#so i guess those are my tags

[tryingtimi]

And serve I will

Inspired by a brief daydreaming session during this Tunes day post, I started working on this scene, because @aninkwellofnectar gave me a bit of a kick for it. Now, it's finally finished and, well, it's not canon, but it was a fun one. My first attempt to get a hold of how to write true eldritch horror and cult stuff all in all, so. Any thought is welcome. 💛

CULT ACTIVITY | DISTURBING IMAGERY | INSANITY | WC: 2,124

Iron grey clouds gathered around the horizon, shielding the sun and devouring its rays one by one. Cleaning them out of sight. Brother Noxton has been taught that this kind of a weather was the prime time of maintaining the holy duty.

When the world itself tried to look away.

He waited to join this voyage since he successfully has been Restored. He left the facility in the hope to be a part of Her plans and now, finally, here he was.

The wind nestled with the hems of his deep blue robe as the hallowed vessel contently turned on the Everocean. Water rumbled underneath, white and turquoise froth ralling on the sides in all their Evolved might.

“Brother Noxton.”

He lifted his gaze at Mother Keron, who joined him standing by the railing of the vessel. Her divine features softened by the shadow of her hood. Round, small, completely black eyes watched him carefully.

Brother Noxton bent over to greet her, but the Mother let him straighten right back, revealing a holy hand as she gestured him. The boney, membranous, yet lithesome fingers oozed the same translucent substance, as it dripped from the rest of her.

“It’s great to see you here, young Brother,” she said, the tentacles growing out of her mouth making the words hard to understand. Ethereal speech. Brother Noxton contained his awe and visceral nausea. Blessed feelings. “As you are new, I shall give you one important piece of advice, before we proceed. Everything for Her, nothing for your eyes, child. To serve, you shall obey.”

“And I obey, as is only right. For mine is to serve, and serve I will.” His chant made the tentacles twirl and twitch, some pulling back under her hood. The Mother’s mouth distorted, muscles visibly tightening under her opaque skin. A smile, as Brother Noxton could best interpret.

He felt his Evolving features mimicking the gesture. Nestling little extensions wiggling at his nape.

The vessel slowed suddenly, and the Brothers and Sisters gathered onto the wide, main platform he and the Mother were standing. His place was not far from where he already stood, so only some steps were needed to find the right spot. Everything grew still, as the machine under them completely stopped, the rumbling water quited and he appeared in the entrance of the central cabin.

Icharo Astin towered over all of them, his subjects barely reaching his shoulders. A golden robe blanketed his figure, heavy and all-covering. Brother Noxton couldn’t see his face under the hood – not if anyone could do such a thing –, nor any of his features; although he did not dare to look at him for longer than a glance.

The two parallel lines of devotees descended onto one knee in unison, heads deeply lowered in reverence.

The Golden Prophet walked among them only in these divine times, which Brother Noxton would have wanted to celebrate with excitement if it wouldn’t have been a disgustingly human thing to do.

The vessel’s floor never clicked under shoes or heels, in fact, when the golden robe slid before him, the Brother saw no rustles of the material or any sign of moving legs. The Golden most definitely glided over the surface, and… ah, yes. Brother Noxton felt bile gathering up in the pit of his stomach, his mind faintly itching from something. He remembered how terrified he was, when he first felt like this. All before his epiphany, and the way this restless, mind numbing feeling showed him.

“You may rise.” Mother Keron’s gurgling voice made everyone do as she said.

The Golden took his place at the front, before everyone, shapeless, shadowed face turning away from the devotee, right towards the Everocean. Brother Noxton watched him as long as he dared, then, when his skin started to burn from the shivers that ran through him constantly and his head felt heavy, but his tiny extensions twirled and scratched him pleasantly at his neck; he looked away. He didn’t want to, but the duty demanded his attention.

The Mother turned to the entrance, and so did everyone. A figure emerged from the darkness of the door with two Sisters on each side. The middle person was a man, probably in his early thirties, hands tied behind his back, mouth covered with a nanomask. The machinery filtered his sounds and moans, but Brother Noxton could see his eyes; those wide, terrified eyes. He trashed in the grasp of the Sisters, but they did not bother with him much. He was merely but an inconvenience of the Evolved, nothing much.

When the Sisters reached the middle of the platform with the man, they stopped and made him stand still somehow. He seemed to breathe hard from the rapid rising of his chest, but he most certainly couldn’t tell what had happened to him. Understandable, Brother Noxton thought. It’s not something they can expect or get explained to.

In his head, the Brother used to imagine a speech or a theatrical preparation of the holy duty. In reality, however, there was none of these. What happened was far more simple.

The Mother signaled with her hand to the devotee to lower their head, when The Golden stepped aside from the edge of the vessel. There was no hesitance in anyone, they did as they were instructed. However, the Brother stole a glance from The Golden’s direction and could see a little open space; a pathway up to the platform almost.

Was his still unworthy part pushing him, Brother Noxton couldn’t say, but he stayed curious. He did lower his head obediently anyway. Everything for Her, nothing for his eyes; his duty was the only thing that mattered.

…

It was the only thing that should have mattered.

Brother Noxton fidgeted the same way his extensions twirled on his nape under his hood. Not visibly enough for anyone to be noticable, but he knew it.

A splashing sound and the impression of something heavy came from the Golden’s direction. Gurgling and squelching echoed through the air, resonating there… no, not in the air, but within his ears. Something moved; from where the Brother knew this, he didn’t know. He just did.

Shivering found its way up on his spine, even to the twirling extensions. His stomach shrank, as the sounds became louder with every slow paced plop on the floor of the vessel.

His mind tickled.

It was as if the familiar, unspeakable caressing that he felt during every meeting, would have doubled; not tripled.

No.

No, he couldn’t compare this to anything. Especially not to numbers. It was something way beyond everything he knew until this moment.

…

And he needed to know what was happening.

Brother Noxton could feel the Golden Prophet watching him, as he broke his position and ever so slightly, but raised his head eventually. Not too much, only enough so he could see the happenings. His bones began to itch, as he laid an eye on the man that was brought out from the cabin previously. And a… thing standing before him.

It was a…

A…

Brother Noxton’s extensions wiggled wilder and wilder with every attempt to comprehend what he was seeing. The size, that was way, way bigger than the man’s and yet, somehow, still smaller. Or thinner in dimension. Whatever that meant, it also bore the shapes of a human and something grotesque mixture of octopus and an animal that he couldn’t pinpoint on. He didn’t dare. The needle point that his stomach became and the raw fright that nested in his core wouldn’t have let him.

Whispers.

Brother Noxton’s left eye twitched as he realized he heard whispers in his ears. From beside him. From behind him.

Inside him.

He didn’t know where the voice, voices came from, but it resonated inside his chest, his muscles, his mind. He didn’t understand what they said, if they said anything at all.

Looking at the creature made his senses itch and sharpen. Guttural gurglings, splashing, quelching, snizzling. It was as if he’d heard everything in the world and more. Then, the creature opened its terrible mouth in front of the frozen man.

And so something has begun.

An event Brother Noxton couldn’t really grasp anymore, nor could he tear his eyes off of it. His nape nestled, his extensions wiggled as if violently disturbed. He saw as the Sisters let the man go, while the air distorted around him and… had been sucked in by the creature. No,that couldn’t have happened. He couldn’t have seen that.

ʏᴇs.

Whispers. Air and skin ripped, teared, separated from the man. Shadows gathered around him, like claws stripped him bare. A grotesque change began, as if he’d been skin off, yet it was so much more. The creature, that thing sucked something out of him. Something off of him. His face, his body, his everything distorted and flew into the creature.

Then, a woman's figure appeared. The man no longer was the one who Brother Noxton had seen some time ago, but instead, a much younger woman stood there; eyes bulged by fright. His extensions raced at his nape, as he tried to make sense of the happenings. He couldn’t though. His mind was blanketed by the familiar, thick fog that felt somehow tender, yet stubborn. It stuck. And brought itself the nauseating feeling he was used to.

Whatever happened before him, it didn’t stop.

No, it didn’t. The woman, just like the man before her, had been torn into pieces by that visible, shadow-like, pulsing pull that came from the creature. The air was swirling around them, and Brother Noxton could have sworn that he saw the outline of the unknown, chained figure making a… tear… in their… what? In their reality? Is that… No.

ʏᴇs.

Underlying whispers that sounded muffled, as if they came from the bottom of his body; of his existence. They weren't there. Yet, they were. He couldn’t look away.

The woman disappeared. Her body, skin, existence had been sucked out of her and left behind an old man. Then a nun. Then an engineer. Then a politician. Faces, bodies, lifes had changed there, as the creature did its duty. The holy duty. Was this it? Oh, if Brother Noxton could have stopped the whispers!

A child.

Eyes with terror, body trembling, mouth covered. Whichever of the lot of people were there, they screamed inside the nanomask. Screamed… oh, no, they howled. Yes, now the Brother could have heard them too. He could hear… whispers. Bile in his throat. A thousand ants under his skin. People, erased from existence. Who stood there before? The Brother couldn’t remember. He couldn’t think, only hear those constant mumbles that echoed from the pit of his mind. Was that his mind?

Where did that golden puddle come from?

A last tear. A last shriek.

A figure, a creature… a thing. More bigger than the one with its shadows, even greater than the Golden Prophet himself. Its body, its… shapes made the Brother’s chest clench from such a primal fear, he couldn’t hold his position anymore. He panted, cried, whimpered, but he couldn’t look away. His eyes were stinging, as if a kind would have been twisted behind his eyeballs. Something was streaming down on his cheeks, thicker than water.

Blood.

The thing knelt in the golden puddle, golden droplets streaming down on his too long arms, through his even longer, claw-like fingers. It has no face at all.

Featherless wings. Whispers. Terrible, so, so terrible. Pain, the agony of not knowing, of not existing anymore.

Brother Noxton on the floor.

He felt the fog growing so great, it clouded all of his mind, sneaking in every little corner and nesting there to stay forever. Itching, screeching, heaviness. Words, Sisters and Brothers. The Golden.

Brother Noxton saw himself from above. He was floating over himself and all the devotees. He layed out on the floor face up, eyes so wide, and so white, the terror almost wasn’t visible. His face horrendously twisted, while white foam oozed from his open mouth. It stood in the way of his screams, but did not ease the sickening feeling. Nor the visceral fright.

His limbs constantly twitched, hands pulled up in a crooked way. The Golden watched him, his body on the ground of the vessel; then he lifted his head up and looked right into the Brothers eyes.

He couldn’t comprehend what he saw there, only the shaking of his soul, while the cacophony of whispers slowly merged into one, more feminin-like voice that spoke to him from nowhere, but everywhere at once.

The Brother heard one thing, before he felt his mere existence shatter.

ᴀɴᴅ sᴇʀᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ, ɪɴsᴇᴄᴛ.

[me-beef]

@strangeravatar made a great point

i was gonna focus on the spike-hotboxing-celestia aspect but i got distracted somewhere along the way and i think i forgot what joke i was trying to make

but dont you think its interesting how many guards of the exact same color/body type she's managed to accrue?? i do

ooohh you want to go look at our stickers so bad

[wardingshout]

apple season

[bluevelvetea]

So start by saving me, Itadori.

(Find my reference here)

[katabay]

WOW this has been ROUGH in the Life Events category of things, but. slowly crawling out of that. hopefully

this was the opening scene for a something I started writing after watching the Manben inverview with Nishi Keiko and thinking back to all the classic shoujo manga I stayed up reading back in the day, like damn that's so true Urasawa Naoki

it's partially a love letter to all the greats of the genre that I read, and also to the late night teleseryses that captivated me over the years lmao. it'd be nice to find the time to tackle it properly as a comic, but I'm having fun working on it recreationally :)

✨but since it's recreational, some character info✨

the first character seen is lawrence 'law' valenciano (late 30s), the one with the glasses is cris volante (mid-later 20s). law works at a karinderya, cris is an extremely broke university student.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / insta / tip jar!

[saragrosie]

As promised, incredibly stupid s4-5 drawings

[buckleydiazmp4]

no but the thing is. they KISSED. on screen. it was a real scene, not deleted, not removed from a script, it HAPPENED in front of the world's eyes. and AND the actors are normal about it and the whole cast and crew is normal about it and it's not vague and it's IMPORTANT. no matter the rest of it and what came after it, it happened!!

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[hinamie]

jjk doodles from requests !!! these were fun ty everyone for sending

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[daily-odile]

FINALLY FINALLY HAPPY (VERY LATE) BIRTHDAY ODILE!!!!!

[hellspawnmotel]

can I interested you in some strange old men on this fine evening

[eveningrainstorm]

cycle knots

[ricky-mortis]

Bryce posted her cosplay of the Ella from the CC program and I was so captivated I absolutely had to draw her.

[coddda]

Light's relationship with his father is such a heartbreaking multi-faceted tragedy to me I hate it so so so much.

Soichiro loves his son so much, and while he's certainly not a perfect father I know that he cares deeply about Light. He wants to prove Light's innocence so badly but he can't let go of the underlying doubt that he might really be Kira and it gnaws at him. He does not know that from the very beginning he was being used by Light, whether it was to obtain information about the investigation, or to get to L, or to strengthen the foundations of his own lie that he wasn't Kira, this entire time he was simply another resource. He'll hang onto this doubt for years, even after L is dead, even if he doesn't express it in the latter half of the series, until he himself is on his deathbed, with what he believes to be undeniable proof that Light isn't Kira. (It's a lie, of course.) He dies happy, but it's on the foundations of blissful ignorance. His own son brought him here, brought him to the point where he had to sacrifice half of his own remaining life span, to his own death march, and was still trying to use him even now to kill someone else, but he doesn't know that. Soichiro said that what was evil was the power to kill others, and that whoever used it was cursed. Light was that cursed man, of course, and he tried to bring that curse onto Soichiro too by making him kill in his last moments. Soichiro was happy regardless, because he didn't know. He'll never know. (In the manga/anime at least. More on that later).

Light loves his father but it's not enough to turn him away from the terrible decisions he's made, if anything it only fuels them. His idea of "justice" is a twisted model of what he parroted from Soichiro, and he uses his father as another pawn (and a powerful one at that) in his plans. If he can prove that Kira is justice then perhaps his father will no longer call Kira, and therefore Light, evil, so he just needs to ensure that Kira becomes justice, right? It's Light's own actions that land his own father in the hospital for a stress-induced heart attack and yet he says only a few minutes later that he's the happiest he's ever been in his entire life. Even after Soichiro denounces Kira by calling him evil, even after he calls the Death Note's power evil, even after he unknowingly tells Light that he is cursed. When Soichiro dies Light is too deep in his own plans to actually properly process the fact that his own father is dying past what it means for his goals, but at the same time he still cares enough that after the fact he'll genuinely cry, only to brush it all away later. (Personally, I don't have a single doubt in my mind that Light's crying in that scene was genuine and I Will die on this hill). Soichiro had unknowingly denounced Light one last time just before his death, openly relieved that he "wasn't Kira after all", which also reveals that he has had doubts about Light this entire time, even after L died. By the time he's caught at the Yellow Box Warehouse Light will have denounced his father too, seeing him as someone who was made to be a fool, someone who was naive, even, too earnest for his own good. He won't realize that part of this description of his father might have applied to Light himself, back when this all started. Light takes after his father so much in so many ways already, so why not in this way too?

Ough. And honestly the other adaptations never miss out on this tragedy either, and I love them for that. (spoilers for the musical and 2006 live action movies I guess?)

In the musical we see Soichiro express his doubts and conflicts about who to believe, Light or L, if the son he raised really is a murderer, if everything he knows about him is just a lie. Like, there's an entire song about this, and you can tell how torn he is about it all, how badly he wants Light to be innocent but about how he also needs to face the truth no matter what it is, but at the end of it all he doesn't even get the answers he wants. At the end of the musical the only thing he finds is two corpses, Light's and L's, with no answers. No last words, no closure, only dead ends and a dead son and a grieving daughter. It's so awful I hate it here.

And the live action movie is fucking Insane. Like, wow. Okay. (Spoiler for the ending of Death Note The Last Name I guess) In the 2006 movies/novels Light writes Soichiro's name in the Death Note himself, and it's such an inconcievable move that it leaves even Misa shocked; Light tries to make Soichiro give him the Death Note for the last part of his plans, seeing his death as a "necessary sacrifice" (insert tangent essay about why I think 2006 live action movie Light is actually the most "coldhearted" Light Yagami, despite how infamous anime Light is). It doesn't work, and Soichiro does end up finding out that Light is Kira this time, and they have a confrontation, but he doesn't even sound truly hateful towards Light for it. He Never seems to outright hate Light for it, even after Light calls the whole confrontation a waste of time and instead tries to continue killing with the piece of the notebook in his watch, even after he tries to get Ryuk to kill everyone. When Ryuk inevitably writes Light's name and he collapses, Soichiro still reaches out for him and holds onto him as he's dying. Light literally dies in Soichiro's arms, still looking for the validation that he was right, that this wasn't all for nothing, that he was doing the good thing, trying to make Soichiro understand that he was trying to enact justice based on what he learned from him in the first place. Soichiro not only learns but sees for himself what his son has become, and Light dies in his arms leaving no closure for either of them. Soichiro will announce Light's death in L Change the WorLd on the news without saying his name, saying instead that it is only Kira who is dead, even though he and Light are one in the same. Sachiko and Sayu will never get to know the full truth about what happened to Light, instead Soichiro will lie and instead tell them: "Light was killed by Kira."

And then holy Shit the jdrama. If I write about it here this post is gonna literally double in length and also I don't really wanna spoil it but. Man. Man. If you watched it you know. Holy Shit dude I Cried.

It's the fact that, canonically, Soichiro will die oblivious to what Light has done, but even in the instances where he does find out, it doesn't make it any better, and it doesn't make him love Light any less, it just gives him more to grieve.

It's the fact that there isn't a single universe where Light doesn't use his father for his own gain, whether to gain information, or to try and control him with the Death Note, or make him write in the Death Note himself, and not a single time will he realize just how far he's strayed from Soichiro's ideals, and not a single time will he not forsake him for it by the end of the story.

It's the fact that, despite everything, Light will always refers to Soichiro as "dad/my dad" (informal) rather than "father/my father", even after he has been "denounced" (and this is true in every language that Death Note has been translated in, as far as I could find. Man, isn't that so cool! :) <- Through tears).

Anyways that's what I've been thinking of how's your guys' days going

[acekindaneat]

I don't want this to end.

A cute little date scene that I really liked from the fic The Big Woo by @tinkertoysdamn !!!!!