updated June 14 2026. Going through some of the lists sporadically and placing dialogue prompts in their respective sections. My focus this time around is enemies/lovers prompts.
PLEASE reblog if you use any of these/wanna share with your writer friends!!
arranged political marriage narratives are for me similarly fraught to unplanned pregnancy in that they tend to skew towards a conservative, anti-choice sentiment regardless of the author's intentions or ideology, because the end goal is typically the realisation of an apparently empowering and subversive romantic fantasy where the characters involved experience compellingly turbulent and sexually charged conflict between normative expectations and their own desires, but ultimately find themselves fulfilled in and even healed by the acceptance of undeniably important and worthwhile but conventional (and oppressively gendered) roles like that of the loving husband and wife or parental figures. which is a shame because i Do think that there's some interesting and worthwhile commentary to be explored through these kinds of kinky fantasies that reflect the anxieties surrounding very real and enduring sociopolitical issues regarding autonomy and consent, but when that tension is ultimately resolved by settling into a role that's always been what's expected of you, even if it does allow you to manipulate certain social power dynamics in your favour, it just rings kind of hollow. all of which is a very long-winded way of saying that i wish there were more arranged marriage narratives where the participants never fall in love, but still come to care for and respect one another, and perform the marital duties expected of them out of that affection and desire to both help each other advance their sociopolitical countermoves to subvert the status quo and to survive, using the legal and social trappings that come with their marital status to their advantage to protect each other.
like i really Cannot stress enough how imperative it is that they never feel anything like romantic love for one another - nor are they really friends, although they may like each other's company and even actively prefer it to anyone else's. rather their relationship is comparable to that of two people covering each other's backs in a fight, or two prisoners in the same cell, and there's as much of the beauty of human connection to that as there is tragedy that those are the circumstances that brought them together. and they can absolutely have sexual tension and even consummate a sexual relationship and enjoy it, but it will be unavoidably dubiously consensual at best by design. no flinching from it.
arranged marriage where you love each other so much that you'd both shove the other person through a crack in the wall the moment it opened up in front of you while screaming at them to go, go now, run, and don't you dare look back
Hey everyone! I know we're all very upset about the recent issue of Neowiz and their AI "artist" hiring. But what could we actually do about it?
I've seen a lot of people harassing them on their tiktok page- could we come together to do something similar, like starting some kind of petition?
It's just an idea: I have no clue how petitions actually work or if this would be legal. But Neowiz has previously been really good about listening to the fan base, why would that change now? Does anyone have any ideas on how that could work?
There will be at least four posts on Arlecchino specifically, so consider this as Part 2.
DISCLAIMER: This post will deal with fascism, racism, religion and blasphemy, and sexual themes and nudity as I delve into Salvador DalĂ's life and works. DalĂ held many extremely controversial viewpoints that, during his life and in these modern times, would align him with fascist ideology. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When I played Lies of P Overture and saw what Arlecchino looked like for the first time, I recognized his mustache but couldn't quite place where. I had seen someone say the mustache was attributed to Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador DalĂ. Naturally, I needed to add a book on DalĂ to my reading list: Masters of Art: DalĂ by Alexander Adams. After reading this book, I also made a trip to the DalĂ Museum to see some if his works in-person.
I learned a lot about Salvador DalĂ---maybe too much to the point of periodically removing my glasses for a moment as I grimaced at the pages learning on exactly who he was even if his talent was beyond imaginable. Nevertheless, in reading about his life and his works, I found many more details of the artist that tied very well to Arlecchino past his appearance. That, in turn, led me to realize that Arlecchino is much scarier than initially thought.
As usual, this post is a record of my thoughts and not meant for discussion.
Who was Salvador DalĂ?
Salvador DalĂ was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Catalonia. He was introduced to the arts at a young age, revering artists like Pablo Picasso and Diego VelĂĄzquez. He started with small landscapes then graduated to painting with academic techniques seen in Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, Modernism, Realism, and many others. In 1922, he began attending the Real Academia de Bella Artes de San Fernando in Madrid to learn the techniques of the old masters, where he lived in the hall of residence for students. While there, he became exceptionally close friends with homosexual poet Federico Lorca as well as future film director Luis BuĂąuel. Of the two, Lorca's relationship with DalĂ would prove to be one of his most influential, especially as Lorca had fallen in love with him and his flamboyant eccentricities.
During the 1920s, DalĂ's conversations with Lorca resulted in wild fantasies and exploring shameful desires and profound fears, with letters supposedly between them suggesting something much more than friendship. DalĂ, however, rejected Lorca's advances, and the relationship remained platonic. DalĂ also worked with BuĂąuel to make the film Un Chien Andalou, which Lorca believed was a film to mock him because BuĂąuel was reportedly jealous of the symbiotic relationship between the poet and the painter. The friendship between Lorca and DalĂ cooled as a result.
DalĂ would move to Surrealism and join the Surrealist movement in the late 1920s around when he was expelled from the academy. The movement's principles were anti-theist, anti-patriotism, pacificism, libertarianism and libertinism, and exploration of the unconscious, spurred by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. As he grew more interested in Freudian psychology, DalĂ's art became more apparent of his psyche (including his individualistic, egotistical attitude and indelicate fixations with the taboo), and his works began to depict unconscious desires he sometimes called "enigmas". In line with Surrealism, his paintings thus included more symbols with sexual connotations. DalĂ then pushed further into extreme and graphic topics; painting dilapidated nudes and genitalia, rotting corpses and putrefaction, masturbation, blasphemy, sodomy, and the list goes on. Painting such figures and their indications made DalĂ's art too extreme even for Surrealists, especially when DalĂ created artworks admiring fascist leaders Franco of Spain and Hitler of Germany.
In summer 1929, DalĂ met Elena Ivanovna Diakanova Devulina or "Gala", who had been married at the time to poet Paul Ăluard. As part of a plan to win over DalĂ and purchase his paintings at a discount, Ăluard had his wife Gala start an affair with the painter. This relationship spurred DalĂ as Gala became his muse in paintings for the rest of his life, and after Ăluard's death, the two married. They had a relationship that allowed for other affairs as long as one was the priority to the other.
In the 1930s, DalĂ quietly supported the fascist regime in Spain, which separated him from all of the other Surrealists by the end of the Spanish Civil War, and it ultimately led to him being expelled from the Surrealists' group. During that time, Lorca sought to reconcile with DalĂ, but Lorca was assassinated by nationalists and his body was never found. After the war, DalĂ and Gala moved back to Spain, underscoring the artist's support for Franco to the other Surrealists. In the 1940s, DalĂ had a strange (sexual) fascination with Hitler, making him the subject of a few extremely suggestive paintings during World War 2 (one of which has been removed from public viewing since 2022). DalĂ by this point had essentially been disowned by his family, so he continued to lead a life of narcissistic grandeur and perversion.
Although favor for his art had declined over time after the 1940s following his move tonthe US, DalĂ stayed on top of scientific advancements including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WW2 and the discovery of DNA to incorporate in his works. He even collaborated with people like Walt Disney (though this work "Destino" wasn't finished due to financial hardship post-WW2 until 2003 by Roy E. Disney). When DalĂ had published his autobiography, George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1984) wrote a scathing review of the book in an essay titled Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador DalĂ. In the review, Orwell took the stance that DalĂ can be both an extremely talented artist and a disgusting human being and that this is the most appropriate approach to assessing him. He detailed exactly what turned him off then attempted to understand why DalĂ was the way he was with his "diseased" mind. Orwell also noted a number of incidents in the book that had been lifted from other sources, but DalĂ never cared about the fidelity or truthfulness of his own memoir.
DalĂ purchased an abandoned tower for Gala in Spain, and he both relished the pain of her growing distance from him as well as a deep depression because he wasn't allowed to enter without her explicit written permission. When Gala died at the age of 87, DalĂ's physical and mental health declined. He tried and failed to reconcile with BuĂąuel, who had left the film industry five years prior; BuĂąuel died eight months later. DalĂ continued to paint with the help of assistants after he developed Parkinson's-like symptoms in his right hand. He was in and out of the hospital with heart problems in his last years. Finally, DalĂ died on June 10, 1982 at the age of 84.
Mentality and Subjects
As stated before, DalĂ's works ventured into extreme places that contradicted the movement's principles and that other Surrealists would not dare to go, eventually leading them to exclude him from the movement. At a young age, DalĂ had a fixation on sex, and his interest in death and decay was piqued when he saw a book on his father's table detailing about venereal diseases. He himself admitted that he had an addiction to masturbating and reportedly participated in voyeurism instead of actual engagement, and he held a strong fear that without Gala, he would have gone insane. Many paintings incorporated his own desires or fears including his fascination with feces and anuses and phallic shapes or triangles as stand-ins for female genitalia and several different depictions of Gala. When DalĂ read about Freudian psychology and the infamous assertation that all things lead back to sex, he dug deeper and deeper into his psyche for his outlandish ideas, which are implied or evident in his works.
Not only did he create art, he was a known contrarian and a reactionary. He purposely said things that were so shocking that people could never be sure if he was being serious or trying to be funny. To illustrate, in 1939, co-founder of the Surrealist movement and author of the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 AndrĂŠ Breton had a conversation with DalĂ in which DalĂ made extreme racist remarks that all dark-skinned people should be enslaved while white people should rule to prevent all global conflicts because all global conflicts were stemmed from race. Breton definitively expelled DalĂ from the Surrealist group and coined "Avida Dollars" as a derogatory nickname and anagram for the artist's name.
Arlecchino, the Blood Artist
With a rundown on DalĂ out of the way, it's once again time to look at Arlecchino in Lies of P Oveture. Design-wise, Arlecchino's first phase appearance seems to take from DalĂ's later years when his hair was noticeably longer than the average male for the time. His signature mustache was long and well-groomed, and it's more exaggerated on Arlecchino.
DalĂ also dressed flamboyantly ranging from heavy fur coats to trimmed suits. When Arlecchino finally appears on-screen in the DLC, he is introduced wearing a top hat; DalĂ didn't seem to wear top hats as opposed to his own strange creations, and it's likely that Arlecchino's top hat might have belonged to an Alchemist that he killed.
Coincidentally, Arlecchino's appearance in the base game looks like a piece of Surrealist artwork, with a couple of DalĂ's motifs at work: decomposition/ruin, death, and cables (indicating a scientific flavor). Additionally, unlike any other puppet in the game, Arlecchino seems to have a golden skull instead of the regular puppet face, again, to partly drive the theme of death.
Arlecchino's second phase design still holds some aspects of DalĂ, but overall, that design seems to lean towards a more Harlan-esque theme, particularly that of "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman and another figure from history to be discussed in another post.
Arlecchino's Identity as an Artist
Arlecchino's character is comprised of many elements from many sources. As mentioned in a previous post, part of this is the desire to create and to be as human as possible again even though he's trapped in an automaton's body, and this was connected to AM from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, as far as a machine being envious of the human condition. Particularly to accomplish this, he aims to be an artist who creates striking and shocking pieces to define Humanity. The aspect is very similar to DalĂ while pushing himself to reach the highest level of fame (or, all things considered, infamy). Like DalĂ's constant use of melting clocks, roses, and fish in his paintings; Arlecchino's works utilize all sorts of mediums, and the mainstays of his works are red wax, roses, and blood. There are several examples of Arlecchino's artwork displayed in the game, but I'll discuss one interesting sculpture here to illustrate how his taste for Surrealism is depicted in the game.
After defeating Markiona, in the tunnel leading to the Carnival Garden, P and Gemini find a distressing sculpture where Romeo's bloodied uniform and locket is found. At first glance, it feels like it should be a specific character but it's likely that this isn't any particular character and is only the first breadcrumb to Arlecchino. This sculpture uses wax and possibly blood to cement together a man between clumps of the dismembered arms of both humans and puppets.
A calling card of Arlecchino the Blood Artist, this sculpture seems to ridicule the Alchemists in their quest for evolution. The arms on the bottom create a mound for the man to stand on as a king, but the clump above him looks to be a large bell with arms and hands reaching down. The clearest representation would be for the Arm of God seen in Simon's battle; however, it could also represent calamity and hatred that Arlecchino held for the Alchemists (think For Whom the Bells Tolls). The nature of the sculpture is certainly a homage to DalĂ's style---ominous, terrifying, and insane. Gemini remarks as much. The melting look of the sculpture might even be a nod to not only the soft cheese look but to his fascination with putrefaction in earlier works including Un Chien Andalou's two rotting donkeys.
General Indications of DalĂ's Art in Lies of P
DalĂ's works are referenced or alluded to throughout the game, some of which I will mention here and others I'll mention a little bit later for a proper juxtaposition. The most obvious one is some attribution of clocks and tick-tocking to Arlecchino (other attributions of clocks tie in Geppetto and the Technicians discussed later). The loading screen of Venigni Works has a small "tick-tock-" written into the picture, for example. We know the connection between Arlecchino and Venigni, but I'll elaborate on this in a separate analysis.
Previously, I had mentioned that Arlecchino's association to clocks was influenced by Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman; however, the clock motif also points to DalĂ's Persistence of Memory and his concept of melting clocks. In this painting inspired by a soft melting Camembert cheese, when Gala saw this work, she remarked that "no one can forget it once he has seen in". Hence, the title. This painting is the most famous of the paranoia-critical method, in which DalĂ harnessed paranoia to create works that truly persist in memory. A second painting similar to this one called The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory comes from the Atomic period where elements are more like particles vibrating in the picture.
On a larger scale, Arlecchino's lines generally follow a theme of dissecting the human heart and soul to study all the emotions within them, all allusions to the Surrealist movement as DalĂ interpreted it as well as algorithimic processes as AM. Then, Arlecchino makes a slight reference specifically to The Persistence of Memory and clocks in the final battle against him in Lies of P Overture. If the player chooses not to help Lea up at the beginning of the fight and instead takes on Arlecchino by himself, Arlecchino will taunt P (and the player): "Tick-tock, tick-tock, Romeo's on the clock!"
Of course and mentioned before, Lies of P in its entirety also has plenty of references to clocks since Geppetto and other Technicians were all once horologists or watchmakers and the P-Organ also being a quartz-activated clock, as denoted in the description of the Genius Meister's Pocket Watch sold to Klaus and with the P-Organ upgrade tutorial. But this specific line, coming from someone who looks a lot like DalĂ is a bit on the nose, especially when that character is someone unforgettable in Krat, very well may point to this artwork.
Another possible reference to DalĂ's work is the fact that Arlecchino communicates through wax cylinders and more noticeably telephones found around Krat. The first time he contacts P is in front of Venigni Works---to preface the connection that would be revealed later in the game.
One of DalĂ's works is the Lobster-Telephone, in which a telephone was sculpted with a lobster for the handset and painted (except for one that remained unpainted), usually accompanied by his quote: "I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone". Likely more of a coincidence rather than a reference, keeping this sculpture in mind, there is a phone found in the Malum District, of which the point of interest is the Red Lobster Inn. Arlecchino riddles P about Romeo at this phone.
A third general reference could potentially lie in DalĂ's (no longer) moving sculpture The Royal Heart, which is a golden heart with a crown encasing a second ruby-encrusted heart equipped with a motor that made it appear as if it was beating like a real human heart.
The Burnt-White King's Ergo, Romeo's Ergo, is very similar to this work. Comparing the two, the most noticeable detail is the crown set on top. When you look closer at the Ergo, the core is encased in something like a shell or cage created by other "filaments" of the Ergo. The interpretation of The Royal Heart is that love and emotion overpowers the rational mind and that there is regal beauty and precious sacredness to human emotion.
For Romeo's Ergo, and for Romeo to reside within the King of Puppet mech, to look similar to this sculpture further denotes the romantic implications in his storyline as well as an evidenced and twisted sense that Arlecchino continues to be intricately entwined into Romeo's character. Arlecchino's weight on Romeo, and the consequences of this connection which torment P, is much more pronounced in Lies of P Overture.
Arlecchino's Magnum Opus, the Torture of Romeo
In his later years, DalĂ incorporated more religious symbols into his work to celebrate Catholicism. Using techniques he learned during his Atomic era, his painting became much more elaborate such as Mother and Child shown earlier in this post or The Christ of St. John of the Cross below.
The Christ of St. John of the Cross is considered one of his best post-1939 works and is based on Diego VelĂĄzquez's Christ Crucified. It should be noted that DalĂ himself wasn't religious and approached these paintings with spectacle and wonder rather than love and reverence for the subject. So it's not too much of a stretch that Arlecchino's recreation of this painting are just that---numbing spectacle.
When P and Lea enter the Monad Charity House Boarding School, a bone-chilling display is suspended from the ceiling with ribbon. It seems to be a similar figure found on the way to the Carnival Garden turned upside-down with the head and arms removed. Roses (also prevalent in DalĂ's art) climb down from the legs to the torso before almost melting into red wax. Romeo's severed arms dangle from the figure above a circle of red pillar candles and rose petals. Upon first viewing this display within the context of the build-up to this point, it is an extremely effective, distressing, numbing, and nauseating discovery.
Similar to The Persistence of Memory and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, the sculpture on the path to the Carnival Garden and the one found in the Monad Charity House Boarding School can be thought of to be inversions of each other with the additional detail that the roses on the second sculpture are a reference to the Rose Estate or specifically to Lea. Arlecchino is no doubt taunting Lea and getting under her skin, which Gemini makes a comment about. This sculpture, though, feels even closer to the type of DalĂ's Surrealism found in some works between the 1930s and 1940s.
Arlecchino calls what he has done to Romeo his magnum opus, or his greatest and most important work (not to be confused with his favorite work, what was done to Venigni's parents). I've shown the similarity of Romeo's torture pose in Overture to his reveal pose during his boss fight in the base game in a previous post. Now, it's to juxtapose him to not only DalĂ's The Christ of St. John of the Cross but to Christ Crucified by Diego VelĂĄzquez, the inspiration for the former.
Romeo's arms have been severed, and he is suspended by ribbons tied to the puppet arms that have replaced them angled upward as if nailed to a cross. The mask Arlecchino has forced onto him is reminiscent of his King of Puppets mech in the base game and has a crown made of fingers; this crown also is akin to the crown of thorns that Jesus Christ wears in VelĂĄzquez's painting. Arlecchino's use of spears not only creates some sort of "halo" around Romeo but also function as the arrow pointing down on the ground in The Christ of St. John of the Cross to guide the eye and references the blades Lea's used to pierce Arlecchino in their first showdown. Coincidentally, Arlecchino's chosen pose for Romeo might also be indicative of the version of Catholicism followed in Krat in opposition to the Alchemists' encroaching Gnosticism. This might further underscore Arlecchino's resentment for the Alchemists as he takes pleasure in creating art. The fact that this all takes place in the Rose Garden may also allude to Bleeding Roses (1930), Enigma of the Rose (Death) (1976) and other artworks with roses. Specifically, Enigma of the Rose (Death), shown below, ties the notion of death to roses.
Other victims include an Alchemist that Arlecchino tortured when he awakened, Adelina Corday, the Venigni family, and Lea Florence Monad (psychologically). When it comes to the Venignis, Arlecchino specifies that they were his favorite because they begged him to spare their child, spurring a "living" masterpiece---what would Venigni do with his life after being so traumatized? This could be attributed to DalĂ's ventures into other media aside from painting and sculpture.
A Summation of Currently Covered Parts
After reading about DalĂ, seeing his work in person, and learning that he was an abhorrent person despite his talent for art, and combining this to the hatred, envy, and yearning found in AM from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Arlecchino is already far more horrific than either of these two alone. DalĂ's self depicted in his actions and his artwork indicate a mind that is severely corrupted. AM's desire to have what his creators enjoy when he is created for the sole purpose to destroy indicates a mind that longs to experience humanness. There are still other aspects to look at to fully dissect the Blood Artist, but just having these two already creates a villain that is pure evil.
Conclusion
So, to close this post, while I did find Masters of Art: DalĂ by Alexander Adams to be an interesting read and my trip to be illuminating, knowing now that the artist in question is objectively terrible even if he was extremely skilled as his works, I need to find something to bring me back from peering into that abyss. Barring all that I have gleaned, it does make Arlecchino exceptionally interesting to break down. There's still so much to dig into for him, but I really appreciate a villain who is evil for the sake of being evil and is not, in any way, redeemable.
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