#nita pike

[thedabara]

ACTRESSES WHO DIED 1954

Ruth Selwyn at 49 from cancer

Phyllis Barry at 45 from barbiturate overdose

Nancy Burne at 41 from illness

Sandra Ravel at 44 from uterine cancer

Joan Dowling at 26 from suicide

Nita Pike at 40 from suicide

Gladys George at 50 from brain hemorrhage

Vera Sisson at 63 from suicide

Kathleen Key at 51 from liver disease

Lillian Rich at 54 from illness

[dduane]

In the digital art dep’t: Smiling a bit at this...

Down in the comments on the post where Harry Callahan first appears:

Re Anson Mount: I’m assuming that’s off Harry’s hairstyle. (cheerful shrug) I can live with that. There are worse things on Earth (or other planets) than looking like Chris Pike.

Meanwhile, as for breasting boobily at things: Let’s deconstruct the problem a little. We’ll pull Mr. C. out of that background and take a closer look.

First of all: this is a Daz figure called “Dain 8”, who (after a significant amount of shopping around...) I chose to stand in for Nita’s dad.

Anyway, as usual, I made adjustments in the basic figure to match his description in the text: a bit husky, as befits his work as a florist and (because he does this kind of work too) groundskeeper: muscular guy, strongly built, skin tone of someone who spends a fair amount of time outdoors. Let’s dump the jacket for a moment.

One thing that kind of jumps out of the general physique: the pecs.  They’re what’s giving that jacket so much trouble.

...Honestly, pecs seem to be a bit of a thing with a lot of Daz’s builders of male characters. There seems to be sort of a consensus: “If we can’t give them big, uh, private parts, we’ll give them big pecs.”

...Let me pull the shirts off the local major players for comparison’s sake.

Left to right: Harry, Carl Romeo, Tom Swale, Herewiss and Freelorn. ...Anyway, you see the problem. Most of these guys are moderately well pec’d up, and no matter how they stick out or don’t, every single set of those pecs has interfered with their clothes at one point or another.* At one level, this is a problem with Daz’s software.

Without getting too technical: clothing sufficiently advanced can be caused (using Daz’s dForce animation system) to drape over body contours, with greater or lesser levels of success depending on how well the clothing is constructed. As below, where Harry’s jacket has gone through the process:

But depending on clothing textures and the way the light is falling... things can get unavoidably booby. You wind up having to balance the needs of the rest of the scene—in terms of lighting and the way shadow falls—against how the clothes look. Sometimes the clothes don’t come out perfectly due to (among other things) the positioning of a character’s limbs. (I.e. the way Harry’s arms had to be positioned to be holding the pumpkin in front of him.) But trying to make them do so can cost you hours of labor which may or may not advance the project as a whole. (shrug) In a case like this, you pays your money and you takes your chances.

Meanwhile, I’m going to turn in before I start complaining about the generally crap state of men’s three-piece suits (for Carl!) on this platform... :/

ETA: per @man-and-atom​‘s comment on ubiquitous definition: Well, Tom and Carl are (and gods rest them, in reality were) gym rats... as wizards in their positions have a responsibility to keep themselves better-than-usually physically fit. And Dusty and Lorn—as princes expected as a matter of course to go into battle, to satisfy their ruling families’ and realms’ political obligations—are both trained warriors from childhood; and due to being rigorously schooled in weapons- and armor-handling, are going to pick up some def no matter what they do. So... (shrug) We’ve got an image full of outliers here. Can’t be helped.

*Noting to myself that I really need to get some work done on Herewiss’s and Freelorn’s skin colors, as neither of them should look anything like as pale as they do. The problem is that it’s the figure designers who determine skin colors... and attempting to tinker with them can cause endless problems with display. (sigh) One more thing to think about...

[smalltownfae]

The actual books I want to get to this year. I excluded the ones not in the immediate TBR to try this time and it’s still a lot of books... but less, I guess.

Trilogies/Series:

Xenogenesis Trilogy (Adulthood Rites; Imago) – Octavia E. Butler

Discworld Series (Lords and Ladies; Maskerade; Carpe Jugulum; Feet of Clay; Jingo; Soul Music; Pyramids; Small Gods; Thief of Time; The Fifth Elephant; The Truth; Night Watch) – Terry Pratchett

Earthsea Cycle (A Wizard of Earthsea; The Tombs of Atuan)

Riddle Master Trilogy (Heir of Sea and Fire; Harpist in the Wind) – Patricia A. McKillip

Sevenwaters (A Filha da Floresta; O Filho das Sombras; A Filha da Profecia; Heir to Sevenwaters; Seer of Sevenwaters; Flame of Sevenwaters) - Juliet Marillier

The Queen’s Thief Series (The Queen of Attolia; The King of Attolia; A Conspiracy of Kings; Thick as Thieves; Return of the Thief) – Megan Whalen Turner

The Broken Earth Trilogy (The Stone Sky) by N.K. Jemisin

Inheritance Trilogy (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms; The Broken Kingdoms; The Kingdom of Gods) by N.K. Jemisin

Strange the Dreamer; The Muse of Nightmares – Laini Taylor (dnf)

The Masquerade (The Traitor Baru Cormorant) – Seth Dickinson (dnf)

World of the Five Gods Series (The Curse of Chalion; Paladin of Souls) – Lois McMaster Bujold

Standalones:

Lonely Castle in the Mirror – Mizuki Tsujimura

Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel (dnf)

The Road – Cormac McCarthy (still reading)

Od Magic – Patricia A. McKillip

Alphabet of Thorn – Patricia A. McKillip

Ombria in Shadow – Patricia A. McKillip

The Book of Atrix Wolfe – Patricia A. McKillip

Winter Rose – Patricia A. McKillip (done!)

Earthlings – Sayaka Murata

Out – Natsuo Kirino

Fledgling – Octavia E. Butler (dnf)

Persuasion – Jane Austen

Emma – Jane Austen

Lady Susan – Jane Austen

Nunca Me Deixes – Kazuo Ishiguro

Um Artista do Mundo Flutuante – Kazuo Ishiguro

Os Despojos do Dia – Kazuo Ishiguro

Cloven Hooves – Megan Lindholm

A Tale for the Time Being – Ruth Ozeki

The Folding Knife – K.J. Parker

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street – Natasha Pulley (dnf)

The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon (dnf)

The Water Dancer – Ta-Nehisi Coates

Sistersong - Lucy Holland

North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell

The Maid - Nita Prose

Jade City - Fonda Lee

Passing - Nella Larson

The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones

Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield (dnf)

Lost Boy - Christina Henry (dnf)

Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine

By Force Alone - Lavie Tidhar

Blackwing - Ed McDonald

The Lost Queen - Signe Pike

Guns of the Dawn - Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Queens of Innis Lear - Tessa Gratton

Wolfblade - Jennifer Fallon

This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

MANGA/BD TBR:

Yuureitou (9) – Nogizaka Tarou

Billy Bat (20) – Naoki Urasawa

[dragon-swords-prophecies]

Frost & Fire Excerpt:

Hey! Realized I hadn't posted one of these in a while and so:

Here is a bit from chapter 14. Actually its all of chapter 14 because its a very short chapter and I really like it.

Word Count: 698

Taglist: @golden-eyed-writer @writing-is-a-martial-art @livvywrites @magic-is-something-we-create @gr3y-heron @ihaveneverhadaclue

---------

By the time the week passed, Enna just wanted to go home. And she did. She got into the teleportation room on the seventh day after arriving in Bryn. By the time the next week had passed, Enna was fed up with Bryn. It wasn't fun. The only bright spots were her friends who had come with her and, surprisingly, Zerve, who she had found a dozen excuses to hang out with them over the six days.

But at the end of the week, Enna stepped into the teleportation circle minutes after she had waved goodbye to Zerve, and kept waving as the magic of Q and Redari whisked her and the others away.

When they got to Halmire it was early morning, time zones being different across the continent. Enna immediately set out with her sister, who was asking, “So, what was it about mom you wanted to show me?”

“Oh, just a portrait of her I found. Apparently she served on the Kings council about two hundred years ago.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Yeah.”

A few minutes later- like 15 but who was counting- they met up with Ana and Dash for a quick talk at Enna’s room in the Halmire Hotel. She had lived there, in that room, for fifty years, since she had struck a deal with the previous baron to let her stay there. Obviously, her father had kept that deal.

Sitting at the desk, in the only chair in the room, Dash and talking animatedly with Ana, who sat on the bed.

Enna settled herself on the opposite side of the bed, it could fit two people on it if they both were small- and they were- and Anne sat on the floor, legs stretched out.

“So. What’re we going to do about Dizerdrat?” Asked Enna, fidgeting with the dagger she carried everywhere and getting up to stow her weapons in the wardrobe where she kept pretty much everything, including a decades old stockpile of healing potions from the last time Halmire had been properly invaded- over fifty years ago, now, during the War of the Rose.

Dash sighed, running a hand down his face and shifting in his seat. “We- I don’t know. I have no clue, really. Beyond that we have to fight. Fight for our lives, and for the lives of everyone who can’t fight anymore.” He said, and the first face that flashed through Enna’s mind at his last words wasn’t Anne, who could fight for herself and was damn good at it, but Luralei and Thea. Maria; the little girl she had had all those decades ago who now had little girls of her own, and their children, the bloodline Enna had privately sworn to protect for the rest of her life.

The children of the children of the children of the War of the Rose, the hidden battle with a necromancer name Eleanor, along with a fight with a man who could summon dragons and a horse whose mane was made of pure flame; a man who was Enna’s uncle.

“I know,” Said Ana, shifting so she was facing everyone. “We fight to our last breath to protect the ones who can’t. We fight until we can’t fight anymore and then we rest and we hope we did some good in the world, something that maybe, just maybe, we’ll be remembered for. And even if we aren’t, something that’ll help defeat the dragon who has killed thousands of innocent people.”

Anne pointed at her with both hands, saying, “Yes! Exactly!”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Said Anne, the last member of the core four, the quadruplet that had fought the world together and came out grinning, half of whom had walked through hell and were still angels and the other half of them who had walked through Shadow and yet were still shining.

But this quadruplet had ties to other places too, to other times and people, to Zibra Kromlin and to Pike Helder, to Nita alendel and Cerea Roven, to Luralai and Thea, to a hundred different people throughout the centuries.

They had loved and lost and lived. They had survived against all odds and would survive again. Hopefully.

[notpulpcovers]

Pictured here is a bevy of risqué baker Goldwyn Girls from the 1931 pre-Code musical comedy film Palmy Days. Palmy Days was choreographed by Busby Berkeley and the famed Goldwyn Girls make appearances during elaborate production numbers set in a gymnasium and a bakery ("Glorifying the American Doughnut"). 

Identified on verso as Nita Pike, Faye Pierre, Edna Callahan, Amo Ingraham, Betty Stockton, and Ruth Eddings.

[dove-actually]

The Lion had told me the truth, then. The fire woman was here, just beyond the abbey wall. Ruchi. The Prelate’s hidden hand, who delivered his horrors; the shadow who served as courier and ambassador and executioner, the woman I’d chased for years, but could never confront…

The woman who’d killed Father.

All I could think of was the image of my sword running through her neck.  

read on for a snippet of Sarra’s (long-awaited) showdown with Ruchi! (980 words)

The smell struck me first. By the creek, wildflowers and the local pig herds had masked it, but as I neared the abbey wall, the miasma became overpowering. The burnt-garlic sting of heated ratsbane, the rotten waft of limestone, and the cloying decay of warm sulfur turned my stomach. I knew this smell. I knew what it meant.

Someone was trying to summon a netherwing.

Dread and thrill warred in my chest. A netherwing was one of the worst horrors magic could inflict; the curse that could be spun with netherwing blood was more awful still. I’d seen both beast and curse firsthand, and knew the suffering they brought.

But only a magicker could work a summoning spell, and the Prelate would only trust one rogue magicker with his plan. The Lion had told me the truth: the fire woman was here, just beyond the crumbling wall. Ruchi. The Prelate’s hidden hand, who delivered his horrors; the shadow that served as courier and ambassador and executioner, the woman I’d chased for years, but could never confront…

The woman who’d killed Father.

I pressed a hand to the wall, digging my fingers into its cracks.

Just one fight, Nita’s voice rang in my head. Even the best warrior can only win one fight at a time. 

She’d drilled the lesson into me day after day, each time my focus wavered or I got distracted. Pick your fight, she’d growl, whacking my ankles with her cane, and stick to it. 

Two fights waited for me beyond this wall, and I had to choose.

I couldn't.

I reached for the nearest grip and pulled myself up. The short wall made an easy climb, cracked and beginning to cave inward, yet I stalled, squeezing each grip like my life depended on it. With every move I repeated Nita’s advice. Breathe and think. Brains win battles, hearts lose them. But my heart kept pounding, and the clarity I called on eluded me. I knew I had to stop the spell and prevent a netherwing from entering our realm—but what I wanted was the fire woman, and the fight I’d awaited seven years.

Think. 

But all I could think of was the image of my sword running through Ruchi’s neck. 

Another voice replaced Nita’s, in the familiar soft drawl of the marsh provinces. Sometimes a cool head is better than a quick sword. Funny. I’d never realized how much Ahni sounded like Nita. All that talk of sweet tongues and even heads.

Too bad they’d never had a chance to meet; Nita would’ve found Ahni a better student. I’d only ever mastered half her teachings. 

The half that involved blades.

I reached for my sword, as I crossed the wall. My hand hesitated on the handle. One fight at a time. Below, the abbey’s side-yard looked deserted in the gray dusk. Old furniture and broken pottery and rusted gardening tools lay in a haphazard pile by the wall, next to a vegetable patch overrun with thornweed. Aiding the High Prelate’s coup must’ve not left much time for groundskeeping.  

Voices came from the main courtyard. I couldn’t see it past the chapel wing, but the smell and the tell-tale pale-yellow smoke of ratsbane told me enough. Ruchi was likely there setting up the spell. Drawing arcane symbols in limestone and sulfuric ash on the ground, ready to sacrifice some poor innocent to her summoning.

I could stop it. Set the Abbey on fire, cause a distraction, sever the irrigation lines to flood the yard, taint the spell field, if I had to, with Nanette’s spirit stone—I could think of ten ways to mess with the Prelate’s plan like I always did, silently, from the shadows…

Pick your fight.

But I wanted Ruchi.

I wanted her to pay for what she’d done to Father. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted to tell her she couldn’t hurt a Mendi and get away with it, that we never forgot our enemies.

I wanted her to die, and to die afraid.

I pulled my sword, cradling it against my chest, and with a few brisk moves I made my way down. I didn’t bother staying in the shadows: the Abbot and his flunkies could no more challenge me than ferrets challenge a hunting wolf. I marched across the side-yard, past the chapel entrance, and around the corner…

…and shock stopped me in my tracks.

I’d expected the dusty abbey courtyard, Ruchi with her spell and her sacrifice, perhaps a few priests assisting her. Instead, the yard was painted in white-and-yellow symbols, nearly wall-to-wall. A makeshift cage of wooden pikes stood in the middle, filled with people—thirty or forty of them, gaunt men, women and children in plain countryside garb, crying and pulling at the wooden bars, while men in priest robes pushed them back with sharp sticks.

Ruchi stood by the far wall, instantly recognizable by the red cloak. [Spoiler] stood beside her. I was too stunned by the sight before me to even feel anger at [their] betrayal. 

I pressed myself into the chapel wall. Breathe. Think. What was this? The scene looked unlike the summoning spell I’d seen before. Why such a large field? Who were the people in the cage?  

An alarmed shout told me someone had spotted me. All around, priests pulled out daggers and clubs, screeching as they rushed toward me. The caged prisoners cried louder, begging for help.

Across the yard, the fire woman met my eyes. She didn’t look surprised to see me: as she held my gaze, her lips curled in a satisfied smile.

The truth hit me just before the first priest’s rudimentary club.

She knew I was coming.

[dankassquickscopes]

via Premier Guitar

[sizekitap]

Tetikte

Tetikte Robert Crais Martı Yayınları

Güç, zaman demektir. Zaman da hayat…

Nita Morales kaybolan kızını bulması için Elvis Cole’a ulaştığında kendisini fidye için arayanlara rağmen korkmuyordu, çünkü bunun numara olduğunu, kızının o oğlan dediği adamla kaçtığını ve paraya ihtiyaçları olduğunu biliyordu.

Fakat Nina yanılmaktadır. Kızı ve erkek arkadaşı haydutları haraca kesen diğer haydutlar tarafından birbirlerini de yağmalayan sınır profesyonelleri tarafından kaçırılmıştır.

Elvis Cole ve Joe Pike ikilinin kaçırıldığı yeri bulur. Orada lastik izleri, boş kovanlar ve kan lekeleri vardır. O anda olayların göründüğü kadar kötü olduğunu anlarlar fakat onlar da yanılıyordur. İki genci bulmak ve onları tekrar satın almak için kılık değiştiren Cole de kaçırılır. Joe Pike’a düşen görev ise Cole’un izini bulup insan kaçakçılığının zorlu ve kanlı dünyasına girmektir. Fakat belki de bunun için artık çok geçtir.

“Kusursuzca kurgulanmış aksiyon dolu bir filmi izlemek gibi.”

The Providence Journal   “Muhteşem bir olay örgüsünün ekseninde gelişen, kaçırılmaması gereken bir Joe Pike macerası daha.”

The Providence Journal

  Yazarı Sizekitap’da Ara Yazarı Twitter’da Ara Kitabı Twitter’da Ara Yazarı Facebook’ta Ara Kitabı Facebook’ta Ara

devamı burada => https://goo.gl/mv4C1K

[silviajburke]

The Coming Government Shutdown

This post The Coming Government Shutdown appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Health care dead. Tax cuts in doubt.

Is a government shutdown next? And when?

Details coming up, as the news folks say.

But first to the narrow canyons and broad shoulders of Wall Street…

We wondered yesterday if the post-health care market swoon would trigger another round of “buying the dip.”

It seems we have our answer…

The Dow was up a dip-buying 150 points today.

The S&P tacked on another 17 points. The Nasdaq added 35.

Must be all those tax cuts and infrastructure dollars coming down the pike now that health care passed…

Now, if you enjoyed last Friday’s health care fireworks… they may have just been the opening salvo…

A government shutdown could be one month away.

The federal government’s current funding expires at the close of April.

And as The Wall Street Journal reminds us today, Congress only has 12 legislative workdays to stow their axes and hammer out a new spending bill.

No bill by April 28… and the government shuts down. Partially shuts down, really…

The Marines won’t drop their rifles. The TSA will still be body-searching Grandma. The Social Security Administration will mail its checks.

But if you planned on visiting the Washington Monument this spring… well…

And if Washington is choked with gridlock now, how about a government shutdown into the bargain?

Trump has sent Congress an emergency request for $30 billion in extra funding for defense and $3 billion for border security — including $1.5 billion for “the wall.”

He also wants $18 billion in cuts from unspecified domestic programs.

But Democrats say no butter… then no guns… and no deal.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) boo-hoos for example that Trump’s plan would “redirect even more money to the Pentagon by further slashing nondefense spending in fiscal year 2017.”

“This is not acceptable,” he adds, to our utter amazement.

And will Democrats vote to spend one thin buck on the wall?

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) is senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. She calls the wall “a nonstarter.”

And any spending bill needs at least eight Democratic votes in the Senate.

Will any break ranks?

The Democrats are out to spike Trump’s guns just on principle.

So maybe they’ll just sit back… let the government shut down… and let it all blow up in his mug.

The government last shut down in 2013. Republicans could at least point a finger at Obama and a divided Congress.

Can they afford to let it happen again… with Republican majorities in Congress… and a Republican on the throne?

Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL):

Shutting down the government when you are a Republican Congress and a Democrat is in the White House was one thing. You could chalk that up to a disagreement between the parties. But when you control the House and the Senate and the White House and shut down the government — there is no excuse for that at all.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) whinnies that a shutdown would be “just about as politically stupid as it gets.”

Be it so.

But since when did that matter, Mr. Cole, sir?

And if Bloomberg’s right, Trump might be prepared to shut down the government… though the heavens fall:

Given the sharp cuts he has proposed for nondefense spending, he may not have the same reservations as his predecessors about shutting down the government.

Does Trump risk it?

What about the markets? Are they ready for a government shutdown?

“A top Republican with close ties to the White House” apparently told Axios co-founder and former Politico reporter Mike Allen:

After the GOP failure on health care, a government shutdown… is “more likely than not… Wall Street is not expecting a shutdown and the markets are unprepared.”

Again, this from someone with “close ties to the White House.”

Now that the dip-buyers have gotten up to their usual tricks, David Stockman says it would probably take a “two-by-four between the eyes” to stop them.

Could April 28 be that 2×4?

Regards,

Brian Maher Managing editor, The Daily Reckoning

The post The Coming Government Shutdown appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[valentinovamp]

[smalltownfae]

2022 TBR

The TBR list I made a video of and that I will probably only read half of it. This one is from the start of this month onwards of course.

Physical Books:

Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go

Nita Prose - The Maid

Jane Austen - Persuasion

Jane Austen - Emma

Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Water Dancer

Patricia A. McKillip - Heir of Sea and Fire

Patricia A. McKillip - Harpist in the Wind

Patricia A. McKillip - The Book of Atrix Wolfe

Patricia A. McKillip - Ombria in Shadow

Patricia A. McKillip - Alphabet of Thorn

Patricia A. McKillip - Od Magic

Ursula K. Le Guin - The Tombs of Atuan

Juliet Marillier - Son of the Shadows

Juliet Marillier - Child of the Prophecy

Samantha Shannon - The Priory of the Orange Tree (dnf)

Marlon James - Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Ebooks:

Elizabeth Gaskel - North and South

Nella Larson - Passing

Julia Armfield - Our Wives Under the Sea (DNF)

Stephen Graham Jones - The Only Good Indians

Cormac McCarthy - The Road

Ruth Ozeki - A Tale for the Time Being

Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale

K.J. Parker - The Folding Knife

Seth Dickinson - The Traitor Baru Cormorant (DNF)

N.K. Jemisin - The Stone Sky

Christina Henry - Lost Boy (dnf)

Gail Carson Levine - Ella Enchanted

Megan Lindholm - Cloven Hooves

Lucy Holland - Sistersong

Lavie Tidhar - By Force Alone

Ed McDonald - Blackwing

Lois McMaster Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

Fonda Lee - Jade City

Signe Pike - The Lost Queen

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Guns of the Dawn

Tessa Gratton - The Queens of Innis Lear

Jennifer Fallon - Wolfblade

Megan Whalen Turner - The King of Attolia

Megan Whalen Turner - A Conspiracy of Kings

Megan Whalen Turner - Thick as Thieves

Megan Whalen Turner - Return of the Thief

Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay

Terry Pratchett - Jingo

Terry Pratchett - Soul Music

Terry Pratchett - Pyramids

Terry Pratchett - Small Gods

Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time

Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant

Terry Pratchett - The Truth

Terry Pratchett - Night Watch

N.K. Jemisin - The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

N.K. Jemisin - The Broken Kingdoms

N.K. Jemisin - The Kingdom of Gods

[dragon-swords-prophecies]

Hey! Happy STS ^_^

So for your question:

If you were to take all of your characters and put them together, what would you say is the most common trait among all of them?

Okay, now think of all of your favorite characters to write... what would you say is the common factor among these characters?

Have a great day and weekend!

Happy early/late sts! Hi! Sorry I took nearly a week to answer this, it has been very much a Week! Have a nice almost weekend/day too!

Okay. Among every single oc/charachter I can think of? I'm going to name all of them because that'll help me but I'll do it in the small size text so it takes up less room. I'm also omitting the ones that are only minor influencers on plot or don't influence it at all and are just there to help me flesh out family trees because otherwise this list would take all day.

Enna. Anne. Claria Virra. Kairon. Thia. Kitara. Brooke. Elas. Joshua. Cerea. Ana. Dash/Redari. Gilanthas. Nita. Zibra. Jennifer Kromlin. Cessari. Mae. Pike Helder. Theren. Ash. Eryn. Riley. Starr. Min. Zerve. Lauralai. Thea. Effie. Q. Mara. G. Illa. Artemis Rakask. Enna's Uncle. Dizerdrat. Val. Finnead Liadon Sr. Lidia. And several other ones I can't remember at the moment.

So that's a list, and the first trait that comes to mind is that a lot of them have a deep sense of grief in one way or another?

A lot of them also have themes in their stories that end with sacrifice, and a lot of the antagonists in on that list have a lot of anger and/or a sense of failure. Granted a lot of the protagonist have that too. And so, so many of them are morally gray.

Now for the ones I enjoy writing. Time for a second list!

Illa. Eryn. Starr. Kairon. Elas. Joshua. Enna. Zibra. Mara. G. Val. Thia. Kitara. And probably like two others that I've forgotten.

Those ones, nearly all of them have a very profound sense of grief. Except for maybe Mara, G, Val, and Joshua. But those have grief in different ways too, not in the very clear I-lost-something/someone-and-that-changed-me way but I-lost-something-and-i-dont-know-what-it-is-but-that-changed-me way.