#with the immortal soul

[galahadenough]

While I'm posting dreams, here's another one.

This was in many ways one of my strangest dreams due to the fact that it lingered far more than any dream usually does. The physical sensations of training in magic remained, even into that evening I could still feel the pull of magic and the feel of the staff as it either shot over my shoulder or thunked into my palm. In addition, the myth in the dream continued to narrate smoothly after I woke up, instead of halting abruptly and quickly fading.

After training, a myth was told.

A man wandered, lost and purposeless after the destruction of his home, before a god took pity on him and appointed him guardian of the gates to the afterlife. He could not be with his family, but he could ensure their afterlife. He did his job and welcomed in all who came to him.

Soon after he took on this role he saw a soul who looked particularly troubled. He asked them what weighed on their mind. The response shook the man and for the first time he turned a soul away. From this point forward he would weigh and judge each individual who came to his gate. Over time, his eyes grew impartial and dispassionate, able to see the truths at the very core of souls. Thus he became the Gatekeeper.

The Gatekeeper held his station until the end of all things. As this world ended and another began, one last soul stood before the Gatekeeper. The very same god who gave him purpose so many years ago now stood on the edge between life and death, the last speck of life leaving a dying world. He explained that after this final passing the Gatekeeper could at last rest and rejoin his family on the other side.

The Gatekeeper looked into his soul and saw pride, saw pain and weariness, joy and contentment. He saw sadness and guilt without regret.

He saw the deaths of his family from so very long ago.

The Gatekeeper was content with his role and knew the necessity of his post. The man the Gatekeeper once was felt the return of time-dulled bitterness and anger.

This immortal soul cannot be taken by oblivion. He must either pass through the gate or continue his life here, but the Gatekeeper cannot leave until the last soul has left.

The being that was neither god nor mortal looked upon the god who created him and spoke his judgement.

[valtsv]

i think it's good and right when there's a body horror element to the concept of the soul. when the metaphysical and the physical are intertwined by blood and sinew and sweat. when you have this invisible, intangible vital organ burning up inside you that can be torn out and leave you eviscerated; flayed open with no outward apparent physical injury. when a body without a soul is just a carcass that hasn't realised it's rotting yet, the useless discarded remains of a butchery. when the wrong body can reject a poorly matched soul like a transplant. when the soul is something that can become corrupt and putrefy.

[nelkcats]

Immortal Nanny

Bruce Wayne had never been a father. He knew what it was like to be a good father, and he knew what good fathers should be like, but adopting Richard was an impulse, a moment when he decided to give a child the comfort he needed, as he himself had needed in the past.

But just because he knew and understood didn't mean he could do it, or that he could become a good father instantly. Alfred would be a great help, of course, but it was he who had to raise the boy, Alfie was too old to start raising another child.

So, it was only natural that he forgot all about his busy life as "Brucie Wayne", adopting Dick hadn't stopped the million interviews or meetings, and while Alfred was extremely capable, Bruce still decided to hire a nanny.

Daniel Nightingale was a bit of an outsider (in a good way), he was studying at Gotham U, and was doing very well in his chosen career; though his records were strangely empty, Bruce knew he could trust him. His tired look and the shy smile he gave him upon arriving at the mansion was enough to calm his concerns.

Perhaps it was because he was just starting out as Batman at the time that he didn't investigate further.

Anyway, Dick loved Danny, from that first day, he used to tell Bruce about his "adventures" and how much fun he had. On one occasion he even told him they had a snowball fight (which confused him, because it was July but he was too tired to question the excited kid).

So, Danny became Dick's, and later Jason's, official nanny. He never complained and always smiled. The boy got along quite well with Alfred and would attend to any emergency, although he was never involved in the vigilante business.

It was only after Jason's death, when Tim arrived, that someone began to question Danny. Tim wasn't sure about Danny, there were a lot of things...that just didn't fit, and if the old photos of the mansion were any indication, the nanny wasn't getting any older.

Dick wasn't ten anymore and that was pretty obvious, but Danny looked exactly the same. Tim frowned, puzzled as to how no one had investigated such an oddity before. Alfred simply looked at him with an amused smile. He wondered how long it would take for the family to notice the (rather obvious) secrets of the elusive nanny.

Alfred couldn't blame the boy, the easiest way to hide something was in plain sight. And he knew the halfa would never hurt his family.

[pianokantzart]

I'm still kinda confused about the nature of Gooigi's sentience. However

I'm glad they seem to be friends.

[illustratinghan]

Acorn ~ Immortality 🌞

- a recreation of Magnus Bane’s flower card -

characters by @cassandraclare 🤍

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

I love seeing Danny Phantom showing up and being like ‘don’t ask too many questions but John Constantine I own your soul. All of it. Lmao sucks to suck bitch’, and he’s usually all Ghost King Full Regalia as he does it, at least in front of the Justice League, but consider—

He just shows up as Danny Fenton.

“yeah I got bored and collected the pieces like Pokémon. Gotta catch ‘em all” says the 5’2 teen who looks like a stiff breeze could trip him. He denies being a sorcerer, or a magician, concedes he’s maybe psychic but mostly he’s just…. The kid of two mad scientists—who have a basement lab where they opened a portal to what he SAYS is not hell but no one is frankly CONVINCED, by the way—and he hasn’t decided what to do with Constantine yet besides getting Danny into some r rated horror movies, but figures he should tell the dude probably.

“What’d you even trade for some of his soul contracts?”

“Don’t worry about it”

They worry about it

[logicpng]

at the risk of veering entirely off-canon, i had to at least try to put on paper that concept of dealer being a retired grim reaper (out of potentially many)

since god is dead, i like to think that nothing works anymore, making him out of a job.

i think the game isn't too far off from the position as a death entity, if that makes sense. same shit, different tools, only the unfortunate souls come willingly

[thinwhitedoc]

SHERLOCK | Martin Freeman as John Watson

[lucksea]

havent decided how i want the introduction to go yet but i imagine it would roughly be one of these two

[semisomnosres]

Chase, you should have written in Japanese, maybe it would have worked then

I'm still trying to find a way to color backgrounds. This process is very difficult for me and I just try different options, but so far nothing that suits me

[merdum7]

Rowland S. Howard / The Birthday Party

[emilydickinsonsghost]

When you have zero interest in canon but the fanfiction is really good.

That’s how I feel about Christianity. Like, no hate, but it just isn’t for me. And yet I am a huge fan of the gay Bible fanfics known as Good Omens and Jesus Christ Superstar.

[its-a-me-mango]

Somehow I feel like your female versions of SMG3 and SMG4 would end up in a romantic relationship a lot faster than the boys.

Yuri vs Yaoi, who wins the enemies to romantic partners speedrun, you decideeee

But yeah, they'd get over every roadblock super quickly compaired to the boys just because, girlies wamma have fun.

[nelkcats]

A Little bird told me

Danny knew his dimension didn't need him. It had been a long time since it stopped needing him, a long time since he had to be content to spend most of his days in the Infinite Realms. His sister and friends were too busy these days to pay attention to him; Danny understood, it's not like he could work or have a job, considering he'd stopped growing at 21 and people would start asking questions eventually.

Honestly, it was a relief that he'd even been able to grow up to that age, Clockwork's knowing look told him he had help with it.

So, he distracted himself by learning things from the other ghosts in the Realms, who were definitely as bored as he was. He even managed to get Vlad to teach him duplication, but it wasn't that interesting after a while. Though he had become interested in the different dimensions that Clockwork watched over.

The problem was that there was one dimension that had caught his attention (one full of heroes and magic) but they always made the worst decisions. There came a point where he decided to interfere, Clockwork seemed amused so he figured he wasn't going to stop him.

As he thought about how to infiltrate (definitely not as a hero, he loved his retirement, thank you very much), he remembered a rather...odd power he had recently discovered.

Danny had discovered that he could shapeshift. The problem was that he could only shapeshift into dead animals and well, while it was fun to scare others, he didn't know how well people would take a ghost crow with ectoplasm coming out of it's wounds.

Figuring it was better than nothing, he transformed into a bird and flew through the portal; he flew towards John Constantine, who seemed fed up with his life. Constantine knew the bird was fucking weird the moment it sit on his shoulders but he had better things to take care of, like the demon in front of him.

Said bird apparently knew the way to defeat the demon, because he started naming the ingredients needed to banish it. Constantine saw it with narrowed eyes and asked if he wanted his soul, the bird pecked him, looking annoyed.

From there, seeing that the dead bird was doing no harm, Constantine let it stay. It was oddly useful and he had sold his soul for less.

Danny spent his days whispering things to Constantine to defeat enemies and the hellbazer gave him cookies in return (the halfa really wanted to be offended), when the League saw Constantine with a dead crow on his shoulder they wondered if he had finally lost his mind.

John commented that his name was Ghosty (he was pecked again) and that he was useful, unfortunately for the superhero community, Constantine had never been that useful and therefore they couldn't complain (but why did he suddenly know all the existing gossip?, he kept bribing them with it! His crow looked amused too).

Every time Constantine won a battle without explanation, someone would make the mistake of asking how he did it. With a shit-eating grin, Constantine would point to his shoulder and say "a little bird told me."

Danny was so tempted to shape-shift just to bite his head off, but the cookies were good.

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

Would it be safe and effective to give that sad immortal guy pat-pats on the head to make him feel better?

Demon Zhao Yuan Zhou, Fangs of Fortune - Safe* and effective

He'd probably enjoy it and wouldn't hurt you, however, you are part of his Found Family/Polycule now so you decide how safe that is

Jang Uk, S2 Alchemy of Souls - Safe and effective

I'm convinced if you managed to give him enough pat pats he'd cry and that's what he needs. He wouldn't hurt you unless you were a soul shifter (Are you a soul shifter?)

Dongfang Qingcang, Love Between Fairy and Devil - Not safe or effective

Depending on where he is in the show's timeline, you'd either be dead or seriously hurt. It also wouldn't help. Avoid patting on the head. Leave that to Orchid

Possessed Jun-oh/Do-ha, Moon in the Day - Safe(ish) but not effective

He hates being touched so he'd either push you away or break your arm. Ineffective because he will only accept pat pats from his eternal wife. (I couldn't find a good GIF of him being dangerous, use your imagination)

Myul Mang, Doom at Your Service - Unsafe but possibly effective?

Maybe if you thought very loudly, "This sad immortal boy needs a pat-pat on the head" he wouldn't hurt you, but he's the embodiment of death/destruction so I don't know if you should risk it. He could cause your doom by mistake. It's dangerous, but I feel like it would fix him.

[crookedfandomquill]

The pacing of LBFAD, especially episodes 29-36, is fucking diabolical.

Some dramas (looking at you, TTEOTM and Bulgasal) hit you with an unrelenting series of tragedies. The hits start coming in episode 1 and they don’t stop coming. You know from the first scene that this is going to be rough. You accept it. Eventually you build tolerance to the narrative traumas being inflicted upon these poor characters.

But LBFAD is deceptively soft and tropey and cute. The FL is a squeaky emotional flower fairy, how can bad things happen to her? Adventures, sure, but not tragedy! There’s comedy, there’s romance, there’s a traumatized ML who definitely won’t be further traumatized by the events of the story :D

But it’s such a mature story underneath it all, and you first see that properly when the show doesn’t find a quick, convenient solution for the fact that XLH and DFQC are from warring nations and have incompatible goals. There’s no tidy fated love helping them out; they’re actively working against fate to be together, and fate doesn’t make it easy for them.

The tragedies in LBFAD aren’t unrelenting; they pick up in pace very rapidly in the last arc, but after each hit you get this moment of thinking it might be okay before you get sucker punched again. The Bone Orchid is killing XLH? Maybe she’ll fall briefly out of love with DFQC and survive! But nope, she kills herself to save him. Oh wait, DFQC wakes up and she’s there safe and sound, maybe…? No, just a dream world he’s killing himself to sustain. Look, he can bring her back and everything will be okay! Sorry, she doesn’t remember him and she has to marry Changheng and sacrifice herself for the world. Wait, she does remember him and he can change her fate? Maybe they can be happy together after all! But no, one of them has to die regardless, and XLH has to wait 500 years for their reunion.

The straight-up-tragic dramas feel like stepping into a too-hot bath and making yourself adjust so you can relax into the heat. LBFAD is more like climbing into a cauldron of pleasantly-warm water that heats up gradually until suddenly it feels too hot to handle and you’re sobbing into a melted pint of Haagen Dazs.