#beating them up in my mind

[sankttealeaf]

band au ruetash doodle

rue has tattoos in this ive decided. bhaal symbols on her fingers. a black handprint (totally not gortash's) on her arm or... somewhere else. yknow ;) probably has some little flowers on her inner wrist. thinkin about them. thats all

[lucabyte]

you dream of devouring your friends whole

[faethfigueroth]

this is making me so insane im gonna thhrow up

[ohitslen]

Twitter doodles!

(close ups for the first one below and a small extra as well :D)

[leafsfromthevine]

zuko & sokka ; the boiling rock (pt. 1)

[ministarfruit]

this is my non-spoiler review of the doppelgänger routes

[tiabwwtws-art]

Cute ideas from @hydraposeidon

[mechieonu]

something about the togachako fight feels so PARTICULARLY vulnerable. the violence, the gore, the spitting, screaming honesty, the grief, oh my gosh, the GRIEF. toga realizing that jin is fading away at the same time ochako hugs her close has done horrible things to my brain. i just want to grab hori by the shoulders and shake and ask what the FUCK was the inspo for them

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 18: Balls (Bullet Train)

Sometimes (oftentimes) it's true that all you need are Balls. I personally absolutely love Balls. I'm a big fan! Ekhem. Today I'm using the help of (I mean, copying most of the passages from it) my earlier Balls rant that I have written down after my first listen of it back in January. I really love this album and I don't want to completely skip over saying a couple words on it at least but I really don't think I have the headspace to write anything very good for it today. I'll still try though!

So yeah, Balls. It's a great album, fun and chill (in my sense of what I call and consider chill anyway), consistent, as Sparks albums tend to be, and as I suspected / hoped it does fit this specific vibe of driving around at night somewhere city-like and illuminated. Or being on a train deep at night and looking at the world zooming by (if you'd even see much of it on a train at night anyway.....). And I do think that it's not so dissimilar to Gratsax (I'd say now that it's definitely darker and moodier than its predecessor...). So it's interesting to think about how it's considered to be one of the "weak" ones (by music reviewers at least) while Gratsax is so beloved in comparision.

I will admit, I don't really know what the big problem with this album could be. As I said, it's fun, it has the melodies, it has the energy, it has the theatricality (I like seeing how more and more orchestral instruments such as strings are being incorporated into the music, in a way the jump into Lil' Beethoven two years later doesn't come of as THAT much of a shock because of this. The evolution of sound here is fascinating!) I really like the intense beats, just as much as the more laid-back and moodier pieces. And there's lots of gold to be found in the lyrics department as always.

One more thing I wanna say is that at some point I wondered if this music sounds older than it is. Maybe it does? But then I remembered that this was 2000 and honestly when I think about it, there just IS something about this album that fits so well with the Y2K image and vibe and all. Sparks 2000 and all that.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Balls: I mean. It's Balls.

Scheherazade: absolutely LOVE this one and I had the strangest impression of it sounding very familiar when I first heard it. Months later I found out that it was just briefly featured in TSB so I think that explains it (I will talk more about my TSB viewings on TSB day. EVERYTHING has to be explained in excruciating detail, lmao)

The Calm Before The Storm: bugsonas 4ever. Song itself is amazing too

How To Get Your Ass Kicked: how can a song about getting your ass kicked be so pleasant and relaxing, it always keeps cracking me up, how perfect that is actually

Bullet Train: I love it how introducing the topic of the song with a "It's the [topic of the song]" is a reoccurring theme on this album. Thank you Sparks for this ode to technology and art (these lyrics always have me giggling). And also it just goes hard as heck

It's Educational: a perfect fusion of / sequel to I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car and Progress (it's mostly the vocal delivery that reminds me of the latter)

The Angels: such an odd one here but I still like it a lot, I apparently said that it sounds "surprisingly mainstream for Sparks but somehow in a positive way". It's very sweet and I absolutely love how Russell sings here, it's so different from what we're used to but that only makes it hit you even more in the feels, lol. And I actually prefer the alternative version of this song that's featured as a bonus track, and I do think that's in big part because you can hear Russell better on it (or that was my first impression of it at least and it kind of stuck)

[spaceratprodigy]

💋🔪 Poppy and KJ 🔪💋

@ghoulghostly — [ palette prompts ]

they're the baddest bitches in nuka-world and they are making out!!

Commission Info | Ko-Fi | My Links

[paul-simon-juggling]

Today I bring you a 1980 Paul interview that made me lose my mind like nothing else : )

[sieglinde-freud]

IM PULLING MY HAIR OUT OF MY SCALP

[oddlyfondoffantasy]

Also my biggest takeaway from bingeing Malevolent and Dungeon Meshi pretty close together is that Arthur really needs a Senshi around to convince him to actually eat and sleep occasionally. Something something the party beat their mad magician because they were well fed and rested while Arthur and John got tied to a table by their magic user. Didn't even think to make a giant curry to distract the hag.

[purplelea]

Something that just occurred to be is that is isn't extremely weird for Neku and Sho to only be allowed to use one pin at a time? Because we know for sure that in the og Neku was able to use six of them and we can easily guess that Sho could as well, given his Imagination level. It's likely that Beat could, too, but I'm not well versed enough in the og's gameplay to tell.

In any case, neither Neku nor Sho can use more than one pin at once. Another piece of dialogue from Sho also reveals that the level caps on the pins have been removed, making them usable by any player regardless of their level.

Those two factors are some pretty big changes—we see how surprised Sho is when he realizes the latter. My question is: how were they made possible?

There is no reason why Kariya or Uzuki, when in control of Shibuya, would make those changes. Joshua wouldn't have either, because they make no sense in Shibuya's Game. So that only leaves Shiba, who probably made them to fit Shinjuku's rules better. Only thing is, that Sho has been Conductor before, so he should have been aware that this was a possibility. Yet his reaction makes me believe that he never considered it possible (it is possible that he didn't consider it simply because he didn't think about it or because it wouldn't have helped him with his plans anyway, but I think he genuinely didn't know it could be done) which then leads to the logical conclusion of: only a higher power could've done this.

I believe Kubo's the one who made those changes to Shibuya's Game, or Shiba, but thanks to Kubo's powers—in any case, it's a intervention of the Higher Plane. Sho isn't stupid and probably guessed it right away. I am thus adding this to the list of hints he got in order to guess who was behind all of this

[dreamieparadise]

Quick drawing of Mukhtar and his jinn friends.

I just imagine him going "get em, guys!" At someone who didn't pay up. By the way, Mukhtar always splits his money with them! 💞

[parasitoidism]

Serph drives some kind of sensible hatchback Heat drives a 70's station wagon and NOT a nice one argilla drives a little 2 door sedan cielo has a fancy minivan and gale drives a tesla