#the poppy war trilogy

[crowwowo]

the children yearn for the winter get me out of this heatwave hell

[duomeiszd]

Sinegard era!

Side note: what color is the sinegard uniform 😭😭😭 I made them white bc Rin mentions they made her white lore armband out of leftover uniform fabric + white makes the most sense for students?? But I have no idea

[cikebabbler]

absolutely genius of rf kuang to elaborate on virtually nothing about speer's culture. the only things said about speer are "speerlies are mindless savages" and "speerlies are most definitely not mindless savages". there are no deep dives, no explanations of their way of life, nothing beyond the glimpses that disproves nikan's belief that they are nothing but a violent group. we saw that they had leaders that cared about their people and children. we saw that they are people who found joy in life. but that's really not much.

this emphasizes the horror of genocide. millenia of culture and history, individual lives filled with love, pain, and passion, just completely wiped away. there were only two surviving speerlies. one of them was too young when he was taken away, and probably doesn't remember much. the things he did remember was also probably buried under years of abuse and drugs people were plying him with. the other one didn't even know she was from speer until the last few months of her life, and there was really no one around to teach her about their culture. and if there was, life as she knows it was falling apart. learning about her dead people's culture probably didn't even cross her mind.

without saying any of these things and by intentionally leaving readers in the dark about what speer was truly like, rf kuang said so much about the horrors of genocide. by not saying anything, she said everything. she did the "show me, don't tell me" tip for writers and it was brilliant.

we will never learn most of speer's culture and history and that was the point.

[hughesgarnet]

i was on poppy war tok and i found this and i was gagged haha! (bye crying)

yes, we haven't seen Rin laugh.

but he has. but he has. but he has.

but he had.

[iloveplacebo]

do i have to explain something?

Fang runin that's it

[krscblw-2]

fang runin 💥

[krscblw]

just finished the poppy war and i HAD to draw altan

[ayowotsdis]

How did the 1% "romance" in the poppy war trilogy break me before I even finished the books.

[lunalovesrants]

Reminder that Nezha has to live with the fact that the three people he loved most in the world are dead, and they died by killing each other after years of fighting him.

And now he rules an entire empire…alone.

To me, Nezha will always have the saddest ending.

[noctem-vincere]

could talk for hours about the themes of love (platonic/romantic/familial or otherwise) woven throughout the entirety of the poppy war trilogy. chaghan and qara? rin and kitay? rin and nezha? daji and jiang? the way love and- by extension- a sense of loyalty shape the decisions of every single character in a way that manages to feel both irrational and like the most logical thing in the world, as love often does, is so compelling,, no one is doing it like rf kuang

[kalbaishakhi]

Honestly wish we knew what happened to Kesegi after Nezha sent that letter threatening to kill him if Rin didn't comply to his terms. We assumed he was either dead, or the letter was a bluff, but can you imagine the possibilities if neither was the case?

If, by some miracle, Kesegi escaped and reunited with Rin? It seemed too good to be true, and turned out, it was.

What if Kesegi was the spy in Rin's camp? What if he was the one conveying Rin's plans to Nezha? What if, after Arlong fell, he was the one delivering Nezha's letters?

What if, when the arrow struck Venka and Rin's flames exploded the window the spy was perched on, she looked down to see the lifeless body of her brother?

How could Rin, ever have suspected Kesegi, the one she still remembered as her sweet, babbling little brother?

How could she have anticipated the depth and amplitude of his resentment towards her, for forgetting to write to him, forgetting what she meant to him, forgetting that before a soldier, a leader, the last living Speerly, she was just his Rin. The Rin that fed him, bathed him, played with him - was his only respite in his dysfunctional family.

The same Rin who couldn't feed him for one night, after weeks of starvation, when they met in Arlong while she was part of the Dragon Republic.

And how could Rin blame him? He had betrayed her just as she had betrayed him.

[crowwowo]

“At Sinegard they had been about the same height… But then, at Sinegard they had just been children,”

[duomeiszd]

Portraits of Rinezha my beloved :’)

[cikebabbler]

as someone who is absolutely disgusted by the "he's bullying her because he likes her" trope, the only reason why I'm fine with rinezha is they are not that trope. nezha bullied rin because he just hated her and thought she was beneath him. he then started to begrudgingly respect her as his rival when she wiped the floor with his ass during the tournament. then he saw her as his ally when they fought together during the invasion of sinegard. as probably one of the only familiar faces in khurdalain, nezha's respect for rin started to turn into friendship. that friendship turned into affection and a budding love when they started working together in arlong. then whatever twisted thing it turned into after he betrayed her. rinezha isn't your generic enemies to lovers, bully-bullied love story. they are more than just a trope.

[hughesgarnet]

the poppy war spoilers!!!

wdym it took me almost four months and listening to I Know The End (P. Bridgers) while doing laundry to realize that

Fang Runin was born in AND died in Speer. but was never raised there.

fuck me i should be over this goddamn book by now! 😭

[iloveplacebo]

favorite female character of the year

if you hate her i hate you