#grievous/griezra

[ladyofthepersonalart]

Vashaens have extremely thick, fatty vocal chords, which allows them to survive the shearing of roaring--and also this sound. It's a sound that Vashaens rarely produce, and it's more common in babies. The Scream is a shrill, shrieking, nuclear-siren-like, teakettle-like, cockatoo-like screech that can go on for as long as the bab can sustain it, and it has an immediate psychological effect on the parents of the bab, spurring them to run to the little one and hold them. It really can't be ignored; no Vashaen parent has ever tried to ignore it, instinct says to hurry to the baby the moment it makes this sound. Regular screams, akin to a screaming human baby, don't have the same effect. Other adult Vashaens in the area who hear the scream might immediately come over and hover anxiously. Psychologists and behavioral scientists among the species are pretty sure that it was used by babies when they were in danger from a predator and needed their parents' protection, asap, but it's now become a "you are ignoring me to teach me a lesson about being quiet, time to do The Scream". Baby Vashaens use their sounds to communicate with their parents before they can speak, and can do this from early on, almost a month old. Adult Vashaens know exactly what certain sounds mean and how to respond, and as such, no Vashaen ever loses the ability to make those baby noises, because that's how they communicate nonverbally. Adult Vashaens can still produce The Scream, but it's very rare that they ever would, since it's exclusively a "pay attention to me, Mommy and Daddy!" sort of thing and as a result an adult using it would have this awkward feeling about it, especially if other adults came running. When an adult does it, the mature voice distorts the exact meaning and confuses other adults, and makes them hurry to see what's wrong while also being disoriented and more than a little uneasy. Given Vashaens can recognize any Vashaen voice they've heard before, if they know who's Screaming they might be able to resist, but odds are any babs in the area will pick up the sound and do the same. When adults use it, it's a sign of severe stress and basically only occurs when an adult is having a nervous breakdown. Grievous almost always roars to express displeasure, since roaring is cathartic and relaxing for Vashaens but also shows serious anger, but if he was pushed to his limits of tolerance for the day, he'd absolutely open his face and go "SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"

[ladyofthepersonalart]

I don't know why I drew this or what this is. Obviously it's after his wings are restored. They're WAY bigger than they look. Don't expect anything particularly raunchy to happen. Grievous adamantly refuses to receive oral, she knows that, and she isn't willing to give it anyway, which is a perfect match. So expect kisses at the most. She's the only one he allows to touch him. Idk, the visual of her kneeling between his knees was too good to pass up.

[ladyofthefanart]

Grievous is massive compared to, well, just about anyone, but it’s moments like these when his jaw unhinges and his claws fully extend that you can appreciate just what kind of death you’re staring down.

He’s in his humanoid form, but he will move on all fours in that form as capably as in his quadrupedal form–that form was a tradeoff to alleviate the strain of his broken back and allow him to do things that scar tissue in his humanoid form otherwise would restrict, plus it’s more deadly–sometimes, anyway. I can’t truly say which of his two shapes is more dangerous, just that you don’t want to be on the receiving end of either, and hurting Dana is the quickest way to die a very violent death.

[ladyofthefanart]

Grievous's wingies The gold is highly iridescent and reflective, and due to the unique way the feathers of a Vashaen refract light, can appear as though it's glowing. In dimmer lights and at a certain angle the feathers appear a dull, pale grey, and a deep blue-black. In the proper light however, such as brilliant sunlight, the colors of the primaries and the golden secondaries leap to life, literally gleaming like gemstones and fire. A big thank you to @nukerooster for inspiring me to draw Vashaen wings for real for the first time in forever, as well as helping me figure out some color ideas with the primaries.

[ladyofthefanart]

Finally did a scan of the best angry son. I’m so in love with him

[ladyofthefanart]

At this point I can’t actually tell you what’s his quadrupedal form anymore and what’s his bipedal form, and what’s an in-between thing as he’s shifting. 🤷🏼‍♀️

That could be a Monarchy soldier he’s about to rip the throat out of, but Griezra so rarely shifts. Grievous about to kill a rapist is more likely

[ladyofthefanart]

Some character sketches I did for my animation class, instead of the actual animation. 🙃

Griezra stands around 9 feet 2 inches in canon (in his armor. He’s about 8'9" without it) I specifically shrink him to like 8 foot 5 for Grievous/Dana stuff so it’s not physically impossible for them to actually kiss??? Seth is only about 5'6" and smol and requires protection. From Griezra. Because Griezra wants to murder him.

Given that Griezra annihilated an entire species that had a population upwards of 5 billion, were spread out across the various realms, and had the best military technology in all realms, WHILE SINULTANEOUSLY bringing down an entire tyrannical dictatorial government, Seth is right to be afraid of him.

Fear the mouth on this boy. It’s made for ripping heads off.

[ladyofthefanart]

I will take you to places where the sunset is a purple vision over pink waters, where the waves rush softly against the shore and the sky is on fire. I will take you where the flowers grow, where they stretch for miles under the sun in a sea of colors, where their petals catch the wind. I will take you to forgotten back roads never paved in the autumn evenings, when the sunlight and the world are both orange over fields and trees. I will take you to the mountains, where clouds envelop you and the world is laid out at your feet, and I will take you to forests of moss and emerald light, greener and deeper than time knows. Let me take you to cottages tucked away in the rolling hills. Let me take you to old ruined castles, the cliffs of Ireland, villas covered in blooming flowers. Let me take you to the dawn; come with me."

Grievous, to Dana

[ladyofthefanart]

Seth does a lot of stupid things through the course of my novel, but assuming Griezra would be easily defeated by a teenager is by far the stupidest

[ladyofthefanart]

The more I see them, the more interested I am in your OCs. Can you give me a run-down of their story?

Thank you very much!!

There are certain things I can’t tell due to spoiler reasons, because I plan to write this as a book one day–but there are two worlds, kind of, with the same characters under different names!

GRIEZRA is the same man as GRIEVOUS. In the Our-World AU, fondly known as simple Grievana, he chooses the name Grievous because it’s phonetically similar to Griezra, and the meanings are not unsimilar, though consider Griezra a more severe version of the word. Griezra is not a name to be taken lightly in his species. It was bestowed upon him by the shaman at his birth, as all royal first names are, and his parents were…not thrilled. There was a prophecy about the golden eyes, you see, and that prophecy spelled out a very dark future for their newborn, so the shaman named him accordingly, after an ancient phrase that’s more of a concept of something evil, than an actual word. Griezra spends most of his life going by The Prince or his middle name, Visre, which means Ocean.

He’s the last of his kind, and we can consider Grievous a Griezra who left. Who left it all behind once everything was gone, stopped fighting, and ran from Idat, who found a loophole to escape the armor and the god and is now living in solitude, but at a steep price; he’s been alone with his demons for over 50 years, no companionship, no war, nothing, where as the Demon he had interactions and battles and ways to stave off the darkness. The loophole to free himself from the Dark Armor cripples him more than he already is; in the armor, he could use his magic, and his artificial wings, but the more he used it the more he would lose himself to its malevolence and Idat’s control. Without the armor, he still isn’t truly free of it, he’s just….connected to it remotely, so that it can’t control him anymore, but he can’t use his magic and his wings are gone. Using his magic is close to physically impossible and on the rare occasion that he is enraged enough, wounded enough, or out of control enough to access it, it draws on the armor and it harms him. The more he uses it, the more he will eventually have to shuck his body and return to the armor’s embrace.

Griezra, the name he keeps in canon, is involved in two ongoing novels; the Prince Saga trilogy, which is the main story telling the tail of a soggy paper towel named Seth who has some serious character development and finds out that evil is not black and white and he is no Harry Potter, and Bride of the Demon, which is a prequel. Griezra is married to Selene, who is a young woman who offered herself as a sacrifice to convince him to protect her homeland from the Lights, who the general census agrees suck really, really hard. He agreed to keep up appearances but fully planned to let her leave and refused to consummate the marriage, not in the least because he’s ace, but he’s not evil and she is the only one who sees that and they become Beauty and the Beast.

With Grievous, consider him a Griezra who never met Selene, he meets her AFTER he hops through into our world, and her name is Dana. Same woman, different backstory. It’s. Basically just an AU, really. Whether Grievana or Griezralene, their story is really complicated and an in-depth examination of their romance. Griezralene has aspects Grievana doesn��t; they start as married and fall in love later, that changes the dynamic. Although who knows, I may change that up. Still a WIP. I never plot things. Dana and Grievous were friends long before lovers, he was devoted to her before anything romantic ever mutually rose between them (they both had feelings and were too fuckin blind to realize the other would reciprocate) So Grievana is more slice-of-life, modern Beauty and the Beast and Griezralene is more fantasy. But both stories deal with an extremely emotionally damaged, troubled man who’s not good or evil but just a person, and the woman who helps him save himself, and their love for one another and how they both grow as a couple and he heals from his deep and tragic emotional scars, and she heals as well. It’s wild man

You know I had a better answer thought out but trying to do the calculations (he’s got like 3 different ages for each version) sidetracked me and I lost it, I’m sorry 😥

Please ask more whenever you wish! And feel free to message me too.

[ladyofthepersonalart]

Spiky murder son

[ladyofthefanart]

Testing different color palettes for Grievous. While his darker parts DO darken or lighten depending on temperature, mood and surroundings, what exactly the tones and hues are is a question of what I THINk he looked like the last time I drew him, and the boy still has no solid reference. I’m torn between the upper right and the bottom left, because I feel more dark hues fits him better, but I’m not sure I like how saturated the bottom left one is.

His claws are black, because his feet and hands (yes those are hands in the front) are styled after raptor claws, while the spikes on his elbows and ankles plural are more like cat claws, and lighter in color. One day he’ll be colored. One day he’ll have a ref. One day.

[ladyofthefanart]

Scratchboard drawing of my original characters Griezra and his wife Dana, aka Selene, from my future novel. I colored it digitally.

[ladyofthefanart]

The only picture that really and truly captures their height difference? Check and mate

[ladyofthefanart]

Bby Grievous giving his daddy a hug.

Grievous is maybe six years old in this picture, and Luçien (pronounced Luchien if you’re a human) is in his flying form, known as Uçan, which literally just means ‘flying’. This form is a longer, lankier and semi-quadrupedal version of their normal upright humanoid forms, evolved specifically for combat flight. Most other races with a military or army presence (the Monarchy, the Lights, and divers others) have airships, and so do the Vashaens, but those are almost exclusively for transport and almost never see use in war. Why? Because the Vashaens have themselves as the air-based attack force. As a result, every Vashaen who goes through the royal military, or studies under a savaşçı or şaman, will learn the ability to transform to Uçan. It is a form specifically designed for more agility, maneuverability and staying power in flight, and is particularly devastating. Enemy armies will tell you, if you buy them enough alcohol, that if you think there’s nothing more terrifying than an oncoming army of Vashaens charging you on horseback, you’ve never seen an incoming army of Vashaens diving out of the sky. The Uçan form is more personal than any of the Monarchy’s small single-pilot fighter ships or the Light’s anbarqs could be, and significantly faster, more agile and more precise than both, and allows a Vashaen to zoom in from afar and employ all manner of lethal attacks, from the wicked curved spurs on their heels that swing down like a sixth toe, to their expansive and deadly magic.

Unlike the Vashaen’s natural ability to hide their wings, however, this is not something all of them can do. All Vashaens naturally develop the ability to magically displace or ‘retract’ their wings, usually around puberty, as this ability is a holdover from their Eridanus ancestors. This is a part of their personal magic and as naturally a part of their pubescence as growing more body hair is for us humans. Some have explored this magical pocket enough to conceal weapons and other things in there, though at some degree of risk to their wings. Uçan, however, is not easily achieved and takes many, many years of training and a large, complex web of spellwork and magical energies to achieve. Some are naturally better at learning it than others, and some have more of a talent for the transformation itself. These are known as Narsal, a term given to those who have enough mastery to make almost elegant a less-than-pleasant-to-witness process.

For the most part, transforming between normal form and Uçan requires several minutes of meditation before the Vashaen slowly begins to develop minor changes in physiology, such as their spine lengthening and their wings growing larger. There might be a moment where they maintain this (or they might skip this step entirely) before the explosion, which is exactly that; an explosion. Their form bursts outwards from their magical core into ribbons and tendrils of flesh (exposing muscles, ligaments, bones and organs, now in unraveled slices) before sucking back inwards into the new Uçan shape. While it isn’t painful for the Vashaen if done correctly, it’s not at all pleasant to watch. The transformation back to normal, bipedal form is lumpy and bubbly and disturbing, but does not involve exploding skin ribbons.

Some Narsal have exquisite degrees of control over the transformation process; for example, Sanar Saranova del'Ryelle was one of the most talented Narsal around. She was able to remove the explosion aspect of the transformation entirely and simply shift fluidly and almost beautifully from one form to another, even in mid-run, which was immensely impressive and very difficult. She had previously trained under one of the greatest Vashaen şamans, which was partly how she learned such mastery of the process. Luçien, being the product of generations of royals who were required to surpass their parents and predecessors by a wide margin, retained the exploding, but his explosions were more constrained, elegant, and artistic, and generated an almost lightning-like effect which he eventually learned to utilize as an attack, making his transformation just as dangerous to nearby enemies as the final form. Griezra, as their son, had a mastery of Uçan never seen since, developed from years of practice under the oldest and strongest şaman alive, and from his heritage. He was able to localize the transformation in such a way that it would start wherever he chose it to and pass over his body, bypassing the first step of meditation and minor changes completely and going straight into a mixture of both parents’ unique techniques. He was able to execute the transformation in a matter of seconds, and continue to switch back and forth rapid-fire, something that neither parent could do, which lead to him appearing to change shape in a flash of light repeatedly. He also eventually learned to pull off the transformation in mid-flight, which was unheard of.

Inexperienced Vashaens first venturing into learning Uçan were advised to start naked or in tight clothing they didn’t care about, as any outfits they wore could be destroyed or, worst case scenario, catch on their exploding self and wind up integrated in their skin, though this only happened once in all of Uçan history. Experienced Vashaen would eventually learn to integrate their armor or clothing into the transformation without destroying it, hence Luçien wearing armor in this picture. And in fact plenty of armor and military gear was built and enchanted to easily shift with the wearer. Sanar preferred to go naked in Uçan form, as Vashaens lack most of the scruples humans have about nudity; in the Uçan form the extremely fine hairs on the body of a Vashaen thicken until they are more akin to extremely fine fur, and they develop manes on their elongated necks that are more obvious in females, and serve much the same purpose as feathers in birds. In Uçan the breasts are also significantly reduced in size (they’d just get in the way and reduce aerodynamics) and subsequently covered in both mane and fur, as are the genitals in males and females alike. Luçien and Griezra both preferred to transform with their armor, even though it took more concentration, although for very different reasons.

As always, characters and concepts © copyrighted to Dana Veitinger, and protected under the statutory copyright law, do no reproduce, steal, base art on, or claim as your own.

[ladyofthefanart]

THE BOI