#well I have Concepts for more

[kingcael]

all in the eyes of a boy

[eydilily]

break like an artist.

--

a collab between me and @slashmagpie for hermitadaymay's Solstice Social Collaborative Event! make sure to check out magpie's amazing fic for this too :D

(alternate ver under the cut)

[cockroachesunite]

a ghost story

(commissions info)

[wasyago]

Falls in, i would love to hear about this decked out/failed cave exploration au pls pls pls already i am Bewitched

hehehe [in tango's voice] sighh i suppose...

really im very tempted to just let it sit and not tell anything, because it's so fun seeing people theorize and point out details in the notes. but yeah i guess i shouldn't gatekeep it, its a fun au!

i do want to state in the beginning that it was a one-off thing and i have no plans on continuing it or drawing more for it. if you do tho? feel free! (not asking for fanart by any means, but giving the green light if anyone was wondering)

well

-------

Pet crew were a group of cave explorers. They're no experts by any means but they were no amateurs either! (ignore the fact that they're not wearing any PPE, i didn't want to draw it, ok--) And recently they've been excited about mapping out a new cave system they found, completely unexplored according to their research.

Tango, always a big lover of his plans and spreadsheets, presumably decided to go in alone ahead of time to sketch out at least a rough draft for a map, so they had an idea of what they're going to be dealing with.

But see, this cave is not an ordinary cave, no matter how pristine and untouched it looked. It is one gigantic organism of unknown origin, and a hunrgy one at that, the air inside it is filled with little cells or spores that, when inhaled enough, start taking over the body and corroding it to the cave's will. Killing the host in the process.

So, obviously, after spending some time in the cave by himself, Tango did get some cells in him. Not enough to be noticeable, but enough to give him a headstart on the corruption when the group went in for a proper dive some days later.

The first symptoms of undergoing the change are pretty standard: light fever, weakness, dizziness — easy to mistake for a flu.

Which is exactly what Tango did. Of course, going caving with a flu is not a smart thing to do either, but the group has been planning this trip for so long, delaying it even more because someone was slightly under the weather would've been foolish!

The cave started off with a big drop, requiring a rope to be set up, and then sprawled into a system of tunnels. Tango and Pearl were very excited to find an entrance to some ancient tombs a couple of hours into the dive. There were stairs leading even deeper underground, which turned out to be an entrance to a bigger cave system, with a huge frozen lake in the middle and an entrance to abandoned mines.

Further symptoms include skin turning pale, graying hair, eyes starting to shift color to red. Previous symptoms remain and intensify.

Tango had always been pale, he had blond hair too, and in the dark it was hard to notice the white streaks in them. The pink cheeks were easily passed as a result of being in the cold. Pearl did express some concerns about Tango's well-being when he started to fall back a bit, but he dismissed it as just him getting tired. By that point Pearl seemed to also have some "frost" in her hair.

After the hair have fully turned white, the tips start to switch color to an unnatural blue. Skin eventually loses color completely, turning gray. Fever intensifies as body desperately tries to fight the infection.

At that point it was impossible to deny that something was wrong with Tango. There are no mirrors underground though, so to him it was just his flu getting out of hand. Guilty of hiding his illness, yes, but nothing critical. The blue hair however were not normal, and the other two were freaking out a bit more than Tango would've hoped for.

They had an argument.

Etho snapped and hit Tango to beat some sense into his stupid head.

By that point Pearl was clearly looking bad too, and Etho's own hair were apparently turning white. They were all feeling terrible, physically and mentally. They decided to head home.

As previously stated, the cave is in fact alive and can sense when something that belongs to it is trying to escape. In an effort to stop it, the whole cave system comes to life. Old animal carcasses rise and start walking, small screeching creatures begin patrolling the tombs, the ice melts and the cave blooms in dangerous ways.

When the crew exited the mines into the second level of the cave system, it was apparent that the way back would be a lot harder. By that point Tango was struggling to stand and Etho had to drop his equipment to carry him. But the fever and the dizziness were making it hard to move fast, the changed layout of the cave was difficult to navigate even with their map, and the way to the surface was still very and very long. It was obvious they couldn't make it out....

Unless they were willing to make some sacrifices.

Etho isn't proud of his decision, but leaving Tango was their only option! He and Pearl still had a chance to escape if they moved quickly, but Tango was just too far gone, he couldn't-- Etho couldn't carry him to the exit, he was getting too tired, and if they all stuck together it would get all three of them killed! Was it not better for at least two of them to survive instead of-

They had another argument.

Pearl stubbornly insisted on taking Tango, so Etho had to lie to her and say that they will come back once they scout out the way. Etho couldn't force himself to look at Tango though, if he did he would be met with this knowing look and he just couldn't bear it. Tango cried when they were leaving.

After the body succumbs to the fever it stays dead for a short period of time, while the rest of the changes set in.

It took a miracle for both Etho and Pearl to reach the tombs, but the hard part came after. Etho did everything in his power to convince Pearl to leave with him, he said they will come back later when they're better prepared, he said it was too late to help Tango, he said it was Tango's own fault, he said many bad things, none of which were enough to change Pearl's mind. She turned back and Etho didn't follow her.

He ran through the tombs and the caves alone, losing his eye to a monster he saw all too late. It was painful and it was disorienting, Etho doesn't even remember how he got to the initial drop they went down, he was panicking and only moving forward because of adrenaline and instinct. The ascend was a fever dream, Etho doesn't know how he didn't fall to his death then.

Through the rush of blood in his head, Etho heard the faint sound of Tango's voice. Too cheery for his feverish condition, and much, much closer, a lot closer than the place they left him to die in. He did not hear Pearl. The sound stopped when it was right under him, and he felt a light tug on the rope he was hanging of. And nothing else happened...

Etho emerged from the cave into the cold night, stumbling over his own feet, too tired to run. Their van was parked over by the entrance and Gem was already waiting for him. Him — shaking, bloody and alone.

...

The body reanimates again, now obedient to the cave's will. It is no longer alive but it is not dead either, frozen, stalking through the tunnels in a mindless haze.

[immanuelcouldnt]

Twilight Ganon's hair style/headpiece always made me think of my Grandma's plastic hair curlers. The ones you leave in overnight. Because twilight Ganon's many fine armor details are killing me, I took his curlers away for fun. Uh

Is this anything

[tapeworrmart]

Have you seen this man? 🦉🔪

[nonipunssif]

Haha, AU of what would happen if we "killed" the Doctor, but in reality he just transferred all his consciousness to a TV so as not to die, BUT, he transferred to a TV without a body, leaving only his "head", and we stole him to apply the "I can fix him" (we can't).

This is my completely altered view of reality <3 :

[longelk]

some more Inscryptions drawn as Flight Risings :)

part 1

[ohitslen]

*Vampirizes your Vashwood*

keep reading for more :)

If there needs to be much closer close-up please let me know!

[ooooo-mcyt]

Scott Smajor (cc) is such a good story teller actually and the common themes he uses in his storylines captivate me. I think we should talk about how good he is at Themes more often. If I wasn't so tired I'd write essays.

[pulsingvoid]

god the pilot had the tone down. nat trips on acid pre-crash and sees her creepy classmate misty across the flames in a way that could just as easily be misty stalking her/the team from the outskirts as it could be a hallucination (i go back and forth on this all the time). then the bonfire turns into the fire from their cannibalistic rituals in the wilderness which seemingly implies that nat sees into the future for a moment but it could just be part of the nonlinear editing. pj harvey's eerie down by the water holds you by the hand and pulls you in deeper as the screen gets engulfed in flames. such a loaded and dualistic and tone-setting sequence. i want to live inside it

[lucabyte]

Hmmm just gonna spit this headcanon out in text post form since A. I don't think I could exposit it well enough in image form and B. It's not actually textually/thematically substantiated and I don't like actually staking my stuff on just vibes alone*

But anyway. I'd say it's pretty evident that all the islanders forgot their names, right? King obviously. Because why the hell else would he do that, but also Siffrin No Middle Names No Last Name.

They're 'pretty sure' they've 'always' been 'Just Siffrin' 'as long as they can remember'. It's a pretty cruel twist of the knife to say that they don't even get to keep their birth name as a memento, which is why I'm saying as such.

My utterly unsubstantiated claim is I think it'd be cute to say that Sisyphus *is* the name Siffrin initially picked, assuming the myth of King Sisyphus is recontextualised as idk, just a play or something in the setting. But I like the idea of Siffrin going 'oh shit 🫵 he's just like me fr' at a tortured fictional character long before the irony kicks in.

As for how Sisyphus -> Siffrin. I think that chronic mumbler and emotional doormat Sif just did not correct people who misheard the name during their time travelling, and went through enough places with incompatible phonologies (pronounceable sounds in the language) without ever really writing it down that it just got kinda. Changed until it was unrecognisable, and Siffrin just went with it until the earlier pronunciations slipped out of their swiss-cheese brain. And they just kinda don't remember any of that.

Also, something something the horrid realisation that Siffrin also named themselves after a King. Just not as blatantly.

*(though I think there's something here about Siffrin, a guy from a belief system that seems to thoroughly disincentivise autonomy and self-motivated choice continuously having their hand forced to make changes/choices they don't want but have no choice but to... It's not solid enough to really back this up tbh, but it informs it.)

Anyway.

[macbethz]

I met bacchus at a warehouse rave last night. I didn’t even know who he was at first, I just wanted to hit his pen, but the smoke tasted like grapes and I saw visions of guys in jaguar fursuits beating each other to death with sound equipment so it was pretty easy to put together after that. He was kind of a dick about it but I let it slide cause ik he’s been going through it the past few centuries - humanity’s come a long way from wine. Plus he sold me a gram of k for only $45

[cheriboms]

[spite] has entered the chat >:P

[serpentface]

how do you come up with the ways cultures in your setting stylize people/animals/the world in general in their artwork, i.e. jewlery, rock carvings, statues, etc? Each culture in your world seems to have a very unique "art style" and I love it a lot - makes them seem that much more 'real'. This is something I struggle with a lot in my own worldbuilding and I'd love to pick your brain if possible 😁

I think a starting point is to have a research process based in the material realities of the culture you're designing for. Ask yourself questions like:

Where do they live? What's the climate/ecosystem(s) they are based in? What geographic features are present/absent?

What is their main subsistence method? (hunter gatherer, seasonal pastoralist, nomadic pastoralist, settled agriculturalist, a mix, etc)

What access to broader trade networks do they have and to whom? Are there foreign materials that will be easily accessible in trade and common in use, or valuable trade materials used sparingly in limited capacities?

Etc

And then do some research based on the answers, in order to get a sense of what materials they would have routine access to (ie dyes, metal, textiles, etc) and other possible variables that would shape how the art is made and what it's used for. This is just a foundational step and won't likely play much into designing a Style.

If you narrow these questions down very specifically, (ie in the context of the Korya post- grassland based mounted nomads, pastoralist and hunter-gatherer subsistence, access to wider trade networks and metals), you can direct your research to specific real world instances that fit this general idea. This is not to lift culturally specific concepts from the real world and slap them into your own setting, but to notice commonalities this lifestyle enforces - (ie in the previous example- mounted nomadic peoples are highly mobile and need to easily carry their wealth (often on clothing and tack) therefore small, elaborate decorative artwork that can easily be carried from place to place is a very likely feature)

For the details of the art itself, I come up with loose 'style guides' (usually just in my head) and go from there.

Here's some example questions for forming a style (some are more baseline than others)

Are geometric patterns favored? Organic patterns? Representative patterns (flowers, animals, stars, etc)? Abstract patterns?

Is there favored material(s)? Beads, bone, clay, metals, stones, etc.

When depicting people/animals, is realism favored? Heavy stylization? The emotional impression of an animal? Are key features accentuated?

How perspective typically executed? Does art attempt to capture 3d depth? Does it favor showing the whole body in 2 dimensions (ie much of Ancient Egyptian art, with the body shown in a mix of profile and forward facing perspective so all key attributes are shown)? Will limbs overlap? Are bodies shown static? In motion?

Does artwork of people attempt to beautify them? Does it favor the culture's conception of the ideal body?

Are there common visual motifs? Important symbols? Key subject matters?

What is the art used for? Are its functions aesthetic, tutelary, spiritual, magical? (Will often exist in combination, or have different examples for each purpose)

Who is represented? Is there interest in everyday people? Does art focus on glorifying warriors, heroes, kings?

Are there conventions for representing important figures? (IE gods/kings/etc being depicted larger than culturally lesser subjects)

Is there visual shorthand to depict objects/concepts that are difficult to execute with clarity (the sun, moon, water), or are invisible (wind, the soul), or have no physical component (speech)?

Etc

Deciding on answers to any of these questions will at least give you a unique baseline, and you can fill in the rest of the gaps and specify a style further until it is distinct. Many of these questions are not mutually exclusive, both in the sense of elements being combined (patterns with both geometric and organic elements) or a culture having multiple visual styles (3d art objects having unique features, religious artwork having its own conventions, etc).

Also when you're getting in depth, you should have cultural syncretism in mind. Cultures that routinely interact (whether this interaction is exchange or exploitation) inevitably exchange ideas, which can be especially visible in art. Doing research on how this synthesizing of ideas works in practice is very helpful- what is adopted or left out from an external influence, what is retained from an internal influence, what is unique to this synthesis, AND WHY. (I find Greco-Buddhist art really interesting, that's one of many such examples)

Looking at real world examples that fit your parameters can be helpful (ie if I've decided on geometric patterns in my 'style guide', I'll look at actual geometric patterns). And I strongly encourage trying to actually LEARN about what you're seeing. All art exists in a context, and having an understanding of how the context shapes art, how art does and doesn't relate to broader aspects of a society, etc, can help you when synthesizing your own.

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 234

[first four notes of megalovania bass boosted]