#the sun shines bright

[mysticalmagician]

If you look, and ask yourself, "Why are we afraid of the Dark?" You have asked a very interesting question, my friends. And I shall tell you why we are sometimes afraid of the Dark. It is because, in the darkness, we are unable to clearly and easily see, but in the Light, we can easily see. And so, when performing work in the Darkness, it is very important that you have your light burning bright, so that you can tell if there come evil being at you, to do you harm. Run if that even happens, of course, but do not drop your light; for you must shine it upon them. For if you do so, you will conquer the being, for the things we can see aren't as scary as those which we can't. These are the Wise words of the Creator, and of his servant, on this nice Monday; let us rejoice, for I have found my lantern, and I shall use it to relight many others in this darkness, until mine burns out. Let it be so, I pray and hope, for it would be a blessing to do so and to help as much as I am able.

[fictive-explosion]

gotta catch em all! /lhj

Our brain this summer. Seriously if half of the CJRP isn’t here by the end of the summer I will be proud and shocked.

[crabsnpersimmons]

Happy Moon Festival! 🌕

there's a bunch of holidays today, Mid-Autumn Festival, Tsukimi, Chuseok and more! all dated on the day of the brightest full moon!

and since i had some time, i thought i'd draw all my moons and some yummy festival sweets (all prepared by chef Moon of course!)

some intros to all the moons and the dishes below the cut

some intros:

Moonie's from my chibi AU, "Rain or Shine". a rambunctious little guy who loves playing with his Sunny

Moondrop's from my hairdresser AU, "New 'Do, Same You". a Moon in a glamrock-style casing, who's pretty chill but insecure

Mooncake's from my restaurant AU, "Have You Eaten?" a hopeless romantic chef who loves cooking yummy foods!

13's from my dystopian AU. he's a sheltered, naive little Moon bot who is curious to learn about the world outside the palace

Miel is from my idol AU. she's an ex-Moon bot, turned nanny bot, turned rapper of an idol duo (she sings too tho!)

and the menu:

tsukimi dango are plain Japanese dumplings made of rice flour and glutinous rice flour, resembling the full moon

mooncakes are Chinese treat with various skins and fillings, but traditionally they are a pastry filled with lotus seed paste and a salted duck egg yolk to resemble the full moon

songpyeon are a Korean rice cake with various types of fillings—red beans, dates, sesame seeds, honey, and more!

[love-death-and-desert]

[wayrad]

it’s really important to me how blue skies is buckys song. like- it’s the middle of war time, he’s been flying through muck and shit for the last nine months and he’s drinking with his best friend buck, sitting beside one another in the only two chairs like they’re the only two who could ever sit there, and he has to sing that song. a song about being in love. bucky has no one to write home to- his parents don’t even write to him- but he’s singing about being in love?? he sang blue skies to himself after letting a man throw a dart in his face to win an extra bike, and again performing in the bar for his greatest pal buck?? he hasn’t seen the sun in forever but it doesn’t matter because he has buck. idk it means a lot to me

[cherrywine-sunnydiety]

Thank you Apollo for making sure I wasn’t late today by having a crow yell outside my window and wake me up TWO MINUTES before my alarm was set to go off. It’s safe to assume he heard my prayers before bed lol

[beneathsilverstars]

i love themes. i love when i'm writing and i'm like ughhh i have to come up with some filler bullshit details to go here because it's necessary to the rest of the plot but not actually very relevant to it, and then i'm like wait. i know how to make it relevant. i just have to make the details echo the overarching themes of the piece. and suddenly it stops being filler bullshit and starts being, like, foreshadowing or allegory or some cool shit like that ^w^

[goodlucktai]

gently in the cold dark earth

scum villain's self saving system word count: 2k canon divergent / no system au; sy transmigrates into an empty npc role; gray lotus binghe loves his shixiong more than life and he's ready to make it everyone's problem

title borrowed from work song by hozier

read on ao3

x

The first thing Luo Binghe does when he escapes the Abyss is return to Cang Qiong Mountain. 

With Xin Mo secured to his back, the way could be instant if he so chose—the journey of a thousand miles reduced to a single step—but he unsheathes the elegant jian at his hip instead.

Yong Liang sings sweetly for him, the snow white blade still shining and untainted even after years of helping Luo Binghe carve his way through hell. It has never once failed him, soulbound to the one person still on this earth who has never failed him. 

“Take it,” his shixiong insisted, low and urgent. The Abyss was behind them, an even deadlier threat was ahead, and Without A Cure clogging his meridians made Luo Binghe the best choice to wield the only unshattered spirit sword they had between them. “Binghe, take it.”

He pressed until Luo Binghe’s grip curled tight around the hilt, not hesitating to put his soul in Luo Binghe’s hands even with the rosy glow of an unsealed demon mark shining on his face. 

Luo Binghe flies at a pace best described as dangerously reckless, hardly smelling the fragrant spring air or feeling the sun on his face. His robes are a disgrace, his hair a tangled, matted mess, and it occurs to him that he could stop somewhere and clean himself up, make himself presentable, but it’s a brief, fleeting thought. 

Shen Yuan would be furious to find out that Luo Binghe wasted even a single second returning to his side. 

——

He passes through the ancient wards effortlessly, feeling them fall away from him like water. It’s a simple thing to tamp down on his demonic qi, to disguise the parts of him that those so-called righteous cultivators would scorn. He ghosts through the familiar grounds as eagerly as a starving animal bolting down a fresh game trail, but one by one, all of their familiar haunts come up empty, without even a lingering trace of Shen Yuan’s spiritual energy left behind.   

The head disciple’s room is dusted and undisturbed, as if its occupant might walk through the door at any moment, but the lack of clutter and the empty book shelf makes it very clear to Luo Binghe what the truth must be.

If Shen Yuan returned to the peak after the Conference, he didn’t stay. 

All at once, images crowd the front of his mind—his shixiong grieving, pulling away, turning his back on those responsible for his heartache. 

Yue Qingyuan, always only a step behind wherever his precious Xiu Ya sword went, promised that no one wanted to hurt them. They only wanted to help.

He looked so solemn and righteous that Shen Yuan reluctantly allowed himself to be convinced. Luo Binghe, who had gone to the man for help after a bloody whipping when he was a child, only to be given a walnut cake and turned away at the door, knew better. 

He wasn’t surprised when Shen Yuan was wrenched away from him, and shizun sent him staggering off the cliff with a spiritual dagger buried to the hilt in his chest, all of it happening within a matter of seconds—but it still hurt. 

Shen Yuan’s scream followed him all the way down. 

I’m alive, Luo Binghe thinks, with no one there to tell it to. I came back to you. Let me come back to you. 

——

Including time spent in the abyss, it’s three years before they meet again. 

Luo Binghe’s revenge is his second priority at best, but he is nothing if not efficient and knows how to kill two birds with the same stone. Huan Hua affords him ample resources and opportunities to scour the world for his missing shixiong while playing the role of earnest and diligent new disciple. He snatches up each mission that comes along as though  eager to prove his worth to the sect that so graciously took him in, but he takes every excuse to wander, to search, to make conversation with vendors and innkeepers and passing strangers. 

Have you seen my heart? It lives outside of me in the form of a beautiful young man and tends to wander. Very contrary, likes to fuss over people, could argue the stripes off a lushu just for fun. You’d know it if you met it. You’d never forget. 

The days blur together, meaningless and gray, but he doesn’t stop looking. Shen Yuan still exists somewhere in this world, because otherwise Luo Binghe wouldn’t. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. 

And then, finally—an afternoon in Jinlan City, when Luo Binghe arrives in a throng of incompetent gold-clad Huan Hua disciples, to investigate a plague of all things—

He’s there. 

In dark, neutral colors and plain clothes, a traveling cloak with its hood resting down around his shoulders, as if his beauty could possibly be lessened by cheap, shapeless fabrics rather than effortlessly enhanced. His hair falls from its half-tail in glorious waves—he never did have the patience for anything elaborate, only wearing braids when one of his sticky shidimei cajoled and convinced him. Traveling alone, who could he possibly have to roll his eyes at and complain about and sit patiently still for?

A pale green ribbon is all that decorates his hair. Luo Binghe recognizes it instantly. 

“You should spend your allowance on yourself, Binghe,” Shen Yuan scolded him, not for the first time and certainly not for the last. 

“But I did,” Luo Binghe protested, widening his eyes and clasping his hands earnestly, the way he knew worked best. “I wanted it! And now that I have it, I want to give it to you.”

Shen Yuan was too clever by half to be truly fooled by the innocent act, but he always folded like paper anyway. He spoiled all of his shidimei but Luo Binghe most of all. Anyone on Qing Jing Peak would be hard-pressed to think of a single example of Shen Yuan telling Luo Binghe ‘no.’ 

Sure enough, after a second spent visibly wrestling with himself, he blurted, “Oh, fine! Hand it over.” 

He wore it every day since. He’s wearing it now. The wind catches the ends of it, sending it streaming behind him like the tails of a paradise flycatcher. Lovely. 

For a brief moment, Luo Binghe is frozen where he stands, finally faced with the very thing that he’s been missing for years, that he’s been living a miserable half-life without. 

And then he remembers himself and lurches forward. His voice is a tangle in his throat but he manages to choke out, “Shixiong!”

A strike of lightning couldn’t have jolted Shen Yuan into more perfect stillness. He stops mid-step, every inch of him as good as carved from precious jade. He doesn’t turn his head, and the sliver of his face visible from where Luo Binghe stands is very pale. 

Luo Binghe wonders suddenly if this has happened to him before—if Shen Yuan has heard a voice on the road or in the market that was almost familiar, that was almost the one he was hoping for, only to be disappointed when he turned to follow it and found a stranger. 

Luo Binghe shortens the distance between them with a few anxious steps and tries again. 

“Shixiong.”

The older boy whirls around abruptly, as if to get it over with. He’s bracing himself, but Luo Binghe barely has a second to absorb Shen Yuan’s painful-looking anticipation before it bleeds out of his face in favor of something else entirely. 

He looks like the earth has fallen out from beneath his feet, like he hardly dares to believe his eyes. Zheng Yang gleams golden at Shen Yuan’s hip, reforged and whole again.

“Binghe?”  

“It’s me,” Luo Binghe says softly. 

There’s a tableau he’s afraid to break, as if they’re in a delicate dreamscape and a move too sudden or loud might dissolve it. He wants to say I��ve missed you the way lungs miss air, immediately and needfully, I haven’t breathed at all since we’ve been apart. He wants to say you’re my light in the dark, I can only stand in front of you now because I love you too much to ever truly leave you. 

Instead, he tells his dearest friend, “This one made you wait. But your Binghe is here.”

Shen Yuan sprints the rest of the way to meet him, almost before he’s even finished talking, and they collide in a solid embrace that knocks the air from them both. 

His arms wind around Luo Binghe’s waist like steel bands, fingers digging into the back of his robes, precious face pressed into the crook of his neck and shoulder. Luo Binghe doesn’t hesitate to gather him up close, holding him as tightly and securely as he knows how, burying his nose in his shixiong’s hair and breathing in the familiar, beloved smell of him.  

Shen Yuan is a few inches shorter than he remembers. All the better to tuck him beneath Luo Binghe’s chin, to cover and surround him so completely that not even the heavens above can get a decent eyeful. 

He wants to grab and bite and pin Shen Yuan beneath him and never let go. His jaw aches with wanting it. 

“I’ve been looking for you,” Luo Binghe says, eyes wet. “I went home first.” Unsaid goes the obvious but you weren’t there. 

“How could I stay?” Shen Yuan bites out, managing to sound all at once strangled and bewildered and—charmingly—offended. He shakes his head without lifting it, an aggressive nuzzle against Binghe’s shoulder. “After what they did to you, I’d rather die than represent their stupid sect another minute.”

“Step away from it, Shen Yuan,” shizun said coldly. “I’ll put that beast back where it belongs.”

“No,” shixiong said in a voice that was smaller than usual, one that shook. He was frightened, clearly overwhelmed, but he didn’t budge from where he was plastered in front of Luo Binghe like a breathing shield. 

“Now.” 

“No, shizun.”

“Shizhi,” Yue Qingyuan said gently, offering his hand. “Come here. It will be alright.”

Shen Yuan said, “No. You can’t hurt Binghe. He’s not bad just because of who his parents are. He’s as good as he was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. He’s hardworking and loyal and a sweetheart to anybody who gives him half a chance. He’s so good.”

Liu Qingge was behind the sect leader, sword drawn. Shen Qingqiu was quickly losing what little patience he had, face twisted into a sneer, dark eyes stabbing hatefully at Luo Binghe from over his head disciple’s shoulder. There were more figures rapidly drawing closer, the other peak lords following the flare of Yue Qingyuan’s qi. The standoff was becoming more and more untenable, and Shen Yuan was too smart not to see that, shrinking back against Luo Binghe as much as he could without crowding him closer to the edge. 

“You can’t hurt him,” he said again, the closest Luo Binghe had ever heard him come to tears, “he’s my shidi.”

Luo Binghe is unsurprised by his shixiong’s loyalty, because it’s already been proven to him over and over. It’s unremarkable at this point, which is an absolutely remarkable thing in itself. It makes him feel warm with gratitude and affection and ownership. 

Shen Yuan is clever and quick on his feet and always three steps ahead, more knowledgeable about flora and fauna than anyone else Binghe has ever known combined, and probably a force to be reckoned with as a rogue cultivator, where the only rules of conduct he has to adhere to are his own. 

But Luo Binghe hates to think of him on the road alone, without the little martial siblings who follow him like ducklings, without his Binghe there to make sure he remembers to eat all his meals and comb out his hair before bed. He’s a creature of comfort, made for airy rooms with too many cushions and an abundance of sweets and books to read. 

Luo Binghe has fantasized more than once about building a home for Shen Yuan to lounge prettily in. It was, in fact, his favorite flavor of daydream since he was about thirteen. 

If Shen Yuan wants to rogue cultivate, then that’s what they’ll do. But Luo Binghe thinks, if he constructs a palace that’s as comfortable as it is grand, and fills it with trashy romance novels and obscure beasts and his own hand-made meals, he can convince his friend to live in it with him.

Shen Yuan needs to be taken care of. Luo Binghe needs to be the one taking care of him. They’re together now and they’ll never be apart again and those needs can both be met. 

That possessive, proprietary feeling coils dark and deep inside him, undulating lazily like a serpent who’s fed enough for days, reminding him over and over what he already knows:

Mine. 

[nuzzle]

today i'm welcoming home my first BJD, "lieselotte!" i would like to occasionally post more doll content (especially lolita related) on my blog from now on.. so you may be seeing her often!! ♡

lolita collaborations sparked my interest in ball jointed dolls quite a while ago, but i've only recently started researching them and have come to love all of the similarities these hobbies share. i was very lucky to be able to find my discontinued dream doll completely unopened from a secondhand sale despite this specific model being made and distributed almost 15 years ago. it gives the same feeling as a very well preserved time capsule of sorts.

to give more information on her--she is a 2010 limited release model volks super dollfie x baby, the stars shine bright collaboration from the storyline "harajuku memories"

she is absolutely everything i wanted in a doll and a perfect fit for me as a lolita and avid fan of btssb. i prefer the older faceups of her rather than the more modern ones. i intend on matching coords with her-- so far, i own the same gingham rose OP, her default dress, and the honey cross shoes and socks.. though i want to hunt down the same christina hat she wears. i plan to take her outside with me once the weather gets a bit nicer, as her storyline mentions that being her wish!

i'm quite new to the hobby and still have a lot to learn, so feel free to share any resources or tips ^_^

[catluniscia]

Bonita Soleil

One of my favorite character looks in Psychonaugts 1, I like her level too...kinda, I like the meaning behind it, and the self criticism and you know loosing your muse and all that...playing it on the other hand...not one I enjoy.  But I love Bonita Soleil I love her look, I love the aesthetic, and I wanted to draw her and...yes I did a semi Virgin Mary/saintly look I think it works a lot...can't wait for those types to complain about me being sacrilegious and a dirty sinner, and how jesus saves. -sips coffee- I can handle it don't panic.

[cowardlycowboys]

regret to inform everyone my favorite spot on my floor is back in business

[canisalbus]

IDK if I'm phrasing this correctly, but in my brain, Vasco is, like, the personification (caninification?) of an afternoon chilling on a back porch swing.

.

[babbimetal]

LEGEND MM DAY 1 HAS COMMENCED I WAS WATCHING A LIVESTREAM OF IT LORD HAVE MERCY IT WAS ICONIC!!!!

WE GOT THE RETURN OF DA DA DANCE, SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI FUCKING KAGEROU FUCKING SYNCOPATION AND DOKI DOKI MORNING WITH MOMO VOCALS❗️❗️❗️

AND OF COURSE WE GOT METALI(WITH A NEW KAMI BAND INTRO :O)

AND MOMOBANGER❗️❗️❗️❗️ WE GOT MOMOBANGER❗️❗️❗️ SHE FUCKING GROWLED TWICE AND CAME DOWN FROM THE CEILING AND ALL THE WRISTBANDS AND LIGHTS WERE PINK EJSJWJWJWJWN

NIGHT 21 TOMORROW IS 1,000% GONNA HAVE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SETLIST AND ITS GONNA SLAY SO FUCKING HARD

[crabsnpersimmons]

exam 3 for me today

which means another encouraging doodle!! this time with my Rain or Shine chibi DCA and featuring Raindrop the lucky frog by @aquacomet

don't worry, friends! whatever you've got coming today, everything will be okie-croakie! these bois believe in you and are sending all the lucky frogs your way!

[tender-sushijima]

this was a Pinterest poses study blasted to the max bc I do not know how to chill when it comes to sketching/croquis

that’s the theme song bc they drive me crazy

[harryispeculiar]

THIS IS A GOOD FUCKING DAY