i don't suppose you know where this train goes?

we should talk more about cities that are vampires. cities that are cold and wet and sink into your bones and stay there. cities that are hungry and want to live. dead cities that dont know they're dead and suck the life force of their people to maintain the delusion. cities with harbors that are actually mouths; one-way entries. cities that are devastatingly lonely and see consumption as love

sometimes i think about how early on in soc kaz says that the baleen will give them ten minutes of air, “less if you panic”, and then in the end he’s the only one pulled out of the water unconscious. even nina and matthias, both physically larger than he is, had enough air to make it. meaning that infallible kaz, always so in control, when faced with the reality of the situation he was in, panicked.

I love the part in Crooked kingdom when Inej tells that guy who's working for Van Eck that he is no longer part of the suli people. She's so badass, and he deserved it for letting Van Eck treat her like that.

"i'm a top" "i'm a bottom" okay??? i would come for you??? and if i couldn’t walk i’d crawl to you??? and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together??? knives drawn, pistols blazing??? because that’s what we do??? we never stop fighting???

reading six of crows is like.... you read exchanges like the "my ghost won't associate with your ghost" or "pay someone to pay someone to pay someone to burn your kruge" and your lol "aw, they really are just kids". and then you watch them be thrust into life or death situations or the book slows down and sits with the weight of their unspeakable trauma or they tally up the things they have done to survive and you sort of sit back and whisper to yourself, "oh... they're just kids."

inej and kaz having issues with touch due to trauma. kaz and wylan drowning and being reborn in the ketterdam harbor. wylan and jesper feeling like they have to hide a part of themselves due to their fathers. jesper and nina being grisha with addictions. nina and matthias being raised as a weapon rather than a human. matthias and inej being deeply religious. inej and wylan making themselves smaller because of the abuse they suffered. wylan and matthias being forced into a life of crime. matthias and kaz losing their parents and siblings. kaz and jesper being thrown into the barrel because of reckless behavior involving money. jesper and matthias being taught from childhood to be afraid of grisha power. all of these characters being so different yet so similar and forever interconnected with each other because they know that no one else will understand

i love how kaz's disability is actually described as affecting him day to day and not just there so he can use a prop in a cool way. like the recurring descriptions of how much his leg is hurting him, and how he (somewhat) struggles, even if he hides it well, to do things like walk up stairs. idk i just appreciate how leigh could have just said "kaz has a disability and needs a cane" and left it at that and just had him use his cane as a cool weapon but didn't. there are actual descriptions about his leg affecting him, and the audience is reminded of it frequently when we read from his pov, because it's something he has to deal with very frequently!! even with his mental disability too—we're reminded of it very frequently because it's a part of him and not just something he has for the excuse of giving his character gloves and being edgy. i digress. but i really do appreciate how disabilities through kaz's character aren't overly romanticized and used as a cheap excuse to add props to him.

i think joost's chapter already showcases how good leigh is at creating characters that feel real, that you can immediately sympathize with. in just one chapter, we learn of joost's insecurities over his lack of a moustache and the sound of his voice. we learn that he really likes anya despite knowing he cannot be with her and not knowing how to compliment her. we learn that he "slept with a sock bear until he was nearly fourteen" and that he also really wants to keep his job. these are all just little trivial facts about him that really shouldn't matter but they do because they make him seem so real. they make him feel like a human. so when he was made to wait forever, when suddenly "his heart was free of worry and desire", when he waited for so long he eventually died, it hurts a little bit because he was a human being like any other and he did not deserve that at all. and all of this from the first chapter of a book with a character we never really see again. that's leigh bardugo for you