[cgadzfna]

the aftermath of the burning god hurts in so many ways and the legacy of shamanism in nikan is just one of them. at the very start of the poppy war, jiang tells rin shamanism is a dying art and begs her to pledge lore to keep it alive. he warns her that the red emperor tried to eliminate it, and once the hesperians arrive they try to do the same. and gradually throughout the series, all the shamans rin meets up end up dying: altan, the cike, the trifecta. even the shamans rin trained, pipaji and dulin, end up dead. and when rin dies, she takes the history and knowledge of shamanism with her. 

There are a few shamans left, unegen and lianhua and changhan and nezha, but they’re in no position to challenge the hesperians and revive the shamanic arts. unegen had been burned by rin’s  power and if he’s still alive, would be too paranoid and fearful of repercussion. changhan told rin he wasn’t getting involved in nikara’s affairs and had the hundred clans to lead; he can’t afford for the hesperians to turn their wrath on his people instead. nezha already gave up his powers and submitted to the hesperians long ago. lianhua, personally trained by rin, might be the only one willing to defy the hesperians (but it would be incredibly dangerous) but she doesn’t have the knowledge or the training to pass on the the arts like her predecessors did.

 not only that, but the hesperians would’ve destroyed any knowledge of shamanism, burned all the books (as nezha had warned rin about), banned talk, and done their best to snuff out all traces of it and hunt the remaining shamans to extinction. And they would have history to prove their point: they, and their Maker had destroyed the Trifecta, the most legendary of Nikan’s shamans; they had killed Rin, the Phoenix’s vessel and the strongest shaman alive. And the last publicly known one, Nezha, had submitted and renounced his powers to them. Slowly but steadily, they’d erase Nikan’s history, two thousand years of the shamanic arts, intertwined with the very fabric of nikan itself, and the legacy of every shaman since then, from the textbooks and rewrite their own version. Those entombed in the Chuluu Korikh would be forever forgotten, with no one left alive to remember them or even know that they had once existed at all. The Cike wouldn’t even be a footnote. The Pantheon would fade. 

The Hesperians were never able to take rin’s powers away from her, but what they did was worse. They didn’t just take her country, they’d erase her culture, her gods, the very truth. Nezha may have killed rin, but the hesperians destroyed her legacy.

History is written by the victors and the hesperians will not be kind. 

[cgadzfna]

The Poppy War Discord

Hi everyone! As a PSA, there is a poppy war discord server! It’s lovely and you can google it or send a message and ask for the link! we’d love to have you <33

[call-me-maggie13]

Things my cat has cried about today

I did not allow him in the heating oven.

I refused to open the already open bathroom door.

I did not let him climb in the dishwasher I was trying to start.

He wasn’t allowed to go outside and play with the raccoons that are feral and literally 5 times the size of him.

I sneezed.

He couldn’t open the drawer in my dresser that doesn’t open.

He wanted to attack my can (that still had soda in it) and I moved it out of his reach.

I took a shower.

My brother laughed.

My other cat fell asleep on my lap and he decided that was his nap spot but he didn’t want to share it.

I kicked him out of the laundry room.

I took a nap.

I woke up from a nap.

I did not put Moana on for him to watch.

A bird chirped outside my window.

He wasn’t allowed to stick his head in a burning candle.

He walked out of a room with people and didn’t like that no one was in the room with him. After he walked away. On his own volition.

His name is Frank, it is short for Frankenstein and he is very, very, extremely stupid.

[cgadzfna]

@geth-consensus still holding you to the promise of stories about cassie

[cgadzfna]

Hi! I was reading through your TPW asks and had a burning question as I've just finished TBG. Sorry if this is kinda stupid maybe I just don't have any reading comprehension whatsoever lmao but...

Do we know if it's actually possible to kill Nezha? If so, how? Would destroying the dragon do it? Is that even possible given what happened in the grotto? I know he believed Rin could've killed him, but we all know how their encounters in TBG play out, so there isn't actually any evidence of that as far as I remember. Is he for all intents and purposes immortal, then? Thanks in advance! 💗

Hi! Personally, I don't believe it's possible to kill Nezha through any conventional 'natural' means. He's survived throwing himself off the cliffs of Arlong, the Federation's gas which should have shredded his insides, being impaled, etc, and all of this was when he was actively restraining himself from using the Dragon's powers. When he actually started using his shamanism, he healed even quicker, such as when Rin burned the flesh off his face and he recovered within minutes. He (and by extension the Dragon) have only shown to have been significantly weakened on three occasions: in tdf when he states hesperian experiments greatly weakened him in addition to the stress of the war, in the Grotto, when Hesperian technology scares off the Dragon, and on Speer, when the effects of the hesperian cuffs have weakened his body, allowing rin to knock him out.

The man-made Federation gas didn't affect him much aside from the scars, but it was designed for the average human, not a shaman. Hesperian technology, however, is specifically designed to subdue shamans, and they constantly experimented on him and adapted their technology to make it more potent against shamans. when he fights rin on speer, he's been wearing the cuffs for less than a year, yet they weaken him enough for her to knock him out. now that she's gone, the hesperians will only continue to adapt and advance their tech (using him as their guinea pig). at some point, it's likely they'll find a way to completely block his powers and suppress the dragon, seeing how far they'd already advanced in such a short time span.

years of experimentation and the toll of ruling a broken nation will take its physical toll on him though, and without the dragon’s powers there to heal him anymore, there would be nothing to stop him from succumbing to death eventually (stress, exhaustion, a successful assassination attempt, who knows).

i think it's also possible the Dragon reclaims him at some point. he states in tdr that he'll never escape it and that he can run, but it's only a matter of time, because it will have him for its collection. the dragon will not wait forever. if the hesperians are driven out, leave, or for some reason are otherwise unable to continue controlling nezha with their tech, i believe the dragon will inevitably reclaim him.

all that being said, he's not going to die anytime soon (not for at least a decade or two). his fate in the epilogue is that he is forced to carry on with remaking Nikan, to live and rule alone, unable to find peace or seek death, a final penance, a punishment, for everything that's happened. yes, nezha will die eventually, but he will live for a long while yet, and for him, that will be nothing less than a living death.

[cgadzfna]

Hi👋🏻 I saw that you were answering a poppy war related question so I was hoping to get your thoughts on something (sorry if the question sounds dumb). Do you think Vaisra was using Nezha as a means to gain Rin's trust? Was Nezha only getting closer to Rin for this reason initially (in the poppy war and dragon republic)?

Hi! Great question! This took longer to reply to because I had to think over everything. Yes, Vaisra used Nezha to gain Rin’s trust, but I don’t think that gaining her allegiance was his conscious motivation for getting close. In TDF, the first thing Vaisra does upon Nezha’s release from the Federation war camp is send him to go ‘pick up an old classmate’, asking if she would come with him [Nezha] specifically. Nezha states Vaisra didn’t even ask if he was okay first, which reaffirms the fact that he only cared about putting himself ahead, in this case by ‘obtaining’ Rin by utilizing Nezha’s former connection to her. Later, when the Hesperians arrive and knock Rin out, she wakes in a locked room, with Nezha specifically, not anyone else. Yes, Vaisra was in a meeting, but I don’t doubt he specifically placed Nezha with Rin in order to get him to manipulate her (whether he knows it or not) into later relenting to the Hesperians’ demands. And it works. She understandably freaks out initially but Nezha calms her down with platitudes and reassurances (I would die before letting them hurt you, etc) and eventually when she meets the Hesperians she does relent to their demands, in part because she trusts Nezha and his promises. And Vaisra knows that. However, I think Nezha’s conscious motivator was that he genuinely liked Rin and wanted to get closer to her. They’d formed a temporary ‘battle bond’ during the Battle of Sinegard and she saved his life. It was that moment when their relantionship changed and he was able to open his mind to seeing her as an ally and not a nuisance for the first time. Afterwards, throughout tpw, i do think his motivations were genuine in that he wanted to be friends. During tdr however, after that scene with Vaisra in tdf, I think all his actions were underhandedly motivated by a desire to keep her allegiance, whether he realized it or not. Vaisra wants Rin. Nezha will do anything for his father. That desire to please is imprinted onto his subconscious, and although he genuinely likes her and their relationship developed mostly ‘naturally’, from both of their perspectives, his actions were always colored by that underlying motive of carrying out his father’s goal of gaining her trust. You can’t separate Nezha’s desires from his father’s because although he has his own wishes, he will always submit to his father’s will. Vaisra likes rin. Therefore, nezha is ‘allowed’ to freely like rin. Vaisra wants Rin on their side. Therefore, Nezha is free to flirt, cajole, comfort or get close to rin since it will ultimately help his fathers goal (also because he wants to, but his desires always take a backseat). Do I think nezha was fully aware that he was actively carrying out his father’s will in his actions? No. From his perspective, his actions and feelings were genuine. But the only reason those actions and sentiments were expressed at all is because Vaisra ‘allowed’ them to be, because it fits within the confines of their goal. Just like the Dragon, Vaisra subconsciously dictates all of Nezha’s actions. That familial loyalty and duty is embedded too deep to ever be extricated from his character. So yes, I think Nezha may not have been fully aware he was developing their relationship for his father’s purposes, he genuinely thought it was real (and it was as real a relationship as they could have had), but in the end, he was acting in his father’s desires anyway. After all, when Rin says they could have been enemies since she was a former militia soldier, he simply smiles and says “aren’t you glad we’re not?’ this is after they’d fought at Sinegard, saved each others’ lives, became friends and then subsequently lost each other. Yet he doesn’t deny that they would’ve been enemies, doesn’t apologize. he would’ve fought her. he wouldn’t want to, but he would. And when she no longer benefits them? Nezha’s hand might be on the blade, but it’s Vaisra’s voice in his head, the combination of duty and filial ties driving him to betray her. Nezha is simply the puppet and vaisra’s hands have always held the strings.

[cgadzfna]

In The Dragon Republic specifically, do you think Nezha confided in Venka about everything going on with Rin, their growing friendship, all the fighting etc or is everyone else simply drawing their conclusions about the two from observation? Kitay is ofcourse there for Rin but even when she can't bring herself to say anything he's observant and smart, so he'd figure it out. It makes me think about that one moment in chapter 34 I think it was, where Venka's helping Rin get dressed and as soon as she sees Nezha she's all smug like 'have fun' before immediately trying to flee the scene. And even before she walks out Nezha makes a comment about Rin's knot saying it's pretty and Venka continues to tease him, winking when she says it's 'even prettier on the wearer.' That was such a light hearted moment (for a change) and made me curious about how much she knew

Personally, I don’t think Nezha would have confided in Venka. He lashes out when he’s scared, insecure, unsure, etc, all the times he insulted or hurt rin when she presented something that conflicted with his ideals or perception of the world (ex. a southerner at Sinegard, her criticism of jinzha, etc), but when it comes to his deepest feelings he keeps them bottled up until he physically can’t anymore, often because rin pushes him ‘too far’. For example, her repeatedly calling him a coward and unintentionally striking at his deep rooted trauma and him finally blowing up after revealing the story of the Dragon. When she doesn’t push though, he refuses to reveal anything deep, like when he denies calling her name as the Federation dragged him away, as well as him only telling her about his nightmares of her death when he’s convinced they’ll die the next day (and obviously still not revealing all the details of those dreams), and him never revealing his true feelings to her at all, instead stifling then as we see in TDF. He’ll reveal ‘surface-level’ feelings, i.e fear during battle, anger, frustration, etc but not the ones held deepest, i.e, his trauma (aside from that one scene, and only after she pushed him and he’d thought she’d died), and his love and fear for/of rin. So I don’t think he would’ve confided in venka, because I don’t think he can or would know how to. Moreso, their relationship fundamentally changed after he refused to let her fight on campaign with them. that’s when something in their relationship irreparably fractured (and her allegiance subtly shifted towards rin). Even if they were still on ‘good terms’ after that, it wasn’t the same because he’d denied her her autonomy, decided for her what she was capable of handling or not, restricting her from doing the one thing that might give her some sense of self/‘worth’/autonomy back. They didn’t interact much before the campaign started, and he always treated her as if she were fragile when he did. their relationship was fraught, and I think they both sensed that, whether or not they actively acknowledged it. I’m not sure she would have been in the right headspace pre-campaign even if he had told her either (because I think the last thing on her mind with all her other worries would’ve been a budding relationship between rinezha). However, the scene you’re referring to is post-Battle of Red Cliffs, when they’d all just survived a ‘final’ battle of epic proportions, presumed unwinnable, and after she’d already ‘proven’ herself with her archery skills during it. Like you said, it’s a lighter moment, and they’re all in disbelief and relieved so I think she let those comments slip because she’s just glad they’re alive against all odds. The usual somberness/grim reality of warfare is temporarily suspended in that victorious, post-battle haze and they can ‘relax’ a little, hence her words. On a different note, to finally answer your original question lol, I believe venka intuited his feelings herself. She’s spent most of her youth being prepared to be the ‘proper’ wife by her parents, and with her cleverness and perceptiveness, she would’ve learned quickly how to tell where, when, and how a man’s interest in a woman lies, whether it’s romantic, sexual, predatory, etc, as that’s what she needed to watch out for, gauging any potential suitors chosen by her parents. this is reaffirmed when she asks rin how she’d survived so long without feminine wiles, implying that her [venka]’s feminine wiles include knowing when a man is interested and how to handle that (seeing as her life before Sinegard largely revolved around that). Nezha’s interest would’ve been obvious.  Plus, she’s been friends with him for a long time, even if their relationship changed, she would’ve been able to tell, just like how kitay was able to know that nezha would throw himself off a cliff for rin. Great ask OP! i really wracked my brain for this question since I haven’t read the series in a while, thanks for giving me the chance to analyze again! 

[cgadzfna]

rin will haunt nezha forevermore like altan had once haunted her, but what if nezha wakes up from one of his dreams (nightmares) of rin one day and sees her glowing thumbprints branded on his neck, just like how altan had once branded rin with his handprint?

but unlike his other markings, (the scars on his face, the dragon’s brand on his back), he welcomes these, a permanent reminder of what he’s done, another memory of his sins, a tangible remnant of her when she herself can no longer be there. a punishment. (a blessing?)

he will never escape her (does he want to?)

her kind linger and his hands are stained, and she makes sure he will never forget it.

[cgadzfna]

when nezha tried to reassure rin by telling her the hesperians won’t be able to dissect her and says, “father won’t let that happen! you think he’s about to give you up? you think I’d let that happen? I’d die before I let anyone hurt you, rin”, he shows his true loyalties.

he emphasizes that, first and foremost, his father wouldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t give her up. because she is useful to his father. because his father is unwilling to lose her as a weapon. he doesn’t say ‘we’re not going to let them hurt you’ or even ‘you’re one of us’ but simply that his father will not ‘give [her] up’, like she’s a tool to be traded for with the hesperians (which Vaisra does, in fact, later do).

nezha doesn’t start by saying that he won’t allow rin to be hurt, but that his father won’t. that his father will not allow it. he puts his father’s will first, because his father, always, is in control. and then he follows up with his promise not to let her be hurt.

because if his father wants rin protected, then nezha will protect her. but if his father wants her dead? then he’ll slide a blade in her back.

rin once defied her commander, her idol, for nezha, to try and save him, the life of a single friend outweighing all strategic advantages. but in return, nezha will not defy his father, will not hold her life above that of his country, his ‘duty’, even for the one he loves most.

even when he’s at his most fervent and most passionate for her with his declaration, his loyalty has been decided from the start; he will only promise something that he is sure his father will support because he knows his father doesn’t want her harmed right now.

and when he tells her he’ll never lie to her? “I’d die before I let anyone hurt you”? well, nezha knows full well that he can’t die, doesn’t he?

[cgadzfna]

do you ever think about how in tdr when rin confronts daji’s seal that shows her everything and everyone she’s ever loved or wanted, her vision includes headmaster jima?

everyone else in the vision makes sense-kitay, jiang, ramsa, tutor feyrik, etc,  all the people that have ever helped and supported and loved her-

but jima lain? the headmaster of sinegard? the same master who looked directly at rin on her first day when she spoke of how at the end of the year, unworthy apprentices would be eliminated because they didn’t deserve to be there, were unworthy of the academy’s time irregardless of what the keju may have proved? the same headmaster who refused to intervene when jun kicked rin out of combat, despite knowing that was virtually a death sentence for her stay at sinegard, even after rin personally went to see jima herself for help, even when irjah suggested that jima wouldn’t allow it because she had the power to override jun?

we know that rin had a soft spot for jima because she craved her praise whenever she excelled on her linguistics exams and because few of the other professors would praise her.  after a lifetime of abuse and being told that she was worthless, rin would be sentimental for the few mentors who ever told her she could be worth anything and praise her- at that point, tutor feyrik, irjah, and jima.

but  maybe it went deeper than that. maybe, unconsciously, rin remembered jima in her vision, in spite of all she’d done not to help rin during her time at sinegard, because she saw in jima what she so desperately wanted to be.

because jima, who was described to be so tiny that she was shorter than even the smallest first years, who was a woman, had defied the heavenly order of things. she was the grand master of the sinegard imperial reserve forces. she was one of the most highly ranked military officers in nikan, the most highly ranked female officer next to daji herself. she was the headmaster of the most prestigious and respected academy in the empire. she commanded the respect of all the other masters, of every citizen in nikan by virtue of her position, had risen through the ranks to achieve it all despite being a woman in a patriarchal and misogynistic world.

rin, at that point, has never seen a woman in that position before. all her life, she’s been told, and has seen over and over, how women are ‘inferior’ and consigned to their fates and can never, ever rise above what society ordains them to. (daji is an exception, the empress, someone who called the gods and was born for greatness, according to the tales, someone rin could never become through hard work alone).

and then there’s jima; short and small and a woman, just like rin, but unlike rin, she is someone who commands the respect of everyone around her and has control over her own fate, who fights and leads and commands and is rewarded, not condemned for it. not only that, but as headmaster of Sinegard, rin probably saw her as someone almost sacrosanct, the figure who presided over the pearly gates of sinegard, the physical embodiment of the institution that had let her escape her miserable fate.

but rin might have been so blinded by jima’s accomplishments, so in awe of all she achieved, that perhaps she forgot that in the end, jima had not been on her side.

rin had seen jima as an idol who represented everything she wanted to be, everything she could be, but  jima, at the start, only saw rin as just another dark-skinned, southern peasant, unfit and unworthy to be at her school.

[cgadzfna]

Compilation of deleted scenes from tdr (from now-deleted tweets from rfk)

(full credit to @rinezhabot on twitter for the original tweet and gathering the screenshots!)

[cgadzfna]

tpw isn’t tpw without rin’s perpetual inner monologue about how beautiful nezha is (bonus points if he’s mystically pretty under the moonlight)

Moonlight scene +1

Moonlight scene +2

Moonlight scene +3

Moonlight scene +4

[cgadzfna]

in tdr nezha really asked rin ‘do you have any idea how much trouble you are’ right before he proceeded to stab her that same night, and then was shocked when his actions directly led her to do nothing but cause him trouble for the entire subsequent novel, like what was he expecting

[cgadzfna]

remember how in the dragon republic during the battle of red cliffs, nezha was injured and he asked rin to stay with him, please, and she kissed him on the forehead and stayed until he lost consciousness

remember how in the dragon republic on her last night in arlong, rin was injured and instead of asking her to stay, nezha stabbed her in the back and kissed her on the forehead and then stayed with her until she lost consciousness 

[cgadzfna]

the potential for a confrontation between yin riga and nezha in tbg could’ve been everything. they parallel each other in a lot of ways, but they’re also fundamental opposites. they were both disregarded sons of the house of yin, meant to be forgotten, not to rule, yet ultimately became the most powerful men in nikan (emperor & president of the republic). They were both powerful shamans who called upon the powers of the dragons. They both suffered at the hands of the Federation. They were ruthless when it came to keeping their country together (or crushing rebellion).

but their differences outweighed their similarities. Riga willingly called upon the gods and entered the pantheon while nezha never wanted his powers, had it forced upon him. Riga had always fought for survival while nezha wanted only to die. Nezha saw leadership as his duty, his obligation, that he owed it to the people as someone of his ability and position to help. Riga saw leadership as his right, something he deserved and was owed because he was the most powerful and could take what he wanted. Nezha genuinely believed in ‘democracy’, at least his family’s version of it, while Riga unabashedly ruled as the supreme emperor of nikan; power belonged to him and him alone. Riga grew up presumably indifferent to the Speerlies, the Federation was his main concern, but he grew to hate them, to destroy them, after Hanelai supposedly ‘betrayed’ him. Nezha grew up with active prejudice for the Speerlies, was hateful and racist to Rin, but eventually grew to love her and continued to do so even after her ‘betrayal’. Nezha manipulated and schemed to achieve his goals, but Riga utilized sheer power and fear. Riga hated the Hesperians, had destroyed them without mercy, while Nezha was their greatest ally. How would Riga have felt, meeting his descendant and knowing this was the man who had helped fell his and daji’s empire and ruined his legacy, had bowed to their foreign enemies, had turned his authoritarian empire into a democracy?

How would Nezha, someone who cares so deeply about bloodlines, family, and the Yin name, have felt, meeting Riga and knowing his ancestor was the antithesis of everything he believed in, the man who had put Daji (who nezha so vehemently hates) on the throne, who was the type of leader who represented everything nezha feared becoming? 

The last members of the noble House of Yin.  The Emperor and the President. The Outcast. The Traitor.  The Dragon of Arlong versus the Dragon Emperor. Yin against Yin.

[cgadzfna]

Quan Cholang, the young dog warlord, was such a tragic character in the series and he was so similar to our main trio. He was thrust into power at a young age after his father’s untimely murder, dragged into a war he never wanted, had to lead the most disregarded province in nikan, and was the last bastion remaining against the republic and the hesperians. The hesperians wanted to remove all of dog province’s citizens from their homes in order to exploit the minerals of their land, and the republic wanted to subjugate them just as a matter of political principle. Cholang knew he couldn’t do anything, that his province was poor, had barely any people, had always been disregarded by the rest of the empire, and he knew the republic would crush him, but he refused to give in. when vaisra sent back his father’s decapitated head and corpse, cholang fled his own capital instead of capitulating. when the republic enforced sanctions on dog province, he asked his people to hold out a little longer and struggled alongside them in a futile attempt to maintain their autonomy. when rin’s army arrived, he fed and sheltered them despite his own province barely having any resources to spare. he gave rin and kitay (the most wanted criminals in the empire) his own personal quarters and rin was shocked at his kindness, without expecting anything in return. he was young, scared, leading a single, weak province against the strongest military force in the world and despite it all he refused to give up his people’s autonomy.

and then, against all odds, they won. cholang and venka conquered the north, rin defeated nezha at arlong, and the hesperians fled across the sea, with dog province’s minerals the last thing on their mind. cholang thought he had won, and that his people were safe.

and then, one day, he finds that rin and kitay are dead. nezha is the new ruler of the country and the hesperians are coming back. the hesperians want his province’s minerals, they don’t care who they have to remove to get them, and there is absolutely nothing cholang can do about it. he’s young, he’s scared, and his victory has slipped right out of his grasp. he’s played all his cards, held out every hope, but resistance was ultimately futile. he’s failed. and his people will suffer for it.

[cgadzfna]

RFK really wrote “Fire and water looked so lovely together. It was a pity they destroyed each other by nature” and “she was the most magnificent thing he’d ever seen” a SINGLE page before nezha stabs rin

[cgadzfna]

rinezha dynamic as tumblr posts