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Why Elend/Vin are the best couple of all the couples I've ever had the pleasure to read about or watch

Respect.

Yeah, it’s that simple. What they had in large amount and what many fictional couples lacking is mutual respect.

Vin has some problems in interpersonal relationships and especially with trusting people, but she overcomes that because she doesn’t just love Elend but also respects him. Elend also has problems with self-determination and with his place in life and society, but he admires and respects Vin so much that it causes him to reconsider his actions and beliefs. Each of them so sincerely desire to be worthy of another that they constantly challenge themselves to become better and that’s beautiful!

Don’t get it wrong, Vin doesn’t become stronger, bolder and abler FOR Elend nor does he MAKE her that way. No, Vin does that because she believes that the man she loves is a wonderful person and she wants to match him - Vin makes herself better because she has decided so, but the results of that improvements don’t serve Elend, they serve Vin herself in what she does. The same applies to Elend: Vin doesn’t change his personality, but Elend himself looks at her and sees an incredible woman who loves him without any apparent reason and he wants to be equal to her, worthy of her love. So Elend forces himself to grow up, to become a better and stronger man who deserves to be with Vin, at the same time turning into a man who is worthy to posess the title and power he received in advance.

Another wonderful part of their relationship is that none of them makes decisions for another, none of them does believe that his/her idea of ​​what is right is more important than what another wants, they trust each other infinitely and it always pays off.

If you want to see what a real-life love should be like read the Mistborn Trilogy, where the characters know how to do right things.

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Just finished my second read-through of Startsight last night and there are a few key passages jumping out at me right now. I’ve been mulling them over all day and have a few thoughts:

1. “I like flying […] Don’t mistake my meaning. At the same time, this is my home. I don’t want to escape it, I want to protect it.” - Jorgen, seconds before he begins to sense the taynix in the deep caverns (Starsight, p. 318)

2. “[…] those battleships are far enough away that they’d be able to move before our shots arrived. The planet, though, can’t move.” - Nydora, to Jorgen, as the Krell attempt to bombard Detritus (Starsight, p. 188)

3. “I got it from the Starsight information archive. There’s a great deal in here about Old Earth, from before it vanished - more than the fragmented databases your people have.” - M-Bot, to Spensa, the night after try-outs (Starsight, p. 174)

All of this has me thinking… maybe a planet can move? I think Jorgen and Spensa, with the help of the hundreds of taynix Jorgen found, are going to find a way to hyperjump the entire planet of Detritus.

Think about it. Now that Winzik’s coup has been successful, he is about to come down HARD on all of the human worlds, especially Detritus. He’s afraid of them, he still needs to prove his own military prowess, and he’s not sure that Spensa is the only human cytonic on Detritus (side note: she’s not, squeeeeeee!). Whatever the humans do, it needs to happen FAST, and tbh, I don’t think they have enough time to a) figure out exactly how to jump a ship with taynix hyperdrive, b) figure out how to navigate during such a jump, or c) build a ship or a fleet of ships that is capable of transporting all of humanity AND executing said hyperjump.

All of which makes it terribly convenient that Spensa just stepped into the nowhere, which is a place that seems to exist outside of linear time where she could potentially acquire a wealth of knowledge, including an overview of her own universe and the ability to navigate it with her cytonic senses. I’m not sure how long (how much of the next book) she will spend in the nowhere, or if she will help hyperjump Detritus before or after she returns to the physical world… but I am pretty sure that whenever she does return, or if she can somehow communicate with other cytonics (read: Jorgen and Gran-Gran) while she is in the nowhere, it will happen mere seconds in Detritus time after the point in time when she stepped into the nowhere. This will give the humans enough time to react to what’s happening in the Superiority. They still won’t have enough time to jump an entire fleet, but I think Spensa will have enough knowledge of her powers by this point to guide them through a planetary jump.

I think that something similar must have happened to Old Earth and that it is potentially still out there (Maybe Spensa will locate it in the next book?). The biggest clue we’ve been given is the fact that M-Bot chose the word “vanished” to describe what happened to Old Earth. Not destroyed. Not defeated. Vanished. Did the humans do something desperate to protect their home world when they realized that they were going to lose the war? Where did all of the kitsen shadow-walkers (cytonics) go when they left their home world? What happened to the figments who were once allied (and shared their advanced technology) with the humans? Did they know about the humans’ plans? Were they trying to help? Why did Captain Spears come to Detritus looking for taynix in the first place? He clearly already had one (I’m 99% sure Doomslug has been M-Bot’s taynix from the beginning. She’s very attached to him). Why did the humans need so many taynix if there’s already an unusually high proportion of cytonics within their population? We know that the effort involved in jumping the entire Defiant fleet of humans to Detritus by herself was enough to kill Spensa’s great-grandmother. But, I wonder if you could potentially share that load across hundreds or thousands of cytonics and be able to safely transport an entire planet across an extreme distance.

Remember that when Starsight ends very little time has passed since the delver incident. The secret of the taynix hyperdrives is still largely a secret (though hopefully it will spread fast). Spensa was able to stop the delver… but it was only one delver. We have no idea what the other delvers are thinking or doing right now or what they would do if Brade tried to summon them again.

Basically, what I’m saying is this: Now that Winzik has taken over the Superiority and he has the will, resources, and technology to threaten any planet he chooses with utter annihilation, those people (those planets) need a way to escape. Spensa’s trip into the nowhere is going to be incredible (I honestly cannot wait! We’re going to learn so much about Spensa, M-Bot, Doomslug, cytonics, delvers… ah!), but most importantly, she’s going to learn the key to ensuring her planet’s survival without having to abandon it. She’s going to learn how to move planets.

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WHERE IS THE LIE

Spensa: wait are you flirting with me?

Jorgen: I've dramatically declared my love for you twice in the last year, but thanks for finally noticing

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Me casually stalling in tumblr to ease my rAGiNg heart instead to continue reading Starsight BECAUSE PAGE SEVENTY HAPPENED. IT JUST FUCKING DID.

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p.s. I still love you: Thoughts

definitely not as good as the first one :( susan johnson I miss you

I feel like one of the main problems was peter & lj’s relationship - the only thing making me care about them was my attachment from the first movie but this movie didn’t really add much, they just put in a bunch of bits of them being cute as a couple (that admittedly were cute and enjoyable) but didn’t show my anything abt Peter’s personality or what she liked abt him. All we know is that they love each other. We don’t know what makes her choose him other than the fact that she loves him, but they don’t show why she loves him, or any real personality at all. What are his interests, outside of sports? What do they have in common? We never see them like talking about anything other than their relationship, and a lot of the time they could just be any random generic couple.

whereas with john ambrose we see them actually getting along and being friends and actually liking each other as people, and not just bf and gf. Like they talk, laugh, joke - if I didn’t watch the first movie and this was a stand alone film there would literally be no competition, ja would win instantly - which I guess is the point of the movie, her established love for peter vs the “what if?” of ja? but they still could’ve given us more of a reason for her to pick peter other than just telling us that she loves him. Like, e.g. ja is more similar to her and they have more in common but she loves peter despite their differences. This was sort of an underlying theme, but they didn’t show enough abt Peter to really make this work.

They really should have picked a central flaw in lj & peter’s relationship that ties into the ja plotline more. the whole “lj feeling insecure and inadequate as a gf” isn’t really resolved at all within their relationship and has nothing to do with the ja storyline so I think if their conflict had e.g. been more about they and their lives being too different whereas ja had more in common with her and seemed more compatible but she chooses peter anyway bc she loves what makes him different to her that would have made the conclusion a lot stronger. as it stands, while she and peter get back together and lj resolves a lot of issues personally, they don’t really resolve any issues within their relationship - do we see peter being like “I know gen relies on my a lot for emotional support and I didn’t want to hurt her but I know I can’t be that for her anymore and I need to prioritise you” or lj addressing the fact that she was borderline emotionally cheating w/ ja or anything like that? what tells me that they’re not gonna just keep having more and more problems once the movie ends?

SO MUCH NARRATION like I am pretty sure the first movie did NOT have as much narration as this, literally the whole movie was narrated and a lot of key developmental moments were narrated by lj when it would have been so much better to show her actually saying them to peter and having a discussion with him (e.g. the bit about her and peter’s connections with gen)

overall I just felt like the movie just had so much less heart than the first one - they barely showed lj interacting with her sisters, peter and kitty getting along, any of the little things that really made the first movie so good. instead we get the unecessary dad x neighbor plotline which literally adds nothing to the plot except unecessary scenes like Korean new year and fakesgiving which aren’t bad but literally are completely irrelevant to the overall plot and just took time away that could have been spent actually showing us peter and lj’s relationship. show them having a movie night with kitty like in the first movie! show them doing stuff together relevant to their interests!

some REALLY weird shots like the one of her lip syncing down the hallways or even worse THEM RISING AT THE END DURING THE KISS LIKE WHAT WAS THAT????? LITERALLY HATED EVERY SECOND OF THAT

anyway overall I don’t think it was terrible, I enjoyed watching it, but I think that was mainly because they threw in a lot of surface level cute scenes and moments that I enjoyed but then didn’t actually really understand or showcase the characters in the way the first movie did. it didn’t ruin the first movie for me like I was worried it would, but I most probably wouldn’t rewatch it

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Peter and Lara Jean in To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020)

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My mom and i watched the movie yesterday.

My mom hasn't read the books but that didn't stop her from calling Lara Jean "dumb" for choosing Peter over John

I have read the book and the fact she chose Peter didn't bother me as it did in the book. What im pissed about is they didn't include: many John Ambrose McClaren scenes. THE LETTERS LJ AND JOHN SEND TO EACH OTHER. His connection to Stormy. The snow globe HE gave to Lara Jean. Him driving LJ around when Peter was busy with his Ex. THE GAME,where LJ helps Chris and makes John help her. Him wearing a 40's suit and borrowing his father's vintage Car just to make HER happy. The Snow fight,which led to their first kiss. FOR GODS SAKES WHY THEY DIDN'T INCLUDING HIS HEARTBREAKING SPEECH

No, I'm not okay

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Peter Kavinsky + looking at Lara Jean when she’s looking away

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Ahh Starsight is finally here! 😍 Best way to finish the night

Brandon sanderson is my favourite author, 10/10 would recommend

What was the last series you read? Wheel of Time here

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I’m pretty sure this happened at some point in Wayward Son

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WAYWARD SON SPOILER WARNING.

“I don’t know if he’ll hear me over everything.” - Simon, Chapter 41, Wayward Son by @rainbowrowell

I’m so pleased to finally share this 4-spread sequential artwork inspired by Chapter 41 of Wayward Son. I kept words as sparse as possible to ensure I’m not infringing on the book’s copyright, but the words featured here were handlettered by the talented and generous @penpanoply. Thank you so much for lending your skills to this project, Jeska.

About the art:

I started sketching this scene almost immediately upon finishing the book, as the poetry of it had completely blown me away. In particular, I was moved by the subtext at work in this scene—that Simon and Baz’s relationship in WS on the whole had the same qualities as riding precariously in the back of a truck on a rough road, leaving them struggling to be heard over the noise, struggling to touch one another in a way that actually conveys what they intend. The ride is too rough, and the wind, too loud.

And yet, they find a way to embrace each other through it. The ride is such an effective metaphor for what it’s like to love someone through trauma, depression, and anxiety: the loss of what was once easy and natural between you and the one you love, in exchange for turbulence that requires so much more effort and care to navigate. It knocked the wind out of me to read it.

For the art, I’ve tried to hit milestones you’ll recognize. I’ve kept everything monochrome but the rear tail lights, which are in a bright fire-engine red, to underscore the anxiety that they’re muscling through in this scene. In the absence of narration, I’ve tried also to make their faces as true to the original as it’s within my skill to do, leaving some ambiguity in some of their expressions so that you can’t quite tell if they’re feeling pleasure or pain.

I did my best, and I hope it shows. To those who celebrate, Merry Christmas, and thank you, Rainbow, for painting the original version of this scene in such beautiful words.

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Deleted crooked kingdom scene 😭💔😭💔😭💔

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I think one of my favorite aspects of the Six of Crows duology is the fact that Kaz and Inej do not end up together.

And that’s not because I don’t ship them.

It’s because Inej, unlike so many YA heroines, isn’t what “heals” Kaz. Her love doesn’t magically fix him or make him a better person. He wants to change for her– he wants to get over his phobia of human touch. He wants her to love him. But it isn’t some overnight happening. He doesn’t suddenly overcome his affliction because of his love for her.

In the end, Kaz is still morally ambiguous, sometimes outright corrupt, and still has severe PTSD trauma.

And while Inej might love Kaz despite those things, she is not willing to lower her worth to accept them in a relationship. “I will have you without your armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.”

That was one of the most powerful YA heroine lines to her love interest that I’ve ever read. So many fictional girls (and real girls, for that matter) stay in the hopes of fixing a man, of healing his brokenness. Inej wants to heal him, but she understands that she cannot. Only Kaz can heal himself. Only he can want it enough to change. And it won’t be some overnight affair. Wanting to change and actually changing are two entirely different things. Kaz will have to go through agonizing changes if he ever wants to grow.

So far, he has accepted that he is the “demon of the barrel”. He still wants to burn the world down. He is still angry and hurting. He talks about wondering why over the years, with every violent turn his life takes, why his phobia has only gotten worse. It’s because he’s let himself rot in it. He’s stripped any and all goodness in the world down to the barest threads.

That’s why he is not ready for Inej. Inej, who might have her own issues and flaws, but who still has hope for a better world. Who is still willing to fight for it.

It’s not Kaz’s inability to touch her that she wants him to work on. It’s his mindset. His finality in the evil in his heart and his acceptance of it. He will never get over his phobia until he can understand goodness, the goodness of touch, the goodness of man.

And Inej will not accept him while he still holds on to that armor of hatred. And I think that is beautiful. It is healthy. It shows a level of self-respect that is often sadly absent from our fiction today.

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Kaz:I only care about the money

Also Kaz: let me liquidate all my assets to pay off her indenture I’m going to buy her a boat and find her parents and

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YoOoO eEarrLLL

My husband, holding our new-born child: Isn’t this the happiest moment of your life?

Me, thinking back to when Leigh Bardugo announced there would be a third SoC book: Uh yeah it’s definitely up there

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Kaz: I've been dropping subtle hints that I like her.

*walks over to Inej*

*Ignores Inej*

Kaz: That went pretty good

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little kanej things

- inej is the only person that kaz feels comfortable enough with to take his gloves off when she’s around,

- inej didn’t tell anyone that kaz fainted because she knew how embarrassed he would be, also she knew that he hates skin to skin contact so she never even talked about it,

- it was inej’s voice that helped kaz come back to consciousness,

- kaz said he would literally die to make inej smile that way

- the way kaz talks about inej’s laugh or smile in general is so important

- kaz tortured a guy who stabbed inej and then threw him over a side of the boat (what a charmer)

- also he thought that killing a guy who threatened to break inej’s legs would be a mercy to van eck so he came up with a whole plan as to how make van eck’s life miserable so he needs to suffer instead of just being dead (not really romantic but it’s kaz so cut him some slack the boy’s tryin’)

- “i would have come for you. and if i couldn’t walk, i’d crawl to you” i mean COME ON

- kaz said that he wants to be a better man for inej, he knew that he could become a decent boyfriend if only she would want him

- inej was the only person that could push kaz out of his comfort zone without making him feel like he was weak or like he needed to be someone entirely else just to please her

- hand holding, 

- kaz treating inej’s wounds and iconic neck kisses 

- kaz for the whole six of crows was like “i don’t care about inej, i care about the money” but in crooked kingdom he literally bought her a ship just because she said it’s her dream to have one so she could fight slavers

- also he found her parents and brought them to her so they could meet

- and last but not least, before meeting inej’s parents kaz, the Bastard of the Barrel, the king of thieves, the Dirtyhands, the biggest bad boy in Ketterdam, fixed his tie and asked inej “is my tie straight?” (what a badass, i can’t believe)