#there is an upside though

[malachitezmeyka]

I love my auntie dearly, I really do, but good god is being around her nowadays pretty much akin to being in Alien...

And I feel so mean for saying that because I know she loves her kids and wants to have them, and it's rude in general, but watching her constantly groaning in discomfort and complaining and almost doubling over when one of them kicks, which happens at least once every five minutes... it's fucking body horror to me. The actual outline of a foot showing through her skin has burned itself into my memory and I wish I could forget it

In my defense she's very clearly reaching the end of her rope as well, always swearing and cursing out both her husband and herself for getting into this, repeating "10 more weeks" over and over again like a mantra, and just generally looking extremely exhausted, especially since she's got a hyperactive six year old on her hands too

And to think that this is technically the easy part, they're not even born yet... may whatever higher power there is give her strength, that's all I can really say

[captain-astors]

I like to think I've made you proud, just maybe once or twice.

(cropped version under the cut)

[deerspherestudios]

What if MR! Mychael like hears MC overthink? But it isin’t stuff like “How the hell am I gonna get home? Where is my cat? Who the hell is this guy?” More like “Did I turn off the stove before I left? I think I did. Even if I didn’t they would’ve called the firefighters right? That just means I don’t have a home anymore. Would he allow me to stay? Maybe?”

For context! I'm gonna be honest I think he'd find it annoying haha! He's trying to dig around to find any trace of ill intent and all he finds is this person fretting over mundane things. He'd find it weird you were even worrying about that sort of thing in the first place considering your situation being stranded in the woods (assuming the scenario is MC being lost like in-game) but he's not one to think about someone for too long.

He'd get bored and tune you out completely.

[myokk]

She chances a glance at Sebastian before getting out her copy of Divining the Undivinable from her bag and wishes she hadn’t. He looks uncomfortably big sitting on the tiny tea chair across from her, barely any hints of the boy who had completely swept her away two years ago visible on the sharper planes of his face. When had he - had they - grown up?

Sebastian Sallow was - is - charming, and that had been her downfall. She had successfully avoided his charms the year before, and she isn’t going to let that happen this year, no matter how much her body rebels against her mind and resolve. Because, as she reminds herself, Sebastian Sallow is also manipulative, and cold-hearted, and selfish.

“Well,” she says archly, opening her book. She will not look at him. “I suppose I am still quite ignorant of the practice of Divination, so do forgive me if I have to double-check my readings in the textbook.”

He says her name as she opens the book, and she ignores him. He says her name again. She continues to ignore him. He grabs the book from her hands and puts it the correct way for her. She was looking at it upside-down. Her cheeks heat up and she continues flipping through the pages, as if nothing has happened. She finds page two-hundred and thirty. She pretends to be interested in what she sees.

(Divination is unfortunately not interesting.)

Oh, fine.

“Do you want to start, or should I?”

These are the first words she has voluntarily spoken to him - not including the events of last week, which do not count as they were most decidedly not voluntary - since he called her ignorant a year and a half ago. He somehow looks surprised to see that she has addressed him, and for some reason this fills her with rage and a strange sort of confidence. Why shouldn’t she be able to talk to him?

“Here,” she says, putting her hand out towards him, palm up, ignoring the strange fluttering feeling in her chest when he gently grabs it with one of his. Sebastian looks up at her, waiting for her to continue speaking, and were she not looking at him so intently she would have easily missed the bob of his throat as he swallows nervously. “Show me how it’s done.”

from my oneshot, clumsy🫶🫶🫶

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era: the visual novel (a fan project)

On a whim, I've decided to finally just publicly release this project that I've had laying around for two years at this point, for Dazai's birthday today. It was originally made for my very dear friend @letmereachforthestars , when I first introduced her to the series and wanted her to be able to read my favorite BSD light novel in an easier-to-read format. You need a computer to be able to play. The details and links are under the cut:

If you've never played a visual novel before, it's basically a novel in the form of a video game. Text will appear line by line, one a time on the screen, and it will be accompanied by relevant background visuals, music, and sound effects, to make the reading experience more immersive, and more stimulating than just reading from a book. Some visual novels have actual gameplay elements to them, and some are just books and nothing else (oftentimes dating sims/choose-your-own-adventure novels), the latter of which this is. If you've played the mobile game Bungou Tales/Mayoi, the story sections of that game are basically mini visual novels.

This game was made with screenshots and music from the anime, sound effects from the anime and Bungou Tales and free sound effect online sources, as well as graphics and fonts and other assets from Bungou Tales and other official BSD art (particularly the official anime soundtrack cd covers). The script is taken entirely from the official Yen Press translation of Dark Era, with the exception of about two or three iconic lines that I used different translations of because I felt like they had more impact. Additionally, at the very, very end, I added on the original ending scene from the Dark Era stage play and wrote a few fanfic lines of my own to accompany it you can tell because they are very cringe and don't match Asagiri's writing style.

Before playing the game, there are a few very important things to keep in mind; PLEASE read all this:

I am not a professional in the slightest. I took some coding classes in high school, and have some photoshop skills (when it comes to the design elements of the menus), but for the most part the former wasn't much help here; this was my very first time ever using the Renpy engine, and I made this entirely from scratch. I used my knowledge of playing other visual novels to emulate the kinds of effects and timing that is typical for these games, and I think it turned out pretty well all things considered, but it's still very amateur. This is most evident in the sound effects. The sound effects have no volume consistency between them, and some of them, particularly the gun/battle sfx, can come on very suddenly and be loud. I highly, HIGHLY encourage going into the settings and turning down the sound effects volume (the music should be fine), so that you're not startled by certain sounds when they happen, and for a lengthy time. I wouldn't blame you if you decide to turn the sfx off entirely if's too distracting, honestly 🫠 I am no expert in sound files equalizing and making sound files loop seamlessly, so this was by far the most tedious and frustrating part of the process of making this for me. Hopefully it doesn't ruin the game or break immersion too much if you decide to leave them on (I hope you do, for the rain and clock sounds at least, but again I wouldn't blame you if you can't).

Dark Era is the most faithful light novel adaptation in the anime, but there are still a handful of scenes, mostly fight scenes, that got shaved down significantly. Because of this, there are numerous occasions where I had to simply linger on a black screen or the same screenshot for a long period of time, while tons and tons of narration happens, because there's simply nothing I can show to accompany said narration. This is not ideal, but unfortunately I didn't have much else of a choice in those instances, so I hope it's not too distracting. There are also a few instances of straight-up inconsistencies between the novel and the anime (ex. the fight between Oda and Akutagawa happens in the woods in the novel, but in the anime it's still right outside the art museum), so sometimes what you're reading won't quite match the screenshots I use. Fortunately it's never anything major, but it does happen.

There will sometimes be long, unchanging black screens. Don't worry, the game isn't broken; just wait long enough and it will continue.

Sometimes, a character will get cut off when speaking, and when that happens the dialogue will auto-force to the next line. If you didn't get a chance to see what was said before, check the text backlog/history (in the menu or the H key).

Last but not least, this game was made with the default text speed in mind. Meaning, that when it comes to certain specific scenes, the mood/tone of them, made up of the timing of music, transitions, sound effects, etc, all of it was arranged around the speed at which things progress when using the default text speed. I completely understand if you can't, but if at all possible, please try not to change the text to go too much faster or slower, especially faster, because certain scenes will lose a lot of impact otherwise. If you already know Dark Era, you probably have an idea of some of the scenes I'm referring to. At the very least, during the more high-stakes/intense scenes, please try to play through those all at once without stopping, for the greatest impact based on how I designed the game, and only pause/quit during the slower scenes. There are specific moments that I'm really proud of how they came out, and I'd like for them to have the maximum impact that I intended :') (also note that if you make the text appear instantly, the cut-off dialogue mentioned above simply will not appear at all, and you won't even know to look back for them, so please refrain from making the text instant at the very least)

Ignore the cringe sappy final message

...I think that's everything. With all that out of the way, here are the links for both PC and Mac:

Download the PC version

Download the Mac version

This was a passion project for me for a good many months back in 2022. It started out just as a gift for my friend, but in the end I was really satisfied with how it turned out, despite how tedious and frustrating it was to work on. I've been hesitant to share it with the fandom for all this time because I kinda doubt anyone would really be interested in something like this especially since it's not stormbringer or beast, but someone on discord who tried it told me that I should share it, so here it is. I'm sharing it not just because I'm proud of my work, but because Dark Era is a truly amazing light novel — underrated, in my opinion (yes, I said what I said) — and far better than the anime adaptation, as good as that is, and I want more people to read it. If reading the books is hard for you and you've never read Dark Era before, if I can help just one more person to read it with this, I'll be happy, and consider my job done. 💖

I so desperately want to make more of these visual novels for the other light novels, but sadly, some of them simply aren't possible thanks to how many scenes are missing from the anime, like with Entrance Exam in particular. I've also been waiting with vain, thin hope that Bungou Tales will eventually reach seasons 3 and 4, so I can use their Fifteen and Untold Origins title screens like I did here, if those ever exist. However, I'm also held back thinking about certain scenes that would require some redrawing/drawing additional details to match what's written in the novels. If anyone has any ideas on things I could do to possibly get around these issues, or just thoughts in general about how the other light novels might be tackled, or if you're an artist who can recreate the anime's style and takes commissions/knows someone who does, I'd absolutely love to hear from you! As well as any advice/help on how I can smooth out/improve this project here!

Anyway, sorry for the long wall of text. Thank you for reading all this, if you did, and if you do try the game, please let me know your thoughts; I crave any and all feedback. 💙✨

[pinkeoni]

I was discussing some of the new leaks with friends, particularly this part from the "Role Playing Inspired" quote portion.

This seems to be a radio call from someone with the codename "Dungeon Master" to "Scout" (I believe the .aa is a typo)

It seems reasonable to me that given the dnd related nicknames, this is between the party. "Dungeon Master" is probably Mike and "Scout" is likely Lucas, but could be someone else.

And being Willbrained as I always am, I got to thinking what Will's codename would be in this situation. What nickname would you give to someone who plays as a wizard in DnD?

"Sorcerer"

This could be why episode four is titled simply "Sorcerer" instead of "The Sorcerer" since it is not referring to a role, but a name.

[third-king-of-salmonids]

THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS FOR OUR NEWLY TWO DIMENSIONAL COLLEAGUE SMALLFRY #47903 AND A REMINDER TO ALL EMPLOYEES THAT OUR HEALTH INSURANCE POLICY SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDES COHOZUNA RELATED ACCIDENTS FROM COVERAGE

[umblrspectrum]

got carried away practicing in preparation to make something else

[23fallencomets]

i was going to make this post all like “oh my god sargebon crumbs but it’s just alex liking logan’s post” BUT he deleted the Zandvoort posts??? like there’s a gap between his summer break photo dump and todays post???

like i swear he had posted about zandvoort because it was so depressing going on his account and seeing him all smiley for zandvoort unless im wrong but i could have sworn he had posted about it

[egginfroggin]

Page o' Mabels

[purple-raspberries]

Cw: Scopophobia

Some spooky Wally face practice

[jaccats]

a reverse ish au i didnt do much with. i just liked them basically. i never made a name for ted. he just called himself ted ❤❤

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Alas! Only 1 more slutty, slutty week of Demetri and Yasmine being undeniably and definitively broken up. Savoring these 7 days of bliss with everything in me, god bless

[splo0shh]

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a bit disappointed at Mic's new timeskip design so I decided to do my own take on his new design! (fair warning uh, these are pretty messy because I was partially rushing while drawing these smh)

I wanted to give him a more uhm "Phoenix Wright" -isque hair style. It's basically his old hairstyle only I shortened it because I headcannoned him to cut his hair short after the war. I also kept his original mustache because I'm not sure how I feel about his new one-

(I did try to draw his new mustache but ehhh)

I do like his new glasses tho so I kept that

After the war, I'd imagined he cut his hair to a mullet length. It's SIGNIFICANTLY shorter than the one he had before but he's still able to style it however he wants, yknow?

Also a comparison between his old banana hair and his current one

[ashilean]

HUKANARA, toa Mangai of ice (7/11)

Standing proud in Ko-Metru's monument square, Hukanara is a steadfast protector and idol to matoran across the city of legends. A cunning leader in his prime, he spends his days presiding over the mighty rahi the Mangai were first called to defeat--now imprisoned in a glacier.

Hukanara wears the great Tataupo, mask of conjuring, and wields a Boreal Banner. The red-coloured cloth is a tradition from his southern homeland, but has been adopted as a symbol among the local Ko-matoran now that he is hailed as a hero.

While the old toa has remained a pillar of the community, he has taken a step back from leading his siblings in their heroic affairs, and many wonder if he might find his destiny in becoming turaga of their great city.

[popatochisssp]

Are you answering headcanon asks?

Short answer, yes sort of!

Long answer, I'm open to asks but very slow to getting around to them. Much as I love them, 30 skeletons is a lot to answer for and regrettably I'm also employed so my free time/energy/inspiration to respond tends to be limited.

I don't generally delete asks ever, so if you wanted to send something in, I'm totally fine with that! Just don't get your hopes up for a speedy answer, 'cause I can't promise one. 😩