Descriptions Of Stannis' Eyes Throughout The Books

- Zaunites dying to help Piltover in battle while wearing enforcer uniforms, even though Piltover did nothing to earn it

- Silco, one of the few pro-Zaun/anti-Piltover characters from season 1, reduced into a mouthpiece for "forgiving those who wronged you" and letting go

- Jinx, one of the few anti-Piltover characters, becoming redeemed by sympathizing with Piltovians, being apologetic for killing Councilors, and feeling like she should die to allow her sister to be happy with her enforcer girlfriend

- Vi not having any problem with her Piltovian enforcer girlfriend gassing Zaun, and reduced to kneeling for Caitlyn's pussy in a prison cell, where she was locked for years as a child by an enforcer

- Jayce telling Viktor that his disease was never a weakness to be cured even though the disease was caused by Piltover polluting Zaun

- Ekko never calling out Heimerdinger's failings as a ruler nor Vi for joining the enforcers (even though he does in the game), and also risking all the Firelights' lives to help Piltover

- Sevika not having any lines in Act 3, never interacting with Jinx or reacting to Isha's death, and also risking her life to help Piltover, a decision which was made off screen

"the malfoys and snape only tolerated each other for political gain and he hated the family actually" : boring, no angst, cliche, makes snape's decision have no emotional stakes

"the malfoys and snape trusted each other despite everything largely bc they met very young, snape challenges their pre conceived notions on basically everything but they treat him like family regardless, meaning that snape betrayed the (bad) people who gave him a home for the ("good") people that mocked and abused him his whole life": insane, appealing, lucius being a reluctant big brother, snape being dracos godparent, emotional stakes through the roof, post war lucius grappling w the fact his bsf betrayed him, that he was the one to lead him to his death yet lucius still loves him bc he saw him as his little brother

Why is Count Dooku's characterization vastly different in The Clone Wars then Attack of the Clones? In AOTC he's all like, "I'm sorry old friend" and "Back down", in TCW he seems to take pleasure in killing Jedi. What happened?

Okay, so I lightly touched on this back in this post where I compare the Dooku we see in the Legends continuity to the Dooku we see in Canon and in this video. George Lucas quotes used as sources can be found at the end.

To start with: there's a dichotomy to Dooku.

On the one hand... he makes good points. His concerns are the same that many Jedi share: the Senate is corrupt, and its representatives are abusing their power for their own selfish needs, sometimes even using Jedi to do so.

On the other hand... Dooku's a Sith. Which means he - like the Senators - is also after power, if not moreso. He's greedy, selfish and ambitious. Sure, he makes good points but he’s part of the problem; he knows it, but he doesn’t care.

More importantly, like Maul and Grievous, the primary purpose of Dooku, as a character, is to show us who Anakin is going to turn into:

An evil, corrupted old man. A prodigal son of the Jedi Order (with closet fascist-leanings) who, in his unquenchable thirst for power, was reduced to being a slave of Darth Sidious.

One of the big differences between Dooku and Anakin, however, is that Dooku was always more politically savvy.

Count Dooku has a public image.

He uses his past as a Jedi to cultivate this persona of a wise intellectual, a rational man with fair and just demands, one who fights for the little guy.

He is the head of the Separatist movement, a charismatic figure known throughout the galaxy for his political idealism, even giving lectures at universities.

But it is just a persona.

I mean, that's probably how he started out, sure, but by the time we see him in Attack of the Clones, Dooku is a Sith Lord, and he's been one for over 10 years, because we know he was going by "Tyranus" while ordering Sifo-Dyas' death and hiring Jango Fett a few months before the invasion of Naboo.

QUICK NOTE: In Canon, Dooku left the Jedi Order 10 years before Qui-Gon’s death. So chances are, he's actually been a Sith for almost 20 years, as we know he was already a darksider 8 years prior to The Phantom Menace because he tried to recruit Rael Averross at the end of the book Master & Apprentice.

Which means he's pure evil.

Deep down, Dooku's the guy we see in The Clone Wars: Darth Tyranus, a ruthless, sadistic killer whose only goal is to destroy the Jedi Order and bend the galaxy to his will.

But the galaxy can't know this, right? They think he's Count Dooku, a kind-hearted man whose beliefs are controversial but ultimately altruistic. Hell, even the Jedi remember him fondly.

So, like Palpatine, he keeps up the facade.

He does this with Obi-Wan, as he secretly tries to recruit him to overthrow Sidious (who Lucas compares to Vader trying to do with Luke in Empire Strikes Back):

He does this with the Jedi, calling Mace "old friend", telling him he's sorry he's about to have them executed.

He plays this charade up to the very end...

... but when Obi-Wan still won't back down, he is left with no choice but to kill him the fastest way he can: with a lightsaber.

A red-bladed lightsaber, in signature Sith fashion. One he’s been careful to keep a secret.

But Obi-Wan's seen it, he's seen the Force Lightning... he's been given a peek behind the curtains, so now he has to die. 

And you see the change in Dooku’s behavior. He starts to taunt Obi-Wan, he’s grinning, there’s a sadistic glimmer in his eye. For a brief moment, he drops the mask and goes to town.

Oh and Anakin joins in, whatever the more the merrier. But then Yoda joins in... and Dooku can't beat Yoda. Crap, he's gonna tell everyone. 

The secret of him being a Sith Lord is gonna get out...!

But this is Palpatine and Dooku we're talking about. Political geniuses, masters of spin and flipping the story. If the secret got out... who cares?

Seriously, who cares if the Jedi know he’s a Sith, now? The war's already started, Order 66 is right around the corner. He won't even bother pretending he's a good guy, with the Jedi.

Him playing the role of the "villain" when facing the Republic also makes it so that the Senate will want to keep the war going until he's captured or dead.

And because they're at war, he can simply wave the fiendish acts the Republic lays at his feet as "slanderous propaganda" in front of the Separatists, they'll just eat it up.

Furthermore, Dooku being his true, ruthless self when engaging with the Republic also has a second perk: it'll make the Jedi look bad.

'Cause the galaxy doesn't really get what a Sith Lord is, they think it's just some Jedi variant. So that's still a Jedi, right?

As such, Dooku's cruel actions and cruelty then feed into the anti-Jedi conspiracy theories about them "starting the war" and the growing distrust that'll make it so that - when the Jedi are eventually wiped out - the general public will just go "good riddance".

Which was the main goal of the entire Clone War conflict.

TLDR:

The guy we see in most of Attack of the Clones is Count Dooku, political idealist, AKA who he presents himself to be.

The characterization we see at the end of Attack of the Clones, in The Clone Wars and in Revenge of the Sith is that of Darth Tyranus, Sith Lord, AKA his true self.

George Lucas Quotes:

About Dooku’s valid points:

“I wanted a more sophisticated kind of villain. Dooku’s disenchantment with the corruption in the [Republic] is actually valid. It’s all valid. So, Chris plays it as, “Is he really a villain or is he just someone who is disenchanted and trying to make things right?”” - Starlog Magazine #300, 2002

“The confrontation between Obi-Wan and Dooku originally was a confrontation between Padmé and Dooku, and it was a political thing. I decided, after seeing the movie, that I didn’t need that scene with Padmé and Dooku, it was in the wrong part of the picture, and this one, with Obi-Wan, would be more appropriate. It would work better if Dooku would actually tell the truth about what’s going on and then create a situation where nobody believed him. And it also allows you to kinda have some sympathy for Dooku in that he carries the sympathies of most of the Jedi which is that the Senate is corrupt and is incapable of carrying out any meaningful actions because they argue about everything all the time.” - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002

About the similarities between Anakin and Dooku:

“[In the garage scene, Anakin] sort of lays out his ambition and you’ll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku’s. He says “I will become more powerful than every Jedi.” And you’ll hear later on Dooku will say “I have become more powerful than any Jedi.” [...] And Dooku is, kind of, the fallen Jedi who was converted to the Dark Side because the other Sith Lord didn’t have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that’s where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful.” - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002

“I needed to get across the point that Jedi can leave the Order, to set up what happens with Anakin later on. Also, in the end when you realize that Dooku is Darth Tyranus, it explains what Darth Sidious did after Darth Maul was killed: he seduce a Jedi who had become disenchanted with the Republic. He preyed on that disenchantment and converted him to the dark side, which is also a setup for what happens with Anakin.” - Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, 2002

About Dooku’s true nature:

“If you put two Sith together, they try to get others to join them to get rid of the other Sith. Dooku's ambition here is really to get rid of Darth Sidious. He's trying to get Obi-Wan's assistance in that [...] so that he and Obi-Wan could overthrow Sidious and take over. And it's exactly the same scene as when Darth Vader does it with Luke to try to get rid of Sidious.” - Attack of the Clones, Commentary Track 2, 2002

“In the midst of this turmoil, a separatist movement was formed under the leadership of the charismatic former Jedi Count Dooku. By promising an alternative to the corruption and greed that was rotting the Republic from within, Dooku was able to persuade thousands of star systems to secede from the Republic. Unbeknownst to most of his followers, Dooku was himself a Dark Lord of the Sith, acting in collusion with his master, Darth Sidious, who, over the years, had struck an unholy alliance with the greater forces of commerce and their private droid armies.” - Shatterpoint, Prologue, 2004

How do you kill a God?

Aphrodite laughs, head tossed back with stars in her hair, ‘We are immortal. We are ageless. We will never die.’ 

How do you kill a God?

Hera sighs, ‘You rob them of love and loyalty. They will be alone and unhappy, and eternity will seem like a punishment, but it is not death.’ 

How do you kill a God?

Zeus declares, rather confidently, ‘You deny them their power. Poseidon nods his head in agreement. ‘They will be weak and defeated, perhaps even chopped up into pieces, but it is not death.’ 

How do you kill a God?

Apollo closes his eyes. ‘You strip them of their senses. Their eyes, and they cease to see. Their ears, and they are rendered silent. They will be in the dark, conscious and cut off for millennium, but it is not death.’

How do you kill a God?

Hades whispers, though still his voice carries, ‘With another God. An immortal for an immortal. Era for an Era. A celestial being to strip another’s soul. He pauses, the rest are silent. ‘A God for a God.’

L.H.Z // How do you kill a God?

I am reading Pratchett again and realised that Discworld probably has many characters who could become avatars of the Entities and never even noticing because That's How Life Has Always Been. namely I can think of Bloody Stupid Johnson for the Spiral and Rincewind for the Hunt but I'm sure there are others

Rincewind as a Hunt avatar is GALAXY-BRAINED, my friend. Rincewind isn’t a Hunt avatar who makes you feel hunted - not in the usual way. Not with eyes too sharp and teeth sharper yet, the sense that he could lunge at any moment - ha! No. No, Rincewind is just so terrified of being hunted himself that it bleeds out of him; you make eye contact and suddenly you can hear the hiss of arrows in the air, see the flicker of threats in the corner of your eyes, feel the hunters at your heels. Rincewind is the Herne the Hunted of people.

Oh NO. Had the most horrific thought, my heart is hurting. Thought I’d share.

To preface: So, we entertain the running joke about calling Bruno “Hernando” and “Jorge” when his hood is up/bucket is on - we’re playing along! It’s fun! This was a cute little joke by the screenwriters to show that this is a silly, theatrical, creative man who has definitely gotten a bit more eccentric in his decade of loneliness and solitude - UNDERSTANDABLE. Look at all of us after only 21 months, come on.

The deeper level to it that I also acknowledge is that he assumes aliases to get through the things that scare him, in an intentional way, like hey if it isn’t “Maldito Bruno” sneaking out to the kitchen, spackling the cracks, mixing plaster, etc maybe none of that bad luck will leak out, maybe no one will catch me, maybe it’ll be okay, maybe the fix will stick, maybe it will just go right this time. It’s Hernando, it’s Jorge, they’re brave and they fix things and they DON’T cause bad things to happen.

This is a headspace we see from him with his vision ritual and superstitious tics as well, and it is is a VERY common set of internal rules to be working from when you have OCD. (“If I can do it perfectly, nothing will go wrong” - I go into that in a lot more detail in my post about the mechanics of his visions, which I’m STILL working on bc it’s turning into a gd essay)

BUT.

Are we forgetting that Bruno has grown up USED to being one of three? The triplets are a unit - they each have their strengths and weaknesses, they protect each other, they assume different roles to get through difficult times. Consciously or not, would he not need those roles to be filled in their absence?

We have Pepa - the weather-wielder, bold and brave and terrifyingly tempestuous, always ready to stand in front, be the loudest, take the initiative, defend her family - undaunted in the face of any conflict that might make her gentler siblings shrink.

So we have Hernando, who patches the cracks and is afraid of NOTHING.

We have Julieta - the one who heals wounds with her cooking, warm and kind and calm, steady and supportive and observant and tactile - the glue that keeps the three of them together when her more anxious siblings feel ready to shatter.

So we have Jorge, who makes the spackle meant to heal the cracks in the casita and keep everything from falling apart.

He needs his sisters. So, in their absence, he constructs characters that can take up the mantle of protector, of healer, while he tries to maintain the distance he thinks is necessary to keep his family safe.

It’s just him, of course, fixing things from behind the scenes to try and prevent a future only he has witnessed. And he knows this.

What he doesn’t realize, naturally, is that his sisters need him, too. His foresight, his careful attention to detail, his knack for stories, his unerring kindness and humility, his quiet words of support. They are stronger together, always, and they’ve all been scattered and hurting for so long.

love ur hk designs! how did u come up w/them? do u have any notes?

aww thank you so much anon !! i DO in fact have notes but theyre a lot so [cracks knuckles] lets go thru this --

i love designing and humanizing characters as its a real fun brain exercise and such, but humanizing the hk characters has really given me a lotta gusto that perplexes even me ?? either way im not complaining its very fun and im glad to elaborate on all (bc its a bit much) the thought that went into these!!

Image Description: Digital art of humanoid Hollow Knight Characters. Quirrel, Hornet, the Knight, and the Hollow Knight are all hanging around a bench and looking at the camera. The Knight is sitting on the bench, their legs dangling off, and holding their helmet. The Hollow Knight, all bandaged up, is sitting on the ground but leaning their head on the back of the bench. Quirrel is standing and leaning on the bench back, making a thumbs up and smiling a big smile. Hornet is also standing, though she rests three of her hands on the bench with an unimpressed expression. End ID.

in this post i’ll be talking about inspirations and show off the designs of the knight, hornet, quirrel, thk, the dreamers, and some less polished higher beings designs -- and go over it all with my neverending commentary! everything's under the cut in order to spare y'all's dashes LMAO

one must begin with groundwork. try to figure out what aspects of the character you want to be most important. do you want their silhouette to be immediately recognizable? are you inspired by a particular time period or region, or want to set it in that time period or region? do you want to prioritize colors? are you willing to let go of silhouette / direct visual relatability in lieu of emphasizing personality in the little details of appearance? try to strike that balance and see what is to your taste.

you should also consider how seriously you want to take things. will you consider things down to material and essentially fabricate hallownest's textile economy or do you just want to ball off of vibes? (i like incorporating historical garments and feels into things because i think they're neat, but i do get silly here. maybe i'll bow to my inner desire to ground everything some day and take another stab at, well, all of this.)

there are some things you can easily render turning bug to person (as i love diverse face shapes so you’ll see a trend of pointy in game, pointy here) and some that are much harder. either you can go for what is straightforward and easy for someone to be like “oh hornet head shaped mask! that must be hornet!” or you can not do that! your humanizations, your rules. hollow knight has a very simple, curve and shape-based art style, so you can incorporate a lot of subtle details on that! you can also do any other motif and really lay into it -- if you look at my monomon i have all these that are jellyfish-esque: her gown shape, her choker, her braids, the embroidery on her gown, etc.

or you can ignore all my advice and do what you want! i’m not the boss of you.

so , FIRST THINGS FIRST: aesthetic inspirations ! i did a few passes based on a variety of regions but i decided go with a pre-modern era european influence, largely because of the general influences and vibes i saw in the in-game architecture and appearances for things and places. i decided to land my inspirations anywhere from the 1500s to late 1700s / veery early 1800s, though im just aiming for fantastical with a heavy side of inspiration.

i decided to have individuals from before the fall of hallownest have look inspirations from Later in this time frame with those after being Earlier to get this kind of ‘technology and society has backslid’ idea. that, and because i thought the aesthetics of later monarchist europe -- l’ancien regime and all that, if you will -- quite fitting with hallownest right before its fall. because of this extremely broad time frame (300 years!) and also me just generally not trying to be concerned with ‘historical accuracy’ as this is both non-historical and very fantastical, there’s going to be a mess of silhouettes and such -- though i do love a rich deep dive into history, this is a time for fantasy fun and nonsense :-)

i decided to constrain myself with a few internal rules: one being the inspirations i draw on, and another main one being regarding masks. i decided to restrict mask wearing to as little as possible -- no shade to people who include masks in their gijinkas! i think they look wonderful with them And are lore relevant! but i felt like me, personally, using masks would keep me at times from being at the very top of my design experimentation game. so, as a little sort of fun challenge, i’m keeping away masks as much as possible in these people’s everyday wear. this means it is harder to keep silhouettes, but my priority is less 100% sticking close to silhouettes (though that is something to consider) and more evoking enough motifs and such to where they’re recognizable.

SO LET’S BREAK DOWN SOME DESIGNS!

Image Description: A reference sheet with various views of a humanized Knight. They’re a pale little humanoid thing armed with a shortsword, their skin and hair that same color of off-white, and always maintaining that same wide-eyed, small-mouthed, and neutral (yet almost determined?) look. They’re dressed in virtually rags from neck to boots, and all dark colors - navy blues, greys, dark brown leather, and even the deepest blacks. Charms are studded to their outermost cloak (and there seems to be a pair of vestigial, black-soaked wings under said outer cloak). They have a flat, square face, and a flat, square nose, though their corners are blunted. Their hair should be straight but it has gone long unbrushed; it stops in bangs at their forehead then cascades to their chin, where it hugs their jaw, especially at two points on the left and right where two ticks stick out on each side.

They can be seen also wearing headgear: a chainmail hood with old, yellowed horns poking out at either temple. They are also shown with their hair up in a little bun, or in two pigtails remniscient of their canon horns (one can thank Mato!). There is a little drawing of their exposed arm, showing how all their joints are harshly segmented, as if an insect or porcelain doll. In the corner, their dark shade chases after them. End ID.

an idea i wanted to play with for the knight -- and any of the vessels, for that matter -- is that of the uncanny. they are almost human! (as im approaching these humanizations with the idea of ‘human au’ and less so ‘everyone must be humanoid’, the higher beings are markedly less human here. ill get to that in a bit.) i decided to go for the concept that the knight is a living porcelain doll -- hollow, white, uncanny. they’re probably not shiny -- their surface probably feels like it was once porcelain smooth but is now ever so slightly abraded -- and theyre also not LITERALLY a doll. they do have a crackable exterior, yes, and are hollow, yes, but their segmented joints and such are less ‘doll’ and more ‘insect exoskeleton segments’. thank their dad (though i always thought he was more of a tapeworm / platyhelminth. but that aside--)

them being this humanoid non-human lends to some fun details! this is an example i like but is extraordinarily hard to communicate thru just stylized art: their eyes cannot close as they have been ‘carved’ that way & their pupils are just a hole into their void interior, and thus if you look at their face at an angle or profile you can see a little ridge / rim of the thin layer of their eye-white ‘porcelain’. they are also virtually dressed in rags, though the bottom cloak layer of those rags are wing-shaped, but still vestigial w/o the monarch wings, like in-game. and the two little hair-ticks on either side of their chin are meant to evoke their horns! :-)

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Hornet. She’s a thin, lithe person, with a long thin face wider at the top than the bottom and a thin chin. She has four eyes, and four arms. She has brown skin, with the exception of a patch of pale skin in the shape of her canon head right over her nose, with the ‘horns’ extending up into her scalp. There’s a flash of white coming from her forehead amongst her curly black hair, which is tied back into a bun by a hairtie shaped like two lightly curving pale horns. She has a long and pointy nose with a thin bridge, but it is crooked slightly. She largely has an unimpressed and stern look on her face.

She wears a bright red cloak with three weaverling buttons on the front, and white embroidery on the collar, back, and hem. The design on the back is a heavily stylized spider: a round body of eyes, with floral arms extending out from the junction between the body and the curving leaf-mandibles. Underneath her cloak she wears a white top with gold embroidery down the center (that goes up her neck to the underside of her jaw, and can be optionally decorated or plainly wrapped in white) and a bodice that is black on the sides but gold and white in the center at her torso. Tied to her belt is a silver chatelaine with sewing supplies. She has red puffy sleeves, slitted to show white fabric showing through, and black forearm-length fingerless gloves. There are a few more sketches: one of her with a double-horned hennin (her formal wear, maybe she wore when young), one of her as a child shouting excitedly for her ma, and a tiny her standing unimpressed next to a wide-eyed Knight. End ID.

hornet was kind of difficult, particularly because… of her head shape… but i fired out several solutions! the double-horned hennin (the funny two-cone hat) is from history, though the idea was scrapped as i imagine hornet in the present, as you see her, would not be of a mind to wear such finery. thus, i decided to give her a hairpiece shaped into horns, to evoke that silhouette. much more practical. (same idea goes with her patch of pale skin.)

as i mentioned this is a not-strictly-humans scenario, so i decided to splurge on the weavers and spiders and give them some differing anatomy, ie some extra arms and eyes. as a treat. i havent entirely sussed out (lol) the exact logic of her wear -- turns out making real things fantasy makes them, construction-wise, rather odd -- and is always subject to change. hornet wears things rather simple, for practicality reasons; and though her outfit is highly fictionalized (lmao) her garments under her cloak are somewhat based off of the portraits by cranach the elder. (all weaver clothings generally would feature repeating shoulder puffs. not leg-of-mutton style, but moreso in the image of the 1530s-40s. you'll see this more on herrah.)

the knight is a bit too ’young’ to have these features be quite apparent so they are the exception, but the trend with the ‘pale lineage’ is that of very pointed chins, long faces, and thin long noses. you'll see this on the hollow knight and the pale king, and you almost see this with hornet. she is still somewhat her father's creature, though he was never quite in her life.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Quirrel. He's a portly brown man (with warm-toned skin) with a squat (but not comically so) face, a pointy and stick-out nose, freckles concentrated around the top of his nose and where his eyes meet, relaxed, monolidded black eyes, and straight black hair. His hair falls short onto his forehead and comes down his cheek in sideburns, but is pulled back into a low bun -- though it is usually covered by a dark grey-blue headscarf. He has silver plate armor on his upper body, upper arms, and over his thighs, with a sash winding 'round his waist and holding up his scabbard; he too wears long black gloves, and thigh-length leg gaiters over brown breeches. Covering his neck is a white neck stock. He has a bit of a hunched posture, his hips and neck both leaned forward; his belly is well-rounded, and his long legs are rather spindly.

He is also seen younger, before the fall of Hallownest. Here he has less wrinkles, though his face is much the same. His black hair is tied back in a headscarf (though actually short here); and he's clad in a segmented grey coat, high collar with a white cravat, green vest with rich gold embroideries, high knee stockings covering brown breeches, and over all that a segmented cropped tailcoat. He dresses pretty well, as befitting his station -- but not as well as he could (science gets messy!) End ID.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Quirrel. He's a portly brown man (with warm-toned skin) with a squat (but not comically so) face, a pointy and stick-out nose, freckles concentrated around the top of his nose and where his eyes meet, relaxed, monolidded black eyes, and straight black hair. His hair falls short onto his forehead and comes down his cheek in sideburns, but is pulled back into a low bun -- though it is usually covered by a dark grey-blue headscarf. He has silver plate armor on his upper body, upper arms, and over his thighs, with a sash winding 'round his waist and holding up his scabbard; he too wears long black gloves, and thigh-length leg gaiters over brown breeches. Covering his neck is a white neck stock. He has a bit of a hunched posture, his hips and neck both leaned forward; his belly is well-rounded, and his long legs are rather spindly.

He is also seen younger, before the fall of Hallownest. Here he has less wrinkles, though his face is much the same. His black hair is tied back in a headscarf (though actually short here). He has a couple possible outfits: a more realistic one, a dark greatcoat with multiple capelets over a sky blue waistcoat, high collar with a white cravat and pin, high black hosen with brown breeches; and an alternate one: a segmented grey coat, high collar with a white cravat, green vest with rich gold embroideries, high knee stockings with brown breeches, and over all that a segmented cropped tailcoat. He dresses pretty well, as befitting his station -- but not as well as he could (science gets messy!) End ID.

quirrel was both easy and hard. to mimic his segments i decided to give him plate armor -- reasons for this are fairly obvious i imagine LMAO (segments!) (though his armor isn’t based on or accurate to any particular armor style. this is because i do not like drawing armor.) for his outfit pre-fall of hallownest, i gave him some breeches and leggings, as is typical for his very regency / turn of the century inspirations, but those give him the effect of white legs. to sort of mimic the black legs he has in-game, i instead gave him black thigh gaiters! i could have gave him long boots (and i imagine he did have a pair) but 1 i liked the gaiters more 2 i forgor :(

a fun little add-on eagle-eyed viewers (?? i feel like a youtuber saying that) may spot is that the brooch on his neckcloth is an isopod shell! in some illustrations i draw this brooch directly on the cloth / above the knot and not on the draped part. no man would wear a stickpin / brooch like that on his tie in real life. i just don’t like drawing knots. younger quirrel also features more teals and greens in his design, along with gold accents, to fit more with the archive’s colors. (even in the present day, hidden under his headscarf, he uses a green ribbon to tie his hair back.)

honestly, he and monomon were the main reasons i decided to extend the period outside of late medieval. it’s their fault! not only did monomon fit really well to the dress silhouette of one of these later decades, but i really wanted quirrel to have a napoleonic / regency feel. this is largely because with the enlightenment there came the rise of natural philosophers and the scientific sorts of fellows, which have become sort of their own iconic archetype in the public consciousness (and in fiction. stephen maturin my beloved.) i thought that would fit him well, and so i went for it.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Hollow Knight. They’re a very tall and svelte hollow humanoid, almost gangly in their proportions. They have a very elongated face with a straight, aquiline nose, large almond-shaped eyes, and a permanent expression that is all at once solemn, neutral, and melancholic. They look a lot like their father. They’re pale white on their skin and hair -- hair that is parted in the center at the forehead and tucked behind more hair, which cascades down to their torso when not tied up. Framing their face on either side are two slightly shorter bits of hair with three little spikes on each.

As the Pure Vessel, they stand straight and tall, completely cloaked in deep grey cloaks and holding a broadsword in firm gloved hands. Over their cloak is pale silver-white armor, with three-layered spaulders, a cuirass, and a helmet with large horns. Holding the Radiance within them, their cloak is torn and their armor and helmet are gone, with their hair splaying out loose. One of their boots is missing, exposing a segmented leg. Their right arm is gone, and a crack runs down their face down their forehead, into their eye, and down their cheek, exposing a bright yellow light from within. Still, they clutch their sword. In a corner of the image a tiny Hollow Knight looks with wide eyes at an even tinier, shouting Hornet. End ID.

the hollow knight’s design was fairly straightforward as i had figures out their siblings before them. even their armor -- which has been pointed out to be largely ornamental and they do not actually use it when fighting -- was easy to transpose. i was, admittedly, trying to avoid helmets (especially those that completely cover the face, though their’s isn’t) largely because i just dislike drawing them, but i felt i really HAD to with the hollow knight and so i just went for it !

i purposefully gave them a sort of gangly and out-of-proportion feel to them -- i like to think their grace is that of a stick-legged bird, like a heron or flamingo... someone stretched them in taffy help! /j but it also speaks to their true delicacy and fragility - both emotionally and literally. they’re a perfect hollow creation, but could very easily fall... or something like that !

but-- yeah, as i mentioned earlier, their design was a natural conclusion to come to from that of their relatives, so there’s not much new to say about them!

next, let’s look at the dreamers!

Image Description: The three dreamers, standing primly. In order from left to right there is: Herrah the beast, Lurien the watcher, and Monomon the teacher.

Herrah is a tall brown and broad-set, wide-shouldered woman. She has six eyes and an aquiline nose, and curly hair; on her head she wears a horned metal helmet and a dark blue bandanna covering the lower half of her face. From her neck there is a waist-length dark blue-grey cloak that cascades out behind her back. She wears a pale grey-blue doublet with a full skirt; on her arms there are rows of pinched pale fabric to look puffed, and her forearms are covered in dark grey fabric to the knuckles. She has striped grey spanish breeches and black hosen and shoes. One pair of arms is crossed, the other pair of arms rests on the hilt of a thin sword.

Lurien is a short brown man with an upside-down droplet shaped head. He has very short wavy hair and a long straight nose; a large teardrop shaped mouche is placed at the bridge of his nose and between his eyes. He has a navy blue cloak draped over his entire body; underneath he has a white circular millhouse ruff that hugs close to his neck, a black doublet, black breeches, and white hosen. He has two strings of beads: around his neck with a king’s idol, and in his hands -- which hold each other -- with a silver pomander.

Monomon is a tall black woman with an oval-shaped head, a wide nose, and a long, thin neck. She wears a rather unadorned teal gown with a wide, almost bell shape skirt, split down the center. At the top of the bell meeting the waist are two layers of teardrop shapes in light cyan fabric emitting out, similar to those on a jellyfish. At the bottom of the bell are more cyan embroideries, this time of floral motifs in the general shape of jellyfish. Her sleeves can either be puffed (for inaccuracy but design fun) or unpuffed (for accuracy) and then drape to the elbow, and she wears forearm-length white gloves. Her stomacher is green, with lighter green designs: four eye-like ovals, two smaller ones on top of the larger ones, with floral decorations around them. She has a dark blue headscarf, but seen coming out of it are four braids. End ID.

first to clarify: monomon’s braids are floating so you can see her gown easier! it’s not literal :-) second to clarify: in this sort of little half-baked au-thing i decided to make their masks a part of the spell. that is, their mask is one of the seals binding them to their slumber, and all that good rot. this means they follow my no-mask rule when not sleeping AND their masks remain relevant (namely, quirrel taking monomon’s mask to her.)

the dreamers are all based off of different centuries and it is pretty easy to tell with them standing side by side, hah! hell, they even go in order: herrah i largely based on the 1500s, lurien the 1600s, and monomon the 1700s...! that was unintentional.

herrah largely has this kind of puffiness to her body segments in the game, and so my first thought was immediately: 1500s style puffs. the sleeve puffs (as also seen on hornet, and they were often slitted. think the og disney snow white!) and also the very wide and puffy breeches (which i always thought were hilarious). unlike hornet’s hairpiece, i gave her a helmet to show her horns! i felt it fit her more than it did hornet -- maybe it’s just me, but i feel like hornet wouldn’t be one for metal armor. in formal or dressy wear she likely switches the helmet for a headdress like a hennin or escoffion.

however, i am feeling not 100% satisfied with her design as it is right now, though i do think it works on the levels of thought i put into the other designs. i dunno! i’ll change it when i feel like it -- such is the nature of these :-)

ngl i put the least effort into lurien out of the 3 dreamers… sorry king i just don't care much about you comparatively… im pretty content with his design though! i decided to base him off of the more subtle and understated north europe fashions, as i felt they’d fit him. however, the bigass ruff is the biggest staple of this design for me (in my mind at least!) it’s drawn from the period and it also introduces a big round shape into his general design (when his in-game design is literally Round + drapey cloth LMAO)

i decided to have him wear largely black to show status! normally in this time period richer folks would wear black - which may seem odd and plain to us but is rather telling of status as rich, deep black is quite hard to dye. however i still gave him a dark blue cloak to more allude to his ingame design.

i imagine he is devout from the few bits of in-game characterization we get -- hence the idol. he also has a pomander! they were medieval scent-objects thought to keep away miasma, or plague air. (they contained strong scents! it was for the same reason plague doctors stuffed their beaks with herbs: good scents keep away bad air! or so they thought.) i draw people with them a lot -- i just think they’re neat things and one of my favorite medieval objects :-)

as for the thing on his face - a mouche! what are mouches? i recommend you watch mina le's wonderful video on the subject -- she could explain it far better and in a more entertaining way than i.

i had SO MUCH FUN with monomon! (and i think that’s easy to see, hah!) dresses and gowns from the latter 1700s (though not yet regency like quirrel is -- dresses got kinda tube-shaped in regency) really do give the look of a jellyfish bell. a thin waist (comparatively speaking from the wideness of her dress -- though one can also look to the corset) would mimic monomon’s sort of thin neck (??) you see right before the grey-blue cloth in her in-game design. and since she isn't wearing a mask here, i put the imagery of the two pairs of eyes on her stomacher instead! wide puff and then pinching / thin segments is kind of the theme of her entire design - in her dress, in her sleeves (though it's innacurate and also optional tbh), even in her neck and head. sort of bowling ball -esque i suppose! (sorry monomon.)

her braids being similar to her tentacles was an idea i believe inspired by @valdotpng​ 's depiction of her, and it's a great idea ! another allusion to jellyfish is the four little oval shapes i put on the skirt of her dress, to mimic that on jellyfish. (those are, in fact, their gonads.)

i haven’t drawn them, but if you or i were to draw them while in sleep then there would be cloth completely covering their shoulders and up, and the mask over where their face would be. just like in game !

last but not least i have some tentative sketches of some higher beings !

Image Description: Sketches of some higher beings.

The Pale King is a segmented worm with several rows of arms; he wears a rather simple white robe with embroidered trim. He has a svelte, high-cheekboned face, with a long aquiline nose and long straight hair with some pulled back in a bun -- his entire surface, skin and hair, is entirely pale white. Atop his hair he has a spiked crown. However, that human face is a false magical add-on; this ‘face’ is detachable, with the true head and mouth at the ‘crown’.

The White Lady is a large tree-woman; she has a oval face and delicate, pointed nose, but out of where her hair would be if she were a human extends out innumerable tree branches out in every direction. from the branches and to her face and downward are dignified wrinkles of bark. She is, however, restrained and bound in magical cloth.

Unn is a large hunched woman, her form covered almost completely in water plants that droop down to the lake she comes out of. Amongst the shadows of the fronds peeks a weary smile, though all else is covered. However, out of the plants peeks out two eyes on stalks. She is smiling down at a very small Knight.

The Radiance’s face is entirely obscured in darkness, and long hair flows down from her sun-ray crown. Out of her back come countless moth wings, large and small, each one covered in countless eyes of various sizes, though the lower wings turn into longer ray-like fronds. From under the wings comes a long-nailed hand, which is held up to her hair-covered chest. End ID.

outside of the pale king and mmmaybe the white lady im rather unsure about these...!!! radiance i’ve barely thought about -- so ill have to work on her a bit more ! this is more of a sketch of general motifs and the direction i wanna go in

as aformentioned i wanted to take more non-really-human designs for the gods. they’ve just got a different spin on their in-game motifs, with ‘humanoid’ added to the blender as well. for example-- the pale king is still the rather insectoid-wormoid-wyrm that he is in the original, but what he is trying to do here is appear like that of a man and not a common bug. (an extra thought tidbit: the lines on his face and wyrm body are meant to evoke the seals of binding, though they’re rather simplified here they’d be more detailed in an actual polished picture.)

since they aren’t meant to be human we get fun stuff like literal tree woman white lady, and all that !! it’ll be fun to think some more on it.

NOW, that’s it for the characters for this post! i’ll go over more if people want ‘em lmao but i cant let this post go on forever HAH....

a few more scrap thoughts:

1 there is a common thread amongst Hallownest clothing, despite the decade differences, that i want to keep in mind when drawing these characters, to maintain consistency and believability that they're from the same region. the main thing is embroidery and just general decorative choices! i’ve tried to involve a mix of straight and curvy lines (heavy emphasis on lines in these designs in fact) along with floral motifs. though not a direct inspiration, try thinking about the motifs of real life period decorations, paired with the swirling curves balanced with geometric / curved / straight lines of the ui menus and such in the game !

2 hallownest would still have insectoid iconography in its art and its architecture -- the gods they worship are still rather insectoid, after all. and there is still no reason they wouldn't use insects in their iconography the same way european cultures have historically used bird and mammal motifs. as for what their architecture would be -- i think in game is a perfectly fine, but also i’d tentatively throw the dart at gothic with some dashes of late romanesque.

3 my art, me drawing these designs, is horribly inconsistent. that’s fine with me!! these are all for fun -- i think putting metric tons of thought into these are fun, as much as i think making tweaks depending on how i’m feeling is fun.

with ALL OF THIS IN MIND… i bid thee, reader, adieu! i hope you enjoyed my ramblings! id love to hear your own thoughts about all this and feel free to ask me questions about characters i haven’t mentioned here, an aspect you’re curious about, or anything at all! hopefully it made sense! (and if you wish to and are feeling either exceptionally charitable or exceptionally inspired, i give my express permission to draw all these, just please @ me so i can see it! i’m bad at social media so i don't like, check tags and stuff.)

:-) <3

What i love here is that everyone is excited to go back and feel casita also, but Bruno is the only one staying so anxious. What is it Bruno? You feel your powers returned? Not used to being carried away by casita? Anxious about returning in the house you help rebuild?

Damn it he's so cute.

Please tell us more about Voldemort's relationship with Severus, and why you think it differs so much from Voldemort's other relationships

Whatever it is that lingers between Tom and Severus—power, manipulation, some dark bond none of us can fully grasp—it naturally ignites chaos in the mind of the beholders. And if you’re eager to feel that burn, I’ll gladly embrace you in it. To you brave, reckless souls, I say this: your wish is my command.

So, here we are, picking apart how Severus Snape—mudblood, poor, and bruised from the heavy hand of a Muggle father—managed to land himself a spot at the table with the most rabid pack of blood purists you’ve ever seen. A table, mind you, he had no business sitting at. The Death Eaters, that tight little clique of privileged purebloods, had no real reason to let in this scruffy little outsider. Sure, Snape was useful. Very useful. His skills were sharp as knives, and he could do their dirty work, get his hands filthy so they didn’t have to. But useful doesn’t mean welcome. Useful doesn’t mean accepted. You know who else was useful? Fenrir Greyback and his mangy lot. They brought terror to the doorsteps of half the wizarding world, and did Voldemort’s cause no small service. But did they get a place at the inner circle? Did they get respect? Hell no. They were the dirt beneath the boots of the real Death Eaters. Useful filth. And then there’s Snape, embodying everything these purists claim to despise—a half-blood with a tainted surname, living in squalor, dragged through the muck by a Muggle brute of a father. By all accounts, Death Eaters should have spat in his face and tossed him out like yesterday’s rubbish. But no. Not only does he get a seat at the table, he rises. He’s placed on a pedestal, standing closer to Voldemort than some of the most loyal, purest-blooded lackeys in the room. Voldemort, in all his cold-blooded glory, didn’t just tolerate Severus. He raised him up, right in front of their sneering, offended faces. Now, here’s where it gets really interesting. If you think Voldemort did this out of some sense of gratitude, you’ve missed the point entirely. Tom Riddle doesn’t do gratitude. That kind of sentiment is beneath him, an alien concept. Voldemort doesn’t reward; he uses. Deeds done in his name are expected, not appreciated. You’re not going to get a pat on the back from a man who thinks the world owes him its loyalty. Snape’s service should’ve earned him nothing more than a brief reprieve from pain. A loosening of the noose around his neck, if he was lucky. That’s Voldemort’s way—keep them all desperate, keep them all afraid. So why did Snape, of all people, get raised up? Why did he, the least likely among them, become a favorite?

Mind, it’s not just me declaring Snape as Voldemort’s favorite. That dark, twisted bond is laced into nearly every interaction between the two, as if something unspoken and festering passes between them. But it’s Narcissa Malfoy who lays it bare. A woman born into the highest echelons of pure-blood privilege, the very foundation on which Voldemort’s so-called supremacy stands, doesn’t hesitate when she calls him “the Dark Lord’s favorite, his most trusted advisor.” Let that sink in.

Here is the wife of Lucius Malfoy, a man whose lineage is steeped in the darkest of traditions. But when her family’s future is on the edge of a wand, when her son’s life dangles by a thread, she doesn’t rely on Lucius, doesn’t turn to Bellatrix. No, she comes to Severus, because deep down, she knows. They all do.

It’s something more insidious, something that slips through the cracks in the floorboards of Voldemort’s ideology. He is the one Voldemort trusts, the one Voldemort leans on, the one whose counsel can shift the dark winds of fate. That is real power, raw and untouchable. Narcissa sees it—how could she not? Even with all her aristocratic pride, even with the weight of her name and her family’s legacy pressing down on her, she understands that none of it means a damn thing next to what Snape has. Narcissa, with her family’s long, proud heritage, has to grovel before someone who, by the very logic of Voldemort’s cause, should be inferior. But Snape is different, and everyone knows it. They may not say it, they may not even want to admit it, but they know. He operates outside the lines, above the fray, immune to the very rules that were meant to keep people like him down. Snape, the half-blood, the one with the muddied past, holds a kind of sway that no one else in Voldemort’s ranks can claim.

Oh, there comes the bitter irony of Peter Pettigrew. After years of scraping and groveling, thinking he’d earned his place in the Dark Lord’s favor, Peter is handed over like a rag for Severus to wring out. Peter, one of the smug Marauders who’d gleefully hounded Snape through school, reduced now to something just shy of a house-elf, bowing and cringing under Snape’s very roof. A cruel twist of fate, no doubt arranged with Voldemort’s signature malevolence. Was this some attempt to plant a spy in Snape's house? Maybe, if you take it at face value. But think for a moment—Voldemort, who couldn’t pry Snape's treachery from his skull with all the power of Legilimency, putting his trust in Wormtail to do the job? The rat that couldn't outsmart a dormitory prank, never mind a master of deception like Severus?

No, this isn’t espionage; this is karma. Cruel, twisted karma orchestrated by the Dark Lord himself. You can almost picture Severus watching Peter scuttle about his house, casting him those withering, superior glances—knowing full well that Tom has given him this indulgence, this little taste of vengeance. Snape treats Wormtail with open contempt, because he knows he can. He knows it’s allowed, expected even. It’s as if the tables have turned in the most bitter of ways, a humiliating reversal of fortune. Pettigrew, who once revelled in Snape’s humiliation, now reduced to the lowest of roles, while Snape—Voldemort’s golden boy—sits at the top. Isn’t it delicious? You’d have to be blind to chalk it up to coincidence. Moreover, Pettigrew’s fate is all the proof you’ll ever need that Voldemort’s rule isn’t founded on something as simple or sentimental as loyalty. Loyalty? Sacrifice? Please. Pettigrew’s life was one long, groveling act of desperation to stay in the Dark Lord’s good graces. You bring your master back from the brink of death itself, and still, all you get is contempt. Voldemort demands service, sure. But service? Guarantees nothing. And when you set Severus and Peter side by side, the question gnaws at you. Why? Why is Snape the favored one, the exception, the enigma in Voldemort’s otherwise brutal, predictable hierarchy? What makes him different? There’s something between them—something that doesn’t follow the usual logic of power and punishment. Voldemort doesn’t just tolerate Snape’s defiance; he rewards it, bends the system to accommodate it. Something unspoken, something hidden behind the masks they both wear, grants Snape a level of favor that Pettigrew could only dream of.

What’s crucial to grasp here is that Voldemort doesn’t spare anyone. His entire ideology is rooted in cruelty, in domination, in the ruthless obliteration of all who oppose him. He doesn’t just eliminate enemies; he obliterates them, wipes them from existence without a second thought. And yet, here’s the anomaly: Lily Evans, mother of Harry Potter, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and a Muggle-born witch, is offered a chance to live. Live. This decision, however, is directly tied to Snape. Snape had begged Voldemort to spare her, and it is this plea—Snape’s plea—that softens the Dark Lord’s otherwise unyielding cruelty.

To truly grasp the enormity of this act, we need to take a step back and consider Snape’s position in all of this. Remember, Severus was just 21 years old when he found himself pleading with Voldemort, one of the most dangerous dark wizard in history, to spare Lily Evans.

Snape wasn’t the imposing, confident figure we often associate with him thanks to Alan Rickman’s performance—he wasn’t a man exuding quiet menace, seemingly capable of standing toe-to-toe with Voldemort. No, at this point in canon, he was barely more than a boy, a young man fresh out of Hogwarts, with no powerful lineage or wealth to protect him.

And yet, despite this—despite the sheer imbalance of power between them—Snape dared to approach Voldemort. Voldemort. With a plea. Not for himself, but for a Muggle-born witch. At best, Snape’s request might have been laughed off, dismissed as the desperate wish of a foolish young Death Eater. But it wasn’t. For some reason, Voldemort didn’t just tolerate Snape’s plea—he actually acted on it.

Consider how critical this moment was to Voldemort’s larger agenda. At the heart of his entire scheme is a singular, consuming fixation: the annihilation of the child prophesied to be his undoing. Harry Potter is Voldemort’s obsession, the one threat he must eliminate to secure his dominion. The Potters were no longer just enemies—they were the key to his future, and Harry was the focus of his most crucial mission. In this context, sparing anyone even remotely connected to Harry was an extraordinary risk. Leniency wasn’t just unnecessary—it was dangerous. By showing mercy to Lily, Voldemort risked undermining his own carefully constructed agenda. And this wasn’t a moment where Voldemort could afford to make mistakes.

This unprecedented act of “mercy,” this concession Voldemort granted Snape, became the very thing that led to his downfall. Had Voldemort simply killed Lily Evans on the spot, as he did James, she would never have had the chance to sacrifice herself for Harry. The protection her sacrifice invoked—the ancient magic that saved Harry’s life and turned Voldemort’s killing curse back on him—would never have existed. Voldemort, the cold strategist, fell because he didn’t bend for anyone—except, inexplicably, for Snape. And that single, dangerous deviation cost him everything. That’s how it’s all started.

And there it is— how it’s all ends. Voldemort’s final words to Severus Snape before he executes him. But pay attention to how he begins. “Clever man,” he calls him. He suggests that Snape might’ve already known the truth of the Elder Wand’s treachery. Tom would never acknowledge someone’s cleverness if it undermined his own intellectual abilities. If he implies that Snape may have already unraveled the mystery of the Elder Wand, it undoubtedly indicates that Voldemort had recognized Snape’s crucial role in the wand’s problems long before. It’s not just idle chatter or casual flattery. No, it’s a bloody confirmation that Voldemort himself had long ago pieced together the mystery of Snape’s involvement with the wand. This wasn’t some last-minute realization that forced his hand. It wasn’t ignorance that delayed Snape’s death, not at all. It was deliberation. Voldemort, for all his cruelty, wasn’t stupid. He suspected, long before that moment, that Snape was at the center of the problem with the wand’s loyalty. He just chose not to act on it until the very last moment.

He held back from executing him, searching for any other way around the wand’s limitations, trying to find a solution that didn’t involve killing Snape. But when it came down to it, when all other options were exhausted, Voldemort finally made his move.

And what does he do? He delivers a speech. A bloody speech, full of regret and excuses—“I regret what must happen.” Does that sound like the Voldemort we know? The Dark Lord who kills without a second thought, who carves his empire from the bones of the disobedient? Hell no. This is the man who thrives on fear, on swift, brutal punishment. And yet, here he is, delivering justifications like some guilty executioner. This isn’t Voldemort’s usual method. This isn’t the whip coming down fast and hard. This is something altogether more… hesitant.

That speech, soaked in rationalizations, tells us everything we need to know. Snape’s death wasn’t just business—it was personal. It’s a messy, ugly end to the unexplainable dynamic between them. Even at the very end, Voldemort is bending, twisting, trying to justify his actions to the one man who had managed to worm his way under his skin. And in that second, we see something rare—a glimpse of the complexity in their relationship. Voldemort’s usual ruthless efficiency is absent.

His “I regret it,” spoken once more, stands out like a blade in the gut, sharp and unexpected, slicing straight through Voldemort’s usual cold indifference. The Dark Lord, who has never spared a thought for the wreckage in his wake, lets these words hang in the air, unnatural as they are. A man who’s never known the weight of remorse now offers something that almost feels like regret. Not true regret, of course—Voldemort doesn’t have the luxury of feeling something so weak, so human. But still, It’s not a sentiment he offers to anyone else. It’s almost as if Voldemort doesn’t know how to process this lingering attachment, as though Snape’s mere existence demands something from him that Voldemort is incapable of giving. Snape occupies some strange corner of Voldemort’s mind, twisted and dark it may be, that not even the Dark Lord himself seems to understand. Despite the fact that I’ve painted a whole canvas of tangled thoughts on the strange relationship between Severus and Tom, I’ve barely begun to tug at the thread of their inexplicable dynamic. There’s so much more I could unearth, layers of intrigue and tension that ripple through every scene between them, and I could easily go on for hours about the small, delicious details woven into their story. But, as it happens, my full-time job is already sharpening its knife and aiming for my back, so I'll have to bring this whole saga to a close with the following quote:

For me, the intensity of this scene speaks volumes about their relationship, capturing the very essence of what makes these two so bloody fascinating. The way their gaze alone can make Death Eaters flinch under the weight of their unspoken understanding. It’s not fear, not exactly. It’s something colder, something deeper. As though they’re witnessing a bond forged in the dark, a grim understanding that none of them can ever be a part of.

That’s what keeps dragging me back to these two. The tension, the labyrinth of contradictions, the complex tangle of manipulation. I want to look away—hell, I should look away, just like the Death Eaters did. But there’s something about it, something that coils around me, tightening like a serpent’s embrace. Can you blame me?

This scene is so good I really love it so much, the blocking and shot composition is great, and tense and I love it.

The way Deckard subtly recoils in disgust

And Silco juuuuuust sliiiiiiightly turns to him and it's like... dude you said the wrong thing.

I LOVE THIS SHOT framing it through the blood-spattered, cracked glass? Amazing choice. And the body language is so good. Only Silco can feel predatory while standing perfectly still and unbothered.

"Power" Silco spits. I made a post earlier commenting on how Arcane uses spit, it's gross. And they do this with Silco a lot. He's icky, he makes your skin crawl. And it was a good choice, because Silco is charismatic and the grossness counterbalances that, it maintains this unsettled feeling about him. If you're starting to like SIlco it helps keep you ambivalent towards him, because ew.

And then yeah this shot is just super cool