#legendborn community

[you-are-my-king-now-cariad]

Context: I wrote a ‘quote analysis’ for my English class. It’s basically a challenge where you pick a sentence or quote and write as much about as you can in a given amount of time.

I chose “You have always been the Scion of Arthur, and neither of us can afford to forget it.”

And oh boy I had thoughts.

1. This feels VERY interesting. It feels like it’s going back to Sel Who Doesn’t Care About Anyone, but at the same time… Bree says it’s ‘almost an accusation.’ She nearly starts crying. I think it’s much closer to ‘You are the Scion, and I am your Kingsmage, and anything else is forbidden on every level.’ Yes, at this point they’re barely flirting. But Sel is infuriatingly careful, and this is also probably a self-reminder.

2. Saying that neither of them can forget it seems particularly poignant seeing that Sel knows what happens when Arthur’s Scion does abandon their post. I don’t think Nick is a bad person, to be clear. (I don’t like him either, but still.) No matter what you think of him, though, he walked away from his responsibilities. We don’t know if-had he been Called while he was still AWOL-he would have fought. I doubt it. And that is dangerous.

2a(?). It’s bad that Bree’s absent… But not only do the other Legendborn know that she’s still fighting, she is at the very least trying. She doesn’t get it right all the time. Hell, she probably doesn’t get it right half the time. But she is giving her all to being the best king possible-a title she doesn’t want, one given to her by violence and prejudice. And I think everyone can see that. Even when she breaks down, it’s not ‘I want to quit’ or ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ Maybe it’s ‘I wish I wasn’t the one doing this,’ or ‘I’m not strong enough,’ but she’s almost always more worried about just letting her friends down, about someone getting hurt! That is a true king. You’re allowed to have bad days, you’re allowed to be selfish. But you cannot quit when (I’m not gonna count them rn) people and potentially literally the entire world is depending on you.

I’m doing these analyses every class apparently so I might have more if this was even comprehensible, see y’all later!

[incorrect-legendborn-quotes]

Nick: I was never one to hold grudges. My farther held grudges. I’ll always hate him for that.

[massiveladycat]

does anyone else have that one book character thats so loved by the community but you absolutely HATE THEM?? you dont even have to have a reason you just DO.

[merlinreviews]

Just finished reading BloodMarked SIGHHH, 6 MORE MONTHS UNITIL MARCH AND WE GET OATHBOUND!!!

[feyres-divorce-lawyer]

giggling kicking my feet🤭🤭

[painterfromthevoid]

⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️

I need you to forgive me

For my crime of being

I don’t know when the fog will lift

And I’m scared if it does

That I’ll be more vulnerable than before

I never want to go back to before

When June bugs lived in my hair

As worms live in rotting brains

I’ve been living with bed bugs

That eat me away

When someone finds me through all this fog

There won’t be any of me left to love

I feel like a hermit

With a broken shell

Don’t throw me away just yet

I still got a sentence to complete

A will to carry out

And love to keep hidden in depths

Between my eyes and throat

⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️

[purplemoonabove]

Love Triangles ≠ Tug-Of-War

“Oh great. Another love triangle.”

“Here it comes: the love triangle.”

“Ooohhh, I see a love triangle going on~!”

That’s the idea that is the new norm right now in storytelling: the love triangle, a situation involving a tense-making drama between three people, most commonly a girl that falls in love with two guys separately, and both guys love her back.

(Thanks Twilight.)

But the thing is, there’s actually a catch on calling it a love triangle. I was so caught up on the tri-romance that I didn’t realize it myself until seeing a source, whether a comment or something, had me thinking.

Thinking enough to head back to elementary school, where we learned our shapes.

You know how a triangle works. I don’t need to bring out a diagram. You got your Point A, Point B and Point C. Connect the dots and bingo! You got your triangle:

But here’s the thing: the triangle points… aren’t the same as the points in a love triangle.

Here’s the thing:

- Point A connects to Point B,

- Point B connects to Point C;

- and, Point C connects to Point A.

Simple, right?

But here’s the question: Why isn’t the points ALL connected in a love triangle?

The answer: It can’t, because it’s not a triangle.

It never was.

Shocking, I know.

Now, before anyone mentions on defending the “love triangle being legit”, remember what I said before: a triangle makes up three points, and they all have to connect to make the shape. That doesn’t work the same way as the love triangles I’ve been noticing from certain stories. Twilight, especially for being the root of it all.

Bella likes Edward. Bella likes Jacob.

Edward likes Bella. Jacob likes Bella.

One girl likes both guys. Both guys like the same girl.

Bella is Point A.

Edward is Point B.

Jacob is Point C.

Point A likes Points B and C. Point B likes A, and so does Point C.

It’s not a triangle because Point B and C – Edward and Jacob – are not connected.

Neither one has feelings for the other – other than the feeling to rip at each other’s throats. (Being a vampire and werewolf, respectively, it’s no surprise.)

Because if they were, then the real triangle would be:

Jacob likes Bella.

Bella likes Edward.

But Edward likes Jacob…

I’m humored by that. Just imagine how the plot would go if it somehow went like that. There would be new teams: Team Bella and Edward, or Team Jacob and Bella, or Team Edward and Jacob.

The direction it would have gone if were done…

BUT!

It wasn’t so it’s not a triangle – it’s tug-of-war. Love war. Both men fighting/trying/convincing/doing everything they can in a situation to get the girl they both like to accept one of them.

There’s a rope with two ends and a centered mark. Who gets the mark is the direction of a pair the author was going for.

Bella was the center mark. And Edward and Jacob were at the ends.

Same goes for:

- The Hunger Games; Katniss at the middle, with Gale and Peeta at the ends.

- The Mortal Instruments; Clary in the middle, with Jace and Simon at the ends; and,

- Legendborn (Read it if you haven’t! So damn good!); Bree in the middle, with Nick and Sel at the ends.

The effort the guys pull is the direction of which of the guys is with the girl in the storyline.

It was never a triangle. For the guys such as mentioned above, it was tug-of-war.

And for the girl in the center—heck, it would have been an angle without a base! The A without the middle line. Just standing like an open ladder, the bottom ends for two people to stand on and fight who will be first to the top as they climb—and by her acceptance.

This can also work vise-versa – the girls doing tug-of-war, the guy as the singular point of an angle. The rope or angle can even break if the main love interest decides neither one! Or whoever the author would be using.

The point is, the next time you read a book and see a romance where Point A falls for Points B and C, and the feelings are returned, remember: it’s not a love triangle. It’s a return to your childhood, during recess or P.E., where the rope is held at both ends, the center mark is the target, and whoever team you are on is the support for one of the pullers.

Not a love triangle. Just a new game of Tug-Of-War.

Thanks for reading my WriTED Talk 😊

[lifblogs]

The whump in Bloodmarked is so good! And totally unexpected, honestly. Legendborn technically had some whump, but it was very fleeting and impermanent. Yet in Bloodmarked there’s an entire captivity arc! I loved it!

[black-is-beautiful18]

No cuz let’s talk about it. When it comes to the book community, y’all are some of thee most anti-intellectual people I have ever seen. We say address problematic writers and the themes they put in their books and y’all say “It’s just a book! Let people read what they want!” Y’all get on the internet complaining about long paragraphs and saying y’all skip paragraphs and dialogue as if that makes any sense. Y’all can barely grab ahold of the themes of racism, grief, generational trauma, or the experience of being Black at a white institution in LegendBorn because you’d rather focus on the 5% of romance as if romance can’t also be political. Yet somehow you refuse to read books by Black and Brown authors cuz they’re “too political.” It can be right there in your face and you’d still use the excuse that reading is your escape so you don’t have to pay attention to those things when those things literally drive the book along with the characters. Percy Jackson is about a boy trying to dismantle the system of the gods cuz they got a bit too much dip on they chip and it literally almost always leads to their own children dying. Not to mention they suck as parents too. I’ve yet to read The Poppy War but it’s based off of an actual war. It’s historical freaking fiction. Rin literally sees a chance to have control over her body and takes it. Don’t think I don’t remember y’all being mad about that either. Y’all love The Song of Achilles as if it’s also not about war, touches on the romantic relationship between Patroclus and Achilles after historians have tried so hard to deny that they were in fact lovers, and let’s not forget the misogyny littered throughout the text that’s either there purposefully or the fault of the authors own biases. Like y’all are dumb and you don’t care.

[breestanaccount]

As a queer person, queer ships are VERY important to me. I grew up in a country where being gay is 1) not acceptable and 2) you could literally get beat up. Like it happened. (Two teenage boys got harrased by a bunch of middle aged men for holding hands and kissing. The boys were 14 and 16. YEAH.) I live in a homophobic household, where coming out is entirely not an option. So I tent to gravitate towards books abt queer ppl in situations similar to mine. I don't know EXACTLY when i was like "omg I'm gay??" and, to me, it wasn't even a big deal. One day I just figured out that I thought of women different then men. (I am a cis girl, btw). I wasn't ever in denial. I was just like "ok cool". I never had to deal with internelized homophobia, like some other queer ppl ik had. Mostly bc I was allowed on the interned and the amount of time I spent on it to form my own opinions. My parents worked 9-5 jobs, so sometimes I would be alone with hours to spare. I was no way neglected, and I'm happy I didn't let other ppl affect the way that I think. I love a good coming of age queer story, and, honestly, I think Sel and Nick (and my baby girl bree) deserve some happiness. Ik that there was and is tension and dislike between them, but they are really kinda similar. You can tell that they do actually care for one another.

Idk how this became more abt me then Nick and Sel, but I did feel the need to get this off my chest lol. Pls remember that everyone's experience with their own queerness is different, and not everyone lives in a homophobic house. If you feel safe coming out, and ur family supports you, then I will be happy for you! It makes me happy to watch the parents of queer kids support their child, buy pride flags and other stuff. It makes me very happy.

TLC and Queer Narritives

This started as an update on playlist making for Nick ships and has devolved into a rant about Queer narratives being capitalized on in TLC. I wanna give Tracy grace here, but after having a great discussion about how Bree’s black community feels one note/magical negro-ish…yeah I gotta get this off my chest 😭

Tl:dr I don’t think Nick and Sel’s (mutual!) romantic feelings are fleshed out in a way I think is fair to Selwyn as his own character with feelings and priorities outside of Bree and the Oaths. I understand that is Bree’s story so it makes sense Tracy didn’t focus on that. But I feel that fleshing the queer narrative could have been revolutionary and instead falls short of the mark. Cuz the story could have functioned largely the same with them as rivals and friends with no romantic undertones.

To me it’s more than “oh Nick shows that he cares about Sel in these ways” Cuz yeah. It’s clear Nick cares about Sel. But even for a love triangle I think it’s TOO unclear, TOO vague, even with the Order trauma context that that care is EXPLICITLY romantic and not just extremely close and trauma ridden. They have a brotherly, rivals, and friend dynamic going on which all feels more fleshed out than a romantic dynamic.

And I say TOO because, well…outside of Selwyn Kane being my baby boy who I love to the moon and back…I’m just kinda particular that the feelings of a young man be taken seriously and given narrative weight OUTSIDE of how it relates to the competition of heterosexual ships, or to the ease/simplicity of a polyamorous “solution” to the triangle.Like, if you’re gonna have a confirmed Pansexual character… and have that pansexual character’s queerness only really be explored in text by how it functions as an facet for a love triangle with potential to be polyamorous even IF the plot is busy…ion like that.

I think I see this whole OT3 and NickSel at a certain angle because while I can relate to Bree for so many reasons as a black woman, Sel’s queerness brushing on themes from my own Queer Awakening™️ and I think queer experiences a lot of people have.

Tell me if any of this rings a bell, my fellow LeeGeeBeeTees: Deep admiration of someone turning into something that looks and feels like attraction—especially if that’s first time you’ve ever felt something like that? Unsure if what you’re feeling is jealousy and wanting to be more like them or actually wanting them? Heightened awareness of their moods and weird desire to attend their emotional needs even when it’s not reciprocated or mutual or necessary? Being more open about your sexuality and/or not being cishet passing and being into someone who maybe is neither of those things. Sleeping/getting together with someone of the opposite to be “normal” and get over those feelings? Having the person you’re into be interested in having a “normal” relationship with someone that you don’t even like very much? Yeah. Yeah. YEAH.

Like to me, I can read between the lines of what Sel has said and done and fill in the blanks for wistful, beautiful, gay as fuck life experiences!! He is so fuckin valid! But WHY is his HURT doing the heavy lifting for the queer narrative in text??? His hesitation when asked about his feelings and cautious pessimism makes sense!! Almost all of the things I see people commonly point to as Nick showing he cares for Sel almost all indirectly involve Bree! Or is muddled by the Oaths—which you can SAY is the same for Sel, maybe, but not in the same way imo.

I’m not saying that Nick has to have had the same queer journey or awakening as Sel. or that he had to figure out his feelings at the same time as him. Or that he needs to be romantically interested in Sel to have an OT3 happen. But I AM saying that this feels very lopsided. And unlike normal love triangle messiness’s this feels…not fun to engage with. Because even if/when Tracy fleshes Nick and Sel out more to go for an OT3 situation, because this book is not about them, I really worry that Nick’s half of the equation will fall flat. And we get the queer representation but not much of queer story outside of their straight relationships to the main character.

In the interim of the next book, imma need Nickel and OT3 shippers pls make some Nick and Sel queer content to fill in these gaps. Preferably pre LB, no Bree! Or post Oath! Or time between them finding out where SK took her! Give me preteen preening and showboating for each other really being flirting!! Give me teen gaynst mutual unrequited pining, but actually, secretly REALLY requited mutual pining!!! Give me an “Oh. Oh? Oh.” Realization!! THIS SHIP CAN FIT SO MUCH LOVE AND ADORATION IN IT!!!! This shit writes itself, and yet in text I have to see molehills as mountains??? Naaawww.

Nicholas and Selwyn—the most powerful young men in the centuries old Order based in the American South with misogynistic origins, that took their mothers from them and grew up in a dysfunctional toxic environment—being GAY and finding LOVE is fucking BEAUTIFUL and it deserves far more care and attention from the narrative. I’m holding out for this rant age HORRIBLY by Book 3 but rn…I’m salty as hell!

P.S.—me joking that Alice and William are the ~homosexual supporting cast~ is funny but also bet not be me jinxing it. Again, Bree’s story. But more than “Tor is Alice’s type”/“women are hungry so i cook” and “yeah I have a bf but broke up with him weeks ago”/“red herring romantic rival for Bree that lasted 5 minutes before jk he’s gay and blushed at Will??” I’m not expecting Brewlyn levels of build up or whatever but c’mon now!!

[you-are-my-king-now-cariad]

I love being in this community and seeing posts circulate. Like we’re all* vaguely progressive and that kind of thing, so we generally repost similar PSAs.

For example, I saw one post about AO3 being down 5 times in a row. From Paige, Rain, Knobbly, FicNoire, and then myself.

Love y’all. It’s not even annoying yet.

[incorrect-legendborn-quotes]

Sel: The next person that offers me charity or pity will be mentioned, by name, in my suicide note.

[massiveladycat]

characters i would run away from: 1. miguel o'hara

he choke slammed a teenager and he's absolutely terrifying (attractive points -5 every time he yells at a child) 2. selwyn kane

he honestly probably wouldnt even do a double take at me but i'd still run anyways (hes intimidating) 3. luke castellan

he likes to manipulate little girls and told a 16 year old girl that he loves her and NOT in the platonic way (he's 23)

[merlinreviews]

Hi, hi all!! Does anyone have any recommendations for books or novels like LegendBorn and Bloodmarked, but with characters that are adults specifically 20 and up. I don’t mind reading books with young characters, but I really would prefer to read more books with characters around my own age. Please someone help me out here!

[rebelelegance]

Sooooo Now that communities is now a thing.... What say we create a legendborn community? If you guys are interested in helping me set it up...dm me please! And please reblog so that we can reach more of the fandom