#gravesix

[wander-wren]

a little announcement

(yeah, i’m using this art constantly now. this was a commission by the wonderful @decarbry who did a fantastic job)

some of you might remember the book i occasionally talk about, Other Lost Things—these are the six MCs! in order: Tyrian, Eira, Ollie, Cas, Inari, and Daci, along with Zephyra and Alarik. my little crew of magical kids running from the law <3

which brings me to the second purpose of this post: just a teeny little announcement that i’m dropping the prologue and first chapter of OLT on January 9th, which is kind of nerve-wracking but also exciting! it’ll go up on Inkitt and my personal site, which is getting the final touches put on now.

so for any young adult fantasy fans out there (and i know you’re here! this is a six of crows household!) mark your calendars and hang out for some cool stuff coming up in the next 10 days as i get ready.

[wander-wren]

the best new year’s present

that’s right babey! character art!!

this was a commission by @decarbry who did a fabulous job of bringing my kids to life and also being very patient with my questionable ability to email.

for the newbies, this is Cas, Ollie, Inari (w/ Zephyra), Daci (w/ Alarik), Eira, and Tyrian, and they think they’re a rugged pirate crew. they’re a few criminals fumbling around on a boat, same difference!

i’ll post more about them/their story later, but for now, some rambling about this under the cut!

first of all, just, lighting. colors. all of that. can we talk about it? i’m obsessed. i had nooo idea what kind of background color could fit all of them but the magenta and the blue?? is so??? also the blue lines are super cool, as is alarik being purple-y because he is daci’s. i still havent gotten over that since i first saw it. augh.

they were done in a group lineup also but i wanted to show off the individual portraits for this. regardless these are their same poses and i LOVE how tyrian and eira side by side makes it kinda look like tyrian is offering her his hand. they’re besties your honor?? he’s a gentleman??

if you look close ollie has freckles and i am completely obsessed with them. and just ollie in general. if i HAD to pick faves which i CANT but if i DID….ollie and inari. which is slightly unfair bc inari is my favorite ANYWAY but shh don’t tell anyone.

i really didnt give much guidance for tyrian because he took a LOT longer to form in my head and i therefore have a weaker idea of him overall but i’m very happy with how decarby ran with what little i DID have for him because actually? very fitting for his character to be the best dressed. it’s such a him outfit i’m kicking my feet and giggling.

cas’s little face…oh yeah he knows this is his crew. so sure of himself. he knows exactly what’s up. don’t worry pookie bear, i’ll change that for you >:3

i was going to say more things and then i realized they’re all spoilers HELP save me. just admire the pretty pictures yourself. bc i sure am. i think i’m gonna hang them on my wall just because i can

[wander-wren]

oc game: i was tempted to just send you all the emojis but 🧠🌼✨ those are in reverse order from how they appear in the game i think oops anyway these are ones we dont usually get in character questions i genuinely dont think I know their ages soooo enjoy

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

inari- she's very, very attached to her home country of skalmere, even though it's illegal for her to exist there and she'd likely be killed if she ever went back. she has a little skalian flag sewn on the inside of her jacket, over her heart. idk, something about it is really compelling, i guess i connect it to being a minority in a conservative area but not wanting to leave.

daci- okay, i love her bc she's a sweetheart, but i think what i like most is that her magic (empathy, literally) is very sensory-based, so if she chooses to use it around a lot of people she gets sensory overload, and sometimes there's so much she can't fully turn her magic off, and idk, i like angst, i like magic drawbacks, i like people who refuse to let their friends know their magic has drawbacks.

cas- he projects this image of himself as really dark and edgy and scary but he actually has the lowest self-esteem known to man (well, second to inari) and if ollie so much as looks at him sternly he will fold and walk back his most recent bad decision. he's so funny to me for that.

ollie- they're literally just this happy-go-lucky artist kid from the backcountry that you would never expect to be the right hand of mr edgy up there ^^ its a really fun character type to play with

eira- she's this small, babyfaced, anxious girl that literally everyone estimates, kind of rightfully bc she's very out of her depth, but from the first page she's got this undercurrent of strength and ambition and i really love balancing those two things (or unbalancing them and causing her problems)

tyrian- he's the most Some Guy ever, the ken to eira's barbie if you will, and he's the only one without magic or a significant amount of trauma, so he's even more out of his depth than eira is but doing his best. and i love him.

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

in age order: cas (19), ollie (18), daci (18), tyrian (17), inari (17), eira (16)

i started this story when i was 15 and younger than them all, and in 8 months i'll be older than all of them. which is insane.

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

there's a forum on the nanowrimo website, where i was spending most of my time back in 2019 (you know this, lexi), and there's a category in there to adopt character names. someone made a list of fantasy names and their meanings, which i went back and found just now:

inari, daciana, eira, and cassian (cas's full name) are all up there. i actually almost named him caspian, bc it means sea, but i had an inkling that "hollow" would be more fitting. also, there's narnia.

fun fact: isleen and isleen wer taken for tyrian's older sister & younger brother, dyah (which i'm now tweaking to either dyha or dyja, but it was dyah for four years) was taken for inari's little sister, and valens was taken for eira's father.

i don't remember where tyrian came from at all, except that two posts above that post someone suggested "tyr?" hm. also, i pulled several names from other posts for the eight gods of daci's religion, as well as alarik for her dog and kiver for a kid who will be important near the end. no one needed to know all of that, i'm just realizing now that this thread was absolutely instrumental to olt's beginnings, lol.

oh, also ollie/oleander isn't from there! they came when i sent a picrew to some friends on a discord server and asked for naming help. i'm no longer in that server, nor do i remember who suggested the name, but i am forever in their debt bc it is incredible.

oh, and last names i just COMPLETELY made up based on vibes, except for gatien. i remember googling for that one, i don't remember what, and i selected it bc it means "watchman," tho i'm not sure what i was going for there anymore. also inari and daci's last names have been nixed bc i grew to hate them, so....i still need to replace those.

[wander-wren]

yknow what. it’s oc time. look at my children in this picrew since i cant draw

first up we have inari, who you might remember from my conlanging project, and daci

next we have cas and his partner (in crime! just in crime i swear!) ollie. their full name is oleander.

finally we have eira (who is also aroace, and that’s honestly the more important part, but i’m limited by picrew) and her token cishet (maybe?) best friend tyrian

extra fun tidbits below the cut

these six are the pov characters in my upcoming story Other Lost Things! upcoming when? that’s to be decided by the end of august.

cas, inari, and ollie know each other beforehand (as do eira and tyrian), as the crew on cas’s boat, gravestar. because they all spend a lot of time on said boat, i affectionately call them the gravesix.

OLT is set in a world where magic is illegal, and unfortunately five of our main characters (sorry, tyrian) are magic. inari summons fire, daci is a literal empath, cas can steal air, ollie shapeshifts, and eira summons lightning. cas, inari, and ollie are old hat at this “being a hunted criminal” thing, but it’s new for the other three.

they don’t want to be working together, but their other option is being caught and killed, so what can you do. they just have to make it through a three-week journey across the sea without killing each other, and then they can go their separate ways forever. simple.

spoiler alert: it’s not simple. and they’re all going to like each other whether they want to or not.

i might post an oc ask game soon or something. or you guys can just ask me stuff if you want to! this project has been going on for four whole years come october, so i’m really excited to finally get it out in the world.