#well it might be a narratively interesting decision and part of the thrill - but it is not one that I wish to partake in see?

[taldigi]

You like Five Nights at Freddy's? I thought you hated horror?

Yes.

[keplercryptids]

the more i run ttrpgs, especially in systems other than d&d 5e, the less i'm interested in a culture of secret-keeping at the table.

by that i mean, characters can and should have narrative secrets. that can lead to plot hooks, character growth, etc. characters having (temporary) secrets can be a good thing, but i don't think players should have narrative secrets between them, as a general rule.

when the players have more knowledge than their characters, they can make more interesting narrative decisions. they can choose to explore certain themes, start specific conversations or introduce interesting parallels that they simply would not be able to do otherwise.

i started implementing this culture shift with my newest campaign by being upfront with my players that "secret" back stories weren't going to be a thing. in fact, we played a couple sessions for each PC, exploring elements of their back story. these are details that the characters don't know about each other, but now the players do. it's been a blast, everyone is so much more invested in each other's characters and their stories, and there literally hasn't been a single downside to this approach. like. IMO we're just immediately telling a better, more cohesive story.

with PCs, a general rule of thumb i follow is that any secrets the players keep from each other should be: 1) rare, 2) relatively unimportant to the overall story, and 3) resolved quickly during play. meaning: if you do have a secret, you won't have it for long.

as the GM, of course there will be some secrets **i** have to keep from the players - but honestly, i'm finding that with this culture shift, i also have fewer secrets. part of that is that we're playing scum and villainy, where by design a lot more information is shared with the players about the machinations of the world, etc. but part of it is that i am finding a lot of fun and fulfillment in letting my players know more than i might have when i first started GMing.

for example. in our campaign setting, everybody has a shadow signifier, meaning that their shadows take on a unique shape/symbol. my players have access to a document listing a bunch of factions in the world, as well as notable NPCs and their signifier shadows. last session, i introduced NPCs with fake names or completely unknown identities, but visible signifiers. and it was honestly a thrill for all of us once the players caught on and began searching for these signifiers within that document, and gaining meta knowledge of who these NPCs actually were. having this knowledge 1) is much more interesting for the players, and 2) can make it so the characters start exploring areas of the world they may not have known to explore.

i think belligerent secret-keeping is kind of a d&d cultural staple, and this is partly out of fear of "metagaming." but the more i GM, the less and less i care about metagaming, and in fact am starting to embrace it. some of the gameplay is more fun if it's meta. the story is often better when it's one we're telling on purpose. i trust my players not to use meta information in a way that's unfun, they trust me to divulge information in a fair and balanced way, and it feels much more like we're all on the same team and learning things about the world at the same time.

regardless of systems i play in the future, i am going to keep "no out-of-character secrets" as a blanket rule from now on.

[greatwyrmgold]

Ten years of Noah Caldwell-Gervais

It's remarkable how little the video essays of Noah Caldwell-Gervais have changed over the last decade.

Obviously, there have been some changes.

When I went on a(nother) NCG binge last month, the only difference that stood out to me immediately was the audio—both that NCG has upgraded his recording equipment and that early NCG videos included audio from the background game clips, sometimes loud enough to drown out his commentary. It's a weird choice that I assume he made because he didn't want to speak over dead air and couldn't find any royalty-free music that fit the tone well enough; I'm glad he changed his mind.

When I started looking, I saw other little things. The pace of his dictation has slowed (I want to say by about a quarter?), making his feature-length diatribes easier to parse. Counter to this, his older videos would often play whole cutscenes to display his point. (Not just once in a blue moon, like with that RE5 scene; sometimes twice in a row, like in the AVP vs. AVP vs. ACM video.) While Caldwell-Gervais didn't delve into "traditional gamer complaints" about DLC and "lazy devs" and such very often, their density has decreased over time, as has his willingness to give questionable design decisions a pass for good intentions. Early NCG was less likely to research games he couldn't personally play (his CoD video from 2015 only mentions that he couldn't play CoD 3, for instance). The early videos also had an in-person introduction, while newer videos integrate the important parts of that introduction into the script.

And of course, Noah himself has changed over the past decade—it's been a busy ten years, his opinions about games, their place in the world, and that world have shifted in ways that influence his commentary.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Caldwell-Gervais still writes long video essays about entire franchises, albeit now with confidence that his audience will watch a single video for 3-8 hours if he finds enough to say about a series.

He still weaves all those facts about the game in with what development details he can dig up and context from outside the video game subculture to frame his insights as narratives about the franchises and their creators.

He still talks about highbrow literature-class stuff like tone and theme, contrasted with an obvious love for the lowbrow thrills of shooty bang bang. He still accepts "dumb" games, criticizing them for being dumb only when it clashes with other elements/ambitions of the game. (Or when they really punch the boulder.)

With the exception of a few in-video callbacks, he still avoids in-jokes, irrelevant memes, and other elements which might make his work seem inaccessible to newcomers or dated to latecomers. He'll reference current events and recent releases from time to time, so the videos aren't really timeless, but they're not time-locked, either.

He still focuses on shooters and RPGs, with a strong interest in horror and occasional dips into story-dominated titles and the odd pure strategy game. (Also Western games, notable less for their prevalence in NCG's body of work and more for the fact that he's covered both Red Dead Redemption and Call of Juarez, darn near the only notable video game series set in the Old West.)

He still plays the action games with a level of skill that seems reasonable to me, but which comment section critics say is so abysmal that his opinions about action games shouldn't count (except where they agree with the critic's).

Caldwell-Gervais still references film and other media as comparisons to most games he covers. He still shows affinity for Americana, particularly the arid landscapes of the Southwest, and also Western movies.

He still has a largely positive outlook, focusing on games and series worth praising when he can and looking for the best aspects of even the worst games he covers. To this end, he still tries to find the game's level and meet it there. And yet, when a game fails on every level or aims well below its potential, he will still criticize it for those disappointments.

He still focuses on how the different elements of a game interact, prioritizing that over the sum of his parts. He still likes to point out when mechanics, aesthetics, themes, or plot points that work in one title undermine a very similar work—or contrarily, when things that sank one rescued another. It's all about context.

He's still relentlessly critical of corporate bullshit, whether that's publishers forcing Marketable™ elements into a context that doesn't artistically support them or executives maintaining and concealing an abusive work environment.

And of course, he still starts each video with a shot of some hand-written title card, set to thematically-appropriate music that almost certainly gets every video copyright claimed.

Some things are hard to quantify.

In an absolute sense, the filmography (youtography?) of the infamously hidebound Doug Walker has changed more over the years. But that's the kind of fact that conceals more than it reveals.

Walker adds new tools to his toolbelt and throws new ideas into his productions, but the fundamentals stay the same. He makes the same kinds of complaints, tells the same kinds of jokes, films the same kinds of shots. He doesn't try to improve his media literacy, or his writing, or his cinematography. Or his white-balancing.

Part of why Caldwell-Gervais's old videos hold up so much better than 2013 Walker videos (or 2022 ones) is that Caldwell-Gervais started at a much higher level of quality—fewer moving parts than even pre-Demo-Reel Nostalgia Critic, with every piece mastered. (Except audio.)

But part is that Caldwell-Gervais has improved, and not just with audio. I can't put my finger on it, but something about his writing has changed. His older videos feel more superficial, more focused on the games for their own sake and what works or doesn't work for a given genre or franchise. His newer ones feel like they're trying to be deeper, to go beyond individual video games and use them to say something about gaming as a whole, or even the world beyond.

And unlike Walker, NCG's efforts to Do More are backed by the skill, effort, and attention to detail needed to pull them off. I rewatch NCG's older videos out of a self-destructive sense of completionism, or a desire for familiar background noise. I rewatch his newer videos because they're interesting, even on subsequent rewatches.

[anddreadful]

I'm curious, I really like all your dnd characters, and I was wondering how you come up with them! Do you write all your own backstory and motivations?

thank you!! I adore inflicting my blorbos on people online and i’m always thrilled to hear that they enjoy it. the short answer is yes— I like to leave gaps in my backstory for my DMs to exploit, and obviously those DMs are running the overall story, but my PCs (player characters) are all original characters of mine, and their assorted bullshit is entirely up to me. (in case it’s unclear, that only applies to my PCs, Teddy and Aster being the ones I mostly talk about On Here. Clay, Borakov, Strahd, etc are all created and run by friends who are generous enough to occasionally let me gnaw on their characters like chew toys).

"How I come up with them" varies a lot! One of my PCs, Tailor, is a repurposed side character from an old book I was writing (which was itself inspired by Alice in Wonderland -- he was the Mad Hatter character). With my storm sorcerer Marin, I knew I wanted to do an Ocean Aesthetic, so I gave her a mysterious shipwrecked-with-amnesia backstory and a pirate found family. Teddy's backstory is lightly plagiarized from Alina's in Shadow & Bone, and Aster's antiquities expert background and general archetype is inspired by Evelyn in the Mummy. Like coming up with any character, it's just a game of picking one cool thing and then scaffolding out other elements that interest you and complement the core idea.

And what's great is that character creation is just coming up with a STARTING PLACE. A PC's Whole Deal emerges over time, a combination of discovery and deliberate choice that's really fun to craft.

These days, I try to keep my backstories to a tight 2-3 paragraphs with 1-3 meaningful NPCs. I've done the long convoluted backstory thing with Tailor, and it turned out very cool -- my DM knocked it out of the park incorporating everything -- but I wouldn't do it again. Aster, my most recent character, has probably the most minimal backstory I've ever done. I wanted to do something simple and strong, do it well, and be free from the traditional backstory resolution D&D arc in favor of whatever else the campaign is going to throw at her.

I love that you mention motive! Puzzling out what my characters want and feel as the story progresses is sooooo fun for me. Inbetween sessions I try to look at what's happened in game lately and ask what it changes for my character, logistically or emotionally, and how I can incorporate that moving forward. And this has increasing returns! Over time, asking myself a lot of small questions about how I want them to react, why they might do that or feel that way, and then playing that out -- taking into account all the improv RP decisions that happen along the way!! -- builds up to a strong sense of who they are. And that becomes REALLY helpful when dramatic narrative choices have to be made in-game.

This is a big part of all the fic and meta I write -- it's an exercise in bringing into alignment what's happening in game and my conception of who these characters ARE in a detailed, specific way. Because the better I can reconcile them, the more they'll feed each other and make each other richer and more interesting, and the easier and better my realtime RP will be. Of course, this is an optional thing I do for funsies, and it doesn’t pay to overthink it -- this stuff is organic and always evolving, and we’re here to have fun at the table first and foremost. BUT it’s super rewarding for me and has become a huge part of why I enjoy the game so much.

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Aleksander Season 2 Interview Theories/Analysis

(Book Spoilers, including Demon in the Woods) 

I want to talk about a recent interview I read and some of the things Ben said in it about the darkling and darklina because honestly after reading it I was feeling pretty conflicted but I think there are some really intriguing bits of info in there and some interesting topics that are brought up.

A couple of things he said that did make me happy clap and get excited over was this: 

The Darkling can be the villain, but that doesn’t make him less compelling a character. And for Barnes, that starts with the books – but it’s also reflected in the stylistic choices the show makes. For example, the kefta the Darkling is wearing in Season 2, “has the little gold thread sewn through what was all black before.” That’s intentional, and Ben sees it as Kirigan and Alina “leaving a piece of each other” in one another. Not only that, he added that for his character, “that’s a very difficult thing to shake.”

“She was representative of something hopeful to him, something he really did put stock in — her power and who she was — and really felt that they started something which might have made a difference to what he was hoping to achieve.” But at the end of the day, as Barnes put it “with this kind of villainy, he believes in his agenda and is willing to suffer the consequences of chasing it.”

What I loved about this part of the interview is that its things that the darklina fandom have picked up on and had discussions around themselves. We’ve talked about how we thought the gold thread symbolised how there was a piece of the other in each of them and we’ve talked about how Alina represented hope to Aleks and how he really did think they could change the world for the better together. It’s always a bit of a thrill when you see an actor or someone involved in the show confirming what you as a fan and fandom have speculated about, so I was really excited to see him talking about this.  

There was something else that Ben said though that I think raises a topic I don’t think is talked about enough in the grishaverse fandom. 

For both Alina and Genya, the “big bad” is the Darkling, but Barnes shared that the Darkling doesn’t see himself as the villain. “Like all really kind of toxic villains he believes himself to be the victim,” he told us. And he finds someone else to blame for his actions, or for the decisions he’s made. “And then when it comes to Alina, he feels their connection and sees something of himself in her, but I think he discovers that if he’s not going to be able to kind of dig out an old version of himself who is capable of love, then it’s going to be hate and anger instead, and he’s going to lead with that.”

So the part I want to focus on first is the line ‘he believes himself to be the victim.’ (And just as a side note here I am in no way criticising Ben here its more an observation about the narrative and fandom as a whole then what Ben has said individually.) Here’s what bothers me a little about this statement and that is that Aleksander is a victim. He was the victim in Demon in the Woods when Annika and Lev tried to kill him and wear his bones, he was a victim when the Old King Anastas and his men hunted him down, he was a victim when those King’s men shot him full of arrows, he was a victim when they killed Luda purely because they knew that was someone he loved and it would hurt him to see her die. So my first reaction upon seeing that statement was well of course he sees himself as the victim, he’s been victimised pretty much his entire life. Not only has he had to face people trying to kill him from as young as 13 he also has spent his whole life with people hating and fearing him purely because he is a shadow summoner, by otkazat'sya and grisha alike, he’s been branded with names like heretic and (in the show) darkling and likely never felt welcome anywhere. Despite all that, at the age of 13 he took on his own personal mission of making sure the grisha would one day have a safe place and he never stopped trying to reach that goal. 

I know that the Darkling does some villainous things, I’m not disputing that, but just because he has gone down a darker path himself, due to the trauma he’s faced from others, doesn’t erase that he himself has been the victim, which is something it seems like the narrative and parts of the fandom have forgotten or dismissed. Which brings me to the part about how he (the darkling) always finds someone else to blame for his actions. Again this made me think of another behaviour within the fandom. Two things I have seen antis say quite a bit is that the darkling always plays the victim and that he blames everyone else. But this does show some hypocrisy within the narrative and the fandom. If you go and watch the pilot of season 1 on netflix right now you’ll find that they have added a new animated intro where Aleksander is explaining the creation of the fold. There is one moment where the narration says that the grisha are still hated because of the sins of the black heretic aka the darkling. In the clip from season 2 between Nikolai, Alina and Mal, Nikolai says that the first army has turned on grisha thanks to what the darkling did in the fold. These are arguments we see alot within the fandom too, I’ve seen so many posts saying well if the darkling hadn’t created the fold the grisha wouldn’t be hated now, or if the darkling hadn’t expanded the fold into Novokribirsk then the first army wouldn’t have turned on the grisha. So I find it kind of funny when people make the argument that the darkling is always blaming others for his actions when both the narrative and the fandom do the same thing but to Aleksander. Instead of blaming the first army for attacking the grisha they place more blame on Aleks, instead of blaming Anastas for hunting down grisha they blame Aleks, if a branch falls off a tree in Ravka then it must be Aleks’ fault. The problem with this is they put more blame and spew more hatred towards Aleks for the part he played in it than they do to the actual perpetrator of the crime. Another example of this is the whole thing with him, Genya and the King. Now I am not going to get into the whole debate of whether Aleks knew before he gave Genya to the Queen what the King was like, pretty sure I have another post somewhere on my blog covering it, but one thing that always boggled my mind was how much hate and anger was directed at the darkling for his involvement in it but how little was directed at the King, or at the Queen who also not only turned a blind eye but also made Genya’s life 1000% times worse by switching from doting on her to treating her with disdain and hatred for something that was not her fault. Blaming the darkling for these things diminishes the responsibility of the ones who actually commit the crimes and so people like the King, The Queen, The Apparat, Vasily, The First Army, the Fjerdan’s, The Shu Han, The Grisha slave owners, Anastas etc all have their crimes overlooked, they are ignored by both narrative and fandom alike in favour of instead piling more hatred and blame onto the darkling as if somehow his crimes are worse than all those others commit. So you can maybe make the argument that the darkling blames others for his actions, and sure maybe to some extent that’s true, but the truth is the darkling gets blamed more for others actions than he himself does the blaming.   

Another statement that had me half a little worried and half intrigued is this one: 

In season 2, however, there are no masks. There is no pretending. General Kirigan, aka The Darkling, is going full villain, something Barnes was really excited about. “Those masks have all dropped. And we’re looking at the way he’s sort of being poisoned from within by his literal shadow demons.” But it’s not just the shadow monsters, it’s that the position he finds himself in “affords him the opportunity to tell the truth how he sees it, and sort of really let rip and kind of go full dark on everything because he’s got nothing left to lose.”

So here its talking about how in season 2 the darkling is going to go full villain. One of my biggest complaints about the books was how in the first book the darkling was this really complex and intriguing character who then in subsequent books becomes very 2d villain and my biggest fear about the show adapting the later books was that they would do the same, so the full villain comment did make me a bit concerned. Whilst I think it could be really entertaining to see the darkling drop the mask and stop holding back, I am still hoping they will keep his complexity. From the ‘nothing to lose’ comment it does look like the darkling is going to be a force to be reckoned with and much more dangerous than he was in season 1, which again could be interesting to see. What I do find particularly interesting is the comment about how he is sort of being poisoned from within by his shadow demons. This could be a really interesting concept to explore. In a previous section where it was talking about seeing himself as a victim it also says this:

“And then when it comes to Alina, he feels their connection and sees something of himself in her, but I think he discovers that if he’s not going to be able to kind of dig out an old version of himself who is capable of love, then it’s going to be hate and anger instead, and he’s going to lead with that.”

What’s interesting about this is the part about, if he can’t dig out an old version of himself that is capable of love, its interesting because it suggests that Aleksander does try to get back to that older version of himself and that he tries to do this because of Alina and the connection he feels between them and honestly this kind of makes me want to cry. But it does make me wonder if it ties in with the aforementioned poisoning from his shadows. Maybe part of the reason why he is struggling to get back there is because of the effect the merzost from the shadow demons is having on him, and that is pulling him further from the person he used to be and more towards the hateful, angry side that is fuelling him. From the way Ben is talking here, it sounds like in some ways the anger and hate is a defence mechanism and way of keeping himself isolated so that he doesn’t get too attached to someone he may lose. 

Ben talks more about darklina’s connection in this section:

Season 2 gives them a connection, though, one that Barnes “wanted to sort of ground it in something that felt mindful and kind of meditative. And when he realizes this kind of new power that’s fuelling him,” it doesn’t take long before “they both start to sort of abuse that connection in their own ways, for their own agendas, and both end up basically trying to kill each other.”

“It’s a very unhappy marriage,” he joked.

 I do find it funny that he describes it as a ‘unhappy marriage’ just because of all the marriage, husband/wife, symbolism that was throughout all of season 1. But when he talks about the ‘new power that’s fuelling him’ I do think this is in reference not just to the mind palace but the fact that they are able to use each other’s powers, Alina can summon shadows and Aleks can summon light, even though its not as strong as their own powers. I do think it could be interesting to see Alina and Aleks using this connection for their own agendas and kind of playing this game with each other, a kind of push and pull and dancing around each other, the whole thing could be deliciously complicated. Not sure how I feel about the whole trying to kill each other part but who knows maybe it’ll be a bit like the film Mr & Mrs Smith where they are supposed to kill each other because they are on opposite sides but ultimately because of their feelings for each other they can’t fully commit to actually going through with it. 

Ok last part I want to talk about, I know this is getting a bit long, but this part really piqued my interest: 

Barnes, however, also teased that the Darkling would, later in the season, start to ask “more difficult questions of himself, as he sort of wrestles with his own humanity and mortality.”

I definitely think it could be interesting to see Aleksander start to ask these difficult questions of himself but does anyone else think this sounds like this might hint at a bit of a redemption arc for Aleksander? That he might find himself in this kind of moral conundrum and in the end chooses the good side? I can’t help but wonder/worry that this season will end with Aleksander maybe having a come to the light moment and sacrificing himself for the ‘good guys’. Especially as it talks about wrestling with his own mortality. I mean if I am being honest, personally, I don’t want him to die this season because I really enjoy the character, to me he is the most interesting character on the show and I just don’t think I would enjoy the show as much without him in it. Not to mention what on earth would I do with this blog like 90% of it is me overanalysing Aleksander’s character? I wouldn’t mind actually seeing a situation where Aleks gets a sort of redemption at the end of this season and then next season they add a new villain where Alina’s crew have to work with Aleks’ in order to defeat them. It could create this really interesting, uneasy alliance where they have to struggle with their differences and their past wrongs for the sake of the greater good. Can you imagine, Nikolai, Alina and their guys working alongside Aleks and his grisha as well as having to work alongside the crows, come on you know there could so many interesting interactions between so many different characters.  

Anyway that’s all I got for now, I am getting a bit more excited for the season as we get nearer, only three more days to go. 

[linuxgamenews]

The Heirloom: a Mysterious and Thrilling Story with Puzzle Elements

The Heirloom Steam page is now live for the mysterious thriller adventure game on Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the skilled crew at Babubi Games for bringing this exciting project to life. Now available to Wishlist on Steam. Babubi' debut title, The Heirloom Steam page is now live. And it's looking fantastic. Let's dive in and see what makes this title stand out on Linux. First off, The Heirloom Steam page outlines that this is not your typical adventure. It's a single-player title, while weaving a mysterious and thrilling story with puzzle elements. Think about those moments in life where your choices really matter. Well, this title takes that concept and turns it into an art form. Since each decision impacts the storyline in ways you might not expect. The story? It's captivating. We follow Marla and her brother Jack, two orphans who find themselves under the care of their reclusive, secret-keeping grandpa. This setting is no ordinary place; it's an old, eerie house, teeming with secrets and hidden corners. So, after a series of tragic events, Marla and Jack are uprooted from their home and whisked away to a remote town in Scotland, right in the heart of the Inner Hebrides.

The Heirloom — Gameplay Teaser the Steam page

But it's not just the location that's interesting. The atmosphere here is inspired by Scottish folklore, which adds a rich, cultural texture to the narrative. As the siblings settle into their new life, they start witnessing bizarre and downright spooky occurrences. It's clear that something's amiss, and it's up to you to uncover the truth behind these mysteries and your family's past, especially regarding your grandpa's old lighthouse. What I like about The Heirloom are the dialogues, which you can see on the Steam page. They're a mix of emotional depth, eccentricity, and humor, making the characters feel real and relatable. The title's visual style is another high point. The hand-drawn graphics are stunning, giving every scene a personal touch. And the interactive cutscenes? They're just the cherry on top, due to drawing you deeper into this intriguing world. The gameplay mechanics are a unique blend, ensuring that your experience remains fresh and engaging throughout. Since it's not just about solving puzzles; it's about being part of a living, breathing world where your choices shape the narrative. The Heirloom is due to release across multiple platforms via Steam page, including Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. And for those wondering about Steam Deck compatibility, the developers are already on it, though confirmation will come later. Promising an immersive, choice-driven mysterious thriller adventure set in a richly atmospheric world. Whether you're a fan of mystery, folklore, or just love a well-crafted story, this is one title you won't want to miss. Keep an eye on The Heirloom Steam page and Wishlist the game on Steam.

[charlesbarnett]

Educating with a Melody - The Inspiring Story of a Middle School Teacher Who Once Rocked the Stage

In the broad and complex realm of education, there are educators who persistently push beyond the traditional boundaries of imparting knowledge. Their inspiring stories often transcend the confines of the classroom, weaving a rich narrative of unyielding passion, unwavering dedication, and a profound impact on the lives of their impressionable students. One such inspiring figure with a remarkable story that intertwines an academic career and artistic pursuits is Charles Barnett Greenville SC. A steadfast middle school teacher, he stands out not only for his prowess in the academic realm, but also for an unexpected, captivating facet of his multifaceted life – his intriguing past as a rock musician.

He is a man of many talents, effortlessly blending the worlds of academia and music to create an extraordinary learning experience for his students. With his captivating lectures and unwavering dedication to their intellectual growth, he leaves a lasting impact on their educational journey. However, hidden beneath this scholarly demeanor lies an intriguing chapter in his life that unfolded on an entirely different stage - that of a rock band. In the evenings, he would trade his textbooks for a guitar, rocking out with his bandmates and immersing himself in the raw energy of live performances. This unexpected passion for music adds a depth and richness to his character, shaping him into the remarkable educator he is today.

Before stepping into the classroom, Charles Barnett Greenville SC was no stranger to the spotlight. His journey began in the world of music, where he honed his skills as a guitarist and vocalist, participating in a rock band that gained local recognition. The pulsating energy of live performances, the roar of the crowd, and the camaraderie with fellow musicians were integral parts of his life during those formative years. However, as life often takes unexpected turns, this musician found himself at a crossroads where he had to make a pivotal decision – pursue a career in music or embark on a path of education. Choosing the latter, he set aside his guitar and embraced the role of an educator, ready to impart knowledge and shape the minds of the next generation.

Little could Charles Barnett Education have anticipated that his history as a rock musician would evolve into a unique and potent instrument in his teaching repertoire. The melding of his musical past and his innovative teaching methodologies birthed an unconventional yet captivating approach to education. Rather than treating his musical journey as a diversion from his career path, he embraced it as an asset, a plentiful well of experiences that could be drawn upon to make learning more thrilling and relatable for his students.

In the classroom, this teacher seamlessly incorporates musical elements into his lessons. Whether teaching history, literature, or mathematics, he uses the rhythm and cadence of music to infuse life into seemingly mundane subjects. The walls of his classroom resonate with the harmonious blend of education and melody, creating an atmosphere that transcends the conventional boundaries of learning.

His ability to draw parallels between the world of music and academics has proven to be a powerful tool in capturing the attention and imagination of his students. Concepts that might otherwise be perceived as dry or challenging come alive through the lens of melody, creating an environment where learning is not just a task but an immersive experience.

Beyond the confines of the classroom, this teacher's dual identity as an educator and a former rocker has become a source of inspiration for his students. They witness firsthand that a person can be multi-faceted, possessing talents and interests that extend beyond the confines of their professional identity. This realization opens doors for students to explore their own passions and talents, instilling a sense of confidence and individuality that goes beyond the academic realm.

Charles Barnett Greenville SC, is indeed a charismatic individual with a plethora of talents, adroitly merging the contrasting worlds of education and music to devise a unique pedagogical experience that leaves an everlasting mark on his students. His mesmerizing lectures, which bear the stamp of his unwavering commitment toward the intellectual enhancement of his students, etch an indelible imprint on their educational sojourn. Yet, beneath this academic façade lurks an intriguing past chapter of his life, one penned on a divergent platform – the vibrant stage of a rock band. When the day's scholastic duties were fulfilled, he would exchange his scholarly paraphernalia for the strings of a guitar, harmonizing with his bandmates, and submerging himself in the electrifying essence of live performances.

Moreover, this teacher's story serves as a testament to the idea that one's past need not be discarded when embarking on a new journey. Instead, it can be harnessed to enrich and elevate the present. The synergy between his experiences as a musician and educator creates a narrative that resonates with resilience, determination, and a commitment to continuous growth.

As the echoes of his past performances, filled with applause and admiration, linger in the background, this seasoned teacher gracefully navigates the educational landscape with a unique blend of unwavering humility and infectious passion. With every step taken in the classroom, he weaves together a tapestry of knowledge, experience, and wisdom, inspiring young minds to embark on a transformative journey of growth and discovery.

The unique and impressive story of Charles Barnett Greenville SC, a middle school teacher with a resonating past as a rock band member, brilliantly highlights the metamorphic force of exploring and embracing diverse passions. By incorporating elements of music into his didactic methods, he has not only enriched the educational experience for his students but has also emerged as a beacon of inspiration for educators looking to innovate within their pedagogical practices. Much like a symphony, his presence in the academic world resonates with a captivating melody, reminding us all that education, in essence, is akin to music, possessing the potential to truly captivate hearts and minds when approached with creativity, enthusiasm, and a readiness to embrace the road less traveled.

[sitp-recs]

The Secret Keeper by @the-fools-errand​ / Artwork by @razielim​

Harry/Draco (2021, Mature, 225k)

On Halloween 1981, Albus Dumbledore made a decision that would change the course of history, concealing Harry Potter’s survival at the hands of Lord Voldemort underneath a Fidelius Charm. But when Harry comes of age in the Muggle world, Dumbledore realises too late that the fate of the world may depend on a boy who has never held a wand.

“While I am naught but ghost when by your side,

A shadow o’er your radiance concealed,

Your burden to be seen and mine to hide,

I’d give to you my curse to be your shield.

Are we without the other incomplete,

Or bishops, forced to pass but never meet?”

As someone who a) hasn’t felt any interest in canon rewrites since the glorious Hermione’s Hogwarts Crammer and b) hasn’t read anything over 200k in pretty much a year, I spent the better part of last week utterly and completely absorbed in this fic. My initial idea was to only check 1-2 chapters to get a sense of it and go back once I had more time, next thing I knew I was devouring this as if there’s no tomorrow 😂 despite loving the castle I don’t read Hogwarts fics very often, and now I resent myself for almost forgetting how fun and moving it is to see Muggle Harry exploring the wonders and dangers of the Wizarding World for the 1st time.

It was amazing to see this version of him, witty, defiant, creative and excited to learn, guided by these equally fascinating versions of Draco and Hermione. Both characters are full of nuance and personality, each one with strong virtues and ugly flaws (except Luna - she’s flawless of course) and I’m amazed at how organically and realistically the character development and growing camaraderie were executed. Not to mention the fabulous supporting cast - smart and fierce Charlotte! Morally grey Dumbledore and McGonagall! Plus melancholique Snape, sympathetique Pansy, brave Neville, competent Cedric, and the genius Bard with his poignant love sonnet that inspired this rec banner. Each character feels distinct, complex and unique, and I’m gonna miss them now the Fellowship of the Ring (haha) is over.

For starters the plot is brilliant, simple yet not simplistic, engaging, exciting (did I mention there’s multiverse??? I die) and also effective thanks to alternating POVs and the masterful tension building. It takes a little bit for Harry and Draco to meet in this story, but when they do things are so well established you already know a storm is brewing and hell will break loose sooner or later. The pacing balances moments of calmness and urgency but you watch these two characters learn and change each other, all but waiting for that big reveal moment to come. And because we’re talking about stopping Voldemort, stakes are high and go way beyond the Drarry romance - which is soft in a heartbreakingly young way - and includes Draco’s own redemption arc as he rises to confront his fate.

This is getting too long (as always) but 2 things I need to mention are first, the stunning, vibrant and atmospheric art pieces created by Razielim for this fic - holy wow they capture the fic mood and aesthetics perfectly, and I’m so so pleased that I got to visualize my personal fave scenes. The second big shoutout goes to the delicious nostalgia I got out of all those 80s and 90s references, from movies to football to Sirius’ excellent taste in music without even showing up. On a personal note (honestly, what isn’t in this rec), Rumours by Fleetwood Mac is my all-time favorite album and seeing it in this story filled my heart with such warmth and longing, I suddenly felt seen and realized that this might as well have been written for me, which is such a heartwarming feeling ❤️

Reading this fic took me days but it definitely didn’t feel like 220k either. I’m impressed by how smoothly the narrative combined plot development, thrilling action and slow, tender romance. Every decision made sense and felt earned, leading us through an epic retelling with these characters that feel both foreign and familiar to us. I had a blast reading this, fell in love with these characters, and would love to see this fic getting more attention and praise, especially being the author’s second work in the fandom (and their first completed fic!). Now I’ve done my duty screaming about this, I’m off to check the other two :D enjoy!

Read on AO3

[nabrizoya]

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

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

I will try to be brief (1/12)

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

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

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

Except, RoW failed spectacularly in that aspect.

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

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

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

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

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

Writing and Plotting

The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

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

This can get very looong, so be forewarned.

I. Writing & Plotting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II. The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

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

a) Parem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(...sorry).

b) Grisha Powers

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

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

Welp.

c) Spy business

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

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

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

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

d) Ruthenium and the Blight

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

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

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

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

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

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

e) Women and War:

Holy fucking Shit, where do I start with this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

f) Soldier, Summoner, Saint / Yaromir the Great

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

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

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

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

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

g) The Starless Cult and Saint Worship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III. Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

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

a) Nina

*head in hands*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

b) Zoya

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

+

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

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

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

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

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

+

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

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

+

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

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

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

…?

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

c) Nikolai

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

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

d) Hanne

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now, Kuwei...

....

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

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

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

IV. Remedy

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

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

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

How?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

POTENTIAL !!!

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

But welp.

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

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

Sincerely, thank you!!!

[cerastes]

Among many things in Darknight’s Memoir, I love how the themes, and their effect on the cast, get touched upon in a manner that isn’t entirely explicit but isn’t as crystal clear as you’d expect.

For example, at one point, W was entirely willing to blow herself up to take out the enemy. She didn’t particularly want to, but she was going to do it if it came to it and if she had no other way out. When Ines understandably asks her “are you serious?”, W simply answers “well, if there’s no other way out of this, a kill is a kill, right?”. Contrast this with her attitude later, where her demeanor is as playful and caustic as we’ve come to expect from her, but her decisions, however, her courses of action, change entirely. No more thrill-seeking by riding the Catastrophe’s wind, no more gambles, no more unnecessary risks, she’s come to put a value on her own life beyond being a mercenary in the endless war game of the Kazdel barrenlands, she’s got a mission, something she less needs to accomplish and more that she wants to accomplish.

And that’s an important narrative thread in Darknight’s Memoir: To want. Sarkaz mercenaries, by and large, fight for the next paycheck more than anything, to get by, a client that pays is a good enough client. W herself initially came to Hoederer with the intent on killing him and claiming the bounty on his head. Seeing her prey firsthand and noticing she can’t kill him, she joins him instead. And that’s just natural: Why take on a foe that will likely injure you irreparably or even kill you? Better join up, and go for bigger fish. There’s literally no stakes in that fight. There’s nothing beyond the paycheck, but that also means there’s nothing except the paycheck: You can take it, but you can also leave it. The longer lived Sarkaz know when to take and when to live.

W, at this point, Wanted Nothing. Just being able to go through the motions, through whatever fights came next, was good enough. One of the first scenes we are treated to involves W throwing a team of her own mercenary corps under the bus to make it out alive. As a reader, our first reaction most likely is “wow, what a bastard”, but then you see Hoederer and Ines’ reaction, and it’s simply “oh, yeah, that happens”. It’s completely normal. That just happens in Kazdel and among Sarkaz, it’s the norm. That’s not to say it isn’t appalling, but in the context of Kazdel, that’s just another day in the job.

There’s no Want. Or technically speaking, there’s a very superficial, utilitarian, soulless Want: The next day, the next paycheck, the next meal, the next fight. Who cares about whatever the trillion of ‘noble’ Sarkaz clans are fighting for or peddle? They have their flags and their sigils and their plastic speeches, but they are all the same: The same warriors, the same traitors, the same devils. Whichever pays you, it’s all the same.

That changes when W meets Theresa. The full breadth of their dynamic is not explored in Darknights’ Memoir, but it’s made very clear that seeing the King of Kazdel, the sovereign of all Sarkaz, the noblest of nobles herself, Theresa, hunched over clumsily trying to fix a janky door, had an effect on W. Well, that, and their subsequent dialogue. Theresa was likely the first Sarkaz W met that wasn’t at least romancing a few ways to kill her, that simply wanted to know her name, and a little more about her. To us, Theresa showed the barest of cordialities with a kind demeanor, but to W, it was likely something that sent her brain into a blue screen of death state. She took an interest in Theresa, unlike she ever did with any other Sarkaz, or noble, or even any other person, and she observed her and served her.

And that there is when a pivotal change occurs: Want.

There is now Want. W No Longer Wants Nothing. She wants to see Theresa interact with others, she wants to see her alone, she wants to see how she does this and that, she wants to see her ideals through, she wants to actually believe in what she has to offer, because for the first time, it’s not a paycheck on the other side of the table that’s motivating her, it’s being able to see someone sincerely working towards a noble goal without ulterior motives and without betrayal, someone who actually believes what she preaches. Not long before this particular cutscene, Hoerderer mentions having killed someone that was trying to assassinate him, a guy he knew and that called him his friend, that even said he’d love for him to marry his daughter. This is the Sarkaz Normal. Literally everything is meaningless to the Sarkaz, even camaradeire. Not on Babel, not on that landship. W might as well have seen paradise in Babel, and in Theresa, a Messiah.

And, see, this is what I love about Darknights’ Memoirs: W doesn’t suddenly turn soft. W doesn’t do a 180. W supports the lofty goals of Theresa in the ways she knows, no doubt dyed by Theresa’s colors, but nonetheless using the skills and temperament that comes natural to her. W was born and nurtured by the battlefield, it’d make no sense for her to suddenly discard all of it, but the colors of Theresa are evident from this point on, even after Theresa’s passing.

W never becomes any less ruthless to her enemies, but there’s clearly a change to the melody of her percussive explosives. It’s no longer about the next battlefield, it’s no longer about the next paycheck, no, every move, from there on, has one clear objective: Kill Theresis, for having Theresa killed.

Now, revenge is nice and cold, but there’s a difference in how she’s going about this: As Hoederer mentions he wants out of this sordid lifestyle, W’s first reaction is to lament the loss of a capable hand, but to otherwise tell him that, if he’s getting out, he might as well Take This Specific Route She Knows Is Safest. It’s not the first farewell she’s given her blessing to: In this very conversation, Hoederer muses that W’s turned soft for letting Flamebringer leave without repercussions. While W’s Sarkaz ended up directly killing Scout’s team, Ines herself outright says to Scout that W didn’t have the heart to kill her old Babel ally (and this is an important distinction: Remember that W is loyal to Babel, not Rhodes Island), with W likely half counting on The Ghost of Babel to be able to make it out with his considerable skills (although if we recall what Scout had to say in Operational Intelligence, he seems to have been pretty aware he was going to die one way or another, and accepted this; his lack of regrets make more sense when you consider he IS the reason why RI was able to rescue Doctor at all, thanks to his deal with W so she’d let Rhodes Island pass). W, at this point of Want, is at that point where she’s not losing any sleep if she has to off someone so her cover in Reunion is believable and isn’t blown, but if she can avoid killing RI Operators, she’ll try and take that road (such as her not killing Adnachiel). Obviously, it’s not exactly the most altruistic or heroic of attitudes, but it’s about as good as it gets for, again, someone who used to believe that using her own teammates as cannon fodder to cover her retreat was perfectly normal and expected, even.

Recall the talk Ines and Hoerderer had about flags. Hoerderer says he’d rather forget about their flag, because it’s an empty symbol, and there’s no real flag for him to believe for... Instead, he believes in the flagpole: You could take that to be a very pure representation of Kazdel as a concept, as this eternal, meaningless warzone, where meaningless people wage meaningless conflict for meaningless rewards, create meaningless bonds and ultimately die a meaningless death: The very same man that throws his arm around you, calls you his friend, and tells you to marry his daughter will take a contract on your head the next day. It’s just the flagpole. It’s meaningless. It holds nothing but useless air. A flagpole with no flag is representative of something that has no meaning and no essence, a lone flagpole is exactly that: An ode to being devoid of, bereft of what should be there, but isn’t.

In many ways, as you may have noticed, Hoederer is meant to be a foil to W, and this is no exception: W has a flag, and again, it’s extremely telling that W’s affiliation as an Operator is not Rhodes Island or Kazdel, it’s Babel.

If we can consider Kazdel to mean more than just a physical location, if we can consider Kazdel to represent that meaningless, cruel, harsh style of life and way of death, then so we can consider Babel to be more than simply “Rhodes Island before Rhodes Island”, we can consider Babel to mean the ideology of Theresa, that style of life and way of death, full of meaning, with a clear objective, with a rocky path well worth the bloody trek.

If whenever Hoederer talks about about wanting to “leave Kazdel” as wanting to leave this sordid lifestyle behind once and for all, then thus, W being a part of Babel, despite her contact with Rhodes Island’s Kal’tsit, despite her undercover status as Theresis’ representative of the Sarkaz in Reunion, despite all affiliations, then that means something. And it’s changed her to some degree, sure, but the important change here is not W as a person, but rather, what W chooses to do with what she is and what she can do, successfully breaking out of the endless cycle of meaningless, vapid warfare, participating in it only in order to eventually crush it. Whereas W initially joined Hoederer because she saw herself outgunned, W is actively going against Theresis, even if she is more outgunned than ever, because now she has something she Wants. She could very easily submit to Theresis, but that’s what the past, Want-less W would do, not the current W, driven by Babel.

Because maybe, that’s all that the Sarkaz needed: Not something to believe, because words are cheap and nobles have those a dime a dozen, but someone to believe in. And not just anybody, but someone that can actually promise you more than a meaningless battle the next three weeks, and then deliver with their actions.

Maybe all they need is to Want.

Because sometimes, many times, Wanting is what breaks the stagnant cycle, but do not underestimate how easy it is to forget to Want... Or to never have learned to Want, in the case of the Sarkaz.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

(sees another fandom that I can ask you about and cheers) Orphan Black! Thoughts? I don't know Dr Who but Tatiana is one of my favorite actors period.

Anon you are so sweet! I'm always happy to chat about fandoms and characters and whatnot, and I will never not appreciate the majesty of Tatiana's acting. That is one of the greatest parts of the show hands down.

Orphan Black, to me, is a show that had incredible potential, but didn't really live up to the excitement it created. (Loooong post ahead.)

The thing is, Orphan Black builds a chilling mystery and background, the world it gradually creates as it goes for about the first two seasons, got be very invested and made me wonder a lot about where it was going to go and what the answers were. The setup is brilliant, right from the start with that iconic cold open of Beth's suicide. The unknown is what really helped this show get as thrilling as it was, because the actual answers behind the unknown were kind of hit and miss, and it seemed like far too often, the show just wasn't interested in telling it's story. Hijinks where the clones impersonate each other in slice of life events? That's fun at first and it really works well as they're still getting to know each other. But after a while, it gets tedious, and it seems like the show would rather fuck around and have dance parties (seriously, that scene was such a #BigLippedAlligatorMoment) than focus on the story and the threat that the sisters are facing. Virtually all of Allison's plotlines are like this, they feel like they belong in a different show, and for some reason the writers insisted on giving her one of these storylines like, every season. After Allison passively murders her own friend out of suspecting that she's spying on her, I just don't feel like an arc about her running for some PTA office position even matters. It doesn't feel right.

Speaking of that, here's another example: Donnie. Why did the end of the first season suggest that he was this secret mastermind working for Leekie? The whole idea just deflates in Season 2 and doesn't really go anywhere. He just goes back to being the bumbling sweetheart he was before. Why even have him be the spy? Maybe it should have been Ainsley. Do you want to know the exact moment that I think Orphan Black went wrong? Like, the specific scene? When Leekie was killed off. The character who had thus far been the Big Bad, gets taken out in the stupidest possible way, a literal accident on Donnie's part, and it's even played for laughs. After that point, the show really struggled to regain it's footing, though I don't think it completely went off the rails until about Season 4, and it was still generally hit or miss. Like, some stuff was really good. The introduction of the Castor clones, the development of Rachel's character (I'll get to her, trust me.) and the reveal of Kendall Malone. But it seemed like so much else was just forgotten or otherwise not resolved. Whatever happened to Cal? Sure, the show wanted to focus on the sisters...but Kira deserves to know her father if she wants to. That's just one example. It's a crying shame because this show is sometimes incredible. The metaphor that I always use for situations like this, is a card game. The show has all the right cards in its hand, they're just not being played.

The two strongest characters, at least to me, were Rachel and Helena. One of these characters was superbly written and went through a devastating arc. The other was Helena. We need to talk about her. In Season 1, she really cemented herself as a memorable presence with her trademark accent, her scars, her whole damn personality (again, hats off to Tatiana) and of course, that iconic screechy theme music that accompanied her. Which at first made us jump, but eventually made us cheer. I adored Helena, and I loved the development of her relationship with Sarah. Who went from shooting her in Season 1, to being deadset on rescuring her in Season 3, being furious with Siobhan for betraying her. (This is unrelated but Siobhan has the same " twist villain fakeout" at the end of Season 1 that Donnie does, and it's quite frustrating.) And yet, I swear, the writers just didn't know what to do with Helena half the time. They put her on a bus for long stretches, including one point where she just up and leaves Allison's house in Season 4, for no given reason. And the characters just kind of...don't care. The same thing happens when she gets arrested. No one cares to try and find Helena, even though she's unstable and often a danger to those around her. Even though she's by herself with no real ability to function in society. Even though she's pregnant. There is no excuse for this, and no Sarah, that "I'm sorry, I avoided you" scene in Season 5 is not going to cut it. It's such an afterthought.

I'm being rather critical, but I hope you can tell that this is from a point of passion. I genuinely enjoyed this show and getting to watch it. Just that sometimes it didn't feel like the show cared that I was watching. However, this was not true whenever Rachel was onscreen. Look, I'm a Merula Snyde stan, so you can probably already guess how I feel about Rachel. Despite her crimes, despite her constant slipping back the dark side, I felt so bad for Rachel at the end of it all. That scene with Kira really sums it up. "Who hurt you?" "All of them." And no scene is more intense than when she stabs out the eye cam. Like, I'm sorry, I pitied Rachel pretty much from Season 2 on. Her parents were horrible to her, and I'm supposed to think Ethan is the good guy here? He kills himself in front of his own daughter, telling her that she doesn't deserve him. And then Sarah shoots a pencil through her eye, causing brain damage and requiring a long recovery. I'm not saying that Sarah was wrong to do what she did, just that if I were in her shoes, I'd still feel a degree of guilt for Rachel's condition. In the end, I'm devastated that she was barred from Clone Club, when she made the right decision at the point it mattered. But there's just too much history there, and Sarah won't ever forgive her. (Though again, I do feel as though there's blame to share.) Rachel is my favorite character and I never expected her to be. But she's just so complex. Side note: "Enjoy your oophorectomy" is so damn quotable. I don't know why but I love that line.

So, Rachel's my favorite. Who's my least favorite? It might surprise you. It's Delphine. I'm sorry, but I just...I couldn't get on board with C*phine. Not after Season 3. I was waiting for the point that the show would push to finally redeem Delphine for her turncoat role, for all of the hell that she put Cosima through. By Season 5 though? I realized that as far as the writers were concerned? She already was redeemed. Even though she did nothing to earn it, except be presumed dead by Cosima. The way she treats Cosima in Season 3 is actually disgusting. Her reasoning for breaking up with Cosima is circular. She has to love "all the clones" in order to be with Cosima, and the way to do that is to take over Rachel's job, which means they can't date anymore? I'm not the only one who thought that didn't make sense, right? Oh and let's talk about how she stalks Cosima's date, breaks into her house, and threatens her life. Red. Flags. Cosima even says the line, "If you're not going to be with me, just let me go." I'm sorry, that should not be something she has to beg for. Delphine's behavior made me want her to stay far, far away from Cosima. Who is, incidentally, a sweetie and I absolutely adore her. I legit have trouble remembering that Tatiana's playing her because she just looks and acts so different. That said, even though I immensely disliked Delphine, I am so very glad that they made one of the clones gay. Just like I'm glad that they made one of them trans. (Though...Tony wasn't handled especially well.)

In general, I do think the earlier seasons were stronger. The Brightborn arc, while interesting, didn't really contribute much to the overarching narrative. We got the backstory on Beth's suicide and finally learned the truth about her, I suppose. Still, even though Beth is one of my favorite of the clones, and I never expected her to be either...I feel like the actual reason given for why she took her own life was rather illogical. She apparently did it because the investigation was putting the clones in danger of another Helsinki. Okay, but just because Evie Cho says you should off yourself, doesn't mean you have to. You could just, like...stop investigating. And if you die under mysterious circumstances without explaining anything to the sisters, they're not going to be put off from the investigation. They're going to look into this even more, because they don't know why they're not supposed to. The reveal that she and Art fell in love toward the end adds an extra gut punch, but it also doesn't make sense because wouldn't Art have referenced it during the period that he thought Sarah was Beth? On the other hand, Season 4 also introduced MK. And I have such a soft spot for her. I adore that sheep-masked sweetie. Everyone always asks "Which clone would you date" (because fandoms can think of nothing else I guess) and I never see anyone give any love to MK. Her death absolutely tore me apart. I am glad Siobhan avenged her even if she went down at the same time. Side note, her last word being the affectionate "Chickens..." Broke me.

Season 5 was a strange beast. In general, it seemed like we were finally getting some answers to the questions that were hanging over us. Exploring the deep mythos. But then they kind of turned it around and made it just be a Wizard of Oz style fraud twist. Westmoreland isn't really inhumanly old, he's a charlatan. I don't know why that was necessary in a science fictional show. I've seen the interviews and I get what they were going for, it just feels like it would have been cooler and far creepier if he was actually that old. The puppet master pulling the strings the whole time. We also finally get some answers for Kira's superhuman healing abilities (though we never learn how she's telepathically connected to the clones) and I'm loving it, but the trouble is, it's inconsistent. Ethan "Why is this guy so popular, he's an asshole" Duncan told Rachel specifically that Sarah being able to have children was a fluke, that the clones were "barren by design." I don't know, the whole concept of Revival and of the "magical island" was really foreboding and tied in with the earlier references to The Island of Doctor Moreau. Especially that song about "Revival's Children" just...the shudders, man. But just having it be a regular old scam is...a letdown. I know it may be more realistic, but I don't always need realism in my scifi. The finale is interesting, in that it's mostly an epilogue. I'm glad the clones (sans Rachel) got to live happily ever after, but there are two gut punches right at the end that are total nitpicks but they bother me. Helena naming her kids after Art and Donnie? And writing a memoir that she names "Orphan Black?" Those two tropes can go die in a hole. They can enjoy an oophorectomy, because I'm so sick of them.

The potential of Orphan Black was practically infinite. The results of Orphan Black fell frustratingly short.

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Alienist. By Caleb Carr. New York: Random House, 1994.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction, mystery, suspense

Part of a Series? Yes, The Kreizler Series #1

Summary:   The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: ableism, homophobia/transphobia, racism (including slurs), sexism, rape, abuse, child abuse and sexual assault, child prostitution, animal cruelty, blood, gore, violence

Overview: This book has been on my TBR list for a while, so I figured I’d finally get around to reading it. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the reading experience. Carr writes in a way that pretty closely imitates 19th century detective fiction, and while such a style might not be for everyone, I thought it went a long way in creating atmosphere. My criticisms have mostly to do with pace and the creative decisions that probably didn’t have to be made (such as depictions of child sexual assault, use of slurs, etc), but even with those faults, I have to give Carr’s craft and research a lot of credit, so this book gets 4 stars from me.

Writing: As I mentioned above, this book mimics detective fiction of the 19th century. If you’ve read any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, you might get the idea: first person, characters displaying almost whimsical behavior, stuffed with contextual details that may or may not be relevant. At first, I thought the reading experience was going to be a slog, but once I realized what Carr was trying to do, I readjusted my expectations and found the prose to be quite engaging. If you like 19th century literature, you might appreciate what Carr does, but if you find older lit to be a challenge, this book might not be the thriller you’re hoping for.

That being said, I do think there were some areas where Carr could have picked up the pace or even cut some of the contextual details. It’s obvious that Carr did a lot of research before writing this book, and it’s understandable that he would want to show off some of that research, but there were times where I felt like it was a little much.

I also think there are a lot of things in this book that will offend modern sensibilities. I recall at least one use of the N-word (which is spoken by a racist minor character) as well as remarks that make it clear that characters think same-sex intimacy is “deviant” or abhorrent. I can understand why Carr put them in his book; if we’re trying to evoke an atmosphere and make the story feel like it’s set in the 19th century, it’s not realistic to expect everyone to be accepting of gay sex or treat POC with respect. But also, I think it’s on Carr to bear the responsibility of creating plot points and characters that have those attitudes in the first place. The character who uses the N-word could have easily not done so, and characters could have been more clear that their revulsion was at child prostitution rather than same-sex relationships.

Still, I was able to follow the plot with no problem and the sentences flowed in a way that made the reading experience feel quick (no 10-line sentences, thank god). So while there may be some things I would have liked to see adjusted to fit my own tastes, I think Carr did a wonderful job of making me feel like I was reading an older work.

Plot: The plot of this book follows a group of investigators as they try to use psychology to catch a serial killer. As far as being an “original” or unique thriller, this book doesn’t necessarily deliver a plot we haven’t seen before; but what made it so interesting (at least to me) was that it was less interested in the thrill of catching the killer and more interested in thinking through the “whys.” Why did the killer do X? Why did he do Y and Z when he could have done A or B? In this sense, the suspense doesn’t come from the action or the “chase,” but from the building of ideas and a foggy picture becoming more and more clear.

If I can fault Carr for anything, it’s that I think he crafted his mystery around some subjects that are... touchy (for lack of a better word). Most of the murder victims are children - specifically child prostitutes - and a lot of the killer’s motivations are rooted in some combination of racism and exposure to abuse. If you’re looking for a book which handles these issues with sensitivity, I think you’ll be disappointed. But I have to give Carr some credit for not overly sensationalizing these things; for example, while he did include characters who were racist towards Native Americans, he also included characters who were sympathetic and who insisted on not judging tribes for their defensive violence. Not everything is perfect, and there were some moments that made me uncomfortable, but I felt like Carr painted a complex picture of 19th century America, so I was able to keep going.

Characters: The plot of this book is told from the perspective of John Schuyler Moore - a newspaper reporter who teams up with his friend, eminent psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, to catch a serial killer. As a protagonist, Moore isn’t overly compelling - he’s more like a neutral, blank slate that the reader can project themselves onto. He serves much of the same function as Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories: to be a witness to other characters’ brilliance while occasionally making some helpful insights. Still, I didn’t outright hate Moore - he was kind and loyal, and I admired how he went out of his way to try to help people.

Kreizler, the psychologist (or “alienist” as they were called in those days), is somewhat of a Sherlockian character in that he’s eccentric, confident, and had abilities that stun the people around him. For the most part, Kreizler was fun to follow. I think the only times I got truly frustrated with him were when he would allude to some knowledge and then leave Moore in the dark - like “aha! This thing is obvious!” “What thing?” “No time to explain! I’ll tell you at dinner!” Those moments were a little irritating.

Sarah, the most prominent female character, was more complex than I expected her to be. She has clear career aspirations and doesn’t let anyone hold her back, and I liked that she was presented as this kick-ass woman who still felt human. She struggles when faced with the horrors of the murder, but she doesn’t let the horror put her off of her task. She’s confident and never seems to have a moment of self-doubt (which is refreshing). She notices interpersonal things without being boxed in as “the woman who notices emotions.” Granted, Sarah does serve some token function - she’s brought on in order to provide a “female perspective,” which was a little frustrating, but she held her own so well that my annoyance melted away.

Marcus and Lucius, the two brothers who work for the police department, are also quite charming characters. I loved how they brought technical expertise to the group by being knowledgeable about anatomy, fingerprints, photography, and the like, and I especially enjoyed the way they bickered with one another. Their presence immediately made scenes feel lighter, and they brought something of a family aspect to the whole band.

Supporting characters were well-crafted in that no two felt quite the same. Teddy Roosevelt (yes, that one) was cheerful and warm while still demanding absolute cooperation and loyalty from his men. Cyrus and Stevie - two of Kreizler’s employees - were charming, though I wish Cyrus had gotten to do more than just kind of silently stand by awaiting orders. Mary - Kreizler’s maid - was a lovely character, and I appreciated the positive disability representation we got with her, though I do not like how her character arc ended and how it related to the main plot. The crime bosses were intimidating without feeling too much like stock characters, the thugs did their job. I don’t think there was a character that was poorly written, just characters who served purposes that may or may not have been needed.

As for the murderer... we don’t get to see him very much, but I felt like I got to know him because so much of the book was focused on mapping out his life and psychology. It worked much better than books where the antagonist is looming off to the side, acting as a vaguely threatening force but not really a character, and one that doesn’t even show up until the last quarter of the book. When the killer finally does appear on page, I felt like he had been involved in the story, even without being physically present, so I was able to accept him as an active force on the narrative, not just a surprise twist at the end.

TL;DR: The Alienist is a well-crafted mystery that uses atmosphere and psychology to create an engaging mystery. While some readers may struggle with the period-like prose or the more disturbing aspects of the story, Carr creates a compelling narrative by focusing on understanding and knowledge over spectacle and action, and by using well-developed characters.

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Alright because clearly I haven't spammed my blog with enough posts about the Mandalorian, here are my thoughts written out.

The finale has left me very conflicted. The simple fact of the matter is there won't be a resolution to this confliction until after Season 3 premiers and I see what they're doing with it from here. It's in a very raw and tentative spot for me, because it could very easily go bad from where they left it, but upon further-further thought, I've moved beyond being largely disappointed and into more of a "I hope to God they do it right" stage.

Initially, I was thrilled with the episode. I, being mostly distant from Star Wars minus the original 6 movies (which I'm by no means obsessed with) and this show, absolutely did not call that Luke would show up--or R2, lol. Grogu's tender touch of Din's helmet, asking to see his face? Destroyed me. It was a very cathartic ending and an emotional wrecking-ball. But even in my temporary euphoria, I remember being confused as to why we didn't get to see the moment when Din and Grogu were reunited.

Then I thought about it some more, and I became...much less pleased. Why didn't Din ask to go with Grogu and Luke (or at least ask where they're going)? Why did he voluntarily give him up so easily? Why did he take off his mask in front of a room full of people and a literal stranger, thus seemingly turning away from a tenet of his Creed? I was frustrated that the narrative allowed these things to happen when the issues could have easily been avoided by having a reunion scene with Grogu and Din alone before going back to the main room and by adding a couple lines of dialogue. This left me worried that Grogu's story was over, that Din was no longer going to follow the religion he has thus far steadfastly adhered to, and that the next season would be spent having him become the reluctant ruler of Mandalore (another man-becomes-leader-against-his-will story when literally all he wanted, as he stated several times, was to save his son. And he just lost him). I felt that the show used fanservice to cover over the fact that they simply didn't have a narratively satisfying ending.

Looking at it again, not all of my issues are resolved, but I understand a bit more of why they did what they did with the story arc. In all honesty, for as much as I treasure the father-son bond between Din and Grogu, the whole plot of the show thus far has revolved around Din finding a Jedi to give Grogu to. Without that "transaction" actually occuring, the previous two seasons would have felt largely pointless. (Well, isn't the real point of the series about Din learning that Grogu is his son and that he doesn't have to give him up?) That's what I'd thought, but really, if that was the plot of the show, it should have ended after season two (with some changes to the ending). Din should've kept Grogu, and that final moment of "No, he's my kid, and he's staying with me," wouldn't leave anywhere else for things to really go, so the show could end with the "dawn of a new day" feeling of potential (where will they go from here?) and that would be curtains. It would work wonderfully as an ending, and I would have been happy with it, but we have another season (which I'm happy about). This means that the plot has to continue to move forward, and that also means honoring the plot that you've already set in motion.

Additionally, I'd like to emphasize what I've seen some people write about: ultimately, it was Grogu's choice to leave. Din refusing to let him go would be acting counter to all of what he had been trying to do--he was bound by Creed to deliver the child to one of his own kind, and that is what he did. Not only would Din refusing to let Grogu go ruin the trust they had established by denying him his choice, and also effectively invalidate the sacrifices he made on his journey (although he learned to see Grogu as his son, many of the sacrifices he made came as a direct result of attempting to fulfil his quest to deliver him to the Jedi, so refusing to do so would render those sacrifices useless to some degree), refusing to let Grogu go would also mean Din would be turning his back on his Creed. He delivered Grogu safely, and let him choose (as he chose on the Seeing Stone) to go with the Jedi.

And if Din were to go with them, there wouldn't really be much for him to do besides...stand around and watch? That's all he did when Ahsoka was working with Grogu--and that wouldn't leave any room for him to grow (nor make for an interesting show). He himself has expressed that he can't train Grogu and has always treated the situation as one that he can't participate in once he gives Grogu to the Jedi. Although they are ancient enemies, so it makes sense why he wouldn't want to just...hang around, I think it has more to do with the fact that in mentorship, you need to see your teacher as a parental figure, in a way (including in Jedi training--take Anakin and Obi Wan, for example). Din wouldn't want to be a distraction, nor would he fit in in that environment. His life wasn't nearly as fulfilling before Grogu came into it, but really, from both a character and a writing perspective, the only realistic choice is for them to part ways.

Also, it is a little short-sighted to assume that the show is only as good as the Din-Grogu bond is. We now have an opportunity to get closer to Din as an individual, which could be interesting, if they keep his character consistent. I think it would be a huge mistake not to bring Grogu back (preferably next season--maybe Ahsoka is right and he isn't good for training since he is too attached to Din? Luke delivers him at one of Din's lowest moments and we get a joyful reunion?? I would take that), but I don't think it's out of line to try to explore Din's character apart from Grogu.

In fact, it might ultimately be better. If the show can prove to us that we're not just there for the bond, but for the characters and their bonds, that's infinitely superior. And the show does need to avoid getting locked into just one thing. In branching out, it's trying to establish a stronger base for what it should build on later. It also keeps things varied, which makes them interesting.

The trouble is, where they go from here is what will determine a lot of the validity in that last statement. Changing the story entirely is a big risk, but that means the characters need to stay the same, at least largely, so that the audience feels that they are watching the same show. And some of the decisions made in the finale can go either way. When Din takes off his helmet, is he honoring his son's request, but thus putting love or emotion above his faith? Is he following his Creed by protecting his child (albeit only emotionally)? Is he turning away from his faith altogether and returning to the broken, lonely man he was before, but now without his Creed to guide him? Is he proving Bo-Katan right? Does he consider those he's with to be family (as they all just saved his child), including the Jedi stranger (because Din is giving Grogu to him, trusting him to mentor him and act as his parental figure), thus allowing him to remove his helmet by Creed? Did he not think of these things at all, and simply acted because his son is precious to him? Really, what does that decision mean for Din's character? The answer ultimately won't be known until next season. The same goes for the plot about the Darksaber. Will this end up being another reluctant-hero story (with the traits of the protagonist being reworked to fit into it), or will this be a refreshing subversion of the trope? We can't know until next year. (And don't even get me started on the "foreshadowing of Grogu as evil" stuff. We had better not see that. I don't need that angst...)

The largest source of my anxiety comes from not being able to imagine how they can work with the show from here to maintain the primary aspects of why I love it. I don't want any romance (but without Grogu, will they feel compelled to add some in?) and I don't want Din to become a typical tropey figure (but with the plot about the Darksaber being set up as it is, will they have the guts to avoid that?). Most of all, I want Din to get his son back, but to walk back that decision after only an episode or two would again make everything that came before seem rather unnecessary.

In summary, then, after oscillating wildly between conflicting emotions, I am just left to say: I can't figure out how they're going to do it, but ultimately, time spent worrying is time wasted. I have to just trust that they've got some ideas. The people in charge have proven that they know what they're doing before (Chapter 15 was excellent, for example) and although they aren't perfect, it would be premature to say it can only go downhill from here--they may well have a larger arc planned out that this proves to be an essential part of. It may well be horrible. It could be great. But for now, let's just make the most of what we have.

[bestworstcase]

farran rereads lost lagoon: chapters 5-6

- mixed feelings about eugene’s first impressions of cassandra here. on the one hand, she did make a snide remark about him being a thief, which must sting when he’s already making an active attempt at self-improvement and attending classes in criminal justice. this isn’t tts eugene - who spends 6-7 months loafing around the palace basking in luxury until cass drags him for being self-absorbed and lazy. this eugene has a work ethic and seems to feel some actual responsibility regarding his new role as rapunzel’s consort. it’s not fair for cass to make a snap judgment about him based on his past and decide to be rude to him because of it.

on the other hand… he and rapunzel did just barge into her space against her will and her subsequent prickliness was reasonable, which eugene doesn’t seem to have any awareness of. and taking into consideration the likelihood that this cass is supposed to be about 17 while eugene is an established adult, that isn’t a fun vibe.

- sort of amused by the role reversal of eugene, in the licensed fanfic cassunzel s1 au, is the one who introduces rapunzel to the library. i guess the key to unlocking rapunzel’s romance option is to not show her the books. but also, why is eugene the one showing her around lol

- did he steal from the coronan palace so much that he just knows where everything is

- the dialogue in this chapter is… hm

“You can take these books back to your room if you want,” Eugene said.

“I can?” I said, staring at the stocked shelves around me.

“I think I’ll open a window,” Eugene said. “It’s a little musty in here.”

like what’s going on here? is this a dialogue bug introduced by spot editing that didn’t get patched before publishing? does eugene have adhd? is this a romance novel™ thing to demonstrate that while eugene and rapunzel talk to each other plenty they’re not on the same wavelength to such an extent that raps asks a question and eugene responds with a complete non-sequitur, which will be contrasted with how completely rapunzel and cass ‘click’ together later? hello?

- one point in favor of the romance novel™ theory is that immediately after this eugene conks out instead of sharing in rapunzel’s discovery and exploration of the library and it is implied he is having a fun flynn rider dream ie he’s lost in his own fantasies and oblivious to rapunzel’s. symbolism!

- anyhoo, this is when the plot device of the ‘lost lagoon’ book of poems turns up. i will say that, having spent the better part of my teen years working in an actual library, it beggars belief to say that a book got shoved behind other books in a popular section (sports) by mistake and got left that way for so long that dust blooms out of it when it’s finally cracked open again; likewise, anyone who attempted to intentionally hide the book this way is an idiot. my dude, you are in a palace riddled with secret passageways. maybe hide the secret book there?

like it’s not even well-hidden. rapunzel pulls out one (1) book from the sports section and immediately spots it. which also just feels dumb. like… there’s a million other ways this book could have been hidden. inside another book would have been more believable. rapunzel rips a bone-dry book of census records off the top shelf because she’s insatiably curious about corona’s people and surprise! it’s got this slim little book of poetry crammed inside it. like ??? i know it’s juv fic but make an effort

- coronans canonically speak english according to this i’m die

- rapunzel hides the book from arianna just… because, and i can’t help but feel this is another case of anxiety written by someone who doesn’t quite get it. she’s ‘just not ready’ to share this book of poems that means absolutely nothing to her yet except that she thought it sounded pretty.

but like. this girl grew up with gothel, who made a habit of belittling her interests, thoughts, feelings, and desires. everything rapunzel had she had because gothel deigned to give it to her, and anything she valued could have been snatched away just as easily. in the film it’s made clear that rapunzel hides pascal’s entire existence from gothel, and while the reason for this isn’t spelled out, it’s clear to me that she was afraid gothel might hurt or get rid of pascal should she learn of his existence. so, like. this is all a recipe for rapunzel having this general anxiety about things being taken for her and with this fear being linked to mother figures it makes sense that arianna would tend to trigger it especially. there is a perfectly obvious, understandable reason for rapunzel to be terrified of sharing anything she found by herself and sees value in or is excited about with her new mom, even if she knows rationally that arianna would never take it from her.

as it is, it really comes across more as an arbitrary plot device to keep the lagoon a cassunzel-only thing.

- there’s a lot of odd characterization decisions in this book but i think rapunzel being resistant and reluctant with regards to the idea of having a human companion is probably the weirdest. ??

- arianna feels like she’s characterized the way a lot of fanworks characterize her, i.e. the authorial mouthpiece who (in the case of cassunzel fic specifically) overtly ships cassunzel and does things to facilitate that relationship. don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to see her doing stuff at all, but… i dunno, i find this brand of arianna doing things just a little wearying. let her just be her own character.

- implication is that arianna and the captain agreed that cass would be rapunzel’s lady-in-waiting, arianna okays this with rapunzel and then tells rapunzel to announce it to cassandra at this public holiday feast. with no prior warning. wow. i think the kindest possible reading here is that the captain has been telling arianna that cass would be delighted and honored to receive this position and arianna assumes he’ll give cass a heads-up as a courtesy beforehand, but that paints the captain in a pretty bad light on account of him lying and essentially manipulating the queen in order to force his teenage daughter to accept this huge responsibility that she vocally does not want. in any case, absolutely nobody involved in this shitshow gives a damn what cass wants.

- lagoon comes in hard with the saporian!cass symbolism l o l. rapunzel reads a saporian poem out loud, not knowing what it means but loving the sounds, while daydreaming about becoming friends with cass.

- arianna seems to genuinely believe cass will be thrilled to have the lady-in-waiting gig sprung on her, which seems to lend credence to the theory that cap has been talking it up as something cass wants. or the intention here is to paint arianna as an out of touch noblewoman, but i don’t think that’s what howland was going for. i don’t know, it’s an odd conversation.

- eugene calls cassandra “sport” lmfao

- lagoon cass has never read a book in her life, apparently

- i don’t want to keep harping on this too much but it keeps leaping off the page at me; cass’s behavior throughout this dinner scene really just bleeds teenagerhood. eugene and rapunzel both make actual stabs at conversation by asking her about things they know she’s interested in, and cass brushes them off/stonewalls them. in tts, on the other hand, cass is actually pretty open to deep conversations with both rapunzel and eugene—it’s just that they never. ask her about herself. eugene goes 6-7 months before he asks cassandra a personal question in cassandra vs eugene, which if i remember right is the only time he asks her a personal question. rapunzel gets very invested very fast in becoming friends with cassandra, but she does it by strong-arming cass into being her partner in a contest, and when cass decides to open up to her it isn’t in response to rapunzel asking her things. the dynamic is totally different.

- actually now that i think about it - lagoon cass feels a lot like the cranky new dreamer version of cass (you know, the flavor of new dream fans who resent cass for ‘being mean’ to eugene, ‘being controlling’ of rapunzel, and ‘stealing’ eugene’s narrative spotlight). this cass is rude, she does come off as a bit spoiled and very bratty, she is nasty to eugene for no good reason, and while i do sympathize with her on the grounds of her evidently being a child i don’t find her to be especially likable or compelling as a character. if cass acted like this in tts i think the cranky new dreamer contingent of the fandom would have a much stronger leg to stand in - especially if she was still supposed to be 22.

like… this:

“So,” Eugene said, distracting me. “What’s it like to be the daughter of the captain of the guard? You obviously have a thing for weapons.”

“So,” I said.

“Have you been training since you were a little kid?” Eugene pressed on. “Do you have friends in the castle?”

“No,” I said. “Who needs friends?”

“Jeez!” Eugene muttered while Rapunzel whispered with the queen. “I don’t need just any icebreaker here, I need a pickax.”

I rolled my eyes.

this is way more interest in cass as a person than eugene shows in tts… like ever. at this point, eugene has met cass ONCE for a few MINUTES and he already knows more about her than he does in cassandra vs eugene, after six or seven months of frequent contact. yet cass scoffs and gives him monosyllabic answers and radiates way more hostility for way less reason than she displays even in tangled before ever after. i think eugene is totally justified in going, yeesh, what’s this kid’s deal?

- rapunzel goes straight from “i’d like you to be my lady-in-waiting” to “you’re my new lady-in-waiting!” without waiting for cass to answer. and i mean, at this point it is a done deal, queen’s orders and all, so i can’t hold this against rapunzel at all. but man, the adults involved in this decision sure aren’t concerned at all about making sure rapunzel learns how boundaries and consent works.

How was I going to train? How was I going to live the life I was born to live?

Fury heated my blood as I stared down the moon.

heh.

i wonder how much howland knew regarding the planned villain arc, because on the one hand lines like this are drenched in foreshadowing, and she’s done a much better job establishing cassandra’s belief in destiny than tts did. but on the other, had she known about the gothel twist, she would surely have known that cassandra is several years older than rapunzel, and that doesn’t square with how cass… acts.

this is half-remembered hearsay so take it with a grain of salt, but i seem to recall something about cass, in her original conception, being younger than rapunzel (and also aware of her parentage, and secretly villainous all along). could howland have been working from information given to her during the transitional stage between that proto-cass and tts cass? that would explain a lot.

- the last paragraph of 6 is the most effective passage in the book thus far:

This was a decision that had bars around it. I couldn’t protest without falling out of favor with the king and queen, and then there would be no way I’d ever be allowed in the guard. I couldn’t argue my way out of this with my father. A royal assignment was the final word. My fate had been sealed. I fell to my knees and stifled a scream.

[beneaththetangles]

Reader’s Corner: SAO Project Alicization, Evangelion ANIMA, and Cooking with Fluffy Friends

Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 2, Vol. 3

Recently, I introduced my sister to the Ascendance series, and she’s hooked. As she gobbles her way through the novels from Part 2, I’ve been rereading them to keep up with her questions and comments. And I have to say, I really like this volume in particular. In some ways, it’s a filler novel, sandwiched between the rising tensions of volume two and the approaching climax in volume four. Myne sells off rights to the paper ink, completes the first printing press (finally!), finishes sets of playing cards for the orphanage, and cooks up some new sweets recipes in the interim. Nothing incredibly unique, but it’s the small details about Myne’s life that I love—including her banter with Benno and Ferdinand, of which there is much in this volume. Of course, it’s not all easy reading. Now that nobles know about Myne’s wealth of mana, she’s in more danger than ever before; and the arrival of a *certain* blue priest sends the whole temple into a panic. But whether you’re reading for the tension or the sweetness, you’ll definitely find something to love in this volume. At least, I did—even on my second read. ~ sleepminusminus

Ascendance of a Bookworm is published by J-Novel Club, which offers a free preview.

Sword Art Online: Project Alicization, Vol. 2

Volume two of Project Alicization picks up right where the initial one left off, with Kirito waking up in a digital world and meeting his new friend, Eugeo. He discovers that Alice has been taken by the Integrity Knight, but the next day, he and Eugen also can’t find Selka, the latter’s friend and sister to Alice. Elsewhere, Asuna and the OG gang try to figure out where Kirito’s body is after he went unconscious. It seems foul play and deception are afoot with Rath, the company who created this new game. Volume two keeps the action going at a frenetic pace, but it struggles with the same issues as the previous one. There is too much dialogue about how souls work in the game, in addition to other non-essential details. Some will enjoy the heavy focus on detail in this volume as with the previous, but this reviewer finds that SAO tries a little too hard to explain itself instead of moving the story along. I am, however, enjoying the new characters and plot as well as basking in Kirito’s bravery, so I continue to look forward to the next part of the series to see what happens next! ~ Samuru

Sword Art Online: Project Alicization is published by Yen Press.*

Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends, Vol. 1 (light novel)

After her engagement to a pathetic prince is dissolved because of a malicious plot, Laeticia regains memories of her past life as a Japanese woman who loves animals and cooking. From there, she accepts an offer to become a figurehead queen in a neighboring country, and not wanting to bother the king—who has become distrustful of women—she lives apart from him in a villa with various servants and, of course, fluffy animals. There’s actually quite a lot more than just slice-of-life cooking here, as volume one presents nefarious noble plots Laetitia has to deal with, which adds drama to the story. Also, there is a bit of a fun element to the romance aspect, because while the king doesn’t quite want to meet his wife-in-name-only in person…well, he is the King of Wolfvarte, so maybe he can approach her incognito in a, let’s say, fluffier form? There are other neat fantastical elements here, and, of course, plenty of cooking and petting animals, making this was a fun story that I would love to read more of. ~ stardf29

Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends, Vol. 1 is published by Cross Infinite World.

Neon Genesis Evangelion ANIMA, Vol. 1

The Evangelion franchise has birthed several alternate universe (AU) series since its initial inception—two of which we’ve covered in this column in recent months—but ANIMA, originally serialized in Japan between 2008 and 2013, is distinctive both for being a light novel entry and in its ambition, functioning as a direct line from the original series if it has gone the direction of Shinji avoiding Human Instrumentality and now, three years later, dealing with a new threat, while bringing along most of the remaining characters from the series as well. Little time is spent exploring school life, as noted by the author himself in the volume’s extensive extras, with the action begining almost immediately and continuing in an unrelenting manner. Much like the final stretch of the anime, challenges occur one after another, barely leaving readers time to breathe. At once, the novel is a thrill because of this structure, as well as in how KHARA and Ikuto Yamashita reenvision NERV and the world it protects in light of the changes that come with Shinji’s altered decision and three years of maturation, while keeping tone and characterization consistent with its predecessor, and also disappointing because it doesn’t allow room for much growth for its characters. That’s not to say that Shinji, Rei, especially Asuka, and all the rest, haven’t developed greatly in the preceding three years, and readers are invited to witness these changes throughout volume one, but little growth occurs throughout the course of these some-300 pages. There is a much heavier focus on the sci-fi elements of the story, which will delight many fans, especially those who are interested in how technology in this universe works and how it’s progressed, but which will also serve to confuse others.  ~ Twwk

Neon Genesis Evangelion ANIMA is published by Seven Seas.

Your Lie in April, Vol. 6

Continuing my re-read during the month of April, I completed volume six, which continues the story of Kousei as he’s told that he will be accompany Kaori to a recital event. Unbeknownst to her, she selects a song that screams Kousei’s Mom, leading to a volume that forces Kousei to confront his unresolved feelings with his late mother, for whom he never allowed himself to. He just bottled his emotions deep inside. Other events occurs as well, including a deeper dive which the volume takes into his mother’s friend Hiroko Seto, and Kaori all but admitting to Watari that she likes Kousei; yet at the core of these chapters, as with the entire series, this is Kousei’s story. And let’s be real—it’s not a happy-go-lucky tale, filled with highs and almost as many lows as this teenager grapples with heavy emotional baggage from his late, abusive mother. Re-reading Your Lie in April has been a good exercise, helping me see different things I may have missed before. I posted more extensive thoughts on this volume on Twitter, if you’d like to explore this weighty selection in more detail. ~ MDMRN

Your Lie in April is published by Kodansha.

Skip Beat, Vol. 18

This, this is what I follow Skip Beat for. Following the “Dark Moon” and “Suddenly, a Love Story” segments, which were long and mediocre, volume 18 features a short arc focusing on a new character and his interactions with Kyoko, who isn’t relegated to a damsel in distress as she had been previously. Returning to her Love Me section job, Kyoko is given a special assignment to assist Kuu Hizuri, a Hollywood star returning to Japan, and who has some connection to Ren beyond having played the same role in the Dark Moon drama. Coming off as a brash, arrogant type, Kuu soon appears to be very intentional in how and why he’s picking on Kyoko, and turns out to be quite an engaging character. Kuu’s actions bring out treasured qualities in both Kyoko and Ren, the latter of whom has been near-insufferable in his insecurity. A brisk read, volume 18 advances the narrative, continues to have fun with the idea of celebrity, and deepens the backgrounds that connect the series leads as it gets Skip Beat back on track—a most welcome volume, indeed. ~ Twwk

Skip Beat is published by Viz.*

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Reader’s Corner is our way of embracing the wonderful world of manga, light novels, and visual novels, creative works intimately related to anime but with a magic all their own. Each week, our writers provide their thoughts on the works their reading—both those recently released as we keep you informed of newly published works and older titles that you might find as magical (or in some cases, reprehensible) as we do.

[wickymicky]

wickymicky’s Top Ten Kpop Songs of 2020

3: GFriend - Mago

I wasn’t thrilled by this song at first, to be honest. After Crossroads and Apple, my expectations were fairly high, and I was expecting something sort of dark. When I first listened to it, I initially felt pretty disappointed. As I listened to it more though, I found that there is an underlying layer of darkness, but it take a while for the song to really grow on me. But damn, it really did grow on me. 

As I mentioned for the previous song, retro stuff is sort of hit or miss with me. If it’s based solely on nostalgia, then it often doesn’t resonate with me because I wasn’t around then and don’t have any nostalgia for things like that haha. It has to be something that stands on its own too. My initial reaction to Mago was disappointment mostly because I thought that it would just be something I wouldn’t be into because of nostalgia. I thought there was a possibility that it wouldn’t click with me because I don’t know a lot about disco. But yeah, as I listened to it more, and as I looked at the lyrics and things like that, I began to get it. Sure, it’s inspired by disco, but it feels more to me like the song represents the conclusion of GFriend’s 2020 arc, and disco is just an appropriate setting for the conclusion they were going for. Crossroads represents depression and feeling hurt and wanting to reach out to people you used to be close with. Apple represents temptation on the surface, but there’s an air of bitterness to it as well, and if you read into the lyrics, there are lines like “don’t look back, don’t let yourself worry” as well as “why does that icy decision hurt me so, was it a mistake?”, which gives me the impression that Apple represents losing yourself in depression, chasing a high after your world is shattered and you just need to feel something. 

Mago seems like the resolution of this arc. In my interpretation, it represents acceptance. Rather than still longing for this other person or trying to find something or someone else to fill that void, it represents self worth. That’s obviously a song topic that’s everywhere in kpop, there’s no shortage of self worth anthems lol, but this approach is interesting, especially with the narrative of the songs before it. The chorus goes “My life is waiting for YOU”, but the “you” that they’re talking about is revealed in the next line to be themselves. “Her smiling at me in the mirror”. They’re living for themselves. “My heart is beating for you (me), no more fairy tale”. “In the midnight, in this midnight, in the blessed flame I fly reborn”. There’s a lot of great standout lines in Mago lol. And so, with that theme, the disco concept feels like an appropriate backdrop. It serves the narrative, it’s not just a disco concept for the hell of it. 

Anyway, about the song itself, the thing that kept me coming back was how incredibly catchy it is, and how well every single part flows into the next. Every line feels so perfect after the line that came before it, every movement of the instrumental feels like a natural development, it’s really a treat to listen to. The only complaint I have is that the ending is kind of abrupt, it sort of trails off, and that might be intentional, idk... but anyway it’s not a dealbreaker. I could listen to this song over and over for hours and not get tired of it. 

I had no idea that I would love it this much, but here we are. At first I thought it might be around 8th place or so, and that Crossroads would be higher, but as I compared the two and thought about how each song resonates with me… I had to put it my top 5, and lo and behold it ended up at 3rd. To be honest, I kinda debated putting it at 2nd or even 1st place, but I felt like 3rd made more sense. After all, I have really strong attachments to the next two songs, and also this song is recent enough that placing it too high would feel a little premature. In a year from now, maybe I will look back and consider it the best of this year, but as things stand now, with it only having been out for a little under two months, 3rd place is plenty haha. That’s huge, in my opinion. That just goes to show how highly I think of this song. It’s not just recency bias, because there were plenty of other recent songs that I felt could be in my top 10 that I cut out specifically because I didn’t wanna be biased towards recent songs. That hesitation only knocked Mago down from potentially being 2nd or 1st to it being 3rd though. It’s a good song lol

links to the rest of the list: 10 - Fiesta (Izone) 9 - Crossroads (GFriend) 8 - Assa (Cignature) 7 - Boca (Dreamcatcher) 6 - Kick It (NCT 127) 5 - Cool (Weki Meki) 4 - La Di Da (Everglow) 3 - Mago (GFriend) 2 - Tag Me (Weeekly) 1 - Scream (Dreamcatcher)