#Paradox of the Week...

[paradox-of-morality]

Paradox of Morality the Game Paradox of the Week... --Mani/Pedi--

You have to play this game!!!! Www.POMswagshop.com. Www.paradoxofmorality.com On Amazon @ Paradox of Morality, the Game

[the-fallen-aesthetics]

My Drifter's reimagining of Bombastine (girl had made him fabulous)

Description from the art:

(Right) Eurie's Notes:

> BOMBASTINE'S Orowyrm is very toxic to hold on to

> fabulous left hand armed with POISON

(Leftmost)

> always falling in his Orowyrm form

> he can't ride either of his Kaithes

--------------------------------

NAV: Lodun || BOMBASTINE || Mathila || Luscinia || Sythel || Dominus Thrax

Bonus lore/notes below!

Tried to ride either of his Kaithes (Nexus and Vapra), falls down gracefully every time (I should draw that but I'm too lazy rn)

Said Kaithes were given by my Drifter herself, Bombastine never said thank you but obviously kept them around for 'status'.

His poisonous arm has also antidote but he can't control that... yet.

Oh yeah, one whiff from his poison or injected into the body someone's gonna be dead.

Believe it or not, Bombastine has a dagger. Same dagger that Eurie used to... cut open an about-to-be Void Angel corpse. (Art here /tw violence though)

Eurie thinks that asymmetrical clothes look good on him (she's not wrong.)

[bambeptin]

testing out a new digital painting style with White Knight and Professor Paradox!!!

[sunnyknight-original]

I was playing Portal 2 and got an epiphany for more “Lost Admin Privileges Caine” content HHEHEHEHEH

Dialogue/Scene reference: https://youtu.be/pTMmYDS78c8?si=MEjk0P1jXVE4XaeS

[bobby-rising]

let time pass

[tardis-technician]

Twelfth doctor coded

[jumpscaregoose]

nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold

[scenecore-arcade]

Sunny now has new rainbow effects on her paws, tail and bracelets. And also has a fun balloon dog pet, and flowing moon foxes for clubbing!

(Oh, and I also got Full Body Tracking ^_^)

We're so ready for Furality! Are you attending?

[curlyhairedintrovertsworld]

i swear, realizing i was ace made me a better person. i will stand by this forever. happy asexual awareness week 💖

[kenta-torture]

can u make kenta vs strawberry

yo dog stupid as hell ngl

[the-fallen-aesthetics]

My Drifter's version of Lodun! (Updated the sheet!)

Description from the art:

(Middle) Eurie's Notes: > he can breathe FIRE! (he can't control it though) > this guy killed me a LOT, lost count around 823 or smth > doesn't admit he's fond of his Kaithe i brought to him before sh_t went down

(Leftmost note) > i see them (Courtiers) in their Orowyrm forms. There are times I see LODUN crying in anguish.

(Rightmost note) > his brace is part of his arm, can't recall when it happened though

--------------------------------

NAV: LODUN || Bombastine || Mathila || Luscinia || Sythel || Dominus Thrax

Bonus lore/notes below!

Inherited the red eye color and the scar from Eurie (My art of her). Said scar is caused by a Void Angel so that's fun (not really)

Also, ALL Courtiers + Thrax inherited her fangs (there's a lore for that dw). They also have Void Angel traits somewhere in their bodies.

Also, it's Eurie fault that they can use their respective elements in their humanoid forms.

This version of Lodun inherits Eurie's love for animals (he's only focused on his Kaithe though and baby talks it when no one is looking around)

I decided to make his Orowyrm head very spiky! His form is very hot to touch. Reflects Eurie's guarded (and protective/prickly) personality

Inspired by: temporal-paternal-unit (this post)

[indecisive-v]

ahdjsvkdha kei got to have his solo on the bridge i'm awake i'm awake i'm awake

[timelykeimiyamadoodles]

could you draw all of the 1Nm8 boys cuddling? 🥺 please and thank you

good practice for drawing characters closer together :D i don't do that very often!

i was originally gonna draw this in the little guy art style all the other drawings have been in so far but they ended up too far apart >:( so i then made this version lol

[lumiy-a]

the expat loop paradox - when you're in your guest country you're like, "oh i miss my country", then you go back for a bit and you're like, "ah, that's why i left my country", then you go back and the cycle starts again

[blrecs]

09/50: manic panic ("healing paradox," "color recipe")

Reader, I may have misled you with my Tumblr url, which seems to imply that everything I write up will be a recommendation. And I do endeavor to be positive. This week's entry is not a pan—far from it, I was interested in both stories and have a Lot to Say. But I come, also, armed with confusion and critique. It had to happen at some point, so it may as well be this week.

Kuroiwa Naoto is an ad man who is in need of some serious rest and relaxation. Unable to actually achieve any kind of meaningful work-life balance (this is manga Japan) and armed with a former baseball player's inherent masochism, he stumbles across Kishibe Kazuma, a chiropractor/physical therapist/masseuse hybrid who is able to immediately zero in on Kuroiwa's pain points. Their first session ends with Kuroiwa finally relaxed and fully asleep and Kishibe jerking off on Kuroiwa's face. So begins "Healing Paradox."

"Healing Paradox" is, surprisingly, Hirune Cyan's debut work, which beggars belief, because she has the veteran artist's understanding that bl is one of the genres where you can just sort of throw a thing out there and never full address it as long as you keep hitting the other genre notes. It'd be one thing to make a move on a customer, as Kishibe does by chapter two with a nipple massage that leads into full-on sex, and another, far more disturbing thing, to ejaculate on a sleeping customer without even the barest whisper of consent or fair warning. The former is business as usual; any bl that is too specific about the details of a character's profession is intending to use that profession as a lead-in to sex. The latter, on the other hand, is off-putting, even disgusting. So "Healing Paradox" wisely moves us forward very quickly, with Kuroiwa experiencing pleasure like he's never experienced under Kishibe's insistent touches, Kishibe managing to restrain himself so that Kuroiwa ultimately makes the next move, and a revelation that Kishibe and Kuroiwa met as children, in a confluence of events that set Kishibe on his current career and life path. 

Kuroiwa and Kishibe's backstory is, of course, nonsensical, and I'm not just saying this because I hate when characters meeting as children is an important plot point. I emphatically love Scarlet Beriko's "Fourth Generation Head Tatsuyuki Oyamoto" after all, which features a very similar setup, where one character's childhood weakness becomes the other character's inspiration to become resilient, strong, essential. But Tatsuyuki and Nozomi met briefly in circumstances that understandably made it difficult for Tatsuyuki to recognize Nozomi, and Nozomi is straightforward when they are reunited. On the other hand, Kuroiwa and Kishibe hang out together as kids, to the point where Kishibe even practices his amateur massage skills on a young Kuroiwa, and Kuroiwa gives Kishibe a meaningful gift, and you want me to buy that Kuroiwa doesn't remember him at all?

The problem is that "Healing Paradox" is a manga of half-measures. Kishibe starts strong as a verified creep who has mansplained, malewifed, and manipulated Kuroiwa into the palm of his hands, but midway through the story Hirune Cyan gets cold feet and instead turns him into a man helpless in the face of his childhood hero, the only boy who ever showed him kindness and a weakness that could be monopolized. There's also a vagueness to Kuroiwa's character, which gestures in the direction of thwarted sports shounen dreams but has in his adult form become just another generically stressed salaryman. Without the backstory, there would be no reason for Kishibe to be interested in him, and maybe that's why Hirune Cyan went a little too hard on the childhood backstory to give cover to Kishibe's otherwise inexplicable actions.

In this way, "Healing Paradox" is like an alternate universe version of Wagase Wagimoko's "Afterglow": man has trauma, man overworks, man is picked up by an extremely hot top that rails him into health and well-being. The naivete on display by both Higuchi and Kuroiwa is concerning. But in the world of bl manga, horniness is a moral imperative—it would be wrong to break up with dick this good. Ultimately, we must conclude that the story is very simple. Kishibe is a freak and Kuroiwa really likes sex. And who are we to argue with that?

Which brings me to Harada's "Color Recipe," a manga that also features one character ejaculating on the sleeping face of another in the first chapter (and likely second as well). Harada is never one to do anything by half-measures; in fact, where other mangaka will go the whole nine yards, she will go an extra eleven just to make sure nothing outdoes her. If Kuroiwa is a workaholic, Shoukichi has based his entire life on being a hair stylist. Where Kuroiwa's past self was shounen-adjacent, Shoukichi is doggedly trying to turn "Color Recipe" into a seinen special interest manga where the sport of choice is cutting hair. And where Kishibe was a soft yandere, heavy on the "malewife," Fukusuke is blatantly a fucked-up mess. Like Kishibe, when viewed from a squinting distance, he seems better adjusted than his prickly, panicky counterpart Shoukichi, but dig too deep and you find so many landmines and maladaptive behaviors that you might as well be standing in a pit of vipers.

This may sound crazy, but walk with me: the appeal of "Color Recipe" is not dissimilar to a moral commentary/meditation like Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles." The narrative tension comes from seeing Shoukichi, the virtuous victim, dragged down by Fukusuke. We are outraged, we are repulsed, and yet we the hungry readers eat up Harada repeatedly sending Shoukichi into the lion's den of Fukusuke's psyche. Harada's theme is debasement, the erotic and repulsive appeal of one person so desperately desiring something pure that they are willing to crawl around in their own emotional filth, pulling out every underhanded trick, in order to get it. But in the process, have they irrevocably destroyed what made the object of their desire so pure, so innocent, and will either party recognize just what has happened to them both? This is love as emotional predicament bondage. Shoukichi was doomed the minute he entered into the scenario, and we watch Fukusuke and Harada tie him into knots.

I don't want or expect "Healing Paradox" to be "Color Recipe." It's enough that Harada is Harada; we don't need everyone else to be Harada. But holding "Color Recipe" up to "Healing Paradox" makes me realize I was too hasty earlier when I concluded that "Healing Paradox" is just a story about a certified freak who seduces the object of his affections and lives happily ever after in mutual horniness. If "Color Recipe" is predicament bondage, "Healing Paradox" is roleplay, maybe a little spicy ravishment fantasy, where you can engage in transgressive desires without the negative consequences. Kuroiwa can be groped and molested by his physical therapist (a very common porn trope) without it turning into assault. He can have the manipulative man who plays you like violin, and instead of it ruining his life it only improves it. He can be a totally ordinary person and still have someone extraordinary devoted to him. The healing is not just an indulgence for Kuroiwa; it is also for us.