Imagine Being Orion In A Deadly Education.

Imagine being Orion in A Deadly Education.

People are mostly not that interesting to you. They don't like you so much as they like what you can do. Maybe at some point you tried to really connect with someone, and it didn't go that well, so you didn't keep trying. Fighting mals though? You're good at that. It makes sense to you, unlike most of the things people do. It's rewarding -- intrinsically rewarding -- and people seem to be happy that you're doing it? Because they don't like doing it but it benefits them. So, basically no downside.

And you go off to school and it's full of mals, and people think you're great because you fight the mals, and you ignore them as best you can when you're not fighting mals for them. (You're polite, your mother always wanted you to be polite and you don't want people to be mad at you. But you don't do anything beyond being polite.) And people seem to think you're doing a good thing. So. It's ok. It's good enough. The world makes sense, more or less. This is what you're for.

And one day you see a soul eater go under another student's door, and you destroy it like you always do. Except this person is mad at you. Which makes no sense. No one's ever been mad at you before, not for fighting mals. So apparently you did something wrong even though you only did what you always do which has always been right before. But you guess you should probably make it up to her? So when she says she needs to go to the shop at dinner you offer to go with her, why not?

Except somehow she's mad at you again. So you have to make it up to her even more now, you guess?

(You don't like it when people are mad at you, but you know what to do when people are mad at you. You Make It Up To Them, usually by doing whatever they tell you to or fighting a mal or both, and then they stop being mad at you. You prefer to understand why they are mad at you, but most of the time it makes no sense, and you know what to do when it makes no sense to you why someone is mad at you.)

So you guard her door while she fixes it. Which takes her a weirdly long time. You've just taken down several mimics, you're bursting with mana, you'd give her some if she asked. Mana has never been a scarce resource for you; on some level it hasn't really occurred to you that it could be a scarce resource for anyone else. People aren't that interesting to you, you don't think about them much, except when someone tells you to, like your mother making you do flash cards of other kids' names. But she doesn't ask, and she doesn't cheat either, she does things the long and hard way, which makes a third thing all coming from the same person that doesn't mesh with your pre-existing worldview. She's fascinating.

And then she pulls on your mana like it's nothing and she's even more fascinating. How did she do that? Is she a malificer? (Is that why she keeps being so mean to you, when nobody is ever mean to you?) What's going on?

And you've never voluntarily fought alongside anyone else before, but she's good to fight with. She's annoying, but she does also point out things you missed or didn't know.

And she stands up for you, in a way that nobody has ever stood up for you before. She's not nice. She's the opposite of nice. But it's starting to dawn on you that being nice is not the same as something else that seems like it should go with being nice. And if El is not nice to you but is that other thing, maybe some other people who are nice to you are...not that other thing to you?

It's a lot to think about.

Anyways. You like her. You're not very interested in people. But you are interested in El.

And then you have the best day of your life, when you've gotten to take on more mals and scarier mals than you've ever taken on before, and you did it and you were good at it, and you kind of didn't want to leave but you were supposed to leave because that was how the Mission worked, and then you were about to die because you missed the bell and the cleansing fires had started and there was nowhere to go, but at least you were going to die next to El.

But she didn't think she was going to die, and she cast a wall of mortal flame (who does that?) and it worked as a firebreak and you didn't die and no one had ever saved you before. That wasn't how the world worked. Who was this person who kept breaking the rules of how the world worked like they didn't even apply to her?

(And then you look around and she isn't there and you kissed her earlier when you thought you were both going to die, and she, uh, didn't react well and oh no, what if you've ruined everything what if you like her but she doesn't like you like that what if she won't want to be around you any more? What if the one interesting person in the entire world doesn't think you are interesting?) (it'd be ok, right? It was ok before.) (it wouldn't be ok. So maybe it wasn't ok before either.)

Tags

i love him so much He's so neurodivergent-coded

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remian

1 year ago

[Day 47]

Closing note (A ship is very burnable)

Part 1

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pain and suffering Boatem crew my beloveds

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remian

1 year ago

Can we talk about the found family trope and queer-coded/canonically queer characters? Because there is a ton of overlap between these two.

In their stories, the queer/queer-coded characters no longer have a supportive family for a number of reasons (Hiccup refuses to kill dragons, Johnny wants to be a singer, Nimona is a shapeshifter, etc). A lot of times these reasons are things that ‘other’ them from people around them, thereby furthering the queer allegory.

And this lack of support is what drives these characters to form/find a found family made of more people who are like them. People who will treat them with the love and support that their family should have. It pushes them into the found family trope.

The prevalence of found family in queer and queer-coded story lines serves to make them more relatable and realistic but it’s also heart breaking that familial rejection is so common that this trope does make it more realistic.

Tags

This is why found family is my favourite trope

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remian

2 years ago

― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

(Guess which path Show!Jesper went with?)

Tags

wesper

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remian

1 year ago

The double life brainworms still being there despite the fact that it ended a year ago is a little too much even for me. They're all so silly and angsty and I just want to put them in a box and shake them.

Tags

traffic smp desert duo double life boat boys solidaritygaming third life dlsmp pearlescentmoon last life team rancher double life spoilers double life grian everyone was just so perfectly doomed by the narrative Divorce squad

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remian

2 years ago

double life finale memes

yeah I'm coping

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remian

2 weeks ago

rereading six of crows at seventeen is such a strange experience. like on one hand i relate to these characters, but on the other they’re out here committing intense crimes and pulling off impossible heists while i’m writing fan fiction in my room and struggling to get through the school year with my sanity intact. like.

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remian

2 weeks ago

whenever people say that they dont think the crows act like teenagers i have to laugh because. like. as a teenager. they do. they're relatively mature because they're all severely traumatized and had to grow up fast (also because considering the time period it's based on it's completely reasonable for younger kids to be expected to do more) but they still act like teenagers. i've seen a bunch of people mention the "my ghost wont associate with your ghost" convo and "pay someone to pay someone to burn your kruge" but also, Jesper makes multiple sex jokes. Inej purposefully takes the harder route Kaz can't handle so he'll let her go alone. Wylan complains about pretty much everything. Nina spends most of the first book needling and pissing off her ex because she enjoys it. Kaz spends half his energy trying to be mysterious and cool. Matthias calls Kaz a demon for most of the books because he doesn't like him. Kuwei uses the fact that he looks like his crush's crush to kiss his crush. he also pretends he doesn't know Kerch because he didnt want to talk to people.

and, hands down the most teenager scene in the entire duology, Kaz and Jesper get in an argument and start a fucking fist fight. they are literally rolling on the ground punching each other. and everyone just fucking stands there. watching. Wylan wants someone to stop them but no one does. because they're not actively trying to kill each other. so whatever its fine. and then afterwards they're besties again. that is how 99% of the fights at my school go my dude, they are SUCH teenagers.

Tags

Crows my beloved

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remian

1 year ago

what is your eye color. what is your favorite color. what is the color that appears most frequently in your wardrobe. what color is your favorite blanket. what color is your water bottle.

Tags

purple hazel black and gray periwinkle purple gray with red and white hearts

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remian

2 weeks ago

I'm rereading Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

I've seen a bunch of people do reviews of the book and say they didn't see the characters as teenagers because they behaved like adults. I believe that couldn't be further from the truth. As someone who is around the same age as the characters, I have to say that they act *painfully* seventeen.

I truly love the dialogue in this book because it shows so much of the characters' true personalities. Kaz is the one I've seen most people say they age up in their minds, but even though they he's got his whole persona as Dirtyhands and is the shadow leader of the Dregs and all, he's absolutely still a teenager. He had to attract the attention of a guard during the Hellgate breakout and decided to make a joke about the guy's mom. He's constantly being sarcastic and making witty comments and playing into the jokes.

Yes, of course, there is a certain level of maturity that all of these characters have that you wouldn't normally see in a teenager, all of them are *Traumatised*, severely. The fact that they are extremely self-reliant and lucid is precisely a result of the cruel environments they had to withstand and sometimes even managed to thrive in.

The bantering that can be seen in just about every group dialogue between the crows feels refreshing, it's a moment of reprieve from all the fast-paced and sharp movements of the narrative, it's a laugh that can be had while both the readers and the characters are worrying about the odds of success.

I really love this book and have so many thoughts.

Tags

six of crows crooked kingdom nina zenik inej ghafa six of crows duology kaz brekker Jesper Fahey Matthias helvar book thoughts

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remian

2 years ago

i think grian saw 3rd life as the most harrowing tragic experience of his life and scar saw it as a fun gay courtship ritual and they've been on wildly different pages ever since

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