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Seeing Faces
It’s rare when we get a shipment to deliver that’s not packaged somehow — either in Earth-standard boxes, another world’s version of shipping crates, or a livestock pen of some kind. Even that bunch of alien trees had been thoroughly wrapped at the bottom. But this collection of machinery parts didn’t have so much as a layer of cling-wrap on it. I guess the owners figured these things were sturdy enough not to need it.
They were probably right. The metal chunks were heavy. I tried to guess what they were made for as Blip and Blop muscled the biggest ones onto a hover sled, clearing the way for Paint and me to gather up the smaller pieces. Captain Sunlight bid the customer farewell and shut the cargo bay door.
“I think these look like vertebrae,” I said to Paint. “Greasy vertebra. Ew. I’m going to need a new shirt.” The offworld engine oil of whatever didn’t seem acidic at least, so that was nice. I sighed about the black smears.
“Strange vertebrae,” Paint said, juggling her own armload of odd shapes that didn’t seem to be rubbing off on her orange scales. Not that I was jealous or anything. “There would need to be a dual spinal cord.” She tapped a claw on one of the holes.
“Hm, yeah. There are probably animals like that,” I said. “Or robots, as the case may be.”
Ahead of us, Captain Sunlight opened the door to the appropriate storage hold, then headed off on captainly business. It was impressive how different a vibe she gave off compared to Paint, for all their physical similarities. Both were little lizardy people, but one strode with her lemon-yellow head held high, every inch the authority figure, while the other was Paint. She somehow bounced when she walked, even when weighted down by unwieldy metal things.
“I’ll bet these stack really well,” Paint said. “They look like they interlock. We could probably build a spinal column without them falling over.”
“We probably could,” I agreed. “But I don’t want to be the one responsible for bending one of the flanges because we wanted to test it out.”
“Hm. Yep yep yep. But I maintain that we could.”
“We could.”
The two of us entered the storage hold to find Blip and Blop racing to see who could unload the sled faster. It’s not that the Frillian twins were overly competitive, but they were twins. They’d apparently hatched at the same time, and had been in a low-key competition to see who was better at life ever since. But they smiled while they did it.
“Done!” Blip declared, setting down a lump of metal big enough for Paint to hide behind. She raised her hands in triumph, fins fluttering.
“Doesn’t count,” Blop said as he put down his own piece. “You didn’t line them up right. Mine are tidier.”
They squabbled about this while Paint and I unloaded our metal chunks nearby. I had to kneel to keep from dropping the things. It would be just my luck if they did warp on impact, or bounce off each other and whack me in the shin.
The Frillians took their debate out the door before I finished. They’d already moved on to who could steer the hoversled with the minimum of touching.
“Ha,” Paint said. “They do stack.”
I turned to see only one of the things set on top of another, with Paint ready to catch it if it slid. She took it down before I could say anything.
I just nodded and arranged my own into a reasonable huddle, then wiped my hands on my shirt. It was only when I moved toward the door, with a look back at the big pieces, that I got a good look at the one that Blop had set on its side.
This was the logical place to put it, not sticking out past the rest, but the thing that caught my attention was the shape when seen from this angle. Those two holes could have been eyes, and the flanges were shaped like stubby arms. There were even a couple slots in the middle like nostrils.
I burst out laughing.
“What?” Paint demanded.
“It looks like Zhee!” I said, pointing. “Big bug eyes and everything!”
“What does?” Paint asked. She came to stand next to me, following my arm, but just looked confused. “Where are the eyes?”
“These!” I said, stepping closer and pointing at the holes. “And those are the arms. Isn’t it perfect?”
Paint cocked her head as if slightly tilted vision could unlock the answers. “Arms?”
I repeated myself, but she still looked lost, so I found a notepad and pencil in a storage cupboard —reliable even when the batteries all run out — and sketched what I saw.
“Ohh, I get what you mean now,” Paint said when I showed her. “Those parts are lifted like pincher arms, and those are roughly the same proportion as Mesmer eyes.”
“Yeah, it’s uncanny,” I said.
Paint took the notepad to study it closer. “How did you even notice that?”
“It was pretty easy,” I told her. “It just jumped out at me when I looked from the right direction. Like seeing faces in clouds, you know?”
Paint’s blank expression said that she didn’t know.
“Do you not do that? Find patterns of familiar shapes in random things?”
“No?” she replied. “Is that a thing I’m supposed to be doing?”
“You don’t have to! It’s just something that everybody does on Earth, ever since we’re kids. It’s probably from a long history of watching for camouflaged predators in the bushes. You’ve got camouflage on your planet, right? You must.”
“Yeah, sure,” Paint said easily. “But I guess not that much. I’ve never seen a face in a cloud; that sounds terrifying.”
“Not really; it’s more like feeling smart for spotting something. Well,” I amended. “It could be a little unsettling if you see a skull or something. But that’s rare. There are whole systems of divination about this sort of thing.”
Paint looked like she was about to ask a million questions, but right then the sound of familiar clicking footsteps tapped down the hall.
“Zhee!” Paint called, whirling with the notebook in her hand. “Zhee, look what Robin saw!”
Zhee came into view looking just as eyecatching and purple as usual, halting at the doorway while Paint eagerly explained the conversation we’d just had. Quickly and enthusiastically. With lots of waving the sketch around, and pointing back at the machine part.
I felt like apologizing as he stared with an unreadable alien expression. His antennae weren’t even moving; I couldn’t tell what he thought of it all.
Finally Paint finished talking. “She says it’s probably because her species watches for predators in the bushes. Isn’t that amazing?”
Zhee made a point of looking slowly from the sketch to the metal thing, then to me. I braced myself for judgement.
Instead, Zhee raised his pincher arms into the same pose and declared, “I am the danger that lurks in the bushes.” Then he slunk out of sight, many legs scuttling in a quickstep way that he knew darn well I found creepy.
Paint blinked at the empty doorway, still holding the notebook.
“Aw, man,” I said. “He’s picking things up from Trrili.”
Paint immediately closed the notebook. “We definitely shouldn’t show her.”
“Agreed!” I said.
After a moment of thought, Paint tore the page out and handed it to me, then took the notebook back to the cupboard. I pocketed it with a final glance at the metal vertebra that looked remarkably like a cartoonish Mesmer squaring up for battle.
Someone had left a roll of no-residue marking tape on a box nearby. I grabbed a strip and stuck it onto the metal, with the ends curved up.
Now the thing had a goofy grin that possibly no one would recognize. But if there were any humans on the receiving end of this delivery, they ought to get a good laugh out of it.
~~~
The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!
#my writing#The Token Human#humans are weird#humans are space orcs#haso#hfy#eiad#pareidolia#I definitely had to check how to spell that one#seeing faces in clouds#you know the one#'drunk octopus wants to fight you'#that picture of a coathanger#if you don't recognize that phrase look it up; it's a great accidental octopus#and oh yeah#I am definitely writing the sequel to A Swift Kick to the Thorax#very exciting#lotta fan favorites making glorious returns#I just wrote a scene with Vittr that I find extremely entertaining#and you might too#we'll just have to see!
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well I know what you want from me you want someone to be your reflection, your bitter deception setting you free won't you come and dance in the dark with me? show me what you are, I am desperate to know nobody better than the perfect enemy and I know what you want from me you want the same as me my redemption, eternal ascension setting me free
for @bladesmercy's fic The Fear of Falling Stars
#my art#ff7#sefikura#sephiroth#cloud strife#please click on the art tumblr lowers the quality so much#me ten billion times while working on it: oh i can't draw this. oh no i fucked it up#also i love snakes but man fuck them scales#in all honesty though i poured give or take 14 hours into this and enjoyed every moment#i hadn't even attempted to draw anything like this in like 20 years i'd thought i'd lost all my skill#oh yeah lyrics are from ascensionism by sleep token#and be sure to check out the fic it's among the most incredible i've ever read!!!!#I've read my share of amazing fics but rarely ever has one had such a chokehold on me#it's been helping me and inspiring me so much i don't even have the words#anyway this art has been sitting in my drafts for like#a week#gonna be brave today and post it
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柄本 佑 || 「光る君へ」 (2024) · 第三十回 「つながる言の葉」
#柄本佑#tasuku emoto#光る君へ#hikaru kimi e#1x30#made by me#fujiwara no michinaga#藤原道長#I love the heian no F4 reunion so much#mustacheeeeeeeeeeeeeee#new kimonoooooooooooooo#sigh Idk what to say I love this episode but michinaga's grown so much I barely recognize him#this episode got great aesthetics#cinematography#and nostalgia#oh right one thing I wanna point out:#he complained about Mikado asked him to be frugal#which is textbook double standard bc when sadako judai'd#he wouldn't even approve of giving her a fancy cabinet#and now he's complaining mikado being frugal????????#I also feel sad bc to me Genji Monogatari should be the token of the unfulfilled love between michinaga and mahiro#to me it's always like that even for the reallife!them#so it's kinda disappointing that michinaga saw it as a tool to help his daughter from the beginning#he probably didnt get to read the last couple of chapters but#the hidden cloud chapter didnt exist for u to see it as a tool to get to power#she loves you so much. and you? michinaga?
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the night comes down like heaven
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Tag drop: Jingliu
#tag drop#jingliu. [ and so i wield my blade to the very end. until the “stars” have been cut down from the sky. this oath: i will never forsake. ]#jingliu: ic. [ trapped in childhood nightmares; she tore off a spread of black silk from the edge of her skirt and covered her eyes. ]#jingliu: inquiries. [ ice waves as sharp as knives spreading like transient flowers in the air. freezing all and everyone they contact. ]#jingliu: countenance. [ when you live to be a thousand years. each day is carrying the weight of a mountain through an interminable maze. ]#jingliu: introspection. [ why do you wield a sword? / this is like asking a poet why they wrote poems. this is the only way for me. ]#jingliu: meta. [ this sword in my hand... naught but a needle compared with the heavenly bodies. how can i use it to cut open a star? ]#jingliu: little notes. [ this is the first time she understands “wanting to live”. before now; she was simply someone ready to die. ]#jingliu: wishes. [ unsheathing this sword without merit is to blaspheme the divine will of the reignbow arbiter; and invite calamity. ]#jingliu: etc. [ to the xianzhou; i am but an abandoned pawn: a wandering swordmaster. ]#jingliu: the sword. [ if a day comes that the quivers run empty; and starskiffs crash who will protect you and i then; or the xianzhou? ]#jingliu: florephemeral sword. [ a sword: 3 feet; 7 inches in length. weighing nothing. and it glowed as if a sliver of moonlight. ]#jingliu: shattered sword. [ a sword: 5 feet in length. weighing 3000 catties. unyielding: mirroring the defiance; hubris of its creator. ]#jingliu: cangchang. [ when devoured; we had to face the truth that our lives were but a grain of sand in the river of time. ]#jingliu: hcq. [ their faces still linger before my eyes like a bygone dream. yet dream will eventually fade. like clouds from the sky. ]#jingliu: memories. [ given the choice between staring at the abyss with a troubled mind and marching blindly: i choose the latter. ]#jingliu: jing yuan. [ in an endless night; there is nothing closer than the bright moon. always hanging in the sky. ]#jingliu: imbibitor lunae. [ even after your rebirth. your techniques haven't changed. / when i move it's like… / … like you never forgot. ]#jingliu: baiheng. [ the things that we said and did together have all been shrouded in a layer of mist. a mist i cannot see through. ]#jingliu: yingxing. [ some are born with unparalleled foresight; intelligence; but make the ill-advised choices at destiny's crossroads. ]#jingliu: blade. [ that broken sword... you don't want to let go of the past. do you; blade? ]#jingliu: yanqing. [ that move was a token of my appreciation; young man. we were fated to meet this day and in days to come. ]#jingliu: v. youth. [ you can use this to vanquish those that took everything from us. ]#jingliu: v. sword champion. [ she knows it all. swords are a part of her body: the intake and release of her breath as she walks. ]#jingliu: v. traitor. [ and i will suffer my eternal punishment. that is the only way to keep the memory of the pain from fading away. ]
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Chosen One Support Group where main characters and fated saviors from all sorts of universes come together in a sort of group therapy/life advice/mutual bitching session. Ft. One character over the age of twenty wondering why the fuck everyone is eighteen and below and who the fuck is going to save these children.
#the elf talks#personally I’m fond of post AC cloud being the Token Adult like ‘I’m sorry these are all babies who the fuck’#considering he grew into his chosen oneness#also just incredibly fond of him pointing at an eleven year old Harry like ‘absolutely not no you’re not becoming a pawn in a war’#he’s seen the results of sending a child to become a soldier too young and he does not like it#but there would definitely be more#Izuku perhaps as the confused but caring older sibling?#Percy Jackson teaching little Harry and anyone else who doesn’t know how to swim?#things like that
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Y’all know how I don’t give Sleep Token music to fictional characters/ships?? How I put ST music on such a high pedestal, and all that??
Sleep Token music is so sefikura coded it’s gonna make me frow up.
#very much so#my sister started saying ‘ya you can give that song to x character’ and now I will always use it#sefikura#I’m so sorry guys. like I’m not giving in but for the first time in a year and a half I have decided that yeah…. Sleep Token and sefikura#go hand in hand#I think it’s just that I don’t see ghostsoap in them and that’s where I see so much st x fandom stuff#‘did you not say we where made for each other’ HITTING SO FUCKING HARD THINKING OF CLOUD AND SEPH#URRRGGGGGGGG😭😭😭😭#for blacklist#this is more about sefikura then sleep token so we’ll use the black list tag and not the st tag
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The sun decided to come out today, so I went on a little walk!
Please enjoy some clouds, feilds and old trees <3
(@kkarmatic clouds for you!)
#I also want to apologise for the lack of Sleep Token/tpoto content recently#I haven't really got much rolling around in my mind and I'm trying to focus on coursework and paying rent lol#bit stressed but this helped#go out and look at the clouds lads#also also directed at anybody who is with Fellowship of Sleep:#I'm here! I'm reading! I have thoughts and quotes and scenes but I can form it into words#adamantly reading through everybody's submitted posts and reblogs though!#mel's photos#mel's thoughts
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MtG Token: White/Blue Bird
Magic: the Gathering has been around for 30 years. There are 27,000 unique cards and growing. And a lot of them create tokens. While the official tokens are great, I have a need to celebrate the artwork of our (mtg) ancestors. Let's celebrate older artwork with a new coat of paint.
Token: 1/1 white and blue Bird creature token with flying
This is for 2 cards from Dissension, Dovescape and Pride of the Clouds
We have Judge's Familiar from Return to Ravnica by Jack Wang
The literal and graphical information presented on this site about Magic: The Gathering, including card images and mana symbols, is copyright Wizards of the Coast, LLC.
#magic the gathering#mtg#token#fan art#token artwork#1/1 white/blue bird#Dovescape#pride of the clouds#dissension#judge's familiar#return to ravnica#Jack Wang
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a sunset from the farm for all of you 💛
#reposting this bc i liked this photo better#did you guys know the band of pink/blue opposite the sunset & sunrise is called the belt of venus??? (also called the antitwilight arch)#i love you wide open sky i love you clouds i love you sun i love you farmland i love you grass and dirt and crops#veep token
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god i miss being a teenager and listening to whatever the fuck this was and thinking it was so good i had to write it down yeah
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Take it all back now, run it back
@MegaStellar_
#xemeryx#420#weed#marijuana#ganja#stoner#joint#vintage#80s#90s#nostalgic#air force 1#smoke#clouds#new york#new york city#token#run it back#lyrics#hip hop
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Photo
Glitch Pattern #010 — Dye Bath by @patternbase
Available on token.gallery
(via GIPHY)
#giphy#rainbow#glitch#nft#abstract#sunset#clouds#acid#lsd#glitch art#pattern#sunrise#patterns#nfts#gallery#token#web3#glitchy#patternbase#ikat#tokengallery
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Video
so I finally sat down and watched this movie. Overall enjoyed this movie, but I have my issues with it. I don't think the ending is sad [speaking as queer chinese diaspora but not mlm/gay]. I understand why this trailer was cut like this (romcom) but this isn't a romcom, it's much more dramatic/serious and touches on diaspora and racial topics that I find good discussion starters and mostly still relevant.
Things I liked, and my many nitpicks. spoilers ahead
Director/screenwriter Yueng really got the internalized racism down on Ryan. Taking "you're not really Chinese" as a compliment -- oof, that stings but a lot of us diaspora/ABCs know this is unfortunately common. I used to respond to "where are you from?" with "Oklahoma" or "Texas", well I still sometimes do depending on who's asking and their tone. Like Ryan's internalized racial hatred/conundrum even comes out in his behavior of only sleeping with white dudes. In direct contrast, I love how much pride that Ning has in himself being Chinese, even goes for the throat with "what do you know about June 4th?" (mildly disappointed that wasn't elaborated for the western audience, but then again there's not time to properly detail in this kind of movie). I love the casting for Ryan's parents, and the writing and acting, they're my favorite 😭😭😭. I also appreciate that the film doesn't go out of the way to explain butterfly lovers or Chinese opera, iykyk.
I have a bunch of nitpicks though about minor details though. There were a lot of things off about how Chinese culture is presented imo. For example, the first meet scene at the restaurant. Nobody would be that openly rude to Ryan, like calling him a banana to his face, at best they'd say "ah, you're not familiar with our culture. This is our way." and like show him how to eat crab. Also R/L liquid consonants are distinct in most Chinese languages, particularly with the Mandarin dialect spoken by Ning's cohorts, so I'm very 🤨 about that decision for Ning to originally pronounce Ryan's name as Lyan. I'm not saying it doesn't happen with Chinese speakers but R/L is more common with native Japanese speakers, so this speaks to me as a gross stereotypical "all oriental Asians speak like this" generalization from the writing/editing department. … and preference for sake?? girl what. are you telling me that an actor in a nationalistic movie about Nanjing of all places A. would even give [Japanese] sake the time of day and B. wouldn't be a baijiu king!!!!! I also have SERIOUS questions for who did the makeup+wardrobe for Ning's girlfriend. LMFAO for a movie about a "fashion stylist" they didn't take care to research what the street and gala fashion looks like in China. It's 2014, 2015, Hanfu movement has been in full swing, not even Angelababy beats her face like that. Also I think Ning was more southern China styled, ugh Beijing? Nah. Dude was more like from Shenzhen or at the very least Shanghai for the other Chinese city that white people would know.
Ending: I think Ryan's a bit of a bastard. His little press release comment was full of double-edged shade ("happy and confident with himself to be so accepting"). Soooo shady. No he didn't out Ning but his compliments were also calling Ning a hypocrite and a coward. But people and characters aren't nor should they be perfect.
I actually don't care about the two leads getting together in the end. However I would have preferred Ryan ending up actually visiting China for himself, and maybe even seeing a potential career there, because Ning is right, the economy and market are only growing over there, compared to stiff competition for fewer and often racist-colored opportunities in the west. Like... also seeing the gay scene in China for himself, because frankly, it exists, and Ryan should go check it out himself, we got a whole culture and history and it (the history at least, modern culture has some exchange) has nothing to do with westerner's version of gay or queerness. Ryan could totally find a Chinese boyfriend who's not closeted, and whose job isn't so high-publicity.
But at least it seems Ryan is more open to interacting with Asians/Asian community than in the beginning of the movie.
I do still think, with the type of nitpicks I had... idk. You see where I'm coming from though? One of the biggest themes of this film was "dismantling internalized racism" and "accepting who you are", but the movie committed stereotypes about China/Chinese that are incorrect to my experience and understanding, a faux pas on "knowing how you are".
Front Cover (2015) Official Trailer - FRONT COVER is about handsome, openly gay New York City fashion stylist Ryan, who rejects his traditional Asian upbringing. Ryan is given an assignment to style Ning, a famous Chinese actor, for an important photo shoot. After a rocky start, an unlikely friendship develops between them, leading Ryan to examine his identity and consider an enticing new path for his life and career.
#sino diaspora#diaspora media#internalized racism#i'm Not about to go on a rant about butterfly lovers nope#way too much to unpack there. and imo not for anglophones#the fujoshis need to back the fuck off on this one tho. wtf are some of these comments. jfc stop objectifying and infantilizing asian men#i didn't find this movie ''cute''. not saying you can't be in it for that but i'm really over western fujos ogling over kinnporsche etc ok?#like the topic of internalized racism of someone who's had to live in colonizer territory vs someone who doesn't and the different types#of pride they have in themselves is what i enjoyed from the movie. go find your fluffy tokenized 'racial representation' romcom elsewhere#chen yells at clouds. more at 10#also it's been almost 10 years since this movie came out. America hasn't changed much but China has changed a lot.#in my mind i also wished this movie wasn't twink x twink :|#thinking about it again. some details were off but plot/theme is more mature & on point for cross-section of lgbt&sinodiaspora than eeaao#<- i'm still standing by my crit of eeaao's central plot+themes being generic enough to swap it for a different culture w/ old homophobia
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Tokenization: A Key to Enhancing Data Security in E-Commerce
Understanding Tokenization and Its Growing Importance in Data Security Tokenization involves replacing sensitive information with unique identifiers that retain all essential data without compromising security. This method aims to reduce the amount of sensitive information businesses need to store, making it a popular choice for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to enhance the security…
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