#for the one under the readmore

[hellscythearts]

X=0, my piece for @mechanicalheartzine !!! (+ An updated Mythos Zero for the digital bundle under the cut ❤️)

I'm so happy I got to participate, it was quite an experience.

I cleaned up his colors, and added a background!! Yay!!

[whaliiwatching]

list of adults who are great with kids

unfortunately i cant actually make a meme better than the movie

[divorcedfiddleford]

leave the door ajar

[transactinides]

There is a reason why Ranpo often struggles with getting lost/finding his way back home

This might seem like a far fetched beginning, but for this to be clear I do need to explain one pretty easy to understand (I prommy) math concept - a random walk. In math, a random walk describes a path consisting of random steps in some sort of mathematical space. A path of a molecule in a gas is a random walk, and individual foraging animal's movement is a random walk, and even your Tw*tter follow suggestions use a random walk process. I have heard of it from Markov's chains and computer science. You might not have heard of it at all which is both valid and understandable. The important parts are:

1) a random walk is. well. a random walk;

2) In Japanese, while most commonly referred to by its transliterated name, ランダムウォーク (literally 'random walk' in katakana), a random walk can also be called 乱歩, with 乱 meaning 'disordered' and 歩 meaning 'path.

If you (unlike me) know Japanese, you already see where I am going with this - yes, 乱歩 reads as 'Ranpo'. It is, in fact, the same 'Ranpo' as in our beloved detectives name, Edogawa Ranpo!

So Ranpo's general directionally challenges nature could be a nod towards his name, meaning that he probably gets lost easily and struggles with routes due to taking random detours and turns (just like a random walk ^-^)

[starrystevie]

"it's a vhs night, huh?" eddie asks as he comes out of the kitchen, two mugs of decaf coffee in one hand, a box of oreos in the other. steve's on his knees in front of the tv with tapes scattered around him, a mixture of home movies and mashed up concert recordings and episodes of star trek that are bound to get recorded over eventually. he turns around as his husband enters the living room and opens his mouth for a cookie that eddie happily feeds him.

"yeah, why not?" he gives eddie a half smile that makes the crows feet around his eyes crinkle even more. "just feeling nostalgic, i guess."

eddie hums and sits on his end of the couch before pulling one foot up to cross over his knee. he takes a sip of the bitter black coffee and dunks an oreo in to soften it up then pops it into his mouth. steve finally settles on a video and rewinds it to the start, curling up on his side of the cushions with his feet tucked under eddie's thigh. a hand finds its way around his ankle and a thumb strokes at the soft skin it can find. gentle, comforting, home.

the grainy picture on the screen straightens out and the sound clicks on along with it. the greens of the grass are a little faded and the blue of the sky is dull but it's still clear enough to make out steve on the swings at the park down the road from loch nora. steve's mom is behind the camera yelling for him to pump your legs, good job stevie, there you go, wow you're going so high and the grin on the boy's face is a wide as the sky above him.

"you were so cute, what happened?" eddie murmurs with a chuckle causing steve to slap at the thigh currently warming his feet.

"i'm still cute, thank you very much." steve grumbles out his response which makes eddie chuckle again, leaning over with a groan to smash a kiss to his cheek.

there's little voices echoing in the background as steve continues to swing and the video switches suddenly to him on a red check blanket eating a sandwich. he has jelly on his cheek in the same place that eddie had placed a kiss not a minute earlier and it has them both cooing like the old men they are.

but then there's a flash of something in the background. a little kid runs by followed by what's presumably his mother and it distracts little steve, who turns on his blanket to watch the two running.

"is that...?" steve starts, turning to eddie who's staring at the screen with rapt attention. the gasp he gets in return is the only answer he could possibly need. the hand around his ankle gets a little tighter and he watches as a watery smile spreads across eddie's face, salt-and-pepper beard crinkling up on his cheeks.

"that's me, that's-" he breathes out, curling in on himself slightly to peer closer at the video. in the video, steve's still staring at the little boy in the park getting picked up by his mom and being thrown in the air. his little giggles break through the speakers as his mom catches him, cradling him to her chest as she runs off screen. they come back into frame a few seconds later and crash side-by-side onto the grass. their arms start pointing at the sky like they're finding shapes in the clouds and eddie inhales sharply. "-that's my mom."

steve reaches down and clasps his hand around eddie's where it's still on his bony ankle, trailing his fingers over his husband's. eddie looks up and tosses a bewildered grin at steve who catches it easily and returns it with one of his own. as if they have magnets stored in their hearts from where the universe made them for each other, the two move closer to one another instinctually until they have arms around waists and fingers tangled together and heads on shoulders.

they sit in silence for the next few minutes, reliving a time when they were still boys with their mothers, happy and loved, not even knowing their soulmate was right next to them.

[orbmanson7]

Have some Logan angst doodles from my sketchbook

And a doodle from the yet-to-be-released 'comfort' chapter of my fic, Malfunction

And here's a little happy Logan with some implied angst, as well 👌

[palossssssand]

A long time coming, but here’s a set of revamped designs for a pokemon black gijinka team! Old designs under the readmore.

Character list: Jonathan (reuniclus), Eziekel (houndoom), Normal (omastar), Aaron (smeargle), Jasmine (dustox), and Cooper (mow rotom)

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

The Chapter 4 Essay Part 1: Kokichi Ouma

A metapost on my thoughts on Kokichi’s overall motivations and Gonta’s actions during ch4. Split into two parts. You can find the Gonta half here: (LINK)

I think the way Kokichi acts when he’s telling the truth says something crucial about his personality. When he’s telling the genuine truth, his expression becomes carefully neutral.

(post trial, chapter 1)

To me, it feels like he’s trying very hard to keep this face of neutrality. Normally, he’s able to expertly express any emotion that he wants to. In these moments, its almost like the emotion he’s feeling is so overpowering that he’s trying to repress it in order to maintain control over the face he presents to everyone else, but isn’t quite able to do so.

Kokichi is very careful about keeping people from seeing the parts of himself that he doesn’t choose to show. His villain persona and constant lying is part of this- He wants to keep people away from him. During the events of the killing game, he uses the distance that he creates in many ways. Part of it was that not having many close alliances allowed him to go off and do whatever he wanted during daily life. This let him explore the school and investigate the truth of the killing game without interruption or much attention. Lying also gave him distance between the game and himself. Pretending that the killing game was fun might’ve been his way to cope with everything that was happening. I think Kokichi is really damn good at separating himself from his emotions, lying to himself to do what he thinks needs to be done. This line from Chapter 1 is pretty telling…

(post trial, chapter 1)

This was also something he says himself to Kaito in the exisal hanger during chapter 5.

(post trial, chapter 5)

I’m inclined to believe everything that Kokichi says to Kaito in the exisal hanger. As Kiibo says when Kaito questions it, “I think his dying words may have been the honest truth.” Knowing he was about the die, and that he absolutely needed Kaito’s help to get his plan to break the killing game to work- to achieve his genuine, true goal- I don’t see any reason for him to lie.

This emotional distance extends past just the killing game. I think it's a key part of how he interacts with others around him.

Kokichi is an ultimate leader. I think he uses his talent throughout the game in an attempt to “lead” everyone from the shadows. He wanted to stop the killing game and escape with as many people as possible. However, his methods are very ends-justify-the-means. I believe that he did genuinely care about everyone at the ultimate academy, but in the detached way a distant king might care about his subjects. On the other hand, if he had to use or sacrifice a few as pawns for the greater good, that is what had to be done. It’s not like it didn’t emotionally affect him, but I think he was deliberately trying to keep his distance so that it would not impact him as much, and so that he could continue trying to tear the killing game apart with as many tools in his arsenal as possible.

(post trial, chapter 5)

With this core motivation in mind, this brings us to Chapter 4.

In my opinion, the Killing Game Busters was never a plan that was meant to succeed. From an in-game perspective, the idea that he was originally going to follow this mercy kill plan doesn’t make sense to me. Firstly, Kokichi already had suspicions that they were being watched as early as chapter 3.

(post trial, chapter 3)

…and he later confirms that he was fully convinced of this fact when Monokuma agreed to reuse the chapter 4 motive in the virtual world.

(post trial, chapter 5)

He knew that this killing game was for somebody else’s entertainment. I’ll go a bit into the secret of the outside world in a moment, but considering this, I don’t think he ever fully believed in it. Choosing to mercy kill everyone, in the name of a “truth” that was incompatible with what he had discovered… just doesn’t make sense to me.

Not to mention, from a narrative standpoint, I think the idea that he was completely for this mercy kill plan, decided to throw out the plan mid-trial, and then start an entirely different plan to end the killing game in chapter 5, isn’t very compelling. It weakens Kokichi’s overall character by making his motivation less cohesive and making him seem less organized over all, which I think is one of his strengths as a character. A Kokichi that is this fickle with what he’s trying to do would not have been able to write the script for chapter 5.

I think he always had different goals in mind with the Killing Game Busters. The first was something that is made very clear in chapter 5, but started here in chapter 4: He wanted to stop the killing to give himself room to break the game while minimizing deaths. The second was to further villainize himself, for all the reasons I talked about above, and some more I will get into in a little bit.

Seeing the secret of the outside world was undoubtably disturbing, regardless of whether he believed it or not; there is a noticeable shift in how Kokichi acts before and after he swipes that card key. Combined with discovering that Miu, someone he’d been working with closely, was planning on murdering him, I believe that seeing the destruction of the outside world pushed him towards more drastic measures than what he had been doing in previous chapters. He decided that in order for his plan in chapter 5 to work (which he had almost certainly already been planning at this point, considering how elaborate it was), he needed to make everyone question if pursuing the truth was the right thing to do at all.

After Miu’s body discovery, nobody was really worried about losing this class trial. Everyone had seen how Shuichi had guided them all to the truth and caught the blackened three times in a row, despite the unique difficulties in each case. They had full confidence in his abilities.

(investigation, chapter 4)

Shuichi is also not really doubting his abilities as a detective anymore. One of Shuichi’s core internal conflicts is his fear of the consequences of revealing the truth. Up to this point, it seems like he’s been moving past it. Especially after catching Korekiyo “Actual Serial Killer” Shinguji, who had no regrets or grey motivation for his killings. Shuichi’s morale, and subsequently everyone else’s, was at an all time high. (Of course, he was starting to feel a lot of pressure to solve these cases and save everyone on his own… but that’s another issue. ily Shuichi)

If Kokichi could take the wind out of Shuichi’s sails, really destroy the confidence he had built up so far, he could set up his impossible trial in chapter 5 to be more likely to work as intended. Everyone will be less motivated to try and figure out what happened if they are uncertain that finding the truth would actually result in anything good.

And I do believe he was trying to knock Shuichi off balance specifically. Damaging his confidence is one thing, but he was also deliberately trying to drive a wedge between him and Kaito. He antagonizes Kaito all chapter 4 investigation, including making up a nickname for Shuichi (“Shumai”) that directly riffs off Kaito’s closeness with Maki. He insists into the trial that he and Shuichi are partners now.

(class trial, chapter 4)

(Sidenote: Kokichi’s behaviour during trial 4 is genuinely really interesting to me. On top of the direct digs like this, he says a lot more subtle things to get under Kaito’s skin during trial 4 that I think are super neat to pay attention to.)

Theoretically, pushing Kaito away from Shuichi, combined with the powerlessness he’ll feel in the wake of the truth of both trial 4 and the outside world, could make him easier to convince to join Kokichi’s “side”. He even directly asks Shuichi to team up with him before leaving the virtual world:

(daily life, Chapter 4)

This leads me to believe that Shuichi was originally the one that Kokichi intended to use to build his impossible trial. I mean, if Shuichi was the one in the exisal hanger and presumed dead instead of Kaito, the chances of everyone else solving that mystery drops Significantly. Everyone else, aside from maybe Kiibo, was 100% convinced that Kokichi was the mastermind at that point. No one except Shuichi would’ve tried to dig as deep as he did, for better or for worse. I think this idea is supported by the note that Kokichi wrote next to Shuichi’s face on the whiteboard in his room (“trustworthy?”). He was clearly considering Shuichi as a person for one reason or another, and I believe this is it.

By condemning Gonta, who everyone else perceived as a kind soul who would never hurt anybody, someone who was struggling to understand what the virtual world even was with his amnesia, would be perceived by the others as kicking someone when they were down. Gonta has an absolutely miserable time through the accusations and wholly blames himself for how things turned out in the end. That, and Gonta’s actions were even well-intentioned. The secret of the outside world was apparently so horrible, Gonta thought it would be kinder to mercy kill everyone rather than force them to face it. This result would make everyone question if the truth was really as undoubtably good as they had come to think so far; Not only did Gonta suffer because they had to find the truth, but seeking the secret of the outside world would apparently also only lead to suffering. This would make them hesitate during Kokichi’s impossible trial.

(class trial, chapter 4)

As I said before, Kokichi’s second goal for trial 4 was villainizing himself even further. He says that this was a goal himself to Kaito in chapter 5.

(post trial, chapter 5)

Part of this villainization was just adding to the persona he had already created for himself and that I already talked about his motivations for before. The other part was what he says here. He specifically wanted everyone to think that he was the mastermind. This gave him leverage in two main ways. First, making himself appear to be the mastermind with an actual mastermind as hands off as Tsumugi genuinely gave him power over everyone else. He used this in chapter 5 to put a pause to the killings and give himself more room to enact his plan to break the killing game from the inside.

(daily life, chapter 5)

Although he then says “You guys can commit suicide together or kill each other… / Or, you can change your mind and stay here! You’re welcome to do that too!”, having experienced the secret of the outside world already, I think he’s pretty confident in what they will be feeling in this moment. No one is going to kill each other, and he knows that. He wants them to take that second option for the time being while he sets up his plot.

Making himself appear like the mastermind also benefited his impossible trial plan directly. Everyone would be much more likely to vote for someone they were convinced was the mastermind rather than one of their friends. No one would suspect that it was really him that was the victim.

“Using Gonta and making him into a murderer” was a significant part of how he villainized himself, but the way he treated Gonta during this whole experience was also a major factor. Starting as early as just after Miu was killed, he begins to be really aggressively mean to Gonta. He just straight up bullies him throughout the second half of the trial.

(daily life, chapter 4)

(class trial, chapter 4)

And then, after all this, he acts remorseful and sides himself with Gonta at the very end. It isn't genuine emotion like he felt before Kaede's execution, shown by his neutral expression. To me, this uncharacteristically open expression of grief feels like it was just set up to exacerbate the impact of his cruelty after Gonta’s execution. At this point, everybody’s little faith in Kokichi has been shaken significantly. With the shock of the trial, maybe you Could start to believe they were on the same side, as a team. Then, at the reveal of the extent of Kokichi’s manipulation, that is all ripped painfully away again.

(post trial, chapter 4)

(post trial, chapter 4)

Even if these parts of trial 4 make my stomach turn, I don’t want to imply that Kokichi is completely cold-hearted and unfeeling. Actually, I think there were multiple moments in chapter 4 that show him struggling to regulate his emotions and keep face around everyone else while he enacted this plan.

1: I don’t think Kokichi initially planned to make the reveal that Gonta was the killer as dramatic (or frankly, a bit traumatic) as it ended up being. He had been carrying himself a certain way during the first half of the trial, and I think Shuichi lying to his face in front of everyone about Kokichi’s own alibi dramatically changed his attitude. I mean, Shuichi lied (as he had done almost every trial and gotten 0 flack for) and Tsumugi even called him out on it, but everyone believed him over Kokichi anyways. So when Kokichi lies, it’s completely inexcusable, even though he’s been working tirelessly on his own trying to save everyone?* But when SHUICHI lies, and gets caught in it, people go along with him? They don’t doubt their trust in him for even a second? This double standard infuriated him. It’s at this point that he completely shifts in energy. If Shuichi, no, everyone, is going to disrespect him like this, he was going to make them suffer for it.

(class trial, chapter 4)

2: Kokichi only goes full villain after Kaito says “Kokichi, If you really cared for Gonta, explain yourself to everyone” in the post trial. I think that even though he was always going to paint himself as the villain, he was legitimately affected by the things that had just happened (Gonta’s death, Miu’s attempted murder, the secret of the outside world, even if he knew it wasn’t real) and what he’d just done. Even if he was trying hard not to be. The sudden shift he has from not saying anything to cackling about how little he cared about Gonta feels to me like he was kicking himself back into gear after trying to process some genuinely difficult emotions. 3: After Kokichi punches Kaito down, and everyone completely ignores him in favour of helping Kaito up, Shuichi says these iconic words to Kokichi: “Kaito always has us by his side, see? But no one wants to be around you. / You’re alone, Kokichi. And you always will be.” Kokichi responds like this:

(Post-trial, chapter 4)

There’s something about the way he cuts himself off, pauses, and then his mask falls. I think Shuichi’s words got to him more than he wanted them to. Honestly, Kokichi’s attitude towards cooperation, keeping everyone at arm’s length, and insisting (to himself) that he (as a leader) must fix the killing game completely on his own just seems so lonely to me. Even if he is intentionally trying to alienate himself and get everyone to hate him, being so viscerally cut into like this must have hurt. Especially from someone he was trying to work to get onto his side. It’s no wonder he quickly left after this moment.

This is what I think drove Kokichi in chapter 4. He’s a leader who wants to “lead” his classmates into safety, but he isn’t afraid to use underhanded, cruel tactics if he thinks it will get him ahead in the game for the greater good. He viscerally represses his emotions in order to keep himself going and keep everyone else away from him. He tried to destroy Shuichi’s confidence and drive a wedge between him and Kaito to get him on his side for his plan. He used and made Gonta into a murderer to villainize himself and discourage everyone else from seeking the truth.

Whenever I imagine Kokichi on his own, out of the spotlight of the Audience or the eyes of his castmates, he’s never as expressive as he is in the open. I think in reality, Kokichi is a pretty depressed and lonely person. His clownish personality isn’t entirely a facade, and outside of a killing game scenario, I think he would act pretty similarly to how he does in game. But I do think that he uses it as a mask for his true emotions. While I feel like the “evil villain” persona is a genuine part of Kokichi’s personality, outside of the killing game he probably doesn’t act on it as deeply as he does in-game. I also think Kokichi struggles with letting people become close to him, even without anything on the line. The killing game just caused him to lean into these aspects of his personality hard, and in potentially the worst ways.

*I feel like here it’s important to mention that personally, I still think the collateral damage he caused in his attempts to stop the killing game matters. A lot. I don’t think he should be excused for the things he did, even if he had good intentions. This makes him a really interesting, morally grey character, and I like that about him.

[rat-on-string]

My Voice Betrays Me- 4 page comic about being nonbinary.

[starryluminary]

I LOVE GAY PEOPLE!!!! I LOVE SAYING THE WORD GAY OUT LOUD!!!! IM SO HAPPY!!!!!!

[tcfactory]

Please consider: Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu role-swap

[LiuJiu, 2300 words]

After the fire, Shen Jiu doesn't sit around, he's aiming straight for Cang Qiong. Wu Yanzi tempts him, but if he is to ever find out what happened to Qi-ge then he can't play around with rogue cultivators, so he ditches the man before Wu Yanzi could take him as a disciple.

He arrives to the sect at a year when they are not doing the disciple selection - the women at the Warm Red Pavilion say it's because the Sect Leader is busy monitoring his cursed head disciple and if the Sect Leader doesn't take part then the rest of the sect has to wait too - but he's tipped off that Bai Zhan is always open to those who are determined enough to climb the mountain and demand admittance.

So that's exactly what he does. The Peak Lord sets him against one of his junior disciples and tells him there are no rules, if he can beat them he's in. It's a test he's not supposed to win, to see his determination and his reaction to failure, as a malnourished slave boy should be no match to someone in good health who has two years of training under his belt. But Shen Jiu doesn't know this, he has come too far to give up now and unlike the scrappy, but well-fed farmer's son he's set up against, he fights dirty.

He sets the basis of his future nickname - The Rabid Wolf of Bai Zhan - that day when he claws the boy's eye out and forces him to yield. His rise among the disciples is almost as meteoric as Yue Qi's and people are on the lookout for when the upstart slave boy will plummet back to the earth, but he never does. When the year is up and the sect is abuzz that Lingxi caves are finally opening again because they are letting the cursed disciple out, he's there in the front row among the curious onlookers and throws himself in his Qi-ge's arms as soon as the other boy steps foot into the light again.

Shen Qingqiu grows up tall and willowy and unpredictable, an unconventional physical cultivator that bends with the wind, but never breaks. With Yue Qingyuan's support as an unshakeable mountain behind his back, he is untouchable. He never bothers to hide what he is, not his scars or his sharp edges or the slave brand burned into the meat of his shoulder, often bared to the world by his choice of outfit; he stands as testament that even the lowest wretches can claw their way up to stand among giants.

Liu Mingqu yields to his rich family and allows himself to be enrolled into Qing Jing. He is not as suited for spiritual cultivation and he has no head for arts, but he is still a prodigy and a really hard working one at that. He learns all there is to learn for a scholar and doesn't rest until he perfects them all - music, calligraphy, painting, poetry - and even if he's ever uninspired about pursuing them, the Peerless Beauty of Qing Jing is a competent teacher who stands head and shoulders over his peers. He masters his temper and his manners and takes to hiding his face behind a fan or sometimes a veil like his sister to discourage people from staring at him.

Their roles may be different, but their nature remains the same. Shen Jiu has always been more clever than he was strong and nothing changed about that now that he's essentially a spiritual cultivator playing at star athlete. He plants a bamboo forest on his mountain - for meditation and ambush practice, he says, but everyone knows he just needed a bubble of calm for himself in the endless war zone of Bai Zhan - and mercilessly beats any disciple who dares to damage the forest. In the serene calm of his little house he hoards books and maps and all the culture he can get his calloused hands on, always thirsty to know more, an endless pit his Qi-ge happily pours obscure knowledge into. He uses the standing feud between Bai Zhan and Qing Jing to spy on them, learn their cultivation methods by sight and listen to the senior disciples do ad hoc concerts, so he can practice music in the brothel or under a silencing array just behind his house.

It's during one of these trips when he discovers Liu Qingge behind the Qing Jing Peak Lord's manor, restlessly shuffling through the steps of a formal dance. Liu Qingge yearns to move, he yearns for the exertion of his wild youth, but there are only so many acceptable options for a scholar and as a cultivator he can't channel his restlessness into hunting or horse riding. That leaves dancing, but Liu Qingge is not a creative person. He sticks to the dances he half-remembers learning as a rich young master and maybe asks his sister for some more, but that's where his resourcefulness runs out on this venture.

Shen Qingqiu watches him go through the steps of the same dozen dances, swap to a few rounds of sword forms - perfectly executed and ethereal, an immortal beauty that earthbound Shen Qingqiu will never be able to replicate - and then swap back to the dances, increasingly frustrated and restless.

"If Peak Lord Qingge wants to learn some better dances, this shidi can introduce you to someone." Liu Qingge startles and almost turns him into a pincushion with a barrage of bamboo leaves.

"What do you want?!" They are secure in their respective positions, but they still don't like each other.

"Peace, shixiong. I'm just looking out for the sect. How would it reflect on me if I let my fellow Peak Lord work himself into a qi deviation and didn't step in?" Shen Qingqiu shrugs and smiles with an easy, predatory grace that makes Liu Qingge wish he had fangs to match the Wolf of Bai Zhan, but there's no malice in the offer. "Come now, shixiong. There's nobody else here. We don't need to do this stupid game of social posturing. Tell you what, as a sign of my goodwill I'm going to teach you a meditation technique to calm your qi after exercise, free of charge."

Almost everything with Shen Qingqiu is a transaction, so Liu Qingge knows better than to pass up the chance to get something from his shidi for free - and the meditation does help settle his roiling qi.

"What do you want in return, then?" It's almost terrifying how intensely Shen Qingqiu's eyes light up.

"That trick with the leaves - teach me how to do it."

Liu Qingge doesn't bother to point out that it's a spiritual technique. It's an unspoken secret that they would be better suited to each other's cultivation styles than that of their own peaks. Shen Qingqiu has a storm of razor sharp leaves dancing in the air before Liu Qingge is even done explaining.

He almost regrets agreeing when Shen Qingqiu takes him down to the brothel, but the women his shidi introduces him to are truly masters of dance - they were stars of an imperial dance troupe before their owner was executed for offending the Emperor and they were sold to the brothel. They take him to the back and teach him dances he could never have imagined, dances that make his heart soar and his blood rush hot in his veins, while Shen Qingqiu lightly dozes among the women in the main reception area, his very presence frightening all but the most unruly patrons into behaving.

Liu Qingge is an honest man and he knows, deep down, that he got much more out of this exchange than his shidi. He’s on the lookout to see how he could repay him, but Shen Qingqiu seems to want for nothing. What he can’t get on his own Yue Qingyuan gifts to him, doting relentlessly on his sharp-edged little brother. So when he hears that Shen Qingqiu is to set out to assist in a night hunt against a particularly dangerous demonic beast that made its way over the to the far shore of the sea, he hops to the opportunity to compile a scroll of all the unspoken rules and etiquette of the island, as well as a short history on the ninja clan that asked for their aid. It’s all information that Shen Qingqiu has no way of learning otherwise, but should ease his time on the hunt.

When he can’t find Shen Qingqiu at the bamboo house he goes looking for him and that’s when he finds the silencing array, that’s when he sees his shidi sitting with his guqin in a clearing, composing music. Liu Qingge’s mouth goes dry, his heart skips a beat - his shidi is like a vision from the heavens and for the first time since he started this scholarly lifestyle, Liu Qingge wants to paint. He wants to etch this scene in his heart and condense it into a poem.

He slinks away before his shidi can notice him and leaves the scroll in the bamboo house. In the three years Shen Qingqiu is gone, hunting that elusive monster that decimates one village after another, he becomes a man possessed - or more accurately, a tender hearted young maiden yearning for her first love. He paints picture after picture, sometimes of a wolf stalking among the bamboo, sometimes of Qingqiu with his guqin as the scene lives in his memory. Rarely he paints his shidi stretched out on a couch in the brothel, languid with feigned sleep and one eye opened a crack as he vigilantly watches over his sisters - he gifts one of those to the brothel, much to the ladies’ delight. He starts writing poetry, yearning, horrible poetry his sister mocks relentlessly, but slowly he finds his words and his latest attempts are almost good. He is the first to hound Zhangmen-shixiong for news on Shen shidi and learns every word of every letter by heart, no matter how short or impersonal the progress reports are.

Liu Qingge knows that his martial siblings are not blind to his obsession - he has caught Shang shidi muttering “bro, really?!” under his breath more than once. He’s not familiar with the expression, but he can understand the sentiment. Yue Qingyuan watches him with patient exasperation, but he knows that the man doesn’t disapprove from the mild comment about how Shen Jiu will need a new ceremonial robe for his return celebration because his old one is ten years out of fashion.

Embroidery is, technically, within the skill set of the Qing Jing Peak Lord. He hounds An Ding until someone supplies him with Shen Qingqiu’s measurements and the finest materials he can bully Shang shidi into acquiring - “That’s the same stuff demon royalty wears, try not to waste it, my contact had to go through the royal seamstress of the northern kingdom to get it in that color.” - and sets to work. Bai Zhan’s color is steel blue, but that never fit his shidi, so he picks greens instead to match his striking green eyes. He creates a design that accentuates the deceptive slimness of Qingqiu, then embroiders the robes with bamboo patterns and a wolf on the hunt and when they are done he crafts a matching fan - Shen shidi hides from nothing and nobody, but Liu Qingge thinks he might enjoy being a little mysterious.

He is daydreaming about his shidi during the next Peak Lord meeting when the Sect Leader breaks the news: the beast has finally been slain and Shen Qingqiu will be on the next ship back home. Liu Qingge stays barely long enough to not be impolite at the end of the meeting before he rushes off to finish the last touches on the robes. He wants to leave it all set out for his shidi in the bamboo house.

In his haste he misses the look Shang Qinghua and Yue Qingyuan exchange behind his back.

“So, about those arrangements we made…”

“Yes, please. Let’s get Xiao Jiu home before Liu-shidi pines himself into a qi deviation.”

“Yeah, he’s down bad isn’t he?”

“Are you certain your prince doesn’t mind? If you are in any danger, shidi…”

“No! It’s fine, I’m fine, he already agreed to it! In fact, my Xuebao likes your brother so much I’m almost a little jealous.”

“Really now?”

“Zhangmen-shixiong, please stop looking like you are plotting murder. It’s not like that. As the Mobei prince, he really doesn’t have a lot of friends. Of course he misses A-Jiu.”

“If you say so, shidi.”

Liu Qingge is all jitters when he walks down the path to the bamboo house. He can’t understand why because Shen Qingiu won’t be back for months, but he still feels like a maiden on her way to ask out her love on the first date.

He almost drops the package with the robes when he opens the door and finds Shen Qingqiu standing there in the sunlit room. His shidi is too solid, too real to be an apparition, his clothes worn from travel, his heavy pack still unpacked by the table. He stands with a letter in one hand - Qingge recognizes his sister’s wobbly, childish handwriting - and with Qingge’s notebook in which he wrote all his stumbling, horrible poetry in the other and Liu Qingge wishes nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

“Are those my new robes?” Shen Qingqiu asks, as if they have only met this morning, as if that was a reasonable thing to ask when Qingge’s heart is about to explode from nerves. He can only mutely nod at his shidi. “You know shixiong, I can see that you have put enormous effort into courting me. I would have loved it if it happened when I was here to experience it.”

Shen Qingqiu sets the notebook and the letter down and stalks up to Liu Qingge, his eyes sharp with an emotion he can’t interpret, but it makes Liu Qingge want to bare his throat to his teeth and be devoured.

“So, Liu-shixiong. Are you going to help me try on my new robes?”

[karamazovanon]

a collection of the live action raskolnikov from this post :D i thought this version was SO visually interesting so i did a bunch of redraws of stills (most of which aren't in that post oops, thank you @rknchan for sending them!!! <3)

[foldingfittedsheets]

Hey I love your comics!! But can you please use a read more on them? Scrolling endlessly past them a dozen times on my dash isn’t the vibe, and I’m reluctant to reblogged because the posts are so long. Excited to see what else you’ve got coming in the future!!

Sorry, but no. I’ve tried using read mores and the fact is that the engagement is substantially lower than leaving them out. Both Leda and Seventh Score got a fraction of the love both the witch and werewolf comics got.

You do have some options, though. Mobile allows you to turn on a thing that automatically shortens long posts, and all my comics are tagged “do you love the color of the comic” so that you can have them be hidden by default.

[chropyl]

Some doodles I forgot to post, and some message stickers I made for me and my friends (there's more but these are my favorites)

+stanley in a playboy bunny suit I drew for easter

lol sorry

[sonknuxadow]

knuckles series spoilers like actual spoilers not just me vaguely talking about my feelings

i cant believe they put iblis in the sonic movies before amy . what timeline are we in . sorry i was gonna hold out for a litlte bit on saying anything that could be an actual spoiler but i literally cant stop thinking about Giant Iblis Puppet Jumpscare . also for people who didnt actually watch it and are reading the posts about it this happens when wade is knocked out and sent to the magic ghost dimension and meets pachacamac and theres a musical number where wade is in a knuckles costume acting out knuckles' life so far and the giant iblis puppet shows up because apparently knuckles has fought iblis before??? and the iblis puppet is holding a laptop singing about facebook marketplace. im not lying i couldnt even make this up if i tried

also when i say "damn cant believe iblis got in before amy" i understand that amy would have been harder to incorporate its just wild that this happened. does that make sense. idk

[bugslap]

The Humming Gunslinger, Brook — the West's most notorious bank robber with a trick up his sleeve if you try to disarm him