#i am sisyphus and this post is my boulder

[cryptidcola]

Update: Kind of, sort of.

[canwehavehextonite]

im rlly proud of my entire system for making the effort to make kind and respectful system communication happen bc our lives have improved so much and weve made so much progress through it and its sooooo good to be over the everyone arguing and screaming in the head phase bc we all made the effort to b kinder to each other and im!! greatful for that!!!

[ria-starstruck]

good lird. i might have to redo my pinned post AGAIN

[sage-nebula]

I strongly relate to Alan because I, too, feel immense guilt over things that logic says were not my fault even when they happened years and years ago.

[earthgenre]

one must imagine Sisyphus confused as he realizes the boulder is gone, as it is raised above my brother's head - for it is i, Cain, in the field where God watches.

[casualbuttercupblog]

there’s always more fucking laundry

[kozachenko]

So a little while ago I did this background thingy of my interpretation of Hakugyokurou in Touhou 7, then left it at the sketch and forgot about it for a while. Then after changing up my art style a lot, I came back to this and decided to finish it as a way of testing out how my new style would look on backgrounds. Then when I finished it, I also didn't look at it for a while, until today where I decided that I liked it and wanted to post it.

Artist's Notes:

IDK how much this actually looks like Hakugyokurou tbh, but I liked the idea of there being a fuck ton of trees that just kinda grow on the stairs and Yuyuko's garden being on an island of some kind, though tbh as I write this now, this same feeling could be accomplished with just having the stairs be on top of a hill with the trees soooo... oops. IDK how mythologically/lore accurate that would be, but hey, just a cool idea I had. I feel like we need more fan interpretations of certain Touhou locations because I think those could be really fucking cool, like, I should do more of these myself because I have a fuck ton of ideas (plus I need the practice with drawing backgrounds so win-win).

Even if this... doesn't really look like Hakugyokurou in Touhou canon, this was still good practice for perspective, as well as getting better at drawing backgrounds/environment pieces (plus what annoys me is that I wanted to make the tori gate red but had to make it pink because the red was too much for the colour scheme and I should have adjusted the rest of the colours but I don't feel like going back and fucking with this piece now because I feel like I am going to end up like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill with this drawing).

I think the reason we don't see those as often is because there's a lot more consistency with the location designs in Touhou than the character designs. Like, in the mainline games themselves, Marisa's outfit changes every fucking game, and small details in how characters outfits are drawn also lend themselves to that looser character design base. As long as you keep the core design philosophies of the character (i.e. Reimu keeping her loose, baggy clothes, Yukari with her hat and ribbons, Keiki with her headkerchief (I FINALLY LEARNED WHAT IT WAS FUCKING CALLED WOOHOOO!!!! I COULD HAVE JUST LOOKED IT UP ON THE WIKI THIS WHOLE TIME YAAAAAY), and many more examples) you're basically good. However, the actual locations in Touhou have been so set in stone with all the printed works that I think it's a shame we don't see any more variations of how they could look.

I'm not saying to completely ditch how each location is portrayed in games (also don't take this whole thing as me completely dissing the canon looks of the locations) but, treating the locations like character designs in and of themselves. Like, take Sakuya's canon design and her Touhouvania design. Both of them are very different takes on the same design idea. Yet you still recognize Touhouvania Sakuya as... well, Sakuya. And also, keeping the same mythological/historical/irl inspirations for said locations (again, don't know if having a floating island in the Japanese netherworld is accurate but it was a cool idea)

Some other location ideas I have include:

The SDM looking relatively normal from the outside but when you go inside it looks like a fucking gothic cathedral/castle because Sakuya keeps fucking with the space time continuum and there is also an organ the size of a fucking house in there that Sakuya dramatically plays. Also having it be surrounded by trees and having some mountains surrounding the misty lake would be cool as well.

Keiki's base in the animal spirit garden being reminiscent of the ancient technology in Laputa, some of the zonai technology in ToTK and some of the Lanayru desert buildings in Skyward Sword (i.e. Lanayru Mine, the shipyard, etc), as well as a lot of the other ancient technologically advanced sky people ruins seen in some other Zelda games, but with the clear Kofun era theming she already has.

Old Hell having a mix of western influences with it's prodominantly Japanese ones, mainly inspired by how the Palace of Earth spirits looks significantly more western than the rest of Old Hell (though that could be because it was more recently built idk), as well as there being emblems from the time that Old Hell was actually Hell being strewn about in the ruins of old hell, also being inspired by a Japanese historical anecdote about how certain families had specific crests/emblems representing them and how when a new clan would take over everything would be replaced with that families' emblem although my memory is a bit foggy (since I saw it a while ago) and I got info from a Youtube short so take this info with a huge grain of salt (and it anyone actually knows if this info is legit or not, please correct me if I get anything wrong).

Overall, don't think this looks too much like Hakugyokurou, but I am glad I drew this anyway because I needed the practice with drawing backgrounds.

[ofduskanddreams]

a not-so-brief announcement:

I have a lot of unfinished WiPs. Having so many WiPs (entirely my fault: too many ideas + not enough time) has been a large source of anxiety for me in recent weeks, to the point where it's been difficult for me to write at all.

Logically, I know that I'm doing this for free in my free time—I am under no obligation to create other than the one I set for myself. Realistically, I often feel like I'm letting you all down when I don't post/write enough. I know it isn't true, but it often feels like my value to this fandom is measured by how much content I can contribute to it. I've only been here for a little over a year, and I still often feel like a new kid trying to prove their worth.

Thinking this way sends me down a very unproductive spiral of putting pressure on myself to write/create and feeling guilty when I can't do as much as I want (my self-imposed expectations are also too high.) Instead of being a fun creative outlet, writing fic hasn't been enjoyable recently. That saddens me.

I hate feeling this way, honestly, because I love writing, I love storytelling, I love this fandom and these characters and the community I've gained here. I want to be here and I want to be writing because I have so many ideas and I love the stories I've already told/started to tell. But I also need it to be fun for me.

My list of WiPs, combined with all of my tangled feelings about writing, currently have me feeling like Sisyphus standing at the bottom of the hill trying and failing to catch a glimpse of the top around the massive boulder in front of him. I don't know how to find the joy that I've lost, but I do know that taking some of the pressure off of myself is a good place to start. This brings me to the reason I started writing this post.

The modern AU fic I started writing for Elucien Week has, in that classic turn of events, turned out to be far more extensive of a story than I intended. I estimate a total of 7-8 thick chapters. I have 10k words already written but that's only the first 1.25 chapters.

For the sake of my mental health, I will not be posting what I've written so far tomorrow as I originally had planned. I just can't deal with another WiP hanging over my head right now, I'm sorry.

I'm also going to give myself a break from writing/posting writing for the next few weeks because I think that my being burnt out is likely a major contributor to why writing fic hasn't been fun. I'll still be around, don't worry. Hopefully, this break will give me time to catch up on reading everyone else's fics.

Wow, it turns out I really needed to get that off my chest. I know this was long, thank you for listening <3

[thespacekats]

who up pushing they boulder

ultratober day 5 (i am legally allowed to post this as its officially october 5 in my timezone)

felt inspired by sisyphus from hades so i combined their proportions and *plagiarized* the gist of the pose from the game

[llondonfog]

TWST chapter 7 expectation: everyone focus to be on malleus, why he did this, his past, briar valley lore.

TWST chapter 7 reality: SILVER NO DONT CRY!! LILIA WHYYY, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!!

We expected malleus centric. Instead we got father-son dynamic of Lilia and Silver.

AND I'M SO HERE FOR IT!!!!! sorry malleus, fully sympathize and support your breakdown sweetie, #thoughts&prayers but i simply do not have time for you!!! stay out of the story for a while, i need to wail and roll about in my father son duo misery!!!

can we just talk about the fact that silver has been choking back tears IN EVERY SINGLE UPDATE??? like we are talking about one of the most stoic and unshakeable characters in the game, BROUGHT TO FULL-BLOWN SOBBING by lilia's abrupt and impending departure??? (me eyeing all those posts about silver's build up of negative energy and the cost of using his UM and rubbing my hands with horrible glee—)

and that's not even mentioning the absolute insanity that has been lilia's past we've now been exposed to!!! i know it's a bit contentious but i am LOVING asshole general lilia, i am kicking my feet delightedly whenever he goes on his stupid little child-hating rants, ONLY TO PHYSICALLY TAKE THE BLOW FOR SILVER??? TRUE LOVE, TRUE LOVE!!! (on the other hand, you know it's so fucking bad for silver when even sebek steps in to try to soften lilia's rants, my god what is it like for him to see silver so emotionally distraught when silver's been the one to be most secure in his relationship to lilia and his place in briar valley over all whereas sebek still struggles with his human heritage— WHICH WE'RE FINALLY SEEING THE DELIGHTFUL CONSEQUENCES OF HIS BEHAVIOR BEING BROUGHT BACK TO HIM VIA BAUL, UTTER PERFECTION!!!)

so what i'm saying is, ch7 has left me feeling a bit like sisyphus only the boulder keeps getting bigger and there's no fucking end to this mess in sight—

[420technoblazeit]

i keep losing and gaining followers for mishapocalypse posting, meaning that im stuck in an eternal state of equilibrium like sisyphus, rolling the boulder up the hill day after day with no end in sight. or perhaps my fate is more befitting of prometheus, doomed to have his guts strewn out by eagles only to have them regenerate, an eternal self-perpetuating torture caused in part by his very nature. so too am i unable to resist the whimsy of this day. anyway ur mom mishad on this pocalypse like an april fool

[msmargaretmurry]

per your request for asks and also that post about how writing porn is the devil (tru) would LOVE to hear about how you approach sex scenes from a ~craft~ perspective

thank u jess for another excuse to talk about WRITING ✨✨

so the first thing about writing sex scenes, imo, is that you have to embrace that sexiness, hotness, turn-ons, etc, are all personal. there is no universal sexy. the things that i think are hot in a sex scene might get neutral or negative responses from other people. and i don't just mean in a your-kink-is-not-my-kink way, i mean even little things like how kissing is described, the words used for body parts, pet names, dirty talk, etc. so the first rule of writing sex scenes is to free yourself from trying to cater to other people's tastes.

unless you're writing a gift for someone, lol. then you can think about their tastes, obviously. or like, in general, there's nothing wrong with being like ooooh my friends are gonna love this. but it's smut, for god's sake. free yourself and get horny* about it.

*a note on "get horny": maybe you are not a horny person. maybe you're ace, or find the horny part of the equation unrelatable for other reasons. in that case, free yourself and get creative. free yourself and let your characters get horny.

anyway. that being said. some thoughts on Crafting A Sex Scene.

the main complaint i tend to hear about sex scenes is that they feel generic, or predictable, or that (for sex scenes that are part of longer stories) they could be removed from the story and the story wouldn't lose anything. so as a writer i'm obviously like, okay, how do i make my sex scenes unique and engaging? there are only so many sex acts in the world, and and even smaller number that whatever set of idiots i'm writing about at a given moment would think of or be into. most sex scenes are going to be about the same handful of sex acts. we are all sisyphus pushing our horny boulders uphill trying to craft a good sex scene only to have to start from the bottom again the next time our characters want to fuck nasty. what is a poor writer to do?

well, the good news is that people have been finding the same handful of sex acts hot for like, several millennia now. this isn't to say don't branch out and get creative and/or kinky — please do! but also in my humble opinion you definitely don't have to think of new and exciting ways for people to have sex to write an engaging sex scene.

for me, the number one driving force in a sex scene is my point of view character. how are THEY experiencing the sex scene? i think about what they are noticing, feeling, wanting, etc. especially the noticing. if they're banging hottie mcbeefcake, "oh hottie mcbeefcake is so hot" isn't a really compelling or even hot description. what my pov character notices about their partner not only conveys the scene to the reader but tells us things about the pov character through what they're noticing: what do they find attractive, interesting, a turn-on? in what ways are they aware of their own body? how do they react to being touched? i try to branch off of the obvious things someone is probably seeing or feeling in a sex scene and zoom in on things that are specific to my character.

additionally, i think it's also important to know what your non-pov character(s) are thinking/feeling/wanting/etc. a lot of that might not make it onto the page, but it's really helpful for me in trying to write a scene that feels like distinct people interacting instead of bodies going through the sex motions.

speaking of the sex motions. i am huge advocate of that post (that you helpfully reblogged today) that's like "sex isn't sexy unless it's a little bit gross." because yeah! sex is gross!! don't shy away from the sweatiness and stickiness and squelching and hairiness (when applicable) because you're afraid it'll turn people off. sex is gross. that people do it in spite of the grossness (and sometimes to revel in the grossness) is part of the hotness. ymmv in terms of level of grossness, obvs, but grossness is part of sex. let it have its moments.

in addition to grossness: awkwardness. uncertainty. discomfort. imperfection. let your characters be human before, during, after sex. let them have to communicate to make the sex good. let them not communicate and let it cause problems. imo any/all of these things can be included and you can still have both hot sex and a good sex scene. you can (and should!) think about how consent is working in your sex scene, but you don't necessarily have to spell it out or have your characters have a whole-ass conversation about it. or maybe they do have a whole-ass conversation about it. totally depends on what is appropriate for your story, your characters, and the sex you want to write about.

more to the topic of generic/predictability, there's that joke about how all gay sex in fanfic is the exact same "one finger/two fingers/penis" penetrative sex scene, and like… well, it is a joke for a reason 🥴 not that there aren't good sex scenes that use that formula, but i feel like it's so ubiquitous that sometimes people write that as their sex scene by default, or because they know it's what's expected, as opposed to because they think it's the best way to write that sex scene. i'm not even going to get into the whole "not everyone wants/likes/needs to be fingered before anal sex" of it all; instead i am going to say that i think it's always worth (once again) thinking about your characters and the purpose of the sex scene within your larger character or story arc. for example, if the goal of the sex scene is to show an escalation in trust and intimacy, think about what trust and intimacy really mean to your characters and what different ways to show that are. we loooooove to let penetrative sex be shorthand for trust and intimacy — another thing i am not going to get into, and also, we all live in this wretched society, i'm not going to judge anyone for using penetrative sex as a shorthand for trust and intimacy. i've done it! i've read it and found it both moving and hot! if it works for your characters and your story, 100% go for it! but it doesn't have to be. and that's worth thinking about!

more to the skippableness: firstly, if you are simply writing smut for smut's sake, that's wonderful and i applaud you. carry on. if you're writing a sex scene as part of a longer story and you don't want it to feel skippable, i think the best way to go about that is to think about, as with any other scene, how that sex scene is moving the story forward — in more than just a "and now they've had sex" way. this is a lot of the character-driven/thinking about the filter of your pov character stuff from before, but also how does the sex change the stakes of the story? what do your characters learn about each other or themselves during the sex scene? the story shouldn't pause while they're boning.

this is getting uhhhh long now, so i will leave off with one more thing i think about when writing sex scenes, which is what i think of as the We All Know How Sex Works rule. which is basically, i'm allowed to gloss over things. some things i might describe in excruciating detail, but if i'm doing my job well, i do not have to describe every physical part of the sex for readers to follow the sex scene. readers are smart people. they'll get it.

[aemiron-main]

yet again taps the “I wouldn’t hate mike if he’s not confirmed gay in s5 but I would have some serious criticism of the writing, set design, cinematography, costuming, soundtrack, and acting choices of the show because imo all of those things work together to strongly indicate gay Mike & therefore there’s a whole lot of elements that suddenly don’t make any sense if mike isn’t confirmed gay, because the show has been created with gay Mike in mind and imo he’s already basically 99% confirmed gay based on all of these elements of the show & people have stupid fucking standards for what they consider ‘confirmed’ gay in s5 because by those standards, WILL technically isn’t confirmed gay if we ignore noah and the duffers’ comments and only focus on the text of the show and all of the traits such as lack of attraction to girls and active attraction to men that made ppl agree that Will was confirmed gay before the duffers or Noah said anything ALSO exist even STRONGER in mike but bc he has a girlfriend people refuse to see it” sign. the sign is worn out from me tapping it. every day I tap it. i am sisyphus and the sign is the boulder.

like be fr. i am a mike defender till I die. i have written pages upon pages defending him and analyzing him. and me thinking he’s gay and being passionate abt it doesn’t mean I would hate him if he wasn’t gay- it means I would be pissed with the show for not doing him justice and either a.) writing him in a way from the beginning that indicates him being bi because I feel strongly that his current arc is not written that way or b.) confirming him as gay in continuation with what we’ve already seen in the show indicating that he’s gay.

and me writing abt gay Mike imo is also me defending him and loving him because I’m trying to figure out what he IS, I didn’t go into my analysis strongly believing he was gay, I went into it trying to figure out WHAT he was. I’ve read all of the bi and unlabelled mike analysis that I can possibly get my hands on. I WANT that differing analysis to exist even though I disagree with it, because it allows me to refine my own thoughts and dig deeper into figuring out what mike’s sexuality is.

i literally could not hate mike if I tried and if you think that I could then PLEASE actually read my posts 😭

[kyeterna]

OC-tober day 7 prompt: personality

Featuring (Si)syphos from Impossible Wish, the silliest guy there is.

The suspicious young man gestured us to enter his definitely shady looking shop. Iliana looked at me with a weird expression. "He said he knew something, he is our only lead". She sighed. "Welcome! Welcome to my humble shop 'Magics and such of the Orient'! We have everything, from miraculous medicine to magical items from all over the world! You are not cops right? I mean, if you are, these are all very legal and real items, the complaints are all from competitors who are trying to taint my reputation-" he briefly glanced at us from the corner of his eye. "You sure you're not cops right?". We sat in silence and uncomfortable amount of time. "You are not here to ask for a refund either right?" "What kind of business are you running-" "Don't you think it's HORRIBLE how these guys outside wanted to close down this business? It's been run for GENERATIONS in my family...." I looked at the wall he was obviously hinting us to look at. There was a series of portraits labelled with slight variations of the name "Sisyphos" and family positions. Most of the portraits were photos of him wearing different fake moustaches.

Legend has it that he has scammed Death himself once and since then has been on the run. You think he would have learnt his lesson and tried to lead a more honest life, but no, instead he has started doubling down on his scams. After all, conning people has been a family tradition for ages. So he claims. Most of his claims are so absurd it is hard to understand which are genuine and which not. If he is ever genuine about anything other than the joy of mischief. There is nothing good about this man, he would sell you in a heartbeat to escape any dangerous situation, but he is funny at least. The ideal he strives to live every day of his life is "fuck around, care about finding out later". Let's say this attitude has got him a lot of enemies.... very dissatisfied customers.

We know about the legend of Sisyphus mostly for the rolling a boulder up a hill part, but I don't see much discussion about the part that got him this punishment in the first place, tricking Death himself. That was kind of the idea behind the name.

From bweirdart's OC-tober prompt:

While I am doing this challenge mostly to keep an archive of my characters on tumblr (and to incentivise myself to draw them), if you, person stumbling upon this post, are curious and wanna learn more, my askbox is open >:3c

[velournewports]

once my adderall starts working my blog becomes my everything. every Post bears with it such gravity, such divine importance. cosmic, even. my reblogs tell a story and it’s the story of the beginning of the universe, the struggle between good and evil, god, breaking through the shadow in pinpricks of light. not now baby, mommy’s scheduling posts and shit. no i don’t want to add tags i hope nobody ever finds this. this page is my boulder and i am sisyphus, or else this page is the eagle picking apart my liver and i prometheus, comfortable in the knowledge that the pain is noble, i gave the gift of light and warmth to all and because of it i greet the talons and the beak like a friend, no, a brother, every day, goodmorning, take my organs. it took me thirteen tries to write this.

[therealvinelle]

Pardon for my weird imagination in my brain, but when reading your post saying: “the first real remotely ‘badass’ thing I would do after turned into a Twilight zombie…it would be me knitting in lightning speed, and ‘Manics’ would be my knitting battle symphony.” (I know I didn’t quite it quite-on-quote but Vinelle you get my point)

My weird brain image upon reading this is—the notorious Internet meme of Matt Smith’s Morbius dance…So when I read that post, what my brain image told me was Vinelle dancing and knitting in superhuman speed, but the background music was the ultimate nonsensical lyrics of “Off The Meds (Have Sexx).”

After realizing that being a vampire meant nothing but despair, Vinelle had no choice but to embrace it—like Sisyphus should’ve embraced his boulder.

So she picked up her needles, traces of tears still on her face, as now she had chosen her battle.

“HAVE SEXX, HAVE SEXX!”

With the utterly nonsense blasted from the stereo system in her room, she stared into the abyss between each of her sewing. Hats, trousers, mittens, vests…she created those neat patterns on her “children” made of wool threads with lighting speed.

“Bhuti ma yenza yenza

Bhuti ma veza veza”

Those damn lyrics were still blasting. Those god damn awful lyrics.

So let it be her battle symphony. She mused to herself and kept knitting. It would be her eternity, so let it be.

I am so sorry for polluting your Internet experience with my god awful semi-one-shot of fanfic of Vinelle your one single Twilight meta post. No wonder I would be the one of the only three entries of crackfic ‘CAUSE MY BRAIN WORK LIKE CRACKFIC MANUFACTORY!

And here’s a cookie for wishing Vinelle a nice day as always. (Shy smile)

My tumblr has created a Morbius-evoking monster. My god.

Truly an ask of all time, enjoy your cookie!