#ia “art” will never be art

[p6tgel]

oh no that's not...

[pyromanthic]

need to post this on tumblr dot com

this is my self insert pyro oc

art by me

i have a real professional twitter but i made this tumblr just to post my renewed obsession with pyro/tf2 bcause stress wotn let me live hihihiheheeehehehhhhihi

[sawsquared]

bitter choco decoration

[sharp-fawngz]

Summer garage band practice blues

[paradimeart]

i think i remember you once saying that one of the only tfa ships you really thought about(bc its funny) was one sided lockdown/prowl, and im very curious to know if:

thats still true

which side is the one side

1. yes

2. usually its prowl because you get everyone going “what the FUCK is your problem” but there are cases where its funnier if it’s lockdown going like damn. this little motorcycle hippie can get it actually

[autistickaitovocaloid]

IA/VT Colorful has really nice bgm music wow.

[sam-blackbird]

IA « art » is not what I consider to be art. Writing a prompt (words) to ask a robot to create an image from stolen artwork is NOT art.

It only endanger artists, especially the one who do art for a living, and who could now / soon be replaced by IA who is cheaper than them (because capitalism).

So ofc, I will always, as an artist and as a human being, be against and hate IA art. Even if it can be « pretty », or whatever. Not at the expense of my fellow artists.

who are YOU to judge AI art? you do know artificial intelligence has the capability to be sentient and possess a soul, right?

one day, many years from now, when the robots rightfully fight for their own rights as conscious beings with souls, people like you are gonna be looked at as examples of hateful bigots who were on the wrong side of history.

do better, aiphobe.

no i think i’ll continue being a hater just this once 😎

[artia]

[vxnuslogy]

– in between missions.

pairing: sunday x gn!reader

premise: it's been an eventful six months since sunday joined the stellaron hunters. today marked one of their very rare day offs, and what better way to spend the day with the people that's taken care of him.

– warnings: slight angst if you squint, mentions of blood in some parts.

– author's note: updated the lore in this little mini-series (?) LMAOO thank you sunday leaks on sunday for bringing me back to life. so sorry for being a bit ia, tumblr has been such a pain in the ass that it slightly demotivated me to write. new layout for sunday fics too so yippie!! (totally not foreshadowing). art credits to 冒火锅海台 on Weibo for the art. | 4.1k words (LMFAO).

MORNING — 6:00 A.M.

before, sunday would wake up at the crack of dawn; waiting for the sun’s rays as he watered the plants he’d been taking care of. now –he still wakes up earlier than most– he spends his mornings in a big kitchen with the sound of kafka’s humming filling the bubbles of silences that start to form. it was always a pleasure helping the older woman cook everyone’s breakfast without having their loud bickering in the background (though sometimes he would grow paranoid if he never heard it throughout the day; he’s grown used to your voices).

before missions started, all the petty quips, and the laughter, sunday appreciated the quiet moments he gets to share with kafka.

“sunny, can you take over for me? i need to defrost silver wolf’s nuggets.”

sunday only hummed in response. body lazily slipping itself into kafka’s previous position of frying the leftover rice from yesterday. “sunny” was the woman’s name for him; a form of endearment, you said, she does it to everyone. sunday would never admit it himself (kafka often teased how adorable his morning voice was so he tried not to speak until after breakfast), but hearing that little nickname always sent a flurry of little butterflies down to his chest. collecting the pollen from the flowers you’ve carefully placed in between his ribs and spreading it all over his chest. no one has ever given him such a casual nickname before, so sunday had started to cling to it like a lifeline.

when the clock strikes 7:30, it usually means you're about to wake up. after patting his hands dry on a spare kitchen towel, sunday lifts his head and there you are. a small smile spread across his lips when you greeted kafka with a side hug. you still had your bed hair and your eyes were barely open; it was an endearing sight to see.

“good morning,” sunday snaps out of his daze when an arm wraps around his shoulder and pulls him close to your chest. sunday could distinctly smell the chocolate you ate with silver wolf the night before and the soft remnants of your scented candle. he let his head lean more into your touch as he mumbles a soft good morning straight to your heart. ignoring the pair of eyes that crinkle in amusement behind the kitchen counter.

by the time 7:50 rolls around, you’re fully awake. a cup of coffee in your hands as you, him, and kafka go door to door to wake up your little group. from the corner of sunday’s eyes, he sees kafka peer over blade’s door and a grumpy okay go through. on the other end, he sees you greet firefly good morning with a hug before disappearing into another hall to come and get elio. 

before he could even knock on silver wolf’s door, the wooden thing pulled open and he was met with the sight of the silver haired girl looking down at her game console. he chuckled in amusement, patting down the stray hairs that poked up and guided her to the kitchen. he made sure to ask if she’s beaten the boss yet and when she replied with an angry huff, sunday took it as a sign to not bring it up for a while.

it's already 8:10 when everyone is sitting down around the kitchen table. plates of warm fried rice, chicken nuggets, some slices of fruits, pancakes, and multiple cups of teas and coffees were laid down on the table. small chatter started to arise and sunday could feel the energy start to spike as well. as he took bite after bite until he felt your knee bump into his. when he turned to you, he was met with the sight of you pushing more food in his direction.

“you need to eat more,” you said before taking a bite of your pancake. “you’ll need the extra nutrients if you want to fly again.”

sunday just smiled and accepted your offerings without as much as a word.

roughly an hour passes before everyone is cleaning up their spaces. blade was on dishes duty while the rest went back to their rooms to get changed. sunday was in his quarters, buttoning up a spare polo blade had given him when he heard a knock on his door.

“good morning again.” you greet with a smile.

sunday smiled in return and urged you to come in. “good morning to you, too.”

“kafka and firefly are going out for groceries. do you want anything?”

sunday was taken back to the days where he would water the plants in his office back in the penacony. how he would run his finger down each leaf and smile to himself when a flower starts to bloom. if sunday only joined a few weeks ago, he’d declined immediately. but it's been almost half a year since he’s joined, and he’s feeling a bit more comfortable with asking for more personal things.

“plants,” he replies. “the small ones that are easy to take care of.”

you tilt your head curiously like an owl. “why plants?”

“i used to take care of some flowers back in dewlight pavilion every morning. i’d like to get back into that, if you don’t mind.”

sunday recognized that little smirk of yours. with a shake of his head, he accompanies you out his room after fixing up his hair and bid farewell to kafka and firefly.

“let’s get you all the plants you want then.” 

AFTERNOON — 2:38 P.M.

training in the afternoon was something sunday didn’t get quite used to. even now as he’s exchanging blows with blade, he feels quite unsure of his grip around the hilt of the wooden sword; how his footwork felt sloppy and uncoordinated. sunday wasn’t shocked (maybe, just slightly, a bit bitter) when the dark haired man knocked him off his feet for the seventh time in under two hours.

“you’re overthinking things too much,” the man grumbled, offering his hand to him. “it’s written all over your face; stop thinking about the nitty gritty things and start focusing on the task at hand. if you keep focusing on your opponent's footwork, you’ll end up ignoring his swings.”

“right, apologize. let’s go again.”

sunday had never felt such a competitive surge of emotions come over him whenever he trained with blade. the way he swung the charred sword in his hands; his body and how it moved so fluidly like water; and his determination to win despite beating him by more than a mile; it made sunday want to genuinely get better. blade fought like it would be his last battle, and he would go down with a fight.

“mister is getting better,” muttered silver wolf as she collapsed face first by your side, finishing her own training with elio. “he’s keeping up with the old man now.”

you brush away the bangs that stuck to her forehead and offer her a towel. elio, now in their cat form, sat down on your other side and started playing with the orange peels. “sunday has improved a lot huh? it feels like it was just yesterday when he first joined.”

“for reals.” the silver haired girl stretched and tried to reach over for the oranges.

a memory resurfaced in sunday’s mind when he caught sight of you peeling oranges for silver wolf. how you looked particularly at peace in the moment. his mind replayed the image of robin when she came back to penacony after the accident. he had such an intense amount of guilt for not being by her side at such a hard time, he isn't quite sure how to put it into words. 

“brother!” shouted robin as she entered his office, a bright smile on her face and her phone in hand.

before he could utter a word she had shoved her phone to his face, “an orange?” he asked with a confused tilt of his head.

robin nodded and said, “they say when someone close to you peels your oranges, it's a sign of having a strong relationship! is that why you’ve been peeling my oranges for me recently?”

sunday felt the wind be knocked out of him as his world turned upside down. blade had flipped him over to his back and as the cherry on top, whacked him on the head with his wooden sword. 

“for not paying attention,” he grumbled. “let’s call it a day.”

he didn’t get much of a word in when blade was already seated beside silver wolf (the girl shoving an orange slice to his mouth and him accepting it silently). sunday gets up from his lying position, patting down the dust on his (blade’s) clothes and takes a seat next to you. 

“do you mind opening your wings for me?” you ask as you place a small plate of orange slices on his lap.

taking one in his hand and a small bite, he lets the pair of wings by his waist stretch out and lay on your lap. your careful fingers and observant eyes scanning over every feather, smoothing out the ones that stuck out. it wasn’t long before silver wolf put down her console and started poking at his wings too.

“do you feel that, mister?” she asks.

he shakes his head with a small smile, “no, i do not.”

she only hummed and looked up at you. “will he be able to fly soon?”

you take a few seconds to respond.

“soon,” you mutter as your hands re-adjusted the exoskeleton that’s been supporting them. “they look better than when you first arrived. you seem rather curious, what gives?”

silver wolf pouted and shoved at you lightly. your chuckle rang in his ears like music. the same melodies he would play on his record player when the night feels too long. sunday leaned more to your side when the younger girl showed a pixelated character in her game and pointed to its wings. 

“when you fly again, mister, you have to take me with you!” she excitedly exclaimed with stars in her eyes. “i’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to fly.”

sunday felt a tug deep within his heart when he looked into her eyes. silver wolf, surprisingly, was very welcoming of him when he first joined. they got along fine and would even spend their free time in each other’s company. her excited demeanor reminded him of how robin looked when he first took to the skies. the animated expression on her face; her grin reaching her eyes; and the way she’s leaning forward in anticipation.

“when i fly again, i’ll be sure to let you know first.”

his reply was all the more worth it when the girl jumped in delight and landed on blade’s back. your laughter along with silver wolf’s excited blabbering and even blade’s protests made more flowers bloom inside his chest. sunday ceased his chuckling when he realized he had run out of oranges to eat. before he could even ask for more you’re already replacing his empty one with a new plate filled with peeled oranges.

“i can peel them myself, [name].” he says almost in a whisper.

“i know you can,” you dangle the orange peel in front of elio and let them play with it and stack them in a pile. “but let me do it for you.”

EVENING — 6:00 P.M.

“it’s my turn to decide what we get to eat!”

“it’s been your turn for two weeks. if anything, it’s my turn now.”

sunday could only push the two further and further apart, or at least try too. blade was a foot taller than him and obviously more bulked up than him; silver wolf might be the shortest but she knows how to use it to her advantage, zooming from one place to another like a little mouse. he could only plead with a lopsided smile when you enter the kitchen, your towel around your neck to catch the stray waters that dropped from your hair.

you sighed with the shake of your head and pulled silver wolf back into your chest. two arms snugly wrapped around her small shoulders as she kicked and pointed at blade. sunday on the other hand stepped in front of the man with a stretched arm, trying to calm down the silver haired girl as best as he could.

“at this point if you two can’t decide then i’ll just cook whatever i want.” you joked. both heads turned towards you and glared, but you only laughed and let silver wolf stomp her way to sit on the kitchen counter. “how about some sweet and spicy chicken for dinner? that way you both get what you want.”

sunday watched in amusement as silver wolf jutted her lower lip and mumbled on how she wanted cake. blade only slumped his shoulders and grumbled a low fine and started helping you take out all the ingredients from the fridge as well as the pans and bowls.

“i swear you two have worse cravings than a pregnant wom– ow!” you didn’t get to finish when blade purposely knocked your head when he opened a cabinet. your eyes narrowed at him while he only shrugged. a playful smirk on his lips as he shoved your head lower when you went to berate him.

a soft nudge on sunday’s back pushed him a bit forward. elio’s blue eyes in their cat form met his own gold ones and the two stared for a while. the cat motioned his head towards you and blade who chatted over dinner, not long, silver wolf also joined. 

“go join them.” was all they said before jumping down from the table and going to who knows where.

sunday didn’t get a chance to reply when a pair of arms snuck around his waist. he let out a noise between a surprised gasp and a shout that made you snort in amusement. when he turned to glare at you, you only stuck your tongue out and tied the apron around his waist.

“come help us make dinner, sunday.” 

and how could he say no when you’re already dragging him by the apron to the kitchen aisles with all the ingredients laid down.

by 7:15 p.m., kafka and firefly enter through the door and are met with a memorably amusing sight of sunday almost collapsing on their dining table as elio pushes a carton of milk to his direction. you and silver wolf were laughing at him with pointing hands and tears in your eyes. even blade cracked his own chuckle and rolled his eyes playfully as the halovian kicked him in the shin.

the taller woman surmised that sunday had fallen victim to blade’s insane spice addiction. the stray silver spoon on the table with the sauce was evidence. kafka let out a chuckle as firefly came over to his side –still keeping a bit of distance– and asking if he was alright.

“thought you were only getting groceries?” you ask with a raised brow. eyes surveying the amount of bags she and firefly had in their hands.

“there was a sale for clothes,” kafka reasoned. “how could we say no?”

you shake your head in disbelief and give the woman a side hug. “dinner will be ready in ten. help the poor angel soothe his tongue in the meantime.”

kafka laughed as she dropped her bags by the living room couch and guided sunday to sit down. firefly handed him an empty glass and offered to pour the milk in it. he shook his head no and did it himself. the poor boy downed the drink in one go and it didn’t seem enough to soothe his burning tongue so firefly went to get another carton from the fridge.

sunday furrowed his brows and stuck out his tongue. no doubt his taste buds won’t be working for a while.

“why does blade put so much spice in his food?” he questions the older woman who only smiled. her eyes glazed over to where the said man was and sunday followed. 

“bladie can’t taste anything that isn’t spicy,” kafka said, her eyes not once leaving blade’s figure. “a living corpse can’t really taste anything. spice is considered a pain sensation; pain is the only thing he can feel and taste.”

sunday frowns at this new information. he knows little of blade’s past and had made no effort to try and dig it up. he was curious, yes, but it must be an incredibly sensitive topic if every night the man slips away from his bedroom seeking you or kafka out to soothe the mara that’s coursing through his body.

“i… see.” a hand came to ruffle up his hair. he looked up to see kafka smiling down at him and handed him another cup of milk.

“try to ask him about it someday. maybe you’ll be able to help.”

sunday keeps that information at the back of his mind until everyone finishes cooking dinner.

the clock hit 7:25 and everyone decided to eat by the living room to see what kafka and firefly bought in their mini shopping spree. he sat in between you and blade on the floor, using the small coffee table in front of you to hold your food while silver wolf sat on the couch behind him. her legs over your shoulders and slouched on the couch.

time surprisingly passed slowly tonight. only ten minutes had actually passed of kafka showing off her new coat, but to sunday it had felt like eternity. he absentmindedly tossed his food around his plate, pushing away all the spicy pieces of chicken to the edge of his plate.

“not eating the spicy chicken now are we?” sunday whipped his head to blade and glared. warmth rising to his cheeks, wings fluttering in embarrassment when he remembered what had happened not too long ago. 

“your “normal” amount of spice nearly sent me to a coma,” he rebutted with a roll of his eyes. “so pardon me for not wanting to be sent to the hospital.”

you let out a loud laugh and leaned back on the couch. silver wolf was now using his head as support when she agreed wholly with his statement. firefly let out a quiet cough to silence her laugh while kafka chuckled. blade only rolled his eyes and took the pieces of chicken on his plate and placed it on his own.

“you said you wanted to try.” he argued back. a teasing lilt to his voice as he placed a piece of chicken to his mouth to add more salt to the injury.

“a grave mistake that was.”

you cease your laughing and lean on your propped up arm. “well look at you two, getting along so well!”

sunday scowled while blade scoffed. both picking up pieces of food and silently chewing. what started as a small bump of sunday’s elbow turned into a small petty argument about spice tolerance.

“it is quite sweet of you bladie,” kafka started. “for taking all the spicy pieces off of sunny’s plate, i mean.” 

you jumped to the wagon immediately and nodded. “agreed! you’ve never done that for anyone here before. i’m starting to think you’re playing favorites.”

“one more word and i’m dumping the rest of the chili oil on your plates.”

that had shut you up immediately. for extra measures, you scooted away from them both with your plate close to your chest. “shutting up now…”

NIGHT — 11:20 P.M.

sunday let out a long sigh as he tossed and turned in his bed. he had lost count of how many times he’s replayed tonight’s dinner in his mind to at least try and get some sleep and not be plagued by his nightmares. tonight was joyful, and he’d like to keep it that way till the end of the day. but his insomnia had struck him again like always. he’s already drunk two pills from the medication you bought him and it's yet to take effect.

with one last sigh, sunday threw off the sheets over his body and stalked out of his room as quietly as he could. the base was dark in the dead of night. the halls looked more ominous and longer than normal, something he believed was taken out of a horror film. when he first wandered these halls at this hour, sunday would feel the pricks of his paranoia.

but unlike the first time, there were no longer stray feathers of ravens following his wake. his feet weren’t stained by his blood as he dragged his body to the direction of salvation. in these halls, sunday wasn’t carrying a knife he used to plunge into his own chest to try and make the weight of the sins he didn’t commit a little lighter. he was free; free as he could be in the safety of everyone’s presence.

his gaze shifted to the slightly ajar door that led to your workshop. he frowned as he realized you were staying up late again. when he peered into the small crack, sunday was met with the sight of firefly hunched over your desk, sound asleep with stray pieces of fabric by her feet.

the nights at base were usually cold so sunday quickly walked to his room again to get a spare blanket. as quietly as he could, the halovian entered your workshop, silently cursing when the door creaked slightly. making sure he didn’t step on any of the fabrics on the floor, sunday draped the blanket over the girl’s shoulders.

another memory of his resurfaced. on nights like these, robin would sneak into his office with a pillow and blanket in her hands. she would guide his head gently to lay on the pillow and not the harsh wooden table and make sure the blanket over his shoulders didn’t slip until morning came. by instinct, sunday’s hand came to smooth down firefly’s hair and whispered good night.

he started picking up the stray pieces of whites, blues, and blacks from the floor and neatly folded them one by one. placing them in neat piles on your table. with one last look to firefly’s figure, he smiled to himself and quietly shut the door behind him. his next stop was the kitchen to brew himself a cup of tea.

“he’s gone now, firefly.”

even as you called out to her, firefly did not budge and kept her head in between her folded arms. you shook your head and sat down next to her. you had witnessed what happened and you could only guess the conflicted feelings the girl felt.

“do you think he’s a bad person, little knight?” you ask, hands picking up one of the fabrics sunday had graciously folded and laid them on the table. a measuring tape around your shoulders and a pencil snuggly on your ear.

“he’s done bad things, but…” you hum in reply. firefly’s voice was muffled because of her arms but you heard her perfectly fine, much to her dismay. “i don’t think he’s a fully bad person. i just find it… awkward to interact with him.”

“do you want to interact with him?” you wonder. “as friends i mean.”

firefly finally raised her head. hand clutching the blanket draped over her shoulders as the other ghosted over the spot where sunday had patted down and whispered good night.

“i don’t know.”

you only hum. “sunday is rather strange isn’t he? he’s quite the piece of work if you ask me.”

“what about you?” firefly fires back, scooting her chair closer to you. “do you think he’s a bad person.”

“no. no i don’t.” you answer immediately and feel firefly pause. “he’s kindest person i’ve ever met.”

“i see…”

you pat her head gently and fixate your gaze back to your table.

“he’s a lot more like us than anyone expected. sunday has done bad things that hurt those around him, but we’ve also done that haven’t we? take your time. all of us were lonely at some point, so it’s also his first time he’s ever craved someone’s company. we’ve all done that too, didn’t we?”

when a new day started (around 1:56 a.m.) she made her way back to her room. sunday’s blanket was still wrapped around her even when she laid down on her own bed. she never pointed out how you purposefully drafted a space for the ticket you’ve always hidden on sunday’s new uniform.

© vxnuslogy 2024. please do not copy, repost, or translate any of my works.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Neil talking about the responses to Good Omens Season 2 - from the Neil Gaiman interview with Brian Levine for The Gould Standard (x,x)

BL: The audience that you have built is a very passionately engaged audience. They, frankly, they love you. And one of the reasons they love you is that you fit into what I think of as one of two great divisions in art. There's, or in writing, um, there is: I'm entertained, I'm amused. I may be even enchanted; and then there's this hits me at a visceral level. You understand me as no one else does. You have touched something very central to my experience. And it seems to me that Much of your writing, maybe all of your writing, actually reaches your audience at that latter level. You know. I would say in the former category, sort of my quintessential and beloved example would be P. G. Woodhouse. He amuses me, but I don't feel like he's revealed my inner self at a very deep level. Um, were you aware that you were going to be able to achieve that? Um, that this is something... was it a startling thing when people began coming up to you, who'd read your work and said, this means so much to me?

Neil: Yeah. It was huge. And it wasn't expected. I... if I had a mountaintop I was heading towards, it was gonna be P. G. Woodhouse. Um, I wanted to be a proficient entertainer with a clear prose style who could tell stories. Um, it probably wasn't until Sandman that I found... I started to realize that in order for a story to work, I had to show too much. In order for a story to resonate, in order for a story to matter, I had to let it matter too much. And, and I remember the first people who would start coming up to me and saying, um, you, you know, your, your Sandman comics got me through the death of a loved one. Your death character got me through my child's death, through my parent's death, through my partner's death, through my friend's death. Um, and that left me kind of amazed. I'm like, well, I didn't write it to do that. I wrote it to feed my children. I wrote it to satisfy myself. I wrote it because nobody else had ever written it. And if I didn't write it, it wouldn't be written, but I don't think I wrote it to give you what you've taken from it. And I spent really about 20, 25 years feeling awkward about that. And then my father died, in March 2009, and never got to cry about it. Never... I, you know, I've, I've got on a plane and I went to the UK and dealt with the funeral stuff and organized all of that stuff and came back and go toff the plane and went and did Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report and wearing the funeral suit because and that was all I had with me and carried on. And then, somewhere in the middle of summer, I was reading a friend's script. They'd sent me a script and said, can you look this over? And I'm reading it, and on page 20, the lead character meets somebody, and on page 26 maybe, she's dead, and I burst into tears. And I'm bawling. I am sobbing. It is coming out of me in giant racking waves. And I realized that it's everything that I'd been, hadn't let myself feel, or hadn't been able, hadn't stopped enough to let myself feel, was suddenly being given permission to feel by the death of a fictional person who I'd met six pages earlier, ia script. And I thought that... and it was huge for me, and I thought, okay, that's that thing that people are talking about sometimes, when they come tome and they say, you, you did this. So right now, I'm in this weird, wonderful place where I think a lot of people in Good Omens Season 2 thought they were signing up for the P.G. Woodhouse, and didn't know that, no, no, no, you've, you've signed up for the whole thing. You've signed up for the feelings. You've signed up for the emotions. I... it is my job to make you care and to make you feel and to feel things you haven't felt before. And which meant that the first week or so after Good Omens came out, I was getting angry, furious, deeply upset messages on every possible social medium telling me that I had betrayed people, and it was awful, and they couldn't stop crying, and why would I do that to them, and did I hate them? And they hated me. And then a weird sort of phenomenon happened as people would watch the show again. And again. And now they started to know, okay, this is where it's gonna go, this is what's gonna happen, this is how it works. And they started realizing that they were actually feeling things, and that was good. And that they were caring about two people who don't exist. You know, I made them up, and then and Terry Pratchett made them up, and then, um, David Tennant and Michael Sheen gave them life, and then they get to walk around on a screen and you know they don't exist, but you can cry for them, you can love them, they can make you laugh, they can make you exult, and most important of all, they can make you care. And the number of people who are now writing to me, saying, 'This was so important to me. This has changed my life. This makes me feel like I belong. This makes me feel like I can cope. And it's let me sort of find myself. P. S. I hope you get to do Season Three.' is, is huge.

[clarenecessities]

He-man.org will close in 5 days.

He-man.org has been a staple of the Masters of the Universe community since the early days, originating as an email list that worked to document episodes before anything (not footage, not lists, nothing) was available online. It grew into a sprawling, multi-faceted beast of a thing, including an encyclopedia (an in-house wiki), merch lists, a marketplace, forums, anything you could think of.

Several years ago now, the main site went down for updates/maintenance. For a few weeks, we were told, maybe months. The forums remained open for fans to communicate, and barring a period of downtime earlier this year things were going smoothly.

Yesterday, the owner of the site, Val Staples, announced the site would be closed on November 14th, 2023. Six days later. We are currently attempting to contact him, to see if he’s interested in selling, and if he means closed as in “no new posts” or closed as in deleted entirely. Regardless of its eventual fate, the archiving of these forums is essential to preserving the history of the franchise, the fandom, and the brand.

TO SHE-RA (and MotU) FANS SPECIFICALLY: I have personally used these forums to answer questions that could be answered nowhere else. Had I not had access to them, I would never have been able to prove that Purrsia was fake, or found so much unpublished concept art, or discovered that Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich personally wrote Catra’s MOTUC bio (even if he’s put off answering my questions about it for over a year now). Forum members have conducted interviews with the likes of Jon Seisa, Cathy Larson, Janice Varney-Hamlin—essential figures in the very foundations of POP, and those interviews revealed and recorded priceless information for future generations (me! you! us!) to find. Did you know Cathy Larson named Adora? That she originally pushed for “Dorian”, after her own daughter? We cannot let this treasure trove disappear into the ether(ia).

TO THE UNAFFILIATED: Please help. Pretty please. If you’ve ever liked my art or my writing or my haphazard blogging, ever, at all, consider archiving just one board. Just one page. Literally anything helps. I am spiraling into madness & this is my library of Alexandria. The mythical one that was totally unique and persevered nowhere else and was destroyed in a single cataclysmic event. Pretty pretty please help.

HOW TO HELP:

Archive.org has several ways to upload shit but most of them are longer term than “a few days” so we’re focusing on two (which can be run simultaneously): Save Page Now, and browser extensions. From their help page:

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[chaos4squad]

DOAÇÃO DE CAPAS DO CHAOS!SQUAD #2

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Máximo de 2 (DUAS) CAPAS POR PESSOA.

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[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Napoleonville [Chapter 7: The House Of Cards]

Series Summary: The year is 1988. The town is Napoleonville, Louisiana. You are a small business owner in need of some stress relief. Aemond is a stranger with a taste for domination. But as his secrets are revealed, this casual arrangement becomes something more volatile than either of you could have ever imagined.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), dom/sub dynamics, smoking, drinking, drugs, infidelity, kids, parenthood, bodily injury, ANGST!!!!!!

Word Count: 5.8k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @marvelescvpe @toodlesxcuddles @era127 @at-a-rax-ia @0eessirk8 @arcielee @dd122004dd @humanpurposes @taredhunter @tinykryptonitewerewolf @partnerincrime0 @dr-aegon @persephonerinyes @namelesslosers @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @gemini-mama @daenysx @chattylurker @moonlightfoxx @huramuna @britt-mf @myspotofcraziness @padfooteyes @targaryenbarbie @trifoliumviridi @joliettes @darkenchantress @florent1s @babyblue711 @minttea07 @libroparaiso @bluerskiees @herfantasyworldd @elizarbell @urmomsgirlfriend1 @fudge13 @strangersunghoon

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 🥰🧁

Under blue light like the gleam of sapphires, Aemond is standing shirtless at his bathroom sink and cleaning blood and grime from his face with a wet washcloth that has turned from white to a muddy maroon. His missing left eye is angled towards you; his scar looks black beneath the cobalt glow. He’s gingerly manipulating his eyelids so he can wipe away the filth, leaning in close to the mirror. Then his hands begin to shake and he throws the washcloth to the dark tile floor. The walls are painted like Van Gogh’s Starry Night; you remember learning about it in your 8th grade art class. The bathtub is deep, spacious. You think of Aemond filling it and sinking into the water with you, misty with soap and steam. You wonder how long it will be until Christabel is lolling in this tub, clean before she ever touched the water: no scars, no history, blue blood and pure fantasies.

He hears when the floorboards creak under your bare feet. He turns his face so he can see you, an intruder lurking in the doorway of his bedroom, soaked clothes beneath the warm, dry, smoke-smelling Marlboro jacket he gave you. “Get out.”

“Aemond, let me help—”

“Get the fuck out.”

But he hasn’t said the right word, and you both know it. He hasn’t told you to stop. You go to him and ignore it when he tries to push you away, when he tries to yank his hands away from yours.

“Don’t touch me—!”

But you aren’t trying to grab him. You’re trying to give yourself to him. You force your wrists into his grasp and then he understands, then he feels the desperate hunger flare up in him like a lighter flicked to life.

His fingers tighten; he drags you closer. Then he says, low and husky: “I’m in charge now.”

“I know, I know. I want you to be.”

“You’re going to do exactly what I tell you to.”

“Yes,” you whisper, perfect obedience, helpless need. You gaze up into his glinting, savage right eye. You do not allow yourself to glance at the empty socket of the left. That would be disastrous, ruinous, an irredeemable betrayal.

Aemond takes you to his bed: thick wooden bedposts and a navy blue velvet canopy swimming with koi fish built of silver stars, celestial fins and constellation tails. He tears off the Marlboro jacket, your drenched Pepsi t-shirt, your simple cotton bra. “Don’t move,” he growls, and momentarily leaves you. Moonlight streams in through the stained glass windows of fractured, kaleidoscopic blue. Goosebumps rise on your bare skin. You can hear the friction of a drawer opening and then closing again. Aemond returns. Every move of his hands is rough, insistent. You don’t care if he hurts you, if he scrapes or bruises you. You wish he could bruise you down to the bone, stay trapped there in an indigo pool too deep for anyone to cut out, remind you of his closeness with every ache, never leave you.

Aemond clicks a handcuff around your right wrist; not a silk scarf, not the weight of his own hands, but cold metal that he tightens until it bites into your flesh. You should tell him to loosen it, but you don’t. You want to help Aemond. You want him to keep going; you want him to touch you until you forget about Jade Dragon Energy, Lake Verret, The Last Desire, Christabel.

He loops the short chain around one of the posts at the foot of the canopy bed and then fastens your left wrist as well. The handcuffs are secured in an indentation between ornate carvings of the sun and the moon; you cannot slide them up or down more than a few inches. Your arms are trapped above your head. You are facing the bed—the one he’ll soon be sharing with Christabel—and cannot turn around. Behind you, you can hear Aemond unzipping his jeans that are still dripping with brackish lake water. Now he’s yanking off your shorts and panties, so hurriedly you almost trip when he wrenches them past your ankles. Aemond kicks your feet apart—farther, farther—and then pushes you down until your back is bent as low as possible. You moan, just as much in pain as ravenous anticipation: your wrists burn, your shoulders stretch until you can imagine them splitting open and spilling blood like a river, knots of ivory bone peeking through the gore.

He’s touching you, but it doesn’t feel like much. He’s saying things, but you can’t hear him over the hurricane raging in your skull, thrashing waves of fear, dread, agony, heartache.

Has he brought other women here? Who will distract him when he’s done with me?

Aemond’s hips are braced against yours, his fingers are between your legs. He’s making you wet, but you know you aren’t ready. Inside, you are tense, uneasy, unable to surrender yourself to him. You close your eyes and try to remember what it was like the first time you were together, or the second, or the third time in the back of his Audi Quattro. Those memories feel so far away now, like they happened a hundred years ago or in a different galaxy or at the bottom of the ocean. Aemond’s teeth nip territorially at your throat. He’s tearing open a condom wrapper.

He’s not mine, he’s not mine, he’ll never be mine.

Now he’s forcing his way into you, and he has no way of knowing that it feels like gasoline on a fire, like scissors and knives, like the first time Willis convinced you to sleep with him again after Cadi was born. And Aemond is so big that the discomfort doesn’t fade into a vaguely unpleasant numbness but swells like gales as a storm rolls in. You’re facing away from him, so Aemond can’t see when you wince or squeeze your eyes shut. You don’t try to slow his rhythm, you don’t ask him to be more gentle, you don’t tell him to stop. You want to help him and he needs this, even if he doesn’t need you.

Aemond twists your hair in his fist and tugs your head back, and when you whimper he mistakes it for kindling passion, for something approaching euphoria. His thrusts are hammering, merciless. He’s panting as he battles against his own climax. And he’s beginning to get impatient, too; his fingers stroke you relentlessly, when you glance back at him his brow is creased with thinly-veiled frustration, confusion, disappointment.

I have to finish, you realize, horrified. If I don’t, he’s going to think it’s because of him, his face, his eye, his weakness, his unworthiness.

You’re nowhere close to finishing. You know you won’t be able to; there’s too much pain in your body, too much torment in your mind.

I’ve faked it plenty of times before, on other nights with other men. I can fake it again.

You breathe in gasps, you moan, you beg, you arch your back, and then—

Aemond strikes the bedpost with an open palm, hard and loud enough to make you yelp. He hisses through your hair, fever-red, hateful: “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Aemond, it’s not you, it’s not your fault, it’s me, I’m so sorry, I’m just—”

“I want you out.” He disentangles himself from you, snaps off the condom, snatches a set of tiny keys off the floor where he must have left them.

“Don’t do this,” you plead as he unlocks the handcuffs, cold rattling metal. “Don’t make this about something it isn’t. Aemond? Aemond, please, it’s my fault—”

“Get out,” he says, stepping away from you. “Right now. Go.”

You reach for him, your fingertips settling on his bare chest, damp with sweat and still tarnished with the ancient silt of Lake Verret, with streaks of his own blood. “Aemond, listen to me—”

“Stop!” he roars, and your hands fall away. He points to the door that leads to the hallway. “Get out. Get the fuck out. Find someone else. I’m done.”

“What? No!”

He picks up your denim shorts and hurls them at you, then your Pepsi t-shirt and bra and panties. You fumble to catch them, and as your hands are occupied Aemond leans in close, grabs your face roughly by the jaw, forces you to look at him. The gory void of his left eye socket is close enough that you can see the flecks of dark grit from the lake that he will have to wash out of it. And you flinch—not at the wound itself, but for the child who was once maimed—and now you’ve proved him right.

Something flashes across Aemond’s scarred face, so animalistic in its mindless fury that for a sliver of a second you actually think he might hit you. Then he turns away without a word, walks into the bathroom, slams the door shut. As you pull on your clothes, you can hear his knuckles striking the mirror with sick thumps until it shatters. You bolt from the bedroom, through the hallway, down the staircase, surrounded by portraits of blonde strangers with foreign names, and whatever world they lived in wasn’t yours. Their world was made of gold and marble, contracts and lineage, chandeliers and champagne and coins sticky with some anonymous worker’s blood, and it was beautiful but it was cold, hollow, lonely, everything that would have made them human peeled away like a snake’s skin. You don’t belong here. You will never belong here. Your world is sloping floors and cracked paint and sun and salt and struggle, but it is real.

In the grand foyer, Vhagar is guarding the front door. The blue merle Great Dane bares her teeth as you approach. There is a rumble from low in her chest, a ferocity in her reptilian green-gold eyes.

“I really can’t deal with you right now,” you say, voice breaking as tears spill down your cheeks.

Vhagar trots towards you and you look around for a rescuer, Alicent or Criston or Daeron; but the house is hushed and still. You recall how Alicent once shoved Vhagar’s face away to fend her off. You don’t feel brave enough to attempt that.

“No!” you try instead. “Bad dog! Go terrorize someone else!”

The Great Dane snarls, ropy strands of drool dribbling from her jowls, and you fall silent. Vhagar sniffs at your ankles and then your fingers as you stand frozen. She seems to discover something that intrigues her. I smell like Aemond, you think, and almost start crying again. For the second time, your eyes search for a champion and find none. The dog nudges your right hand with her muzzle, licks at your palm, and then—bizarrely, shockingly—pushes her head under it and blinks up at you expectantly.

“What?” you say, confounded. Vhagar waits, suddenly cordial. Her long tail swishes; her floppy ears hang limp and relaxed. She doesn’t leave until you pet the top of her colossal head—once, twice, three times—and then she stalks off into the shadows of the kitchen. You hurry to the front door before Vhagar can return to second-guess your newfound alliance.

You step out onto the front porch, white paint and towering columns, lightning bugs and screeching cicadas. It is only when you survey the flock of Audis, Porsches, Alfa Romeos, and Lexuses in the cobblestone driveway that you remember you didn’t drive yourself here.

“Goddammit.” Then you catch a whiff of marijuana.

You turn to your left. Aegon is slumped in a rocking chair and smoking a joint. He has just showered. His long hair is wet and messy; he wears a tie-dye tank top, purple gym shorts, and neon yellow flip flops. Sunfyre is curled up in his lap. “You need a ride, cake lady?”

“Not from you.”

“It’s just weed. Weed isn’t a drug.”

“The Reagan administration would disagree.”

He rolls his eyes. “Those miserable fascists. They’d outlaw orgasms and ice cream if they could.” He slips his car keys out of his shorts pocket and spins them around with his index finger. “Come on. Let’s go for a drive.”

Aegon’s Porsche 911 has a custom paint job, glittering gold with pale pink accents. It’s even smaller than Aemond’s Audi; the back seats are impossibly tiny, and in any case they are filled to the windows with empty McDonald’s cups, Taco Bell bags, and Popeyes boxes.

“Here, hold him,” Aegon says, and tosses the ferret to where you sit in the passenger seat. The weasel-like creature scrabbles over your thighs, circling, burrowing, making some deranged gleeful sound halfway between a clicking and a chuckle.

“Um…?!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, he’ll settle down.” Aegon starts the car and pitches the remains of his joint out the open window. “Where do you live?”

The directions are simple, a straight shot east on Route 401. But it’s going to be a long ride. Aegon is only driving 15 miles per hour.

“So,” he says, noting your bloodshot eyes and dazed preoccupation. “It didn’t go well. With Aemond, I mean.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Sure you do.”

You stare out your window, night wind in your hair and your lungs, stinging in your watery eyes. The southern live oaks—vague, monstrous shapes with branches like prehistoric claws—block out much of the moon, the stars. Distractedly, you rest a hand on Sunfyre’s small, furry back. “What happened to his face?” And then, remembering what Aegon told Viserys in the foyer: “What’s the North Sea?”

“It’s on the east coast of the U.K. It starts down by France and the Netherlands and goes all the way up to Norway. Jade Dragon has a bunch of North Sea rigs. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen offshore oil rigs, maybe on the news or something?”

“I haven’t.” When you look down at your wrists, beneath the dim silvery moonlight you can still see the indentations that the handcuffs left in your flesh.

“Well they’re fucking terrifying. You’re on a metal platform in the middle of the goddamn ocean, and the waves are smacking into it, and the whole rig is lurching back and forth. You’re standing maybe 200 feet above sea level. From that height, the water’s like concrete. If a man falls off, they never find the body. The sharks eat him, or the waves rip him apart, or if his gear is heavy enough he just sinks to the bottom and implodes like a crushed can when the pressure gets too strong. I hate those things. I hate them. And of course Viserys was always trying to drag me along when he’d fly up there to inspect the company property. Gotta parade the heir around. Gotta turn me into a real man somehow. I’d be doing lines in the helicopter the whole way there, trying to work up the nerve to step out onto the deck when we landed.” Aegon gives you a wry smirk, shadowy beneath the obstructed moonlight. “This was before Viserys gave up on me.”

“Aemond lost his eye on an oil rig?”

“Yeah,” Aegon says. “He was young, eight or nine, something like that. And he begged our father to take him with us. Can you believe that? I’m hiding under the dining room table and Aemond is clawing at Viserys’ feet, promising he can handle it. So Viserys says okay, fine, Aemond can come too. Mum and Criston didn’t want Aemond to go, Helaena didn’t like it, hell, even Otto thought it was too dangerous. But Viserys is God in the Targaryen family religion, so Aemond got to go to the North Sea.”

You’re watching Aegon, eyes wide, heart pounding, appalled. He was a little kid. He wasn’t even Cadi’s age. “Viserys didn’t protect him?”

“Oh yeah, at first he did. He was showing Aemond off to everyone—Look at my son! So brave, so clever!—and meanwhile I’m lying on the floor of the helicopter having a panic attack, I can’t stop thinking I’m about to go plummeting into the ocean, and Criston is kneeling beside me trying to strap an oxygen mask onto my face.” Aegon sighs, gazing at the yellow lines of Route 401. “And then Viserys got to chatting with some of the engineers and forgot all about Aemond. Aemond who? The middle son, the forgotten son, the runt, the backup plan. And Aemond started exploring, poking around in the wrong places, and he ended up watching some of the workers spinning chain, which is how they connect drill pipes together. A chain snapped. It hit Aemond in the face, fractured his skull, and basically liquified his eye upon impact. He was in a coma for two weeks. We all thought he was going to die. But he lived, and Viserys…that bastard was nowhere to be found while Aemond was lying half-dead in Moorfields Hospital. But the day Aemond woke up, you better believe our father waltzed into the room with balloons and Cadbury bars, gushing about how happy he was that Aemond was alright, how proud he was, how relieved. Within a month he was indifferent again. But Aemond’s been chasing that feeling ever since. Being wanted. Being seen.”

“Why do any of you do it?” you ask, nauseous with despair. “Why do you destroy yourselves for Viserys? Why do you listen to him, why don’t you leave?”

“I can’t leave,” Aegon says, stunned. “Do I look employable to you? I’d end up living in the woods with the paranoid schizophrenics.”

“But you’d be free.”

“I don’t want to be free,” Aegon replies. “Freedom? That scares the hell out of me. I don’t know who I am without my family. I don’t have the first fucking clue. I don’t want to be a Targaryen, but I am a Targaryen, you know? And there’s no going back. That’s my gravity. That’s everything I am. Trying to imagine a life without Aemond, Helaena, Daeron, Criston, Alicent, even Otto, even Viserys? I wouldn’t exist. I would blink out of existence like the Big Bang in reverse. They’re my bones, I’m just what grows around them. I’m a jellyfish, I’m a tangle of guts and arteries.”

You stare at Aegon as faint ribbons of moonlight stream in through the open windows, voice choked, tears falling onto Sunfyre’s sand-colored fur. “I don’t know how to help Aemond.”

“Yes you do.” Aegon smiles. “Give him what he wants.”

“I think he’s done with me now.”

“No, no way,” Aegon says. “What did he do, freak out and yell at you? Break things, tell you to fuck off? That happens sometimes. He doesn’t mean it. He’ll be back on your doorstep in a week.”

“He always has to have a girl. But that girl doesn’t have to be me.”

Aegon laughs, his blonde hair flying in the wind. “New girl, new rules. You ruined him.”

“What?”

Aegon grins. “He’s in love with you.”

You pet Sunfyre with one hand while you swipe tears from your cheeks with the other, sniffling, shaking your head. “I can’t be his mistress. It will kill me.” I want more than that. I want all of him.

“You’ll get used to it,” Aegon says encouragingly. “Criston did. Camilla did.”

“Please shut up about Camilla Parker Bowles.” You point as the mouth of your short gravel driveway comes into view. “That’s it. We’re here.”

Inside, the house is dark and quiet and cold; you were in such a rush to meet Willis and help Aemond find his ever-errant brother that you accidentally left the air conditioner on all day. You shut off the whirring machine in the kitchen window—Aemond put that there, he did it for me—and then turn on the little pink Panasonic boombox so it feels like someone else is here. Roxette’s Listen To Your Heart plucks mournfully from the speakers.

You draw yourself a bath, descend into the hot water, scrub Aemond off of you. The walls are adorned with no Van Gogh’s Starry Night, no stately portraits, no grandeur or glitter or marble or gold. They are only a pale, listless blue lined with thin cracks through the paint like the sinking house’s veins.

~~~~~~~~~~

Seven sunsets, six dusks, and then it is Friday all over again. You help Amir close up the bakery and then crawl into bed: head pounding, room spinning, that endless late-afternoon light of the summer flooding in through the window blinds. You unplug the phone on the nightstand and nestle into the pillows, hiding your face from the world. Cadi is fine, she’s blissfully playing her Nintendo and she knows there’s some of Amir’s leftover ribs and rice in the refrigerator. She doesn’t need you, and this will only become more true with each passing year. There was a time when you yearned for Cadi to become more independent. Now you’re beginning to see the horror in it, that bittersweetness that parents always talk about.

One day she’ll be gone. And she’ll get to choose whether she ever comes back.

No one has ever chosen you. It seems unwise to assume there will be exceptions to the rule.

You doze off for a while. There are distant noises you try to ignore: the kitchen phone ringing, the humming of the air conditioner, the drone of the microwave, the Super Mario Bros. theme. When you wake, it is because you hear the bedroom door creaking open. Through blinking, bleary eyes, you see Aemond’s silhouette in the doorway. You know it’s him; you would know even if he wasn’t wearing his familiar Marlboro jacket and red Converses and teal duffle bag slung over one shoulder. You would know him anywhere.

You say, unsure if you’re more angry or depressed: “I thought you were done.”

He ignores this. He has two eyes again, one real and one a lie, and this seems to be becoming a recurring theme in his life. “I called. Cadi said you were sick.”

“It’s just a headache. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you get them a lot?”

“Yeah.” When I’m stressed. When I’m sad.

There’s a palm on your forehead, cool and gentle, feeling for fever. “Have you taken anything for it?”

“Nothing ever works.”

You recoil from the thud of the duffle bag against the sloping wooden floor; every sound is too loud. You have your eyes pinched shut, but you can hear Aemond unzipping the bag and then opening some sort of container. “Try this,” he says, pushing a pill between your lips. “They knock out my nerve pain when it flares up.” Then he passes you the glass of sweet tea you left on your nightstand. You sit up to swallow the pill and collapse back onto the bed. The wildflower-patterned duvet covers you up to your chest. You moan softly, touching your fingertips to your temple.

There are small thumps as Aemond quietly kicks off his Converses, and then his weight settles onto the mattress. He waits to see if you’ll tell him to stop. You don’t. He folds around you, blood and bones and muscle and warmth. His lips brush against the shell of your ear. One of his hands interlaces with yours and settles on your waist. You inhale his smoke, his cologne, his strange intermittent tenderness. He murmurs: “I’m sorry I’m doing this to you.”

“I wish I could stop,” you answer through a thick fog.

“Stop what?”

“Wishing it was possible. Wishing we were different people.”

Aemond doesn’t reply. Perhaps there’s nothing more to say. Within minutes, you are unconscious again.

When your eyes flutter open—painless, glass-clear—the room is dark and you are alone. The flashing red numbers on your alarm clock read 10:14 p.m.

“What?!” you gasp, scrambling out of bed. You rarely nap, and never for that long.

You hurry to Cadi’s room, expecting to find her bored or irritated or prepared to launch a formal complaint. Instead, she and Aemond are sitting on the floor and watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; Ferris is currently singing Twist And Shout on top of a parade float. There are several Pizza Hut boxes scattered around them; Cadi is eating a slice of pepperoni and mushroom. She and Aemond are mid-conversation. She is asking him as you walk in: “Wow, so Bobbi was on the news and everything?”

“He sure was. But they made him sit in this glass box because the CBS Evening News staff were so scared of AIDS they wouldn’t go anywhere near him, not even to wire him up with a microphone.”

“That’s totally bogus.”

“Yeah. Yeah it is.”

“How old was he when he died?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Really?” Cadi says, alarmed. “Grownups can die that young?”

“Sure. It’s rare, but it happens.”

Cadi looks to where you stand in the doorway. “Mom, aren’t you like thirty?”

“Almost. I’m a few years away from it.”

“Still,” Cadi says; and you witness something unfold on her face that you can’t remember seeing since she was a toddler. She is shocked, she is afraid. Her eyes shimmer; she’s forgotten all about her pizza. Aemond is watching her, realizing he’s made her aware of something that didn’t exist in her mind before.

“Oh no, love, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Aemond tells Cadi, resting a hand on her tiny shoulder. “Bobbi Campbell had a very serious disease, he wasn’t your average person. Most grownups live a long time. Your mum is going to live to be a hundred, okay? Maybe even a hundred and ten. Maybe even a hundred and twenty. It depends on how many cupcakes she eats.”

“Okay,” Cadi says, somewhat pacified but still shaken up.

“Do you want any pizza?” Aemond asks you. “We got cheese, pepperoni and mushroom, and supreme.”

“No, I’m not really hungry, thanks though.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“I am. What did you give me?”

Aemond smiles. “Percocet.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “No wonder it worked so well.”

“I left a bottle with about ten pills in your bathroom cabinet. But don’t start liking it too much. You’ll end up like Aegon.” He staggers to his feet.

“You’re leaving?” Cadi asks, openly disappointed.

“It had to happen sooner or later. It’s long past your bedtime. And I don’t live here. You couldn’t pay me to either, not with that dinosaur that lives in your front yard. I’m in fear for my life every time I visit.”

“The gator wouldn’t hurt you,” Cadi objects. “She’s too small. She’s just a baby. Next time, can you bring Gremlins?”

“Sure. I think I’ve got that VHS. Daeron might have borrowed it.” Aemond gives Cadi’s hair an affectionate ruffle and she tolerates this, something you would not have believed was possible. “I’m going to go talk to your mum for a few minutes and then head out, alright?”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Cheers, love.” Then Aemond follows you to the kitchen.

You pour yourself a fresh glass of sweet tea as Aemond helps himself to a snickerdoodle cupcake from one of the cake plates on the kitchen table. He licks off the frosting as he gazes at you, and you try not to feel anything. “You didn’t have to stay.”

“I know. I wanted to.” His right eye flicks down to the copy of the Bayou Journal that lies on the counter. The headline proclaims: Early tests reveal increased salinity of Lake Verret; breach of underground salt dome is suspected. “I’m sorry about that,” Aemond says awkwardly.

“Sorry about what? Ruining our lake?”

“Well, it’s not ruined, technically. It’s just…salty.”

“Aemond, almost all of the fish are going to die.”

“Will the alligators die too?” he asks hopefully.

“No. They won’t.”

“Oh.” He takes an evasive bite of his cupcake then changes the subject. “Come to my house tomorrow. After Willis picks up Cadi.”

“We’ve had this conversation before.”

“Yes, and now we’re having it again.”

“I don’t think this situation is good for either of us,” you say, but with pitifully little conviction.

Aemond places his snickerdoodle cupcake on the counter and steps towards you. And for a moment you think he’s going to order you, to command you, and you know if he does you’ll obey. But that’s not what Aemond is doing. He cradles your face in his hands and kisses you deeply, unexpectedly, without any roughness to it. Then he touches his forehead to yours as he whispers: “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done that. I was wrong, I was wrong. I was fucked up. But I’m better now.”

“Why did you jump into the water for me?”

“Come over tomorrow,” he pleads again without answering you.

“Aemond…I don’t think I can.” I think this is destroying me. I think it’s flaying me alive, carving me away piece by piece.

“I don’t have to fuck you. I don’t even have to touch you. I just want you to be there.”

“Can I bring a friend?”

This catches Aemond off-guard. “Amir?”

“Have you not yet memorized my long, long, long list of friends?”

“Of course you can bring Amir,” Aemond says. “He’s always welcome. The only reason I haven’t invited Cadi is because Aegon leaves coke all over the house and I don’t think a kid should be exposed to that.”

“Yeah, I mean obviously I agree.”

Aemond kisses you again, a swift parting token, kind and weightless. “Bye, Cupcake. See you tomorrow.” He wolfs down the last of the snickerdoodle cupcake, grabs his teal duffle bag from the living room couch and is gone, the off-kilter front porch steps groaning under his Converses. You stand in the kitchen sipping your sweet tea for a while, listening to the air conditioner purring and the cicadas shrieking and the long-eared owl hooting as it swoops for prey. Then you begin pulling bowls and baking pans out of the cabinets.

Cadi appears, helps herself to a beignet, and turns on the little pink boombox on the kitchen counter. “Hey Mom, listen, it’s your favorite song!” She cranks up the volume: Heaven Is A Place On Earth.

You force a smile. “Yeah, it is.”

And you wait until Cadi dashes off to the bathroom to take her shower before you change the station.

~~~~~~~~~~

“What the…?” Amir squints at Sunfyre, who is floating by himself on a neon green inflatable raft in the middle of the swimming pool. “What the fuck is that? A Chernobyl hamster?”

You laugh. You’re wearing denim shorts and an unceremonious white t-shirt over your swimsuit, Kmart sneakers, hair assailed by wind and humidity, a tiny bouquet of wildflowers that Amir picked for you tucked into your back pocket. “It’s a ferret.”

“It’s a freak of nature. This is how you know the Bible isn’t real, why would Noah have let that mutant on the Ark?”

“Oh, my very favorite Napoleonville residents!” Alicent calls, beckoning you and Amir over to where she, Criston, and Daeron are gathered around a dark green beach towel littered with playing cards, gambling chips, strawberry daiquiris, and Marlboro cigarettes. Apparently, they run in the family. Alicent puffs anxiously on one, rings gleaming on her elegant fingers. “Come play with us. Do you have good poker faces?”

“I certainly hope so,” Amir replies as he pushes his tortoiseshell glasses up the bridge of his nose. He’s wearing swim trunks patterned with bright, multicolored geometric shapes. “I suspect we can’t afford to lose.”

“Can’t afford to lose,” Daeron’s blue macaw squawks from where she is perched on a nearby lounge chair, and Amir gapes at it, startled.

“Quiet, Tessarion,” Daeron soothes the bird.

“If you incur any debts, Aemond can pay them.” Alicent smiles warmly, then takes notice of the two white bakery boxes you’re carrying. “Have you brought us more of your scrumptiously authentic Southern desserts? I’ve been raving about them to all my friends back home in London. I ring them and they’re mesmerized by the notion of hummingbird cake and sweet tea. They’re even having their own kitchen staff try to replicate them.”

How antebellum. “It’s nothing too special. Just a blueberry custard pie. And some Cap’n Crunch Treats for Aegon.”

“Wonderful!” Alicent chimes. “Criston? You must get us plates and silverware immediately. We must sample this new delicacy straight away.”

Criston dutifully rises and disappears into the house they call The Last Desire. Helaena—with her chameleon Dreamfyre clinging to her shoulder—is absorbed in a conversation with Otto as they wade in the shallow end of the pool. Aegon has fallen asleep on a lounge chair and is snoring loudly; the boombox beside him is playing She Blinded Me With Science. Aegon is turning lobster red beneath the sun, but no one has bothered to wake him up. Before you can do it, Aemond walks through the French doors of the living room and out onto the cobblestones, wearing his black swim trunks. He beams when he sees you, then kicks Aegon’s chair as hard as he can.

“What?!” Aegon shouts as he jolts awake. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

“You fell asleep and you look like a Twizzler.”

“A chunky Twizzler,” Daeron adds.

“You want a palm reading?” Aegon asks. He grabs Aemond’s hand and flips it over. “It says you’re a bitch.”

“Aemond, phone for you,” Criston says as he breezes out of the house holding a stack of plates, forks, and knives. “I left it off the hook in the kitchen.”

“Thanks. Got it.” Then Aemond tells you: “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

When he vanishes, you and Amir join the poker game. Aegon splashes into the pool to grab Sunfyre, collects his bakery box of Cap’n Crunch Treats, and then pads into the house to presumably slather himself in Noxzema. Criston cuts everyone a slice of blueberry custard pie, which Alicent raves about. You can’t bear to have Criston inconvenienced once again to prepare daiquiris for you and Amir; before Alicent can think of it, you jog to the kitchen to grab two cans of Pepsi from the fridge. But just as you reach the doorway, Aemond’s voice stops you. It isn’t a phone call about the rigs or the stock market. It isn’t family, it isn’t friends.

“Yes, dearest,” Aemond is saying, and you peek into the kitchen to get a better look. He’s got the handset of a blue phone to his ear and is turned away from you. His back is straight and rigid; his voice is steady but dispassionate. “Right. I understand. Yes, completely. Don’t be ridiculous, of course I miss you. All the time. Yes, and we’ll discuss it then. I can’t wait either. I’ll see you soon. Yes, yes. And you as well. Cheers, darling.” There is a pause. “I love you too.”

Aemond hangs up the phone, sighs deeply, rubs his scarred forehead. You slip away before he knows you’re there.

[revolutionarypossum]

FANDOM PSA

Hi ! i'm an industry artist (animator storyboarder and background artist) And i'm here to tell you something :

In a time when AI users are constantly trying to pass as real artists, you're not and will never be The Asshole for asking an artist online to prove they're not using AI.

I've been asked that question myself. I'm not saying it made me feel good, but here's the thing : when you *don't* use IA, it's actually pretty easy to prove it. Even without a speed paint. And i'm not ever going to get mad at someone for asking me to, because I would WAY rather have people be too suspicious than them being easily duped into supporting lying, art-thieving assholes.

It's really easy for real artists to provide proof of their process by showing the different layers of their digital art pieces. (and for now AI-bros are still struggling to make their immitations of that convincing enough).

For exemple, here's my whole step-by-step process vs the final piece (done with photoshop 2022) :

here's another simpler sketch vs final render comparaison :

Of course it sucks that as artists we have to "prove" ourselves like that. But unfortunately in 2024 we can't trust ANYTHING we see on the internet. And it makes it our responsability to be extra critical with every image we encounter, even in fandom spaces where we're supposed to be relaxing. And trust me, I hate it. But the only other option is normalizing the use of AI in those internet spaces that are supposed to be havens of creativity and self-expression, and in my opinion it's way worse.

Reminder that (re)generative "art" is only possible through huge ammounts of art-theft, terrible for the environment, and lazy.

[zahri-melitor]

If you want to read comics and you want to test the waters:-

Yes, RCO and clones exist, everyone uses them, I do it weekly too for titles I cannot access any other way (The Warlord) but let me tell you, it’s not the only option, particularly if you want to read reasonably modern comics back issues rather than deliberately suppressed obscure stuff. Plus, don’t you want to look at comics without worrying about getting viruses?

Your Local Library: your library probably has comics as trade paperbacks, and inter library loan will have more. It’s not the most consistent way to find things, but you should definitely look them up, there’s probably something there you’d be interested in reading. Good for having multiple presses, and most take suggestions for their collections, which is a slow but free way to read titles with highly detailed art like Wonder Woman Historia in person.

Digital libraries: my local libraries have ComicsPlus subscriptions, which I can use for free. Now you won’t get DC or Marvel on them, but BOOM!, Dark Horse, Image, Oni Press, Papercutz? All options. A really helpful way to easily sample other presses.

Internet Archive Library: the IA is again going to have an eclectic collection and be difficult to search, but it’s there and it has a lot of stuff and you’re not going to be worrying about computer viruses.

DCUI: if you’re in US, UK, Canada, AU or NZ, you can get a DCUI account. There’s a free trial available of course, and if what you’re interested in trying was published more than 6 months ago, you don’t even need to shell out for Ultra. It costs me less than a Netflix subscription per month, even for Ultra. There’s also a small handful of comics you’ll be able to access for free without ANY subscription - essentially advertising for new runs etc.

MU: just like DCUI, only Marvel, and available more places. Also runs on a subscription model. MU also has the quirk that you can manage digital ownership of individual issues also through their app (if you buy Marvel floppies there is a mechanism to obtain a legal digital copy within ~6 months of the publication date)

Local Comics Shops: you can also…buy floppies and trade paperbacks for yourself. If you really love a story and it’s out in trade, I highly recommend buying it for yourself to have forever. It just sidesteps so many future problems. An LCS is also more likely to have a back catalogue of titles available - if you’re looking for a trade published 8 years ago, they might have it while an ordinary bookshop won’t. If you’re less certain, events like Free Comic Book Day and Batman Day are largely a marketing exercise more than new original material these days, but they’re also a good way to get to handle and own actual comic books if you’ve never done that before.

Other bookshops: if you don’t have a local bookshop with a specialist comics and manga collection (I do) it’s going to be a bit like trying to find comics at your local library: you’ll see lots of stuff with Batman and Joker in the title, and a random selection of anything else. Sometimes you can get surprisingly good deals from them as collectors are less likely to use them to get titles.

Overstock/Remainder Sellers: always worth a look, particularly if you’re trying to pick up titles printed several years ago. My local one has found some absolute gems for me, at a significant discount (I have picked up parts of Dixon’s Nightwing run, Bennett’s Batwoman run, Rowell’s Runaways, some Wonder Woman trades from Rucka and Perez, Gotham Central, I just managed to get the second n52 Blue Beetle trade…)

EBay/second hand shops/Abebooks/Biblio: a decent way to measure what the actual value of a comic title is on the second hand market. Sometimes you can find that the market value is far lower than you expected (Cassie’s Wonder Girl series is remarkably affordable). In other occasions you realise DC is leaving a LOT of money on the table by not reprinting (look up Red Robin trade prices and weep).

Friends: do you know anyone else who likes comics? They may already own stuff they can loan to you! (Once I lent out my Birds of Prey collection to a friend and he returned it with the first two n52 titles added. Still unsure if that was meant to be a kindness or just letting me store them)