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jflaxman — Vae Victis
#apocalypse #ash #city #conquered #dark #destruction #devastation #dust #dystopian #future #james #mercy #murder #post #ruin #ruins #urban #vae #victis #victus #vision #wasteland #woe #world #flaxman #jflaxman #art
Published: 2015-02-10 04:06:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 20384; Favourites: 306; Downloads: 161
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Personal work.Related content
Comments: 19
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Among the ruin and wreckage there is but one singular authority: Survival. Anything goes in the wastelands, even if it comes at someone elses expense. Hunger, can drive even the greatest of men and women to the kind of insane extremes that wouldve resulted in, at the very least, life imprisonment, in the old world. Thirst, even more so. But the Wastes turned out to be a greater adversary than any mankind had faced in its history.
Combinations of every factor possible made life a constant vicious misery. Nuclear winter causing freezing temperatures at night. A ruptured ozone from decades of environmental neglect culminated in forcing temperatures to scorching heat during the days. In some places, strong winds churned up the toxic ash and made a poisonous fog, and some days the winds would be high enough to rip flesh from bone.
Water supplies and food supplies became more and more scarce, and the water that survivors could find was the ocean, a weapon that nature used with devastating fury that left most lowlands in further ruin. The buildings that we left behind were an even greater miser, many survivors sharing a love/hate relationship with the shattered structures. When survivors were able to maintain or repair them, they were effective shelters for the harsh environment. For those who failed to care for the buildings, they were tombstones and mass graves.
But the deadliest threat to any survivor - were other survivors. Some, as cold blooded and heartless as the wastes itself, would happily kill anyone they found if it meant an extra can of beans. Vigilantes quickly formed however, and the brigands were dealt a harsh justice by having their broken corpses fed to the dogs, or hung from telephone poles as a warning to others.
Humanity prepared for armageddon. It failed to prepare for itself.
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That was an amazing write-up. You captured everything I was going for, and more, at a time the words just wouldn't come.
Have you thought about becoming a writer? Besides having a way with words, this and other posts from you show you're a deep thinker with a lot of worthwhile things to say.
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I have, but i lack the discipline or imagination for such an endeavour. Or for that matter the originality. The words i write come from inspiration - all from others works - and i just dont feel right using that inspiration.
Your works feature brilliantly into my mindset though so that thought process comes fast and i just write without noticing i'm writing. But i have my own standards of ethics and when i do these kinds of things - taking inspiration from your works for example - i feel as though i am complicit in plagiarism. My own version of it, at least. I lack the originality that you have, so i work from it, but i feel... dirty, when i do.
I have attempted to write a novel once but... it fell flat. I completed it but have not attempted to do anything with it. I also have a very justice based soul so... i tend to put my own good-guy spin on a lot of things i do, so it limits my abilities in most cases so i simply dont bother.
i dont know if this made any sense, but it made sense to me.
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Don't worry, it makes sense to me. I've also tried my hand at writing and although the vision's there, I've always struggled with longer and more complicated storylines and character arcs. I also get where you're coming from when you mention originality. There's enough derivative work that cashes in on big hits already (think post-Twilight vampire novels or post-Hunger Games dystopias) and I admire your integrity in choosing not to churn out more.
That said, we all get inspiration from others' work to some extent. My own work owes a lot to that of my favourite artists, writers and even musicians - even if it's not always obvious. Although she's not a big influence, Ursula Le Guin once said that reading Tolkien showed her what was possible in fantasy (as opposed to simply giving her a formula to imitate) and I remember getting similar thrills from seeing the work of Dali, Giger and Frazetta for the first time. The psychological weirdness of Kafka has influenced my weirder stories and the more visceral/horrific aspects of Tim Lebbon's darker fantasy (especially Fallen and Echo City) has influenced my darker work, though for fast-paced, accessible, and simply damn good storytelling with a dark/fantastic edge, I'm more inclined to recommend Joe Abercrombie's First Law series or Ed McDonald's Raven's Mark. Just don't go in expecting any trendy SJW stuff!
Your last journal post suggests you've been (or are) in a pretty dark place. At times I've had similar feelings, and at such times self-doubt's often our worst enemy. I hope things have improved since then, and I hope I've been of some help. Rest assured you're not alone and can meet others of like mind online.
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Gr8 work, I love you art style and the story behind this stuff 
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Woeful is the day when weathered dusters and clunky respirators come into fashion.
Question: Do you prepare a series of backgrounds beforehand and slap on a section of one whenever necessary, or do you draw one for every piece?
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I've used photographed skies in some backgrounds (most notably for "Requiem") but most of my pieces get hand-drawn landscapes before I add colour in Photoshop.
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Yet another woeful tale from a merciless urban post apocalypse where all the great human structures and towers have succumbed to an ancient ruinous state. It's a wonderful piece!
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That's a very nicely detailed gun, and this is just epic 8D
Nicely done once again!
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This is so detailed and just something incredibly lovely to look at! It's dark yet light at the same time, mostly coming from the dark vibes and the seemingly luminescence of the piece itself.
Beautiful job, I hope to see more from you! ^.^
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This is the room, the start of it all,
Through childhood, through youth, I remember it all,
Oh, I've seen the nights filled with bloodsport and pain.
And the bodies obtained, the bodies obtained, the bodies obtained.
Where will it end? Where will it end?
- "Day of the Lords" Joy Division
This was literally the song that popped in my head when I saw this image.
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