#do i dare throw my extremely basic observation slash unorganized stream of consciousness into this tag

[pleuvoire]

i'm still in the locked tomb meta hole sorry.... i think it's really interesting that ntn as the third book in the series is such a jarring break from the atmosphere of the first two books, which was such a "decadent feuding court with swords and magic and shit (but like, in space and sci-fi)" type of setting, really elevated #aesthetic drama, and then ntn finds us living in an ordinary dirty crowded city among ordinary people trying to live their every day lives amidst the scarring of imperialist violence on one of the many planets said decadent feuding court has colonized, and suddenly all the elevated aristocratic sci-fantasy stuff starts feeling like it's off in another world, and suddenly people are fighting with guns and bombs instead of swords and bone magic. and this is insanely whiplashful and leaves you feeling like you're reading a whole different book series and i will confess is a factor in ntn not being my favorite book in the series, what can i say i love some decadent sword court drama, but i think it does what the decadent court drama genre often shies away from even when criticizing the decadent court in question, which is actually showing us the real people and worlds oppressed by said decadent court instead of relegating them to a far-off hypothetical, putting us down on the ground with how the 99.99999% live. and from the perspective of ntn, all the campy theatrical #aesthetic drama of the previous books that you just accept as part of the setting when you're situated within it starts to seem like ludicrous pageantry. the evil empire is larping and we all bought into it... i don't really have a conclusion to follow this train of thought to except that it's funny that criticisms of tlt as "fanfiction-y" often focus on this overdone #aesthetic and yet that very same thing starts to unravel as the Narrative of imperial power throughout the books starts to unravel in turn. also it reminds me of rgu and how much the #aesthetic in that show is directly a symbol of oppressive power (the swords, the flowers, etc) and it reminds me particularly of the imo quite viable interpretation/headcanon of rgu, that all the crazy surrealism happens within the bounds of ohtori academy specifically as a mechanism of the suffocating self-contained patriarchal system it is, and once you get out of there you're just in the normal regular world with no symbolism. tlt is like that but if ohtori academy was actively invading and colonizing everywhere else