#miss me with the 'cinder is not asian' shit

[diejager]

Hi! I got the notification that your requests are open skjsjsjs so exciting, can you do something about the noodle dragon with Monster!Task Force 141 please? That would be all, thank you and have a nice day! ❤️✨

Cw: canon-typical violence, weird water magic, weird dragon/monster shit and lore, death, crash, tell me if I missed any.

They’d gotten used to you over the month, watching you prance around them like a graceful panther in hunt, stalking around them with that cheeky smile of yours and a clawed hand always ready to patch someone up. You were a might dragon, a warm to some classifications and an Asian one to others, but the consensus was that you weren’t one to be trifled with —as most dragons were, but if anything, you were so a feline in a body of a dragon than the ferocious monster you were. Always prowling and on guard, watchful and observant, aware of the events transpiring around you like a protective cat.

They took well to you, forgoing the paranoia and apprehension at your eagerness to help them and you openness, your long tail, hard scales protecting the thick cords of sinewy muscles curled ever so softly around them, and the tuff of fur tickling any naked piece of skin. And however tender and soft-hearted you were, they’d seen the dangerous part of you, the draconic one with a strange affinity to water rather than the destructive fire they were so familiar with. Whereas Price was a chaotic force, burning everything on his path and leaving nothing but cinder and ash, you were an unmoving force of water, a typhoon and cyclone that would crash the land and leave broken pieces of what remained, cold and drowned —the calm before the storm as people said, a perfect imagery of you.

Yet there was a lingering suspicion that it was all, that there was a more monstrous part of you hidden away from their eyes. Horangi had shared such thoughts - another mythical creature of sacredness and nobility - and showed them what hehad heard of eastern dragons: giant snake-like creatures with the faces of lions and crowns of graceful antlers, born with lustrous manes and hard but flexible scales that let them dance and twirl as they wished it. Destructive beauty, Horangihad mumbled, a creature who’s image is drawn to represent beauty and nobility. 

They knew, they were fully aware, that you had more to show, yet they couldn’t hold back the awe and amazement that followed the gut-deep fear and worry after they saw you fall, your figure shrinking as you plummeted into the dark and silent ocean, gone into the wide, open sea. Rather than seeing your head pop out, gasping for air while they clung to their straps and helicopter, Nikolai screaming through the comma about holding onto something, swirling left and right to avoid being hit a second time by the war ship, it was calm, a smooth plain growing in darkness, a shape forming beneath the veil of a blue ocean. 

Then, before they knew it, a majestic serpent erupted from the sea, wet scales gleaming under the sun while you rose into the sky in a spiral, white fur floating like you hadn’t just come out of water. You were swift, curling in the air, your magicworking it’s wonder when you flew, stubby arms and legs moving as if you were swimming, looping around them to shield them from being narrowly hit. It was as Horangi gushed, water rose and fell with you, tendrils of salty water reaching out to curl around you, rising high to swarm the enemy ship the same way you did, circling around it until it was left submerged, swallowed up by your hydromancy. You had drowned warship in the depth of the abyss, a dark and cold pit that promised a lonely death, forgotten and painful. You had caused the deaths of hundreds with a twirling dance, an alluring, yet deadly show, like an oleander.

You made no show of joining them in the aircraft, keeping your distance from them, adequate enough to protect them from further damage without becoming a danger to them. They - especially Price, since he had never seen an eastern dragon, only from files and catalogues - gawked, gazing at your head-sized eye, blinking owlishly at them with a narrowed eyes, slitted pupil gleaming with glee at their admiration. You purred, a growling rumble that shook your gills, a deep sound shuddering through them like thunder, low and booming, but it was a happy sound, meant to comfort them from the near sinking that you’d saved them from.

Even in this situation, where they’d been saved by you, you were still trying to comfort them and reassure them despite having taken a hit or two. They were glad Laswell found you.

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird-kamakse @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @angelcakes-22 @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @mul-pi @danielle143 @beau-min @makayla-666 @urfavsunkissedleo @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @luvecarson @petwifed @randominstake @heartelysia @jggykhug09090 @hayleybarnesx @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @call-me-nyxx @sans-chara @cod-z @sweetnanah @aldis-nuts @thigh-o-saur @evolutionarry @kaoyamamegami @cassiecasluciluce @sobbingnshtting

[escape-from-arcadia]

Oooooohhh! 21 for the TOA AU thingy!

Tales of Arcadia Lunar Chronicles!AU

Book 21: Cinder by Marissa Meyer (#1 in The Lunar Chronicles)

Ohohohoho.

Ohohohohohohohoho.

Ohohohohohohohohohohohohoho!

You have no idea how excited I am for this one. I mean, technically, book 21 is Gathering Blue, but I just made a post about The Giver, so...shh. Let's just keep that secret between you and me...and all the other people reading this post...

We're rolling with the girl power here folks.

If you've never read the Lunar Chronicles, they're basically these books set in a futuristic sci-fi world and the main characters of the books are mirrored after fairytales. So Linh Cinder is a cyborg Cinderella (and she's also a cool mechanic!), Scarlet Benoit (hehe, Benoit!) is a badass Red Riding Hood, Cress is a hacker Rapunzel living in a satellite, and Winter is a rebellion leader princess Snow White. There's also Levana the "Evil Queen" with such an interesting and sad backstory like holy shit-

There's a society on the moon (and the people there have powers) and life on Earth is whack because of this deadly and mysterious disease that is spreading everywhere. Only the moon seems to have the resources for helping fight against it.

Gods I remember being obsessed with this series in middle school.

So let's get started.

I either put Mary into the place of Cinder or I put Zoe in. Zoe fits in really well with the personality/skills, but Cinder is canonically Asian and white-washing is big enough of a problem in this fandom. Plus, I want more badass Mary content here in the fandom. You saw that girl in 3Below; not only is she a social media powerhouse, she also knows how to swing a bat. So Mary takes the place of Cinder. (Plus, I think Zoe could do well as another main character in the Lunar Chronicles...)

I don't want to dive too deeply into spoiler territory, so I'll just say, Mary doesn't have her left hand and leg, and is a cyborg.

She loves technology and connecting with others (even getting to dress up pretty), but in order to make her own money, she runs a mechanic shop. This is also to "repay her debt" to her stepmother, who blames Mary for the death of her husband.

Mary constantly tries to cover herself up in decently clothing or robot grease to bring the least amount of attention to herself.

I really don't want to dive too deeply into spoiler territory, but let's just say Mary is not what she seems (even she doesn't know it).

She falls in love with the Prince of the Eastern Commonwealth, currently unnamed because what is life.

It is really hard to make this AU.

For the other female leads in the series:

Claire as Scarlet Benoit, searching for her missing grandmother and encountering the street fighter, the Wolf(?). I'd call Jim the Hunter, but that sort of ruins the fairytale...Maybe I'll call him the Troll? Oh, but that has poor connotations...

Zoe as Cress, living a lonely life in a satellite as an expert hacker.

Darci as Winter. Honestly, I see her as being a strong leader. (And her romance with Toby? A secret romance between the guard and the princes :')).

Morgana as Queen Levana. Holy shit, I loved her story Fairest.

I know that if we really wanted to play more into the TOA lore, Zoe may just be a better fit for Cinder and Claire even for Winter, but as above, I ain't about to whitewash or racebend characters. Besides, I think Mary and Darci need more time in the limelight.

If you send me an ask with a number between 1-36, I'll respond with a TOA AU based on the corresponding book on my shelf.

[deanpinterester]

some linh cinder fan casts for your consideration

liza soberano (19) (filipina-american)

bridget hollitt (19) (chinese-australian)

lana condor (20) (vietnamese-american)

courtney eaton (21) (english-chinese-māori-cook islander)

marline yan (24) (cambodian-vietnamese-chinese-thai-indian)

naomi scott (24) (gujarati indian-british)

sydney park (19) (african-korean-american)

paris berelc (18) (french-canadian-filipino-european)

[princessselene126]

Why I love Linh Cinder

Okay so an anon asked me what I liked about Cinder on my Kai account and I didn’t realize it was on that account, so I wrote this whole thing out about how much I love cinder (in addition to responding as Kai on that account). I didn’t want it to go to waste, so here are all he things I love about Cinder. Literally essay length. This is like… 2 pages single spaced on a google doc.

Let’s start with the external stuff--what I’m happy that MM did with her physically. 

I am so unbelievably happy that we got an asian female lead, like… i can’t even begin to express how happy that makes me. There are so few asian people in media, nonetheless women. And on top of that she’s a tanned asian? She’s not pale like the majority of asians that are in media tend to be. So that really makes me happy.

On top of that she’s a physically disabled, dark-skinned, asian female lead. Like… she’s missing limbs. Yeah, she has cybernetics so she can function better, but they’re just higher tech prosthetics. They hurt sometimes--she’s canonically gotten phantom pains--she has bad dreams about how she lost her limbs, etc etc.

Now we can start getting into her character traits and abilities

For starters, she’s not your typical YA Mary Sue. She’s introduced as a literal mechanic--which these days is a male dominated profession--and not just any mechanic, but the best mechanic in a city of millions. Most female leads in fiction these days are either badass crime fighters (Tris from Divergent) or your “normal” boy-crazed teenage loners (Bella Swan from Twilight). 

Cinder is so much better because she’s in the selfless revolutionary teenager trope with people like Katniss Everdeen. Cinder was thrown into a role that she didn’t want, but still took it in stride. Did she want to quit and run away? Absolutely. She was going to at the end of Cinder, but she ended up going to the ball instead to warn Kai that Levana was planning on killing him. She didn’t have to do that. She could have saved herself and run away to Europe with Iko like she wanted to for years. But instead she decided right then and there that warning him, potentially saving the earth from a tyrannical queen, was far more important than herself.

Up until the end of Cress, Cinder actively tries not to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary. Even then her killing Sybil wasn’t on purpose. She only wanted to break Sybil’s mind. In doing so, Sybil ended up jumping off the roof. Cinder always wanted to keep innocent civilians out of the way. She was completely devastated when she found out everyone in Farafrah was massacred. She was devastated and she was angry, and that was a huge turning point for her. It wasn’t about getting revenge, but justice. She needed to take Levana down to stop people from getting killed--whether from normal soldiers, wolf mutants, or mind control by thaumaturges--and to make sure that those who did die didn’t die in vain. She wanted their deaths to mean something.

On top of all her selflessness, Cinder is incredibly smart, and not just because she has a computer in her brain. Having the ability to access the internet whenever you need information is obviously handy, but she’s smart enough, adaptable enough, self efficient enough to go without that after she nearly drowns in Artemisia Lake in Winter. Of course she’s frustrated that she doesn’t have access to things she usually does, but she makes due without it. She adapts, she overcomes, she’s obnoxiously persistent, which I’d argue are the most important things anyone can do. Being able to adapt to change and persist despite obstacles are probably the most important skills a person can have.

Okay, enough with the heavy. There’s a lot of little “unimportant” things about her character that I love too.

Her awkwardness is so endearing and relatable. She has absolutely no idea how to talk to Kai when they first meet. She stumbles over her words and tries to do a little bow, and it’s ridiculous, but so perfect at the same time. Even after meeting Kai (the prince and soon to be emperor) and knowing that he seems like an easygoing person, she still doesn’t know how to talk with him, or interact with him, or do anything around him really. She’s normally decently put together (at least outwardly when it comes to her thoughts and feelings) but around Kai that all goes out the window. Of course she still has her guard up around him, but the wall keeping her awkwardness away has been completely torn down. And it continues to stay that way.

Her sarcasm!!!! Like, I just love that. I first read Cinder when I was 12, so I’m not sure if I became sarcastic because of her, or if I loved that about her because I already had a very sarcastic sense of humor. Either way, Cinder’s sarcasm is peak. I especially love when she and Kai are sarcastic shits together, that makes my otp heart skip a beat.

I love how she develops friendships with people that she never expected to. Cinder is not used to having friends. For five years her friend circle was Iko and Peony. That was it. Then all of a sudden there’s this prince who likes talking to her, who thinks that her being a mechanic is not only cool, but attractive. Then there’s this asshole who started soap protests and is a thief on basically every continent that she finds when she’s breaking out of prison. She and Thorne end up breaking out together, and even though she’s usually annoyed by him, they become friends. And then they save Scarlet and Wolf in Paris, and they become her unlikely friends too. She doesn’t have much time with Scarlet before the redhead gets kidnapped, but she does have a lot of time with Wolf. Wolf who teaches her how to fight better and how to use her glamour better, and she finds that she likes talking with him because he understands the outcast thing. She’s very suspicious of Jacin at first, because, well, he’s a lunar guard. Even with their “I’m loyal to the princess” misunderstanding, he kinda grows on Cinder. Then they get this genius hacker girl who is so tiny Cinder could carry her like a sack of potatoes. Cress might be on the shy side, but Cinder is grateful for that because Thorne’s jokes are more than enough to fill the silence. And everyone who meets Winter loves her so like... how could Cinder not? I honestly wish they were all together more than just the end of Winter and in Something Old, Something New because seeing her interact with them all at once is wonderful.

A few other random iconic things I love about my fave space queen in no particular order:

High fiving Thorne at her coronation.

Always having some sort of stain on her clothes (gease, blood, frosting, you name it)

How little she cares about physical appearance in general

When she thought Kai was proposing at the end of Winter

Giving Adri the patents for the BSB despite how terrible she was to Cinder

Her lie detector

Giving her all to a country she didn’t even know

Staying up all night talking and cuddling and making out with Kai in SOSN

Shooting Wolf with a tranq dart

Desperately trying to save Peony, but giving the antidote to Chang Sunto when she couldn’t

Kidnapping Kai

Breaking out of prison (twice) and taking Thorne with her

Telling people she’s Princess Selene at the worst possible times