I love you people going into "useless" fields I love you classics majors I love you cultural studies majors I love you comparative literature majors I love you film studies majors I love you near eastern religions majors I love you Greek, Latin, and Hebrew majors I love you ethnic studies I love you people going into any and all small field that isn't considered lucrative in our rotting capitalist society please never stop keeping the sacred flame of knowledge for the sake of knowledge and understanding humanity and not merely for the sake of money alive
When given the freedom to choose what to do, and where to go, people just naturally end up standing wherever they think the ground is sturdiest. Someone who believes that it all goes down to biology ends up becoming a biologist. Someone who believes that it all goes down to physics ends up becoming a physicist. Someone who believes it all goes down to mathematics ends up becoming a mathematician. And someone who believes that it all goes down to poetry ends up being a poet.
A biologist is sure that if all else falls apart, biology will not fail - it will still be just the same. A phycisist is sure that even if biology fails, physics would still be just the same. A mathematician is sure that even if physics fell apart, math will always be unchanging. And a poet is sure that even if it all falls apart, if the world as we know it fell apart so thoroughly that even the laws and rules of math no longer apply, it would all make splendid poetry.
Grishaverse Big Bang 2023 - For them time is theonly consolation
i had such a great time working on this piece for this year's big bang (@grishaversebigbang)and working with the amazing artists @eclypseaf @pocketsizedquasar and @wicked-books-101. The piece I did this year was meant to follow in a memory snapshot way through the people Nina had lost taking place in the fall of Os Alta (I swear it makes a more sense) the title is taken from the book frankenstien which is where i got my main inspiration for this
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I have currently been sucked into the mess of which is the Magnus Archives, and gotten incredibly invested in it. What this has led to is the idea of a six of crows au type thing with the crows with the fears and such (because of how my brain seems to have the sole ability to be able to come up with ideas for it). Due to this, here are my ideas of what entity the crows would serve, and a type of role they would be for the very niche crossover it is.
Inej: she would be an avatar of the eye, most likely equivalent to the archivist. In the books her main thing is secrets, she is always watching people to find out information, and gains information which most do not know from her spying, which fits the eye to a t as well as the archivist originally not wanting persay to serve the eye, similar to her work in the dregs having resulted in her doing it to live.
Kaz: He would be the web. With him, he is always the one making the intricate plans, manipulating people for his own goals, while also being more of on the sidelines when the action comes to it (but of course jumping in when needed), being the one to do the more diplomatic side of things which would reflect well onto the web. While his role is dependent on who would fill an Elias-type role, he would not be in the archives, but maybe he would be a receptionist(it sounds weird I know) or someone who is closer to the person in charge so they could manipulate what was going on (he would have also have been the one who placed Inej in the archives).
Nina: Hers was a trickier one with her heartrender/corpsewitch powers making her applicable to many (i.e. buried, flesh, even the web and the slaughter to an extent, with other factors making her stranger and spiral) so she could have been marked by many, but in the end, she is more End leaning to me. This manifests in a way that is less of the fear of dying yourself but more of a fear of losing the ones you love. This connection is due to her corpsewitch powers and a bit of my own interpretation of her life post-canon. She is also the stranger due to the part of her needing to act and conceal her true actions and thoughts the majority of the time, which in the novels is amplified when she is Mila. Her role would be one of help on the outside before joining the archives and a voice of reason for Inej (a bit similar to Basira now that I'm thinking of it.
[Image ID: A digital drawing of Martin and Basira from The Magnus Archives. Basira, in the foreground on the right, is reading a book. A text box next to her says "Basira (unbothered queen)."
Martin is sitting in the background, hunched over a table, separated from Basira by a shelf with file boxes. A text box above him reads "Martin (having a breakdown)." End ID]
god just. imagine if daisy, basira, and melanie had been around when gertrude was archivist. gertrude would have just had to point at a ritual and say "LESBIANS! KILL!" and a nuclear bomb of anti-ritual devastation would have gone off immediately. they would have gotten so much shit done
Something that crosses my mind from time to time is the similarities within the Six of Crows couples.
Helnik: Nina and Matthias are both former soldiers and are deeply loyal to their countries but they also know what it is to have your childhood stolen by war. Both where taken from their homes solely to become soldiers as children.
Wesper: Jesper and Wylan both have gone through childhood without their mothers and have had fathers that didn't accept them. I know Colm is a much better parent than Van Eck, but he still couldn't accept that his son was Grisha. Wylan and Jesper both have also put so much of their energy and time to living up to the expectations people in their lives had for them, even if it was impossible. Jesper with Colm and Kaz; Wylan with his father.
Kanej: Kaz and Inej both have aversion to touch. They both grew up in stable homes (not sure about Kaz since we don't know a lot about his life before he and Jordie came to Ketterdam). Point is, they grew up with family that loved them. They also know what it is to have that taken away because of exploitation. Pekka Rollins exploited Kaz and Jordie for money and Tante Heelen did the same to Inej.
I love Six of the Crows and the ships in it. They are so beautiful and layered.
so all the girlies (and also those who realized they are not girlies) that were obsessed with joining the hunters of artemis, how is being on the asexual/aromantic spectrum going for you
Inej is the main character of SOC btw. Not only does the story proper begin and end with her pov, but she is the emotional heart of the story. Kaz himself says she is the lodestone of the Crows. Not naming names but SOME OF YOU simply reduce her to being “Kaz’s love interest” as if this isn’t as much her story as anyone else’s. In case you all forgot: She was not a lynx or a spider or even the Wraith. SHE WAS INEJ GHAFA AND HER FUTURE WAS WAITING ABOVE!!!!
okay so this is sort of obscure and a lot of people might not understand it (unless you're both a grishaverse fan and happen to do color/winter guard, in which case, can we be friends?) but this is a personal fun thing for me as a guard member so yeah <3
Kaz: He only does rifle line, and a bit of sabre. his sleight of hand/arm strength is very useful for it. he doesn't do flagline. hates it. can you imagine kaz brekker spinning a flag? yeah, neither can i. he's the type of person who learns dropspins on rifle, watches someone do a five, goes "like this?" and tosses it perfectly. (believe me, there's a girl on my team like this.)
Inej: Team captain. does flag and sabre, as well as some rifle, but doesn't like it as much. sabre and flag are just more graceful and fluid, like she is. needless to say, she's awesome at everything. Being a literal acrobat, too, she excels at dance more than anyone else on the team. Big stunts and dance solos are often incorporated just for her, because she's so captivating and elegant in the way she moves.
Jesper: being hyper-adhd and unable to sit still, he's constantly trying new things and wanting to learn every piece of equipment he can. he even does a bit of baton on the side. he's kind of a wild card, and there's not one particular thing he excels at. i think rifle would secretly be his favorite, though, because gun. he is really great at super high tosses, and likes to show off to wylan. "did you know i can toss a fourteen on rifle?" "that's not physically possible, jesper." "uh, yeah, i know it is, because i can do it."
Wylan: he plays flute in marching band during marching season, and he only really joined winter guard because Jesper was doing it and asked him to do it with him. so he sticks to flagline, but is working on weapons on the side. he works a lot on the production of the show, too. He writes some of his own original music for it and mixes all the audio/sound effects.
Matthias: i have a little headcannon that he plays snare drum in marching band, and, like Wylan, only joined after copious begging from Nina. he won't admit it, but he actually kind of likes it. rifle, that is. he isn't a big fan of flag, but being big and strong, he's able to do really impressive tosses on both pieces of equipment. doesn't do sabre. it's too tiny and light for him, he hates it.
Nina: steals the show performance-wise, she gets really into roles, especially dramatic ones. often gets the team more points just because of her standout performance abilities. big dance and flag girl. she does some weapon line, but much prefers flag, and always gets assigned impressive solos on it. she also helps with costume and set design, and always brings flare to shows. is a big team motivator, comes up with all the traditions and team parties.
other mix-matched in-universe headcannons:
Per Haskell is their very uninvested, uninvolved band director
Pekka Rollins is their rival school's guard coach that Kaz hates with a burning passion
Kuwei is a Shu exchange student that tried winter guard for a season. After some mysterious incident with jesper and wylan, however, he decided it wasn't for him.
Alina, Zoya, Tamar, Tolya, Genya, and Nikolai are all alumni that did winter guard. The Darkling was their toxic team captain that got kicked off. Zoya and Genya came back to help coach for a season, but Zoya couldn't stand Kaz.
Wellll that's it for now. If you've read through all of this somehow, thank you so much <33333
able-bodied artists (or artists who don't have the relevant disabilities even if they are physically disabled in some way) really need to start checking themselves because i have seen more than enough ableist garbage on my TL recently. i don't get any traction on twitter though so i'm posting this here instead.
1. i'm not giving my thoughts on "AI art" because i do not have the patience and energy but bringing up physically disabled artists with limb differences, motor impairments, etc. (the ones that able-bodied people put on a pedestal because inspiration porn, anyway) as a gotcha is just as bad as the "AI art" bros you're arguing with who aren't disabled themselves (or disabled in these ways) but also tokenize these forms of disability. we're not ammunition in online discourse, i bet 10-1 that you people never uplift and empower and give a platform to disabled artists w/ limb differences/motor impairments/etc. in your online art spaces otherwise, and any logic that amounts to "this disabled person can do [x] so you're just not trying hard enough/what's your excuse?" is always always ALWAYS ableist no matter how you try to spin it, sorry.
if you don't have these conditions and consider yourself an ally to us then you do not have any business speaking with any kind of authority in conversations involving limb differences, motor impairments, etc. and art-making, or bringing artists with these conditions up when people are talking art-making and accessibility. full-stop. speaking from experience, being an artist with coordination and motor skill impairments when i'm surrounded by artists who aren't hindered by those things (even if physically disabled) really takes a mental toll on you and being all "oh this guy learned to draw with his teeth, so" does not help that whatsoever.
2. speaking as a horror artist/author - critically examine what you consider monstrous or horrific and the overlap between that and visible physical disability. not only have i had the above nonsense shoved in my face but then semi-popular art account posted a few photos (from online assumedly) that they called "monster eyes" when one of those images was leukocoria and another looked something like tonic pupil and/or coloboma (the pupil looked atypically large and out of place.) structrual eye conditions that cause visible differences aren't "monstrous." one of the images had crystals growing out of the eye, which, yeah! do more with that. but consider that images of "freaky" eyes you find on the internet are in fact eye conditions that real people have and what you're doing is associating how their bodies look with "monstrosity."
people have talked about this quite a bit with limb differences, bodily proportions, gait differences, motor impairments, etc. but i've never seen it talked about nearly as much with eye conditions. stop associating aspects of visible bodily differences with horror and monstrosity. even if it's unintentional that's purely due to your ignorance of the wealth of conditions that cause disability. exploration of disability and bodily difference within the context of horror and monstrosity can and honestly should be explored but that should be left to to those of us who actually understand what that is like rather than those who only have an outside perspective.
generally i'm very tired of able-bodied artists and then any physically disabled ones who lack respect for those of different experience to their situation.
holy hell I just realised that when jordie and kaz had firepox they called their makeshift home 'the nest' and then years later, kaz calls his new family the crows. it started off as him and jordie in a nest and then he kept the bird motif and built a new nest with his crows and- babe why are you leaving? for kaz it all goes back to jordie! are you even listening? he and jordie nicknamed their makeshift hovel the nest and he named his future family after birds!
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