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mallory ♡ 25┊asks open ✧ for yapping abt my interests and non-art posts — - 🌸 main art blog: svgarbells

[svgarbelles]

thinking about an au where kell and lila switch roles. like lila was born in red london and is the blessed princess and rhy’s sister. and kell was born in grey and living as the shadow thief — he’s totally obsessed with the idea of magic and constantly seeks out proof it exists by trying to steal items that might be magical.

ofc kell steals the black stone off lila when she escapes to grey london and is like holy shit, magic is real, yes!! and shenanigans ensue

[svgarbelles]

i just finished reading The Ending Writes Itself and hmmm, i liked it, but it lowkey had a lot of issues with plot holes and generally making sense

which reminded me of adsom and shades of magic lmao. like, technically well written and nice prose, but the main reason for why things were happening just didn’t really make sense if you start asking logical questions 🤔

also don’t mind me cleaning up my main art acc, i like to do it every now and then

more rambling in the tags

[svgarbelles]

currently revisiting the first book, and another thing that never made sense to me was why kell thought he needed to take lila with him and had no other choice ™️. ( beware rant incoming because i forgot abt how much this annoyed me the first time i read it — and dw, i love these books, but i also love to analyze things )

so the book acts like kell literally had no other option than to bring lila with him (both to red london and all the way to the finale) but that’s just not true and it never was 😂

i’m p confident that kell could’ve taken the black stone back from lila at any point without much struggle. sure, she could’ve conjured something to fight him with, but kell acts like the stone gives lila an instant KO against him, but we’ve seen that the stone does not in fact do that (ie, the holland fight where holland does not instant KO kell despite having the stone).

also was it really that hard to just use bone magic and make lila drop it ? like kell, i get you have qualms about bone magic, but this is potentially world-shattering levels of emergency here (i’ve seen you use bone magic for less 👀) could you really not just take the stone back from lila and leave her in grey london where she’ll be way safer? 😂

kell acts like it’s such a forced situation but it’s not. at all. i could think of a hundred ways he could cleverly use magic to get away from lila, retrieve the stone from her, and be fine. she’s a non-bender holding a lethal grenade, but kell is the avatar with blood bending. wdym he can’t figure out how to ditch her and take the grenade back?

it’s like hydrogen bomb versus coughing baby. except hydrogen bomb lays down and dies after coughing baby whines a little too much???

and yes, i get that the stone was corrupting him, and that it was convenient to have another person hold it for a little bit, but the positives of that don’t outweigh the negatives of having to keep track of her all the time and knowingly endangering her life. lila doesn’t care if she lives or dies, fine. but that doesn’t erase kell’s moral prerogative to not let her come on this suicide mission (when he’s fully able to stop her from coming). which is the problem. kell is on level 100. lila is level 5 here. at no point was i ever convinced that lila could force kell to do anything.

his argument for leaving someone behind to tell the royal family what happened to him is also terrible. like dude, just write a letter and deliver it to the palace yourself in secret using as tascen. or leave the letter with someone trusted. or tell someone you trust, like tieren or a random sanctuary novice, and ask them to tell the royals after 48 hours have elapsed. even if they tell the king early…kell is already gone off to white london. no one can follow him anyway. kell does NOT need lila to stay behind and tell his story. in fact, coming from some random stranger from a totally different world, the story may seem even more suspicious and outlandish and is even less likely to be believed than a quick letter he wrote himself or relayed to a trusted person in the kingdom.

and then he goes one step further and brings her to white london with him simply because she asked. like what? just take the token from her and go? 😂 like i said above, there was no reason to endanger her. and yes, lila said she didn’t care about dying and that she wanted to help. but

imagine this:

a rookie cop is about to go rogue and attempt the assassination of a mafia boss. a random teenage civilian from a foreign country who has never shot a gun before, doesn’t know how guns work, and basically can’t shoot guns at all (i’m well aware lila can shoot a gun, but guns=magic here) volunteers to go with the cop to help with the hit. the hit is in a hostile foreign country where everyone has guns and they all speak a language the civilian doesn’t know. the cop expects to die and doesn’t know if they’ll be able to smuggle the civilian back out of the country after it’s all over. so naturally the cop says no, they will not bring the civilian with them, because they don’t want to drag an innocent teenage civilian into this mess. the civilian says “but i want to help and i don’t care about dying”. rookie cop, after 30 seconds of thinking says “ok, if you insist🤷🏻‍♀️”

WHAT ? *tik tok boom sound effect*

the rookie cop is not in the right here for saying yes and allowing the inexperienced civilian who cannot shoot guns to tag along. even if the mafia boss is a big baddie and needs to die for the greater good. it’s just not right, necessary, or responsible of the rookie cop. even if the civilian doesn’t care. it doesn’t matter. rookie cop could’ve just driven away from the civilian and performed the hit himself. and should have.

anyway, i understand there’s arguments to be made that kell was so super afraid of dying in the white london confrontation that he didn’t put up a fight on purpose because he wanted company, but that being the only reason is so narratively disappointing and not really explored. his selfishness born of fear is not the problem, the problem is that the narrative doesn’t acknowledge it and truly presented the situation like “he had no other choice”. when he fully does.

i just wish kell had truly been “forced” into bringing lila with him. or that lila had done something more forcing. or even that kell had said no and then lila figured out a way to trick him and go to white london herself.

like imagine kell says no, lila is angry and follows him, she witnesses the holland fight, helps him win it, pickpockets the stone and the WL rook from kell during said fight, then lila uses the stone and rook combo to open a little portal to WL, she goes through, KELL now has to follow, then they end up fighting the mob of white londoners together, and then kell is finally convinced to let lila help him bc now they’re both already in WL, Lila gets to really prove herself, and it was actually a forced situation and not just kell being the biggest doormat to ever live. (don’t get me wrong, i do love that he’s a doormat sometimes, but when inter-dimensional security is at risk, there comes a point where you need to put that trait away, otherwise you just come off as selfish/stupid and/or the narrative suffers from flaws in logic.)

basically, it would’ve been so easy to tweak the mechanics of the situation so kell ACTUALLY had a real reason to bring lila with him. because it was annoying to constantly read “kell had no other choice”/“lila had forced his hand” type of lines when it was SO obvious that he did in fact have a choice and lila was not forcing his hand at all.

or the reason simply could’ve been because kell liked her or was attracted to her. but lowk we just don’t get that at all during the first book. ( and i do prefer the minimal romance, but in this case i think going a little harder on the attraction could’ve strengthened the reasoning for constantly giving in to lila’s baseless demands.)

anyway, ik everything worked out in the end, some it largely BECAUSE lila was present in the finale and BECAUSE kell brought her along all those times. but what IM saying is that the luck + plot armor of the characters + the ultimate outcome do NOT erase the sin of bad in-universe reasoning for them being “stuck together” and kell being forced to take lila with him.

ok i’m dropping my mic and walking away now

[svgarbelles]

okay maybe this is me overthinking but did the dane’s plan in ADSOM actually make any sense? 😂

bc genuinely what was the plan?

1. freak kell out, get him drunk so he accepts the job and smuggles the black stone back to red london (hope he is not curious or looks inside the package at all)

2. when kell gets to red London, send a few mindless, compelled mercenaries after him (hope they can defeat an antari) and retrieve the stone.

3. mercenaries bring stone to astrid-controlled red london citizen. astrid and athos cast a spell together at the same time using the stone halves. barrier comes down.

just WHAT about this required kell being the messenger? why couldn’t holland just go to red london and give the astrid-controlled citizen the stone?

“they were afraid holland might use the stone to break his soul seal” — no, they weren’t. the danes sent holland after kell to retrieve the stone. if they thought holland could use it break the seal, they never would’ve done this.

“they were afraid holland might get caught” caught doing what? smuggling the black stone to red london? have him as travars into a random red london forest with no one around, and have the astrid hand-off happen there. problem solved. holland isn’t getting caught simply transporting a stone, trust.

“they needed plausible deniability if it failed” — if what failed? the smuggling? holland is not failing to simply put a stone in astrid’s hand (see above point.) there are so many easy ways to avoid failing here that are a lot simpler than what they came up with.

remember, kell is NOT the one who was supposed to cast the door-breaking spell. he was never going to be. they can’t implicate him for that. ONLY the smuggling. they used him purely as a delivery service. supposedly because it was the best choice? when in reality, using kell required involving tons of other compelled people, stealing palace guard swords, and creating a huge trail of evidence.

basically there is NO reason for kell to act as the messenger here. holland is fully capable of doing it himself. kell was literally only used for the transfer of the stone between worlds and nothing else. bc they planned to take the stone back from him immediately (within minutes of him returning to red london, in fact). he was a drug mule. but…they…already…had…a…perfectly…good one…in holland ?

using kell just created unnecessary extra steps and complicated/risked their plans.

like what am i missing?

[svgarbelles]

anyone ever thought about the antari as tarot cards? bc hear me out:

lila as the magician

kell as death

holland as the hanged man

[svgarbelles]

also a random poll bc i am v interested in the general consensus

Do you see Kell’s hair as more red or orange?

more red

more orange

Voting ended onApr 23

[svgarbelles]

well, ig the results are in for the red-haired prince 💁🏻‍♀️ ty to the 25 ppl of adsomblr who voted lmao, i will continue to draw kell with red-tinted hair when im one day struck with adsom inspo again

[svgarbelles]

did anyone else catch this mistake when reading threads ? lmao, it jumped out at me the first time i read it cause im p sure as steno is to break and as staro is to seal. i think lila even has a scene in ACOL where she mistakes these exact two commands when fighting the copper thieves!

[svgarbellss]

something i always found interesting: it’s not stated anywhere in canon how old holland is in the present day! trust me, i looked.

37 comes from a random tumblr post schwab made years ago, but it’s never said anywhere in-text—you can’t even extrapolate his age from flashbacks! read my way-too detailed explanation below at your own peril !!

to start, let’s label/describe the flashbacks first.

Alox flashback

Talya flashback

meeting Vortalis

discuss plans to kill Gorst / killing Gorst

holland and vortalis stand on a balcony waiting to open the gates to the people for the first time to start off their reign + child kell visits the throne room

vortalis dies + danes takeover

And now let’s list the canon info we are given about holland’s age during said flashbacks.

Holland is 9

Holland is 18

Holland is (?) “years” have passed since #2

Holland is (?) “months” have passed since #3

Holland is (?) a few days/maybe a week or two have passed since #4. (also child kell is “no more than 12 or 13” y/o)

Holland is (?) “2 years” have passed since #5

if holland is 37 (and Kell is 21) in present-day adsom, then we can assign these ages to Holland in the flashbacks

9 y/o

18 y/o

27/28 y/o

28 y/o

28 y/o (kell always HAS to be 12 here bc he is canonically 21 nine years after this flashback)

30 y/o

which means vortalis hunted holland for basically 10 years! and that holland put up with it for 10 years and did nothing about it despite knowing who was sending all these hitmen after him. imo it was unlikely this went on for a decade. to me it’s way more reasonable if it went on for like 3/4 years max. which means:

9 y/o

18 y/o

21/22 y/o

22 y/o

22 y/o (kell is 12 again)

24 y/o

which makes holland about 31 in present day adsom. my point is that both of these hypothetical age timelines work bc of the ambiguity. just depends on how much time YOU think passed between flashbacks 2 and 3.

interestingly enough, schwab said in a youtube video recap of the series, that during flashback #5 “kell is like 10 and holland is like 20” (said around the 11:35-11:40 time stamp). this is wildly inconsistent with holland being 37 in ADSOM!

Holland being 37 and Kell being 21 hard locks their age difference as 16 years. So if Holland is 37 in ADSOM, and was 20 at the time of flashback #5, that makes Kell 4. Which he very clearly was not.

The math doesn’t quite work out though bc if Holland is 20 in flashback #5 it means he is 29 in present day. And bc of the 10 year age gap, Kell is 19. But he is canonically 21. Kell HAS to be 12 in the #5 flashback, but this makes their age gap even smaller at only 8 years! (v different than 16!)

all these inconsistencies lead me to believe that in schwab’s mind, kell and holland are about a decade apart but she never worked out the timeline very intricately. and that my proposed second timeline is very close to correct and reconciles all the conflicting word of god data the best 😀

anyway, this post exists bc i thought holland was like 28 the entire time i was reading the trilogy and then i found out he was 37 and was shook. i then went looking for evidence and found a mess 🫢

—✨✨✨—

bonus: here’s more reasoning on the flashback math written out in words if any of it was confusing 🤯

in his first flashback, holland is 9, in the second flashback, holland is 18. but in the third flashback (silver wood with vor) his age is not mentioned! and because of this, we cannot definitively state his age in the present.

in the third flashback the only clue we get is that vortalis has been “hunting Holland for years” and Holland refers to him as a “legend.”

contrast this with the second flashback where holland thinks of vortalis as a “nobody” and a “thug.” obviously a few years have passed between the second and third flashback, but we are left to speculate how many.

the time between the fourth and fifth flashbacks is a few months. because in the fifth flashback (standing on the balcony, newly crowned) holland mentions meeting vortalis “months ago”.

the sixth and final flashback occurs “two years” later. (which also means vortalis’s reign was approximately two years long). the flashback ends with holland being enslaved by the Danes. we know his enslavement was 7 years long which takes us to the present.

[badassbutterfly1987]

Some thoughts regarding the "Vortalis hunting Holland for ten years" thing because I think that part of the timeline can still make sense with some wiggling:

Vor was actively sending assassins after Holland around the time of Talya's death, enough so that Holland knew his name.

At an unstated point in time, Queen Stol killed the other White London Antari in an attempt to gain his power. Vortalis was present in an unclear role, avoiding answering when Holland asks.

In their Silver Wood encounter (x) years later, Holland doesn't know who he is (and doesn't immediately assume he's an assassin) until Vortalis introduces himself.

Vor states he only sent 'enemies' after Holland, not allies or friends.

The wiggling:

Considering Vor's statement about his choice of assassins, we can safely assume that Talya wasn't his doing, even if the tragic irony is juicy. Holland had a lot of people looking to kill him.

Then there's the Unnamed White London Antari (heretofore called UWLA) and his ambiguous place in the narrative. We have no idea when he died/when Stol reigned. He briefly appears on the last page of the last issue of the Steel Prince comics looking vaguely middle-aged or older, though I can't really tell with the comics style; this is set at a time when Holland is a child (or not even born if we go by the younger timeline) and Vor is presumably a young adult if close in age to Maxim. While my previous assumption was that UWLA was executed when Holland was young (or else you'd have two active adult Antari who didn't cross paths), it is possible it happened later.

It is also notable that Holland doesn't recognize Vor when they first meet, only knowing him by name and reputation. This suggests that Vortalis wasn't sending assassins after him once a month or more, because then Holland would be more than valid in hunting him down to threaten him into backing off (while open hostility isn't Hol's style, I feel like that kind of prolonged stress would push him to that point); I feel like if it was me, I would at least want to know what my harasser looked like to know to avoid him if we happened to cross paths. So while it started as active murder attempts, it could have evolved to occasionally tossing problem-causers at Holland to see what he would do and keep an eye on him.

For clarity, my previous idea regarding UWLA, Stol, and Vor: he supports Stol in some way, helps her kill UWLA (presumably known for violence, if they didn't attempt and fail to recruit him), doesn't fix anything, he leaves to the Shal when her reign starts to fall apart, Vor assumes Holland is going to be the same kind of problem as UWLA (this is also assuming he started when Holland was 18, he knew Vor was after him but I'm not sure if it states how recent), spends the next 10ish years sending assassins on and off, because Holland clearly isn't pro-killing even in self-defense Vor realizes he might be more useful on his side than dead.

New idea: Vortalis was attempting to kill Holland, assassins keep failing, he throws his lot in with Stol, UWLA is executed for blood bath, nothing improves, similar second half with Holland mentioned above, just over a shorter time span.

[svgarbelles]

to answer your question on the second to last bullet point, in the flashback when Holland is eighteen, he mentions that it’s “the third attack in less than a month and he was getting tired.”

Holland then asks the attackers who sent them and they say Ros Vortalis. Holland comments that “It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the name. It wasn’t even the first time he’d heard the name from one of the would-be killers following him home.”

But yeah to be ignoring several assassination attempts per month for a decade is crazy work to me lmao. I mean, Vortalis probably lessened the frequency over the years but still. Holland must have hella patience to be dealing with all that for so long. Esp if he was already getting tired of it by assassination attempt #3. ig Holland is just built different 🤧

[svgarbelles]

also a random poll bc i am v interested in the general consensus

Do you see Kell’s hair as more red or orange?

more red

more orange

Voting ended onApr 23

[svgarbelles]

my random adsom hot take of the day: osaron was a boring villain !! like im sorry but he was just an evil shadow, not a real character. his motivation was one dimensional and there was no depth to him.

he makes me think of the current disney epidemic/issue of having no real villains anymore. just evil dark clouds of doom and despair 🤷🏻‍♀️

—

ALSO wow i’m smart, i didn’t realize you could make multiple blogs on the same acc 🤦🏻‍♀️ so i was literally signing in and out of two different accounts to make posts on my side blog lmaoo.

anyway it’s all fixed now, this will be my official yap blog and the other one (@svgarbellss now) will just exist as an archive until i decide to do something with it one day.