#the clouds ramble

[thealienclown]

@no-one-of-any-importance PAPA LOOOOOOK AT THIS ART MY BESTEST BEST FRIEND @pist0ler0 MADE!!!!!!!!

[foldingfittedsheets]

My coworker Astrid and I were chatting yesterday. I mentioned that I have this specific moment that I’ve always felt like was my transition from child to sapient being where I suddenly looked at myself and had the epiphany that my appearance mattered to others perception of me and I conceptualized myself as a person. It was really wild and being a His Dark Materials fan I’ve always been like, yeah, that’s when I got Dust and my daemon settled.

Astrid was fascinated and told me she hadn’t had that exactly but she did remember being on this one road trip through Kansas and she’d looked up at the clouds and suddenly, all at once, she could perceive them as being three dimensional. Even though conceptually she’d always known they had depth she could now perceive the shape.

She told me this in the slightly embarassed way that said she didn’t think this sounded impressive and she wasn’t expecting me to sit bolt upright and exclaim, “Me too! I had that too! It blew my mind!”

It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen clouds before but clouds were just up there in the sky, taken for granted and generally they just made flat shapes. But to realize the full scope and depth of clouds, to shift from thinking about them as a faraway background element of nature to seeing them as huge majestic three dimensional things had been awe inspiring.

“Right?! I just spent the whole rest of the drive overwhelmed with the beauty of the world, staring at the clouds!”

“When I try to tell people how profound it was they just act like I was high but it was like, this massive shift in how I saw the world right around adolescence.”

Slightly curious if anyone else had experiences like these as they stepped toward adulthood.

[chirpycloudyrobin]

i am so fucking DOWN for the Devastating Beauty shen yuan headcanon

imagine he gets transmigrated as an Original Character (no System maybe or just a System thats less restrictive bc hes an OC) and he just cant understand why everyone and their mother are scrambling to get their hands on him (hes a once in a lifetime celestial-level beauty). then he gets picked up by Cang Qiong's Beast Peak Lord because of the rumors that he isnt human but is instead some kind of mystical creature ?

he spends most of his time worrying that the protagonist would murk him for being a man in his universe so he tries his best to be as much of a background character as possible. his peak lord insists on him wearing a veil a la liu mingyan and shen yuan is like THATS GENIUS.

idk where i was going with this but yes devastating beauty shen yuan. i want more of it thank u

[beatrixblog]

I did the annoying pigeon meme..but with cookies….aaaaa

[accala]

Zack Fair had:

A girl who spent 4 years pining after him to the point she chased an afterimage of him (Aerith)

A girl who looked after his parents and his hometown due to sheer guilt and devotion (Cissnei)

A boy who spent 4 years trying to find him after he went missing (Kunsel)

And a boy who adopted his entire being and became his legacy after his death (Cloud)

Zack Fair was NOT playing.

[kiloude-city]

Old not-vampire man struggles with technology and gets help from his boyfriends fursona

[xaytheloser]

Yeah

[calwasfound]

do you love the color of the sky

[kaleidoscopiccc]

non tiktok rtcers. please look at this absolute powerhouse of a constance.

[thealienclown]

I dunno how to make an intro so Hi! I'm Ash, but you can call my Bianca/Roulxs/Ringmaster, etc etc. I am Genderfluid but with a massive masc side (He/They pref!). I've got an addiction to saying yeehaw and I am a nerd for ROTTMNT, and Draxum's biggest fan LMAO

Also, check this out

[cloud-the-forgotten]

Siffrin but while he's incredibly touch-starved he's ALSO bitey.

He gives you a hug and then bites you affectionately. If you try to touch them and they don't want to be touched/aren't expecting it/don't like you he bites you.

Isabeau and Siffrin sitting next to each other and Siffrin leans over and bites Isabeau's arm.

Siffrin constantly needing to have something crunchy/chewy in their mouth because nom nom bitey biting nice feeling or else they will chew on something inedible (clothes, hair, pencil, etc.).

Siffrin biting his pillow in his sleep.

Siffrin getting so fed up with the King during one of the loops that they find a gap in the King's armor and bite him.

Do you see the vision. Can you see where I'm going with this. Bitey Siffrin. Bites you bites you bites-

[chirpycloudyrobin]

oh when THEY start getting crankier, angrier and bitchier, it's wartime trauma and PTSD. but when I start getting crankier, angrier and bitchier, it's suddenly "the result of demonic cultivation" 🙄

alternative path cultivators cant get PTSD apparently 🤕

[itsraining-honey]

something tells me that burning spice was the one attacking her instead of just “regular cookies who wanted to attack her randomly one day because there were treasures in her cocoon.” they’re possible followers of burning spice? or little manifestations that he possibly made.

[aingeal98]

Thinking about Bruce and his flaws again and the thing is while I can ignore most of the things he does in other comics because they're clearly using him to dramatically advance the stories of his kids (firing Dick in ntt, beating Jason in rhato, Tim's 16th birthday in Robin, his treatment of Cass during her Batgirl run etc.) it's his treatment of others in his own run especially women like Helena and Steph that kills me. Because several of the writers are clearly fully aware that they're writing him as a misogynist but instead of overcoming that character flaw the narrative ends up making the women atone and prove themselves to his unfair double standard (Helena in NML Steph in Robin) or suffer and die because the misogyny is as strong in the creative team as it was in Bruce (Steph during war games)

There's never any real reckoning with the flaws and attitudes they give him, likely because the writers see it as a character quirk instead of something that should negatively impact him and that he should overcome. Bruce Wayne murder fugitive has him hit Dick and later apologise. NML and War Games never have him take responsibility the same way. He's misogynistic, the women pay the price, he learns nothing because the message gets twisted to avoid the writer's own misogyny.

If you're a fan of Bruce you probably want to just pretend it never happened which is what a lot of writers choose to do. If you're a fan of the female characters affected you have to acknowledge it because it was a major story point for their character. And it wasn't even for them. They were were used and spat out to try and fail to make Bruce seem more complex.

And I say fail because it doesn't make Bruce more complex. The writers make him a bad person and then call it a day. No one around him actually holds him accountable. Everything goes back to the status quo. A new writer comes along and Batman is a straightforward hero again.

The only lasting impact is on the characters torn down to give him poorly written drama. All this to say if Babs Helena and Steph teamed up to murder Batman completely unprompted I would be their number one defender.

[color-thoughts]

Warning: Murder (not you or him), Vampire Scaramouche, angst(?), yandere, attempted suicide (you), suicidal thoughts (you), power imbalance, locked up against your will, married against your will, many forcing stuff (nothing explicit), biting/drinking blood/sinking for fangs, Scara can read your thoughts, teleport, really strong. And an unnamed character.

This was so long for some reason, uhh.

Four years ago. You never found the reason and purpose of living. You were on the edge of a cliff, about to jump off and die.

Until someone held you so tightly... "My love..." A voice calls out, who?

"I'm not-" and you passed out.

You wake up groggily in a royal-ish and gothic like designed room, each and every corner lavishly designed and a portrait of a woman who looks like you lies there in the middle, with a man.

Then the said man appeared in your face.

"You're not even her..." He grumbles, "I want you to marry me." He proposes.

You were taken aback, who wouldn't be? A man abducts and suddenly proposes to marry you.

"..What—" he immediately interrupts you, "I am not giving you a choice." He states

...and that's how your life ended, where you found out that the man who abducted you was named Scaramouche. And he's not really a man per se, more of a vampire honestly.

And that just terrified you. Because what? Scaramouche is basically that one vampire your town had angered because they ended up murdering his wife!

Not only that, why would anyone save you at all? When you have done nothing for the town and the town literally wants you gone... You're left with no choice honestly.

You don't even know why it hurts you, but, you found out that the only reason he wanted to marry you was because you looked similar to his late lover... It shouldn't really hurt you.

So you're just outside, just in his garden, the moonlight hovering above you. You sighed...

Your life really ended. You can't even see the sun anymore...

The meals he ate that he demanded you to prepare for him like a wife should — terrified you...

He doesn't even love you...

And you're locked up in the castle because of his paranoia.

Sometimes you wished you could just run away.. but where? Where would you go? You have nowhere to go.

You can't really go anywhere...

You just wish you could die.

You shut your eyes and deeply inhaled.. and exhaled. Then you open your eyes only to see the one who ended your life — Scaramouche.

He looked upset.. I mean, he always looked upset, his eyebrows are always furrowed, his lips are always curved into a frown, his dead indigo eyes are always dead... And when he's more mad than ever? He'd have an eerie forced smile on his face... Or a death glare.. he's really just unpredictable, it scares you. Everything about him scares you.

"Why are you outside? I've been looking for you." He spoke, and you averted your gaze and sat up. "I was just—"

"Can you stop it?" He snapped, you're confused as your eyebrows furrowed and you look at him. "What?"

"You are aware I can hear your thoughts no? I could hear from a mile away how much you want to die.. to get away from me. It irritates me. Stop it." He demands, you avert your gaze, your lips pressing into a firm line.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" He's agitated, why are you so meek?

When he wants to see his first late lover unto you, he can't, he just sees you, and it's making him annoyed that his dead heart is starting to beat because of you, it irritates him.

Every little thing you do. Why can't you just do it for the sake of doing it? Why are you doing it for him? When he does see you do something for yourself — it's even worse! It's either running away or dying. He hates it. Stop.

He couldn't help himself but hold your arms firmly, at least firmly to his standard, but bruising to you. He stares you down as you look at him, why? Why are you so different from her?

His mouth slipped that question and you're just confused even more.

The more you keep on thinking of dying, the more he imagines you dead, the more he gets scared. He doesn't want to admit it, but he fell for how you are, for how different you are, from just yourself...

Maybe fell is an understatement... He's obsessed with it.

He wants to see more of you. He wants to see you act like him... He wants you to be an actual wife of his.. someone he can live his undying life with... Someone that isn't his dead lover. He can never replace his dead lover, but he definitely can be with you.

The fact that despite all these thoughts of dying and things, you stayed with him. You didn't run when he gave you so many opportunities to, you didn't get away from him.. you practically signed up for this didn't you?

You practically wanted him to never ever want you to die and to be gone ever again...

So stop it.

Stop trying to die.

Stop.

He can't let you die. No.

His grip is still firm on your shoulders as he gets on his knees — to your level — then places his face to your neck, nuzzling it (making you shiver).

Then opening his mouth, and bite.

He just bit your neck, and your face paled as the pain hit you. As you feel his fangs sink into your neck.

You're a weak mortal. You also have a weak mindset. So.. even though it takes time, he'll definitely turn you into a vampire so you can stay with him forever.

He never wants to tell you at all, but.. he's actually done this already when he started falling for you two years ago in your four year relationship.

Whenever you slumber in the chamber he gave you, so vulnerably sleeping, your neck to your shoulders exposed for him to feed on? He just can't keep his fangs out of it. You're practically begging to be with him forever with that.

So he'll do as you told him to. He'll make you a vampire so you could be with him. You asked for it, no?

Well either way, you never really had a choice.

You begged, you begged him to stop, you tangled your fingers in his indigo locks, trying to push him away, but he won't budge.

He just continued for a solid minute and stopped, some blood dripping off his lips. As he looked at you and then the bite mark, then to you.

And with his strength, he carried you and teleported to your chambers and threw you on the soft mattress.

Then laying on top of you as he caresses your face softly, his eyes focused as he murmured things that you couldn't make out (it was a love confession).

You opened your mouth to ask, but he quickly interrupted you, he always interrupted you whenever you spoke, it honestly made you feel disrespected, but he doesn't really care about that in the moment.

"You asked for it." That's all he said before he forces you to tilt your head as he sinks his fangs into the same bite mark on your neck, and proceeds to do the painful procedure of turning a human into a vampire...

You wouldn't really be at the same level as him because you were turned into a vampire, but he liked it that way.. because that meant he'd still be superior to you and have some kind of power and control over you.

Like he said... You asked for it the moment you decided to not leave when you had a chance. And you never really had a choice.

I was inspired to do this because of a certain friend of mine (ahem ahem @tnsophiaonly) having suicidal thoughts and having a fixation to vampires (specifically Scaramouche), and yandere ig.

TO PEOPLE HAVING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS OR HAS ATTEMPTED IT, PLEASE SEEK HELP, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

And @tnsophiaonly YOU GOT INTO THAT INCIDENT BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO DIE FROM IT??? I am so tying you up after you get out of the hospital

[umbralstars]

On this episode of "Things in Rebirth than make me insane" Mt. Nibel is genuinely gorgeous. Like full stop one of the best examples of how alien Gaia is and how the Lifestream shapes the environment. I took some photos to yap about :)

So first of all we can see how thick the mako within the mountain is. Nearly every cave has a haze of green and embers of the Lifestream hanging in the air. Materia grows freely in the pools of mako within the caves (we can see crystals jutted from the rock walls and between the roots of trees), and the Lifestream here is so potent that trees and plants can grow underground with barely any sunlight. Sinkholes and cavern entrances are also carved by the mako, yet the trees continue to live and thrive despite growing in awkward positions.

We can even spot how Mt. Nibel was formed in the first place!

Here, and in the background of the first image, we can see exactly why the Nibel Mountains have the strange shapes they do. Mako crystals here have started to turn into the dull grey stone of the mountain with age, and erosion would change the shape of the rock over time. Mt Nibel was forged by the lifestream itself; grown from the very pools within its cave systems or the landscape was changed by an upswell of the Lifestream (similar to how Cosmo Canyon was described being created in the World Intel). There are plants in Nibel that are either partial crystallized or seem to be bioluminecent because of how rich the Lifestream is here.

I really do wonder what Nibel would look like if it wasn't suffering from the environmental degradation of its reactor and all the mako research. Or what other areas of the region we don't see may look like.

There's another cool detail you can hear in the sound design when the music quiets before the mako spring cutscene.

The mako in this cave is so thick that you can hear what almost sounds like a "song" or what is probably meant to be voices we can't decipher. I really don't think it's wind ambience because the other caves don't seem to have sound design like this. Mt Nibel is probably is so associated with death and the afterlife because within these caves you can hear the voices of the Lifestream even without being a Cetra. No wonder people of this region associate the mountain as being a way into the underworld. In many ways, it truly is.