#versohellweek

Some close-ups:

This painting was done in watercolor + some gouache for the highlights and to correct my mistakes + gold acrylic paint marker, on A4 cellulose paper.

I'm also including:

a photo before painting

the result of my first hour of painting for just 2.25 cm²/0.36 inch² (either I'm really slow, or I'm wasting my time for nothing)

and, just for fun, a photo of the photo being taken xD Okay, I admit it was completely unnecessary to bring out the big guns to take a photo of an average drawing, especially since the camera here is old and therefore not as good as a regular phone >_<

There was supposed to be an instant when pain dissolved, when the world receded like tide from a sandbar, and all that remained was the silent answer to a question he’d never been allowed to ask. There was, the first time, he thinks. Now, in its place, all he got was the slow evaporation of sensation, a cruel patience in the nerves. The battlefield around him remained vivid. Shouts and gunfire, the vaporous taste of spent powder, grit grinding against his teeth. Every detail lingered to the last.

He tried to close his eyes. Reflex failed: lids prickling with a million glass splinters, refusing to slide, vision locked on a lattice of trampled grass and an unloving sky, blue torn into strips by black smoke. The world didn’t want to let him go. Life, as promised, was already mockery, he supposed: a space between states. Not dying, not living. Just the thinning of his existence until he became translucent to himself.

He had died seventeen times before. Or perhaps it was eighteen? In its familiar grasp, his consciousness would dim like a candle flame starved of oxygen, guttering but never quite extinguishing. Then the slow, agonizing reassembly: atoms finding atoms, memories threading back through reformed pathways without any singular moment of blessed silence.

The battle sounds grew distant. Not that anything was ending—putain, that it could end—but because Verso was receding from them, pulled back through layers of his own unmaking. He tasted copper. Felt his heartbeat stutter. His fingers twitched against mud that was becoming less substantial with each labored breath.

There was no "going." No crossing over. Just this interminable suspension between versions of himself.

The worst part was remembering. Remembering eyes in the moment of recognition. Slowly being digested. His torso being torn from his waist. The fall from the Reacher. Drowning in the river where gestrals start life anew. Each death collected like another thick layer of paint he couldn't scrape from his skin. Death, then life, cursed to remember but never be the same. Fitting, he supposed.

A shadow fell across his face. Someone checking bodies. Verso couldn't turn to look. Didn't matter. Soon they would move on, and he would continue his private dissolution, unmourned and unremarked, in this Canvas made to remember him.

And then, he would walk away.

What torture it was.

22 February is Verso's birthday, and the Gestral Village discord server is celebrating by putting our favorite painted man through the nine circles of Hell! Each of the nine days leading up to this momentous occasion correspond to one of the layers of Dante's Inferno, with some friendly suggestions to get you started.

Get creative & share your work on tumblr by tagging it #VersoHellWeek and/or mentioning @verso-hell-week, and we'll reblog it here.

All creative fanworks are welcome! Feel free to get as serious or silly as you feel is necessary. We just ask that you read and adhere to the following rules...

Event rules

We will not tolerate any harassment toward other participants or moderators for any reason. This also includes their ship and character preferences.

This event is a celebration of human creativity in fandom! Absolutely no generative AI tools or other forms of plagiarism will be tolerated.

Any ship, including no ship at all, are equally welcome.

All media is welcome! Whether you draw, write, sing, embroider, make gifs, or anything else. Be creative!

All works should be new for this event (or combined with another event), though they don't need to be complete or polished. Please feel free to continue working on them if you feel inspired.

Be sure to tag us so we can reblog your creations!

Verso Hell Week 14 - 22 February 2026

Limbo: Death, Forgiveness

Lust: Storm, Insomnia

Gluttony: Dogs, Filth

Greed: Mockery, Rocks

Wrath: Battlefield, Drowning

Heresy: Fire, Grave

Violence: Beasts, Boiling blood

Fraud: Trenches, Loop

Treachery: Ice, Fallen Angel