This YouTube Comment Has Been On My Mind Since I Finished SOTR So This Is What I Came Up With:

"There will come a ruler, who's brow is laid in thorn,"

snow really convinced himself lucy gray didn't love him (after she wrote a whole song about him and tried to run away with him) and then forty years later told sixteen year old haymitch abernathy that dying in the arena would be dodging a bullet compared to loving a covey girl. top 10 situationships gone horribly wrong

Unknown // Suzanne Scanlon

"i don't comment on ao3 because i don't wanna be annoying or weird" skill issue + you greatly underestimate the power dynamic here, writing multi paragraph comments is like feeding a bunch of deeply insane and possibly starved ducks at the park and watch them go completely mad over having received a piece of bread

“They’re just fictional characters” ok then why do I feel like their heartache personally cracked my ribs?

Martin Buxbaum

This rant was inspired by @freddycartr's post here because it's all I can ever think about and I'm probably insane 😈

enjoy <3

Cinder and Kai are truly two sides of the same coin, and their connection is so powerful because it's rooted in shared trauma and mutual understanding. Both are thrust into unimaginable circumstances at a young age -- for Kai, it's the death of his father and the pressure of marrying Levana to save his country. For Cinder, it's the death of Peony and years of abuse from her adoptive family. They're both carrying the weight of responsibility while also battling internal fears: Kai fears losing his autonomy and becoming a puppet, while Cinder fears she'll die alone, never seen as fully human because of the prejudice against cyborgs.

Kai was drawn to Cinder because she was refreshingly honest and didn’t treat him like a prince or a celebrity -- she saw him. Her lack of awe challenged him and made him feel real in a way few others ever had. In contrast, Cinder was so used to being avoided or looked down on, and Kai was the first person who looked her in the eyes and treated her like she mattered. For someone who had spent her whole life being dehumanized, that kind of genuine attention was revolutionary. She was terrified of him discovering who she really was, not because she didn’t trust him, but because she finally felt safe, and the idea of losing that was unbearable.

They both craved something rare: to be seen for who they are beneath the labels -- not the prince, not the cyborg, but just Kai and Cinder. And in each other, they finally found that.

That elevator scene in Cinder -- when Kai asks, “Imagine there was a cure, but finding it would cost you everything…” -- becomes hauntingly prophetic. Once Cinder learns she’s Princess Selene, that question isn’t hypothetical anymore. She’s literally forced to choose between her life as she knows it and the hope of saving others. It’s a turning point, and it links them even more deeply: both of them carry the crushing weight of their nations, expected to sacrifice everything for the greater good.

And that’s why they’re such a perfect match -- not because they complete each other in a cliche way, but because they understand each other in a way no one else possibly could. They know what it’s like to be seen as something other than human. They know what it’s like to feel completely alone -- until they found each other.

Okay, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 😊