(in response to your tags) That's something else that really bothers me too, Thomas is already so robbed by the story, taking so much from him and never letting him express anything about it. it feels so wrong to watch all of his interests and hobbies and passions get reduced to nothing

There's more to poc representation than just having a character of color (who gets white washed all the fucking time but) there's also culture, and language, and struggle and just a general sense of identity that none of the characters have. When Cordelia was introduced she was introduced as someone who was proud of her culture and seemed to love it but there are no signs of that anywhere, no references to food or fashion or art or anything. The only expressed connection she has to her cultural roots are with language, and while her and Alastair do speak Persian together occasionally, the biggest thing in the book regarding the language was that James learned it and it was some big "oh my god what a saint what an angel" moment but other than that there's no ties between Cordelia and her heritage, and it's honestly really sad because Cordelia's entire storyline and existence is already to serve and benefit James

And then there's Lucie who took one look at Cordelia feeling sad and lonely and disconnected and went, I'm going to write her a whole book and learn her native tongue and swear to be her closest friend when she's never had one

And to me that's a really big thing for someone to do, but there's a line in chain of iron that went something like "oh the beautiful cordelia isn't a real book it's just something lucie wrote to amuse me" (and yeah that scene ended up being about James too) but it's honestly so sad to me because Lucies still working on the book, and lucie really cares about the characters and the olot, and it is a real book to lucie

But yeah no as long as James gets to be a saint I guess it doesn't matter, might as well lay every other character down on some train tracks and drive right over them

THIS THIS ALL OF THIS

as someone who grew up not really seeing their culture represented in media i kinda get it and this shit is causing me physical pain, it’s never NEVER enough to just SAY someone is part of a culture when it involves immigration, the sheer lack of care for cordelia is killing me. her language is sprinkled in, her cultures food is name dropped and that is IT. the culture youre raised with is something that seeps into every part of your life and yet here’s little ms. london. i know damn well cordelia curses differently, has different idioms and words and phrasings and vocal tones and dress and way of life and view of the world and WE SEE NONE OF IT DESPITE HER BEING THE TITLE CHARACTER AND SUPPOSEDLY SECURE AND PROUD, and ESPECIALLY with her being a POC, an experience that’s so painfully underrepresented or plain badly represented this is a disgrace

her culture is just used for brownie points and to further james’s god act at this point, like don’t get me wrong i love the boy to death and its so sweet that he’s learning the language but if this excitement is about learning the language for a loved one where is this hype for thomas or lucie. once again its all just to further james being the perfect boy, not for cordelia to have someone who cares for every part of her. and WHAT happened to lucie learning it maybe i forgot but i can’t remember it being mentioned in this series, and thomas was reading that book once that’s literally it, where’s cordelia’s relationships outside of james, if learning the language is such a romantic insane thing where is the mention with thomastair its just JAMES

same for the book, it seems like anything unimportant to james becomes unimportant to everyone else, the book barely involves him so WHOOP let’s brush it off that way no effort has to go it like WHAT

everything about this series is just a travesty maybe it’s just the sheer amount of characters and plot but so much is being brushed to the side and its killing me