#well-being of widows.

[tbob-enthusiast]

So, I did a Thing...

(click for better quality!)

What if the Axolotl had a pantheon?

I was playing around with my main AU and finally got around to designing Blarbador (yes, his name is super silly. I love him. I got it from Blood Chains, which is a REALLY great Billford fic if you're interested!). In my AU, he's here to make Ford's life hell! What a lovely fella.

Stanford was cursed by Blarbador to never be able to stay in a single dimension for longer than six years, as punishment for his and his partner's crimes (that being Bill, who died before Blarb could bring him to justice). As an immortal, his punishment is eternal, and as a human, his torment is never ending. Blarbador taunts him about it from time to time, but it's rare for him to appear "in person" again.

And yes, my Ford is a huge centipede! I love him!

[blessedbrick]

Bro the way that the fandom describes Hawks as stupid is crazy. Before I watched the anime I thought he was dumb because literally every single piece of fanart/fic said he was. He’s one of the smartest characters in the entire anime like that’s the whole point of him

[hypogryffin]

I love your au saori she has that divorced lesbian swag

thank you i think!! i had a lot of fun designing her

[dirtyassvoiceactors]

ROBBIE MF DAYMOND THE ACTOR YOU ARE!

[shorthaltsjester]

maybe this is just because it feels like a metaphor for how tlovm uses vex in general (and i could write an essay about it and have and will again) but something that i both understand tlovm choosing to do and deeply hate as a choice they made is vex no longer being the one to break thordak’s crystal even though vax was still the one to kill him. especially since the show was very explicit about thordak being responsible for killing the twins’ mother and also set it up as a sort of avenging of percy, it felt tonally weird to literally just have vex hanging out in the background for both the crystal breaking and him being killed. it’s fine (deeply upset voice) i understand that adjustments to pike’s vestige made this make sense for the plot but. glad to have vex continue to be a witness in tlovm moments that in the campaign her agency in were delicious character moments. it’s fine.

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

"Did I ever tell you about my Omega casino run in with the Blue Suns, Eclipse, and the Blood Pack Vorcha mafia? Five thousand credits and a bottle of whiskey?"

Ft. Staff Cmdr. Kaidan Alenko, Operations Chief Ashley Williams, Zaeed Massani, & Seven. Dominik Shepard. Phoebus. MIRA'S MORE CANON ME1.5 "Are you Phoebus?" AKA: Pt. 1 of some of what happens between ME1 and ME2 with the Vorcha mafia storyline. :) Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (2021)

[ornstein]

*taps mic* Okay, going to be really silly for a moment here with unsolicited half-jokingly, half-honest rambling. Unless forgetting someone, not many Ghosttsu characters have this type of receding hairline except Kazumasa Sakai and Ryuzo, side antagonists both born of different backgrounds but united in their means by a similar cause: grief.

Kazumasa was widowed after the premature loss of his wife Chiyoko, this much is clear. As a consequence, he went down a grievous path for the rest of his life, neglecting his son's emotional needs and dedicating his final days to bloodshed in order to gain control over a piece of land.

Kazumasa pic from Firescorpio on twitter.

The thing is, Kazu's widow's peak is less prominent than Ryuzo's. So how does the myth affect Ryuzo in the greater scale? At first glance the answer is simple. He is mourning the many straw hats who died. As he recalls, he lost a great number of friends and is trying to make it up by being in charge and caring for the remaining ones. He works completely on his own, devoted to his job and brooding in a deep sense of duty, begrudgingly accepting Jin's help but hopeful it'll at least ensure that he and his men won't go another day without food. Now, I have my personal theories (or headcanons) about what truly went down in Komoda beach that made Ryuzo so sensitive towards his success with keeping his men safe and Jin's unwanted good-willed intrusion, but I'll leave that out of this post for now.

Thing is, that may not be the sole reason for Ryuzo's mourning, at least not in a straightforward in-the-face fashion, but still quite prevalent if we take into consideration his inconsistent behaviour during act 2.

Enter Jin dying at Komoda beach and being reborn as the Ghost, who in Shimura's (and more latently in Ryuzo's) eyes is nothing but a husk of the perfect son/brother-in-arms he was revered to be. During his childhood, Ryuzo was transparently disdainful about Shimura's influence over his friend, but despite so, he idolized the traditions and principles of the Samurai culture and admired Jin's expertise and a part of him likely aspired to grow up into a Samurai himself so he could become his equal. But if the Tournament wasn't enough for Ryuzo to have one sided beef with Jin for over two years and further stain their relationship, with the death of Jin Sakai, the Samurai, and the birth of the Ghost, Ryuzo rewinds his brain and clutches on to the deluded ideology that Jin could have been better off under the tutelage of a hateful and narrow-minded puppet like Shimura, showing disappointment at Jin for breaking the Samurai code, and not as the Ghost, an unrestrained moral strength bringing hope and kindness to the helpless townspeople when nobody else would, someone him and the straw hats could have allied to if Ryuzo and Jin didn't have such clown-to-clown communication skills and the ronin had made plans on behalf of Lady Sanjo's protection to ensure their survival while aiding Jin on taking back Castle Kaneda (there must've been close contacts to Umugi Cove among the straw hats unless both sides had been holding a grudge, which would leave Umugi Cove out of the question, or unless those ronin who could reach Toyotama were dead 🤔).

Instead, Ryuzo becomes a walking contradiction for the sake of subterfuging his inexcusable acts, opting to villanize Jin for his sacrifices as such a radical change of character would leave him confused and deeply hurt and betrayed, for which half of act 1/act 2 he spends projecting his insecurities and flaws and even his ambitions onto Jin, possibly to justify what was done was inevitable, and even to not think of himself as an enemy or (more questioningly) a bad person. Altogether, he mourns a Jin from the past that, deep down in his gut, knows never existed, but clings to during his most distressing moments as a self-defense mechanism -it is possible the human brain may involuntarily regress when faced with harsh realities and catastrophic events, and though this is not quite a literal "regression", it could still manifest otherwise.

My point is, he really is a widowed maiden grieving a literal ghost, in this essay I will-

[volfoss]

If I had a nickel for aquatic based very old comics hero who has such a bafflingly wild backstory that I just HAD to read their entire chronology. Well I'd have 2 nickels

[nocek]

well hello there, please don't mind me using valentines as motivator to at least finish this lineart (but hey, it worked!)

now time for colors and trying to pull of complicated shadows.... yeah. that's going to not be as fun as this part >.<

[sunforgrace]

he sat there on the ground and cried. for cas. cas told him he loved him was taken away and he buried his head in his hands and wept

[soulofamy]

im honestly confused at the people who say like "ashrah and syzoth get no development in the story theyre so random!" as if the story didnt take place when syzoth LITERALLY JUST TWO SECONDS AGO learned that his wife died??? yeah i expect him and ashrah to be friendly and cordial but lets imagine for a second here that they like,,,share a longer-than-it-should-be glance or something. something small. would that not have felt out of place? they literally just met, and again, syzoth JUST learned that his wife has been dead for months. so no i absolutely would not expect there to be a lick of chemistry between them during the events of the main story 😭 its extremely obvious that for them to be together time would have to pass first like i dont even understand why people are questioning that

[summertimemusician]

Linktober Shadow Day 7

Gloom Hands

This goes out to the way I cackled hysterically once seeing these things in TOTK, well done Zelda Team. They're a terrifying concept and I really feel exploring that could be fun, even if this prompt gave me a headache and a half.

Bit late today because we've been pelted by way too many storms/lightning and writing on mobile with lightning shaking your house is generally a bad idea, so I spent most of the time writing this and the Linktober prompt by hand, then transcribing it back onto mobile as soon as I could touch eletronics without the major risk of being zapped and picking a god and praying that my internet wouldn't be too funky so I could get it out on time. Short one again though because I still need to finish the Linktober prompt so it should come out later today or fully tomorrow, sorry folks.

Anyway, as always can be read as romantic or platonic, also Sage is here both because of the prompt and because the mental image of Wild Reader and Sage trauma bonding over the extremely twisted nature Gloom/the Malice have compared to just dark magic in general in LoZ was too funny to resist, if Nintendo won't talk about the many variations of Dark Magic in LOZ and how it affects any who come in contact with it then lord darn it I guess I'll just have to do it myself (or as much as I can without breaking out the companion essay to the Realm of Darkness and Realm of Light essay which I'm already having trouble digging out).

TW:

Technically graphic descriptions of decay, gore and eldritch horror, and Reader just not having a good day in general, don't recommend reading I'd you're highly squeamish.

When you’ve first met Sage, as the Chain temporarily dubbed him, you and Wild didn’t miss the way he looked so, so haunted. Emotions warring like a storm as he looked Wild over in a mix of disbelief and the weariness of a wounded fox getting ready to bite just to escape, at the Chain with such longing ache that made one’s heart break, the way the first time he met Wolfie he didn’t hesitate to throw himself atop the canine and hug him so close like he was trying to melt into the fur, and looking at you like he didn’t know wether to cry, scream or to shut down before he buried it under the mask you knew your resident Champion could use when trying so desperately to keep it together, hands shaky as he signed in a way that set your teeth on edge and felt like you had taken a dozen of ice arrows to the back, urgent, 'It’s not safe. None of you should be here. You need to leave. Now.'

Needless to say it was alarming, even as you all knew just how ferociously untamed his and Wild’s Hyrule could be, with being overrun with so, so many types of divinity through each crack, root, drop and flesh of it’s beings. From Hylia’s cold calculating care, the Three Goddesses blood, tears and breath of life, to the Malice’s howling self sustaining fury, The Lost Woods ever overgrowing freedom and even the remnants of the Fierce Deity’s hunt in Satori’s and Malaniya's savage display of cyclic eternity, it wasn’t any surprised that apart from the Traveler’s Hyrule it was the most aggressive one with the smorgasbord of energy so thick it made even you choke on it everytime you stepped foot in it. Beautiful and free in an echo of it’s once untamed state in the age of myth even before Sky.

Over time, you and the Chain learned how to adapt to it. To listen to the warnings Wild gave about the Guardians and about the remains of Malice in his monsters, of how the moon had been forever tainted with it and how, until Sheikah tech was fully repurposed it would be best to avoid the castle all together it was difficult but manageable, and even if Sage’s reaction was alarming (and he seemed even more troubled once Wild passed onto him from Sky that, while he wasn’t to come with them yet due to how things were apparently ‘fated’ to happen, there was no way you all could leave quite yet, distantly sticking by Wild and Twilight when possible and checking on everyone’s health when not doing so), you’d though it would be much the same for his own, and in parts you were right as the Chain had taken to the new environment like fishes to water even if it took some adjustments.

Though you were quickly proven wrong, and you could have laughed at your past self’s naivety.

It was meant to be a quick run to clear a black blooded monster camp, and while decently challenging, it was over quickly between the Chain getting more apt at fighting the enemy, Sage’s addition as the man fought as ruthlessly and ferociously as Wild, switching between deadly marksmanship and feral combat on a dime and the absence of the unnaturally inteligent black scales lizalfos, you’d rest and be on your way quickly. Or so you all thought.

Twilight had been the first to smell it, the bubbling of dark but distinctively twisted magic, even more so than Zant’s brand of madness. Wild the one to spot it, the rot black and blood crimson building up at the edges of camp from his vantage point but it was Sage who had tensed, eyes snapping to the faint glow the Master Sword emmited just as the sky darkned before his frantic, alarmed howl swept over the Chain, the sheer desperate, protective panic making all of your boys still, because Sage never used his voice unless he absolutely had to, “IT'S NOT OVER! MOVE!”

It was all the warning any of you got before reality twisted, straining, and then finally screaming, the heavens staining with crimson as if gutted open, the eyes of a sin against nature itself cutting through your relief and infecting your veins with terror. It shakes you to the core, freezing with indecisive flight or fight as you spotted the tide. Heart in your throat as you tried to comprehend what you saw.

“WHAT THE-“, Legend cursed, looking ashen as his grip on his fire rod tightened. Really, all of your heroes look disturbed and you can’t blame them.

“Get to high ground if you want to live! We can’t fight these things.”, snapped Sage, much more composed, but no less frenzied.

None of you hesitate to listen.

(There were some unspoken rules, when in Wild’s Hyrule the first time around. If there is something the Champion, the most reckless of all Links, wasn’t willing to fight head on or said wasn’t worth it, the best course of action was to listen, specially if the group was vulnerable.)

The hands screech, the tide rolling over the land with an reality splitting clamoring, a sound so filled with fury and so, so twisted it made your Hylian’s ears friends bleed and you lift a hand to your head in pain as Wild pulled you along, Sage leading the charge for the nearest cliff face as Warrior’s threw Wind over his shoulders and Twilight didn’t hesitate before doing the same to Four, the frost from Legend and bomb arrows from Time and Sky barely doing nothing to slow it’s relentless charge, merely taking from it a distorted, pitched crescendoing belt of pure rage and the overlaying of many tortured souls screaming all at once, of Hyrule rejecting this existence from the world but wounded at being unable to vanquish it, the sound it makes as it spreads and drags itself across the ground with uncanny speed with it’s many, many arms like something in between sludge and smacking, wet, rotten flesh.

Sage switches between shooting arrows to helping the other Links up the cliff and shooting at it’s eyes with the strongest bow he has,making as many arrow fusions on the spot as he dares. The others quickly taking as many ranged weapons from their sides to do the same. You help Hyrule up the clifface, while Wild swipes Cryonis over the field, climbing up himself, being hauled to Sage’s side.

You are almost there when one of the hands latch onto your ankle, and you go down with a scream, Sage all but dropping the bow in his hand in favor to latching onto your hand with snarl. And

It.

Is.

Agony.

(It burns through you like your very atoms have been set on fire,bthe hands take the opportunity to sink into you, long long unnatural fingers sinking into your flesh in a unhurried blanket of darkness, the Demon King’s will is roaring, growling with abyssal rage, if it cannot rule Hyrule, it would kill everything in it instead. Gloom sinks into your cells, raptures the membranes and makes the skin slip, frantically invading, you taste rotten flesh on the back of your throat and the scent of wither and ash choke you as it sinks into your flesh, marrow, breaks down your bones bit by bit, cracking and infecting and breaking down your very essence with the fury of a dead deity which refused die, decay on an accelerated rate all over where the hands clutched like a vice as the Links trunfo pull you out or attack it and it is painful and it’s excruciatingly wretched and make it STOPCEASEITHURTS-)

A well aimed Skyward Strike severs the connection, the pain stops and you fall into Sage, breathing hard and unevenly, grasping at him like a lifeline, clawing and counting at Wild’s arm on your other side like a wounded animal, your taste blood on your throat from the screams that were ripped from it, Hyrule falling to his knees on your side as healing magic washes over you like a shroud, trying to get you to respond.

Reality howls along with you, before all is silent.

It barely took a second.

“... Just what were those things?”, rasps Sky, horrified, a sentiment echoed through the Chain, though you can’t focus on it, trying not to choke on your own blood and to pull yourself together, Wild’s hand unconsciously settling on your pulse, shaking, and Sage’s tense tone cuts through the air as he scans the area. Still tense, tone hoarse.

“... The reason why I wanted you to leave.”

Later, much, much later, before you all leave, you learn they are called Gloom Hands.

It’s unanimously agreed that all you hold loathing for those abominations, even long after you’re forced to leave Sage.

He whispers something to Wild on the way out, hugging him close, trembling. Your Champion nods, you can’t make out the words, but you make sure to hold him as close as you can before you go, indulge him in checking for your pulse even long after you’re healed.

You hope he’ll be safe, he hopes that the next time you all see each other again, it’ll be under better circumstances.

[olberic]

literally paused my episode of beast wars bc the idea of drawing blackarachnia possessed me. she deserves sooo much more than what the show gives her. shes an unwilling convert to the predacon side but clings to her predacon identity with everything she has. shes a femme fatale. shes a scientist. shes willing to kill herself and everything around her for her freedom. she falls for the goody-two-shoes. shes the goth juliet to the maximals' romeo. shes never allowed to grow as a character outside of the men in the show. she wants control. she clings to it with everything shes got when she gets it. she doesnt want to be "good" she wants to be herself and only what she chooses for herself.

[kazz-brekker]

the children of blood and bone movie finally getting a cast reminded me to look up the two sequels that i never got around to reading and the reviews for them are. uh. not positive. so i suppose i won't be continuing with that trilogy.

[whitestopper]

I feel like Tao's behaviour might make more sense if his dad had left than if his dad had died. He has low self-esteem and his mindset is often rooted in "If I'm not good enough, this person will not stick around," which is a more natural consequence of having an absent parent than a dead one. S2/S3 Tao is specifically paranoid about people leaving him because they find something better, especially with Elle, to whom the story ties Tao's grief for his father, and his S1 paranoia about bad stuff happening to his friends (ie. Charlie hanging out with homophobes - which I guess isn't really paranoia because it's what Charlie is doing) is gone and was kind of treated like a cover-up for his fear of loneliness anyway.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

...So uh, basically bootleg Suicide Squad featuring not even a comic's accurate team but instead, just random characters picked randomly from throughout the MCU, including even character's that make zero fucking sense to be on the team???