#it's one of those pictures where I like separate elements of it but the whole image somehow doesn't work for me??

[chaoskirin]

What AI Art is NOT

I keep seeing people refuting points from REAL ACTUAL ARTISTS using these talking points. So here’s a sort of FAQ of what I’ve seen.

Q: Isn’t AI Art is just a tool?

A: Tools include grids, perspective lines, rulers, apps like Sketch Up which place assets that are pre-designed and cannot be altered, et cetera. Tools are NOT: apps that draw the whole picture for you. If AI datasets were tools, then artists would also be tools. Artists aren’t tools. 

Q: AI Art isn’t stealing art. It’s just like a collage. 

A: I really want you to think about what a collage is versus the kind of art an AI dataset spits out. Are those things the same? Collages are derivative and generally fall under parody law, so long as the person creating them isn’t taking credit for the parts of the collage they didn’t photograph or draw. You cannot sell a collage of other peoples’ work without express written permission from those people. The elements of a collage are each separate and identifiable as such.

AI art is not a collage. The elements of an AI art piece are not separate and identifiable. They are combined into one single piece, where each piece cannot specifically be traced. AI art does not fit the definition of a derivative or parody work. 

Q: If someone puts their art on the internet, it’s fair game. 

A: Copyright law specifically disagrees with you on this point. 

Q: If it’s not a collage and one can’t see the pieces of the art, doesn’t that make it an original work, and therefore, it’s not theft? 

A: AI isn’t generating a new image. It’s taking pieces from many originals and “claiming” to make a new original piece. However, AI cannot generate these things without knowing what they are (IE skimming tags and allowing users to tell the AI what’s in the picture) Without the input of original artists, an AI would not be able to create anything, which is why most datasets include millions of pieces of art “scraped” (AKA stolen) from the internet. Currently, these pieces AI makes are being sold, and the owners of the datasets are charging for their use. This means that people who did not actually create the art are being paid, whereas the original artists are not. 

Q: AI art can’t replace real artists. You’re fearmongering. 

A: AI art has already replaced real artists. Shortly after Kim Jung Ji died, someone fed all his artwork into a dataset and “created” several new pieces that were almost identical to his style. Cosmopolitan magazine released a cover “drawn” by an AI and blatantly stated on the cover “and it only took 20 seconds to make.” A magazine article in The Atlantic used AI art to generate a photo of Alex Jones surrounded by papers. Someone submitted AI generated art to an art contest and won. Several anecdotal stories (not verified, but reliable) on Twitter state that small companies have fired their graphic designers or cut their work force. Commissioned artists have reported dropping sales numbers. 

Corporations (and most people) will ALWAYS favor a cheaper option. If it’s good enough, it’s usable. The Cosmo magazine cover and the article header image were TERRIBLE, and they still went to print. Everyone should know by now that corporations will ALWAYS screw people over when they’re able to. If AI art becomes acceptable and commonplace, in-house artists will be replaced. This isn’t theoretical. It is already happening. 

Q: It’s going to happen anyway. You can either embrace it or reject it. (Yes, this is real. Someone actually said this to me.) 

A: Yes... Exactly. I’m rejecting it. Without laws to protect artists, I will fight AI art whenever and wherever I can. It might be fun and convenient for you, a non-artist, but it is terrifying and heartbreaking for artists. Websites like Deviantart and Clip Studio Paint who said “well it’s going to happen anyway” should have been the first line of defense against the creep of AI art, but they failed. It can only take over if people let it. Stop letting it.

[el-moscorrofio-y-el-mercachifle]

Besides my obvious annoyance with the new season because of the horrible character understanding from the writers and their ADMITTED goal to change Gaitán's ending, there are other aggravating issues with it:

1. The pacing:

This new novela knows it's in a rush, but we can tell, too. The first episode seems to attack the viewer with so many different new facts and characters and issues. It straight up starts with: Roberto's funeral, Armando and Betty separated and having been so for years now, Armando's presidency in the gutter again, lots of economic issues within the company again, Mila gone for years and her distance with Betty, a new guy that Marcela is suspiciously protective of and planning together to get revenge, Daniel being dead for going to jail from illegal business practices, etc. And all of this in the span of 1 episode. It just hits you with so much that it doesn't even give you the chance to get to know the characters. We haven't seen most of them in over twenty years, and some of them never, so we basically don't know them anymore! It's going so direclty and straight to the point that it feels more like a badly written fanfiction.

2. Lack of builup for tension

Jesus, there is very, very little tension here for the big things that matter. [SPOILER] In one episode we find out that Ecomoda is in bad shape, and just a few ones later, Armando is turning himself in. We don't see him slowly driving himself insane with his moral dilemma, we don't see him desperately trying everything to fix it, we don't even see him turning himself in! Just one episode ends with him saying he was turning himself in, and the next one starts with Armando's mugshot. That's it. No tension at all

3. Bad editing

One of the things that I loved about the old novela were their transitions. The first episodes were amazing with this: while Betty was looking at the magazine of the collection launch and giving her opinions and commentary, we were seeing the pictures of it and then we're taken to the moment the picture was taken. While Gutierrez, Armando and Roberto are talking about Betty and why Gutierrez discarded her, Roberto asks "why would a candidate so well prepared and qualified only want to be a secretary?" And then we see Betty going "because I'm tired of looking for a job!"

Those kind of transitions were incredible, I loved them so much. Now in this new series it just cuts abruptly to something totally different.

4. Inappropriate setting

They really, really tried to make everything seem so modern, and in their effort, they ended up making it so plastic and fake. The office doesn't look like an office at all, but rather a gallery or the lobby of an exotic hotel. The desks almost seem out of place. Sure, it's a fashion business, but it's just so fake looking. Most offices, even modern ones, still look like offices. This one just doesn't feel like it, and that really takes me out of the story.

Finally, and just as a little pet peeve that, objectively, idek if it should count but I'll include nonetheless because I'll forget to make a separete post about it: the robot and the hacking. It's just so cringy and cheap. Are robots like that even in the market fr? AI robots that follow you around and are in the shape of a sewing mannequin? And the whole hacking thing... ugh. As I said it's a personal pet peeve but I always find it cringy when they make these super high-tech knowing characters that can hack on everything and we see on the screen the codes and all of that. I found both of these elements so tacky and unnecessary lmao why not just hide cameras?? Nooo, let's make Daniel wannabe a finance and hacking genius lmao ((this part isn't part of the list I just wanted to vent because my hubby and I died of cringe watching one episode last night where Mila's AI Moving Robot Sewing Mannequin told her someone was hacking into the cameras and Ignacio is cyber-fighting to hide and we see a split screen of him and another of what he's seeing through the cameras and eventually he just closes the lid lmao)) ((anyway little rant over sorry))

[windvexer]

"And it's not like the spell is locked behind a glass wall in some faraway astral space (or at least, it shouldn't be... it can be. This is too much for one post, let's stay on topic)" oh please, please elaborate! 🙏

its all well and good for me to use a metaphor that magic is ever-present and really close at hand, nigh tangible, even,

but there's obviously more than that to successful manifestation.

like it's an actual large deal in practical sorcery of how the hell you get the spell to do something, or much more relevantly do what you want it to do.

so a while ago I used to talk on manifestation using a metaphor that there is a conceptual sphere of glass that separates physical reality from magical reality.

as the metaphor (analogy?) would have it, you can set intent and focus willpower and manipulate astral energies all you want, but those things are stuck in magical reality, blocked from manifesting in the physical world by the glass.

so the spell, obviously it's a good boy and it wants to be helpful, it's going around and around the glass looking for a crack or a foothold to find its way into physical reality.

but this spell is made out of a finite blob of energy. sooner or later, the battery is going to run dry. and all that time it's spending trying to get into our world is burning energy.

by the time it gets here, it could have burned a lot of energy and it doesn't have a lot left to produce strong results. or maybe it doesn't find its way at all.

if this is all true, then the solution is to make cracks in the glass yourself.

overall it's a pretty rough analogy and I'm not even terribly sure if I'd consider it to be more than a parable at this point.

to mash this idea together with the underwater shark thing, the concept would sort of be like...

okay, so let's say metaphorically half of a person is above water and the rest is underwater.

and we're where there are sharks, which means the WHOLE OCEAN is under there.

maybe the ocean is an elegant metaphor for the supreme depths of magical reality. certain layers of magical reality are very close to the surface and truly are interacting with the floating humans, right?

but we can go deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

it wouldn't be true to say that a fish from a mile down is touching the floating humans. it's actually really far away and has a long way to travel before it could touch them at all.

so hypothetically, while all humans are (hypothetically) always partially within magical reality, that doesn't mean that everything within magical reality is close to them or can easily access them.

and this would also be true of spells, when the sorcerer has inadequately developed the spell too far down (or too far up), or failed to properly draw the spell to the surface.

of course, all of these ideas assume it's true that when spells are created they exist somewhere far away, or in any location at all.

just to clarify I think all of these ideas are most useful when treated as thought exercises and not in any sense literal. I think its perhaps true of witchcraft, or at least the kinds of witchcraft I'm familiar with, that one of the witch's primary sorcerous (and mystical) jobs is to "bridge the gap" and learn how to bring things back and forth between our world and the spirit world.

but even that being said, I think there's an element of mysticism in sorcerous witchcraft. I think maybe the best way to talk about it is in stories, or extended spatial analogies, because that's just about the truest way some of it can ever be written down.

sometimes I feel like if anyone can really write it down, like step-for-step for real, then it's got to be one tiny part of it. because it's a big machine out there, you know. it's so decadently complex that it might be more alive than we are.

so it's good to know how one or two cells work, step-for-step. but in the bigger picture, maybe the best way to impart knowledge is in stories and poetry.

and with some step-for-step details of the biology of a few kinds of cells, and with some nice poetry, maybe a person can crest a cliff and see something that will put its own stories inside of their mind forever.

which is to say that I don't know how magic works but i've seen some nice landscapes out there ✌

[lemon-sugarcoats-nothing]

How do you decide what to draw, and when it's done?

Text: "This is a great question! I usually "wing it" when it comes to deciding when my drawing is done. (More below)" "Finding ideas...? It kind of depends! Sometimes I'll get a strong picture form in my head while I'm doing something else. Other times I just sit and draw whatever."

Now to elaborate on my process for deciding when to stop, how far to go with shading, etc. Most of it has to do with how I feel about drawing something, but also to do with keeping things visually appealing. Here I've laid out each general step of my drawing process from start to finish:

1. Sketch, Meant to be quick and generally convey the subject. I will sometimes draw and post things just as cleaned up sketches if just adding visuals to a text post, for shit-posting, or just if I'm not too interested in what I'm drawing.

2. Line art, I almost never post *just* line art, but i will occasionally post line art with one color to fill in the silhouette to help with contrast and character recognizability.

3. Flat color, I often post ask responses at this stage (maybe with simple hard-edged shadows here or there), but outside of ask responses I only leave character reference art at this stage just because the colors are purest for the character. I don't usually leave it without simple shading because it can be hard to read the subject's form, and its not my cup of tea. I lightly airbrush a warm color over the line art so that the harsh black doesn't contrast too much with the bright colors.

4. Shaded, a step up from simple hard edge shading I'll layer more than one shading color (layer set to multiply and lowered opacity) and blend out the edges in some places to soften the form. Then I add lighting and highlights - first using a textured soft airbrush over a large area, then use a round airbrush with hard edges for the highlights, blending out the edges in some areas to soften the form. This is usually where i stop for simpler character pieces, either for ask responses or for personal art. (Highlight layers are set to "add-glow")

5. Atmosphere, or adding additional shading elements to engage the subject with an environment or specific lighting condition. Here I've done a sunset lighting condition - I put a purple color over the whole subject set to multiply and opacity lowered, then airbrushed a reddish orange tone (on a separate layer, set to add-glow and opacity lowered) over the highlighted areas to bring warmth back to the lit spots. Then deepened the shadows using the hard edge airbrush again, a dark blue color (multiply layer, lower opacity), and then blending some of the edges out to show the form better. This is where I'll merge the line-art layer with what i now have of the coloring and shading, if i didn't already do so prior. Last I went back over the highlights with the orangey color (add glow, lower opacity). Once I get to rendering like this, I don't often stop here because by this point I'm likely hyper fixated and will keep pushing the values and adding details until I get to 6.

6. Details and bounce light. I texture-airbrushed a blue bounce light color, erased some hard edges in using that hard edged airbrush and then blending some of the edges out. This then gave me a guide to add in bounce-highlights with a hard pen, that i blended out in some places. I then further pushed the main highlights using a hard pen and again, blended out the edges. All layers set to add glow and opacity lowered. This is where I'll usually stop for finished rendered pieces, because I struggle to find other things to add or change, and the hyperfixation is thinning out and caving into my hunger/sleepiness. Might add hard white highlight details, but those are the finishing touches.

7. Wtf details. Added in hair strand details and fly-aways, blades of grass, I'm up way too late and struggling to end the drawing process - Or im just enjoying rendering the hair. I almost never add in stray hairs like this, but it's something i enjoy visually.

Again, a lot of where I stop comes down to my energy, time, and the vibes I'm going for. Hope this answers your question!

[dizzyisdizzy]

How do you usually pick your color palettes? I love how vibrant your drawings are without been intense to the eyes

I went over a couple things in a previous ask. So I’ll include some different ones this time.

A big part is just having an archive of 'things' in your head that develops your intuition when choosing colors. Not necessarily other illustrations/characters, but also logos, buildings, irl stuff? They all give you not just color palette ideas, but also color distribution. You can simplify both trees and bushes as green/brown, but if you picture their colors in abstract, the distribution of each differs. And that helps a lot in recognizing areas where your colors seem lacking, or areas where they *should* be lacking (and thus not attention-grabbing).

In general though I look at a char and decide on a 'main idea'; usually a 2-3 color scheme based off the original design that everything needs to revolve around. Pink/Blues, Green/Orange, Black/Red, etc.

From there my first pass at colors is splitting the piece into different elements (hair, clothes, skin) and giving them a high-max brightness base color with arbitrary saturation, and the lineart a notably higher saturation (and maybe darker) version of the base, usually hue shifted a bit to the left or right (Note this often won't be enough).

Some elements won't fit cleanly in the 2-3 color palette, or would blend in too much with the surroundings (especially with stuff like accessories or clothing patterns). In those cases I mess with the saturation, or use one of the other hues I've limited myself to in order to make it pop out more (outlining the object or giving it a shadow with the opposing color, coloring the lineart surround it, removing the lineart, etc).

Basic shadow colors is usually higher saturated and hue shifted versions of the base color.

The limited pallette creates situations where I'll use pink to act as highlights on Miku's blue hair. Or the pink is used to create extra hair strands for more volume. Limitations force creativity kinda deal.

Trial and Error 🙃. Get used to putting sets of shadings on separate layers so you can lock transparency and change the whole color at once. Same for having a dozen layers clipped to the lineart. Clip has a 'take me to layer this is on' button under Operations that's quite nice for this.

Choose a base level of brightness (usually max for me) and don't deviate too much. Brightness is a powerful part in how your art 'reads' so making something notable darker/brighter than the rest should be a deliberate decision that you make several other choices around. On that note, when I do make something dark, I make sure the lineart around it feels bright and saturated against it.

A buddy told me this trick where you have a layer of pure black on top of everything else. Have the layer setting to "Color" and it gives you an alright idea of how well your brightness reads.

Ok I wrote a lot.

[notasapleasure]

Oh I realized I forgot to ask about Jerott/Marthe plans (I think I’ve seen what you’ve written but I’d love to hear abt the other ideas too!) and “AU of an AU” bc I wanna know how the townhouse stay goes!

I'll answer Au of an au separately :')

Ik I must have mentioned this a million times, but it always bears repeating :') the whole ethos of band AU Jerott/Marthe is summarised by the song Precious Things by Tori Amos:

So I ran faster But it caught me here Yes, my loyalties turned Like my ankle In the seventh grade Running after Billy Running after the rain

These precious things Let them bleed Let them wash away These precious things Let them break Their hold on me

He said "you're really an ugly girl But I like the way you play" And I died, but I thanked him Can you believe that? Sick, sick, holding on to his picture Dressing up every day I wanna smash the faces Of those beautiful boys Those Christian boys So, you can make me cum That doesn't make you Jesus

These precious things Let them bleed Let them wash away These precious things Let them break Their hold on me

I remember, yes In my peach party dress No one dared No one cared to tell me Where the pretty girls are Those demigods With their nine-inch nails And little fascist panties Tucked inside the heart Of every nice girl

These precious things Let them bleed Let them wash away These precious things Let them break Let them wash away These, these precious things Let them bleed, now Let them wash away These, these precious things Let them break Their hold on me

--

I also actually made a band AU playlist for them ages and ages ago, but some of those songs have since been repurposed to other characters' playlists and I think I'd rework it quite heavily now. Still, gives an idea of the vibes.

More answer and fic below the cut

Marthe gets saddled with minding Jerott while he finishes up his stint in rehab (Anemone on Ao3). She doesn't let on what she knows of where Francis has gone - nor who he's gone with - and Jerott's probably surprisingly tolerable while he's sober and chastened after all the drama of the road trip etc. They get to jamming together and do a few shows for pocket money, and probably bond over some obscure artists and songs they didn't think anyone else knew about/thought were cool in that day and age (mutual love of Nature Boy ftw haha yes I am aware of what I did there: 'the greatest thing you'll ever learn / is just to love / and be loved / in return').

Marthe, cynical about her chances of a solo career in the wake of Kiaya's departure, sees in Jerott a competant musician who she might bend to play her kind of music, to allow her to kind of ride on-his-coattails into the charts/European market (grudgingly admitting the need for a Man in the music industry, thanks for the 'lesson', Kiaya), from where she might find her own niche. They do have chemistry on stage at this point, playing covers together and challenging each other to play better than the other. I think that leads her to a moment of vulnerability where she makes a last gasp effort to convince herself she's bi, when it's really just that competence is a draw no matter who they are. But Jerott's still sober and he's so excited she's willing to tolerate him (oh thank god!! I was attracted to her and not Francis after all!!) that he's well behaved and keeps his mouth shut when told to (see excerpt below). He is also, as we have discussed, A Good Sex Haver, or at least is very much the kind of guy who gets off on giving good head (it's MY au and I'll do what I want to make elements of their marriage less grim ok??), so even if Marthe's not keen on piv she can live with the situation.

The marriage is something they both claim to go into with eyes wide open - knowing it suits her to have access to European residency (I am not looking up citizenship law for this ask, but Jerott probably has dual French/British if that's possible at the time) and knowing that he's obsessed with her(/Francis) while she's kind of indifferent/tolerating him. But of course he believes she'll come to love him anyway, and he believes he doesn't love Francis, and she believes he'll stay sober and meek and won't mind being teased about Francis when it's obvious that's who he'd rather be with.

They do some touring and it starts well - Fleetwood Mac energy, bouncing from love to hate depending on the kind of day they've had. They get a pretty good record contract, but they absolutely blow the recording of it. They have to *live* together for the first time, not on tour, but in a place near the studio, confined and at each other's throats. He starts drinking again. She won't compromise musically. It's a total flop - the lyrics are called outdated and garbled, the music is overproduced, stifled and jars from one track to the next. They play a few live shows where some of the tracks come into their own a bit, but the reviews put such a strain on them they pull their tour and fuck off to Europe, like living together in Jerott's ancestral homelands and sorting through Marthe's grandma's junk is somehow going to improve things.

So that's when things start to come apart, even though they're ostensibly working on a second record together they're not touring and they're working from a home studio, so their world is quite limited and Marthe branches out and finds French friends while Jerott obsessively follows the music news and write great long epistles to Francis.

In terms of the fic I mentioned, the idea was trying to write the highs (well, moderate peaks) and lows of their relationship through sex. I never got very far with the first one (below) but the idea was that 1) leaves Marthe mildly impressed, 2) a bit uncertain of how this might evolve, but still happy enough, 3) he says 'Francis' when he comes, but he's sober and just very tired so she elects to ignore it for now, 4) starting to get bored with this, the tour is tiiiring, 5) studio life doesn't suit them, he's not sober, and when he says 'Francis' this time she's absolutely calling him on it.

I did still intend to write a version of this fic set between the Baron Morgan/Aga Morat stuff and Checkmate, but I only wrote one scene between them, which you've read :)

Others haven't though! So I'll post it beneath the excerpt from the unfinished bit. It makes reference to her suspicion that it's only a matter of time before he calls her 'Francis' and alludes to a less-than-happy occasion on which GRM pulled his hair, not like he's ready to talk about that with Marthe...uh...ever? I imagined it set sometime during their tour, before they get bogged down trying to record their album. It's more them, I think - Marthe eternally shadowed by a kind of self-loathing and resentment of Jerott that's never going to go away.

--

Draft 1

She's pleasantly surprised pre-wedding

No, that won't work, but keep doing it if you have to

He says 'Francis' when he shouldn't

So you can make me come it doesn't make you Jesus

She calls him out on saying Francis, he clearly had no idea he'd said it

1.

By the end of the encore, laughing and waving into what seemed a physical wall of noise, Jerott knew he had never been happier in his life. The crowd wasn't the biggest he had played to, the set had been rough and ready, but there was a spark on that stage that even Marthe could no longer deny. She stepped up to stand by his side and raise her own arms, and she smiled across at Jerott: a small, wry little thing, but a smile that contained genuine pride.

In the motel corridor, Jerott stopped at her shoulder, each of them facing opposite directions. She looked at him from the corner of her eye, her long, white neck held tall and straight, her smile something that even now she fought, but that made her cornflower blue eyes sparkle.

"That was pretty good, right?" He offered his most bashful, winning grin in return, lowering his chin and gaze.

Marthe snorted. "Yeah," she admitted though. "Yeah it was. You can play, I'll give you that."

He raised his brows and tried not to laugh or blush - he knew he could play, he'd never needed to hear it from her. But she was looking at him still, in a strange and calculating manner that made him feel weighted to the spot. Her eyes narrowed, sweat-smudged kohl hemming in their vibrant colour, and she bit her lip.

He didn't notice her hand move until it began to slide around his, neat and warm, her fingers following the sensitive contours of his palm.

Jerott sucked in a breath and his hand tightened reflexively on hers. At the pressure, Marthe's expression flickered, the corners of her mouth moving with something tight and resigned and her nostrils flaring. But she didn't try to withdraw.

She said nothing, and he saw blooms of colour, like peonies, cover the pale skin of her chest and throat. Her pulse flickered in the pronounced v of tendons between her collarbones and Jerott ached to press his mouth to it and feel her life, separate and strange beneath his lips.

Marthe tugged his hand until he took a step sideways, and the lengths of their arms were aligned: his bare brown skin against her rumpled shirt and white skin, long black hairs mingling with the fine blonde ones covering her forearm. Her face was only inches from his. It was smooth as polished marble, distinguished here and there by traces of the complexities of her existence: fine echoes of all her frowns and smiles in the lines that could not be seen when he stood back. And he had never known her eyes so wide, her mouth part with such softness.

Jerott felt his heart jolt at the expression on her face. He had imagined it so many times, in so many places, and it could never have compared to the way she looked now: sultry and confident, gently, wryly amused, and - finally - interested in what she saw in return?

"You think I can play?" He murmured, leaning into her gravity, his smile smooth and his eyes steady.

She grinned, but it made the hairs on his arms stand on end: a sense of danger gathering. "Don't," Marthe said, her voice crisp and firm.

He raised his eyebrows and broadened his sweetest smile. With an unsteady breath he lowered his face still closer to hers.

Marthe snorted, blue fire dancing in her eyes, the dimples in her cheeks sinking deeper. "I said don't!" She repeated, but her grin crept into her voice. "Don't pull that smooth shit with me, you got your compliment."

Jerott laughed silently and looked down, his eyes hovering on her lips as he contemplated saying another foolish thing.

She must have seen the idiocy on the tip of his tongue and pre-empted it: "Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up," she raked the last syllable over her vocal chords, drawling , chuckling, edging nearer herself until her nose brushed against his. Her mascara-coated lashes lowered until the last moment.

Jerott met her eyes as their lips touched: blue like an open sky, blue like denim and fresh water. Her mouth was soft and hot, closed over his own parched mouth as she tested the feel of him, her open eyes seeking out the response she elicited.

He tried to hold her stare, but her lips moved against his, her teeth met his lower lip with gentle, teasing pressure, and he gasped and his eyes fell shut. His free hand came up to her shoulder, which was warm beneath the shirt she had shrugged on over her sweat-dark tank top, the perfect fit against his palm.

--

Draft 2

He'd proven himself, to Marthe's great surprise, an enthusiastic and generous lover. No inheritor to Gaultier's bored, unimaginative humping was Jerott Blyth; he'd go down on her at the drop of a hat, and he'd do it well; backstage, back alleys, motel rooms - wherever he could get his hands on her while they were both still buzzing with the adrenaline of the set they'd played.

Marthe wasn't sure if it made it easier or harder when he was above her in a motel bed then, taking what he assumed would be given freely in exchange for his own efforts. She did try, for the first few times, to work out if she might like it when it was a handsome young man between her legs instead of her dry, detached professor. But though she entertained the idea of being someone, something else, it wasn't long before she knew it just wasn't for her - neither in the sense of something given, nor in the sense of appealing to her tastes.

But he wasn't Gaultier, she wasn't his pet, and he could play. Their sets were electric, furious, wild in a way Marthe had never had the freedom to be publicly before. And afterwards he wanted to - and could - make her cum like no one she'd met since the girlfriend she'd had back in halls, and after that she was able to simply lie there and wait for him to finish without even feeling much of anything.

Gaultier had developed a habit of working on his compositions while he fucked her - eyes closed, mentally picturing the stave as he hummed and muttered notes to himself. Jerott, on the other hand, was gentleman enough to admire her with his eyes, his hands, his tongue. To never forget a condom the way Gaulter had from time to time – because he could, too. Above all, he was very eager to tell her she was beautiful.

Marthe didn't need to be told that. But it was better than being used as a dissociative tool for someone's artistic process.

It seemed kinder, then, to maintain an air of curiosity, of interest. In order to do so, she made a bet with herself - with the money she was earning from this tour, she'd buy herself a new guitar if he slipped and called her Francis while deep in the throes. If he didn't, she'd do something sensible with the money. Put it in savings or something.

Maybe she was thinking of the guitar when, one night in Seattle, she sat up to take the foil packet from his hands and open it herself. He looked at her searchingly, dark eyes she found difficult to read scanning her expression for ulterior motives.

Marthe tossed the loose tendrils of her tied-back hair over her shoulder and tore the packet open with her teeth, aware of the weight of his stare, aware of his breath coming more heavily.

She rolled the condom on, thinking abstractedly of community sex ed workshops on the college lawn. For good measure, she gave his cock a couple of firm strokes, and he gasped, his brows raising.

Ok, that's plenty, Marthe sat back with an expression she imagined was closer to being a seductive smile than a grimace. She didn't want him to think she was going to do...that, every time.

Perhaps she was overthinking things, overestimating what he'd notice and what he'd expect. Jerott wasn't that complicated, after all - he reached for her and kissed her like there was only one thought on his mind, and Marthe let herself be brought close, kissed him back with the same sloppy urgency.

Then, impulsively, she moved closer still, lifting one leg and shifting to straddle him where he sat on the edge of the bed - he made a sound in the kiss that Marthe took to be surprise and pleasure, and she ground her hips against him, her body still wet from his tongue, from her own orgasm, slick against the rubber he wore.

Jerott moaned and Marthe gritted her teeth. She pushed him back to the mattress and lowered herself onto him, her eyes closed, her mind on the wares for sale at Eve's Garden. She had him half on the bed and half off, his lower legs dangling over the side, unable to brace himself easily against the floor - it gave her near total control of the rhythm, and she batted him back down again if he tried to sit up.

He didn't take much convincing, though he remained propped on his elbows for a time, gawping up at her. She could sense him watching, and cracked open her eyes to wince at his expression of ragged, lascivious desire - mouth loose and open, eyelids heavy, gaze blank. Marthe screwed her eyes shut again and sank herself as low as she could, upping the pace of her rolling hips.

Jerott at last admitted defeat, lay back and made a strangled sound of ecstasy, holding onto her thighs just above each knee with bruising strength in his hands.

She'd never done this with Gaultier - he didn't believe in a woman being on top, and besides, if she'd broken his hip or something, he wouldn't have hesitated to claim the medical bills on her insurance.

But there was, she found, far more pleasure to be had this way. There were no hot, grasping fingers or lips on her breasts, there was no sandpapery, rough cheek rubbing on the skin of her neck. She could keep her eyes closed and imagine herself wherever she needed to be to get off.

She began to believe that she might do so here, as well. She wielded her body with less deliberation, working herself to a sweat as she bucked her hips, her hands resting on the tops of her thighs, feeling her breasts swing heavily, the small, natural garland of fat on her belly and her flanks jogging with her movements. The bed and mattress shrieked and rattled beneath her, the sound like a crowd going wild for an encore.

Jerott let out a cry and Marthe was almost embarrassed to hear herself answer it, feeling fire crawl its way up inside her, flickering and crackling like a broken bulb at the edge of her vision.

Fearful he wouldn't last as long as she needed, she let herself lean forwards, one hand a fist, bracing herself against his chest, the other taking hold of a bunch of his black hair for good measure, fingers tangling against his sweaty scalp. She adjusted the angle of her hips accordingly and bit her lower lip, trying to keep her momentum going.

Beneath her, Jerott's body flinched.

"Fuck...!" he groaned. He gripped the wrist of the hand that was knotted in his hair but found that tugging it only tightened Marthe's hold. His other hand flailed for the bed clothes, grabbing at the sheets and relieving the pressure on Marthe's thigh so she could really move how she wanted to.

He didn't complain about her grip. On the contrary, his eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed with concentration. "Oh, god..." he said hoarsely as his head rolled on the covers.

It was never quite enough though - she didn't get further than eternally close before his body bucked beneath hers with a grunt. The way he craned his neck and turned his head against the mattress pulled her forward, jerked by the hand tangled in his hair, and her own concentration was lost as he came.

"Shit," Marthe barked breathlessly.

She tugged her hand free, noting that Jerott's hold was now on her hips, his thumbs softly caressing her skin, encouraging her own gentle rocking motion to continue as he finished, wringing every last drop of satisfaction out.

Marthe swept his hands away, rolled off him without preamble and sat beside his prone form with a sour taste rising to her tongue. Disappointment - she knew the flavour well. Stupid, to let herself get involved like that, to try and take something for herself. That wasn't what this was about.

It was about her career. Wasn't it always?

Marthe sighed and massaged her brow. Her grandmother would want to know when she was moving to Europe, when she was going to find a market she could really sell to. When she was going to make something of herself - or, failing that, make Francis Crawford make something of her. Whatever they really were to each other.

Her grandmother would have a great many questions when the tour finally came to an end in New York, but one thing Marthe's grandmother would be certain of was that the man currently lying next to her was second-best - and Marthe's grandmother would therefore judge him perfectly adequate to his task.

Jerott lay still for a moment beside her and then raised a hand and rubbed at the top of his sternum, at his throat like he had a pain there. He let out a cough and frowned at the ceiling, then sat up and slipped away to the ensuite.

Usually, when they were in the motel room, he couldn't wait to wrap his arms around her afterwards, to pin her close in his hold - where Marthe felt like a small bird gripped in a fist. He'd fall asleep and she'd lie there, smelling his tobacco, his whiskey, waiting until he was heavy and snoring and she could squirm free to lie comfortably on the other side of the bed.

Tonight though, he lingered in the bathroom, and Marthe felt chilled and exposed as she realised that, for once, she would quite like to have been held in his warm arms. It might have made her feel a little less silly about the whole relationship, just to follow through with the act a bit longer today. But he didn't seem in any hurry to come back to her. She lay naked on the rumpled bedsheets while he ran faucets and clattered about with mouthwash and water glasses.

Her head propped on one hand, the remote lying in front of her, Marthe glared at the tiny TV screen in the corner of the room and stabbed buttons on the remote with one-fingered vindictiveness. That was it, she'd decided. Penetrative sex had to be the worst joke ever told to womankind. She wouldn't bother getting her hopes up again about it.

Click.

Porcupines fucking on a nature documentary. Marthe accepted the funny side of it, and snorted.

Click.

Some lowest common denominator sitcom where the overworked woman was chewing out her lazy husband.

Click.

Teleshopping.

Click.

Pizza ad. Her stomach growled. Maybe she was being unfair. Maybe she was just hungry - she hadn't eaten since before soundcheck.

Click.

A familiar shade of rose pink caught her eye as the channels flickered, and she stopped her assault on the remote to frown at the screen.

"With revelations emerging about Rajneeshpuram daily, it's looking more and more like Graham Reid Malett's activities were standard across all the cult's sites."

It was a report into illegal activities at the main ashram in Oregon, but showed footage of the man who had styled himself Geetesh in custody and on trial for crimes committed at his own Nevada ashram. Marthe watched with a kind of fascinated disgust as the portentous voiceover barely scraped the surface of Reid Malett's wrong-doings.

"Fraud, invasion of privacy, coercion, and he presided over violent and sexual workshops in which willing participants..."

As she watched, Jerott emerged from the ensuite. He handed her one of the two water glasses he'd filled and paused by the bed, staring at the TV with an appalled expression.

"What the fuck are you watching?" he asked.

Marthe shrugged the shoulder that was uppermost and nodded at the bedside table, indicating that Jerott could leave the water there.

"You don't wanna know how Swami Graham is doing?"

He'd moved round to his side of the bed and she saw his face the way it was lit up by the screen: repulsed, furious, maybe even a bit scared?

"No."

Marthe thought she noticed his fingers tremble a little as he put his own glass down. He ran them through his hair and then his eyes fell on the remote.

"Switch it off."

She saw him reach for it and - because he wanted it, because he spoke commandingly and she'd let him have enough already, and more, that night - she snatched it away. "I'm watching!"

"Well don't! What do you even want to know that you haven't already seen with your own two eyes?" He gestured furiously, pointing two fingers at his own fierce features, and grabbed again for the remote.

"Hey!" Marthe wasn't above hollering when he laid a hand on her to stop her from protecting the device. "Don't touch me!"

Jerott had already retreated to stand by the bed again, maintaining a distance, his palms open at his sides, his expression one of vexed fury. "Please switch it off," he said carefully, but Marthe knew suppressed anger when she heard it.

She narrowed her eyes. "Why? You're not gonna...let it all out, get all cathartic on me?"

His jaw clenched visibly.

"Personally, I think it's reassuring to see him cuffed and guarded," Marthe added, eyeing up the picture on the screen.

"...swapped his disciple's robes of pink for fetching penitentiary facility orange..."

Jerott said nothing, but took three long strides to the far wall and yanked the TV plug from the socket.

Marthe rolled her eyes and swept the remote off the bed so it clattered to the floor. "Oh, Mr Rock and Roll. Gonna throw it out the window, too?"

Jerott got into bed and yanked the sheet over his body without turning to face her. "Good night, Marthe," he snarled.

She stared at his back for a moment and then made a sound of exasperation and got up to brush her own teeth.

It wasn't like she'd wanted to watch the programme anyway, it was just that any talk of the Rajneeshees wound him up so much, even now. Marthe, of all people, could well understand another's bitterness about the wasted years of their life - but Jerott's bitterness was always special. He couldn't accept that anyone else might have regrets about any number of things, oh no - nothing compared to the victimhood of the boy who had run off to join a cult instead of going to med school, who had run off to med school instead of joining a band with a man he was clearly deeply, obliviously in love with. He was evidently the first guy on earth to find out he was attracted to a man and feel conflicted about it, the first person in the history of mankind to have his illusions shattered about someone he'd trusted.

Marthe brushed her teeth and hair angrily in the dark bathroom and got back into bed with a heavy landing on the mattress, with deliberately exaggerated kicking of the sheet, plumping of the pillow, and fidgeting until she was comfortable.

"Good night, Jerott. Good gig today. Sleep well."

[scarlet--wiccan]

Do you have any thoughts on the idea of a “new” ultimate universe that’s being explored? The og obviously had its fair share of issues (especially for maximoff fans) but also had its high points (miles, for one). If they’re going to sort of repeat the original conceit of the universe (completely new starting point for readers and characters) it could be a good way to give characters with questionable backstories etc new, less stereotypical life.

I’m not particularly optimistic for a number of reasons, but if you were to write the maximoffs with a modern introduction inspired by their og storyline (coerced teen villains into high profile heroes), how would you go about doing it/starting it? Even just explaining Wanda’s original powers obviously has caused others trouble

Personally, I would not choose to revisit the Ultimates world. There are some parts of it that are, like, fine, but on the whole, I think Ultimates is similar to the M C U, in that it betrays and most of things that I find compelling about Marvel Comics-- and most of my favorite characters are completely unrecognizable. Everyone fixates on the inc*st thing with Wanda and Pietro, but Ultimates totally ruined those characters, plus Erik and Magda, on several different levels. I'm glad that Miles has been extracted from the Ultimates world, and it seems like Hickman is going to leave him alone for now.

Reblog this post if you think the twins on the right are WAY HOTTER AND COOLER than the twins on the left.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that I'm adapting Wanda and Pietro for a new continuity and I can't make them mutants or connect them to Magneto. I would probably do something similar to Midnight Suns, and focus on their origins at Mount Wundagore. That location has a lot of interesting history, and I think that expanding on the Elder Gods mythology would be smart way to unify all of the magical and fantasy elements of the Marvel universe with cohesive world-building. Comics have never really succeeded at this, and the M C U honestly never even tried, so that's where I would start.

Starting Wanda and Pietro out as unwilling villains is a little tricky once you take the Brotherhood out of the picture. I think I would either use the High Evolutionary or the sorcerer Modred-- both were occupants of Mount Wundagore, and both have had a hand in manipulating and exploiting the twins. Modred is a stronger choice because of his connection to Chthon, but if I need to introduce the Evolutionary for my larger continuity, this would be a good time to do it.

This guy; not to be confused with the Arthurian Mordred, also a Marvel character.

So here's my plot--

Wanda and Pietro's childhood and adolescence would basically follow 616-canon-- raised by Django and Marya; separated from their family during a racist hate crime; and forced to live on the run for years due to their emerging powers and further discrimination.

They return to Mount Wundagore seeking answers about their powers and their birth mother. They are taken in by the Knights of Wundagore, who, as in Midnight Suns, are an ancient order tasked with safeguarding the mountain and its hidden magic. Little do they know, the Knights have been corrupted by the same villain-- be that Modred or the Evolutionary-- who killed their birth mother and experimented on them as babies.

Wanda is given pages from the Darkhold, which she believes are ancient magical texts that will help her master her abilities. In truth, of course, they are priming her to become Chthon's vessel. She performs spells from the Darkhold to bolster the Knight's powers. Pietro has joined the Knights, believing that they will help him protect his sister-- as in canon, Pietro protective to a fault, because he believes that people are always trying to take advantage of Wanda and her abilities. And he's not wrong!

Agatha Harkness infiltrates the Knights of Wundagore, disguised as an elderly healer. She is an ancient witch whose coven once worked alongside the true Knights to keep Chthon bound while studying the mountain's magic. She has known the Maximoff family for generations, and has been seeking out Natalya's children ever since receiving a premonition of the return of the Scarlet Witch.

Agatha doesn't have the power the stop Wanda now that she is under the Darkhold's influence, so she sends a warning to Doctor Strange that Chthon's return is eminent.

Strange gathers a team of heroes to prevent Chthon's return. This leads to a big fight wherein Wanda and Pietro are technically the "bad guys," which ends with Wanda fully succumbing to the Darkhold. She unleashes a devastating attack against the heroes and descends deep within the mountain.

Pietro find himself abandoned on the mountainside. Agatha reveals herself to him and explains the truth, not only about his family but also about the Modred/Evolutionary situation. Pietro joins the heroes, and Agatha urges him to seek out Django, who she has discovered living in a nearby Transian village.

Django's memories are distorted by trauma and a magical curse that was inflicted on him by the Knights to keep him away from Wanda. Upon reuniting Django with his son, Agatha is able to lift the curse, explaining that their family's legacy-- not their blood, but their love for each other and the gifts they have passed down through their generations-- is the true source of their magic.

Chthon emerges from the mountain, using Wanda as a vessel. There's another big fight, and the heroes are able to get Pietro and Django close enough to Wanda for them to exorcize and bind Chthon within a doll that Django had crafted as a gift for his pregnant sister, Natalya. Django tragically passes away after the battle, but the twins are able to properly mourn him and their mothers. Wanda witnesses the spirit of Natalya and awakens to her true power as the Scarlet Witch.

Wanda agrees to study under Agatha, Pietro joins the hero team, and they both both meet Victoria Montessi, who is going to help them track down the Darkhold pages that have now been scattered to the wind. VICKI + WANDA BESTFRIENDS REAL

And that's my first draft at a magic-focused, no-mutants adaption of Wanda and Pietro's origins that hopefully includes a lot of the same themes, and would hopefully enable more authentic representations of their Romani background while also doing some more cohesive worldbuilding. IT'S JUST A FIRST DRAFT... I might tweak it! Be kind.

Anyways, I've said it before, but I don't actually think Wanda's abilities are that difficult to understand. Her hex power is admittedly, not well-defined, but it's pretty easy to work with if you think of "manipulating probability" as "manipulating physics." Her ability to control matter and energy, then, would correlate to her knowledge and understanding of the particular forces she's working with, so you get a dynamic power that scales to different situations and works really well in a group setting where she can play off of other people's abilities.

[sunflowerandstrawberryspice]

More early 2000's ninjago

So I see y'all liked my 2000's Ninjago head cannons, well well well I may or may not have plenty more to share.

Now to preface this is the HC that before season 3 Ninjago had the technology of the early 2000's before shifting to a much more modern even a bit futuristic setting. Now that that's out of the way I present HC's!

-Cole had (probably still has) a bright purple boom box decked out in stickers and pretty much a whole shelf of CD's to go with it

-Jay had Heelys and probably cried when he out grew them

-Nya didn't really have Barbie but lord have mercy did she have Polly Pockets and My Little Pony!

-Zane had and actually knows how to use and Etch-A-Sketch

-Jay had a couple of friends back home that he liked to call and Zane and Cole liked dropping in on his calls just to listen and tease him later

-They had two land lines at the monastery technically one was for the boys and one was supposed to "just be master Wu's" But he quickly learned that wasn't going to happen

-Kai liked boy bands (idk why he just did)

-They had Lincoln logs for literally an hour, they were taken away very quickly and never EVER seen again, some say that they saw Master Wu burning something that night

-Cole Zane and Jay loved getting to go into Ninjago city (cause I'm pretty sure it separate from the town bellow the monastery) and where ever they went they had to share a flip phone so they could call master Wu if they needed

-Cole had an emo phase, he is now in his punk phase (aka going from I hate myself everything sucks to everything sucks but I wanna do something about it + I've got fashion sense now)

-Jay tried to have an emo phase but poked himself in the eye with eye liner once and decided it wasn't for him

-Kai didn't have time for an emo phase but boy did he want one

-All of them have watched at least one Barbie movie. Jay is basic so he probably likes Princess and the Pauper (Nothing wrong with that it's iconic) Nya and Cole are Swan Lake lovers, Zane is a Farytopia fan and Kai probably didn't have time to watch the movies raising Nya and all but I think he'd probably like Magic of the Rainbow because Sunset is low key a fire elemental. Lloyd was introduced to them when he's older and probably like the Three Musketeers.

-Jay, Nya and Kai actually went to middle school unlike Cole and Zane who were homeschooled so they don't really get the whole 'cringe middle school' thing cause they just kinda floated through their cringe phases in peace(This is me assuming cause I'd hope Cole's education didn't end at 9!)

-I feel like someone collected beanie boo's but I'm not sure who, probably Jay since he has the home life to support that

-Last but not least: Leap Pads, Cole had one when he was really young (like 4-5 so before his mom died) and when he found it they spent a good couple hours playing Mr. Pencil and the stupid dog game

In conclusion Master Wu probably needs a nap but so do the rest of them. They were all awkward dorks at one point and all they can do is stop those pictures or video's from entering the public eye. (Aside from Pixal who didn't have a cringe phase and is very proud of it)

[philtstone]

Sam and AJ and Cass, 29

#29 -- a story that never gets told

a prequel of sorts to my belovedly unhinged magical realism au, the original of which can be read on ao3 by clicking here. i wrote this prompt in random snippets on the subway, so hopefully its coherent. it kind of got away from me, but im leaning into the multiple indulged elements. most importantly, to answer zainabs oft asked question, "is this the one where he can turn into a whole ass wolf?" yes. yes it is.

Sam, as he has told his sister many a time, could learn — hypothetically — to be a great parent if he wanted to. Instead, he nobly chooses to fight for what’s right. This involves on occasion saving innocent lives amidst the unexpected collapse of Kingdoms, and more often petty magical crime, like that idiot who started going around stealing peoples sheep by herding them into his backyard, which he’d doused in a layer of magically un-solvent superglue. Thank God for Clint’s solvent arrows, which is a sentiment Sam brings up smugly whenever his sister expresses disdain towards the usefulness of magical items in completing household chores.

All of that was before Steve vanished into thin air, leaving Sam with custody of an ancient shield and a perpetually moody shapeshifter.

Hypotheticals are abounding just now. Hypothetically, Steve could just be on one long spontaneous vacation that he even logged in the shared magical calendar, which Bucky inconveniently misplaced on that last trek from North country down here. Hypothetically, Steve could have been kidnapped by a unicorn — those things are known to fuck with you just cause they can — and is currently being held in a magically enforced glade and subjected to a game of 21 riddles. Hypothetically, Steve could just be dead. Smallpox, common cold, unanticipated ogre attack on side of road. If Sam might say so himself, even the best of ‘em can get jumped sometimes; ain’t no shame in it.

“If Steve was dead, why hasn’t his ghost shown up to tell us that?” Bucky asks. He has elaborate theories on the matter, half of which involve the unicorn. The other half involve deep and cutting betrayal. Or murder.

“Steve Rogers did not just up and decide to play double agent,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. Bucky is never truly serious about this. He brings up potential intrigue in every conversation purely out of habit. And, Sam supposes begrudgingly, experience.

“So, murder.”

“Maybe ghost Steve is havin’ too much of a good time,” Sam says. “Remember that fae chick he was sweet on, and they got separated decades ago? Got him all stoic and single tear-y when her name came up? Carried her picture in his dumb little locket? She could be dead. They could be partying it up in the afterlife.”

“Bastard,” Bucky says grumpily, about Steve. “I’d tell you guys, if I died without you knowing.”

“Accidentally died,” insists Sam.

Bucky scowls. “I maintain we haven’t ruled out the double agent angle.”

“Oh my God!” says Sam, and throws his hands up in the air.

They have this exchange multiple times.

Sam sees the merit in the murder angle, but doesn’t necessarily like acknowledging it out loud. First of all, admitting Bucky might be right is always annoying, so he avoids doing it. Second, that shit’s bad juju, especially down here; you never know when a shadow man is listening in.

Just in case Ghost Steve really was murdered and forgot to tell them, though, Sam decides to conduct some scientific experiments. He makes Steve’s favourite gumbo (Sam’s mom’s recipe, of course – no one else’s can hold a candle) and bangs the pot lid loudly over the stove in case there are any spirits around to notice. He flips through Steve’s private sketchbook, left behind in Sam’s napsack — another clear evidence that he hasn’t turned coat — and makes childish faces at all the nude figures to trigger Steve’s artistic sensibilities. Then he leaves it out where the kids could find it, to trigger Steve’s moral sensibilities. 

Bucky takes more extreme measures. He goes out into the yard and yells, “Hey, jerk! You ever thought about what a basket case I’d be without you here? You don’t even got the decency to explain yourself?” after dark, into the droopy shapes of the mangrove trees. 

“Is he gonna start howling at the moon?” Sarah asks Sam one evening, though not unkindly, while they do the dishes and watch Bucky go at it through the small kitchen window.

Sam doesn’t say anything. Privately, he kind of feels like doing the same. 

Then, about three months later, after a near-coup and the revelation of multiple conspiracies and a big old honking blockade being put up all through South country, the Wakandans show up. With – holy shit, Sam thinks – a message from Steve.

“Uncle Sam, you’ve already told us that story.”

Okay, so speaking of parenting. Yeah, yeah, Sam would be a great parent in some alternate universe of events decidedly different from this one. In this universe, getting his nephews to bed at a reasonable hour when only this afternoon, a bunch of fancy people in red armour were holding a super secret outlaw meeting in the barn is proving harder than it looks. Sam almost wishes he was dealing with old Paste-Pot Pete and those sheep again.

“Uh, no I have not,” says Sam. “This version has added embellishments. The Wakandan King never challenged me to a duel, that was all Bucky’s bad luck.” 

“We’re calling ritual vengeance duels now?” asks Bucky dryly. 

“I’m just sayin’, I’m making a bunch of this up here. I am exercising creativity. Story version number one didn’t have any flying dwarves in it.”

Bucky is sitting in the doorway to the kids’ bedroom and attempting to de-encrust his favourite boots, which went through the ringer a bit on their way down through the bayou to Sarah’s three months ago. That was just after this all started. A lot’s changed since then.

Like the fact that Bucky is even in this house, cleaning boots. Or Sam’s newly discovered inability to lull little boys to sleep via adrenaline filled adventure stories while their mother takes a care package to the neighbours’ pregnant daughter in law. Sarah was very excited to see the newest in maternity fashion, which apparently Marlene had been sporting in the village all week, purchased from traveling dressmakers who might have had fae blood. Those guys always do know how to cut a cloak well. 

Bucky sniffs loudly at Sam’s defense and pulls an exaggerated face, raising the poor boot up to eye level to inspect it. “Maybe you’re just bad at telling stories,” he says finally.

While AJ and Cass giggle like the traitors they are, Sam makes a loud offended noise.

“Alright,” he says. “Fine. Fine. You know what? Just for that, I’m telling the story of how all of Petruski’s sticky sheep started followin’ your fluffy white wolf ass around.”

AJ dissolves into even harder giggles. Cass says, “Not the sheep story Uncle Sam! All you do in that one is complain!” and Bucky says, more primly than he has any right to, “I was consciously being as non threatening as possible, Samuel.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “so non threatening they thought you were one of ‘em.”

AJ is really starting to wheeze now, so Sam hauls him into his arms to disrupt the hilarity before it gets medical. Cass brings his pillow up over his head like a crown to smother his own laughter. And Bucky winks, before – in a devastating play – letting out a quiet, plaintive pair of baas in quick succession.

Routines like this one are becoming more and more real. More and more comfortable, Sam thinks, amidst the boys’ shrieks of laughter. Being here, being in this home (their home – The home?) it fills his heart with something warm and solid and unmoving. Like he has put down a heavy load. Sometimes it is hard to imagine what is so important that makes it worth picking up sword and shield and leaving this behind. Without this, where would any of them even be?

It’s just, that thought doesn’t stop the rest of the world from banging on their door sometimes. 

Just look at Steve’s cryptic as hell note. The me you know isn’t dead. Seriously. What the fuck. Sam almost wishes he really was dealing with a unicorn.

He settles on telling the story of how he and Steve once met that tiny shrinking guy and between Captain Rogers’ knightly loyalty to his friends, some of Redwing’s more heroic moments, and the addition of the brilliant mage-princess who gifted Bucky the enchantment for his arm, both boys are appeased.

“Uncle Sam,” Cass says, sleepily, towards the tail end of the story. “’S no fair that magic skips a generation. I wanna help save the kingdom like you do.”

Sam quiets, his hand stilling where it was in the middle of brushing over AJs forehead. AJ is already fast asleep. Knocked out cold, snoring and everything. 

Thing is, Sam’s brand of magic is pretty limited — some gimmick, even, nowhere close to what his Titi had. All Sam’s good for, practically speaking, is translating messages from carrier pigeons. But it got him into this bigger world, tangled him up in it. 

Sam can see, even though Bucky’s head is down, that his friend’s expression has taken on a slight grimness.

“Cass. Hey.” Sam knuckles the boy’s nose gently. “What do you mean, like me. You know how I keep this old kingdom safe? I help your mama do the dishes.”

“Uncle Sam,” Cass says, rolling his sleepy thick-lashed eyes. 

Sam sighs. “Cass. Just because it doesn’t make for a good story doesn’t mean it isn’t important.”

More important, even. Running this old house, and its garden (with all those gnomes, little pains-in-the-ass) and its boat.

“Muh huh,” Cass manages. And then he has drifted off, the side of his face squished against the pillow.

Sam and Bucky quietly relocate to the kitchen, where Redwing is awaiting them with a new note and a dead mouse.

“Jesus,” Bucky mutters.

“You better not be about to get in a piss fight with a kestrel when there are sleeping children in the next room.”

As if on cue, Redwing flaps over lands happily on Bucky’s shoulder, startling him. The little bell on his foot jingles, and Bucky glares, which does nothing to deter the little bird’s impulse to start throwing up what appears to be more mouse. 

Bucky stands perfectly still and looks awfully close to raptorcide. 

Dude, can you like, be normal for once, Sam says, to the bird. Redwing fluffs out all of his feathers in Bucky’s face in response. 

“I don’t get into piss fights with your kestrel, Sam,” Bucky says, gritting each word out with individuality. 

Redwing twitters happily. 

He’ll come around eventually, Sam replies. He scoops the bird up in both hands and re-situates him on his own arm, and begins untying the little package wired to Redwing’s foot. Out loud, he adds, “You know, he wants to be your friend so badly –”

“He’s the one who chews through my best leather breeches twice a month –” Bucky cuts himself off, grumbling under his breath and reaching over to fumble the parchment scroll out of Sam’s hand while its messenger hops in one place and nuzzles the crown of his feathery head into Sam’s armpit. Sam’s poorly concealed smile fades when Bucky openly frowns.

“Note’s from Nakia,” Bucky mutters, tapping the amulet bracelet on his right wrist against the similar shape of beaded stone etched into the scroll’s covering as Sam strokes Redwing’s head. 

“It’s – what?”

“What what.”

“From another dimension,” Bucky reads aloud, looking increasingly incredulous. 

“What?” 

“You already said that.” Sam rolls his eyes. Bucky makes a face at the scroll. “Always gotta be another fuckin’ gimmick. Well. She’s got a guy to decode it.”

“Didn’t she cast the spell?” asks Sam, who is still processing the dimension thing. As in, like, different from their own?

Is that where Steve is?

“Yeah, but only to keep anyone else from decoding it. The bracelet itself already had a message stored in it.” 

“Beyond Steve’s disembodied voice materializing outta nowhere the first time I touched that thing to prove he hasn’t kicked the bucket.”

“Which,” Bucky starts, “for the record –”

“Was not your theory.”

Bucky frowns harder. Refocuses. “Yes. The bracelet, which was clearly a magical object enchanted to respond to your touch –”

“Could’a been our touch, you never held it before I did –”

“Fine, sure, our touch – double enchantment. This thing is stolen, and someone – my guess is Steve – managed to layer another goddamn spell on it before sending it our way.”

Sam sighs, staring at the gleaming dishes in the drying rack. A box of Arm and Magical Hammer’s peroxide sits orange and to the side. Maybe this is why Sarah refuses to use any of the handy dandy domestic enchantments he brings home for her. 

Because magic’s a pain in the ass.

“So?” says Sam.

“Uh, yeah. She’s got a guy to decode it …” Bucky grimaces, “on the other side of the river.”

Oh. Oh. Yeah, that’s gonna be rough.

“I can’t go through a GRC checkpoint,” Sam says. Redwing makes a mournful sound of agreement. Bucky is still turning the note over and over as if maybe reading it upside down will change its mystifying contents. 

“They’d recognize your beautiful knightly face,” he agrees, reciting Sam’s proffered explanation. “And then search all your bags and spook your horse. You know, she’s way too sensitive.”

“Clara ain’t sensitive, she’s emotionally intelligent. There’s a difference,” Bucky mutters something about Sam busting out his inner kingdom social worker lingo on them and Sam adds, “and you can go through a GRC checkpoint even less, by the way.”

“To be fair,” Bucky says, “they have kinda fucked up my nose in all those wanted posters. Maybe they wouldn’t recognize me.”

They both sit down at the table, resigned. It’s a sticky problem. Sam supposes, as Bucky pulls his favourite dagger out and begins flipping it in a broody manner, that they could take Sharon’s smuggler’s detour behind the wall, but she’d ask too many questions. Sending Redwing on his own is too risky (Sam admits, begrudgingly and in the privacy of his own mind). Clint’s roped into a local problem with a gang of overall-wearing gnomes, Bruce has started teaching a yoga of ogres class, even Joaquin just set up shop marketside selling his scroll encryption services … Sam’s stomach growls, and the lingering smell of spiced rice hits his nose. Sarah’s left a potfull on the stove, for them, probably. She blusters plenty, has real right to be angry plenty, and has a mean right hook, but she loves him. And she’s a lot tougher than she looks, Sam’s come to realize. Kept this whole village alive over the years with her caring, and even after they set up the blockades she charmed the border officers better than Sam or Bucky ever could.

Sam clicks his tongue against his teeth and says, “Huh.”

“What,” says Bucky.

“Lemme run a hypothetical by you.”

“Oh no.” Bucky rubs a finger over the bridge of his nose. “You always do this to me. I started like that once –”

“And have had many terrible no good get Sam’s ass in trouble plans since, brother.” Sam crosses his arms; Rewind flaps over to his little perch by the bookshelf in deference. “Hypothetically, you don’t have to look like yourself. Right?”

Bucky looks at him warily. “Well … no.”

“And … hypothetically –”

“Sam …”

“If a familiar person, say … the nice lady who used to take her gumbo to the community house every week. Was to have that bracelet in her box the next time she went –”

“You wanna send your sister through the woods on her own in this economy?” Bucky interrupts, baffled.  

Sam lifts his chin. Raises his eyebrows. Wags his head a little bit. Chirp, says Redwing from across the room, which Sam might roughly translate to it’s not rocket science, pal.

It takes Bucky a moment to get it, but when it clicks, it’s obvious.

“Oh, no,” he says, a slow horror growing in his face. “No. No, no, no, no way. I refuse, Sam.”

“I haven’t asked anything yet!” Sam says, very mildly put out.

Bucky levels the pointy end of the dagger at him. “No. You’re not entrusting me as the sole keeper of your sister’s safety in the wilderness!”

Sam leans back in his chair, eyebrows raised. “And who the hell else am I gonna entrust as the sole keeper of my sister’s safety in the wilderness?” Bucky makes a disbelieving little cawing noise, like a sad crow, to which Sam adds, deliberate: “Come on, Buck. Be serious.”

Bucky does not answer, as he seems to go through twelve different emotions at once, silently. Sam, who can acknowledge at sword-point that this is maybe a little mean of him, given Bucky’s profound loyalty to his friends and poorly-concealed devotion to said sister (hmph), gives him a minute. Finally, Bucky manages, 

“Anyone! Someone who didn’t spend the last eighty years magically entrapped by a cabal of fascist wizards in the body of a murderous rabid animal!” 

He waves his free hand, which was previously clutched in his hair for something to do. He’d look a bit wild if he didn’t look so thoroughly mundane sitting there in his shirts with his boots off. 

Well, okay. The knife’s a little intense. But it’s not like Sarah’s kitchen isn’t stacked with em.

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Okay, first of all. Rabid is just flat out inaccurate.”

“Sam,” Bucky grinds out.

“I’m just sayin’,” Sam says. “You’re not diseased. And like, present day wolf you can even be kinda cute. You seen how fluffy you are? Those sheep definitely did.”

Bucky actually growls at him.

“That doesn’t actually dispute my point,” says Sam, “which is that this, right here, is objectively our best plan.”

“I won’t do it.”

“I’m asking you, Bucky.”

“It’s a terrible plan!”

“Says the guy who only ever comes up with the most unhinged plans ever!”

They glare at each other, for a prolonged, stone-headed moment. Sam thinks that next time he tells the kids a bedtime story, he should include a Mexican standoff somewhere in there. Then Bucky raises the knife again, very very slowly.

“Only if Sarah says yes.”

“Which,” Sam agrees, “is extremely unlikely. If magic could be wrapped up in a tiny little football, she’d probably drop kick that thing into the Mississippi like a quarterback.”

Marginally, Bucky’s face relaxes.

“Yeah,” he says, and now Sam is starting to feel some relief too, because really, what the hell is he thinking? Sending his baby sister out into the wilderness so they can all uncover some great conspiracy … “Yeah. Yeah, okay. If she says yes, I’ll do it.”

And then, of course, she does.

[bookqueen101]

Initial thoughts on the Ted Lasso finale:

- Really enjoyed watching it - the general tone and all of the callbacks to previous episodes were perfect (especially Ted finally learning the offside rule)

- Rebecca’s ending was perfect, especially setting her up as the “matriarch of Richmond”

- Could have done without the Roy & Jamie macho fighting-over-Keeley thing but it makes a good springboard for “what happens next” fanfics

- Was Colin kissing his fella overly idealistic? Yes. Did I love it anyway? Also yes. Another good candidate for “what happens next” fanfics

- I liked that Beard stayed (the Jane stuff is kind of yikes but because I could tell previously that they weren’t going to address that, I could separate it in my head so it didn’t bother me too much)

- In general, I loved 95% of the Richmond side of things and where those plot strands ended up.

- I don’t like that Ted went back to Kansas. But I get why he did and I’m glad that the show told the story it wanted to tell with Ted as a Mary Poppins figure. The ending of Mary Poppins is one that I’ve always found dissatisfying so the same applies here.

For me there’s a bittersweet element of being able to visualise how the AFC Richmond side of things will continue but with Ted not being part of it.

But that does have a parallel with Ted’s whole “It’s not about me. It never was.” note to Trent & the change to the book title. That not how I hoped Trent’s book would be significant but it does fit. I do like the “Ted removing himself from the narrative” element to it. There’s something fitting there with Trent’s role as an observer/narrator through the series.

But for me (as with Mary Poppins), although Ted doesn’t think he’s the main character, he actually is. And I want him to be happy at the end. Or… happy in a way I can visualise. I can’t picture his life in Kansas in the same way that I can picture the Richmond side of things.

(You’ll notice I haven’t talked much about Trent. I’ve glommed onto him so much as my favourite character that it will take a while to separate canon and fanon. He lives more in the latter for me.)

[the-nysh]

... alright! i'm tired! tired of 90% of your blog being blacked out to me because i censored 'trigun' 😭 tell me, where do i begin? where do i start... consuming, this story? there's like, an anime, i know, and the... rewrite of said anime?? all based on a manga i assume??? where do i start. what do i see. what do i skip. tell me i cannot live with this hamster drip of nysh content 😭😭

...?! HOLD UP also rip to your blacklist omfg I was totally under the impression you already knew, since you were the very first to notice a while back and ask me opinionated stuff about it! x'D Fortunately I've answered a similar ask relating to your current predicament~

As you can probably guess, each 'version' of Trigun essentially has its own separate canon (the 98 anime, the manga, and the new Stampede anime; there's 3 whole cakes to enjoy here~) as different tellings of the story + characters that diverge to explore the core themes and messages in their own ways. I do not recommend skipping anything, as it all builds to the lore, world, and characters! :O (Yes, even the silly 'filler' breather eps in the 98 anime's first half all build towards the whole picture, slowly revealing bits and pieces along the way. Even the 'recap' ep at midway pieces everything about Vash's character together thru Meryl's perspective, then introduces more to reframe what's known about him in new complexity.)

But if you're familiar with the old 98 anime (as I've been since 20+yrs ago) I'd recommend a rewatch just to freshen your memory of what happens. JYB's iconic voice work for the dub makes it worth (re)watching alone. Note the anime was created before the manga was even finished, so it draws from the first few early volumes then essentially becomes its own anime-original plotline with different lore akin to how the first fma anime went for example. :O Which upon rewatching recently myself, while it def has some dated 90s bits/gags you can safely ignore, the writing's core messages, themes, intent, and character-driven growth are still very solid and satisfying, with plenty of room left open for more. The strong emotional beats hit very hard for some unsuspecting watchers - going from a seemingly silly lighthearted episodic slapstick comedy at first, to transitioning thru the tragedies of some very heavy/difficult topics later. But worth it for the hopeful, healing process of living through major loss and trauma, and recovering from suffering emotional breakdowns and depressive spirals. :') So fair warning to pace yourself with breaks if needed, without speeding/binge-watching through that kind of content (eps23-25 are where it Hurts the hardest)!

...Cause then the manga takes all those emotional beats (+ the plot & characters) even further and harder than the old anime ever could!!! 8'D That coming out of that will probably make you question your whole existence worldview. Yes, the story's one of those gems that'll probably change your life~ In ways you simply have to experience for yourself to decide what meaning/interpretation/value it holds for you.

But Stampede is completely different from the old anime, since it draws its lore from the completed manga! :O While restructuring and exploring things in a whole new way. As long as you realize that - to not compare it to the old anime (since it's not a 'rewrite' of that story at all) and see it with open eyes as its own independent artform, then you'll have a much better time. Since I'd read the manga beforehand, I really enjoyed seeing the many endgame plot elements Stampede mixed in to set up and enrich what happens. You can of course choose to go in watching blind without that manga knowledge--it's up to you, but imo there's many more layers of appreciation once you realize how much they happened to rearrange and spin into their own thing. (So personally, I'd check out the manga first so you aren't spoiled with sudden endgame elements introduced early here.) BECAUSE, the biggest telling hint is seeing the whole season's timeline as an establishing 'prelude' of sorts before one of the major story events [July City] even happens (cause in the original story--for both the manga & old anime, that incident happens before the story begins, but here it's all different lead up with modified character backstories) with plenty more to continue the manga's (Trimax's) unadapted plot later in s2. Where of course you can have preferences to how it's done, but the overall lesson here is to have patience and let Studio Orange cook, because they knew exactly what they were doing--they did their homework on many meticulous fields of Interest, with everything done with care and purpose (yes, all those conspicuous 'odd' details like the reason why Milly's not here yet- it's explained!) with genuine love for the source material. :'D

The source material which--yes, begins as the Trigun manga (2 vols) and continues renamed as Trigun Maximum (14vols) under a new publisher as a hard seinen. Which currently! The fandom's having a whole bookclub (re)reading event, so it's the perfect time to join in if you feel so inclined! 8'D For enjoying maximum emotional damage and suffering, but easier to cope, navigate, and process among a friendly and supportive group environment~ I've already read the official Dark Horse translation (easily found on most manga sites, but thankfully there's a new hardcover reprint incoming!) but currently I'm trying a reread of the overhaul fan translation instead, as I hear it's more accurate overall. :'3 Hopefully all this info helps, as I bet there's plenty of overwhelming content you may have missed out on!

[electricrogue]

I posted 505 times in 2022

31 posts created (6%)

474 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@unleashed111

@teslacriss

@tinknevertalks

@maverey

@droidmom

I tagged 208 of my posts in 2022

#music baby - 41 posts

#within temptation - 12 posts

#sharon den adel - 8 posts

#i mean - 7 posts

#heh - 7 posts

#everything comes back to teslen - 6 posts

#yes - 5 posts

#well - 4 posts

#the amazing devil - 4 posts

#but still - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 129 characters

#at this rate the border police will pick me up from the airport before i even get the chance to set foot in canada or netherlands

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Sharon den Adel isn’t fucking human

... no, really. For context, I was at a music festival in my country - Way Too Far Rock Festival, and believe me that name is earned xD. And Within Temptation were headliners there and I got to see them live (again, it was my third time actually but definitely not the last one) and aaaaah.

First of all, that woman is like fucking quicksilver. Like it was my first time I had a decent enough phone to try and make pictures and I was trying to get a shot of her with the boys but like... one second she was here, then she was on the opposite side of the stage, running like hell from one place to another and I was just trying (and mostly failing) to keep up with her.

Also because of Covid bullshit this was the first time I got to hear the newer songs live (newer meaning Resist and the singles that came after that). And just... It was late and my feet were hurting a bit and I was tired but the second I heard the trumpets in Reckoning and she came on stage I forgot about all of that. It’s such a surge of... life, there’s no other word for it, that you get when she starts singing that it’s fucking unbelievable.

Also fun stuff they played also their most recent single, Don’t Pray For Me, and I feel like I have to punch some people for that. Why, you ask? Because Sharon was like “ok so we wrote this one and then we wrote like a whole ass story about the reason we wrote it and actually it’s about this and that”. And here comes the want to punch people, because she had to do that because people complained. And ok I get religion is a touchy subject, but she didn’t sing about religion, not really. She sang about how when you stuff religion down someone’s throat it becomes an issue, and she’s fucking right about it. And you know what even if she sang against religion, I never heard anyone complain about Weak Fantasy or Cry For The Moon for that matter so yeah. Hypothetically if she wanted she could also be against religion a bit. You know, as a treat.

Also they did Raise Your Banner and they sang it for Ukraine (I will post that separately because it deserves its own post) and God... chills.

Also also there was a real cute moment at the end where Sharon noticed there were kids in the audience and she was like “you know what bring some kids on stage, like the two girls over there and the two boys over here“ and in 30 seconds she had like 20 of them on the stage? Like I hated audiences when I was a kid (I’m not too good about them now either) but to have that done to me when I was a kid? I’m pretty sure I would have become an instant fan. And that is based only on how cute and caring Sharon was with them like some of them were a bit out of their element(totally understandable) but she took care of them and told them were to stay and calmed them down and 20 seconds later they were singing like crazy with her and yeah. Nobody is immune to Sharon that’s all I’m saying.

... and on a final note I wanna kiss whoever designed Sharon’s outfit because damn that was gorgeous. And yes I know Sharon is probably the one who came up with the idea I said what I said. Like the crown and the metal thingie on the arm (I wish she kept those more but it’s probably hard to navigate with them).

6 notes - Posted August 30, 2022

#4

See the full post

7 notes - Posted August 29, 2022

#3

Everyone is like "oh it's not the same without Henry" this "Liam and Joey will not have the same chemistry" that... Honestly get Madeleine Hyland to play Geralt instead and all your problems would be solved

9 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

#2

So fair warning chances are this post will piss you off if you're a Nightwish fan. Especially the kind that thinks Tuomas is Mozart or Beethoven reincarnated or something. Also long ass post ahead.

That being said... I went to a concert of theirs yesterday. Am I a Nightwish fan? I wouldn't go that far. Like yes I know their songs well enough to sing along to them and they have nice lyrics I will give them that... But the problem is I don't like Tuomas as a person. I liked Marco even less but he's gone now so yeah that problem was solved. So why did I go to the concert, then? Because basically I was curious to see what the fuss is about. That and I do like Floor no not like that and I figured just because she's singing for a douche doesn't mean I have to skip going to see her live.

Now about the show... Good stuff first. They have nice special effects like fire and smoke and all, probably the nicest I've seen out of all the concerts in this genre that I've been to. This is also because they had the biggest stage, like I know given the space Within Temptation and Epica have nice effects too, but alas people in my country are idiots and Nightwish is the only symphonic metal band most of them know about. Which has the nasty consequence that everyone else is demoted to shittier stages.

Also, Floor is a damn good singer I will give her that. The best they had in some ways, and I say this as someone who is a Tarja fan (yes, this is why I don't like Tuomas, I know it wasn't only his fault she left but the way I see it it was a dumbass cockfight between two idiots - not a fan of Tarja's husband either). But I digress. The nice thing about Floor is that she has a mother fucking impressive range. Like Tarja could hit those high notes and Anette could be creepy and haunting... But Floor can do both. She can go from belting the high notes of Shoemaker to the grunts in Tribal in a heartbeat and I love that for her. If Nightwish would be her band there's a very good chance they'd be my second favorite band in the genre. Second one because nothing will ever top Within Temptation for me but still.

... but the thing is, it's not her band. It's Tuomas' band and that... Is painfully obvious. Like don't get me wrong I know he writes the music and the lyrics and that he's a damn good composer. Not the best and not the Mozart of our times thank you very much. But the thing is, there is a reason why these are called female fronted metal bands. They'd be fucked without the girls. And yes Floor is center stage but Tuomas is also center stage towering over her and the camera focuses on him mostly and everyone is like "oh our good friend Tuomas wrote this when he was drunk on a submarine" or something and yeah. Also what pisses the hell out of me, they never introduced the band. Like every band I know has this moment near the end where the main singer goes through the members of the band and introduces them to the audience. And that seems common sense to me because it's a fucking teamwork and everyone plays their part so they should be at least acknowledged. But that didn't happen. Without any previous knowledge of the band you'd go back home knowing there's a dude Tuomas who wrote Nemo and that's it. And while we're at it do NOT get me started on that song and the very creepy undertones of "I don't mean anything unless you love me" because yeah... Really not liking the implications of that.

Also, and this is not on Floor, she's doing her best... But the change of lead singers hurt them. Like you have songs like Nemo and Sleeping Sun which are Tarja's. Then you have Imaginaerum which is Anette's and nothing Floor does will ever change that. I'm not saying she's bad at singing them because she's not, it's just that you are used to the studio versions and live it sounds differently and you have a moment of wtf happened. Fucking Holopainen happened that's what

You know what the short version of all this is? One that will make sense to probably only four people that follow me but yeah. Nightwish are basically the X-Men of symphonic metal. Like sure they're the most famous in their genre and they are flashy and impressive and all... But they would be better if they let the girl(s) loose more. If you ask me symphonic metal is a kind of thing that needs a woman's touch. And by touch I mean the woman should be in charge. Come to think at it two of the most successful bands in the genre are lead by girls and it worked for them. Delain is basically led by the less smarter Westerholt and look where that got them

11 notes - Posted August 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Buckle up pals I'm gonna tell you a story. Which is incidentally also sort of a literary analysis of a song so yeah if you're not into that leave while you still can XD. Well, more like a specific part of Drinking Song For The Socially Anxious. This one to be more precise:

And in a moment of total rapture

And with every strength I have

I ask if you play D&D

And your face lights up like you’ve woken up

From this endless fucking nightmare of pretending this is you,

This is us, this is me, this how we’re meant to be

But your smile tells me I’m safe

And that voice unspoken’s heard

Cos if god made us all in his image

Then god’s a fucking nerd

So basically the story is about what my source blood sister calls the fangirl gene. Like there's people who get remotely excited about stuff and there's people who fall really deep for their calling. (Yes I went there). Whatever said calling is, it can be a tv show or a celebrity or even fucking stamps for all I care. It's not the what that matters. What matters is that society is expecting you to be a functional adult and if you go beyond a level of obsession it looks at you in a weird way. So you tone it down and you don't advertise it too much and you try to sound casual about it because normal people are not interested in you going in hour long rants over stuff, you know?

But you know what? It's exhausting to pretend to be normal when you're not. And you can't really be friends with people who you have to pretend with because you have this constant fear you'll slip and then they'll judge and you'll have to kill cut ties with them. I didn't do it in the past and God I regret that but I won't make the same mistake again. Like ok maybe you're not into something, I get that, but when someone you like loves that thing, the most you're allowed to say in my book is something along the lines of "eh not my cup of tea but you do you". That's it. Not "ugh why do you like that shit it's for kids" or whatever.

But I digress and this wasn't supposed to be about the bad ones it was supposed to be about the good ones XD. You know gaydars? I suck at that but I like to think I'm pretty good at having a fandar. As in, to know when someone has a thing for something. Again, what isn't that important(of course it's a thousand times better when they're into the same stuff as you are, but it's not mandatory). It's just the way they talk about stuff or they get pissed about stuff because let's be real fangirling can also involve getting pissed off. They care, to sum it up. And honestly? It's so damn refreshing to meet someone like that. Because you see yourself in them, in the way they get excited about stuff and then they go like 'eh whatever' before you think they're mad, in the way they start ranting and there's that little spark in their eyes and gah. It's these things that make you feel safe with them and you just know they're keepers. At least as friends but it can go either way.

70 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[chapfallenpoet]

A Worship that Embraced Me Whole

The day came when a journal articulated that the elements of our dreams come from real life, even if we cannot remember from where or when; and I realised I have had that warmth, once upon a time.

But who?

Who was it I loved so much, who loved me so much, that I yearn for it in my dreams, desperately pulling it from the recesses of my memory just to never forget?

Then, I stopped having that dream.

I stopped having that dream at all.

I stopped having that dream when a familiar touch felt my skin, when the smell of home came back to me.

I remember when my mother held me as she sat on the floor of her mother-in-law and my grandmother, hoping I would sit still as they made conversation.

I remember when my mother's head lay into my neck when she came to me in tears after a terrible row with her husband, my own father, and sought comfort from me, which I have long forgotten how to give.

I remember when, in Hong Kong Disneyland, I was separated from my family when they all left the gift shop without me, and I only knew to stay put to be found; she ran into my vision, and all I could think of was to jump into her arms as she fully wraps around me, who was small enough to fit completely in her embrace, who was good enough for her then, and who thought her warmth meant my happiest days.

I remember now, what I was chasing, and I wish I knew it was never in my favour to find out — I will never have that warmth again. I will never be small enough, happy enough, good enough to be in her arms.

She will never love me the same.

The very home I had missed was one of my own anguished white lies, one I told to a child too young to withstand the stress of a certain heavy stride, too ruined to tell that there was nothing left, and too romantic to realise that the end had long since concluded, that all that were left were her own shards to glue together, regardless of the cuts she was going to bleed from.

She was my mother, my love, my whole heart.

My home.

Piece by piece, the shards came together, and the picture, although imperfect, was clear. When I witnessed a child receive a kiss, hear kind words, say that they "want to go home" or celebrate to each other that it was the holidays.

It was all so, so clear.

I had wanted that kiss.

I wanted to hear I was good enough.

I wanted to go home.

I wanted a holiday. A reprieve. A break.

Yet, I cannot receive a kiss without a flinch, I cannot stop pushing myself no matter how many achievements come under my belt, I have no home but a house of those who were supposed to love me most, and every Monday, as opposed to Friday, is the day I wish came sooner.

I wish my mother still loved me the way I still cannot stop thinking of how she used to hold me, despite how badly she has ripped the humanity off my skin, and drained me of my feeling.

Like instinct, or like clockwork, my mind will return to her, again, and again, and again, to a point where I am on the precipice of feeling what is familiar, before it leaves like déjà vu.

There goes my warmth, my mother and home, and all that remains are the raw flesh of my subconscious, rising from the soot of old skin.

[figure8ponderer]

Merging Reductionism with Holism: Reimagining the Universe in Invisibly Strung

In the past, my films adopted a "reductionist" approach, where the universe was viewed through the lens of simulation theory, treating reality as a kind of mechanistic construct, much like a machine made up of binary parts. Reductionism has long been the dominant perspective in physics, breaking down complex systems into smaller components to understand the whole. But as I think about my upcoming short film, I’m interested in moving away from that mechanical view and embracing something more "holistic," a perspective that sees the universe as interconnected, like an organism or collective consciousness rather than a machine.

What's fascinating is that science is evolving. We’re witnessing the emergence of what some might call visionary science, where reductionist ideas are beginning to blend with a more holistic worldview. Galileo once said, “The book of nature is written in mathematical characters,” which highlights the reductionist idea that the universe can be understood through equations and fundamental forces. While that remains true, recent advances in physics and metaphysical studies, like those on near-death experiences or consciousness, suggest that this isn’t the full picture.

Newton’s ideas on energy laid the groundwork for much of classical physics—his laws of motion and forces gave us a way to quantify the world. But as science advanced, we began to ask deeper questions. Sure, energy moves and exerts force, but what drives energy itself? What gives it purpose, and where does it come from? The more we probe, especially with the discovery of subatomic particles like electrons and protons, the more we realize we’re only scratching the surface. I like to say that electrons and protons are like the "bricks" of reality, but we still don’t know what the full "building" is (an analogy I mentioned in my previous entry, Embracing the Cosmic Enigma: Mystical Thinkers, Electrons, and the universe).

.

This shift from reductionism to a more integrated view is starting to resonate with physicists. People are questioning the idea that the universe is just a collection of inert particles and forces. A more holistic approach sees everything as interconnected, part of a larger, dynamic system—something much closer to a conscious field than a computed simulation.

In my past films, I leaned heavily on reductionist ideas, imagining the universe as a simulation built on binaries—on/off, 0/1, matter/antimatter. That approach provokes a sense of unease. If the universe is merely computed, it feels cold and deterministic. However, in this new project, I want to explore the idea that even if the universe operates on binary or mechanistic principles, that doesn’t exclude beauty, unity, or even divinity. Technology and the mechanistic world might be spiritual in ways we can’t yet comprehend. Technology and the mechanistic world might possess a spiritual dimension that we’re only beginning to sense. The idea that physics and metaphysics, or science and religion, exist as separate realms doesn’t resonate with me. Instead, I aim to merge the two.

While my approach leans more toward holism, I also want to show that even if the universe operates through binaries, it doesn’t diminish its magic—or the possibility that it's conscious in some way. This is why, in my short film Invisibly Strung, the two estranged lovers re-encounter each other in a physics class centered on String Theory. This scientific foundation aligns with the film’s title, binding the story of a fractured romance where the characters are symbolically tethered by a red string. Through elements of magical realism, they are bound together, despite the forces pulling them apart.

So ya... Ultimately, I’m aiming for a holistic approach in this film—one that highlights the invisible connections that link everything together, including love. Love, like the invisible string between two people, may be governed by forces we can’t yet quantify, but that doesn’t make it any less real. I want to explore the beauty and unity of nature, suggesting that the universe, in all its complexity, is more than just the sum of its parts. It’s not just a machine—it’s an interconnected whole, alive with unseen forces.

[aurorechaton]

Composition can make all the difference in presenting your style!

The first drawing already has some great techniques, and it's stunning on it's own, looking like a storybook page, but the new version is much more appealing as a poster, cover art, a playing card, what have you.

If you feel like your art is lagging, but the average non-artist says you're already amazing, it's usually something small, like the use of color, space, or line weight.

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For a breakdown, the diagonal slant of the hill and bow help separate out the objects on display, and work to guide your eye up the piece, focusing on the lower left and upper right on either end. This allows the piece to remove some elements without losing it's visual appeal, and the whole image ends up looking less cluttered.

The color of the blue sky and water also helps the orange elements pop, and allows the back legs of the deer to lean heavily on the green for shadow, without looking monotone. Combined with the amazing contrast of values, the woman is the darkest blue AND lightest orange in the image, where you might expect it to be the water and the deer/grass that take those colors.

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To fix the left image, in a different way to the right one, I would lift the bow above her head, de-notch the arrow, and move the obstruction up front to the left. The bow along with the road will create a kind of parallel bar effect that will keep the eye from moving too far up or down from her face. Note that while her and the deer are facing right, the farthest you can see into the distance is a very narrow spot to their upper left. Even just flipping the tree around would make a world of difference.

For colors, there are a million different ways to make it work, like making the greens all shaded deep blues, and make her coat a light blue. I would de-saturate the leaves right behind the path, and strike a little bit of the details around the edges. The upper triangles are sparser, smaller, and perhaps even a different color. The obstruction in the foreground could use a number of different techniques, from silhouetting, blur (or the effect of it using soft blending, as is done on the right) as well as cutting some details. Additionally, note how hard it is to see the water in the left picture. I would honestly raise the horizon line for the water ever so slightly, so there is less hill and more water visible behind the cattails. Doing so could allow for a few more color schemes, including making the deer a nice tan or gold!

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If there are any new or struggling artists, I challenge you to rework the composition of an old piece!

Alternatively, look at a photo or someone else's art work, and try to break down the composition. How would you have drawn it differently?

This drawing from 2021 is very special to me. I spent all summer of 2021 really struggling with my art, not knowing how to improve my compositions.

Around that time I started watching videos from Lightbox Online and that got me into learning online. It's amazing how many ressources there are available these days! I'm a very slow learner and it takes me ages to work through a video, but it has already helped so much! Anyway, back in 2021 this was the first drawing where I finally felt ok with the direction my art was taking and it made me hopeful to improve further. It's actually based on a similar drawing from 2019. I like how the new one feels so much more airy!