#litmeta

[hxmosuperior]

I am no mother, I am no bride, I am King.

cersei lannister// shiv roy// helene kuragina//

[medeae]

Have you read the Red Queen? If so is it worth reading?

I have!

The premise is extremely similar to the grisha trilogy (what with the powers and the love triangle and all) but while I detested tgt because it over-promised and also spent too much time on the love, I did find red queen to be better. While the characters were a little flat and the plot a little slow, I was shocked by the plot twist at the end and the romance wasn’t too heavy (that is, it didn’t draw the attention away from the overall plot about the powers etc). It’s also part of a series so if you like standalones I don’t think this is for you because it builds up to the next book.

The second book is glass sword and it’s definitely more plot heavy than red queen. The romance is significantly lighter in that it was in the background most of the time and if I remember correctly, there were only two kisses. I think the author listened to feedback from the public and improved on her drafts. The characters were still a little flat. The plot was still overall not as fast as I would have liked and while it was developed in some areas, it was skimpy in others. Again, there was another plot twist - more predictable than the last but still a tad unexpected.

All in all, I’d say that if you’re looking for a light read, this would fulfil your needs.

[medeae]

Honestly why would you hate holly like Lucy is a great character but it cannot be denied she is biased against ALL females who come into contact w Lockwood because of her feelings for him so in this aspect she is an unreliable narrator and holly is most probably not even a little bit as annoying as Lucy paints her to be

[medeae]

i've just finished blue lily lily blue. can i ask your opinion: {SPOILER AHEAD} when adam decided to tag blue along to help him fix the ley line, they fought in the car and in the cave. imo blue was not respecting adam's boundaries at all. she disregarded how shaken adam was after scrying and described it as his 'special snowflake act', which was v problematic to me. idk what to think about this opinion bc i'm afraid it's my internalized misogyny :/

hello! i agree with you - the first time i read that scene, i was quite disgusted. spoilers for trc under the cut!

At this point in time, Adam is hallucinating/having a vision. He isn’t aware of what’s going on in the real world. Then:

“Adam! Adam. Adam Parrish.”

He came to in a fury of pain. HIs face felt wet; his veins felt too full of blood.

Noah’s voice rose. “Why did you cut him so deep!”

“I didn’t measure!” Blue said. “Adam, you jerk, say something.”

(…)

His surroundings were slowly representing themselves to him; he’d forgotten that they crawled in between those boulders.

(…)

His eyes focused on the pink switchblade knife in Blue’s hand.

“You cut me?” he said.

As can be seen, Adam was highly disoriented. He was settling back into the real world after having been in a trance of some sort. Blue cut him to shock him awake. (honestly, i don’t know what blue and noah were thinking - adam is a victim of abuse).

Immediately after he’s out of his trance, Blue calls him a jerk. Why? What has he done to deserve this? He didn’t space out on them on purpose - as Blue herself reaffirms a few paragraphs later, she grew up in this world! Full of “rituals and readings.” Does she do this to the women of 300 fox way? “Calla, you jerk!” I don’t think so.

(side note: I also don’t get why the switchblade is continually emphasised as pink. We get it. She can be tough and cute at the same time. (but didn’t she say don’t call her pretty?)

“Why did you stop me? What was I doing?”

She said “nothing” at the same time as Noah said “dying.”

You can see from this that Noah is taking this way more seriously than Blue. To Blue, Adam was just spacing out in a harmless trance. She mentions his eyes stopped moving, but it was Noah who said that he stopped breathing.

Blue then says:

“Next time I’ll let you die,” Blue said. “You forget, Adam, when you’re pulling your special snowflake act, where I grew up. Do you know what the phrase is for when someone helps you during a ritual or reading? It’s thank you. You shouldn’t have brought us if you wanted to do it alone.”

i think Blue needs to shut up. Adam just got out of a trance. Forgive him for being a little confused. As she herself says, she grew up around things like this. She should be familiar with it. Maybe she interpreted Adam’s “stop it” to Noah as being ungrateful, but Adam was trying to remember what he’d seen! Blue should also be familiar with this, seeing as how she grew up around it. Why scry if you don’t bother to remember anything? Also, where did Adam say that he wanted to do it alone? What part of his behaviour made it seem like he wanted them gone? He simply asked what he was doing and why Blue cut him. I’d be curious too, I think. There was nothing wrong with Adam’s behaviour, and there was certainly nothing ‘special snowflake-y’ about it. Did he act like his problems were bigger than anyone else? Or that he was more important? He just asked what was going on! He just wanted to know why they cut him! He just wanted to remember what happened in his vision! Whats wrong with all of that?

I’d like to highlight that Noah was being a little petulant as well:

“I told you. I told you it was a bad idea, and nobody ever listens to me. (…) Nobody ever says, ‘Noah, you know what you were right thanks for saving my life because being dead would suck.”

This makes more sense to me cause Noah is always warning them against doing shit like this and no one listens and it goes wrong and Noah is already dead and he doesn’t need his friends dying as well - Blue, on the other hand, mentions that she knows what this is all about since she grew up around it; but Adam didn’t. He didn’t grow up around stuff like this. He doesn’t know what to expect.

I’m not sure if this scene was written and intended to be problematic or if it’s presented as the right thing for Blue to have done - Adam even apologises for being a dick, which I don’t think was warranted. He wasn’t being rude at all.

I agree with you that Blue was shitty here and I really don’t think it’s our internalised misogyny because the fact is, Blue is extremely problematic throughout all the books, and I’m not even a big fan of Adam but he’s treated really badly all the time. The book kind of presents him as a dog being trained by Blue. Idk.

Interesting question, thanks for pointing this out!

[medeae]

Grindelwald isn't a good person bc genocide isn't a good thing. Dumbledore was still fucked up but at least he didn't support eradicating muggles

Yeah I’m not saying Grindelwald was a better person than Dumbledore or anything, just that we all have different moral yardsticks and the way we’re brought up makes us all have a different sense of what is right and what is wrong, and yeah Dumbledore did fight for the side that we view is right but he went about it in the same way that Grindelwald would have committed his genocide - the ends justify the means, for the greater good and whatnot. But yeah genocide is a terrible thing and in the long run Dumbledore'a actions were essential for the most part I guess? I just used that as an example because a lot of people don’t realise that Dumbledore isn’t a ~good~ person per se.

[medeae]

so you dont like any of the characters in trc? blue is flawed, but she isnt any more flawed than the others.

Yes they’re all exceedingly flawed - I just feel that blue’s flaws are more prominent as she has pov chapters and also because she’s the protagonist. She also doesn’t move away from those flaws, like take gansey and adam for example, gansey realises the way he treats adam re: money etc needs to change but blue’s flaws stay stagnant and that’s part of why I don’t really like her.

I don’t dislike all of the characters! I like the women of 300 fox way. I love piper. I also love ronan and kavinsky. Not that they aren’t flawed, of course. They’re all flawed. How can you have a book without flawed characters?

[medeae]

how can you read critically? thanks and have a nice day!

Hello! I think reading critically is a choice because a lot of people read books just to relax and that’s fine too.

The first instance I realised I had to be careful while reading was when I realised that Dumbledore from Harry Potter is not a good person. He is complex, he saved lives, Harry named his son after him cause he was one of the bravest people he ever knew, etc etc. One day I just got to thinking, how is Dumbledore that different from Grindelwald? Both did things for the ‘greater good.’ Both didn’t have a care for collateral damage. Dumbledore was not a sympathetic character. Are we to objectively say that Dumbledore is any better than Grindelwald because he fought for the 'good side?’ The 'right side?’ Grindelwald himself believed he was doing the right thing, that such a wipe out of muggles needed to be done. That, in his own mind, was right. Why is it wrong to us? We all have different moral compasses. Just because a character is presented as 'evil’ doesn’t necessarily make them so. Just because a character is presented as 'good’ doesn’t make them so.

I can’t tell you how to do it per se, but it is important that you distance the book and the author and understand that the author is trying to impress their own views on the characters into the books, and these views may not be always right. Similarly, some authors choose to make their characters flawed on purpose but never address those flaws - another thing you have to watch out for. Read books twice. The second will never be the same as the first, the fourth never the same as the third. Go into a book neutral. When a character expresses a certain view or an idea, question it. Who is the character? From what position are they coming from? Who are they speaking to? What is the issue at hand? Is it really an issue? Is it a completely different issue from what the character put forth? What are the reactions to what the character has said? Are those reactions right? What about the character’s subsequent actions? Do they agree with the idea they put forth previously? Are they contradicting themselves? Are they young and naive or are they pushing ahead with a misconception of said idea? Are their actions a result of their past or are they just assholes? I think you get what I’m trying to say.

I don’t think there’s a golden rule. Just read and question the book. Question the characters’ motives. Question the author’s motives.

Have a nice day as well xx

[medeae]

why are you glorifying slytherin? ambition thirst to prove yourself etc ITS JUST A HOUSE FOR PUREBLOODS TO RAG ON OTHERS AND BE ELITIST

let us take a moment to remember that our dear tom riddle got sorted into slytherin and his dad was a muggle ://////////// i rather think the sorting hat doesn't give two shits about being pure blooded