#just like a heist story

[piratespencil]

The Queen's Thief is a fun series because Gen as a character is basically the human embodiment of a heist story.

[aleksanderscult]

Hello, I started following your blog pretty recently and I agree with most of what you think. I felt so confused when I finished the books and came on tumblr to see everyone hailing malina as the perfect relationship and I was glad to know that I wasn't the only one who disliked him.

I wanted to ask you something, im not sure if I saw this on this blog, but someone said that zoya is an example of toxic feminism in YA fantasy. Which checked out to me, but it also felt that bardugo added misogyny, feminism and toxic feminism in the SaB series.

Misogyny since alina had to face sloot-shaming in every book (almost entirely by Malyen ugh 😒). I felt that she really tried and suceeded to be feminist with genya, since she actually stood up for herself and had many facets to her personality. She also wasn't an important character just because of her beauty or anything super superficial. Genya IS a strong female character, and she wasn't 'broken' by the king, despite the foul things he did.

But zoya.. my god, I really wanted to like her, but I just couldn't. She is mean and hot headed to the point where I really don't see any redeeming factors to her. I always liked 'mean girl character who isnt as shallow as she seems' in fantasy novels, but she didnt exactly have a redemption arc either. If the darkling had warned her about expanding the fold in the first book, she would have fought for him. I think she isnt a strong female character, but just a girl who is a bully and decided to help mc since the antagonist hurt her specifically. She doesnt even think of the other casualties of novokribirsk. I think the 'break nikolais heart, I'll comfort him and make a magnificent queen' part was a joke, but still....

Please excuse my yapping. I haven't read crooked kingdom and nikolais duology, so I don't know if the characters had any developement since then, so please ignore any innacuracies of this text pertaining to that. Do you have any thoughts on this?

(Do you allow emoji annons? If so, can I be 🎀 annon?)

(Of course I do! You can use any emoji you want and ribbons remind me of coquettish things 😍)

Genya in S&B was my favorite version of her. She was traumatised by the King's abuse, that's true. But she wasn't solely that.

(Here's a meta about that version of her that I once did)

She was very brave, vengeful, intelligent, politically aware, had a sense of humor and was kind. There were different aspects to her personality and wasn't solely "the victim" as many fans of the Grishaverse like to portray her. But in Nikolai's duology Bardugo either forgot how to write complex situations within a court or just doesn't know how to (or it doesn't suit her 🙃).

She threw all the blame to the Darkling (as if he was entirely at fault for her sexually abuse), forgot that Grisha were serfs meant to please and serve the royal family (hence why the Darkling gave her to the Queen) and also forgot how it was the Queen who withdrew her protection and allowed her husband to abuse her. Also, a slight amnesia to how Genya herself decided to stay and take revenge. Essentially, the character became Leigh's mouthpiece to remind the reader that the Darkling is a heartless motherfucker that is undeserving of redemption. How banal.

Now about Zoya. Zoya is the typical female character that we encounter in media nowadays. A girlboss that kicks ass, is rude, has no sensitivity and threatens everyone. Again, cliché. But Leigh broke her own in-universe laws when she gave Zoya the protagonist's role.

Meaning:

The narrative with Alina as a protagonist: "You can't have feelings for your enemy!! You can't be independent! You need to depend on your toxic, childhood friend and...what is this? Power?? You took three amplifiers?? WELL SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR POWERS THAT KEEP YOU HEALTHY AND STRONG!!"

The narrative with Zoya as a protagonist: "Take the amplifiers, take the power to turn into a dragon, let's also have a Saint in your head giving you advice and guess?!? You just got promoted into a Queen and soon enough you will marry the love of your life!! Kudos!!"

That's basically what happened.

It would be an amazing end if only:

- Otkazat'sya didn't hate the Grisha's guts.

- Zoya had the qualities of a leader and a Queen instead of being handed the throne on a silver plate from an illegitimate son who failed in his job.

- The author didn't break her own rules just to prove and show how "awesome" her protagonists are.

- The same author didn't copy paste the storyline of Daenerys Targaryen into Zoya's (somehow she needed to appear cool and sympathetic)

- Half of the fandom didn't hate the primary protagonists now than they ever did before.

So basically Leigh infuriated the fandom even more about Alina's fate when she gave Zoya everything.

And about your question if the characters had any development in the later books after the trilogy. I've got some bad news, my friend. 🥲

[raifuujin]

Anyone else feel like Kaito is almost becoming a secondary character in his own manga due to the heists slowly becoming DC clones of figuring out the tricks going on instead of just letting the heist happen and staying within Kaito's perspective.

[otrtbs]

The thing about the "I love you, that's all." in Art Heist, Baby! really is this moment of reflection for both James and Regulus at separate times and in separate places.

They're both grappling with impending death and taking stock of their lives. All the things they've said and done and all the things they'll never say and all the people they'll never see. It's a jumble of all the could've, should've, would've's in their mind but one thought shines through the clearest.

Love.

That's what they both want to leave with. That's what they want to take with them when they go. In the end, that's all that really matters. They had loved each other and been loved in return. Through crimes and heists and tumultuous families and soul-killing bank jobs, they loved each other. That's what mattered.

That's all.

[mon-etoile-sunseeker]

the way that i've been putting off reading choices, crimson rivers, and art heist baby because i just can't fathom reading main character death. i know i'll need to read them one day because i can't be out of the loop forever but like i'm sad every other time of the day why would i want my lil happy escapism stories to be sad as well?

[allthegothihopgirls]

taylor swift's 'getaway car' except its dick and barbara

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Playing around with a rough comic style.

[noisytenant]

Wish longform video essays/amateur documentaries had a healthy review culture. Think it would improve the ecosystem

[yourqueenb]

Also quick focus on Mal… If I ignore some of the things that happened in this chapter, I still like his “reunion” scene from last week. It was fun and felt kind of like old times. But when you factor those things in — mainly the fact that he said he thought we were dead — the way he acted last chapter is so upsetting and doesn’t even make sense now. If he really thought MC was dead, why wasn’t he more shocked to see her? If he couldn’t express that during/after the heist, why couldn’t he express that on the dock or at camp or literally anywhere else? Why has everything been so rushed? What are the writers doing??

[walkman-cat]

skyfish world is like. what if birds were fish

[sleepyorchidmonster]

Genshin event where we go to an alternate universe where King Deshret and the Goddess of Flowers are still alive, though Rukkhadevatta died at the Cataclysm.

The setting is a few decades after the Cataclysm, with the gods being confused as to why Kusanali has been so hostile towards their people.

Traveler and Paimon: Ah shit here we go again

Traveler: So Kusanali is basically a kid at this point and the sages decided to lock her up because they think she is useless...

Deshret and Godess of Flowers: WHAT.

Next thing you know there is an entire nation and its gods ready to beat up the sages and rescue Nahida, the Traveler is just happy that they can fight the ones who caused the situation in the first place instead of just Azar.

[vivanightcity]

Night out in NC

[raifuujin]

It's been more than 20 years and for some reason I feel that Gosho hasn't given Kaiao any development, how can more than 20 years pass and Aoko dynamics, relationship and feelings remain the same? At this point I feel like Gosho is just going to make them date because "they already liked each other" they remain in the same status quo

Hey, if we go by DC romance progress, they've been going too fast. We've already had suspicion of identity chapters, and that didn't happen until more than 400 chapters in DC. /j

Since heists have taken over any character development recently, I don't even know if Kaito and Aoko will even get any romantic progress. Maybe the actual identity confrontation will happen down the line, since that's thief drama, but atm, it really wouldn't surprise me if they only ask each other on a real date at the very end of the manga.

Like. I'm sure Gosho would love to make MK a love drama as well, but he writes MK so rarely, and usually as hype for something Kid related in other media. So the MK stories tend to be heavy on drama that can only take place at Kid heists. (To the point that the new chapters just. Use Kid as the plot device to show off a new character. Even Hakuba's never gotten so much 'look at this character being a detective' treatment in MK.)

-sighs- I just feel bad for MK as a series at this point. I like the characters, I like the general story idea, but. It's been going down a very steep hill with Gosho wanting things exciting, but not wanting any real progress in. Anything. But unlike old MK, the new stories aren't even nice standalone setpieces of story, they're... mundane. They could be high stakes, if you purely look at the scenarios on paper, but. We all know nothing's gonna happen to Kid. Nothing even happens to him when the actual bad guys show up, much less one-time antagonists.

We need actual character focus and development, not heist drama. Badly. Not even romance, though that'd be a nice change. Just any character expansion of our limited cast of characters. Gosho wants big, all the time, meaningless big stuff, when small would be so nice.

[mirrorhouse]

i replayed the street kid intro after starting a new game to see if i can fix an issue i’m having and i really feel like all these prologues would’ve worked better if they were set a few years before the main story and not six months. i know we can just headcanon anything we want but v’s apparent inexperience, the street kid apparently only meeting jackie now (even though they’ve lived in the same area and been going to his mother’s bar for ages), the length of time v and jackie knew each other being different in every prologue but they still act the same with each other in the main game no matter what... it’d feel much better if it wasn’t only six months before everything happens

[eyesocketinchworm]

i'm not going to complain about shadow and bone too much because i could obviously just like. not watch it. but just know that ohh my god. oh my god

[glimblshanks]

Someone come kick me before I try to write a new fic