#and marry is. marry is the main character of the story really. it all revolves around her even if its not so obvious at first

[themonsterundermystairs]

short list of lgbt-inclusive games that i love (in brackets is the kind of representation):

- cattails and it‘s sequel, cattails: wildwood story (nonbinary, queer in general): these are both great games that warrior cats fans will love. also, every single cat in the game is non binary. everyone is only referred to by they/them and you can have kittens with anyone.

- starfield (nonbinary, bi, same sex relationships, trans): you can choose your pronouns (he, she or they) no matter your body type. you can also always change your body and pronouns for a small fee. some main companions talk about former partners of the same gender, in at least one case, a character references dating men and women. guards may also reference a partner of the same gender.

- skyrim (same sex relationships for player, gay): you can marry regardless of gender and adopt kids with your spouse. there is a dead gay couple. (this will be the only game with so little representation on this list. i included it because i love skyrim, because you can make it gayer with mods and because it is from 2011 so i don‘t have high expectations)

- ikenfell (nonbinary, queer relationships, neopronouns): a really fun rpg with a fun combat system. also very queer, every character has their pronouns listed and there are nonbinary people with they/them, ze/zir and even he/him pronouns. i haven‘t quite finished playing through it yet, but there are all kinds of queer relationships. oh and you save the game by petting cats

- wandersong (queer relationships, gender nonconformity, nonbinary): a really unique and wholesome game about a bard that wants to save the world. it has an amazing story and some of the most well written characters i have ever encountered. the bard is nonbinary and uses all pronouns and there is a noteworthy nonbinary character whose story doesn‘t revolve around them being nonbinary. they are fully accepted. there are plenty of queer relationships. there are mermaids with beard stubble.

- a short hike (nonbinary): an amazingly fun game that actually feels like a holiday. it also has a super fast turtle that goes by they/them pronouns

- shovel knight (queer relationships, trans, nonbinary): fun platformer that allows you to choose your body type (male/female) and your pronouns (he/she/they) independently from one another. you can also do the same for all bosses and your love interest.

- squidlit and super squidlit: really fun gameboy style games that were created by independent trans developers.

[hannigramislife]

for my own gratification bc i just ran into nie mingjue hate in the wild, would you mind making a post that defends my poor good boy? he worked so hard and got gaslit to shit before getting murdered terribly ;; literally everyone sat there telling him "youre being too harsh" and he's just responding appropriately. like yeah, if you witness a murder, ya kinda got to do something about that as a clan leader. its kinda your responsibility, even when you care about the person who did the murdering. he was also a really young when he took on the role of clan leader and idk, it just made me rlly sad to see people dunk on him cuz wtf he's literally just trying his best in an impossible situation WHILE being perpetually fucked over by his clan's own traditional cultivation cuz now the stronger he is as a leader, the closer he is to going literally insane and dying bc of it. (mingjue did nothing wrong i will die on this hill) ((sorry for going on a tirade, im just sad and defensive of my good boy rn))

Oh no! I'm so sorry you had to go through Nie Mingjue hate! Truly tragic. I went through that once when in the beginning of me reading the books, when I still had no proper opinions, and never again.

I'm more than willing to make a post about Nie Mingjue! I'm always down to talk about Nie Mingjue tbh, he's my heart and love and if I were to have been given the opportunity to be his right hand person, I would have simply never betrayed his trust and married him. Rip Jin Guangyao but I'm different.

Anyways, I, huhhh, actually think you?? Covered it all??? Pretty much?? Yet I will talk about it. This will be long and non-coherent, because I don't have the books rn to find quotes in them and honestly, I could write essays on Nie Mingjue either way.

Nie Mingjue is a central piece of the narrative, despite the limited amount of appearances he made, and the fact that he wasn't close to the main characters at all. The entire second part of the plot revolves around him- it happened because of him. His murder is a tragedy; literally, by greek standards, man has Cassandra Curse all over him, so I don't get how people can tell me, confidently, that his death was warranted. I've been told the man had asked for it, and this has mostly been by Jin Guangyao apologists.

So let me make something real fucking clear.

Nie Mingjue did not deserve to die. Let's get that out of the way, anyone can fight me on that. Nie Mingjue had more good qualities than half the people in this fucking story, despite his flaws. After his father was brutally murdered when Mingjue was only in his teens, Nie Mingjue stepped up as clan leader. We can only speculate the hardships that await someone leading a clan at such an early age. Yet, political challenges weren't the only thing he had to battle; Nie Mingjue knew about his clan's harmful cultivation, and he knew he was going to die young. So what did he do? His best. Literally his best, always. He was always giving 100% of his abilities, because that's who he was.

Let's talk about who Nie Mingjue was, shall we?

When Jin Guangyao, still Meng Yao then, describes Nie Mingjue, he finds himself perplexed, because Nie Mingjue isn't like other men. He is not frivolous, and he has no vices; Meng Yao describes how Nie Mingjue never showed an interest in arts, or alcohol, or women. All he did was train, and fight the Wens during the war. It shows that he had a one-track mind from the start, and has got a strict discipline; yet this strictly disciplined man, leader of a clan that prizes strength, continuously indulges his lazy and undisciplined half-brother, his one and only heir, despite not understanding his interests. We gather, pretty quickly, that Nie Mingjue is a bleeding heart for his brother, and for the ones he loves in general. We see the same softer side displayed in the presence of Lan Xichen, and of course, for some time, Meng Yao.

People seem to think Nie Mingjue took Meng Yao's betrayal too harshly. As if somehow seeing a man he thought to have been just and honest commit premeditated murder, then cover it up, was something he was just supposed to get over. To this day, I can't believe how Lan Xichen was so understanding of it. But not only did Nie Mingjue catch him in a cowardly act - Meng Yao proceeds to manipulate him, using the fact that Nie Mingjue cared about him, to stab him in the back. Or front, however it happened. I get that Meng Yao was in a difficult position, that he suffered at the Jins, that he felt backed in a corner; but Nie Mingjue was a man that had extended his help to Meng Yao before, and even then, he went to find Meng Yao in righteous fury, ready to help him again. To Nie Mingjue, the idea that Meng Yao "had no other choice" but to kill - to kill in the manner he did - it could have been nothing but a betrayal.

One thing that I personally highly respected Nie Mingjue for was the fact that he did not judge Meng Yao for his background. This is not up for debate; Nie Mingjue stood up for him, quite publicly, quite vocally, when Meng Yao was being insulted over it. And not only that, but he promoted Meng Yao to be his right hand man, just like that. Because he's impulsive, and to prove a point, but it was still huge of him to do. Not even Lan Xichen would have done that - In a society built on power dynamics between social classes, Nie Mingjue was one of the few characters who did not let that define his actions. It wasn't because he was born privileged (though he was) but because he he didn't let anything other than his judgment direct his actions. Nie Mingjue also never shied away from anything; if it had to be done, he did it, no matter the cost.

Nie Mingjue was decisive, and had an iron will. When Meng Yao killed the Nie disciples in Qishan, he wanted to kill Meng Yao. Meng Yao told him, paraphrasing, that "don't you understand that if I hadn't done that, it would have been your corpse up there?" and Wei Wuxian takes it to mean "Translation: I saved you so you can't kill me, because that would mean you're in the wrong." So Nie Mingjue hesitated for a second, then said: "Fine! I'll kill you, and then take my own life!" And the only reason he didn't, was because Lan Xichen was there. Otherwise, Nie Mingjue would have killed his former friend, then followed him to whatever afterlife awaited.

Nie Mingjue is often portrayed like he doesn't understand stuff, like he's stupid, simply because of his black and white sense of morality. That's not correct: Nie Mingjue understands motive, but he doesn't accept the ends justifying the means. Scratch that, he doesn't accept or justify either, if they're unjust. The murder of the Jin commander, the murder of the Nie disciples, not executing Xue Yang - how can Nie Mingjue possibly understand Meng Yao's decisions, when Nie Mingjue would rather die, any day, than live thanks to vile actions?

And then, Nie Mingjue starts falling into qi-deviation. We know that it affected his temper the most, and his judgement. I don't understand how it works, really, so I don't know by the end how much was Nie Mingjue and how much was the mess that the spirit made of him - maybe a combination of the two. But what is certain, is that the rapid qi deviation changed him.

But I could write a hundred more pages on him, meticulously going over every single scene he has ever appeared in, because I find him that interesting. I find him the most interesting, and the most appealing character, because in a story where the navigation of the cultivation world's complex politics and hierarchies with tact and diplomacy is crucial, Nie Mingjue stands uncompromising in his principles, choosing duty and honor over anything else, even when it's hard.

[sarah-yyy]

a few of y’all have asked me about new life begins, and i’m procrastinating over work so............

BASICALLY this story revolves around the royal family of xinchuan (head of the nine states). xinchuan has a tradition wherein the other eight states send eligible women over to marry the xinchuan princes. the show opens with all these women coming into xinchuan for this selection

this is our main character li wei

bbg does Not want to be selected as a bride for any of the princes. she comes from jichuan (one of the least wealthy states, most of them are farmers) wherein people marry for love and men aren’t allowed to have concubines, she is Not Into this xinchuan polygamy bs, and is doing all she can to be sent back home asap so she can live her chill life

this is the sixth prince yin zheng, unloved (for now!) and mostly unnoticed (also for now!!) son of an unfavoured concubine. he’s introduced as being sickly and of little note in the political field. he mostly gets along with his brothers by virtue of having little interaction with them and keeping a real low profile

this boy is way smarter than he presents to outsiders!! he knows that the least favourable political marriage will be assigned to him, so he figures he might as well get ahead of it and voluntarily ask for the nominee from jichuan to be his wife

li wei ends up yin zheng’s concubine!!! which is the worst!!! not only does she have to conform to this xinchuan polygamy bs, she’s not even his main wife!!! she’s depressed for a few days until she catches wind that yin zheng only has a few weeks left to live (fake news) and it just kickstarts a whole bunch of hilarious shenanigans in which she tries to be nice to him before he dies and she gets to go home to jichuan as a widow

cue yin zheng (who doesn’t know what li wei is thinking) going: she’s??? nice to me???? mayhaps..........she be.........in love with me??????

(uhhhh because she’s adorable???? i like her) 

ANYWAY y’all get the drift, it’s the whole arranged marriage, strangers to lovers, pining after my spouse vibe that i absolutely love!!! 

but it’s not just that!!! it’s also that the female characters are all well-written and the friendships between all of them are so cute!! 

first left is shangguan jing, fifth prince’s wife! she’s from danchuan which is a matriarchal society. she’s good at martial arts and very straightforward. does not really want to be married to xinchuan (much less to the fifth prince who starts off liking someone else), but is Doing Her Duty. i am SO INVESTED in her relationship with the fifth prince ahhhh, he’s a wimp (affectionate) who, this far in the show, has come to love his wife and is fretting constantly over how to make her happy/make her love him 

first right is hao jia! she’s the second prince’s concubine and li wei’s bff. she’s sweet and well-natured and essentially Good At Everything. the second prince is kind of a dick with obvious dv tendencies, but he’s the eldest son of the emperor’s wife and next in line for the throne. i am just HOPING we get to see hao jia go off on him one day soon 😭 (side note: i’m actually also curious about the second prince’s wife - i wonder if she and hao jia will team up to get rid of the second price ugh)

this is yuan ying junzhu, my li wei’s yin zheng’s wife. hoooo boy folks, when the emperor ordered yin zheng to marry her against his Very Strong Objection, i thought we were going to start in on the angst and the whole jealous wife arc, but!!! she’s got zero interest in him, and they decide that she’ll basically stay at the manor as his advisor/li wei’s tutor! she 100% likes li wei more than she likes yin zheng lbr

not pictured but also a+++ characters that i love: the third prince’s wife + his harem of concubines (he’s named them all after the 24 traditional solar terms); the seventh prince and his wife (both of whom are adorable and just try to stay low-key and out of trouble); song wu²; all the servants at the sixth prince’s manor

ANYWAY this show is light-hearted and fun and an absolute delight to watch!! it’s been awhile since we’ve had a romcom-ish cdrama that’s had actual budget to produce something to this quality 💖 11/10 would rec!!! 

where to watch: iqiyi // viki // youtube status:  this updates every sunday to wednesday (local chinese time), with 2 eps being released every day. 22/40 eps have aired so far, i think iqiyi subs are up to date with the current airing schedule but i can’t be sure? someone correct me if i’m wrong! 

[ystrike1]

Bad End Mokuzen no Heroine ni Tensei shita Watashi, Konse de wa Renai suru Tsumori ga Cheat na Ani ga Hanashite kuremasen!? - By Kotoko (7.5/10)

Being trapped in an otome game isn't so bad when you're the main character. Our heroine died, and her reincarnation doesn’t miss her boring old life. She didn’t have time for love, or life, because she worked so much. Now, she wants the love and cash that comes with a noble title. Slight problem though. Everybody bullies her because she's not good at magic, including her family.

You can't have it all right away in this story. Heartfelt Academy is a cut throat magic school where brains and power both matter.

Lene is rank F.

Her rank A sister Jenny pushed her off the stairs to get rid of her, and the fall is blamed on Lene. Why? Because it's well known that she's depressed. She was horribly bullied for being weak before the fall.

Now she's a new girl, ready to challenge the system and rise up.

She's also pretty cute, which is convenient, because she wants to marry a nice guy. Lene immediately abandons her former self and she has zero desire to return home, even though the otome world also requires hard work.

Lene suspects her stepsister, but she wisely chooses to stay quiet. Jenny can burn her to a crisp, and her father favors his new wife. Lene has one inexperienced maid and compared to her sister she gets no money at all. She does have a good family name though. So if she does raise her grades she can marry and lead a great life as a mage.

Her brother(?) offers to help her. I'm 99% sure he's actually a cousin, due to real proof. There's no funny business here. Nobles just marry cousins and raise the children of dead cousins etc. Julius had zero interest in Lene before, but now he won't leave her alone.

He actually does believe her fall was a suicide attempt. Everybody thinks she has amnesia too. She is known as an idiot and everybody avoids her, except Julius.

There's no route where he saves her from the bullying by the way. She does have to save herself by working her butt off. The caste system is widely accepted, and rank F means you deserve no respect.

The maid slowly explains that Lene is in a precarious situation. The other members of her family are accomplished and good looking. In this world a cute face isn't really enough. Lene decides that looking for love has to wait, and she can't trust her family.

Not even Julius.

She actually does believe in herself. She's fascinated by the new world, and she wants to learn. Lene wanting to die makes her feel less guilt about taking over too.

Here's where it gets weird. Jenny wants to marry Julius, which most likely means he is a cousin. Please note that marrying a cousin was extremely common for nobles until the late 1800's!!! Less than 200 years ago!!! New Lene handles the situation maturely.

She says Jenny can have Julius. Marrying him would be too complicated, because he is rank S. She doesn't want to get cheated on in the future. Having a popular husband is not as fun as it sounds.

Julius starts to act funny. He drags her onto his carriage, and they arrive at school together. Lene IS the main character. She is SUPPOSED to get the opportunity to romance plenty of high ranking men, but she can't.

This is the final plot twist.

The otome game doesn't progress, because he continuously gets in the way. The plot revolves around Julius defeating all of her potential husbands. Also, they become his subordinates. Julius is a cheat character that wasn't supposed to be involved in the plot at all, and the men from the original game are no match for him.

[deadrayg2mf]

Wed to the Lich (Arranged Monster Mates #8) by Layla Fae

Okay, I went into this knowing this was not the first book in the series but it didn't seem that the series may be required to be read in order as it is a collab series between Layla Fae, Eden Ember, and Cara Wylde and it wasn't recommended to be read in order - however, now having finished this I realize I may need to start from book 1 to assuage some issues I had regarding world building info. Also... that lich is just so hot... I needed to know more about him when he was what drew me to this. Which brings me to the covers!! The entire series has amazing cover art, it ranks right up there with SJ Sander's cover art that I love.

This is currently a series of 16 novellas between the above-mentioned authors, Wed to the Lich being dead in the middle at #8. It was a total of 208 pages and I read it within a quick day at work. It was a simple story which does involve triggers involving anorexia nervosa, past abuse, and animal death.

Basically, this is a world in which an event called The Shift has occurred, and from what was explained in this book alone it sounds like that was basically the... dimensional overlap of the human world and monster world where parts of the monster world ended up being transplanted into the world we know? Hopefully that is some semblance of correct as it's how I understood it. In this world, monsters rule over humans in most areas and if a human is wanting to get some cash for their family or, if you're our FL May, trying to get out of a bad situation you can sign up at the Temple and get married off to a monster.

This is exactly what May commits to as she decides to escape the abusive orphanage director who haunts her thoughts when it comes to beauty and its relation to her size and food consumption. How well this goes about depicting the troubles that come with experiencing an eating disorder I could not say, so I will leave that up to your interpretation if you choose to read. May gets married to Virgil, the all fearing Lich who can suck out your life force with just a look.

The following story revolves around May's struggle with food, her inner demons, and being beautiful for Virgil who is also struggling with how May views him and fearing that one day she may come to fear him and try to leave. In the end, they end up working out their troubles with each other's help and are a lovely couple, no matter what those town villagers think. I liked both May and Virgil's characters, he was really checking the marks for me as both loving and caring but strict and forceful when he felt necessary. By the end, May had come into who she was as a person when she wasn't tormented by her past.

My main issue comes from how I felt finishing the book. I had read 208 pages of what essentially felt like it had amounted to nothing. Unfortunately, for all that happened, there wasn't enough deep diving into characters, relationships, or true plot that it felt worthwhile. It was one of those where I was shocked it was so long for how much I got from it. I think it's a really cool story, I love a Lich, and I love a FL battling her inner demons and unafraid to seek help from another in order to do so. The way May was willing to just be blunt about what was going on versus other characters who might hide things that lead to a (beloved but sometimes overdone) miscommunication was rather refreshing.

I think I would have really enjoyed this story had it been more fleshed out. The writing was good, but the content felt unsubstantial. For all of that, I'll give it a 5/10. Mid but enjoyable and full of potential.

Would I read again? No, but not because it was bad. Just because there wouldn't feel like a point.

Would I recommend? Yeah, I am gonna go and try out the series from the first book - Wed to the Ice Giant also by Layla Fae - and then pry check out at least on book by each of the other authors. If I don't like it - you'll hear about it :)

[paiteyy]

I think I love TriMax bc every time something should be hetro, like there’s the typical manga hetro set up, BOOM, NO!! It’s about Vash and Wolfwood instead.

Milly and Meryl are right there, two lead girls to pair the two lead guys off to, but no, that never happens!!

Instead Milly/Meryl and Vash/Wolfwood are friends and make a fun teams with each other, but they’re closer with their respective partners then their would be (in a typical manga) love interests!

God its SO fucking refreshing, even if you read them as platonic, to not to have hetro love between the main cast.

Idk, I read TriMax as a 13 y/o baby queer and I kept waiting for the shoe to drop. For them to get paired off to each other like in the original anime, for more of the same, like pretty much every other manga available at the time, but no, it never happens. The relief I felt was wild to me at the time, I didn’t know why.

Looking back on it now, I was dealing with a lot of little lesbian CompHet, and the fact that every manga I read had the guys pair off with these girls who they really seemed to have no real interest in, just for the story to be “complete,” even when it made no sense from a character or story perspective, was so exhausting. It was always, “he’s done all this, now here’s the girl he’s supposed to marry bc they’re all actually straight even though there’s no real relationship here, or even though they have a deeper relationship with someone else.”

And the girls, these girls who where so underdeveloped in their writing, who didn’t get to be real characters, made me mad, they deserved more! Where was their spotlight?! Was this all I could be in a story like this? Not to mention the anime and manga fandoms general attitude towards queer people and women at the time… (which has gotten better but is still a bit iffy in my experience).

In a weird way, manga felt very… CompHet? If I’m making any sense??

And in the face of all that, here comes TriMax! No Het romance! Girls who cared about each other, did cool shit, had cool designs, and were genuine friends with the men, but who didn’t revolve around them!!! It was everything to me, it still is!

Tldr: TriMax means a lot to me man :,)

[incandescent-creativity]

Not to over analyze a bad movie remake that we all knew was going to be bad but—

Why did this movie not take the chance to tell the story of Mean Girls with Janis as the protagonist? Not only was Auliʻi Cravalho a clearly better singer than the girl who played Cady, the alleged main character, but everything in that movie revolves around Janis. She’s the one that jumpstarts Cady’s transformation, she drives the spying on Plastics portion, she’s the one to call Cady out about turning Plastic, she’s got this great reveal during the apology portion! It’s Janis’s story!

And what a story it is: from Janis’s POV, Cady and Regina are direct parallels. The emotional gut punch of Cady saying Janis is obsessed with her is devastating when we remember Janis’s history with Regina, who said the exact same thing, but we never really get to explore that! We don’t get the chance to! And we could get insight to the art show Cady misses, and probably more Damien screen time (always a win).

Like? The movie clearly couldn’t commit to being a musical or a movie, and don’t get me started on the structural integrity of the fourth wall, but you’d think the movie people would be aware they’re making a remake that would pretty much only appeal to fans. You’re not going to entice new viewers in with this. So give the fans new material! Expand the canon! Norbury and Duvall were married in this one, and Cady just didn’t have a dad, so you’re clearly not against making changes!

What a wasted opportunity. I’m gonna go listen to the musical again.

[hazbinextgeneration]

Demon Bride Ch5 The Pathway To Monsters

(WARNINGS AND DISCLAIMERS!!! EVERYONE in this story is in their early 20s-30s! This story will contain mentions of past abuse and death! I'll be keeping it as SFW. Some backstories have been slightly altered for this particular story, and some characters cannonically dead or harmed is alive and well. I own nothing.

Credit to @flanelltees​ for the designs I based the demons off to look more demon-like with tails and pointed ears.

This story will be sfw, but there will be some blood, implied death, fighting, some gore mentioned, and a few other things that will be made aware by warnings. Pay attention to warnings at the top of any chapters just under the summery please.)

Once in the mountain villages it was a custom that once a year on the night of the new year's first moon, an unlucky young lady would be selected and left for the demons to become one of the unlucky few who married such a husband. In exchange for this offering the demons would protect the villages and leave the humans in peace. Until one day a powerful warrior drove the demons away freeing the humans of them. Now 2,000 years later, it's become a tradition that once a year, a new young lady would be picked and wait for her future husband to retrieve her from a shrine in the mountains. And now the lucky tradition would fall upon Y/n L/n. It would be her own turn to take on the tradition and not have to worry about demons. After all that part of the old tradition was just fake, made up by paranoid ancestors. Everyone knew demons didn't exist.

...Right?

(WARNINGS: None in this chapter .)  

First Part Here:

https://at.tumblr.com/hazbinextgeneration/demon-bride-ch-1-thus-it-begins/dibtpmvn5d42

Last Part Here:

https://at.tumblr.com/hazbinextgeneration/demon-bride-ch4-freedoms-grasp/6i07ue1em642

Next Part Here:

https://www.tumblr.com/hazbinextgeneration/711697291135844352/demon-bride-ch6-the-monsters?source=share

(UPDATE: I wanted to specify in this fic the demons are NOT cannibalistic towards humans. Mostly because I wanna keep this as sfw, and the main plot of the story doesn't really revolve around that aspect of them.)

The earth was a beautiful thing if you needed it to be, or if you wanted to make it become that way. And in a way, it was both to you in the end. The sweet smells of flowers and grass encouraging your lungs. Combined with the warmth of the sunlight warming your muscles and urging them on. Both made you feel as light as a feather on your mere feet and the ground felt soft under you. You were smiling. Arms out splayed against the wind blowing around your hair like crazy and cooling your body against the warm sunlight beaming down on you. Step after step. Faster and faster. You joyously ran through the fields as though a huge weight was lifted off your shoulders after so many years.

It was the first time in forever that you ever, truly felt free.

Because now you were. The day before and the day before that you had been paranoid. You only really just left home after all. When you first bombarded Genya who was the last lock to the gate with your key and letting it unlock your path to freedom. You'd been scared if you'd stayed even a moment longer someone would stop you maybe even by force, so you took the first chance you took and ran with it quite literally. Right out of the village you grew up in and called home, heading straight for the mountain. You had ran as fast as you could for as long as you could, your boots digging into the earth with each hard slap of a footstep urging you onwards. And even when you couldn't run anymore, your body making you slow down to gasp for breath like a drowning man, you still willed yourself to walk. Your paranoid brain screamed at you to get away as fast and as far as you could, lest the send someone after you and force you to come back. You could be married to someone far more worse than Sanemi as punishment and that was one of the more tame ones your scared mind came up with. You didn't allow yourself any rest or relaxation as you trudged on through the morning sun until the bright ball rose to the middle of the sky directly over you. Which signaled it must've been sometime in the afternoon, and it was then when you perked up at the sound of running water and soon after came across a small stream. It was only then you allowed your poor sore legs a rest by sitting down on the bank and using your hands to gather a sip from the cool water. You must've been sitting there for a solid half hour before you finally remembered something. Something very important. This was the very stream that you were supposed to be lead to in order to await for Sanemi to get you later, which was a bit ways up the mountain but not far from your village. In fact if you climbed one of these trees and looked down, you'd be able to make out your village. Which was too close for comfort. Someone could come here and still find you, so you HAD to move on. You remained there sitting nervously for five more minutes before getting back up and stepping across some stones sticking out of the water to the other side to continue on your way along a path until night fell. Which is when your paranoia for your first night alone first hit. It was your first night alone, without a house's walls to close you to the outside world, there was so many new sounds and the darkness of the surrounding open world frightened your body, making you grip the strap of your bag and refusing to get any sleep, constantly looking over your shoulder in fear someone would come at you from the dark to snatch you away. By the time the sun rose the second day, you made quite the bit of distance between yourself and your old home but were incredibly tired. So sometime in the morning, you found a set of large bushes on the side of the old dirt road and decided to hide yourself in them in case someone came looking for you or some robbers came by. Curling into the soft grass you used your bag as a pillow and slept. The time you woke up that second day was somewhere in the late noon, and you walked until nightfall hit again every so often looking over your shoulder, and you again decided to sleep. This time behind a big tree with your back leaned against it hiding you partially while the darkness of the night hid the rest of you.

But all of that was within the last two days. Now was your third day away and when you again saw no one, you had realized you had done it. You were without anything tying you down. You were without anyone to order you. You were without fear of Sanemi. You were FREE!! As free as the birds who flew around your dancing body of happiness as you ran giddily through a large meadow sun raining down from the sky! The freeing feeling was what brought you so much joy. It was clear now no one was after you, and even if they were, you were far ahead of them all with no intent of returning. And you doubted anyone would travel any farther beyond the stream even after you. After all, the stories and superstitions about demons on the mountain forests were what kept everyone away from anywhere farther than the stream believing it was bad luck or that the demons would devour them like they did long ago, but you knew better. You knew those things didn't exist anymore than talking mice or enchanted flowers. You were always skeptical of those things which was another reason Sanemi hated you for 'doubting the Elders' words and our beliefs'. Eck. Well screw him! He can have Kanae to rant about you now. For all you knew you were going to become another story. 'The Story Of The Runaway Bride Who Dishonored Her Village Tradition And Got Eaten By A Demon Of The Mountains.' That thought made you laugh at the thought of parents telling their kids such a story about you. You supposed you should feel guilty about the lying and running away and the one theft you committed, but with a brightness in your eyes you tried not to think about that, especially about people you would never see again. On your fourth day of walking, you came by another village slightly smaller than your own. There you asked one of local farmers for directions towards up the mountain and managed to bargain some food rations with one of the leftover coins you kept from what you had to give up to the brothers, it'd last you for three days if used sparingly. You weren't sure how long it'd take you to reach the mountain and reach the other side of it especially just on foot but you were determined. You felt like there was something to be discovered up there.

Day after day, night after night. You traveled, slept, and scrounged for food when you could. Stopping by a pool of water to bathe or drink. Sometimes you'd pass by another small village or a house or two, but it was mostly just peaceful silence and a beautiful world you never got to see otherwise stuck in that small house of yours. It was..releiving and every day was like a breath of fresh air in your lungs. You lost count of how much time had passed by this point. You were just passing by another gathering of small houses when you heard something coming up from the road behind you. When your head turned in question, you only saw a mule driven wagon full of hay bales in the back and a man old enough to be your grandfather at the reigns. You paused watching them approach before you smiled gaining an idea and waved your full arm to get his attention, which worked as the old man pulled back once the two of you were about to cross paths until the mule came to a complete stop in front you.

"Excuse me! Good morning to you, Sir! May I ask where you're headed?," you asked him with a smile on your face.

His head nodded towards the path up the mountain which became steeper the longer you looked. "To sell my goods to the people in the village closest to the cursed forests and peaks."

"May I bother you for a ride there? Where I'm heading is beyond there, and the ride would be very much appreciated."

He hummed before nodding in agreement. "Sure, although I should warn you I won't get there until near sundown tomorrow.

You agreed and hopped onto the wagon next to him before he whipped the reigns and made the mule start off again. The ride throughout that day was mostly quiet but you appreciated it that way. Night fell and with no signs of the man stopping the mule you fell asleep leaned against the hay. The next day was even warmer, and it was then you noticed the thick, dense woods. You were stunned. This wasn't here yesterday and it stunned you. The trees were as big as a three story building, and with trunks so thick you wouldn't be able to wrap your arms fully around them even if you stretched and strained them. They were also so, so, SO many and so closely together, it was mostly shady with a few spaces of sun peeking through.

"I've never seen a forest like this before."

"Because there's none quite like it before, and if you're smart, you'll never give it a second glance at it."

You blinked at the old man's warning but didn't pay it too much attention. It was a beautiful day. The sun rays shone down upon the world as the calm quiet woods sounded with the life of birds and insects happy the sun warmed them from up above. The light shone through the tree leaves as their branches leaned over the road and blocked most of the sunlight, casting long shadows to dance on the old dirt road that only lead deeper and deeper into the mountains. The mule walking the wagon was the only thing interrupting the silence of the silent woods as it walked down the dust path. It's was almost like a dream to look at. A small bump sent you jostling and reaching a hand over to grab the side of the wagon. When no more bumps came after a few moments she slowly let go and sighed when they didn't fall over and leaned back into her seat.

"You ok there?," the driver bluntly asked not even taking his eyes off the road. His tone was just bored.

You pushed some of that hair out of your face and taking a breath. "Y-Yeah. I-I'm ok. Thanks." He didn't answer you back and you sighed, looking back out the at all the trees and other nature scenes. "This forest sure is big."

"It's the Forbidden Forest. Our world is small and these woods make up a big chunk of it what land we have left." You jumped slightly and blinked back at him. He muttered something else under his breath you didn't quite catch, his black eyes seemed almost nervous gazing out at the woods like he was expecting some kind of monster to pop out in front of him and glance back up at you with a almost stern look. "....Some folks say this place is cursed. Cursed for thousands of years."

"I-I know, but it all sounds rather silly." Your shook your head and looked back out with a small smile. "Fairies and strange powers that doom anyone who harms the forests. Heard it over and over before. Curse thee those who's hearts are easily closed minded." You gave a chuckle to it all trying to lighten the mood but stopped once your eyes looked over and caught him giving you a stern look.

"These aren't things that should be joked about young lady. If I had it my way, I'd turn around right here and now and drive back as fast as I could to the safety of my home." His eyes darted back to the brightly lit dirt road and even though it was daytime he acted like it was night time and something would jump out at them at any given second. "B-But lucky for you I need to sell my goods to make a livin'. I've seen things. Strange things. That no one could explain in these very woods."

Your eyes scrunched up in curiosity and perhaps mild fear at why he was acting so weird. "Like what exactly?"

"Shadows! If you look out right now and look around you may or may not see one!" He stated matter of factly and looked around quickly again at the peaceful woods. "It doesn't matter if it's day or night for them. They'll always move around waiting for their victims, but as long as you stay out they'll leave you alone. Oh, nono. They'll creep to the very EDGE of the last tree that begins the forest line and reach out for you I heard. Snatch you if you get too close. But they'll never fully leave the safety of their vast woods. Just never go into the woods and stay away, and you will always b-be safe." His voice trembled as his grip on the reigns increased. "May the gods have mercy on the poor souls who don't heed the warnings and travel to places they don't belong."

Another moment of silence passed and Y/n temporarily gazed out. She didn't know why but she squinted her eyes out at the forest surrounding them and especially the shadows. There wasn't anyway she was superstitious but looking never- She jumped seeing something move behind a tree, but quickly relaxed when her brain registered it as a deer. The poor thing ran off probably scared from the humans passing through it's home and she smiled. Fairies and shadow ghost and curses. And she supposed a magical fairy wand was right around the corner too. Her small smile returned as she looked over to the driver again.

"And I don't suppose there's a legend behind these woods too is there?" She couldn't help but sound a little amused which still made him irritated.

"This isn't funny! People say these woods were cursed by demons and witches thousands of years ago. Making this place a literal hell on earth!"

"Well. I grew up around woods. And nothing ever bad happened to me," she said smiling back out into the beautiful woods, "I never saw any scary shadows or anything."

"Then you're really lucky young lady." He seemed to almost shudder with his next warning. "If I were you I'd never get anywhere near these cursed places."

"Don't worry about me. I'm not afraid of any words or things that don't really exist."

"Mark my words. Nothing good could ever come from this place. Just don't say I didn't warn you, Kid."

The rest of the trip there was rather peaceful except for the man staring at the woods around them with a scared matter, until they reached it. A smaller village than the one before, and you got off, thanked the old man for the ride.

"Where will you go now if you don't mind me asking?"

You gestured up the mountain. "I intend on continuing my way up the mountain after a short rest here."

His brow rose higher at the audacity you had. "You're still intending on traveling that way? By yourself of all things?" You nodded and he hummed frowning. "I personally think that's a stupid choice to make...but then again it's none of my business. But a word of warning to you." You blinked as he narrowed his eyes hard at you and spoke to you in a very serious tone. "Here my words, Child. Don't travel at night alone especially tonight as there's a full moon. It always gets more dangerous as the moon goes through her fullest phase, but if you insist on taking on that challenge, then make sure you at least do one thing. STAY. AWAY. From the woods edge. As long as you stay away from the forest then you'll be safe. They never leave their woods but if you get too close they'll snatch you away and you'll never be seen from again."

Despite the fact that you didn't believe a word he said, his tone made a shiver run down your spine. You nodded politely to him however. "I'll certainly think about your words. Thank you for your kindness."

"Hmph. I see...I bid you good bye then. And good luck. You'll be needing it."

You did keep your promise to think over his words, but in the end you brushed him off with his superstitions and made the choice to continue on in your path. After all they were all just superstitions and fairytales without any real threat to them, you just needed to prepare for the next leg in your journey. And you did. Paying some left over money to clean yourself and your clothes in the local bathhouse and getting some more food before you continued along the path up towards the mountains but not before giving the small village one last look as the old man's words mulled over in your mind once more. A brief thought of if you should stay amongst the houses for the night...but shook that thought off before turning back to face the dirt road and continued on. The old man was right in the fact that you two didn't make it to that small village until it was nearly mid day, so it was already late in the day when you started walking but you weren't worried about anything. Partially through what was left of the limited daylight, you passed by some wild peach trees that made your stomach rumble and helped yourself to them for a few minutes, even going as far as packing a few of them for later, packing them safely away in your bad before leaving. But night soon fell and with it came a different feeling.

The feeling of being watched.

It didn't start out that way. At first it was just an aspect in the back of your mind you brushed of as paranoia of the man's words echoing in your mind. The feeling first came around when the sun had just started to set and it wasn't strong enough to warrant anything more than a two second thought and hand waving them off. However thing's changed. The sun soon disappeared over the horizon to be kissed good night by it's counterpart, the moon, and the traveling woman was glad that it was a full moon, for it brought moonlight strong enough for you to see the pathway as your feet continued to walk. With it came the feeling but tenfold. You've only felt this way before back at your village whenever Sanemi was glaring his rage at you or when you first ran away paranoid that someone was following you, that same feeling also returned with the feeling of being followed, but every time your head snapped over your shoulder towards the darkness behind you....

There would be nothing.

Literally nothing. Nothing but the cold wind starting to pick up. You brushed it off as just your paranoia getting the better of you and you set your jaw against the wind. There was nothing there anyways so what did you have to worry about?

"Come on, Y/n." You thought to yourself with a shake of your head and a deep inhale. "You're just being irrational is all. You need to get your barrings and figure out what to do with a clear head."

A hand broke from the grip they had on your bag strap and reached for the inside of your bag, leaving yourself standing within with moonlight, wind blowing through your hair around as your hand gently felt around the insides of your bag. Come on. Where is it? Where is it? Ah! There it was. In the hand that was pulled out of the bag, was a folded paper. It was old, signaled by the yellowed color and the tears it had along the edges, and it wasn't any bigger than a normal book's page but it had it's importance and use. For it was a map. A very old map left by someone who by now had long since passed and it only by chance Y/n stumbled upon it in the library tucked away between some old books in the corner. Not sure how accurate this still was but you'd need it to get over the mountains if you ever became lost or unsure of your way. The wind threatened to rip it from the hands that tenderly opened it and looked at the sprawled writings beneath that surely would fade away someday. Eyes trailing along the poorly seen lines and drawings of the mountains and forests surrounding them, surely this was once a beautiful peice of work now faded to barely nothing to be made out especially in the dim moonlight luminating the shadows.

But the shadows moved.

Quiet night. Unholy night of beasts. Feasting their sights upon the stray women who dare stay out at night when the full moon rises, lighting the pathway for the beasts to claim their prey. Gnashing teeth, snarling fangs waiting to take a bite into innocent flesh where the terrible claws miss. Waiting to snatch you away down into their dark abyss never to return.

The bark of trees felt rough against the palm of grey skin, perfect to blending into shadows and walking along the darkness of the cursed trees that beckoned any unknowing traveler further into their branches. A light step. Another light step. Light enough to not be heard by anyone my dear. A quiet mouse amongst the darkness a contrast to the many others in the surroundings. Many preferred brute force by tooth and nail, fang and claw to drag off their unwilling prey in the name of twisted love they've come to claim or give. Ears perked just now hearing the far off wails that sounded like some sick love sick beasts. A whoop of triumph from the lungs of some lucky beasts who was able to stake a claim on some poor soul that accepted their twisted gift of love. Dark black claws dug into the harsh bark of the thick plant that would otherwise not feel the pain it would usually cause another living thing. An aura of annoyance flooding forth from the source of the claws, and the darkness only received a scoff, as blue eyes as dangerous as the bottomless ocean looked up towards the sky, towards the source of the happy wails from far into the trees' abyss of darkness.

"Tch. Dam fools. They act like dogs in heat! The lot of them!" A voice. As rough as it was envious. The idiots. No brains at all. Now all that celebrating would do was attract others towards him in wanting to fight him for the claimed prize he just received. He knew that was the case entirely because many a shadowy beasts was already flocking towards that noise. "They have no dam senses to them!"

Fools. All of them fools. They should've quietly snuck away when they had the chance. But then again he couldn't expect any of them to be close to the intelligence he held. Whatever. He wasn't out here to watch the rabid fighting of fools, as entertaining as it was to watch others rip either apart. No. He had something else long thought over he wanted to be done with. And it all started with the wind. And the air filling his lungs. And a sweet scent that wafted within both.

Huh....That was different. Not one he was often met with, but one he was familiar with.

One he liked very much.

But why would one such as this be this close to the forbidden areas?...Unless someone carried it with them. Either way it was something that had gained his attention, and even if it was nothing, there might be fun had in seeing why this was there. And so light steps approached the direction of the scent, back against the few remaining lights of the setting sun. Step after step as the scent grew stronger and the forest less dense around him which was the more interesting part to it. It was the more confusing part of all about it really. After all-

"No peaches should be this dam close."

He recognized that scent now. It was one he often craved and made his mouth water, but one thing he could barely have as it was out of bounds of the forest line. Often he could catch the faintest of their scent from further down the mountain where he was sure a plethora of them grew, but he could never see for himself. But sometimes on rare occasions he worked hard enough to please his master, he would be rewarded with the succulent fruits of his labor. The soft fruit being devoured within seconds before being missed again. Perhaps it was someone else who had gotten their claws on them? If so he'd cut them down and take what he wanted as a prize for disobeying the one law no one shall disobey without permission from the Master. And he would rectify it. Then maybe he'd be rewarded with more fruits for his loyalty. The thought excited him. Maybe this night wouldn't be such a dull fest after all. The scent lead until the tree line forbiddily broke and it left him standing there cloaked in darkness as the last few rays of sunset left the world, and saw nothing. After just a moment of standing against the wind he cursed himself for being stupid enough to even entertain the goose chase that was this night. He cursed this night, and his luck and the stupid hope of rewards. He would've turned around and disappeared back into the shadows if it weren't for one thing that made him pause in his actions.

A ghost in the night.

A white shining in the dark up the pathway that lead away which lead the sweet scent of fruit with it. Odd. What was that? He hadn't see something like that before. Not around here and especially not at night, but there was visibly something there. Alive and moving within the moonlight. Well, well. Now what was this he wondered? His curiosity got the better of him. After all he did have nothing better to do than to follow from the shadows and get close enough to see what exactly this strange new oddity was. And the end result was what surprised him the most. The white movable object was indeed a living being, not a ghost or figment of the light like he suspected. But...it was not an animal either which was what both confused him more. It was a woman. No older than him, maybe by just a year or two in her early twenties, judging by how young and beautiful her form looked. This was...intriguing. And quite the interest. It was-..

"Human."

This was not a topic lost on him. He heard many tales of the humans from his Master's engagements with them and Douma's countless rambles (that often gave him headaches-) and he had even seen one although rarely if ever. Master's wife was human. Their child was human. He sometimes saw them when the Master made mandatory meetings or surprise inspections. The woman was...Kind. He was indifferent about the Master's choice in mate, as he didn't know her enough to have an opinion other than she was a lovely woman in appearance. And sometimes if he walked near the edge of the forest at the right time, he'd see humans traveling along the roads but he could never get this close or ever saw a sight stranger than a long young human woman walking by herself at night, especially tonight of all nights. Unless she-... No. It couldn't be. A-...

A offering?

A tempting. Young offering of scents that caught his interest and tempted him enough to follow. Yes. A nice offering for a nice night. Oh how the tides have turned in his interest.

"....Where am I?"

It was official...You were lost. And not just lost. REALLY lost. At one point the path before you disappeared and you just looked on map in your hands and your eyes squinting out in the dark for any similar sightings you could make out in the moonlight, which wasn't much. ...Maybe you should've heeded the old man's words and waited until daylight to continue traveling because now you reached a dead end in your road. Literally. You looked down at your boots where the dirt path abruptly ended and was replaced by grasses which lead onto a large meadow and eventually more woods. This wasn't the right path...The path you wanted to take was supposed to lead a bit up the mountain before going around it and then leading away, according to the map (once you were able to make it out in the limited moonlight-), you took a wrong turn in that fork in the road you passed by when it was still sunset, and instead of leading away from the mountains, you just went further in! No wonder the map showed a line abruptly stopping when you checked it! It was because you had reached a dead end!

"UGH!!" You threw your hands up holding the map in a moment of frustration. "Why does this have to be so difficult!?"

Of course nothing answered you but the echoes of your voice around the dark woods and the wind still blowing your locks of hair around you. After a moment, you brought it back down to your face and scowled at the paper...but then blinked at what you saw. According to the map, there was another...fork in the road? You looked around. ..You didn't see any forks in the road or another pathway. But when you looked back down, there was one..at least according to the map, but when you literally leaned half way down to look upon the side of the dead end road that faced the woods, you saw nothing. On the map however was a small path that went through the woods, and then disappeared under the drawings of trees but oddly enough if you squinted, there was something oddly shaped with the tree drawings. It looked like a ....House? A big house...Maybe? You couldn't tell. It was oddly shaped and smudged for whatever reason, and the colored ink used to draw it was faded already. So even if it WAS something important, you couldn't tell what it was especially in the limited light. So it might've been a house, but at the same time it could've been just as likely to be a random tea stain from whoever drew this. However you weren't given time you find out, because you heard a cry. A shrill animalistic shriek from somewhere deep in the woods to your far left. And you yelped, whipping your head in that direction as the sound echoed out and died. You weren't the only one as a shadow with blue eyes also turned it's head towards the noise-....before rolling it's eyes. Unfortunately you didn't have much time to wonder what that was, because the startle loosened your grip on the map, and the wind blew the map from your grip.

"H-HEY!!" Your eyes snap forward and your eyes widened as the wind whipped the map through the air with a fluttering paper sound, it flew through the air towards the forest. "Come back here!" You shouted at it before giving chase.

Past the side of the road, across some grass, and past the tree line into the woods. You followed. Into the abyss following the flutter of paper. As you entered leaving the path behind, it didn't take too long for it to get dark really fast. You didn't pay attention at first running after the map that fluttered within the air catching your attention and you still sped after it. You'd need that if you wanted to get off this mountain! Unfortunately you weren't paying attention to your surroundings as you ran deeper and deeper into the forest with a shadow following your ever move which was easy for them to do. At one point the map fluttered down closer to the earth and you began jumping at you hands outstretched between you dodging trees and trying not to crash into any of them, but the wind as if taunting you kept pushing it further and further away now skittering across the ground and tree roots until you FINALLY were able to snatch it back with one lucky grab but just barely between two fingers. But it was enough for you to snatch it up immediately into a tighter grip into your hands with a sigh of relief. You brough the map to your face to inspect for any damaged, before you brushed off some stray dirt and turned. ...And then froze.

You were....not where you were supposed to be.

You were in fact...very much surrounded by darkness. And tall trees. Trees that were so big their branches intertwined and blocked out most of what limited moonlight was even available. So now you weren't able to see barely anything now....and you were even MORE lost. Your eyes widened, and your gut sank. ...And now the panic set in. WHERE THE HECK WERE YOU!? HOW DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!? You were just trying to get back the map! The grip on your map increased until it would be permanently wrinkled and you stepped back until your back hit the rough bark of a tree as you stared out into the otherwise silent forest besides the wind will whistling and the creaking of branches and leaves as they rubbed against one another to create a scene straight out of a ghost story the Elders of your old village would often tell as a warning to children. And you were dumb enough to run into a dark forest you'd never been in before.

You breathed as your heart raced, eyed darting around at every shadow. Alright. Calm down. You're alright. You're alright. You're just a little lost, but you're fine. You're not hurt. You're not gonna die. You had no need to be scared. There was nothing here but shadows and trees. They couldn't possibly harm you at all. You slowly repeated the mantra like a prayer in your head as you began to calm down. You were right. There wasn't possibly anything to be afraid of. What WAS there to be afraid of? Shadows that was just made by moonlight and branches? The trees that couldn't move? The wind that just blew air around? There wasn't anything dangerous in these woods! The most dangerous thing you could encounter here was a bear, and while that thought did still frighten you somewhat, you were still able to rationalize that it was unlikely for you to run into one in a forest this big, and even then you would be able to climb a tree for safety. HA! You gave a small smile and huff from thinking such a ridiculous-

THUD!!

You shrieked as something HUGE and MASSIVE and HEAVY fell from the very top of the tree right next to you and it had caused you to shriek out a high pitched wail echoing across the forest and making you jump a few feet away and whip your head to what you assumed was just a dead tree branch falling from the old tree.

But it wasn't...And you froze.

THERE. WAS. A. BODY. LAYING. THERE!!

A literally human was lying there face down in the cold dirt. Your brain instantly went back to panic mode and you felt sick to your stomach instantly. Your body's reflex to made you gag and turn your head slightly away in case you got sick as a sick fear coursed though your body as your body locked up..

And then it groaned.

The body moved an arm to push against the dirt making it sit up just enough to turn it's head at you, and for a brief fleeting moment, you felt relief that maybe the man was still alive-...But any good feelings were dashed when an inhuman face creaked an inhuman sound as a smiling insect-like face turned to smile at you with a single horn protruding from his left cheek.

"Well. A pretty bride has come to me. How .....delicious.~"

You shrieked again.

[semper-legens]

40. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Owned: No, library Page count: 518 My summary: Henry met Clare when he was twenty eight, and she was twenty. Clare met Henry when she was six, and he was thirty six. Henry travels through time, a strange genetic quirk which sees him rocketing around his personal timeline at apparent random. But how can they live a normal life out of sync? When Henry disappears for days at a time into the past or future? When Clare is left waiting, hoping for his return? They cannot control time, after all. And they cannot fight fate... My rating: 2/5 My commentary:

A little while ago, my friend Megan and I were in London, looking for last-minute tickets to a show to fill our time between the shows that we'd booked. With few affordable options, we found ourselves settling down into the cheap seats of The Time Traveler's Wife to see what was what. Now, we'd never read the book before, nor had we seen the film or the more recent TV series, so this was our first engagement with the story. And it was...odd! Naturally, I became intensely curious about whether the strangeness of the plot was an adaptational problem or if it was inherent to the story in general. One reservation at the library later, I had a copy of this doorstop in my hand. Now, a lot of people love this story...but I couldn't really see much in there, I'm afraid. Let's get into it!

One of my biggest problems with this story is that, despite being titled after Clare, it isn't Clare's story, it's Henry's. It's really just The Time Traveler Who Has A Wife. Clare is such a static character. She doesn't really do anything proactive other than introduce herself to Henry at the allotted time, and as a teenager attempt to pressure Henry into having sex with her. Once she's in a relationship with Henry, she becomes less and less relevant. At first, she's in university, then presumably she graduates, though it's never mentioned, then she becomes a paper artist. We don't really get to see why she wanted to be an artist, who she is, what she likes and dislikes outside of Henry...her whole life revolves around Henry. She's compared to Penelope from the Odyssey early on, and that's pretty much her whole character. She waits for Henry. She waits for her life to catch up with Henry's, then she marries Henry, then she loses Henry and waits until she can see him one more time. Henry is everything to her and that's all she has. I wound up internally comparing her to the main character of Outlander as I was reading, because these are very similar stories in terms of genre and audience (and protagonist's name, come to think of it), but at least I have a sense of who Claire from Outlander is. She's compassionate, she's caring, she's spunky, she's seen some shit in the war but is determined to make the best of her life. This Clare? Just...doesn't have much of a character.

And this is where I divert to the thorny topic of class, because hoo boy. I don't know anything about Niffenegger as a person, but if you told me she grew up rich I would not be surprised. Henry's mother was a famous opera singer, his father a gifted violinist, and he's a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago - like, an actual studied-library-science librarian, not a library assistant like me. Clare's family is lives-in-a-mansion rich, her family has servants, and she lives on her trust fund. Now, writing about rich people is not a bad thing. But this book does not see itself along the lines of class and wealth at all. It takes a long time for us to see how Clare and Henry are living (his salary, her trust fund), and they are mentioned to struggle for money until Henry does some time travel lottery winning. But like...we never see them struggle. Henry keeps his job, despite randomly time travelling away every so often and being caught naked at work and being pulled up for that once. It takes ages for Clare to offhandedly mention she's living on trust fund interest, and she drops that so casually, like that's just a normal thing that everyone does. They have season tickets to the opera! Their lifestyle doesn't change when they become millionaires outside of buying a house! They live in this world of wealth and privilege that is so, so alien to me (and I'm pretty middle class!) and it was so hard to connect to them because of that. These people don't have problems. They just have money.

While we're on the subject of thorny topics, however, let's talk about race! Remember Clare's family servants? One of them is the cook, a stereotypical black woman cook who acts like a mammy stereotype from a 1930s film. Clare has this 'friend' (they interact like twice) who is a black lesbian and she's weird and vaguely antagonistic. And while Henry's family doesn't have servants, they have this family friend, Kimy, a Korean woman who is basically a second mother to Henry, spends her entire time on-page caring for Henry and his father, and speaks in a stereotypical broken English. These are also the only characters of colour I noticed in the book. There's this...joke?...about Clare's friend Gomez being nicknamed Gomez, but he's actually of Polish descent. So two of the three non-white characters here are subservient to the white characters, and that is their entire purpose and characterisation. It's that much more glaring for never being commented on! For Henry and Clare, this is normal.

Anyway. I struggle to understand what the point of this book was. Like, it's not the romance between Henry and Clare, because there's nothing there. We never see Henry and Clare getting to know each other or interacting as adults outside of the status quo of them being hopelessly in love. They already are soulmates when we meet them, and there's not a lot of development there. Is it their ongoing love story? Not really, there's no tension there. They struggle for money for like five minutes. There's the whole baby subplot, but we learn from a future Henry in the middle of it that they end up having a kid, so that gets deflated. The tragedy that Henry's inevitably going to die in his mid forties and leave Clare alone? But I haven't connected at all with either of these characters because they're both paper-thin. Henry gets more development, but it's still not enough. The whole middle of the book is just an exercise in nothing happening until the narrative decides 'we need an ending, time to kill Henry'. And I just do not care about it.

Aaaaaaaaaand I suppose I should end here with talking about the very squicky fact of the age gap in Clare and Henry's relationship, and how Fate plays a part in it. Clare first meets Henry age six; Henry is in his thirties. Clare spends a lot of time coming onto Henry as a teenager, and they wind up first having sex when she is just-turned eighteen, and he is in his forties. Henry kisses Clare when she's thirteen and he's an adult! Not to mention that we see Henry and Clare really getting to know each other when she's a kid - and a little kid, at that - but never as adults. Hell, one of the first things Clare says to Henry is that the last time she saw him he was sucking her toes in their meadow and that she was pressuring him for sex for years. And it's all meant to be okay, because they're fated to be together, I guess. Like, that's the reason we're not meant to find that weird. The time travel works on stable time loops, Henry cannot change the future no matter what he does (we're meant to take that as read, pretty much) and he and Clare are married in the future, so they're always meant to be. Clare has had no other partners, outside of sleeping with Gomez once, which she feels awful about. Henry is implied to have slept around a lot before meeting Clare, and his ex is obsessed with him to the point where it's implied that learning they aren't gonna be together forever is a reason for her suicide, but that's fine and he doesn't feel like apologising for that. Their whole relationship dynamic is fucked! But the book wants it to be romantic, so it's romantic. Just don't think about it, okay? Just don't think about it.

Next up, some fact, and a look at how Indigenous people discovered Europe.

[ashirisu]

Hi ashirisu, happy Storyteller Saturday.

Have you ever written something that’s been so emotional that you’ve almost (or actually) cried, yelled out loud, or even just felt emotional while writing it?

@aquadestinyswriting Happy STS to you as well! <3

I have, and it's my favorite writing-related story to tell bc it's atrociously corny and also the itty-bitty personal achievement that I'm proudest of.

So I've had this fantasy story rattling around in my head since I was about eleven, though I've only ever actually written a couple of scenes down. I have entire notebooks full of worldbuilding details, though, including a whole marriage tradition based around flower language and crafting flower crowns for the couple to exchange on their wedding day.

I went hard on this, too. I was really into flower language at the time, so I had meanings for all the different real and fictional flowers and which ones were most frequently paired with each other, but I also got uncharacteristically into the history and culture of the thing. I went into how the tradition has changed over time, how it differs based on class and region, what marriages in different seasons are meant to symbolize based on the flowers that are available, which flowers were most commonly associated with brides vs. grooms and why couples may choose to deviate from it, what to do with the crowns after the wedding, etc. etc. It's hands-down the most in-depth worldbuilding I've ever done, all for a story that has maybe seven written scenes, tops.

Out of those handful of scenes, my favorite one involves the engagement and subsequent elopement of the main character and his love interest (pretty much the whole story revolves around their childhood-friends-to-lovers romance arc). It's the dorkiest thing in the world and so far from actually good, but writing it was an act of completely self-indulgent glee and reading it is a joy and a delight every time. It's important to note here that these two are the OCs, the original blorbos from my brain, and no matter how many times I change their names and appearances, a silly scene in which they decide to marry each other and go exchange marriage crowns in a field full of flowers gets me so fuckin giddy that I can't stop grinning for an hour.

But the other big reason that this whole scene means so much to me is that I've had this piece of worldbuilding in my heart and mind for so long that it's practically become synonymous with marriage for me. I'm in love with this idea so much that, when my now-husband proposed and we started planning our wedding, one of the very first things I asked was if we could dedicate part of our extremely small budget toward real flowers so that we could have flower crowns, very timidly explaining where the idea came from and why it was important to me.

He's like, "Obviously we're going to do that??"

I realize, of course, that I'm not the only one to ever have flower crowns at my wedding, but the fact that I did and that the whole reason was based on this silly thing I wrote makes me so happy. Every time I look at those notes or at my wedding photos, I'm reminded that I wrote this romantic little tradition that made its way into my actual real life in at least some small way and I just feel so proud of myself. It's a good feeling.

[reliablenarrators]

kissing the kiss quotient goodbye

the kiss quotient (2018) by helen hoang. 24.04.2024

the kiss quotient is filled with sex. lots of it. so much that it’s mind boggling that it won the goodreads romance award when really, it’s just smut with a dash of autism representation. the smut is more cringe than hot and there are way more scenes than necessary. like, at one point michael, our martial arts boy of the story, says “you're milking my fingers stella” and well, just no. no, thank you. and sure, maybe it’s sweet, but it’s also a hell of a turn off if someone calls your pussy a sweet potato or a little bird. ladies, try it out on the guys when you’re in the sheets and get back to us on how successful it is. (we have an hypothesis)

but back to the beginning. in the kiss quotient we meet stella, a 30 year old successful woman working as an econometrist in silicon valley (and let’s just here take a moment of silence for how obvious it is that the author is not a mathematician by how stella is portrayed like a stereotypical brainiac). and why oh why is this book called the kiss quotient when there’s no mention of any kiss quotients, i guess coherency is too much to ask for. 

the maths part isn’t important, but what’s really important for the plot is that stella is autistic and hasn’t really told anyone outside of her close family - consisting of her mother and father and like every only child (and autistic adult apparently) ever, she doesn’t have any friends. but luckily, she’s uber rich and is capable of buying a tesla for every time michael comes up with a new nickname for her pussy. and have we mentioned that her mother is weirdly obsessed with trying to marry off her strong independent daughter (who really don’t need no man!) so stella and michael meet each other because she hires him as an escort wanting to learn how to fuck. she has experience, but only with jerks (but which men in their twenties are not?!). so is this reverse pretty woman really giving hashtag slaying the day away, or?

and of course, stella’s autism can just be ‘solved’ by some very good shagging by michael. i think we should all try that next time we’re feeling anxious. it’s a curiously problematic take on an autistic character from an author who herself is diagnosed with autism.

the miscommunication trope is on full throttle here, although very badly executed. early on, when michael’s sweet cousin (whose name slips our mind, but he’s cute and probably more of the ideal man we all want) notices it, michael lets stella know that he knows in a very sweet lowkey way to which she acknowledged it. later on, it gets turned into this big reveal and they have a huge fight about it and as a reader you just kinda want to skip through to the end.

the point of view changes throughout the story completely forgetting our main character and the book ends up revolving around michael’s daddy issues instead of stella’s autism because her autistic traits have magically disappeared at michael’s touch. that’s what love will do to ya. so the whole premise of autism representation and stella being a girl boss just falls a bit flat when michael is the knight in shining armour who has so much more wisdom and experience than stella and how all her issues are solved by love and sex (where did the girl boss go?). and then we have phillip, her one dimensional jerk coworker, whose only contribution to the plot is being the villain michael can save her from.

is michael hot? well, not in our top 3 over book boyfriends. very forgettable (which doesn’t say much in bridget’s case). he’s sweet and cute and a good brother who cooks for his whole family which consists of his mum, many sisters and some more we forgot. the banter he has with his family is cute, so adorably written that whatever daddy issues he has gets forgotten by us and the author herself - and when it does finally get revealed it’s really fucking boring. come up with something original for once! we think he should have had it way worse for him to act so sulky. 

in the end, the kiss quotient is really just another booktok dark romance book in the sea of tiktok books. that it has been turned into somewhat of a franchise tells you everything about the publishing industry nowadays and nothing about complex female characters. we all like to read cheesy chickflicks, that’s the reason we wrote this, but perhaps we should raise the standards, girlies. if anyone can recommend a good fun, romance that’s not about dorky girls and creepy men and their toxic relationship, please do let us know.

[krowbby]

For the character ask game: Sybil pls because I love her and want to hear your thoughts!

omg yes i love her

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you

How I feel about this character: I love her! I love that she's powerful and strong in her own way, not in the way that many Badass Women (tm) are just a normal male hero that they gender swapped with no thought. She's also a really interesting character as a member of the nobility in a book series that is largely anti-nobility. She's clearly neurodivergent with her dragon special interest ("And there were requests for donations, and talks, and things that added up to a heart big enough for the whole world, or at least that part of it that had wings and breathed fire."), and has some social difficulties that she manages with scripts (think: writing all those letters to Serafine while getting none back because it's What You Do with Old School Friends) but she's not incompetent in those matters. She seems to be pretty respected in society and she is able to negotiate favorable trade deals with the Low King. She is a soft power in the political sense, but also in the way that she is powerful in the story because of her softness. And of course, it's so nice to read about a woman who is the main character's love interest and is unapologetically fat, does not have a character arc revolving around losing weight, and in fact stays fat and is not made fun of it.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Just Sam! I don't think she would have married anyone else if not for the events of Guards! Guards! I went looking for this quote because it's one of the reasons I relate to/love her: "It was clearly the room of a woman, but one who had cheerfully and without any silly moping been getting on with her life while all that soppy romance stuff had been happening to other people somewhere else, and been jolly grateful that she had her health." Absolutely iconic.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: We don't have many of them but all the interactions we get between Nobby and Sybil are so funny and so good! They're both very earnest people (in their own ways) and I imagine them having afternoon tea especially when Nobby finds out he's well, nobby.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Hard to say! I think I generally am pretty aligned with the fandom on here. I guess I'll go with that I've seen some criticism of Pterry's treatment of fatness in his books (especially with Agnes' self-criticism, villains like Cosmo) and while I do think there is some merit to that, the way he writes Sybil and Nanny in particular is such a breath of fresh air to me. There are some "jokes" related to her weight (the classic "her bosom rose and fell like an empire") but I think for the most part they are not mean spirited and there are just as many similar jokes for other body types that it doesn't bother me. However being fat and engaging with media truly sucks sometimes so I would never tell another fat person they don't deserve to feel some type of way about the treatment of a fat character.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I would have liked to see more of her as a mom. Even once young Sam is born, I still think most of how we see her is as a wife, not as a mom. It's not totally absent, but I think it would have been cute to see more!

My OTP: Sam/Sybil!

My OT3: I'm not a huge shipper in this fandom, but I will say that the only V/V content I've enjoyed has been with Sybil as a throuple so I'll go with that!

[thebig4comeback]

I had an epiphany.

If you ever played Genshin Impact and read their in-game books, you may be familiar with Vera's Melancholy. If not, well you might want to read about it here. But if not, I think you'll be able to follow through regardless.

Now listen. Yes, this post is going to be about ROTBTD. Just let me cook.

Vera's Melancholy has 4 main characters in its story:

Vera - the girl who desperately wants to leave her hometown Delphi, the story revolves around her and her relationship with the other three, she loves to read it seems and she's all about adventure and seeing new things, she also cooks

Sachi - Vera's childhood friend who secretly has feelings for her, and he's kind of a coward, but quite hard working and capable if he puts his heart into it, also he does stand up for himself and fight for Vera, later in the story he loses an eye

Ike - a thousand-year old galactic sage who is incredibly powerful and seems to be famous with the ladies but the type who never cheated, he teleported to a cupboard in Delphi, and Vera fell for him at first sight, but the actual NPCs in the Genshin universe ship Ike and Sachi (hahahaha), however Ike is well aware that Sachi has feelings for Vera and has no intentions to "steal" her from him but instead make her as his assistant

Princess - second rightful heir to the Andromeda Empire, a very strong warrior too, went after Ike to marry him, she intended to marry him to secure her safety once her elder sister takes the throne, but spoiler alert... she has some kind of thing going on with Sachi so it's quite ambiguous who she really likes, and she treats Vera like a sister, quite a feisty character

Now tell me that this is not ROTBTD coded. Tell. me. otherwise. These four characters resemble Rapunzel, Hiccup, Jack, and Merida in that order. Not perfectly but you can see them in these characters.

And my god I spent like 2 years with this book living in my head rent-free, feeling weirdly familiar of these characters. How come it never crossed my mind!?

This whole post may be a stretch, but please read through Vera's Melancholy, and try inserting the big four to those roles. It kinda makes sense. That's... that's them. Holy shit.

[triviareads]

Hya, good evening, 👋

I had a Bridgerton related question. Specifically, a Benedict Bridgerton question. What would you like to be the timing and pace of his story to be told in the Netflix adaptation? For it to be handled immediately in season 4? Or for there to be little bit more of a build-up? At the risk of answering my own question, I’ll provide some of my own personal suggestions. 🤭

You may call this controversial, but personally, I would like for Benedict to be relatively OLD when his love story finally comes about. The books go chronologically after Daphne, but considering how much of a Bohemian Benedict is, that never made sense to me. 🤨 He’s such a restless soul, I’d make sense for him to just make it a high priority and then forget about it, until Violet is like beyond worried he’ll never find someone and just reconciles with the idea her second-oldest will practically be a monk without a monastery. 🤷‍♀️ (in the marital sense at least) So, I’d imagine Benedict to be well into his thirties (maybe over forty!), practically ancient in Regency terms, and irrelevant for the marriage mart. Then along comes a lady with a mask…

But aside from Benedict’s personality, it might also serve the narrative. Apart from some raunchy scenes in season one, the audience barely knows anything about Benedict. (very similar to his sister Francesca) So in order for his story to make sense, it might be beneficial to have a little bit of a longer introduction. Tp Benedict…and maybe even to Sophie. 🫣 (They may just introduce her as Violet’s ladies maid during the upcoming season, then slowly braid her character into the narrative.)

Then finally for a question I don’t have an answer to. 😅 Since Shonda has a habit of casting characters across races (ugh I didn’t know how to phrase this better but I how you can forgive me), how would you cast Sophie?

Kind regards,

— Thel. 💚

Hi Thel! thanks for the ask. I think Benedict was actually narratively on the verge of his own love story as of the end of S2 and the show would have been better served making him the S3 hero. The biggest indication to me was actually the poem Anthony fobs off him. Benedict speaks of this love that's very two dimensional to me— the artist and his muse, and that's where he is as a person BUT you get the sense he wants love. Add to that where he is at the end S2— creatively unfulfilled and questioning his artistic abilities. Plus, because he's fucked around, it makes him feel like a more classic historical romance hero to me, if that makes any sense. All of this combined would make S3 great time for his love interest to show up and provide some inspiration and light in his life.

And I'm gonna be real, what we got of Colin in S2 was either dull, confusing, or the narrative was giving him a lot more credit than he deserves (see: his ponzi scheme crushing era) but I figured him as the S3 hero was inevitable after his "I will never marry Penelope Featherington" line and because the showrunner is obsessed with Penelope. Benedict on the other hand feels very much the classic "future hero" in historical romance series where they're friends or siblings with a prior hero/heroine and they're in a position where you want to know when they get their own story.

As for your last question, I actually really dislike picking a race for Sophie because it plays into the way Shondaland has set up Bridgerton: the two main families are white and the only people of color are the ever-revolving cast of love interests and Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte in the corner. So what I've seen within the fandom are people of color basically fighting over the meager scraps of rep we get while the show continues to be overwhelmingly white, and even more so in S3 because both the main love interests and their entire families (except for Kate) are white. So all I'll say is it would be great if Benedict's love interest was a person of color, but I hope they'll handle their story sensitively considering what we know Sophie endures in the books.

[smalltownfae]

Books Read in 2023: She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa

Rating: 2/5 ⭐

To be honest, I bought this book by mistake and only because it was about cats. As soon as I realized this was written in part by Makoto Shinkai, director of "Your Name" and "5 Centimeters per Second", I knew I wasn't going to like it because I am not a fan of his movies. Since I already owned the book and it was fairly short I still decided to give it a try and then get it out of my way. It went as well as I expected. Thankfully, the first story was the worst one and the others weren't as bad.

"She and her Cat" is a collection of four stories that connect with each other through certain characters. I liked the third story well enough and I enjoyed some aspects of the last story. That's the best thing I can say about this. This book managed to make me dislike cats, which I thought to be an impossible task.

The writing is not bad, but it isn't good either. It's just okay: simple and straightforward. The attempts at being profound in these stories fall flat and feel empty to me for the most part. I could consider that this issue might have been because of the translation but I always felt the same way about the dialogue in Shinkai's movies.

Shinkai's stories always seem to have a big emphasis on romance, which isn't my preferred genre to begin with and I care even less if the characters have little to no personality. Some of these characters do not have a romantic plot and I kept wondering if that is because of the other author of this book and if I have him to thank.

This will contain a few spoilers from now on, but honestly I don't think you should care because I do not recommend this. However, if you really really want to read this book and spoilers bother you maybe stop here.

The first story is about a young woman that finds a cat on the street and takes him home. The cat then falls in love with her (yes, you read that right). To make sure that the reader really gets this, a female cat asks the main cat in marriage and he refuses by saying he is in love with this human. The tendency to make the female characters run after male characters with the personality of a cardboard cutout is very annoying by the way. Other annoying this about this story are:

The main human character considers getting pregnant in order to make the man she is seeing marry her;

The main cat character thinking that a human girl is not his type because she doesn't wear makeup and has short hair. As a friend commented "why would cats care about makeup?" This isn't just any cat. This a cat written by Makoto Shinkai, which means he is actually just a guy.

The main woman ends her friendship with another woman because she was interested in the man that the main character isn't even sure she is dating and then she breaks up with said man so this mini drama was very unecessary.

As I mentioned before, this was the worst one and I can't shake the feeling it was the one Shinkai had the most input because it is the main story since it gets the major resolution by the end of the book.

The second story is better (not hard to do), but it also has some issues. It is about a young artist that believes she is the best at art and gains some humility and about the female cat that is in love with the male cat of the first story. I don't like any of these first characters. So, the woman of the first story confides in this girl that she would like to have her confidence and the girl asks out of the blue if it is because of men. They were talking about art! Yet, the woman answers that yes, she would like to have her confidence because her world revolves around men. Then, a random woman that the girl ends up working with warns her about the boss being interested in young girls and she dismisses this as "feminine rivalry". At least, she is proven wrong again and the boss does try to have sex with her. She kicks him out of the house and all her neighbors clap (just like in that one tumblr post). The handling of the situation was ridiculous. The female cat is desperate to have sex so she hooks up with a random street cat and gets pregnant because the cat she actually likes doesn't want anything with her.

There is also the mention at the end that the artist girl must pursue art in university or she wouldn't even have a chance to make it in that area. I don't know if in Japan that is different, but there are a lot of artists making a living out of their art that never went to university. So, I am not sure about this lesson that the story is trying to pass as wise.

The third story was the best. It is about a woman that gets sick and can't leave her house because her friend dies soon after they had an argument. The main young woman blames herself for this and her mother gets her a small cat called Cookie in hopes that it would help her. This story was cute, but could have been executed better. It also felt shorter than the other stories. Of course, it also had the young female cat mentioning that her mother (main female cat of the former story) told her that when they cry a lot they get lines under their eyes and that is ugly. I can't have nice things in this book. First of all, you're a cat. It's this kind of dumb stuff that brings the book down. Then we also have this same young female cat thinking that she would like a cat like the male one from the first story for a husband. Because of course female characters have to think about male characters, especially when their personality give us nothing.

The fourth and last story is alright. I like the friendship between the old fat cat and the old dog and I like how this independent cat came to care for an older woman that spent a big part of her life caring for someone that was sick and couldn't take care of himself. What I really didn't care for is that a male character from her family was introduced just so he could end up with the single woman from the first story, but whatever. I expected that to happen anyway.

I believe that fans of Shinkai's usual works will enjoy this book because they don't seem to have the same issues I usually have with his movies, but this is also not heavily romantic so keep that in mind.

This definitely made me think twice about buying another book just because there is a cat in it. It wasn't good, but given the first story it could have been so much worse.

[yanderefairyangel]

Do you agree with the idea that Nel being a romantic option ruins the "found family " theme of Engage ?

Well, while I pretty much see where those people are comming from... I don't really agree.

Mainly cause of how Nel is treated outside of the S support options. She and Rafal are DLC options meaning they can't have an important role. They both hail from a world where Alear isn't their siblings, leading to them feeling 0 feeling familial feeling to Alear and being the explanation as to why they aren't siblings in canon. They are both written very differently from Veyle and Alear, I mean just try to compare the boss dialogue Nel and Rafal have with Sombron to Veyle and Alear's : Sombron says at most 1 line. And in Nel's case, 2 words ! Nel and Rafal have 0 real bearing on the plot... or bearing period. Past the DLC, their plot relevance goes from 100 to 0 and essentially revolves around commenting how the pictures decorating the Somniel were sligthly more on the left in their original world

There is also their support conversation being limited to having Nel progress in her firendship with Alear and acknowledging them as their own person. And that has nothing to with the S support sinc eit's entirely optional and they were written with the idea that Nel and Rafal are unlocked story wise before we learn that Alear is a Fell dragon as well, hence the lack of teasing between them. In fact, you can pretty much see the difference between how her relationship with Alear is portrayed vs how Veyle's relationship with Alear is written.

Besides, seeing how love is a DLC theme and that Nel was in love with her Alear... I actually see what they were trying to do. The idea being that just how Nel was able to accept Rafal as her twin while viewing him as different then Nil, she actually is able to construct a romantic relationship with Alear while viewing them as who they are. It's also helping that Rafal felt as though she wasn't viewing him as who he is but just as a replacement of Nil so I see why. And I do think Nel being able to developp a romantic bond is actually important to her character. Besides I think that expecting her to out of all a suddent to feel a kinship for Alear because of Sombron... is wrong. In her support with Veyle, it's precisely the mention of Sombron that makes her go gloomer and makes her uncomfortable in front of Veyle's offer. And Alear doesn't view Nel as family because of all the DLC shenanigans. Nel was able to built a bond with Veyle because she never met her Veyle, but she knew Alear in her world and she also met Alear right after losing hers, so I really don't see how you can think character wise she could feel a family bond to Alear ? Friendship ok, but family ? Eh. I personally wouldn't see the romance as removing or weaking the theme of family when Nel's writing doesnt make it feel like they were trying to aim in that direction. Like, idk if IS decided to make Lumera a romance option, yeah they would have screwed, but Nel... nay.

Now her romance is still kind of weaken by the weird narrative of her being able to woo the alternate version of her boyfriend who in this world is the child of the alternate version of her dad from a world where he has different origins, but that's just IS being kind of tastless as always. It doesn't really hurt because of her DLC status and her comming from a world where Alear isn't her sibby. She is mostly a character whose removal in the main plot don't change much and that can be easily overlooked so really, her relationship status to Alear being seen as controversial are as plot relevant as knowing whether or not Byleth has enough of Rhea's DNA for it to be considered a problem for them to marry her.