March 1, 2025 • 22 mins
On this very special bonus episode, we will explain all of the terminology and world-building in CRESCENT CITY and how this world correlates to the ACOTAR books!
For more girl talk on all things bookish be sure to hit that follow button and come back next week when we deep dive into our next steamy read part 1 of HOUSE OF SKY & BREATH!!
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Be advised, this content is not appropriate for younger viewers. These books may contain depictions of sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence. We urge listeners to regard the trigger warnings at the beginning of the video before continuing!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I want to talk a little bit about the world building and just kind of do a recap and layout.
(00:14):
Like what are we working here when it comes to time and space and all that?
Real quick I do want to say because dear God the freaking world building terminology dump
bomb that is dropped on you in the first 60 pages, it was like trying to learn Russian.
(00:41):
It's a lot.
It is a lot.
So I did manage to find a Reddit forum where this girl kind of did exactly what you did
where she broke down the terminology and the world building to better understand it.
So when we post this video I'm going to link that in our Instagram post for that week so
(01:02):
people can actually find it because I struggled with it.
I had to keep going back and Googling things like what was this again?
I'm on track now 400 pages in I'm on track now.
I love Reddit for that.
I love I love a good fandom Wiki.
(01:23):
I love a good like Reddit forum and this world is very parallel or referential to the Roman
Empire.
It is not set in an ancient time.
It's actually set in a modern time but it's very reminiscent of their societal structure.
(02:00):
So it's interesting if you kind of and it doesn't rest you know Moss has not said that
but if you look at kind of how things break down there's that social kind of commentary
that you can kind of see.
So starting with that we are set on the planet of Midgard which is could be argued to be
(02:22):
Earth.
It is an Earth like planets.
We're in a contemporary world so there's technology there's cars there's cell phones smartphones
electricity all of that so like we're not in Akatar world where they're like they don't
have plumbing and like you know.
Yeah that sort of thing and the population of this planet is both human and veneer and
(02:51):
veneer is the term that she uses to refer to any magical being and all of the magical
beings that live on Midgard are actually migrated here from other worlds through these dimensional
rifts and they're like wormholes or portals through space.
(03:14):
And so at different points different races of veneer have come over so there's archangels
angels fey shifters of different types we have wolves but there's other types of shifters
there's also vampires and river spirits and then there's people or beings with elemental
(03:39):
magic so and again this this overview at the beginning is not going to be all encompass
but I'll explain anything that comes up that's like a new you know reference if need be for
the plot.
So the protagonist the overarching protagonist in this in this series is the Asteri 15,000
(04:07):
years ago seven Asteri are which are a powerful elite race come to Midgard and they take over
the planet and they are like incredibly powerful magical more so than there's no no fighting
(04:27):
them or overpowering them and even though humans were on this planet first they are
at the very bottom of society they have no voice in their own government they're treated
like animals basically in terms of lesser beings lesser beings yes absolutely and slaves
(04:54):
are a thing here like people and certain magical creatures are literally bought and sold so
there's definitely that is kind of the most obvious reference to like a roman type society
(05:15):
and so magic so the entire modern civilization structure that's built there it runs on a
power source that they call first light which is actually magic any magical being or veneer
when they come of age they they go through a ritual called the drop and in the drop they
(05:41):
come into their full power and that is the point where they become immortal so they stop
aging at that point so usually once you know a veneer is like a full adult and they can
choose to do it whenever they want but that's when this happens when they do the drop a
(06:02):
portion of their power is siphoned off that very first burst of magical power is siphoned
off and donated like to society to power everything and that's why it's called first light
and the drop confused me for a while yeah they just kept mentioning the drop but there
(06:23):
was no details on the drop for like 30 pages and i was like what the hell is this and as
we get farther into it when they talk about the actual mechanics of the drop it's even
more it's even more to wrap your mind around so we won't even we don't even go there yet
(06:49):
and within midgard there's a couple continents that get referenced pangera is a continent
it's a different continent than where this takes place and valbara which is where we
are in the city of lunathian and as a comparison think of lunathian as like new york city it's
(07:13):
a big metropolis it's actually on the on the seaside it and it's divided into like new
york is divided into boroughs bronx brooklyn manhattan queens so is lunathian i'm glad
(07:34):
you made that comparison because the whole time i'm was reading it and like referencing
back to the map i was like yeah this this feels very new yorky yes and that's probably
another reason i love it so much because i love new york but something that can be confusing
also is that crescent city is the same thing as lunathian it's like a nickname so like
(07:59):
we call new york the big apple and it's just because the river that goes through lunathian
shaped like a crescent the way it comes through the city so it's just a nickname but the districts
in this city are really divided by race not entirely but mostly so you've got the central
(08:30):
district business district and that's like where the primary seat of government is the
governor who is an archangel there's an archangel in charge of each territory in this world
and so then you've got moonwood which is the wolves the prime of the wolves is what leads
(08:53):
moonwood and five roses is the fey district so the autumn king rules over that the meat
market is actually kind of a melting pot of it's not a race specific territory but it's
(09:14):
ruled over by the viper queen and they make a quick reference to it in these 40 chapters
that we've covered today but i'm going to go ahead and say so the viper queen has a
specific venom that is addictive and so when somebody goes to be like in her mafia for
(09:38):
lack of a better term they have to drink her venom and they immediately become addicted
to it so they're like all incredibly loyal to her because they are addicted to her venom
it made me think of true blood yeah i could see that i could see the way that the vampire
blood in the show was addictive and used as like a drug yes okay and the meat market is
(10:07):
also kind of what it sounds like you can get anything drugs people sex whatever it's kind
of like an underbelly type area the old square is like a historic downtown area that's where
(10:29):
the oracle is and is kind of in charge of that area and that is kind of a an area that
beholdens back to like the ancient times of this area before the veneer were there and
they had temples all this kind of stuff the bone quarter is actually it's ruled over by
(10:52):
the under king and it's like where the dark creatures and magic and all of that is and
then the house of many waters or sometimes referred to as the blue court is the actual
(11:15):
part of the city that's underwater in the river and that's ruled over by the river queen
and then aspadil meadows is the human district and they don't have a leader they have absolutely
no representative in government um and i'm they're so oppressed that they don't need
one well yeah i like it wouldn't they wouldn't even be referenced
(11:39):
okay so one thing i want to explain too is that the kind of law enforcement government
structure is something you have to kind of understand because this is a murder mystery
(11:59):
we're immediately thrown into solving a murder and the triari is what they call their like
military which is led by the governor and those are made up of angels and then you have
the city law enforcement which is called the ox or the auxiliary and there is a fae ox
(12:27):
and there is a wolf ox and they are like your city police versus the angels are like the
national guard basically um so that's all like perfectly crystal clear right
(12:52):
it's so much information just thrown at you most of it isn't immediately explained it's
just using the terminology without the explanations which is why it feels like it's you're trying
to learn a new language without knowing the language yes so this is i've seen so many
funny tiktok videos or memes about when you're at the beginning of a fantasy and they're
(13:18):
speaking basic gibberish this is like that you're just dropped right in the middle of
it um yeah i feel like you should know yeah like you missed something so i totally yes
agreed so in this world that i've just described we uh our main character is brice quindlen
(13:38):
she is half fae half human and she is immediately devastated by the murder of her best friend
danica fendier who is a wolf shifter and through a series of circumstances she is forced to
team up with the governor's personal assassin who is a fallen angel named hunt athelar and
(14:04):
they are charged with finding the person responsible for danica's murder they also have to help
find an ancient magical artifact that was stolen days before her murder and is to believed
to be connected to the murders somehow both brice and hunt have suffered a devastating
(14:25):
loss in their past and this is you kind of see them they're forced to kind of cope with
their own trauma and their own shit as they learned how to work with each other and try
to put all the pieces together um to try and solve this murder and obviously stop them
from continuing to happen akatar happens in the same universe but on a different planet
(14:54):
yes but around the same time period yeah it happens technically like after all the events
of akatar but not very long after it's not like hundreds of years later or anything like
that that's that's really that's really weird because this one is so advanced and like a
(15:18):
more futuristic whereas the other one is like medieval times so yeah this society or this
world is a lot more advanced than the planet that akatar takes place on and we don't actually
see how they exist in the same universe until the third book in this series but interesting
(15:50):
it definitely shows up like it's not a subtle it's not subtle is what i'll say it's you'll
know 100 it's not like a reference to oh that makes sense like backstory or whatever like
no it's gonna hit you like right in the face if i get resand in the third book i'm a gazelle
(16:20):
i it's it's kind of confusing though yeah it's definitely not i can see how that would
work it's not clear uh at all because there's a lot of different there's the actual history
(16:44):
there's also what the astari allow allows to which goes into that secret library of
jessibah's uh because it contains information parts of their history that the astari have
not wanted to allow future generations to know it kind of reminds me of a city of ember
(17:13):
did you ever read or watch that no you have got to it would be a short read it's a ya
book but you should read it it's essentially the same thing except for in that book the
world is ending so they kind of shove everyone underground into like these massive bunkers
(17:35):
that take up so much space or whatever but they were supposed to have a plan to get out
because the generators and all of the like sustainable things were going to run out things
were going to stop working so there was a date that they were supposed to release from
this but the council was hiding all of these secrets the governor was hiding all of these
(18:00):
secrets to keep people underground because he got to control it it was yeah like history
was wiped clean everybody thought that if they walked out they would die and there was
like no way to get out it was a secret it was in a box that was going to open on a certain
day and when it did it would give you the escape route for everyone to take to get out
(18:25):
oh wow yeah i'm gonna have to add and then these kids find it it's it's really good but
i like that i can have all of these like theories on how aktar is going to show up because they
are pretty much immortal so like even if this was like a hundred years later they're all
(18:51):
still going to be alive yeah and this book did mention portals to like other worlds and
other planets yes so i need to know if we figure out how the cultren was created this
book is the portals in the northern and the southern rift mentions that they are portals
(19:22):
to other dimensions but we only ever see it open to hell but what we do find out in this
book is that hell is not like a mythical place here it's an actual planet it's another planet
yeah so it's interesting because that distinction does get made i don't know if you can answer
(19:47):
this right now or if it shows up in another book but i need hell more deeply explained
because if if when you die you either go to the boneyard or you end up in the istros or
you end up in some infinite place of nothingness forever then do any of them go to hell so
(20:11):
what's the point of hell hell is not go to it it's not a religious or uh it's not a
damning place it's not a damning place it's it's not even a like mythical place it's or
a spirit world it's just another planet with a different hierarchy another planet that
(20:38):
went to hell that's basically like all demons and interesting yeah so that makes more sense
yeah because i i had that thought reading this book i was like but how's that okay so
maybe it's just my you know small town brain trying to work that out yeah that makes sense
(21:01):
but the fact that this book is sectioned into the different layers of hell is something
that i actually did not catch until we i was preparing for these episodes and i had made
a note of that quote of them kind of explaining the different layers of hell and that's when
(21:26):
i realized this book is sectioned into the sections sections of hell and so and that
doesn't know that till you pointed it out it's definitely something that i want to continue
as we continue through the next books to pay attention to because i feel like there's going
to be more parallels
I want to talk a little bit about the world building and just kind of do a recap and layout.
(00:14):
Like what are we working here when it comes to time and space and all that?
Real quick I do want to say because dear God the freaking world building terminology dump
bomb that is dropped on you in the first 60 pages, it was like trying to learn Russian.
(00:41):
It's a lot.
It is a lot.
So I did manage to find a Reddit forum where this girl kind of did exactly what you did
where she broke down the terminology and the world building to better understand it.
So when we post this video I'm going to link that in our Instagram post for that week so
(01:02):
people can actually find it because I struggled with it.
I had to keep going back and Googling things like what was this again?
I'm on track now 400 pages in I'm on track now.
I love Reddit for that.
I love I love a good fandom Wiki.
(01:23):
I love a good like Reddit forum and this world is very parallel or referential to the Roman
Empire.
It is not set in an ancient time.
It's actually set in a modern time but it's very reminiscent of their societal structure.
(02:00):
So it's interesting if you kind of and it doesn't rest you know Moss has not said that
but if you look at kind of how things break down there's that social kind of commentary
that you can kind of see.
So starting with that we are set on the planet of Midgard which is could be argued to be
(02:22):
Earth.
It is an Earth like planets.
We're in a contemporary world so there's technology there's cars there's cell phones smartphones
electricity all of that so like we're not in Akatar world where they're like they don't
have plumbing and like you know.
Yeah that sort of thing and the population of this planet is both human and veneer and
(02:51):
veneer is the term that she uses to refer to any magical being and all of the magical
beings that live on Midgard are actually migrated here from other worlds through these dimensional
rifts and they're like wormholes or portals through space.
(03:14):
And so at different points different races of veneer have come over so there's archangels
angels fey shifters of different types we have wolves but there's other types of shifters
there's also vampires and river spirits and then there's people or beings with elemental
(03:39):
magic so and again this this overview at the beginning is not going to be all encompass
but I'll explain anything that comes up that's like a new you know reference if need be for
the plot.
So the protagonist the overarching protagonist in this in this series is the Asteri 15,000
(04:07):
years ago seven Asteri are which are a powerful elite race come to Midgard and they take over
the planet and they are like incredibly powerful magical more so than there's no no fighting
(04:27):
them or overpowering them and even though humans were on this planet first they are
at the very bottom of society they have no voice in their own government they're treated
like animals basically in terms of lesser beings lesser beings yes absolutely and slaves
(04:54):
are a thing here like people and certain magical creatures are literally bought and sold so
there's definitely that is kind of the most obvious reference to like a roman type society
(05:15):
and so magic so the entire modern civilization structure that's built there it runs on a
power source that they call first light which is actually magic any magical being or veneer
when they come of age they they go through a ritual called the drop and in the drop they
(05:41):
come into their full power and that is the point where they become immortal so they stop
aging at that point so usually once you know a veneer is like a full adult and they can
choose to do it whenever they want but that's when this happens when they do the drop a
(06:02):
portion of their power is siphoned off that very first burst of magical power is siphoned
off and donated like to society to power everything and that's why it's called first light
and the drop confused me for a while yeah they just kept mentioning the drop but there
(06:23):
was no details on the drop for like 30 pages and i was like what the hell is this and as
we get farther into it when they talk about the actual mechanics of the drop it's even
more it's even more to wrap your mind around so we won't even we don't even go there yet
(06:49):
and within midgard there's a couple continents that get referenced pangera is a continent
it's a different continent than where this takes place and valbara which is where we
are in the city of lunathian and as a comparison think of lunathian as like new york city it's
(07:13):
a big metropolis it's actually on the on the seaside it and it's divided into like new
york is divided into boroughs bronx brooklyn manhattan queens so is lunathian i'm glad
(07:34):
you made that comparison because the whole time i'm was reading it and like referencing
back to the map i was like yeah this this feels very new yorky yes and that's probably
another reason i love it so much because i love new york but something that can be confusing
also is that crescent city is the same thing as lunathian it's like a nickname so like
(07:59):
we call new york the big apple and it's just because the river that goes through lunathian
shaped like a crescent the way it comes through the city so it's just a nickname but the districts
in this city are really divided by race not entirely but mostly so you've got the central
(08:30):
district business district and that's like where the primary seat of government is the
governor who is an archangel there's an archangel in charge of each territory in this world
and so then you've got moonwood which is the wolves the prime of the wolves is what leads
(08:53):
moonwood and five roses is the fey district so the autumn king rules over that the meat
market is actually kind of a melting pot of it's not a race specific territory but it's
(09:14):
ruled over by the viper queen and they make a quick reference to it in these 40 chapters
that we've covered today but i'm going to go ahead and say so the viper queen has a
specific venom that is addictive and so when somebody goes to be like in her mafia for
(09:38):
lack of a better term they have to drink her venom and they immediately become addicted
to it so they're like all incredibly loyal to her because they are addicted to her venom
it made me think of true blood yeah i could see that i could see the way that the vampire
blood in the show was addictive and used as like a drug yes okay and the meat market is
(10:07):
also kind of what it sounds like you can get anything drugs people sex whatever it's kind
of like an underbelly type area the old square is like a historic downtown area that's where
(10:29):
the oracle is and is kind of in charge of that area and that is kind of a an area that
beholdens back to like the ancient times of this area before the veneer were there and
they had temples all this kind of stuff the bone quarter is actually it's ruled over by
(10:52):
the under king and it's like where the dark creatures and magic and all of that is and
then the house of many waters or sometimes referred to as the blue court is the actual
(11:15):
part of the city that's underwater in the river and that's ruled over by the river queen
and then aspadil meadows is the human district and they don't have a leader they have absolutely
no representative in government um and i'm they're so oppressed that they don't need
one well yeah i like it wouldn't they wouldn't even be referenced
(11:39):
okay so one thing i want to explain too is that the kind of law enforcement government
structure is something you have to kind of understand because this is a murder mystery
(11:59):
we're immediately thrown into solving a murder and the triari is what they call their like
military which is led by the governor and those are made up of angels and then you have
the city law enforcement which is called the ox or the auxiliary and there is a fae ox
(12:27):
and there is a wolf ox and they are like your city police versus the angels are like the
national guard basically um so that's all like perfectly crystal clear right
(12:52):
it's so much information just thrown at you most of it isn't immediately explained it's
just using the terminology without the explanations which is why it feels like it's you're trying
to learn a new language without knowing the language yes so this is i've seen so many
funny tiktok videos or memes about when you're at the beginning of a fantasy and they're
(13:18):
speaking basic gibberish this is like that you're just dropped right in the middle of
it um yeah i feel like you should know yeah like you missed something so i totally yes
agreed so in this world that i've just described we uh our main character is brice quindlen
(13:38):
she is half fae half human and she is immediately devastated by the murder of her best friend
danica fendier who is a wolf shifter and through a series of circumstances she is forced to
team up with the governor's personal assassin who is a fallen angel named hunt athelar and
(14:04):
they are charged with finding the person responsible for danica's murder they also have to help
find an ancient magical artifact that was stolen days before her murder and is to believed
to be connected to the murders somehow both brice and hunt have suffered a devastating
(14:25):
loss in their past and this is you kind of see them they're forced to kind of cope with
their own trauma and their own shit as they learned how to work with each other and try
to put all the pieces together um to try and solve this murder and obviously stop them
from continuing to happen akatar happens in the same universe but on a different planet
(14:54):
yes but around the same time period yeah it happens technically like after all the events
of akatar but not very long after it's not like hundreds of years later or anything like
that that's that's really that's really weird because this one is so advanced and like a
(15:18):
more futuristic whereas the other one is like medieval times so yeah this society or this
world is a lot more advanced than the planet that akatar takes place on and we don't actually
see how they exist in the same universe until the third book in this series but interesting
(15:50):
it definitely shows up like it's not a subtle it's not subtle is what i'll say it's you'll
know 100 it's not like a reference to oh that makes sense like backstory or whatever like
no it's gonna hit you like right in the face if i get resand in the third book i'm a gazelle
(16:20):
i it's it's kind of confusing though yeah it's definitely not i can see how that would
work it's not clear uh at all because there's a lot of different there's the actual history
(16:44):
there's also what the astari allow allows to which goes into that secret library of
jessibah's uh because it contains information parts of their history that the astari have
not wanted to allow future generations to know it kind of reminds me of a city of ember
(17:13):
did you ever read or watch that no you have got to it would be a short read it's a ya
book but you should read it it's essentially the same thing except for in that book the
world is ending so they kind of shove everyone underground into like these massive bunkers
(17:35):
that take up so much space or whatever but they were supposed to have a plan to get out
because the generators and all of the like sustainable things were going to run out things
were going to stop working so there was a date that they were supposed to release from
this but the council was hiding all of these secrets the governor was hiding all of these
(18:00):
secrets to keep people underground because he got to control it it was yeah like history
was wiped clean everybody thought that if they walked out they would die and there was
like no way to get out it was a secret it was in a box that was going to open on a certain
day and when it did it would give you the escape route for everyone to take to get out
(18:25):
oh wow yeah i'm gonna have to add and then these kids find it it's it's really good but
i like that i can have all of these like theories on how aktar is going to show up because they
are pretty much immortal so like even if this was like a hundred years later they're all
(18:51):
still going to be alive yeah and this book did mention portals to like other worlds and
other planets yes so i need to know if we figure out how the cultren was created this
book is the portals in the northern and the southern rift mentions that they are portals
(19:22):
to other dimensions but we only ever see it open to hell but what we do find out in this
book is that hell is not like a mythical place here it's an actual planet it's another planet
yeah so it's interesting because that distinction does get made i don't know if you can answer
(19:47):
this right now or if it shows up in another book but i need hell more deeply explained
because if if when you die you either go to the boneyard or you end up in the istros or
you end up in some infinite place of nothingness forever then do any of them go to hell so
(20:11):
what's the point of hell hell is not go to it it's not a religious or uh it's not a
damning place it's not a damning place it's it's not even a like mythical place it's or
a spirit world it's just another planet with a different hierarchy another planet that
(20:38):
went to hell that's basically like all demons and interesting yeah so that makes more sense
yeah because i i had that thought reading this book i was like but how's that okay so
maybe it's just my you know small town brain trying to work that out yeah that makes sense
(21:01):
but the fact that this book is sectioned into the different layers of hell is something
that i actually did not catch until we i was preparing for these episodes and i had made
a note of that quote of them kind of explaining the different layers of hell and that's when
(21:26):
i realized this book is sectioned into the sections sections of hell and so and that
doesn't know that till you pointed it out it's definitely something that i want to continue
as we continue through the next books to pay attention to because i feel like there's going
to be more parallels
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