ENDED - HA Contest - Off the Page
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This challenge was suggested by ~!
*The prize will be something expensive off your wishlist that I can get my hands on with currency or something that I have stashed away somehwere!
🏆 How to Win & Prizes 🏆 -Make a HA that follows the prompt rules and have a written portion -As always, anyone can enter! -I will choose 3 winners who will win a WL item worth ??sp* -There will be 3 raffle winners who will win one each of these themed items:
📖 Prompt Challenge 📖
>> Make a HA of a character from a book you are currently reading or have read recently! << Try to choose a character that doesn't have any art/other visual representation - only go off of their description in the book!
-Post an excerpt from the book of the character being described & -Post a summary/recommendation for why others should read the book
Also, be mindful of posting spoilers! ;)
⚠ Contest Rules ⚠ -Please ping me so I can see your entry asap! -CWs Allowed -You do not have to own the items -Contest will end Monday, Nov 19th !! -You can still enter or edit until the title says "ENDED"
Join to be pinged for contest announcements and fun HA-centric events~! Feel free to ask me any questions you might have, and chat with the other participants. As always, have fun! ♥
I am reading a short story anthology at the moment. A Tyranny of Petticoats edited by Jessica Spotswood. I did the main character, Klio Vesper, from the story High Stakes by Andrea Cremer.
Her look isn't really described other than she is white, which is just given by context. Her dress in this scene I chose was full-skirted and emerald, trimmed at the bodice in white and silver lace with her neck and shoulders bare. Her arms are covered from elbow to fingertip in black silk gloves. A veil of the same lace as on the bodice covers her eyes from view.
The book is a group of historical fiction set in North America featuring strong females.
Outfit Not Found
Private Outfit
Kate from Sorcery And Cecilia by Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermere.
SPOILER (click to toggle)
"Either flouting snobbish young ladies improves my looks, or everyone there expected me to be at death’s door after listening to the odious Marquis spin tales of my ill health for a week, for I have never received so many compliments in my life. The dress was everything I had hoped. Georgy helped me with my hair, which she dressed with a gilt ribbon in a mode she insisted on calling à la Grecque. She lent me a pair of sandals of gilded leather, and (though Aunt Charlotte would certainly have shot us both dead on the spot if she had noticed) painted my toenails gold as well. On the whole, I think I looked very well, though, of course, vastly fast for a young lady in her first Season, betrothed or not."
The book is, as I´ve said a collection of letters between two cousins and best friends, set in an alternate universe regency Britain. While in London to catch a husband, Kate stumbles onto a magical conspiracy involving, among other things, a marquis, a mysterious lady, a miscast spell, and a fancy chocolate pot. If you like your historical fantasy worlds well researched, and books written in the style if the time they were set in, you will like this. You will also ike this if you like ladies who get things done. If you´re looking for huge amounts of fighting and action you will be disappointed for the most part. this book is all about the plot(ting) and interpersonal maneuvering, even the magic is subtle effects rather than fireballs and lightening.
Just started reading this. It intrigued me so much I actually bought it off of Amazon instead of putting it on hold and waiting for it to become available at my local library.
book summary from amazon
In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as “dressed up like a boy”) is a third kind of child--a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom.
The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents’ attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults.
At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America’s longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere."
So anyway not much of an HA - I really wanted to find a longer top and a fence for the background. I added the ball to give the HA a little more substance. Here's the book cover:
Private Outfit
Excerpt from Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
"That part of the old story turned out to be true: you have to be cruel to be a good moneylender. But I was ready to be as merciless with our neighbors as they'd been with my father. I didn't take firstborn children exactly, but one week late in the spring, when the roads were finally clear again, I walked out to one of the peasant farmers in the far fields, and he had nothing to pay me with, not even a spare loaf of bread. Gorek had borrowed six silver kopeks, a sum he'd never repay if he made a crop every year for the rest of his life; I didn't believe he'd ever had more than five pennies in his hand at once. He tried to curse me out of the house at first, casually, as many of them did, but when I held my ground and told him the law would come for him, real desperation came into his voice. 'I have four mouths to feed!' he said. 'You can't suck blood from a stone.'
I should have felt sorry for him, I suppose. My father would have, and my mother, but wrapped in my coldness, I only felt the danger of the moment. If I forgave him, took his excuses, next week everyone would have an excuse; I saw everything unraveling again from there.
Then his tall daughter came staggering in, a kerchief over her long yellow braids and a heavy yoke across her shoulders, carrying two buckets of water, twice as much as I could manage when I went for water to the well myself. I said, 'Then your daughter will come work in my house to pay off the debt, for half a penny every day,' and I walked home pleased as a cat, and even danced a few steps to myself in the road, alone under the trees.
Her name was Wanda. She came silently to the house at dawn the next morning, worked like an ox until dinner, and left silently after; she kept her head down the entire time. She was very strong, and she took almost all the burden of the housework even in just that half day. She carried water and chopped wood, and tended the small flock of hens we now had scratching in our yard, and scrubbed the floors and our hearth and all our pots, and I was well satisfied with my solution."
I highly recommend this book! It's an imaginative retelling of Rumpelstiltskin intertwined with Slavic folklore. The pace of the book is not fast, but it is very compelling. I couldn't put it down! It actually follows three main characters (i.e. three very awesome heroines, including Wanda) and briefly jumps to the POV of a few secondary characters as well. There's magic, adventure, wit, romance, and world-saving to be done. I won't say any more. I don't want to spoil the plot by giving a summary, because you should definitely read it!
[tot=Zalda] [egg=Zalda] [tp=Zalda]
Due to my reading disability, I actually haven't read a book in a really long time for leisure. I do watch movies and a few tv series to unwind. Unless you want me to do a character for that... I guess I'll be stuck sitting this one out :(
This is Minda from "The Riddle of the Wren" by Charles De Lint. If you like fantasy and haven't read any of his books you should give them a try. They're some of my favorites!
Outfit Not Found
Description from book: "Minda was a small, slender girl of seventeen, with shoulder-length brown hair framing an oval face, and otter-brown eyes. There was a wicker basket by her foot, topped full of cabbages, carrots and leeks. She wore an oak-green dress with flounced sleeves, a cream-colored smock overtop, and leather shoes that were more like slippers than the sturdy footgear a countrywoman might wear. Her eyes had a hollow look about them, with dark circles underneath."
- This is such a cool idea! I chose a character from The Black Prism by Brent Weeks! Super cool fantasy series with such a well-written and intricate world, I highly recommend it!
Private Outfit
Gavin Guile
Gavin drafted his red hair into a tight ponytail and dressed in the clothes his room slave had laid out for him: an ivory shirt and a well-cut pair of black wool pants with an oversize gem-studded belt, boots with silverwork, and a black cloak with harsh old Ilytian runic designs embroidered in silver thread. The Prism belonged to all the satrapies, so Gavin did his best to honor the traditions of every land—even one that was mainly pirates and heretics.
He hesitated a moment, then pulled open a drawer and drew out his brace of Ilytian pistols. They were, typical for Ilytian work, the most advanced design Gavin had ever seen. The firing mechanism was far more reliable than a wheellock—they were calling it a flintlock. Each pistol had a long blade beneath the barrel, and even a belt-flange so that when he tucked them into his belt behind his back they were held securely and at an angle so he didn’t skewer himself when he sat. The Ilytians thought of everything.
Private Outfit
My interpretation of Stargirl Caraway from Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli.
Description below!
SPOILER (click to toggle)
“Did you see her?”
Who could it be? A new student? A spectacular blonde from
California? Or from back East, where many of us came from? Or one of those summer makeovers, someone who leaves in June looking like a little girl and returns in September as a full-bodied woman, a ten-week miracle?
And then in Earth Sciences I heard a name: “Stargirl.”
I turned to the senior slouching behind me. “Stargirl?” I said. “What kind of name is that?”
“That’s it. Stargirl Caraway. She said it in homeroom.”
“Stargirl?”
“Yeah.”
And then I saw her. At lunch. She wore an off-white dress so long it covered her shoes. It had ruffles around the neck and cuffs and looked like it could have been her great-grandmother’s wedding gown. Her hair was the color of sand. It fell to her shoulders. Something was strapped across her back, but it wasn’t a book bag. At first I thought it was a miniature guitar. I found out later it was a ukulele.
She did not carry a lunch tray. She did carry a large canvas bag with a life-size sunflower painted on it. The lunchroom was dead silent as she walked by. She stopped at an empty table, laid down her bag, slung the instrument strap over her chair, and sat down. She pulled a sandwich from the bag and started to eat.
Half the lunchroom kept staring, half started buzzing.
Kevin was grinning. “Wha’d I tell you?”
I nodded."
-------- Another excerpt because I love it! ----------
"Her caught-in-headlights eyes gave her a look of perpetual astonishment, so that we found ourselves turning and looking back over our shoulders, wondering what we were missing. She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school. In her answers in class, she often spoke of sea horses and stars, but she did not know what a football was. She said there was no television in her house. She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and awayshe flew."
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Private Outfit
This one took me forever for some reason!! I decided to do a HA of Roderick Usher from "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe, because I'm still mourning Halloween being over. 😭
description
"Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eve, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity."
In other areas of the story Roderick is also described as having a kind of nervous and manic energy about him, so I also tried to depict that!
Recommendation - possibly spoilers?
I recommend everyone read a story or two from Poe, primarily because he did a lot for the evolution of literature, but I like "The Fall of the House of Usher" specifically because many theorize that Poe plays with the idea of what it would be like if the physical and mental aspects of a human being were split into two different people. This is a notion that's really interesting to me that I didn't catch the first time I read through it, and I have also always loved Poe's use of symbolism in his stories. I also recommend this story specifically for some, since I feel it's one of Poe's least graphic/macabre works and allows those that are a bit more squeamish to still experience his writing. :)
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this was tough coz i'm not reading as many novels as i once did, but i was reading a little during my lunch break on Friday and happened upon a partial description of one of the bad dudes (who is a necromancer undercover as what might be the equivalent of a priest if ancient Persia had demons and alchemy and magic)
anyway, here's the excerpt from Blood of the Prophet (book 2 in the Fourth Element Trilogy) by Kat Ross
description
fyi Araxa is another bad dude. he's describing Balthazar (or Balthus), who i've made the outfit of.
"Araxa disliked him immediately. He was tall and young and glowing with good health, and his strait-backed posture and direct gaze were far too confident for Araxa's taste. He had olive skin that made a striking contrast to the snowy white robes, and a slightly crooked nose, as though it had been broken at some point and healed awkwardly. The magus [Balthazar] glanced around and noted there was no other chair in the room. Araxa thought his lips quirked in amusement, but it came and went too fast to be sure."
he has also been described to be quite handsome, even though he's 200ish years old. he has iron chains with neck collars/cuffs which are what he uses to bind his victims to him, and to tap into their energy and to enforce his will upon them. his hair has also been previously described as shoulder length and dark brown. without digging through the rest of the book, that's about as much as i can remember welp x_x'
lovely art by
"grey would be the colour if i had a heart" ~nin ❤️
Not only was this one fun but I'm seeing new books that I want to read.
I read Uprooted by Naomi Novik and really liked it,I'm definitely going to read Spinning Silver! I love fantasy, folklore, fairytales and the retelling of them.
Roberta "Bobby" Draper - The Expanse seriesby Armor
I did Bobbie Draper from Caliban's War! This is her as described in the first chapter c:
Excerpt from Caliban's War
"She wondered what their nickname for her was. Maybe Big Red. Her armor still had the Martian surface camouflage on it. She hadn't been on Ganymede long enough to get it resurfaced with mottled grey and white."
"At two meters tall, she was only a bit above average height for a Martian, but thanks in part to her Polynesian ancestry, she weighed in at more than 140 kilos at one g. It wasn't fat, but her muscles seemed to get bigger every time she even walked through a weight room, and as a marine, she trained all the time."
This is actually the second book in a series. The first book is called Leviathan Wakes. The premise is that humans have colonized Mars and the asteroid belt and have outposts on other places in the solar system as well, but there are political tensions rising between the Belt (which feels exploited for its resources), Mars, and Earth. It's a bit like sci-fi Game of Thrones, in terms of the politics. I loved it.
they/them/theirs, please.
Jess Tamblin from The Saga of the Seven Suns (6 book series)
Private Outfit
Description
From book 1, Hidden Empire...then gave a shake of his shaggy brown hair. He was handsome, blue-eyed with a vibrant personality....
From book 3, Horizon Storms (after a wee bit of transformation)... in addition to his eerily glowing flesh...As the threads meshed and tangled, knitting into a filmy weave, he saw that the material had the sheen and color of mother-of-pearl. The fabric wrapped around him like another skin, covering his arms and legs, his torso, his hips, but leaving his hands and feet bare.
summary
Its a six book science fiction series. Humans have colonized several worlds and they have met some alien species. There are many secrets gradually revealed, that I can't really get into for spoilers. We meet a few more aliens and things get unfriendly.
I really like that while some aliens are your basic humanoids, there are some really alien aliens. Oh and there are robots too, and dead civilizations.
Being only halfway through the series, I don't know that I'd recommend it, but I'm having lots of fun reading it and hope the end justifies all the time I've spent on it.
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I decided to do Crowley from Good Omens! I love that book a lot. It's got hilarious narration, an engaging plot, and is very good at subverting expectations. It features the four horsepersons of the apocalypse, the four new horsepersons of the apocalypse, an angel and a demon who are both very bad at their jobs, a book of prophecies, amateur witch hunters, thoughts on the nature of ineffability, and the phrase "gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide."
"Crowley was currently doing a hundred and ten miles an hour somewhere east of Slough. Nothing about him looked particularly demonic, at least by classical standards. No horns, no wings. Admittedly he was listening to a ‘Best of Queen‘ tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into ‘Best of Queen’ albums. No particularly demonic thoughts were going through his head. In fact, he was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were.
Crowley had dark hair, and good cheekbones, and he was wearing snakeskin shoes, or at least presumably he was wearing shoes, and he could do really weird things with his tongue. And, whenever he forgot himself, he had a tendency to hiss."
Most people tend to draw him in a suit and tie, but I decided to give him a more punk rock star look instead, including some ironic decorative crosses, because he's a flash bastard. And outside his window is the apocalypse.
(His apartment is described as being full of white leather furniture, a very expensive entertainment system, and potted plants.
“He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it was an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did.
What he did was put the fear of God into them.
More precisely, the fear of Crowley.
In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. "Say goodbye to your friend," he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it. . . "
Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat.
The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified.”)
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The "Matching" Challenge will be up very soon and I hope you all are ready for this one~ 😈 💕
I am currently reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and there hasn't been very detailed character description, but I did what I could~
Bast, Kvothe's student and friend
Outfit Not Found
"He was dark and charming, with a quick smile and cunning eyes..."
"He was dressed simply: black long-sleeved shirt tucked into black pants; black pants tucked into soft black boots. His face was sharp and delicate, almost beautiful, with striking blue eyes."
The book is focused on Kvothe's life story (although I am 25% of the way into it and I know that there is, at least, a second book) which is filled with magic and fantasy. I added a bit more to my excerpts for him as a teaser of what the book is like.
A Young Kvothe, with his birthday gifts
Private Outfit
"My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as "Quothe." Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I've had more names than anyone has a right to.
The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it's spoken, can mean "The Flame," "The Thunder," or "The Broken Tree."
"The Flame" is obvious if you've ever seen me. I have red hair, bright. If I had been born a couple hundred years ago O would probably have been burned as a demon. I keep it short but it's unruly. When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire.
"The Thunder" I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage trainging at an early age. I've never thought of "The Broken Tree" as very significant. Although in retrospect I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic.
My first mentor called me E'lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.
But I was brough up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant "to know."
I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.
I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.
You may have heard of me."
"If this story is to be something resembling my book of deeds, we must begin at the beginning. At the heart of who I truly am. To do this, you must remember that before I was anything else, I was one of the Edema Ruh.
Contrary to popular belief, not all traveling performers are of the Ruh. My troupe was not some poor batch of mummers; japing at crossroads for pennies, singing for our suppers. We were court performers, Lord Greyfallow's Men. Our arrival in most towns was more of an event than the Midwinter Pageantry and Solinade Games rolled together. There were usually at least eight wagons in our troupe and well over two dozen performers: actors and acrobats, musicians and hand magicians, jugglers and jesters. My Family."
...
"Our patron was Baron Greyfallow, and his name opened many doors that would ordinarily be closed to the Edema Ruh. In return we wore his colors, gree and grey, and added to his reputation wherever we went. Once a year we spent two span at his manor, entertaining him and his household."
...
"Trip gave me a belt knife with a leather grip, claiming that all boys should have something they can hurt themselves with. Shandi gave me a lovely cloak she had made, scattered with little pockets for a boy's treasures. My parents gave me a lute, a beautful thing of smooth dark wood. I had to play a song of course..."
His eyes are described as being either a vibrant green or just simply as "dark," (and they change depending on his mood?) but just flipping through I can't find a specific quote.
aaaaa thank you so much!!~
New contest, new group, and new forum thread section is up~!
Prizes will be sent out after I make and eat dinner~
Thank you :-)
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