Trash Sovereign

I do not know how to make cool edits and graphics and fan art to convince you to read this book, but I am going to try and promote the hell out of this wonderful story through words.

Our story begins with the protagonists meeting in a garden, a few hours before their wedding. They have never met before, and their marriage was arranged as a part of a treaty between their peoples. They tell each other they are super ugly. Our girl Ildiko is human. Our boy Brishen is Kai. He has gray skin, yellow eyes, and sharp teeth and claws. A veritable monster with a heart of gold. She calls him an eel. He calls her a mollusk. It's all very cute.

The story follows Ildiko and Brishen's early days of marriage, as they grow accustomed to each other, learn about their respective cultures, and learn what is more important than looks: the person beneath the skin.

This book does not smack you in the face with plot twists or tear your heart out with betrayals or miscommunication. It is a sweet slow burn about two people who learn how to lean on each other after being somewhat isolated before they were forced to be together.

It is unbelievably heartfelt with great jokes, some sexual tension, and a very satisfying ending.

I started reading this amazing fantasy romance series and the best way I can express my love for it is of course through memes XD

Please read this series if you love a good fantasy romance with drama, action, a man who loves and respects his wife, and wonderful banter.

“you are my salvation, feyre” SLAPS. 

“feyre, darling” a FUCKING BANGER. 

“Tell me again what you said at the revel,” he says, climbing over me, his body against mine.

“What?” I can barely think.

“That you hate me,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Tell me that you hate me.”

“I hate you,” I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”

He kisses me harder.”

— Judecardan, The Wicked King by Holly Black

“Simon murmured her name, tenderly, and she turned to look up at him through a glassy film of tears. He bent low to kiss her—her lips, her cheeks, her brow—and she clung to him, and hid her face against his chest when she could no longer bear the touch of his mouth.

“I don’t love you,” she whispered, the lie bitter on her tongue. “I refuse to love you.”

“I know,” he said and held her to him, stroking her hair. “I don’t love you either.”

“What is it you want, Rielle?” “I want everyone to see the wonder of our great work and fall to their knees,” she said.

“Come, my glorious tormentor.” He kissed her hand. “My miraculous queen. Together, we will right the many wrongs that have been done, we will find the empirium’s source at the heart of creation. We’ll rend it from the stars and remake its heartless throne into one you deserve.”

“Remember how good I made you feel, how you came apart again and again under my hands? Remember the power of that, the rightness of it? You belong here. You belong in my arms, Rielle.”

"They see a monster. I see a god in the shape of a girl.” His hand slid down her arm to rest on her hip. “They see a beast to be tamed. I see a divine creature aching to be set free.”

Gwyn: If I wanted to, I could hold the whole entire world in the palms of my hands.

Azriel: *chuckles* no, you can’t

Gwyn: Yes, I can

Azriel: Ok then, please demonstrate

Gwyn: *turns to Azriel*

Gwyn: *cups his face, caressing his cheek*

Gwyn: See? :)

This Feyre art is so devastatingly heartbreaking. From the expression on her face, to the way she is holding herself, and even the outline of her ribs. This is the best artwork of Feyre UTM I have ever seen.

I think we as a fandom truly forget how terrible it was for her, how she was thin and dying and barely getting by.

Personally, I find it offensive because it forces me to play a role in other people's delusions. Trans men are women, and are considered men only by the generosity of others. Forcing me to call myself cis to validate trans people's feelings is not acceptable to me. I refuse to be relegated to a subcategory of my own sex. I'm a male, a total male, and gay men haven't spent our entire lives having our manhood called into question to accept anything less.

And I'm just a man. Women are beaten, raped, forced to marry and bear children, and sold into sexual slavery. Little girls have their bodies mutilated and get shot in the head for going to school, and many of them don't even make it out of their mother's womb before they are designated worthless and cast off - all of this on the basis of their sex. And they're expected to call themselves cis and accept it as a privilege? Pass.

Cis implies comfort in one's identity as a man or a woman, and I know from my own experiences as a gay man that that is a lie. I have never been comfortable in my body and I have always felt that it was wrong, that the way I moved and spoke wasn't the way a real man should move and speak, and gender dysphoria is a common experience among gay people. And I know from what I've heard and read that women too often feel uncomfortable with their sex.

I'm guessing this question is in response to my "men who call themselves cis don't get to talk to me" post so I'll address that by saying that I have too much self-respect and dignity to lessen myself to validate the feelings of people who call me a faggot and a genital fetishist because I won't sleep with them and I expect any man I make part of my life to be the same.

And lastly, for what I think is reason enough, it's just fucking ugly.

This is just someone posting the ‘cool motive, still murder’ gif with extra steps. Or Pablo’s delightful ‘Rey was raised by sand and never murdered anyone’ or whatever he said as an absolutely disgusting justification for how Ben’s parents neglecting and abandoning him was totes fine.

Because remember kids, if you are actually traumatised by the trauma inflicted on you, that’s your fault and you deserve no sympathy. Being psychologically damaged is a personal failing. Only perfect victims are worthy of compassion, people who are harmed by abandonment, neglect, war, betrayal, brainwashing, etc. etc. in ways that show are just bad people. Good children understand that their parents are infallible and no authority figure should ever be challenged as long as they’re on the right team.

(It is funny that Obi-wan is the example they go to considering how much fucked up shit Obi-wan ended up doing. How manipulative and imperious he is. He never stopped being a Jedi, so I guess none of his mistakes count. I think an absolutely staggering number of people watch the OT without ever realising that Yoda and Obi-wan were wrong. That what they tried to do to Luke by setting him up to kill his father without ever knowing the truth was, in fact, Bad. What they said about it being too late to save Anakin was not true. Their whole approach to the war and abdication of responsibility by going into exile was a moral failure. Luke’s rejection of all this is vindicated, forgiveness and unconditional love are what saved the galaxy, not pragmatism or violence. 

Literally the point of the story is empathy for the villain. And before the prequels, you weren’t even given trauma and manipulation and victimhood as a reason you should empathise. You just should. Because he’s a human being and anyone can be saved.)

People who bring up this ‘argument’ are either completely oblivious to how offensive it is to claim that being unable to emerge from trauma totally unscathed is an unacceptable weakness in your character and taints you forever, or they are unconscious determinists who think you’re born good or born bad and change is impossible. Circumstances are never extenuating, every choice exists in a vacuum and reflects perfectly on your entire being regardless of context. Ironically, these are always the same people who want villains to be punished and talk about how ‘they chose to do [bad thing]’, despite implicitly denying the existence of free will.