yoddhasblog

[yoddhasblog]

“i love women!” y’all can’t even handle:

lesbians

autistic women being sarcastic

black and brown women who are loud and assertive

feminists

teenage girls

10 year old tomboys

discussions and appreciation of female biology

reblog to add yours

[yoddhasblog]

I never thought we'd be in a situation where multiple times a day we would call our relatives, even the ones we haven't spoken to for years, friends and acquaintances just to ask whether they are alright. That they weren't hit by any stray drone-missile debris, but here we are. Woke up this morning due to a loud blast of a missile being intercepted like a few minutes away from where I live. Three nights of watching the news to see my city being a recurring name in the list of attacked cities. I mean it truly is a weird experience to watch drones going boom in the air(thanks to the Indian defense system) live in news from your own city along with the visuals of destruction in many cities. We're living through historical events.

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you simply cannot separate the religious aspect from the kashmir terrorist attacks.

these people were not just random tourists they were murdered for being HINDUs after being violently humiliated and mocked for their faith in HINDUISM.

this was an act of terror perpetrated by those who despise hindus. period. and anyone who seeks to downplay this and say peace is for all and there’s no two sides to this are mere cowards who will never accept how rampant hinduphobia is and how soft targets hindus are because of our own inability to ever come together and take a stand. over and over again hindus have been targeted.

and once again any action that india takes will be twisted and analyzed wrongly by western idiots and secular believers who do not realize that the very country where hindus should be safe is failing them.

[yoddhasblog]

whenever the men in popular dark romance novels open their mouth, they say shit that sounds like something only a rapist would say.

It's also how I know i wouldn't survive in these novel's world because I would make the above written sentiment clear and get myself shot.

[yoddhasblog]

I don't know how to feel about booktok. On one hand I'm happy that women(i mean people in general, but let's say women for popular beliefs and stereotype's sake) are engaging and enjoying with all sorts of genres and particularly openly accepting erotica as something they enjoy but on the other hand i really don't like this generalised notion that all women only read romance or erotica. No one reduces a man's reading tastes and hobbies to one thing alone but why can't women enjoy different genres? It's kind of annoying that even women themselves are making reels and stuff pretty much insinuating that if you see a woman with a book it's probably smut. And so many men are also backing off of booktok and bookstagram to gain a female following and pretty much making a joke, chuckling to themselves like 'women☕! all they read is smut'. I don't believe that smut is a bad thing or that women shouldn't read it but we can like a whole variety of things. Why do people necessarily need to go on the extreme spectrums of things?

[yoddhasblog]

my bachelors is going to end in about a month or two. I'm considering all sorts of colleges for my master's. I've never been so nervous in my whole life. Don't get me wrong, I usually have a general level of panic persisting inside me at all times but as the BA is ending the level of panic is gradually increasing. What if I lose a perfectly good opportunity simply because of ignorance? What if I'm not accepted into the university that I want to attend? What if I go there and find that I'm the dumbest one there? What if I just don't have it in me to be successful? Like everywhere i look, people in the field I want to go into are so put together. They are better informed than I am, they've had better teachers and resources, they are doing so well in navigating the actual world. Studying, getting grades and living off of others' approval has been most of my life but as I'm getting closer to stepping in the real world, I'm more and more terrified of uncertainty. I want to be successful, knowledgeable and do so many things but what if I don't have what it takes? Not only that but I'm scared of making the wrong choice in choosing my master's. I love psychology and I love literature. I want to go for MA in psychology but what if I should be choosing MA in english literature? I don't want to regret choosing a year or two from now. I don't want to start over. I mean I love both but what if I make a bad psychologist? Am I just overreacting? I mean nobody else in my batch is panicking like this. I feel dizzy and hot. this is awful.

[yoddhasblog]

“The only difference between us is that I can suffer pain, and you’re still a fucking coward.” -TDR p.469

[yoddhasblog]

Something about Darlington immediately striding alongside Alex in the final pages of Hell Bent in direct contrast to the flashback mere chapters before where she waits and wants desperately for Hellie to follow her out of the apartment after Babbit Rabbit dies.

She's always been prepared to be the cannonball for other people but by the end of Hell Bent she finally has a family willing to barrel forward with her.

[yoddhasblog]

Why aren't there more fan arts of ninth house and hell bent?? I can't survive like this

[yoddhasblog]

Darlingstern moments that play in a ceaseless loop in my head, Vol. I

The fact that Alex was sweaty as fuck the first time they met and made Darlington roll up her sleeve to check for track marks

Darlingtons prudish shock when Alex takes her shirt off in front of him

The fact that they got shitfaced and broke a bunch of Lethe glassware??? Like she got Mr. Lethe to be like “fuck the rules”? And they passed out in the parlor???

Alex’s foot/hand/arm fetish

When Darlington complimented her Queen Mab costume, then said “didn’t someone say love is a shared delusion?” And “two people reciting the same spell”

Darlington getting annoyed when some guy hits on her

The “incident”

His heart hurting for the wanting of someone

The fact that Alex literally has constant imaginary conversations with him and everything reminds her of him and she always assesses how he would feel about her actions

[yoddhasblog]

I'm alive and I've found a new obsession, people.

His monstrous queen, her gentleman demon

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The best thing I've read in a while.

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Why so much patriarchy and misogyny in fantasy worlds???

If I was writing a fantasy book, I would make my world equal in the most fundamental sense. No racism, no sexism and misogyny, no homophobia, no transphobia, just nothing of that sort. You can make conflicts of other sorts. I understand the book is inspired from western history but this is overdoing it a little??

[yoddhasblog]

I just finished watching fleabag.

Why was I constantly reminded of Nesta?

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[yoddhasblog]

This got me thinking about Amarantha and Ianthe, so let’s talk.

I don't know what her obsession with female villains having sex slaves is but it was already tired the first time she did it. A woman can and should be taken seriously as a villain without being a serial r**ist.

@lady-tragedy on violence in SJM's books.

Outside of her romances, sex is still a core part of SJM’s books. As an ace reader, for me, these scenes are nothing more than an insight to the characters’ beliefs and behaviours. When I read about the sexual crimes committed by Amarantha and Ianthe, it felt like a desperate and unnecessary attempt to make them villains.

Amarantha is a ruthless warrior of Hybern who comes to Prythian as a courtier. Once she settles in, she tricks the High Lords, steals their powers, keeps them captive so they can’t topple her dictatorship. Her cruelty is already established with Lucien’s mutilation, Jurian’s fate, and her relentless pursuit of Tamlin since he was a boy. She’s highly prejudiced, creatively cunning, and sadistic. Knowing Tamlin’s loyalty to the lands, she forces him to be the cause of his friends’ deaths. She sets impossible challenges for Feyre knowing her mortal body might give out before she completes even one.

She comes off a bit cartoonish with her grand monologues and threats while not doing much (until that last chapter) than being a puppeteer. But her drive is interesting and gives her that sense of evil in her nature. Her sister dies at the hands of her mortal lover after being tortured. This reinforces her goals to enslave the humans again. Since the faeries were divided during the last war, she unites Prythian to eliminate any opposition. Even her hatred for Feyre is driven by this. She wants to prove that every one of the mortals is like Jurian—unfaithful and merciless.

Amarantha is a true villain and there’s more than enough proof of her villainy without Rhysand’s sexual abuse. If we remove that from the plot, her potential isn’t weakened. With it, her actions are out of character and pointless and raises a lot of questions. There are no other hints that she’s sexually sadistic. If she was, who are her other victims UtM? Why does she hurt the most evil High Lord who doesn’t shy away from putting on such shows in this way? If this is to humiliate him, why continue when he pretends to enjoy it? And if this is about dominance, why doesn’t she go after the other High Lords?

Moreover, it undermines her core reasons. Amarantha wants to rule. She’s obsessive and ambitious. In the fifty years, she grows comfortable being Queen of Prythian but her tyranny is not an elaborate plan to trap Tamlin. He’s a game which she improvised to achieve everything she wants in one move. Tamlin offering himself wouldn’t have saved Rhysand or the others UtM. Her refusal to release Prythian when Feyre completes the tasks proves it. But because of the last minute addition of Rhysand’s abuse, all of Amarantha’s real causes and crimes are shadowed and she becomes a woman driven by lust for two men.

Ianthe is a priestess who associates herself with influential men for her means. Since she has no magical abilities or a high position in the society except for the priestess title, she uses her body to get what she wants. Her motivations are not as clear (iirc) but the time she’s in hiding with her family could be concurred as a driving factor, or the lack of influence in a patriarchal world, or like Amarantha, she wants power, plain and simple.

There are many moments that show her evil side. She actively encourages the separation between Tamlin and Feyre by manipulating them. She betrays Nesta and Elain’s location to win favour from Hybern. She pushes Tamlin to carry out barbaric acts in the name of upholding traditions which is underscored by her desire for power. Despite this, the only ones remembered are the sexual crimes she committed which leads to many questions.

Ianthe’s exceptionally beautiful known to win any man she wants. She’s a childhood friend of Tamlin and when she returns, his relationship with Feyre is already beginning to crack. Instead of targeting him, she goes for Lucien who neither trusts her nor shows interest in her. If she wants power, why choose the one who wouldn’t play by her rules and won’t ever be a High Lord? Why doesn’t she target one of the others recently crowned UtM?

Pursuing Rhysand makes sense as he’s the ‘most powerful High Lord’. But he has a reputation to have whores as he pleases and his response to her isn’t in line with the mask he wears. He doesn’t have his evil attitude nor does he behave like the manipulative mastermind he’s claimed to be. Considering this, the memory of Ianthe harassing him serves to drive Feyre’s hatred towards the only support left in Spring other than Tamlin and Lucien.

Duality of sex and abuse in the series

I’m not denying that these two women sexually abused men. Plotwise, it doesn’t conform to Amarantha’s character or support Ianthe’s cause. Let’s say it’s a random incident because characters can be unpredictable sometimes. But then, the only two notable villainesses in the series turn out to be sexual predators.

On the other hand, sex is a rite of passage for the ‘good’ female leads—Feyre accepting the role of Rhysand’s whore, Morrigan becoming sexually hyperactive and Nesta having multiple partners. And they use seduction as a weapon which becomes part of their strength and identity. Even before Ianthe assaults Lucien, Feyre disapproves her acts of pursuing men. But when she takes charge of her life, she does the same with Tarquin. She also exploits Lucien’s friendship and ruins his reputation across courts. These are considered her accomplishments. (And, it’s hard to say how far she’d have gone in her vengeance if things hadn’t turned out her way. She isn’t abusive but her inner thoughts in Lucien’s bedroom felt more than suspicious.)

Also, none of the victims are equally sympathised in the narrative. Female victims don’t talk about their abuse or heal from it on page. Among the men, only Rhysand earns compassion from the characters and the readers while Lucien’s is forgotten and Tamlin’s is ignored. I’m not entirely convinced either of these women would be hated as much had Rhysand not been their prey because it’s become the highlight of their crimes, and Tamlin is still heavily criticised for not sacrificing himself and blamed for the sisters’ deaths.

What truly stands out is that Ianthe parallels Rhysand while Amarantha, Cassian. Ianthe has a goal and goes as far as to assault someone for it—similar to what Rhysand did to Feyre. Amarantha's control and punishment of Rhysand reflects Cassian’s behaviour towards Nesta. He also mirrors Ianthe if we consider his stalking. In SJM's world, while the men are forgiven and their acts are fetishised even, the women are considered a disgrace and fated to die. They are reduced to mere temptresses, erasing any ingenuity in their characters. This double standard reinforces the idea that the gravest crime a woman can commit is abuse against a man. She’s only a villain when she acts like a man, pursues like a man, aspires like a man.

[yoddhasblog]

Happy diwali 🎇🪔