#greater beast

[xnderx]

Felt a bit more motivated at school today so take these

[narutothoughts]

Kakanaru au where kakashi gets hurt on a mission and passes out in the middle of a forest on the way back to Konoha.

When he wakes up he’s neatly laid out in the middle of an old shrine, with fresh bandages wrapped around his stitched up wounds and warm tea at his elbow.

The fact he remained unconscious through someone moving him and closing his wounds was discontenting even if it wasn’t particularly surprising. He did lose a lot of blood and chakra after all.

Now that he’s awake, kakashi knows he should leave. He knows better than to test his luck staying in place for too long anywhere outside of the village.

But…he’s curious. And despite the stitches, he’s still in danger of infection considering Konoha is over a week away in his current state.

So he leverages himself up, and tries to look around as much as he can. But the entire shrine is empty. Not a single sign of the one that helped him.

When he wakes up again a few hours later there’s a pot of warm tea at his side to replace the old cup, a little pile of fruit, and new bandages. The day after that, there’s sake and plum wine added to the mix.

Kakashi doesn’t really know what’s happening but he’s never been one to sit idle nor has he ever been an ungrateful man. So as soon as he’s able to get up without his head spinning he gets to work. he sweeps the floors and dusts the cobwebs. Even polishes a little golden fox statue he finds tucked behind a wooden alter.

It’s the least he could do for his hidden host. The caretaker of this place maybe?

Kakashi’s body and chakra recovers faster than he anticipated. After five days he leaves even as the Hatake part of him that lives in back of his head keens.

Before he goes he pats the golden fox on the head. It was oddly cute compared to the 9 statues of snarling stone foxes surrounding it, though there was undeniable beauty in those too.

A few months later he’s injured again and realizes the shrine is on his way back to Konoha. He stops there to rest for the night and heads out in the morning, only taking the time to drink some of the tea and wipe down the alter, barely noticing how his chakra coils have refilled already.

And it keeps happening whenever he gets injured. He comes, he rests, he cleans, and goes with a pat to the gold statues head.

Until one day he wakes up to a long limbed blond at his side instead of the usual tea and fruits. When the blanket shifts to reveal a bare back and smooth tan skin he thanks every god out there for his mask covering his blush. Sleepy blue eyes blink open at him right on cue and honestly? Kakashi thinks he deserved that for not putting the pieces together earlier.

This is blatantly inspired by @rayshippouuchiha

[forget-me-not-semicolon]

God’s kids

[dark-lord-of-awesomeness]

OOOO WHAT IF STAN BECOMES A LIMINAL SPACE/THE BACKROOMS/THE OLDEST VIEW’S ROLLING GIANT????

imagine ford and fidds going into the backrooms only to find out stan IS THE BACKROOMS!? (Dun dun dunnn)

Hmm. Hmmmmm.

Horror story time methinks.

Stan falls into a liminal space of some kind, such as the Backrooms, and gets mega lost forever until at some point he realizes he's not walking around anymore, he just is. He's the eerie halls, the dark stairways, giving off the strange atmosphere, light coming in at odd angles and meeting the dark in ways that make it darker and strange. There are other people around here, and he can't do anything more than change the eerie rooms around and make new ones, as clueless as to where the exit is as everyone else is.

Also there's monsters, and his body?? Might be one of them? For added horror of course :)

Maybe all the monsters used to be people who got so lost they forgot they used to be human at all. Stan's consciousness somehow skipped the forgot part and just kept going, leaving his body behind to become a liminal space horror creature. There aren't a whole lot of them, and people can go their entire trip around the space without encountering one, but there's enough for Stan to notice and try to veer humans and creatures away from each other.

Then one day, ??? after Stan got lost forever a familiar face shows up.

Ford, ever the researcher, has brought Fiddleford on his excursion into the space, going to record a bunch of data, has a reliable way to escape, and is here to have a good time! Loves all the spooky rooms, loves the not right atmosphere, loves the endless halls and the twisting rooms that don't turn and connect in ways they should.

Stan freaks out. Fords not supposed to be here, he's pretty sure no ones supposed to be here, and he can't lead Ford to the exit because he doesn't know where it is? Desperately trying to lead Ford to the more harmless rooms, except Ford is always trying to go the ways some kind of horror beast is lurking, and oh god his body monster is heading straight for Ford like his brother has some kind of beacon. Cannot let his not mangled not corpse kill or trap his brother here forever, he's got to communicate to Ford that he's here then tell him to get lost.

Through making Ford go through various rooms that feature letters and signs Stan finally manages to get Ford to realize something is trying to communicate with him, then that that something is Stan.

Well Ford's not gonna leave, especially not when he's raging at this thing for pretending to be his brother, then having a break down when he bumps into the thing that used to be Stan's human body.

I'm not familiar enough with liminal space horror stories that features creatures, but Stan's body is clearly some kind of liminal horror monster while still vaguely recognizable as himself. Very fun to run into when Ford was just contacted by a creature claiming to be Stan and telling Ford to leave.

The Fords manage to escape the Stanbeast, Fiddleford desperatly wanting to leave now while Fords determined to rescue Stan/release Stan's ghost. Stan's not a ghost though, he's very much alive! Just part of him is a terror beast hunting Ford down for reasons unknown and the other is part of the actual location, mind the space between spaces itself, only able to communicate through leading Ford to rooms with signs and having to spell things out one sign post at a time.

Makes it really obvious what Stan wants when Ford keeps running into rooms with stop signs all over them.

Does Ford get got? Does Stanbeast kill him, or did all Stan need to come back to his body was to hug his bro? Does Fiddleford drag Ford out of the place and leave Stan there forever? Do they manage to extract Stan's consciousness and now have to get him a new body, or does that perma kill him?

The possibilities are endless really.

[needle-rose]

Okay I’m not going to reblog the post that inspired this for reasons that will become clear

But I always Really disliked interpretations of Beauty and the Beast (whether the Disney film/s or other animal bridegroom stories) that insist on how “the beast was ~hot~ before he transformed”

And give zero thought to that character’s experience of being cursed to live in a horrifically Wrong form for years on end. And finally being restored to something that feels correct and familiar—and can you imagine the first reaction to that, from the person who fell in love with you and with whom you’re in love, the one who broke the curse, saying “hm I liked you better before”?

I get it might be some kind of attempt to turn the “ugly” curse on its head and instead view it as the more attractive form

But that’s Not The Point!

The animal bridegroom tale is one of the oldest in the indo-European language family and it is time and again about coming to love someone for who they are rather than how they look. If anything the human transformation at the end can be best read as the phenomenon by which the person one loves becomes attractive in the lover’s eyes Because they are beloved.

And you know what sure I acknowledge and respect that interacting with it as a monsterfucker story is something people are going to do and will find the story appeals to them for that reason

But I feel like the instant you think of the Beast character/animal bridegroom as a Human Being who has been transformed against their will, as has traditionally been the case, those interpretations bother me in a way I still struggle to articulate.

[drinksss]

flag beasts (disputed territories edition)

[serpentface]

Weird thing to say

[darkspellpayne]

radical conceptussy: monday poppy playtime phupload

[vacz]

Hear me out...

Bad End Friends Boy Band

"Watch me set your world on fire" 🎶

[chronologically-challenged]

Everything around the Isabeau confession is so well written.

Firstly, the set up. When you're playing the game, killing the King is just a vague goal. A natural one! But other than the vague desire to hit an end point, there isn't really a strong emotional reason compelling the player forward. But Isabeau!!! Telling you he will tell you something once you beat the King!!! That!!! That is a tangible goal to lean onto especially over time as you get more and more endeared to the whole party. Even if you're not aware of it being a love confession, getting to Isabeau to hear what he has to say is still a compelling reason get to the end.

And if you're Aware of how these things go for stories like these, you may also say, "Well shit, we're not gonna get a confession until the end of the game, are we?"

Second, the interruptions. The order of the interruptions are so quietly brilliant. I can't get over it. Bonnie interrupting first is such an excellent choice. You know Bonnie!!! Bonnie has been jumping into conversations all game so far. So interrupting Isabeau doesn't seem all that out of place. Then Mirabelle interrupts next time. And you go, okay. Thats two of three.... but surely Odile won't interrupt, right? By this point, the player has seen Odile tease Isabeau multiple times about him liking Siffrin, so surely she won't interrupt... right? Right??? But she does. And despite it being obvious that she would, the player is still left in tension if she would.

The way things are set up, there's a plausible deniability each time. You don't expect the first interruption, Bonnie naturally would interrupt so Mirabelle could be surprising, and Odile interrupting feels so outside of what she'd usually do that you don't expect it.

And yet!!!! Saying all this!!! This is very tropey!!! Very time loop tropey!!! Stopping people from messing things up so you can have your moment is quintessential time loop tropes and yet!!! It doesn't feel tropey due to good characterization and story structure.

(And if you do realize that all three are going to interrupt from the beginning, you get a wave of DREAD when you realize that you're going to be here. Again and again. That you have to beat the King again and again and again... and as you watch the confession fizzle, seeing the Head Housemaiden there, despite Siffrin's happy demeanor, you can't help but feel it all about to crash down before it even happens. In that moment you have a taste of what the game is about to put you through).

Third, the family quests. I have two points here. Firstly, "yelling at your screen like it's a telenovela" is the best summary of my feelings on the stargazing scene. Even if you KNOW Isabeau isn't going to confess until the end of the game bc that's how these things go, it won't happen until the end because that's how good writing works, You Still Want It To Happen. So Badly. You want Isabeau to confess to Siffrin!!! You want that tension to release!!! But you have to watch and see that perfect confession slip away every time and it hurts to watch, especially if you do the quests multiple times. Second point is the fact you can't continue the Isabeau confessions on a family run kills me. It's so good. Like you're never going to get everything in one go no matter what you do so you have to pick and choose. And!!! That plays into Siffrin feeling like he's manipulating Isabeau!!!

Of course Siffrin isn't actually manipulating Isabeau but when you're so aware of what you're doing and how events could have played out, it's difficult not to see a situation where you changed the outcome as manipulation. Which... of course leads us to Siffrin's feelings at the end of trying to stop the interruptions...

Fourth, Isabeau stopping himself when confessing. It hurts so good. Idk just. Denying the player that payoff. Denying Siffrin that moment of confession. Because really Siffrin didn't learn the lesson needed to actually get this moment of vulnerability between the two of them. It's such a genius choice that brings that awful dread and hopelessness. And in the end, I suppose all five of them stop the confession from happening because from that point onward, Siffrin interrupts the confession every time. Siffrin doing everything they can to get what they want only to accept that they're never going to get it. Never CAN get this because he doesn't deserve it.

Finally, bad touch. People have talked about bad touch enough, so I dont need to go too far with it. I will say I appreciate how much it doubles down on subverting the "romancing someone in a time loop" narrative. These loops while in some ways made Siffrin more perceptive, they're also PAINFUL. They mess with his head, lean towards making worse and worse decisions, and a large part of that is his role in his family's lives. Especially with Isabeau!!! So yeah. Of course the surprise kiss doesn't go well. Especially with the context that Isabeau doesn't think Siffrin wants to be touched let alone kissed? It ends in disaster just like most of the sidequests do.

In general, the ongoing Isabeau plot is very well implemented. The seeds for it are planted immediately, and it takes a lot of commitment to see all the parts of it. As a result, unless you try to do a ton of runs in act 3 immediately just to get the confession, it's a very slow burn part of the story, doing well to parallel Siffrin's mental state and the growing hopelessness in the loops. It grounds the story in a tangible goal from the beginning and in many ways, once you get to the end of it, get to bad touch, you're left bereft. Something... lost after you spent so much time being aware of Isabeau. That tangible feeling that you're slowly running out of things to do, of ways to spend these two days.

(And of course, then you have act 6 confession, and the pure relief, the joy in finally having the confession after it being set up from act 1. Siffrin doesn't need to reciprocate for it to have its impact. Something has CHANGED they have changed. And finally FINALLY after all this time, the moment can happen. And it's beautiful).

[xnderx]

I drew A LOT of Showtime GB yesterday and today..

These doodles are from yesterday..

My siblings also wanted to draw him so I allowed them. I drew him from memory which wasn't too off, I just gave him a top hat for some reason, which oddly fits him.

These are from today. Instead of just GB we also have some Horror Mario action. The random marker lines from some fanart of another's Horrorbrew OC I made on the back.

[rainbowolfe]

I think Shamura is far more unhinged than most people give them credit for. Normal, reasonable people do not declare war against an entire pantheon.

Alt/Extra Dialogue under the cut!

[forget-me-not-semicolon]

GW made them ugly sweaters for Christmas 🎄

[val-of-the-north]

Some random Elden Ring DLC-related doodles

[bearotonin-international]

Greetings fellow wet beasts, it's Wet Beast Wednesday

[the-greater-good-1899]

The dawn of November 1, 1945.

With the chaos of a recently graduated Tom Riddle sent out into the world, and the ministry breathing that much more down Albus Dumbledore's neck for the last few weeks after he'd been forced on "administrative leave" by the ministry while he was in their custody for the last several weeks, beaten and tortured until he gave into their demands to duel Gellert Grindelwald once more. He knew his husband's actions had grown more horrific over the years that even he could not ignore, and between that, the torture...

He had accepted.

The ministry was unaware of his possession of the resurrection stone, given to him by Flamel in case things turn for the worst in that duel. He's made enough potion to live out the next fifty years with himself and his wife- Should Albus not come home from this. Days before, he had sent out a letter. Part of him hoped it did not make it to him, or he would simply ignore his ridiculous quest for a final duel, to see who would finally come out on top. Or, in the ministries eyes.. If good would triumph over evil.

For the greater good.

Days later, he had anxiously arrived at that location, dressed in his usual attire. His wand was grasped tightly in his hand, other shoved in his pocket, wrapped tightly around the stone in his pocket. He had used illusion charms to hide what a wreck he really looked like, after what the ministry had put him through for the last several weeks. In his weakened state he might've still been quite the formidable opponent- But the ministries underestimated Grindelwald when it came to Dumbledore. He truly didn't know who would triumph this time. He hoped so desperately that the letter had not made it, or he would refuse.

But when was luck ever on Albus Dumbledore's side? @magicblooms

(template/layout credit to @seekingabettergood tysm <33)