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btw this piece is featured on ao3 here in the collection with a bunch of AMAZING fics that were shared as part of this yr's secret santa <3 it was an absolute delight to be a part of this with the loveliest freaks around <3 <3

so I knew I wanted to do something with Drew + water, since in Percy's fics they feature water symbolism heavily when talking about Drew! As well as this, water often features heavily in a lot of Japanese art (& I know they have an interest in Japanese culture) so I figured I'd kill several birds with one pencil shaped stone (isn't nature beautiful!) and combine this all into the one piece!

also, funny story, but I wanted to feature a Japanese poem on this piece so I just googled 'Japanese poems about water' and this was literally the first one to come up pfft... and even though I searched around for a bit longer to see if any others would work, the visuals of this one just worked so so perfectly for drew i knew i had to go with it!

here is the translated version of the poem 'Water' by Heiichi Sugiyama btw: I tilt bucket-shaped water and toss it out all at once: for a moment it floats in the air in the shape of a rhombus smashes against concrete flattens screaming extends feelers as if begging for help struggles a little then silently expires

I did initially plan for the poem to be on the main piece but I couldn't get it to fit well, so went with writing it on the back instead (actually watched a youtube vid about how to write the character for 'water' so it hopefully looks somewhat authentic lol! the poem itself was hard to read in the original Japanese on the only website i could find it on so I HOPE I transcribed it right, but remember I know like nothing about writing in Japanese so there is a possibility I got some of it wrong...

back to the piece lol so the looming red sun in the background (& the lighter in his hand) are eluding to the canon episode and the simmering rage I know even the au version of him has deep down (& I also just thought the contrasting colours would look nice lol) & the gold lines across his chest is both supposed to look like water or veins, and also, of course, be a reference to the famous Japanese mending practise of Kintsugi (something broken being made beautiful again not despite the flaws but because of them… feels very Drew to me lol)

here are a couple of the Japanese art pieces I was inspired by btw (as with all my inspirations, my goal is to get the feeling of the art and not do outright copies of anything!):

I was really aiming for a lot of dichotomies with this piece... water vs fire, curved lines vs straight lines, lightness of the drawing of him vs the darkness of the background, etc, since that's often what I feel about The Trolley Problem (both within the au and the canon episode itself)...

these contradictions where you know that Drew is both a victim and a perpetrator, where Blake is both the devil and an angel, depressive vs sadist, where Elile is once again stuck between them both (adding to this in my work since technically the Drew of the au IS Ellie... he's Ellie and he's Drew... he is his own daughter, he is his own father... I have no idea if this makes ANY sense but I'm going with it lol!)

even the chess imagery (black vs white) which is also reflected in their clothes... all this push and pull that makes the episode SO good!

been a long ass time since I did traditional art and this was a real struggle but hopefully the finished piece is worth it!!