coping with massive workload by drawing my gf π€
donβt mind the handsome squidward moment in the middle. π
Xuebing Du
AnasAbdin
Monterey Bay Aquarium
I'd rather be in outer space πΈ

titsay
No title available

oozey mess

tannertan36
macklin celebrini has autism
Peter Solarz
Cosimo Galluzzi
dirt enthusiast

Love Begins
Stranger Things

Discoholic πͺ©
$LAYYYTER
Mike Driver
Keni
KIROKAZE
todays bird

seen from Chile
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Ukraine
seen from Australia

seen from United States
seen from Canada

seen from Singapore
seen from Croatia

seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from T1

seen from Japan
seen from Venezuela

seen from Malaysia

seen from TΓΌrkiye

seen from Kyrgyzstan
seen from Australia
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
@noskeers
coping with massive workload by drawing my gf π€
donβt mind the handsome squidward moment in the middle. π
"I really worry about your sanity." β¦says the man who talked a dozen people into worrying about theirs. That's the trick of Dutch van der Linde, isn't it? He could make loyalty feel like salvation, right up until the moment it damns you.
OC Anastasia Volkov. Snippet β2: The Syndicate. 1888 β 1894: The Devil's in the Details | The Syndicate. Manhattan, New York.
You arrive at the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge, the web of steel cables and Gothic arches towering over the East River, and plunge straight down into the shadow of Lower Manhattan. Past the grand, gas-lit thoroughfares, the city rapidly sheds its glittering skin.
You turn onto Stanton Street.
Slide through the cacophony of voices bleeding together in thick layers: Yiddish, German, and rough Black Sea dialects, packed with pickpockets, tenement mothers, and boiling cabbage stench.
There, right between two cramped tailor shops, sits the anomaly: The New Elysium Theatre.
Faded French Second Empire style, chipped stone cherubs, and grand gas lanterns throwing a warm orange glow onto the slush. To the Fifth Avenue millionaires and their wives arriving for a high-status operetta, it's just The Elysium. A taste of romantic European art. To the Tammany Hall politicians and street enforcers who know what lies beneath the floorboards, it's The Ely. A perfect front where a wealthy man can leave his wife in a velvet-curtained box upstairs, and slip away to the hidden underworld below.
Anastasia was still green. But she knew, nobody was coming to rescue her. And when she got an innocent offer to work on playbills and promotional posters for The Ely, she took it without a second thought.
She did her best without knowing that every day was a test.
Of course, Charles Solomon didn't tell her his grand plans. He wanted to see if she was capable of replicating the intricate, flowing typography of American advertisement. Then came the ledger book for the theatre's ticket sales. She didn't ask why.
Then, the official business correspondence with uptown suppliers. She did it all with cold, unyielding precision. Solomon watched, noted her discretion, and finally, they had "the talk" in his private office behind the stage. She agreed to work for his shadow syndicate.
That was when the real education began.
Solomon didn't just leave her to figure things out. He brought in his best men to put her through her paces. She was trained in the brutal, pragmatic physics of American crime. But the real masterstroke? Solomon used his immense political leverage to personally introduce her to the very men who sat on the other side of the paper: corrupt bank lawyers, shady maritime clerks, crooked treasury officials.
They sat across from her under the low gaslight of the underground rooms, showing her exactly what the law looked for. They taught her what raised a red flag on a maritime manifest, how a bank teller's eye scanned a signature, and where the microscopic flaws lay in a federal bond.
Over those six years, Anastasia didn't just become a good counterfeiter. She became an elite, hyper-professional penman and engraver.
By 1894, she could determine the exact weight and cotton-to-linen ratio of a piece of paper simply by pinching it once between her thumb and forefinger. She could differentiate standard iron-gall black ink from a deeply concentrated indigo blue under a single flickering candle.
She mastered the "true fluid" test, knowing exactly how fresh ink ought to pool and dry into the fibers of parchment without creating a telltale bleed. She learned how to use a razor-sharp steel burin to engrave copper plates with copperplate script so fine it mirrored the government printing presses, and how to artificially age a document using tea-stains and a precise dusting of ash to mimic decades of dust.
A Smolny education gave her discipline, but Manhattan turned her pen into a lethal weapon.
OC Anastasia Volkov. Snippet β1: Smolny.
She lived rent free in my head for the past few years. Anastasia Volkov. Volkova, if you want to want to delve into the specifics of Russian surname pronunciation. But I personally settle for Volkov.
An OC for the incredible masterpiece that is the Red Dead Redemption 2 universe.
Now, I want to be honest. I went full on the historical accuracy, writing the character and the constructing her backstory like a ten thousand lego piece build. Each event leads to her skills, her trauma, her "the way she is".
My main objective was to write a strong female character without falling into Mary Sue territory. Is she someone you can relate with? Hardly, I personally cannot. Does her life feel like Dostoyevsky had a fever dream? Definitely.
Expect twists, drama and that deep melancholia of the Old World.
---
1877 β 1886: Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens. Europeβs first educational institution for women. Doesn't tell you a whole lot, just the name of it, does it? Allow me to put on my nerdy glasses and correct that little inconvenience.
Back in the time, the name Smolny was associated with the crème de la crème of Russian society. The best education one can possibly get in Russia, as a woman. A status symbol. Naturally, you would assume only the wealthy could get in. Yet, it wasn't entirely true.
See, the institute was separated by the "Alexander wing", for the bourgeois, and the "Nicholas wing", the everyone else. Noble-ish bloods, wealthy girls would live in a slightly better conditions, not having to share a military grade beds to sleep on. But that was, mostly, it.
In other words, it was a disaster. Wrapped in a pretty bow for the onlookers.
Don't get me wrong, you would get a brilliant education for the time and age. Think the full package: literature, mathematics, geography, history, biology, physics, languages, dancing, arts, music, household skills. The list goes on and on. But the living part?
First, food. It was outrageous. The quality of it was mediocre at best, and the quantity was scarce. Because the girls were have to keep up with the standards of being sickly thin and pale. And because the fundings were far from what they were since Catherine The Great.
Second, the monastic life. At the time Anastasia joins, she's 8 years old. Previously, through history, the institute accepted girls from the age of 6. Would you be able to see your family? No. For the next 9 years, your life is of studying and becoming something exceptional.
Third, the "exceptional" part. You better be one, otherwise your life would become a nightmare. Grades were a thing, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. The girls had to pick a "favourite" among the older students. And nobody would pick someone who isn't the goody two shoes.
How did it work? Assume you're in a class learning to mend a sock. You might be good in mathematics or speak French fluently by this point. But oh, is this stitch uneven? Did you daydream while having a needle in your hands? Well, congratulations, miss. Now you're the laughingstock. The unevenly mended sock is being pinned to your pristine uniform by a wincing teacher. You're going to be laughed at and whispered about in the corridors, you'll loose those who looked up at you, and...do you really deserve to have supper after such a shameful performance? No. You'll have to stand on a stool in the middle of the canteen, watching your classmates dine without you. Girls fainted from that venomous cocktail of shame, under-eating and cold.
Coldness. See, the underfunding was not only in the food. It was in the heating as well. Smolny is a massive building, and to keep it warm through the cold late autumn up to the early spring was enormously expensive. In some real diaries I've read, books getting moldy, in others, girls wrote how hard it was to fall asleep. Saint Petersburg, where the institute stood, was built on a swamp. The humidity there was already punishing.
And so, nine years of living like this would, without a doubt, leave a mark on you. If you were diligent, at the end, you might grauade into the "Golden Students" β usually, just a handful from hundreds that attended. Six, maybe eight people. And you would get the cipher: a pretty bow pin with a golden "E" for ΠΠΊΠ°ΡΠ΅ΡΠΈΠ½Π° ΠΡΠΎΡΠ°Ρ, ΠΠ΅Π»ΠΈΠΊΠ°Ρ (Catherine the Great) β the ideological founder of Smolny, the tsaritsa long since gone.
Your graduation would be something women all over the world could only dream of: the immaculate ball, the guests from the royal family, connections that were supposed to settle you for life.
But was it worth it?
If you got hooked but the story, read more here: https://www.gw2ru.com/education/3420-smolny-institute-noble-maidens"
Dutch, unperturbed by a light rainstorm relaxes with a cigar and quiet conversation.
πππ wink πππ
Party Dutch
POV assortment lol
One of O'Driscollβs boys couldnβt open his mouthβ¦ but heβd tell a lie.
some smiley Dutch πΒ
Chapter IV: The Gilded Cage
π―ππππ: The Good
βSaw unspeakable evil and remarkable kindness, usually from the same folks.β
Dutch van der Linde is nothing but perfection π
Where do I even begin...
Portrait of Kate from Walker: Independence series. Yet, this was drawn to be used in my fan fiction (Red Dead Redemption 2) story as a portrait in the characterβs notebook. #walkerindependence #katewalkerindependence #sketch #reddeadredepmtion2fanfiction https://www.instagram.com/p/CkgmmF4sekt/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
A manipulative rat or a well-written villain with daddy issues? πβ¨ The portrait of Micah Bell drawn as a sketch in a OFCβs journal as an interactive part for my upcoming fan fiction story. #reddeadredemption2 #reddeadredemption #rdr2 #micahbell #micahbellfanart #micahbellrdr2 https://www.instagram.com/p/CkdBgg-MvuG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Our Favourite Cowboy π¦ The portrait of Arthur Morgan drawn as a sketch in a OFCβs journal as an interactive part for my upcoming fanfic story. βWe canβt change whatβs done, we can only move on.β #reddeadredemption2 #rdr2 #arthurmorgan #reddeadredemption2art #rockstargames #sketch https://www.instagram.com/p/CkabRwRMnYW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=