"leigh Should Have Let Wylan Learn How To Read" Why? Leigh Didn't Patch His Story Up With The Sudden

"leigh should have let wylan learn how to read" why? leigh didn't patch his story up with the sudden ability to read because guess what!!! it's okay to not meet the educational "standards"!!! it's okay to have a brain that processes things differently!!!!!!!!

i cannot tell you, as someone who didn't and still sometimes doesn't understand their own brain, how important it was that wylan did not learn how to read. how soothing it felt to not only have someone who understood the shame of being at a disadvantage, but to also let that shame go and realize that the pressure of trying to meet a certain expectation that you literally cannot meet no matter how hard you try, will kill you.

he's not "worse off" because he still can't read. it is simply something he can't do, and that's okay.

sometimes i forget the crows are only sixteen. and then something like this comes along and i just. remember.

*eta: by this point they would be eighteen, my bad - they’re sixteen at the start of SoC

One thing i love about Kaz Brekker is the fact that his trauma isn't glorified- he isn't a broody bad boy for the sake of the trope. This came into my mind when i read that scene of Inej and Kaz in the bathroom and Kaz thinks about how jealous and lonely he felt watching Jesper and Nina and Inej all touch each other while he had to stand so far apart. Imagine how detatched you'd feel? That really pulled at my heartstrings cl because i feel like platonic touch doesn't get discussed enough and its so important for mental health and connection. Anyway im tired this is all i have to say

props to leigh bardugo for being the only person to master the art of the wannabe edgy teenager with a hopeless crush on his badass girl bestie partner-in-crime without making it cringe or toxic

We should really talk more about that bit in Crooked Kingdom where Wylan is composing a song in his head and he thinks about how the melody is growing on him but it's going to need a beat, something like the rat-at-at of gunfire.

I swear it was like so early on as well, when he's still trying to convince himself he doesn't have a crush of Jesper (and if there was another reason, a tall, lanky reason with too strong a liking for games of chance, he wasn't going to think about that right now (paraphrasing)) and is later implied to be the tune he eventually memorised the transfer of properties to when Jesper read it aloud, allowing him to go against his father and lead to the I can read to him line

just gonna leave this one here as for the “kanej can never get together” crowd