#i just love kaz so much and also i love people in general

[sidhewrites]

Ah, the universal experience of Being a Lazy Young Adult

It was weird, thinking that I'd initially been terrified of this place. Like all freshman at Sutton U, I'd initially avoided the cemetery at all costs, because it felt weird and disrespectful to cut through it just to cut from campus to downtown. Then, two or three months in, we all stopped caring a much about what the dead thought and more about how many extra seconds we could squeeze out of the mornings before submitting to the horrors of higher education. Besides, we told ourselves, all the other students spent time here. What was the harm?

[19burstraat]

Random SOC Trivia I Gathered On My Reread

I'll be using this for fics, but it's fun just to read!

Jesper does not hold alcohol well (though this is according to Kaz, who is not exactly impartial)

Wijnstraat, Nemstraat, Havenstraat, Ammberstraat are all street names if you want em

Van Eck has been involved in trying to clean up the Barrel; pious. (Allegedly pious, I doubt he really is)

1/5 Van Eck (or general Kerch trading?) vessels are lost at sea

Kaz arrested three times at ten, twice at eleven, once at fourteen. Does stints in jail but it does not say prison (ppl assume he's been to Hellgate / another prison but I don't think so. He'd never have shut the fuck up about it if he had; I assume the Stadhall Jail)

Kaz's cane is lead-lined. I wasn't sure if this was canon or fanon

Kaz runs book on prize fights, horses, and chance games. Floor boss at crow club since fifteen-ish. Youngest to run a betting shop and has doubled the profits.

Gambling halls: Treasure Chest, Golden Bend, Weddell's Riverboat, Silver Garter

West Stave brothels: The Blue Iris, The Forge, The Obscura, the Willow Switch, the House of Snow

Van Aakster is the widow mercher who sees Nina to ease his grief

Inej likes orange cakes in white paper

Black Tips tattoo is a hand with first and second fingers cut at the knuckle, Razorgulls is 5 birds in wedge formation

Nina Jesper and Kaz definitely all have the crow and cup; the others don't

Jordie seems to like books

ridderspel and spijker are arcade games

Bilge, clams, and wet stone smell in the Barrel (per Retvenko)

Kaz definitely is partial to dogs; Smeet's hounds and the grey dog the Hertzoon household had, the windup dogs, the metaphors. He loves a dog metaphor sorry ur not real babycakes you'd have loved thematic web weaving posts

Geldspin is the cotton mill in Zierfoort, Firma Allerbest is a cannery. Both in Alys' name

Wylan was 8 when Marya 'died'

the black veil tomb is carved like an ancient cargo ship

3 flying fish on a grave: government. Palm trees and snakes: spices.

Inej's mother braids her hair with orange ribbons (colour of persimmons)

University a series of buildings built around the Boekcanal and joined by Speaker's Bridge (where people debate and/or drink). Boeksplein four libraries built around a central courtyard and the Scholar's Fountain

Shipping container at third harbour is a Liddie hideout; Jam Tart House is an old hotel near the slat that the Razorgulls use

Long scar across Kaz's right knuckle

Violating contracts and interfering with the market can get you hanged in Kerch; same sentences as for murder (this is. Insane)

Haskell holds court with his mates at the Fair Weather Inn every week

Belendt is the second oldest Kerch city and sits on the Droombeld River

Jesper was 7 when Aditi died

Inej has an uncle (who seems to have some sort of ringmaster role) and cousins; Hanzi and Asha

Kaz convinced a locksmith in Klokstraat that he was the son of a wealthy merchant who highly valued his collection of priceless snuffboxes, and that's how he knows what locks the rich are using

Hubrecht Mohren, Master Thief of Pijl, who Kaz doesn't appear to think much of; one of Haskell's old cronies

Martin Van Eck, Wylan's great great grandfather, was a ship's captain, brought back a big shipment of spices from Eames Chin and started the Van Eck fortune

Kaz and Jesper (+ other Dregs boys) taught Inej to fight

Kaz and Jordie are from a town near Lij, as per the 'Johannus Rietveld' exposition, but Lij is seemingly the closest major city/county so it's easier to just say they're from Lij lol

The last time the Council of Tides appeared in public was 25 years prior to CK

Kaz found Filip running a monte game on Kelstraat; he also got the clerks who turned over fake info, the fake attorney, the man who gave them free hot chocolate

The spelling of Zentzbridge lapses to Zentsbridge, not sure which is right or if they're actually separate bridges or if there's a lot of wrong quotes floating around lol

Dryden house symbol is the golden wheat sheaf bound with a blue ribbon; Van Eck is the red laurel but we knew that

Kaz taught himself finance and gambling hall rules

Church of Barter roof is copper and long has turned green

Church of Barter built around the First Forge / The Mortar, which is a flat lump of rock that's supposedly Ghezen's altar

Ghezendaal Hospital is. Idk. a hospital. Just thought ppl might want the name

[unrequitedloveletter]

hi !! could I request a drabble with Kaz Brekker + from the prompt list: "niche nickname for the other person/niche nickname for the other person" please? I hope you have a good day or night :)

Niche Nicknames- K.B x gn! reader headcanons

Hi, anon! First off--I am SO SORRY that this has taken me nearly a month. I saved it to my drafts with the intention of doing it a few weeks back and then got sidetracked by a number of things, but I hope you enjoy! I also hope that doing this request as headcanons is okay--I read the request and then knew that headcanons made the most sense for me in terms of writing, and so headcanons I wrote.

ALSO: the nicknames used are translated from english to dutch, which I do not currently speak--I used google translate, and I apologize preemptively if either of those words don't actually mean what translate said they do.

Fic type- this is fluff!

Warnings- none

OKAY TO START,

Kaz's nickname for you is the old kerch word for 'beloved.'

when I say old, I mean old.

so old that Nina couldn't've found it in a textbook while she was learning how to speak Kerch.

For reference--the old kerch word for beloved is geliefd

you, however, know what it means because it was in a book you read once--it had been the nickname a character gave to their love interest, and because it was a kerch word almost as old as the existence of the country itself, there was an asterisk where it was first used explaining what the word meant.

That might make you ask how Kaz knows the word??

he's read the book too--you nipped it from his shelf in the lead up to a heist that would only be eventful after you'd gotten off the boat and proceeded into Ravka.

Your nickname for Kaz is the old-age Kerch word for darling: liefste.

It's a nickname that not even Kaz knows the origins of--one day, you started using it, and you hadn't stopped using it in the time since.

You also don't use it too often because there's not very much occasion to call him darling, so not very many people know it exists outside of the two of you and a few of the crows (Jesper, Inej, and Wylan)

the nickname that Kaz has for you doesn't get used often either--there's not much occasion for pet names in the Barrel, but you both have them for each other anyway for when there is occasion.

Generally, very few people know of your nicknames for each other and you're fine with it that way because it's just easier--though Kaz will never actually admit it, there'll always be some part of him that views love as weakness to an extent.

plus, you only ever have occasion to call each other your nicknames in the rarest of circumstances so they're fairly niche regardless.

[jackwolfes]

demigodbeautiies' end of 2023 grishaverse fic rec list ✨

this list is a selection of grishaverse fics i read and enjoyed in 2023! i've also had the absolute pleasure of getting to know a lot of these writers and hope you enjoy any of these fics if you give them a read 😊

///

spring cleaning by CSHfic and VSfic: G, Gen. Nina and Jesper help Wylan redecorate. i'm such a sucker for post-canon fics and this is a very very sweet one

put up with the rain by tepesh (@voidfishersong) : T, Gen. Kaz and Inej learn something about Jesper. tastiest fabrikator reveal fic i've ever bloody read

those who pull us free by @the-jennnster: M, Wesper/Gen, hurt/comfort. Wylan deals with nightmares. super artfully written, short and sweet and the right kind of painful.

like gravity by @basicbard : M, Wesper, angst with light smut. Super beautifully written

the open door invites the thief by thegoldenkneazle (@wylanvanfeck): M, Kanej/Gen. Wylan ends up in the midst of something he shouldn't, shenanigans ensue.

when crows blush by talking-crow (@six-of-crows-hyperfixation): E, Wesper, Smut. Wesper work in an office together and fuck around. super fun, super hot.

the pleasures of altruism by dimtraces (@doorsclosingslowly): E, Kazper, Smut. look me in the eye and tell me jesper WOULDN'T fabrikate a fucking machine for his best friend

bite my lips (lover red) by the_lady_king: E, Wesper, Smut. i just think it's really fun and really hot so it's going on the list.

contrast ratio by anonymous: E, Wesper, Smut. Jesper and Wylan have fun with hidden cameras. i wont lie this fic rewired my brain a bit in a very, very fun way.

holiest thing i know by @chaosride: E, Wesper, A/B/O. omegaverse can be a bit of a marmite trope but this fic in particular plays around with ketterdam's worldbuilding in a very intriguing, well done way and it's also just really hot i'm ngl

screw top rose by calicomma: E, Wesper, trans!Wylan. impeccable tender domestic romance vibes.

///

and the shameless self promo zone below because i've written a lot of things i'm very, very proud of this year 💖

a choice of two locked doors: M, Wesper, arranged marriage au. my current magnum opus and general baby, incredibly proud with the way this turned out.

the bed we loved in: M, Wesper, immediately post canon hurt/comfort. just, very pleased with the vibes of it.

not just girls: E, Wesper, trans!Wylan character study. really gratified with how much this seems to have meant to people.

[looneyzune]

The 3AM Stream Incident

SOOOhbkabgsjf i haven't done something like this in a while, but I just go so inspired over in the discord @majimasleftasscheek with the streamer!kiryu idea that i had to write SOMETHING and i really loved this idea we came up with so here's SOMETHING!!! username cameos are all people from the server!!

if i had to put it somewhere, something post yakuza 3 pre yakuza 4. in order to make money for the orphanage, haruka and the kids introduced him to this streaming thing. he wanted to engage in their interests, and has always enjoyed gaming deep down, the money aspect also helps out a lot. he's formed a relatively decent sized community, but has yet to go viral. the streamers are pretty laid back and the children's identities are protected, but thanks to the younger audience of streaming in general, the chat has taken to calling him 'uncle kaz' like the kids do when they call for him off screen.

this is. short and silly and i didn't go too hard on it, but i hope it's fun!! kazumaji implied cause it will be with everything i write.

Kiryu doesn't stream off schedule, not often at least. Life gets in the way sometimes, but he's never done this before. It's quiet in the orphanage, he doesn't want to disturb the kids... but he also can't sleep. Not actually worth anything, at least. It's another all nighter, one that hopefully he can recover from while the kids are at school tomorrow. Today. If there's one thing he's thinking about this isn't the various people haunting him... It's Pocket Circuit LIVE. He figures that was something more productive to be doing than just laying here.

His steps are quiet as he makes his way into the small room that had been built in the rebuilding process of Morning Glory. This room was even in the process of being sound proofed, a gift from Daigo that was hard to refuse. With the door shut, he could be a bit more comfortable with his movements.

Hopefully, not too many people in the chatroom are up either. He thinks he remembers hearing talk about finals during these months. Still, it'd be worth going live, people liked him for his ''chill vibes'' and ''comforting streams''. There was always a twinge of a pride even he knew was a bit goofy, compared to the other things he was proud of. Perhaps he could help them sleep, much like a bed time story... But to the sound of Pocket Circuit LIVE dailies.

When Kiryu hits the 'go live' button, he skips through his starting soon screen, going straight to his face cam and gameplay set up. As the game boots up, a bit slower than usual from having to do it while he's live, the first few messages start to pop up

macthedragon: ayo cosmomemory: ??? tabbitha44: damn this game got you by the throat uncle kaz

"Good evening, chatroom." Kiryu smiles at the messages, the exhaustion painfully clear in his eyes he's sure. "I'm surprised other people are up at this hour. I can't sleep, and I can be quiet during this game to not wake the kids. So long as I don't pull." He adds the addendum before anyone in chat could mention that.

Through his months of doing this, he's learned that many of these 'stream chatrooms' have a sort of 'culture' to them. Each streamer has a different kind of audience they cater to, but many share a back and forth dynamic with their 'chatroom'. It was more work than he had ever realized, it was an interesting new world he had begun to discover.

The motions now are practiced and fluid. Daily missions were a walk in the park. Use a new wheel, win a race without a balance frame, win a race with a golem tiger. As the races began to blend, Kiryu quietly talks with his delayed chatroom, "I don't think I'll be streaming tomorrow, I'll announce on my social media platforms in the morning if I will or won't."

aquaortus: twitter. you can say twitter looneyzune: be nice to him, he's not wrong

Kiryu knew full well he could say 'Twitter', but people seemed to like his antiquated way of saying things as much as it grated on them. It was much like with the children in the orphanage, in that way. The chat was significantly slower, but that was nice for him. He didn't directly talked to them, more so just began saying how his day was, it had been a nice day off, he just might need another.

esutonia: take all the time you need uncle kaz cosmomemory: we all could use one i think looneyzune: you deserve the time off, uncle kaz! macthedragon: please don't say you're leaving to get milk- aquaortus: going to sleep to this stream, gnight everyone

It was nice to see the messages of comfort in the corner of his eye, even as they began to talk amidst each other other than just with him. Of course, he quietly wished the viewers going to bed good night, which ended up being a few of them when an hour had passed. Less than 50 people were watching him at that point. There's a few points where he has to quiet down, hearing something shuffling outside of the room, and he has to make sure he didn't wake one of the children. Thankfully, no such incident happens, and he continues on with the quiet stream.

Quiet for a good while, but by hour two, something goes wrong. A name that he had expected to be gone from this stream popped up, marked with a green sword and bright pink text.

gorogorogorochan: Kiryu-chan what the fuck is this shit looneyzune: uh oh esutonia: SCATTER brahkest: uncle majima moment! it's so over

"M-Majima-!" Kiryu jumped at seeing that familiar name, the chatroom having a similar reaction. He looked to the door, knowing he was a good while away in a hotel, yes, but like he could be there at any moment. "I just couldn't sleep, so... Why am I not surprised you're up at this hour too." He truly should have expected this. "I'll only go for another hour. You should get some rest."

He looks at his quest list. Dailies are done, but weeklies are nearing completion. He could go ahead and knock those out now if he's going to take a break soon. Kiryu gets to it, settling back into the rhythm of the game he found so addicting.

gorogorogorochan: Are ya fuckin' kiddin' me gorogorogorochan: TEN MINUTES mrbeefgnaw: oh rip uncle kaz tabbitha44: h u h cosmomemory: it's so over looneyzune: ...has he noticed looneyzune: uncle kaz are you with us

With chat going so slow due to so few people, now less than 20, Kiryu didn't notice it. Pocket Circuit LIVE was too temping. He keeps good on his promise to not pull, but ten minutes have gone by without him really saying a word. He was both too tired and too engrossed in the menial yet fun activities of his favorite pass time.

brahkest: TIME IS UP: UNLEASE THE HOUNDS tabbitha44: what did he Mean by this macthedragon: he never realized omg.....

The questions as to what he had meant didn't go unanswered for long. Kiryu looked over at the chatroom, finally seeing the sudden activity, "Chatroom, did something-" And is cut off by the door to his room swinging open. It just barely is held back from slamming by a tired, haggard, and ticked off looking Majima. He blinks in surprise at his sudden appearance, standing up and taking the same headphones the man had gifted him off his head, "Majima? What are you-"

The next moment, Majima is charging him.

Kiryu barely manages to understand whats happening in the mere second he's given before Majima's long legs get him across the room. He's still taken to the ground in the next second, but he knows not to start fighting back by then. All the camera sees in a yellow and black blur, and then Kiryu going out of frame.

brahkest: UNCLE MAJIMA MOMENT!!!! mrbeefgnaw: oh rip lol looneyzune: UFBKSD cosmomemory: JHDFKSDG macthedragon: HJDKFJDFHLD tabbitha44: LMAOOOO estunia: JHFKDSFKESJB

The last thing the stream sees is a gloved hand slapping around on the table to find the keyboard, and when it's found, the stream is shut off.

[bi-bard]

When They Took Everything from You, You Found a Way to Make Something from Nothing - Kaz Brekker Imagine [Shadow & Bone]

Title: When They Took Everything from You, You Found a Way to Make Something from Nothing

Pairing: Kaz Brekker X Reader

Word Count: 3,303 words

Warning(s): **HEY! LOOK RIGHT HERE!** mention of S.A/Assault (within original story's context), mention of abduction

Summary: (Y/n) experiences their first day at the Little Palace. They are confronted with the weight of their new responsibilities, starting with being presented to the king. They also learn just how difficult it will be to work with General Kirigan and the other Grisha.

Author's Note: Shout out to my friend who sent me a picture of a few pages of the book to help inspire a part of this imagine. (we should all love my friend because she is the reason that this OC was continued and the story got developed)

Also, Kaz isn't in this, but Kaz is the romantic interest.

MORE OF THIS OC HERE!

--------------------

I didn't sleep much during my first night at the Little Palace.

I barely even touched the bed after I woke up there the first time. No, my first sign of defiance was my choice to refuse to go to bed as Kirigan told me to. I was not a pet. I refused to be treated as one.

I had a lot of night left to waste.

I contemplated the letters that I would have written to the Crows if I ever trusted a person here enough to believe my written words wouldn't be used against me.

Saints, I missed them all so much more than I ever could have considered.

I don't know when the tiredness overcame my stubbornness.

All I know is that one moment, I was sitting at the table with my jaw clenched and a glare fixed on my face. The next, I was waking up, cheek resting on my folded arms on top of the table.

I felt my heart drop as I looked around the room.

I had been hoping that it would all be some kind of twisted dream. I didn't want this to be real. I wanted to be home. To wake up to some kind of familiarity. Back in the Crow Club so I could play cards with Jesper or with Inej while she tried desperately to teach me how to throw as well as her or even just being in Kaz's office while we bickered over some part of whatever plan he was making.

I found myself grinning at the thought of Kaz.

Saints, that boy consumed every thought I had. It was getting unfair at this point. Especially when I was convinced that there was no world where he would see me in nearly the same light that I saw him.

My dwelling on my senseless pining was brought to an abrupt halt by the door suddenly getting slammed open.

"Excuse me-"

The woman leading the charge cut me off, "Saints... have you ever bathed?"

I raised an eyebrow at her, "The abduction didn't exactly leave me much time to pamper myself."

A sigh escaped her before she snapped her fingers at some of the people that had followed her. "Fetch my kit."

Two of the other people grabbed my arms, pulling me into the small bathroom attached to the room.

Once they tried to pull my clothes off, I shoved them away. They went to grab me again, but I simply pushed them again.

"Grab me again and you'll be the first ones to witness my 'gift'," I snapped. "I am perfectly capable of washing and dressing myself."

"Everyone out!" the original woman yelled.

She found her place in a chair in the corner while everyone filled out.

I crossed my arms, my disgust clearly written on my face. I nodded to the door, trying to motion for her to leave. She just tilted her head and smirked at me.

"Unbelievable," I muttered.

I yanked my clothes off and climbed into the tub. One of the lingering workers grabbed my clothes before running off.

The water was warm. The sponge was nicer than I expected it to be. I took a deep breath through my nose. It smelled like something sweet. I couldn't place it.

"You are to be presented to King Pyotr in an hour," the woman said as I scrubbed at my skin.

"Excuse me?"

"You are going to be presented to the king in an hour," she repeated. "I am here to ensure that you are presentable."

"And that includes watching me bathe?"

"What if you were to drown?"

It was pure sarcasm, but I wouldn't be surprised if General Kirigan had sent her to actually ensure that it didn't happen. I just huffed and rinsed my skin off.

I pulled myself up from the tub. The woman walked up behind me and offered me a robe to cover myself. I pulled it on quickly, tying as tight a knot as I could.

It was annoyingly comfortable. Softer than any fabric that I had been given the fortune to touch. But I would rather burn then and there than let anyone in this place see that.

She brought me back to the main room, stopping to touch my chin and inspect my skin in the natural light coming through the window.

"What are you doing," I asked.

"Seeing how much work I need to complete in our very limited time together," she replied. "I should thank you for giving me an excuse to force out that little group that trails behind me. Much easier to do my work when I have no additional interruptions."

"You could always thank me by helping me get out of here," I replied.

She let out an amused huff. "You're funny."

"Wasn't joking."

She reached up and dragged her thumb along my cheekbone.

I felt something shifting under my skin. As if something was scratching and hoping to get out. I yanked myself away from her, reaching up to cover what she had touched.

"What did you do?" I snapped.

"My job," she answered. She motioned to the mirror.

I walked over and glanced at my reflection.

There had been this scar on my cheek. It was from back when I started working with Kaz. I had tried to kick out a man that didn't want to leave the Crow Club just yet. In response to my instructions, he hit me. It wouldn't have scarred if I hadn't picked at it. I could still hear Kaz snapping at me to stop messing with it whenever he caught me.

The scar was gone now. I touched the skin, hoping to find some indent. Nothing.

I turned back to the woman, who looked incredibly proud of herself.

"Healer?"

"Tailor," she corrected. "Rare. Not nearly as special as you, but... still rare."

Her next move was the fresh wounds. The ones that were a direct result of Kirigan's abduction plan and my fight against it.

"I'm Genya, by the way," she introduced. "(Y/n), right? Feels wrong to only call you the Sun Summoner."

I just nodded.

"I was told you were from Ketterdam. Well, you were hiding there. What was that-"

"Genya," I stopped her. "I understand that you are trying to be polite and friendly, but I need you to understand that I am here against my will. I am doing exactly what I need to do to survive and try to ensure the safety of those I care for. I have no interest in forming connections."

She paused for a moment. I couldn't tell if she was truly shocked or merely attempting to call my bluff.

"Fair enough," she finally replied. She reached down and grabbed my hand.

Old scars from the rare moments when I would get caught pickpocketing. Mostly small scars from nails scratching me as they grabbed my hands.

I didn't stop Genya's work until she got to the scar on my arm. I snagged her wrist, gruffly shaking my head.

She raised an eyebrow as she pulled back. "Sentimental?"

I didn't respond to her question.

Her smirk just grew.

Yes. It was me being sentimental.

The scar was fairly long and sat on the outside of my forearm. Inej had tried to help me learn to throw knives without me stabbing myself. I had thrown a knife at our makeshift target but had the handle hit instead of the blade. I had ducked and shielded my face, so when the knife came back, it slid over my arm and left the cut.

After making sure that I was okay, Inej had a tough time keeping it together.

Sitting there and watching her try to cover up her laugh was one of the first times that I felt like I had truly connected with her.

I was proud to be sentimental about it. Just not here.

"Sit," she nodded to the seat. "I'll be done before you know it."

I took a deep breath before listening to her.

She was being honest about that much. I had managed to get lost in my thoughts enough for it to feel like mere seconds before she was having stand so I could get dressed.

The great outfit for me to meet the king in was... the same outfit that I had been wearing when I was taken from Ketterdam.

The only added detail was a ridiculous veil meant to shield my face from everyone else.

"That seems ridiculous," I said. Genya raised an eyebrow at me. "You just want to put me in the same clothes?"

"They suit you well," she replied.

I started pulling on the clothes. I muttered under my breath as I did. It wasn't until I was tying up my ever-fateful boots that she spoke up again.

"We could have just left them as they were. Coated in dirt and sweat and... whatever lines the streets of Ketterdam."

I turned to her.

"You should be a little more grateful."

"Oh, you're right, how kind of you to clean the clothes that I was abducted in before forcing me to wear them to face the king," I said sarcastically.

She paused for a brief moment before responding, "Don't be silly, it's simply a recreation."

"Was that necessary?"

She raised an eyebrow at me as she placed the veil over my head. "Expect more?"

"If I was apparently so valuable, then I would imagine that having me look like... this wouldn't be appealing to your precious king."

She hummed, "Well... you don't want to attract too much attention from the king."

She said it in as light-hearted a voice as she could, but I caught her eyes before she could turn away from me to continue walking. They worried me. There was simply so much sitting there. None that she meant to show. Knowledge of some "consequence" of that attention.

It was a dark look, a sad look that I had only been allowed to see on one person's face before that moment.

Inej.

My heart fell a bit. I felt just as useless now as I did then. If I hadn't been so focused on my coldness, then I would have asked her to explain that statement a little further. I would have helped her. I would have done more than just sit there.

This is why I knew that I wasn't the saint that people wanted me to be. If I was, I would have done better. By both of them.

This wasn't the feeling of familiarity that I wanted.

Genya didn't speak on her statement more.

"He wishes to see you as something newly found," she said. "Saved from the Barrel and whatever unsavory life that he believes it offered you. He'll want to take credit for you being found."

"Like a rare animal," I replied. "New and interesting... and placed in a cage so they cannot fight back."

"A very comfortable cage," Genya shrugged.

I rolled my eyes.

"Come on."

I followed Genya out of my room, letting her lead me down the hall.

We walked in silence through most of the halls. I wanted to get a grasp of the layout. I knew that I would need to have it memorized for later.

I spotted a library, where the nearest staircases, and the potential exits.

There was no denying that the Little Palace was a gorgeous place. It was designed to treat the Grisha as nothing less than almost-royalty. Separate yet superior. If only their rise to power didn't involve shoving so many into the dirt on the way up.

Genya tried to explain who would be at the event today. I didn't pay much mind to it. It was rude, yes, but I don't think I can be faulted for not being the kindest of individuals considering the circumstances.

"Genya," I turned my eyes forward at the sound of one of the few voices that could make me truly sick to my stomach. Kirigan. "I believe I can take over the guiding from here."

She nodded to both of us before walking away. I pushed the veil off of my face.

"Shall we," Kirigan motioned toward the door. I walked a few steps ahead of him. "The Grand Palace may be the ugliest building I've ever seen."

I simply hummed in response. Polite, but not going out of my way to continue the ever-so-interesting conversation.

"How was your rest?"

I didn't respond, still admiring the outside of the Grand Palace, the Little Palace, and the courtyard in between.

"You do know that you can talk to me," he continued.

"Thank you for the permission," I replied. "If I ever have the desire to accept your offer, I'll be certain to inform you."

He grabbed my wrist, pulling us both to a stop and forcing me to turn and face him. I flinched away from him. I never thought that I would miss the feeling of Kaz tapping my shins with his cane to do the same thing, yet here I was. Still thinking of him, even when I was about to face the king of Ravka.

"What," I asked.

"I understand that these are not ideal circumstances-"

"You kidnapped me-"

"I am requesting that you pretend to have some understanding of how important this is," he said. "How important you are. I'm asking you to behave like an adult."

"Promise to do the same?" I tilted my head. "I am sorry but there is going to be no form of cooperation here if you cannot even truly accept that what you did to me was wrong."

"Who are you to tell me the difference between right and wrong? Last time I checked, you were part of some gang of lowlifes before I found you."

I clenched my fists. Again, choose your battles at the right time.

"Behave yourself," he scolded me. "We are going to meet the king. I am going to present you, you will show your powers, and the king will allow me to keep you here for training. Then, we will tear down the Fold together.

"We are officially too far down this path for us to turn back and question how we got here. You may not believe me, but I am trying to do what is best for us. For you, for me, for all of Ravka. Even those little Crows of yours."

"Don't speak of them," I snapped. "Never speak of them. You have no right to hold their names on your tongue."

A smirk pulled at Kirigan's lips. "I admire your stubbornness. I just wish it were applied in the place that truly needed it."

I rolled my eyes.

"I will earn your trust as best I can," he continued. "For now, I am asking you to pretend that I have already earned it. They will need to see that if they are ever going to believe that we can tear the Fold down."

I took a deep breath and pulled the veil back down over my face.

"Thank you-"

"Save it."

We walked to the Grand Palace in silence.

We were followed inside by guards and a collection of other Grisha.

The hall felt packed as we walked in. I never thought that I was one who feared attention, but I hadn't truly experienced it on such a scale. I had gone from completely hidden to completely known in a night. It was enough to churn anyone's stomach.

I stopped next to Kirigan in the middle of the room. I took a breath before lifting the veil from other my face. Someone took it from my hand. I nodded to them.

The crowd was only worse without the obstruction to my sight. And now I couldn't how desperately I wanted to close my eyes and hide from it all.

"I thought they'd be taller," the king said immediately.

I took a breath, keeping my attitude to myself. I felt Kirigan's eyes shift to me for just a moment. As if he were checking on my behavior like a parent does with a child.

"Good morning," the queen added awkwardly.

"Good morning, your highness," I replied, nodding my head in respect.

"So polite," she gushed. "Considering where you've been living, of course."

I wondered how much of Inej's throwing lessons had properly stuck with me. "Thank you, your highness."

Kirigan spoke up before I had a chance to properly introduce myself, "They are (Y/n) (Y/l/n). The Sun Summoner, moya tsaritsa. They will change the future."

I felt his eyes turn to me again.

"Starting now."

He lifted his hand, drawing in two waves of shadow from either side of the crowd. It filled the room, covering any ounce of light. He stepped to the side, facing me fully.

I turned my eyes up to the shadows surrounding me. I took a breath, closed my eyes, and drew the sun in.

A ball formed in my hands. I cast it up into the center of the shadow.

It glimmered as the light tore it down.

I heard the applause before I opened my eyes. When I did, the king had stood from his seat, leading the audience's response. I grinned at him, nodding as a quiet sign of appreciation.

Kirigan stepped over again. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Asking a little early," I whispered back to him.

"How long will they need," the king asked, turning to Kirigan.

"Destroying the Fold is no easy feat," he explained. "It is possible that (Y/n) may not have the ability to complete the task alone. I request that they remain with me in the Little Palace to train. Undisturbed."

"Then train them quickly," the king replied. "Our wars have been a noble pursuit, but this chat about the west becoming a sovereign nation, that needs to stop. The sooner we are one country again, the better."

"I agree," Kirigan nodded. He tilted his head down. "Moi tsar."

I mimicked his bow.

He guided me to turn around, leading me back to the crowd of Grisha. He only stopped for a moment.

"Welcome home, (Y/n)."

He walked away, finding his way through the crowd to leave.

I was left with the guards and the Grisha.

The Grisha were welcoming. All of them seemed to be buzzing due to my presence and what they had just watched. I tried to be as polite as I needed to be. Nods and shaking hands and small grins. Far too many hugs. That was all that I could offer.

There was one woman who stuck out. Long dark hair with bangs. She stood perfectly straight with her shoulders rolled back enough to make her appear like a soldier.

"It's such an honor to formally meet you," she said.

I didn't have a chance to respond before I was pulled into a rough, tight hug. I barely caught sight of the smug grin on her face. I awkwardly hugged her back regardless.

"You reek of the Barrel," she muttered to me.

I chucked and leaned back just slightly, mumbling into her ear to ensure that my words were only heard by her, "And you reek of the General."

She tilted her head, grin now tighter and more forced.

I offered a sickeningly sweet grin before allowing myself to be guided out of the room by Genya, who I must've simply missed when I first arrived. She guided me back to my room, claiming that I deserved a bit of rest while waiting on my kefta to arrive.

I knew that this event was only a first step. Merely one day in what could be hundreds.

But I was okay with that.

As long as the Crows were at the end of that long line of days.

--------------------

Navigation Guide

What I Write For

Some Original Characters

[bitchthefuck1]

sorry if you've talked about this before but i really don't like when people are like 'there's no way kaz (or the other crows) is a teenager i had to imagine them as 30yr olds' idk if its because i read the books when i was 15 myself but even now (at 23) i don't really get the argument. i'd love to hear your thoughts on it

I made like a million and one posts about this on my old account back when season 1 came out, but basically yeah. I've always seen them as teenagers, and I think the whole "Leigh only made them teens for it to fit the YA market, they're really in their 20s" is kinda bullshit. Like, so much of where the characters are emotionally is directly tied to their ages and the story and their arcs just wouldn't work the same way of they were older. People will point out ways that they're emotionally immature or inconsistent or arrogant or don't seem to know what they want/how to be in a relationship and it's like. yeah that's cuz they're teenagers. That's not a flaw in the writing that's what being a teenager is like.

It also explains their almost absurd level of "yeah, we can do that" about genuinely impossible-seeming things. That kind of "I'll fight God idgaf" energy is really characteristic of teenagers to me because you're still figuring shit out and therefore don't have a set idea of what things are or are not considered "possible", so you're way more open to big risks and wild ideas.

And I know people always point to their skill levels as what makes this unbelievable, but these are a bunch of people who have been forced to develop a specific skill set at an absurdly young age basically at the expense of anything else. Kids and young people can really master complex things at a level most adults don't have, and are in some ways more suited to it, the problem is that it's almost always at the expense of a lot of other important developmental experiences and needs. We as a society generally agree that putting kids in the position where they specialize really intensely at a young age and neglect everything else is bad, so we don't generally do that, but these are kids who were put in that position on a basically life-or-death level and managed to survive.

That's in part why I'd really like to see soc 3 at some point down the line. Not just because I want more content or whatever, but because once you leave your teens and hit your 20's you're forced to confront all the deficiencies in your childhood and how things that you thought are just in the past are very much lingering and becoming impossible to ignore. It's a really intense place to be in emotionally and it's something I think it would be really fascinating to watch the crows have to navigate, on top of the fact that a lot of them have just achieved lifelong dreams and goals and now have to figure out what they want to do next.

Anyway, that went way longer than I thought it would, so TL;DR the crows are absolutely teenagers and the story is better that way.

[icarusallusion]

I think MGSV really robbed us of a Kazuhira and Quiet properly written relationship and really took away a proper characterization of the two, especially Kazuhira as he has already had a good characterization that they took away. In Quiet 's scenario they literally just need to write better female characters, it's so awful.

While friendship definitely didn't have to be how their relationship went, I think some sort of mutual bitter respect between them would have fit, but instead we get a very disturbing take on them with Kazuhira calling Quiet like awful things, talking about killing her, and blaming her for getting attacked.

Quiet is seemingly respectful of Kazuhira and doesn't seem to hold a grudge against him, and Kazuhira is shown to accept people's wrongdoings and still show a respectful professionalism around them in the past. Kaz kinda hates Ocelot and Big Boss (venom snake but kaz thinks it's big boss) in MGSV but still respects them and treats them like a proper coworker.

We can also see this with Paz a little bit, pre MGSV.

Big Boss quite literally kidnaps him and talks about doing horrific things to him if he doesn't join, months later he's in love with him as a legend and then in MGSV a character that minorly inconvenienced him is suddenly his mortal enemy, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Not to mention Ocelot and BB were both part of Zero, worked with and for him, but we never truly see Kaz get angry with them for this.

Kazuhira understands throughout the games the manipulative pull Zero has on people, but when it comes to morally wrong female characters they aren't written.. good. In turn, they write the male characters that attack them bad as well. Taking Kazuhira and making him someone who's just angry all the time and so easy to hate for newer players was awful to me. I loved him in Peace Walker, traitor and all. However, I see new players blindly playing MGSV as their first game and DESPISING Kazuhira because they haven't seen him in his proper characterization, haven't seen him outside his dehumanization of Paz and Quiet and his overall anger.

AS WELL AS HOW HE TREATED PAZ, it was so weird to me. Obviously he's angry but even before they found out Motherbase was destroyed Kazuhira rants and rages and calls her a bitch and other like shitty things and it was so weird to me. Because in Peace Walker, he literally admits he's in the wrong for even letting Paz on the base in the first place, post her betraying them horrendously, Kaz still speaks with some fallen foe respect towards her

But then when it comes to Quiet, Kaz participates in the dehumanization and ridicule of her while also ostracizing her from everyone else. Strangely enough the only characters we see really hate Quiet are background Diamond Dogs soldiers, they don't build any reason to hate her for the player which just makes Kaz look crazy. From a non meta point, to not have Kaz have at least some decency towards Quiet when nobody else really has a problem with her except the soldiers was weird.

It felt like his deep rooted hatred with Cipher was just squeezed into a character, because the lack of proper expanding on Quiet really felt even more uncomfortable when all we got was ass shots and dehumanization especially.

I think MGSV could've been a good game if it didn't try and take itself so serious. The seriousness of battle overshadows the time spent with Quiet and with Kazuhira and literally every other character that could've been properly expanded on.

I love MGSV, I love Metal Gear in general. However, it fails it's characterization so much, more especially in modern games like Revengance and Phantom Pain. They are good games, but when all the women are written as rage bait without any proper reason to hate them at all, it sucks. When characters in general regardless of gender are destroyed of their former written self, it sucks. I could go into this with so many other characters but I couldn't stop thinking of Kaz and Quiet and how they come directly from the lack of proper female writing as well as the lazy writing that really spoils MGSV for a lot of people.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Shipper Tag Game

I was tagged in this game by @twig-tea, appreciate the tag but also bestie this is so many questions.

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

Is this the part where I have to confess to being a superwholockian in my past? I no longer care about JohnLock or DeanCas, the evil is defeated!

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

Oh it was almost certainly Beast Boy and Raven from Teen Titans

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

Magnus Bane x Alec Lightwood from Shadowhunters, I wrote a bunch of fanfics for them when I was younger. I did not anticipate how many views I would get on a couple of them, so that was cool! (shameless plug to check out my AO3 account, Sent2TheBeast. Unfortunately most of my fics are now locked due to how people feed content to AI software)

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

Do I actually remember? No. Was it most likely something from Harry Potter or Supernatural? Yeah.

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

Baby, I write BL essays on tumblr, I think the minute I posted my first analysis I was signing up to ride the discourse wave.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

Honestly any incestuous plot lines I am typically very against: Wincest, Brallie, etc.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

I read a beautifully written VegasPete fic by the wonderful @ginnymoonbeam

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

How much time do you have? Kurosawa x Adachi/Karan x Achi; Togawa x Nozue; Minoru x Yutaka; PatPran; MorkTawan; Han Baram x Im Hantae; Shin Ki Tae x Lee Wan; Kenji x Shiro; etc etc etc

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Not that I can think of, but I will just give a generic shout out to all the queer baiting of old. BUT I DO HAVE COUPLES I AM EXTREMELY MAD ABOUT GETTING TOGETHER. AkkTheo and SandRay I am looking at you!!!

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

I will give this one to @bengiyo. I was not a fan of Korn and Intouch from Until We Meet Again because of how one-sided the relationship seemed to me. But conversations with Ben gave me deeper insights in to Korn and have had me reconsidering my impression of that relationship.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David would almost certainly get me cancelled considering Ziva's service history in Israel. Glad I was able to free myself of the cop/military propaganda that is NCIS when I entered high school.

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

I don't really embrace the crack culture, I am not a huge fan of crack vids, crack fics, crack ships

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

Of all the couples I read fanfics for, I think Malec from Shadowhunters was probably my most frequently read.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

I feel like 99% of the ships that have wormed their way in to my brain to the point of obsession (aka me making fan art, writing fics, etc) lies in the complexity and opposition of character's to one another. For example:

In Shadowhunters, the tension between Magnus being a warlock and Alec being a Shadowhunter and how they navigate the fact that The Institute and his own family have caused and continue to cause active harm to Magnus and the other Downworlders.

In Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, the extremely contradictory nature of Kaz Brekker's existence and how that impacts his relationship with and to Inej. I wrote a number of Kanej fics because I could not stop thinking about the fact that Kaz and Inej want to touch each other, want to be intimate with each other, and their extensive trauma makes that damn near impossible.

In Pushing Daises, the inability to touch, the tension between loving someone so much and knowing that to touch them would be to kill them is just so fascinating.

In The Old Guard, Joe and Nicky having been together for 900 years when we meet them so you wouldn't think there is a complex tension there per say, but they were on opposite sides of The Crusades and had to work through that to cultivate a literally eternal love. And not just that (honestly less so that) but the tension between their line of work as mercenaries, their immortality, and knowing that one day, completely unannounced that immortality will stop. I could not stop thinking about how many times those two have had to watch each other die, waiting and wondering if their lover would come back to life this time around.

In Bad Buddy, Pat and Pran not only having to navigate their relationship with the incredibly antagonistic relationship between their parents but Pat having to parse through all these years of competition, hatred, fighting, to understand that all this time he's loved Pran.

gif by @barrowsteeth 15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

Lack of reciprocity. This is not to say the relationship has to be completely balanced. I don't think that it is a realistic possibility that every aspect of a romantic relationship exists in perfect harmony. But I've written about this before, my theory as to why so many BL boys get sick, in order to allow the person who has received more of the support throughout the show to care for their partner. I am a very outspoken Enchante anti because I hate Theo so fucking much. Theo's incompetency and Akk's incessant need to help him got Akk fired from his job, Theo lied about Enchante, and Theo moved back to France and made Akk work on his own to earn enough money for a motherfucking plane ticket to France. None of that being marketed as romantic is okay with me.

tagging: @emotionallychargedtowel, @neuroticbookworm, @telomeke, @negrowhat, and @solitaryandwandering

[incorrectklavekatz]

The crows as cards cause I’m bored and why not, as usual my asks are open and I’m always happy to answer!!! Possible ROW and CK spoilers??? Obviously SOC spoilers

Kaz: king of clubs, symbolises strength, power and determination, his ambition towards taking down Rollins, and his effectiveness in doing so, as well as his power by the time ROW occurs in him having two people on the merchant council, the queen of fjerda and the wraith on the seas, in play can be useful, but in most cases doesn’t do much if the rest of the hand is shit, he needs his crows

Inej: Queen of spades, I was going to make her and Kaz match but I’d rather give her an individual one, symbolises intelligence, practical and intellectual, plans ahead of time, inej is always the one in the crows to provide insight to their issues, no matter how cryptic it may be at times, and she shows her ability to understand the consequences of all of their actions better than the other crows several times, in play a black queen can change the game if not countered by a red one

Nina: queen of hearts, pretty obvious as it is, heartrender, queen of fjerda, symbolises a powerful woman who is commanding and has a strong presence yet is compassionate, caring and protective of those she loves, her taking the parem to save the others in coming out of the ice court, as well as generally just being there for the crows in their times of need while still being a very independent and strong female character, in play can be incredibly useful for saving a hand

Matthias: king of hearts, symbolises honesty and spirituality, obviously spirituality to djel and his honesty about changing who he was to be a better man, and admitting that what he did was wrong along with coming to terms with how he was raised and how that effected him and how he treats others, also symbolises a kind gentle man, which he became because of Nina, sparing the boy who shot him, in play again not very useful unless the rest of the hand is good

Wylan: Ace of diamonds, symbolises a financial increase and can indicate a message from a new lover, his claiming of his inheritance from his father, and Jespers role in helping him achieve and maintain that inheritance with reading to him, in play can change the stakes of the game and is very fluid compared to other cards in what it can do, as well as changing the suit to how it sees fit regardless of the suit being played, changing to look like kuwei, asking to be beaten up further for dramatic effect etc

Jesper: Jack of Diamonds, symbolises youth, energy and potential, “maybe he was a bullet in a chamber, waiting to be given direction”, it can also symbolise future financial instability, his gambling, and can be used to represent an unfaithful employee, when he accidentally ratted them out to the dime lions, in play isn’t extremely helpful and generally can benefit the person before the player more than the player themselves, heavily depends on the other cards in the hand, much like how Jesper often puts trying not to disappoint others above his own general well-being and mental health

+ Bonus kuwei: ace of spades, mirrors Wylan, symbolises death, darkness and mystery, parem causing death, hiding in the tomb, nobody really knowing much about him, but can also represent new beginnings, fresh starts and rebirth, moving to Ravka and changing his name to fix his fathers mistakes, arguably one of the most important cards in play, can change the game entirely based on its high place on the list of outcomes on rolling the dice or drawing from a deck of cards chance, can also symbolise power, luck and triumph, whoever was ‘in possession’ of kuwei was winning the game

If anybody has any other opinions on this please let me know!! Also I am aware that technically they have all already been assigned cards in the collectors edition art for crooked kingdom but these are my own takes, might do an analysis post on their cards assigned in the official art if anybody is interested <333 also will do any other characters in the SOC duology and maybe some from the SAB trilogy if asked!!!

[ride-thedragon]

At this point I think as a fandom, we've lost some of the crackship charm we once had. I can look up Ashara Dayne and Ser Davos and find results, But Nettles and Helaena have nothing. It's time to rectify that for my favourite girl and try to inspire some fanfics. Feel free to add more.

1. Daeron and Nettles

Think Enemies to Lovers, Captive of War drama like Jaime and Brienne or just some good old Gwen and Arthur-inspired love. Ivy by Taylor Swift coded, a She's all that inspired affair. I genuinely think that he's just trying to be there for her with this one. It happens and neither of them realise until You're in Love starts playing.

2. Baela and Nettles.

They would give the pot calling the kettle black in every argument. The Princess Bride-esque dynamic between them. Very Graham and Megan from but I'm a Cheerleader. Sapphic Pinning and Resentment should be its own genre. Sir Chloe's Michelle is my vision. We can even make a throuple with them and Jace or Alyn. Truly, I think they but heads until they kiss, building on resentment. I also think they would be the coolest couple.

3. Addam and Nettles

Kaz and Inej core.

But in all seriousness, I think Addam being loyal and Duty bound and Nettles challenging that idea is delicious. Solider of Duty x Solider for the People. A modern-day Persuasion story but gender-flipped if we put our minds to it. See you Again Kali Uchis and Tyler the Creator, that's all.

4. Nettles and Helaena

They just deserve better. That's all. Give me cottagecore sapphic romance with my best girls involves. Like the young lesbians from Barbie and the Diamond Castle. Lesbians raising kids together. Sheepstealer and Dreamfyre hatching eggs for the nieces and nephews. I just-

It would be so cool, I will by Mitski sentiment is already attached.

5. Alyn and Nettles

Now that we are here obviously she apologized for Sheepstealer, she doesn't need to but she did, He tries not to like her but can't help it. She wins him over and they hatch him an egg or something idk. Think The Princess Diaries: Royal Engagement, Mia and Nicholas, Flipped the movie if you will. Jealously plots would slay. For the song choice think Shameless Camila Cabello. Please remember that Alyn is younger than Netty by 3/4 years though.

6. Rhaena and Nettles

See now this is classic Friends to Lovers, Emma and Harriet if gay, perhaps, Bend it Like Beckham core definitely. Sofia by Clario inspired. Nettles doesn't leave Rhaena out because she's without a dragon and the same happens inverse. Sapphic confusion however, like Rhaena doesn't understand at first why she feels that way.

7. Nettles and Jace.

Now for the Mr Knightley and Emma Woodhouse of our time, the Kate and Anthony of Westeros. The potential for her just not listening to him when he tries to tell her how to ride a dragon. Or when she talks to him about the people he'll rule over eventually, Ygritte and Jon style. She's also the only bastard who doesn't look Targaryen, he can relate to that a bit. I think she's Fierce and he's Stubborn. Ungodly Hour by Chloe x Halle for them.

8. Nettles and Alys.

The Fire Witches of Westeros. I think they will be perfect as a ship. American Horror Story-esque characters. The two Witches in the story are obviously my favourites. It would be Jennifer's Body meets, the craft meets, and Suspiria. Willow by Taylor Swift becomes them.

This one was also a bonus more or less.

Anyways I just need to start to get a baseline story for my girl by the time the show gives her to us. So we have a general sense of direction, I'm tired of the mischaracterization of my baby. She's smart, resourceful, Cunning, Fearless, and not entirely loyal. She also curses, enough for it to be a character trait. Please remember this for her, I'm tired. I also know that Daemon loved her but she's too much fun as a character to limit her to him romantically in all her fanfictions, it is an interesting narrative to explore while we don't have exact answers but he gets romantic ships with anyone. She deserves more.

[raymondshields]

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

There's quite a few! Kazuma obviously, because people love to take his anger at face value (which pisses me off because I also don't generally get sad when I'm hurt, I also get angry), and refuse to see him in 2-4/5 as a man literally shattering and finally admitting how incredibly not okay he's been for sixteen years.

Raymond Shields and Godot both get hit with fandom racism and people taking their facades at face value - Ray being a walking trauma wound (he's very much like Kaz in that regard, except he is never given the chance to lose his shit on everyone) and Godot actually having a very similar arc to Kazuma, just not haunting the whole game the same way.

But honestly? The most egregiously mischaracterized character? This is a molotov and I know it, but all my DGS friends haven't seen this take yet, so I get to throw it again: Mia Fey.

Mia Fey was not a character I expected to have so much depth to her, but then I started RPing her after her death and really got into her head, and then I had to deal with the fact that she is the single angriest person that anyone has seen, and the only reason no one knows is because she has utterly cultivated an image of not pulling a Kazuma. (I am very weak to Kazuma types, as we can clearly see lmao.)

She was abandoned by her mother when she was ten, she immediately took over parenting for her two-year-old sister, she was abused the whole time by her aunt who quite literally wanted her dead, she had to deal with all of the politics of being the next Master, she had to keep up with her training, she had to be the perfect daughter, and she had to do it all knowing that her only actual value was in protecting her sister, and that not a single person actually cared about her.

Her getting out and becoming a lawyer was honestly the most selfish thing she'd ever done, and if you look at the timing, it's pretty likely she got out right at 18, which... is the same year Pearl was born. She saw Morgan get pregnant and probably realized if she didn't get out, she was going to get murdered, so she ran.

It also explains why Diego acted the way he did about killing Misty: he knew Mia would probably forgive him for that one, because after all, Misty left Mia pretty much for dead in Morgan's hands. Misty could've taken her daughters with her and she didn't, and Mia would have known that. She sheltered Maya, but no one was protecting Mia but herself.

She emphasized trusting people to Phoenix a lot, for someone who only ever trusted one person (Diego), and when she did, he got poisoned. And she never trusted again, not even to Maya.

People really don't see through Mia's facade, because you have to actually look to see through it, because she died before she got a chance to show us who she actually was. Which is funny, because Beanix as a character very much parallels her. We just get to see more of his anger, where we never got to see hers.

No one understands Mia Fey like I do, and I don't talk about her so much, but she means a lot to me.

[ask link here]

[unrequitedloveletter]

hi! Could I request a Kaz or platonic!crows x reader with a reader who has some kind of facial scar/s and is feeling a bit insecure about them,like they wear a mask to hide them but around the crows they don’t but lately they have been again maybe because of looks they’ve been getting from people or stuff people have said and so their feeling insecure bout them again (Hurt/Comfort)

If not that’s perfectly fine too! Have a wonderful day :] -🍒Anon

Five Bells- K.B + platonic! crows x gn! reader

Okay! Hi! Thank you for sending this in, I've been planning a lot of stuff lately and using writing to take breathers and still be productive, and I've been writing a good bit of angst in the past few days which has been absolutely lovely. All of your requests have also generally just been pretty fun and relaxing to write so thank you so much for sending them in and I'm terribly sorry about how late they're coming out!

I was just going to do platonic! crows but then the romance thing with Kaz came reflexively so I did both! It's most platonic crows but there's an element of kazzle dazzle romance there, which I hope is all good!

Fic type-hurt/comfort

Warnings- mentions of death by stabbing, slitting of throat, gunfire, bombs, and an illusion to heart attacks (nina calls it "heartrender magic" but that's what I was trying to reference), mention of a mask feeling like a "second skin", mention of daggers being pushed into the side of the head (it's nondescriptive), mention of being stabbed in the jugular, mention of itching powder, mention and depiction of people being dickheads about a facial scar (glaring at the reader when they have their mask off, which the reader illudes to having been a long-time occurrence) if I missed anything, I apologize and please don't hesitate to let me know!

Jesper was the first to notice it, the fact that you'd taken to wearing your mask again.

It was black, a little reminiscent of the medical masks that doctors wore, though it'd been made from Fabrikator altered fabrics and according to you, felt like wearing a second skin.

You wore that mask even in the worst conditions--hell, Jesper had seen you only adjust the mask rather than take it off completely after climbing six stories in the incinerator shaft at the Ice Court--but you never wore it around the crows.

Jesper had grown used to the sight of the scar, idly ghosting a finger along it whenever he would wrap an arm around your shoulders in a booth at the Crow Club after a terribly long job that everyone had risked their lives in.

But, Jesper noticed quickly that you'd taken to wearing the mask again.

Nina, Matthias, and Inej noticed it after him. You wore it day in and day out, just like you used to and like you still did on every single job.

Nina began counting the days she'd see you with it on in a row where Inej began looking at the people around, trying to see if there was any particular glowering set of eyes that was making you as insecure about it as you used to be.

A couple of weeks had passed, and if those who'd made you insecure were still around, they were good at shooting you disgusted looks when she didn't notice.

Matthias was more subtle. He would do as Inej did, as Wylan would later do when he noticed, glaring at the people who were unafraid of him and liked to make you insecure over a scar, a sign of a battle fought and a battle won. He was a calm, still guy who had the stature of a bolder. He was a guy who was quick to anger very rarely, but it seemed he was quick to anger, in that instance.

Wylan and Kaz noticed last. You'd brought the mask to Jesper, hoping he'd be able to repair the significant damage it'd taken in a job you'd done, and nobody heard from you in the two days that it took Jesper to fix it.

It'd been as though you disappeared.

Kaz, a man who'd accidentally become aware of where you were, able to sense you and seek you out since even before your relationship began, resented those two days.

Two days of seeking out the familiar feeling of your presence, two days of not finding it. Two very hellish days, if Kaz was to be honest with himself.

Wylan was less subtle then Matthias in his anger; he'd begun observing just like Inej had, his eyes roving the crowds the two of you found yourselves in like a lion sought out its prey.

He was ready and willing to throw blast powder at those behind your frequent wearing of the mask again, and whenever he threw out a seemingly empty threat, you couldn't help but notice that his voice raised an octave or two, like he was talking to someone who might've been a good distance away.

Nina and Matthias caught a very specific set of eyes one night in the Crow Club at the same time you did. You went to pull your mask up and Nina stopped you, giving you a grin.

"I know the fabric is designed to be breathable, but you really should let your skin have a break," she said. "And besides, you look ethereal tonight. Kaz is going to lose it when he sees you, especially considering the fact that he loves your scar."

You gave Nina an uneasy smile. "I'll be fine if I wear the mask."

"When was the last time you washed it?" Matthias asked with a pointed look. "We've done a lot for the job today, so even if you washed it yesterday, that may as well be pointless now. Let your face breathe in the two hours we have to break, wear the mask for the rest of the missions duration. You can wash it and then wear it again tomorrow."

You looked to the people who were glaring at you; their eyes felt like daggers being pushed into the side of your head. You found that Inej was also glaring at them, her glower fixed and unmoving

They couldn't see her, had yet to do anything other then stare at you, but she'd been visible in your line of sight. Just visible enough, really, and with the intensity that she glowered at them, it was a miracle they'd not felt her gaze.

Wylan and Jesper walked in, the two of them sensing an air of intensity the moment they passed through the doors.

Jesper approached the table instantly. Wylan fell back a bit, trailing Jesper after allowing his line of sight to fall in the same as Inej's. It allowed Wylan to effectively spot the fools who'd been staring you down over your scar, allowed him to glare at them briefly in turn.

"Fools," Jesper said as Kaz approached from a game he'd been manning that was close to the bar. He slid into the U-shaped booth beside you, passed you a glass of iced red wine. "The mask. They've been glaring at you til you've put it back on, eh?"

"A couple weeks now, yep," you admitted. "I thought I was secure. I thought I'd stopped hating the scar and started loving it, but now I don't even feel comfortable going without around you lot. My mask is more of a crutch then it normally is."

"Itching powder will do the trick with them, then," Wylan said determinedly.

"Or a gun to the head," Jesper offered.

"Knife to the throat," suggested Inej.

"A bit of heartrender magic would do it silently and from enough distance so as not to be on the Stadwatches list of persons of interest," Nina said pointedly.

"Fjerdan might would risk a trip to Hellgate, but you love me enough that Brekker would break me out," Matthias countered. "...Again."

"I would not," Kaz said.

"You would if I asked," you said pointedly, finger ghosting over the scar that you'd gradually grown to feel insecure about. Kaz only shrugged as you took a sip of your iced wine, refusing to admit that you were right.

"The scar makes you look wonderful," Jesper said. "I mean--of course you looked wonderful without it, but you look wonderful with it, too. Those people can get stabbed in the jugular, honestly."

"It makes you look intimidating," Nina said. "Especially in the right lighting. I mean that as a compliment, of course. Being intimidating in the Barrel is necessity but nobody ever really looks it lately."

"It's a sign," Matthias said. "For Fjerdans, a scar is a point of pride. It means you fought against someone and you won against them."

"I'll kill them if you'd like me to," Inej offered. "Or let Kaz do it. He looks like he wants to, anyway."

"No murder for tonight," you said.

"Three bells hits and all bets are off," Wylan said. "We'll be done with the job at half past two."

"Sounds good enough to me," Kaz said. "I'll get Anika and Pim to get them drunk and gambling. Drunkards stumble and fall over quick, but with Inej's and Jespers combined skills and some of Wylans itching powder, we'll be set."

"Why the gambling?" Nina asked.

"They've made Y/N self conscious. They're dying anyway, and I'll make a point of stealing their wallets beforehand. More loot for us to split in the end."

"So the demjin remains demonic," Matthias said.

"His demonic tendencies are being put to good use in this case," Nina said. "Y/N, we'll grab tea while the rest of them do their killing. Wylan, you'll come with us. We need you to start a rumor."

"What rumor?"

"That to think ill of Y/N and their scar, to express that through glaring or doing anything verbosely that might make them feel insecure, is to die. Kaz, Jesper, Inej, and I will be the ones doing the killing if Y/N doesn't want to do it themself."

"Work my bombs into that and I'll do it," Wylan agreed as Kaz checked his watch.

The time flew past easily, and before you knew it, you were getting up to finish the job.

In the end, between Kaz's ruthlessness, Jespers impeccable aim and Inejs skill with her knives, those who'd glared at you were unrecognizable by five bells that morning.

[just-1other-nerd]

I want to talk about the morals of the crows real quick

Kaz is very ruthless, especially when it comes to achieving a goal. He is a means to an end guy. But he doesn't like slavery, especially forced prostitution. He looks after his crew (one overlooked example is that he makes the slat warm and dry, which shows that he also cares about the less important members of the Dregs). He holds his end of the deal. He awards and appreciates the people who are loyal to him (once again not just the inner circle, because he also gives Rotty and Specht each a half of the money that was originally intended for Per Haskell). He works for his own good and for the good of the people he cares about, so even if he does something good, like smuggle Grisha out of Ketterdam, it is oftentimes because of selfish reasons or because it's beneficial for him. He doesn't follow any religious rules because he's an atheist. The law and the government didn't protect him and Jordie, so he breaks it with pleasure.

Inej is a woman of faith, and she tries to live by it as much as she can. She only kills when it's self-defense, and she prays for forgiveness (and maybe also the souls of the people she killed, I'm not sure). She knows what's right and what's wrong, but she also knows that sometimes good people have to do wrong things for the greater good. She knows slavery is bad, so she hunts slavers. She knows stealing and threatening are bad but she does it anyways because it is her way out of the indenture and because people like van Eck or Pekka Rollins deserve to be robbed and threatened and because people like Kuwei (and his father) deserve freedom. She works mainly for the greater good of the world but sometimes for herself and the people she loves. When she is free to choose, she always wants to improve things and do something positive even if she has to threaten people. Inej doesn't give a shit about the law because it never protected her, other slavery victims and the Suli.

Jesper has loose morals. He likes the thrill and adrenalin rush of Barrel life, gambling and fights. That leads him to do bad things like killing, which he doesn't enjoy or being in great debt because he made bad decisions. But even if he doesn't show it to others all the time, he constantly feels guilty. Jesper's motivated by working for himself and the people he loves. He doesn't really give a shit about the world as long as it doesn't affect himself. That's mainly because of his trauma about the death of his mother but also because he feels like he can't do anything about the state of the world. He wants to be better and he tries. He's not following any religious rules. He still likes to break the law because it's fun and exciting.

Wylan isn't a pacifist because, on a logical level, he knows that the world doesn't work like that and that that means that violence is necessary sometimes. But he'd still prefer talking it out, and when that could actually solve the problem, he sure as hell tries. He doesn't want innocents to get hurt. He doesn't want to participate in violence if not necessary for the goal. So when he has the chance to leave the criminal world, he does, and he distances himself from that as we can see in RoW. But that scene also shows that he is willing to break the law for his friends but he doesn't want more trouble so he abides it in general but not because he believes in it, like he works with the idiots of the Merchant Council on a daily basis and knows that they're incompetent and/or greedy. He doesn't follow religious rules but has a strong moral compass.

Nina is a soldier and patriot, but she still sees errors in the system and has sympathy for the enemy. She is willing to leave a seemingly endless war behind her in order to be happy even though she knows it'll hurt, leaving her beloved country behind. She wants to save Fjerda even if it took Matthias from her because she promised. She is a soldier, which means she is okay with killing the enemy if they don't show regret or decency. She fights for her people, her loved ones and the greater good. She is a spy, so she is okay with lying if it serves the cause. She does have borders she won't cross, but there is still a lot she is willing to do (gaslight and girlboss Fjerda for the next couple of decades). If she's home, Nina follows the Ravkan law in general even though she can ignore direct orders if she thinks she knows better. She isn't very religious and even willing to use religion to manipulate people into not discriminating against Grisha. She doesn't give a shit about the laws of Ketterdam or Fjerda.

Matthias is a soldier, a patriot and a man of faith. But his love for his country and Djel were exploited, and he was manipulated into doing bad things and hating Grisha. But whenever it came to normal people and animals, he always had a strong moral compass that even the Drüskelle couldn't destroy. He learns that his country is corrupt and he discovers the right way of Djel. He wanted to fight for the people he loves, for the country he loves and the God he loves. He didn't want to hurt innocents. That never changed he just began to see that he hurt people because someone lied to him when they said those people are evil and unnatural. Honour is very important to him. If it's necessary, he will use violence (like surviving the hell show, breaking into the ice court, fighting evil people like Van Eck and Pekka Rollins, etc.). If he thinks the law is something good, he will abide by it, if he discovers it's corrupted, he won't.

That's why I think Matthias is the real cinnamon roll of the crows.

Bonus: Kuwei just doesn't give a shit. He isn't religious, the law never protected him or his father and if he doesn't want to talk, he'll straight up pretend to not speak your language.

[formulatrash]

What's your take on the hockey booktok thing? Since you mentioned it on twt

my initial take would be that all these people scare me so much I don't want to get into it but also people keep messaging me to be like did you know people ship carlando" off the back of it and yes. I did know that.

my understanding of what's happened on booktok, which I absorb any information about only twice a year during whatever version of this is blowing up at the time, is pretty limited. partly because I'm not on tiktok and partly because I can't read. but the crux of it seems to have come down to people writing disgustingly thirsty comments on a hockey player and his wife's posts, regardless of what they were about, somehow feeling empowered to be horny not just on main but in someone's face because of booktok.

that's, clearly, not remotely acceptable. if there are communities of people out there that thirst about me I don't know about them (although the cold tendrils of horror about the Wikifeet page have just gripped me and no, oh god, that isn't the phrase I should've used at all get me out of here) but there are loads of people who fucking hate my guts. that's like, fine, it's their own business; if they keep it on discord or whatever and away from me it doesn't do me any harm. lord knows, I have committed the act of hating and indeed being horny, sometimes simultaneously, when I was at a safe enough distance for none of the subjects to ever know.

this is a thing about fandom. if you post "Max Verstappen looks breedable" on here then he's extraordinarily unlikely to ever see it or probably know what it means. if you comment that on Kelly's instagram posts, even if you don't like her and even if that's for valid reasons, that's very different.

as I gather it, the booktok thing has exploded into RPF in general. which, I gotta say, RPF and sexually harassing a dude and his family are in fact very different things. one has a rich history, both as actual ways of telling history (Anthony and Cleopatra: RPF, Chernobyl: RPF, the god damn Gran Turismo movie is RPF about an uncomfortably large number of people I know IRL and to be fair it looks like it slaps I'm gonna see it) and as a longstanding artform. RPF's history of horny is even extremely longstanding, with obscene RPF being used by both the French and Russian revolutionaries to undermine the concept of royal divinity.

RPF is political because it involves an interpretation of real events and people. and the perspective from which that's written will always be political. RPF can, certainly, be feminist; there's quite a lot of retellings of classical stories that fit this. RPF can, also, be fucking weird horny shit. or terrible man takes. or incredible, tender, queer retellings; Kaz Rowe's graphic novel about real-life surrealist Claude Cahun is an obvious example of the latter. Pride, the film about the miners' strikes and the AIDS crisis, is another.

so yeah, it is a legitimate and recognised form of literature and art and also uhhhh. well. I mean the omegaverse is definitely recognised, legally, in court because of that one case but I don't know that even its fiercest enthusiasts would really be all that keen on describing it. not as like, literature or anything just I think most people would rather literally never have an IRL conversation about that. ever.

I'm not 1000% clear on how carlando got into this but clearly that's broken containment a long time ago anyway. when you had Sky doing love heart interviews 15 races into them being teammates or whatever, there was an obvious amount of gay chicken being played by the producers that frankly, as a queer person in motorsport, I'm a lot more comfortable with the fan version of.

no, obviously, I do not think they are dating - or want to think that tbh - but frequently-queer fans projecting the wish fulfilment of seeing a kinder and more representative world for their desires, in places hidden from the subjects, is a lot less weird than leering, laughed-at dating questions and milk baths. in an ideal world it wouldn't have to be a secret, yearned-for alternative because things would be safe and open enough for there to be real queer stories everywhere but that, unfortunately, is not the one we currently live in.

wish fulfilment and telling stories are not the same things, necessarily. sometimes you tell the stories to remind yourself it's ok to have wishes or to work out what those even are. I don't think there's anything necessarily harmful about what names the characters have in those, provided the line between reality and any real people's privacy is kept.

clearly, with the booktok thing, that's where things went extremely wrong. generally tiktok as a whole seems to have a very odd perception about other people's agency, whether it's pranking videos or like the girl who filmed people peeing at Spa. if you regard everyday people as content opportunities (spoiler: the law does not think this and particularly in the EU you cannot film people without their consent) then I guess it's easy to slide over to seeing an athlete as a target for what I suspect very few of the people doing it recognised as very unpleasant and invasive harassment.

there's nothing wrong with fancying athletes. there's nothing even wrong with sexualising them, provided you respect some boundaries and provided it's not part of the conditions of their working contracts. there's a lot of difference between there being a discord where, idk, people say Mitch Evans is hot (he is, although somewhat implausibly he genuinely does not know this) and sponsors for female tennis players wanting them to wear revealing outfits and stay skinny or teenage girls being encouraged into provocative photoshoots by people who promise them roles, etc. teenage male athletes being pressured into doing things they don't want to yet or maybe at all to prove they're men, queer athletes being forced to hide who they are or repress it entirely.

would it be a little bit odd to find RPF of yourself? yes. I won't lie, I would judge the characterisation. I already do judge that on the frankly very weird things people write about me. you have never seen RPF as strange as the narratives people will make up about you in the comments of an article about hydrogen and frankly those scare me a lot more than whether someone thinks I'd be assigned beta or whatever.

stumbling across something, rather than having explicit sexual fantasies forced into your face, especially on what's your own social media pages where people you know in real life can see them, is very different though. some people who engage with RPF cross lines, whether that's weird conspiracy stuff about girlfriends being faked or stalking people's friends accounts etc.

RPF doesn't inherently cross lines, even when it's public; there's a very interesting interview here with Jann Mardenborough and the guy who plays him in the Gran Turismo movie about, among other things, portraying a fatal crash he was involved in. clearly, Jann is not only aware of but is the executive producer of what's ultimately fiction about himself and there's an ownership there, of course. but some parts of the movie are made up, for sure.

obviously I'm like, the not-very-secret infiltrator here because clearly I am On Tumblr and know what AO3 is. I follow a bunch of people who write fanfic because they also make nice gifs of my favourite blorbos and I like to think we can all make peace with our own boundaries about that kinda thing. also I read every single Shane/Ryan fic in like 5 weeks and honestly, not going to apologise except to myself for persisting with a few that didn't pay off.

but like: you do not have to make RPF or any fandom activity unethical. the way you conduct yourself does that and some people step way out of line.

[brekker-by-brekkerr]

general messy thoughts about sab s2 (spoilers ahead)

Things I liked:

- Genya. Daisy Head SLAYED completely she was SO GOOD. I didn’t like them downplaying her scars and I wished we had gotten the line “I am not ruined I’m ruination” especially knowing how much that line means to so many people but other than that Genya was everything Daisy did an INCREDIBLE job of playing her. I actually got teary-eyed at several points this season (and me and my emotions are not at all close so that’s a feat) and they were all either Genya or GenyaDavid scenes, which brings me to…

- Genya and David. They were so good. So wholesome. The best part of this season IMO. Like their brief scenes, them hugging in the woods, the tiniest moments STOLE the show. I cried for these two and these two alone. Also, David was so well-portrayed like I loved these two so much. 

- Several soft Malina moments that gave me butterflies and I felt accurately showed their dynamic, more toward the beginning of the season but they were there.

- Jack Wolfe as Wylan. I have some not-so-positive thoughts about the aged-up crows in general, but I still think Jack was a convincing Wylan and you can tell from both the show and from his interviews that he really cares about Wylan and his portrayal. Every time he LOOKED at Jesper I was like…wow just WOW.

- Getting to see Nina interacting with the Crows was nice. Especially when they turn around and she has waffles and Kaz has that annoyed moment but then we find out Nina got them the info they needed because she’s a spy and she’s incredible? 10/10 and one of the few moments that felt accurate to the real crows. Also, that part where she was talking to the guard and pretending she needed to pee (idk that was a weird way to describe it I know) but that was so Nina

- Also, just them together in a restaurant vibing was what I needed

- “The barrel doesn’t belong to kings. It belongs to bastards.”

- Tolya and Tamar were so cool in their introduction like they’re so hot and cool and powerful ahh

- When Genya, Alina, and Zoya are all at the Darling’s funeral pyre that was chilling

- The slivers of foreshadowing with Zoya.

Things I didn’t like:

- The weird slow motion in some of the fight scenes was so unnecessary lol

- Okay I’m not a fan of the Darkling and I’ve made that quite clear in the past, but I do think he’s a good and interesting villain and I like the Flavour he adds to the story but this season the Flavour was just…not there. It’s funny how many Darkling stans I’ve seen angry about this season because for once we’re in agreement. Like he was so boring and weird and just creepy instead of interesting and creepy? I wanted to skip all his scenes. Also, they took out so many of the awful things he did in the books like what about him killing Ana Kuya? When he says “you’ll have no shelter but me” that line hits so much harder and is so much more chilling and awful because he’s literally killing off the people in her life. Turning Nikolai into a monster himself?? The moment Alina loses her powers in the books and the Darkling tells her she’s nothing is SO IMPORTANT because it shows he’s just interested in her for her powers, which is a big theme in the books. As wonderful as Nikolai is, he needs Alina for what she can provide for Ravka. The Apparat just sees her for her power. Everyone wants to use Alina for something except for Mal who just wants them to be happy and able to make their own choices. Anyways, the Darkling didn’t feel like the Darkling from the books at all. Also, he was just cringy. Like I was laughing when he was like “I have returned. And I’ve made some new friends” and stared at the camera it was so bad.

- Ruin & Rising is my favourite from the trilogy and I was so disappointed with how much was cut out for the most random crap, like hallucinating and eating butterflies?? Instead of the bonding time with the whole TGT crew? And no Oncat I’m crying. There’s so much character growth that happens and so many relationships that are deepened in Ruin & Rising and WHERE WAS THAT?

- Personally, I didn’t think Paddy was giving Nikolai. Like he seems like a good person and actor and all that jazz but he just didn’t feel like Nikolai and since Nikolai is my favourite, this kind of hurt.

- Erasing Mal from the story and his struggles. Look, Mal is not by any means a perfect character. And he doesn’t need to be. Let him be messy. Let him struggle and sometimes be rude and make mistakes because that’s real that’s compelling. They could have shown all the book!Mal haters that maybe they were being too harsh on him because he was struggling SO MUCH but instead they just turned him into Perfect Supportive Man. His character growth in Ruin & Rising is so good especially after you’ve spent Siege & Storm thinking “what is going on with this man.” Seeing him owning up to his actions and seeing him working on his flaws and seeing his support for Alina is so good and we deserved it especially considering how talented Archie is.

- Cutting Zoya almost completely out, especially since this is the book where she goes through a lot of growth. Also, the fact that Alina choices they’re making are cutting into Zoya’s future story >:(

 Things I HATED:

- Killing off David. WTF. Obviously we didn’t see a body so he might come back but like…what’s the point. We didn’t even get to see Genya and David get married.

- Almost all of the Crows content. The rushed Crooked Kingdom plotlines with none of the significance from the books. Rushed Wesper. Matthias working with Pekka. Nina’s character completely revolving around Matthias. Kanej focusing on Kaz’s trauma but not Inej’s and making her contract with the Menagerie all about Kaz and his vendetta against Pekka and killing off Tante. Actually, pretty much everything Kanej this season was so awfully handled. Also, just not a fan of the Crows being aged up and I tried to be okay with it but this season made me more upset with the casting choices. The Crows stuff was so so so badly done I want to cry. Comfort rereading the duology right now

- The ending. Just…frick the ending. I hate it. Too many thoughts I just hate it I can’t even talk about it

- I’ve already reblogged a lot of posts that go into things I hated but just in general it was such a mess they combined too many stories without doing them justice and there’s more I’m upset about but this is it for now