Highstorm, Midstorm, Lowstorm

cosmere | mostly stormlight archive | a sideblog | [icon id: the windrunner symbol in dark blue on a lighter blue background /end id] | [banner id: a photo of lightning from a thunderstorm stricking a salt flat /end id] | she/her | 20s | white

[mac-draws]

Sylphrena, ancient daughter

[mac-draws]

One more try…

[isdalinarhot]

Shallan arguing with Kaladin in the chasms during wor

[paintweaver-art]

🎆🎇🎆

Painted Shallan as a reward after a long-dreaded presentation earlier this week. I don’t think I will ever get used to speaking in front of a group of people….

[neflil]

Syl dancing with windspren :3

look i just really love drawing syl....

[cosmereplay]

[ID: A digital illustration of Syl by @neflil. She’s painted in light blues and greys on a chalky dark blue background. She has long, wavy hair that extends past her bare feet, and the waves and curls of her hair effortlessly turn into the peaks and valleys reminiscent of low-approaching rainclouds. Syl’s body and dress are light in tone and almost glow from within. With the viewer below her, her knee-length skirt shows off her slim thighs. A large pleated collar covers her shoulders and chest. She smiles broadly, looking to the side where her outstretched fingers are tickling and playing with some windspren. In the distance, in front of gathering stormclouds, a few other windspren are circling in. End ID.]

[jennydolfen]

Ko-fi commission of Shallan Davar. Painted with my watercolour brushes in Procreate.

Check out my Commissions Etsy Procreate brushes Patreon Inprnt

[mac-draws]

This was my last drawing of 2025! I love the moment at the end of Words of Radiance, when Szeth knocks a shattered Adolin through a tent and approaches Dalinar. The moment of calm while the Everstorm and Highstorm come to clash overtop of Narak.

I got very ambitious with the background and trying to draw poses entirely from imagination. I’d like to go back and revisit this someday, but there’s so much to draw for the first time too…

[theelfdruid]

Another in my lineup of cosmere women I want to draw in this dynamic card sort of composition. Went back to my roots with Lyn. Her face could have turned out better, but... trial and error. I like how the pose came out, though.

[paintweaver-art]

Prime Aqasix

A grown-up Yanagawn in Azish robes. I drew him for a size chart a while back but thought it would be fun to color him too! :D

[laminatednewspaper]

I’m thinking about the three and the roles they fill (and also Adolin and Pattern)

[laminatednewspaper]

Wait! I just realized I never explained my thought process for the portraits! I drew Radiant (in the top left corner) in the style of ancient Iranian low relief sculptures because her role is to perform the larger than life battles and conflicts that helps the three save the day.

Veil (in the background) is in a more realistic style to show that her role is to think pragmatically and cynically about the world, but she’s not totally realistic because at a certain level Veil’s role is to perform tricks and espionage. That’s also why she’s particularly obscured, because she’s doing a lot of her work behind the scenes

When they play their roles well, Shallan is able to be in the top right corner with her husband in the gothic medieval style, stylized and idealized, living the dream! She’s boxed off in the corner and trying to be separate from her alters!

Adolin and Pattern are also there I suppose but I wasn’t thinking philosophically about them

[starling-illu]

the three

[glxybee]

veil (stormlight archive)

[cosmereplay]

[ID: A digital painting of Veil shown from the chest up. She has tan skin and long, straight, black hair that glides down the front of her body. She wears a white collared shirt, a white coat, and a large brimmed white hat. She has large, double lidded brown eyes that sparkle gold in the sunlight. There is a scar through one of her eyebrows. Her nose is small and softly rounded. Her jaw is relaxed, her peachy lips slightly parted as though she is thinking. She looks deep into the distance, a few strands of hair sweeping across her face. A soft, warm glow surrounds her. End ID.]

[mac-draws]

Kaladin saving a bridgeman in Way of Kings

[determinedskipping]

little knife

[cuartosol]

tien catching lurgs 🦎

[if-one-of-us-falls]

[ID: Art by @cuartosol depicting Tien, Laral and Kaladin as kids walking in a rocky landscape. Tien is a little ahead, while Kaladin and Laral walk and chat behind him. Tien running and smiling excitedly down at a tiny green creature that scampers on the rock before him, presumably a lurg. He is about ten years old, with tan skin and brown hair. He wears red trousers that reach to mid calf, and a a green top and long overshirt.

A little behind him, Kaladin and Laral walk together, looking happy and relaxed. They seem a little older than Tien, perhaps twelve. They are both smiling and holding sticks like staffs. Kaladin has tan skin and shoulder length dark brown wavy hair. He wears a green outfit made of trousers that reach past his knees, a long sleeved shirt and a long buttoned tunic over the top that is tied in the waist. He is smiling and looking at Laral.

Laral is smiling and walking with spring in her step, holding her stick-staff to the side. She has tan skin. Her dark brown hair has some blonde streaks in it, and it is held away from her face by pins but otherwise loose. She wears brown boots, a light yellow long sleeved shirt and white underskirt, and a long yellow buttoned tunic on top with orange and red accents.

The background shows rocks of various sized, open rockbuds sending out vines, and multiple lurgs scampering across the ground.

/End ID]

[dennysedai]

something about Fitz who had a surplus of father figures growing up but who’s life was still defined by the absence of his own father having to share each of his children with another man is a a topic i lack the mental fortitude and degree in psychology to examine.

[dennysedai]

just realized this reads as me calling fitz a gay whore dead beat baby daddy which is true but not what i meant

[moash]

it’s just so crazy that there’s two main metaphors for racism in the stormlight archive, lighteyes/darkeyes and humans/singers, and brandon fumbled both of them like. dude you could have just decided not to talk about racism at all if you didn’t have anything to say about it.

[jasnahkholin]

stormlight is so fundamentally about being a white american man that you can read into brandon's metatextual arc into the politics of the series.

kaladin and shallan have two ends of the 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' story within a corrupt system while dalinar realizes from his position as an embodiment of the system that corruption exists. there are good moments here and good themes, hope and perseverance and don't kill yourself etc. (neoliberal slop)

then we get moash and the parshmen are people reveal. the ambiguity of the moash storyline is what makes it compelling. if there wasn't a case to be made from both sides then it doesn't work. the audience needs to be with kaladin all the way through even as he helps and then ultimately betrays moash. parshmen slaves being full sentient beings is a slight subversion of a sort of house elf trope, but not unexpected. we have had rlain the whole time as a tease that things are not what they seem.

oathbringer is where it all comes together to get to the point where reality and fantasy are almost merging. humans conquered the continent and subjugated and exterminated the natives and their culture. your way of life, even if you can't abandon it was built on genocide and slave labor. can you still participate in that and consider yourself a good person?

and then RoW shows that Brandon isn't ready to write these books. he regresses back into fantasy, dropping the ball on the moral rolling stone that has been building momentum since minute one. all nuance is written out and it becomes a straightforward fight between good and evil.

the way odium and the fused were written means that any doylist critique can be given a watsonian answer.

q: should the land of the continent that was violently conquered be given back to its original inhabitants?

a: no because they worship an evil god.

q: when, if ever, is revolutionary violence justified?

a: never, he told his best friend to kill himself.

this is the frustration. brandon sanderson is not ready to reckon with the answers to the questions that made the first books so compelling. he is not ready to admit some systems might need to be overthrown. he set up for a grand slam and then bunted.

[jasnahkholin]

toddler dips one toe into the hottub of post colonial thought and then has a tantrum because it's warmer than the air