#b) the book literally does not exist in their country

[keyleths]

it's 2023 and the anti book piracy discourse people still don't realise that book piracy isn't a lost sale because there wouldn't have been a sale in the first place

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I was rereading one of your works and was wondering if you’d maybe wanna discuss the quotations for dialogue? I know both are correct, but I just got a little curious about it the usage of ‘spoken words’ vs “spoken words” and your preference for one. Usually when I’ve seen the ‘spoken words,’ it’s been for older works.

Hi anon,

My preference is that I'm Australian, I learned writing at university many many years ago now (I am an old), and I was taught correct Australian grammar there! And while I still make mistakes on some things, dialogue isn't it.

Some people use the US "" instead of the Australian '' - and that's now okay simply because so many people were doing it, the editors of Australia were like 'fuck it, you can do it' (with exceptions) - but like, most of the Australian copies of international books that I have, actually don't use " " for dialogue at all.

I'm going to get some examples, because this is something you've likely never seen, because publishing houses change the grammar based on the country. This means that books that have double quotation marks everywhere else in the world for dialogue, have single quotation marks in Australia if you're picking them up in Australia or they've been published through most Australian publishers. Because buying books is more global now, Australians will likely have a mix of double quotations and single quotations books. Many Australians don't even realise there's a difference, they're so used to it.

Here's an Australian book:

(Skins by Sarah Hay)

So that makes sense for an Australian book by an Australian author.

What about the classic The Collector by John Fowles. Surely, that not being an Australian book, that'd have double quotation marks right?

Not if it was published here:

What about something a little more recent? Like The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy?

I'm not sure how to explain it beyond: 'Literally almost every book we pick up here that was published here does this, and it's not a like quirky preference, it's literally what we grew up seeing and reading. To us, double quotation marks is unusual and seems more 'quirky'.'

This is less common now as an attitude simply because of globalisation and the internet existing. But for most of my life, buying books meant only seeing dialogue like this. Right up until I was in the 30s, I think. Purchasing books online changed that, and people who grew up with the internet from the very beginning are going to be more used to seeing double quotation marks.

But many Australian publishers will still insist on correct Australian grammar with preference given to Australian grammar.

Our grammar is quite strange, and sort of a mix between US and UK but with some unique aspects of which you've probably noticed the single quotation marks is one.

That's because Australian grammar is built on journalism, and anything that saved space in a newspaper was prioritised. So Australian grammar eliminates double spaces at the end of periods. It eliminates double quotations because they take up extra space. There are dash rules designed to eliminate space that an article might take up.

And you know, I'm quite proud of that grammar. :D It does get me some heat when I publish something, usually from grammar puritans from the USA, which is why I now just post a blanket 'this author uses Australian grammar so you may notice some departures with dialogue grammar' caveat.

Anyway, the reason/s most newer works have double quotations is because a) they're being purchased en masse overseas and that's cheaper than publishing here, b) those Australians are young and have learned to write based on overseas writing, c) they don't know actually know Australian grammar, it's not actually taught well in our curriculums, d) it is just something they prefer, e) they publish with overseas publishers and because they have to edit their works to UK or US grammar anyway, they just adopted it because it's easier that way, f) someone erroneously corrected them for doing the right thing and they changed to another country's dialogue grammar, g) it really is okay to just pick the one you like best now and stick with it, h) some screen readers cannot cope with single quotation marks (which imho, is something screen readers need to address if it means ignoring an entire country's/continent's grammar style).

And finally, here's the Australian Government Style Guide, which still doesn't permit double quotation marks at all in dialogue.

[lorei-writes]

Basic Guide on How Not To: Slavic Characters

Well, as most of you have probably realised by now, I’m Polish. Truthfully, I am quite upset now. I generally tend to avoid most content involving Slavic people, because well, stereotypes are plentiful and I have only one stomach - there is only so much anger I can fit inside of it. However, this time I was merrily watching an episode of a series, for goodnight sleep, and got smacked in the face with just that... So, I suppose, let’s use my anger towards something - hopefully - productive. This is a very hard post for me to write. It may be closer to my personal experience, although I did try to be more general.

Contents:

Where Do I Even Begin or Sad Slav Filter

Common Stereotypes - Professions & Jobs

Common Stereotypes - Characteristics

Few basic issues with languages & names

Where Do I Even Begin or Sad Slav Filter

Grey buildings, empty plazas, ominous blocks of flats with walls up to the very sky. Snow. Gloom faces. Dark nights. Red. Gold.

To start with, be aware that this sort of image is oftentimes not only written into stories or presented in picture-based media, but that I had the displeasure of seeing it being used for cover art for several books.

What I jokingly call sad Slav filter is presenting the reality of Eastern Europe* through, well, pessimistic glasses. The architecture speaks of terror, of being post-communist state, of never having recovered. The streets portrayed in such fashion are gloom, unwelcoming, threatening in a way. Winter is oftentimes the season of choice, to add an extra layer of depressive atmosphere and cold. Nobody smiles. One may say that usage of gold and red brightens the image - however, those connect directly to the communist flag, thus locking the entire space in a rather obvious context.

The reality?

Yes, old blocks of flats built in 60s or so still exist. Some are even grey and in dire need of being re-painted! However... Many are not in such a state. In Poland, the common colours for elevation of such buildings are white, pastel orange, pastel yellow and pastel green, oftentimes put together in combination of stripes or other geometric shapes. What also should be noted is that such estates were designed with plenty trees and other plants around them in mind, as to accommodate for a development of a community - especially for older blocks of flats, those are most likely situated nearby a primary school and a kindergarten, not to mention stores and other services. It is not uncommon for playgrounds to be present as well. You could also expect small flower gardens.

Parks exist here. Architecture does not begin and end at the blocks of flats, especially not in the major cities - most, if not all, have old towns or historical representative streets. Buildings dating back to medieval still do exist in plenty of places. Churches & Tserkovs - those are oftentimes tourists sites for a reason! 

It may happen that the side of a building will be decorated with a mural. It is not very common, but does happen. Here are some examples (from Poland). The designs sometimes relate to other works of art, or to some forms of traditional art.

mural by NeSpoon, a street artist who incorporates motives of koronka ludowa [a type of lace] into her artwork

Overall, I come from a poorer region of Poland, from a small town to add to that. The one thing I would list about it? Flower gardens. All of my neighbours had flower gardens in front of their houses. In the recent years, I’ve seen plenty of new houses being built, plenty of renovations being made. Especially in spring and summer, it is all far from grey. Some major cities started investing in fields of wild flowers, as to aid pollinators. And winters? Well, the way it should be (as climate change shows and I have not seen a proper winter in a while), they should be snowy. Yes, it may involve a rather depressing image, at least in places where snow cannot just rest over the ground and glitter... But I do think it may be the case in plenty parts of Europe, as winter days are overall shorter as well, which hardly helps :”) Eastern Europe as a region is not locked in an eternal winter.

People may not be smiling, but they are not frowning either - it is the... Neutral resting face.

*- that being said, Eastern Europe is not inhabited only by Slavic people, even if it is often presented like so

Common Stereotypes - Professions & Jobs

List of common stereotypical jobs/professions usually performed by characters of Slavic descent:

a member of a mafia (Russian mafia)

a drug dealer

a spy

a prostitute

a maid / a cleaner

As you can see, nearly all of those involve crime, the only exception being a maid / a cleaner (which, I’d argue, speaks of a lower socio-economic status). If you do not plan to have more than one Slavic character in your work, I advise you to avoid those - especially if you wanted to make your character Russian. I do not think I have to explain why representing a group of people nearly exclusively as criminals is hurtful. 

Certain stereotypes exist in media. They do influence the reality. I have seen covers of books about spy programs (non-fiction, referencing an issue from 2000s) which involved clear references to communism (+ used the most hideous Sad Slav Filter I have ever seen). The title suggested all Russians are spies. This is not okay.

If you want to have a character who is performing any of the above, and want to make them Slavic, but then never have their heritage influence anything about them - ask yourself why.

EDIT: Do allow me to also add that being a sex-worker may not be a choice for all Slavic women. Sex-trafficking of Eastern Europeans is a real issue. You should be mindful of that when writing a story - even more so as it affects some countries more than others. Research is due.

Common Stereotypes - Characteristics

Common hurtful characteristics in depicting slavic characters:

uneducated or otherwise stupid

rude, loud, uncultured, violent

an alcoholic / addicted to drugs

extremely conservative / religious

Do I have to explain it? Yes, alcoholism is a social issue, same as addiction to drugs. Yes, some people are conservative and / or religious. However! We are not a monolith! Social issues are not the general rule! 

Scale of conservativeness and religiousness also differs greatly by age group and region. In Poland we have an entire category of practising atheists - non-believers, usually from smaller communities, who appear in church once or twice a year, despite not believing. Due to social pressure. What religion? This differs greatly too! Roman catholic, Greek orthodox, Muslim? Slavic people are not a monolith.

(about women specifically):

beautiful (must put plenty effort in her physical appearance)

looks for a rich (western) husband

submissive

obedient 

Well. This ties into the greater issue of objectification and sexualisation of Slavic and Eastern European women. Admittedly, such portrayal [including all of those] is more so present in online spaces, if you turn a few wrong corners down the roads of the internet :) It is dehumanising.

If your Slavic character happens to be a woman and must be extremely sexy femme fatal spy - this reeks of stereotypes.

Few basic issues with languages & names

As I’ve hinted already, it appears that oftentimes Slavic = Russian. This, however, is not true, both language-wise and culture-wise. Despite sharing some common elements, Slavic cultures do differ. Polish characters, unless they are 50+ years old, won’t generally speak Russian. Czech and Ukrainian are different. Ukrainian is not just another version of Russian.

I decided to single out this paragraph for one reason: authors oftentimes do not bother to check for appropriate names and just use whatever seems right. If you want to write a Slavic character, do make some research. 

The common mess-ups I’ve seen:

inappropriate form of the surname (about Russian surnames in particular; giving a woman a male version of the surname, giving a man the female version of the surname - Slavic languages are heavily gendered!)

claiming a character is of nationality B, while giving them a surname which is most definitely speaking of nationality A (e.g: Polish character with a clearly Hungarian name & surname)

wrong spelling

using very rare forms of names for all the characters written into the story (it sounds very unnatural - in one particular case it seemed to have been done on purpose, as I’ve had to google whether some names were even names. They were used as code names for few organisations during WWII. That sort of uncommon).

nicknames derived from the actual names that would not work at all (Żegota -> Zeg; It just would not work like this. It would be literally more likely for a character named Żegota to be nicknamed/renamed Staszek than for somebody to call him Zeg. It does not only not include the ż sound, but it also ends with g - which a Polish person would simplify to k when speaking. In other words Zeg -> zek. This, meanwhile, is not only not exactly pleasant to say, but it also sounds like a grammatical form of another word, albeit pronounced with a heavy lisp - “river”; It is possible to find appropriate nicknames online).

Also, unless you want for some character to be a dick, do not make them purposefully mispronounce the name of a Slavic character or have them name them after an object/thing. (Calling “Maciej” by “Magic” because they can’t be bothered to learn to pronounce the name or at least try to get it close is not nice).

[thetimelordbatgirl]

List the WORST Descendants kids names that wanna make you throw up or curse Disney.

Including both films and side stuff like the books and Wicked World?:

*Lonnie- we all know why her name is here: not Chinese at all and is literally a German name. They have zero excuse for this as they can easily look up Chinese names on the Internet, and I definitely think they found Lonnie through name search as who the fuck picks randomly Lonnie for Mulan's and Shang's kid unless you found it means 'Noble, ready' in German. They ain't stupid, they just didn't feel like adding 'Chinese' to that internet search for girls names. *Let's keep it in the family here: Li'l Shang- THE ONLY CHILD WITH A CHINESE NAME.....and its actually a bad thing to do in Chinese culture when naming your child after family/ancestors. Like come on, it takes like, mere seconds to add 'Chinese' to your baby name search results, just like it doesn't take more then a day to find out that in China, naming your child after a family member/ancestor is considered disrespectful and therefore, is frowned upon. *And keeping it in Rise: Charlie Wong- one, his name is not the right way....it would be Wong Charlie, not Charlie Wong. I almost wondered if its cause hes Chinese-American, but then I remembered....hes the new elder wong, so like and b, Charlie is the most white name you can get, what the fuck??? JUST GOOGLE CHINESE NAMES- *Chad- I just.....who was in charge of naming the baby? Cinderella would never call her baby Chad, and while it is fun to joke his name fits how he acts, its just an annoying name I've only seen some fanfics make work via saying its a nickname. *Squeaky and Squirmy- I do not care Smee is a pirate and they are kinda ocean names, there are so many better names to name the twins that are still ocean themed while also not being actual evidence that the writers gave up at this point. *Jordan- I did in Bobsheaux's review of Wicked World, learn there is a river named Jordan and a country named Jordan, but....we all know Descendant ain't that clever with their naming of anyone who isn't white. *Anxelin- while it is actually a name with a letter that neither parents have.....its so random like, does anyone know how they got this name or- cause only ONE website came up for me with this name, other times it just seems to want to correct my spelling. *Hadie- I just....I guess Hades would??? But there are also Greek names that could have been used, so like..... *Artie- I just....it ain't great, please try better. *Pin- this is literally just, taking 'Pin' from 'Pinochhio', and calling it a day. Lazy as all hell. *Herkie- again, same problem as Hadie- Greek names do exist, and unlike Hadie, this really don't make sense with Hercules and Meg....and for some reason books also spell it as 'Herky', so like???

[dylanobrienisbatman]

The main problem with the whole mal vs the darkling thing in regards to being possessive (or really when it comes to any of their traits) is the fact that throughout, the darkling is clearly framed as the villain and his actions reflect that, whereas Mal as supposed to be the good guy and best romantic partner for Alina, and yet he has all these awful character traits and tendencies. So its less about how awful the Bad Guy is (since he's supposed to be), and more about how awful the person that we're supposed to believe is the best option for Alina is. I don't ship either, just my two cents.

Okay well... two things. First, your comment about "its less about how awful the bad guy is, since he's supposed to be", takes every comment I've made about Darkles out of context, which seems fitting since everything Darklina's spout about Mal is out of context. Him being the Bad Guy is fine, and if you like him AS A VILLAIN, and acknowledge all the bad shit he does, then my posts aren't for you. I think he's a very interesting villain, and a lot of the terrible shit he does that I have to keep making posts about make him a good villain, the problem is when the terrible shit the "Bad Guy" does is romanticized and viewed as the reasons why Alina SHOULD have picked him. So, don't assume everyone gets that "hes supposed to be awful". The point my post was making is that Darklina's love to call Mal possessive, but then turn around and act like Darkles literally enslaving her in somehow sexy and romantic. It's fucking not, and it's transparent as hell that y'all romanticize and sexualize the actually possessive character, and then project false character traits onto Mal. It's so transparent, it's almost funny.

But, more importantly, to your second, very wrong point, I wonder how much of the narrative about Mal having "awful character traits and tendencies" is actually a commentary on Mal as a character, or is it just Darklina's lying about things Mal has done and everyone accepting that misinterpretation as canon. Because, if were making a list...

Fuck boy - False! Mal was not a fuck boy! He was an attractive teenager who hooked up with consenting girls his age when he could, and he was not in a relationship during that time. Alina had never told him how she felt, so he is not beholden to her. (Also, nobody seems to have an issue with the fact that Darkles hooked up with Zoya in the show, that doesn't make HIM a fuckboy... interesting) (also also, nobody seems to discuss Darkles literally sexually assaulting Alina, and lying and manipulating her to get her to be physically intimate with him so he can use her... double interesting).

Slut Shames Alina - FALSE! The ever favourite callout line from Darklina's "He's all over you" isn't him slut shaming her. First, he has no idea what their relationship is like at that point, but more importantly, he is making an observation of her status in the little palace and how she has become his tool. He has dressed her up in his colors, made her put on a show for his benefit, and has created a situation where Alina appears to be his. Mal is noting that after months of searching for her, believing she was being hurt, tortured, or worse, when he arrives to save her, she looks like the Darkling's pet. (and, even if he WAS angry because he perceived them to be romantically involved, boy just spent months fighting for his life, lost multiple friends, and almost died to find her, all while coming to the realisation that he was in love with her, and then he shows up, after not hearing from her for months... I'd be pissed as hell too.) Important Note: He even acknowledges that what he said was wrong and tries to apologise, before Alina tells him that he was right. (Shadow and Bone, pg. 286). He also then apologizes, completely unprompted, for what he said. (Shadow and Bone, pg. 297).

Fat Shames Alina - False! This one is particularly laughable to me, because its one of the Darklina arguments that falls apart the second you actually read the scene. They are running for their lives in the forest, and Mal has to hunt and gather to feed them. He is noting that Alina's appetite has increased since he last saw her, and he makes a joke (ya know, how you do with friends) about how it would be easier to keep her fed if she still had her more meager appetite from before. He makes no comment on her weight, or her size, and he is not actually commenting on her appetite in a negative way, he is just acknowledging that it's a lot more work for him now that she eats more. Right before he says the line, the quote even proves that he isn't shaming her or thinking badly of her: "With a bemused expression, he watched as I gobbled down my portion and then sighed, still hungry". He is noting a change in her, and complaining that its made more work for him. If you think thats the same as fat shaming, well... thats a you problem.

Hates Alina's Powers - FALSE!!!! How to begin... do we talk about it was Mal's idea to hunt the stag in S&B, because he knew she needed it to be more powerful so she could stop the darkling? Do we talk about how he vowed to find the firebird for her, even though he was terrified of what all that power would do to her? Do we talk about how he literally died so she could achieve the power she needed to save the world? Or maybe we could talk about how he believed in her power more than anyone else, like when everyone was making bets about her abilities with the Cut and he knew she'd go further and better than anyone else expected her too, or when he tells her that he was never afraid of her powers, only what seeking all that power would do to her (which is literally the theme of the books, that power corrupts and seeking unmatched power can destroy you)? Mal being afraid of what is going to happen to Alina, being protective of her and worrying over her, is not the same as him hating her powers. He exists to help remind Alina of the themes of the story, and to guide her into maintaining her humanity.

Abusive - ... Do I even need to explain this one? Must I deign an explanation as to why this favourite Darklina lie is so fucking stupid, and also totally hypocrisy? No? Because we all know Darkles is actually the abusive one and they're trying to project their own shit onto Mal to further their abuse apologist agenda? Cool. Moving on.

Possessive of Alina - False! Throughout the entire series, Mal is quite literally the opposite of possessive, but yall just cant read. Not only does he quite literally step out of the way and allow Nikolai to court Alina without argument, which is the most direct example of him not being possessive, he also spends two full books believing, and repeatedly saying over and over and over, that they can't be together because he is not good enough for her. Mal believes, fully, that Alina deserves more than him, better than him, because he's just a tracker and a soldier, just a regular man with nothing to offer her but his love and his protection, and she is a Saint and should be a Queen. Possessiveness is the wish to own and control someone, it is literally the opposite of Mal believing that he's not good enough and doing everything he can to ensure that Alina achieves everything and gets everything he believes she is owed. A possessive character would not tell her to tell him to leave because he has nothing he can offer her, no title or land or country or crown. A possessive character would not promise to be the blade in her hand, because he believed he had nothing but the blood he could spill to offer her.

Angry - True! Yeah, omg, you caught us, Mal is ANGRY! Heaven forbid a teenager who is traumatized beyond belief and has to give up everything in his life, his position in the military (he deserted for her), his friends and the job he loved (Mikhail and Dubrov died for him, and he can't be a tracker in the army... because he deserted... for Alina), and, most importantly, he has to give up Alina (she should be Queen, he believes, and he has to give up the future he imagined with the girl he loves, who he was pretty sure loved him back, because she's a saint and queen and he's just a man), and more, is ANGRY. He has to be the one to find the amplifiers that he knows will end up hurting her, because thats what she needs to save the world. He has to sit by while Nikolai treats him like the dirt on his shoe and tries to woo Alina for his own personal gain (because Nikoalai did not love Alina. Maybe he came to care for her, but he proposed and spent all of S&S trying to get her to marry him when it was obvious they were not in love. He straight up says its so that the next King of Ravka can be married to the Sun Summoner. It's a power grab.) and he can't do anything about it. So yeah, Mal is angry. And yeah, sometimes he's even angry at Alina, just like sometimes she's angry at him. But they always find their way back, always apologize and try to be better for each other, and if you think anger is a toxic trait, and not simply a natural human emotion, might I suggest touching some fucking grass?

Idk why you thought I'd stand for Mal slander on my blog, cuz I will not. So, I'm gonna stop there, because I have shit to do today, but I really do wonder how much of Mal's 'toxic' or 'terrible' traits, that make him such a 'bad' love interest for Alina, really comes from Darklina's who refuse to actually read the text critically at all, and instead take everything he does and says out of context to further their agenda that Alina should have ended up as the Darkling's fucking slave forever, because thats the "girl power feminist" ending somehow. Mal supports her, loves her, sacrifices for her at every turn, and does everything he can do, to the point of literally dying for her, to ensure that she can defeat Darkles and save the world. He protects her, and when they end up happy and safe together on the orphange that they've rebuilt to help the children that were victims of Darkles war and genocide, he spends his days bringing her tea and cakes and flowers, kissing her silly under the stairs in the view of all the teachers, and calling her names like beauty, beloved, cherished, my heart for the rest of their ordinary life together, if love can ever be called that.

[nabrizoya]

RoW Theories and Things I Want to See

with RoW literally a few weeks away, here’s some theories your way. 

this is Really long. like, really very long; mind you. 

Nikolai might become a disabled character.

It’s just the vibes. If we can take reference from the Too Clever Fox story, there’s a line that says “...and his [Koja’s] fur never quite sat right the same...”, which might hint at it (mostly bc i don’t want him to die). Also if this is indeed possible, it can be used to address ableism if it exists in this universe, especially since Nikolai is someone in the highest position of power. 

Zoya will experiment the shit out of powers. 

Idk why the synopsis says that using her powers might be a great deal, which tbf will be because she is truly the most most powerful atm; but Zoya wouldn’t mind taking the step outside of the old norms and bend the orders until they serve their purpose. That’s the entire goal rly.

But all along, she will consciously keep herself mindful to not hunger or discharge her power in a way that may cause harm. She knows the tyranny of the Darkling and the ways he employed. She knows better. 

More character depth to Zoya. 

Given the excerpts, the book does seem to explore Zoya’s infinite grief. And of course her Suli heritage, which a great part of the fandom consistently wants to shadow what with the talk “white features/ part Ravkan” bs. 

But there’s more. I hope RoW will show Zoya’s dilemma (that was alr hinted in KoS) she has with the power she holds, the responsibility she has with having that power + using it in the way that will not be detrimental to her and the country. It will be a great way to portray her self-awareness and doubt and insecurity. She is a good leader, that much is told in text but not shown. There’s character development from the end of R&R until KoS that makes her evolve from a what she was then to the capable and mature 22 year old she is in KoS. 

Of course all of their capabilities will come to light in RoW but I think Zoya and the agency to her as a character will play an integral part. More so because Zoya is to be the conduit to reversing the current Grisha orders, which runs in parallel with the fact that she needs to go back, go back to the roots of her Grisha knowledge and roots of her i.e. her unending grief and trauma. 

She will need to forgive herself while also dealing with the guilt and anger she may have caused due to her position and power. All of this while dealing with her own complex and contrasting emotions due to her own trauma.

Nikolai is held for treason. 

The word of allying with The Darkling may be out and that is enough reason for the entire country to turn against him. The secret about the monster causes issues more than enough already, and this will plunge the country into deep political turmoil and threats to security. So RoW will be more politically driven. That said...

There’s no overt war. 

By this I mean that there will not be war on the battlefield, both armies or more charging at each others’ enemies and such. Ravka cannot afford one either. The excerpts have already proved that. There will be skirmishes akin to a war scenario, but a complete battle like the last battle in R&R? Like a final battle? That’s not going to be there, I think… What I’m assuming might happen is that the Fjerda and Ravka will take a possible Cold War route, if it isn’t already the case they’re already dealing with atm. 

Ravka’s monarchy will collapse. 

It may become a democracy or any other form of public or majority vote. But the monarchy (as well a possible dictatorship, esp with the Darkling returned) will be eliminated. ...Or so I hope, since it has been alluded to in KoS. 

But that poses many problems. With no one line for the throne, let alone with a crime so dark like a blot on Nikolai’s skill (of taking the Darkling’s help), it is possible that Ravka will shun it, right alongside being torn about it because Nikolai has been, for the best of his ability, a good King. All of this in line with the Resistance rising in West Ravka. 

This ties in with the court matters, especially if I want to hold the further points I make true. The resolution to acquit Nikolai of his charges requires a testification forth a jury which will then make a decision about his motives and future. 

Zoya as the Interim Head. 

After all of this, Zoya’s point about Ravka not accepting a Grisha Queen will be true after all, because there will be no monarchy to welcome such an arrangement. 

But Ravka will need a good and trustworthy leader despite Grisha powers and Zoya is the best person to take care of that. The comment “...becoming a steady leader...” and the “Welcome home, Commander,” were there in KoS for a reason (and this is what I think it will link to). 

That being said, there’s more nuance to this than my summary. Zoya is a character of colour. That—in addition to the already existing threats, objections and possible question of capability in the position—ill play into how she will be able to discharge her responsibility. It’s not going to be convenient.

EDIT: taken from a reblog/addition to the og post:

A smoother/more structured transition

Once after the monarchy collapses and a leader must be chosen, it will not be Nikolai. Nor will it be Zoya, though she might serve as an interim head. What I assume might be possible is that someone older is chosen, someone older and loyal and with the proof of knowledge and service to the country. Possibly by majority vote or elected by a council.

Instead of the sudden change, this can be a smoother (if that can even be said about such a major political scenario change) or more structured. I also say this because a. if Nikolai is indeed charged (and later acquitted), firstly his political career will already hold a blot if the word about using the Darkling as a resource is out and secondly, he’s way too young to serve as the leader (by modern standards, sure, but like, the required age will be set while drafting the constitution? currently its 35+).

Instead, the current cast can become representatives (which Zoya would already be, (mostly the head of the) international committee that safeguards the Grisha all over the world) and the Triumvirate will be dissolved. (it should be, tbh)

And hey, b. after all of this, they can and kind of need to take a step back. Nikolai and Zoya will be able to truly explore their relationship, given how Nikolai mentions how he wouldn’t marry unless he’d have had the chance to court someone and marry someone he barely knows nor knows him. For Zoya’s part, she does know Nikolai but surely probably not the extent of openness that a healthy relationship has, and on Nikolai’s part, he admits he barely knows her beyond as a General except for just little things about her.

They could be able to realize and work on their feelings while alongside being involved with the workings of the country and the constitution.

“One day you will overstep and I will not be so forgiving.” 

Need I say more? Something that Zoya does will cost her Nikolai’s goodwill and we know Zoya knows her practicality and the extent to which she will unapologetically move if there is threat to the country and its King. She will do what was right and required. 

A major part of that line ties in with Magnus Opjer and I think with the confidence in the versatility of her powers, Zoya might as well move w/o any word to the Triumvirate to eliminate the most direct threat to the throne. This will bring splits in Nikolai and Zoya’s relationship. 

How this tension between them will be resolved without compromising either of their values, without playing into fandom stereotypes and others must be carefully handled. All of this while showing the best of their dynamicity, practicality and priority as they carefully pull out just those weak sticks of the jenga without putting the whole country into trouble. And with a war in plain sight, they’d know better than pointlessly argue and would rather see how the two of them are wrong. This ordeal will bring out just how condensed power is in the current scenario, imo. 

Importance on the way women have shaped history. 

Something that KoS has already set precedence for. Zoya being a PoC, Nina taking into account of the sufferings of women she comes across and the consistent ‘Who will remember them?’ will be elaborated on further. As for how it is done and how well it is done, that remains to be seen. 

Baghra is alive but maybe not thriving bc she’s stuck in the Ice Court. 

They entered a chamber where an old woman sat with her hands chained, flanked by guards. Her eyes were vacant. As each prisoner approached, the woman gripped his or her wrist.

A human amplifier. [...] But the Fjerdans used them for a different purpose – to make sure no Grisha breached their walls without being identified.

Kaz watched Nina approach. He could see her trembling as she held out her arm. The woman clamped her fingers around Nina’s wrist. Her eyelids stuttered briefly. Then she dropped Nina’s hand and waved her along.

Had she known and not cared? Or had the paraffin they’d used to encase Nina’s forearms worked?

- Chapter 22. Kaz; Part 4: Trick to Falling, Six of Crows.

Nina will be the one to free her and together they might wage a war from Djerholm together.

This gets even more interesting because we know the anguish and scorn that Baghra feels for her son at the same time; she understands the wrongness that he used to seek and will continue to. Zoya does take Baghra’s name at the Fold when she mourns and rages over how people forget the destruction and most importantly, forget the women. Baghra could be the symbol of the stag as the art piece depicts, or will be shown with relation to the Darkling’s powers.

As for how she will play into the story, perhaps she will be the one to help reverse and find the roots of the orders, in the sense that changes the perception of the Grisha powers for the Grisha as well as the common folk of Ravka. She is the only other person other than Juris and the Darkling to have the age of eras together, knowing Ilya Morozova, and she will be instrumental in giving Ravka an advantage over Fjerda. Either that or she will help in scrubbing the prejudices of Fjerda slowly away with whatever powers she has left. Or both. 

Alina will reappear, but will not contribute to the plot significantly.

Zoya understands that the truth she knows about the Darkling is very minimal not enough to end him for once and for all. It makes sense that she will probably consult Alina for it. So, Malina appearance, possibly at the orphanage. Alina will not directly contribute to this war, but she will play a critical role in defeating the Darkling.

Besides, Alina —and Baghra— are the only ones who know that there has only ever been two Darklings. Zoya did sense, multiple times during KoS, that the Darkling is damn old. Yuri mentions it. And while it is not outright specified, the fact that Zoya thinks that she realizes just how ancient Lizabetha is in context of meeting the Darkling is enough proof for her to seek more information about the age and the older skill of the Darkling. 

And I think it goes without saying that I want to hope that the Darkling and Alina will not meet. Pls, she’s had enough. 

Lada is the lost, other friend that Zoya refuses to bury. 

“She saw her mentor die and her worst enemy resurrected, and she refuses to bury another friend.”

Liliyana is dead, we know. But there’s no other mention of Lada except for the “wondering what happened to the pug faced girl.” Lada is possibly a part of the group of women and a Grisha returning to Ravka from Fjerda, exploited by the parem. She might die being unable to withhold the sheer torment of the parem induction, which will devastate Zoya because Lada was also the closest she’s had to a family with Liliyana. 

Either that or Lada is already dead or dies some other way, and Zoya cannot bring herself bear the grief of losing her. 

Cameos: Inej and Jesper. 

The most likely of the crows to appear in RoW are Inej and Jesper and they’ll play equally important roles in the plotline. Here’s a breakdown of why:

Inej

Inej has taken the responsibility of becoming a slave hunter, and it makes sense for Inej to make an appearance in the book, given that there’s going to be a ship taking the Grisha from Fjerda to Ravka. 

The women aboard are vulnerable and require immediate attention, which Inej will immediately zero in on. She will have enough reason to suspect both Leoni and Adrik on the ship, especially when the jurda parem is still a secret. Leoni and Adrik cannot give that information away because they don’t trust Inej (and have no reason to either). Inej won’t trust them either, not until she understands that the reason why the women are being taken to Ravka and for what reasons. 

Which gives her excellent reason to step in, try to analyze the situation and help the women accordingly.

Here’s an exciting thought though. Once after the entire misunderstanding is overcome and Inej understands (esp. if Nina is brought into the conversation and security and secrecy of the conversation is ensured), there may be discussion about how the Grisha might find a safer space in Ravka.

Inej’s appearance might also extend to playing a pivotal role in giving Zoya the confidence to seek her heritage and where she hails from, to embrace the part of her past and forgive herself and others for her mistakes. 

ALSO, 

Grisha finding a safer space in Ravka will mean that Inej can pitch Jesper’s case for him to Zoya. Being the highest authority who takes cares of the responsibilities of the Grisha, Zoya will be the best person to talk about this with. 

And so, here comes Jesper. 

Jesper

For one, I wish Jesper and Leoni interact, talk and just bond like the iconic siblings they would be. <3 But more than that, Jesper plays very integral to the plot for more reasons.

Jesper’s arc will parallel Zoya’s. Both of them are new to their powers in their own individual sense; Zoya is trying to use her new powers in a way that hasn’t been done before, thereby breaking the Grisha orders of powers and Jesper (assuming he has decided that he might want to learn and embrace his Grisha powers) is learning them afresh. 

This journey of them trying to embrace, learn and relearn and reject older norms and experiment really work in tandem.

That will lead us to a further (plot) theories. 

Ties with Novyi Zem 

As of the KoS end, Ravka has no support from anyone atm. Sure the Kerch will provide funds but Ravka has no real allies. Here’s where Novyi Zem and Jesper come in. 

We know Novyi Zem is a new country and also that it is the second safest country for the Grisha in the universe. As of KoS, their agreements are not renewed and they would be since between Kerch and Novyi Zem, Ravka was forced to pick Kerch. Yet Ravka needs their help in acquiring jurda for the antidote. 

So here’s the deal: Ravka will get their jurda but at many conditions that the Novyi Zem will impose on Ravka to not let exploitation get in the way. 

The conditions imposed could be (these are just some at the top of my head but I hope there are more to ensure the safety and security of the Zemeni, in Novyi Zem and in Ravka too) : 

Naval support from Ravka

We know of the Zemeni ships and ofc Nikolai has been hard at work trying to develop plans to use the sea to its fullest advantage. While the news of the izmars’ya isn’t public, Zemeni can place a condition for technical aid from Ravka since Ravka does have the technical knowledge it can dispatch as a condition.

A Grisha School in Novyi Zem

Think about it. Ravka, despite being the safest place for the Grisha, still isn’t entirely safe. Not all Grisha become soldiers in Ravka, they have a choice to abstain but those who are training are still recruited a honed for purpose alike preparing for war, especially the teens and preteens from the time of the Civil War. The training does take a lot of time. Ravka intends to make a home first and then service, but at the moment, while the Grisha are provided safety, it’s not assured in the best sense. Both the facts about a home and service are in precarious positions atm.

TL;DR: Ravka isn’t entirely safe for Grisha therefore the Grisha themselves too are not + Ravka is war torn. 

So what happens? 

One of the conditions as the next best country that serves as home to the Grisha, Novyi Zem may put forth the prospect of building a Little Palace like institution for the Grisha in Novyi Zem. It sounds morally wrong in the sense that the Grisha there will also be trained for war, but the war will end and soon, the Grisha will not be subject to serve for something but engage in economic activities as anybody else with the progression of time.

All of this won’t happen immediately either; learning their powers, honing it in the way that is unocnventional from what it had been pre-RoW and that transition + the building of the establishment in Novyi Zem and laying foundation for the  transnational panel or committee for Grisha that Zoya talks about will all take so much time. 

A few Grisha representatives from Novyi Zem can learn at the Little Palace and by the time the construction of the institution is done in Novyi Zem, these Grisha, along with other willing Grisha who either want to return to the country they were born in (like Leoni) or are offered to teach in a different country can do so too. 

There will be stricter terms so as to not ensure exploitation and possible colonization in these nations. 

Zoya mentions in one of her chapters that eventually there will be a need for the a  transnational panel or committee for Grisha. Jesper can Zoya can make it possible, adding in other countries to the panel slowly as the war recedes. 

Kaz and Wylan? 

Least likely to make an appearance, in my opinion. I think they’ll be mentioned plenty of times or brought up once and given great importance for how they can help in the side plot. 

Shu Support: 

This is more a hope than an actually theory dfbkdhjadfh but Makhi might have to step down from the throne because Ehri will take the place; either as a Queen (no...) or she might oversee the process of strengthening Shu Han and finding a leader (if she doesn’t want to become one herself). 

Ehri is capable, more than capable despite the little we know of her from the last chapter in KoS. All I hope is for an understanding and friendship between Nikolai and Ehri (and the subsequent cancelling of the marriage duH) for this to happen. She has little interest in statecraft but with the time she might spend with Nikolai, she might change her views. Even if not then she still gets the happy ending she deserves with Mayu (which is canon at this point rly).

Emotional Development or Breakdowns

Okay but I really, really, really hope we get to see all the three protagonists lose their shit and deal with their trauma, seek help or trying to stop isolating themselves or anything else they do to cope? Nina, Zoya and Nikolai, all of them cry, all of them get to completely lose it, let themselves be human and healthily cope and learn to rely on the people they trust the most. Like the sheer power and potential to show the myriad of ways to deal with grief, sadness, stress and more and make use of the trio’s backgrounds to show healthy and diverse ways of helping themselves, by letting themselves and others help them is just *combusts* Incredible! 

That being said, can I also ask for moments of fear and desolation from the side characters too? Impending war isn’t small business, it will take its toll on people, and all these reactions just cement their fears and what they value the most so. pls. Humanizing them rly. 

The Saving Each Other 

As much as I mostly kinda hate this trope, there are traces in the KoS that Zoya might be the one to end Nikolai’s affliction. On the other hand, there is talk of Nikolai helping Zoya control her powers which seems counterintuitive when you consider that Zoya knows that there is a line that she must never cross and that she is very, very careful about it and will continue to be. 

They can instead be the ones who motivate each other in times of distress as they always do (as shown with how Nikolai tries to gain control over his monster during the burning thorn ritual in KoS, allowing himself the vulnerability but also knowing that giving up will be unforgivable to both himself and Zoya as well) but I seriously do not wish for each other to be the ones directly ending one another's misery. Or perhaps this is just a fear imo that Leigh wouldn’t even take the route of (in which case, thank fuck).

Stab Stab Stab 

Zoya gets the chance to kill the Darkling with the rest of her friends. After all, Darkling does call them all his old friends. Just Julius Caeser him all the way and put a bow tie on the book. *chef’s kiss* Everybody deserves a second chance... at ending a tyrant when it fails the first time. 

+

So far, this is it. Rule of Wolves is in less than a few weeks and im- asdfghjkl. not Ready. i’m more Worried than Ready.

[tickledpink31]

Epics of Ink & Light Chapter 3: Lost Girl

Summary: In which the way home is farther than Minako thought.

My Instagram Read on Ao3 Read on Wattpad

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A quick reference for Minako's outfit under her ceremonial robes.

Prepare for a very long chapter and a lot of POV switching.

When you see an asterisk (*), there will information about a topic that appears within the story and will be explained in the author's notes at the end of the chapter.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Minako ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Ignorance was torture and never bliss to Minako. There was another wave of pain in her body that knocked her down to her knees. She was sick with apprehension. Literally. Up until now, she’s been trying to crush down her negativity, but it all came pouring out. She cried out her frustrations even though she knew she’s not allowed to for the sake of her health.

Crowley pulled her up from the floor after she collapsed. He jumped back once he got a good look at her horrid state.

“Ms. Nezumi… your face.” Crowley’s voice was low, opposite to the dramatics he displayed during the ceremony.

“I-I know. That’s why I have to get back home.” Minako sniffled. She was used to this kind of reaction whenever people see the black, vein-like markings take shape. The curse marks quickly spreading to her pale cheeks and burning her skin.

“But the Mirror said that it does not exist. Where exactly do you live?” Crowley politely offered her a hanky for her tears.

“I… I live in a city called London, it's in England. B-but I remember being at my school last… It’s in Scotland," said Minako, dabbing away the tears and ruined mascara from her face.

“I know where all of my students came from, but I know not of the places you speak of,” Crowley admitted. "However, we do have a vast amount of knowledge in our library. We may be able to find information about your home there."

He led her out of the chamber and into the dim corridors of the school, giving her a little time to compose herself. The library was not too far. Inside, it was filled with towering shelves, but what was most odd to her was that some of the books weren’t even on the shelves. A couple of books were suspended in the air. Back at Hogwarts, floating books usually meant that someone, most likely Kento, was pulling a prank.

Minako took care to dodge the floating books that drifted by her head. Crowley motioned over a set of books and maps from the shelves with a wave of his key-shaped staff that set themselves down on a table. One book remained hovering and flipped itself open for reading.

“Have a seat,” said Crowley.

Crowley kept questioning her every few seconds, hanging on the tiniest clues they could find on England or Scotland. They’ve been at this for who knows how long. The shelves were nearly stripped bare and not a single speck of ink spelled out her home in the maps or even in history. She’s leafed through every atlas. All of them were filled with names she didn’t recognize and shapes of land not found on Earth. At the very least, she knew where this school was located: the Sage’s Island apparently.

“Utterly useless.” Crowley tossed the final book onto the table in frustration. “Not a single word of your country is written in our texts. At this point, I'm convinced that you're truly not where you say you're from.” Crowley's voice gradually lowered and he looked dead in the eyes.

Minako was tempted to use some biting sarcasm on this man, but she needed help from him. You'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar. “Forgive me, but I don't see the benefit of lying about my home.” She clenched and unclenched her fists under the table.

Crowley stroked his chin thoughtfully. “There is a possibility that you might have come from another world. A different reality.”

Minako's stomach churned. “Considering what I've been studying, it's a valid theory.” Hogwarts had a small curriculum that taught them timelines and different worlds. The destruction of all Time-Turners, however, made it difficult to expand those studies.

“You're oddly calm about this, Ms. Nezumi.”

“Trust me, I'm not. This is just my face.”

“Do you have any identification on you? It looks as though you're empty handed.”

“Unfortunately, I only have the clothes on my back and my wand. My wallet and phone are elsewhere.” Damn the Ministry of Magic for not letting her use extension charms on her space buns.

Crowley lightly pressed two clawed fingers on his temple to massage it. “Tonight is just one disaster after another. I can't just let you, someone with no knowledge of our world, stay here. But I cannot just leave a helpless child to fend for herself in the streets either. I am gracious after all!”

Helpless child?

“I can work here to earn my keep. Do you have any quarters for the staff?” she begged. She would take the tiniest room if she had to.

Crowley’s face brightened. “That's right! We have an unused building on the campus. A dorm of your own that can be livable once you clean it up.” Crowley smiled brightly at the idea. “As long as you're here, you can work while I look for a way to get you home. My graciousness knows no bounds! Truly I'm an example for all educators.”

Minako perked up, ignoring that last arrogant remark. A house to herself was even better. “Thank you.”

“Oh and one more thing,” said Crowley. “Would you care to explain those black markings on your skin?”

Minako hesitated. Their interactions with each so far only warranted a scarce amount of trust. A blood curse wasn’t just something people would say about themselves casually with the kind of stigma it carries. However, her potion wasn’t with her right now, and only God knows how long she’ll stick around here. He has to know about her curse.

“How do I put this…” Minako pondered for a second on how to break the news. “I have this blood curse that makes me sick when I’m deeply upset. I need a magical source of light as a treatment, but a potion is more effective. At the moment, I don't have it with me, but I know the recipe by heart to make it myself.” She omitted the fact that it made her powers erratic, afraid of and unwilling to be forced to fend for herself on the streets. It didn’t matter how gracious the Headmaster claimed himself to be.

Crowley was silent for a good minute before speaking again. “This is… concerning to hear.”

Minako quietly sucked in a breath. She was prepared for him to revoke her right to stay.

He didn’t. “If that is true, then I’ll have Professor Crewel see to it then. Now, let’s head to the dormitory.”

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

The old dorm was a short walk away from the school castle. Crowley had Minako cling on to the crook of his arm as they went down the trail. The gloomy clouds blocking the light of the moon had Minako hastily reaching for her wand and casting lumos so that the tip of her wand could act as a torch. In the darkness, the curse was at its strongest should her mood turn sour at some point.

“There's no need for a light. The path is still clear even in the dark,” Crowley reassured her.

“I happen to hate the dark,” she said. Minako shivered when a breeze blew by. “It’s awfully cold for this time of the year..”

"It is September, Autumn is nigh."

“What?” It can't be. “Yesterday it was June! Are you telling me that I missed a whole summer?”

The Headmaster gave her a double take. “The things you are telling are getting more and more troubling. Could it be that time moves differently in your world? Or maybe it's amnesia while coming all the way here.”

“Neither of those sound comforting, sir.”

“Now, now. Stress does not do good for your health.” He got her to stop by an iron fence. “We're here, you can rest easy.”

Uphill, there was a dormitory as promised—dilapidated and marked with gravestones on the expanse of land. Looking at it took her back in time to her first trip to Hogsmeade where she accidentally stumbled upon the Shrieking Shack, a place that not even the Hogwarts Ghosts would dare enter. Unlike the Shrieking Shack, this place had a way in. She could only hope that her adequate skills in Charms would be enough to fix this ramshackle of a building for her to “rest easy” more or less.

“How charming.” Minako knew that she was in no position to complain. Grimmauld Place had the same unwelcomeness as this dorm that can be seen and felt; she can vouch for that having lived there for four years.

“Isn't it? Why don't we take a look?” The rusty iron gate made a grating squeak when Crowley pushed it open, the hinges looking ready to give up and collapse as much as the building was.

The closer they got, the creaks and settling became louder. Minako swore she heard laughter echoing throughout the area making her hesitant to follow Crowley up the steps.

She found the Headmaster fumbling through rotting potted plants until he found a key. He unlocked the door (that was somehow still intact) and cheerfully welcomed her inside the sitting room. Dust fell from the ceiling like snow, broken furniture was scattered all about, and cobwebs decorated every corner of the room. This was going to take more magic than Minako thought.

“Well… I have a charm or two for this,” she said in an attempt to comfort herself.

“Splendid! Don't use too much magic, we wouldn't want you to overblot,” said Crowley. “Don't go wandering around the campus either. I'm heading back to the library to do more research.”

“Got it.” Minako wasn't sure what he meant by overblot and at this point, she was too afraid to ask.

“Ta-ta!” The door shut behind Crowley and the house shook with a creak.

At that, Minako was nimble on her feet to repair the house before the roof collapsed on her. First things first was tossing balls of light from the tip of her wand into the chandelier. Somehow, it made the place look less dreadful apart from rotting walls.

Next was checking every nook and cranny for infestations then casting scourgify to cast out the roaches. She found some cleaning supplies tucked away in a closet then used the same spell to put the brushes and mops to work.

The mending charm was somewhat harder. While Kento and Alexis would have fixed the whole place in seconds, Minako had to walk from room to room saying "Reparo!" twice or even five times for the spell to work. Sometimes, a couple of items were missing a few pieces, so they couldn’t be repaired to their full extent.

When she was done, her clothes were beginning to feel annoyingly warm. She threw her hooded cloak on the sofa and started to unbutton the top of her under robe. She found her favourite white blouse and waistcoat underneath so she tossed her under robe away too, feeling cooler. The ceremonial pants and boots were kept on, but at least she can walk around tomorrow in casual clothes.

Lights on? Check. Pests gone? Check. Running water? Check. A bed to sleep in? Check.

As she passed by the mirror in the master bedroom, Minako thought she saw a pair of glowing dots in the glass. A trick of the light or a ghost, perhaps? There was no one behind her though. She had to backtrack to look at the mirror just to see if she was hallucinating.

Peering at her reflection once more, she met a glowing pair of dots again.

What in the world? She blinked once then twice.

Her eyes weren’t brown anymore. They were turquoise!

Deep breaths. Don’t let the curse consume you. Don’t panic too much.

“It’s okay, Minako. This isn’t the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you,” she told herself calmly, although a part of her wanted to freak at the change. “Look on the bright side: it’s a nice colour.” It’s not like it was uncommon around here. Despite being half-hidden by their hoods, she was still able to catch glimpses of the uniquely-coloured hair and eyes of the students. She just hoped that this wasn’t a bad sign.

The first crash of thunder pulled her out of her thoughts. Good thing she closed up all of the holes in the roof.

There was a sudden slam of a door downstairs “Eek! My ears are going out!”

Ah, she had a feeling that he would be back.

Minako raced down the stairs and unsurprisingly found Grim in the sitting room. He was now collarless, soaked, and the bluebell flames of his ears were low. He had zipped inside the house uninvitedly then proceeded to clumsily land by Minako's feet.

“Hello again,” was all she could say as she helped him up. Waving her wand repetitively, a jet of warm air blew from the tip to dry him off, taking care to not blow out his ears.

Grim didn't take too kindly to that, however. “I don't need your help!” he hissed at her. “How'd you get a dorm all to yourself? That's not fair!”

“This is a temporary dorm. I'm only here to work until I find a way back home.”

“Work? Are you serious?” Grim snickered. “That's hilarious! You're a magician but you're not even a student!” He began to cackle like a madman.

“I don’t want to hear that from someone who isn’t even allowed on the school grounds.”

That shut him up.

“What am I going to do with you?” Minako pondered. “It's against my code to harm magical creatures… well, unless it's an act of self-defence and you did try to burn me to a crisp. You might try it again then I’ll have to boot you out of my dorm.”

“You can't just throw me out!”

“Sure I can. I have banishing charms.”

Grim was none too pleased with that. She heard him growl as he stood on his hind paws scraping the wooden floor when his toes curled in.

Tears pricked his eyes. “I was meant to be here, you know! That Mirror doesn't know talent when it sees it.” he huffed and crossed his arms over his pudgy torso.

Minako had never felt so conflicted over her feelings towards a creature. She was always known as an animal lover. It was never like this with other magical creatures, probably because they couldn't talk, therefore they couldn't be smart-mouthed with her.

“By the way, why do you want to get into this school?” Minako asked him.

“Why? Because I'm a genius magician destined for greatness!” Grim was suddenly in a better mood with his chest puffed out.

Minako was familiar with that feeling of wanting to be a part of a magical school. For so long she was jealous that her sister, Flor, was the first to go to Hogwarts. Whenever her sister came back home, Minako would nag her endlessly to get her to tell her about school and made attempts to take her sister's wand to cast some spells of her own (Flor always caught her in the act). Later on, she would commit the same offences to Kento and Alexis once they started school. In short, she acted like an envious brat. Did her siblings ever feel this exhausted with her then as she does with Grim now?

Her wish came true eventually on her eleventh birthday. Grim, though, never got what he wanted. The little beast was an obnoxious tosser, a wretch like she once was, but he had the ambition to keep trying to get into the school no matter what. As a Slytherin, Minako admired that.

“I see.”

Mid-conversation, the lights went out. Minako was prepared to cast lumos again, but then the chandelier dropped down from the ceiling. Grim yelped and jumped high enough to cling on to her shirt.

A laugh echoed throughout the house. “Aww, I missed.”

“It's been so long since we've had a guest over,” said a second voice full of mirth.

Then a third voice. “Want to join us in the afterlife? There's no suffering when you're a ghost!”

“No thank you! No thank you!” Grim dug his claws further into Minako's shoulders and shut his eyes tight.

“Ouch! Don't scratch me!”

Before their eyes three ghosts in top hats and capes emerged from the darkness, circling around them like vultures with glee. There was a small and stout ghost, a larger chubby ghost, and the last was a skeletally thin ghost.

Minako snorted. These were the school ghosts? The ghosts she was used to seeing were hyperrealistic and riddled with scars of their deaths (a severed head being one good example). And these ghosts…

“You look like marshmallows! How adorable!” she cooed. “I'm so sorry that we invaded your home. We need a place to stay, please.” She fluttered her eyes in order to appear convincingly innocent.

The ghosts slowed down from their circling, their mischievous expressions disappearing. They stopped in their tracks to give each other quick glances, looking unsure about how to react.

Finally, the thin one spoke up. “Uh, welcome to our humble abode, miss…”

“I'm Minako. This little guy is Grim.” She pried a quivering Grim off of her chest.

“Don't tell them my name!”

“Grim, be nice.”

The chubbiest of the trio came up to her with a friendly smile. “The name's Phineas.”*

“Ezra.”* The thin one tipped his hat.

“Gus,”* said the short ghost.

Hook, line, and sinker.

“Huh, I thought this was going to be fun. She didn't even flinch when she saw us,” Ezra whispered to his partners as they huddled into a corner.

“She even fixed the house in such a short time. I hope she doesn't overblot,” said Phineas.

Grim was still weeping and shaking.

Minako patted his back, cradling him like a baby. "There, there. The scary ghosts won't hurt you, sweetheart." Grim was so adorable without his inflated ego. He was so soft and warm too.

“I wasn't scared!” Grim sniffed. “Are we really going to stay with them?”

“Yes. It was their house first and besides, we can handle them. I've made friends with lots of ghosts at my old school." Particularly, the teenage ghosts like a good portion of the Fallen Fifty and Myrtle Warren. The best part of having ghost friends was that none of them would get hurt if her blood curse decides to act up.

She set Grim down and bemoaned at how the chandelier managed to break through the floor as well. “Reparo. Reparo, damn it.” Waving her wand a few more times, the chandelier and debris finally elevated itself to the ceiling then mended itself back together along with the floor.

“You can do all that?” Grim gave her a look of disbelief.

“I see that the Mirror of Darkness was right about you, Ms. Nezumi. You've managed to repair the house all by yourself.”

Minako jumped out of her skin upon realizing that Crowley had entered the dorm. How long has he been standing there?

“When did you get in?” she asked.

“Just now. I forgot to tell you about the poltergeists that reside here, but I see you've handled that problem. If only you were an actual student,” Crowley said. “Oh, Ms. Nezumi, what happened to your eyes?”

“So I wasn’t hallucinating, they really did change colour. Do you have an explanation for this?”

“I was hoping that you might be able to explain that to me. Could it be some kind of symptom from your curse?” Crowley leaned down to her height to get a closer look at her.

Minako gulped. “I hope not. My eyes have never done that before.” But then again, her curse did act up not too long ago.

He handed her two glass tupperwares, one containing soup and the other scrambled eggs. “Calm down, we don’t know that for sure. Here, I brought you some supper and some breakfast for tomorrow."

“Um, there isn't any meat in that food, is there?” asked Minako.

“Not a meat eater? Not to worry, the ghosts make their vichyssoise purely vegetarian,” said Crowley.

“No meat? That's boring. Got a can of tuna instead?” Grim butted in.

“You!” Crowley pointed an accusing finger at him. “What are you doing back here?”

Grim yelped and cowered behind Minako's legs. Before Crowley could make a move to grab him, she stopped him.

“Hold on a minute. He helped me with the ghosts,” she said.

“I did?”

“He did?” Phineas uttered out dumbly then Ezra nudged his arm. “I mean he did!”

“Surely our gracious principal wouldn't thank Grim for that by throwing him out just like that.” Getting a fairly good grasp on his character, Minako knew that poking Crowley’s ego should do the trick.

“I-I am gracious. I am gracious,” the Headmaster chanted under his breath in an attempt to reassure himself. “But a monster—”

“He wants to go to this school.”

Crowley was as stubborn as she was. “I had no idea that you could be so persistent. So you've managed to tame a monster along with three ghosts, you say? What kind of experience do you have with beasts?”

“Lots. I love animals, especially the magical ones,” Minako replied.

“Heh! It's no wonder you can tolerate the raccoon to some degree.” Gus floated by her. “You probably don't have the heart to use that banishing charm that I heard you talk about.”

“I'm not a raccoon! Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Crowley ignored them. “Tell me more about your experiences.”

And she did. Minako told him all about her magizoology training and her feats in Care for Magical Creatures. Somehow, she had gone off track by info-dumping facts about dragons and mooncalves that Crowley had to put her blabbering to a halt.

“Alright, alright. Since the uproar of the Entrance Ceremony, I thought I saw something special in you. So much power within a little girl, I had the suspicion that you might have the makings of a beast tamer.”

“That… sounds pretty cool. So about Grim, can he stay? Please!”

“Well…” Crowley hesitated.

“Pretty please?” The trio of ghosts chorused, leaning in closer to the Headmaster.

“Away with you three!” Crowley shooed them off. He sighed in defeat. “Fine. You may keep him around, but a monster and a teenager cannot just stay here for free.”

“Damn it! So close.” Grim pouted.

“That's kind of racist. Or is it speciesist?” Minako muttered.

“Listen to what I have to say. Ms. Nezumi, you said that you will work for me, so here is my proposition.” Crowley chuckled a bit at the end with mischief gleaming in his yellow eyes.

Oh god. Minako didn't like the sound of that. “Don't turn me into a prostitute, please.” She briefly wondered about the law system in this world and hoped that it would work in her favour.

“Pull your head out of the gutter, child!” the Headmaster squawked. “I just need the both of you to do maintenance and odd jobs around the campus. That way you can earn your keep to pay for your daily needs like food and clothes as well as give you permission to stay on school grounds. What with your magic, Ms. Nezumi, it's safe to say that you would make an excellent handywoman.”

Minako let out a sigh of relief. “I can do that. Thank you, sir.”

Crowley continued. “While you're here, the library will be available to you to do more research to help you get back to your world, after you've finished all your tasks. Aren't I gracious?”

“I'm not some janitor! I want to be a student here and wear that fancy uniform!” Grim whined.

“If you hate it so much, I can just toss you out.” Crowley's smile directed at Grim grew a bit forced.

Grim squeaked with fright then his shoulders dropped in defeat. “Fine, I'll do it.”

“Understood,” said Minako.

Crowley clapped his hands together with finality. “Wonderful! Your work starts tomorrow, so do not disappoint me. And Ms. Nezumi, please make sure that monster is under control. Good night.” With that he left.

“Well, Grim, let's eat before the soup gets cold. I'm starving.” Minako turned to the ghosts. “Thank you again, you three.”

“Aw shucks.” Phineas blushed. (Ghosts can blush?)

“It was no problem,” said Gus.

Minako gently nudged Grim. “Grim, say thank you.”

Begrudgingly, Grim mumbled, “Thanks, I guess.”

“Was that so hard, Grimmy-boy?” Ezra teased him.

Having cleaned the kitchen earlier, Minako knew where all of the plates and bowls were stored so that she could set the table. She ate her fill with Grim, cleaned the dishes, and soon decided that it was quite late. Her day starts early tomorrow all with the cleaning she would have to do.

“There's an alarm clock on the cabinet in the master bedroom. It rings every morning at six,” said Gus.

“That's perfect.” Minako was grateful for the allies she made tonight.

That was where Minako and Grim both decided to sleep for the night. She was so worn out that she didn't bother to tell him that the other rooms were available.

“I hope you don't mind, but I need a nightlight,” she told Grim. His ear fire was too dim to comfort her.

“Whatever.” Grim yawned.

“Lumos.”

She just wanted to light the bedside lamp, but the trio of ghosts howled with fright at her spell before they were forcibly cast out of the bedroom.

Oh right, that spell repels ghosts too. That’s why they took down the chandelier.

“Sorry, I forgot that it does that!”

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Despite the stress of being in another world, Minako's night was not fraught with nightmares. It was nice to be at peace for the night until she woke up with an alarm blaring in her ear and a face full of Grim. She was suffocating under his weight, so she thoughtlessly shoved him off.

Grim stirred from his sleep with a yowl. “Hey, I'm sleeping here!”

“On my face?”

The ghost trio burst in. “Wake up sleepy-heads!”

Grim hissed and pounced off of the bed. "I need breakfast," he grumbled.

Minako took a good, hard look at herself in the mirror again. Her eyes were back to normal. She checked her neck, arms, and legs. No curse marks were found.

Due to the dormitory's design being stuck somewhere in the early twentieth century, she and Grim could only take baths and not showers. The plumbing produced clean water thankfully, but it was freezing and she had yet to master the heating charm without scalding herself.

Minako slipped on her clothes, her boots, and most importantly, her wand holster. With a quick “crinus muto” charm, her hair fixed itself to create the usual half-up twin buns style.

Downstairs, Crowley was waiting for them. He greeted them with, “Good morning! I hope you slept well.”

“That stupid alarm clock woke me up and she shoved me off the bed,” said Grim.

“You were suffocating me,” argued Minako.

“Settle down, you two. There will be no quarrelling tolerated, especially on your first day,” the Headmaster scolded them. “Today, I would like you to clean Main Street from the main gate to the library and perhaps. You may use the cafeteria for lunch.”

“Yes sir.”

“And Ms. Nezumi, I am entrusting you to keep an eye on Grim so that he doesn't run amok like last night.”

“I'll do my best.”

The two were left to eat their breakfast before work. Grim was poking his eggs with dissatisfaction about being delegated to a janitor.

“I don't want to clean. I want to attend class and learn to cast cool spells!”

“I hate to tell you this, but magic school is a lot harder than you think, Grim. It's not all fun and games.” As much as she loved magic, Minako has had her fair share of burnouts being one of the top students.

“Maybe in your world,” Grim grumbled.

Minako doubted that. “If you really want to learn something, we can go to the library after we're done cleaning.”

“But that's boring!”

After finishing up their breakfast, they gathered up the cleaning supplies and headed down to Main Street. Minako had one of the brooms enchanted to walk beside them.

“Do you think we can get more brooms and use your magic to clean everything?” asked Grim.

Minako shook her head. “I can't. I don't have the skills yet to focus my attention on more than one broom. I brought more brooms for us so that we could have three sweepers rather than two.”

“Tsk. Some powerful magician.”

“Witch,” she corrected, “and I'm going to choose to ignore that.”

Main Street was certainly a sight to behold. It had seven statues lined up on both sides on the bricked path, four on one side and three on the other. They were all crisp and clean as if they were never touched by bad weather or bad people.

“Wow,” Minako whispered under breath.

Even Grim was amazed. “Cool! Hey, what's with these statues?”

“I wouldn't know. I'm not from here.” Minako casually flicked her wand to get the broom to start sweeping the leaves off the street by itself and she got to sweeping the pavement manually too.

Grim padded over to a statue of an elegant, rotund woman in a gown with a heart-shaped sceptre in hand. From the crown atop the lady's head, one could tell that she was definitely a royal, likely a queen and not a princess.

“Who's this snobby-looking granny?”

Minako tutted at Grim's insensitivity. “Don't be rude.” She stepped closer to get a good view of the statue.

Words were engraved at the podiums where each statue stood and she made out the words, “The Queen of Hearts,” on the stone.

Last night, Riddle spoke about the Queen of Hearts like she was some idol to be revered. Now that she thought about it, Crowley called this world “Twisted Wonderland.” Almost everybody back in her world knows what the old story entails: a girl named Alice falls down a rabbit hole and is transported to the fantastical world of Wonderland.

“Am I Alice?” she asked herself.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Hold on, don't you two know about the Queen of Hearts?” a stranger had inserted himself into the conversation.

The voice got their heads to turn to lock eyes with a boy she recognized from the ceremony. He was one of the first years, the one with messy hair and a mischievous grin. There was a change in his appearance other than his uniform; now there was a red heart mark painted over his left eye and he was wearing a seemingly friendly smile.

What was his name? It slipped from her mind, but she remembered to be cautious if she ever saw him again.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Ace ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Well, well, well. Look at what we have here.

Ace Trappola was not expecting to run into that mystery girl and the raccoon-cat thing from the Entrance Ceremony again. Judging by their cleaning supplies, he had to take a guess that the Headmaster put them up to become janitors. Hilarious!

Those little freaks that had him wheezing last night with some much needed chaos after that boring ceremony. Well, it was funny until that cocky little raccoon nearly burnt him to a crisp, thinking that he'll still be accepted into the school.

He crept closer to them and… was that broom sweeping the street by itself? It was quite fast at sweeping the leaves off of the pavement, and it was getting attention from the students passing by. It was that girl's magic, no doubt.

It almost wasn’t fair seeing the broom easily do half of her work for her. He thought back to a time when he was a kid attempting and failing to do something similar to get his chores done. His grandma caught him in the act and proceeded to lecture him for hours about not using his magic too much because he’ll build up blot.

Then he heard the furball asking about the statue of the Queen of Hearts, and all he could think was how ripe these two were for having a little bit of fun. He still had some time before class to milk the circumstances for what it's worth.

Putting on his best smile, he asked, “Hold on, don't you two know about the Queen of Hearts?”

Heads turned to him in surprise.

“Queen of Hearts?” the raccoon echoed back. “Nope. Doesn't ring a bell.”

Ace's lips nearly twitched into a smirk as he swallowed the urge to snort at the monster's stupidity. Who doesn't know the Queen of Hearts? He was willing to bet that these two didn't know about the rest of the Great Seven either.

“Really?” Ace's grin grew wider. “Long ago, she ruled over the Rose Maze. Everything and everyone was to fall under the subjugation of her laws down from the march of the Card Soldiers to the colour of the rose bushes. Anyone who disobeyed her would get their head chopped clean off.”

The monster flinched out of fear. “That's terrifying!” he whimpered.

“I think it's pretty cool. Well, you can't expect people to listen to a queen who's nice all the time,” Ace laughed.

“Strict rules and punishments aren't always an effective way to rule,” the girl spoke. Up until now, she was practically silent.

Ace wasn't sure how to respond to that. Yeah, it was true the discipline wasn't always a good leading strategy, but there was something that was awfully biting with the way she phrased that.

He made a quick assessment of her. She looked to be sixteen like all the freshmen were. Judging from her accent, she was likely raised in the Rose Kingdom like himself, but her physical features told him that her ethnicity might also be from around here in the Sage's Island.* Her stature was rather tiny as well, a normal trait of anyone with Sage Islander blood.

“Well, the Queen sounds scary, but I guess strong leaders are better,” the monster said. “Who are you, anyway?”

“The name's Ace. I'm a freshie.” Ace smiled brighter at them and held out his leather clad hand.

The girl looked at his hand with hesitance, but then shook it with unease.

Shy, huh? Ace thought. Then he looked up into her eyes and felt the frosty scrutiny in her gaze. Does she know?

The monster got up on his hind paws and posed with his front paws on hips. “I'm Grim and my destiny is to become the greatest magician. And this dummy is Minako, my henchwoman—ow!”

The girl—Minako—kneeled down and delivered a hard chop to Grim's head.

Ace resisted the urge to snicker. One, this cat-raccoon thing must be delusional to think that he'll become a great magician. Two, a good whack on the head was what he deserved. He didn't think Minako was the type to become Grim's henchwoman, at least not willingly. These two turned out to be more entertaining than he thought.

“What was that for?” Grim was grasping head in pain.

“We have a job to do, we'll learn about the statues later.” Minako handed Grim a scrub brush.

Ace wanted to keep them around a bit longer. “Minako, huh? Your name sounds pretty odd.”

“It's not that odd.” She continued with the cold disposition.

Grim turned to look at the statue of the King of Beasts, a stone lion perched on a rock with pride. “Hey, Ace. Tell me about the lion with the scar. Is he famous too?”

Ah, just what Ace suspected, Grim really didn't know anything about the Great Seven. “He sure is. The King of Beasts was actually not born to be king at first, but he managed to claim the throne through hard work and his cunning mind.”

Then Grim pointed to the Sea Witch's statue, a plump cecaelia with a contract in hand. “And the octopus lady?”

Ace went on to explain who the Sea Witch was and how she made a living granting wishes for unfortunate merfolk. Whether it was for looks, finding love, or just about anything, she would make it come true for a price.

He moved on to the next statue to tell them about the Sorcerer of the Sands who stood stiff and serious holding his menacing snake-like staff. He was a vizier that served a foolish sultan and caught a peasant pretending to be a prince trying to deceive the princess. Eventually, he obtained a magic lamp that made him a powerful sorcerer.

Next, was the Beautiful Queen holding her trademark poison apple. One look and even a monster like Grim had to agree that she was a sight for sore eyes. Everyday, the Queen would ask her magic mirror about her ranking in terms of beauty, and her efforts were something to be admired whenever she would fall behind from being number one. She would risk life and limb to regain her spot as the fairest of the fair. Not only that, she was adept at making various poisons.

Then there was the frightful figure of the fiery Lord of the Underworld, a god that ruled over the dead and never took a day off from his daunting tasks. He ended up winning over the most fearsome monsters to ever tread the Underworld like Cerberus, the Hydra, even the Titans, who created his army.

Finally, they came to the last statue of the horned Witch of Thorns from Magic Mountains who was perhaps the most powerful and noble among the Seven. Her magic was something beyond this world, but she excelled at curses the most. She can summon lightning, cover an entire nation with thorns, and she can even transform into a dragon.

By the end of that brief history lesson, Grim was starry-eyed. “They all sound so cool!”

Ace glanced at Minako to see her reaction. He'd been watching her every now and then just to see if she was living under rock like Grim was. He caught her half-listening as she was cleaning the street and following them closely. Her expression had changed slightly to what looked like curiosity and maybe even confusion. So, she really didn't know.

“Yeah, they are pretty cool,” Ace said, “unlike a certain raccoon.”

Grim froze at the sudden jab, his blue eyes were wide open.

As for Ace, he couldn't hold it back anymore, so all of his laughter came pouring out. “You two! You're the ones who went crazy at the ceremony! Do you know how hard it was to not lose it last night?” Oh, his stomach ached.

“Rude!” Grim seethed.

Minako didn’t react much other than clicking her tongue. A much blander response than what Ace wanted, but he still kept laughing.

“I can’t believe…” Piles of laughter. “...you two were forced to become janitors.” He took deep breaths and his laughter slowed so he could talk. “Then I find out that you’re so stupid that you don’t know the Great Seven! Go back to preschool before you go to college, alright.”

“Hey, henchwoman, knock him out with one of your spells or something!”

“Let’s leave. We don’t want to get in trouble.” Minako's hand was clenched around her wand sheathed in its holster. That meant he was getting to her.

“Scared?” Ace goaded her on.

“No, I just don’t think you’re worth my time,” Minako responded in a manner that was calm but bitingly cold. “You should get to your classes before I go back on that and sew your mouth shut.”

Ace snarled. Not worth her time? She wasn't cute at all!

“What? I'm not just letting him get away with that!” Sucking in a deep breath, Grim spat out a trail of electric blue fire across the pavement.

“Grim, don't!” Minako made a move to catch Grim by his tail, but the monster zoomed off and spat a wave of fire on the pavement.

Ace jumped back in surprise, narrowly avoiding the trail that licked his shoes. “Watch where you're aiming!”

“I'll light that mop you call hair on fire!”

“Light my hair on fire? I'll turn you into a toy poodle!”

Grim let out growl as he released the next trail of inferno, this time Ace was prepared to fight back. He took out his pen from his breast pocket with his magic surging from the ruby crystal attached to it and blasted the fire into nothing with a gust of cool wind. A smug grin etched onto his face upon seeing Grim cry out in frustration.

A blue light suddenly whizzed past Ace's face. He turned to see that Minako had her wand out.

“Stop that!” she shouted.

“Hey, is that fight over there?”

“Heck yeah! Go get 'em!”

Crap. Ace had forgotten about the other students. He had to finish this quickly. Seeing another burst of flames was headed his way, he summoned the wind again to veer it away from its path.

Then suddenly, he saw the enchanted broom from earlier fly towards Grim and push the monster to the ground. Ace wanted to laugh at that, but then the wind was knocked out of him when Minako pinned him to the ground with another broom. For someone so small, he didn't think she had the strength to do that.

“I told you to stop!” Minako was on top of him and staring him down with the first sign of emotion that wasn't so icy for once, in fact she was burning with rage. And her eyes... Ace was sure that they were brown before and not turquoise.

“Ah! The statue!” somebody cried.

Ace can still hear a loud crackling sound somewhere, which meant that the fire hadn't been put out at all. With the mutual feeling of dread, he and Minako looked up only to find the Queen of Hearts statue engulfed in blue flames.

Minako got up from the pavement and was quick to react. “Aqua eructo!” Her wand sprayed a jet of water to douse the fire, but it was too late.

No, no, no! "The statue's been charred!" Ace's hands flew up to his hair. He was in so much shit.

Grim got up from the ground and tried to pin the blame on him. “This is your fault! You should have just let yourself get fried instead!”

“What idiot would let himself get lit on fire?” Ace snapped back.

“That is enough!” The booming voice of Headmaster Crowley made everyone on Main Street freeze. He cracked his whip, flogging both Ace and Grim on the arms.

Ace hissed at the stinging pain lingering on his arm. Should a principal be allowed to keep something like that?

“Not the Lash of Love again!” cried Grim.

Ace inwardly cringed at the name. What kind of principal was this guy? He was pretty sure that Crowley was violating a couple of laws with that whip.

Crowley stomped over them. "I thought I told you to not cause anymore trouble, but then you go and scorch the Queen of Hearts! You two could be expelled for this."

Ace winced. “No. Don't do that please!” What would his parents say? He can't get expelled on the first day of school. He just can't! This wasn’t his fault.

Grim, like the coward he was, jumped into Minako's arms for comfort at the mention of expulsion. Now, Crowley directed his attention to her.

Minako's shoulders were tense and her head was bowed, looking more solemn than Ace had seen all morning. “I'm sorry,” she said before Crowley could say anything.

The apology resulted in a softer tone but still a stern scolding from the Headmaster. “This isn't how you supervise Grim. I thought that you could have done better.”

Crowley turned back to Ace. "You, what's your name and grade?"

“Ace Trappola, first year,” he answered sheepishly.

“Then Trappola, Grim, and Nezumi,” Crowley started. “If you don't want to be expelled, I want the three of you to clean a hundred windows around campus without the use of magic!”

“It's his fault! He was making fun of us!” Grim protested.

“That's not fair!” Ace said. If anything it was Grim's fire that burnt the statue.

“It most definitely is, Trappola. After school, you are all to meet in the cafeteria, understand?”

“Fine,” Ace sighed in defeat.

“This is the worst,” said Grim.

Crowley ordered him to hurry over to his next class leaving Ace in a sour mood. There was no way he was cleaning a hundred windows. Two other people are doing the job, so what's the harm in not showing up later?

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Minako ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Minako was happy to see Ace leave, but she dreaded seeing him again for their punishment. She was right to be cautious about him. There was a heavy weight in her chest from the distress that both he and Grim had caused her from their altercation. She got angry and she didn't even have her potion with her! How stupid can she be? Dark energy was swelling up in her system, urging her to purge it out.

“Hey, henchwoman, you don't look too good.”

Minako ignored him. “Headmaster, do you happen to have a girl's restroom?” she asked, her voice shaky.

"Ms. Nezumi? Are you feeling alright?" Crowley's arms extended out to her as if he was waiting on her to suddenly collapse.

“I feel sick. My curse is acting up again.” As discreetly as she could, Minako rolled up her sleeve to show him the dark veins spreading on her arm that twisted like tree branches.

"W-what curse? What’s that on your arm?" Grim stammered.

Minako took a deep breath. “I just need to calm down in private before this gets out of hand.”

"Right, follow me."

They managed to make it inside the school building somehow before her magic could wreak havoc. Then in the women's restroom where Crowley hastily ushered her into, the mirror on the vanity had cracked in the corner under her power. Hopefully, Crowley wouldn’t make her pay for that.

Facing her reflection, she found that the black veins had already spread to her neck and that her eyes had changed back to the turquoise colour from the previous night. Her skin was so pale that it made the marks pop out more. Was it possible that someone had noticed her cursed state on the way here?

Harsh coughs began to leave her mouth making her desperately reach for paper towels from the dispenser. She tried to expel as much of the curse's physical remnants that the flare-up had left. Removing the towel from her mouth, she inspected the black ink streaked with bright red blood. She crumpled it up and threw it away in the bin. For now, she would just have to wait until her darkened veins have gone away.

“Lumos maxima.” The tip of her wand shined brightly and slowly, it repelled the marks on her skin.

There were different types of blood curses: some turn you into monsters and some leave you frail, but either way you die early (or, in some people’s cases, you lose your humanity). She doubted that she would ever make it to her thirties. What with all of those times she lost control of her emotions. For all she knew, she could already be dead and this was just a long dream as she navigated through the afterlife.

Crowley may have given her shelter even with the knowledge of her curse, but how long until he decides that she was too much of a threat to the school? She might end up homeless with no way home. Rumours about her could spread and no one would be willing to approach her, let alone help her.

No, don't think like that. It will only get worse. Minako refused to cry. She took deep breaths and filled her mind with happier thoughts. Without her potion or the skill to cast the patronus charm, all she had was lumos to get it to disappear. It was a longer solution, but it was the only solution. She couldn't take looking at the black veins stubbornly remaining on her skin or how the curse was painfully draining her energy away anymore.

There was a knock on the door and Crowley's muffled voice came from the other side. “Ms. Nezumi, you've been in there for a while. Are you still alive?”

Checking the mirror one last time, Minako found that the black marks had lessened and can be easily hidden now. “Coming,” she said, finally walking out of the loo.

It was surprising to see that Crowley was still waiting after quite a while. She would have thought that the Headmaster had a pile of work to do that was more important than to look after one person.

And Grim? He was waiting too when Minako would sooner believe that he would get bored and wander off. Instead, he stayed put and sat by the restroom door with his big blue eyes close to tears. Seeing Grim’s concern for her lifted her spirits up a bit.

“Perhaps, it was careless of me to not ask you more about your curse,” Crowley said.

Unexpectedly, Grim climbed into Minako's arms. “Careless? My henchwoman could have died because of you!”

Technically, Grim was partly responsible for her flare up too.

“So, your curse is triggered whenever you feel upset?” Crowley asked.

“Whenever I'm too upset. I'm safe if my feelings are not that strong,” Minako corrected.

“You said that you require a medicinal potion to help reduce the effects?”

“That and magical light.” Then Minako remembered something. “Oh! That reminds me, I wrote down the recipe last night.” She reached into her pocket for an old piece of parchment that the ghosts found for her. “I'm just worried though that I might not have the ingredients in this world.”

“Crewel can take care of this, you have nothing to worry about. Aren't I gracious?” Crowley beamed as he took the parchment off of her hands.

Stop it with the gracious thing, please. Minako groaned inwardly.

The bell rang and Crowley perked up. "The both of you should get something to eat now. Remember to meet after school for your punishment."

Crowley had given them enough money for lunch and a bit more to buy essentials from the school shop. The cafeteria was starting to fill with chatter with the students pushing their way through the doors. Unlike the Great Hall at Hogwarts, the tables were shorter in length and more in quantity. The students here tended to mix with different houses, but at Hogwarts, the students mostly sat at their respective tables unless they were invited by another house to sit with them.

The cafeteria was almost as big as the Great Hall if it weren't for the lower ceiling. Speaking of the ceiling, the chandelier was rather pretty, mimicking the look of a tree in a forest. The globes of light on the branches looked like fireflies or even fairies.

“Hey, you won't have time to get the best food if you keep gawking at the ceiling like that.”

That voice sure didn't sound like Grim. Minako looked back down to her level and met the white-haired boy from last night greeting her with his ever cheerful expression along with a friend standing behind him.

Minako tried to remember his name. “Hey… um, Kalim?”

“Yeah! I'm so glad that you're still here,” said Kalim. No longer in his ceremonial robes, Kalim was sporting some kind of looser version of the school uniform—a cream-coloured cardigan rather than a black blazer, his scarlet waistcoat unbuttoned, and a matching white-and-gold half turban wrapped around his head.

“Oh, I'm not a student here. We're just janitors for now.” Minako motioned to her own clothes to show him that it was not the school uniform.

“That's too bad. I think you're great at magic.”

“Oh, those spells? They’re not that impressive.”

“Wait a second, aren't you the one who made it rain last night?” asked Grim.

“You were the one that burnt his rear. Say you’re sorry,” Minako shot back.

“Don't worry about it. In hindsight, it was actually kind of funny.” Kalim laughed reassuringly.

“Kalim, please, it's on my head if you'd been seriously hurt. I knew I should have gone with you to the ceremony,” Kalim's friend said with exasperation.

“Oh, Minako, this is my vice dorm leader, Jamil. Jamil, this is Minako. She's the one who saved me last night.”

Jamil appeared to have a more serious air to him, standing stiff like a bodyguard for Kalim. His skin was dark like his long hair, a perfect contrast to Kalim's white hair. Some of the locks in his ponytail were neatly braided and decorated with gold coins. Minako noticed too that Jamil's uniform was somewhat loose. Under his uniform blazer, he donned a red-and-black hoodie in place of the standard dress shirt and waistcoat.

“It's nice to meet you. This is Grim,” Minako greeted him warmly while she tried to get a read on him at the same time. On the surface, Jamil carried himself with the same kind of irritation that her sister often did, but there was something calculating in his steely eyes as well.

“It's good to meet you too." Ironically, Jamil sounded indifferent when he said that. "Kalim, we need to get in line now.”

Minako and Grim joined the two collecting their trays and standing in front of the serving line where the kitchen ghosts operated. She scanned the options that were within her budget and satisfied her dietary restrictions.

“Are there any vegetarian options?” asked Minako.

“Try some of our veggie curry,” one ghost offered cheerfully.

Was it just her, or do all of the ghosts only have three standard looks? This ghost looked exactly like Phineas but with a different voice.

“Get me some of that curry with pork cutlet, henchwoman!” Grim demanded.

“You're not really his henchwoman, are you?” asked Kalim.

“No, he's just delusional.”

“Hey!”

“By the way, how do I pay him? I’m not familiar with using madols,” asked Minako.

After Jamil gave her a quick tutorial on how to use the money, Kalim made her and Grim sit with them on the same table. Her mouth was already watering at the smell of the curry and rice on her tray. She took her first bite, the spices all blending together nicely like an authentic curry that didn't use powder. Those ghosts knew how to cook.

Grim practically inhaled his food and Minako grew worried for her wallet with his gluttonous behaviour. She would need to restrain him if it ever came to that point.

Kalim was looking at her. “What's that thing on your chin?”

Minako's hand went to wipe her chin and she glanced at it to examine the offending stain. To her horror it was a drop of ink from her curse.

“Uh, it's ink. I draw a lot,” she half-lied. She adjusted her collar to hide her neck in case there was any marks that hadn't disappeared yet.

Grim gave her a look of confusion, but thankfully stayed quiet.

“So you're an artist? That's cool. I'm not that good at drawing, but I’m in a band and Jamil's a great dancer,” said Kalim.

“Why don't you tell her about yourself more and less about me?”

“Ah, sorry, Jamil. But you really are a good dancer.”

There was something one-sided about the dynamic of these two; Jamil was constantly annoyed with Kalim despite being his friend. Did he not think they were friends? Maybe he was just the type that preferred to bury his own emotions. He has been acting secretive this whole time, which was fine by Minako, though it did make her question their relationship.

“It would've been nice if you got sorted into Scarabia. Jamil's cooking is amazing and we throw lots of parties at our dorm. Say, how much do you know about the Sorcerer of the Sands?”

“Not much, but I know… enough.” Minako bitterly recalled the altercation with Ace. “I'm not from here, so I've never heard about the Great Seven until this morning.”

Kalim was speechless and Jamil even looked up from his plate with astonishment.

“That's impossible. How could you not know about the Great Seven? It's practically the first thing everyone learns about,” Jamil said with disbelief.

“Well, Grim's from around here and he didn't know about the Great Seven either.”

“Don't remind me!” Grim hissed.

“Monsters don't really go to school, so it's understandable that Grim doesn't know,” Jamil explained.

Kalim was more amazed than shocked. “Wow, your country must be really far away. I thought you were just a local on the island. Where did you come from?”

Should she tell him? Kalim was incredibly kind to her so far, but that sure doesn't mean she should say anything. Was it a good idea to hide the fact that she came from another world?

The ringing of the bell stopped her from saying anything.

Jamil got up with his tray. “We better go. Kalim needs to get to his classes if he wants to make up for last year.”

“I'm coming. It was nice seeing you again.” Kalim also stood up from seat and waved goodbye.

Well, I guess we should go buy some supplies now.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

The owner of the school shop, Sam, was an eccentric and cheery fellow. The man’s stark, white skeletal markings on his dark skin and the rib pattern on his waistcoat caught Minako’s attention immediately. There was a charm to his spooky aesthetic, and it was probably Sam's charisma that made it work so well.

When she and Grim entered Mr. S's Mystery Shop, Sam had popped out of nowhere, tipping the patchy top hat that sat on his dark dreads to greet them. “Welcome, my lost little demons. The name’s Sam. Anything I can do for you two, today?” His Southern accent was pleasant to hear.

Grim jumped out of his skin. "Where did you come from?"

“Sorry about that. Interested in a couple of dreamcatchers? How about some grimoires?”

“Do you happen to sell any food and clothes that come in a small size? I'm on a budget of a hundred madol.” Minako wondered about the variety of this man’s shop.

“Hey, I know you. You're the girl that the Headmaster took in. Say, if you're looking for jobs, I could use a delivery girl.”

“Thanks, I’ll think about it.”

Minako gathered two sets of clothes (interesting that he sold lady’s underwear when he ran a shop at a boys school), instant food, and sanitary products. She brought it over to the checkout where Sam was already pushing in the buttons on the cash register.

What Minako found around the shop was unbelievable. Sam really did sell a variety of things, but he mainly advertised for his shady artefacts that reminded her of the antiques sold in Borgin and Burkes at Knockturn Alley. It was filled to the brim with potentially cursed objects and voodoo trinkets that she had hard time seeing any modern essentials that were sold here.

Minako stared at the shelves full of books and potions behind Sam as she waited for him to finish checking out her items. She was somehow entranced by his shadow as she caught it not matching the shopkeeper’s movements. She thought it was a trick of her eye, but then the shadow peered over Sam’s shoulder to count the money she gave him.

There was a second shadow on the wall, this time without a physical body to match it, running its finger along the spines of the books. Minako counted a third on the ceiling and a fourth on the floor.

“What are you staring at?” Grim’s voice took her out of her stupor.

“The shadows.”

Sam stopped counting the money. “You can see them?”

“Uh… yes. Friends of yours?” Minako asked.

“They sure are! My friends from the other side.” Sam leaned towards her to whisper, “But you shouldn’t trust them so easily. They ain’t always honest.”

One shadow playfully smacked Sam at the back of his head, nearly knocking his top hat off.

It was a joke, but Minako decided that she would take his word for it. “Okay then.” She grabbed the shopping bag off of the counter. “We better go. Thanks, Sam.”

“But I want to hang out more!” said Grim.

“Another time.” Minako pulled him out the door.

“Come again soon!” said Sam as they left the shop.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Sam ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

That girl was a little weird. People don’t normally see his shadow companions messing around in his shop, but the Headmaster did say there was something special about her magic.

As soon as the girl and her cat left, one shadow tapped Sam on the shoulder and whispered in his ear. He was sure that his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head from what he just heard.

“That little girl is covered in blot?”

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Author's Notes:

*Phineas, Ezra, and Gus are the names of the Hitchhiking Ghosts trio from Disney's Haunted Mansion Ride. I named them based on how close each ghost was on physical appearance. I'm pretty sure someone else has used these names to name the Ramshackle Ghosts but oh well.

*There was a headcanon I found on Tumblr stating that the Rose Kingdom is the equivalent of the UK or at least England and that the Sage's Island (where NRC is located) is the equivalent of Japan. Minako being born and raised a British-Asian girl, Ace made the assumption that she was from the Rose Kingdom with a Sage's Islander background.

Also, I originally wanted to insert a gag that Minako uses her space buns as a purse and can fit just about anything in there. Some of you may know it if you've been following me for awhile. I decided to leave it out because it didn't match the tone that I wanted.

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[tuber-culosis]

I've been reading through a lot of radfem blogs and posts lately. and gotta say, i'm leaning a lot towards radical feminism. And im definitely gender critical.

but one topic I want to talk about in particular is the criticism of Islam.

Which I feel is totally valid considering the current state of mainstream islam and Muslims.

Mainstream Islam (is what you see on all social media, seemingly practised by a lot of Muslims) IS sexist. And homophobic. There's no use denying it, neither do I think I'm a bad Muslim for not supposedly defending my own religion. You have to recognise the flaws in your own system to improve and progress.

Then arises the question why am I still Muslim then/ why do I still practise Islam? If I recognise the way it is practised is sexist and homophobic, which are things I'm against?

The difference lies in my belief that "mainstream Islam" is much different from the root of Islam.

Many (read: a LOT, not all) modern Muslims have been influenced by ultra conservative movements that want to return Islam to the way they believe was practised during the time of the Prophet (pbuh), ie; some centuries back. This is propagated by the ideas of Salafism and Wahhabism that frankly, prevent progress, reform or any sort of growth in Muslim communities.

I personally have witnessed this in my own country, India, where women are increasingly wearing the hijab and even full body covering purdahs, not talking to the opposite gender, men not looking a woman other than their wives in the eye, etc compared to when my mother was a child, when almost all Muslim women dressed in normal comfortable clothes and there were no much gender segregations. (Gender segregation still existed to a certain degree due to conservative Indian culture ofc)

This radicalisation led to the development of ultra conservative Muslims who enforce sexist, homophobic and separatist policies in the name of God.

They claim to want to return to "true Islam" but they add so many unnecessary rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be a "true Muslim" that are almost so impossible to follow I can vouch I have unconciously broken like 50 of them in one day maybe. These "laws" are derived from:

1. The hadith

2. Arab culture

3. Poor translation of the Quran to fit these radical ideals.

Explaining each of these in a little more detail,

1. A lot of practising Muslims might come at me for this one, but I feel that considering the hadith to be a holy source of guidance and believing everything in the Hadith when there are so many contradictions and logical fallacies, is foolish.

For those who have no clue what the hadith is, Islam basically has the Qur'an, which is, as we believe, a holy book revealed by God to the Prophet (pbuh), which acts as divine guidance on how to live life as a good person. It has rules, suggestions, and guidance to take desicions on a lot of everyday matters we face. It was a godsend (hehe pun fully intended) to women, who weren't even allowed to own property back then. Muslims believe that the Quran is guaranteed againt corruption by God, as revealed in one of the verses. Therefore, to a believer, it is THE book to consult, and the verses will never change, no matter how many years pass. There's actually a really interesting way the Quran is coded, so people can know if it has been tampered with or not, if anyone is interested. But the bottom line is, for a Muslim, the verses of Quran cannot be challenged. There are various INTERPRETATIONS of said verses, but the core Arabic text is the same.

Now there is a secondary source of guidance in the form of Hadith, which is literature that claims to record things the Prophet (pbuh) has said in his lifetime. The problem I find, along with other hadith critics, is that it was compiled much later after the death of the Prophet. Muslims argue that these hadiths were passed down in a proper recorded chain of transmitters that can assure the message hasn't been altered or tampered with. The problem is, that the standard used then was just how reliable was a person's memory and how trustworthy they were, and they did not actually judge the actual content of the hadith. So even if a hadith hypothetically said "Kill all the disbelievers", (which, fyi, it does NOT) and it had a reliable chain of recorders, it would be accepted as "sahih" (trustworthy) hadith, even though it clearly goes against the guidelines of the Quran, where it says there shall be no compulsion in religion (which implies you cannot just murder anyone who refuses to believe/ believes another religion). If one actually examined the content of this imaginary hadith, it would be easy to see it's tampered with by people with or without malicious intent (for eg, it might've actually been "You can kill the disbelievers ONLY if they attack you and will not leave you and your family alone") or some may not even remotely be the words of the Prophet, as he only followed the Quran.

Also, the integrity of the Hadith isn't guaranteed by God anywhere in the Quran. To know more about this, I suggest you read this link , and this one.

So yeah, I take hadith with a (large) grain of salt. So I will not be including them in my discussion obviously.

Now a lot of these hadith have been fabricated, as established, or reflect something that was applicable specifically in that time and setting, seeing that the Prophet was an ordinary man who couldn't predict the future or know about all the different cultures of the world.

So even if the headscarf was a part of Arabian attire, that doesn't mean it has to be assimilated into our cultures now. Just because prostitutes used to pluck all their eyebrows out to signify that they are prostitutes (sex work is forbidden in Islam, because of the negative impact on women and society), doesn't mean that women are not allowed to pluck their eyebrows now.

Following these hadith blindly without considering for a moment that hey, these might be outdated, seeing it isn't meant for all time periods like the Quran, and half of these contradict themselves, maybe we shouldn't consider this as an authority on rules in Islam. Personally, I don't believe anything is forbidden that is mentioned as such solely in the Hadith, and not in the Quran.

But the staunch belief in all of these Hadith leads to micromanaging of women, and literally everyone else. Few ridiculous examples include:

women can't pluck their eyebrows

men can't wear silk or gold, and they need to grow beards

music and dance is forbidden (seriously???)

the Prophet married a literal child of nine years (no do not try to justify it as "it was acceptable back then". According to the Qur'an it wasn't. Girls had to be mature enough to reject or agree to marriages and literal children can't do that. There is plenty of research to prove that Aisha (ra), his wife, was at the very least 19 or 20. Again a case of unreliable and maybe purposefully manipulated Hadith. Scholars and people who uphold the theory that Aisha was 9, and hence, child marriage is legal are pedophiles through and through)

I feel that if anything, hadith should be considered with the authority of historical commentary, giving us more context to the times, and should never be blindly trusted just because a lot of scholars say it is a "sahih" (trusted) hadith.

Also a main feature of Islam is that you don't need an extra priest (no offence to religions who have priests) or a scholar to tell you things and intervene with God for you. You have a holy book, your own common sense and humanity, and you pray to establish a connection with God. Scholars are secondary OPINIONS who can provide insight from their knowledge and research to people who want it, but by no means any authority on things, just like hadith.

2. Arab culture and society, especially back the times that radicals want to emulate, was heavily patriarchal. Islam gave women rights and protection, but they were still limited by the cultural norms of that era.

What these people actually want is to return society to Arabic culture in that time period. (Exhibit A: the abaya/purdah for women and khandoorah for men. exhibit B: sex-segregated spaces)

Back then, women were expected to be caretakers and mothers, and men were expected to be the strong masculine protector.

Enforcing said cultural norms into modern day Islam is ridiculous. Saying that women rarely left the house back then, hence women shouldn't leave their houses now is the same as saying there weren't phones back then, so I shouldn't use one now. Would you ever give up your phones? So how about we do the same to women's autonomy and freedom? Adapt to modern times like regular humans?

If women were meant to stay at home, and meant to just rear children, and never meant to be seen in public, and never meant to be seen by the opposite sex, as extremists say "is God's will", then why is none of this found in the Quran? Do you seriously believe that God, describe multiple times as All-forgiving and generous and kind, would ever persecute women to such a fate? If you do believe that, then maybe you need to re-examine in the nature of God that you believe in. Also if you tell me the "it's for their safety" gimmick, I will flip out. It has been proved multiple times that a woman's dressing has nothing whatsoever to do with why men rape.

Sure, Islam advocates for modesty in dressing, for both sexes. Both are called to not stare rudely (many Muslim men seem to forget that part of the verse, strangely), both are advised to dress in modest, comfortable, clean and practical attire. Never once is anything remotely like "YOU'LL GO TO HELL IF YOU EXPOSE YOUR ELBOW, WOMAN". But the way modern Muslims enforce the dress code (some even going to the lengths of saying women shouldn't wear BRIGHT COLOURED CLOTHES, so as to not attract attention!!! I'm looking at you, Mufti Menk), you'd think that God says something much worse than that. Infact God pulls out Uno reverse, and encourages us to dress as beautifully as we want, especially when visiting the mosque.

3. A lot of English translations of the Quran come from Saudi Arabia. A country famous for its conservative practise of Islam. While the original Arabic text cannot be changed, a lot of these translations include information in parantheses that add "rules" based on the above mentioned factors, that a casual reader or a new Muslim who doesn't know Arabic will consider to be authentic rules of the Quran, extrapolated from the verse, and not extra additions that are often derived from hadith. A very good example of this is the headcover verse, which you can see in this link.

Even all the hostility surrounding homosexual people has been derived from cultural influences and one set of verses. From around 6000 verses, just a single set passingly mention homosexuality. Don't you think that if it truly were such a great sin, God would have explicitly forbidden it? Also why would he create such a natural variation in sexuality and then forbid it? Why isn't it forbidden for animals then? Is all-loving God that cruel to create this natural and healthy attraction in them and then explicitly forbid it when straight people get to marry and live life in bliss? (Please don't say that "God also created pedophilia, and that's natural, so by this logic shouldn't we allow that too?" because pedophilia IS NOT HEALTHY, AT ALL. IT'S IS A DISORDER. Unlike homosexuality) I'm also not picking and choosing things to fit my lifestyle, as some might say, as I am straight, and the only reason I support the LGBT community because I have basic humanity?? And they're humans who deserve rights and joy and freedom and acceptance just like the rest of us.

There have been reformed translations of Quran which examine the verse without prior bias against LGBT people, and they have presented an alternate translation, that the verse condemns sexual assault, which happened to be homosexual in the particular story. Check out this link too, which explains how closely examining the words used could change the meaning from one thing to another.

What I attempted to prove in this extremely long post is that the practise of a religion isn't necessarily the reflection of its true nature.

There are progressive open-minded people who believe in Islam because it gives them hope and solace. People who believe because core beliefs of Islam aligned with their own views and simple logic.

NOT to say there aren't religious bigots who will totally use religion to manipulate people into oppressing themselves or other people. There are, there are a LOT of people like that who call themselves "scholars". And there are a lot of people who follow these extremely harmful regressive version of Islam without critically thinking about what they are following.

I've seen a post discussing the meaning of the word Islam, which means submission to God. It said that it implies total submission, without questioning what we believe.

That is an argument used by both religious extremists to further their beliefs, and by the opposite side, who say the religion is oppressive.

I wish to present a view that Islam itself tells us to think critically, to use our brains to question everything and anything we believe. And then to arrive at our own conclusions. And if you're a decent, kind human, those beliefs maybe align with Islam (not saying that if you're not Muslim, you're horrible, that is not what I meant at all). And if the opinion between people differs, there's always logic and reasoning behind every rule that is presented in the Quran. Don't believe me? Here's the verse that tells people not to blindly follow their parents' religion. And here's a list of verses about critical thinking.

The reason we (atleast reformist Muslims) submit to God is because we questioned it, we came to the conclusion that Hey! This is right. I can submit to my Creator by, who is basically the consciousness that created everything and is the source of all goodness, love and strength, because the rules mentioned here make sense and they privde a moral framework for me to base important desicions on. They feel right. And there is logic behind everything written in this.

I don't mean to present Islam as an all-perfect amazing religion everyone should believe and that I'm right, everyone else, especially those liberal atheists who criticise my religion are wrong and WILL BURN IN HELL. I consider Islam a perfect moral framework, and that's my business only. Anyone can follow what they want and it's none of my business. In fact there is no compulsion in religion at all, and people who say Muslim or go to hell are wrong imo.

What I intended was to paint a picture of reformist Muslims who are still out there, who follow the religion because they questioned it. And not the religion as this stringent rule book we all have to follow down to a t, micromanaging every aspect of our lives and living in perpetual fear of hell, but rather this basic moral guide that teaches us tact, compassion and justice, to bring us closer to God spiritually. I wanted to show that the majority isn't always reflective of what I think is the true core of Islam.

I feel that many practises in the name of Islam are highly questionable and should be criticized, but I also want people to know that the people who seemingly represent the religion, are not representative of the entire mass of believers. That sometimes the practises you might criticize might have nothing to do with the actual religion, atleast according to some of us. It was also for fellow Muslims who might be in the same place I was a few years ago, questioning everything I had learnt was part of my religion.

This is also NOT to undermine struggles of people forced to follow Islam and its seeming requirements like hijab. This is not to claim that nope, every Muslim is fine and ok, and we're all peaceful progressive people. In fact I wish to do the exact opposite, to show that people who enforce oppressive policies in the name of Islam aren't actually backed by the religion and neither should they be backed by other Muslims. I'm also not trying to say no one should criticize Islam. Criticism helps us grow. Criticism is necessary to uncover oppression and eradicate it. So by all means, criticize.

I'm so glad I found the subreddit r/progressive_Islam when I did because it helped me a lot, and opened me to other like-minded progressive Muslims, who actively hope to counter the negative effects of Salafism and conservatism that is overtaking Islam.

So yeah, I think I covered almost everything I wanted to talk about and here's a final link that pretty much just states my position on things.

PS idk why this thingy is in different colours it just seemed cooler and less boring to read

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way. 

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines. 

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently. 

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either. 

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents. 

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort. 

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die. 

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise. 

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp”) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life. 

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t. 

Jet

Okay. Here we go. 

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. 

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult. 

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke. 

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~. 

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show’s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water. 

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point? 

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.        

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

[downtonabbeyrevisited]

Season Two Episode Two

Following a typically chaotic opener, Episode Two of Season Two strikes a far more sombre tone. The arrival of Henry Lang as Robert’s valet brings the first of this episode’s three plot points that address the impact of WW1 on the mental health of its soldiers. There is nothing funny to say about either shell-shock or suicidal ideation both of which are vast, complex issues that, for my money, Downton Abbey isn’t the vehicle explore in (because they require more time and depth than the pace of the plot in Season Two affords) and it certainly isn’t my place to make light of them in this rather irreverent corner of the internet. So I’m going to have a go at treading a fine line here. Forgive me if I stumble. 

Lang is clearly in the grips of something awful and yet in an attempt to avoid the indignity of having maids in the dining room, he is bumped up to footman duty. He struggles throughout, culminating in him depositing his cargo on Edith’s dress. Mrs O’Brein has firmly taken Lang under her wing, recognising that he is struggling and offers him assurance and comfort that she has never gifted to Thomas. 

Across the Village, Lieutenant Edward Courtenay is in the hospital having been blinded by gas. The use of gas (both chlorine and mustard) had a devastating impact on soldiers in WW1 but was also the root of the development of Zyklon B. Frtiz Haber, a German Jewish chemist, enabled chlorine gas to be used a weapon in WW1 and his research was later developed into the Zyklon process which was used by the Nazis to murder millions, including his own family. This is only one of a dizzying number of appalling ironies to be found in the World Wars but as I said last episode, I’m not a military historian so I’m going to leave it there. Edward had plans to return to the country after his graduation from Oxford to pursue the simple life (although one gets the feeling that his idea of the pursuit of a simple life will still be one that is very well upholstered). Thomas has taken it upon himself to read Edward’s letters to him and  together with Sybil is helping him to adjust to living life with a different set of parameters. But growing pressure on the hospital’s limited capacity means that he is to be transferred elsewhere. All three voice their dissent at varying volumes to Major Clarkson who falls back on the very real backlog of wounded men. After Edward has died, Major Clarkson, Isobel and Sybil talk about a renewed need for the Abbey to become a convalescent home, an idea that has been bubbling under the surface for a while now. Meanwhile, Thomas has been left on his own to process both Edward’s death and the implications of witnessing a lack of support given by his own physician to those with depression.  

The usually reliably jovial Mrs Patmore also has a more somber episode with her pursuit for the truth about the death of her nephew Archie. Robert finds that he has been shot for cowardice. Not only does this mean that her family is in mourning but they will now have to navigate the stigma and undue shame that came with having a relative die in this way. So entrenched in British life was the derision levelled at those who were shot for cowardice or desertion that it was only in 2006 that pardons were offered by Britain for 309 of those that were executed by firing squad during WW1. I know I said I’d leave it there with the military history, but that felt like an important bit of context. 

We are now in 1917 and Matthew is still in the same trench that he was in 1916 (a detail I hadn’t actually noticed until I got the screen cap for this) so it looks like his strategy of downing tools mid-fight and continuously popping back to Blighty for important plot developments isn’t really paying dividends. Perhaps the addition of William to the ranks will help him? William certainly seems to think so and if the speed at which he moves through the various stages of his ‘relationship’ with Daisy is any indication of his tactical prowess, the British Front will not only be well within Germany’s borders but will be breathing down Russia’s neck in a fortnight. In any other episode, this would certainly get the award for oddest relationship dynamic but Sir Richard Carlisle exists. 

Sir Richard makes his debut at Downton, having been introduced in name only in the previous episode. He and Mary met at Cliveden which is a regular haunt of mine, giving me hope that one day I too will from a strategic alliance with a newspaper magnate. He may know how to talk his way around a boardroom but he is lacking in the sartorial department. Whilst Sir Richard manages to avoid catching fire in his tweed, Lavinia is not free from the heat as he threatens her with his connection to her uncle. He may not know much about navigating the niceties of Downton, but at least he has cottoned on to the fact that any major disagreement should occur under a specific tree. Whilst Mary’s signature move is weeping into her gloves, Sir Richard’s is grabbing women by the forearm. A female friend of mine told me that one of her favourite things about the pandemic and the compulsion to keep 2m away from anyone (and not just emotionally) is that she has not been ’steered’ by a male hand on her lower back since 2019. It turns out that she can enter and exit rooms just fine on her own and I get the impression that Lavinia could get the gist of Sir Richard’s rage without the vice like grip of a man probably about twice her age. 

Twinned with the ’tree of emotional conflict’, the ‘platform of romantic uncertainty’ provides the backdrop for Sir Richard’s proposal of marriage to Mary which is a declaration that really feels like it should come with a series of well-formatted charts. Mary’s heart, however, is still very much with Cousin Matthew. After being counselled by Carson in a type of conversation I cannot imagine her ever having with her father, she is on the verge of coming clean with Matthew. But in the second round of Lavinia vs. Mary, Lavinia declares that she ‘could not go on living’ without Matthew and Mary winds her neck in. 

Also having a romantic entanglement this episode is Edith. Drake, previously of dropsy fame, has lost his farm hands and Edith turns up to offer her help in a wildly unsuitable trouser and heeled boot combo. But she soon gets down to it by pulling up a tree stump and flirting in a barn whilst a rather lovely border collie looks on (I’m currently trying to talk myself out of getting a border collie and this incident has done nothing to help things). After showing Drake that she can drink from a bottle like literally every single other human on the planet, the two share a kiss and some highly awkward dialogue that only slightly resembles ‘Carry on Downton’. 

Whilst Edith is more than happy to crack on in a barn, Mr Molesley is much more backwards about coming forwards. Apparently having predicted the creation of ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’, he figures that a book is the perfect kindling for romance when you exist in a glossy depiction of the past. Sadly neither Elizabeth nor her German garden can lure Anna from Bates who is fast shaping up to be schrodinger’s boyfriend. Anna proceeds to make some odd analogy where she compares Mr Bates to her moon-based child, revealing a rather unhealthy amount of codependency in that particular relationship. 

Romantic declaration of the moment 

Again, it feels like anyone but Sybil and Branson should get this but I am an agent of chaos and here we are. Branson defends Sybil’s will to work and has ample opportunity to see her shine in her chosen field. The admission that she will not be returning to her old life is a little chink of light that Branson basks in. 

Expressive eyebrow of the week 

I nominate Carson’s entire face when he realises that he has taken on too much and goes an impressive shade of red. As Carson frets about spoons, sauce, and something I can’t quite fathom, he starts to resemble a man who is re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Carson’s battle to get a cork out of a bottle and knocking into chairs is a warm up to his rather dramatic collapse which is accompanied by a pretty disturbing groan. Sybil springs to action and he is soon efficiently ensconced in his own quarters. 

Wait, what? 

“I got a lot done on the train” Clearly Richard was on a train that was unencumbered with the wifi issues that plague the Pendolino.  

“It takes a good deal more than that to shock me.” Mary’s shock-o-meter is a pretty odd instrument. It is unresponsive to corpses of diplomats but goes into absolute meltdown at the notion that she might have to live in a cottage. 

“Let's hope my reputation will survive it.” I’ve not checked (and I categorically never will) but I would put money on the fact that someone has created a rarepair out of this. 

“How can Matthew have chosen that little blonde piece?” Is Lavinia blonde? Women’s hair is not really my forte but I would have thought she was more akin to Tim Minchin than 1998 Justin Timberlake. 

“I believe in this war. I believe in what we are fighting for.” William seems to have a better grip on what all of this is about than I ever did in high school history. The ‘A’ that eluded me is heading his way. 

“I thought he might've died for love of you.” How I love snipey Thomas. It’s good to have him back. To borrow a quote from Bottas (another man who is currently living a life in which his destiny is his own demise) ‘traditions’. 

“Fold it in, don’t slap it” The more season two goes on, the more I think that Moira is just an amalgamation of some choice elements of Julian’s kingdom. 

[kairos-polaris]

Miraculous Ladybug. Ah, the show that can't deliver its promises, teaches the female mc wrong lessons, is so sexist and racist it hurts and still calls itself "woke" and says they promote "girls power". I was so angry I wrote it at 1 am with little to no light to see what I was writing.

Mlb has a lot of problems. I won't be talking about the plot because it will be too long.

So here we are!

✓ Who is the main villain? Is it Chloé/Lila or Hawkmoth? The grownup man who chose to terrorise Paris and abuse people in their most vulnerable times? Or two teenagers who need a more strict discipline and help from adults, not their peers? Both Chloé and Lila made mistakes but they're kids who can change. I don't want to say they don't have to be punished for their actions, they do. You can't change a person if they don't want to and making them face consequences of their actions is an important part of growing up. If Mlb writers really cared about teaching their viewers that people can change, they will start a redemption arc for Chloé after Antibug and after Volpina for Lila. But, apparently, they decided that letting kids change their behaviour and grow up to be a better person is boring, right?

✓ Gabriel Agreste. Abuser, control freak, magical terrorist. And yet some people believe he deserves to win. He's not only a bad person but a bad villain too! Most of his actions have no sense and work only because the writers said so. Why did he think that creating a supervillain is a good way to lure out a superhero? They could be in different country/city. Both Miraculouses could be hidden in someone's attic! Plus from New York special we know that other heroes exist. How could he be so sure they wouldn't be the one to fight his champions?

And why did he akumatize himself? He had no way of knowing that Ladybug saw his book. He saw Adrien take the book. All he had to do is to say something like this: "It's a very important book Adrien. Your mother found it years ago in her attic. This book was a great inspiration for me". His akumatization was too convenient for the plot.

✓A lot of people blame Marinette for causing so much akumas. Are you okay people? Hawkmoth is the one who creates akumas. What a surprise! No one other than him can do that. Repeat after me: upsetting someone doesn't equal to using their feelings for your own gain. Chloé deliberately humiliated or angered someone and it still doesn't count as causing an akumatization because it wasn't her goal. I don't mean to say it wasn't wrong but she didn't send an akuma. She is a spoiled rich brat who doesn't care about the consequences of her actions. Lila came close to actually causing akumas but it's still Hawkmoth who sends out butterflies and uses completely natural and normal feelings and emotions against everyone. Please, don't shift his blame on teenagers.

✓ Sexism is everywhere. From civilian interactions to heroes' costume designs. So here's a list of problems I've remembered at 1 am:

Writers show Lila or Chloé trying to kiss Adrien or invading his private space in a bad light. How dare they harass him? And then we have Chat Noir act the same towards Ladybug! And unlike Adrien Marinette actually says "no, I don't like you. Don't touch me like that". Adrien knows that he makes her uncomfortable but he doesn't care. "She loves him but can't accept it" isn't a good reason to continue harassing her. No means no. Not "continue asking me" or "I'm playing hard to get". Disgusting.

Only rivals Marinete has (excluding Hawkmoth because he's Ladybug's rival) are her love rivals. Lila, Kagami, Chloé. Why can't we have a character who rivals Marinete in her passion: designing? It's not "girls power" to have girls in question fight over one rich white sad boy.

The whole Gamer episode. Marinette won fair and square. She deserved to take part in the tournament. Was it okay for Max to be upset? Yes, he spent a lot of time training. Was it okay for him to be angry at Marinette? No, it's not her fault she was better than him. Some may say that she entered because of Adrien (another issue I will mention later) but it doesn't make her less skilled.

Every girl who has a crush is shown obsessive. Marinette, Chloé, Lila, Kagami - Adrien, Rose - Prince Ali, Ondine - Kim. We weren't shown Alya having a crush on Nino but I'm sure she would be just as obsessive because writers can't believe girls can have crushes and not be obsessed with them. I would also like to mention that having two characters of colour with no previous chemistry is kinda racist.(I could have just missed it because I'm not good at noticing flirting. If you noticed Alya and Nino flirting before Animan I would edit this part). They also don't talk a lot if it's not about Adrinette. Their purpose is to push main characters to each other. That's it.

Boys are really nice to their crushes even when akumatized. Both Silencer and Evillustrator were gentlemen. Nathaniel literally took Marinette on a date! Exceptions are Adrien and Felix. Adrien is just perfect (not my words) and Felix is Adrien's evil twin. He was used to: a)show how great Adrien is; b) say "Ladybug would punch Chat if she were truly uncomfortable"; c) to make fans hate him because they prefer PV Felix and Astruc hates him. Do you know why point b is the most harmful? Because it enforces the stereotype that women are always willing and consenting and they have to go to ridiculous lengths to take that consent back.

Suits. Every girl has a skintight suit with little to no details. And did you see how skinny Rena Rouge is compared to Lady WiFi? Or how Ladybug's suit has only one colour? The show doesn't even try to make clothes look more fashionable. They have three (!) designers, two models and Chloé is the Style Queen's daughter. They didn't even try!

✓ Making fun of Marinette's anxiety so often. It's offensive to people who have the same problem.

✓ Master Fu. He's an awful person who pushed his responsibility on children without explaining anything. There was no point in hiding his identity. What if they were akumatized? Well, Paris would be doomed anyway. No Ladybug to purify akuma, no cure. And we saw how dangerous akumatized Chat was in Chat Blanc.

Do you know what would happen if he revealed his identity in the beginning? There would be no Stoneheart 2.0, Marinette and Adrien would have a better understanding of their powers, a support system, a reason to get away to transform.

✓ Chat Noir and Ladybug not knowing who the other is. I've already explained why the akumatization excuse doesn't work. How can you trust a person you don't know? They would be able to support each other in their civilian lives. But they wanted a love square and that's why revealing won't happen in a looooong time.

✓ Sexualisation of minors. Have you seen Mister Bug? Or Lady Noire? They are 14/15! It's gross and disgusting to lust after teenagers. And what about numerous shots of Ladybug's backside? Or how thin Marinette is?

✓ Teaching wrong lessons. First they bash Marinette for not trusting Chloé and then they bash Marinette for trusting Chloé with the bee. How dare Marinette not have fun while fighting her friends? And then several minutes later: How dare she have fun while fighting her friends? Or how she was basically told her feelings don't matter by Madame Bustier in Zombizou. And blaming her for everything bad that happens in the show.

✓ Marinette's whole character revolves around Adrien. It's most obvious in the future special about China. She will go there not to learn about her heritage and her mother's culture but to be with Adrien. Almost everything she does as a civilian is about Adrien. They don't let her move on even when it's hurting her. Wouldn't it be much better if she tried to grow as a person, spend more time on her hobby. Maybe find Hawkmoth?

✓ Another issue is that they don't even try to find Hawkmoth. They treat only symptoms and one day it won't be enough. We had one episode where they were close to finding him. But Gabriel was akumatized so no lead again. Very convenient for the plot.

Why does Mlb have such a big fan base? Why is it so popular? So much wasted potential it physically hurts. But the most important question is why do I spend so much time and energy on this show? Please, send help. I can't continue doing this.

[hazelcephalopod]

The Great Hunt Ch 3-4

That paranoia is really hitting hard. Plans are made and revealed. Things are not always as the seem.

Disclaimer: this is my first read thru but I’ve watched all of the show thus far and been spoiled on some book things. So… I’m going to lean into that. Enjoy figuring out what I know, and what I think I know, and what I just don’t. Also s/x I add commentary when I edit.

Spoilers for the first and second book and all of season 1 under the cut. Potential spoilers for later books -idk if they’re light spoilers or not.

Ch 3: Friends and Enemies

A large blade

Rand POV

Oh yes. Still trying to get out. Good for you

Truly admirable grift attempts there

Ah yes hammer the paranoia down. Being watched again

Dude… there’s a way out. If you, open yourself to it… ol’ Devils Bargain

“What served to keep Trollocs out in the last extreme served just as well to keep him in.” -(Rand)

… like a steel trap

I joke but this is terrifying.

He got kids right there. Yea

Enjoying the ‘Rand being mistaken for a lord’ gag honestly.

“In the woodyard, the presence returned, the sense of someone there. The feel of eyes peering at him around tall piles of split firewood under the long sheds… He refused to look around, refused to think no of how one awry of eyes could move from place to place so fast… without even a flicker of movement that he could see. He was sure it was one set of eyes.” -(Rand) dreading being called before the Amyrlin Seat. And probably going crazy.

… not good that I’m sure of.

Like he does have some reason to be afraid. It’s not entirely irrational. The feeling eyes on him tho, that’s… something a little less rational.

“Shienaran Welcome”. Cool

It isn’t fair! Let Loial play dice too!

Well it was a good idea Rand

Huh. So Ogier cites can be destroyed then. I suppose that makes sense

Well I’m glad someone noticed he is Distressed.

Mat! Perrin!

That is the correct time to go

That fucking dagger

Which I’m still mad about! (Editor: I meant the clothes thing)

Mat trying so hard to be a voice of reason I wish he was correct

Yea probably dead. Or worse

Yea. They are not going to abandon you. Not with the info they have. Good on them…

And Mat has used up all his common sense points for the day. Perrin?!

…he came thru

Also “If that is how you want it… I thought we were….However you want it al’Thor. But if I decide to leave at the same time you do, I’ll go, and you can stand clear of me.” -Mat at Rand’s outburst trying to push his friends away. >.>

Then Perrin tells them both ‘no one can leave guys. Stop being so dramatic’

Currently finding Mats pouting endearing. You mad at destiny? Miss Rand basically carrying your ass thru the country? Too bad!

Egwene!

She’s right. Stop pushing your friends away.

First Rand’s own sword digging into his side -in this book! This time its because Egwene jumped on him and knocked them both over. Usually it was he slept on it last book

There is so much in that analogy to unpack. I don’t want to tho

Also when she’s literally sitting on him

Yes! Stop!

Ok come now. You just a) jumped on and knocked him over; b) sat on him; c) threatened to catch him on fire. That is also resorting to force.

… oh yea he did point that out.

Like overall she’s right about he needs to stop trying to run from his Friends. But also… everyone needs better communication skills

How about you promise never to use the One Power too?

… just saying. Like I don’t think she should but I know it’s like, not easy to resist. It’s nice in concept only

Yea see! That there is why you talk to your friends. They make good points. Usually Egwene or Perrin. Occasionally Mat. “Why should the Amyrlin Seat, or any Aes Sedai but Moiraine, even know you exist?” -Egwene

… she has a point. Like still get away from them ASAP. But, maybe try to hide first with your friends. Until, you have to reassess

Thank you Egwene. Hide in the dungeon!

Stop visiting Fain!

Is… is Fain count as bottom storage?

Oh lol. No

Moiraine. Come get your kids! They’re visiting Darkfriends in prison and having symptoms!

It’s Rand’s turn to be right about something!

The image of Egwene like chatting with Fain about her day and Emonds field is hilarious tho

I mean… he might. It’s been a bad day

Why am I suddenly suspicious of Egwene?

Tbf hard to say.

Well that’s rude and gross to say sir

Good questions and observations. This is clearly not a coveted duty (I soon learn I am right)

Prison is unethical! It sucks for everyone involved generally

That’ll do it

Well this is not going to be good for Rand’s mental health at all

Just like maybe shoulda hung out right in front of idk. The drunk guy?

Did Fain manipulate Egwene to bring him Rand?

I mean he knows the shitstorm isn’t over fo—

Did he just say Mordeth? How do you know shadow-balloon man Fain??

No it wasn’t! The dungeon part was but not the visit Fain part

She’s got a point there

He also has a point tho. Like if men were looking for him A++ idea. Women? Mm. B-

Both those things are so big. And he is so recognizable. Get a second cloak at least.

Well basically what we here is better than here?

Hey if you could open yourself up to risks you would. Air powers exist right? Idk. Move the stones.

Fain: “It’s never over, al’Thor. Never.”

Ch 4: Summoned

Horn

Well I wonder whats gonna happen? In chapter called “Summoned”

It’s Moiraine tho (take note)

Moiriane POV!!

Lore. Shawls have the FoTV on them and fringe of the owners Ajah colors. They are rarely worn outside the Tower and even then rarely outside Hall meetings.

“…beyond the Shining Walls a sight of the Flame would send too many people running, to hide or perhaps to fetch the Children of the Light. A Whitecloak’s arrow was as fatal to an Aes Sedai as to anyone else, and the Children were too wily to let an Aes Sedai see the bowman…” -Tgh

… see dangerous fools!

“Yet much of the calm was on the surface…” -(Moiraine) about her calm placid demeanor

I’m glad that they have like the various shades of color on the show. I like that change

Liandrin!

She would be the one to knock like that

… so she dyed her hair? Or eyebrows…

That’s handy. Stay Out spell

So like Aes Sedai are revered revered

Ok. That’s… it’s fine

Honestly all the more reason to stay away

Three false Dragons (henceforth fDs) in Saldaea Murandy and Tear. Tear? Huh…

That is 6 in two years total then

“…will be dealt with also. This male vermin and any ragtag rabble who follow…” -Liandrin on the fDs. Well she’s as lovely as on the show isn’t she? /s

Ah sry Logain. Fucked for life.

… srsly killing them sounds more humane

At least two fDs couldn’t channel?! That’s funny to me. (Editor me so two sets of dragons. 1/3 each time could channel. With Rand that’s three sets of channeling potential Dragons 1/3 of which are the dragon)

So Kandor, Arad Doman, Ghealdan, Saldaea, Murandy, and Tear

And this time only the one in Saldaea is known to channel, but has no followers.

…ok basically all of them are dealt with. Cool

Want to keep the heat off yours

Why give him the dragon clothes then?

“If the girl shows as much initiative in Tar Valon… she will sit in the Amyrlin Seat one day. If she can learn to control that initiative. If there is an Amyrlin Seat left on which to sit.” -(Moiraine) thoughts on seeing Egwene sneaking Rand into her quarters.

An undervalued skill that.

Elayne! Gawyn!

Of course she did

So they don’t take the Oathrod vows?

The horn!

Correct!

Ok. The juicy stuff. Rumors! The Sea folk are agitated and believe their chosen one, Coramoor, is coming. The Aiel are restless and no one knows why.

Facts: there are Aes Sedai among the Sea Folk. There are non among the Aiel.

Really? She gathered quite a bit of intelligence. Spies are boring nerds really. Good ones at least

Ah the real good stuff. Almoth Plain… oh. Boat people.

Are you fishing Moiraine?

Quick to change the subject Liandrin?

She comes! … Siuan!

Brown Ajah! Yes! Verin Mathwin and Sarafelle

Good for them!

Carlinya, White Ajah.

Alanna! Green of course

Leanne. Blue Ajah. Interesting Hall members wear a stole of their Ajah color

Oh right the horn!

Siuan Sanche, fisherman’s daughter, Amyrlin Seat of 10 years. Wears the Amyrlin’s rainbow stole. Was blue Ajah

“…strength of the girl who had survived the streets of the Maule, Tear’s port district…” -Tgh on Siuan Sanche, Amyrlin Seat

Y’all fucked farms up to get there fast? Ya no wonder people don’t like ya

Imo genders would feel more equal if everyone didn’t lowkey hate the Aes Sedai. Amongst other things

Oh Elaida. Mm.

Moraine upon hearing the Red Ajah found one channeler ‘I found two girls from the Two Rivers who can channel. Both powerful as shit’ and thinking (I also found the effing Dragon) (Editor me. Or possibly insinuating she has an important update on the quest)

So less channelers. Less powerful. Less people in the White Tower.

Oh fuck you Elaida

I somehow don’t trusts Elaida’s judgment on such things

Siuan subtlety telling Moiriane ‘babe Elaida is fucking up all our plans. Maybe? Plz tell me I’m wrong.’

(… I shall be reading all this as if they were still a couple btw. I will not be taking criticism on this)

Ok but you know intentions don’t really matter with ta’veren

Why? Becaus she’s traveling with a ta’veren? Or failed to report it?

So the Greens and Reds are plotting with each other. Which breaks the 1k year Green-Blue alliance

So Reds just really suck usually huh?

Are the ballots secret?

Like stope electing blues maybe?!

Sounds like the Tower is having series issues too

K

Secret Alliance!

Love that this chapter was not at all about Rand. That is a great twist after the last 3 chapters

[ragnarssons]

people are fcking wild lmao. calling me a fake activist for not supporting aquaman 2 because of amber turd, saying “you don’t support the pocs working on it”. have you actually watched my blog? do you know my life? i’ve been out there on social medias, supporting ray fisher the whole way through, on instagram, on twitter. i’ve been out there, supporting EVERY. SINGLE. ONE of jason momoa’s projects whether small or big: heck, i’ve paid for stupid apple tv just to watch “see” and i’m among the only 30 people on this website knowing about this show! i’m even gonna pay netflix again just to watch “sweet girl” in august, i watched frontier back when it came out, i watched red road, road to paloma (jason’s movies) and all- HECK I BOUGHT HIS SHOES because i 100% support everything he does for environment and to stop single use plastic. don’t go around and pretend wb doesn’t KNOW what they’re doing by keeping amber heard on aquaman 2: there literally IS a petition to have her fired, with TWO MILLIONS SIGNATURES on it. watch the youtube comment section on every video with her, every aquaman-video related on youtube: THE ONLY THING PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT about this movie (and these movies) is her and how they won’t support another movie with her, and people have voiced it pretty openly. tons of aquaman fans 100% support jason momoa and love him as aquaman, they loved patrick wilson, they loved yahya, and NONE of us want the movie not to exist: WE JUST WANT AMBER HEARD OUT OF IT. that’s the thing: you want to be an activist for the pocs of this movie? well get her out of it, because they will LOSE by having her on it, and neither wb nor amber heard herself will suffer because of it, it’ll be the pocs i’m supposedly not supporting who will suffer the most. for everything they’ve heard from the public, wb KNOWS amber heard is the problem and the only thing people are opposing regarding aquaman 2. nothing else. fans loved james wan’s version, prefered it to what even zack snyder’s showed for atlantis in justice league. fans loved jason’s version of aquaman, he’s got nothing but praise for it. fans all want to see more of black mantha and mostly regretted him not being properly exploited as a villain on the first movie (since y’know, i’m part of the fandom, i actually know that). so no, me, not supporting a studio that has chosen to stand their ground and to stand up for a racist/abusive/homophobic b*tch (and yes, she is homophobic, don’t come at me saying she can’t be because she’s bisexual, there are proofs) who can’t even come at some locations to work (ie: australia), at the expanse of ACTUAL POCS (who will lose a lot of money, maybe credibility for working with her) is not me being a fake activist. yes, amber heard is NOTHING in this movie(s), that’s why it could be so easy to replace her. she’s just there, playing pretty while the actual pocs of this movie carry the movie (jason, yahya, james; all doing an amazing job that already HAS been tarnished by amber heard- as seen again, through social medias and and such). and again, that’s not adressing how she LITERALLY bullied jason momoa through the whole press tour, mocked him and his character and oftentimes said mera was the main character and “the hero”????? (again, everything is out there, on this thing called the internet, do your own research): some examples, her playing the victim because jason “tore her book’s last page” and how her and her fans literally called him an abuser and toxic for doing so, trying to have him cancelled. how she and her mob LITERALLY cyberbullied zoe kravitz (aka jason’s step-daughter, and also a poc) for talking positively about johnny depp. not even gonna talk how she openly mocks johnny depp (let’s still talk about him, no matter what, you are still ignoring THE AUDIO TAPES where she admits to being an abuser- and the other audio tape where we actually hear people - witnesses to the scene - say she cut his fcking finger!) on social media and bullies him (or anyone who stands up against her; even australia’s prime minister, while SHE is the one who comitted a crime in this country!), how, again, we have PROOF that she’s a racist: faked her activism for black lives matter, refers to latinos as “maids”, uses the n-word. PROOF that she’s homophobic: mocking johnny depp for running to his bodyguard, saying he should shag him and such. PROOF and TESTIMONIES that she’s literally The Worst to work with. PROOF and TESTIMONIES that she ABUSED her assistant and stole her r*pe story for clout. PROOF that she used sick kids for clout and didn’t donate ANY money to charities, even tho she kept screaming at the top of her lungs that she did, only to gain popularity and play the selfless victim even more. remember how she became the spokeperson for dv victims, even tho she was charged back in 2009 for abusing her girlfriend? (and again, we have audio tapes where she argues the difference between punching and hitting her husband, while drugging him with xanax but ok) please, tell me again how much of a “fake activist” i am for not wanting to support that woman and the studio that keeps a blind eye to everything she’s done, to her loved ones (yknow, the actual footage that shows that whitney, aka amber’s sister had been beaten by amber), to the public eye, and to her colleagues on the set of aquaman itself?

[tanoraqui]

Hi! I see you posting all this stuff about the Queen's Thief series and it really looks like my type of literature, but I can't keep up with all the names and locations. Would it be okay to ask for a non-spoilery rundown of who, what, and where?

Hell yeah [at a delay]. So, most of the series takes place on the Attolian Peninsula, which comprises of 3 countries: Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia. There are also a scattering of small islands generally associated with the peninsula. Eddis is a narrow country in the mountains between Sounis and Attolia and only has, like, 1 small port; Sounis and Attolia both have substantial coastlines. All are monarchies. The basic geopolitical plot of the books is these three countries making peace with one another so that together they can hold off hte encroaching Mede Empire. 

It’s very low fantasy. Rifles and cannons exist, but they’re not that good yet; complex clockwork exists; steam engines do not. The Attolian Peninsua are heavily Ancient Greece-inspired, and the Mede are Persian-ish. Most importantly, there’s an entire made-up Greek-flavored mythology, as well as a Gilgamesh remix, stories of which are scattered through the books. Not only is this very neat, but the mythological figures often mirror the characters and are often vital to the plot. In fact, one of my favorite things about the series is how the whole thing feels very much like a myth in its own right, which some modern-day-in-that-world author has delved into and expanded on with fleshed-out characters and complex politics.

But you wanted a cast list. Most significant characters, in (probably) order of introduction, spoiler-free:

Eugenides, aka Gen, the central character of the series - though only the protagonist for the first couple books. Book and a half, really (the second is shared). Gen is a young progessional thief who is very good at calculating and carrying out complex and implausibly possible plans, and not always good at considering in advance consequences like “I will spend 6 months in jail” “I will have to move countries and take up a job I will hate”, “people might unironically admire and respect me, even though I don’t think I deserve it.” A wildly endearing manipulative asshole. Iconic quote: “I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT!”

the Magus (never named), a chief advisor to the King of Sounis. Canny old soldier-turned-scholar/politician who is the first person to hold a braincell re: “we need to unite or die.” Iconic quote: “I meant convince your queen to sue for peace, not burn our navy in its own harbor!”

Sophos, later Sounis*, the Nicest Young Man to ever be a Nice Young Man. Sweet muffin. Canonical bunny. Also canonical mankiller. Iconic line: “Not on the first vote.”

Attolia* Irene, Queen of Attolia. Her people love her and fear her; her barons, for the most part, just fear her; she kicks and screams (non-literally) and throws inkpots (literally), but she does relearn how to both be loved and give love in return.  Iconic line [narration]: And she believed him.

Eddis* Helen, Queen of Eddis. There’s a mild running joke over the course of the series of mentioning that there’s nothing to do during Eddisian winters but [X], the 3 things mentioned are weapons training, threadcraft, and seducing one another’s spouses. The only one Eddis is suggested to be good at is weapons, but she’s the beloved and (almost entirely) undisputed queen of her country anyway. Iconic quote: “War, then.”

Nahuseresh, Medean ambassador, a mansplainer but competent as sneakily taking over someone else’s country while pretending to help them. More or less. Does not get an iconic line bc fuck him.

Kamet, later called Kamet Kingnamer, Nahuseresh’s slave and personal secretary. Nearsighted, translates poetry for fun, does NOT want to go on a multi-month (b)romance-building roadtrip. Does not have much choice in the matter, because he wants to be free and, more importantly, to survive. Iconic line [narration]: I noticed that a man on the dock with a duffel on one shoulder was very like Costis in poise and gait. The man turned onto the gangplank to board the ship, and my heart lifted, though I tried to squash what I thought was a ridiculous hope.**

 Costis Ormentides, a lieutenant in the Attolian palace guard. Not remotely prepared for the political snakepit he’s thrown into through very little fault of his own, oh god this poor man, he just wants to serve his queen and have a little spare money to go out for wine with friends. Why are people trying to kill him. Why is he third wheeling his monarchs making out in the courtyard. Why is he being passive-aggressively forced to learn a foreign language.  Iconic line action: *punches the king in the face*

Pheris Mostrus Erondites, second grandson of Baron Erondites of Attolia; historian and narrator of the last book in the series. Severely physically disabled, purposefully overlooked for all his life until particularly bitchy politics had him sent to the Attolian royal court (purposely on his part and on everyone else’s), very observant and twice as clever. Writes humanity beautifully. Iconic line [narration]: If I cannot record exactly what words were spoken at every moment, I can say with confidence what those words might have been, and in some cases what they must as been, as I saw what resulted from them being spoken, and can we not derive the words when we know the consequences of their utterance? *proceeds to write a historical account/novel more full of small moments of personhood and love both dramatic and casual than almost the rest of the series combined*

Relius, Attolian Master of the Archives (spymaster), trusted first within reason and then beyond it. Has many, many lovers.***

Teleus, Attolian Captain of the Palace Guard, A bit staid, but loyal, reliable, and entirely excellent at his job. Has only one lover.***

the Eddisian Minister of War, unnamed until the very end, fights with his youngest son a great deal in multiple senses of the word. 

* It’s possible that some of your confusion may stem from people taking the names of their countries as titles upon ascending to the thrones. ** Yes I chose this quote bc it’s sweet but also bc it’s SUCH a nearsighted mood. *** Direct quotes from the character list at the end of the last book.

[meichenxi]

Hi!! I'm a college student about to graduate and my dream is to teach English in China and I was wondering if you could somehow help me and give me some advice. I have been studying Chinese during my years at university (and I love your blog!), along with my physics degree. I don't know if any of this is relevant but my level of Mandarin is not very high (HSK3), I study in the UK and I'm planning to get a TEFL 120 hour certification in June. Is this a solid plan? Love your blog, Isa

Hiii! Sorry it took me so long to get to this, I have my final exams at the moment and am on semi-hiatus. First, what an amazing dream!! You'll have a wonderful time :D

SO in general having a degree not in English language and a TEFL certificate is most definitely enough to secure you a job, but at the moment it is a rather 'special period', as every job advert says, and so finding a job is a little trickier because of visa problems.

Basically, there are no work or study visas available at the moment for people from the UK. The only people who can get into China are those who the Chinese Embassy deems 'foreign experts' and therefore 'crucial to China's progress', and your company or school will have to provide something called a PU letter. This grants you the ability to actually apply for the work visa, though itself doesn't grant it. At the moment there aren't that many companies available who can offer that.

Because of this, I'd recommend going through a recruitment company. I do not necessarily mean a graduate scheme (the ones advertised as such are not very well paid and you don't have much control over where you go), but a recruitment company. You can find these on any general site if you google 'ESL jobs China'.

In terms of actual jobs - generally speaking there are three categories, private language schools, state schools, and international schools. International schools are by far the best in terms of packages, but they rarely take graduates without 3 years of teaching experience. The good news is that if you do find somebody who is looking for recent grads (if you go to a particularly prestigious university like Oxbridge, for instance), you might be able to teach Physics or Science rather than English language. International schools will also be the easiest to deal with in terms of communication and visa applications, but the competition is quite stiff, and most people who apply will be teachers in their home countries already.

State schools are another good option if you want 'normal' teaching hours, good holidays, and older children. The position I have next year is in a good state school that has two programs, the Canadian curriculum and the GaoKao (the Chinese university entrance exam). The main disadvantage is that you may be the only foreigner in the school, and communication might be difficult. I don't just mean with Chinese but in general: you will be not told things, you will be excluded, you will turn up to your class and find someone else teaching it and be told just to go back to your office. If you can be flexible and have an open mind, state schools are great, but they may be quite exhausting especially if this is your first time in China. You will also have to teach to exams, and the curriculum might be tight. For me personally though, I would much rather teach in a state school than the next option -

Which is private language schools. These are very good - sometimes. This is the main problem: the quality of the schools, the teaching, and the ethos all vary from school to school. You may be teaching very young children, and you may be teaching exclusively in the evening. The schools may be very supportive of creativity in the classroom, or you may be literally forced to teach the flashcards they give you. The plus about these schools is that they often have competitive relocation packages, are not too bothered about how experienced (or not) you are, and that there will be a community of other English speaking colleagues (natives and not) to help you integrate.

The reason I add this is that it's so, so important. It's very laudable and easy to wish for immersion and want to make Chinese friends - and you should!! - but living in another country without easy access to internet you are used to can be exhausting at times and even the staunchest believer in immersion is going to be stressed and tired and teary far from home. Having colleagues who want to improve their English can also be a good basis for a (somewhat awkward at first) friendship.

Some general tips: brush up on your English grammar. Seriously. Because the amount of teachers who have no idea and bluff their way through it is shocking and disrespects those who try very hard to make it a proper profession. Also having students ask you when you use the present perfect continuous and the present perfect simple and not knowing the answer is a very special kind of pain!! I'd recommend bringing a reputable grammar book with you, and using it when making your lesson plans.

Re Chinese: if you already have a little, your Chinese will improve so much when you're there!! Don't stress about it because China is a wonderful environment for learning - it's literally perfect, few people speak English and EVERYBODY wants to speak to you as many people are direct and very curious - but at the same time, the more you can learn, the easier it will be. Don't neglect your characters!! Learning useful menu characters and signs will be hugely helpful too. You won't need Chinese in your job really, but you definitely will in your daily life, so well done for learning and keep at it!!

The other thing I would say is: sort out your music and your social media and your banking before going to China. This includes a good VPN. You can't download apps on the google App Store, and to make the transition to the Chinese internet easier, I'd recommend getting a Weibo account, any music app, Baidu translate and maps and so on, and accustoming yourself to that before going.

Re where you are going and the package: you should have your flight paid, help with your visa, and transparency about quarantine procedures. You should also have accommodation or an accommodation allowance of between 2000-5000 (2000 is more than fine). Public or international schools may pay for your food during school-time as well. Re cities: prioritise what is important to you. If you want to save, bear in mind that China is extraordinarily cheap and that even in places like Shanghai, you can still save a lot if you live somewhat sensibly. To give you some context: I lived in Tianjin, a second-tier city, and I got 'pocket money' of 2000 every month (with accommodation and food paid), and I managed to save enough to do martial arts for a month at an academy after 5 months. And I was living well - going out about twice a week, taking taxis, eating out almost every evening (cheap food). So don't prioritise one position over another solely because of money, and also bear in mind kindergarten teachers may only be getting about 2000-3000 a month - so regardless of whether you earn 10,000 or 15,000, it's a) SIGNIFICANTLY enough to live very well and save very well too, and b) considerably more than many of your coworkers will be earning.

Also, different cities have different costs of living: 10,000 somewhere like Hangzhou will go considerably further than 16,000 in Shanghai. Another thing to bear in mind is the air quality, and the environment, and the access to green spaces. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS. If this is important to you, go somewhere smaller or in the south with access to nature - I nearly went crazy living in such a big city with such poor air quality. The positions I had to choose between were one in Shanghai, better paid and at a better school, and a position in Zhuhai in a campus in the mountains, in a third-tier city by the sea. I know now how important green is to me, how much I prefer a more relaxed pace of life, and so I chose the latter.

Lastly, don't be intimidating and don't be afraid to ask questions about your job. Make sure that everything they say is in the contract, in both the English version and the Chinese version. This is important because only the Chinese version is legal, so if you have a friend, get them to check that the same stuff is in each bit of the contract. Communication might be difficult, but don't be afraid to be direct and press for answers, don't just accept what you're told. You might be messed around with a bit, so it's important to 'shop around' for positions - don't feel bad if you do so, and don't be afraid to turn things down that don't suit. Finally, don't feel terrified if you can't find information about a school online - a lot of stuff isn't on Google, and will also be better accessed via WeChat or mini programs. Not finding information about your school or city does not mean it doesn't exist!!

So be prepared for a wild ride - and enjoy! If you have any more questions about any of this, please feel free to ask at any time!

meichenxi out :P

[acertaincritic]

Anyway, I still have not actually sat down to watch “Shadow & Bone”, but here are some more thoughts about the MC’s racebending, since I got some comments and I want to clarify things.

TL;DR First off, nothing that’s done with S&B would be a problem if there were more Russian mainstream series.

That’s my big point of contention, honestly. You’re appropriating a culture that’s ~90% white for your fantasy world. That 90% is made up of ethnic Russians, but also Ukrainians, Tatars, and a number of other ethnicities. Still, ethnic Russians are a majority at 70% of the country’s population.

(If you’re thinking, whaa, it’s racist for a country to be 90% white.... You’re racist. Not every place is a big immigration destination, for starters, nor does it have to be. Not every place is the US. Lots of countries are racially, though not necessarily ethnically, homogenous. Just take a cursory glance at Asia and Africa.)

Now, “Shadow and Bone” is the only Big Mainstream Thing with Russian influence. Sure, it’s inaccurate. You can tell the author can’t speak Russian, has done very little actual research before writing her first book, all that. But it’s still very clearly meant to be Russia-inspired.

There are perhaps other books you can find if you scratch the bottom of the barrel, some actually written with proper care and research. But they aren’t the one cultural event that is now talked about on Twitter. They aren’t the one that was no.1 on Netflix in every place in the world and will likely remain so for some time still. They aren’t mainstream.

See, Americans are pretty good at exporting their own culture at the cost of the local writers and entertainment industries. If someone is going to buy, say, one book a month, they enter the bookstore and ~85% of books on the SFF shelves are translated from English.... How many local authors will they support vs the American/British ones? And then the American/British authors get to live off their writing, often thanks to multiple foreign sales, all the while the local authors will be extremely lucky if their books are translated to like, one single foreign language. It limits the opportunities for the local writers, and limits their ability to write full-time. You think it’s hard to do in the US? Hah, try doing it in literally any other country than maybe China.

(On that note, China has a robust entertainment complex, partly because they are so large, and partly because they specifically limit the number of foreign movies being translated and showed in local cinemas. Which means, if you feel American movies lack Chinese rep... There’s thousands of movies and dramas with only Chinese people in them right next to you.)

I wonder if an American can actually wrap their mind around this fact. Like, imagine you go into a bookstore and majority of books are translated from Chinese. Or from Russian. Or from another, foreign culture. You don’t even know how lucky you are and how American-centric your industry is, all the while effectively colonizing all the smaller industries around the way Amazon is undermining local bookstores.

You don’t see the privilege you have.

And that 85% I brought up? It’s actually a big improvement thanks to the local movements and increased awareness, at least in my country. Even just five years ago when I went into a bookstore to buy a new SFF book for my brother’s birthday, all but one book series were translated from English. And that one book series was sth he already read.

So now we have this one - a single one - Russia-inspired fantasy story. Even if it’s imperfect, it is clearly coded Russian. There are Russian clothes, Russian names (even if often misused due to lack of research), words borrowed from Russian. And it’s the only Russian-coded story that people who are not inherently interested in Russian culture are going to pick up.

And you look at it... and you decide you know what? This story based on the culture that’s 90% white, it’s *not diverse enough*. To us, Americans, who see themselves in nearly every mainstream movie and mainstream book, it doesn’t seem tasteful that so many white people are in it!

And you take not just any character, but the protagonist, the MC, the Chosen One, the hero, and you racebend her. Not just her, but her Love Interest, too. The other charas, like the antagonists or the less-than-ideally-moral side characters? Sure, they can stay white, coded as Russian. But the main role and her love interest, nah, we’re going to racebend them. And what’s worse? You couldn’t just stop there and be happy. You had to go a step further and put US-specific racism in it.

By not only racebending the MC but also making her continuously face US-typical racism, you’re effectively alienating her from her home culture. You’re saying “This person isn’t entirely Ravkian (read: Russian)”. You’re making the hero not only someone who doesn’t look like the majority of Russians, but is also very specifically separated from her culture by racism which you, Americans, imposed on the source material.

You just can’t stand for one mainstream series to not be about you for a change, can you?

In doing so, you made a fantasy movie about Wakanda with a white protagonist and a white love interest. It’s only because of your American lens that you don’t see it.

Like yeah, I read the casting a while ago. I didn’t bat an eye back then. Sure, racebending of the MC is tendentious, but I was happy to accept it. After all, Russian-Chinese people surely exist.

It’s specifically the casting COMBINED with the alienation of the racebent protagonist from the culture the books are inspired by, via artificial inclusion of US-specific racism, that’s the problem here.

Keep the actor, throw away the slurs. Or keep one slur to show that sure, racists exist everywhere, but throw away the other dozen. Make the protagonist actually connected with the culture she’s the Chosen One for, make her feel like she belongs in the country she’s going to save.

If you think I’m racist for asking for this much... The block button is up there.