I think people are too normal about just how much goes into making things.
I've gone through nearly sixty-six yards of yarn on my project so far. If I stacked myself up, it would take thirty-five mes just to equal that. And that's only after ribbing and two and a half rows of normal single crochet on a project that will be done in five pieces.
There is so much that goes into art. There are so many hours, material, blood, sweat, and tears that go into even the most simple of projects. Once you start realizing this, you start to truly appreciate everything about art.
244 notes
·
View notes
I think that one of the reasons why people misinterpret Wylan's character and arc, among others, is because they misinterpret the relationship between him and Kaz. This post has kind of mitosised off from the BFWP (Big Fucking Wylan Post) I'm writing because it's a bit of a different focus and constitutes its own post.
A lot of people talk about Wylan's character and development as though it's meant to match Kaz's - starting out as a nice kid who the city forces to become amoral, indifferent to violence, and well-versed in crime. These qualities are usually talked about with a weird reverence as an irrefutable symbol of "badassery", as though it's always a positive development for any character regardless of the story's narrative, which annoys me but is not the topic of this post. That's part of the BFWP's job.
Following Kaz's exact development is not the point of Wylan's character. The point is that Kaz and Wylan narrative foils - very similar in many ways, but with a fundamental difference that creates the "broken mirror" effect/shows how they could have turned out if they'd chosen differently. I think that difference is how they respond when they climb out of the harbor after their respective betrayals. Narratively, Ketterdam represents a very harsh system that presents the people struggling there with very few options. You can either choose to ditch decency, play by the Barrel's rules, and live, or you can hold on to decency and die.
When Kaz returns to the streets after Jordie's death, he chooses the first option. He copes with what happened through ideas of revenge, and to survive long enough to see it he quickly turns to thievery and violence. He thinks to himself after he robs a kid for money and food that it was much easier to survive when you've left decency behind. He survived through violence, creating the Dirtyhands persona around himself for protection.
When Wylan has to fend for himself, he choses the second option. He finds "honest work" at the tannery, where they exploit workers and expose them to toxins. He wonders if he'll live long enough to use his savings to leave the city, or if the chemicals would kill him first. He was smart enough to steal and survive, but he chose decency, and with it, he chose death. There are a number of reasons why he chose differently than Kaz despite their similarities - his older age and thus more developed moral code, having no one to avenge but himself when he believed himself worthless, his more privileged upbringing, and his relatively low drive to live. Alone, he would have died.
Then Kaz steps in. Kaz's role in all the crow's lives is that, intentionally or not, his ruthless rule of the Barrel creates a sort of haven that allows them to survive where they would have died had they stayed alone. Wylan is a really clear example of this, and though Kaz's intentions were at least partly self-serving, his involvement both kept Wylan from dying of exposure or street violence as well as prevented him from needing to do the more terrible things that it takes to survive in the Barrel. Throughout the books, we see Kaz kind of taking the brunt of enacting violence in Wylan's place - traumatizing Smeet's daughter, killing the clerk on the lighthouse. Wylan could get by making explosives in the workshop rather than having to shoot or stab or beat the life out of people. And at the end of the series, Kaz sees to it that he never will have to. Of course Wylan did bad stuff to survive when working with the Dregs, it's the Barrel. But the extent is greatly lessened because of Kaz's involvement.
Wylan's arc was never about becoming comfortable with violence, or becoming just like Kaz - the way people characterize him as some sort of ruthless murder mastermind is inaccurate and redundant with Kaz's character. He isn't nonchalant or celebratory about crime or death or violence by the end of the book. He doesn't HAVE to become like Kaz, because Kaz himself gave him the space to continue being decent, intentionally or otherwise. Understanding that dynamic is important to understanding what Wylan is like as a character and as a person. If you assume Wylan's trajectory is to become "Kaz 2.0", then you're going to mischaracterize him. I've seen posts about how Kaz was the Jordie that he didn't have to Wylan, and I think that makes a lot more sense. Because Kaz is willing to do the horrible things in his stead, Wylan has the third option otherwise impossible in the Barrel - maintaining his decency and surviving.
277 notes
·
View notes
One of my favorite things about the A route in Book 3, as a wannabe car guy, is imagining the face a car guy Detective makes as A casually reveals to them what's probably at LEAST a quarter-of-a-million-dollar mint condition car
27 notes
·
View notes
i think i've literally exhausted every possible thought to have about beyond evil, because i was just thinking about the man juwon's mom left behind to marry han kihwan. literally someone only mentioned once in passing. is this too far.
i mean, he prolly knows who she married right? do you think he recognizes lee suyeon in han juwon? do you think he changed the channel if the hans popped up in that little tv struggle they had about the case, because it only reminded him of a dead lover from the past? do you think he felt vindicated while seeing the news of hkh's arrest?
maybe this is too much thinking
19 notes
·
View notes
Ok I know you’re not supposed to think too hard on the logic of time travel AUs and just accept that it’s magic, but I always wonder why it’s happening and if it’ll happen again
Like imagine Andreil go back in time in like Math Nerd or Andrew First or whichever AU and then they live through their lives there and when they eventually die they wake up back in time AGAIN. Just an endless cycle of time travel AUs
My bro you have NO idea how much I love time loops and how tempted I am to repurpose one of my less developed time travel plots into one (Looking at the old flames concept specifically).
I love the idea of Andrew and Neil just locked into an endless cycle where Andrew's chasing after Neil into the next life because Neil's the one that goes first.
It's a fun idea that I wanna play with when I'm not in the middle of building my 100% Completion spreadsheet for the Trails game I'm FINALLY playing as a b-day treat to myself.
33 notes
·
View notes
Some stats about my large crochet project:
I've gone through 264 yards (241 meters, 0.15 miles) of yarn. The pattern calls for 1,261 yards for a completed project (1,153 meters, 0.716 miles) in the size I am making now.
It would take 29,565.6 Dinoponera gigantea ants to equal the length of a completed project, and I am at 6,189.78 currently.
Without further delay, this is what 6,189.78 Dinoponera gigantea ants look like. If you even care.
32 notes
·
View notes