#light-shadow isnt my talent...

[number9donaldreal-fan]

Well, even though the Edward's cult is over, I ll still post some arts in honor of his provisional government in our community.😤

I'm tagging @timmouse @capybaras-blog @choppy338 @woerbitssft @lianaboom @augustlaven

edward and friends

[sunnyfoxsstuff]

Hey sorry couldnt write Yesterday but im writing today the very first chapter! I thought about it way too much lol

Enjoy ;3

Chapter 1:New beginning

After the event at the black water manor and being stripped from his divinity the former wind master has tried his best to get around and survive, xie lian had offered him to stay at puqi shrine 'til he gets back on his feets he had agreed but he only stayed for a day or two he was more fearing hua cheng than living outside, however xie lian adviced him to try and go see at the royal capital knowing there is some beggar's living there he thought that he'll find refuge over there

The former windmaster of course took the advice and went over to the royal capital however he took atleast two good days to get there because of his injuries he was limping and slow

After getting to the capital he found some beggar's just as xie lian had told him they got along pretty well shi qingxuan had always a talent to get along with anyone he'd meet, a day After he started feeling nauseous he tried to ignore it but soon his body made him know that he was gettin too weak to even move, often he would just lay down Somewhere and sleep it was all he could do after all, the beggar's had a kind heart and couldnt bear leaving him on his own so they tried their best at helping them.

It was a morning when shi qingxuan woke up in the halley way he had fallen asleep at he looked around still weak and Saw his beggar friend's still asleep

he looked at the Sky above his head and closed his eyes shut again opening them soon after he somehow felt more..light felt better like as if he wasnt ill anymore

Looking down where his hands are supposed to be he couldnt see them but he could see his beggar friend's waking up,

He ran up to them excited and happy "guy's look! Look! I Can walk! I Can move im feeling better!!" However they walked passed him to where he was sleeping, confused he followed them, soon enough one of them started to cry another pray for some god's and the other one just went on his way to try and find their breakfast,

when the former windmaster took a look at what was going on he gasped almost all of his air out of his lung's and felt nauseous seeing his own body laying there lifeless and gettin more pale.

The now soul of shi qingxuan stood there watching his own body for what felt like minute's but had been atleast 3 hour's

until he'd look at his right side where there was a ominous shadow with what seemed like two golden eyes looking at his body quickly After leaving, it was he xuan.He xuan had came to check on him? But why? Shi qingxuan was more confused by he xuan coming over than his own situation

After some more minute's of standing there he decided that he wanted to make it up to he xuan for what shi wudu had done to him "atleast try" he said to himself determinated,

for the next couple hour's he'd try to manifest his New form but if anybody could see him all they'd see is a little bouncing spirit

"ugh! Why cant i just get my form to manifest already?!" He said pouting 'bout it, even so he still went on his plan and started to move away from where he had died and stayed for the past day's

He decided to make his way to puqi shrine first often stopping to still try and get his New form or to just stare at everything living in the forest the Sun soon started to set down, shi qingxuan isnt used to not sleep at night or even the no breath needed so he setted himself Somewhere and looked at the night Sky with the glowing star's smiling enjoying the cold air and little glowing bugs standing besides him on the grass.

Hey sorry imma stop there for the first chapter i feel like its long enough however i already know what im gonna write in the seccond chapter so do not fear it shouldnt take too long until i post it ;p i rlly Hope u enjoyed it atleast im tryin my best to think this through

[ask-carmenpondiego]

Chapter 3: Bickered Eggs and Spilled Tea

A few hours later, Carmen wakes up in a rather plush bed, the sun was shining through a set of open french doors, some sheer curtains blowing in the soft warm wind, the sound of waves crashing on the beach could be heard. She blinked slowly and looked around, sitting up and with a wince, she lays back down. She noticed she was naked save for some bandages on her arm and pulled up the covers as she heard that stallion’s voice, “Did you know that you snore?” She looked at him leaning against the doorframe leading to the rest of the building. “Yeah, so? You probably do too.” She scowled. He chuckled and shook his head, “Wouldn’t know, I dont sleep.” She crosses her arms, “Thats obvious, if you had a decent night sleep you might not be an intolerable asshole.” He pats his chest, looking wounded, “Ouch, such loving words to say to your rescuer. I may be an asshole but I saved yer fuckin ass last night. You’re welcome.”

“Fine, Thank you for saving my ass. Now are you going to tell me who you are and where we are?” She gestured about the entire room, and blinked. He was suddenly gone from the doorway and lounging stretched out beside her in the bed. She yelped and held the covers closer to her, leaning away from him. He was dressed in a roughed up white button down shirt, sleeves rolled up, a loose tie lazily hanging from the collar, and same leather pants as the night before; he flicked his thumb and a small flame lit the tip. He used it to light his cigarette and took a deep inhale. “The name’s Marehem. You can call me M. We are currently at a safe house that my brother had when he left on his excursions. He was the one who made me promise to keep you safe. That was before he disappeared.” He blew out a puff of smoke and chewed the end a little. Carmen listened and tilted her head, “Your brother knew me? I’m sorry but I think I would remember befriending a demon” M would cackle in response, “You knew him alright, you fuckin married him. That jog yer memory? I’m Waldo’s brother.”

Carmen sat there in disbelief, staring at him. “Oy, its rude to stare ya know.” She shook her head, “Sorry.. but whatever you are, Waldo isnt that. He was a kind and gentle soul, he was a wonderful father, made me laugh and-“ “And made you cum with how blissfully romantical he was.. myehhh.. yeah I know.” He mocked the cigarette between his fingers as he pointed at her, “He would not shut up about you and the kids. Not that I blame him, he had the cushy life. Me, I like it more rough. We are known as changelings, and the special talent our brood had particularly gave us the title of Balancers. There were the light balancers like Waldo where everything was happy and lucky and goody goody gumdrops. Then there are Dark Balancers where you have changelings like me who balance out that sunshine and rainbows and thrive on tragedy and disaster. You still with me? Jingle jingle..” he explained, producing a set of keys out of shadow and jingled them in her face as she kept staring. She blinked as she processed this. “So… my son is half changeling?” He wrinkled his face, “I drop a whole bunch of fuckin lore at you and all you ask about is your kid? Yes, yer kid is half changeling. He’ll probably grow into his powers when he’s a few years old. I wouldn’t worry about it.” He waved her off. “Do you need to smoke so much?” She asked, waving her hand to blow some smoke away. “It keeps me young-gawd yer nosey. What is it with you and these fuckin questions?” He rolls his eyes and takes another draw. “I used to be a detective, it helps me figure out people.” He gives her the middle finger, “Yah? Figure out this.” She drops her hands onto her lap and looks at him, wondering where the fuck he got that audacity. “You know what, Fuck you. Fuck you and your stupid cancer sticks, and your stupid tentacles, and stupid middle finger, and.. and your stupid face!” His eyes glinted a little as he formed a devilish smirk. Before she could move, he straddled her hips, his hands on the headboard, effectively pinning her there, she yelped and sunk lower in the bed as he lowered his head to near her level. He gives a low growl by her ear, “You wanna try that again, little bitch? Or are you going to be a good little bitch and shut that dirty whore mouth before I shut it for you~?” The only thing between them were the covers on the bed, which Carmen pulled up to hide her scarlet face as she peeked up at him. The sheer threatening and dominating aura he gave off sent shivers down her spine as she held the covers over her blushing face. What the fuck was he doing?! He was her brother in law!…supposedly?! Why would he try to jump her bones after he lost his brother?! “Come out, little bitch, or I’ll make you come out..” he started grinding against her, growling more. She gave a small squeal and wriggled out from under him, slipping off the side of the bed to the floor, scrambling to scoot away to the other corner. He merely watched her skitter in panic and made him cackle. He moved and sat on the edge of the bed, his arms on his knees. “You are fun to tease. Not easy to get along with, but easy to tease.” He stands with a clap of his hands on his thighs, “I’ll go fetch you some grub. You haven’t eaten proper in fuckin months.” He walks out the door, only to back a step in, “By the way, you ain’t a prisoner here. Get up and start slowly movin about. Do ya some good.” She watched him disappear into the other room and curled up against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest.

Everything was so different, she had a hard time making sense if it all. She remembered being in tough spots before, especially before meeting Wally. This felt different, she couldn’t put a finger on it. She felt an ache in her horn and reached up to touch and soothe it. She winced as a mere touch now sent her mind into deep static, making her wobble where she sat. That wasn’t right, it was never that sensitive before. She stood and looks at it closely in the mirror. A thin blackened core swirled between the tan twists, making her horn look almost two toned. Her horn was damaged worse by that electric torture, she was sure it has fractured in a small split in the spiral. Now she couldn’t even touch it without having issues. She was partially glad she never used it with magic due to the previous sensitivity issue but how will she function now? One touch and she could be in trouble!

Carmen heard M coming back down the hall, and she scrambled to find a robe. She moved too quickly, clutched her stomach and sank back to her knees, grunting in pain. The changeling sauntered into the room carrying a tray of food, a warm mug of tea and a water bottle as well as a heating pack. “The fuck you tryin to do? You can’t run anywhere. Yer on an island.” He set the tray on the dresser and scooped her up, plopping her back on the bed. “And even if you could run, you shouldnt. You need to heal first.” He turned and grabbed the tray. She squinted her eyes at him, “You told me to move around.. If I’m not a prisoner here, why am I being held against my will by you?” He had set the tray down over her legs as a popup tray, a small dish of eggs and toast sat steaming fresh. He picked up a piece of toast and waggled it before dropping it, “Move around SLOWLY. You think I fucking want you here? I don’t want to be babysitting some brat who doesn’t know when to shut her yap. I didnt have to feed you, or give you comfort things.” He stood and pointed out of the french doors, “You wanna leave and fuckin screw up yer health and yer chances of getting yer kids back? Be my fuckin guest. Theres the fuckin door, hope you can swim faster than the fuckin sharks.” Carmen scowled, gripping the pillow to throw at him, “How do you think I feel?! I’m in pain after the most horrific night of my life and I have to be berated by you because all I want to do is get back home!”

“I berate you only because you nag me all these questions thats none of yer fuckin beeswax! Theres a reason I like bein left alone, but Nooooo. Wally just had to ask me to make sure yer safe. Well yer safe from everything except yer damn self!”

“You expect me to just sit here and accept every little traumatic thing to me?! I’m sorry, I thought you loved misery and tragedy and whatever else! You just like it if we just curl up and die without fighting back, and easy meal then? Well, FATSO, no more easy meals from me!” She fumed, eating her eggs furiously, “Hey, these are actually pretty good.. did you put chile pepper in these?” M crossed his arms, glaring daggers at her, “Yeah, this ‘Fatso’ knows how to cook. Big surprise. Also, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m anything BUT fat. I take my weight very seriously! I never over indulge in any meal.” He was right, she looked at him closer while nibbling the toast, he had muscle but it was very lean, in the wrong clothes, he would be extremely lanky. But in the pants and button down shirt tucked in, he just looked toned and fit and much to her resentment, she’d even consider him extremely attractive. Swiveling her ears back, she kept him in her sights, sipping the tea. Blinking she looked in the cup, “Is this…Raspberry leaf?” She takes another sip, analyzing the taste by swishing it around her tongue. “Nettle.. and dandelion.. This is menstrual tea. How did..?”

“When you get to be my age, you pick up a thing or two.” He lights a cigarette and runs his fingers through his hair, his horns looked different today, it was more of a unicorn horn than two demon horns. He also had his tentacles and wings tucked out of sight when he had entered the room. Carmen tilted her head finishing her tea and wiping the rest of the egg up with the last bit of toast, “Not to keep asking personal questions, but you don’t look any older than late 20’s. How old are you?” He rolled his eyes and counted on his fingers, “Lesse… 3, carry the one… how many years ago was that asteroid that killed the dinosaurs again?” She scoffed, “Ok, I get it, you’re old. I doubt that old but I won’t pry.” She sets the tray aside and slouches back with a wince, placing the heating pad onto her abdomen, sighing. “Thank you. I certainly needed your help back there. I’m sorry for being difficult but I am grateful you came by when you did.”

He shrugged and flicked the ash, “Meh. Can’t say its what I do but at least I know where there is opportunity. At least I know how to make you tolerable. All I gotta do is feed you, then no more yelling.”

“I’m not that simple. But the food was delicious. Last night you said I was the only way to get something you wanted.. what was that?” She inquired. He groaned in renewed annoyance, “Again with the questions.. all I wanted was fuckin closure. It was the last thing Wally wanted from me and as long as I got you outta there and some place safe to dump you, I was free and clear of his debt.” She sat and fidgeted with the sheet hem, “I guess we both deserve closure. I’ll help you get your closure if you help me with something.”

He raised an eyebrow taking another long draw, “Ok, I’ll bite. Whatcha need? Because once I’m done with you, I’m gone. You’ll never see me lookin after yer sorry ass again.” Carmen nodded, “Thats fair. All I need is to get back into that asylum. I need some information.” His head snapped up and groaned “You want to.. Rrrrrgh, why the fuck do you want to go back there?! Theres nothing! Look what they did to you! You… you want me to be tethered to you forever and be your fuckin slave.. bullshit! I wont do it! I aint risking my neck for nobody!”

Carmen slow blinked at his tantrum. “I’m glad you agreed to risk your neck. Now I just need to get there, I’ll do the rest-“ “I said no.” He growled. She tilted her head, “Actually, you used a double negative which in grammar terms, you do agree. So anyway as I was saying..” she looked up at him just in time to see the bedroom door slam. “Well that was rude..”

[bridgyrose]

Please can we get more of the Faunus Raven AU. Seems super interesting.

Raven flew through the trees on Patch, feathers shifting colors in the light as she tried to keep herself unseen as she flew closer to the home at the edge of the forest. As she lowered herself, she shifted and bounded from tree to tree, her skin keeping herself camouflaged as she finally made it to the edge of the forest. A small smile crossed her lips as she watched Yang spar with her father… until she felt a rock hit the back of her head and caused her to lose her balance. 

“You’re late, Raven,” Qrow said as he tossed a small pebble in his hand. “I thought you were going to be on time today.” 

“I am on time, not my fault they started early!” Raven half-yelled as she caught her balance and rubbed the back of her head. A heavy sigh left her as she made her way down the tree. “I would’ve been back sooner, but I… had to check on something.” 

“You were looking for Summer again, werent you?” 

“Because she’s not dead!” Raven’s skin turned red and yellow as she yelled at her brother, her fingers tensed up as she took a breath to calm herself. “She’s… she’s not dead. She’s out there somewhere, I know it. I… I just need time to figure out why my semblance doesnt work to get to her-” 

“Because she’s gone and we all need to accept it.” Qrow sighed and leaned up against a tree. “We… need to accept that she’s gone and isnt coming back. But that’s not anything you should worry about right now. You need to get to Yang.” 

Raven nodded and slowly walked over to the house as she watched Yang spar with Tai. Golden scales reflected light and shone the same way her hair did in the sun. “I thought you both were going to wait until I got back.” 

“Yang… got a bit… excited.” Tai quickly dodged out of the way of one of Yang’s punches and grabbed her arm to stop her. “Time to take a break, my little sunny dragon.” 

“But daaaad-” 

“No buts. You promised your mother you’d train with her when she got back.” 

Yang rolled her eyes and smiled, scales shimmering against the sun like flames. “What are you going to teach me today?” 

Raven motioned for Yang to follow her into the forest. “Today, I’m going to teach you a little about survival.” 

“I thought you were going to teach me how to use a sword like dad’s been teaching me close quarters combat.” Yang rushed ahead and jumped up onto a fallen log and mimicked how she watched her mother hold a sword. She made a few quick slashes in the air with a small grin. “Dad says you’re deadly with a single strike! O-or you can show me how to use a sword like Qrow’s! Or maybe-” 

“After your first year at Signal, I’ll teach you how to use a sword. But how to use weapons is only a part of how to be a great huntress. Knowing how to survive, blending in with your surroundings-” Raven smiled as she disappeared into the shadows. “-knowing your own talents and how to keep yourself alive are all equally needed. And since I grew up outside of the kingdoms, I’m better suited to teach you than your father is.” 

Yang watched as Raven reappeared, her skin taking its natural color again. “And how do you plan to do that?” 

Raven smiled and pulled out her sword and sliced into the air, her semblance activating as a portal opened in front of her like a tear. “I’m going to take you on a trip to watch my old tribe. No better way to learn than trial by fire.”

[mokutone]

Hi hi! do you happen to have any favourite watercolor artists/ inspirations? specifically ones that rlly influenced your art style? I've tried searching up keywords like "favorite" etc but tumblr search engine is a little iffy, anyways! i adore your art and seeing your process videos make watercolours look like such a fun process and tbh less daunting than what it seems. Your blog is sending me down a rabbit hole of inks and watercolors and aaa its so fun to find gems on this nonfunctional website

OOOOOOH i dont think ive actually been asked this before!!! ty!!!

the truth is when it comes to watercolor im mostly flying by the seat of my pants 😅 but there are definitely watercolor artists that i love even i do not consciously do studies of their work! i should really study more watercolor artists bc its probably foolish to practice a medium while remaining ignorant of the big names within it.

i hope u find these interesting:

This is one of my favorites, it's called The Meeting on the Turret Stairs by 1864 Frederic William Burton. this is WATERCOLOR. good god. help. if you get really in close you can see how he built it up with delicate different colors. Anyway, the solidness of the bodies, the like...the romance in it all, the way the metal reflects the fabric, the detail in the chainmail and the absolute softness in the background...ough. its good. this is a painting which in all ways knows exactly what its about and executes it perfectly

and then there's the watercolor sketches of Hayao Miyazaki obvs skgjhdskgh, i like how loose he is and how clear, and how he isnt scared of the white spaces between where colors meet. i know these arent meant to be final products just like. indications of how the animation should be...but they enchant me so much...i want to be able to do watercolor sketches like that!

Albrecht Dürer does a lot of very detailed illustrations in watercolor, he's a weird guy from the 1500s, look how you can tell how the texture of the hare changes from its back to its underbelly. also, unrelated to his watercolor skills, i just like how he signs his work by putting a d beneath a little A arch. His mastery of textures is delightful and his attention and carefulness with detail is admirable

also i'm gonna mention Akihiro Yamada's watercolor + ink illustrations, specifically for 12 Kingdoms. I haven't spent a lot of my time looking at them but every time i do i find that there's something i want to emulate abt them...something abt the detailed inks and the way he does shadows with watercolor...something abt it rlly speaks to me. i think a lot of my weird shadow experiments are trying to achieve a feeling i get from his work. I think that these are the most like...the most like what I want to do? While also being definitely something other than what I would pursue. Hard to explain. Love to look at them though here's three of them

also

i would absolutely be remiss if i did not mention one of the people who inspired me to get back into watercolor originally, @marina-does-things and here is an excellent example of their work. Here is another (squid game fanart!) They're SO skilled at watercolor and gouache, and especially at conveying light + shadow, highlights and playing with color...when I think of their artwork I think of the light in it the most, u can really tell just by looking at their work that theyre so comfortable with the medium + have put a lot of effort and work into playing with it and gaining skills, theyre also a skilled digital artist too, all around triple-threat. They also do comics and WATERCOLOR comics at that (here is a link to a post of their excellent 80 page watercolor comic piece based on an episode of the podcast WOLF 359) !!! just an extraordinarily cool and talented artist

anyway, i hope this was useful to you!

[diamondcamefromhell]

Blood Moon

Part One of the Blood Moon series

A/N: for A/N see after the fic

Blood Moon summary: Lena (pronounced as Le-na, not Leena) is a renounced witch, a grisha feared. Aleksander goes by many names, not many of which ring true. The pair is similar in more ways than one, but also as different as can be. One seeks power, another fears what the hunger might cost them both, however there is something about the darkness that invited them both. They meet in the middle, where the world collides. 

Important info: this takes place before the shadow and bone/six of crows, before there even is a shadow fold, and there isnt that much information about grishaverse in those times (note i havent looked much outside what books provide) i am taking a lot of creative freedom with it!

enjoy!

Lena wasn‘t sure how she ended up here, but she knew better than to ask questions. Aleksander, as she knew him, was a kind man. To her. Or maybe she was just one more foolish girl to him, whichever it was, he had accepted her for who she was.

A blood witch, many called her. All across Ravka and even beyond. They both had extraordinary talents, but for whatever reason, Aleksander was more accepted than her. Or, as accepted as grisha could be in these times. However, Lena remembered making the King himself kneel before her, then downing his entire army to do the same.

The power she felt, the name she earned. She used to wear lifeless colours, blending in, but she wore deepest of reds now, which seemed to be more fitting. It matched Aleksanders black attire quite nicely.

She counted herself lucky to even know him by that name, as he would never use it nowadays. He was known as something else, a shadow just passing through.

Aleksander was looking at the girl now, remembering his own mother, who once pretended to go by that name too – just like Lena did now. To him, she was Telyna, but for many reasons she didn’t like sharing, she despised that name.

Telyna was who she was before she became worthy of being a blood witch, it was a time of drowning and fear and pain. She broke through, but it cost her greatly, sometimes she wondered if it cost her humanity herself.

Aleksander liked that about her, as she stood there, glowing and graceful, radiating the power she had within. He saw the army kneel against their will. The world could be theirs, as they knew it.

But he needed to get stronger, to be worthy to stand next to her.

Lena looked at the man as shadows danced around them and he caught her gaze, smirking. The shadow extended, and she couldn’t see the light anymore.

“Impressive.” She said lazily, rubbing her hands on her cloak.

“Not enough to take down an entire army.” He said, letting the shadows drop – sunlight returned making Lena cover her eyes.

“No, I’m afraid not.” She agreed as he came to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. She felt the surge of power rush through her, as a reminder that he is an amplifier. Her mind for a second thought about what she could be is she bore his bones permanently, but she chased the thought away.

“Together we could-“

“Have the Ravka, Shu Han, Fjerda. Our reach might take Ketterdam and the whole world.” She finished as Aleksander just grinned.

She glanced at him and he involuntarily stepped back. His face grew tense but there was playfulness behind his eyes.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do that.” She let him go, dropping herself to the grass and staring at the surrounding area. They were in an opening in a forest north of Ravka, close to the border.

“I thought we agreed not to discuss your plans to take over the world, Aleksander.” He pressed his lips tightly. This was a discussion neither of them really enjoyed.

“You almost took down the king.” Lena shot him a glance, sending him to his knees. He grunted but remained silent.

“It was for his treatment of grisha. Now he may never forget that if we wished to, we could destroy him and all he stands for.” Her voice trembled in anger. “That was his final warning.”

“Until he hurts another grisha.” Lena looked at Aleksander, who was still on his knees, staring at her. Shadows seeped out of him, seemingly not out of his will. She looked away.

“Then I will have him bring me his own head.” She said through her teeth. The woman couldn’t see Aleksander grin, as if he was twisting up a plan.

She only heard grass move and they were surrounded by darkness again. Even in it, she could see Aleksanders face change, as his shoulder relaxed, his skin began to glow. He looked better the further the darkness reached, and Lena wondered, what was happening to his soul in these moments.

Was he letting the darkness out, hence the glow, or was he letting it in, nest inside of him tainting all there is, eating him from inside out.

Lena has met Baghra once, even if she has been acquainted with Aleksander for some years now. The woman looked at her son with so much love, the girl felt herself grow jealous, even if just a little. But there was something behind her eyes there too, and only weeks later Lena had realized it was fear.

At first, she thought that it was for him, but perhaps it was for the world. Aleksander seemed to grow more and more power hungry every day he spent traveling across Ravka with her. They had no goals. After their visit to the royal court, they were both, hunted and feared.

But neither of those things really gave them power. And Aleksander wanted power.

Lena was scared to let him too close. To drink up his darkness, out of fear for becoming more like him, for wanting the world. She hated herself for what she did at court, yet she felt ecstatic about it too – using her power to it’s full potential. The fear in their faces.

She couldn’t see her cloak anymore, but the dark red was getting in her skin like permanent ink. She was owning the blood witch status. She loved being a scary story kids, to otkazat’sya. She was legend, she was seen and feared.

She hated how it made her feel. But she loved it too. She understood Aleksander better than anyone.

The sun reached her again as the man looked at her, gracing her with a full-toothed smile.

“That was better.” For a moment, he looked like a child. They never discussed their true age, but in the many lifetimes they are yet to have, perhaps they were just kids now. Two small children playing with fire they might not be able to contain.

“It was.” She said, against her better judgement.

There was a steam nearby. She felt the water as she was a Tidemaker, a name that seemed to stick to those of Small Magic who learnt how to manipulate water. She couldn’t see it behind the trees, but her lips twitched as the tried to hold back a grin.

She lifted her arm, twisting it a little, and then flicking it. Water rushed from its source, soaking Aleksander who seemed to be struck by it unexpectedly. He was staring at her in disbelief as she allowed the water to fully drop, her laugh echoing across the forest.

“You should see your face.” She was bent over with laughter, but she still could see Aleksander biting back a smile too, until he burst out laughing. Lena knew he must be freezing though, so she did her best to get water off of him and his clothes once they had finished laughing.

They set camp then, sitting close by the fire. There was a comfortable silence between then as it seemed they have had all of the conversations through the years. Lena still felt herself yearn to hear him speak, tell a story of his earlier life, but he didn’t have many happy ones.

Nor did she.

“Do you think there is more people like us?” She asked, curiously, watching the embers in the fire.

“There aren’t anybody else like us.” Aleksander was looking at the girl, so she met his dark eyes. “And there never will be.”

“What makes you say that?” Lena asked as Aleksander smirked, closing his eyes and leaning in. Her heart skipped a beat as the girl shut her own eyes, but the man simply landed his forehead on hers.

“You and me, we are going to change the world.”

********************************************

A/N: Hey, hey, so, I am kinda back? Idk if I will be writing Y/N fics (tho I do plan to do it) Ive had this idea of Darkling [kinda] fic for awhile, and i have it started on AO3 HOWEVER, the story there takes place in Grishaverse as we know it, aka, around Shadow and Bone trilogy era, whereas what I am sharing here is the backstory of Lena and Darkling, so I hope y’all enjoyed?? Let me know what u think, anonymous feedback can be left on my ask page. This part is short and they all might be, so i can get them out faster, that is if you actually like it?

either way, shooting my shot.

CANT WAIT FOR TV SHOW

[thelesbianlegacy-swtor]

OC list of the MMO LESBIAN

SarapAlexandria Duvel <3 Vette

Sith Warrior

Human, brown short hair, 1,78, D cups, she likes dressin on armor that is bulkier than a tank or in a tank top and leggings. Dark eyes and light skin

Lesbian. LOVES toys in bed

Headcannons

Has a personal Dreagnough that she uses as a colliseum. She has taken into training new sith in combat. More than her apprentices they are more of gladiators for her to fight.

Kinda crazy. Likes to bounce around and do Tons of damage. She is feroucios about defending the Empire and believes that the republic is doomed. Has archived the impossible more than a dozen times so no plan is to crazy or stupid for her. Gratefully, her wife knows what is too stupid or too crazy and so she fixes those plans so her big sith girl can go fight monsters and other people.

Married Vette. Only she can make her laught so much that she forgets she is angry. The tiny girl is so adorable and so cute and jsut so horny for Alexandria that the two of them spend 3 months on a horny induced honeymoon. Even now after the war with zakuul they keep having more honeymoons whenever they get the chance.

She wasnt all that hurt by Quinns betratal. Like, hey man fatman told you to kill me so no biggie- But from now on you are my bitch and i will bully you over all this k?

Jaesa kinda bugs her. She is Dark side but not SO crazy but still she is kinda...tiny. Alexandria likes to challenge her to crazy stuff and she always gets on trouble with her, but Jaesa is so young and sometimes weak that 

Pierce is her best freind. A total madman when it comes to battle, a blootthirsty man that will not doubt in choosing violence but also super trusthworthy and she knows he will stop her from getting killed in stupid ways

For her Broonmark is her fluffy monster! Just point release and watch blood by spilled. She makes him shower after every bottle and use proucts on his hair cause she likes how soft he gets.

She remains a free agent causing chaos everywhere. She is not quick to kill always tho. If she got a good fight with someone she will usually let them live so they can fight again.

She is the most sexually proactive girl around. She will get every pair of cute or hot tiddies on a bed along side Vette. She is a bit dom and doesnt like playing sub, but she will play passive.

Master of Shien and Juyo, she likes to go crazy with a lightsaber and destroying the place but doesnt really like dual wielding

Seraphine <3 Temple

Sith Agent. New code name: Specter

Cyborg, mostly internal components on her eye, brain and bones. 1,96M, Long hair, usually red but she likes dying it. C cups, She wishses to get more tits but she has to be stealthy. She likes using loose clothes with lots of cleavege. She isnt a fan of bras.

Lesbian Switch. Likes bondage and public stuff. She can and will play any part on roleplay. From the scared virgin to the cruel dominatrix

Headcannons

A master of hidding on plain sight. Seraphine is the kind of woman who blends everywhere. She likes attention from the spotlight just to let it go 5 minutes later. She has the talent of being so likeable that any girl that gets close to her on bed, never gets mad with her for leaving or just going for another girl. She also has a perfect memory and will remember how you like to be touch, how much you moan or what kind of cnadies you like when you are on your days. She is as soft as she is Ruthless. She has never regret killing anyone for more than an hour. Unless she kils someone she has slept with she will pull the triger no matter what. This includes civilians, wounded and allies. After Chapter 3 she left the identity of Cypher 9 and became a shadow agent for the Empire. Her new code name: Specter. 

After the War with Zakuul she was left on charge ofthe Alliance by Darth Nox. Both the Ex Imperial Wrath and the Supreme Huntress stayed behind with her. 

She doesnt like Kaliyo. No. She is no fun. She likes to hurt and doesnt look after girls. She was particulary angry at her at the start because she would try to get on the way of her time with other girls. So Seraphine got Kaliyo a cute chasity belt and allowed her to focus on chaos outside the bedroom. That way they both can get what they want. Chaos and attention.

Vector is her special little guy. Confident. Trusthworthy. But really fun to mess up with. Seraphine tells him to do weird stuff just to get a laught at weird situation. She also helps him send money for Killik Joiners. She likes that he is simple

Lokin is a weird guy for Seraphine.He could do a lot of stuff with the ragkghoul virus but she likes that he is quiet and calm. She likes trying tea with him

Ensign Temple is the only girl that has kept Seraphine attention span for more than 1 night. She likes her a lot because she cant read her as well as other people and so she makes her angry just to learn more about her. She forgot how it felt to get to know someone through time and so she likes to keep her around. She also likes Temple is super organized and loyal

Seraphine can never choose fast between either a big rifle or a tiny blade under her dress. She likes how chaos erupts after a person gets shots down but she also likes to be close when her target takes their last breath

FUCK SCORPIO UwU

Arthemys Delos <3 Mako

Huntress

Built like a tank, She likes lifting Mako to train her big guns. She is a cyborg with lots of internal components and a cybernetic leg (left) She isnt the tallest girl, she is 169 (nice) but she has the biggest tiddies. She carries two E cups that she loves to put on Mako’s face. She has black short hair

Lesbian 

Total top but wont say no to being topped every know and then

Headcannons

Money,gambling, explosions and pretty girls, Arthemis cares for little more than that. As long as she can fire guns, gamble money and have a bed with a pretty girl on it she will do an job. She loves hunting animals and will almost never reject a bounty. What she wont do, is just say yes to any quest or mission. She can get money as easy as she can waste it and so throwin credits at her doesnt work. Only if the work isnt something she dislikes or too easy or boring she will do it. She has a few internal implants after playing with grenades when she was young.

Mako is hers. Hers alone. She wont let her go beyon her sight and will actually get restless for being away from her too long. Arthemis is possesive which Mako kinda likes.

The two of them likes being on top of eachother as much as possible but a extra pair of hands or tiddies make them both pretty happy. Most of the time, is actually Mako who gets the girl.

Gault is jsut too fun not to keep around. Arthemis wouldnt call him his best friend becuase she suspects the guys can be bought but he is fun either way. She like getting a lot of money with him and then wasting it all or just not taking the pay,just to mess up with him.

Torian is fun. Sometimes. He is a mandalorian and she likes fighting strong people. But Torian is a bit more serious that she would like. She doesnt like people dying because then she cant fight them again and so she doesnt like some decisions of the mandalorian. But at the end of the day the trust that the two share is one of a brotherhood.

Blizz. God Damm Blizz. When Arthemis got Mako on her bed and then into her family she thought she coulnt be happier. She was wrong. The little jawa makes everything better. As chaotic as her and even weirder than Gault, Arthemis just cant stop keeping the jawa around

YOU READ MY COMMENT ABOUT SCORPIO? WELL THAT X2

Selendis likes using two big guns to shot down her enemies. She doesnt really enjoy going around in huge armor so she keeps herself kinda light. But her armor is still a bit big. Why you ask? Cause she loves the feeling of having not only a flamethrower but also grenades, missiles, hooks and electric weapons all stuffed in her body. 

Selendis <3 Lana and Senya

Sith Inquisitor

Sith girl with piercing orange eus and long amazing black hair. She is 182 and as sith that focus on range combat, she took the luxury of enhancing her breasts to a nice DD cups. She doesnt like jewelry but she has a few tattoos. 

Sorcerer

Lesbian. The one to dom them all.

No amount of girls is too much when it comes to Selendys

A proud, stylish and master manipulator Selendis believes that the empire can be improved but even in its current state is better than the republic. She is patient and ruthless and wont stop until the galaxy is back on order. She left the alliance and took overthe sith empire after letting Acina step down. Seriously, no killing her just “Try and stop me from getting the throne”

Khem Val is her personal monster. A warrior of another time which she swears wont ever be forgotten. She has taken into redacting whatever information the dashade gives her. She has task him ith protecting everyone she deems worthy of her interest

Andronikos is a fun and interesting man. He is a pirate with experience and a code. Hard things to find. Selendis enjoys him being slipery and smartass. She also enjoys the acces to the underworld the man provides. Over all she likes that the betrayed man has once more put his trust on someone. She wont abuse it but she prides herself of it

Ashara. The little puppy. She has learn about the dark side and the sith and yet she keeps herself on a reaching point from the jedi order. Still she has a point of view that is useful and welcome. She has teached her everything useful that she could learnt.

Talos. Oh Talos. A men of science and interest. Selendis has swear to protect the smart man just so he can see for once history being made instead of being discovered. Most of the time she has free, she will spent researching stuff with Talos and discussing history

Xalek. Selendis attack dog. A simple desire of the young Kaleesh allowed Selendis to craft a magnificent Student. Xalek belived that she was a god. And so Selendis tasked Xalek to forget about being a kaleesh god, and instead become a sith god. Strength, power, and victory.

Lana Beniko. From the first time Selendis met Lana she was intrigue. A sith that kept her rage and hate deep withing her, so she could serve the empire better. Selendis wasted no time in seducing the sith and keeping her under her control. But soon Selendis lost control and ended up loving her. Lana became her source of power. She would burn the galaxy for her. She also fancid her cute ass and the way she lost control.

Senya Tirall. Selendis doesnt do well with betrayal. And so after defeating Arcann, she was left quite angry when Senya saved him. So, after the war with Zakuul, Selendis threw Senya into a prison and slowly made her crumble. Telling her that both Arcann and Vaylin were death, Offering herself as the only ally, and then leaving her alone. Selendis broke Senya and put her back together in a way that she would enjoy. Despite being more of a pet than a lover, Selendis does love her in her wn special way, and wont let her be hurt.

REPUBLIC OCS

Cassandra (Cassie) Jedi Knight <3 kIRA She tiny! She is 165, amber eyes,C cups she likes to hide on a sport bra and to fight, she has a few scars over her back and shoulder (horny origin) She specialies on Djem So but likes using two lightsbaers instead of one Lesbian Total Bottom girl. Tsundere (will be all agressive but you pet her once and she will melt on your arms)

T7-01 The crimemaster, Teseven will always be there to push Cassie towards any female individual just so Cassie can stop winning about not having a girlfriend. Each time it works, but Cassie ends up lossing the contact or getting pulled out from plannet by the council

Kira. Or like Cassie likes to call her, babe! Cassie was sweap of her feat by how chaotic her padawan was an how incredible persistent she was on taking baths together, giving eachother massages and just being close. Cassie lasted 2.6 seconds the first time she gave her a kiss and fron that day on, she is either fighting or on her girlfriend’s arms. Kira likes to tease Cassie and on nights she makes sure to give her all of her love

Doc. The best partner. Doc is always there for Cassie, wherever she is doing good or bad. Or doing ilegal or legal stuff. He knows Cassie will jump towards danger and he will be there to help her make the galaxy a better place Rusk. There are few things that Rusk hates more than the empire and one of them is how Cassie jumps on top of his back because she is to tiny to get food by herself. Even then, he will die for his little sister becuase he knows she will defeat the empire some day

Scourge. The big old sith might have forgotten what means love, pain or feelings, but he respects Cassie. He knows that despite her size the little jedi is more than capable of busting whatever walls appear on her way, even if it means tapping on the dark side. 

Bella Jedi consular <3 NADIA

She is a curvy girl. D cps on a tallish girl, 178, with a dump track ass. She is thick and she is SHY about it. She likes baggy clothes so her body doesnt show too much. She feels that healing people with her skills is the best call for her but she also agrees that sometimes throwin a massive bould to minnies is good

Qyzen.  Qyzen and Bella are good frends. Mostly, because Qyzen will gladly shoot anyone who calls Bella on her fat ass, and Bella will drop a boulder on anyone who calls him green skin or lizard. The two of them are the type of people who fixate on stuff and they enjoy their hobbies

Tharan. To be honest. Bella didnt think it thorugh when she got Tharan to come with. She was doing it mosly out of pity and because she needed some help. But mostly she just liked Holiday and would be more interested on keeping her rather than him. 

Zenith. Oh dear Zenith. Bella enjoys Zenith attiude. There is little more than that. She isnt as extremist as he is, but she knows that he will do everything on his power to defeat the empire and protect the inocent

Iresso. Oh Ireso is fun. Bella likes to bully him in little wyas. Sometimes she will just pick something ilegal to do to get on his nerves. Thats alls. Well he is all good and good for fights but Bella likes how correct he is and that she can make him mad

Nadia: Her love. Her mistress. Her everything. Everyone has thirsted for her body, and so Bella usually isnt ready to believe most words of love and affection, but Nadia persisted for months, being almost addicted to her body. And so one day Bella let her padawan into her bedroom and cried over her love. Nadia is the type of girl who will devote her heart and soul to her love. She CANT keep her hands off Bella’s body tho, which makes it hard for her to keep clean underwear around

NEW OCS FROM THE NOT PC OCS GAME. 

PRESENTING. THE ARTIST

Sarah Novadust

The lead singer and dancer of the Imperial Idol group “Royal Novas” 

A tallish girl (175cm) a bit petite looking but upclose you notice she has a good pair of thighs and some nice ass. She has GOLDEN hair. Not blonde. Golden. She keeps it on a long ponytail that reaches all the way back to her ass. She is a human girl of 22 years old with Purple eyes due to some alien grandparents

She leads the Royal Nova an Idol Group originated on the Empire. The group is formed by her, 3 back up singers, 5 back up dancers, 2 guitars, piano, drums, violin, and 1 trumpet. The 15 girls are all REAL close to Sarah.. More on that later

Sarah was born on Sarapin. She worked on being an artist since she was young, but when she was around 15 she was blacklisted from most musical firms on the republic over a incident with a manager that wanted to taste her body. Sarah left to spent some times with friends back on Balmorra when the empire attacked. FOr a couple of years she layed low working on some cantinas singing to earn a living. It was there when some sith lady saw her and brought her to Kaas City. Sarah would keep singing for more and more excentic public until she had the favour of enough people that she could stay safe and solo. Then after saving up for some time, she went and convinved a few sith lords and sith officers to put some credits on for a full on idol group. She invited friends and scouted for talent all over the galaxy

As an artist, Sarah likes mixing her young excitement with imperial overconfidense. She knows that playing it safe wont work and so she makes every song and perfomance into a way to improve herself more and more. With a big group of girls to help her she has managed to perform or even Dark council members and Senators from the republic. 

As a young woman, Sarah attracts a lot of people. She isnt the most strong willed person, nor she is particulary aggresive. That is excaclty the reason why each and every member of the Royal Novas is madly in love with her. Each girl looks over their leader as a little kitten to be protected. Of course, Sarah doesnt mind the attention and as long everyone plays nice, she will open her heart to the entire group. With 22 years old, a massive fallowing, more credits that she can count and a polyamourous relationship with 14 girls, Sarah's life is just the best

[beelsnack]

Hey friend, can I request Simeon saving enby MC from danger? Maybe Lucifer had flipped his lid again, or maybe it's still the start of the exchange program and MC isnt accustomed to the amount of demons that want to eat their flesh? Let MC get saved by a literal guardian angel pls

Diavolo had done a very thorough job of planning the exchange program. He had considered the humans’ physical and mental health, provided a monthly stipend and allowed them to work at RAD for extra spending money, and even made a special human menu in the cafeteria, run by a matronly witch who definitely cooked lost children in a cauldron. But there was one thing that Diavolo seemed to have forgotten to give them.

A fucking map.

Getting lost in a normal, Human Realm school was enough to induce anxiety. Getting lost in a school from Hell that had literal torture chambers in the lower levels? That was the plot of a horror movie.

Their footsteps echoed off of the stone walls as they tried to get their bearings. They were almost positive that they had been in this hallway before. Probably. Maybe? They hadn’t quite mastered the Infernal alphabet yet. But the squiggles looked kind of familiar, and they were going to put that in the success category.

...Except the only thing they had succeeded in was going to circles.

“Argh, damn it!” they cried out in frustration. They almost punched the wall, but they didn’t need to add a broken hand on top of their current predicament. “Fuck this fucking Labyrinthine-ass Hellhole!”

“Ooh, listen to those big words coming from such a tiny human.”

The voice had the same teasing lilt to it that Asmodeus’ did, but when they turned around, the demon smirking at them was definitely not Asmo.

They were a lower-level demon, one without a humanoid form. Their skin was so translucent that their pink veins made them appear that they were glowing. Obsidian horns curved backwards over wild dark-brown hair, and their eyes were pure black. Even without any magical talent, the human could feel the ill-intent rolling off of them in waves.

The demon sauntered up to them, swinging their hips in an almost cartoonish imitation of seduction. “Aw, are you lost? Poor little thing.”

Instinctively, they backed up against the wall. All of Mammon’s warning flashed through their mind. If a demon comes after you, run. Don’t try to fight, because they’ll rip you apart. Call me, or any of us, if you get cornered.

“I’m fine.” they bit out sharply.

“Really?” the demon tilted their head, curling a claw under their chin. “That lovely string of curses you just spat tells me otherwise.” 

The human bit their lip nervously. Every hair on the back of their neck stood on end, and they swore they felt the air around them become more humid as the demon stepped closer. They grinned, mouth too wide with too many teeth. They could probably smell the human’s fear.

“Why don’t you let me escort you out of here?” the demon’s pitch black eyes flashed like a blade catching the light, and something about the aura they were giving off shifted. It felt…greasy. Like oil spilling across an ocean. The demon was trying to Charm them.

Asmodeus had tried it once, and even though they were resistant to it, they could still feel it. Asmo’s Charm felt more like drops of rose oil in a bath. This felt like gasoline.

“I don’t think so,” they straightened defiantly, glaring at the demon. “Try your snake charming on someone else.”

The demon recoiled like they had been slapped. For a moment, they could do nothing but blink stupidly at the human, before the shock twisted into an annoyed snarl. “You don’t have magic. What kind of spell could you do to resist my Charm?”

The human waggled their fingers mockingly. “Abraca-Douchebag.”

The demon growled, claws extending. “You little - “

“That’s enough of that.”

Both of them turned to the end of the hallway. Standing beneath the stone archway, wings out and emitting an ethereal glow, was Simeon.

The demon hissed, flinching away from the light. “What do you want, angel?”

Simeon took a step forward, and the demon stepped back. The light coming off of Simeon’s wings must have burned.

“Your offer to escort them is appreciated,” he stopped next to the human, watching the demon practically trip over themself as they scrambled to avoid the light. “But I believe I can take it from here.”

Trembling, the demon spat at Simeon’s feet. “Leave it to an angel to ruin my fun.”

“Leave it to a demon to find the murder of an innocent fun.” Simeon shot back. His tone was light and even somewhat pleasant, but his bright blue eyes had turned to ice as he regarded the demon. “I’m sure you have other places to be.”

With a final growl, the demon slunk back into the shadows. Simeon turned to the human, eyes softening. “Are you alright?”

“Y-Yeah…” aside from their heart beating in their throat. “Thanks. I thought my soul was on the menu for sure.”

Simeon’s wings flexed and fluttered before disappearing in a shower of shimmery mist. “You’re welcome. Perhaps you shouldn’t be wandering the halls on your own.”

“Mammon got summoned by the witches again,” they sighed, clutching their schoolbag to their chest like it was a life preserver. “I figured I could at least make it to my next class without having to call one of the brothers. And you saw how well that went.”

He nodded. “The Devildom can be tricky to navigate, what with all of the mortal danger lurking around literally every corner.”

“Wow, thanks, that’s real comforting, Simeon.”

He laughed, eyes sparkling. “Come on, I’ll show you the way back.”

[amerasdreams]

My sisters have a beautiful house.

I live at my parenrs

My sisters have a job which more than pays the bills

I have less than $1000/month and that was before covid decimated most of my "income"

My sisters have a husband/fiance.

I have never dated.

1 sister has so much money she didn't even get the stimulus check this year. She has a 2019 car with fancy screens on the inside. Mine is 10 years old and it has . . Um heated seats wow.

My sisters are 4 and 9 years younger than me.

A loser link this can never catch up with the real world enough to be successful enough to even earn enough of a living to have a dumpy apartment in a bad side of town . They have actual houses. 1 has 2 dogs, 1 has a dog and a 10 year old. I am still basically a kid even tho I'm holder and have nothing but a small room in the upstairs with too many books and an old TV my sister gave me, not even flat-screen. What even is this, susrt room with boxes in the corners and a silly closet with silly dreams of a "business" in it ans books overflowing the tottering shelves and tons of rocks and shells i mean what even is that. What kind of weird hermit is this, how could it possibly turn into anything anyone wanted . So far from what most people have as reality most can't even relate. I mean who in their 30s hasn't dated. Hasn't had friends for 12 years. I mean technically every life has value or whatever but practically what kind of value does this life have o myself or others. Can't even do what I love the most, that I practiced the most, probably partly bc I have no life experience. No foundation for anything. No innate talents, cant even succeed at things I've practiced most of my life. No one reads my stories. If they do nor enough to be moved by them. I make silly little crafts I naively think will make me enough money on the side of pet sitting. I think j can make a pet bakery lol. Pet sitting is as complicated a business as I can handle. Who am I kidding. An extremely sensitive extreme introvert like this isn't going any place special. Idk how I cannot hate myself and hate my life bc it can never and never does get further than this no matter what I do. I try with writing, I try to figure out what kind of entrepreneur job I could do, for hours and years... never get anywhere with it, idk how to get anything off the ground and I start something , doesn't seem quite right, then try another thing, find out that isnt really what I thought after trying it etc etc ad infinitum. Help. I toy with going back to school but it would put me in debt with no guarantee I could pay it back. Bc I want to be a freelance intelligence analyst lol. As if. Silly ambitions. . I want a farm but ill be lucky if I can ever buy my own house like my sisters have already. I know rhey despise me, I mean who wouldn't? Makes me want to crawl even deeper into the shadows ans never come out, never let tr light of day touch my dry, oily, acne scarred face and half red, half brown ans silver hair yikes. I mean. I don't blame people on the street who don't even want to look at me.

Boom

[techurou]

hi. it’s been a long time.

it feels like it’s been eighty four years since i last posted here. well, to be fair, i deleted my tumblr app after the Tumblr Purge (iykyk) and decided to just lurk in the shadows of the cursed bird app. i came back here to just put my thoughts out into the tumblr web because... we’ve already reached the end, huh?

i remember one saturday morning in the beginning of my road to adulthood, just waiting for breakfast and casually pressing the buttons of our television’s remote control, when i stumbled upon a local anime channel. they were showing haikyuu, that episode when nishinoya was introduced. i remember finding him funny after he promised hinata an ice cream after said boy called him “senpai”. i remember thinking to myself, “ah, im gonna watch this later”. i just wanted to know nishinoya’s name, i didnt know i was on the way to find a new home. as cheesy as it may sound, haikyuu really feels like home to me. home, i think, isnt necessarily a place. home is where you can take refuge after a long tiring day, just there to make you feel better after battling with the shitty world (and maybe your own self sometimes). haikyuu has really touched my life for the better. i cried when the characters cried, i rejoiced when they rejoiced, i empathized when they were experiencing hardships. and last night, while i was reading the final chapter, i was just crying from the first page down to the last. i wasnt crying because i was sad (well... partly), i was crying because i felt so proud of each character. i watched them grow to be the persons they are now. i grew with them. the lessons, the realizations, it will remain forever in me. it’s also kinda reassuring to see the characters happy and content in their lives right now bc hey, if they could do it, maybe we could too. it may be the end of the manga, but it isnt the end of haikyuu itself. we still have the anime, the light novels, the content from this fandom’s talented creators, our own imaginations even if we dont have the confidence to share it to the world, the friends we’ve made because of haikyuu, and the lessons it imparted to us—the readers—will remain forever. anyway, this has gotten longer than i initially planned. i really just wanted to thank haikyuu for being with me for the last five years. now im a few steps shy from full-blown adulthood, and i’ll forever be grateful to furudate-sensei of the lessons they imparted to me through haikyuu. thank you for providing us a home we could always come back to when we’re tired of the world. i will forever be grateful.

[cinnaminsvga]

im dead, ive ascended. that trailer TOOK me tf out what the fuck what the fuck is this how dare he do that to me!! how could one (1) man be that beautiful and talented??? pls explain

hdjsjsjsj oh bro like,, you cant imagine how sad i was after listening to the song,, its just?? yoongi has never been shy when it comes to speaking out about his fears and anxieties with us, so none of this should come as a surprise to us,, but theres just something about his repeated usage of the shadow motif in many of his songs and casual conversations that really makes me wonder how deeply the spotlight of success has affected him,, i feel so strongly for this lil guy and i wish someone could help him lighten his burden, but it isnt easy is it? as daunting and treacherous his shadow may be, the light that he is given is equally as enticing,, i hate how hes conflicted between wanting more and being faced with the consequences of fame and fortune that come thereafter,, i may not be able to fully relate to the magnitude of his fears, but to some degree, i do. and if im terrified of my own self-assigned pressure, then i can only imagine how terrible it must be for him,,

I JUST WANT HIM TO BE HAPPY AND SAFE IM SO FUCKING SAD 😭😭😭

[blasphemings]

eschaton (chapter 2)

chapter 1

continuation of kny au, 6k-ish words, jotaro and kakyoin get into an argument over when it is and isnt ok to eat people. heres the ao3 link

-

-

“Nice of you to finally show.”

Jotaro leaned back on the front steps, unbothered by the frost creeping along the wood. He studied his fingernails rather than look directly at Kakyoin, who crossed his arms and remained silent as though daring him to ask for an apology.

Wind whistling through the leaves punctuated the silence, their shadows falling short under the midnight moon.

Kakyoin stared down at him as he continued studiously looking away, pointedly refusing to get to his feet. Jotaro was fully aware of the effect his height had on people. He was equally aware of how much it unsettled them when he declined to use it to his advantage. No better way to show someone you weren’t about to give them the dignity of being seen as a threat.

If Jotaro was being honest, he hadn’t expected the demon to return the next night in the slightest. He was a little surprised he had come back at all. Regardless, his grandfather’s house got cramped. He had been happy for the excuse to spend the nights elsewhere.

“You’re the only one here?”

Jotaro grunted.

“Where’s your—”

“Avdol took her somewhere safe,” he said icily.

Kakyoin blinked. “Away from me, you mean.”

Silence.

He sighed, somewhere between annoyance and disappointment. “That’s fair,” he said quietly, causing Jotaro to look up at him with mild surprise. The frozen grass crunched softly under Kakyoin’s feet as he drifted towards the house. He took in the mismatched wood with narrowed eyes.

“That’s…” Kakyoin paused. “This is where it happened.”

Not so much a question as an expectant statement. Jotaro suppressed the urge to groan out loud. He had told Avdol so many times that eventually someone was going to notice the haphazard nature of those repairs and start asking questions they wouldn’t want to answer.

He was just lucky the one who had been sharp enough to see was unusually unlikely to react badly to it. Still, the thought of telling the story to him…even if his status had been revoked, Kakyoin had still been a moon, must have proved himself worthy of the title somehow. Jotaro glanced at him, trying to imagine Kakyoin framed in a doorway in the dead of night, covered in the blood of someone who either could not resist or hadn’t had the time to. He could certainly imagine that smile at home in the nightmares of a cruelly spared child, splitting his face in two like a puppet’s to reveal sharp crimson-stained teeth.

The thought turned his stomach. Judging from the quizzical look Kakyoin gave him, his expression reflected his disgust.

“Look, if you…” Kakyoin crossed his arms. “I know you don’t—If you want my help you’ll have to tell me what happened. Eventually.”

He met Jotaro’s glare with steady eyes that reflected the moonlight like a cat’s. Jotaro, for his part, was rapidly regretting having allowed himself to make any decisions while his judgment was clouded by a recent concussion. Getting a stranger involved. Getting a demon involved. What were you thinking?

Well, he hadn’t been thinking. He had been concussed.

Kakyoin rolled his eyes and turned away, acknowledging what appeared to be a lost cause.

“It did happen here.”

He grew very still with his back to Jotaro. Jotaro closed his eyes briefly. His shoulder was wrapped and feeling much better now that the worn ligaments had help holding it together, returning the better part of his agility. So he could probably take Kakyoin’s head off right now if he moved fast enough. Avdol always said the element of surprise was the most powerful form an attack could take.

“Were you here for it?”

Well, he could always go for it later if the bastard was giving him a bad feeling.

“Yeah,” Jotaro said. “Yeah, I was.”

The steps creaked gently under Kakyoin’s weight. His extreme body heat was unnerving; If he hadn’t heard him coming he certainly would have felt him sit down. Jotaro wondered how he ever managed to sneak up on anyone at all.

“What happened?”

“It was…” He swallowed. “It was, like I said, it was…I was fifteen. House got attacked. Demon wasn’t even…he almost looked human. Just the teeth and nails and the, you know.” He gestured to Kakyoin’s eyes.

Kakyoin nodded thoughtfully. “Strange,” he said. “Generally isolated attacks like that end…differently.”

“You’re wondering why he didn’t eat us,” Jotaro replied flatly.

“I am.”

At least he’s straightforward. “I think that was his…I think that was what he was there to do. I don’t think he planned to—for it to end that way. He started…you know, he went for my—my mom. It was like he didn’t even see me there.”

He stumbled over his words, unaccustomed to telling the story out loud. Kakyoin remained silent, blinking at him slowly, until he regained his equilibrium.

“I tried,” Jotaro said. “To protect her. I tried.”

“I believe you.”

He looked up sharply. Kakyoin had spoken so softly he almost believed he could have imagined it.

“I…”

Pale skin and pale hair stained red with Holly’s blood, teeth curved like sickles, gleaming with stolen starlight. He’s smiling, then he’s laughing.

“I got…hurt.”

Jotaro had shoved his sword between the demon’s shoulder blades as hard as he possibly could but the creature’s back may as well have been carved out of rock for all the good it did him. His ears still rang with the crack of the shattering blade during too-quiet moments.

“I’d killed demons before,” Jotaro said defensively, avoiding Kakyoin’s eyes. “I just…he got me. I screwed up and he got me and then he…he went back to my mom. And my leg was broken, so I—I couldn’t. Do anything.”

The leg had really been an afterthought. Yanked up by the arm like a piece of trash in such a way that his shoulder had dislocated and never quite gone back right, left him far too prone to echoes of the old injury if he wasn’t careful, and Jotaro could never justify being careful. Broken nose and two broken ribs, a cut above his left eye that left a faint scar behind after he had failed to stitch it correctly in time for it to heal.

He remembered the way the demon had looked at him with amusement that was so much worse for not being malicious. It hadn’t seen Jotaro as enough of a threat to feel any sort of anger. The only reason it had stamped on his leg to snap it before tossing him aside was to keep him from running away.

“It really looked like he was gonna keep…like he was just going to kill her. Right in front of me. And I had to just…I couldn’t move. He was going to make me watch.”

“You must have been terrified,” murmured Kakyoin.

Jotaro stared at him, once more thrown off by the soft tone. He considered shaking Kakyoin just to get that faraway expression off of his face.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I was.”

“What made him change his mind?”

“He said…” Jotaro shuddered. “He just sort of. Stopped. Looked at her. Started—laughing, a little. He said it would be a shame to waste such a pretty face and that he was going to turn her and—and leave me there like that. So she would…”

“So she would eat you,” Kakyoin said bluntly. “When she woke up.”

A snack, the demon had purred, grinning down at Jotaro. Hope she remembers to thank me next time we run into each other. I’m a nice guy, you know.

“He did something to her with his nails,” Jotaro muttered. He stared at the trees without seeing them. “Cut open her arm with them instead of using his teeth like he’d been doing. Then he—carved at his own arm. Slashed it. So he could drip his blood into the—you know.”

“I do know,” Kakyoin replied coolly, and it occurred to Jotaro that he would know from experience. He looked at Kakyoin curiously.

Kakyoin stretched his hand out in front of him, watching it silhouetted in the light of a waning moon. “Did he say what his name was?”

“The demon?”

“Mhm.”

“Dio,” Jotaro said. The memory made his hands shake with anger, and he balled them into fists to conceal it.

Kakyoin gazed straight ahead with unfocused eyes. “Dio, huh,” he said after a long moment.

“That’s what he said his name was.”

“Interesting.”

“You know him?”

“I wouldn’t quite put it that way,” Kakyoin said delicately.

Jotaro narrowed his eyes, wanting to ask more, but the previous thought still scratched at the back of his mind. Kakyoin would know how it looked to get turned from experience. He had already imagined him on the giving end of the curse. He hadn’t thought to consider that he must, by necessity, have received it as well.

“Kakyoin.” It was the first time he had said his name out loud, and it felt strange on his tongue, as though it belonged to an unfamiliar language. “You got turned.”

Kakyoin gave him a withering look. “Astute observation.”

“How did you—”

“Your mother,” he interrupted, waving away the question as if to say not important. “When she woke up. What was she like?”

At fist Jotaro was hesitant, but if Kakyoin’s interest was manufactured, he was an exceptionally talented liar. For the most part he just listened, occasionally appearing so lost in thought that it was hard to imagine he was paying attention at all until he interrupted Jotaro with a question from specific enough to prove he hadn’t missed a single word. Slowly Kakyoin drew the whole story out of him; how Holly had seemed more confused and afraid than anything else when she finally did wake up that first night, how he had called out to her and received no response, how she had eventually curled into a ball in the corner where the light couldn’t reach her and fallen still. Jotaro had thought she was dead. If he hadn’t caught sight of the slitted pupils as she looked around wildly he might have had a hard time believing she had been turned into a demon in the first place. She hadn’t tried to run, and she certainly hadn’t tried to attack him.

The line of questioning shifted towards Holly’s current state, patterns Jotaro might have seen in her behavior, and it was almost a relief to relate what he had noticed over the years after keeping the desperate secret for so long. As long as he didn’t think too hard about who it was he was talking to, Kakyoin’s concern appeared genuine enough.

Finally he fell silent, his eyes on the fading stars. Dawn was closer than he had imagined it would be. Jotaro had talked for longer than he had meant to. He hadn’t really meant to talk at all.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected. He had half imagined the night would end with him lopping off a demon’s head as he usually did, but was surprised to find he felt inclined to leave Kakyoin’s where it was for the time being.

“You don’t…” Kakyoin sighed. “Listen, you don’t have to let me see her. I understand your—but the only way I can really understand her situation is if I can talk to her. I need to know—”

“If you’ve got questions you can ask me,” Jotaro said flatly.

“Really.” He raised his eyebrows. “So you can explain, in detail, the nature of her hunger? She related to you exactly how difficult it has been to refrain from attacking you? I wasn’t under the impression your mother was verbal at all.”

Jotaro glared at him, all the more annoyed because he was right. “Don’t you know how to wake her up?”

As if it would be that easy. He refused to even acknowledge that he hoped for something like that, no matter what the murmurs at the back of his mind insisted was possible. But Kakyoin had implied he would be able to help, and Jotaro could still be put off by his apparently having more questions than answers.

“Well,” Kakyoin said carefully. “I have…a number of ideas, actually..”

“And?”

“And I have a feeling you wouldn’t like them very much.”

Jotaro snorted. “Considerate of you.”

“I try.”

Kakyoin stood and stretched. “I’ll look into it,” he said. “You know…I may have—might be disgraced as far as title goes but I can’t imagine all of my old connections have blacklisted me entirely. Can try to see if anything like this has happened before.”

Jotaro leaned back on his elbows. “Can I ask you something?”

“You need my permission?”

“Why do you care?”

He paused. “I’m sorry?”

“Why’d you even give a shit about what’s going on with my mom in the first place?”

Kakyoin looked back at him quizzically. “Did you forget that it was you who asked me for help?”

Yeah, because I had a concussion. He was lucky he had chosen someone who seemed to be particularly bad at being a demon. The aftermath of his bad decision could have been much messier.

“You didn’t have to come back,” Jotaro said. “You didn’t have to come back to—either time.”

“No.” He glanced at the sky. “No, I didn’t.”

“So why?”

Kakyoin sighed. For a long moment it appeared as though he wouldn’t answer at all.

“I would like to believe,” he muttered, almost too quietly to make out, “that we don’t…that we aren’t all doomed to end up…the same way.”

Jotaro watched him, waiting for more, but he appeared to believe he had said enough. Probably just a platitude, he thought. What else could he expect Kakyoin to say?

Still…

“You should get out of here,” Jotaro said, and Kakyoin blinked down at him with a distant expression. “Before you get roasted,” he added.

“How sweet,” Kakyoin said dryly. He hesitated. “You have any of those…you expecting to get called out of town to headhunt anytime soon?”

“Can’t promise anything.”

“I’ll come back, then.” He shrugged. “In a few days.”

“I…might be here.”

Kakyoin laughed. It was a surprisingly human sound.

“I’ll take my chances,” he said.

And, surprising though it was to both of them, he did.

Admittedly Jotaro’s readiness to return might have been equally as much an artifact of the restlessness he always seemed to develop after staying with his grandfather for too long. He and Avdol had, after a brief but heated set of exchanged whispers on the doorstep, agreed that explaining the situation with Kakyoin to Joseph was a bad idea, partially because the effort it would have taken to make Joseph understand was more than Jotaro had the patience for at the time and partially because Jotaro had been almost certain he would kill Kakyoin the first night he came back.

He doubted Joseph would understand why he had decided not to kill the demon when he attacked Jotaro in the first place. He doubted he would be even able to explain it. Jotaro had certainly intended to take his head off when he started to bring his sword down. Something got in the way.

Maybe it was the look in Kakyoin’s eyes, impressed and a little gratified rather than afraid or angry. Maybe it was his still-pounding heart whispering that a fight like that only happens once in a lifetime and there was no reason to finish it to so soon. Maybe he had been telling the truth when he told Kakyoin he simply hadn’t felt like it; Jotaro wasn’t sure himself.

Either way, he had diverted the fatal trajectory before even realizing he’d changed his mind at all. And it just kept happening.

Regardless, Joseph was willing to accept the explanation they presented. Easy enough to believe that Jotaro felt compelled to return home at night in case the demons who had discovered their location decided to make a return trip, and that Holly needed to stay with him until Jotaro neutralized the threat. Technically speaking, they hadn’t lied.

She would be safe with Avdol and the old man, who was still fairly formidable despite being largely retired from hunting these days. Sometimes Jotaro wondered if she wasn’t safer with him gone, what with the way demons seemed drawn to him like homicidal fruit flies as of late. If he was on some sort of hit list…

“He didn’t say,” Kakyoin replied when Jotaro asked about it that night. He sounded genuinely regretful. “I assumed you were just some hotshot slayer and, you know, you’d become enough of an inconvenience to get his attention.”

“And you still went along with it.”

He chuckled. “Well, I didn’t have a reason not to.”

Jotaro watched out of the corner of his eye as Kakyoin chewed his nails absently, apparently once again lost in thought. “So I’m just supposed to—you want me to take saying you don’t care about what he wants anymore on faith or something?”

“Not really,” Kakyoin said. “I mean, you have no way of knowing that. I could be lying.”

“You really have a gift for inspiring confidence.”

“You should be flattered that I’m not treating you like some kind of idiot.” He studied his nails critically. “Besides,” he added, “if I really wanted you dead I would already have done it.”

“You would have tried,” Jotaro corrected him.

Kakyoin smiled brightly. “No,” he said, his mouth growing wide and then wider until Jotaro felt goosebumps rise on his arms.“I would have done it.”

As he folded his hands together, Jotaro realized Kakyoin hadn’t been chewing his nails at all. He had been sharpening them on his teeth.

The following night, he showed up with a piece of his head missing.

Jotaro went cold as soon as he saw Kakyoin approaching, knowing injuries like that rarely implied a fight the other party had survived. He had been so concerned with trying to work out Kakyoin’s incomprehensible motivations that he had managed to forget that this thing would be a danger to any slayer who crossed paths with him—anyone at all, really—what if someone innocent was dead because Jotaro had been bored and found him too entertaining to kill? What if it was someone he knew?

“Oh, wipe that look off your face,” Kakyoin snapped, wiping blood from his mouth. “Wasn’t one of yours.”

He looked almost shaken, though he seemed angrier than anything else. Jotaro watched with morbid fascination as the hole in his skull continued to patch itself, the fragments of bone unfolding into each other like grisly puzzle pieces.

“Dinner fought back?”

Kakyoin snorted, causing flecks of blood to fly from his head wound. “Hardly.”

Jotaro raised his eyebrows. Kakyoin glanced at him and groaned.

“It was a demon, okay?” he said through gritted teeth. “Just a little…just a disagreement.”

Jotaro’s hand twitched towards his sword. “What kind of—should I be worried about this?”

“If he manages to regenerate enough of his body to crawl out of the open by dawn,” Kakyoin told him primly, “then he will have earned his survival.”

“Not an answer.”

“He won’t come after me again.”

“Still not an answer.”

“Not my problem.”

“You should stop moving your head so much.”

He wrinkled his nose. “What do you care?”

“It’s making me nauseous,” Jotaro said calmly, tracing the path of a rustling movement through the undergrowth with his eyes.

Kakyoin laughed. “You didn’t strike me as the type to get sick over a little brain matter.”

The bushes stopped twitching as he approached; either it was knew he was coming, had ceased to be a threat, or had never been one in the first place. Jotaro kicked the branches aside just in time to see a raccoon’s ringed tail slipping away into the forest. He sighed.

“I don’t usually try to talk to people while their brains are falling out of their heads,” he said over his shoulder.

When he turned around again Kakyoin was running his fingers through his hair to brush it back into place as though nothing had happened at all.

“Is this better?”

Jotaro ignored the derision. “What happened?”

“It…” Kakyoin waved his hand dismissively. “You know.”

“Not really, no.”

He blew his bangs out of his eyes, irritated. “I don’t know. Some idiot thought he could—sometimes they see me and they don’t see the—they think what you did. So they go for the power grab by trying to take me out. It’s kind of…it’s just politics, you see?”

“Politics,” Jotaro repeated in a tone that implied he didn’t see much of anything.

“Demons don’t exactly…” Kakyoin shook his head. “We don’t have a…that’s why it’s been so shitty for me to try and find out anything for your—there’s not really a way for us to communicate, on a wide scale, I mean. Lot of them don’t know I…they don’t know what happened.”

“They think you’re still a moon,” Jotaro said slowly.

“Yeah.”

Kakyoin looked up at the real thing, something close to envy in his eyes.

“Lower moon two,” he muttered. “Not a bad rank to snatch, really. I can’t blame them for trying even if it’s monumentally stupid.”

Jotaro stared at him. “That’s how you guys rank up?”

Kakyoin nodded.

“And you…” He looked at the blood still smeared on Kakyoin’s cheek and hands. Somehow he doubted it was all his own. “Did you…?”

“Eat him?” Kakyoin smirked. “Honestly, I would have thought you’d be happy about that. Isn’t that better than eating a human or something?”

Jotaro considered that. He shrugged. “Depends on the human, I guess.”

Kakyoin blinked at him. “Really.”

“I can think of a few people who’d deserve it.”

“You’re…” He chuckled again. “You’re strange.”

Mist creeping through the trees thickened into fog, clinging to Jotaro’s clothes and the back of his throat. His eyelids felt oddly heavy as he watched the moon disappear behind the clouds, as though the fog weighed them down too.

“The one who came here.”

Kakyoin’s eyes slid to his face.

“Dio,” Jotaro continued, half to himself. “He would’ve been a moon. He could—since he turned her.”

“He is,” Kakyoin murmured, so softly it was almost inaudible.

“Sorry?”

“Dio is a moon.” He looked up at Jotaro evenly. “Upper moon one.”

Jotaro narrowed his eyes. “You told me you didn’t know him.”

“I lied,” Kakyoin said cheerfully.

He could hardly find it in him to be surprised at that, although Kakyoin was unusually honest about being a liar. “You know what I don’t understand?”

“What’s that?”

“You’re alive.”

“Allegedly.”

“But you lost your position.”

“I did.”

“Something else then.”

“I…” He exhaled heavily, averting his eyes under Jotaro’s scrutiny. “Yes.”

Jotaro cocked his head curiously, mildly amused by his obvious discomfort. Touchy subject. Kakyoin crossed his legs and shot him a searing look.

“So.” He leaned back on his elbows, ignoring the cold condensation seeping up his sleeves. “You gonna to tell me what happened or not?”

Kakyoin looked away again and for a moment it seemed as though he wouldn’t respond at all. His  unfocused eyes rested on a patch of moonlight that had broken through the clouds, dilated pupils reflecting the glow in the usual feline way, though Jotaro had never seen a cat with a scratched out number carved into one eye.

“I couldn’t follow through,” he said. “There was one condition I needed to…there was only one thing I needed to do consistently. I couldn’t keep up. That’s what happened.”

“What did you—”

“I let prey escape,” Kakyoin continued in the same colorless tone. “It takes a lot, to keep that kind of power fueled. Doesn’t take kindly to his gifts being wasted on us.”

“Prey,” Jotaro repeated slowly. “You mean people.”

“Yes.” He lifted his head defiantly to meet Jotaro’s eyes. “That’s what I mean.”

“So the big guy was feeding you people and you—you missed a spot, is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s one way to put it,” mumbled Kakyoin. He watched Jotaro round on him with calculated disinterest.

“And you agreed to that.”

“Well, I didn’t see an advantage to refusing.”

“An advantage.”

“You got hearing issues or something?” He glared up at Jotaro. “It’s not like they were going to make it out of there. Besides, if I pissed off the—I mean, I should have to die too just ‘cause a couple of humans ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

His fists always betrayed him, when he folded his hands tight enough to shake. A waste of energy, to let himself be provoked so thoroughly over something so predictable. On a conscious level Jotaro knew that getting angry wouldn’t bring any of them back.

An old memory stabbed at him insistently. He inhaled through clenched teeth.

Kakyoin watched him struggle, half annoyed, half bemused. “You didn’t seem to have so much of a problem with it a few minutes ago.”

“That was different,” Jotaro said sharply. “That was about—that was different.”

“How?”

The top of his head barely reached Jotaro’s jaw and still something about Kakyoin created the impression he was looking down his nose. Disdain blazed up at him from behind half-lidded eyes, as though Jotaro wasn’t even worth opening them wide enough to get a good look.

“How?” he repeated, dangerously soft. “How is it different?”

“Some people deserve it,” Jotaro said, his own voice rising. “But they…people who can’t fight back, that’s…that just makes you a coward.”

“You assume a lot of things.”

“Oh?”

No point. There’s no point. There’s no point.

“Am I wrong about it, then?” He advanced on Kakyoin, who folded his arms and held his ground with that same derisive expression. “Your guy was vetting people before he fed them to you to make sure they were—that they’d earned it? Had no idea he was so considerate.”

“What difference does it make,” Kakyoin hissed, “whether it was me or him who did it? You think if I said ‘no, thanks’ he’d just let them go?”

Jotaro remained silent. Kakyoin rolled his eyes. “Damn,” he scoffed. “You really are as stupid as you—”

“He pick the easy targets for you?” He watched Kakyoin’s pupils constrict back to slits; fog had finally succeeded in suffocating the remaining moonlight. “He bring them to you already half dead so all you had to do was finish them off? Sick people? Old people?”

Kakyoin glared at him. “You think it was—”

“Bet there were kids, too, right?”

For the first time, Kakyoin’s expression slipped, his face relaxing in surprise for a fraction of a second.

“You don’t know,” he snapped. The skin around his eyes remained pulled back too tightly, too much of the whites visible. The look would have been at home on the face of a scruffed rabbit rather than that of a predator. “You don’t—”

“You think we don’t see your leftovers?” Jotaro laughed harshly. “You think I haven’t seen them?”

Don’t go playing in the woods at night. Demons’ll get you. Tell that to a child enough times and they might remember. If they remember, they might listen. If they listen, they might survive.

The patterns when it came to who went missing were ugly enough to recognize, and it wasn’t as though anyone living on the mountain was stupid enough to be ignorant of what happened after sundown, but none of it made tripping over a half-eaten corpse at the crack of dawn any easier. Particularly when that corpse had a name. Particularly when what remained of the face was still enough to recognize.

“We’d find them,” he said. “We’d find them and they wouldn’t even be dead.”

“Shut up.”

“I mean, you couldn’t even be bothered to—at least put them out of their—”

When Kakyoin swung on him, this time Jotaro knew exactly what to expect. Even so, it was impossible to stop that kind of momentum entirely on such short notice, especially considering that the party in question refused to be slowed by things that would ordinarily give a person pause, such as broken bones or excruciating pain.

Kakyoin looked up at his outstretched hand, startled to see it caught in place rather than crushed. His nails remained extended, prepared as he had been to dig into the fist he had anticipated curling around them.

Something new, then. Jotaro had adapted.

“Okay,” Kakyoin said, catching his breath before it could escape entirely. “All right. Let’s do it.”

Jotaro tightened his grip on Kakyoin’s wrist in response. He rolled his eyes and twisted too quickly to counter, bracing his elbow against Jotaro’s upper arm in such a way that both of them were now at risk for broken bones if one didn’t back down first.

More invested in escaping than in remaining unscathed. Jotaro couldn’t blame him for that, all things considered.

“Let’s go,” Kakyoin said again.

Jotaro huffed. “If you’re going to be a pain in the ass, you know, the least you could do is make some fucking sense.”

“Fight me.”

A woodswallow’s chirping song drifted towards them, audible now in the silence.

Sounds like it’s crying, thought Kakyoin.

Sounds like it’s screaming, thought Jotaro.

They stared at each other, arms still locked together.

“Fight you,” he repeated slowly, after the long moment had passed.

“You said you wanted—you said you left me alive because you wanted to fight me again, yeah?” Kakyoin pushed his elbow down harder, trying to goad Jotaro into releasing him, but only earned himself a grimace and a stabbing pain in his own shoulder as his miscalculation of the other boy’s strength hit home.

Well, whatever. Of course it didn’t bother him.

“You wanted to go at it again,” Kakyoin continued, voice nearly a whisper. “I know you did. Saw it. And you…you know what? I’m here now, and you’ve pissed me off pretty fucking badly, so—come on. Come on.”

Jotaro blinked down at yellow eyes that flared with something crazed. He should let go. He knew he should let go. He should let go of the demon’s arm and he should walk away and he shouldn’t look back. Jotaro saw reason, he always did, but he could never manage to hear it over the frantic pounding of his heart.

Ha.

In a single movement he released Kakyoin and kicked him in the chest hard enough to throw them both back several feet. Kakyoin quickly regained his balance, smiling when he saw the blood he had coughed into his cupped hand. Jotaro unclipped his sword and threw it to the side, feeling the heat crawling up to his shoulders from his fingertips.

“What,” Kakyoin sneered, “I’m not worth nichirin?”

“Hardly.” He smiled, almost sweetly. “I just figured this way it’s even.”

Kakyoin’s eyes widened and a heartbeat later Jotaro had to throw himself back to the ground in order to avoid the teeth snapping at his face. He expected to hit the dirt but found himself suspended by threads of blood that had hooked into the front of his uniform as he dove. Kakyoin reeled them in like a fishing line, yanking Jotaro down to eye level once he was back on his feet.

“Kiss my ass, pretty boy,” he growled.

Jotaro caught sight of the blood he'd spit after being kicked, realized too late the starting advantage he had created. After all, Kakyoin had weaponized his own ability to sustain injury. Hurting him in any way would have to be a means to an end rather than a deterrent.

He was starting to remember why it was he had been reluctant to get rid of him.

Shifting back on his heels, Jotaro remembered Avdol’s constant insistence that it was a coward’s move to go for the eyes. He had never quite agreed with that, he thought, as he snapped around to look towards the trees with a carefully crafted expression of alarm. Kakyoin, taken aback by what he took to be a pause, relaxed his threads just slightly, following Jotaro’s eyes without really meaning to.

“Is there—”

Jotaro’s fist slammed into his eye hard enough to feel something crunch beneath it, and Kakyoin staggered back, staring at him.

“Watch who you’re calling names,” Jotaro said calmly.

Kakyoin raised his uninjured eyebrow. So you want to fight dirty.

And yet Jotaro had taken out his vision on that side. Temporary though it was, he had to decide whether to go on the defensive and repair it or attack and hope he didn’t misgauge the distances in the meantime. It was a smart move, tactically, Kakyoin thought. He smiled.

As it turned out, the two of them were particularly well matched when it came to their capacity for being incredibly, almost petulantly underhanded. Combined with Jotaro’s strength and Kakyoin’s speed, there was a nastiness to their altercation that hadn’t quite been there before, clawing at each other like children trying to settle a dispute the hard way. Kakyoin slipped out of his reach almost as frequently as Jotaro intercepted him by simply kicking him away. The hits they did manage to land were almost mean, all fingernails and teeth, cheap shots with enough force behind them to break bone.

At least, Jotaro’s were.

He yanked Kakyoin’s threads out of his arms and rolled away, dodging his claws rather than countering. Kakyoin froze, still coiled to strike.

“What—” Jotaro paused to catch enough breath to speak. “What are you doing?”

A cut on Kakyoin’s cheek faded even as he watched. “You mean, besides kicking your ass?”

“No, that’s—that’s it.” Jotaro folded his arms. “You’re not. You’re not trying.”

“Sorry?”

“That was the third time you could’ve fucked me up and didn’t.” He glared. “You had the angle. So why isn’t my wrist broken?”

Kakyoin chuckled reluctantly. “I’d have thought you’d be happy about that.”

“You’re going for—you’re doing bruises instead of broken bones.”

“And?”

“And it’s pissing me off.”

He met Jotaro’s eyes with an expression that said it should be obvious. “I’m trying not to break you again. Besides,” he added, “you’re not using your sword, so…”

Jotaro felt like busting his jaw. He folded his arms tighter, willing himself to wait. “Enemies won’t worry about that sort of thing.”

Kakyoin considered him with mild amusement. “Am I your enemy?”

“Am I yours?”

They watched each other with nothing to say. Jotaro shifted on his feet, restless. Soon dawn would interrupt them, and to leave a fight unfinished…

Generally if he could keep a demon going until dawn he counted that as a victory. No shame in getting the sun to finish the job for him.

That worked when the demon’s death was his goal.

He looked at Kakyoin, at the long smile beginning to unfurl across his face, and Jotaro wanted something more than that. Something with more bite to it. You could kill someone without defeating them, and he didn’t want to kill Kakyoin.

He wanted to win.

Kakyoin generally looked human enough. He wasn’t like one of the morphed demons that took pride in silhouettes that made skin crawl; if anything, Jotaro had the impression he was too vain to give up his face for something so juvenile as he considered that sort of intimidation to be. But when he smiled like that, his mouth pulling from ear to ear to reveal more teeth than Jotaro ever cared to see, he left nothing to the imagination. That smile would never be at home on a human’s face.

Still, when Jotaro returned the grin, something about it was like looking in a mirror.

Are you my enemy?

Kakyoin narrowed his eyes and tensed again. A wild feeling that could have passed for joy spun out of control somewhere deep in his chest. Jotaro’s smile, wide and sharp enough to be a demon’s, reflected the same.

Well, it doesn’t matter.

Starlight crackled up Jotaro’s arms and Kakyoin laughed, at last allowing his arms and legs to stretch and lengthen. He wasn’t sure how much time they had until dawn. He wasn’t sure that he cared.

Close enough.

A wave of birds rose from the trees, startled by what, to them, sounded like to two predators attempting to rip each other to pieces.

This time, the birds were right in nearly as many ways as they were wrong.

[pencilscratchins]

would you ever consider documenting a few of your drawing steps? im so very interested on how you make your drawings like the way they do, stuff like brush types and the order in which you create your pieces! thank you for reading, and amazing work, you're very inspiring and my self confidence in my own skills lessen every time i get a glimpse of your work! talent...

Hi hi hi! Firstly, thank you so much!! this is such a sweet sweet message and I am so glad that i have had any sort of inspiration to you haha! I’ve gotten asked this before so Im gonna try to walk you through something the best I can- stick with me lmao!

Before we start- I just wanna say… for real, don’t ever get discouraged when you look at someone you like’s art- I know it can get hard not to- hell I still spend nights cryin over Kevin wada’s work just… how does he do it??- but its so important to learn from the people you admire not compare! Art is a music festival, not a battle of the bands.

anyway here we go!! 

so I sketch in three parts- the first part is very very very rough. I just need to get the bare bones idea out of my head and onto the paper. I treat this like a gesture- I don’t spend more than 2 minutes on it. Just really get it out!

I use just a general pencil brush while doing this- which is the second smoothest brush my program offers. It allows some flexibility but not as messy. I don’t use a fancy program, so brush texture and such isn’t my forte!! XD

The second sketch, I look up a few references to help me get the basic shapes- I’ve been trying to get more comfortable this year with using references so I’ve been trying to use them in everything I do!

some tips when using references: draw directly next to your reference- if you can avoid it, I wouldn’t recommend clicking between two windows to use them- don’t interrupt your flow anymore than you have to!

I also put in the central movement lines- I like to keep these loose. avoiding straight lines in your work will make it look less stiff (my biggest issue is trying to get the flow better) Draw one for the spin, and then one for the shoulders and nipples- These three points are where I originally focus on. Also here, I find some of the main shapes of the human body (the rectangle of the torso, pentagon of the waist, circle of the palms and elbows etc) 

Next, I clean the sketch up A LOT- I really focus on getting my main ideas down, not the cleanest still. I sketch the clothes and hair with more detail but not too much. I also draw arrows to let me know what texture and direction I want the hair to go. Monet’s hand was giving me trouble so I did some central lines for the bones. And cherish this version of Jube’s jacket because its gonna get worse.

There’s not much I can really describe here, unfortunately. A combination of just how I draw and practice, I follow my sketch and the references again to get to the final product.

FINALLY we get to the final line layer! After the last sketch, there’s not much I have to fill out, just clean some stuff up and leave things like Jube’s glasses off (I do those in a seperate layer)

For the camp au, I use the “marker” brush at a 50 degree angle because I like the texture- It’s like a crayon brush, so it’s a little more natural looking, in my opinion!! I usually stick with a pencil or a pen(smoothest option) brush since it allows a cleaner look. 

so this is sorta an unpopular opinion but… I hate… coloring??? I hate it so much- its so tedious. That’s why I use ridiculous patterns or colors when I can, to make it exciting, so my coloring process is RIDICULOUSLY simple

Step One: flat colors: so, I fill in the organic parts of the art first (skin and hair) each has its own layer. I fill in the skin with its most middle tone, then gradient the edges of every limb with the same middle tone on ~50% multiply opacity, and a ~30% hard light opacity. I then put blush (any red or pink tone) on a soft light an adjust that until I like it on the cheeks, elbows, chest, and fingers! Hair, I do about the same, but I also shade around every line, and do highlights at the middlest points. 

Step Two: clothes: I speed the fuck through clothes. Usually, I will color shirts one one layer, pants on another, and accessories on a third and gradient each with its own color on a 45% multiply, with particular shading around any big shadow. I am……… a sham. 

The background is something I’ve also tried to be better with- I used a scene from a previous comic I did, but its the same process essentially. I do only one sketch for backgrounds, then a final and I put in any foliage with a separate texture pent (its literally called leaf)

after that, it’s a matter of messing with overlaying colors and textures- I usaully will pick two or three main colors and use them as varies overtones (here I choose green and yellow on a soft light and a difference I think?)

yeah! so more or less that;s what I do– I’m sorry if this isnt super helpful, I just have gotten a few questions like this recently so  Ifigured I get this out sooner rather than late. Seriously though, the process is so particular to everyone, so figure out what works for you and… go with god. :D :D

[krista-gallacher]

Illusion~5 Creative Manipulation Analyse

Erik Almas

This image by erik alms has a very calming and happpy atmospher i believe that this atmospher is heavily influenced by the amount of yellow and warm lighting.This is once again enhacened by very happy image in the middle of the bed of a lady walking her dog on a very sunny day. For this image i believe Almas uses two different images obviously but i think they have used a mask on it to help bring the sunny scean through. thelighting withing this image is both artificial and natural i think. i think the sunny scene is done with natural daylight and the indoor one looks like natural light with bits of artificial light kicked in as well. i really like how this image gives off a dream like feel to it with the way the duvet is split it helps you interprate that this was the dream that the person had had and i really like how the bed isnt perfectly made it kindof insinuates that it was just made up quickly and recently.

Christophe Gilbert

Gilbert has creater a really intresting image here using paint to create a dress. its brilliant i love the colours and the lighting in this image. This i suspect has been done in two images, i personally think it was two because i think Gilbert took a photo of the model and a photo of the dripping paint. Then in editing i think he has used a mask to creat the paint to look like a backless dress, I also really like the lighting Gilbert has used on the paint with the harsh highlights bit its not too blownout and then with the model he used quite soft lighting which went nicely. The way the paint wraps around the models body creates a seamless sliky dress yet with extra bits dripping off it gives great texture to it.

Erik Joansson

Joansson's image creates a great twist on stargazing infact it is more skygazing as it seems the stars and moon have fallen, i think this is a great image as it is very creative and levaes us guessing what has happened. I really love this image because of its twist on stargazing but it is also in general a very good image. i belive ithas been made up of three different images the landscape, the model and the stars and moon. I think Joansson will of taken the model and the stars and moon in the studio then the landscape on location. As for lighting i think its obvious that the stars and moon and the landscape lite themselves up and the model and telescope were done with added light, i think this lighting is coming from the bottom of the modele thus lighting the trench coat and telescope from below adding great texture and highlights. i really like the folds in the trench coat in my opinion draw your eye to the model. i also really like the highlights on the telescope the give it charecter. I also suspect that the clone tool was used to create more stars on the grass. All in all i love this image and it has such a mysterious look to it as you are left wondering what happend why are the stars on the ground is it a dream? if not the what is he looking at?.

Platon Yurich

A lot of Yurich's photography is based on dreamlike images and expressing his creativity. A great example of his talent is the photo below as he is obviously brilliant as editing his images to look realistic . in this photo Yurich has used what i think might be 7 different images as i think the puzzle pieces are all seprate images then there is the model and landscape. i think that yurich has used a mask on the puzzle pieces to get the sky on them. i also think that there are two ways the model has been photographed in a studio where that have used side on lighting from the left to create a nice sun like highlight on his full left side or he was actually photographed in the field and has used a reflector to bounce some light into the harsher shadows. Once again the colours that have been used all create a happy and calming atmospher in the image.

staudinger-franke

this image by Staudinger-franke is really exciting and wacky as the masks innit are making quite amazed, shocked faces at the gum which is creating a playful atmospher. I really love the lighting and colour theme of this image as the yellows and the Gold's go with each other brilliantly. I also really like how the gum is slightly pulled at the out of the packet by the thumb it is if the mask is pulling the gum out itself. With the lighting in this image has been done nicely on the top part of the juicy Fruit packet and on the silver part of the gum packets have been highlighted nicely. I believe that each of the heads were photographed individually as they all have separate types of lighting and different highlights and shadows this suggest at the lights have been placed differently for each one. I also think that the juicy Fruit pack was photographed by its self, then there's the hand that has been lit with an overhead lighting rig as it has highlighted the whole of the Palm and the sides have quite heavy Shadows this also helps draw attention to the middle of the image. I believe their background has been done within photoshops with gradients but either way it still suits the image perfectly. the image gives off quite creepy and wacky atmosphere but at the same time it is a happy. in my opinion this is because there is so much yellow which is a very fun and happy colour.

[im-fire-and-flood]

Lesbian ask game 5 (for ur crush/gf) 1-50 (good luck dude)

1: what color is her hair?currently a light blue2: what color are her eyes?darkish brown with flecks of green3: how old is she?174: how did you meet? tumblr...technically we met 3 times, first time me sending her an ask asking if she needed to talk to anyone, (i think i said i could act like a lovinggrandma??? i have game as you can see, and the last time, what led to us talking a lot and then dating was me offering to draw her (which then became apainting)5: is she ticklish?pretty sure they'll will kill me if i ever try to find out6: what's her favorite song / band?i am not currently sure.7: what's her favorite movie?all the harry potters, nightmare before christmas, and possibly highschool musical8: what's her favorite book?harry potter 100% (im not sure which one is the best though)9: what's her favorite tv show?it changes regularly but currently boy meets world and andi mack10: who is her celebrity crush?girls......girls (i went into the "*whispers* im so gay" tag and i have no clue currently)11: does she have any pets? Are there any pets she wants?currently...6 cats? im gonna die if that numbers wrong12: what's a song that reminds you of her?currently "taking you there" by the broods13: does she play any sports?she does figure skating (and shes very good and im very gay but she hasnt gotten to do it in a long time)14: what are your favorite things about her (physically) ?*gay shrieking* her lips, her eyes, she has really nice shoulders???, the freckles, her voice, her legs could crush my head like a watermellon 15: what are your favorite things about her (personality wise) ?she is very passionate, and funny, and argumentative, and very empathetic and caring16: how does she dress?pastel femme lesbian17: what was your first date or ideal first dateideal first date would either be her teaching me how to ice skate, or star gazing, or star gazing after im too broken to move from all the falling18: what's a tiny detail about her that she doesn't realize you've noticed?im not really sure becuase i usually point things out when i notice...she is very observant and i notice that she will sometimes what you if she thinksyou arent looking, not in a weird way just like...interest? like you know shes thinking about something19: what are her talents?id say art and writing, and she makes really good poetry no one else is allowed to read 20: write a tiny poem about heri wrote this awhile back but i was too chicken to post it.

-i want to write you a book of poetrytake my beating heart from my chest present it to you in a golden chalice for you to take

i want to run to you across foreign land and pull the moon from the sky so you will always have light even in the darkest shadows -

21: Does she have a tumblr?@neptuneisgay22: what type of things make her laugh?its kinda hard for me to gauge sometimes, it sorta varies, dry humor, dark jokes, science puns can sometimes do it but they have to be good.23: what's her star sign? Are you compatible according to astrology?cancer and we are 80% compatible, our moons signs are sorta assholes to eachother though haha24: what's some place she's always wanted to travel?new york, hawaii, england, and many many more25: what's something she's super interested in?SCIENCE!! ART, ASTROLOGY.26: when did you realize you loved her?the first time i realized it i think it was when i told her i liked her and she started laughing so hard she fell over27: what's her favorite food?she doesnt have lots of food love but probably chicken28: what's a food she hates?....what isnt honestly29: what's her hogwarts house?ravenclaw30: is she more Earth, water, air, or fire?water31: what's something that makes her angry?lieing, injustice, when someone undermines her feelings, when someones untruthful, apparently tickling, she never really gets angry though, more annoyed or disapointed32: is she taller or shorter than you?taller >.>34: what's her namehaley35: what's her aesthetic?summertime, gardens, big sweaters, books, thunder storms36: what's the first present you bought her/ plan on buying for herTale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, The: the History of the Human Brain As Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery37: is she an early bird or a night owl?night owl who loves sleep 38: what about her do you brag the most about?....literally everything my parents should know by now that im so fucking gay39: is there any accessories she always wears/ brings with her?her cross necklace40: is she a vegetarian?she would be if she could be 41: what's her favorite subject in school?SCIENCE and ART 42: what highschool cliche does she fit best (think that scene in mean girls) ?the one who adopts all the outcasts43: how long have you been dating/ crushing7 months and 1 day 44: describe her laughi dont know how to describe the sound but the feeling is like when you first fall for someone and you cant breath all the time, and its uncomfortable but in the best way, and i just want to make her laugh all the time, becuase its great45: does she wear makeup?sometimes but not all the time46: what's her favorite art medium?markers and acrylic currently47: does she play any instruments?no but she wants to learn violin48: what animal does she identify most with?probably a cat, or an adorable otter49: does she like camping (or the outdoors in general)yes she loves hiking and the mountains and shes going to teach me how to camp 50: post her picture if you have her permission

[melzan-of-bregan-daerthe]

Elient the 5th 1489 / Night 1 in Barovia

The sound of hurried tiny feet could be heard as Melzan waited silently in her room. With a crash the door burst open, an out of breath and rosy cheeked halfling appeared bearing a wine bottle in each hand. “Alrightly then. Let’s get this party started!” Nessa strode happily into the room, closing the door as she entered. With ease she jumped onto the bed and began to work at opening one of the bottles.

Melzan smiled and locked the door, then the windows. She took the bulk of her armor off before smiling. She wore fine silk under her armor. With a big smile she hopped onto the bed with Nessa. Reaching out, she gently, to avoid pip and elana, pet the halflings hair.

"Yes, lets get this 'party' started. What does one do at a slumber party? Drink and eat? I do like both of those activities," Melzan giggled.

Nessa smiled as she felt the gentle pat atop the head. It brought back many memories…With a gleeful squeal she opened the first bottle. She turned her head to and fro as she scanned the place and sighed. “Ugh…I think I forgot the glasses.” She chuckled awkwardly.

“At a slumber party?” She tilted her head to the side and pondered the question. “I can’t quite say. Never had one myself. Food and drink sound excellent though!”

"That's okay, we can share. I don't have any diseases," she pulled Nessa into a gentle one arm hug and took one of the two bottles to start drinking.

They were most likely going to die here, but for now they were alive and she planned on keeping it that way as long as possible. Melzan liked Nessa. The little halfling was sweet and had a huge heart even if it was mostly filled with the desire for gold.

"I think just drinking and eating will be okay. We'll create our own slumber party."

"Yes!" Ellana nodded and flew around them. Melzan brought out a small cup from her mess kit and filled it with some wine so she could have some.

Nessa clumsily tried to steady the wine bottle as she was briskly wrapped into a warm embrace. Giddy laughter filled the room.

“We certainly will!” Nessa’s smiled as she watched Ellana flit down towards the cup for a drink. She raised her own bottle to her lips and poured a generous amount. Grape Mash…How long had it been? Months? The dark rich flavor flowed down her throat. Oh the Wizards of Winery sure did know how to make a good drink. She thought back to those cheery nights in the back room of the winery with Raph…up all night drinking and talking of better times. A small smile curled up her lips.

She let out a pleasant sigh. Her eyes peered towards Melzan with interest. “So, why do you…ummm..how is it that you…why do you look like a girl now?”

Melzan smiled sweetly and pressed her forehead against Nessa's. For a little while she just enjoyed the closeness before moving back and getting her book out of her bag.

"My goddess... She prefers female worshipers to access her powers. Though very rarely, she choses male ones. Like myself. Though to get closer to her, and obtain our power, she allows us to become her gender. We develop a connection with her and whenever we feel the need to be close with her, we can to a ritual to feel that again. Normally it wears off after I've completed something she wishes me too. So I'm not going to be a girl forever, but this isnt' the first or the last time I will be one."

She opened up the book to the chapter with the ritual. Everything was in elvish but the drawings were clear and obvious. There were female drow dancing nude under the moon.

Nessa grinned happily as she felt Melzan’s warm touch against her forehead. Was this what family was like?

The halfling listens attentively to Melzan’s peculiar tale. “Eilistraee prefers female worshipers hmmm? Is that why you think I’m the one she sent you to find?” She furrows her brow, deep in thought. “But I, I don’t have any magic talent like you do…unless you consider what happens to me when it’s a…” her face pales a little bit as she remembers the torturous transformations she must endure.

She drinks another sip of wine as Melzan brings out her large tome and opens it on the bed. “Well that’s not something you see everyday.” Her fingers trace along the foreign elven script as she eyes the drawing with interest. “Is this one of those kind of books? The ones the boys get all excited about?” She chuckles and removes her hand from the parchment.

“You do rituals…like that?” Her dart from the book and back to Melzan as she pries for answers. “What’s it like?! So does she give you any hints then? For these tasks you are to complete?”

"That is, also she doesn't just need magic users. She just enjoys helping people and bringing them hope. She cares about outcasts and those that don't feel like they have a place," Melzan explained and pulled Nessa closer for a squeeze.

When she mentioned the book being one of 'those kind's that made boys excited she didn't understand. She never considered it anything more than artistic.

"Most the time, when we dance we dont' want to hide anything from her. We want to show her everything. We don't really regard nudity the same as most surface cultures. It's not really all that exciting most of the time."

Melzan loved the questions and she smiled honestly as she turned the page and began to explain. "I do, they are amazing, and take my breath away. Dancing under the stars and enjoying pure song and a type of joy I've never know. Sometimes there are drinks and kissing, but not much more than that in my experience. As for hints, normally I get visions or I just have to ask myself, 'What would she want me to do? What would be the right thing?'. Sometimes I don't always know the answer."

“Hope, huh?” Her face saddens a bit. Did they even have a chance? She gazed back towards Melzan with her hazel eyes. “…you…you mean to say she welcomes anyone?” Seconds later she was enveloped by another comforting hug. Was this what Melzan was like? He…or she seemed so different than Nessa thought she would be. Sure she knew what a badass fighter Melzan was…Nessa admired the way she took down that warlock and massive shadow dragon. But all of this…this compassion…it was an unexpected surprise for Nessa.

“So you leave it all out in the open then during that moonlit dance? Huh. I don’t know if I would be able to do that.” She chuckles to herself.

Nessa stretched out on the bed, wine glass in hand and peered at the tome. “Dancing amongst the stars, huh?” She thought back to the night before and smiled. Despite the exhaustion that followed her transformation she had twirled beneath the moonlit sky without a care in the world. A gentle hand leading and guiding her. “That sounds mighty nice.” Her cheeks burn slightly as she hears the talk of kissing during the rituals. She bashfully sips more wine. “Y-you have visions? H-how do you know that they are…are that? And not dreams?” She looks at him curiously. “It seems like so much of a guessing game then. These mini quests.”

"Anyone. No dance required. If you need hope, a place to belong, believe in freedom and that slavery is something that should be demolished, she'll welcome you. You don't have to dance naked either. But you might be even closer to her than I am now that you are a weretiger. Your more closely connected to the moon," Melzan enjoyed being with Nessa.

She didn't have to worry about fearing her. If she tried to kill her, then Melzan could handle it very easily. She'd lived with rogues and murderers so Nessa would be simple to take care of if it came to that. Melzan also promised to Illiad that she'd watch over this little halfling.

“She seems pretty alright…this goddess of yours. R-Really? You think that she’d accept me for being a…a were tiger.” She whispered the last word, still not comfortable saying it. Bajarni had taught her many things that night but what she was, it would take a bit more time to accept it all. For now…for now she at least had a purpose. Her eyes flared with rage as she recalled her vow.

“What else is in this book of yours?” Her hands reach out to brush the pages edge.

"Just stories and rituals. Information about her. It's something that many people want to destroy. No matter what, I need to protect it," Melzan let Nessa look through the book. "Also, I'm positive she'd accept you if you wished to worship her. She accepted me as a Drow. SHe even accepts orcs, and honestly anyone else who wants to do good for the world."

“They would want to destroy it, but why?” She lightly traces the edge of the drawing. The halfling hadn’t seen much art…it was…it was magical. “Who would want to destroy something so beautiful?” Nessa propped herself up on the bed and swirled the wine at her hand. Hear ears perked up upon hearing who Eilistraee accepted. A light smile played on her face.

“Say Melzan. What do you think of the lot of us? Do you think we stand a chance here?"

"The spider goddess... Lolth. The one most drow worship. She hates Eilistraee and wishes to kill her and snuff out those who worship her," Melzan looked into Nessa's eyes and smiled.

"I think that, after spending these last two weeks with you, that Milo is the heart of the group. He's innocent and pure of heart. That you have so much passion and compassion for those around you that you'll likely do something foolish, but I think we'll be there. That you care deeply for those you consider friends. You seem to want to bring as much joy as you can to those you care for. Not to mention you have a thing for gold. Illiad, well, he's hurting and an idiot, and a fool, and a good fighter and singer, decent with the lute..." Melzan thought about it.

"Samuel is smart, but definitely not much practical knowledge in these lands. He's from a place far away from what I can tell and Igor is well, a zombie gnome. I'm not exactly happy about that, but... All in all, we're going to wipe the floor with Strahd. I believe we will. I know my Goddess wouldn't send me into something hopeless, as I've said before. We will win. I know it."

“Spider goddess? A thing like that exists?” Her mouth opens slightly in surprise.

With her free hand Nessa gently caresses a smooth stone necklace at her neck. Her fingers gently trace the ruins embedded in it. “Milo…I-I hope he’s okay. I can’t believe he slipped through our fingers…” Her eyes burn deeply with regret. “Ha. Something foolish? I would never do that!” She sticks out her tongue and continues to finish off her bottle. “I DO have a thing for gold. I’d gladly take any off of your hands.” She flashes a wry smile.

Upon hearing about Iliad her cheery facade cracks for but a second. That stupid idiot… “I saw you two were enjoying yourself with those vistani women. What exactly were you up to?”

“I don’t know. He seemed capable enough in these lands. Did you TRY one of those apples? They were delicious! You really think we’re capable defeating him? I mean I thought ‘we’ were before…” Her eyes fall downward as her face darkens.

"Well, I'll make sure that any silver or something you have I'll trade you gold for," Melzan said with a smile. "At least when I can spare it. As for the spider goddess, yes, she is evil. Absolute evil and terror and.." Melzan reached to touch her side near where her belly button would be, but to the left.

With a shake of her head she relaxed and thought about what she and Illiad had done.

"Well, we wanted to get information, and people are more vulnerable if they think you're a clueless couple so... we pretended that we were going to be wed at some point. We learned about the laws, where a good dress shop is, when the wedding is going to be. That sort of stuff. About the new Sheriff which... Illiad looked so pale when they mentioned the new sheriff. I also did not try one of the apples. A bit too busy trying to figure out a plan as to what to do."

She leaned a little against Nessa, and moved her hand up to brush her fingers through the halfling's hair. "Yes. I believe we will beat him. Even if it's not true, I need to believe we can, or else we wont..."

“Thanks for that. I appreciate it. I’m still not used to the whole silver thing.” Nessa eyes Melzan curiously as she touches her side. A war wound perhaps? Had she dealt with this god before?

“Ohhhh. So that’s what you were up to. You two looked absolutely ridiculous. What was up with those voices?” She chuckles to herself as she remembers. “If there is a new sheriff in town, I’m sure it won’t be good. Come on now Melzan. It was only an apple. Planning could wait.”

A tiny mouse scampered out from under Nessa’s scarlet locks. He traveled down her shoulder, squeaking in protest, until it found itself in her lap. Nessa giggled and stroked his head to calm him. “It’s only Melzan silly. She won’t do anything.” Her hair bobbed slightly as she looked up at Melzan. “Yeah….I suppose…” The tiny halfling took in what the drow had to say. Was believing enough?

“Hey Melzan, can I uh ask a favor of you?” Nessa uneasily looked over to the edge of the room, she gently stroked Pip’s head with a single finger. “Since you're always around Iliad can you uh...I don’t know...can you make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid…something that he’ll regret?” Nessa looks solemnly at the remaining red liquor as she swirls it in the bottle. “He’s done some pretty...pretty bad stuff in the past that I couldn’t sto…” She slowly looks up and stares Melzan straight in the eyes, her gaze unwavering. “He can get into this...this rage...and I fear for what it will do to him…So, c-can you do that you think? For little ‘ole me?” The familiar smile crawls across her lips.

"I'll do that," Melzan said with a nod. "As best I can I'll try to make sure that he doesn't do anything too stupid. I've done some rather horrible things in my life too... I didn't always have Eilistraee as my patron." she said softly.

“G-good. Thanks Melzan.” She lets out a deep sigh. “Soooo shall we finish the rest of this wine then? The night is still young!” Nessa laughs gleefully and raises the bottle in the air with a grin.

"Yes!" Melzan nodded and raised up her bottle before taking a very long drink.