dopegardenersheep - Tumblr blog

[dopegardenersheep]

maybe I'm reading into this too hard but... we clown on kaz for the sheer irony of “the trick is not to love anything, rollins", and considering this is not long after the bathroom scene, yeah lol, HOT bit of irony there. but... kaz said the trick.

yes, the overt meaning is the strategy, the way to do it, but... kaz said the trick, and this is kaz 'nothing up my sleeves' brekker, the sleight of hand magician. I think he meant that it only has to look that way. you'll see what kaz damn well wants you to see; he knows how to constantly turn up the face of the dirtyhands card while never letting you get so much as a look at kaz rietveld, even if he's somewhere in the deck. it's all about illusions, street magic, trickery! rollins' mistake was not loving his son, it was making it too visible, accidentally showing his hand. you only have to think the coin has disappeared; you can't see the coin, or the card, or the woman in the box, but they haven't really vanished. they're still there, somewhere, slipped away to maintain the illusion. kaz's love isn't visible, anymore... but that doesn't mean it's nonexistent.

(incidentally, what is kaz's greatest trick, if not finding the girl who seems to have vanished?)

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wylan & kaz, the flipped coin

mahmoud darwish - unfortunately, it was paradise: selected poems, six of crows, six of crows, shadow and bone season 2, crooked kingdom, shakespeare - henry v, six of crows, crooked kingdom, kate bush - never be mine, will wood and the tapeworms - 6up 5oh cop-out (pro/con), six of crows, crooked kingdom, ? , six of crows, crooked kingdom

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I mentioned this vaguely a bit ago but I think each of Inej's six knives can be argued to all match up to one of the crows. You can probably swap a few of them and some are stronger than others, but:

Petyr: archers, reknowned for his bravery = Inej; 'the heart is an arrow', 'lovely and brave and better...', and it was her first knife, a gift from Kaz

Lizabeta: flowers and gardens = Matthias; the yellow tulips, laid out in the Van Eck garden

Alina: orphans and undiscovered gifts = Nina, who was raised in an orphanage and fought in the Second Army like Alina, and has a very new and undiscovered gift after parem alters her power

Marya: those far from home = Wylan, the runaway; plus his mother's name is Marya!

Anastasia: the sick = Jesper; there are many kinds of sickness, and both were grisha in hiding with their father after their mother's death

Vladimir: the drowned, unlikely achievement = Kaz, birthed (...) in the harbour, emerged to repeatedly achieve the impossible

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"Inej is the mom fri—" *loud incorrect buzzer noise* Wrong. You are looking for Matthias Helvar.

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for people who haven’t read the shadow and bone/ six of crows books, but have seen the show:

- inej ghafa is a survivor of childhood sex trafficking. she has ptsd and reacts in a panic attack at even walking past the menagerie

- kaz’s trauma isn’t just pekka rollins being responsible for jordie’s death, and waking up on the barge. he had to swim to shore, age nine and barely alive, using jordie’s body as a float

- the darkling has done far worse things than are shown on screen. he is not a ‘lost man’ and alina is not his ‘balance’

- alina was seventeen upon the darkling being nsfw/ romantic with her

- matthias helvar did not lead drüskelle, that was jarl brum- matthias is only just barely an adult himself

- the crows are not their own separate gang, they are part of the dregs, who per haskell leads and kaz takes over from haskell after haskell sold out his lieutenant (kaz) to pekka rollins

- zoya, genya, and alina have personalities outside of either being traumatised or hating each other

- alina never wanted any of the power and fame and idolatry, and in the end of the books is stripped of it all. she is very happy about this

- jesper is a gambling addict and somebody who watched the death of his mother

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The fact Kaz Brekker, bastard of the barrel, murderer and a gang leader tells your mum jokes and canonically likes dogs, hot chocolate and bergamot perfume is so funny to me. Like he’s just a seventeen year old boy??

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Shadow and Bone adaptation is so fun you’ve never seen a more perfectly cast show acting their hearts out paired with the weirdest writing decisions in your life

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Things Kaz canonically does in the two years between Crooked Kingdom and Rule of Wolves:

(presumably) massively expands the Dregs' territory

buys Pekka's old club (the Emerald Palace) and completely renovates it, turning it into The Silver Six

massively expands the Crow Club to the point where it's "three times the size of every other establishment on the block"

builds an underground tunnel that goes from the Crow Club to the Geldstraat, where the Van Eck Mansion is

takes Jesper out on jobs with him often enough that Wylan has jokingly banned Jesper from answering the door when he knocks

learns about Ketterdam's Suli laborers and picks up additional knowledge of Suli culture

keeps up with Inej's whereabouts and helps her take out slavers

expands his information network to the Kerch colonies

is on friendly enough terms with the King of Ravka that he taught Nikolai how to pick locks and Nikolai feels comfortable personally writing him a letter when he needs to steal the titanium from Kerch

disguises himself just to follow people around on the streets

was planning to steal the titanium from the military base anyway just for fun

And that's just the stuff we see from Nikolai's and Zoya's incredibly limited perspectives during their Ketterdam sidequest

I 100% agree with Zoya when she thinks that "maybe Kaz was like Nikolai, a boy with an unquiet mind, a man in perpetual need of challenge" because ROW makes it so obvious that Kaz is bored and incredibly restless in his success. Someone get our boy a new life's purpose and a subscription to a long-running unsolved mystery podcast stat

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thinking about this moment again:

particularly in regards to this conversation:

thinking about inej, who is actively dying, asking kaz for an apology. inej, whose native tongue leaves no room for triviality here. this isn’t “you were mean to me and you need to make nice,” it’s so much deeper.

this is “promise me you won’t treat me like a piece in your chess game again. promise me you won’t keep acting like i’m replaceable. promise me i’m not just another one of your investments.”

this is the first time we see inej holding kaz accountable, the first time we see her ask him to be more, to do better. this is the precursor to the “without armor” conversation. and i think it’s fitting that we never hear whether or not kaz did apologize. because at this point, i don’t think he’s ready to give inej what she’s really asking for here, and in a way, it’s best that she doesn’t hear him say the words. he’s not ready to mean them yet.

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part 3 of my King of Scars twitter AU :)

part 1 part 2

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Six of crows has one of the most fascinating and complex depictions of religion in any fantasy series, ever, especially one that is not speciticaly about religion. Instead it presents multiple religious traditions and even different concepts of what religion is and has characters with boldly different relations to it: characters who don’t mention it at all (wylan), characters who seem broadly “secular“ (to use a messy term) but still recognise cultural aspects like reliquaries and saints (Nina), characters who have a changing relationship to traditions and customs and for whom reanalysis/reconnection is key to growth and evolution (Jesper’s incredibly important scene where he thinks of himself as Zowa/Blessed), characters for whom religion is a central justification of a violent and oppressive world view but whom also have to grapple and change their understanding of it even if they don’t reject it completely (Matthias), characters who reject it completely, including for the hypocrisy of organised religion in their own society after personal experience (Kaz), and characters for whom religion is a KEY aspect of personal connection to an oppressed minority culture and an important act of selfhood and liberation (Inej).

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inej and kaz having issues with touch due to trauma. kaz and wylan drowning and being reborn in the ketterdam harbor. wylan and jesper feeling like they have to hide a part of themselves due to their fathers. jesper and nina being grisha with addictions. nina and matthias being raised as a weapon rather than a human. matthias and inej being deeply religious. inej and wylan making themselves smaller because of the abuse they suffered. wylan and matthias being forced into a life of crime. matthias and kaz losing their parents and siblings. kaz and jesper being thrown into the barrel because of reckless behavior involving money. jesper and matthias being taught from childhood to be afraid of grisha power. all of these characters being so different yet so similar and forever interconnected with each other because they know that no one else will understand

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I just think everyone should take a moment to consider the question "what is your visual shorthand for cruelty?" and then follow it up with a critical "and who taught you that?"

specific examples include but are not limited to

why is an evil timeline character design disabled? (why do the heroes go through equally punishing battles and never lose an arm, a leg, an eye?)

why are the futuristic scifi terrorists uniformly darker skinned? (why are the heroes so much lighter?)

why is the greedy boss fat? (why are the heroes skinny?)

why is the criminal mastermind heavily scarred? (why is the brooding, traumatized hero unscathed?)

why is the predatory creep a bearded person in a dress and makeup? (why are none of the heroes trans women?)

who taught you that this is how things are?

how long do you plan on repeating it?

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i have poppy playtime and dogday brainrot

i posted these on twt but im too lazy to type it again so here HAHAHA

i just rlly wish we spent more time with dogday and got to learn more about him :(((

had to add the last bit cuz i want it to be more tragic HAHAHA

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the most pathetic yuri I've ever seen.

I've replayed portal 2 for the 5th time recently. and now Im thinking about them a lot (help).

I just now decided to find a translation of the song Cara mia addio. and oh my Glados is so pathetically in love with Chell. let them have a happy ending pls!! 😭😭😭

and yes chell wears a black mesa tshirt just to annoy her (ex)wife.

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this is so insanely accurate i dont even know what to say

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I love the idea that the only reason why Aperature remained untouched by the Combine following their invasion of Earth was because their automated defenses were just that good

Because like make no mistake, Cave Johnson may have been a little crazy, but in terms of scientific advancement Aperature FAR surpasses anything Black Mesa did. Sure BM pierced dimensions, but that doesn't mean shit when we know that Aperture was experimenting with the multiverse and genetic mutation YEARS prior. ffs they managed to figure out a way to basically beat death by uploading a persons brain into a computer