#nina and matthias i love you

[gouinisme]

my sister made me watch shadow and bone i didnt expect to like it and yet

[silly-little-gooses]

we need to appreciate the diversity in six of crows more!!!

a disabled orphan boy with PTSD and flashbacks

a POC girl who is a sexual assault survivor and a victim of human trafficking

a queer POC boy who has an addiction to gambling and (probably) ADHD

a queer boy with dyslexia and daddy issues

a queer plus size girl who is also a refugee and has to overcome addiction

a boy who has to overcome the misogynistic and racist beliefs forced on him by his toxic culture

THIS BOOK IS TOO GOOD !!

[lilisouless]

Wylan: what do you want me to do about it?

Inej: what’s the problem?

Jesper: Wylan was never in the middle of a love triangle

Inej: which is….good?

Jesper: good? I don’t know where I stand in this relationship! Guys all fit in the “wholesome but safe” or the “dangerous but enticing” label, and without a love rival i don’t know which I am, am I the friendly ,reliable farmer boy that’s better than a jerky mercher son? Or am I the dangerous yet charming sharpshooter that Wylan would choose anyway over a clean rich guy? My identity it’s in danger

Kaz: that’s ridiculous, I didn’t have a love rival either

Nina passing by: only cause I let you win,buddy

[shaykappa]

Just so you know, I am not obsessed with six of crows. I haven't hugged the book because it was just that good. I haven't cried over the "He was just Wylan Van Eck. He told them everything." scene. I haven't dreamt of the ice court heist and Kaz scheming and Van Eck being a dick. I am just a normal person, okay?

[apathetic-kiss]

Kerch History Museum (Section 2B, Ketterdam Artifact Archives)

Photograph of Inej "Wraith" Ghafa and an unknown individual crossing the rooftops of Ketterdam. Ghafa was infamous due her ties with the Dregs and her association with Kaz "Dirtyhands" Brekker, but would later go on to become one of the most renowned pirate captains known for taking down hundreds of slaver ships and rescuing thousands of kidnapped individuals being trafficked to Kerch under exploitative indenture contracts. (For more information, see Exhibit 21: Indenture Laws & Kerch's History of Slavery, Exhibit 23: The Dregs & Other Notable Ketterdam Gangs, and Exhibit 26: Sankta Inej & Other Modern Saints) Obtained from an anonymous donor 4.25" x 3.14" Photographer Unknown Artifact #24383

[wecanstart-fresh2day]

If I see one more person saying that Kaz calling Inej an investment was romantic I’m going to invest in a gun

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

It genuinely keeps me up at night that when Van Eck attempts to reveal to the Merchant Council that Wylan can’t read, they all react exactly as Wylan feared they would. (Spoilers ahead!) Of course since they don’t believe him and Wylan’s brilliant memory for Jesper’s words protects him we don’t see the full force of their response, but it is made PAINFULLY clear that they all would have responded the same way Van Eck did - “How could you say such things about your own blood?”. It’s an incredibly meaningful and arguably subtle detail that Bardugo implements to remind the reader that although Van Eck was our main antagonist in this case, there is no singular villain in this story because what the characters are fighting is an ultimately unbeatable source. The system is impossible to truly defeat because it is a hydra, we see that when Dryden’s father died he took on the role of the Council and acted the exact same way he did, and if Van Eck had raised Wylan to one day take over from him then he too would have been forcibly moulded into that shape by the poisonous environment of this governing body. The defeat of Van Eck, had Kaz not amended his will to name Wylan his inheritor, would have been only that: the downfall of a singular man, to be easily replaced by another with the same dangerously capitalistic values and crude methods of implementing them. It would not have been any change in the system that oppresses the main characters - I think it’s kind of similar to the Hunger Games (spoilers ahead) when Katniss chooses to kill Coin instead of Snow because she realises that killing Snow doesn’t actually change the system if someone else will simply step into his shoes. We also see this reflected in Kaz and his mission to destroy Rollins, since by doing so he too has taken the actions Rollins did. When Inej points out their similarities he denies it, saying “I don’t sell girls, I don’t con helpless kids out of their money”. Inej replies with the gentle, HEARTBREAKING sentence: “Look at the floor of the Crow Club, Kaz”. And this is so important because Kaz has no consideration for what happens to those people once they step outside his door. How do they fair after he scams them? How many of them have had no other money to fall back on? Did one of them sell their daughter to be able to pay off their debts to him? He’d never know, he just had the money and that’s all he thinks about. But if that girl survived long enough to want revenge, who would she blame? Say she didn’t want to blame her parents, like Kaz doesn’t want to blame Jordie, then who becomes the manifestation of all her hatred, the one thing she has decided that destroying will cure her? Kaz does. Just as Rollins has for him.

Every system of this city is a hydra, and there are so many beautifully written reminders of this without forcing it down our throats, but there is also the hope of genuine, real change. In Wylan, joining the Merchant Council as someone opposed to its views, as someone who has lived in both sides of this city and been abused by both of them, as someone who understands that real change is hard to implement. In Inej, as she journeys against the system that abused her not for revenge, but for the protection of all the children who have been hurt and killed, of all the children being hurt and killed, and of all the children who would have been hurt and killed if she didn’t stop the slavers who sought them, as someone who knows that real change is action. In Jesper, as someone raised far from the suffocating closed-minded atmosphere of the Merchant Council and who can support Wylan through it, as someone who knows that striving for real change is messy and chaotic, but that it’s where he thrives. In Matthias, who died believing that the world could truly change, who died believing in Nina, believing in himself, and believing that his death was a necessary sacrifice to real change, even though he wanted it to be peaceful. In Nina, as someone who had learned that real change cannot always be won with violence, as someone who will learn to use her new power to restructure a civilisation, as someone who will spend the rest of her life striving for change because nothing could ever be worse than her beloved having died in vain. And in Kaz, in the small ways, in the fear of what he could become that will hold him back from becoming the next head of the hydra, in his love for Inej shifting his perception of the world, and in his slow journey of healing, maybe one day killing Rollins will be enough. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll burn the world down and start it all again.

[jkriordanverse]

someone introduce them to socyes

[beanslushee]

as a fandom, i don’t think we talk enough about milo the goat. milo the fucking goat, easily the most legendary creature of ketterdam. everybody, up your game.

[skepticalcatfrog]

In order to honor the birthday of my most favorite book in the whole world (which i know was yesterday do not bully me), I decided to redraw the first ever drawing I did of all of the crows together!

[roundthecampfire]

Six Of Crows Agenda

I recently finished my third reread of the Six Of Crows duology so I thought I’d use this to spread my soc agenda. … … … … I LOVE these books and adore them. My favorite books that have ever been written, I plan on getting the Dregs tattoo when I turn 17. They have absolutely everything a book could need. An epic heist, three different but equally perfect romances, characters with flaws, and actual personalities, funny lines, explosions, high stakes, and at least one scene that makes me sob. They’re perfect, I honestly haven't ever had a criticism when I read them.

Just wanted to tell you that Six Of Crows is wonderful, Inej is the best, Kanej is wonderful, and I relate to Wylan and Nina the most. I thoroughly believe Matthias is one of the best-written characters though, but those are all rants for another day.

Five-star books

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[caraaaaugh]

Matthias Helvar is dead and I'm not okay.

[notcoolbutcute]

RoW spoilers!!!

NOOOO, WHAT THE FUCK, BARDUGO??? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

In mourning of the thousand and one Crooked Kingdom edits to This Is The End by Phoebe Bridgers that we deserved

[zaritarazi]

i've been thinking a lot about how both hanne and nina experience a soul death and then a rebirth - hanne literally trades his body with rasmus, who is dead, and is "reborn;" nina states that her heart died with matthias and so she changes into mila.

and the crucial thing about this is that the grishaverse loves threes. it fucking loves the rule of threes. i've spoken on here previously about nina saying "in the next life" to matthias, i've spoken to @tovezza about matthias specifically saying in his own narrative that he has a lot of work to do- the phrasing i'm using is an abridged version. the way matthias actually says it mirrors the way rabbis and scholars of kabbalah speak of reincarnation, specifically saying that souls are reborn when there is "work to be done"

hanne and nina are the two visible points on this triangle, and it's worth noting that the work they're doing is not within their vision, but matthias; leigh herself has said she hopes matthias and nina can reunite in the next life.

so what i'm trying to say is matthias has been dead for like 1-2ish years by the end of rule of wolves. and in 20 or 17 years, nina and hanne are going to experience the funniest thing of all time

[darlingmoppy]

Hey hey WHO WAS GONNA WARN ME CROOKED KINGDOM WAS GONNA MAKE ME CRY HUH I DIDNT EXPECT FOR IT TO MAKE ME SOB ALMOST ALL THE WAY THROUGH OK THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A FUN LITTLE TRICKERY AND CON BOOK :,(LOOK AT THE MESS IVE BECOME) NOT COOL LEIGH NOT COOL MAN