every day a murkoph

also epic Toma bondage moment everyone say yippee

She's perched very precariously when we see her as a teenager. The Golden Delight is afforded unusual privileges, but she's NEVER allowed to forget that she's a girl (Lemuel is basically the only one who allows her to finish full sentences, and the threat of sexual violence is never very far from her)

This seems to have contributed to her building some mental walls between her and other women, separating herself mentally from the gendered violence they suffer from her comrades in arms (though, we'll see how that goes with Leysa and her soud friends. Crescian women are their own category to an Aldish girl)

Despite this separation. I've always gotten the sense that Mikaila wants to be allowed to succeed AS herself. Despite her originating "not normal girl" I don't really think there's any authentic shame in who she is or what she wants to do. The barriers between who she wants to be and who she currently is are all external. Contrast her with Sette's self loathing, Sette who has to lie constantly to distance herself from what she fears she is: "girlish", weak, and full of blackberry pie. Mikaila knows she's clever, knows she loves pymary and has a talent for it, its just getting the rest of the world to acknowledge those things aren't exclusive with being a girl. Even if Lem set her up as a Third Option as an absolute last resort (which I don't think he would! It would make her more visible in a way that's dangerous. As he says, he'd rather her be home in skirts than in active danger) I don't think she'd last very long. The performance of masculinity that's expected from those Third Options would be just one more unnatural thing Alderode is demanding of her.

I wasn't sold on Ana's and then she opened with this

Yes Ana I think I have heard that about you

I've had this essay poking at the back of my head about Unsounded's inheritance themes and the utility of child protagonists but I'm wondering if I don't need to start with something on the First Silver's associations with stunted maturity as a reflection Sette's own inability to age.

Obviously there's the first layer metaphor here, that pain and suffering can freeze the victim and the perpetrator in place forever. But I'm also thinking about my speculation about Sette/Khette's "purpose" being a forced maturation into a breeding body for Lady I. On the other side is Starfish, fetishizing her as the forever girl, and Prakhuta, embodying all her terrors that the bad days are bad forever and she'll be their hostage.