#and also full of existential fear | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Tumblr has been providing a Korean-language service since 2013.

#and also full of existential fear

abd-illustrates · 2 years

Video

youtube

Crafting Curses for an Old Story | Concept Corner: HEARTLESS #5 (FINALE)

The time has come! Today I am closing the book on the “Heartless” chapter of Concept Corner by delving into the dark powers and potential pasts of the story’s villains, the Wonders! I hope you’ll look forward to what’s in store for the future of Concept Corner as much as I am; but for now, get comfy! and get ready! for the villainous conclusion of this “Heartless”-centric speedpaint saga! 🖤💛

(And - (even though I said as much in the video already) - thanks so, SO much again for showing this silly lil’ video series so much love! I really hope this conclusion to the “Heartless” era of Concept Corner could spark as much joy for y’all who’ve been kind enough to follow it all this time, as y’all’ve sparked for me in making them 😊💖

It’s wild to think how long its been since this series started, but I can’t wait to see where it goes next! Hope you’ll drop by again next time 💖)

#abd illustrates #artists on tumblr #concept corner #heartless #villains #theyre here theyre queer theyre invoking existential fear #the finale!#can you belieeeve #it always feels surreal to upload videos i spend ages putting together but this time especially #also #trying to keep up my new habit of not spoiling the finished artworks for folks so full art post should be coming tomorrow!#pls enjoy!#(and pls do share thoughts if u have em - y'all's energy is what really makes these so special 💖)

1K notes · View notes

revon-aurora-borealis · 1 month

Text

guys i literally cannot take how braindead r/Emkay is anymore im fucking leaving

also whoever started that stupid skinwalker meme needs to never cook again, nothing like scrolling reddit and then having a mini anxiety attack over seeing that stupid ass meme with a scary monster that basically says "repost this or i say you die" and so you do because you have severe gad and a somewhat superstitious side because of it

like im suicidal as well and that meme is so fucking triggering, and no i dont mean like "oh i just saw an mpreg anime character meme" """"triggering"""" I MEAN LIKE ACTUALLY TRIGGERING, LIKE I ACTUALLY BECOME ANXIOUS AND SCARED BECAUSE OF IT, LIKE I ACTUALLY END UP HAVING EXISTENTIAL DREAD AND SOMEWHAT FEARING FOR MY LIFE

like its like being sent a desth threat but "oh haha its just a meme why are you so scared it snot tuat serious" like bitch that was obviously going to trigger some people you literally are using all the pressure you can to get someone to repost it

#mental health #wtf #emkay #reddit #r/emkay is just fucking cancer at this point #cw suicide #cw death #its the most insensitive meme ive ever seen in my life and thats really saying something im a pretry active member on r/BlatantMisogyny #its so fucking insensitive i hope it gets banned #i dont blame everyone who reposts it like me but ik at least like 30% or 50% of people posting it are just doing it as a joke #and not doing it out of pure fear like me #gad #anxiety #severe anxiety #ocd #ive been told i dont have ocd but i have ocd like tendencies that get in the way of life tbh #prolly should get re evaluated for that tbh #existential crisis #also i wish people didnt use “triggering” or “traumatizing” so lightly #cuz then those of us who actually get triggered by shit arent taken seriously and it really fucking hurts and makes things worse #just say like “cursed” or “terrifying” or specifiy you arent actually full on having a real mental crisis by saying smth like #“im having a glimpse of [disorder] rn”

1 note · View note

lonelyquail · 2 years

Text

this specific bit of my comfy playlist just speaks to me like idk what about it but its Deeply veecore

i also dont know what this says about me as a person

#i am full of both love and existentialism #get yourself a kaz who can do both #vee shut up #also dont fear the reaper jumpscares me occasionally bc its the only one here with a guitar solo but i wouldnt take it off for the world

1 note · View note

diorsbrando · 1 month

Text

I’D DIE FOR YOU (AND I HAVE). ( s.a. )

sousuke aizen & black!fem!reader.

cw ━━ ! minors, blank and ageless blogs DO NOT INTERACT. reader is portrayed as a black woman but you do not have to imagine her that way. using this map of the seireitei as a reference (i searched high and low for a consistent accurate one but it was hard). the first half is set pre-ryoka invasion / pre-soul society arc. the second half is aizen-centric (from his pov told from the 3rd person) and set post-tybw arc, years after he was sealed away in mugen, also including mention of events from vol. 1 of can't fear your own world (a light novel that's post-tybw & can be considered canonical); so all this being said: SPOILERS i guess???? of course you're welcome to read if you don't care about spoilers! somewhat based on 'die for you' by the weeknd & even more loosely based on 'dark red' by steve lacy. contains themes of heavy-ish angst, existential crises (?) & inner emotional turmoil within reader + aizen (separately). descriptions of character death, blood and violence. descriptions of manipulation/mind games. aizen is an unkind man. proofread (i did my best).

word count ━━ 11k

notes ━━ ! the way this fic was supposed to finished a month ago...but life once more gets in my way. and the way that it's this long....i anticipated the max being 10k but i greatly underestimated how long it would take to flesh out my idea. anywho i'm somewhat reentering my bleach era again. i’m not sure what it is but character analyses in the form of fanfiction is my jam rn like i really enjoyed writing this (i got tired of the length by like... 7k words lmao) but i like how this turned out. i've watched & read quite a bit of content that provide explanations as to why aizen is the way he is so i wanted to try my own portrayal of that in the context of canonical events. how i characterized him here is partially inspired by a fic i read about him last year so shout out to them for their support :D i hope i've depicted and humanized aizen well ♡. reblogs + commentary are heavily appreciated!!!!!

THE PAD OF YOUR THUMB SLOWLY glided against your bottom lip, the lingering aftertaste of jasmine tea still on its surface and on your breath. The absentminded motion of your thumb caressing your mouth, as if in deep contemplation, continued as you stared at the clock hanging on the wall above you.

It was past eleven, and the midnight hour only continued to draw near as time sustained its temporal march. And there you sat at your desk, floating in the limbo of your mind that was filled with hesitancy and admittedly, budding anticipation.

Your gaze lowered to the now empty porcelain cup, nothing remaining of its contents except the shriveled remnants of herbs and a few wayward drops of the brew.

Your senior comrade, captain Sōsuke Aizen, was correct in his prediction that you'd take a liking to its floral and delicate taste when he gifted you a jar full of the jasmine tea leaves as well as other ingredients.

The captain of Squad 5 seemed to be correct about a lot of things.

His intelligence and foresight, along with his kind and politely witty disposition, were qualities that you found somewhat charming, and gradually drew you closer to him.

Being the current third seat of the 9th company, your barracks and those of squad 5's were relatively close to each other's, so often you'd catch glimpses of and run into Captain Aizen on a pretty normal basis. Over the years, the conversations that bounced between the two of you expanded past the realm of formalities between a higher and lower ranking officer, and instead ranged in territories from literature, to art, to food & drink, and even to the politics of the government for which they were soldiers for.

Sometimes, you found it hard to believe that you managed to befriend a man like him. A man who seems to have mastered the balance between being a gentle soul, helpful to others, but also possessed enough refined power and skills to be named a captain within the Gotei 13.

Especially a man who wasn’t even of your own squad.

Despite the increasingly friendly relations and generally pleasant conversation, there were few moments where Aizen's words didn't feel quite. . . . real━ he didn't feel real. He spoke eloquently, often relying on figurative language to further illustrate his point and to breathe meaning into seemingly plain and meaningless words. But at times those words, his tone felt stained; stained with some substance or color you couldn't quite place. An enigmatic façade was painted over his speech, and it took too much mental capacity to try and find your own meaning in it.

So you'd often brush it off. Your over-reliance on your own reasoning that 'you weren’t able to come to a conclusion because there is no problem a conclusion could be generated from' successfully quieted your mind’s voice. You'd also frequently blame exhaustion, or your newfound hobby of watching human psychological crime shows during your off days for these subconscious ideas you had.

But you feared that the request Aizen made of you yesterday, the source of your current predicament, couldn't be blamed on any of those things. You looked at the clock again before returning to stare at your empty tea cup. For what reason could Sōsuke Aizen wish to meet you outside of the 1st division barracks? Specifically at this hour? You immediately thought of his question as uncharacteristic of him but prevented yourself from jumping to any further conclusions.

Aizen was a reasonable man, and you were sure there was a reasonable explanation.

With a final sigh of acquiescence, you stood up from your sitting position to retie your yukata before slipping a thicker, dark colored haori on top. You were unsure how cold it was this late at night or how long you'd be out, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

You paused for a moment, glancing longingly at your vanity mirror a few times, clearly torn between a decision, before giving in with a soft groan. Grabbing your favorite perfume, you quickly spritzed the spray onto both your inner wrists, either sides of your neck, and stray areas on your clothes. You’d proceed to make sure your hair was in order and your lips were as moisturized and glossy as a pair of tear-filled eyes before making your way to the door and slipping on your sandals.

Meeting with a captain— with Aizen of all people— in the dead of night resembled too closely to forbidden lovers rendezvousing under a fruit tree to fulfill their desires of embracing one another, with no one but the moon as their witness. The comparison alone caused the apples of your cheeks to burst aflame with embarrassment, and you lightly chastised yourself for even indulging in such an inappropriate train of thought. Such a scenario seemed far too deluded to even be considered ‘wishful thinking’.

But those delusions still seemed to make more sense than whatever other conclusion you have yet to reach.

Making your way out of your personal quarters, you activated your shunpo technique, stealthily hopping from one rooftop to the other in an effort to make it to Squad 1 barracks quicker.

After several minutes, your mind mostly engulfed with the 'what if's', the soles of your sandals finally touched ground, and you stood a few feet away from the massive walls and bridges that connected to and from the barracks. Even at night you were able to make out the bold-printed kanji for the number 1 that was painted on the building.

When you arrived, even from a nearby rooftop, you didn't see anyone around. Feelings of confusion and worry began to creep up and flicker to life in your mind.

But, as if your thoughts were as audible, you felt a light breeze of wind behind you, a familiar sound that indicated someone had made their presence known.

Startled, you reflexively reached for your zanpakuto, when you remembered that you hadn't even brought it with you. It still laid against the wall near your bed, just where you placed it earlier when you were relieved of your duties for the day.

You didn't think you needed it necessarily if you were just going to meet with Aizen, hence why taking it with you slipped your mind.

The flickers of concern were swiftly extinguished as your brain caught up with your body upon realizing who just appeared. A relieved sigh left your lips, a breath of air that seemed to release all the tension that had a grip on your heart and wound tight within your muscles. "Ah! Good evening Captain Aizen. You caught me off guard for a moment there."

"My apologies, that was not at all my intention." The Fifth Division Captain sported a dark colored scarf, his long captain's coat and the standard shihakushō all Gotei officers were supposed to wear. In the sash around his waist resided his own sheathed zanpakuto. His tawny hair maintained its usual part but looked slightly tousled, yet still remaining so in a meticulous fashion that made it look intentional.

The state of his hair alone, and his current facial expression made Aizen look more . . . approachable if that’s how you were to describe it. There was a glint in his eyes that you had seldom seen before.

"Thank you, for making your way down here to accommodate my rather. . . . atypical request. I again extend my apologies if I have inconvenienced you in any way."

You shook your head in reply, "It's alright, I wasn't doing anything too important anyway. Just having a cup of tea and delighting myself in a book before bed."

You glanced downwards at the foot or so of space that was wedged in between the two of you. You forced away the murmurs of your lingering thoughts that took note of how the moonlight and shadows danced across the surface of Aizen's face just right, and emphasized his decidedly handsome features.

"But having a complete and good night's rest is important to be fully functional in all areas of one's performance. Wouldn't you agree?"

You couldn't help but chuckle softly. "Yes, I do agree with that sentiment."

Aizen all but hummed in acknowledgement, letting a moment of silence fill the air before speaking again.

"Shall we be on our way?"

You nodded in agreement, following him as the both of you walked about the First Division grounds. From what you could tell based on your position, your aimless nightly stroll drew you closer to where Sokyoku Hill was located. The area became increasingly more grassy and contained less buildings.

Although Squad 1 grounds weren't terribly far from either of your barracks, you still weren't sure as to why Captain Aizen wished to meet out here. Initially you thought that perhaps he was just fond of this particular scenery, but really it could have been anything.

But still, you believed Aizen always had a purpose for everything he did.

After several moments, his warm voice replaced the evening silence, vocalizing your current thoughts. “I assume you are contemplating why it is I have asked you here, and I’m afraid the reason is quite benign. Truthfully, I just wished for your company. I often go on night walks to clear my head after a long day and thought I might invite you to join me this time, and have a conversation with each other."

Your brows shifted upwards, for that was not quite the answer you were expecting. It seemed too . . . simple. “Really? You just . . . wanted to talk with me? Plainly?”

The Squad 5 captain let out a short, soft laugh at the disbelief that was painted on your face. There was an expression of fondness present in his eyes and in the light smile he offered you. “Yes, exactly. I quite enjoy our discussions actually, they’re intellectually stimulating and relatively pleasant. You crossed my mind, and before yesterday, it has been quite some time since we’ve had the opportunity to unwind and talk.”

You hummed an mhmm in agreement, tearing your eyes away from Aizen’s side profile in favor of the hem of his captain’s haori, watching how it danced in the soft breeze. It seemed to be less distracting than the way Aizen peered down at you from time to time.

"I see. I am. . . . truly flattered by your words, Captain Aizen; you're too kind. Forgive me for asking but," you took longer strides so that you could fall into step next to him━ as if to speak to him more directly, "Why at this time? To talk with me, I mean. It couldn't wait until more . . . . . conventional hours?"

He chuckled again, and answered as smoothly as if he were awaiting you to ask him that. "Unfortunately, today's tasks ran a little long today, so I had to stay at my office later than usual." The spectacled man paused for a moment, before setting his soft gaze on you, "And besides, that completely defeats the purpose of inviting you on a night stroll, doesn't it?"

You ignored the heat flaring up in your cheeks again. Your mind refused to move past the fact that you had crossed Sōsuke Aizen's mind enough times━ or the times that he thought about you were significant enough━ and highly enough to invite you into his realm and indulge in these moments with him, when he very much could have done that alone.

A tender smile appeared on your lips, more towards yourself than the man next to you. "I. . . suppose it does."

The ashen-white moon only rose higher in the sky, providing an ambiance of tranquility as the both of you talked about whatever crossed the surface of your minds. Other times, the stillness of the night did the talking, and you'd listen to the leaves, and the wind, and the crickets sing together in harmony. Gradually as you walked and the beaten path grew more narrow, your figures drew closer together, until you could feel the long sleeves of his haori brush against your own.

You hadn't noticed that the two of you eventually stopped walking and paused under a tree until Aizen struck up conversation once more. When he called out your name in that gentle, velvety voice, you swore your heart was going to lurch out of your chest. The sound of your name rolled of his tongue so smoothly, the desire to hear it again grew within you.

"Uh━ yes, Captain Aizen?"

"Are you satisfied with way things are at the moment?"

You stood next to him, perplexed at his inquiry due to its vague nature. "Um, what. . . . things? I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking."

The wind brushed Aizen's dark ochre tresses across his face as he took a step towards you, like the breeze itself was pushing him towards you. "Hm, perhaps I should be more clear then. Are you content with being a soul reaper? Are you satisfied with being a soldier for the Soul Society?"

With your brows slightly furrowed in thought, you remained silent for several seconds and overanalyzed his every word, trying to predict where he might be steering the conversation now. The longer you thought it over, the stronger that nagging feeling from within your soul became. The one that often told you what he was asking wasn't exactly . . . it didn't quite feel . . . . .

"This feels like a prelude to another insightful discussion on Shinigami━ and by extension━ Seiretei politics." Your words cut off your own thoughts, as if your mind was trying to sweep something under the proverbial rug.

Aizen huffed in amusement, before lightly shrugging, leaving your statement definitively unanswered.

You sighed as you seriously considered his question this time. "I mean sure, I guess. I'm somewhat satisfied with my job and all of . . . this," gesturing your hands in the air around you to emphasize your point. The 5th Division Captain made another humming noise, indicating that you still had his full attention. He inched a little closer into your personal space.

The mere action caused your next words to die in your throat and a quiet chuckle resounded from his, before your thoughts revived themselves again.

"Of course things could always be better but. . . . y'know. This is just how it is." You weren't quite sure if you should voice negative opinions about the Soul Society so plainly to a senior officer, even if he was the one who asked you in the first place, so you treaded lightly.

The same plainly relaxed smile from earlier remained painted across his lips, held in his chestnut irises was an emotion akin to affection. He seemed somewhat pleased that you were expressing your thoughts with him.

“And you? Are you satisfied, Captain Aizen?” You were unable to keep the teasing endearment out of your tone as you returned his gaze, casting aside the notions of Gotei officer seating and ranks for the moment. The air seemed like it shifted━ towards what, you weren't sure of━ but it kind of made you feel like you were adrift, floating in isolation from everything else around you.

It was still hard to process that you were alone with Captain Aizen right now. . . . at night.

A low hum reverberated within his chest, contemplative in nature as he replied, “Perhaps.”

The wind whistled lowly again, erecting goosebumps on whatever part of your skin happened to catch the midnight breeze. You fought the instinctual urge to twitch towards the nearest source of heat, which happened to be Aizen. Now that would be even more wholly inappropriate than the 'lovers meeting at midnight' scenario.

The silence between the both of you was brief, but comfortable nonetheless. Once more his mellifluous voice cut through the quiet, leveled and calm, like still ocean waters.

“Come. I want to show you something,” Aizen reached his arm out towards you, your spine as straight as if someone stuck a metal rod dipped in ice water down your robes.

The captain's movements seemed steady and slow━ it had felt like time itself had hesitated for several moments. You thought he was going to . . . . well you weren't sure what he was going to do, and that's what you made you nervous.

Was he going to touch you? Cradle your cheek? Remove a stray leaf that happened to land on your head? You were left somewhat dangling in anticipation, not daring to flinch backwards because you felt it would be disrespectful or offensive. You hadn't even blinked, subconsciously fearing that this was only a very vivid daydream.

But alas, when his arm drew near it extended past your head, slightly above you, and held a small branch in his palm it like a delicate flower. You released a breath you didn't know you were holding, but that breath drew short again when your gaze was eye level with his lower neck and chin.

He seemed . . . . closer.

“I think that regarding the condition of the Soul Society," Aizen began in a quiet voice, referencing his own reply to his earlier question, "and therefore my thoughts about it, is akin to this set of leaves on this branch."

Snapping out of whatever stupor you seemed to have slipped in, you exhaled softly before stepping back a bit to look at what he was talking about. In his palm he cradled a wayward branch that grew from one of the other sturdier branches of the tree. The green foliage of its arms had started to weaken and dull in color. The cold air due to the seasonal transition to autumn caused the leaves become brittle, nearing closer to the edge of death.

The sound of just how brittle they were resounded in the air when Aizen thumbed the leaves in between his fingertips, observing their texture with pity laced in his small movements.

"These leaves will fall off as it gets colder. And soon, the rest of this tree will be bare as well. When the time comes, when the right circumstances fall into place, the old die to make way and usher in the new; it's simply the way things are. I think of the Soul Society government is structured in a similar manner."

You hung onto his every word, like he were imparting crucial wisdom to you. Even though you were a bit confused on the last part, and on the connection between dying leaves and Soul Society, you still listened intently, waiting for him bridge the gap between the two.

"The Soul Society as it is now can be thought of as a season. And this particular season, this climate has remained so for several centuries. How can nature continue━ how can we continue to progress when the old have yet to be washed away by the currents of time? It defies that of nature, yes?" He directed this question at you specifically, in search of your agreement.

You nodded your head, tearing your gaze away from the branch and directed it at the grass beneath your feet. Your brows furrowed a little as you mused over Aizen's words. He gave a rather ambiguous answer before but now, his words sounded like vague displeasure and muted criticism. Everyone was entitled to their opinion, and on some fronts, you'd sometimes agreed with the 5th Division Captain. The Soul Society was far from perfect, too much emphasis on nobility and status, the government resembled too closely to an oligarchy . . . But you didn't━ wouldn't voice these thoughts, though.

Instead you hummed quietly under your breath. There was that tugging sensation again. This time it told you that there was something deeper to this conversation than meets the eye. But what could there be? Was there anything at all or were you just overthinking it?

The voice-like sensation in your soul was calling out to you, but you couldn't hear it that well or quite make out what it was saying. It's as if someone was calling out to you in a crowded room that had music playing on the speakers: you felt like if you listened hard enough you could make it out but ultimately, the result would fruitless.

"And when that happens," Aizen continued, "sometimes nature has to be gently nudged back on track to keep things moving smoothly. That may require . . . shaking the tree. Pulling a few harmful weeds from one's garden, so to speak."

"Weeds?" You echoed. You felt like you understood this analogy and therefore what he was trying to say, but at the same time you didn't. Or was it . . . . you didn't want to understand what he was implying?

Because if you were interpreting his words correctly, if he were inconspicuously comparing the higher-ups and the government itself to dying leaves and harmful plants that needed to be removed, then . . . .

"You, dear child, are a mere weed in this scenario."

Wait, what did he just━

Your thoughts were cut short when a gush of air that smelt strongly of Aizen━ warm oak, vanilla, and a kind of musk that you weren't sure how to describe but was still pleasant all the same━ brushed against your face and took you by surprise.

But there was another aroma that arose, steadily becoming more apparent alongside the increasingly painful throbbing feeling you felt in your abdomen.

It smelt metallic. And it was something that you've smelt all too many times before.

It was blood.

Your gaze that was initially narrowed in confusion lowered as it followed the source of this pain. Your eyes slowly widened in as you struggled to comprehend the blade that was currently ran through your torso.

Aizen's blade.

"Actually, instead of weeds, a more accurate and befitting analogy perhaps would be blades of grass. You unfortunately have to step on them in order to reach the weeds you want to remove."

You couldn't really focus on what the captain was saying, because your brain was still struggling to process what the hell just happened. Your hands slowly rose from their sides and shakily grazed the zanpakuto, wanting to believe that if you touched it, it would pass right through your fingers like mist. But no, the sensation of cold steel was as real as the robes you wore on your back. You only just now are processing the muffled squelching sound of his sword impaling your flesh.

You wanted to scream, to cry in pain, to vomit, to push him off━ something. But all you could do was stand there, stunned, words completely failing you. "Wh. . . . what? Why did . . . . you . . . . "

A cough replaced your attempt at a comprehensive sentence, and you tasted iron in your mouth.

Fuck....was this really happening?

"Please don't push yourself trying to talk," His voice was like an index finger to one's lips, similar to a parent's gentle caress to quiet and sooth their child, "You'll only hasten your death. And I'm sure you wish to know the reason for my killing you, yes? You'd have to be alive for that."

'Killing me?' 'My death?' The certainty that rang in his words chilled the blood in your veins, and they confirmed the one conclusion you hoped wouldn’t come true: that you were going to die.

The frigid embrace of fear and dread engulfed you from behind and you shivered, causing the blade snugly lodged in your organs to shift. The pain of that foreign object moving even a little bit shot through your entire body, causing a groan to emerge from your throat.

Desperate to conserve your energy and the oxygen that was becoming a little harder to take in, your breathing became uneven and a little wheezed. Even then, you couldn’t bring yourself to meet the gaze of Captain Aizen to confirm if this was really happening or just an extremely realistic and vivid nightmare. The sight you might be greeted with could be more frightening than the actual impaling of his sword.

As if his betrayal couldn’t actually or figuratively cut you any deeper, just then there was a noise that grew louder and louder within a matter of seconds until it was almost deafening. You’ve distinguished it to be the sound of glass crackling.

Your surroundings formed cracks everywhere on its surface, like it was just an oversized window. Even on the grass you stood on, or what you thought was grass, began to crumble away.

A dumbfounded but panicked look was plastered on your face when your world literally shattered around you, the only remnants of it being you and the Captain.

What was underneath the mirage━ or you should say, the fact that it was a mirage at all━ only disturbed you and increased your perplexity.

Slightly hunched over and breathing heavily, it took a minute to process where you were, but you noticed that now the two of you stood in a formal room that looked like it was used for important meetings. The lights in the room slowly started to brighten, most likely due to motion sensors. Even with Aizen's scent lingering in your nose, you could still pick out a rather stale aroma that hung in the air like dead fruit that hadn't fallen off the tree.

"Is . . . this Cen . . . tral━ "

"You are correct. Where we currently stand is the assembly hall for Central 46, the judicial power of the Soul Society. All judiciary as well as legislative trials and proceedings are held here."

All around the room were seats with partitions, the kanji for 1 through 46 printed on them. In the seat for the 19th member, your gaze caught onto something on the translucent barrier. It was a little farther up so you had to squint your already blurring vision to see it properly.

You saw, and your heart promptly sank as a result, eyes widening once more.

There were splatters of a dark colored substance on the partition━ undeniably blood. And the lithe, bony fingers of an older man laid lifeless, peeking out from the side of the screen like the appendages themselves were trying to escape from the body they were attached to.

That man . . . was dead. That stale aroma you smelt was the stench of death.

It was only after that unsettling epiphany did your eyes dart frantically around the room and realize that every member of Central 46 was dead.

The disturbed expression on your face only intensified as your stare was pulled back down to where Aizen's blade still resided in your body.

" Cap.....Aizen," you uttered, swift to correct yourself. All the moisture in your throat dried up like water underneath the unrelenting rays of the sun. You kept gulping your saliva in an attempt to assuage the sensation, but relief only last for a fleeting few seconds. "Did you ━ you killed them . . . didn't you?" Your question was laced with shaky hesitance and swelled with apprehension, fearing that you already knew his reply even before he answered.

There was a moment of silence and a hum before he replied. "Smart girl."

The muted mirthful tone in his voice sounded like sarcasm, and it was enough to finally draw your attention away from everything else and directly look at him. Almost instantly, you regretted it.

His umber tinted gaze was colder than you remembered. You couldn't find anything in his eyes that hinted that all of this was just a big misunderstanding, or a dream, or that Aizen had a secret sense dark and complex humor.

This was your first, and apparently your last time, that you have ever felt a fear such as this. Your mind was struggling to comprehend this was the same Aizen that spoke with you so gently, full of encouragement and wisdom. The same man that recommended you books to read and gifted you tea to drink and gazed upon you like . . .

Well, none of that mattered now. In this moment, Sōsuke Aizen wasn't the same man anymore. This Sōsuke Aizen was someone else, and it frightened you.

"When?" you croaked, your voice no longer sounding like your own. Nothing felt real anymore. "W-When did you . . . . . how? Why?"

Another noncommittal hum resounded from the spectacled man as he closed his eyes, feigning the action of thinking of an answer. When he reopened them, his narrow gaze returned to you.

"Everyone in the Thirteen Court Guard Squads was previously aware that the ability of my zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu, allowed me to confuse the enemy using bodies of water, mist and even moisture in the air in order to attack. However, that is not my zanpakuto's actual power; there is more to it than just simple confusion. Kyoka Suigetsu's true power is Complete Hypnosis. Essentially, when someone looks at my blade, I am then able to take control of that person’s five senses, causing them to believe that something is real ━ or that something isn't real. In a way, once glancing at my unsheathed zanpakuto, that person forfeits their sense of existence to me. Kyoka Suigetsu is quite flawless in its deceptive abilities."

A heavy silence, aside from your uneven breaths, endured in the space between both of you. You didn't need him to spell out what he was trying to say.

It was all . . . . an illusion. A convoluted, premeditated illusion. And you walked right into it without even knowing or considering, that it was all fake.

The Fifth Division Captain inwardly smiled at the despair clearly written on your face as he watched you mentally put the pieces together. He took your lack of reply as a sign to continue. "The members of Central 46 have unfortunately been dead for quite some time now. And as for your question of why......"

The taller man stepped towards you which inadvertently (or purposely, you began to fear), drove his sword deeper into your abdomen without warning and slight force. You bit down on your bottom lip hard to stifle your exclamation of pain. In an attempt to somehow resist him, with the little strength you had left, your hands automatically took purchase in his oversized sleeves, but it did nothing. You found it ironic that you could feel how warm Aizen was underneath his robes, but his soul was anything but.

" . . . . I believe I already mentioned it earlier, yes? All flowers die eventually and the weeds......must be removed."

At that moment you remembered that tugging sensation that told you something felt off in some instances whenever you talked with Aizen. This must have been what it was. Damn it all. You still didn't understand exactly what bad things Central 46 and the Soul Society have done to cause his actions, but based on what you've been told and your current position, it must have been heinous. Again, you actively swallowed the urge to vomit.

"You . . . you lied. I can't believe━ how could it have all b-been a lie?" Another nasty cough rattled your body, followed by a shiver and a groan.

The brown-haired man slightly tilted his head, like he was truly confused. "Lied? Hmm, well. I suppose you could put it that way based on your limited knowledge of the circumstances, but I wouldn't put it that way. Besides, this isn't really about truth or lies. It is, and always has been, only about the reality of what is. And what is, is that you were unable to anticipate my deception. No one could, because it was outside the domain of your thoughts. What is, is that the current way the Soul Society operates is tainted, and I shall be the one to remedy it."

You drew another shuddering breath and looked down at the ground with a grim expression as your blood continued to pool at your feet. Briefly, you even considered unsheathing yourself from his blade and take the chance to make a run for it, but the chances of you making it to the outside world, let alone coming across someone before you bled out and died were slim. Besides, it was clear that you couldn't even trust your own senses anymore after Aizen demonstrated that he had complete control of your reality.

Which reminded you of something else.

" . . . when?" you asked the same question again, but much quieter than before, despair palpable in your voice. 'When and how did you subject me to your zanpakuto's Complete Hypnosis?', is what you were really asking. And being as intelligent as he was, the spectacled man understood.

Abruptly, with a large palm on the small of your back, Aizen used his gentle hold grip to pull you towards him in order to close the remaining distance, causing him to drive the remaining length of his zanpakuto all the way through until the tsuba of his blade rested against your stomach. You looked like a skewered piece of meat.

You didn't have the willpower to hold back the piercing shriek of agony and physical anguish as tears sprung forth from your eyes. You could no longer tell if your blurry vision was due to your tears obstructing your sight or if it was from being a step away from death's door.

"Do you remember . . . the first time we met?"

The hand that rested on your lower back slowly glided upwards until his fingers found your jaw. With a tenderness that reminded you of a time before his betrayal, he lifted your chin and guided your gaze to look at him directly. His thumb moved to graze your bottom lip just as you've done mere hours ago━ as if he knew that, as if he watched you do it. His thumb was dangerously close to slipping inside your mouth and that both excited and scared you. Your breasts against his, your breaths synchronized with his, your body and his were fully pressed against each other and it made focusing on his question more difficult.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The first time . . . we met? Sure, with a little bit of effort you could easily recall the first time you formally met Aizen. It was sometime in the spring, and you remembered him running through combat formations with his lieutenant and the rest of his squad. But why d━

A silent gasp left you. Another epiphany, another figurative blade piercing your heart.

Battle formations, and he . . . offered you to join them . . . his zanpakuto . . . . .

Confusion crumbled away, and was replaced with vacant horror and sadness. It seems you've already been defeated, for many, many years now.

Aizen seemed to murmur something under his breath, a pleased sound you couldn't quite decipher. His mouth brushed over yours, rendering you literally speechless, before he closed the distance and brought your lips together. You could barely process what was happening.

It was ironically tragic how soft and skillfully gentle his lips were against yours. The kiss felt longing, like a departure between two sweethearts and their last meeting together. It also felt heavy and final, making you want to cry.

And you did. Silent tears streamed from your eyes and rolled onto the fingers that still held your face so affectionately. The captain reacted by guiding your chin up a little further, dipping his head a little lower, so he could deepen the kiss. You weakly scorned yourself for thinking about how the two of you must really look like lovers now, sans the sword sticking out from your back.

Oh, how cruel this was; how cruel he was. It was cruel for him to kiss you like this, hand still splayed on your back like he needed to touch you stay sane. And how cruel it was that still managed to enjoy it, even as you stood there dying. Your lips moved together in tandem, slow and almost passionate, all while tears stained the apples of your cheeks, drying up the plush youth that once resided in them.

Aizen's tongue had slithered its way into your mouth, and you suddenly felt like crying harder. There was a tart, sweet flavor lingering on his tastebuds, and you absently wondered what is was. Perhaps hibiscus from tea, you surmised. And he too tasted the sweet jasmine and citrus that clung your tongue and lips. At this, he chuckled quietly into your mouth, humming before retracting from you by a few inches so he could speak.

"I knew you would like the tea. It's sweet and flavorful, isn't it?" You hated how low his voice was, how its timbre pleasurably vibrated and rumbled against your lips, and you hated that lidded stare he gave you. You again thought it unfair that you couldn't even revel in the rare sight of Aizen's lips slightly wet because your lips were intertwined with his.

"I have to thank you for humoring me and my recommendations. I really appreciated it. And I also," you winced loudly and cried out in affliction as Aizen finally began to withdraw the sword from your body, "must to bid you farewell now. It seems you don't have any more time left, and this has dragged on for longer than it needed. I'm not surprised you've held out for this long, as I already knew you possessed commendable strength. But alas it wasn't enough. I am sorry that you have to die; it's rather regrettable that you happened to be that blade of grass that ended up underneath my foot."

Another wail was yanked from your chest as he steadily removed his sword from your abdomen. The pain was becoming excruciating, you would have collapsed by now if the taller man weren't holding you.

You saw two things before the light in your eyes had all but faded away. The first were the colors of faux pity and apathy that swirled in Sōsuke Aizen's irises, spiraling like a storm that was certain to wreak havoc in its wake. His gaze was devoid of any regret or remorse; the final metaphorical nail on the coffin. The second was a small smile.

But this wasn't one of his smiles you were familiar with. No wait . . . . the one you knew was simply a veneer of what is.

This smile was slanted, the corners of his lips tilted upwards and was sharp. Sharp enough to cut open your already gaping wound further and completely tear you apart, spelling out your demise. It looked insidious as if it were hiding razor-edged fangs. This was what is; Aizen's real smile.

"I. . . I see. Aize. . . ." were the last words you were able to manage. You didn't have the strength to be upset or hurt any longer, so you gave in to the exhaustion.

Your body permanently relaxed, long lashes veiling your now empty eyes as your arms lifelessly dropped to your sides. The captain found a disturbing amount of pleasure in his name being the final word you attempted to speak before succumbing to the sleep of death.

And even after the fact, the facade of doomed, star-crossed lovers persisted as your body slumped backwards. Aizen's strong forearm wrapped tightly around your waist being the only reason you didn't fall to the ground in a puddle of your own blood.

That day was the last anyone saw of you, your zanpakuto still laid idly in your room, its spirit destined to forever wander in the afterlife between worlds alone, eventually fading from existence without ever feeling the presence of its master again.

They had declared you missing by the end of the next day. Lieutenant Hisagi was probably the most perturbed about your sudden disappearance. Days, weeks passed, and they never located you. The Gotei 13 was left unsettled by the lack of progress, but ultimately had to rule your case inconclusive. Some believed that you were simply killed by a stray hollow, or even ran away from your duties because of the stress.

The news of what happened spread like wildfire across all the squads, that a high-ranked officer just up and vanished without a trace. The spirits and morale of the thirteen companies dampened, sorrow and worry swelling like a festering boil.

And that boil burst when Ryoka infiltrated the Soul Society, and when it was revealed that all of it was carefully orchestrated by Sōsuke Aizen.

Like a blade of grass that somehow snuck into one's sandals or in between their toes, during his time in Hueco Mundo, images of you flashed in his head at unexpected times when his mind was quiet. He'd remove the grass, tossed you aside, and moved on with his day. There was no room for you in the grand scheme of things. Such reminisces were beneath someone like him.

And yet.

He'd always find another piece of grass from the greenery he stepped on whenever he advanced a step in his plans. There you were again.

It was common knowledge that if you kept repeating the same action over and over, it will eventually wear you down.

━━━━━━ 鏡 ━━━━━━━

It was dark, and there was nothing.

There had been nothing for quite a long time now. Utter darkness and the abyssal shade of black engulfed every inch of Aizen's body and surroundings.

He saw nothing, the seals over his eyes too opaque to let anything through. And even if they weren't obscuring his vision, he would barely be able to see three feet in front of him; there was seldom a few lanterns in his cell to begin with. He felt nothing but the bindings that kept him imprisoned in one of the deepest pits of the Seireitei. At times it felt like even his internal organs had stilled in their functions. He heard nothing but the unrelenting quiet of his cell within Mugen's maw. The only thing that served as proof that he hasn't spontaneously grown deaf yet was the occasional muffled noise that originated from outside of the entrance. And even then, he could hardly hear much of anything.

Such is an ironic fate for someone who, with a stray thought and a glint of his blade, could control someone's senses and take away their free will to experience those senses in their reality. And now, he was stripped away of all of his in nearly every capacity.

Sōsuke Aizen was rendered stationary and stagnant, qualities he detested and were the antithesis of his ambitions and plans, perhaps even his existence.

Aizen had always believed in being in control of your own destiny and making your own choices; if you had the opportunity and the power to change something━ especially if it was something that was wrong, unfair or immoral━ then one should be able to move towards that goal by making change, even if by force. The former captain had always been intentional about his actions and his desires right from the start.

And yet, here he ended up.

Spending years strapped to a chair in this dark, cloistered hole, Aizen had nothing but time to reflect the reason for his arrest: that orange haired Ryoka boy, Ichigo Kurosaki. He had nothing but time to admit to himself and settle on the conclusion that his last battle with the substitute Shinigami . . . did something to him.

Fighting the Ryoka boy ignited something inside him that he previously believed would forever lay dormant.

The thrill of a challenge.

Adrenaline was injected into his veins with each clash of their swords, spreading far and wide across every inch of his body. It no longer reacted in the measured, calculative manner he had programmed it to, but with unadulterated, pure instinct and raw power━ all in an effort to not only withstand such potent spirit energy from his opponent, but to come out on top and win.

It made him feel alive.

Aizen's desire to be the victor in battle and in his philosophy━ to prove himself right━ both fueled him and consumed him so thoroughly it led to his own downfall. That was a rather difficult fact to acknowledge; so much so his head started to pulsate intensely whenever it crossed his mind one time too often.

All of it unfolded right in front of his eyes and yet . . . he didn't really see it happen.

As time passed during his perpetual incarceration, with hooded eyes, the former captain spent an unfathomable amount of time tossing and turning every single event that led him to this underground prison, even pondering his temporary release by the Head Captain Kyōraku to fight in the war. Scenarios both minor and significant displayed itself in front of his mind's eye as if he were watching a film.

Every so often, a blurred visage of your image would make a brief appearance, like the flickering sparks of a match before they were able to come to light, fading away into the void and were overshadowed by his other thoughts. It was as if his own consciousness and intentionally muted any manifestations of your existence in his memories. As if he wasn't able to or allowed to see them━ to remember you for too long.

Mentally reliving moments from the last several months, years, decades, centuries━ trying to analyze each moment and decipher where it could have went wrong━ turned out to be quite an exhausting task. His mind and body would grow heavier with inertia, and eventually he would succumb to the alluring pull of slumber. After some time he would rouse from his sleep, and continued from where he left off.

These were his daily activities day in and day out (even though he had trouble distinguishing day and night in his chambers) for years. He saw a positive side to it though. He'd instead think of it has him getting stronger because he had spent so long . . . thinking. Ruminating. Contemplating every possibility in the past, present, and future. His mind would become as sharp as his zanpakuto.

Aizen had always been intentional about what he did, what he said, and how he conducted himself. He was sure in his abilities to orchestrate an image━ a belief for others to have faith in, and act on it in order to further his goals. He was always sure in that image, knowing who he was and what he stood for.

Or at least, that's what he thought.

Aizen wasn't consciously aware that his certainty in this crafted image had already begun to waver. He could not and was unable to anticipate how severe these small fractures had become until after a certain lieutenant paid him a visit outside his cell of confinement, right before he was scheduled to be thrown back into that dark hole of the Mugen.

Lieutenant Shuhei Hisagi was quite emotive when he burst through the doors. His expressions were contorted in volatile mixture of frustration, anger and sadness. His emotions were every which way, directed at everything that has happened so far, including himself. He was especially emotive at Aizen specifically for what he did to former captain Kaname Tosen and 'corrupting him with his twisted ideals.'

Aizen found amusement in that.

Before he was rolled away by the punishment force and therefore out of earshot, a particular set of Hisagi's words caused the small, content smile on his lips to uncurl ever so slightly. "Everything . . . and everyone that has ever gotten themselves involved with you has been trampled on by you and your ideals one way or another, and they all end up dead. If you think what you did to Captain Tosen was justified━ to call it mercy . . . . . then there is truly no justice in this world. You will . . . forever be the enemy in my eyes."

There was a trembling anger in his voice. Pain that wanted to cry out and be set free but, the thin lid of reason prevented it from doing so. And after a moment of silence, the corners of Aizen's lips curved upwards once more. A little bemused, a little more wolfish this time. He maliciously imagined Hisagi's reaction if he ever discovered the true reason for your disappearance.

But instead, all he said was. "What an interesting thing to say, Shuhei Hisagi. Your conviction is admirable." Any evidence of emotion that might have been reflected in his sepia irises was swallowed up and obscured by the darkness of the Mugen's jaw.

The cracks in Aizen's sense of self, in his beliefs, in the image he invented started to cave under the weight of Hisagi's words before he himself realized it was happening. They were like stains in the fabric of his mind that refused to come out.

What puzzled him more, was that with each attempt to figure out just why Hisagi's words echoed in his mind, they all lead back to you, the third seat of the 9th squad. Annoyingly so.

The tattooed lieutenant hadn’t said anything particularly profound ━ at least, Aizen didn't think so. Your name didn’t even fall from his lips. So why were memories of you and your likeness the only clear thoughts he could make of Hisagi's speech? Was it because he was aware of how close the two of you were? He doubted the reason were that trivial and insignificant.

His thoughts grew more discordant by the day, his soul a little more weighted than usual. Perhaps these new seals that Urahara had fashioned actually had an effect on him, Aizen thought. It made sense. His intellect, other than his own, were the only ones capable of creating such effective restraints.

After a while, he had a revelation. This was a different kind of weight.

This heaviness, the closest word he knew to describe it as . . . . was loneliness.

Time taunted him as it seemed to drag on━ Aizen grew even less sure of how much━ when he came to this realization. Hisagi's words were a clear mirror to the loneliness that echoed within him after what happened to you and to Tosen. It was so . . . potent, that it seemed to strike some chord in Aizen he had never heard before.

Such a chord, this sound of loneliness, it was strange and uncomfortable; he wasn't very fond of this sensation. He'd try to scrub it away, but it was all for naught.

His eyes had slid shut at some point, his ruminations leading to dead ends and wearing him down. And, almost as expected, there you were again, in all your translucent glory. The hem, the sleeves, and even the smell of your yukata slowly dragged across his dreams, haunting his thoughts like a lonely wraith.

And Aizen hardly dreamt of anything.

When he regained consciousness he was plagued with yet another epiphany. An additional reason behind this newfound depth.

Aizen's own loneliness. Guilt. Much to his own quiet horror.

How foreign and unusual a thing like guilt is. It was like looking into a mirror and not recognizing something you had never noticed before, but wondered if it had always been there.

But the thing Aizen did recognize, how lonely he actually felt, was something he had hoped would never resurface again. It was a notion he hadn't had the time or regard to consider━ 'loneliness'. Its only purpose, if any, was solely to serve as a motivator. At times though, it was more like a hindrance.

Something akin to nausea slowly started to bubble up in the pit of his stomach, but he suppressed the sensation before it became any more intense.

What of his previous actions did he need to feel guilty for? He hadn't felt it then, so why would he feel it now? Again he ruminated such a question endlessly into oblivion.

The former captain had no doubts that his plan to remove the Soul King, and therefore the Soul Society's sins, were necessary.

Nor did any hesitancy about removing the opposition or dead weight━ whether shinigami or arrancar━ existed.

He certainly had no reservations against killing Kaname Tosen, for he knew the man well enough to know that Tosen would have been so thoroughly appalled with what he had become, it would have drove him mad.

So what was it, then? Why were such useless emotions as guilt and loneliness being amplified n━

"Y....know, S....."

Even covered by the seals, Aizen's eyes widened and his brows were slightly furrowed in distress. Had his mind finally tipped the scales of sanity and madness, to the point where he was hearing things?

It was quiet for several moments longer, before his senses caught onto the sound of water dripping onto a hard surface.

One drop at a time.

Its cadence a little too rhythmic to be natural. And for a second time, he heard that soft, ominous sounding whisper. Its voice a little clearer this time.

"You...know.....Sōsuke."

In the second it took for his eyes to flutter shut behind its seals to blink, when he reopened them, he was no longer sealed to the walls and floors of the Mugen, nor was he surrounded by every shade of darkness imaginable. His limbs and senses were finally freed to breathe for the first time in what felt like ages.

That relief was short-lived when his senses absorbed the unending landscape of water underneath his feet, water lilies lifelessly floating on its surface, and the dim sky illuminated by a full pale moon.

Aizen was in his inner world, and now he was aware of how he got here, or rather who brought him here.

"You . . . already know the answer to that question, Sōsuke." The voice was even more clear, its sentences more comprehensible. And it sounded it eerily like you.

Why the voice was impersonating your likeness had caught him off guard for half a second, but he realized it was only the work of his zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu.

An illusion it may be, there was an untouchable quality about your voice and how you spoke that even Kyoka Suigetsu couldn't replicate.

A few feet away from him, the water was disturbed by a being emerging from the depths. Ripples formed around a manifested version of his zanpakuto, who took the form of you, smiling ever so gently. The smile felt airy, and it didn't seem like the same one that haunted his dreams and every waking thought as of late. It felt....knowing.

Still, the former captain couldn't be bothered to maintain eye contact with his sword spirit, so he turned around and opted to keep his unreadable stare trained on the vast expanse of water and white lilies.

"It's been quite a while since I have stepped foot into this realm. There must be something you want . . . Kyoka."

The zanpakuto chuckled, it sounded like the way you would softly laugh at one of his clever quips. But this wasn't you.

He didn’t want to admit that something about that fact didn’t sit right with him.

"Judging from your tone, would I be correct in assuming you don't want to be here?"

Silence rang out within the soul scape, before Aizen interrupted it, his gentle voice colored a shade darker, and a little rigid. "And I fail to see the reason why you must take that form when you revealed yourself to me. Is your aim to get a reaction out of me? Or something along those lines?"

Your eyes━ the eyes of Kyoka Suigetsu━ narrowed at its master's back, as if they were trying to create concavities in his skull. But the expression was washed away the moment it appeared, the serene smile from before was back in place.

"You know . . . it's considered quite rude to not look at someone when you're addressing them. That, and when you deliberately ignore things they say. Your manners have been deteriorating, Sōsuke. Tsk, tsk."

Kyoka-dressed-as-you suddenly appeared before him, as if they had teleported. Even when they were in his peripheral vision, Aizen still maintained his stare off into the distant nothingness.

"Unless, you can't find it in yourself to look at me. . . that's correct, isn't it? It's because I look exactly like her, right?" The zanpakuto continued to provoke him, taking a step closer into his personal space.

With an exasperated sigh, his eyelids fell shut for a second, using that time to gather the strength he didn't know he needed, and directed his gaze to meet his spirit's. Aizen's face gave nothing away, but his heart lurched about his chest when his bronze eyes met with yours, or what was made to look like yours. The undesired affect it had on him was all the same.

"If you wish to chastise me about manners, I suggest you take your own advice. You didn't answer my first question, either: what is it you want? Why am I here?" Again the former captain chose to not address the other parts of Kyoka's statement. For the sake of his sanity and his thinning patience━ or was it to preserve his resolve?

Its smile widened a bit, moving another step closer to their master. God, Kyoka even smelled like you, mimicking your signature honeyed scent that Aizen didn't realize he found so intoxicating until this very moment.

"I called you here to save you from yourself."

Aizen remained silent, only narrowing his eyes in speculation. "Meaning?"

"Didn't I already say it earlier? I think you already know what I'm talking about, Sōsuke. You've always known."

Fate's pairing of Kyoka Suigetsu with Aizen was a match crafted from the spindles of heaven, but also a maddening curse pulled from the depths of hell, for they complimented each other a little too well. The zanpakuto was too perfect a reflection of Aizen and his soul, looking at it started to hurt his eyes.

His sword spirit insisted that he already knew the reason for his coming here, and perhaps he did have an inkling the moment the light of epiphany was shone on his profound loneliness and guilt. But that couldn't have been what it was referring to . . . . could it?

"You cannot feign ignorance here, my dear Sōsuke, however I do find it rather humorous you bother trying. If you'd like, I don't mind humoring you by spelling it out for you. I'd be glad to unearth the truth that you have buried in the most neglected corner of your heart."

"When you were . . . . subjecting yourself to such mental torment, it had an affect on this world as well. The ripples, the waves in this scape become quite . . . tumultuous." The nuances in your voice were perfected by his zanpakuto, but the way it talked sounded like a fog that was gradually closing in from over the horizon. The uneasy feeling that resided in his chest traveled down to his stomach, but Aizen's face remained steely, even when Kyoka Suigetsu took that final step to close the gap in between them. "And the reason for that, the reason why Hisagi's words rattled you so is because you regret killing that woman."

The creased line in Aizen's brow grew more prominent as he stared down his sentient sword spirit. With its breast pressed against his, they placed a hand on his clothed chest in a tantalizing manner, but he felt nothing. There was no warmth from its palm, much unlike when your hand touched him. There wasn't even a cool sensation either. Even minutes before your death, your touch brought a soothing heat that permeated through his shihakusho and penetrated his skin.

Kyoka's face grew nearer, their smile━ although still tender looking━ grew cold at its edges, nearly resembling that of a predator eager to see despair reflected in the eyes of its prey. It didn't fit the graceful allure of your face at all, and seeing this expression deeply unsettled the former captain more than he would like to admit.

"You regret . . . killing me."

A chill tore through Aizen's body, the weight of Kyoka's words adding onto the heaviness that still hasn't been alleviated from his heart; he was hardly able to suppress the involuntary shiver.

Without warning, Kyoka's mouth suddenly became dangerously close to their master's, its lips brushing against his in a provocative manner. Aizen's expression darkened when he realized that it was reenacting his last encounter with you when you were alive. His mouth started to grow uncomfortably dry, despite his soul scape being full of moisture, and there was a taste on the back of his tongue that's been lingering there since he arrived.

The lilt in Kyoka's tone continued to taunt him. "That is the reason for your guilt: regret. You have been in denial. And in the spirit of unearthing truths, I suppose I can admit that perhaps . . . . I've been . . . . encouraging said delusions, adding drops of fuel into the flames of your emotions and ambitions. But after all that's happened, when it comes down to it there's no point in continuing this hallucination any longer. I've grown tired of this game, so it's time to for you wake up now, Sōsuke. I've brought you here to release you from your own illusion, to completely shatter it."

Aizen's back was as stiff as a board, not moving a millimeter when Kyoka's lips grazed his again. They were breathing softly onto his mouth, but he hardly felt any puffs of air.

The former captain was having a rather difficult time processing the fact that his zanpakuto had its own agenda and had been manipulating his emotions without him noticing. Specifically the emotions he felt towards you.

He never truly believed that such a thing was possible, one's own blade having such a deep-rooted influence━ no, control over their master. Or would it be more accurate to say that he never expected himself to be controlled to such a degree? He that prided himself on being freed from the marionette strings of fate that were tied to his limbs and mind, he that relished being able to do what he wanted, think what he wanted, feel what he wanted━ or what he didn't want━ it was hard to believe that none of that mattered in the end.

Kyoka Suigetsu's deceptive abilities were indeed undeniably perfect. No one, not even Aizen himself could have anticipated that Kyoka's most absolute and complete hypnosis would be enacted on himself.

"Do you know now, Sōsuke? Do you understand?" Kyoka's voice was as soft as a whisper, but it couldn't hide the edges of its tone that were still sharpened from finding amusement of seeing the truth flash across its master's face. "You had destroyed the solution to your existential question of loneliness, before you could fully understand the question itself."

Yes . . . . . Aizen understood now.

He didn't bother acknowledging what Kyoka had said. His grim facial expression━ still, tinged with dolor, and paired with an indescribable, distant look his eyes━ said all that it needed to. His silence was as much as an admission as any.

Kyoka-dressed-as-you leaned forward again to fully close the gap between their lips and Aizen's. Tenderly, like the intentions of a lover, it spoke against his nearly closed mouth. "Have you figured it out yet?"

Nothing but quiet could be heard between them, as Kyoka's mouth moved about their master's face and placed something like kisses upon its surface, but not quite.

Aizen's cocoa-shaded eyes slide down to stare at his sword spirit pressed up against him. His gaze was hard, and yet something swam underneath its surface that his zanpakuto had never seen before. Melancholy, it guessed? They weren't quite sure.

Kyoka pressed on when Aizen remained quiet. "The taste in the back of your mouth. Have you figured out what it was? You know it quite well....."

Aizen's tongue grazed the roof of his mouth, sensing the rather unpleasant taste that has coated the inside of it. And within a moment, because he was faced with the current circumstances, Aizen had finally placed a name associated this particular taste. How unfortunate this was.

Upon his realization, Aizen's head lowered, and his brown tresses hung freely over his lashes. Perhaps it was so Kyoka couldn't properly see whatever remorseful expression painted their master's face, but it mattered not. Even from here, the sword spirit could already sense exactly what it was he was feeling.

And they loved it.

"It's a sweet and flavorful taste, isn't it? Quite lovely." Kyoka Suigetsu mimicked the exact words he uttered against your lips all those years ago when he tasted jasmine tea on your tongue, and sealed your death with a kiss. "It's too bad you don't seem to enjoy it anymore."

Aizen's chest continued to rise and fall calmly, and the hands of his sword spirit that rested there glided upwards to cup his strong jaw, caressing his skin with its thumb. Its phantasmic touch did nothing to stir their master.

"Sōsuke, do you know what the jasmine flower from that tea symbolizes?"

Aizen's lips were slightly parted, but again he didn't say anything. Instead, its corners twitched and lifted upwards by an inch, and he huffed softly.

Kyoka Suigetsu grinned in reply. "Good."

The next time Aizen blinked, he was plunged in darkness yet again. The restrictive feeling that swallowed his being whole had returned, and was an indicator that his zanpakuto had released him from his inner world. He was consciously back in the Mugen, back in this abyss they called a prison cell.

Kyoka was indeed as much as a formidable force in its own right, as much as, if not greater than Aizen himself.

The conversation he had with his sword spirit would be cemented in his head for all eternity. When he grew senile and began to physically wither away, the one thing that would remain vital like a young heart, was this epiphany that he had. This realization that he actually . . . .

As the chains of despair bound him tighter to the bottom of the metaphorical pit, regret and his loneliness corroding his flesh and spirit like metal exposed to moisture, a stray memory of his time in Hueco Mundo flashed in his mind. He recalled having tea prepared for meetings with his Espadas and he could not pinpoint when, but at some point, Aizen developed an aversion for jasmine flavored tea. For one reason or another, he no longer found its taste appealing; whenever he drank it, it always tasted bitter.

Now that reason had become painstakingly clear.

The binding on his mouth muffled a rueful chuckle at the though, and it trapped the flavor of jasmine on his lips.

(#) @soaringmirror @stygianoir @ryukenzz @blkjupiters @chrissie2003 @nymphoheretic @dejwrld @triangularz @souyaszn @kuujo @honeybleed @valentineluvu . let me know if you’d like to be apart of my tag list ♡♡.

247 notes · View notes

drawnfamiliarfaces · 1 month

Note

I was looking at your Halloween posts of the HoM and a thought occurred. Is Ben's extreme fear of ghosts/spirits and stuff related to his experiences with Ghostfreak/Zs'skayr?

And how did such fears affect his initial meeting with Danny?

Yes it is related! Original Ben10 run always gave me an impression that beside Vilgax, Ghostfreak/Zs'skayr left probably one of the most lasting impressions on 10-year-old Ben. After all, imagine you are 10 and you can tranform into aliens, but one of them almost takes over you and nearly kills your family member. Like??? I would be having an existential and identity crisis, not to mention the nightmares about not being able to control your own body and hurting your loved ones???

And sure, he defeated Zs'skayr multiple times, but I like to think that his fear of being controlled/taken over by Zs'skayr (or anyone) left one of the deeper scars on his psyche (amongst like a bajillion of others).

So, yes, that fear and trauma did affect his first meeting with Danny >;) very badly.

Their first encounter was full of misunderstandings and miscommunications all around (sort of like what we see happen between Rex and Ben in Heroes United but even worse) AND it didn't help that Ben was... let's just say, not in the greatest state of mind at that time and Danny didn't have the most rational and calm reactions to the situations either. Both had their own valid reasons, but it's still wasn't very good, lol.

There are also two very important extra circumstances surrounding their meeting that contributed to their reactions, that I dont want to spoil, because it would be more fun to try and tell in a story. xD

And there hopefully will be one, because Danny&Ben first meeting is one of the flashbacks that I had a lot of ideas for AND is important to the AU.

#que?#hom au q&a #hom au #danny phantom #ben tennyson #you have no idea how happy this ask made me when i first saw it #cause i made the 'ben afraid of ghosts' mentions twice and wondered if anyone noticed >;3 #i literally cackled when i finally got the ask because it made me >;)))))#makes it more awkward now that i took so long to answer. eeeeeeee sorrrrryyyyyyyy <;D #i say im excited about trying to tell about their meeting but i am also suffering about HOW to tell it #why is plot building so hard? D;>

178 notes · View notes

sugar-grigri · 8 months

Text

Crazy theory, but since I don't really read them, I don't know if it's ever been mentioned before.

I've already talked about this urge to discover the demon of death. So much so that fans see them in every new character introduced.

We know that Pochita punctuates both the birth and death of demons with his chainsaws.

I've always been surprised by the way Pochita calmly took hold of Makima, allowing Denji to knowingly save her by recommending that he give her love

Just as I'm surprised by Fami's interest in separating Chainsaw Man just as Yoru is stubbornly intent on revenge

How can these three horsemen of the apocalypse have so much interest and connection with a single demon?

We already know that Fujimoto has opted for the metaphorical, choosing the instrument designed for childbirth: the chainsaw, as the keystone of his story.

Chainsaw Man is intrinsically linked to birth and death

Denji's rebirth alone is linked to death having been cut up as well as Pochita?

Demons are born out of fear of one thing, so I know it might be strange that Pochita, representing chainsaws, represents death and isn't the chainsaw demon.

But two things: firstly, the impostor is actually the real chainsaw demon.

Fujimoto likes to undo our first impressions, so I find it absolutely INCREDIBLE that Denji should be the impostor from the start, the false Chainsaw Man in a part 2 that focuses on identity.

Secondly, how can simple chainsaws have so much power? I mean, sure, they're scary, but how can they have so much power as to be able to wipe out demons? Why should it be the chainsaw demon who's capable of this, and death remains crouched in the shadows?

This would also explain his promiscuity with the other Knights of the Apocalypse.

The demon of control wanted to play with Pochita - death was the only thing she couldn't totally control, the only thing she aspired to be on an equal footing with.

If Pochita understood her so well, it was as the fourth knight of the apocalypse. If Makima considered him her equal, it was because she couldn't control a demon she knew to be of her own rank. The logic follows with Nayuta.

The demon of war doesn't accept death, it accepts to spread it through conflicts and weapons of mass murder, but a general doesn't accept that death can touch him too. To spread death represents victory, to be touched by it a defeat that demands vengeance.

Famine works hand in hand with death, and is feared because suffering and death are the end result of not being able to eat. She's the one with the clearest goal at the moment: to save humanity. She doesn't hesitate to recruit her fellow Apocalypse members, whether it's proposing it to Nayuta, trying to recruit Asa and Yoru, or splitting Chainsaw Man in two to work with the pure state of the death demon.

The public hunters' aim is also to protect mankind from Nostradamus' prophecy, but by paralyzing death's actions as much as possible. They exploit Denji's flaws and desire to be normal to the full, threatening those around him. While the church, represented by Fami, titillates Denji's heroic side, his abnormalities, they want death to act.

It would also explain why everyone close to Denji is disappearing.

All the signs are pointing to Asa's imminent atrocity.

Wouldn't it be incredible to think that it's because death is in Denji's belly ?

Everything would then make sense: it's normal for Denji's development to stagnate, and for him to go through so many existential crises.

He doesn't know his own identity

What's more, it doesn't contradict my most meta theories: Fujimoto places himself in the work through Denji (cf. chapter 133), just as he responds directly to his fans (chapters 136 and 137).

We're all hating him, seeing all our favorite characters meet unfortunate deaths

It would all make sense if the manga we were holding in our hands, "Chainsaw Man", actually referred directly to death right from the start.

It would all make sense if we saw Part 1 as Denji's introduction to the ranks of hunters governed by an early death.

It would make sense for Aki's love for him to be a metaphor for accepting death, in the continuity of mourning.

It would make sense for Power to be reassured by Death when traumatized by the demon of darkness: she died twice for love, and the total disappearance of body and spirit allows us to escape the darkness.

I don't know if this theory holds, but let's agree...

It's poetic

#csm #asa chainsaw man #chainsaw man #csm part 2 #denji #asa #nayuta #fami #makima #yoru #barem #death devil #pochita #theory

463 notes · View notes

anantaru · 9 months

Text

cw. [ex]plicit, fem! reader, alcohol mentions, toxic lol, modern au & college au, frat boy xiao

a/n. this came to me in a dream lmao

frat boy xiao, and no one else, he was the one who made your legs almost give up on you the moment his hypnotic eyes meet yours while when he averts himself from your direction again, there was a terrible, existential emptiness riveting in your soul, a ceaseless and unending openness.

until now you felt that way, but you are living in reality and this wasn't your conventional, exaggerated rom con experience from an atrocious netflix movie, still, for all that wishful fantasizing inside of you, the desire of meeting your pristine soulmate at a random, huge college frat party fenced by loud, ear-splitting music, the hustle and bustle of binge drinking and beer pong, strangers escaping to the bathroom to hook up with each other, was still somewhat comforting.

frat boy xiao who only calls you when he's bored, only fucks you when he feels like it, it's not like he was a soulless person, in his own ways he was caring about you but he also made it clear that he wasn't searching for anything more serious, he wanted to stay within the lane of occasionally hooking up with you— but when he does, when you let him touch you, it's the best feeling in the world, resembling a moment when you stand ankle-deep on the beach at night, you hear it, that is, you hear the world breathing or how the sound carries across the water.

frat boy xiao who keeps you a secret in front of his friends, he fears that they might make a move on you if he doesn't. you're his to play with— although he wouldn't say it with his chest, he rather shows you instead. you sigh and swallow when he first sinks into you, eyes darkened with lust when he pushes into your body. xiao grunts appreciatively, lazily draping your shirt up so it'll rest above your now exposed breasts, revealing your full, soft chest and his face smooths under the shadow of a single light flickering up the room.

you take a quick breath when he begins to move and pump his leaking cock in a leisure manner, not fastening any steps, xiao would always start slowly, making you accustomed to his large girth as if it was your first time to have sex with him. you stammer loudly, lacing your arms around his neck tight, "you're so good at this, xiao.." and purposefully make him flustered, cheeks glistening red, the slight embarrassment emerging was pinking his neck— the sort of pink that brings champagne roses to the imagination.

frat boy xiao who gazes at you bemusedly, seizing himself off you before swiftly flipping you on your stomach, not letting you take a breather, his hands sinking into the plush of your behind as he lines himself against your hole again. there was something so alluring to seeing your face pressed against his pillow, while knowing it will remember your scent and even when you leave afterwards, it'll still feel like you're next to him.

you cry out, rocking your hips back, your hands webbing into the bed sheets as xiao slopes his entire body against your figure— one hand placed on the bed frame so he wouldn't crush you with his weight while the other twisted and turned on your skin, fuck how much he loved fondling your body, and the grab on your hips was perfect to easily lurch you into his cock.

you can clearly witness his impatience growing by now, sensing how your hole splits and it burns a little, but it's tasteful enough and you try your unconditional best to keep your burning thighs apart for him, gasping with your head in the clouds, eyes fluttering shut as you bury your face back into the tear soaked pillow, your pulse soaring within his pounding beat on your slippy cunt.

frat boy xiao cannot get enough of you, but he also cannot commit to you, for a reason rather unknown— while you also refrain from asking him as to why, fearing that he might feel like being pushed into a corner, cowering of losing those certain moments that do bring you joy, it's the flustering perception he made you experience too, the hallmark of one who is true of heart, a genuine sweetness you were forever craving.

#xiao smut #genshin smut #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact smut #xiao x reader

484 notes · View notes

hashtagloveloses · 1 year

Text

yes nicholas d. wolfwood is gay bc he looks at vash like that and says gay things and has his tits out while flaunting christian imagery but he's ALSO gay because he's not only doomed by the narrative but represents the existential fear queer people (and other marginalized people) have that in a world where life is SO hard and has been FULL of suffering, the minute you find a purpose or community or people to love it is taken away from you before you can live a full life. he isn't like most characters giving a death monologue where they're at peace or some shit he's like PLEASE i wanted to keep living i'm not ready. he JUST realized something about himself philosophically. he found happiness with vash, and meryl, and milly after a life of suffering in a harsh world that wants him dead and my god does that not represent such a queer feeling? when in your worst moments you fear death because this world has made living so HARD and you don't want to die before you can experience any peace? nicholas d. wolfwood you are so important to me

#made myself cry writing this #trigun #nicholas d. wolfwood #vashwood #original post

960 notes · View notes

strandedcrow · 9 months

Note

hi friend you're a video essay enjoyer i believe do you have any recommendations people and or videos? need somethin interestin to listen to while tryin to draw

HELLO FRIEND ok so skipping over the obvious popular ones (victorious, roblox oof, defunctland in general, my house.wad, etc) some of my favorites are:

The Downward Spiral of Watching Velma: one that i only found recently, a lengthy deep dive into the shitty hbo velma show so that u don’t have to watch it

How SunnyV2 Ruined Video Essays: also one i found recently, a shorter one which provides a meta analysis of video essays on youtube, also got me back into video essays tbh

How Sponegbob Explored Existential Nihilism: VERY short one (under 10 minutes) but actually neat

I Found Every OSHA Violation in FNAF Security Breach: there are so fucking many

The Biggest Cheater in Clone Hero History Was Finally Caught: honestly it’s been a rocky past couple weeks for the CH community bc just recently Multiple big name players have admitted to cheating so like calling this person the biggest cheater might not even be accurate anymore but like. still a rlly good watch

Bojack Horseman Full Series Retrospective: if you want lengthy here it is (almost 6 hour analysis of every season)

Disney Trash Can Tier List: not rlly a video essay at all however it’s such a random tier list to make and it’s delightful

Dream (Market) - The Infiltration of the Dark Net: literally an insane fucking story one of my absolute favorite barely sociable videos bc the whole story is just so fucking wild

The Dark Side of the Silk Road: one of my other favorites from barely sociable

Explaining: This House Has People In It: one of my favorite youtubers providing a complete analysis of my favorite arg/analog horror project HIGHLY recommend this one btw

DHMIS Explained: another from the same youtuber, but this time with defunctland style production (before defunctland started having these vibes. honestly maybe a little the other way around given this is 6 years old)

Fear of the Deep: nexpo is the third of my horror/unsettling internet history trifecta that i watch in this list (barely sociable, night mind, and nexpo my beloveds), this one was made just before oceangate, but talks about a few different projects that focus on. ig a fear of the deep really

#ask #goopyguy #take yuor pick LMAO #thumbs up emoji

255 notes · View notes

onboardsorasora · 2 months

Text

I made a random post a few weeks ago about Daniel needing to have an existential crisis over a grey pube hair (if I find it I'll link). Weeks later @yesloulou made this post and I was immediately compelled all over again.

Dedicating this brain rot to @arturleclerc. I hope you enjoy it💕 (also I haven't reread it so hopefully it makes sense and is actually good. If it's not good we can pretend it didn't happen lmao)

Max paused in the doorway of their bedroom, eyebrows pulling to his hairline the longer he watched Daniel turn this way and that in front of the full length mirror.

Naked.

“Uhm, Daniel?” He asked, biting back his grin when Daniel jumped in surprise and slapped his hand over his dick to cover it.

“Jeepers Maxy.” Daniel held his chest.

Max tilted his head when Daniel’s eyes strayed back to the mirror. He never took Daniel to be the ‘check himself out in the mirror naked’ type. Considering he hadn’t seen him do it once in the entire time they’ve been dating.

Daniel furrowed his brow as if annoyed before grabbing a pair of shorts from his drawer, what he had attempting to do in the first place.

“What are you doing?” Max asked again, walking further into the room.

“Nothing babe— can’t a guy check himself out? Still good looking, hot, sexy.” Daniel replied, Max knew him long enough to clock his uncomfortable babbling.

“Are you looking at your gray hairs again?” Daniel had been weird for the last week, ever since Max pointed out a couple grey hairs that had started growing in his beard.

Daniel stilled and unconsciously glanced at himself in the mirror again. He didn't look any different than he did a minute ago but clearly time and his age were catching up to him. He was 34, 35 this year. And greying.

Sure his job was stressful. Sure the last three years of his career were particularly stressful among other heightened emotions. But for his body to outwardly tell him that he wasn't providing a proper working environment for his cells was a slap in the face.

And his balls.

A handful of grey hairs in his beard by his jaw. He can handle that. Eventually. He eventually learned to accept it. Ok he hasn't accepted it yet but he was getting there.

Sure he was shaving his beard more so he didn't have to see it but Max liked him with a mustache so it was all great.

But this was just egregious. 34 wasn't like all that old. He didn't even know that greying ‘early’ happened in his family! Grey hairs on his head he could manage (eventually). But grey hairs anywhere else should be illegal.

It was fine, his day was going great. He had a productive meeting, went for a run, and came home to manscape a little in the shower, hoping to maybe lure Max off of the sim for an hour or so.

Sure, Max didn't care if he had pubes or whatever but Daniel didn't like his shit growing too wild and free. A trim here and there was fine for him. Max made him promise not to wax anymore.

Anyway, he was just about to go through his almost meditative process when he saw something that he hoped was maybe just glare from the light. He'd almost fainted dead away right then and there when he'd brushed the hair with his finger and it continued to glint grey against the rest of the dark hair.

He had a grey hair beside his dick.

He had a grey hair beside his dick!

His dick had a fucking grey curly q.

“Daniel?”

Daniel jumped, surprised to see Max so close. He hadn't even realized he'd spaced out.

“Daniel you are not old, of course.” Max smiled, cupping his cheek and swiping the stumble at his side burns that had started to betray him.

“Maxy I'm old as fuck apparently.” Daniel grumbled, soothing the ache in his chest with Max's giggle.

“Well I still love you.”

“Maxy...” Daniel trailed off because he wasn't yet willing to admit that his greatest fear was Max would come to his senses and realize that Daniel was too old. That these greys would be a warning sign to Max that Daniel's best years were officially behind him while Max's were yet to come.

“Daniel, you are being silly I think.”

“Maxy you say this now but I don't think you're ready to deal with old man balls.”

“Daniel!” Max's eyes crinkled as he laughed. “You do not have old man balls.”

“Nah yeah. I like really do Maxy.” Daniel sighed.

Max rolled his eyes, Daniel was being so dramatic. He dropped to his knees in lieu of saying anything else.

“Max!” Daniel squawked. Sure this had been his plan maybe a half an hour ago but he hadn't gotten rid of that pesky grey hair and he couldn't let Max see.

“Daniel, you are being silly and I love you and you do not have old man balls.” Max started tugging at Daniel's shorts, snorting when his boyfriend grabbed at the waistband.

“Max– it's– no.” Daniel struggled, biting his lip when Max looked up at him curiously.

“Daniel?” Max furrowed his brow, Daniel was being more squirrely than usual. Something wasn't right.

“I–” Daniel's mouth opened and closed a couple times and no more sounds came out. He sighed explosively and his shoulders slumped. Max's eyes widened.

“Daniel what–”

Daniel bit the inside of his cheek, there was nothing for it. He may as well rip the band-aid off and just let Max see. He let go of his shorts, allowing the fabric to fall down his legs.

“I really do have old man balls Maxy.” Daniel said morosely. “A whole old man dick!” Max bit his lip so he wouldn't laugh at his boyfriend who truly was going through it. He couldn't figure out the trigger though.

“I don't understand, Daniel.”

“It's there!” Daniel, aggrieved, pointed aggressively to the thatch of hair surrounding his still soft dick.

Max followed his finger, stopping himself from leaning in to suck it into his mouth or to kiss Daniel's still lovely non old man dick. If only to apologize to the organ for how ungrateful Daniel was being.

He mentally rolled his eyes and paid attention to what Daniel was trying to show him. Max didn't see anything wrong, Daniel's pubes had grown out a bit and Max wanted nothing more than to just press his face into the wiry hair– feel the burn of it against his chin. Then he saw it, and oh.

“Yeah– oh. Old man dick and balls. The whole package. I'm ancient Maxy. A fossil–” Daniel continued to babble, dragging a hand down his face.

“Daniel you are being silly. You are not old.” Max gave into the urge to press his face into the crease of Daniel's thigh, pressing a kiss to the section of skin that the lone (and apparently offending) grey hair was growing.

“Max–” Daniel was exasperated that Max wasn't getting it. Wasn't picking up what he was putting down. Even though he didn't want him to…he was confusing himself. The fact was he was old and Max finally knew and he was steeling himself for the inevitable.

“Oh!” Daniel shuddered when Max licked a wet stripe along his soft dick that wasn't very soft anymore. Max smirked and continued, sucking Daniel's half hard dick into the warm wet heat of his mouth.

Daniel gripped Max's hair to steady himself, moaning when Max swallowed him whole and pressed his nose into the curls at the base of him. Max looked up through his lashes, humming long and deep.

“Fuck.” Daniel hissed and Max clutched at his thighs. He created a rhythm, coaxing Daniel to fuck his throat. Daniel snapped his hips forward eagerly, groaning as he watched Max swallow his dick in the mirror. Max winked up at him before doing that thing with his tongue that Daniel loved.

Daniel was a goner, curling over Max's head while he came– hard.

After, he staggered backwards, watching dazedly as Max licked his swollen, pink lips. Daniel wanted to swallow him whole.

He dragged Max to his feet and planted a sloppy kiss to his lips, tasting his come and Max's lips. He was about to push him onto the bed so he could eagerly return the favor when

“Of course it's exactly what I thought.” Max said smugly. Daniel raised a brow curiously.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know what you're talking about earlier, Daniel. Your old man dick still works.”

Daniel couldn't help it, he laughed. Because in his own way, Max just alleviated Daniel's fears.

“I love you, y'know?”

“I know Daniel.” Max pressed a deep kiss to his lips before pulling back. “My young man dick needs attention, of course.”

Max grinned when Daniel laughed.

#maxiel #max/daniel #literally stopped everything to write this lmao #😂🥴🥴#my ficlet

111 notes · View notes

whompthatsucker1981 · 7 months

Note

real actual nonhostile question with a preamble: i think a lot of artists consider NN-generated images as an existential threat to their ability to use art as a tool to survive under capitalism, and it's frequently kind of disheartening to think about what this is going to do to artists who rely on commissions / freelance storyboarding / etc. i don't really care whether or not nn-generated images are "true art" because like, that's not really important or worth pursuing as a philosophical question, but i also don't understand how (under capitalism) the rise of it is anything except a bleak portent for the future of artists

thanks for asking! i feel like it's good addressing the idea of the existential threat, the fears and feelings that artists have as to being replaced are real, but personally i am cynical as to the extent that people make it out to be a threat. and also i wanna say my piece in defense of discussions about art and meaning.

the threat of automation, and implementation of technologies that make certain jobs obsolete is not something new at all in labor history and in art labor history. industrial printing, stock photography, art assets, cgi, digital art programs, etc, are all technologies that have cut down on the number of art jobs that weren't something you could cut corners and labor off at one point. so why do neural networks feel like more of a threat? one thing is that they do what the metaphorical "make an image" button that has been used countless times in arguments on digital art programs does, so if the fake button that was made up to win an argument on the validity of digital art exists, then what will become of digital art? so people panic.

but i think that we need to be realistic as to what neural net image generation does. no matter how insanely huge the data pool they pull from is, the medium is, in the simplest terms, limited as to the arrangement of pixels that are statistically likely to be together given certain keywords, and we only recognize the output as symbols because of pattern recognition. a neural net doesn't know about gestalt, visual appeal, continuity, form, composition, etc. there are whole areas of the art industry that ai art serves especially badly, like sequential arts, scientific illustration, drafting, graphic design, etc. and regardless, neural nets are tools. they need human oversight to work, and to deal with the products generated. and because of the medium's limitations and inherent jankiness, it's less work to hire a human professional to just do a full job than to try and wrangle a neural net.

as to the areas of the art industry that are at risk of losing job opportunities to ai like freelance illustration and concept art, they are seen as replaceable to an industry that already overworks, underpays, and treats them as disposable. with or without ai, artists work in precarized conditions without protections of organized labor, even moreso in case of freelancers. the fault is not of ai in itself, but in how it's yielded as a tool by capital to threaten workers. the current entertainment industry strikes are in part because of this, and if the new wga contract says anything, it's that a favorable outcome is possible. pressure capital to let go of the tools and question everyone who proposes increased copyright enforcement as the solution. intellectual property serves capital and not the working artist.

however, automation and ai implementation is not unique to the art industry. service jobs, manufacturing workers and many others are also at risk at losing out jobs to further automation due to capital's interest in maximizing profits at the cost of human lives, but you don't see as much online outrage because they are seen as unskilled and uncreative. the artist is seen as having a prestige position in society, if creativity is what makes us human, the artist symbolizes this belief - so if automation comes for the artist then people feel like all is lost. but art is an industry like any other and artists are not of more intrinsic value than any manual laborer. the prestige position of artist also makes artists act against class interest by cooperating with corporations and promoting ip law (which is a bad thing. take the shitshow of the music industry for example), and artists feel owed upward social mobility for the perceived merits of creativity and artistic genius.

as an artist and a marxist i say we need to exercise thinking about art, meaning and the role of the artist. the average prompt writer churning out big titty thomas kinkade paintings posting on twitter on how human made art will become obsolete doesnt know how to think about art. art isn't about making pretty pictures, but is about communication. the average fanartist underselling their work doesn't know that either. discussions on art and meaning may look circular and frustrating if you come in bad faith, but it's what exercises critical thinking and nuance.

#gonna start tagging shit as #ai art discourse #bc lmao stiff just doesnt stop coming

207 notes · View notes

absolutebl · 11 months

Text

Be My Favorite - Flaming Hot Trash Watch Action

Ready for this?

Adapted from the y-novel You Are My Favorite by JittiRain this is one of those “rewrite the past to change the future.” Starring Krist (SOTUS) + Fluke Gawin (DBK, Not Me). I expect this to be low heat, full of LIES and manipulation.

12 eps of approx 45 min fresh content each, and I guess I am drinking on frigay for the next 3 damn months

Main tropes: time travel/slip/loop, paranormal, university setting, soft romance, low heat, sunshine/tsundere with GMMTV’s heavy hand on classic Thai BL tropes, product placement, and high production values.

Trailer | MDL

I’m getting some shizz outta my system before I start putting the alcohol into it...

Story issues

Let’s get this on the table. I have a mixed relationship with Jittirain’s stuff because unlike Mame who is trash to her characters with plot, Jittirain is trash to plot with characters. All characters (what limited characterization there is) will be obedient to the plot and act against personality the moment it is necessary for whatever insanity is required for audience manipulation. We The Watchers WILL feel jerked around by these jerks (but as this is GMMTV there will be no actual jerking). We WILL be lied to, and the characters will lie to each other FOR NO GOOD REASON.

In addition to Be My Favorite JittiRain is behind: Vice Versa, 2gether, Fish Upon the Sky, and Theory of Love. Mmm humm. Yeah. Drinks are defiantly required.

Actor issues:

Krist: Who knew Krist would do a BL again? Like seriously? His career has been riddled with controversy and his skills as an actor widely challenged. Regarding the first, this is not that blog, take that discourse/cancel culture elsewhere. For the second? I will judged his acting based on the usual criteria: this BL, this role, this pairing, this script, and the fact that this is Thai style acting. Okay?

Gawin/Fluke: I will likely slip and call him Gawin because that’s what he used when he first crossed my radar. I have said this before but he looks like an ex of mine. So my baggage with him is all personal. Said ex and I are amicable, but it wigs me out sometimes. They even have a similar voice. I will try to get over this.

Also the both SCREAM straight. I mean I don’t wanna judge insult or anything but these boys got breeder smeared all over them.

Okay, so what are we doing here?

Well, as previously established: DRINKING.

AND

A new trash watch!

Although there is always the (however faint) possibility it will become a praise watch. Sometimes that happens. But this is Jittirain so... I doubt it.

Ready?

Here we go!

Episode 1: Sake & Fear

I have heartburn already. Or maybe that’s the extra chili I put on my noodles + booze + EXISTENTIAL DREAD.

Kawi = loser, poor, stupid, shy, and friendless (AKA Japan’s ordinary bottom uke archetype) - he’s a downer, this is an issue with this kind of character, not likable.

Pearmai = the sunshine faen fatale Kawi has a crush on

Piseang = the tall handsome cute popular perfect seme, plays basketball perfectly (waves at Love O2O), is also a DJ (nash)

Most of this ep was spent establishing this dynamic and some kind of secret santa for college kids, a magic time travel snow globe, and the fact that the wrong couple got together.

Why is there a dandelion in the snow globe?

Is it a wishes thing? Do they have that superstition in Thailand?

A 12 year time jump is v Japanese. Which life-point is closer to Krist’s actual age? Ooo, half a bottle of sake and I’m salty af.

Apparently Kawi still has same problems and the same haircut as he did as a fresher.

Could we please talk about this? It’s in ALL BL. Why does NO ONE change their hair as they age? My hair changes by the week.

Meanwhile our ordinary bottom has turned into a wild imbecilic tsundere and our seme clearly likes that and I am too drunk for this. So is Kawi.

You know what, it’s not as terrible as I thought it would be. I don’t like it but I can see the characters becoming appealing. Maybe? Hopefully? Why do I do this to myself?

I’m not a monster, I will give it a chance.

At least no one has yet picked up a guitar.

See you next week, same Jittirain time, same Jittiran place, new bottle of sake.

Episode 2: Nigori & Serenity

The sake I’m drinking tonight is described on the bottle “silky & mild” which is also a legit review of Gawin’s acting.

WAIT A MINUTE.

What is going on?

What am I feeling?

They’re lying on the grass talking to each other in a meaningful way. It’s cute. I am enjoying it. How appropriately collegiate.

Is this... enjoyment?

Am I enjoying this show?

OMG I AM.

help

I ate booze-filled chocolates AS WELL AS SAKE.

Maybe it’s the double dose?

Am I becoming silky & mild?

I got a slow down. I can’t do this every week for 12 weeks in a row. I’m not in uni anymore. I might end up being a nice person if I continue down this road. Can’t have that.

Honestly, I do like the fantasy of getting to re-live your college years as a cooler version of yourself.

Although, frankly, I did fine with mine.

(Oh thank fuck, asshole me is back.)

I don’t know where Max came from but he is officially the most interesting character in this show.

Also... does he look a bit like a bad boy bunny to anyone else?

It isn’t actually like it, but I am getting a distinct 2gether vibes from this show. It makes it feel kinda dated for BL. What a fucking crazy thing to say. Ignore me, I’m drunk.

OOOOO.... Nong teasing. Very nice.

The over dramatic drunken kiss made me giggle. First time Krist has been properly kissed in a BL.

Sigh.

What do I do?

I’m enjoying it!

Damn it.

Episode 3: Tipsy Waffling

I was out at the club, came home faintly tipsy. Frankly I feel a little unwell, so I’m not gonna drink anymore. So this is an unprecedented semi-sober trash watch. I’m not sure if I’m ready but so far this show been beating expectations, and I don’t expect a derailment until next ep so I’m feel okay about my life choices.

Okay Gawin is good. I’ll give you that . His little moment if realization (and giving up). The “oh shit” look.

Wait.

That’s Title!

When did he leave Wabi Sabi and join GMMTV’s stable?

Look I kinda enjoyed this bit, because it was a joke.

BUT I AM NOT HAPPY WITH THE ENDING.

Is this the beginning of the JittiRain of Doom? Or it this just good angsty story telling?

No way to know until next week.

(JittiRain of Doom - see what I did there? Aren’t I a clever little lush dragon?)

I should go to bed now.

I think we can safely say clouds are on the horizon and whether this is good storytelling or bad, only episode 4 will tell.

Episode 4: It’s Happened! The Suck!

not in a good way @heretherebedork said ep 4, can they call it or WHAT?!

I’m officially calling Kwai’s pink haired Maximum hotness bestie “my café fae” and YOU can’t stop me. I love him. Or I want to be him? Or I AM him?

Difficult to know.

Checks own hair.

Not pick at at the moment. Mostly blue actually.

(I weirdly adore that blue open weave draw-string vest thing he’s rocking. Checks own closet. Wonders idly about turning a mesh laundry bag into a shirt.)

Anygay... Café fae and I are running away together and not putting up with any of this Jittirain nonsense.

Right?

Because this beach frolic...?

Too cringe. Too awkward. I really don’t like all of embarrassment factor for everyone, not to mention humiliation and hazing and older kids picking on younger kids.

I’ve been done with this plot divice since SOTUS. And I’ll take it in small doses from Korea but no more Thailand. Stop it. And...

is that...

A GUITAR

!!!

NO SINGING.

Oh, I hate this show.

Everyone listening in on the phone while he’s humiliating himself with a girl? This is fully terrible.

I’m so uncomfortable with this whole episode.

And yet. Secure. Because finally we are in the territory I was expecting. But ALSO I can’t bear it.

Please make it stop.

At least Piseng is a decent human being.

And Pair.

Screw all y’all. I’m eloping with Pair.

Wait.

What about my cafe fae? Hummmm.

Ah! Got it. Thrupple!

I’m not gonna lie. That was rough going.

And I am not OK.

Although I’m digging this thrupple scheme of mine.

Episode 5: I Am V Drunk

For those of you following the soga of ABL is a lush...

I got my cocktail!

Then got distracted by meeting colleagues at the bar.

Then went for dinner and wine.

Then got another cocktail and finally made it back to the room.

So by the time I started watching this week’s installment I was... quite drunk.

Take this recap with a grain of salt margarita salt rim... no... not that kind of rimming, that’s just in KP, sadly... wait... what am I doing? I got distracted. This is GMMTV. Def no rimming.

So!

Kawi deserves his new asshole friends (stop it ABL no rimming).

I just don’t like him. He’s too straight and whiney and homophobic.

Could we have a romance between Pisang and Max?

Asking for a friend me.

Bet there would be rimming. They both seem very game. Just saying.

Different show ABL. Different show.

Where was I? Apparently I went to the land of Bed Friends for a moment there.

Why does anyone like Kawi?

Max deserves better.

Pear deserves better.

Pisang deserves better.

OMG!!! His utter wistful yearning over the happy gay bar. Poor baby.

Awe don’t run away from Max. We love Max. Max is the best. You NEED a Max in your life. We all do!

Someone described Max as “tired gay,” and I feel this keenly.

NO SINGING.

I DON’T LIKE WHERE THIS THREAD IS GOING.

NO NO NO NO NO

SKIP! Skipskipskip.

Next week look like a classic ep 6 kiss then angst. Whatever.

It was fine.

This was a fine installment.

I’m very drunk.

Hotel all spinny.

Hi, bed! Make me a sammitch.

Episode 6: I Am Less Drunk Than I Should Be

I just wish this were Pisaeng’s story instead of Kawi’s. It would be a lot better. In fact, it is a lot better. Any time we get PS alone or with any other character it’s a better narrative. Any time with him and Max talking it’s the best of everything, That’s all I want on my screen.

In fact, Max is all I want.

I love his “care bear kpop” clothes.

This is definitely one of those shows where I don’t understand why anyone likes the central character - his friends, his love interests, his father, his audience, tumblr.

No one should like him. He started out a loser and he’s only getting worse, and nasty to boot.

Yes, it’s good we see him apologize, but there’s no logic behind the choices that led him to needing to make the apology in the first place!

(No one does, honey.)

We are heading into classic Jitiirain where are the characters are going to betray us and themselves in order to serve the narrative.

And I’m not drunk enough for this.

Honestly? I think Krist what is miss-cast as well.

I’m not in the anti-Krist faction but just imagine... what if Kawi had been played by Khaotung? He has a much softer more dynamic screen presence. I think he could’ve carried even Jittirain’s patented nonsense. KT is... in fact... CUTE.

Gawin is not an issue. (Which surprises me, since I came into this with a bias against him.)

Because we can see PS thinks that K is cute even before the script felt the need to tell us this.

Even when he’s being an arsehole, PS’s eyes are all soft for him. I guess some guys just are attracted to arseholes.

Heh.

See what I did there?

Meanwhile I hate PS’s mother!

She = evil.

I RECOGNIZE that balcony!

PS’s house/apartment thingy is the same as MaxNat celebrity pad in Y-Destiny. Another one for the location trackers.

That’s it, that’s all I got.

Only one gay pun for you this evening.

I have one job to do and I’m blowing it.

snerk

Nighty night. Don’t let the mosquitos bite leave hickeys.

Episode 7: NO SINGING

I guess Kawi is one of those “straights” who just gets gayer the drunker he is. I know the type.

Boozing the Kinsey Scale.

Beer goggle queers.

Cockeyed.

Three sheets to the flame.

Dick wasted.

What else do we call them?

Oh yeah... cock tease.

Episode 8: STOP SINGING

Pisaeng for these last two episodes...

(singing cat never gets old, bite me)

Good for you Pisaeng for standing up for yourself. Stop letting the straight boy jerk you around.

(I see you in your matched couple shirts.)

Omg I HATE Kawi just WHY IS ANYONE FRIENDS WIH HIM?

Stop. Just this show would be so much better if he weren’t in it.

I’m glad he lost Pisaeng and I enjoyed watching him cry.

Even if he still made everything about himself.

We return yet again to the fact that I love Max. Max and I are running away together.

Pisaeng is just never Kawi’s priority, whereas the opposite is always the case. Talk about one sided love friendship relationship everything.

Kawi the coward.

To little too late.

I do keep thinking about Big Eden with this series, Kawi just seems so straight no matter what he says or does or kisses.

Poor Pisaeng he gets what he wants but it’s all out of pity, fear, and desperation.

And all he wants is a chance to flirt?

Is he an actual saint?

Fuck this damn show.

(source)

As always with these trash watches, I update the original post until Tumblr has a brain fry and won’t let me anymore. Then it becomes an updated repost. Life in the dumpster fire is never dull.

#Be My Favorite #Thai BL #GMMTV #Krist Perawat #fluke gawin #trash watches #ABL trash watches BL #save me from myself #trash watch #JittiRain #thai drama #thaibl #You Are My Favorite

351 notes · View notes

absolutely-esme · 5 months

Text

Monster!Tim Coraline AU part 2

A while back, I posted an Idea I had For a Combination of a Coraline AU and a Meta!Tim AU. It's here assuming I made the link correctly.

Well, I had more thoughts on the matter, so I'm making another post.

First off, I want to expand/clarify on how Tim's powers work.

Tim fights (or otherwise challenges) various supernatural things and gains power from defeating them. I touched on this before and mentioned that it was because it was symbolically similar hunting and eating prey. I would like to talk a bit more about what this entails.

Upon achieving victory, Tim takes a bit of power from the defeated opponent and incorporates it into himself. Tim can gain abilities this way or just boost his own power level a bit. He does not physically eat any part of his opponent.

The opponent is left a bit weaker, but does not lose abilities completely and is not permanently damaged. They can get their power levels back up given some time. Think of it like donating blood, they’ll be a little weak and woozy for a bit, but no lasting harm is done. Now, I cannot stress enough that this is because of the choices Tim makes.

Tim chooses to use his powers in the gentlest way available. He chooses not to take more than they can safely part with. He chooses not to simply consume them completely. He chooses to pay careful attention to how much power his opponents can afford to part with and whether or not they are in a position to weather the recovery safely. Tim grew up looking up to Batman and Robin. He believes in harm reduction.

That’s why the supernatural-leaning rogues fear him so much. Their instincts are very aware that this is a predator that has simply decided not to kill them today. He probably won’t next time either, but he could easily make a different decision at any time. At least some of them are not entirely aware of their ties to the supernatural or why the third Robin inspires such primal existential fear.

The thing that drives Tim to keep doing these challenges is not primarily a desire for power (though some of the abilities he gains are useful), but rather because it makes the hunger more manageable for a bit. It doesn’t stop it, but it takes the edge off for a little while. Tim was incredibly suspicious of this at first. He knows full well that his condition makes a point of being inconvenient and that it is easy to spiral out of control in a way that makes one dangerous to oneself or others. He remembers how miserable the fallout of trying to eat to fullness was. He made a careful study of the challenges and how they affected him. He kept meticulous notes on his mental and physical state. He also created and stuck to a very rigid schedule on how often he would allow himself to “hunt,” and made a point of not taking too much from his “prey.”

Tim starts off pretty close to a baseline human and gathers abilities over time.

When he is very young he gains improved stealth and the ability to sense secrets. For a little while, that’s all he has, until he learns that there are other things in Gotham he can challenge.

While he was still very young he collected the ability to make his fingernails razor-sharp, the ability to climb like a goat, some minor enhanced strength (just enough to somewhat offset the disadvantage of being so tiny), partial immunity to slipperiness caused by water (from the many rain/fog/whatever spirits to be found in a city as gloomy as Gotham), increased impact resistance (don’t know what that thing was, but Tim’s not sure if he actually beat it or if it was just so high above his level that it felt safe to feed him a scrap of its power purely out of curiosity over what he might do with it), and a bite like a beartrap.

Then the Beldam incident happened. He got a lot from dealing with the Beldam because that wasn’t an ordinary challenge (by his way of doing things). The Beldam was too powerful, too dangerous, too impossible to contain, too sneaky, too focused on targeting vulnerable victims who won’t be missed in time for any sign to be found. Tim had to stop her for good right then and there because he only had one shot. Even if he survived and escaped (which wasn’t especially likely if he held back at all) she would go right on killing children. There was no way to put the Beldam in Arkham even just until the next breakout. No way to track the Beldam. No way of protecting other isolated, vulnerable children without lethal force. So Tim killed the Beldam and consumed it entirely (he has to think of the Beldam as an it, he can’t afford to do otherwise).

From defeating the Beldam, he gained a supernatural knack for fiber arts (especially spinning, weaving, and sewing), the ability to control things he makes with these skills to a certain degree, the ability to see through buttons he’s sewn on things, some slight shapeshifting, minor space-folding on the level of making his pockets a bit bigger on the inside, and illusory powers that allow him to make things seem a bit nicer/brighter/more pleasant. He also gains a pretty huge general power boost that goes into enhancing his existing abilities. He takes to spinning some very strong cord and keeping a few skeins on his person at all times because it’s useful for a number of things and makes a pretty good weapon, especially with his ability to manipulate it.

The shapeshifting isn’t much on it’s own, but it can combine with other abilities he’s taken on to let him make greater changes and take on forms that better support use of his powers.

After the Beldam incident, Tim’s power levels increase a good deal very quickly, allowing him to challenge and defeat stronger opponents and collect stronger abilities. Tim continues wandering, continues fighting, continues gaining power.

(Trauma? What Trauma? He’s fine. It all turned out okay in the end. The Beldam is dead. The souls she trapped are free. Tim totally doesn’t have complicated feelings about killing her. It. Tim is fine. Tim totally doesn’t have nightmares about an evil Batman with buttons for eyes. You would not believe how fine he is.)

He collects some extra senses that allow him to maintain greater awareness of his surroundings. He gains the ability to produce and maintain a very small fire (like a candle flame on a tealight) at his fingertips. He gets quicker reflexes from something he probably wouldn’t have been able to beat prior to killing the Beldam (he had to tank an uncomfortable number of hits in that fight).

He gains the ability to find and use what he decides to call shortcuts. They’re these odd little throughways tucked into out of the way places that he can pass through and go from one place to someplace a fair distance away. One of them is an odd little opening in a wall between a dead-end alley and a rooftop on the other side of town. The shortcuts don’t look odd or out of place. He mostly recognizes them by vibes. If he had been born with this ability rather than gaining it later in life he probably wouldn’t have realized that there was anything odd about the shortcuts or that no one else could see them.

…

Tim goes on doing his thing, pretending he wasn’t traumatized by the Beldam, and even managing to heal a little despite his somewhat unhealthy handling of it.

Then Robin dies, and Batman loses it. Now Batman is self-destructing and looks like he’s going to take all of Gotham down with him, the Other Gotham Nightmares are back, and Robin is fucking dead.

Tim is not okay.

Tim tries to get someone else, anyone else, to deal with the situation because a violent, out of control Batman is a pretty massive trigger for him. No one else who seems like they might be able to do anything for Batman is willing to intervein. Batman is getting worse.

It looks like Tim is going to have to be the one to do something about this.

…

When Tim eventually begins his training to be Robin, it is such a hassle learning how to fight without his powers. Batman and Nightwing think he’s incredibly clumsy when he first starts his training and wonder just how the heck he managed to follow them undetected for so long. Then the clumsiness clears up more quickly than they would have expected, and they are concerned that he might have had a concussion when he started training and they didn’t notice.

It’s actually because he has to re-learn how to get around without using his powers in a way that Batman and Nightwing would notice, and he’s started to forget how to account for large bulky items that aren’t tucked away in a pocket dimension. That said, he did do it all without powers in the beginning so he’s re-learning rather than learning something new for the first time. Also, he figures out pretty quickly that he can use the stealth he got from secret hunters and the goat-like climbing ability he got from a Jersey Devil because neither Bruce nor Dick realizes just how unusual Dick’s childhood level of ability was.

While Tim is operating as the Bats’ emotional support child, he uses his illusion powers from the Beldam to look cute, comforting, healthy, and un-concerning. When he’s not with the Bats, he drops the illusion and just goes about his business with his actual appearance. When he has some shit to get done far enough outside of the Bats’ sphere of influence that he can be reasonably confident he can avoid them finding out about it, he turns into something out of a scary movie.

Guess who gave digital art a try? Here we have Emotional Support Tim, Regular Tim, and Cryptid Tim.

I hadn't originally planned for Cryptid Tim to be showing that much skin, but i had to spend a lot of time figuring out the anatomy before I could figure out how to dress him, and by the time I realized what I was doing, i'd put so much work into the shading on the ribcage that i didn't want to cover it completely. Tim won't actually dress like that in Cryptid form, I just worked really hard on the anatomy. I should do more art to figure out his actual Cryptid Garb.

I went the stretched out, spindly monster route for Tim's Cryptid form because his magic/condition is called "afflicted with gluttony." I know a lot of artists make monsters based on the concept of gluttony heavyset with lots of excess fat tissue, but I feel like it makes sense to have a gluttony monster look hungry, like no matter how much it's eaten it's nowhere near enough.

The gray-ish skin with darker gray hands was just because I thought it would look spooky, and redoing the hands once they were done felt like it would be a lot of work. Hands are hard. Especially with foreshortening.

#Hungry Monster Tim AU #DC #Batman #batfamily #batfam

111 notes · View notes

altocat · 1 month

Note

zack is given mindreading powers and reads the minds of all three firsts!

Angeal's thoughts are methodical and ordered. He's constantly worried for his friends and his men, especially the younger recruits. Sometimes, at the end of the day, his thoughts tend to twist and loop together to borderline incoherence because he's completely exhausted playing Group Dad all day.

Genesis' thoughts are more than often theatrical and insecure, though occasionally very funny as his inner commentary can be very biting. Zack really gets a sense of his constant imposter syndrome, fearful of being bested and forgotten. Genesis puts on a big show of bravado, but he's inwardly so full of fear and self-doubt. But also he seems to have an entire inner catalogue in his brain critiquing how tacky everyone's uniform is that day.

Sephiroth's thoughts are mostly memories. Specifically traumatic ones. Occasionally something rather disturbing or violent. And more than often anxious and extremely depressed. The only time his thoughts seem to quiet down are whenever he's around Genesis and Angeal. Then his thoughts seem warmer, soothed. Around Hojo, they take on a disorienting sensation of unrelenting rage, hatred, and fear. There's also the image of an unknown woman that pops up occasionally. Sephiroth seems especially distraught whenever his thoughts turn to her.

Zack's thoughts, for the record, are simpler, often unfocused. Not because he's any less intelligent or complex as the others, but because it's more than often how he copes in a volatile place like SOLDIER. Daydreaming is a good way to avoid the existential dread that comes with slowly catching on to Shinra's ugly deeds. Also he's your typical guy, so there's a lot of babes and food in there. He could really go for a pizza roll right now.

#asks #ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #sephcanons #crisis core #sephiroth #genesis rhapsodos #angeal hewley #zack fair #hojo

44 notes · View notes

ilynpilled · 11 months

Text

The thing about the hand loss and how people attach things behind it like “it was as a result of Jaime’s arrogance,” or “he lost it because he saved Brienne from rape,” is that neither is true to what actually happens in the text. Those actions still hold meaning, sure, but the chop itself is also independent to it all (the maiming is symbolically karmic in a lot of ways as it is tied to his greatest sins, but that is not what i am talking about). The capture itself is different, but the right hand and his fate was doomed the moment he landed in Hoat’s hands for reasons out of his control. What is so good about it is that the hand chop is not really about Jaime as a human being (which makes it causing one of the biggest existential crises in the series all the more interesting), and more about Jaime as a token. Ironically, his status and relationship to his father is what ends up dehumanizing him entirely. There are so many things going on outside of Jaime. He is an integral political piece, every side is scrambling for him for different reasons, and he is fully treated as such in the Riverlands.

Hoat had his own motivation, that is much bigger than Jaime, due to his previous betrayal of Tywin, which turned into a death sentence following the results of Blackwater. As Roose implies throughout the dinner conversation, Jaime’s hand chop was, above all else, the result of Tywin and the ruthless foundation of much of his authority (the Reynes and Tarbecks are brought up again). And what I like about it, other than the emphasis on the players constantly making moves solely for their own benefit in war while everyone else suffers the consequences, is that it does address and criticize the Lannister method a whole lot. The hand chop almost feels less karmic for Jaime himself than it does for Tywin. It is another reason that I find the perspective that these books were heralding this kind of sociopathic ruthlessness as competent and uber effective while completely condemning the relatively more “moral” Starks so funny. Like without even getting into where we are headed in the aftermath of the WoT5K, the holes within the “Tywin method” are already being explored. And the results are creeping towards Tywin himself, invading his family, because it is his very heir that suffers directly from it. The more we move along in the story the more the distance lessens between him and his putrid actions to cement his authority and power. “I’ve lost a hand, a father, a son, a sister, and a lover, and soon enough I will lose a brother. And yet they keep telling me House Lannister won this war.” is a Tywin/House Lannister thesis when it comes to the events of ASoS. For a start, he is the one who brought in the Bloody Mummers. The cruelty he unleashes on the smallfolk ends up coming back to him directly through his heir being the one experiencing it full force. There is the layer of loyalty vs utilizing sellswords, which is one way the conflicting sides in the war foil each other, and it is a root cause of the betrayal to begin with. If you use these men, you can end up suffering the consequences yourself, loyalty can only be bought if you remain the highest bidder. Relying on greed is fragile. Then, the part that Jaime is repeatedly faced with throughout his narrative: fear ≠ trust.

Hoat is smart enough to realize by now that his betrayal will not be pardoned by Tywin. Jaime’s offer means nothing in terms of his safety. He is aware of his low status and the meaning of his action to Tywin. That is what truly dooms Jaime and his hand. Hoat needed that token, and he needed to secure a path for himself (without losing his token along the way to Roose) to the Karstarks. He made sure that he brought Roose down with him, and put him in a difficult situation. Sure, Jaime’s skill itself is a huge threat and liability, but that is not the primary motivator. It is his sole ticket to safety from Tywin’s ruthlessness.

Then the goat gets outsmarted by Roose, and Jaime catches on to that part, so Hoat does take the L ultimately I fear, but these layers remain and it adds a lot. I also like how in ASoS, Jaime’s status is constantly fluctuating between dooming him and saving him. It often depends on how clever he is being in the moment.

#i do not do this type of analysis that much but i do like that dinner convo a whole lot #and it does certainly get overshadowed by the fact that it happens after the bath confession #valyrianscrolls #jaime lannister #roose bolton #tywin lannister #and then j becomes another ticket for roose instead 😭#honestly being tywin’s heir and what it puts jaime through is incredibly funny considering the aerys hostage situation and all this #also love love how roose is playing w his words #like his sentences are layered and carefully chosen #and all so deliberate #he is still in the process of calculating

214 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

neapoulain

decay.

lemurfriend

terroryaoi

mir

raspberryskinny

active july '23

questionableratatouille00

pure chaos