Unfriendly Reminder That

Kanej as Taylor Swift songs~

•Cowboy like me

"I've got some tricks up my sleeve, takes one to know one."

"You're a cowboy like me, never wanted love, just a fancy car."

"Perched in the dark, telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear."

"You're a bandit like me, eyes full of stars. Hustling for the good life, never thought I'd meet you here."

"And the skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to mess this up."

"Forever is the sweetest con."

"And I'm never gonna love again."

•Treacherous

"Put your lips close to mine, as long as they don't touch."

"And I'll do anything you say, if you say it with your hands."

"This path is reckless, this slope is treacherous. I like it."

"Your name has echoed through my mind, and I just think you should, think you should know."

"Nothing safe is worth the drive, and I will follow you, follow you home."

•Willow

"Rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife."

"The more that you say, the less I know. Wherever you stray, I follow."

"I'm begging for you to take my hand."

"Head on the pillow, I could feel you sneaking in, as if you were a mythical thing."

"Wait for the signal, and I'll meet you after dark. Show me the places where the others gave you scars.

•State of grace

"And I never saw you coming, and I'll never be the same."

"You come around and the armor falls."

"So you were never a saint, and I've loved in shades of wrong."

"We learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken hearts."

"This is the worthwhile fight. Love is a ruthless game, unless you play it good and right."

"These are the hands of faith, you're my Achilles heel."

•Peace

"I never had the courage of my convictions, as long as danger is near."

"And it's just around the corner darling, 'cause it lives in me. No, I could never give you peace."

"All these people think love's for show, but I die for you in secret."

"The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me."

"It's like I'm wasting your honour."

"Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other."

"I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best. But the rain is always gonna come, when you're standing with me."

"Would it be enough, if I could never give you peace?"

•Untouchable

"Untouchable like a distant diamond sky. I'm reaching out and I just can't tell you why."

"And when you're close, I feel like coming undone."

"You gotta come on, come on. Say that we'll be together."

•Jump then fall

"I realise your laugh is the best sound I have ever heard."

"I like the way I can't keep my focus. I watch you talk, you didn't notice."

"Don't be afraid to jump then fall, jump then fall into me."

"When people say things that bring you to your knees, I'll catch you."

•Mirrorball

"Hush, I know they said the end is near, but I'm still on my tallest tiptoes."

"I'm a mirrorball, I can change everything about me to fit in."

"I'm still on that tightrope, I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me."

"I'm still a believer, but I don't know why. I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try."

No thoughts, just this. IT'S THE RAW FKING EMOTION FOR ME-

The Darkling- *diabolical plan for world domination* *tortures Genya* *burns down Alina's only home* *kills all her friends* *tries to make her his puppet* *tries to kill Mal* *your power is mine* *kills Ana Kuya*

Alina-😐🙄😤😭🖕

The Darkling- why, oh why do you not love meeee!?!?

ricemale: I am Rhysand, the Most Powerful High Lord™!1!!1! I am High Lord of the Night Court, Night Triumphant, Death Incarnate, Hot Feminist!1!!1! I can snap your mind without moving and I am Very Powerful!!1!!1!!

women of illyria and hewn city: can you use your power and privilege to help us and provide us a safer life and end wing clipping and stuff???

ricemale, for the 300 something years of his rule: lol nope

Somewhere between thinking of Beth as "the middle sister who dies, what about her?" to "the nice one, the one who wants everyone to be happy", Evelyn Hugo fell in love with Celia St James.

“Most of us can hide our greatest hurts and longings. It’s how we survive each day. We pretend the pain isn’t there, that we are made of scars instead of wounds."

“Most women suffer thorns for the sake of the flowers. But we who would wield power adorn ourselves in flowers to hide the sting of our thorns.”

~Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

GENTLE REMINDER that though all the other characters are amazing, ALINA STARKOV IS THE PROTAGONIST LET'S NOT FORGET THE QUEEN.

“Is he with her?” Otho asked.

“The Lady Lillian belongs to herself, and no one else.”

“So she’s not with him?”

“No.”

Otho shrugged. “That’s strange.”

“Why?” Chaol had the sudden urge to strangle him.

“Because it looks like he’s in love with her,” he said, and walked away.

~Throne of Glass, Sjm

"You’re mad,” I said. “You know what he can do. No prize is worth that.”

Sturmhond grinned. “That remains to be seen.”

“The Darkling will hunt you for the rest of your days.”

“Then you and I will have something in common, won’t we? Besides, I like to have powerful enemies. Makes me feel important.”

Mal crossed his arms and considered the privateer. “I can’t decide if you’re crazy or stupid.”

“I have so many good qualities,” Sturmhond said. “It can be hard to choose.” 

~Leigh Bardugo, Siege & Storm

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.