#anyway. thoughts for later perhaps.

[its-all-papaya]

🧽💭 trope: break up and make up fic for landoscar (or ur choice!)

sorry i got sooooo sidetracked on nye and never finished these, but we're locked back in....

-> assign me a chore

break up and make up would be so hard for me because resolving conflict in my writing makes me want to shake cry & throw up. it is so hARD to have characters fight/disagree and then get past it in a way that feels both authentic and genuinely better or resolved. so i think if i was going to write break up and make up, the break up would have to be far enough in the past that a lot of the character development could have already been started before the make up. like... college exes who broke up bc they didn't know how to be with each other yet. teammates-with-benefits who went up in flames bc of on-track conflicts but reunite when lando's on sky sports and oscar is finishing his career at red bull or ferrari or something. (typing that intrigued me.... the less toxic brocedes dupe calls to me....)

anyway! i'd probably do it in a similar way to dad lando, where i'd reveal parts of the past as the present progresses. so like we encounter lando and osc at the first race of the season in like 2035. lando's first day with sky after taking a necessary few-years gap after retiring, hadn't thought about what it would be like to talk to oscar until oscar is next to him with a microphone looking at him with those carefully impassive eyes. lando remembering how oscar looked that way in 2023, too, and how he stopped looking that way little by little, how disorienting it is to be on the other side of it, feeling just as desperate to crack him as he was back then, but now he's the rookie, and oscar's the one who knows his way around. anyway. reveal mid-fic about how they parted, lando requisite bitterness that oscar is still achieving the way lando couldn't down the stretch of his own career, stubbornly clinging to mclaren as they backslid more and more, while oscar got himself out and up. the way oscar's always been better at that - at letting go. at moving on.

so yeah! that's how i'd write it. lots of lando reminiscing on the past for multiple reasons until he learns how to accept that they're both different, now, and maybe every version of them has always had ways of making it work, they just have to work for it. to want it more than other things. happy ending obviously bc i'm incapable of anything else.

thx for your ask <3

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

oh hey! i was reading a fic the other day where Wangji was once misspelled as Wangu. which leads me to: MDZS Pingu-style??? noot noot!

Do you think love can bloom on the sea ice?

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[sunfloweraro]

More Pink Bunny Stuff!

Warriors learns not to touch Bunny without permission the hard way. His response catches Bunny off guard

(AKA the scene I thought I’d already shared and had promised @thatonecrazysidekick (oops!). @tiredgaytheatrekid more Bunny stuff!!)

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .

Wind began to hum absentmindedly as Warriors towelled off his hair, cheerful despite his earlier complaints, and Warriors couldn’t help the smile that lifted the corners of his lips. He took more care with drying his young friend’s hair, pulling the damp strands out of Wind’s face, tucking a lock behind his ear.

Wind groaned. “Wars, you’re babying me again.”

“I would never.” Warriors definitely was. How could he not, when Wind was like the little brother he never got to have? When Wind reminded him of his boisterous little sister back home.

“You are. We should start calling you Ma.”

“If that would make you happy,” Warriors said, smile turning into a smirk as he finished off drying Wind’s hair. “Done. Was that so bad?”

Wind scoffed, but when he stood, he leaned into Warriors’ side, a brief moment of affection to show his appreciation. “Terrible,” he said.

“Truly terrible,” Warriors agreed. “And you are welcome.”

“Thanks, Wars.” Wind smiled at him, that toothy grin that made Warriors think so much of his little sister, and he couldn’t help but pinch Wind’s cheek. “Ah—don’t!” He shoved Warriors’ hand away, cheeks aflame.

“Alright. Go have your dinner now.”

“Yes, ma.” For that, Wind earned Warriors’ hand ruffling his hair, messing it up even more. “Ugh, Wars.”

“Wind.”

“You need to eat too.”

“I will once you have all eaten.”

Wind, more than used to his idiosyncrasies by now, nodded, grabbing his arm and dragging him closer to the fire, where Twilight was dishing out the soup he and Time had prepared. He shared a nod with Warriors, ladling out a bowl for Wind and passing it over before moving on to the next hungry mouth. Only once they had all eaten their fill could Warriors pick up spoon and bowl and dig in himself, once he was certain they were all fed and not going hungry. They all knew that well by now, didn’t try and push him before he was ready.

While Wind had his dinner served, Warriors let him go, moving over to sit alongside Hyrule closer to the fire, where warmth pressed against his chest and legs as he sat on the log left behind by the lizalfos.

“You smell better,” Warriors commented.

“Likewise,” Hyrule said, and they shared a grin. It was then Warriors noticed the little rabbit—Bunny, as Hyrule and Twilight had taken to calling it—nestled in Hyrule’s lap, clean and fluffier than ever. And pink.

“Huh,” Warriors commented, his eyes on Bunny.

“Yeah,” Hyrule agreed. “We think it must be an era-specific thing. I’ve never seen a rabbit this colour in my era.”

“It could be dye,” Warriors offered.

“We thought that too, but I’ve checked and the colour goes right down to the roots. If he’s been out in the wild for weeks, then his natural colour would have started to grow back by now. So… pink fur it is.”

“Pink fur it is,” Warriors agreed, and when Hyrule hummed, beginning to run his hand down Bunny’s back, smoothing out the fur, that warm affection leftover from his time with Wind swelled in his chest. He reached out to pet Bunny’s fluffy pink head as Hyrule was doing. It happened fast, a blur of pink and then sharp, fiery pain along the back of his hand.

“Ow!” Warriors tore his hand back, inspecting the little bite mark, lazily weeping ruby red. “Did he bite me?”

“Oh my—Bunny!” Hyrule began to chastise the rabbit, but Bunny only had eyes for Warriors. Violet narrowed at him, watching him with suspicion, and Warriors found all frustration dissipate.

“It is okay,” he assured Hyrule. “I should not have tried to touch him without permission.”

Violet eyes widened slightly. Warriors thought back to Twilight’s comment of Bunny being a lot smarter than the average rabbit. Wondered if Bunny could understand him—perhaps not his words, but the meaning behind them, his tone of voice.

“I am sorry,” he spoke to Bunny this time and not Hyrule. “I should not have tried to touch you without permission, and I swear I will not do it again.”

Bunny watched him for a long moment, curious. He blinked slowly. Then he dipped his head, the gesture far more Hylian than Warriors anticipated from the rabbit.

[cent-scratchnsniff]

Do you think Yesod has ever taken refuge on Netzach's floor.. he hates the ticking of his own floor .. and he's a homosexual.. maybe Chesed visits too .... holy trinity of bad coping mechanisms or something ..

thats funny that he does actually... perhaps

[bipedalcapybara]

Somebody, help him right away... (^^♪

[caserobard]

not to be disabled on main but disabled edwin courcey means so much to me personally. if i were in this world i too would have difficulty cradling! i too would have to use string as a guide because my hemiplegia means that i don't have enough dexterity to do that! i too would find cradling with one hand infinitely easier and more effective! i too would learn everything i can to make up for not being able to physically do magic as well as everyone else!

[reddamselette]

They had held onto the very image of Thalia that was still the same. What Thalia once held slipped through their fingers like thread to a needle, the aching sensation of a thunderstorm with only lightning to burn through the clouds, never to touch the earth.

— snippet of collide with the sky; part three of the sting of loss

[fancy-rock-dove]

Thoughts on why the main relationship in TGCF manages to be full of tropes that are trash-associated but is also deeply compelling:

There are SO MANY nuances of the complicated power dynamics and self-sacrifice in Hualian’s relationship that could’ve been cringily unhealthy at so many points and THEN they just WEREN’T. Not ever. Not once

Every time I revisit this novel, I remain so impressed with MXTX’s capacity for nuance. These two are so gone on each other. Hua Cheng literally worships Xie Lian like a god. They would commit atrocities for each other. There are literally characters in the novel who worry about the sheer, unconditional trust Xie Lian gives to Hua Cheng no matter how many secrets he has. In a lesser writer’s hands, this exact dynamic is unhealthy to the point of atrocity: one becoming an unmoored monster and the other both enabler and victim. The shadow of this dynamic is hinted at in the book 4 flashback but it is specifically not allowed to actually become that. Never do we see even a shade of that relationship slip into the book itself, because that’s not how it really is for these two, not even in the darkest flashback moments.

Many narratives in which this level of devotion is present, it would be accurate to call it blind devotion, which becomes uncomfortable for the sake of the follower and unhealthy for the development of their love interest, but here the devotion is so continuously and unfailingly anchored not in looking the other way (the damaging nature of doing so being one of the core themes of the novel) but is conversely about seeing clearly and understanding fully.

So when Hua Cheng does things like offering to take the plague sword and release the disease on Yong’an himself, it actually has the effect of letting Xie Lian see the effect these choices are having on himself more clearly. It was absolutely necessary that Wu Ming not say “let me do this because you want it done” but instead say “I would do this if you needed me to and you didn’t want to because I independently understand why you want this”, because then, refusing him is a real reflection for Xie Lian on himself. There is self-sacrificing devotion in the relationship, but only for the sake of their actual wellbeing, never just while following a blind desire to do what they say.

Like, Hua Cheng can refuse Xie Lian. That’s a pretty foundational thing that happened. He does refuse him things from the beginning, even in the most basic, relationship-defining things. Xie Lian asked him to forget him after the burning of his temples and he refused, and here we are now. It’s a devotion to each other’s wellbeing, that also manages to be so without either of them assuming they know better than the other what that person needs or wants. The only time Hua Cheng actively sacrifices himself (which Xie Lian definitely wouldn’t want if asked) it’s in pursuit of the goal/outcome that XL wanted/needed to happen.

There manages to be complete devotion to each other, and also deep respect for each other’s choices and judgement, and those things…. often don’t coexist in fiction. Like, Hua Cheng introduced nothing if not agency to Xie Lian’s life. In the grand majority of the side arcs, often the “twist” in the mystery we’re exploring is some variation on “was someone forced to do something? No, they had agency!” And whether what they did with it was bad is also very much up for debate. The backstories and current stories of our protags were often journeys in recognizing that they’re not absolved of personal responsibility for lack of easy options, and show them winning by choosing to wrest back agency instead, even to their own detriment. “Take the third path”, “no paths are bound” etc. are catchphrases of our main character for a reason. Sometimes the best option still ended in tragedy, but it didn’t compromise their integrity. I LOVE “no paths are bound” as a tagline for this book and a catchphrase for Xie Lian, because it ALSO ties the good things about the main relationship into the main themes of the book. Hua Cheng’s goal is not just to be able to protect, which he probably could have done as an ordinary super ghost, but to be powerful enough to put every single possibility on the table for Xie Lian. Hua Cheng needed to be the Most Powerful, because he decided that if Xie Lian wants to do something, Hua Cheng needs to be strong enough to make it happen, needs to make it so that that every option, every path, is always under serious consideration. He literally made it so that any roll of the dice was an equally good outcome (Which is the best rationale for designing an OP character I’ve ever heard in my life). He’s not preventing danger, but instead increasing his agency in the face of it. Essentially “If what you end up choosing is MORE DANGER then I’ll be unhappy about it but I won’t stop you, I will work to make that path walkable too. I’m not here to keep you on a path, I’m here to open and smooth the one you most want to use.”

And, moreover, both people are able to be insanely cool and insanely powerful and be looked up to by the other, because while the power dynamics between them, perceived or real, could’ve been uncomfortable at many points, they WEREN’T. The people involved are on even footing even when they think they’re not. There was never a time when their presence wasn’t good for each other, even before Xie Lian knew to pay attention. Even in Hua Cheng’s very earliest appearances in the book 2 flashbacks, it’s really notable that he had enough effect on Xie Lian and his well-being that he appears multiple times in Xie Lian’s memory of those events, even though he had no idea who he was, or even that all his appearances were the same person.

MXTX really seems to grasp what’s attractive about these protective/super-powerful-boyfriend dynamics in fiction, why they often go badly wrong/make fiction bad rep of healthy relationships, and then SHOWS THEM IN THEIR HEALTHY FUNCTIONAL FORM INSTEAD so we’re free to love what we love about them. At the end of the day, we’re shown the way the best of these things all ideally point to love and concern for the other person as they are, before any considerations of their role in your own life or what they do for you. BUT with the expectation of reciprocal respect and latitude to do what you need to do as well.

I’ve never seen another story do this quite so well with such so-often-abused tropes and dynamics, and it’s one of the reasons that the romance in particular makes this work so near and dear to me.

It kinda reaffirmed my ability to see these things I naturally love seeing in love stories as healthy, reasonable forms of affection and devotion when based in an actual healthy relationship. When much, much fiction that treats similar dynamics badly makes me want to feel bad for enjoying aspects of them.

So seeing THIS relationship be what it is was a validating, freeing, and clarifying experience.It basically explained for me why I like these things, and elucidated why, for me, they fit into my paradigm of ideal romance and devotion, even (especially) when they can be problematic if treated wrong.

In essence, seeing these tropes done well is also an exercise in seeing what was missing in cases where they were damagingly removed from context, and thus understanding their key aspects and the core behind their impact. This book actually literally kinda reframed the way I conceptualize romance by helping me put together how many of the tropes I love in romances actually fit into an ideal relationship.

A spring cleaning of my thoughts if you will.

An ordering of my conceptions.

And I bonded with it deeply for that.

And yet it is also trash, who would’ve thought.

(it is self-aware, culture-savvy, meta-commentary trash for the most part, that clearly leans into it with fond intention, so I really do not mind it. It manages to be genre bending while expressing only love for its own genre and why it is the way it is. No disdain here. Only love for things as they are.)

[icewindandboringhorror]

[fragmentedblade]

Torn between "they're woobifying Aventurine too much to appeal to people who can't stand the idea of liking villainous characters" and "they're heathclif.fying Aventurine and that's catnip to me"

[squipdop]

sits up straight. UHHh Witch Hat Atelier AU and astarion (unknowing?) has forbidden magic carved into his back. uhhh. and of course the netherese orb is also forbidden magic......... MHMm. yeagh.....

[caffeinatedopossum]

I think many people who refer to intrusive thoughts incorrectly as being like "oo I dyed my hair! My intrusive thoughts won today teehee" are actually thinking of *impulsive thoughts* which, while not always normal, are still distinct from intrusive thoughts

[radiaking]

Reading this review of fallout that essentially says they think it’s “just okay” but not great, seeming to attribute its success mainly due to being an adaptation of a beloved game. As someone who never played before watching and thought it was a great tv show (not just a great adaptation since I had no basis for comparison), obvs I disagree. And they really had no clear basis for why they think it’s not that great and more that they just don’t get the hype. Like they enjoyed it, they want more of it, etc. but interestingly they did say they hope it’s success makes them improve not approach s2 with a “if it aint broke don’t fix it” mindset, and that I can agree with. But tbh I think this speaks to a larger problem with tv at all and not just fallout….

[sunieepo]

tbh i've purposefully avoided posting anything about AI art onto any of my public accounts because i just know my opinions on it wouldn't be popular. and i'm saying this as someone who is really, REALLY passionate about art - creating and critiquing art are literally my lifelong passions. but so much of this AI art debacle has become about people making bizarre declarations about what is or isn't "real art" - defining it using nebulous metrics like "the soul" and such.

the ethical issues with AI art as it currently exists are undeniable, and i wish people would focus on that instead of trying to define what "real art" is. because the thing is, gatekeeping the definition of "real art" has been going on for centuries! there are still people today who think video games aren't real art, even. a few decades ago, there were people who thought movies (cinema, film) couldn't be real art! the definition of art evolves and grows, and i resist and question any effort to suppress that.

some thought exercises for people who think they can define "real art" so simply:

is animal-created art real art? are pufferfish nests real art? are elephant paintings real art? does an animal have to reach a certain threshold of intelligence in order for its creations to be considered art?

is duchamp's fountain real art? for those unaware, this was a mass-manufactured urinal that the artist signed and submitted for an art exhibition as is, with no alterations aside from signing it with a marker.

is digital art real art? remember that digital art comes from machines translating human input into pixels on a screen. is this an acceptable use of machine intervention in art creation because the software performing these actions was not created using machine learning? is it because the human has more perceived control over the output?

is photography real art?

is music real art? is music composed using digital software real art? if a song utilizes a heavy amount of sampling, is it still real art?

many digital artists use software that allows them to create layers with filter options that adjust the colors of the layers beneath them using an algorithm (overlays like multiply, screen, etc). in this case, the colors of their images have been digitally altered by a piece of software in ways that most artists don't fully understand. is the image created as a result of this process still real art? can the artist claim full human ownership of the colors, which were digitally altered using a machine algorithm? would your opinion on this change if the machine algorithms behind overlay layers were created using machine learning?

some digital artists make use of "pen stabilization", a type of software algorithm that manipulates tablet pet inputs into a steadier curve to remove jitter. are lines drawn using heavy amounts of stabilization still the artist's? can the artist claim human ownership of lines drawn using near 100% stabilization?

many digital artists will use stamp brushes to get past having to repeatedly draw a static pattern, such as to fill the leaves in a tree. this is essentially a glorified version of copy and pasting repeatedly, except that a software algorithm introduces semi-random rotations and color jitter to give a more natural appearance. is a tree drawn using this process still real art? does your opinion on this change if the artist created the stamp themself, vs downloading it from another artist? does it change depending on how granular the artist was with making manual adjustments to the stamp outputs?

what proportion of an image is allowed to come from stamps, filters, and software tool usage before it stops being real art? is photobashing real art? what percent of an image has to come from freehand drawing for it be considered real art?

are edits of other people's art real art? does your opinion on this change if the editor had the original artist's consent? what percentage of the pixels has to have been changed by the editor before it is worthy of being considered real art?

one popular usage of "AI art" is to apply an "AI filter" over an existing image, which takes a drawing and then utilizes a machine learning based model to alter the image pixels. is an image created using this process real art?

if a person generates an image using a machine learning model, such as stable diffusion, and then draws over that image, is the resultant drawn-over image real art? what percentage of the pixels has to come from a human hand for it be considered real art? what if it was only 1 or 2 pixels that were manually manipulated? what if the only thing a human adds is an overlay filter?

if a person generates an image using a machine learning model, such as stable diffusion, and has very strong intent and emotion about how they want the resultant image to look, tweaking their prompts and specifically trying many different options before the output is in accordance with their vision, why is this not real art? is it because they did not specifically intend on every single pixel in this image? what percentage of pixels in an image has to have specific human intent for an image to be considered real art?

in 3d animation, physics simulations are used to calculate the positions of moving objects, and then artists manually adjust the outputs in accordance with their desired product. spider-verse, for example, was partially created using a combination of "traditional" software and some in-house created machine learning models. is the animation created using this software real art? does it only become real art once a human has gone in and reviewed it? is an individual frame of animation that hasn't been reviewed by a person and was generated via software and simulations not real art? would your opinion of this change if the machine learning models had not been created in-house? would it change if the training datasets had been acquired unethically?

if a traditional artist closes their eyes and splashes paint at a canvas, is the resultant splash of paint real art? if the artist had no emotion or specific intent when casting the paint across the canvas, is this still real art? are pollock paintings real art?

can a mistake be real art? if an artist tips over a can of paint and creates a beautiful spill, could they present the canvas as is with no further alteration, and that resultant image be considered real art?

can art styles be "stolen"? do artist own their art styles?

do you support copyright law? how much inspiration is allowed to be taken from something before it is considered plagiarism vs derivative, and should derivative works be punished?

what is the precise difference between the way ai art "steals" art styles, vs the way a human being takes inspiration from them? remember that many machine learning models take directions and instructions from humans, and often do not learn in a vacuum devoid of human intervention.

some very popular artists, who i will not name, have been accused of having "soulless" art. these artists "mass-manufacture" their images to look very similar and consistent and have seen a lot of financial success as a result of their repetitive works. is their "soulless" art still real art, even if it was made completely without the use of AI technology?

were you bothered by images generated by dall-e, back before stable diffusion became popular? did you consider images generated by dall-e to be art? did you consider dall-e to be unethical?

what is it about machine learning models that separate any software derived from it from software made without the use of machine learning? why is the usage of an art program that did not come from machine learning seen as ethically superior? what is ethically wrong with machine learning models? is it only if the training dataset was scraped without acquiring explicit consent? is it only if the learning was performed supervised vs unsupervised?

can software itself be art? can you find artistry in the way a program has been written - in the lines of code created by a human? in the intent and emotion of the programmer who crafted a piece of software?

please note i'm not trying to be condescending by asking these, and don't assume you know my answers to these questions, either. these are questions i asked myself when i was chewing through these debates and trying to quantify exactly what i found so objectionable about many of these "what constitutes 'real art'" takes.

reblogs off because i don't want to engage with strangers on this topic. i'm open to debate but only if you're going to be civil about it. please remember that i'm an artist too.

[mirmidones]

i like giving gifts, i like looking for something that the other person will actually appreciate, but most of all i like making gifts with my own clumsy hands. i pour my love into it. it's my affection made tangible. so then naturally it means the world to me when i find out they really like it like i hoped they would :')