rowa reads

not spoiler free! and if you can't tell I really like books

[can-you-damianot]

honestly damen threatening to kill the regent the second he realised what he did to laurent and violating his own country’s ancient and sacrosanct customs without a second thought is his MOST iconic action in the whole series, damen outchea once again setting the bar dizzyingly high!!!

[can-you-damianot]

just an extension of this but it is so important that damen is written in this way. there is never even the barest second of doubt or blame from damen when the regent tells him what happened between him and laurent and you know damn well that both the regent and laurent were expecting that. laurent was 100% expecting disgust, revulsion, blame, whatever but damen just jumps to defend him!!! because he’s been fucking hurt!!! he even yells at the guards at the kingsmeet for not fucking up the regent as well for what he’s done! when there’s so much shame and stigma around victims of csa do u even know how important it is that damen does not even consider for one second that laurent is at fault? even though the regent explicitly pursues that narrative? that laurent was asking for it and is dirty and corrupted and of less worth? we have damen’s pov we know this isn’t something that even occurred to him or that he would accept? even though this is what laurent believes? because he loves laurent unequivocally? do u realise how fucking important that is??? WE STAN KINGS ONLY

[rowareads]

CRYING 

[rowareads]

warcross is my aesthetic Like neon futuristic cities, rainbow dyed hair, hackers, advanced AR, video games and overall Japan?? holy shit

[theneonwerewolf]

Voltron Theory: The Origin of Lotor

So Episode 7 of Season 3 gave us the awesome and tragic backstory of the paladins, as well as the origin stories of Zarkon and Haggar. But one thing was missing from that.

Where was Lotor?

His absence from their past seems like a strange omission, but the episode gives us one major clue as to what happened.

This helmet. Looks familiar doesn’t it?

This helmet, which is a galran helmet, greatly resembles the one Lotor wears in Defenders of the Universe. And I believe this was intentional.

Look at Zarkon’s face here. He doesn’t look too happy.

I want you to go back and watch this scene with the helmet if you can and listen to their tone of voice. Zarkon and Honvera seem strangely distant. Allura was just born and you’d think they’d be happy for Alfor but… something seems off.

When Alfor goes to thank Honerva for the gift she doesn’t even look up at him. She seems distant, and Zarkon is watching her intently. Even Alfor seems a bit put off by her.

Not only that, her clothes have changed since we last saw her, from white, to black.

What seems likely is that the helmet they gave to Allura was originally meant for Prince Lotor. Zarkon and Honerva’s despondence may be because… they had lost their son. But, the helmet had already been made for a child of royalty, so they gave it to Allura instead.

Of course we know Lotor is fine now. He must have been revived, likely through the use of quintessence. It ended up poisoning Honerva to death, but the fact that Kova is still alive after 10,000 years shows it’s possible for Lotor to have survived that long too.

But this adds a whole new reason for Zarkon and Honerva to be insistent on continuing their research, to the point where Zarkon loses his composure when Alfor begs him to stop.

They wanted to find a way to revive their son.

This would also explain Lotor’s white hair, purple skin, and purple eyes, none of which are traits shared by either Honerva or Zarkon. We do know that exposure to quintessence can alter skin and hair color, as we saw with Honerva after spending hundreds of years being exposed to it.

Why would this be omitted from the episode entirely? I think they may revisit this at some point, when the writers decide it is time for Lotor to find out what happened. But for now, the helmet is the clue they left for us, the only acknowledgement of his existence we get.

[rowareads]

why was lotor exiled?? is his mother haggar?? does he know about his parents??? what does he want with quintessence???? how did he meet up with his generals???? how does he keep such glorious hair??????

[rowareads]

I swear if there's no book 2 confirmed I'll need a bone witch to bring me back to life

[rowareads]

WAIT IS THERE A BONE WITCH 2

[rowareads]

tea and kalen….. tealen

[rowareads]

MY SHIP HAS SAILED AW YEAH I CALLED THIS FROM THE BEGINNING but do they have a ship name

[rowareads]

When the author writes in crazy foreshadowing and also literally tells you what's going to happen in the future BUT ALSO ENDS THE FIRST BOOK ON A CLIFFHANGER

[valamerys]

Why do ship elucien? I'm still on the fence.

Because Elain is sweetness and gentleness and quiet, unyielding strength with a half-hidden streak of savagery that her sisters underestimate, and Lucien is wit and cleverness and blazing loyalty with these depths of sensitivity and kindness that go ignored/ suppressed in the service of his abuser and then Feyre in ACOWAR (who is, frankly, a dick to him).

And there’s a lot to be said for Healing Together, after all that they’ve endured and their weird similarities in losing fiances and never being able to go “home” and being continually dismissed by the people closest to them, but more importantly, their personalities compliment each other, bring out the hidden sides I talked about in each other. Elain tempers Luciens GONNA INSULT EVERYONE [fire emojis] inclinations and draws out his soft side, and Lucien’s playfulness challenges Elain just enough that he gets to see and appreciate her sharpness. And they’re both incredibly empathetic, observant, emotionally articulate people who get a lot out of– rather, who need– a parter who reciprocates that.

Like, consider Lucien, who has made a lot of fucked up decisions and burned a lot of bridges and done a lot of soulless political shit and basically had every good thing in his life ruined or taken from him, being in just. complete awe. of how Good this woman is, how undeserving he is of breathing the same air of a creature who was suffered so much but stayed so kind and gentle, how completely fucking baffling it is that the cauldron would tie them together but how if she’d let him he’d happily spend eternity just… making her happy, making her laugh, holding her while she puts herself back together, anything she wants. And consider Elain, who is broken, who thinks she’s never going to love again, who no longer has a home but begins to find one in this man who’s smart and endlessly witty and has a fire in his soul despite the weight he carries on his shoulders and who believes in her like no one ever has, who sees all of her, not just the delicate little flowergirl parts everyone else sees, and loves her for it without ever asking anything in return so of course she comes to reciprocate it.

that was not 100% coherent but anyway, those are my #thoughts on why elucien is The Best Ship. for further reading please see: all of my fics.

[rowareads]

wow someone just put my incoherent screeching about elucien into actual words

[dailyschwab]

since our dark duet is out and we won’t get any new content from schwab until next year, this might be a good time to gather all her fandoms in a fun challenge! so, if you love one/any/all of her books, join us in the schwab week!

schedule + prompts;

AUGUST 13TH: favourite book/series

AUGUST 14TH: favourite male character

AUGUST 15TH: favourite female character

AUGUST 16TH: favourite relationship

AUGUST 17TH: favourite quote

AUGUST 18TH: favourite minor character

AUGUST 19TH: favourite setting (the londons, the archive, the moors, etc.)

[bonus] AUGUST 20TH: favourite species (EOs, antari, sunai/malachai/corsai, etc.)

aditional info;

you can make original content in any format (graphics, gifsets, fanart, etc.) for any of victoria’s books 

tag your creations with #schwabweek and track the tag to see others’ amazing creations as well!

you can message us if you have any questions

if you’re planning on joining us then reblog this to signal boost!

[birdiethebibliophile]

I don’t think anyone’s brought this up before, so I’d like to mention the demonization of Amarantha not only as a woman who is fully aware of her sexuality and uses it as a weapon, BUT ALSO as a tool to demonize wlw.

Here goes.

This whole argument centers around a nightmare Feyre has in ACOMAF. I’ll quote the passage in full (from pages 184-185 of the regular Bloomsbury edition of A Court of Mist and Fury:

I tumbled into a sleep so heavy my dreams were an undertow that dragged me down, down, down until I couldn’t escape them.

I lay naked and prone on a familiar red marble floor while Amarantha slid a knife along my bare ribs, the steel scraping softly against my skin. “Lying, traitorous human,” she purred, “with your filthy, lying heart.”

The knife scratched, a cool caress. I struggled to get up, but my body wouldn’t work.

She pressed a kiss to the hollow of my throat. “You’re as much a monster as me.” She curved the knife over my breast, angling it toward my peaked nipple, as if she could see the heart beating beneath. I started sobbing. “Don’t waste your tears.”

Someone far away was roaring my name - begging for me.

“I’m going to make eternity a hell for you,” she promised, the tip of the dagger piercing the sensitive flesh beneath my breast, her lips hovering a breath above mine as she pushed - [end quote]

And then it cuts off as Rhys wakes Feyre up from her nightmare.

The first time - and the subsequent times - I’ve read this scene, it bothers me. A LOT. It’s clearly sexual, from Feyre being naked to the focus on her breasts to Amarantha nearly kissing her in that last paragraph.

This is what bothers me:  there’s lots of sexual content in these books. I know that. Lots and lots. But this is the only time there’s anything remotely like sexual content between two women (everything Mor says in ACOWAR seems rather strangely… desexualized) and not only is it assault, there’s no reason for it.

We already know Amarantha used her sexuality in a way that is wrong. Like Ianthe. I believe the term @valamerys uses is Evil Evil Sluts Who Want to Steal Your Boyfriend. But to me, this is on another level. Amarantha never hurt Feyre sexually - just in physical ways, and emotional/psychological ways. To me, there was no reason to make this dream so dripping with… sex. To me, it becomes an association of “two women in a sexual context” with “horrific torture and assault.” This is very different to the way f/m sexuality is portrayed throughout the series. Only a select few (Ianthe and Amarantha, the twins in ACOWAR though OH WAIT IT’S IMPLIED THAT AT LEAST ONE OF THEM ISN’T STRAIGHT) use their sexuality in ways that are wrong. There’s a lot of sex scenes, all f/m (as Feyre is the narrator and she’s presumably straight), all portrayed in a pretty positive light. Even the scenes that border on sexual assault - the one after Calanmai in ACOTAR, the kiss with Rhys Under the Mountain at the end of ACOTAR - are, in my view, portrayed more positively.

And yet here is the only example of two women in a sexual context, and it’s… this.

Does this mean that Feyre associates women having sex with each other with torture? Does it mean that SJM herself does? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this is the ONLY depiction of wlw (sort of) sexuality in the entire series that has a focus on sex, and it’s framed as torture.

And this shouldn’t need to be said, but that’s not okay.

[acourtofmalesandfemales]

This is basically the demonization of sex between women, something really common in fiction in my opinion. Sometimes in movies Evil Women™ are attracted to other women, or have sex with them for pleasure. No feelings attached, just sex. Women who like women are evil!! Two women can’t be in love and have a healthy relationship, how dare you think that?

SJM, as the ignorant straight woman she is (because she clearly has no idea of what a relationship between two women is), perpetuates those stereotypes in her writing.

Her stans probably think she means well and I’m not saying she is trying to demonize all sapphic women, but it’s very obvious that she doesn’t really care about wlw so this isn’t a big deal for her. 

Depictions of wlw in media are rare and usually not positive. So yeah, she probably didn’t want to hurt wlw, but this is still a bad stereotype that should die.

Oh, and I would like it if she stopped writing unnecessary scenes that involve sexual assault.

[anexcessofsubplot]

Im also not happy her two women in power–amarantha and iantha–conflate taking power from men (they have their own authority outside of men) and the rape of men. It creates this parallel of taking power from men and taking sexual power from them. Like, iantha and amarantha are so gross and perverse in the books’ world because they somehow have taken authority away from men AND rape men. They’ve totally turned the world order on its head and they’re monsters for it. Theyre othered (iantha and amarantha) and i hate it.

Especially when we have an abusive high lord beating his wife and everyone rolls their eyes like it’s just a bad habit.

[evangelineartemiasamos]

Amarantha is intented to be a monster, but Ianthe had such potential to be used for showing how an oppressed woman searches for ways to receive any power she can get. Even if she has to seduce men for that. What shall she do, if all power derives from men in her world? Notice that unlike Mor, Amren and Feyre, our women in power, Ianthe doesn’t have magical powers to set her apart from the roles laid out for Prythian women. She chooses religion and having children as her means, rather tradition ones, but the books turn her try to gain power against her, demonizing seduction by making Ianthe a rapist.

And at some point, this becomes hypocritical as Feyre only becomes so important because two powerful men are interested in her to begin with. Feyre suceeds at winning a man’s favor where Ianthe doesn’t, and that’s why I should hate her? Please. Let a woman be a villain without making it about sex.

[howlsmovinglibrary]

There are so many layers of internalised misogyny surrounding Ianthe and Amarantha that I genuinely don’t know how to unpick it. The thing that I’ve noticed, other than the obvious conflation of women who dominant also being perverse, is the way that women are utterly punished for sexual transgression and abuse, in comparison to the men that perpetrate the same crimes getting off with little or no reprecussions. It’s seen in the fact that, although both men and women have engaged in non-consensual behaviour in this series, only the women are branded as rapists by the plot.

Like, ACOWAR squicked me out so much, because in the same book that we have the rehabilitation of and depiction of positive, heroic traits in (at least) two male abusers, Tamlin and Eris, (I say at least because I also think that Mor’s father is forgiven to some extent ‘out of necessity’), we also have a scene where Feyre gleefully smashes Ianthe’s hand to smithereens and feeds her to the Weaver without a second thought.

Men are forgiven for sexual assault, or their past indiscretions are discretely swept under the rug, often because the plot demands it (’we have no other choice’, ‘we need allies’, Tamlin did a selfless thing so everything is fine). Meanwhile Amarantha is skewered against a wall, and Ianthe is depicted in two brutally violent revenge scenes. They are being punished for their sexual abuse in a way no other male character has been in these series. This is despite, arguably, Ianthe potentially being a ‘valuable asset’ in the war against Hyburn in book three for all the reasons listed above, thus having the potential for a squicky ‘needs must’ narrative if that’s the way SJM decides to treat every other male abuser. Even if you perhaps think that Tamlin was demonised for plot purposes, Mor’s dad and Eris are the ones responsible for her literally having her womb skewered, and they forcibly become her allies with little or no ramifications placed on their past actions. And Eris is depicted sympathetically. I’m obviously not excusing the sexual assault perpetrated by Ianthe or Amarantha, but the double standards retroactively applied to sexual assault by male vs female characters are just weird. It really really creeps me out.

I genuinely don’t know what’s behind it - does SJM think it’s more acceptable or ‘normal’ for men to perpetrate sexual assault, and therefore it’s more forgivable? I don’t know - it does fit with the conception of fae men as subject to their ‘instincts’, whereas the women who forcibly become sexually dominant seem to subvert the natural order and become monstrous. All I know is that the moment a woman in these books has sexual power that takes dominance and power away from men, they automatically become liable for the harshest, most graphic punishments in the books, and have to be utterly demonised and violently excised from the plot, because somehow their sexual assault is more perverse, wrong and ‘unforgivable’ than that performed by men.

[rowareads]

This. I'll hate ianthe forever just because Lucien is my child, but why the hell do all the men in this story have their offenses pardoned, and why is it always done in a way by SJM that clearly portrays them in a more positive light and urges/propels the reader towards forgiving them?

[blueghafas-deactivated20170724]

Victoria Schwab: * Crafts beautifully well developed worlds and characters, amazing writing that improves with each book,is LGBT, has own voices LGBT rep, bi characters who are not stereotyped, characters who are poc, non cis characters, passionately advocates for diversity, listens and responds to criticism and acknowledge her own white privilege, is mentally ill, has characters who deal with ptsd and anxiety and portrays this accurately, kick ass morally Gray female characters, is a sweet funny amazing person, works hard on improving her already great stories, generally just fabulous* Sarah: J Maas

[rowareads]

Amren: I can fit my whole world in the palm of my hands-

Amren: Varian move out of the way I'm trying to get my jewellery

[rowareads]

Aelin: My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius and I will not-

Aedion: What? Inform others of your plans?

Rowan: Do anything legal and not life threatening?

Chaol: Listen to anyone?

Darrow: Ever sit on the throne?

Aelin: Be afra-

Aelin: You ruined it.

[asthe]

Chaol deciding not to blindly follow Aelin was the most logical decision a tog character could make

[maplesugacookie]

Suriel: "The High Lord of the Night Court is your mate." Feyre: "What?" Suriel: