#This piece actually changed art in of itself

[justsomeectoplasm]

I am begging you guys to actually read what the dada art movement was about before shitting on the fountain urinal art piece as well as art installations that are "strange" or "doesn't make sense" and isn't some art piece that immediately wow's the crowd.

Like the whole movement is suppose to challenge your perspective of art, but it's also made to make fun of the societal norms of art. You guys need to understand that art wasn't all freedom. Back then if you didn't follow the norms of art you would be thrased in public and wouldn't make a living. Even if you decide to go a little bit out there with an art piece, you would be shunned and your efforts would be mocked.

Dada art movement was basically looking at the art norms that were pressured by society onto artists during World War I and going "Fuck you. I get to decide what is art, not some group of people. " and then proceeding to make something that would outrage, confuse and make the public question what is truly art.

Are you mad that some urinal is considered art and write a whole essay on the internet? Good. That's the fucking point of the art piece you idiot.

[lucigraves]

Blocking that artfig//ht confessions blog as a form of self care

[thelemonsnek]

hellll of a year this year!! got a new hyperfixation for the first time since 2020 :0 this really made me realize how many different styles i use >:))

[image id: one of those art summary templates, where it has a spot for art from every month. January's drawing is very sketchy and has thick, bold lineart. February's is very wild, with pixelated lines, harsh shading, and crazy patterns. March's is more grounded in realism, while still keeping some level of stylism. April's is cartoony but fairly detailed, and has thick lineart. May's is very simplistic and stylized. June is a return to the realistic but stylized art style, and is the first drawing to include an actual background. July's is very painterly and also has a background. August's has the realistic stylized art style again, and September's, October's and November's are all a mix between the realistic and painterly art style, though only September's has a background. Decembers is an extremely simplistic uncolored drawing. End id]

[shithowdy]

this is your periodic reminder that for all the artifacts and errors and "tells" one could possibly list, the only reliable way to actually determine if an image is ai generated is to investigate the source. it is becoming increasingly common for "fake classical paintings" to circulate around curative aesthetic blogs, and everyone should be using this as an opportunity to not only exercise their investigative skills but also appreciate art more in general. you're all checking out the artists you reblog, right? 🫣

so what are some signs to look for? let's use this very good example.

what a lovely late-impressionist piece blended with evocative leyendecker-esque themes! why haven't you ever heard of this artist before? surely tumblr would be all over an artist like this. who is justin brown?

your two options from here are to do a search for the name, or a reverse image search. i prefer reverse image searching, particularly when it comes to a common name like "justin brown". so what does that net?

Immediately, without looking at any text, something is wrong: it barely exists. an actual historical piece would turn up numerous results from websites individually discussing the piece, but no such discussions are taking place. Looking at the text, though, does show the source-- and at least in this case, the creator was honest about their medium.

But let's also look at the "exact matches", in case a source doesn't make itself apparent in the initial sidebar results like this.

This section will often tell you post dates of images, and here it can be seen that the very first iteration of the image was posted 15 days ago. It did not exist online prior to that.

Seeing how long an unsourced image has been floating around is a skill applicable to more than just generative images! See a cool image of an artifact or other intriguing item with a vivid caption? Reverse search it! If all the results are paired with that caption and only go back a few months, you might just have viral facebook spam.

Sometimes generative creators are dishonest about their medium and do not tag it like in the example, so that's when establishing "jpeg provenance" becomes important. While it can be a little trickier to determine if someone is using generative images and not admitting to it if they aren't trying to pass it off as a classic, something to consider is the age of their account and the frequency with which they post. Here are some account red flags:

-Did they only start posting art after 2022, or if they did before, did their style/skill level WILDLY change? Not gradual improvement-- I'm talking amateur graphite portraits straight into complex digital renders. Everyone starts somewhere, newness is not a red flag alone; it's newness combined with existing in a vacuum away from any community.

-Do they post fully-finished paintings several times a week? -Do many of these paintings seem iterative of a similar theme or subject matter ("three well-dressed young men face each other under shade and dappled sunlight")?

-Does their style change in inconsistent ways? An artist that can swap between painting like Drew Struzan and Hokusai should be pretty well known, right? Why is no one hyping this guy?!

-Do they have social media besides the source instagram? If so, what are they posting about? Are there any WIPs? Doodles? Interactions with other artists? Gallery dates? 3am self-doubt posts? Or is it all self-promo? Crypto? Seemingly nothing art-related at all for someone pushing out 3 weekly paintings?

Basically, if it's important to you to omit this stuff when you curate, please don't just smash reblog if the source doesn't seem to be the OP themselves. Seeking out sources was important even before this became an issue, now it is more than ever.

peace n love

[asteroidtroglodyte]

5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

10 years ago, I was watching my Potential and Opportunities dissolve and evaporate in an ocean of cheap gin and expensive whiskey.

But 5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

One of the exercises they had us perform was to imagine ourselves happy, 5 years in the future.

Many of us in that room had forgotten how to imagine nice things happening to them. A few snorted (well, I snorted), finding the notion that we’d even still be around in 5 years grimly humorous.

For about half of us, it was the last stop on the way down.

But I indulged the therapist. I was there, after all, because I did not want to die. So, I imagined myself, 5 years hence.

Happy.

It came to me all at once; an artistic remix on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want, reframed with myself placing food at the table.

Sunday Dinner At My Place, I answered, when it came my turn to share my fantasy. I was asked what food I imagined eating.

It’s not the meal itself, I said, it’s the implications framed around it. Sunday Dinner At My Place means that I have a Place. It means that I have Family that will actually speak to me and friends who actually want to see me. It means money enough not just to feed myself but others too. It means having the time to spare to take the time preparing the meal.

A lot of nodding heads all around me. A struck chord. Many people with no Place, in that place. Nowhere that would lament their leaving.

5 years hence, as I lay down to sleep in my Home, with my Wife and my Son, surrounded by my Art and my Flowers, I reflect.

It was a long road. It was hard. We lost people. So many people. There were long days and long nights and hospital stays. Angry arguments with ghosts. I changed, in ways I never hoped for, or expected. Good ways, finally, for once. Slowly, against the backdrop of a world in chaos, I found my mind.

Sometimes, My Wife wondered aloud, what she did to deserve me. After some stumbling with my feelings, I eventually settled on an answer.

I’m a Rescue.

She gave me a Home.

And, so, I gave her a Family.

It seemed fair

This Sunday, my folks, which whom I have not had a shouting match in years, will come over for dinner. We will cook and eat together. My Friend became My Wife, and she took a piece of me and with it she made Our Son. There will be many hugs, and no violence. Good Things Happened.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t know what the future holds.

don’t give up yet, ok?

It could get good, even.

[hannnsh]

joel’s music era 🎶

Joel’s Musician Era © 2025 by Hannnsh is licensed under CC BY 4.0

512 x 512 (size)

hi guys i have headache, anyways, this is for the sbc art gallery thing, i will post the submission on twt tho i think, so yea. still deciding on whether to submit this one or the painting i did, but definitely leaning on this one more ..

anyways lets talk abt the drawing itself bc i like to do that in my posts, lol. as always its tanuki joel, but i did change his tanuki colours for the one in the middle to make it more tanuki like colours ??? idk lol i did added the makeup on to make him look more tanuki esque yea :3

the cds i designed myself, according to the vibes of the songs, slime song has that sultry vibe (?) and so i made joel into this slazzy(? is that a word) businessman, that yknow has the vibe of his song and stuff

the joelbrina carpenter one, actually was sposed to be honey, honey, honey, and i was gonna use my crossdressing joel design bc it’s the shop mascot i made for the honey shop, but i felt like ppl will jump on me w it for feminising him, so i changed the concept and still made him crossdress but as sabrina carpenter !!!! atleast it has some sense yknow and not only me and the people that knows me that knows the context behind the mascot design stuff

the xp shop cd, i think thats self explanatory rlly, i had to look through many album covers for reference tho lol.. the honey 2.0, is actually a reference to abba !! got a reference with them wearing these blue suits, and it fits well as a contrast to the yellow orange background so it’s a win !!

no joke i was stressing a lot about this piece, mainly bc of the lineart and how BLURRY it is, one of the reasons being its on a small damn canvas 😭😭, but i want to thank all my friends in the boatboys server and others for helping me get through this, and helping me out w the designs and stuff yall are truly the best 💖

that is all from me bubye

[alienssstufff]

This Should've Been an Email

His mouth moved without it telling it to, then closed like whoever was possessing him didn’t know what to say either. There was something going on, something Etho could feel but didn’t understand. They were standing on the edge of the world, and Etho didn’t know how to tell Bdubs he was out of time. Was he out of time? Maybe he was just going insane again. Maybe-

“Etho, there’s a lot of void energy going on right now, can you focus-”

You can’t outsmart a god. You can only run.

-

[ READ HERE ] Latest addition to the Should've Could've Would've series and sequel to the YCAOverse byyyy incredible great @goingdownorup cinemaaaa is HERE and we are BACK IN THE BUILDING!!!

[rambling undercut]

you've fallen for my trap card, ramblings not about the actual fic yet sorry - I'm going to talk about art technicalities at you now :]

Ver without the text:

I drew this up on a whim immediately after finishing the first chapter. Other than it being fanart, this year I want to think smarter when making elaborate pieces - this being the one of the first experiments on it.

sketches have always been my starting foundation I usually go through a few iterations gradually building off the rough thumbnail all the way to lineart. Here I'm establishing perspective and rhythm (movement), using background and props to better frame the emphasis (focal) rather than overwhelm the eye with unnecessary detail.

Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier manga panels were an inspiration for the lineart (reoccuring character. WHA changed my life)

I even started actually putting base colours instead of skipping to shading... BASE COLOURS. BASE COLOURS WITHOUT SHADING? Crazy world we live in. Above were me testing which colours worked best for the background and purpose. Ethubs look a little out of place atm - this changes in solid filters

Shading itself was a lot of back and forth in constant fumbles to maintain the rhythm instructed in the lineart, adding emphasis how values needed to carry the visual communication of this piece especially with a line heavy background because of the wheatfields. Everything uses either cel shading, filters, or gradients - I wanted to find a way to add complexity to my regular rendering style without needing to manually blend/paint (takes too long)

During this stage, Heikala's watercolour art was the study in crowd control (backgrounds with organic repetition)

Smaller misc details that couldn't fit anywhere in the previous pages. Overall while there are some things I still would change/redo, overall very pleased as a first (second) attempt ^_^

[silkentine]

Wha--?! Silk finally finished her fem Zoro design after (checks notes) literally 6 months since she made the canvas in procreate?

I'll break down design thoughts and share some fun bonus pics under the cut:

I LOVE long hair on Zoro, I think that was the first change I wanted to implement. Zoro in canon actually has a really interesting relationship with gender dynamics which (if for some reason you're reading this and you haven't watched One Piece) can seem out of left field for the "dumb brute" character. His rivalry with and reverence for Kuina suggests he doesn't adhere to the idea that women are weaker than men. Later on, however, during his confrontation with Monet and Tashigi during Punk Hazard, his hesitation to slash her down reveals that he's subconsciously over-protective of women because he thinks they're inherently weaker. I actually don't have any problem with this character trait, I think it makes him feel more real as a person and he obviously gets shit-talked enough about it in the story itself. But how did I want to reflect these beliefs if Zoro had been born a woman? Easy: internalized misogyny and applying value to herself via her appearance.

My version of Zoro grew up wanting to fight with swords but her only chance of entering the dojo was to work under the proprietress, Lady Shimotsuki to maintain the property, cook meals for the male students, and eventually be a good wife to the current heir, Kuina. She learns that, to get what she wants, she must be the ideal woman, even if she stays up all night training swordsmanship with Kuina when she isn't supposed to. He treats her love for swordplay seriously and treats her like an equal, which sparks a bond between them and eventually leads to Zoro's goal of becoming the world's greatest swordsman after his sudden, accidental death.

After years of intense training (now that Lady Shimotsuki admits that she'll need a new heir and Zoro is the closest thing she has) Zoro's finally old enough to leave and begin her journey. She starts letting go of the idea that she has to look pulled together to be taken seriously because she can just kill anyone who looks down on her. Her clothing falls into disrepair, she wears outfits that help her move in combat, and she starts tossing her hair up into messy, knotted buns under her bandana. Even so, she keeps her hair long like rolling hills of grass. (At least during pre-timeskip. She lops off her hair to prove to Mihawk that she's serious about being trained.)

I've put her in a thin sweater that she stitches (poorly) back together after her first interaction with Mihawk. (I kept one sleeve because I was inspired by the santoryuu Nami that Oda drew that one time.) I also wanted to girl-ify the ubiquitous haramaki so I picked leg warmers for her because I think they're sufficiently "dated" enough to be kinda analogous with his old man belly warmer. I also love gyaru fashion, sue me.

Here is a screenshot of her as a blonde:

And here is a sketch of her post-timeskip where she's fully embraced her butch nature:

Hubba hubba, am I right?

Check out my tag "girl piece original design" to see more of my genderbending art! Next post, I'll put all my East Blue Crew designs together! I can't believe it's taken this long but I AM SO HAPPPPPYYYYY

[drchucktingle]

Chuck, how do you deal with people who are rude about you and your work? I write queer romance and I want to put my writing out there for people to read, but I'm a very sensitive person and I know it will be hard not to take insults personally and let them affect me. I don't want to let that stop me from expressing myself and sharing my art, but I'm scared!

very good question buckaroo. i am a good example of this as pretty much EVERYONE was rude about my work for many years calling it 'so bad its good' (it is just good) and 'terrible photoshop' (i think it has a great and instantly recognizable style) and 'intentionally stupid premises' (i dont think there is anything stupid about sex being fun and whimsical and playful). even these days the reaction of the VAST majority of buckaroos who discover chuck have this reaction AT FIRST, and then learn to appreciate the tingleverse in a more sincere way over time.

all that is to say BEING DOUBTED HAS WORKED OUT VERY WELL FOR ME. art that changes meaning over time can be very powerful, so if someones initial reaction to my trot is one thing and then it evolves into another thing, well that is just good art. while it can feel bad to get a bad review, i would say a bad review just means you have entered a realm of tension and change and discord and WE ARE TALKIN ABOUT ART BUD so that, in itself, is very exciting.

i think of what i do as 'punk writing', and a big part of that means pushing against preconceived sensibilities. not many other authors will proudly say 'there SHOULD be some spelling errors in my erotic shorts because i wrote it in a day and edited it once. that is the FEELING i want to create', but that is my way. by creating what is in my soul i KNOW i am going to bother some buckaroos and that is okay.

now i am NOT assuming you are also doing punk writing (that is okay of course we all have our own styles. what i am doing with tinglers is pretty rare), but it still stands to remember that there are 7.8 billion people on the planet of this dang timeline and some of them are bound to be bothered by your creations. that is not a problem, that is just part of baring your authentic self.

the other thing to remember is theres no REAL right or wrong in art. it can be analyzed in different ways and i tend to look at it in a way of comparing intention to result, but even THAT is not strictly correct. therefore any bad review of something you make is not actually BAD it is just someones information and feedback for you to take or leave. a one star review is just another opinion, it is no more right or wrong than your own opinion, and that is wonderful. it is freeing.

if i see a bad review of my own book, lets just say CAMP DAMASCUS for instance, i do not get upset because i know this: that reviewer is not wrong. camp damascus is five stars for me, but it is one star for someone else AND THAT IS OK. THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. THAT IS GREAT ART. also MAYBE THEY KNOW BETTER THAN I DO. just because i wrote the book does not mean i am the authority on it, and the conversation and tension between those that enjoy something and those that despise it is a creative act. the audience engaging with your work is just your art emerging from its cocoon and saying 'here i am. lets see where i flutter off to now'

do not fear the river of this timeline sweeping away your creations and carrying them where it will. this is inevitable, but it is also beautiful and freeing. you cannot swim against it and that is okay bud, because YOU HAVE ALREADY WON. you have already created something and given a piece of yourself back to this timeline and that is a great honor and privilege. it is literally all there is

by creating ANYTHING you are proving love is real, and that is something to be proud of

[boydepartment]

three strikes - nishimura riki x fem! reader

a/n: HIIIIII this was a request from my 🧈 anon :3 i hope you love it my dear

warnings- jealousy! nothing insane tho, mostly fluff 😋 i added a small inside joke that riki would call ricky from zb1 “discount ricky” all jokes tho (pls don’t kill me)

wc- honestly over 750

MASTERLIST

“here.” you looked over to riki setting your drink down on the table, you looked up at him and smiled as he sat down across from you at the cafe table.

“did you-“

“ask for extra peppermint? yes. even though it’s gross..” riki mumbled, you giggled and sipped your hot coco. it was freezing cold at least to you and so the coco helped a lot.

“when is your project partner arriving?” riki mumbled, sipping his coffee.

you shrugged, “any minute.” setting your coco down riki watched you, he wasn’t necessarily happy over this whole project partner thing. riki knew your project partner, and safe to say he was just irritated by his presence. he didn’t know why, but he was just irked.

so when the OTHER ricky walked in, he just waved and watched as the other boy sat next to you.

“hey y/n!” he smiled, you grinned back at him.

“hey! it’s cold outside are you sure you’re bundled up enough?” you asked, grabbing your books. riki just decided to go on his phone to pass time.

“yeah! it’s crazy how quickly the weather changed huh? are you warm enough?”

you and ricky made small talk which didn’t bother your best friend. that was until one sentence.

“your hands are freezing y/n!”

riki’s eyes shot up to see the discount ricky’s hands on yours. if stares could kill a man, discount ricky would be six feet under.

“oh! yeah that’s why riki, well, my riki got me hot coco.” you let go of his hand and turned to your hot beverage.

nishimura riki would be lying if he said some pride didn’t bubble up inside him, which didn’t go unnoticed by the boy sitting next to you.

riki didn’t take notice and he went back on his phone, he just wanted your project to be over so he could walk back to the car with you and just be away from people. by people he meant discount ricky. this was strike one for his patience.

“i think we should work more on the details of the piece of art itself. like things that normal people look past in monet’s art. there’s a story everywhere.” you suggested, this art project was pretty big for your grade. and you were just relieved that your project partner agreed to do monet.

“that’s such a good idea y/n.” ricky smiled.

oh please riki thought to himself, at that point discount ricky should just get on his hands and knees and beg for your attention. that’d be way less embarrassing than kissing your ass at every little- wait what the hell

to riki’s horror, discount ricky, was readjusting your beanie so your hair didn’t get in your face. this pissed him off, strike two of his patience gone. riki was the one who spent HOURS trying to crochet you that beanie last year and now he’s going to have to make you another one because discount ricky’s grimy hands touched it! riki felt his eye twitch, he ended up making eye contact with the boy next to you. a smirk ghosting his features.

riki wanted to kick his shin under the table or maybe throw his hot coffee-

“i think we should also choose one of monet’s less known works aswe- oh ouch…” you mumbled rubbing your hands, whenever you wrote or sketched too long your hands would hurt. riki always took notice of this so he looked up proper hand massages- safe to say he could be certified- WHAT THE SHIT?

discount ricky grabbed your hands and started massaging them.

strike three

“can you get your hands off her?!” riki finally snapped, “god at this point it’s revolting! i’m right in front of both of you!”

your eyes widened as you watched you best friend actually lose his temper, yeah you’d seen him bicker but this was different.

“what are you two dating?” ricky asked, if you were in a tv show you’d see the angry lightening bolt hit both of them. this was not good, you quickly packed your bags and grabbed your best friend. apologizing to your project partner.

“what’s his fucking problem?!” riki stomped through the fresh snow to your car.

“what’s his problem?! what’s your problem? what the hell was that?! are you okay?!” you had a million questions. and they were flying out.

“i- what- how is this my fault!? he had his grimy discount ricky hands all over you! only i’m allowed to do that as your best friend!”

it was really hard to take him seriously as you finally got to the car laughing. you leaned against the hood trying to catch your breath.

“y/n this isn’t funny!” he stood right next to you.

you finally caught your breath, “i’m sorry where did the nickname discount ricky come from?”

“well obviously i’m the better one way more deserving of, um hello, touching your hair, massaging your hands because im youtube certified, AND THE COLD HANDS THING?! he was flirting with you shamelessly in front of me!” riki swung his arms around like a crazy person trying to explain that the end was near.

your hat fell slightly as you laughed again which riki fixed gently before speaking again, “then he’d smirk at me like he knew he was getting on my nerves! like that discount version of ME KNEW HE WAS MAKING ME ANGRY!”

“should i take my hat off and give you sanitizer? since you touched my discount ricky infected beanie?” you asked, unlocking the car and throwing your backpack in the back. you turned around and bumped into riki.

“actually yeah take off that hat. i will sanitize it and crochet you a new one.” riki grabbed the hat off your head and gave you his own beanie.

“should i sanitize my hands too?” you asked giggling, going to open your door but slipping on black ice.

riki immediately caught you, “um guess who couldn’t catch you- discount ricky. i’m clearly better for you so.”

you started laughing again, hitting his chest playfully, “you’re acting like a jealous boyfriend.”

“is that a bad thing?” riki asked quickly, suddenly unsure of himself.

you shook your head no, “it’s cute.”

riki smiled down at you; it was obvious he was at least a little smug.

“you know what he didn’t contaminate?” you asked, still giggling, your eyes flickered from riki’s eyes to his lips. immediately he got the hint and took his chance.

discount ricky is out and nishimura riki hit a home run

[lurking-loaf]

FazEnt Marketing Team: "Kids like memes right?"

Day 5 of DCA Promptober - artistic license redraw of the "You wouldn't download a car" meme

Since I had to shrink and trim the original art really small to make the gif fit tumblr's maximum upload size, here are the images in non-crunchy form.

The way the two images are laid out above is actually the way they were going to be posted before my 11th hour "Hey! Let's try animating it!" moment. Also, I had zero experience doing any sort of digital animation before this simple one. I'm not sure what the protocol is for using meme templates so I approximated the original text for use in this piece just to be on the safe side. I also redrew the daycare logo itself and changed aspects of it for some reason. Also also, I used the noise brush for the first time to made tv static instead of just finding and using a royalty free image of some sort because it is essential I make things more difficult than they need to be.

[dexjarxenoengage]

The Humans in Metaphor Refantazio are mostly inspired by the artwork brought to us by Hieronymus Bosch and his most notable work: The Garden of Earthly Delights. And IMO, Atlus choosing this artist’s work to tell the story of Metaphor: Refantazio and its themes of racism and fear and anxieties is an excellent choice.

That being said, not every Human Boss in this game are based on Bosch’s work, some take their own ideas in mind, while others have their own interpretations they take after. Speaking of which, I want to talk about how each of the Human Bosses that Will and his crew face in the game each represents the Seven Deadly Sins. Why? Because the Garden of Earthly Delights perfectly represents the things that happen in the Bible, from the start a beauty of the garden up until its, and humanities fall from grace. Even if the translation from Google Translate aren’t perfect, we can use them to best determine why they represent that sin.

This will be discussing the bosses we face in the game, the story behind them, as well as the final boss. So naturally, there will be spoilers.

I will talk about each Human boss enemy we face in order of when we encounter them. Melancholia Zorba will not count for this discussion, but I will talk about Zorba later. Since we don’t face Will has a human boss, I won’t be counting him for this list either.

This list is inspired by the mini bosses we fight in the final dungeon: The Tyrant Star. You have to fight the Humans you have encountered over the course of the game in order to weaken Destroyer Charadrius’ final form. Choosing not to results in Destroyer Charadrius getting more Press Turns, a higher level and each of the abilities said humans (you get a trophy for doing this).

I decided to go back and change some things after looking at the translations (however poor) of the Human Monsters, I was right to assume about one of the humans, but after looking deeper into things, I was surprised to find that some of the humans represent these sins very subtly more often than not.

We start with Homo Gorleo (translation: Human Throat), the human we fight at the Border fort and where Will awakens to his Archetype. I have been debating on whether I want to give the sin representation to this beast, it was between Gluttony and Greed. After translating its name, “human throat,” I was really scratching my head.

So this could mean that Homo Gorleo is in fact the sin of Gluttony. But surely there has to be more to it than just simply eating from its own body to sustain itself. Gluttony means overindulging and taking on more than one can chew. So it is a type of greed, in a way, I wasn’t completely wrong when I had the idea of giving it the sin of greed.

More importantly, this human embodies the actions of Klinger, who sent Will, Strohl, and many others to die at that human’s hands (or legs, in this case) in order to give more merit to Louis’ words and increase his own political influence. And if he had succeeded to get away with this, many others would have shared the same fate as those in the fort and the victims of Halia (Strohl’s home village).

Klinger embodies the nasty side of nobility that gorges on the wealth they are blessed with. While Strohl is the noble that lost everything and has learned that he needs to use what he has to help the less fortunate. And helping the weak becomes the main slogan of Will’s team when the Tournament for the Throne begins.

Next is Homo Avades, which is the Human in the Box art and matches Hieronymus Bosch’s most iconic art piece. The name of this human actually gives the idea on what sin it represents: Homo Avades roughly translates to English as “a person who is greedy.” This Human is the one that Louis brought to the Grand Cathedral in order to give his speech on the humans and his duty to slay them as proof that he should be the rightful ruler.

Homo Avades is one of the humans that was majorly advertised throughout the marketing for this game. It serves as our first major boss in the game (as in our first major fight during the story operations in the game). And this human representing greed is symbolic of the fact that this game as a whole, both in the place we are fighting in and throughout Euchronia, are (for the most part) living for their own selfish desires. So in a way, Homo Avades is one of the first representatives of what Will and the others have to fight against moment to moment.

And also, the reason why we have to fight in the first place is because Zorba, Louis’s right hand man, revives it in his attempt to spite the society that rejected him. In a way, this is his “selfish” attempts to fight against the cruel system that he hates.

Will, Strohl and Hulkenburg (and Gallica) fought bravely to stop the human from destroying Royal Capital. This act of bravery gives Will and the others some renown, which would be needed for the upcoming tournament; and more importantly, stay true to the act of winning the faith of the people.

The Greatworm Homo Butera was the other Human I was debating on whether its the seen of Gluttony or Greed. But after finally settling on Gluttony and Greed for both Homo Gorleo and Avades respectively, this is the human I needed time to realize what it embodies. Homo Butera translated to “Buttery Man.” That’s… not exactly helpful for this post or imposing.

That being said, given the understanding of the word “butter,” it does fit with the theme of eating that comes with the Martira arc. This includes introducing Hulkenburg’s love for… “unconventional” food. This as well includes Homo Jaluzo, whom we will talk about later, that is being fed with adults and children alike.

Back to the topic at hand though, it’s possible that Homo Butera symbolizes lust. Reasoning being is that there is another way we can interpret the word “buttery,” and that is through another term like “butter up.” To “butter up” something or someone is to entice them with empty words or promises. This is best shown when Morris (one of the key figures behind the kidnappings Will and the others are tasked to stop) gives Will and the others an idea on how to find Heismay without getting caught up in the Sandworm. He was lying, and Will and the others get eaten by the human worm as a result.

The themes of lust, and by extension, the term that we are using to describe the themes of this human, continues while trapped inside of its stomach. The goal of this dungeon is to escape out of the worm’s… “other hole” within the time limit. During which, you can try to get as many items as possible, because you can play through this Dungeon again after you are through with it. If you get too caught up chasing after items, you may run out of time to escape and will get a game over for it. Which is why I prefer to just get to the exit as soon as possible.

And finally, there is Morris himself after he is ratted out to be the kidnapper. Morris’s reason for helping Joanna kidnap and feed people to Homo Jaluzo is because he just wanted to fatten his piggy bank. Ultimately he gets his comeuppance, as he becomes Homo Jaluzo’s last meal.

Speaking of Homo Jaluzo, this was the easiest Human Sin symbolism to find. This was the only human translation I could get that I actually liked and was the perfect symbolism for. Jaluzo is the Esperanto term for “jealousy,” which is the perfect symbolism for a grieving mother who lost her half breed son to cruelty. And thus Homo Jaluzo’s sin undoubtedly, envy.

It’s perfect for the Joanna to represent the sin of envy as well. Homo Jaluzo served as a replacement to her deceased son, and thus she takes her anger out on other parents who have children out of rage for those parents have, but she had taken from her. The difference between how Zorba and Joanna take their anger out is this: Zorba is out on the entire society, while Joanna has (mostly) targeted the people that had children out of spite for what she had lost. It isn’t until Heismay (who Joanna framed, but also lost his own child) chose to understand what drove her down this path that Joanna sees the error of her ways.

The Sea Horror Homo Sabara’s name translates to “a person who is a sabar.” This made absolutely NO sense to me whatsoever. So I looked up the word “Sabar” and the closest word I could find to match is the word “Sabr.”

“Sabr” or “Sabar” is an old phrase that emphasizes on waiting, perseverance and patience. So staying true to this talking about what sins relate to each of the human boss fights, the closest thing we have is wrath. Wrath is extreme anger that blinds your ability to think rationally. The EXACT opposite of being patient.

Now how does this fight with symbolism of this fight? For context, this fight takes place on the way to Virga Island. During the trip, the Magnus Brothers (Basilio and Fidelio) have joined the ride to spy on Will and Junah, so they get caught in the crossfire because of it.

The reason for why I believe Sabara represents the sin of wrath is because of how it ties into Fidelio’s character. Fidelio (and his brother) were victims of Igniter experimental abuse (alongside many other Paripus (one of which led to Heismay losing his son, hence why he hates the Paripus) and had hated the church and the late king ever since. This leads them to meet Saint Rella and Junah, with the brothers falling in love with the surrogate siblings.

Fidelio’s main flaw comes down to his irrationality towards the things he doesn’t agree with. Be it the party’s philosophy and how they wish to save Eupha during the mission for the Lance, or his opinions on King Hythlodaeus and hatred towards the church. In contrast, Basilio has the emotional intelligence needed to see the bigger picture and truly ask Basilio if what they are doing is truly right.

The only time Basilio has lost his cool is when Fidelio died from protecting from Louis attack on some church folk. Fidelio dies with clarity on the fact that his rage towards the world blinded him to the fact that there are other people who were in his position that may have needed help like he did. And as for Basilio, if Eupha hadn’t yelled him back into sensibility, he would have wasted his brother’s sacrifice.

And then we get to Basilio’s awakening. It’s thanks to Fidelio’s reminder that he has the strength to protect the weak that gives Basilio the courage to move forward without him. And in contrast to many other awakenings in this game, Basilio calmly says goodbye his brother outside of the battlefield.

“See ya around, Del.” - Basilio

Basilio’s starting Archetype is the Berserker. So in a twist of irony, Basilio awakens to a wrathful Archetype in the calmest manner possible. It symbolizes Basilio tapping into those emotions into power without succumbing to them. And thus, Basilio controlled his wrath.

Homo Margo’s name is translated roughly as “human on the edge.” It’s a fitting for the story of the Mustari who are relying on human sacrifices to cure their fears and anxieties (such as our party member to be Eupha). Homo Margo is pretty much a Mustari turned into a Human. So the best sin to associate Homo Margo is Sloth.

Sloth is basically stillness in effort, laziness to put it simply. It perfectly represents the people of Virga Island rely on their teachings and their dragon god to be their shelter in the storm. Eupha herself admits that she had simply her teachings and worries of the people as her crutch for the choices she makes, which would have led to an undignified and senseless death.

It’s thanks to the Will and the others that she learns and accepts the truth. She finally understands what the human that possessed Eht represents: an unwillingness to see or confront what’s in front of them. And thus it blinds them to the truth. By learning from these mistakes, Eupha becomes a priestess with the courage and assertiveness to ascertain her own answer to life.

From then on, Eupha makes the willing choice to travel with Will and the others so that she can grow both as a Priestess and as a person. Eupha becomes more open towards her own emotions and opinions such as when she suggests to tell the Magnus brothers the truth on why they wanted to kill Louis. As well as Eupha being the most outspoken when Basilio was going to chase after Louis after Fidelio’s death.

And last, but most definitely not least, is Louis’s Human form: Destroyer Charadrius. Unlike the many other Humans in the game that were made with Hieronymus Bosch in mind, Destroyer Charadrius is based on Lucifer of the Divine Comedy: Inferno. So it’s only natural that his assigned sin is none other than Pride: the foundation of all sins according to the Bible.

Louis’ fatal flaw has always been pride. This is best shown as the game continues into the final arc. When Will and the others are close to beating him during the fight at Grand Trad on 9/24, Louis resorts to using his magic on Will to transform him into a Human to make the people of the country lose faith in him.

Louis prides himself on the beliefs that power is the deciding factor of the world he plans on creating. But were that the case, one would think Louis should have just accepted defeat the very moment Will and Co. proved their strength to stand against him. But Louis uses a cowardly trick in the midst of the duel to make Will seem like the bad guy.

Louis’s pride, above everything else, prevents him from seeing how he falls short of the very ideals he speaks of. He can’t think for one second at the very thought that he was in the wrong. Which is why he makes it clear that he will kill anyone who doesn’t agree with him.

Louis Social Darwinist worldview (or at least he plans on acting on it) revolves around turning the Royal Sceptre’s accumulated anxiety onto the people to see which people would survive the human transformation and gain more power and who wouldn’t. But Louis fails to realize that his philosophy will backfire because the human transformation is caused by mass amounts of Magla that can’t be controlled (which leads to his own human transformation at the end of the game).

Louis’s refusal to accept his faults or learn to quit when he was ahead finally leads to his death at Will’s hand after awakening his final Archetype.

Will and his friends all have learned to be open to different perspectives without losing themselves to their fears and anxieties. But Louis himself is blind to his own weaknesses and didn’t open his eyes to that truth, it ends with him falling short on his beliefs and dying in the process.

We are done with talking about all of the human bosses and how they represent the seven deadly sins. But there actually is one more unorthodox sin that some scriptures have to be an 8th sin: Despair.

Despair is the ultimate killer of idealism and the ability to believe. This chain of despair from Hythlodaeus losing his wife and son, to Louis losing faith in the king after getting blamed for the Prince’s curse is what led to the chain of events that caused this story in the first place. And had Will fallen into despair over the state of the world in any of the bad endings, he would have been no different than both Louis and Hythlodaeus.

I did say I wouldn’t count Will as part of this list, and said that I would mention Zorba. But the reason for why I’m doing this at all is because it’s important to tie in despair with how the fears and anxieties of the world serves as the fuel behind the Human transformations to begin with.

Melancholia is dense and uncontrollable Magla that can drive any person or beast to insanity. Melancholia itself is a term for “melancholy,” meaning deep sadness. And thus, back to the point of why Louis’s philosophy was doom to fail him, he couldn’t overcome the fears and anxieties that came from the day he lost his family and home to the flames of the church. And thus he takes that sadness out on others (namely Strohl with Halia).

Zorba himself was already a madman long before his human transformation, and thus is the reason why he could “maintain” his physical body.

The Archetypes are supposed be the power that comes from overcoming one’s anxieties. And with it, the power of magic.

Now back to Will and the themes of despair. It’s only as Will maintains his hope and idealism that he truly becomes king. But this is where the Elegy of the Soul comes into play. While this boss is not a human enemy, it’s a dragon that has been overtaken by the fears and anxieties of the people. Thus the Elegy of the Soul represents the potential destruction that can be brought out by the future “hero.” That hero being Will, so this is the closest we get to fighting “Will” as a corrupted version of himself.

This fight is proof that even if Will becomes the king and stops Louis, it doesn’t guarantee that the world will become a truly perfect Utopia. But Will’s character is about striving for a better world is the better alternative than giving up on it/destroying it. And thus, Will’s character is also about maintaining hope in a way that More and Louis could not.

And that power is what it means to face fears and anxieties and become a true king.

[thedustyleaves]

Sorry if you’ve answered this before, but I really love how your illustrations have such a cohesive color palette, how do you pick your colors to have a certain theme without looking monochromatic?

(In your breakdown on the saloon/western BP illustration, you mentioned that the overall color was reddish brown so you added blue to the main group to set them apart. But like how did you decide on which reddish brown colors to use for the flats?)

Thank you!! Your art is really expressive and the colors always work so well in the illustration. I’m always in awe of your pics

That’s an excellent question! My drawings actually start out pretty monochromatic because I tend to put most of my effort into the lighting and shading part to help differentiate where I want people to look.

For all of my pieces, I want my characters to be in focus. So no matter what, I always have to keep their main colors in mind and make sure their outfits and the background don’t clash with them (Kain’s red hair tends to be a problem, pft).

For my flats, I generally work with two main colors that tend to contrast each other and then I mix a lot of neutrals around them. (Sometimes the main colors are in the light and shading itself, but I’ll just focus on the flats!).

Sometimes, I will change the hue of their colors. So while Kain has bright orange hair, I will dull it down if it overwhelms the piece or doesn’t fit with the tone - like I did for the cowboy drawing - but never so much that it no longer looks like him.

With the cowboy drawing as an example, if I strip it down to my flats, it instantly becomes very dull and monochromatic. I really enjoy working with these colors because they’re easy on the eyes (or my eyes specifically) and I can see the difference in subtle hues a lot better than if they were very high in contrast. I like working with subtleties when I want background characters to become a single unit but still be separated as individual people.

When I picked the colors for the background, I wanted to separate the characters from the walls. Therefore, I kept the walls red and gold, and the characters brown - they’re still within the same warm-colored family, but they’re far enough away from each other that they don’t become one with each other. I also like to not have clothes from different characters blend together, so overlapping colours can't be the same. I made one coat lighter than the other, the glove warmer than the dark jacket, and so on.

(their coats are also in the same realm as the green/gold colour of the details for the curtains and the frames on the walls)

For the paintings I actually chose to put a bit of blue and green in to help create some interest for the main characters and keep your eyes around that area, as it matches the blue they’re wearing, just a whole lot darker. It also makes them pop just enough so they look interesting against the wall, but not enough to overshadow the main characters

I know, because of the way I work with layers, that when I add my overlays, I automatically brighten and saturate the colors a lot. It’s a lot easier for me to saturate something “dull” and move it into all kinds of hues than saturating something already high in contrast and then trying to force it into a new color theme.

But because of this, I usually have to go back and change the colors I work with constantly while the overlays are on. Since the overlays don’t know what sort of materials they’re laying on top of, everything gets lighter and washed out, so dark skin tones, hair, and clothes have to be corrected one by one afterward. If I were to remove the overlays after I corrected it to make it feel like a dark blue outfit on Raki, it’s basically just a black void now; but with the overlay, it’s a dark blue outfit. Before that, he simple blended in with the background too much and he didn’t feel like he was a part of the group either. 

I always try to put down colors how I imagine they’re going to look like, unaffected by light, but I’m also naturally drawn toward more earthy and warm tones, so all of my color choices will tend to lean that way.

Here’s another example of main colours vs. neutrals; the main colours are red and green/turquoise, with dark browns and greys to encapsulate them, and gold for accents or to make certain things pop (the chair, Dakon’s dark coat, etc.).

I never want them all to wear the exact same color, but I want them to feel connected and be in the same 'colour family,' so Dakon and Kain have nearly the same dark red/brown, and Christie and Raki have nearly the same 'bright'/red.

The blacks and browns, I’ve kept warm as well, so they stay within that realm of red. I also make sure that none of them are too close to Kain’s hair since he’s in the middle of the piece, and I want your eyes to be drawn toward the middle, and his orange hair helps with that.

The paintings I basically do not care too much about, as long as each individual painting has a single dominating colour. I mute them down with a darker overlay and ensure they don’t have strong shadows and light, so they get pushed to the background, so despite being a bunch of different colours, each painting feels like a solid color and they’re still cast in the same light as the rest of the piece, so they feel like they belong in the same room.

I try to help move the eye around the piece as well, so I keep the big painting sort of in the same realm of red and brown as the main characters, because it’s so big it shouldn’t dominate with a new color and force interest toward it. The blue/purple ones melt in with the background as they’re close to the turquoise background, but without disappearing, the yellow ones work sort of like the gold accents and blend in with the frames, and the green paintings at the top give the illusion of a monochrome fade, so everything gets more eerie and green as the image goes up - there’s also a subtle green fade that affects the gold accents from the top down, to enhance that effect.

This is just a few examples, if there are any pieces in particular you were thinking of, and it’s neither of these, just let me know, and I can break those down as well!

Thank you for the question; I hope I answered it somewhat, and thank you for the kind words! <3

[clarionglass]

so i have been bitten by the sam reich!master bug courtesy of some phenomenal art by @northernfireart and uh. as is too often the case i had to write something otherwise if i didn't get it out of my brain i would go absolutely insane

(there may be more vignettes coming if i have ideas..... there are definitely other episodes i'd like to give the Treatment to, plus with the new dw series coming out on the weekend i may have ideas for how to incorporate the dw gang! however, i promise neither more writing or no more writing. that said, this was a lot of fun so there'll probably be more at some stage :D )

this has full spoilers for the game changer ep "escape the greenroom", but hey that's been out for a while now so,,,, if you haven't seen it i'd highly recommend it as an episode!

so, without further ado:

--

Samuel Dalton was a complete fiction, of course, but that didn't mean that when Sam Reich snuck back upstairs to get tied up in the “out of order” bathroom, the Sam that remained on the monitor, laughing at the contestants, was a pre-recording. And if Brennan, Siobhan and Lou had snorted at the idea of a time-travelling evil magician great-grandfather (for good reason), going in with the actual truth of the matter would have sounded like jumping the shark.

It sounded bizarre, but the time travel bit was the only part about his new partner in crime that was confirmably real. Admittedly, the jury was still out on “evil”—he gave off a weird vibe at times, but so far, no lines had been crossed, and it had all been funny as hell—so for now, Sam was willing to roll with it. But perhaps most surprisingly, there wasn’t even the possibility of blood relation between Samuel Dalton Reich and the guy who had shown up out of the blue one day with his exact face and a plan to really fuck around with things on Game Changer.

Yeah, the whole alien thing had really ruled out that particular prospect.

There had been various bits and pieces of confirmation that this guy wasn’t human through the time Sam had known him, but the final nail in the coffin for that one was when his doppelganger had looked him dead in the eye and tried on one of the heart rate monitors—sorry, “range extenders”—for As a Cucumber. The damn thing had literally sparked up, then died completely. Trying to process input from two separate heartbeats at once would do that, apparently. 

His doppelganger was a Time Lord, or so he had nonchalantly said one afternoon in casual conversation, though Sam still wasn’t sure if that one was a joke or not. It was hard to tell, sometimes, because he said the wildest things with the straightest face, and so far, most of them had turned out to be one hundred percent certifiably true. The time travel, the space travel, even the changing faces thing—it sounded objectively insane, but the proof was undeniable. 

There were some notable exceptions, though. Saying he’d been trapped for aeons inside Neil Patrick Harris’s gold tooth went just that bit too far to be believable, though Sam did appreciate his double’s slightly warped sense of humour.

It was that offbeat line of thinking that lent itself well to game design, as it turned out. He had a knack for coming up with ideas for Game Changer episodes, albeit with the occasional suggestion that went way beyond the bounds of good taste, and, as in the case of Escape the Greenroom, had devised some blinding twists on concepts Sam had already half-formed. The letter puzzle unlocking the secret door? It was perfect.

Understandably, Sam’s doppelganger had wanted to observe the fruits of their labours in real time, rather than watching the recording later. It happened, sometimes, particularly when it was one of his ideas that had made it through to the episode list—they’d swap places for a session, with nobody being any the wiser. Watching those edits back always felt a bit weird—it was uncanny how flawless the mimicry was—but hey, the guy was right. It was always fun.

Escape the Greenroom, specifically, with its “Samuel Dalton” conceit, provided them with a unique opportunity. Instead of swapping out the camera feed for a recording when the cast piled into the tiny secret room behind the wall, as per the original plan to get Sam in position to be discovered in the bathroom, they could just swap out the people. Sam would go upstairs, and his double would take his place at the podium, ducking out of sight when everyone came back to the main stage to “defuse the bomb”.

Sam was keen—hell, if their situations had been reversed, he’d want to be there to watch, too—but caution raised a flag. “You don’t think it’s too risky?” he’d asked when the subject was first raised. “Both of us being in the same place?”

His doppelganger had shrugged one shoulder with supreme unconcern. “The crew won't notice.”

At the time, Sam had shot him a sceptical look, but right now, Sam-Reich-in-a-purple-tie and Sam-Reich-in-an-orange-tie were standing backstage post-record, clearly visible and and calmly chatting, and not a single member of the crew had given them so much as a second glance. 

…Hardly even a first glance, come to think about it. If anyone looked over their way, their eyes seemed to… not exactly go through them, but slide over the two of them like water. He was tempted to wave to Nico or Ash or someone, just out of pure curiosity, but something in the back of his mind told him that wouldn’t be the world’s greatest idea. He had a funny feeling he wouldn’t like to see what would happen next.

(He’d given the prop bomb back to the crew once the cameras stopped rolling, and though it looked the same as the one he remembered from before he’d headed upstairs, it felt different in his hands. Heavier, more… serious, somehow. He was sure nothing would have happened—but at the same time, he was suddenly very glad that the cast had cut the correct wire with no less than a minute fifteen to go.)

(The jury was still out on evil, after all.)

“Worth coming in for?” he asked instead.

“Absolutely,” his double replied with relish. “Locking those three in a small room for an hour? Brilliant, fantastic. Inspired. It was absolute chaos.”

“Have you seen up there?” Sam asked, a smile starting to spread across his face. “They messed up the set real bad.”

His doppelganger smirked at him. “You know it took literally two seconds from you telling them to escape the greenroom for Lou to smash that guitar?”

Sam shook his head. “Oh my god. Yeah, they were stressed.” 

“Mmm. Some real panic in that room,” his doppelganger agreed, and Sam chose to ignore the faint note of satisfaction in his voice.

He shifted his weight, settling back to lean against the table behind the set, in the exact instant his double decided to do the same thing. It really was freaky how similar they were, down to the smallest mannerism—like looking in a mirror, only weirder, because the face that looked back at him was truly his own face, not mirror-reversed. Even now, it still caught Sam off guard from time to time, but at least it had faded into a more comfortable kind of strange. He had an exact lookalike who was an actual time-travelling alien. Cool. Doesn’t everyone?

The pair shared a companionable silence for a few moments, before a thought Sam had been turning over for a while rose to the top of his mind. He shifted again, this time on his own, and he felt his double’s regard swing up to fix on him like a magnet. 

“Okay, real talk,” he started, and his doppelganger frowned back in an approximation of confused innocence. “What’s all this for?”

“Who says it has to be for anything? Aren't we just having fun?”

Sam hummed, considering. “Yeah. No, I'd believe that, if I didn't sometimes walk into production meetings and find out I'd apparently been very specific about the people I wanted for certain episodes.”

“Point for Sam,” his doppelganger acknowledged with a grin. “You got me. Wasn’t hard to make a few phone calls on our joint behalf.”

“Yeah, but why?” Sam pressed. “I mean, Siobhan, Brennan and Lou are always great comedy value when you put them together, and it was awesome to have them for this, but I get the feeling you’re thinking of something other than making good content.”

“Who, me?”

With that, his double gave him a look of such overdone pantomime innocence that Sam suddenly and thoroughly understood why, not half an hour earlier, Brennan had very seriously threatened to push him down the stairs. 

He rolled his eyes, which earned him a smirk for his troubles.

Dropping the act, his doppelganger continued. “I’m expecting an… old friend, I guess, to show up at some point, and—well, I’d like to put on a really special show for them. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a few things out, you know?”

Ominous pause aside, that was actually kind of sweet. Sweeter than he’d been expecting, that’s for sure—he was half anticipating the revelation that he and his cast were subjects in some weird experiment. Hey, that still couldn’t fully be ruled out, but still.

“Okay,” he acquiesced. “Well… just let me know, next time? Before you start ordering in my cast like takeout?”

“Who says they’re your cast?” his double shot back with a twinkle in his eye, and Sam snorted.

“Fine. Our cast, then. But seriously, let me know?”

His doppelganger nodded, which, if not quite fully convincing, was good enough. 

“Oh, and do you know when your friend might be arriving?” Sam asked. “Because if you wanted to plan something, we can—”

“I don’t know,” his doppelganger interrupted. “So yeah, we’ll have to move fast when they do get here. But I’ve got it under control.”

He broke off, then shot Sam a mischievous grin. “In the meantime, though, I’ve had this fun thought about time loops…”

[zeroducks-2]

I am conflicted. Your SlaDick art makes me go hnngg, but I've never found Slade to be a particularly interesting character. A good 80% of what I see about him on here is just discourse, which usually points towards a character being super intriguing, but most of what I've read in the comics he just seems like 'Generic Assassin Character With Bonus Divorced Dad Elements' What am I missing out on???

(Also, can I have a link to your header image? I need to reblog that asap)

Hey Tiger! How are you doing? Unfortunately I can't give you a tumblr link to my header image because tumblr's puritan ass considers it too much and took the post down LOL (it is literally just a guy in lingerie so idk what they're on about). You can have the Bluesky link instead.

Okay so about Slade. I honestly don't get the whole, uhh... "it's funny cause he's divorced" thing going on in the Slade fanbase. Like yeah he used to be a military man, he got married and had kids, but because he secretly became a mercenary and made lots of enemies, one of his sons very nearly died and his wife (understandably!) divorced him for it. I don't get what's funny about it, I don't get why people go "LOLOL he's a divorced guy!" like where's the punchline exactly? Lots of people get divorced is that a funny thing...?

Well but anyway. He used to be a very complex, very gray character in the 80s, when he was written by Wolfman and Perez. Initially he was not exactly a bad guy despite acting in the role of an antagonist, he was going against the Titans to honor the memory of his dead eldest son. Of course being a mercenary with little qualms about killing people put him in the gray area by default, but he was nice with the kids when the situation allowed it, very loving towards his middle child (Joseph, who also was a Titan), and he and Dick held mutual respect for each other (to the point that Dick convinced Bruce that Slade was actually a good man, and a honorable man who would never break his word. Which tbf was true).

The run Deathstroke The Terminator which ran from 1991 to 1996 is interesting and complex, selling itself like a Macho Man Thing! With Guns! And Explosions!, while it's actually tackling delicate themes such as parental grief, loss, CPTSD, the horrors of war and such. Slade's incrollable friendship and loyalty towards William "Billy" Randolph Wintergreen (former comrade in arms) is a very important and fairly touching aspect of it, and Slade's struggle to just Be A Good Person despite everything (and failing) is imo very compelling.

Over the years (and at this point irremediably), Slade has veered from being a gray, complex and multidimensional character into being only a villain. He stopped being caring towards his family (or he's directly manipulative and abusive especially towards Rose, youngest child born from adultery), he stopped being "fatherly" towards the Titans, and lost complexity overall. What he gained were impeccable Daddy Dom vibes, also thanks to the cartoon (Teen Titans 2003), where a Slade Wilson inspired character (called only "Slade" and voiced by Ron Perlman) is the embodiment of evil and has a fixation on young Robin Dick Grayson.

There are more "modern" moments in which Slade is still an interesting character. Like when he tried to steal the speed force from Wally (and eventually got it from Ace) to go back in time and save his eldest son's life (and failed miserably, but managed to change the fact that Grant, his boy, had died alone, because he held him through his last moments). The Slade you see being shipped with Dick is sort of an amalgam of all that... sometimes he's the sharp, wicked monster of the tt03 cartoon, sometimes he's a more gentle elder man who genuinely grew fond of Dick, sometimes he's a piece of garbage who's toying with a kid, and most of the times he's a ruthless mercenary who will stop for nothing and no one to fulfill his contracts... but he has a soft spot for Dick.

This last bit of characterization comes from the most iconic Nightwing run (1996 by Devin Grayson), and it's where Dick and Slade have some of their most interesting interactions since the New Teen Titans run of the 80s. There Slade acts like a lazy but dangerous big cat, and Dick has his carefully studied methods of dealing with him, which work because Slade is very fond of him basically.

There are more things to say but this post is long enough already! I feel Slade is one of the characters who have been done dirty by DC executives, because they have a hard time dealing with gray characters overall. He's versatile when it comes to fanworks because his characterization is all over the place (except a couple core concepts he's a different character in each media he appears in, basically), and Sladick is ridiculously hot and works imo very well in lots of different circumstances.

[trans-rites]

Compleation, from Surgery to Paint Job

So like, in Scars block and before, Phyrexian oil is depicted as having several consistent properties. First among them is infection. This has been consistent throughout all of the oil's history in magic. Another is transformation. Phyrexian oil is actually a soup of nanobots that take the place of your bodily fluids, and in doing so, form a link to the oil's group consciousness.

Note that I didn't say hivemind. See, your mind remains, however changed. The oil doesn't puppeteer you (and if that does happen, you can probably blame Sheoldred. Sorry, Venser.) What it does instead is fill your mind with echoes of Phyrexian history, from as long ago as Yawgmoth and even before. In this way, you* remain. Only, you aren't quite the only thing in your body anymore.

*(I admit that in some depictions, Phyrexians are portrayed as mindless puppets—but in others, some self survives. What do we get from that? Up to you, but to my mind, it means either that it varies, or that those stories are from the perspectives of assholes. Or both.)

POV: You're Ashnod, and your boss is getting even worse lately Art by Jeremy Wilson

Still, whether you think Phyrexians are the people they were (or even people at all), one thing is inarguable: phyresis itself isn't compleation. Rather, the sickness compels you to seek compleation, like a salmon swimming upstream when it knows its time is soon.

Or at least, that's how it was.

So What's Compleation Then?

Well, pre-2023, compleation was the 'end point' of Phyrexian growth: the imago of the life cycle, a complex surgical process whereby your body would be transformed. Repurposed. Your skin may be replaced, or plated with metal sheets; your viscera filled with tubes and cables for more efficient transmission of fluids.

(Notably, if you happened to be a robot beforehand, compleation would often involve grafting flesh and bone to your already-metallic skeleton. Phyrexians are liminal creatures.)

Another truth: among incompleat Phyrexians (organisms born directly from the oil, or those infected by phyresis), compleation was an honour, a sign of maturity and rank. Only for enemies of Phyrexia is it a punishment.

After ONE though, there's (ironically) more just one answer.

Rona, Sheoldred's Faithful by Ryan Lee, a.k.a. 'easily one of my top five ways to wake up.'

See, ONE (and DMU before it) changed up a lot of New Phyrexia's art style. Gone were tattered, broken dolls like Shattered Angel, replaced with Elesh Norn's new 'mommy bait' design (Have you seen how she gets less 'gross' and more 'MILFy' with every new piece of art?)

Worse though, in my mind, is what happened to compleation. In ONE story chapters, Nahiri's hands just sort-of... turn into swords after her exposure to the oil. Meanwhile Jace, after being infected by a black Phyrexian of all things, begins developing Surgical Bay-esque stalks. Why? It's not like Phyrexia can't turn flesh to metal (read: Memnarch), but never like this.

Yes, there's excuses. Yes, Jin-Gitaxias launched a software update through the oil. And yes, it's possible to theorize ("Jace's blue mana caused changes in him common among blue phyrexians," "Norn's fear of flesh caused a design shift in Orthodox phyrexians," "Nahiri's arms just did that.") But I don't think we should have to bend over backwards justifying what to me reads as plain inconsistency.

And Boy Is It Inconsistent

Because there are recent cards like Vivisurgeon's Insight (Adam Burn), Evolved Sleeper, and the above Rona that honour previous depictions of compleation and phyresis! But—with no disrespect intended to the brilliant art and talented artists—cards like Furnace Reins (Brian Valeza), the story articles mentioned above, and heck, most of the March of the Machine card gallery do the opposite.

I mean, what's even happening in Furnace Reins? Urabrask's new black and red Gundam aesthetic is spreading over that minotaur like a mold! Where is that metal coming from?!?!? Or is there mycosynth making it that I just can't see? Am I going crazy? And am I wrong for being disappointed when story articles describe 'peeling off' Nissa's metal plates to reveal basically undamaged skin underneath? She's not even bald anymore.

Please don't mistake me for hating Magic story. Believe me, I couldn't write this essay if all I felt was hate. Magic has me climbing the walls with how much I care about it. But oh my god, do I get the feeling that not everyone at WotC feels the same way.

This is hardly a call to action, and certainly not a request to further harass anyone who works at Wizards. What it is is a composition of my thoughts and feelings on a subject I'm desperately passionate about, and the suggestion that you check out some Magic story that still very much deserves to be read. Places like MTG Lore are a great place to do that. You should also check out Transformation, Horror, Eros, Phyrexia, a friend's essay that I still think about regularly.

Thanks for reading. And remember, there's nothing normal about liking Phyrexians...