Hello everyone,
If you've read my Days of Revolution stories (and if you haven't, please do and leave feedback), then you know that I have a thing for large scale/mass guillotinings, of the sort seen in A Tale of Two Cities and The Scarlet Pimpernel. The canon (book) number of guillotine victims in the former is fifty-two, believable in every adaptation I've seen, and the 1934 Scarlet Pimpernel has fifty-three offscreen, and then sixty-four in the opening scene. Even when the 1982 version only has twenty-three (assuming the opening ten-fifteen minutes all happen in 24 hours), like the ToTC you get the feel of seeing each victim, in the tumbril if not on the scaffold.
What I've noticed is that there aren't really any stories or artwork (drawing or 3D) that have scenes like this, except my own. I realise that coming up with interesting, non-repetitive deaths for 10+ people is difficult, and the effort of rendering or drawing a story would be considerable, but even if they only focused on one person the atmosphere would still be possible. And of course, a single 'snapshot' image would only require one large effort.
There is, of course, AI art as well. I have seen some real aberrations created through it, but I'd still like to see something made with the prompt: "Twenty 18th century aristocrats standing near a scaffold with a guillotine" or "french revolutionary mob around scaffold".
What are your thoughts on the subject?

 

I think images would really help people like me picture the story more in their minds. An idea I had would be to have an image from different perspectives, for example, one from the view of the mob, one from the executioner, a guard, the unfortunate aristos, etc. Another idea would be the perspective of a condemned noblewoman from the prison, to the tumbrel, and ultimately to the guillotine. It would be interesting to get as many perspectives as possible, especially since as you said there are sixty-four in the opening seen of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Personally, I don't mind the tediousness of the deaths, but images would make the stories more captivating.

Days of Revolution has honestly been my favorite execution story(s) I've ever read. So many lives snuffed out so quickly by forces outside of their contol, it's terrifying, yet captivating. The stories were so well written, and I enjoyed the lore of the world, too. I would love to see a part two of your first installment, perhaps one week before or one week after the story takes place.

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