#i could talk about that book forever

[sincapjelly]

Also, it's so funny how some fans make Lilly the good parent, and Lou the bad parent because in reality, Lilly wasn't that good of a parent. She was an absent parent. Even Lilly herself knew that.

She couldn't balance her ninja life with her personal life, which caused her to miss a lot of important moments in Cole's life. This is a whole plot point in Quest for the Lost Powers.

But do you know who pushed all of his goals and purpose of life without even calculating it all first? Some of you may not like what you're about to hear but yes, for Lou, "chosing" to be with Cole all the time was not even a decision he had to make. He just knew he wanted to be with his son all the time.

And that is not to say Lilly is the bad parent. She isn't. She is just some woman who is made to believe she has to be the hero every single time even if she has no powers, because she was taught to let people take advantage of her sense of justice. But in the grand scale of things, people often assume Lilly was the better parent and let me tell you the only reason people say that is because she died and Cole quotes good memories of them together often.

I love Lilly with my whole heart, but let's not forget one of the biggest personal struggles of her character, okay?

[starry-bi-sky]

do yall ever think about bruce/batman!clone danny standing in front of his bathroom mirror after finding out he was a clone and silently tracing his face. The slope of his jaw and point of his chin. The high angle of his cheekbones and the shape of his eyes, the curve of his brow bones and the shape of his nose. The volume of his hair and the way it curls and gets fluffy when it gets too long.

His hair is black the same way a crow's wing is black. His dad's hair is black the same way a black bear's fur is black. His dad's eyes are blue like the ocean is blue. Danny's eyes are blue the same way a glacier is blue.

His dad has a square jaw and straight flat hair, and he tans and gets a face full of freckles when he's out in the sun for too long. Danny burns like a lobster and his face remains untouched. Danny has a sharp jaw and tall cheekbones, and Sam says when he's not smiling there's almost something regal about him. You would never call Jack Fenton "regal" when he's not smiling.

Sam says when he's not smiling he looks scary the same way a stone statue is. Jack Fenton when he's not smiling looks scary the same way that german shepherd staring at you across the street is.

Do you ever think he grew up wondering if he was adopted. Because of course, he has black hair and blue eyes like his dad. But having the same color doesn't make you someone's child.

Or, worse, things he's heard from the other kids and the other parents and even some of his teachers growing up; that he was the product of an affair. And that his dad was just too stupid to notice. And Danny would defend his parents until the day he died, because Jack Fenton wasn't an idiot and Maddie Fenton wasn't a cheater.

But doubt comes in with fickle tongue. his parents swear up and down that he is their child when he asks about either. That Danny just had his grandparents' features, but he was their son and they loved him.

But Danny doesn't look like either of his parents. His mom's eyes are blue like an aquamarine and Jazz's too. And they burn like lobsters in the sun too, but Jazz gets freckles on her face and so does Maddie. And as Danny grows up he doesn't bulk up or get stocky like his dad did, and when he hits puberty he doesn't shoot up like a tree like Jack Fenton did.

He stays small, and they say he's a late bloomer (and he is), or that he just has his mom's height. But he's fast and has good stamina, and some days it feels like he's built entirely different from his family. That the things they went through growing up just didn't apply to him. Jack and Maddie Fenton both had acne and breakouts when they hit puberty, and Jazz inherits it and he's seen the amount of skincare products she keeps on her side of the bathroom.

And then he hits puberty and breaks out maybe once or twice, but his skin stays clear for the most part and the problems and changes his dad went through just don't happen to him.

And the truth is worse than all of the lies.

How horrifying.

[imaginespazzi]

Nivi can you recommend us some wlw books if you’ve enjoyed any, I your writing and I’d just like to read books you’ve enjoyed I feel like they’d be top notch

YES I WOULD LOVE TOO.

I think I did one before so you can find some here

Sprinkled in the Stars is already in that list but if you like the single parent trope in GH, THEN I HIGHKEY RECOMMEND!

Taming of A Rebel by Eada Friesan - again I have baby fever and if you do too then another book with kids for you!

That Secret Something by Emily Wright - cliché best friends sister trope that I adore!!

Back In Your Arms by Monica McCallan - this is wlw with a very common straight people trope and is very vaguely UCLA-fic coded and I just really enjoyed the angst

Twice Upon A Time by Monica McCalla (great author) - again if you're looking for GH-coded books, here's another one (I'm a whore for exes-to-lovers/single parents if y'all couldn't tell alread)

Those Who Wait by Haley Cass - I just finished this book and I absolutely adored it. Charlotte and Sutton are the lomls fr fr

Lmk if y'all want any more recs. I know most of these are contemporary romance but I have recs in other genres too! Also if y'all have recs please send them in <3

[cult-of-the-eye]

No you guys don't understand. I may have ranted about this fic before but I'm fucking doing it again. Knowledge is Power (But Love Won't Hurt) by SupposedToBeWriting has fixed me. Trauma? Gone. I'm gonna call my therapist and tell them no need for any more sessions because I've found the answer. And that answer is Jonathan "single father to autistic little girl" Sims. Yeah you heard me right. Get ready for a 31 chapter, 156K words slow burn wherein Martin Kartin Blackwood dresses like the straightest gay man at the family barbecue, Finding Nemo is a really emotional plot point and Gerry Keay and Martin bond over Mommy Issues. Get your "Jon Is The Most Stressed Man Ever" fix here. It's got everything that tma is too cowardly to do - healthy communication, trans Jon and Martin and aroace Gerry. Please go read it, I promise it will change your fucking life.

[murdleandmarot]

The gang’s all here!! They’re on the case!! And there’s no ghost that they wouldn’t chase!!!!!

@mysticalcats’s Foxglove, @toki-toro’s Chaumet, @emimii’s Clownaire, and my own Bluebelle :)

[findingcrow]

I need EVERYONE to shut up and start TALKING ABOUT THE BOAR SCENE. Book one. Ruins of Gorlan. The first time Will is in real danger, the first time we see WHY he was chosen as a rangers apprentice. The first time that Halt, stern-faced, greybearded, Mr “I hate everything except for coffee and my horse”, Mr “why do apprentices ask so many questions”, shows that he sees Will as more than just an annoying 15 year old. The first time that we get proof that Halt and Will’s relationship is more than mentor & apprentice, that it’s father & son. Will puts himself in the line of danger to save a boy who’s been bullying him for his whole life, and instead of crying out for help and breaking under the pressure of being about to die, he keeps fighting and accepts it. And Halt saves him and Will can’t help the tears of relief that come over him, he can’t help but bury his face in halts cloak. Halt literally jumps off Abelard and hugs him and holds him tight and doesn’t let go. It’s the first time Halt remembers that Will is always going to be in danger. And how Will reacts to Halt saving him shows that even though Halt hasn’t shown any kind emotion to him at all, Will considers him a safe place, a safe person. I hate them and this series they make me sick and it’s awful and it’s all I can ever think about

[mirror-to-the-past]

GUYS. GUYS. 😭😭 Chongyun and Diona development, holy shit. Groundwork laid for more exploration of Chongyun's pure-yang spirit at some point, but anyway AAAA- he's finally becoming more appreciative of his condition, seeing it less as a curse, and perhaps a blessing, because of the possibility it was borne from love. His intense emotions, his ability to be the warmth in spiritual shadows, he's grateful at the idea that it's all borne from love, man. I'm. So normal right now. That was so beautiful. The music in that cutscene gave me chills.

[merrivia]

I feel like one of the things I enjoy most about the Captive Prince trilogy is where you really glimpse the hidden complexity of the books, those flashes of the engineering under the bonnet which Pacat only allows us glimpses of, here and there. There’s so many moments like that, but I feel like the idea of Auguste as a protector and Laurent’s hero-worship of his brother, has particularly stuck with me and made me want to delve into it more today.

We know Auguste is quite a bit older than Laurent; Laurent was 13, and Auguste 25, when he died at Marlas (Pacat loves her doubling and mirroring; it’s no coincidence to Laurent’s developing feelings for him, that Damen is a mirror image of Auguste in many ways, and symbolically 25 at the start of Captive Prince, like a dark resurrection, living the life Auguste should have had in Laurent’s eyes). We know that Auguste is a doting older brother; allowing Laurent to win against him when they horse raced, that they had brotherly discussions over sexuality and relationships, August giving Laurent advice (sweetly, we can assume Auguste also gave him The Talk, and that Laurent no doubt explained primly that thank you but he had already read all about That). We know that Laurent idolised Auguste, and that it was common knowledge that the two were “devoted” to each other. Even in the mind of the reader, Auguste seems special and golden; we know so little about him, and yet we love him too, especially for how much he loved Laurent. We know that tragically, Damen’s killing of Auguste, metaphorically killed Laurent also- his heart broken by the loss of Auguste compounded with the killing off of his childhood, all of his innocence, and the locking away of all the softer sides of himself, as he is abused and manipulated by his uncle.

I think a particularly heartbreaking part of it all is the rumour of Laurent having unnatural feelings for his brother.

Obviously, the source of this was the Regent, and it goes without saying that the Regent’s corruption is so malignant, that he invented this rumour to take the cleanest, purest love in Laurent’s life and turn it into something disgusting, to undermine Laurent psychologically, to disrupt his grieving process and to manipulate the political landscape. As soon as that rumour was floated, whenever it was, to grieve too much too openly, to try to honour his brother’s memory in any public way, would feed into the rumours of incest (and I am sure the Regent liked the neatly villainous irony of the fact that it is he who had the incestuous desires, and he gets to displace that onto the innocent Laurent). That’s perhaps one of the reasons why Laurent’s grief turns into such rage; firstly, there is the loss, secondly, his grief is manipulated into sexual abuse but thirdly, he was never allowed to openly grieve as he would have liked. Like a wound that festers, Laurent cannot heal as a consequence.

The really tragic thing here is that the Regent got to have Auguste; he took him so completely away from Laurent, that even in death, Laurent was denied his brotherly relationship to him, to completely and utterly emotionally isolate him. The Regent in doing so, got complete control- he could subtly destabilise any hold the memory of Auguste had over the Council and court which would transfer to Laurent, and instead cleave himself to the image of Auguste. He became the only one who gets to mention the perfect golden prince, weaponising him against Laurent, using him to highlight Laurent’s shortcomings, and his own strengths. 

And poor, poor Laurent is just not completely isolated in general, which is bad enough- he also has no-one to even talk to about his brother, it seems (especially someone who he can confide in, who might be the same or similar rank as him, which is what he needs). Even before the incest rumours, that would be a fine piece of manipulation against Laurent- boys are weak and grieve and need to talk about how they feel, where men are strong and keep hold of their emotions. And so any sign of his grieving too much, would weaken Laurent further politically. The only thing that he has then, is revenge. Revenge is his grief. I think in a way, one of the reasons why Laurent could never quite beat his uncle at his own game, was not just because he always underestimated how evil he was, but also how he was always split in two- to revenge himself on Damianos is his only way of holding onto the memory of Auguste, and yet he also needs to beat his uncle, which divided his goals. Yet I also think his rage sustained him, gave him a goal to keep living, to keep training his body hard, when he must have felt so worn out and afraid and helpless against the power of The Regent. In a way, Damen has always kept Laurent alive, whether as a shadowy figure of hate that motivated him, or as a warrior guardian, powerful enough to throw a two handed sword and impale a fellow Akielon to save him or, finally, as the man who loves him and will kill to protect him.

So Laurent’s mother died, and his father paid no real attention to him, and it is clear in the novels, that Auguste’s presence was the one barrier that stood between him and the Regent. Who guarded Laurent’s bedroom door? The Prince’s Guard under Auguste? At first I wondered whether Laurent noticed his uncle’s attentions previous to Marlas; whether in subtle ways, he went to his brother for protection. But that doesn’t fit with the phrasing Laurent uses about himself as a young teenager (”think of the greenest innocent you have ever tumbled”). Incidentally, it is heartbreaking that he cannot see the idea of a youthful boy and/or himself at that age unless it’s on sexual terms; it is a reminder of how to be young for Laurent means to be sexually exploited and how the abuse traumatised him, took away his childhood, and shaped him into this razor-sharp blade of a man in the form of a beautiful prince (it also shows how insidious it is that the Regent keeps calling him a boy, to try and reduce him over and over to the abused child he controlled). So I don’t think Laurent did see it; was too young to see it. In fact, I don’t think Laurent saw what was going to happen, until the first time he was forced onto his knees by the Regent. But I wonder whether Auguste did.

Laurent does mention that Auguste is like Damen-  as Laurent says ”“He had no instinct for deception; it meant he couldn’t recognise it in other people.”. But as I have discussed before, being an honourable warrior doesn’t mean you’re stupid, and the sexual proclivities of the Veretians doesn’t quite fall into the same category as political machinations to me. Even Laurent can recognise that yes, his uncle is a paedophile, a predator, but he can’t seem to believe that the Regent would kill his own brother or kill him till there is stark evidence to prove it. It stands to reason then that Auguste may have never thought the Regent would do as he did, but that he could see the signs of his prurient interest in Laurent. 

This also might tie into Laurent being so beautiful, and how Veretian beauty standards glorify young males (from pre-pubescent onwards). He tells Damen that he has been the recipient of offers for “as long as he could remember”- a highly disturbing statement, which suggests as a minor, Laurent was sexually propositioned over and over. Auguste must have stood in the way of that, silenced the mouths of any man who dared speak about his brother like that. Perhaps just knowing that Auguste would cut the hand off of the man who touched his brother was enough to keep Laurent safe. Did Auguste actually explicitly stop the Regent abusing him, though?

If the Regent’s victims start as young as 11, then that was a few years of sexual interest he may have had in Laurent, which Auguste may have thwarted. And just like Damen wouldn’t hear of a word against Kastor, I wonder whether Auguste knew his father wouldn’t hear a word against the Regent- after all, Aleron trusted his brother’s word so much, he marched his army on to the field at Marlas instead of keeping to the security of his fortress, a tactic that made no sense and led to his assassination. We only see the court of Vere as the Regent’s court too- was he ever so open about his child pets before the death of Aleron? We know he had them, as Paschal was the Regent’s physician and tended to them (and the medical attention they might need to their too-young bodies is another layer of quiet horror), so perhaps we can assume that it was something that everyone knew about, but simply turned a blind eye to. 

My feelings are it could be either way- Auguste may have seen the Regent’s paedophilia and kept him away from Laurent instinctively, or he may have seen him openly display sexual interest and thwarted him deliberately, or he may have simply stood in the way of anyone who tried to get to Laurent and the Regent steered clear as a consequence. We will obviously never get a clear answer on this, so I think what’s more important is simply that Auguste was a barrier and how that feeds into Laurent’s beliefs. The reader can imagine that Auguste would perhaps never have said anything too openly to him about such things (beyond advice...I can picture him sternly telling Laurent to never go anywhere alone with an older man at court or to tell him if anyone said anything inappropriate him or tried to touch him), but Laurent can see that no-one dared harass him before Auguste’s death and then after...well. Abuse at night, we assume, and at Chastillon, and any number of attempts at ‘seductions’ in the day. All Laurent knows is that the abuse wouldn’t have happened had Damen not killed his brother, so in his mind, Auguste as the shining golden protector-hero is so sacrosanct that he cannot, even after all this time, truly believe or accept that Damen beat him. It’s why, when they fight in King’s Rising, Laurent says the “ludicrous” words that Auguste would have “stopped” Damen, when we all know he didn’t (yes there is the argument that 19 year old Damen had not been fighting for hours, was fresh from the sidelines, and that played into his victory, but the point is moot...). Laurent knows what he’s saying is absurd, but Auguste is perhaps semi-mythical to him at this point, this lodestar of an ideal to live up to, the ultimate white knight, brightly alive still in his mind, who would/could/should have saved him.

The Regent’s plan to kill his brother, King Aleron, must have included a secondary plan to kill Auguste, as an obstacle to the throne, even though we don’t know what that was. Damen coming along to kill him, neatly did this for him. I wonder if it added another layer to the victory over his brother and nephew killed, to finally have access to Laurent at, horrifyingly, just the right time, less than a year before true puberty would hit and the Regent’s sexual desire in him would fade. Very little of the inner life of The Regent is revealed to us, everything being layer upon layer of machinations, facade after facade, to hide his utter cruelty, but you do wonder whether this abuse of Laurent made him feel particularly gleeful. Or whether it was simply to kill two birds with one stone- to get a man (boy) underneath you is the ultimate power play, and thus the Regents gets to both enjoy Laurent’s beauty sexually, and set up a dynamic which will ruin Laurent in the present and future and allow the Regent to have a power over him that fits in very nicely to him getting the throne. It is breathtakingly cruel I think, that the ruination of Laurent on a personal level was probably secondary, a mere byproduct of a wider plan.

One of the beautiful things about Damen and Laurent’s relationship is he can talk about Auguste again, even with the memory of his death at Damen’s hands casting a long shadow between them. Laurent does this naturally, almost unthinkingly, before he even admits to himself that they’re in love. I think the reason why is Damen’s sense of morality, his pure, uprightness. As he awkwardly says in response to Laurent trying to make clear that what Govart said was a lie, he never believed that to be true. This is a man to whom incest is unfathomable, where there is no suspicion, no cynicism, no reading into Laurent’s words to try and find the incest that isn’t there because there is no smoke without fire. Laurent finally can talk about how much he loved his brother, without being dragged in the mud for it, restoring it back, openly, in words spoken out loud, to the purity it had.

[soullessjack]

conservative X-men fans will see a franchise about an oppressed group of people who fight for their civil rights and freedom in a world that sees them as freaks and monsters and imagine themselves being on the mutants’ side but then can’t even handle masculine cis women in sports or a man with painted nails or cisgender teens on puberty blockers for health issues.

conservative X-men fans will see that oppressed group of freaks and monsters constantly facing the threat of an apocalyptic future specifically caused by hate mongers in powerful positions who very blatantly will and do destroy the same humanity they claim to be protecting if it means destroying Those Freaks and think “wow cool robot.”

conservative X-men fans will agree with the villain who was based on Malcom X and specifically came to hold his beliefs through surviving the Holocaust and claim that he can’t even be considered a villain anymore because his ideology makes sense and is consistently proven right by the humans’ unwavering intolerance, but go into hysterics the minute a real life minority holds any sort of hatred or resentment toward their oppressor.

conservatives in general will always pretend that the media they consume doesn’t have any deeper meaning or purpose other than being entertainment slop because they almost always retreat into media for some type of “comfort” or escape from having to acknowledge reality and their own bigotry. they want the freedom to be bigots without any pushback or consequences so they surround themselves in an echo chamber of fictional characters and universes who can’t argue with them or tell them they’re wrong and bad.

conservatives have to constantly and deliberately turn their brains off to consume a specific piece of media because they know that they would be the villain in it if they gave it an ounce of deeper thought and that’s exactly why they push back so hard against anything that drags them out of their comfy echo chamber, anything that threatens their blissful ignorance.

they thrive on the idea that their media isn’t “that deep” or based in/affected by reality; that there’s no such thing as representation or allegories or coding in media (and alternatively, that representation doesn’t matter or is just propahanda). they thrive on willful ignorance and they want to convince everyone else to be just as ignorant and the death of media literacy is exactly how they’ll achieve it

[suddencolds]

.

/personal

if i had a quarter every time i read something this year and came away disproportionately attached to a central character named peter, i would have two quarters

[star-spangled-man]

girl don’t kill yourself you have to live to experience the new hunger games book + movie (haymitch’s version) <3

[glitchedrabbit]

casually drawing GGY in my sketchbook

my friend: is that Gregory?

me: yes, actually no it's GGY!

my friend: who?

also me:

[mooshorange]

I've been feeling particularly feral today so I'm going to go on a rant about the symbolism of the cane in Jekyll and Hyde.

Walking sticks like this during this time period would only have been owned by rich, respectable gentlemen. For this reason, it is symbolic of this idealistic, perfect man that Jekyll wants to be.

Hyde likely has it with him to keep some form of connection to the other part of him. Jekyll is struggling with his identity at this point and is torn between the two. He would choose his original persona if he had to decide (as he is relieved to do when he can no longer go out as Hyde) and wants to make sure he doesn't lose hold of it. The stick is probably his way of ensuring he is tied to it and it remains a part of him.

However, this cane becomes the murder weapon used to kill Carew. The symbol for the upstanding gentleman kills him, an interesting link to how it is Jekyll (if only a part of him) that carries out his murder. This act breaks the cane, just as it breaks that image of who Jekyll wants to be. As much as he tries to be perfect, he isn't. He cannot be good while also being capable of murdering someone for no good reason. This also represents him being taken over by the evil of Hyde and foreshadows the eventual loss of the better part of himself.

I also find it very interesting that the cane is split into two, just as Jekyll himself is. This cane is both a symbol of respectability and a murder weapon. It is broken into two parts. Jekyll is both a respectable gentleman and a murderer. He has two personas. The cane represents the duality within himself and reflects his two natures.

This is probably useless and boring to anyone other than me. I just really enjoy some good symbolism and analysis and very rarely get a chance to go into detail with these things.

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[drastrochris]

"What the fuck is this?" Harrowhark inquired, twisting her hands through the volume usually covered in skin.

"Yeah," Kiriona sighed, "Dad did his best, but-"

"He did a piss poor job, and he 100% fucking knows it." Harrow pulls, and the muscle tears and re-knits to seal over the gaping wound. The skin repeats after a second, and with a quick wipe Harrow clears the remaining blood with her sleeve.

"Wow. You mean?"

"I mean God is an asshole. He could have made this just as clean as I did, but apparently thought you'd gain something from having your torso open to the world."

"Maybe he thought that-"

"Griddle. Do not demean yourself to imply that The Necrolord Prime, God of the Nine Houses would want his daughter to be," Harrow paused.

"Tits first?" Gideon offered, suddenly finding her mouth worryingly full of spit and pus.

"Never suggest that again, Gideon Nav! I will not have you blaspheme our Resurrector!"

"I mean," Gideon continued, scooping the mess from under her tongue, "you've met him, right?"

"YES! I've met our Lord! He's," Harrow thought, trying to find the right phrase, "He's been through a lot."

"From the way Pyrrha tells it-"

"A lot, Nav. Imagine having that power. Holding all life, all of existence, in your hands. You can take one path, which will enable you to keep all you love alive and prosperous, but it dooms others to poverty and suffering. You can turn back, and it all crumbles and everyone dies. How do you choose what level of suffering is acceptable? How do you craft a society that thrives, based on a foundation of dying and death? How does necromancy solve the original problem, when all it can do is watch as life passes, and puppet the remains to fulfill that vacant purpose?"

"How does that dude think boob jokes are funny when they're about his daughter?"

"Fucking yeah. I don't think God is ok, Nav. I think whatever he's done, he's finding hard to justify to himself, and that leads to him sleeping with Sarpedon."

"I mean, if he wants someone his own age-"

"Pyrrha said she'd gladly investigate the next black hole, so he's getting the best he can get, really."

"Sucks that he's such a fucking asshole, and I still feel bad for his dumb ass."

"God's dumb ass is likely heading for some retribution. Or redemption. I don't think A.L. is going to be forgiving of his disarming nature when she awakes. He's wronged her the most, and I don't think jokes and out of date memes are going to calm her down."

[bookwyrminspiration]

convince me to read a chorus of dragons ?

(falling to me knees) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

It's about corruption, the things people (and gods) will justify when they start seeing people as numbers. It's about how we carry the past with us always, and that means both the pain and the people we've loved. It's about brothers. It's about disillusionment. It's about breaking cycles.

It's queer high fantasy, genuinely some of the most complex worldbuilding I've encountered, following Kihrin and Co. It follows 3 points in time in the first book, detailing his backstory.

Raised in the lower circles in the capital of Quur, the biggest empire in the world, 15yo Kihrin is working as a thief--but he robs the wrong house at the wrong time, and crosses paths with a pair up to no good. When they send their demon after him, its commotion brings him into the path of the Royal Houses, who his adoptive father has kept him far away from.

Kihrin realizes why when it turns out he's a bastard son of a royal, and he's forced to leave his life behind to survive in the Upper Circle's cruel pomp and circus--but not for long, when he's kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Bought by a mysterious death cult, Kihrin learns being a royal bastard is the least important thing about him, not when a stranger calling him brother wants him dead. Not when the fate of the universe is in his hands and he doesn't even remember choosing to save it. Not when a corrupted god calls to him.

Not when everyone, including himself, is terrified he's going to destroy the world.

The series is dense and complex, with a large cast of uniquely fleshed out characters. I've barely made a dent into everything going on, and the confusion and relationships and morals the story presents have absolutely enchanted me. It's not for everyone, but I adore it, and if it sounds interesting, I'd highly recommend giving it a chance.