#i might actually turn this into a rendered piece later

[honeythegoat]

Kinds of dreams I think Kinger would have:

-Queenie you, You're really here

+Of course I am Kinger, you are here

-Please don't leave again Queenie, it's really lonely

+Where would I go without you silly

And then he wakes up :D

[moxiepower2]

Nevermore theory based on RnF’s latest post!

I think the eyeball in the center is both a reference to both the Old Man with the pale blue eye from “The Tell-Tale” Heart AND Ligeia’s eyes from “Ligeia”

(1/3) First of all: Ligeia’s Eyes

The coloring of the eyes doesn’t quite fit with the art in the post (Ligeia’s has black eyes) BUT I find it hard to ignore the star and dream imagery used when it’s VERY present in “Ligeia”.

The narrator (the husband) studies astrology and is DEEPLY in love with the darkly beautiful and intelligent Ligeia. She is described almost like a vampire with long raven hair, ivory skin, and a wild appearance. He is especially fascinated by her unusual large black eyes which he compares to the “twin stars of Leda” and describes them as “luminous orbs” (this last part also reminds me of the “orbs” from the 1st episode btw).

Ligeia later dies of illness, telling the narrator of her deeply love and reciting a poem about the unfairness of mortality on her deathbed. In his grief, the narrator becomes addicted to opium and later remarries Lady Rowena whom he doesn’t love. He ignores her, preferring to find comfort in “opium dreams” during which he has vivid visions of Ligeia.

Two months into his new marriage Lady Rowena also falls ill and is rendered into a state of half-slumber. Rowena also often has fits and starts crying out in her sleep leading the narrator to believe that some “phantasmagoric influence” is haunting Rowena in their bedchamber.

The narrator’s sanity/accuracy is honestly questionable before the “haunting”. He has a bad memory and doesn’t even remember MEETING LIGEIA OR HER LAST NAME?? The narration given is honestly pretty dreamlike itself as it’s hard tell what’s real or not between the husband’s opium addiction, bad memory, and debatable sanity.

At the end of the story, Lady Rowena dies and according to the narrator, her dead body turns into Ligeia. The corpse awakens the next day as newly risen and alive Ligeia who has seemingly defeated death.

“Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never --can I never be mistaken --these are the full, and the black, and the wild eyes --of my lost love --of the lady --of the LADY LIGEIA."

(What a very sane human being as per usual in Pow stories. Also, this went on a bit long sorry)

(2/3) The Old Man

Hang in there with me, this part is much much quicker to explain!

So, Tell-Tale Heart. I think this is a Poe story everyone pretty much knows. Guy is seemingly driven to madness out of fear of his old neighbor’s pale blue eye. He secretly watches the Old Man while he’s sleeping and later murders him and stuffs the body parts under his floor. When the police later arrive at the house, our narrator believes he hears the sounds of the Old Man’s heart and confessed his guilt.

Some imagery: Not much star imagery but definitely some of dreams/sleep. Much like Ligeia, the narration is definitely dreamlike. The Narrator is unreliable/insane so it’s hard to tell what observations he makes are actually real. The Old Man and the Narrator struggle with nightmares. A good chunk of this story is spent with narrator as he watches the Old Man sleep every night for a week.

Also, the eye in RnF’s post is a SINGLE PALE BLUE EYE. (Yeah, this last one is definitely surface-level evidence but I don’t think it’s without merit)

That’s pretty much it.

(3/3) How does this all connect?

The main reason I think that this new art piece connects to Ligeia AND The Tell-Tale heart is largely due to THESE GUYS

That’s right, Deans Merry and Mourn.

The Tell-Tale Heart

Awhile back I made a post theorizing that Annabel is connected to The Tell-Tale Heart due to the heart imagery surrounding her character (such as her spectre design). In the reblogs, me and @muzetrigger discussed more detailed theories (off-topic but @muzetrigger made a VERY convincing argument that Annabel Lee might play the role of the Narrator)

One of the topics that came up was the possibility of the Deans representing the character of the Old Man. @blacknedsoul-blog made a post a while back “I Think the Deans Are Fucking Lovecraftian Gods” (highly recommend) which pointed out that the Deans’ white/black heterochromia could be a reference to the Old Man’s cataract-ridden eye. Upon a closer look, it’s even possible that their white eyes are actually a very very pale blue.

I would also like to add on to this theory by pointing out that much like the Old Man’s Eye drove the Narrator to murder and madness (though unwittingly), the Deans are driving the students to those very same things by forcing a bunch of already traumatized people to participate in a death game.

Ligeia

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that the husband from Ligeia compared her eyes to “the twin stars of Leda”

These TWIN stars, Castor and Pollux named after a pair of TWINS from greek mythology are widely known as the “Heavenly TWINS” and form part of the constellation Gemini. Hmmmm….

A few more similarities to Ligeia:

The Deans also have the ability to get in people’s heads and MESS WITH THEIR MEMORIES. In Ligeia, the Husband is completely consumed with thoughts/visions of Ligeia for most of his waking and sleeping hours. He is seemingly unable to focus on anything else and this continues even when his new wife Lady Rowena is dying. As mentioned before, the Husband also has a memory problems and can’t remember meeting Ligeia or even her full name, just that he loved her. This is not unlike the memory loss of all the students at Nevermore Academy, particularly Lenore & Annabel Lee.

By the way, have a mentioned how interesting this panel from the Bell Arc is? It’s very suspicious the we glimpses of the eldritch forms of the Deans and their Pale Blue Eyes right before Annabel Lee experiences a flashback of hearing the news of Lenore’s death. Not to mention they are physically lowering Annabel INTO THE MEMORY. Its almost like the Deans are the ones took the memories in first place and are just “returning” them or part of their job is being responsible for guiding students to their memories. HMMMM……

Not to mention they spend most of their time in DREAMLAND, a special dimension where you can relive past memories and even reach those whom you unable to speak with. Like say… a certain French man who’s UNCONSCIOUS in a brick wall.

Also, I seem to recall there’s definitely some night sky related imagery with these two. Especially when we are getting glimpses of their spectrey/eldritchy side.

Lastly, let’s go back to the Deans’s heterochromia. They both each have one BLACK EYE and together that makes a pair.

Also, I might be reading into this WAY too much but, take a good close look at the black eyes. In each, you’ll notice there’s a small white pupil. Kind of like a a single bright star in the black night sky. Two twin stars.

[meirimerens]

You probably have already made a post about this (in which case I apologize for bothering you) however I really love how you render and color! Do you have any tips?

Hiiii so I probably indeed already answered something like that but it’s probably time for an #update + realized i can put pictures and it would probably help actually. Slay okay.

THE BASICS: have brushes you like. I have my faves, they’re in my #brushes tag (click below), you might also see them on the screen of my paintings in wip lol. Typically i thicken them up for rendering AND, now this is integral to my liking of rendering these days + the look: COLOR JITTERING. In procreate that’s tap brush -> color dynamics and i adjust the stamp & stroke jitter in the « hue » category. I have my fave brushes quadruplicated as thicker No Hue, 3% color jitter, 5%, 13% depending on the desired look. What this does is give intrinsic interest, variation and depth to your colors, and that way you can have more fun when colorpicking. This will come back again later.

STEP 1: a lineart you like. Doesn’t have to be clean tbh some of my fave linearts from current works were quite messy. ALWAYS colored.

STEP 2: on a layer underneath the lineart, put down flat colors. See what % of color jittering brings you the most #joy. I will do flat colors or i will sometimes already define some areas of light and shadows.

^ you can see the subtle color jitter in the « white » of the shirt and the green of that first image. Second is to show the already defined areas; if i know i want a different hue on here. something else for some pizzazz: tint a color with an adjacent one. not really visible in these screenshots but in matador, at some point, i added an orange tint to burakh's sleeve, the one closest to the red cape.

STEP 3: the shadows. On the same layer as above (you can duplicate it before this so you can always come back to it later if you need to redo), put down your shadows; the trick: COLORPICK FROM A PIXEL WHERE THE COLOR OF YOUR LINEART AND THE COLOR OF YOUR FLATS INTERSECT. You might have to recolor your lineart (use the « alpha lock » feature of your layer or something of the sorts) until you’re satisfied; i typically redden it in the face and hands.

STEP 4: put down the highlight. I typically do highlights the complimentary color as the shadow: if shadow bluer, the highlight is redder (-> pinker), etc.

STEP 5: now this is the scary part. Before proceeding if you’re #scared, group your lineart and colors, duplicate the group and merge one of them so you can always come back to them unmerged. MERGE YOUR LAYERS. You heard me. Merge lineart and color. From then on…

STEP 6: render. Render, render… PATIENCE… est mère de sûreté bien sûr. Here’s my secret: I NEVER BLEND. I ALWAYS COLORPICK. COLORPICK where two colors meet and you’ll have the perfect transition color.

tip: always have an all-black layer set to color mode above all layers that you can toggle on and off to check your values.

This is more of a fun thing i like to do even if i haven’t done it often: use some hints of a geometric brush to add interest when using an « organic » brush (or vice-versa, I’d guess, but i rarely render with geometric brushes). Exemples again:

And well Das Preddy Much It… Your Turn Now….. and because i realize a short demonstration is better than a long speech, have a speepvideo of the two pieces I’ve used as exemples one after the other (matador first to 44 seconds in, moschophoros second). the very beginnings are cut because we’re focusing on the above steps.

Your turn……. To play.

[gyaru-tau]

idk if ive ever talked about this au in depth actually... im gonna do that neow idc if nobody asked.

This is basically an au version of hcphil that occurs after. What I like to call a domino chain of events. A rube goldberg machine if you will. But first some quick prerequisite exposition:

Phil has been through hundreds if not thousands of timelines by the beginning of this au. He has seen so, so much, but despite this, every time he returns back to hardcore, he retains zero memory of those past experiences. Logging them in a way becomes Kristin's job. put a pin in that.

Because of this, he is thousands of years old. I don't really have a set number for this yet, maybe i'll come up with that later on idk

He doesn't look like that immediately, but that's kinda what I consider his most blank slate possible form. As he changes in other timelines or in hc, the form alters and shapeshifts with it. Or he has a brand new form from the start.

The branch-off point where things start going wrong here is when Rose, after being seperated from Blaze for so long and wanting to see her decides that she's gonna do exactly that. Yolo. She's going to the nether, and Phil is one of the biggest encouragements to do so for her. They decide to travel the nether roof and pack fire res in case of emergencies, and Phil basically vows to protect her the whole way there.

And the trip there goes fine! Great actually! They get to Blaze, but... Rose gets too close. She runs out of fire res without realizing since it was Phil's responsibility to check. You can probably imagine how that might have ended.

With Rose now gone, there's nobody to tend for the flora of the overworld, and slowly... It begins to rot and wilt. Feeling crushed by Rose's tragic end and feeling completely to blame, Phil decides to seek out the Ocean Overlord, hoping that just maybe, he could use enough water to revitalize the land little by little.

Ocean Overlord, despite the carefree personality, felt both envy for, and in debt to Rose for revitalizing his ocean monument when a piece of his ocean was stolen. He has incredible respect for her, and with how hand-in-hand their positions as deities were, I think he may have even seen something familial in her.

So of course, when Phil wakes him up and explains what happened... He doesn't take to it very kindly, believing this whole mess to be the result of Blaze being reckless.

Becoming the most active he'd ever been, Ocean Overlord's ocean grows rough, stormy, and restless. The water levels rise higher and higher until Phil's home is completely submerged and unlivable. The only place that remains untouched is flowerfall, and so Phil tries to survive the constantly raging storm in the little cove there, living off of fish from the sea and pork from the hoglins in the nethervoid.

Eventually, Blaze decides that its her turn to try and fix things. Despite being still riddled with grief, she attempts to leave the nether and cross the ocean in her largest possible form in hopes of speaking to the Ocean Overlord. But she can't get through to him. He tries to fight her, but of course, all that results is the two making contact, freezing the both of them to stone and obsidian.

With the Blaze Empress gone, The nether begins to collapse, and The ocean starts to share the same fate as the Overlord as it too, turns to stone. All that remains is the end, and it alone cannot sustain.

Despite trying his hardest to live, Kristin sees how miserable Phil is being the last to survive in hardcore, and so she plucks him from the earth to reside with her in her home in the void, essentially ending his run.

The void is full of monuments that Phil swears he recognizes from past lives, but he hasn't the capacity to fully remember them. Aside from them, the void is cold, and dark, and lonely, even with Kristin there to tell him about the lives he used to live.

The memory of hardcore has started to fade from his body, but not his mind, rendering him back at that same blank slate as before; not human, not crow, but an angel. A player without a singleplayer world; and therefore, one that lacks the capacity to care.

He hates to think it, but every day he remembers that Kristin is the reason he was revived; the reason that he'd inevitably end up here with nowhere else to go. Like this.

He just hopes that he doesn't resent her for it one day.

[ellybobelly]

And Even More Lies?

Chapter 1

-

“Sergeant Barnes!” a woman yelled as he was making his daily run around the national mall “Please! Sergeant Barnes! Please! The avengers wont listen to me anymore!”

Bucky stopped as the car halted to a screech. He didn't really want to listen but there was a part of him that felt the need to. He sighed and stretched his arms waiting for some random paparazzi to come out

“Thank you sir,” came an exasperated breath “my name is Julia Price! I work with the Washington Post!”

Bucky let out a groan.

“No one will listen to me anymore and I need someone with your abilities! Please Sgt barnes! Please at least listen to what I have to say!”

It wasn't a second later that a car came flying through the air and hit a tree. Bucky quickly looked and saw the aggressor. An average 30 something year old guy who obviously has a score to settle with the woman in the car. Quickly the man started running towards them searching for the next thing that he could use as a weapon. It seemed as though he settled upon a water fountain until Bucky used it against him. With his metal arm he pulled the fountain out of the ground and smashed the red headed assailant on the head, throwing him a few feet and rendering him unconscious. It was just after that that bucky ran and took cover in the car that had approached him. There he found a shivering girl in the driver's seat barely able to put her hands on the steering wheel.

“Jules, right?” he said as he grabbed her yellow sweater sleeve “you need me to drive?”. She didn't even have a chance to answer when he started pushing her into the back seat in which she went, and then he took over the driving and sped off away as fast as he could.

“So why didn't the avengers believe you?” he asked casually as he drove across D.C, trying to make sure the car wouldn't be able to be tracked.

“I.. uh .. i” she tried to speak, clearly still terrified

“Spit it out! This isn't the time to be shy!” he yelled louder than he wanted to because he had to make a sharp turn in order not to crash into a bus. The girl took a deep breath

“I have it on good authority that there is a crime syndicate making a drug that will either amplify latent super powers or kill someone who doesn't have the genes for it!”. Julia had curled herself into a ball and held her eyes so tight that the corners were starting to tear.

“Uh huh….” bucky said, with an air of disbelief.

“I promise! No one ever got back to me because I'm not actually with a paper! I'm just a small town nobody journalist that just happened to pick up the pieces. I wouldn't have even known about it if it didn't affect my hometown!:"Bucky just kept driving until he found a back alley at a safe enough distance. It was then when he took a deep sigh and seemed to visibly relax. A bit.

“Now ‘Julia Price’” he ran his right hand through the air “explain yourself. Or at least everything that you know”.

“I pretty much told you everything I know” she was sitting in the back seat, still shaking slightly and pulling at the sleeves of her cardigan “there's some kind of drug… I don't know what kind or how it's made or how it works but– you just SAW that!!” she looked up at him with obvious fear in her eyes. Bucky just stared at her, nothing expressed on his face but his eyes were all but staring into her soul. Another deep, calming breath and “I’m sorry I lied to you earlier Sgt. Barnes–”

“Bucky.” He interrupted.

“Y-yes, Bucky, I'm sorry that I lied to you earlier about being a journalist. I mean, I am, or well, trying to be at least. It's what i went to college for”

“Just spit it out, kid. We might not have a long time”

“You're right. Sorry.” she groaned “sorry for saying sorry. It was around a month ago, I went back to visit my parents in a small town in New Jersey and there was something really strange going on. I'm sure that you're aware that there are a lot of issues with drugs being laced with fentanyl these days and it's killing people at an alarming rate. Now it seemed to everyone else, including the cops, that's all it was. However I started noticing something else. As you also know, it seems like every other day someone with super powers pops up right? Well this also started happening, but not… not like normal super powers, if that's even a thing. I noticed that it was solely low level criminals, like that one guy everyone knew was a drug dealer, but the cops never really found him doing anything that they could actually catch. So one day, I guess someone stiffed him on some payment and he burnt their apartment. It even spread to some of his neighbors! Obviously he's in jail now but—”

“So a crack head burnt someone house down and you think-” he started but was quickly interrupted

“He burnt it down with his hands! Like he had fire coming out of his hands! Like a human flamethrower or something!” Julia blurted out “The cops buried that part of the story but I saw it! I drove by when it was happening! I stopped for a minute but got the hell out of there as soon as I realized what I saw. I never said anything to the police though, because, well, I don't know what they would do if I knew” her voice trailing off with guilt.

That seemed to make Bucky pause and start thinking seriously about what she was saying “And he couldn't do that before?”

“I mean, I don't think so. He was a few grades aheads of me in high school and everyone knew he was a bit of a fire bug but he had never done anything like that! Like, Like it was magic or something”

Bucky took out his phone in an attempt to google what she was saying to try to verify it

“Listen, please! I told you the cops buried it. There's literally nothing online about it. But I know what I saw and that made me start looking into other strange crimes in my town and neighboring areas” she said and started rustling around for a journal that had fallen under the passenger seat in the back of the car “I wrote it all down. Every weird crime that was seemingly done in ways that aren't necessarily humanly possible. I thought it was localized but it not only spans the entire state, but it goes into new york and obviously made its way here”

She handed him the journal and Bucky opened it to see pages and pages of names and dates and crimes. She had even written the website address down by hand.

“And you've tried telling people about this?” he asked without even looking up.

“Anyone who would listen! But no one will! And I know the avengers aren't really like a thing anymore but i still sent over every link and all of the proof I have” her voice was hesitant, like she was going to say the next part against her better judgement “that's why i tracked you down Sgt. B- Bucky” she corrected herself “because you're like not really an avenger, but like you kind of are? I think? But I thought you were my best bet…”.

It was then when he looked up and shut the book “you did all of this by yourself?” he seemed to finally be relaxed while looking at her “and you think it's because of a drug?”

Julias lips curled into a small smile “yes. Yes I do. And it's because all of these cases happened in towns that have extremely high deaths due to drugs laced with ‘fentanyl’. But i dont think it's fentanyl. I think it's something completely new. Something that kills some people and makes people super human at least for a bit”

Bucky's stare was incredulous but with a hint of belief still “I've never heard of anything that could do that and i'm 108 years old”

Julia groaned and rolled her eyes “I know. Its something completely new and–”

“And you need help finding out who is doing this so we can take them out?” He added emotionlessly.

Julius' cheeks turned bright red “... to find out why it works this way. B-but yes, so we can also stop this from happening”.

At that bucky just quirked an eyebrow. Julia coughed out of embarrassment “...I minored in Pharmacology….”.

“God you're weird” bucky snorted but with a slight smile on his lips

“So you’ll help?!” she shot up with excitement

“Hey, I never said that. But if what you're saying is true, I know some people who can definitely help us.” Julia smiled when he said ‘us’ but then quickly frowned

“No! It has to be just you!” she practically screamed, which caused him to lean back and give her a sketched out look “Not for any weird reason, I promise, it's just that out of everyone else, You're the only ‘avenger’ that i really trust..”

With that bucky let out a hard laugh “jesus Kid-”

“Julia” she quipped back mocking him

“Julia” he smiled and shook his head “Jesus Julia are you sure you have the right guy? I don't think there is a single person in the country, much less the entire globe that you consider ‘me’ the most trustworthy of the bunch”

Without missing a beat “why? Because of the whole winter soldier thing? That's exactly why I trust you the most.” her words came out so matter of fact and with such an honest earnesty it took Bucky by surprise. She noticed not only his change in expression but also his change in body language “I'm sorry, it's just that after everything that happened. All of it. And you'd be surprised what you can find on the dark web, classified documents and such, but after everything that's happened to you, you still have it in you to try to make a difference in this world. Like not just living out your life in peace, you actively keep trying to make the world a better place and I don't think just anyone could do that. I don't even know you but I think you're the most honourable and trustworthy man I know”.

That strange confession had thrown Bucky off guard. He was definitely not expecting some random stranger to just give him one of the biggest compliments he's ever had. Especially because it wasn't flattery, he could tell that she meant it. It wasn't something she had rehearsed either, she said it as simply as she would say that her hair is brown and her eyes green and her sweater is yellow and her car could probably use a cleaning. As the sudden awkward emotions passed he coughed to clear both his throat and the air

“You read my classified file on the dark web?” was what he came up in order break the tension that he was the only one to feel

“Well of course, it's best to get to know people as best as you can before you ambush them while they are exercising” she smirked before realizing that wasn't what he was probably talking about “Oh! I’m so sorry! I uh i -I mean yes i did but i- I guess that really is a HUGE violation of privacy! Honestly i never even thought i'd be able to talk you so I didn't really think- not that it makes it better- it was still really really wrong of me and—”

Bucky stopped her with a chuckle “Don't worry about it. Just so were all clear” he faced forward and looked at her through the rear view mirror, a shit eating grin evident on his face “You know all about me. Sgt James Buchanan Barnes, aka the Winter soldier. But you! Your ‘name’ is Julia Price. You are NOT a reporter with the Washington post. You ARE from New jersey. You have no issue crossing legal boundaries and you are trying to locate drug dealers?”

“I'm actually from ohio. We moved to Jersey in middle school” she huffed and sighed “but yes. I'm sorry I lied to you. I just needed you to listen” her voice was that of a child scolded. Bucky shook his head and chuckled

“Don't worry Jules” he saw the furrowed brow on her face, disapproving of the nickname. It just made it funnier for him. “I think you're onto something and for whatever reason you think that I'm your guy. A lot of people never gave me a break and as you said, I try to do right by the people. So I'm gonna help you."He adjusted the mirror and rolled his shoulders back, preparing to start the car.

“So that means you're in?!” her face lit up like the fourth of july and she grabbed the back of the driver's seat putting about an inch between them before she realized what she had done and settled back down with a sprinkling of pink on her face “....sorry. So uh”

“so “ bucky chuckled “are you going to get into the front and tell me where to go or are we just gonna sit here and wait for ‘the wolf of wall street’ to come back for us?”

“Actually from what I've noticed the drug doesn't last that long in people who don't have the genetic code to keep it strong. It's almost like it unlocks something” Julia started to rumble as she climbed into the passenger seat “ I think it has something to do with stem cells unlocking—” she was cut off by Bucky pushing her shoulder down.

“We can talk when I drive” he smiled but also not looking at her “so where to Ms.biochemist journalist?”

-

-

-

Like I said this I just chapter 1 of a fanfic based off of a dream I had and I thought it would make a cool story! Please please please tell me if you want more! Also please forgive any kind of typos, I don’t have a computer lol

[haedia]

I was tagged by @rookinthecrownest for a Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday thing but, I only have like one completed piece from this week, which is the Silver Fox Illario below.

So, instead, I'm gonna do a spam of a bunch of works-in-progress: sketches, rough compositions, thumbnails, etc below the cut.

But first, let's revisit Silver Fox Illario, wearing reading glasses that he stole from Nera

Aaaaand, a quickfire spam of rough wips under the cut!

I did get this section of the Minrathous piece done this week. I've been chipping away at it but none of the other done areas are in one spot so I'm not sharing them at this moment. But I'm proud of how this turned out so far. c:

Worked more on the Pathos-inspired figure skating Teia piece today. I cracked myself up at the notes I wrote so I'm sharing those, too. But the second image is costume composition stuff I did today. None of this is final. But it's getting closer to actual rendering, so that's nice.

Got an idea for an Aldwir Clan scout/hunter riding one of the clan's harts on an excursion. They're going to be deep in the forest while dealing with a drizzly day.

Really rough composition sketch for a SFW Elek/Nera/Illario piece. Elek standing, Nera kneeling, and Illario sitting/lounging.

Did some preliminary setting work for a series of drawings later. I need to redo it though 'cause the scope isn't large enough but this is might important for setup purposes. And yes, there will be oil paintings on the wall...so those are also on the pile to do later. Dx

I'm going to be revisiting this triptych as well. Close-up of Kiore and Lucanis with a paired poem thing. It's incredibly sappy and sweet but hey. Sometimes you gotta.

Anyway. If this seems neat, take this as an invitation (for either the Shameless Self-promotion Sunday or a WIP thing) to participate. And tag me back so I can seeee!

[fantasticalleigh]

I saw your reblog about asks and then you gave me an ask and I realised I've never asked you anything before so I sprinted over here to reciprocate the favour (and now I'm a little out of breath because my cardio is shocking!).

So... my main problem as an artist is having a thousand ideas popping into my head but not being able to put even a fraction of them on paper - if you have the same problem, would you like to share any of those ideas??

haha aw, thank you! and same about the cardio 😰

this is a really interesting question!

I struggle with the exact same problem tbh, it's always really hard wrangling so many ideas! I wish I had some like groundbreaking tips to help manage this but my methods are pretty basic:

-as ideas come, i try to write them down (i usually fail at this) but if it's a good idea it will stick in my mind for days or even weeks, so when i get the chance i will sketch something out. it usually turns out really bad but that's ok bc it's just to get the barest essence of the idea, and i'll write down the actual idea down on the paper or canvas of whatever i'm working on so i can decipher that later. (i like to have a good bunch of these drafts ready at any given time so i can pick and choose what to work on next once i complete something)

-this one might not apply to everyone, but: i cycle between a few different art styles. sometimes it depends on what brushes i use, or if i know i want something to be a casual sketch, a whole sketchpage, or an illustration. it also depends on knowing how much time i want to spend on it. faster drawings done with my favorite chunky pen in a more cartoonish style usually rank higher in order of what to work on, because i know i can finish it in a few days (or even hours). stuff that's more detailed/rendered is lower on the list of execution because i know it'll take longer to finish because of details and the linework, and that i'll definitely want to take breaks from that one to work on the faster ones. (i have two pieces for Bad Blood i've been working on for MONTHS now bc they have so much detail and i still don't know when they'll be done lol, just chipping away at them bit by bit)

-sometimes, depending on what art projects i'm currently working on, i won't get a chance to actually develop that new idea until much later on. or maybe i try and just don't feel into it anymore. in that case i try to just focus on something else. i usually have about four or more other art ideas in various stages of completion to work on in rotation which has really helped. and then some days i really don't feel like working on one particular thing and want to work on another, but i compromise with myself that if i get decent progress done on one then i'll switch to the other after a point. just as a little treat :3

i also think a large part of managing all these ideas is accepting that some of them will just never be made. every now and then i go through my procreate files and delete drafts that i know i'll never actually draw. either because i don't love the idea anymore, have no time, i don't think i can execute it well, or just pure laziness.

it kind of sucks but it's just the way things go, and the ideas keep coming anyway so it's not like that's the end of the line if you decide to toss a few out the window! (ESPECIALLY considering we draw a lot of wwe based art and since it's a weekly show there's just so much more potential for new art every few days.) it's great to be able to get anything out at all tbh! i do feel a lot of pressure sometimes that i have to get things out as fast as possible but it does work as a great motivator and i'm just always so excited to see what everyone else is working on and posting! it's a very inspiring environment.

this turned out so long, but i hope it helps! :D

[moogaiashe]

WIP WEDNESDAY!!

Thank you for the tag @lathez

I haven't done much so I haven't posted for Wip Wednesday in a while sorry :P

Here is my latest sketch, I think I'm gonna render it. This is my OC Eden btw if u didn't know!!

The story behind this drawing is kinda like. She gives peace to the world and is kind and sweet about it! The flowers represent her growth as a person after getting out of a toxic relationship and finding a new(less toxic but not the best, at least her new hubby respects her 🤪) relationship.

Also I love the mystical curly hair ykwim

I also have a piece of writing i have not yet edited at all </3

“We meet again, Dragonborn.” Before the black could fade out of her vision as she entered Apocrypha, Eden could sense everything else. She could tell Miraak was in front of her again. “Here to stalk me again?” Eden groaned. “Yes, actually,” Miraak said with a bit of pep in his dark voice. “Keep your enemies close.” Eden looked him in the eyes and then pushed him out of the way. She didn't have time for this. She needed to learn more about Apocrypha before she could figure out how to stop all this from happening. She also needed to learn more about Miraak. That made her think. What better way than to let him talk about himself? He sure loves to do that. That's when Eden stopped in her tracks. Miraak stopped behind her. “What's your problem?” Eden frowned. She's trying to figure out a way to get him to spill as much about him as possible. “Are you afraid I'm just better than you are?” Though Eden couldn't see his face, she could tell he was upset. “You better than me? I worked with the dragons, I was powerful, and I was the most knowledgeable mortal in of all of Tamriel. I even continue to live now, thousands of years later. And you think you're better than me?” Eden could tell he's trying to cover himself. So he is worried she might be better than him. “Oh, yeah,” Eden sighed. She really hoped she was making this seem real. Her sister always told her she's bad at lying. “Because you're so great and amazing.” “Are you being sarcastic? I didn't know you had it in you,” Miraak turned Eden's face to look at him with one of his hands. “You know I could kill you right now if I desired.” It was probably true. She didn't want to admit it, but she had no idea what kind of power he held. “Then why don't you?” Eden said confidently. This could definitely get her killed. He stopped for a moment. Eden almost thought he froze, but he turned his head slightly, which was the only way she knew he was still responsive. “Because I’m intrigued.”

There u go ig it's highk shit but trust the process i suppose

[rainyraisin]

2023 YEAR IN REVIEW!!!

My artstyle changed a lot this year, especially after my shift from ibis paint to procreate after getting my iPad (drawing on an iPad is the BEST btw 100% recommend I love it way more than a phone and it didn’t die after a month like my old wacom 💀💀). I’m relatively happy with where my art is atm and I hope to continue to improve in 2024!

Explanation of all the silly art down below! (Mostly so I can tell y’all who the fanart is for but also cause I like rambling)

January: A drawing of my Rise Leo human design I did to test out a pixel brush I found for Ibis Paint. He’s very fun to draw hehe I need to draw him more-

February: I wanted to learn how to draw the future designs of Leo and Mikey along with CJ so I planned to draw them all together! I struggled with Leo though so I just got rid of him. Sorry Peepaw 😞😞💔💔💔

March: Fanart for @beannary ‘s TLP au! I love it so much so I had to draw smth for it hehe 😈😈💥💥💥 which reminds me I need to draw more at some point- might redraw it at some point cause I’m not super happy with how it turned out but I do like the idea a lot

April: The month I created Reticent! April’s Fools was the first episode I came up with so I drew a chapter poster! It ended up being very different to the chapter cover I drew a couple months later but it’s still cool :D Leo is being weirdly affectionate to Mikey though what the heck that isn’t like him smh. Although I guess it was meant to be purposefully exaggerated sooooo 🥰

May: Reticent Casey!!! I don’t have much to say it’s just Reticent Casey HDKSGXKSHD this wasnt a very good art month

June: Krangified Donnie is literally my favourite concept ever thats it that’s all I have to say dbskdbwkh I adore Krangified Donnie and if the Rise brainrot takes over the Reticent brainrot for a while then I will probably be drawing Krangified Donnie during that time sorry not sorry

July: Reticent Chapter 3’s cover yippee!!! Still my favourite Reticent cover although Chapter 8’s is a close second (I can’t wait to post it once it’s been betaread yippee!!!). The scribble over Leo’s eyes is literally just because I was struggling to draw his eyes and i was getting annoyed dbskdbskdb it’s actually a very common issue with him (common Ret!Leo L). Also Mikey being reflected in the mirror is a reference to Mirror Man by Jack Stauber which I’ve basically considered his theme song since @aaronymous999 introduced it to me ebwjcbkwhd thank you Mr. Aaronymous! Also somebody said he was in the barbie box and I still need to draw that to this day because Mikey would’ve killed to go see Barbie.

August: RET DONNIE WOOOOO he’s being bullied again!!! I drew that piece for a colour palette challenge request and realised I got the prompt wrong so I just made it into its own thing 💥💥💥 it’s usually a flickering light gif but I chose to just use the version with the light on for this post. The photos in the background were really fun to draw hehe either April’s or Mikey’s is my favourite.

September: MY 500 FOLLOWER DTIYS YIPPEE (/my 150 follower DTIYS for tumblr). This one took me. Forever to draw and I love it to pieces hehe it was really fun to design Mikey’s room and figure out outfits for the sillies and idk the concept of a sleepover just seemed really fun to me dbskbdkdb- and all the entries I got were so so awesome I loved them all to pieces!!! I still look at them all the time hehe

October: FANART OF @endlesslogo ‘S HUMAN RISE LEO DESIGN WOOOOOO!!! This was the piece I started rendering on hehe it was so much fun to draw!!!! Although I did have a fight with rendering the hair for over an hour svsjegksbdk HOW DO PEOPLE DO IT FR!!!

November: Me and my friends were working on a crossover between our TMNT iterations so I drew all of our Karai’s together!!! Confluence Karai is on the left, created by Salem and Marine, New Stars Karai is in the middle created by Starla, and Reticent Karai is on the right created by me! All our Karais have such cool designs AHHHHH literally dead over them constantly/pos

December: Most of December I spent drawing Christmas presents so this was my present for Salem!!! Confluence!Jonatello my beloved….

[alagaesia-headcanons]

I have a proper update for Clear Horizons!

(For my new followers, here's an explanation of this fic!)

I've finally finished drafting the section that was giving me the most trouble!!! I'm not entirely out of the woods yet, but it's a significant and gratifying mark of progress. The part I'm working on is after Murtagh and Orrin first meet, but before a scene I've planned where their relationship takes a turn and reaches a new understanding. So in that span they have a lot of chemistry and care for each other but they're also still hesitant and guarded. It's a very tricky dynamic to write. It still needs more depth, I haven't gotten to that emotional development scene yet, but I'm now finished with the first week Murtagh spends in Aberon with Orrin.

My main breakthrough with the frustrations I was having with that was to cut two of the scenes I already wrote and move them to a later point in the story. Then I reconsidered what I wanted the first week to cover. The writing progress went especially slow, even by my standards, and the section ended much longer than I expected it too. But I think both were worthwhile. This section is crucial for laying a lot of the foundation everything else will build upon. The prolonged time I spent with each piece gave me the room to untangle the needs of the story and the detail throughout numerous consecutive scenes gives clarity to the major cornerstones. (I pray I'll still feel that way when I go back to edit it later lol)

I optimistically think the pace will pick back up again when I carry on with the rest of act 2. This should be one of the only continuous spans of time that's fully rendered out with such intensive and thorough detail. I think just two other points in the story might get a similar treatment. I'm approaching the rest with a more selective focus that helps move the story along.

I have a plan for how I should proceed now, which has numerous parts. First and foremost with concerns to Clear Horizons, I'm going to take the opportunity to pause writing the actual fic and shift back to note taking, with the goal of hammering out Thorn's character arc. Unlike my last desperate bout of note taking, I've been prepared to tackle this from the outset. In this whole process, Thorn has been by far the hardest part for me, for a myriad reasons. It's very important to me to give him a character arc with meaningful significance to the story, and initially I had no idea how to accomplish that, but I realized that I had to start without it if I wanted to start at all. So I drafted all of act 1 aware that I still needed to figure out my intentions for Thorn and I would have to add in more writing to integrate that.

I can tell this is the right time to do that. I'm glad I didn't let it stop me from jumping in; it feels more approachable now then it did then. I still anticipate that it'll be very tricky, but now I have some ideas to guide me and I believe I can do this. I also hope it will fill out some of the other gaps in the plans I do have. My last note taking stint helped a lot with the other main character arcs. Orrin's specifically is the strongest right now, I think it's in a really good pace. Murtagh's is far improved, though it feels like it still has some pieces missing. As I wrestle with Thorn, I'm going to pay close attention to how that can contribute to Murtagh's arc because they naturally should weigh on each other quite a lot. I hope figuring out my intentions with Thorn will provide much of the connective tissue I'm missing right now.

Before continuing with the main writing, I'd also like to edit the rest of act 1 that I haven't gotten to yet. It's a pretty arduous process, but I know it wouldn't be smart to put it off much longer. It's very valuable and I should at least edit up to the last section of act 1. It might be more effective to wait on that one because I think it will be overhauled the most after Thorn is properly added to the equation.

There are some other things I want to add in act 1 too. While making those notes, I recognized key aspects of both Murtagh and Orrin that deserve more exploration. I plan to take the first two sections, one about each of them, and divide them both in half so there's four sections, then I can add those details throughout them. I think it will also improve the pacing. That's currently not my priority, so I don't know if I'll do that before returning to writing progress, but it's in the plans.

On a different track, I want to take a small break before getting back to that grind. For a significant length of time now, Clear Horizons has held my attention largely uninterrupted. It's eclipses my other creative impulses. I don't feel like that's inherently bad, I often set aside my other interests for a while to pursue inspiration for a certain thing. But given how long I think Clear Horizons will take, even from this point, I don't want to do that the whole time. It's already been a long time since I've drawn anything, and longer still since I've worked with clay. I have a stretch of time off around Christmas and I think I'm going to force myself to not work on writing during that and enjoy other things. Since I have quite limited free time in my day to day, part of me gets frustrated feeling like having a lot of time and not using it to work on this is a waste. I need to remind myself that a project like this is not a sprint, it's a marathon, and taking breaks will benefit me in the end.

(There's a very high chance I'll make some Eragon related art anyway lol. And also Hubert. Maybe I'll show you guys Hubert.)

I also hope the mental break will push me to answer the asks people have sent me too! I'm sorry it's taken so long, I promise I won't forget! Clear Horizons honestly has been the biggest distraction from that. That being said, since it occupies so much of my mind, I always adore taking about it. Of course I still welcome all kinds of asks, but especially anything about Murtagh, Orrin, them together, or my fic specifically- and I'll also probably answer any of those right away because I seriously can't resist lmao (This isn't a headcanon blog anymore but this ship is the sole exception, I have so many feelings)

I really hope you guys will love this when it's finally complete. Part of me is nervous, but I'm doing my best to trust that the act of putting so much devotion into it will shine through on the other side ❤️

[jupiterswasphouse]

WASP REVIEW - FENDERSAX/NEEDLE WASP (RATCHET & CLANK: RIFT APART)

[Image IDs: Two pieces of official artwork from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart depicting the Fendersax/Needle Wasp /End IDs.]

Here's that personal pick I mentioned not too long ago! I actually really love the Ratchet & Clank games, having played through all the mainline games not too long ago. In fact, my playthrough of Rift Apart (One of my favorites in the whole series tbh) is what got me doing these wasp reviews in the first place. I sent a review of these guys to one of my friends while I was liveblogging through the game.

I wanted to say all that as a preface, though, as that initial review of these enemies (Which I will now be exclusively be referring to as 'Needle Wasps' since you hear that name more often throughout the game than 'Fendersax Wasps') didn't exactly end in a high rating.

First, a few things I can excuse just on the pure fact that these are aliens. They don't have antennae, are missing a pair of legs, have four eyes that are seemingly visually implied to be compound yet are still able to turn in their sockets, and don't have any ocelli.

In terms of the body shape, I'd say that, in terms of wasps, they most resemble those of the genus Baeus, with wings. But even then, I'd say that Needle Wasps are more comparable to flies in shape, apart from their four wings as opposed to the two wings and two halteres of a real fly. If anything, Baeus wasps remind me more of a particularly wide-bodied Zoni (from the PS3 R&C games)

[Image Sources: BugTracks, Tom Murray | Image IDs: A photo of a brown wingless wasp with blue eyes in the genus Baeus, followed by an official render of the Zoni from Ratchet & Clank Future /End IDs.]

Next, the "stinger", typically a modified ovipositor on a wasp, making its position, on the head, extremely awkward. Except, this is not used to sting. As for its defensive capabilities, it's used to shoot acid, which isn't exactly an unknown thing among wasps, with acid as a projectile being found in at least one wasp family, the ants (notably Formica and yellow crazy ants). However, outside of combat, the Needle Wasps are later found in Zurkie's bar, using this supposed stinger to drink, making it clear that these are mouthparts! This too is more similar to flies. While flies do not use acid defensively, they do use their spit for predigestive purposes.

The next thing you might notice, is that pair of fangs. It's clear to me that these are not the mandibles of a wasp, but the chelicerae of an arachnid, especially when combined with that inner pair of eyes almost creating a "second face", which is much more spider-like than the rest of the face.

[Image ID: A photo of a brown and black woodland giant wolf spider on a leaf, being held up to the camera by me /End ID.]

In the end, the most wasp-like thing about them might be something that's only implied, rather than shown. In a sidequest, you are intended to fend off a swarm of defending Needle Wasps as Chef Tulio extracts honey from a hive below the caverns of Blizar Prime. The hive itself is never shown, nor are any other hives outside of this one part of Blizar Prime despite these wasps appearing elsewhere, but at least there's one thing! Of course, many real world wasps create nests, and many also make and store honey (honey bees, several paper wasps, honey pot ants).

Now, in my review on Metroid Prime's War Wasps, I said that I couldn't rate them based them based on their merits compared to real wasps due to them being aliens. This time, though, I have to go against that. Metroid Prime came from a pretty good understanding of what wasps are, but the Needle Wasps, despite those few similarities, have too many aspects that don't line up with real wasps and/or aspects that more resemble other arthropods to be truly considered good representation of their supposed real world equivalents. I do find the design itself quite charming, though, at the very least.

-

Overall: 3/10

-

Leave your wasp review suggestion in the replies, tags, or askbox!

Make sure to tune in next week when we cover the Cazadores from Fallout: New Vegas!

[night-error]

Rambling about my Au's different types of endings. There's 2 btw

(Its late at night and my writing sucks so none of this will probably make sense until I have the time to explain it when im wide awake)

Build up to the ending-

Every ending of my au has the same build up to it. The heros and caretakers are fighting dub, my Oc's Nightterror and a matured scarlet and fighting towards them. Dub is in his annihilate faze so things aren't looking pretty. Eventually it comes to the point where the heros are getting badly injured but dub has rounded all 6 up in a tight confined space, slowly pulsing them towards him.

The caretakers are desperately trying to get to the heros with no avail as the centipedes that dub has are proving to be a challenge. Luckily enough Nightterror is able to slip past the corrupted bugs with some simple shape-shifting. She uses her shape shifting to turn into multiple things and people, trying to get to the heros before dub does.

Eventually she gets really close and turns into iris to use his telepoation ability to get as close to the heros. She turns back to normal mid air and tries to grab the heros. Unfortunately she failed to notice that she, and all the other heros are in dubs mouth and are about to get crunched.

With no time to react she reaches out to the heros to try to push them out but all of them are crushed.

Dub drops Nightterrors body and the heros. While she falls she has a few pieces of each hero in hand and she drops them far away from where she lands.

Ending 1-  'Kintsugi'

She's able to get up despite her injuries and walk over to the other caretakers grieving over what remains of the heros and joins in. Eventually cube is able to revive the heros using the peices and get them into their final forms. They beat dub and celebrate. After a massive celebration Nightterror is living with iris, then a week later a very unexpected guest arrives. Her actual father, the one who everyone thought died in the fire like her mother did. Obviously Nightterror is overjoyed and moves to live with her father, in the mountains but not too far from iris. They all live a long life. Nightterror lives to the long age of 8001 years while pyrare and gold only live to 7500 (might change that) she was fully grown before passing and when she did she joined the others in the stars.

Ending A- 'starry night' (cannon to my au)

After hitting the ground Nightterror is rendered unconscious. Not witnessing the heros be brought back from the dead, reach their final stage and defeat dub.Nightterror only regains consciousness after being shaking thoroughly by iris, who is desperate to fix her wounds. Unfortunately she's too far gone as she thanks iris and the others for everything before joining her mother in the stars. Time goes on in the au, around 60 (or more) years later. The caretakers have grown old and scarlet has also passed since heros can only live so long without  a caretaker. Iris is laying in bed I'll with a chest infection. He's much older and owns a emotional support cat named 'tri' (might change that part). As he lays he hears a familiar voice and it's Nightterror. Obviously as a ghostly, stary self, who hasn't aged at all. He knows that she's here to tell him it's his time to go, so he writes a note to pentellow, tsav and orange before closing his eyes. He walks away with Nightterror in the much younger 16-18 year old version of himself, now in the stars with her.

[pocketbelt]

Like A Dragon: Ishin! (PS5)

This is a remake of a game that originally came out between Yakuza 5 and Yakuza 0, and thus was in development at the same time. And it does show; Ishin actually fits in thematically quite a lot with where the overarching themes and direction of the series' plots were at the time. Like, yes, sure, this is a game about historical figure Sakamoto Ryoma, it is also tangibly a game that is, in part, about the character of Kazuma Kiryu, the sort of person he is and what his actions and behaviour mean and cause, much like 5 and 0.

Also, being set in the immediate events that birthed the Meiji Restoration, its looks at Japan's society at such a turbulent historical time actually align it with one of the key themes of Yakuza 6 quite well; the long-standing warped attitudes and beliefs in the institutions and higher classes of Japanese society about the value of life and that would tangibly give rise to Imperial Japan and all that that entails. It threads that quite interestingly, and I think playing Ishin after 5-0-6 is quite fitting.

Mechanically this is also an experiment; it's RGG's first and to my knowledge thus far only Unreal Engine game, and thank fuck for that. Like okay it's mostly fine, but the lighting and colour shit the bed quite often, the former especially blows out or gets overly dark for in-engine scenes that weren't very specifically tailored quite often, and it struggles to load in the environments anywhere near as smoothly as the Dragon Engine games do - in fact, you can even spot this in the pre-rendered video cutscenes sometimes, as the textures all pop in and up-res in the first few seconds in some. This is a shame as Ishin often makes really explicit and overt use of lighting - particularly of the orange-red cast of the rising sun = in scenes and it looks great, but anywhere they didn't specifically touch by hand often looks off.

There's a sequence in a burning town and the framerate basically halves for the entire sequence, and the lighting is so fucked that characters with full black hair just appear to be going Ultra Instinct, their hair just turns white under the fire lighting. Like maybe my PC's immense grunt is smoothing over issues the console releases might have for the rest of the series, but also I doubt the PS5 genuinely can't handle this.

Gameplay-wise it feels slower and heavier than its contemporaries and I can't tell if that's UE or just how Ishin was. The attempt at a style system, like what 0 would go on to demonstrate masterfully, is neat but in practice you're just going to be using Swordsman for boss fights and Wild Dancer for groups over 4-5; Brawler might get good but functionally all enemies wield weapons and you can't block them so it's asking for trouble, and Gunman is good for cheesing normal enemies and worthless in boss fights and so can mostly be ignored for Swordsman. There isn't anywhere near as much a balance of utilities and scenario-matching as 0 would have later, and the game knows this as Swordsman is often auto-selected for boss fights and most story situations, when the game isn't forgetting what you last picked and defaulting to Brawler.

It's oddly paced, too - the vast majority of substories are available before the halfway point of the game and a large proportion of them arre throwaways that open Friendships, where you zone-out and zone-in to talk to NPCs to give them shit/do some minor task until a bar fills. They aren't as fulfilling here as in 0 or even 6 and thus Ishin ends up rather light on content, despite efforts for varied sub-systems like the villa and its farm, the usual minigame suite and all. Many of the later chapters are functionally one fight with half a dozen cutscenes arranged around it, too.

But I'm a bad sucker for Japanese historical period pieces and Ishin fits that bill amply. Its sprawling story of the intrigues and bloodshed that threatened to tip Japan into fresh war in the aftermath of the Black Ships, and how this was steered into the toppling of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the advent of the Meiji Restoration is compelling and has lots of fantastic character work, high drama and great comedy, when it isn't stopping itself in the eleventh hour for a kind of tedious "date" with a love interest who could have been filled out more (not helped by them refusing to disable fights for the sequence, so Ryoma's lovely date was interrupted 6-7 times by street fights, the encounter rate is super high in Ishin compared to others in the series).

Worth a punt, I'd say, though if you're just mainlining Yakuza/LAD proper it can be left for later, despite its thematic fitting. My great endeavour bleeds over into 2025, but December ended up being super busy so that's no surprise.

[mistiell]

Strange Love Pt.2

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova x Healer! Reader

Summary: Your first day at the little palace goes relatively well. Until the General tells you that if you don’t take his offer to become an Oprichnik, you’ll be tried for treason.

Warnings: None as far as I’m aware

Word count: 2.3k

Part 1 < current > Part 3

The sun is just barely peeking through the window of your bedroom when you wake from a fitful sleep. The room is cold, the crisp chill of the steadily approaching Ravkan winter seeping through the glass panes of your window, forcing you further into your cocoon of blankets. After a nice long shower and some much needed dinner the night before, you'd returned to your room and passed out the moment your head had come into contact with your pillow.

With a sigh, you roll yourself onto your back, an arm thrown over your eyes to block out the annoying sliver of light that just so happens to be angled directly at your face. It can’t be later than six bells in the morning, breakfast won’t be served for at least another hour. You decide you might as well spend some time exploring. Getting to know the layout of the palace should aid you in escaping.

You roam the halls until breakfast, eating quickly before scurrying out of the dining hall. As confident as you are in your abilities, you feel it would be best to avoid Zoya for as long as possible. You’re halfway around a corner when you bump into someone, knocking you off balance.

When you regain your footing and open your mouth to apologise, you see the person you’ve just run into is none other than the heartrender you had rendered unconscious. He’s got a bandage on his forehead that you assume is because of you, “Oh, um… Hi.”

You offer him a nervous smile and he returns it, though his is a lot brighter than yours, “Hi. I’m Fedyor.”

Oh, so this is Fedyor. Great.

“Oh, Saints. Sorry for, uhm,” You point weakly at your own forehead to mirror where the bandage sits on his and he chuckles.

“It’s alright. I would have done the same.” His smile is contagious, but you still can’t help but feel bad.

“I can heal it for you, if you’d like.” He shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about it. I was actually going to head to the infirmary right after I fetched you for the General.”

“General Kirigan wants to see me?” You ask, stomach twisting up in a knot.

“During lunch, yes.” He states, sensing your hesitance, “It’s nothing bad. I think.”

That does nothing to quell your nerves, but you force a smile nonetheless, “Alright. Thank you for letting me know.”

“Of course. Anyway, I’m off to the infirmary. I’ll see you later?” His words fill you with a pleasant warmth, briefly wondering if you’d made a friend.

The feeling is quickly squashed when you remember you don’t plan on staying.

“Yeah.” Your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes, “Later.”

The hours after your encounter with Fedyor fly by. Practice in the anatomy room goes relatively smoothly. It seems your abilities are almost up to par with the others despite your lack of training, which is a pleasant surprise. Before you know it, lunch has rolled around and you find yourself standing outside of the war room.

You knock on the dark wooden doors, noting the carvings that mimic the ones to the dormitories, though this one bares a moon in eclipse. Your heart is thudding rapidly against your ribs when you hear the sound of his ‘Come in!’. You push them open and step through the doorway.

As you close the door behind you, your gaze roams over the room. There’s a large circular table in the centre of the room with what looks like well thought out plans scattered about the surface. Books and maps line the walls and the desk pressed against the far wall. It’s there that you spot the General sat looking over an important looking piece of parchment.

“General Kirigan.” He turns to you with a tiny smile that has you glancing over his shoulder to avoid eye contact, “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Yes, I did.” He states, gesturing towards a chair he’d pulled up beside his desk, “Please, sit.”

You make your way over and sit down wordlessly, picking at the grey embroidery on your kefta.

“I want to discuss your place here.”

“I thought you didn’t owe me an explanation?” You smirk and he huffs a soft laugh.

“I don’t, but I didn’t think it would be fair to leave you in the dark.” He states, gaze shifting to be a little more serious, “Do you know how I choose my oprichniki?” You shake your head, “Skill is an important factor. Ivan and Fedyor are two of the most capable heartrenders I know. They’ve trained for years, honing and perfecting their skills. What I want to know is,” He stares at you as if you were a puzzle, trying to put you together while missing half the pieces, “How did you manage to overpower him so easily?”

You’re silent for a moment. Should you tell him? What could he really do with the information if you gave it to him?

“I sped up my heart rate while he was slowing it. It wasn’t exactly easy, but I managed it.” His brows raise ever so slightly. He hums, and you think he almost looks impressed. You feel an odd sense of pride swell in your chest and can’t help the cocky little smile that creeps up on your lips. “That’s why you want to make me an oprichnik, isn’t it? I impressed you.”

He hums again, this one sounding a little more apprehensive as he narrows his eyes at you. There’s still a slight curl to the corners of his mouth that tells you you haven’t crossed a line, “Something like that. Speaking of, that brings me to my next point. The second quality I look for is loyalty, which is arguably more important than the first.” The humour slips from his face, his gaze turning intense, “Before I can place you in this position, I have to make sure you don’t have any intention of leaking any…important information, to outside sources.”

“What makes you so sure I want to be placed in this position?” He looks back down at the papers on his desk and sighs.

“If you don’t accept the position, you’ll likely be tried for treason.”

“Treason?!” You exclaim before clearing your throat in an attempt to compose yourself, “I haven’t done anything to justify being tried for treason.”

“Helping Grisha flee the country means less soldiers in the King’s army, which hurts our chance at winning the war,” When he looks at you, there’s something akin to sympathy swirling in those dark eyes, “No matter how pure your intentions were, they won’t see it that way.”

Anxiety prickles under your skin at the thought, but you furrow your brows stubbornly, “I told you. I run a clinic. Wherever they end up after they leave my home has nothing to do with me.”

He realizes that whether you’re trying to stretch the truth or not, technically, you wouldn’t be lying. You really wouldn’t know where exactly your patients end up after they leave. Still, he doubts you’d win against the king, “Would you like to take your chances?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then you huff frustratedly, “No.”

“Then I suggest you do your best to prove yourself.”

You have to stop yourself from scoffing. You’ve never been one that likes to be given orders, something he picks up on when he sees the way your jaw works and the way you glare over his shoulder for a split second, “What exactly do I need to do to achieve that, sir?”

If he picks up on the passive aggressiveness of your tone, he doesn’t say anything, “Well for one, you’ll continue your training with the other Corporalki.”

Alright, that’s doable.

“You’ll also be helping me with some of my paperwork.”

“What?” You frown, confused, “Didn’t you just say you have to make sure I won’t leak anything?”

“I did, and I will.” He states. It’s infuriatingly vague, but you don’t press him. Instead, you sigh.

“When should I start?” He smiles a little, grateful for your cooperation.

“You’ll report here after dinner every evening starting tonight. As for how long you stay, that’s entirely up to you.”

You nod, “Is that all?”

He thinks for a moment before nodding back, “That’s all.”

You leave without another word.

—

That evening after dinner, you find yourself outside the War Room once more. This time when you enter, the general is not sitting at his desk, nor is he standing at the war table. In fact, you’re unsure of whether or not you’ve got the time right—you swear it’s just after six bells in the evening—seeing as he doesn’t appear to be here at all.

You venture a little further into the room, hovering near his desk to skim some of the papers resting there. There’s a half finished letter sitting in the centre and you take a moment to admire the penmanship. His writing is rushed but admittedly very pretty as far as handwriting goes, the letters slender and slanted ever so slightly to the right.

There’s a distant thud to your right that sounds like a drawer closing and it’s then that you notice another door, one you hadn’t noticed when you’d been here earlier. It’s cracked open enough that when you lean forward over the desk to get a better look, you can see the corner of a bed and the edge of a dark wooden dresser. You lean a little further, placing a hand on the desk to brace yourself, and see someone standing in front of it. Someone who appears to be in the middle of getting dressed.

Your face flushes and you immediately right yourself as you realise that you’ve just seen none other than General Kirigan bare from the waist up. Granted, you only caught a glimpse of his back and shoulders, but it was enough to set your cheeks aflame and let loose a swarm of butterflies in your stomach.

You back away from his desk and glance down at the papers again, finding a couple of the letters smudged a bit. A little panicked now, you look at your hands and find several backwards letters printed on your fingertips.

“Y/n.” You practically jump out of your skin at the sound of his voice, going completely rigid as you clasp your wrist behind your back and attempt to wipe the ink off on your kefta. He’s dressed now, donning a black robe that leaves a sliver of his collarbone visible. When you catch yourself staring, your gaze slides back up to his face and you find an amused smirk hung on his lips.

“Gen-,” Your voice cracks up an octave and you clear your throat, “General Kirigan.”

“I apologise for leaving you waiting. I wasn’t expecting you so soon.” He comes closer and you back up to let him pull out his chair and sit down. There’s an awkward pause where you simply stand there rocking back and forth on your heels until he gestures to the armchair, smiling at you, “You can sit down.”

“Oh, right.” You curse yourself for being so flustered as you settle into the chair, “So, what am I helping you with?”

“You’ll be reading over and summarising some documents for me.” He sets a fair sized stack of papers to the side of his desk closest to you and hands you a large notepad and a pen. He clears off a little space next to the papers for you and looks up at you apologetically, “I hope you don’t mind sharing a desk.”

You shrug your shoulders and shake your head, taking the pen and scooting the chair closer to the desk. The documents he has you reading over don’t seem to be incredibly important, and summarising them proves to be a relatively easy task.

As you sit there writing away, the general can’t help but glance at you out of the corner of his eye. Your brows are slanted downward ever so slightly in concentration, pen scratching against the parchment fast as you scrawl letters across the surface. He shakes his head subtly, turning his attention back to his own work.

Maybe two hours later, you sit back in your chair with a subtle huff and attempt to roll the stiffness out of your wrist.

“Perhaps we should take a break.” When you look up, you find the general leaned back in his own chair.

“That might be best.”

You take a few moments to look around the room once more, gaze landing on the nearest bookshelf and as you try to make out the titles from where you sit.

“Did you grow up in Duva?” He asks suddenly and you turn to him a little confused.

“Yes, why?” You answer hesitantly, unsure of his sudden interest in your life.

“Just curious.” He pauses, gaze flitting over your face, “I’d like to get to know you better.”

You pause and he notices the apprehensive look on your face. Still, you shrug, “What do you want to know?”

“What was it like living there?”

“It was just my mother and I and she rarely ever let me accompany her into town, so there really isn’t much to tell.” You state and he frowns.

“Why wouldn’t she let you go?” He asks and you shrug again.

“She said it was something about keeping me safe. Didn’t stop me from sneaking out when I was older, though.” You huff a soft laugh and he smiles at you before his brows furrow in confusion.

“You were alone when Zoya and the others found you.” He watches you tense and immediately regrets his words. A pained look flashes across your face before you will it to remain neutral.

You glance over his shoulder and swallow, “I was.”

There’s a moment of silence before the realisation dawns on him and a pang of sad understanding blooms in his chest, “I see.”

When you nod curtly and wordlessly return to your work, he takes it as a sign to stop talking and return to what he was doing. You only stay another hour before bidding him a rushed goodnight.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Schiaparelli’s ‘Inferno’: A journey to Hell and back

I’ve always wondered if today’s self-absorbed creative directors and edgy designers at the leading luxury fashion houses based in Paris are familiar with George Santayana’s cutting observation that, “Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.” On the evidence of this year’s Paris Fashion Week I think not.

For the Spring 2023 collection at Paris Fashion Week, Schiaparelli creative director Daniel Roseberry revealed in pre-show notes that he was specifically drawn to Dante Alighieri’s magisterial Divine Comedy. He was especially inspired by Inferno, the 14th-century Italian poet’s renderings of Hell. Present as spectators and models were some of the internet’s favourite muses, such as Kylie Jenner wearing taxi-dermied outfits with hyperrealistic faux animal heads affixed to a fitted gown.

The singer Doja Cat was also there, appearing bald and covered in red gemstones at the steps of the Petit Palais like a demonic red figure. In other pieces, gold-painted torsos and metallic sculptural heads paid tribute to the house’s founder, Elsa Schiaparelli, and her ties to Surrealist artists like Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, and Meret Oppenheim during the 1930s. She was the subject of a recent retrospective at the the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris last year in 2022, and her collaborations with those artists demonstrated a propensity to shock audiences with strange garments that at times merged human bodies with animal features.

Throughout the haute couture show, Roseberry brought to life versions of Dante’s epic poem’s three allegorical animals: the lion, the leopard, and the she-wolf. Accordingly he dressed three super models, Shalom Harlow as the leopard, Naomi Campbell as the she-wolf, and Irina Shayk as the lion. All three haute couture dresses were sculpted and embroidered by hand, “celebrating the beauty of nature and guarding the woman who wears it” said the proud creative director.

When I read that particular remark I almost choked on my tea. I was sitting in a nearby Parisian café with my younger sister, who was visiting me in France, and one of our French-Nordic cousins who actually works in the luxury brand corporate world as a senior exec in LVMH. Through our cousin we had managed to see one or two of the fashion shows last week. It’s not really my cup of tea, but I gave in to indulge my visiting sister and my cousin who loves her job. 

Many people outside of haute couture world of Paris Fashion Week, focused on the spectacle of cruelty of seeing three stuffed animal heads on the bosoms of three super models strutting on a fashion show runway. Most of the criticism was misplaced as it showed little understanding what a haute couture show is all about. It allows the talented designer to let his/her hair down and show off their most off the wall ideas, and above it’s meant to be playful.

That said, I, however, was focused on what Daniel Roseberry actually said of his collection. I thought it was a misquote but no, as it turned out later, it’s what the designer said.

I resisted the urge to feel ‘offended’ and to look around for a pitch fork to join the unruly easily offended mob to denounce the designer. To me it wasn’t about the Surrealist heritage of Schiaparelli that the creative director drew inspiration from for one part of his show - that’s what one might expect from that fashion house. Nor was it the animal depiction on dress gowns that was pretty par for course for any haute couture fashion show - which I personally found garish and in bad taste - but which drew the public outcry against the perception of animal cruelty.

No, it was the crime of cultural vandalism against Dante himself.

I have no idea if Roseberry has actually read the Dante’s Divine Comedy or not but from his remarks that his hideous creations were “celebrating the beauty of nature and guarding the woman who wears it” he clearly hadn’t or was high as a kite on drugs and high energy drinks.

So I’m going to discuss Dante’s three wild beasts as Dante wrote them.

In the opening Canto of the Divine Comedy, Dante encounters three ferocious animals: the leopard, the lion and the she-wolf.

In the first canto of the Inferno, Dante, having gone astray in a dark wood, reaches the base of a sunlit hill (later described by Virgil as “the mountain of delight, the origin and cause of every joy”) and begins to climb - only to find the way blocked by three beasts. First, a leopard appears.

And almost where the hillside starts to rise - look there! - a leopard, very quick and lithe, a leopard covered with a spotted hide. He did not disappear from sight, but stayed; indeed, he so impeded my ascent that I had often to turn back again.

It is a spring morning, and “the hour and the gentle season” give Dante “good cause for hopefulness” upon seeing the leopard - but then he sees a lion.

but hope was hardly able to prevent the fear I felt when I beheld a lion. His head held high and ravenous with hunger - even the air around him seemed to shudder - this lion seemed to make his way against me.

When the third beast appears, Dante gives up hope entirely.

And then a she-wolf showed herself; she seemed to carry every craving in her leanness; she had already brought despair to many. The very sight of her so weighted me with fearfulness that I abandoned hope of ever climbing up that mountain slope. . . . I retreated down to lower ground.

When you read Dante - in Italian or in translation - nothing you read ever so simple and nothing should be taken at face value. Indeed in the Divine Comedy almost nothing is said without good reason. Take the verse preceding the appearance of the three beasts.

When I had rested my body there a while I then started again up the barren slope the more powerful foot always behind the other

Dante refers to the manner of his climb. He makes the climb with ‘the more powerful foot always behind the other’. One foot (the more powerful) is always behind (lower than) the other. This is a difficult line to interpret. It could of course simply be a description of how someone climbs a hill. You plant one foot in the ground and then push up allowing the other foot to 'land' and secure your position.

If Dante is talking about a stronger (firmer) foot and (presumably then) a weaker foot and talks about the one being lower than the other, there is probably a deeper meaning behind it. In Dante's thought world it was sometimes said that in the 'pilgrimage' towards heaven, we walk on two 'feet' (or legs); the Will and the Intellect. Because the Will, the stronger of the two, is always desiring what it shouldn't, our journey forward towards God is therefore hampered. We limp our way to heaven! So Dante could be saying that his Will lags behind his Intellect as he strives to find the light of God, making his journey up those slopes that much harder. The (weaker) Intellect is having to drag the (stronger) Will upwards towards the divine light.

An alternative explanation is inspired by a comment from St Augustine to the effect that 'love is the foot of the soul', in other words the driving force of the soul's  quest for God. So, Dante could be suggesting that his stronger foot (love) pushes his body up the hill towards God. Personally I prefer this more optimistic image of his ascent; after all, he begins his climb in hope and anticipation.

And so we have to ask ourselves as we come to the three beasts, is there a deeper meaning to these animals beyond their physical power and scariness. Yes, there is.

When Dante engages with myths throughout his Inferno, he’s also leaning into this tradition of animals as allegories. He’s striving to teach a lesson, as mythical creatures punish sinful souls for eternity. Invoking creatures from antiquity, Dante’s Inferno moulds pagan hell into a Christian design. These mythical creatures are behemoth reminders for potential sinners about the consequences of their actions.

Even from the opening canto of Dante’s Inferno, we find our titular character lost in a dark and winding wood. As the woods darken, he feels his consciousness enter a strange state - a feeling that he likens to death (Inferno 1.7). As this shroud covers him, Dante encounters the first mythical creatures in the Divine Comedy. Leopards and lions were not native to Italy. Travellers relayed tales of these beasts to illuminators and scribes, and information about them would be published in bestiaries. Leopards were often incorporated into coats of arms when there were descendants of adultery in a lineage. The leopard Dante encounters is “very quick and lithe” (Inferno, 1.32). Perhaps the leopard is meant to symbolise a sin associated with impatience or hubris. Lions were often symbols of Christ, akin to Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia but in this case the lion was “ravenous with hunger” (Inferno 1.46), which may have been a reminder to the reader about the dangers of gluttony.

The importance of animals goes beyond face value. Animals appearing in stories always contain allegories. The beasts symbolised the major categories of sin: incontinence, violence and fraud. Or as they are more commonly called - lust, pride and avarice. In her commentary, Dorothy L. Sayers explains that these categories of sin were associated with the three stages of life - lust with youth, pride (self-conceit) with the middle years and avarice with old age. Of course, they can attack a person at any time of his life.

Symbolism can help us enormously when reading Dante but it is also important I think to try to read the text itself and take clues from the way Dante uses the symbols. The Leopard is mesmerising, clever, quick and very pleased with itself, displaying its gaudy spots for all the world to see. The Lion terrifies even the air around it with its appearance (and presumably its roar) but the most noticeable thing about it from Dante the pilgrim's point of view is how proud it is as it hold its head up high. The third beast, the she-wolf, is one that has brought grief to many people. Her leanness speaks of an insatiable appetite; no matter how much (or how many people!) she eats she never thrives, never grows fat, she is never satisfied.

If Dante's world each of the beasts represented different vices or sins - the leopard as a symbol of lust, the lion a symbol of violent pride and the she-wolf as a symbol of avarice and fraud - then these  could also either represent Dante's own besetting sins which prevent him from reaching heaven, or perhaps the three levels of hell which are divided according to the kind of sin committed. In the first circle Dante the pilgrim will find those guilty of avarice and incontinence (not the bowel kind), in the second circle sinners guilty of violence and in the third, those responsible for crimes of treachery and fraud.

It’s easy to see then these animals as symbols of divine judgement on Dante. Dante is not ready to find the divine light. He is still under judgement. His sins have not been dealt with and as we shall learn, only by descending to hell and rising through the mountain of purgatory will he be able to find that light as a 'saved' soul.

All three wild beasts are mentioned in the bible and used as symbols of the kind of fate that will befall the people of God as divine judgment.

In Hosea 13:4-8 God says that he will be like a lion and a leopard (and an angry mother bear!) towards his ungrateful, apostate people.

In Jeremiah 5.1-6, Jeremiah fails to find one godly (just) person in the city of Jerusalem. Failing to do so God promises that judgement will come like this:

Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them,     a wolf from the desert will ravage them, a leopard will lie in wait near their towns     to tear to pieces any who venture out, for their rebellion is great    and their backslidings many. (NIV)

If indeed the wild beasts represent the judgement of God in the Old Testament through Hosea and Jeremiah, in the New Testament they take another form entirely. And this may well have played a part in Dante’s thought. It is entirely possible that Dante is thinking of the Apostle Paul's reference to 'fighting wild beasts in Ephesus' (1 Corinthians 15.32).  Of course Paul didn't mean he actually wrestled lions and wild beasts. He meant that dealing with those who opposed him there was just like being a gladiator in the arena fighting lions and bears. And the people who opposed him were the institutions of Ephesus, the city authorities, the trade guilds, the business leaders.

Dante the pilgrim, following in the footsteps of the Apostle struggles with his own 'wild beasts'. the wild beasts who had plotted against him, and exiled him from his native city in 1302. Dante the pilgrim walks in the footsteps of Paul. He also walks in the footsteps of Christ who was alone in the wilderness with the wild beasts for 40 days and 40 nights. Although the the original intention of the gospel writers may have been to conjure up the impression of a restored Eden, for Dante those accounts would have conjured up the idea of conflict and danger.

Like Paul and like Christ, Dante the pilgrim has to struggle with ferocious animals in his journey towards God, just as Dante the writer has had to in his journey.

Who or what then are these forces, these wild animals who prevented Dante from finding the true path? Interestingly these animals were all prized in one way or another in Dante's native Florence.

There is evidence that a leopard and a number of lions were kept and publicly displayed in cages in Florence in Dante's day near what is today the Loggia del Bigallo, as a sign of Florence's power and prestige.

The lion was also part of Florence's coat of arms. Scholars have noted that Dante was familiar with the writings of Richard of St Victor who had associated the leopard with the sins of deceit and fraud. The lion was associated in medieval bestiaries with the sin of avarice (because of its apparently insatiable hunger) as well as with pride. These are 'civic sins' as much as personal vices.

Was it Florence's avarice and pride that was in the front of Dante the writer's mind when he described the leopard's gaudy spots and the lion with its head held high? Is it perhaps the city that had turned against Dante and thrown him out to live a life of exile that prevents the progress of the pilgrim towards paradise?

The she-wolf is the most daunting beast of all. She proceeds terrifyingly, step by step stalking forward, threatening and relentless. Dante comments:

The very sight of her so weighted me with fearfulness that I abandoned hope of ever climbing up that mountain slope. . . . I retreated down to lower ground.

Surprisingly perhaps it is the she-wolf, not the leopard or the lion that finally causes the pilgrim to despair. Wolves were considered to be symbols of fraud and deceit as well as sexual immorality and prostitution.

In his hugely influential work The City of God, St Augustine had commented that in his time prostitutes were known as she-wolves and a brothel was known as a 'wolf den'. He suggested that this verbal link gave rise to the famous origin myth of Rome, according to which the two twins Romulus and Remus, the offspring of the god Mars and the their mother (whom he had raped) Rhea, were abandoned to die but were saved and suckled by a she-wolf. Augustine suggests that instead, they were found and fed by an unknown prostitute i.e. by a 'she-wolf'. From this play on words came the legend that it was a literal she wold who found and fed them.  In the City of God (Book 18 chapter 21) Augustine writes as follows:

“Procas ruled before Aemulius. Now Aemulius had made his brother Numitor's  daughter, named Rhea, a Vestal Virgin; she was also called Ilia, and was the mother of Romulus. The Romans wish to say that she conceived twins by Mars; for, in this way, they honoured, or excused, her unchastity. They offer as proof of this the legend that, after their exposure, the infants were suckled by a she-wolf. For they hold that this species of animal belongs to Mars; and so, therefore, the she-wolf is believed to have offered her teats to the little children because she recognised in them the sons of Mars, her master.

There is, however, no lack of people who say that, when the exposed infants lay wailing, they were first taken in by some unknown whore, and that hers were the first breasts they sucked - for ‘she wolves’ (lupae) was the name given to whores, which is why houses of ill repute are even now called ‘wolfouses’ (ilupanaria). Afterwards, it is said, they came into the care of a shepherd called Faustulus, and were nurtured by his wife Acca. And yet if, in order to convict the man who was king, and who had cruelly commanded that these infants be cast into the water, God willed to help the children through whom such a great city was to be founded, and to have them rescued from the water by His divine intervention and suckled by a wild animal: is there anything very wonderful in this? “

- Translated by W. Dyson (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

So, according to Augustine, it wouldn't be surprising if God had supplied a real she-wolf to find and feed the abandoned babies, because God is merciful and just, but in fact the stories he has heard suggest a different explanation. Namely that it was a human 'she-wolf', a whore, who had found them.  

It is also interesting that Augustine links the god Mars with the story. The wolf, he says, is one of Mars' own creatures' i.e. a beast with a special affinity to Mars. Is it relevant that the city of Florence had adopted Mars as its own patron 'star'? It may also be relevant that the name of the Guelf faction, some of whom had ordered Dante's expulsion from Florence, was linked to the German word for wolf (Welf).  Dante's enemies in Florence were 'wolves'. It seems the clue lay in the name.

But it may not have been only Florence Dante wanted to suggest to readers' minds. In addition it seems that by the time Dante wrote the Divine Comedy the Papal Curia had adopted as its own symbol the famous statue of Romulus and Remus suckling from the mother she-wolf on the Capitoline Hill. The she-wolf was of course the defining myth of Rome’s founding. Several ancient sources refer to statues depicting the wolf suckling the twins. Livy reports in his Roman history that a statue was erected at the foot of the Palatine Hill in 295 BC. Pliny the Elder mentions the presence in the Roman Forum of a statue of a she-wolf that was "a miracle proclaimed in bronze nearby, as though she had crossed the Comitium while Attus Navius was taking the omens". Cicero also mentions a statue of the she-wolf as one of a number of sacred objects on the Capitoline that had been inauspiciously struck by lightning in 65 BC: "it was a gilt statue on the Capitol of baby being given suck from the udders of a wolf." Cicero also mentions the wolf in De Divinatione 1.20 and 2.47.

The Capitoline Wolf was widely assumed to be the very sculpture described by Cicero, due to the presence of damage to the sculpture's paw, which was believed to correspond to the lightning strike of 65 BC. The 18th-century German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann attributed the statue to an Etruscan maker in the fifth century BC, based on how the wolf's fur was depicted. It was first attributed to the Veiian artist Vulca, who decorated the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and then reattributed to an unknown Etruscan artist of around 480 - 470 BC.

So for centuries The Capitoline Wolf was almost universally recognised as an Etruscan statue from the early part of the 5th century BC. It was only in 2006 that an Italian art historian and restorer, Anna Maria Carruba, published a detailed critique against the accepted view. She argued that the bronze had been cast with a method unknown in classical times, and that marks left by the artist on its surface were more typical of the Middle Ages. Barely a year later in 2007, Rome’s top archaeologist and heritage advisor,  Prof. Adriano La Regina, reported that over 20 tests using radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating don at the University of Salerno suggested that the wolf portion of the statue may have been cast between 1021 and 1153. Overnight one ancient Rome’s oldest artefacts became one of city’s youngest.

Given the pride and place of this famous statue, The Capitoline Wolf, given by the Church of Dante’s time, it adds an extra dimension to any reading Dante’s words about the she-wolf. For the wolf, the creature of Mars, the symbol of Rome and now of the church was a big thing in 13th century Italy. It is this beast that scares Dante the most, that strips away his hope and forces him to turn around.  It is this beast he says which has been ‘the despair of many’. It is not a surprise then to find that throughout the Inferno he likens various damned souls to wolves.

Again the bible may have played a part in his thinking Jesus warned his disciples to watch out for the false prophets, the wolves who come dressed in sheep's clothing. Ithink it’s too much of a stretch to say it was a direct attack on the church or the papacy of Boniface VIII but it does lend credence to the possibilities of personal corruption for those in the church who flirted with earthly temptations and sins - the very sins that destroyed souls and blocked humanity’s upward path to heavenly salvation.

For Dante there was no distinction between the inner and the outer person or between the individual and social.  The individual did not live a life apart from his or her wider life in the state and in the church. Sin was something that affected everything and everyone. These beasts may well represent sin or vices with which Dante the writer was only too familiar in his own experience but to me it seems highly likely that they represent above all the forces he saw around him which, in his mínd, prevented people finding the beauty and love of God. The Apostle fought his wild beasts in Ephesus. Dante fought his in Florence.

The mythical figures featured in Dante’s Inferno lean on a long tradition of animals as allegory. As Dante journeys through the realms of the afterlife, these beings can lend a helping hand on the long and winding road through hell, purgatory, and heaven.  While the creatures of the Inferno intend to scare sinners straight, they themselves also suffer as the embodiment of their respective sins.

While hell is where sinners languish, it remains a complex and captivating place. Dante filled his entire Divine Comedy with bizarre creatures from across literature, and they serve a similar purpose to any beast in a story: to distill morals or a lesson. Their presence makes the story memorable, even for modern readers like us today.

Dante’s Inferno brings readers on a journey through hell, replete with allegories from across time like sitting through a hellscape of a Schiaparelli haute couture fashion show during Paris Fashion Week. As time wears on, Inferno’s wild beasts offer captivating perspectives on our very modern sins of lust for affirmation, pride in our self-centredness, and an avarice for material comfort.

But I don’t wish to end on a downer because Dante is not a pessimistic poet. Most readers never proceed beyond the macabre thrills of Dante’s ‘Inferno’, with its grotesquely inventive torments. Those who do ascend from the “Inferno” find some of Dante’s most lyrical verse in his ‘Purgatorio’. But it is the least-read of the three books, ‘Paradiso’, that makes sense of the other two. It shows, Dante was not just a poet of crisis, but also a poet of hope:

The ‘Divine Comedy’ is that rarest thing, an epic poem with a hopeful ending. It is about getting a second chance - and ultimately finding joy, a Christian understanding of joy in the light of God’s saving grace.

[rainbowchewynuggets]

Okay, change of plans.

Despite my best laid plans, my intentions to produce that Hellboy comic through October are turning out to be more unrealistic than they were before I moved. Unforeseen circumstances are going to reduce the amount of free time I have in the near future (thanks, Ian), and I straight up overestimated how quickly I’d be able to draw each page. Which happens a lot.

See, there’s kind of a bigger problem here. I routinely find myself getting excited about making a comic project, writing it all out, and then burning out repeatedly as I draw it. For the longest time, I thought that was just what it took to draw that many cool pictures on one page. It wasn’t until I started living with a friend from college that I realized there was a problem. Or, he realized it first. He’s astonishingly good at clocking me through my stubborn bullshit lol. He said that maybe I constantly burn out because I’m using 100% of my artistic capacity 100% of the time. Which sounds ideal on paper. I’m making the very best art that I can. But it’s completely unsustainable because, uh… I’m a human with limits, as I constantly forget. And comics take a lot of stamina.

Because I don’t understand comics. I read comics all the time growing up, but I didn’t draw like them. I learned to draw from making fine art pieces in school. I drew with realism and life drawing as the core of my practice because that’s what my dad had been taught back when he aspired to be an animator at Disney, and that’s what he taught me. The only thing that ever impressed art teachers and classmates was how accurately I could draw a face or a vase or a landscape. So I did that as well as I could.

Now, I should be clear here. Realism absolutely has a place in comics. Some of the most beautiful and intelligent pieces of work I’ve ever read had clear roots in realism. Life drawing is a sensible basis for any kind of representational art, in my opinion. Sequential art that’s just a series of fully-rendered paintings astound and enchant me.

It’s just that I think that level of detail and accuracy just isn’t right for me. Partly because my writing style is also super extra. I have big spiraling ideas that take a lot of time and pages to execute. My writing is actually just now reaching a point where I can whittle it down to reasonable finished scripts that I can draw with (which might be why I never realized this art problem before). And sooner or later, my brain wanders off onto something else. So being stuck with these big projects that are so exhausting to execute leads to a kaleidoscopic labyrinth of “break” projects that are supposed to be easier. They never are. Because my brain doesn’t know how to do “easier”. Like anything, I think “easier” will take practice. Study.

My plan, therefore, is to study an easier style to keep in my toolbox. Something fun and shape-based that lets me lean on the forms of abstraction and simplification that I already use in my current dominant style. Mostly, I’m looking at Scott Campbell (lead art director of Psychonauts 1) right now. And I’m gonna try working with some brushes that won’t leave me agonizing over line weight. If this works, it might give me more time to think about color dynamics, lighting, staging, and expression (since you guys seem to love that so much in TMA Encore; I love it too).

What does this mean for Hellboy and Encore, then? I think the best thing to do for Hellboy is post the pages I finished before I moved and release the remaining script in text form through October. It’s not as good as having the whole thing drawn, but I think having initial pages will at least help readers visualize the rest. (And I’d really like people to be able to experience the whole thing because I feel like it’s some of the best writing I’ve ever done.) Then, starting in November, I want to get Encore wrapped up. This will take the form of a kind of… hybrid media presentation. Encore has no complete script, but I can write a dramatic summary of what happens chapter by chapter, accompanied by drawn panels and sequences of important moments. Like a picture book. That kinda fits the dark academia vibe.

Following that, I’m going to use that Psychonauts fanfic I mentioned months ago as a study tool. I have a whole side blog for that (link), but I might crosspost them here when the time comes. And from there, hopefully, I’ll have a sustainable work ethic and can start on my own original projects. With videos. And patreon!

It’s a big weird shift all of a sudden, I know. This may just be another art blog on tumblr, but it’s important for me to try to be consistent and accountable when I make projects. And if I can’t do that, I at least want to be transparent. (Who knows–talking about this might help someone else who’s struggling, too.) I have kind of a rare opportunity in my life to sit and focus on art right now, and I don’t know when another will come again, if ever. So I want to use the limited time I have to improve and position myself for success (and wellness) going forward.

I hope you understand. But I have a feeling you will. You guys are real nice. :)

Thanks for reading.