#they haven't been killing TRG just to kill them

[i-said-blimey]

I get that people love the rat grinders

and want to see them redeemed because they were being misled by their teachers

And maybe I would have been on that side if it hadn't been for KLCK. If it wasn't the slashing her own AP member's throat, it would the complaining about Riz having a hard life as if that somehow gave him advantage. If it wasn't the endangering students at the party, it would be the trying to bring about the apocalypse. I have as much sympathy for her as I have for Penelope, Biz and Dayne in freshman year.

In conclusion:

I don't really care much about the rest of TRG. Except maybe hating Ivy for being a fantasy racist. I even thought Oisin and Adaine would be cute together before it turned out there was nothing there at all. Ruben is insufferable but what teen boy isn't. I just don't think that him being a teenager makes him a wooby whose actions need to be ignored or justified.

I'm not saying it's bad to care about TRG or whatever. i just don't get why people are acting like TBK are awful for killing TRG when TRG have been making their lives miserable. And are also actively trying to bring about the apocalypse. Or worse that BLeeM and IH are horrible for not shifting the story from mystery solving to focusing on redeeming TRG

#dropout #dimension 20 #fantasy high #fhjy #fantasy high junior year #d20 #the rat grinders #the bad kids #i understand being disappointed with a season or wanting it to go a different way or whatever #and even criticizing their RP or storytelling abilities #valid criticism isn't my issue #but i do think it's wild to make moral judgements about the cast and creators #because your fave NPCs (i dont even get why but to each their own) aren't being redeemed #whatever discourse is discourse #i shouldn't wade into this but i am #this is mainly stuff ive been seeing on twitter but idk i just think it's wild #edit: also the bbegs this season are obvi porter and jace and that's how TBK have been playing it #they haven't been killing TRG just to kill them #they're doing it because they need to get the little guys out of the way to handle the dragon and the boss #but if the little guys are in the way they're in the way #edit 2: and this isn't me being anti trg or anti redemption #just anti making moral judgements on actors writers creators for your faves not ending up where you wanted them to

[kipperlillyforpresident]

okay here's my au pitch. everyone is talking about a "save kipperlilly from hell" campaign on twitter, and i do think that unironically it would be so good and i'd be so down for that. (the idea of the ratgrinders going "yeah thanks for saving us but you also killed us in the first place. and killed our friend. we know she did horrible things but she was Our Friend and you killed her. and we don't want to talk to you ever again, and we're going to get ours back" is really really . important to me. so.)

BUT. THIS IS KIPPERLILLYFORPRESIDENT. SO IM THINKING, what if they try to investigate hell and find out shes not there. because she got isekai'd. so they're like fuck, we gotta find her, we're not giving up. and so they do a bunch of planeshifting shit and find her and she's HAPPY there for once in her life and they have to try to convince her to come back while she keeps telling them it's BETTER here. the narrative is kinder, the WORLD is kinder. there is space for them here that is does not blend into the curtains and does not involve endlessly trying to bleed yourself dry for a redemption, a measure of KINDNESS from the world that isn't always tinged with "you should've known better".

and also a frostkettle ballroom scene-

oh my god. oh my goddd THIS IS SO DELICIOUS.

I haven't heard of that first TRG AU on twitter, but I love that one too. Like... tbh I kind of am just tossing out the way they barely had any control while being ragestarred...? Because it seems stupid to me. So I want them to have to like... deal with what they did. All while going down into hell.

But your own personal twist on the AU. OH MAMA!!! THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOOOOD.

And the fact that in an OI, like, you don't usually get isekai'd into a body Exactly Like Your Own. So the idea of like... she's a human who looks vaguely like their Kipperlilly. And they aren't really sure it's her. And then she reacts, and then they know.

And the fact that they aren't meant to belong here!!! this isn't a world where dragons are in society - it's a world where they're exclusively the monsters. this isn't a world with genasi or gnomes. they have not been Invited into this world, into this kindness of the narrative.

So they don't belong here. And yet Kipperlilly desperately wants them to stay. oh my god. oh my GODDD.

im going to rotate this so hard anon

#fhjy spoilers #asks #otome isekai au

[joannerowling]

(spoilers for The Running Grave) What did you think of Charlotte's character arc now that it has ended? I haven't seen much discussions of it but personally I think the chapter about her suicide was one of the most well written parts of the book. Strike's thought process afterwards, and his character development, really struck me too. Something I really love is that Jo's books are always more about how to survive death than they are about death itself. You see that all the time in both CS and HP, grief is an important part in all of those books. Everytime there's a scene dealing with grief, that's when her writing never fails to go straight to my heart. I'm thinking about Harry's reaction to Sirius' death in Dumbledore's office, or the way he learns and talks about his parents, Cedric, Sirius; about how Strike remembers his mother, etc. These moments are so moving. And in HP, she takes this even further, as the story is not about death but about literally surviving death (Harry surviving Avada Kedavra in book 1; Harry making peace with his own death in book 7 (that moment right after he watched Snape's memories and he's lying on Dumbledore's office's floor and it dawns on him he is meant to die, I think that's a very underrated HP moment)). Then you also have the fact that CS is just as much about the suspects/the characters who grieve than the victims/the characters who die. I think her approach to death, grief, surviving, is very interesting.

And also, the message behind Charlotte's suicide, that you can't help people that want to be saved, reminded me of the way the house elf liberation plotline was explored in HP and I thought it interesting to see that's the kind of messages Jo put in both her series.

Not to mention the social message behind it. When Strike thought that her death was a sort of "relief" because he won't ever again die of anxiety wondering how Charlotte is doing, because he should have seen it coming, because it was very likely to end like that -- god, as someone who has had relatives dying after following a self-destructive path, I felt that. It is incredibly depressing yet so realistic and Jo's awareness of those issues is beyond what I typically see in any other sort of media.

Anyway, I had many, many thoughts about that, sorry I rambled!

Thank you for your message (i'm keeping part 2 for a different response, since this one's getting long already!)

I was also really moved by Charlotte's death, specifically the deceptive lack of fanfare that makes it look almost anticlimatic at first glance. She kills herself, predictably for a character who has been presented as passively or actively suicidal from her introduction. Her death doesn't happen at the end and isn't relevant to the case. And yet it echoes one central theme of the book: self-destruction, which is what you do when you join a cult (it's a destruction of the individual). This is also hugely important in Strike's character journey, since TRG is the book where he rises above his most self-destructive impulses. Worth noting that Charlotte dies smack in the middle of the book too (ch. 64), so "central" is to be taken quite literally there.

It's almost as if Charlotte survived so far because Strike kept clinging to self-sabotaging impulses, and she could sense that. But as he truly has a new determination to move on and become a person who acts responsibly towards his own needs and the needs of others, she can no longer hold on to existence. There's both symbolism and realism there - we often talk about men committing murder-suicide on their ex-wife/girlfriend when they realise they no longer have any power over them; Charlotte doesn't go so far but the harm she attempts as her last gesture (the letter blaming him) is no less intentional.

I would just nuance the parallel you're making between Charlotte and the Elves situation in HP. The Elves are not beyond rescuing, they just need to be treated with respect, and that's the lesson Hermione learns from that subplot, not that she makes a mistake trying to change things. Whereas Strike does have to learn not only that he couldn't save Charlotte, but also, her happiness is not his responsibility, and playing hero to mentally ill women is a terrible coping mechanism for his issues in general.

#replies #anon #cs #trg #trg spoilers #cormoran strike #charlotte campbell