Ran to draw them as soon as V.E.Schwab posted that story.
Bonus because Eli deserves to be a silly guy.
“I’ll be right back.”
Stell caught his shoulder. “Where are you going?”
“To get you a gun.” Eli nodded at Marcella’s security, all dressed in trim black suits. “Haven’t you noticed? The guests may not be allowed to carry, but her men certainly are.”
Stell didn’t let go.
“At some point,” said Eli calmly, “you have to let out my leash.”
The director stared at him for a long, hard moment, and then his hand finally fell away. Eli turned and slipped through the crowd, trailing one of the security guards as they split off down a hall toward the bathroom. Eli followed him in, watched the guard vanish into a stall waited for another man at the sink to finish washing up and leave. Eli slid the bolt in the man’s wake, and approached the stall door.
It swung open, and Eli slammed his shoe into the guard’s chest, sent him reeling back into the wall. Eli caught him by the tie before he could fall, drew the guard’s holstered gun, and pressed it tight to his chest to muffle the shots.
Eli eased the body back onto the seat.
It had been a long time since he killed a human. But forgiveness would have to wait.
(Vengeful 471)
He's so extra
Other versions and a bit of rambling under the cut
Untoned version
Textless version
I've been finding it so damn hard to draw Victor which is mainly why I draw more Eli than Victor. I think it's because I've got this image of him in my head which is hard to translate to paper. Blonds am I right?
To The People I Pass On The Train At Night - Jordan Bolton
My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is now available to pre-order! Get it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky
I think it's worth observing that Eli as a character had an established backstory and principles even before Victor while Victor's whole character and narrative predominantly revolves around Eli and going against him. Even during Lockland, he found a way to make himself the main focus of Eli's project, twist his thesis into their thesis. He forced himself onto Eli's narrative, made himself the main focus. While Eli's 'kill all EOs because they are an affront to God' was because of what he experienced with Victor and their falling out, he was still more independent a character in terms of purpose. And then there's Victor on the other hand whose whole purpose in the first book was to kill Eli. It's so fascinating and is also incredibly funny considering Victor is the main character.
Daily commute. Headphones in
as requested by @harapecowee <33
> The Loss of What I Never Asked for and Never Understood by aryelee[Gen, 1.2k]
In the wake of the events in Dark Castle, Yoo Joonghyuk is haunted by a single line: 「 Incarnation Kim Dokja will be killed by the person he loves most. 」
> In the Space of Eternity, A Lone Star by plunderheavenblind [T, 2.6k]
Looking at the sky high above him, Yoo Joonghyuk reached his hand out and yearned.
> Down by absurdherb [Gen, 1.2k]
1863rd regression Yoo Jonghyuk tries to find out who Kim Dokja is and finds a lot more than he bargained for.
> Twilight Dreams by gotcocomilk [T, 4.6k]
It was after the 500th death that Yoo Jonghyuk realized he didn’t mind dying anymore. In the haze of a world that forgot him, and friends and lovers that faded away every time he regressed, there was one constant. There was one companion who always remembered him, no matter how many times he died.
> ”I am Once Again Asking You to Use Your Fucking Words,” Said Everyone. “Never,” Said Yoo Joonghyuk. by icebreeze [T, 6.6k]
Yoo Jonghyuk has a problem, and that problem is that he’s in love with a rat of a man. Uriel helps.
> Star-Crossed by vaphelion [Gen, 7.2k]
On Kim Dokja’s first deathbed, he leaves Yoo Joonghyuk with a curse.
On his second, he tells him why.
> Anticipating Something, Somewhere by phio3 [T, ongoing]
After his disastrous second regression, Yoo Joonghyuk wakes up in the third round, but something is amiss. He catches the eye of a man in the next subway cabin, and that moment derails all of his plans for this regression.
Enjoy!! I hope this is at least somewhat close to what you wanted… this was.. difficult.
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
There are three types of misinterpretation of c!Dream in my opinion; and by that I mean anyone's take ever, whether it's a c!Dream anti or a c!Dream apologist or a c!Dream enthusiast. That's right, I'm making an essay about how in my mind everyone is wrong. This is how I lead debates please don't unfollow me-
c!Dream apologists; g-guys. I'm not saying he isn't traumatized, but look. I really used to believe he was just everyone's victim and hurt and mentally unstable, and I'm not saying he isn't at all, but I changed my mind because I feel like the evidence doesn't,, point that way at all. Your emotions are valid, but your takes are very removed from what the rest of the fandom thinks because you take little hints and try to make them into some big angsty point within canon.
The evidence we have proves he is more ruthless than anything; even the content creator says that. He doesn't say why he does progressively more ruthless things, and he does say it's for his ideals and out of good intentions, but he doesn't say anything about him being hurt into doing it.
I'm not saying he isn't hurt. But making analysis of an entire character based on something that is barely supported by canon isn't the way I roll and I feel like it's one of the reason why people assume all c!Dream apologist are going to woobify the character,, because some of them really do that.
I don't mind portraying him as hurt by what's happened in canon, because that is a completely safe conclusion, but jumping to the victim side of the scale seems a little bit like painting a completely different picture than what actual canon says. (Note: talking about pre-Pandora c!Dream here.)
There is tragedy in someone being driven by the environment, circumstances and themselves deeper and deeper into corruption, but it feels like by only considering that the entire character is limited to one side of the argument.
I like to also see the side of him that will hurt people because he thinks he has to, because he wants to succeed above all, the side that will ruthlessly murder and manipulate and be calculative and clever and even self-destructive about it because he believes that'll get him towards his ultimately selfless goal.
That's my morally complex bastard.
A lot of people seem to be mistaking or ignoring that for the sake of saying he is just... hurt and that that is an explanation of his actions, and even though they don't use it as an excuse, it feels a little cheap.
And here we come to the core of the problem: an emotional vs. rational explanation for the character's actions.
Because the thing is, with enough evidence, you will see that nearly (we'll get to that in a bit) everything he does can be explained rationally. Everything is connected, everything is the most logical and efficient and merciless route straight from point A to point B, because c!Dream is fascinatingly smart when you look deeper into it.
He knows what he's doing. He knows his actions are awful, and he doesn't care - not because he would be some evil person, but because his mindsets cause him to justify such things, and mindsets are more complicated than feelings.
There is a lot to explore in that direction of the character, but that is material for another essay.
In short, people seem to enjoy removing all of his agency in favor of explaining his actions emotionally rather than from a rational standpoint which results in inaccurate analysis.
Do I think it is completely understandable he attacked L'Manberg?
Absolutely.
Do I think c!Wilbur painted him as a villain to benefit his own power?
Yes.
Do I think he utilized the villain persona as an intimidation tactic and often went overkill with no regard for anything but accomplishing his goals and that he slowly became more and more willing to do bad things of his own accord because he became determined and distrusting of the world to the point of committing horrible actions?
100%.
Analysing that part of the character is the most interesting part, when you consider it - and an important one as well.
c!Dream antis; please. Stop saying he doesn't care or explaining his actions with obsession or assigning him personality traits or motives that he literally doesn't have in order to demonize him I beg of you.
It's so many basic and easily debunkable assumptions that can be explained with what we actually know of his motives. People will ignore both canon and the authors' words to paint him as some monster with no nuance, which he is not.
We only know so much about him, but people will ignore and deny even the little bit we have for the sake of making him the literal personification of evil and erasing the fact that he is a complex and human character. Just accept he can be accurately analysed beyond hate and let people do it if you don't want to do so yourself.
c!Dream enthusiasts; this was the only and biggest problem I've had since being introduced to much more rational interpretations of the character - which is emotions, and one of the biggest reasons why c!Dream gets dehumanized in the first place; the fact that we have little to no showcase or explanation of them in canon.
You see, c!Dream is a reserved character. He likes withholding his plans, withholding his feelings and information from the world.
However, since all we can really get out of watching his actions alone is the rational side (and that is deliberate by both the writer and the character, narratively and personality-wise) people slowly begin to assume there is no emotional side to his actions at all.
Which I find,, untrue. Between the people who erase the rational side of the character and those who erase the emotional side, there is little middle ground, but I don't really find either of them right either.
Because neither would be an accurate representation; just because he doesn't actively showcase his feelings doesn't mean he doesn't have them, and the few inconsistencies that are too small a detail for us to put everything together show that he does have an inner emotional world beyond what we see.
The character does work beyond what we know, and expecting that everything can be explained purely by rationality because that's all we see of him seems a little bit jumping the gun.
It leads to a less person-like view of a character who in reality simply doesn't like showing people the way he feels, and I don't really find that fair to him. It is best to accept there are things we can't say for sure, or to say an emotional interpretation can also be valid at times.
It is both important not to deny him agency and not to deny him the ability to be genuinely hurt by others or changed by his environment.
Both of these can coexist, especially in
Ok this is a joke.
I have literally no idea. I'm just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks - he confuses me beyond belief. The only person who knows about both the emotional and rational side of the character enough to have their interpretation unquestioned is cc!Dream - but when we do try to find answers, it is important for us as well that we do not ignore any aspects or possible aspects of the character, because that is the only way to get useful results out of our analysis.
Sorry this was crit of basically every take about the character I have ever seen but I needed to get my thoughts out.