#Her boyfriend was annoying but also it was like a teen relationship where they're basically boyfriendgirlfriend in name only

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The No-Girlfriend Rule

YA contemporary

a girl who wants to get into d&d to connect with her boyfriend (whose own group has a ‘no girlfriends’ rule)

and joins a group of girls whose game allows her to come out of her shell, and realise she doesn’t need to put in the effort for a boy who doesn’t put any effort into her

while also dealing with her anxiety and a growing crush on one of the girls in her group

[threebooksoneplot]

what draws you both to jalice/makes you so feral about them as a ship?

you should know we had an entire meeting in order to answer this ask. no this could NOT have been an email (unlike new moon) 🤭

Secretary G took notes. they are as follows (read the bolded parts for a tl;dr)

we kind of see it as though jalice got the traits that edbella weren’t allowed to have, either due to their status as protagonists or because smeyer's mormon background causes her to view these qualities as too sinful/negative for her wholesome Waiting Until Marriage main couple. (examples: alice's materialistic, "shallow," hyperfeminine qualities, her character flaws (especially her manipulativeness), and jasper's aura and history of fucked up violence closer to what you'd find in traditional vampire stories/horror/adult gothics/books not written by a mormon author)

in terms of how much screentime the non-main-love-triangle canon couples get, their relationship is kiiiinda given the next-most weight to edbella’s (examples: jasper's extreme overprotectiveness, the New Moon chapter 19 moment where alice prioritizes jasper and bella is like “yeah I get it, I would do the same.”) basically smeyer gives jalice's relationship a lot of the qualities she finds romantic/ideal, (and which are either similarly romantic to us or entertainingly toxic/a good source of drama), presumably because alice is like her 4th-favorite character after the main love triangle and she wants nice things for her

we both really love how, superficially, as presented in the books, jasper and alice seem to have this almost “courtly love” that smeyer has described as "spiritual." yet when you look closer, their relationship has so many darker undertones—the deep codependency bordering on obsessiveness (mutual, but especially the way it manifests on jasper's end—"I will kill this random teen girl who witnessed edward's jean valjean moment™ because any means are justifiable when the ends are Protecting Alice"), the dark sides of both of their powers, the idea that jasper is only a cullen and/or only a vegetarian for alice's sake, etc. hell, even the fact that they're the only Cullen couple who we know had (gasp) premarital sex 😏 (I mean we assume rosemmett did too, but alas, they don't have that hilarious "carlisle convinced jasper and alice to get married" quote from smeyer)

partially summarized: "jasper’s general desperate willingness to sell everyone to satan for one corn chip if it keeps alice safe (carlisle: I know this and I love you)"

we're forever smug that the movies gave us even more jalice screentime (especially remarkable in such a protagonist-centric universe), including jasper being in the same grade as alice/bella/edward, and the extra jalice kisses in Eclipse and BD 🥺

what we wrote down as the “who’s protecting whom" phenomenon, as coined by G in this old ask. (shannon: "jasper is the toddler you've given the PS2 controller that's not plugged in")

we also like the characters individually. jasper is for the girlies with competency kinks—a stoic caretaker who speaks little and mostly expresses himself via acts of service. we also both love the way in which he needs protection from his own uncontrolled violence (slipping up and killing humans, suffering the pain and fear he inflicts, etc.) he is, in the words of our beloved @liceparade, the "line cook trauma boyfriend"

“It’s hot when there’s a fictional violent man who wet babygirl 😌” —shannon

and alice, unlike bella, genuinely loves being spoiled and bossing people around. she's brat-coded, she's confident and secure in who she is, her god complex ("I'm close enough [to omniscient]") causes fascinating conflict, bella eats drywall from sheer horniness at her merest movement, she dresses like a slut in the Mormon YA Novels and yet somehow escapes authorial condemnation, she has a sickass gothic heroine backstory, she's "annoying," aro started a whole war over her (eat shit helen of troy 🖕), she spaces out in public and has to be led around by jasper, she's one of the most powerful vampires in the world, she's in high school getting a C+ on her precalc test 💅🏻

it's appealing that smeyer frequently puts alice in the center of the series' various conflicts (james' singer and "one that got away," the accidental cause of all the drama at the end of new moon, one of aro's secret True motives for starting the conflict in BD.) this is mostly as a consequence of smeyer using alice as a plot device and/or deus ex machina, but it is in fact interesting

is alice jasper's morality chain? we love pondering this question via fic, meta, etc (especially because...alice ain't exactly a model of ethical behavior herself)

together, the two of them exhibit lots of classic tropes. they're grumpy x sunshine, chatty x silent, opposites attract, etc. to say nothing of that height difference 🥵

we love the yin/yang symbolism of a character with a horrific past paired with a character with NO memory of her past, who is focused on the future and all about potential. not to invoke an ancient phrase but POETIC CINEMA

the next note just says “POTENTIAL in general.” I assume we meant how all of the above stuff creates potential for interesting stories, conflicts, metas, art, fic, etc

G has brought this up in the past, but we love the irony of jasper, a character whose chief desire is to be left in peace, being soul-alteringly in love with the one character who will always be a giant glaring target through no fault of her own. hilarious

[donnyclaws]

Im not really a warriors fan (i know the basics of the setting and some major plot points ) so i dont totally understand what’s happening in your gnaw amv but i so want to hear that essay about needletail and violetshine, if you don’t mind saying who’s who from the video ^^;

Okay buckle in I'm unleashing the beast, this will be long and also mostly my take on them since I haven't read their series in a minute haha, I'm probably fuzzy on some of the finer details at this point. Warning ig for emotional neglect, drowning, death ect this chunk of the story gets pretty brutal!

Okay so the jist of Violet and Needles relationship is that they are two abused and neglected girls who become sisters not by choice but by pure circumstance. The clan they live in, Shadowclan, has been completely devastated by its string of tyranical leaders. They're always struggling and it makes them susceptible to cats with less kind goals coming in and having the clan fawn to them in the hopes of stability, it's pretty much decimated any community and order within the group. Currently the Needletail's generation have zero respect for authority within the clan and the clan don't have respect for them either. For example she was carried off by an eagle, dropped into the woods and became furious after her clan didn't bother to find or really react to her when she managed to drag herself back. Leads to a lot of bitterness and sparks of rebellion within the youth ect!

Violetshine was an outsider along with her sister Twigbranch, they were basically found in a big drain by Needletail and another cat while on a prophecy quest (I forgot the details lol). Basically the kittens were abandonned and seen as the goal of the trip, when they were brough back to the territories the clans fought amongst eachother over what clan they should go into (there's been a lot of prophecy cats and the clans at this point know that having one in their clan will be mega beneficial). The kittens are seperated between the two that found them so Violet went with Needle to shadowclan and twig went with alder to thunder. This is where shit starts to drive me INSANE because Twig basically gets like, several parental figures within thunderclan and stability while Violetshine is punted into this already really hostile environment.

She's given to a current nursing queen because she's very young here. It's really clear that pinenose isn't interested in her in the slightest it's an immediately neglectful situation, Violetshine also doesn't have Needletail because she viewed the whole thing as kind of a fetch quest and didn't immediately become a pseudo parent to violet the way alderheart did to twigbranch. She sees her as kind of an obligation and a bargaining chip, her clan gets annoyed with her for even saddling them all with a new kit who only Might have some kind of prophecy around her, I felt like this pushed Needle into feeling obligated to Violetshine in a way to just spite the rest of the clan. I think she also views having a kit tailing her around as kind of cool or satisfying, having someone look up to her even a little. I wish I could pull quotes but at this point Violetshine already views herself as a burden and finds all the random fights and cruelty of shadowclan as very normal.

Honestly there is a LOT of shit after this that I don't remember super well but I will try list it out, the conflict of this set of characters is insanely complicated for warriors standards. Needle and alder organize a few playdates for violet and twig to see eachother again, the contrast between their lives and how it's affected them is already Stark. Needle has a mean bitch friend, Sleekwhisker, all of their interactions feel like two rebellious teen girls and the toddler they don't really want around but who has no choice but to be there. Needletail tends to get grounded or punished by authority in the clan a lot and at one point she sends Violet out to talk to her rouge boyfriend for her. This is yet another outside group that's vulturing on the dissatisfaction within the clan and eventually Needle, Sleek and Violet join his group and leave Shadowclan for good. This group is even more unorganized and full of random violence, Needletail is often out with Rain, Sleek or Darktail, keeping Violet in a similar position to how she started. From here it gets really complicated, there's a lot of push and pull between Violetshine and Needletail between caring about eachother, fighting, between Violet feeling like a burden to her and eventually leaving, hurting Needletail who deep down does kind of rely on being Someone to Someone. Violet rejoins Shadowclan, Needle is bitter and hurt, Violet is bitter at her sister Twig for being very idealistic and ignorant of the kind of life Violet's led so far and how unstable Shadowclan is.

Even MORE spiralling downwards, Violet and Twig live together briefly and Violet is hurt and betrayed realizing her sister is going home (Similar to needletail, you have this hope of someone who will stay with you through an abusive situation and then suddenly they are gone). Needle and Violet are then both living in the Kin again and both become closer to Darktail, who is the mega villain manipulator basically. There's this constant sense of Needle and sleek being his new right hands and violet who is still young at this point, becoming another informant. It becomes this game of like, inner group politics, and these two trying to survive under a cat who is quickly becoming like an actual dictator, taking over other clans, taking prisoners ect ect ect. Violetshine watches Rain try to kill Darktail only to fail and die at his hands instead. Needletail begins to doubt him now, seeing as he's killed her partner.

I don't remember exactly what insights this but Violetshine does something here that winds up in Darktail punishing Needletail harshly. Darktail is very much the kind of character who rotates who he is focusing on based on who will be the most obedient, Violetshine being a traumatized young cat who is used to keeping her head down and being told what to do, is perfect for this when Needle proves too difficult. Needletail is kept in a den of prisoner cats who are currently being starved slowly, obviously this eats Violetshine alive. She tries to sneak in food to Needletail but she is almost entirely unresponsive, and as a cat who has been cruel and complicit in Darktail's crimes she only gives the food to the other prisoners instead. I wish I could pull out quotes but there are so many tiny moments of kindness from Needletail that drive me insane because to me it really reads as a deeply traumatized teen, playing up whatever appearance will make her strongest and will make the world make sense finally. And you get to see these tiny glimmers of times in private where she feels more like a scared kid too, times where she's alone and asks Violet to stay with her.

After years of becoming slowly discomforted by the violence she's used to she decides to try poison Darktail. This fails, this fails. Darktail and Sleekwhisker have begun drowning traitorous cats in the lake, Violetshine is next. He brings Needletail out and tells her she can regain his trust if she kills Violet. Needletail again is like, emaciated, distant, literally says that the light's gone from her eyes ect. Violetshine, riddled with guilt, feeling like the one consistent cat in her life hates her and wants her dead, she feels like she is going to die there and she will deserve it, she understands it. Instead Needletail pins her, she tells her to run, she turns on Darktail and attacks him to buy her more time and she is eventually drowned. They kind of mega botch Violetshine's ptsd over this later on but when it's good it's fucking insane, the amount of sheer guilt she feels over this cannot be said enough. That's the main moment I had boarded for the pmv because this sheer emotional tangle of two cats that to be frank! Have not been good to eachother, Needletail is not a good person, Needletail was not a good person to be in charge of a child but the complexity outweighs that for me. Despite everything these two didn't have a choice but to care for and need eachother because they were both in a bad place. They didn't HAVE other options, this unhealthy dynamic was what they had left in terms of care and stability. After everything, even though you would think Needle might resent Violet, it was all just hurt and fear and she died young to buy the cat she couldn't BE a good sister to more time, give her one last chance, maybe she can get out, maybe she can make it count and live a better life after this.

Later later on in the arc she comes back as a ghost whatever and Violetshine apologizes, she's still riddled with guilt, she still blames herself, and Needletail tells her they are sisters.

MAYBE IT MAKES ME UNWELL. K? anyway here's my designs for them. Most of the reason I might not finish that video is cause I have no clue how to translate all the micro details of their relationship into a video at all and I don't want to make one unless I can explicitly hit all of it. I don't think many people feel this way abt this arc and these characters but as a severe emotional neglect understander, they sincerely drive me insane I cried so hard over Needletail's death hahaha

They share a lot of small similarities, Violet and Darktail have similar eye markings and inverted tails, Needletail has similar markings on her mouth and ears to him because she listens and agress with his words initially. ect ect <3