#so much pAInter art recently

[just-a-joey]

pAInter practice

[artbyzephra]

From sketch, to...

... Final piece. Commission for MercuryF0x, Process video can be found here (it took a bit of energy to edit so please give it a look).

Bonus headshot detail - first time detailing something like this and really happy with how it ended up.

[mc-tummy-blur]

Didn't expect the year of our Lord 2025 to get into Alan Rickman, but I guess that's how it goes sometimes

The year of getting into an actor that so far I have only seen portray maladjusted men

[kibo-no-akademi]

//Man, can you believe it? It's been 10 years since i created Cateline... 🥺💚

[feminist-space]

"Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts.

Instagram is a necessity for many artists, who use the platform to promote their work and solicit paying clients. But Meta is using public posts to train its generative AI systems, and only European users can opt out, since they’re protected by GDPR laws. Generative AI has become so front-and-center on Meta’s apps that artists reached their breaking point.

“When you put [AI] so much in their face, and then give them the option to opt out, but then increase the friction to opt out… I think that increases their anger level — like, okay now I’ve really had enough,” Jingna Zhang, a renowned photographer and founder of Cara, told TechCrunch.

Cara, which has both a web and mobile app, is like a combination of Instagram and X, but built specifically for artists. On your profile, you can host a portfolio of work, but you can also post updates to your feed like any other microblogging site.

Zhang is perfectly positioned to helm an artist-centric social network, where they can post without the risk of becoming part of a training dataset for AI. Zhang has fought on behalf of artists, recently winning an appeal in a Luxembourg court over a painter who copied one of her photographs, which she shot for Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam.

“Using a different medium was irrelevant. My work being ‘available online’ was irrelevant. Consent was necessary,” Zhang wrote on X.

Zhang and three other artists are also suing Google for allegedly using their copyrighted work to train Imagen, an AI image generator. She’s also a plaintiff in a similar lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI.

“Words can’t describe how dehumanizing it is to see my name used 20,000+ times in MidJourney,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “My life’s work and who I am—reduced to meaningless fodder for a commercial image slot machine.”

Artists are so resistant to AI because the training data behind many of these image generators includes their work without their consent. These models amass such a large swath of artwork by scraping the internet for images, without regard for whether or not those images are copyrighted. It’s a slap in the face for artists – not only are their jobs endangered by AI, but that same AI is often powered by their work.

“When it comes to art, unfortunately, we just come from a fundamentally different perspective and point of view, because on the tech side, you have this strong history of open source, and people are just thinking like, well, you put it out there, so it’s for people to use,” Zhang said. “For artists, it’s a part of our selves and our identity. I would not want my best friend to make a manipulation of my work without asking me. There’s a nuance to how we see things, but I don’t think people understand that the art we do is not a product.”

This commitment to protecting artists from copyright infringement extends to Cara, which partners with the University of Chicago’s Glaze project. By using Glaze, artists who manually apply Glaze to their work on Cara have an added layer of protection against being scraped for AI.

Other projects have also stepped up to defend artists. Spawning AI, an artist-led company, has created an API that allows artists to remove their work from popular datasets. But that opt-out only works if the companies that use those datasets honor artists’ requests. So far, HuggingFace and Stability have agreed to respect Spawning’s Do Not Train registry, but artists’ work cannot be retroactively removed from models that have already been trained.

“I think there is this clash between backgrounds and expectations on what we put on the internet,” Zhang said. “For artists, we want to share our work with the world. We put it online, and we don’t charge people to view this piece of work, but it doesn’t mean that we give up our copyright, or any ownership of our work.”"

Read the rest of the article here:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/06/a-social-app-for-creatives-cara-grew-from-40k-to-650k-users-in-a-week-because-artists-are-fed-up-with-metas-ai-policies/

[cherryblossompink303]

Patience: ~And so Kyoya met her!~

➼ pairing: Kyoya Ootori x Reader ➼ summary: The announcement from the ootori group leads Kyoya to remanisce on when you first met ➼ what to expect:  "Yeah well...I'm not just a pretty face" ➼ warnings: ➼ Part Twenty Two | Part Twenty Four

"You're such a good painter Y/n" One of the guests marvels at the canvas before you. "Thanks" You smile, going back to the coastal landscape. "A painting afternoon was a good idea" Tamaki notes, looking over both of your shoulders at the painting.

Kyoya and haruhi stand at the outskirts of the room "You know...I spoke to y/n once...about her relationship with you, because the way I see it you two are very much opposite. At the time she told me that she is more calculating than she seems but for someone who is supposedly so...well...like you...she is incredibly nurturing"

Kyoya looks up to glance at where you are, gleaming at the praise for your art. He smirks "What exactly are you trying to imply about my relationship Haruhi?"

"All I'm saying is that for someone so cold I don't know how you ended up so attached to someone so...well someone like her" Kyoya smiles. "Well, that is a long story"

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And so Kyoya met her!

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It had been a perfectly normal day for Kyoya, the ouran host club had been running for about a month and it picked up remarkably quickly. Although he was still being pestered by his father, although the message was clear by now 'y/n l/n, your fiance, has transferred to ouran academy, make a point to meet her and become acquianted'

Usually he would had no issue with these types of things. But somehow he has managed to get into his head about it. Kyoya has never thought himself to be one to catch himself worried about relationships, but something about meeting the girl he would one day have to marry he had been dreading.

It wasn't worries about first impressions or anything like that. It is finding out what type of person would be stuck with him for the rest of their lives. He had already gathered some information on her, he was perfectly aware of who she was, y/n l/n, class 1A, highschool transfer from europe, her japanese is not amazing but she scores high on almost every test.

In the end Kyoya decided that he wouldn't avoid you, but he also would not seek you out either. Because while he hadn't approached you yet, neither had you him.

"Kyoya, I was thinking, we should get a consultant for the host club" the statement caused Kyoya to look up from his book, an event that was rare back then. "A consultant?"

"You know, a feminine touch to the host club, a consultant on the female gaze if you will" Kyoya knew that regardless of his answer that Tamaki had already made his mind up. That is always the case but then again Tamaki always understood the certain uncalculable aspect of the host club that he could not comprehend.

"I suppose that would make sense, do you have anyone in mind?” he returned to his book, sighing at the headache that was Tamaki's dreams being balanced against the clubs budget.

“As a matter of fact I do, I’ve recently met the newest international student and I feel she would be a good fit” He paused, he couldn't mean....no...you weren't the only international transfer he may not mean you. "What is her name? I'll have to meet with her"

"L/N"

And there it was, in black and white, your name. irefutably, it was his fiance, Tamaki just couldn't have chosen someone else. "I see"

"She is quite wonderful you know, I started talking to her because she brought some french food in for lunch one day. It turns out she is quite...insightful"

"Insightful you say?"

"Indeed, it is quite indescribable, you have to meet her" Kyoya sighed, knowing there was no getting out of it. He supposed that at least it would appease his father for now.

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"Hello?" The creak of the door and the broken accent caught Kyoya's attention. "Oh hello" Hikaru soon appeared in front of you "Well aren't you cute" Kaoru appeared on the side of you. "I'm sorry but club hours haven't started yet, but we will be more than happy to see you then"

"Yes indeed...please do come back later, you'll break our hearts if you don't"

"Leave it you two, I invited miss l/n here, she's our new consultant" Tamaki steps forward "Sorry about them" You smiled "It is alright" you step further into the room. "This is hikaru and Kaoru, pay no attention to them"

"gee thanks boss, a glowing review in front of the pretty lady"

"Come meet the rest of the club" he led you futher into the music room "This is Honey-Senpai and Mori-Senpai, and my co-founder Kyoya"

Kyoya still remembers to this day the look on your face when you realised. The look of realisation and terror and possibly slight hope as the two of you made eye contact. He doesn't think he will ever forget it. "K-Kyoya?" you muttered, barely audible, like you were trying it out to feel how it sounded.

It was only then that he realised the circumstances he was in, he was about to have his first interaction with you and it was going to be in the same conversation as with the entire rest of the host club.

Kyoya stands, slowly approaching you, unsure of whether he should let the information of your connection slip. "Miss l/n it is nice to meet you" He resulted in his usual autopilot cordiality that he usually puts on when meeting the child of a prominent businessman.

"Likewise" you return the look, quickly picking up on the situation. "Come and sit y/n we can discuss things, honey-senpai would you mind getting our guest some tea?"

"Of course tama-chan!"

"Oh, could I actually get some coffee please, I am not a massive tea drinker"

the three of you sat, that being you, Kyoya, and Tamaki, the former two avoiding making eye contact with eachother. "So y/n how much do you know about host clubs?"

"In full honesty not much, i know the general concept i think"

Tamaki smiled "That's okay, you don't really need to know much anyway, basically our jobs are to appeal to the female gaze and improve ladies days, we have the second one down...we're kinda struggling with the first"

"I see"

Honey-senpai skipped over with a cup of coffee and a cake "y/n-san I brought you a cake too!"

"Thank you Honey-Senpai" you smile at him, dropping a couple of sugars into the coffee. "I think in full honesty that It perhaps would be best that I observe how the club runs before I give you any advice on your issue"

Kyoya hummed "I agree"

"good idea, club hours start soon anyway, you are welcome to stay here and observe how we run" You were a lot quieter back then that now, Kyoya remembers pondering whether that was due to your lack of profeciency in the language or because she were shy.

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Not an hour later the two of you found youselves sat alone together at a table on the outskirts of the host club. You people watching, he scribbling away. "I would have thought that the cofounder of the host club would actually...host"

"My role is more on the management side, but I do host occasionally, when I am requested"

"I see"

"I would have thought that a consultant would want to take notes"

"I don't really need to, not yet at least...it's all up here" You muttered, looking out into the host club with an interrogatory gaze. "That is unless you need me to write stuff down for you to reference"

Kyoya paused, refraining from his mouth hanging slightly agape. You weren't like what he imagined you would be. He assumed that you would fall into one of two catagories, either like the guests of the host club, or like the other only children of CEO's, but you didn't fit either of those descriptions. He couldn't place you. And it was starting to eat at him.

You raised an eyebrow at the non-response from Kyoya, reaching over to carefully take the book from him, flipping to the back pages to not disrupt any order he had in there. "You see the problem is that you need to start personalising more, while the girls who come here have a lot in common the truth is they are all very different in their backgrounds"

you started writing down what you explain as you said it "Basic psychology dictates that what one seeks out in either comfort or attraction is formed by their childhoods, more often or not by what they lack in childhood. While everyone here may have the common thread of rich kids their upbringings will have been vastly different. You can see it in what type of host they request"

Kyoya hummed for you to continue. Interested in seeing where you were going with this. "So you need to start paying attention to these details, each guests habits will form a pattern"

"For someone who is unfamiliar with the concept of a host club you sure seemed to put that together quite quickly"

"It's what I'm here for is it not? But it is as they say, the closer you look, the less you see, step back and you can view the full picture. In essence what you do here is actually quite...simple..." you caught yourself at the end of the sentence as you realised that you had been rambling, shyly pushing back the notebook.

"Interesting..." Kyoya smirks, taking back the notebook. "Is that why we have not addressed the elephant in the room?"

"I was waiting for you to mention it...i wasn't sure you knew who i was...didn't want to freak you out"

"I know who you are y/n, of course I do"

You nod. "Well then, do you want to discuss it? The fact that we are...." You trailed off, realising where the two of you were sat. "You know"

"I don't think there is much to discuss, we both know the position that we are it, i thought it was worth mentioning..."

"I must admit, I did not expect you to be part of a highschool host club of all things, from what i've heard about the ootori family" Kyoya chuckled "I assure you I am not like my family"

"Who is that girl, did she request kyoya?"

The comment from a nearby table seemingly caught both of your attentions. You hummed out a laugh "I suppose that considering you are a host you don't wanting our...arrangement, advertised"

"It...may be for the better, if you are okay with that"

"Sure, especially since it seems that I will be here more often."

It was not some great love story for the ages, or love at first sight. But Kyoya would not change a single second of it. Their relationship was built, it didn't just appear.

It became routine, the two of you, in your corner of the host club. Sitting in comfortable silence while the two of your worked, until slowly the silences started to become shorter and shorter.

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"I didn't take you to be an artist" you approach kyoya, looking over his shoulder at his portrait. "Yeah well...I'm not just a pretty face" he joked, looking back at the protrait of purple roses before him. You hum "I've never seen you be creative before, it suits you"

"hmm...perhaps"

A series of beeps overtake the host club, the girls take out their phones. "So much for an afternoon of switching off" squeals and whispers overtake the room.

"Hey kyoya?" Kaoru appears next to the two of you. Turning his phone to show him whatever was on his screen.

'Ootori and l/n groups annouce engagement of their two heirs: Kyoya Ootori and Y/N L/N are set to be married in one of the most powerful global matches of the decade, more below'

"Well, I suppose the secrets out" you mutter, kyoya hums in agreement "Indeed"

You look around, soon realising that you were now the subject of the entire host club's attention. "Should we say something?"

"We may have to, yes" he holds out his hand "Are you ready?"

You place yours in his "As i'll ever be"

Next time on patience 'The host club declares dissolution!'

Tag list (reply to be added): @skottch @cgmajor @rebirthbunbun @bbybubbles @blueberry19000 @katgirl05 @smellslikelovinglies @veras-fanfic-reblogs @sadprimrose @mirtalikesdr @sleeplesssskeleton @ritzes28 @crackpeole @rory-cakes @renjunniex @II-kita-san-II @angelicwillows @missbrebre1012 @sleep-7372 @strawberrbitch @reticent-writer @eternal-dokja @meme848 @mistyhydrangeagarden @nanaloverz @hyuninslutbbgirl @rebel-author-chick @voyager1fan @bubbabobabubbles @haowonbins @justtryingtosurvive02

[cassiebnuy]

the furry fandom is mostly concerned with literal representation

theres tons of symbolism and intention applied but its usually just in character design and to a lesser extent stylization (u can only go so far w it before it steps on character design)

bc the purpose of the art is v specific - its exploring sensory experiences and desires, its often not just a standalone piece but an imagination aid to make something with only an abstract internal existence more concrete and real.

past a point its hard to project urself into abstract art

theres nothing wrong with this, a lot of rly lovely art comes out of these ways of thinking. i do a lot of this kind of art myself

and of course there *are* other artists doing furry abstraction! im far from alone. paul peng does some next level shit that continues to inspire me, scribblechicken makes glorious surreal works w fields of repeated images, teddywitchs recent abstract sketchbook work has been rly inspiring to me, mariken has been playing with abstraction in ways tht make it feel rly accessible

and of course there are alternate models of furry besides patricia taxxons autistic model (from the "ethics of boinking animal people" video) which while rly useful for understanding the bulk of furry culture leaves out other types of brainweirdness that draw ppl to anthro animal imagery in different ways. pawberri posited an additional schizotypal model that seems v useful and made some of my favorite artists work click in a way it never did before

anyway i think on the scale of the fandom this results in the de-emphasis of non illustrative artforms. there are furry sculptors and painters and ceramicists doing incredible work but it doesnt seem to get the same love (with the exception of fursuit makers bc theyre making a v literally representational form of wearable sculpture)

i could go on abt material conditions, economic motivations, art literacy, etc but instead i just wanna make my case

we can all agree that postfurry is where the most interesting stuff in furry is being made right. i saw yall gushing abt sinkdog i saw the fanart i see my sog painting still getting notes years later. but postfurry is still limiting the furry toolkit to character design i think we can go deeper

u can apply that toolkit to pure abstraction and leave characters and backgrounds behind. u can plant it into the intentionality behind not obviously furry work. patricia taxxon used a term in the video i mentioned earlier, "transcendental furriness" tht i think gets at this a little. u can make pure abstraction furry. u can make furry food if u rly lean into animalistic eating experiences and evocative flavor combinations. furry doesnt have to just be a character design trope it can be so much more. it can be layered fractally into the process and intentionality of a work, if that makes sense. twisted into every fiber and woven in

*thats* the kind of art i wanna make

anyway thank u for reading my manifesto

[trungles]

Cross-posting an essay I wrote for my Patreon since the post is free and open to the public.

Hello everyone! I hope you're relaxing as best you can this holiday season. I recently went to see Miyazaki's latest Ghibli movie, The Boy and the Heron, and I had some thoughts about it. If you're into art historical allusions and gently cranky opinions, please enjoy. I've attached a downloadable PDF in the Patreon post if you'd prefer to read it that way. Apologies for the formatting of the endnotes! Patreon's text posting does not allow for superscripts, which means all my notations are in awkward parentheses. Please note that this writing contains some mild spoilers for The Boy and the Heron.

Hayao Miyazaki’s 2023 feature animated film The Boy and the Heron reads as an extended meditation on grief and legacy. The Master of a grand tower seeks a descendant to carry on his maddening duty, balancing toy blocks of magical stone upon which the entire fabric of his little pocket of reality rests. The world’s foundations are frail and fleeting, and can pass away into the cold void of space should he neglect to maintain this task. The Master’s desire to pass the torch undergirds much of the film’s narrative.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold Böcklin. 1880. Oil on Canvas. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss Symbolist(1) painter, was born on October 16 in 1827, the same year the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church bought a plot of land in Florence from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, that had long been used for the burials of Protestants around Florence. It is colloquially known as The English Cemetery, so called because it was the resting place of many Anglophones and Protestants around Tuscany, and Böcklin frequented this cemetery—his workshop was adjacent and his infant daughter Maria was buried there. In 1880, he drew inspiration from the cemetery, a lone plot of Protestant land among a sea of Catholic graveyards, and began to paint what would be the first of six images entitled Isle of the Dead. An oil on canvas piece, it depicts a moody little island mausoleum crowned with a gently swaying grove of cypresses, a type of tree common in European cemeteries and some of which are referred to as arborvitae. A figure on a boat, presumably Charon, ferries a soul toward the island and away from the viewer.

(Photo of The English Cemetery in Florence. Samuli Lintula. 2006.)

The Isle of the Dead paintings varied slightly from version to version, with figures and names added and removed to suit the needs of the time or the commissioner. The painting was glowingly referenced and remained fairly popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The painting used to be inescapable in much of European popular culture. Professor Okulicz-Kozaryn, a philologist (someone with a deep interest in the ways language and cultural canons evolve)(2) observed that the painting, like many other works in its time, was itself iterative and became widely reiterated and referenced among its contemporaries. It became something like Romantic kitsch in the eyes of modern art critics, overwrought and excessively Byronic. I imagine Miyazaki might also resent a work of that level of manufactured ubiquity, as Miyazaki famously held Disney animated films in contempt (3). Miyazaki’s films are popularly aspirational to young animators and cartoonists, but gestures at imitation typically fall well short, often reducing Miyazaki’s weighty films to kitschy images of saccharine vibes and a lazy indulgence in a sort of empty magical domestic coziness. Being trapped in a realm of rote sentiment by an uncritical, unthoughtful viewership is its own Isle of Death.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

The Boy and the Heron follows a familiar narrative arc to many of Miyazaki’s other films: a child must journey through a magical and quietly menacing world in order to rescue their loved ones. This arc is an echo of Satsuki’s journey to find Mei in My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Chihiro’s journey to rescue her parents Spirited Away (2001). To better understand Miyazaki’s fixation with this particular character journey, it can be instructive to watch Lev Atamanov’s 1957 animated film, The Snow Queen (4)(5), a beautifully realized take on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1844 children’s story (6)(7). Mahito’s journey continues in this tradition, as the boy travels into a painted world to rescue his new stepmother from a mysterious tower.

Throughout the film, Miyazaki visually references Isle of the Dead. Transported to a surreal world, Mahito initially awakens on a little green island with a gated mausoleum crowned with cypress trees. He is accosted by hungry pelicans before being rescued by a fisherwoman named Kiriko. After a day of catching and gutting fish, Mahito wakes up under the fisherwoman’s dining table, surrounded by kokeshi—little wooden dolls—in the shapes of the old women who run Mahito’s family’s rural household. Mahito is told they must not be touched, as the kokeshi are wards set up for his protection. There is a popular urban legend associated with the kokeshi wherein they act as stand-ins for victims of infanticide, though there seems to be very little available writing to support this legend. Still, it’s a neat little trick that Miyazaki pulls, placing a stray reference to a local legend of unverifiable provenance that persists in the popular imagination, like the effect of fairy stories passed on through oral retellings, continually remolded each new iteration.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

Kiriko’s job in this strange landscape is to catch fish to nourish unborn spirits, the adorable floating warawara, before they can attempt to ascend on a journey into the world of the living. Their journey is thwarted by flocks of supernatural pelicans, who swarm the warawara and devour them. This seems to nod to the association of pelicans with death in mythologies around the world, especially in relationship to children (8). Miyazaki’s pelicans contemplate the passing of their generations as each successive generation seems to regress, their capacity to fulfill their roles steadily diminishing.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

As Mahito’s adventure continues, we find the landscapes changing away from Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead into more familiar Ghibli territories as we start to see spaces inspired by one of Studio Ghibli’s aesthetic mainstays, Naohisa Inoue and his explorations of the fantasy realms of Iblard. He might be most familiar to Ghibli enthusiasts as the background artists for the more fantastical elements of Whisper of the Heart (1995).

(Naohisa Inoue, for Iblard Jikan, 2007. Studio Ghibli.)

By the time we arrive at the climax of The Boy and the Heron, the fantasy island environment starts to resemble English takes on Italian gardens, the likes of which captivated illustrators and commercial artists of the early 20th century such as Maxfield Parrish. This appears to be a return to one of Böcklin’s later paintings, The Island of Life (1888), a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the overwhelming presence of Isle of the Dead in his life and career. The Island of Life depicts a little spot of land amid an ocean very like the one on which Isle of the Dead’s somber mausoleum is depicted, except this time the figures are lively and engaged with each other, the vegetation lush and colorful, replete with pink flowers and palm fronds.

(Island of Life. Arnold Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1888. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

In 2022, Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg acquired the sixth and final Isle of the Dead painting. In the last year of his life, Arnold Böcklin would paint this image in collaboration with his son Carlo Böcklin, himself an artist and an architect. Arnold Böcklin spent three years painting the same image three times over at the site of his infant daughter’s grave, trapped on the Isle of the Dead. By the time of his death in 1901 at age 74, Böcklin would be survived by only five of his fourteen children. That the final Isle of the Dead painting would be a collaboration between father and son seemed a little ironic considering Hayao Miyazaki’s reticence in passing on his own legacy. Like the old Master in The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki finds himself with no true successors.

The Master of the Tower's beautiful islands of painted glass fade into nothing as Mahito, his only worthy descendant, departs to live his own life, fulfilling the thesis of Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 book How Do You Live?, published three years after Carlo Böcklin’s death. In evoking Yoshino and Böcklin’s works, Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron suggests that, like his character the Master, Miyazaki himself must make peace with the notion that he has no heirs to his legacy, and that those whom he wished to follow in his footsteps might be best served by finding their own paths.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold and Carlo Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1901. The State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg, Russia.)

INFORMAL ENDNOTES

1 - Symbolists are sort of tough to nail down. They were started as a literary movement to 1 distinguish themselves from the Decadents, but their manifesto was so vague that critics and academics fight about it to this day. The long and the short of it is that the Symbolists made generous use of a lot of metaphorical imagery in their work. They borrow a lot of icons from antiquity, echo the moody aesthetics from the Romantics, maintained an emphasis on figurative imagery more so than the Surrealists, and were only slightly more technically married to the trappings of traditionalist academic painters than Modernists and Impressionists. They're extremely vibes-forward.

2 - Okulicz-Kozaryn, Radosław. Predilection of Modernism for Variations. Ciulionis' Serenity among Different Developments of the Theme of Toteninsel. ACTA Academiae Artium Vilnensis 59. 2010. The article is incredibly cranky and very funny to read in parts. Contains a lot of observations I found to be helpful in placing Isle of the Dead within its context.

3 - "From my perspective, even if they are lightweight in nature, the more popular and common films still must be filled with a purity of emotion. There are few barriers to entry into these films-they will invite anyone in but the barriers to exit must be high and purifying. Films must also not be produced out of idle nervousness or boredom, or be used to recognise, emphasise, or amplify vulgarity. And in that context, I must say that I hate Disney's works. The barrier to both the entry and exit of Disney films is too low and too wide. To me, they show nothing but contempt for the audience." from Miyazaki's own writing in his collection of essays, Starting Point, published in 2014 from VIZ Media.

4 - You can watch the movie here in its original Russian with English closed captions here.

5 If you want to learn more about the making of Atamanoy's The Snow Queen, Animation Obsessive wrote a neat little article about it. It's a good overview, though I have to gently disagree with some of its conclusions about the irony of Miyazaki hating Disney and loving Snow Queen, which draws inspiration from Bambi. Feature film animation as we know it hadonly been around a few decades by 1957, and I find it specious, particularly as a comic artistand author, to see someone conflating an entire form with the character of its content, especially in the relative infancy of the form. But that's just one hot take. The rest of the essay is lovely.

6 - Miyazaki loves this movie. He blurbed it in a Japanese re-release of it in 2007.

7 - Julia Alekseyeva interprets Princess Mononoke as an iteration of Atamanov's The Snow Queen, arguing that San, the wolf princess, is Miyazaki's homage to Atamanoy's little robber girl character.

8 - Hart, George. The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods And Goddesses. Routledge Dictionaries. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. 2005.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

So the recent reblog made me think, can I get a one shot where Reader is in love with Painter, and gets a chance to fix him since his document says the damage from his overclocking is repairable, but they have to wrestle with the idea of "what if the instability is what I love about painter? What if I fix him and he's so different we aren't really compatible anymore?"

I may have a fascination with "Being in love with someone but then they change for the better and are unrecognizable"

"You mean to tell me...they could have fixed me after all this time?"

"Yeah, but I doubt they would've told you that." You muttered as you tapped away on some computer, while Painter remained hooked up to some wires and cables on the nearby desk.

Running diagnostics on an 80s-styled computer who had the processors of a supercomputer was no simple task, but after checking his document and doing a great deal of research, you've finally gotten to the root of the problem and learned how fixable it was.

All you had to do was replace his hardware and personality drivers, which were fried and severely degredated due to his frequent overclocking attempts.

Ever since his owner was murdered by some stupid "AI prompters" at Urbanshade, he's been trying to basically kill himself--but they only cared because he was too valuable as a digital mining machine, giving him promises to revisit the surface every six days so he could paint as much as he wished.

Yet he had lost that passion, along with whatever "good" personality he may have had before all of this happened.

But by some miracle, you got him out of the blacksite.

During the Expendable protocol, they tasked you with destroying him due to the immense loss of life he caused thanks to Sebastian hooking him up to the NAVI system, enabling him to misguide operatives and gun down whoever he pleased with the turrets.

You had a different plan, though, and had them convinced you destroyed him--when in reality, Sebastian helped you smuggle him out and away from the blacksite in a box.

You had plans to quit Urbanshade after the lockdown, anyways, being one of the few survivors who knew fully well what Painter was capable of.

Not only that, but you were the only person who truly showed him sympathy over his loss.

You've scheduled interviews with him, which were really just excuses for you to talk with and get to know him better, wanting to understand what his owner was like and how badly he missed painting.

Most days, he was too depressed to talk, and even got angry and shut himself off when he believed you were trying to get inside his head.

Then one day, he turned over a new leaf and created another piece of art for you--something he hasn't put effort into for the longest time.

It was a beautiful valley. His ideal place to live, where he could see the clouds and the birds and the sky anytime he wanted to. Without Urbanshade telling him what to do and how long he could watch.

That image was mysteriously uploaded to your phone, but nobody in the company has questioned it, so you have it as your lockscreen.

Since then, he's warmed up to you a lot more. But he was still quite moody, his unstable drivers making it hard to predict his behavior from day to day.

That didn't deter you from wanting to spend more time with him, and as strange as it was...you felt drawn to the AI. You didn't like chatting with your coworkers as much, and even while in containment himself several months prior to the lockdown, Sebastian sarcastically asked if you were "in love" with Painter.

Your silence told him everything.

During the containment breach, you've seen Painter and overheard his voice on the intercoms he hijacked, gunning down people right before your eyes and luring Z-96 around the facility, although for some reason he never noticed you.

You feared he was too far gone in his newfound bloodlust, seeing all Urbanshade personnel as his enemies.

Still, you wanted to get him out of there and began working on a plan as soon as you were rescued.

After joining someone's expedition disguised as a prisoner, you stayed behind in the heavy containment unit where Painter's main body resided.

At first, he was annoyed and angry...until he recognized your face.

You managed to pull off the great heist when somebody finally got the crystal, taking advantage of the distractions to bring him to a remote location above the surface where Urbanshade couldn't track you.

Now you just had to fix what they've broken.

It didn't take long for Painter to figure out that you liked him, even after all the terror he's caused and he decided to accept your attempts at help.

While he couldn't exactly feel love like you could, he wanted to stay with you no matter what--and if that's what his version of saying "I love you back" was, then you were okay with that.

Now that he knew they could have reversed the damage this entire time, but simply chose not to...he believed this would be a good final "fuck you" to all of Urbanshade.

"If it's not too much to ask...I'd like a new body once all of this is said and done. With turret attachments to the arms, maybe?" Painter innocently asked. "Part of me misses commanding them and watching those poor saps scatter like rats. Hehehe.."

"Painter, you're not a war machine anymore." You turned away from your computer for a moment, frowning slightly. "I know all of that killing might've felt good. It might've felt justified, but..I thought you wanted to be passionate about art again."

".....then maybe turrets filled with paint will suffice." He grumbled, suddenly not looking all-that enthused. "I just HATE feeling so..confined. I've been relying on you too much." Then a sad face appeared on his screen. "I wanna protect you, in case those Urbanshade jerks do find us."

"We're perfectly safe here, I promise. Let's just figure out your hardware and personality stuff first. But I'll keep the robot body in mind."

Painter stayed quiet as you turned back to your task, his webcam zooming in and enhancing the screen you were on.

It was a bidding website, where he could see you looking for compatible hardware components. He had doubts you've find the same kind of technology his owner did when he was built, but...you had your ways.

You were once a huge tech wizard at Urbanshade, after all.

Once you found everything you needed, you could have easily ordered it right there and then, paying extra for the fast shipping....

Yet he saw your mouse lingering on the "order" button, and he frowned. He couldn't see your expression, so he didn't know what was going on or why you were hesitating. "What's wrong? Just order the parts."

"....Painter, something just occurred to me, and...I think we need to talk about it before moving forward with-"

"Nope. No, no, no. I don't wanna hear it right now. Can we save it until after you click that little button?" His voice grew more annoyed, and when you refused to do what he asked, he scowled. "Seriously? After everything we've done to get out of there, you're gonna pull this bull-?!"

"There's a high chance that if I replace your hardware and personality drivers, you won't be the same." You blurted out.

".....well, obviously." Painter scoffed, still not seeing the issue. "Isn't that what you wanted to do? To get rid of my homicidal tendencies? To make me forget the pain?? To revert me back to what I was meant to be?!"

"......."

It took him a few moments to analyze your saddened expression and understand why you seemed so concerned, but then he finally realized...

"Ohhh, I guess um....I haven't considered that.."

"You know what I'm talking about?"

"..you've only ever known me after Urbanshade snatched me up. That's when you first started feeling things for me." He spoke after a long pause. "You have no idea what I was like before. So you think we'll no longer be compatible if you go through with it. Is that right?"

"I know it sounds stupid and selfish. I can't revert Sebastian's mutations or undo all the suffering Eyefestation went through. But I know I can repair you. I have everything I need to do so." You sighed, wrestling with this huge moral dilemma as you glanced back at the screen. "I just....didn't think about this before. I don't know how much of you will really change, or if you'll even remember who I am."

"Jeez..that would kinda suck." He looked disappointed now, feeling guilty for snapping at you earlier. "I don't wanna forget the compassion you've shown me. And...I gotta remember at least some of Urbanshade, and what they took from me. You can't tweak my memory drives so that I can remember only certain things?"

"I wish it was that easy, but..it's not. I have to replace those components I mentioned, and I don't know how it'll affect your memory. This is pretty much an "all or nothing" procedure."

"Hm, well...I think it's worth trying. I'm trusting you with this, [y/n]. And you know I don't trust easily." He huffed, and you looked back at him, nodding your head. "Who knows? I might only forget about all those bloody murder sprees. Hehehe.."

"Maybe, but I'm sure I'll figure out something." You eventually decided, knowing that you had to repair him regardless. So you ordered the parts. "But you know...maybe we should get you some turret attachments. I snagged a blueprint of one."

"Aww, you love me enough to revisit the idea?"

"I love you enough to give you a means of self-defense, Painter."

"Urghh..alright. I promise they'll be reserved specifically for "self-defense"." He rolled his eyes, but then he smiled, glad that you were keeping your promise about fixing him.

Although considering it could completely alter his personality and even wipe his memories, he hopes that wouldn't become a serious problem.

[shegatsby]

Okay I just had an amazing idea! Imagine reader as Hannibals patient and both of them meeting in an online portal similar to tattle crime where you can chat privately, they start talki g and develop like a relationship but for the sake of their identities they keep their real names out of the chat when one day the reader texts hannibal that they're at the psychiatrists office with a picture of the floor attatched, Hannibal obviously realizes its the floor of the waiting room, during the session he acts like nothing happened but at the end of their session hannibal adresses the reader by their username. The rest is up to you!

A/N: Hi, thank you for this request I really loved the idea. I changed it a bit because we all know that Hannibal would never leave anything to chance, of course he is gonna stalk you babe ;)

Warnings: Stalking.

Words: 1.442K

It was late in the evening, Baltimore’s  cold weather made you stay under your fuzzy blankets with a hot cup of tea. Your laptop on your lap, you logged onto your account in Tattle Crime. It was a blog about your city’s newest crimes, recently you have been on that blog a lot, there was a serial killer on the loose, people were wither sharing info or commenting about the gruesome  murders. Everyone was talking about the ‘’Chesapeake Ripper’’ you’ve always been interested in serial killer’s mindsets so Tattle Crime was a useful blog on that to feed your curiosity, how you were oblivious to what’s to come…

You read some articles which compares the Chesapeake Ripper to other serial killers and you left a comment under it, saying that comparing is false, because he is something we have never seen before etc. It was your honest opinion, his killings and presentation of the bodies were more meticulously sophisticated. You referred to the killer as ‘’him’’ due to the fact that most serial killers were male.

You opened a new tab and surfed on the internet, you were watching your favorite old Hollywood movie when you had a notification from Tattle Crime. The blog had dm box so that users could communicate which you never used before but someone sent you a text. The user didn’t have their name, their handle was ‘’Botticeli’’ the last name of the famous painter, Sandor Botticelli, your handle was ‘’Hekate’’ the witch goddess. You didn’t like putting your real name out there and appearently so did the person who messaged you.

‘’I am interested in your thoughts regarding the Chesapeake Ripper, I would love to hear more if that is convenient for you.’’

It was strange but you loved to chat about your favorite topics, since you weren’t busy you decided to text back.

‘’Hello, of course. I would love to chat about him, he is such an enigma.’’ You sent and waited, for some reason your hands went cold, you had a strange sensation in your stomach.

You had messaged a stranger online for 4 hours, the conversation was vibrant and it was obvious that the guy you were texting was knowledgeable, you learned that he was a 40 year old man, living in Baltimore, you told him your age, you were at university, you and him respected each others’ private life so not much info were exchanged other than nice conversation about art, literature and murder. Later you said your good nights and you turned off your laptop and went to bed straight, you had morning classes.

It was snowing, you had dark circles under your eyes but you made effort in your appearance, you wore a nice winter dress with long boots, hair tied and a light make up to cover the tiredness. In the mean time Doctor Hannibal Lecter was on his office, getting ready for his patient. He was facing his laptop’s screen, on the screen he had information you, thanks to his work with the FBI he had privileged access to get peoples info. He learned your address, university, your Instagram, everything. He decided to message you again.

You were at the cafeteria, eating and looking at your notes when you got a notification, the stranger you had a nice conversation with last night messaged you again. ‘’I apologies for keeping you up so late last night, I hope you had some sleep, good morning.’’

You couldn’t help but smile, he was formal yet you could sense some kind of kindness and concern.

‘’Hey, no need to apologies. I enjoyed our conversation last night. Morning!’’

For days you messaged back and forth, everyday without being to open, he told you his day, and you told him about your day, over the days you learned his habits, he was an early bird, loved to read and keep his mind busy, he also mentioned the dinner parties he throws every once in a while. You were intrigued, but kept your cool.

After a month you were having mental problems, your assignments were too much and you had some problems from your past, ever since you mentioned your problems he was being more kinder than usual, he was giving you affirmations such as;

‘’You are a smart girl, you can do it.’’

‘’I believe in your abilities.’’

You liked the way he talked to you. Neither of you asked for a phone number or even an email address which felt safe.

One day he suggested that you should see a psychiatrist, since he had access to your university he could see your grades and they were dropping and he didn’t like that. He wanted you to succeed.

He sent you a list of psychiatrists and made some recommendations, you were falling into his trap and he was enjoying it, he wanted to see you and this was the opportunity. You said you would think about it and in order to give you some time he said it was okay.

When you had a melt down while studying you decided to think about Botticelli’s list of psychiatrist and you sent a mail to the Doctor writing that you needed an urgent session, thankfully Doctor Lecter replied quickly, you were too busy to notice how odd it was to reply to you in a minute. He wrote that tomorrow at 6 would be convenient for him, it was convenient for you too because your classes end at 5 pm. Of course he knew that and you would be his last patient of the day.

After your classes you got on the bus and went to the Doctor’s office. You clung to your long coat and walked into the building, the warmth welcomed you, there was a desk but no secretary was in the view, you knocked on the grey door and waited, your heart beating at a rapid speed.

A tall man opened the door, his three piece suit made him look intimidating, he was standing proud and tall.

‘’Miss Y/L/N I presume?’’ he questioned, his maroon eyes scanning you, he was really good at hiding his excitement, there you were, the woman he had been messaging over a month was standing right before him. ‘’Dr. Lecter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’’ You extended your hand and he gladly took it, he noticed how soft your hands were, there was a certain feeling in his chest, ‘’Please come in.’’

His office was grand, the fire place was lit which gave the room a cozy feeling and yet it resembled the museum, formal. You sat on the leather armchair and he sat opposite with his leather notebook and silver pen. He started the conversation, as he was speaking he made notes of her manners and behavior, you had a simple jeans and a black top, even though your outfit was normal Hannibal found you elegant like a swan.

During your session you had a feeling as if you have met him before, he was kind but his voice and his demeanor made you think before you speak, thankfully he made you comfortable by talking art and literature, his replies sounded familiar, you thought as if you were talking to your new online friend.

‘’Dr. Lecter, I must say I’m here because one of my friends recommended you to me.’’ You confessed, ‘’Oh, did your friend ever came to me before for a session?’’ he asked looking curious as if he wasn’t about to reveal himself to you.

‘’No, I mean I’m not sure, he is an online friend so..’’ you replied shortly, looking around.

‘’Oh really, Hekate?’’

You froze, did he just addressed you by your username on Tattle Crime?

‘’I-I’m sorry..?’’ you stuttered, you must have heard it wrong.

He placed the notebook and pen on the nearby table and stood up, fixing his clothes he came up to you, you had to look up, he extended his hand to you, ‘’Botticelli,’’ he said, ‘’Nice to finally meet you in person, I must say, I didn’t expect such a beauty, your intellect matches your divine face.’’

Your first reaction was to get up and run to the door, it was locked.

You turned to face him, his hands in his pockets, he was smiling ear to ear, ‘’You wound me Hekate, I thought you liked me.’’ he started to walk to you, your back pressed to the locked door, he stood before you, one of his hands found your heated cheek, with the back of his hand he caressed it gently, ‘’Do not be afraid, all I want is for you to be mine.’’

[obscuretobyfox]

The recent UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE Newsletter revealed a ton of concept art for enemies, done by Splendidland! There's way too much to make individual posts on, so I'll just post all the art with notes here!

"My friend Samanthuel (aka Splendidland) did a ton of concept art for Chapter 2! Sadly I couldn't use all of it because many of the concepts didn't end up aligning with my final vision for the game, but the designs themselves are super amazing! I'm thankful I got to use any of them.

Specifically I really wanted to use the paint enemy as a miniboss, since I thought it would be really fun mechanic.

Below were her notes on all of them! She also provided ideas on how she thought they could be used." - Toby Fox

"I was given the broad theme of "cyber world" and told to pretty much just design whatever I wanted, expecting only a handful to actually make it in. I made all of these within a couple days, just making whatever came to my mind." - Splendidland

(From here on out, all quotes are from Splendidland.)

"01: Hacker Guy (idk what their name is), wants to discover the secrets of the world and has special abilities, though they aren't aware of them. "Hacks" by randomly smashing keys and even swinging their mouse around in the air, could keep escalating in silly ways.

02: Handsome Face...

03: When they stand over a spot that can be "hacked into", their cursor shaped head turns into a pointing finger. They don't notice this change, so it's up to you, the player, to help them."

"04: heheh....

05: Funny Egg, their body contains a virtual pet. Can the fate of this pet be altered? Maybe not... Has an existential crisis if the pet dies, as their body is a battleground of life and death.

06 :Broken Image, their life is in ruins

07: Recycle Bin

08: Trash Fly, represents uncollected "garbage data"

09: Kiss-kiss"

"10: Painter, would basically be like Adeleine but with crude ms paint effects, especially the airbrush."

"11: Diskette, spins in place until talked to. "despite my looks, i am totally unable to save your progress"

"12: some kind of "internet" thing idk

13: "Data", little icon like creatures who march onwards with unknown purpose. they take part in the festival."

"14: Popup. hides underneath a tile and springs upwards annoyingly. touching its forehead makes it return underground temporarily. a pest."

"15: Virus, its head sways back and forth as it tries to hover in the air."

"16:Anti Virus, is it a cop or a doctor? maybe they see you as an enemy as you're an "outsider"?

17:Corrupted data or something"

"18:"Cyber World", a rough vision of what a world inside a computer could look like

19:Cyber House"

"20: Masked Dancers, they participate in the festival, each colour has a different movement pattern and dance style. very rough concept" Which one is your favorite? Mine is probably the tiny data creatures!

[milkycarnations]

Hear me out Bloody Painter gets jealous and shows reader who they belong to👀

I'm sorry I kind of suck at ideas this is just what I'm thinking

Ooomph, no I quite like this one though. Don't come into my ask box apologizing for Helen asks. Helen is always welcome. Divider cafekitsune.

Let Me Get What I Want | Helen x afab!reader | 896 words

one-shot masterlist | mdni | cw: scarification as a display of devotion, knifeplay, obvious heavy trigger warning for anyone who struggles with self-harm, sadomasochism, minor body worship, he/him pronouns for Helen this time, not super nsfw simply because I don't see Helen as much of a jealous/hate-fuck type of person. I'd been trying for a few weeks but I just wasn't sure where to take it sexually!

Helen sighed. It was a strange sound to fall past his lips - something he'd only hear perhaps when in the throes of pleasure - but today, Helen sighed just from the thought of you. It wasn't like craving you was bizarre, far from it. Helen thought about you all of the time. Hour after hour, day by day, months on months, you plagued Helen's thoughts. He couldn't help but think what a sweet, little plague you were - working your way in and taking him over. You consumed him.

So today, just like most days, Helen cleaned the hairs of his paintbrushes by the workroom sink, the colors bleeding out into a muddy brown mess. As he worked the bristles against the cloth towel, he envisioned the appearance of your flesh. He thought about your hair follicles and the pores on your skin. Helen thought, was it really possible to adore someone so much - right down to the cracks on their heels and the blemishes on their cheeks? Why did that have to be such an unwelcome concept?

Under Helen's firm touch, the paintbrush frayed and shed strands of horsehair. His pale and slender hands paused in place.

No, it was far more than a sigh. Helen was terribly jealous. The paintbrush fell from his hand with a clank. Twisting his torso, he glanced back at his recent portrait. There was a fiery warmth in Helen's face as he looked at it. You were such a radiant thing. The fact that you hadn't sent so much as a glance his way this evening was maddening.

He was now staring down the painting, observing the contours of your body and the light bruise he'd put on your breast, simply a smear of pigment. He needed assurance - reassurance that you were his. So later that night, he prophesized an idea.

"Are you familiar with scarification?" he'd ask randomly, suddenly as you lazed against the couch - draped against it like a Greek statue. Whether you knew of it or not wasn't exactly of importance. Rather, all Helen cared about was whether or not you agreed.

"Etching, branding, scaring," they continued, "that sort of thing. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

You thought about it deeply - for the first time in perhaps, ever. Scarification.

He added, "Do you think, maybe, I could do that to you. Etch my art into your skin."

"I'd have to think about it." you'd respond. Scarification, like a tattoo, but a different flavor of commitment. If the scaring took well, it'd be a part of you forever. You had no doubt that whatever Helen had in store would be exquisite, but it still was a lot to take in.

Helen wouldn't bring it up for another few weeks at least, letting it fester and stew in your mind as you went about your work and daily tasks. It nagged in the back of your mind for quite a while. You asked Helen for a mockup.

"Could I just see what you were thinking?" you'd ask, imagining the stencils tattoo artists would place upon their clients. Maybe - if you just saw what he had in mind - it'd be easier to agree. So that evening, as you laid spread over the mattress, Helen free-handed over your hip, penciling in intricate designs around the curves of your body in washable marker. After he'd finished, you stood in front of the full-length mirror in your bedroom with an intent curiosity.

"It looks... beautiful."

Even through simple lines, Helen's artistry shined through. They'd captured everything about you, the shapes complimenting your body wonderfully at the same time - trailing from your side, down the swell of your hip and stopping just above your knee.

"I'd be honored if you accepted." he added. His excitement was evident in the subtle shifting of his feet, his hands subconsciously smoothing out the fabric of his button-up.

When the moment finally came, you laid against the table awkwardly, feeling a bit more uncomfortable than usual. Once more, Helen had stenciled a design into your skin - this time with a more permanent marker.

"It's okay if you want a break. Just tell me." Helen said, pulling a sharp exacto-knife from a rolling cart. You took in a deep breath as you anticipated the pain. You'd already taken some pain meds, just to ease your mind, but you knew it'd still hurt tremendously. That initial breath turned shaky as the blade made contact with your skin. It was a sharp, biting pain - but it wasn't anything you hadn't felt before with Helen. There were already quite a few scars on your back. You let Helen take his time as he carved out chunks of skin to make the most beautiful mural.

"Does it hurt, dove?" the words came soft - a loving message of reassurance. You nodded your head. It did.

"It's almost finished, my love. Don't worry." he added, pushing the blade just over your hip bone.

He took great care of it once he'd finished - cleaning the wounds, bandaging it well, and placing sweet, gentle kisses over your body. He was ecstatic. It was taking quite a while to heal, but he was psyched to paint you with the new addition. You were his muse - the thing he'd loved to paint and draw the most, and now you'd carry his art on your skin for the rest of your life.

[artbyzephra]

From sketch, to...

... Final piece. Commission for MercuryF0x, Process video can be found here (it took a bit of energy to edit so please give it a look).

Bonus headshot detail - first time detailing something like this and really happy with how it ended up.

[vilhelios]

— I THINK I LOVED YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE .

( WHERE I WAS THE SEA, & YOU WERE THE SHORE . ) ; general fluffy romantic headcanons for rafayel / qi yu from love and deepspace <3

CW: not beta read, general rafayel story/lore spoilers, may be slightly ooc, tooth-rotting fluff, very slight angst !!!

— RAFAYEL is a terribly sweet, loyal, and affectionate lover. sometimes, you think he is something like a lovesick puppy—always ready to greet you at the door with a warm hug when you return from a mission, always eagerly awaiting your phone calls and texts. always at your side. when he calls you darling and holds you close, burrows his head into the crook of your neck, you can't help but feel like your being has been warmed by a pleasant summer sunbeam.

despite this, sometimes he feels like he's drifting somewhere far away from you. a receeding ocean tide, sea foam dissolving from your fingertips as you dip your hands in the waves. he's somewhere you don't understand, when he looks into your eyes and searches for an iteration of you in the reflected image of his own eyes—perhaps he is 800 years away, a lifetime and more. and yet, when you gingerly cup his face in your palms, feel him lean into your touch, you know he returns to you.

— RAFAYEL'S art studio is admittedly, a mess. there are days where you'll enter that room spotless and leave with splatters of some new shade of red and his beloved blues all over your clothes and skin. some days, this happens purely on accident—a trip right into a canvas here, a palm pressed onto wet paint there—and on others, rafayel seems to delight in using you as a canvas.

— when RAFAYEL kisses you (in that gentle fashion, where he cups your cheek like if he doesn't you'll slip like seafoam from his hold), those soft lips of his taste of cherries and grapes and strawberries. and perhaps that best encapsulates what loving rafayel is like, this sweetest red, red, red: the way his cheeks and ears flush when you press a kiss to his cheek; the colour of his eyes when the morning's rose-gold sunlight hits the pink in them just right; the bleeding, beating heart he offers to your awaiting hands. eventually, he pulls away to let the both of you breathe, and when he presses his forehead against yours, glances at you with that charming smile of his, you're enveloped in warm crimson all over again.

"there." rafayel smiles, leans back to admire the flamulla he'd painted on your cheek and the pout that graces your lips. "a cute flamulla for the cutie that keeps distracting me."

"you weren't even painting anything when i came in!" you scoff, dabbing the paintbrush he'd given you into the paint upon the palette. while he painted moon jellies, flamulla, and blowfish on your skin, you'd busied yourself with painting seashells on his. some of the clamshells are too close together, the venus combs look a little too spiky, and some conches don't look quite right. when he looks like he's about to chuckle at the sight of them, you poke him with the other end of your brush; "hmph. you're just a meanie."

"how rude!" he feigns, hand to his heart. "this is how you treat me for making you look like one of my most precious paintings?"

— you notice, eventually, that RAFAYEL always gifts you red jewelry (if not pearls, of course). the little treasures glint in the sunlight; rings with a ruby or red spinel centerpiece, a necklace with a red coral pendant, fire opal earrings... they're beautiful and never gaudy, as to be expected from a man with an eye for aesthetics, but it still perplexes you.

you ask him why, while he helps you put on his most recently gifted necklace as you two get ready to attend his aunt's opera show. your painter answers with a thoughtful hum, deft fingers clasping the necklace for you: "red disappears the fastest in the deep sea, so i never got to see it much." rafayel presses a kiss to your cheek, then, before settling his chin on the crook of your neck. "what better way to appreciate a colour i missed out on for so long than seeing it on you, darling?"

— RAFAYEL'S smug and haughty countenance seems to crumble at the mere press of your lips against his skin, little pecks gracing each beauty mark. the first kiss is placed on his cheek, a little ways away from his eye, his head cradled in your palms; you feel how he heats up beneath your touch, a light blush dusting across his cheeks and a bright vermillion burning at the tips of his ears. the second is placed on his chest, your lips and gentle, roaming hands sparking the rapid thrumming of his heart.

— RAFAYEL sees you in everything. in the morning sunlight that filters into his kitchen, in the cherry blossoms that land on his hair, in the sea breeze that rushes past him as he walks along the shore. the mundane of daily life has become filled with so many traces of you that he cannot see them as anything other than beautiful. there's a piece of you in every one of his paintings now, a streak of your favourite colour intertwined with his reds and blues. he made the pigment himself, of course, extracted the colours he needed from your favourite things.

THE LOVERS ; Rafayel (20XX) ; Oil on canvas

This painting consists of only two colours, and depicts the view of a simple shoreline, with waves lapping at the shore. Although simple in essence, the two paints were handmade (as is the norm for pieces by Rafayel) with pigments extracted from materials that represented himself and his beloved. Upon closer inspection, one may notice the difference in brushstrokes between colours—where they start to blend, so do the strokes, perhaps one hand guiding the other. As per the words of the painter himself, this artwork is meant to represent a "marriage and a transfiguration; the way two souls are forever intertwined and changed by love."

a/n : pretty privilege is real because rafayel acts a lot like marius but i like him infinitely more than i do lu jinghe 😭👍 my love/obsession for this pretty little fish has made me rise from the grave of uni work and writer's block... please fill his tag i need to satisfy this itch in my brain that he gives me <\3 might write some more for him + him as abysswalker <3 (p.s. that final hc is perhaps the cutest thing i thought to do)

[creepypasta65]

chubby s/o w toby, ej, and bloody painter?? (can be nsfw or sfw)

Hello! I've already done some hc's to this request before but thanks for the request :)

Bloody Painter, Toby, and EJ with a chubby s/o:

Bloody Painter:

Regardless of your size, Helen will love you because, to Helen, it doesn't matter.

He finds you beautiful/handsome.

Helen loves hugging you with his hands roaming around your tummy. Though he's not much of a cuddler, he will cuddle more often with you because your tummy is soft and squishy.

He admires you, you're his muse, and he will draw you because you're art in his eyes.

Have a nice day/night :)

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

Andrew Scott, Vogue: April 2024.

by Zing Tsjeng, Photos by Annie Leibovitz

Ripley, in other words, is the hero of the tale. “That’s why he fascinates so many,” says Scott. “There’s been so many iterations of him. I think it’s because people root for him.” Actors like Alain Delon and Dennis Hopper have tried the role; Matt Damon played him as an obsequious, lower-class naïf; John Malkovich, as a slimy, camp killer. Scott’s Ripley is different; a watchful loner escaping rodent-infested poverty, more at home among art than he is around people. Musician and actor Johnny Flynn plays his first victim—the monied Dickie Greenleaf—and Dakota Fanning is Dickie’s suspicious ex-girlfriend. “I find Tom quite vulnerable,” Scott tells me. “I don’t think he’s necessarily lonely, but I certainly think he’s solitary…. He seems to me by his nature that he just can’t fit in. He’s trying to survive.”

In Ripley, Zaillian extracts maximum Hitchcockian dread from every creaky footstep. But most sinister of all is Scott’s face, which exhibits a sharklike steeliness throughout. It’s a performance that exudes queasy force. Is Ripley a scammer, a psychopath, or both? “There’s so many things lurking beneath him that I’ve been very reluctant to diagnose him with anything. I never thought of him as a sociopath or murderous,” Scott declares. “It’s up to everybody else to characterize him or call him whatever they want.”

As we weave through tourists near the Tower of London, barely anybody notices Scott, save for a faint glimmer of recognition among mainly young women. He seems to draw reassurance from it. “I don’t like to think about it too much, if I’m honest,” he muses of fame. “I find it a little bit, er, frightening.” He is known but not blockbuster-recognizable, although he is in the upcoming Back in Action with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. What stunts did he do? “I can’t give that away, I’m afraid, or somebody from Netflix will come and shoot me in the head.”

What’s been on Scott’s mind the most hasn’t been acting at all, in fact, but art. As a 17-year-old, he was offered his first movie role on the same day he was given a scholarship to study painting. He chose acting, but has recently been thinking about Oliver Burkeman’s philosophical self-help tract from 2021, Four Thousand Weeks, which makes the case for focusing on the five things you truly want to accomplish. “For me at the moment, it’s like, What do you want to do? What do you want to say?”

He scrolls through his phone to show me his work. There’s a watercolor of a couple arguing in a restaurant in rich reds and greens, line drawings of friends and people on the beach, and two self-portraits. “It’s a bit weird,” he acknowledges of his depiction of himself, all bulbous forehead and Pan-like tufts of hair. His brisk, nervy lines are reminiscent of Egon Schiele or Francis Bacon, who turns out to be one of his favorite painters. “Well, God, I’ll take that,” he mutters at the comparison. He would like someday to go to art school. “I don’t ever regret it,” he says of acting. “But I suppose you just get to a stage where you think, What else? That’s one of the big painful things in life for me, where you can’t quite live all the lives.” As he gets older, he feels the tug toward revisiting old working relationships, including with Waller-Bridge: “We’ve definitely got things cooking,” he smiles. “I’d love to work with her again. She’s just a singular, wonderful person.” For her part, Waller-Bridge says: “I’d love to see him do a fully unhinged slapstick comedy character. Someone who is outraged at everything, all of the time.”

As we round the pavement and the Tate Modern looms back into sight, he recalls a poster he received in 2017—a monstrously large graphic that detailed every week in a human life span. “It’s your entire life if you live to 80—you have to fill in all the bits that you’ve already lived,” he remembers in awe, “a visually terrifying gift.” What did he do with it? “I didn’t hold on to it for too long.” Easy come, easy go: We finally finish our loop around the Thames and, as Scott disappears back into the throng, anonymous just the way he likes it, it occurs to me that the actor has many lives to live yet. ■