cassandra.writes

writer ; bookworm ; glued to my computer

[writtenbycassandra]

i get really sad when people who have never actually read trc assume that it's gritty and dark and completely humorless. trc is peak humor and nothing can change my mind. there are so many funny moments between the main characters and generally there are a lot of things and small little details that just make me smile a little. like, that one scene where henry pretends to argue with blue (to maintain her reputation), only for gansey to show up and be like ":D??!!" ? blue's 300 nicknames?? and gansey's genuine "fashion style"??? (and there's so much more. noah and his glitter escapades. just the idea of declan being okay with instigating a whole fight with ronan in front of his date, but refusing to argue when he hears that richard campbell gansey gansey iii might have a girl with him, which also says something about him as a character. and the villains being refreshingly silly and actually comedic at times?) trc is funny, thank you very much.

[writtenbycassandra]

i usually don't talk about httyd on here, but for some reason i've felt the sudden urge to rewatch all the tv shows and overanalyze everything and i've got some things to say about the twins (mainly ruffnut). they are actually so underrated and not necessarily in the fandom, but rather when it comes to the shows itself. especially in rob/dob, where they barely have any characterizations at all. this is such a missed opportunity because both of them can be extremely perceptive and witty at times. they have lots of random knowledge, are multilingual and actually show interest in topics such as poetry, philosophy, psychology etc. (their entire character designs just scream insomniac kids with ADHD).

specifically ruffnut is pretty smart. she is one of the best liars in the dragon rider group (tbh the bar is set pretty low) and extremely cunning. that one scene where she tricked the dragon hunter guard by pretending to crack? only to steal his key without anyone noticing?? this comes to my mind. or how she just straight up lied to viggo and ryker without showing a hint of fear or remorse? and the entire thing with gruffnut. to me, she seems like she just doesn't really care and wants to keep the expectations low to have fun. also, her calling astrid out for not respecting the team was completely valid, especially if you consider the character dynamics. although astrid is a lot more present in the show, ruffnut has a stronger connection to the other dragon riders (except from hiccup). ruffnut, tuffnut, snotlout and (even) fishlegs have plenty of bonding moments together, where you can sense the found family vibes. astrid mostly ignores fishlegs/only talks to him about hiccup/rolls her eyes at him, is openly aggressive when it comes to snotlout, and dismisses everything the twins say. she, too, never got really close to ruffnut (another missed opportunity), which is why there was barely any female friendship represenation in the main group. (i mean, there was heather, but she wasn't there the entire time in rtte and barely at all in rob/dob.)

also, i think the twins were just generally more fleshed out in rtte than they were in rob/dob. like, tuffnut got his chicken and we see all his hyperfixations (mostly very dangerous dragons, which is just a mood on its own). and i loved the scenes where we saw that they actually cared for each other a lot. like when ruffnut forced snotlout to get bitten by every dragon possible just to convince her brother that he wouldn't turn into one. and tuffnut giving up his beloved maze, realizing that his sister was more important than his weapon, which was just an item he could replace.

i just generally love the twins and their sometimes chill and sometimes chaotic vibe.

[writtenbycassandra]

i recently started reading loveless by alice oseman and i can't believe that i finally found a book with an aroace main character. everything in books seems to be centered around romantic relationships these days. having a canon aroace character in the fandom is rare and they (unfortunately) often get shoved to the side. but loveless tells the story of a hopeless romantic heroine who realizes (after countless silly attempts to find love) that she doesn't need romantic relationships in her life to be the person she wants to be. she realizes that being aroace is nothing to be ashamed of and that it doesn't mean that you're apathetic or broken. what i especially liked was that this book really does portray how romance is not an essential thing you need to be happy. even without it, you can live a fulfilled life.

[writtenbycassandra]

i really, really love how the raven cycle has such complex and unique characters that it is almost impossible to compare them to most commonly used archetypes in media. there is no "unapologetic, skating ghost boy who loves glitter" archetype. same goes with the storyline. nowdays, the plots (and often romance subplots) of many fantasy books can be described with a few common tropes. while i don't think that this is a necessarily bad thing, i do appreciate that trc just doesn't fit with most existing tropes because the dynamics, characters, and plotlines are refreshingly unusual and diverse.

[what-would-sappho-do-deactivate]

Omg does anybody wanna do like a tag game where we basically do that trauma salad trend???

For those that haven't seen it, the basic format is: "Hi my name is *name here* and *insert traumatic story here* and I brought *type of candy (skittles, twizzlers, etc)*!"

just gonna tag some people who might wanna do this but anybody can join in!

@bralnwashed @madigankrauss @the1970sdeadgaywizard-regulus @l1ve-l4ugh-lov3craft @aceofspades42 @noblehouseofgay

[sailorzzzrenn]

Hiii my name is ren and when i was 15 a man on discord spammed me gore and i saw someone's insides which made me have a fear of seeing any sort of intestines in movies/shows </3 AND I BOUGHT SOUR PATCH KIDS NYAAAA!

@marcysdreamydays11 @minibabydoe12 @mvrdermeharder

If chu guys wanna do it GRAHHHH

[astrowolly]

Hi my name is wolly when I was in kindergarten a kid from my bus ran across the small street opposite the school away from supervision and later when we were on the bus the supervisor told all of us that we should never go out of supervision, what if a guy kidnaps us and bring us to China where they will cut us open and take out our intestines and liver and I imagined something so brutal that a while after whenever my dad turns on a folk song with lyrics "tore my intestines missing [hometown]" I would shut my ears so I don't remember the image of Chinese doctors cutting children open. Anyways I brought kit kat

[writtenbycassandra]

hi, my name's cassie, and i really hate it when people touch me without a warning or consent. (i genuily freak out due to some very traumatic stuff that happened in my past.) most of my friends definitely know (and respect) that, but a while ago i was asking one of them after an emotional breakdown if they also felt that way about touching others sometimes. i was in an extremely vulnerable state and they just basically grabbed my arm (my anxiety level reached its peak) and went "well, i just touched you, so no, huh" with a very gleeful/jeering tone. and my other friend would hit me on the head whenever they were mad at something, even when i asked them to stop, just because appearantly to them, that's what friends do.

anyways, i brought skittles. <3

[writtenbycassandra]

living in henrietta must be such a vibe. like, there are all these small town mystery vibes everywhere you look and i can't express how much i love it. also, fox way 300 has got to be the fictional comfort place. the liveliness of all the psychic aunts and friends, the lovely chaos, the witchy atmosphere... i just love everything about trc setting so much.

[writtenbycassandra]

what i like about the raven cycle is that the romance feels casual. most ya books (and many books in general) always have this profuse, gigantic focus and romance, which often weakens the plot and other elements of the story like character development or worldbuilding. but in trc, it fits right into the story as maggie stiefvater doesn't force it into the story, but lets it interact with the different aspects of the book and only distributes it healthy bits.

like, the characters have a life outside of their romance arc—they have their own motives, make their choices, pursue leisure activities and bond with other characters in a platonic way.

i personally really love that about the book because it shows how you can have romance subplots (plural!) without making the readers feel that there is nothing else in the book. we have the search for glendower, the pov characters' inner conflicts, the vanishing of maura, the appearance of the villains, family problems and mundane problems like school exercises and slightly eerie, old people that stay over at your house because they want to help you find a living corpse.

it's just that the book doesn't focus on one particular aspect (especially not the romance one, which is what the blurb unfortunately indicates) and i live for it.

[writtenbycassandra]

unfortunately, i am the perfect mix of aromanticism, social awkwardness and nervousness to scare away everyone within a five kilometer radius.

[writtenbycassandra]

unraveled spoilers ahead

so, kotlc is not my main fandom or anything, but i recently heard one of the girls in my friendgroup say that unraveled completely ruined the series for her because of the minor lgbtq representation, which made me really question why people are getting overly upset over two small mentions of something that is not harmful to anyone at all.

i also saw a post claiming that "there is no reason to bring controversial subjects into a middle grade book". but why has it to be so controversial? i think that almost every middle schooler has heard about lgbtq before, and that a small mention of two homosexual couples in a book is nothing big.

i also saw riordanverse fans bashing shannon messenger for putting lgbtq+ stuff into her middle grade book. like, not trying to be mean, but—in my opinion—this is extremely ironic.

queer people do exist. it's a fact. authors and other artists should be able to acknowledge them in their works without receiving hate.

[writtenbycassandra]

i think that the raven cycle is a great example of how you can have villains that are actually just people who are doing the wrong things and have selfish motives, rather than the stereotypical evil guy who has no other purpose or occupation other than being vile.

trc villains are fleshed out and behave like all the other characters—they feel emotions, are in relationships, and care about some mundane aspects in life.

we actually get to read about their viewpoints, preferences, habits, and goals, not only classical villain monologues.

[writtenbycassandra]

i tried to convince my friend to read the raven cycle. she looked at the cover of the first book and literally went: "this looks like a cheap copy of twilight."

i mean, the blurb and the cover really don't do the books justice, but i still felt somehow humiliated.

[writtenbycassandra]

why i don't like the netflix adaption of sge

i've watched the movie this weekend, and i have some thoughts to share:

the people in the village actually know about the school and the fairy tales. it's important because in the books it is one of the things that characterizes sophie the way she is. most kids have developed a fear of being selected for the school for good and evil, while sophie is anticipated to be kidnapped by the school master. she even bakes goods for him, feigns "good" demeanor, and discards all the protective mechanisms her father had constructed to keep her safe.

her father and to-be stepmother are portrayed inaccurately as well. they are simple, sane people. in the books, they never treat sophie really horrible. perhaps her father wanted a son instead of a daughter (we don't really find out if that is true or a part of sophie's broken worldview), but he still cares for her—he provides her with enough resources to do her strange make up routine every morning, he eats her gruesome food (yes, he complains, but not with an abusive tone at all, he just sounds tired of having to consume the vegan food he clearly hates), and he tries to prevent her from getting captured. and her stepmother is also a vaguely decent human being, and not a merciless, evil person.

the way sophie talks to people is very different. in the books, everything she did was to make her appear more "good", so she'd be taken to the school for good. she never actually had any motivation apart from her own wants. most people who watched the movie love sophie, but not because they think she is evil, but because they think that she is simply misunderstood. and in the book it's made extremely clear how false this is. sophie is jealous, cheats, manipulates, lies, finds joy in hurting others, kills, judges easily, only cares for her looks, feels no empathy or guilt, and rejects people who are trying to help her. and she doesn't do it because she is misunderstood and wants to find revenge/was taught to be that way/lived through a traumatic event. honestly, i find her pretty scary. book sophie would've killed movie sophie instantly.

agatha is also a point for me. first of all, her looks. and i'm not talking about the race of the actress (acting skills are what matters and she is a good actress), but about the way how they depicted her. agatha was supposed to look "hideous"—oily hair, watery eyes, grim face. people literally flinched before her in the books because of the way she looked (and treated herself accordingly.) but her movie version looks so pretty, and i mean that not in the objective way, but in the way that they didn't include the things that made her appear ugly in the books. they never let her grow and find out that she was always pretty, but nobody recognized it because she couldn't embrace her beauty. also, the thing about her being good is a thing. in the books we are thaught that regardless of her gruff, quiet, lonesome, and sorrowful personality, agatha still can be a good person. but in the movie she's just your average, nice teenage girl. there is no character depth. where is the mean, broken girl who seemed to hated everything, yet wanted to be good? where is the girl that wouldn't give up on sophie? where is the girl that always prioritized others? well, we never really got to see her in the movie.

agatha and tedros' relationship is an insta-love story instead of a slow burn. remember, in the books he hated her at first and literally wanted to kill her until like over 300 pages into the book. just saying. and in the movie, they are all nice to each other, like no? sophie was the one tedros had a crush on at first because he though that she was his would-be princess. (there was also no character depth on his side. he never overcomes his prejudices.)

they revealed stuff way too early and made the two female teachers enemies instead of friends. (also, why is jesper playing the evil gremlin?) that disappointed me because i loved their dynamic in the books.

all the little yet extremely important things were missing... the lessons yuba, professor sader's whole existence, the test about "being good" that agatha aces, so many scenes with the never girls, the ever girls being more evil than some nevers, all the lore.

it was not a bad movie (it's okay, i guess?), but it's a horryfing adaptation of the books.

[writtenbycassandra]

i know i've talked about this before, but just think about how well solitaire portrays teenagers. michael and tori are essentially the two sides of the same coin that depicts adolescence. just think about the teenagers right now and how they behave.

tori is sarcastic, self-deprecating, and critical. she used to be a great student, but now she is a burned out kid—abandoned by the people she loves and deprived of any motivation. she prefers movies like the breakfast club (wich she can partially relate to) over classical/educational novels. her parents seem to only focus on her younger siblings while her friend group feels like an escape option she has, so she doesn't have to be fully alone.

michael, on the other hand, seems to be full of life—happy, enthusiastic, and adventurous. but in the inside he is broken, just like tori. he is suffocated by the constant need to satisfy everyone around him with his achievements. whereas tori has given up on trying, he tries too hard. he needs to prove to the people that he is more than what they see in ihm.

that's real portrayal of the struggles teenagers have to face, and not whatever shows like riverdale are doing with their characters.

[writtenbycassandra]

for me, the great thing about the gangsey is that i can never pick a favorite because they all are equally great characters. there's gansey, the awesome one who has a weird obsession with dead, welsh kings... then there's ronan—gay icon, deeply religious, edgy, and the guy with the best supernatural ability ever. along with him comes adam, the (kind of) overlooked one who suffers from self-doubts, and unresolved trauma. and then you have noah, the dude who died long ago (and unsuccessfully lied about it), but still has the best attitude. and blue sargent—fashion icon, feminist, and mystic teen—basically collected them all.

their friendgroup is so unique (and chaotic), and i love it.

[writtenbycassandra]

when the fandom is so small that there is literally no fanfiction, no fanart, no booktube video (and i'm being dead serious, there is nothing), and there are like two people in this entire world that are aware of its existence.

the first person is me, the other one my friend (a poor and lonesome soul i forced to read the book, so i could finally discuss it with a real person).

[writtenbycassandra]

most female main characters in ya fantasy usually don't have their parents around/are orphans/ran away from home (e.g. the mortal instruments, lockwood & co, a deadly education, ...), which is why there are often no adult figures around to manage the (magical) chaos the teenage characters have to untangle standalone.

but the raven cycle is different — the adults work together with the teen characters, actually listen to them, and try to help them with their quest. blue doesn't have only her friends around to help her out, she also has a giant home with different, female rolemodels. calla, persephone, maura, and all the other aunts and friends — they give blue something most ya characters don't have.

and as the series continues, she also meets the grey man, who becomes a familiar figure for her, too.

instead of having not enough help and support from adults, which is a thing most ya protagonists struggle with, blue has so many people constantly trying to protect, guide, and help her, and i think that's awesome.

she has a family, and they're actually a part of the story.

[writtenbycassandra]

i literally cannot express how wonderful blue sargent's clothing style is... i've never seen a character with such a great fashion sense before and i love this concept so much. it inspires young girls to be individuals and wear what they want to wear instead of bowing to social norms.

i love it and i think that maggie stiefvater's books definitely help many young readers realize that being yourself is better than repressing your true emotions and interests in order to fit in.

that's such a beautiful message, and i love it.