#every blessed thing

[baladric]

in the spirit of 2024 art wraps actually, here's the sparkling top notes of character sketches for my in-progress book 🥹

introduction blurbs under the cut if you're interested!! they are. all i care about.

in order from top left to bottom right, glossing over the couple duplicates

MELECH PEL-AHN VIÇ ÇIMELLA

lawful good made manifest, melech is a career soldier reeling his way along with a mélange of battles scars, while the world moves farther and farther away from the moral and balanced justice he believes in—and which has begun to challenge that belief, as he realizes that sin and goodness are much muddier waters than he thought.

TAVI QAN

freighted with secrets on secrets on secrets, tavi is a cautionary tale on legs, as well as the wikihow on how not to cope with the stress of compulsive people-pleasing (and every other blessed thing.) what more is there to say? haha jk there's at least 90,000 words of things to say, but that'd be spoilers 😌

KITELLA PEL-FAR EVITT

they say the scribes of anniall are the incorruptible breath of the cosmic body of the gods, and also that this belief has just been summarily shattered by a single man. but kitt, for his part, rejects the idea that he has been corrupted. saint anniall of the sotheren star would want nothing to do with this age of empire and oppression, kitt will tell you. saint anniall would spurn a leadership that has strayed so far from the tenets of harmony and compassionate community, kitt will say. saint anniall would—so kitt asserts (and rightly so)—prize and encourage the underground resistance trying to incite a labor revolution. anniall, too, would pen an aching, cutting manifesto and inspire a movement-wide rebrand in the name of the long-lost friend of his youth. he, too, would [squints at smudge handwriting] land himself a death sentence by military tribunal and lose everything he holds dear in the escape. or something like that.

MINA YLL-SHEVRASK

don't let the youthful portrait fool you—mina is well into her middle years now, and the decades have put the world is on its knees for her. imagine magic. now imagine breaking magic and making it all over again for your own pleasure. imagine keeping the secret of it to yourself while you build greater and wilder things. imagine giving those things to the rising storm of a bastard daughter-turned calamity, remaking the world in your own twined images. also, imagine being super duper gay married to her while you burn the world to its struts 💕

QAILLANI IIKHAL

princess? wife? mother? hah! she's tried it all and walked away, and what regrets she once had, she has swallowed down as bitter pith to be passed. watch out for the cormorants, by the way. they know more about our players than anyone can guess.

AMAAN YLL-SHEVRASK

khai'eş. khai'eş? listen, she didn't pick the name. she has an ego on her, sure, and hubris enough for any homeric antihero—but even she's not enough of a cock-swinger to name herself after the thing feared most by sailors across the khimell sea. or, well... what used to be the most feared thing. that title goes to her now, with her spellwrought ship and her bloody-handed crew and the mage of the isles for a wife. too bad she's grown sooo complacent in the keeping of that other two-headed secret, though.

THEODORA KOSTAS

you could say a lot of things about theo, but you probably shouldn't say them to her face. fractious, viciously smart and just as quick with her fists as her tongue, she ran out of patience for being undermined years ago and has no qualms about making it your problem. but mind your own business and she'll mind hers, and buy you a drink while you're at it.

KETILL BELOW

the thing about loving magic is it can break your heart worse than any person. or so ketill thinks, young as they are. they'll keep doing it, though. it's all they have. no—had. had.

[soleyrouge]

Heavenly officials: Hua cheng is dangerous!

Xie lian: 👍🏻

Heavenly officials: He's challenged 33 gods and made them lose their godhood

Xie lian: 👍🏻 *kisses him*

Heavenly officials: He'll kill you!

Xie lian: 👍🏻 *sleeps with him*

Heavenly officials: Something is not fucking right with this guy.

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[egophiliac]

like mother, like son, but less wholesome this time?

(I couldn't decide whether or not to put them together, so have them in all the different ways!)

[dirtgrubber]

this chapter was so good i couldn’t choose a scene

from @morningstarwrites Of Saints and Sinners

[arcanewebs]

personal take on fem tsukasa

[bird-inacage]

The Heart Killers EP10 | "What about the lives we've wasted? What about the freedom I long for, the love I refrain from? Should we kill her? She taught us to kill people. What she did to us was beyond evil. Kill her! Let's kill her, Fadel! Kill her!"

May I present KHAOTUNG The Actor 👏👏👏👏👏

[turtleblogatlast]

Every day I’m haunted by the fact the boys happily swim in sewer water

Even if it’s filtered somehow there’s no way it’s not still nasty 😭 Bet they can defeat any of their villains just by accidentally giving them diseases I swear

[here-comes-the-moose]

Crosshair: I’m sneaking out tonight to meet with a guy, I need you to cover for me to Echo.

Omega: Sure.

Wrecker: No problem.

Hunter: Alright.

*later that night*

Echo: Where’s Crosshair?

*all responding at the same time*

Hunter: Sleeping.

Omega: Practicing.

Wrecker: Pooping.

Echo: …

Hunter: …

Omega: …

Wrecker: …

Tech from beyond the grave: …

Echo, sighing: Honestly I’m not even mad I’m just disappointed in how bad you all are at lying.

[neyafromfrance95]

i'm not saying anything.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

A few interesting parallels in the SoC duology that I don’t think I’ve seen anyone talk about yet

(Analysis/discussion of these parallels/quotes may come later if anyone's interested)

“These creatures were made to be weapons” - Jarl Brum on Grisha, Six of Crows chapter 35

“He looked like what he truly was: a weapon” - Jesper Fahey on the Khergud, Crooked Kingdom chapter 36

“Welcome to the Hellshow” - Kaz to Nina, Six of Crows chapter 6

“Welcome to the Ice Court, Nina Zenik” - Matthias to Nina, Six of Crows chapter 34

“Is this a play?” - Alys Van Eck “Yes love, and you’re the star” - Jesper Fahey, Crooked Kingdom chapter 8 when Alys is taken captive

“What was this but a play Kaz had staged, with that poor sucker Kuwei as the star?” - Jesper Fahey on the auction plan, Crooked Kingdom chapter 36

“he looked like a priest come to preach to group of circus performers” - Inej on Kaz’s appearance in comparison to the rest of the Barrel, Six of Crows chapter 2

“started to preach” - Inej on Kaz leading a coup against Per Haskell, Crooked Kingdom chapter 27

“Whoever he had become, Matthias was not going to shoot someone unarmed. He'd not yet sunk so far” - Matthias Helvar, Six of Crows chapter 29

“I am unarmed” - Matthias Helvar, Crooked Kingdom chapter 38

"I didn't even know the rules of Makker's Wheel" - Jesper Fahey on his first night gambling in the Barrel, Six of Crows chapter ()

"He knew his guns better than he knew the rules of Makker's Wheel" - Jesper Fahey on the concept of aim and its relationship to his life and his zowa/Grisha abilities, Crooked Kingdom chapter 36

“a tiny voice inside him said he should offer to take the drug as well […] maybe he could have helped to draw the parem out of Nina’s system and set her free. But that was a hero’s voice and Jesper had long since stopped thinking he had the makings of a hero” - Jesper Fahey, Six of Crows chapter 44

“Matthias gave you the remaining parem, didn’t he?” “So?” “[…] I can’t let my father down again. I need the parem as a security measure” “No” “Why the hell not?” - Jesper and Kaz in discussion about the auction plan, Crooked Kingdom chapter 30

I'll probably be back to add more, feel free to add your own as well

[baladric]

For the ask game:

🙏 share the wealth! People deserve to see the beautiful trainwreck that is Tavi

heehee ty ty this is why we are friends

pulling from the last draft bc you requested tavi trainwreck and the present manuscript is still unspooling so the Trainwreck is quieter and still buried within other stuff, versus...

—

"You know nothing of me,” he said, barely moving his lips.

“Not you specifically, no,” Tavi said. “But I’ve met enough of Eadiir’s rejects to know a military exile when I see one, Major.”

The rank was only a guess, but it was a good one. Shock rattled through Melech in a reaction so stunningly kinetic that Tavi almost felt it himself.

“You dare,” he said—or questioned, maybe. His tone was a creature all its own, now that the constant companion of his fear was brought to the fore.

It was a pretty look on him—fear, and the gimlet-bright spark of panic—but Tavi felt no joy in the sight of it. Though he had made a home with the sort of people who played with their food, he had never found triumph in cornering someone. It was shameful in combat and it was shameful in conversation, and Tavi was ashamed. He looked at his hands in his lap, and found them shaking. Hoping to still them, he pressed them flat against his thighs—and if the motion had the benefit of creating a hot, grounding stab of pain from the tear in his leg, then that was between him and his saints.

“I do dare,” he said to the knobs of his knuckles and the blood-darkened length of his fingers against the black of his unsalvageable trousers. “But only to make a point.”

Tight as an over-tuned lute, Melech said, “Which is?”

Tavi rolled his tongue in his mouth and, when he felt he could bring up words, not bile, he lifted his face again to Melech's hard, hectic gaze.

“Take a lesson from the fairies people here are so scared of,” he said. “Names have power. Wield someone else’s against them only if you want the same done to you.”

He saw then, in the warm light of August’s lamp, that there was something cracked inside of Melech. Something raw and bloodied, something wretched, and Tavi wanted to say, Me, too. But before he could prove himself even stupider than he already had, a half-dressed and frantic figure burst through the open door.

ask me abt my WIPs >:3c

[jaztice]

listen the nimona movie is proof that you can change some truly major shit in a story but as long as you stay true to the original themes and intentions people are gonna love it anyway. holy shit two cakes etc etc

[mikkeneko]

Watching Heaven Official's Blessing (through ENTIRELY legitimate sources) and the platform suddenly stopped having subs halfway through episode... 5 or so? So I watched a little longer without subs, relying on my general knowledge of the overall canon to fill in the blanks, and watched through the bit where Xie Lian gets put under house arrest in the Heavenly Capital and Mu Qing comes to see him

and I must stress, watching it without subs, this was a very sweet scene! Aw! His old friend came to see him, even despite the accusations and the arrest! He was worried about him and wanted to check in! He brought medicine for the injury that Xie Lian has been neglecting, which literally nobody else bothered to do! How heartwarming!

Anyway then I found another Legitimate Source which did have the subtitles, and watched that scene again with subs, and Holy Fucking Shit Mu Qing

[i-bez-togo-toshno]

Ghost King upset his low self-esteem God has low self-esteem

[thepremise66]

Ok so my headcannon is that vulcans have no issue talking about sex. Like sex is a perfectly logical thing to them. Pon Farr is only embarrassing to them bc of their loss of control over their emotions not the sex part