Gee, I wonder where they got the idea for THAT scene?

There are also a LOT of ideas and terminology that appear to have been lifted straight from Star Trek (like, more than is automatically expected of all sci-fi written since 1966), but I am so hooked.

Why is the second book always so political

THIS COMMENT FROM THE SCENE OF MALEFICENT REVERSING AURORA'S CURSE 😭😭😭😭😭 OOOHHH BOOK 7 REFERENCE YOU'RE SO REAL AGAIN

It reminds so much of Malleus ofc.... I know there'll be a scene of him regretting his actions/his overblot.

Right now, he doesn't realize it because the core of his "curse" is a blessing... it is a blessing to live in your dreams and have a long happy life, but the "curse part of it" (I think) is when you reject this blessing that he's giving, and he forces you to take it, and when he realizes that at that point, where everyone wakes up and resist his blessing and he forces them back to sleeping again bcs he has to and its just a cycle from there...

he comes to a realization that he's not protecting/governing/taking care of them (he uses so many verbs to his actions lmao), he just gets angry at them, fights them, and hurts them (because he doesn't understand why people would reject a gift "so perfect" in principle.), then Malleus will realize he's no longer acting in kindness but rather in evil. 🥲🥲🥲

AAAAAAA i hope. 💔 Book 7 is also Maleficent-inspired btw and the point of that movie is to humanize Maleficent as an "purely evil villain" from Sleeping Beauty. And, while I don't doubt there'll be a scene alluding to the defeat of Dragon Maleficent, I still feel like he'll be redeemed at the end lol (so like... Book 7 won't be just be about Malleus will be beaten for his bad deeds and he'll learn and regret it lol) I wanna see Malleus admit his mistake and grow past it 🥲✨✨

It feels like whenever he makes a mistake so far, it has traumatic consequences where the damage cannot be repaired or he'll forever be burdened by unintentional mistake (like people getring hurt by his powers), but if the story lets Malleus redeems himself, it feels like its telling Malleus the lesson that things you have worked on can be destroyed and it will never be the same, but you can still work towards it again, like the saying "not all things that are lost are permanently gone".

Also speaking of lost--- In the past, I used to say Book 7 is Malleus "first experience of lost" but I don't think so now lol If you think about it, it feels like Malleus has always been experiencing lost ... No parents, Limited presence of Maleficia, Lilia is separated from him, People almost dies just by dealing with him (remember the Lilia quote from the frozen castle incident: "The people you are eating with right now are the people you have almost lost"), Yuu is leaving him, ... Like every decade of this guy's life feels like there's a parting 😭😭😭🔥

So its not his first time experience lost, rather he just had enough from experiencing it repeatedly 😭😭😭 But again even if things are lost (even to death), Malleus can still visit it again lol even if its changed, like how there'll come a day where Lilia will die but his memories are still in the world and Silver, -

I feel like thats also a nice way to connect to the fact theres an ongoing theme of things being lost but still their presence persist like how Meleanor's Lullaby is not recognized by Malleus that its his mother's song but Malleus still sings it, and how Dawn is forgotten as well but his behavior and personality reflects a lot with Silver (even though hes not the one who raised him).

sorry your boyfriend died in a barfight, on some nameless backwater asteroid . yeah, after countless lifetimes of carving through every sensation its possible to feel, he was stabbed clean through the heart, and this time, for some reason, it stuck. yeah and when he realized what happened, he laughed for the first time in a millennia . witnesses said that they've never before seen someone so viciously excited to die. sorry

sorry your partner died, drunk as a skunk at the very end of time. yeah they were cast forward by a freak accident, and they watched as the stars winked out, and then they lit a cigar, the last point of illumination in the universe, and dropped the match into the gasoline as a final fuck you.

sorry your girlfriend's research became monotonous and her observations dull, she decided to partake in one final experiment. yeah she took a fragment of the ship once known as aurora, and she casted herself into that black hole. yeah beyond the event horizon there, maybe to die, maybe to learn something new one last time.

sorry your boyfriend felt the end coming for a while . his aim wandered by nanometers and his explosions seemed somewhat... lacklustre. yeah and he returned to a planet that he'd been saving up for a very special occasion . yeah the one that built the largest gunship existence would ever see . and he went on a final rampage . stars shattered at the thunder of his guns until, at last, he crashed into a space station. yeah sorry he wasnt wearing his seatbelt.

sorry your girlfriend tried to retire, and spent her final centuries on a small library planet with those books that meant so much to her . yeah unfortunately, the library did what they are so prone to and burnt in a pointless war . and she fell launching an escape pod piled high with ancient texts that scholars said were actually... quite a dull read.

sorry your boyfriend always approached the concept of immortality with a little bit more skepticism than the rest of them, so his end came as less of a surprise. yeah one day, at something of a loose end, he decided to check on the octokittens . unfortunately, the purring horde hadnt been fed in ... many decades , and devoured him . head to toe . in 11.7 seconds . at least, by my watch.

sorry your boyfriend missed his first beat, he knew exactly what it meant . he considered briefly the fire and bloodshed on his compatriots , but in the end the only thing that felt right was to complete the cycle . and he casted himself into the void . yeah his body will float there forever, far beyond the warmth of any stars .

sorry your partner, of course, well... it was never real to begin with . and, when all its friends were finally gone, it decided to stop pretending.

(!major aurora cycle spoilers!!!)

my hot take of 2023 is that i know canonically auri looses all her powers at the end of ae but in my mind she just keeps like a beta version of them where she’s not quite as powerful and literally god-like as before, but her power doesn’t hurt her when she uses it and she’s still able to sense people minds/communicate mentally. so like eshvaren lite, and ofc she uses it to assist the syldrathi as they rebuild their community and culture from the ground up. bc im soooo fed up with authors taking away strong female leads powers *cough cough sjm COUGH COUGH* at the end of a series i could write a book about how overplayed and lazy it is to just strip away a female characters powers after the main conflict of the plot is done as if we can’t trust/imagine her going on to use those powers on her own accord instead of being forced into using them by some figure/event. it makes that character feel so one sided like their value as a person outside of that power is invaluable, instead of using that power to further develop who they are as a person. also to open up all the potential in her and kal being able to communicate telepathically just to throw it all away three chapters later was an actual crime. like y’all better lmk next time you see mr kristoff (bc I just know he was behind that plot point) because i have a warrant out for his arrest and a passion for my cause. ANYWAYS idk if any of this made sense (bc I wrote this at 3 am after waking up in a cold sweat) but i rlly appreciate you coming to my tedtalk <3333 #justiceforterrifyinglypowerfulauri2023

Analysis on TWST’s time loop theory

The time loop theory is popular among TWST fans. As I was trying to find similarities between Yuu and the protagonist(s) of each movie, I noticed how certain things about the latter and the order of the TWST chapters could support said theory.

Alice – Beginning

Among the main characters, she is one of the youngest and remains so till the end of her movie (along with a lack of character development), so it makes sense to have her at the beginning of the cycle. Her wish for a world of her own creation is what started her story, her venture into Wonderland.

Simba – Awareness

Like Alice, Simba wanted things to go his way and he thought being king meant no one would tell him what to do. He got a taste of the hardships of life first at the hands of the hyenas in the Elephant Graveyard (powerlessness) and next, by the death of his father (loss). Unable to face the trials and tribulations ahead of him, he exiled himself in a paradise-like location (his Wonderland) where he found contentment, but only on a superficial level. Eventually, his past caught up to him and told him to come back to reality, a life which consisted of more than just him, himself and he.

If we compare his young self’s idea of the position of king in his song, “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”, and his ascendance to the throne at the end of the movie, we see his growth, from a child presenting his status of heir with great fanfare to an adult solemnly accepting the responsibilities of a ruler.

Ariel – Inquisitiveness

While Simba came to term with his purpose in life, Ariel was dissatisfied with the one given to her. Not only was she aware of a world beyond hers, but she wanted to be a part of it as well (reference not intended). Even with her father trying to extinguish her interest in the surface world, it didn’t waver, but instead double in intensity. As Aristotle said in Metaphysics (book 1, chapter 1): “All men by nature desire to know.” In other words, he could have never changed her nature.

Aladdin / Jasmine – Change

Going against a parent is one thing, but it’s another when the opposing party is the law. Aladdin and Jasmine may not come from the same social circle, but they both wanted more than what everyone around them said was their lot. The former was playing the system by disguising as a prince, changing himself (like Ariel) into what he thought was socially suitable, but the latter wanted to take it down because it wasn’t suitable for her.

Snow White – Hope

Snow White had also been trapped by circumstances outside of her control (she was supposedly 14 in the movie, barely a teenager), forced to be a servant in her own castle by the person supposed to provide and care for her. Despite said lifestyle, she remained steadfastly optimistic about her chances of getting (the change for) a happy ending.

Hercules / Meg – Deprivation

Sadly, not everyone, no matter how much they hope and pray, gets the happy ending they want easily. Hercules wanted a place to belong and thought he could find it among the gods of Olympus, but Zeus told him it can’t be given to him just because he had accomplished great feats. As a result, he had no idea on how to reach said goal. Meg had once been one of those girls who believed in the power of love and said belief got trampled by her own lover. As a result, she believed love brings you nothing but pain. In short, their optimism about the world they live in was dying.

Aurora – Withdrawal

Aurora was another character who had been denied what they wanted. She had dreamed of someone to spend time with and had found said person in Phillip whom she had met just shortly before she had learned the truth from her fairy godmothers (her royal status and her betrothal to a prince). Obviously, she didn’t take the revelation well.

And who else didn’t like the idea of being in an arranged marriage?

And what did she do?

See the similarities?

It was mostly the doing of Maleficent, but I want to believe Aurora pricked her finger on that spinning wheel out of her own volition on some degree. Just because she had accepted the title of princess along with the expectations and the duties attached to said position didn’t mean she mustn’t have felt some degree of trepidation in the face of such burden. A part of her had longed for the simple life of a peasant girl, when her dream had barely become true. So if said dream couldn’t come to reality, then she would retreat to the safety of her dream world (Wonderland) till the real world would conform to her wish.

So if Twisted Wonderland is the dream world created by Yuu based on and / or caused by events from their past, then that means they can go back to their world (or reality) only after they get what they want (or are forced to face the truth). Otherwise, they’ll be stuck in a time loop for the rest of their life.

some HOT disney princess takes that you'll hate or love but i fully stand by regardless. lets discuss~

singing/having a powerful voice is aurora's thing, not ariel's! ariel misses her concert in the beginning of the film, struggles with using her auditory voice to effectively communicate, and even gives it up to turn human. it means little/nothing to her and i think people just attribute singing to her, the same way sebastian and her father do, because it's a plot point in her movie meanwhile if ariel knew you all irl she would not be doing sing alongs like that. on the contrary, aurora is literally blessed with the SUPERNATURAL gift of song from birth by a magical fairy, uses it to express herself, and famously sings more than she speaks. so much of aurora's identity is tied into her song and i really think, if there was a singer or someone who owns the "voice" among the princesses, it should be aurora- besides, have you literally ever heard of a more divinely ethereal but also epic and powerful voice than mary costa's??? like don't get me wrong, jodi benson ATE but also after jodi, all the princesses more or less have a similar broadway sound but like no one else can do what aurora did

snow white should be the leader of the princesses. i love cinderella, i do, but snow white was literally the first and imo is the most groundbreaking female character, animated or not, of ALL TIME and she deserves her flowers. also, i think people are FINALLY coming around to see cinderella's value after years of "cinderella ate my daughter" weird misogyny masquerading around as feminism criticisms and i think a lot of that is centered around cinderella being an abuse victim and that's what's warming a lot of people to her...which i love, really i do. but snow white was also abused and, in her film, makes it a point to end the cycle of abuse. she was even the victim of a murder attempt, after which she continues to pick herself up and find shelter and work for her keep, and that gets lost so much and i think, whereas cinderella's dreams center around happiness, snow white singing of the fact that she's dreaming of the nice things someone would say to her and the way she needs grumpy to like her makes so much sense given her background and i literally never EVER see anyone discussing abuse when it comes to snow white. i think if people started talking her character more seriously and analyzing and appreciating it the way y'all do elsa, we would be saved from the heinously bad takes that get attributed to her (see: rachel zegler. that girl has not said ONE valid thing about snow white and her views are so embarrassingly stamped by pseudo online activism from the early 2000s by users that, not only don't realize how dumb they are but also think they're smarter than everyone else because they dabble in armchair psychology, and it's enough)

ariel collecting isn't leaned into as much as it should be tbh (and i'm talking as a serious pastime, not a parody of her never understanding human things that's contingent on her being a mermaid or being totally ignorant to humans)!!! like we get it, belle reads, but i think ariel collecting as a hobby is so much more interesting and well-rounded and nuanced. like, first of all, ariel collecting doesn't eliminate other hobbies, but actually promotes them! like she has books in her grotto, and we see her reading in poyw, but that's not the ONLY thing to her! she probably picks up on so many tiny details about like historical time periods or climates or dress patterns in a way that heightens life and reality and bridges people together because of all the studying she does and it's just soooo interesting to me, as we see things like the historical community evolve on tiktok and people who are fascinated with studying other cultures and the evolution of fandom in general, etc. also, i get this might be super super hot of a take but i think jodi performs certain songs better than she does part of your world...like i do love the song and i think it's more than worthy of being ariel's character's theme song but there's definitely some other bops in there that are just as good, if not better

belle should have a sequel where she gets to be unlikable for a change! even when she is unlikable in the film, it's never perceived as a character fault and linda woolverton's writing/the other characters in the film just blind hero worship and idolize belle and it's creepy tbh and i think it robs her of being a fully realized person that's treated like other people and can build human connections! like, everyone thinks she's stunning and wants a piece of her and never really takes her to task about her character flaws or even mentally challenges her and i think that's why she's so depressed? people only view her as being ultra desirable, whether it's the castle objects seeing her as a beautiful girl that can fall in love with the beast to the point where they ignore the really shady stuff she does, or gaston thinking she's the most beautiful girl in town and wanting to marry her, or even her fans thinking she's the smartest female character who ever breathed and is incapable of flaws. i think if we treated belle more as a person, maybe she could also have an arc in her movie and it wouldn't just be about the beast! also i think it'd be refreshing and we'd allow women to be people, too, and not this "smartest girl in town, but modest about it, prettiest girl in town, but unaware of it, loyal to her father but still stands up for herself, etc etc etc" unrealistic model. belle deserves EQUALS not just admirers who will never measure up to this pedestal they put her on

cinderella 1950 and cinderella 2015 are not interchangeable as characters or films!!! kenneth and lily did a HORRIBLE job at interpreting ilene woods's cinderella and the changes they made are shameful and the original character had so much more strength and realism to her, but in her own feminine way, and lily's character was a giant step back and is the epitome of making loud changes that result to NOTHING. the way the entire 2015 cast badmouthed cinderella 1950 on their press tour has always sat uncomfortably with me and so many people prefer it over the original one i just. also, cinderella looks best in pink! i LOVE aurora in pink, and we're omitting silver because that IS cinderella's color and nothing compares, but i just think she's so vibrant and cute in her pink dress and i love her with her hair down and it's just so much more fun and human and it doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should

they desperately need to age the content/demographics of the franchise up, like ngl them turning these women (and yes, i think they're women not little girls and the point of their movies is them BECOMING women) into like little nursery crib characters for babies and infantilizing them is creepy. also a HUGE segment of the fanbase is an adult one, like fans of the disney renaissance ladies are typically in the 20s-40s, not four year old's, and i just think disney is doing themselves a disservice by largely ignoring all the adult fans who collect these characters and make artwork for them and keep the princesses in vogue by writing about them and making social media content about them. like the avengers can really tap into their fanbase like that, meanwhile the best us princess fans have are like 8 dollar playline dolls?!?! where is our movie!!! where is our CONTENT. the 2003 princess party dvds will no longer suffice!

Mechs headcanons because fuck you and fuck your train

Marius goes by he/they probouns

Ts bottles its feelings up because it doesn’t know how to handle them

Due to the lack of knowledge of Raph’s backstory, she changes it every time someone asks

After Marius’ act of pulling a violin from nowhere in prison, they learned to do it on command so now every time he does it everyone but him are confused

I hc that Lyf goes by any pronouns and because of this Marius will use pronouns that just end up sticking and Lyf now uses them unironically

Trans lesbian Nastya forever and ever, amen

Brian will sometimes just carry the others over his shoulders. He just does it and depending on who he picks up he’s either shot, punched at, or is met with zero resistance

Genderfluid Tim forever and ever, amen

Jonny will sometimes wear platforms to feel tall but it never works out cause he doesn’t know how to walk in them

I like to imagine that ts has a souvenir from every planet that the mechs visited and if it wasn’t on a planet with them, the others would grab one for ts

Marius and Raph constantly look into Lyf’s eyes because they’re “a gay rainbow” and it makes the two of them very happy

I see a lot of people put Jonny into angst situations but y’all are sleeping on the potential that ts’ backstory has

Speaking of Jonny angst, he will sometimes still have nightmares about certain events that happened during One Eyed Jacks and the Carmilla era and when this happens he will seek out anyone who was on the Aurora pre-Tim

People always say that Brian is a giant heater and because of this Jonny or Tim will flop onto Brian whenever he’s piloting during Aurora’s night cycle and sleep there

I’ve been thinking about Tim wearing a strawberry dress and that got me thinking of Brian in a strawberry-themed suit. And I mean like a vest that has strawberries on it, a white dress-shirt, and some light pink dress-pants (someone pls draw this, I beg)

Ivy will create book forts in her library if left alone for long enough

Aurora air locked Carmilla. End of story

i just finished reading aurora’s end (in a day bc i got it this morning for my birthday) and UHH

WHY did NO ONE tell me about the PAIN AND SUFFERING I WOULD ENDURE

i GENUINELY thought auri was gonna die at the end. i was crying

WHOOPS i have gilwraeth brainrot!! oops!

ANYWAY now i can actually be part of the aurora cycle fandom. because i’ve finally read all the books

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion BUT i really like aurora cycle and think it's a very good saga . However, there are still some things that feel unfinished (to me), or that I would have liked to see better.

Like trivially the Saedii’s pov (imagine reading the saedii’s pov when she finds out she was pulled to Tyler bxjxsjs) and Nari’s pov, even just one chapter, just to understand their way of thinking.

Then, I would be too curious to know what kind of father-daughter relationship Caerson and Saedii have had over the years. AND ESPECIALLY WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO TYLER AND SCARLET'S MOTHER, like is she alive? dead? vudusifhsbbeksjs I need to know. I would do anything to have a spin-off book about them searching for their mother.

like, I don't know, maybe I would have made things go a little bit slower so that everything was well explained, saedii-caerson relationship and all the things I mentioned before, so that you have maybe 4 books, but complete with everything, leaving you with no question marks.

(And then I wouldn't have minded having also more Fin-Scar scenes, tyler and saedii scenes and nari and zila scenes lmao)

YES! I agree with everything, I especially would have really liked to see some of Scarlett’s and Tyler’s mother. Nari and Zila arent my favorite ship but I really want to have something about how they worked together immediately after Fin and Scar leave their timeline. I’d die to see a Tydii reunion after the war is done (and I’ve written one) because in a way their relationship feels kind of unfinished.

HI it has been an eternity since i've been active on tumblr, but the search of content for smaller fandoms keeps bringing me back. the last time i posted anything and reblogged stuff was more than two years ago, so i think it's time for a lil introduction post!!

this blog is my main blog for all sorts of random stuff that i love, so welcome <3 i also have side blogs for two of my fandoms: @seeyouinthestars (the Aurora Cycle) and @onceuponaneverafter (OUABH).

you can call me crenna, like my blog name, or larissa, which is an online alias i've used for yeeeears and which most of my online friends know me by, or lili, which is a nickname i've vibed with recently. i'm 21 years old and i use she/her pronouns!

i looove books and writing, all sorts of arts and crafts, music and dance... and yes, i barely have time for all of my hobbies lol. usually, when i have free time, i just sit in my room, wrapped in a fluffy blanket and spend time on my laptop or by reading a good book. i'm particularly fond of aesthetics, fantasy, taylor swift's music, peppermint tea, fairy lights, cozy vibes, stars, my friends, and my countless fictional crushes. i'm a little dramatic, a little hopeless, but i'm also funny sometimes?

i already know my activity levels are not going to be consistent from now on either bc i'm in college, but i'd love to meet cool people and join the fun in my fandoms! lastly, my blog is a safe space for all lgbtq+ people, people of color, and other marginalized groups. no discrimination will be tolerated. if you disagree, don't interact.

welcome, nice to meet you!!

(i will definitely get a better introduction one of these days but take this for now <3)

I WROTE AN INFORMAL ESSAY ON ZILA MADRAN FOR MY SEMINAR CLASS—MAJOR AURORA CYCLE SPOILERS!!!!

Tyler Jones is a human who graduated at the top of his class at the Aurora Academy. He is the squad’s “Alpha,” or commander. He was supposed to get first pick in terms of the other people on his team, but because he went to save Aurora, he ended up with those who remained after everyone else made their pick. He is a White-passing heterosexual cisgendered male. We find out later he is also half-Syldrathi, an alien race that is presumably based on BIPOC ethnicities and practices. 

Scarlett Jones is a diplomat who knows many languages, handles foreign affairs, and negotiation, otherwise known as the squad’s “Face.” Tyler Jones is her twin brother. She has a long history of exes and is ever longingly sarcastic. She is a white heterosexual cisgendered woman. We find out later she is half-Syldrathi as well. 

Kaliis Idraban Gilwraeth is Syldrathi (an alien race in the book) who was born to be a warrior. He is the squad’s “Tank,” whose primary purpose is to fight if need be. Since the age of six, he was trained to defeat his enemies and not tolerate anything less. He is a heterosexual cisgendered male.

Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley is a human girl out of time who was awoken by the squad after centuries frozen in a colony ship, and found herself gifted with dangerous psychic powers. She is Asian-American (Chinese and Irish,) and a heterosexual cisgendered woman. 

Finian de Karran de Seel is a Betraskan (another alien race in the book) who has a heart for all things mechanics. He is the squad’s “Gearhead,” and has a crude sense of humor. He is a disabled bisexual cisgendered male who has pale white skin. 

Zila Madran is the “Brain” of the squad, a medic who knows the body inside and out and is stellar at all things STEM. In the third book, her work allows her to statistically calculate the probabilities of every ideal event occurring and she is eventually the one (with her wife Nari Kim) who saves the entire galaxy from destruction. She is a Black queer cisgendered woman. 

This media analysis will focus on Zila Madran’s role in Aurora’s End, which becomes crucial in the third book and the mechanics of the plot. It will analyze the message that Amie Kaufman, a white woman, and Jay Kristoff, a white man, have delivered to its readers by having Zila, a Black queer woman, be the one who saves the entire galaxy from its demise.

Zila’s character description, thankfully, is one that is not offensive. Unlike the common tendency for white authors to compare Black skin to food, her description in Aurora Rising that we get when we first meet her is simply “dark brown skin and long, tight black curls.”And in Aurora Burning on page 45, there is a conversation between Scarlett and Zila where readers first learn about Zila’s queer identity:

Scarlett: “Yeah. But don't fall in love with me, Zila. I'll just break your heart.” 

Zila: “That does seem consistent with your romantic modus operandi. You are also too tall for me.”

Scarlett: “Wait… you like girls?”

Zila shrugs, scanning the crowd: “Not tall ones.”

However, a closer look at one scene in the book will reveal that Zila’s identifiers are taken into account in the overall plot of the story. In terms of sexuality, Zila is the last one to enter a relationship. The readers have watched every other squadmate enter a romantic entanglement in Aurora Rising and Aurora Burning.  Their relationships grow to become a large, important part of the plot, with multiple chapters dedicated to their development. In the beginning of Aurora’s End, Zila, Scarlett, and Finian get sent back in time to the year 2177 in a time loop. In other words, they are stuck in a segment of 2177 where, after a certain amount of minutes, they meet some sort of untimely death. Most of the time it’s a quantum pulse hitting the station or angry lieutenants deciding to shoot at them. Once they die, the segment of time resets. Each time the segment resets, it gets shorter, and the squad has to figure out how to escape the time loop before they die in it again. In the time segment, they successfully reach out to Nari Kim, a legionnaire of the academy who they find at the station they are attempting to come into contact with. After Scarlett successfully works her diplomat magic before she can get blasted to pieces, Zila gets to work detonating the pulsar with Nari. Meanwhile, Scarlett and Finian decide to start messing around. Prior to this time loop, Scarlett and Finian agreed to enter a romantic relationship, so when they decide to start messing around, their lack of focus makes Zila a bit irritated, so she shouts: “are you two spending precious minutes in the middle of a heretofore unheard-of temporal paradox engaging in frivolous presexual activity?” To which Scarlett replies, “You’re such a hopeless romantic, Z” (Kaufman and Kristoff 185). In the scene, Zila is angry with their lack of consideration for the task at hand. However, it can be argued that she is somewhat romantically/sexually frustrated with the fact that everyone has found love but her. This argument can be supported as she ends up realizing Nari is “not tall” (Kaufman and Kristoff 98), and “as [Nari] keeps speaking, I let myself sink into her voice” (Kaufman and Kristoff 201) Later on, after many romantic events have occurred like this one, she realizes that Nari Kim is the one that future, probability-calculating Zila assigned herself to fall in love with by giving her past self hawk earrings that match the animal insignia on Nari’s vest (it’s quite complicated—I hope that is clear enough. I’d be happy to explain more if it’s unclear.) Her frustrations are then relieved when she learns that Nari feels the same way. At that point, Zila learns that she is supposed to stay in the year 2177 with Nari in order to calculate the events that make up the most optimal timeline: a timeline where her squadmates save the galaxy. 

Arguably, there are a lot of identifiers that shape the scene described above, the one that ultimately is the start of Zila’s romantic journey. The fact that she is the last one to enter a relationship could possibly be due to three identifiers. To start, the eurocentric beauty standard is against her, as she is African American. In 2014, an OkCupid study found that black women were rated the “least desirable” amongst all other races. Second, mainstream society encircles the idea of white queerness being the only queerness to exist. In a paper by the National Library of Medicine, Carmen Logie states that “by representing queerness as white…women of color were rendered invisible in both queer and racialized communities…” and that, as mentioned later on, “women of color were further marginalized by constructions of "real" women as passive, feminine and white, and conversely perceptions of women of color as aggressive, emotional, and hypersexualized.” Due to all of these factors, the ‘dating pool’ shrinks for Black queer women in terms of future partners. Applying this logic, it is quite sensible it would take her a longer time to find the right partner, and luckily, she did. Therefore, the scenes quoted and described above could encompass Zila’s Black, queer, and female identifiers with both their overt statements and what is unsaid by the timing.

Kaufman and Kristoff have successfully established Zila Madran as a strong, self-sufficient, beautiful, bright Black woman who, simply by existing, redacts harmful stereotypes and creates a new image for Black women in the world of science fiction. One stereotype that the Aurora Cycle Trilogy combats with the character Zila Madran is the ‘weird girl’ stereotype. One could argue that the reason Zila is the last one to find a relationship is because she is naturally quiet and not very emotionally available until her character arc near the end of the book. A counterargument is that this is a stereotype which has been romanticized in the media quite often, only that the stereotype requires the quiet stoic girl to be white and heterosexual, and that if she is any other race/sexuality, she’s seen as even weirder. White heterosexual women who fill this stereotype and find romantic interests are Raven from Teen Titans, Detective Jet Slootmaekers in Law and Order, and April Ludgate-Dwyer from Parks and Recreation. Like Zila, they are quiet and stoic, so physical appearance and romantic preference must be the only thing that sets Zila apart from the common narrative. Fortunately, Zila and Nari marry and grow old together once they fall in love. So, Kaufman and Kristoff challenge the ‘weird white girl’ single story stereotype by changing the race of the ‘weird girl’ and writing Zila with a fulfilling queer relationship. 

In addition, another stereotype that Kaufman and Kristoff combat is the stereotype that Black women are unintelligent. Black people, women, and especially Black women have been stereotyped as unintelligent for centuries. As Zora Neale Hurston puts it in Their Eyes Were Watching God, “De n----- woman is de mule uh de world,” meant only to sit and do meaningless tasks that don’t let them build any type of real intelligence or skill. Of course, this stereotype dates back to slavery, where most Black people—especially Black women—were unable to pursue any sort of formal education because they were enslaved. A very small percentage were taught to read and write while they were enslaved. Kaufman and Kristoff combat this by designing Madran’s character with astute intelligence, which is evident throughout the story as she is deemed the military squadron position “Brain.”

A third stereotype is that Black women are aggressive. This stereotype originates from slavery and thrives in lots of pop culture and media. Some examples are Sapphire in Amos ‘n’ Andy, and Florence in The Jeffersons, according to the Harvard Business Review. The stereotype has even been immortalized in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture through the addition of Nene Leakes and her famous eye roll. To fight this, Zila Madran is a medic who heals the wounds of all of the squadmates. She is the one who instructs Scarlett on how to save Finian from anaphylactic shock with only the plastic tube in a ballpoint pen, a gift that was, like Zila’s hawk earrings, planned from Zila in 2177 to be given to Finian in 2380. Zila instructs Scarlett remotely through her earpiece while Scarlett is panicking, and Scarlett describes Zila’s state as “calm in [her] ear” (Kaufman and Kristoff 386). In Zila being the medic of the squad, there is also possibly the irony of the poor treatment of Black women in the healthcare system at play here. The first doctors went years before they expanded their studies of the body to Black people, claiming all kinds of things about how different and underdeveloped their bodies are. They have tried to defend their racism and neglect of Black health with eugenics and other harmful pseudosciences, but the root of the predominantly white field refusing to assist Black people is racism, clear and cut. A recent example is Serena Williams and the birth of her child. Even though she is famous and wealthy, she was still treated poorly in the healthcare system while she was in one of the most vulnerable states a person could be in–postpartum. Unfortunately, racism does not stop for those who financially can sit in the same places as their oppressors. And so, in Kaufman and Kristoff choosing Zila to be the medic, they have established her as a helpful and healing Black woman rather than an aggressive one, and they have supplied her with the skill that her oppressors have continued to systematically oppress Black women with—medicine. For Kaufmann and Kristoff to choose Zila Madran, a queer Black woman, to be the one to find her lifelong partner, to be the “Brain” of the team (literally), to be the one to heal her squadmate’s injuries, and to be the central figure in saving the entire galaxy and founding the Aurora Academy is a huge step towards reversing various stereotypes and is a promotion of Black excellence and Black representation.

intro post

hi, i'm moss/kay/beo!!!

my interests are: qsmp (i have a qsmp sideblog), homestuck, community, my chemical romance, the aurora cycle, and various other books and such (please talk to me about what you're reading i will love you forever and ever (platonically))

tagging system:

#i speak!!! - original text posts

#my cat - pictures of either one of my cats (they will specifically be tagged with either doug or laszlo)

#fiancee tag - things that my fiancée (no, she is not actually engaged to me) tagged me in or things that i tagged her in

besides that i don't really tag any of my fandoms or triggers (not that i reblog triggering content often/at all) but if you need me to just let me know

important information: I AM A MINOR, no i will not elaborate further on tumblr

please use he/they pronouns. i am vaguely boyflux so if i ever want you to use one over the other i will let you know

i don't exactly know my sexual/romantic orientation but i do reblog a lot of aromantic and/or asexual things, if you're an exclusionist (of any kind) please leave

i tag my bestie @themoonjelly semi-often, if you don't like that (although i can't imagine why) sorry, i'm not going to stop

credit to @cafekitsune for the dividers

userboxes below the cut

(@sweetpeauserboxes)

(@burntoutuserboxes)

(gripping the bathroom sink) There are lies we tell ourselves, and there are lies we tell the universe. The crew of the Aurora once used the word 'immortal' and the universe believed us - for a while. But no matter the eons, years, millennia you may live, no matter the wormholes, time jumps or parallel dimensions... all things end. And it's hard to play so much with time without learning the shape of your own end. We know where we will be when we start to slow and choose to follow Nastya into the dark. We've lived so long together, perhaps it is only fitting we die alone. Jonny dies in a barfight, on some nameless backwater asteroid. After countless lifetimes of carving through every sensation it is possible to feel, he is stabbed clean through the heart and this time, for some reason, it sticks. When he realizes what is happening, he laughs for the first time in a millennia. Witnesses will say that they have never before seen someone so viciously excited to die. When you start your existence by burning down a planet, how the hell do you end it? In Ashes' case, drunk as a skunk at the very end of time. Cast forward by some freak accident, they will watch as the stars wink out, and then they'll light a cigar - the last point of illumination in the universe - and drop the match into gasoline as a final fuck you. There is so much to know in this universe, so much to learn. But when her research has become monotonous and her observations are dull, Raphaella will decide to partake in one final experiment. Taking a fragment of the ship once known as Aurora, she will cast herself into that black hole. Beyond the event horizon there, maybe to die, maybe to learn something new one last time. Gunpowder Tim feels the end coming for a while. His aim wanders by nanometers and his explosions seem somewhat... lacklustre. And so he returns to a planet that he's been saving for a very special occasion, the one that builds the largest gunship existence will ever see, and he goes on a final rampage. Stars shatter at the thunder of his guns until, at last, he crashes into a space station. And he isn't wearing his seatbelt. Ivy will try to retire, spend her final centuries on a small library planet with those books that mean so much to her. Unfortunately, the library will do what they are so prone to and burn in a pointless war. Ivy falls launching an escape pod piled high with ancient texts that scholars will someday say were actually... quite a dull read. Marius has always approached the concept of immortality with a little bit more skepticism than the rest of us, so his end comes as less of a surprise. One day, at something of a loose end, he will decide to check on the octokittens. Unfortunately, the purring horde has not been fed in... many decades, and devours him. Head to toe. In 11.7 seconds. At least, by my watch. When the Drumbot misses his first beat, he knows exactly what it means. He considers briefly the fire and bloodshed of his compatriots, but in the end the only thing that feels right is to complete the cycle. And so he casts himself into the void. His body will float there forever, far beyond the warmth of stars. The Toy Soldier, of course, well... it was never real to begin with. And, when all its friends are finally gone, it will decide to stop pretending.  Pointless, ignoble deaths the lot of them. But who that lived can really boast otherwise? Thank you for joining us on our journey. Our bodies are still, and our blood is cold. The books are closed and our stories told. No happy ever after for a tale so old, Laid in blood when the story is done. Thank you. But - But we're not quite dead quite yet. And so, for the last time, we have one last song. 

Book review: Malice & Misrule by Heather Walter

Rating:

Malice: 4⭐️

Misrule: 3⭐️

𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞: Sleeping beauty meets Cinderela. I knew that this was going to go down south but still, I was surprised. I sympathize with Alyce. She is mischievous, wicked, sarcastic, funny, and easily likeable. This story is told from the villain's perspective. But is she really one? She was born on the wrong piece of land and immediately labeled as a monster. Solely because of previous history and because her powers are different. She was bullied in her house (Cinderela trope); mistreated by everyone except Aurora; she finds her true love (sleeping beauty trope) and that’s immediately taken away merely because of who she is. She gets betrayed a lot of times and makes mistakes because of how misguided she was. However, she's also at fault at times, there were some decisions taken in which she knew fully well what she was doing. But she ended up becoming the person they labelled her as, because of other people’s decisions in the first place. (They tainted her) What I want to say is: it's not always black and white, there are some grey areas. It's important to acknowledge that. And we see that plainly in this book.

𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞: This one didn't hit home like the previous book. I like how the book ended and it was fair. I actually wanted the story to end like that. However, the whole book was just one same cycle, repeating itself. Which I think makes sense, but I wasn't feeling sentimental like I thought I would be. If you know what I mean. But either way, it was a nice story.

So, it doesn't look like he's declaring his love to princess rubs-a-lot anywhere that I can see.

Our possible key word of the new spring "高” tall or high, comes up when talking about Alpine Cloud Tea which is, yup 800 meters high (remember those 800 paracetters). So, I looked up the phrase and it's not terribly common (probably a rounded number), but it's part of an ad so hard candy again.

As for the NSS laboratory shirt, the N looks a bit like an 8 in Chinese characters according to wb bird Pekomi: 八. The other side likes the two SS's, but honestly isn't is SongSanChuan his new character which he happens to be doing double advertising duty for in this commercial with it's tennis theme?

My non-CPF guess: This year 30 is going to do lots of cycling, release his travel vlogs for Dali and hopefully Finland, and most likely will be sharing his life with us that way or through a variety program (the rumor is an all-male variety show or one with Ba - we will see - there has been no formal acceptance of any show as of yet that we know).

My CP heart, which I'm trying to squash because if they are be then they obviously are taking their sweet time and if they are not it is best to just observe casually, is this is the year we will know if something is going on with them (or other partners): 88 started off with a wedding dress (from the 2019 Feel the World show and the Milk Tea tour during Glory). It was a paid advertisement but then said in a recent AnMuxi commercial something about all lovers getting to marry. Now we have 30 saying he will "bring more of the original and authentic me" so my guess is a vlog still, but who knows - maybe he will have a friend with him. For real though, IF they really are single we need a second drama stat, something with no focus on age like a fantasy time travel!

As a 30 fan, I also would love for WL to release exercise videos. He is the perfect fitness instructor. Vitality is the keyword too - just so you know 88 said it was one of her favorite words. It does repeat quite often, so there is that hard candy. Let's break our teeth together.

I'm working on a series for Finland, but still eyeing the "candy." I believe this year the color for 88 is cherry red. 30 will have to wear red because he is a rabbit and superstition says he needs to wear the color to bring good luck (usually it's red underwear or socks; remember he got all those socks in the Spring Festival? Of course someone, not our 88, has been seen in red socks. The other side also had a Christmas theme in their little red book (Chinese social media) today. 30 snuck away to the home of Santa Claus yesterday; I hope he got to capture the aurora in Lapland. We missed it when we went to Finland. Honestly if that dead end couple is real, then they should let their fan fans know because 30's square is getting bloody with lots of old stuff being brought up today. Pretty much every weifan I talk to says it is impossible, but who knows?

Everyone knows how polite 30 is, so trying to attack him for being mean is just the dumbest plan ever.

All of this is speculatory. CPF is a form of entertainment and we never dance in front of the master. This is the first rule of CPF etiquette!