#TLH readings

[chfairwell]

“Maybe if you just kissed my neck,” she suggested, looking up at him through her lashes.

Lucie girllllll 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

[aroaceleovaldez]

im really not a fan of Rick's recent trend of recycling bits of his writing that got a good reaction the first time and acting as if that's a valid substitute for. actually bothering to write something original a second time around. It's clearly just there as a callback and nothing more.

It's "Nico's rage exploded" and "Percy's rage exploded" with the exact same paragraph formatting. It's CoTG having titles like "My Singing Makes Things Worse, and Everyone Is Totally Shocked" (reference to TLO, when Percy says he thinks his singing would cause an avalanche) or "Pretty Much the Best Good-Night Kiss Ever" (reference to TLO "Pretty much the best underwater kiss of all time") or any other number of near word-for-word references to the first series. It's Nico calling Percy "seaweed brain" in Un Natale Mezzosangue (when Percy says in TTC that anybody but Annabeth calling him that is a major offense). It's Nico and Will falling into Tartarus in TSATS word-for-word referencing Percy and Annabeth in House of Hades, despite it not making any sense for their characters (and otherwise being written as Percabeth 2™). It's the show making huge changes but keeping random "fan-favorite references" (mostly overusing "seaweed brain" and "wise girl" and emphasizing percabeth) only because they're popular in-jokes and considering that a faithful enough adaptation to market it heavily as such. It's lazy writing.

And it's a disservice to the series and to the audience, because it clearly shows Rick doesn't have original ideas anymore (though given all his writing is heavily derivative to begin with, it begs the question how much was original in the first place and how much he has difficulty when he doesn't have a structured mythological plot to work from) and that there is an expectation that the audience will just sit down and accept that behavior hook-line-and-sinker. Everything recently is clearly such lip-service to the audience, either in retcons that are overt speaking-to-camera acknowledgements of things he's been criticized on or wink-wink-nudge-nudges of community in-jokes that have no business in the actual text (see: over-use of ship names in canon). Especially since Rick tends to be about 5 years behind on the fandom uptake. It's just so disappointing to see.

[rooscandraw]

at long, LONG last, i am reading heroes of olympus. have a lost trio <3

[ruegarding]

Hey, quick question if you don't mind me asking but what are your thoughts on Drew Tanaka as a character and how she was portrayed in HOO?

canon drew...well. i rbed this post that says "drew was not written as a character but rather a human obstacle who needed to be feminine so the ‘not like other girls’ could defeat her," and i think that summarizes it perfectly. she exists exclusively to make piper look good, which is a real shame bc drew could've been interesting. as-is, drew is not only uninteresting, piper is also uninteresting by extension. it'd be like if nancy was one of percy's greatest obstacles in tlt.

more under the cut bc i'm incapable of keeping things short.

here, in her introduction, not only is drew, a feminine girl, vain, she's also weak and unintimidating, a triple whammy right away! she has no reason to be antagonistic towards piper here, they literally just got to camp. piper's crime right now is *checks notes* not looking cute and existing next to a "good-looking guy." oh, yeah, btw drew likes jason for being hot and powerful.

this triple whammy isn't even restricted to drew, it's the entire aphrodite cabin. they all giggle when drew flirts w jason and when piper is uncomfortable being "gorgeous" and are too scared and weak to stand up to drew. the two exceptions are a guy who got in trouble for saying piper "might not be so bad" and a girl who's afraid of ugly shoes. what an uninteresting take.

anyway, moments like this

are everywhere. now, let's remember for a moment that the aphrodite cabin (including drew!) fought in a war where they were outnumbered and won. but yeah, their biggest strength is their ability to "make an orange t-shirt glamorous" bc piper is the only one out of them who can *checks notes* uhhh run? charmspeak on a quest? carry a knife? she doesn't even know how to fight in tlh! she wasn't at camp for more than two days, she never had any fighting experience! the fact that she's being called tougher than ppl who fought in a war makes me grit my teeth. and thalia was there when it happened!

and it doesn't even makes sense bc we see aphrodite like this is ttc

and she says this in tlh

(also sidenote: why is aphrodite's claiming so egregious and uncomfortable then? it's like rick has a moment of clarity and realizes he's being stupid and then immediately fucks it up again.)

this is interesting! and some of these kids (including drew!) would have met this aphrodite during the solstices. so portraying drew and the aphrodite cabin as a bunch of shallow kids obsessed w makeup that need to be saved by piper "not like other girls" mclean is so contrived. and constantly bringing up how piper's so much better than those shallow and weak aphrodite kids makes piper's entire character grating. rick brings up aneaus repeatedly throughout tlh, a son of venus/aphrodite that founded rome. why are we acting like aphrodite children are weak and stupid when we could be exploring literally anything else? like, you know, how they're traumatized?

and the thing is, he brings up silena! and it's done terribly. piper, who never knew silena and never will, lecturing drew, someone who knew silena and was betrayed by her, has always pissed me off. piper relating to silena bc she feels like she's in the same position? good, that's fine, i have no problem w this. but acting like she knew silena to ppl who actually did and then preaching abt what silena believed should've gotten her smacked (rick didn't even addressed the actual important part, which is how the other campers feel abt silena or how they feel abt surviving a war).

then when piper challenges drew, again, drew fought in a war while piper hasn't trained for a single day, why are we acting like piper could beat drew in a fight? piper can't even use charmspeak bc drew's resistant to it! that's the one advantage piper has! writing it like this comes off like piper is only strong as long as everyone else is weak. she's not rising to a challenge, her competitor is just so pathetic that she can overpower them. she didn't earn her strength. that's not good character development! so we're throwing two entire character arcs away for this!

what really gets me abt all of this is that piper didn't need to be a counselor. piper needed a place to belong. making drew nothing more than a stepping-stone was completely unnecessary, and making the aphrodite cabin weak and vain was redundant bc we already had an example w silena (and again, all the kids that fought in a war). as it is in canon, drew's character is a great example of some of rick's biggest writing flaws.

[clockwork-carstairs]

the last hours was actually so tragic. like maybe it’s the edwardian london thing that makes it seem more tragic to me but damn all that miscommunication made them all so LONELY and isolated when they didn’t have to be. in tid even when will thought he was cursed he had jem, and even when he was being awful to tessa she still had other people in her life like jem and sophie. jem and tessa had no family, but they had people they talked to and shared their fears with. in the dark artifices, they’re this really strong family unit, the tragedy is horrible but there’s a network around them all (blackthorns + emma + kit) so no one’s really alone.

but in the last hours like….these kids HAVE parents and friend groups and supposed best friends even, yet they seem more isolated than any other series mains. james doesn’t tell anyone about the gracelet and what he went through (fair enough bec it was terrible and traumatising). but then it’s not just that. cordelia isn’t telling anyone what she’s going through. lucie isn’t telling anyone what she’s going through (trying to bring someone back to life???) – and they’re supposedly best friends and future parabatai! and matthew isn’t telling anyone what he’s going through, not his parabatai either, and no one wants to address how visibly he’s suffering. and grace, she’s actually alone. and it just seems so lonely and sad and they all seem so isolated even though they shouldn’t be, because unlike the tid and tda mains, the tlh lot actually have parents and their own homes (for the most part). the start of chain of thorns especially is just really painful because they’re all suffering ALONE when they all have people around them they just don’t bridge the gap. it just feels so lonely which is almost ironic bec what about the friendship of the merry thieves and the parabatai bonds and best friendship?

[icycoolslushie]

Yes I know the miscommunication trope was largely present in TLH but nothing will beat Charlotte and Henry being MARRIED for FIVE YEARS and thinking that the other didn't love them and only married them for political reasons even though they just wanted to be with the other

[agnes-draws]

a little birthday present i did a while ago for the wonderful @vwritesaus 💖 it's a scene from her beautiful fic (i'm begging you all to go read it if you haven't yet. it's a masterpiece.)

[wikitpowers]

the whispering room herondaisy scene lives in my mind rent free i can’t lie [squeels hysterically]

art: @cassandrajean

[fleyrie]

“Her exotic skin and her radiant hair was striking and she was tough.” - James Herondale

Hol’ up, let him cook

[fairdale]

okay, i’ve been thinking and i actually believe alastair is my fave tlh character. don’t get me wrong, i adore all of them but alastair?! his growth?! he’s just so lovable, ok? he thinks he’s not, but he is.

i love how he broke out of his shell, how he bloomed.

how his relationship with cordelia became stronger (he’s so soft for her i’m gonna cry), how he admitted that he never wanted cortana, he was just worried for his sister.

how he adores his baby brother so much he always brings him toys and sings for him.

how he became more confident with himself (you don’t understand what him going back to his original hair color did to me, that statement…).

how he went from treating the rest badly, to ignoring them, to helping them, to caring for them…

he has grown so much and he has finally let the people see how good he is. the kind alastair, as his mother said, the one that didn’t have to be on his guard constantly because of his father and because of who he loved.

and with thomas… oh, i love those two SO much. i just wanted to shake alastair and tell him he’s worthy of love too (just like thomas tried multiple times). from those moments in paris i knew they had a special bond.

alastair is devastatingly in love with thomas. he feels so much, cares so much. he just wants the best for him, even when that meant hurting him because he thought he deserved something better than a life with him.

and, ugh, can we please talk about how during the christmas party in chot he was so sure about kissing thomas in front of everyone? he would never let anyone make him feel ashamed anymore, not of his feelings, not of his thomas.

i just love alastair so much. i love how he grew on me because he’s not perfect, but he tries. because he’s scared, but he tries. because he’s been hurt, but he tries.

i didn’t expect him to become someone that i would hold so close to my heart, but here we are. thank you, alastair, for being there for all of us who are growing, who want to be better, who are trying. thank you.

[chfairwell]

okay yeah Jordelia realizes they’re end game but Matthew ✋🏽😫💔 James hurting for Matthew after Daisy says I don’t wanna feed into a false hope 😓😓😓🚼🚼🚼

[lekawi]

"He looked furious, and also rather - in Thomas's view glorious. Proud and strong as the Persian kings of old"

Tag list: @anarmorofwords @rinadragomir @iloveallmyocs @cant-think-of-anything @khaleesiofalicante @drunkonimagination @life-through-the-eyes-of @summergrace-art @thomaslightwood @ddepressedbookworm @axoloteca @astriefer @lord-jethro @runecarstairs @laylax13s @221bornottobe @ibrushmyteeth-donttellanyone @cityofthomastair5

[layla-carstairs]

[lesbocrocker]

The ‘average person visits or calls on the Silent City twenty seven times in their life’ factoid is actually just a statistical error. Silent City visits and calls Will Herondale and Tessa Gray are outliers and should not have been counted.

[cant-think-of-anything]

most underrated scene

[tyblackthornfrog]

no shade to people who pay to have their names in tsc but i won in tlh already, I'm good

proudly serving the carstairs and herondales since early 1900s, late 1800s!!!!