#die-tenebris

DA I ALMOST MISSED THIS ASK

Hmmm this one might be tricky. This is a character for a cowboy themed dnd game that when my pirate group finishes up with that story, we’ll move on to cowboys. So I’ve had this character ready for at least a year now, and I probably won’t get to play her for at least another year. (or maybe next week depending on how badly we mess up the next pirates arc :P) So I don’t really have a lot of info to give you, but.

Full Name

Eden Wiley

Nicknames, If Any

Eden Wiley is the nickname, on account of this girl’s got amnesia (listen, I know all my characters are the same)

Hogwarts House

See I don’t know for sure since i haven’t played her. Maybe hufflepuff?

Gender

Girl

Sexuality

I get bi vibes. I don’t know how much it’ll ever come up, but I like to imagine she had some dramatic romance in her past

A Song I Associate With Them

Devil is Fine by Zeal & Ardor because it’s the only cowboy song I know, but aside from that, it’s a fun vibe.

3 Important Relationships

Literally can’t do this because I don’t know any of the characters in this game yet EXCEPT

Wiley - Wiley is a retired military man who owns a farm now and follows Saint Tiana, patron saint of outcasts and the dying. When she crawled out of the grave with no memories, she wandered onto Eden Homestead, and Wiley knew what she was. But it’s not in his nature to deny help to someone. Especially someone who, on account of the fact that she’s visibly undead, would receive no help anywhere else. So he took care of her for a while, just long enough to get her on her feet, and let her borrow his name. He dies before the beginning of the campaign but he IS my favourite character and i adore him.

2 Fears

1. That something terrible happened in her past and would come back to haunt her.

2. Of her nature. Her being undead is strange and she doesn’t understand it. Who knows what she is capable of.

1 Element of their backstory

   DA I'M SO SORRY THIS ASK IS. 10 MONTHS OLD. IT WAS SENT BY THE TIME I WAS SUPER NOT ON TUMBLR SO I'M. I APOLOGIZE. AUGH    but onto your question, cause it is such a fun one, are you mayhaps referring to this gentleman? if so hold on tight because this got a little long and i'm neglecting my day job and i am Unhinged. you've unleashed the art history beast

so! you meant him, right? cause we get a lot of straight up Funny dantes throughout art history but virgilios tend to follow a stricter line of design, in my opinion, much more on divine comedy depictions than on regular ol' Life Of Vergil paintings, but fact remains, i'm willing to bet the default image of virgilio you have comes from either that classic mosaic depiction of him with the muses, or the marble busts with the real good hair and lips. that is what i, at least, have seen 98% of classical and contemporary artists go for. cause, like. that was him. possibly. that’s as much confirmation as we can get.

now, botticelli, good ol' botticelli. my man sandrito. his virgilio is A Treat. now: take into account that when i mention the classical depictions we are most likely to have in mind, those pieces are possibly from the xix century. y'know, doré, wicar, ingres, and so on. That is our handsome prettyboy virgilio. 

botticelli was painting his own divine comedy over 300 years before them, but only over a century after the completion of the poem and dante's own death. i won't lie to you, i sincerely don't know When the famed mosaic and busts were found or if botticelli had access to them -but i'm willing to bet he didn't. that said, our boy sandro simply did not have the long history of depictions that the artists that came way after him did have -he was among the first to make his own dante, virgilio & co! (and this is without even talking about his version of the kingdoms. Man)

 might sound like i'm going around in circles but it's to tell you this: in botticelli's time, the Tendencies with which virgilio was later depicted hadn't been established yet. the favored canon was another one, and when you have no idea How this important person looked like, you do what's always been done in european art: make them an ideal according to what an ideal is in your own time!

 and what was the ideal in botticelli's time? in the comedy virgilio is meant to be, among many things, the figure of the Wise Guide. for a european man in the mid to late 1400s, What was a wise guide? it had to be a man, he had to be white, he had to be Older, experienced, he had to Look exprienced and wise, so he'd be Aged and Bearded, but he still had to look respectable and regal -this virgilio is basically a socrates, or a plato! isn't that a delight? it falls into line with a representation i think botticelli Did actually know of, which was giovanni di paolo's, a contemporary of his! 

  yep that’s him in red and dante in blue! (wonder where else have we seen a dante dressed in blue... ;)) ). the fact that vergilius turned out to be a fucking Snack came after, and since us artists have always been going hearteyes after our subjects and muses, artists started to latch onto those younger portraits of the vergster and ended up on the other side of the spectrum -which is, ignoring the fact that he was way older than he's normally depicted as when he reads the aeneid to augustus and octavia, which is a Whole 'Nother Topic (i only know one other old vergil and i don’t like it. wack). back to botticelli’s!   now, do you wanna know the REAL awesome thing about botticelli's virgilio? get ready because this is beautiful. botticelli didn't make him into just Any kind of wise guide. botticelli's virgilio is the magician. the magician is a FASCINATING medieval archetype that found its zenith in Merlin. and what's our and their default image of the magician? old bearded dude! but let's talk about two wild things about the magician: first is that he and magic in general were ever present in the Collective mind of the people in the xv century. people would see this virgil and Would see the magician in him! it wasn't just any old dude, part of the public might not have known who virgilio was or why he was important, but This dude in the image? i'd trust him! good for the guy in red! remember that though art is famed for its elitism it's also developed for CENTURIES the capacity to teach and explain only through images. magician virgilio was Accessible. JUST LIKE THE DIVINE COMEDY BC OF HOW AND WHY IT WAS WRITTEN!!!!!    ahem. and second, the magician is a figure that carries incredible dynamics and meanings with it. the magician is not an evil figure, unlike, i believe, witches and wizards (i think the word is wizard. bear in mind that i'm translating from spanish terms and some are tricky). it's more of a mash between druids, alchemists, but all through a very academia lens. the magician is a Keeper of Knowledge, and that makes him Powerful. this means that a great part if not all of his power depends on the keeping of the Secret. i'm sure you can see & imagine how keeping knowledge Away from people has just... been A Thing for centuries and centuries, esp in cultures built on inequality. so the thing is that if the magician has this power, for them to be able to share it or Entrust it to another, is a big fucking deal. and that's the thing: the magician can have Initiates. the initiate is the inexpert person that a magician takes under his wing and effectively Opens Up The World to them. they share knowledge otherwise forbidden, they're let into the Secret that brings them into contact with what all these self entitled white dudes from the middle ages believed make them Greater than the rest. as such, the magician is fundamentally the one who has skills that others do not, he is someone with the capacity to Change the world around him, he is a Transformative force, he can Accelerate and Cause things. where the alchemist tries to understand and imitate nature, the magician is believed to be one capable of Controlling it. it's worth remembering that an immediate distinction between white and black magic is made, one seeking good and the other bad, hence the differentiation between magician and wizard/witch, where the first of the latter two is usually considered something more Rural than academic, and the latter is just straight out evil because misogyny and racism. i'm sure you can see how, in a profoundly catholic place and era, white magic was also easily linked to miracle making, despite how shifty some bits sound. in short, the magician is a very respected figure in which numerous traditions and wisdom converge.     now! does any of this ring a bell? try applying all these magician traits to virgilio, who was a poet now turned babysitter, being seen through the eyes of a man in the late 1400s. what is a poet if not someone who sees Beyond what ''regular people'' see? what is a respected Epic poet if not something of a prophet? what is a guide if not someone who Knows about what surrounds him, does not fear it, and has the capacity to Explain it to his charge? does the one who guide you through hell and back not Transform you in any way? isn't the relationship between an expert and an initiate who teaches you about the world around you and beyond it not only the next best thing to your love for your god, but also a direct reflection of what it means to be a poet who chose to follow on another greater name's footsteps? virgilio is part of the transformative force that drives dante to change. he is a figure of utter control and rationality. where latter artists would dress him as a roman, either in whites or colors of glory or suffering/passion (gold and red), botticelli dressed his in purples and blues, the (very expensive) colors of royalty & heaven, the world beyond, and trust me when i say that using ultramarine blue on a pagan poet is a big fucking deal, because that hue was Reserved for the virgin mary. goes to show you the respect sandro had for his virgilio, as well as a clear belief in dante's own vision that virgilio pretty much deserved the recognition of any other cool christian if it wasn't for the Rules. and do you wanna know what other figure worthy or respect for his wisdom was dressed in ultramarine blue. THAT'S RIGHT. MERLIN!!!!!!!!    (wipes off sweat) so to summarize, what I think of botticelli's virgilio, is 3/10 on apperance because come on man where the fuck is my hot virgilio? good clothes though but sandro was in the textile industry so he should know; and 10/10 on concept for being a beautiful, EXCELLENT convergence & display of beliefs and traditions that, to my knowledge, no other artists really tried to show with such force in latter interpretations of the comedy. sandrito if you're out there

  apologies for any mistakes! it’s been a while since i’ve had to be Exact about my art history musings but i can’t go into full investigation mode right now. hopefully there’s no blatant misinformation jdsfaasd 

u expect me to write 1500 words???? oof

Oh and demons for Lenore

Poltergeists - If your character could choose any otherworldly power, what would it be?

I feel like vampire is a pretty big power tbh but uh telekinesis, she would have a great time with that ability

Demons - Your character has made a faustian contract. What do they do?