#this duology. as we can see. that requires *a lot*

[elijahs-dumps]

Nikolai Lantsov and his constant identity crisis known as Sturmhond

I'm currently in the process of re-reading all the Grishaverse books, and I'm about to start King of Scars. But before even starting to re-read that book I can see the seeds being planted when it comes to Nikolai's struggles with his identity. I feel like this is a really underrated aspect of Nikolai's character, which is strange to me since it's basically what his entire main arc is about in the King of Scars duology. This is why it was hinted at in Siege and Storm as well as Ruin and Rising.

Nikolai loves to be loved. Because of this, he is constantly changing his personality or demeanor to please whoever he is talking too. Alina mentions this many times through out Siege and Storm, and even believes it to be "creepy" how easily Nikolai can change himself for others. It's part of the reason why it takes her so long to truly trust Nikolai.

However, Sturmhond is a persona created by Nikolai for Nikolai. The differences between Sturmhond and Nikolai are minute, but they're undeniably there. For example, Sturmhond relies on his greed to make his decisions. He's also quicker to resort to violence than Nikolai usually is. He's still clever, forthcoming, charming, flirty, rich, well-respected. All the basic things that make Nikolai himself to the untrained eye, but it's the smaller differences that truly matter. In any role that Nikolai has to play through out his life, he always tries to keep the "main" or "most obvious" parts of himself present. These small changes are what make the bigger difference, especially since it's harder for others to pick up on when he interacts with them.

Sturmhond was originally created as a way for Nikolai to command respect or instill fear with his crew and his enemies, when it was necessary. Being a sea captain required Nikolai to abandon a lot of the things he'd learned while growing up in the Grand Palace and serving in the First Army. Thus, Sturmhond was born!

But after Sturmhond's reputation was secured, Nikolai most definitely could've started to slip back into his true self. The persona was not as necessary anymore. But Nikolai, at least while he was at sea, still didn't truly know who he was when he was not performing for others. I think Nikolai clung to Sturmhond because he was scared of having to figure out who he is when he's not pretending all the time.

We see Nikolai contemplating becoming Sturmhond again near the end of Rule of Wolves, very briefly. And t's safe to say a big part of Nikolai misses his life as a privateer. Sturmhond has always been and always will be the freest Nikolai will ever feel. Because, there are differences between the two identities, but it's all still Nikolai in the end. Yes, Sturmhond was inevitable in many ways, especially since Nikolai needed to avoid the risk of capture. But when Nikolai became a privateer, I think he knew a new identity was bound to be needed. Nikolai chose at life at sea, therefore he chose to become Sturmhond. While most of his other identities were most likely born out of necessity. This is partially why he's so attached to the persona of Sturmhond, because it's one of the only things in Nikolai's life that he has been able to decide for himself.

That's why I think the concept of Sturmhond is the main contributor to Nikolai's issues with identity. Because even though Nikolai always knew he needed to obtain the throne eventually, he still enjoyed his freedom. In fact, freedom might be the only thing Nikolai craves more than validation from others. This scares Nikolai, because validation from others is something he can almost always get when he needs to. But his freedom, away from Ravka and its royal court, is not something he's ever been able to control in that way.

#six of crows #grishaverse #shadow and bone #nikolai lantsov #rule of wolves #siege and storm #zoya nazyalensky #sturmhond #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #matthias helvar #nina zenik #crooked kingdom #analysis #the grisha trilogy

[shadowkat678]

Hopepunk: A Thing Of Teeth And Claws

Hope is a thing with feathers, says a famous poem by Emily Dickinson.

But what happens to that small thing of feathers once it's caught? When the horror around it crashes down, and the song is drowned out in pain and anger and apathy at a world that doesn’t seem to be capable of, and doesn’t want, to change?

I’m tired. I’m angry. I'm afraid. I don’t remember the last time those things weren’t true about me. I don’t have control over what is happening to the world, or to the people I care about. I don’t know if I have a future.

I’m tired.

I know it isn’t just me. I’ve seen it. I’ve been in activism spaces for years now, where that same anger is everywhere. The push to want to do something. To enact some sort of meaningful change in a world that seems hellbent on turning people into nothing but variables and numbers towards goals we are not calculated into otherwise. Where those with the best of intentions burn themselves out in their rage because they feel like there’s nothing else left to be driven by. I feel it in me. It’s not unjustified. But it is exhausting.

Once you’ve gone long enough shoveling coal on the fire you’ll run out, and you can’t burn ashes. Something is close to giving.

I’m tired.

Even more than being tired at the state of the world, I’m tired of what it does to me. I’m tired of my inability to have these feelings result in something good. I’m tired of not being able to have control over my life. I’m tired of seeing the people around me being crushed under circumstances far above our ability to affect. I’m not just tired. I’m exhausted.

But Hopepunk. This term came out a few years ago, coined by Alexandria Rowland. They're the author of the Taste of Gold and Iron series, as well as the duology A Conspiracy of Truths and A Choir of Lies, among others. In 2017, they coined the term Hopepunk, positing it as the opposite of Grimdark. In the post original post on the subject Alexandra says,

“Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion. Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world.”

The ideology of Hopepunk was based on the time of the article’s current political landscape. Protests, civil unrest, and feelings of anger that were (still are, I’d argue) spreading like wildfire. And in a small circle, this caught on. There wasn’t much to go off of, and the ideas that spread from this post didn’t have a uniformity to it as much as other Punk genres of political and literary analysis. There were, and are, a lot of critics believing the term to be yet another line of fluffy optimism and half empty words.

A year later, Alexandria would publish an article on the subject, expanded upon additional reflection, called One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives on the blog Optimistic Indie Roleplaying. This is when I first heard of Hopepunk.

Alexandria writes in their opening:

“In July of 2017, I coined the word “Hopepunk,” initially defined very simply in a Tumblr post. I believe the purpose of this article’s commission was to have me write something uplifting. I don’t know if I can. I think it would be (I’m afraid it would be) nice. (…) Nice is an illusion, and so is the suddenness of realizing the lie.”

Alexandria goes on:

“I’m afraid. I’m losing my story, my belief in an atom of justice. I watch it happen, a little more every day, unraveling from my hands—and I’m a professional storyteller. (…) I’m afraid of who I’ll be when the last threads slip out of my fingers. I’m afraid of settling into complacency, of something in me breaking, of retreating into niceness as the last-ditch sanctuary before complete despair.

“Hopepunk says [about human nature], ‘The glass is half full,’” wrote the me who lived in mid-2017. Seems naïve now, doesn’t it? Those are the words of a person cloaked in a story that hasn’t yet been worn threadbare and ragged; a person who thinks they have a sword in their hands, a person who thinks that they as an individual can make a difference, that there is some fundamental goodness in humanity.

What do we do when our hands are empty, when our warm cloaks are gone, when we look around and see how big the world is? When we see how helpless and insignificant we are, how the rest of the world isn’t even particularly cruel or evil, just . . . mediocre? Complacent?

What’s the point?”

And as I read this now, years later in 2023, I feel this sentiment burrowing deeper inside me than ever before. This is what I see in myself. In the people around me. In the world, spinning away into what seems to be never ending disasters and war and pain.

What's the point?

It seems that day by day the hole is dug deeper. The world feels as if it’s ending. But then again, to someone, somewhere, the world has always felt as if it was on the verge of ending, hasn’t it?

I also am a storyteller. I have always believed there is power in it. In how you can create something that becomes real around you. That reflects our own reality in new ways. Things that connect us. Empower us. That’s what art is for me. That’s what it always has been, when the night is long and I need something, anything, to grab onto.

Like Alexandria, I feel my grip on the story around me slipping. The threads are frayed. And I am so tired.

I feel like a child pretending. Hoping that this will make things feel less terrifying when the lights go out and I’m alone in the dark and the day is so impossibly far away. I’m afraid. I'm terrified.

I’m not a hero, and I don’t know if I have the tools to fight monsters like this. These are not problems that can be solved with spells or swords or pretty words. The world around me is burning.

I’m burning.

So, what do we do when we find ourselves here? When hope, the thing of wings and feathers, has been shot down in front of us? When softness is not enough? When nice is just platitudes? What can I do when the world and its problems are so big and I’m so small?

“What is the point?” Alexandra asks. “How do you do it? How do you manage when the task before you is enormous and impossible? (…) How do you go on?”

Hopepunk isn’t just about the Hope part of the word. What is Punk? Not just the music. The ideology. The movement. The message? We all have a thought about what Hope is. What defines Punk?

I listen to the music, and have for a while. I have a lot of friends who are punks. I’d like to think I’m a bit of a punk myself, though I haven’t had the energy or means of connecting with the scene in person. There’s a variety to it. Subgenres of music. Differences in ideas. But let me tell you one thing I’ve noticed about all punks:

They’re goddamn stubborn bastards. And at least for the vast majority, they’re passionate goddamn stubborn bastards.

I’ve been interested in the punk movement for years. Two of my favorite books on the subject of the punk movement are “Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk” by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, and “Punk Rock, An Oral History” by John Robb.

There’s a long running joke in punk circles about a young punk asking an older punk that very question of what punk is. The older punk smiles, strides up to a trash can, and kicks it over before turning around, pointing, and saying “That’s punk”.

The younger punk thinks on this, then sees another trash can before going over and copying the move, turning around after punting the second can and asking, “That’s punk?”

Before the older punk shakes his head and replies, “No! You poser!”

Point of the story? What is punk? Fuck if I or anyone else actually knows! It’s not about following directions, or going down a checklist. Certainly not just copying everyone else before you. But you know it when you feel it.

Recently, Punk has been idealized a lot. People forget that Punk isn’t just about insolent people lashing out against authority and sticking it to the man. It isn’t just about individualism and loud songs.

Despite not knowing exactly WHAT punk is, never having one clear cut uniform answer, we can see it when it's in front of us. There’s a sound to it. A spirit. A vibe. And there are commonalities that run as a throughline.

In the intro to Punk Rock, and Oral History, Henry Rowlins was invited to share some of his thoughts in the volume. He says,

“Everyone had their own version of punk. Everyone decided what punk was for them. There were endless arguments about what we were fighting for, what we should be wearing (…), what we should listen to and how we were going to change the world.

Punk terrified the establishment. Punk made me get onstage and make music. Punk made me change my world. Punk…punk saved my life.”

Punk has long been considered one of the more nihilistic musical genres, having a thriving subsect of Political Punk dedicated to pointing out and raging at the wrongs of the world the artists see around them. Punk is angry. Punk is passionate. Punk is loud, and messy, and sometimes even ugly, and moreover, there’s room for all of it.

But its stereotypical image perhaps isn't one most people would default to when thinking about the mainstream idea of Hope. Hope is supposed to be something soft, isn't it?

Back to the article, Alexandria gives their answer to what they think the point is, and it is one that feels much more connected to the punk part of Hopepunk.

“Sheer, simple, bloody-minded obstinacy. That’s how you count the stars, build the Library of Alexandria, and go to the North Pole. That’s how you hold the story even when it’s unraveling in your hands. You grit your teeth, and bear the pain, and keep going: One star at a time, one brick at a time, one step at a time.

You can do a lot when you decide to be a stubborn motherfucker who refuses to die.(…) Ask it of Hopepunk, then: “What’s the point?”

And the answer is, of course, that the fight itself is the point.

I am not just tired. I am afraid. I am angry. I am furious. The idea of rage is generally thought of as very punk.

But Hope. Let’s go back to hope. Where does hope come in, that fragile thing made of feathers and song? I am not soft. Not really. I feel myself shattering, jagged edges that will cut me if I let them. That will cut others. Even those I want to help. Even those who don’t deserve it. That the anger will bleed out and burn everything around me. How does that fit with hope?

I believe in stories. That we can learn from them. Moreover, in the end, I believe that everything is a story. History is a story. People are stories. The future is a story we simply haven’t seen the ending to yet, and so can still shape the path of. And like stories, all these elements tie together. Stings whose threads make up a tapestry.

I’ve been thinking a lot about stories lately. About certain ones that have heavily impacted my own. About ones I’ve made, either by myself or with others, both real and imaginary. In Alexandria’s first post, they mentioned a certain scene from the Two Towers.

As Frodo falls to his lowest point, burdened by the influence of the One Ring, not knowing if his other friends are even still alive, carrying a burden bigger than any one person should ever have to shoulder, Sam gives his speech.

Sam: “It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

And as he says this, Frodo asks what I find myself asking. What many people ask, I think. What are we holding onto? And the answer: “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”

In my anger, in this darkness around us, it can be hard to see anything else. But that has not been all my story is. That said, anger is important. Anger, placed properly, and aimed towards a purpose, can be righteous. It can be a driving motivation towards change. It glows in you...but it can’t be all I have. A fire on its own will eventually burn itself out. What is anger without something the anger is driving you to do in a real, meaningful, way?

“It’s about being kind merely for the sake of kindness, and because you have the means to be, and giving a fuck because the world is (somehow, mysteriously, against all evidence) worth it and we don’t have anywhere else to go anyway.

It’s about digging in your heels and believing that one single atom of justice, one molecule of mercy does exist somewhere in the mindboggling vastness of the universe—believing in that, even if for no other reason than fuck you, buddy; fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I do what I want and this, this is what I want; this is the world I want to live in:

One where the atom of justice exists, even if I’ve never seen it myself, even if I’ll never see it.

It’s about doing the one little thing you can do, even if it’s useless: planting seeds in the midst of the apocalypse, spitting on a wildfire, bailing out the ocean with a bucket. Individual action is almost always pointless.

Hope and strength comes from our bonds with each other, from the actions we take as a community, holding hands in the dark.

What if hope isn’t just a thing of feathers and wings and song? What if punk isn’t just about anger and insolence and lashing out against the world around you? What if the world, people, and stories aren’t so simple?

I can’t answer what Hope is, what Punk is, or what Hopepunk is as an idea binding these two words together to anyone but me. I do know what my story has been. And I know the stories I’ve been told. The stories I’ve witnessed. The stories I’ve touched.

I’m tired. I’m angry. I can’t not be anymore. I don’t think it’s possible. It’s part of me. Perhaps something even greater would be wrong if they weren’t.

But I also remember the people who’ve come into my life in ways that seem so small in comparison, yet somehow, inexplicably, still changed me to the point I continue to think about them years later. The woman who approached me, sitting outside and crying after being almost fired from my first job and, with no possibility of reconciliation, bought me a sandwich and sat with me while I waited to be picked up. Friends that stayed with me during some of the worst times of my life. Strangers that turned into those friends.

In spite of it all, I’ve also seen so much love.

I have always hated false dichotomies. These truths can coexist, and like the tapestry of stories, wind together into something bigger. The softness of hope does not feel like it can survive the type of anger and force and sometimes nihilism of punk. The good in the world feels like it should be shattered under the darkness.

Maybe it all morphs into something new.

Maybe hope becomes a thing of teeth and claws, bared in defense of life’s small everyday acts of love. Friendship. Community. Of myself, and proof that the world is brighter than my own frustration makes it feel. Of all the things that exist in contrast that make these very injustices sting so very much.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be fragile. Maybe hope can be bloody and messy and stubborn and defiant, even in the face of my fear and exhaustion and pain. Maybe it can make something more balanced. Something stronger, as all these contrasting elements come together and inform each other with new perspectives.

Maybe it can be what saves me.

Near the end of the article, Alexandria says this:

Hopepunk isn’t pristine and spotless. Hopepunk is grubby, because that’s what happens when you fight. It’s hard. It’s filthy, sweaty, backbreaking work that never ends. It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t noble, and it isn’t nice, though I expect the natural inclination (and even my own instinctive inclination) is to make it so—to forget the word “radical” in the phrase “radical kindness,” to forget the “punk” part of “hopepunk,” which is really the operative half of the word. To forget the anger of it and let it soften, because softness is what we’re aching for. We want the world to be better—kinder, more just, more merciful. We still yearn toward noblebright, toward an honest and desperate belief that love conquers all.

But we forget, sometimes, that we have knives too in this empire. That we can unsheathe them, that we can turn our blades to the defense of an atom of justice and a molecule of mercy that might not even exist—except . . . except for where we make them exist, in the hands we hold out to each other, and in the shelter we offer even when we ourselves are exhausted, footsore, and filthy, with the wolves at our doors.

Maybe this doesn’t even have to be big acts. It’s something I’ve grappled with often. The feeling that where I am now is not enough. That what I do cannot change the course of the tale I find myself part of. That I can only be a passive observer as things happen around and to me. That I am so helplessly unable to make any meaningful difference in my own story.

And I want to, so desperately. But maybe those first steps can lead to more. The shelter and small words said earnestly in a time of need is just as much a part of this as life altering choices I want to be able to wield.

I've always dreamed of enacting change. Of being someone who could somehow inspire another person the way the stories of others had inspired and saved me. The books I clutched in my hands when the world was too big, and I was far too small. But it's good to remember that even the imposing might of mountains eventually wears under the passing of water.

I still feel like that child more often than not, and that everything I do in spite of it is just a mask dangerously close to slipping. But just as much as those stories, everyday people did the same in touching me, and shaping me. The right word spoken after tragedy. Encouragement from those who bothered to pay attention to things I did not speak aloud.

Maybe I should also reconsider the worth of myself in being the hand that stretches out to other people. Maybe that kindness is just as much a part of this as my anger and fear.

I’m tired of being only angry. Of being only sharp edges and fire and fear and burning myself to ashes in a way that harms none of the people doing this to us. I’m tired of missing the joy while I can have it based on the actions of a few hollow, spiteful, greedy, and selfish bastards that only care about themselves, damn the rest.

So, I will be a thing of teeth and claws when needed. And I will grow fur to keep those close to me warm. Because despite my anger, and fear, and exhaustion, the world is still, somehow, worth it. People are worth it. I am worth it. My story can impact others, and the story of humanity is not yet fully penned.

I have to believe that. If it is not so, then I have to make it so, even out of pure, stubborn, spiteful obstinance. That people are not evil at base, because I am not, and I am not special in the grand scheme of things.

I am just a person. We are all just people, grasping for things to drive and carry us day to day. And people are both kind and horrible. Messy tapestries of different things tying us together into something unique and terrifying and amazing and horrible and full of wonder and joy and anger and fear and beauty.

All of us, each and every one, desperately trying to keep hold of our stories before someone else twists them out of our hands.

Another common example of Hopepunk is a scene in Terry Pratchett's "The Hogfather", spoken by Death. A scene Alexandria discusses and also references in the name of their own original article. Here, Death explains that humanity must first learn to believe the small lies, such as Hogfathers and tooth fairies, so eventually they can come to believe the big ones.

Justice. Mercy. Duty.

Hope.

As is true of many concepts in Diskworld, when asked by the character Susan "Well we have to believe in that, or else what is the point?", Death answers back, "My point exactly. You need to believe in things that are not true. How else can they become?"

My kindness will be worth it, because it made me and those around me a little happier. Even if it hurts me in the end. I am not naive to the world around me. I am angry. I am tired. I am scared. I am just one person. And maybe in the end it's how Alexandria says:

There are no heroes and no villains. There are just people. That’s Hopepunk: Whether the glass is half full or half empty, what matters is that there’s water in that glass. And that’s something worth defending.

Stand with each other, and never let the person beside you forget that to move forward we need something to hold onto, whether knife or outstretched hand. There is still good in this world. Even if we have to fight to create it ourselves with every step we take.

No story is over until the final word has been penned…and even with all the horrors and uncertainty of the journey, we don’t have to travel through ours alone.

#hopepunk #essay

[fundiscrimination]

A bit of a controversial choice for today

Kaz Brekker-Six of Crows Duology & Shadow and Bone Tv Series

I'm not gonna get into all the issues surrounding intersections sexual orientation, disability, and trauma here, but let me know if anyone's interested in my thoughts on all that because I do have them (I have a lot)

To keep it simple I believe there's support for this in the text. He may want a romantic relationship but I don't think he wants sex, or least not more than he thinks he should or that it's what a relationship requires.

This is actually the kind of ace character I would love to see more of, if it was actually canon. It's messy and it's dynamic, it challenges easy neat narratives and categories. Just like real life ace people can and do. We shouldn't be afraid of that

#ace week #asexuality #queerness #ace headcanons #six of crows #shadow and bone

[rhetoricandlogic]

Alexandra Pierce Reviews

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

April 21, 2023

Getting through the first few chapters of this debut novel required trust. I haven’t read Emily Tesh’s Greenhollow duology (2019 and 2020), so I had no sense of what her work is like. I have read a lot of Tordotcom’s publications, though, so I had to hope that there was more to the story than initially met my eye. You see, the first few chapters were both oddly familiar and creepy. The familiarity came from an opening setup like many military SF stories: humanity striving against aliens and impossible odds, doing what’s right for the species, individuals subsumed to the military cause (and the ‘‘population targets’’; at which no one who’s read Joanna Russ’s We Who Are About To can help but shudder). The creepiness is in reading this in 2023, from a woman, and from a publish­ing house that I know for its progressive work. It took a leap of faith to keep going.

It did eventually become clear Tesh has crafted an outstanding novel for her debut precisely in subverting all those tropes that troubled me. Indeed, early as it is in 2023, I’ll say it’s likely to be one of the best debut novels of the year.

Valkyr – Kyr to most people – has grown up on Gaea, the last noncollaborating outpost of humanity left after the destruction of Earth. She’s a warbreed, genetically enhanced, and constant drills, plus seeing every other person as competi­tion, have made her very, very good at fighting. Her entire life revolves around the expectation that she will assigned to a combat unit so that she can strike a blow against the majo – all the alien species who contributed to the destruction of Earth, and its 14 billion inhabitants. The only person she really has time for is her brother, Magnus, since her older sister Ursa turned traitor and left Gaea many years ago. Eventually Kyr is compelled to leave Gaea on a mission of her own devising – taking humanity’s revenge on the aliens into her own hands, after feeling betrayed by Gaea’s hierarchy. And that’s when everything starts to unravel.

There is a long list of content warnings that precede the opening of Some Desperate Glory, particularly around the attitudes and language of some of the characters (they gave me heart that there was more going on than initial impressions suggested, although other readers may find them off-putting; it’s a more hopeful book than the warnings may suggest). One of the warnings is around radicalization, Kyr and the entire cohort of Gaea having been radicalized by the adults in charge. Once Kyr has left Gaea, she begins a slow and painful deradicalization – which requires, in the first place, a recognition that such a thing is necessary, itself a deeply troubling experience. She is aided in this partly by new people – an alien held captive on Gaea, and a friend of her brother who really doesn’t fit Gaean expectations – but also by finally seeing more clearly the people who have always been around her, especially Magnus.

Kyr is rarely likeable, especially in the first half of the novel. She is driven and ambitious and passionate – all qualities that can be turned to good or evil, and her circumstances on Gaea mean that those qualities were turned early on towards a single goal: revenge on aliens, whom she does not see as people. She is an unpleasant messmate, singularly focused on making the rest of her mess into appropriate Gaean citizens; she is as emotionally ignorant as it is possible to be, and entirely lacking in self-awareness beyond her fighting abilities. She is exactly what Gaea has trained her to be. Tesh’s ability to present all of that and still make Kyr a compelling character – to make her development and gradual change make sense within her context – are testament to her remarkable talent. The rest of the cast, while important, rather pale in comparison to the monumental journey Kyr is on, emotionally and intellectually.

Tesh presents no easy answers to the issues she raises. The Earth really was destroyed, because the Wisdom deemed that it was necessary to do so for the greatest good. The Wisdom, something like an AI with the ability to shape and change reality, was built thousands of years ago by the majo. This is what Kyr is ultimately confronted by: both the Wisdom itself, and also its reasons for acting. Is it appropriate to sacrifice one for the many – in this case, a truly galactic-scale version of the trolley problem: one planet for how many others?

This is a spectacular space opera. It’s bold, imaginative, occasionally grim, and ultimately hopeful that individuals can change, and can make a difference. It’s not a light read – with themes like genocide and racism, that would be hard – but it’s rewarding, and I suspect will reward a second and third reading.

#Emily Tesh #Some Desperate Glory #mahreviews #long post

[cartograffiti]

January '24 reading diary

I finished a whopping 17 books in January, thanks to picking up a lot of quicker reads (novellas! poetry! manga!), and a bunch of them were really exciting!

At Christmas, my mother bought a copy of Taskmaster: 220 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People for the assembled family to pass among ourselves. It's fun and funny, but there's very little in it I'm likely to try. It's also worth noting that the book was published in 2018 and Alex Horne ran a contest alongside it, which means that there are some prompts with a 2019 deadline, and some that require going to specific places in the United Kingdom.

Some cookbooks! Pieometry: Modern Tart Art and Pie Design for the Eye and the Palate was another Christmas gift to me, by the amazing Instagram sensation Lauren Ko. I've always found her very precise decorations intimidating, and I doubt I'll attempt more than the simplest of the ones she gives instructions for here, but they're inspiring to look at, and I very much want to try some of the recipes for interesting fillings and naturally colored crusts.

I picked up Snacking Bakes by Yossy Arefi after seeing someone claim that an earlier Arefi book, Snacking Cakes, had changed the landscape of home baking in the US. I found the recipes in Bakes really basic, but I hopped into the much longer hold line for Cakes, so maybe in a couple of months I can tell you how much that's hype.

I probably won't make anything from Tasting History by Max Miller, but I like him on YouTube, and expected that. This is a book for reading about historical cooking, and the recipes are a bonus if one really intrigues you. Nice details, well laid out.

It fit in nicely with a couple of reading challenges to read a Pablo Neruda collection--I chose The Essential Neruda on the basis that Hoopla had it--and I enjoyed it hugely. I'd read Neruda poems from time to time as a child and student, mostly ones about nature and love, but this collection has a nice breadth to it, introducing me to examples of his work that deal with labor exploitation and political events. I can't speak to the quality of translation, but even only knowing his work in English, I find the rhythm and imagery really special and memorable. I'm especially fond of "Drunk as Drunk on Turpentine." He's one of the most famous Chilean writers, and I'm glad to be more familiar now with the reasons why.

Last month, I said that my mother and I had started working through a hard Nick Bantock puzzle book, and we were very impressed with it. It's called The Egyptian Jukebox, and it's a succession of interesting puzzles about interpreting the contents of photographed shadowbox "drawers." Mom, who is an excellent codebreaker, worked out a core mechanic pretty swiftly, while I floundered with wrong approaches for a bit and then asked her to confirm whether I was finally on the right track; that made the first few pages the hardest part, and the rest relied more heavily on my strengths of observation and lateral thinking. We both found the final solution extra fun because of a personal connection, but I think the journey will be satisfying enough for most puzzlers.

I've been trying to read literally any Becky Chambers book for multiple years without getting around to it, but this month I listened to the audiobooks of A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy and just adored them. This is a duology about Sibling Dex, a monk whose role is to serve tea and listen to people's problems, and Mosscap, the first robot anyone has seen since robots became sapient and withdrew from human society, generations ago. They travel together, with beautiful writing about nature, spirituality, and various kinds of social responsibility. Every bit as good as I'd heard.

Dumb Witness is a solid mid-range Agatha Christie mystery (which is to say better than most people's), an inheritance murder plot involving a letter sent months after it was dated, interesting poison facts, and key evidence from a dog. It's a bit dated, because it relies on subverting some ideas about mental health and xenophobia that have changed since 1937. I can appreciate what she did, but at a remove.

More than one of the reading challenges I'm doing this year call for reading a manga. I like manga, but I probably haven't read any in about 10 years, since I read all sorts of Clamp and shoujo and shounen with high school friends. I fell off as my tastes moved to series aimed at young adults, which were at the time harder to find in my area. Anyway, I'm excited to have gotten sucked into a manga again! I'd seen some of Shirahama Kamome's beautiful art from Witch Hat Atelier and I quickly fell in love with the story, which surrounds Coco, a young witch being taught to work magic using art supplies. The interpersonal relationships are strong, the apprentices are real people with distinct outlooks, and the larger plot about what kinds of magic are banned, and whether they should be, is fascinating. I tore through volumes 1-5, and I have two more checked out and another on hold. Both cheerful and serious, original, and not set in a school environment. Lovely, and one of several things motivating me to try drawing again lately.

The Emelan group read has gone into the Circle Reforged novels, and we're reading in chronological order. Battle Magic was...fine? Not the most interesting Pierce major arc, but lots of interesting things woven through it. It was written in her period of slower pacing, which I don't like as much.

I know several big fans of Dorothy Dunnett's 16th century historical fiction drama the Lymond Chronicles, and oh man am I on the boat now too. The Game of Kings is so confusing (complimentary), full of emotion and grabby characters, and I fell in love. She expects a lot of her readers. I sent in the chat where I'm live blogging that, "Here's an obscure Ancient Roman. Now understand an allusion to how a particular beetle moves. Jokes in five languages. And there's even a plot." Sometimes it's overwhelming, but it's also exactly my kind of thing, every chapter has at least one perfect scene, and Dunnett does some incredible literary magic tricks. One night I felt like I felt like I was being crushed in a vise. I'm already reading the next one, which has a reveal that made me stop reading for fully 40 minutes while I unpicked what I'd missed. I want to write fanfiction. God.

And yesterday I put on a sim game and listened in one sitting to all of Malka Older's The Mimicking of Known Successes, a wonderful sci-fi novella about a detective (Mossa) on Jupiter collaborating with her former college girlfriend (Pleiti) to investigate a case that touches on Pleiti's research, the study of ecological history with the hope of repairing Earth's ecosystem enough for humanity to return to it. Their chemistry is great, the plot is clever, and the dialogue in particular is shiny and tender. I found a couple of world-building beats underdeveloped--there's a thing about "conservative" being a slur in this future that I don't think stuck the landing of indicating the threat being conservative posed to people who had to change or die--but I look forward to reading the next.

#To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June #reading diary #bookblr

[youritalianbookpal]

Ten Questions Book Review - Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong

What is it? Years after Our Violent Ends, we find Rosalind Lang as an immortal assassin for the Kuomintang. What happens when her superiors assign her as the fake wife of Orion Hong, known playboy actually working for the Kuomintang as well, in a mission to stop the Japanese invasion of China?

Who should read it? If you have read the These Violent Delights duology, if you love pretend relationships, sunshine/grumpy, little sisters who can (and will) kick ass, men who either communicate too much or too little and in either case are a HUGE HEADACHE, sisterhood, and a little bit of magic realism, this is the book for you. I want to add that, while it is suggested, it is not imo strictly required that you read the other duology first - everything that has to be explained to understand what is going on with Rosalind and the others is recalled and narrated within this duology.

Which genre(s) is it? Historical fantasy, YA.

What is the setting? Shanghai (mainly), 1931.

How are the characters? Rosalind, Celia, and Alisa had a lot of potential in the previous series, and I am glad we are getting the opportunity to see them develop more. On the other hand, we have the three Hong siblings that, while lovely, are a bit less developed. I look forward to more Phoebe and Oliver POVs in the next book (and Orion, sure, but he at least got something out of this novel already, more than his siblings at least). I also liked the depiction of less prominent characters, overall a good job in my opinion.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the novel? The thing I liked best in the novel was probably the characters, as they emerge strongly from the pages. The action is mostly character-driven, to me (I say this because, from the Storygraph reviews, basically no one thinks that lol), and the plot twists actually make sense only if we look with attention at the characters involved. And I always appreciate a plot twist that makes sense. One weakness, as I might have mentioned for the two previous Gong books I've reviewed, is that sometimes very modern vocabulary or concepts are used in the 1930s settings and... it takes me a bit out of the world that is being built by the novels. I have to say, I had more problems with the previous two books, but I still had to google a couple of things while reading Foul Lady Fortune and... an editor should have googled if people really said that stuff in the 1930s, not me.

Did I cry and/or laugh? As far as I can remember, I didn't cry, but Orion and Phoebe for sure have made me laugh out loud.

Who shouldn’t read the book? There is a lot of murder and blood in this. Rosalind describes in detail her injuries (since she can't die from them, she can tell you a lot about them). If you do not like this sort of description, this novel is not for you.

Any random comment? I'm not sure if it fits them or not, but The Only Exception came randomly on my Spotify while I was reading this I can't not take it as a sign that it's a great song for Rosalind and Orion.

Which quote stuck with me?

Rosalind pressed up against the wall, exhaling into the empty hallway. A child who needs discipline? That was a complete and utter joke. They had the longest continuous history of any country in the world. They had been around for dynasties upon dynasties. And yet... and yet. When did imperialists care about history?All they wanted was to crush its conquests to dust: all the better to sweep them nicely into shape.

#ten questions book review #chloe gong #foul lady fortune #book review

[shirubae]

The New Silver: The Sonic Rivals 1+2 Analysis

With Sonic 06‘s reset, Silver gains a new introduction in the Sonic Rivals duology. We players have already met Silver, even though the characters don't remember each other.

Unfortunately, already knowing Silver means he doesn’t get a lot of character exploration. Rivals has a weak "excuse plot" that's just a backdrop to set up races; Rivals 2 tries a little harder. The textbox cutscenes don’t leave much room for narratization either, but we’ll manage.

Because these games are short, we’ll do both analyses in one post.

Sonic Rivals: Meeting Silver

Though his future is no longer an Iblis-torn hellscape, Silver still travels through time. He is now presented as something like a “time keeper”, a hero who ensures the safety of his own era by fighting those who tamper with the past. It’s a more sustainable role than getting tricked by Mephiles, so it’s better in the long run.

In this game, Silver pursues the interdimensional criminal Eggman Nega, who has escaped into the past with a special camera that can trap things within cards. Silver decides to check on the original Dr. Eggman, Nega's ancestor. This leads Silver to Onyx Island at the same time as Sonic and the others.

The plot points are unimportant, as they boil down to Silver chasing Dr. Eggman all over the island while bumping into rivals. He is determined yet secretive about his mission, displaying that classic tunnel-vision of his. He remains emotionally distant and doesn't make any allies the entire game, only briefly teaming up with Sonic and later Shadow. It’s ironic that he went from too trusting in 06 to barely trusting at all in Rivals.

Silver’s interactions with Sonic are the most interesting, since Sonic seems legitimately annoyed but also intrigued by his forcefulness. This is technically their first meeting, and while it isn’t very amicable, it’s nicer than Silver trying to kill him.

Later on, Sonic uses Silver’s obsession with his mission to get another race out of him. Sonic enjoys their little rivalry, but Silver is more focused on doing his job.

Eventually, Silver puts together that the Eggman he’s been pursuing is Nega in disguise (poor kid ain't the sharpest). He and Shadow work with the real Eggman to follow Nega to space, stopping him from trapping the entire planet in a card.

Although Silver didn't befriend any of the cast, it appears Sonic and Shadow have won his respect, as he expresses confidence in leaving the past in their hands.

Sonic Rivals 2: Learning to Trust

Upon his return, Silver found the future in burning ruins thanks to the invincible fire monster Ifrit. Now he’s back to fix things again. It's definitely a callback to his old origins with Iblis.

This time he's not hunting anyone, but rather protecting the Chao that the Ifrit requires to become invincible. However, Eggman Nega is back too, being the one who summons the Ifrit. It’s a race between Silver and Nega to collect Chao.

To everyone else, it looks like Silver is randomly kidnapping Chao. This gets the Chaotix involved, and Espio begins tailing Silver. Espio quickly gets found out, but Silver’s naivete and hyperfocus allow him to stay undercover.

Sonic is charmed to see him again, but Silver couldn't care less. Maybe Sonic doesn’t have his trust after all? Silver still isn’t interested in making friends, and just wants to fulfill his mission. This time Silver turns the tables, using Sonic's competitive spirit to start a contest to collect Chao and further his own interests. That's a sort of cunning we've never seen him use before.

However, once Espio finally confronts Silver about the Chao-napping, Silver explains the Ifrit threat and accepts his help. He’s quite abrasive about it, making clear that this is a temporary alliance.

But this team-up turns out to be invaluable, as Silver overworks and exhausts his psychokinesis, requiring Espio to gather rings for him. It shows how bad Silver is at self-preservation, and it acts as a wake-up call that he doesn’t have to work alone and he must rely on others.

Silver appreciates Espio's loyalty. Espio honors a ninja code and is dedicated to his mission from Vector, just like how Silver is dedicated to his mission from the future. It’s also handy that Espio's tactical thinking helps Silver plan the road to his goals. The two make a good team; it’s not quite like Silver and Blaze’s dynamic, since Espio is less hot-headed and more dorky, but it’s close. (I guess Silver has a soft spot for purple people lol).

They foil Nega’s plot by freeing the Chao, but he still opens a portal to the Ifrit's dimension (definitely reminiscent of Crisis City). Silver and Espio enter it and defeat the Ifrit, ensuring the beast never makes it to their world. Nega gets caught under rubble, and Silver and Espio are such savages that they just leave him there. That’s cold.

Silver has a nice goodbye with Espio and returns to the future. Wonderful! Someone finally managed to crack through his shell and befriend him. This initiates a trend of Silver getting gradually more friendly with Sonic and the others over time. It’s also good to see Espio getting some actual use as a character and not just comic relief.

Conclusion

Silver’s new introduction in Rivals is okay. It shows us a Silver who is more independent, but just as (if not more) stubborn. Other than that, there isn't much new information, and the story definitely doesn’t carry the same emotional weight of 06. He's still a well-meaning kid going about things the only way he knows how, just without so much apocalyptic angst now.

His newfound friendship with Espio in Rivals 2 is nice, and it reflects how Silver has always struggled socially. Compared to Blaze's similar arc in Rush about letting people help, Silver's realization is more shallow. It doesn't fundamentally change him like it does with Blaze, only leaving him more open to the idea. Maybe this is a trait to be explored further in another story.

Still, it’s good that they made a new place for Silver. He doesn’t have to be the same panicked, traumatized kid he was in 06. Note that the first Rivals was released the very same week as 06 (November 14 & 16, 2006); this shows how the creators already knew they should alter Silver’s backstory into something more sustainable and generally palatable. With an Iblis-less upbringing, he’s much more confident and righteous, which comes with its own benefits and drawbacks.

#silver the hedgehog #sonic #sonic rivals 2 #analysis #sonic rivals #espio the chameleon #sonic the hedgehog #eggman nega

[nabrizoya]

honestly would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the nikolai duology because i really only see blanket praise or blanket hate for it whereas I see a lot of wasted potential. Bardugo's actual writing was beautiful as ever for the most part, but the choice of the plot/beats feels baffling to me. I love Nina, but her parts felt so separate from the rest of the book until the very end, and even that felt off. I liked the first 2/3 of KoS enough, dealing with the monster, political tensions, 1/2

and even the cult of the starless saint was at least interesting because dealing with people trying to rewrite the narrative of their greatest enemy (who hurt these young leaders in deeply PERSONAL ways) was really compelling (making him literally come back was. a choice) but I feel like somewhere in the last third, KoS went in a wholly differeent direction, and RoW has this vibe of feeling like she definitely wrote it after reading the show scripts or even seeing some footage. idk. 2/2

I will try to be brief (1/12)

Hey anon! Thank you so much for asking this even though it took 38756588247834 years to answer this I’m so sorry !! The Nikolai duology was good—wonderful too maybe because of the myriad of themes and topics it discussed and explored, all in addition to how beloved these characters are. For me, it’s the end of KoS as it is for you, and the entirety of RoW in particular that irk me the most.

I have very little issue with KoS, and I agree with everything you’ve said. The political tensions, the sort of urgency in trying to secure a country at the cost of personal reservations, preparing for a war that seems unforgivably near the door, etc. was all thrilling. After all, it is the first installment in the duology, and it’s supposed to set the course for the upcoming books.

KoS managed to introduce the stakes and the circumstances, lay the rails for what the characters will face and what it might mean to a vast set of entities connected to the events. And it’s hardly out of sense to expect Rule of Wolves to pick up where the previous book left off and carry forward the themes and plot points introduced in the first book.

Except, RoW failed spectacularly in that aspect.

Rule of Wolves: the second book, and the supposed finale to the Grishaverse and the Nikolai duology; it fails to continue the other number of threads that KoS set up for it, effectively compromising the characters, their characterizations, the themes and other political tensions and stakes. The due importance that should be given to the heavy set of topics that get brought up in the povs are not through, nor are the small details that Leigh added to the conversations evolve into something worth talking about, which are the actual points that could have been given some more page time to explore than just making them facts or points of nostalgia for the characters.

If you take a step back and analyze the whole timeline, events, characterization, objectives of the arcs and the plot points etc. etc., all the way from Crooked Kingdom to Rule of Wolves, there’s so much that is left out and tied in, quite haphazardly, which leads me to believe that Leigh wanted to attempt writing a duology that is more plot-driven than it is character driven. And we know that Leigh writes character driven stories brilliantly, and SoC, CK and TLoT are testament to the same. Heck, even TGT has more consistency than whatever TND has.

So, objectively? Plot possibilities? Characterization? Potential? Personal goals? Addressing the very serious themes it brought up, in little or major light, but give no proper elaboration about them?

The lost potential readily compromised the characterizations of many characters, and it all amounted to their arcs being very underwhelming.

I’m dividing this into four parts and here’s the basic outline.

Writing and Plotting

The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Remedy (what I think would've worked better to tie this all up)

This can get very looong, so be forewarned.

I. Writing & Plotting

Now, Leigh Bardugo’s writing is exceptional, no doubt. The sentences are short and flowy, and convey the tone, psyche, environment and the setting and its effects on the pov character marvellously. It's also immersive. It’s the same in Rule of Wolves, except, a little or a lot weaker.

The two main parts of this is that one, that Leigh slightly overdid showing a lot more than telling, and two, that the RoW (and perhaps KoS too), was more plot driven than character driven, the latter of which is actually Leigh’s strength.

In Rule of Wolves, Leigh’s writing seemed very choppy and snappish. The descriptions were lacking, or maybe that’s just me wishing for more internal conflict and dilemma, and going back and forth in one's own head for a bit. It felt like she showed more than she told.

Example being how Zoya ‘snaps’, ‘drawls’, ‘scoffs’, or ‘scowls’ less, and even if that’s supposed to be show Zoya beginning to be a little less unpleasant than she usually is, the tone in those chapters was not strong enough to distinguish how and why the character was acting a certain way. Nor pinpoint an explanation on what brought that change about. (And there were many instances like this with many other characters), which resulted in the characters themselves feeling so off to me.

Leigh’s characters are important to the story. They carry tremendous weight and actively contribute to the plot. Except, by focusing a lot more on the plot, some parts of these characters’ relevance was not up to the mark. It is greatly due to how weak the plotting and pacing of the book was, tbh, more than just her writing.

Consider: Mayu Kir Kaat. She is integral to the story, but she is thrust into responsibilities, and that doesn’t give us much time to see her as a person, and then as a person with a duty, like we see with most other characters. Whatever parts of her we did see were very circumstantial and timed, which is probably the reason why not many we’re unable to appreciate Mayu as much as we should. (Maybe fandom racism also plays a part, so, well,,,).

Like, we know from Six of Crows and with The Language of Thorns, how great care went into describing the characters’ state of mind, which further heavily influenced their choices and decisions. This time though, I think she wanted it to be more plot driven, hence the whole crowded feeling of the book and general worry about oh my god too much is happening, how will all this be solved and all that.

And this, I think, greatly hampered Leigh's writing, leading to unsettling and rather unsatisfying character arcs. Not to mention that there was quite little space given for the characters to develop or let them grow in a satisfying way which touches on most of the elements and themes that get brought up with regard to their powers and potential,,, and when it was indeed brought up, it was all in vain since they were never followed through.

That's one of the biggest problems for me in RoW: Plot points brought up in KoS were not brought forward in RoW.

II. The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Phew. Truly buckle up because this train has too many coaches. And to discuss them all, let’s keep the starting point as Crooked Kingdom.

a) Parem

Now, by the end of Crooked Kingdom, we know some important things about the parem.

It's dangerous asf for the Grisha who have to sacrifice their will and capabilities for a short time superpower high that they didn’t even ask for

Which means they are more often than not forced to consume the drug

Shu Han is the creator of the Parem and are also creating a new kind of soldiers called Khergud (who additionally require Ruthenium, but we’ll talk abt that later)

Fjerda snatched the formula after kidnapping Bo Yul-Bayur, keeping him away in the Ice Court and in their possession, and used the Parem to further their own heedlessly heinous agenda

I think it’s easy to understand how KoS started off on the right track, considering that Kuwei Yul Bo is mentioned, the antidote and jurda is brought up and so come the political tensions alongside it (what with the impending war, the demon, the lack of funds in the coffers and security and peace for the country alongside safety for the Grisha).

The point is, parem is a character of its own. CK was its inception, and its fate was decreed along with its lifespan and its doom. Ideally, by the end of RoW, parem should have been vanquished while addressing its nature as a deadly drug, the addiction and aftermath, and the key person who will guide the plot: Kuwei Yul Bo.

Parem is a political tool that pitted countries against each other, making one another their allies or enemies. (Though parem is not the only one factor). Ravka doesn’t yet know about Kerch’s neutrality. The Shu made their move to assassinate in the end, just as Fjerda cleared the air about their goals.

Point is, parem is weapon, a new kind of warfare that keeps getting alluded to in KoS. The first book gave a glimpse of how the Shu and Fjerda are using parem, thereby exploiting, prejudicing etc. the Grisha in their countries. Khergud whose humanity is washed away with parem + ruthenium, and the Fjerdan Grisha (are targeted) drugged and exploited while be subjected to torture, training and imminent death, parametres of these outcomes being severely gendered.

Ravka too wanted to weaponize it and create a usable strain that would still give the Grisha their powers but at a minimal cost, until Nikolai’s conversation with Grigori convinces him out of it and to use only the antidote for the Grisha.

And when are the contents of this conversation brought up again?

Never.

Another aspect of parem (that the conversation also covers) is this: that what was once merzost, parem is its strange cousin. Parem parallels breaking the bounds of Grisha norms unnaturally, while merzost takes it a step further to break the bounds of nature itself, which comes with a heavy price. They're both the same with little differences. Amplifiers are in tune with this discussion, hence the conversation between Zoya and Nikolai about how, and whether or not the abomination in him, the parem, and the amplifiers are tied together. This gets brought up again in the conversation with Grigori.

Parem parallels the superpowers, something that Zoya too manages to achieve once the corruption of the amplifier business is resolved, which makes her realize how in tune with nature the Grisha must be, and how limited the Grisha powers until then had been. And why the amplifiers were a corrupted piece of magic.

Zoya was supposed to be the conduit in that sense that she reversed the Grisha norms and understood the importance and nature of small science. This is alongisde parem getting abolished or resolved in the least, be given a redressal.

Yet instead in RoW, we barely see any of Zoya’s powers, nor even her experimentation and hunger for power which would give her protection. We don't see how she begins to realize that while power was indeed protection, it was also a responsibility. Not clearly, anyway.

So like, not only is this entire discussion thrown away in Rule of Wolves, but no matters are resolved either. Parem did not reach its end like it was supposed to. Merzost with regard to parem would have been an excellent thing to address, with or without the Darkling being present, because the blight is there. But that doesn’t happen.

What happens instead? We get one chapter of Grisha getting the antidote during the face off at the start of the book, the women in Fjerda are not brought up again and instead we jump to Shu Han. Kuwei is also conveniently forgotten because hey, the Zemeni are here so it’s all sorted!

RoW could have (should have actually) sought to address both the political and medical (?) aftermath and implications. Maybe it did succeed in showing the political side of it, with regard to Mayu, Ehri, Makhi and Tamar’s storylines. But that’s only in Shu Han, whose state of affairs we had NO idea of until RoW. No idea, so much that it was completely out of the blue.

And what we did know (get to know about in KoS) is Fjerda and the affairs there remained… unsolved.

(...sorry).

b) Grisha Powers

Re: From the conversation between Nikolai and Grigori, and Juris and Zoya, about how parem and the amplifiers are parallel to each other in terms of being abominations, a corruption of Grisha powers. Now the theory of it is not entirely explained, but we do know that the parem and whatever Zoya learnt from Juris was meant to move along in the same direction.

But we don't see another mention of it, except maybe we could dig a little deeper and realize that it all adds up because Zoya is the Grisha Queen of Ravka, Summoner, Soldier, Saint, all of it rushed and unnecessarily magical in a war so dire and realistic in RoW.

Welp.

c) Spy business

Just… genuinely what even was Nina up to in RoW? A spy, sure, but only to garner information on the pretender?

Why couldn’t there have been two responsibilities for her to uncover: the lies or truths about the pretender while the Apparat causes hindrances, and Nina trying to seek out more documents of the locations and labs where the Grisha women are being tormented and the other Grisha being weaponized? It could have been a leverage to discredit Fjerda in front of everybody in the Os Kervo scene. Imagine if Nina whipped out the documents of Grisha labs and brought the truth of the exploitation and killing and kidnapping etc. in front of the convention of all nations. All of it together would have upped the political tensions by quite the notch.

Even then, there’s a possibility that it wouldn’t matter either because the Grisha aren’t exactly valuable to all the nations. But killing and exploiting is still wrong so maybe it might have worked? Or see, even if it wouldn’t have, the slow and sluggish realization of Mila’s identity by Brum, and alongside writing it as a tragedy where Nina’s efforts seem to have gone to waste, or where Nina is telling Zoya about not accounting for Prince Rasmus’ word and she informs her about the documents she has snatched? Something could have been done here?

The point is, KoS focused on Fjerda and its unraveling, and it wasn’t continued with and through in Rule of Wolves. Instead it sought to find the problem in a whole new country, Shu Han, and fixed it within the same book leaving the other country as it is.

d) Ruthenium and the Blight

Ruthenium, the metal that is an alloy of regular metal and Grisha made steel, could have been utilized more significantly in the books.

I mention it in association with the blight because while on one hand it is true that the blight is an area full of nothingness, ruthenium as a metal could have been utilized to show the effects of rushed industrialization that is leading to the ground losing its essence. This is supposed to be advanced warfare after all. Besides, Makhi loses someone very dear to her. Perhaps ruthenium is more dangerous in Shu Han because the Shu use it to create the khergud, so the constant manufacturing of it has been leading to the metal leeching the lands of their fertility, along with the blight.

And so also to broker peace, Ravka could have provided aid in some ways. :

1) The Darkling sacrificed himself, as a result of which the blight vanishes. While the blight took away her niece, the possibility of a blight persisting despite the ending of RoW could be attributed to ruthenium.

2) Ravka could provide the reversing effect to the alloy of ruthenium and metal using Grisha and otkazt’sya engineering and ingenuity to replenish the lands.

All in addition to whatever will be Shu Han’s policies to bring lushness to their lands.

e) Women and War:

Holy fucking Shit, where do I start with this?

Whatever we saw in Fjerda was haunting, and we see it from Nina’s chapters. There’s literally no resolution for it, nor is it ever brought up again, at all. In Zoya’s chapters, we see through her eyes the brunt that Grisha faced with the war, and in a country that has refused to recognize Grisha as the citizens and considers them expendable.

Add to it her own narrative of how the women are never mentioned, let alone the ones that she has lost or has known to suffer, at the hands of the war, at the Darkling's torture and powers. The description of these women suffering, often being forgotten and thrown aside as mere casualties… where or when was it ever going to be brought up again?

Like, switching between such horrifying things happening in Fjerda to whatever was happening with Zoya and Nikolai and Isaak is such a contrast, horrifyingly demeaning and insulting, even more so when it failed to align with the importance of parem and offer a solution to both these problems.

Now switch to Rule of Wolves, where the Tavgahard women immolate themselves on Queen Makhi’s orders. Not only is that such a cheap and insensitive thing to do, it gets treated a simple fucking plot point in the book, and it barely gets addressed afterwards. Women in Asia have a vastly complex and complicated history with fire, and this is a serious criticism that culturally affects readers in personal ways. And what gets done about it? Fine, Zoya feels baaaad, sorry oops why would the women do that?!?!?

Where is the adequate sensitivity to the topic? Where is the continuation of the pain Zoya feels for many people, despite them being the enemy? How does she honour them? Where is all that dilemma and pain? Why does she not think of them or just get a line or two to talk about them?

Where is the due importance for this suffering given? Structurally and culturally?

f) Soldier, Summoner, Saint / Yaromir the Great

We never really get any explanation for why Zoya deserves to be the Queen, and why she is the best. But we do get to see why Nikolai isn’t the one supposed to be on the throne, and it’s not just because of his parentage but also because of his failings and doubts and the need for acceptance with the secrets he carried.

Here's the thing though; it’s not just about her showing mercy. It’s very subtle, and in good sense, should actually have been given a little bit more importance that be loosely brought up at random times.

Keeping aside the fact that Zoya is representative of Ravka—a woman, a Grisha, a Suli girl who changed the course of war and who knew what it was like living in poverty, being as an underprivileged person of the society in addition to the trauma from then and the state of living at her aunt’s place—which is meant to be covertly apparent, the other reason tracks back to Yaromir the First, who with the help of Sankt Feliks of the Apple Boughs—the one who raised the thornwood—lead Ravka at that time into the age of peace.

The Darkling testified that in his POVs, that while Feliks and Yaromir worked in tandem for Ravka, Aleksander worked for safeguarding the Grisha. In one sense, Zoya is supposed to reflect that moment in history in the present moment, except she is Queen and Sankta, and Grisha, all three at once.

It is brought up in one of the Darkling’s POVs and once in the conversation with Yuri in KoS. Other than that, we never actually get any more hints of this explanation in the text, which is the reason why the entire ending felt so so rushed, and like a fever dream, that even if it was a plot twist, it was kinda very baseless when it should have been more ohhhhh sort of a thing.

g) The Starless Cult and Saint Worship

This cult had immense potential to blossom into many things, some of which were indeed touched upon in KoS when Zoya says that she saw a bit of herself in Yuri, and brings up time and again how easily she’d been led and had not been aware enough of what’s right and wrong, just as she supposes Yuri is too. And to some extent, there is truth there, because in the Lives of Saints, we do see why Yrui comes about to hail the Darkling and how it parallels Zoya’s, of being helpless and ten being saved by a different power/ their own power, respectively.

That’s where it forks, that Zoya is older and realizes the path that Yuri has chosen and understands that it won't happen until he realizes it himself because the Darkling’s crimes are so obvious.

Even then, there’s still more potential: This cult could have been the mirror that would make Zoya reflect on the questionable methods of the Darkling, and the ways in which she might be mirroring them, despite or not it is the necessity because of the war. How she is training soldiers too, just as the Darkling did, and while the need to take children away from their homes just as soon as they were discovered Grisha was abolished, it was war, and they needed soldiers.

So like, there’s quite a big narrative going on here, how mere children are pushed into one path of becoming a soldier and the whole system that was that the Darkling followed to train the Grisha and all of that. All of this in addition to the juxtaposition to the Grisha being seen as elite despite them being hunted, and the people who are not Grisha frowning upon them. This is also the work of the Darkling, which actually paves the way to see how there can be a world where the Grisha are not feared or seen as abnormal, despite or not they are given a Saint-like narrative.

This cult could also have been the segue to discussing Yuri and his brainwashing, and the sort of cult-ish behaviour of believing in something firm when you couldn’t believe in yourself, or not seeing the magnitude of the crimes of their supposed Saint, alongside always staying focused on becoming a soldier only and never actually thinking beyond what is told.

Some of these are very subtle and some are brought up, but never given too much of an explanation.

Genya brings up another good point in the funeral chapter, about how Fjerda seemingly taking into the whole Saints thing could mean that if the Darkling moved there, he could very well sprawl his influence there to bring in supporters. Which leads to another discussion that gets brought up towards the end of the book: about Nina telling about the Ravkan Saints to Hanne and therefore to the Fjerdans,,, which doesn’t exactly sit right with me. It’s still a very nascent topic, and I think SoC3 will explore this path of faith and personal beliefs etc. but leaving it just there, while talking so much about Saints in both the countries,,, don’t exactly know how to put it into thoughts here.

But regardless, the cult of the Starless had different potential to talk of (blind) worshipping of an ideal without critically examining why the person must be put on the pedestal in the first place (and if it is simply power, then there is actually a narrative right there, which RoW gets right, about the people valuing the power still, as a result of which the monarchy still persists at the end of RoW. Even then, there’s more discussion awaiting there).

Not sure if any of this makes sense, but I’ll leave it at this here for now.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I think what I was trying to say here is that we do not have any kind of narrative evidence to seeing how and why it seems right that the Fjerdans will worship Ravkan Saints; is it merely because they are all Grisha? Or is it because of the segue explore this path of faith and personal beliefs and all of that, of the talk of the monastery and the Grisha there being of all identities, that a monastery is in Shu Han, that it has Djel's sacred Ash tree so far away from Fjerda... much to think about.

III. Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Mostly going to be about Nina and Zoya, but I’ll bunch up the rest of them at the end.

a) Nina

*head in hands*

I severely mourned how poorly Zoya was written in RoW, but then I realized that more than Zoya, it’s Nina whose potential was severely undermined and wasted. On one hand, I’m glad she uses her powers and quick thinking,observation and her own tactics to analyze the population and opt for the best way to make them see the truth she wants to show them (eg: making Leoni and Adrik and Zoya saints and also showing that the Grisha are the children of Djel via people’s belief to Joran and Rasmus’s mother).

But then, it’s like you said; her parts were so offbeat and outpaced and completely disjointed, when in fact, Nina is the thread that ties all the characters, their plotlines and potential, together. Nina is connected to Zoya and Hanne, two equally important characters and main characters of the duology. Whatever scope Nina has, they are greatly in parallel to Zoya and Hanne. And it’s all literally there, in the text! What a waste.

Though keeping aside these parallels, Nina’s own journey from Ketterdam to Ravka to Fjerda, while is spoken about, doesn’t touch some other parts that I see potential in. Or this is just meta.

Nina has grief not just from Matthias’ death but also from the loss of her powers as Heartrender. So much of the Second Army was built on being a soldier, and perhaps the Darkling was not outright disdainful of racial differences in his army, yet he still stripped every part of the children away until they weren’t children anymore in his view. They’re all soldiers… (albeit his soldiers, preparing them to do his bidding because hey, give and take right?). Nina was a soldier, and she is a soldier still under Zoya’s role as a General, but an ‘other’ of a soldier. That’s her only identity, and the loss of her powers means that she’s a different kind of soldier.

I imagine that this entire time, some small part of Nina longed for normalcy, or whatever settled as normal for a life like hers. In the sense that she wants to go back, but what is back and where exactly did she want to go back to? What was the before and after and where did things go wrong or change? There’s tragedy in the realization that whatever you were before what you became is not a place you can return to, and that’s a different kind of loss that she has to bear, and all by herself. She has powers over the dead now, a strange power she learns to grow to, but all the places she has been, all the lives she has led and people she had been, everything might seem like they’ve all been locked away in some strange place leaving her barren and indisposable.

She’s off to Fjerda as someone she isn’t, figuratively and literally. In KoS, Nina brings up many times how odd she feels as Mila and in some capacity longs to be Nina Zenik again. This ties in with the previous point of returning to somewhere, but where?, but is also a segue towards body dysmorphia, the thing that Nina and Hanne’s storylines parallel and connect too with in a small way. It’s a great line to follow to discuss what her discomfort with her body means to herself while it means something entirely different to Hanne, who is also not entirely comfortable being who they are. (This discomfort further which leads to gender dysphoria, while for Nina, it will be about learning to accept her powers. I’ll add on to this in a bit,).

I'm mourning the lost potential of that experience being a parallel to Hanne’s own feelings, of a discussion between people being uncomfortable with their bodies, something that can mean multitudes to each person and on their own accord.

In parallel to Zoya, I like to draw it from the fact about Nina wanting to go back to who she was, while Zoya actively tries to lock her past away and drown it somewhere or throw it to the storm, never to hear of it again. She has no identity other than being a soldier, and that’s enough for Zoya, because who she was before she was a soldier is not pleasant. But moving from being just another expendable shell of soldier under the Darkling’s rule, Zoya becomes the one third of the Triumvirate, and then the King’s general, all of which bring self-awareness of Zoya’s capabilities and challenges that are bound to excite her. But all of these also compel Zoya to be many other people to others as she slowly grows to realize that power is not just protection but also a responsibility, and it will inadvertently mean confronting her past of her lost identity, realizing the how of the Darkling, and how harmful it was. As Genya puts it perfectly in Rule of Wolves, that they were all taken away when they were young kids, not even barely children, and then thrust into responsibilities that didn’t allow them to be anything else other than what the Darkling told them to be.

Back to Nina; a few other great parts about Nina’s arc could have been about her connection to languages, as language being a mode of strengthening identity, in addition to growing to her powers. In RoW, there’s this line that goes ‘how sweet it was to speak her language [Ravkan] again’, and the feeling of homesickness. Like, Nina is trying to connect to Ravka through what she knows best—language, and then stories. In that, Nina realizes a part of her identity, which could also act as a segue to Zoya reclaiming her own heritage and ethnicity. Not only that but Zoya and Nina’s stories are literally so intertwined that it’s hard not to see how their choices and line of thought affect one another’s arcs, in the grief they have and how they choose to treat it, and also show why Zoya is particularly protective of Nina (and keeps wishing that she doesn’t become the monster Zoya had become, in the sense that Nina is more mature in handling her grief than Zoya was and the entire mercy plotline ties Nina, Zoya and even Genya together. More meta, haH).

And that’s why the ending doesn’t make sense. Even though the part about her not being comfortable as Mila is not brought up many times in the continuing chapters (and that’s why perhaps naming Nina’s discomfort as body dysmorphia may be wrong), there’s still the part of Nina readily accepting to be who she was a Mila and remain in Fjerda that seems iffy to me. Especially when Nina and Hanne literally a few chapters ago think about running away (it may be just another alternative they might be fantasizing about, but I think it still means that they both want to be their true selves without hiding any parts of it away). So her staying as Mila… well, it doesn’t exactly add up.

I’d also add the part of Nina’s story mirroring Leoni’s, and how she is from Novyi Zem and being a part of the Second Army meant that she had little to no connection with her past, her culture etc. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part that Leigh went for that arc.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I don't agree with my point anymore about Nina not having the kind of ending I assumed she might have, considering that it is very well possible for Nina to treat her identity as Mila as a fresh start, as a Grisha with a command over the the dead and begin a new normal that is suited for her. You can read more here.

b) Zoya

For one, white passing Zoya is not canon to me. I simply pretend I do not see it.

See, her race was handled very badly. Making her half-Suli was supposed to show the struggles and the trauma that the ridiculing of her identity by other people has caused to her. Except, not enough time nor text is given to thoroughly discuss it. Not to forget how problematic of a narrative in itself it is to make Zoya white passing.

It would have made more sense to make her dark skinned and predominantly Suli-looking than whatever yt bs she was put through. Her not being white-passing would have led to conversations about tokenization, or people caring little about her and not giving her any respect because she is Suli. Or being called beautiful to the face and praised just for it or a harmless tumble in their point of view.

So like, instead of making the ‘mistake’ of seeking for acceptance, seeking appreciation and love, from her mother at first and then the Darkling, Zoya instead makes herself someone to be feared, if respect was not what she deserved. The iciness is a part of her and has always been, but all of it soon became a shield, an armour that she vowed to harden her heart with. Just the sheer impact of this narrative and her reluctance, and seeing Nikolai love her for beyond who she thinks she is… if all of this was canon, I’m pretty sure I’d have built a shrine for this duology.

Let’s now talk about her grief, and...

…

Okay it’s not for me to point fingers at how Leigh chose to write about grief because there’s no one way or one proper approach to go through that pain, and if that’s how she chose to write about grief for Zoya, fine! But I really wish we’d have gotten a little more into her head to see how the trauma has affected her thoughts and how she struggles against why and what exactly it is that Juris wants her to do. That enough time and text was dedicated to Zoya’s feelings and the mayhem it caused her, as a result of which the dragon’s eye took its cue and made things more unbearable to her because she was the only one to bear them all.

Like, I feel like Zoya was overwhelmed throughout the book and in between she had some skyhigh responsibilities to discharge and it’s all so inconsistent and poorly woven,,, it completely dissolved her character from KoS and made it 10000000x more miserable for me to read her POVs. And honestly, what even were her assignments that the Kirkus review mentioned? Never an inch of text in RoW is given to decipher her complications of her mind, the muddled sense of hopelessness and fear that grips her time and again. Why overwhelm her so much that you fail to do her mental state and capacity any justice?

I’m not going to be harsh about how much David’s death bothered me-- no actually fuck that; what’s the point? Fine, he died. All because you wanted to make his death a plot device to make Zoya reconcile with loss and deal with it? Where was Genya’s grief? Literally no point of having a death in the book at all, and it didn’t even achieve anything. (I’m still trying to wrap my head around why David’s death was important and maybe if I find some straws, I’ll consider…)

There were so many other ways around it; could have brought back Lada and killed her off, or have the Darkling piss her off so badly or just. Something. Instead of whatever happened with David. I think this is too harsh and insensitive of me to say about Leigh, but still… there’s a myriad of other ways to have gone about it. Helping Zoya deal with her grief with Nikolai at her side, to understand that the rage that was fueled from her loneliness, like it had been in the past, could now be a weight that Nikolai was willing to carry with her… Helping someone with their grief, staying and choosing is also a love language you know?

So in that regard, I won’t regret saying how flat the garden scene was to me. Zoya’s lines, though tinged with grief, were so out of what I would expect KoS Zoya to say. Maybe it’s also because of how bitter I was reading about David's death, despite that part being spoiled for me.

The cost shouldn’t have been David’s death, especially not when his death too wasn’t properly handled at all, and Genya’s grief was never spared a second thought beyond bringing Titanium.

+

Now let’s talk about how Out of Character Zoya was throughout the book. Her punchy attitude was missing, and even if she was warming up to her friends, we see little of the iciness she continues to retain. Another part of this is about exploring her relationships, particularly with Nikolai and her growing feelings for him. I wish we’d have seen them grapple with more of their confusion and propriety, if only for the yearning™. Besides, no matter how cute their scenes were, they were mostly (like maybe some. 70%) awful to read them, simply because it felt so odd to see Zoya be so open with Nikolai, all of a sudden.

A part of this definitely has to be the fact that we don’t know just how much time has passed between the end of KoS and the start of RoW, and we never, never see any description of they regarded their feelings for each other and how they understood it themselves. I don’t actually know how exactly I can put this into words in a manner that will make sense, but the only scenes where I appreciated Zoyalai were in the Ketterdam chapters, ONLY. The rest was… bleh lmao. Their scenes were so cute and brilliant, and if only we’d seen more of the internal conflict and had given some more time for them to practically approach their feelings but still end up in the puddle of it. If only.

Their scenes apart were the good ones, because that’s where we finally see Nikolai feeling the loss, no matter how temporary (on the verge of being permanent since it’s the war), of not having Zoya with him, of not being there with Zoya because who else would it be if it wasn’t her? Zoyalai had good scenes but they barely lived up to the mark lol. Their feelings are never thoroughly explored, nor their mental capacities.

While we’re talking about Zoyalai, let’s also talk about how lame it was for Zoya to say that Nikolai was the golden spirited hero all along, from the very start, when canonically we know Zoya had little to do with him in the earlier books, that she may have only been physically attracted to him and never saw him as more than just some guy with a responsibility to manage, and had sooooooo much distrust about him. And that it was only in the next few years of working with him and alongside did she grow to recognize his efforts and relish in the hope that he was building for Ravka, inadvertently making Zoya hopeful too.

Nope. Instead, we’ll just throw in some destiny bs that he was the one all along rather than show that the beauty of their relationship did not stem what they perceived of each other, but was instead built on strong respect and admiration for one another and their capabilities. 100% destroyed their relationship for me.

+

Some good parts about Zoya’s arc in RoW was how she acknowledged her past mistakes, and the nuance that was touched upon in seeing sense in becoming a soldier from the start, that offered her a chance to be anything other than a bride. That some part of her was grateful for the Darkling for teaching her how to fight, while still keeping Genya’s words in mind about how they were mere kids, children who had only one path to traverse because the Darkling (who wanted their acceptance and loyalty) nor the Kings of the country let the Grisha be anything else other than pawns of the war. That she recognizes her mistakes as a teen and how self centred she was, that her being snotty had at times cost some peoples’ lives too. And she doesn’t take the blame all up on herself, because it’s not hers alone to bear. Super good.

Also, the way Zoya comes to view power as responsibility instead of merely as protection was something cool to read about. It’s not clear in the books, but Zoya actively tried to not be the Darkling while still continuing to build an army for the war out of necessity, and actually sharing some parts of the dream that the Darkling had for the Grisha. I can’t articulate this so perfectly, but the point is, Zoya trying to avoid becoming a tyrant like the Darkling was an active process that she was constantly trying to change, and where Zoya could not recognize her own feelings and inherent thoughts about warfare that in some ways did mirror the Darkling’s, by the end of book, Zoya is much more self-aware and conscious of herself and her power than she was at the start of the book. And this was well done.

+

Now, what is up with YA and making people turn into giants or animals lol wtf. Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya use her dragon powers in a way that symbolizes the conditions of her dragon amplifier and the power of the knowledge she obtained from Juris? She is a Saint, and we’ve seen that their powers allowed them to cause ‘miracles’ and such, as we see at the start of KoS and at the end.

Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya dabble with her newfound powers and completely lose her shit in anger during the wae, only to rein back in mercy, just as someone from Fjerda begs for forgiveness since they see her then as a Saint? Adrik and Leoni used their powers in Fjerda, so having Zoya bring about a conundrum of all orders and do something about it would also have been cool, wouldn’t it? In the funeral scene we see her turn water into ice, thereby making a path for Genya. Why couldn’t we have had more exploration of the importance of the dragon’s eye and the general nausea of being overly empathetic every. damn. time? Why didn’t we get to see her powers? Why couldn’t we have seen her fail in them and realize that the reason she was not perfect was because she was trying to be strong on her own and was not relying on others and joint effort?

Her turning into a dragon was genuinely the most baffling part bc here’s a war that’s so serious and dire with metals and bombs, and then here’s this magic that will solve all of it entirely. Like I’m not saying it was bad, (I am actually saying just that) but I also don’t know what I am saying, except that the ending felt like a fever dream.

…?

Not sure if I’ve managed to convey it properly, but well. Zoya felt out of character throughout RoW, and that the only place I saw KoS Zoya was in the final Os Kervo scene where Zoya finally agrees to be the queen.

c) Nikolai

Nikolai’s arc was very satisfying and brilliant to read about in RoW. In KoS, he seemed very much like a passive character, one of the reasons why his stunt with the Shu in RoW was appreciable, no matter how ill-timed of a plot turn it was. His journey throughout this book was also introspective to see why others deemed him unfit as the King, and even if they were his enemies who thought that in want to dispose him from the throne, Nikolai realizes that him being on the throne is not of much value and that this book was entirely about him seeing his privilege and making decisions to counter and correct the mistakes he’s made. That was nice. Oh, also his father not being an antagonist was a pleasant surprise.

I don’t have many complaints about him, except perhaps wanting some more internal conflict and elaboration about his feelings for Zoya. Them being apart was where it was satisfying, and then in the Ketterdam chapters. His arc could have been better in KoS, but that’s to blame the plot for the characterization.

d) Hanne

Now, from the very start, their arc was super good and it only got better and better until… the ending. Except it’s so odd that Hanne, a poc, has to now live as white person, while feeling comfortable in their transmasc identity. Icky, no? That you need to eliminate one part of your identity in order to feel safe and comfortable about another? Add to this the whole white-passing Zoya thing,,, doesn't exactly send off the right message.

Together with Nina, the ending seems uncharacteristic for both of them. Them coming to accept their powers and knowing to use their powers on their own accord was brilliant, though the entire husband business felt very,,, eh to me, even if it did make sense. The ending about their name and their new identity was too vague.

e) Genya, Leoni and Adrik, Kuwei, Mayu,

Genya is the one who faced the most disservice along with David. While there were exceptional parts to both of their plotlines, it's still sad that even if David's death was necessary, we don't get to see the entirety of her grief and the possible anger, and that her kindness is simply used as the justification for lack of portrayal of grief.

It really did take me by surprise, mostly because I wasn't a fan of the original Shadow and Bone book, but seeing David's conscience and self-awareness, along with Genya's (and Zoya thinking of how she wouldn't let any harm come to them, which shows a bit of her development towards her character development), was plenty refreshing. David and Genya were genuinely the highlights of the book and to kill David off was just. doesn't sit right with me.

Leoni and Adrik deserved more page time. They’re saints and immensely capable (no wonder they’re now the Triumvirate), but a few more pages for them to shine would not only have been nice, but also a necessity.

And now, Kuwei...

....

I mean,,, parem should have been the plot, alongside the entire weaponry and the discussion of making a city killer. But uh… that didn’t happen.

There's not much I have to say about Mayu, Tamar and Ehri, except that their plot was superb, only very badly timed.

There's more to talk about them in the remedy tho.

IV. Remedy

Here’s the deal. Before KoS release, there should have been a Nina novella.

Nina is a very important character. All of her potential, alongside many other parts of her personality--from dealing with grief, to accustoming to her powers, to growing stronger--there could be so much to do with her as a protagonist, alongside another character: Mayu.

A whole book dedicated to Nina in Fjerda with Hanne? Brilliant. Show Stopping. Mind blowing. It gives SO much page time to explore not just Nina and Mayu, Hanne, but also Zoya, Leoni and Inej. All together.

How?

Nina’s plotline carries the entire medical effects of the use of parem, just as Mayu’s will carry the pain she feels about her brother being a part of the khergud program. The novella will give ample time to flesh them out as characters and protagonists, each dealing with plot problems and problems of their own--like the loss of ones powers and newfound responsibilities, and the shared loss of a beloved person in parallel, even if neither Nina or Mayu interact on page.

Fjerda and Shu Han could be tied together with one chapter as a POV from Zoya (or maybe two), who, along with the Triumvirate and Nikolai, are completely at loss with the political scenario in the country, and are debating over what should be the course of action. Zoya receives news from the scouts, and missives from Nina, and Tamar takes care of the information she garners from the rest of the network, including Shu Han.

Like, the entire surprise of finding a Zoya POV, from a character whom until CK we’ve known as cold hearted and stern and not giving a fuck about anything or anyone, be humanized in that one chapter, thereby building up the anticipation for her arc,,, the very potential,,, *chef's kiss*.

And by the end of book, we could have an POV--or maybe a cameo if not a POV--of Inej meeting Nina on one of her travels of slave hunting. Inej could help take care that the women that Nina has rescued (as Nina does in KoS) reach the Ravkan shorelines safely. But, for a price.

The entire parallels between Leoni and Hanne and Nina could be set up, while also building up the narrative for the Saints’ plotline with Adrik's, Leoni's and Nina’s powers (like it was at the end of KoS). KoS and RoW would thereby continue it by tackling the weaponization and the antidote, Sainthood and the rest of the politics of it all.

Coming to Shu Han: one key aspect that I’d love to have explored would be the importance of art, during or despite the war. Of how war or pain chips away culture, while detailing on the ill effects of it from the commoners' perspectives, from the soldiers etc. Art is integral to Shu Han and could be portrayed by Mayu’s pain finding balm in poetry, of seeing glimpses of Ehri poring over poetry also mayri ftw, of politics that Makhi is weaving against Ravka, etc.

Or also add some more length to Zoya’s POV and explore a bit of Tamar and Tolya and Kuwei’s interactions and perspective added to it, of missing a home that they seemed to not know, or know; of discussing culture and differences on the basis of where they’re from (maybe the twins are from the borders, while Kuwei grew up near the capital or somewhere distant from the borders etc.), all while directly pointing at Zoya’s heritage and how it ebbs at her conscience, no matter how much she wants to bury it.

POTENTIAL !!!

Like,,, Nina novella would have been too powerful. It would have been perfect. I think I’d excuse bringing back the Darkling too if this was the case. (Or maybe not).

But welp.

Hey, thanks for reading! Not sure if you could make it this far, but if you have, you honestly deserve a medal for sitting through this all. I can’t imagine how tiring it must be to read through this, considering it seemed to take it more than month to compile this there’s also me procrastinating on it too so i’,mbhbdhshfsdn

Drop an ask if you want to talk more about this!

Sincerely, thank you!!!

#zoya nabri #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #nina zenik #hanne brum #grishaverse #king of scars #rule of wolves #kos #row #the darkling #row spoilers #<<< if you want more thoughts. i rambled quite a bit in tags of posts i reblogged after row came out #and they're all tagged as row spoilers. check them out if you want #im definitely not sure if this was what you wanted to talk about but i rambled away anyway and ykw #thank you for enabling me fdgsfdghjkds #pinned #didn't include the darkling or alina or mal or the crows well simply because #now watch everybody like this and not reblog lmao #can't get a reblog on this fucking site

[herglowinggirl]

Hello, familiar anon here, I didn't ask the question about an SOK ending where Yun lives and gains redemption. I also wouldn't mind having my own tag. I haven't found any other evidence of Yun shipping Kyoshi and Rangi outside of "The Boy From Makapu". How does Kyoshi view Yun later in her life( up to the first year after "The Meeting", creating Kyoshi Island nearly 25 years later, the last years of her life)? Would Kyoshi ever mention or talk about Yun after the events of The Shadow of Kyoshi?

hello! and yes I have some thoughts on this and how it would impact the advice Kyoshi gave to Roku and Aang. this got long but I’d love to break down parts of it to write fic, which I think I will do and perhaps post before Kyoshi Fortnight. But I digress, it’s long enough that I have decided to use subtitles. If anything skip to the end about the advice she gave Roku and Aang I think it’s most relevant to what I want to say and also my favorite part.

what I talk about under the cut: the ways I believe yun’s death would impact kyoshi’s actions after tsok and what the advice she gave aang and roku actually means (my thoughts on “only justice will bring peace” means)

would kyoshi talk about yun during her lifetime?

Yes. First off, it would be impossible to avoid him in the political landscape, because it is mentioned that he passed lots of judgements and signed treaties, ect. Although Kyoshi has grown in her leadership style and it’s turned a little (a lot) anti-establishment, she would still need to deal with the fallout of Yun not being the Avatar, because there would be a need to re-sign treaties and settle disputes with people seeking to take advantage of others now that the Avatar has “changed” would have to be dealt with and in tandem, Yun’s legacy.

But also, in a duology that features grief, I find it a natural continuation of the narrative that Yun would be mourned. You don’t stop knowing or loving someone after they pass, and I feel like mourning all of Yun—the boy he was, where he came from, his legacy, the decisions he made, the impact he had on the people around him, even how he hurt people—is only natural and is slightly unavoidable. I think Kyoshi mourns all of her deceased loved ones. 

Just, like the concept of this: she’s always hated pai sho but now when she faces a board in her gut and in her throat things feel wrong because it reminds her of what Yun had to do to survive. A breeze smells like the flour and air Kelsang sent into her face the moments before everything changed. She collects pebbles that Lek would’ve liked. Rangi brings her fire lilies for an anniversary and she starts crying. She sings songs with Wong that were her parent’s favorites that coincidentally, Kelsang knew too.

community in grief and kyoshi’s relationships

He was Rangi’s friend, too. Auntie Mui and Hei-Ran are sure to mourn him in their own ways. In tSoK Kyoshi calls her team Avatar a group of contradictions and misfits and in his way, Yun was too. The false Avatar. What a title! 

A continuation of the concept: Rangi and Kyoshi remind each other of him every day for a while, swapping stories about him when it gets to be too much, making eye contact when they can hear his voice making light of something stupid an official has said. Hei-Ran makes her do drills she made Yun do. Auntie Mui makes his favorite dish on his birthday that they do not pass in silence, because then what would they be, that group of misfits, to forget another outcast? If they don’t mourn the boy from Yokoya who will mourn them, or who would’ve mourned them if they hadn’t been so lucky? Who will care for the beggars and orphans of the world if not the Avatar who was once one of them and her companions? In a way, the retribution and pain of it all is justice for the life that Kyoshi took. Like, there’s just so much to unpack in the way she says “Was I right about anything at all? What will they say about me? Avatar Kyoshi, who killed her friend because she couldn’t save him?” But I don’t think her guilt would silence her. 

That being said, Yun was fundamentally a victim of a system that failed him. The same one that failed Kyoshi. In another way, her actions are justice on a world that failed her and her best friend and the similarities they shared, and she’s able to take those actions because of the way that Yun impacted her, for better or for worse. So yes, I think during her lifetime, she would speak of Yun and who he was, not letting people forget the ways they (and she) failed him and how easily everyone wants to forget their failure. It brings me to the way she was so angry with the Earth Kingdom establishment for discarding him and trying to hide history away. I don’t think she’d ever do that, even if she did...uh, dispatch him.

kyoshi, immortality, and her role as an avatar

I’d like to turn to two passages:

Kyoshi: “The way you describe it, you’d have to decide what version of yourself you’d be stuck as, forever.”

Lao Ge: “Exactly! Those who grow, live and die. The stagnant pool is immortal, while the clear flowing river dies an uncountable number of deaths.”

and

In the future, perhaps, she’d become finalized like carved stone. It would be easier to deal with the world then. She could only hope.

[...]

She still had to be careful not to lose her balance and fall. Kyoshi kept her eyes focused on her difficult path, sometimes stumbling but making sure to catch herself, taking one step at a time.

This isn’t directly related to what I think she would say, but more about how she lets her experiences, and therefore, her experiences and relationship with Yun, affect who she is. Here, F.C. Yee is detailing the person we see in her cameo in A:tLA. It’s a testament to her growth, yes, but also to how she lived so long. She’s allowed to grow now, while she’s young and still learning. But eventually Kyoshi’s growth will wane, leaving us with the iron woman we saw in A:tLA. 

Remember when I said I would call F.C. Yee a sap for the very last Kyoshi POV line? It’s the last sentence in my second excerpt, is that Kyoshi is allowing herself make mistakes. It’s pretty obviously a little deeper than the concept of walking down a slope: She became one of the most revered Avatars, we know how her story ends, if not lots of the in-betweens, but F.C. Yee tells us right here in that sentence. She changed and she learned. 

I think, however, that eventually she had to pick a place to stop in order to stop aging. If I had to pick a point where she became “immortal” I’d pick Rangi’s peaceful and timely death surrounded by her loved ones on Yokoya (not Kyoshi Island since I’m going to maintain that her A;tLA cameo was “immortal” Kyoshi) and I think Lao Ge killed her—or at least convinced her to let go.

further thoughts on her longevity: rangi’s role and future

Ok before anybody comes into my inbox like “um zey herglowinggirl I need you to know that actually Rangi also lived to 230 😌″ because I understand the sentiment it’s more like here’s what I’d like to discuss: Kyoshi can’t be immortal around Rangi because Rangi is in so many ways her catalyst for growth. First off, it would be completely out of character for Rangi to be immortal, because she’s constantly moving and being and feeling and judging and that changes her. Positive jing. And Lao Ge says it: “those who grow, live and die.” Rangi believes in the best and strives for the best, for perfection. For Kyoshi to freeze herself and become immortal, that would require picking an imperfect state. And as we know, Sei’naka women do not accept imperfection 😤. 

Although Rangi promises to always be by Kyoshi’s side, I think in the latter years of Kyoshi’s live it’s more like the impact that Rangi has had on her in that frozen state. That voice of Rangi’s is part of Kyoshi in those years. However, without Rangi, it is unlikely that Kyoshi will always or commonly choose to act on it. It’s stated multiple times throughout the novels that Rangi is Kyoshi’s center and that she doesn’t know who she’d be without Rangi, but I think the logical conclusion is immortal. With Rangi’s death she becomes her own center by stopping her growth; with Rangi’s death she just becomes...that stone she was talking about, where it does get easier to make decisions because you’re not striving to constantly change and grow. It’s almost a coping mechanism, if you will. Because Kyoshi is more than Rangi, can function without Rangi, it’s just not necessarily pretty.

lao ge’s role and future

Which brings me to my “in my personal version of canon Lao Ge kinda maybe killed Kyoshi” point. Rangi is in no way Kyoshi’s morality, but she is very much the idealistic ‘better’ half. With this catalyst of hope and change gone, I think back to the creation of the Dai Li—it very much sounds to me like something Jianzhu would do. Kyoshi, who had previously been the breakdown of negotiations, created a secret op police force? 

I think the moment Kyoshi started being the establishment, the moment she was the band-aid instead of the solution (much like Yun was, hint hint) Lao Ge would’ve paid her a visit. Either this or the creation of the Dai Li created a catalyst for perhaps an existential crisis, perhaps just being tired, perhaps simply knowing what is best...Kyoshi is, and always will be, a sworn criminal who cannot uphold the law, only her own judgements. She is both the law and the breaking and bending of it, and when she loses this balance when Rangi falls from her side and she becomes her own rock I think it would swing her away from her center, and this is where she becomes immortal. Eventually, it would become enough of an issue for people to intervene and tell her that her time as an Avatar is coming to an end. 

advice to future avatars

This is my favorite point and I’ll tie it back to Yun in just a second. I have posted about thinking about the impact of Yun’s death on Kyoshi and how that would’ve impacted her legacy and the advice she gave Roku and Aang before. Honestly what strikes me is how proud Kyoshi would be of Aang. The way that each Avatar must learn to forge their own way and become their own person and what their era needs, balancing themselves, is something so lovely. I think Kyoshi would’ve absolutely loved how Aang took the advice of his predecessors and said “no, I know what would be better for me,” and I think post-tSoK Kyoshi, who has learned she has to forge her own way and style as a leader, would love and be so proud of him for that. 

However, that doesn’t mean that her advice doesn’t have weight. I think mainly her “immortal” phase would perhaps have an impact on the way Yun impacts her advice. I think “only justice will bring peace” also speaks to the finality of death. Just like immortality, death keeps growth from happening. “only justice will bring peace” is also a nod to the way you must learn to cope with your actions and the way you feel about them. It’s also about Aang’s inner peace, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen mentioned. Everyone always wants to talk about what he should’ve done and how Kyoshi was right because she told Aang about her choice to let Chin die, but I think she actually guided him to the idea that you should be ok with yourself. To be confident in what you do and take up responsibility for your actions. Kyoshi wasn’t telling him murder was good. She was telling him she owned up to her actions and chose to make those decisions as an Avatar. To me, this finality speaks of growth after Yun’s death and the end of tSoK. She has grown and then frozen, but that means she has changed.

And although I don’t have an answer for what advice she might’ve given Roku, I think it’s a good way to interpret this. The only thing keeping Kyoshi from being honest about Yun’s death is the fact that Zoryu has “Yun” locked up. I think this is likely one of her biggest regrets, that she cannot be honest and responsible for something that weighs so heavily on her soul. This, I think, guides her advice. Only justice will bring peace. Now that I’ve thought it out, perhaps it wasn’t Lao Ge, and perhaps it was the idea that Yun had never been done justice and perhaps that turmoil never changed, which made her long-lived but not quite immortal. She cannot quite know the peace of death nor of life.

I think she must’ve told Roku that no matter what, he must accept the consequences of what he does. He’s not willing to loose that friendship and I think Kyoshi would’ve understood that, and the questions Roku would’ve had to pose himself as an Avatar. That is Kyoshi’s advice. Only justice, true justice in the form of accountability and self-actualization as a leader, will allow you to make good decisions. The acceptance of this: that whatever he does, he must be willing to accept it’s legacy, learn from it, and teach the next Avatar just as she let Yun’s death affect her leadership and what she taught. And I think that’s probably incredibly poetic, even if I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. 

#this might be my magnum opus. will someone on bryke's team just hire me to write an animated kyoshi novels please #honestly im filled with such love id do it for free nd everything #the shadow of kyoshi #avatar: the last airbender #yun #the kyoshi novels #rangshi #kyoshi #the rise of kyoshi #familiar anon #anonymous #answered asks #rangi #kyoshi novels meta #atla meta #z.txt

[retvenkos]

No, I am not done talking about aging up the characters of the Grishaverse, thank you very much...

(Spoilers for pretty much all of the Grishaverse!)

I’m going to come right out and say it - I don’t think aging up all of the characters was the smartest move. I think the Grishaverse is compelling, and the characters can be very complex, and part of that leans on the ages of the characters. I’m going to be talking about why I think (at least some) of the characters should have retained their same age, or at the very least, shouldn’t have been quite so aged up.

But first, I understand some reasons as to why they aged up characters, so I’m going to state them outright, to advocate on their behalf (but also, I can try my hand at debunking some of these. For funsies):

1. Mass audiences will be less interested if the main story feels too Y.A. - most adult audiences won’t want to watch that genre.

(This is a very fair argument! However, when comparing Shadow and Bone to other popular (non Y.A.) fantasies, Shadow and Bone is very Y.A. Compare Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings to Shadow and Bone, and you can see how the Y.A. genre permeates the text. There are character moments and story beats that Shadow and Bone utilizes that are characteristic of the Y.A. genre. It was created with that audience and expectation in mind. No matter how hard the show tries to divorce the source material from it’s Y.A. roots, it is still very much a Y.A. story. The second most important plot line is a romance and not the implications of how society created the Darkling and how society Must Be Fixed if we ever want to move on and win the war. Those problems of the wider Grishaverse are better tackled in the Nikolai Duology (which still stumbles), and the Nikolai Duology feels like a different story/genre because it’s tackling something different. Shadow and Bone is an inherently Y.A. story, and really, it is the later books in the Grishaverse that deviate from the tropes and traps of the genre.  No matter how you dice it, the original trilogy is very much a Y.A. story. Lean into it, and you might be better able to mess around with the fluidity of the genre, all while your audience knows what the story is, and what will come of it. Alternatively, the writers could have gotten deep into the text and tried to bring up the deeper problems of the story (most of those grey areas) to make it less trope-like, but that would require an almost complete retelling, which we did not get. Too often, Y.A. stories are divorced from the genre when they are adapted, but it’s not done in an organic way that looks at the text itself, and it feels very off when viewing. Just let Shadow and Bone be what it is. If you want a longer rant on this, hmu.)

2. Some very serious things happen to these characters! To write about it is one thing, but to watch a 17 year old Alina be manipulated in this way or to watch a 19 year old Genya be used in this way is dark and very much Not Okay!

(Yes! Watching all of the terrible, terrible things happen is bad enough on it’s own, and when you de-age Alina from 25 to 17 and Genya from 30 to 19, there are some very big consequences! It’s not nearly as inviting or Okay to view! Anyone would be rightly horrified! Especially older audiences! Well, forgive me for being so blunt, but that is part of The Point. Part of what makes all of this so cruel and so unfair is that these characters are young - they are barely no longer children - and that is what heightens the injustice of it all. Alina is a teenager who is tasked with saving the world and freeing an oppressed people! And she doesn’t want to do it! That’s a lot to handle, right? Arguably, by keeping their young ages, you are better breaking out of the Y.A. adaptation trap because you are making a statement about how young these characters are and how unfair all of this is. Y.A. adaptations always age up the characters for palatability, but by keeping them young, you are making it more grungy and more frightening without even changing the source material!)

3. Okay, but adult audiences don’t want to ship teenagers. How will we get them to watch?

(This argument is probably the most sound, and it makes the most sense! Netflix wants to get the widest audience they can - they know teenagers who read the book are going to watch it anyway, so they need to get the older crowd invested. An easy way to get people invested is to get them hooked on a romance plotline. Then you have to watch the show to see how it progresses! It would be hard to do that if adults feel uncomfortable telling 16 year olds to kiss already. Another problem is that Shadow and Bone doesn’t have an adult cast - they have the young ones and that’s about it. Compare that to Game of Thrones (or, if you want me to stop with GOT references, shows like Cobra Kai) where there are 2+ generations - fans have the older group to ship, and the younger group to wish the best for. This is a trap of the Y.A. genre. They are Kids, but they are Not. In the book, this works fine, as their ages aren’t mentioned often. In fact, in the books, they read like competent 25 year olds, except for key moments when they show their age, which usually feels bittersweet (the Six of Crows Duology is much better at this than Shadow and Bone, but I digress). So what do we do? Well, D*rklina fans aren’t going to like this, but I would argue that we keep Alina and Mal aged down, and the story subliminally changes from “the love triangle” to “coming of age while dealing with abusive relationships”. In fact, this is another great way to divorce it from the Y.A. genre, which was already a goal we had in mind.)

✧ *:･ﾟ

Now, let’s move onto character analyses... everyone’s favorite.

In this section, I’m going to break down some main characters from the Shadow and Bone Netflix show (and some upcoming characters, just for the hell of it) and I’m going to advocate for changing their ages. At the end, I’ll give you a rough ballpark estimate for what I think they should have been.

(Also, I just want to address that I loved the actors chosen for the Netflix show, and this is in no way an attack on them. They did great, and they’re performances were amazing. This is me talking about an issue the showrunners made, not the actors.)

Alina Starkov

First, we get to talk about the lovely Alina Starkov. Jessie Mei Li is 25 years old. Her book counterpart is 17. That’s a whopping 8 year difference where a lot of growth happens. Alina Starkov in the books is doing her best for a girl who is told that she is going to save the world. She doesn’t have a lot of experience outside of the orphanage and the army, and so her knowledge of how Grisha are treated is ignorant at best, and malicious at worst. She doesn’t see nearly all of the suffering that is happening in the world, and for the most part, it stays that way. She knows the Fjerdans don’t like them, she knows the Shu are bad too, but she doesn’t really know the extent. She really gets a good look at it in the 3rd book, but for a large part of the series, Alina doesn’t really know what she’s up against, and her age is an easy explanation for her ignorance. A 17 year old growing up in a remote orphanage hasn’t had the greatest education. A 25 year old Alina has less excuses.

(There’s also a lot to be said about how Alina mostly... doesn’t care about the wider issues plaguing Grisha. This is decidedly Bad. I’m going to say this once, and I will say it many times again, but generally, audiences are more okay when a younger character does Bad Things because they reason they’ll learn in time. Thus, for a show, it’s strategically better to make these characters younger. Saying this doesn’t mean I support Alina’s disregard, it just means I recognize how it is utilized in storytelling.)

But why is her ignorance important, you ask? Because, Alina misses a key point of why the Darkling does what he does. To her, his actions of expanding the Fold are very black and white. Even when she’s with him, she refuses to see how it’s justified. Thus, a younger Alina is a little more understandable.

If Netflix was planning on focusing on how the Darklings desires are good but his methods are wrong, keeping Alina aged up is fine because she could be the voice of those concerns. However, I don’t really see that happening, so aging her up seems cheap.

Furthermore, part of the injustice of Alina’s character is that she is a child tasked with saving the world. She is a teenager who is being worshipped as a Saint, and who is going to have to martyr herself for the good of the world. It’s unfair. It’s cruel. Alina being 25 doesn’t somehow change this injustice, but to the average viewer, seeing a 17 year old child dying for the good of Ravka - dying because she’s the only one who can stop the villain - is more emotional and more disturbing.  There’s your grit, Netflix. It was already handed to you.

And I know, Ben Barnes (who plays the Darkling) is 39! It would be extremely uncomfortable to watch him fall in love and manipulate Alina! Again, I’m apologizing to the D*rklina shippers, because that is The Point. The Darkling is hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years old. That is why his talk of “eternity” is so compelling. He has felt it. He has lived it. When he tells Alina that he will break her, it should be greatly disturbing!  It would change the feeling of the story completely if Alina looks like a teenager. It would be a story about survival - not of romance. And while survival is definitely a Y.A. dystopian or fantasy trope, depending on how it’s handled, it could be markedly different from its predecessors.

However, book Alina is a minor, and that doesn’t sit right with me. Thus, I would make Alina 18, or 19 at the most. She should still very much be a teenager.

Malyen Oretsev

Mal is the next character we get to talk about, and I’m sure you have an idea about what I’m going to say. Archie Renaux is 23 and his book counterpart is 18. That’s only a five year difference, which isn’t that damning, but still leaves some problems.

One thing a lot of people disliked about Mal in the books was his temper and the way he expressed his frustrations. Now, while it’s true that viewers tend to be more forgiving with male characters having bad attitudes, this attitude problem could still be something that viewers will dislike in later seasons. This problem is only larger when you factor in an older age. Already, I expect people to complain about Mal’s temper and his inability to vent his frustrations in a healthy way (avoiding talking to Alina, blowing up, having a sour mood, having violent or explosive tendencies). This is only going to get worse when another argument added is “he is a grown man. He should have learned how to cope by now.” This argument isn’t completely nullified by a younger age, but it is made a little more understandable to the audience. (Again, in no way am I justifying these unhealthy behaviors, nor am I saying it’s okay when younger men do it, I’m just saying that viewers on a whole are more likely to excuse this behavior from a younger man - a sad reality, but a reality nonetheless.)

And as for his tracking ability, which is the best out of everyone in the world, he is gifted primarily because he’s an amplifier. At the end of Ruin and Rising, it’s noted that he can’t track nearly as well as he could because the world doesn’t hum with life in the way it used to. The in-world explanation probably also explains the ease with which he can pick up new skills. Thus, Mal doesn’t need to be aged up for skill reasons.

So, I would make Mal 19-21 in the series. He can be the slightly older than Alina, and everything works out how it should.

The Darkling

This one is going to be really quick - I think the age they made the Darkling was fine. Ben Barnes is 39 and we really don’t get an answer as to how old the Darkling is in the book (although he’s older than 400 years old, because the Fold was created 400 years ago). 

It’s worth noting that in the books, the Darkling isn’t described as being much older than (a 17 year old) Alina, but having him be markedly older than Alina was a smart move for subtext, but also for the presence that the Darkling has, and the reverence with which people regard him. The Darkling has power - I can’t imagine a 17 year old boy having the same effect as a grown man.

I have no beef with a 39 year old Darkling. I wouldn’t age him down much more, but I also wouldn’t make him much older, either.

Genya Safin

Genya Safin is another character I feel like should be addressed. Daisy Head is 30 years old. In the books, Genya is 19. Now, Genya’s character is an interesting one, because arguably either age suits her character. Throughout the series she’s shown to be more mature and capable than Alina, and while she places importance on the cliques of the Little Palace (which was poorly shown in the show, imo), she was raised in this environment from very young, and she’s at the bottom of the ranking. Her investment in it is justified. Sadly, I think more viewers would be moved by her story of sexual abuse if she were younger, but what happened is a tragedy and it was wrong no matter how you dice it.

Her age is one of the few I’m neutral on.

However, she and Alina are shown to be very close in the book, and while that doesn’t carry over as easily in the show, I think it would be nice to place her at least a little closer in age to Alina, but still keep her a little older so that she can offer her advice and it doesn’t feel preachy or unearned.

I would place her around 19-26. She has a lot of room for her age, because it’s not vital that she be any specific age. 

David Kostyk

I’m very briefly talking about David because Luke Pasqualino is 31 and David in the books is 19-20. I aged down Genya, and since they are love interests, I would like them to be in a little closer range of each other.

However, David is a very gifted Fabrikator - so much so that he changes the war considerably in later books - so I still want him to be older than the average cast.

I would place him around 24-29, and mostly, it would be based around the age of Genya. I wouldn’t want him to be 29 if Genya is 19. That’s just the ballpark range.

Zoya Nazyalensky

The final Shadow and Bone character I’m going to talk about is Zoya because she’s really important later in the Grishaverse. Online, I could not determine exactly what Sujaya Dasgupta’s age is, but the two ages most commonly given are 19 or 21. Zoya in the books is 19-20, so Sujaya is one of the most faithful castings in terms of age. 

I think it’s important that Zoya is around the age of Alina. Not only do they have a shared love interest in the form of Nikolai (and the Darkling in the show, which I absolutely hate), but they also have a rivalry for the Darkling’s favor (which isn’t romantic, but about sTATUS), and having her be markedly older than a teenage Alina would be weird, in my opinion.

Furthermore, Zoya’s character is pretty closed off and (dare I say) one-dimensional in the original Shadow and Bone trilogy, so keeping her younger isn’t going to make her any less believable. She’s not particularly wise, so keeping her young won’t be an issue.

Finally, she has a romantic plotline with Mal (even if it doesn’t go anywhere), so we want to keep her within range of Mal’s age, too.

I would place Zoya at 19-22. Thus, I am in agreement with the showrunners!

Nikolai Lantsov

A character that has yet to make an appearance in the show is Nikolai Lantsov, who is stated as being 20-21 in Siege and Storm, and the rest of the Shadow and Bone trilogy. Nikolai hasn’t been casted yet, but I decided to put him here because why not?

Nikolai, interestingly enough, is a character I would like to age up, however, only slightly. Nikolai is a very accomplished character, as anyone who has read the series knows, and while he does have the grooming to be that smart and accomplished, he is able to outsmart the Darkling and other older characters on multiple occasions, and him being so young just seems off. Of course, I understand why he is young - his love interests are, and he certainly has his moments where he’s boyish and unprepared - but these reasons pale in comparison to all of his talents and accomplishments.

Taking all of this into consideration, I would put Nikolai at 23 or 24. It’s a minor age change, and it would really just make him more apt to grow into his role. He’s still young enough to where people can underestimate him, but he’s old enough to justify having such smarts and charm. The only argument I can see going against this is his love story with Alina, seeing as she’s 18/19, but I think there was a lot that went into his pursuit of Alina. At first it was political, but after that, it became about how Alina was someone who challenged him and knew him for all that he was. It was less of a romance and more of a friendship that lended itself to a nice opportunity. It could have been more. It wasn’t. Plus, the age gap isn’t egregious.

Tamar Kir-Bataar and Tolya Yul-Bataar

I’m briefly talking about these twins, because they are originally 18-19 in the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, and I would like them to be older overall. Tamar and Tolya are some of the most competent characters in the Grishaverse, and having them be the same age as Mal and Alina is off, in my mind.

I would like them to be at least Nikolai’s age or older, so 23-27.

✧ *:･ﾟ

Finally, we’re on to the crows....

Kaz Brekker

Ah, yes. The Bastard of the Barrel. His is a character I was actually really glad to see aged up, before watching the show. Afterwards, I have some more complex thoughts. Freddy Carter is 28 years old and Kaz, in the books, is 17. 

Kaz in the books is very competent. So much so that he outsmarts everyone he comes up against - characters who are older than him and often have military strategy. Furthermore, he is ruthless. He is probably one of the darkest characters in all of the Grishaverse, and all of that is placed on the shoulders of a 17 year old. To make a comparison, he and Alina are the same age when their stories take place (Shadow and Bone for Alina, and Six of Crows for Kaz). I don’t know a lot of young celebrities to make the comparison, but he’s a teenager. He’s a child. Aging up Kaz in the show was something I was very much on board for. Kaz is a ruthless killer and an expert thief, and making him older was a smart move, imo. A Kaz in his 20′s made more sense.

However, when we meet Kaz in season one of Shadow and Bone, he’s very much in his fledgling state. Not a single plan of his goes as planned. He is foiled at every step, and the most gruesome thing he did in the show wasn’t bad, when you compare it to thing Kaz has canonically done. Rumors say that the Six of Crows arc is going to pick up in season two, and while I hope it doesn’t, I covered that particular argument far more in depth in another post and won’t address it here. Whether or not I think show Kaz is up to snuff, I think they aged him up too much and they depowered him too much.

Part of Kaz’ secret weapon was that he was wicked smart and crazy competent, but people underestimated him because of his age. They figured he didn’t have nearly enough experience to be as ruthless and cunning as he was. They were clearly wrong.

I think that Kaz in his 20′s makes sense, but Kaz in his late 20′s does not. Especially when you factor in the fact that he was so epically unsuccessful in the show, the extent to which they made him older wasn’t doing him any favors. It made him less “Dirtyhands” than he is.

So, final say, I would have made Kaz 20 or 21 in Shadow and Bone. We’re de-aging him so he still has time to grow, but he’s not crazy overpowered at 17. Furthermore, in a perfect world, he has time to age between Shadow and Bone and the events of Six of Crows.

Inej Ghafa

Inej is played by Amita Suman who is 23 years old. In the books, Inej is 16. In an interesting turn of events, I don’t find Inej in the books to be terribly overpowered so much as she is just really talented. 

Inej in Six of Crows is hesitant to kill. She’s smart and watchful, and she’s a really great spider. She’s given backstory to explain all of this, and it makes sense. At most, she is mature for her age, but that is also given a pretty damn good reason. She has to be. 

The few reasons I could see as to aging up her character is to make it less awkward for the romance between her and Kaz, as well as make the crows group more cohesive in age, with fewer outliers, both of which I am not against. 

I would make Inej around 18 or 19 and call it a day.

Jesper Fahey

Jesper is another character that I largely have no problems with. Jesper is played by Kit Young who is 26 years old, and in the books, Jesper is 17. 

In the books, Jesper is an extremely talented marksman, but part of that (even if he doesn’t know it or doesn’t want to acknowledge it in the books) is because he is a Grisha Fabrikator and he is using his gifts to bend the bullets he shoots and aims them where they need to go. His character wasn’t particularly overpowered in the books, and as for his personality, in the books he acted the most “teenage-like,” but in the show, he retained his same youthfulness without it seeming out of place, so that isn’t particularly damning.

For Jesper, I don’t mind aging him up or making him younger. Both work. 

However, he has a romantic plotline with Wylan (who I will get to eventually), so we wan’t to keep that in mind.

Final say, I would make Jesper 18. He’s the same age as (or slightly younger than) Inej, and that sits well with me.

Matthias Helvar

Oh, boy. If you’ve been on my blog long, you know this is the character that started this whole rant. Because here’s the thing: Matthias is an incredibly complex character. And part of that complexity comes from the fact that Matthias doesn’t know about anything beyond what Fjerda has taught him. He is heavily indoctrinated and heavily ignorant, and his struggle is what makes him such an interesting character.

Matthias is played by Calahan Skogman who is 28 (in my other meta, he was 27, but birthdays, y’know?). In the books, Matthias is 18 when Six of Crows takes place. That’s a whopping 10 year age gap. As you can imagine, so much happens in 10 years time. Now, with Matthias, we’re going to look at his life a little more in depth so that you can really understand how this 10 year gap affects his ignorance.

Matthias’ family were killed by Grisha when he was a child. We don’t know how young, but that doesn’t really matter, because either way it’s traumatic. Soon afterward, he starts training to become a soldier. Now, just when drüskelle are allowed to be fully initiated at Hringkälla is unknown, but I’m guessing the age would be at youngest, 14 (although, it’s probably closer to 16, but I’m not arguing about that right now). Grisha are supposed to be the most dangerous type of person. The Fjerdans are not going to put 12 year olds out there to fight them. So, a roughly 14 year old Matthias is going on expeditions to catch Grisha. When he is 17, Matthias meets Nina. At this point, he has only been a full drüskelle for 3-ish years. Regardless of how many Grisha Matthias has captured, 3 years is a vast difference from his show counterpart, who is 28 and therefore (as a drüskelle since he was 14) has been capturing Grisha for 14 years. In fact, in the show, they give Matthias props for having been the one with the clever ideas for capturing Nina, which shows he has done this often.  After that, Matthias spends one year in Hellgate, making in 18 in the books and (eventually) 29 in the show.

So, why was it so important that I detail that for you? Matthias’ change of heart is prompted by Nina, a pretty Grisha. I’m not saying their bond is shallow, but if you are a man who has a nasty past with Grisha and has been hunting them for 14 years, having a pretty Grisha change your mind is a little shallow and a little unbelievable. Even though Nina saved his life, I think it’s a little hard to sell the substantial change of heart he has. On the other hand, if Matthias is 18-19, he’s still a hormonal teenager, and his feelings for Nina prompting some critical thinking makes more sense. Furthermore, Matthias is younger and more impressionable. It would be much easier to change his worldview, if he were younger.

All in all, I would de age Matthias to be 19-20. Slightly older than in the books to allow for Nina to be a little older than her book counterpart (which I’m about to get to.) 

Nina Zenik

Almost finished with my rant, we’re talking about Nina. Nina is played by Danielle Galligan who is 28 years old, and in the books, Nina is 17. 

Now, Nina Zenik is a capable character. She is a spy. She speaks multiple languages, she’s a talented Grisha, and she’s quite self-assured. All of that advocates for an older Nina, so that she may have time to hone these impressive skills. Furthermore, Nina is the most sexualized of the Crows. I wouldn’t mind her being older, and I’m sure general audiences would be in favor of her not being a teenager.

Nina is also a soldier and she has a very complex storyline in Six of Crows, and later. By all accounts, aging her up is not a bad idea. In fact, I quite like the idea that Nina is older. I agree that she should be aged up, just not to the extent she was.

If this were my world, I would make Nina 20-22. That would make her the oldest out of all of the crows, and I quite like that.

Wylan Van Eck

Wylan has yet to be casted, but he is 16 in the books, and pretty damn smart. He’s not street smart, mind you, but he’s a chemistry nerd and demolitionist, so he’s very competent. He’s still under his father’s thumb, but I don’t take that to mean he has to be young - abuse can affect you well into your life. He’s definitely a character more naive to the realities of the Barrel, but that can easily be played off as “the rich boy is out of depth.”

There’s nothing that explicitly needs him to be younger than an adult, although the argument for making him young amongst the crows is strong and still stands.

He has a love story with Jesper, so we want to keep in mind the fact that Jesper is an adult.

Wylan also has the tricky little storyline of him being tailored into being Kuwei, so in determining his age, we want to keep him in the ballpark of Kuwei. Luckily, he was tailored from a Grisha on parem, so truly, anything is possible.

For his smarts, his competence, and his love story, I think we should age him up.

All in all, I would make Wylan 18. It’s not far from his book counterpart, and I think it makes sense.

Kuwei Yul-Bo

Kuwei is another character who was yet to be casted. He is 16 in Six of Crows, and I would say he is the character who most shows his age. Kuwei may be wicked smart, but he’s a chaos gremlin who doodles in his notebook, pretends to not understand Kerch, and also renames himself to be nhaban - “rising phoenix” in Shu. He doesn’t scheme the way the rest of the crows do, and while this can be explained away by the fact that he’s not a criminal, there still seems to be something hopeful and youthful about his character.

He’s still a boy in mourning over the death of his father, and he’s currently one of the world’s most wanted. In Crooked Kingdom, he’s vibing in a tomb for the majority of the book. Kuwei is honestly such a fun character that I hope gets more complexity in coming Grishaverse content.

Kuwei is very similar to Wylan in that he’s wicked smart (although his dad is a scientist and they have worked together, so there is some in-world explanation) and he has a crush on Jesper (don’t we all?).

Taking this into account, I would make Kuwei 17 or 18.

✧ *:･ﾟ

TL;DR, the characters of the Grishaverse were aged up and I’m a little miffed about it. The reasons for aging them up are to detract from the source material being a Y.A. story, but you cannot separate a story from it’s genre. The story is inherently Y.A. because it uses story beats that are typical of a Y.A. story. It’s not just viewer expectation - the story is Y.A. The ages of the characters in the books are very young in some cases, but in the show they were aged up too much, imo. It detracts from the tragedy of them being young and forced to survive, and it adds very little in most cases.

✧ *:･ﾟ tagging @missumaru

#grishaverse #shadow and bone #shadow and bone spoilers #s&b spoilers #alina starkov #malyen oretsev #the darkling #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #nina zenik #matthias helvar #genya safin #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #david kostyk #wylan van eck #kuwei yul-bo #meta #grishaverse meta #shadow and bone meta #i am once again ranting about the grishaverse #like... no one asked for this but also you asked for this don't lie

[thewillowbends]

I completely agree with you regarding S&B. Alina’s character was wasted and I still have no idea why she was a main character when she ended up doing nothing important or really changing things in any meaningful way. I don’t know if you’ve already read it but I highly recommend reading Demon in the Woods. It’s the only story where we really see from Aleksander’s POV(until the trash duology)and it’s really heartbreaking what he does through as a child. If I’m not wrong the show planned to also adapt it but they didn’t for budget reasons but imagine if they had shown his traumatic childhood+creation of the Fold...

My whole thing is that I'm fine with Aleksander being a villain because how one wields is definitely important, regardless of what kind of trauma they've got going on in their history, but I am just absolutely baffled by the thematic intent of this series. It's entirely fair for Alina to be furious and upset about her enslavement, but for her to have absolutely no empathy for what drove him to where he is now or what's happened to the other Grisha and to stay that way over the course of her entire journey is just...well, it begs the question why is she the heroine? There's nothing really heroic or moral about her journey if she's going to wind up right back where she started, running away from power and responsibility. That can be a protagonist's journey, sure, but it's not a heroic one.

Saying "power makes monsters" is fine as a theme if the characters in question are people who have always wielded power in a society. It becomes a lot more complicated when you're dealing with an oppressed minority, and especially when you show repeatedly that they're still suffering state violence at both the hands of enemy countries and their own people. Having a fancy palace with nice clothes and food and military training is not a privilege that replaces your ability to move about a society safely or wield real political power, which they explicitly do not.

If she wanted to write a story warning women about falling for men with tragic backstories who have no intention of doing the work of improving what their trauma did to them, that's fine, but then you actually have to make her empathetic. The point of connection has to be her feelings of sympathy for what he's been through. Alina isn't empathetic. Her attraction to Aleksander in the book is based on power and mystery, and in the show it's based on emerging confidence and a boldness that he inspires in her. It's not wholly based on the tragedy of his heritage or a sympathetic connection nor do we see him actively playing on that much beyond the first scene where he claims to be the descendant. Moreover, after he's revealed to be the Black Heretic, he doesn't weaponize the pain and grief associated with that history, either, even though that would mirror a common abuse tactic and be an underhanded way to undermine her confidence and make her second-guess her own ethical intent. It doesn't work here because the writing is so focused on making her tough and independent, it doesn't let her be weak or make mistakes in a meaningful way that resonates with the reader.

(Want to see a villain who does this well to a woman? See Billy Russo in Season 1 of The Punisher. Also played by Ben Barnes, ironically enough!)

If she wanted to do a story about radicalization of victims of state violence, then she needed to go more ethically complicated in the narrative. Her protagonists needed to have real conversations with themselves and others about what the resolution of this problem with the Grisha is and how the current situation created a monster in the first place. There needed to be a real dialogue back and forth examining both sides of it, whether violence against the state is ever acceptable if the state persistently insists on actively attacking a minority or outright neglecting them. In this case, it's unsurprising an Israeli-American author doesn't want to ask the serious question, "Does every participant in a society hold responsibility for the atrocities of the powerful if they aren't actively fighting it?" Disappointing, but I'm not surprised, since that's a more direct moral interrogation than most people prefer for themselves.

Which leads into the other part that a story like that also requires a serious moral evolution on the part of the protagonist. They have to be changed by the villain, empathize with them, grow to have a sense of responsibility to changing what created the conditions that bred this evil in the first place. She can still have Alina struggle with the power high she gets from the amplifiers, but make it more complicated than hurr hurr lady bad for wanting power. Ask us to empathize with how Alina has felt in her past as a helpless victim of prejudice. Show us how power gave her the ability to change things she couldn't before.

In other words, it can't leave things at status quo. It acknowledges that status quo is what created the problem in the first place. The problem is that Alina's fate in the books doesn't do that. It actually reflects a moral cowardice to some extent if you want to be brutally honest about it.

(Want to see where this is done well? See Kilmonger in Black Panther. The Star Wars prequels, while less elegantly accomplished, are a good example of how to create a story where the moral decay of a society creates evil.)

Lastly...she could have done a story about the nature of heroism, about whether it's fair to ask one person to carry the burden of saving the world. That could have also been a thoughtful back and forth on the nature of power and whether it breeds responsibility along with it in terms of how its wielded. Does Alina have a right to walk away? Does she have the right to say, "I don't want this destiny?"

(Want to see this done well? See Peter Parker in the Spiderman films featuring Toby Maguire. Yes, even the last one, which is trash, but is still thematically and morally consistent with the other two films.)

Etc, etc. These are all three different moral journeys her protagonists could have on, but it feels like she tried to do variations on all three and just kind of hit a wall because they're all inconsistent with each other. "Power = bad" isn't really a meaningful theme, not when your story hinges on people needing power to create change and when your villain is somebody who had to claw his way to the top to get it after years of suffering genocide and prejudice.

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone spoilers #grisha trilogy #grisha trilogy spoilers #critical analysis #long post

[bae-science]

it’s t-t-t-t-time for another newt bae-science fic rec extravabonanza! same rules, same boys, same bullshit! let’s get into it:

a beginning; a second chance by @dykesword

other newt and i have a long and intricate ritualistic battle to become the alpha newt, but i gotta give credit where it’s due. if you like to annotate your books for fun, this fic will give you a looooong comment you’ll want to write, and for good reason! there’s a lot of really well done metaphor and character detail in here, while still keeping a very soft, melancholy but with a hopeful edge tone. and also, like, the care and detail in which newt’s mental state in the aftermath of the precursors’ abuse is depicted is so so good, and delightful to read

husbandly duties by @kingeiszler

i am soooo biased with this one bc technically it was made for me but GODDAMN it’s good. this shit has everything: gottlieb trio sibling dynamics, vanessa in giant femme earrings, hermann yearning, newt and karla infodumping together, newt’s terrible and accurate gaydar, gay crime, the newmann dynamic and why it works boiled down to its bare essentials, pride and prejudice glasses touch, and neon green acrylics. required reading for the vanessaverse

Say That Again by @robertfrobisherslover

WOOF. if you like mutual pining and lack of communication from men with rocks for their emotional processing centers, and guncle (gay uncle) newt and hermann and KILLER artsy sex scenes, and themes of words unsaid in a story about LANGUAGE..... oogoogogoogouhufug. the writing style is clear and well paced, i LOVE little mako’s scene she’s such a cutie, and there’s like. a line. that’s a play on the whole “it’s always been you” trope. that lives in my mind rent free forever.

speak right to my heart without saying a word by @thekaidonovskys

i’m just gonna paste the comment i left on it here, because that sums up what is so absolutely incredible about this fic the best:

so sometimes you stumble on a piece of fiction that you add to your little collection of stuff you would show a person if you wanted them to understand a part of you that you can't quite explain eloquently, or it would take too long, etc etc, and i've never really found something like that for my autism until now, which, like, poggers. and i'll be as straight up as i can while still being the biggest lesbian in the great state of ohio (not a hard feat but alan invented computers so i love continuing on the autistic tradition of being a living miracle), the chameleon effect hit me like a mack truck. catholic school in the deep south is the most potent and effective form of ABA therapy imaginable :/. so sometimes i wonder what i would be like if i didn't have such a strong ability to pass, and here's where we finally get to the part of this comment where i just vomit compliments at you: you nailed it. you got it. i don't know if you're on the spectrum, but either way, well fucking done. trauma therapy research talks a lot about healing fantasies, which are fantasies, usually in the form of daydreams, that abused/neglected/traumatized/etc people create that directly address a struggle they have and take the form of a scenario in which that struggle is helped in some way. it could be an abusive parent repenting and showering them with the love they never had, or someone finding them during a panic attack and somehow knowing how best to comfort them without having to ask, or being intimate with someone and having a scar or physical deformity they've been shamed for be given attention and care. and i think you have created the ultimate perfect healing fantasy for autistic people, or at least those with """"high functioning"""" autism. it has a character who is visibly and undeniably on the spectrum having the pain and trauma going through life like that causes being acknowledged and validated, they are purposefully paid attention to because person b genuinely likes them and wants to understand and respect who they are and how they function in the world, and thus get The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known as well as the eventual rewards of being loved, person b makes a genuine effort to help teach them social skills in a way they can understand and learn through and is there for them when these skills are being practiced, their space and boundaries are respected but they aren't infantilized or thought of as an emotionless robot, and they receive love and comfort on their own terms not despite of but because of who they are, even specifically being asked not to change the way they are because that way is lovable. they are openly desired. writing is my fucking JOB and it's still difficult to put into words how much you got 100000% right about the dream with this fic. i have been in the EXACT and i mean EXACT same situation as hermann when he asked newt if it was his personality itself that made people not like him, because i deadass made a spreadsheet of all my personality attributes i thought could be preventing me from making friends in college, and then asked my fellow nd friend to see if there was anything i was missing. so i guess what i'm trying to say is that this amazing, and i'm bookmarking it and putting it on my next fic rec post, and maybe one day way way in the future if i ever get a partner i want to explain the whole autism thing to, i'm gonna have them read this.

The Facts With Newton Geiszler, PhD by what_alchemy (NSFW)

storytime: i read this fic a few years ago, completely forgot the title and author, and ended up thinking about the part where hermann admits to having fucked a trailer hitch when he was a teenager, at least once a week. last november, i say to my friend samara on twitter, head of the BSHCU (buttslut hermann cinematic universe), hey this seems like something you’d have read, do you remember a fic where... and samara says FUCK i do know what you’re talking about lemme find it. so if the fact that i have been looking for this fic for like, two years, and that it contains a moment so iconic all i had to say is, “hermann says he fucked a trailer hitch” and she IMMEDIATELY knew what i was talking about, does not convince you to read this... go back to catholic school i guess.

Feeling Blue by TempusPetrichor

fics where newt goes back to work as a biologist, especially a xenobiologist, post pru are really interesting, and usually have something neat to say about recovery, how it isn’t linear, how it often involves us returning to things we love for comfort, etc. this one sure does! some good emotional and physical h/c, LOVE the use of the ghost drift, and it’s always fun to see post pru fics use dialogue very obviously taken from dbt, trauma-specific therapeutical texts, and anything that shows the author has experience with, or did their research on, ptsd therapies.

You’re Everyone That Ever Cared by KlavierWrites

you know a fic is good when it’s an only 9k slowburn and still manages to reach infinite regress levels of are you fucking KIDDING GO TO THERAPY. newt “acts of service” geiszler may have a little misplaced misogyny due to his broken woman-centric gaydar. as a treat. the fucking. post-drift scene where hermann subtextually screams “LOOK IN OUR BRAINS YOU FUCK I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU I JUST HAVE AUTISM AND CAREER IN STEM DISORDER” is soooooo. god just hermann in general in that scene is great. if you like classic mid 2010s era newmann, ghost drift romance, and good ole mutual pining, this is a treat.

Baby, You're Hotter than my Bunsen Burner by SkySongMA

moronosexual hermann representation is something that can actually be so personal

Times of Stress by RadioMoth

the boys are processinggggggg. man what a good, quick and powerful punch to the gut. if you like post-pr1 catharsis and physical h/c, AND are the one friend that likes to comment at the end of the movie that hey newt got beat the fuck UP, check this one out.

black tea by @faggotcas

okay first of all, god fucking tier url, lee. second of all, food as a love language is my SHIT. i love the very slow relationship development here, where you see them making a genuine effort to get along and that in turn leading to feelings reigniting. it’s such a sweet little moment of a fic, with a nice atmosphere and tone to fit it

now here’s the part where i usually drop my latest fic, but i haven’t written one this month because i’ve been busy launching an audio drama! you can find it here, it’ll be right up your alley if you like cryptids and gay scientists and enemies to lovers and good ole americana, but since this is a newmann post, i’m gonna recommend the pacific rim audio drama duology i did a while back! part one is called conversations from the brink, and it’s a little slice of the pr3 we better fucking get from streaming that godawful looking anime. love and lesbians to everyone ❤️

#pacific rim #pac rim #mine #newmann #pacific rim uprising #fic rec

[raisindeatre]

Hi 💙 I was wondering if you might share your thoughts on Zoya as a character in general? I've read the Grisha trilogy and Six of Crows duology, and I'd like to read King of Scars/Rule of Wolves to complete the series, but while I found Zoya to be quite interesting she's never been a favourite of mine or a character I found myself connecting to, so I've been worried I might not enjoy the next two books as much because of that, so I wondered if some insight from someone who seems to like her and her relationship with Nikolai might help me understand her character a little more, or do you think reading those next two books is what really connects you to her character? Thank you! 💙

Thank you so much for this question, anon! I think it's completely understandable that you don't connect much to Zoya in the original trilogy because in those books Bardugo doesn't really give us much to connect with, imo. I've said before that her prose has improved by staggering leaps and bounds since TGT, but her characterization has too - she sketches the characters in the SoC duology, especially, in ways that are so much richer and compelling than in the first trilogy. Combined with the fact that TGT is told through Alina's perspective, and we get a Zoya who's not just thinly sketched but is also pretty unlikeable for a good part of the series (I suspect that Bardugo meant to do an inversion of the Bitchy Girl™ trope, but it didn't quite land for me). I truly believe that a lot of my fondness for Zoya stems from the fact that I read a lot of fantastic fic back when the original trilogy had just wrapped up, and I think reading so much of other people's thoughts and analysis on Zoya made her a deeper and more interesting character to me, because the Zoya in canon is not all that compelling imo. So, like, I get it.

All that said though!! I was always fond of Zoya, even in canon, and I think I was pretty predisposed to love her even before KoS/RoW primarily because the idea of Zoya has always been such a fascinating one to me. (I just needed that idea to be filled out a little more, and the duology definitely did that for me, so I really do think I love her more for that). The original trilogy tends to centre the notion that Alina and the Darkling are each other's counterparts, each other's parallels, and that's where a lot of fan analysis stops as well. Light and Dark! Sun and Shadow! It's not subtle.

But the thing is - Zoya is the real mirror to the Darkling. They share so many similarities - they're both powerful, ambitious, proud, with the potential to be absolutely ruthless. They share the same common goal - the protection of all Grisha. Alina wants to be powerful, but she doesn't really have the appetite to really rule, to sit on a throne and govern. Zoya and the Darkling do. Alina doesn't want anyone to get hurt, but I think it's fair to say she doesn't feel the same intense self-preservation and loyalty to the Grisha that Zoya and the Darkling do. Much of their experiences are the same: while Alina came into her power at a pretty advanced age, Zoya and the Darkling know what it's like to be powerful even as children, and to be feared and hated for it. And much of what I think are Zoya's best qualities (her fierce protectiveness of her people, her courage, her determination, her sense of self-preservation) are all qualities the Darkling shares. It's why when people fall over themselves for the Darkling, but profess to hating Zoya in the same breath, it does tend to make me raise an eyebrow.

And I just think theirs is such a fascinating dynamic, much more so than Alina and the Darkling. Because the moment the Darkling loses sight of his original goal and goes too far - when the man who professes to want to safeguard the Grisha murders dozens of them - that's when Zoya turns against him and goes to stand with Alina. Alina is understandably horrified by the massacre, but I've always thought that the depth of Zoya's rage and grief and betrayal must have been much more intense. Unlike Alina, these Grisha were her family. Unlike Alina, she has admired the Darkling her whole life. Alina has moments of fearing that she will turn out to be like the Darkling, but I never really understood that - I think that Zoya's fear of the same, given the history and similarities she shares with the Darkling, is much more realistically grounded.

And I think at the end of the trilogy, when the dust has settled and Alina has settled into obscurity, when Zoya and Nikolai are faced with the almost unthinkable notion of rebuilding Ravka, it's very present on Zoya's mind that the ruthlessness required to defend Ravka and protect the Grisha might be what led the Darkling down that road in the first place. She needs to reckon with what is required of her and how far she can go, without becoming him. Gaze long into the abyss, but take care it does not gaze back. So in that sense, the idea of Zoya has always been something I've loved.

I also really loved the idea of her as a general, as someone so intrinsically involved in the rebuilding of Ravka. I was an IR major in uni - I adore anything to do with political machinations, the intricacies and brutality of peace treaties and trade negotiations, the ever-shifting dynamics between countries. I was super excited to see so much of that in KoS/RoW, and I think it's immensely rewarding to see Zoya grappling with so many of the issues that the original trilogy (with its very YA-ish focus on A Great Battle for the Fate of the World) doesn't consider: will there ever be a future where Grisha aren't forced to be soldiers? What would that even look like? How would we get there? What will I have to do to secure it? How far will I go?

Finally, all ideas of Zoya aside and looking at her actual characterization: my wife is a bitch and I like her so much! Your mileage may vary, but I really do find the fact that Zoya is written to be so unlikeable extremely refreshing. Bardugo doesn't really have any off-putting characters, especially female - Alina is pretty likeable, Nina is bold and endearing, Genya is clever and a character to root for, Inej quietly stakes her place in people's affections - and I think it's so great to have a woman who's so prickly and unfriendly and easily annoyed. In KoS/RoW we do learn more about Zoya and her backstory, and I guess it does go some way to explaining why she is the way she is, but I am also a fan of just letting female characters being bitchy sometimes!!! Her abrasiveness doesn't mean that she doesn't have so much love and courage and selflessness in her - almost more than she can bear, and watching her journey to realizing that love is not something to run from but to embrace is so good - and I just. I just think she's neat!

I won't go too much into her relationship with Nikolai because this is already horrendously long, and I will probably talk about them in another post, because they drive me crazy, but I just think they spark off each other in ways they don't with other people. Nikolai needs someone who loves Ravka as much as he does, someone who is really willing to march into war or sit in meeting rooms for hours and just give everything, everything she has to this greedy, broken country which will give her nothing back. Alina is not that person. Very few people are that person. But Zoya is. It's probably also that by the time KoS/RoW rolls around, they have been working together for a few years, while the original trilogy is much shorter in time, but Zoya and Nikolai in this duology really give off a sense of familiarity and trust in each other that is just SO!!! She always calls him out on his shit. They butt heads. They push each other to be better.

I will close by saying: in RoW there's a part where Nikolai thinks of Zoya, "There she was. Bitter and bracing as strong drink", and I just love this observation an outsize amount. I love that Zoya is not for everyone, that she has a real kick to her. I love the implication that she braces Nikolai; that she keeps him awake and on his toes. It's all very Ingmar Bergman's "We make each other alive. Does it matter if it hurts?" I think they are just more alive around each other than around anyone else, that they are better together than apart. They keep each other going.

#god this is long!!! but i hope this helped anon #imo there are a lot of other reasons why KoS/RoW might disappoint you as they disappointed me #just extremely weird pacing! KoS was a saggy morass whereas RoW had way too much going on #i think i've outgrown fanservice so bringing back characters for the sake of bringing them back is something i hate!!! #there were some really weird plots that went nowhere!!! #but i'm still glad i read them. i hope you are too; should you decide to do so #zoya nazyalensky #the grisha trilogy #king of scars #rule of wolves #long post #asks #anonymous

[writingquestionsanswered]

hi! i’ve read your posts on the enemies to lovers trope (which are great btw) but i was wondering, would it be possible to write a story with a romance plot that goes friends-lovers-enemies-friends-lovers? i know this sounds really complicated but my idea was that two people meet and eventually become friends then lovers but then one does something that causes them to become enemies before they get back together again.

my biggest struggles are 1) how do i create an event to make them ‘enemies’ that’s not too detrimental to their relationship so they can eventually get back together? and 2) how do i make the two ‘friend’ stages different from each other? finally 3) any tips/links to slow burn romances??

thank you so so so much for any help! i really appreciate it. sorry this is so long. merry xmas if u celebrate :)

Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Friends to Lovers

Your ability to pull this off depends on one thing: your definition of “friends” here.

Typically, when we talk about “friends to lovers” we’re talking about two people who start out in what appears to be a platonic (non-romantic) relationship, with no romantic or sexual attraction whatsoever. Then, over the course of the story, feelings change and they fall in love.

Having your characters meet in the story, having them be friends for some period of time, then having them fall in love, turning them into enemies, then bringing them back around to friendship, then having them fall in love again--that’s an awful lot for one story. Unless this is playing out over a duology or series, it’s going to be too much.

However, it’s important to understand that not all romances bloom out of strictly platonic friendships. In fact, most don’t. Most romances naturally involve some level of a “friendship stage” as the romance develops, but it’s not platonic friendship because these two people are very much interested in one another from the start. If you wanted to go that route, that’s a little easier because you don’t have to develop a platonic friendship that turns to romance. Instead, the friendship stage is part of the romance development. Then, after they become enemies and circle back around to forgiving one another, you can bring them through a brief “friendship” stage as they forgive each other, then right back to lovers.

Here are some posts that will help you through this process:

Guide: Characters Falling in Love Friends/Love Interests to Enemies Two Exes Falling in Love Again

On to your specific questions:

1) How do i create an event to make them ‘enemies’ that’s not too detrimental to their relationship so they can eventually get back together?

Your best bet here is whatever puts them on opposite “sides,” choose something where they both have a totally understandable reason. In other words, they choose opposite sides or conflicting courses because they both deeply believe in whatever it is they choose, such as choosing opposite sides in a conflict. Eventually, you can either have one of them realize they made the wrong choice or you can have the conflict resolve and they both can respect each other for the decisions they made for their opposing causes. Misunderstandings are another good option as long as the nature of the misunderstanding is something that can be overcome. (For example, if the misunderstanding requires one person to believe something terrible of the other, they would obviously need a good reason for why they would have believed that terrible thing would be possible.) This is also covered in the posts I linked to above. :)

2) How do i make the two ‘friend’ stages different from each other?

Again, unless you’re playing this out over a duology or series, you don’t have time for “friend stages,” so this isn’t something you’d need to worry about. You’re not developing the friendship separately. You’re developing the romance and the friendship part is built into those early romance stages.

3) Any tips/links to slow burn romances??

Slow burn romances play out over a longer period of time than traditional romances. They usually start out with a friendship that appears to be platonic, even if it isn’t. One or both characters are romantically interested in the other, however some external or internal conflict (or perhaps both) is keeping them from being able to openly realize this interest. Once that conflict is overcome and they’re together, there are usually additional setbacks. One of my favorite examples of a slow burn romance is Jim and Pam from the U.S. version of The Office. You can read about that here. 

Best of luck to you on your story and I hope you’re having a lovely holiday season! ♥

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[mylordshesacactus]

1, 3, 15 and 23 for the askmeme?

What themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?

Hmm. See, I feel like it’s fairly self-evident from my writing what themes I care about and want to explore, and since 99% of that writing is already embarrassingly niche, it goes without saying that I don’t think those themes get enough love XD

Found family is, thankfully, a very popular trope. The slightly more niche themes that I enjoy exploring are...hmm. How to phrase this.

The (inherent eroticism of the) loyal lieutenant trope; that not only is it okay to not want to lead, but that people can want to be a natural second-in-command without feeling resentful or having that itch of ambition. That being the loyal, quiet support and standing back and watching someone you trust implicitly lead can be what you aspired to in the first place.

The idea of kindness and respect being about what the other person needs to feel safe, not what feels right to do.

The bright, dramatic, larger-than-life fantasy realm is primarily populated by ordinary people. This does not have to be a “deconstruction” or “commentary” on fantasy tropes or on the larger-than-life canon characters; they can and should coexist, because they’re part of the same world.

Asskicking =/= authority. Authority =/= leadership. Leadership in its purest form is soft-spoken and sure, with nothing to prove and no need to posture. Authority only requires certainty that the people under your command can be trusted to do their jobs. Leadership requires certainty that the people under your command can be trusted, fully and completely.

Animals Don’t Work Like That, Actually

Canine Body Language Is Completely Different From That, Actually, You’re Thinking Of Cats.

Loyalty requires you to challenge the people you love outright. Anyone worthy of real loyalty might be angry at first, but will ultimately trust you more as a result.

True love means trusting one another to do the right thing, and knowing for a fact that the other person will not betray their greater responsibilities for your sake no matter how much it hurts them. Anything less is not love; it’s selfish obsession.

What loves do you tend to write about?

Oops I kind of gave that one away with #1 huh. Well, a quick summary then: Agape, philia, storge, pragma, are going to feature most heavily. 

Which isn’t to say there’s less of eros. And if you’ve read my smut you know I LOVE playfulness in sex and romantic relationships; all intense passion is exhausting, you should be able to laugh together, and honestly it’s healthy to still have the hallmarks of ludus show up sometimes. Especially when my faves have such fucking awful lives, letting them just kind of...be grinning, giggly young women who like each other a lot is nice.

Mania (as in, the term for obsessive love in the Greek tradition and not like, the psychological condition) is such an intensely terrifying and deeply unpleasant force--writing it makes me feel so dirty--that it doesn’t show up very often if at all. It’s always an antagonist, if it does, because it’s so incompatible with love.

And all my fanfic faves are like no philautia we hate ourselves like wlws.

What physical quirks do your characters tend to have?

Oooo, I LIKE this one.

This is pretty clearly OCs, since with fanfic characters I at least TRY to just accurately recreate what their physical quirks onscreen seem to be. So, my OCs...

One linguistic quirk that I like to give to OCs is an oddly specific one--you can get a LOT of characterization into a small package by creating characters who are extremely laconic--writing their dialogue by trying to get across their idea in as few words as you possibly can, and using body language for the rest. The most recent version of this is my WoW character Talet, who I actually write as mostly nonverbal. In her case, this is the result of long-term isolation and partially due to trauma; she can and does speak, but she communicates mostly through lupine nonverbal signals to the point where her ward (officially her “apprentice” but in practice, her adopted daughter) openly describes herself as Talet’s “translator”.

I also have a weakness for characters with extremely still body language; not necessarily stiff or tense, just....still. No fidgeting or wasted movement. And for characters who can be described as soft-spoken--often as surprisingly soft-spoken, like my blunt and impolite mule handler with a low, rough voice...who has a completely contradictory tone, very gentle, very calm. Only with her beasts, of course. Or trauma victims. Or children. Or--

Do you prefer reading series or standalone novels and does that reflect on how you write?

Oh that’s also a good one. I like both! Honestly, SHOCKING information from a fanfic author--I love stories that set up a unique and interesting universe with like...rules? Especially when that universe feels bigger than the one story we get to see in it. 

And I’m a sucker for the IDEA of spinoffs, I’d normally adore big sprawling universes that allow for lots of stories to be told in the same basic world. It’s a shame that expanded universes get so bloated and that the writing gets so bad--and I think a major failing of that format is that they so quickly lose sight of the POINT of an expanded universe and try to make every goddamn thing interconnected. The whole POINT is that you can just....read or watch the stories that appeal to you, and while knowing other stories might enrich that experience not knowing them doesn’t detract from it.

(Discworld. The perfect model for how to do this is Discworld. Not interested in the Watch? Cool, here’s a pile of books about other characters. Not interested in Granny Weatherwax? Cool, have fun being wrong but also have fun reading all these witch-free books while doing it. Not interested in Death? Tough shit and have I got news for you about the degree to which not being interested in Death affects its presence in your life, but you don’t have to read books ABOUT Death.)

However, I do have a firm policy about series, and ESPECIALLY about the first book in a series: Cliffhangers are cheating, and they’re weak writing, and they’re only allowed if they’re setting up the actual finale. 

(It’s a mark in Rise Of Kyoshi’s favor that I didn’t....entirely....mind the cliffhanger because the rest of the book was so good. And since the Kyoshi novels are a duology, it’s TECHNICALLY allowable)

You CANNOT use a cliffhanger at the end of your first book. That’s a horrible sign in the author’s faith in their own story. If this is your FIRST IMPRESSION, and you don’t think the story you told is good enough, you don’t think your world and your characters are compelling enough, to get me to come back without straight up leaving the story unfinished in order to make me come back if I want to find out basic information?

Cool. You’re probably right. I don’t care anymore.

Your first installment HAS to stand on its own. The penultimate book can end on a cliffhanger if you really must, because at that stage in the plot it’s normal to assume there’s lots of things happening quickly, and it feels like less of a cheap trick; if I got four books into a five-book series, or two-thirds of the way through a trilogy, I was probably already planning to come back for the finale. But the first installment has to tell its own story, whole and entire, or I’m probably not gonna care enough to stick around.

Open endings are not the same as cliffhangers. Open endings are great.

So, yeah. A well-written standalone novel and a well-written series are basically the same, and the initial book in a series at least should also serve as a well-written standalone novel in the first place!

#askmeme #natsu-tigre

[allycryz]

Five Favorite Passages from 2020

Tagged by @elveny and @kunstpause​ 

Tagging all who want to participate! That means you!

In no particular order! Limiting myself to what is published for at least four of these, one of them is not yet published

From my Thancred x Nerys x Emet fic Incandesce, which has a lot of passages I really dig! Also this leads to the scene where Thancred explains why he suggested this, which I also was excited to write

There is no buffer. No Thancred to protect her or distract her. And she is afraid-

But not of him, she realises with a start. It’s the intensity I feel when he touches me. I’m scared of how much I want him to touch me again. I’m scared at how right this seems.

She pushes herself up with one hand, the other cups the back of his neck. Pulls him down to her. Emet stills only a moment before his eyes flutter shut and he submits to her, mouth moving soft and slow over hers. His hands curl about her waist, thumbs stroking over her skin. He savors her with the slow drag of his tongue coaxing her more open, more vulnerable to his ministrations.

When they part his eyes are half-lidded, expression utterly relaxed. He’s beautiful. He’s always beautiful. But this pierces her in a new way, so lovely he could rend her heart in two with one look. And he just might.

Rest under the cut

From my Vault fix-it fic This World of Trials. This one got me emotional to write, re-write, and edit:

Propped upon a mountain of pillows, his arm and shoulder thickly bandaged, ashen and exhausted but alive and there and alive–she is out of tears but her dry eyes burn and her hands tremble.

Haurchefant softens all at once. His voice breaks. “Oh...oh my beloved. What you have done…”

Nerys rushes to him, narrowly missing Emmanellain and the sloshing broth. She clasps the uninjured hand Haurchefant raises, pressing her mouth to the palm, to the back of the hand. Presses it to her cheek and glories in the feel of his thumb over her skin. He is not too drained of water to cry–she sees the glimmer in his eyes.

It is not enough. She bends to him, tilting his chin to kiss him as if her continuing existence required it. Her hands curl in his silken hair, needing him as the land has ever needed the sun and the wind. Two voices gasp, a teacup clatters against a saucer, someone laughs aloud in delight.

His cheeks are wet against hers.

When at last they part she is half splayed the bed, half kneeling on the carpet. Haurchefant cups her wrists, disentangling her hands so he can kiss one and then the other. “Beloved,” he repeats. “Oh my dear, oh my heart…”

From this WoL Challenge Prompt Fill for Outrage, because Haurche is not often angry I wanted to write him angry in a way that was still *him*

The Exarch summons him to The Ocular and he dares not hope for...anything, truly. Better to go in with no expectations with this one. He thinks Y’shtola had the right idea, departing as she did.

He is being unkind. He does not like being unkind.

But he also does not like the idea of these souls in peril–Y’shtola, Thancred, his beloved Urianger–and that he may not see Nerys again. Or that he will, only to send her against horrific creatures of light and terror. And what of her soul?

When he sees that it’s Alphinaud, he is beyond unkind. He is furious.

Everything else was bad enough but this is a boy, his family’s ward. One who has wisdom beyond his years and responsibilities equal to those twice his age but still. Alphinaud is just a lad. What if something happens to his soul?

His body may still be in Garlemald!

This dialogue from Obstacles in Trajectory, where Thancred and Nerys bet answers in a game of Triad and are now collecting after she has a rough encounter with an ex. Fun to set up and write

“It was never...No. But I got to know her entire family and how proud they were of their daughter the artist. She paints these landscapes...it’s as if you’re there but it’s all enhanced. Entrancing. Capturing the aether in the landscape without making it so obvious.” Nerys traces the silhouette of the trees against the dusk, fingers dancing in the air over the patterns of aether she can see when she squints. “I bet the ones she got of this place were fantastic.”

“So what happened?”

Nerys shakes her head. “Mm, I’ve talked quite enough. You should tell me something.”

“That’s not the pattern we agreed on Mistress Eluned.”

She bristles. Reaches for the bottle again and takes a long swig. “You asked mine so I ask yours. Why didn’t you kiss me that day? I know you were going to.”

If she poked him now, she might knock him over. The shock on him shows he wasn’t expecting that one. Thancred wraps a warm hand around hers, prying the bottle away. Nerys holds on a moment, face scrunching into a scowl before she lets him take it.

“If I tell you,” he starts. He crouches beside her, holding the bottle in his lap. Close now–no matter how he seems to fight it, he ends up back in her orbit smelling of travel and sea salt and leather and blade oil. “Will you tell me what happened?”

“I’ll tell you.” She shifts to balance on her knees, looking down at him now. “I promise.”

And this WIP bit. After I finish posting Brisk, Keen Dagger Bold I have a side story/scene for This World of Trials with Aymeric and Estinien. 

THEN this story will go up which is part of a duology–two stories about Haurchefant and Nerys preparing for what lies ahead after Dragonsong. Haurchefant says goodbye to the life he has known as Lord Commander while rekindling his friendship with his brothers.

"I remember." At the time, Haurchefant assumed his brother had decided he liked his new friends better. Spending time with them would not earn Artoirel a scolding.

"...I never told you this. They were awful. Talked about how their parents called father Edmont Oathbreaker in private." Artoirel glowers. Not at anything in the room, Haurchefant suspects, but at bitter memories. "They would smile so sweet and say 'oh but surely you will not be like him Artoirel. It isn't your fault that your father is dishonorable.' And what could I do? They put on such manners that if I were to object, I would seem the rude one."

"...Did you tell no one?"

"No one. I'm sure Father and Mother knew. And you...even with things so fraught between us, I could never hurt you by exposing you to such things."

Outsiders often remark how different the trueborn Fortemps brothers are from each other. Haurchefant knows better how alike Artoirel and Emmanellain are.

Above all else, they share such startling naivete.

"Artoirel," he says. "If the other children said such to the Fortemps heir, what do you think they said to the Fortemps bastard?"

Artoirel looks struck, as if Haurchefant has loosed an arrow into his chest. His lips part to say something but nothing comes.

#nerys eluned #ally writes #writer meme #alcohol cw #bullying cw #thancred waters #haurchefant greystone #emet-selch #thancred x wol #haurchefant x wol #emet-selch x wol #artoirel de fortemps #alphinaud leveilleur #crystal exarch