#You can't see it but iM dEsPeRAte

[xyrarei]

*Offering up my very first digital hualian fanart that I somehow forgotten about*

Tgcf s2 at least give us a release date pLEaSe it's 20 days till the end of the year!!

[shakingparadigm]

what is the theory that ivan manipulated the event where till and mizi met the wagyein?

It's not a theory, actually! It's confirmed that Ivan orchestrated the whole event. The true reason as to why however is still unknown. The information provides more context to this scene, though:

During the earlier times of ALNST the most rational explanation for this scene was that Till ran after a flower crown (presumably Mizi's) and Ivan followed him in out of curiosity. Now we know that Ivan was conveniently just standing there because he was waiting.

Side note, I find it heartbreaking (and maybe a little funny, sorry) that Till most likely didn't notice Ivan in this scene. That's just like him, isn't it. Always too busy running after Mizi while Ivan trails behind, an ever-present shadow.

I'm not sure how Ivan manipulated the circumstances for both of them to end up there, but it is confirmed that everything was intentional. What strikes me most is how they describe this particular scene:

I can't copy down what they said word-for-word (Patreon info), but they described Ivan watching "creepily" as Till and Mizi are faced with danger. We know that Ivan was familiar with the Cerberus wagyein beforehand, enough to touch its teeth and even to rest himself inside its maw. To Ivan, the wagyein is not dangerous, but to Till and Mizi, it could be. Ivan prepared the wagyein, led them there, and watched "creepily" from afar as Till fell on his knees, seemingly injured.

The closest I can get to making sense of Ivan's "scheme" is that he wanted to see how other children would react in a dangerous situation. Ivan's always been an observer, after all, and he's learned to survive by copying the more "normal" behaviors of his peers. This situation occured when Ivan was still young and had not yet developed his more charming mask, so perhaps he staged this encounter to study a situational response, to learn and mimic the emotion of fear. And what better subjects for the experiment than two of the most expressive and reactive humans of their batch? It helps that he was already fixated on Till beforehand, too. I think Ivan became irreversibly obssessed after this incident, especially since it's framed as a turning point in Ivan's life, comparing Till to the stars.

This is just my attempt at an interpretation, though. It could very well be for another reason. He most likely chose Till and Mizi specifically for personal reasons, not just for reaction. I'm still not sure on the purpose behind the whole thing.

The team wanted to capture Ivan's "dark emotions" through the shot of his stalking, which could relate to his more sinister intentions. His gaze can be read in a few different ways, though. Curiosity, interest, fear, etc. Maybe that's why they decided to redraw the shot in ROUND 6.

I think this better sells the feeling they were trying to convey.

[oddberryshortcake]

It's killing me that Lilia has spent a lot of time and money taking Silver to different medical mages/doctors to see exactly what's wrong with him and why he's so sleepy

When Idia was able to do a quick analysis on Grim and discover that he has a 1000 year old curse placed on him

STYX is literally the only place capable of giving him the answer he's been searching for

[umem1ya]

what if. what if I did a whole post abt ex-togame what if.

[ehlnofay]

Pax should have said no.

Damn it all, they should have said no. Should have said go to hell and fucked off back – stop contacting me, sort out your own shit – but they didn’t, fuck knows why, and now they’re stuck here.

(They know why. They know exactly why; absolutely anything would be better than fucking off back to Cyrodiil. What’s for them there?)

But there’s nothing worth staying for here either, and now she’s crammed in between strangers on a long table, everyone dressed in fabrics she’s never seen with dyes so saturated they seem almost gory, eating stuff that isn’t food and talking loud enough to make her want to hurl a glass into the wall. It’s bizarre. The woman next to her, ruddy-faced and bald, wears a headpiece that shines like the sun the Isles doesn’t have; the other side is taken up by a stranger in a bone-white porcelain mask who has not moved but to swill the wine around in their glass. There’s scarcely room for Pax’s chair. It all feels like such a baffling pantomime of aristocracy (she's known the real thing well enough – feasts and toasts and luxurious gifts she had no use for, and if she doesn’t stop thinking about it she actually will throw a glass), bright colours and rich settings and a god taking offerings at the head of the table.

At least, Pax thinks, no-one tries to talk to him; they’re too busy fawning over their lord. Which is probably to be expected; but it all feels so strange, so unsettling, the way they all lean in towards it like flowers turning to face the sun, like seaweed dragged at by the inescapable pull of the tides. They grow towards it through the cracks in the air, matter moving toward the inevitable centre, as if they can imagine nothing more than this.

(Even more unsettling is the way it responds in kind, listening attentively to anyone who speaks to it, leaning in as though to kiss them, as though to swallow them whole. All hell, why did Pax agree to this? Why did they come?)

(They should have told it to fuck off. Should have said no way, I don’t want to help you, don’t want to get involved in anything you’d need my help for. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m done.)

(Pax is done. Pax is sick to death of all this shit; doesn’t want to deal with this, the vaguely described problems of a god that picks people apart like it’s unravelling a thick yarn shawl. Doesn’t want to deal with anything like this. He’s had his fill of gods.)

(Why is he still fucking here? Why did he agree to this? This is no better than eating in that weird fucking inn in town. This is no better than –)

(That’s a lie. It’s a bit better than Cyrodiil. Just as much a shithole, but it pulls the rug out from under him often enough that he doesn’t have time to think too much.)

“Not hungry?” says a prowling voice, coiling catlike into the plaits in their hair, and Pax jumps enough to jostle the masked bastard sitting ramrod straight next to him.

He looks up.

At the empty placemat across from him sits a figure veiled in gossamer, glittering in the glow of the lit-up lichen on the distant throne; the fabric of its endless shawls pulls apart at the ends, peeling away from itself, shedding patches like iridescent insect wings every time it shifts. If Pax squints, they can see through it to the grand marbled wall behind.

She glances back at the chair at the head of the table, where something lounges, eyes dripping gold, intricately carved cane laid across its knees; its too-many fingers are laced with the hand of a man whose gown blooms floral. Flatly, she says, “What the fuck?”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sheogorath asks, pouting; she can hear it laughing down the other end of the table. “It’s a proper feast. We pulled out all the stops.”

Pax shifts their eyes away to peer down at their plate. “You have served me worms,” she says. She flicks the dish with a fingernail. “In jelly. With flowers.”

“Larva, actually,” Sheogorath replies. It’s still at the other end of the table. It doesn’t seem eager to explain this. When it smiles, the gossamer falls away; its whole face splits in half.

It’s all so fucking stupid. Pax takes a deep breath – in through the nose, ignore all the odd spiced smells, and out – and does not yell at it, or try to hit it, because she’s gotten herself into a situation where that’s not really an option, because she’s a fucking idiot. Why didn’t she just say no?

(She knows why.)

The Mad God’s teeth flash bright as the ornate silver cutlery. Its chair scrapes back from the table. “It melts in your mouth,” it tells her, eyes glittering, “but I won’t make you try it. Walk with me?”

The figure still sits at the head of the table, snatching something from someone’s plate, always, always laughing. Its limbs sprawl like tentacles, like the silken threads of a tapestry, to encompass the whole room. The dinner guests stare as though bewitched, bedevilled, beguiled. Not one of them is looking at Pax. If he were to drop dead with his face in the food his corpse would not be discovered until sunrise.

Pax sniffs and shoves his chair back from the table. He lets Sheogorath (the second Sheogorath – but it must be, what else could it be?) lead him through a narrow door into some winding hallway, the walls lined and rimed with ornate coloured-glass windows. (It’s so much quieter. Still as garishly bright, but Pax is getting the sense that that is inescapable, here; the clothes they wear, as crumpled and covered in travelling-grime as ever and startlingly out of place against the odd jagged finery of the dinner party, seem unimaginably dull in comparison. Everything seems unimaginably dull in comparison.) Outside the windows, they can catch glimpses of the city – its winding, lamp-lit streets, the jumbled mess of its architecture, the sky arcing above it like a child’s attempt at watercolours. Pax wants to smash it, tear it down.

There’s no sun here, but still it’s night. The sky has shifted to purple and black.

“Isn’t it nice?” says their companion; when they look back, it’s nothing more than a shifting impression in the stained-glass window, a series of hairline cracks. It still manages, somehow, to smile at them.

It’s not. The sky is a shadow and the flamboyance of the palace is scraping at their spine. “Sure,” Pax says flatly. When she flexes her fingers, the bruising staining the base knuckle of her thumb aches.

Sheogorath looks at her – an ancient man leaning on a stick, a flickering painting, a bloody corpse, a little girl in velvet-red skirts, a breath. In its mercurial shifting she catches the flowery blossom of the man at the table’s collar, an unpleasant glimpse of her own braided hair, the smell of sulphur. It tips its head. She can’t focus on it anywhere but for the eyes.

“You don’t like my dinner parties,” it announces, as though it’s a revelation, a tragedy; its body crumbles like sea cliffs slowly eroded by the ways. It’s annoying – bloody obnoxious, and incomprehensible, and kind of weird that it noticed, that it would even care. (She’s never liked dinner parties. Nobody ever commented on it before.)

I’ve had well enough of them, Pax could say, or no, I don’t like you, but it’s the fucking Mad God, Daedric Prince of – Pax doesn’t even know what, he’s never known much about this shit, only that it’s well worth avoiding. Prince of the mad and the missing and the foolish, of breaking and breaking and putting yourself back together backwards. She should have said no, but she didn’t, and who knows what would happen if she went back on that now?

It's slinking closer. All that stay static enough to make out are eyes and teeth.

“Pax, yes?” it says, soft-voiced – a hand lands on his arm, small and dry and shivering, the skin as thing as a mouldering leaf. “You have no obligations here. If you want to be on your own, be on your own. We’ve plenty of space for it.”

Pax’s eyes narrow. He does not jerk away from it.

In the light of the coloured sky, the coloured windows, its face is phantasmagorical. “If you don’t want to be here,” it continues – still so skin-pricklingly gentle – “then your hand will not be forced. I’ll speed your way home if you wish.”

They can’t help but twitch at that. It’s setting their teeth on edge. (It’s lying – has to be. After its ages of coaxing them in, meting out information, not telling them where they were until they were on its doorstep, it would not give them the chance to leave.) Rough, still covered in road-grime, Pax asks, “Why should I believe you?”

(None of them have ever given them the chance to leave.)

Sheogorath, a figure of hollow skin and bone, inclines its head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Pax,” it says. Its eyes are wide and bulging, whites on full display like a frightened horse; it grins again. “Others might. But we’re not a monolith. We’re not even especially similar.”

Pax bites down on the flat edge of their tongue. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The light coming in through the windows flickers. The Mad God turns to meet it.

“I’m the youngest,” it says, its voice glittering like mist on the air. “Did you know that? I don’t remember the world without you in it.” Its form spasms, volatile, wings and limbs and eyes like a snail’s on stalks sprouting and choking and subsiding back into its mass. “I’m closer to you than any. I understand, almost.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Pax repeats. She’s gritting her teeth, tonguing at her gums where two are missing. Are two devil-gods not enough to deal with for a lifetime? Is there really going to be more of this now, too?

Rolling through the air like smoke, the voice says, “It will.”

Pax presses purple-green knuckles to her mouth. Her teeth dig into the soft meat of her lip.

Sheogorath turns to face her, hair moving as though blown by the wind, as though tugged by the tides. It sighs. “You don’t believe me,” it says. Its tongue pokes through its teeth. “That’s perfectly fine. Clever, even. But if you want to leave, all you need to do is tell me so.” It pauses, then; the train of its strange, gnarled crown shifts over its shoulders when it moves its head. “Or just leave. The door is still open.”

“You’d be fine with me just leaving,” Pax rasps around his knuckle, “after weeks of not leaving me alone?”

(Of begging him to come, poorly-hidden agitation giving way to blatant franticness, half-swallowing the fear that choked its face in every mirror it spoke to him through. Of begging him still, after he got here, after he met it – begging in a roundabout manner, casual as anything, its every motion reeking of fear. Its abject terror when he turned to leave. You’ve come this far. Why not hear an old man out? Pax told it that it wasn’t an old man, that he didn’t give a shit either way, and it slid through a child, a monster, a sulphur-burned body coughing blood, his own shuddering form in armour he hasn’t seen in months, and it said please.)

(Regained its composure, its gentleman’s face, immediately afterward. But it – the Mad God, unknowable, inconsolable – said please. Pax still doesn’t know what to do with that.)

The Mad God, now, shrugs. Taps at the hairline cracks in the stained glass windows. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” it says, one pair of hands braiding something intricate into its beard. The hand on the glass slips down. “I told you. I do need a champion.”

“And I told you,” Pax bites, something aching and ugly surging in their gut, “not to call me that again.”

A smile, bloody-mouthed and beaming. “But we will abide,” says Sheogorath, and digs its fingers into the cracks of the stone. One brick slides loose, mortar dug up under its nails. It offers it up.

Pax licks their teeth and takes it.

The brick shivers, momentarily – crumbles, in their hand, like sand slithering through their fingers, and left in their palm is a hardy slip of bone. Spiked and sprawling, carved with intricate patterns; it arranges itself around an oval of empty space, the perfect size for four sharp-knuckled fingers.

“You can always leave,” the Mad God tells them, and for a moment it does look so very young and strangely, staggeringly hopeful. “But give it a chance. I think you could love the Isles, if you choose to.”

[chickdinner]

you know shit's bad when youre looking for content of the stuff you like on reddit, devianart and fucking amino

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

Comte Election Story, 6th Anniversary Event (JPN 2023)

I managed to get Comte's collection story during the 6th year anniversary event in the JPN version of the game. As usual, my translation skills are rudimentary at best, so this is just a rough/general sense of the contents. Rest of the translation is below the cut:

Sweet and lovely, our everyday life is irreplaceable. After becoming a vampire, I’ve lived with him forever like this. I seek out more and more of the man I love than anyone else--

Comte: Good morning, MC. You’re up very early today.

I went down to the dining room a few hours before dawn--only to find Comte nursing a teacup gracefully at one end of the table.

MC: Good morning. I managed to wake up somehow…how about you?

Comte: Actually, I just got back.

When I asked, he told me that the host of the party started talking to him all night, and they didn’t part ways until after midnight.

Comte: I was going to finish this cup of tea to unwind, and then try to rest til noon.

He runs a hand through his freshly washed hair and brings the cup to his mouth in a series of elegant gestures that makes me fall in love with him all over again. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been up all night, but my heart readily starts beating faster.

Even Comte seems to notice my reaction…

Comte: …looking at me like that, are you seducing me?

Comte's eyes narrowed mischievously and he left his cup behind to approach me. A beautiful beast gazed at me as if to take aim at his prey, and he drew me in with supple hands.

MC: I didn’t intend it that way but…it’s true that I'm captivated. Your damp hair and lovely gestures are so sexy that I’m at a loss…

Comte: Saying such a thing…you’re a naughty woman, MC. Even though I tried to quell my ardor with a cold shower and hot tea...I’m glad to hear it, even though I’m far from calm.

When I raised my head--having looked down in bashful embarrassment--I can see burgeoning in Comte’s eyes an indisputable, feverish desire…

MC: Ah, mm…

His soft lips playfully brushed against the nape of my neck.

Comte: No one else would be awake at this hour…though we could be interrupted any moment. Make sure to keep your voice down.

He chuckled a little before a hot sigh caressed my skin, dropping kisses one after another. He circled around the usual place he’d sink his fangs into me, and every brush of his lips made heat gather low in my body…

MC: So impatient…Abel…

Comte: …I’ve been waiting for you to give it to me

The corners of his lips lifted a little, before he buried his fangs into my neck.

MC: Mn, ah…aaaahh…

Comte: I love you so much...and whenever we aren't together, I’m starved of you. We were miles apart all night yesterday. I’ll show you just how much I missed you.

His voice--half-intoxicated with the ecstasy of my blood--was sweet and husky with his desire.

Comte: Before you, I’m always a love-starved beast.

As I gaze into those eyes burning with emotion, an electric sensation tingles down my spine. 

(Ah, I’m just the same. It’s not only my heart, my body is always seeking you out too.)

MC: Me too…all day and night, I’m always thinking about you…

Comte: --Come here. Take as much of me as you want

At his encouragement and incitement, I sink my fangs into him.

MC: ah, ha…

Pleasure washes over me in an endless cascade, every sensation in my body heightened and sharp. I clenched my hands tighter through his wet hair, and dug my fangs into him greedily to devour that wellspring of ecstasy. 

Comte: I'm happy to be able to share love with you like this, as a vampire.

Like drops of water moistening desiccated earth, every crimson drop fills us to the brim--

[pagesofkenna]

thing that makes me feral is its everyone else telling Jinx who she is

her friends end up dead and she's still got their voices in her head telling her who and what she is. Silco spends the rest of his life telling her who she is to him. one city is telling her shes a terrorist and the other that she's a savior. even Isha is the one who 'adopted' Jinx, deciding that they would have a relationship—Jinx just go to decide what that looks like

I don't even have a point to this, just. the relationship with Isha and the touching her shoulders scene could both be seen as moments of growth for Jinx—people rely on her, they trust her, they believe in her, and she seems to believe it for the first time since Vi returned—but they're also just more instances of other people telling her who she should be

[the-acid-pear]

Yesterday I was replaying Deltarune and I was going really insane about it picking up on things I missed on my first playthrough and something that fucked me up hard was this line here

The little ellipsis at the end, almost like you can hear the regret on their voice. Voice of an ad who is realizing maybe they fucked up on this one. But it also made me think of... The possibility of this being a reaction to Spamton's actions.

Because I don't think this was an automatic thing, I feel like their drifting off was gradual. Sure, their jealousy had won them over (I'd have killed the guy or myself if I was them so I don't even blame them) but Spamton was too getting busier and busier the more famous he got, and as they say, that never stopped. He only kept getting bigger, until it all came crashing down. And when it did it was one of them who tried to go find him, after all that.

But I digress, let's focus on the original quote from my favorite sigma enby themselves, Pink Addison. There's obviously not only the regret to it, but feeling like they were abandoned too. Both parties lost a lot and the real tragedy is just how easily it could've have been avoided! Or rather, how beyond their control it was...

But I'll get off topic if I keep speaking so I'll leave it at that. The sheer tragedy that there is to everyone involved just makes me insane. Like I said in a post previous to this; you cannot trace down a good guy or a bad guy in this tale, it's just desperate people taking awful decisions and living to regret their actions.

[the-lark-ascending69]

If Robin were a boy she'd be everyone's favorite character but since she's a girl she only gets to be Steve's gay best friend.

[malleleothreesome]

YOUR MALLEUS POST IS JUST!!!!! AGDKFFLSVFL!!!! WHO KNOWS HOW MANY TIMES I RE-READ THAT THING BUT IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!!!! 😫😭👌🖤💚

I'm so late to this but thank you so much Knight!! 🖤💚🖤💚 I'm so happy you enjoyed Blindfolded Malleus... I was so excited for you to read it, and I'm very happy it lived up to the hype and anticipation!!! Truly, I am so honored and grateful that you would re-read something so long 🥹 it amazes me how supportive you are!! I hope I can continue to write things that you enjoy! One day in the [regretfully] far future I swear to you that I will put out an Idia fic just for you hehehe. I'm so overwhelmed by the amount of things I am excited to write, but I guess that is a wonderful problem to have! I only wish I had more time in the day to write, but alas, such is life. Why the fUCk am I writing so formal right now daiohssadoi;hdSAO not me saying BUT ALAS. SUCH IS LIFE????? It is so.

I'm actually taking a TWELVE DAY vacation from work starting on the 22nd so I might actually do a little request event where people can send me like kink prompts or something. I think that'll be fun!

Okay and FINE I'll do some fluff prompts too for the fluff people but please don't judge my fluff too harshly, I'm still learning!!! For some reason smut just comes naturally dhaDSAHIDDASijdsan I'll start gathering some prompts and we will do a little ask game or something.

📣 By the way FELLOW HONEST THIGH RIDING ANON if you SEE this first of all, ONCE AGAIN: I wish to express my undying devotion to you and your exceptional thought process. I am positively frothing at the mouth over your request and I am PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE I am finally making good progress and it WILL be out soon. We WILL make him cum in his pants. We WILL make him cry, whimper, and moan.

[rivilu]

I'm so incredibly normal

[absolutelyzoned]

its me and my inability to compromise against the world

[bogkeep]

[listening to a book that i saw recommended as having a really interesting romance in it] man i hope the protag is as aroace as her vibes indicate i just think that would be neat but maybe i shouldn't get my hopes up *gets my hopes up*

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

goodnight

[californiaquail]

genuinely has anyone made like a folder or powerpoint to give to new therapists and did it work. i'm tired of going through the traumatic events complex family dynamics and adverse childhood experiences spiel every time