on this blog we will be making original posts about the grishaverse, six of crows, and shadow and bone, as well as our life and DID system. sometimes other alters might come on this blog and talk about their own life and source, but this blog will mostly be run by the following two mods:
☀️ mod #1: ettie (she/he/xe) and 19. host.
💥 mod #2: wylan (he/him) and 16. wylan is an introject (or fictive) of wylan hendriks from the six of crows duology. doubles, kins, etc. are welcome but please understand that the experience of being a fictionkin or delusional attachment is very different from the experience of being an introject as part of a DID system. wylan is a caretaker in our system and has been around since we were 12 years old.
formerly known as arsonkuwei circa 2020.
main: @muppettie -> reblogs and such go here, and this is the blog i follow/like from.
the crows and company pronouns/gender/sexuality etc. headcanons except mine are kind of different from what i've seen floating around:
kaz - he/him butch transmasc aro lesbian. passes as a man and lets people assume he's a cishetallo man but it's more complex than it seems on the surface. this is more of a "if kaz was my character this is what he'd be like" headcanon than a "this is what i think would actually happen" headcanon. DID haver except he will never realize this. his trauma kind of presents like autism so he gets along well with wylan in this way.
inej - she/her bisexual woman. inej and wylan dabble in a little crossdressing together and kaz and jesper find it very amusing. this was a scrapped chapter from one of my fics but i may end up revisiting. DPDR haver but again she will never realize
jesper - he/she/they transfem nonbinary bisexual. transfem jesper is very important to me and i think others should get on board with this headcanon. whenever i see wlw wesper i pretend they're both transfem. ADHD and BPD haver.
wylan - he/him gay genderqueer. i kind of talked about wylan twice already but basically i think he's that tweet that's like "i'm probably nonbinary but i got a job rn so idgaf" like he will never realize this. autism, anxiety, and OSDD haver.
nina - she/her bisexual woman. not much else to say my headcanons align pretty closely with canon. i will add that i've always imagined her as a quarter zemeni. she has adhd too but it presents subtly.
matthias - he/him demisexual cishet man. yeah sorry but he's nina's cishet boyfriend. very proud of being acespec and a very passionate ally though, he loves the gays.
If you harass any of these people, or trudge up years-old discourse, I will hunt you for sport. Fans of color in the Grishaverse fandom have been harassed for years, and you don't need to add to it solely because you can't handle criticism of your favorite book series. It is extremely common for people to critically analyze the things they love, we are all united by our enjoyment of this book series, don't ruin that by speaking in anger or resentment toward people who aren't even active in this fandom anymore. The purpose of this post, while it may be educational, is solely to archive some of the criticism and discourse that was spoken about widely and in detail years ago. I personally want to have some of these takes on hand in order to reference them for some of the posts I am planning on making in the future. If you have questions or inquiries regarding the subject matter of any of these posts, I would prefer that you ask me about it instead of harassing bloggers of color. I may be white myself, but I would prefer possible flack that may come from me posting these links is directed at me instead of people who have moved on from this fandom and already suffered enough in regards to fandom racism and the like. I will do my best to answer or explain what I can using resources from those more qualified to speak on these subjects. Hopefully, it is clear in this disclaimer that my intentions are good and I'm trying to handle this situation with as much tact as I possibly can. Let me know if you have ideas for anything else that I should have included in this post, or if you just want to share your opinion. I am open to having discussions in good faith as long as you are clear about your intentions and respectful of others.
Now, that's not to say that anybody is forcing my hand in posting this. Rather, I've been working on my own post detailing what could be done in order to give Jesper a more respectful ending, a post that has evolved into an extended concept involving many different characters that I may eventually turn into its own fanfiction series if I can. I'm aware of the fact that when I explain the changes I'm making, a lot of people will react in a defensive or angry way at the insinuation that Six of Crows and the extended Grishaverse series are imperfect works of art. (I've been a fan of this series since 2018, one of the characters helped me realize I was trans, and I've read Crooked Kingdom 7 times. I promise I am a genuine fan of this book series and it means so much to me!) I want to have the resources on hand in order to explain my issues with the series and back up my claims with sources. That is my intention when making this post and the reasoning.
I must reiterate, if you bother any of these people about these posts, or approach them in any sort of disrespectful way, I will hunt you for sport. (Note: I am not actually going to hunt you for sport. But I am going to be very upset and I will probably publicly shame you for your actions if it is the necessary approach to the situation.)
BEFORE YOU SEND HATE, READ THE ENTIRE POST & TRY TO UNDERSTAND.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get into it. Click "read more" to read more.
I also think this analysis is a necessary read regarding any criticism that involves Bardugo's writing of the Grisha, who are sometimes a Jewish allegory and sometimes something else entirely.
And here are some general posts about fandom racism that can be applied to the Grishaverse fandom, or used to understand why the criticism in this post is important: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x.
Check out the ZEU Series!
A lot of this criticism happened during 2020 and 2021 (due to the rise of understanding in why it is important to turn a critical eye to the racism ingrained in a lot of popular media in 2020 and the show coming out in 2021), which sadly means that a lot of the posts on the subject have now been deleted. This is a bit frustrating because I remember a lot of the conversations that were had in the fandom in detail, but now many posts/blogs are gone.
I am not endorsing each and every detail involved in these posts, but I think they are all important to factor in to the conversation. Does it hurt to have people claim that Six of Crows should never have been written? Absolutely, this series has meant so much to me. But the mature thing to do, especially as somebody who values critical analysis, is to try and understand a lot of the anger and hurt that people feel (and disregard the emotional part of people just raging about how they thought the book was bland or soulless while taking their legitimate criticism into your consideration) and put your personal feelings aside in order to deconstruct and reconstruct your view of the books.
Please keep in mind that some of this criticism is directed at fans of the series rather than Leigh Bardugo herself, or they encompass both audiences.
A separate post to accompany my list of resources for Grishaverse criticism*, this post is specifically focusing on Wylan and Wesper, because the criticism of their writing and relationship is something I couldn't stop thinking about throughout my Six of Crows reread, and what inspired me to write out my ideas for how I personally would try to fix their ending and my ideas for a Jesper focused post-CK fanfiction series.
The same disclaimer applies here: if you attack or trudge up old shit to these bloggers I will have no choice but to destroy you brick by brick. Leave them alone and let me archive these posts for convenience and evidence in peace.
Wylan: x, x, x
Wesper: x, x
I would have included more, but I honestly fear people will once again harass this user and that is not my intention in any way, shape, or form.
Don't get it twisted, I'm a huge fan of Wylan (he's my second favorite crow) and I enjoy Wesper despite its flaws (even if I spend a lot of my time thinking about what I would have done different). People are allowed to critique things that they love & are important to them.
The thought process here is "Oh! I want to make content about my ideal ending for Wesper and fix some of my issues with the way their relationship is portrayed. In order to do so I will need to point out the issues in their relationship. I don't want to pretend that my ideas are my own. I'm a nonblack white person, and I need to be careful about not overstepping. Let me compile some posts from people who actually are qualified to speak on antiblackness, and include those sources to back up my own personal analysis. While I'm at it, may as well compile general Grishaverse criticism in addition. Some of this stuff doesn't feel like it belongs on the main post, I'll put it in a smaller, separate post, in order to reduce the chances of people being weird about it. Yay."
Six of Crows/Grishaverse fans to not tend to react well to criticism about their favorite ships, or alternative ideas. They also do not tend to react well to the idea of polyamory regarding their uwu gay boys. Thus, I am forced to carry the burden of my many ideas about Jesper and Wylan being polyamorous and having a fun little thing with Kuwei and his boyfriend (my OC I'm developing).
kaz brekker - black/white, black, and red. had the black and white stripes and thought it'd be perfect for his suit colors. because of @jccatstudios i actually associate kaz more with the light purple of kruge than i do with red, but i wanted to save the purple for inej. i did black for his hair, and red for the color of blood.
inej ghafa - purple and lilac are associated with her in fanart and such, though i have no idea why. i think it's just because of the official art? but purple seems like such a her color, plus it matches kaz. it didn't occur to me until the bracelet was already made that it might be because of the menagerie, which is not what i had in mind when creating these bracelets, i promise.
jesper fahey - i had these colorful neon "rainbow" (blue, pink, purple, green) rubber bands and i definitely wanted to use them because i couldn't figure out a good color combination that wasn't just a bunch of neon colors slapped together. i'm definitely satisfied with this choice even if it seems like a cop out, jesper's bracelet is the only bracelet i've made so far using these.
wylan hendriks - wylan came the easiest to me, probably because i know that the wylan who lives in my head (just DID introject things), his favorite colors are turquoise and copper. the gold and the blue were the closest i could get, i also threw in that warm yellow because of the whole "wylan van sunshine" thing, haha.
nina zenik - okay, this one i'm not totally satisfied with. i might try again when i make the kefta colored bracelets. i fear the color combination is giving miraculous ladybug. black and red is for her kefta colors, the green is for her eye color.
matthias helvar - this one was the easiest! just shades of blue and white representing the fjerdan waters, ice, and snow. i could have thrown in yellow for his blonde hair but i didn't want it to look too similar to wylan's bracelet so i decided against it.
should i do kuwei too? he'd probably be the inferni colors — light blue and red-orange.
