#anyway she wants manon to think shes cool and pretty wow

[alterlovetm]

                   small compliments  |  @morsurerouge​  |  “You look really pretty today ” 

    ❝ tu pense? ❞   she looks down at her outfit,  not the best one she’s ever had, and certainly nothing like the ones she’s worn to parties that manon has been with her at.  she’s noticing her shoes are scuffed and there’s a stain on her jeans which she tries to hide with her jacket.    ❝ je ne sais pas, manon.  t'es très belle, aujourd'hui, aussi. ❞    but she’s smiling, now, because it’s nice to hear manon compliment her, especially with manon always being so put together.      ❝ c’est ma chemise préférée,  aimes-tu? ❞   she’s been trying to kind of make her wardrobe a bit more interesting, since sometimes she feels like she always wears the same thing, or the same kind of thing,  but she can’t get away from just jeans and one of her t-shirts that have been softened by years of fabric softener.  she’s trying something new with the jeans, they’re not levis, this time, and they’re what her mom called   something we would’ve worn back in my day   so ━ whatever that means.   maybe manon will think they’re cool and like -- vintage, or something.   ❝ mon jeans est nouveu,  est-ce qu'ils  cool?  ou, très ━ chic?  ❞   if manon thinks they’re cool, then they’re cool and she might not feel so awkward. 

[choupichoups]

Press F (Instagram/College AU) Ch.2

Lucas swears he’s the absolute master of undetected stalking. Or: Eliott is instagram famous and Lucas is the disaster gay who accidentally likes his post.

Lucas feels attacked.

Ever since the great Instagram fiasco of last week, Eliott has been liking every single one of Lucas’ new posts. Every. Single. One.

So Lucas, confused and alarmed, could only retaliate by liking all of Eliott’s posts as well.

Their strange little game doesn’t go unnoticed, of course. The universe simply never spares Lucas from such situations. The boys tease him about it endlessly while Emma and Manon circle around the topic like the most unsubtle vultures in existence. Lucas brushes them off with responses so bullshit they drop the subject out of sheer exasperation.

Imane eventually asks as well, probably sick of seeing both sides suddenly liking each other’s posts out of nowhere.

“I didn’t know you and Eliott were close,” she says once they’re both settled at the back of the library and for once Lucas would actually prefer it if she focuses solely on their studying.

“Uh, no? Not really,” he fumbles, ever so eloquent.

“That’s a whole lot of likes for a not really.”

“I don’t— I mean— uh…” How does one go about explaining that they’ve literally only interacted for a whole ass week. “His posts are nice.”

“You mean his face is nice.” Imane quirks an eyebrow at him and Lucas rolls his eyes. He doesn’t bother to defend himself, pointedly flipping open his textbook so they can start their work.

But when he turns back to his laptop, Eliott’s newest post is still up on his screen. He’d clicked it open while waiting for Imane earlier, huffing out a fond sigh at the photo. Talk to me. How dare he put some obscure, nonsense caption and still look cool doing it? God, he’s whipped for a boy he’s never even properly met and he’s very much aware of how bad this could turn out for him. He likes the post absently, so used to doing it for the past week that it’s more a reflex by now, closing out of the tab before Imane catches sight of his screen.

He forgets about it for the rest of the day— or forget isn’t exactly the right word. More like he stops himself from checking in every other hour and it gets easier to tamper down the temptation once he’s helping Manon and Daphne set up for their sorority fundraiser. He’s turned off the notifications on his phone after every alert tone from Instagram has sent him panicking for no reason other than he’s a complete moron when it comes to Eliott.

The most infuriating thing about the Eliott situation is that Lucas knows they go to the same university. It’s in the description box for Polaris. That had been Eliott’s first year project for film studies. Lucas has seen a glimpse of him multiple times, always surrounded by a group of rowdy boys who look way too intimidating to approach. Not that Lucas would know what to say if he ever grows the balls to go up to him anyway.

“Can you move the pink ones to the far right, please? The colours have to balance.”

Lucas moves the cupcakes, allowing Daphne to maintain the illusion that colour arrangement would actually affect the end result. He checks the time on his phone, making sure he has enough spare time to make it to his part time job later. He has no class on Wednesdays and that’s usually when he covers most of his hours but Basile’s moving to a new place tomorrow and that guy needs all the help he can get.

There’s a small commotion across from them and they all look up to see a large group of girls cheering and clapping about something.

“Why are they set up there?” Daphne exclaims, sounding offended. Lucas turns to Manon for an explanation but she just shakes her head with a tiny smile.

“They came early too, it’s a good spot. It’s not like we can stop them.” Manon shrugs, placing the last plate of cakes on the table. Their entire area is covered with baked goods. He has to watch his steps so as to not stomp all over some backup muffins. Lucas just hopes the sales make enough of a dent so Daphne doesn’t end the day upset with herself, having spent an insane amount of time preparing for this event.

Lucas looks around their booth and then back up to where the other girls have set up what looks to be an imitation carnival game type of thing. He recognizes them as one of the more popular sororities on campus and immediately understands where Daphne’s stress is coming from.

Still, he thinks the girls’ cakes are pretty banging, not to mention they’ve gone above and beyond with the decor. They deserve the same amount of attention.

He gets distracted by another round of loud whoops, and looks over to see six boys crowding around the booth across, with one of them holding a plastic archery set and laughing with his friends when he misses the target. One lanky boy who has practically trademarked that black hoodie and tan jacket combination in Lucas’ eyes.

“Shit,” he mumbles, sliding behind Daphne’s giant signage so that he’s fully hidden from view. He doesn’t know if Eliott would recognize him just from his photos on Instagram alone but he doesn’t want to risk it. Lucas is too sleep deprived to deal with meeting him in person right now.

Alexia arrives shortly after and the girls get distracted enough with finishing up the finer details that Lucas is fortunately left to his own device.

But now that he’s just standing there staring at the trees, nothing stops him from fishing his phone out of his pockets to check on the holy app. He squints down at it, pausing when he sees that he’s got a new message.

srodulv So you’re finally gonna talk to me?

Lucas’ breath hitches. Eliott has no business sliding into his inbox like this. He fiddles with his phone for five agonizing minutes, not knowing how to respond. He doesn’t want to take too long, though, because what if Eliott thinks that Lucas is ignoring him?  

lucallemant Hm?

It’s the best he can come up with. He clutches his phone to his chest, peeking around the signage to see if Eliott looks at the message. He sees Eliott reaching for the phone in his back pocket, shuffling a little away from the ruckus at the other booth. Lucas can hear the pounding of his own heart getting louder and his hands start to sweat a little— which, what the fuck he didn’t even really say anything, he needs to calm down. 

srodulv Oh good you responded I was starting to think you’d leave me on read

Lucas twists back into hiding, unable to stop the big dumb smile on his face. 

lucallemant Maybe I should’ve

srodulv What, why? 

lucallemant I don’t even know you

srodulv I’m Eliott :)

lucallemant Wow ur so funny 

srodulv I know Comedy is my passion

Lucas snorts a little too loudly, which makes the girls look over at him in question. He shakes his head, pointing at a student wandering close by so they can sell their food and stop bringing attention to him.

lucallemant Haha

He gets an idea then, hesitating only a little before deciding, fuck it. It's a big campus and Lucas has practice with avoiding people if anything goes wrong.

lucallemant Now go back to your game The point is to hit the target you know

He crouches down and turns a little, watching Eliott's head snap up, bright blue eyes surveying the crowd closely.

srodulv Okay, stalker Where are you?

Lucas waits for Eliott to turn around, searching for Lucas in the wrong direction, before he grabs his bag and kisses the girls on the cheek goodbye.

"You're leaving us already?" Alexia asks, wrapping up a set of cookies her girlfriend wants reserved. 

"Yeah, picked up a shift this evening. See you later!" He jogs out of the crowded area, taking advantage of the traffic to cover him from Eliott's view. 

lucallemant My friends are selling cakes and stuff across from you Lot 3 You should check it out

srodulv Will I see you?

He hops on the bus, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning like a lunatic.

lucallemant Go and find out

srodulv  Hmmm The cakes are good But I don't see you

lucallemant Maybe if everything sells out you'll see me

srodulv Okay 

He stares at the response, unsure of what to say next so he lets the conversation go.

And then proceeds to spend his entire shift agonizing over what that okay means. Okay as in that's ridiculous, pal, it's not gonna happen? Okay as in I have nothing else to say so let's end the chat here? What kind of okay does Eliott use in everyday language? Is it positive? Negative? Neutral?

Lucas spills boiling hot water on his finger and gets sent to the back of the kitchen to get his shit together. 

It isn't until he’s headed home that Lucas finds out exactly what Eliott means by it.

His laughter comes out breathy, as if punched right out of his lungs. He’s not sure whether he’s laughing at how glaringly out of place the photo is in comparison to Eliott’s usual posts or if it’s the tingle of pleased disbelief at the thought of Eliott wanting to meet him so bad he takes Lucas’ dumb joke seriously. There’s just no way Eliott’s actually doing this for him. No way.

But then he notices that Eliott had tagged him on one of Daphne’s posts. Curiously, Lucas clicks on it, small chuckles turning into full blown laughter when he sees what it is.

Lucas has to physically stop moving, standing right before his own apartment door as he gapes down at the screen.

No. Fucking. Way.

srodulv  Thursday, B building at the bridge, 13h

lucallemant Holy fuck

srodulv So I’ll see you? 

And what’s he supposed to do? Say no?

lucallemant  Yes

[prince-claremont-diaz]

Whatever We Become

Summary: In Lucas’ final year of high school before he has to face the real world, he comes across the new identical twins, Eliott and Leo. Needless to say, Lucas falls head over heels for both of them. 

Or The twin au absolutely no one asked for

Word count: 3.1k

Ao3 version

Chapter Fifteen: The best night of my life

“Lucas, what time is Eliott coming to pick you up?” Manon asked from the doorway. She was currently watching Lucas rummaging through his wardrobe for some clothes, an amused smile playing on her cherry red lips. She also had a date that night, though she refused to tell Lucas any other details.

“Uh, 19h,” he said distractedly, pulling out a slightly crumpled grey hoodie and holding it up to look at.

Manon walked over from behind, pulling the hoodie out of his grasp and putting it back up in the closet with a shake of her head. “It’s a date, you can’t wear a hoodie again. You have to dress nicely,” she said, a slight chastising tone to her voice as she turned to search through Lucas’ wardrobe as well. She pulled out a denim jacket and tossed it onto his unmade bed, turning back to the wardrobe.

“Manon, it’s fine. I don’t need help finding clothes to wear,” he insisted, pulling out a plain white tee from the back of the closet. Manon tugged it away, tossing it back inside.

“You can’t just wear a white shirt, Lucas. At least wear something with colour.”

Lucas sighed, pushing Manon out of his bedroom. “Okay, okay, I’ll wear a colour,” he mimicked, “Now can I please get back to getting ready? He’ll be here in twenty minutes.” 

◇

 Half an hour later, Lucas was following Eliott down a busy Paris street, trying to get an idea of where he was taking him. But Eliott’s lips were sealed as he simply led him this way and that, fingers twined together.

“Eliott, where are we going? You’re so cryptic with our dates,” Lucas whined at one point as he followed Eliott down yet another side street, past a small bakery that was being closed for the night. The air was freezing that evening, whipping his hair this way and that, sending goosebumps all along his skin.

“It’s a surprise. I thought you liked surprises,” Eliott replied, turning left onto a pedestrian’s street. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

Finally, when Lucas’ legs were beginning to ache and his forehead was beading with sweat despite the cold, Eliott came to a stop. Lucas stumbled slightly, looking up at the building they were now standing in front of. It looked to be an old movie theatre. It had a small ticket booth out front, a large white board over the entrance which would usually advertise films on show and various posters advertising upcoming showings or adverts. The many lights bordering the sign for the theatre were lit up, a rectangular constellation which blinked and sparkled in the low light of the late evening.

“What are we doing here? There aren’t any films on tonight,” Lucas asked, turning to look at Eliott, knitting his eyebrows together, searching the other boy’s face for a hint of what was happening.

Eliott laughed, letting go of his hand to throw his arm over Lucas’ shoulder, holding him close. “Not for everyone,” he whispered teasingly, pulling Lucas towards the entrance.

The cinema apparently only had one theatre, which was situated at the back. Lucas was still looking around in curiosity as Eliott tugged him towards the big red doors leading to the theatre. It was a pretty generic looking cinema with a long concessions stand showcasing popcorn and various sweets and drinks and the usual dark carpet covered in miscellaneous stains.

The inside of the theatre, however, was anything but generic that night. All down the aisle between the seats, fairy lights had been hung up, lighting their path with glittering stars. The huge velvet curtains which normally covered the screen were pulled back to show the title screen for “Les Quatre Cents Coups”, an old black and white film. Eliott lead Lucas down the aisle until they reached row L, still pulling him by the hand to the middle of the row.

“Eliott, what is all this? Did you rent the whole theatre?” Lucas asked in amazement as Eliott made him sit down. He gazed around the theatre, trying to process what he was seeing. Eliott’s smile gave it away and Lucas’ whole face lit up even more, eyes wide and smile bright. “Fuck, how much did you pay for this?” Eliott snorted, pulling Lucas into a kiss and shaking his head. “Tell me,” Lucas said against his lips. Eliott shook his head again.

“You haven’t seen anything yet. Look!” Eliott exclaimed, reaching down under the seats to pull out a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses. Lucas burst out with a loud, bubbling laugh, shaking his head in disbelief.

“This is insane. No one’s ever done anything like this for me,” Lucas said, leaning over the seat to press a soft kiss against Eliott’s lips, grinning. He glanced down at the bottle in Eliott’s hand and muttered, “You’re crazy.”

Eliott removed the cork from the top with a satisfying pop, followed by a fizzle of bubbles and the condensation from inside. He let Lucas hold the two glasses as he poured them each some of the drink before setting it aside on the ground. As the movie started playing on the big screen, Lucas held his glass up in the air between them. “To tonight.”

Eliott laughed, clinking their glasses together and saying, “To us.” Lucas laughed, taking a sip of the bubbling golden drink. It fizzed and stung all the way down his throat, the cool liquid leaving his insides warm and content and bubbly. Lucas felt as though he had to hold onto something to keep from floating away.

“Hang on,” Eliott whispered, holding up a finger and leaning over the seats once again. He returned a few seconds later carrying two small bags of popcorn.

“Eliott!” Lucas exclaimed, taking one of the bags from him and placing it in his lap. He grabbed a handful of popcorn in his free hand, dropping a few onto the floor, and shoving it all in his mouth. It was surprisingly good for popcorn, not too salty, but not too plain. “Oh, wow! This is the best popcorn I’ve ever eaten.”

Eliott laughed, plucking a single piece and popping it in his mouth. “Right? Who would have thought popcorn could be so good? This shit is delicious!”

“Well, as long as you didn’t make it, I’m sure anything could taste good.”

Eliott gasped, tossing a handful at Lucas. Lucas yelped, throwing back his own handful. “Just watch the movie, would you?” Eliott teased, gesturing to the screen as the first few scenes were playing. Lucas rolled his eyes, taking another sip of champagne and glancing over at Eliott instead of watching the film. He was far more interesting anyway.

Eliott looked back at him, eyes twinkling from the fairy lights he had strung up, facial features emphasised by the pale glow of the film. Eliott leaned over, resting his forehead against Lucas and whispering, “You’re so beautiful.” Lucas shook his head, cheeks scarlet and a tiny smile peeking out. “No, seriously. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so fucking gorgeous as you. The first time I saw you, I’m not joking when I say you took my breath away.” Lucas had no reply to this, as usual, absolutely floored by Eliott’s seemingly constant stream of compliments. They always caught him off guard, like going for a hike only to come across a sudden drop off.

Instead of replying verbally, Lucas simply closed the last remaining centimetres between them, falling over the drop off into another electric kiss. Eliott deepened the kiss, carefully putting the drinks onto the ground and pressing Lucas’ back into the seats. All the while Lucas’ whole body tingled with energy and adrenaline and probably magic, the film continued to play like background music. Even as the characters on screen shouted and committed crimes, they continued pushing and pulling, hands wandering, lips searching.

Eventually, they had to pull apart, out of breath, clothes and hair awry. They picked up their food and drinks once again and returned to watching the movie.

“We should serve this popcorn at our wedding.” Eliott said after a little while, chewing on another handful. “In fact, that’s all we should serve. Just popcorn and knockoff champagne.”

“Oh, so we’re getting married then?” Lucas asked, leaning forwards against the chairs in front, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Eliott nodded. “Well of course. Don’t you want to get married?” Eliott replied, as though it was absurd for Lucas to not consider them getting married. They had barely known each other for two months. “But really. Imagine. All of our guests have the popcorn and they all love it so much that they beg to know where it came from and I refuse to tell anyone and there becomes a huge feud between our families because they all want to know where the delicious popcorn comes from. And then more and more people join in the feud and everyone wants to try the popcorn,” Eliott babbled, shovelling more popcorn into his mouth while Lucas watched with wavering amusement. “And then when everyone starts eating that popcorn, that’s all anyone wants to eat ever and so all the corn farms start to go bankrupt. Even the one that makes this popcorn because of overproduction. And still no one knows where the popcorn is from except for us. So we’re forced to go into hiding on an island in the middle of the Atlantic.”

The longer Eliott went on, the more confused Lucas got, nodding half-heartedly at the tangle of words falling out of his boyfriend’s mouth. “How many Lucas’s and Eliott’s do you think are married?” Eliott asked, resting his head on Lucas’ shoulder, gaze fixed on the screen.

Lucas hummed thoughtfully, reaching back to run his fingers through Eliott’s hair. “Probably a lot,” he whispered, letting his free hand grab Eliott’s lacing their fingers together on the arm rest. “I think a lot of Lucas’s and Eliott’s are together. Maybe somewhere we’re on a boat. Or perhaps we’re both celebrities in some universe and we’re each other’s dates to a red carpet event.”

“Really?”

Lucas nodded, pressing a kiss on top of Eliott’s head. “Definitely.”

Eliott chuckled, lifting their interlocked hands and inspecting them, tilting them side to side and rubbing his thumb over the back of Lucas’ hand. “Let’s go for a walk. I’m bored with sitting doing nothing.” Eliott let go of his hand and sat up straight, putting the food and drinks on the floor and standing up.

“But Eli, the film-”

“Who cares? Let’s just go somewhere. Be somewhere. I don’t care where,” Eliott insisted, cutting Lucas off. He held out one of his hands for Lucas to take. “Come on, I’m tired of just sitting around. I wanna do something. Please?” He pouted childishly, eyes wide and lashes fluttering. And how could Lucas say no to that?

And so, Lucas put his own stuff on the ground and together, hand in hand, they abandoned the film and ran up the aisle together. They pushed out into the blinding lobby and out onto the street, beginning to wander slowly down the street.

Eliott paused near a bench to pull something out of his pocket, showing Lucas his usual lighter and joint. Lucas watched Eliott’s nimble fingers lighting the end of the joint with ease, slipping the lighter back into his pocket and taking a long drag and letting it out slowly. He took another hit this time, tilting his head to blow some of the smoke directly into Lucas’ face. Lucas breathed in the first hit, almost choking from the first headrush.

Lucas took the joint from Eliott, taking a drag, letting the smoke swirl around his lungs until it filtered out into the night. “You know, I think this is the best night of my life,” Lucas said as Eliott cooed at a baby in a pram passing by.

“Then maybe we should just die tonight. Since we’ve peaked,” Eliott suggested, letting out more smoke, completely unaware of Lucas’ shocked face.

Lucas stopped in his tracks, heart suddenly racing. He stared at Eliott, eyebrows knitting together and his lungs in his throat. “Why-why are you saying something like that?” he stammered, eyes wide, trapping his lip between his teeth.

Eliott kissed his forehead and said, “I’m just joking, baby.” Lucas ignored the pet name, letting go of his hand and continuing walking, head down and chest aching. Eliott jogged after him, more smoke falling out of his lips, grabbing Lucas’ hand. “I was kidding!” he insisted, squeezing Lucas’ hand.

Lucas paused at the next bench, head beginning to feel dizzy with the mixture of alcohol and weed in his body, mingling with the sudden adrenaline rush. He felt heavy and light all at once, dropping into the seat with a sigh and taking the joint from Eliott. Lucas tipped his head back, shutting his eyes and letting the high float through him, unable to keep his head up. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to see the river.”

Lucas looked up, eyelids drooping. His surroundings seemed to be moving in slow motion, passing cars driving at the speed of snails, thoughts slowing down to a tranquil buzz. He nodded as much as he could, watching Eliott walk away hanging from the ceiling before closing his eyes once again.

Wait a second, Lucas thought, sitting up and looking around the mostly empty street. Like a bucket of water had been drenched over him, Lucas stumbled to his feet. The river? What was Eliott doing with a river? Frantically, heart picking up pace once again, Lucas looked this way and that down the street. “Eliott? Hello? Eliott!” Lucas called, walking in the direction he hoped Eliott had gone in and dropping the half-finished cigarette on the concrete. “Fuck.”

Lucas jogged this way and that, calling out to Eliott, going through the many twists and turns of Paris at random. After a few minutes, he caught sight of a bridge, barely dodging a car as he sprinted across the street. “Eliott!” he screamed, grabbing fistfuls of hair and looking up and down along the black water a good few metres down. “FUCK!”

Lucas yanked his phone out of his pocket, breathing heavily and eyes blurry with tears as he looked for Leo’s contact. It rang a few times, each tone mocking and too loud, until Leo’s voice appeared like an angel. “Hello? Lucas?”

“Leo! I-I don’t know what-please come. Eliott just disappeared and said he was going to the r-river and I don’t know where he went!” he sobbed, tripping over every word. He continued moving around in circles, trying desperately to find Eliott.

“Lucas, just calm down,” Leo soothed, though his voice shook, “Where are you now?”

“R-right next to the Louis Philippe bridge, I think,” he stammered, looking around at his surroundings. When Leo hung up, Lucas walked onto the bridge, looking over the edge and down into the abyss below. “ELIOTT!” His voice grew hoarse with every scream, the stone of the bridge digging into his fingers as he continued to cry out desperately. His heart knocked against his ribs, blood pumping in his ears, chest aching and lungs heaving.

Leo appeared not long after, jogging towards him as Lucas sat on the edge of the pavement with his face in his hands, shaking all over. Lucas jumped to his feet when he heard Leo coming, taken aback by the look of the older boy whose eyes were bloodshot and glassy with tears, hair sticking up like Eliott’s usually did. His entire aura just reeked of panic. “What happened?” Leo asked, voice stern and steady despite the rest of his frantic demeanor.

“Eliott rented some old theatre and we were watching a film there, but he wanted to go for a walk, but then-” Lucas interrupted himself with a hiccough, voice breaking and a fresh tear falling down, “But then I looked away for just a minute and he said he was going to the water and he disappeared. He was talking about us dying and then he disappeared and I-I think he’s jumped in or something...” Tears were falling fast now, big dollops landing on the concrete.

Leo sighed, running his hands through his hair. “My parents are going to kill me. Hopefully the police will find him-”

“Police? But what-”

Leo groaned in exasperation, shoving Lucas back a step by his shoulders. “HE’S BIPOLAR, LUCAS!” he yelled, gripping onto Lucas’ jacket, tears building in his eyes again. “I don’t know if he told you that but-Lucas he doesn’t have the kind of money to rent out fucking cinemas. He probably stole our dad’s credit card details again because he can’t afford that shit on his own!"

“But-”

Leo shook his head sharply, letting go of Lucas and taking a deep shuddering breath. “Did you guys smoke?” Lucas grappled for an answer, words dying on his tongue, barely managing a short nod and pinching his fingers together. “That’s not good for him, Lucas. He can’t smoke like you and I can.” Leo’s phone rang in his back pocket and he pulled it out, stepping away from him to answer. “Hello?.. Yes, okay… Thank you. I’ll tell our parents.”

“Did they find him?” Lucas asked once Leo slid his phone in his pocket once again.

Leo nodded, wiping a stray tear from his cheek. “Yeah. I have to meet our parents to go get him,” he explained, looking down at his feet, sniffling.

“I’ll come with y-”

“No. You can’t. Just-” Leo took another deep breath. He gave Lucas a sympathetic smile, eyes glassy and apologetic. “I’ll call you okay? When you can see him or whatever.” Lucas nodded, looking at his feet, chest heaving.

And as quick as Leo came, he was striding back across the bridge, disappearing around the corner and leaving Lucas alone at the middle.

Lucas screamed over the edge again, voice cracking, sobs wracking his body. His whole body was on fire, overwhelmed beyond compare, fear overtaking him. With another scream, Lucas punched the side of the bridge as hard as he could. He punched it again and again, fingers screaming with pain, stone digging into his skin, but he ignored it. Lucas ignored the physical pain, allowing it to blend in with the onslaught of emotions and tears until his legs gave out and he dropped to the ground, leaning against the side and clutching his bleeding hand.

[bitchryver]

controversial opinion you should give us your bi aelin headcanons

sorry this took so long to answer I’ve been on a hunt for receipts x

aelin ashryver is bisexual: a summary

-I’m indebted forever to @blackbeaktrash for pointing this out to me but uhhh remember that post about how Mulan Korra and the short one from the time traveling lesbian game all had one thing in common- the bisexual hair cut ? hello aelins fresh chop in HoF

- the assassin and the desert. every single line. is a wlw tragedy romance ripped straight from a mythology.

- let’s get some direct quotes from the gay awakening that was the assassin and the desert:

~

“Celaena tried not to look too interested, though the girl was one of the most stunning people she’d ever beheld.”

~

“And somehow, the thought of returning to Rifthold without Ansel was a tad unbearable.”

~

“Celaena couldn’t stop her lips from trembling as she asked, “Was it ever real?”

“Ansel opened one eye, staring at the far wall. “There were some moments when it was. The moment I sent you away, it was real.”

~

“ And I think she sent you away because she truly cared for you.

She hated her mouth for wobbling. “That doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

-like Sam is nice rip but I refuse to believe he was aelins first love interest when ansel exists

- i understand where people are coming from when they talk about malide being canon if manon was a man but….i present example a- ansel and celaena the original gay love story to never happen and yet be laced with romantic chemistry

-anyway read the gayssassin and the desert

-aelin describing every woman she meets as beautiful and ethereal and then men are like…’he was tall. he had sword’

- yrene in tab: ‘wow I’d love to travel and be a healer so I could help people’

-aelin, emptying her pockets: you’re so pretty I love you here’s a sack full of cash is that enough? You’re so talented ily

-she loves swords & swords belong to the gays

-aelin calling cha0l ugly the first time she meets him…compared with yrene, a straight woman who’s immediately attracted to him…..Noah fence but….that was her gaydar trying to warn her :/

-aelins the only one who calls out these dumb ass white frat boys on their privilege and their upper class straight man bullshit!!shes having none of it !!!

-doriman in tog: “hey aelin? would you ever consider putting your life at risk and jeopardizing your safety to be with me?”

-aelin, right before she goes to have breakfast in bed with her beloved idol nehemia:

-while we’re on the subject, aelin taking literal WEEKS to notice if a mans attractive or not but describing every woman she meets as good looking within SECONDS even if she hates them

-Like LOOK

-I mean I cannot relate to the straight experience but I cannot imagine this is how a straight woman talks about women

-SHE DOESNT EVEN LIKE LYSANDRA AND SHES ALL IN THERE TALKING ABOUT HER ‘SENSOUS MOUTH’ IN QOS i mean

-aelin: the woman was built like a mythical goddess…she radiated beauty and sensuality from every pore

-aelin : this is rowan he’s my husband and he’s built like a TANK

-It took aelin six months to realize he was hot compared to literally everybody else who wanted to jump him mere seconds after meeting him(with the exception of manon, a proud lesbian but anyway)

-girl cannot sit in a fucking chair properly!! always throwing herself sideways or dangling off of it or slouching in it or something

-spitting jewels out of her mouth? Performing foreplay in a room full of powerful men and borian? gay

-i don’t know about you gals but I always get a ring engraved to give to my personal (straight)friends when I ask them to spend the rest of their life with me…

-when Rowan’s like ‘aw man can’t wait to get back and go to bed with my wife’ and the next line is like ‘aelin and lysandra were lying together, asleep’

-aelin saw the absolute straight man manic pixie nonsense quail and dorito were throwing at her and was like ‘bummer uhhh fuck both of you?’ instead of wasting her life and energy on men who didn’t appreciate her that’s all bi energy babes!

-aelin and manon having a metaphorical dick measuring contest but with swords

-aelin polishing nesryns dagger and dreaming of buying her a new one

-aelin telling kale that nesryn can speak for herself !!! Shut up!!!

- nesryn: mind your own business brullo lmao #nosy as fuck

-aelin, who had a dagger at this woman’s back not even 12 hours earlier:

-Aedion: haha��so aelin only invited nesryn out to have drinks with us because she needed an extra pair of hands because I was injured….what a smart strategic move

-aelin: nesryn you look lonely do you want to come with us ? Tell me about yourself. What’s your family like? How do you get your hair so smooth? Do you want my social security number?

-aelin loved nehemia so much she dumped stale whitebread and got written off as a terrible character by the Discourse Police: Cha0l Division. that’s love.

-attempting to murder the man ur fuckin after he’s involved in the murder of your beloved gay friend? hm. not a straight aura but #prove #me #wrong

-aelin keeps all her nails long except her sword hands so she can keep the aesthetic and weapon functionality but also keep a gay functionality

- in tower of dawn whomst does aelin write to? out of every one of the royal family ? lesbian icon and love of my life Hasar. aelin sensed incredible chaotic gay wlw energy from ACROSS the sea and knew immediately where the real power was. gaydar in action

- aelin has impeccable taste in fashion and upholstery, unrivaled by any other person in tog

-listen I live with 2 straight people and I promise you. The only one who cares enough about proper home decor, mood lighting and pretty things that were very expensive- is the gay one: me

-all the men hate her all the women love her lmao that says it all

- chaotic disaster gay aelin ashryver. Hurricane wlw nightmare woman tearing through these streets

-made a post about it here already but aelins like ‘fuck I can’t like manon but her fucking sword is so cool jesus christ’ that’s gay

- when aelin finds out manon graciously allowed snorian to have sex with her: I do NOT approve but go ahead ruin ya life lol

-when aelin finds out manon left elide alone in oakweld: what the FUCK did you do to that precious beautiful angel were it not for the laws of this land-

-MANON ‘LESBIAN’ BLACKBEAK herself says aelin radiates a gay aura she’s disappointed when she meets her in eos because all the batshit chaotic neutral gay has been depleted from her due to over exposure to straight men

-manons entire arc re: aelin in eos was ‘i should rip her throat out but i get where this stupid gay is coming from so’

-aelin giving a woman she’s just met the necklace her abuser gave her on her 16th? power move. gay power move.

- i love her so much but she’s. so goddamn stupid. and that’s such a mood

- Getting My Whole Ass Out To Prove Were Platonic Friends …that’s a level of denial I can’t even cover

-don’t know if I said it earlier but when aelin asks Lys to join her and lys says oh are you proposing, aelin..doesn’t say no lmao she’s just like ‘tragically I find myself with a life partner’

-lysandra sleeping on aelins lap while aelin downs 2 bottles of wine and flirts with ansel, while all the men look on annoyed that aelin did all of their jobs for them- gay imagery

- listen if ansel ‘murdered my boyfriend of 5yrs saving the girl I knew for a month’ briarcliff approves of you then…you’re gay. you just are.

-aelin ’ill murder you if so much as make EYE CONTACT with any of my women’ ashryver

- I said it already but. There is no better way to indicate that you are living life as our lady sappho intended than having a plethora of boring straight men hate you.

-That’s one of the things you need to have before they let you be gay

-aelins the only character who’s like- you know what I’m missing from my life? Women. I should go out and meet more of those

-killing the man who murdered your beloved friend in the exact same way he tortured her killing the man who set it up and basking in his blood am I right ladies

-aelin acknowledging she’s pretty because she works at it ? Maybe the only ya fantasy character who cannonically exfoliates, moisturizes, and uses toner and serum??? And you except me to sit here and assume she’s straight ???? In this economy ?????

-and yeah I’m absolutely 100% projecting because i love her. maybe blonde emotional chaotic bisexual fashion icons should look after each other now and then.

what do I know i clearly missed the gay memo where we all hate her now or something lmaooo anyway

[reneereadskingdomofash]

Thoughts on the Ships in Kingdom of Ash

Ok, I’m writing some thoughts on the Ships in Kingdom of Ash. I’ve jumped onto a few posts, but I feel like I’m probably not being clear because well, I talk to people outside of those posts via different channels and so people aren’t getting the full picture. 

Not that this matters of course, the internet and tumblr is only a snapshot, but I wanted to write some clear thoughts on the Ships and how I am feeling about them before/during/and now two weeks after having finished the book. 1. perspectives change. 2. Reading other peoples thoughts that might enhance our own understanding happens too. **SPOILERS BELOW CUT**

Rowaelin

Before Koa: Yes, I dig it. Empire of Storms was their peak love story! Heir of Fire gave me all the Angst - love and hate, falling in love with the trainer, Queen of Shadows gave me my reunion and happiness to fight the bad guys and Empire of Storms gave me the sexy times. The Ship had sailed. Then Maeve came in Empire of Storms. And I was worried for my ship, but only because I was worried for the individual parts of the whole. What happens if they die! What happens if Aelin isn’t who she was. What happens to them! they deserve a happily ever after. *insert renee crying lots at the end of Empire of Storms* 

During Koa: I was scared. Aelin wasn’t who she was. Rowan was loosing himself in the hunt for her. What was this new thing between Fenrys and her and Rowan was on the outs? What did this mean? Why couldn't she talk? Where was my Aelin!!! Aelin had hardened and I was scared, and Rowan was scared and it made me think - she’s going to die and i’m going to cry. Then Aneille happened and Aelin almost came back. She was as close to the old Aelin as I think was possible given the trauma that she went through. Rowan didn’t care. He would have loved her anyway. Such a pure ship. And then they go on to save the world. Once Aelin had forged the lock, I wasn’t scared for her anymore. I didn’t think she might die, I didn’t think Rowan would either. The lock felt like it was the start of their happy ending. Sure lots of stuff to go on but the ship was good. 

After Koa: Same feelings. I still love Rowaelin. But I got to experience their journey over 4 books! It was satisfying in that they had page time but it didn't detract from the story. So When I’m not enthusiastic about Rowaelin - Its not because I don’t love them, I’ve just been with them a long time. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that they would be ok. 

Elorcan (aka the ship I wanted to sail more than any other)

Before  Koa: I was scared. I feel so hard into this ship when I read Empire of Storms. And then when I re-read it before KoA I fell harder. I loved Lorcan from the start. A grumpy demi-fae, who is the most powerful, who seems angry, who doesn’t show emotions, who would do anything for his friends. (sure misguided sometimes - but that’s what it boils down to). He came to Rowan’s aid in Heir of Fire. He came for his friend. Not his general. He didn’t have time for Aelin - some mortal girl who people had an interest in. It wasn’t why he came. People who know me - know I have been cheering for Lorcan the past two years. That he’s going to show this side of himself. My morally grey Lorcan. And then Queen of Shadows and Empire of Storms happened. Oh man. Elide, my witch baby standing up for those who cant do it for themselves! She took on Vernon for Kaltain, she is bad-ass! She is the my love just as Lorcan is my love. I’m so torn I love them both. Its a good thing they found each other. Anyway. Elide stands up to him, she fights for herself and others. She protects him and he does the same back. So I love them. Elide threw herself in front of a wolf (Fenrys to save him!) And When Lorcan called for Maeve - my heart sank. Lorcan u big Dummy! I love you but come on! And then the theories started. and I wrote some too. Maybe if I think of the worst possible thing that can happen and put it out into the world it wont happen. Like jinxing the bad stuff. Lorcan “SALVATERRE” savior of lands- does that mean he will sacrifice himself??? Honestly my biggest fear going in. 

During  Koa: Kingdom of Ash was a roller-coaster for my ship. I was so invested in everything they did. I paid way too much attention to their sections than other ships. - honestly I skim read nestaq scenes (who I love). which is bad I know. but elorcan for life apparently.  And Lorcan was being sneaky and trying to help Elide be comfortable (sure more period talk but what ever) because he had been traveling with her for months and months and knew she needed stuff. He shows love by doing. Not always doing the right thing (his decision making skills need work) - but he tries. Elide was a bitch at the start. Just going to say it. Sure she might have been justified, but sometimes you don’t need to voice all the nasty things in your head. And I got mad at her. Then she basically said she wouldn’t care if Lorcan died. And his heart broke and my heart broke and I was upset and probably crying.  AND THEN THE BATTLE OF ANEILLE HAPPENED AND I CRIED!!! AND I SCREAMED AT MY BOOK. Direct quote from my notes: “ P500 - NOT HAPPY! Lorcan!!!! OMG NOT HAPPY! LORCAN JUST DROPPED HIS SHEILDS - fucking egg! Omg ahhh! Crap. Crap crap.”  I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have dropped his shields if Elide hadn’t said such horrible things to him and he didn’t feel like he needed to die. So I was mad, fucking live you dork. Its just a girl! I ship you two, but if You are both going to be Dorks then I don’t!  So when Elide went to go find him I was like - OMG YES U DO LOVE HIM... direct quote from my notes:  “ I'm crying .... Elide- "I will always find you", running down the stairs... oh it hurts.... please please be ok ....  Ahhh she grabbed chaols horse! A horse for Hellas himself... ahh Lol and then that's explained a couple of pages over Lorcan!!!(517) "Get up" :sobbing emojis: "I promised to always find you. I promised you, and you promised me. I came for you because of it; I am here because of it. I am here for you, do you understand? And if we don't get onto that horse now, we won't stand a chance against that dam. We will die." P 520 :more sobbing emojis: Omg :more sobbing emojis: You have to let me go I love you And I will be with you.... I will be with you always :more sobbing emojis: Lorcan Omg Fucking hell And elide! Yes! You claw at him girl!! That dam! Oof Omg my ship - you are killing me “

Honestly. Such a Rollercoaster. So as you can see I was invested. and then they seemed to tentatively get over each other and what happened and proceeded to get cuter and cuter as the book went on and just gave me warm fuzzies and happiness. 

After Koa: I love this ship. I would die for this ship. Fight me! - oh majority of fandom also Like my ship now... cool cool. that’s cool. guess we cool.

Manorian

Before Koa: I dig it. Its alright. Manon eats men for breakfast so Dorian has a little bit of a death wish but I can see that playfulness, that bond from living a similar life. Heirs in name only, for the longest time. I appreciated it, but wasn't strongly invested. I had picked my OTP already. Still enjoy this ship tho - just less invested.

During Koa: I really liked the tentative relationship between Manon and Dorian. I have so many notes about how I think he is a witch tho - so those stand out in my notes more than ship points. I liked that they shared a tent when Manon never did. I liked that Dorian spent time with the 13 developing friendships. It showed that he wanted to know Manon, more than just for sex. But it also cannot be denied that they like sex and used it to avoid talking. That happens in relationships too - not necessarily bad. Its one of the things I actually like about SJM’s ships they aren’t cookie cutter relationships. But I did feel like both Manon and Dorian chose the mission over the relationship (For Now) which is fine too btw. In life we might take a job in a different city and do long distance and still come back to each other. I think Dorian lying to Manon on their last night together by omission is a little sucky. But again. relationships have ups and downs. I’m glad it kinda ended there. Sure they come back together, But I like that its left open. Firstly because they have had the ship burn in flames - their isn’t an “unhappy” ending... the story is still playing out. We just cut away before seeing the end. 

After Koa: Wow ok. So people have lots of thoughts on this ship and maybe I should have been paying attention. Why don’t people like it open ended... ok? maybe its a loose end but there is still a book to come (the world of throne of glass) and sure its not a novel about Aelin. This doesn't mean it wont tell us about the encyclopedic history or Ardarlan and the Witch kingdom and how both are run by people who are seeing each other. A certain boy who knows how to use portals to get from one place to the other quickly - doesn't seem like living on opposite sides on the continent is going to be a problem.... maybe that’s just the optimist in me. If they have children - a girl to rule the wastes and a boy to be king. Seems like an amazing fit. I’d really like to see this happen tbh, but this takes time and time KoA didn’t have in the pages - but - maybe - the world of throne of glass will.  

Chaorian

Before Koa: Ahh cute - they had their love story i’m happy!

During Koa: Damn I love Yrene. Shes the best. Chaol, you are ok too - but Yrene has your back and is the light relief in your life. Chaol you are too serious - listen to your wife.

After Koa: awwww little wittle chaorene babies. awwwwww daddy Chaol. awww  uncle Dorian. <3 <3 so many warm fuzzies.

Nestaq

Before Koa: I ship them so Hard OMG SARTAQ I LOVE YOU. You are a way better fit for Nesryn than Chaol. Man i’m glad she met you. 

During Koa: oof Sartaq why u gotta have a Khagan hat on - you are so serious. Good thing Borte is there. 

After Koa: Nesryn has no idea what she is in for - Can I please get more Yeran and Borte. Still love Nestaq - but I understand the peak of their story was in Tower of Dawn. 

Lysaedion

Before Koa: Oh Man you two. The end of Empire of Storms - Aedion you are a dick! Why! Why! Oh you better just be mad and make it up to her. You love her dang it, you wanted to marry her! Argh. I don’t know how to feel, I like them together - but what is this past Aedion has? What is coming. I don’t want to get my hopes up. 

During Koa: Aedion! Aedion! What! Are! you! doing!

I’m so mad at Aedion right now. You better apologise.

Its so complicated to break down. But basically Aedion is being an A-hole to Lysandra and she doesn’t deserve it. She is running herself into the ground and you do that! Aedion! I’m so conflicted, why are you a good dad to Evangeline but an awful person to Lys! AHHH AEDION STOP! 

After Koa: I still don’t know how to break down this relationship. It sets off so many red flags for me. - About how someone can be a great dad but an awful partner.  - About how someone can be abusive essentially but explain away their actions. - About how other people stand by and watch, when they see this behavior. - About how it is all “circumstances”. 

Now - I think its fine for people to work through things and overcome their problems if they want to but that takes time. What Aedion did in Kingdom of Ash did not make me think he should have been able to win Lysandra back as quickly as he did near the end of the book. And it hurts. However I know people in real life who have gone back to people who have treated them badly. So its not uncommon. It is their decision. It just hurts. 

Part of me wants them to get a divorce and I’ve made a couple of joke-ish statements about that. But I could have been on Lysaedion’s side if it had a similar ending to Manorian. If it was left hanging, left on a - lets see where this goes. War does strange things to people, and I think Aedion was affected more than others, but he needs to prove he isn’t going to be the man who threw Lysandra out into the cold. In my eyes at least. 

I have prob left ships out, and thoughts out but this is a lot of writing for me that’s not counting towards my nanowrimo - hahaha. 

[bookofmirth]

A/elin actually slutshames manon in book5- hypocritical because she says what goes on in her bedroom is her business in book4. I never implied A/elin was liked by everyone. She has become so unlikeabale that the author attempts to make her more powerful + other characters less, and more in awe of A/elin so that readers will accept her. Manon has clearly taken over as fan favorite-maj. of people liking A/elin are rooted in the past + white idea of what feminism is. Manon is the main interest now

But you said that the author attempts to make her likeable - which how? Being powerful doesn’t make a character likeable. Being pretty doesn’t make a character likeable. Being rude doesn’t make a character likeable. So where, exactly, is this supposed to be happening? If sjm is trying to make Aelin likeable, she hasn’t done that great of a job, with the fandom or the characters. She’s clearly a contentious character, so even if everyone felt that sjm was trying to make her likeable, at the most it should be a funny joke because wow she missed the mark on that one.

And screw the idea of a character being likeable anyway. Give me characters who are interesting, please!

It’s clear that you spend more of your tumblr time in the anti community, which is fine. It’s your prerogative. But your perception of what “the majority” of people like is therefore skewed (see: notes on this post). People can like what they want to like, dislike what they dislike, I don’t care. I know that a lot of people are invested in malide, and if manorian crashed and burned and malide happened I think it’d be pretty cool (PLEASE GIVE ME MORE GAY SJM). But at the same time, a lot of the anti community has latched onto malide/Manon because of the page time and attention that sjm gave Manon and Elide, which is counter to one of your initial points! If they weren’t fully-developed characters, no one would have given a shit about them. Even antis.

Re: white feminism, the only thing that Manon has going for her that makes her any better is the fact that she hasn’t had a WOC die for her, which... as my friend @my-name-is-fireheart pointed out in another post, is SJM’s doing, NOT AELIN’S. You can’t pick and choose parts of this book to like based on the characters when it’s.... the author who has created the plot/world they are stuck in. Liking Manon but not Aelin because of problematic themes in the book makes literally no sense, because it’s not like the characters were the ones who created these themes.

And while we’re at it... Manon spent a large portion of her life exterminating the Crochans and reveling in it. She’s how old? And just barely starting to have a crisis of conscience about her actions? Aelin spent a large portion of her life critically examining the missions she was sent on, freeing slaves and attempting to overturn a tyrant in the process. So why is it that Manon is somehow better than Aelin? When on top of that, as I mentioned, it was SJM who fridged Nehemia, not Aelin?

tl;dr a whole lot of buzzwords are thrown around when it comes to discourse on feminism, diversity, and marginalization in ToG, but it’s not really useful when you aren’t thinking about the significance of those terms, or not able to differentiate between characters, plot, and author.

Sidenote, I adore Manon. Along with Aelin and Lysandra, she is one of my three favorite characters in the series. But I’m not going to be over here acting like any character I like has to be perfectly woke or have a spotless history in terms of problematic actions/words.

[onemustalwaysbecarefulofbooks]

ACOFAS Ramblings

This is gonna be super long-winded. I have a LOT to say. Buckle in, folk 

I have so many feelings on this novella I really don’t even know where to begin. I was really really excited for it and since actually reading it am now left kind of floundering in a weird range of emotions that cover every side of the spectrum. I’ll say it now: I had a lot of issues with it. This “review” (if it can even be called a review) is probably going to come across as really negative and for that I apologize. I don’t LIKE shitting all over books. I am 100% NOT on board with hating, over-analyzing, and criticizing an author/series just because it’s popular. But if there’s one thing I can say about Sarah J. Maas, it’s that she has the surefire knack for turning me from a level-headed logical adult reader to a rabid crazed homicidal lunatic. It happens every time and yet every time I’m still taken by surprise by it each time.

Those of you who follow me or have read any of my reviews before know that I have some pretty mixed feelings on the ACOTAR series. I was one of the (apparently very few) people who loved ACOTAR. I eagerly awaited the second book, only to be left completely shocked and reeling after seeing the direction the story had so abruptly taken. Most of this stems from the way Tamlin’s character was handled and treated demonized by the fandom. I have a whole long rant that goes in-depth about all that. I’ll leave it here. If you don’t feel like going into all of it, I’ll do my best to sum it up: The overwhelming beating-over-the-head message we had forced onto us every 5 seconds that certain characters were perfect and others were abusive neanderthals was obnoxious and unfair to me. I have SO many feelings on that, I’m not going to get into all of it here. If you want to know, read that post ^. But anyway, this colored my judgement on the series as a whole for a long time. Once I had gotten over the initial shock, I went back and re-read both ACOTAR and ACOMAF leading up the release of ACOWAR. I was able to enjoy them 1000x more and even though I didn’t agree with a lot of the things that were going down, I had accepted that they were happening and was holding out for redemption.

At the same time, though. . .I could totally understand how everyone went so bananas over the series??? Whenever I hear it described as crack, I have to pause and reflect on just how accurate that statement really is. It IS an amazing story, Sarah DOES write amazing characters, so many of the things that happen reduce me to a hysterical emotional mess. And yet, if I really stop and think about it, it’s like Ok wait. . .I actually have some major problems with all of this, like some seriously problematic things are at play here and yet I can’t stop reading and being obsessed with it?? Literal book crack, I tell you.

So once I had made peace the best I could with the series up to that point, I was READY for ACOWAR. I was pumped. And I ended up loving it!!! I was so pleasantly surprised on how things went down. Were there things that I still disagreed with, and wished I could shout from the rooftop to the general fandom? You bet there were. But overall I was so impressed with most of the characters and so much enjoying the direction their stories were going that I found it to be a truly satisfying ending that left me eagerly looking forward to what was to come. I was PUMPED for this novella.

And. . .

I had some issues. You bet I did. I understand this is just a novella and not meant to rival what a full blown novel is like in any way. It’s supposed to be a bridge, in a sense, for further growth for the characters. But this just seemed like a step BACK for so many of them that it made me frustrated.

We may as well just start with the Tamlin thing and get it out of the way, because everyone knows I’m going to rant about it. I am filled with so much rage on behalf of his character, it’s not even funny anymore. I am APPALLED at the way he is treated by everyone, Rhys in particular. All of these people saying he’s “not worthy” of forgiveness. . .I can’t. I literally can’t. The hypocrisy here is so strong I can smell it from another dimension. When I think of how many people in Sarah’s books the narrative has set up for us to forgive, despite the ACTUAL horrible things they’ve done (Jurian--seduced Amarantha’s sister into giving up information, then slowly brutally tortured her to death, the Archeron father--sat by knowing that despite being handicapped, he was leading his children down the path of starvation and death by doing nothing whatsoever to help their situation, Manon--spent decades and decades brutally murdering people (I don’t care if you make the argument that this is her grandmother’s fault for ruining her--I fucking love Manon, she’s one of my favorite characters, but it doesn’t change the fact that she has a lot of blood on her hands, and still did all she’s accused of), even fucking ERIS now apparently has some mysterious redemption-maybe thing going on) I just want to scream. What unforgivable crime is Tamlin guilty of??????? Misunderstanding Feyre? Being delusional? Being immature and talking inappropriate shit in front of other people??

Tamlin NEVER tells Feyre she is “not allowed” or “not worthy” to be a High Lady. NO ONE in Prythian has High Ladies! Feyre tells him she DOESN’T want to be one and he’s like “Don’t worry babe, that’s cool, they’re not really a thing anyway”. Unimpressive? No doubt. But if you’re going to shit all over Tamlin for this reason, then you’d better start doing it to every other High Lord too, given how utterly shocked they are when Feyre and Rhys show up to that High Lords meeting in ACOWAR and announce that Feyre is High Lady. You’d better start saying it about Kallias too, who clearly respects, trusts, and adores Viviane, but has not made her his High Lady.  It is literally treated as something Rhys and Feyre made up.

Tamlin has to watch Rhys basically strip Feyre, paint her body with all kinds of weird tattoo art, and drug her into oblivion night after night Under the Mountain. Don’t tell me none of you were a little skeeved by this in ACOTAR. Don’t tell me there wasn’t ONE of you that wasn’t like Wow, this guy is a fucking creep. I’m NOT saying Rhys IS a fucking creep, he is far from it.  I’m merely saying it’s not far-fetched at all for someone to think that about him after witnessing that, BECAUSE HE IS ACTING LIKE A FUCKING CREEP. Yes yes yes, we all now understand WHY he did it but guess what?? Tamlin doesn’t! BECAUSE NO ONE FUCKING COMMUNICATES WITH EACH OTHER IN THIS SERIES!!!! (Oh believe me, this is something I’m about to make a fucking point of in a little bit). Tamlin thinks Amarantha’s boyfriend, the guy who treats Feyre this way, has tricked her into residing in his court that no one has ever seen or been to, but Amarantha supposedly modeled her own after. DELUSIONAL DELUSIONAL DELUSIONAL!!! The fact that he couldn’t see how badly Feyre was suffering shows how poorly suited they are for each other. On top of that, we’re told in ACOWAR that finding a mate in the romantic sense that Feyre and Rhys have is rare. Mating bonds can be as simple as the matching of the most productive DNA. Tamlin AND Rhys’s parents were mates who were “wrong” for each other. Rhys gives a whole speech to Feyre about how sometimes the males who were mated to a female feel that they are “entitled” to her and will fight the male she has chosen for herself to the death. While I personally believe this was only added in to bring about drama to the Elain-Lucien-Azriel mess, if it’s something we’re actually sticking to, it certainly sheds a new light on the way Tamlin reacted in Hybern at the end of ACOMAF, where he was snarling at Rhys that he didn’t give a shit if he was Feyre’s mate. Again: DE. LOU. SION. AL. But being a delusional dumb ass is NOT the same thing as being a controlling entitled psychopath. Tamlin, the dumb motherfucker that he is, has no idea that Rhys has even been good to Feyre in any way. Feyre does not say, “We’re in love�� and he responds with “I don’t give a shit”. THAT would be as bad as everyone is acting like it is.

The two things I absolutely will give the Tamlin criticizers are: him finally locking her up in the manor and his appalling and completely out-of-line behavior at the High Lords meeting. There’s no good explanation for him shutting her in the manor, other than the fact that he let his own PTSD, fear, and rage get the best of him and control his actions. It was WRONG and he 100% owes her an actual apology for it. I completely understand Feyre harboring bad feelings towards him for that. And then the High Lords meeting. . .come on, dude. It was embarrassing af. I get that he was hurt and pissed and embarrassed, but coming in there and trash talking them, bringing up their former sex life. . .no. It was way out-of-line.

The rest of it, though. . .Rhys keeps harping on and on about how badly Tamlin “hurt” Feyre. I’m sure I’ll get enough hate mail to wrap around the circumference of the world for this, but. . .how? What did he REALLY do that is so unworthy of forgiveness? Wanted her to wear fancy dresses and be an accessory as he ruled the Spring Court? Have his babies? Buried his head in the sand and wasn’t able to cope with her PTSD because he was knee-deep in issues of his own? Locking her up in the manor, fine. I’m 100% with you on that. But like. . .I’d just like to say. In ACOTAR, Rhys deliberately pushed on a bone protruding from Feyre’s arm to get her to cooperate him and agree to agreeing with him. Not only is he completely forgiven for it, it is never brought up again once in the entire series. If that’s going to be brushed aside and ignored, we REALLY can’t forgive Tamlin for making a really poor decision? No one is denying what he did was wrong, least of all me. But my God. You can’t even say that he sided with Hybern and fucked everyone over to get her back. He made it very clear in ACOWAR that he did this purely to gain assistance in (what he believed was) rescuing her, and then planned to take Hybern down from the inside. Do not tell me Rhys wouldn't do the same thing for her. Rhys DID do the same thing for his family and the entire city of Velaris. Rhys did horrible things to protect the people he loved. Imagine how Clare Beddor’s family would feel towards him, and what he subjected her to in the name of protecting Feyre. I know Rhys took all her pain away from her in the moment of the actual torturing but in the case of the point I’m making, that is so not the point. She was still kidnapped from her home and undoubtedly terrified beyond belief. She was still degraded and humiliated in front of strangers who meant her harm. Her family still lost a daughter. Do I blame Rhys for it? No. He took a really awful situation and did what he could to do the best for his loved ones. The world isn’t black and white, sometimes people are forced to choose between a bad choice or a even worse choice. He gets the benefit of the doubt, but Tamlin never does. Anyway, all of these things. . .wanting to mold her into something she’s not, consuming himself in his own head rather than making an effort to dig deeper with her, to me just sounds like two people who aren’t well suited for each other. I’d really like to think that had these people communicated like actual adults, it all most likely could have been peacefully resolved without all this bullshit and drama. Feyre and Tamlin DESPERATELY need to sit down and have an actual conversation, WITHOUT RHYS PRESENT.

So yeah. To see JURIAN, who literally intentionally seduced a woman and then brutally tortured her to death, now apparently be Not So Bad After All and hanging out in the Lucien friend gang but see Tamlin being scorned and mocked and completely dismissed for any sort of redemption is blood boiling to me.

“But--peace. We had peace within our sights.

I could rip him apart after we attained it.”

“Low. It was a low blow. I  had everything--everything I’d wished for, dreamed of, begged the stars to give me.

He had nothing. Had been given everything and squandered it. He didn’t deserve my pity, my sympathy.

No, Tamlin deserved what he’d brought on himself, this husk of a life.

He deserved every empty room, every snarl of thorns, every meal he had to hunt for himself.”

“You deserve everything that has befallen you. You deserve this pathetic, empty house, your ravaged lands. I don’t care if you offered that kernel of life to save me, I don’t care if you still love my mate. I don’t care that you saved her from Hybern, or a thousand enemies before that. I hope you live the rest of your miserable life alone here. It’s a far more satisfying end than slaughtering you.”

Congratulations, Rhys. All this I hear about the Honorable, Self-Sacrificing, Most Powerful High Lord in Prythian’s history, and you’ve managed to make me see you as nothing more than a Grade A Dick.

HOW you can bring yourself to be that cruel to someone that is in the level of disparity that he is in is beyond me. Unless he’s a straight up rapist or murderer, I do not believe he deserves this one bit. Feyre “survived” him. . .I have never heard a more overdramatic statement in my life. Feyre survived her severe PTSD. Tamlin was not the cause of this. He did nothing to help it, which is a pretty dick move and definitely not the way you want to treat someone you claim to love, but he is not where her issues were stemming from. Tamlin was severely misguided but his intentions were good. I know no one on the face of the Earth wants to hear that, but is the literal truth. He owes some major apologies and could benefit from some serious self-reflection but Rhys is treating him like he shackled Feyre in a dungeon and beat and raped her repeatedly.

Basically, Rhysand needs to Chill The Fuck Out about many things, and I’ll touch more on this later.

What’s very conflicting for me right now is the direction Sarah’s trying to lead us in. A big thing that I’ve been an advocate of lately is that a character’s thoughts, opinions, and beliefs do NOT mean the author holds those same thoughts, opinions, and beliefs. When people criticize a character’s actions for being problematic, I try to consider the fact that maybe it was intentional of the author to write them this way. Maybe they’re not trying to make them this pillar of morality, maybe they’re just being a character that, at the end of the day, is just that: a character. A form of entertainment. The confliction I’m here is that the narrative has been incredibly biased towards Rhys and Feyre since the first page of ACOMAF. Pretty much every single thing up to this point has been presented as whatever they think, say, and do is what everyone is cheering for. So like. . .does Sarah herself actually feel this way about Tamlin? Or is she just giving us what she truly thinks Rhys and Feyre are feeling about Tamlin at this point, whether that’s right or wrong? I’d truly like to hope for the latter but I honestly can’t tell. Some people are theorizing that this was intentional, to make Rhys seem not quite so saintly and perfect. . .to give him true flaws and an ugly side, to make him more realistic. But I can’t even really find satisfaction in this until I know for sure. All I know is, we haven’t seen the last of him yet. I still think that random girl they rescued from the Hybern camp with Elain is his mate, Briar. (“I spoke to Vairan, Prince of Adriata,” I said, lingering on the other side of the table,the rack of antlers like a briar of thorns between us). Briar Rose, Court of Thorns and Roses, Sleeping Beauty, blah blah blah. I’d bet money on it. At this point, I’d need to see a hardcore turn around in his character and the way he’s treated by the fandom to be satisfied.

Another character I’m pretty appalled at the treatment of is Lucien. Feyre’s attitude towards him in this really pissed me off.

“Interesting.”

His golden eye whirred. “What is.” (OMFG STOP WITH THE QUESTIONS WITHOUT QUESTION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Not feeling very festive at all, I said sharply, “That you now feel more comfortable with humans than with High Fae. If you ask me--”

“I’m not.”

“It seems like you’ve decided to fall in with two people without homes of their own as well.”

Yo Feyre, who had a hand in making it so that he has no home?! Honestly, keep your preachy shit to yourself.

“And what, exactly, does this Band of Exiles plan to do? Host events? Organize party-planning committees?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go. You ruined any chance I have of going back to Spring. Not to Tamlin, but to the court beyond his house. Everyone either still believes the lies you spun or they believe me complicit in your deceit. And as for here. . .I can’t stand to be in the same room as her for more than two minutes. I can’t stand to be in this court and have your mate pay for the very clothes on my back.”

Feyre acknowledges that she holds part of the blame for the position he’s in, for the rift she helped create between him and Tamlin. But she “didn’t feel quite guilty enough to warrant apologizing for it. Not yet. Possibly not ever”. Like for God’s sake, is there no end in punishment for some of these people????? It’s like the narrative has decided that there are just some people who’s pain and problems don’t matter (and apparently Jurian, the torturer and murderer, is not one of them). Lucien was a doormat to Tamlin and didn’t step up to help Feyre when she needed someone. But Feyre’s Holier Than Thou attitude towards him is getting old. Lucien has, in my eyes, more than made up for anything Feyre could still be upset about towards him. In some ways, you could argue that he was a victim of Tamlin just as much as she was! He clearly felt super indebted to him because of how Tamlin took him in after he had been exiled from the Autumn Court. He got his eyeball clawed out delivering a message for Tamlin. He was held Under the Mountain and was inches away from being brutally killed (remember Feyre’s second task?). He endured Calanmai in Tamlin’s place. And then he finally decides what he believes in and stands for, and leaves the Spring Court with her. He defends her against his brothers and then finds himself in a foreign court among people he always heard were violent and untrustworthy. He’s viewed as an outsider but he does his best to do what he can for the cause against Hybern. He has no true home, no family that cares about him, no true place in the world. He’s clearly struggling with the mating bond, but respects Elain, gives her her space, and doesn’t try and force himself on her. Not to mention he was the only one who was dropping truth bombs in this entire damned thing: “Your mate should have known better than to kick a downed male”.

And as far as the whole mating bond thing with them even goes. . .aadskflsdjfsjkdslk. If I had one ounce of sense, I would FORCE myself to not care about the situation. I would make myself believe I didn’t have any sort of preference, and that Elain could end up with either him or Azriel and it wouldn't make a difference for me. I know how SJM operates and it has come back to bite me in the ass one too many times. But of course, being a complete masochist, I have set myself up for stress and strife as an Elucien shipper. Not exactly warm and fuzzy feels from these two in this installment. I’m fine though, I’m not mad. It’s true, Elain doesn’t really owe him anything just because they’re mates (perhaps this was the mindset Tamlin had when he first heard Rhys was Feyre’s mate when he believed Feyre still loved him??? Ever occur to anyone???) and if she doesn’t want to be with him that way, of course she doesn’t have to. She’s cold to him, but I think that’s because he’s an obvious physical reminder of the permanence of her Fae life, which she’s obviously still struggling with. She clearly has some issues of her own to work through still, and this isn’t what she needs right now. I’m sure we’ll be dragged through all kinds of shit before we can come to a resolution.

Another HUGE topic of debate right now is Nesta. It’s what I’ve seen people talking about the most. Again, my emotions are a giant clusterfuck regarding this right now because I am so conflicted. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I pretty much agree with everything everyone’s saying on both sides of the argument apart from one thing. I completely disagree with those who are saying that her behavior right now is out of character. This is what I was fully expecting after ACOMAF. I was fully prepared to see her in this state in ACOWAR. Given the deep inner rage we often her about her having, the circumstances under which she became Fae, and all the other shit going on, I figured we had a long and ugly road ahead of us in ACOWAR. When we finally saw her again and found that she wasn’t in this state, I was pleasantly surprised. She clearly had some issues (the whole bathtub thing was heartbreaking) but overall, she was a much more pleasant character to read about than she ever had been before. She was treating Feyre better, she was taking action toward solving problems that affected her, rather than making others do it out of spite, she had some nice moments with Cassian. I found myself warming to her a lot. This one started and it was just immediately a night and day difference. Initially, my question was. . .why now? I didn’t mean that to sound sarcastic or shity, I was really wondering. Now I’m thinking the delay of the onslaught of all this is due to a few things: the fact that she really was this messed up over the whole thing the whole time but was just powering through it because Elain was suffering, the violence she was exposed to in the war, and the complicated feelings she now probably has towards their father.

I have super complicated feelings about Nesta, I always have. I know a lot of people really love her as a character but I find myself hovering somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Point blank: She was awful to Feyre in their human life. And I’m not even talking about “letting” Feyre take on all the responsibility of providing for all of them and do all the hunting. That’s something that really gets me irritated. Just because Nesta was 3 years older than Feyre does not mean that she should be held to the same standard that Feyre’s parent should have been. It was that FATHER’S job to provide for his CHILDREN. Nesta was just as much a victim in that situation as Feyre was. They were all still children when they were going through that shit. . .why should Nesta be expected to figure out how to take care of all of them any more than Feyre had to? It was heartbreaking that that was placed on her shoulders. I don’t blame Nesta for that. What I DO blame her for is how utterly cruel and awful she treated Feyre on a day-to-day basis. When I went back and re-read ACOTAR last year, I was SHOCKED at how blatantly terrible she is to Feyre, I had forgotten how bad it was. For the first part of that book, every thought of self-doubt, unworthiness, or self-hatred Feyre thinks to herself is spoken internally in Nesta’s voice. I’m not exaggerating when I say that--she literally says she hears it in Nesta’s voice. She’s just honestly horrendous overall.

Nesta rose and declared: “I need a new pair of boots.”

I kept quiet, knowing better than to get in the middle of one of their arguments, but I glanced at Nesta’s stil-shiny pair by the door. Beside hers, my too-small boots were falling apart at the seams, held together by only fraying laces.

I looked up in time to see Nesta crinkle her nose with a sniff. She picked at my cloak. “You stink like a pig covered in it’s own filth. Can’t you at least try to pretend that you’re not an ignorant peasant?

I didn’t let the sting and ache show. I’d been too young to learn more than the basics of manners and reading and writing when our family had fallen into misfortune and she’d never let me forget it.

Nesta’s nostrils delicately flared. “There’s nothing you can do. Clare Beddor told me this afternoon that Tomas is going to propose to me any day now. And then I’ll never have to eat these scraps again.” She added with a small smile, “At least I don’t have to resort to rutting in the hay with Isaac Hale like an animal.”

“What do you know?” Nesta breathed. “You’re just a half-wild beast with the nerve to bark orders at all hours of the day and night. Keep it up and someday--someday, Feyre, you’ll have no one left to remember you or to care that you ever existed.”

I don’t really care if you have rage issues or whatever. I don’t really care if you have all this pent up aggression towards your father and are embarrassed that you suck at hunting and can’t provide for the family the way Feyre can. You can still recognize that she has a talent you don’t, and be pleasant, kind, and decent to her instead of looking for ways to unnecessarily insult her. That’s where my issue stems from. The thing I keep seeing brought up (lbr, by Rhys) is that she let her 14 year old sister go off in the woods and didn’t do anything to help. But I’m just like Uhhh forget all that, just tell me why you gotta be such an awful bitch to Feyre?! Now really, I think I know why. Sarah has said herself in interviews that Nesta and Elain were two characters that started out as really one dimensional and surprised her with the direction their characters ended up going and the huge part they ended up playing. I honestly think that at the time she published ACOTAR, she hadn’t made these decisions yet. Nesta is just too awful. Yeah she goes and tries to hunt her down after Tamlin takes her, but she’s so wretched in the beginning that I have to think this was when SJM was simply trying to portray the two wicked sisters thing (which was a thing in the original Beauty and the Beast fairytale).

So yeah, I really REALLY don’t like the person she was at the beginning of the series. All throughout ACOMAF and ACOWAR I would find myself hopping on board the Nesta Is Awesome Train and then come to a screeching halt when I remembered this. She feels so deeply. . .so she tears Feyre down and makes her feel like shit? And yet I’m still pretty invested in her as a character? I don’t even know. I liked the direction her character seemed to be heading, especially after ACOWAR so I was on board for a healing/redemption thing.

Now, did I like where her character’s story was going in this one? Fuck no!!!! Of course not!! Who would?! It was downright unpleasant and draining to read about. Her behavior was destructive and tedious and painful to witness. Maybe I was just getting frustrated because I’m NOT a fan of over-drawn out angst. Like. . .we all know she’s gonna end up a scarred but healed, stronger person like Feyre and live Happily Ever After with Cassian. @thoughtsontomes puts it best in her ACOWAR review video when she says, All we’re hearing is “I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care about any of you!!!! I hate you all, F*** YOU!” when it’s like, “. . . .you don’t though. Like stop. No one really believes you. So just . . stop”. Everyone’s flipping out about the apparent slut-shaming, but that’s not how I saw it. What she’s doing isn’t healthy, in any sense of the word. I saw an objection more towards her motives than the number of men she was entertaining. Sleeping with that high number of strangers when you’re in such a bad place like that has the potential to cause even more lasting damage. So I’m not surprised most of them were like “Um wtf are you doing??”.

The fact that she’s spending through Feyre and Rhys’s money without doing a single thing to earn it was also gross. When she was like “I’ll come to your Solstice thing if you give me three months of rent” I was just like

And then Oh yeah HAHA I’m so dumping all these ridiculous bar charges onto Feyre cuz she won’t ever NOT pay it HAHAHAHA 

Look. I get it. She’s suffering. She’s going through some MAJOR shit right now, rivaling (if not worse than) what Feyre went through after ACOTAR. She’s not going through it the same way Feyre did, not at all. Feyre’s manifested itself in hopelessness and despondence, which made it easy for our hearts to bleed for her. Nesta’s is all manifesting in seriously self-destructive behavior. She was unpleasant before she started going through this, she’s unbearable now. This is raw and realistic, but it’s not fun to read about. So I get what people are saying who are feeling annoyed by her story arc.

On the other hand, as I said, SHE IS SUFFERING. Like A LOT. So while I can find myself getting frustrated by having to watch her go through this, a part of me wonders how everyone in the Inner Circle can just dismiss the deep trauma she’s clearly going through. I COMPLETELY agree with everyone who is saying that the way Nesta is being treated by all of them is essentially the same way Tamlin was treating Feyre, which the fandom jumped all over. What did everyone say Tamlin did? Witnessed someone he supposedly cared about wither away into nothingness and didn’t do much of anything about it? Yep, check. At least with him I could say that he was dealing with his own form of PTSD at the time and the relationship fell apart because they couldn’t give each other what the other needed. With these guys it’s like. . .you completely villainize Tamlin for doing this to Feyre, but yet you turn right around and do it to someone else, because her trauma is expressed in a different and more hostile, destructive way than Feyre’s was. And what is Rhys’s justification for that? He can’t forgive Nesta for how she treated Feyre.

One of the main criticisms I see against Tamlin is that he smothered Feyre. He never gave her room to breathe, to be her own person and do her own thing. The only thing that mattered was preserving her and her precious delicate self. I’m just gonna call it like I see it, I’m seeing pretty close to the same thing with Rhys now.

He needs to Chill The Fuck Out. People are going to hurt Feyre. People are going to insult Feyre. People are going to do things that inconvenience, put-out, and piss off Feyre. He has to learn to find some chill with this.

The whole “Elain is Elain” justification for why he has no issues with her but does with Nesta is the most BULLSHIT thing I have EVER read. Um I’m sorry, what?????? Elain is Elain (whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean--if I were Elain I’d actually feel pretty insulted by that. I did the same as Nesta but apparently I’m some ditzy simpleton who didn’t realize what she was doing and shouldn’t be held to the same standards as everyone else?) but Nesta has an Illyrian heart so she should have known better?!? Like I don’t even know where to begin. Elain did the exact same thing you are claiming you’re so upset with Nesta with: let Feyre go off and do the hunting on her own at a young age. Did Elain do a single thing to stop this? No. They literally did the exact same thing. So let’s be real here, Rhys. What you meant by this was: Elain is nice to Feyre and Nesta wasn’t/isn’t. That’s the issue you have here. It’s not that bullshit about Nesta having an Illyrian heart or whatever, it’s that she’s mean to your precious Feyre and you can’t tolerate that. Don’t believe me? He literally says it in the book:

“You can still barely talk to Nesta,” I said. “Yet Elain you can talk to nicely.”

“Elain is Elain.”

“If you blame one, you have to blame the other.”

“No, I don’t. Elain is Elain,” he repeated. “Nesta is. . .she’s Illyrian. I mean that as a compliment, but she’s an Illyrian at heart. So there is no excuse for her behavior.”

“She more than made up for it last summer, Rhys.”

“I cannot forgive anyone who made you suffer.”

Like if he’s really mad at her for being a bitch to Feyre, say you’re mad at her for being a bitch to Feyre!!!!!!! But again, it’s this whole “Should that be my Solstice gift to you? Forgiving Nesta for letting her fourteen year-old sister go into into those woods?” instead of “I really have issues with how ungrateful she acted towards you and how nasty she was in general”. Like, come on, Rhys. I also think Nesta was downright horrible and awful to Feyre in their human life, but like Feyre says, LET’S MOVE ON. She’s clearly let go of it after seeing Nesta working towards making up for it. You can not walk around snarling and hissing and threatening disembowelment to anyone who hurts Feyre’s feelings. You can’t forgive anyone who made her suffer? You’re in for a very long (immortally long) life of negativity and hostility then. Put your Big Boy Pants on and let Feyre handle the situation between her and her sister. If she’s cool with it, be cool with it. Think whatever you want to yourself, vent about it to other people, but quit being this way to Nesta in front of Feyre.

The whole sneak peek at the end was cringey between the two of them also. I can handle Rhys interrupting her and snarling at her to sit down. It wasn’t sweet and nice but let’s be real, she NEEDED someone to get in her face and make her listen at that point. No, for me it was the fact that it made Nesta so afraid to be near him and that kind of power, and when Rhys scented that fear, “one side of his mouth curled up in a cruel smile.”

Yo, if Tamlin had been the one in this scene instead of Rhys, he would be CRU. CI. FIED. I was EXTREMELY glad to see Feyre basically tell him to stfu and put him in his place. Like WTF Rhys. Is this deliberate on SJM’s part? Is this her attempt to “humanize” Rhys and give him flaws, since he basically didn’t have any before??? If so, I appreciate the effort, but maybe give him some that don’t make him like a controlling psychopath (because that title’s reserved for Tamlin and Tamlin only, amirite?! If this were Tamlin, it would be all about his need to control a situation.)

UGH, and Rhys and Feyre talking about Lucien coming for Solstice and him telling Feyre he could “stomach him”.

“I can let go of the taunts”. What taunts?????? Are you for real??? Hate to break it to you Rhys, but are you forgetting the fact that in ACOTAR you showed up to the manor and taunted Lucien about the female he loved being murdered in front of him????? YES, I KNOW HE WAS DOING THIS DELIBERATELY AND DIDN’T REALLY MEAN ANY OF IT AND WOULD NEVER SAY IT IN REAL LIFE. But Lucien had no way of knowing this until very very recently. Here’s the 497th thing that enrages me in this series: the Inner Circle getting shitty towards people for treating Rhys like a bad guy. Like. I’m sorry. I understand it’s frustrating and heartbreaking to see him be viewed and spoken about this way, but this was by his own doing. He literally WANTED people to think this about him. It was his way of protecting Velaris. You can not expect a complete 360 degree turn overnight. Did it happen this way with Feyre?!?!? NO!!!! You have to give people a chance to really get to see and know him before this can happen.

“And the fact that he still harbors some hope of one day reuniting with Tamlin.” Oh yeah, how DARE HE want to reconcile the destroyed friendship he has with the one person who was there for him when his family murdered the woman he loved and kicked him out of his home. How DARE he try and be sympathetic towards Tamlin and want to try and work things out and make them better for both of them. How DARE he want to be able to go back and live in the place that’s become his home. Stfu Rhys.

“But I cannot let go of how he treated you after Under the Mountain.”

“I can. I’ve forgiven him for that.”

“Well, you’ll forgive me if I can’t.” Icy rage darkened the stars in those violet eyes.

I’d like to take everybody back to ACOMAF and this passage that sent everyone screaming from the rooftops, ready with their pitchforks and knives to castrate someone:

“I don’t give a shit if she’s your mate. I don’t give a shit if you think you’re entitled to her. She is mine--and one day, I am going to repay every bit of pain she felt, every bit of suffering and despair. One day, perhaps when she decides she wants to end you, I’ll be happy to oblige her.”

Nothing further needs to be said about THAT.

I said I was going to make a point of the communication issues later on, so here it is: so many of the problems/underlying tension in this series would be solved if people actually communicated with each other like rational adults. I understand that a book with no conflict is boring and stupid, but I’ve just read so many series where the conflict is happening OUTSIDE of the characters, and we see how they have to deal with it. I mean like, it is really really bad in here. No one communicates issues with each other. Feyre doesn’t communicate with Tamlin. Tamlin doesn’t communicate with Feyre. Mor doesn’t communicate with Azriel. Azriel doesn’t communicate with Mor. Cassian doesn’t communicate with Nesta. Nesta doesn’t communicate with anyone. The only ones who seem to consistently have open honest communication with each other are Rhys and Feyre which honestly, at this point, why am I not surprised. Feyre and Tamlin suffer from an abominable lack of communication. Everyone shits all over him for not doing anything to help her after Under the Mountain. But sometimes you have to tell people what you want. I don’t necessarily feel like Feyre expected him to read her mind but at no point does she sit down with him and give it to him straight how it really is with her: I’m struggling and I’m struggling hard. With the way things are going, ______________ is going to happen. What I need from you right now is ____________. Either we can try and work on it together, or I’ll have to find something else that works for me. It’s pretty widely accepted that Tamlin developed some PTSD of his own after ACOTAR and his behavior in ACOMAF is stemming from it. Fine, whatever. But nowhere does he sit Feyre down and lay it all out for her: I’ve been dealing with violent horrible shit all my life. You are the first good thing to happen to me in years. Having to watch you go through that and being powerless to do anything broke me in ways I didn’t know I could be broken. I feel so guilty and awful that you went through that in the name of love for me that I feel like I owe it to you now to keep you as physically safe as possible. If I’m coming across too strong, we can work it out together. (I’m still holding out that this conversation will happen). Mor never tells Azriel she doesn’t love him romantically. I’m not even talking about her sexual preference to females. I’m just really confused why she couldn’t just be like, “You’re a really great guy, but I don’t see you that way. I’m not attracted to you, you’re like my brother”, just like you would any other guy you don’t want to date. Her preference for females doesn’t even need to be brought into it. Az never confronts Mor and is like “When are we going to stop playing this pining game, like it’s been 500 years. These are my feelings for you, do you reciprocate, or don’t you?” (I know Rhys claimed it’s because he feels unworthy of her, but how long were they going to let this go on for? It’s been 500 years). Cassian, I will admit, does finally begin to be one of the first to drop the bullshitting around and have an open and frank conversation with Nesta. It doesn’t go anywhere, but I’ll at least give him credit for trying. Nesta opens up to no one, not even Elain. I get that this is literally part of who she is as a character so I’ll give her that. Some people are literally just like that. But no one can deny that it would be healthy for her to get her feelings out at this point. I mean seriously, the list of issues is endless. Feyre doesn’t give Tamlin a real explanation behind why she left. She doesn’t tell him she’s happy with Rhys and he’s treating her well. They don’t tell anyone (at first) that Rhys’s whole thing with Amarantha was an act and he’s really an honorable noble person. Tamlin doesn’t tell Feyre the real reason he supposedly sided with Hybern and what he was planning to do. Instead, all these people let all these issues sit and stew and stew until they boil over into some big, ugly, dramatic thing. I’m hoping that in this next part of the series, we’ll see some resolvement with all this. These conversations that need to happen will happen. Because until then, it’s frustrating.

The only other thing I wanted to touch on was the baby thing. I’m not really surprised at all about it. Honestly, since the moment I heard Sarah was pregnant, I figured it was only a matter of time before we saw something pregnancy related pop up in one of the series. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am a HUGE HUGE sucker for domestic things like this. I want to see the whole married with babies epilogue with a big pretty bow on top. Normally any time something baby related is brought up, I’m like UH YES PLZ anytime now would be fine (as long as the characters are in a strong committed relationship with no serious factors affecting it). But when Feyre said she wanted to wait, I totally understood. They are immortal, they have YEARS for this to happen. I liked them falling into their new role as High Lord and Lady, taking their time to slowly but surely recover the best they could from their ordeal, and enjoy each other for a while (because in the grand scheme of things as far as fae go, they’ve barely been together for any time at all). To hear it so soon WAS unexpected, but like I said, also totally not at the same time. I really really thought the reason they were calling Nesta to the New Feysand Palace in the sneak peek chapter was to tell her Feyre was pregnant (you know it’ll happen in the new series). Let’s all pray hard for their future kid though, because while every other child always has the awful possibility of losing a parent and being raised by one, theirs would automatically be an orphan. Their “when one of us dies, the other will” pact/bond was the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.

I swear to God, every time Rhys called her “mate” when he was speaking to her, I read him totally speaking in an Australian accent. It really made me LOL.

You know what DIDN’T?!

“Watch how I fuck you, Feyre.”

One last thing really quickly. . .what is up with this world building? Reading ACOTAR, I got a very clear sense of a high fantasy/medieval-y world. Then ACOMAF opens with Feyre puking into a toilet. I was like Huh?! Toilets? Ooookkay. Then throughout ACOMAF, Feyre is mentioned many times wearing things like leggings, sweaters, and boots. There is a leather sofa in the Chapter 55 Mountain Cabin. Like what else is in there?? A plasma flat screen??

I feel like I just did nothing but spew negativity for the past million years and I DON’T LIKE IT. I’ll say it again: I take no pleasure in feeling any of these things. I am not about hating on an author or series just because it’s become popular. Like I said, CRACK. I definitely feel all these things pretty strongly, but at the same time, I am very much in love with the series. I’m attached to the characters, I’m sucked into the story. I want everyone to be happy. I know you may not believe it, but there ARE things I enjoyed about this novella. A few of them are:

The background information we got about Cassian’s mother and how she is the main motivator in pretty much everything he does. Break my heart :(

The description of the Winter Solstice in the Winter Court. Seriously, it sounded so glorious I had to pause reading for a second and dwell on how badly I wanted to be there for it.

Amren having issues with peeing :D

Amren in general and the bluntness with which she calls people on their shit (“Don’t take her to the wine--take her to the food. I can see her bony ass even through that dress.”)

Feyre helping the children of the Night Court heal their trauma through art.

I think that’s basically it. I’m sorry most of this sounded so negative, but it was all pretty much word vomit. I had so many feelings built up that I just had to get them all out and I feel a lot better now. Do we have a release date for the next one? Like I said: BOOK. CRACK.

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam France S2.3 reaction

Gossip Girl’s legacy continues to thrive

Julie’s legacy of fuckboys getting out of cars, ehhh, not so much

Episode 3

Clip 1 - Birthday aftermath

Emma’s reactions to the random dude nuzzling into her neck were amusing.

Well damn, French Linn isn’t afraid to go off on her roommates.

French Linn (Lisa) being Manon’s cousin is, I assume, perhaps to make the living situation a little more realistic? In terms of why Manon would be living on her own at this age, since I’m guessing it would be unusual, and that moving in with a cousin makes more sense. (I don’t know if this would be the case for French teenagers, feel free to correct me.)

But since they’re family, that also makes me wonder if they have a close relationship, a distant relationship, or if it doesn’t matter because the show will never address it.

Also Mickael comparing Lisa to an annoying neighbor makes it sound like they’re not as close as Eskild and Linn, though it could just be affectionate complaining. And I mean, Eskild could complain about Linn, too.

Mickael … wow. “That’s my name bitch.” Damn this conversation got heated! Love it. I feel like he has a different personality from Eskild already? In Skam, this scene ends with Eskild teasing Noora about taking her place in the girl squad, telling her how pretty/smart/popular she is, and wrapping her up in a bear hug while she’s giggling. She’s not that upset with him. This scene with Manon and Mickael plays out like an actual spat, although not a very serious one, I’m sure. But Manon did still seem peeved by the scene’s end.

Clip 2 - The Most Important Scene in Skam

LMAO THEY CUT JULIE’S FAVORITE SCENE.

We don’t get a collection of handsome male youth emerging from an impressive vehicle, a clear shot of Alex’s battle-born bruise, perfectly timed wind rippling effects, Kanye West making dramatic proclamations (maybe for the best given his drama over the last week). It’s just Charles and Alex walking down a school hallway and Charles looking back at them, damn.

Lol, I was never mad that this was Julie’s favorite scene, it’s just very ???? in terms of all the amazing scenes she has produced, that this is the one that stands out to her. I can only guess something really fantastic happened to her that day or that the shooting went well or something. 

But now I’m imagining like how they would stage a similar scene in the school … Charles and Alex dramatically emerge from the bathroom and Manon’s hair starts blowing in the wind, cut to a janitor turning on a large fan behind the girls.

This scene was such a non-entity that I have nothing more to say about it.

Clip 3 - Emma revealed as Gossip Girl fanfic writer

Was weird Clara the girl Alex hooked up with before?

Daphne sure wants to meet Manon’s secret girlfriend, huh. And what’s with that look Daphne gives Emma before mentioning lesbians … just wanting her to know she is A-OK with lesbians. More than A-OK. Haha Emma, we know what’s really going on, don’t we? Wouldn’t it be so funny if we made out in like two episodes, I mean weeks?

Emma’s reaction to connecting the Manon-Charles dots is amazing, she’s ascended to another plane of existence. Her sliding away from Daphne and then sliding back toward Manon … good timing, I actually laughed out loud. She’s so proud of her detective skills and living for the drama, and I love that she took the Gossip Girl thing a little farther than in the original.

Did they actually end this scene without music? Did they???? Character development for Skam France!

Clip 4 - I’m just combining all the Friday party clips here

Lisa seems like such a more trying roommate than Linn. Linn just flopped around and did her own thing, Lisa has more fire behind her, which might be nice in some respects, but she also seems like someone ready to explode the next time a fork ends up in the wrong drawer.

I’m enjoying Emma more this season but her drunk acting is not very good. She seems to be too … upright for her level of intoxication, lol. I get that everyone exhibits drunkenness differently, but it feels like her level of Drunk Speaking is way farther along than her level of Drunk Body Language, if you catch me. I don’t buy that she’s really wasted.

I’m not going to be too critical about this since I don’t know what the French standards for raucousness are, but that seems like a damn tame party to get the cops called on you. But I guess maybe it was louder before Manon arrived.

The staging of this part is so ridiculous! 

Lmao, EMMA WAS RIGHT THERE, MANON. She was probably no more than 30 seconds away! Manon easily could have run out and caught up with her! 

Also why did she think Emma took her stuff as opposed to any other rando with a similar coat who might’ve grabbed it by accident? I watched it a few times but I didn’t see how Emma was clearly the one who took her things?

Then she says she's going to call Emma and yet she immediately calls Mickael? Why didn’t she call her own phone, or Emma’s? Even with Emma drunk, she might’ve picked up. At least Mickael’s voicemail is great.

Like they could have, IDK, had Manon hand her things to Emma and go to the bathroom, and when she walks back out, the police are there and everyone’s leaving, Emma has gone, she briefly goes out to look for her with no luck.

I don’t think it makes sense even if you assume Manon ~wants to be there with Charles~ by this point and isn’t trying very hard to go home, because then why even bother leaving Mickael a message, when he could call or text back on Charles’ phone at any time and reveal that he’ll be waiting to let her in?

Charles offers Manon a drink when last week he said he knew she didn’t drink and that’s why he made cocoa. Seriously? This isn’t like Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire where there are a million world-building details to remember, this is pretty simple stuff and it was said only one episode ago. Did no one on the cast or crew point this out? Usually I would check to see if the original show made the same mistake but because Skam France was being lazy, guess I will be, too. (And I can’t think of a reason why Charles would make this mistake intentionally, even a very convoluted one. If you can, please share.)

So now it’s time for this iconic scene.

Regarding the original,  it’s one of the few Noorhelm scenes that I like (for the most part), though taken out of the larger context. But one slight issue I’ve had with it is that it feels like this scene is where we as viewers fall in love with Noora … when really this scene should have been about falling in love with William. Because we had plenty of reason to love Noora by now, flaws and all. She stood up to William for Vilde, she spoke out against sexism, she cheered up her friend Eva, she was cool and confident and had impeccable style.  I’m highly charmed by Noora in this scene, and I’m glad Josefine got a chance to show off, and one of the few moments I like William is watching him watch her, because of course who wouldn’t fall for her at that moment? But like … you didn’t need to convince me to like Noora, Skam. You needed to convince me to like William. 

Sure it helps that we see them having some cute interaction, but William seems kinda, well, passive through much of it? He’s reasonably helpful but a lot of it is in ways that make him a baseline decent person rather than an over-the-top great guy (I mean, Isak also lent Noora his phone in S1, and he barely knew her). The cocoa moment is sweet but she asked for it first. The guitar scene doesn’t tell us much about him when really it could have. I mean, for all that Noora mocks the cliche of fuckboy with a guitar ... yeah, it might have been good to see him actually play? Or at least talk about music? Instead of playing the predictable romantic ballad, he picks up the guitar and plays something goofy to make her laugh. Or we see him fumbling through it because he’s a beginner, and Noora ends up giving him some pointers. Shit, even him playing Wonderwall while staring deeply and earnestly into Noora’s eyes would give us a sense of his life away from school and Noora, his hobbies and interests. We learn some about William’s family situation, but I didn’t get much insight into him as a person. The part where they’re "fighting” in the bed is the most enjoyable part for me; it’s playful and cute and made William seem more like a person.

But anyway, on to Skam France’s take on this scene. I don’t have a problem with them cutting out the guitar playing, for whatever reason they chose. Maybe the actress can’t sing or play guitar. Sure, that’s fine, play to her strengths. We could have used the cocoa making scene, though, or if not that, some other enjoyable activity that they do together. I do think cutting out the cocoa/guitar playing hurts the pacing and makes it feel rushed - like in the original, I got how Noora was slowly easing into enjoying herself, feeling comfortable enough to stay, and there isn’t really a sense of that here.

It’s worth mentioning that this scene in Skam is about the length of this entire episode of Skam France. Again, I know, time restrictions, but I wish they could condense more effectively.

Lol, they cut the cocoa and guitar playing but left the part where he calls his mom a misogynistic word, thanks! That part in the original was the one sour note in that scene, TBH, especially because his response to Noora calling him out (“So you only want me to be honest if it’s politically correct?”) is dumb. Imagine if he called his mom a slut because hey, it’s honest. I so love when women object to men’s sexism and men don’t take them seriously. At least Manon seems unimpressed with his response.

Although I do want to clarify, I don’t know the intensity of those words in either Norwegian or French, I’m going off Noora and Manon’s reactions to them.

“It’s good to finally be alone with you” - I mean, you were alone with her last week? The fact that this scene is shortened makes him seem like he’s coming on quite strong since there’s not as much buildup to it.

I do think Charles has some more vulnerable expressions and mannerisms than William, which are nice.

IDK, I still want a version of this scene where we really, really learn something endearing about William/Charles. Something playful. Cut to Manon and Charles playing video games. Air hockey. Chess. Ping Pong. He has a model train set up somewhere. He’s into photography and has a wall where he hangs photos he’s taken. He has a fucking cat named something gross like Princess Pinkypaws that he dotes on. Like if you’re going to go with the “bad boy with a sensitive side” cliche, you might as well go all out and give him a cute pet to manipulate us into liking him. Imagine if Manon asked if he lived alone and Charles said, “Almost” and next we saw him pulling out this well-fed cat and snuggling it.

We know Charles plays basketball, at least, but it’s not like we know anything about why he’s playing, whether basketball means anything to him or if he’s just doing it for parental approval, etc. I need some more insight into who he is as a person. Like I know William’s kind of impersonal apartment might be the point, but think about when Isak walked into Even’s apartment and we saw that he had sketches he’s done on the wall, he had a Nas poster, there were Star Wars posters (the last ones might have been Marlon’s, I’m aware). And at that point we were inclined to like Even, who we hadn’t seen do anything negative yet, and we had already gotten some good insight about his passions via the Mikael video. William/Charles has done a number of crappy things at this point; he needs to win us over.

General comments

Manon and Emma seem flirty as hell in their texts and IG posts. Baby, wife...

Are Lucas’ laundry posts supposed to be a clue that he’s living on his own by now, or am I reading too much into it? We don’t know the timeline for Isak, obviously, but I figured he didn’t move out/into the basement until after Noora and Eva told Eskild about him possibly being gay. Because... how would Eskild know Isak otherwise, right?

I don’t speak French so I apologize if I miss some context, and feel free to correct me or elaborate.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[skaylanphear]

Light of My Life

Here’s my story from the Little Light Zine! All the donations will benefit the victims of Hurricane Matthew, so donate while you can!

A Little Light is a digital Miraculous Ladybug charity zine to benefit the victims of Hurricane Matthew. The zine includes art, fanfics, and cosplay. Zine orders will be open until Feb. 1. Orders  –  Participants  –  Previews  –  Info

Marinette was doing her best to hurry home. Sure, it was December, so a certain amount of chill was expected, but it was colder than usual and she had no desire to be out in it longer than she had to. Granted, the snow that was drifting lazily down into the glittering, lightened Paris streets was a pretty sight to behold, but not pretty enough to keep her from hot chocolate and a cozy bed.

Huddled up in her pink jacket, she resituated her bag on her back and hunkered onward. She was almost home—the sparkling, holiday decorated park on her left the one only just outside her house—and it might have been only moments before she was welcomed into the warmth of her parents' bakery were it not for the familiar silhouette that stopped her dead in her tracks.

Staring through the glare of twinkling lights and falling snow, she watched as he walked from a bench to the bundle huddled nearby. In a perfectly fitted gray pea coat and the blue scarf she'd given him for his birthday, he hardly stood out aside from the usual glow of his blonde hair, but she knew it was him.

Adrien.

As a natural reaction, her heart did a little flip before pounding faster, hands tightening around her bag straps. Suddenly, staying out in the cold didn't seem like such a bad idea if she could get herself into Adrien's company.

Like a well-oiled machine, her mind started coming up with one scenario after another—all the excuses she could use to explain why she was walking over. Ultimately, she came to the conclusion that—since they were classmates—she didn't need a reason to start up a conversation. Taking a deep breath, she told herself to stay strong and not fall to pieces before she marched off the sidewalk and into the park.

Right up to Adrien, who was…

He was crouched down in the snow, talking to the tiny bundle. A child, of course—one swathed in a snowsuit so thick that only their braided hair stuck out over the top. Becoming curious, Marinette stayed quiet as she crept closer.

"Hey, it's alright," Adrien was saying, folding himself lower so he was on his knees in the snow. "It can be sewn back together." The child was crying, nose red and sniffing as she reached up and wiped her eyes.

"But w-who will fix it?" she asked. Marinette paused once she was close enough to take in the scene, watching as the little girl held up a black, homemade doll. Or, rather, the pieces of one. The head—little more than a blonde mop—was torn from the uneven shoulders, stuffing sticking out both ends respectively.

Though they were hardly recognizable, Marinette could make out tiny black ears in the dolls yarn hair.

"Well, who made it for you to begin with?" Adrien asked.

"N-No one… We made dolls in school."

"You made this?" Reaching down, Adrien delicately took the shabby Chat Noir from the girl's hands, futilely trying to fit the pieces back together.

"Y-Yes." Reaching up, she pulled self-consciously on some of her braids. "I- I like Chat Noir best, but… I didn't do a very good job making him." Looking all the more ashamed, tears came to her eyes anew despite how she tried to wipe them away with the heels of her hands.

"I think you did an excellent job," Adrien assured, smiling as he did. "Besides, you think an injury like this would keep Chat Noir down for long?"

The little girl's lip curled. "His head fell off."

Well…" Adrien clearly had nothing to say to that, which had Marinette giggling despite herself. And that, of course, drew attention her way. Both Adrien and the girl glanced up at her, which inspired her to clear her throat and think of something to say instead of making the situation worse.

"He's right," Marinette decided, going a bit closer before crouching down as well. "An injury like that would never keep Chat Noir down. Head or no head."

"But… how will he fight without a head?" the girl asked.

"Chat hardly fights with his head," Marinette concluded. "Ladybug does all the thinking between them."

"Hey, you don't know that," Adrien objected.

Marinette cast him a flat look.

"Well… maybe…"

"But he can't live without a head…" the girl reasoned, once more wiping her eyes before reaching out and taking the doll back from Adrien.

"Marinette could sew his head back on," Adrien said suddenly. "She's really good at that sort of thing."

"Really?!" The hope in the girl's eyes was beyond being able to refuse.

"Um, w-well…" Reaching out, and forcefully ignoring Adrien's compliment for the time being, Marinette took the doll and looked it over. "I could try, but… the fabric is so thin and frayed, I don't… I don't know that he'd stay together."

Eyes once more welling with tears, the girl slumped with disappointment. "Oh…"

"But!" Handing Adrien the dismembered doll, she pulled her backpack around and unzipped the big pocket. She'd just been coming back from babysitting Manon, which meant she was full to the brim with hero and villain dolls. "You can have this Chat Noir instead."

Pulling the familiar doll from the bottom of her bag, she held it out and was rewarded with an excited gasp.

"He's so good!" the girl exclaimed, touching a finger to one of his tiny ears. "Can I- Can I really have him?"

"Sure!" Marinette smiled, giving the doll to the girl fully. "I can always make another one." No, she didn't exactly want to give away her Chat Noir—Manon could attest to that—but this seemed like a worthy reason.

"Wow…" The child held the doll like it was some kind of priceless treasure, very gentle as she petted it's layered felt hair. "I'll be careful with him."

"Not too careful," Marinette replied knowingly. "Chat Noir isn't the careful type."

"He's so cool! I named my kitten after him."

"Really?" Adrien asked, one of those small, subdued smiles gracing his lips.

"Yeah. I hope I get to meet him someday. And Ladybug too. But I like Chat Noir best." She was continually petting the doll, holding it closer and closer all the time.

"He is pretty awesome," Marinette agreed.

"Pawesome," Adrien corrected.

"What?" Turning, Marinette looked directly at him.

"He's pawesome," Adrien explained. "Get it? Because, you know… cats have paws…"

Marinette pursed her lips in disapproval, while the little girl giggled.

"It's funny…" Though Adrien didn't sound totally convinced himself.

A moment later, an older woman across the park called to the girl, gesturing her over. With short farewells, Marinette stood up beside Adrien as she watched her Chat Noir doll scamper off in the hands of his knew owner. She'd miss him, but supposed it was better he find a home. Like she said, she could always make another one.

"You're amazing, you know that."

Surprised, Marinette turned once more to Adrien, unable to stop the flush that rose up across her cheeks. "I-I just happened to have the doll with me, that's all…"

"You made that doll, though, right? And you just… gave it away like it was nothing." Still holding the torn doll, Adrien stared down at the pieces. "I wish I could do something like that for people…"

"What… What do you mean?"

He smiled softly once again. "It's nothing. Um, but I do have something to ask you. Since you're here. If it's not too much, anyway."

She waited, too afraid of what would come out if she spoke.

"I know you said he probably wouldn't stay together, but do you think you could sew this doll for me anyway?" He held it up. "I know it seems kind of silly, and I'd do it myself if I could, but…"

"Sure." She agreed to it without hesitation. "I mean, w-with a child he'd probably fall apart, but so long as you're careful… Why do you want him anyway?"

"Uh, I dunno. Maybe I'll give it to Chat Noir." Handing her the doll, he chuckled a bit as he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'll fix him," Marinette assured quietly.

"Thanks, Marinette. Really. Is there anything I can do for you? I'd be happy to do something for you in return," he said earnestly.

"Oh, no, no, that's f-fine," she replied, more so out of insecurity than anything else.

She hadn't meant to snuff out the tiny spark that had ignited in his gaze.

"Okay. Awesome."

"Pawesome," she corrected.

"Right." He grinned. "Have a good holiday, Marinette."

"Y-You too."

He left shortly after, the next time Marinette would speak with him coming of as much of a surprise to her as it did him.

"You should name him after yourself," Ladybug decided, petting the black kitten's nose. Chat was cradling the tiny creature in his arms, hoping to get it warm despite the evening's chill and snow.

"Because that would be original," Chat quipped sarcastically. "I can't name him anyway. I'm not going to be the one keeping him, so…" He shrugged.

"I bet you already have at least four cats," Ladybug decided, supposing they'd have to take the kitten to the shelter like they did with all unclaimed animals they rescued.

"Contraire. I have none."

"What?!" Yes, Ladybug was aghast. "You're Chat Noir! How can you have no cats?"

He laughed. "I'm not allowed."

"All the more reason you should keep this one," Ladybug decided.

"I told you, I'm not allowed." Glancing fondly down at the kitten, his gaze went distant. "I'm not allowed to do anything…"

Ladybug cocked her hips thoughtfully. "You could always break the rules and keep it anyway."

"My Lady!" He feigned shock.

"What?! It's just wrong that Chat Noir doesn't have a single cat of his own. Goes against nature or something."

He laughed. "Honestly, I'd keep him if I could, but I really can't. I'm not even allowed to have friends over at my house, let alone a pet."

Ladybug frowned. "Your parents sound pretty strict…"

He barked a bitter laugh. "That's somewhat of an understatement. My father wouldn't even allow me any money to get my friends gifts, even after they'd already gone to the effort for me…"

Expression dropping even further, he put his entire focus on the kitten, who was managing a light purr despite how it'd shivered and shook when they'd initially rescued it from under a dumpster.

"I'm sorry, Chat," was all Ladybug could think to say.

"Don't be," he said, smiling again. But the expression was different than his usual—lacking in the wide, teethe trademark. Instead, it appeared tight and… and fake. "I shouldn't have said anything—you don't need to worry about my problems."

A statement that still left her at a loss on how to reply. She and Chat, they were friends, sure, but their personal and professional lives were supposed to stay separate. She wanted to be there for him, but she wasn't so sure if she should.

"I just wish I could do something for them too, you know?" he murmured. "My friends, I mean. I can't even make them anything. Sometimes I feel like I'm not good for anything…"

"You know that's not true." She hadn't meant to scold him, but that was just how the words came out. "You're Chat Noir—a hero of Paris. If there's anyone who's more than done their share, it's you." Reaching out, she laid a hand on his arm. "You should give yourself more credit, Adrien."

She hadn't meant to let the name slip out. The realization of his identity had barely occurred to her, let alone become concrete enough for her to voice. But the soft, sad smile he'd worn, and the words he'd said, it'd reminded her so much of him. And his wide-eyed shock only solidified further that she was right. While it was surprising, she was much more preoccupied with making sure he knew just how valuable he was—especially to her.

She didn't want to watch the light fade from his eyes yet again.

"You've saved my life more times than I can count," she continued. "And even without that—without all your 'heroics'—we all know how good of a friend you are. We don't need gifts to prove that."

She smiled. "You light up my life every day, Chat. Even when you don't realize it."

The shock was still apparent on his face, but it'd faded some as she'd spoken. Still cradling the kitten, he smiled warmly, the expression caught somewhere between Adrien and Chat Noir—proving all the more that she wasn't wrong.

"Thanks," he murmured. "Whoever you are."

Grinning herself, Ladybug took a step back and held up a knowing finger. "I was actually on my way to your house when I, well, saw you rummaging around that dumpster and transformed."

Skirting back through the snow, she went to a bush along the street before crouching down and retrieving the bag she'd stashed there previously. Rummaging through it, she pulled out the tattered, child-made Chat Noir doll before turning back to him.

"Guess I should give it to you now, since it sounds like your father's kinda difficult anyway." Not that she didn't already know as much.

Holding out the doll, which was whole and patched around the neck with new bits of fabric, she offered it to him, supposing the gift hardly looked worth giving to anyone who didn't know any better.

Still holding the kitten in the crook of one arm, Chat's lips parted some before he slowly reached out and retrieved the doll. Staring down at it, he ran the claw on his thumb lightly over the stitches. Ladybug watched him the whole time, noticing the way his mouth eventually clamped shut and how his jaw tensed. Eyes blinking rapidly, he swallowed hard and failed to meet her gaze.

It wasn't the first gift she's given him. Prior to the holiday break, she'd given him a set of mittens she herself had made—a gift similar to those she's given all her friends.

But maybe it was too much.

"How about we make a trade," she said abruptly, reaching out and wiggling her fingers around the small body of the kitten. Pulling it into her embrace instead, she smiled at the curious look Chat finally dared to give her. "You take that," she nodded to the doll, "and I'll keep this little guy."

A kitten too young to have been out in the cold, and who remained curled up and fast asleep in her arms.

"I'll name him…" She hummed thoughtfully. "Hero. That sounds like a good name, right?" Catching Chat's eye again, she raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"Yeah." His tone was breathy. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Fitting for someone so much like Chat Noir."

He finally smiled again. A real smile—one fully accented by that spark Ladybug had become all too familiar with since they'd become partners.

"Thank you," he said a moment later, breaking the momentary silence that had sprung up between them. "I mean it.

"Thank you, Marinette. You light up my life too."

Ladybug curled her nose and tried not to blush. "Why'd you have to say that?"

"You said it first!"

"Ugh! It's just too corny when you say it." Turning away, she marched off into the snow, Chat bounding up beside her.

Right where he belonged.

[lostinastory]

Since I’ve been on vacation for half of July and August, I’ve decided to it wrap it up at once, but that means this will be a very long wrap-up. I have read a lot over the summer (by which I mean A LOT). So I hope you will still enjoy this, even though it’s very long!

July

I read in total 14 books in July. Which is mind-blowingly much, I don’t know if that’s a word but wow just wow. I’m going to try to keep it as short as possible because otherwise this post will never end.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell – ★★★★ I was recommended this by my psychology teacher and I really enjoyed it! It was really interesting. This is a pop-science book about mainly how people judge and what happens in those milliseconds in which we make up our mind.

Fallen Flame by J.M. Miller – ★★★☆ I enjoyed this book, I didn’t love it but it was pretty good. Review here!

City of Betrayal by Claudie Arseneault ★★★☆ This is the second book in the City of Spires and I really liked both the first and second book. Both were a little too slow paced I think, but overall I really enjoyed them! Review here!

The Butterfly on Fire by E.L. Croucher ★★★☆ I loved part of this book and the other part not so much. It was really cool though, because the author mixed a contemporary with a fantasy storyline. Review here!

Cinder by Marissa Meyer ★★★★★ This was a reread with the YA Book Bloggers group on goodreads and I loved it!

Chasing Eveline by Leslie Hauser ★★★☆ I did not like the beginning much but I loved it near the ending! Review here!

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust ★★★★★ I loved this book so much! It was magical and the characters were complex and interesting and I think Melissa Bashardoust should write all the retellings because this was amazing. Review here!

Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins ★★★★ This book was just fun. Not spectacular but really enjoyable.

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab ★★★★★ This was my first Schwab book and I think I’m in love. I’ve heard this was one of the lesser books and I cannot imagine how her other books could be even better. LOVED IT.

Solitaire by Alice Oseman ★★★ Since I absolutely loved Radio Silence, I was expecting to love this as well but it was kind of disappointing. I really did not like the main character Tori. She was rude and overly negative and kind of insensitive at times. The story was predictable and I had guessed most of the “big reveal” way before it happened. I did love the fandom references and side characters though! Review here!

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff ★★★★★ I have never read a book like this before. I started out with listening to the audiobook and reading the physical book at the same time but after a while the audiobook started to become a little annoying because it was so slow! And they read all the headers and such out loud, which takes forever. This book managed to make me feel heartbroken, angry, anxious, excited, happy and terrified. All at the same time. IT WAS EPIC AND I NEED GEMINA RIGHT NOW PLEASE THANK YOU. Review here!

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson ★★★★ I really missed the diversity in this book (I kind of shipped Toby and Bri – both girls – but that never happened 😦 ). I think it could have been so much more!

The Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin ★★★★★  I LOVED Riley. Riley is genderfluid and it was so interesting to read about! I loved the side characters too and I don’t know what to say to make you go read it. Just read it.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer ★★★★ I was warned for the ending, so I was actually expecting it to be even worse *SPOILER IN WHITE* I kind of expected Cath to kill Jest, but that didn’t happen *END OF SPOILER*. I loved the world and I really liked the characters. It was so whimsical and fun!

August

Again I read 14 books in August which is something I still cannot understand. How?? Anyway, let’s get into it:

The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz ★★★☆ I don’t know what to think of this book, I wasn’t particularly attached to the characters, and this was a very character-based book. I did love the family-focus!

A Million Worlds With You by Claudia Gray ★★★☆ This book sadly just wasn’t quite the epic conclusion I was hoping it would be. It was fun but the build-up and the ending could have been so much better! Review here!

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo ★★★★★ BRILLIANT. EPIC. AMAZING. LOVED IT.

The Geography of Me And You by Jennifer E. Smith ★★★ This was a filler book, I could read this for free from my library app and I didn’t feel like reading any of the other books I brought so I read it. It was fun but that was about all I can say about it.

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandya Manon ★★★★ I wouldn’t say this was as great as everyone seems to say it was, but it was much fun! I missed the science/app developing aspect to it, but it was very funny so I guess that kind of makes up for it?

Night of Cake and Puppets by Laini Taylor ★★★★★ This Daughter of Smoke and Bone companion was sooo cute omg I died. I ADORE ZUZANNA. I want her to be my best friend please.

Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid ★★★★ For a book that was mostly about Leila, it has surprisingly little of Leila in it. She was a bit manic pixie dream girl-ish, but near the end, you got a bit more insight into her and I really liked that part! I did not love Bree’s part, but that was mainly because I didn’t really like Bree.

Geekerella by Ashley Poston ★★★★☆ I reread this because I felt like it and I loved it so much. I’m giving this even an extra half-star after reading it for the second time. I loved the fandom references so much and I NEED Starfield in my life!! I NEED IT.

Flame in the Mist by Renée Ahdier ★★★★ I thought this was a standalone but it wasn’t??? It was a bit slow but I loved the worldbuilding and I even liked the romance although it was a little unnecessary. I wouldn’t say it was amazing but I do am really interested in reading the next book!

A Darker Shade of Magic by Victoria Schwab ★★★★★ THIS WAS SO GOOD I NEED ALL OF SCHWABS BOOKS NOW Review here!

Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne ★★★★★ How did the entire book community fail to tell me how brilliant this book is????? (okay, I’ve heard some things about it but still, it needs all the hype) It was feministic and I adored the friendship and it was about mental health and I was already planning on buying the other books in the series before I was even finished.

The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner ★★★★★ If you didn’t know it yet, this is one of my favourite books of all time and I’ve already read it twice this year soooo it’s fair to say I love it.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas ★★★☆ I think this book had more potential, the writing felt a little flat to me and I couldn’t connect to the characters. The message is very important though.

T is For Tree by Greg Fowler ★★★ I really need to think about this one. A review will be up soon.

A Quick Look at My TBR

What I added to my tbr but haven’t read yet:

Things I’m Seeing Without You, This Mortal Coil and Good Angel are all eARCs and the rest I just NEED TO READ. ASAP.

The current state of my tbr is 29 books, which is 4 books less than in June!

How was your summer? Did you get a lot of reading done? Or are any of these books on your tbr? I’d love to hear your thoughts if you read any of these! (and the chances are pretty high you’ve read at least one of all of these books haha)

July & August Wrap-up | Warning: it’s a long one Since I've been on vacation for half of July and August, I've decided to it wrap it up at once, but that means this will be a very long wrap-up.