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Is it weird that I've been reading fanfiction about a character from a fandom I'm not apart of? I've literally been obsessing over this character for years and I've gone so far as having written my own short stories about them.

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A Very Belated Review of If We Were Villains

I read this book months ago so if the details are off forgive me.

The problem with this whole book I think comes from The Secret History. I'll admit I am a bit of a fan of TSH, but I will say that it is definitely not as amazing as people in the Dark Academia fandom make it to be. The thing about this book, that I'm glad most people over the age of 15 see, is that Tartt doesn't really like these chcarcters and we're not supposed to either. But, if you've fully bought into the aesthetic and image Tartt is satirising it becomes really hard to dislike these students. On a surface level Rio understands this principle but I think she’s tied her characters and identified them so heavily on the aesthetics of TSH.

People get very defensive when you say that IWWV was inspired by TSH but let's be honest here... I won't sit here a list every similarity but anyone whose read both has to admit the inspiration. Inspiration is not plagiarism and no one is accusing Rio of being a thief.

Rio buys so hard in to these characters that she literally cannot paint them (except Richard) as being anything but interesting, beautiful and charismatic. That's where the whole book falls apart, Rio cannot bring herself to make these characters unlikable, so the entire novel feels like she's revealing the bad things they've done followed immediately with an excuse about why it's not their fault. The only characters that doesn't get this treatment is the one that Rio wants us to see as the villain. How do you write a murder mystery and forget to add the bit about murder?

Fillipa was the most annoyingly useless character I've read in a long while. I think if you could remove a character completely and have no issues with the plot there's a problem, and this is an issue she shares with the other female characters. The egregious thing about this character is that she is the only female of colour (I think she was some type of South East Asian). I think a lot of people on the internet falsely attribute authors portraying racism in their work as them endorsing it. It's not racist to have a character who is asian be the one person in the group who doesn't get a sexy Shakespearean archetype, because that is unfortunately the reality for a lot of woc. The problem is when you don't correct or address that reality in any meaningful way. In the real world, Fillipa would have been assigned a spare role because she's asian, and in the real world that would have been painfully obvious for the other characters. In the real world, Alexander would have been assigned the villain because he was latino.

The novel started on a scene where the main character, Oliver was sitting around with the other students and mentally assigning them with their on stage archetypes. When he outlined how these roles are so heavily cemented in their group and how they tend to influence their relationships with one another, I was sure the central conflict would have come about after they were cast in unusual archetypes. That did happen to an extent in the halloween scene, but this shuffling didn't involve Fillipa or Alexander at all.

So you're telling me that this asian girl who never gets the desirable female role, and is often cast to play men, never gets her chance to be the main girl? None of the other characters see the discrimination and but justify it with her personality and appearance?

Again with the archetypes because it seems all the issues with this books comes from this, Rio refuses to betray them. She doesn't feel the need to twist them in interesting ways or use them to tell us a convincing story. It’s not bad that I guessed that Jason was the murderer since he’s the archetypal hero, but it’s bad that the real twist was that no murder even took place.

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The worst person you know just discovered therapy speak

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Really relevant right now. Despair and defeat is what they want you to feel - that's a colonial weapon in itself. So don't you dare fucking stop, turn your rage and grief into fuel that keeps you going.

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my bunny corcoran faceclaim is the only one in the world i know because donna tartt herself told me so

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Also The Crown

alright i’m partway through stranger things 4 and can i just say that like between this and moon knight i am,, so tired of “woke” tv shows/streaming services that allegedly support mental health portraying mental hospitals the way they do

like netflix especially makes such a big deal about #mental health or whatever (despite its shows like 13 reasons why), but the moment they write an episode with a mental hospital it’s the same old story that it has been for decades

people being treated in mental health facilities aren’t big dawdling children incapable of communication or cognizant thought, they are human people with personalities and complexities and interests. and i mean i liked moon knight, and so far i’m liking st4, but i’m so fucking sick of seeing what are basically half-assed adaptions of one flew over the cuckoo’s nest every time i start a new tv show.

netflix and disney+ could so easily use these mountains of money they have to actually portray the humanity of people being treated in mental health facilities, to make even the littlest effort to show the real issues within the mental healthcare industry, but instead they vilify and infantilize us the same way they always have

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the fandomification of dark academia has turned a compelling literary subgenre into this hellscape where you all just want every book you read to be the secret history and ignore anything that tries to do anything different, and yet now that it's inevitably producing a flood of books all agonizingly derivative of donna tartt with nothing new to offer, they're getting torn to shreds for it. and in this case it's especially comical how this is what always happens when the response to a genre rising in popularity is aestheticising rather than analyzing it

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Something to add to the long list of things I wish able bodied people wouldn't do:

Please don't wrap decorations on the railings of stairways.

It's a common practice for the winter holidays, and a museum I visited today had fake autumn leaves wrapped around the metal railings running down their very steep steps.

Here's the thing: I can't safely go down steps without relying heavily on the handrail. This is ESPECIALLY true when the weather is cold and icy. If there's clutter between my hand and the rail, I'm way more likely to slip and fall.

Please save your festive decor for the architecture that isn't vital to the mobility of others.

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Aww boo hoo, you failed the social experiment, sucks to be you.

“How dare LB make me think I’m here for an ETL series when really I’m reading a representation of her abuse!”

How embarrassing and sad is it to shame an abuse survivor for writing HER story and blame her for what her marketing team does? LB probably doesn’t check the marketing tactics they use and she probably doesn’t give a shit. It’s no ones fault that you didn’t get your abuse core romance/horror story after falling for tactics to make CHILDREN, like you, fall head over heels for the tall dark and handsome man who’d sell you to an old man to be r@ped for his own gain.

I’m kind of okay for people shipping the Darkling and Alina if their self aware of the abuse aspect of it, but dummies like you shouldn’t have any platform (big or small) to spew misinformation and victim blame-y nonsense to other dummies.

And for the last time, Leigh is not in charge of marketing, barely any authors are!

You were baited and fooled by Bardugo. How did she do that exactly? I want to hear the rant you probably have for it

There is no rant,I've gotten past it at this point. Shadow and Bone was marketed as an enemies to lovers story and we all know how that ended. If Leigh wanted us to NOT ship Darklina and root for the friends to lovers fighting for the greater good and defeating evil,I wouldn't have said anything. I don't think many people would ship Darklina if that was the case. But it's not. Yes,yk what,there is a rant.

And not just Leigh,many authors know that ETL arc is widely popular and loved so they start off their books or market them as ETL to grab the attention of the vast majority of its lovers,but it ends up being either friends to lovers or something entirely different. If she didn't want us to ship it,maybe she shouldn't have baited us? Why would you use "a dark heart,a pure soul,a love that will last forever" as a tag line when you plan on ending that ship and completely changing it? Maybe try promoting your actual hero and ship if you want the readers to NOT ship the wrong couple? Why would you talk about The Darkling and NOT about Malyen if he's the actual love interest,the good guy,the hero?

Leigh Bardugo hates The Darkling,hates us for liking him and has mentioned in KoS how we're a cult of crazy people for liking Aleksander. If she didn't want us to like him then maybe she shouldn't have written him as someone with ACTUAL motives while th good guys are fighting only because it's The Right Thing ™ to do while doing NOTHING about the actual problem and fucking off into the sunset to fulfill cottagecore dreams?

Picking sides in YOUR OWN fandom is the worst,most immature thing you can do. She recently opened up about how The Darkling embodies her abusive ex. Therefore,Darklina is abusive and we're abuse apologists for shipping it. Let me remind you that Bardugo herself forgets that Darklina isn't the main relationship,Malina is. And Malina is the exact kind of toxic relationship you find in real life. Malyen embodies toxic masculinity. So maybe while trying to make Darklina toxic,she forgot she was making Malina toxic too? It's not a competition for less or more,if you're abusive,you're abusive. Less or more doesn't matter,there's no better alternative of being abused. If she wanted us to believe that Alina is a strong,fierce and independent woman who makes her own decisions and doesn't need anyone, if she really wanted us young girls who are stupid and naive to never let a man hold us back then letting Alina end up alone would be the best thing she could do. Because neither of those men deserved Alina.

She has openly called Darkling stans disturbed and said that she wrote him as a lesson for younger girls to not excuse evil men just because they have slick hair and sharp jawline haha. I shouldn't be angry at her for shoving a FTL down my throat when she advertised a Light/Dark romance because she it did for ME so a hot and evil and charismatic man doesn't end up taking advantage of the stupid and naive girl I am. I should thank her for teaching me that I'm a young and dumb girl ready to be taken advantage of by evil, hot,dark, centuries old shadow summoners. Too bad I haven't found one yet:/

Look at these pictures and tell me where the fuck did she talk about her main,endgame ship and tell me if this isn't bait or not.

But no,I'm an absolute fool. A villain romanticizer. An abuse apologist. A pedophile and war criminal enabler in her eyes. I'm someone who hasn't been through anything traumatic in my entire life according to the antis when it's actually LB and them who can't differentiate between fiction and reality. It's LB who is one of the antis and shames fans of her own characters.

So yes,she is a baiter. She did fool us. And she keeps on dragging Aleksander's bloody corpse through the mud to milk money because she knows that alot of people in the GV fandom love him and expected a redemption arc for him. She uses him time and time again to hurt us. She's always treated Darkling Stans like shit. Always tried to make us feel wrong or morally corrupt for liking him. Tell me,how am I supposed to like this behaviour and why exactly should I respect someone who shames me for liking something that doesn't exist?

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As of today (May 6th) Israeli settlers are violently displacing Palestinians of Sheikh Jarrah (in Eastern Jerusalem) and ripping them out of their own homes. Settlers are violently physically assaulting Palestinians and are backed by the military. This forced eviction is illegal under international law.

Here is a twitter thread of charities to donate to help Palestinians.

Here is a linktree with resources of how to contact representatives (specifically for USA, Canadian, and UK citizens) and several petitions calling to an end to violence in Palestine, as well as more donation links.

Please keep your eye on Sheikh Jarrah and Palestine and don’t remain silent.

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If you think “smiling at” is what was going on in those scenes you’re probably a little biased. Bucky and Sam barely have any chemistry and I feel like that ship is just a replacement for Stucky.Y’all were too busy obsessing over two white men to even notice Sam, it’s so obvs that Sambucky is a replacement for Steve. No instead of ignoring Sam, you’re ignoring one of the only black female love interests in the mcu and literally the only interracial pairing with a dark skin woman. Just say you don’t like black women and go, no need for all the games.

no offense to that person but sarah and bucky barely any interactions and while the interactions were cute and i loved them. that anon screams straight energy. also... sarah deserves someone better than bucky esp for her kids and that’s on that.

Yeah I don’t know what they were so heated for lol. I think it’s a cute ship I just don’t feel that strongly about it and it’s not what I’m trying to see when I go into the sambucky tag. Also it does strike me that all Bucky had to do was smile at her twice for people to start shipping it (which is fine), but when he and Sam have all this buildup that could easily be seen as romantic it’s, “just let them be friends!”

And I’m also not one of those people that’s like “all m/f ships are bad” because I understand that’s just a bad take that leaves no room for nuance. It just feels like when it comes to gay ships people act like you need a fucking essay to back up why you ship it and that just doesn’t seem to happen as much with m/f pairings. That gets frustrating to see after a while. And to your second point, I don’t necessarily think Bucky wouldn’t “deserve” her but yeah he probably couldn’t handle kids right now lol