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* slides over a cup full of "jesper is very good at reading people and body language, a skill he unintentionally picked up as a result of constantly watching over his shoulder and maintaining a bunch of secrets (his grisha status, the gambling debt, the fact he'd dropped out of university — among other major dregs secrets). leigh's writing regarding this is inconsistent due to [fart noises] because she oscillates between "hehe jesper funni" and "oh btw i guess he has a backstory" >:(((( BUT. its there in the books and shows through best in his interactions with the very reclusive and overly cautious members of the crows: kaz, most notably, but wylan and inej also. jesper is, at his core, a people person — he thrives on being around others, given his childhood was so restrained and lonely — and it just makes sense for him to be able to accurately read people, even just on a subconsious level. he never uses this against people, mostly bcus he's not always conscious of the fact he's even doing it, but he does use what he suspects / guesses about others to an advantage regarding his own safety and sometimes, when he realises someone is distressed or unhappy and there is something he could do." *

WHO ORDERED THE CUP OF ANALYSIS, GET UR ORDER AT THE FRONT

👻🎁 🦋🦈

Beloved friend!

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

To be honest, I don’t know if I have any really weird ones. I guess, my backstory for showverse Colm and Aditi might be considered wild— but I like the idea of them having settled down on the farm after living a Life with a Capital L, with Colm reluctantly following his absolute force of a grisha wife all around the True Sea. I’ve plotted the whole of their love story out like I’m gonna write it or something, but really it’s just a reference. I’m always happy to talk about it, though!

The other one— one that will definitely be woven throughout the engagement series— is based on this amazing meta post (if anybody knows it, please dm me so I can link it) that basically talked about Jesper being an incredibly powerful anomaly by grisha standards. Maybe one of the most powerful grisha in the series. And I absolutely love that. It’s at the core of how I see Jes.

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

On the day time ran out, he woke surprisingly rested. There were no dreams, no restless dozing to avoid the possibility of them, either. It was just a full night of deep sleep, so deep even his father couldn’t reach him.

Before Wylan even opened his eyes, he could feel it— body heat, the lax sprawl of sinewy muscle curled vaguely around him, despite somehow being simultaneously starfished across the bed. Even the taut muscle of Jesper’s stomach seemed soft as it rose and fell with his sleeping breaths. Wylan flexed his fingers, smoothing his hand up over his boyfriend’s body from where it had laid heavily over his waist.

His head was pillowed on Jesper’s chest. Saints, they’d crumpled together in an absolute heap the night before.

They’d finally made it to Poppy’s show.

They had gotten in late.

There was a pleasant soreness that laid over him like a thick blanket— they were warm, rested, bare skin against bare skin. Jesper made it through an entire night without even asking if one game would really be that bad?

When they’d finally made it home, Wylan pushed him against the door and kissed him breathless. He’d relished the grip of those hands on his waist, and pressed his body as close as he could get.

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

If you couldn’t tell, I love writing Colm 😂 but my favorite right now is definitely Wylan. My sweet, snarky boy.

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

KAZ BREKKER.

Thanks for playing! ❤️

meta + fashion (& whether or not he likes receiving clothes as gifts?) :D

Ask Meme: Talk Meta to Me -- @pistolslinger

Nico tends to think of fashion and clothing in a very utilitarian manner. His one requirement for his clothing is that it needs to be black/dark colored, and ideally comfortable, but he will sacrifice some comfort for the color. Other than that, he doesn’t tend to think about clothing. I do headcanon that when he grows out of his bomber jacket, he gets a long dark duster coat and he thinks that makes him look very cool.

He hasn’t ever received clothing as a gift-- although now I can’t help but imagine a montage where Jesper gets him some clothing now--but I feel like he would be little underwhelmed with clothing given to him as a present. Then again though, I feel like he would enjoy receiving accessories like pins or other bits of jewelry? Things that he could fidget with like his skull ring, he would probably enjoy getting.

grishaverse headcanons

“no mourners. no funerals.”

[ inej ghafa ]

notes [ fluff ] [ 2022 ] kaz writes love letters to inej while she’s out at sea. they don’t get sent, but they still find her, anyway.

[ jesper fahey ]

secrets [ fluff, light angst ] [ 2022 ] wylan sees jesper for who he is, and jesper makes everything a fun, intimate game.

[ kaz brekker ]

notes [ fluff ] [ 2022 ] kaz writes love letters to inej while she’s out at sea. they don’t get sent, but they still find her, anyway.

[ matthias helvar ]

songs [ light angst ] [ 2022 ] matthias’ memories of life before the drüskelle come in and out like the movement of the tide.

baker [ fluff ] [ 2022 ] nina is a terrible cook/baker, but matthias isn’t, and he learns to make her waffles

“i promise to hold you for the rest of my days” [ fluff ] [ 2021 ] a helnik marriage? helnik babies?? that is too much power, but let’s just think for a second…

[ nina zenik ]

baker [ fluff ] [ 2022 ] nina is a terrible cook/baker, but matthias isn’t, and he learns to make her waffles

“i promise to hold you for the rest of my days” [ fluff ] [ 2021 ] a helnik marriage? helnik babies?? that is too much power, but let’s just think for a second…

[ wylan van eck ]

secrets [ fluff, light angst ] [ 2022 ] wylan sees jesper for who he is, and jesper makes everything a fun, intimate game.

[ the whole gang ]

headcanons for the crows... [ fluff ] [ 2022 ] here’s a collection of random headcanons i have regarding the crows because i am in agony waiting for news about season 2…

...

METAS

shadow & bone blunders: the fjerdan and the grisha spoilers for the s&b trilogy and six of crows duology

grishaverse deep dive: the darkling is a character that lives in a society spoilers for all of the grishaverse

so leigh bardugo has a thing against character sacrifices... spoilers for s&b trilogy and nikolai duology

no, i am not done talking about the aging up of the characters of the grishaverse, thank you for asking... spoilers for all of the grishaverse

...

UQUIZES:

which grisha order are you? tw: descriptions of grief

which six of crows character are you but it’s just random vibes spoilers for crooked kingdom tw: language

...

RANDOM STUFF:

x // x // x // x // x

Hi and welcome to Misha Mixes Unrelated Things. Todays episode is called: The Grishaverse Is A DnD Campaign That Got (VERY) Out Of Hand And Here’s Why

(There are going to be spoilers of. Pretty much everything. Except for King of Scars because I’m only like 3 chapters in so. No spoilers from KoS)

Let’s begin with the SOC duology because that’s the first thing I read and also I feel like it has a more “conventional” dnd-esque narrative (probably because of the multiple POVs and stuff idk).

So, first things first: characters. While I think all of the crows are equally important to the plot of the book I also think that not all of them are players’ characters. I don’t think Kaz is, for instance, and probably Wylan isn’t either. But let me explain the rest first and then I’ll elaborate on this.

Inej is a classic rogue with her amazing skills and tragic backstory and everything. I think the person that plays her would probably be a beginner because Inej’s backstory is so intertwined with the plot and so well fitted to the city where the story begins and she has such a clear role and stuff that it can only be because the DM had a say on this. From my experience at least and I’ve been DMing for like 5 years now so maybe I know a thing or two. I may be wrong tho.

Matthias is an oathbreaker paladin. The drüskelle sounds like the kind of half military/half religious organization able to provide paladins in a dnd game. They would be Oath of Devotion paladins. Or like a twisted version of those but yes. Oath of Devotion to Djel or whatever I don’t really like fjerdans let me be. I also think Matthias’ player and Nina’s knew each other/had player with each other before and that’s why they made a backstory together and made sure their characters were… a thing from the beginning. I think they wouldn’t be as committed to the DM as Inej’s character so they probably chose a far off place to set their backstory so they didn’t have to learn all of the kerch politics and stuff and join gangs and shit (even thought Nina’s player kind of ended up doing it but I think I remember it was Kaz who found her and not the other way around so).

Nina is a cleric but like. Either a Death or a War Domain cleric. Not a cleric suited for healing but for killing. Cool shit, I personally love clerics. I think the player would have the curse of being the only “““healer””” of the group without even being a real healer. It happens to the best of us ;_; (not to me tho I never play I’m a forever DM XDD)

I think Jesper is a fighter. I have considered making him an artificer but yeah, no because he didn’t build his guns or anything he’s just really fucking good at shooting stuff. That’s a fighter to me. And he later double-classes and stuff when they arrive to the Ice Court to be able to do his thing. I think this player is this type of player the DM invites to the table because they have played together before and they are fun as shit and they kinda help them direct the party where they need to go. I personally love that kind of player but I mean, who wouldn’t?

So yes, now on why Kaz and Wylan aren’t players’ characters. Maybe this is gut feeling of mine and I’m wrong but they are like. Too well intertwined with the plot like. Wylan is definitely this npc the DM brought randomly to like maybe kill him at some point and make Loving Father Van Eck want to mess with the Crows and then the party just fell in love with him and so the DM couldn’t kill him and made an incredibly tragic backstory for him instead where Bad Guy Van Eck became the man we know and he just was a terrible man stupid enough to mess with them.

And Kaz… he is just /too/ in control to not be an npc. Literally nobody but the DM would know so much about the city and the npcs and everything. That’s just Not A Thing. It would almost be meta-rol. For me it makes sense that at the beginning Kaz was only going to be like the Crows’ hirer like, the contact between Van Eck and the players’ characters. And this time I don’t think it was the players’ idea that he stayed, it was probably the DM’s. Having a character that knows pretty much everything is just So Useful to a DM. And then the DM fell in love with him, gave him an amazing backstory and issues and everything. And the final miracle of bringing Inej’s parents to Ketterdam is something only a DM can do like. The man is a disaster but I think he totally has the signature of the DM of a chaotic AF party that realized that their party needed a compass to remind them all the time what their mission was.

About the plot per se…man I don’t know what to say. That looks like the DM pitching a simple robbery and everybody getting nat20s in super weird situations and getting away with stuff. But I mean, that’s DnD in a nutshell so.

My headcanon for Matthias’ ending is that the player had to leave the group for some reason. They probably had this super cool redemption arc planned for him that he totally deserved (listen I Don’t Like Matthias like. At all. But the man worked for it ok? I think I could have get to maybe like him if he had a little more time to grow but whatever) but then they had to leave and the group didn’t want to like get rid of him right away or for him to become an npc so the DM and Nina’s player took turns playing him until well. The thing. You know. It was kind of a sudden death like, players’ characters usually have death saves and stuff and they don’t get killed that easily and that’s why I think Matthias wasn’t a player character anymore even though he began the campaign as one.

And because y’all have been good and have read my bullshit until this point, here you have my headcanon for the trilogy:

The Grisha trilogy is an overly complicated off-roading some of the players made up during the campaign like imagine the discord server where they usually play. Well in most DnD discord servers there is a channel where you can roleplay through text as your character. I think the Grisha trilogy was born there from the DM telling kind of the backstory of the world and Sankta Alina and the war and stuff and the players made up characters or maybe just took side characters from that story and made them into Proper Characters to roleplay following that but also kind of ended up developing more aspects about it (I imagine the DM probably had a few details on that, like an outline or something and the players just kinda took it to a whole new level. Players often do that kind of magic). And they were all hyped AF when their DnD characters met their Other Dnd Characters, obviously.

I don’t know which player would play each character, though. Maybe Jesper’s was Nikolai just because they both are /like that/ and Nina’s was Zoya and maybe Inej’s was Genya. Or the other way around, idk. I feel like the whole monologue Nina has at some point of Zoya Is To The Drüskelle Like Jarl Brun Is To The Grisha sounds like Nina’s player is also Zoya’s player but idk.

So yes I can probably elaborate on everything if someone’s interested but this is what I have so far.

Jesper headcanons

I’m reviving this dead blog to talk about Klaus! Among other things. 

I don’t see enough meta going around. Where is it??? Where is the whole deep analysis of the characters? Also not nearly enough fanfiction! I guess if I want it I have to do it myself.

Ok, I’m not sure this count as headcanons but I want to sort things out in my head in how I see the characters. 

Jesper is smart and resourceful and because of it he is prone to boredom. 

Obviously he had no mother and a very neglectful father so no wonder that he lacks empathy. Generally nice manners tho.

I would argue that he has surprisingly little ego.  

Despite the Cuzco comparisons Jesper never actually did a single bad thing to someone else to pursue his own goals. Never even lied, at most lied by omission. In fact his only goal is to get back home and to just be there. 

He had to understand early on that he would never reach his father’s level of accomplishments so he just gave up without trying and wasting energy for nothing.  

Despite being as priviledged as they get he doesn’t really invoke “do you know who my father is?”  

He didn’t have any friends while growing up but surely had a lot of acquaintances at galas and parties, ready to have fun if he is the one paying.  

He does have self-destructing tendencies if left to his own devices for long. In his twenties and yet we get an impression that he is a habitual sherry drinker and hookah smoker and probably unhealthy eater.

Jesper also compartmentalizes. A lot. That’s the way he dealt with his childhood and came up mostly non-traumatized and with relatively sunny disposition. He just takes parts of himself or the world that he doesn’t like and ignores them until they stop existing or come and bite him in the ass.      

Enough for now but I wanna make Klaus too!

Headcanons on Kaz's cane and leg issues? I feel his disability is never addressed a lot! Thank you!!

This has been in my inbox embarrassingly long whoops. But also I feel like his disability is actually already a big point of his character arc? (and doesn’t need me trying to do some pitiful meta on it so.)

In an older post, I headcanoned that Kaz got the injury from a job gone bad with Jesper and Jesper was the one to drag him back to the Slat

I’d like to think that Jesper was always checking in on him as Kaz was confined to bed rest

Kaz always insisted for Jesper to leave him alone, but both boys knew that Jesper’s daily visits were the only thing keeping him sane

The cane started as one of Jesper’s jokes

“It’ll help you walk, and you can whack passerby’s ankles!”

But Kaz clung to that idea, and eventually he and Jesper started designing it

That’s also when Kaz noticed Jesper was more than he said he was, he knew just a little too much about how fabrikators worked

But after two months of being cooped inside and Per Haskell breathing down his neck for being dead weight, Kaz goes and gets his cane made with the money from the painting he’d sold

He and Jesper kind of have a field day testing it out, Kaz doesn’t miss the way Jesper studies it like he’s trying to reverse-engineer the grisha small science in his head

They have fun testing its durability against various fruits, assorted planks of wood, and even a couple of knives filched from other dregs

When they’ve finally exhausted test subjects and the sun is going down, they make their way to a waffle shop for dinner, the start of a long tradition

3, 6, and 20 :)

Thank you so much! So

3- scene I look forward to but can never find the setup- for the longest time it was the scene of dream things true where Mercutio complains about Tybalt and Benvolio and how they were both wrong for him in their own way and so on, until it fit into this setup. Now what u really can't manage to write is my special take on Paris' death, which I think could be a whole fic though.

6 - characters more fun to write--Tybalt, Sansa, Jesper tho I never wrote his POV

20 - meta stuff I want to ramble about - agdhsj this needs a bullet point list but mostly:

- I really liked what I did with the dream symbolism of worthless to two, specifically the Romercutio factor of the snapshots of childhood memories where he sees Juliet where Mercutio was, like dancing in the river and attracting dragonflies etc. Like ultimately he feels like he had known Juliet his whole life but it hurts that it isn't the case because they were never allowed to meet or interact, but it's very important to him, and it hurts thst in reality the experience they shared was just one night of making out followed by extreme trauma rather than the innocence they deserved, and he subconsciously wants to fix that . And of course he subconsciously associates her with someone else he's attracted to bc realizing his own feelings is impossible for this boy

- per within the gentle heart abideth love and worthless to two, both Mercutio and Romeo's suicidal ideation manifests with visualizing their corpses getting eaten and decomposed because they are weird like that

- I'm mildly embarrassed now of how over the top the Montague family dynamics are in "If you wake up and you're still scared" but it was a work of spite and love because I just find it obnoxious of like, the revival, Toho etc emphasizing like crazy the fanon of the Capulets being Terrible and the Montague being, ugh, also basically a mob family but look at how quirky and actually united and functional and wholesome they are!! So everything was more terrible than necessary. But there are actually some differences - like, I can accept it that the Montague have a less rigid hierarchy but it also leads to all this competition and infighting for power within the family, while with the Capulets there is just one heir and one boy of the family, no competition to be done. And it's extra bad because of course Lord M would want Romeo to take charge after him but it's very difficult for him both because well, it's not exactly compatible with his personality and because I'm guessing the Montagues had some trouble conceiving him so all of Lord M's siblings/henchmen had kids before him, so at least now they're mostly teenagers it would be hard for Romeo to have authority on his older cousins, and it muddles things. Hence in this situation Benvolio is sort of seen as the leader of the younger Montagues and a sort of second in command but it isn't meant to be permanent (like maybe at the beginning his dad was kinda hoping for that for him, maybe the power struggle happens in every generation etc but by now it's obvious he doesn't have any interest/attitude in doing power games, like as the actual leader Romeo would still probably be better at taking initiative and so even if Ben is doing better at the lower level) and he will definitely be Romeo's second in command too when they're older, so it leads him to kinda internalize this feeling that as long as he's useful no one cares about him beyond that and the individual is secondary to the Family Interest. Hence why both these boys are insecure to death and both feel inferior to each other. But the main spite is Mercutio absolutely falling for the Montague Facade of Cool Crime Family and getting thoroughly fucked by the reality of things , which is kinda my personal commentary on mafia romanticization etc but let's not get into that too much

- I decided the aforementioned fic is part of my headcanon because... It's just so cool, both to Explain Romeo being so emotional and catastrophic about things (Gerard what the fuck is J'ai peur about I'll kill you) if he's still getting over this sort of trauma, and why the kids get attached so hard, bc they probably don't recognize each other when they meet the second time bc Romeo was all beat up, bloody etc and Juliet was also all ruffled and crying and in general looking like a 13 year old girl just dragged from her bed to witness a torture session, so when he saw her with contacts and make up dressed nicely they couldn't recognize each other. But then they must have realized and it had a lot impact on them being codependent, idealizing each other etc. And I love the symbolism of them meeting for the first time in this terrible, grave-like place, and then having their false first meeting at a beautiful party but it's obviously a false start so quickly.

i had a big coherent list of hcs i wanted to talk about but due to having No Brain Disease atm, can i offer yall:

i think jesper can, must, and should, reach a final height of like 6'5" by the age of like, 25. his mother was also Very Tall and if he's 6'3" at age 16 he still has room to scoot up an inch or two. this is both possible for jesper and also very funny to me, so i am going to do this

given the variety in materials fabrikators can manipulate, and the fact jesper is known to be able to move things with his powers without touching them,

he could, technically, make a mannequin move like it’s alive without having to touch it. which means, naturally, he WILL make a mannequin chase someone for as long as they’re in his line of sight / range.

i’m sorry but jesper has very strong opinions on rice dishes (theyre all delicious and wonderful and important) and will not hesitate to chew someone out for eating weird things like mayo on rice. why would you do that to rice. Why. who hurt you

something something, jesper giving his loved ones his own jewellery to wear as a way of feeling close when they are physically apart, something

it’d be weird as hell if there wasn’t like. actual big communities of zemeni / shu / suli ppl IN kerch so like. consider

jesper spends a Lot of time in the districts that have the biggest/most active zemeni communities — places where there’s zemeni restaurants, tailors, boutiques, barbers / salons, community centres & theatres & churches, all that good stuff. places where he can just speak in his first language and hang out with zemeni people from allllllll over novyi zem.

while he’s still a part of the dregs, he does his best to keep the gang business from rly reaching those areas ( both thru his own influence and also speaking to kaz abt it ). a lot of the money he made from the ice court heist goes into helping other zemeni business people in kerch, specifically ketterdam, and!! this is just. personal hc ofc but. i like to think that, when wylan joins the council later on, he and jesper do a lot of work towards removing kerch presence in novyi zem ( SPECIFICALLY in the southern colonies ) AND rectifying the messes kerch has been making in nz. starting with freeing all the land bought up by kerch jurda companies, as well as all the zemeni mines under control of kerch/ravkan/etc governments and businesses. there’s bound to be pushback from the other nasties on the council but like. wes/per have a lot of influence thru many many many means :)

if we r talking abt natal charts (pretending to know what im talking abt vc)  jesper is an aries sun, leo rising, capricorn moon, anddddddd according to the birth time i assigned him 10 mins ago: venus in pisces whatever the fuck that means

meta + honoring his mom after she passes (does he visit a grave? carry something of hers with him? live by a certain principle etc etc i didn’t know how to condense this into a singular word)

META + [ nat’s brain rattling ]

this is rly sweet :( i think jesper honours her in a lot of ways — even when he was suppressing his biggest connection to her, his powers, he was conscious of her absence in his life and made an effort to fill the loneliness with something whenever it hit him.

when she died, he took up a lot of her responsibilities around the house — he honoured her by keeping the house and colm going. he couldn’t always do it the way she did, but the schedule he followed was hers, the songs he hummed while he worked were hers, and when something needed fixing or making, the method was hers.

when he moved to kerch for university, his main way of staying connected to his zemeni culture was his fashion — he fell on materials and patterns and colours she favoured; and because his mother was the most beautiful woman in the whole world in jesper’s eyes, why wouldn’t he want to look like her? when his hair gets long between cuts and styles, he takes care of it the way she did her own hair, when he shops for jewellery, he picks gold, because it was what his mother wore the most often. he wears her wedding ring on a chain around his neck (not always out on jobs, though, even if he loathes leaving it behind), and fiddles with it when he gets nervous.

when he settled down in ketterdam permanently with wylan, making trips to her gravesite (the cherry tree on the fahey farm) gets a little more complicated. he asks wylan to plant a cherry tree in their back garden, and though it’s not the same as the one his mother is actually buried under, he treats it as if were because cherry blossoms were her favourites.

and the biggest way he chooses to honour her moving forward is to do as she always did: use her power and her smarts to help others. the water situation in ketterdam is likely atrocious, and jesper has strong strong feelings regarding unsanitary drinking water and poisonings caused by said unsanitary water. he develops a water filter for ppl too poor to be able to get their drinking water cleaned by a grisha, makes it easy to replace and repair and use. 

jk haha meta + pre-dregs college era jesper!!

META + [ nat’s brain rattling ]

oh i have THOUGHTS about this. most of them are: jesper stepped foot into university at a very young age on a science-related scholarship, quickly realised the stress (of multiple things, not just university) was becoming way too much to handle. 

he made friends fast! he wowed ppl with his proficiency, because he was so young and already studying at university level! he kept up with his assignments, wrote to his dad regularly — enjoyed the odd party with friends on a school night. and then that became more frequent, because he’d gotten a taste for life outside of a (loving, but) restrictive home and all the freedom that comes with it. he’s still very popular among his peers, still gets invited out — eventually gets invited to that gambling hall that sets his life into turbulent motion.

most ppl he knew in uni were probably quite shocked that he kind of just fell off the face of the earth one day, but if anyone had seen what jesper was like behind the scenes during his brief stint at university then there would probably be a general consensus of: oh, right, that was just bound to happen eventually.

towards the end of his uni days, he was dealing with: mounting exam anxiety, deadline stress from small projects that felt like huge, fate-deciding assignments, guilt over the money he was wasting that his father had spent years earning, anxiety about paying accommodation fees, culture shock, fear of being exposed as a grisha somehow (he’d only ever learned to hide it in a place where grisha are accepted, and under his father’s watchful eye), and all that nonsense that comes with having rampant adhd (in a deeply academic and competitive environment), and missing his mother terribly along with the guilt-bitterness-fear spiral of disappointing her. 

somehow, despite being the most dangerous thing he could’ve gotten involved in, joining the dregs felt less terror inducing that continuing at university. same amount of guilt, but. he stopped feeling like a failure, stopped feeling like he was going to throw up just looking at a textbook.