#i was thinking we might do this thing where I like... rate your aesthetics?

[minami-ff]

I Want My Kids to Have Your Eyes

Levi x Reader (fluff, sfw)

what a bold thing to say to your captain.

Moonlight hung over the hill like a comforting blanket as you both reclined an arm’s length apart on the soft grass beneath, bodies sinking into the earth. The day had been relentless, a gruelling mission that tested every ounce of strength. Now, in the quiet aftermath, you two found solace gazing upward at the summit’s view, shimmering like scattered diamonds against the canvas of the night sky.

The shared stillness remained comfortable, before you posed a soft interruption to the quietude, "Captain, do you ever think about your future?"

Levi's eyes briefly left the constellations above, attention shifting to you. "Yes, it usually ranges from the next second to the next few months. Which area of land outside the walls to explore, how defensive operations should alter for the next month, which day certain intelligen-”

“Captain-” You interrupted, then hesitated, the vulnerability of the topic making your heart race. "I meant a peaceful future, like having a family, kids?"

Levi's brow furrowed slightly. The thought of it was unfamiliar, impossible. "In this war? That’s far-fetched," he remarked, gaze returning to the stars.

A subtle smile grew on your lips as scenarios played at the back of your mind. "I know, of course, but don’t you ever imagine it? A life after the war, a future where Titans are just stories we tell our children." Levi's expression softened, a fleeting hint of wistfulness in his eyes.

"Like sometimes I think if I had children, I’d take them to play by the oceans, make adorable lunch sets," you continued, "how beautiful they would look if they had your eyes…" Embarrassment started flushing up as you realised you rambled on way too far.

His eyes widened imperceptibly, caught completely off guard by your comment.

"WAIT, that didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean having them with YOU, of course... definitely not…" You trailed off, a splash of pink painfully obvious on your cheeks. Get yourself together y/n, what on earth are you saying to your captain?

“Ouch.” A flicker of disappointment crossed his features. Levi cleared his throat, seemingly caught in the unexpected turn of the conversation. "Well aren’t you very in objection to that idea." he snickered, hiding a trace of sorrow beneath his face.

“Nevermind, I’m sorry, please forget what I said." You apologised in the tense atmosphere.

But Levi didn't dismiss it. Instead, his mind seemingly remained lost in contemplation. "How will your children have my eyes, if they don't have my genetics?" Determined to disprove your faulty reasoning.

You chuckled nervously, "I just mean I hope they’ll be a pretty colour, and delicate shape, like yours."

Levi displayed a rare vulnerability in his expression. He had never given thought to the aesthetic of his eyes; they were simply a part of him, a feature he never considered noteworthy. This was the first time he had received a compliment about them, and it left him momentarily speechless.

"At this rate, my most optimistic guesstimate is that I’ll be slaying titans till I’m 60." You broke the awkwardness joking, "in that case I might not be able to have kids, doubt any man would still take my crinkled self on a date anyway."

"Why not?" Levi replied seriously, his voice a soft echo in the tranquil night. "I won't be even a tiny bit surprised if you're still this beautiful at 85."

A blood-bathed blush adorned your complexion, stomach filling with butterflies and warmth, brain connections zapping around - wondering if he really thought that way, or,

“you’re just saying that.”

Levi sighed, “in all your years of knowing me, when have I ever felt obliged to tell a white lie, Comrade?”

"Right…” You muttered, with all sorts of thoughts doing laps beneath your skull, trying to continue the conversation as level-headed as possible. “Perhaps I'll meet my first love at 99,” a giggle escaping your breath as you joked.

Unexpectedly, Levi's response carried a weight that belied the casual banter. "Well. I think people can be in love without being in a formal relationship. You could easily have your first love now."

Your gaze laid upon his side profile, slightly puzzled by his logic, "but how can you be in love with someone without holding hands, saying mushy things, and all that?"

His head turned towards you, a moment of silence filling the air with eyes drilling into yours, revealing a sincerity that tugged at your heart. "I definitely can."

[ranticore]

in ur dragon fight drawing, one of the dragon has a hole torn in its wing, would that be a debilitating injury in this world? how are riders and dragons with disabilities treated?

i have to say the wing heals up easily enough (otherwise their dragon attrition rate would be terrible... that's one way they can't be like planes lol). i think a hit through the wing would be an 'i yield' moment in battle where the victim bows out of the fight. a skirmish is p.much guaranteed to result in injuries and potentially deaths, and some airbases might have a policy of not taking 'i yield' as sign to stop attacking. it's rare though, there's a kind of honour system in place in a skirmish because you might have to count on those other people as allies at some point, and the goal is to secure control in the airspace, not kill or rout the enemy.

each airbase is essentially its own little militia (i think of it like a huge warship with hundreds onboard) with its own culture. if you can recover from your wounds, great, you go back into the line of duty. if you're unable to do that then you retire. dragons are treated better than humans in general but that often extends a shield over the riders who are considered the public faces of their dragons. if the dragon is grounded they can still teach and still do radio work, and that means the human sticks around to facilitate this. if the human is injured and can no longer fly skirmishes then treatment depends on their rank & the rank of their dragon. at the lowest ranks, you might not get much by way of assistance or quality of life. in the airbase you can specialise into tasks which can be done as desk jobs - drawing charts, weather-fronts, managing the provisions, stuff like that. but it's entirely up to the dragon whether or not another rider replaces you in the saddle.

if you truly cannot work again it's also up to your dragon to advocate on your behalf. not every airbase culture facilitates this. as with many things in life, your continued survival may rely on being on good terms with the higher ups, winning a matriarch's favour, or being generally liked.

tangential but the overall culture i'm imagining is (barring the radio technology and somewhat early-1900s aesthetic) relatively feudal, a hundred small holders and lords with no central ruling structure. rank is usually determined by bloodline (imagine open candidacy to ride for small dragon classes, closed for the more "important" ones, etc. that way we can get some Controversy and Drama... court intrigue even...). so relating back to the ask, if you happen to be born important, you needn't ever worry about your future at the airbase, even if you are disabled in the line of duty.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Apocalypse World

Did you know that some early PBTA games used to have *Blank* world as a naming scheme? it never really caught on

Touchstones: Fallout, Mad Max

Genre: Post-Apocalypse, Drama

What is this game?: Apocalypse World is a roleplay focused post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, its also the game that spawned the very popular PBTA framework

CWs: Apocalypse world deals with many dark themes, it's considered an "R-Rated" game citing Language, Sex, and Violence, it also features Mind control, mentions of drug use, and general post-apocalyptic horribleness, however I will attempt to stray away from those themes if possible

How's the gameplay?: OK, I'll likely actually link back to this review a few more times as we talk about other PBTA games, just so we can skip explaining the PBTA gameplay every time, so we're gonna try to be pretty thorough this time Apocalypse World's primary mechanic focuses on the use of Moves, Playbooks, and a 2d6 resolution system, where 1-6 is a miss, 7-9 is a weak hit, and 10-12 is a Strong hit, however your roll will always progress the story in some way, this way even failure can be fun! Moves trigger when doing specific actions, and they all interact with mechanics in some way, the prototypical move in Apocalypse world reads like this: "When Narrative trigger: gameplay effect", then this will either help you with a roll around the gameplay effect, or have you roll for a new gameplay effect, whereupon it'll read like this: "On a 1-6, Failure with consequences, on a 7-9 Success with Consequences, on a 10-12 Success with no consequences" Moves will usually add a stat to them, Apocalypse world's stats are Cool, Hard, Hot, Sharp, Weird, and HX, HX being an asymmetrical stat determining your relationship with other characters.

Playbooks are your character's narrative role, it will give your characters their narrative abilities, gameplay moves, relationships, appearances, basically everything about your character beyond things such as name (and even then, some games remove THAT distinction too), you pick one at the start and generally stick with them the whole game, think of it as a class, in Apocalypse World specifically every playbook has a "Special", a move that generally triggers when characters have sex, this might seem like the type of thing that other games in the framework dumpster pretty quick, but you'd be surprised it actually took a bit for people to get rid of that one

What's the setting (If any) like?: It has one Ok, in all seriousness, Apocalypse World's setting assumes you're playing in an edgy, presumably nuclear, mad max inspired post apocalypse, characters are grimy, aesthetics are leathery and gritty, mutations are common, and shit's BAD. Otherwise, feel free to work on the specifics, maybe you just want to play 1-to-1 fallout, or maybe you want to create your own fully original apocalyptic version of The Butt, Coventry, UK

What's the tone?: Dark. Apocalypse World makes it very clear that the world sucks, and the characters (probably) suck, while you could play a ragtag group of do-gooders, the game assumes a morally gray cast in a world that is actively hostile towards them. Apocalypse World's tone is, not for the faint of heart

Session length: Variable but 3 hours is usually enough to do quite a bit

Number of Players:  3 Minimum, but obviously more can help

Malleability: Apocalypse World's setting is generic to non existant, letting you play a ton of post apocalyptic settings, while branded apocalypses like Fallout or Mad Max might be difficult due to the inclusion of overt supernatural elements, you could really do any nuclear apocalyptic setting within this framework.

Resources: Apocalypse World has quite a few resources just due to being one of the oldest PBTA games, a google sheet exists, I've seen some short scenarios, and the game provides you with Move and Playbook cheat sheets, fan playbooks also exist and there's some pretty good ones if you look around enough, it's not a lot but it's enough for what the game is And here's the big cheese! While most modern PBTA design comes from Monsterhearts and Masks, this is the game that started it all, its gritty and very rough around the edges, but I still really like it

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Anime Review, Season 2, Episode 17 review

OH GOD OKAY here we go...

Once again, I am a broken record: good episode!

My two major complaints: The bit where Laios and Kabru stand around talking next to an off-screen, roaring, screaming monster seemed kind of silly in animation. In a comic it works, but they really should have animated them walking or stumbling away while delivering those lines, having them just stand there until the monster attacks them again is really goofy.

ALSO, something Trigger keeps doing that I am NOT a fan of, is throwing animated speed-line backgrounds behind characters when they're reacting to something. Sometimes these were in the original manga, other times they are NOT... and they break the immersion of the anime completely IMO.

The coloring in DM is so moody and wonderful, the aesthetic is generally grounded, so when suddenly the background is bright blue or lime green or pink and strobing, it's VERY jarring... and the joke DOES NOT NEED these effects in order to be funny! In fact I think it leeches some of the humor out of the jokes. Imagine if every time someone had a strong emotion in a classic Disney movie you'd get this:

This type of sudden background color change, strobing and speed lines are artifacts of older, cheaper anime, tricks that used to be done to hide the lack of budget, as a way to make a quick joke. It's now used as a shorthand to tell people a joke is happening.

But Trigger doesn't NEED to use these tricks, they're using them because "that's how you make sure the audience knows a joke is happening", but the jokes in Dungeon Meshi are so well written, you don't need to cue us with a visual laugh-track, Trigger!!!! ESPECIALLY when Kui didn't do it in the manga!!!

They've done it in other episodes, but I felt like they were particularly noticeable and bad in this one. Makes me sad because I feel it's dragging the anime down from the genuine peak of artistry that it's otherwise achieving.

As always, animation is fantastic. The stuff with chimera falin is obviously top notch, brutal and fast and amazing... But I also have to say that the Toshiro and Laios argument was animated INCREDIBLY well, with a lot of loving detail given to what is, ostensibly, just talking, something Trigger normally hates to animate.... But they put movie-quality work into that argument and it really paid off.

Honestly can't think of much to complain about. It's a solid adaptation of this part of the story, one of the biggest, coolest action sequences that we've all been waiting for.

Vocal performances were all great in both English and Japanese. Kabru's English voice actor did a great job, despite my misgivings about him in previous episodes. I hope he continues to improve.

A dub script change had Kabru think "He's excited" about Laios instead of "his pupils are dilated"... This isn't a terrible change, but a bit baffling. Saying his pupils are dilated tells viewers HOW Kabru knows Laios is excited, and indicates that he is using some kind of scientific criteria to measure it, it makes him sound smarter and more detached from what he's doing. Just saying "he's excited" doesn't tell us how Kabru knows... and it's a thought, not dialog, so it's weird for them to change it in the script, since there's no need to match mouth-flaps.

The sequence where Kabru strips off all his armor and does a surprise attack on Falin is still fantastic in this, though I am a little bit sad that they didn't find any ways to add any extra emphasis for it - in the manga it's drawn out a bit, to the point where you might miss what was happening on your first read... I think the amount of shots we got in the anime was the same as in the manga, but somehow it felt less impactful to me. Maybe pacing?

At any rate, it was an incredibly solid episode.

I already liked Toshiro, but seeing this part of the manga animated really made me like him more, I hadn't realized in the past just how damn romantic the twin bells thing was, but damn. Toshiro really has forgiven Laios by the time they part ways here, it's easy to forget that since Toshiro very much takes a back seat after this.

[tanadrin]

( My position on Longevity research) I believe animal based research in this field is entirely unjustified, like with communicable diseases , “ no one dies of an infection or childbirth ( especially children) ” is a coherent theoretically achievable goal, with positive downstream effects ( lower fertility rates, fewer future meat-eaters, ) , but people can’t achieve immortality, A human life will always be a minute point of the universe, Immortality is a white whales gigantic maw, How many lives will you sacrifice trying to satiate its endless stomach. How much commodification and torture of your fellow beasts until your satisfied?

"can we engineer solutions to the individual biological effects of natural aging" is an empirical question that has nothing to do with philosophical-aesthetic considerations like "what is the relative measure of a human life in the grand sweep of the universe." i think one reason a lot of transhumanists get really annoyed by these conversations is that they think they're having a conversation about where incremential improvements in medical technology are leading, and how nice it would be to make diseases like cancer and dementia a thing of the past, and to stave off things like age-related cognitive decline or sensory impairment, and then the person they're talking to will suddenly go off on a tangent on, like, the sources of essential meaning for human existence.

and it's disingenuous as hell! or it feels that way--because ultimately what you have to confront is that sooner or later, if you take an out-and-out anti-immortality position (contingent on the answer to the empirical question of "can we indefinitely stave off most of the effects of aging" being "yes") that grandma has to die pissing and shitting herself and not knowing what year it is or who her grandkids are because A Human Life is a Minute Point in the Universe, and nobody actually thinks that's a reasonable proposition.

like, we've made real gains in cancer treatment in the last few decades; cancer is an age-related illness; should we stop researching cancer treatments because A Human Life is a Minute Point in the Universe? dementia is virtually exclusively a disease of age; should we stop researching treatments for dementia because A Human Life is a Minute Point in the Universe? at a certain point you have to own up to your principles and say which lines of medical research you oppose because A Human Life is a Minute Point in the Universe, and it's more important that we all be incredibly aware of that at all times than your kids getting to have meaningful memories and connections with your parents or w/e.

Like jesus, what even is that last bit of nonsense? Barrings some really unexpected turn of events in the biomedical sciences, it seems likely to me that one day--not soon, mind you, but one day--human lifespans might start regularly surpassing the hard ~100 year limit that they have right now, even if we don't aim at "immortality" as such as a goal. Medical science is good, it's getting better, and lots of smart people are highly interested in questions like "how can we improve people's lives and reduce their suffering?" So when do you say "no more"? When do you start going around to old folks' homes and executing people whom you personally deem have lived too long?

It just seems like a really weird ethical stance that nobody who argues for has really thought through. And when all you can do is spin airy-fairy philosophical reasons to justify that stance, when you are inventing reasons that a thing is bad, like imagining some kind of abstract machine into which monkeys are dumped in one end and additional average life expectancy years come out the other, I can't help but think you don't actually have a coherent idea about why the things you oppose are bad.

The ethics of the use of live animals in medical research is a totally valid conversation to have, but it's a different conversation. Its answer does not impinges on the empirical question of whether functional immortality will ever be possible, or desirable. If you want to have that conversation, go ahead, but please let's not have it in my ask box.

[laddersofsweetmisery]

There's nothing I can't stand more than elitist perspectives from supposed academics. Academia is a PRIVILEGE to pursue. You were lucky. You had just the right foundation, just the right experiences, and just the right support.

I was homeless, raised by addicts, and severely malnutritioned from the ages 12 to 20. I remember having to melt snow in the winter just to wash my hair and it was still a privilege for me to acquire a literary degree. I had just the right people looking out for me and just the right life experiences to encourage my interests. I've never considered myself without privilege nor have I believed 'I worked hard to get here, so I deserve it.' The truth is that thousands of people work hard and everyone deserves it, but their resources differed from mine and yours. I just had the right circumstances to encourage my educational pursuits.

Not everyone has that.

Even in my most unluckiest moments, I was lucky to receive an education.

If someone stumbles into dark/light academia for the vibes alone and ends up learning about art history, poetry, new books to read and obsess over...then THAT'S A GOOD THING. I view the aesthetic as a gateway towards learning. Telling others they have no place in academia is so counterintuitive and can make them resentful. If you can make education more palatable and more easily digested, why wouldn't you support that? If you truly love academia, then you will love all facets and not just the parts that allow you to stroke your ego.

I believe education is a privilege and we must take our privileges as a chance to educate ourselves so that we can educate others at a more affordable rate. To me, having the opportunity to receive a quality education means you now have a civic duty to pass on that knowledge to those who couldn't afford the same opportunities.

Education is not a pathway to superiority, it is a journey towards empathy and civic engagement.

I share my poetry and other writings not because I think I'm good. I share because someone somewhere might need to hear it. I found my love for literature when I stumbled into Instagram poetry at 13 years old--a realm of poetry that receives immense backlash from supposed 'lovers-of-the-written-word.' Now, I obsess over John Milton, the Brontë's, and Mary Hays.

Accessibility is vital to academic communities. These communities that utilize the aesthetic to encourage involvement are doing good in the world even if you think it to be frivolous. They are exposing those who may not have originally been interested in education due to their foundations and experiences to wear a cozy sweater, make some tea, pick up a book, head to their local art museums, and pursue something they didn't know was available to them.

I support the Colleen Hoover girlies, I support the Instagram poets, I support the aesthetic followers, I support ACOTAR, I support fanfiction. I support words and what they can do for others no matter the form.

In a world where literacy rates are at a low, encouragement and accessibility are our greatest tools.

Do not weaponize education for your own egocentric objectives. It is a selfless communal endeavor to enrich the way we understand, interact, and positively influence the institutions around us.

Most children enjoy learning about the world around them, ask yourself, 'What made them stop loving it?' and then, ask yourself, once more, 'Could it have been people like me?'

Mary Hays via Mr. Francis said it best: "When the minds of men are changed, the system of things will also change...Let us remember, that vice originates in mistakes of understanding, and that, he who seeks happiness by means contradictory and destructive, is emphatically the sinner. Our duties, then, are obvious--If selfish and violent passions have been generated by the inequalities of society, we must labour to counteract them, by endeavoring to combat prejudice, to expand the mind, to give comprehensive views, to teach mankind their true interest, and to lead them to habits of goodness and greatness...Let it, then, be your noblest ambition to co-operate with, to join your efforts, to those of philosophers and sages, the benefactors of mankind...everyone in his sphere may do something; each has a little circle where his influence will be availing."

-Memoirs of Emma Courtney, by Mary Hays

For those interested in learning from the security of home when you can't afford the privilege of a classroom, here are some links that I've enjoyed and perused multiple times throughout the years. They are FREE OF ANY COST. Have fun with education in whatever ways you can and feel free to ask me if your interested in further resources or just want to chat. I don't know everything, but I'll do what I can to help. Check out Perseus at https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

Holy shit, they've got it all! I use it for their Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, but there is so much more to learn to and explore. The Mission of Perseus: "Our larger mission is to make the full record of humanity - linguistic sources, physical artifacts, historical spaces - as intellectually accessible as possible to every human being, regardless of linguistic or cultural background."

Check out Project Gutenberg at https://www.gutenberg.org/

Project Gutenberg is a library of over 70,000 free eBooks! They have a lot of free classics, so if you're struggling to afford books for school, this is an excellent resource!

Love poetry? Interested in Emily Dickinson? Then, read The Prowling Bee at https://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.com/?m=1

The Prowling Bee is a blog by Susan Kornfield. I love hearing her insight into the poems and hearing from someone passionate about Dickinson's work!

Check out the John Milton Reading Room at https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/contents/text.shtml

This one is a favorite of mine! It includes the complete poetry and selected prose of John Milton, with introductions, research guides, and hyperlinked annotations.

Interested in journalism? Check out The Outlaw Ocean Project at https://www.theoutlawocean.com/

The Outlaw Ocean Project is a non-profit journalism organization based in Washington D.C. that produces investigative stories about human rights, labor, and environmental concerns on the two thirds of the planet covered by water. The content they produce is so vital, I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Additionally, you can sign up for some newsletters so you can receive articles in your inbox everyday! My favorites are:

The Literary Hub at lithub.com

The Literary Hub is an organizing principle in the service of literary culture, a single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life.

JSTOR Daily at https://daily.jstor.org/

JSTOR Daily is a daily magazine that contextualizes current events with scholarship found on JSTOR. They are published by JSTOR, the nonprofit digital library of scholarly journals, books, images, audio, research reports, and primary sources. JSTOR Daily stories are what we like to call academic adjacent—they are carefully researched and written by experts for a general audience. Each piece  provides historical, scientific, literary, political, and other background for understanding our world. 

[deliciouskeys]

@cozycornerkinktober's prompt #7: DIY P*rn

Documentary (Butchlander)

@xieyaohuan expressed interest in my take on DIY P*rn. The verdict: I think it's hilarious and don't know what I'm doing. They're in an established relationship here, I'm not going to even bother explaining how or why for a ficlet. Warnings: rated E, HL being HL. Maybe I don't have to censor p*rn, but I'm not taking any chances, Tumblr. AO3 link.

Butcher didn’t really know what he was getting into when he agreed to have sex in Homelander’s apartment. He should have known. The decor was creepy enough but the mirrors, the fucking panoramic mirrors, should have clued him in that his sex partner was insane. Not just in the drunk-with-power-and-fine-with-harming-people-insane sense. The let’s-sit-and-watch-a-play-by-play-of-our-previous-sex-session brand of insane.

The sick cunt can’t seem to wrap his mind around people not wanting to be filmed without consent. Or not wanting the sextape played on several large screens, with the volume cranked up, bass boosted, which is the scene Butcher walks into when he strolls out of the shower. 

“Why the hell are you watching this?!” Butcher immediately tries to snatch the remote off the big ugly leather sofa but Homelander’s hand puts it out of reach faster. The cunt gives him a brief glare.

“I want to relive it.”

Butcher slumps down on the sofa, the bath towel still wrapped around his waist, and watches in spite of himself. It’s an aerial view of them getting ready, undressing, Homelander lying back and hooking his hands around his inner knees. He clearly glances up at the camera.

“Okay, so there’s a camera behind your ceiling mirror,” Butcher says, grimacing as he distinctly hears lube being squirted into his palm although you can’t see much more than the top of his head. “But where the fuck is the sound getting recorded from?”

“What do you mean?” Homelander asks, but he doesn’t tear his eyes off the screen where Butcher has now undressed and slowly positioned himself between Homelander’s legs. “There’s a couple of microphones in my bedroom. On the nightstand and on the wall.”

“So you use surveillance equipment to record sex sessions? You didn’t think to ask me before we started?”

Homelander shrugs. “I don’t understand what your problem is. The only people who have access to this are me and you.”

“Until your cloud account is hacked.” Butcher scoffs. “And I’m sure everyone and their mother in Vought Analytics can watch this too. Probably watching it right now.”

Suddenly the camera angle shifts and it’s a side view of the proceedings.

“How many cameras are there? One behind each mirror or something? And when the fuck did you have time to edit this footage together? Were you up all night working on this?” 

Homelander scoffs and shrugs his shoulders dismissively. “This isn’t Dawn of the Seven editing here. I just took the best angles. Not like it took me hours to do it.”

It’s not clear what Homelander is getting out of watching this, because he’s fully dressed in uniform and definitely not touching himself. He might as well be watching a documentary.

Despite his disgust at the entire thing, Butcher’s eyes keep being drawn to the screen. It is interesting to see himself fuck from the side view. The Homelander onscreen makes breathy little lewd noises at every thrust, tossing his head side to side. It looked random yesterday, but now Butcher realizes he’s vamping for the cameras that only he knows are there. Butcher winces when he sees his screen self grab hold of Homelander’s neck. It’s not an action that can harm the supe but it’s plain to see that Butcher enjoys doing violent-looking things to the man underneath him.

“We look good,” Homelander says, beaming, wholly unperturbed by the fact that his partner fantasizes about throttling him, apparently just taken with the aesthetics.

Butcher’s mind is still put off by the existence of this footage, but his body is starting to respond to the sights and sounds on the screen. He considers crossing his legs, but then decides against stifling anything. If this cunt is going to provoke him with their own pornography he better be prepared to deal with the consequences. 

The Homelander onscreen arches violently, mewling.

“There, right there.” Homelander pauses the video.

“What about it?” Butcher asks. The still does look like a work of art, every muscle in Homelander’s body looking tensed, something that could be ecstasy or agony.

Homelander rewinds a few seconds back. “I came without, you know, coming. With my cock. It’s never happened to me before.”

Butcher shrugs. “I think I remember. You were shaking and seizing and then went all limp.”

“It’s never happened before. I’m trying to figure out what you did differently.”

Butcher shakes his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing I did. You’re just mentally turned on at home, staring at yourself, showing off for your Big Brother setup.”

Homelander seems annoyed. “I was trying to compliment you.”

“I mean, I’ll take it,” Butcher says. “But you were acting pretty differently on your own bed. I thought you were faking it a little. Now I know why, at least. Hamming it up.”

Butcher’s finding it hard to stand it any longer. The video is still playing, the Homelander onscreen lying limp and sweaty in the aftermath of his dry orgasm while the Butcher onscreen just keeps on keeping on. Homelander’s body is so relaxed and loose that now his head lolls with every thrust into his body. “Fuck me harder,” he says breathily, but it’s loud on the speakers. Butcher’s erection is tenting the bath towel he’s wearing. Homelander glances over and presses his hand against it, eliciting a hiss from Butcher. 

“If you’re going to touch it, take off your damn gloves and open the towel at least,” Butcher mutters.

Homelander blinks and sits still for a moment, before doing just that, bare hands reaching down and stroking his length. Butcher groans when Homelander leans over and his mouth descends over his cock, that supernaturally strong suction making Butcher see actual stars in front of his eyes. He leans his head back on the couch, breathing hard, trying not to thrust, not because he doesn’t want to hurt the cunt’s throat but because…. Well… Butcher is having trouble keeping his train of thought. He keeps watching the porn onscreen, although his vision is hazy. The camera angle has switched to the other side view. The Homelander onscreen seems to have recovered from his little death, wrapped his legs tightly around Butcher’s hips and is pushing back to meet the thrusts. The Homelander offscreen has started humming in time with the lewd moans he’s making on the tape, and Butcher can’t help it, can’t keep himself from grabbing the cunt’s head by the golden hair and pushing his head down to take his cock to the hilt, even as his hips jerk upward. Homelander makes a choking sound but doesn’t stop sucking, swallowing down every drop even as Butcher’s body comes down and he sits on the couch bonelessly.

Butcher slowly gets his wits back, and his onscreen counterpart has also finished and slumped down on Homelander’s body (aerial view camera only showing Homelander’s face mostly hidden behind Butcher’s shoulder, only blue eyes peeking out).

“So you just record everyone you sleep with in that room?” he finally asks, his voice still strange and husky. How many of these sextapes does this cunt have?

“I guess,” Homelander says, then mumbles something quietly while turning away.

“Come again?”

“I said, you’re the first person who agreed to sleep in that bed.” Homelander’s still looking away, down at the floor. “Cause apparently it’s a ‘weird setup’,” he airquotes and Butcher has to wonder who said those exact words. Maybe Maeve? But this supe cunt actually sounds hurt about it.

Butcher suddenly gets up and grabs Homelander by the hand, still bare, which always causes a startle in him.

“Come on. Let’s go to your ‘weird setup’ and peel you back out of that uniform.” 

“You just came…” Homelander protests, as if Butcher needed the reminder.

“You don’t think I can improvise?” Butcher chuckles. 

When he’s got Homelander toppled over on the bed, and undoing the buttons holding the hard shell of his suit together he adds, quietly in the cunt’s ear. “But if you make those little slutty sounds like you did last night, I’m sure I’ll be ready to go again soon.”

Homelander makes a small whimper at those words, as if on cue.

[slytherinshua]

if you were to meet your moots irl, what kind of date/activities would you like to do with them?

skdjks I LOVE THIS SM

@eternalgyu i want to do way too much hannie like. i want to watch kdramas and bake and blast kpop on a roadtrip and open albums together and SO SO SO MUCH OMG LIKE THERES TOO MUCH I JUST WANNA EXPERIENCE EVERY SINGLE EXPERIENCE WITH HER. but if i had to pick just one thing. id want to be on the couch under a blanket w her watching either a kdrama or like txt to do or smth kpop and we'd have snacks and we'd just be so cozy having such a good time together </3

AND OMG I ALSO NEED TO GO SHOPPING W HER BCUZ SHE NEEDS TO STYLE ME. but that's like a second priority to the first option. in a world where we had unlimited money, id be up for hours of trying on every outfit possible. and hannie would do my makeup and hair and like she'd make this potato look pretty SHE CAN DO ANYTHING YK :( anyway it'd be so fun </3

@wheeboo i wanna go to a cafe w rania and write. like we'd get bubble tea or little pastries and each have our laptops. and we'd probably get distracted by each other every couple minutes and burst into giggles BUT WE'D GET SOME STUFF DONE ON OUR FICS YK. and we'd be constantly trying to sneak glances at each others drafts to see what masterpieces we each have cooking up

@blue-jisungs I WANNA GO TO A CAT CAFE. like just play w cats and talk abt kpop w axe. we'd just be having the time of our lives petting all the little fluffy cuties </3 and afterwards we'd go to a kpop store and pick out a bunch of albums and other merch and buy them for each other.

@fairyhaos i want to sit down with yena and have a very serious discussion about all of joshua's looks. but like it has to be in person. we'd rate them all from debut until now while listening to svt songs and make a rly rly fancy powerpoint presentation about them all in order from least to best with reasoning. it would be so detailed and aesthetic bcuz we're like that <333

@mirxzii idk why i feel like i wanna go on a family history deep dive w roxie?? like maybe its cause we're both from similar backgrounds i just feel like it would be rly interesting (what if we're related actually 👀) just exploring like our family's history and everything <3 i also think celebrating hanukkah and passover would be rly fun to do w roxie :D i wanna eat yummy jewish food w her <3

@kyeomyun idk why i want to like?? bake?? w jada?? like i want to do it so badly i feel like we're both giving the warm cozy baked good vibes lmfao. we'd def listen to like ballads while we baked and hopefully we don't have a flour fight but like- it might happen. and i feel like we would slay each and everything we baked and it would just be sooooo fun

[bcofl0ve]

This is my first anon here, as I typically only read the anons for my girlfriend on this page. So I apologize if this isn't that good. But I just finished watching Priscilla, and let me say this here and now. IN DEFENSE OF JACOB ELORDI: He is is a FANTASTIC Elvis. I would not have anyone else be Elvis in terms of this movie. He fits the vibes of this movie perfectly, he fits Elvis perfectly in this movie. I'm not saying Austin Butler is a bad Elvis, he's amazing. But he doesn't FIT this movie, at all. If I saw Austin Butler on screen as Elvis in the Priscilla movie, it just wouldn't fit. It really wouldn't.

Yeah, Austin has that Lana Del Rey vibe about him. But he has a Lana vibe when he's blonde, not when he's black haired. Not just this but his face is more suited for a Baz Lurhmann movie, not for an A24 Sofia Coppola movie. When watching this movie on screen, you really cannot envision anyone else as Elvis, not even Austin Butler.

The other reason why Jacob did so well as Elvis in the Priscilla movie compared to Austin. Is because Austin's movie "ELVIS" mainly and solely FOCUSES on Elvis himself. Priscilla- doesn't. Priscilla is focused on Priscilla, not on Elvis. So due to this, they needed to find an actor that could be Elvis, but not look like a full mimic of Elvis, just- have Elvis' voice down, body mannerisms down, and as I said, someone who FIT the movie. Who FITS the vibe of the movie, and also has great chemistry with Cailee Spaeny.

It bothers me how people are giving this masterpiece of a movie a 1 and a 2 purely because Elvis is played by Jacob Elordi. I'm sorry but if you have a true and real passion for movies, and for cinematography, you would SEE why Austin wasn't chosen, and you'd also give this movie a shot.

I loved this movie, I really did. I'd rate it an 8/10, it was such a pretty and aesthetic movie. I won't spoil anything but it was genuinely such a good film. Sorry for the long anon.

i need you to know that i think about the tiktok where you revealed that you read my posts to your girlfriend so much like that’s genuinely one of the funniest in a sweet way things ive ever read about myself on the internet 😭 you’re a keeper- tell her i said hey and that i think she pulled a good one! and don't apologize for the long anons, when they're substantive i like them!

gonna start with your second to last paragraph: yeah it's been frustrating as someone who has begun to "get into" film as a whole that i feel like because i'm a big fan of one specific actor that i have to view everything through that fan lens. i want to watch movies with as small a bias as possible. i didn't go into bottoms or priscilla thinking "well even if i hate it it'll just come online and lie for the cause" if i truly didn't like either film i would say that! i believe in being honest with y'all and think it behooves the community i've built on here to be honest. i'm seeing the holdovers this weekend bc film twitter zoe's tweets about loving it piqued my interest and idk if i'll like it, but we'll see! i've said a few times that while i'm really excited to see austin in dune that sci fi isn't really my thing and i might not like it outside of his parts. but maybe i'll surprise myself, who knows!

i personally think austin could pull off this type of movie so i guess we disagree there for the most part- though i get why it might be harder to like- vision him in that role after seeing him in the other one. but i do get what you're saying. i don't think anyone but austin could've pulled off baz luhrmann's elvis. baz is 100% spot on when he calls him a miracle. (and before y'all get on my ass for posting something slightly critical of austin, please unclench. i welcome genuine discussion like this when it's civil.) he was born for that role and as a woowoo person who fully believes in fate stuff like that...yeah.

i thought jacob was great, and obviously he can't control how tall he is but i think that was a factor of what took me out of it and made me see him as more "nate jacobs playing elvis" in the serious moments. like i get what people are saying in that sofia cast people with a height diff like that on purpose to show the power dynamic. but as an elvis fan who *knows* he was not that tall it didn't work for me. and i mean- she said the movie isn't for elvis fans so that's alright! the average viewer isn't someone who knows how tall elvis was haha. just my perspective. i thought he really pulled off the elvis of it all in the more lighthearted moments and was pleasantly surprised that he did when his focus in his portrayal was obv the darker side. (since you've seen the movie you'll know what i'm referring to with "the salute thing". that CRACKED me up and felt so in tune with how "goofy" elvis could be at times, and i've been wondering if it was scripted or if jacob improv-ed it. i hope sofia releases the screenplay someday like they did for elvis 2022, i wanna see it!)

[tekutiger]

I recently downloaded Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis on Steam because, well, 1) I've always been a FF7 fan, 2) FF7rb just released and with it everyone including myself is riding this wave of FF7 hype, 3) I'm not ready for the FF7 stuff to go away again, it's too soon!, and 4) It's free, how could I not?

So far I've sunk...

...into the game 💻💓.

I don't want to make this a spoiler-y post, but I do wanna add some screenies to show some of what to expect with the game. So, it depends on your definition of "spoiler" content.

I won't throw in screenshots of story, but I'll throw in screenshots of "you can unlock this" and "there's this outfit" because that's the primary reason I'm writing this post ⤵️

I saw two people on Twitter posting pictures of Cloud in this very specific armor set and I was like "omg I need that in my life", more specifically in FFXIV. Please make this happen SE (I want this on my Viera and Miqo'te 🙏🏻).

Turns out this outfit is part of a limited time gacha pull event that ends April 7th (might say 8th for some people?)

It's this set here 👇🏻

And it's called:

Saber Style! It comes with a sword for a damage-type set. But me being the noob that I am, I'm still dapling around with all of that. I'm just excited for the glamour tbh 😅

Here's the Sword:

Yeah I know the graphics are blurry as heck 🫠. The game is set to the correct resolution and I have an amazing graphics card and awesome PC specs... it's the game 🙃. Pretty sure it was designed to be a mobile game. Because you CAN link this to your mobile account? Somehow? I don't have this on my phone so I haven't tried but you get 500x free blue crystals (twice) doing so. (which is one of the currencies you can use for gacha pulls btw) 👇🏻

The reason I'm bringing up the outfit first and before everything else is because if you jump into this game, you can get the outfit quickly like I did using the freebies (for gacha pulls) given to you going through the story. It might take a bit of going through the story to do, but that's what I saved mine up for.

Just make sure you redeem all the things~ story mode, daily quests, login bonuses, enhancement quests, missions, season pass, etc. There's a lot.

Then you have to earn stamps on this stamp card...

I don't have the best luck in the world, so if you're anything like me, you're going to get 2 stamps at a time.

They disclose the rate percentages:

Be aware, you can only earn stamps via the 10-pulls, not the single pulls.

I think I've covered everything regarding the outfit/glamour.

They have unlockable wallpapers in this game. This is aesthetic and afaik it's only while you're in the game. Maybe these can be used on your phone if the game is installed on your phone? 🤔

I only have a few being new and all.

Again, I know. The resolution and it being blurry 😅

The one with Cloud and him being in the outfit- you can see Zack in the background. I wonder if there was a gacha event prior where you were able to obtain this outfit for him, or if there's going to be one after where we'll be able to obtain this outfit for him? 🤔 Time to start saving more crystals! Lol

Logically, this probably should have been the first thing I posted, but I was eager to get the outfit/glamour knowledge out there.

Ever Crisis is kind of like three stories crammed into one. Not full stories, but little tidbits of information and some of it are things we haven't seen before. (It might be full stories and it'll come back around, full circle 🤷🏻‍♀️)

I'll admit it's not what I was expecting it to be, in a good way, and I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.

At first I was playing the top part and it played out a lot like the beginning of the OG- then it slipped into Crisis Core, and I was like okay... did I accidentally hit Crisis Core in the Home Menu? Oops. But that's what the game wants you to do. And then it slips you into The First Soldier, which is where I'm at now.

The First Soldier has a good bit of story about Glenn and it's making me realize I don't really know much about him. So I appreciate this a lot. While at the same time it's kind of like, darnnit SE don't make me like another one of your characters that I already know the fate of 🫠

Do you love Chocobos?!

They have a smol Chocobo Ranch section! I have absolutely no idea how indepth this section goes (once again, I'm nub to the game), but I thought this was adorable 🫶🏻

What I do know, is that you can send out a "character" and one of your cutie birbs to an area and they'll return with some items after some duration period. (Reminds me of retainers in FFXIV to an extent)

There's a lot more I could potentially post (and was going to) but this is already getting long.

This game is free and worth giving it a try imo!

I kind of wish they made my favorite character optional to play but I understand why he's not. He's a boss in co-op 😂 (it's rough being a Rufus fangirl sometimes). You gotta admit Rufus + the Turks being optional to play somewhere would be totally awesome 💓

Edit: I just learned Rufus is in the story (level 33) and also later on as a Story Party boss. I get to see him multiple times 😊🫶🏻. If that's not incentive to keep playing, I don't know what is.

I also find one of Cloud's Limit Break lines insanely cute for some reason. At first I thought he was saying something like "Fuuran" but it doesn't translate into anything. When I did some digging I found a post pointing out that he's saying "Huryah!", much like "Hoo-rah"- as military soldiers do. Now I just think it's even cuter akdjaklsdj 😊

[nightshiftpodcast]

Also! About people who are veil touched... is there a limit on the amount of time that someone might be fighting veil sickness? or a specific speed that s-cells might develop? because I have an idea for an oc who has been very Very slowly going through the transformation into a shade (years) and freaking out about it more and more as time goes on

i think i could do some interesting things with that idea (hehe) but if thats not cannon compliant i can definitely re-work that idea

If I've said something about this in canon in the podcast itself, it's escaping me now - but someone asked a similar question in our Patreon Discord about a year ago so here's all the lore we shared then!

"Obviously, not that much is known about Shades in-world (I know everything but that's for later) but veil sickness survival rates depend on the severity of the illness, and how it is contracted.

Many cases of veil sickness occur during the biannual veil lights phenomenon (they occur twice a year around the solstices). The same way you might get a really bad cold in winter and call it 'flu', people can get slightly veil sick after this event and spend a few days in bed. Then, the same way actual flu can be life threatening, veil sickness can be extreme. I'd say probably about 30% of the people who get veil sickness end up fighting for their life. Chances of surviving it are about 50/50, but chances of turning into a Shade from catching it are seemingly completely random, and not all that common. Staying inside at night during the lights is considered a way to stay safer, although it is speculation, not science.

What is known is that there's a far higher chance of becoming a Shade from a random encounter with a Veil rift than there is from catching veil sickness during the annual Veil lights. Rifts open unpredictably and seem to be far more unstable than the biannual event, and extreme sickness and transformation is more like 80% likely to occur, with death being more likely too.

In terms of what transformations happen, there exists something known as 'The Shade Scale', created by an independent researcher called Dr. Melanie Cruz. It is debated but generally considered reliable. Some shades start low on the Scale and get worse over time, slow or fast, to the point of death. Others just land somewhere on the scale and stay there for the rest of their lives. It goes from 1 to 13. On a basic level, 1 is a 'low mutation' and 13 is a 'high mutation', but the scale is not a straight line. Variables on the scale include from 'low chance of transference' (transferring sickness to others) to 'high chance of transference' and 'no further mutation' to 'continuous mutation' and everything in between. The most "dangerous" (take that with a pinch of salt) and detectable shades are all high on the scale. It's estimated that about 60% of Shades score at 6 or higher on mutation. They might slowly become incorporeal, or appear to burn up from the inside like coal on a fire. Seb mentioned a Shade in episode 2 who was fully transluscent - this person would have scored at a 12 or 13. Of those scoring above 9, more than 50% die within a year. Reason for death, mutation or transference is unknown, but those who start with worse mutations more often continue to mutate. Shades who are low on the scale - 5 or below - have what you referred to as 'aesthetic' changes. Despite the difference in mutation, there's no correlation on Shade magic. More mutation does not seem to mean stronger magic. However, there's not enough research nor has enough time passed to really understand where any of them fit permanently on the scale, and the study was only done on a selected number of willing participants, making the results questionable. As there is no real measure of how many Shades exist - especially those who pass as normal people - it isn't known whether the ratios discovered by Dr. Cruz are even close to realistic."

Hope this helps with your OC building!

- Julian

[pluralsword]

Xenogender and Ao3 and Art

Hi xenogender and xenoaesthetic folks, entities, and realms and all and none,

it has occurred to us that we um, have written the majority of works on Archive of Our Own that have the xenogender tag. And we’re asking ourselves, we can’t be the only [(alien) robot] persons that plays around with this stuff right? (we’re plural btw)

When we talk to trans folks whether plural or nonhuman or no a bunch of folks relate to our terminologies we’ve come up with and sometimes giving people a look at the worldbuilding doc we’re not quite ready to post yet helps especially if they aren’t going to read fics generally, but also we know that our own experience with aesthetics that our oldest headmate struggled with for more than two decades to put words to and we helped her grasp she pronouns for, for herself in non-human history and assemblage terms, is just one small part of the vast xeno aesthetic spectrum. We’re just one system, and we want to know... what stories have you written, or are writing or making? We thought it might be cool if people reblogged around with their own stuff so their could be a post where all our stuff is together. More than anything- we feel a bit lonely sometimes, because being both on a xeno aesthetic spectrum and by and large a bunch of robots- we are beloved by our community and friends and loved ones, for which we are very thankful, and know a folks who can relate, but we wanna know what people are up to, or just thoughts.

So for those unfamiliar with us, our fanfic (we will eventually do original fiction) is about (Trans)formers and navigates hopepunk stuff regarding autonomy and aesthetic iteration with sparring, family, war, subaltern and community, love, diplomacy, gestalt consciousness, and so forth, drawing in part on the beautiful lore from seven different gender expansive canonical transforming robots in particular before Transformers Earthspark hit and introduced Nightshade (aside from how their whole choosing alt mode thing very much feels like choosing aesthetic expression and in Twitch’s case came before her pronouns were used but anyway) but specifically Arcee(s), Anode, and Lug. Our pg-13 or g-rated works thus far are mostly in the Autosignet Cycle aside from a few shipping fics. The Autosignet Cycle, mostly set in an original continuity, is probably going to continue for years with more fics to come, we started planning out very early versions of this in 2020 but tfwiki’s discord is what jumpstarted our first fic for the series, Day of Multiflame:

1. Day of Multiflame (complete)

A day of mirth, of memory, of rejoicing, of flames dancing together. On this ancient Camien holiday, some plucky heroes young and old across assemblage including two organics come together to celebrate, and to face the struggles ahead, of transformer majority worlds approaching outright conflict over rejoining the largest treaty organization of the galaxy… All the while ancient conflicts and motives beyond their current understanding overshadow everything, rolled up in the origins of these transforming robots. Between intergenerational family, swords, gifts, and I love yous and more, the steadying of each other is enough, to have a little bit of joy and wisdom on this Day of Multiflame. 

2. Wheels of Mutuality and Symbiosis (complete)

Glyph tries to lucid dream to solve the puzzle of her sleep issues, not all is as it seems- but her love of Tap-Out and what informs her aesthetic experience runs strong, helping her through to some long awaited elucidations that are big if true.

This has some big zoomdare energy but I think that is what I often will end up writing.

3. Hold on to Your Dancing (complete)

In honor of xenogender visibility day (May 15th)- I resolved to write two poems, one about my own experience remains unfinished, but one in honor of robot aesthetics via fanfiction was something I was able to finish.

Here you'll find some hints about my plot - some of what this story is on about - with a visiting of the past: the beginning of the last territorial campaign of the Anti-Functionist War, from two war veterans you'll meet later.

4. Honey I’m Cheering For You But No (complete)

A blast to the past before the Anti-Functionist War- archivist Prowl is trying to sort out his life, hasn't been so easy for him after an awful job that has left him very sensitive to the disquiet of society as the very subtly not so Golden Age reaches an end. His old friends Arcee and Aileron who unintentionally helped spark his journey are visiting- and he is beside himself. What does it all mean to him, to them, to carry on as they do, to transform?

In short, we the author finally give some answers with words to the slice of life actions you saw play out in Day of Multiflame- answers very much in context with Sparkflung Trust.

5. Rekindling Flight (incomplete, 7/13 chapters)

At long last, The vast majority of transformers, residing in the Planetwell Polity Alliance, are about to rejoin the largest galactic alliance, which the PPA originally helped create and was expelled from after the Unicron invasion and the subsequent thousands year long war with Functionist usurpers. But, all is not well- threats loom from all corners upon the Autobot revolution: Decepticons, Unicronists, Functionists, and deep existential problems with past, present, and future will try people from all walks of life fighting for intergenerational hope and love.

Nonetheless, something new and wonderful yet old and familiar is afoot- efforts by trillions and their many subalterns are not vain: the power and practice of iterative story.

6. Addendum (incomplete, estimated 10/30 chapters)

7 million years ago, the latest blow to gender on Cybertron is dealt by the rising Functionist tide, stirring an Arcee struggling with loneliness and aesthetic dysphoria into enraged action to help bots in the Hadean System across the aesthetic spectrum save their transformative glory and stories… in the process, she finds aid from the scientist Jhiaxus, who also offers her a new reformatting surgery to let her spark do shaping with CNA editing help. Thus begins a new chapter in her life as a founding member of the expansion of what would later be called the Anti-Vocation League alongside her beloved partner and fellow old person Codexa, while grappling with her own growing pile of pains and traumas. As the millennia carry on and she heads to space, she eventually meets Anode and Lug in the stars, and some dear moments near the present all the way through to events after Transformers: Optimus Prime #25: Post… where she helps some gender expansive bots, and with help from Aileron and her pals she finally gets some answers and closure to her own self, and has a reckoning with forces pitted against her for millions of years. The years after are not what she expected during most of her life prior, and she is glad for them…

This is a fanfic revolving around IDW1, that seeks to add to her already detailed and beautiful arc of a trans woman errant warrior sage coming to terms with herself and deciding to trust people and herself. We love her transformations very dearly, and wanted to attempt to reconcile her appearance in Spotlight: Arcee with her later writing, drawing on wisdom gathered through study and experience, and imagination to connect the dots. As you can tell just from the mention of Codexa in the tags above, this revisiting of IDW1 Arcee’s tale is in part made possible by later writing of gal transformers who we adore, and we will note we draw from ones from all across the decades of fiction of Transformers. What can we say, we love them, and know so much more about ourselves than we ever would have because of them.

For this post, we will note: though it is an IDW1 fic with m-spec and f-spec bots, we build quite a bit of gender variety and relation into it that makes it readily apparent that Cybertron of old is even more different from human histories of such in that regard, we will spoil a little and say that we intend to show how of then aesthetics is remembered and remade into something new and old in the years after the end of the official story...

7. Sparkflung Trust (complete)

Written for a Transformers "fanthology" and also is a tie-in to the Autosignet Cycle original continuity we have been writing - along with a bit of IDW1, Cyberverse, and Alternity. A story about transformation in many senses (surprise), including a quest for the Transformation Matrix … inside of one of the most powerful creatures transformers have ever encountered. What will the errant people on the journey realize, and will it be enough to put into practice to succeed?

If you want to see the other standalone fics we’ve done, including ones about beloved Acid Storm and Overlord, go take a look at our Ao3 page! :3

[crystalelemental]

“books-are-my-life-stuff: Thank you so much for sharing! I really like reading your ideas! I kinda want Mob to have moderate to good DPS at least, much like SS Lyra to at least be able to solo stuff. I like the idea of Mob soloing Legendary Arenas like SST Red, except he also brings a lot of utility stuff like SS Lyra. It's a lot to ask but it's probably possible. Mesprit does suit him, but I feel like he might have two partner Pokemon, the other one for his ???% form. Maybe a Paradox Pokemon?”

Realistically, all he’d need is specific utility to solo stuff, which isn’t too hard to accomplish.  Regeneration, immunity to debuffs, guaranteed flinch rates; those definitely work out.  Piercing Blows is absolutely needed to get to SST Red levels, though.  I almost want to say Iron Valiant for the ???% form.  Raw power, you know.

“I do like the idea of three main esper kids having the Lake Trio though, it's a cool idea and the Lake Trio suits all three of them. Indeedee kinda makes sense since Ritsu used to not have powers before getting one and becoming psychic, but I do like Hisuian Arcanine more, it's a lot cooler. Him having kits that complements what Mob needs is cool too, maybe make Mob's trainer move only boosts +4 offensive stats+crit, while Ritsu caps it and adds more defensive stuffs.”

Lake Trio is always my favorite thing, but it does feel like it fits.  I think it could be either defensive buffs while Mob has offensive self-sufficiency, or a sort of SS Wally situation where Mob can technically cap his own needs, but wouldn’t mind the assist.

“Reigen with Kecleon is really great, I like it a lot, and nice callback for Mystery Dungeon as well. I dunno how its Color Change mechanic going to adapt to Masters since enemies tend to attack with various kinds of types, but it's an interesting one nonetheless.”

I’m not too sure either.  I guess it would be like...switching weaknesses?  Hmm.  Now I’m really curious.  Oh, wait!  I got one.  Increases the Rebuff level of the type of move last hit by 1.  So if he gets hit with, say, Dragon Claw, he gets +1 Dragon rebuff.  Those can go the other way, we just haven’t seen it happen yet.

“Bitter Blade might have nerfed base power because it heals, so maybe add a Ramming Speed passive as base to add more power, Unyielding 4 as 3/5 grid, and some debuffing passives/moves, that's gonna suit Teru a lot. I always associate Teru with electric-types because it's commonly fast and matches aesthetically, but I like Ceruledge, and I think it fits as well.”

That’s fair.  He was honestly one of the tougher ones to figure out, because it’s like...okay, rival vibe, and kinda shithead vibe, but also he’s a genuinely nice guy whose biggest moment is protecting a bunch of people, thus also protecting his rival/friend/lover(?)’s principles, and it’s like...there’s a lot to work with but it’s hard to pinpoint just one.

“I like the Dimple and Serizawa ones a lot, I don't think I have anything to add. I like the idea of Serizawa having Sobble too, it's great. Dimple with Banette is also very fitting character-wise I think Shou will be a very standard fire-type striker probably kinda similar to SS Hilda/NY!Lisia. Yes, his design was made with shounen anime protagonist in mind. Blast Burn, maybe Fire Shift Giga Impact, add Bob & Weave passive to reference that he can conceal his presence.”

Bob and Weave is a great idea.  Just go all-in on evasion play and add Blind Spot.  I think that’s the one.  I get the accuracy and evasion modifier names mixed up sometimes...

“OH RIGHT, Beheeyem is such a great idea, and a Dynamax one too for Tome, really fits her. I kinda want the Telepathy Club to have something otherworldly to match their character. Like Inukawa having Nihilego because instead of getting abducted by aliens, he got abducted by Nihilego. Body Improvement Club has to have Fighting-types. Onigawara and Musashi's partners are perfect, Musashi might have Gigantamax too.”

I’m all for anything with Nihilego, I love that thing.  And I am 100% on board with Gigantamax Musashi.  That just feels right.

[laurensbookshelves]

Why I Create Book Content

What is content creation? According to Conductors website content creation is "the process of identifying a new topic you want to write about, deciding which form you want the content to create, formalizing your strategy, then producing it." (Bhutani, 2023). I fall under the category of being a content creator - albeit a very small one. However, that means I make and create videos or posts specifically surrounding books. Now you might be asking - "Lauren, why would you make content around books? Isn't the act of reading dying?" To which I would repsond that reading is one of the things that saved my life and countless others as well. Books allow us to be taken out of the real world and into a new one, where we can let ourselves and our imagination run wild without bearing the consequences of the characters actions. However, if you find a really good book you may get sucked in enough that the characters feelings morph into your own.

Books are one of the things that changed my life which is how I ended up in English Literature at Trent University, although that's a whole other story for another time. As a young teen girl growing up in the 2000s I was exposed to the internet at such a young age and was given such easy access to it by the time I was twelve. That exposure led me to countless Youtube videos of teenage girls who read books and shared their love of reading on the internet. Growing up I'd always imagined myself doing the same, but some complications arose because I was a slow reader, which made me insecure to share my feelings so openly towards others. In 2020 - a time we all remember well, when the pandemic broke out, I found myself scrolling for hours on Tiktok and found myself on Booktok, a very niche side of the internet that shared everyone's love of reading. I was so excited to watch people's videos on the books they'd read that month, or the special editions they had accumulated, and especially the book hauls, and I remember thinking to myself, "maybe now's you're time to give this social media thing a go." A few weeks later I created and made my first video titled "The Books I Read in October and My Ratings", a lengthy title I know... The video was most definitely out of focus in some parts and my camera work was shaky, but it ignited a new passion I didn't think I had in me. I've since then kept posting and have gained over 500 followers on Tiktok and 200 on Instagram. I've had books sent to me, and most recently I became apart of Simon and Schuster's influencer program, meaning they'll send me arcs of books not yet released in exchange for my thoughts and opinions. All of these amazing opportunities have arose because of one common factor - social media and its power.

Booktok has allowed me to connect with people over the books I enjoy, through the content I'm creating. It has permitted me to design my page to however and whatever I desire, while also making it incredibly easy to change if that aesthetic no longer fits me. Booktok in itself has had a massive impact on the sales of books but also in gaining traction to bookstores, both independently and chains. Not only has it boosted the sales, but it's also had an impact on the types of books being produced, cover designs, preferred tropes and so much more. The #Booktok in itself has been used over 183.6 billion times, and that number is going up as you read this! It has formed a community, which in turn has helped millions of authors and publishers because the platforms like Tiktok permit us the accessibility in which we can receive arcs, or form partnerships with authors and publishers. It has also led to aspiring authors or indie authors the possibility to have their work seen amongst a larger audience - all by making a minute long video talking about what your book is about.

We all hear teachers nowadays talk about how advanced technology is, and how easy it is to find resources, but what about how easy it is to create something for the world and have it instantaneously change your life. For many young people like myself social media has made that possible. In an article written by Forbes, titled, "The Power of Social Media to Capture Today's Consumer" Julie Meredith comments, "The fluid nature of social media makes it the perfect launchpad for storytelling, product launches and new initiatives" (Meredith 2022). It's clear that when it comes to businesses or people wanting create a business, social media becomes a critical option to consider because of how easy it is to promote your business or yourself. With the right hashtags and being able to understand your audience, a person can find easy success among these platforms. An added benefit to content creation, or at least it's a benefit in my eyes, is that you can create whatever you want while also providing your audience with their desires, you just need to first find your audience. That's why visuals are so important because Social media has also allowed for us to use visuals in order to draw in an audience or in building a brand which can help to inspire their audience. Because of technology we are also given real time stats on how are videos and posts are doing, and in what regions they are most popular, which helps us to see our targeted audience.

Works Cited

Allie BhutaniAllie leads the Brand team at Conductor managing content. “What Is Content Creation? 3 Steps to Creating Web Content.” Conductor, www.conductor.com/academy/content-creation/. Accessed 5 Oct. 2023.

Meredith, Julie. “Council Post: The Power of Social Media to Capture Today’s Consumer.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Oct. 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2020/06/25/the-power-of-social-media-to-capture-todays-consumer/?sh=6c99ef19789e.

[thecurioustale]

I deal with feelings like this sometimes, in my own way. A lifetime of poverty has made me more and more down on even the middle class, let alone the rich. Not a in communist, "the bullet for the whole lot" sort of way, but more like "Oh, jeez, your car repairs are expensive? How terrible for you." I just have so little interest in financial struggles that aren't existential for people who are going to be Just Fine when it comes to money, regardless of whatever amount of "belt-tightening" might be required. Like, get back to me when you've stared point-blank at the Wheel of Fire.

We live in different worlds, they and I.

As for artists in particular, I do tend to roll my eyes a bit at the really successful ones, more so if I see little of value in their work. (And a lot of the most popular art is indeed vapid, even to the point where it exits the art space entirely and becomes solely entertainment, like the neverending barrage of superhero movies. (Not that "entertainment" is less valid than "art," but I do think it's fair to draw a distinction, to the extent anyone can attempt such a thing without becoming recklessly gatekeepy about it.))

Yet I think on the whole I have more solidarity with successful artists than I do with the broader middle class (and upper class). And that's because I recognize an intrinsic value to art and am familiar with the intrinsic compulsion to create art. I think I have more respect for artists, on average, than I do for the general population, because I think art is something that humanity needs, just like science and philosophy. I see an artist as someone who has contributed something greatly meaningful to the world, which is not something that everyone has necessarily done.

I do feel twinges of embitterment sometimes when I see artists and other creators dealing with the burdens of success, or when I see some viral YouTube video from one of these people talking about how some crisis has come up and they are doing a fundraiser, and they're getting tens of thousands of dollars, and if you go look on their Patreon they're making like $3 grand a month just from there, let alone any other revenue streams.

But the resentment doesn't tend to last, because that's the way it should be. Society should be structured so that there are pathways for artists to survive as artists. Maybe not every artist, and maybe not for the entirety of an artist's life (sort of like how you can't box your whole life), but it should be a space that people who are so inclined can move into, just like conventional industries. That the free market cannot deliver this is one of the biggest aesthetic, political, and ethical failures of the free market.

However, if I move away from talking about comparing myself against specific artists who are more successful, and look instead at the problem less attributively, I really do gnash my teeth sometimes at how it seems like there is absolutely no way forward for me to ever exist independently as an artist. Because my rate of publication is far too slow. I made like $100 bucks on my nonfiction book earlier this year. If that were fiction instead, and if I could publish five of those a week, I'd be fine! 🙃

But $100 just isn't gonna last you very long when rent is $1,300.

My entire life—my whole being—has been ruined by poverty (and by abuse when I was young). I have beautiful stories to offer the world, but the world doesn't even know I exist, and I don't think that will ever change. And I do feel bitter about that sometimes.

Just...not bitter at anybody. Intransitive bitterness. There's no one to blame; even the gods are fictitious. The world just is what it is, and it seems to me like, more often than not, an artist's fate is to sit outside the world and stare in at it, unable to truly belong to it, fated to describe it beautifully for the benefit of those who are already there.

if i can be candid, is hard for me to be moved by the idea of artists losing their job to automations. and frankly this indifference towards economic concerns of other artists stem a lot from sour grapes that i was never able to live of my art, and frankly i dont think i ever will.

i see it more as a privilege than a right to be able to live off your art. for sure you are entitled to set up shop, but are you entitled to getting costumers? if you cant get any, is this an injustice that has been ennacted on you? i dont know, i would feel pretty stupid if i were to claim that a harm has been done to me simply because i could never get enough people interested in buying my stuff such that i could live off it, and wether this is because the alternatives they prefer are other human artists or robots it makes no difference to me, at the end of the day i never got clients one way or the other. and so its easy for me to get a bit alienated from those worries.

[th3-z0diac]

How I Make Aesthetics.

Long post ahead, sorry :(

In the past, I've been asked multiple times how I create my aesthetics and where do I get the best pictures for them, so I figured I'd make this master post of what exactly I do. Btw this is coming from a person who has studied graphic design for 4 years and had about 4 years of experience in making zodiac collages here on tumblr. Do what you want with that information.

A few disclaimers

There are different types of aesthetics and in this post, I'm going to be specifically talking about a certain type that I like to make. Here, examples:

My most used format is 6 pictures in 3 rows, but I've also tried 4 pictures, like here for example:

There are other types such as minimalistic photos, dark academia, grunge, and SO many more. Please keep in mind that I'm not hating on these types and when I mention a rule such as don't use photos that are too minimalistic, I am not saying that minimalistic aesthetics are wrong or ugly or anything of that sort!

Just because I don't choose a certain photo doesn't mean I don't like it, it just means that the photo is not exactly what I'm looking for. By me showing you the examples below, I'm just trying to paint a picture. No hate here, okay?

I don't own any of the pictures I use (I've only used like one or two of my own photos in the past) but then again this is just for entertainment, I don't make money doing this or anything. If I ever get a message from an owner of any of these photos and they want me to delete it, I will delete it.

Where to get the photos

Pinterest! Period. AHAHAHA

No but seriously, pinterest and tumblr are my two favorite sources and you will find pretty much exactly what you need there. pinterest specifically.

On tumblr, I usually search for hipster, grunge, indie, and nature, but it also helps to just find specific blogs that focus on photography, follow them and then just download anything from your dashboard that you fancy.

I'll share what I search for on pinterest below👇. My secret tip would be to not always go for the first photo you find but rather to open a picture that sorta has what you like in it and then scroll down, because pinterest is going to recommend you similar, sometimes better fitting photos. On tumblr, I sometimes go to the blog of the person whose one photo I like, and there I tend to find many more of the same kind (since these bloggers usually post a specific kind of aesthetic).

How to choose photos

My number one tip would be to seek texture. Avoid photos that have little going on in them and anything too empty or minimalistic (unless that's what you're aiming for, obviously). Also, don't choose pictures that are very light or very dark, as they tend to stand out in aesthetics and that's not really what you want. At least in the type of aesthetics that I make, I want the final product to be almost a new picture in itself if that makes sense. To show you an example, look at this photo of two sleeping cats:

This photo seems like a good fit; it is well balanced in colours (there are shades of white, beige/ginger as well as some greens) and c'mon, it's two cats, what more do you need!!! However, let's look at it in a complete aesthetic:

While this aesthetic has a nice color scheme to it (well, it doesn't, I threw it together super quickly, but you get the gist), the photo of the two cats just stands out because the khaki background creates this kind of block of color that your eye will automatically go to and it sort of breaks the collage apart. So, by texture, I mean that a picture is filled, for example with trees, flowers, architecture, little people in the background, etc., etc. Furthermore, I prefer when there are more things photographed (for instance, look at the first picture of the aesthetic above; it has a mirror (and a tiny person in it), architecture and leaves all in one picture)

Next, personality. Go to Google Images and search 'Nature Photography' or 'Sunset Photos'. You might get something like this:

Or this:

Look at this absolute angel of a boy💚💚💚💚💚💚Isn't he the cutest freaking thing you've ever seen?????? I just want to give him all the treats and all the pets and — ...ehm, sorry, that's not why we're here.

So I don't quite know how to explain this point, but I guess usually professional photos like this are just so well done that they work perfectly well on their own and you usually don't put them in a set (only with other photos from the same photoshoot maybe). They're obviously well-balanced color-wise and high in quality, but they're just very individual and don't really need any addition in the form of other photos. This point also applies to the previous one (textures, in case you forgot); for example, a bunch of blueberries creates a nice texture, however it might be difficult to pair them with other photos. They have enough personality on their own (and this is not meant in a bad way to the photos I do use).

Related to this, you're looking for a story. Usually, if a photo gives off a certain vibe, tells a story, or just leaves any kind of strong impression, it might be a good indication that this is a good photo to use (given all the other rules as well, of course).

The main themes I search for are:

cities, villages, or abandoned places

related to that — architecture or only parts (details) of it

nature, specifically forests with either road or a body of water nearby, beaches, deserts and so on. plus points for tiny people in the distance

animals, usually with the addition of maybe the texture of a sweater sleeve or some blankets, something of that sort

people, my favorite kind is people turned away from the camera with an interesting background, because by them not having a face, they become a bit more relatable in a sense?

people in a river or some kind of water

museums, sculptures

etc.

Usually, I tend to avoid:

photos with text in it (though as an exception I would mention neon signs or letters/words that are for example above shops, on books, etc.)

heavily filtered pictures

photos with very specific (often bold) colors in them, unless you find multiple photos with that same shade. this again distracts the eye too much

GIFs, animated pictures, illustrations/drawings. also, don't use collages (cause you are creating a collage, duh)

black & white pictures

blurred pictures (or those that are purposely grainy — that goes back to the filters above)

anything obviously photoshopped

When trying to figure out where to put each photo

Squint your eyes. The photos should create a nice harmony, there shouldn't be a corner where it gets too light or dark or where some textures blend together, for example, if using multiple flower patterns, try to place them in different corners.

When to know your aesthetic is done

Actually even before you start, you should be in the mood. I have to admit, there have been times where I've felt pressured into making aesthetics, and now, looking back at them, I'm really ashamed of them. That is why I don't always post aesthetics as soon as I get them requested because I genuinely want them to look good.

Sometimes, it helps to not post the aesthetic straight away but to come back to it later with a fresh look. I'd say go with your gut. You should have a good, satisfying feeling about the aesthetic.

Last note

Rules are meant to be broken. Look at the aesthetic below. I used a minimalistic illustration (two birds with one stone I guess) (and admittedly, that one picture does stand out) and yet the aesthetic still came out pretty nice. So, just play around with your ideas and see what you like the most! I'm just a random person on the internet, you literally don't have to listen to any of the tips I gave you here today.

I know this might seem like a lot (honestly, if you've read this entire thing, you're crazy), but it gets easier and easier with practice, soon you won't even think about it.

Hopefully these tips will help you and please let me know if you decide to make any aesthetics. I would love to see them!! <3