This is me trying to bypass Tumblr censorship, attempt 1
Just in case, the full fanart is on ao3
Details under the cut! (It's a bit long, I'm warning you)
Here's the frankly too long explaination.
I basically crammed in this drawing all my favourite motifs and all of my studies.
The tattoo on Sam's back is something I designed myself and represents Mater Dolorosa (Our Lady of Sorrows or Madonna Addolorata) with a stanza from the prayer "Stabat Mater" that goes as folows - "Through her soul, of joy bereaved, bowed with anguish, deeply grieved, now at length the sword hath passed."
Then we have Saint Michael slaughtering the Devil on Dean's arm. This is a mesh up of different stock images; usually Saint Michael stands over a serpent not a dragon and has a sword, not a halberd, those come from Saint George (Patron Saint of soldiers, so not a random choice)
Then there's the scripts. (Open the first pic)
The roman numbers on Dean's collarbone: II.V.XCIII = 2.5.83, Sam's date of birth.
The matching latin tattoos on their bicepts: The whole quote actually is "Nec tecum, nec sine te vivere possum" by Ovidius, which means "I can't live with you nor without you" and I thought of splitting it like that because I think it sums up their relationship pretty well. They can't be together, especially Sam imo (forever the runaway), because it's basically self-destructive, but being apart maybe is even worse (suicidal Dean anyone?).
A mandala with a mantra on Sam's tigh: गते गते पारगते पारसंगते बोधि स्वाहा . The Devanāgarī, for those unfamiliar, is a South Asian writing system. Here we have the mantra that closes the Heart Sutra "Gone, gone, gone to the other shore, Awakening, Svaha." (Svaha is the Hindu goddess of sacrifices; in a Buddhist context the term is used as denoument for mantras, espicially duing rites and offerings).
The characters on Dean's bicept, next to Saint Michael: 天罰. Those are technically Hanja aka Traditional Chinese characters used to write Korean (mostly because I first encountered this word in my korean phylology studies and that's how I know it), but they mean the same thing in Korean, Chinese and Japanese, "Divine Punishment", sooo - the only difference is the ponunciation. Korean: 천벌 (cheonbeol) Japanese: てんばつ (tenbatsu) Chinese: 天罚 (tiān fá).
Lastly, on Dean ribs, say hi to my bestie Hammurabi and his famous Code: here we have the Law 196 which actually even rocks know about; An eye for an eye. The full text says: "If a man has blinded the eye of another man, his eye will be blinded." Can't really offer you a transcript but if you're curious here's the transliteration:
" šum-ma a-wi-lum i-in DUMU a-wi-lim úḫ-tap-pí-id i-in-šu ú-ḫa-ap-pa-du " There's this really neat website here that is a digital version of the whole code and it's also my source.
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spartacus and crassus :)
this is actually a rejected panel from a much longer comic I’ve been fucking around with on and off for awhile- I had plans to do a long form spartacus comic for a long time, I just keep missing the last book on my research list in second hand stores 😔 I always have money when the last copy sells out aughhh
anyway! I might call crassus my girl in the group chat, but I’ve actually spent more years wishing that spartacus got to run crassus through on his sword and then read the fate of rome out of his entrails. ALAS.
on that note, isn’t it kind of interesting how spartacus’ funeral games for crixus turn roman order upside down and feel like both a foundational sacrifice and a curse? isn’t it kind of fun how crassus will not die in rome, and neither will pompey, who came in like a vulture to take credit for crassus’ work? (it’s VERY fun)
Plutarch, Crassus
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it feels weird because it's obvious i've 'dropped off' since first announcing my game, the hype from the kickstarter and the markiplier play through of the prototype dying down.
it's weird because of course it bums me out that people aren't as excited as they were, but its also nice because it feels like there's a bit less pressure hanging over my head.
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"Arya wouldn't have been able to survive in KL" is really one of the dumbest fanon takes where you can tell someone only believes it because they like the idea of Arya and Sansa being "exact opposites and perfect complements" (even though it goes against the books). Actual evidence from the books to back it up? Never anywhere to be found despite how confidently people make this claim.
And not only does it severely mischaracterize Arya and ignore what she's been through, it also ignores her importance as a political hostage. The Lannisters weren't searching for her, and lying about having her, for no reason. They needed her because having only one Stark after executing Ned put them in a poor position to negotiate. So Arya would have been more than capable of handling herself (thoroughly shown in her Harrenhal chapters) and the Lannisters would've done everything in their power to keep her alive but, somehow, she wouldn't have been able to survive? It's truly one of those takes that falls apart if you think about it for more than two seconds but apparently, that's too much effort for some people.
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