Dark Side of the Mind

Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  

As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  

It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  

Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  

The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.

They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   

Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  

Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  

Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  

It worked!  

Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  

However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

are u guys hearing this

Greet your Audience, Deimos. (Alternate title: The Truth Hurts) In this drawing I wanted to tackle the contrast in how the dark elf warlock Deimos is viewed.

On the Material Plane ( = the 'normal world') Deimos is respected and celebrated, him being one of the famous heroes of the Grey Wardens. (He's also just having so much fun travelling the world with these heroic friends! :D) However, in the Nine Hells when he's with his warlock patron Vannatir it's a completely different situation. Being loved by an archdevil has thankfully also been fruitful: giving Deimos the magic powers he always wanted.

Soooo, I wanted to examine the Beast and the Prince's design. It's well known that the Prince's design is viewed as pretty underwhelming, especially when compared to Beast's much more striking design.

Even the creative minds behind the movie knew, before it released in theaters, that no matter what they designed, people were going to prefer the Beast over the Prince. The audience spent the entire movie endearing themselves to the Beast, and the Prince feels like a stranger comparatively.(They say as much during the commentary for the movie.)

And, honestly, the disappointment is very understandable.

But, I wanted to take a closer look and discuss why they were designed the way they were, bc I've never seen anyone bring up these particular points before, and I thought it'd be fun to share my thoughts

So.

First off, why does his design look so different from the Beast?

The only thing that stays the same after the transformation are his eyes. Even his hair and fur color are different. Why is that?

Well, the reason for that is bc the Beast is a hybrid chimera of different animals.

Glen Keane describes the Beast's design here:

I said, “I like the massiveness of this buffalo head”, and I sketched out the weight, “and of this buffalo head”, I said, “But the brow of the gorilla,” and I drew the brow there. “But then the muzzle of this wild boar,” and then the mane of a lion but the body of a bear, and then the legs of this wolf.

As I did it, it just all came together. And like I was telling you before, there’s this moment where you recognize the character. And I looked at it, and I said, “That’s him. That’s what he looks like, like that, Bruce. That’s what – that’s the Beast.”

One of the most prominent animals in Beast's design is that of a bison. So his coloration correlates moreso to the animal, not the person. We also have a rainbow of other shades of brown mixed in, likely coming from the wild boar, bear, and whatever else.

The Beast's design was never meant to match what the Prince's design actually looked like. It's just building off the animals the Beast is made from. It was meant to be a cool monster design that contrasts what the Prince actually looks like.

The eyes are the only thing that stay the same, as a visual cue to tell the audience/Belle that he and the Beast are the same person.

Secondly, his human design makes so much more sense when you realize that he was likely heavily based off of Michaelangelo's David.

The Prince is supposed to be unbelievably beautiful and handsome. It ties back to the themes of the story - despite his beauty, and having everything he ever wanted, he had no kindness or love in his heart, which is why he ended up cursed.

Knowing that, it makes sense that they would choose to base his design off of something as magnificent as one of the greatest sculptures ever created.

However, given it's a beautiful sculpture, specifically a highly detailed and realistic one depicting the complexities of the human form, it makes trying to capture that beauty in motion... extremely difficult.

And, even if he wasn't based on David specifically, he was definitely inspired by this era and style of art, which shares all of the previously mentioned problems.

Which is why, in practice, the Prince looks... off.

The transformation sequence was one of the very last pieces of animation done on the movie, and that includes animating the final design of the Prince.

Beauty and the Beast was made in basically 2 years time. Most films around this period took 4 years to produce, but halfway through production, they were told to rewrite the entire story from scratch and start all over. So it was already starting off at a disadvantage.

Glen Keane only had so much time to work on this part, and not nearly enough time to familiarize himself with the Prince's design enough to make animating him feel natural. And that goes for any of the other artists working with him, including cleanup and assistants.

Knowing that, the Prince's occasional awkward animation near the end becomes much more understandable.

The unfortunate part is that, because the Prince has such a classical, high art inspired design, and so few scenes that properly showcase it well enough for the audience to understand the reference and endear themselves to it, it's become difficult for people to recreate it in any meaningful way.

In fact, most of the official books have art of the Prince that vary from decent...

.... To just plain awful.

In fact, the bad far, far outways the good here. Half of them don't even look like the Prince.

It's rare enough to get official art of the Prince in the first place, bc most of the merchandising is focused on the Beast since that design is more iconic. But it's even rarer to get good art of him.

The poor guy has it rough.

(I do wonder if this could've helped fuel dissatisfaction for the Prince's design. bc the movie came out at a time where getting good visuals of films was a much more difficult task, and so the only way to really get a good, long look at him were through the associated picture books...

... Which, clearly, did him absolutely no favors.)

But all that aside, it's not impossible to make use of the Prince's design as originally intended. The potential is there.

One of the best examples is from the Mirrorverse manga.

He's drawn consistently handsome, while keeping his original design in mind.

Which proves that the design absolutely can work, if given a little tweaks and wiggle room.

The manga even gives us this cool half-Beast design, giving the Prince horns, tusks, claws, and animal ears (at least for one panel on that last one).

It's honestly such a cool design concept, that I wish we saw more of it outside of this manga.

Anyway uhhhhhhhhh idk how to end this, I just kinda wanted to ramble about this topic lol

A male human and a female human are roughly the same size and same coloration.

Meanwhile, male black widow spiders are brown and a tenth the size of females. Anglerfish females are a full foot long and have a bioluminescent protrusion on their heads; males are barely half an inch long with no bioluminescence or protrusions. Male elephant seals are ten times bigger than females and have massive snouts. Male orangutans have big jowls and neck sacs that look like goiters, while females look more like other apes. Peacocks have flashy coloration and a long tail that they can display. The females are brown and simple.

Lowland Gorilla males tend to be 2.38x on average the mass of Lowland Gorilla females. Humans? That ratio is something line 1.15.

Male gorilla canines tend to be about 2 inches long, easily twice the length of some of their other teeth. Male humans have canines the exact same length as human female canines and the exact same length as the rest of our teeth.

It can also be found on Google Drive here and on Bluesky here.

The owner of this particular plantation had it built by slaves for 3 years. Every brick was handmade. Over 120,000 bricks on 2,000+ acres of land (this place was huge.) The clay used for the bricks came from the Mississippi River. The majority of the slaves are buried under the Levees and water. Some are buried with their Masters. Not allowed to live with them but could be dead with them.

Before you enter the house, there’s a list of slaves who lived here including their age and how much they were purchased for. 124 total. Some slaves were worth as little as $25. As young as 5 years old.

On this particular plantation, the owner was big on punishment…he used noise making neck restraints. Imagine three 4lb balls around your neck with bells inside. Children were restrained by ankle locks that connected between their ankles.

This was a sugar cane plantation, one the worst practices to involve slaves because of its danger. A lot of slaves were decapitated, amputees and killed from the fields and machinery. A lot of kids lost their lives creating sugar. Speaking of children, a child stood in the living room and operated the fan with a string while guests ate dinner. As young as 3 years old.

Here’s what shook me even further: Before the Civil War, a lot of slave owners were going in debt and could not afford their properties and were not producing enough cotton and sugar to maintain their lifestyles. Slaves were used as HUMAN CREDIT CARDS. Slaves were a guaranteed line of credit. You could get HALF of your property’s value depending on how many healthy and able slaves you owned.

My people were human credit cards and lines of credit to BANKS. We were property. We were labeled as equipment and nothing more.

There is no such thing as a good slave owner. They owned my PEOPLE and used them as checks and balances. This cycle continues with prison and brutality. I do not want to hear shit about “Why can only Black people say this or that?” I don’t want to hear shit about “we’re all human.”

SOME of the enslaved names, ages, race and purchase price.

The living room.

Interior.

The dining room. That piece hanging above the table is ORIGINAL to the house. That’s the fan that a slave as young as 3 years old had to operate manually with a string.

The view from the balcony in the main hallway. This is how they looked over the slaves while they worked in the yard.

*sigh* Names of the enslaved that occupied the shacks. Children included. Their names are written inside one of the shacks. I’m not sure if there are other names inside other shacks because I could only handle 2. After I saw the punishment equipment, I left.

Slave Shacks. These are NOT the original shacks. These were built to imitate them.

Slaves for Sale Ads.

The landscape of Slavery throughout the United States in 1860. JUST 1860. Let that sink in.

Note: The last time the home was OWNED by a Louisiana citizen was 1972. This is her original bedroom, her lipstick is STILL on the dresser. This is why the house has been updated since slavery times because it was occupied up until 1972. Regardless, this used to be where house slaves slept.