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missing this barrel rat right now

i *might* just be on episode 6 season 2.

Remember how after season one of Shadow and Bone we were all so Freddy Carter deprived that we binged all of Free Rein…. or was that just me?

Nikolai Lanstov, whenever he can't fix Ravka's problems diplomatically: aight send in the crows

Bunny by Mona Awad (Spoilers!!!)

okay so bunny by mona awad succeeded in areas I think my year of rest and relaxation by otessa moshfegh failed in which she created a satire that actually had something to say. the way awad deals with the concepts of loneliness (both incidental and self inflicted), female friendships, class and the pretentiousness of New England college culture actually feels purposeful. and the reason I compare it to moshfegh is because both books are satires with unlikeable protags but while moshfegh is too busy kissing her own ass and hiding behind “oh all art is apolitical” bc shes to scared to admit that she actually cares about the topics shes talking about, awad cares very deeply about what she’s writing which made it unsurprising to see she based it on her own experiences at brown university.

Samantha is not the most likable character and you’re either gonna cone away from the book hating her and her pity parties or deeply understanding why she throws them (especially if you read her as a woman of color like I did). there’s a constant theme of her being obsessed with her own otherness and its true especially when you consider (Spoiler) She created her best friend Ava from a swan in the pond . Ava is Samanthas ideal friend but also the ideal form of herself: cool, self assured and beautiful. If Ava is the good part of herself, then Max is the bad. Her dark thoughts, negative impulses and hatefulness. But he is also how she sees herself as well, or at least what she thinks Ava would find attractive, he’s smooth, attractive in a dangerous way, poetic without being pretentious (he’s a literal vessel for her to say what she feels about Ava all of which is written in her diary) and what I think is very very important he can fuck Ava. Something the bunny-boys couldn’t do.

there’s also the sense of how we lose ourselves in our friends, as female friendships tend to be all consuming to the point we really do melt into a hive mind and I think even the friendship with Ava is tinged with co-dependency. Samantha dehumanizes the Bunnies calling them by nicknames she gave them, robbing them of agency because of their perceived perfectness but once she is invited to the Smut Salon she begins to call them by their real names until finally in honestly the most disorienting section of the book they all become Bunny, to the point its hard to tell who is talking and I loved that I wish we got more of Sam as a Bunny.

the atmosphere and aesthetics of the novel were so fun a candy colored dark academia where we even see that the bunnies also put on airs around each other like how Kira’s voice deepens when she thinks shes alone, no longer concerned with sounding like. bunny. I like how each of the women have a genre assigned to their writing and personal style showing how even though they are indistinguishable from each other, they were their own people beforehand but they allowed themselves to get sucked into a vacuous pretentious bubble.

the commentary on class was great, especially with how sam is said to be too obsessed with being poor to have been poor her whole life and I think thats a very accurate representation of someone who’s financial status has been precarious for much of her formative years and why despite herself shes so intrigued by the bunnies and feels out of place in her writers cohort. rich people love to blow smoke up each others asses, which allows the bunnies to write horrible work because at the end of the day they’re rich it doesn’t matter they’re never gonna have to improve themselves. its also why sam feels reluctant to speak her true feelings on their work because she doesn’t have anyone to rely on lest she gets ousted

the usage of the all female writing cohort with the singular teacher was a great nod to the secret history honestly the whole book was

I loved how it was a creation horror story as well as coming of age the horrific parts were truly gross and the way the cannibalize themselves (metaphorically) towards the end was satisfying as fuck

and a lot of ppl hate the ending but sam choosing Jonah was honestly cathartic, she isn’t healed things aren’t sweet and nice but she makes a connection with someone who has been reaching out to her instead of being obsessed with her own otherness

when i’m going about my day but then classical music starts playing and suddenly i am nothing in my soul if not obsessive

only a tiny bit disappointed that the 2nd season didn't include how uhh you know

how young kaz actually got back to the shore

still not over how they use lighting and/or framing to make Kaz look monstrous. look at this!

he looks barely human! where is that light even coming from!

behold a goblin man! do you see that sharp contrast between light and shadow? that’s because they intentionally didn’t use a fill light to soften the shadows! all the other characters get fill lights!

a literal fucking demon. his eye is glowing!

fucking Dracula-style underlighting to signal evil! why is there light coming from below? this is not a diegetic (i.e. internal to the story world) light! it is a light placed specifically to make him look like this!

the warm yellow light on the left, the cool blue light on the right, the red shadow in the middle! the bloody makeup! (also the acting, but that’s a separate story)

and like, freddy carter is a fairly good looking dude! he can look regular and soft with standard lighting! even when he’s being all intense stare-y and bruised!

i just really love how much visual storytelling there is in the crows story line. so  much of it is not conveyed through explicit dialogue or plot but through the art of cinema! ahhh!

i'd like to thank freddy carter's big blue eyes and acrobatic eyebrows for their contribution to the "stay in ketterdam" scene in the show. you can practically hear kaz thinking you inej, you through them (and honorable mention to his jawline that could cut glass)

You know I think an underrated theme in SOC is that, the adults have ruined the future of the next generation. They have created an inhumane environment that serves only them. They've crushed and wrung out the lives of the weaker and the new, keeping them desperate, subjugated, exploited, and dead. Pekka Rollins, Tante Heleen, Jan Van Eck, Jarl Brum, these are our villains.

But Six of Crows also says that these circumstances have manufactured a much darker and tougher individual than these people can imagine. While the older generation are content to rest on their laurels and their ill gotten easy lives, their juniors are sharpening their pain into cruel and effective tools, with a drive that someone on top simply cannot understand.

Idk, I think it's an interesting and empowering (if not subversively harsh) message for its core audience as a YA novel.

Things i absolutely NEED to see in the potential Six of Crows spin-off:

1. Kaz and Wylan falling through Van Eck's ceiling

2. Alys van Eck singing 24/7 and the crows doing absolutely everything to stop her

3. "Open your danm eyes, Inej"

4. Nina raising the dead to catch Inej in the net

5. Colm Fahey being a tired dad to a group of murderous children

Feel free to add stuff ^^