!
i pretty much agree with you, anon, not much more to add. :))
52 notes
·
View notes