#Truly a relatable and horrible creature

[freakattack]

new warioware game you knwow hat that means....NEW FLAVOR TEXT

IDK if this is like compiled anywhere but i never found it but for the benefit of everyone, not just orbheads like myself, i will transcribe EVERYONE'S explanations of their own game genres under the cut

WARIO (Intro): Wario's games are the best! In fact, they are probably too good for you, but you can try them anyway!

JIMMY T. (Sports): I'm your groovy emcee, by the name of Jimmy T. I've got all sorts of sports games designed by yours truly! Let the funk move you as you hit your stride in these hip hits!

DRIBBLE & SPITZ (Sci-Fi): Da name's Dribble. Dese here games was made by me and my buddy Spitz. They're all about space an' stuff. You know, aliens and rockets and things like dat? So have a blast!

MONA (Strange): It's me! Mona! I like some weird stuff, and I put everything I like into my games! They're a bit weird, I know, but I poured my heart into them, and you'd better love every one of 'em!

9-VOLT (Nintendo): My name's 9-Volt, and I'm Nintendo's number-one fan! All my games are all about Nintendo, and I've got a massive collection of all time classics! You're gonna love these blasts from the past!

ORBULON (IQ): Hello, how do you do? I am Orbulon, supergenius. With my incredible mind, I've made games that will tax you earthlings to your limits. As a result, I've given you a longer time limit. If they're still too difficult, keep practicing! DR. CRYGOR (Reality): Please call me Crygor. DOCTOR Crygor. Yes, I am a scientist, and my games are powered by SCIENCE!!! Never before you seen such glorious realism in games! Yes, behold them and be AMAZED!

KAT & ANA (Nature): Hiya! My name is Kat! Me and my sister, Ana, made a bunch of games about cute li'l critters! Our games are all about nature, and nature's cuddly, but nature can also be really rough! Just like our games!

WARIO AGAIN (Anything Goes): These are the finest games ever, and the great WARIO is bringing them to you! Ha! You love it! These games are gonna make me a fortune! BWA HA HA HA!!!

[mari-lair]

Let's talk about after-school chapter 28!

I had assumed this interaction was what made Teru, our king of pettiness, go "You know what? I think I won't exorcise your evil spirit problem. Perish."

But?? Akane already had stiff shoulders at the start of their talk?? And Akane waited until it was near the end of their student council time to brag about his 'date' with Aoi.

Meaning Teru just let Akane carry the embodiment of stress and hatred on his back during their entire student council time??

I can't fathom why? This was not an 'I trust Akane to handle it' case, not when Teru was the one who enchanted his glasses so he know better than anyone how vulnerable to supernatural Akane becomes with it, and telling myself Teru needed to wait for the supernatural to feed on Akane to grow when this guy is a pro exorcist also feels like an excuse.

Maybeeee Teru was morbidly curious as to how Akane would fight the feeling?

Speculations on the insane decision to let Akane be haunted aside, their conversation is a trainwreck, shout out to how Teru instinct upon hearing Akane got a date is that his buddy is hallucinating.

I get his skepticism tho, pre-severance Akane you are... A lot.

"I love the part of her that invites me to go shopping" Akane, my dear, you need help. I know you're being honest but please find a less awkward way to be a lovesick fool. (---> I say, knowing full well he'll need to go through a traumatic feelies talkies section in Death's house first)

"cya!" is just cute to me. Look at this smug ill-informed dumbass.

"Hey, the flowers behind aoi are different this time," I think in surprise, even tho realistically Akane must associate Aoi with the entire garden at this point.

And here comes the professional thrid well, the prince himself! His mere presence means Teru actually fell for Akane calling the shopping trip a date though, he gives Akane too much credit.

Teru knowing Akane well enough to translate his stammers of a pathetic creature into "Why are you here?" is beautiful, bro is better at his side gig (pester akane) than his main job (be an exorcist) today.

Aoi's "I know a liar when I see one. let's indulge him anyways" she truly is a kind soul.

Speaking of said liar, I love that Teru doesn't have a basket or shopping cart.

He isn't even trying to pretend he had plans to go shopping, what a guy.

Aoi getting excited over dirt and fertilizer, my girl <3

Shout out to Akane for being happy that Aoi is happy and to Teru for finally figuring out that he doesn't need to sabotage anything cause there is nothing to sabotage.

Teru: *speak*

Akane: and away goes my joy and whimsy.

Love Teru trying to bond with Aoi right after the realization this is a hangout. He wastes no time.

Aoi telling Teru the truth is sweet, I'm glad they are getting closer. Also happy to see Teru remains shameless.

Aoi gave him the driest look possible and Teru still put carrots on her basket. He even said "buy it" SO HE WOULD HAVE MADE HER PAY FOR THE CARROTS.

YES AOI REPRIMAND HIS ASS!

She really treats him like a dog! Is incredible. From her 'grrr' to the way she points a finger at him, it gives me "bad dog! Drop it!" energy.

Fascinated by the way Teru blushes. He seems to be more hung up on being called 'bad' than anything, but he definitively liked being reprimanded, he is still blushing when he walks instead of displaying the dejection of the convenience store.

He doesn't even give up on his quest to make her buy veggies.

Teru, you're doing horrible sweety, keep pestering her and you two will be inseparable in no time <3

Love how Akane snapped out of the curse's first attempt to make him spiral by refusing to be on the same level as Hanako.

He is so arrogant "What am i a loser? A pathetic toilet loser? Nah nah, I am better than that." like damn, okay bro.

I can't believe he pushed back against a curse by the sheer power of self-confidence and determination though, he is built differently. 90% of the characters in this manga cannot relate.

Love how Teru probably didn't suggest a single flower for Aoi to buy, trying to test if he could sneak even one vegetable into her basket, so his closeness to Aoi just made Akane's petunia suggestion look that much more thoughtful in comparison (she does look very happy to be given an actual flower).

Rest in peace Teru you suck at sabotaging.

(Or he would suck if that was the goal! He stuck around for this entire hangout despite how rare his free time is. He got his ice cream, he even walked Aoi home, he just want to hang out. Same vibe as when he went "Oh aoi come with me to the festival, Akane will be there")

I find Teru's zoned-out face so cute.

There is no speech bubble to Terukane's first panel here, but i am 95% sure Teru was the one who asked to be notified about Aoi's gardening progress considering the '...' contrasting Akane's enthusiasm. Love that for him, yes talk to Aoi, get close to this closed off girl.

And Akane didn't like that iuguyguygyui

Teru can always just take off his glasses like Akane never fights that. Good for you.

I am still not over Teru just letting him carry this curse.

But now I really doubt he did it specifically to torture Akane, cause Teru likes helping Akane as much as he enjoys annoying him.

I wonder if he is proud of Akane for not acting on any of the negative feelings he was being fed, cause Teru looks genuinely happy here! It's a far cry from his usual 'bullying you relax me' or 'i am petty' kind of smiles.

...I may be biased but I am throwing my "Teru didn't exorcise the monster for this long to have an excuse to be hanging out with the Aois while tecnically doing his job." idea here. We do get a heavy confirmation he could have done something before and wanted to third wheel after all.

Teru wants to turn this couple into a tricycle so bad. What a guy.

"I hope I didn't act weird" That's an insane thing to think considering how you act near Aoi on the daily bro, you're lucky she is too down bad to mind your madman tendencies.

Peak weirdo to weirdo pining hell.

Speaking of which, she sent him a message to show off the planted flowers! She went out of her way to make sure he saw it, Akane never asked her to update him.

LOOK AT THEEEEEEEEEEM

"Thanks for taking me out today!" says the one who invited him. And 'taking me out'? to the hardware store? I swear I wouldn't even be surprised if she mentally referred to their hang-out as a date too. I love you Aoi.

"As long as Ao-chan had fun, I am happy" l know and I love you.

ps: Their height difference still sparks joy. The smallest girl in the block, the tallest boy in the group, and the perfect middle ground.

[in-search-of-an-exit]

Hatchetfield, Continuity, and Eldritch Horror

So, Nerdy Prudes Must Die just came out and it reminded me how much I love the Hatchetfield series and I want to talk about one aspect that makes it so unique and interesting. Continuity.

If you don't know Hatchetfield is a series of stories by Starkid that has three stage musicals and a series called Nightmare Time and a short film. It is a horror anthology series where in every story some different supernatural or other horrible event occurs where characters die or the world ends in different ways. But that is kinda of not true because anthology isn't quite the right word.

The characters stay the same as the inhabitants of the small town of Hatchetfield but each story focuses on different characters at different times and the interesting part is that while certain individuals will act differently because of something related to the horror or supernatural elements mostly they always stick to canonical personalities and histories, and it is heavily implied that the events all actually happen and there is some wider story where there are multiple timelines.

This creates two really cool effects.

One is that you slowly start to learn more about the characters as you encounter them in various stories, and different things come about depending on how the current threat affects them. It also gives more information than any length single timeline would because we get to see what pushes them to different points. From NPMD for example, the story takes place two years after The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals in which the world ends and Paul and Emma fall in love, but we see in NPMD that Paul for the first time gives Emma his number perhaps hinting at what the timeline would be for Paul and Emma's relationship to mature without the intervention of a world ending disaster.

The other thing is about Eldritch Horror. Hatchetfield's core story revolves around the Lords in Black a group of Elder Gods who orchestrate most of the events. In most cases Eldritch Horror has difficulty truly selling the concept of creatures outside of our dimension who are not bound by time and space, and even if they demonstrate their power to the characters, as an audience it doesn't have a huge effect. But with Hatchetfield, because as an audience we are aware of the multiple timelines, we take on the role of the eldritch beings and see the stories from their perspective. In NPMD they make references to other stories implying that it is the same Lords in Black everytime with Tinky talking about having "another Spankofski" for his collection(an episode of Nightmare Time.) They also play with having the audience being the perspective of these Eldritch beings with the stagecraft like in Black Friday where entering the Black and White has the president move in from the audience, or in TGWDLM the ending has the audience clap for the end of the show with Emma screaming for help and unsure why the audience won't help her.

Its a really cool format that I personally have never encountered before and really sells the horror and makes you more invested in the characters.

[baddybaddyadardaddy]

a knife in the dark, pt. 3

[adar/oc]

read part 1 | part 2

Set in the "Awake, Arise"-verse (I'd recommend reading at least chapters 1-9 if you haven't already to get the history of these characters) PREMISE: Erenyë is reembodied in Valinor, but Mandos shrouds her memories of Utumno, hoping to spare her pain in her new life. But she is restless in Aman, sensing that something is missing... She boards a ship heading for Middle Earth, hoping to discover just what that is.

OKAY PEEPS AS PROMISED, HERE'S THE SPICE. [cw: blood, knife-play, implied previous dubcon/noncon, related to the creation of the orcs]; M rating applies.

ENJOY. (don't look at me.)

Cuiviénen.

Her blood sings at the sound of the word. She does not know how it could be true, only that it is. She begins to pick up the scattered pieces, the visions that she had seen: a lake under stars… water flowing over stones… tall, primordial trees…

With eyes full of questions, she lets the dagger fall away from his throat. “And you…”

“I was yours,” he says, tremulous and yearning. “And you were mine.”

A breeze moves gently through the glen, and in her mind’s eye, she catches a glimpse of him, young and uncorrupted—his skin unblemished as he steps into a patch of moonlight, breathless after chasing her through the wood.

She remembers how she’d led him through the trees after he’d caught her, down to a secluded place by the waterside. She remembers how they’d spent blissful hours discovering one another beneath the stars, how much she’d hungered for him.

She realizes then that she knows his name—for it is an inextricable part of her own: Eren.

“Oh,” she gasps, struggling to reconcile that vision of Eren with Adar who sits before her now, still bound to the tree. She can still make out unmistakable traces of his elvenness—his pointed ears, his high cheekbones—but his terrible transformation from elf to orc is clear.

She squeezes her eyes closed, overwhelmed suddenly by more memories of her own—of time spent in darkness and torment. For she had not escaped a similar fate…

Despite the strengthening sunlight, she is suddenly pulled down, plunged into icy waters—she is drowning in cold, swimming in a sea of terrible truth.

“I was with you,” she says, discovering it slowly. “In that dark, nameless place. They brought me to you, after I had been changed… after I had forgotten your name, and mine.”

She lets out a strangled sob, remembering the chamber, remembering being held down, remembering Morgoth, watching. “He forced us.”

As quickly as they’d returned to her—those blissful memories of starlit Cuiviénen—they are eclipsed by this single, horrible fact. As quickly as everything had come together, it now smashes, like a pane of glass against stone.

Erenyë crumbles with a terrible cry, wrenched from the depths of her soul as she comes to full understanding. They had been used—both of them—by Morgoth, to create the race of the orcs. She hearkens back to the hordes of snarling creatures that had attacked her party earlier. With a wave of nausea, she realizes that they are descended from her.

She looks back at Eren—Adar, she reminds herself. He is Adar—an orc, an enemy. She considers leaving him there, bolting off into the forest, returning to Pelargir, forcing the ship to turn around and return her to Valinor.

But Valinor is not her home…

At last, she understands the reason why she’d always felt incomplete. She never belonged in Valinor, not truly. She belongs with him—he is her purpose, her place in this world.

But she does not know how to have him now, after everything.

She is no longer the wild elf-maid who had danced carefree through the forests at Cuiviénen. Now, she feels broken and afraid—and she senses that he is, too. They are both changed, though her body bears the physical scars no longer.

“Erenyë.” His voice, barely a whisper, pleads with her. “Á cene ni.”

Look at me.

His unlovely face is bathed in golden sunlight. As the moments slip past, she allows everything else to fall away, piece by piece, until she focuses only on him. She allows herself to see him—to see in him that which Morgoth could never destroy, and what even the turbulent storms of ten thousand years could not weather away. She feels a hunger stirring deep within her, a hunger that only he has the power to slake.

She is utterly at a loss for how to proceed, but she feels a faint flicker of the boldness she’d once possessed, and it helps her to take the first step. She returns, kneeling over him, straddling his legs, reaching out with her free hand—the one not still clutching the dagger.

To her great surprise, he recoils from her, shaking his head.

“I do not deserve your touch,” he says, his voice thick with self-loathing. His eyes fall to the knife in her opposite hand, and she understands that given the choice of pain or pleasure, his preference now is for the former.

With a terrible pang, she wonders if he can even remember what tenderness feels like.

A part of her is angered by his denial, but she strives to accept it. They are neither of them who they once were, she reminds herself. They must forge a new path through the ashes.

She raises the dagger, letting it rest lengthwise against his cheek. Taking a steadying breath, she digs it into his skin enough to make him wince and squeeze his eyes shut.

“How are you here?” he murmurs, incredulous, as a single tear escapes.

She leans in, tilting her head toward him until they are almost nose to nose. She breathes him in, her body slowly relearning how to be close to his. She shifts, rolling her hips tentatively, experimentally against his legs, feeling heat kindling to life deep within her core. Her lips move close to his ear. “I am here,” she replies.

He shivers, leaning into the blade like a caress. Angling it carefully so that it will not rend, she traces it down the side of his face. His eyes open, and they are tinged with the haze of deep memory.

“I watched you die,” he says, laying his anguish bare before her, and it is a gaping chasm so wide and deep she fears her own heart to be in danger of splitting into and falling into it.

She had been so caught up by her own harrowing discoveries, she had not yet fully contemplated that while she had lived long in ignorance of their torment, he had wandered the world carrying the full weight of everything that had befallen them under Morgoth’s hand.

“I came back for you,” she breathes, seeking to reassure him, to assuage his anguish as best she can. She wishes he could accept softness, and she offers up a silent prayer that in time, he might come to do so. But for now, she drags the blade again, letting the tip of it settle at the center of his lower lip. He is trembling now, and his breathing is heavy as he begs her silently with his eyes.

She lets the dagger pierce him, splitting his lip in two and drawing blood. And then she dives, hungrily, unwilling to wait any longer, swallowing his gasp of surprise with her mouth. He resists at first, but she moves the blade to his throat—a gentle but direct threat. He acquiesces, opening himself to her kiss. She does not try to be sweet; she devours, letting their teeth gnash together before moving to nip and suck at the wound she’d made.

He moans against her mouth, and she remembers the thrill of being needed by him. How, she wonders, had she survived for so many years without this?

She twists the fingers of her free hand into his hair, pulling his head back so that she can assail his neck. She nicks him with the dagger several times in succession, letting him feel pain for only a moment before allowing him the balm of her lips. His black blood tastes bitter on her tongue, but she savors it, nonetheless.

With a sharp intake of breath, he shifts beneath her and she grinds herself down hard against the cradle of his hips, the heat between her legs blooming until it is slick and wet and impossible to ignore.

She pulls back, lowering the dagger to the cord of elven rope that binds him. Hesitation flickers across his face, but she grips his chin in her free hand, jerking him toward her to claim his lips again. “Grant me this,” she says when they are both breathless, resting her forehead against his.

He makes a noncommittal noise in the base of his throat, and she prepares her argument, but he interjects before the words reach her lips.

“Grant me one thing in return.” He leans back ever so slightly, his eyes raking over her face, coming to rest on the long, dark braid draping over her shoulder. “Your hair,” he implores. “Undo it.”

Warmth floods her chest. It is such a simple request, but as she moves her hand to undo the cord, he watches her with a startling intensity, and as she begins to finger the strands free from the braid, she realizes that she had never worn her hair this way back in Cuiviénen, and that his request is born out of a desire to see her as she had been then.

His breath hitches as he watches her, and she slows her movements, taking deliberate care as she unwinds the rest, combing through her dark locks carefully until they fall free at last, framing her face.

“There was starlight in your hair on the night of our awakening,” he murmurs, his voice dreamlike. “I have never forgotten it.”

His desire for her is so guileless, so open, as it ever had been since their earliest days, and she feels a sudden burst of incandescent joy amid all the anguish that had passed between them during their reunion.

She takes his face between her hands, heedless of his earlier talk of undeserving, and kisses him fiercely, thumbing over his scars and broken skin. Then, with haste, she reaches down for the dagger she had dropped, and slices cleanly through the elven rope, freeing him, wanting nothing more than to feel his arms enveloping her.

But he does not match her fevered pace—and when he does reach for her, it is to lightly stroke her hair. He does so with reverence, as though handling a holy relic. She leans into his hand, placing her palms upon his chest to brace herself, for even under this lightest of touches, her knees grow weak.

His armor is firm and solid—an outer shell that she longs to remove. She wants nothing between them, just as it had been when they had lain together in the eldest of elder days. But as she gropes for the fastenings, he catches her wrists, and the pained look in his eye tells her no.

She wants to ask if he means never or not yet, but she is frightened to learn the answer, so she leans in soundlessly, winding her arms around his neck, knitting her body against his, coaxing his lips to part for her once more.

She is confused by his unwillingness and wracked by feelings of selfishness for wanting him so recklessly. She prays he will not notice her hot, anguished tears as they begin to fall. But she soon tastes their salt, and she knows he can, too. He pulls back, and she drops her eyes immediately, ashamed.

She feels the cold kiss of metal as his gauntleted hand tips her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. His face is contrite yet pained—he hides nothing from her.

“For you, it was once,” he explains, and she knows immediately that he is speaking of their violation in Utumno. She clenches her jaw, feeling the icy, sick sensation overwhelm her again as he continues, his voice thick with emotion. “For me, it was… many times. Always at Morgoth’s command.”

Her heart shatters at his confession. The death she had suffered—it had been a mercy. She understands that fully now. Her tears fall faster as she aches for everything she imagines he’d endured, alone. Without her.

She yearns to comfort him, but to her distress, she realizes that she does not know how—she does not know anymore what will soothe him, or if there is anything that can.

With a shuddering intake of breath, he continues. “Being lost to lust—I fear it now.” He looks to her mournfully. “But I do long for you.” His unclad hand caresses her now, sliding slowly down her neck, between the valley of her breasts, over her belly and down to the cleft between her legs. “Oh, how I long for you,” he growls low, stroking her there.

She cannot contain the cry of pleasure that breaks free, and to her surprise, he smothers it with a sudden, scorching kiss.

His hands move to unfasten the clasp of her cloak, letting it fall away behind them. Snatching her around the waist, he tips her back, laying her out on top of it, a silken barrier between her and the ashes that lie beneath it. He kneels carefully over her, and she watches a silent struggle play out upon his face. He breathes in deeply, finding steadiness within himself.

She waits, as patiently as she can manage, though every inch of her feels raw, and in desperate need of his hands. One by one, he undoes the fastenings of her tunic, unfolding the fabric gently, unwrapping her, letting the morning sun soak her pale skin. A ripple of delight courses through her as she watches him look down upon her, followed by a surge of impatience. She thinks she sees the edges of his lips curl up ever so slightly as he slides his fingers beneath the hem of her trousers, as he begins to tease them slowly down her legs.

His unhurried pace is maddening. She bucks her hips as he strips the garment finally away, releasing a pathetic whimper. He returns it with a satisfied growl that sounds from deep at the base of his throat, before lowering his head, planting a chaste kiss on the skin just above her hip. His bare hand moves to cover her breast, fingers sinking into a slow caress as his lips forge their own path across her abdomen and lower.

When he reaches the place where she needs him most, he delays no further—her legs part as his tongue finds her center. She undulates in pure, simple, velvet-soft ecstasy, as half-conscious sighs and moans fall freely from her lips.

The sensation of his mouth upon her sex makes her deliciously weak, but she summons enough strength to raise her head enough to look down and watch him, his dark head between her thighs, eyes closed in concentration, his grey hand kneading her breast, his iron gauntlet gripping her hip, the sharp spikes of his fingers sinking into her flesh.

Within a few moments, she is finished, reduced to quivers and cries as she comes undone beneath him.

His face swims into view above her, wan and satisfied, his green eyes cloudy with arousal. She clasps him around the neck, pulling him down to kiss her, catching the trace of her own tang still upon his tongue. Finding more strength, she rises somewhat clumsily, moving to straddle him once more, so that his back is against the tree.

They are both breathless, and for a moment, they linger in stillness. Her hand drifts to his forehead, brushing strands of dark hair away from his face. Then she leans forward, kissing along his jawline before teasing at his ear with her teeth. He gasps at the sensation, hands digging deliciously into her bare back.

She presses her body close to his, flattening her breasts against the hard plate of his armor, rocking so that she feels the friction of his mail against her flesh. Her hunger for him—having been momentarily sated—comes roaring back, and her motions grow more frantic as she confronts again a deep sense of emptiness between her legs, aching to be filled. She trails hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of his throat, each an invitation.

Please, she begs in between them.

His hands abruptly leave the base of her spine, and for a moment she fears that they have reached the end—that she has asked too much, pushed too far.

She buries her face in his neck, unwilling to tear herself away. But then she feels something brush against her—something hard that teases at her still-weeping entrance. She sucks in a sharp breath, glancing down at the space between them. He is holding the hilt of the dagger against her slit, clutching it in his own hand by the blade, and she can see a thin rivulet of black blood running down his fingers. He winces, but she reads in his face just how much the pain grounds him, and she remembers his earlier words, his fears of being fully lost to lust.

This, she realizes, is what he can offer her now. All she can do is accept it and be content, and live in hope that together, they might conquer the rest in time.

It is a challenge that she is more than willing to accept for him, and she tells him so with a deep, passionate kiss. Pulling back, she locks her eyes onto his, letting herself sink down onto the hilt, as a breathy moan begins at the back of her throat. He manipulates the dagger gently, pressing it inside of her as the sound deepens and lengthens. His forehead droops against hers and they breathe in time together with each thrust until she comes, and his hand is covered in blood.

With her body still quaking from the aftershocks, she wastes no time in tending to him. Reaching for her cloak, she tears a strip of fabric and binds his mangled palm. When she finishes, she holds his hand carefully in both of her own.

Where will we go now, she asks him, suddenly fearful of what may lie ahead.

Home, he answers. To Mordor.

...y'all still with me?

want more?

[i have some ideas]

lemmeknowkthanksbai

[artbyblastweave]

hello. I am in the middle of doing My Take on vampires and would appreciate your thoughts on Them in fiction. they don't seem to pop up more than occasionally in superhero media, but also you are pretty widely read & they have noticeable Eras/Tendencies that I can see.

I'm definitely not as much of a vampire guy as I'm a Superhero guy, so all my opinions on vampires should be taken with a grain of salt, and with the knowledge that a lot of this is stuff I've picked up through Osmosis and the occasional lit-review for that one class in college. But here goes-

One of my potentially more controversial takes about Vampires is that I think Vampires (and adjacent creatures like werewolves) are great at capturing the emotional truth of being part of a marginalized group, or sometimes just for being subaltern- the world against you, people make you feel like you're wrong for existing, that you're dangerous, etc.- and this is why they go gangbusters both on this website and in general. But the narrative often faceplants for me if it tries to portray vampires as a literal marginalized group because all of that stuff is often objectively true within the fiction in a way that it isn't true of real-life marginalized groups. It's a souped-up version of the X-men problem, because most of the X-Men aren't obligate cannibals! The result of this is that there have been several times I'm consuming something vampire-related that wants me to primarily sympathize with the vampires, and meanwhile I'm going "geez, that's a rough deal, but I think you all need to be killed on purely utilitarian grounds, sorry."

(I do also get the sense as well, right, that this is inextricably tangled up in the fact that a lot of foundational vampire literature was kind of just taking a lot of the horrible lies people tell about the scapegoat group du jour to justify their oppression and then making a guy of whom these things were objectively true. I get the impression, at a distance, that Dracula demonstrates like fourteen different flavors of "Those Depraved Easterners Are Coming For Our Women," although to truly lock in that Take I'm gonna have to read the thing instead of just absorbing it through Tumblr Osmosis whenever Dracula Daily is running.) There are ways to thread this needle, the big one of which is to just sand down the negative externalities of vampirism. Have them feed on animals or voluntary donors or make the human predation thing an in-universe slanderous fiction to begin with. Have them feed on exclusively on quote-unquote "criminals," if you have the right unexamined assumptions about the validity of the death penalty. Go the Elder Scrolls route, where drinking blood isn't necessary to survive but is necessary to maintain a human appearance, thus ensuring that the most morally conscientious vampires are the ones most likely to be identified as vampires and scapegoated by the angry mob. The issue I sometimes take with this is that the act of implementing a "fix" of any kind can sort of broadcast that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too- that you're cutting away the ideatic core of what makes vampires interesting when divorced from metaphor, taken objectively- that they're living trolley problems. As others have said, if you sand them down too much, what are you getting out of a vampire story that you couldn't get from a Tolkien Elf, or from Batman?

A fictional group which I've never really had this issue with, though, is Zombies, in the Romero tradition. When a work wants to construct Zombies as a primarily sympathetic group, it's much easier for me to get on board with that without feeling like the core Vibe has been compromised. This is because there's actually a fairly recent source text for zombies in the form of Romero's Living Dead films, and a major component of the Living Dead films is how much it sucks without recourse to become a zombie.

I was working on a post once, which I never finished, about how there are like, three-to-four vectors of horror that zombies can embody, which different works play up to different extents. While obviously one of the big straightforward ones is the fear that your entire community starts trying to kill you and eat you one day for basically no reason, a major anxiety on display in the original Living Dead trilogy- Dawn in particular- is that in the face of a weird but manageable problem human society would act as its own condemnation, totally failing to rise to the challenge-the horror is that we would let something as inept as a zombie be dangerous to us! Also present in those films? The horror of the idea that your daily routine is so rote and conformist that you wouldn't need to be sentient to continue to carry it out- that the biggest difference between you and them is that you can occasionally be evil in more interesting and evolved ways. And there's this fear of physically and mental degradation with zombies, which for a host of reasons I find extremely fucking relatable. The sense that your body is falling apart piecemeal, bits of you sloughing off when you turn the wrong way or turn your head too quickly. There's this fog over your thinking. The bone-deep knowledge that you used to be more, and are now fundamentally less capable- that there's just enough of you left to understand something is missing. (Read into my personal circumstances whatever you want from this.) Being a zombie is foundationally, fundamentally gross in a way that being a vampire isn't; when people try to do "sexy zombies" half the joke is the pairing of those two words. There's this horror comic Kieth Giffen did once called Tag which is basically entirely about the horror of being a corpse that could feel it; I think about that comic a lot. Anyway, because so much of the horror of zombism is external to whether they're actually attacking and killing people or not, you can totally sell me on zombies as an unfairly-maligned demographic in a way that's much harder for me to buy with Vampires- dropping the danger they pose to other people allows you to maintain so much more of the core of the thing than it does with Vampires, where it feels much more like you're tip-toeing around the tensions between Wanting To Have Fun and the moral horror inherent to what you're trying to have fun with.

[oceanlipgloss]

LUNCHBOX

MEPHISTOPHELES.

+ no warnings.

+ my mc is the heroine, so the pronouns are feminine.

Nobles didn’t need lunchboxes. They didn’t share lunches on school benches.

Nobles indulged in fancy luncheons and had luxurious dinners. That was how he had always lived; not for decades and not for centuries, but for millennia. Yet, the next thing he knew, this pretty and horribly fragile creature had come along and spoiled the whole rhythm.

That did not merely mean his lunching habits, of course, or the traditional noble programme, or anything else like that—for the little butterfly had let her wings move a bit too fast, fly a little too far. She had let herself land on his velvet fingertip, twirl around in his brain, then sneak her way into his heart.

Do you understand what it was like for him?

She was messing with his mind and troubling his heart, spreading the nectar from part to part until the entire organ was contracting with his red admiration, and all her own.

He was a demon. Holy scripts of all kinds and in all languages told of how those like him are damned before their creation, and born damned still.

Goddamn it though, wasn’t she a demon too? She made disliking her hard, altered the rhythm of his heart; it pounded faster when she was there. Made him think about her so much, all the time, even when he had better things to do—more important things, like taking down a fallen angel, for instance.

Goodness...was this not an alarmingly strange phenomenon all around? That is why, for the first time in his seemingly endless life he actually and genuinely thought, ‘I am damned.’

How could he not? Was there even a sliver of probability to think otherwise?

After all, he was willingly seated next to a commoner on a school bench. So much like a silly school crush...

The cherry on top, though? The icing on the cake? The sugar rush to his bafflement? How he was heartily eating the weird stuff in her lunchbox. The flavours were very good.

Oh, dear.

Scratch that.

It was worse.

So much worse.

He was so, so, dangerously close to a human, a mortal woman whom he had not been very fond of—if at all—in the beginning, and for quite a long time. Their shoulders were touching. She was very warm. He could feel the mellow heat through the fabric of her uniform.

Were all humans this warm, or was it just her?

He would have to study that later.

For now...well.

It wasn’t just mere material proximity; it was not their bodies that were close only. The romantic tales and legends did not quite get it right, and many poets did not pen it properly.

How to put it...

You see, he could almost feel a quaint connection in their souls, as though mystic hands were tugging at the enchanted thread by which their spirits were tied. It was a thread impossible to see with the eye, but easy to feel in the heart.

And he had no way of truly knowing, but perhaps their hearts, too, were pulsating to the same song playing within them.

Unsettling as it were, the feeling and the sensations it brought remained quite nice.

Routine is a curious matter; it arranges days and nights, organises time itself—and yet, should they choose to, one can change it however they like.

Before this lunchbox ordeal, his hours had constantly resembled one another and looked nearly identical. They were too much alike.

He had followed a certain pattern, but now he had chosen to paint for himself a new excitement—an unprecedented event with an unexpected person—in that redundant schedule.

In truth, she was well aware that he did not hate her, so she was the one who had been incessant on spending this time with him. She was the one who had begun their little journey of sweet fortune.

She taught him new things. Sometimes she talked about profound matters. Sometimes she made meaningless small talk. Eventually, she made him think about how he would love to visit the twisted realm of humans with her.

With her, he realised that solitude disappears. Relations could be blessings. He was happier eating common simplicity packed into a plastic box more than he had ever been stabbing silverware into fine gourmet meals laid on exquisite china.

Never once had he imagined he would find spiritual pleasure in the company of this particular creature, this—truth be told—lovely lady. It appeared that fate had wished to prove him wrong in this subject, and so it was.

But when it had never before crossed his mind that he would one day come to enjoy her presence and bask in her warmth, how could he ever have predicted that he would long for that same warmth to be by his side?

Perhaps it was true that ignorance is bliss.

Who could know whether their soul will ever bind itself to someone or not?

Who could ever know the destined one that will rob them of their heart?

There is no need to do so.

Walking through time with an unknowing mind that cannot form any predictions and blind eyes that cannot make out a picture of the future could be pleasant.

What one cannot expect may very well turn out to be a great surprise, an absolute delight...or their sweetest demise.

+note: sort of word-vomited this one and wanted to put it up. [9.11.2024: did someone from NTT read this fic in reverse or smth 'cause glue ur eyeballs to the screenshot for a minute intimacy bar WHEN]

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[iiposblog]

https://www.tumblr.com/iiposblog/769900554203840512/i-really-like-yinyang-as-a-character-and-truly?source=share

DUDE. ALSO A SYSTEM. SAME.

despite the fact that I was the host I was like ii2 yang back when I first discovered my alters. I would literally CONSTANTLY fight them like he fought yin and it was horrible but seeing his growth in iii along with some other help I learned to calm down and actually face my alters in a less destructive way

we still fight sometimes and it's definitely not perfect and it probably won't ever be. but it's definitely better, and I think yinyang was what helped me with that. thank you yinyang for being awesome

I do see why people think ii2 yinyang is bad though but I do really relate to them. I could never hate them for it

.

also I'm realizing how funny all of this is now that we've recently formed a yinyang fictive. the character that helped me work it out with the creatures in my head has now became one of the creatures in my head. systemception HAH

-📗 anon (ps. yin and yang both say hi to everyone)

.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Book Review: Grand Theft Sorcery

Grand Theft Sorcery, by Elliott Kay. I’m giving this a no-holds-barred five out of five stars as an excellent urban fantasy. Not just for the worldbuilding, but the characterization. We have good guys, bad guys, and plenty of people (human and otherwise) just trying to get by. And they’re all distinct.

I find it fitting that our hero is named Evan Murphy, because we meet him when everything has gone horribly wrong. Working as a freelance repossession agent, he’s snuck into a party which is technically a public charity event, so he has the right to be on the premises and snag the car in question so long as nobody stops him.

This, plus his worry about, if I die, my cats-! immediately establishes Evan’s character; a guy who’s clawed his way up from the streets, but lives as moral and legal a life as possible. He is, in short, that rarity of modern protagonists: a good man.

(We need more of these. So much.)

As you can guess, someone who’s brushed off making the last five payments on his Lamborghini Countache is not a good man. Worse, he’s tied up with even less good people, several of whom turn out to be supernaturally evil. In fact there’s a whole gathering of various supernatural leaders going on upstairs, using the mortal party as cover.

(Here we get some excellent foreshadowing of who these people are and what they suspect each other of that becomes really important later.)

But as they say, oft evil will shall evil mar. Anatole, the bad guy in charge here, is a very cunning, smart, manipulative guy; smart enough not to kill Evan yet, when it might lead to trouble with the party. Yet not quite smart enough to realize that the horde of stolen artifacts he leaves Evan locked in with might not all be evil artifacts. Which is just enough to let Evan make a daring escape....

I won’t spoil you for the plot, because it has twists and turns that all make sense but are often something I never would have expected. We get to see, among other things, street-racing, smuggling, a secret FBI agent team, all kinds of odd supernatural creatures, ongoing rivalries and stereotypes held by such creatures about each other, and some truly creative use of magic.

The FBI team is of particular interest to me because it’s such a common urban fantasy trope; secret government organization fighting supernatural evil. But this story shows how that only works if everyone on the team is a hero, morally upright, and dedicated to justice. Get in one bad apple, when your team’s not accountable to regular law and order? Even if all the rest of the team is honestly trying to be on the side of angels... it’s not good.

...On the flipside, I have to say a part in the book that made me break out laughing was when a seriously powerful Big Bad who’s assisting Anatole looks at the collection of heroes a group of bad guys has captured, all of whom are seriously injured (but still together in the same room!) and goes, Nope. Screw This I’m Outta Here. And then does his best to cut his losses and leave. Intelligent bad guy. Awesome.

There are two spicy sex scenes, and I’d more comfortably rate this whole book R than PG-13. Not for young readers. But. There are genuine good guys here. And also distinct lessons about what happens to you when you know something evil has happened to someone you know, but you brush it off with, “not my problem”. Because letting that evil slide leaves it free to act against you next, and it is definitely your problem now!

I’m not sure I’d go for the related Good Intentions series by the same author, I’m not into polyamory. But this one? This one is good.

[ironaparrot]

i wanted to bring this up because i know i make memes and jokes about the shadowtale characters and such.

Shaster (Gaster) is a genuinely horrible person. he's manipulative, mentally, physically, and emotionally abusive and manipulative. he's an egotistical narcissist who views other living and non living things and creatures as objects to be toyed with and experimented on.

Shadow has never been in a great state of mind. he's been pessimistic and nihilistic, and has reached the point of truly believing nothing matter before. part of the reason he's doing good now is both because he has friends he know cares and because he was fucking tired of being so sad, and moping all the time. he hated feeling down and like nothing all the time. the numbness almost felt worse then when he was actually crying and it was much more overbearing. he got tired of it. he forced himself out there. and he's actually doing better because of it.

Ash (Papyrus) tries his best to make people happy as much as drains him. he just wants to keep hope alive and keep people smiling. Papyrus is arguably at one of his lowest points currently. He feels hatred for his brother, uncertainty for his father, and is drained beyond belief. The only person he feels like he can truly vent to and just collect himself about is Mettaton. He hates Shadow for abandoning everybody, he has existential dread due to the existance of the multiverse, and doesnt understand why Gaster is making him keep it a secret, as well as the augmentations related to the void.

Raspberry (Mettaton) Is trying his hardest along with Papyrus to keep moral high, and people happy. he knows how much people really rely on him and need him to be at tip top best. its draining, but he knows it has to be this way. Him and Papyrus are very close and he thinks Papyrus is his closest friend, and is concerned for his sudden change in appearence, attitude, and he can just tell theres something building up thats going to boil over at some point.

Flowey is constently afraid. he's afraid of the infected and uninfected alike. he doesnt know where chara is and he doesnt remember chara being the one who killed him initially. the only time he gains some semblance of comfort is when frisk falls, and when he eventaually finds chara again.

Chara lives with the guilt of being the one who killed Asriel. she hates herself for it but knows it had to be done or else she would have died. she tries over and over to convince herself it was okay but she cant help but hate herself for it. the fact she ran away weighs heavily on her mind because she knows that to the dreemurr family they lost two children in one night. chara was eventaully found and kidnapped by gaster for a while. she was experimented on, abused and treated like a labrat. now that gaster has her with the rest of the survivors she's being blackmailed to stay quiet about what gasters real motives are to the people or else flowey will find out how he really died.

Plasma (Grillby) has almost given up completely. his daughter is infected and is slowly turning, its hard to keep people fed. he knows things are slowly going down hill and he's just waiting for the snowball to speed up at this point. the only reason he still gets out of bed in the morning is that way he can keep people fed, do his part, and because the somehow still alive burgerpants is too mentally unstable to do it himself. He's also being blackmailed by muffet.

Muffet is a crime boss essentially. she blackmails, threatens and harasses. she knows she's important because she can grab whatever remaining supplies are left from places the actual people assigned as guards cant thanks to her many many spiders. she views people as a means to get rich, and thats it. she, if anything, enjoys the apocalypse because it causes people to be reliant on her.

The AU is really screwed. Especially with the characters. Some are trying their best and losing, others have given up. Some aren’t even good people and are just using the apocalypse to achieve what they want because they can. So, enjoy. It’s less telling new info, and more putting things into perspective!

[hell-drabbles]

hi there!👋☺️,i round the idea of "God obsessed " with Eldritch!Reader,so here are dome suggestions for himtw:Bad english (The english Is not my first language so sorry for that 😅),Cosmic horror?,soft yandere,jealousy,angustGod was interested in them because they are a creature independent of him, something that exists before him. Invaded by curiosity, he decided to introduce himself to Eldritch! Reader for research purposes. At first, coexistence was strange for him, they did not have a body , they were just an incredibly cold black mass, they could not speak, only make strange sounds, but this did not stop God's fascination with his new friend!Then he proposed to spend time with them, God being someone solitary due to his rank. so it was no surprise that he became so attached to Eldritch!Reader, accompanying him to his meetings with the angels, helping him with ideas for new creations, you could say that God treated Eldritch! Reader like a pet that he carried with him everywhere,As the years passed, Eldritch!Reader he began to become interested in a human sorcerer, Solomon, a young human, causing him to spend less time with God. He was a little sad that his friend was no longer with him, but he didn't give it any importance. Eldritch!Reader was sharing his knowledge to help someone!, so he's not upset, they will come back to him, they always do,or that was what he repeated to himself to calm that sour feeling in his heart. God could not identify that feeling exactly, it was like a slight annoyance when hearing the name of Solomon from the lips of Eldritch!Reader, or he saw them together talking in a park, or doing normal things that humans do to relate, heck he even met Salomon in person!, and he could tell that he was a good man with a hunger for knowledge and his strange jokes,and following his logic, those feelings were unfair for Solomon, but unfortunately God could not handle well that feeling of frustration for not understanding what was happening to him, the angels quickly noticed God's horrible mood when Eldritch! Reader they returned speaking happily about the advances of that human, causing him to take it out on the poor angels unconsciously, causing unfounded resentment and jealousy on Eldritch ! reader the part of the angels.

And that's what I have for now, since I write this at 3 in the morning and my brain rotted to be able to think anything else

Oh dear, sorry for the brain rot, I know how that feels. Let's see let's seeeee...

Truly the irony of it all, for the Eldritch Reader and Solomon to eventually find one another, and grow closer than any other. Two individuals that the angels hate, being right next to each other. Good riddance, think the angels.

I'd like to think that God has complicated feelings about the Eldritch having a physical body at all, a physical body that was crafted entirely by Solomon, with none of his help. The body may be modeled after a human appearance, but obviously doesn't have any of the human innards or blood or any such things. But either way, it's a body the Eldritch Reader uses more often than not and it makes God jealous. Eldritch Reader didn't ask for anything like that, he easily could've provided a body without any delay. But, no.

After all, this body crafted for the Eldritch Reader was the culmination of all the knowledge they shared with Solomon. Instead of using this knowledge to, say, craft the perfect fantasy kingdom, or bring out all his dreams into reality, he used that knowledge to make this body for the Eldritch to inhabit.

Anyways, this comes right back around to my thought of making the Tree of Knowledge god made to be modeled after the Eldritch Reader. Since the Eldritch Reader gives their knowledge to those that seek it, and take up their time, good old jealous God over here crafted this tree of knowledge for others to consume the fruit from, to gain whatever knowledge they need or seek so that God can spend more time with the Eldritch Reader. Even puts it in a beautiful garden, so that this piece can forever be a part of the place he resides in. But, of course, before it could be put to use, God's jealousy took over and made this tree forbidden from all, putting the angels in charge of guarding it after Adam and Eve took a bite from it. Because of the Eldritch knowledge within, and how much God stuffed into it, those two were a little... not themselves from that first bite. In fact, they weren't functioning at all. That was simply too much knowledge for one human being to hold. That's not an effective way for knowledge to spread. And so God took it away, fixed those two up, and kicked them out of the Garden. Jealous jealous and oh gentle god. He still loves his creations, and is jealous of them in equal measure.

But, anyways, if the relationship was like that, with Eldritch Reader and God knowing each other for quite a bit longer, probably longer than the angels, it probably does end up being a taaaad more messy on the angels part. Who are they to question God's first companion? Who are they to be jealous of the Eldritch Reader being God's first comfort? I think that would be fun. No clue how to go further than that though, my brain is still recovering from that sudden fever I got for no reason.

Hmm random but considering that God apparently does have a body that he uses to snuggle up to Solomon, what do you think he looks like? At least, on the regular. Probably will get an eventual official appearance at some point, but eh, I'd like to know how you guys picture him in your head. From what I can tell, he seems to have a twink-like body, but then again so does almost everyone else. Honestly, I kinda want to make him a sad wet cat of a man, if that makes sense. Looks drenched and was probably put in a cardboard box in the rain, kind of man. Doesn't seem to be a man of flowery words. Tends to restrict his words to the bare minimum because the angels get too riled up when he speaks too much, so he holds back a lot. Long sentences are kept for those laws, those decrees and promises. You know the shits.

Can't really imagine him as a pretty twink anime boy, but if he does end up being one, I will be very sad. But oh well, I can work with it. He's god, he can look however he wants with a snap of his fingers.

[deathrattleofablasphemousorator]

INTRO POST —

Toki! Welcome to my trans and evil maze.

You can call me Dei [jan Teje in toki pona]

It/its pronouns only, do not use they/them. Don’t use gendered terms on me [dude, bro, girl, etc. even if your intent is to use them in a gender neutral way.] Call me a thing if you really must. I’m transneutral leaning somewhat transfem on a good day. Allosexual aromantic. Oh also I'm objectum. And weird about it on main. My bad.

I’m the co-host of a system, this is my personal blog. You might recognize our main blog over at @dropitdoeeyes (that’s also what i’ll be following from.) I’m the symptom holder for a lot of shit I may or may not get into

Send me asks! I love talking to people. I’ll probably draw you a little something too, as a treat

I don’t have a DNI since I find them really useless, I’ll block you if you’re a troll, if you reblog untagged unreality, or if you reblog shit like "ooh reblog this or you're a horrible evil person" . Terfs explode.

Queer discourse is a complete and total mind killer, if you bring queer discourse on my blog I’m blocking you. Get a hobby & talk to queer people in real life. Stop trying to be palatable.

Some interests of mine —

Linguistics are my current special interest, and I’m learning toki pona [I don’t know it very well and can barely hold a conversation, but it’s been going smoothly!]

Also really into math, theatre tech, video essays on obscure topics, and TTRPGS [It’s been way too long since I’ve been a gm and I need to fix that.] Some viddy games I’m really into are Hades, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, Portal, and Subnautica. Big fan of weird gross horror games too [e.g. How Fish is Made] please do let me know if you have any recommendations. I'm terribly hyperfixated on Ultrakill at the moment.

I’m a furry.

I listen to a lot of music, but if you were to ask I’d say I mostly listen to goth, deathrock, glitchy music, breakcore, and folk. Big fan of Christ vs. Warhol, Femtanyl, Rosegarden Funeral Party, The Reverent Marigold, Nox Novacula, Vision Video, Tears for the Dying, Patricia Taxxon, Machine Girl, Heaven Pierce Her, Death Grips, and Black Dresses.

Tag guide —

[Under the cut since this is getting long]

Most recent edit : 1/30/25

#dei dreams — text posts by yours truly

#dei rambles — long or otherwise rambly posts that don’t mean much of anything

#dei doodles — art by yours truly! probably won’t post much of it but it’s worth having

#dei jams — music ramblings

#reblog — posts not by yours truly. will not tag this one reliably my condolences

#undescribed — posts containing images/videos without a description

#video games — posts about video games, either me rambling about my own playthroughs or reblogging something else related

#language — linguistics posts

#queerness — posts about queerness

#people — people being human

#angels — angels

#tech — pretty computers :3

#beastiary — creatures of all sorts

#stunning art — art by others!

#objectum — me talking about fucking computers. sorry.

I’ll be adding more tags as I go along, but for now, this is about it. I probably won’t reliably tag many triggers, I’ll try my best, but do be wary about that. Flashing lights and eyestrain will always be tagged

[ellas-journey]

What is an Oni? 🧟‍♀️

At this point I believe we all know the history of Demon Slayer. Kamado Tanjiro, the eldest son of a charcoal seller that decided to enter the Demon Slayer cops to find a way to turn his sister, Nezuko, back to human, after Muzan turned her into an Oni after killing the rest of their family. But what exactly is an Oni? “After the death of Izanami, the female creator of Japan, Izanagi, her husband, and male counterpart, misses her so much that he goes to the nether land to retrieve her. But Izanami says that she has already eaten the food from that realm, implying that it would be difficult for her to return easily to this one. The food produced in the ither world has the power to make one stay in that world, so she tell him to wait and not look. (…) When Izanagi looks at Izanami, however, she is ugly, with maggots squirming and eight thunder deities growing around her entire body. Izanami is furious, probably because he broke the promise/taboo and looked at her changed appearance. Instead of bemoaning her fate and going back to the nether land quietly, she attacks him saying that he caused her undying shame.” - Reider,2010; When we think of an Oni, right know the image of a girl with hair half black half orange, pink eyes in a box with the personality of a cat comes to mind (or Michael Jackson, u choose), even for Japanese people. But it was not always like this. Sometime before 2016 (aka the release of the manga), when we said Oni the image of a “humanoid creature, with horns and fangs and clod in only a plea loincloth”, a terrifying wicked creature was probably the main image. I mean it is not that difference, but Oni were not always cute. Onis are part of the Yokai culture, a concept that was more or less always present in Japanese minds. During the Heian period [c.794-794] [Is it a coincidence that Muzan was turned into an Oni exactly during the Heian times? I don't think so] were going to find a lot of Oni themes in literature. In terms of depictions of said demons, we see them coming to life mainly during the Muromachi period [c.1338-1578], were emakimono [horizontal illustration handscroll] started to appear, followed by encyclopaedias during the Edo Period. Oni’s are probably the product of Japanese people’s fear of the natural disasters that were extremely common in the Japanese territory, for instance, lighting and thunder are strongly associated with then (what would explain a lotttttt, like I’m looking at you Kaigaku). Some even say that if kami aren’t worshiped enough, they will become Oni. The Kami were always related to the yang and the Oni to the yin [meaning the Kami related to the world of living and the Oni to the world of death]. “(…) their souls have nowhere to go and nobody worships them. So they linger in the air and cause various problems…” - Reider,2010; If one truly takes the time to think, there are some Kami that aren't that different from the mono [evil spirits], most of the time, the same characteristic would apply to both entities in terms of power, both were feared, but only one was truly respected. Also, there the theory that says that Oni where the product of the Humans that ended up on one of the Buddhist levels of hell, where Emma-O would turn them into horrifying servants. Other theory would say that a Human would turn into an Oni by committing horrible crimes.

Needless to say, there are various depictions of Oni, they take different shapes depending on which belief we are looking at them either it being the Buddhist cosmology, Onmyodo [Ying yang beliefs], Chinese literature or Japanese imagination. Almost of the size of humans, sometimes taller. With sharp nails, horns, tusks. Big mouths, various eyes. Red or blue skin. Some say they can fly. Some say they have some animal parts. Some also say that a woman can also become n Oni when she is overcome with jealousy or grief. (Which explains the myth Izanami, and that man were always scared of woman, but funny enough the popular image of oni is normally male) Some eat children. Some eat the dead. Some eat souls. They wear loincloths made of the skin of great beasts. What all of this have in common is that they are all scary things. One of the biggest characteristics of the Oni is their huge desire for human flesh. It is said that they can eat a human in one gulp. Their transformative power, they can transform their grotesque forms into handsome man or woman allowing the victim to grown interest in them. Oni would have an extreme strength, some of them being talented sorcerers. Also, people that lived far away from the emperor, or had different customs, would be considered an Oni. People that looked different or thought differently from the normal Japanese were called Oni, this was especially common during the imperialism times. Emotions like anger, jealousy, infidelity, and lust were emotions that one would connect to Oni. But the question of “What are Oni” is actually a really tough question, since we can find a lot of variations of Oni in this huge catalogue. “[…] monstrous and cruel Oni, who eat the flesh of corpses, Oni who devour the living, Oni who murder, Oni who trick people, Oni who cause famine, sickness or plague; and there are humorous and charming Oni, Oni unthreatening they hardly seem Oni at all, totally defeated Oni, pity deducing Oni, etc” - Komatsu,2017; in fact this goes well with the catalogue of Oni characters that we have in the anime, the Upper-moons inclusive.

The ambiguity of the concept of an Oni is something that was adapted in different times in history, but without fully losing indigenous beliefs against the foreign concepts. But some scholars say that what we associate to Oni today was not what they always were. The word simply means something big, and the Oni were a creature that did not show himself except for gathering of spirits were enormous forms were perceived, an invisible spirit. The most primitive form of Oni is said to be the spirits of the ancestors of the village. Oni was an umbrella term for all monsters. But from simple ancestors they would develop into something that the people feared. Yomotsukome [The soldiers that defended Izanami in the myth] are said to be the precursors of the current Onis. In Edo period an one would be a dark enigmatic force that would threaten all the classes. Even tho Oni themes were not discussed in the courts anymore, they would still linger on their personal lives, translated in the literal, visual and performing arts. For medieval Japanese people, Oni were real, they were always lucking somewhere, especially in people’s minds. They were real entities with real substantial bodies, that affected the lives of Japanese people. If they needed to make a day’s long trip, they would carefully plan the trip to never be on the road during the night. But the powerful image of the Oni gradually start to fall. Oni frequented both the urban and rural areas, always making trouble, causing fear. With the mass printing of books that had Oni histories and illustrations this once terrifying beings became an entertainment in the urban areas. Through the hands of the artists, Oni started to be transformed in different kinds of beings. In the Edo times, people were more scared of the samurai than Oni themself, these warriors were a living threat with their ritual, privileges and two swords. For urban residents, Oni’s were creatures of art and literature that flourished in nostalgia and futuristic imaginations. Oni stories started to have sex and violence on their stories and started to be told from their point of view in a kind of victimise way. "If one accepts the tenet that Oni impact the physical everyday lives of people in the culture from which they emerge, then it is relatively easy to make sense of the Oni’s functions within and influences upon the political events that drive Japanese history" - Reider, 2010;

CARTER, Caleb. 2019 - The demonic countryside: beckoning early modern visitors through oni legend and ritual. Japan Forum, 31:4, 467-486. <https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2019.1594336>; KOMATSU, Kazuhiko. 2017 - An introduction to Yokai culture: Monsters, Ghosts and Outsider in Japanese culture. Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation For Culture. [Ebook]; MEYER, Matthew - Oni. [Consulted on 13 June 2023] < https://yokai.com/oni/>; REIDER, Noriko T. 2010 - Japanese Lore: Oni from Ancient time to present. Utah: Utah State University Press. [Ebook]; REIDER, Noriko T. 2003 - Transformation of the Oni: From the frightening and simbolical to the cute and sexy. Asian Folklore Studies, Volume 62, 133-157. Ohio: Miami University; ROBERTS, Jeremy. 2009 - Japanese Mythology A to Z. Chelsea: Chelsea House. [Ebook];

[fearcrowz]

How did your stories get their names?

Warning, a lot to read for this one haha!

Wiccar Briar 🌿 was actually a creature I made for an old RP. It was this wooden deity like things and I thought the name was cool. Had vines and roses on it. (Wiccar - Wicca - Witchcraft / Briar - Roses)

I needed a story to really keep me distracted and I made this massive fairy-tale story and I loved the name Wiccar Briar so much and it really fit so I picked that!

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Knell 💉 (it practically means Death Bell) use to be the name of an old OC of mine that was a remake of the FIRST male OC I ever made (who originally was named Isaac). But the character was scrapped as time passed. As I was creating Knell and it's characters due to my depression plummeting so badly, I wanted a name that had meaning due to it being a therapy story, and when you're truly depressed you think of death a lot sadly. As I was creating the story, the name of the bell you hear at someone's death had a lot more meaning to me for this story. Plus it is a thing with the Hospital and Church!

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Nightlight 🕯 is an older story to WB and Knell. It is a fantasy story about myths, legends, story book characters, cryptids, etc. Characters and creatures that are familiar all around the world, but my take and concept/story of them! (I'm a big history buff and I love researching a ton of things!) Anyway, Nightlight was a very clever idea for me I'd say. Children and sometimes adults use night lights to keep them from the dark, or what they might be afraid of in the dark. Well, their city filled with creatures and other nonhumans, they have a big Lighthouse that holds a barrier around the town and protects them from the outside world. Hence the name, Nightlight.

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Under an Ivy Crown 🗡 is my medieval fantasy story (I looooove medieval stuff) and it's about a faerie girl named Wren who gets kidnapped by a horrible king for her gold blood. Straight forward easy story, and she is the "Queen of faes" blah blah. Under an Ivy Crown just fits since her crown is Ivy around her antlers. :V Not too clever but sounds pretty lol.

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Witching Hour 🗝 is a story even older than Nightlight, and I wasn't as clever about it's title haha! Everything spooky happens at the witching hour, when the veil is thinnest, etc... Well this story is about demons, tree gods, monsters in a 1920s city, an end of the world demon, and a lot of witches and wizards. :V So I thought I was a clever cool kid and called it Witching Hour, cuz most of the activities of all these characters happen at night.

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As for Not Dead Yet 🚬, it was mainly a placeholder name till I thought of something better, but people ended up liking it. I was okay with it till a stupid show popped up with the same name, but people don't seem to care and still like it so it became what it is haha. I suppose the name is more related to Jasper considering he's a bug (cat) that is very hard to get rid of and squash. He ain't gone yet, bay-bee. :V

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As for my other storiesssssss, Endworld is a city, The Gears We Turn had some deep meaning I don't remember (and robots), Wysteria (my other horror story about kids in an orphanage and a creature called Tooth Fairy picking on them) has meaning to the main little girl. Uhhhhh I have a loooot of stories.

[vacantgodling]

you already know who the fuck i'm slamming in here with i'm a predictable ass creature of habit i swear i know more of your bbs but it's comfort character hours atm lmao lemme see if i can give you some rant-worthy ones

8 + 17 for toph

18 + 22 for amon

33 + 48 for hya

AHHH KORBIEEE THANK YOU 🥺🥺🥺

TOPH

8: Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging

toph has no qualms about the concept of indulgence and encourages it mostly in others, though the ways he does it for himself seem almost “lackluster”. his biggest indulgence is mint flavored things bc he’s an absolute glutton with them LMAO. he also sleeps A Lot even though he literally doesn’t need sleep (being a demon and all) so it’s literally sleep for the sake of doing it which is Peak Indulgence lol. he just likes being cozy fr.

17: Preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress

so toph’s style is in the realm of like… “pretty grunge” ig LOL it’s got tenants of the avant garde, pretty, gothic elements of visual kei/aesthetic alt with the ripped and more chaotic look of grunge. these are some examples of what he dresses like:

he also tends to wear nail polish, heavy eyeliner, and obviously has piercings/tattoos so it just gives him an overall very alternative pff style. which yknow, makes sense being the front man of a metal band so 😂

i guess some of his dress rituals is that he never wears the color green even though green is his favorite color (i’ve drawn him in green before but yknow He doesn’t wear it) because he considers green a sacred/lucky color and he doesn’t want to taint it by wearing it. it’s kinda weird but he’s allowed to be superstitious pff. he also tends to do make up, accessories, and hair first since they all take the longest.

AMON

18: Favorite beverage?

honestly, anything sweet and expensive. he doesn’t think money makes food taste better but he sure does enjoy it more if he knows it’s exorbently priced and someone else is paying for it. it’s less to do with the flavor and more to do with the flex of having hya buy it for him LMAO.

22: Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?

it really says a lot about him but he’d probably end up ripping it up 💀 he’s a distracted destroyer, so any loose threads or seams or paper, in this instance, he’ll pull at or rip when he’s just vibing. there’s something satisfying about it to him lol.

HYA

33: Concept of home and family?

horrible, terrible, rancid, not worth mentioning. he has no trust for family and no love of it (aloe is a VERY heavy exception but aloe is an angel, how could you hate him?). realistically he distrusts family more than he distrusts a stranger because family, in most cases, knows you AND has something to gain from fucking you over, and it’s been illustrated to him time and time again that family doesn’t mean shit :))) (there is mostly tagetes to blame for this however, he doesn’t get along with iberis, narci and laven for a REASON—tho laven he does become more amiable towards by the time her book ends). ALSO parents???? sham. mix authority and entitlement AND family?? he’s not about it like at all. has zero faith in it whatsoever.

edit;; i forgot to talk about home. he has a very… lackluster concept of home tbh, which all relates to above. he’s never truly felt safe in anything but his own skin which is why how he dresses is in part expression, but also in part defense mechanism for him. being able to buy his own home later in life (aka after paramour) definitely helps him feel more comfortable in it, but he sort of forces himself to be a modicum of relaxed anywhere—or he essentially just bullies his way into people leaving him and the space he’s in alone.

48: If this person were to get into a fist fight, what is their fighting style like?

hya’s a bruiser i’ll tell you that. he Really doesn’t prefer to physically fight because he thinks it’s brutish, a waste of time, and if someone fucks up his appearance he’s going to be whatever level is Beyond Infuriated. but… he is a man that very much talks with his fists. in another life where he wasn’t so pompous (looking at you slum aus), he would absolutely be a force to reckon with. even in canon, he can lay someone out with one good hook because he’s not really about finesse or torture—it’s all the skill points in power baby and he will Lay You Out.

but i have to reiterate, esp in canon, he’s Really not in the vibe to put his hands on people unless he’s positive they won’t reciprocate (amon is a good example lol. he’s punched amon confirmed once and as i write who knows? maybe more).

[frostbite-the-bat]

tell me about your fucked up petz creatures

I WILL GO OVER My Main Cast. alphabetically as they appear in my funny box !

Starting off with ABYSS!! i love her dearly. she's a spamton mixie! specifically a blue addison + spamton + sparkle kittling. she's got no eyes or colors (she's got blue paw pads, thought!), leading to an unsettling appearance. i love her dearly, though! she's full of cheeky personality and she loves jumping through the hoop, if she isn't knocking it out of my hand. (or doing other things... she loves to mess around)

up next is... asshole! yes. thats his name. he's my oldest spamton i currently have! he was originally a different spamton neo, but for petzspamton creator's comfort i converted him to be dib's spamton neo. being based on a siamese - he's picky and he's mean. he's an asshole. that name stuck with him. he used to wear an iconic sweater but this spamton neo kinda breaks shirts so he has a santa hat now!

also spamton neos in petz are known for. their. uhm. Thoughtful Gaze.

next is... BIG BOY! MY BELOVED!! he is a gift from petzspamton for me based on my mega spamton neo design! he came named bigboy and since even my mega spamton neo's nickname has been bigboy. :] he's big, he's cuddly, he's gentle and he LOVES food. he also flops. a LOT. and genuinely when i say he loves food i mean it, he's based on a persian and those love food in petz. he seems very eepy today he's flopping less than usual but probably because of how wacky the room layout is + he's too interested in buck plush

OLD BAD ART ALERT I DONDNT DRAW LIKE THIS NOW I DREW THIS IN MY FLOP ERA but heres mega sneo design. just for context!! (ye he got swapped wings but who cares)

if you see similarities between this hair and the way i draw high roller, no you dont. no you fucking dont.

up next is cap'n! i'll be honest i dont play with him as often since i converted everyone from petz 5 to petz 4 - losing k_k in the progress </3. he just loves starting fights with everyone its no fun </3 but ANYWAYS!! this is a hexie made by YOURS TRULY! hes goofy

can't show off cap'n without.. SWEET! oh boy after glados this is my most complicated hex. DO YOU KNOW HOW PAINFUL IT IS. TO MAKE A CUBE. OUT OF (SPHERES) (AND LINES THAT ARE VERY FUCKY) ITS HORRIBLE. sweet sweet sweet my dearest friend sweet they start fights sometimes too but are calmer than cap'n. they like playing with plushies a lot as you can see

next is creature! a funky little spamton mixie. seriously this thing is like generation 7 and listing everything thats In Their Blood may take a while. they've got lovely spots and neat textures + are pretty big!!! their tip ends with a pink which is a fun contrast compared to the blue/white gradient. very silly fella!!!

next is cupcake! one out of two silly kitties i got from bad_death ! they did a thing where they gave out unique textured/patterned fellas to people on petzcord. so these guys are unique! like everyone elses. i have other petz i got from other people that are hexed, but i don't have them in the playable petz folder right now. cupcake likes to flop around, too! what a lovely fuzzball... they also get scared of everything which isnt characteristic of a persian personality but. hey. the wordl is scaresy...

next is dragonfruit with their funky shrimp tail !! also a spamton mixie - you can defo see similarities between them and creature. i believe they're related? anyways - the main breed they take from is cubus! they have calico personality so they are very playful!!

next is fledgeling! Bird. i dont even know whats in them .

FROSTBITE. MADE BY PETZSPAMTON FOR ME. THIS smug-ass cursed entity. they're a little bastard beast. theyre just me but petz. smug ass. likes to 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨. friends with some but enemy to many. LOVES DANCING. PLAY MUSIC INGAME AND THIS THING WILL SHAKE TAIL. dear god even this frost made it to hr's , they will kill.

also the iconic gif with them and spammo.

next is GLADOS! or catdos if you will. i made this with my own blood sweat and tears it was a nightmare. but look! glados !

im getting tired and i havent eaten today yet because im autism SO. SHORTER DESCRIPTIONS.

iceshock!! silly ice spammy kitty.

MANGO MY DEAREST BELOVED. YOUNGER BROTHER TO OTTERPOP. THOSSE TWO ARE BASICALLY MY MASCOT SPAMTONS. I LOVE THEM SO MUHHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHC. THISSECTION IS FOR THEM BOTH MWA MWA LOVE THEM. also that was ttheir bday gift a year ago They Didnt Like It. btw otterpop blue shirt mango flower shirt

onion .

....and i hit the image limit so...! feel free to ask for more...!

[endfght]

🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲 i want more <3

tod waggner & kinsey oliver: tod b like 🧍 prrrety grill. dating christa or not this man is still blushing and stuttering and fumbling over himself in front of pretty girls im sorry theres nothing that can be done to change him. idk truly theyre both survivors of a tragedy??? both were/are incredibly fucked up for a Long Time after said tragedy..... emotional support friends when tod is just like a golden retriever he can be ur esa dog kins.

kirby reed & kinsey oliver: i had this in the tags originally and then was like?? idiot what are u doing sO : kirby is in the fbi now....... and probably would have been (or would have been in training but we can fudge the details ok) just starting out when everything happens with kins and mal the second time,,,, so What If she were to have helped mike (and his team) find them???? i simply think that these girls as her first case is sexy and would be exactly what she needs to throw herself into her job to rly stop ppl like charlie<3 and the man that took kins and mal.

bethany bixler & kinsey oliver: ok so it was a no on the hell priest with a love for pain and pleasure but.... what about deadites. totally different from creatures from hell........... but also we can go Not That and beth could meet kins while shes on tour w a band or something like that. kins if ur nice to her for one (1) second beth can get u backstage to meet the band for free ok just one (1) kind gesture.

jules louden & kinsey oliver: mal is related to the loudens,,, there is not a doubt in my mind that they attended parties at mals house for holidays/special occasions and to think that kinsey would not also be there is absolute insanity. jules/mal/kins (and stef too if she would like to join ofc<3) were probably an unstoppable trio when they were rly young,,, just annoying the absolute hell out of their relatives and gossiping. complete menaces if u see them walking towards u RUN. u know those holidays at ur aunt n uncles where u beg ur parents to sleep over for the night.... yeah thats them. their campouts in mals treehouse<3 but immediate Not Sweet jules comin Back From The Dead.. the first holiday that she attends and maybe mal brings kins with her.... how different their interactions would be.. but also so the same bc they all went through this horrible trauma and still came out on the other sside blah blah u kno. i think they could be neat.

michael roth & kinsey oliver: YEAH BOI. theres so mcuh that we can do with that but what can i write here that we havent already talked about???? what i cAN do is tell u some of my favorite ideas ok. im a sucker for letter threads so ,,,, if kins wants to keep writin mike letters he will answer them. or like. The FIRST letter she sends to start it off. the mental debate he has ab answering. mike interviewing them at the hospital but lowkey having the Worst Time bc he looks at kins and sees hannah and wants to scream and cry but also hug her. IDK i can keep goin i just we need to write them ok. kins (and mal) visiting mike and the others at the station a few months after theyre found to say thanks or smth idkidk thats probably dumb and a bad thread idea. they just have so much potential and the fact that we havent written them yet is a crime @graecland.