Rai (is hard to please) > Recent Status Updates

Them: *steamy make out*
Marynka: “Don’t. . .” she managed to get out, trying to catch her breath. “Don’t think this means I like you.”


“It was as though even this was a competition, as though neither of them could bear to be outdone, undone, by the other, as if Zosia were trying to prove she was so much better at this, too.”

U n d o n e

“What do you say, Zosia? A truce? Why don’t we each retrieve our fool and go our way.”
(…)
“My fool’s a monster. She doesn’t die so easily.”
“And mine’s a stubborn traitor,” Józef said. “Believe me, he’ll cling to life just to spite you.”

(…) “As if the witch who had ruled the hours between sunrise and noon was taking all the warmth of day with her.”

Not Jasinska mixing up her own characters

“She caught the saber with both hands, blood ribboning down her palms, and drove the blade into her own chest.”

Respect 🫡
This better not be a bury your gays trope tho

“How nice to know that even in the midst of all this she could still bring a little sunshine, a little romance, into other people’s lives. How terribly kind of her. Really, they owed her a thank-you.”

She’s right and she’s funny.
I’d say to inform the misogynists but they would just gaslight the messenger

“You don’t notice the bars of the cage,” Beata said, “unless you start to throw yourself against them. Surviving is a choice too.”

“The only person Grandmother didn’t protect Marynka from was Grandmother herself.”

~narcissists~
gotta love ‘em.
no, really. they’ll punish you if you don’t.

“No one warned me it would hurt more to lose a friend than a lover. Lovers I can easily replace. But so much of my life has involved Kajetan, ever since we started at the Royal Cadet School together. He’s always been there. A constant presence. I don’t know how to move forward without him by my side. I don’t know who could ever understand me like he did.”

Put it together, Kosia. I believe in you.

“I am finished proving myself to the person who made me feel worthless in the first place.”

AS HE SHOULD

“You know,” Marynka said slowly, “in another life I feel like you and I could have been friends.”
“A pity then that I am most certainly going to murder you in this one.”

🥰

“It made her wonder if this really was what lay ahead for Lechija, if all that ever came of fighting for freedom was death and failure, and if so, was there a point in fighting at all?”

“Life had taught Marynka that love was something you had to earn. Only through blood and sweat and tears and endless effort could you prove yourself worthy of it. Beata’s love made her uneasy. It felt like she was trying to play a trick on her. She couldn’t trust a love so easily and freely given. She didn’t know what to do with that kind of love.”

… ahah 😀

“Don’t die. You’re not allowed to die.
If you die, I’ll—
If you die, I’ll be so bored.”

You poor, stubborn hedonist, you

“If you think you can actually hurt me. . .” She paused, chin lifting defiantly. “You can’t. You won’t. Nothing you throw at me will break me. Believe me.”

“Now she was looking at Marynka like she truly meant what she was saying, like she really did want her to come with her. Like Marynka was a prize, as rare and unobtainable as a prince’s pure heart.”

“No one knows you like I do.”

NO. ONE. KNOWS. YOU. LIKE. I. DO.
This is the most sapphic love confession I’ve ever heard. And it’s even more sapphic bc neither of them realize it 😩😩😩😩

“Was this why so many people put their trust in the prince, because he wasn’t seeking to lead, to grab power for himself? Was that what it meant to be blessed with a pure heart?
Did that make her his wicked opposite then, as she was seeking power only for herself?”

“She’d stayed because of Zosia, and now Zosia wanted to run away?”

Yeah, Zosia. How dare you be oblivious to Marynka’s infatuation with you?
Never mind if she’s also oblivious. That’s not relevant.

“Zosia really was mad.
Mad and reckless and fearless.
All the things Marynka was supposed to be. The thought made her even angrier. Midnight was meant to be the cautious one, the careful one. So why was it Zosia daring to do this? Why was it she, Marynka, who was trembling at the thought of betraying Grandmother? When had they switched places?”

The best companions are often mirrors, after all

“That she smiled at it, so clearly pleased with even the worst parts of Zosia that Zosia could barely stand it.”

the resentful yearning is top tier ngl

“The best kind of revenge, after all, was success.”

And then homicide :)

“She wasn’t like Midday—always rising from the ashes of defeat. Midday, who knew what it was like to have to work hard at something.”

Woe is Zosia 🙄🙄

“The prince’s soul mate.”

and the queers keep winning 😌

“Beata put on her own and cast a tiny, hopeful, very annoying glance in Marynka’s direction.”

☹️☹️ Maryyynkaaa be niceeeee

“It probably said something about Marynka, that she didn’t find the easy victory appealing, that what she craved most were the encounters that brought her closest to her own destruction.”

“The prince snatched a glass from a passing servant’s snow-dusted tray and gulped down wine like his life depended on it. His gaze kept darting across the ballroom.”

… are the prince and the priest fruity or am I just projecting?

“It was curious, seeing what people chose to be when they were given the choice to be anything. Had they donned their Karnawał masks to transform themselves into who they most wanted to be? Or had they merely removed the masks they wore daily, to reveal who or what they had always been?”

“She wasn’t going to make herself into something sweet, mold herself into something more palatable. Something to be gobbled up and swallowed down. She was not a dessert.”

“Mother of God, why can’t you be normal?”
“Why can’t you be fun?”

I like her

“For years I lived with that regret. But I was just a child. And so was she. And if she had lived, I think she would have forgiven me. So eventually, I had to learn to forgive myself.”

“I don’t have a home,” I tell her.
“Your life is your own now,” she says. “You’ll find one.”