#vessel talk

[thefirstvessel]

I think one of the things that a lot of humans fail into internalize about the Predator/Prey dynamic, especially in nature, is that millions of years of being shaped into Prey can often make incredibly territorial and fierce animals that will do anything they can to fight against millions of years of fighting being killed.

That's why horses kick and buck. Why rabbits are so infamously cantankerous and moody. Why deer have giant multi-pronged bone growths coming out of their foreheads that they can use for self-defense. Why rhinos are so dangerously territorial.

Meanwhile- a lot of Predators out in nature when they are not actually hunting (or play hunting) are remarkably chill. Especially macropredators. Think about how cats are known for the fact that they just lay around in the sun all day. Dogs are goofy guys who just want a friend.

The Predator/Prey dynamic isn't about the strong ferocious Predator taking advantage of weak and innocent Prey. When you're Prey, you're something that has spent millions of years being shaped into learning how to fight back. You're something that nature itself has pulled apart and put back together with all the sharp bits pointing out, just so you can survive.

You two have to be equal, otherwise there'd be nothing left to hunt.

[probablyanalienindisguise]

[mirrorhouse]

baldur's gate 3 ✨ characters (insp @wizardskissing)

[bonon-bobani]

secret talk

[laufire]

batman #683 / batman: gotham knights #43 / secret origins vol. 3 #5

(dc: it's okay bruce was never jason's father it's FINE he was never responsible for him it's ALL GO-)

[salty-an-disco]

I get why people see Shifting Mound and the Princess, per se, as separate entities, but I just can’t agree lmao

Specifically, the default Princess, the one you meet at the cabin. She’s full of possibilities, facet so malleable you can see it changing it even on Chapter 1.

To me, that’s Shifting Mound at her core. Possibilities personified, incredibly malleable, well-spoken even when unsure of her own nature. That’s her core, no wonder she becomes the heart by the end of it, she was always what held Shifting Mound together. That’s why constantly refusing to even interact with her makes Shifty fall apart.

She’s nothing without your perception, and she can only be perceived through her core.

As for the hands at the edges? Those are simply scattered thoughts (unilluminated and without a form to take hold of), they only become Shifting Mound once they have a vessel to speak through. Without the vessels, they remain incomplete. Possibilities of everything she could be left to wander aimless.

You can’t separate Shifting Mound from the Princess because the Princess is a part of Shifting Mound and a part of Shifting Mound is the Princess.

[nonuggetshere]

Tried out some brushes, and also gave PK a braid because I thought that'd be fun

[xxcallmemaryxx]

Vessel x GN reader.

Vessel and you with very obvious oral fixations hehehehee

It’s kept a secret. At first.

It begins with kisses. So many kisses. Always, all day, any chance either of you get. Your lips are always red and puffy when Vessel is around because you just can’t stop kissing him.

He eventually takes it up a few notches, when your lips tire and you just can’t keep up with him anymore, he gives you a few moments but he doesn’t want to stop. So he keeps going, moving down your jaw and making his way to your neck. He finds very quickly that your neck is his favourite place to bury his face. His lips wreaking havoc on the skin that resides there. But he just… can’t stop.

He cops it too. When he is fresh out the shower and his skin is warm and dewy. He crawls into bed, probably expecting an early night with you. But no, he’d be so so wrong. Because the moment you get your hands on him your lips are glued to his stomach. The soft pouch of skin that sits just above his waist band… fuck… your mouth waters just looking at it. You kiss and nip and suck at the beauty that is him. Leaving your marks all over his soft belly with a smile.

He starts to lose his mind a little. Always fighting a constant urge to drop everything and get his mouth on you. He sees the same look in your eyes. He doesn’t miss the way your eyes linger on his waist when he walks around without his top on. He loves to mess with you. Pulling his pants down just a little further than normal, letting them hang lower on purpose just to see if you’d crack. You never do. You’re stronger than he is.

But he’s nothing if not patient.

You don’t expect it. At all. Vessel knows this. But it’s his turn to cook dinner tonight, he’s stood at the stove stirring a pot of sauce he’d made. He wants you to try it but he stops you from reaching for a spoon. Your confusion disappears when you look at him and he’s already got two of his fingers, dripping with this sauce, hanging expectantly in front of your lips.

His smirk puts the word ‘smug’ to shame.

You hold eyes with him. Because if he wants to play this game then by god you’ll make him watch every minute of it. But your confidence diminishes the moment you wrap your lips around his fingers, and he knows he’s got you. Your eyes give you away immediately. Your pupils blow wide, and your eyes glaze over, telling him everything he needs to know about the state he’s got you in right now. By now the sauce that once coated his fingers is long gone but neither of you make any moves to pull away. He lets you enjoy this. Clearly awakening something within the both of you that he is just dying to explore.

To exploit.

And it’s then that Vessel has the small realisation that maybe his desire to have his mouth on you all the time extends beyond just wanting to kiss you. And he has an inkling that perhaps this little desire sits snug in your brain too.

He gently pulls his fingers from your beautiful lips, a string of saliva keeping the two of you connected as he reaches over to flick the stove off. You don’t even have time to wipe your mouth clean before his lips are on yours again. Dinner is immediately forgotten. His mouth will be occupied with someone much more delicious.

[ria-starstruck]

i’m on team “vessels eat with their eyes”

Bonus under the cut

[h00d13d09]

III being down bad for Vessel [x] [x]

Gifs by me

[thefirstvessel]

*Is reminded that Doomguy canonically has no idea what sex is*

.... I can change that ;3c

[quietwingsinthesky]

it ever hit you out of nowhere that castiel is living in a dead guy's body and the show just does not care. it does not care. jimmy novak might as well not exist the moment he or claire is out of sight. cas stole a guy's body and his face and his life, and we can't ever talk about it or discuss it in detail because of how fucking horrifying it is that sam and dean's best friend just walks around in a dead guy suit. there's not even a human soul in there anymore. it's just a corpse. stone-cold body snatcher indeed.

[that-unfortunate-crow]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the quiet crying at the end of "Bloodsport", the soft sighs at the end of "Jaws", or the Barely Concealed Rage at the end of "Gods"????!!!

[ancientbygone]

simulacra 3 [take me back to eden]

Sleep's mimic forms of the vessels during the time period of TMBTE, because i can't be normal and start a series from the beginning and not the end.

more info + design breakdowns under the cut:

[obligatory "when talking about the vessels, i'm talking about characters" disclaimer]

background info on the whole idea:

Sleep as a being is shapeless in my mind; more of a concept than a creature. it can manifest as sort of an absence of light in any shape to others, usually to appeal to feeling/emotion. the only "rule" for that is that whatever Sleep tries to appear as cannot look more or less innocent/powerful than Sleep actually is, which usually manifests in two things: the size being different from the thing/person it's imitating, scaled according to power, and/or added features, usually in some way threatening or regal.

one of Sleep's more consistent forms it takes throughout interacting with Vessel is mimicking him, partially to create an illusion of the two being more similar than they actually are and partially because Sleep used to exist as Vessel's shadow when they'd just met. the visual itself has changed through time (you can see what it was like during Sundowning in my Higher artwork), and during TMBTE that visual is pretty much the titular song's character with the most minor tweaks (which is why i didn't draw it separately).

all that made me think about the idea of Sleep mimicking the other vessels just to fuck with Vessel further (to be clear, i am a strong believer that Sleep only interacts with Vessel in any way). so now here are the designs of those mimics during the events of TMBTE, utilizing the album's song characters much like the Vessel mimic. because again, i have to start a series from the end, i guess.

"ii"/ii mimic (song character used: AYROK)

the main idea driving the design of "ii" is the real ii's goal to keep Vessel more or less safe by being by his side in worshipping Sleep, which is the reason he'd decided to become the second vessel in the first place. the choice of AYROK as the character to use in this design is obvious. one of the ideas that stem from that is ii's duty/desire to keep his face hidden for Vessel's sake; only his hands are visible & detailed because that's the only part of him Vessel remembers before either of them became vessels of Sleep and the only part ii has really shown after that. another is ii's timidity in telling Vessel to go against Sleep's will because he fears that no matter how bad it may be, it'll be much worse if Vessel doesn't follow it. that part comes through in the pose - shyly holding his hands together as if they're tied.

"iii"/iii mimic (song character used: Aqua Regia)

the song character inspo being Aqua Regia is mostly because of the calmer nature of the song and the dynamic duo it makes with Vore, less so the themes of the lyrics. also its visual design. iii mimic's design themes are iii's adoration/borderline obsession with Vessel (wearing Vessel's jewelry and having elements of his robe in his shirt + his own face/mask slowly melting off) and his enagement with worship as an act/aesthetic rather than something more serious (the overabundance of jewelry and accessories; the extra arms; the body language; the cuffs around his arms and legs being decorative and not actually restricting). also the rings on his fingers make a checkered pattern.

"iv"/iv mimic (song character used: Vore)

the use of Vore for "iv" is obvious too. song wouldn't be the same without his real life self. the design really just aims to combine iv with the Vore character, but there are two big things here. the simplest one is anger issues, which is why he's So Goddamn Spiky and why his jacket looks like scarred skin rather than painted & customized. the anger mostly shows up in the body language: most of the time "iv" just stares unblinkingly with pure palpable ire in the two glowing dots for eyes, and when he does move it's very stiff and snappy and barely controlled. the other thing is that, simply speaking, the real iv got into this whole mess without knowing the full extent of it and now he's in too deep and kinda losing himself. in the design it's expressed through the human features gradually turning into bug-like, such as the hoodie fading into a segmented millipede-like body and the fucked up mantis hands, and the gold of the original iv's mask melting over the face with the horns being part of it. the spikes protrude from him in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish between jacket decorations and actual parts of his body, but the spines are definitely from his body & allow me to live the dream of iv with a mohawk LMAO

anyway have fun with these go nuts i'll make similar sheets & posts for Sundowning and TPWBYT eventually

[stellexpress]

extremely biased because they're my favorites but god i think damsel/tower would be such a fun combination

damsel: don't you just adore the sensation of your heart beating? all i want is to make him happy ^_^

tower, an equally fragile vessel, dispassionate as a result of her divine ascension, and disgusted by any acknowledgement she's still bound by flesh and desires: how i pity thee

[renard-dartigue]

Vessel calling upon Sleep to grant him power.