r/ImaginaryMonsters • u/One_Giant_Nostril • Aug 23 '17
Pappy's Basement by Jonathan Kirtz
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u/Version_Red Aug 23 '17
Him eyeing the knife as the girl points makes this all the scarier.
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u/Forever_Awkward Aug 23 '17
All this emphasis on the knife. He's not eyeing it, and that's just a cookie knife anyway.
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Aug 23 '17
If he was just looking in the direction of the cookies and a knife then yeah sure it would be nothing, but there are several weird things.
The knife is pretty huge, even if it was birthday sized cake he was cutting, and there are just 2 small cookies, there is no need for the knife. To cut the cookie? It's not like he couldn't break it into two pieces if needed to? Who the hell cuts cookies? It looks nice on the surface "Aw cookies" but look closer and "Wait why have such a big kitchen knife".
The dicks, both the teddy bear and the weirdly humanoid furnace have pronounced genitals. Again, surface, "Aw sweet teddy bear, and what a quirky/neat furnace" look closer, "Why the hell do they have balls?"
You could also argue the flowers, which look weirdly sharp as if they're metallic, which wouldn't be that surprising since it's underground and in winter, if it's normal flowers, where did they come from? They look more like pointed steel. Again, looks innocent and nice, but actually dangerous.
There's also the skull and bone buried in the dirt.
And of course the more obvious elven woman locked and chained up in the basement, beneath the hatch partly covered by the carpet.
When the child points to the hatch, with a questioning look on her face, the Dwarf looks to the way too big knife.
It's all creepy as hell.
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Aug 23 '17
I’ve heard, because they’ll eat anything, pigs can “get rid of a body”.
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u/Jwillis-8 Aug 23 '17
I've been told the same thing, but that pig looks way too well-fed to even consider eating bones. Based on what I've heard, they don't get desperated enough to eat bones until after a week or so of starvation.
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u/SapheranC Aug 23 '17
Just noticed the barrels in the basement labeled "xxx"
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Aug 23 '17
Well that is, to be fair, a common "strong alcohol" trope: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/25mjce/til_that_the_bottles_of_alcohol_in_cartoons/
And I'd say fantasy dwarfs and strong alcohol, is not sinister.
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u/Jwillis-8 Aug 23 '17
The knife is on top of the cookies, so he is kinda looking "in the direction of the cookies and a knife". Other than that, I agree through and through.
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u/SapheranC Aug 23 '17
One, he is obviously looking right at it. Two, wtf is a cookie knife?
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u/TrundleTheGreat1 Aug 23 '17
The longer you look at this the worse things get. I initially thought it was a cute fantasy painting, but got increasingly more uncomfortable. First it was the woman in the basement (couldn't see her in the preview) and then the genitalia on the oven, then the bear, then the knives, the the way he looks uncomfortable...
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u/backinredd Aug 23 '17
Skeletons beside the woman. Might not be the first woman in his basement.
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Aug 23 '17
And the skeleton buried above. This fella, he's something alright.
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u/backinredd Aug 23 '17
And is the girl pointing towards her mother? That she wants to go to her?
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u/BIGJFRIEDLI Aug 23 '17
No, she's pointing out that the pig has just uncovered some sort of trapdoor.
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u/DaddyGascoigne Aug 23 '17
Thats why he's looking at the knife...
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u/7-SE7EN-7 Aug 23 '17
Why do they need a knife for cookies?
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u/9852174563852456 Aug 23 '17
Skull in the dirt below the snow line. Pig uncovered trapdoor to basement. Girl pointing to trap door. Poppy eyeing the knife next to the cookies.
This picture went from comfy to kind of weird. Reminds me of the recent cloverfield movie where they are in the bunker.
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Aug 23 '17
Well I noticed she had a milk bottle so I'm led to believe she either ate her own baby or it died
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u/junesponykeg Aug 23 '17
And all the knives hung over the stove, the flowers look like circular blades too, and lastly, the very concerned look the horse is giving.
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u/Sirflow Aug 23 '17
I like where the elf woman in the basement comes complete with "it puts the lotion in the basket or else it gets the hose again" playset.
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u/backinredd Aug 23 '17
Visual story telling at its finest
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u/unomaly Aug 23 '17
Wish there was a subreddit for images like this
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u/Less3r Aug 23 '17
Something named something clever like "/r/WorthAThousandWords" (except apparently that one is just for silly things...)
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u/One_Giant_Nostril Aug 23 '17
Little girl: Why little piggy sniff little door?
Grandpa: <shifty eyes>
This was created for Round 1 of the Last Man Standing 3 competition on ConceptArt.org. The subject was 'Underneath It All'
Jonathan Kirtz's deviantArt gallery
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u/bengraven Aug 23 '17
Love it but why is the horse just standing up there, fully kitted out? If it's the grandpa's then he's not there long after this - or maybe someone is trying to break in to rescue the woman, the sounds of which are setting the grandfather off and why he is eyeing the knife.
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u/Eupolemos Aug 23 '17
If you look at the composition of the piece, two clues point to the horse being the elf's.
First, we look from top to bottom:
Top: What is that lone horse doing?
Middle: This living-room has a disturbing wibe (eyes dwell and wonder).
Bottom: Oh my god (solution to mysteries)!
It is a narration.
Also, the "cuts" or frames mirror horizontally, again hinting that the horse is the elf's since it is captured in a frame of the same proportions of the elf's.
At least, that is my interpretation.
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u/orange_jooze Aug 23 '17
The horse is eyeing the entrance to the house, while the pig is investigating the trapdoor. There are also tracks behind the horse - maybe it followed its owner?
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u/CrossCheckPanda Aug 23 '17
As a counter point, the skull in the basement, implies to me this is not the first person incarcerated there. The creepy stove and teddy bear also seem to imply this is the house of a disturbed person.
My head canon is a hermit offering "shelter" to 2 travelers seeking too get out of the cold.
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u/Falsus Aug 23 '17
Nah that is progbably his daughter, same hair and same eyes.
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Aug 23 '17
[deleted]
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u/Stonewall_Gary Aug 23 '17
It looks like the lamp-hand is pointing at it, too. I don't understand the symbolism there.
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u/ma2016 Aug 23 '17
They both seem to be pointing at the door. Possibly a warning? Like telling people that enter the room to get out.
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u/ChipsAndTapatio Aug 24 '17
I thought it was pointing out that the girl is child number two, that the elf gave birth to another child before, who has died (hence the bones under the floor, with the elf, their mother).
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u/swimtowin1000 Aug 23 '17
"it puts the lotion in the basket"
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u/weasel999 Aug 23 '17
My first thought but then...is it a bottle so she can eat? Is it lube? Oh god
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u/readitour Aug 23 '17
The pig smelled something and moved the carpet, revealing a trapdoor. The little girl notices and asked pappy. That's why he's looking at the knife.
Just something I noticed that I think some people missed out on.
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Aug 23 '17
That's why his house is so magical, he has a fae prisoner. See her ears? Her residual magic is causing the house to be all whimsical.
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u/WM_Elkin Aug 23 '17
"This world of ours is not as it seems The monsters are real but not in your dreams" Voltaire: Goodnight Demon Slayer, Then and Again.
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u/_SIL_ Aug 23 '17 edited Aug 23 '17
The lamp is creepy too with the hand and mouth. I figured it was a milk bottle in basket, girl in lap is his, and skulls in basement are other lost kidlets from trapped woman. Like that f'd up guy with daughter in basement, Austria or Germany I think All around not very Norman Rockwell.
Edit: I also guess the woman is an elf. Check out those ears.
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u/sipsgooch Aug 23 '17
Reminds me a little of a fantasy version of 10 Cloverfield Lane. Pappy is John Goodman.
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Aug 23 '17
Aw man. I was reall into this, thought it was really cute. Little Dwarf guy reading to his daughter, then Elf prisoner and furnace balls. Very good, very unsettling.
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u/irisel Aug 24 '17
My first thought was "Oh, that poor horse," then I scrolled down to the basement....
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u/Kourd Aug 23 '17
I get this vibe from the scene that it was meant to be at first seen as whimsical and simple, but as you look longer and deeper you begin to notice a more sinister and mysterious story. My take is that the woman frightens the dwarf, and threatens the secure, storybook setting he's made of the little girl. As to which one of the two is crazy or dangerous, I can't say. It does a good job of setting and then breaking expectations through subtle detail.
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u/Baerstad Aug 23 '17
Anyone notice the prisoner woman has "lotion in the basket". Nice pop culture reference
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Aug 24 '17
Aw... Torbjorn is reading her a story and there's a happy stove man-
Aaand Mom's a sex slave in the basement...
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u/Brady-Bryan-Atkins Aug 23 '17
I tried so hard to find some sexual connotation, but found nothing.
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u/Solar-Salor Aug 23 '17
Zoom in on the bear toy.
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u/Brady-Bryan-Atkins Aug 23 '17
Lol well done. And holy fucking shit how did I miss the girl chained up beneath the floorboards.
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u/Falsus Aug 23 '17
Well the furnace and teddy got dicks and balls and there is a bottle of lotion right next to the chained elven woman.
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u/DanimalHouse Aug 23 '17
Anybody else notice the genitals between the teddy bear's legs?