#think you can wrap it up

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[hajihiko]

Sobriety crew gets no mercy from drunk shenanigans

[puppppppppy]

my attempt at making a fursona

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Daddy, don't go.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[heronyearwood]

As they rush alongside a low, brick building, Heron's rushed lunge bites her back, Blair's witchcraft smearing her blood across the masonry while Heron catches up. She recognizes the witchwriting a hair too late, though, and yelps as spikes fire out of the wall tearing through the cloth on her sleeve and taking a large bite from her arm, making her recoil and letting Davenport gain distance. But hunters are prepared, and she is nothing if not a hunter. Blood ripping down her sleeve and wrapping vineline around the fingers clutching her knife, her free hand's fingers worm their way to her lips where a sharp whistle sounds out. Ahead of Blair, another hunter swings from around the corner, checking the witch with his shoulder to knock her to the ground while Heron maneuvers around the blood-born spikes and closes the distance between them, swinging a boot across her face before reaching down to haul her up by the shoulder. "Why run away, babydoll, we just need a little bit of that witchblade." She spins the knife in her hand, lifting blair as the marks on her wrist and hand flair with wild energy, the pain of its burn on her flesh blind to her nerves in this moment. Putting her forehead against Davenports, she smiles. "In another life maybe you could have realized the perversion of nature people like you represent, and you could have course corrected."

She drives the knife into her side, deeper than the shoulder strike from earlier before hiding it away in a sheath marked with runes that light up in the presence of witchblood. "Consider this an advanced tutorial." Heron steps back, and gets a signal in her ear before looking Blair over - it looks like she won't survive the trip back to their staging ground, and so Heron sighs. "They're no good to us dead, leave her. Let's rendezvous with Book and Alex before they all realize what's going on." She kneels down in front of Blair, thumbs some of the blood from her side, stares at it with morbid curiosity, and then wipes it off before standing, wincing at the gouge in her own shoulder. "Let's roll."

Fuck fuck, FUCK. The chorus of swears echoed through Blairs head. She wasn’t sure what was just her racing thoughts, and what was falling out of her mouth as she scrambled through the dark of the festival in chaos. The angry shriek of the hunter echoed in the witches ears. It reminded her of the old tales of Banshee’s her fathers used to tell her.  Something filled with vengeance that would stop at nothing to tear Blair to shreds. Blair wasn’t sure if she had done anything to stop the she-devil or if Blair had just succeeded in pissing her off.

The unspoken question was answered by an explosion of pain radiating out from her shoulder. The blade sinking deep into the muscle. The force of the blow sent Blair stumbling forward, slamming her body into a nearby building as she grabbed the wall trying to stay standing. She hadn’t known pain like this since the night her fathers died. She reached back to touch where the knife had pierced her skin, fingers coming back with hot sticky blood. Fuck she wished she was some sort of fucked up blood witch so she could do something more useful in this moment. 

Blair started to trace a familiar sigil with the blood onto the stone of the building hoping to cause spikes to flare out and impale the hunter behind her. She was unsure if it would even work or if it would be enough.

[chinese--satellite]

"we've always been friends, we always will be friends. but friends is a big word."

[umbrellajam]

y'know what let's do it. have Jack Drake accused of murdering Janet for a different flavor of drama and whump

he was in a coma and then wheelchair-bound for weeks/months after the incident you say? he was FAKING, it was all arranged, a ploy to appear helpless and sympathetic, how else could he have woken up and recovered so smoothly from the same poison that killed his wife

new evidence is produced of a suspicious payment trail from before the hijacking, leading from Jack's DI funds to accounts that appear connected to the Haitian cult/cartel responsible for the Drakes' kidnapping and Janet's tragic demise

the widow of the Drakes' personal secretary, Jeremy Whatzizlastname, and other employees all come forward and wag their tongues about the alarming frequency and escalation of the fights between the deceased and her aggressive, belligerent husband in the lead-up to that final fateful trip - how they were openly arguing about divorce

mysteriously, this relentless mud-slinging media blitz only begins after Drake Industries starts to go downhill and CEO Phil Marin comes under investigation for embezzlement/insider trading...

since it's post-NML the scandal blows up even further. the press hounds young Tim Drake, the iconic NML Kid known to all as the face of re-opening Gotham after the quake. muckrakers gleefully tear apart the recent image of a desperate, loving father who was broadcast on national television putting all his resources and influence toward bringing his lost son home

...actually. doesn't Drake Industries going broke happen right in the middle of Bruce Wayne: Murderer? (checks notes) aha, Robin #100 so lmfao yes, it does.

GOOD EXCELLENT PERFECT, Tim's father figures can both be accused of murder simultaneously 😈 and then the Bats have to divide their efforts and resources between exonerating Robin's dad and attempting to clear the civilian name of an infuriatingly uncooperative Batman…

[liketheinferno2]

These aren't full ref sheets but I was trying to take some clear pictures of Hephaistos for later art reasons and then got side tracked doing all of the Pandaemonium bosses so here they are in order. Also for anyone following who doesn't play FFXIV and knows it as the catgirl game, enjoy this instead? VISUAL SPOILERS obviously.

Asphodelos

Warder of the Condemned: Erichthonios

Mythic Creation: The Hippokampos

Mythic Creation: The Phoinix

(+ familiars)

Hemitheos: Hesperos

(+ sexy fanfic redesign by Nemjiji)

To be brutally honest I never really liked either of these designs compared to every other Hemitheos we get, I think the really brutal black and red of the Phoinix is weakened by gold accents, but I still am always down for gay vampire surf rock. The Savage version kind of looks like Ultimalius as well if you've played XVI.

Abyssos

Mythic Creation: Proto-Carbuncle

Hrgrhhgrhrgrh

Hemitheos: Hegemone

^ My favourite detail on this is you can see the parasite's outlines in her robes and in her legs, then right through the eye holes on the mask to wrap around the torso. I'm convinced this version of Hegemone is functionally an ant being piloted by a cordyceps infection.

Hemitheos: Agdistis

She's very big

Perfect Imperfection: Hephaistos

I'm probably biased by Abyssos being the first raid I was there for day of release but these really are all fantastic. It's also when the story abandons all pretense of not being (at least partly) about family abuse and is loudly using the body horror and shackle motifs to talk about that. It's great. Hephaistos specifically is constantly bulging and twisting in and out of different forms like a highly unstable chimera and the more I look at these the more I notice parts that just should not be there. He's giving everything.

As for the Savage design It's a hard thing to rate as such but my favourite part is the veins that grow down from the eyeholes in his mask like bloody tears.

Thanks Abyssos I love you

Anabaseios

Mythic Creation: Kokytos

Dæmoniac Dungeon: Pandæmonium

It's really hard to communicate how huge this nasty tumor crab I zoomed out as far as physically possible in the game engine and subsequently ended up at a goofy angle staring up his nose.

Ephemeral Justice: Themis

Best boy. The double ended lance and second pair of arms are fantastic for this character.

Theos: Athena

In.. almost every final fantasy adventure you're fighting the real villain not at the very end but a little beforehand, the big iconic end boss is often more a metaphorical figure representing everything wrong with that first person's ideals. Athena cut out the middle man and became her own JENOVA.

I do like the moth angel, especially the hollow body full of dubious orbs, but with her eyes closed all the time it gives off the impression of this not even being the true body but some kind of anglerfish lure in the shape of a fairy... which might be true because this exists:

I really really love her twitchy anemone feelers and how the moth body ends up grafted to the rest of it waist down.

Anyway there's the gang I did not specifically intend for this to be design reviews I just wanted to have clear photos because when you actually see them in game there's other things to focus on. In hindsight I can appreciate more the theming of each tier and then the series as a whole, but my only (extremely obvious) observation for now is that every character Athena had a personal hold over is decorated in chains somehow and so I should have seen the Hegemone thing coming lmao. Heph and Aggy are still my favourites I don't think that's changing any time soon. I'm also noticing that Anabaseios is now just old enough for random DF parties to fuck up severely and I find that fun so I'm going to go fight the crab mansion now.

[evecallum]

Kind of starting to wonder if another faction is being introduced to oppose the stars, like theres no time for it for sure BUT…

This quote, in conjunction with the teaser where Astrid seems to be having some kind of life changing event because she is exposing herself to the sun for the first time makes me think this cosmic war that was teased is between not just Aaravos and the Cosmic council (which like how is he gonna pull off defeating multiple immortal beings while not having access to all of his powers due to his “fallen” status) but also the sun herself.

Presumably Astrid’s removal of her blindfold will give her the sun equivalent of “timeblindness” whatever that would mean sun primal wise. (This also sets up conflict between Astrid and her brother). The Celestial Elves follow the stars exclusively, and the stars (as we know from short stories) and the brief moments we’ve seen in the show, care only about order and maintaining the status quo. Astrid defies this preordained order in two ways. 1) By removing her blindfold Astrid allows something besides the stars to touch her eyes and 2) she wants to make a difference and affect the world directly. The stars do not appreciate change or “ripples” (*cough* yes I’m referencing Aaravos’ short story), which is why the Celestial Elves serve only to observe and watch over the world.

Something of note that @raayllum has mentioned is the framing of Janai with the sun behind her and Karim without. Its almost as if the sun supports the integration of humans and elves and thus opposes the order of the Cosmic council.

In conclusion:

[triglycercule]

imagining this very funny totally amusing bit where dust (despite having a lot of pockets) makes horror carry a lighter for him (only because he can't be bothered to remember to bring one on him all the time) and horror keeps it in his head

but horror's a dick so everytime dust wants to smoke and he needs a light horror's always like "whats the password :3" (he actually said the emoticon i was the quotation marks) and dust has to guess. because horror changes it every time. and its never something predictable. and then he either just totally gives up on that cig or he has to forcefully dig into horror's head to get the lighter because horror's being a PRICK

now dust is shoulder deep into horror's eyesocket while horror is clawing and screaming and killer's just standing there behind them watching this unfold with that fuckass smile on his face (he can't get this type of entertainment anywhere else)

[thursdaysyme]

Final installment of the wrestlers 3/3: Steve runs his 5’8 mouth

[starry-bi-sky]

mmmm musical cultivator shen yuan again. Feng Xuanlu, the Wind Song. He has this well-loved wooden pipe he inherited from is adoptive father that he uses on occasion. When the traveling day gets slow and he doesn't feel like singing, when he's stressed, when night falls and he's sitting around a fire with his troupe and they've all had a little bit to drink.

His hair is long and black, always tied up into a ponytail or a braid of some sort. When he's in camp he loosens it up until its splayed messily over his shoulder. He has crows feet around his eyes that scrunch up when he smiles. His eyes are bamboo green and his hands are rough and callused from years of plucking strings and work. He has scars on his back that he won't explain the origins of.

His voice is low and warm like a fire, it gets raspy in the mornings or when he's been humming or singing for too long. He speaks like there's sunshine dripping off his tongue. He speaks soft, he speaks and his voice takes up the entire room. He's spent over a decade hearing his praises getting sung and he still gets shy over it sometimes.

Whenever he goes into town he has to have at least three other musicians with him at all times -- not his decision of course, but the unanimous choice of his companions. Shen Yuan gathers admirers everywhere he goes, and his companions have long since learned that their dear friend and leader is completely unaware of it. So they have to beat off these suitors with sticks.

[red-moon-at-night]

The Heart wants what it wants.

[anglerflsh]

we jest we laugh but doesn't the thought that we aren't even free of nobility as a ruling class make your blood boil. Yes yes by the modes of the present the current ruling classes are the capitalists the hegemonies the monopolies but we can't even say we exchanged one for the other. They're literally still here. It's so inconcievable to me. What the hell

[itsybitsybatsyspider]

Have some more Dragon Prince Au, feat. Jack trying to learn Sky magic and his sister, Emily.

[rottengurlz]

"In the crooks of your body, I find my religion."