The Epiflairy: Book III Talkback

After 3 years of silence, The Epiflairy makes its return, featuring new stories and new punishment from the gods!

I had developed what would be the first two stories in Book III back around 2022 or so, before I first published Book I online. I thought of a few ideas, including a story where an innocent mortal woman pisses off a god for a very petty and accidental reason and ending it with a fake-out where the punishment seems to be the woman is now a destitute prostitute only to also be the first werewolf (or wifwolf, in this case).

Another story I thought of was a silly version of the Arachne story from Greco-Roman mythology, which was the genesis for the Faïri story here.

In many versions of the story, most notably Ovid's telling, an enraged Minerva/Athena kills Arachne after the latter defeats the strategy goddess in a weaving contest. However, Athena feels remorseful after the act and, still wanting to punish the human for her hubris (and the lady seems to act rather cocky in this version of Metamorphoses), resurrects her as the first spider.

I had first heard a version of this tale way back when I was a kid, when I got a book of Greek myths, possibly from one of the Scholastic book fairs/offers that would happen during elementary school, was that after Arachne showed her weaving, a furious Athena tore it up in jealousy and made her a spider so that the human would weave forever.

To make this version of the Arachne tale silly, I decided to make her final cursed form a major anachronism: a modern day, possibly Fiery, printer, similar to the one in my current workplace that also prints booklets and business cards, but also breaks down occasionally and needs to be maintained whenever that happens.

The use of many deliberately poor similes and metaphors in the Faïri story, such as the one with the leaf, came from a similar one from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, featuring the metaphor for the Vogon ships destroying the earth (paraphrased) "hanging in the air the way that bricks don't." There's also a SpongeBob reference in this book, specifically to the cartoon "Krusty Krab Training Video."

As for the main book image seen above? It's of Onsîn abducting the daughter of Fúrtel, Érmès. "They don't appear in these two stories, but be sure to keep an eye out for them later on," he told the blog readers knowingly.

This is also my first Epiflairy illustration I made in Krita. I can now more accurately simulate paintings made from natural elements, like charcoal and other crushed stones.