#//the rest seem...fine?//

[life-winners-liveblog]

So SL!Jimmy how are the new arrivals settling in i hope everyone is doing well

-Void

******

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[slayerdurge]

Durgetash Resurrection AU

"Is that...? That's my body. I remember now. The Morphic Pool. The Elder Brain, it... I was dead. What did you do?" "I made a deal... with Lord Bane."

[iammissingautumn]

i hate you the need to explain how actually louis was the most toxic one in this relationships. i hate you the need to explain how actually lestat was the most toxic one in this relationship. i hate you the need to explain how actually armand was the most toxic one in this relationship. I hate you iwtv fans using the word “abused” or “X deserves better” like a weapon to destroy another characters integrity. yes they do suck in whatever way you are highlighting but also so many are getting too close to just making up shit takes bc they want to see it that way. Like just wait for marius if you need someone to hate with yr whole being

[fisheito]

🤔thoughts about chp 16😎

the absolute audacity of making huey hot

he could have been older lookin or surprisinglynot a beautiful twink

he could have been [WHAMMO!!] exact same face as rin and eiden (THREE CHEERS FOR REUSABLE ASSETS YEEPHIEPPHYURRAY!!!!!!!) and that would have been deliriously funny to me but, ok, fair enough, deliriouslyfunnytome is probably not the tone they're going for in this chapter

wouldn't it SUCK to be rin? imagine being born and IMMEDIATELY burdened with immense knowledge.

that's tOO much. baby wants to nap, not desperately hope for the eventual happiness of my literal other half in an unknown dimension

my thoughts about rin before were: dang, u a creepy lil guy!! ok!! don't know what your deal is!!!!!!!

my thoughts about rin now (not much different): dang, u a creepy lil guy!! but you got some weirdly altruistic (definition very very confusing here. is it really altruism if it's still sortabout you?) ultimate goal as your Deal!!! well, at least i feel safe in knowing that you do NOT aCTUALLY want to mind merge with eiden! you just want his happiness????

inevitably i'm going to go back and reread every chapter just to read the rin monologues with my Refreshed Knowledge

pretty sure he'll be consistent in his "i just wish for brother's happiness" but of course it makes sense that he's going about it in a way that NO ONE ELSE understands

to be fair there's not a lot of precedent . so. it's not like. this is a common situation that everyone would understand immediately

except for GARU, EVIDENTLY

*holding up the puppy to the skies* BEST PUPPY!!!!! UNDERSTANDING, FULL OF EMPATHY PUPPY!!!!! KING OF BEFRIENDING EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DISPENSES KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM WITHOUT JUDGEMENT ! OR EXPECTATION!

maybe a little expectation. but you wouldn't want to crush those expectations though, would you? who would want to let down the puppy?????? those BIG OL EYES.....

actually, if garu has the scary piercing blue eyes of a husky i might reconsider. that would be a little menacing. intimidating, and suspicious, even.

will have to make sure garu's eyes are JUST the right shade of blue in my drawings to not reach the Scary Piercing Threshold.

eiden cries, and i cry

eiden suffers, and i suffer

i am taking eiden into my tiny arms and embracing him but for a second because i know safety cannot be found in my hold

and also because the little brat is stubborn and has Tasks to complete that he will noT abandon, especially when everyone's happiness is at stake

god, he really is just the Definition of Essence and Life Force. So full of vibrant, punchy life........

EIDEN I LOVE U

i know you'll beat this JRPG and come out victorious on a path not predetermined by God and Plotlines

you're genre-savvy, right? you've played plenty of those games, right? the ultimatum gives u 2 options

and everyone else is falling to despair

but you, the fourthwall-shattering protag, will do things the way YOU want

and that will somehow be enough to twistturn the world's rules around you

you WILL be happy

and you WILL keep your harem safe

you'll probably even add to your harem (+1 rin)

he's really like, you are an Entity separate from Me and i want you to be You

Rin be like ??? ?????? ???????? ?? ? ? ????????????????

(Huey's skill at following orders was genetically inherited and overcame any potential budding source of Selfhood. Eiden will have to work to instill that)

the ILLUSTRATIONS AT THE ENDWITH ALL THE CLAN MEMBER FIRST MEETINGS ARFOISWEDJFJIKDASKJDLDFLS

i saw those and was all "OMG! FREE ILLUSTRATIONS!!!!! *grabbing them like i'm at an AYCE dumpster dive"

i mean. technically the rest of this stuff outside those specific drawings is Free but. you know what i mean.

i did not expect NEW ASSETS and PRETTY PICTURES uwahahahahah!!!! excellent!!!!!

i heard the "can u like, not treat me like a sack of potatoes plsthx" as soon as i saw quincy's first meeting piC LOL too memorable. potato sack eiden beloved

thank u to the artists for finally making that pose Canon for yakumo (i have been imagining him defaulting to that distressed princess on the ground pose , but could never quite materialise it. BUT NOW!!!! IT EXISTS!!! FOR FREE!!!!!!!!!!)

eiden with oli like LOL I'M KIDNAPPING YOU and oli going o! um, ! sure ok! (edmond screaming NO in the background)

still mad about pretty huey, 4 paragraphs later

have i ever talked about huey? i don't think i have

well, now that he's relevant to the current topic! i always thought Huey was just Some Guy

as in, no real malice or grand benevolence. he just had hella power and a job to do

even making contracts with the original clan members, i couldn't imagine him... forcing them into it, or being some sort of Big Bad?

they just described him as a sort of... curious explorer sort of deal. making pumpkin candies, trying to figure out essence trinkets, observing people and yokai. Just a Dude.

i felt sorta vindicated that the Huey Reveal indeed showed that he didn't have some great emotional instinct driving him to do everything he did

he was following (Divvine lolol) orders and trying to make sense of the world while he was doing so

when he was trying to understand why aster and morv would be so attached to him, an empty sorta vessel, and how he wished they would find solace in each other's company instead

yeah, i feel that

i was also really scared during his regeneration that. somehow. the regen would only be complete by eating up eiden's soul or smth

but. he just. regenerated. on his own. like some messed up starfish

no eiden-eating required.

i guess that's god power for ya

a relief, for sure!!!!!!

and the Formatting of his memories? yeah, a failsafe sort of measure. makes sense. Emotion really DOES get in the way a lot of the time

eternally doomed to just. do a thing. for the sake of the world. and not really feel anything about it. what an existence

immortality? COUNT ME OUT

i ,too, would not be averse to turning into dust

yes me getting really sad at the flashback to the Great Serpent

pretty sure that was the Great Serpent we saw making a bond with huey, right?

he must have lost his beloved wife by then :( he must have been so sad and lonely.... but still have some stupid kindness in him that wanted to protec otheers......

which is why he was like. well. i aint doing much with my stupid amounts of power these days. and i'm highkey depressed. you're saying that you're running around the world doing things for the greater good? and it'll protect the living creatures?? the yokai who are unfairly punched in the fface by mean people (who may or may not be humans)?? yeah ok can you take my ear

currently imagining huey as an accidental charity canvasser. he somehow ended up at the Great Serpent's doorstep, talking about his life's mission

and the Great Serpent went, "i want to subsidise your mission. take my money (power) and at least that way SOMEONE will make good use of it"

then he went to rot in his makeshift tomb for the rest of his mortal life , staring at the missing other half of his BFF pendant

huey continues his journey, unaffected, neutral as ever

once again, i warred between my two sides:

they made huey yaoiable!!! to the MASSES

(because ANYTHIN is yaoiable if you are powerful enough. but mass-appeal yaoiable? with the generic appealing twink aesthetic? that's a dangerous game you're playin)

ASEXUAL HUEY WIN

eiden rin and huey all sitting together having a sleepover

eiden going, really? you didn't think of fucking them?? NOT EVEN ONCE?

huey: that did not occur to me as a potential course of action, no.

rin: wait. what's sex. like, actually????

(actually now i'm wondering. if rin inherited all of huey's brain wisdom database, would he have knowledge of sex only in the intellectual sense? like blade? with the "i read that in a book" vibe? MAYB!E!!!!!!!)

the huey portrait reveal: one of the first things i saw was his sleeves

and it immediately made me think of kuya

because wasn't past kuya wearing his R outfit? just a short sleeve sorta deal?

imaginign that kuya with his gigantic admiration boner for huey , sees those sleeves at their first meeting and is all

hell YEAH those are some NOICE LOOKIN, FASHIONABLE SLEEVES

i'm stealing those

*starts incorporating the sleeves in his everyday outfit*

and, now, the kuya we all know today. with his fancy flowery poofy sleeves,,,,, turns out it was huey imitation

]][laughing, pointing mmy finger at peepaw

also grateful that when kuya and rei were about to throw down (again), blade accidentally intervenes

it's like a toddler , witnessing two wretched adults having a dispute, and his Pure Wisdom interrupts with impeccable timing

damn! sounds like those messed up people in my book when they don't know how to cope! wow ! what a couple of textbook cases of poor emotional regulation!

kuya: *deep inhale, withdraws his flaming fingers*

for real i expected kuya to barge into the cave at any moment during the huey reunion

yelling "WHERE'S THAT WHORE"

(not spoken outloud: -WHO ABANDONED ME")

i guess he didn't get to do that after all

understandable why he was upsetti spaegheti

ddidi they really end the chapter with everyone's eiden senses tingling across the continent?!??!

like things are blowing up and catching fire and flooding and natural disasters amok

the elemental spirits are throwing a tantrum

dante in a business meeting with the worst most illogical entity of his life (fire spirits who have spontaneously withdrawn their protective support for no obvious reason)

for real during this whole ordeal i was stressed about all the clan members who weren't there

were they stuck with this unexplainable dread?? like they just were paralysed with the Bad Feel but didn't know how to fix it??

would they feel bad for not being able to protect eiden, or at least see his state???

then i saw that they each had horrible, pressing matters to attend to on their own and that somehow cheered me up

because, at least they're able to DO something positive for their immediate environment. they're not just sad maidens waiting for their husband to come back from the war

they got they own problems to deal with

and there are plenty of problems.....

is yakumo seriously refusing to kill the invading monsters, and only hitting them harder each time (nonlethally) so they'll get the message and leave the village alone????? buddy, i don't know if that's really the most effective--

is olivine back on 25/8 altar regulation duty where he sleeps in 6-second intervals while standing up and forgetting to eat??????????? i mean. at least this time he has his clergy to help him so THANK GOD (lol) that he won't just pass out and die on his own. therew ill be others to throw food at him and idk. at least catch his body with a soft blankie if he crumples to the ground every now and then 😭

holding aster and morvay like!!!! HOW MUCH EMOTIONAL CATHARSIS ARE THEY *NOT* GETTING FROM THIS????

to see huey passed out like snow white in the dark crystal cavern,, then not get to talk to him,,,, then seeing him disintegrate after having Master Eiden stare unblinking at him for several minutes and its justs/????? THEER IS TOO MUCH TO PROCESS

this whole time morv was scared to have eiden in the same place as huey and rin...

so rin must have explained things to morv, and morv was terrified because he didn't want the mind merge to happen.....

but that means both rin and morv thoguht of the merge as an inevitability the SECOND eiden sees huey

hmm........ yall are getting swept away...... and u have forgotten the true stubbornness of eiden

maybe this really is a sign that morvay isn't too smart (as he always claims so himself?) rin says of COURSE Brother is going to fall to a horrible fate if he sees huey

and morvay is like OH I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN yeah definitely there's no way around it i definitely do not see it going any other way than what u have described

....... *furrows brow* wait.... that seems weird.... hmm....

*waves it off* nah, not gonna think too hard about it. just gonna chill out and let the story do its thing

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

How do you go about finding/reading fics?

Personally, when I get into something, I'll go through a list of fanfic sites and read all the summaries and pick what sounds interesting, then every few weeks I observed the tag again if I'm still interested. Sometimes I stumble upon them on tumblr, iirc thats how I found yours. Art -> Fic.

Now, while I haven't finished the new Mond murder quest, lack of voices and the weird ost for the trial put me off a tad, I don't have a decent idea of Dahlia but still shouldn't really be all that surprised at the Dahlia/Venti but there are so many in so little time, god speed.

it depends on my investment in the ship. when i first start i just go to the ao3 ship tag and scroll down in order of most recent. if the chronological order is too slow to get new interesting fics for my rate of reading, then i sort by bookmarks in a separate tab and go down the list, checking back in on the chronological order every once in a while

i don't touch any other sites nowadays unless i'm really desperate. i just know that if i go to wattpad i'm gonna end up both frustrated and just reading can't eat love again for the like. nth time.

[covenofthearticulate]

can i say something controversial yet brave

i think louis and pandora would have great chemistry

[drinksss]

No way they just added a “reels” tab on mobile…

What’s funny is they’re just showing video posts on it but only showing the video… but so many of the video posts have video as “context” with the full body of the post being paragraphs and paragraphs talking about the contents… the UI of the reel/tiktok Big Video Tiny Everything Else only works when your website fosters a behavior of just scroll past a majority of videos because the videos are all there is. But the whole point of tumblr is that… there’s more to it… why does staff want to add a reels section when that undermines tumblr’s appeal

[elvisqueso]

"Alright...let's go talk to your father."

Pocahontas (1995)

[5hrignold]

this

[paulic]

Rest easy Denny <3

[call-me-pup2]

It seems tumblr has cracked down more and a bunch of the spicy tags I was following are no longer working?

[caterjunes]

had felt So physically good for a couple of days in a row but :[ yesterday & today i am back to feeling Fucking Terrible again

[bugwolfsstuff]

You'd think as someone who has religious trauma and an extremely bitter unending deicidal (Deicide= act of killing of [a] god) fury caused by god ignoring my prayers and letting a kid die when I was young (12 not 14 tho) that I'd understand and like Luke Castellan

....

But I don't. Holy fuck sir, sit the fuck down and listen to Dear God (by XTC), block all religious tags on tiktok, get super into religious imagery and mourn your innocence and the actual dead person at the same time like the rest of us (or just me) /j

(yes this all happened, one of the reasons why I don't do Luke angst a lot...hits too close to home)

[koipalm]

koi I just saw ur response to my ask :) thank u for the details!!! I can just see the choice conversation going down... but also sy who thinks it's better bc at least here he's alive even if he's ground down to dirt lmao but how do you explain that? that you know the taste of death and that it lingers in your throat? nope, way too deep and inexplicable. but I think that kind of thing would wander in the eyes sometimes, and the hope is always that nobody sees it, but if there's someone who's always looking... sy, stop looking like the devil is touching the back of your neck

ahhh sorry for all that I just really like this au 🥹 I hope I didnt overstep

NO BC YOU ACTUALLY BRING UP SMTH THATS BEEN ON MY MIND.. like one of the big things about this is sy's inner conflict because he despises sqq for having control over his life but at the same time he knows things could have been really worse without sqq's intervention. like if sqq hadn't believed sy then at best he would have sy thrown off the mountain and left to fend for himself, and at worse sqq could have killed him or tried him for an assassination attempt. so its like... its fucked up but sy owes sqq for almost everything, from his position, to the food he eats, to the clothes on his back. sy didnt know there was another transmigrator in this world when he appeared, so up until meeting sqh his survival was due to sqq. and on some fucked up level he feels like he owes sqq for saving him