#flat and endless

[psalidodont]

'' The world as we know it, The deadlands. From cold, frozen and unforgiving oceans, thick, humid and overgrown marshlands, and a scorching field of death in the down under... the deadlands are foul, wretched and teeming with dangers amongst the woods, lurking for their merciless prey. A tough place that only breeds tougher nightmares. Home to a plethora of horrifying, monstrous dragons, of all kinds that rule the skies and oceans... towering amongst other beasts, casting their shadow as they fly and burning whatever comes across their path to let their presence be known. The further one travels across the unruly waves will only meet its fate at the world's end. A veil of thick ocean fog, followed by the sound of rushing water and a drop off, down to a insignificant petty death.... nobody truly lives to see what's beyond the gates of hell.''

[joytherabbit]

[reverseisekai-richie]

The One who Feasts in the Dark

This is why I don’t draw Nibbly often despite being my favorite design out of all his brothers.

In a classic chthonic deity fashion, I wanted to associate him physically with wealth, so studded along his body are the remains of the jewelry his sacrifices wore. Their pearly little veneers dot his gums amongst his more bestial teeth. Each of his own arms are made up of intertwined human arms with perfect manicures.

[dustykneed]

pictured below: highly uneven distribution of buttock volume amongst the captain, first officer and cmo of the uss enterprise. happy spones day!

sporse (spock horse)! obligatory warning for exposed midriff in the next pic (aos!) but nothing too racy. a version that is very very slightly more so is up on my ao3 :]

always and forever will be a true sponer... oh old married couple of my heart 🩵💙💛

[satoblue]

some modest outfits i wear which are dangerous around my breeder balled husband

[wolf-and-raven-dreaming]

I'm taking a slight break this week from the comic, so let's do something a little different!

I will indulge you on something that I had to really think about. A...challenge about building Hob’s flat.

Architecture is, and will remain, TOUGH. I know how it works, but it doesn't mean I know how to make it work.

So, I improvised on what I had seen from other apartment floor plans, trying for a cozy, yet modern dwelling. I based the flat on this upscale apartment in Ukraine

...aaaaand now I wanna live in this flat... :/

[aquatark]

Marine Encyclopedia - The Gabbiano

Endless Ocean, Nintendo Wii

flat fuck friday + floaty janet

[mask131]

Another little post about the Sandman/Flat-Earth situation. I have seen this recent post relaying the idea that Gaiman's Sandman is an entire rip-off of Lee's Flat-Earth. I spoke about this idea before - pointing out that people seem to be overblowing it a bit and trying to turn a "strongly inspired by" into a "it's a plagiarim case" thing. You know how it goes with the Internet - as soon as someone turns out to be a bad person, every new "trivia" that pops up is spreading like wildfire without people checking their sources (again, to stay on a Gaiman adjacent thing, see how people were deeply convinced Rowling had plagiarized Gaiman's Books of Magic, despite her not doing it and Gaiman himself not feeling plagiarized at all - especially since a lot of the Books of Magic series wasn't his per se, he just created the original mini-series and the rest was grown out by other artists).

Anyway I want to specifically talk about one point made in the post I linked: that Destiny of the Endless (Sandman) is supposedly a plagiarism of Flat-Earth's Destiny. I guess the character they are referring to is Kheshmet, Master of Fortune, embodiment of fate. Now, I have to be fair: I have not reached the part of the Flat-Earth series where Kheshmet appears. So far I am about to finish "Death's Master", and without this post I would have never been aware of the existence of an embodiment of fate in the Flat Earth (since the Lords of Darkness are usually talked about in terms of the trinity of Azhrarn, Uhlume and Chuz).

However I have, again, to point out that despite the feeling maybe being right... to call Destiny of the Endless a "proof" of Gaiman's plagiarism of Lee falls flat (no pun intended). Because Gaiman did not create Destiny of the Endless. Again, this is something that most Sandman fans know about - unless they are fans of the show exclusively - but the very first issues of Sandman, the first arcs, were about creating a new series part of the DC Universe (it was only later that Sandman strayed away into its own thing, and the series adaptation removed most of the DC Universe references to avoid being too obscure to newcomers).

Sandman wasn't just about creating another part of the DC Universe (well, multiverse) but it was also entirely dedicated to bringing back under the light obscure, secondary or forgotten DC characters. That was Neil Gaiman's goal, and it was because these characters were unused and forgotten that he was allowed to go crazy with them.

The Dreaming's inhabitants, when we first see it, are all old EC Comics/ DC Comics horror hosts that were forgotten. Eve, Cain and Abel, Lucien, the gargoyles... They were all part of a shared universe before, the vast network of the old DC horror-universe. Gaiman took it back and simply decided that this universe would be the Dreaming's nightmare part in its ruined state.

The Three-in-One, the Three, the Triple Goddess, however you call them... start out as Neil Gaiman not just playing on the "Wyrd Sisters" like Pratchett himself did (Norns/Macbeth witches crossover), but actually reinventing the Three Witches that were old DC horror-hosts of the "Witching Hour" series.

Hence also why Constantine appears, why Dream fights Doctor Destiny, why Batman's Scarecrow appears, why one of the first "alternate Dreams" we see is the Martian god of Manhunter, why Dream has his Ruby (it was the Materioptkon), etc etc... In fact the first arc of Sandman lost MANY present many people trying to get in the series due to how heavy it was with old DC lore.

And Destiny of the Endless... he is not exception to the rule. Destiny is in fact the ONLY Endless that Gaiman did NOT create - when he started Sandman (again, we have his manuscripts, propositions and drafts in various companion books) he only had three Endless in mind, clearly designed, Dream, Death and Destiny - and the reason Destiny appears so early on in the series is precisely because he was pre-existing in the DC Universe.

He was another DC horror host, who had "canonically" interacted with characters like Lucien or Cain & Abel. Not only that, but he also appeared as a proper character in other DC titles before Sandman was created.

What did Gaiman do with the character? Give him a family and an exact position in the DC Universe. Change his purple robes to gray. Make him blind. And of course, let's not forget giving him a domain... The Garden of Forking Ways. Which Neil Gaiman has been very open (on his very Tumblr he said it two or three different times) about being a nod to Jorge Luis Borges' own Garden of Forking Paths.

As I said in my previous post, yes Gaiman is very derivative, borrows a lot, plays a lot of homages, makes a lot of Easter eggs and nods and winks to other works, resulting in his works being these sort of cultural Frankenstein Monsters... But when you want to point out where a character comes from, get it right please.

Yes, Gaiman was inspired by Tanith Lee when creating the Endless and Sandman. The Lords of Darkness are very similar to the Endless in many ways (personifications of abstract concepts tied to humanity ; top dogs of the supernatural hierarchy who play around with people's fates for their personal amusement ; have their personal world-domains, there's a certain D- motif recurring with Death, Delirium, Delusion...). But they are also very dissimilar in many ways (the Lords of Darkness are under the Gods, who are separate and stronger entities, while the Endless are "above and beyon gods" ; the Endless are a dysfunctional family whereas the Lords of Darkness laugh out loud when humanity imagines them as "cousins" or "brothers" ; and the D- motif is not recurring since among the Masters are the Master of Night and the Master of Fortune).

It is not because Sandman was influenced by Lee's Flat-Earth that EVERYTHING in it is a Flat-Earth rip-off. You have Ovid rip-off, Shakespeare rip-off, Zelazny rip-off, Brian Froud rip-off, The Golden Ass-rip-off, Eddas rip-off, Angela Carter rip-off and much, much more.

Maybe my point of view about the origins of Destiny will change once I get to read Lee's depiction of her Master of Fortune... But for now, if you want to accuse someone of plagiarizing Lee, accuse the artist who created Destiny for hosting EC Comics.

[galedekarios]

I’m not surprised honestly, but I don’t need an award to validate how much I love it. Veilguard is my personal goty, that being said if it can’t be that. Go Metaphor!

that is very true.

i'm just feeling some kind of ways about the positive aspects being completely dismissed in favour of endless criticisms, some deserved and some not.

the same thing happened with inquisition back when it released.

it's funny when i see large parts of the fandom - and even outside of that - now getting misty-eyed over it.

i do remember all the thinkpieces back then on how the inquisitor is actually the worst protagonist, the companions the weakest, the tone too goofy, the plot and chars too railroaded, the lore and stories retcon'd and/or ignored, and so on and so.

i talked about this before and i suppose it's the cycle of bioware games and the bioware fandom at this point. in additions to that, we sadly live in a time now where grifters picked up on it and i do genuinely think that influenced the decision process to some degree.

[cherrisherry]

was scanning the funger subreddit for smth (a fools errand, truly) and yknow ngl I'm kinda tired of people looking at character designs that aren't conventionally attractive and calling them ugly

Samarie is pretty in the way that a tree stretching away from a powerline is. That an orange that has thicker flesh is. She may never be on the cover of vogue but god damn if she wouldn't make me stop and look twice in a grocery store to admire her. She's natures imperfections and I wouldn't have her any other way ngl. She's pretty don't try to change my mind u can't

[joytherabbit]

Gosh! I love that trailer!

[milfzatannaz]

this particular drawing by Frank Cho literally sends me into a blind rage bc WHAT THE SHIT is wrong with this guy

[bredforloyalty]

anyone else feel like life is a trap or is it just me

[cosmicsproutcake]

Feels like a good time to remind anyone who might see this, that while you are welcome to send me art requests, I only actually complete maybe 5% of them.

Whether or not I take a request hinders on if I have the time, energy, motivation, and interest to draw whatever you're asking for.

That last one is actually probably the biggest contributing factor; this is a request, so free; I am not being paid. I also have a full-time job. So if your request doesn't pique my interest, I'm very unlikely to actually do it.

[surfer-roo01]

[mask131]

Two thoughts born from this whole talk of Sandman-plagiarism-or-not. Well, one born from the recent discourse, the other is a very old one that I posted about a long time ago and got buried by the years.

Thought A: While the whole thing of "Sandman is just a rip-off" of Flat-Earth has been shot down, it reminds me of what I noticed a long time ago and tried to tell people but nobody was interested X) I don't know if Gaiman was aware of this book, and I don't know if it is just another one of those strange literary coincidences, but "Sandman" the comic book and "The Neverending Story" the ORIGINAL NOVEL (not the movies, there's a world outside of American productions) have such strong parallels that the Neverending Story could be basically another facet of the Sandman universe. The Child Empress is basically Dream under a different shape, the Old Man of the Wandering Mountain has so strong parallels to Destiny, and Fantastica/Fantasia could be the Dreaming. I still headcanon that "The Neverending Story" is one of the many universes of the Sandman-verse.

Thought B: In all the accusations of Sandman plagiarizing Tanith Lee's Flat-Earth, I am very surprised nobody brought up the actual element that could look like a "plagiarism" and was very likely directly inspired by Azhrarn. I guess it is because a lot of the people who talk about the issue never finished Sandman or are only aware of the Netflix series... So I guess spoilers if you want to finish the Sandman original series? And also bg spoilers if you want to start Tales from the Flat Earth. Be warned, it's under a cut.

But if there is one element you can accuse Gaiman of having plagiarized (or being very heavily influenced by), it is the climax of Night's Master. You know how the big conclusion of Sandman is that Dream dies? He doesn't just "die" he purposefully sacrifices himself to save his realm and the world from a hateful force wrecking everything up. And the entirety of the Sandman comic builds up to Dream being stuck to the all, cornered by all sides and forced to let hmself die - Gaiman himself never hid how he hinted, prepared and foreshadowed this ending by the very first arcs of the story. Well... that's Azhrarn's situation in Night's Master. All the events, adventures and characters of the story causing a discreet chain of events that causes the birth of an enormous threat and danger that corners the Prince of Demons against a wall and forces him to die, to sacrifice himself to get rid of this power... Only to be reborn later because he is an eternal principle, just like how Dream is "reborn" because the Endless are, well, Endless.

If you want to accuse Gaiman of plagiarizing Lee, or if you want to find the strongest inspiration Gaiman took from the Flat-Earth, it is the ending of Night's Master, which was almost literaly re-created in Sandman and make a core and key element of the entire series' narrative structure and plot-building.