#because that’s what makes them unique and beautiful

[percymawce-arts]

I want to make clear, on my blog, not reblogging someone else: I love canon. I love it and I don’t want it to change. I don’t want John and Arthur’s relationship to become romantic because that’s not what it is. Honestly, if anything, all I want is for them to show affection to each other (which they’ve been very afraid of doing this whole podcast) in casual ways. Because that’s my experience with friendship. But it’s okay if that doesn’t happen either.

The truth is that I don’t distinguish, much, between romance and friendship. Not in the ways I show affection, or the strength of the love I feel for the other person. So romantic Jarthur, FOR ME, is the same as platonic Jarthur. I don’t know if that’s a me thing, my own relationship with being aroace-spec is a little up in the air right now. I’m also not saying that people who interpret their relationship as romantic are wrong or bad or anything. No. Don’t do that. Everyone projects onto media. And everyone’s experience with love is unique and beautiful. I’m just making mine clear.

Idk if literally anyone cares, but yea. I felt like it was important to be said because Malevolent made me realize all of this stuff about my relationship with love that had been true for years. And I want it to be clear that I appreciate canon as it is, and I’m never pushing for anything.

[fuckyeahgoodomensfanfic]

Good Omens Fic Rec: Wild Hearts

In the idyllic English countryside, far from the hustle and bustle of the big city, two teachers at Willowbrook Hall set out to transform their students’ lives through the world of theatre. But for Mr. Crowley, the challenge of navigating his long hidden feelings and dear friendship with Mr. Fell may prove to be the greatest drama of all.

Length: 145,589 Words

AO3 Rating: Explicit/ Spice Level 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Best for: Mostly Safe in Public, Human AU, Romance, Slow Burn

Triggers: None

Read it here, fic by foolishlovers

*Minor Spoilers* Welcome to Willowbrook Hall, or as I like to call it, The Gay and Trans School for Gay and Trans Teens. Come meet professors Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley, and their colorful cast of teens as they spend the school year getting ready for the performance of a lifetime in the school play. This place has it all: hijinks, dances, costumes, drama, and best of all a cat.

What I really loved about this story was how cinematic it felt. Sure, some scenes intentionally reference a movie (Wild Child, so fun and camp!), but that's not what I mean. The whole thing plays out like a movie or its own TV show. We get big dramatic moments of romance and heartbreak, plus fun ones like a mini makeover, the school dance, and the play. And there is tons of subtle foreshadowing along the way that will make you jump up and down when things come to fruition. It's thrilling and engaging, and waiting for updates when this was a WIP was excruciating because I wanted to know what was going to happen next so badly!

The side characters especially are so much fun! I loved the kids and their side plots. Even though we don’t follow their story directly, we see enough to get hooked. Adam and Warlock are standouts, but they aren't the only ones I enjoyed! Honestly, I'd read a standalone from the kids perspective! The teachers are excellent too. I have a soft spot for Newt, who pops in now and then, always a sweetheart. Crowley could be in the depths of heartbreak and still manage a smile for Newt. All the teachers (plus Nina) don't feel like they're just there. I was interested in them, and you really get a sense of how much of a family they all are. It's a real skill to make side characters as interesting as the main duo.

Of course, the main attraction is Crowley and Aziraphale. They’ll make you fall in love with them all over again. They’re the perfect domestic couple well before they admit anything. So many lovely details about them, from note passing and bets, to their shared bond with Beethoven the cat (aka the best character ever). You'll experience everything with them: the highs of gender discovery and euphoria, and the lows of miscommunication and misunderstandings. What drama is complete without that? Yes, they’re a bit thick headed, and yes, a single conversation could have fixed everything. But where's the fun in that? I'm here for the drama! The pang of heartbreak and yearning makes the reunion so much sweeter! They are wonderfully characterized, and yet still have an air and life of their own. Unique to this story, but true to their characters.

You’ll be mostly safe reading this in public. There are a handful of explicit scenes but you should have enough notice to get away from prying eyes. The sex here is delicious and heart pounding! Plus the way that Crowley's gender fluidity plays into those scenes was very beautiful. There are so many reasons to love this story. It's engaging, cinematic, dramatic, funny, and romantic. This was an incredible achievement and I hope you have just as much fun and I did!

Read it here, fic by foolishlovers

[it-happened-one-fic]

Beyond Compare - Rook

Author Notes: I have finally done it! I have written a Rook fic that isn't part of a series! I wrote this while listening "Adore" by Jasmine Thompson and I have to confess that this fic ended up kind of sappy. But then, it is a Rook fic, so there is that. As per usual, reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Gender-neutral reader/ sfw/ romantic/ fluff

Word Count: 1809

You looked around at the campus grounds, listening to Rook go on a characteristically long and spiraling praise-filled tangent about the beauty of this day.

You’d often wondered what it would be like to see things the way Rook did. To be able to look at most anything in the face and see the innate beauty of it. No matter if it was something difficult or unpleasant.

Because Rook never seemed to have difficulty finding beauty in anything. Be it a flower, cloud, person, or something less pleasant, like a painful moment, the struggles of life, or a generally weighty emotion.

He’d once called tears the crystallization of powerful emotions, beautiful in their own way, despite the way they often symbolized the raw, unfettered emotions of a person who shed them. And, just like that, you hadn’t been able to look at tears the same way. 

Even if you still didn’t care for the thought of crying in front of people, tears no longer seemed like such a shameful thing. How could they when Rook could see such beauty in them?

Perhaps that was why, even despite all his numerous eccentricities that drove many people away, you couldn’t help but regard Rook with a certain degree of awe.

And it was so strange. Because when you’d first met Rook, you’d had a very similar opinion of him as Epel had held. That he was a kind man, but beyond strange. 

Certainly not someone you’d ever find yourself respecting, much less a close friend whom you were beyond fond of.

In many ways, you longed to be able to look at things the same way that Rook did. With eyes that sought only the beauty of the matter and didn’t focus on the bad while simultaneously recognizing that something wasn’t perfect. Rather, it could be both beautiful and bad all at once without ever contradicting itself.

Sort of like the poisons that the Pomefiore students so prided themselves on making. Beautiful with their brilliant colors, but in no way innately good.

You’d never been able to fully manage it, though. Not with anything, save for one man. The very same one who taught you how beautiful the world could be so long as you chose to perceive it that way.

When you’d first met him, Rook had not struck you as particularly beautiful. It was true that he was, in many ways, an attractive man. But so were his peers. 

NRC seemed to be a place perpetually filled with attractive people, and you could cite every single one of your classmates as evidence of this fact.

When Rook stood alongside people such as Vil, Leona, Epel, and Trey, he didn’t seem quite so unique in his good looks.

But as you’d gotten to know him and befriended him, you’d come to realize that Rook’s beauty did not lie in mere physical features. Rather, Rook’s true beauty came through in his personality, as odd as it could be.

It was true that many of the things Rook did still left you wondering and questioning why you’d decided to befriend him specifically. After all, you could fully understand why most beastmen avoided Rook solely on the grounds of his stalking ways.

But then, it was also true that Rook’s ability to remain true to himself and support others in their times of need was admirable. Rook, as a whole, was a fascinating man whom you couldn’t quite help but feel drawn to.

He was reliable, and, like so many others, you’d fallen prey to leaning on him in stressful times without even entirely realizing what you were doing. 

He never seemed to mind, though. In fact, he seemed to welcome and encourage it, as he seemed to be perpetually waiting with his arms wide open should you have need of him.

And you knew that you could trust that he wouldn’t judge, or that if he did, it wouldn’t be in a cruel way. Because since Rook was so innately capable of seeing beauty in the difficult, he could also accept most anything, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with it.

You stopped walking as you realized your usually chatty friend had fallen silent, and you looked towards him, worry creeping into your mind as soon as you noticed his silence.

Rook could go on and on for hours, and depending on who you asked, that might be a good thing or a bad thing.

You were fairly neutral toward his chattiness. At times, it was frustrating, since it could be very difficult to move along if you needed him for something and he’d struck up a conversation with someone. But, on the other hand, his social nature could be quite handy since his falling silent was almost always a sign of something.

He’d either found a target for stalking or noticed something else that had caught his interest. And, as you looked his way, it became obvious that whatever he’d noticed had something to do with you.

Rook gazed at you with a gentle smile that reminded you of exactly how perceptive he could be sometimes as his eyes locked onto your form and he stopped alongside you. And a small part of you wondered how long he’d been observing you.

He’d been chatting quite enthusiastically about his recent antics in the science club, so surely it hadn’t been too long?

“You appear to be in deep thought, Trickster. Is something bothering you?” His tone was just like it always was. Gentle and soft. Not prying, but calmly inquiring.

Was he worried or curious? It was impossible to tell, and that was quite likely part of Rook’s charm. The certain bit of mystery he managed to keep even despite being one of the most talkative people you knew.

In fact, he might even be able to outdo Ace in chattiness, though you prayed you would never find out if that were the case.

You lifted a shoulder, smiling slightly. There was no way that telling him that you’d just been pondering him, in all of his intricacies, wouldn’t be awkward, if not embarrassing. But your thoughtful silence was also awkward now that he’d mentioned it. Especially since he might think you’d been ignoring him.

And though you had been largely lost in your own thoughts, you hadn’t been totally ignoring him. He’d apparently caused a rather glorious explosion that you were pretty sure you’d heard while helping Crewel organize potion ingredients earlier today.

“I was just wondering what it was like to see things the way you do,” You at last gave up, deciding to share a tidbit of your thoughts without sharing everything.

Rook’s eyes widened comedically at your words, and you found yourself grinning as he looked around him, almost like he was looking for an explanation, “Is it truly so amazing? The world around us is plein de beauté!”

You nodded, half amused by his surprise, “I know it is, Rook. But I’m talking about how you can find beauty in anything. No matter how impossible it may seem.”

Somehow, you felt your expression soften. Fondness melting and molding your smile as you looked at the young man, whose expression slowly shifted from surprise to a warm smile of his own.

“Ah, Je vois….” He trailed off slightly, gazing at you with a special sort of tenderness before he nodded, almost more to himself than to you. “I must confess that it is easier to find the beauty in some things than in others.”

You laughed slightly at his admission, “Well, of course, that’s-”

He continued, interrupting you gently as he tilted his head slightly, almost as if he were analyzing your every feature as he spoke, “For instance, you have always had an incomparable beauty to you, Trickster.”

Were it anyone else, you might have grown flustered. But Rook had never been one to be shy when it came to doling out praise, whether it was earned or not. He hadn’t been when you’d first met him; he wasn’t now, and you doubted he ever would be.

It was another part of his charm, you supposed. Just a part of who he was.

So you only shook your head, still amused by the young man as sarcasm crept into your voice, “Well, you’ve certainly complimented me enough times for me to believe that.”

Rook shook his head at you, as he so often did when you gently turned down his compliments or protested in some way that he praised you too heavily.

He reached out, his gloved fingers nearing your face, before he stopped himself, his smile turning more complicated by the second as his fingers curled back and away from your face like he was restraining himself.

And normally, you would have been unbothered by such gestures from Rook. He was an incredibly affectionate individual, after all. But he wasn’t one to restrain his affections, and as you stared at that complicated smile of his that was filled with so many emotions that you couldn’t even begin to sort them all out, you faltered.

You felt yourself go still as he spoke, his voice beyond soft to a degree where if you’d been even a single step further from him, you doubted you would have heard his words.

“True though that may be, your beauty struck me far more quickly than most. To the point where, if I didn’t know such a thing was impossible, I would have believed that I adored you far before I met you, Trickster.”

You swallowed at his soft words, your own eyes wide now. Because this… This was different from Rook’s usual praise. 

This felt more personal, more intimate, and more like a confession than you ever could have been prepared for.

Rook was a man who revered love. And though he may love many things, you couldn’t ever imagine him saying such words very lightly. Not when he was the epitome of a hopeless romantic, and not when he always meant every word of praise he showered on someone, even if they were ridiculous.

And when you could see that strange expression on his face that softened as he watched your reaction, you couldn’t help but feel even more convinced that there was something more to what he was saying this time than there usually was.

“It seems I truly can’t ever take my eyes off of you, Trickster. You are far too beautiful, and I can’t bear to ever miss out on that…. On you.”

To see beauty in everything was Rook’s talent. But even taking that into account. Even considering how frequently he’d proclaim something was beautiful and you’d laugh in response, you had no doubts that, at the very least in Rook’s eyes, you were beyond beautiful.

And, in your eyes, Rook was far beyond compare.

[generaltulip]

Excuse me while I rant a smidge

It drives me a little crazy to see all the debate on why Gortash is called younger and see people labeling him as 50 and calling Larian and the narrator liars and that you’ve been catfished and yadda yadda ya… and just like… you guys… come on.

I have wrinkles and bags under my eyes and I’m 28. If you wanna headcanon him as older, fine, whatever, but please don’t act like that’s canon because he has fuckin’ wrinkles! If I had to guess I would say he’s 35 to maybe late 30’s? And guess what! That’s younger! People don’t have to have baby smooth skin and be in their 20’s to be considered younger or attractive.

[starrysharks]

every art critic, teacher or tutorial maker who tells you that your character designs must be conventionally attractive or appealing is a big fat liar

[skunkes]

.

denying so hard that there's a disconnect between what im learning within art, and other skills needed but it's undeniable that like. ill draw anatomy studies and faces all day but when i try to Make Something Else, Something Real, it's like all the information leaves me....

i always joke that ill be stuck on the foundations and fundamentals of art forever but it seems like its real because mechanical skill and comprehension of Structure is very much a different thing than. being able to connect a head and body in a streamlined way. good stylization. informed stylization. creativity. knowledge of composition, color and what makes a piece work.

i keep trying to make things and realize i still need more time in the fundamentals. more and more and its never enough....and then i forget em constantly !

[the-sage-libriomancer]

okay but like. the fact that Yuki explicitly says that he's envious of Kakeru because Kakeru has all the traits that Yuki desperately wants (charisma, easygoing nature, the ability to make people flock to him)

but also the fact that Kakeru pulled the same scummy "your existence is tangibly related to my problems so i directly blame you for my pain" mental gymnastics that Yuki pulled with Kyo, and he did it twice - first with Machi (abandoned her in basically all areas because of the family drama), and then with Tohru (verbally attacked her at her own mother's funeral bc his girlfriend's dad was killed in the same accident). luckily he learned from those incidents and actively strove to treat them both with compassion and understanding, but it just strikes me how despite being the polar opposite of Yuki, his viewpoint was so similar to Yuki's before he forced himself to grow out of it

do i have a point here. i dunno. something about how Yuki and Kakeru are so different in every conceivable way but they fell into the exact same trappings regardless

[luxrayz64]

does anyone else ever think abt ai no uta. the song released in tandem with pikmin 1, and included as an easter egg in pikmin 2, sung from the pikmins pov about how they are aware of and embrace their own mortality, how disposable each pikmin is, how they'll follow their captain to the death even if the captain doesn't care for them. "today again we'll carry, multiply, fight and be eaten" can anyone hear me. it's so dark in here

[mako-island-moon-pool]

Personally of the belief that live action fans who go onto animanga posts uninvited like 'I DESPERATELY NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT I THINK THE ART STYLE IS UGLY EVEN THO THIS OPINION IS IRRELEVANT TO THE POST' should be hit with a big rock. We already moved past this ten years ago, get with it or get lost. Swallow the hunger inside of you that demands everything be palatable to you. Maybe you could stand to be a little uncomfortable for a while

[raven]

i love amvs as an art form but i dislike the vast majority of amv makers music tastes unfortunately. and i dont even like obscure music or anything. but for example all of the everybody wants to rule the world amvs are for lorde's cover. which fucking sucks

[cloudcountry]

your my favorite writer i get so excited when i see you post your so good at writing i wish i could write like you 💪

?!?!?!??!?!??!?!?!!?/ thank you so much anon!!!!!!!! being someone's favorite author is like the best feeling ever whahwhahwha!!! im so glad my posts make you happy but!!! but please, im sure your writing style is wonderful :C there's no need to compare yourself to anyone. everyone's writing has their lovely little quirks and the fact that you don't write like other people is a good thing C:

[ghostzvne]

posting however you want to about your life experiences and their effects is a fundamental human right but sometimes i see a post that i think is a genuinely important thing to understand about [insert aspect of the human condition here] but the tone reads so despondent that i do not reblog it

(this is not a judgement upon anyone i follow who did reblog it) (my tags are not meant to be advice that i expect people to follow, they’re just my own thoughts and feelings)

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

[robotsafari]

isnt it sad that the best world in dream drop distance is the fucking grid. (only in sora’s side though..)

[the-joy-of-knowledge]

25 Laws of power for women

Conceal your goals especially the ones that are appealing. Losing weight, reinventing yourself, marrying wealthy. Instead talk about your altruistic goals - to help children, invest in education, this will chase insecure people with vile intentions.

Do not give anyone your source of power: Was is a book that changed your life? a mentor? a movie? Never give up your secret to success. If forced to do say allude to God, the universe, the a random phenomenon

Use the patriarchy to your favor; we live in a world that is, only associate with men who have power, use that power for good.

Never appear too perfect but be selectively vulnerable when needed. Only share something that you will be comfortable saying. You might say “I forget my keys all the time,” “I don’t know how to perfectly park a car “. But never disclose something you are not comfortable with just because you are afraid of being perfect.

Maintain distance in relationships. Friends are the best and you need them. But if you feel that they are becoming too dependent, see them at your own will. But also the reverse could be the case. Your friend may keep a distance, and that is the way of life. You have got to move on from it.

Develop your own style that makes you unique, beautiful, and elegant. Avoid trying to fit in the crowd of people who claim to care less about their style yet have too many opinions about other women’s style

Avoid male friends at all cost, you will have male colleagues, male bosses, male acquaintances, business partners. Keep it that way. You do not want a Truman Capote divulging your secrets to the world. Do not keep a man who does not fit your standard.

You do not have to win at every game. Pick and choose what is best for you and leave room for others. And step down if you have attained that level of success, do not let the society do it for you.

Trust people but remember that we are all humans. So trust with discretion!

Confuse people with kindness; people are not always comfortable with beautiful and intelligent women. That power is too intimidating so confuse them by being genuinely generous, curious, kind, and passionate.

Keep your strong opinions to yourself.. if you support a movement, a way of life, do so silently.

We all have dirty laundry, wash them privately, don’t expose yourself. Remain silent when people try to attack you or shame you. Whatever is not confirmed is not true. You are the only one who knows all the truth about you.

Don’t attract pity or praise: People who pity you do not help you, in fact they might think that you are weak and could mock you at their annual gossipping meeting. And if you are doing things for the sake of praise you are wasting your time.

Choose yourself all the time; never put any one’s feelings above yours.

Trust your own intuition if you feel someone is being malicious towards you, giving you back handed compliments then you should let them go

Never speak bad of another woman. Do not lazy around gossipping. Keep your hands clean and your conscience clear.

Avoid women with low self esteem they will bring you down. For some reason they do not like seeing other women who are doing better than them

Be careful who you seek validation from. Not everyone needs to be pleased. If they are in no way capable of contributing to your life in the ways you prefer, then don’t ask them for their opinions or please them.

Do not compete with other women, if you do you are only putting them on a pedestal. You are making the the standard by which you measure your progress. If you do compete, begin digging your grave.

Do not give unsolicited advice, do not share the inner workings of your mind, If your mouth is very charitable you better start journaling.

Be well-rounded and interesting. It attracts people. It also keeps you busy because you are continually improving and learning. An idle mind is an easily subdued one.

Avoid women who want to live vicariously through you; they want to know who you know, shop where you shop, befriend who you befriend, wear what you wear.

Pay attention to the source of your discomfort; get rid of them. You tell them your dreams and they remind you of all your hindrances. They ask why are you dressed so fancy as though fancy isn’t subjective. They undermine you interests and goals. They will also be quick to bring you down because they are afraid of your potential.

Do not fear power or please power. When we see powerful people we try to hard to befriend them, to be close to them but you need to be comfortable without them. Don’t push yourself in the name of friendship, do not try too hard to be in their inner circle. Your independence of mind is the most important. Instead become a powerful woman, aloof to the presence of power but aware of its importance. Be an ingenious and intelligent and use your creativity to uplift yourself. When you do so it will be hard to ignore you. Even the powerful will become an ally.

Enjoy moments of solitude. Use that time to develop yourself, improve your body, learn new skills, create with your mind, read widely, become more elegant, then launch yourself.

Remember the most powerful women are the most intelligent. Inspired by Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power. Use at your discretion.

[maniculum]

Medieval Scorpions Effortpost

So yesterday I reblogged this post featuring an 11th-century depiction of the Apocalypse Locusts from Revelations, noting the following incongruity as another medieval scorpion issue:

The artist, as you can see, has interpreted "tails like scorpions" as meaning "glue cheerful-looking snakes to their butts".

Anyway, it occurred to me that the medieval scorpion thing might not be as widely known as I think it is, and that Tumblr would probably enjoy knowing about it if it isn't known already. So, finding myself unable to focus on the research I'm supposed to be doing, I decided to write about this instead. I'll just go ahead and put a cut here.

As we can see in the image above, at least one artist out there thought a "scorpion" was a type of snake. Which makes it difficult to draw "tails like scorpions", because a snake's tail is not that distinctive or menacing (maybe rattlesnakes, but they don't have those outside the Americas). So they interpreted "tails like scorpions" as "the tail looks like a whole snake complete with head".

Let me tell you. This is not a problem unique to this illustration.

See, people throughout medieval Europe were aware of scorpions. As just alluded to, they are mentioned in the Bible, and if the people producing manuscripts in medieval Europe knew one thing, it was Stuff In Bible. They're also in the Zodiac, which medieval Europe had inherited through classical sources. However, let's take a look at this map:

That's Wikipedia's map of the native range of the Scorpiones order, i.e., all scorpion species. You may notice something -- the range just stops at a certain northern latitude. Pretty much all of northern Europe is scorpion-free. If you lived in the north half of Europe, odds were good you had never seen a scorpion in your life. But if you were literate or educated at all, or you knew they were a thing, because you'd almost certainly run across them being mentioned in texts from farther south. And those texts wouldn't bother to explain what a scorpion was, of course -- everyone knows scorpions, right? When was the last time you stopped to explain What Is Spiders?

So medieval writers and artists in northern Europe were kind of stuck. There was all this scorpion imagery and metaphor in the texts they liked to work from, but they didn't really know what a scorpion was. Writers could kind of work around it (there's a lot of "oh, it's a venomous creature, moving on"), but sometimes they felt the need to break it down better. For this, of course, they'd have to refer to a bestiary -- but due to Bestiary Telephone and the persistent need of bestiary authors to turn animals into allegories, one of the only visual details you got on scorpions was that they... had a beautiful face, which they used to distract people in order to sting them.

And look. I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum, but I would say that a scorpion's face has significant aesthetic appeal only for a fairly small segment of the population. I'm sure you could get an entomologist to rhapsodize about it a bit, but your average person on the street will not be entranced by the face of a scorpion. So this did not help the medieval Europeans in figuring out how to depict scorpions. There was also some semantic confusion -- see, in some languages (such as Old and Middle English), "worm" could be a general term for very small animals of any kind. But it also could mean "serpent".* So there were some, like our artist at the top of the post, who were pretty sure a scorpion was a snake. This was probably helped along by the fact that "venomous" was one of the only things everyone knew about them, and hey, snakes are venomous. Also, Pliny the Elder had floated the idea that there were scorpions in Africa that could fly, and at least one author (13th-century monk Bartholomaeus Anglicus) therefore suggested that they had feathers. I don't see that last one coming up much, I just share it because it's funny to me.

*English eventually resolved this by borrowing the Latin vermin for very small animals, using the specialized spelling wyrm for big impressive mythical-type serpents, and sticking with the more specific snake for normal serpents.

Some authors, like the anonymous author of the Ancrene Wisse, therefore suggested that a scorpion was a snake with a woman's face and a stinging tail. (Everyone seemed to be on the same page with regards to the fact that the sting was in the tail, which is in fact probably the most recognizable aspect of scorpions, so good job there.) However, while authors could avoid this problem, visual artists could not. And if you were illustrating a bestiary or a calendar, including a scorpion was not optional. So they had to take a shot at what this thing looked like.

And so, after this way-too-long explanation, the thing you're probably here for: inaccurate medieval drawings of scorpions. (There are of course accurate medieval drawings of scorpions, from artists who lived in the southern part of Europe and/or visited places where scorpions lived; I'm just not showing you those.) And if you find yourself wondering, "how sure are you that that's meant to be a scorpion?" -- all of these are either from bestiaries or from calendars that include zodiac illustrations.

11th-century England, MS Arundel 60. (Be honest, without the rest of this post, if I had asked you to guess what animal this was supposed to be, would you have ever guessed “scorpion”?)

12th-century Germany, "Psalter of Henry the Lion". (Looks a bit undercooked. Kind of fetal.)

12th-century France, Peter Lombard's Sententiae. (Very colorful, itsy bitsy claws, what is happening with that tail?)

12th-century England, "The Shaftesbury Psalter". (So a scorpion is some sort of wyvern with a face like a duck, correct?)

13th-century France, Thomas de Cantimpré's Liber de natura rerum. (I’d give them credit for the silhouette not being that far off, but there’s a certain bestiary style where all the animals kind of look like that. Also note how few of these have claws.)

13th-century England, "The Bodley Bestiary". (Mischievous flying squirrel impales local man’s hand, local man fails to notice.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (A scorpion is definitely either a mouse or a fish. Either way it has six legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Wait, no, it’s a baby theropod, and it has two legs. (Yes, this is the same manuscript, that’s not an error, this artist did four scorpions and no two are the same.))

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Actually it’s a lizard with tiny ears and it has four legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Now that we’re at the big fancy illustration, I think I’ve got it — it’s like that last one, but two legs, longer ears, and a less goofy face. Also I’ve decided it’s not pink anymore, I think that was the main problem.)

13th-century England, MS Kk.4.25. (A scorpion is a flat crocodile with a bear’s head.)

13th-century England, "The Huth Psalter". (Wyvern but baby! Does not seem to be enjoying biting its own tail.)

13th-century England, MS Royal 1 D X. (This triangular-headed gentlecreature gets the award for “closest guess at correct limb configuration”. If two of those were claws, I might actually believe this artist had seen a scorpion before, or at least a picture of one.)

13th-century England, "The Westminster Psalter". (A scorpion is the offspring of a wyvern and a fawn.)

13th-century England, "The Rutland Psalter". (Too many legs! Pull back! Pull back!)

13th or 14th-century France, Bestiaire d'amour rimé. (This is very similar to the fawn-wyvern, but putting it in an actual Scene makes it even more obvious that you’re just guessing.)

14th-century Netherlands, Jacob van Maerlant's Der Naturen Bloeme. (More top-down six-legged guys that look too furry to be arthropods.)

14th-century Germany, MS Additional 22413. (That is clearly a turtle.)

14th-century France, Matfres Eymengau de Beziers's Breviari d'amor. (Who came up with that head shape and what was their deal?)

15th-century England, "Bestiary of Ann Walsh". (Screw it, a scorpion is a big lizard that glares at you for trying to make me draw things I don’t know about.)

I've spent way too much time on this now. End of post, thank you to anyone who got all the way down here.