Soc Spin Off - Tumblr Posts

I'm not leaving 2023 without the knowledge that one day I'll see them fall through a ceiling together.

He's simultaneously giving Kaz Brekker and post CK Wylan Van Eck as in mercher Wylan Van Eck I'm so unwell right now.

DOES IT EVER DRIVE YOU CRAZY JUST HOW FAST THE NIGHT CHANGES

The next time I see someone call Wylan "boring" because his trauma isn't "as bad" as the other Crows' (namely Kaz and Inej's) I'm going to throttle someone. Firstly, trauma isn't comparable: trauma is trauma, regardless of what traumatic experience a person goes through. The point of Six of Crows is that all the Crows are traumatised but find comfort and solace within one another and galvanise each other's healing process.

Secondly, Wylan is a victim of ableism and emotional, mental and physical abuse - which is traumatic - and his story makes me feel physically ill whenever I think about it. As a disabled child, Wylan needed accommodations that his father refused to give him: instead, J*n treated him as something that needed fixing, and treated his disability as pure stubbornness that could be forced out of him with punishment and abuse. He "tried specialists, tonics, beatings, hypnotism" - which are traumatic. J*n also manipulated Wylan into believing that it was his fault by constantly shifting the blame to him (a behaviour very typical amongst abusers). As a result, Wylan never acknowledged his father's behaviour as abusive, which is why he tells Jesper in Crooked Kingdom that "he isn't evil" despite J*n literally trying to kill him twice. In fact, Wylan tries to justify how his father treated him, claiming that he "had done his best to care for his son, and if he’d failed, then the defect lay with Wylan." He also takes it as a display of affection and the desire to protect him, claiming that "his father might sound cruel, but he wasn’t just protecting himself or the Van Eck empire, he was protecting Wylan as well."

Wylan blaming himself for his father's actions doesn't stop there: in the period after Inej is kidnapped by J*n, Wylan feels responsible for what happened despite knowing that "he couldn’t have prevented his father from double-crossing the crew and kidnapping her. He knew that, but he still felt responsible". The guilt is eating away at him because he's so accustomed to taking the blame for his father's wrongdoings. Even after finding out the truth about his mother, which was really the catalyst for him recognising that J*n is indeed evil, his initial response is him blaming himself for it: "it was me. I caused this. He wanted a new wife. He wanted an heir. A real heir, not a moron who can barely spell his own name." This is only made even more sickening when we learn that Wylan would hear how his parents "fought all the time, sometimes about me", which would only amplify his feelings of responsibility for his father sending Marya away, stripping her of her life, family and fortune.

This is all without him not being allowed to grieve his mother's "death". This is all without the imposter syndrome and self-loathing Wylan experiences as a result of all of this, the fear that the Crows would see him as worthless and defective the way his father did and abandon him.

tl;dr: stop overlooking Wylan's trauma because he too has deep mental and emotional scars.

Do you ever think about just how powerfully symbolic Matthias killing the wolf in Hellgate at the beginning of SOC is? How him killing the animal sacred to Djel is a representation of him "killing off" the values imposed on him? Of him "killing" his old self, the drüskelle who'd sworn an oath to his country and to its cause, the boy who'd been manipulated and had his grief and pain exploited to fuel hatred, forced to drink the poison Brum had forced down his throat his entire life? Of how he recognises that "the life you live, the hate you feel – it’s poison. I can drink it no longer", but then there's the bitter irony of how that poison still kills him in the end as he's shot by another drüskelle, as he's "killed" by his past and the boy he'd been? Because I think about that a lot.

In the books, it's the scheming face. In the show, it's the bombastic side-eye.

Going back to this, I want to address the way the show handled it: Matthias choosing not to fight the wolves in the finale shows is symbolic of how, due to the point he's at in his story, his arc hasn't begun yet. He's still holding onto those values imposed on him, still drinking the poison. He hasn't started "killing" that part of him, thus it's still too early to start foreshadowing his arc.

I think that having him fight alongside them now will just create more angst regarding killing them in the spin-off (for the sake of this post, I'm acting as if it's been greenlit). Redoing this scene with Matthias killing the wolves instead of fighting alongside them again would actually make it more painful for him because he’d probably be thinking about how he was able to stop fighting them once, why not again?

Do you ever think about just how powerfully symbolic Matthias killing the wolf in Hellgate at the beginning of SOC is? How him killing the animal sacred to Djel is a representation of him "killing off" the values imposed on him? Of him "killing" his old self, the drüskelle who'd sworn an oath to his country and to its cause, the boy who'd been manipulated and had his grief and pain exploited to fuel hatred, forced to drink the poison Brum had forced down his throat his entire life? Of how he recognises that "the life you live, the hate you feel – it’s poison. I can drink it no longer", but then there's the bitter irony of how that poison still kills him in the end as he's shot by another drüskelle, as he's "killed" by his past and the boy he'd been? Because I think about that a lot.

Whoever decided to put Wylan and Nikolai IN THE SAME FRAME and SIDE-BY-SIDE can I personally thank you but also DID YOU THINK MY HEART WAS GOING TO HANDLE THAT

Someone: what are you thinking about?

My brain: in Crooked Kingdom, Wylan tells Jesper that his father "places a high value on learning", to which Jesper replies with "higher than money?" that prompts Wylan to tell him that "knowledge isn't a sign of divine favour. Prosperity is." This obviously has religious undertones by referencing the belief that financial prosperity is a sign of the existence and aid of Ghezen, the god of industry and commerce worshipped by Kerch citizens, but it's also representative of certain facets of Wylan's character. J*n never valued his son's mind (the "knowledge" component of this analogy) because he thought that the "prosperity" of the Van Eck empire was impossible with a "defective" child, hence why he would refer to Wylan fulfilling the role as a mercher's son as an "impossible task" due to him not being able to read despite his other strengths in science, maths and music. He believed that Wylan not being able to read makes him "some fool who would make the Van Eck name a laughingstock", which would ultimately hinder the prosperity of the empire. This is why J*n "finally had to accept that Ghezen saw fit to curse me with a moron for a child": no matter how smart Wylan is and how much "knowledge" he has, his disability prevents the "prosperity" of the empire and, thus, there was no sign of divine favour. However, this ironic when you consider how Wylan becomes the reason for the empire's prosperity at Crooked Kingdom's conclusion. In this case, "knowledge" refers to his ability to read in the way his father perceived it: that it defined his intelligence and worth. His lack of knowledge (according to his father) may not have been a sign of divine favour - at least, not in the way J*n thought - but the prosperity of the empire under Wylan, his "defective" child, can be read as such. The fact that this line takes on a whole new meaning by the end of the duology is so representative of Wylan reclaiming his identity as he finally accepts all of himself - including the parts he'd learnt to hate and tried to outrun.

Me: ...beautiful weather we're having today, isn't it?

I will never move on from how not only did the Crows steal the tank from the Ice Court, but the entire time Wylan is smiling to himself and then absolutely LOSES IT once they've escaped. Like the crew has just stolen a tank from a high-security prison, narrowly escaping death, but Wylan physically can't stop laughing and is quite literally snorting with laughter at the image of the Fjerdans firing uselessly in the tank's direction with the Fjerdan might banner caught in its treads. He could have died but he's laughing hysterically at how stupid the Fjerdans look as they failed to prevent literal children (who have STOLEN ONE OF THEIR TANKS) from escaping their high-security prison. This has got to be one of my favourite underrated Wylan moments.

I love the way S2 showed the difference between how Jesper approaches a high-stakes situation in comparison to Wylan, specifically in the scene where they sneak into Pekka's estate by entering through an open window. Jesper practically jumps from the windowsill and then twirls his gun, whereas Wylan gently lowers himself from the windowsill before lightly dropping himself down when he's crouched close enough to the ground.

We know that Jesper thrives off chaos and spontaneity, hence why he leaps from the windowsill and immediately twirls his gun: he's diving head-first into the action. He actively seeks fights because of the thrill they bring him, because he "always felt better when people were shooting at him". You can practically see the adrenaline coursing through him.

Wylan slowly lowering himself until he's close enough to drop down is more careful and deliberate than Jesper's leap, and it shows the complete opposite: Wylan is more cautious and wary than Jesper because he doesn't thrive off the chaos of a fight. He doesn't find anything thrilling about being in a dangerous situation, especially when you consider his sheltered upbringing. (I say sheltered because, though abusive, his household never exposed him to the dangers of Barrel life. This is made clear in Crooked Kingdom when Wylan is reliving his first months in the Barrel, thinking about how "he might not have been happy at his father’s house, but he’d never had to work for anything. He’d had servants, hot meals, clean clothes. Whatever it took to survive the Barrel, Wylan knew he didn’t have it.") He doesn't want to get in trouble or get wrapped up in these sorts of situations because that's not who he wants to be - he doesn't want to be a criminal.

However, he inevitably leaps from the windowsill too (just when he's crouched low enough to do so) rather than slowly sliding off it and onto the ground, exemplifying how, despite how he doesn't want to be a criminal, he still contributes to the task at hand and gets involved in these types of situations. His hesitancy doesn’t paralyse him regardless of the fact that he doesn’t want to partake in criminal activity. Whether or not he wants to do it, this is the path he's decided to pursue and he needs to do his part.

This difference is also exemplified in the scene in S2E5 where Zoya and Tolya are recruiting the Crows for the heist to steal the Neshyenyer blade. When they offer payment for the Crows’ contributions, Jesper responds with “I like the sound of that” before taking a shot of something. In a way, it echoes the “time for a heist!” scene in season one, emphasising Jesper’s willingness to go on a heist due to the thrill it brings (as well as the prospect of a monetary reward). On the other hand, while Jesper is enthusiastically agreeing to Zoya and Tolya’s request, Wylan is giving him the bombastic side-eye due to Jesper's willingness to accept the mission without hesitation.

Again, Wylan can't fathom how someone could be so willing to go on such a mission, so he's side-eyeing Jesper in disbelief and almost disapproval but he's also not at all surprised because this is Jesper Llewellyn Fahey. Remember, Wylan doesn't thrive off adrenaline rushes the way Jesper does - he's only doing all of this because 1) his entire motivation is to "make his money, get out of town, and never speak the name Van Eck again" and 2) he pretty much has no other choice because he makes it very clear that "he would sell himself in the pleasure houses of West Stave before he’d ask for his father’s mercy".

to the bone ━━━ a six of crows one-shot.

spoiler warning: this is not a safe space for fans who have only watched the show and do not want to have wylan's story spoiled for them in case we get the spin-off. this one-shot is based off a scene that is referenced in six of crows, and contains heavy spoilers for wylan's backstory which hasn't yet been explored in the showverse (I say "yet" because I'm holding onto hope that we'll get that spin-off asdfghjkl).

summary: ever since jan van eck had hired him for the mission at the ice court, kaz intended to use wylan as leverage against his father. but wylan had known from the start, from the moment that kaz had told him that he'd be excellent at hostage, that that wouldn't be effective. not when he'd been nothing but a disappointment to his father. not when van eck was hellbent on forgetting that he ever had a son. wylan couldn't keep it hidden anymore. kaz needed to know the truth. (or: the scene where wylan tells kaz about his disability.)

author's note: this work is a submission for grishaverse disability pride day by @gvdisabledpride that will also be available on ao3, so if you also see this work there... that's why :)

content warning: descriptions of ableism, mentions of past child abuse, ptsd

ABOARD THE FEROLIND after the battle at the Djerholm harbour, Wylan lay curled up in his cot below deck, waiting for the moment the sway of the ship would lull him to sleep.

Except he knew it probably wouldn't. He'd been lying in his cot for what felt like hours, tossing and turning, desperately trying to silence his racing thoughts and just fall asleep. He tried to focus on the sound of the sea muffled by the hull of the Ferolind, on the sway of the ship as it journeyed closer and closer to Ketterdam — but the freezing cold wasn't doing him any favours, and neither was that anxious gnawing in his gut.

The mission had been, considerably, a success: they'd escaped the Ice Court in one piece, with Kuwei Yul-Bo stashed away in one of the other cabins and the promise of thirty million kruge awaiting them back in Ketterdam. Wylan would get his share and leave this life behind. He'd journey somewhere far away, never having to speak the name Van Eck again.

Van Eck…

Wylan swallowed the bile rising up inside him. Kaz had intended to use him as leverage against his father, lest the plan go awry and Van Eck was suddenly uncooperative. “Wylan isn’t just good with the flint and fuss,” he'd announced that first day on the Ferolind, right before he'd revealed Wylan's true identity to the rest of the crew. “He's our insurance.” 

Wylan shut his eyes, curled up tighter in his cot. His heart was starting to beat a little faster, a hummingbird trapped inside a cage, and he forced his breath slowly through his chest — a deep breath through his nose, shattering the silence that had thickened around him. Kaz had kept him close to use him as leverage against Van Eck, but one thing the older boy wasn't aware of was that Wylan couldn't be their insurance. Not when his father wanted him to disappear. Not when he was attempting to forget he ever had a son. Not when his new wife, Alys, was bearing the heir of the Van Eck empire — a proper hier, not the defective one he’d received in Wylan. Not the one who’d turn the Van Eck name into a laughingstock.

I have to tell Kaz.

Instinctively, his fingers reached up to touch his neck. He could still feel Prior's meaty hands clasped tightly around it, his grip firm and relentless as Wylan grew dizzy and black spots slowly filled his vision. He sat up, hoping the feeling would subside if he got up and let more air fill his lungs — and yet, the feeling of his throat constricting persisted, and a suffocating, uncontrollable panic welled up in him.

He hugged his knees to his chest and slowly rocked himself back and forth with his head buried in his arms, horrified by how his breath was coming out in short, shallow whimpers as the memories came flooding back, by how the tears prickled the corners of his eyes as his father's voice echoed in his ears.

A child half your age can effortlessly do what you cannot.

I've tried everything I possibly could. I've tried tutors, specialists, I've tried forcing that stubbornness out of you and yet you refuse to be taught.

You can't be sent anywhere because your defect might be revealed.

“Get out of my head,” Wylan whimpered, grabbing fistfuls of his hair as he continued to rock himself back and forth. “Get out of my head.”

Once you reveal yourself to be defective, they'll turn your back on you. They'll leave you as you were: the wayward son of one of the richest men in Ketterdam.

“Get… Get out of my head.”

But the voice was persistent, unwelcome. You worthless fool. You soft-pated idiot.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, blinking back the tears that formed a painful lump in his throat. He swallowed, trying to force it down to no avail, and a fresh flare of panic swelled within him. Someone could walk into his cabin at any moment and see him in this state: rocking back and forth with his head in his hands, chest shuddering over and over as he gasped for air, begging the voice in his head to lapse into silence. And yet, there was nothing he could do about it. He felt detached from his own body, as though he were watching himself from the perspective of an outsider, helpless against the wave of shame overcoming him.

He stayed like that until the jittery feeling coursing through him had subsided enough for him to think rationally again. Above that irrefutable voice in the back of his mind, he once again thought about revealing his greatest shame to Kaz. What would happen if he just stayed there on his cot, if he never told Kaz that he couldn't be used as leverage against his father? And what would happen if Van Eck double-crossed them, and there wasn't any good enough insurance to ensure that the six of them would get their money? Their efforts would have been futile, and none of them would get what they'd initially sought — and it might as well be his fault.

His body starting to tremble, Wylan forced himself to stand up from his cot. Just do one thing at a time. Just like his tutor had taught him in order to stop him from getting overwhelmed by the page. Stand up. He slid off the edge of the cot, straightened as his feet touched the ground. Take a deep breath. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath through his nose. Open your eyes. He opened his eyes and forced himself to walk. Go find Kaz. He assumed Kaz would be in his own cabin, scheming away, concocting backup plans for their backup plans in case anything went wrong.

He quietly left his cabin, making his way down the Ferolind's lower deck to find Kaz. He found the older boy sitting on the cot in his own cabin, staring intently at the floor with one hand gripping the crow head of his cane.

“Kaz?” Wylan swallowed frantically, his skin burning hot as he fought the words to come through. “I… I won't be leverage enough against my father. I know I'm supposed to be your… insurance, but I can't be. It won't be enough.”

Kaz sat up straighter, his free hand curling over the head of his cane as he looked up at Wylan. “And why is that?”

Something about Kaz's cold glare, his rock-salt rasp as he asked the question, sent a chill rippling over every inch of Wylan's skin. He wanted to scream. He wanted to bolt back to his cabin, hide beneath the paper-thin covers until he vanished completely. He wanted the floor to open up beneath him, to be dragged by the rolling waves into the depths of the sea. He wanted to disappear, just like his father wanted him to.

I have to tell him.

“I…” The roar of blood in his ears was deafening, drowning out the murmur of the waves outside the Ferolind's hull. That shameful helplessness was taut in his belly, a knot incapable of coming unravelled.

You just have to say it. You just have to say you can't read.

His father's taunts reverberated in his mind. Defective. Imbecile. Worthless. Broken. Disgraceful. Idiot. Useless. He was choking on them. They pressed against his throat like Prior's iron grip closing around it all those months ago, dirty fingernails digging into the skin of his neck. His cheeks burnt with shame despite the cold sweat that had broken out over every part of his body. His heart was a war drum beneath his ribs, his chest too tight, his breath too short and shallow. Take a deep breath. He couldn't. His clothes felt tight around his body — too tight, as though they stuck to him.

“I… I have an affliction.” Uttering those words aloud was enough to send a violent roil through Wylan's stomach, and he had to stop himself from throwing up. This was it. There was no taking back those words: he was halfway there.

Kaz merely sat there, looking rather impatient with his gloved hands folded over the crow's head of his cane. Wylan couldn't imagine what he looked like in this moment: red-faced, a trembling hand near his lips as if he were about to bite his nails, his eyes not meeting Kaz's.

It felt like the walls of the cabin were closing in on him, Prior's hands tightening around his throat as the latter half of his confession choked him. The waters he'd leapt into all those months ago were rising around him, filling his lungs and numbing his limbs with its icy grasp. He tried to fight against it, but the water was weighing him down, his limbs useless against the tide as he drowned in the murky waters of the Ketterdam harbour.

He drew another deep, shuddering breath.

Spit it out.

“I… I can't read,” he finally gasped, and the water receded.

There. He'd said it. He'd revealed his shame to Kaz, his voice barely above a whisper lest the sea around them carry his shame across its rolling waves and let the whole world know about Jan Van Eck's defective child.

Kaz's piercing glare was still on him, as if expecting him to say more. His expression remained as cold and calculating as ever — had he known about this too, just as he'd known about Wylan's true identity? Did Wylan have any tells that gave away his shame — his face growing pale at the sight of the tangled scrawl of words across a page, staring at it for too long hoping that he'd recognise the shapes of the words? Or had Kaz been surprised? Had this been the one thing he hadn't seen coming? His gaze was piercing and unreadable, but Wylan sucked in another breath and continued, trying to keep his voice steady.

“It's not that no one tried to teach me, lots of people did. But I just can't do it. It's like something in me refuses to do it.” That was what his father used to drill into him throughout his childhood, and the memory filled him with a sickening dread.

“I'm…” Wylan moistened his lips thoughtfully, trying to phrase his next words carefully without having the entire shameful story out in the open. The story of his father sending him away, supposedly to study music in Belendt. Of his Miggson and Prior trying to kill him, of him leaping into the murky canal with nothing but his satchel, fake enrolment papers and a soaked-through stash of kruge. “To him, I'm not worth losing. You can't use me as leverage if I'm not good enough insurance. There has to be another way around this, because this won't work. I know it won't.”

Kaz averted his gaze thoughtfully, then shrugged before standing up, leaning on his cane. That was his only response — a shrug. Had Wylan not been so afraid, so shaken by that shameful helplessness, he would have burst out laughing: he'd just revealed his defect to Kaz Brekker — the Bastard of the Barrel, the boy they called Dirtyhands in the grimy streets of the Barrel — and he'd merely shrugged. Shouldn't he be concerned with what to do with Wylan, now that he'd found out that his demolitions expert was just a useless fool evicted from his father's home?

“We'll have to work around that, then,” Kaz responded in that low, raspy voice. His eyes met Wylan's, boring into him as though searching for some semblance of worth within him, something that would compensate for his other failings. A pinprick of discomfort shot up Wylan's spine at the prolonged eye contact, but Kaz's eyes left his as he scanned Wylan from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes and back up again.

Wylan just stood there, completely stunned. He'd expected Kaz to sneer at him, or laugh at his affliction and refuse to give him his share of their reward once they'd reached Ketterdam. He'd expected the knot in his stomach to tighten, the shame growing, but he felt it loosen ever so slightly with the odd sense of relief and liberation that came with revealing his condition to Kaz.

“And how do you suppose we do that?” Wylan asked, his voice a low croak. “What other leverage could we possibly use?” 

Kaz looked towards the door of his cabin, then back at Wylan. Kaz Brekker saw the world as though it were a puzzle, and he studied Wylan like he was a piece of that puzzle that didn't fit where he'd thought it would — but now, it seemed, he'd found another place he could slot that piece into without having to tear the entire project apart. “Lest Van Eck double-crosses us, we'll have to stop him from getting what he wants.”

Wylan's brow furrowed. “And how, exactly, would we do that?”

“Nina's a passable Tailor at best — but, under the influence of parem, she could achieve something that shouldn't be possible. Not even in the hands of the most gifted Tailor.” Wylan swallowed thickly as Kaz continued. “We'll have her tailor you to look like Kuwei, and hand you off to your father.”

Wylan's heart stuttered at that. He was no stranger to Kaz's elaborate and unbelievable schemes — after all, they'd stolen a tank from a high-security prison — but this was different. This was absurd. Wylan agreeing to be tailored to look like Kuwei was a death wish: the Shu boy was valuable, certainly with large bounties on his head. He held the secret to the world's greatest threat, one that could wreak havoc if it fell into the wrong hands. Wylan could have refused — he should have refused, if he wanted to make it back to Ketterdam alive. Instead, he cleared his throat and responded with an assertive, “I'll do it.”

For a split second, a surprised look flashed in Kaz's eyes, but disappeared as quickly as it came. He expected me to refuse, Wylan thought as his cheeks heated with embarrassment once again.

“It may be permanent,” Kaz warned him.

Wylan shook his head. “I need to know. Once and for all, I need to know what my father really thinks of me.”

Kaz cast him an almost pitying look. “Surely Van Eck would have some qualms about ending your life—”

“He wouldn't,” Wylan asserted, picking at the skin of his lip, that ill feeling returning as the reality dawned on him. Van Eck had tried to kill him once, what would stop him from trying again? “I'll bet you that.”

“How much?”

“Ten kruge.”

Kaz's lip curled in a grin. “Surely your father wouldn't be so callous.”

Wylan shrugged. “You'd be surprised.”

“Nothing surprises me, merchling. That's why I'm still alive.” Kaz walked past Wylan and made his way to the cabin's entrance. “I'm going to fill Nina in on the plan. Go to her cabin within the hour.”

Wylan nodded as Kaz left the cabin, leaving Wylan alone with nothing but his own racing thoughts. When he'd finally gotten himself to move, he walked back to his own cabin and propped himself down on his cot, his body still trembling with the aftermath of confessing his greatest shame to Kaz. His fingers itched the way they always did whenever he yearned to play his flute or the piano in the music room of his father's house. Ghezen and his works, he wanted nothing more than to snatch his satchel up from the foot of his cot and grab his flute. He wanted to close his eyes and bring the instrument to his lips, letting the world disappear around him as the notes wrapped him in his own story — one free of the shame and fear he'd carried for so long, one that made his heart flutter with joy as the music flooded a soothing warmth through him. But he couldn't bring himself to even glance in the direction of his satchel.

He thought back to Kaz's unchanged expression at his admission, the light, dismissive shrug of his shoulders. The shame still gnawed at Wylan, but there was also the strange relief of getting something off his chest despite it, as though telling Kaz had freed something in him — something that had been encased in the chains of his father's contempt for as long as he could remember.

It's not too late to decline, pressed that voice in the back of his mind.

He shook his head assertively — if this is what had to be done to ensure the crew got their money, then so be it. And yet… he was terrified and horribly anxious.

He looked down at his hands, his eyes tracing over the creases of his slender fingers, the little scars with no clear origin along his skin, the crescent outlines on his palms from digging his nails into them. Within the hour, they weren't going to be his hands anymore — they'd be Kuwei's. Slowly, he buried his face in his hands, sighing deeply as his fingers raked through the tufts of hair that brushed his forehead. The face in his hands wouldn't be his anymore, and neither would the hair between his fingers. With Nina's power, he'd soon become the most valuable person in the world. He was terrified, but that wouldn't stop him from doing what he needed to. From ensuring that he and the rest of this crew got their money.

From finally learning what his father truly thought of him.

Van Eck had made it clear as Wylan grew up that there was no space for his son in his household. He'd made it clear that he wanted Wylan disappear for as long as it took him to forget that he ever had a son. And yet, a part of him hoped that maybe he'd misunderstood everything. That his father did indeed love him unconditionally just as any father loved his child.

Wylan lifted his head from his hands and started gnawing at his thumbnail. He wouldn't know for certain until the rest of Kaz's plan was carried out, when his face and name were no longer his.

I could give you a list of reasons why I need the spin-off but one that's high up there is that I need to see Calahan Skogman saying "bing bong bing bing bong. No, wait, bing bing bong bing bing" in his Fjerdan accent with a straight face and completely deadpan.

Oh I’m going to be absolutely INSUFFERABLE when the promo videos start coming through.

Okay don't mind me I'm in the middle of a Crooked Kingdom reread and feel overwhelmingly inclined to rant about Jesper Fahey because this fandom just doesn't give him the treatment he deserves. I'm specifically going to incoherently ramble about the scene in Crooked Kingdom where he, Colm and Wylan are being shot at because I feel like that scene is representative of Jesper's arc - but, before we dive into that, let me contextualise a few things first. Jesper does things for the thrill of it: he thrives off chaos and spontaneity, hence why he "always felt better when people were shooting at him". It's because the sound of gunfire "called the scattered, irascible, permanently seeking part of his mind into focus like nothing else" - and it also provides a distraction from his pain and trauma, because whenever he'd think about it, "everything in him recoiled. Trying not to die was the best possible distraction". Whenever anything to do with his past or his debt is brought up, "his hands returned to his revolvers" because he found himself "longing for the cool, familiar feel of their pearl handles beneath his thumbs". It steadies him as much as it possibly can when he's not in a dangerous situation, momentarily calling his mind into focus, an attempt at distracting himself from his afflictions.

Based off similar instances, the scene in Crooked Kingdom where he, Wylan and Colm are being shot at should have brought him that same satisfaction that any other shooting would. He "should be buzzing from the excitement of the fight. The thrill was still there, fizzing through his blood, but beside it was a cold, unfamiliar sensation that felt like it was draining the joy from him." What makes this situation so different to the others is that he can't ignore his problems and trauma now: it's staring him right in the face. Colm is right there. The thrill of the fight doesn't feel the same because "all he could think was, Da could have been hurt. He could have died." And we know that Jesper's debt would cost Colm the jurda farm Jesper grew up on, forcing him to acknowledge the reality of his problems: with Colm being right there, Jesper just can't ignore his afflictions because all he could think about is how his father would "suffer for his antics". If you ask me, this is so representative of his character arc as a whole.

This is further emphasised by how he's reflecting on the first time he spun Makker's Wheel right before this ambush, its intention being merely "harmless fun", but it ended up evolving into an addiction that "split [his life] like a log into two distinct and uneven pieces: the time before he’d stepped up to that wheel and every day since". The rush of a high-stakes situation is the equivalent of the "harmless fun" - it's a thrill that Jesper enjoys feeling, but in reality it's doing much more harm because it's preventing him from acknowledging and facing his pain. And he's indeed in so much pain: there's so much anguish inside of him, but he'd do anything to distract himself from it because the reality is just too painful.

This is where the tables come in: later in Crooked Kingdom, when the crew are being ambushed by the Khergud, Jesper "could feel the pull of East Stave" because he didn't have anything else to occupy his mind with. Then, the minute he thinks about facing his father, "the need to be at the tables was overwhelming" because he desperately needs to distract himself from the reality of his circumstances: "since Kaz hadn't obliged him with something to shoot at, Jesper needed a pair of dice and long odds to clear his mind". He can't use the ambush as a distraction, so the tables it is. As Inej tells him, "they feel like medicine. They soothe you, put you right for a time. But they’re poison, Jesper. Every time you play, you take another sip." This isn't the first time poison has been used to represent something that is preventing the Crows from healing - we also see it with Matthias, when he tells Brum in Six of Crows, "the life you live, the hate you feel - it's poison. I can drink it no longer". Just like how the exploitation of Matthias' grief and pain as a means of fueling hatred prevented him from healing because it kept exacerbating the anguish within him (he had to stop drinking the poison to do so), Jesper's addiction - and, by extension, the thrill of a high-stakes situation - prevents him from acknowledging the wound inside him and working towards healing it. It gets to the extent where “he had always thought of himself as lucky… what if he’d been bluffing this whole time?” - he’s gotten so used to suppressing his pain that he, in a way, loses sense of who he is. His façade has distorted his perception of himself. It's not until Colm arrives in the Barrel that Jesper is forced to acknowledge just how deep that wound is and how much it's festering - just like how he couldn't even feel the thrill of a fight properly because of the possibility of his father getting hurt.

That scene is one of many cracks that start to form as Jesper continues to bottle up all of this pain and trauma, until he finally breaks when Wylan proposes that he's such a good shot because being a Fabrikator allows him to direct the metal of the bullets. Jesper protests, asking Wylan why he can't "just let things be easy" - why can't he just let him keep ignoring his problems, when it's so much easier than facing them? But Wylan stands his ground, explaining that "they’re not easy... You keep pretending everything is okay. You move on to the next fight or the next party. What are you afraid is going to happen if you stop?" This is why Matthias calls Jesper “angry and frightened” - he’s afraid of stopping, because he knows stopping means that he’s forced to face the reality that he’s deeply wounded. This is when he finally breaks under the burden of his own pain, under the reality that he can't keep ignoring it anymore - hence why he chooses to put his share of the reward in Colm's name because, as he explains to Kaz, "I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of money just yet". For the first time, he's acknowledging his problems and working towards fixing them, no matter how much time it takes (because trauma and addiction don't just disappear overnight).

n e ways this ended up being significantly longer than anticipated but this is what happens when I start analysing these books: it snowballs out of control and suddenly I can’t shut up.

You know which scene I desperately need to see in the spin-off? The scene where Wylan confesses to Kaz that he can't read. Think about it: we don't actually see this scene playing out in the books - it's just referenced in 1) the scene where they confront Van Eck at the end of Six of Crows, and 2) in Crooked Kingdom after Genya tailors Wylan to look like himself again. I want to see Wylan make the decision to tell Kaz that he can't be used as leverage against Van Eck. I want to see him struggle to get the words out as he confesses his greatest shame to Kaz, and I want to see Kaz just shrug in response because "so what if he [Wylan] couldn't read?" I want to see Wylan completely shocked by Kaz's indifference to the fact that he can't read - the shock mixed with an odd sense of relief and liberation because this is the first step to him starting to accept all of himself. I want to see him agree to being tailored to look like Kuwei despite knowing the risks, and I want to see Kaz being completely taken aback by Wylan's willingness to do so. I want to see Wylan bet Kaz that Van Eck would kill his own child without hesitation, and I want to see Kaz's reaction to how Van Eck is actually a terrible man who would end his son's life without an ounce of hesitation or remorse. Even if it's just a flashback that plays during the ending confrontation, I'd exchange some sort of currency to see Jack and Freddy act out that scene because I just know they'd kill it. (There's a reason why I wrote a one-shot inspired by this scene which you can read here if you're interested :) )