#the AM wings placement is just chefs kiss

[lil-shiro]

via @.astonmartinf1

#pressing my hand between his shoulder blades #the AM wings placement is just chefs kiss #lance stroll

[justmybookthots]

Six of Crows

4/5 stars

After two years (ish) I have finally finished Six of Crows. Uh, that is not to say that I really sat there and read page after page for years. What I really mean is that I borrowed the library book, tried to read it, but got bored midway. My brain was really tired of its world-building, among other things. I also tried to read an e-copy of it but that was met with spectacular failure. So I stopped trying for ages. 

Anyway. Fast forward about a year or so and I have started reading fantasy books, heralded by my obsession with Cruel Prince (though Serpent and the Wings of Night is technically what started it). NOW, I tell myself, I'm ready for SoC. It's been sitting pretty on my TBR-fantasy shelf ever since I started reading fantasy again.

I don't know if the past months of reading fantasy books have kind of equipped my brain for its world-building or something, because this time, chapters are much, much easier to digest. I'm actually following what's going on. Maybe my attention span is also a bit better. 

Whatever it is, it gets me through the first chapter (which was… kind of a weak opening, but that's just me), and soon enough I'm storming through the subsequent ones. 

I have so many thoughts about this book. My enjoyment level was kind of tumultuous—I went from hesitant to really enjoying the banter to getting a bit bored at certain parts once they broke out of the prison, then felt my enjoyment (hmm… maybe engagement is a better word) picking up again when Nina encountered Brum. I was screaming, it's a trap! But she fell for it anyway. 

I'm generally not very good with stories that are setting-heavy—meaning a lot of the plot circles around navigating through places and secret bridges and tunnels and so on. And for a heist, it is so important to know what the setting is like and how they work around it. So I won't lie; parts of my brain switched off a little at certain stages. I will need to do a reread on those sections to better figure out what's happening, like how swimming through the water led Kaz, Matthedious—as I like to call him—and Nina out to the other side. I mean, I think I know, but I was very tired at that point so I still wanna reread to be sure.

I also was not a huge fan of the flashback dump in the middle of the story. Nina, after healing Inej? Flashback! Matthedious, brooding in the boat? Flashback! 

I think flashbacks could do better when it fits the plot—like Kaz fainting because of too much physical contact and then getting his flashback on what caused it was much more fitting on Leigh's part, imo. 

So my biggest two issues are the placement of flashbacks and the heaviness on setting, but I 100% know the latter is my problem, so the former is technically my only valid point. 

NOW—to what I enjoyed.

The characters are great. I think the standout is obviously Kaz, who is my favourite character and who reminds me a lot of Artemis Fowl, but minus the techno stuff and assuming he was thrown into the Grishaverse. He's just terrific and I've always been a fan of smart, manipulative characters that are shown, not told, and there were definitely a lot of both here. But the telling was supported by the showing, which I so, so appreciate because this is not as common as it should be. 

Inej is my second favourite, tied with Wylan. That bitch is a motherfucking QUEEN, and she is just *chef's kiss*. Strong but not invulnerable, and also her not staying for Kaz in Ketterdam because she didn't care for anything less than what she deserved is EVERYTHING to me. I'm not sure what to make of her piety, though, but it plays off on Kaz nicely. Wylan, I just am partial to because I have a thing for soft boys with puppy faces and curly hair. And also I think he has a lot of potential which I hope will be explored in the next book. 

Also, Kaz roasting him SENT ME:

I'm fine with Jesper. He's all right. I didn't see the Fabrikator twist coming though. I was like, WHAT?? 

Now. For the characters who weren't all right for me; they range from I'm-not-sure-how-to-feel to pure dislike. Nina is the former, and based on my nickname for the last Crow, I think you can guess who's the latter.

I just do not understand Nina. Even until now I don't really have a full grasp of her character. At the beginning, she seems to really dislike Kaz's lack of moral fibre, based off her exchange with him:

But then not too long later, this happens:

I am just so confused by her, and while I was gasping aloud when she took the drug at the end to save everyone (made me respect her a lot), I still don't know what kind of person Nina is. She feels all over the place. 

I don't even want to talk about Matthedious. He's a man laden with prejudices and toxic masculinity, which, to be fair, is shaped by his upbringing, but he's just very narrow-minded and stupid. Anything he can't understand, he dubs them as witch, or demon, and so on. He's just an angry oaf. I don't know what to say. There's really nothing much to say about him, though I do want to add that his character arc was extremely unconvincing for me. 

A plot point I really enjoyed in this book: Jesper using his Fabrikator skills on that diamond and Wylan building a drill with said diamond, then Inej breaking in to take that tank. Love that she got revenge on Heleen in that moment, and also JUST LOVE THE TRIO for using all their skills as a team. I did not see the tank infiltration coming at all, and it was awesomeeeee. 

Another plot point, however, made me go, UHHHH:

KAZ. 🤢

Overall, a solid book. I loved most of the banter, though there are a few times when it falls flat. I was about to rate the story 3 stars midway through, but the later half really picked up and saved it for me. Also what is with that ending? To be fair, I did think it'd be too good to be true if they got the money, but I didn't expect Queen Inej to be taken?????

I'll probably start on Crooked Kingdom soon,  but who's to say? I just hope I won't start it two years (ish) later. 

- 22 July 2023

#books #bookish #six of crows

[the-little-prophet]

BDRP Questionnaire 2019

Posting this on Charlie since I actually talked about him quite a bit! Let’s gooooo

Characters: Berlioz, Hades, Kiara, Nala, Andrina, Merida, Charlie, Apollo, John, Su, Ashleigh, Nemo, Jun

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth (we recommend choosing an older character, but it’s up to you!) What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

This one goes out to Charlie. I pitched Charlie very deceptively-- claiming he was a prophet, aligning him, at first, with Calliope, making it look like Charlie’s magic was of the classical, Cassandra-inspired kind. But all along, I knew that what I wanted Charlie to be was more of this sci-fi/fantasy blend as an homage to his movie’s sci-fi bend too. This year, I got to actually reveal that Charlie is a time traveler after two years!! This is very exciting for me! I’ve enjoyed being able to lean into Charlie’s new image systems with this reveal, even though I’m out of my depth and breaking like 67 different time travel rules, probably lol. Still, it’s been great to take him to that place, and to invent Future-Charlie as both a deux ex machina and an expression of identity/choice/free will etc etc. I did not have Future-Charlie in mind when I created Charlie, so that was something I was proud of coming up with!

Pick another character and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year?

I’m going to talk about Nemo if only because everyone else feels like a spoiler lol. Nemo, as a relatively new character though, is still full-speed-ahead on his initial goals that I outlined for him in his application. Now that Nemo’s been established in the school and he has this little group of buddies, I want:

To focus on his wing. I want Nemo to push himself, get himself in a spot of trouble, potentially injure himself.

Reveal his wings to at least one mundus friend

Continuing to infuse his posts with body image issues. This is a slow build kind of plot that really is like...the broth of Nemo’s plot-soup, lol, while training for his placement is the chicken and belonging at school is the noodles….it needs to be this throughline more than like, para a, para b, para c. at least for now.

Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it.

I could pick a lot of threads here lol it’s honestly so HARD. But I think I want to shout-out to the Charlie/Jim first kiss thread because it surprised even me and Hannah. We initially planned for the first kiss to be just that-- one kiss, then we done, Jim and Charlie go on to be friends. But like in the best of cases, Jim and Charlie’s palpable chemistry actually informed more of Charlie’s arc and opened up avenues previously closed to me/Charlie since Charlie had been so SHUT to the idea of love. So! I really loved that thread. Also because like, I literally made Charlie experience the big bang after his first kiss. And THAT’S the BEST way to use magic in my opinion. Like when you can infuse magic with an emotional catharsis-- I think the other time I did that super well was similar actually, when Herc kissed Kiki’s cheek and she grew a tree in his room lol. So yeah! Some of my best writing in that thread, amazing chemistry, big surprises. It was an absolute pleasure.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 strengths and talk about why you think it’s one of your strengths.

-Image systems. I dragged myself for this, but I think it’s something that really helps me find a character’s voice and make myself excited to RP them! Also, I think it’s what people like about my writing sometimes. Maybe. IDK, lol. -Complex Emotion: I’m stealing this from my mentor who said I’m good at creating complex emotion and so you know its true. My most introverted characters get the bulk of this naturally--they are introspective and feely and give themselves the space to think and feel. But I really want to try to inject more into my extroverted characters. I think I’m doing well for Nemo, who had undiagnosed anxiety and so that informs a lot of his personality in very interesting-- very OPPOSITE-- ways as Berlioz; Nemo struggles with being alone because ‘alone’ means he gets too in his head. That’s been really fun for me and why he’s quickly become one of my fave voices to write (I know, u all thought it was because I am in love with Jimin (true), but no its bc Nemo is an anxious, big feeling baby and he’s always so Alive to me, plus i was made to write a fairy it was always my destiny.)

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 areas of improvement.

-Dialogue: PERSONALLY I feel like I’m not great at dialogue. Some posts are better than others and I think I’m good at like…..texting dialogue? IDK. I feel like I struggle in paras though to craft good dialogue. It’s just, rn, average dialogue. Of course not every post needs to have hilarious, punchy, great dialogue. But do my characters sound different? Am I doing all I can to create rhythm and speech patterns? -Filtering: Im being very picky rn, because actually I don’t do this too much, but I do it enough where I’m like, I gotta go read some really stellar writers adn ban myself from using “Feel” and “think” for like a whole month. What I’m talkinga bout is like: Ber realized/ Ber thought / Ber knew. That kind of writing is totally fine, but that’s about it. I need to come up with more creative ways to talk about feelings and abstract concepts!!!

-Character: I know everyone is probably like………….how dare lauryl put this here. But listen. I don’t think I struggle with character on RP. But outside of RP? Oh boy! The THING about RP is you MUST create a character, that’s your vessel for writing here, and so you do all that development plus u got the four years of worldbuilding informing that character, and literally EVERYTHING CHARACTER DRIVEN ITS...THERE IS NO OTHER WAY.  Outside of RP though I think I have struggled because my natural affinity is worldbuilding and shit like that. I’m type 5 baby, I am attracted to characters who let me poke at things I don’t know anything about, like even Jun, part of it really is like, petitions and grocery store management lmfadsofij. SOOOo idk I just need to be able to focus on crafting characters that are compelling vessels for the cool shit I like to do outside of RP.

Pick one of your plots, or even just a character, and come up with a list of 3-5 “mentor texts” where you can look for inspiration or research, then write a short (2-4 sentences) why you picked those texts. JOHN DARLING BREAKS INTO FAERYLAND 1. Call Down the Hawk/Raven Cycle: It’s no coincidence that my reread of Raven Cycle last winter played a pretty big part in inspiring this new version of John. The descriptions of the magical forest Cabeswater and the hunt for Glendower have the same kind of contemporary fantasy vibe that I really like for John. And of course, Ronan’s dream magic is very much intertwined with the faery realm feeling like a dream (and Ashleigh, obviously, as a dark faery who can manipulate them). More than that though, the attention paid to the psyches of each character and how they drive the plot forward is just… /chefs kiss. 2. The Mabinogian: I want to draw from these classic Welsh/British stories and incorporate them in creative ways! Or just as, like, motifs are something. :) I have tried to do this but would like to be a lot more intentional, instead of just being like lmao let me look up some random shit for this one reply~ 3. The Hazel Wood: This book deals with characters coming into the real world from a book world! This kind of goes along with the Mabinogian as I kind of ish want to do something similar, only treating the Mabinogian as a historical, cultural text as opposed to a fiction. This book also focuses a lot on fairy tale tropes (like numbers) which I really want to incorporate in John’s stuff. I want to ideally write some of my own fairy tales-- I have one in mind actually through Ashleigh but it’s related to John too since he’d the scholar of said stories.  

And now, a wishlist!

-Exploring Nemo’s disability. This is slightly challenging for me since we don’t have many fairies, but I’m brainstorming some ideas and hope to really kick it off in January, leading up to his Talent Placement Test.   -I really want to have a lot of town-centric plots for Jun. Would love to rp with the police officers! I want to have Jun try to get some ppl arrested tbh ahah, like, Fflew for loitering, or maybe reporting Mitte. I would love some arch nemeses tbh-- Mitte does seem like a good one. AND I want to submit at least three petitions next semester!! Maybe i should make that two!! Still!! -Do some Bonfamille plots. I already have something I’m really excited about and have already planned here so this is a teaser… -Keep writing essays. The fairies have been great, getting me really inspired to do these.What’s been an amazing mental exercise, and why I cannot stop writing these, is thinking about how the political philosophy of Pixie Hollow informs how it functions: technically, socioculturally etc. It’s really fun for me to basically build a communist thought project and then enact it for real. I feel like I’m learning a lot about...well, societies, lol, and how the material factors endlessly bleed into, and shape, ideas and beliefs (and vice versa). Also, I literally have to do these because when Nemo is IN the Hollow and I want to write him getting a glass of water, I’m faced with a lot of technical questions: do fairies have running water? Does he have to get it from a stream? How do they keep things cool? Etc etc. And that’s why I go off on these, and I’m excited to keep doing them, as many as I can, with feedback from my fellow fairies. Also, do want to do ones that are NOT fairy related, so we’ll see about that. -Write John backstory. He’s gone on a few other adventures and I’d like to actually one-shot those maybe lol. -Alternate Charlie Timeline: This is something that’s bopping around in my head and I haven’t found the perfect way to make it happen, but I want Charlie to travel to an alternate version of his life and get stuck. When I figure out the right way to do this, my partners will also get to rp alternate versions of their characters lol. That’s fun right!! Of course it is, we do it all the time with AUs, but this one obvi be more personal and more closely tied to canon.

OPTIONAL: Why do you RP? First and foremost, I RP because it’s writing for the sake of writing-- joy for joy. I think this is even more important this year as I’ve had to focus on mentorship writing outside of RP. RP became the place where I didn’t have to think so hard about making everything make sense, lol. It gave my brain a break so I could be less judgmental of myself and just have fun and do the most ridiculous stuff...and some of my fave stuff iS ridiculous because of that...like Nemo and Sindri making flower crowns or the ASC nonsense. It’s this kind of light, fluffy, low-stake (but still High Stake) stuff that provided me endless joy when I needed it the most. Second of all, I RP because I really want to invest in people’s creative energy. I think doing so gives back to myself. Building canon, helping people brainstorm, seeing people grow-- I feel like a proud mom when I get to have this kind of mentorship role myself. I talked to MK about this, but even though Sam left to go off and do greater things, that’s like-- to me, it was a lot like he was graduating from this weird BDRP school I’ve helped create. I felt nothing but pride and happiness for him and really felt like, if BDRP was to explode tomorrow, I ACHIEVED the thing I set out to do when, four years ago, I sat on my computer and drafted BDRP’s mission and vision and committed myself to this admin role. And THAT’S what I want ideally-- for BDRP to be this collaborative place that doesn’t focus too much on what makes sense, on sitewide plots that force people into roles. I have always wanted plots like ASC and John’s search for Excalibur to be able to exist side by side, and I think we’ve done that. Now we just have to tend this garden, don’t we, haha? May BDRP bear many delicious fruit.

#bdrptask #this is a rambling mess but always fun aint it