torin and rikan were dating. to me like torin was a widow

a widow who had to put his grief aside to prepare his husband’s son to be a leader…he’s so strong

Levana has two core tenets that drive her entire personal philosophy, both actively damaging and sustaining her: her need to be beautiful and her need to be loved. They are irrevocably intertwined and are ultimately her undoing.

Two people in her life dictate these notions--Channary and Evret. Channary implanted the desire to be loved and the necessity to be beautiful once Levana is disfigured. Without any willing participation from Evret, Levana carries over these insecurities, needing to be loved by him when Channary fails her and needing to keep up her glamour to feel beautiful. If Solstice is the only woman he can see as beautiful, that's what Levana must become. She sabotages her relationship with him after she shows him her true appearance; she refuses to be loved for her true self, and once he sees it, he must be disposed of. Evret lives on in Winter, who reinforces that Levana cannot ever control them as she wears her three uniform scars with pride.

With the death of these two motivators, she feels free of the burden of needing them. But the demand to be beautiful and loved is indefatigable, so she replaces them with an unearthly, ethereal glamour in her quest for vanity, and the contrived love from her citizens to feel wanted. These are both fundamentally artificial and never satisfy her, so she must always strive for more. Her body, face, voice 'improve' countless times over decades, as she is never sure that they are perfect enough. Her armies become fiercer, her inventory larger, and she sets her sights on the largest territory to conquer--Earth--all in the name of supplying her people to buy their love. Levana could have at any point abandoned her course of tyranny and used her circumstances to reform herself and her country's systemic disparity. She chooses every day to reject these opportunities and each action deepens her need to maintain the façade of love and looks. She is to be pitied, but not to be pardoned.

In order for Levana to be defeated as a villain, she must not only die, but must have her philosophy completely overturned. Kai takes the place of Evret and she replays her manipulation in the same way on their wedding day. But when she marries Kai, glamouring as his lover as she did to Evret, he dismantles her beauty, stating that she will never be as beautiful as the glamourless Linh Cinder. This directly mirrors Evret's loyalty for Solstice and it hurts Levana--not because she loves Kai in any way like she loved Evret--but because the message lives on in him. She is always inadequate.

Her glamour and her loyalties fall in one fell swoop. Her people come to her door to kill her, and her true face is blown up in the sky, permanently tainting her image. With her vanity blighted, all that's left is the fundamental nucleus of her problems: her relationship with Channary. It is the chief relationship in her life, even posthumously ,and is the very cause of her perverted worldview. Levana never killed Channary and that is her greatest regret.

When Cinder arrives--Channary's near reincarnation in appearance--Levana has her second chance. It is particularly imperative to her to eliminate Selene because Levana was never loved by Channary, while Selene was. Her existence is a mockery of Levana's pain because it clarifies that Channary was capable of love and actively withheld it from Levana. However when Levana burnt Cinder alive, she levelled the playing field. She assigned Cinder a life of enduring the same prejudice and inadequacy that she faced. Therefore in their final battle, Levana likens Cinder to herself and her need to be desired. By killing Selene, she will finally prove that she has killed her need to be loved by Channary.

To do this, she sets up the perfect replica for this prophetic revenge. Cinder's friend will betray her as Channary did Levana, and Cinder will retaliate as Levana herself wished to do. It is particularly powerful that it is not Kai in the room at this final battle. Romantic love is irrelevant now. Instead it is Thorne, whom Cinder loves as family. Their almost sibling-like dynamic is now reflective of Channary and Levana. Levana asserts that this kind of love is false. But Cinder and Thorne demonstrate their loyalty to one another--even when Thorne is manipulated to hurt her, Cinder attacks Levana, not him. He proves his love in his sobs and apologies as his body rebels. Levana's final desire, to prove that love is merely a conquest and a war, is dashed.

In the end, Levana stabs Cinder, but it doesn't matter. Her worldview is shattered, her tenuous beliefs severed. That is where Levana is defeated. The final shot that kills her is simply to finalise the matter. Her tenets die with her and can be replaced with the true forms of beauty and love. Cinder and Winter, disfigured and scarred and unashamed. Kai, who loves Cinder and loves her appearance because she gave him good reason to, and never through manipulation. Cinder, who attains loyalty from the citizens of Luna and Earth alike through her action and compassion.

Love is not conquered, love is not a war; it is earned.

Levana leaving the moon to seduce an 18 year old who just lost his father

Reblog if you write fic and people can inbox you random-ass questions about your stories, itemized number lists be damned.

Winter and Jacin from The Lunar Chronicles.

Oh boy, getting worked up over the Lunar Chronicles again🌙✨

OK I FINISHED CINDER

Tags: @writergracethepanda @that-multi-fandom-hijabi @caliburn-the-sword @typingwithmyhandstied @the-slowest-turtle @livie1507

Dropping the latest Patreon Sketch-a-Wish for May! The opening scene for The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, featuring Cinder, Kai, Iko (who is basically an EVE/Wall-E love-child), an unconscious Nainsi and a bunch of easter egg items, as requested in our poll. (can you point them out?)

This was definitely one where the background itself was its own character; There’s so much happening here and it’s very nuanced to the context of the scene. I think those who aren’t familiar with the book will have a hard time figuring out what’s happening here - but seriously, caption this artwork: “Doting dad drops off his two android kids at day camp where the youngest has already stolen the cyborg foot off of the caretaker.” … and it still works. 😂

In order to fish for Easter Egg items, I re-listed to the Lunar Chronicles for the first time since I first read them a few years back; they were my gateway series into the bookish community and I absolutely fell in love with it all over again! I have Gilded on my TBR shortlist, and just recently listed to Heartless last month. I’m definitely on a Meyer bender, with the fabulous Rebecca Soler (the narrator) to keep me company!

What’s with Kaider and their flirting with smooth moves into making out?

hc that when Cinder eventually gets a newer hand, she has an attachment thing installed on her ring finger so that it secures her rings and prevents her from losing them

Magnetize the ring

Kaider wedding portrait we’ll call version 1, cause I’ve already had new thoughts about it since I finished this

AWWW MY BABIESSSSS

Probably one of the most iconic moments for Cinder, and not just because of the subverted Cinderella imagery. She, the emperor’s personal guest, has just crashed headlong into a manicured tree in the (populated) Imperial courtyard, full speed, in a vehicle (definitely not street legal) that hasn’t been seen in well over a century. And when a palace worker helps her out of the wreckage she’s like, “he’s judging me for the dirty dress :/“ Like bestie I promise that is the least of his problems right now

YESYESYES

Levana: “I can’t let my planet have another horrible Queen like my sister, I need to get rid of Selene! She won’t be fit to rule and she’ll be just like my sister! This is what will be best for Luna!”

Also Levana: Indirectly attempts to kill her niece, orders her husband and step daughter to be killed, takes babies from their parents mere hours after birth because of something they can’t control and leads parents to think it’s an infanticide but really she’s enslaving the children to harvest their blood to make a lab made virus, takes kids at young ages from their homes to tamper with their genetic makeup and make them into human-wolf hybrids and strip them of their humanity and rights, lets the majority of her planet live in poverty and work in extremely unsafe conditions and only give them weekly rations that barely sustain them at all, executes people randomly and publicly for little to no reason at times, does corporal punishment and executions of ENTIRE FAMILIES and groups of people for the little actions of a single person that could range from saying the princess is pretty to trying to flee the country to escape infanticide and slavery and poverty

Just finished The Mechanic and

Ahh…the beginning of Kai’s foot fetish. Seriously, a whole paragraph on that tiny little foot.

I hate this post because it’s true I fuckingndjsjsksdn

DONT DO THIS 

Oops…my hand slipped. 

There is no God in this barren wasteland that you call the lunar chronicles fandom

I hate you all

trying to get back into the art for joy rather than art for product mindset, I realized I’ve never really drawn the tlc girls but when I was first reading the books I would have loved to be able to draw them like this

So this is love mmm 🎶

This little line made me tear up because Iko is so precious. She just got mauled by Wolf and yet she still comes to Cinder’s aid without her even asking I jUst

GOSH

Iko is so under appreciated and it bugs me so much. This one if the only androids who has feelings and she uses her feelings to do good and help others. She never turns down the chance to help someone.