#this is why people hate abstract art

[haberdashing]

things all y'all missed out on by not being in one particular discord server with me: me judging the hell out of the milwaukee art museum

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[badolmen]

I’m trying to find a way to parse this but like:

Make up culture is bad because of how capitalism has twisted appearance to be a basis of worth and social value. However, humans have been putting stuff on their skin since our ancestors started losing hair (maybe even before?) and ornamentation does have significant historic cultural value outside of modern late-capitalism induced self loathing.

Like. Make-up is not a thing in my immediate family. My mother and older sister? Nothing. My little sister is going to be so lucky to grow up in a space where she won’t have any expectation or support for make-up culture. I know make-up culture a shitty phenomenon; I know it steals time and money and self-worth from people at its worst and at its best feeds back into an appearance based cultural hierarchy.

But. But. There is such a rich and vibrant history to cosmetics outside of what is sold to reinforce that inevitably toxic culture. So many forms of art in face paint and more permanent and interesting body modification! There’s history and traceable evolving styles and intentions! And it fucking sucks that it’s been so corrupted to the point of no longer reflecting it’s original intent of being creative and unique and interesting!

Sometimes it just sounds like ‘don’t have tattoos don’t you know those annoying punks and degenerates have those?’ has just been repackaged as ‘don’t wear make-up don’t you know those annoying preps and conformists do that?’ Like I get what you’re trying to say but there is nuance to these conversations and willfully ignoring that nuance makes you sound ridiculous at best and outright hostile to any deviation from your standards at worst.

[peapod20001]

When I love a song, I’ll love it forever

[mangotangorasi]

I already want to quit university

[vimbry]

man those notes sucked to open! what is it about drawing someone as an animal that makes people absolutely pee their pants

[lixies-favorite-cookie]

calling skz clingy headcanons ◦ ot8

Paring◦ ot8 x reader

Words◦ 3,578

Genre ◦ hurt and comfort

Warnings ◦ reader blows up at the boys a few times, mild cussing I think, hyunjin is lowkey toxic in this but the reader is more toxic, honestly all of our boys are pretty dramatic lmao, they keep getting lazier and lazier😭, I fucking hate y/n in this like fr I'm gonna kick her sorry little ass, seungmins is... suggestive...dirty talk and fingering only for like one line, so is hans lmao all happy endings because I am not sadistic... or realistic

Taglist ◦ @thetoastghost222, @ur-fav-lvr

A/N ◦ honestly this is my super random chaotic thoughts I had at 2am bc I was really hating the way I was writing a love lived between the stars and the sea so I wanted to take a small break and clear my pallet I hope you all like it even though it lowkey sucks lmao <33

Also im lowkey fucking with making headcannons this is kinda fun...

~cookiecreates 🍪

chan

I feel like Chan would be the most emotionally mature about the whole thing, especially when he sees the storm brewing in your eyes before you even spit those venomous words.

"Fuck Chris, do you have to be so clingy all the time?" You shout, your mouth curling in a disgusted sneer. 

You've never flinched away from him like that, never been so mean-

He's first hurt then he sees it-

There are cracks in your demeanor; large gashes in your heart; he could read you like an open book; the stories your soul wished to tell resided in your glassy eyes.

Hurt people hurt people.

You didn't think he was clingy; no, you loved his touch. You were simply overwhelmed, overflowing with so many simmering feelings—his love did not have room to shimmy through.

So he makes room-

He tilts your chin up with a sincere voice and asks, "What's the real reason why you are shutting me out?"

The unadulterated dedication in his words leaves you in shambles. 

Chan would tear open his heart before your eyes just to prove that there are openings for your soul to pour all your pain into him.

and he would still find a way not to spill a drop

"It’s so hard,” you sob. “They told me you were too good for me, that I wasn’t enough. They said I should shut you out, run away before I got too attached. I had to make you hate me so that I could never weigh you down again."

Chan is fuming.

He wants to ask who said that? He wants to ask where they live? He wants to ask if you want to witness their destruction? He wants to ask if he should use a knife or a gun?

But instead, he says, ‘Darling, you would have more luck breaking the bounds of the moon than untangling the way you are threaded into my soul."

what. the. fuck.

Chan the next William Shakespeare up in here

...was this based on something I wrote for my new series...yes. am I ashamed... no.

I'm a hopeless romantic who wants to marry a poet.

Sue me.

You never thought the apocalypse would be so rewarding, because you are reeling, spinning out of orbit, a meteor spit out into space, hurling towards unknown destruction—destruction that tasted like fresh morning dew.

Chan was perfect.

what the fuck were you thinking?

He holds you through the night, chasing away the whistling of the cold winter wind, his warm arms creating a home around your heart.

lee know

do not ever ever ever ever ever ever ever call Lee Know clingy unless you are willing to dedicate your life into creating the next wheel of time because after you plant the seed in his head, he will blossom a garden of newfound insecurities.

"Can you please not be so clingy right now? I'm having a really bad headache," you whisper through the thick fog clouding your brain; you have been living with a red hot rod skewed through the back of your brain all day. You didn't mean to say the word clingy, but it is futile to search a thesaurus from a blurry page, and right now the world seems to be nothing more than a piece of abstract art.

He just wanted to hold you and you call him clingy??

To others, the sentence would be like water rolling off their backs, but to him, it was a ragged shard of glass stabbed straight into his chest.

Lee Know is extremely inexperienced in the world of intimacy, often clumsy with his actions—hesitant with his words, so why would you say such a thing?

Knowing how insecure he is??

You would only ever say it if you meant it fully and completely??

Honestly, in his head, he would be lowkey, really dramatic, but he's so beyond hurt, feeling like you're just picking at a gaping wound.

like I said, dramatic.

justified. yes.

dramatic... also yes.

I am a firm believer that his tough-guy act is only that.

an act.

He was pretending like he didn't care what you said, but when he gets into the other room, it takes everything in him not to shatter into a million different pieces, feeling so overwhelmed with how many emotions are coursing through him.

No matter how much you apologize after that, no matter how much you prove what you said was nothing more than your head foggy and in pain, it still will take lifetimes for that scar to fade.

and he will only ever get over it with a million reassurances and a thousand conversations

which you are willing to do as long as he needs it

changbin

Honestly, I dont really have a clue with this one, but I am definitely leaning towards him being more like Chan in the emotional mature way he handles it, but instead of comforting you at the drop of a hat, he just leaves the room and lets you stew on your sorrows.

"Your so clingy," you groan, shoving his arm off; rolling your eyes as the mattress shifts with his weight. You just want to be left alone. You weren't sad. You weren't mad. You were just tired and did not want to be touched.

In perspective, could you have handled it better? Yes, but what can you do now? I'm going to punch this bitch in the face I swear I hate y/n and I'm creating her

He's first very confused, then the hurt hits like a falling star crashing into his chest.

What do you mean he's clingy??

"Fine," he states, still dizzy from the utter whiplash you were giving him.

like what the hell?

Sleeps on the couch that night (bad idea don't do this)

He stews about it far past the dreams in his head

That is, until you trudge out of your bed in the morning with red-rimmed eyes and a face filled with regret.

After a shitty nights sleep without the heat of your boyfriend's arms, you realized very quickly what it would feel like if you were to never feel it again, and all of a sudden, you never want to be left alone like ever again.

The grudge he was previously trying to hold drained out of him, and in that instance, he jumps up, pulling you into his arms.

He is very quick to forgive you, when you voice your reason for snapping at him, was nothing but compressed frustrations manifested into the wrong source.

hyunjin

hyunjin. hyunjin. hyunjin.

I feel like in a fit of both hurt and the toxic trait of self-isolation, he would be petty and stay at the boy's house for a few days.

He had tried to give you a good morning kiss that day, but you were stressed and late for work, rushing to put on your clothes. The way he whined about wanting to be touched ground your gears beyond belief. You got stuck in your shirt, which was too tight after you shrunk it in the dryer, and your firm has yet to give you another one. Hyunjin's flighty hands wrapped around your waist, trying to help you untangle yourself from the mess of fabric, only for the button to get caught in your hair, pain ripping through your scalp.

"Stop it hyunjin!" you shout, attempting to unthread the way your hair has meshed into the slits of the button. "You're so fuckin' clingy."

It was all a mess—your heap of shifting fabric and jerking limbs, hair sticking up at every angle. His heart was crushed somewhere in a pulp on the floor in front of him.

He just wanted to help...

Your red-hot anger quickly bled into a tightening anxiety that pulled underneath your ribs as you imagined the look on your boss's face when you came in disheveled and late.

"I just wanted to help," Hyunjin sniffles, bouncing his eyes around the room, filling with tears. You heartlessly roll your eyes.

"Here come the waterworks," your voice is steady, flaming with annoyance mixed with a sickening tilt of mockery. His jaw drops.

you're being so mean

His ears burn when you glare at him, disgusted by the tears streaming down his cheeks. He desperately wipes his emotions away with the back of his hand, suddenly embarrassed to even be showing you the cracks in his soul.

He runs away, like, quite literally runs out the door, sprinting to his car and driving straight to the group's house, collapsing in a fit of sobs in Chan's arms.

He stays there for a good 3 days, ignoring all your calls and texts.

No matter how much it hurts his heart not to talk to you, he shuts you out in a weak attempt to show you what it would be like to live without him.

But this tactic is short-lived when you arrive at the boys' house, snot sobbing into his chest.

"i-im so sorry," you repeat over and over and over into his skin, hoping the further you dig into his chest, the closer the words will hit his heart. 

He's not going to lie; no matter how much you cry, a little bit of pettiness will still stay during the conversation, a small scar of his hurt dictating his choices.

"Why didn't you come home? I thought we were over?"

"I thought that asking to sleep in the same bed as you would be too clingy"

Your heart cracks. He sees it, immediately regretting all his words.

"I'm sorry!" he yelps, pulling your head straight into his chest again.

You shake your head remorsefully, "No, I deserved that."

Even though so much of him still wants to be petty, his love for you trumps the feeling.

(I'm not forgiving you though wtf)

han (this one is long asf)

Han is freaking out.

I mean like the devil's bony hand gripping at the base of his spine, stale breath wafting down the skin of his neck type of freaking the fuck out.

You had a job that required you to go on-site, on-call often, like Han’s—that’s why you were so understanding about his busy schedule; yours was just as bad.

Today was a nightmare. Your coworker, the devil in disguise, didn't show up for the presentation she had created, and since she threw you under the bus saying you helped her (you didn't), you were forced to come in and present it.

Leaving Han at the restaurant waiting for you to arrive-

You forgot-

It was debatably the biggest presentation of the year, showing off her new design to multiple new investors, and yet your phone kept buzzing.

You told Han this was important

You never sent the message

You don't think you have ever seen your boss so furious

From Han's point of view, he's been sitting here for 2 hours, and you are still not here.

There are so many scenarios flying around in his head—

Are you okay?

Did you stand him up?

Are you breaking up with him?

Did you get kidnapped??

Han got tunnel vision when he was scared, his restless brain shooting out dire scenarios faster than he could decipher the impossibility of them. It was overwhelming. The walls were closing in on him. Nowhere in the world was safe. His head was swimming, the room was spinning, the earth was popping through space.

He keeps texting and calling and voice mailing. The icy anxiety crystallizing in the pit of his core turns his fingers brittle, creaking as he jams them into his phone screen.

He can't breathe.

Too many possibilities.

Untill-

Your boss got fed up with your phone ringing, screaming at you to go answer it since it was clearly more important than your job.

he was a prick

You answer it, the heat of your building anger curdling a deadly brew inside your soul. Without looking at the 200+ messages Han had sent you, you answer the 50th call of the day, immediately hissing into the speaker, "Do you know what you just did, Han? I got yelled at by my boss in the middle of a presentation because your clingy ass can’t exist without constantly needing my attention for more than 5 minutes. Stop texting me." Your finger smashes the end call button before unruffling your skirt and walking right back into the room.

Han feels like he might just melt straight into the seats, the way his whole body burns.

The whole world stops for a moment, the earth bleeding down the walls, swirling into pools of muddy color. He was sinking, lungs filling with the ink of a million different sweltering elements.

He ruins everything.

He was so wholly overwhelmed he could barely crawl into his car, desperately gripping the steering wheel while the earth collapsed in on him.

He ruins everything.

It's almost impossible to get to his house the way his tears blur the road.

(that's actually fr dangerous don't drive while crying)

He ruins everything.

He doesn't cry when you walk through the door.

He doesn't touch you when you run to him, standing over him, huddled on the floor.

He doesn't breathe as you cry over his body, twinkling in and out of consciousness.

He ruins everything.

Your makeup runs down your cheeks as you try to shake him awake.

He fainted in the kitchen. It wasn't uncommon when he was alone during his panic attacks, the anxiety ripping harsh bouts of oxygen from his lungs.

You squish his cheeks together, forcing his lips into a pout, shoving your faces together, pouring unadulterated passion into his system.

He short c i r c u i t s.

"I'm so sorry," you sob against his lips. "I didn't mean to be so mean. I didn't mean anything I said. I was just stressed, and I thought I sent the message telling you not to text me, and I didn't. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." Your voice is high and wet, pushing his mouth deeper into yours.

It would be sceintifically impossible for your lips to get any closer-

and yet his tries.

He pulls your trembling body into his lap, fireworks exploding from the ashes where your words had lain.

"So you don't think I'm clingy?" His voice cracks, fresh tears collecting on the outer corners of his eyes. You have never shaken your head so adamantly in your whole life.

"No, never, never ever."

"Then come here."

You two have never been so close before in your life, hearts tangling in your chests as he presses your body into his.

You were going to prove just how much you loved his touch.

:D

felix

Oh Felix, my kind sweethearted boy that deserves nothing less than prince treatment. He’s so kind, even though he’s so hurt. He’s actually scared he’s annoying you, so he makes himself more distant so he doesn’t bother you.

""Fuck, Felix, can you not see I am clearly just trying to relax? I mean, you don’t always have to be up my ass all the time," you snap, curling back up into the sheets Felix ripped off. You were exhausted—there was no excuse; you were just really tired. Felix, being the loving boyfriend he is, wanted to hold you while you slept, but of course, you being the dumb idiot you are, shouted at him.

are you stupid like fr cause like THE LEE FELIX WANTS TO HOLD YOU AND YOU SHOO HIM AWAY

you deserve federal prison

Felix is so many synonyms for destroyed that it should be physically impossible to still be alive with a heart that lies shattered in the pit of his stomach.

Felix doesnt know how to feel sad, angry, hurt, upest, embarrassed.

He just clenches his jaw, trying to keep his bottom lip from trembling.

Felix has always been secretly self-conscious about the way he expresses his love toward people, often being very touchy-feely. He understands that this isn’t everybody's favorite thing and how it can get fairly annoying.

He’s already so terrified you’re going to leave him; he overanalyzes every interaction.

But this interaction did not need to be analyzed to know what you meant. You were very direct about that.

The way your venomous words attached to his stomach, pumping him with poison that swirled his stomach sick.

You don’t apologize when you wake up, not believing you need to justify yourself. He was being clingy, and you had every right to express your opinion about it.

im going to punch this bitch in the face

As surprising as this is, he actually doesn’t cry about it. He doesn’t cry about it because he is so worried that him crying about it would annoy you, so he would rather let his sadness seep into the back of his brain than show you emotions that could potentially turn you off.

Like I said, destructively kind.

He really takes what you said to heart, trying his best not to give you any skinship unless it’s to guide you through a crowded room or pull you away from the bustling activity of the road, holding your hand until you get to your destination.

He actually feels like he can’t function without your touch, but he muscles through it, relishing in the small actions he can get.

He tries to show his love in other little things that aren’t physical touch. It gets to the point where he is so deep in his head he shies away when you try to initiate skinship, terrified he’s going to get back into the habit of the joy of touching you and make himself seem annoying again.

He’s so beyond scared of being a nuisance.

It’s been two weeks with this flighty physical touch, and it all finally starts to click when you notice his smile isn’t nearly as bright anymore and some of the stars in his eyes have faded away.

"I want you to be clingy again, please, please, please. I mean, cling wrap, Kola. If you ever think you’re being too clingy, please hug me a little tighter. I’m an idiot, a complete and utter moron. Really, I should be evaluated on why I am even able to exist in society."

His heart literally bursts so relieved he can finally touch you again.

He gives you the most dopamine-coddling, brain-boggling cuddles known to mankind that night.

Your skin is so close together it feels like there isn’t a part of your body Felix doesn’t occupy.

He has created a home in your heart that no other man will ever stay, where he will rest until the day you fade away.

seungmin

Oh bro is pissed

"You're so clingy," you deadpan as his arms wrap around your waist. You had seen a stupid TikTok prank on your For You page and had the brilliant idea to try it on your boyfriend. But the way his whole body tenses against your skin, muscles rippling underneath your fingertips, you know you are so beyond fucked. "What did you just say to me, baby?"

well you just signed your death certificate

So many ideas brewing in that beautiful head of his-

Like, your ass will be red, your stomach will be painted, your mouth will be filled, and you will be descending into the grave. Like all the rest are lovey-dovey 'I’m sorrys,' no—your sorry will be told on your knees.

He will edge you intill you are teetering on the ledge of oblivion

"You want to cum, baby?" He's so condescending, easily lifting your waist from the sheets, his sticky fingers creating bruises when he pins your legs down to gain more access to ruthlessly abuse your g-spot.

"Yes, Yes, Yes, please," you beg, body trembling on the bed, large qaukes of pleasure rushing through your bones as his mean fingers plunge into your messy cunt.

"But that would be too clingy wouldn't it?"

oh how i want his fingers

(this one is really short bc i hate writing smut but i feel like this would be smutty)

jeongin

I honestly have no clue. I feel like he’d be more confused than anything because, like, me?

clingy?

mf I barely touch you?

Honestly, kind of annoyed more than sad—like pissed that as soon as he wants to touch you, you think he's clingy. But he's like Chan in the fact that he sees past your words and into the anger brewing in your eyes, allowing both you and him to cool off before he says something he will regret.

He just walks out of the room and lets you calm down.

I am also a firm believer that this man is healthy as hell.

He could tell that his heart was starting to beat a little too hard and his head was getting a little too fuzzy with all the raging words he wanted to say. But instead, he just walks away and lets you calm down, then talks to you about it before you go to bed because he is also an extremely firm believer in the fact that you should NEVER go to bed angry.

this one is shorter bc like I'm lowkey running out of motivation and ideas

did you like this? check out my new series a love lived in between the stars and the sea here

or maybe read doomsday here

[txttletale]

i tried reading chili and don't really get it? I read a bunch of dahl as a kid and got, I think, most of the references, but I don't find it good

it feels like a book mired in hatred, not in a bigoted way but just so absolutely misanthropic that it sucks all life out of what might be some okay jokes

respectfully what do the chili-likers see in this crap?

i don't know -- i think that if you read chili as 'misanthropic' it is because it is reflecting and critquing dahl's own misanthropy. similarly while i think there is some level of obvious vitriol and disdain for dahl, i don't know how you can come away from a work that puts so much effort into pastiching him and referencing every corner of his ouvre with nothing to say about it other than 'wow this author really hated dahl in an uncomplicated way'

what do i see in it? it's funny, of course. it's also sometimes effective horror, from the clams to the down rooms to the more existential abstract horror of having one fact. but it's also very interesting engagement with the original text that has interesting things to put forward about... intertextuality, about our relationship with artists and the art they make. from truncatism to the the marble maker monologue to the fakeout downer ending to the ridiculous 'challenge' at the end to the genie's conversation in the denouement, there's a really interesting tension here examining whether artists 'owe' people anything, and why they might feel that way if they don't.

tldr: seems like someone didn't get fudge revelated

[mclalan]

Can you share what your art-making process is? What software and tools do you use?? I'm falling in love with your work!!

Thank you, I'm so happy you like my work and are interested in the process. The short answer is I mostly use Adobe Animate.

I hate how I'm using an Adobe product (although I still regard it as a MacroMedia Flash product), but there's just no other software that compares to its jankiness. Perhaps it's just my long familiarity with the program, but nothing I've experienced matches how it simultaneously feels like drawing in MS Paint and using Microsoft PowerPoint vector shapes. The result is something that feels in-between the two; handmade yet computer-generated.

Typically, I'll start with a hand-drawn sketch, often beginning as a thumbnail done with pencil and paper.

I'll then do a mix of hand drawing and vector shape tool rendering. I use the Paint Brush tool to hand draw strokes, and the line and shape tools mixed with transform to make more geometrically accurate shapes. The design is rendered into divided closed loop shapes, ready to be filled with a solid. The strokes are kept or removed depending on the design.

These fill shapes are then either coloured and rendered in Adobe Animate, using fills, gradients, or a more complex process of masks and effects.

Alternatively, I'll bring all these vector shapes into Photoshop and use them as clipping masks. The vector shapes act like masking taped areas or shields to maintain sharp edges, while the brush is like an atomized airbrush used to build soft volumed forms.

Please excuse all that horrible Adobe Cloud and AI bloatware...

And there we go!

Variations in the process include just using MS Paint, index color in Photoshop, or 3D programs.

Very old works of mine were almost abstract, just exploring digital mark-making, which was a trend I was following in the mid 2010s that I loved. This kind of stuff.

While my current work uses its digital material specificity as an intermediary to the subject in the illustration.

For example, #ersatz.world parodies clip-art and flash edutainment styles but imagines the characters living within that kind of world. The designs are meant to be cute, easy to read, light in computer processing, but also irreverent, janky, and generic too.

People typically regard this sort of clip art style as ephemeral trash, but I always found them charming. I use Ersatz World primarily as a satire vehicle, parodying educational formats to spoof corporate explainer content and digital media.

However, part of the problem with Ersatz is I've made it look too polished, complex, and I've grown too attached to the characters, which I imagine is a typical issue with overbuilding a world. So recently, I've made an even jankier Ersatz-like set of characters to play about with, using an even simpler style with less cohesion. I like to try and use slightly different styles and digital material styles to relate to the property at hand.

That’s why #autonymus has a bitmap digital material and a denser feel to it. Unlike Ersatz, Autonymus is not meant to be an overt semi-meta fiction. It’s not exactly pixel art, but the pixels are just about visible, as the intention is to create a digital expressionist depth to the setting. Although it’s still stylized and not realistic to our world, I definitely still want to evoke semblances of our world. That’s why there’s attention to landscape, plant life, and implied life beyond what you see in the frame with the characters, etc. But I'm still making a cartoon, and I still want it to feel at ease with itself being a digital material work. Characters are therefore flat, simple, stiff, and the speech style is like a bad Shakespeare parody. I like to balance between ugly and appealing, simple and complex, familiar and unfamiliar.

In regard to things like inspiration, references, and my relationship to aesthetic genres; these things certainly factor into my work, perhaps I'm even overtly dependent on them. My work can definitely be post-modernist in method; creating new, ironic, or fragmented interpretations through deconstructing a mix of various styles or methods. But at the same time, I'm still trying to make a digital gestural representation where the aesthetic is driven by my relationship to the software and techniques directly—not simply in an attempt to reference a style. For example, I like drawing lines in sweeping strokes, not to a point of geometric perfection, but just in a way where the curves are smooth and simple. But if I want perfectly curved or straight lines, I'll use the vector tools.

Working this way, you can sort of learn why certain styles and design choices in past vector aesthetics were made, as they would have also needed to make similar choices. That’s why I’m more mindful of using digital material specificity as a foundation to build narrative and subjects upon these days.

For example, genre references like cyberpunk clichés for #cyberhell or late medieval design for #autonymus or 2005 to 2015 era subculture fashion for #gradientgoblinz.

I think it’s important to take inspiration and reference from a wide variety of sources, but I think they’d mean nothing without having something to say or express. Autonymus, although it is a collection of tropes and clichés, isn’t just about that. It’s a story about the tensions of socially constructed systems and how that shapes faith, technology, and the natural world, or at least that's what I'm aiming for anyway.

But despite all that, I think there’s a danger of locking myself into the past by using these methods. For example, using nostalgia and references to past aesthetics can result in just recreating the past in a form of role-play. To avoid that, I try and evoke the past through a messy, inaccurate pastiche rather than caring to accurately re-enact anything. I’m probably not always successful at communicating the deliberateness of this, and it can certainly get very frustrating and pedantic. To be honest, I do kind of hate aesthetic labels (terms like Y2K, global coffee house, utopian scholastic designs from a pre-9/11 world).

I do not believe that a project aimed solely at mapping history through aesthetic styles is worthwhile. Sure, they can be handy for organizing style trends, but they can also be reductive and ahistoric. Who are these people to define the history of these design eras? The result is a kind of suffocating simulation of design history but removed from context, perfect for moodboardism. I wish it felt more tongue-in-cheek, less absolute of itself in its own practice. Instead, it acts to legitimize and engender those making these labels, almost giving them ownership of the design styles. It’s similar to the logic and process of generative AI and its databases in a way, just done manually.

I’m very inspired by artists like Oneohtrix Point Never in this regard, as I think he’s able to create an aesthetic portal to all kinds of memories, feelings, and worlds reminiscent of the past, while still being in the present. It’s more a reflection of how timelines are messy now, like a memory or dream, rather than an audacity to say the past was actually like that, or to try to actually map some kind of timeline.

I think the benefit of this process is how it avoids the other side of the spectrum—being locked into chasing the cutting edge of digital processes. I don't necessarily think using an old digital process means your work inherits the semiotics of old aesthetics. Non-digital mediums don’t have this issue to this degree, as you can still paint in oils and be considered contemporary, or at least it's not frowned upon to such a degree. And I also don't think anyone in the heyday of Flash ever made work the same as I do, especially as computers are more powerful now so can handle more. I probably shouldn't boast too much about that though, as artists at the time probably just had more sense than to use Flash like a painting program! So then, why is my use of Adobe Animate critiqued as obsolete and an aesthetic dead-end? Because to whose standards is this process obsolete? If you value digital aesthetics as an apparatus in industry practice, then sure, my work is redundant.

But as wonderful as the latest tech can be in creating new aesthetics, I do feel it can be overtly dependent on the trends and directions of tech corporations, and therefore act as an indirect propaganda tool to their hegemony over digital aesthetics, such as the ever-demanding processing power needed for simulated realism. If anything, work that does follow in the direction of the latest tech trends is ironically the quickest to date once the trends move on.

I've noticed I've not really described what my work is about, just the process, in this text. But I don't know, maybe I like Flash because it is regarded as redundant. No one really cares about it, so I feel free to make whatever I want, and can decide on form myself, to my own standards, the quality of my work. As fun as making images is, I find it difficult to put into words what it is exactly I'm expressing in my work, and perhaps that would spoil it anyway.

[anglerflsh]

What the fascistic hatred for abstract art and idolisation of only the Rational, Realistic Art, the only one that comes close to a science, the only one that can be excused as existing (because the more realistic it is the less you see the artist in it and the more it can conform to a standard) have done is unforgivable. btw

Fascism notoriously hates abstract art, and positivism's legacy was a degradation of humanities that led to a distate for art that couldn't be objectively graded on a clear scale or measures in scientific truths. The result is the need to be able to give a correct and rational value to art, and the scale chosen for it was realism.

Which inevitably brings the thought that was isn't realistic is bad, on principle! It is idiotic because art is inherently subjective! You cannot grade it in such a way because it is not meant to be a surefire and technically onthologically correct or incorrect pursuit, it is meant to be art, but fascism hates what it cannot grade as either superior or inferior, degenerate or inspiring, and therefore makes up ways to do that that actually have no meaning and make no sense.

+ It is also why hyperrealistic art is often soulless - not always - but think of (as the example that Jaja gave me, hi) those Instagram drawings of perfectly photorealistic lips or eyes. They all look the same. They all look maybe even incredible, but by virtue of all looking the same, they lose the artist. Could you tell if two drawings of the same set of lime-biting lips were made by different people, when they are so so similar, and so so realistic? What of the prevalent AI art artstyle, a mesh of perfect rendering, all looking the same? Where is the individuality in making all art look identical! Where is the artist in a drawing that does not show any stylistic choice!

The point is. Your art style isn't holding you back because it isn't "realistic enough." You can do what you want forever

[creaman]

Hi there! I apologize for taking up your time, I am just so curious: When you tackle a comic, what does the process behind it look like?

Asking because I found myself scrolling through your blog once again and couldn't help but marvel at all the beautiful effects you use, at how flawlessly the structure guides the viewer's eye across each page, how the graphic weight seems to always be in just the right places…, and wonder how you learned doing this. Everything you put out looks incredibly professional and I aspire to reach your level of skill 😌❤️

Thank you Finz!! You're no bother at all, I'm an open book. This is such high praise for a guy that really doesn't have a set process, I feel like a hack. Ha. Rest assured my style is still developing. Besides the referencing of the linework and composition of official comic books, (practicing by redrawing panels for fun), explaining the process makes me feel like a serial killer but I will do my best.

(WIP Riddler panel, scrapped Scarecrow composition)

My comics usually stem from a single panel or concept — I like to focus on/emphasise particular panels of my pages, the heavy hitters, the main piece that catches your eye. I know I'm not a profoundly technically proficient artist so I prefer visually interesting elements and formatting, i.e. drawing characters outside their frames, negative space, notation, perspectives etc.

(Kung Fu Panda 4 sketch god I hate Kung Fu Panda 4)

I like to establish 'main focus' panels, the bits of the comic that really, well. make people want to chew on it. This is where the technical effort is concentrated, really, and the rest of the comic is generally build around these concepts.

('Restaurant Balthazar' focus panels)

Textures and effects are done on individual panels first, then the entire page as a whole to even out the unity. Generally, blocking in shadows, hatching for visual interest + middle tones, then textures/half-tones, then highlights.

(Script excerpt WIP)

I'm not a writer per se, but having a vague 'script' in your pages helps with pacing and direction. Comics are a versatile story-telling medium. I only really do scripts for comics longer than 2 pages. An optional but recommended strat is to send your script to a friend for a second opinion.

(Script excerpt — 'Restaurant Balthazar', annotated by @vincepti0n I don't know why he drew a face in the middle)

With the script crudely slapped together, I rough out the thumbnails and composition with the text, prioritising coherence and clean integration of previously mentioned 'main focus' panels.

Settling on a composition sucks the hardest. Drawing is fun, thinking makes brain hurty. Variety is good! Close-ups, wide shots, visual metaphors. Every panel is its own artwork.

The text bubbles are usually added in post, yes, but I'm just one guy and I don't have a writer to call me a good boy for doing things correctly. Bite me.

(Early 'Restaurant Balthazar' drafts)

In addition, keeping the text graphics in mind help create a sounder composition wherein even if the panels don't read cleanly left to right + top to bottom, the text can stagger and create the same reading order effect.

Panels and concepts are constantly tweaked, and my comic process is still highly experimental. A lot of industry standard comics aren't illustrated to their full potential due to deadlines and such — I strive for visual epiphany by treating each panel as its own artwork, and every page as a a bit of a mural.

(Old art hurts the soul)

Constantly experimenting allows you the insight of looking at your current art in comparison to your older works. In more recent works, I've been blocking in more shadows wiht lineart with thinner lines and more line weight, and learned to integrate the subject characters with less plain, abstract backgrounds.

TLDR: I have no idea

[hd-tarot]

🔮✨ HD Tarot Fest Anonymous Masterlist ✨🔮

Below is a collection of all the incredible fic and art created under the mystical influence of the Major and Minor Arcana cards.

Creators will be revealed on Saturday, November 30th at 1pm GMT/8am EST!

· ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ Fic ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ ·

🔮 Because This River Is Wild (T, 14k words) 🃏 Six of Pentacles, upright: generosity, community, help, support, sharing, gratitude Six of Pentacles, reversed: inequality, taking advantage, strings attached, extortion, unfair power dynamics Consider this, though: how do you know you’re looking at the card the intended way? Or, Harry and Draco struggle with the explosive nature of passion without trust. Card(s): Six of Pentacles

🔮 Twilight Eternal (M, 23.9k words) 🃏 Wherever Draco is, the sun sits eternally on the precipice of setting. His father feeds his peacocks on the manor grounds. Harry is the only one who can communicate with Draco. A malevolent force haunts the house, nipping at Draco’s heels. Draco intended for himself to come to this place. He only wishes he could remember why. Card(s): Five of Cups

🔮 all i need (G, 3.9k words) 🃏 What would have happened if Draco Malfoy went down to the cellar again after Wormtail seemingly disappeared? Card(s): Six of Swords

🔮 I Watch Your Light (E, 9k words) 🃏 Harry spends his nights out pretending that he isn't sitting across from Draco Malfoy. This is rather difficult to do since Malfoy won't stop staring at him. Why, oh why, did his boyfriend have to be friends with the blond wanker? Card(s): Six of Cups, King of Cups (reversed), Four of Cups (reversed)

🔮 Little Black Dress (E, 4.9k words) 🃏 Returning for a mandatory eighth year and secretly dating Harry Potter, Draco is a bit of a mess. Harry wants to go public with their relationship, but the last thing Draco needs is another reason for people to hate him. As they work on their Tarot assignment for Advanced Divination, could a change of heart be in the cards? Card(s): Eight of Pentacles, Queen of Wands, Queen of Cups (reversed)

🔮 Abstract From a Moment (E, 19.1k words) 🃏 What Draco thinks will be a promotion in the Department of Mysteries turns out to be a strange, morbid assignment. He can handle the macabre task and the slightly frightening interactions with his odd superior, especially if it means career success. Trust Harry Potter to ruin everything. Card(s): Ten of Wands (reversed)

🔮 psychopomp (E, 15.3k words) 🃏 “Do you think I deserve to live?” The words spilt from his mouth, unbidden. Potter fixed him with a penetrating look. Draco recalled the expression he’d worn when he wrenched the wands from Draco’s grip at the Manor; thought this could be the same one. You can’t hide from me, it said. I know everything about you. “I think dying is the easy way out.” Card(s): The High Priestess

🔮 A wolf at the door (T, 13.5k words) 🃏 When Harry decided to do his internship with an international Auror, he was seeking an escape from many things. He certainly hadn’t anticipated ending up questioning his sexuality, magically trapped in a Spanish house with Draco Malfoy. Card(s): The World

🔮 hugged and tugged down through this tiger’s masque (M, 11k words) 🃏 A glimpse into a period of alteration, change, and transformation. Card(s): Death

🔮 Rusty Cage (E, 20.5k words) 🃏 Harry Potter is not okay. Someone else who’s not okay? Draco Malfoy, but he's doing time in Azkaban for his heinous crimes. But what if Draco isn't as guilty as he's been made out to be? Everyone knows that Harry is a sucker for righting injustice, including Hermione, who is more than prepared to meddle in order to help her best friend. Or, when Harry visits Draco in prison and things don't go quite as expected. Card(s): Eight of Swords

🔮 Towers of glory and the hands that felled them (G, 15.8k words) 🃏 It’s been 10 years since the war and Draco Malfoy is yet to leave his tower. The Tower: a symbol for ambition that is constructed on faulty premises. The destruction of the tower must happen in order to clear out the old ways and welcome something new. Its revelations can come in a flash of truth or inspiration. Card(s): The Tower

🔮 Mirror, Me (E, 18.3k words) 🃏 Harry’s current predicament is, he can admit, rather dire. Being caught stalking aside, he thinks his nose might be broken. Humiliation licks up his rigid spine, but along with it is a prickle of ill-advised anticipation, a foolish thrill at what Malfoy might do. Harry is a little lost. His house is rejecting him and his friends and family are busy and moving on. To cope, he turns to what’s tried and true; following Draco Malfoy. The first time was an accident. Sort of. Card(s): Four of Wands

🔮 Beyond the Veil (M, 9.9k words) 🃏 Embracing his new role as the Master of Death, Harry finds harmony in the natural order of things, but can he find a balance with the new Master of Life, Draco Malfoy? Card(s): Temperance

🔮 Minor Fall, Major Lift (E, 10.9k words) 🃏 Harry Potter is telling people’s fortunes in a tent in the Atrium at the Ministry Christmas party. Draco thinks Divination is a load of rubbish. But the cards never lie… Card(s): Ten of Pentacles (reversed), The Moon, Three of Cups

🔮 The Superfluous Man (E, 24.1k words) 🃏 A child for Harry Potter is a miracle of magic. And it's the second act of Draco Malfoy's sorry little life. Card(s): The Wheel of Fortune

🔮 Care for a Walk? (G, 2k words) 🃏 “Draco,” Harry beams confidently as the gates swing open, “Care for a walk?” Card(s): Six of Cups

🔮 Skipping Stones (M, 34.7k words) 🃏 Draco receives his very own prophecy. If Harry Potter could leave him alone, he might be able to figure out what it means. Card: Queen of Swords

· ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ Art ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ ·

🔮 Death (G) 🃏 Card: Death

🔮 The Strength (G) 🃏 Card: Strength

🔮 A New Light. (G) 🃏 The choices that changed us. Card: The Tower

🔮 The Moon (G) 🃏 Card: The Moon

🔮 Surrender (M) 🃏 Draco repents. Card: The Hanged Man

🔮 nine of cups (G) 🃏 Harry happy in the upright card position, Draco suffering in the reverse. Card: Nine of Cups

🔮 The Sun (G) 🃏 In the cosmos of his heart, Harry blooms not but for one sun. Card: The Sun

🔮 Crepusculum (G) 🃏 A guardian in his tower, whimsical and secretive. A corruptor in the marble manor, with mirrored flesh and soul. Two souls at the foot of a castle seeking the sky just out of reach. Held down by twisted word and lies. Card: The Emperor

🔮 Ace of Cups (G) 🃏 Sipping from the same cup. Card: Ace of Cups

🔮 Ten of Cups (G) 🃏 ten of cups joy, gratitude, unconditional love, belonging, emotional fulfillment Card: Ten of Cups

🔮 XXI. THE WORLD (G) 🃏 XXI. The World, but make it drarry. Card: The World

[rhemaji]

Lil rant abt Caine

Caine is just a lil guy, despite it all. From a design standpoint I thought I was gonna absolutely fucking hate looking at him because those chattering teeth toys make my skin crawl- but the art direction really helps make him look more appealing and whimsical than a disembodied pair of talking dentures sounds on paper.

The thing with Caine is I didn't initially like him that much after the pilot. While his interactions with Bubble were quite funny, that one episode left me feeling like he'd just end up being kinda one note or at the very least one note in a way that'd get on my nerves. Then everything changed when Pomni Wake Up Time to Go On an Adventure! attacked

The comedic timing throughout that announcement video was so fucking funny and thanks to his line deliveries and animation/model [?] upgrades- CAINE LOOKED AND SOUNDED SO ADORABLE!!

Legit it wasn't until this came out that I realized I actually could be on board with Caine as a character and it's been uphill from there. Episode 2 was better than the pilot not only comedically and visually but also in terms of showcasing just how actually unsettling Caine can be as an antagonist. Not because he's vengeful or malicious, but because he's so oblivious to how people work. His mind's always buzzing with terrible ideas and he's so so eager about these adventures, but at the end of the day he really really doesn't get the circus crew. Try as he might to include them, keep them engaged [ZOOBLE WAIT!], or even give them what they want [Exit doors] he doesn't realize how traumatic and distressing their current situation can be. The very nature of being trapped in a digital world is bad enough but it's especially rough here bc not only does its god have limited capabilities, you also are very well acquainted with him, and he can't fully understand your pain nor can he truly save you from it. He won't mourn your abstraction. He will not attend your funeral. He will not understand the distress of your arrival, nor the weight of your departure.

This isn't just sad from the pov of the circus gang, it's also very sad for Caine- not because i think he'll ever feel sad about it himself necessarily, but instead because the situation is sad. New members appear over and over, you craft adventures and games and distractions like [i'm assuming] they'd asked you to, but over and over, one by one, they abstract. They stop laughing at your jokes. They don't like you. They want you to leave them alone. It's confusing and maybe even inconvenient.

Where I'm hoping the series takes Caine is that this dissonance between Caine's intentions and the distress of the circus gang gets worse and worse and worse until something's got to give. I'm hoping that maybe at some point a character will try to sit down and talk with him and for it to either sorta get through to him but completely backfire in some form because he misinterprets what the others want from him OR i'd also be down for him to listen, but not understand any of it and proceed as tho nothing happened. I don't want Caine to come around really, it'd be interesting to see how Goose would go about having him come around to being a better host that empathizes more with humans, but personally I do prefer him to keep on keepin' on being this oblivious and eager antagonist.

My favorite Caine lines/line deliveries so far:

"You, my friend, stumbled into an incredible world of wonders, where anything can happen!…e-except for swearing."

"And here we have THE GROUNDS! Drown yourself in the digital lake, or engage in ridery at the digital carnival!"

"What do you think of XDDCC? You're right, terrible, LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN!"

"Kaufmo abstracted? Why didn't anybody tell me?"

"Bubble you can't say that"

"-ZOOBLE WAIT!"

"Why are you all just standing there?! The- The Canyon- C-Candy Canyon Kingdom needs you now!" [according to his VA, this was an actual line flub but hoo boy am i glad they use it bc it's hilarious]

"I know you guys love your NPCs, but if I start losing track of who's a human and who's an NPC, who knows...what. could. happen..."

That last line there specifically surprised me the most because up until he said that I was under the impression Caine was linked to every single NPC. I even thought he could see through their eyes if he so chose thanks to his "hundreds of all seeing eyes" line in the pilot. Him saying this here implies lots of things. Has Caine forgotten before? Is someone in the circus secretly an NPC ooooooooh~

"Who knows what could happen..."

Honestly, when Caine first said this I did immediately theorize Jax as being an NPC but now that it's been *checks calendar* three months since I watched episode 2, I don't think this is the case anymore. Jax being an NPC would be...something. Jax not knowing he's an NPC would be interesting [i like it when ppl's realities get shattered], but honestly I think this line was a way to telegraph to the audience that no Caine isn't actually all knowing. He didn't know Gummigoo was coming through that portal until he saw him with his own two eyes. My theory is that Caine is only able to teleport, create, censor, transform, and destroy the world around him, but isn't able to see all of it at once unless he tries to. I think Caine's default state is one where he only knows what he sees directly in front of him/what he himself has left waiting for someone else. And rather than implying someone in the gang is an NPC, I think that line in episode 2 was mainly implying Caine can be tricked, that it's possible to hide something from him, to surprise him even. Though I'm not opposed to an NPC we haven't met trying to join under the guise of being human, it'd potentially create some fun tension assuming the audience was given enough reason to care about them.

Jax is actually my favorite character in tadc, but i couldn't fill an entire post with things to say abt him. Caine seems to be- at least as of right now- the easiest of all the characters to try and wrap my head around. I'll probably have a lot more to say about Jax as he exists in canon as the episodes come out [EPISODE 6 MY BELOVED]

but uhhhh yeah, that's all the things i had to say abt Caine. Pls go watch/listen to the fansong Digital Land bye!

[babyflorencee]

Stockholm Syndrome

Part seven: When Fear Meets Desire

Links: MASTERLIST | Part eight

Harry Styles x fem!Reader

The cool water from the shower had washed away the heaviness, but my mind was still tangled in confusion. I stood in the guest bedroom, staring at the untouched bed, its stark white sheets folded too neatly, too impersonal. The silence pressed down on me, thick and stifling, like a fog I couldn’t quite shake. I was too awake, too restless to sleep. There were too many emotions that churned inside of me.

I wanted to be close to him.

Harry’s voice, gentle and warm, played in my head. "You make my world brighter, love." It felt real. I wanted it to be real, even though I still couldn't reconcile the part of me that remembered how he'd taken me, stolen me from everyone and everything that I once knew.

The part of me that should hate him collided with the part that ached for him. But here, in this house, surrounded by the soft scent of his cologne and the quiet that settled like a balm, everything felt like a dream. A dangerous dream, but a dream nonetheless. A dream I didn't want to wake up from.

I couldn't stay in that guest bedroom. I didn't want to stay there. Not tonight.

I slipped into a pair of loose sweats and a t-shirt that Harry had left for me and I left the bedroom, my bare feet padding softly against the cold oak floors. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing or where I was even going—only that I needed to find him. His presence was magnetic, a force I couldn’t resist even if I wanted to. The house felt different now, softer. The walls no longer felt like they were closing in on me. But I was still scared—scared of what he might think, scared of what this would mean for me. What if he was only being kind because he felt responsible for me? What if I was just a broken thing to him, just a puzzle he could fix? Just a challenge?

I wandered down the hallway, my steps faltering, uncertainty settling in my chest. The walls were painted a deep slate gray, interrupted only by sporadic art—a mix of abstract splashes of color and serene black-and-white landscapes. Everything about the space was sharp and clean, like Harry had designed it to keep people at a distance. Yet there were hints of softness: a folded throw draped over a chair in the corner, a candle flickering faintly on a side table.The house felt vast in its silence. How was I supposed to find him? I couldn’t remember the exact layout of the house, and the hallways seemed endless. Was this how it would feel every time I tried to get close to him? Lost?

I reached another hallway, and I paused, unsure which direction to go. The quiet of the house pressed down on me, thick and suffocating. I needed to find him. I couldn’t stay away. My heart wouldn’t let me.

Taking a deep breath, I started down the hall to the left, moving cautiously, hoping to stumble across some familiar sign of him—his scent, his warmth, anything. But every door I opened was wrong. A laundry room, a bathroom, a closet. Nothing that told me where he might be. Nothing that felt like him.

Why is this house so impossible to navigate?

But it wasn’t just the house. It was him. Harry was a maze of contradictions—dark and tender, cruel and kind. Every time I tried to pin down what I felt for him, it seemed to slip right through my fingers.

I reached another hallway and stopped in front of a closed door. My heart skipped in my chest. I was too far in now to turn back. I pushed the door open with shaking hands, only to be met with a small, unused guest room.

Frustration built within me as I turned down yet another hall, my breath shallow. Why was it so hard to find him? Maybe my brain was still fogged. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be here, wandering through this house like some unwanted intruder.

Then, in the distance, I heard the faint sound of the television. The soft hum of it floated through the air, guiding me. to his room. I just had to follow the sound.

I hurried down the next hall, relieved when I saw an open door at the far end. My heart skipped a beat when I saw him lying on his bed, half-turned toward the TV. His dark hair, messy and unruly, which framed his face in a way that made him look so impossibly handsome, even in the blue glow of the television screen.

I froze in the doorway, uncertain whether to step inside. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, the anxiety of what I was doing bubbling up. He looked so peaceful, so at ease. I didn’t want to disturb him, but the longing in me was so strong that I couldn't bare another second without being wrapped up in his arms.

I hesitated for a moment, my hand poised above the doorknob.

Then I knocked softly on the doorframe.

It was stupid. The door was already open, but something inside me wanted to be sure, to have a reason for stepping into his space. To have him invite me in, just like he had done earlier, when he’d reached for my hand and led me upstairs. I needed to know that he wanted me here, with him.

His eyes met mine as soon as I knocked, and the confusion that flickered in them made my chest tighten. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice thick with concern. He set the remote down, pausing whatever show he was watching. The tension between us, the space we hadn’t crossed yet, was palpable. I stood there, almost ashamed of the way my heart was racing.

“I…” My words trailed off, unsure of how to even begin. I could feel the weight of my heart pressing down on me. What was I doing? I wanted to stay with him, I wanted to feel his warmth, but my mind was still shouting at me, telling me I shouldn’t. He was the man who had taken me, locked me in this house, and yet here I was, standing in his doorway, wanting nothing more than to lie next to him.

“I just… I want to be with you,” I said quietly, my voice trembling.

Harry’s eyes softened, his confusion turning into something else. Something warm, maybe even a little surprised. His lips parted as if to speak, but instead, he reached over and patted the side of the bed, as if telling me to come closer.

“You can stay with me,” he said, his voice like the slow, steady rhythm of a song you didn’t know you needed. “Come here.”

“Are you sure?” I asked softly, my voice trembling slightly. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“No,” Harry said quickly, his voice filled with assurance. “You’re not disturbing me. Remember what I said earlier? I want you here.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse quickening. I walked in, my steps uncertain but my desire undeniable. The moment I climbed into the bed, Harry shifted, moving over to the other side. He didn’t say anything, just made room for me, his eyes inviting me in without hesitation. And in that moment, everything inside me screamed that this was right, that this was where I needed to be. That this is where I should be.

I crawled under the covers, the warmth of his body still a mystery to me, but I didn’t question it. The blankets settled around me like a soft embrace as he pulled me into his chest, his arms wrapping around me with a tenderness that made my breath hitch. I could feel his heartbeat against my cheek, steady and sure, and it made my thoughts blur.

“Is this okay?” he asked softly, his voice barely a whisper against my ear.

I nodded, my body relaxing against his, finally allowing myself to believe that this was real, that we were real. I could hear the steady beat of his heart, the quiet hum of his breath.

"I don’t know what I'm doing," I whispered, “You... you kidnapped me. I shouldn't want to be anywhere near you. And yet, every time we're apart I need you near me. And Harry that scares me.”

Harry’s arms tightened around me, the warmth of his embrace grounding me as I poured out my messed up thoughts. I felt the vulnerability of my confession, feeling raw and exposed. He was quiet for a moment, the room heavy with the words I had just spoken. Then, his voice broke the silence, low and full of something I couldn’t quite place—regret, understanding, or maybe something even deeper.

His arms tightened around me, his warmth seeping into my skin.“I never wanted to hurt you,” he said softly, his voice laced with regret. “I know I’ve done terrible things. Things I can’t take back. And I’ll live with that for the rest of my life. But you… you’re the one thing I never expected. The one thing I didn’t think I deserved. I never thought that I could feel this way about anyone. Not after everything, not after the life I’ve led. And yet, here you are, pulling me in. You’ve got a hold on my heart that I can’t break free from.”

I looked up at him, my heart aching at the vulnerability in his eyes. “Why did you take me?”

His gaze faltered, his fingers brushing absently against my arm. “Because I was a coward. Because I thought I could control everything, even my own feelings. But I was wrong. I was so wrong. And now…” He trailed off, his voice breaking slightly. “Now, I just want to be the person you feel safe with. The person you can trust.”

I swallowed hard, the weight of his words settling over me. “I don’t know if I can trust you yet,” I admitted.

He nodded, his jaw tightening. “I don’t blame you. But I’ll prove it to you, every day, if you let me. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.”

I reached for his hand, intertwining my fingers with his. “I don’t know how to let you in,” I whispered. “But I want to try. I don’t want to be scared of you anymore.”

His eyes softened, a small, tentative smile tugging at his lips. “Then that’s enough for me. For now, that’s enough. But I need you to know that I’ve never felt anything like this. And I’m not going to pretend I know how to fix everything I've done, but I’ll be damned if I let you go. I want you here. More than I've ever wanted anything in my life”

I could feel the truth in his words, even if the shadows of doubt still lingered in my chest. I wanted to believe him. But the pieces of who he was—the part of him that had taken me, that had kept me locked away—still haunted me. His arms around me felt safe, but my mind screamed in protest. What if it wasn’t real? What if, one day, everything would break again?

“I want to trust you, but I don't know if I can.” I whispered, my voice barely audible as my heart raced against the tide of fear.

He exhaled softly, like my words were a blow to him. But he didn’t pull away. Instead, he gently cupped my face in his hands, his gaze so intense, filled with something I couldn’t quite define.

“Then don’t trust me yet,” Harry said quietly, his voice laced with vulnerability. “But don’t pull away from me either. Stay here, with me, just for tonight. Let me show you that I’m not the monster you think I am. I’m not asking you to forget what I've done to you. But I’ll prove to you, one day at a time, that you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

I looked up at him, his eyes were so full of sincerity, but there was something else there too—fear. Fear that I might pull away. Fear that I might never forgive him. But as his words lingered in the air, I could feel myself wavering, torn between the raw truth of what he said and the deep fear that still held me captive. But the way he held me, the way he looked at me, made it harder to resist. And maybe… just maybe… there was a part of me that still wanted to believe him.

“I'm scared of what I'm feeling for you,” I admitted, the truth slipping out of me. "I know I shouldn't feel this way towards you, but I do. And I don't want these feelings to go away. I don't want you to go away."

Harry’s face softened, and he tightened his grip around me, pulling me closer, his lips brushing my hair as he spoke. “I promise I'm not going anywhere.”

He leaned down slightly, his lips grazing my own "You're all I need, love. That's the truth. I just want you to feel comfortable in here."

"I think I'm starting to be," I said, surprised at how true it felt.

He pulled back slightly to look at me, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw. “What do you mean by that? That you’re starting to be?” His voice was soft, like he was afraid of pushing too hard.

I closed my eyes, thinking for a moment. “I mean… I don’t know how to explain it. I feel safe with you right now, even when everything inside me says I shouldn’t. I don’t know how that makes sense, but it’s the truth.”

Harry's eyes flickered with something like relief, though there was a trace of sadness in them too. He kissed the top of my head, his voice low. "I’ve never wanted anything more than for you to feel at home here. Even if it’s just for tonight."

I nodded, trying to calm the whirlwind of emotions spinning in my chest. "Okay," I whispered, nestling back into his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart slow my thoughts.

"Y/n?" His voice was low, almost hesitant, as his fingers tangled gently in my hair, each movement deliberate and tender.

"Yeah?" I whispered, lifting my head from his chest, the warmth of his skin still lingering against my cheek.

"Can I kiss you?"

His question hung in the air, thick with anticipation. My breath caught, and I couldn’t bring myself to respond with words. Instead, I nodded, the movement small and uncertain.

He didn’t hesitate for long. In a heartbeat, he leaned in, his lips hovering just over mine. The faintest brush of his breath sent a shiver down my spine, and for a moment, it felt as though the world had gone completely still. There was hesitation in his touch, as though he was giving me one last chance to pull away.

But I didn’t.

His hand slid from my hair to the back of my neck, the touch firm but not rough, grounding me as he closed the distance. When his lips finally met mine, the kiss was forceful, almost desperate, as if he’d been holding back for far too long. Yet beneath the intensity, there was something more—a tenderness that made my chest ache.

When we finally pulled apart, our breaths mingled in the quiet space between us. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward or heavy. Instead, it wrapped around us in a warm embrace. Almost like it was shielding us from the chaos of everything around us. His forehead rested lightly against mine, and I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, the warmth of his presence, and the unspoken words that lingered in the quietness.

“What do you think of when you look at me?” he asked suddenly, his voice hesitant.

I opened my eyes. So I could stare into his green eyes. "What do you mean?" I whispered, unsure of where this conversation was going.

He let out a sigh, his eyes flickering with uncertainty. "I know who I am. But who do you see? What’s in your head when you look at me?"

My heart softened as I looked at him—at the man who had kidnapped me, yes, but also the man who had stayed with me through all the pain, the man who held me when I needed him.

"I see someone who is trying," I said carefully. "Someone who is afraid, just like me. But trying. I see someone who wants to make things better, even if it doesn’t always make sense. And I… I see someone who feels real to me, in a way I can’t explain."

Harry’s smile softened as he pulled me closer, one of his hands resting gently on my back, as the other softly pulled my head back to his chest, his lips brushing my hair as he spoke. "You’re the only thing that feels real to me right now," he whispered. "And I’ll do whatever it takes to prove that to you."

In that moment, the world outside felt distant, fading into nothingness as I listened to the rhythm of his breathing, the calm in his presence.

“I’ve never had someone care about me like this,” I said, my voice small, barely a whisper against his chest. “You don’t know what it means to me.”

Harry’s fingers traced circles on my back, slow and steady, as if he were trying to convey something with each movement. “It means everything to me too. You mean everything to me.”

And for a moment, I allowed myself to believe it. That despite everything—despite the twisted path that had led me to him—maybe this was where I belonged. Maybe love could still exist, even in the darkest of places.

“I’m sorry for all the ways I hurt you,” Harry added, his voice full of regret. "But I’ll spend every day making it up to you. I promise."

I smiled softly, a quiet peace settling over me as I pressed my lips against his chest. "You don’t have to promise anything. I’m here. And for tonight, that’s enough."

And as we lay together in the dark, the quiet of the room wrapping around us, I allowed myself to believe—just for tonight—that maybe we could find a way forward. Together. it felt like a beginning. A messy, beautiful, uncertain beginning—but a beginning nonetheless.

***

The sunlight poured into the bedroom through a crack in the heavy curtains, bathing the room in a golden glow. The air was warm, tinged with the faint scent of Harry's cologne. I blinked my eyes open slowly, the soft rhythm of his heartbeat against my ear was the first thing I registered. His arms were wrapped tightly around me, his warmth feeling like a blanket.

“Good morning,” Harry’s voice rumbled against my hair, low and hoarse with sleep. I tilted my head up to meet his gaze. His green eyes, sparkling even in the dim light.

“Morning,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, as though speaking louder might shatter this moment. His hand drifted lazily up and down my back, his fingers tracing patterns over the fabric of my borrowed t-shirt. It sent shivers down my spine, even though his touch was as gentle as a feather.

“You slept in,” he teased, his lips quirking up in a soft smile. “I like it. Means I get to keep you in here longer.”

I rolled my eyes, though I couldn’t stop the small laugh that escaped my lips. “I can’t stay in bed all day, Harry.”

“Yes, you can,” he countered quickly, his arms tightening around me as though he could physically stop me from moving. “In fact, I insist.”

“Harry,” I groaned, but there was no real protest in my tone. “We can’t just do nothing all day.”

“But we absolutely can,” he argued, his voice dipping into a playful whine. “Come on, love. Stay here. Stay with me. Please.”

I tried to push myself up, but his arms only tightened more, pulling me back down against his chest. His lips found the top of my head, then my temple, then the corner of my mouth, leaving a trail of soft kisses that made me melt.

“Harry,” I said again, this time more softly, the sound catching in my throat.

“Please,” he murmured against my skin, his breath warm and enticing. “Just a little longer. I need you here right now. Don’t go just yet.”

My heart squeezed at his words, at the raw vulnerability in his voice. He wasn’t demanding; he was pleading, as though letting me go might break something inside of him. And I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. Not when he looked at me like that, like I was the only thing in this world.

“Okay,” I relented, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll stay.”

The smile that spread across his face was instant and radiant, like when the sun breaks through the clouds. He pulled me closer, his lips brushing against my forehead in a kiss so soft it made my chest ache.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. His hand came up to cup my cheek, his thumb brushing softly over my skin. “You’ve no idea how much it means to me, having you here. Waking up next to you.”

My cheeks warmed under his gaze, and I buried my face in his chest to hide the blush I knew was creeping up my neck. His laughter rumbled against me, deep and affectionate.

“You’re adorable when you blush,” he teased, his fingers threading through my hair.

“Shut up,” I mumbled, though I couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at my lips.

Harry shifted slightly, leaning back against the pillows and pulling me with him until I was half-draped across his chest. His hands never stopped moving, one trailing up and down my spine while the other tangled in my hair. It was calming, grounding, and I felt myself relaxing more with each passing moment.

“You’re too good to me,” he said suddenly, his voice soft but laced with an undercurrent of emotion. “I don’t deserve this. Don’t deserve you.”

I lifted my head to look at him, my brows furrowing at the sadness that flickered in his eyes. “Don’t say that,” I murmured, reaching up to cup his face. “Don’t ever say that again. You mean so much to me, Harry. More than I can even put into words.”

His gaze searched mine, as though trying to find the truth in my words. Then, without warning, he leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t like the kiss from the night before—this one was slower, softer, yet intense. His lips moved against mine with a tenderness that made my heart ache, as though he was pouring all of his feelings into our kiss.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against mine, his eyes fluttering closed. “I’m never letting you go,” he whispered, his voice trembling slightly. “You’re mine, Y/N. You always will be.”

I didn’t respond with words; I didn’t need to. Instead, I leaned up to kiss him again. For now, in this moment, everything else could wait. The world outside could wait. All that mattered was the warmth of his arms around me and the steady beat of his heart against mine.

[blorbosinmyheadcentral]

your art makes me explode in a positive way like

im chewing and swallowing it in an aggressive way like

it's just SO good im melting ilove your shading and KEHEKEBEKJDJF

anwayshi hello do you happen to have any headcanons for showtime rolls on the floor and dies

Thank you so much, really appreciate it!

Oh God I don't know if this will read as coherent because my thoughts about Showtime are all over the place. But I'll try to format this the best I can

✨Showtime HCs! ✨

Their relationship starts when they start spending time together.

(The reason why they do so could vary. In Supervised Machine Learning's case, Pomni becomes something of a "tutor" to Caine; They discover that they work well together, and the other's company can be quite pleasant!).

So Pomni and Caine build a weird, but comforting friendship, and all is well.

Then the feelings appear.

Caine is the first to realize he fell in love.

It sounds illogical but hear me out… it'd be really funny--

Ok no seriously I think Caine can actually feel. Keyword "can". He's very much still a machine and it shows in the pilot. But like his inspiration (AM), Caine is also a rogue AI. Whatever his programming originally intended him to do, he probably doesn't follow it as closely now as back when he was created (which is a whole other post).

Caine knows what love is and the extend it can go, since the Moon is so open about her feelings. He just doesn't like the Moon back specifically haha (sorry Moon) :}

All this to say, I do believe this is within the realm of possibility for him. (Not that it's ever gonna happen towards anyone in the show. These are just wishful shippy thoughts).

He might not recognize it as love at first, because it manifests in such a different way from his one reference point.

His friendship with Pomni had gone through phases.

When they first met, he continuously touched her with no concern for how she felt.

Learning from and about Pomni herself led him to come to respect her boundaries (and becoming mindful of everyone else's).

Then they're close friends, and gradually, Pomni does not mind his regular wacky, touchy-feely self. So Caine acts as he had always done before.

Caine expresses his love for Pomni with physical gestures and his undivided attention.

When they teleport to travel to other places, he holds her close so she doesn't get too dizzy; he pats her head to reassure her; he touches her arm to get her attention; he grabs her hands when he's excited about her ideas; he holds eye contact for prolonged periods of time; and he touches, and touches, and touches, and touches.

It's selfish, and so he keeps it buried in his deepest 0's and 1's. But he'd like to keep hanging out with Pomni, having her in his sight, and feel the texture of her gloved hands until the end of time.

Despite all this, to him, virtually nothing changed.

What? He's spending time with Pomni as he'd always been doing, and behaving as he'd always behaved!

It's Bubble of all people that has to point out that, "Hey boss. I think you WANT her!"

Absurd. Nonsense. Preposterous! It is merely a relationship of mutual support and affection between a ringmaster and his trusted, former-human companion. Nothing more.

(Declaring his love to her unprompted didn't ever cross his mind, so there's no way it could be that. Is there?)

Caine finds out that yes, there is.

Pomni had always been a nervous wreck, but her mind state becomes more manageable over time. She eventually adjusts to the circus life like everyone else did.

"Accepting" her fate is a different story. The will to escape, to remember, never really leaves. She's just more careful about it.

So when she starts working with Caine - to improve life so people don't go abstracting anymore, and hopefully find a definitive exit - she's not expecting to end up liking her time with him.

Not that she'd absolutely hate it, either. He's… "okay"… Just-- outlandish, loud, he keeps invading her personal space, he keeps touching her, and it makes her die a little every time.

If he's up to listening, though… it can't be that bad, right?

Turns out that no, it wasn't that bad.

Yes, he is outlandish, loud, he keeps invading her personal space and touching her. But she explains what she means to him, clearly and patiently, and he makes an effort to do better. An actual effort.

Sometimes he'd misinterpret what she meant - the ambiguity of human language - and the new games would go horribly. But little by little, his efforts make life overall better. Something reminiscent of actual, real life, the one they've all forcibly left behind.

And he tries, and he tries, and Pomni finds herself enjoying the process as much as the good results.

Pomni likes Caine's eagerness to learn. His enthusiastic attitude borders on silly, and the absurdity makes her laugh on occasion. When faced with the prospect of a "real" exit, she loves his upbeat optimism.

When she's not hanging out with Ragatha, Jax, Gangle, Zooble and Kinger, she begins to enjoy spending quality time with Caine.

Each one of their hang outs is a new surprise. They make a picnic in the tallest mountain exactly in between day and night. They learn to dance - while floating in the air. "Since you asked, here's a DIGITAL camera! Let's take pictures of the Void for one tenth of a second at a time!"

Sometimes he just comes by Pomni's room, and they end up losing track of time. Just chatting about how things have been, what they could be, and what to do next. Ideas and ideas and ideas.

Before Pomni knows it, she's comfortable enough that recalling his old habits makes her not dread them anymore. So when Caine stands close and lightly touches her arm due to oversight, she makes sure he knows it's all right.

And they keep spending time together, and he touches, and touches, and touches her. Pomni, in turn, feels lighter, and lighter, and lighter. Peaceful, at ease. Dare she say, happy, even.

Life is not perfect. As it stands though, it's good enough. No one has abstracted. No one is at risk of abstracting so far.

Progress is slow, but the research for an exit continues, and she is hopeful. The thought of actually leaving grows closer to reality. But a part of her feels heavy.

When it occurs to Pomni that leaving the Amazing Digital Circus means leaving Caine behind, she is alarmed by how much she'll miss him.

It'll hurt. Badly. So much the thought pains her even now.

The moment Pomni realizes this, she comes to the unexpected conclusion that she may like Caine a little more than she thought she would.

This later leads to an interesting discussion with Ragatha.

By the time Pomni comes to that conclusion, Caine is already down bad.

Neither has any idea that the other is in love with them.

Cue dumbasses trying to deal with their feelings while the potential conflict the escape brings looms over their heads.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

[liekadae]

(Disclaimer: I understand that all the permit office stuff is a BIT and its Not Serious At All.

The Purpose of this post is to use this as a jumping point to explain real world Art and how Fascism Uses Art because I think its incredibly important for people to understand it.)

I can not be the only one who squinted their eyes at this Permit Office notice and thought it sounded a bit fascist

Anyway Pearl, it's very punk of you to deny the status quo I beg you please keep doing it that's the whole point of the punk in solarpunk

deny the government's standards of beauty

deny the aesthetics of the a soulless entity

I am being 100% real here in that I see Pearl's portal as a piece of Modernist art and I will be devastated if it gets changed because it doesn't 'fit the aesthetic'

I kept thinking "why do you think your art is bad?" when pearl was describing it. I don't know, I like it a lot! It's weird, yes, its out of place, yes, but thats why its so beautiful to me

I am being dead serious that fascists use the argument of aesthetics to control the art output of their people, and that Modern art Looks Like That because its in response to the idea that art should strive for a universal standard of 'quality'.

Fascist art was heavily inspired by the classical era which focused on the ideal standards of man/woman/architecture/anything and they used that aesthetic to build up the mythos of their own regimes; anything that did not conform to that standard of beauty, did not contribute to the mythos and therefore was a criticism.

Art that was deemed the standard was traditionally beautiful, ideal, and representational. Basically, art where a group of people could look at it and come to the same conclusions as everyone else. Where as modern art was often abstract, personal, and focused on the expression; anyone could think anything about these types of art.

The art did not conform, therefore it was dangerous.

If you seriously hate modernism, I need you to take a good long look in the mirror and ask yourself why

Article about Modern Art and Fascism

Article about Nazi Germany and Art

I think I loved Pearl's episode so much because she is exuding the malicious compliance lots of artists wish they could embody. She is responding to it in a modernist way. The permit office didn't like her art so they told her to comply and she does the opposite! I need her to keep doing it, because that's what the 'punk' in solarpunk is about

It's about denying the status quo. It's about anarchy. It's about socialist post-modernism. It's about feeling your feelings, making the art that you wanna make. Being the person you want to be.

(This is a very brief explanation of these concepts. If you have any more info or want to discuss this further, feel free to add your own ideas/comments/reblogs/etc but PLEASE keep it civil)