#i want to study your art style in a lab

[mrsjellymunson]

The Biology Tutor

📕 Lesson 1: Female Anatomy

Series masterlist

Continue studying: Lesson 2: Male Anatomy | Extra Credits 01: Communication Skills | Extra Credits 02: French | Independent Study 01: Art | Independent Study 02: Creative Writing

Pairing: Virgin!Eddie Munson x fem!tutor!reader

Summary: Eddie’s failing class, so you decide to offer two different styles of biology tuition, textbook-based and *ahem* practical.

W/C: something around 4k (I didn’t do a word count after editing, sorry)

CW: 🔞 18+ MDNI!, NSFW, PWP, smut with a story. Exhibitionism (f), mutual masturbation (m+f), swearing, innuendo, pet names, slight sub/dom dynamic, subtle size kink? Both Reader & Eddie are overage. No y/n. Reader’s appearance is not described, it can be whatever you like.

A/N: A cute little bit of biology lesson-based smut. I’m a sucker for virgin!Eddie and wanted to see if I could write him. Let me know how I did! 😄

My masterlist

You’ve had a crush on the guy in your Biology class since the beginning of the year when you first saw him ranting on a table in the cafeteria. There’s something about him that’s so different from the guys you’d usually go for. You run in completely different social circles, you with the academically-gifted ‘Brainy Bunch’ (an eye-rollingly terrible moniker coined by the we-think-we’re-so-clever jocks), and him with his nerdy friends. Despite this you find him unusual and intriguing, not to mention hot as all hell. You guess the ‘freak metalhead’ look doesn’t work for everyone, but his long hair and rebellious dark ink are certainly doing it for you. You really want to discover what’s underneath those layers of denim, leather and torn shirts, your imagination only able to go so far as you ponder his form late at night in your bed.

However, girls talk, and you’ve never heard of him being with any of them, or even speaking to all that many. For all his bravado and apparent confidence, you’re reasonably certain that Eddie Munson is still a virgin.

And for some reason this draws you to him even more.

You’re pretty sure you’ve caught Eddie checking out your ass as it’s perched on a high stool while he sits behind you in the biology lab. On days when you’re in this class you’ve started to wear your tightest jeans, and your shortest skirts (though if anyone asked you’d insist it was a coincidence).

Somehow you’ve become inexplicably clumsy (but only in this class, how odd…), often dropping your pencil and having to bend over to pick it up, occasionally chewing on the end in contemplation when you know he’s watching, much to the chagrin of your teacher.

“Never put anything in your mouth in the lab, you should all know better by now.”

You smirk at the innuendo in Eddie’s direction and he quickly looks away, ears exposed by his lab-regulation tied-back hair a little pink at the tips.

You also often ‘forget’ or ‘lose’ equipment, asking him if he’s got a spare, or could he please get you a replacement from the cupboards, which he’s always more than willing to do (giving you ample opportunities to observe his denim-clad ass as he does so).

“Damn, I seem to be one test tube short. Eddie, would you be a doll and get me one from the cupboard?”, crossing your legs and subtly ensuring the hem of your skirt rides up just a little more.

Eddie looks you up and down (result!) and agrees.

“Thanks, you really are my knight in shiny, um, leather?” You wince slightly at your clumsy comment, but he takes it in his stride, continuing the bit by replying,

“Here you go, your majesty”, bowing theatrically and presenting the glassware to you atop his forearm, making you grin.

In another lesson: “Shit, I tore my filter. Eddie, do you have a spare?”

“Anything for the Princess of Biology.”

He gives you a little smirk, and you feel your cheeks heat slightly. You can’t help gazing at his strong, ring-clad hands as he hands you the little circle of absorbent paper.

It becomes somewhat of a game, you playing the Princess and he the rescuing knight.

But for all your teasing you genuinely do actually want to help him pass the class. You don’t want him to have to repeat the year - you’ve seen him play at The Hideout and you know he’s meant for greater things.

It’s just biology, it can’t be any harder than what little you’ve picked up about that complicated game he plays, which seems to be all numbers, convoluted plots and organising “campaigns”, whatever they are. You’re sure he could pass if he’d just apply himself.

Or, perhaps, he just needs the right tutor…?

You’d broached it with your science teacher, offering to help ‘any students who were behind’ for extra credits. After he’d agreed you’d approached Eddie that same day, offering to come to his home and help him with his overdue assignments.

He was confused and skeptical at first, thinking this could all be some elaborate prank, but you were gentle and persuasive, and he’d agreed to pick you up later that day.

You’re sitting on his worn-out sofa, draped with a well loved but soft blanket. You’ve spent the last hour trying to get Eddie to understand cellular respiration (“Isn’t it just, like, breathing in and out?” “No, Eddie, this is cell biochemistry, it’s a bit more complicated than that”), but nothing you attempt seems to be working.

He’s despondent, won’t look at you, and seems resigned to his fate of never passing this particular subject, interjecting with statements like,

“Look, it’s just not going in.”

“I don’t know how to make it stick.”

“I don’t think I’ll get it, Princess, even if you beat it into me.”

The innuendo (accidental or not) is driving you crazy. As is Eddie’s lack of self belief.

You’d even tried explaining it by using D&D analogies.

“Think of the chemical reactions like individual characters interacting in groups. Like, if this particular troupe disband and some make allegiances with another, the group has different skills and attributes now, right?” But after a promising start even that doesn’t seem to hold his attention.

In fact, the more animated you get and closer you sit, the more distracted and fidgety he becomes, unwilling to engage fully with you and shifting uncomfortably.

You move further towards him on the sofa, determined to give it one last shot, and force him to make eye contact with you.

Their colour and depth surprises you as you look into them properly for the first time, noticing their rich, swirling chocolate and whiskey hues.

Your eyes briefly drop to his lips, the soft pink, plump, velvety pillows looking mightily enticing. God, they’re perfect.

Goosebumps rise on your arm as you feel his surprisingly soft curls tickle your shoulder.

Okay, you knew he was cute, but up close? Fucking hell…

You lean across your notes and over to the text book that’s on his other side. Your thighs are touching, and as you twist the side of your breast makes contact with his arm. If he looked slightly down and towards you he’d be able to see right down the neck of your tank top. You kind of hope he does.

Huffing, you prod at the book with your hand, hoping that the diagram on the page might make everything clearer. The movement makes your boobs jiggle a little.

You hadn’t noticed he’d stopped breathing and he suddenly lets out a huff of breath, covering it with a badly faked cough. His cheeks have flushed a light shade of pink.

So, you definitely weren’t imagining all that stuff in class.

Fuck it. You consider this might be the only opportunity you might get to do this, so decide to grab it. After all, academic tutelage was only part of your motivation to get him alone, and something you’ve been thinking about for a long time, one of the fantasies that keeps you up at night, pops into your head. One that would definitely get his attention. And if you can’t help his confidence academically, perhaps you can help with it somewhere else. Call it interpersonal tutelage…?

With as much nonchalance as you can muster, you say, “Um, maybe we should take a break. Y’know, relax a little?”

You scootch away to the end of the sofa, putting your back against the armrest and bringing your feet up onto the cushion in front of you. You grab a couple of throw cushions and slot them behind you, getting comfortable.

Eddie seems to relax a little too once you’ve moved away, but still looks uneasy.

God, are you really going to do this? What if he screams and runs away, or worse, tells his friends, or your classmates..? No, you’ve been thinking about this for far too long. Oh, fuck it x 2…

Feigning a stretch, you arch your back and place your hands at the back of your waist, pushing your chest, and breasts, upwards. Then you move them to the sides of your ribs, glancing over the sides of your boobs, seemingly-innocently pushing them together. You move a hand underneath one of your breasts, cupping it gently in the crook of your thumb and forefinger.

Eddie is still sitting tensely on the front edge of the sofa cushions, stealing sideways glances at you through the curtain of his hair.

“C’mon, Eddie, get comfy with me. It’ll help, I promise.”

Self-consciously, Eddie shifts himself and sits facing you, cross-legged, at the other end of the sofa. You give him a soft smile, which he returns with a slightly bashful one of his own, afterwards rolling his lips inwards between his teeth.

Okay, it’s now or never. Are you gonna be able to concentrate on this, Eddie?

You hum quietly, and almost closing your eyes you run a palm down your chest and over your belly. You drop one knee slightly out to the side, and run your hand down the inside of your thigh and back up it, eventually pushing your fingers between your thighs and cupping your mound with your palm.

You see Eddie’s eyes widen and hear a stifled choke.

Your hand moves to fully cup your breast, and you lightly trace your thumb over your hardening nipple whilst the hand between your legs begins to apply gentle pressure, making you inhale deeply.

Eddie watches you, agape, bringing his hands together and clasping one hand over the other in front of him, you surmise to disguise his burgeoning bulge.

You open your eyes a little, keeping them soft and half lidded, and gently smile in Eddie’s direction, ensuring he’s still watching you.

Using both hands to pop the button and lower the zipper on your jeans, you tease yourself by running the pretty elastic trim of your your panties between your fingertips, pulling it slightly away from you and letting it snap back onto your abdomen.

“Uh…”, he swallows hard, and you internally groan at the sight of his Adam’s apple bobbing in that delicious neck, “What’re you doing..?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Eddie? I’m… relaxing…”

Sighing out the last word, you choose this moment to slip your hand down the front of your underwear, sliding over your mound and dipping just the tip of one finger between your folds, feeling the wetness that’s already pooled there. Your forehead furrows a little and you let out a quiet, contented hum.

Eddie’s eyes widen further and his eyebrows disappear completely under his bangs, and he sounds a little like he’s suffocating.

He tries to move further away from you along the sofa, unsuccessfully however as he’s wedged against the other armrest.

“Uh, I can, y’know, leave, or you could use my room, or, I can take you home, or, or-”

He’s babbling, and looking everywhere but at you. That’s not what you want at all, and you’re also concerned that he looks so uncomfortable.

“I can stop, if you want…”

He rushes out a reply, almost shouting the first syllable.

“N-NO! Um, no, it’s okay, really.”

“Okay, Eddie, stay right there. Keep your eyes on me, I wanna give you a show.”

He looks even more shocked, jaw dropping open, and you think he might bolt. But after a moment it’s clear that despite being full of anxiety, fear and self-consciousness, his curiosity, hormones and horniness are winning out, and he fixes his gaze on you.

He manages to squeak out, “Ok-aay…”

You lift your hips, using both hands to push your jeans and underwear down your legs until they reach your ankles. You slowly splay your knees, finally exposing yourself fully to Eddie’s gaze. One hand comes back to your breast, and you pinch your fabric-covered nipple between your thumb and forefinger.

He takes in the sight before him, the soft fur around your core, your wet folds glistening in the dim light of his living room, your sultry gaze, the peaks of your hardened nipples now visible through the thin fabric of your top.

He lets out a stuttering breath as his hips involuntarily shift underneath him, trying to find some friction.

“Jeezus fuck, Princess, are you tryin’a kill me?”

You try to think of something that might help relax him.

“If it helps you can imagine that we’re still studying. How about a quick lesson in female anatomy..?”

You move your hand down and with featherlight touches trace your fingertips around your pussy.

“Now, this whole area is my vulva.”

Eddie gulps.

Making a vertical line you trace your fingers over your wet lips.

“These are my labia.”

Eddie’s lips press together and he lets out a stammering hum, closing his eyes momentarily before snapping them back open so he doesn’t miss a thing.

“Are you paying attention, Eddie? This part is really important. This-,” you inhale sharply as you trail your wet fingers upwards and make contact, “This is where you’ll find my clit- fuck-”

It feels so delicious you almost don’t manage to finish your sentence, and you let out a long, low hum. Part of you doesn’t want to stop, but you’ve got more planned. Moving your fingers down again, you say,

“And this, here? This is my vagina…”

With a smile, you watch him stare as you dip a fingertip into your sopping hole, letting out a low moan as you gradually slip it inside of you.

“You know what the g-spot is, Eddie? I can show you where to find it, if you want me to…?”

You slide your finger in further, curling it towards your front wall, almost managing to tickle that certain spot within and letting out a loud groan.

At the other end of the sofa Eddie gasps an inhale, whimpering slightly, and you see him press the heel of his hand into his crotch. The combination of his sounds and actions is making you impossibly wetter - the boys you’ve been with before didn’t do much of either, and you didn’t know how much it turned you on.

You watch his face as he stares intently at your weeping centre as you slowly, so slowly move your finger in and out a few times.

“D’you think you’ll remember that, Eddie?”

“I promise I’ll fuckin’ try, Jesus Christ…”

He swallows again, exhaling heavily.

Deciding it’s time for the main event, you bring the hand that was squeezing your breast down your body, moving your fingertips to your clit and applying gentle pressure.

“I want you to see how wet you make me, Eddie. I want you to know how much I enjoy you watching my ass in biology class, how often I’ve thought about it when I’m alone. How much I like checking yours out in those oh-so tight jean- oh!”

A particularly exquisite circle followed by a firm press on your clit makes you moan out loud. The combination of both your hands has you close, closer than you imagined you’d be at this stage. It takes much longer when you’re by yourself, and you’re surprised and excited by just how much you’re enjoying having Eddie watch you.

Eddie’s fully gripping himself through his jeans now and is breathing heavily through his nose. He looks big, and you salivate at the thought.

You really want to see what he’s been hiding inside that tight denim.

“Show me, Eddie, I wanna see you.”

Hesitantly, never having experienced anything even close to this before, Eddie mumbles,

“You, uh…?”

“I wanna see you. Take out your cock. Let me see all of you, please.”

He’s rubbing himself, and you can see how strained his jeans are, a wet stain now visible in the dark fabric.

Slowly, eyes never leaving your face and looking for any tiny indication that you’re uncomfortable or have changed your mind, he slowly undoes his button and pulls down his zipper.

His languid pace is killing you, but in a good way; you realise he most likely has no idea what this is doing to you.

He rearranges the front of his jeans, opening the fly wide and leaving nothing but a thin layer of checkered cotton covering his member. The tent it’s creating is impressive.

He watches you stare and run your wet tongue over your bottom lip.

Letting out a nervous breath between pursed lips, he pushes one hand beneath the waistband of his boxers, using his thumb and two fingers to hold his cock at the base. Using his other hand he slowly, agonisingly slowly, pulls the fabric out and downwards, gradually exposing his full member to the lights of the room and to you.

You pause your own movements and spend a moment taking it in. It’s long, with an impressive girth - you briefly wonder whether he knows what he’s packing - and it’s the prettiest shade of pink you’ve ever seen. Lengthy, veined, slightly curved, and thick, so thick.

Eddie watches your expression for a moment. Satisfied that you’re not freaked or about to run away screaming, he brings the rest of his fingers to join the others, wrapping himself fully in his fist and squeezing gently, causing a little bead of precum to collect on the tip.

You take in the sight before you for a few moments, then utter, completely honestly, “Eddie, in case no one’s ever told you this, you have a really beautiful dick.”

His face and neck turn the second-prettiest shade of pink you’ve ever seen.

“No one’s ever told me that before, Princess.” Adding, almost in a whisper, “In fact, no one’s ever seen it.”

He chuckles lightly through that last sentence, embarrassed at what he’s just admitted. The ego boost of your comments has clearly given him some confidence though, as he adds with a slight smirk, a little breathy as he runs the pad of his thumb unhurriedly over his tip, “You, uh, really think so?”

Oh, so he likes me watching him too?

You can’t take your eyes off of it.

“I really do, Eddie. It’s so pretty.”

As if to confirm your statement you resume your hand movements, adding another finger and resuming circling your clit with the other. You notice that Eddie’s started moving too, his hand moving over himself in a deft gripping and twisting motion, his hips bucking up every now and again.

For a few moments neither of you say anything, the only sounds in the room your combined panting breaths and the lewd movements of wet skin.

Your clit is swollen and supremely sensitive, and, pushing in a little further, your fingers just tickle that exquisite spot within you.

You moan as you imagine it’s Eddie’s pretty cock inside you. That he’s leaning over you, thrusting into you, hitting that spot effortlessly. Maybe even talking to you, telling you how good your pussy feels, how well you’re taking him…

Suddenly your eyes roll back in your head and your mouth hangs open, a gutteral moan emerging from your chest as you get closer and closer.

Bringing your attention back to him you mumble, hurriedly,

“Jeezus Eddie, I’m gonna cum, you wanna see me cum?”

“Fuck, sweetheart, I’ve never wanted anything more in my entire fucking life.”

Eddie’s words come out in a spluttering rush and on his last word your breathing halts, your muscles lock and you cum, hard, clenching around your fingers and letting out an involuntary strangled scream.

Somewhere in the back of your fuzzy mind you think you hear Eddie let out a loud, “Holy shhhiiiit!”

You come down a little, opening your eyes and locking them with Eddie’s. You ride out your aftershocks, humming as you feel your fingers inside of you and your juices running down them. You eventually remove your fingers from your cunt, leaving its puffy wetness fully on display, and trace them around your lips and clit.

“F-fuck, Princess, that’s the hottest goddamn thing I’ve ever fuckin’ seen…”

Eddie’s red-faced and panting, his cock still very much standing to attention in his now vice-like grip, the tip an angry red and leaking copious amounts of precum. His eyes are blown dark, the chocolate rims almost completely obscured. His face and neck are flushed and he’s covered in a sheen of sweat, and he’s clenching his jaw, looking like he’s trying desperately not to bust.

“Are you ok over there, Eddie?”

“Shit, yeah, yes, I mean, fuck.”

Breathily, you ask him,

“Do you wanna cum?”

“Fuck yes, I just, I didn’t know whether you wanted me to.”

“Oh I do Eddie, I really do. It’s your turn now. You gonna cum for me? Please, let me see you lose it, show me everything you’ve got.”

He breathes out a loud sigh in what seems like relief. You like how good he’s being for you, learning yet more about yourself that you didn’t know before.

His fist speeds up as his other hand comes to hold his balls, deftly stroking and rolling the flesh. His brow furrows deeply and his lips clamp shut around a low moan. He’s staring intently at you, eyes flicking between your face and your still-dripping cunt.

Suddenly his expression turns to one resembling surprise, as his eyebrows lift and his mouth opens, a string of expletives leaving those perfect, plump lips,

“Fuck, fuck, Jeezus, motherf-, oh my-, fuckfuckfuuuck!”

His jaw drops as his abdomen contracts, and his eyes fix on your cunt as he jets hot ropes of white cum into the air and over his fist and t-shirt. There’s so much, and it seems never ending.

The sight is even better than you’d imagined it might be and your hips buck up into your hand, making you press your fingers into your clit again triggering another aftershock, and you find yourself moaning along with him.

For a few moments there’s more silence, aside from your panting and heavy breathing.

Eventually Eddie chuckles a little, and you huff a breath out through your nose with a smile on your face.

You’re both a sweaty, sticky mess, but neither of you care.

“Fuck, Eddie, that was…” You’re lost for words.

“Amazing? Incredible?” Seeing the grin plastered across Eddie’s face is easily as gratifying as all the other stuff you’ve done tonight.

You both giggle as Eddie says, “Fuck me, Princess, you’re definitely the best tutor I’ve ever had.”

Neither of you really want to move, but some cleanup is definitely necessary. Eddie takes the blanket from the sofa and throws it in the washer, cleaning up quickly in the bathroom, letting you know when it’s free and returning in a change of clothes, throwing the others in with the blanket.

As you both process what’s just transpired you share timid glances and half smiles.

You both sit on the sofa again as you start to pack up your notes and books. In another unforeseen realisation, you’re surprised at how much you’ve enjoyed Eddie’s company, and the warm feeling you get inside every time he looks at you is entirely unexpected.

You realise you’re gonna have to be the one to say something, and give Eddie a smirk.

“So, how about next time we do some practical revision on, maybe, male anatomy?”

He looks a little surprised, but certainly not unhappy at the suggestion that there might actually be a ‘next time’.

“You really wanna, uh, tutor me again?”

Nodding in the affirmative, you reply, “Oh yeah, I think we’ve both learned a lot this afternoon.”

Holding his gaze, you suggest,

“Same time next week..?”

Lesson 2: Male anatomy | Extra Credits 01: Communication Skills | Extra Credits 02: French | Independent Study 01: Art | Independent Study 02: Creative Writing

Series masterlist

Thanks so much for reading! 🙏🥰

A/N 2: This has become a miniseries, let me know if you’d like to be on the taglist, and/or my general one 😉

Likes are great, but please also consider supporting writers with comments and reblogs - they help fics get seen, and it genuinely means the world! 🌍 ❤️

My masterlist

[garrywantspasta]

hello garry! if you like this request, would you ever consider drawing vampire Wanda & Agatha? i adore your art and your style is so beautiful! i'm in love with how you draw Agatha and do justice to her point facial features, if this makes sense

i've seen your Dimitrescu fanarts and currently am working on a Wanda x Agatha vampire au myself, so i'd just love to see them as vampires in your style!

sua arte é linda demais! amo ver a Agatha no seu traço, a coroa fica maravilhosa 💜 todo sucesso pra ti

It DOES make sense because I studied her face so many times! 😩Obrigada!! ❤️❤️Means a lot.

I love vampires and since I recently watched Interview with the Vampire, your request made me imagine them in that universe. What if Wanda and Agatha’s confrontation was something like Louis and Lestat's…

Here’s Agatha’s version of Lestat’s speech:

“(...) every place you’ve been, every costume you’re forced to wear, the stronger sister, the rebel, the lab guinea pig, the loyal Avenger… all these roles you conform to and none of them your true nature.

The rage you must feel as you choke on your sorrow.”

And if you want some extra drama, the track I listened to while drawing this was "The drum was my heart" from the series's album.

[somerandomdudelmao]

Hey ignore me but I’m totally normal about your art and writing style

(I wish to chew on your art style and study your writing like a lab rat)

Also hear me out your art style would taste like those fancy bars of soaps that takes everything you have to not bite into except if they actually tasted like we wanted them too

Now I want to chew on it, too

[liauditore]

ADVANCEMENT UNLOCKED: Participate in Hermit a Day May 2024!

I tried putting them to scale best as I could while still keeping them all relatively in frame (bdubs is standing on a slab). Sorry for the awkward crop the full png was too powerful for tumblr and I didn't want to separate gem and pearl.

Shout out to @hermitadaymay (asked to tag) for hosting and the really awesome tags I got to experience and what felt like increasing concern for me or perhaps a need to study me like a animal in a lab expressed through them. (collected some of my favourites below)

(no but genuinely very insane of you to do personalized tags on so many pieces during this event AND read some of my long ranty tags too. I think I may have had a light heart attack when I learnt you were one person running this thing and even if you weren't this level of care is so above and beyond what you had to do -- also very funny and fun please continue studying me at your leisure it's very awesome)

I don't know about everyone else but i frequently scrolled down the hermit a day blog mainly for the art (and seeing everyone's designs and styles!!) but I loved just reading your tags too lol. Always fun when there's a little back and forth. Was really proud of myself when I begun to recognize specific artists' styles who I hadn't encountered before, felt like I was earning video game points I have no idea why.

Amazing event. I'm gonna go try to fix my sleep schedule now o7

[shad0wvisi0n]

Chapter 2 Connection

AU Created by @b-r-i-n-g-x and @shygirl4991 All art belongs to the rightful artist do not repost Artist for chapter @b-r-i-n-g-x @merp0515

Shout out to @lizaluvsthis and @theartistisme43 our other assistant

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Liko Studies Page 1 Liko Studies Page 2 Side Story Your guardian (Read after this chapter!)

Tags: Fluff, angst, humor, found family, falling in love, love confessions, slow burn, blood, injury,

SV4 sighs sitting on a chair while Liko starts taking readings, she hums as she gets up taking some of his blood. SV3 looked up from his notebook to peek at what was going on, seeing this SV4 rolled his eyes “She is just seeing our TV world connection, it's nothing too interesting.” SV3 mouths out an oh before going back to doodling. Liko nods looking at the readings, then turns to free’s SV4 who went running to his PSP that was left on the table in the lab. “It seems the moment SV3 was created a new connection was formed, i'm going to call this a network connection given your power source.” 

SV4 scoffs as he turns on his system “Network connection? What do I need a wifi password in order to connect with SV3?” hearing this SV3 giggles  “Could my password be something clever?” Liko sighs, staring at the pair. She gets up smacking her clipboard glaring at them, SV3 frowns looking down “Sorry Miss Liko.” She turns to SV4 waiting for any kind of reaction, the man just keeps playing on his PSP with no care. She sighs looking at the chart, since SV4 was made first he has more power then SV3. Their connection towards each other is just being made, seeing so far how SV4 is acting made the women worry that the pair wont get along. 

SV3 walks up to SV4 and taps on his hat “Come on, I need to talk to Mr. Puzzle and your stream is about to start!” With a sigh he gets up following his partner out of the room, never looking away from his PSP. She looks at the chart nervously “The connection shows a strong attachment from SV3 side…what could this mean when SV4 has nothing.”

SV3 smiles softly at the man next to him “So what's the game on the agenda to stream?” SV4 nods as he finishes a boss fight. They both keep walking until SV4 speaks up “Was thinking Resident Evil four or something, what are you planning on asking Mr. Puzzle?”

SV3 takes out his notebook and hugs it “I want to ask Mr. Puzzle about Wednesdays! You know, I want to make my own videos for the channel!” that got the man to stop walking as he paused the game. He looks at his partner up and down, it's been a couple of days since the arrival of his other half. His fellow guardian showed a huge interest in shrek and seemed to be very feminine, beside those traits he never picked up on what exactly was the man's talent. SV4 gives an awkward smile “Uh you're staring at me...did i say something weird?”

SV4 shakes his head, he looks at the notebook before looking back at his partner's face “What is it you do?”

SV3 face lights up at the question “My pod has shown me all i need to know on latest fashion and make up styles! I want to make Wednesdays fashion days!” he jumps up excitedly. SV4 rolls his eyes as he goes back to playing games “Good luck convincing box head that it will work,” with that he walks into his room slamming the door shut. SV3 smiles at the door before getting serious and walks into Mr. Puzzles office, where the man was mumbling to himself as he edits SV4 latest video. SV3 softly knocks on the door to catch the TV man’s attention, he looks up at SV3,  screen changing to show a bright smile “AH! If it isn't the co-star of the show, how can I help you?” SV3 walks up to his desk slamming his notebook down. The screen flickers to show a quizzical expression, seeing this SV3 smirks “Mr.Puzzles i want to make content for the channel,” he opens the journal showing a design “I think making Shadow Vision 4 a variety channel will bring us more ratings!” 

He looks over the outfit for a moment before his screen changes to a neutral expression, SV3 was getting nervous watching the TV man looking over it. Mr. Puzzle wasn't a fan that he had to agree to create the man in front of him, but now he is aiming to go after the channel. An idea pops into his head, he closes the journal, his screen projecting a friendly expression hands over the journal “I think you might have something here, let's make a deal.” SV3 holds his journal close to his chest, nervously he nods “Alright, what's the deal?” Mr. Puzzle lets out a soft chuckle as he stands up. SV3 looks up as he watches the man walk back and forth “You must make the video not only hit more than five thousand views, which is child's play for SV4. But you must also convince your other half to be the model for that outfit of yours!” SV3’s eyes go wide before letting out a shaky giggle, he takes Mr.Puzzles hand and shakes it, sealing the deal. He walks out of the room and in a daze walks into SV4 room, the man was just finishing up the preparation for his livestream when he heard the door open.

He turns to see SV3 spaced, awkwardly he stands there waiting for the man to speak first. With a sigh SV3 grabs SV4's hand, confused he lets it happen as he watches the man give him a face of determination “I need your body!” SV4 blinks “Huh?” 3 smiles softly, letting him go and showing the notebook “I need a model, and you're the man for the job!” 4 turns and goes back to what he is doing. Seeing this SV3 frowns, he taps on SV4 shoulders and gives him puppy eyes “Please 4, it has to be you. Will you be my hero?” SV4 groans as he walks to the door, seeing this SV3 squeaks in joy and follows. The pair head out to the market place to find materials, as 3 ran around the store grabbing what he needed. SV4 was following behind playing on his gameboy, just because they are on a shopping trip doesn't mean he has to stop gaming. 

3 hums as he purchased everything, he then begins to explain his design as they walk home. Noticing that the man was starting to struggle holding the supplies, 4 scooped them away from him. SV3 looked at 4 surprised as he kept walking while playing his game, slowly the man frowned. The whole trip was him talking away with no reaction from his other half, he was starting to wonder if this connection he felt with the man was all in his head. The moment they arrived at the studio SV4 dropped the bags, then walked straight into his room closing the door. SV3 frowns as he picks up the bags, with a deep breath he walks to his room and begins to work on his design. He knew he couldn't slack on this project, he needed to throw everything he can into this. He looks at his laptop, he lets out a soft smile as he sees the channel page. He needs to remember why he is doing this and use it as motivation, he wants to show the world how amazing fashion can be. With a determined nod he takes out his supplies and gets to work. 

Mr.Puzzle passes by the man's room and peeks in,  he watches for a moment seeing the relaxed face that SV3 had while working.  His screen flickers showing an annoyed expression, with how relaxed and fast the man was putting things together he knew it was only a matter of time. He walks in making sure his screen shows a bright smile “Hello! I see you're hard at work,” SV3 looks up and smiles showing off his small progress “If i keep up the pace i should finish this in no time!” The television man nods looking up and down. His screen changes to show concern “While I see you doing amazing work, i have to say i think you can pull off better.” SV3 frowns looking at his drawing then the fabrics he got, he then shakes his head “It’s at the starting stage, don't worry Mr. Puzzle I won't bring shame to the channel!” He gives a determined face to the man. Causally he nods giving a comforting pat on his back “Well if you ever need a place to think, i like to go to Peach castle. It’s where my first big show happened, gives lots of inspiration looking at the place!” He walks out of the room leaving SV3 to think over what he was told. 

SV4 relaxes as he leans back in his chair finally playing resident evil 4, he was doing a resident evil marathon to bring more attention to the channel. It’s been a success so far, while the channel got more subscriptions, he got more games to play and nothing can beat that. He lets out a sigh as he finishes the current section and starts organizing his inventory,  after the fight with U-3 he was left with little ammo due to reckless mistakes and wasting of ammo. He sighs and takes a sip of water that SV3 brought him, he wasn't sure how long ago the man brought the water but was thankful for it.  As he kept walking and collecting items it started to click to him something wasn't right.

He blinks, staring at Krauser, his reaction time was slow and messy. His face became bright red, the heat from his blush was getting to him. SV4 pauses the game, his mind racing at the sight of the character, he takes a deep breath doing his best not to focus on the man being shirtless. He unpauses the game ignoring the chat asking if he was feeling okay, he attempts the fight only to feel himself go red again at the sight of the man's chest.  “Fuck…” he wasnt sure what was wrong, frustrated he decided to say he was feeling off and ended the stream. He sat there in the dark confused, he battled Krauser fine in the quick time events. He threw himself on the bed thinking it over, at that moment the picture of the shirtless man came up. 

Feeling the heat return to his face he gets up in a panic, he charges out of his room to splash water on his face. SV3 heard the door slam and left his room to investigate, concerned, he slowly walked to the bathroom “Everything okay?” he can hear the water running and annoyed grunts from his partner. After a few moments the door opens “I’m dying because of a shirtless man.” SV3 frowns seeing how miserable SV4 looks, he reaches out to give comfort to his partner. Only to get brushed aside as SV4 leaves the bathroom to go to the living area to retrieve his gameboy on the shelf, SV3 frowns leaning to the wall “SV4, you know you need to stop doing that.” He turns holding his gameboy confused, they stare at each other for a moment before SV4 rolls his eyes “What? Play games all day, are we having that talk again?” 

SV3 sighs looking at the floor “No, pushing me away. It feels like everything I do to get close to you, well you just brush me away. You didn't even thank me when I brought you water! Heck did you even notice?” SV4 rolls his eyes as he turns on his system “Yeah i notice, i spat the water out during that boss fight i was telling you about.” SV3 slowly blinks, staring at him confused “You spat water out for a boss fight? Not the point! Do you hate me?” SV4 starts the game and hums along with the title music for a moment “You haven't done anything for me to hate you, sorry i'm not the touchy guy you expect me to be. What? Do you want me to hug you and twirl you around like they do in movies?” SV3 could feel himself getting more angry at his other half. They couldn't get on the same page, taking a deep breath he walks away from SV4 to get some fresh air. SV4 sighs as he watches the man walk away, at that moment his gameboy shuts off. 

He mumbles getting more annoyed as he turns on the gameboy for it to shut off, with a sigh he goes to his drawer to look for batteries. His eyes go wide noticing he had run out of batteries “ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME I WAS JUST AT THE STORE!” He was so close to finishing the game, he needed to know how the game ended and needed to relax. Getting up he remembers SV3 getting batteries for his project, now on a mission he heads to SV3 room. He walks in the room and looks around, the room smells as if he walked into a flower shop. He had to admit the man had good taste in perfume, he walks in and passed the outfit in the middle of the room to reach the drawers. Opening the drawers he starts to toss items out of the drawer, as he tossed the items he doesn't notice them hitting the outfit in the center of the room. The almost complete outfit gets covered in ink along with rips from the items hitting it. 

SV3 lets out a sigh thinking over the fight, he wonders if he was being too harsh on his partner. The man can come off as cold but SV4 helped him on the shopping trip, he smiles remembering how he took the bags from him. He nods, keeping that moment in his head as he walks back. With a smile he walks towards his room to add the last touches of his outfit, hearing a loud thud, his hand freezes on the door handle. Nervous, he opens the door to gasp, the outfit he worked all night on was stained with ink and torn in several places. SV4 was in the room cheering at finding batteries for his system, SV3 slammed the door shut behind him catching the gamers attention. 

“THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?” 3 glared at the man, the anger in his eyes made SV4 nervous. Not only did his gentle partner just swear, his eyes looked ready to murder the man if he did the wrong move. “Uh i got batteries for my system, i didn't know i ran out.” SV3 lets out a dark chuckle as he points to the outfit “I MEAN MY FUCKING OUTFIT! IT'S DUE TOMORROW I SPENT ALL NIGHT ON IT, YOU RUINED IT!” Slowly SV4 turns and sees the project torn and stained. He lets out a nervous laugh as he looks at SV3 “Well…you're good at fashion I'm sure you can fix it in no time, I mean recording isn't hard!” SV3 clenches his fist holding back tears at hearing his words. He felt like an idiot for believing that his partner cared about anything other than games. He forces out a smile as a tear escapes his eyes “I see, no matter what I do…you just hate me and don't care what happens. Then I will do you a favor and leave!”  SV3 runs out of the room leaving SV4 standing there unsure how to feel about the events, he looks at the outfit again before shrugging. It's not like something bad is going to happen because of this, the man will get air then come back and all will be back to normal again.

SV3 starts crying as he walks into the woods, he wipes his tears as he remembers what mr.puzzle told him. With the location in mind he starts to make his way over, he was angry and hurt.  It didn't surprise him that SV4 didn't even make the effort to go after him, was there even a point to return to the studio. He wasn't sure how long he had been walking, all he knew was he arrived at the location. He sighs staring at the pit, he wasn't sure how this strange thing was going to help him but he stayed. “Oh weird pit, will me and SV4 ever get closer. I just want us to be friends, but whatever I do never works.” as he sighs he hears a strange growl behind him.  His eyes go wide as he slowly turns to see a beast, he gets up and swallows “Uh…hiya..Princess Peach, you're looking very heh beastly?” she lets out a high pitch roar. SV3 runs barely dodging the claw that slams into the ground, he breathes heavily looking around. His mind was racing as he started running to the woods, as he ran he felt pain in his right eye causing him to fall down. 

Mr. Puzzle walks to check on SV3 and notices the guardian missing, noticing the ruined outfit he walks to the TV area. There SV4 was staring at his gameboy, Mr. Puzzle walks up to “Ahem have you seen your co-star?” with a sigh he looks up and notices the time. Awkwardly he looks to the side “Think he said something about getting air,” Mr. Puzzle crosses his arms and frowns at the gamer “Get some air? Then what about the project, it looked like someone had a melt down!” SV4 looks down searching for an excuse, at the moment the screen on his gameboy started to glitch. He blinks looking closer at the screen, the words help appeared on it. His eyes go wide before a loud sigh catches his attention “SV4, weren't you the one that wanted a co-star? Yet you don't know where our fashion forward star is?” 

SV4 gets up and starts to walk away “I ruined the outfit, SV3 left to get air.” he then walks into his room and locks the door. Mr.Puzzles facepalms as he picks up the phone “Come when the sun is down Liko, SV3 seems to be missing.” He hears a thud over the line, after a few moments of silence Liko picks up the phone in a panic “WHAT DO YOU MEAN MISSING?!” SV4 groans hearing the loud conversation on the phone, this whole thing was his fault. He sighs before holding his head, he starts to hear white noise as his eyes lose their color. His eyes become static as the monitors in his room start to glitch out, there an image starts to appear. There he heard a panicked voice “Heh good Princess peach, um i could make you a super nice outfit?” the creature roars before the image disappears, color returning to his eyes. “SV3!” he covers his mouth for a moment, he presses his ear to the door. Slowly he opens the door and looks around, not seeing mr. puzzle around he drops his game boy and runs out the door. As he runs he attempts to connect to his partner, his eyes lose color as the static returns to them. He could feel something close as he turns following the strange pull,  there he finds a TV shop. 

Walking into the shop he gets close to a TV, a shopkeeper smiles and walks up to him “Ah good taste sir, this screen TV is the best one in the store!” as the man kept attempting to sell the television to 4 turns and glares at him. Seeing his static eyes gets the man to awkwardly smile walking away, then with a deep breath SV4 touches the TV. His hand gets sucked into the TV, looking around he nervously steps in. In a flash he was in the woods, rubbing his eyes, to get their color back. “Wow, Liko was not kidding about having guardian magic that was…strange.” SV3 landed on the ground hard dodging another attack, he felt a sharp pain on his ankles “No, oh no don't tell me i had to twist my ankle now!” Princess Peach roars, catching both guardian’s attention. SV4 sprints to the sound and catches SV3 on the floor struggling to get up, the creature raises a claw ready to end the long chase. “NO YOU FUCKING DON'T!” SV4 pushes himself to run faster, he knew if he doesn't act SV3 could be killed. 

Without thinking he stops running in front of SV3 taking the hit. SV3 covered himself getting ready for the hit, when he felt nothing he opened his eyes. There he saw a strange static liquid on the floor, he looked up, eyes wide to see SV4 giving a soft smile to him as he covered his right eye “You okay pumpkin?” SV3 blushes as he looks at the soft smile. He couldn't believe that SV4 found him, that he saved his life. Princess Peach lets out a high pitched shriek making 4 roll his eye, he turns getting in position to fight. SV3 gaps seeing the slash on his eye “SV4! How do you plan to win this with one eye!?” 

SV4 smirks “Watch and learn darling, then maybe you won't run as much next time!’ SV3 pouts doing his best to get up. Once up he takes the man's hand “We are partners, together let's put her back!” SV4 lets out a chuckle as he intertwined his fingers with SV3’s “For once let's do it your way, and dont think im doing this cause i feel bad about what happened. The pain and blood loss is just getting to me.” Both of their eyes slowly lose color as they turn to the creature, SV4 smirks as he feels the familiar energy come back. “Heh this feels better then when i was alone, shall we teach this bitch a lesson?” SV3 nods going along with SV4. Feeling the energy flow he looks around “Fuck we dont have something to lock on to!” 

SV3 felt the pain return to his eye, he was about to close his eye when he noticed something “SV4! There is something hidden over there!” he turns confused “I don't see anything?” annoyed he pulls SV4 to the spot. Princess Peach roars as she charges after, SV3 then picks up a piece of a keyboard. SV4 looked at it surprised, “Whoa good eyes, looks like this keyboard has TV world energy.” Having no time to question why the object was here  the pair focus their power on it, the keyboard melts changing shape. Together they blast the princess back causing her to fall back into the hole, they watch as the creature vanishes from their sight. SV4 falls to his knees holding his eye, SV3 quickly picks him up “We need to leave if we don't hurry you can lose that eye!” he nods letting 3 support him. They pair hurry back to the studio. As they walk SV3 lets out a soft smile “Thank you for saving me and…risking your life for me.” SV4 looks down thinking over everything. Nervously he drops his walls “I lived weeks alone…i know what life without you is like. The thought of you being in danger and I could lose you, being alone again I just couldn't let that happen.”  SV3 blushes holding the man closer, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Was this what adrenaline feels like, it was a strange feeling and he knew it was the only thing keeping him walking.

They stay silent as they make it back to the studio, they hear a loud gasp and see Liko run up hugging them. “You idiots!” as she pulls back she notices SV4 eye “Quickly take care of that, go into your pod fast to prevent a scar.” The pair nod as they go to SV4 room. He lets the man sit on the bed as he leaves the room to retrieve a first aid kit, SV4 looks at the floor waiting for his partner and notices his gameboy on the floor. He picks it up and sighs “Thanks to you this all happened you know,” he then puts it in the drawer next to his bed before his partner returns. SV3 returns and moves SV4's hand to start taking care of the wound he then smiles at SV4 as he puts on the eye patch “You know…you really were a hero today.” SV4 chuckles touching the eye patch “Yeah i doubt that, i'm the reason you got in this mess.” SV3 presses his forehead against SV4 “Shh we all make mistakes, so let me thank my hero.” Before SV4 could ask any questions SV3 gently touched his face and placed a soft kiss near his eyepatch.

SV4 blushes, staring at his partner surprised “Get in your pod, we can't have our main star with a scar!” SV4 frowns looking at his pod as SV3 leaves the room. Getting up he stares at his pod, did he deserve to use his left over power to heal himself. He caused everything, not to mention the outfit was due in a couple of hours. Without it SV3 wouldn't be able to join him, he touches his pod “I want you to help me, pod is there anything i can do to fix this mess i did  for 3?” The screen starts to leak, SV4 looks at the liquid and touches it. The liquid starts to take form and transform into rats, he blinks for a moment “Well fuck, guess im a one eye disney princess.” He opens the door to see Liko, still upset and talking with SV3, knowing that will keep them busy. He and his new rat friends charge into the SV3 room “Okay clean the mess up, i will go find the fabric. He was gushing about all the steps when we were shopping, thank the static for that.” 

He pushes himself to make a portal to rush the shopping, he was being risky using his power when he was weak. But today showed him that taking risks might not be all that bad, as he makes it back he laughs seeing the outfit without stains “Yesss!” taking out the fabric he gets to work. He was annoyed with all the pricks he was giving himself “Ugh why didn't you pick a hat,” he hums trying to fix the rips the best he could. He let out a sigh of relief when he finished it, he walked around the outfit making sure there weren't any extra holes on it.  With a cheer he gives the rats a high five before guiding him back to his room, he touches the screen making it open up as they go in. He nods as he makes his way back to SV3 room “It’s midnight cinderella, your rats are gone and now you must wait for the prince to find you.” he lets out a yawn wondering if a nap wouldn't hurt after all the work he did. 

SV3 opens the door and gasps seeing SV4 asleep on his bed and the outfit fixed, he walks up to the sleeping man and gently wakes him up. Once he saw the man's eye open SV3 frowns “Did you really pick an outfit over your eye?” SV4 gets up and yawns “No, I picked your dream over my eye. Look i can admit i fucked up big time, who cares if i get a scar. What matters is getting you on our channel, so let's get to work.” SV3 smiles, giving him a nod as he runs to get the camera. SV4 changes into the outfit and looks at himself, he already regrets the choice he made. He leaves the room only to get a surprise when SV3 puts a sticker on his eye patch “You need my logo so the viewers know it's my channel, so I made this real fast!” 

SV3 holds up the camera as SV4 attempts a pose, he can hear the man talking about the outfit. He sighs every time he turns to do another pose, SV3 giggles cheering SV4 on only to get a glare in return. SV3 made sure to explain the eye patch was a fashion statement,  4 had to admit he likes how fast thinking his partner can be. 

Once he was done he ran to the computer to start editing, he started to feel himself panic at the time. “Oh no i won't be able to edit this in time!” that's when a laptop was placed next to him, SV3 started confused at SV4 “You think i'm leaving you alone now? Let's make the perfect video.” with a nod they boys work together to get the video edited and posted on time. Mr. Puzzles wakes up from his charge to see the boys staring at the monitor intensely, he gets close and sees the number of the video skyrocket. The boys cheer when the numbers hit the goal “We did it! I’m in!” Mr. Puzzles was surprised that together the pair managed to score so many views and likes over an outfit. He chuckles, pleased with the new information “Congrats! I knew you had it in you, we must celebrate!” Mr. Puzzle can feel himself getting excited at the site of the star meter being filled. The more attention the channel gets, the closer puzzle vision can return. With one last chuckle he leaves the room to get things ready to celebrate. Once the TV man was gone SV4 pulls SV3 into a hug giggling “WE DID IT!” they both giggle as SV4 twirls with 3 in his arms. He then lets go of SV3 who was still giggling, they stare at each other for a moment before 4 lets out a shaky breath “We need to talk.”

They walk outside as SV4 looks up at the sky “I’m sorry I caused this whole mess, I'm not… I just ugh i don't know what I'm saying.” 3 walks up to 4 concern. He places a hand on him only to be brushed away,  SV4 kicks a rock before he speaks “Talking to people isn't as easy as games, you have dialogue choices and games let you know which one is right. I spent weeks alone only talking to a stupid television and a scientist, they are nothing like you.”  SV3 takes a step back watching the other man's movements, he was getting lost in thought trying to figure out his next words carefully. The sunset shines on SV4 making the man look like he was glowing “SV3, i don't hate you. I also don't want you to take this the wrong way but…i do care about you, i never meant for you to feel unwanted. Cause SV3 i need you more than you know.” the feeling returns to SV3. He felt his face go warm as he heart pounded in his chest, he wasn't sure what the feeling was. The one thing he did know was he didn't mind the warmth it gave him, as SV4 kept looking up at the sky SV3 couldn't help himself from admiring the man. 

“I…i will never leave your side SV4, i promise you we will always be a team always!” shyly SV3 takes 4’s hand, they give each other a soft smile before agreeing to head inside to celebrate their victory.

[unbizzarre]

Cetegandan concept sketches

Wanted to try my hand at Cetegandan clothing. Not sure how Gem differs from Haut, though I'm leaning towards Gem being more flamboyant, space-grabbing and structured (left and right) whereas Haut is flowy-er and layered, with some lab attire with a both aesthetic and practical bent.

In general clothing styles try to evoke imagery of flowers, petals, and delicate layering. I'm playing around with incorporating butterfly shapes in the silhouette. (see swallowtail sleeves on far left). While the garments are light and flowy, very little skin is left showing. The clothing style is an elegant synthesis of Grecian drapery and certain elements from historic Japanese, Chinese, and Korean garments. My muse was also inspired to create a similar feeling to some of my favorite Star Wars costume design sketches I've run across. I also really enjoy having folds radiating out from a central point, or folding out like petals above and below a belt/waistline. Will probably do more studies to further explore the variety of ceta styles I've imagined.

tbh i imagine cetagandan womens clothing is actually a bit less colorful. maybe more whites and creams. But I just had fun messin about with butterfly colors

OH HELL YEAH TIME TO CITE THOSE SOURCES! :::

these specific designs pull from and synthesise shapes I found in

Roberto Cappuci Haute Couture 1987 "angel of god" or "Andgelo d'Oro" (angel of gold) depending on which pinterst image I reference

and

this dress by Issa Hesso from the Rebirth Collection

starwars concept art I enjoy:

like fuck me this guys so good

you can find more by searching: iain mccaig padme amidala concept art

overall pretty happy with how these turned out :D! Feel like I successfully captured the space-elf-fairy vibes I was going for. If you notice any cannon clothing details I left out, or have your own creative ideas on how you imagine cetagandan cloting to look, feel free to leave a comment! I love hearing other people's insights :). Particularly curious how ceta clothing may have changed between occupation time period and modern miles-era ceta clothing. Given their heavily artistic bent I could imagine fashions may change wildly year to year decade to decade. But also given how long they live, perhaps the mainstream styles is actually less malleable? If so what are the common themes that are preseved?

thanks for reading!

[444lpblue]

The Witch and the Beast Anime's Outlook

I've finally awakened from my anime slump and have been catching up on a lot of anime. I learned my lesson about trying to do too much and watch too many shows. Therefore, I'm going to limit the number of anime I watch going forward so that I actually have time to write about them. I was barely finding time to watch the shows I've decided to begin, let alone write about them. I'm feeling a bit more comfortable now after grinding a ton, and I would like to talk about one of my anxiety-inducing and highly anticipated anime, The Witch and the Beast.

If you didn't know, The Witch and the Beast is possibly one of my favorite mangas of all time, if not my absolute favorite. It's very under the radar, and I think if you love the world of Ancient Magus Bride or enjoy The Case Study of Vanitas and want a darker twist with a highly aesthetically pleasing art style, I think you should give it a try. But back to the anime, like most people when their manga get adapted, when I first heard it was announced, I was extremely excited—after all, who wouldn't be? Getting an anime adaptation is probably one of the things you wish for your favorite series. After months of confirmation, we finally got the first teaser PV, which looked fine (I did have some complaints about it, but it was mostly fine). We learned that the studio working on it is Yokohama Animation Lab.

If you've been watching anime recently, you might have come across some of Yokohama Animation Lab's works, as they have been quite active since 2017. They have produced visually appealing shows such as Miru Tights and Lapis Re:LiGHTs. However, more recently, they've released shows with less-than-stellar visuals, like Kingdoms of Ruin, The Great Cleric, and Rail Romanesque 2. Even their highest-rated show at the moment, The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt, doesn't exactly have amazing animation quality; it's more of a passable-looking show. Which made the studio choice a huge large concern for me, as The Witch and the Beast is a series that relies a lot on its visuals. It's an integral part to the enjoyment of the series, it's a series that relies on its aesthetically pleasing artwork for the sake of showing off the characters and the worldbuilding.

However, studios aren't people, and I didn't want to adopt an incredibly negative outlook because the people working on it will change over time, and anime relies heavily on freelancers. The quality of the anime you see from individual studios will differ greatly. But there is a difference in that aspect to an extent in Yokohama Animation Lab, much like in this interview said. They are looking to become more of an in-house studio rather than freelance due to the costs of subscription programs. Oogami Yuuma emphasizes that while digitalization in anime is often viewed as a cost-cutting measure, setting up the required digital environment can be initially expensive. So they are seeking a cost-effective solution. His statement, to this day, still rings pretty true. If you look at the staff for Yokohama's series episode by episode, you might be surprised that a majority of the episodes do seem to involve in-house staff more than the average anime. However, that doesn't seem great when their recent quality, especially in shows like Kingdoms of Ruin, has been rather atrocious. In all visual aspects, animation (incredibly lacking), storyboarding (low quality and not engaging, scene flow to eachother like a slideshow), compositing (incredibly jarring). The only thing I can praise about it is its art direction.

I mentioned Kingdoms of Ruin specifically as it does share several key staff with The Witch and the Beast and I think it's just worth mentioning. Now with all that being said you can see how my worry for the adaptation was incredibly large at the time (in the fact it still is), but I've lessen my worry of it when I tried to look at the individual staffs working on this show and the stafflist of the recent Yokohama shows.

Unfortunately, I did sit through some episodes of Kingdoms of Ruin (do not recommend), and I found it interesting that the staff list for the show was rather small at times— a lot of animation directors, but not many actual animators. For example, one of the action-heavy episodes only had a singular key animator. It's as if they didn't have enough staff. I would say that Kingdoms of Ruin is of lower quality than even the average Yokohama series.

This got me thinking, where are the staff going? Well, there are several options. Yokohama has some upcoming releases, but unquestionably, their biggest series coming out is Whisper Me a Love Song (which I also love), followed by The Witch and the Beast. The other two upcoming series are not nearly gaining as much traction.

This is all just a guess that likely won't amount to anything, but just the type of series that The Witch and the Beast is and the fact that it's the series coming right after Kingdoms of Ruin, I think it's possible that it will end up benefiting from the staff that was missing from that series. I feel like Yokohama will try to put more effort into this series, considering they didn't opt for their usual newbies and completely in-house directors; rather, they got a veteran director in Takayuki Hamana.

Hamana has been in the industry for an incredibly long time, but chances are you haven't heard of him. Recently, he directed Power of Hope Precure Full Bloom, which had a lot of great cuts from what I've seen. He has also recently finished working on the Sorcerous Stabber Orphen series, which didn't receive the best reception (more so for its rushed nature rather than visuals). Additionally, he worked on the Rakudai Majo movie recently, which unfortunately doesn't have an English release yet.

While it's not like these recent shows have the best ratings on MAL or other sites, it tends not to be because of the visuals but rather the story, over which he likely didn't have much control, especially in the case of Precure. He's very much capable of delivering a good product if the source material and the script are solid. Beast Player Erin is his highest-rated work, but he also has shows like Library Wars or Arte, which I know many people like.

In studios like Yokohama, I always tend to favor veteran directors, as they have been in more situations and will likely be able to find a way to maintain quality better than newbie directors; their industry connections should allow them to get external staff to help out. Hamana has shown evidence of this many times, even in the rushed release of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and the hazardous release pace of each season. They all still managed to have well-animated cuts here and there, and that has been a trend for a majority of his series.

If you just put some of his randomly directed series on Sakugabooru, for example, you'll find that every one of his series tends to have cuts listed there. I think this is a testament that Hamana, while he won't always make the best shows, knows who to bring in and how to manage them for the more important parts of a show. He's a very consistent director, and I think he's someone who could and likely will benefit The Witch and the Beast's studio situation a lot in terms of its production quality. Whether you'll like his directing style (which tends to remind most of 2008s anime) is an entirely different matter, but he is a source of hope in terms of its production quality.

And you know with all this talk of Yokohama and the many people, like me worried for The Witch and the Beast's quality, while I may not be a fan of the many visual direction choice that has been shown in the PV, we haven't gotten any real evidence that the production quality or animation quality will be bad. From the most recent PV and likely final PV, the character designs look fairly well-maintained for the most part. Close-ups are impressive. I also like the expressions for them, strong eye work. Overall CAD work seems good.

Though, essentially, there isn't a lot of animation shown, so that aspect of it can't really be touched on at the moment. So, conclusion? It's a really lazy thing to say since I made you read through this long spew of mine, but I don't really know either. It really is a wait-and-see situation; however, I do encourage you not to write it off just because of the studio choice. A good pick in a director like Hamana, and some other staff I haven't even touched on, like the character design by Hiroya Ijima, and the external studio situation in terms of releases, provide hope for the series, and I genuinely believe that, at the very worst possible version of the series, it probably will be about the Genius Prince's visual quality, which isn't great but won't be a complete disaster. However, with Hamana at the helm, I do expect a better quality show than that.

I'll see you guys next time on January 11th when the show comes out, because, trust me, I will be there.

[tunababyyyy]

if i were a late 18th century italian oil painter who was kicked out of my convent/art school at 17 for having relations with a nun (sorry not sorry) and eventually began to make a living doing portraits of horrid bourgeoisie aristocrats while crossdressing as a man so they would take my art seriously but i eventually made enough money to buy a secluded villa in northern italy with a view of the mountains and the coast only a few hours' ride on horseback and i was in the town square one morning picking up fresh bread and tea because i had been so busy painting i didn't have time to bake any at home and i ran into you selecting a fine cheese to take home to your mother in naples where you were studying chemistry at the university and learning about electricity with the top minds of the western world and i was struck by your beauty and insisted you come back to my villa so i could paint you and there we basked in the sun and ate the cheese you picked out and the bread i was able to make the next morning before i continued on your portrait, but when you saw it, you said it felt stiff and not like you at all and that you believed a painter of my talents could capture your soul if we spent enough time together and so we bathed in the river and chased each other through the trees and i kept painting you and painting you and painting you until suddenly you had become my muse but it was august and you had to return to naples to continue your studies but you promised to write and i didn't know what to do with myself but continue painting you as the fall set in followed by a winter where you couldn't visit either because your father had fallen ill and you had to help your mother care for him in the city where the best doctors were so instead of painting you i took up sculpture and i recreated your figure from memory out of clay dug from the rivers we swam in but i still couldn't capture you perfectly, even as the spring came and warmth came back to the earth and you still couldn't return to the villa because your work in the lab took up all of your time working on a cure for the illness your father was still ailing from and then one day i got it right, the painting of you, on the last day of may when you finally arrived to see me again and you said the painting was perfect and we laughed and i went to meet your parents in naples where i sold the painting of you and then proceeded to make more like it over the years with different subjects, but mostly you, i would accidentally invent the style of romanticism because i wanted to capture you properly in oil and ink and stone and clay. that's probably what i would do.

[old-lorarri]

─ lost cause . . . ❨ send me a description of yourself + a fandom and gender preference, and i’ll ship you with a character. ❩

I am north indian, female, 5'1 with a tan-ish skin. My hair is curly and goes down just below my back. I like to dress comfortable and my style would be considered very minimalistic street style like. I am studying kinestheology and want to be a doctor in the future. I love jewelry, especially rings. I like dancing and art. Currently in a dance team as a dancer and a choreographer. I love doing labs and dissections, hate lab reports. I am creative, love dogs, cats and snakes and cars.

The fandom is Formula 1 and 2

AND CONGRATS ON UR 4K I AM SO PROUD OF UUU

LEWIS HAMILTON

two words

fashions icons

def gets you all the best clothes

loves that you wanna help people

def helps you study

matching jewellery

has a ring with your name and anniversary on it

loves watching you dance

and enjoys it when you teach him a couple moves

roesco is you child

[sayheykid]

I want to know more about your baseball guys and friends and my questions:

Who has the most drip? The least?

What are they all studying in college?

When it comes to baseball, who’s the most traditional and who’s the most radical?

What pitches do the pitchers throw?

i'm so glad you like them! they're my best friends and i love answering questions about them.

this is about to be 80000000 words sorry

Who has the most drip? The least?

Ramón definitely has the most drip on and off the field. hallmarks of his style are bright colors, jewelry (earrings and a gold chain at the very least) and shirts that are unbuttoned so low it would honestly just be better to take it off altogether. it's a little unclear whether his style is actually good or whether his confidence is just so unreal that he can pull off anything. uni wise, it mostly comes down to wearing his pants as tight as possible. he's also a dirty mids believer

jake and ellie are always pretty put together but in a more understated way than ramón. charlie can dress up but usually he's just a guy i hate to break it to you. sam and tyler have likely never worn anything that wasn't team-issued or given away for free at other events.

What are they all studying in college?

tyler - mechanical engineering!

ellie - journalism

sam - business bro in some capacity. not finance or accounting but probably management

jake - doing the whole "what do you want to do with your sociology degree" "hit bombs, probably" routine

charlie - some kind of liberal arts because my soul dies every time i see some player say that they majored in something that's definitely not real like "american studies" or “science, technology & society” what do those words MEAN. in all honesty, i don't know how to classify exactly what charlie does, so if you have any suggestions, i'm all ears

ramón - media studies. he's absolutely becoming an analyst once he's done playing because he has the perfect personality for it. he and jake actually have a locker room show (like 96 questions) where they just dick around and try to corner their teammates it's delightful

When it comes to baseball, who’s the most traditional and who’s the most radical?

Charlie is definitely the most traditional. He knows the game has changed over the years, but he's so steeped in the tradition and the history and the heritage of the game and doesn't want to get too far removed from that. he's an absolute workhorse, and wants to throw a complete game every time. he's also good enough and stubborn enough that he could bring back the era of 30 complete games and 200+ innings a year (and he's trying to). his actual motion isn't that complicated either, it's a pretty simple rock step motion kind of like noah syndergaard? he doesn't mess with funky arm slots or deliveries because his pitches are just that dependable, and if you layer his different pitch deliveries on top of each other, they're pretty indistinguishable

on the other end, ramón doesn't mind messing around in the pitching lab working on the next new thing. if there's a new drill/tool/program he's willing to give it a shot, no matter how far out it is. their approaches make them butt heads sometimes but they really balance each other out. ramón does not have a uniform arm slot - he's a sidearm pitcher but just kind of flings the ball out there and hopes his catcher finds it. because of this, he's a little wilder but it's worked for him so far.

whenever i think of them, strictly in a baseball approach sense, i think of this article about gerrit cole and trevor bauer, except for. you know. charlie and ramón actually like each other and ramón is a much better person than bauer.

What pitches do the pitchers throw?

Again, charlie is really really traditional. He probably has a four or five pitch mix, and relies mostly on his blistering four seam fastball and slider, followed by his changeup and splitfinger. maybe a stomach-dropping hammer curve if he wants to mix it up. he throws very hard and very accurately, so he's never really had to learn to fool hitters. he doesn't tip pitches but you basically know what you're getting and it still doesn't help.

ramón does not nearly have the velo charlie does. it's not his style of pitching anyway — he relies mostly on offspeed stuff, lots of motion and getting hitters to chase out of the zone, because let's be real he's not throwing in the zone anyway. i also think he has a bigger arsenal, but it's not that consistent, he'll just mix in and out depending on what's working. he likes a cutter and slurve, and was early on the sweeper bandwagon. he does have a fastball (he prefers two seam) but it's nothing groundbreaking. he's also actively working on a circle changeup

[in-my-feels-probably]

Hiii congrats on 1.5k! ♡♡♡

I'm requesting for an option one:

✨so to participate for this one, all you have to do is give me a character from a fandom and why you picked them, and any information about yourself you want to give me, and i’ll write you a blurb and tell you why i think your chosen character would like you.✨

And I'm choosing James Potter simply bc his characterization on both fanon and canon is interesting in general. I love his sunshine personality, the sheer arrogantconfident attitude and the love and adoration he has for his friends (the man became an animagus for his bsf and died for his wife and child ffs),, and honestly the description "it was james who had an ego the size of a lake but a heart to match it" that sold it to me. I also kinda have a thing for cute confident guys in glasses and messy curls maybe but let's ignore that

About me,, so I consider myself a stem girly (studied bio and I'm working in a lab atm), I'm sorta a black cat person, an introvert, and I have this tendency of keeping to myself most times, I'm consider the weird, chubby, quiet art kid bc i love arts (like doodling and sketching) and I also like singing along to songs when I'm working on things,,, I had like a phase where I kept changing hair colors monthly and my current style is a bit modernized vintage 70s outfits and casual corporate wear bc sometimes I like exuding the energy of a strong independent woman who can do great things bc I consider myself as one!!

I think that's all for me,, thanks so much and congrats again!! ♡

hi!

thanks for participating :)

(first of all, that’s one of my favorite quotes from atyd omg)

i think james would be drawn to you just because you’re a lot different than he is. he’d find you fascinating, and he’d make it a point to get to know you. he’s a very social and easygoing person, and i don’t think he does very well on his own. one of his main love languages is definitely quality time. but while i think he’s a social person, i do think he also gets a little burnt out. everyone relies on him to be the positive one, and it would be hard on him always being that person for everyone else when no one would be it for him. with you, he’d never feel like he had to put on a front. you’d be easy to calmly talk to and open up to, and he wouldn’t feel like he needed to entertain you or keep the conversation going. you’d be content to have a quiet day with him if he wanted one, and he would never say no to getting to spend time with you.

he would find your interest in art really endearing. whether that be in the way you expressed yourself through clothes, the songs he’d catch you singing to yourself, or your sketches you’d show him. james is a very talented person, but i don’t think he’s a very artistic person. so he’d think it was really cool that you were, and he’d always be up for hearing about it. he’d also think your interest in science is cool. he’s smart in a certain sense and gets passable grades, but being a top performing student isn’t really that high on his list of priorities. your education being important to you would show him that you’re really driven and hardworking, and he’d be really proud of all the effort you put into things.

—

he’d also definitely pick you as his partner in potions because of your skill in the lab.

he’d watch over your shoulder as you mixed ingredients into the cauldron, slightly bewildered at how nonchalantly you were reading through your textbook and brewing the potion with ease. every once in a while you’d look up and ask him to help you, or you’d explain what you were doing as you worked.

sirius would gripe from the adjacent table where he was sitting on his stool, in a temporary timeout from remus because he’d somehow already managed to fuck up their potion.

“it’s no fair! how come you get the good partner and im stuck with moony? he won’t even let me touch the cauldron.”

you’d chuckle, continuing to read through the instructions. “i wouldn’t either. i’m barely letting james help.”

“hey!” james would say, feigning offense as he threw an arm around your shoulder. “i’ll have you know i’m very helpful. one of us has to carry the ingredients all the way over from the shelf and back. what would my mum say if i let you do all the heavy lifting?”

“yes, how very chivalrous of you,” you’d tease, leaning into his side.

he’s grin down at you, passing you another jar of ingredients as he read the textbook over your shoulder. “i know. that’s just the kind of guy i am. i’m all about teamwork, love. a joint effort and all that.”

“sure you are, potter.”

you’d playfully roll your eyes, taking the jar from his hand. he’d continue watching in silence as you worked, resting his chin on your shoulder.

—

thanks again for participating! sorry this is a little short, i hope you enjoyed it :)

[nerdy-the-artist]

Maytroid!… sort of?

So contrary to my name, I don’t actually do a whole lot of art. It’s quite rare in fact. What I do more often, though, is write. I made a previous post about some tidbits about my own Metroid AU I’m working on. So naturally, for me, I wanted to do something similar for Maytroid. However, I felt like prattling on about the different characters and creatures for each prompt would get old pretty fast. So instead, I’m gonna style these like data logs that Samus Aran might have scanned throughout her various missions. There will be some areas that may change in the future, especially where I’m approaching the topic for the first time, like with Z-57. To avoid spam, I’m going to group these into weeks, releasing a group of these “scans” every Friday up until the end of May. Without further ado, let’s begin. 

Day 1: Ruins Test

Chozo mural transcribed and translated

“The greatest warriors of all peoples and all walks of life are not measured by their capacity for violence and destruction, the power to end life. A weapon does all of these things. What a warrior is, what a warrior is attuned to, is his moral compass. Without it, a warrior is simply a weapon, pliable and controllable as the blade, or indifferent and rabid as a roaring flame. To be a warrior and lead warriors relies on your ability to take life and preserve your mind, conscience, and convictions. Of all the wonders that we, the Chozo, bring forth, none are so valuable as the absolute attunement of the mind. And yet, it is one we cannot give. It must be found.

Find it.”

Day 2: Omega Pirate

Scan of Glaxamore data terminal from operations on Tallon IV

“Subject 42 mental acuity has experienced minimal degradation. Upon numerous tactical exercises, carefully trained to minimize subject’s innate advantages brought about by Phazon, tactical prowess has been measured at 40/35, well within expected parameters for standard soldiers. Subject has been agreeable and eager during testing, needing minimum coaching to enter suspended animation, surgical procedures, or live fire interviews.

However, there have been questions and concerns regarding the possibility of sudden and catastrophic mental deterioration. Subject 42 has multiple times reported hearing whispers and visions when inert. Subject has additionally reported dreams of planets completely enveloped in Phazon. While the possibility of locating such a deposit of Phazon would be invaluable to securing Glaxamore’s supremacy, and the study of Phazon Parapsychology is still burgeoning, such dreams have been deemed too unreliable to warrant the resources necessary to locate such a planet.”

Day 3: SA-X

Ship log: Presence Queries

Subject: Samus Aran

23:04 (Landing bay)

23:28 (Medical ward)

06:45 (Facility Lab Entrance) (Medical Ward) Addendum: Triangulation Error

06:47 (X-Parasite Containment) (Medical War) Addendum: Triangulation Error

06:53 (X-Parasite Containment) (Nautalis Containment) (Medical War) Addendum: Triangulation Error

Multiple triangulation errors detected. Location data deemed unreliable by Aurora Unit.

Day 4: Spire

Intel Scan

Individual appears to be a Diamont. Galactic Federation records list the species as extinct after the destruction of their star. Biological scans indicate individual is 572 DY, making him middle aged by Diamont standards. Hormone and body language readings indicate he is experiencing immense and repeated emotional distress.

Day 5: Experiment Z-57

Battle Scan

Creature appears to be Corpius specimen with heavy biological modification. Immediately identifiable modification include various flesh grafts, four bio-prostheses, poison glands, and a low intensity plasma cutter. Scarred into the creature’s flesh are the Chozo words “Hadar sen Olmen”. The end result of the modifications is increased speed and dexterity, heat resistance, a poisonous bite to unarmored bio forms, and a powerful ranged attack. Log will be updated with further data upon availability.

[tastydregs]

Personalized AI-Written Spam May Soon Be Flooding Your Inbox

Photo: TACstock1 (Shutterstock)

If An AI Reworks Copyrighted Images, Is It Art? | Future Tech

Each day, messages from Nigerian princes, peddlers of wonder drugs and promoters of can’t-miss investments choke email inboxes. Improvements to spam filters only seem to inspire new techniques to break through the protections.

Now, the arms race between spam blockers and spam senders is about to escalate with the emergence of a new weapon: generative artificial intelligence. With recent advances in AI made famous by ChatGPT, spammers could have new tools to evade filters, grab people’s attention and convince them to click, buy or give up personal information.

As director of the Advancing Human and Machine Reasoning lab at the University of South Florida, I research the intersection of artificial intelligence, natural language processing and human reasoning. I have studied how AI can learn the individual preferences, beliefs and personality quirks of people.

This can be used to better understand how to interact with people, help them learn or provide them with helpful suggestions. But this also means you should brace for smarter spam that knows your weak spots – and can use them against you.

Spam, AI, spam, AI, spam, AI

So, what is spam?

Spam is defined as unsolicited commercial emails sent by an unknown entity. The term is sometimes extended to text messages, direct messages on social media and fake reviews on products. Spammers want to nudge you toward action: buying something, clicking on phishing links, installing malware or changing views.

Spam is profitable. One email blast can make US$1,000 in only a few hours, costing spammers only a few dollars – excluding initial setup. An online pharmaceutical spam campaign might generate around $7,000 per day.

Legitimate advertisers also want to nudge you to action – buying their products, taking their surveys, signing up for newsletters – but whereas a marketer email may link to an established company website and contain an unsubscribe option in accordance with federal regulations, a spam email may not.

Spammers also lack access to mailing lists that users signed up for. Instead, spammers utilize counter-intuitive strategies such as the “Nigerian prince” scam, in which a Nigerian prince claims to need your help to unlock an absurd amount of money, promising to reward you nicely. Savvy digital natives immediately dismiss such pleas, but the absurdity of the request may actually select for naïveté or advanced age, filtering for those most likely to fall for the scams.

Advances in AI, however, mean spammers might not have to rely on such hit-or-miss approaches. AI could allow them to target individuals and make their messages more persuasive based on easily accessible information, such as social media posts.

The AI-enabled future of spam

Chances are you’ve heard about the advances in generative large language models like ChatGPT. The task these generative LLMs perform is deceptively simple: given a text sequence, predict which token – think of this as a part of a word – comes next. Then, predict which token comes after that. And so on, over and over.

Somehow, training on that task alone, when done with enough text on a large enough LLM, seems to be enough to imbue these models with the ability to perform surprisingly well on a lot of other tasks.

Multiple ways to use the technology have already emerged, showcasing the technology’s ability to quickly adapt to, and learn about, individuals. For example, LLMs can write full emails in your writing style, given only a few examples of how you write. And there’s the classic example – now over a decade old – of Target figuring out a customer was pregnant before her father knew.

Spammers and marketers alike would benefit from being able to predict more about individuals with less data. Given your LinkedIn page, a few posts and a profile image or two, LLM-armed spammers might make reasonably accurate guesses about your political leanings, marital status or life priorities.

Our research showed that LLMs could be used to predict which word an individual will say next with a degree of accuracy far surpassing other AI approaches, in a word-generation task called the semantic fluency task. We also showed that LLMs can take certain types of questions from tests of reasoning abilities and predict how people will respond to that question. This suggests that LLMs already have some knowledge of what typical human reasoning ability looks like.

If spammers make it past initial filters and get you to read an email, click a link or even engage in conversation, their ability to apply customized persuasion increases dramatically. Here again, LLMs can change the game. Early results suggest that LLMs can be used to argue persuasively on topics ranging from politics to public health policy.

Good for the gander

AI, however, doesn’t favor one side or the other. Spam filters also should benefit from advances in AI, allowing them to erect new barriers to unwanted emails.

Spammers often try to trick filters with special characters, misspelled words or hidden text, relying on the human propensity to forgive small text anomalies – for example, “c1îck h.ere n0w.” But as AI gets better at understanding spam messages, filters could get better at identifying and blocking unwanted spam – and maybe even letting through wanted spam, such as marketing email you’ve explicitly signed up for. Imagine a filter that predicts whether you’d want to read an email before you even read it.

Despite growing concerns about AI – as evidenced by Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Apple founder Steve Wozniak and other tech leaders calling for a pause in AI development – a lot of good could come from advances in the technology. AI can help us understand how weaknesses in human reasoning might be exploited by bad actors and come up with ways to counter malevolent activities.

All new technologies can result in both wonder and danger. The difference lies in who creates and controls the tools, and how they are used.

Want to know more about AI, chatbots, and the future of machine learning? Check out our full coverage of artificial intelligence, or browse our guides to The Best Free AI Art Generators and Everything We Know About OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

John Licato, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Director of AMHR Lab, University of South Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

[violethazephotography]

WINTERFEST - ALAN, MARGARET AND JAY

Alan mcfetridge

Before notes

- photographer near Lake Rotorua, Aotearoa, now based in London. He has 11 years of experience with advertising photography, he changed his path to landscape to find another way to be connected with the Earth.

- His focus turned abruptly to human geography in 2012, by 2016 Landscape fire came into the frame and has since been the major focus.

-

Notes during

- Centre of ecological philosophy, landscape fire. Born in New Zealand, land of the long white cloud - Aotearoa. Understanding the landscape means and how he could interpret it through photography was the first initial interest in landscape photography. Admire Brian ino and how he makes music and how he could use different creatives as inspiration other than just photographers. Interested in how the humans impacted the landscape and what happened to the forests.

Impact

- I don’t need to know exactly what I want to do and where I want to be. Change is good

Aspect

- even if you have one thing, don’t be scared to change your mind and your path and try something else, do more than one area of photography, experiment or completely change direction.

Q’s

If you didn’t go into landscape are you interested in any other area?

What was it specifically that made you change from advertisement to landscape?

Where do you find the most inspiration for themes or areas of interest?

Do you think zines, prints and magazines are an important part of our stage of study to get ourselves known, rather than or as well as social media?

Jay brooks

Before

Portrait photographer studied Film & TV Set Design at Wimbledon School of Art.

graphic, cinematic style and atmospheric lighting. film, tv and theatre producing promotional photos for Netflix, Amazon, Sky, HBO, Discovery and The BBC. Also currently has four portraits in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery. based in North London.

Questions

Do you design as well as photograph or primarily photograph?

Is it a shoot and go situation or do you get to interact with the people? And if so are you still in contact with any?

Aspect

Do more personal work other than just stuff set for you by briefs

Impact

Make things to be used even if you don’t, you’ve gone through the process and prepared for the shoot. You have a safety net and tools that can be used.

Have a sketchbook of ideas and even if you don’t end up using it for the intended shoot, you end up with library of ideas to use for other projects

Don’t be scared to direct people and to tell them how to pose and stand to get what you need

Notes

- Shooting for 25 years. Didn’t study photography at college. Always loved photography but first love as a kid was music and covers and vinyls. Posters and designs. College foundation of art. Went into set and stage design 3D design. Used the photography lab to use as inspo for set designs. Not much freedom, working from a brief to take the photos as recreations. Uses digital for the work he does, but was late on changing (around 2006).

Margaret Mitchell

Before notes

Based in Glasgow and explores communities and childrens worlds, long term projects. Focuses on disadvantages and inequality. Intricacies and complexities of peoples lives with emphasis on place and belonging. ‘An ordinary Eden’ - project on home and housing, and connection, plus she’s doing a project with Glasgow uni, research project called ‘dying in the margins’. Her clients include shelter, guardian and new statesman among others

During talk

Photographs family, health, employment etc. the project she talked about was shot in an area of Stirling. Her early work was about about reconnecting with family while studying photography, and it just happened naturally, it wasn’t supposed to be a project and it ended up evolving. It looks at loved realities and inside the mind and process of individuals. She took inspiration from observational and busy images. Another area of her work is childhood and personal stories, working in an involved way and giving and taking equally. The project ‘in this place’ started from an article on the stigma of single mothers.

Resonate

Courage and her way of delicately photographing her subject, children and deprivation

Impact

Inspiring to try more personal imagery and backstories. To be aware of others and their different situations and to have empathy. Interviewing gives a personal perspective.

Q’s

Do you ever suffer with creativity block and how do you overcome it?

Where do you find the most inspo?

Something you’ve learnt from someone or a group of people you were given?

[actualbird]

assorted hc rambles that one way or another have something to do with the academia in tot's canon

wc: 1k

cuz even if i know this is a game of romance and wits and murder mystery law, hyv cant just drop the cast like the nxx team (aka vyn and artem have doctorate degrees, mc is a graduate attorney, luke has a master's in bioengineering, and marius is working on his master's in oil painting) and not expect me to want to know more about how theyre interacting with their specific spheres of academia

-

stellis university's biology department is begging "Pearce, L." to please consider giving a guest lecture for their students, pretty please

i think it's very entertaining to remember that several departments at stellis university have a bunch of Celebrity Poster Students/Alumni/Profs.

psychology dept obviously has the graceful intelligent dr vyn richter and hoo boy, that incident back in his personal story 3 where for a hot sec the university believed a SKETCHY CALLOUT POST accusing him to be a TOXIC MANIPULATOR....okay thats pretty on par for the course of how social media works HAHA. but my point here is that vyn is beautiful and a great teacher and theres a fanclub for him and he was momentarily involved in juicy drama. hes the perfect poster prof, he brings in a lot of attention and, in turn, interested students.

the law dept obviously has artem wing, and theyve also got rising attorney mc too!! im not sure if ingrid rosworth is canonically also a graduate of stellis uni, but if she is, im sure the law dept can drop some spicy rumors about ingrid and artem's Bitter Rivalry or something

aaaand the fine arts department has The marius von hagen as a grad student, and that in itself is already a big draw and a bunch of publicity.

but what about the STEM nation?

luke pearce is the only person on the team that is in no way affiliated with stellis university. he got his master's degree at national central university, which (and i know i mentioned this before but i want to mention it again) is noted in the Big Data Lab to be a canonical rival school of stellis university

National Central University has been competing with Stellis University for the top-ranked college domestically for years, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. [from the Big Data Lab entry on NCU]

which is already so hilarious to think about. can you imagine national central university and stellis university's sports teams go against each other for a big game and suddenly the nxx investigation team is divided due to school loyalties? luke's gonna be the lone ranger rooting for national central and everybodys gonna affectionately call him a traitor

but i digress.

while luke is the most lowkey of the team in terms of publicity/popularity he gets from the media, surely, surely this canonical genius' bioengineering contributions during his studies garnered attention from the nerds at stellis uni.

the master's thesis written by Pearce, L. is something many students and faculty have been fangirling/fanboying over the moment they read it, and it becomes known that Pearce, L. is currently residing in south stellis, and thus the dept keeps sending luke emails inviting him to do a guest lecture sometime

and he always just replies with a concise and friendly "No thank you! :D" because 1) hes got enough on his plate to do right now and 2) cuz of stupid school loyalties jhvJHVKSJHFS, hes not teaching on enemy territory

-

"MY DISCIPLINE'S citation style is better than YOURS!!!"

luke (biology/engineering) and vyn (psychology/pedagogy) use APA. mc and artem (law) use The Bluebook Style. and marius, our sole trooper in the fine arts, uses MLA.

if ever the team have to collaborate with somebody else in the team who is outside of their respective discipline's citation style to co-author some research, blood will be shed. the chaos would be immense. everybody assumed they were using the same citation (i.e. whatever citation each of them were respectively used to) and then when they realize the formatting discrepancies, the ACADEMIC RIFTS IN MANUALS OF STYLE, everybody gets extremely defensive and comically overdramatic over their preferred format of choice

vyn, luke, and marius: //squinting at the bluebook format

vyn: this is...

marius: youre gonna be way too passive aggressive with your thoughts, what we need is blunt aggressive. this format sucks balls

artem: it does not suck balls

vyn: no, he's right, it does

marius, muttering to himself: oh that was a weird feeling, vyn saying im right

artem, louder: it doesnt!!

luke, looking at mc with the biggest saddest puppy eyes: w-when did you change so much...i...i thought i knew you, i trusted you 🥺🥺🥺

mc: STOP MAKING THAT FACE AT ME, I HAD TO ADAPT IN LAW SCHOOL. WHY ARENT WE BULLYING MARIUS??

marius: uh, cuz marius is right and holy and all of you are wrong?

vyn, immediately switching sides cuz he loves the drama: MLA is ridiculous. why on earth is the only number present in the in text citation the page number?

marius: cuz it's simpler and doesnt take for-fuckin-ever to read past?????

luke, grumbling: least MLA could do is have the year in the in text citation...

marius: thats what the works cited portion is for, bitch!

artem: so you want us to flip all the way to the works cited portion to see the year? that seems like it would take much longer to do, like it would take forever---

and this argument would go on for far too long.

moving on

-

one day vyn is sick and has to postpone a class and...

if vyn comes down with the ails, he'll of course have to update his students about how he wont be coming in on that day.

now, he wanted to start off his email saying. "I am afraid I will have to postpone classes [...]" and whatnot, but vyn is Very Sick. he starts writing the email, passes out like a few words in, and when he wakes up he sees the email he had accidentally sent to all his students:

Good day, I am afraid

(based on this hilarious tumblr post)

[cepn]

like obviously it’s not that black and white and yeah maybe the internalized misogyny jumped out but me and every other neurodivergent woman who does not exactly prioritize things like makeup, workouts focused on aesthetics, hair, nails, pop culture, whatever... we all have had this experience where a pretty normal looking girl goes around like “i’m so weird! i prioritize weird women! more weird women!” and then you talk to her and she immediately gets cold because you’re off somehow and she notices and it’s not like, the kind of weird she expects, which is still within mainstream patriarchal standards - like someone with a put together mildly alt look, or who smokes weed and likes weird art and cartoons for adults.

i want to like study these women in a lab and figure out what makes them talk so much about weird and strange women being the most important people on earth while still expecting those women to conform to patriarchal standards to some degree. you can’t even look too weird lol like your hair has to be styled and you have to wear some amount of makeup or they will treat you like a total outcast.

you can't be a weird woman if you perform femininity as society expects of you. that's the rules