#choco yaps

[chocostrawberryb]

I read it like 5 years ago but apollo from trials of apollo is so real bc I too would crash out over acne and build if I was catapulted from my home

[chocostrawberryb]

Maturing is knowing that Venka went through all the character development Nezha didn't

She got past her presumption, Nezha just exempted rin (somewhat)

Chat, am I getting on the rinvenka brainrot?

[chocostrawberryb]

What's the process?

Idk bro I pretend it's paper minus the caveats of coloring on paper

[chocostrawberryb]

Each part of the trilogy ended with a betrayal in a way

TPW: To rin, Altan betrayed her innocence, her trust in him as a commander by leaving her with a weight she never learned to carry, of a people she never knew.

TDR: Nezha's betrayal was for the good of the country bc once the hisperians were in there was no driving them out and Nikan NEEDED to progress— you wouldn't be able to tell the book is actually set between the 1940s and 1950s. But it was a betrayal nonetheless, just as she started to accept him and her feelings for him, just after she fulfilled her duty as a soldier, just as she started to think she could start over calmly, somehow, somewhere.

TBG: Rin's own betrayal towards the only people who weren't out for her, accusing venka and lying to kitay, allowing the phoenix to ravage him.

[chocostrawberryb]

I've been seeing this a lot on tiktok recently sooo welcome to my Ted Talk lol

There's nothing wrong with being obsessed with a ship or the romantic aspect in a piece of media

But it gets to a point where we reduce said relationships to just "enemies to lovers" or the book to "just a romance" which takes from the nuance of book, characters, and the relationship itself

Whenever one of my friends would find me gushing about a ship, they'd go, "You? Reading romance? Huh, that's weird. Since when?" And I'd feel mortified since my only example of stories about "pure romance" growing up were local cheesy romcoms with shitty jokes, weird American films that gave me second hand embaressment, and that one time someone asked me to read Colleen Hoover.

But as I preceed to explain myself I'd notice "wait, my argument here is that the romance here is a reflection of character, but aren't all interpersonal relationships used that way in media?"

There's a difference between reducing a book to just the superficial aspect of the main pairing (the main reason I've avoided The Cruel Prince so long after finding the first 2 chapter boring at 13 lol) and acknowledging romance- and other interpersonal relationships- as thematic devices

You can't "ruin" a piece of media by adding romance - romantic feelings are a very real, very integral part of the human experience as a whole

You ruin a piece of media by adding baseless romance - baseless anything really - but specifically romance because many people, including myself; love to focus on the personal aspect of books more while appreciating the big picture

Considering almost all my mutuals (shout out, babes) are from the tpw fandom let's use that as an example.

Tpw on tiktok is apparently sometimes marketed as an 'enemies to lovers tragic romance', nezha is 'romantic bf goals' bc of The Drowning Faith oddly enough completely ignoring the part with his father and how almost all his talk about rin is reinforcing them as character foils

Rinezha, jiang and tseveri, Riga and daji, go to show that sometimes personal matters don't mean anything in the grandscheme of things. Because the book is largely from rin's pov their relationship is consistently used to explore nezha's character and rin's emotional consipitation

Similarly to how rinkitay shows us the depth of devotion and where it can take you, how compromise can get out of hand. Jiang and Hanelai, the Red Emperor and Tearza, show us that history often skips over the most important parts for convenience, etc etc

So no, romance isn't reductive unless you choose it to be so. Which one does through neglecting all other human connections found in the book/show/film/whatever and neglecting what that 'romance' is supposed to truly communicate

[chocostrawberryb]

The "yins reproducing by mitosis" meme is funny and all until you remember that Saikhara's description was the exact same as nezha (and both super similar to Venka who minister sring thought of marrying off to the yins)

It's less "strong genes" and more imperial Chinese beauty standards being super important for the more auspicious houses, thus naturally somewhat strict physical requirements of entering the family. Remember the matchmaker scene in mulan? Yeah

[chocostrawberryb]

Mitski'a "crack baby" is literally rin, at first altan came to mind but he always knew what he wanted no matter how much he denied it "you don't know what you want but you know that you need it bad"

Rin on the other hand, I saw so many people complain about how vague and weak her motivations seem after she gets into sinegard and secures her place there which yeah, her wants ARE vague bc she never had the chance to mull on them

"You know that you had it once and you know that you need it back" could apply to so many things

Whatever brief time she had on Speer, except it was war torn.

The stolen moments with kitay, venka, nezha, the cike, except they were all in the thoroughs of danger

Plus it wouldn't be that far off to assume she was an ACTUAL 'crack baby' all things considered

[chocostrawberryb]

Another snippet bc I'm a ho for validation