#like I love both books except for the relationships depicted

[a-books-allure]

“I suppose I could be your father.”

“It’s a pity you have to grow up.”

EW??

Bruh why are all these books romanticizing creepy old guys grooming and then marrying young women? Why are they written from the perspective of the girl as if she’s narrating the most perfect love story? Why are they written by women?? Kinda wild that this type of “love” was seen as the norm and even portrayed as desirable for women back in the day. Just a thought.

[starhoppin]

pick a picture; their daydreams about you

pile 1 -> pile 2 -> pile 3

disclaimer; this is a general reading! these messages may not fit everyone. please take what resonates and leave the rest.

「pile one」

seven of swords (cb: queen of cups, two of cups), ten of swords (cb: page of cups rv, ace of swords), seven of pentacles (cb: six of swords rv, page of swords)

this person's daydreams are interesting... there's an overall energy of them daydreaming that you can't get them out of your mind. there's an element to their daydreams where they're coming in to save the day, but not in an overtly "knight in shining armor/guns blazing" kind of way. the queen of cups in this deck looks like a woman drowning; this person daydreams that you're almost struggling to get through the day without them. they daydream about you opening up to them, perhaps even crying that you need them in your life - that you're experiencing so much grief without them. they daydream about being patient, waiting for you to eventually change your mind and come rushing back in.

if this reading resonated with you, please consider leaving a tip!

「pile two」

four of pentacles (cb: three of swords rv, ten of swords rv), six of wands (cb: nine of swords, ten of wands), ten of cups (cb: ace of wands rv, the lovers)

your person embodies a "protector" image in their daydreams. they daydream about protecting you from harm, protecting your heart from those who wish to hurt you. they dream that they're the person that you rely on; you come to them and they help you through your problems. these dreams center around you struggling with a situation and they're the voice of clarity that allows you to overcome these obstacles. i heard the phrase "slowly, then all at once." this person daydreams that they slowly become an integral part of your life - that you slowly fall in love with them over time, but you end up head over heels for them. like you couldn't imagine settling down with anyone else because of how useful and reliable they are. the ten of cups and the lovers card in this deck both depict two people wearing blindfolds - that's the type of relationship that this person dreams about. they dream that you trust and love each other wholeheartedly. also, that quote is from john green's the fault in our stars - so that book/movie may be significant in your connection.

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「pile three」

six of pentacles rv (cb: ace of cups, knight of cups), ten of swords (cb: seven of pentacles, three of swords), page of swords (cb: king of swords, five of swords rv)

i'm not going to lie, i don't like this person's energy. they dream about giving to you, but it doesn't seem to be giving out of love - there are strings attached. they dream about giving to you in order to get something out of the situation. they envision coming forward with an emotional offer, but it's an energy of they want you to accept them because they view you as a challenge; you're independent, you don't need them. it's the thrill of the chase that seems to excite this person. this person may view you as a bit naive. they fantasize about convincing you that they're willing to put in the work long-term, but they're only saying these things in order to get what they want out of you in the short term, i.e., they could say that they want to spend the rest of their life with you, whilst only trying to get in your pants. (this is just one example - this doesn't have to be the case for all of you.) there is a lot of sword energy in this reading; they seem to be scheming rather than daydreaming about your connection. this person lacks maturity - they're really the page of swords when they believe themselves to be a king. they're under the impression that they will eventually get what they want out of you, as long as they're strategic about it. i usually don't include these side notes, but i feel the need to make an exception in this case. if you resonate with this pile, i would highly consider distancing yourself from this person. they have incredibly selfish intentions and they don't have your best interests at heart.

if this reading resonated with you, please consider leaving a tip!

tarot deck used in this reading: ostara tarot

[sugaredrhubarb]

Reading with Ru: Aug/Sept Fic Recs

I know I'm certainly in need of some positivity and escapism lately, so I'm gonna try to do semi-regular fic and book recs! Starting with a retroactive what I've been reading from the past couple of months with this account! (I might go back in time and make an all-time rec list later)

COD

starting with cod because i know most of you go here

Sergeant Squeaks by @charliemwrites - (series of one-shots ghost x reader and price x reader separately) both one of my favourite reader characters and my favourite canon setting depictions of Ghost and Price. their own weird brands of showing love are wonderful; the tension leading to getting together is fantastic, and the sex is super enjoyable.

Ghost Stories by @kneelingshadowsalome - (ghost x medic!reader) I'm repeating myself, but I love Salome's writing. This is where I was first introduced to it, and I think it's really special. Ghost POV as he struggles with developing and then accepting love. felt so real and grounded. angsty and then fluffy, and you can't help but adore the reader as well.

saltwater by @ceilidho - (ghost x reader) It's pretty unlikely any of you don't know Ceil, but on the off chance you haven't given this one a read yet, it really is a must. I lump praise on her pretty regularly, but I don't know anyone who is able to portray their character's emotions as intimately as Ceil. her ghost feels really grounded in all his complexity. there is a common theme in these recs of really enjoyable reader characters, and this is not an exception; the reader feels like a full but still ambiguous character who is vulnerable and strong and really great.

don't leave me locked in your heart by @ohbo-ohno - (ghoap x reader dark!) we all know bo, we all love bo. I always love the way she depicts ghost and soap's dynamic changing and evolving to include the reader. the descent into dark territory in this is really really fun. It's also just hot and well-written! if you haven't read it before, go read it, and then go read all of bo's drabbles and asks on here. genuinely one of my favourite dark but still fun writers. I think she balances it really well.

body electric by @yeyinde and Afterburn by @sprout-fics - (141 + Los Vaqueros x reader) a classic. I've returned to these so many times. sometimes you just want to read dirty, filthy, well done, smut and then warm cozy aftercare. not to wax poetic about pure sex (except that's exactly what one should do), but I think it can be really hard to write group sex like this and still have such insightful and individual glimpses into each character and dynamic, and Lev does it wonderfully. and then it's also hard to find good aftercare fic, and Sprout's feels like literal aftercare for both the reader character and the reader.

other fandoms

tried to curate to themes i think overlap in some of the cod works! and I think most of these can be read fandom blind.

i revisited @winterrose527's fic in August, and even though she already knows how much I love her work, I won't skip a chance to repeat it. Anna writes for asoiaf and is pretty much the queen of Robb Stark/Myrcella Baratheon, but I would say the modern AUs (my favs) can be read almost completely fandom blind. Any contemporary romance enjoyer would love her work. I'm really partial to her kid/single-parent fics. I think it's so hard to get right, and I always adore reading her kid characters and how she approaches love stories when kids are involved. anna's works are always brimming with love and incredible platonic, familiar, parent-child, and romantic relationships (if kid fic isn't your thing she also has a ton of other great fics). personal favs: We Could Be a Little Something, And There They Are, All the Same

Lawless by @goldcranes - (arthur morgan x ofc) age difference, cowboy love story, essentially a romance novel. if goldcranes has no fans, I'm dead. I encourage you to explore her work; very few people write as strongly across multiple fandoms as she does, and each of her works feels like a really strong love story with special characters.

The Odyssey by @sunlightmurdock - (bradley bradshaw x reader) 1980's roman literature prof x virgin student - no need to know top gun. katie's work is another entry in the 'feels like it stands really strongly separately from the source material' category. she has multiple ongoing AU's that I really love, but this one is a favourite. i think she does complex characters really well - their actions always feel intentional, and as flawed as they are, I always love them.

Wouldn't it be Nice by allyoops - (m/f captive A/B/O) if you aren't reading original works smut on ao3 you are missing out and allyoops is a great place to start for noncon, dubcon, age gap, taboo etc. enjoyers. they have a ton of works; usually one shots with lots of really delicious dynamics and different settings and tropes.

An Intoxicating Presence by FormerlyIR - (mob a/b/o haladriel) MOB. A/B/O. HALADRIEL. picks up with Halbrand in prison thanks to undercover FBI agent (and his mate!) Galadriel. does that sound crazy and awesome? well it is. mix it with Gal's internal struggle, the added complication of omegaverse, and overall great writing. really fun and really damn good.

civitas terrena by banalityofweevil - (darklina) angel Alina on an exploration of love in immortality with fallen angel Aleks. honestly, it's just a must-read for enjoyers of writing. incredibly creative with divine (literally and figuratively) imagery. i think one of my comments was on the precision of lulu's diction and I really stand by that.

tinsel into gold by ribbonedhare - (darklina) ddlg and cnc friends, this changed me. it is so warm and soft and my god, is it good. just scrumptious.

Be My Babydoll by KittyDruthers - (darklina) ddlg dollification need I say more

check the reading with ru tag for more!

[halsaph]

alright whats this artdrone killbot thing

hi. You will regret asking this

The Murderbot Diaries is a series of books about a human-bot construct that was designed to essentially exist as an enslaved security guard / piece of sentient spyware. It's like if Alexa had half a human brain and a gun. We're introduced to Murderbot (the murder alexa) roughly 3 years after it's hacked the piece of hardware in it's brain that forces it to obey commands. In those 3 years it hasn't changed much about it's life except now while working as a subhuman slave it watches tv when no one is paying attention. As a series TMBD largely is about themes of personhood and discovering yourself when you have largely spent your life being denied the right to a sense of self. They also don't shy away from addressing the trauma that Murderbot has experienced from having it's autonomy stripped of it for most of it's life, with the second novella and most recent novel most heavily featuring that as an element. (Although that is a core aspect of Murderbot's character that informs its decisions throughout the entire series).

Murderbot as a character is bitingly sarcastic and witty, deeply paranoid and ultimately filled with the constant low level anxiety it doesn't know what it's doing (not necessarily moment by moment but overall, with it's freedom, with it's life). It's an excellent unreliable narrator because it only tells you exactly what it thinks is important in a scenario, relationships between other characters, physical features of itself and the people around it, it's own emotions and reactions often being completely brushed over with only occasional clues, and often outright misinterpreting people's actions, most often it's own. It has this ever present self loathing in the first several books where it constantly explains it's actions away in the least charitable interpretation possible even though we see time and time again that at it's core it deeply wants to help and protect the people around it. And we see over the course of the books as it starts learning how to make choices for itself and interacting with people who treat it with respect and develops a support system as it starts to move away from that mindset (with the exception of the most recent book but to be fair to MB System Collapse is about it being forced to confront it's PTSD and it's backsliding alot from recently being thrown back into a situation from its worst nightmares). I said before its a human-bot construct to explain that it isn't purely an inorganic being but Murderbot is a deeply inhuman character and openly has no desire to be human, and it's perspective as something that is made to be a security system and enmesh into both digital and hardwired surveillance is fascinating to read. As you know I deeply deeply love robots, they're my favorite kind of 'inhuman but still a Person' kind of character and Murderbot perfectly strikes the balance between a starkly in human way of thinking and deeply relatable emotions that draws me to robots as a whole, especially as an autistic person (and Murderbot was intentionally written with autistic traits but in a subversion of the typical ableist depiction of autistic robots so that EXTRA rings true lmao)

seeing as you mentioned it I will also explain ART as a character, ART is one of the reoccurring characters in the series (the first 3 novellas all have completely different casts outside of Murderbot itself as it hops from place to place trying to decide what it wants and who it is before in the fourth novella and beyond bringing back in previous characters and having them start to overlap throughout the rest of the series). It was introduced in the second book and is arguably the character that has the greatest impact on Murderbot as a person although I say arguably bc I would personally still say that's Mensah. Unarguably tho it is one of the most important people in Murderbot's life and has been described multiple times now by the author as the love of its life (although not necessarily in a romantic sense as Murderbot is both within text and confirmed via word of god acearo). ART (Asshole Research Transport) also known as the Perihelion (although not until the 5th book/first novel bc Murderbot doesn't bother to tell tell the readers its name until then, instead deciding its a dick so its gonna exclusively call it by an insult) is a spaceship's pilot AI, made to be sentient instead of the usual smart GPS as an experiment by the university is was made by. It was raised like a child by a pair of scientists who are now part of its crew (along with its sibling Iris) and now is a teaching vessel for students learning about deep space and also anticorporate espionage worker (don't worry about it). It's a giant pushy asshole unless you're a child (the only character we've ever seen it meet on screen it didn't in some way immediately threaten was a 16 yo). It can't watch tv without having to pause at the suspenseful bits to calm down. We're introduced to it by it threatening to melt Murderbot's mind and then pouting when it's scared shitless. It then a month later asks to do surgery on it. It fully intends to blow up a planet to get Murderbot back from a group of colonists that captured it until someone talks it out of it because that isn't effective hostage negotiation.

[sofoulandfairaday]

for @monicafave who asked me about my opinions on Lucius Malfoy.

TW: very brief mention of sexual assault (DE crimes).

Honestly, one of the (few) improvements the movies made on the books. Jason Isaacs is hot. And has so much charisma when playing the villain I cannot see anyone else doing the character justice in the remake. Also, Lucius doesn't have long hair in the books, but it's the only way I imagine him (my headcanon is that Draco grew his hair out eventually too). Also, the choice to make him unshaven in the last movies? Gold. 10/10.

He wore his hair a little shorter in the First War, but still long enough it could be tied back with a ribbon.

Is a victim to one of the worst takes in the entirety of the Harry Potter fandom of all time, which is of course abused!Draco. It angers me more than abused!Black Sisters, or abused!Remus... grrrr, it makes me so mad. If there is one (1) character in the entirety of the Harry Potter fandom, only ONE that we can be sure wasn't abused by his parents, that was Draco. Where - where? - do people get the absurd idea that Lucius was a cruel father and husband, who routinely cheated on his wife and beat her and their son?

(Also, imagine beating/cursing Narcissa Black, who was not only vicious herself, but also the beloved only sister of Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Like. Who would do that? Madmen wouldn't do that.)

Abusive Lucius for the sake of being cruel makes me laugh. It makes me giggle. The man wouldn't be able to correctly use a Stinging Jinx, never mind the fucking Cruciatus Curse, on either of them if Lord Voldemort was pointing his wand directly between his eyes. Although-

Yes, he is a coward. Which, by the way, there is a big difference between being unable to actively hurt your family members and passively standing by when they are threatened/tortured. The big, realistic failure of Lucius, the one that would sour his image in both Draco & Narcissa's minds by the end of DH, is not that he hurts them directly, it's that he says nothing, does nothing, when his son is branded by the Dark Lord and sent on a suicide mission, is that he says nothing, does nothing, when his wife and son are openly mocked by the Death Eaters, who do as they please in his own home. If Voldemort threatened to torture either of them, Lucius would probably fall to his knees, beg for mercy, but he would not, could not bring himself to stand up and dive in front of the curse. He would watch, horrified, as they are tortured- that is what spoils their view of him in the end.

As the author herself has said, the Malfoys' saving grace is that they love each other.

His fault is cowardice, not cruelty (to family at least) and that's the hill I'll die on.

Lucius, as a character, represents the banality of evil. Indifference. Cowardice. Casual cruelty. Upholding of unjust systems. Not sadism. If you don't understand the difference, you're a bad writer.

Moving on.

He was highly competent in the First War. And by competent I mean competent. There is no way this guy was Voldemort's... second in command (?) or at least one of his top-ranking Death Eaters if he acted anything like he did post-Voldemort's rebirth.

I don't know whether to cry or laugh at his character, actually. He's so petty (he tries to ban The Fountain of Magical Fortune from the Hogwarts Library because it depicts the relationship between a witch and a Muggle, which he deems obscene, and when Dumbledore replies “Nu-uh, suck it, I know about all the Half-bloods in your family tree you hide”, the response prompted several further letters from Lucius, consisting of "opprobrious remarks" on Dumbledore's sanity, parentage, and hygiene).

He's a simp for his wife, whom he loves more than anything in the world (except maybe for Draco). He tries to send Draco to Durmstrang, where Karkaroff is headmaster and no Muggleborns are allowed, and Narcissa says “No, I want my son close to home” and that's the end of that. He puts up with having Bellatrix in his house (she really doesn't like him), and the two of them don't kill each other merely for Cissa's sake.

In my headcanons, they didn't hate each other in the First War. They weren't best friends by any means but they respected each other well enough and had a somewhat cordial if a bit prickly relationship (although, I love fics that get their bickering right). But then Halloween 1981 happens. I have a lot of headcanons for that night and I don't think I've ever really detailed them, so I will now.

They have an early dinner all together - Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan - and then the Lestranges leave. After the clock strikes ten, they feel a searing pain in their forearms. The Mark is gone. There are a few minutes of what the fuck do we do now and two very distinct ideas pop up. Bellatrix would rather die than forsake Voldemort, she's willing to battle every soul in Britain if it means finding him. He is not dead, he is not. He is immortal. They have him, they've captured him with some weird trick and are holding him hostage. Lucius, on the other hand, takes a good, hard look at his left forearm and decides well, this fucking sucks but at least we had a good run. He is not about to risk his family name by picking duels with the Aurors. The second after he's waltzing in the Ministry, telling everyone who'll listen that he's just woken up from the Imperius Curse, and blackmailing/bribing/threatening his way out of Azkaban. You must do the same!, Lucius and Narcissa tell Bellatrix. Traitors, backstabbers, vermin, is the reply. She is truly, seriously, hurt and furious that they would denounce the Dark Lord. To her, it's the most horrid of betrayals.

This is when she loses her second sister. It's the moment Narcissa makes it clear that not only she will denounce Voldemort with every breath, but she will stop Lucius from going after a dead master. We have a son, Bella, he is our priority. We have a son, and you do not. You don't know what it means. It's a nice little parallel to the end of Deathly Hallows - I cannot stress this enough: Narcissa's lie to save her son causes her sister's death. Narcissa indirectly kills her. Bellatrix and Narcissa's relationship is never the same after that.

On a lighter note. It's canon that Lucius has little hobbies: peacocks and collecting Dark artefacts!

Also, he has a sick interior designer because the secret chamber beneath their living room is a marvellous idea, I need one of those.

A bit of a germophobe.

Cruel, but again: casual cruelty. Yes, he enjoys tormenting Muggles because they are less than human to him; no, he does not enjoy watching little Mudblood children get bitten by Greyback or Muggle women being raped (and no, before you ask, he would never lower himself to something like that, even if Narcissa wasn't in the picture).

Inspired by the movies, of course, but he has great fashion sense.

He was nice looking, definitely not incredibly handsome (unlike my boy Rodolphus who is hot) but he was very charismatic, so much so that Narcissa Black fell desperately for him, much to Andromeda's dismay and Bellatrix's perplexity.

Elaborate courting ritual (peacock-like, get it? ah ah).

The second most extravagant wedding of the century (Bella & Rod take the cake on that, you have no idea).

I am fascinated by his relationship with Voldemort. By the end of the second war, the two pretty much despise each other (and if Cursed Child is to be believed - which I don't - Lucius had a Time Turner tucked away and never once tried to use it to bring Vold back). But what about during the first war? Lucius' loyalties were always to the Cause more than to the man, and yet he is given the Diary. First War Lucius must have been fascinated by Voldemort - we see a hint of this in GoF when he asks Voldemort to tell them how he managed to survive the Killing Curse.

I think Voldemort saw this fascination and somehow, in his usual arrogance, misunderstood it. You see, the way I think of (and write) the Death Eaters is very Succession-y: everyone wants to be Voldemort's favourite, the one to sit to his right, the closest to him. During the First War, Lucius would have sold his mother to be closest to Voldemort. His entire worldview shifts when Draco is born, and as Lucius grows to love him. The same went for everyone else, including Snape. This is why, to me, Voldemort doesn't see their betrayals years later: he is used to thinking that they would do anything, sacrifice anyone, for him. He doesn't see that the love they feel for others is stronger than whatever fucked-up bond is there.

And, if you think about it, the two Death Eaters that are truly, fanatically, loyal above everything else are the two that are in love with/love him. Bellatrix and Barty.

Stopping now because my head is falling on my keyboard from sleepiness. Hope you enjoyed! I probably have more somewhere.

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- My Two First Loves

Welcome to the twenty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about My Two First Loves, which I have ranked on the "Rotting Flesh Tier" at 2 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was back in April-June 2021.

Oh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I could write a whole essay on everything wrong with this…  

So I will. 

To put it briefly: this story feels like it was adapted from a Wattpad story that was written by a 12-year-old whose only ever exposure to high school media and depictions of teenage sexuality was Glee, and then had serious queer and mature themes slapped onto it in order to make it seem better. Y’know, the equivalent of trying to polish a turd.

Or, heck, it’s probably PB’s attempt at ripping off “The Kissing Booth”, seeing as both have a MC in a love triangle between her childhood best friend and a bad boy named Noah, after all. Which, funnily enough, was also originally adapted from some tween’s Wattpad story. That’s about the equivalent to a dog eating some rotten food, shitting it out, then another dog finds it, eats it, and then shits it right out again. And THEN that second dog’s owner comes along to try to polish that double-toured turd. 

Number 1: The LGBTQ+ tag is clearly an attempt to appease the queer players that they probably think are being whiny. 

Ava’s arc about realizing she’s a lesbian who had been experiencing compulsory heterosexuality is pretty solid in a vacuum. But her being an LI was so blatantly only a last-minute decision PB made during the writing process, and it shows because Ava’s CG just uses her game sprite while Mason’s and Noah’s are fresh art. 

MC starts to fall for Ava sometime around at least 30 chapters in, but we don’t get to officially pursue her as a romance option until about 70 chapters in. I get delaying her as a love interest a bit because of the whole thing with MC realizing she’s bi, but even then, there’s just so few opportunities for building any kind of relationship with her that it hardly feels authentic. 

Speaking of, MC’s supposed bi awakening is completely rushed and treated with about as much value as a Family Guy cutaway gag, even outside of Ava being sidelined. As someone who realized I wasn’t straight three years ago and is still questioning if I’m bi or straight, I understand that people take different amounts of time to figure out their sexuality. But this MC does not spend any period of time figuring out her bisexuality. She basically just goes “Welp, guess I’m bi now”, and then it’s back to being indecisive as per usual except now there’s a female love interest in the mix too.

To add insult to injury, "discussions of sexuality" is placed in a "player discretion" warning, alongside "racial tensions" and "occasionally violence" to boot. How the fuck is discussion of sexuality even remotely on the same level as either of those? If they meant discussions or depictions of homophobia then maybe I could understand… but I don’t even recall seeing any depictions of homophobia in the book, so including this in the freaking warning tags is pointless at best and kind of insulting at worst. 

Not to mention, plenty of other Choices books like MOTY, ILS, D&D, etc. have had discussions about sexuality/LGBTQ+ stuff before, and didn't have to warn us about it. Not even MAH, a later book which had discussions about freaking conversion therapy for Christ’s sake. Sure, some of those books did have content warnings, but they were generally vague and/or mainly warned for violence, and didn’t warn specifically for depictions of queerphobia or discussions of sexuality. Yet for some reason, MTFL feels the need to include a player discretion warning for sexuality discussions, even though it contains far less harsher queer themes. 

Number 2: The portrayal of teen sexuality in this does not feel earnest. 

Let me just say, I found it very jarring how this one was much more sexually charged compared to PB’s other high school books. PB is usually way more “safe” and PG-13 at most when writing high school characters. Even in books like ROD and WEH, where the characters are 18+ and do have smutty scenes, it’s clear that those books are a lot more restricted compared to the adult cast books.  

I mean, with WEH, the safeness makes sense– it was meant to be a serious and tender story from the start, and it does actually follow through on those themes. But ROD feels like it could have easily been as horny with its writing as MTFL was, what with being about a studious “good girl” who goes rebellious. In fact, the story’s loading screen was pretty infamous at first for looking “steamier” than other covers and loading screens.

In actuality though, ROD had only, what, one smut scene? And despite a lot of MC’s outfits being revealing or arguably sensual, there are practically no moments where MC fawned over how “sexy” a revealing diamond outfit looked. Like, I’m pretty sure there were just little to no sexually charged scenes in general. 

My point is, whatever compelled PB to make MTFL *this* sexualized is beyond me. My guess is the fact that PB called this one a story about “navigating sexuality” and thus wanted to focus more on the aspects of sexuality, but if that’s the case… hoo boy, did they do a terrible job at it. 

I don’t really care about the hypersexualized writing of the teenage characters on its own, or how the characters were initially not confirmed 18+ when the earlier smut scenes were written. What I find far more important is the fact that this sort of cliche and formulaic hypersexualized writing is in a book that markets itself as being about “a young woman navigating love and sexuality for the first time”.

Teens do indeed have sex and can be all over the place with their hormones and sexuality. A lot of us have been there in some way, myself included. And there are ways to talk about that type of stuff in a manner that is silly and/or exaggerated, but still earnest and respectful. But the particular way that MTFL handles super-horny teen sexuality, specifically while claiming to be a coming-of-age story, is neither earnest nor respectful. 

The way this story handles these sorts of topics is the writing equivalent to doing a surgery with Fisher-Price toy surgery tools. It’s genuinely difficult to take MC “navigating her sexuality for the first time” seriously when has to constantly blubber about how Mason and Noah are so muscular or how a diamond outfit has “naughty little thigh highs” or how she wants to do a “down and dirty” cheer routine with Ava for Mason and Noah. 

That last one especially feels like the kind of stuff we’d see more in a campy chick flick that doesn’t take itself seriously. Honestly, if this was a more campy high school book with the tone of DLS or the 2023 movie “Bottoms”, it probably wouldn’t be as glaring. But in a book that markets itself as a coming-of-age story, the tone feels completely off and the whole book honestly felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. 

(Also, while we’re on this topic of MC’s premium outfits, I really fucking despise how MC gets so upset about wearing "mom clothes" if you choose to wear the free modest clothing instead of the revealing diamond outfit in Chapter 2. Ugh. Yes, the dad was being shitty about not letting MC dress how she likes, but all it does is it just makes you feel like shit for not wanting to dress in more revealing clothes. Stop making me feel bad for wanting to wear simple non-revealing clothing. Same goes for you, Chris Romantic Getaway story with your “the regular jerseys aren’t cute enough for girls to wear, we have to cut one up into a cleavage crop top in order to make it good for us girls to wear” bullshit.) 

And it just slaps you in the face with these sexual moments too, placing them in frequently whenever it feels like it, and the amount of it that actually contributed to any coming-of-age navigating-sexuality are few and far between. Honestly, it felt like it was trying way too hard to look "mature" with how it handled sexuality (as well as some of the other stuff like them drinking alcohol). Like it maybe was trying to portray teens realistically, but it only does so at a very shallow level. 

It's literally just "Look at the teens that talk about sex and like doing sexy things and having sex and doing grown-up stuff like drinking alcohol, see how MATUUURRREEE they are!" and they don't do anything more with it. It's just tacked on so they can pretend their book is a realistic story about maturing/being mature, when it fails at actually doing so.

I mean, I guess you could argue that the MC is meant to be seen as more messy and hormonal. And in that case, I could give it a pass. But, again, MC’s supposed arc of “navigating sexuality” never goes anywhere from that until the very last few chapters where you choose which LI she ends up with. It’s pretty much the same crap all throughout the book. MC doesn’t navigate sexuality, she just runs around aimlessly in it like a chicken with its head cut off.

Number 3: All the serious themes they try to have in the story are overshadowed by MC’s stupid indecisiveness plot. 

I’ve already said MTFL tries way too hard to make its story seem “mature” with the trashy way it sexualizes its characters. I’ve said it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Honestly though, this just sums up MTFL’s writing in general. 

MTFL has quite a handful of subplots, and I will admit, all of them are pretty compelling. You have Ava figuring out she’s lesbian, Mack dealing with gang drama, and Mason and Noah dealing with their past and Mason’s dad’s abusive behaviors. And an admittedly decent arc about MC discovering her love for photography instead of cheerleading. 

And then you have MC going on about how she can’t decide between her love interests, which is just the bad apple of the bunch that ruins the rest. It just makes it very hard to take everything else seriously. You ever seen that one meme where the Power Rangers put their hands in a circle but then a Teletubbie tries to join in? It’s the writing-equivalent to that, and MC’s indecisiveness plot is the Teletubbie. 

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if MC’s indecisiveness wasn’t the main focus plot of the whole book. I want to take these other storylines seriously. I want to take this story as a whole seriously. But how can I when the main focus of the story is so god damn shallow? No matter how many "soft positive heartfelt" piano tracks and “so sad and tragic sad” piano tracks from WEH they try put over it, it doesn't change the fact that the focus is MC going on and on about being unable to choose between Mason, Noah, and Ava. 

I get teens are shallow and can have shallow issues, but did we really need it to be that big of a focus of the story? Especially when the way it handles it is completely empty? Something like OG HSS was great because even though a lot of the issues the characters had were seemingly shallow and basic (such as the band fighting over which song to play), they do give a little more depth to it and reason to care about it (ie. Aiden starts to feel like a failure at music because of the band infighting). MTFL just throws MC’s indecisiveness at you for 95 chapters and expects you to take it seriously with nothing else surrounding it. 

And they try to pull the twist on the title at the end where it’s all like “LI and photography, the two greatest loves of MC’s life”. Which is an interesting idea in concept, except it feels so artificial and non-earned when MC’s romance plot was spending 95 chapters being unable to decide between the LIs. 

Number 4: It reuses way too much from HSS. 

I know this is a less severe issue, but I just can’t get past it. Sprites, backgrounds, school colors… even plot points like the corrupt principal embezzling from the school, or MC and LI(s) being locked in a large school room (remember when HSS:CA MC and Ajay were locked in the auditorium?). Heck, even MC having lost her mom and having a photography passion connected to that, rings way too similar to one of Autumn’s arcs from the freaking HSS PRIME GAME! Oh yeah, and both of those characters have a love triangle with a golden boy and a bad boy. Holy hell. 

Easily the most noticeable part is the sprites. In my playthrough, I counted 7 whole HSS sprites that were used in MTFL: Sydney became Iris, Payton became Toni, Frank became this random kid in a flashback for Mason and Noah's past, Morgan became a kid in Elijah's gang named Lucy, Lorenzo became Chad, Aiden's mom became Asian Noah's mom, Skye's dad became White Mason's dad (PB really said use that sprite for abusive dads huh). And there’s probably more, I’m sure. 

And the worst offense? They even reuse the iconic bird's-eye view of Berry High in MTFL. Call me petty if you must, but that's just criminal. It's one thing to reuse and alter a bunch of the sprites, uniforms, and backgrounds from the series but to reuse another book series' iconic background like that? Honestly, it feels rather insulting. They couldn't even be arsed to change the "Go Tigers!" on the football field, that’s how little sense it makes to use that background outside of HSS. Fuck’s sake.

I know it’s kind of the norm for Choices to reuse assets throughout different series, but the fact that they do it so much here and majority of it is from HSS just rubs me the wrong way. At best, it’s jarring and lazy. And at worst, it comes off as trying way too hard to be a “more mature” version of HSS. When in reality, it makes HSS:CA’s side characters look like Citizen Kane in comparison. I mean, at least Clint and Natalie and MC stopped whinging about Rory ⅓rd of the way through the series. 

At least when other high-school-setting books like ROD, WEH, and ILITW were made, they at least somewhat bothered to change up a few things and make it feel like an actually different school. They changed up the backgrounds a bit, used different school colors and uniforms, and didn’t reuse nearly as many sprites from HSS.  

In MTFL, all they did was make new cheer uniforms for the non-reused sprites and remove the Berry High logos from everything HSS that they used. Yeah they made some changes, but it’s clear that they didn’t put nearly the same amount of effort into it as they did in the other high school setting books. 

All it does is just make me miss HSS. Like, stop toying with my heart by piggybacking off of a better series (that has better queer rep too) so much. It’s to the point where it feels like they should have just used the time making this book to instead make a HSS senior year (Which, y’know, would be nice, especially since the sendoff we got in HSS:CA 3 was absolute flaming fucking garbage). 

So… in all honesty, I don’t hate this book. But it had a lot of things that annoyed me to no end and it sure as fuck is disappointing wasted potential. It had a great opportunity to be a nice queer coming-of-age story. But instead it felt like a Kissing Booth rip-off with serious themes only hamfisted in order to make it seem more “mature”.

[andresylupin]

813 is one of my favourite Lupin stories for many reasons, one of these being that it's one of the only stories where Lupin has such an entourage, both with the law and outside of the law (even more so when you check the text originally published in the paper).

The Doudeville brothers, Marco, Jérôme, Charolais, Octave, etc vs. the Doudeville brothers (so funny having double agents playing both sides, and it's actually the same side lmao), Gourel, Formerie, Weber, Valenglay, etc... Interestingly, his relationships with representatives of the law are usually more developed (or at least depicted) than the ones with his accomplices. There's this moment with Valenglay at the end of the book that I especially love, right after Lupin learned the execution of Léon Massier :

Lupin faints in front of the Président du Conseil, he's at his most vulnerable, and Valenglay does this??? I do believe that he does it mostly for political reasons and out of fear of a scandal, but idk, it's so interesting to me the way Leblanc wrote this; Valenglay was a fan of Lenormand, and not particularly hostile towards Lupin either, and he sees this broken man before him, and decides to just. take control. Get him back on his feet, but it almost reads like one of these instances where Lupin quasi-hypnotises people with his iron will except this time he's at the receiving end of it.

+ the way Lupin deals with police throughout the book is so flippant (as per usual mdr (except Gourel, rip)), mocking them at every turn and in the end it comes down to this... "I'm counting on you" seems very ambiguous to me, kinda condescending in a way? But also trusting. It just feels like Valenglay is sending one of his dogs to get the job done, which is downright humiliating for Lupin, but also he could have had him arrested right there and then so yknow 🤷

[thedrunkenreadersreviews]

Review of "A Curse for True Love"

SPOILERS, BEWARE! 👻

For tonight's review, let's sip a little bit of some fine, spiked apple cider (it seemed incredibly fitting) and talk about this book.

*Sip, sip*

Now, let's start off with the previous two books in the Broken Heart trilogy by Stephanie Garber real quick.

*Sip, sip*

Going into the trilogy, I hated Jacks. Not for the reason you think. I hated Jacks because of how Garber depicted him in the Caraval trilogy---which is perfect! I had not come across a villain I enjoyed reading and loved to hate until I came across Jacks. It was amazing! And when I found out he was getting his own sequel trilogy I felt obliged to give it a try. So I picked up "Once Upon a Broken Heart" and read through it with a bit of drag until the crypt scene 😳. And then there was Ballad.

*Long sip, sip*

Ahhhhhhhh, "The Ballad of Never After." That was my guilty pleasure. My sweet symphony. The only time I felt Garber getting risqué with her writing and I ate. It. Up. Like I needed to stop so my cheeks would calm down. I felt the tension between Jacks and Eva, I felt the yearning, and then I felt the heartache. All without a single kiss between them. THAT is an accomplishment on Garber's part, so bravo to her! 👏 I typically don't cry when reading books. It takes a lot. While I did not cry at the end of Ballad, I did shed a tear and felt devastated.

"Time will take something of equal value from you."

"There is nothing of equal value to me."

And then *BOOM* memory gone! Eva is no longer yours yet again!

Well played, Garber.

*Sip, sip*

Now my anticipation for "A Curse for True Love" was over the moon. I hadn't been that excited for a book release since "The Queen of Nothing" by Holly Black. Now, did Curse live up to my expectations ...

*Sip, sip*

*Sip, sip*

...

*Sip, sip*

Unfortunately, no. BUT! I do not think it is nearly as bad as other people say it is nor do I believe it is beyond the possibilities of being redeemed in the future (more on that later).

Where did it glow?

The ending. Honestly, I agree with most reviewers that the last 20% of the book was top-tier. What the entire book should have been. How fantastic it could have been. In fact, the last 20% of the book is the reason why I do not believe it is as bad as people are saying. Do I wish the love confession was a bit more ... well, more? At least on Jacks' part, yes. I thought Eva's confession was beautiful and perfect and stunning in every way. I love how the first kiss happened and it made sense that she took charge of it given that Jacks was utterly terrified of her dying again. I was, for the first time, hoping Eva (the MFC) confessed first because I felt it was the boost that Jacks would need to trust himself to not only kiss her but believe that she actually loves him since he deems himself as unlovable and a villain, even in his own story.

I wish---so desperately wish---that Jacks had showered Eva's face in kisses when he realized she would not die from them. I wish it led to a scene that contained the heat (not spice, just heat) that a lot of the scenes from "Ballad" possessed. I think it would have just tied up their journey of falling in love and trusting each other, as well as themselves, nicely because moments like that do require an awful amount of trust. Scenes like that are not meant to just get the reader hot and bothered, especially not in YA books. No, us adults are mere visitors in the realm of YA and we must keep that in mind when it comes to these types of scenes. Moments like those are useful in storytelling if done properly and can be utilized as a form of character development and character relationship development, as it could have been done here. Was it necessary? No, but it could have added something to both the characters as individuals as well as their relationship with each other since a majority of that relationship was about trust and denial of feelings.

The rest of the ending though, was exceptional. Jacks punching Apollo was sooooooooo satisfying and I love how the countdown to this book's release included Apollo getting punched in the face by Jacks actually came into existence. Seeing the Valors and Jacks interact was incredible and I felt the familiarity between them (I mean Jacks is the only one with the ENORMOUS STONES to punch not one but two Valors and stab another). I love how Lala and Jacks have such a brother-sister relationship. I adore Jacks' disdain for Aurora and his utter devotion towards Eva.

*Sip, sip*

And another thing, I thought the characters WERE acting like themselves (for the most part). Eva was acting like herself before her memories returned and especially after. I thought Apollo was acting like himself and it was made very clear based on what Garber revealed in his POVs (which I did believe were essential for the plot). His actions made sense based on what he had gone through and what he endured. I do not sympathize with Apollo but I understood his actions. I also think we saw some growth from him in this book, specifically because of his POVs and I enjoyed that.

The only one who didn't seem to fully be acting like themselves in the beginning and the beginning only was Jacks---but THAT MADE SENSE.

*Sip, sip*

You see, at that point, Jacks was in love with Eva. He knew it. The North knew it. Time knew it. The Story Curse knew it. We knew it. The only person who didn't know it was Eva herself. Believing he had already met his true love, despite being in love with Eva, he was terrified that he would kill her. He had no idea Apollo took her memories, he thought Time did (which, it did, to be fair and I still believe that taking Eva's memories through Apollo was Time's way of taking Eva from Jacks even if she didn't die). However, so obsessed with her and in love with her was he that he couldn't just leave. He HAD to find excuses to stay because he wasn't ready to let go. I would have loved to see Jacks try to find a way to restore Eva's memories, kidnap her, bring her to the Hollow, try to convince her that he was the one she was supposed to be with. BUT I understand why Garber took the route of Jacks trying to step away from Eva.

One scene I was really hoping to see was something along the lines of Eva reading her letter, arguing with Jacks, trying to stay away from Jacks but Jacks not relenting and alone, preferably in the Hollow, Eva breaks and says something along the lines of "My mind and my words are telling me to hate you, to not trust you. Yet my heart yearns for you like it belongs to you. Like you're my home." Alas, we cannot have everything we desire.

*Sip, sip*

Oh, and yes, I love how Garber answered the apple question. We always suspected and I love how she made us into the Story Curse, wanting to know the answer to that one burning question that we have had ever since Legendary. That was beautifully done.

*Sip, sip*

Now, where does it sour?

*Sip, sip*

The first 80% of the book with the exception of a few scenes. Every scene with Jacks and Eva I thought was great. I still felt the tension and I enjoyed how Eva still had feelings for Jacks even when not having memories of him. Every scene Jacks was in was gold. I particularly enjoyed that midnight chat he had with Castor. You really get a sense of just how much Jacks and Castor have leaned on each other throughout the years. Which brings me to my greatest gripes with this book:

*Sip, sip, sip*

While the ending is not spelt out, I don't believe Jacks is a Fate anymore. It was established (like a lot of things) in the Caraval trilogy that immortal beings lose their immortality but not their powers when they fall in love. Jacks obviously falls in love with Eva as Legend fell in love with Tella, but it has to be a clear decision on the immortal's part to give in to their love and accept their mortal life with their mortal lover. So while Jacks is in love with Eva by the end of Ballad and obviously throughout Curse, he saw it as no good, that their love would not be enough to break his curse and he would kill her because she was not Tella so there was no chance nor point in him giving up his immortality (which he gained so Castor wouldn't be alone which like, awwwwwww sweet Jacks is a ride or die homie 🥺). However, he does give in to his love and chooses to stay with Eva when they are at the Phoenix Tree. So while he still possesses his powers, albeit not to the extent that he used to as evident from later events, he is no longer immortal, no longer a Fate as I think Garber hints at by calling him a "not-quite-human boy." Not quite human because he used to be a Fate and still possesses his powers. It is like calling Legend a not-quite-human boy because he still has his magic.

*Sip, sip*

But my biggest issue with the book, the thing that really disappoints me, its unforgivable sin, is the LACK of Eva and Jacks together. More time should have been dedicated to them as a couple, finding their way back to each other. Had the plot of the last 20% of the book been expanded into the majority plot of the book, MAN would this thing have blown me away.

Seeing evil Jacks again, reading how awful he could be reminded me of just how fantastic of a villain he was in Caraval and just how much I missed that evil side of him. Damn, I missed me some Prince of Hearts vileness. It was delicious! Ahhhhhh....

*Sip, sip*

But, there are also the many questions I still have and while having questions at the end is not always a bad thing, a reader shouldn't have more questions than answers. Some questions I feel I have been cheated out of the answers of are:

Who exactly was the first fox?

How did Jacks beat the Archer's Curse?

How did Jacks become a Fate?

Why the Prince of Hearts Fate?

Who the heck put the Valors in the arch?

What happened to the cuff?

Finally, while I do love tragic backstories and having Jacks' heart have been broken pretty much for his entire adult life to the point where he had lost all hope is exceptionally tragic, the whole twist on Jacks' lethal kiss curse was ... bad. That tragedy of Jacks constantly killing a potential happily ever after could have remained without his curse having been rewritten. I appreciate Aurora being the one to curse him with the Archer's Curse but for her to be responsible for the thing that essentially makes him the FATED Prince of Hearts took so much mysticism and magical whimsy out of his Fate status for me. Like, I would have loved it to be tied directly to his Fate status and Fate design, not something he entered Fate status already cursed with.

*Sip, sip, sip,sip*

Now, how can it be redeemed?

Well, I mentioned previously my anticipation for "The Queen of Nothing." And while I did enjoy that book, it didn't live up to my expectations either and I believe it is the weakest in the trilogy. That does NOT mean it's bad, it just isn't what it could have been much like this book. But it was redeemed with a simple novella.

And I believe the same could happen here. Should Garber answer some of those questions that we are still reeling over in a novella, I think it would appease a lot of the disappointed fans. A novella about Jacks becoming a Fate, of the whole debacle at Merrywood Manor, Jacks' time in the Hollow, befriending the Valors. Like, where did Jacks come from? A backstory on Jacks as we got a bit more depth on Cardan in his novella. Heck, Gabrer can even split it between past and present like Black did; give us domestic Jacks and Eva like we LOVED in Ballad while giving us a backstory on Jacks might just be able to save this book. Though, future Jacks and Eva, I do not foresee happening if we ever do return to this world considering the fact that there are three alternate endings out there.

*Sip, sip*

So, my dear readers and drinkers, is "A Curse for True Love" bad? No. Is it great? No. It is enjoyable, a nice ending to a heartbreaking love story, and satisfying. It wasn't exceptional, fantastic, or great, though it did have those moments within it. In essence, "Ballad" is exactly that; a sweet ballad, the shining star in this trilogy. My ranking of the books in order from best to weakest: Ballad, Once, Curse.

*Sip, sip*

And for all of you out there so horribly upset with this book, I do understand, but please, Ms. Garber does not deserve hatred. She is a kind-hearted human with a beautiful heart who just wants to write sweet love stories, and we should let her. I will always wish Eva and Jacks got a cataclysmic ending like they deserved upon a candle-lit dock with Lala and Castor and maybe even Luc being the only witnesses as they profess their love and promise to each other, but I am content knowing that they are at least together. Thank you, Stephanie Garber, for this beautiful trilogy. I hope that one day we get to return to this wonderful, magical realm.

Now with Halloween just around the corner, I raise my spiked apple cider to you and say this:

Happily live the Prince of Hearts, one of the only two blond-haired main male characters that I adore.

May peace always be with Eva, a fantastic female main character who wields not swords nor exceptional magic, but is just a hopeless romantic like the lot of us.

And goodnight to you, dear readers. Be well, and always, always keep it creepy and stay spooky, friends.

*Sip, sip*

[onaperduamedee]

my scattered thoughts on the finale after a rewatch. I didn't even need to let the episode infuse; I was just basking in the joy. It was thrilling, it was moving, it IS the fantasy I love. I'm so proud of what this show accomplished

- Renna cutting Egwene's hair. Maddie's eyes in that scene... Light

- The flashback of Ishy's imprisonment at the Eye was so good. YES Alexander Karim is incredible. Fares Fares is incredible. I love a good "3000 years ago" Doctor Who title card

- PADAN FAIN MY FAVOURITE LOOSE CANON. His panic when he saw he armed Mat without subduing him had me smirking

- Denial is a river but I'll take Ishy putting all the pieces in place before Falme as proof that the Cairhien train wreck was planned

- Lanfear yeeting Mo and Lan out of the Gateway... enough said

- Loved the way Avi said that many people would wake from the dream. Her tone sounded kind, full of the awareness that many of the people who would die did not choose to fight

- The Mat stuff... Delicious. I had gripes about his arc but they stuck the landing. I adore his shrewdness, his heart, his relief at finding out who he is. And the Horn! I got chills. It looked nothing like I had pictured it but man, I loved it

- Minor thing: I didn't care for the design of the Horn or the blurry motion, but those are strong stylistic choices and I commend the show for making them. This series has a vision and will not settle for generic fantasy look and I LOVE it

- The bond scene got me, truly. I think we all knew that Lan had misinterpreted Moiraine's words but it was nice to get confirmation. I love that it was such a choice to recommit for both of them. The scenery, the music, the weave, the acting...

- When Daniel's face twisted as he was hit with the full force of Moiraine's emotions, I lost it. I cannot believe how good this relationship is. The choice to treat their platonic bond as profoudly as a romantic bond? GENIUS

- I'm fascinated by the way they're depicting Nynaeve's block. It's layered, nuanced, fed by different experiences and traumatic events and makes much more sense than her book block. Zoë portrays Nyn's insecurities SO WELL, it's painful to watch

- I hated that the way of showing Nyn still could be a Wisdom was with her shoving the arrow with the fletching inside Elayne's leg?!?! Remove the large end please!?! Why??!? I winced at that

- Nyn and Elayne's arc was also a miss for me. Since they use the a'dam on a sul'dam, they could figure out as well that sul'dam can channel except we don't see it. So the set-up with Ryma showing them the a'dam leads to nothing for their arc

- Hmmmmmmm, the parallel with the EF5 and the Ishy, Lanfear, Lews bond was perfect. Especially as Rand is part of both groups. Just amazing

- They dress Nyn as a sul'dam to... show that the white character feels bad when Nyn tortures the real slaver? I get the point of the scene for Nyn and Elayne. The optics are just weird for a disguise that does little. Nyn looked so good still!

- Elayne has the patience and control of a mountain though because the situation was extremely tense

- I loved Loial's little speech even if he deserves more screen time: he's right, they are living history. He's a constant delight

- The trope of characters running into each other in the midst of battle is one of my favourites so I was living

- Eggy's arc is so satisfying: from her confrontation with Renna to her getting to protect Rand, she was utterly amazing. As much as I'm disappointed that Nyn and El didn't help here, I appreciate what this isolation is doing for her character

- Will Perrin keep the MAGIC SHIELD? This show is fantasy with all its heart and it's so enjoyable to watch

- Rand finding her broken and exhausted, not even grasping he was here was heartbreaking and gorgeous. Even if they all came to save her, in the end she was alone and had to break herself free. (Also pouring one for Maigan)

- Perrin had the most consistent and enjoyable arc of the EF5. I love everything about the characters he met and who contrast or echo his internal struggles. His horror at Hopper's death and the fury with which he killed Bornhald sr? SO GOOD

- It's so fun that many book readers had theorized Uno would come back as a hero of the Horn and he did!

- Mat has my whole heart too. Truly, the way he cradled Rand in his arms. These kids love each other so much

- Nynaeve watching Rand agonizing, unable to help him. I feel so sorry for her. She needs to rely on others, it's a needed pain here. Still painful though. Contrast that with Moiraine who shut off Lan because she could not protect him

- Moiraine weaving some Greek Fires torpedoes and using the fire of the burning ships to shape a dragon banner was not on my bingo card, but she deserved that after this powerless era. It was so beautiful and cathartic to watch

- I do love Moiraine "I'm not at my strongest with fire" Sedai hurling a giant fireball at an entire fleet. It's a nice way to integrate the scenes of Moiraine creating firewalls and weaving a giant illusion we did not get from book 1

- Love, LOVE the fact that in the end, Lanfear's and Moiraine's goal aligned. Moiraine got to proclaim the Dragon, making history, which Lanfear had planned. Rand will not like that. It's such a good set-up for future conflict between them

- On Rand, for anyone worried about how his powers come off, show-only sister literally just observed that it was funny that he has better control than Nyn who's supposed to be so powerful

- His greatest display of power with Turak is quick, ruthless, perfectly echoing the easiness with which Ishy and Lanfear wields the One Power. It makes sense he would not channel like Eggy and Moiraine, let alone Nyn

- In the end, I love that the show made his standing up and defeating Ishy a collaboration: all of his friends (plus MoLan on the beach) were essential. It was the perfect hopeful counterpoint to the bleakness of the s1 ending (which I loved)

- The Moghedien reveal... That's the second season where they manage to perfectly tease the next season. Now all the Forsaken are loose and the gloves are off.

I loved s1, I really did, but this was even greater. Two years for more is torture

[sevlinop]

Similarities and contrasts between Cloud and Squall

(So fair warning, but spoilers ahead for both games, of course. Also, while I've played FF7 remake, I haven't gotten to play Rebirth yet, I've watched some of it online though!)

One thing I find really interesting about FF7 and FF8 is how hyper focused on the main character they are. Of course, most Final Fantasy games have a very clear main character, but in none of the other games do we see the story so filtered through the main character's perspective alone. The other Final Fantasy games are big on ensemble casts, and we rarely see a main character's inner monologue and perspective so extensively like with these two.

Cloud and Squall are requirements for any party you make as you play through the game, except for brief portions. Cloud regularly has a voice that screams words of warning in his head, and is an unreliable narrator. Squall is the opposite, he's an open book and we hear his honest perspective on all sorts of things. What they have in common, is other characters don't fully understand what's going on with them. The difference, is for Cloud we the player, don't either. Whereas with Squall, we begin to know exactly how his abandonment issues have affected him.

A list of other traits they share or that contrast:

Cloud's father dies when's he very young or before he's born, and is raised by a single mother - Squall's mom, Raine, dies in childbirth or shortly after he's born. Laguna doesn't know he exists, and Squall is raised in an orphanage.

Cloud is an only child - Squall has an older sister.

Cloud grows up with Tifa as his neighbor - Squall first meets Rinoa in the game itself.

Cloud fails to join Soldier, and is an unremarkable infantrymen - Squall is raised from a young age to be a SEED, and joins the organization successfully.

Cloud has repressed memories and is traumatized by the loss of his mother and Zack - Squall has memory loss and is traumatized by the perceived abandonment of Ellone.

Cloud copes by creating a fantasy persona who is heroic, capable, and stoic. As well as fabricating his own memories. - Squall copes by minimizing attachments to others, and acting unlikable.

Of course there are many others, even simple character design choices, like how Cloud is blond and Squall is brunette lol.

I think what I like the most though, is how they're such different depictions of dealing with, and ultimately overcoming, trauma. Cloud has to finally be honest with himself, and accept that he wasn't ever a hero like Sephiroth. (Of course I'm not sure being a war hero for a mega corporation is that admirable.) Still, Tifa loves him for who HE really is. And the rest of the party does too. Cloud is ok just being Cloud. A dorky, awkward guy, who still helps to save the world in spite of being anxious and motion sick. That what really makes him a hero. Not being some cold, implacable super soldier like Sephiroth, who's really a traumatized mess deep down as well.

Squall has to finally be vulnerable and let his guard down, even though that always brings the risk of pain and further loss. In fact, it's not just a risk, those things are inevitable in intimate relationships. Still, those truly loving relationships are one of the main things that give life meaning. Squall isn't exactly brave in the early game, despite all of his feats, he just doesn't value himself and my headcanon is that he's passively suicidal. Squall becomes truly brave when he has something to lose, Rinoa, his friends, his home. Bravery is when you're scared, but do it anyway.

I think these two are still such popular and iconic main characters for a reason, and I don't think it's just the eye catching character designs!

(Question for anyone who's interested, which one of these two do you relate to more? I'm sorta split, but I think I'm a bit more like Cloud!)

[novelmonger]

For the character ask: 4 for Steve Rogers, 5 for Al, 8 for Winry, 12 for Mustang, 18 for Hawkeye, and 25 for Ed, please?

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in? (Steve Rogers)

A book. Written by me. It would be called Whole Shards :)

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them? (Alphonse Elric)

"Faceless" by Red

I'm not, I'm not myself Feel like I'm someone else Fallen and faceless So hollow, hollow inside A part of me is dead Need you to live again Can you replace this I'm hollow, hollow and faceless

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise? (Winry Rockbell)

Hmm...I can't really think of anything too heinous the fandom does, except maybe forget about her? ^^' Especially when shipping Ed with somebody else. Shippers are gonna ship, but I often feel like there's a gaping hole left behind when they don't account for where Winry is and why she's not upset about Ed going after someone else.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character? (Roy Mustang)

We're told that he was raised by Madame Christmas, but I like to headcanon that she also adopted all the women who work in her bar and become Roy's intelligence network when they go on their fake dates. So Roy grew up in a highly unconventional setting with a dozen adopted older sisters, all orphaned or abandoned. He goes from a female-dominated living situation to a male-dominated one when he joins the military XD

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire? (Riza Hawkeye)

Royai. Are both Mustang and Hawkeye a bundle of issues? Is Hawkeye in particular perhaps unhealthily dependent on Mustang, to the point that if he were to die, she would kill herself? Yes. But their complete and utter devotion to one another, and the way they show love to each other in a thousand ways without being able to even hint at the way they really feel, is something I've always admired.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now? (Edward Elric)

Looooool, my introduction to Edward Elric was a fanart depicting him as an angel holding a claymore XD When my brother showed it to me, I was like, "Okay, we have to watch this Full Metal Alchemist thing now!"

Naturally, we soon discovered that particular fanart was more...imaginative than we realized at first. But by then we were hooked anyway. Now, obviously, I don't think of Ed as an avenging angel :P He's still inspiring and heroic, but now I also know him as a total dork with a bundle of issues, but also the biggest heart for his little brother you could possibly imagine <3

Character ask game

[maventheforgotten]

I hate so many characters in the Red Queen series. I understand it's a book (and these are fictional characters) and absolutely no hate to the author it's an amazing series, but on like a personal real-life I hate them. To anyone who doesn't want to hear how I hate a specific character, you can skip their part. Also understand these are my OPINIONS and understanding of the characters if you disagree you are free to tell me but understand I have the right to disagree with you as well.

Anabel Lerolan grandmother to both Cal and Maven and my absolute least favorite character. She makes me so mad mainly because she makes no attempts to save Maven from his mother. Anabel knew and saw what Elara did to Coriane and hated her for it but yet when Elara shows signs of doing the same thing to Maven she looked at Maven as Elaras son, not her grandchild who was being forced at such a young age to go through the same pains that caused the death of an adult women then has the aducaity to blame Maven for everything that happened.

Julian Jacos is next on this list for much the same reason. He saw what was happening but viewed Maven as the son of Elara instead of a boy who needed someone to step in much as his sister did. I understand why it would have been hard especially after Elara cut out Sara's tongue but even spending time with Maven making sure he understood he wasn't alone was all he needed to do. (This part goes with Anabel as well.)

Evangeline Samos just annoys me because I think she's a self-centered, selfish brat who can only get over herself when family or her girlfriends are involved. She did have some character development at the end but for me it was to late for her to be saved.

Mare Barrow is riding in the same boat as Evangeline but on a whole other level. I despise her to put it simply. In the beginning, she is obnoxious, self-centered, and blankly disregards the feelings of others for whatever she believes to be right. She also has attention seeking behavior and throws a fit when it doesn't go how she wants it. The main example I see of this is when Cal chose the crown. There has been a major debate on this sceen and what he was thinking but for my stand point I don't seem him chosing the crown just to be King but I see him chosing the crown to be HER king. When Cal tries to explain his reasoning to Mare, she refuses to accept and leaves. She had the right to be upset with his decision but not to claim she was not enough for him.

Tiberias "Cal" Calore VII I don't have much to say about. I don't hate him. I just felt he had a right to be added to the list. I think he's okay, and he's trying his best to be a good person despite what he grew up around. I don't like that he ignored the signs he saw from Maven and Elara's relationship, but he was just the prince and a kid for most of it, and at least he never gave up on Maven.

Tiberias Calore VI we didn't see much of but I have no love for him. He was depicted as a drunk and neglective father who was to caught up in the loss of Coriane to really pay attention to either of his sons and obviously favored Cal the son of his late wife. I do think he loved Maven he just didn't know how to be a father to someone that wasn't Coriane's son.

Elara Merandus is a bitch and I hate her. She was mentally abusive and hurtful to Maven from a young age. She manipulated his views of his family members and made him dependent on her and deserved her death. I don't have anything else to say on her.

None of this makes anything Maven did right or any less his fault. I'm just saying at all of these character except Cal and sometimes Mare want to throw all the blame on Maven. It's not just his fault- someone should have done something to help him before it got out of hand. This was all a rant I had to my friend and just felt like letting the internet know about. Remember these are OPINIONS- so it's cool to disagree but be respectful and know I didn't see the book the same way you did.

[francesderwent]

Pls help I finally got a new library card and I'm drunk with power and the need for more books except I have no idea what to read next after finishing The Queen's Thief. *hands out like Oliver Twist* pls, miss, can I have some book recs??

AHHHHHHHH I am ALWAYS so excited to talk about books!

So first of all, my condolences. You have so many amazing books ahead of you in life—we all do, God willing!—but nothing will ever be the Queen’s Thief again!! And that’s a moment I think we need to acknowledge.

With the one data point of the Queen’s Thief, there’s not very many obvious places to go, since there's nothin' else like it!! So basically what I’m going to give you is Cate’s Greatest And Most Approachable Hits. Some of the stuff I love is weird, and I recognize not everybody is going to care for it! But the stuff on this list, I would pretty much recommend to any and everybody!!! You might not like it, but hopefully you won’t think I’m crazy for recommending it lol.

[One asterisk has references to adult content, two asterisks has some skippable sex scenes on page.]

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison.* This is the one and only book I recommend in relation to the Queen’s Thief, specifically if you really liked King of Attolia. The Goblin Emperor is about a forgotten and exiled distant royal who unexpectedly inherits the throne. There are so many characters and so many names and everybody uses the formal “we”, so it’s not a quick or easy read, but this book is about love discovered where you least expect it and man oh man it makes me cry.  

I’m going to make my own weirdo transitions based on perceived similarity like a very drawn-out version of the "I've connected the dots--I've connected them!" meme. And from The Goblin Emperor and its unloved monarch, I’m going to move to:

The Hero & the Crown and The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley.* These are the only Robin McKinley books I’m putting on the list, because they’re just the best ones, and because Aerin is my heart. The Blue Sword was written first, but The Hero and the Crown is a prequel, so you can read whichever one first. The Blue Sword is about a young woman who moves to an outpost of a barbaric land of horsemen tribes and then is kidnapped by a barbarian king. It’s about the meaning of home. The Hero and the Crown is about an extraneous princess who tries to carve out a place for herself in the country that hates her by taking care of pests, i.e., small dragons. It’s about service. They’re both so, so good.

From extraneous princess I’m taking us to:

The Two Princesses of Bamarre and Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine. You may have read them as a kid, but I’m here to tell you, they hold up!! Two Princesses is about one adventurous sister and one timid sister, but when the adventurous one falls ill, the timid one has to go on a quest to find the cure. Ella Enchanted is a Cinderella retelling, but Ella was cursed at birth to always be obedient. It’s one of the best fairytale romances there is! If you’ve seen the movie, forget it! Nothing alike! The book has a heart!

From retelling to retelling:

Princess of the Midnight Ball and Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, by Jessica Day George. These are more recent than Levine’s retellings, but they were an instant classic for me! Princess is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, told from the perspective of the oldest daughter and the under-gardener. It is so sweet and so romantic. Sun and Moon is an East of the Sun, West of the Moon retelling, it’s kind of a wacky fairytale but she totally makes it work. I love George’s depiction of sibling relationships in both of these books!

From retelling to retelling to retelling:

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik.* This book follows three women: one a Jewish moneylender resolutely freezing her heart to drag her family out of poverty, one an eldest sister trying to survive her father’s plans and her mother’s fate, and one an unattractive noblewoman whose father wants to marry her off to the czar. It’s a Rumpelstiltskin story. It’s a faerie story. It’s perfect.

And one more retelling because I love them:

The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale. It’s kind of The gold-standard fairytale retelling for me?? All the elements of the original are there, and there’s some exciting twists, but it all hangs together. It’s just a good novel.

I'm gonna transition to another Shannon Hale novel:

Austenland, Shannon Hale. You may have seen the film, and I like the film! But the book is better. It’s about a woman who’s had a string of unsuccessful relationships and keeps running back into the arms of one Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. She has the opportunity to attend an immersive regency experience, with costumes and actors as the Austen-esque heros and rules about who goes into dinner when. Will this last hurrah get the fantasy out of her system? What does reality have in store for her?

From Austen we’re gonna move to Heyer:

The Grand Sophy, by Georgette Heyer. Georgette Heyer is The regency romance author, and I think The Grand Sophy is probably the best starter book. I don’t think Heyer is dumb, and I don’t think Austen isn’t funny, so I’d say Heyer is Austen plus shenanigans. Sophy moves in with a family whose lives are all run by the relentlessly practical eldest brother. Sophy doesn’t take direction.

From regency romance to regency fantasy:

Mairelon the Magician, by Patricia C. Wrede. I don’t think you can go wrong with Wrede, but this book and its sequel are probably my favorite of hers. Street urchin Kim is hired to rob a performing magician, but it turns out he’s actually a magician, and he takes Kim along to help him unravel a plot. I’m a massive sucker for “regency England but with stuffy wizards” and Wrede just does it best!!  

From Mairelon I’m moving to Wimsey, which makes perfect sense to me but might not make sense to anyone else:

Clouds of Witness, by Dorothy Sayers. This is the second book in the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, but I think I would recommend starting here. A murder takes place in the Wimsey family home and Lord Peter has to bring his disreputable talent for detecting home. Wimsey is hilarious, and also if you read enough of his books you will fall in love with him a little, but the Wimsey mysteries are all also just really good mysteries!

Classic detective to classic detective:

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, by Laurie King. Young orphan Mary Russell happens across a retired Sherlock Holmes and thus begins a lifelong partnership. This book is lovely, meandering through small stories of childhood and little cases to something more dramatic at the end. It’s about finding a kindred spirit and coming of age.

The transitions have been fun but at this point they are getting Difficult. Let’s transition from a book about a young girl to another book about several young girls:

The Penderwicks series, by Jeanne Birdsall. I think you’ve read these already, but I would hate to leave them off, since this list is my gift to posterity! The Penderwicks is how Little Women felt when I was a kid! Sisters who love each other! Mischief! A Very Interesting Boy! I love the way Birdsall writes children so much—it makes me remember what it felt like to look at the world like that, and it heals something in me, it really does!

I can make this work! Batty is an animal lover, so we’re gonna transition to:

Protector of the Small series, by Tamora Pierce.* This is the third of three quartets set in the same universe, and previous characters will definitely show up, but these ones are both the best written by far and also the ones where Pierce’s second-wave feminism gets in the way the least. If you like these I fully support going back and reading Song of the Lioness as a prequel! First Test is about Keladry of Mindelan, the young daughter of diplomats who’s the first girl to openly be trained as a knight, after her heroine Alanna made it by pretending to be a boy for years. Kel is a no-nonsense kind of person, and a brilliant tactical thinker, but she also has a heart for the helpless—she befriends the sparrows at her window and hates bullies and protects servants. She’s a fantastic heroine.

The last book in Protector of the Small and the last book in the next series are *handshake emoji* but I can’t tell you why, sooo

Scholomance trilogy, by Naomi Novik.** Nobody will shut up about these books, including me, and there is a reason why!! They’re astounding! Galadriel Higgins is a student at the Scholomance, a death trap of a magic school that wizards send their children to because it’s at least better than being constantly in danger in the outside world. El has made her peace with the competition of life—not everyone is going to make it, you can only look after yourself—but then she has one too many run-ins with the school’s shining hero, Orion Lake. She has a real talent for death and mass destruction and alienating people; he has a real talent for killing monsters and forgetting people’s names. Magic demands balance, after all…doesn’t it?

From here I’ve got no choice but to go to:

Folk of the Air trilogy, by Holly Black.** Spiritual sisters with the Scholomance books: why? Because I said so. These books are a fairytale about love and power, and they’re absolutely modern but totally true. Jude’s parents were killed by a Fae when she was a small child, and her parents’ murderer brought her and her sisters back to court with him and raised them as his own as a matter of honor. She’s a human where humans are playthings and servants, the only home she’s ever known is full of dangers for her, but Jude is determined to prove her worth. If she can’t be as good as them—she’ll be so much worse.

Folk of the Air seems like it’s making fun of notions of goodness and true love and then quietly subverts our expectations by making them more true than even we thought, which brings us to:

Discworld, particularly Guards! Guards!, by Terry Pratchett.* Guards! Guards! is dedicated to the members of the palace guard who appear in one scene in every adventure to run at the hero one by one and then be cut down. I’m really struggling to describe it. It’s about a tiny group of cynical, jaded guardsmen who have given up on their city, until two things happen: a young, hopeful new recruit joins the ranks and doesn’t know yet why laws are flimsy things to be swept under the rug. And a dragon attacks. You can famously start Discworld anywhere, but I’d start here.

And finally, last because it’s unsortable:The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater. I can’t in good conscience recommend the Raven Cycle because it’s so unsatisfying and also it will ruin your life, but the girlies deserve a little Stiefvater, as a treat!! And Scorpio Races is the only book of hers I’ve ever read that has an ending that seems fitting. Puck lives on a small island famous for one thing only: in November, bloodthirsty horse-like things come out of the water. And islanders capture them, and train them, and race them—even if it kills them.

[michellemisfit]

Hey hey ✨ today I’m thinking about prison boyfriends I&M… do you have any headcanons about their time in prison?

Hi lovely! 🌸

I was thrilled to see this and I apologise for being late in answering you.

Life has been… a lot.

Which is actually a big part of my headcanon when it comes to Ian and Mickey in prison, so that works out nicely.

Firstly though, A) a wildly popular TV show shouldn’t glorify prison and depict it as funny and super chill or whatever else they may be aiming for; and B) I understand why the show chose to launch us into the ‘bickering roommates’ part of their relationship, and why they gave Ian an early release, and soon after that Mickey, to get them back on the show proper.

((I do NOT understand why we didn’t get to see - or if we had no time to film it then at least mention - the Gallaghers visiting them in prison. Yes, them. Both of them. Because they would! And sure, Mickey got out pretty quick after Ian got early release, but would it have killed them to give us even just one prison visit?? Urgh!!! Grrr!!! But I digress…))

So, bearing in mind the above caveats… every time Mickey and Ian found the tiniest shred of peace and quiet in their lives something came down on them like a ton of bricks. Mickey’s internalised homophobia, Juvie, Frank, Juvie again, Terry, Mickey’s Wedding, Ian’s Mental Health, Sammie, Monica… Life has been a lot.

The scene in which Ian asks Terry for prison advice, odd as it may be, seems fairly on point to me. It’s the boredom that will kill you. The day to day sets in. You read books. You lift weights. You have sex. But you’re in the same place with the same people doing the same stuff every second of every hour of every day of every year… and this is pretty much where we find our boys in season 10, and as I said above, I get it.

But before then? Still riding high on the reunion and the relief it brought? When all they had was each other and an endless stretch of time to fill? While going through a regimented daily routine? Not having to deal with the endless curveballs life throws at you every five seconds? When they knew pretty much exactly what was expected of them? When to get up, when to eat breakfast, when to start work, when to stop work, when to go outside, when to return to their cell…

I don’t want to glorify it. But I do believe when your life is as chaotic as theirs has always been, an enforced structure may not be the worst thing to ever happen to you. At least at first. And when you love each other as much as they love each other, staring at the time ahead of you just stretching onwards and onwards… may not be the most daunting thing. And when you’ve been through as much shit together as they have, going through all of it again, but in a controlled environment? Well, that may be a lot easier than what you’ve dealt with before.

I’m not saying it was all sunshine and roses. But what can prison throw at them that real life hasn’t already thrown at them, and worse? Yes, Ian’s going to have to adjust to new medication and deal with highs and lows, but they’ve done that before, except this time they’re forced together with nowhere to run, and they’re going to have to deal with it, for better or worse. Yes, Mickey’s going to have to voice his hurt and frustration and anger (Will you? Wait? / You never fucking visited me. / You ever think about me, when I was in the joint?), except this time they’re not running. They’re not trying to stay positive and act like everything is fine on their wild adventure. They’re going to have to deal with it, for better or worse. It’s not going to come easy at first and it will take time. But hey, they’re stuck. Together. They have nothing but time…

That’s it really. Them. Filling that time. Talking. Being together. Fighting. Crying. Growing. Learning and understanding each other, in a different way than before. Getting closer.

The problem with a TV show drama is that it cannot show you all the quiet moments in people’s lives, because where’s the drama in that? Which is how we end up with all of the Filler Fic being written for all the moments in between. The silliness and the laughter. The frustration and the tears. The thoroughly mundane. The nights where nothing really happens, But everything goes down… that’s my headcanon.

[marsbotz]

hello I keep seeing u talk ab loving skybound but I'm curious as to why u love it, and would LOVE to read a super in-depth explanation bc im kinda a skybound notliker and ik uve changed my mind on certain thigns ab this show b4, and I was hoping u cld do it again !!! :DDD /gen

YEAH. OKAY !!! sorry this is super long and rambly i already had to rewrite it once cus tumblr ate it lol... and also sorry its all basically abt jay (running away embarrassed)

first of all let me say i do think skybound is a BAD season. having the characters suddenly all be sexist out of nowhere to drive plot is stupidddd and so is having a retcon ending that makes it all redundant except for Jaya Canon Now. i think thats mostly what makes the fandom not like it. BUT. i think its sooo interesting for like so many reasons also

i think s8 is considered the darkest season which is fair. but skybound also has a crazyyy amount of dark and DEEPLY interesting things it touches on. the ninja disappearing one by one. jays birth father being his favourite actor. jay torture. jaya actually being interesting!! lets talk abt these.

having the ninja slowly be cut out of the season is GREAT for not only building tension but also being able to more deeply build upon jay and nyas characters (and their relationship). the 22 min format means that some characters (like wu and kai) are gone for AGES. which is sad for kai fans but greatttt for the season. it rlly makes u feel their absence, and some of their disappearances are scary!! zane trying to outsmart nadakhan but realising too late hes been tricked... AHH!!!

if you compare this to how they did it in s12 its a lot more impactful as theres more time for the characters to... be gone. and the videogame nature rlly does take away a lot of the tension IMO. if jays mothers had been in prime empire like planned.... it would have been a GREAT parallel i think but as it is its just kind of odd. thats another convo tho lol (altho there issss the mention of jay being adopted at the end. very interesting [it goes nowhere])

i literally think abt jay adoption arc every god damn day of my life. ill try to explain this without getting too deep into my personal sicko hcs lol. first you get a rlly nice callback to s1 w jay being ashamed of his parents and living in a junkyard only to realise how litte he cares once theyre threatened. thennn you have the whole situation at cliffs house. jay finds out the man who abandoned him at birth (possibly? we dont know details) is the actor for fritz donnegan. the same character who jay imitated and aspired to be like. and then he realises his father felt the same admiration towards jay!! and they both never knew!!!

i think this twist is what makes a lot of jays behaviour in s6.... not excusable... but understandable. jay is shown to be insecure and have weird fucking ways of coping with this (lying. lying lying all the time) and so it kinda feels natural that his way of coping with this information would be to 1. hide the fact he made wishes 2. try to imitate his father through his book and 3. Never Speak Of This Again.

speaking of that lets talk about jay being tortured. can we talk about that?? they FUCKED him up. but the most important part out of allll of it is a character trait i rarely see ppl attribute to jay even though its like... pretty consistent for him. is his willpower!! hes able to endure days of torture to the point where he can barely walk and talk at the end of it just to stop nadakhan from gaining more power

nadakhan also directly points out jays insecurities and how they make him lie to his friends... and jays able to show some of his smarts thru trying to get flintlocke to stage a mutiny! honestly the whole episode is so damn interesting it makes me SEETHE its not more talked abt LOL

i wont get into my insanely complex jaya opinions rn but i will say s6 has one of the most interesting depictions of the ship to me. nya being reluctant to date jay due to being seen simply as his girlfriend is soooo interesting and fits well w her arc of not wanting to give up her own deal w sam x to become a ninja. its just a shame they had to retroactively make everyone misogynistic to do so lolol... and the ending w jays wish Potentially forcing them together is soooo odd and kinda goes what the rest of the season was setting up for them. THIS IS MAINLY why i think ppl hate this season. cus it sets up SOOO much cool stuff and then drops it all last second

i think the things that could have saved skybound from being so hated would be

1. do the same plotpoints w nya but dont drag the ninja AND DARETH into it ..... make them supportive of her!

2. makes jays final wish have some FUCKING consequence! you could do a LOT with how he worded it to twist it badly (im a nadakhan return truther for life)

3. not dropping every single intersting character trait ever. and also not dropping the GOD DAMN ADOPTION ARCCCCCC and also not revealing jay to be so crushingly insecure he physically cannot stop himself from lying to ppl and putting on a happy mask and then turn him into a one note comic relief character. [becoming a soulless husk]

LOL i realise this sounds now like i hate skybound I DONT i just think its very flawed. BUT thats whyyyy i love it... because its so interesting! its flawed in a way like "there is soooo much i cld do w this" and not like "i dont care about any of this its so bad". w ninjago my fav parts have always been the weird icky edgy parts that are almost too much for what it is... which is a childrens lego show. ik they cld never have done most of the interesting stuff i imagine coming out of skybound and thats ok! bc i get to think abt it evilly.

heres some assorted things i love and think are fun in skybound

kai and zane banter at the repo yard

ronin capturing the ninja!! specifically him shutting down zane from the inside is super scary and cool

NINJA IN PRISON!!!!! i almost threw up when they went to jail in crystallised its so fuckign fun. SKYBOUND 2!!!

zane playing chess against nadakahn. another scary zane moment

jay trusting only cole w the truth abt his wishes (HELL YES BROTHER)

clanceeeeee <3 him being like one sided friends w jay and standing up to nadakhan at the end of it all... wahhh

NINJA REPLACEMENTS. so fucking funny i love jay and his assortment of old guys And Skylor

everytime i watch it i cant stop thinking of this ytp and it makes me cry. its not even that funny i just have watched it like 50 times

its dungeon media. this is smth i made up and only i know abt . dont worry abt it but its true

ok my brain is mush HOPE THIS MAKES. some sort of sense . bascially trying to condense 6 years of Thoughts into coherent analysis is impossible for me LOL

[girl4music]

NICOLE: “Waverly! Waverly!”

*groaning in pain*

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “Go home, Nicole Haught. This is none of your concern.”

NICOLE: “None of my concern? You're gonna be my wife.”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “The gate must close, once and for all. And I must be the one to do it.”

NICOLE: “I got left behind before, and I'm not doing that again. Where you go, I go, remember?”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “The Garden is not for your kind. Human.”

NICOLE: “No.”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “I am the Guardian. I am the fail-safe. I must protect the Ghost River Triangle.”

NICOLE: “What about Wynonna?”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “The Champion. The only one who can wield the sword. But she has served enough.”

NICOLE: “Okay, okay, let’s figure this out. I am the Sheriff of Purgatory. Let me extend my watch over all the Ghost River Triangle, in every realm. Let me be the Guardian for all of us, supernatural and human.”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “You’d sacrifice your life to become the Shield?”

NICOLE: “Every day until the end of eternity if it meant keeping you safe.”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “Well, I have already broken the rules once… for John Henry Holliday.”

NICOLE: “Yeah, see? It feels kind of good now and then, right? So what’s one more? Look in the book. Your story is my story.”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “The book was ill begotten. It belongs to the Garden, as do I.”

NICOLE: “Please, just look.

*Dark Angel Waverly looks in the book and gasps*

Am I in there? Are we?”

DARK ANGEL WAVERLY: “It would be a steep price to pay. You’d be bound to the Ghost River Triangle. You could never leave.”

NICOLE: “Everything I love is already here.

*Nicole gets zapped*

I swear to be bound to the Ghost River Triangle for all of my days. I swear to be patient and just, for there is no other way. I swear my life to protecting the Ghost River Triangle. I am the Angel’s Shield.”

*Nicole gets zapped away and falls hard to the ground. Dark Angel Waverly transforms into Waverly and throws the book into the gate to the Garden*

WAVERLY: “NICOLE!

*rushes to her*

Nicole! Baby. Nicole. Come on, Nicole, please. Hey.

*Waverly kisses her. Nicole awakens to kiss her back. Suddenly feels a searing pain in the back of her neck*

What’s wrong?

*checks her neck and sees the mark of the Angel’s Shield branded on her skin like an unhealed tattoo*

Oh, sweetheart. You sacrificed yourself for me.”

NICOLE: “Don’t oversell it, baby. I only committed to a permanent staycation with my girl.”

*they kiss*

I am literally bawling my eyes out right now. That was so beautiful and powerful and just exceptional writing. I don’t even know what to say to express myself but I know one thing’s for sure… This is the greatest WLW relationship that I have seen since Xena and Gabrielle. The declarations of love were just as strong and substantial. The chemistry was off the fucking charts. The emotional connection was really significant. And because Xena and Gabrielle weren’t allowed to be physically intimate - I dare to say that this would be what I would see between them if they were. Because I have never seen any other two actresses depict such a strong, realistic and raw dynamic between them since. But I guess I can’t truly say that anymore because DomKat are really something special.

This was a really beautiful moment between them. I’d take emotional intimacy any day over sexual intimacy. But it’s certainly an achievement that they have both because Xena and Gabrielle didn’t and couldn’t have it even though you could feel the passion between them. Therefore knew that it was right for them to be lovers.

And I never ever want to see Dark Angel Waverly again. She was fucking terrifying as a celestial being. And it wasn’t like Dark Willow. It wasn’t born out of grief or loss or death (thank god) but it was disturbing. This… thing… had absolutely no empathy in her/it. All she/it cared about was her/its responsibility to Guard. But yeah, fuck destiny if the humanity is destroyed. For the greater good or for the greater evil. Fuck off. Dark Willow might have been a villain but least you could still tell that it was Willow under that costume. Someone that could be reached because there was still humanity in her. Still somebody that felt emotion. With Dark Angel Waverly it was like Waverly’s entire personality had been wiped over. All we love about her. It actually took Nicole sacrificing herself to bring her back. To make her get off those stairs and care again.

I suppose that is the price you pay for being an angel and an angel’s lover. Where Waverly goes, Nicole goes.

I am so glad that I decided to take a chance on this show. I have found WLW representation worth my time and attention. And now my undying support.

Consider me part of the WayHaught shipper fandom from this point onwards and WayHaught an additional OTP along with Xabrielle, Tillow and Calliette. And if you know anymore supernatural genre shows with significant WLW representation in them where they last for the whole or a majority of the show - tell me. I don’t mind if it’s not maintext. Subtext is more my thing anyway. But if it’s subtext - no queerbaiting! Don’t recommend non-canon ships like the overrated SuperCorp or SwanQueen. I am really not interested!

Until then, I will consume as much WayHaught and DomKat official media or fan creations as possible.

Please excuse me. I now have a wedding to watch.