#and lowkey it was enjoyable

[ichiro-artosaki]

kees the feesh 🧜🏽‍♀️(siren au is consuming my brain!)

[turtletoria]

i wanted to try drawing older Mabel and Dipper !

[viveela]

The beef they have is so crazy

[starlarz]

x

[shalomniscient]

every day, once a year, yelan takes a day off.

this is written directly into her contract with the tianquan. there are no exceptions, no special arrangements. on this singular day, yelan does not belong to the qixing; on this singular day, her leash and collar are abandoned, and she has free reign to do as she pleases.

what does she do? well, prepare for your anniversary, of course.

she hops out of bed, cleans up, tugs her jacket on and then slips out the door with the clink of her jade bracelet. it’s a clear day, and yelan tilts her head to the sky briefly, letting the golden sunrays warm her face almost like an embrace. you were never really a morning person, but the sun on your skin always suited you. she’d have to drag you out of bed to see it, but it was always well worth your grumbling in the end when you finally cave and offer her a smile which she would then steal with a kiss.

“ugh, yelan—“ you giggled, your hands on her chest gently pushing her back. your bracelet was cool against her skin, and the matching one on her own wrist hummed. she nosed along your jaw, pressing more and more kisses until she reached your neck. playfulness turned into something a little more heated, and her blood sang at the sigh she pulled from your lips. emerald eyes flicked up to you, teasing, challenging, and you managed a wry huff before tangling your fingers in her hair and tugging her back to properly kiss her again. it stung, beautifully, but yelan grinned all the way."

she shakes herself out of the memory, and steps into the busy street. liyue’s morning scene has always been crowded, and she blends into the throng with practiced ease. she follows the flow of the crowd down the wharf until she reaches the shop she’s looking for—a florist, tucked snugly between two other stores on the higher levels of the shopping district.

the owner, a midde-aged woman, looks up from tending to her orchids to smile at her. her eyes crease with familiarity at the sight of yelan as the spy steps into her store, fingers brushing the petals of a few flowers. the woman rounds the counter, and rummages in the storage for a few moments.

“the usual, i take it?” she asks, and yelan nods, leaning against the counter and tapping her fingers over the grainy wood. the shop hasn’t changed much, if at all, since she last came here with you.

you leaned down by a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, lips curving upward into a smile as you breathed in the soft, floral scent. yelan looked curiously over your shoulder, a hand casually resting on your hip. she asked if it was your favorite flower—you nodded, your other hand rising to just as casually cup her face from over your shoulder. “they’re quite pretty, aren’t they?” you hummed, and yelan took a moment to ponder the question. in the end, she said they were nowhere near as pretty as you, and took the light smack you delivered to her shoulder with an easy laugh.

the florist clears her throat, coaxing her out of the memory. yelan recieves the bouquet—white chrysanthemums—with a smile, settling it in the crook of her arm. the woman’s expression is measured, but there’s a slight waver to her tone when she speaks. if yelan really had to name it, it sounds close to… pity.

“yelan—“ she begins, but she only flashes the woman a signature grin, before slipping out the door as quickly as she came. she has other things to get, after all, and the clock is always ticking.

(or maybe her clock stopped ticking a long time ago and all this is just extra. maybe it cracked when the rocks fell and the earth buried—)

she dissolves back into the crowd as she heads to her next destination: wanmin restaurant. she can smell the chili in the air as she makes her way down the street again, a sharpness only wanmin seems to be able to make. when she gets there, xiangling is boisterously calling out orders while her father toils away in the kitchen, with guoba tirelessly maintaining the roaring fire for his wok. when she sees her, xiangling’s grin only widens, and she waves her over enthusiastically.

“miss yelan! welcome, welcome,” the young chef says cheerily. “here for another batch of dried chillies?”

yelan chuckles, shaking her head. “no, not this time. i’m here for a few rice buns. with a sweet filling, preferably.”

“ooh,” xiangling coos, nodding. “are you planning to go on an expedition? rice buns are both portable and satiating.”

“you could say that,” yelan says vaguely. the little chef is right, in a way, since she’ll have to hike a little to get to your spot—but really, it’s because rice buns have always been a comfort food of sorts for you.

“how can you not like them?” you asked defensively as you trudged along with her behind the group. there was a slight smear of filling on the corner of your lip, and your expression scrunched up a little more as she wiped it off. her jade bracelet was cool against your heated cheeks. yelan only shook her head, teasingly remarking that spice was a much greater wake-up call than sweets. you huffed at that, taking another bite of your rice bun. “not all of us are masochists, lan’er,” you grumbled, and yelan laughed softly. her nimble fingers encircled your wrist, tugging you closer so she could take a quick bite of your bun. it was sweet, sweeter than she’d like, but maybe that was because you were there. and somehow, that made it good.

yelan pulls herself out of yet another memory when xiangling deposits the bag of warm rice buns into her hands. they’re freshly steamed, and the scent of warm buns fill her senses. she thanks the chef, and disappears much the same way she came before the young lady can get even so much as a word in. in the back of her mind, she can almost hear you chastise her for it.

(she always hears you in the back of her mind. if not, where else—)

there’s only one thing left on her list, and it’s incense. it’s late in the morning now, so the crowds have thinned out—and without her cover, yelan takes to back alleys and rooftops instead. she sighs, relieved almost, as she slips into the shimmering, reflective cover of hydro, darting like a minnow between buildings like rocks, barely a blur in the eyes of anyone nearby. the secrecy isn’t strictly necessary for what she’s doing now, but she’s been so used to being unseen that being in the open feels… unsafe.

it doesn’t take her that long to reach wangsheng funeral parlor. the young lady running the parlor isn’t in today—instead, it’s her ‘assistant’, the elegant man shrouded in such thick mystery that neither her nor ningguang has been able to pierce. he greets her with a solemn expression, no doubt because director hu has told him the reason for her visit. “incense?” he asks again anyway to confirm, his voice low and soft. yelan nods absently, her nose stinging slightly from the intense scent permeating the parlor.

she watches as the man disappears into the back of the parlor for a moment, before he reappears with a delicately wrapped packet of incense sticks. she slides a pouch of mora his way, which he takes wordlessly. she tucks the packet into her little pocket dimension, then turns on her heel to leave. just as she exits the door, he calls out to her.

“safe travels.”

she doesn’t deign him with a response.

her feet take her out and away from the city, down the familiar path to the bleeding wound in the earth—the chasm. the land goes from valleys to large, curling momuments of rock, carved by the force of a falling star. she feels that familiar tug in her chest, the voice that calls to her, that tells her to forsake the surface as her ancestor once did. she listened to it, once. and—

“go,” you whispered, pushing her away. half of you was buried under rock, and she could only see one of your eyes; the other was forced shut by the blood that trickled down your face. yelan nearly screamed herself hoarse, but you grabbed her face and kissed her. it tasted like salt, and her heart lurched at the wrongness. your kisses had always been sweet. you slipped your bracelet onto her wrist, then pushed her again, and then the earth heaved and groaned, and it was the last she ever saw of you—

she turns her head and rips herself out of the memory and the temptation; she has other, more important places to be today. she has other days to chase down her demons. she skirts the side of the chasm, slowly ascending to the top. she passes by the memorial to the millelith, and leaves a rice bun and a few sticks of incense as an offering. they too, deserve to be remembered after all.

(she wonders if anyone else comes out here to remember them. she wonders who will come when she’s gone for—)

it takes her a while, but eventually, she reaches the highest point in the chasm. the sun has traveled across the sky by this point, the afternoon heat mellowing out into a slightly cooler evening warmth. the sky is alive with shades of gold when she finally stops, drawing to a halt right before a smooth stone, standing upright from the earth like a silent vigil. she kneels before it, producing three sticks on incense and inserting them into the censer before the stone and lighting them. she sets a rice bun on the plate by the stone, and saves one for herself. the bouquet of white chrysanthemums, she lays on top of the stone.

yelan takes a bite of her rice bun, letting the sweetness settle on her tongue, as the floral scent mixes with the incense, filling her lungs and settling on her shoulders. she tilts her head to the sun, and the warmth feels almost like an embrace. and when she closes her eyes, the wind in her hair feels almost like a caress. when she opens them again, she lets them rest on the stone—the headstone, and she offers it a smile.

sitting on the edge of the cliff, your legs swinging, you smiled at her, nearly blindingly bright like the golden hour. your pinkies were twined together, your shoulders flush with hers. there was a bouquet of white chrysanthemums on your lap, and just a few crumbs on the corner of your lips. your voice carried in the wind when you spoke.

“happy anniversary, yelan.”

“happy anniversary, sweetheart,” she whispers. the wind carries her voice as well, and she hopes you hear it, wherever you are now. one day, she’ll join you, but for now she takes another bite of her rice bun and breathes in the scent of incense and chrysanthemums.

[elidrawsthings]

these guys have had my brain in a chokehold for weeks

I wanted to do my own spin on them :)

[hummise]

rip jayvik divorce era you will forever be missed

[d1sapp01ntm3nt]

(almost) every single piece of outsiders fanart I’ve made. Johnnyboy stuff in a different post cuz I have so much of them grrhrbsidbdksna

[abelllia]

Outta nowhere but I think it's really neat that the one time Elias had a villain laugh moment in the whole show that I can remember is when he's completely alone with only his corpse (and the tape recorder) as witness. He is NOT doing this for anyone else. He is doing it for HIMSELF thank you very much!

[paintaya]

I had something miku-planned but immediately got distracted so fucking fast. She’s pretty much moral support now. Mikural support ????

[pa-rou]

Last two mumbo vids really making me realize that i have never had any idea what he’s talking about when it comes to redstone. I just sit there with my mind going. whatever you say beautiful <<333

[kingofthecapybaras]

eggies doodle from when i was missing them a bit ago

[majorasnightmare]

the tadpole/brain damage thing. its like. chekovs gun to me. obviously theres very little mechanical support ingame for having a disabling injury, aside from maybe an optional voluntary decision to drop the INT score, but similarly to choosing to write intention into the lack of dark urge Lore responses from the party, i just like to make mountains out of molehills and force game mechanics into In Universe Character Problems

like when dirge repeatedly mentions that he thinks the tadpole is doing something beneficial for him, that its helping him, it isnt JUST the power-hungry psionic ambition in him. its a parasite, that needs a host. it needs a LIVING host, or its own chances of survival plummet. and dirge gets tadpoled right after a life threatening injury to the tadpoles preferred habitat. neither of them want to die!! dirges body tries to recover, but cant in part BECAUSE of the tadpole (the netherese stasis magic rejecting outside influence and binding it to its host, having an unejectable foreign object in the injury site, etc), but its not like the tadpole WANTS its host to have a life altering injury

its not like its malicious (except when it comes to Hive Activity, and then it can be a right bastard), it just cant live any other way. it cant help what it is. halsin calls the illithid life cycle abberant and unnatural, but brood parasitism exists throughout the natural kingdom. is the wasp egg evil for having been laid in a caterpillar?

its first moments of life outside the brine pool, and its new home, its new life, its host, its caregiver, its food supply, is bleeding and dying and falling apart and trying to fix itself but cant and its trying to heal around you but it cant but if it doesnt do anything youll both die, so this larva, this tiny worm of psionic potential and instinct, does what it can. holds its host together with whatever force it can muster, soft gelatinous body (perfect for compreesing flat and squeezing through small orifice openings) keratinizing outside the acidic environment of the brine, its four oral tentacles (its only source of motion and movement when so young and soft, dragging itself along as best it can) made for interweaving with dense synapse clusters to passively absorb the psionic imprint of its host, now desperately intwined with bleeding meat just to try and hold it all together. driven by survival instict and a vessel of psychic potential, forced into passivity by the commands of the Elder, further forced by circumstance to leverage all its great gifts to keep its host standing long enough to eventually eat

my thought is that the reason why dirge still gets the cutscene of the emperor tadpoling him at the beginning of the game, is that the original tadpole orin forced on him is just so weakened and exhausted by months of effort trying to keep him alive through kressas experiments and meddling, that the emperor, currently in thrall to the absolute, feels the need to replace it with a fresher healthier specimen, which then cannibalizes and absorbs the previous one, and then just has to go back to doing the same shit as the last one.

i think that dirges tadpole isnt as twitchy or squirmy as the others because of it. that when omeluum gives him a psychic MRI, the tadpole is just burrowed down and its tendrils stretched like a dense net throughout dirges brain tissue, only moving or writhing occasionally but definitely not as mobile as usual, its web of tendrils especially twisted near dense scar tissue at the back of his head. this worm is already so fucking weird and the circumstances for this mind flayer MRI have already introduced a bajillion different variables that need accounting for, that i dont think omeluum immediately groks the specifics of whats going on but CAN peg the "you have brain damage and your worm is fucking Weird" situation fairly easily. but i dont think it gets enough time in dirges head to get a full understanding of what the tadpole is doing FOR him

cuz like. imo its definitely objectively helping. its a psychic information bank specifically designed to interface with a human brain. the reason why dirge isnt experiencing too many of the side effects of brain damage is because the parasite is doing its best to mitigate them. memory issues, brain fog, disorientation and balancing issues, theyd all be significantly worse without the parasite. when he brings up how he feels its helping him, objectively hes right and its not even the kickass psychic powers hes right about.

like it doesnt cure EVERYTHING, he has chronic migraines that are sensitive to light, and before he asks halsin to make medicine, he starts every morning puking his guts out when the morning sun makes him so nauseous he cant hold dinner down. even without the Urge Nightmares, he has insomnia and just cant meaningfully sleep. but keeping track of what day it is, remembering what happened a few hours ago or the other day, standing up from a sitting position and not immediately wobbling and/or collapsing, retaining his old muscle memory. all shit the parasite is helping with

which is why i cant help but fixate on those moments immediately after defeating the absolute. like oh thats juicy

[lovesickeros]

☆ words better left unsaid

{☆} characters zhongli {☆} notes cult au, yandere, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings yandere {☆} word count 0.4k

He sits as still as a marble statue, a moment in time – of power, of the singing of metal against metal that fills his ears, of the smell of blood so heavy he can still vividly remember it, even now – he had long since left behind, carved into stone.

You, on the contrary, are not so still. Your hands caress his body like you are a painter creating stroke after stroke with your brush – up the curve of his horns, mindful of the sharp point, down to the scales of his cheeks and the sharp, jagged edges of his teeth that barely fit in a jaw not made for them.

And he let's you – oh how he lets you. He does not think there is anything in the world he could deny you.

He dares not breathe, fearing it will shatter this moment in such a way that he will never get it back. He is not meant to be a living being, in this moment – he is no Archon, nor even the mortal Zhongli. He is the canvas of which you paint your masterpiece with wandering hands that leave goosebumps on his skin.

And what a feeling it is. Euphoria, he thinks, is an apt description – yet at the same time nothing can truly put a word to the feeling of the Creators gaze falling upon him and him alone, to know your touch and to hear your voice.

His body cramps and aches at holding the position for so long, but it is so easy to ignore, so easily drowned out by the waves of adoration that swells in his chest. It is so very easy to ignore the way his body protests when your hands cup his face, and he feels like he must be the luckiest man in the world.

It is so very easy to forget everything when you are so close he can feel your breath against his lips – so easy to forget that he should stay still when he coils his tail around your waist, his arms encircling your back – mindful of his claws.

There is no word to describe the feeling of your lips, the warmth and softness with which you look at him in the moments before your eyes close, the feeling of your body and his entwined like you were never meant to be apart. He does not even try to put it into words – his actions will do it instead.

And perhaps you will not recognize the possessiveness with which he holds you, but that's alright.

He has all the time in the world.

And so will you.

[reichurine]

:) gotta love making merch (sometimes)

Felt like sharing since I am kinda happy with how the merch looks this time around~

[crystallizsch]

i’m getting early updates from twt that twst en november is going to be mostly chill (at least for me) (and except for the book 7 update in late november COUGH) which is good bc i need to catch up on playful land art 😤😤