#I'm just happy it happened at all

[arealtrashact]

Survival of the Worst 

#homelander #starlight #annie january #the boys #I forgot to upload this when I initially drew it (a thousand years ago...after I watched the third episode and my brain exploded) #I have a lot of thoughts about S3 #there was a lot I reaaaally didn't like BUT #these two finally interacting and finding themselves toe to toe was a major highlight #I wish we'd gotten more of it but at the same time #I'm just happy it happened at all #my art

[ivelte]

At first it was just a sketch but then i black out and end up with 4 finished comic pages. So uh enjoy this little comic with Azulin and Flippy (plus Gordi and Flaky at the end)

#unicorn wars #azulin #gordi #unicorn wars azulin #unicorn wars gordi #happy tree friends #htf #flippy #htf flippy #flaky #htf flaky #flipqy #htf fliqpy #comic #i don't know how it happened i swear i was just drawing and then #boom 3 days have passed and i have all those pages finish #i'm kinda scared ahah #my art

[ryllen]

Was giving these analysis a read [ x , x , x , x ]

#twisted wonderland #twst #trey clover #jamil viper #kalim al asim #jade leech #and then i gave his mentioned vignettes a read #it's true #he has a back street way to get stuff he wants #but thankfully the things he wants always borderline normal #the best thing about him laying low is to strike when people are totally off guard around him #which is what happened to riddle #fsdshd i guess if he did turn someone's bone into a jelly he would overblot in an instant fhsdhs #that sounds just as scary as avatar's blood bending #i was focusing more on his wanting to be normal side bcs i was not through yet with all stories involving him #but i'm not sure if i could be sly enough to write him as clever as he should be #somehow reading him being described as clever makes me a bit happy #like woah he really is! #fsdhsdh but he can really be a henchman of mafia group if he really wants to; this trey #fshdshdshdsdh OH no now i'm imagining the leech's mafia family #but i think leech's dad would respect trey's choice not to get his hands on any of these shady business #but it's assuring to know trey might have something up in his sleeves if anything ever happen to his son #anyway happy birthday trey! #also this doujinshi strips where trey doing a back street way of casting his nets over jade #https://twitter.com/CfEo95iwr/status/1715992373686362213 #i like to think he is confident he could do it without such a thing #but that sly way i understand now it's totally him

[babyblueetbaemonster]

"If your Nord friend jump into cold water, would you?!"

"Yeah man."

"No! Don't jump into the cold water!!!"

#tes #skyrim #dovakhiin #tes oc #oc: jokir #ldb #oc: dubak #teldryn sero #inigo the brave #marcurio #marcurio is really tired of my bs #me without my cold resistance XD #i'm not sure the temperature of the snow melt but i'm sure every season the water in skyrim is freezing no matter what #i was going to post it this summer but things happened #but i just learn that in the new life festival nords would jump into cold water to celebrate #so yay i can post it now haha #the Snow Bear Plunge #huhhhh it's been a hard year for me. i hope all of you are doing well. being safe and live life to the fullest #love you all and happy new year

[mattodore]

somehow managed to make matthias look even more bitchy

#''river what happened to working on your werewolf oc? the one from yesterday?'' ……let's not discuss it i simply can't bear to talk about it #river dipping #matthias evanoff #echthroi #ts4 #ts4 edit #simblr #did not need to edit this but we'll never see him with this hair again so i figured. sure why not spend a little bit of time on this #this looks very similar to his hair from when he was a child..... he had swoopy bangs and a middle part back then #...............staring at him like this i kind of want to eat him #kjfgksjfg #the messier his hair is the more i'm like Oh? #like italicized /Oh?/ #….i have nothing else to say here like there was rlly no need for me to post this i just thought hm. he looks pretty <3 #i changed his jaw a bit and made his chin smaller… idk if it’s noticeable #theo is untouched (by the veronicas… classic) like i didn’t change his sim at all #…….can i be honest the reason why i abandoned ria’s sim is bc i realized fuck. i do NAWT have decent fem frame clothing #especially not for a butch lesbian sim like. why is everything a crop top…. #tbf tho. i’m not mad about getting to look at alessandria’s happy trail #.................deep sigh. but i'm gonna go back to it rn. #i think i'll just leave her outfits like they used to be for now even tho i don't really like what she's wearing

[helielune]

people come and people go, but i stay (ghostride)

#infinity train #rymin #happy (slightly early) vday yalls #took me like over 2 hrs (to be fair. it was mostly trying to figure out how the app worked) #my art #trying out this cool new idea called every time i start looping a song ad nauseam i draw something for it #'trying out' actually its just happening to me outside of my control #ok just cus it's a rymin animation i'm gonna say as an aside i did not forget the wicked animatic exists #there are just some circumstances that make working on it slightly inconvenient #(new animation club that my friends founded that i'm not a part of but they kinda use the art rooms during all my free time) #(so i don't want to intrude. with my masterpiece of an animatic wip yknow) #(so im thinking either i get a job and buy my own software subscription to finish it or i sneak in during some rare off hrs) #yeah thats the update i might upload an actual video wip sometime tho idk #animation

[fashionsfromhistory]

What do you think about the costumes on the gilded age?

I haven't started S2, but I was pretty impressed! There's so many gowns that are just straight up recreations of historical garments. Kasia Walicka-Maimone is very talented and I'm so happy she's getting a big budget show like this.

There was a couple clunkers on Carrie as Bertha Russell, but I can let that go seeing as 1) she was a last minute casting change, and 2) she was 8 months pregnant when filming on S1 wrapped! Seriously, kudos to the costume team because there was only one moment where I was like 'yeah she's pregnant'. The red gown makes up for everything though lol.

(Pictures taken from Carrie's Twitter)

Side note: If you're interested in seeing of the garments up close and some progress shots, Eric Winterling's instagram is the place to be! They also did tons of work on Mrs. Maisel.

#the gilded age #i could care less about the writing lol #i'm just thrilled to watch a veritable who's who of theater people act #there's something like 70 noms and 25 wins between them all lmao #insanely talented cast #carrie is also a wonderful human and i'm so happy for her #asks and such #the reason i'm not going too in depth is because there's some things brewing in the back of my mind #knowing me it will take like two years for those posts to actually happen lol

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Chapter 110 is 13 pages long welcome to hell!!! so in a lot of ways this is just more fuel for a theory that I've had for a few weeks now, that's only gotten stronger with each recent season 5 episode, which is that the last episode of the season is gonna end on 110, and that Asagiri/Harukawa and Bones have been collaborating to make this happen, specifically because it's a major turning point that would be the only good place to end the season on.

When we started getting especially long chapters again (like from 25-35ish pages, with the exception of 107.5, the last two being some of the longest we've ever had), at first I just assumed that Asagiri/Harukawa got freed up from some other obligations they'd been having to cause the extremely short/half chapters, like promotional stuff for the anime/Beast movie, or working on light novels. But then 109 happened, with the "supposed" death of Dazai, and heavy emphasis at the end on how literally everyone is at their lowest point right now, and I got to thinking. 11 episodes is a strangely specific number for an anime season -- why not 12, or 13, or even 10, like you'd usually see? Why have we gotten suddenly gotten two 35 page chapters out of nowhere, that's almost unheard of at this point? They're both beautiful chapters, don't get me wrong (as always), and maybe A/H simply just didn't want to cut them in halves because they felt like the full emotional impact wouldn't hit/that there were no good cutoff points in them, but you can't deny that it's surprising, after all the shorter chapters we've been getting. Why has the anime been going at such insanely breakneck pacing for the most part ever since around the Sunday Tragedy chapters, even more so than it has in the past? So much so that it feels dangerously close to overtaking the manga?

Well, maybe, just maybe, it's because..... Asagiri decided a long time ago that whatever happens in 110 is the only point that feels "season finale"-worthy enough, in an arc that still isn't anywhere close to being completely wrapped up, and so both the manga and the anime have been specifically coordinated to reach that part within 2 and a half weeks of each other?

I've seen a lot of people now think season 5 will end with 109, and as much as my sadistic side would find that hilarious, I honestly don't think they'd do that and realistically don't want it to happen; it'd be so cruel to cliffhanger the anime for years like that, and just doesn't feel like a season cliffhanger BSD would do, a series that is ultimately hopeful and uplifting. Seasons 2 and 3 had a positive, conclusive ending; the only reasons seasons 1 and 4 didn't was because they're technically not really full seasons of their own, and are more like the first cour of another "season" that also came out that same year (seasons 1 and 2 both aired in 2016, so they're more like one big season, and seasons 4 and 5 have both aired this year, so they're also more like one big season, again taking into account how episodes 12 and 50 are not satisfying finales like episodes 24, 37, and hypothetically, 61, are). I really can't see season 5 ending with Dazai and Fukuzawa's supposed deaths, Sigma being unconscious and maybe close to death, Atsushi being vulnerable and limbless again, everyone we love still vampires, and the entire world being basically doomed; that's just too depressing and not like BSD at all. However, having said that, if it doesn't end there, there really isn't any good place to end the season before that, either, that feels in any way satisfying or like a finale at all. And so, to me, that only leaves after 109: chapter 110.

I think things are really gonna turn around next chapter. Like I said, everyone is at their lowest point right now, it cannot possibly get any worse, the framing of Dazai, Fukuzawa, and sskk at the end of 109 is telling us that; this is the time for the heroes to finally start winning again, with Aya being so close to pulling out the sword, and for all the thematic reasons other people have talked about to death that I don't need to go into here again. This upcoming chapter being so short again makes a part of me wary of 110 being "the one", so to speak, I won't lie, but at the same time, it's very possible that it needs to be that short because that's all the final episode of the season will be able to reasonably fit in, since it's already gonna be VERY close if they do make it all the way to 109. And at the end of the day, I don't doubt at all that Asagiri and Harukawa can make these the most monumental and game-changing mere 13 pages ever if they wanted to; a chapter does not at all need to be extremely long in order to be an important and impactful one, even if short ones we've gotten in the past haven't felt the most important.

An additional thought I've had, though this is much more crack territory than all this already is, is that since we know from Anime Expo that a Stormbringer movie at some point is highly likely (judging from Asagiri's reaction when someone brought it up), it's possible that chapter 110 and thus the final episode will involve the long-anticipated return of Verlaine and/or Adam, or at least some other major reference to Stormbringer, that would naturally and smoothly lead into a Stormbringer movie to explain things to people who haven't read the novel. It would make a lot of sense, especially since the s4 OP has the Old World sign behind Chuuya, which might be a hint that this has been in the works ever since seasons 4/5 were first in planning with Asagiri. We also know that Dazai and Chuuya's voice actors apparently struggled to record their lines together this season, which probably relates to 101 and possibly 109, but it could be 110 too.... I could be very wrong, as I'm no expert on this kind of thing, but I kinda doubt they would bring Chuuya's actor in for just the vampire growls, and Asagiri placing heavy emphasis on Chuuya's importance this season in that one interview gives me the impression that he's talking about much more than just 101/109. But that's the least solid evidence I have, that's just mostly based on vibes I get.

So basically, I think a lot of factors -- the unusual episode count, how close the anime is to catching up to the manga with three whole episodes left, the seemingly arbitrary recent chapter lengths, and the climactic events of 109 -- can tell us that 110 might be a very, VERY big deal. Again, there's of course no way this arc is anywhere near close to being finished, with so much left to address and resolve, but since it is currently incomplete in the manga, unlike the previously adapted arcs, if the anime was going to adapt it at all, they'd have to find a place that feels satisfying enough to end this season, knowing there won't be more anime for a long time after this, and so I think they specifically planned for that, from both Bones' and A/H's sides. 10 episodes might not have been enough to reach that point, but 12 or 13 might have been too many it wouldn't have been if Bones actually decided to slow down and let the story breathe the way it needs to, but this post isn't meant to criticize the anime, so maybe 11 was just right. And maybe Asagiri and Harukawa specifically pushed to make recent chapters longer than usual, in order to make sure that the manga reached the story content in 110 the monthly release right before season 5 was to end.

Is this just copium? Absolutely. Am I going to look like an absolute clown in two days when this post ages like milk? Probably. But the evidence is There, so let me just enjoy my delusions until Sunday, okay 🥂🫡

#bungou stray dogs #seriously call me a clown and point and laugh at me if I'm proven wrong all you want #but I really feel like there's solid evidence for this #either s5 isn't gonna reach 109 at all (but I seriously cannot fathom where you would want to stop before then) or they'll go beyond it #if they really do end it with 109....... well i'll give Bones kudos for having the balls to do that ig lol #maybe i'm underestimating (overestimating???) them idk #also just to clarify I don't wanna make it sound like I think Asagiri let the anime/Bones dictate the manga's pacing #like I'm sure these were his/their (him and Harukawa's) own decisions first and foremost #not that (if this theory is true) the anime had a major impact on how the chapters were split and that it- #-would have been extremely different otherwise #i'm pretty confident in that Asagiri does not do anything with BSD he isn't comfortable with #and he doesn't let anyone tell him how to write his story #I just feel like he worked with Bones to make this near-simultaneous release happen #BUT if this is the case I don't feel like it had any major effect on the writing/final product that is the manga #like the last handful of chapters have been so incredible #so I at least am still perfectly happy lol #(i mean i'm devastated and a nervous wreck but u know 🫡 in a good way lmao) #anyway 110 in two days please let this theory be true because I need some fucking hope already #please let Oda show up as Dazai's guardian angel to help (see what I did there-) #it would be the perfect way to end the collective season that is 4/5 with s4 beginning with Oda and now ending with Oda #Asagiri are you reading me are you picking up what I'm putting down please please a ghost Oda is long overdue please- #Oda Verlaine Adam just GIVE ME SOMEONE ALREADY 😭😭😭 #MAYBE EVEN A TASTE OF THE FYODOR BACKSTORY TO TIE INTO HIM BEING IN ANIME UNTOLD ORIGINS. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS

[piratedog64]

discovering that you're aroace is so freeing, but it's also so terrifying at the same time

#I'm so incredibly happy with how close and fulfilling my friendships are #but #what happens when all my friends move away and get romantic partners #what happens then #will I just be alone? #aromantic #aroace #asexual #aro #ace #arospec #aspec #aro pride #acespec #aromantic asexual #lgbtq+ #lgbt #lgbtqia #lgbtq

[crow-with-a-pencil]

One year anniversary of the kelp blorbo who changed my brain chemistry forever

Happy birthday Beetle :)

#my ârt #kelpie stuff #beetle of #digital painting #ok ok ok let me ramble for a second here #yes this was all sparked by user intistone and their awesome fic and the silly little au the group of us came up with #but we all talk regularly about even more silly little stories and aus of all kinds and it's just such a wonderful experience and I'm just #really happy this happened #yeah I don't talk as much on here these days #but I get to talk and draw and be creative in small ways all the time in the discord and it's helped develop my art at #mach speeds never previously imagined #sorry to get sappy just wanted to say I've been doing well #and it started with my one year old son who I love #so anyway LOOK AT MY SON IN PAINTING FORM #IM SHOWIJG HIM OFF BC IM HAPPY #if you read this far I'm giving you a seaweed snack to munch on

[jossun-kyyneleet]

Taisto Kukkanen 🌸

#bojan cvjetićanin #joker out #joker out fanart #drawing #pencil drawing #my art #flowers #did i buy some flowers just for this drawing? #maybe i did #but i've also just felt so happy and silly and giddy all week #i mean i'm going to my first joker out gig next week and i just can't believe it #(nor the fact i'm most likely going to see some bojere and jance shenanigans happening in front of my very eyes) #apua mä en vaan kestä

[starflungwaddledee]

this is a long shot and i'm sorry to ask, but if you don't mind, can mutuals (or contacts or regulars... just... this community) of mine who aren't jumping ship like... let me know? will any of us still be here? is it over? i'm trying to know if this really is it or what's... even happening. i hate to reassurance seek but i'm feeling pretty miserable and confused.

edit: felt like i was being really pitiful and fragile making this but everybody is being so nice to me and responding so patiently with all your thoughts and i'm in tears of gratitude thank you thank you thank you 💖

#i glanced and thought they brought out a feature so that we could turn off ai access #that seemed... okay? i thought? but now i'm really confused. i don't know. i'm so tired and scared. i just can't... keep doing this #i know this is stupid but this feels like it's my fault. #it happens every time i find something. if i'm happy somewhere. it just.... poof. goes away. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry #on the edit: i would only *ever* think this about myself. double standards that i hold for myself are high. i expect emotional control #& performance from myself only. i would never think badly of anyone else being stressed about this or anything. thank you for your kindness #this community has been so beautiful and kind at every turn. i'm so grateful to get to be here and meet you all #okay... being really sappy now. y'all get to see my anxiety first hand today!! whee!! anyway. i'll get it together. haha! thank you.

[hauntedpearl]

thinking thoughts about things and such but I do wonder if cas had, say, an amnesia moment or whatever and dean did dean things which would include kidnapping him and keeping him in an underground bunker etc etc you understand. like if and when cas does come back to himself. i do wonder. if his freaky ass would be so into it that he'd jump dean's bones about this violation of human rights. i do wonder.

#like. I'm just saying. the OH HE WANTS ME of it all. like. OMG YOU. YOU KEPT ME NEAR YOU???? #like brother he was. he had you like straight up in the dungeon brother get out #but he won't listen you know #doe is talking again #spn posting #destiel is toxic? to the world probably. but they are making it work and they're happy about it so you know. it's. whatever #btw. btw. I'm sleeping deprived again. well not exactly. I'm just sleepy. it's bc I'm sleeping all weird these days :( #I will go have lunch now. ans then I will sleep. #i am also reading this book about cardiology and it's very interesting but it's also non-fiction so it's slow going yk #anyway ask me about things I can talk sometimes! #about destiel #Castiel you little freak you you!!! #ps: dean would also be into it if it were to happen the other way around. altho i do think non-godstiel cas would not do that to him. #okay byeeeee

[lloydfrontera]

tfw when you write an entire novel with two protagonists that spent the entire plot getting closer to each other, becoming best friends and eventually both of them deciding they would rather die than allow the other to not live a long, fulfilling life, their friendship carrying most of the emotional weight of the entire plot and the emotional climax being one of them sacrificing his life so the other can live and then the other crossing literal universes to find him, a tearful smile in his face as he confesses how much he missed him. which is the scene you wanted to write and show the most because, again, this is the pay off to the slowburn you've been writing in the entire novel and what everything has been building up to since the very first chapter. and then you end the novel by having them share a smile, finally confident they'll be able to have a happy future.

but you also just gotta have one of them marry offscreen because everyone knows you can't be happy if you're not in a het marriage with kids lmao it's whatever it's okay i'm fiNE-

#i talk a lot <3 #the greatest estate developer #lloyd frontera #this post was going to be so much more bitter this is me being nice akjshdkahdk #i just....... i'm sad alsjdsjkal #and i don't think i'm wrong to be. like i'm not disapointed bc i don't actually expected lloyd and javier to be together #i'm not that optimistic lmao #but i did have the hope tged would have no romance #because lloyd and javier were already doing so much in the emotional and relationship development front of the plot #that adding romance just feels. awkward. like an aside. an add-on that affects none of the plot and is just there to make sure #no one accidentally gets confused and think those two are in love #and guess what! most of the romance does happen in literal side stories! literally an add-on that does nothing for the plot! i hate it! #it's the heteronormativity and amatonormativity of it all :/ #do i think it would've been cool for llojavi to be canon? absolutely! do i think it was necessary for the plot? nope! #they were already perfect the way they are! their friendship is the core of the entire plot and their relationship to each other #is what ultimately moves much of the plot in the latter half! #which is the way relationships should work in fiction! not just have them for the sake of having them! #lloyd didn't need a romantic subplot because the plot was already working perfectly without it! #also what's the point of having a character constantly think about what their idea of 'happy life' is if you're not going to challenge it #it's about the hero's journey of it all!!! #i have things to say dang it! #javier asrahan #tged

[sysig]

Don’t be silly! Okay, be a little silly (Patreon)

#Doodles #UT #Handplates #Sans #Papyrus #Could also be general Undertale again but y'know lol #Silliness is the only thing on the menu I'm sorry but we're out of everything else it's the one remaining option #Speaking of silliness! I started that first one in an attempt to draw Sans' blind side and then- #I had a 50-50 chance of what direction to have him face and I picked the wrong one brain why lol #Well he was still fun to draw anyhow lol it all works out #Tired Papyrus toting an even tireder Sans around #I imagine Undyne called him to do something and he just brought Sans along since he was already carrying him lol #Sans waking up in random places like ''Ah. Papyrus-teleportation'' lol #Another mini set based on me and smol! Just try and stop me!! #We frequently talk about dreams right after we wake up if we happen to catch each other - and remember lol #And one of her dreams was just so absurd that the harder I imagined it the funnier it got lol #So I gave it to Sans to enjoy lol - him enjoying when Papyrus is intentionally silly with him makes my heart happy <3 #Papyrus plays his straight man so often that when he does come in with something funny it just catches Sans off guard haha #Pleased all the way around! #Also ft. a slight headcanon I have about Sans' lowercasedness lol #About his voice being naturally quiet and all that - that even when he laughs really hard it's still on the quiet side #Tires him out but it's kinda breathy #And if you can believe it I am Still getting used to drawing Sans' face pftbltl #He's so roundy! I feel like he'd be easy to draw and then I do and like #Sometimes yes sometimes no! I'm starting to recognize which features do it but dang I wasn't expecting him to be harder to draw than Papyrus #I feel like Papyrus' design is a little more forgiving - like if you mess up a detail you can still be like ''Okay but that's like 95% him'' #With Sans it's like ''Well I did Something. And now he's Extremely off-model. Could I tell you what I did? Uhm'' Lol #I'll get it figured out! I will!

[tcfactory]

Okay, but seriously, I have a mighty need for a Yue Qingyuan who came out of the cave something less than human. CW for body horror of the "bit like OG form Zhuzhi Lang, but dragon instead of snake and at least one third sword and very, very painful" variety.

They broke his body and the failed bond shattered his meridians and when he was nothing but broken broken broken, locked in the dark with only his terror and Xuan Su for company

he forgot, for a while, that he was meant to be human.

He was pain and regret and more pain and it's not like he could see himself in the pitch black of the cave. Something bled all over the walls, the floor and even the ceiling, and it could very well have been that neither sword nor boy knew how much blood there was supposed to be in the human body and that was all. It would have been strange, but not the strangest thing to ever happen. If some of the marks on the stone looked too much like clawmarks, that was only a coincidence. Some luckily spaced sword slashes, his Shizun insisted when Mu shidi pointed them out the day they came to fetch him.

He eventually put himself back together, after all. Xiao Jiu was expecting his Qi-ge, not whatever the thing thrashing against the walls of the cave was. He sheathed Xuan Su - he didn't remember the heavy scabbard, carved bone and eerily warm to the touch, but the metal inlay matched the sword so surely it was already there. He just forgot about it. His Shizun stared at the bleached bone, his face going pale as a sheet, and ordered everyone not to touch it, as if it would bite anyone who was not Yue Qi.

Xiao Jiu was his reason, the center of his world, so he put himself together to be the best and warmest big brother his Xiao Jiu cold ever want - and he would never talk about the thing in the cave. When he let himself think too long on it he was certain that Yue Qi died in the dark and he's whatever beast of pain and guilt that hatched from his corpse.

He couldn't bear to tell Xiao Jiu that Qi-ge wasn't strong enough to survive, not even for his sake, so he said nothing. Continues to say nothing. Whatever betrayal Xiao Jiu imagines, it couldn't possibly measure up to the enormity of Qi-ge's failure.

It takes a small thing to unmake him, in the grand scheme of things. He is walking with Shen Qingqiu from the latest Peak Lord meeting when something strange tickles the back of his throat. The tiniest bit of suspicious pollen that escaped the Medicine Peak's greenhouse, maybe a whiff of some rare beast Liu Qingge dragged back to show off to his disciples.

It's the strangest sneeze he ever experienced, one that seems to upend the very world, and when he focuses his eyes again Shen Qingqiu is staring at him with a wild mixture of fascination, anger and terror. Only when he opens his maws to ask what startled the other when he realizes that the shell of Sect Leader Yue has unraveled to show the beast he became in the dark.

Xiao Jiu was never meant to see him like this, never meant to discover the beast under the shell, so he never bothered to fix this part of himself. As far as he can tell from a cursory glance (Xiao Jiu makes a noise of distress when the beast tries to turn his head to take stock of himself, so he immediately turns back in alarm) he looks mostly like a dragon, albeit one that someone tried to put through a round or three of lingchi, skin and scales and flesh peeling from where he rubbed it raw against the walls of the cave. Makes sense, he thinks. He hasn't seen it in years, but there is a dragon etched into Xuan Su's blade.

Remembering his sword, he looks around in alarm to locate it.

"It's right there." Xiao Jiu sounds unusually queasy as he gestures towards the beast's chest. He twists his long neck until he can see and oh, there it is, safe and snug, sheathed between his ribs. He breathes deep to feel his lungs expand against it, twists around to see if any movement would dislodge it or not, but it's safe there. It doesn't hurt one bit. It belongs there.

"Thank you, Xiao Jiu." It comes out a little garbled, but he brightens up to discover that he can still speak, right until the moment Xiao Jiu makes a hysterical hiccuping sound. He made that noise before, when a horse kicked his Qi-ge and he thought the hoof had caved his skull in.

"Don't speak. Please." After a moment of silence he rallies anew and swiftly strips off his outmost robe so he can throw it over the beast's head. "And don't you dare take that off!"

It smells like Xiao Jiu, so the beast that was once Qi-ge is content to stay where he is while Shen Jiu turns into a hurricane of action - he drags Mu shidi and his medics over, yells at the disciples until they clear out one of the isolated stone gardens for him, sends runners to Wan Jian and to every peak's library pavilions to see if they can dig up anything useful - and all the while he is bombarding Mu Qingfang with questions, having soon sussed out that their shidi knows something about this situation.

While Xiao Jiu rakes poor Mu shidi over the coals the beast sits placidly among the many senior medics, listening to the Qian Cao head disciple mumble under her breath while she notes down all their findings. So, he's not quite a dragon, after all. Some parts of him are still clearly Yue Qi. That thought makes him smile a little as he looks down at one of his hands, rubbing the dried blood off his shattered claws. He broke all of them, trying to get out of the cave, as well as most of his bones. He is absently aware that he is in agony, but he can't fully comprehend what that means right now, so it's fine. No reason to make the medics worry over it.

The head disciple makes a very interesting noise of disbelief when someone reports that some of his bones are actually swords, apparently. They are not sure what his guts are made of, but based on the sudden, alarmed sounding whispers it's probably nothing pleasant.

They let him take the robe off his head, but they have hastily covered all the surfaces where he might see his own reflection and some of them look decidedly green whenever they look at him directly, so he buries his face back in the soft fabric and lets his world narrow down to the scent of his Xiao Jiu.

He must have dozed off, because when he wakes up all the medics have left. It's only him in the garden and a tired looking Xiao Jiu. He sits up to show the other that he's aware and listening.

"Qi-ge, what have you done to yourself?" Xiao Jiu looks angry and hurt and all the things Yue Qi doesn't want him to be. "All these years. If only you had told me! Didn't I deserve to know?!"

Yue Qi hangs his head in shame. Opens his mouth, but swallows the well-worn 'sorry' down before it could escape from between his cracked teeth.

At long last Xiao Jiu sighs. Then slowly, bashfully, spreads his arms. "Aren't you going to comfort me? I'm giving you permission, just this once. Come down here and hug me, Qi-ge."

Joy surges through Yue Qi and he collapses into Xiao Jiu's arms before he can think twice about it and he's back, he's as human again as he will ever be, two arms, two legs and two eyes brimming with tears as he clutches his Xiao Jiu.

Xuan Su clatters to the ground and Xiao Jiu clutches him right back, long nails hooking into his back like they never want to let him go. "Don't you dare scare me like that ever again! Stupid Qi-ge."

Yue Qi can't promise the impossible, can't bear to lie to his Xiao Jiu. But he murmurs the promise that he will try his best into the silk of Xiao Jiu's robes and that has to be good enough for now.

"We will work on it, together," Xiao Jiu orders indulgently and Yue Qi doesn't remember the last time he was this happy.

For the first time since the caves he feels that maybe the boy and the beast are the same thing after all. They have to be, to hold the same love.

#svsss #yue qingyuan #shen jiu #shen qingqiu #tc writes #I'm tempted to write a companion to this from SQQ's PoV #because YQY is /aware/ that he's fucked up but half his brain is a spiritual sword atm so his awareness is uuuh #he's just happy that apparently he's still Yue Qi tbh #he doesn't stop being a half-dragon-half-sword abomination btw #he would need to get therapy for that to happen and we all know there's no therapy in papapa land #but as long as Shen Jiu wants him to be human shaped then he will be human shaped #and they will slowly work on that ptsd anyway