Part 1 Of My Valentine's Post✨

“Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.”

~ The Queen of Nothing

The trope where two characters are somewhere they shouldn't be, so they start making out to hide the real reason>>>

EVEN BETTER IF THEY'RE ENEMIES- *squeals*

All the grishaverse, riordanverse, shadowhunter chronicles, throne of glass and marvel characters do be kinda fruity to me- anyways happy bisexual visibility day<33

Friendly Reminder that-

Darklina as Taylor swift songs ~

•Exile

"And it took you five whole minutes, to pack us up and leave me with it."

"You were my crown, Now I'm in exile seein' you out."

"Second, third, and hundredth chances, balancin' on breaking branches. Those eyes add insult to injury."

"You're not my homeland anymore, so what am I defendin' now?".

"All this time, we always walked a very thin line."

•Hoax

"My eclipsed sun."

"My twisted knife, my sleepless night, my win-less fight."

"Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in."

"You knew you won, so what's the point of keeping score?"

"My kingdom come undone, you have beaten my heart."

•My tears ricochet

"Weepin' in a sunlit room, and if I'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes too."

"Did I deserve, babe? All the hell you gave me? 'Cause I loved you, I swear I loved you, till my dying day."

"You had to kill me but it killed you just the same."

"I didn't have it in myself to go with grace, 'cause when I'd fight, you used to tell me I was brave."

"And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake?"

"And you can aim for me heart, go for blood, But you would still miss me in your bones."

•The 1

"And if you wanted me, you really should've showed."

"But we were something, don't you think so?"

"And if my wishes came true, it would've been you."

"You know the greatest loves of all time are over now?"

"If one thing had been different, would everything be different?"

•Haunted

"You and I walk a fragile line, I have known it all this time. But I never thought I'd live to see it break."

"He will try too take away my pain, and he just might make me smile. But the whole time I'm wishing he was you instead."

"But I still mean every word I said to you."

"I thought I had you figured out. Can't turn back now, I'm haunted."

He buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply. “How is it I smell like goose shit and cheap whiskey and you smell like you just ran through a meadow of wildflowers?”

“Ruthlessness.”

He breathed in again. “What is that scent? It reminds me of something, but I can’t place what.”

“The last child you tried to eat?”

“That must be it.”

I think this is when I started shipping zoyalai.

You can't beat Jurdan when it comes to the enemies to lovers trope, that's UNMATCHED ROMANCE RIGHT THERE. You can SEE the characters struggling with their feelings and IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTBREAKING ALL AT ONCE.

"my great villain, my darling god!?!?!?" "you're my dearest punishment!?!?!???" "if you're the sickness, I suppose you can't also be the cure?!!!!!" "I hate you so much that sometimes I can't think of anything else</3" "I want to tell you so many lies!!?" AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON "kiss me until I'm sick of it"----- Adyfgopkvdtdvjudy

“I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.”

― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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