#i am going to eat drywall.

[ibroughtyoumybullets-ningy]

i'm gonna end up on the news.

[bamsara]

The Rehabilitation of Death

Chapter 20: The Winds of Change

For their second crusade into Anchordeep, Lambert and Narinder have the (unfortunate) experience of running into Midas. Pushing into the God of Death for information about his past with his siblings -of Kallamar's former life and a treasury resembling a ballroom- proves to have consequences when Narinder starts to pry into their own.

When coming upon a relic, he offers them an opportunity they would not have expected from him: teaching them how to absorb divinity like the old gods have, and to restore their ability to cast curses.

In every scenario, there is a notable change. Emotionally, how they speak, physically even.

The Lamb is scolded by a rabbit for losing sleep. The God of Death is listening more than they are aware. A duo returns to the cult grounds after missing for over a month.

(Narinder and Leshy have started fighting. Break it up before someone gets hurt.)

Chapter Wordcount: 19,479 | Read the Tags | Happy Reading!

[obsob]

the accolade ( the...the cat-olade...)

[screams-of-the-damned84]

old doodle from my files that feels oddly relevant somehow

[sulfvr]

I crafted this will wood to point at you (with variants)

[pencildragons]

you are fifteen years old. you have existed for three years. neither sets of your parents wanted you. your friends never remember you're there unless they need you to do something for them. you escape hell. you are shot in the heart. it takes your friends a minute to notice. you tell the boy that likes you that you like him back. he's unconscious. he doesn't hear you. you're fifteen years old. you die.

[starstruckodysseys]

anyway do you guys also think about the parallels between the nsbu cast. liv and russell and being lonely in a crowded room. dang and wendell and looking for someone to believe in them. paula and usha and losing support networks. what if i went insane

[dandelion-roots]

No matter what you do, you just can't shake him off, can you, Chūya?

[lyrics: Florence + the Machine | id in alt]

EDIT: I made a whole ass janky animatic to this song, enjoy!

[syn4k]

THEY HAD ROADS

THEY HAD POTTERY. ART . THEY HAD ART.

THEY HAD ARMOR TRIMS

THEY HAD TALL, COLORFUL HOUSES WITH LADDERS IN THEM AND GLAZED TERRACOTTA AND MUD BRICKS

RHEY HAD COLORED GLASS. COLORED!!! GLASS!!!

WHAT ARE THE PLAYERS NOW AND WHERE ARE THESE???? WHAT HAPPENED?

WHY DID THEY RUN?

WHAT DID WE LOSE?

WHAT WAS LOST? WHAT WAS LOVED?

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THIS GAME1

Something that we are not quite meant to know yet. Or maybe never.

[yaboiwormy]

Here it is, lemme know what you think

[spaceratprodigy]

✨🖤 Family Portrait 🖤 @grimreapersbutt 🖤✨

And it was hard, but you were brave, you are splendid And we will never be alone in this world No matter what they say We're going to be okay We were safe inside And our new son cried

Commission Info | Ko-Fi | My Links

[youkaigakkou-tl]

(sorry in advance for the long ask) i feel silly for not noticing earlier but i realized that "Sano Mikoto" follows the same "__ no mikoto" name pattern that several japanese gods have. but that also made me wonder: if the 佐 from sano's name means "help" then his whole name sounds like "the god of help/assistance". but based on how that doesn't align with his yakubyougami nature and how ebisu reacts to hearing the name in ch 53 (his reaction is a bit more clear in the jpn raws) (1/2)

佐 doesn't really mean "help" on its own, it only somewhat means that when it's part of the word 補佐 "hosa" , which means "assistant" (in an organizational structure to a chief or leader) rather than like "helping people". Most of the time 佐 is just used as a kanji to represent the sound "sa", which is somewhat frequently the case for the on-readings (similar to chinese pronunciation) of kanji.

This is particularly prevalent when it comes to ancient literature like the creation myths and stories around gods, where the stories originally only existed in verbal form, and when japan adopted the chinese writing system some 1500 years ago, they applied certain chinese characters to the sounds that existed in japanese (the 50 or so hiragana that exist now) in order to put the stories into writing.

(and then over time 50 or so kanji got simplified into hiragana for normal use but thats neither here nor there. but names got to keep their kanji, which is why creation myth gods often have stupid long names that are 1 kanji per syllable, and the kanji used dont mean much of anything by themselves)

(theres also that often the kanji chosen will have been positive words, stuff like "fast" or "wise" or "powerful", in addition to the chinese word sounding like the japanese syllable (which was the more important part). Its unclear whether all these attributes were all applicable to the god named, its just as possible people afterwards applied those attributes to them in future retellings of the stories because the kanji was in the name. sort of a chicken and egg problem. and anyway, does it really matter what the one "true" interpretation of a story is, if one exists at all? it's a very modern sensibility to demand one, when for much of history stories only existed in the air between a storyteller and a listener. im getting off track here)

this is a lot of words to say, what is significant about the 佐 in "sano", is that it's the same one as in susanoo-no-mikoto. susanoo, notable for being associated with storms and disaster, for being exiled from heaven after causing some sort of destruction, and for being a child of izanagi and izanami and born after their first child hiruko (or rather, ebisu).

the thing about the yakubyougami thing, as with every other youkai and everything about folklore, is that at the end of the day, it's a story. youkai are just a set of attributes and circumstances that are wrapped up as a story, and in turn given a name and a face. a kamaitachi is just the occurrence of "wind whipping up suddenly and dust and leaves cutting someone" wrapped up as a story of "what if an imperceptibly fast weasel with knives did it?!"

it's why there can be so many different versions of stories for the same youkai, with behaviors and appearance differing from place to place, or the same "story" being given a different "name" in different places

(relevant to the latest chapter, i sort of suspect this is why theres like 10 different monkey youkai whose lore is just "this monkey is a FREAK")

what im getting at is, this isnt really like scientific taxonomy classifications, where theres genes you can sequence or criteria you can check to see if something is the right species. (and even then, there's birds stranded on isolated islands, fish sealed in caves, microorganisms in general, etc etc) there's not like a "youkai auditor" that goes around auditing if you're Really the youkai you say you are.

nor is it like you intrinsically know what youkai you are and all the lore about it and what behaviors youre supposed to have and what powers you have etc. you're told that by your parents, and in cases where that isnt possible, you figure it out somehow. like with beniko (popped out of a house and raised by humans), they looked it up and people have come up with a name for the phenomenon, which was called "zashiki warashi". or in cases like odawara where you really do just come to life alone, i imagine you either make a name for yourself, or humans who come across you will make a name for you.

which is a lot of words to say, sano can call himself whatever the hell he wants to make his life easier and not have to explain his backstory or have classmates make guesses at his backstory, as long as his traits somewhat fit. especially since recently he's often in the same scenes as kurahashi, who is now confirmed to straight up not be who or what he says he is.

[7yd1a]

I want to dissect her brain (affectionate)

[foreverxdaydreaming]

x

[martyrbat]

at the racetrack | bruce & jason — detective comics #571

[ID: Two panels of Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd at a racetrack. The background has been edited to be solid pale pink in both photos. Bruce is wearing a green suit and a red, striped tie as he holds binoculars. Jason wears a yellow cardigan and a red baseball cap as he juggles holding a soda, a bucket of popcorn, and a hotdog. In the first photo, they're shown in a direct front view. Bruce is glancing at Jason as Jason grins happily at him and has his mouth full. In the second photo, Bruce's back is to us as Jason is in an oblique from behind view and is still chewing his food. END ID]

[ID: two sets of the same photos as before but in one set, the background has been edited to be a gradient light blue to salmon pink instead. The second set is the original panels, where they sit amongst a packed crowd. END ID]

[eff-plays]

Astarion, having no concept of anything: Can I talk to you about how the others might taste. It's not weird.

Hiraeth, having a concept of nearly everything: Yeah it's not weird. I would bite you like a hamburger btw.

Astarion: Nice.