#grimdark story

[better-in-threes]

Author/creators note

So i finally got that ao3 account and now can post the actual story i was wanting to focus on. dw this blog is still running i am just slow and working full time but i really enjoy this blog and the story as well. anyways heres the link for the first 2 chapters of the story hopefully ill finish chapter 3 soon since im almost done.

[xx-akubara-xx]

Bowser's Bedtime Story: Page 2

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It's dangerous out there- take this!

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First

Next

MASTER POST OF COMICS

[dereliction-if]

DERELICTION - One empire. Three kingdoms. Four races. A fate so fragile, and yet the celestial spirits decided to put it in the hands of their own potential deicide.

In a fractured realm plagued by ancient animosities, where empires clash and races vie for their own goal, their own dominance, a haunting destiny hangs over an unlikely figure. A pariah, an outcast, and perhaps the only hope - You.

You bear the weight of a dark lineage and the remnants of a once-powerful origin - now shunned by all races. While shadows of your tragic past loom large, a seemingly chance encounter thrusts you into a perilous journey. The path ahead is cloaked in uncertainty, an abyss that beckons you to confront your deepest fears, your deepest desires - a choice that may tip the scales toward salvation or everlasting despair.

It’s upon you to decide: Can you outrun your fate, or will you succumb to the very darkness you seek to defy?

/// FEATURES:

Customize the Main Character (MC) and hereby influence your path in the world:

• Name (including Nickname & Alias)

• Pronouns (choose preset or set your own)

• Gender (male, female & non-binary options)

• Appearance (hair, eye colour, size, body type, scars & more)

• Race: Thao‘Raq

• Personality (influencing events, attitudes & behaviour towards you)

• Vices (choose your poison)

• An inner power yet to identify What else? Different POVs (incl. your ROs POVs)

/// HOW IT ALL BEGAN - YOUR STORY:

/// THE WORLD (MAP WIP)

/// CHARACTERS:

For thy company makes thy destiny:

Several characters that highly influence your path, depending on your relationship and choices. Some of them you‘ll encounter just once, whilst others will be your companions for a long while. But relationships might change, due to events in the past, decisions you made. Beware, character deaths are happening and some consequences will only show in the long run.

Important characters to be announced soon

/// ROMANTIC OPTIONS:

Overall there will be 5 ROs and plenty of short term encounters - see below (Spoiler alert)

RO#1: The royal heir

Princess Sonea - she/her, 1,76m (5'9") Prince Solas - he/him, 1,94m (6'4") - 22yo, straight or gay; race: Human

Appearance: tba

Personality: tba

The first time your eyes locked, both your fates were decided. Yet, nobody could have known what consequence just one destined moment would mean for both of you and, further, the whole realm. Will you be each other’s key or knife?

RO#2: The sovereign

Amara Dougal - she/her, 1,81m (5'11") - 31yo, straight or gay, race: Human x Thao‘Raq

Appearance: tba

Personality: tba

You were never meant to be more than a tool for them - an interchangeable toy to kill boredom, play a little game of strength, willpower and dominance. Then you managed to surprise them. Was that your plan all along?

Mood Board: here

RO#3: The mage

Jia - she/her, 1,65m (5'5"); he/him, 1,79m (5'10"); they/them, 1,73m (5'8") - 21yo, demi, race: Eirdimon

Appearance: tba

Personality: tba

You stumbled into their life, being the first light in a long while. They are grateful for the new perspectives you bring into their life, even though you turn their whole world upside down. Still, they decided to never let you go again.

RO#4: The mercenary

Havu Guillame - she/her, 1,73m (5'8"); he/him 1,87m (6'2") - 26yo, pan, race: Sertynan

Appearance: tba

Personality: tba

A rusty knife, straight between their shoulder blades sounded like a much more enjoyable scenario than having to spend time with you. Not because you are exceptionally annoying, which you can be, but because bearing anybody else’s burden is nothing more than a waste of time to them.

RO#5: The knight

Daria Baran - she/her, 1,97m (6'6") Darius Baran - he/him, 2,03m (6'8") - 38yo, straight (?), race: Human

Appearance: tba

Personality: tba

Their oath is the reason why they are stuck with you. If it were possible, they would‘ve avoided it as a whole, but it seems carrying your ass around, reminding you of your manners, duties and cleaning the mess you leave behind you, is their painful responsibility now.

/// RACES: Click on each race to find out more

Sertynan (Original purpose: Diplomacy & Peace)

Eirdimon (Original purpose: Creation & Wisdom)

Human soon

Thao‘Raq (Original purpose: Protection & Defense)

>>> physical appearances - race specific: here

/// FLORA & FAUNA:

Buorshik (Lizard)

/// CONTENT WARNING: 🔞 Dark adult fiction

contains mentions of violence, bullying, racism, body horror, torture, gore, medical procedures, death, alcohol, drugs, addiction, abuse, self harm, optional sexual content incl. prostitution.

Full content warning here.

/// LAST UPDATE: 08.04.2024

In early development. DEMO: t.b.a.

Note: Each chapter will be published once it is finished.

[infectedequestria]

"... I hope Pinkie and Rainbow are okay..."

[Ask box is open yall, communicate through that radio ;) ]

[t00thpasteface]

i'm so relieved that people like my retrobat stuff bc i can tell tumblr definitely prefers two very specific batmans: Tortured Diesel DILF and Edward Cullen But Cooler. meanwhile i'm out here like

[time-is-restored]

do you guys every think abt death vs immortality as a thoroughline in like. literally all of the mechs albums.

old king cole is explicitly warped by immortality (never to forgive he would eternal live, his hands dyed red by gore - can be read a few ways depending on where u place the emphasis, but at the very least communicates that his wrath is facilitated By his immortality), and the olympians commit attrocities in order to hold onto their wealth and the immortality that it grants them (murdering arachne, yanking heracles' chain the second he tries to go freelance, having a monopoly on the acheron etc). the value they put on immortality and living forever, and the fear they have of ever possibly losing it, has completely warped their morals and priorities.

and while it comes up less in tbi, there's still significant emphasis placed on how odin has been in power for a century (both thor + the narrator bring it up, and there's also an emphasis on how long ago the bifrost project was started, and how 'no one left living' can explain its science). her villain monologue in rangarok iv places the extinction of asgard as an honour - a ruin that no one can possibly rebuild from is called 'apotheosis'. and as she says at the end, the idea that no one can possibly outlive her is a key draw for odin. asgard dies with her.

in hnoc, the only really immortal character is brian (and we only really know that bc of knowledge we get from outside the album), but the axis of life and death as a privilege vs a curse is still very present. 'mordred's gift to Arthur could be love in his own eyes / fating him alone to keep the life to which he clings', not only posits that the gift of survival isn't inherently good + kind (which the audience would immediately recognise as love, not possibly love), but places emphasis on the fact that arthur is now utterly alone. the station's death at the hands of mordred is hardly a happy one ('Its people damned, doomed by a man who's lost all his regrets'), but arthur's fate is arguably worse. severed from the finality and closure of death, what does he become? [insert that one cool theory abt hnoc arthur becoming old king cole here]

it's like. on a meta level, the reason we as fans don't put much emphasis on the depravity + cruelty of the mechs is bc the people portraying the mechs are all charismatic + skilled performers. in live gigs they're all portraying the fun side of their characters - roasting each other, bantering with the audience, making fun of the characters they're singing about, referencing off-screen violence - bc if they portrayed their lore too literally they'd be comitting felonies LMAOOO

but narratively, its like. literally every album is a meditation on the ways that the glorification of immortality can ruin civilisations - can ruin galaxies. whether its rooted in the fear of you specifically dying, or of being outlived, or overpowered or forgotten, or if its done for the sake of someone else's survival... it's all corrosive. if u refuse to accept the indisputable impermanence of life, you lose the ability to value it, and u numb urself to the reality of just how fucked up it is to cut another person's life short for any reason.

like. i do think some of the mechs started as good people, and some of them even might still have ethical standards, but i REALLY cannot stop thinking about how fucking. fascinating it is that this group of immortals who are KNOWN for basically considering nothing but how fun and/or violent any given activity will be, have basically filled their entire discography with songs about how their continued existence is corrosive and brings tragedy + ruin wherever they go.

so how self-aware are they? do you think those old morals + ethics still linger in their mind, when they're writing down these tragedies? they willingly self identify as liars + thieves + bastards, etc etc, and they seem to have no trouble identifying the 'bad guys' in the various albums (ie: humanising snow + cinders + rose, but not king cole), but do those concepts actually mean anything emotionally, or even theoretically, for them all beyond their dramatic potential? do they remember their lives before they were mechanised as it actually happened, or do they remember it as lyrics to a song? is it possible to be entirely self aware abt ur own capacity for violence (as jonny in paticular claims to be), if you no longer relate to violence as anything other than a narrative device - a means to an end, whether comedic or dramatic?

[sleepypdng]

she could've gone crazy in early 2010s mlp creepypastas

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

(heavy discussions on sa - this is actually an older post that i made like months ago, and was actually the first draft of the amarantha taboo post, so some things sound similar! just a heads up!)

you know i actually think there is a wider discussion to be had about rhysand's sexual assault - or sexual assault and trauma as it functions in the wider narrative. ive always felt that bc the story puts rhysand in this vulnerable position (i.e. a victim of sexual violence) the story always needs to like...make up for it, if that makes sense? 

what i mean is: the story creates this dynamic where rhysand is a victim; he has no power, control, or say - but it also has a very hard time reconciling to the fact that he was placed in this position. and so there's these weird placeholding pieces of information that often addle or confuse the narrative. and i talked about this before with rhysand's framing of his 'service to amarantha.' i also contributes to the moments of hyperviolence with rhys in the books, as if he constantly has to make up for the fact he was placed into these vulnerable positions in the first, implicitly.

the first book - and other books thereafter - imply that rhysand's court is specificially shielded from amarantha because he aligns himself (action word). rhysand's decision is framed as a 'sacrifice' which implies a choice (that he didn't really have). it always implies that rhysand is the one consciously 'one-upping' amarantha by 'agreeing' to be her 'right hand man' again - notice how despite the fact amarantha is characterized as a sexual deviant, she's rarely the focus. its what rhys 'gave' and not what 'amarantha did.'  

and this is fine if this is the way rhysand chooses to see what happened to him - bc then that's a trauma response. he can't acknowledge it so its better for him to rationalize it - that would have been great writing. 

but thats not how his sexual assault and role utm is discussed. 

other characters view rhys sexual assault as a statement of heroism (which ew) and not a just a statement of amarantha's capacity for sexual violence. tarquin literally says something along those lines. which again is implying that RHYS HAD A CHOICE. we can't frame this as heroism. he was raped, he did not sacrifice something...it was taken. 

in the initial scenario - where we remove the idea of autonomy (e.g. the idea that rhys purposely aligns himself with amarantha) he's a victim. but then - so is tamlin, tarquin, beron, kallias, and helion. in short - rhys being taken advantage of says nothing about him. it's a statement on amarantha's cruelty. but the story isn't satisfied with this bc...how would he be any different than tamlin whose vilified for being directly affected by his trauma, who 'sat on his ass for fifty years' as the book says. 

its the tragedy of how male sexual assault is rationalized in this series. the story literally purposely sets up a mirror position where rhys and tamlin are consistently compared for how they work through some of the craziest trauma ever known to man. the level of trauma the story is asking these characters to 'overcome' is actually quite insane. 

so the story ups the ante, it doesn't want rhys to be 'just a victim,' it wants him to be the MAN TM. bc tamlin and tarquin are 'just victims' so ewww. like even lucien is given another horribly written experience with sexual assault (which it literally has to bend the worldbuilding to accomplish) and then kind of position his complaints abt ianthe as whiny. or how tarquin's trauma is...not 'dark' enough for feyre. these men are often characterized as cowardly or not enough in relation to rhys. helion, thesan, tarquin, and tamlin are all consistently characterized as 'cowards' with little to no initiative or backbone.

so the story does that thing where it provides impossible situations: rhysand is the most powerful being in the world, he's so powerful that even without his 'real' power, he's still light years more powerful than the others when they're powers are ripped away. he can read minds, and has two wraiths that can literally walk through the walls and spy. he's often sent on missions on behalf of amarantha and can waltz in and out of the spring court without any issues (ie. its easy for him to convince amarantha he needs to go to the spring court multiple times. and then when he works for amarantha - he's the mastermind, not her. he's playing her all along and blah blah blah). but then it doesn't know how to write this dynamic with rhys and amarantha. and then it depowers him, while shaming the other men in the series for not doing 'enough' even when the most op character with all of those advantages isn't even able to over power her.

there's little introspection into amarantha as a character and as a villain -- and you'll notice she's hardly ever mentioned after the first book...despite the fact that she was literally the high queen of prythian and was the governing oppressive force for a half-century. as said in this post - the story isn't actually concerned about making a point about male sexual asault.

and that's why i talked about why that amarantha taboo is...kind of important to how the story chooses to conceptualize sexual violence/assault. the choice to create amarantha (and ianthe and maeve too) as these caricatures of sexuality - which is pretty much the case of all of sjm's villains. 

the story doesn't want to fully commit to a tactical scenario, because it doesn't believe that he's a victim in that capacity  - or at least that the victimhood is valid. bc its spends so much time invalidating the male trauma around rhys, the only way to make a distinction between rhys and the others to have rhys "orchestrate" his own assault to save everyone.

[lackablazeical]

Internet pls I need help I can't remember this fucking mlp AU I used to like and I need help finding it. I drew some of what I remember from the designs so if anyone remembers like names or anything pls help please please PLEASE I'm losing my fucking mind

[bixels]

I apologize for this thinly veiled attempt to push some of my own favorite media, disguised as an ask, but, have you ever seen Centaurworld?

I watched the first season and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Laughed out loud at the jokes and watched it till the end. Didn't watch the second season though because I heard it wasn't good. I felt like season one had so much chatter and hype and as soon as season two dropped, nobody was talking about it anymore.

[duncan-rawr-x3]

After watching this video, it made me realize that.. Derpy's portrayal in Muffins was so fucking ableist and gross. The way that Derpy is treated in the story is just.. sick, like, the heavy usage of the 'r slur', Derpy's writing as a character ect, it's just garbage! /srs

[ask-the-mare-in-the-forest]

Hemlock, can you guide Lost Star out of the forest and to the nearest town?

[xx-akubara-xx]

Bowser's Bedtime: Page 8

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Lore Lore Lore...

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Next

Previous

First

MASTER POST OF COMICS

[dereliction-if]

Still alive

[little teaser and spoiler]

Every now and then, a guard walking in the hallway gives you a look, but they don't say anything. They know who you are, and they know there's consequences for bothering you. They don't particularly like you anyway. As you walk, the metallic rattle on the floor is the only sound. You hear a few people whisper as you pass them, but you ignore them. You walk down the stairs, heading for the only area where the sun might reach you. You step into the outdoors, the warm sun hitting your skin feels familiar. It's the only thing that reminds you of what you used to be like before all of this. Before [redacted]...

[bexdrey]

"Drakken... RUN." Upon hearing those words, his fight or flight response kicked in and he ran towards the emergency lockdown switch. Drakken's eyes darted towards the doorway that was closing now behind him. The sight of Shego's glazed over and ravenous eyes sent a chill down his spine. The last thing he saw before the door slammed shut, was Shego bolting her way towards Drakken. The sound of loud, metal pounding caused Drakken to back away with widened eyes. "Just.. Hold in there Shego, I'll figure this out!" He called out. "I hope.." He added quietly before making his way towards what called 'The Research Room.' ----- "No.. no that can't be right. Nnnyeh.. Blast it all!" Drakken exclaimed as he paced the room. Monitors were set up all over the room that flashed with various information. With such little knowledge on whatever had caused Shego to completely lose herself, it was proving increasingly difficult to find answers let alone a cure. He wasn't even sure if it would clear up on it's own. The mere thought had him basically trembling. With every idea pushed aside, new ones formed but they were becoming more and more outlandish. He'd managed to find a strand of Shego's hair entangled in one of her many brushes in the bathroom, but even that was proving to be pointless. The only way he'd be able to get answers is if he could monitor Shego. Thankfully, the DNA in Shego's hair was enough to get a general reading on any potential allergies or medical issues and found there to be none to his relief. Now all he had to do was get an anesthetic strong enough to sedate Shego. As much as he didn't want to do it, he was left with very little choice. The sound of the printer had him rush to his chair and sit, rolling towards where a very long string of paper now began to print. He grabbed it quickly and began to skim over the results. No allergies, no medical issues.. but the worry came when he found he needed a very strong anesthetic to knock out Shego. Drakken grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, his brows furrowing. He would need to make it himself and he was fairly rusty in medicines. At least it was one he roughly knew how to make, but it would take time and he wasn't sure how long his lockdown would keep Shego at bay. Wait.. now that he thought about it, the banging had stopped... His eyes widened and he spun around, the paper he clutched in his hand ripped at the base from the printer and there he saw Shego, hands flared and eyes filled with a desire to kill. She was heaving and the whites of her eyes had fully blackened. "KILL. KILL. KILL DRAKKEN." The sound of Shego's voice came, but the way he sounded only scared Drakken. It wasn't right. It wasn't her. But he didn't have time to focus on that as she came full force towards him, hands ablaze and aiming directly at him. Drakken let out a startled yelp and bolted out of the room and down the hall. The sound of Shego's footsteps and animalistic growling was hot on his trail. He had run out of time and could only hope that what he had for sedatives was enough. He bolted into the lab and slammed his palm against the 'close' button the second he was in reach. The door slammed with a thud and loud banging could be heard. He knew it wouldn't keep her out for long, but it would have to be enough. "Come on, come on. It's gotta be in here somewhere.. AHA!" He exclaimed with a triumphant flash of a grin, right before the door flew past him. He spun around and aimed the dart gun directly at Shego who was sprinting towards him. He shut his eyes and pulled the trigger and with any ounce of luck... "AUHG!" Came the suddenly distressed voice of Shego. His eyes shot open as she reached for the dart and gave it a glance before growling, slamming it down and refocusing on Drakken who backed up. Shego's steps, however, slowed and in a moment... THUD. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHOOOO Lookie here a part 2?! Who knew I had it in me XD And yes I do plan for a part 3, maybe 4 if I get the right idea. :) also WOOP BACKGROUNDS ARE HARD BUT I DID IT AND IT LOOKS FANTASTIC Link to Part 1: https://bexdrey.tumblr.com/post/747798862926888960/owch-cried-shego-as-she-felt-a-small-yet-sharp

[lgbtlunaverse]

A-qing is such a tragic figure and i care her so much but one thing I love is this quiet character arc she has from a little girl doing what she has to do to survive, already more wordly and bitter than Xiao Xingchen even at her young age, a girl who isn't cruel but isn't here to help other people either, into genuinely a kind of guardian figure. After her death she sticks around and dedicates her non-life to protecting people, leading visitors away from Xue Yang and warning wwx and the juniors about him. And it works, in the end, without her they wouldn't have made it.

The yi city arc can seem so cynical sometimes. Idealism fails, helping a dying stranger by the side of the road only leads to tragedy, but a-qing cares and it helps! She's a counterpart to both xiao xingchen and song lan in that way, and thematically also a kind of counterpart to xue yang, where tragedy becomes a motivation for caring instead of against it. It's a weird thing to say since she's a kid that dies and her soul is shattered, but I think yi city would have come off a lot darker without her.