#I am painting mathematical functions

[elkement]

On my mission to combine traditional art, digital paintings, and code art in new ways!

I am using my code-generated art (real and imaginary part of 1/z) as a reference image!

First ever test with acrylics on canvas 🙈

Work in progress!

[cleovee]

+　๋࣭ ✴︎ ARISTOTLE | Ollie Bearman x smart-student!reader

Summary: A math genius and a rising racer meet by chance, constantly challenging each other. What begins as playful debates slowly grows into something more, making them question where they truly belong.

Warning: Um kinda out-of-character ollie ig

Notes: I literally wrote this on class because I’m so bored, so this might be kinda messy but I’ll fix it later (if I remember it tho-) And this is kinda long so i hope u enjoy it <3

Y/N had always lived in a world of numbers, equations, and the thrill of solving problems that most people found impossible. At sixteen, she was already a prodigy in the math olympiad scene, effortlessly tackling problems that left even seasoned mathematicians impressed.

But then, she met Ollie Bearman.

She had seen his name before—a rising star in Ferrari’s junior program. Nineteen years old, fast, confident, and already making waves in Formula 2, with whispers of an impending F1 seat growing louder. He was a name that mattered in motorsport, but to Y/N, he had been nothing more than just a name.

She found herself standing in the Ferrari garage, an unwilling spectator as cars roared through the narrow streets of Monte Carlo. Unlike the rest of the team, she wasn’t watching the cars themselves but the screens, the numbers flashing in real time, painting a picture of the race beyond what the eye could see.

That was when he noticed her.

Ollie pulled off his helmet, shaking out his damp curls, still breathless from the session. He had expected to be met with the usual engineers, mechanics, or even an occasional sponsor’s representative. Instead, his gaze landed on her—a girl who looked out of place, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the screen rather than the track.

“You don’t look like a racing fan.” he remarked, walking over.

“Because I’m not.” she replied without looking up. “But I like the real-time data. And you brake later than most in Turn 4. It’s an unnecessary risk.”

Ollie blinked, momentarily caught off guard. Then, to her irritation, he grinned.

“Risk is part of racing.”

“And probability says it’ll cost you a race if you keep doing it.”

His grin widened. “Let me guess, an engineer?”

“Unemployed.” she corrected.

He tilted his head, intrigued. “So, what’s your verdict? Am I good or just lucky?”

She hesitated. Math was clean and predictable. Racing was not. It was a tangled mess of speed, instinct, and physics-defying precision. And yet, even she had to admit that Ollie’s driving wasn’t reckless—it was calculated, refined in a way that most people wouldn’t notice. “You calculate your risks well. It’s not all instinct, even if you pretend it is.”

Ollie smirked. “So, you have been watching.”

“Only because my dad makes me.”

At that, Ollie raised an eyebrow. He had a feeling she wasn’t just any guest in the Ferrari garage. “Wait, who’s your dad?”

Before she could answer, a deep voice cut in. “Y/N, I see you’ve met Ollie.” Ollie turned and felt his stomach drop slightly. Standing behind her was none other than the CEO of Ferrari himself.

Oh. His easygoing confidence flickered for just a second. “Ah. That explains a lot.”

To most people, Y/N’s father was one of the most powerful figures in Formula 1. To her, he was simply the reason she had spent more weekends at racetracks than she cared to count. She gave Ollie a knowing look. “Told you I don’t have a choice.”

From that moment on, Ollie seemed to make it his mission to get under her skin. At every race she attended, he sought her out, tossing math problems at her just to see if she’d take the bait (she always did). In return, she picked apart his driving with ruthless precision, pointing out every inefficiency like a strategist rather than a fan.

—

One evening, after hours of solving functional equations for preparation for the International Mathematical Olympiad, Y/N sat at the dinner table with her family. Her two older siblings, Kai and Isa, had been listening to their dad talk about Ferrari’s recent races.

“So, Dad.” Isa started, smirking. “Are we going to talk about how your daughter is lowkey running strategy for Ferrari?”

“I am not running strategy.” Y/N said immediately, stabbing her fork into her food.

“But you could.” Kai pointed out. “Dad literally offered you a spot.”

“Not a real spot.” she muttered.

Their father sighed. “She’s brilliant with numbers, but she refuses to apply them where they matter most.”

“They matter in math.” Y/N shot back.

Kai leaned back. “Okay, but let’s be real. Why are you really turning it down? Is it the pressure? Or…” He smirked. “Would working in F1 mean seeing a certain driver more often?”

Isa grinned. “Ohhh, this just got soooo interesting.”

Y/N groaned. “You guys are ridiculous.”

Her mother, who had been quiet, finally spoke up. “You should do what makes you happy. Whether that’s math or racing—just make sure it’s your choice. Not something you’re avoiding.” Y/N hesitated.

She had been avoiding it, hadn’t she?

But it wasn’t because of Ollie.

Or at least, that’s what she told herself.

—

Her presence in the paddock didn’t go unnoticed. Carlos was the first to bring it up. “You and Bearman seem close.” he mused after bumping into her in the hospitality area.

Lewis, who had been listening in, smirked. “More than close. Kid looked like he was waiting for her approval after his last win.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen him stare at telemetry less intensely than he looks at you.”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “You’re all being ridiculous.”

“Are we?” Charles grinned. “Because Ollie is watching you right now.”

She turned, and sure enough, across the paddock, Ollie was mid-conversation with an engineer but still stealing glances at her. The moment their eyes met, he smirked and gave her a lazy salute before turning back to his conversation.

Kimi Antonelli, the youngest among them, just chuckled. “You should probably just put him out of his misery.”

Y/N ignored them.

Mostly.

“So, when’s this big math thing?” Ollie asked, catching up with her after a long day in the paddock.

“July.” she answered.

“Alright. If you win a medal, I’ll let you call strategy for my next race.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I take you on a hot lap, and you have to admit that racing is cooler than doing equations.”

It was a ridiculous bet.

But Ollie looked so smug, so certain he’d win, that she couldn’t help herself. “Fine.” she agreed, shaking his hand. And for the first time in her life, she wasn’t sure which outcome she wanted more.

—

Despite their deal, Y/N and Ollie had fallen into a routine. She was deep in training for the olympiad, and he was busy racing across Europe, but somehow, they still found time for each other.

Their conversations started out competitive, Ollie sending her video clips of his best overtakes, asking for her "mathematical analysis," just to get a reaction.

Ollie: be honest, did I calculate my braking perfectly or what?

Y/N: you cut it too close in Turn 7

Y/N: if you keep doing that, probability says you’ll get penalized eventually

Ollie: probability also says I’ll pull it off every time.

Y/N: that’s not how probability works??

Ollie: that’s how I work :)

At some point, the conversations became… more. Late-night texts about nothing and everything. Ollie asking about her training, even though he barely understood half of what she was saying. Y/N watching his races, even when she pretended she didn’t care.

One evening, she was deep into a geometry proof when her phone buzzed.

Ollie: do you ever take breaks, or do you just absorb math through osmosis?

Y/N: breaks are inefficient.

Ollie: you know what else is inefficient? overworking your brain until it melts.

She sighed, rubbing her temples.

Y/N: and what do you suggest i do instead?

Ollie: something fun

Y/N: define ‘fun’

Ollie: call me XD

She hesitated. Their texts were one thing, but a call? It was different. But before she could overthink it, she hit the button. Ollie picked up instantly. “Wow. Didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“You said fun. I’m testing your definition.”

His chuckle sent a strange warmth through her. “Alright, genius. Let’s see if I can impress you with something other than lap times.”

They talked for hours. About racing, about numbers, about everything in between. It was easy. Natural. And maybe, just maybe, she didn’t mind it.

—

The weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix arrived, and Y/N found herself back in the Ferrari garage, standing in the same spot where she had first met Ollie. She wasn’t a racing fan. She kept telling herself that. But her eyes still sought out the timing screens, scanning for his name.

He was starting P3. A solid position. But Monaco was unforgiving. Overtaking here was a different kind of battle—one that required both patience and risk. As the race began, she gripped her headset tighter than she intended.

Lap after lap, Ollie stayed behind the two leaders, waiting. Her father, standing beside her, noticed. “He’s playing the long game.”

Y/N nodded, focused. “Like he should.” With ten laps to go, the car ahead made a mistake. A lock-up.

Y/N held her breath.

Ollie pounced.

A daring move down the inside of Turn 10. Inches from disaster. She exhaled as he made it stick. Now, it was just him and the leader.

“Come on, Bearman.” she whispered.

With five laps left, she saw it before it even happened. The leader’s tires were gone. Ollie had managed his perfectly.

One chance. A gap opened. He took it.

The Ferrari garage erupted as Ollie crossed the finish line first. Y/N let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. But the moment that hit her the hardest?

His first radio message.

“This win goes to my strategist.”

Her heart skipped. He found her in the celebrations, helmet off, eyes searching—until they locked onto hers. And suddenly, it wasn’t just about the race.

For the Bearman, racing had always been everything. It was all he had ever wanted. But lately, something had changed. It started with little things—how he’d instinctively look for Y/N in the paddock, how her absence at a race bothered him more than he’d admit, how their late-night texts had become something he needed rather than just enjoyed.

Then came the bigger realization. The moment he won, he didn’t think about the trophy, the team, or the celebrations.

He wondered what she would say. Would she analyze his lap times? Admit he was right about Turn 4? And that’s when it hit him.

He was completely, absolutely in love with her

—

Ollie had barely made it through his post-race interviews before the questions shifted. “So Ollie, your radio message—who’s ‘your strategist’?”

Ollie chuckled, shaking his head. “Just someone who keeps me in check.”

“More important than your race engineer?”

“She’d say yes.”

The reporters paused “She? So, it’s a girl?”

Ollie sighed, but the grin never left his face. "Next question." The speculation exploded. Social media flooded with theories, blurry pictures of him talking to Y/N in the paddock, clips of their earlier interactions.

Her dad wasn’t surprised. "You should have known he wouldn’t keep it quiet."

“I did know.” she muttered, scrolling through an article titled ‘Ollie Bearman’s Secret Strategist: The Genius Behind the Headset?’

Isa sent her a text on their groupchat.

Isa: girl u are literally trending rn

Kai: do we get paddock passes🥺🥺

Y/N: lol no

She was still debating how to handle it when her phone buzzed again.

Ollie: pls tell me ur not mad

Y/N: mad? no, slightly horrified? yas

Ollie: at least they didn’t find our bet lol

Y/N: give em some time

She could practically hear his laughter through the screen.

—

Y/N had never been one to get attached easily. But Ollie? He had a way of making it impossible to keep her distance.

It started with the small things. The way he always found her in the Ferrari hospitality unit, plopping down across from her with that infuriatingly easygoing grin. The way he’d text her after every race, win or lose, as if her opinion mattered more than anyone else’s. And the way he made her care about racing.

“You seem happier lately.” Charles Leclerc teased one evening in the Ferrari motorhome.

Y/N barely glanced up from her laptop. “And you’re getting slower in Sector 2.”

Carlos Sainz, sitting beside Charles, burst out laughing. “She got you there, mate.” Charles rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. Instead, his gaze flicked toward Ollie, who was casually leaning against the doorway, watching Y/N with that same look he always had when she wasn’t paying attention.

Carlos smirked. “So, when are you two admitting it?”

Y/N frowned. “Admitting what?”

“That you like each other,” Max Verstappen cut in from the other side of the room, completely unbothered as he scrolled through his phone. “It’s obvious.”

Y/N scoffed. “We’re friends.”

“Sure.” Max drawled. “And I drive slow.” Lewis Hamilton, who had been silently sipping his tea, finally looked up. “It’s fine if you’re in denial. Just don’t let it distract you. Relationships in F1 are complicated.”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Good thing we’re not in one, then.”

Ollie, who had been suspiciously quiet this whole time, finally spoke. “Yet.” The room fell silent.

Y/N’s head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

Ollie grinned. “I said ‘yet.’”

Carlos let out a low whistle. “Bold move, boy.”

Y/N, meanwhile, felt her face heat up. She was used to Ollie’s teasing, but this? This felt different. “You’re insufferable.” she muttered, focusing back on her laptop.

“Maybe,” Ollie said easily. “But you’re still stuck with me.”

And the worst part? He was right. But now, there was something unspoken between them, something neither of them dared to acknowledge.

Until one night in Monza.

It was late, the paddock mostly empty, the distant hum of the circuit lights buzzing overhead. Y/N had stayed behind to finish some work, and Ollie, as usual, had found her.

“You know,” he said, sitting across from her at one of the hospitality tables, “for someone who doesn’t like F1, you spend an awful lot of time in the paddock.”

She shrugged. “Force of habit.”

“Right.” Ollie leaned forward. “Or maybe you just like being around me.”

She snorted. “Delusional.”

He grinned. “I prefer optimistic.” There was a pause. A rare moment of quiet between them. Then Ollie, unusually serious, asked, “Do you ever think about what happens after this?”

“After what?”

“This. Us. Me in F1, you off solving the world’s hardest equations or whatever it is you’ll end up doing.”

Y/N hesitated. Because, for the first time, she realized she didn’t have an answer. Numbers were predictable. Racing was not. And neither was Ollie Bearman. He stepped beside her, hands in his pockets. “So. What did you think?” He said breaking the silence.

“Of the race?” she asked, though they both knew that wasn’t what he meant.

“Of everything.”

The room was quiet for a moment, save for the faint hum of the air conditioning. It was a ridiculous situation—two people who were too proud, too stubborn, yet somehow always orbiting each other.

Ollie exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “You know what? No, I’m saying it. You’re—” He paused, visibly struggling with the words. “You’re annoying.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You’re annoying. You always have to be right, you never let me win an argument, and you act like you don’t care when you clearly do.”

She blinked. “First of all, I am always right. Second, you’re the one who keeps picking fights with me. And third—” She faltered for just a second. “I don’t care.”

Ollie let out a dry laugh. “Yeah? Then why do you always wait for my race results before you go to sleep?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Wha- how do you even know that?”

“Because Charles told me. Apparently, you asked about my sprint race before anything else last weekend.”

Damn it, Charles.

Y/N felt her face heat up, but she refused to back down. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Right. Just like how I don’t notice when you’re in the garage, even though I somehow always drive better when you’re watching?”

She swallowed. “Coincidence.”

He huffed, looking almost amused. “You really don’t make this easy.”

“You don’t either.” she muttered. A beat passed. Then another.

And then, with a voice quieter than before, Ollie said, “You know what? I like y- No. I love you.” She stiffened. The words felt so foreign coming from him—blunt, direct, but still carrying that same defiance he always had.

She hesitated for a second too long, so he quickly added, “Not that it matters. I mean, if you’re going to pretend you don’t feel the same way, then—”

“I never said that,” she interrupted.

He froze.

She exhaled slowly. “You’re annoying too. Always teasing, always acting like you don’t care when you obviously do. And it’s exhausting.”

Ollie tilted his head slightly, eyes searching hers. “So, what are you saying?”

She looked away, glaring at the Ferrari logo on the wall as if it would save her. “I’ll give you my answer,” she said quietly, "after my olympiad.”

Ollie blinked. “You’re making me wait?”

“You make me wait every race weekend to see if you actually listen to my advice.”

He groaned, running a hand through his curls. “You are impossible.”

She shot him a glare. “Take it or leave it, Bearman.”

He let out a short laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll take it.” His answering grin was slow, filled with something dangerous—because Ollie Bearman never backed down from a challenge.

—

The International Mathematics Olympiad arrived faster than she expected. Almost 6 weeks of nothing but numbers, equations, and the thrill of proving the impossible. When the final results were announced, she stood on the podium, a gold medal around her neck, her country’s flag draped behind her.

She had done it.

And the first person she texted?

Y/N: i placed first!

Ollie: so that means I get a strategist, right?

Y/N: guess i owe you an answer

Ollie: finally

When she returned home, he was already waiting. She met him at the Ferrari garage—after hours, when most people had already left, and the place was quiet except for the hum of machinery and the faint smell of oil and rubber. Ollie was leaning against the side of his car, arms crossed, but the moment he saw her walk in, his expression softened.

“So,” he said, watching her carefully. “Did solving equations help you figure things out?”

“Yeah,” she said simply. Ollie raised an eyebrow. “And?”

She tilted her head slightly, eyes glinting with something unreadable.

“I like you.” It was so effortless, so blunt, that it completely threw him off. He had expected a debate, some kind of teasing remark, maybe even a dramatic build-up. Not this.

“You—” He blinked, mouth parting slightly. “You really waited this long just to say that?”

She shrugged. “Had to be sure.”

Ollie let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “God, you’re impossible.”

And then—he kissed her.

It wasn’t careful or calculated. It was instinct, reckless and real, like something that had been waiting to happen for too long. She froze for a second, then kissed him back, just as certain.

The sound of a camera shutter snapped them out of it.

Ollie pulled back just enough to glance toward the entrance—where, through the gap in the garage doors, a group of photographers had their lenses pointed directly at them.

His jaw clenched. “You have got to be kidding me.”

She blinked up at him, a little breathless, then exhaled sharply. “Guess we’re making headlines tomorrow.”

Ollie groaned, running a hand through his hair. “Unbelievable.”

—

You’re right, the headlines the next morning were everywhere.

“Ferrari’s Rising Star Ollie Bearman and Mystery Girl—More Than Just Friends?”

“Caught in 4K: Young F1 Driver’s Late-Night Garage Romance!”

At first, people were just trying to figure out who the mystery girl was. But then, someone zoomed in on the photo and noticed about who that girl is.

“WAIT. ISN’T THIS THE GIRL WHO JUST PLACED FIRST AT THE IMO??”

“YOU’RE TELLING ME FERRARI’S FUTURE STAR JUST BAGGED A MATHEMATICAL GENIUS???”

“Ollie Bearman. Sir. How did you pull THAT?”

Ollie nearly threw his phone across the room when he saw the last comment. “You’re kidding me.” he muttered, scrolling through the article. The picture was clear, him and Y/N in the Ferrari garage, mid-kiss. There was no way out of it.

His phone buzzed.

Y/N: wow we’re famous

Ollie: you think this is funny?

Y/N: a little

Ollie: i’m going to eat whoever took that photo.

Y/N: too late, my mom already sent it to all my relatives

Ollie groaned. His face was burning. Great. A few hours later, Y/N showed up at his place, looking way too calm about the whole thing.

“You look way too amused.” Ollie said, arms crossed as he leaned against the doorframe.

She shrugged. “I think it’s funny. Besides, it’s not like we were planning to keep it secret forever.”

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, but I was hoping for a little control over how people found out.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “You? Control? Ollie, you kissed me first.”

His face turned red instantly. “That’s—shut up.” She smirked, stepping inside and flopping onto his couch like she owned the place. “And now the whole world knows. Congrats, loverboy.”

He groaned. “You’re the worst.”

“You like me, though.”

Ollie sighed, defeated, before sitting beside her. He nudged her shoulder lightly. “Unfortunately.”

She grinned. “Lucky me.”

Despite the chaos, despite the headlines and the teasing texts from the other drivers.

Lewis: Look at our little Ollie, all grown up!

Charles: I expect wedding invites.

Kimi: can you two not do this in the Ferrari garage next time?

He groaned dramatically, but when she laced her fingers through his, he couldn’t help but smile. Maybe the whole world knowing wasn’t so bad. Maybe, for once, he didn’t mind being the center of attention.

Because if there was one thing that mattered more than racing, more than headlines, more than anything—It was her.

© CLEOVEE 2025, please do not translate or repost my fics without my permission.

[thepioden]

You said you wanted to be asked about Duchamp so here I am (not confrontational though! I'm just curious and really into art history stuff)

Would you consider making art as requiring "effort"? Like the physical effort to paint, sculpt, draw, etc, not just the effort of coming up with an original idea since that's separate imo

I do agree that ai """art""" isn't really art, but I'm really curious if you think Duchamp's readymades and other, more "conceptual" art isn't really "art" because they're not doing that "effort" themselves

Again, just curious, I don't want to start any sort of discussion :]

PUTTING a urinal in a gallery is a statement on art, and a powerful one, and I'm not mad that it was done. Curation of art is a whole conversation that is very worth having, especially the way art curation classically does disregard functional or utilitarian pieces. HOWEVER, signing your name on something someone else made does not make you the artist of that piece.

So The Fountain is the big one, but while I do think the readymades are art, I don't think that DuChamp is the artist. Some designer or team somewhere made the sculptural form for that urinal, they THEY are the artist of that piece; it is no more or less art sitting in a gallery than it is mounted on a bathroom wall. Art is not contingent on the space it is displayed in; art can be art without being displayed at all.

I think of it as analogous to being the editor of and anthology, or the producer of a play. You have facilitated the display of the work, you may have even selected the work to present a theme or thesis or emotional response in an audience, but you did not CREATE the work yourself. Being a good curator is a skill, it can definitely be used to make a point, but it is a different skill from making art.

The conversation gets wobbly when you start looking at natural objects as art. How much transformation is needed? Is a quarry block art? You can put it in a gallery, it was worked, so how is it materially different from a sculpture? Is it? Put a river rock on a plinth; is THAT art? Photographs of landscapes? Photographs of animals? Photographs of other art?

So to your question, I do think there has to be some "effort" in translating your idea into the realm of perceivable. Writing a prompt for generative AI is art, actually - idea to words. The generated image itself is just a mathematical average of other people's work, and is therefore curatorial or editorial.

[creating-by-starlight]

Hi, I'm Starlight, and welcome to my blog!

I'm a university student majoring in mathematics who comes here for fun in her off time. I am also a pro-life conservative-leaning Christian who stands by most of the Church's traditional sexual ethics, and that informs pretty much everything I do here. I try to refrain from politic posting, but the most liberal I get is my egalitarianism and feminism (the one place where people would probably not consider me traditional), and those stem from my faith as well.

I'm a low-church Protestant, but Catholics and the rare Eastern Orthodox are very much my siblings in Christ and are absolutely welcome here. If I ever feed into the Protestant/Catholic feuds smack me. Jews are also welcome here- anti-Semitism results in an instant block from me. Others are totally welcome and free to browse too, but again, I have very specific opinions that most people on this site are not fond of, and while I'm open to goodwill discussion, I refuse to engage with harassment and will block freely.

My main fandoms online are Fringe and Trigun, with side dishes of Lockwood and Co., Star Wars, and Fullmetal Alchemist and Stargate and Legend of Zelda for dessert. You'll find that stuff tagged with #Fringe, #Trigun, #Lockwood and Co or #Lockwood & Co (keep forgetting which one I use), #Star Wars, #fmab, #sg1 and #sga, and #loz or #The Legend of Zelda (see lw&co). (I went through and got all my original work stuff linked, but I'm not going to fight with it for fandom stuff. The search function does mostly work on my blog I think.) I'm also a Sanderfan and am obsessed with K.M. Shea's work, but I don't really want to engage with the former online and the latter doesn't have a huge fandom on here. I'm occasionally bitten by the Zutara bug, which I have under #Starlight's Reblogging Zutara.

I'm also a major hobbyist! See #Starlight Crochets for fiber art, #Starlight Draws for both digital and physical drawing, #Starlight Paints for rare paintings, and variations on #Starlight Writes for my writing stuff.

On the subject of my writing, I have a small number of fics up on Ao3 (both are for Fringe) that you can get to under #Starlight Writes: Fanfic Edition. However, my main focus is my long-time original work in progress The Last Elementals, which you can find here under #Starlight's The Last Elementals and #Starlight Writes: Original Fiction Edition. Characters specifically end up under #Starlight's OCs. Please send me asks about them, I want to talk about them.

For my day-to-day stuff, #Starlight Does Uni, #Starlight Does Math, and #Starlight Talks see a lot of use. #Starlight Rants is exactly what it sounds like, and me being stupid is under #Starlight's Nonsense. TV show commentary is under #Starlight Watches TV, with specific tags for various shows I'm specifically going through at any given point. I do my best to stay out of main tags since my beliefs aren't particularly popular here.

Thank you for visiting! If you get nothing else from here, have a beautiful day, and remember that Christ loves and died for you.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, can you tell us about Cybertronian elections, such as for the senate? How may political parties does Cybertron have (other than the Autobots and Decepticons, of course)? How did election change from the pre-war era to the post-war era?

Dear Interested Imperator,

At the dawn of time, my siblings and I were tasked with leading Cybertron’s people, by none other than Primus himself. The lineage of Primes continues in this tradition; the planet’s ruler is chosen by the Matrix of Leadership, and through it, by divine right. Perhaps all the more so for having lived through the Age of Primes, I am a staunch advocate for democracy—people must be free to choose their own leaders. It is an unfortunate truth that, during wartime, positions in office are filled not by elections, but by the hasty promotion of those still functioning.

There was a time, long before the war, following the schism that marked the end of the Primes’ tenure, when Cybertronian society began to experiment with new political systems, in order to unify its people once more. This was known as the Defragmentation Era, and some aspects of these reforms persist to this day. Where before, leaders would have issued software commands to their followers directly, many began to adopt the alpha builds of the “Magna Cartridges”. These ancient tapes outlined voting consensus protocols using the language of network failures, and derived “peace” from the healing of faults in networked systems. The original Council of Elders, established at this time, were a group of robots sitting in their supercomputer alt-modes, in a grand amphitheater, computing away for megacycles at a time!

Various political parties have come and gone since. The Mathematical Party dates back to those early days of laborious computation, believing that the optimal leadership candidate can be calculated from logic alone—they submit rigorous proofs demonstrating the purported superiority of their preferred candidate. Meanwhile, the Chromatic Party revolves around the concept of Polarity, fielding the candidate whose spark “color” is in sympathy with the astrological movements at that point in time. A newer voting bloc is the Axalonian Party, who have removed all weaponry from their forms and tend to inhabit the lower mantle of Cybertron, advocating for techno-organic rights for visiting species.

This paints a very basic picture for you, but I’m no political theorist. There is a huge canon of work written by Cybertronian thinkers and politicians, if you’re truly interested. Have you read any Anti-Blaze?

[jonathankatwhatever]

It’s the end of 19 Oct 2024, and I’m identifying a process by which I run through observations and tentative short scenarios about you until they achieve a distance and the shift from actor perspective to observer occurs.

I just got distracted by a short excursion into why 12 and the answer comes now so swiftly that I immediately saw me you me and you me you is 6, and 12 from the other direction, and thus 24 if you start the whole process from the other end or side. You can see the 60 as that me you me, you me you magnified within any count of that 24, meaning you’re blowing up each count by pausing the me you me stuff so between each step is one of those SBE2 chains which has the commutative identity in which SBE2 maps b10 and b10 maps SBE2. That means in the first case that we take each count of SBE2, each me you or you me step, is a count of b10, which is SBE3+1, which is visible here because it’s necessary to have this relationship in which that SBE counts along the szK, and so the concept of Start, Between and End can act, operate and thus exist.

When I started typing, my intent, if I had one, was to say I had nothing much on my mind because I’ve been worrying over painting walls. I like what I’ve done. It’s highly suggestive, like clouds forming images, and the colors are natural, reaching back to cave paintings and to 60’s appliance colors and thus to the natural world outside. I really want this to be special, which is a lot of pressure. I’ve decided to use sample sizes for more accent colors to add depth to the images, and to give the sense of a more completed image which is still highly suggestive. I want to avoid removing suggestions. I’d like to increase their depth while retaining their mutability. I’m up to 6 colors so far: background is linen, with light brown, soft watercolor-like green, a light tan, and now today a gold and a red called dragon’s blood which looks a bit like fall leaves but which smudges into a sort of blossom. I’m thinking of finishing the room with something simpler, like bigger smudges of color but I’m very unsure how that would work. That gives me anxiety.

I’m also anxious because I think the best usage in here is to flip the living room and dining room. Two reasons. One is to reduce the truck noise. Other is to create space for plants and a sort of work area for Debbie to access plants outside. Have to take down chandelier, which was going to do anyway because it’s not needed given there are 4 can lights in that space plus another in the hall portion. And I’m anxious about having a bit too much furniture, and am noticing how beat up everything is (and how little I care).

I’ll have to do what I’m going to do anyway, but I hope to do it with fewer errors. The problem I have with that is also mathematical: the two main sources are errors caused by me watching me, observer, and that gap working as doubt or delay or confusion in what I’m doing. That classic stutter in motion people develop is a terrific example: they’re not processing the choices properly and that’s a higher level function failure or inability to focus, sometimes because distracted, sometimes because unsure, and typically when there’s an o-role happening, and that o-role can pick examples which go to the ++ or which go to the negative image of that path.

I think that last part is highly confusing: the pairing of Ends over this form of Triangular is visible through the pairing of the Pathways, and the 1-0Segment connecting those Ends directly is through 0Space, is though and across a grid square and thus a grid box. One of the things I love about that idea is the grid box means the grid square has to occupy the 6 states required to map to SBE2. That is when this regularizes, when each grid square state, here a face, can be mapped the same as any other. That’s the idea of Regularization, that it fits to ideals to pass through to the next ideal states.

Look at Hexagonal: it breaks into 2 D3’s, and these rotate so each combination is the same. That’s required for 3-4 dimensional space to exist. You can see how D4-3 works as well: D6 reduces to D4 by the removal of a pair, which rotates to invisible in the projection, and that happens through D6-5 in each hand, and thus D5-4 through both methods, just as D6 goes directly to D3 and counts down through the other D’s. We can deem the transitions to be seamless, which relates to continuity of functions and their derivatives.

How does that work at D3? In isolation? Or as part of a structure, because a structure counts not only iterations of perspectives but the consequences of them? In isolation, please. A Hexagon or maybe the 3 of the basic level structure around a bT. First note you can count 3 in 4 ways, which we also translate as the IC of SBE, meaning each SBE is treated as the existence 1 relative to any of the others non-specified and against any of the others specified. This generates the basic CM64 Thing as 1 relative to each of the specified others.

Have I ever managed to connect D-structure to fCM like this before? I don’t think the words have come out this well. That’s fantastic. Thanks.

Joined a gym. Looking forward to lifting again. Suddenly tired.

[gacorley]

Learning to make synths is amazing, man.

Let me paint you a sound. I can imitate a sound or Ii can go abstract. I can make it mellow and soft or harsh and buzzy. I can make the pluck of a string or the gentle swell of the ocean waves.

Tell me the sound and I will paint it for you with mathematical functions. The square, the sine, the sawtooth. These are the colors I paint with. I can mix them or modulate them. I can filter the highs and bring up the bass. I can add the overtones. I can distort and phase and flange. I am the maker of this sound, and it can sound however I like.

All I need is my computer.

[elkement]

Perspective Study - contour lines, mathematical function

The journey continues! This is my latest freehand perspective drawing - work in progress!

I am painting my mathematical function as if they were made from stained glass!

Freehand perspective drawing of contour lines on a "tower" with a clover-leaf shaped base. The clover-leaf is infinitely large at the base and shrinks reciprocally with height. Top view, front view, and drawing in perspective constructed from them.

I constructing the contour lines on this tower-shaped surface traditionally, using the techniques of descriptive geometry - just without ruler or compass. Then I am adding colors in several layers, using different kinds of pencils and pens.

This has been the beginning - test sketch, then pencil lines

This was how it looked after the drawing was done and I had added a first layer of color:

[c0rns0ph5]

Art is everything

Hi everyone, I am Sophia, you can call me Soph/Sophie. For today's blog, my topic will be all about Art.

The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic visual form. Visual art can be classified in diverse ways, such as separating fine arts from applied arts; inclusively focusing on human creativity; or focusing on different media such as architecture, sculpture, painting, film, photography, and graphic arts. In recent years, technological advances have led to video art, computer art, performance art, animation, television, and videogames. Below here is an example of art.

The art is called "Katsushika Hokusai". The art was made by Hokusai known as a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo Period.

One of my Favorite Artists is Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance period, born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, and he died on May 2, 1519, in Amboise, France. He is widely recognized as one of the most versatile and talented individuals in history, excelling in various fields such as art, science, mathematics, engineering, anatomy. My second favorite Artist is Bob Ross. Robert Norman Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter, art instructor, and television host. I wanted to become a Artist because I want to capture the beauty of Nature and I want to express myself through arts. I want to become one of the best Artist in the future.

[not-that-blog]

I'm stubborn, angry, hurt and very heartbroken so the diary style posts will be continuing for a while.

Especially because irl I can't complain or work this stuff out without accidentally creating fucked up consequences for one of both of us and neither of us deserve to be punished socially for trying to heal from an amicable breakup that was just human flaws meets human nature and shit just ends.

Not dramatically or easily, but enough that it's an end and that hurts.

Anyway this is one of those dramatic diary style posts.

I have become stubbornly self care obsessed a little.

Learning how to love my body when I have hated it for two deca because I wasn't the 'beautiful child' to anyone and that was exploited by a child predator.

So I am now an adult working through trauma and trying to tell myself that every part of me is loveable just by existence.

And the parts of me that are hard to love are probably not what people expect.

I have no issues with the stretch marks or the scars (bio oil was amazing for the few faint self harm scars I had left and most people, let alone the people who've seen me naked in the last handful of years will never know where or what scars I once inflicted. I personally can see the slight discolouration in my skin, but no one else has ever seen or commented on it) and I have no issue with my stomach or thighs and the dysphoria from my boobs is minimal.

My actual self image issues are like my ass or the way my neck is floppy when I have seizures and that my joints never really fit in place and that I have anxiety about if I can see my ribcage because that was such a thing on eating disorder forums that the fear or seeing my own bones is real and the idea of someone tracing my collarbones and 'dipping their tongue into that well' makes me feel sick and weirded out (if you know the posts, you know what I mean).

And like; I don't actively think of those things often anymore. Usually just in mild rage or laughing at how we romanticised something so fucked up because accepting that we were dying an ugly and painful death was way too traumatic and we painted it as something else and were way to gothic romantic about it. I can't think of a worse way to die for honour, because it was sickening what we did to ourselves.

Being afraid of numbers and food, upping our mathematical ability while killing the brain cells needed to do it. Hiding secrets like we were doing something right for it, cheering each other on by tearing each other's bodies apart with insults and yelling praises at every bone and thigh gap.

White panties with pokadot hearts in red and a red ribbon, laying down and breathing in and feeling hip bones…

I didn't consider myself recovered until I had a layer of fat over every bone I had sent photos of in proana kiks; my hips especially.

And I am now obsessed with my oral hygiene for my own health and wellbeing, not to try and hide the effects of when my ed slipped into the other side and binge-purge became a thing.

And then just cycling between eating disorders for years.

And now I have a lot of fucked up health problems and a heartbreak that isn't being met by starvation but by actual looking after myself and trying not to hate my own guts.

It's kinda weird when self harm isn't your first instinct anymore. But it's kinda nice to when it starts to feel less familiar and less like home.

It's always there; but it's not the road most travelled anymore and choosing it wouldn't feel like strength it would feel like the ultimate failure.

It didn't feel like that at 16.

At 16 it felt like this fucked up hope.

Hope someone would love me, but not want me, that I would be so boring to fuck that no one would want to. I would be nothing.

And now as an adult, I don't care who wants to fuck me or why. I care about having a body that might actually function. I care about living past 35 and making a sustainable and loved life.

That's it. I just want to love life.

[urdadthinksimfine]

Being in a bad place was letting them down. Always was and still is. I dont want them to see me, because it would let them down, how I am, what I do.

What really is, is not what they liked. I had to be better. but I couldnt really fake it, could I? They were disappointed rather than being sad. and they didnt need to be any of that. why was it so painful for them.. Because they werent loved and appreciated, when they were in a bad place?

Rejected for who you really are...

The freedom, to feel, see and say, what really is there.

the only way to not follow their rules, their footsteps, is to accept what is, radically.

but what is?

what is?

what?

is?

Now? is what is while i do it, what is? No "im this way" "I am this kind of person", no connotation of what i did and do. Just the.. feelings of.. right now? the thoughts that haunt me? the stress and comfort in the body? my tendencies that are just there, in the moment, nothing i can think of before or after?

just... right now?

.

The freedom to see and hear what is here, instead of what “should” be, was, or will be. The freedom to say what you feel and think, instead of what you “should” feel and think. The freedom to feel what you feel, instead of what you “ought” to feel. The freedom to ask for what you want, instead of always waiting for permission. The freedom to take risks on you own behalf, instead of choosing to be only “secure”. (Five Freedoms, Dr. Virginia Satir)

.

My parents werent free. And they took our freedom. I dont want to take my freedom.

I have the freedom to fuck up, to suffer the consequences, to love bad things and to hate the good, i have the freedom to want more, i have the freedom to be brave now and timid later. I have the freedom to try to make it right, only to realize theres only half good later. I have the freedom be scared of the haters and do it nevertheless.

I have the freedom to fuck up.

I have the freedom to be fucked up.

I have the freedom to see and feel it and love it.

Dont I?

.

I am always trying to make it right.. to cope the right way, be wise, cuz getting better is the right thing to want.

I always.. try to make it right.. never really sure.. if in only want that, because they taught me to not trust my own instincts.

Im scared, because they taught me the way i feel is "bad", "wrong". But it was just what is. nothings more, nothing less.

...there is no saying what way is the right one, no formula, mathematic function. "If i feel fear, do I just have to ignore it, because its what they taught me and its actually what i should do?"

there is no such thing. no such thing.

the only things that is.. is now.. and what that means, i cant tell.

i cant tell and im lost and ... i like that, dont i? The word "delicious" is flooding my mind, painting it with its pink connotation. Is delicious what is?

if i started to love the fear that is? the lostness, the confusion, the absence of right and wrong?

.. no answer once again.

.

Guitar and writing.

Guitar and writing and what is, within those moments.

maybe.

[bonesbuckleup]

Do you have any advice on how to learn from writers you love? I've read a few books recently that are absolutely spell binding but not in a way I'm currently capable of mimicking. Do you think there's a way to pick out what it is we love and then practice it in our own stories?

Oh, bud. Oh, bud. OH, BUD. The way this ask has been making me positively rabid all day with wanting to answer it. Fun fact--this is a hill I have died on, am currently dying on, and will continue to die on for my entire existence.

Short answer: Yes. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. What you're describing is the oldest model on earth for learning how to do any artistic undertaking: you look at what the masters are doing; you think that you would like to do that thing; you learn the rules; you replicate, replicate, replicate, replicate; once you've mastered the rules, you break those rules to create your own style. Painting, writing, musical instruments, woodworking...this is the most classic of classic ways to learn a craft.

Long answer: Number one, anyone doing anything remotely creative should listen to what Ira Glass has to say about the creative gap. I kept trying to type up an answer to this ask, and he says in 2 minutes what I was taking thousands of words to try and describe.

Under a cut! And I'm sorry, it's very rambley, but I really think I could teach an entire semester class based on this concept.

The thing is, the way you go about picking out what you love and figuring out how to do it yourself will vary widely depending on what you want to replicate in your work. Dialogue, general plotting, vibes, mood, setting, character...all of these have slightly different ways you can go about them. I could probably write a book on this topic. I tried to boil it down to a few ideas:

Identify what it is EXACTLY that is drawing you to that particular book, short story, writer, etc. There is no room here for "I don't know, I just love it!" It might be the overall mood of the story. It might be the way characters are depicted. It might be the way the writer puts a sentence together. It might be how they use really plain language and then just SMACK YOU IN THE FACE with a sudden lyrical sentence. It can be anything. It might be small, like a specific 3 lines of dialogue. It might be big, like the way the plot is put together. I had a professor who called this the "gravitational pull," which is a part of the story you are drawn to the most. There can be multiple of these in a single work, of course, but the important part is to be explicit and direct in pinpointing what they are.

Rip apart the thing you love. Violent? Yes. Necessary? Also yes. Once you've identified what it is that's your gravitational pull in a story (and it's okay if there's more than one, just work through them one at a time), it's time to figure out how they work. I tend to be fascinated by how plots fit together, the if-then of storytelling, so I end up spending a lot of time making outlines of other people's books. (Fun fact: using a classic three act structure, Twilight is an almost mathematically perfect plot). Figuring out how things work can take a while, depending on what aspect you're looking at. If it's a character arc, you might plot out the main scenes and shifts that character goes through, then identifying the specific moves the writer made to take them from Point A to B to C to D. If it's something like style, such as the way a sentence is phrased or the way the language works, write down your favorite bits and figure out what, exactly, it is that you like about them. What's the draw? How is it functioning as one piece in a whole?

(One warning for ripping apart the thing you love--once you start reading like this, it's really hard to turn it off. You'll be perpetually diagnosing and dissecting everything you read. It takes a really good book to make me not do this, but even then, once I realize my analytical brain was quiet for a while? It gets kicked into overdrive, because a book that makes Analytic Brain shut up is a really fucking good book, and I want to know what makes it tick. ANYWAY. Be warned.)

Read a metric fuckton. Read the kind of thing you would like to write. Read the opposite of the thing you would like to write. Read fiction and non-fiction and fanfiction, and figure out how they're similar or different and what the rules are for each. My favorite books all combine bits and bobs from different genres (Legendborn by Tracy Deonn is such a banger of a book, and it's basically if Arthurian Legend met Beloved by Toni Morrison and took place on a college campus which is a bizarre premise but it WORKS SO WELL).

Write "In the Style Of" Pieces. Another professor of mine had us read several stories by the same writer all in a row. We identified the things that made them That Writer's style. So, for instance, JD Salinger: he has short sentences, very plain language, tends to have a page break/vibe shift approximately halfway through his short fiction, and often has some kind of shift at the ending. I think. It's been 10+ years since I read one of his. THE POINT IS: we identified the things that made a JD Salinger short story a JD Salinger Short Story. We looked at them and figured out how they worked. Then our assignment was to write a JD Salinger Short Story using the themes and style ticks that he used. We also did this with Denis Johnson (lyrical prose about very un-lyrical situations), Flannery O'Connor (Catholicism and people being shady), Raymond Carver (a rant for another time lmao), and a few others who are escaping me.

Were my pieces anything like the greats? NOPE. Not at all. I definitely fell short. But! There were a few things I learned from each of them, including things I didn't want to do. I think knowing what you don't want to do in writing is almost more valuable than what you do want to do, but I'm getting off topic. By forcing myself to write in a style completely alien from my own, whether or not it was good writing, I started to figure out what my aesthetics are, what I want my voice/writing/style to look like, how I wanted to structure stories, and I learned that from taking bits and pieces from some of the masters. This is an exercise I still sometimes do: what would this story look like if Neil Gaiman wrote it? Leigh Bardugo? Karen Russell? Tamora Pierce? How is a story by CL Polk different than one by Kazuo Ishiguro or Douglas Adams or Cornelia Funke?

Steal Widely and Mercilessly. Fiction is stealing. Anyone who tells you differently is lying. I got into grad school with a story that boiled down to "what if Leonard McCoy was drafted into the Vietnam War and had to decide to dodge or not?" My grandma had a saying about babies--hope for a girl and love what you get--which is more or less the basis of a major character in the novel I'm finishing up. We all steal. We're all thieves. There's a difference between stealing and plagiarism, obviously, but like...I love the way Rory Power balances dialogue and action, and sometimes I read and use her stuff as a structure model. I used the plot breakdown of Hunger Games for that same novel I'm finishing up--it is nothing like HG, but the pacing was relevant, which is learning while running. Whenever I'm about to write a garden scene, I reread bits of Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. Like. Steal. Do it. We all do. Fiction's a grab bag and we're all out here grasping at straws. We're not stealing things verbatim, because again, plagiarism, but like...you like Zuko from atla a lot? Cool, grab his general character and put him on a space ship. You think the concept of Bruce Wayne is fun? Neat, what's he look like on spring break and broke and named Carl? You heard someone say something truly unhinged on the bus? That happened to a friend of mine, and her book came out from Simon and Schuster a couple years ago and the unhinged thing is still in it.

Make writer friends. I don't necessarily mean accomplished writer friends, though that's fine too! But the most valuable writer relationships and critique partnerships are with people and who are on an even-ish level to your current writing status, whatever that is. Because sometimes it's really, really hard to articulate what you love about a thing that's working well, especially if you're new to this practice. However, it can be much easier to recognize what isn't working well. That's the true secret of writing critique: it's not always to make your writing better, but to teach you how to talk about what you like, don't like, is working, or isn't working in any particular piece of writing. Plus, then you have a buddy to commiserate with, and that's always a necessary component of writing.

Write a metric fuck ton. Once again, I reference Ira Glass on the creative gap. You churn through enough words, and eventually you look up and realize your words have gotten better. I know a bunch of writers, and you want to know the difference between the truly talented and "gifted" ones and the ones who hustle and grind? Over the years, the ones who work really fucking hard and put a bunch of words out (versus being precious and going after perfection) have published more widely and are producing more interesting, compelling work than the "talented" ones. Almost every time.

One final thing: the moments I hate my writing the most are almost always just before a level up occurs. It's like a boiling point. So those times you really, really hate everything you do? You might be close to a break through, so do not give up. Keep going.

And, actually, I lied. I'm going to end this with a few of my favorite books about writing. None of them I love 100% all the way through, but the all had bits and bobs that I've found useful in how to dissect stories and diagnose what you like or don't like about them:

Story Genius by Lisa Cron

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (very woo woo but honestly a feel-good favorite)

Story by Robert McKee (A BRICK. Technically about screenwriting, but it's useful for classic structures like the 3 act, a hero's journey, etc)

Steering the Craft by Ursula K LeGuin (when I say that I would die for any word UKLG says about writing...ugh...love her.)

I hope something somewhere in this answered your question, and honestly, thank you for giving me an opening to scream about this specific thing, because it's one of my favorite rants to have.

[neonun-au]

wips im never going to finish #1

that time for a collab where i was going to write first person taeil mad scientist au through journal format like dracula lmao

ummm i dont think there are any warnings below its just.....the beginning of something fkdlsahfdas

30 August, 1817

I am on the train heading north. Father has seen fit to pull me from my studies, at such a time when I am making exceptional progress, in order to meet the woman who is to be my bride. He has given me an ultimatum--marry or there will be no inheritance. As I am reliant on his support and his wealth for the continuation of my studies, I must acquiesce. 

Though it is entirely against my will, I see no reasonable way out of the arrangement. 

The air up here is bleak. What little sunshine we have in the south only dissolves further into grey clouds the longer the journey goes on. I feel as though I am heading towards the end of my life as I know it to be. That the grey clouds overhead are an omen of sorts, sent to mimic the certainty and acuity of misery I am bound to endure as a husband. To be forced to share my life with one I do not know. With one who certainly will have no interest in my life’s pursuit and will instead desire me to accompany her to dull function after dull function--conversing with the wealthy yet ignorant masses. Caring more about fancy dress than the contemplation of philosophical questions. 

Again, I see no reasonable way out. So I will submit to this future, but I will not give up the pursuit of eternal life. Perhaps if I am able to unlock these secrets despite the burdens and responsibilities of marriage, I can then do as I please with both the time and money that will come as a result. 

Perhaps also there will be some small comfort in having a wife. There is a chance, however  small, that she will be clever. For that I pray even more so than for a wife of beauty. 

31 August, 1817

I have alighted in town. The train journey was wearying and endless, but finally I have arrived. The North is as bleak and as depressing as my colleagues at the university had warned me they would be. The inn I am staying in is old. The wallpaper is peeling at the corners, the floorboards creak at ungodly hours. But I am here, and it is at the very least a blessing to no longer be in transit. 

Tomorrow I meet my fiance. I am trying my hardest not to fatalize the encounter. To not paint her in such a way in my brain that my preconceived notions will bleed into our first impression. But as I have nothing to do except think in the dark of the inn room, this is proving to be a rather fruitless venture. 

Instead I sit here pondering my thesis in an attempt to distract my wandering mind. How to solve the problem of aging? Of death. Is it really an inevitable end? Or can God be defied. I do not believe in God, but I do believe in science. As such, I am of the mind that this problem of death can be overcome. Science will find a way. I will find a way through science. I think it is a matter of alchemy rather than biology. As of late I have been reading the works of Copernicus and Boyle and they each present some interesting theories on the subject. I have found Boyle’s experiments to be especially illuminating as he takes more of a chemical approach. 

It is difficult to speculate on this further as I left my notes and texts back at home in my study, so I suppose I will conclude my musings for the evening. As it stands, I can only theorize about the concept as I have no practical or indeed legal way of testing it out currently. 

All I know currently, is that if tomorrow’s meeting goes as I fear it shall, my interest in the subject of death may become a wholly self-serving matter. 

2 September, 1817

I am in love. This is not by design of my Father, as the woman he would have me marry is as an abysmal a spinster as I had feared. Dull of face and dull of mind. No, but her sister, by some small miracle, is an angel. Clever, beautiful, and highly capable. We discussed literature and mathematics at some length while Edith, my to-be wife, was out for the shopping. 

She is perfect. 

Her name is ______ and she is perfect and yet it is hopeless. How can I possibly convince my Father, as stubborn as he is, that he has made a mistake. That he is planning for my future with the wrong sister. Perhaps this is some small joke of his, some spiteful act of revenge for me squandering his money with my “useless academics”, as he so fondly puts it. 

My mind is torn in two, as is my heart. Her face has made permanent home in my mind, her delicate laugh resounds through my ears even as I sit in silence. It is a wonderous thing to find someone so perfect in such an imperfect place. To think she was absent from my life only mere days ago, and already I cannot fathom a world without her.  

We discussed briefly my academic work and she seemed highly interested. This was an unexpected and wholly welcome delight to me and only increased my fondness. She sat enraptured as I detailed the work of my professors and the advances I hope to make in the world of medicinal science, she even posed a few questions on the matter. I wish to speak with her more on these matters.

Alas, she was born of the fairer sex in a world that is rigid and unkind to those women that might otherwise be excellent scholars. It is endlessly tiring and silly that we must perpetuate this idea that women are not clever. Perhaps after we are married I shall take her into the college myself and watch the old men’s jaws drop in shock and horror. 

But I am getting ahead of myself, for I do not know if it is even possible for us to be married. I must speak with my father, I will write a letter forthwith and await his reply. Surely, in his eyes, one wife is as good as another--he cannot hope to deny me this one small happiness. 

3 September, 1817

I have received a letter from my colleagues at the college. They discuss at length the happenings in the department of Science and Medicine and it makes me ache to return to my studies. How can it be that they are of my same age and yet share so few of the troubles plaguing me at length? Instead they are free to be young and unattached from any arranged marriages, only living for their studies and for their evening games. One such fellow, Paul, a man whom I have had very little to do since he all but burned off my hair in a failed lab experiment years ago, has apparently caused himself some great bodily harm. 

It’s a bittersweet thought. My friend, no doubt, sent me the news in an effort to offer me some humour but the thought only turns the bile in my stomach. That they are there, working on their endeavours in good company, and I am here in the bleak north, waiting on my father to cast his sentence. 

Will I be man or martyr? 

[milf-harrington]

HIIIIIIIIIIII i am sat in bed trying to sike myself up to do demand functions but my cat is purring so fucking loudly right next to me and if that's not an excuse to procrastinate idk what is. hope you're having a good day <3

wait oh my god did we just send each other an ask at the same time?? bc i'd just clicked out of your blog when i saw this djkfskj

but hiiii, i had to google what a demand function is and i got as far as "mathematical" before closing the tab so i'd defs be procrastinating doing that too <3 also it's against pet law to get up when your cat is sat next to you purring sooo

i had an alright day, it was pretty uneventful - i've got two paintings to finish by tomorrow though so im seeing a sleepless night in my very near future dfkjs

[realm-sweet-realm]

Repeating the Cycle

I thought I’d write a little story about ink infection, as well as Sammy’s role after he was transformed. It’s inspired by Shazzbaa’s theories (I’d say which, but we don’t want spoilers, now do we?)!

I’ll tell you guys later tonight about the future writing projects I have planned.

---

Sammy awoke in his sanctuary, as he had many times before. He hadn’t been to his apartment in... well, days anyhow. He felt better when he was near the ink. He tried the door to exit his private sanctuary, and it was locked. “Is this a sign?” he asked his lord. “Is it time?”

Yes, his lord spoke back.

Sammy smiled- smiled rather weakly, as the pain from his ink infection had been wearing on him heavily. “Finally.”

All the waiting. All the sickness. All the fear. It was time to see what it was all for. And his lord had assured him, with the comforting voice of a father to a young son, that it would be worth it.

Sammy dragged himself over to the leaking pipe that hung from the ceiling of his sanctuary and turned on the ink supply. Ink sputtered down onto Sammy’s face and clothes, and he fell to his knees, hands outstretched and mouth open as though he was staring into heaven itself. His heart was pounding. He was shaking from adrenaline, and not even being surrounded with, covered in, and consuming the ink that normally numbed his symptoms seemed to be helping. This had to be fear instead of withdrawal.

Do not be afraid, the voice comforted, you will have ascended in mere hours. I promise, you will be safe and healthy. I promise, it will be better than anything you’ve ever experienced.

“Thank you! Bendy, hear my praise! I want what you have for me! I crave your embrace!”

Sammy took a long suck of ink from the pipe, then laid down on the floor. He was weak. so weak.

That’s it. You’ve made it. You need only wait now.

Sammy trusted Bendy. Bendy told him that everything he’d done and experienced in his life- even the nightmarish last few years- was leading to something. It told him that everything was okay.

Sammy didn’t know how much time had passed when he felt Joey tying up his ankles. With some struggle, he sat up and tried to push Joey off of him, but it had little effect. Before long, Joey had finished on Sammy’s ankles and was straddling his chest to tie up his hands. The last thing he saw with his biological eyes was Joey’s knife slitting his throat.

When Sammy woke up, the voice of his lord was gone. By trying to make a toon out of him, Joey had robbed him of his ascension and severed his connection to him.

---

Grant awoke in his office to the horrid ticking of his Bendy clock and the array of whispering voices that had plagued him since early in his infection. The clock’s small hand pointed to six, but Grant had no idea whether it was morning or evening. Months of ink infection had ruined his sense of time. He tried the door to his office and found that it had been locked from the outside by chain and padlock. Grant laughed at the absurdity of it all- his life had spiralled into a nightmarish fever dream.

“Does this mean it’s time?” Grant asked.

Yes. Your time is almost up, the voice answered, and for once, Grant trusted it. He felt almost too tired from illness to care.

“I’ll do anything you ask to stop it.”

No response, except for those muttered voices. Grant hadn’t expected one- the voice rarely had his best interests in mind. He shuffled over to his desk and pushed aside some papers to go back to sleep- possibly for the last time.

And then he saw it- a report from Joey that he’d received mere days before his symptoms had started- ending with the words “Fix this or I’ll have your head!” angrily scrawled at the bottom.

That was it. Joey had done this to motivate him. He just had to figure out how to keep the studio from bankruptcy and he’d be cured!

Yes! Yes! You’re right. Fix it! the voice yelled.

Adrenaline flooded Grant’s system as he jerked open his filing cabinet with shaking hands in search of the necessary files to fix the budget. This was his one chance to survive. The muttering voices were screaming in his head- ear-piercing. His head felt ready to explode.

“Shut up and let me focus!” he screamed.

Ink will soothe your symptoms.

That was something that the voice had told him frequently. He hadn’t given in to it yet- not much, anyhow- because common sense told him that ink was inedible. It was also his sincere belief that the voice wanted to kill him. The voice had told him, back before the physical symptoms had become obvious, that he was merely losing his mind and needed to hide it from everyone, lest he be institutionalized. Then, as soon as the physical symptoms had taken root, it had changed its tune- he was losing his mind, because he was ill with an incurable, supernatural disease, and no hospital could help him, and going to one would only guarantee that he would be a test subject for the limited time he had left. Listening to it then had gotten him into this position, and he wasn’t eager to listen to it again.

But this was life or death. He opened the supply on the ink pipe that Thomas- for some reason he didn’t understand- had installed in his office, and drank deeply.

The voice- the muttering- the headache- it all stopped. Silence. Finally.

Grant’s hands were covered in ink now, and were sure to soak any paper he used. I can’t let that stop me. He dropped to his knees and started painting calculations on the floor.

The numbers didn’t add up. Not a single one. Was his mind was too frayed to do basic mathematical functions?! How could he fix anything, let alone this insurmountable debt, while he could barely think straight?! Calm down. Stay calm. Try again. Life or death. Time is money. What will Joey say?!

From the cracks within the wall, Sammy watched as Grant spiralled into panic and tears, and turned his office inside out trying to find anything that could help, expressing his fears through wall-writing, and attempting escape the room. Poor thing, Sammy thought, remembering the pain and uncertainty of his own ink infection, but soon I’ll be able to teach him the truth.

It had been years since Sammy’s sacrifice. Not only did Sammy still work for Joey now that he was a failed toon, Joey had him on a schedule. Every day at 11:00 AM, Sammy would ooze through the walls of Joey’s office for their morning meeting. Sammy wasn’t particularly happy about doing anything for the man who had turned him into a failed Boris just as he was about to fulfill a higher destiny, but the voice had once told him that to follow Joey was to follow his lord, and now those previous words (which Sammy had recorded and studied every day) were all he had left as a doctrine to follow. Sammy hoped that with enough obedience and service, his lord would see past his ruined body and grant him his destiny.

Joey’s demands were often difficult, but they were simple: sacrificing specific people into specific toons, and looking after the infected. Joey rarely sacrificed people on his own anymore, and instead relied on Sammy to do the dirty work of knocking people out, killing them on pentagrams, and then dealing with the resulting dead body, blood and ink-stains on the floor, and whatever abomination came out of the ink machine. Looking after the ink-infected was easier: keep an eye on them, and once they become too infected to be useful, lock them in their offices or in infirmary rooms and take them to their prison in the basement come night. Sammy had overseen the infection of nearly thirty people by now and had sacrificed dozens.

Thankfully, Joey’s demands were not very time-intensive, and he had plenty of time for his passion: teaching the lost ones about their lord and saviour, Bendy.

The lost ones lived in a prison in the very basement of Joey Drew Studios, along with the failed toons. Sammy’s sermons were some of the only times they were allowed out of their cages, and so they were always happy to see him.

Some agreed with him. Often, these were the same ones who had heard a comforting voice as they were infected- generally those with a religious background. Others thought him insane. Their voice had been different- wrong- hallucinatory- and quite often threatening. Sammy had these lost ones do penance in order to find their way to Bendy. Some found him, leaving Sammy feeling accomplished, but also jealous that he could never have what they had. Hopefully, his lord would see the wonderful work he was doing and one day ascend him along with the rest of them- because surely, that was not their final form.

Today’s meeting was like any other. Sammy waited in the walls until Joey’s 10:30 client left, and then slithered out before him.

“Anything to report?” Joey asked casually, as he looked over some paperwork. These meetings were usually uneventful.

“Two people are currently under quarantine. Three more are infected but still able to work for now. Everything is fine- except for one small detail. One of the people under quarantine is destroying his office out of fear. If you’d like, I could tie him up snug until he transforms, or force-feed him ink to speed the process along.”

Joey considered this. "Hmm... well, I do need an Edgar. He would work as well as any. Are you sure he’s close to transforming?” All ink-infected people had strange beliefs and delusions (except for Sammy, of course- his visions were absolute truth), but by this point in their infection, they were generally too tired to do anything destructive- especially ones like this one, who had increased the duration of their infection by resisting the urge to drink ink.

“It will be a matter of hours,” Sammy assured.

“Well, that’s not convenient, but I do have lunch right after this. I’ll get the Charley down to the basement, and you get the Barley and Edgar. The Barley’s name is Lacie Benton, and I’d suggest you knock her out before taking her anywhere- she’s a tough one. But the Edgar shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“No... I suppose not.” Severely ink-infected people were, without exception, very weak, and Sammy was stronger now than he’d ever been as a human.

“Alright! See you down there as soon as possible.”

Sammy nodded, slunk back into the walls, and cursed everything, especially his order to obey Joey Drew. A severely ink infected person had never, and would never, produce a good toon- part of their souls had already been connected to the other lost ones. Joey must have known that, but he still insisted on stealing the people that were meant to be Sammy’s to guide, probably because in Joey’s mind, killing a person was murder but killing a lost one (or someone who soon would be a lost one) was not. Joey didn’t see his people as equally human, and it sickened Sammy. Nonetheless, he slithered through the walls until he came upon Grant’s office.

The office looked like a madhouse. The floors and walls were coated with repetitive writing. Furniture had been strewn about. Grant himself was curled against the ink pipe in his office, covered in so much ink that Sammy had thought he was already transformed before he realized he still had hair. The poor thing had tried so hard, while so sick, at something so futile. Sammy had his orders, but he wasn’t going to lay a hand on his sheep-that-wouldn’t-be until he had to.

Sammy slithered out of the wall- slowly, so as not to scare him.

“Who are you?” Grant asked. He sounded so tired of all the supernatural surprises that he barely cared.

“I’m here on behalf of Joey Drew,” Sammy began.

“I’m so sorry. I tried... but I couldn’t. I suppose you’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m here to give you congratulations. The others in your department were able to use these brilliant calculations,” Sammy gestured widely at the messily scrawled gibberish on a wall, “to make a plan. The studio is going to avoid bankruptcy, and you’re going to be cured. Come with me.” Sammy offered Grant his hand. Grant took it, and Sammy helped him up.

“I-I don’t understand. I don’t understand how-” All of those calculations... Grant would have guessed that they were worthless.

“Shh... you’ll be clearer-headed soon. Just come with me, now. I can’t be out there where everyone can see me, but go to the elevator, go to the bottom floor, and I will be there. I promise- you will be fine.”

“Thank you so much. But, my door-”

Sammy slithered back into the wall. Grant heard the click of a door unlocking, followed by the clink of chains falling limp. His office door was unlocked. Do I trust him? Grant asked himself. This day kept getting stranger. If I don’t, I’m guaranteed to die. I have nothing to lose.

Sammy slithered into the wooden floor of the elevator and only reappeared once the elevator hit the very bottom.

“I’m sorry,” Sammy lamented “I want to lead you to Bendy. I want you to find peace as one of my followers. But it is not in the cards.”

The two made brief eye contact- or would have, if Sammy’s face weren’t covered in mask. Grant, obviously, had no idea what Sammy was talking about. Then, Sammy grabbed Grant’s hair, slammed his head against the wall a few times to knock him out, tied him up for sacrifice, and left to find Lacie Benton.

[art-now-france]

TwO, JeanLuc Feugeas

1. What are the major themes you pursue in your work? As a mathematician, my research on entropy influences in a significant way my plastic work. In this domain, it is known that disorder is not only the rule but also the unique way of equilibrium. Tensions and resolutions, resulting from the different states of equilibrium and disequilibrium, induce circulations that I explore on the canvas or in the street. I see the experience of artwork as the capacity for everyone to question its own balance. How did you first get interested in your medium, and what draws you to it specifically? As far back as I can remember, I have always divided my time between drawing and music. Mathematics imposed itself. Painting came to me later. Music never left me. The use of a constraint as a concept has quickly become an important part of my artistic work. How has your style and practice changed over the years? Over time I figured out my approach is one of a researcher. Both as a scientist and as an artist. In equal parts. As a question of balance, probably. When I understood that, I turned the corner, and my work became more consistent with what I want. Can you walk us through your process? Do you begin with a sketch, or do you just jump in? How long do you spend on one work? How do you know when it is finished? It starts with sketches on paper. I build a grid on the background. I draw points of strength and lines of force, leveraging techniques used by the Renaissance painters. With this first step, it allows me to set the rules. As strange as it sounds, it is the starting point of my reflection. It is, I think, the equivalent of what we call "education". The rules. The framework. But, If I stop here, and, if I simply follow these rules, it would no longer have any interest for me. I would just be reduced to my education. I would only be what the others would have wanted me to be and not what I would have done of it ("Nous sommes ce que nous faisons de ce que les autres ont voulu faire de nous" - Jean-Paul Sartre). It is incredible how much the truth from this Sartre quote resonates for me. After that, everything really begins when tensions grow, when the forms are opposed and when the circulations appear. Behind the constraint of the single line, the idea is not to make a performance but to build a single unit. The line stays open during all the process. As long as it is not closed, the painting is not finished. It's a kind of metaphor for the painting itself. When it's done, I have the feeling of having completed the experience. To have solved it. The use of a "single closed line" is a stimulating constraint. This is an amazing raw material for me. A single line that closes on itself like a cell that divides again and again. You do not really know where it will go or which form it will take. The function of the line becomes more and more complex, multiple and ambiguous. Sometimes the line fades away to become implicit. Some points can be singular. Indeterminate. Here for example, if you look at those two figures, is she with him or not? Mathematically both are acceptable. But this ambiguity is troubling. You are wondering about the relationship. You build it. You decide on it but, in the end, you leave it open to one's free will. I work up to the brink of equilibrium. Sometimes, people who own my paintings contact me. This is very disturbing, because, you understand by listening to them, that the process is still going on, and even more, that I have nothing to do with this anymore. I am no more than the observer of their interpretations. You have to accept it. Please answer two of the below questions -- your choice! We find it works best if your answers are from 20-60 words per question. 1. If you couldn't be an artist, what would you do? An architect. 2. Who are some of your favorite artists, and why? Le Corbusier because he is an explorer and a precursor; Wassily Kandinsky because he is both a theoretician and a practitioner in art; Robert Rauschenberg because he knew that disorder is equilibrium; Pablo Picasso because he never stopped to invent. 3. What are some of your favorite experiences as an artist? For several years, I have been conducting with a friend, professor in oncology, a thinking on the theme of Care, and more generally on the theme of the Other. I suggested to him that we use an anamorphic mobile as a basis for creative thinking. This steel sculpture is formed of a single line whose meaning is double. The viewer turns around looking for a vantage point allowing to see a triangle, or its contradictor, the circle, from the opposite point. The shape is, of course, three-dimensional and complex from everywhere around except from these two conjugate points. The rule remains the geometrical disorder. We used this object to illustrate the complexity of the relationship to the Other and in particular that of the relationship between the patient and the caregiver - both have two elementary visions, sometimes simplistic, of the same reality at a much more complex level. These two basic forms act as bridges for a dialogue about a common concern. 4. What was the best advice given to you as an artist? I will single out four: o My music and harmony professor taught me the virtues of listening and observing - he illustrated his words with the Mahler's Fifth Symphony. o My scientific mentor, a Russian Professor of Physics, taught me the importance of integrity in research and, as a consequence, in art. o I understood the importance of the "accident" in art by listening to recordings of Gilles Deleuze's lessons "Sur la peinture" delivered in 1981 at the Université Paris-VIII. o Last, I feel very close to this quote from Thomas Hirschhorn: "My sculptural vocabulary is chosen so as not to exclude people, but instead to implicate them in my work - or rather, implicate them in the world. That's what l try to do. That is why I work. That's my political statement." I keep these guidelines as the cornerstone of my scientific and artistic process. 5. Prefer to work with music or in silence? With music. 6. If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be? I would choose "Guernica" from Pablo Picasso and "Barge" from Robert Rauschenberg as two sides of a single coin for me. 7. Who are your favorite writers? I am not really a regular reader but I always keep close to me some readings important for me. o Especially, I really enjoyed reading "Les mots" by Jean-Paul Sartre. o "Point and line to plane" by Wassily Kandinsky is one of my bedside books; o I regularly re-read "In the Studio of Alberto Giacometti" by Jean Genet; o I am pleased by reading or listening to conferences given by Gilles Deleuze, especially when he speaks about "lines of flight". " My territories are out of grasp, not because they are imaginary, but the opposite: because I am in the process of drawing them. " Guattari et Deleuze - A thousand plateaus.

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-TwO/155487/4128200/view