seikcadaikea - Tumblr blog

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nurse dolly <3

Nurse Dolly!

I drew nurse dolly and I’m real proud of her so I hope you guys like it!

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A remake of an old piece, the old one should be hidden down below!

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It is a bit early to celebrate halloween buuuuuuut...- Here you go! Happy almost Halloween!

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I think the Deans are fucking Lovecraftian gods

If you're a regular reader of my nonsense, you may have noticed that on more than one occasion I've referred to the Deans as "Nyarlathotep Tumblrsexymen": no, I didn't have a stroke on the keyboard, this is a reference to an entity that appears in the stories of Howard Phillip Lovecraft. A writer who is widely known because there were even people who thought that the Necronomicon, a fictional text part of his work, actually existed (and because he was such a recalcitrant racist that it has become a meme about how extremely racist he was).

And since I'm still going through my pile of papers on Gothic fiction, let me take a moment to talk about Lovecraft's work, why I have reason to believe that the Deans have something in common with these creatures, and what that might mean for the development of Nevermore.

A Little About Lovecraft's Gods

To understand a little bit about the kind of creatures we are talking about, I have to stop at a brief (seriously brief) description of cosmic horror: This is a type of horror that takes elements from the scientific publications of the time (which makes it close to science fiction) to give it verisimilitude, it has at its core a deep nihilism, the breaking of scientific canons, the fragility of the human mind and societies contrasted with the vastness of the universe, an enormous fear of "the unknown" for the white man (fed by his racist paranoia), and seasoned with tentacles and creatures that remind us of sea creatures, because Lovecraft had an enormous fear of the sea.

The gods in these stories represent, on a symbolic level, the vastness of the universe, the terror of the unknown, and the fragility of the human mind: they are entities older than time itself, contact with them tends to shatter the mind, and humanity must be very, very grateful that most of them are locked away or incapacitated in some way. Also, the way to access them is through very specific rituals that have been lost over time, so thankfully they're not very easy to contact either.

Similarities with the Deans

Let's start with the most obvious: the Deans, like the Lovecraftian gods, seem to operate in their own plane of existence, beyond what humans understand as "life" and "death": Nevermore is a kind of limbo, but we know, thanks to the Raven, that these guys came from another place and had enough power to kick the crap out of psychopomps without any problem.

However, just like Lovecraft's gods, these enormous powers don't make them able to do whatever they want; as I said, these entities are usually locked up or incapacitated in some way and can only have contact with humans under certain circumstances (like being summoned in rituals), and getting out of their prisons usually requires vague events like astral alignments that are completely out of their control.

The Deans, like Lovecraft's gods, seem to be subject to rules that are above them, and while they can bend them a bit to achieve their goals, it's not like they can do much about it.

Another thing they have in common with Lovecraft's gods is the ability to create servants that function as extensions of them to fulfill their designs. There are many creatures that follow this line in the stories that speak of The Myths, but the best known are the Shoggoth that appear in the novel At the Mountains of Madness: artificial beings created by the Old Ones to rule the Earth, described as amphibious, amorphous masses similar to amoebas.

Although the Deans prefer their minions in the form of animated dolls. I suspect this decision is based on the story The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman. I have no proof, but no doubt.

Now for the joke that brings this essay to life: the creature in Lovecraft's universe that most resembles the Deans is a being called Nyarlathotep. This creature belongs to the category of "Other Gods" (not the old ones like Cthulhu) and gets very nice nicknames like "Crawling Chaos".

Nyarlathotep is a being who enjoys causing chaos, death and madness wherever they go. They can communicate with humans, which they use to psychologically torture them and make them lose their minds. Something they seem to enjoy quite a bit. In the same way that the Deans view this sadistic battle royale, they have set up a fun game.

Then there is the ability to manipulate and alter the human mind, which is called into question in stories like Nyarlathotep and The Rats in the Walls (where it is apparently Nyarlathotep who messes with the protagonist's mind so that he tries to kill his friend).

This is something we've seen manifest in Nevermore in two different ways: the ability to trigger or unlock memories.

And the ability to change them. While we can't know if what was shown to Annabel is 100% real, we do know that showing her the end of her life caused a permanent change in the way she retrieves her memories: from the end backwards. If this memory is somehow altered, we also know that the Deans are capable of photoshopping people's memories.

Finally, Nyarlathotep has the ability to shape-shift, which allows them to appear as humanoids in several stories, such as The Oniric Quest of the Unknown Kadath or Dreams in the Witch's House. His human form is considered "unnatural", "strange" and "disturbing" by those who see it (remember that Lovecraft was extremely racist, so he always presents himself as a black man). As a pharaoh in the Randolph Carter cycle and as a charcoal humanoid figure in the second story cited).

Here, the human form of whatever the Deans are is also quite atypical: not only are they ridiculously tall (7 feet), they have heterochromia with a white-colored eye (which I would venture to say may be a reference to the cataract eye mentioned in the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe), and their synchronized movements are amusing on paper, but possibly strange to look at for the characters.

Otherwise, there are two other entities in Lovecraft's universe whose descriptions can be loosely associated with the Deans: Yogg-Sothoth and Azathoth. Both are beings of dual nature.

The former is an entity associated with omniscience and appears in stories such as The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror. and is described as "the key and the door".

Azathoth represents omnipotence, is the center of the universe, and is described as "the beginning and the end" or "the alpha and the omega.

Implications for the comic

The fact that the Deans have elements in common with Nyarlathotep brings up an interesting point: although Nyarlathotep has far greater freedom than other beings, they is a servant of Azathoth. In other words, them powers are subservient to a more powerful being whose plans they must follow. They may amuse themselves in the process, but they is still essentially a butler.

On the other hand, the Azathoth connection might be vague, since this creature is a lobotomized god, so he can't do much. But if the reference is to Yogg-Sothoth, it gets a little more interesting, because that entity is the one who is supposed to release the original gods when the time is right.

And I don't know about you, but these references have me wondering if the Deans are working for something much more messed up than they are, or if they're using the souls of the students to bring back something much more sinister.

[seikcadaikea]

Silly modern au class shinanagins with white raven pretty please I love your art 💕💕💕

More modern AU class shenanigans coming right up! 👩‍🍳🍳

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Knight Gundam wishes you all a Happy Day!

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IhatedrawingcurlsIhatedrawingcurlsIhatedrawingcur-

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Art dump! A bit of a mix bag from this couple weeks

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As per special request (you know who you are!!!)

Nevermore Staff Headcanons

Merry and Mourn

- Mourn has the messier hair when waking up. Yes, even eldritch horrors need to sleep.

- Merry likes styling both their hair. Mourn just lets it happen.

- Orchestral music. Merry prefers the climax of the song, the part where all of the instruments get louder and crescendo into one big standstill. Mourn prefers the wind down afterward, the falling volume and stillness. Like death.

- They play every instrument. Violin preference.

- They make headcanons about the students, even though they know like everything. Merry likes trying to place bets on things that might or might not happen, Mourn prefers to just watch but of course, he makes the occasional guess to humor him.

- Both of them will take their capes off to cover the other when they’re just chilling.

- Mourn hums in private. Well, as private as he can really be with Merry around.

Nurse Dolly

- has a TERRIBLE poker face.

- drinks the darkest coffee on the planet

- she loses herself in sewing and knitting. She’ll start and then tune back in and she’s already halfway done.

- Would wear stud earrings if she had her ears pierced

- Poppet has used her terrible poker face against her multiple times.

- They’ve totally outfit swapped because Dolly lost a card game.

- Dolly dislikes Poppet’s casual attitude in serious situations- she also dislikes when students try to brush off injuries. She’d rather do her job as quickly and efficiently as she can. Distractions and procrastination irritate her.

- she’s probably read every damn book in the academy.

Miss Poppet

- used to leave stupid notes in the books for Dolly to eventually find to piss her off

- takes pleasure in being amusingly irritating (To Dolly, of course.)

- Will purposefully challenge Dolly to things she knows she sucks at to get something out of it.

- Loves macarons

- She rarely worries if there’s danger and Dolly is alone. Despite teasing her and claiming she would need her help, she knows that Dolly is capable.

- Poppet can and will add sugar to Dolly’s coffee when she isn’t looking.

- Constantly replays the moment in her brain when she mixed the Deans up. She hates herself for that.

- Genuinely likes when students stay behind to talk to her. She loves her job and their stupid expressions when she answers a morbid question in a chipper tone.

- Totally likes to sing

- Probably writes poetry about the Deans tbh. None of it is good.

[seikcadaikea]

"My tantalized spirit here blandly reposes, forgetting, or never regretting, its roses— its old agitations of myrtles and roses."

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Collab with @cstxr0 to redraw the Lennabel bunny art as Doppet <3

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"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts… there's rue for you, and here's some for me." (Hamlet 4.5.199-205)

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Little Dolly doodle I made during class

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Cowgirl and pirate Dolly, because- uh. I can!

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Sleeping ❌

Drawing Ms. Poppet in the middle of the night ✅

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i unfortunately cannot remember if i've asked you this or not but do you have any eulalie crumbs?? even if it's just like. three pencil scratches of her i would be fed and satisfied.

Sorry for not responding to your ask earlier I was going to work on it a few days ago but I forgot 😭 (totally not because of cheesenore apocalypse)

Here’s an Eulalie doodle I just made in my sketchbook

[seikcadaikea]

Just my take on Lenore's spectre. Got lazy for rendering because it is not Doppet 😔

(Think of it like an harpy/phoenix thingie in Black and red, the crystal goes in blue)