The Poppy War - Tumblr Posts
i let this thought go tonight and it will never see the light of the moon ever again so here goes every thought in my mind abt the poppy war trilogy. mind you, a lot of this is just nonsensical dabble and incoherent babbling bc i cant ever form coherent thoughts but whatever.
id pay big money and wage a thousand wars to go back in time and yank every material object out of my hand and out of my reach to ensure that i never even wondered abt the trilogy's existence. it's not that i regret reading them because they sucked--no, far from it. it's not that i led myself blind and didnt take the extra precautions to make sure that i was in the right mindset to read them. i knew what i was going into, what ch21 was withholding, i knew how graphic and how heavy they would be to read. i retreated to my room and poured a stupid amount of hours staring at a screen, at a bunch of words, and feeling such bizarre emotions.
that being said, i love runin. i love how bold she was and how persistent she was despite having her bones kicked inwards from quite literally every person she has let into her life. i love how she was a proper morally grey character, a heroine led astray and betrayed by her very own thoughts. i love her bc even though she was the anthropomorphic personification of a god, she was still human. at the end of the day, what killed her wasnt a higher being, it was the self. that part of her arc cemented her place in my top list of female book leads. i love rin because she was human through and through, all the sides of it, she was everything. reading her was a tough pill to swallow, but a necessary one because she is proof of how dangerous the mind can be to itself, to how dangerous humanity is to itself. and sometimes id wish i could reach into their world and pull her back to ground bc of her recklessness. i love and hate rin at the same time, never one more than the other.
i love kitay even more. never once have i faulted him, he knew what was best, a moral compass for readers really. especially after primarily reading from rin's violent and often irrational perspective, it was relieving to have a voice of reason. theres not much i can say abt him other than the fact that he is my favourite out of the trio, id see it through no matter what. yes i wish he'd said no to bonding himself to rin, to put himself on a compromise, but at the same time i'm glad that he did. kept rin grounded, gave her a sense of purpose other than vengeance, instilled her a sense of duty and obligation--to survive, not only for herself but for him as well. will always defend him no matter what, this boy is clean and he is faultless.
nezha nezha nezha. i tried for three books (and tdf) to like him, truly, but even after all those pages i still dont know how to feel about him. he was insufferable in the first book, honourable for most of the second, and downright pathetic in the third. but if i say that i hate nezha then id have to say that i hate rin as well. they were both children of war, born under humiliating circumstances and forced to take the wager of compromise, they share the same faults. its not fair of me to defend one and leave the other open, they forced the ugliness out of each other. they were tragic. i saw his betrayal from kilometres away, but anticipation did not make forgiveness easier. but i know what it feels like to be brought up as a pawn for ur own family's benefit, to be subjected to so much responsibility when you barely know the world and its wonders, feels like a push to the edge. i cant blame him for that.
in short, im devastated. ive had my tears ricochet on loop since i started the first book. i am but a hollow shell of the person i was before this book. it has altered my life (/hj) and i cant go a minute of my day without thinking abt it. it's incredibly tragic, it's flawed in its own ways but it is also three incredible pieces of literature. rfk did well, im glad i read it while at the same time hate myself for reading the entirety of the trilogy in the span of 36hrs. i dont think its once u can read almost immediately, u need to pace yourself. 5 golden stars from me nonetheless.
Fang Runin and Yin Nezha in The Dragon Republic
“They were monsters! They were not human!” “Have you ever considered, that that was exactly what they thought of us?”
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Martial artists. Politicians. Immensely talented soldiers… Who’s to say the trifecta weren’t shamans?
“ So do not shirk from war, child. Do not flinch from suffering. ”
Ruin me, ruin us, and I’ll let you.
art by @sweeetsh @silvermarig0lds @polartss @arianwyn-art
quotes: currently sourcing
drew one of my fav scenes in the dragon republic <3 they are so dumb i love them
THE CUTIESSS SKSKSKKS 💞💞
inspired by this post :3
I JUST FINISHED READING THE REPUBLIC OF THE DRAGON AND WTF JUST HAPPENED (i literally already knew what was gonna happen but i'm still sobbing sm lol)
my recent book reads
literally present-day rin and nezha prove me wrong
venka & rin <\3
i’m being FED present-day au by the ‘gram
rina sawayama and rf kuang create art for angry asian girls to project their power fantasies onto. this is a good thing and i am grateful for them both
Why is no one in this fandom talking about the dragon republic first chapter???????
I mean, im sobbing with:
"she saw on the fading horizon boats sailing in from the Federation naval base on the mainland. [...]
Rows and rows of Speerlies lined up on the beach, weapons in hand.
But it was never enough. To the Federation, they must have seemed savages, using sticks to fight gods.
[...] At dawn, the Federation generals marched to the shore, boots treading indifferently over crushed bodies, advancing to slam their flag into the bloodstained sand."
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I just, I can't stop thinking about how hard the Speerlies tried to defend their island, to protect themselves because they know no one else would do it for them. And it wasn't enough. An entire culture died that day. They died for a nation that never thought about them as their equal. To Nikan, the Speerlies were just beasts they can use to fight they wars.
r. f. kunag, the drowning faith