#god this got away from me

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

a character's self-deprication being what keeps them from being in a relationship can be really good but mostly when the self deprication is 1. justified and 2. only no longer an issue because their significant other is Into whatever they're angsting about

[bulletbilltime]

The last post I reblogged made me want to ramble about AI art, but I realized that it probably should be its own post, so here:

If the way you look at art is that its only purpose is to convey a specific idea, then generating art with AI would seem like the natural conclusion of that process. But AI takes the process out of your hands, and robs you of the satisfaction of having toiled on your own work. The art is no longer something you spent time with and can feel pride in; it's a product. Something mass-produced for the sole purpose of consumption. But you can't mass-produce your artistic self. Even if you trained an AI on your own work and asked it to generate more art, you didn't put Yourself into those pieces of art. You weren't the one to make all of the micro-decisions that go into art. The colors, the lines, the brush strokes, the shading, the characters' positions... all those small choices that can personify a drawing, they were taken out of your control.

As someone who always feels like their work is not interesting enough to get people's attention, and who wishes it could be more spectacular and eye-catching, the temptation of having an algorithm generate more interesting pictures has slipped into my mind a few times. But I refuse it every time. To accept the notion that I need to make my art more appealing to wide audiences is to accept the thesis of capitalism, that what I make is only as good as how many people it reaches. It's the thesis that social media and "content creation" algorithms, as well as all those analytics tools try to make us buy into. And if we buy into this idea, it can be easy to be pulled towards the suggestion of having our "content" be mass-produced by a machine. I want my art to reach many people because I want it to have a positive impact on more people, BUT I don't want that to be done at the expense of being the one in the driver's seat of the art process.

So I'm going to pull up my trousers and keep at it. Because one of the best things about art is the process. It's the joy of seeing something complete and knowing you were responsible for making it. It's looking back on old art, comparing to your newer stuff, and thinking "damn I got good". It's about having fun with it, it's about feeling that sense of accomplishment. You don't get any of that with AI art.

So if you're someone who uses, or thinks of using AI art, realize you're robbing not only the audience of your authentic expression, but you're also robbing yourself of one of the greatest joys of making art. And you'll never be an artist as long as a machine is doing all the hard work for you. You'll only be equivalent to a shitty commissioner who passes off someone else's work as your own.

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[hinamie]

yeah sorry theyre tragic in this au too

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[usertoxicyaoi]

"Think carefully about what I meant by being prepared."

COSMETIC PLAYLOVER (2024). EPISODE TWO.

[genericpuff]

i find it funny that one of rachel’s drawings of herself in the afterword that just went up is just fully persephone. is that something she does a lot?

Alright so I've been making it a general rule for myself to like, not harp on Rachel in any way outside of LO as much because frankly the horse is dead now and there's not much left to say outside of what can be analyzed in hindsight. I think despite everything I have to say about her and her work, she still deserves to get away from this nonsense and I don't wanna spend eternity hovering over her shoulder.

But the afterword was posted within the LO series and is clearly meant for readers of LO in the functioning of being an afterword so let's just call it fair game LOL

I will say, on the whole, it does feel very honest and sentimental and I can respect Rachel for taking the time to write out and illustrate her afterword in a way that was personal to both her and her fans. I can understand why she went at it from the angle that she did and I'm not gonna fault her for that.

But there's also something that feels deeply... disingenuous about her approach right from the starting gun. I will say, before I continue, that I'm well aware I am biased towards Rachel as a creator, and I fully acknowledge that I could very well be reading too much into things. This is just my opinion, take it with mountains of salt.

I can get looking back on your own childhood, your past self, whatever, and going "see! it all got better!" because sure! For a lot of creators like Rachel, it must be wild to look back on where they came from and there's a lot of sentimentality on expressing that through an afterword like this where she reflects on where she came from. Though she STILL didn't acknowledge her other comics outside of LO, I can understand if she wants to leave those skeletons in the closet.

But I feel like her drawing herself as a child who's being given an Eisner by her adult self and all that just feels like some gross attempt to disarm any criticism of her because "don't make fun of me, I'm just a sad lonely baby girl!"

She's not a child. Child Rachel didn't grossly misappropriate Greek myth into their own self-indulged vanity project. Child Rachel didn't claim herself a folklorist of a culture's works only to bastardize them completely. Child Rachel didn't create a hostile environment within her fanbase by bullying anyone who she perceived as a threat, sneaking into critical spaces to try and cause trouble, and writing her own clapbacks into her comic. Child Rachel didn't claim to be challenging misogyny and purity culture only to reinforce misogyny and purity culture through her own self-insert baby-virgin-gets-rescued-by-rich-tycoon power fantasy that regularly glorified abuse towards women and the lower class.

30-almost-40-year-old Rachel did though.

At best it comes across as really cringe sentimentality from a Greek-weeb (heh, greeboo) and goes to show how much Rachel inserted herself into Greek myth without ever absorbing its messages or cultural contexts, it was all about her and her feelings as a sad New Zealand girl with dyslexia who thought Persephone's story was about another sad girl being rescued from her "horrible childhood".

At worst it's an active attempt to play on people's heartstrings by drawing herself as a child who people will naturally not want to criticize. I don't want to assume she's doing it intentionally, I really don't want to leave her afterword on a bad foot, as I can definitely understand as both a creator and a person who struggled with learning disabilities in their own childhood how and why she wants to pay homage to her past and where she came from... but let's just say, as someone who's also gotten way too "lost in the sauce" concerning personal self-reflective projects, I think there's a lot to say about how this confirms that Rachel made LO entirely for herself, about herself, without any actual intention to respect the original myths, because she never truly separated them from herself when she was a child. And, in my humble opinion as someone who has Been There with the self-insert OC's and self-reflective angsty plotlines, I can fully attest to the fact that that's not fucking healthy. Even with personal projects, you NEED to learn to get your head out of the sauce, you NEED to learn to objectively separate yourself from the narrative so the story doesn't fall apart under your own hubris and ego, you NEED to learn to draw a line if you want to have any sort of identity as a human being outside of what you make for people. And that's with just normal original stories, this was a story based on Greek myth which doesn't belong to her.

And this goes for a lot of the things she's said and done in the past, so much of her own "sources" even are tethered to things that she read / watched in her childhood and only vaguely remembers, as if she never mentally left her childhood at all, which just... if the point was to highlight her past and the traumas she went through and how they contributed to her present, an Eisner isn't going to validate those experiences. And drawing attention to her past through the lens of her childhood self absolutely 100% does not absolve her of the negative effect her work has had on the modern Greek myth zeitgeist nor the things she's said and done as a 38 year old woman who should absolutely know better.

The community she entered and took from will forever remain changed by her influence and taking, in many ways not for the better. She has the privilege of walking away and never having to think about it again, with all the awards and accolades that were bought for her, the bravado that she built around being a "folklorist" with zero credentials, and the platform she was given over many other creators struggling to even be heard.

That "place" she claims to have now was built entirely on inserting herself into another culture's works and doing nothing but taking, taking, taking, while offering nothing in return but vanity and lip service. That "place" was paid for and brought to you by Webtoons.

[hairpinturnn]

mark of cain

marc marquez + demian: the story of emil sinclair by hermann hesse

[sleepy-steve]

🧠🪱 Wiggly Wednesday Thursday 🧠 🪱

thank you for tagging me @stervrucht 🖤

no pressure tags: @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe @stevesbipanic and of course anyone else that would like to ♡

thinking about Steve and Eddie who, after going through rounds of physical therapy after everything, continue to work out together because Steve obviously loves it and loves having a friend to work out with. and Eddie notices the difference in his stamina when he gets back to performing on stage. (and if Eddie likes to watch Steve work out a little bit, and likes Steve coming over to help his form more than a little bit, well that’s his business.) but Steve takes a dance class and shakes up his usual warmup, leaving Eddie with some… thoughts.

***

“Okay, Munson,” Steve says, pulling his arm across his body for a shoulder stretch. “You ready?”

“Ready to be tortured? Always,” Eddie jokes. It was their thing. Eddie acts like he hates being there, but he still shows up every other day to their local gym in Indianapolis. And he won’t ever deny the benefits he’s noticed since starting their exercise regime. He's faster on stage, doesn't get winded near as easily, holding those screaming notes without feeling like his lungs will explode. Little did he know that today his joke would come to be true.

Steve liked most kinds of exercise. He was a sporty guy. He liked the pull and stretch of his muscles, the feeling of accomplishment after achieving a new goal, that delicious soreness the day after a really good workout. But mostly he loved trying new things. He���d give anything half a chance if he thought it might be fun. Which is how he ended up at a dance-aerobics class the week prior, finding himself having a lot of fun, blushing furiously when the women in the class complimented how quickly he picks up the steps.

He went back three more times that week. Part of his enjoyment came from the new warmup he was taught in the class. Steve’s usual warmup consisted of basic stretches and a light jog, covering all bases to ensure he didn’t get injured, but not very exciting.

This, however, was far more enjoyable. Steve found himself sinking deep into stretches he didn't know he had flexibility for, and moving his hips to a beat, ultimately just having way more fun with the warmup. And it was about to become a huge problem for Eddie.

Steve pops his headphones over his ears, the tape deck tucked securely in his shorts pocket. He bends over, inhaling deeply as the song starts, rising up with his hands overhead, exhaling as he rolls his wrists, hips moving side to side with the beat. His already short cropped t-shirt rises, showing off a good amount of his chest. He lets his arms come down, bending over again, feeling the pull in his hamstrings. Gripping his elbows, he lets the top half of his body hang, swinging from side to side, his hamstrings fully stretched out.

Eddie looks up from his own basic stretching, shocked to see Steve fully bent over, because hey, since when was he so flexible? With Metallica blaring through his own headphones, Eddie just stares, completely forgetting where he was at in his warmup.

Steve lets his hands drop, moving to one foot, back to the centre, then the other foot. Ass just up in the air, his shorts way too tight. Eddie swallows. He’d been denying his crush for months at this point, and good god this was not helping.

Rolling his shoulders as he stands up, Steve lets his hands travel down his bare thighs, sinking into a squat with his back arched and head tilted back. Eddie's eyes are wide as he watches those tight little shorts with the little cut-ins on the sides ride up, showing far more of Steve's glorious hairy thighs than Eddie can handle. Steve drops his head forward, hunching his shoulders as he moves back to standing. He repeats the motions, and Eddie wishes he had the strength to pull his stare away from Steve's ass.

Seeing Steve's head tilted back and his back arched is sending Eddie insane. Like, he geninely thinks he might evaporate on the spot if he keeps watching. But he just can't look away.

Turning himself sideways, Steve has one foot stepped out in front of the other, legs perfectly straightened into a triangle shape, bent over his front leg. Just when Eddie thinks he’s about to get up and end his suffering, Steve lowers himself down into a lunge. His little shorts definitely way too small and tight for the movement, Steve lunges back and forth, fingertips resting on the ground on either side of his front foot. Eddie watches as the t-shirt rides up with each lunge, the desire to get his lips and tongue all over Steve's chest overwhelming him.

Shaking himself, Eddie tries to remember which shoulder stretch he was up to. He attempts something close to a stretch, but he can’t be sure he's doing it right, because Steve has lowered himself to the ground, front leg bent and back leg perfectly straight, and is fucking thrusting into the ground. If he were to ask Steve, he’d find out this was a hip flexor stretch. But Eddie’s forgotten how to form words entirely, suddenly imagining nineteen different ways he wants to get dicked down by the man before him.

Eddie suffers in silence, heart racing in his chest, watching as Steve repeats the movements on his other side. He prays that the torture ends soon, that they can just get to the workout, and Eddie can go back to pretending he doesn't want to ride Steve until his thighs give out. But Eddie gets no such luck.

Steve has moved into some kind of triangle position, hands on the ground, legs straight, and of fucking course, his ass in the air. Eddie marvels at how straight the shape is, only for a moment, because then Steve is lifting his heels up and down in turn, and jesus christ those tiny little shorts are just riding up, and Eddie can see a hint of Steve's ass peeking out. His jaw drops. He may actually explode.

Just when Eddie's thinking he can't take much more of this, Steve lowers himself down, knees spread wide, arms stretched out in front of him and head tucked down. A wild and rushed series of thoughts fly across Eddie's mind, all centred around Steve kneeling down in front of him. Eddie needs to get it together quickly.

As Steve brings himself back up to the triangle position, walking his feet to meet his hands and rolling his spine up, shoulders and head rolling back last, he sees Eddie taking off for his warmup jog. Assuming that he probably just took too long with his new warmup, Steve shrugs it off and starts his jog shortly after.

Eddie hits his personal best in several weights that day, desperately trying to expend his excess energy in some way. He barely registers the wins, mind still stuck on Steve and his perfect ass in all those new positions. He almost dissolves on the spot when Steve claps him on the shoulder in congratuations.

At the end of their session, Eddie takes a freezing cold shower and prays for the sweet release of death.

[b4kuch1n]

siren

[tired-biscuit]

yes, i am a sucker for a good ‘play fighting leads into something more’ scene between best friends that obviously harbour feelings for each other, sue me.

[deepseagraveyard]

ba dum tss 🥁❄️

[yuanology]

Ahhh 1 + 21 with Gojo after he escaped the prison cube and comes home to Reader? He's just so pent up and needy (≧▽≦)

it was one thing to crave touch.

it was another to crave you.

satoru had known you since childhood, tasted the sweetness of your lips and felt the branding warmth of your touch since his youth. he had known what it was like to want so badly that his heart felt as if it was being caved into his chest, beneath the constricts of is ribs where his bone stuck into his flesh and pierced through his lungs hard enough that he felt as if he couldn't breathe when you were not near.

you were a vital part of his past, a crucial piece of his present, and an irreplaceable factor of his future. you were his person—the one whom he wanted to spend forever and eternity and beyond that with.

satoru knew he was a god, and gods like him were not meant to rely on other things, on other people, but he couldn't help seeking you out; turning to you desperately, searching your warmth and craving your steady touch. home would not be home without your presence. how could it be, you were home.

"eyes on me, love. i've got you." your voice was steady, a calm cutting through the hurricane in his head. he was helpless to follow your order, to turn his eyes to meet your gaze.

you were as beautiful as he remembered you to be. the gentleness of your gaze, half-reverent as if he couldn't believe he was truly there (he shared the sentiment; after being locked away, he never thought he would be here in your embrace again, but he was and you were here and so was he and everything was right in the world again), the gentle curl of your smile, the feeling of your hand cupping his jaw.

satoru's heart ached as he realised just how badly he had missed you. just the sight of you, the feeling of you so close to him, was almost enough to undo him.

almost, because he realised he wasn't given the time to fall apart just from having your presence with him after so long, crowding him in so he didn't have to think about anyone but you for a long, long time.

no. just like everything else in his life, you dictated the way he fell apart (and god, what an incredible feeling that was, to be completely under your mercy).

your mouth slotted over his, lips working against his to make him fall apart completely underneath you. your hand worked on his pants just as quickly, understanding what he needed without having him work or beg for it. he whined at the feeling, of knowing that he could let go and you would take care of him because you knew him better than he even knew himself.

he could only cling onto you, arms wrapped around you torso and nails digging into your back as if he was afraid that you would disappear into thin air the second that you let go. you held onto him just as tightly, mouth peppering kisses all over his skin as if you couldn't bear to be parted from him. he held his breath when you sank into him, the motion slow and unhurried, as if you wanted to extend this moment forever.

"i've missed your touch," satoru choked out as your hips met against his, your cock buried entirely inside of him. "i missed you."

the soft exhale that escaped you was gentle, seemingly the release of all the tension you had held coiled around your existence tightly for the past few months. you landed your forehead against his collarbone, and he could feel your smile on his skin.

"i missed you too," you whispered. "let me take care of you?"

the sound that escaped him was ragged, fucked out and ruined and so, so vulnerable for you. "please," he begged. his nails dragged along the skin of his back and he made the absentminded note to kiss them better later. right now, he wanted to feel you—all of you.

"please, please, please, please—" his voice broke off into the sound of your name, slipped and caged between the litany of pleas and begs that made his words sound like a prayer. he didn't care. as far as he was aware, you deserved all of the worship.

after all, time could wait. infinity would spin itself a bed for the both of you—for now and forevermore. satoru would ensure it.

thank you so much for your request and your support! <3 i hope you enjoyed this lol because i certainly did writing it

[achingly-shy]

ALSO the end of the episode when jemma is telling fitz that he’s the real hero because he was beside her the whole damn time in the lab and was giving her hope when she had none and then she kisses his cheek and walks away and he sits there smiling and then that smile slowly turns into more of a thinking contemplating oh shit face AND THEN HE KNOWS HE NEVER GOT OVER IT HE NEVER GOT OVER HER

[makeriia]

Fantober day 31!! A free day again.

Recently gotten into HADES, and I think about them a normal amount (lie)

[arkos404]

all i wanted was to draw scarab in a onesie and the rest is a lucky bonus lol

+ the before and after

[puppyeared]

"idk i think thats smth parents should tell their kids :/" motherfucker you cant even teach your kids to cough into their elbows anymore