Had She Really Thought The World Didn’t Change? She Was A Fool. The World Was Made Of Miracles, Unexpected

Hey you guys, this isn't like my usual posts,bear with me:)

I kinda want to talk about redemption arcs and bad boys/characters. More specifically- what makes us like dark romantic interests, and what makes us hate certain other dark, mean, manipulative characters? I promise this isn't cringy (for the most part)

Pretty much every fandom has conflicting opinions on it's bad boy characters- be it Edward Cullen, The Darkling, Rhysand, Cardan Greenbriar, Rowan or Jace Herondale- people either say "this ship's so toxic I love it" or "yikes y'all stop simping over abusers" or "respect their trauma". The line between a dark character that makes everyone's heart melt, and just dark character is usually a redemption arc. The problem here? Most of them don't have one. The actions we think of as 'redemption arcs' are 90% of the time them being warm and cuddly and possessive towards the protagonist. This is tricky because when we read a book from the protagonist's perspective, we feel everything they feel. So if the bad boy is rude and cold to them, we feel the same bitterness that they do. And when the character shows them the slightest bit of affection after all that mean-ness, we go "oh well I knew they were gonna be love interests so this is amazing awwww". For example "your hair is clean" Is creepy and NOT a cute compliment. But when Tamlin said it, we thought of it as romantic because We Knew that Feyre would at some point be with him. Most of us ignored him being abusive towards Feyre till Rhys came around and went "he locked you up" and THEN WE REALISED omg Tamlin you manipulative freak😤 and then we were the "I can't see" meme when Rhysand repeatedly abused Feyre under the mountain, with the bright side being "the tattoos are for me to make sure no one touched you!! I never touched you below your waist!!"

See the pattern?!!?! We see what we want to through the protagonist's eyes (and usually this is a CONTRAST between a DEVILISH guy and a bad guy); and ignore the horrible actions of the bad boy love interests as long as they flirt with the mc.

Similarly with the Darkling, most of us ship Darklina and wanted Alina to become bad and for them to be on the same side. As long as he was good to Alina, we were fine with him killing everyone else. That's cute. But then he hurt Genya and killed Ana Kuya and ALINA WAS HEARTBROKEN. and then some of us went😐. Because as long as the protagonist is okay, we're okay with anything the bad boy does.

Another interesting thing is how when an author wants us to like one love interest, they immediately start making the other one do shitty stuff,, so remember the Darklina after-ball scene??? Remember how before that we were told that Mal wasn't writing to Alina??? And so our minds went "Damn girl dump him!! The Darkling is way hotter anyways🙄" but then but then... In the end, when it was obvious that Mal was gonna be the UlTiMaTe lover, all of a sudden the Darkling kills everyone Alina ever loved???

Kaz Brekker, however, is an amazingly written bad boy- because he's got the tragic past, the cold hearted murderer, the sly thief, the guy who seems too have no connections- but he actually cares about Inej, Jesper and the other crows. He's not an abuser, not manipulative, not possessive-

"Our hopes rest with you, Mister Brekker. If you fail, all the world will suffer for it." "Oh, it's worse than that, Van Eck. If I fail, I don't get paid." But also- "She belongs to know one". That's the perfect contrast that we all love.

Cardan however, is a different character.. Because he quite literally is the 'cruel' prince that turns out to be an emo kid with a crush. My point is redemption arcs don't usually work with COMPETELY bad characters who turn COMPLETELY perfect. There has to be some back story, some good parts that are revealed later for us to sympathise with them. Like how we learnt how Cardan was basically hated by his entire family, and then he turned cruel because that's the only way that he felt anything like a prince at all, and how Nicasia betrayed him and how he saved mortal servants from Balekin. It's easy to sympathise with characters who're struggling with their morality, who've been through shit. That's a good redemption arc. Again, it depends on how forgiving the reader is, but certain abusive and manipulative actions of characters cannot be overlooked.

Sooo, let's not be those annoying&stubborn fans. Accept the problems that these books( and many many others) have- be it lack of representation or presenting abuse an an okay thing. It's okay to like these books and comfort characters. These are after all, fantasies. But let's not let these problems become 'normal' in our minds, coz that's when we start extending the same mentality towards society and REAL issues.

The acotar fandom is so toxic like there's ignorance of characters' trauma, stupid excuses for characters' actions, so much sexism, so much slut shaming, domesticating literally every female charcter, MiSoGynY, promoting toxic masculinity, glorifying and sexualizing EvErYtHiNg etc.

I'm just happy with Aelin, Dorian, Manon, Elide, Yrene, Chaol, Abraxos, Nesryn, Fenrys, Lysandra and Rowan birdy. Like look at them. They're adorable.

The whole point of inclusion and diversity in a show is so people can watch it and actually relate to the characters and be like "YES, SHE'S SMART AND BEAUTIFUL AND SUCCESSFUL AND SHE LOOKS LIKE ME, THEREFORE I CAN BE THOSE THINGS TOO". As someone who cried when Amita and Jessie talked about diversity in the industry, and as someone who's brown, I think it's safe to say that I found this whole ordeal to be disgusting.

90% of the content I've consumed in my life has been white-culture based. I grew up watching films and reading books that portrayed people who were nothing like me.

When S&B announced its casting and literally made it's whole marketing strategy 'Diversity' I was beyond happy. Amita talking about how hard she had to work to be able to do a pushup, let alone be INEJ made me have mad respect for her and the whole crew.

So seeing a white woman being PAINTED BROWN TO DO STUNTS FOR A CHARACTER WHO'S SUPPOSED TO BE BROWN really really stung. I don't know who's decision this was, and frankly I don't care. This one thing has changed so many people's perspective on a show that's literally based on a group of people who don't care about what the others look like, or where they're from, and love them regardless.

I really hope they take accountability for this and apologize. Because this may seem like a really little, meaningless thing to some white people, but it's a big deal to all those kids who read the books and then were BEYOND EXCITED TO WATCH THE SHOW. One brown woman in a netflix show that remained #1 for 13 days represents all those brown girls who believe that they too, would be accepted for WHO THEY ARE, NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

Netflix, do better.

I HATE-

no. we're getting the 10 minute version of all too well in about a hundred days.

I'M DONE HATING. TODAY IS ✨LOVE✨

What's the best trope and why's it Character A waking up from a nightmare, screaming and character B telling them to look at them and that it's just a bad dream?

It's been one year since folklore was released besties! Here are some things I felt when I first listened to it<3 (yes I wrote this exactly a year ago)

Living in a tiny cottage covered in vines and flowers, filled with warmth and coziness. Sitting beside the crackling fire with a book whose pages lost their color years ago, but never did its words lose their beauty. Or living in an enormous, gothic castle, with mysterious owners and libraries and secret passages, some of which remain undiscovered.

The thing about these stories is that regardless of how long ago or by whom they were written, it's incredibly fascinating to see how hundreds of years ago, people loved the same way, dreamt the same way and regretted their choices the same way they do now. They too longed to be a part of something bigger. It's to feel nostalgic about an experience that you've only ever had in your imagination. To look at the raindrops on your window and wish you hadn't messed up. Wish you hadn't broken the hug just as quick. Wish you had payed more attention to the words that were never said.

It's to crave adventure, yet need peace. It's the feeling you get when you find an old picture that you don't recall taking, or while watching a movie that seems so magical that for a moment, just for a moment, you forget about all those wounds that time could never heal.

To grow up in a small town and fall in love in highschool, only to move to a big city where no one knows your name, where you lose the numbers of people who promised to choose your wedding dress. To live in a tiny apartment overlooking the Eiffel tower, making art that no one will ever know exists, drinking tea that lost it's warmth when you weren't looking, much like your heart.

To time changing the colour of leaves, but not their mind. To being a hopeless romantic, yet never having fallen in love before. To wanting to be different, yet not knowing how to change. To getting lost in the woods, thinking that you found your way out, only to realise that you never did. To being called crazy.

Please don't ever stop believing in magic in a world filled with fear, uncertainty and loneliness .♡

“Never had a gift for pining,” Nikolai said. “Though I do like to show off my profile by staring mournfully out of windows.”

~Nikolai Lantsov, King of Scars

I've got some tricks up my sleeve

Takes one to know one

You're a cowboy like me

Never wanted love

Just a fancy car.

~ Taylor Swift, Evermore.

“I’d date more, probably, as well.”

Alex can’t help laughing again. “Right, because it’s so hard to get a date when you’re a prince.” Henry cuts his eyes back down to Alex. “You’d be surprised.” “How? You’re not exactly lacking for options.” Henry keeps looking at him, holding his gaze for two seconds too long. “The options I’d like…” he says, dragging the words out. “They don’t quite seem to be options at all.”

Alex blinks. “What?”

“I’m saying that I have … people … who interest me,” Henry says, turning his body toward Alex now, “But I shouldn’t pursue them. At least not in my position.” Are they too drunk to communicate in English? He wonders distantly if Henry knows any Spanish.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Alex says.

“You don’t?” “No.”

“You really don’t?” “I really, really don’t.”

Henry’s whole face grimaces in frustration, his eyes casting skyward like they’re searching for help from an uncaring universe. “Christ, you are as thick as it gets,” he says, and he grabs Alex’s face in both hands and kisses him.

~Red, White and Royal Blue

Book quotes that made me believe in love again~ part 2, because these are all so adorable I just couldn't fit them into one post<3

•He pushed, simply because he damn well couldn’t stop himself,

“And what do you deserve?” A slow smile, indeed a plains-cat readying for the kill. Then, “Certainly more than a bastard-born nobody.”

~Nesta my queen letting her romantic side show for a second :') so vulnerable. Huh? What? Unresolved trauma? No- this is 100/10 romance bb

•"You don’t even know what you’re saying,” Kenji tells him. “You’re acting crazy—”

“I was happier,” Adam says, “when I thought she was dead.”

“You, of all people,” Adam says to me. He looks so disgusted. “I trusted you—told you things I never should’ve told you— I can’t believe you’d do this to me. That you’d fall for him. What the hell is wrong with you?” he demands, his voice rising in pitch. “How sick in the head do you have to be?”

~Adam Kent to his girlfriend<3 fights can be so sexy. especially when a guy calls his girlfriend fucked in the head uwu. every girl's dream :))wishing she was dead aaahhh love is love okay.

•His growls of pleasure filled the tent, drowning out the distant cries of the injured and dying. Life and death—hovering so close, whispering in our ears.

And I hoped that this shard of life we offered up, this undimming light between us, would drive death a bit further away. At least for another day.

~feysand my fav power couple. getting down and dirty in a battlefield like the rulers they are. What? oh no not fighting for their homeland no no that's for basic bitches<33 romantics do seggsy time in battles ;) it's called feminism okay look it up

•“You care for me,” Will said. His voice was cool and sure. “And you know that I admire you, the way that all women know when a man admires them. Now you have come to tell me you will be here, available to me, for as long as I might wish it. I am offering you what I thought you wanted.”

“You cannot mean that.”

“And you cannot have imagined I meant anything more,” Will said. “There is no future for a Shadowhunter who dallies with warlocks. One might befriend them, employ them, but not …”

~will my bestie offering the girl he loves to be his whore<3 unusual but I don't kink shame here :) spread loveee,hashtag speaking from the heart

•"Hear my judgment,” Cardan says, authority ringing in his voice. “I hereafter exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world until such time as she is pardoned by the crown. Until then, let her not step one foot in Faerie or forfeit her life.”

I gasp. “But you can’t do that!”

He looks at me for a long moment, but his gaze is mild, as though he’s expecting me to be fine with exile. As though I am nothing at all. “Of course I can,” he replies.

“But I’m the Queen of Faerie,” I shout, and for a moment, there is silence.

Then everyone around me begins to laugh.

“Deny it then,” I yell. “Deny me!”

He cannot, of course, so he does not.

~cardan my fairie romeo sweeping Jude off her feet by exiling her<3 *I think I've seeeenn this film beforeeee* he really thought he showed some huge ass ravenclaw energy here :) who said long distance can't be steamy?

•“I lied,” he said. “Demons lie, Clary. You know, there are some kinds of wounds you can get when you’re a Shadowhunter—internal injuries from demon poison. You don’t even know what’s wrong with you, but you’re bleeding to death slowly inside. That’s what it’s like, just being your brother.”

“But Aline—”

“I had to try. And I did.” His voice was lifeless. “But God knows, I don’t want anyone but you. I don’t even want to want anyone but you.”

Clary’s voice had sunk to a whisper. “I don’t want anyone but you, either.”

~awww this is like the new "being your friend isn't enough",, brotherly love<3 okay friends to lovers enemies to lovers WHAT ABOUT SIBLINGS TO LOVERS HUHHH

•"You—Reid, you also made an oath to me. You’re my husband, and I’m your wife.”

His hands dropped to his sides. Defeated. A spark of hope flared in my chest. But then he closed his eyes—seeming to collapse in on himself—and when he opened them again, they were void of all emotion. Empty. Dead.

“You are not my wife.”

What was left of my heart shattered completely.

~Reid my new bff being loyal to his religion and telling Lou that she's not his wife :') so pure. true love 101. *so there you go-o can't make a wife outta a WITCH* his mentor is the hot priest from fleabag<3 "you love me? It'll pass<3"

•“Why don’t I give you the lashing you deserve?”

He looked so dead set on it that she blinked. “If you ever take a whip to me, I will skin you alive.” Rowan paused his stalking. “You’re worthless.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

He went on, “You would probably have been more useful to the world if you’d actually died ten years ago.”

She just looked him in the eye and said, “I’m leaving.”

~ughhh what is it with men's dirty talk being "I wish you were dead" it's so poetic :') again, bird love confessions are...unique, so cut rowan some slack. also threatening to whip her kinkyyyy<333

•Juliette supposed it was her turn to walk away. The lover and the liar, the liar and the lover. They switched those roles between themselves like it was a game.

“I tell the truth,” Juliette said again. Each word was a blade that sliced through her tongue, cutting her twice as deep as the harm she put out into the world. “Wake up. This entire dalliance between us has been an extraction of information.”

“Juliette, don’t say such—”

~Juliette and Roma spending the whole book pining over each other and confessing their feelings, to reach this end. because love<333

•“Don’t worry, tracker. You’ll know when our deal is up.” He shoved me belowdecks, but not before I heard his parting words to Mal—“I’ll be certain you hear it when I make her scream.”

~love triangles can be sooo beautiful especially when you've been kidnapped by one of the guys and the other has the personality of a wet towel<33 but love is love so-