“John Is Not Yellow, He’s Gold, Arthur”

I wanna know the reasoning behind the little hat people give John sometimes. I love it. I wanna know where that came from. Who put that on him and how can I kiss you

Unprotected sex turns you blind

Thinking a LOT about John's body and identity relating to that.

John has no ability to see himself, to conceptualize himself for a very long time. He looks down at his body and it is not his body, he is a passenger in human flesh and limbs that bend in angular, strange ways and loud clicking teeth and wet eyes and horrible, fragile red innards. He does not know his own name at the start of the podcast, knows even less of what he looks like. He finds a mask of his worshippers and cannot place the attachment he feels to it, running his hand over the face, familiar, but not knowing it is the image of his own. His name crackles through the depth of his godhood when he first reads it, but even then he is fractured, lost, grasping helplessly for the ability to understand what the sensation means.

By the time we reach season 2, he knows what The King looks like, enough to guess they likely share some similarity of form, but it is not a form John belongs in anymore.

When he is ripped out from Arthur's body, is he given another form to hold? Is he spread thin into nothingness; empty vocal chords and fear, or does he slip back into his old one; formerly familiar tendrils and masks and golden yellow? Does it still feel familiar, or does it now feel foreign – his own body stretching in ways he had forgotten it could, missing the simplicity of Arthur's flesh containing him? Is it freeing? Is it terrifying?

Is it his true form that experiences the Dark World again, that falls, that suffers suffers suffers begs for any deal to release him– what body meets terror there?

Does he know the shape of himself by season 3? 4? By the time he sees Yellow pull himself from Larson, magnificently filling space with horror and madness, by the time John follows suite? It makes me mad to think that it takes four seasons for John to be seen by any eyes, and even then, what does he look like there?

Does he have any control of the image he projects? Does he project the image of himself that he envisions as a protector? A friend? Has he crafted that image, that version of himself? How similar does it look to the version of himself that haunted the Dark World alone?

What does John look like? And how long has he known?

Caught in the Headlights

close-up below cut

irl moot did a line graph of arthur lester's depression level i am sobbing

arthur

What will you do?

[ID: The original painting: Alan Stephen Foster's "The Fall". End ID.]

Reunited

Based on Alan Stephen Foster’s “The Fall”!

ID: a digital painting of Arthur Lester & John from Malevolent. They're both falling back, Arthur poses to catch John his face ducked down and hidden. John has his hand out and lightly holds Arthur. Arthur has light skin, dark brown hair, wears a dark vest over an white shirt, a tie and dark pants. John is a yellow tattered robe with a much shorter fabric on his right side. The background is beige and dark greys. End ID.

[ID copied from ALT: A painterly digital illustration of Arthur and John from malevolent. John appears as a large black cloud, engulfing Arthur's body. shadowy arms wrap around Arthur as the head of the shadow leans into Arthur to kiss him. the background is a dreamlike mix of yellow blue and grey. End ID.]

We’ve all seen that one painting, right. Right.

(Study of The shadow by Daniela Astone)

[ID copied from alt: A digital painting of Parker from the chin down. He is standing in front of a bathroom mirror with one hand on the sink and holding a razor in the other. Shaving supplies are piled along the back of the sink. In the background of the mirror is a doorway, and through that we can see Arthur sitting at his piano, staring distractedly at Parker with a blush on his cheeks.]

do you think parker and arthur ever—

This was inspired by a discussion in the Dreamlands server of Parker being Arthur’s gay awakening as they shared that tiny apartment.

details under the cut!

I started this last October and Procreate tells me i spent 45 hours on it 😭 i feel like my rendering skills were completely different at the start from what they became by the end