💌 Comments

Very interesting story for sure, thanks for sharing! 😊

When actively searching something related to tight belts about 15 years ago, I stumbled upon some article about the Eastern Slavs who would wear not one but three belts at all times, one around the skin, one around the undergarments, one around the clothes, and some added the fourth one - a broad sash. It was done as a protective measure against evil spirits, but the belts also defined one's status - I guess wealthy people had ornate belts, while poor people had simple ones.

In some museums we can also find some metallic rings named Torcs (can look up "slavic torcs" or "celtic torcs"), that look like they can be open and closed, some have holes for a rope, supposedly to tighten them over time. They're similar to bracelets but too wide to wear on arms or legs. So it's commonly believed they were worn on necks but I highly doubt that - first I doubt anyone would wear such a strange thing on a neck, and when I see pictures of modern people trying to wear them on necks it looks incredibly silly; second why do they have holes to tighten them if they weren't meant to train some body part to be smaller and smaller? I think we have a yet another instance of scientists trying to erase all evidence of waist-binding practices from history 🤭

I was thinking that in all the dynamic movements expected from a ninja the body would pull on the ropes, creating even tighter tension and thus naturally training the waist over time 😊

Thanks, I'm glad you liked him 🥰

Wouldn't be surprising if it takes one's breath away being folded like that 😊

Thank you Sasha! 🥰 I'm so glad you liked it!

Thank you so much for reading! And thanks for noticing all the details! 🥰

It's really heart warming to receive positive comments after putting so much effort in it 😊

Thanks! I tried to make it the way it was before :)

Let's hope he's up to something then 🤭

At this rate the haunted house will turn into a hangout house for every pretty boy in town and they'll rebuild it into a bendy boy tavern 🤣

I think a cult of backbenders is an interesting idea, but also the idea about demons who give contortion powers. Would be fun to have a demonology book about demons who improve various parts of the body like hip rotation, knees, feet flexibility, neck, shoulders, etc.

He also somewhat reminds me of the warlock from the movie Warlock (from 1980s), though I remember the movie was pretty gruesome but had that blond, semi-handsome evil mage. When you mentioned the cult of backbenders, I somehow remember that movie.

If there are more demons and some of them have to be enemies, maybe there can be opposing forces like backbenders and frontbenders, always talking about which way is hotter. But some people still manage to sit on two chairs 🤭

As for demon hunters, they have flexorcists - but they're like firemen. I mean firemen would deal with fire that causes trouble but don't have a mission to destroy all fire in the world. Like fire, demons can be easily angered but flexorcists will only pacify them, no witchhunts or anything 😅

Glad I'm so old that I can study my own ancient culture now and make archeological discoveries 🤣

It's true that in real world many people would want to get the taste of something interesting... Looking at all the MMO games, it's impossible to feel like a hero because there are always dozens of people walking around, doing the same things better than you while looking cooler. But in fairytales there's always somehow only one single hero trying to save the princess... Maybe because stories is a metaphorical way of talking about personal transformation, so there's only one main character you associate with and the rest are NPCs and obstacles.

Thank you so much! 🥰 Very glad it made your day, hopefully as bright as his night 🤭

A friend many years ago actually dressed like that to college, just without the belt. A bit of bare skin on the hips was very stylish.

Thank you so much! 🥰 I usually make illustrations just for fun, but afterwards it's also interesting to look at them and figure out where all the parts come from, like the leotard making me think of gymnastics, and the model-like hairstyle and face feel like he could be a gymnast-turned-model. The background made me feel like he's a modern person but living in a place that's many centuries old, probably with some local traditions too.

Putting it all together is a nice exercise. I'm in no way a professional writer, I'm only trying to make texts that match the pictures, but under almost every story you'll find comments from people who enjoyed the read, so that's what matters 😊 I also think it's more pleasant to look at the picture for 5 minutes while reading than for 5 seconds when it's just a picture without a text.

Can but this kind of art takes a whole day to make one single picture, it seems the current AI models are unable to make it fully automated.

I think making art of extreme achievements is like drawing your own money on paper. You can draw yourself a million overnight, at first making everyone laugh... But if you keep doing that for 20 years, you might get so good at it that people start getting jealous of your money, even if it's fake 🤣

I mean I can easily make his waist even smaller, I think the most difficult thing about this art is to make it believable, only bordering on surrealism but not crossing the line.

I think I've already seen something like that, I even remember finding some scans from an old book describing it... As for other cultures, only the Minoans come to mind - I had comments on DeviantArt a couple of times, mentioning Minoans were aware of corsetry and tight belts. If you look up "minoan art" you'll find a plenty of depictions of very tiny waists, normally with some cinchers around them, so I don't think it was a mere stylization of human proportions.

Unfortunately, scientists would rather talk all day long about Aztec cranial bindings than discuss something really captivating like waist-cinching in ancient cultures. Contortionism is also never discussed in any documents and literature. Guess I'm lucky to be into things tabooed even by anthropologists who'd readily discuss ancient Greek pedophilia, Chinese foot binding and all kinds of Roman emperor horror in great detail, but take anything related to waist cinching or contortionism and the same people pretend it never happened.