#bethesda the heartstriker

[fuckyeahheartstrikers]

I know in the Heartstrikers books there’s a lot of emphasis on how Chelsie (and Felicity) takes after her mother (“reeks of Bethesda,” as per Fenghuang), and i know how they're narrative foils to each other and all, but let’s take a moment to appreciate the similarities between Bethesda and BOB?!

Look at this shit. This makes me insane.

Bethesda being initially underestimated by her father and brothers before she successfully staged her coup, and Bob being fully embraced by Bethesda as her seer only to then ultimately betray her too?

NOT TO MENTION ONLY THEY HAVE RAINBOW FEATHERS?!??

Plus with Amelia being in the “starter clutch” and lacking the green eyes, this means Bob is the first child to truly look like Bethesda.(well, since the rest of his clutch died)

Like mother, like son.

[pisstachio-pierrot]

mother-son relationships be like

original below cut

[romancebooksformen]

Nice Dragons Finish Last, book one of Heartstrikers, by Rachel Aaron. Audiobook narrated by Vikas Adam.

--

As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don't cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn't fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience. Now, sealed in his human form and banished to the DFZ--a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit--Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he's going to need some serious help to survive this test. He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons... (Nice Dragons Finish Last is an urban fantasy set 90 years in the future - featuring a kind protagonist, a kick-ass female mage, and more grumpy dragons than you can shake a stick at.) Winner of the 2015 Audie Audio Book Award in Fantasy! Start the series that won back-to-back RT Magazine Reviewers' Choice Awards!

[lyreofsheliak]

Six Fangs

Fandom: The Heartstrikers

Characters: The Quetzalcoatl, Bethesda, Bob, Chelsie, Conrad, Julius, Justin

Summary: The Fangs of the Heartstriker are the teeth of the Quetzalcoatl as well as the treasures of his family, and some fragment of his will lives on in them.

Ao3 link: here.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I love how basically everything about dragons in the Heartstriker/DFZ books can be explained by the fact that most dragons are canonically obsessed with dramatics.

[chaoskirin]

@ theinvisiblemiss Thanks for your response to my Heartstrikers review! It was pretty old so I was surprised to see someone commented on it. XD

I do still like the series (and I did finish the last couple books after that review!) and I think I’d give it a 3.5/5 stars. Enough to recommend it to people who like fantasy I think.

The problem with Julius Re: Bethesda is a problem that plagues a lot of fiction, and that’s the use of blood ties as plot devices. Even if Bethesda is family, she never love Julius, never did anything for him, and may have in fact caused him irreparable psychological harm. Because Julius is  pacifist, too, his motivations should have been 100% to keep Bethesda out of power and look at the concept of Found Family (which is a much better trope--but that’s my opinion) as a motivator behind the new dragon council. 

The pacifism itself is a problem, too. Pacifism done right seeks to mitigate harm and take the most peaceful path forward while also understanding that some people are not pacifists and cannot be changed to fit that mold. Avatar: The Last Airbender is a GREAT example of featuring a pacifist done right. Heartstrikers is not. With Heartstrikers, what I think happened is a sort of weird plot blindness on Julius’ part for the sake of drama; had he actually acted as a pacifist would have, Bethesda would not have been installed on the council. But that would have eliminated a plot point that the writer absolutely needed to maintain. Rather than write this so it made sense, the writer placed the responsibility on Julius to make a bad decision which I truly believe worked against his character development. 

I am still not a huge fan of Marci as a character even after the last books. She does a lot of Cool Stuff (tm) but when it comes right down to it, her motivations always track back to Julius and the other dragons. I haven’t read the books in a while so you’ll have to forgive me a bit here XD But IIRC she was constantly bombarded by the plot and reacted solely based on The Newest Emergency rather than finding her own niche in which to thrive. 

And she kicked ass at it, too! Which is why she’s a likeable character. But the plot sort of robbed her of her own agency and her decisions revolved around necessity, rather than pursuit of her own aims. While those occasionally lined up (IE: the plotline regarding her Merlin status) it still ultimately became more dire and immediate because of the dragons. 

It would have been nice to give her more chance for self-discovery. More of a chance to do things her way. She’s just used so often that I felt bad for her. As I said, though, she’s not the worst female character I’ve ever seen, and I think she just got saddled with too much baggage as a plot device in the end. 

[gaydelgard]

“So I’m the problem?”

- bethesda the heartstriker saying absolutely one of the funniest things anyone ever said

[arynlight]

Marcy & Ghost from Rachel Aaron’s Heartstrikers series.  Because they’re awesome and I’m testing out a style for quick headshots.  I’ve got a Bethesda coming that I’m using to practice my chibi style on.

iPad Pro/Apple Pencil + Procreate March 2018

[pers-books]

The Heartstrikers Series – Rachel Aaron (Spoilers)

Julius Heartstriker, youngest son of Bethesda Heartstriker, is a Nice Dragon. Which is a bit of a problem when ‘nice’ is seen as weak, and the rest of your family considers you a disgrace to dragonkind. Instead of going out into the world and carving a place for himself, as any proper dragon would, Julius prefers to keep his head down and hang out in his room, playing online games with humans (whom most dragons consider as either playthings or pets), or taking online classes in every subject imaginable.

Finally tiring of her wayward son and his lack of draconic traits, Bethesda storms into Julius’ room, seals his magic (meaning he cannot transform into a dragon but is forced to remain in his human form) and dumps him in the DFZ: the Detroit Free Zone, a notoriously lawless city (think Chicago during the Capone years) which is run by the dragon-hating Water Spirit, Algonquin aka, The Lady of the Lakes. He stays one night on the couch in his sister Jessica’s apartment (Jessica is a doctor and is fully expected to be running her own hospital within a few short years) then his mother gives him a task – prove himself to be a proper dragon (which generally means ripping people off for one’s own gain, rather than ripping people’s heads-off in this near-future setting), or she’ll eat him. Oh, and he’s only got a month to do this – and because his dragon is sealed, he cannot access his fire or magic – so he’ll have to find ways around the limits Bethesda’s imposed on him.

He is tasked with helping his older brother Ian’s girlfriend Svena to retrieve her wayward sister, Katya. Like Julius, Katya is the youngest of the Three Sisters Clan of dragons, and also something of a disappointment to her family. Rather than hiding in her room, however, Katya runs away a lot. Svena wants to bring her back home and via Ian, tasks Julius with the job, giving him a silver chain with a spell on it to placate Katya. Julius has to put the chain on Katya and then Svena will be able to collect her sister and take her home. Unsurprisingly, Julius is reluctant, but agrees to the task because he wants to be allowed to return to his own home, and to have his dragon form unsealed again.

To the surprise of almost everyone (certainly to Bethesda’s, and even to Julius’), the ‘Nice Dragon’ not only survives the quest he’s given, but he manages to broker a relationship between his clan and that of the Three Sisters, the oldest clan of dragons (all of whom are female), rather than getting eaten as nearly everyone, including Julius, was expecting.

From here, Julius goes on to overthrow his mother (a move that definitely surprises Julius as well as the rest of the Heartstrikers) – but instead of doing the obviously draconic thing of killing his mother and putting her head on a spike somewhere to terrify the rest of the Heartstrikers into obedience, he has her dragon form sealed (a tiny bit of poetic justice!), and instead proposes forming a three dragon Council to run their clan so that it can be run in a manner that encourages dragons to concentrate on what they’re good at, instead of encouraging them to destroy each other. This is also considered very un-draconic, of course, but Julius got the idea from humans and he introduces his clan (who are all very powerful, properly draconic dragons) to the concept of elections and doing things democratically so that they can become even more successful in their various enterprises instead of being subject to the whims of their mother Bethesda, who punishes any dragon against whom she takes by sending her daughter Chelsie – the clan enforcer – to punish or kill them.

Julius is aided and abetted by the human Mage, Marci – who is extremely talented and capable – and by his oldest brother, Bob, formally Brohomir, the Heartstrikers’ Seer who has made Julius the lynchpin of a fantastically convoluted plot to improve the lot of all dragons, not just the Heartstrikers. Bob, in turn, is aided by the eldest of the Heartstriker dragons, Amelia who, like Bob, is the only surviving member of her particular clutch – Bethesda, unusually, produced large clutches of eggs at regular intervals, leading to much snide commentary from other dragons who often referred to her as ‘the Broodmare’. Amelia is also known as the Planeswalker as she spends very little time in ‘our’ reality, since she fears Bethesda will pre-emptively kill her, rather than let Amelia challenge Bethesda for the leadership of their clan (which Amelia doesn’t want!). Bob is also, somewhat more reluctantly, aided by Chelsie, the clan enforcer, who is one of the only two remaining members of C-clutch (Bethesda gave her children alphabetical names running from A-clutch through to J-clutch).

Aaron’s Heartstrikers series successfully inverts the toxic masculinity trope by allowing Julius to succeed at whatever he turns his attention to without using violence or treating other beings (humans, dragons, Spirits) as disposable to be used and then dropped. Of course, Julius does not have it easy – during the course of the series both Marci and Amelia die. And while their deaths aren’t permanent (this is a world with magic, after all), they nevertheless have a significant impact on Julius. He and Marci have fallen in love – though, being a Nice Dragon, Julius has largely kept his feelings to himself – and his grief at Marci’s loss is palpable throughout the chapters that follow (he literally takes to his bed and won’t stir until, eventually, he is forced to do so by his older siblings).

Julius is a self-sacrificing noble Nice Dragon – he literally dies to save Algonquin, despite the fact that she hates dragons. He insists on going to talk to her in the hopes of saving her from the Leviathan, a Nameless End – an extra-planar being from outside of ‘our’ reality which is quite literally destroying our reality. The Leviathan has infested all of Algonquin’s waters, meaning she will soon die as the Leviathan is sucking up all of her water which, being a Water Spirit, she needs in order to survive. However, Julius knows that she can make use of dragon blood at a pinch, so after talking to her, and establishing that she would not use the Leviathan again if given a second chance, he swallows the last of her Leviathan-infested water, then as the Leviathan destroys him from the inside, Algonquin flows out of Julius into the pool of blood that’s forming on the ground in front of him from the Leviathan ripping his body apart, and she takes Marci to safety, at Julius’ request, and Julius is killed by the Leviathan.

But while a dragon’s body can be destroyed quite easily, it’s harder to destroy a dragon’s fire – which is the core, essential part of a dragon in the same way that the soul is supposed to be the core, essential part of a human. Bob is able to capture Julius’ fire before it goes out, and he, with the help of many more dragons (not all of them Heartstrikers, and one of them his mother Bethesda, whom Julius – and pretty much everyone else! – had thought still despised him for being a Nice Dragon instead of a blood-thirsty predator) is able to restore Julius back to life by the dragons giving him the magic of their fire.

In the end, all’s well that ends well – Julius and Marci get married, and Dragonkind across the world agrees to work together instead of working against each other, with Julius taking over running the DFZ so that it’s no longer a lawless city, and Marci becoming the Archmage (but without the usual long white beard!).

Note: Last Dragon Standing is not out until March 1 – I was fortunate to read an ARC of it.

The Heartstrikers Series - Rachel Aaron (Spoilers) Julius Heartstriker, youngest son of Bethesda Heartstriker, is a Nice Dragon.

[afoolsingenuity]

Nice Dragons Finish Last // A Fantastic Read Which Actually Met Expectations

Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers #1) – Rachel Aaron

Published: 13th July 2014 Source: Borrowed Genre: Urban Fantasy My Rating:

As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behaviour doesn't fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.

Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ--a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit--Julius has one month to prove that he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test.

He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons...

I had heard about this book for a long time. I saw reviews from both Kaja and Danya a while ago now and I knew I wanted to read it but I off doing it for now apparent reason. When I learnt the book was available to request as part of the Amazon Prime lending library I knew I was going to be reading it and I’m glad I did. I loved this book.

I had my doubts going into this. I have been burned with recommendations for books (I’m looking at you Labyrinth Lost, why couldn’t the character growth have begun before the 50% mark?) and so I was nervous this would be another flop for me. Add into the fact I was really confused at the beginning of the book and I wasn't certain. Once I got through the first chapter or two I was hooked, though. I didn't want to stop reading, I even ended up sacrificing sleep to make it to the end.

I think what makes this book great is the main character, Julius. Sure, he is uncertain and makes stupid decisions as he listens to others far too much, but he has a conscience and a good head on his shoulders and you like him despite his families insanity. It's not often you get a genuinely nice guy in books, and having him be a nice guy when he's a dragon and part of a family who is actively encouraging him to be more conniving and cruel, well that’s not something you get too often. I loved that he was a nice guy despite all the things that should have made him an asshole.  Create some tension as his mother has manipulated it so that he is likely to be eaten by her if he doesn't prove he is capable of being a dragon and you're ready for a great read.

The book has so many twists and turns and it really keeps you on your toes. It was just really totally awesome. And then you have all these really fab characters and you basically have the best and most addictive read. I mean, Marci, the human mage who is helping him do a job for his brother Ian, is so cool. She may have had a few issues of her own that came up through the book, she was just so nice and her interaction with Julius was great. She was his first honest to god friend who wasn’t out to manipulate him! I also loved Julius’s family. Sure, they were dragons, but they were really cool dragons who were slightly crazy. Bob was definitely my favourite with his slightly weird behaviour, and what was up with the pigeon? I get why he’ll be Julius’s favourite brother.

The book just worked for me, basically. It was funny, action-packed and filled with great and memorable characters. I am fully signed up to read the rest of the series (yes, another one, you got a problem with that?). If you want to read an original and humorous take on dragons with a series which is building to have a really interesting plot arc then this is the book for you. Seriously, give it a chance and see if you like it. You won’t regret it.

Have you read a book which actually met the hype for it lately? And what’s the best dragon book you’ve read, you can never have too many, right?

from Blogger http://ift.tt/2muEbsZ via IFTTT

[lyreofsheliak]

About the Heartstriker council...

We know that one seat is elected from the Fangs, one from the rest of the clan, and one belongs to Bethesda in perpetuity. 

What happens if she dies? Is there a contingency for that? (The constitution is both absolutely gigantic and written by a seer, so I kind of assume the answer is “if it’s going to be an issue, yes.” And plotwise I have no idea if I think she’s going to survive the series or not. Or if she’s going to regain her dragon form, for that matter.)

So, who is her heir in that situation? 

The wielder of her own Fang? There’s a certain logic to that, but I have a hard time imagining any introduced character taking it—maybe David, or even Ian, but I have a tough time imagining it. 

Her killer, if they’re a Heartstriker? Julius is unlikely to let that happen; he loathes her, but if he didn’t let his favorite sister, the one who’s suffered the most at her hands, kill her, he’s certainly not letting anyone else do it. 

The dragon who would have been her heir, if the council hadn’t happened? Well, that’s complicated...

Amelia’s technically a possibility, but only technically. She’s not dead anymore, but she is a Mortal Spirit, and there’s probably a conflict of interest in making the goddess of all dragons a leader of a single clan. And besides, it’s pretty well established that she really doesn’t want the job. 

If not Amelia, though, who is Bethesda’s heir? 

The established upper-alphabet dragons, other than Amelia, are Bob, Chelsie, Conrad, and David. 

Bob and Conrad have both already refused to be on the council; I can’t see those answers changing. David wants the job; Chelsie... might also want it, actually. She heartily dislikes the clan other than Julius, the Fs, and possibly Amelia; but since Fredrick picked up her old Fang, the rest of F-clutch is probably going to stay in Heartstriker to support him. And I can see her wanting power; even when the matter of the Fang’s seat first came up, she said that if not for Bethesda’s control over her she’d like being on the council. 

Julius confirms, during the latest book, that most dragon clans are ruled by their “matriarchs”; it’s not clear if this is a hard-and-fast rule, but male clan heads are rare enough to make the Golden Emperor an oddity. Chelsie is both the oldest “surviving” daughter and possibly the only one with children of her own; since her children actually like her, she’s got a built-in power base now that they’re free. She also has a terrifying personal reputation of her own, which could only be an asset to a clan head. (Not to mention the clout of being the Golden Emperor’s beloved.)

And if Chelsie and David are the two contenders, I really can’t see David getting the job. So... if Bethesda does die, I’m betting that Chelsie gets the “permanent” seat on the clan council. 

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I’m one and a half books into dfz and i’m in love with the spirt of dfz. Somebody gets my anger with gods who are restricted by their nature and gave me a god who is trying to change their nature. She’s trying to rules lawyer herself into what she wants to be! A god who just doesn’t accept her limitations! It’s great! (Also, in the dfz untamed au Wen Ning is basically Dr. Kowalski right. Wwx bargains with a... death god? That seems right. And wn is then the priest of a death god.

OH if you like the DFZ and the mechanics of gods and spirits deciding what they are, you should DEFINITELY read the Heartstriker books as well, which are about the Peacemaker and also the rise of gods and spirits in the DFZ!  It includes how the spirit of the DFZ was born and I love my rat daughter who throws skyscrapers when she gets angry so much!

I am NOT campaigning so hard for these books so that someone will read the fic I’m writing for them, and I don’t know how you could be so callous as to suggest that, by the way, my motives are pure.

But also has anyone read the Heartstriker books and if so, would either of the following be interesting to you:

The first time Chelsie and Xian have a fight after getting back together, featuring the fact that Xian’s luck is actually, if you think about it for five minutes, literally the shittiest hand ever dealt to a living being

Marci vs the Heartstriker Humans, round two billion, and the fact that she is, canonically, kind of gratified by being seen as Julius’ human as long as Julius doesn’t treat her that way--all I can think of is the scene where a bunch of humans condescend to her about belonging to a J, and how absolutely wildly different that must be when Julius is running the show in the DFZ

ALSO ALSO I still can’t decide whether a Heartstriker or a DFZ AU would be better for an Untamed mashup (on the one hand WWX as Opal is phenomenal but LWJ doesn’t really work as Nik? and on the other hand I could make the Jiangs the Heartstrikers, sort of...starring Madam Yu as Bethesda? and have the Lans be the Chinese gang? and have Wen Qing and Wen Ning sort of mutually be Marci?), but either way yeah absolutely, Wen Ning dies and WWX, in a moment of magically groundbreaking desperation, binds him to a death spirit then and there.

Is Wen Ning dead?  Yes, definitely, he is Legally Deceased.  Is he walking, talking, and doing magic?  Also yes.  Sometimes he gets possessed by the spirit of the Forgotten Dead.  Don’t ask questions and be nice to his cat.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

what's DFZ?

DFZ! DFZ! DFZ!

Okay, so, the DFZ series(es?) is kind of a catchall name for a couple of series by Rachel Aaron that take place in the same urban fantasy universe, the DFZ books and the Heartstriker books.  Urban cyberfantasy?  You could throw a lot of adjectives into that descriptor if you wanted to.

The general premise is that once upon a time Earth had magic.  A lot of magic.  Absolutely god-creating levels of magic.  And then, mysteriously, it all drained away some thousand years ago, leaving humanity to forget all about it while the creatures who needed it to live either withered away completely (spirits, gods, etc) or went into hiding and hibernation (also some spirits, dragons, etc).  And then, like a switch being flipped, it all came back at once in 2035, and suddenly humanity had a lot of magic to throw around and no idea what was going on.  That was a few decades ago at the start of the Heartstriker books, which are a couple decades before the DFZ books.

(Incidentally, I really like that choice.  It would have been very easy to write a novel about humanity getting magic back and running around like chickens with our heads cut off, and don’t get me wrong I would have read and adored that book, but setting things a little later means that magic is just Part Of The Deal and it’s so much goddamn cooler.)

Which brings us to the DFZ proper, also known as the Detroit Free Zone.  When magic came back, a lot of shit woke up really fast, chief among them A, dragons, and, B, Spirits of the Land.  Like the Lady of the Great Lakes, Algonquin, who was really, really not having it with every city in a hundred mile radius dumping pollutants into her water by the metric ton.  So she wiped most of the Great Lakes states off the map, and took over the ruins of Detroit to make the Detroit Free Zone, where the only laws worth mentioning are:

No murder

No dragons

No polluting the water

Anything else is pretty much free game.  So you can imagine that the DFZ gets to be a pretty interesting place pretty goddamn fast--the most magical city in the world, where anyone can do anything without fear of the law coming down on them, under the iron hand of a goddess who doesn’t much care for humans.

Anyway, if that sounds cool and you like any of the following, you should actually just trust me and go read these books without bothering with the rest of this post:

Immaculately well-constructed magical worldbuilding--the entire second book of the DFZ trilogy is basically “how to out-litigate a curse and the consequences of doing just that”

Humans Are Special trope, but in the “if you could all just slow down on the innovation we’d all be a lot safer” kind of way, which is a personal favorite

Dragons!  Lots and lots of dragons from all over the world!  This is an absolutely spectacular series for dragons, despite Algonquin’s best efforts!

Sentient cities!  The DFZ takes a while to get moving (magic takes time and big magic takes big time) but once she does, oh boy do I ever love her so goddamn much, get wrekt Algonquin

Magic Is Normal tropes coming out your goddamn ears, mixed with a healthy dose of Technology Is Magic (AIs can project stuff straight into your brain by hooking into your natural magical field and y’all...I’d kill for it...that’s so cool)

Really genuinely likable characters--Julius, Marci, Opal, and Nik are all completely fantastic and I would get drinks with any of them, and also the main romances actually enjoy each others’ company in non-romantic contexts, which is remarkably refreshing

Seers, and the finicky game of making the future jump the way you want it to jump while someone else who can also see the future is trying to make it jump the other way

Doesn’t that sound rad?  Yes, it does, I’m telling you that these books are amazing, the first DFZ book is called Minimum Wage Magic, and the first Heartstriker is called Nice Dragons Finish Last, go forth and read.  Either series is a great starting point, I actually liked reading the Heartstriker books after the DFZ books because I loved seeing Opal meet Julius, Main Character Boy for the Heartstrikers, as a competent and universally respected adult, and then getting insight into his brain which is just that one gif from Community with the pizza and the fire, all the time.

As per usual, more details under the cut.

So, magic comes back and Algonquin wreaks destruction and the DFZ happens.  Smash cut sixty years into the future for the Heartstriker books, starring Julius Heartstriker, the youngest and most regrettably tenderhearted dragon in the massive Heartstriker clan.  Julius’ primary problem in life is that he does not enjoy lying, scheming, manipulating, threatening, murdering, or power tripping, which means that his entire family pretty much takes carte blanche to kick him around like a soccer ball.  This comes to a head when his mother, Bethesda Heartstriker, puts a curse on him so that he can’t access his draconic form and dumps him unceremoniously into the DFZ, where dragons are executed on sight, with strict orders to find something to impress her, or else die quietly out of the way.

Julius, to his credit, throws himself into trying to become a Real Dragon as best he can, but he’s just so goddamn nice, he goes out and saves lives and makes bargains and enforced democracy instead of unilateral dynastic rule and falls in love with a human (hi Marci) and makes a name for himself as “the dragon you go to when all your other options would kill you or laugh in your face.”  It’s absolutely delightful to watch.  He’s doing such a good job.

Basically, the Heartstriker books go like this: Julius doesn’t like the way his world works!  And fuck you for telling him that he needs to be less kind in order to work in the world!  He’s not changing himself, he’s going to change the world instead, and because he’s very, very nice, he’ll even let you live there once he’s done!

Next up, the DFZ books, twenty years later, star Opal Yong-ae, who moved to the DFZ from Korea for reasons that become apparent later but mostly boil down to “freedom.”  Since Julius’ first arrival in the DFZ, a lot’s changed--Algonquin is gone, the Spirit of the DFZ is a sovereign entity who has her own motives and desires, and what was once a no-dragon zone is now a neutral territory governed by the Peacemaker, who you might remember as a twenty-four-year-old baby desperately out of his depth and is now a straight up force to be reckoned with, feared and respected around the world.  (I’m so proud of my son.)

Opal’s problems are that she’s a mage who hits like a tank when she’s desperate but can’t handle even the most basic tasks, and she’s scrambling to pay off a massive debt to her father in order to prove that she should be allowed to remain in the DFZ.  These are both old news.  The dead body she finds in an abandoned apartment that she’s been hired to clean out and get ready for renting, on the other hand, that’s a new, kicky, fresh kind of problem, especially once someone starts shooting at her about it.  

She joins up with another Cleaner named Nikola Kos, who she mostly knows as “that scary guy in black” and is an absolute tank who is also secretly very soft.  Their dynamic is so much fun, very intensely “Small Chaotic Drags Big Exhausted Into Drama” with the added bonus that Nik is a very cool cyborg fighter type.  Opal is so determined that it verges on being completely unhinged and I would read 15 books about her.  Also, the third book is out, so that brutal cliffhanger at the end of Half Price Gods is a problem for Eight Months Ago Me, rather than Present Day You.

[arynlight]

Bethesda the Heartstriker, from Rachel Aaron’s Heartstrikers series.

I love her as a character, but severely dislike her as a person (dear GOD the things she puts poor Julius through).  And her sense of style, if at times inappropriate, is design GOLD. *ba-dum*

This outfit is based on two dresses vaguely described in the second and third books (One Good Dragon Deserves Another & No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished).  I’m working on a version with her Mesoamerican headdress, but the feathers are slow going.  But it’s fun working with the theme “it takes a LOT of money to look this gaudy.”

March 2018 iPad Pro/Apple Pencil + Procreate 4