#ohmyalec

[brotticelli]

poetry prompt: describe the entire fist fight we two are gonna have when i reach your fucking home

i just posted the headcanon on here especially for you

[brotticelli]

playlist: blandine

no homo // the lonely island

dead gay son // heathers cast (this is u with yr fave characters)

i love trash // sesame street

[shutyourpride]

no honestly spell my name

b ; bananasl ; lotra ; astrologyn ; nebulaed ; dogsi ; indie (one of my dogs)n ; night e ; eating

[shutyourpride]

B lmao

b - bLANDINE (don't look surprise you asked for it)

[adampxrrish]

OH MY GOD THE ARTEMIS FOWL POSTS ARE RUINING ME

omfg SAME they were buried in my likes i am so glad i found them again i can't stop laughing 'chill'

tbh you should check out blandine's tumblr she LOVES artemis and her tag is probably one of the best thing ever 

[iwritesnortsintragedies]

thank you for the long answer that was extremely interesting! I don't agree with you 100%, but I see what you meant, and I'm glad you clarified your dislike of the quote like this (that's what I expected, and I'm glad we share feelings). Now I'd disagree with a few things, but globally I'm all in with you here. I think the problem is that she raises really good questions, but if you don't look for the right answer, you don't find it. --

Like for the Maia thing? She never really forgave Jordan and she wasn’t ready to go back in a relationship with him, for the Isabelle cooking things, you realize pretty fast in the novels that it doesn’t matter if she can cook or not, but I think it might be because I wish to understand that. But it’s pretty obvious that if you don’t, you find yourself reading Cassie’s endless tumblr explanations about what she meant by the things she wrote. —

— Which is good, because it gives you insight, but still, well, it’s not in the books. So yeah, thank you for the answer, and I’m really glad I didn’t read it and just went “uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh” but more like “yup. yup yup”. Now it won’t stop me from reading TDA and all (I’ll keep you updated on the problematic storylines if you wish :p), but I see your point!!

Okay, first of all, I’m sorry for answering so late —I saw your messages on Saturday evening, read them, and didn’t really get a chance to sit down at the laptop until now :/

I agree that TMI (which i’m focusing on since I haven’t read the rest of the series yet) does raise some interesting and important point. Unfortunately, they’re not followed through.

Maia never forgave Jordan or her brother, that’s true, but her own thoughts state that she should. She basically feels guilty for not feeling sad about her brother’s death, and no one —not herself, not ther friends, not the book- ever says it’s okay for her not to be sad. And the absence of that statement makes the story sound like she’s right to feel guilty for not mourning her brother, or for not forgiving Jordan.It probably wasn’t C. Clare’s intent, but it’s still what it sounds like.

As for Isabelle, I’d argue it’s not so much that her cooking skills don’t matter as they’re never mentionned again.Like, I agree that we, as educated readers, can understand that it doesn’t matter if she can cook well or not. (By educated I mean that, through Tumblr, we’re at least somewhat familiar with feminism and its basic concepts, which makes this kind of things easier to spot.) But in narrative there’s never any sign that Isabelle’s cooking skills don’t matter.She doesn’t say ‘I can’t cook and that’s alright’ or ‘If you’re not happy with my cooking, do it yourselves’. All we get is a teenage girl who is so incompetent in the kitchen she’d put an entire raw fish in a soup, complete with the bones, who is still expected to cook. And because no one contests that, it makes it look and sound like Isabelle has to cook, regardless of her skills, because… that’s what girls do?Worse, the way Jace frames it makes Isabelle’s lack of cooking skills sound like a failing compared to Maryse (who, contrary to her daughter, can cook very well) and his point of view is the only one we get.

The thing is, I agree with you that readers like you and I —older readers, with a certain familiarity with feminism- can figure out the right answers… but the Young Adult public ranges anyhwhere from twelve to twenty-five, depending on the definitions you look up.And see, twelve years old readers, they’re not going to put things together like you and I do. Some of them may, and others will be lucky enough to have someone explain to them what’s wrong with the books. In today’s society, however, I’m afraid most of them won’t.

And that’s why, as I think you’ll agree, Cassandra Clare’s comments aren’t enough.They’re not immediate enough, they’re not accessible enough —these things should be in the books not somewhere on the internet where only some people will see it.

And of course, I’m not saying any of this to stop anyone from reading TDA, or any of the Chronicles. For the most part, they’re entertaining, and the characters are really likeable. Plus, it has the good point of having a queer character in the main cast. Don’t get me wrong, I still think queer representation in TMI is a fail, but Alec and Magnus, for many readers have been and will be the first explicitely non-heterosexual couple they’ll get to see in a mainstream book, and that’s not something to ignore.I just think that people, as much as possible, should be aware of what they read, and aware of the flaws in what they like —although I do know it can be painful sometimes- and that they should be able to demand better works.

(PS: do feel free to tell me about TDA, I’ll probably be curious about it even if I don’t read them… I’ll want to know about Isabelle and Malec, at least xD)

[iwritesnortsintragedies]

hullooo i was just asking something I DONT GET why you're mad at the tda snippet? (not looking to start shit i just genuinely don't get it so i wanted to know)

The reasons I’m mad at that snippet —well, the first line, truthfully, because I was too annoyed to read past that- are actually similar to the reasons why I’m so incredibly frustrated at all the books and stories I’ve read in the Shadowhunters Chronicles tbh.

For those of you who didn’t see my latest post about it, here’s the quote in question:

“You’ve got a lot of responsibility now,” Jace said to Julian. “You’ll have to make sure Emma winds up with a guy who deserves her.”

The quote operates on the idea that it is Julian’s responsibility to decide who Emma is going to date, instead of Emma herself. This plays into the idea that women are incapable of making their own choices and that men should make them instead.

This would be bad enough in itself, if I didn’t know for a fact this is a recurrent happening at the very least in the Mortal Instruments books. Take a look at Clary, for example.Clary is the protagonist of the book, she’s supposed to be the Chosen One (going by her power with the Runes, the borderline messianic scene in City of Glass when she creates the Alliance Rune and Cassandra Clare’s own intention to write her as a character who would show girls are capable of being kickass heroes, too (paraphrased)). Yet, if you look closely, you’ll realize that her whole narrative revolves around the men in her life, more so than it ever focuses on retrieving her mother.

Most of what happens to Clary results from men making decisions about where she should go and what she should do: Jace and Hodge decide she has to go to the Insitute whether she wants it or not. The fact that she doesn’t protest after Jace tells her that is a problem in characterization, not consent. Clary would have been forced to go to the Shadowhunters even if she hadn’t wanted to, i.e. This wasn’t her decision.All the same, Jace and the others are the ones who decide she should go to the Silent Brother to undergo a massively invasive procedure in which they’ll read their mind, and when she says no —however shortly- people literally listen to Simon more than they listen to her. No one in this extract, and I do mean no one acknowledges the fact that Clary clearly stated she didn’t want to go to the Silent Brothers. In fact, the way the scene is built sounds more like Simon’s being jealous of Jace (because of the moment in which he reacts, and the lack of indication that he even listened to Clary) rather than, you know, defending his best friend.

And that’s just the begining of the first book.After that we have other gems like Jace constantly calling the shots in the Clace relationship, Jace and Simon deciding to keep Clary in the dark about what’s going on in Alicante in City of Glass, and of course, Jonathan fucking Morgenstern, who is a complete psycho, and who literally gets more flack for being Valentine’s son and having demon blood than for being a child murderer and a very obsessed rapist.

There is a lot more to say about the Chronicles in that regard, unfortunately, but I think you get the general idea.I already decided I didn’t want to read TDA, because I don’t appreciate the way Emma and the Blackthorns were shoehorned into the series just so we could get attached to them and buy the next trilogy —seriously, Emma’s prologue is a protagonist’s prologue. The way her opening scene is written, I’d expect the rest of the book to be… well. The Dark Artifices vol. 1.But the fact that it’s getting pretty clear that Jace is going to be the same sexist character again without ever getting called out —whether by other characters or by the narrative— is enough to really turn me off from it for good.

And for the record (if I haven’t bored people to death already xD) this isn’t just about Jace.I know I’m pretty open about disliking him immensely, but the thing is, the other male characters aren’t better. I mean, Luke literally stalked Jocelyn accross the atlantic and murdered at least two people in order to follow her in perhaps one of the creepiest examples of the “nice guy” trope I’ve ever read, and the fact that no one ever really questions it for more than ten lines plays a lot to make that creepy.

My problem with this snippet is that, much like the rest of Cassandra Clare’s stories, it perpetuates harmful seterotypes that end up teaching young girls and young women that their lives belong to the men around them —that no matter how much they kick ass, they’ll still be mocked because they can’t cook (see: Isabelle in COB) or judged because they dare to explore their sexuality (see: Isabelle throughout the series) or judged because they don’t forgive their abusers/agressors right away (see: Maia Roberts and her whole storyline).

Not only that, but it also teaches boys that it’s their responsibility to make decisions for the women around them. That being overcontrolling and creepy and overpossessive of ther girlfriends, or sisters, or best friends is okay. Cassandra Clare’s stories teach boys that stalking a woman and killing people just so you can be near her is romantic and that the result of that is said woman appologizing for having a life before them and  falling into their arms.

Like I said in my tags, Cassandra Clare does try.I haven’t seen anything suggesting she’s not genuinely trying to make something positive for young girls and women but her attemps at feminism, much like her attempts at writing good queer representation, very often fall very short.And the thing that frustrates me the most? There’s potential there.

She had good ideas, she had the premises of really interesting characters, she could have done super cool things with Clace: she could have explored the long-terms effects of child abuse and how someone overcomes them. She could have explored feminine solidarity with Clary and Isabelle. She could have explored the inner working of racism properly with Downworlders.Hell, she could have given us proper queer representation if she hadn’t failed so bad with the Coming Out of Doom in City of Glass. Alec could have had a storyline about growing confident in himself rather than about how important it is to have a boyfriend. Magnus could have had a storyline about overcoming his own abuse.Fuck, Clary could have been such a great example of a protagonist who doesn’t know how to fight and doesn’t particularly want to but who became a heroine anyway because heroes aren’t always the people who pack the biggest punches.

I’m so frustrated with this series, because I see all the possibilities for really cool things and none of them took off. I’m frustrated, because I was promised fireworks and all I got was a wet firecracker.

EDIT: Further discussion on that topic here.

[bravemercutio]

write u nerd

doin the thing now