#post balance arc

[wellsbering]

Cycle 99.

The sky above is blue, and there’s only one sun... but otherwise, it feels like home.

i don't post much (any?) of my cosplay on here but these photos turned out so well i had to share!! shoutout to my friend mel (@baroqueblood on instagram) for capturing these incredible shots of my lup last month :,) i'm so so proud of this cosplay, i've slowly assembled it one piece at a time over about 2 years and i think this is the best version of it so far!

[starleska]

i see this opinion echoed across the Doctor Who fandom: that we really enjoyed Maestro, and love the idea of The Devil's Chord, but feel like the episode was lacking a little something in the writing department. so here's my suggestion: they shouldn't have killed off Timothy Drake 👀🎶 hear me out:

from the start, we're introduced to Timothy Drake as a deeply talented individual, and one disgruntled with his position in life. his passion and genius have been squandered, and he's been relegated to teaching his craft to disinterested schoolboys. but we learn he has a darker interest...Timothy is a scholar as well as a composer, and he decides to spice up his day by telling his pupil about the lost Devil's Chord. and then, Maestro erupts onto the scene...and they are everything that Timothy has never been able to be. Maestro is loud, and flamboyant, and unreservedly powerful: every glittering gem on their body screams you will look at me, and you will listen. and while Timothy's polite-society conditioning and time-typical bigotry are his initial response, we can tell that Maestro intrigues him. in return, Maestro doesn't just talk to Timothy, oh no. Maestro all but seduces the man, by speaking aloud all of Timothy's most private thoughts: that he's a misunderstood genius, and that it isn't his fault he never got that break. in this way Maestro manifests as a Devil figure, luring Timothy into an unspeakable Faustian bargain. here he is, wasting his life and talent and songs away in some stuffy school...when he could have so, so much more. like Maestro, he could be powerful. he could be who he wants to be. and most importantly: he could make people listen to him. i would've loved a version of The Devil's Chord where Maestro manipulates Timothy Drake into drawing out the music of others, thereby killing them, and feeding Maestro in the process. perhaps there could have been a caveat to Maestro's power: as the Essence of Music, it could be that Maestro has to operate through a living being, much like a demonic muse. not only could Timothy get all of the attention he ever wanted, finally being recognised for his musical brilliance...but he could exact revenge on those who said he'd never make it. wouldn't this have been a fascinating parallel with The Beatles? what if we'd seen an increasingly power-mad Timothy Drake, rising to stardom in an alternate timeline where everyone is devoid of musical inspiration, leaving him as the sole musical genius in the world? what if the Doctor and Ruby's horror at a devastated world included the theme of creation for creation's sake, as opposed to the manic pursuit of adoration which Timothy so clearly desires? perhaps i have lost my mind. perhaps i am reading far too much into the way Timothy looks at Maestro in the latter half of the clip above. but i think the terror of Maestro would have come through even more if they'd kept Timothy Drake around, and trapped him in a Phantom of the Paradise-esque doomed narrative with Maestro whispering in his ear and helping him take control of his destiny 🎶🔥

[ygodmyy20]

Your beauty never, ever, scared me.

I came across this AMV and it never got out of my head. I fell in love with the song and I just kept listening and listening and I knew I had to draw it at some point. I just kept thinking about it. Singing it. It never left me.

Would love to tag whoever made it but can't find them on Tumblr. Here is the Terumob edit:

Not gonna post the timelapse as it is like....4 mins long. Because it took me for fucking ever to paint Teru's face. I kept running into a lot of blockers.

[jerreeeeeee]

tragic actual play siblings…

[thepringlesofblood]

me, starting to read the suffering game graphic novel: i wonder how much of the next lunar interlude they're going to include?

*the boys escape wonderland and we're only halfway through the book*

me: heh. i'm in danger.

[anistarrose]

what if I wrote an Eighth Bird Kravitz AU but there wasn't a single scene from the Stolen Century that featured into it, and instead it mostly focused on music theory/bardic studies professor Kravitz and arcana/science professor Barry at the same college, accidentally becoming best friends again by bonding over both being academically burnt out nervous wrecks

[redeemed-wren]

I'm only halfway through it, will finish it...later. but my biggest gripe so far with Troy (2004) is how much they are butchering Menelaus. And not just by mispronouncing his name. He's portrayed as a cruel brute and I'm like bro. He does not deserve this treatment 😔

I understand some changes due to cultural shift and the nature of a different medium but. Why'd you gotta do Menelaus like that?

[raccoonnutella13]

why are ppl always so mean about taz :(

[yardsards]

making a second version of the poll from earlier because there were so many buckwild things that happened in that podcast i couldn't fit them all into one poll

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

i would kill for your de/isat swaps theyre so good already and i am eating it up. so glad im not the only one who saw the parallels 🔥

Thank you! I have been having an absolute blast drawing them; the parallels are too good to not have fun with it!

[pyroexcape]

misc kazuha design drafts

[tadpolebobatea]

Day 3 - Favourite dynamic (i'd file this under romantic, platonic, and unhealthy)

Billy Tella. UU blorbos number 1 and 2.

The pookies, I love their dynamic in all instances but something about the angst of the 100th really gets me. The whole going to hell together thing appeals to my poor soggy soul.

(Something something cigarette lighting symbolic for tella assisting with Billy’s self destruction something something)

(cigarette lighting is symbolic for my completely healthy interest is rgg games. come closer i dont bite )

I'm just a sucker for the whole "captain and his right hand man " dynamic, something about unconditional loyalty and devotion and the attitude of "i owe you my life. maybe more than that" is so so so so good

Timelapse (I couldn’t make any of these poses work. It drove me fucking mental)

[broodygaming]

Man see so many ppl say “this campaign has too much railroading” and also see ppl say “this campaign has no direction” ??? As if those don’t directly contradict each other?

And like. I’m not gonnna sit here and pretend that the zeitgeist of fandom is one collective mind that has to speak for itself. But more just to comment on this ever increasing idea that fandoms spaces are where you go exclusively to complain. And then when you try and be positive about something you get criticized even more for having rose colored goggles or for, what’s the word they use on Reddit, toxic positivity!! TOXIC positivity for thinking it’s normal to, idk, enjoy the shows you watch.

Idk y’all maybe I’m just old now but I do not understand. I simply don’t have the time in my life to hate watch things and I do not understand ppl who do. What a miserable way to live.

[knockknockitsnickels]

Ramble about the TAZ: Suffering Game graphic novel bc I just finished it and saw discussion around it and had a few thoughts which I didn't want to tag ramble on someone else's post about.

I don't really mind how little time they spent in Wonderland itself, though I might be biased, since I found the podcast version of suffering game dragged a bit. I felt the gn kept the vibes of "oh god, can this get any worse?" while not overstaying its welcome. I was also just relieved the lunar interlude was included, since imo that's one of the best parts of the series.

I think I only had two little gripes with the book. First one is that i feel "you stole half of my heart" doesn't hit as hard as "you took everything from me" (though I don't remember if the former was said in the podcast - maybe it was?). Second is that Merle choosing a penalty over losing his memories of his kids was a really nice moment which would've been fitting for this version of Merle.

I know others were upset about Taako not losing his beauty or Magnus not forgetting governor Kalen, but I didn't mind losing those. In Taako's case, I think he's generally a more emotionally open character in the graphic novels already, so I don't mind losing the scene where he opens up to Kraavitz by dropping the glamor. It's OK to disagree ofc, since it's a pretty iconic scene for the pair. With Magnus, I kind of expected them to cut that out, since his revenge plot against Kalen hasn't been mentioned in the gn, and the other two offering to go get revenge on his behalf isn't resolved in the podcast itself.

[nocentis]

Black Arum ┆ Siegrain

Content warning: main character death, cannibalism, gore, toxic/unreliable narrator, highly canon divergent character portrayal. Read at your own risk. You will probably take psychic damage from this.

╳┆A lure was stuck in the soot between his lungs. Many times he'd felt the tug — enough that the wire fray had worn a rut where his ribs met — and many times he'd found her on the other end, reeling for remnants of him that no longer existed. She would aim to break him open, sift around in the cinders for those specks of him she wanted to confiscate, keep for herself, so that she could finally be rid of him. Once those flecks were washed and panned, the remains would reek like plough mud closure. For that reason he would come to her whole, every whit of ash accounted for.

A cherry little game they'd play. Her with flint and steel, eager to reignite that paltry spark of "good" that flickered freely for a lapse before he remembered himself. Him with tinder and kindling, letting it light only to call on the rain again. Her with just enough hope. Him with just enough time.

That resolve was so very compelling. More than her beauty, her candor, and even that glow he so loved to bask in — that luster he wanted to hold between his teeth and bury under his nails — more than that, her tenacity was a toothsome temptation, and he wasn't keen to deny himself anything.

So when he felt the pull, he caved to the beck and spooled the lisle. That day, the line seemed lighter, thinner, than it ever had. It should've been strong. Tensile. Instead it felt gossamer fine and just as frail, poised to tear at an ill touch, and he wasn’t exactly renowned for his gentle hands. Still, he gathered it with both palms and wrapped it proudly around himself like a ceremonial sash, grin scrawled across his face something devilish.

╳┆He found her lying in the shade beneath a long-lived magnolia, still and silent as she never was, with the color of her namesake spread around her head in halo streaks. Battle-torn, as she so often was, and yet uncannily... passive.

Anything he'd planned to say went out the airlock. Instead, he stood there with an anchor in his stomach, reaping the benefit of doubt.

Not a frown nor a sigh when he darkened her sanctum, only heavenward eyes tearless and unblinking and a resigned breath just short of peaceful. That worn tether waned phantom thin, light as helium, and the tension in his chest went slack.

There was no definite snap. No dramatic severing or ear-popping moment of clarity. Only the vague sense of loss so fresh a wound that denial was a numbing salve.

“Get up,” his voice a command, sandgrit against whetstone, thickened by an unnamed antigen.

The silence felt like mockery. A placid scene void of chittering fauna, clouds' drum, or even the most timid breeze. It wanted him to hear the absence of her breath and the stillness of her chest. It wanted him to hear the hollow. The empty. The nothing. Wanted it to resonate; to find the furthest reaches of his mind and clean them out until all that was left was this icy, clarifying silence.

He knew the end when he saw it. This was something much worse. It was robbery.

Her life wasn’t for the world to take. It was for him to hold in his hands. 

Something wet and pathetic slicked his tongue — some whiny, pleading thing — and it was stubborn as oil. The authority slid to the back of his throat and left him choking, “You are the indomitable Titania. You’ve laced fingers with Death time and again only to rise and slay and conquer, so get up.”

Her warmth was set to a slow drip, spilling from her in tired beads and seeping soundlessly into her chosen ground. Little whispers of her lost to greedy loam, sullied, never to be returned.

A waste of precious love. The sod won’t drink of her as he will. It will take of her and give back what? New “life” so fragile and fleeting? A feeble weed will take root, bloom its days few, and curl itself inside out? Pathetic. An insult to her legacy. An insult to the diamond-split sharp of her bladesoul.

His heart boiled over — popping, sticking, simmering sicksweet saccharine. It colored him cloying, flooded his mouth, and forced him to kneel at her altar.

"Please," he keened, hollow and morose, and his own pleading sickened him, “Say something.”

The sun trickled through the leaves like ichor, lighting up her black-blown eyes and the thin ring of honey surrounding them. Dim, distant, and dead as the moon.

His hand carved a path to her face, fingers featherlight against her fading flush. He brushed her bangs from her eyes and forced an unbroken breath through his quavering mouth. He traced each scar too faint to see and the parts of her skin their star kissed. Memorized the map of her face — each curve and crease, each fine hair, and every eyelash. He would carve out a space in his mind in her shape and fill it with the thousand sweet nothings he kept in his pockets.

He gathered her hand and threaded it with his own. When he opened his mouth, a rickety twine escaped from the deepest point of his chest, so he forced his jaws shut to keep the grief corked. He uncurled her fingers and pressed his cheek into her palm, trapping her there against his own scarred skin. His eyes fell shut as he breathed in this borrowed touch — this moment fated, stolen from him by this world's insatiable avarice.

He kissed her palm directly in the center; held it against his mouth and felt his own ruined breath echo back to him from the deepest grooves of her skin. Again, he begged, “Please, Erza.”

Of the armors innumerable now haunting this hallowed ground, this one least befit her. 

He revered Death. If there was a god, surely it was Death, he thought, for Death asks for nothing but life. The dead don’t know that they’re dead. They know a split second of euphoria and then a sharp, definite end. Isn’t that the work of a gracious god? One last stroke of color whether in peace or peril, and then eternal rest. Back to the dust you sprouted from.

But now he couldn’t see any of that beauty he often waxed poetic about. All he could see was change yet to come. All he could see was her, and he wanted her back.

He wanted her back, yet he knew better than anyone that there was no such thing as resurrection. While Death might be gracious, it was not generous, and it was not to be reasoned with.

The thought of her buried deep, bathed by the dark and abandoned to rot — it washed his mouth acid sour. It ate straight through his tongue and lingered in the roots of his teeth, burning, raging redhot in his jaws’ marrow.  A grave didn't suit her anymore than a pyre.

Soon she would be cold. Stiff. A feast for flies and their insatiable young. In the days to come, she would bubble and bloat and sallow. Her skin would loosen and slough off. The sun would bleach her bones. The meat of her would melt into oil and fat and bogspit. She would mix in with the soil, the groundwater, and this thankless magnolia would thrive.

It was tall, thick, with branches spread in all directions. The lowest of its limbs showed off the varied deep greens of its large waxy leaves, their undersides a chalky brown. A few white flowers bloomed, palm-shaped petals open in praise like they'd come to witness and worship. There was no question why she'd chosen to crawl here. It must've reminded her of home.

Despite its beauty, it was hardly worthy of her. Nothing in this ravenous world was. Her grave should be carved within his chest. There, he could keep her warm. He could host her in his veins. One day, they would wade the waters of woe together. Until then she could live under his skin.

He wouldn’t allow her to spoil. Wouldn’t place her gently into time’s whittlesome hands only to lose her peel by peel by rotting peel.

This world has taken much from you. Do not allow it to take her too.

A carnal ache etched itself into bone, a depth of passion he hadn't felt since he wrought for a false Heaven.

She is a fruit, ripe as a plum and twice the taste. Peel her open. There is a seed at her core. Plant it in your soot-field chest and watch her bloom anew.

What are these hands for if not this?

Flesh like sheets of silk. Muscle like rope. Blood like honey. Bone like an ivory trove. The splitting, the squelching, the straining, ripping, snapping; it burrowed marrow-deep and lingered there. Her chest peeled apart like jagged teeth, jaws croaking their rusted tune, and inside that redslick maw was the center of the universe.

The heart upon its throne, still as she, shielded by her precious lungs. It slid into his palm like it was always meant to be there. Raw, rich, and so very scarlet. Its sinews strained against his pull — those hollow vines that fed even the furthest parts of her — so he wrenched them free and draped himself in them like matchless finery.

Eat. Eat ‘til you’re sick. There’s a hole the size of her in the pit of your stomach. Eat until you fill it. 

What are these teeth for if not this?

Tough as leather; smooth as rubber. His teeth slid right off the rind and clicked together with nothing but metallic sheen between them. He gnashed at that ink-dripping muscle until he found a spot weak enough to tear apart. It tasted of rare meat and iron; a heady gore thick enough to drown in. He swallowed, gasped, and that first new breath felt like a blade.

The child inside him saw her split-open ribs as his cradle. He wanted to crawl inside, curl up, and die. He wanted to paint himself her color.

He lost his vision to the hot, angry wash. His own sobs were a distant sound, muffled by meat and blood and his own desperate fingers. He was numb in the mouth and in the shake of his hands, but he forced himself to eat, eat despite the choking, the gagging, the wet, weeping remorse.

Don’t you dare throw her up. Be grateful. Swallow and say thank you and finish what you’ve started.

He bit into his own palm, indistinguishable from her core, and he cried out in sour relief. His hands spread raw grief over his face, through his hair, and down his neck.

You’re no better than this starving world.

He curled into himself, hands clutching his own aching chest, and despite the cloudless sky, he called upon the rain.