#did my original post go into the tags?

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

i get what you meant with the anime post but i feel like boiling jjk season 2 down to just "sadness and horror" is really reductive.

like. yes, absolutely. in this comparison jjk is way grittier and darker, and the choice to have most of the season happen within the span of a single night means there is alot of the season happens in the dark of night (although even then i think given the fight that happens in the train terminal that i dont want to spoil if you didnt see it, and alot of the later fights do alot more with their colours so I dont know if i agree with calling out the pallete)

but at the same time, I think JJK isn't a series based around it being sad or horrific. it is, but at every turn, the series presents it as "these are horrors beyond your scope. you are direly outmatched by the literal manifestation of pain and hatred in this world. Find a way to fight against it"

and while this interpretation is alot more relevant in where we are in the manga, it's something I think the series is trying to communicate the entire time. at its core, JJK is about hope; about finding who you are, and using the very hurt that exists inside you to confront a world that is fundementally hostile to you with planted feet and renewed confidence, and i think that when it's given room to breathe (and probably given time to have some later material adapted), jjk is a genuinely refreshing story. its a story that is dark and sad and painful, but its a story about choosing to keep moving forward in spite of that pain and uses its sorld and systems to bolster that theme

I get that yeah, alot of this is more vibes than it is themes, and jjk does absolutely can feel like dark shonen slop at times, but I really do think that it deserves a little more reverence as a series wanting to use its darker tone to explore hope in hopelessness.

hope you can find more of the stuff you like though!! i dont mean this as some sort of inditement I just have hills i want to die on

I know it's MORE than grimdark shonen, however to me that grimdark shonen part was so overpowering that I wasn't able to find much enjoyment in the work as a whole. I compare it to Dorohedoro- just as gory, but with a much lighter heart to it. I also stand by the fact that Nobara was done dirty and her character is paper-thin compared to the other two of the main trio. The end of the season was vague on whether or not she's alive but either way she deserved so much better. That's my petty hill to die on she (is/was) my favorite.

Though it's got flaws, it's undeniably very well made and also just not the kind of story I enjoy. Same with Game of Thrones- I found it tiresome how quickly characters were introduced and killed and just started checking out emotionally altogether. It's like how some people like really dark chocolate or really spicy food. Not for me.

(Also I watch anime on an aging laptop so I literally couldn't see a chunk of stuff going on, like what I saw of the Todo vs Mahito battle was mostly vibes. The choso fight in the bathroom was SICK as hell though)

[vanwizard]

okay i will admit i enjoyed these three in the like. one scene they were actually all on screen together.

sofia voice shut up and get the fuck out goncharov, i’m gonna fuck your wife now.

[teethkid67]

PAYDAY

aka a valentine for the lovely @itsnotmystic / @corvids-calling - fanart for stars fic of the same name, which you can read here !!! i really enjoyed this concept and wanted to do some art for it :3 hope you like it because i REALLY loved your work & i hope this shows that !!! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY !!!!

this is also a loose love-letter to the wonderful @arginnit 's crazy background-drawing-ability and style/skill at portraying environments . wadds your stuff is insane and i love it

happy @mcyt-valentines exchange !!!!

[inquisitor-apologist]

EDIT: Anon has informed me that Obi Wan’s weapon is a meteor hammer, which is pretty cool!

For the uninitiated:

Gunsaber

Inquisicoptor

Lightwhip

Umbrellasaber

Lightsaber knifesuit

Lightsaber tonfas

Swiss Army Knife Saber

Weird saber vents

Obi-Wan’s meteor hammer thingy

Jocasta Nu lightsabergun

[muffinlance]

Do you get the impression the live action is treating us like utter morons?? Like I thought that making it aimed at an older audience would open the doors for more subtle story telling, but no, they're just using monologues to tell us eveything! Like in the second episode Katara's like 'oh his power isn't that he's the avatar, it's that he ~connects~ to people'. Girl we're not idiots we can see that!! And the first episode with Aang's goddawful 'I don't want this responsibility' monologue

THIS, YES. The word that keeps coming to mind is definitely "subtlety". The show for literal children? Had it. The remake for adults? Not so much.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Just to clarify my thoughts (since I've had a number of people ask me about it) re: Job and cursing God. There's a big difference between cursing God as used in Scripture and how we generally would think of cursing at God today.

Cursing someone, in the Bible, has a lot of depth to it. It's not just saying "screw you " in anger, it's got a sense of forsakenness to it. It's the opposite of a blessing, a removal of blessing. If the blessing is presence, your face shining on the person you're blessing, then a curse is absence. In some translations, Job's wife tells him to "renounce God and die," which I honestly think makes a lot more sense to modern ears.

Job says a lot of unpleasant things to and about God in his anger and grief. So do the Psalmists. A number of the Prophets. So can we. God can take it if we come to him with honest expressions of our emotion, including those not-so-nice ones directed at him. I don't think there's anything wrong with getting mad at God and saying, "How dare you, you bastard" when you suffer unjustly. You can say much worse, I think, without sinning, though I don't feel particularly inclined to give examples. But as long as it's an honest expression of your heart, I think you're doing exactly what prayer is for. You're presenting him your heart with an open hand. He can use that. Opposite of love is not hate but indifference, etc.

Job doesn't renounce God. Neither should we. But I think when you're truly suffering, you're gonna have those feelings toward God either way. He'd rather you address them with him directly than try to avoid them. Cursing at God in the modern sense is actually a great way to keep the relationship strong and not end up cursing/renouncing him in the Biblical sense.

[katabay]

L'APPEL DU VIDE

okay so. jack! jack. what a collection of guys. the overlap between jack and the beanstalk and jack the giant killer, though. that sure is something! sometimes king arthur is there, which always takes me by surprise.

this. specifically. is an idea I've been kicking around. jack and the beanstalk is not a story I've ever enjoyed, as a kid it was probably my least favorite to read. as an adult, I was INTENSELY fascinated by reading j.g. ballard's the drowned giant. I think about it frequently, and somewhere during a re read of it, I ended up revisiting jack.

combining different versions of jack into one character is not a new concept, but it IS a fun one! the version I've been assembling together plays less with the fun elements of a jack story (and adjacent folklore stories), and focuses more on the potential for tragic elements with the addition of the usual grim and jagged narrative edges that I personally enjoy.

jack with the backstory of the devil and the three golden hairs, only jack doesn't find love, he's TIRED, all he wants to do is go home, but there isn't a home to go back to. what is the point of being born lucky if this is what it gets you? jack the giant killer, only he doesn't want to kill giants, jack who saw a body of a giant when he was a small child and cannot bring himself to do as a king commands. jack, who climbs up the beanstalk and stops halfway to look down. etc.

to go back to the drowned giant real quick, both to set the tone about jack seeing the body of a giant as a youth, and also because I've been haunted and obsessed with this excerpt of it ever since I read it:

J. G. Ballard, The Drowned Giant

anyway! this was originally like, a two illustration concept to get out of my system. however. I'm halfway through outlining a narrative. so. maybe it will also be several illustrations and also comic.

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[sysig]

for requestober !! can i ask for a crossover of vargas and tsp ? something like , stanley being edgar and scriabin being the narrator:3

Day 1 - Destruction

[good-beansdraws]

Mutual left this tag on one of my Fuuta analyses and yeah...

Part two of "Fuuta’s central theme is invasion of privacy and he has extreme anxiety over being watched, so it's interesting that we get to pick him apart and see all his worst, most private thoughts" :(

[lunarharp]

thingies

[quintessentialquincy]

this is what trying to talk about classic who feels like

[cineresis]

Angels in America

It's amazing how fast an evening at your favorite club can be ruined by someone keeling over and frothing at the mouth. The band never quite gets back into the swing of things afterwards.

"Angel," sighed one of the men, or nearest approximants, at the table next to mine, "why is it that I can never go anywhere with you without stumbling across a body?"

"Oh, come now," said his partner, a soft, fluffy confection in caramel and cream, rising hastily to make his way toward the source of the commotion. The first gentleman, dark, lanky, and excruciatingly chic, got up to follow him. "It's hardly every time."

I stayed where I was for now, casting my gaze around the room as I went over my memory of the past twenty or thirty minutes. Too many people passing close enough to slip something into the victim's drink, too many others to watch at the same time, too many more opportunities to poison him outside my field of view. I was a detective, not God.

"Stumbling upon, once. Literally. Do you know what it's like to have to clean up after that sort of thing? It takes a personal toll."

"Hush, Crowley," chided "Angel". "People can hear you, and you know how queer they get about these things. Ooh, yes, that's strychnine, all right," he added cheerfully, pulling a small vial from his vest pocket and tipping it into his handkerchief. "Nasty stuff."

I got up. As I approached, I caught the faint, unmistakable chemical sweetness of ether fumes and gave them a wide berth, choosing instead to inspect the victim's plate and glass before turning to scan the room from this perspective.

"Now, just what might you be doing?" drawled Crowley.

I looked him over, too, while I was at it. In Crowley's case, this involved a lot of looking and not much over; he was easily more than six feet tall, even while slouching rakishly. The snake tattoo on his right temple suggested certain things about him. The dark glasses that he hadn't removed since he'd entered just suggested questions, since I highly doubted he was blind. "I'm a detective," I said, leaving the obviously at the end of that sentence to implication. "What are you doing?"

This response seemed to delight him. "So are we," Crowley answered, and grinned. "But if you want to get specific about it, I'm keeping you distracted while my friend saves this man's life. Let's see your license, then."

As I took it out, keeping at least one eye on him and his partner, Angel called out to the rubbernecking crowd around us, "I need someone here to run and call the nearest hospital, and a couple of strong men to help get this poor fellow someplace dark and quiet to rest. Best use one of the tablecloths for a stretcher," he added to the first volunteer who stepped forward.

Crowley leaned in closer to study my license. "Drake Silas Donovan," he read off. "'Silas', really?"

"What about it?"

"I've just always wondered what kind of parent would name their kid Silas."

"The kind who had a grandfather named Silas," I replied coolly, snagging my license back. "Your turn."

He obliged. Anthony J. Crowley, it read, licensed in London since 1905, the year before mine. I wondered how long he'd been at this; he looked too young for his apparent age, but then I looked too old for mine. "A. J. Crowley," I read his signature aloud. "Get asked if you're any relation every time, or just most?"

There's a certain motion a person's head makes when they roll their eyes. Crowley's was making it. "The man's an embarrassment to the side," he griped. "I made my name legitimately."

"And your friend?" It wasn't as if I couldn't put two and two together. There's a certain type of person who's got both a nose for trouble and the brains to prepare for it; if it walks, talks, and thinks like a dick, it probably is one. It was just that I wasn't in the habit of trusting people, and I'd be a real schmuck to neglect basic due diligence on the guy purportedly surrounded by bodies. 

Detectives are no better or worse than any other person. They just think it's usually more interesting to solve crimes than commit them.

"Oh, he's as legitimate as it gets." Crowley turned to his companion, who was getting to his feet, brushing his clothes off fussily. Beside him, the two volunteers hoisted the unconscious victim onto a tablecloth spread across the floor, momentarily dislodging the ether-soaked cloth before Angel caught it and laid it carefully back in place over the victim's nose and mouth. "Aren't you, Aziraphale?"

Angel — "Aziraphale"? — looked up, startled. "Pardon?"

"Mr. Donovan here wants to see your detective's license," Crowley explained, enunciating his words with malice aforethought.

"Oh! Yes. Of course I always have that with me. Now just where did I..." He started patting down his pockets, stopped suddenly, and took a lovely calfskin card holder out of his coat. "Ah. Here it is."

Beaming, he passed it to Crowley, who passed it to me with the comment, "You'll find everything in order, I'm sure."

I glanced down at the card, then back up at Angel. "Am I supposed to call you A. Z. Fell or Aziraphale?" I asked, pronouncing the Z correctly as zed.

"A. Z. Fell is how 'Aziraphale' is pronounced in the King's English," said Crowley blandly, affecting a cut-glass Oxford accent on the last phrase. His partner seemed pleased by this comment, rather than annoyed.

"I'm afraid my progenitor bestowed me with a rather unwieldy given name," Fell admitted, raising fascinating questions about just how many syllables the British peerage could fit on a birth certificate when they really tried. "Aziraphale just sounds so much more euphonious, don't you think?" Crowley was right; I couldn't tell whether Fell had meant to say A. Z. Fell or the de-accented gloss. He'd lengthened the half-syllable between zed and Fell to a full vowel, but some people said zetta.

"I wouldn't know," I replied, handing the license back to Crowley, who was nearest. When Fell didn't take my bait, I added, "Lucky that you happened to have ether handy. I wouldn't like to imagine what might've happened if you'd decided to stay in tonight." I also lied when I said sorry, and when I swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but. Little white lies are the oil in the gears of civilization.

"Oh, I always carry that, too," Fell explained earnestly. "One gets into the habit after one's first run-in with strychnine, and of course ether has so many useful applica—"

"I wouldn't, angel," Crowley interrupted, sounding very amused. "Mr. Donovan thinks you're the one behind this."

"Oh," said Fell, nonplussed. "Gosh. Well, I — I suppose I can't blame him. He doesn't know me from Adam, after all, and has no reason to trust me — I did warn you about giving people funny ideas, Crowley, honestly. Of course," Fell turned to me, laying an elegant hand across his chest, "if you were to search me, you would find only a small collection of antidotes — oh, but a habitual poisoner would probably carry those, too, especially if he were the sort of voyeur with a penchant for playing the hero. I certainly wouldn't be convinced of my innocence. Yes, I can certainly understand whatever suspicion you might feel towards me, however misplaced it may be."

Crowley watched this thought process with an expression somewhere between fascination and agony. "Well, at least now he probably thinks that if you'd done it, you'd have been caught by now," he remarked, presumably because he was thinking the same thing. "You'll have to excuse my friend," Crowley added to me. "He still believes that the innocent have nothing to fear. Somehow."

"First time visiting?" I guessed.

Fell's bemusement answered my question before he did. "Pardon?"

"Never mind."

[ineffablefool]

gahhhh the last few weeks I have been starving for fics or art where Aziraphale is clearly, legitimately fat (with adoring attention paid to his physical features which are associated with said fatness) and also clearly, legitimately loved ("desired" would be okay but oh give me cherished, give me treasured and held dear and, again, adored)

and I know that this is one of those things where I should just be the change I want to see in the world, but the last few weeks I have also been [flops face-first onto bed and doesn't move for 45 minutes], so clearly that is not happening

[kitas-cleaning-supplies]

written for the march foxglove editorial, inspired by this drawing by @noenoaholi and beta'd by @fish-with-more-eyes/mac

There aren't a lot of things Atsumu likes to ignore, but Kiyoomi’s abysmal cooking skills are certainly one of them. Not a single person with working tastebuds or a functional sense of self-preservation would trust Kiyoomi in the kitchen. For the sake of his sanity, Atsumu likes to pretend Kiyoomi wasn’t ordering takeout on the regular before they moved in together.

Although if there’s one thing Kiyoomi can be trusted with, it’s baking desserts and using a blender. Atsumu has no idea why those two out of everything, but Kiyoomi’s cookies are to die for and his chocolate milkshakes are delicious. He’d brag about this if Kiyoomi didn’t have the shitty tendency to mix it up and make healthy drinks too.

They’re pungent, vile and disgusting.

They’re not even easy to make, what with a million and a half ingredients and three thousand steps. Atsumu wants to puke whenever he thinks of how much energy Kiyoomi puts into waking up early and making it for him. Sometimes there’s a lump in his throat choking him up if he thinks about it too long. He shoves the feeling down ruthlessly every time without fail: he doesn’t want to think about it.

Most days Kiyoomi can’t even be assed to get out of bed until the absolute latest he can get away with. And whenever he can, he traps Atsumu there too with his stupid long legs and stupid warm cuddles.

He’s up early this morning.

Kiyoomi’s side of their bed is empty; Atsumu finds him diligently chopping carrots in their kitchen.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu whines, wrapping his arms around his sadist of a boyfriend and doing his best to resemble a kicked puppy, abandoned outside in the cold rain. “C’mon ya made this yesterday. Do ya gotta make it so often?”

“Drink it.” Unfortunately his boyfriend’s the most stubborn person Atsumu’s ever met. He’s ruthless and heartless. Kiyoomi shoves the glass of green yuck into his hands. “All of it.”

Atsumu sniffs haughtily and graciously pinches his nose; he chugs it all down in one. It’s bitter and foul and Atsumu wouldn’t do this for anyone else in the world.

He pauses.

His mouth is filled with the most disgusting drink while the pieces click into place: he loves Kiyoomi. It’s so on brand for them, he can’t help but laugh a little. Atsumu tunes Kiyoomi’s complaints about what he finds so funny out, and gives him a little kiss over his moles.

He starts planning out the most dramatic way possible to break it to Kiyoomi in his mind. He’s a little nervous, but the urge to make Kiyoomi regret the day he ever thought dating Atsumu would be a good idea wins out. His itch for mischief drowns any fleeting feelings of apprehension easily.

Atsumu’s grateful he can still taste that nasty green drink for the first time. It makes keeping the smile threatening to break out over his face at bay. Kiyoomi calls it his plotting face. Atsumu’s more inclined to call it his moment-of-genius face. His fun face. He’d go so far as to say it’s his handsome face, but that’s just his everyday.

Kiyoomi’s never going to see his confession coming.

[prairiemule]

Yeehawgust 2023, Day 2 - We Ride at Dawn

[brightdeadthing]

if you would like, a web weaving on changelings?

jean-paul sartre / blue kid / holly black / clarice lispector / @a-story-of-atoms / andrés cerpa / natalie wee / silas denver melvin (x2) / the amazing devil / ada limón