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#which basically means that all texts are weird
theroundbartable · 2 years
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Uther: holds speech
* 2 hours later/ end of speech*
People:* confused noises*
Arthur: practically, what he means is, Merlin has magic, and that's why the ban on magic is now lifted.
The people: oooooooooh!!!!!
Gwaine @ Lancelot: is he ignoring the bit about unifying magic with the Pendragon household by making Merlin royal, and by extension Arthur's husband on purpose.... Or is he just dumb?
Lancelot: you understood any of that?
Gwaine: i've heard weirder speeches.
Lancelot:..... He was talking about socks!
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greenerteacups · 6 months
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thoughts on Ginny and Harry as a couple?
There are a lot of people who find their romance in HBP forced. I don't think it's forced so much as underwritten, and the books don't get the chemistry quite right (though the movies certainly don't, either). There's potential, but they just don't get enough actual scenes of substance (besides Harry thinking she's pretty or feeling jealous of Dean) for a lot of readers to buy that they're not only in love, but deeply enough in love to break up, get back together, and wind up married.
That's not to say I don't see the appeal. There's a very cool scene in Book 5 where Harry's doing a woe-is-me-Chosen-One act, and Ginny effortlessly puts him in his place about it by reminding him that she was possessed by Voldemort at eleven, which is a rare glimpse into her character and also a great synecdoche for their relationship — Ginny is a grounding presence who, like Ron and Hermione, isn't going to be awed by his past adventures because she knew him before they happened. In that respect, Ginny's probably one of the few women Harry could feasibly wind up with, because he only ever seems comfortable around people (let alone girls) who can see past the Chosen-One schtick and treat him like a normo (see: Ron, Hermione, the Weasleys, Luna, Hagrid). True to type, he doesn't get interested in Ginny at all until she's ditched her celebrity crush and ceased to view him as an idol, because in his heart of hearts, Harry wants to be a normal boy, and it's stressed over and over that part of what he likes about his relationship with Ginny is how normal it feels. He kind of has a horribly supercharged version the celebrity dating problem: after the Battle of Hogwarts, anyone he meets is going to know him first as Harry Potter, Chosen One, Boy Who Lived, and Actually Fucking Resurrected Messiah of the Wizarding World, which is... I mean, it's possible that there are witches out there who could get over that, but Harry's not an extroverted guy, and I'm not sure how he'd go about finding them. Ginny's the one who's been there since the beginning, doesn't need anything about him or his past explained to her, and actually likes him for who he is.
When you look at it that way, it's not surprising he married his high school girlfriend. She's one of the few people still alive who doesn't see him as a demigod.
#in general I was never one to ship harry with anybody#what I wanted for him was a long quiet life and plenty of therapy#maybe some dogs. i think harry needs dogs and deserves them#The other obvious solution ftr — though not one I think Harry would take — is for him to marry a muggle#though again. you'd run into the problem of how you explain All That#which harry doesn't like to talk about and probably would want to talk about even less as an adult#plus also: harry loves magic. like he loves it loves it#the muggle world for harry is permanently connected with the dursleys and it would take years to break that association#which I just don't think he's going to invest#Harry post-BOH is moving to Hogsmeade or wizarding London or some other magical neighborhood and staying there forever#by the way this post is not anti Harry and Ginny! no hate on the ship I've seen versions of it that are very cute#but I just think their love story needed Sauce#there are also some really interesting posts I've found in Deep Fandom crackship blogs about h/g as Harry's sublimated desire for Ron#now I don't necessarily buy that reading. I don't think Harry is in love with Ron in the original text#I do think he LOVES ron and projects that love onto the Weasleys very quickly ginny included#and I think Ron is his soulmate platonic or otherwise in every universe#so marrying Ginny has like. Implications. vis-a-vis Harry's status as a Weasley and adoptive brother[in law] of Ron#like it's a full-circle moment where he becomes officially legally a member of Ron's family#which I do believe JKR had in mind. even though that basically means ginny's wedding becomes kinda... actually... about her brother...#it's weird basically. my final verdict is I wish H/G had been written by an author who was more interested in Ginny for Ginny's sake.#greenteacup asks
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no1ryomafan · 10 months
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So I finished mazinkaiser awhile ago after months of procrastination on it and for one reason or another I’m not gonna give my solid thoughts on it but there is one specific thing I wanna point out, not as a critique but more so a confusion. That being: I find it weird how Mazinkaiser isn’t the turning point for Mazinger where they finally go “hey the robot is sentient” because it’s not yet near the end literally EVERYONE talks to Venus A as if shes actually a person:
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I’m not saying this as a criticism for the reason of my already biased to vaguely sentient robots-because as much as I prefer this angle with mecha, I understand not every and all mecha can approach this because sometimes the robot is JUST a narrative tool and not a character, which is fine-however I’m confused with Mazinger of all things didn’t take this approach when there’s already so much emphasis on Mazinger being tied to gods. I mean, apart from the fact the robots are based off Greek Mythology and there is a constant message of “will it become God or Devil” which feels like it warrants this enough, it would start to make sense if the robot grew sentient because Mazinkaiser is treated as the ULTIMATE Mazinger. (And where have we heard a case where the “ultimate” form of a robot starts to be the one that displays more self awareness *cough* GETTAH🗿)
Especially also within this ova- it seems to do stuff on its own accord to PROTECT Koji, like going on auto pilot as he’s knocked out and somehow keeping him safe from being burned alive in magma, but I cannot tell if this IS a indicator Mazinkaiser is actually sentient or if it’s just all auto pilot. Oh and it’s a more minor thing but also just- the human poses Kaiser and Venus take during the beach episode… I cannot tell if that’s something they wanted or if their pilots just posed them comfortably because lines seem to blur with the robots just being treated as the extensive of the pilots. (Venus is literally based off of Sayakas appearance after all)
It’s just weird Nagai never went this route and just stuck to metaphorical stuff, when it feels like SOMETHING he would do given the nature of his stories and yet the only fully sentient Mazinger media I know is Zero. Of course I still have such a limited window on Mazinger so if this is me actually being wrong please feel free to correct me, but I still will never not find it weird Mazinkaiser lacks this aspect asides from maybe vague allusions to it that may or may not be implying it. Maybe if I ever rewatch it or find more Mazinkaiser content specifically I’ll be able to piece things together a bit more.
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orionsangel86 · 1 year
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There is a phenomenon happening on Tumblr right now which may be a product of the Twitter exodus or maybe its just modern fandom mentality vehemently rejecting the old, but you guys have GOT to stop being so damn MEAN about fandom.
There are posts circulating on Tumblr right now hating on so many aspects of fandom. Yeah we all know the incorrect quotes format can be cringe and most of the time its the same quotes used for every fandom ever reducing the characters to stereotypes. Yes we know most fandoms scramble to ship the two basic white guys over all the other characters. Yes we know your blorbo probably Does Not Fucking Say That. Yes we know A/B/O is weird AF (especially now its breached containment and found its way into mainstream hetero erotica). Yes we know SuperWhoLock was ridiculous and attempts to make modern shows into a new SuperWhoLock have got old fast.
But do you have to constantly drag these things all the time? Why is it suddenly cool and popular to ridicule and criticise and hate on peoples fun?
Let people be cringe
Let people play in the fandom sandbox
Let people have their fun
Not everything has to be an intellectual critique and it doesn't make you a better person to constantly shit on fandom ON THE FANDOM WEBSITE
Fandoms can be problematic, toxic, and infuriating at times. But all the negativity isn't making things better. Yeah okay some aspects of fandom can be annoying, but must we have so many call out posts go viral on here specifically for hating on parts of fandom culture? Yet people wonder why fandom creators are quitting and there isnt as much art and interaction on here as there used to be.
If you see another negative post shitting on aspects of fandom cross your dash, maybe think before you reblog it. Maybe ask yourself if that post may be hurtful to a mutual? Perhaps youve got a mutual who writers A/B/O or CharacterxReader fanfiction who doesnt wanna see your reblog of the callout post stating reader×character fanfic is gross, or perhaps your mutual creates fun text posts applying quotes to their fave characters and youve just reblogged a 90k+ note post calling them cringy and overdone.
Just THINK please. Its not necessary. We've got to be KINDER to each other. Please don't let this place become like Twitter. Twitter was a toxic cesspool where no one had anything worthwhile to add to the discussion, no one created, everyone was just screaming angry rants into the void. Dont let tumblr become like that, because it will be the death of this place. And where will you go to find fanart and gifsets of your blorbos then?
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mishellii · 5 months
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♢ᴘᴇᴛ ɴᴀᴍᴇꜱ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ♢
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naruto, sasuke, shikamaru, kiba, shino, neji, iruka & kakashi
a/n: sooo,, i SHOUld be working on my uni essays and on the bf!neji texts BUT this had been sitting in my notes app for a while so i decided to post it ;D (the neji texts will come soon i promise). some are longer, some are shorter for which i apologise,,,,,, please ignore typos, i can't spell & enjoy MWUAH
likes & reblogs appreciated <3
warnings: some NSFW parts! MINORS DO NOT INTERACT! :) also not proofread as usual
masterlist
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♢ɴᴀʀᴜᴛᴏ ᴜᴢᴜᴍᴀᴋɪ♢
✿oh my baby boy
❀first off: angel. 100%.
✿because u are his angel u feel me
❀he can't go a day without telling u
✿then also just the basic baby
❀but mostly when he wants something from u or he's apologising for dumb stuff he's done
✿puppy eyes and all
❀and also during sexy time
✿it's his most used name for u there
✿fight me on this
❀big on his own self made nicknames for u
✿for instance: u fell down the stairs once?
❀"hey, stairs, how you doin'"
✿and just silly ones like: boo, pookie, apple of my eye
❀he's weird like that c'mon we been knew
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♢ꜱᴀꜱᴜᴋᴇ ᴜᴄʜɪʜᴀ♢
✿now this guy is a wild card
❀he'd prefer ur name through & through
✿but he'd slip in a casual babe sometimes which makes ur knees weak obviously
❀because he barely ever calls u that
✿if ur married he'd only call you his wife
❀doesn't even let you answer questions on your own sometimes just so he can hit them with
❀"well, MY WIFE, thinks you suck ass, so.."
✿during sex he can be quiet mean 
❀I DONT THINK in the derogatory way but more in a teasing way
✿"c'mon, sweetheart, look at me."
❀when ur just about to black out??
✿but like i said 
❀not big on pet names but he'll use them more often if he knows u enjoy it <3
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♢ꜱʜɪᴋᴀᴍᴀʀᴜ ɴᴀʀᴀ♢
✿pretty
❀just pretty bro.
✿not ALL THE TIME, especially not in public as i don't think he's big on PDA
❀but in the comfort of ur own 4 walls? definitely
✿now don't HATE ME for this but,,,
❀woman. and brat.
✿but only in petty situations, like when ur scolding his lazy ass and he hits u with a "go easy on me, woman, i just woke up."
❀or u've been going on his nerves while he's working
✿,,i'm busy, brat.''
❀in bed tho???
✿love or doll
❀i'm almost CERTAIN.
✿like,, can u imagine?? in his dumb fucking charming voice ???
❀PFFF i'm on my knees 
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♢ᴋɪʙᴀ ɪɴᴜᴢᴜᴋᴀ♢
✿now this fucker
❀teasing names through & through
✿ur shorter than him? 
❀"hey, shortie, need help?"
✿ur taller than him?
❀"hey, giant, how's the weather up there?"
✿he's a DICK ok (affectionately ofc)
❀but he can be sweet too i promise
✿he's having fun with calling u bunny during sex or simply baby 
❀also ???? "okay, boss." when he's been annoying u all day and u finally snap at him?
✿he's a menace with nicknames i'm telling u
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♢ꜱʜɪɴᴏ ᴀʙᴜʀᴀᴍᴇ♢
✿you probably guessed it and bully me if you'd like but,,,
❀bug or lovebug
✿come oooon he loves his bugs AND he loves you?? it fits PERFECTLY
❀not one to do it infront of other people either but in your private space he just wouldn't stop calling you one of these
✿i also see him using the regular honey but the abbreviation so hun because it's short and sweet and he doesn't like those long ass names
❀apologies if ur name is long LMAO mine is too tho
✿takes the hun into the bedroom but prefers a gentle love while having sex
❀shino's not a sweet talker in my mind, but the pet names make up for it FOSHOU
✿ALSO big brain idea i just had:
❀i think shino can't fully express his emotions verbally so before going on missions he definitely writes u letters and that's where he's blooming
✿''u keep me going everyday, sunshine.''
❀and it doesn't even matter if you have a bubbly personality or not
✿UGH lovesick fr
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♢ɴᴇᴊɪ ʜʏᴜɢᴀ♢
❀this pretty princess doesn't even know ur name when ur alone with him 
✿ESPECIALLY when ur texting
❀sweetheart, love & darling
✿he'd make u fall in love over again whenever he calls u one of those i'm just saying
❀because he's always so sincere when he's talking to u it drives me crazy just thinking about it 
✿during sexy time too, he would NEVER
❀& i will die on this hill 
✿NEVER use any degrading names for u
❀ur his baby don't make him do that
✿even when ur fighting, he'd always address u in such a kind way i'm actually going insane
❀"have you had dinner yet, dear?"
✿ sedate me pls
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♢ɪʀᴜᴋᴀ ᴜᴍɪɴᴏ♢
✿AAA this guy
❀soo,, like father like son,,, angel
✿u can't change my mind
❀being the kind hearted person he is, it just fits u can't tell me off
✿but i will also say he'd use some funny ones in private because we all know he's just a silly lil guy deep inside
❀i'm thinking toots & peach
✿especially when greeting u !! like ''ey, toots, how's it going?''
❀during sex he will be quiet awkward at the start of ur relationship, settling in angel as he's most familiar with it at first
✿but after some time he'd pull a babydoll or gorgeous on u
❀i mean,,, i'd cry but idk about y'all
✿oVERALL he loves using pet names and wouldn't be opossed to u calling him some sweet ones as well <3
❀call him handsome and he'll go through the roof
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♢ᴋᴀᴋᴀꜱʜɪ ʜᴀᴛᴀᴋᴇ♢
✿AHEM
❀so this man,,
✿at the start of ur relationship he's such a shy lil bean so he'll only use your first name
❀but once he's been with you long enough he gets so so comfortable
✿starts of with the regular baby because u are his baby aight.
❀his most frequently used one too i'd say
✿but then he'd go like 
❀"hey, beautiful." "y'alright, sweetheart?"
✿and idk about u but i'd faint
❀HE KNOWS ABOUT HIS AFFECT ON U TOO
✿uses it against u during sex SO OFTEN
❀grunting a "there y'go, darling." into your ear with a sly smirk on his lips 
✿i'm (s)creaming
❀but he's a very private person so don't expect too much of that in public !!
✿a side from a "yes, ma'am" when u tell him not to die on a mission <3
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a/n: i hope this doesn't SUCK ahemm,,, and i'll see you beans next time bye bye x
devider by @enchanthings
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seijorhi · 1 month
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Violent Delights
for my very dearest best friend (wife) @iwaasfairy i'm sorry it's super late, but august and april both start with 'a' which basically means they're the same month <33 iwaizumi hajime x female reader w.c 4.4k tw: yandere themes, non-con, drugged reader, blood/gore, murder, incest, sorta smut (nsfw)
M I N E
It’s funny in a way. Amidst the wreckage, the blood, what was left of your friends and the cooling puddle of cum splattered across your naked stomach, four letters carved into your bedroom wall seemed almost… harmless. Or at least the easiest to digest. Fixate on.
The detective asked about your ex partners, the dates you’d been on recently, whether or not you’d noticed anyone in your day-to-day paying you too much attention, if anyone made you feel uncomfortable, or said anything that seemed out of place.
But your exes don’t care enough to kill, and the two dates you’ve been on in the last six months never bothered to text you back. No one’s left weird, unsettling gifts, or stared too long in line at the coffee shop. There’s nothing. No precursor or warning, no giant red flag waving in front of you.
Mine. 
Hovering on the edge of numbness, blind hysteria just out of reach, you stare at the beige walls of the hotel room they’d put you up in, the angry gouges flickering in and out of existence with every blink. 
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
Kaori was the one obsessed with all the true crime stuff. She’d be the first to tell you psychopaths and nutjobs – they don’t jump straight into drugging and triple homicide. There’s a pattern of behaviour. Escalation. 
Something you missed. 
Then again, considering it’s her blood still caked under your fingernails, there’s a strong possibility she wouldn’t be all that enthusiastic about the whole thing to begin with. 
You need a shower, a proper one – not the glorified sponging off they’d given you at the hospital. Enough to get you out the door, not nearly enough to scrub away the grime and rid yourself of what he did to you–
The others had it worse. You survived. He barely touched you.
Mine. 
The thought of scalding water, of scrubbing yourself raw does hold a certain appeal, yet hunched over atop starched white sheets, those same bloody fingernails sink into the flesh of your arms instead, grounding you in the tiny bite of pain. 
Minutes tick past and you don’t so much as twitch. Not until a sharp knock sounds at the door and a gruff voice calls out your name. 
You wait half a beat, but when nothing more is forthcoming, you slowly edge yourself off the bed, making your way to the door. Through the peephole you spy a dark haired officer, different to the one who’d dropped you off, staring back at you. 
They did tell you there’d be an officer with you the whole time, at least for the next twenty four hours. 
“Miss?” he calls again, and you distantly realise that while your hand is poised over the deadlock, you haven’t moved to undo it. 
Squeezing your eyes shut, your forehead meeting the wooden door with a muted thud, you curse that stupid, tremulous fluttering in your chest. They’re here for you, protecting you. You’re safe.
Open the damn door. 
“Y-yeah?”
Coward.
“Brought some food for you. Dinner.” There’s a rustling on the other side, and you raise your head to peer back through the glass in time to see him lift up a paper carry bag to the peephole. The idea of eating anything right now has your stomach roiling in protest. “Nothing fancy, but it’s good, I swear,” he says. Then, gentler, like he’s talking down a spooked animal, adds, “You need to eat.”
Still, you hesitate. All you need to do is open the door, grab the food and then at least it’s there if you want it later. Easy. 
Too quick, too jerky to be natural, you twist at the handle and yank the door open a scant few inches, enough for you to reach out an arm expectantly for the food. “Thank you,” you pre-empt, because hungry or not, you’re not completely without manners.
The officer lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah, no. I’m not taking heat from the Cap when the guys on the next shift find you passed out ‘cause you haven’t eaten anything,” he scoffs. “C’mon, we can talk while you eat.” Not a suggestion – you barely have time to stumble back before he’s pushing his way inside and kicking the door closed behind him. The second he takes to flick the lock somehow simultaneously eases the knots in your stomach and sends your heartrate ratcheting.
It’s halfway to a miracle that you’re still standing at all. 
“Eat,” he tells you, his deep voice brooking no disagreement as he shoves the bag of food your way and grabs the lone chair in the room, dragging it closer to the edge of the bed and settling himself down. Clearly he has no intention of going anywhere until he’s satisfied you’ve eaten your fill.
With little else for it, you do as you’re told, reaching into the bag to find steamed buns at your fingertips, still warm as you pry open the wrapper– and wince. The familiar scent of pork, ginger and chives wafts through the air, unwittingly digging at old wounds. 
Suddenly you’re a kid again, strolling down the hill with your family, one hand tucked safely within your brother’s, the other grasping a steaming hot bun. You’re happy and whole and so, so young–
“Something wrong? You don’t like meat buns?” 
Not the time. Ignoring the bitter ache the memory conjures, you’re quick to shake your head, “No. No, thank you. It’s great.” You doubt he buys it, but then again you also doubt he cares so long as you get something in your stomach. 
One bite, chew, swallow. Another, chew, swallow – mechanical until it isn’t. The first bun disappears and you reach for the second.
“How’s your head?” he asks.
You swallow down another mouthful. “Fuzzy. Sore. I still can’t remember anything,” you  admit, in case that’s where this line of questioning is going. Nothing beyond waking up in your bed covered in blood and a stranger’s cum at any rate.
The blood work they did at the hospital confirmed you were drugged along with the others, the detective mentioning the near-empty bottle of wine they’d found, which they were in the process of testing too. He’d also pointed out the lack of evidence indicating any kind of forced entry, which paired with the former is something you’ve been trying not to dwell on. 
The officer gives a considering nod, “That’s to be expected, don’t worry about it. I still think it’s worth asking a few more questions if you’re feeling up to it?” Again, it’s phrased like a question, but already he’s pulling out a voice recorder, setting down on the mattress between you. 
“Um, sure. Yeah,” you croak. 
A small smile, “Good.” He leans forward to switch on the recorder. “We’ll start with the other victims – your friends. Tell me about them.”
“Kaori, she’s– she was my best friend. We worked at the same grocer when I first moved out of my parents’ place, when I got a job here she made the decision to move with me. That was about six months ago.” 
“And the other two?” 
“Her brother Koji and another friend of ours Takashi. They came up to visit; Kaori’s been back once or twice since we left, but I hadn’t seen them–” tears blur at your vision and your voice just… gives out. 
They’re gone. 
You drag a shuddering breath in and it hurts. 
Blindly, your hand reaches across the bed, blood tipped fingers sprawling over pristine white, and when they meet warmth – an open palm outstretched – you seize it and cling on with everything you have. You’ll unravel if you don’t.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you chant, each syllable shakier than the last.
He dips his chin, just barely, and squeezes your hand, “You invited them?”
A wordless, wide eyed nod. 
“You were close.” Not a question. He sounds like he’s mulling over the thought, though his expression is inscrutable. “Were you involved with any of them?”
This time, there’s the slightest hesitation before you shake your head. The officer frowns, “I need the truth. Your friends were attacked for a reason. Lying to me won’t help bring their families peace.”
The blood drains from your face, your heart lurching on a sickening thud. 
Your fault. 
Instinctively, you yank back your hand, or try to at least, but his grip tightens – enough to keep you from drawing away, not enough to hurt. Though neither his tone nor his expression hold any condemnation, it doesn’t change the truth of the matter. 
You didn’t drug them or pick up the knife and swing. You didn’t invite this psycho into your life, but the fact remains that they’re dead because of you. 
“I– it wasn’t like that. We weren’t… I didn’t–” 
MINE.
Tears threaten to spill and your bottom lip trembles. 
For a long, drawn out moment, he simply stares. There’s a twitch at his jaw and he sighs – more of a grunt, really – leaning back and pulling his hand from yours to rake through his dark hair. 
(Stupid, you think, how some part of you mourns the loss.) 
“Okay, alright. Fine. We’ll come back to that,” he concedes. “What about other friends? Coworkers you were close with?”
“No, I– I already told the detective I wasn’t seeing anyone.”
An irritated flash darkens his gaze. “I didn’t ask if you were fucking them.” And you must make a truly pathetic picture then, flinching like a kicked puppy, because he lets out another huff, closing his eyes for a beat and visibly working to soften the harsh lines of his expression. “Shit, okay– I’m sorry. It’s been a long day for us both,” he makes an odd noise, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, the sound entirely devoid of humour. “The guy who did this, he either already knows about the people precious to you, or he’s gonna do his damn best to find out, and if he thinks they’re threats, he’ll hurt them, or worse – he’ll use them to hurt you. I need you to tell me everything.”
And so, feeling the exhaustion of the day creeping over you, you do.
You tell him about the small group from work you occasionally go out for Friday drinks with, your old friends from uni, right down to the neighbour two floors below, who’d seen you hauling boxes the day you’d moved in and immediately offered to help. When you’d christened the kitchen baking you’d made sure to bring him some, and just last week you’d had tea with him and his grandma.
“What about school? Anyone you still keep in contact with?”
You try for a laugh but it sounds all wrong. “I wasn’t exactly popular back then,” 
His eyes narrow. They flit across your face like he’s searching for… something. You feel like a bug, pinned in place, squirming and uncomfortable, your face too hot. 
“Bullied?” he probes. 
Another nod. 
“How ‘bout family?”
Your mouth dries.
“My parents… I haven’t spoken to them in months. We don’t really get along.” The last conversation you’d had with them, if you could call it as much, lasted all of five minutes. Dry pleasantries and thinly veiled criticisms, wrapped up in yet another pointed reminder that things didn’t have to be this way – you were the one adamant on shutting them out. 
You doubt it’d raise a single eyebrow between them if you went the same again without contact. 
“Siblings?”
Another tear slips from your lashes and you swallow against the tight lump in your throat. The weight of his gaze feels oppressive, you’re too bare, too vulnerable, you don’t want to talk about this, so you shift your line of sight to the paper delivery bag, half crumpled now, and let your fingernails sink into the skin of your palms. 
Still, the words don’t come straight away, and when they do, they’re strained. Choked. Painted so thick is grief that you wonder if he understands them at all.
“No. I uh, I had a brother– a twin brother. He died.” 
You don’t talk about your brother, ever.
Kaori knew the bare bones of it. Koji and Takashi too – you had a twin brother, he died, and it fucked you up. Without ever uttering a word, they’d known not to press, that the wounds left behind weren’t quite as healed as the scar tissue led to believe. 
“How old were you?”
Seven, when you lost him. Twelve, when the letters stopped coming. 
“Fourteen,” you whisper, curling in on yourself. “He was sick.”
Stop asking, stop talking, stop, stop, stop. 
When you risk a look in the officer’s direction, his features are hewn granite, eyes set in a hard, angry glare that steals the very breath from your lungs. “Yeah?” he grunts, rising to his feet. “You stopped writing long before that.”
There’s just enough time for understanding to crash over you, for your lips to part, a feather light gasp of “Hajime?” to slip out before you’re flat on your back, wrists pinned to the mattress above your head, the officer– a ghost– Hajime looming over you. 
“What did I fucking tell you?”  
‘Sweetie, make sure you hold your brother’s hand.’
They’d meant when you were walking home from the bus stop, or crossing the road. When there was a buddy system so no one got separated or left behind. 
Hajime was always holding your hand. Not because your parents told him to, but because that’s how it was supposed to be. You were twins, he’d been born first (by all of six minutes) and you had followed. You were always following Hajime, and he was always going to look after you. 
Until he gets put into the Otter class with Mr Inagaki, and you go into Dugong with Miss Ino. 
Hajime’s nothing short of enraged. He throws chairs and yells and tries to kick the Principal, but it doesn’t change anything.
It would be good for you, they said, to have a chance to make other friends. ‘You can’t keep using your brother as a crutch, honey,’ your mother gently admonishes. 
Hajime scowls at that. Later, when it’s just the two of you hiding away in his room, he tells you she’s an idiot and a liar. ‘You don’t need anyone else. You have me.’
You knew that. You’d always have Hajime, but the other kids in your class weren’t as awful as he made them sound. Some of them were actually kind of cool, and they liked you, too.
For a while, you began to believe you could have both; Hajime and your new friends. 
Until one day you’re waiting for him at lunch when a boy from your class tugs on your braids and with a wide, toothy grin, loudly proclaims to the whole playground that even though you were a girl, and girls have cooties, it’d probably be okay if you wanted to be his girlfriend. 
You didn’t see Hajime coming up behind you. You’ve no idea where he found the scissors. The only warning either of you get is a sudden, splitting roar before he’s throwing himself at the smaller boy, tackling him to the ground. 
‘She’s MINE!’
Silver glints, flashing in the sunlight, and a high pitched shriek rips through the playground as he brings the scissors down on the poor, struggling boy. 
With a viciousness you’d never known of your brother, he swings again and again. It’s chaos. The other kids scatter and the teachers run to intervene. Hajime, spitting and snarling, red in the face and half-feral, doesn’t stop for them.
He stops for you. 
At the sound of a sharp little gasp, a line of red slashed along your forearm, Hajime stops dead, wide, horrified eyes fixed on yours.
‘Sweetie, what have I told you about snooping? I raised you better than that.’
‘But they’re addressed to me. Hajime wrote to me.’
‘Your brother’s not well, those letters– they’ll only upset you. I don’t want you reading them.’
‘… He says he misses me.’
‘I know, but he’s where he belongs, getting help. You want that for him, don’t you? To get the help he needs?’
‘I want to write back to him.’
There’s another letter waiting for you when you get home from school.
You hang your backpack near the door, still damp from being tossed in the pool, and eye the opened envelope sitting by your father. He doesn’t look up from his laptop when you reach for it, doesn’t lift a finger to stop you. Nevertheless, the displeasure radiates from him clear as day. 
“You shouldn’t encourage him. He’s not well.”
You’d scoff if it wouldn’t get you in trouble. Nothing you said could ever be taken as ‘encouragement’, and you’re under no illusions about who and what your brother is. 
The violence terrifies you. Sometimes he says things in the letters he writes that make your stomach all twisty and your palms sweat, but Hajime could be a monster, and you think you’d love him anyway. You wouldn’t have a choice. 
So you pluck at the envelope and tuck it close, making your way to your room without another glance at either of your parents. Sitting cross legged atop your bed, you eagerly scan the contents;
He hates the new therapist. They had a movie night planned, but some asshole started a fight and the whole thing got cancelled. The food’s still shit. He’s fed up and pissed off, whether he behaves or not, they won’t let him out and they won’t give him what he wants, so what’s the point in pretending?
The both of you turn twelve in ten days time – you owe it to him to come spend it together. 
‘Maybe it’s for the best, sweetheart.’
Dismissive. She’s always dismissive. Your hands curl in response, tightening before you force yourself to flex them out and bite your tongue. It’s not worth the fight. Neither one of them actually care, and nothing you say will ever change that. 
He’s angry at you. Or hurt. Both, probably. 
They wouldn’t let you visit. You’d begged – cried, even – and it hadn’t swayed them. The rules are that you aren’t allowed to go and see Hajime and you aren’t allowed to talk to him on the phone. The letters are the only communication you have, and when your twelfth birthday comes and goes, those stop too.
You’ve sent four letters since, no response. 
He’s shut you out entirely and while you can’t blame him for it, it’s painful.
You’ve always had Hajime, through everything. Him shutting you out feels like losing a limb– 
No, it’s more than that. It’s like slowly losing some vital function inside of you. Like your lungs are shutting down and you can’t breathe properly and your heart isn’t pumping the way it should. You feel guilty and horrible and at least twice, you debate trying to find a way to sneak out and make the two hour journey on your own, just so you can see him.
It’s a stupid idea, they wouldn’t even let you through the front door, but it’s the only idea you have and so you cling to it.
You keep writing to him– panicked. Desperate. Begging his forgiveness. 
He never writes back.
They sit you down at breakfast three months after your fourteenth birthday and tell you Hajime’s gone.
There was another fight, someone pushed him–
You don’t want to hear the details. They don’t matter and your ears are ringing too loud to make sense of them anyway.
Hajime is gone.
The cord between you was stretched and fraying already. He hadn’t written in over two years and probably hated you towards the end but he– he was–
Yours. A part of you. 
Gone.
And your mother’s asking about the English test you have second period. 
“What. Did. I. Say?” Each word is slowly enunciated, a quiet growl that drags an unwilling shiver down your spine. 
He smells of wood – of cedar, spice and musk, the notes melding, coiling with the dizzying body heat, the solid weight of him, bracing himself above you.
His lips are mere inches from yours. 
Not dead. 
Here.
There’s a thousand thoughts racing through your head, connections that light up, clicking into place like pieces of a puzzle, painting a deeply unsettling picture – all of which are drowned out by the revelation that Hajime is here.
You burst into tears–
and Hajime – your brother, very much alive and glaring at you from above – surges down to swallow them in a vicious kiss.
The moment your lips touch, all the tension in his body just… bleeds out. Hajime groans, low and heated, his hips rocking, grinding along your stomach, and if you weren’t too preoccupied short circuiting, dangling on the precipice of a panic attack, you’d feel the twitch of his mouth, curling into a small but no less satisfied smirk.
He relaxes, like he’s coming home rather than returning from the dead to land the killing blow.
“Mine,” he answers his own question, breath heavy and ragged as his teeth nip at your jaw. “I told you you’re fucking mine.”
The scratches on the wall. Kaori and Koji and Takashi, asleep in a sea of red. The viscous mess spilled over your belly. Your mother’s hushed voice, carrying down the hallway, ‘– only a phase. The books all say he’ll grow out of it before long.’
She hadn’t sounded convinced. 
You squeeze your eyes shut, desperate to block it all out as more tears spill into your hairline. Hajime won’t let you. He groans your name into the shell of your ear and licks at the tears as they fall. “Don’t,” he warns, fingers pressing tightly around your wrists ‘til they shoot back open with a gasp, “don’t you dare check out.”
When he rucks up your shirt to find you sans bra and a warm palm slides up to grope the soft, supple skin, a fresh burst of panic spurs you into action. Pinned under his weight as you are, you can’t move, and the idea of trying to physically fight him off is as laughable as it is terrifying – but when you were younger, you were the one – the only one – who could coax Hajime back from the edge, your hand in his.
Until he leapt from it entirely, and they took him away.
“H-Hajime?” A trembling, hiccuping whimper, thick with tears.  
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t even pause – shuffling down your body to mouth at them instead – but hooded, simmering pools of green flick back up to your face, a hum of acknowledgement rumbling in his chest as he nips and sucks pretty, burgundy blooms across your breasts.
“I-if you ever loved me, even a little… Please, Haji– don’t hurt me like this–” you choke on another sob, pathetic mess that you are.
Hajime goes preternaturally still, eyes boring into you. 
You stare right back, fighting the urge to cower and flinch, to turn your cheek and stare at the discarded dumpling wrappers, letting him take what he wants. Praying that he won’t hurt you too badly if you give it to him without a fight.
Because it will hurt, you think. It’ll break you entirely. 
(Are you not already broken?)
When his head drops, you can’t help it – the sharp, terrified hitch in your breath – but his lips meet your forehead, then each cheek, before finally they brush over your lips with a tenderness he has no right to. “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he vows, cradling the side of your jaw, “I won’t hurt you, ever.”
But that’s a lie, too.
“I love you more than anything.”
He kisses you again, soft and sweet and gentle, as if those promises weren’t sewn from violence and legitimised in blood. As if he isn’t breaking your heart with every sweep of his tongue, plundering your mouth.
There’s no fight in you left when he reaches for the waistband of your sweats and slowly starts easing them down. You don’t claw and shove when the hold on your wrists loosens and then disappears entirely, both hands needed to strip away his clothes. 
The sound of his belt buckle clinking, the soft hiss of a zipper, they wash over you, white noise lost to the pounding in your ears. 
But you don’t look away.
He strokes his cock – long and thick and flushed to the tip –  crawling up the mattress to kneel between your legs like a supplicant before an altar of the divine. 
Devotion demands sacrifice. 
“It killed me,” he starts, dragging the mushroom head along the slit of your pussy. He frowns a little, leans back and spits – a fat glob of saliva landing dead centre, adding to the mess his weeping cock’s already made. “When the letters stopped coming. I was angry, so fucking angry, all the time. I’d lash out and they’d put me in another cage, and I’d do it again, and again. They tried convincing me you’d moved on,” his eyes flash darkly, “which was bullshit. They’d have to carve me out of you with a knife.”
What shocks you isn’t the violent imagery, but the truth of it settling into your bones, inescapable and undeniable; you’ll always love your brother, even if that very love destroys you.
“I didn’t–”
The first thrust rips a strangled yelp from your throat. 
He’s too big, you’re not prepared to take him – and Hajime doesn’t care. His head tips back, shuddering out a breathy laugh. 
There’s no pause, no period of grace, seated deep inside of you, the walls of your pussy hugging him tight, Hajime won’t allow you a second to catch your breath and wait for the burning sting to abate. His hips draw back until only the throbbing head of his cock remains inside, and, upon grabbing a leg to hitch over his shoulder, uses it as leverage to punch forward, stuffing your tight little cunt to the brim.
The pace he sets is brutal from the outset. Bruising. He licks at your tears between kisses and moans when you clench and shudder around him. “Never again,” he pants into your ear. “I’ll kill them all if you leave. Every last fucking one. You’re mine. Mine.”
And you’d think it cruel, a punishment, if not for the way those green eyes burn. 
When his fingers twine with yours, pressing you down into the mattress, holding you there, you wonder if this was always an inevitability. 
Hajime led and you followed, hand in bloody hand. 
He’d never allow anything less.
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open-sketchbook · 3 months
Text
i'm super high so forgive the rambling but
as somebody who grew up catholic and read the bible a bunch because it was words in a book and that's what i did in school, a thing thats fucking insane about christianity is how, like, the foundational text of christianity and christanity-the-institution are basically completely the opposite of one another
original observation i know but this isn't me like, doing a new thing, its reeling over an old well-worn thing because its just so insane
like fundamentally the pitch of christianity, as presented in stories about jesus, is "god made himself into a guy, but not just a guy, a poor working man in roman-occupied judea. this guy went around telling everyone how god is on the side of the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden, and against the rich, the occupier, and the authority. to be kind to each other, help each other, even the ones you're supposed to hate, and take solace in the face the day is coming when those in power get what's coming to them."
but then the romans decided christianity was theirs now, and i dont think we like... understand how fucking weird that is. its like if the president of the united states one day got up and declared that actually, its Soviet America now. nothing is changing materially, capital still rules america, but the flags are all red and there's hammers and sickles on everything and people call each other comrade
because that's exactly what it is, right? none of the stuff in the jesus parts of the bible are really, like, conducive to the state religion of a giant conquering slave empire, especially not the part where the romans killed the dude. so like, basically every single thing about christainity is this bizarre smoke and mirrors game with theological wordplay to get around that. the institutions of the church exist to undermine the core stuff that's written in their foundational document through a game of theological telephone.
and again like, i keep coming back to the soviet america example idea thing. because that's exactly what it is, right? imagine its like, a thousand years from now, and in some liberal government culturally descendent from the united states you got an election and the two candidates get up and cite the parts of Capital where Karl Marx is like "alright i'll hand it to the capitalists they sure built a lot of machine tools" to show their devotion to communism, which of course teaches that capitalists should own the means of production
its exactly that! they literally took a religion built around a dude who really fucking hated the roman occupation and talked endlessly about giving to others and sharing with others and helping those unlike yourself and made it into the religion of rome, of taking and keeping and hurting those unlike yourself.
its so fucking wild man (again; i am so goddamn high. to be clear, this isn't a defense of christianity or of issues with jesus as portrayed, like im not saying that actually we should be Original Jesusers, i fully agree that christanity has antisemetism at its core, its more just musing on how wild it is this happened)
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elliebarker · 6 months
Note
yessss cc fic plz there’s not nearly enough
fuɔk me. ( c. clark )
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category: caitlin clark x girlfriend!reader (angst, fluff)
summary: after seeing you talking to another after one of her games, caitlin goes into an obsessive spiral of jealousy, unknowingly sending you down your own rabbit hole.
warnings: way sadder than i intended 
word count: 1.2k
author’s note: i tried capital letters, y’all fw it?
_________________________________________
“I mean, it was electric, truly.”
Caitlin’s voice echoed into the microphone of a random media reporter who was interviewing her. She tried her best to stay focused on the questions whilst the camera clicked and pump-up music blared. Iowa had just won a home game and she knew you were in the crowd. She regained consciousness with the present and began answering the interview questions with basic textbook answers about ‘the Iowa culture’ and how great her shots felt, whilst scouring the stadium for you. You interlocked eyes and waved to her. She waved back and politely wrapped things up with the media girl (hehe) and headed your way. 
In the minutes she had spent with her eyes off of you, an umich girl from the opposing team had walked up to you. She was, in Caitlin’s eyes, getting a little too friendly. Smirking, and smiling too wide. Caitlin backed away, choosing to head to her teammates instead and pose in photos with fans. See… people love me she thought. And we literally bet them and that fucking umich girl had the nerv-
“Caitlin!” you ran, hugging her from behind. “You do so good, omg!” 
“Thanks, babe.” She slipped away from you, cold and isolated. Caitlin spent the night with the girls on her team, which wasn’t irregular for away games, but you were looking forward to getting to spend time with her when she was actually in town. You were slumped in your apartment, staring at yourself in the mirror, picking a pulling at your skin, hair, and hair. Meanwhile, Caitlin was glued to her phone in the corner of the room her teammates were in. Staring at that umich girl’s stats and Instagram. Caitlin knew she was a good player, she knew she was a good girlfriend, she knew you. She knew you wouldn’t do her wrong but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. About finding someone different. She knew she wasn’t there for you all the time, on account of her schedule with basketball that seemed never-ending. She felt like a bad girlfriend. You deserved the world, more than she could ever give you.
Sounds of shoes squeaking and balls dribbling filled her ears as Caitlin entered Iowa’s gym. After nights of stressing, overthinking, and flashes of your interaction with the umich girl appearing in her head, Caitlin was ready to clear her head with some practice. She stretched, dripped the ball a bit, and began shooting. First shot, miss. She went and grabbed the ball. Second shot, miss. Everyone has bad days. The third shot, she could barely focus, overwhelmed with this stinging feeling of inferiority as she missed that basket. “Fuɔk me,” she muttered under her breath. She suddenly turned around when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Kate was standing, now facing her. “Hey Caitlin, can we talk?” 
“Yeah of course, what’s up?”
“I’ve noticed you’ve been kind of off…down, you okay?”
“Um yeah,” she tried to hold her guard up, “yeah, I’m fine.” She smiled, “Need to lock in.” Kate laughed, agreed, and went on with her practice.
Later that day you, being friendly with the Iowa team, reached out to Kate. You texted her, 
You: hi kate!
i haven’t seen caitlin in a bit and just wanted to check in and make sure she’s doing okay
Kate: Hey! Thanks for reaching out, she has been acting a little weird. 
I was going to ask you but I guess you don’t know what’s up either.
You: no, i don’t know
has she talked about me?
at all?
Kate: No, not really. Is everything okay?
You: (…)
You stared at your phone for a solid five minutes attempting to keep your emotions under control.
You: yep! everything's good
just been a hot minute since ive seen her
but thats prob just cause shes so busy lol
Kate: Fair. But if anything does you can always talk to me.’
You: awww thanks kate! that's so sweet.
Days passed and you finally got a day to spend with Caitlin. You had invited her over to your apartment. You had excitedly and worriedly done up your hair and makeup, cleaned and refreshed every inch of your apartment: fresh sheets and fresh flowers, and made sure to wear an outfit you knew she liked. You felt it in your bones that your behavior was suspicious and 100% fueled by insecurity but you told yourself that you were doing this to make Caitlin feel comfortable, let her relax from working so hard. Totally not convincing her to want to stay with you. 
You and Caitlin were in your bed watching a tv-show and you could sense something was off. “Hey baby, can I get you anything?” you ask, trying to make yourself useful. 
“Um, yeah sure,” she replied, “water works.” You scoot yourself off the bed and head to the kitchen. Caitlin watches as you walk away, thinking about how you’re perfect in every way. She pulls out her phone, and her most recent search on instagram, umich bitch, is controlling her thoughts again. 
You come back with a glass of water for Caitlin and see she’s engulfed in her phone. Goddamnit you’ve bored her.
“I’m sorry,” you muster out. The stress of the possible end of your relationship that you conquered up in your head makes you almost fold into tears.
Caitlin sprung up, “Sorry, babe, sorry about what?” she went to hold you. You slithered yourself out of her arms,
“You’re probably sick of me, I need to stop holding onto you.” 
“What?” Caitlin asked, “Okay, first of all, I would never be sick of you. You are the most gorgeous, fearless, kindest, perfect girl I’ve ever seen. I would be crazy to ever let you go. But I know you deserve, you need better than me.” your tears turned to happy ones as you exclaimed,
“Caitlin what? You are the best girlfriend in the whole wide world.” You grabbed her face in your hands as hers found their natural place around your hips.
“I love you,” she whispered before moving her face close to yours and kissing you passionately. Your arms wrapped themselves around her neck as you leaned into the kiss. You slightly pulled away, whispering back, 
“I love you too.” Caitlin then pulled open her phone, to delete the umich player from her search history, but not without catching your nosy eye. “Wait. This was about her?” 
“What?” Caitlin said, trying to sound clueless.
“I spoke to her for five seconds? Wait…you were jealous?” you inquired. 
“No- I- who-” she stuttered, trying to deny it. “Also, I don’t get jealous.”
“You goofball,” you said, pulling her into a deeper kiss, to which Caitlin picked you up and plopped you back onto your bed, pulling you into her chest, and kissing your forehead.
“I don’t get jealous” she re-enstated.
“Mhmmmmm…” you replied, nodding your head, in a non-believeing tone. “Got it. Not jealous.”
“I’m being serious,” she said. You, too lazy to lift your head, nodded and closed your eyes falling into a deep sleep, to which Caitlin would follow you.
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emptyjunior · 6 months
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It looks like with the movies taking off, everyone is on the Dune train now!! Which is very exciting, I’m glad a bunch of new people are discovering this media and reading the books, but can I recommend you the David Lynch, Dune (1984) movie.
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First of all, if you are invested in the lore of the books and the deeper messaging of the story, you’re going to need to turn that part of your brain Off. If you love kick ass shit and are willing to be slightly tipsy while you watch and have a great goddamn afternoon, this is the flick for you.
Now first fun fact I’m going to share with you. David Lynch (twin peaks, eraserhead director, celebrated surrealist) turned down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi for this film. A film that was devastatingly slow to make, changed hands multiple times, had a pricy VFX budget of $40 million and then made barely $31 million, David Lynch turned down Star Wars to work on it. And he did this when he had never read the novel, and did not even like or engage with sci fi media. THAT’S how you know we’re really in for something.
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Now this film has some big names in it! We’ve got a young Kyle MacLachlan who is rocking some Devastating outfits:
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We’ve got Sir Patrick Stewert as our Gurney and Sting, lead singer of the police, playing the 15 year old Feyd Rautha! If you wanted to see a grown man, sprayed orange, basically naked playing a free wheeling maniac you are in for a treat! And another fun fact, David Lynch also did not know who these actors were, he made a mistake and thought Patrick Stewert was someone else and when Sting said he was in the police he assumed he was in an organization of lawmen.
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Now these characters are familiar to you, but let me get into the unfamiliar. Lynch made some directorial executive decisions throughout this film, for I suppose the ease of the viewer? I mean an adaptation is supposed to adapt so he went let me change some stuff up👏👏👏.
Those who paid attention to Jessica’s backstory may know about the Weirding Way. This is a martial arts style created by the Bene Gesserit, and practiced by Paul. It is more than just a fighting style but also an important philosophical concept, like Aikido or how Kung Fu has foundations in Buddhism.
You may also be familiar with the quote “My name is a killing word.” This inner monologue of Paul’s refers to how his title Muad’dub will be used to spur a holy war. A simple name is what people will die and bleed for, it will be what they scream as they cut down enemies.
Dark! Intense! That’s Dune, anyways in the novel it’s easy to take your time exploring these concepts. Introducing the audience to the religious ramifications of a simple name and fighting practice and how these things can have rippling repercussions upon a society like the Freman.
Now David Lynch didn’t have time for that! He had the belief (that may be right🤷‍♂️!) That watching a bunch of people kick each other on top of a sand dune would be Lame😭😭
So he made the choice for his film that “My name is a killing word” was to be taken Absolutely Literally and invented a device where if the freman said the name Muad-dib, shit would explode.
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If they said Paul’s name, they could Explode Stuff. Let it sink in how rad that is. Hell yeah man, hell yeah. Imagine me interpreting religious text that way, imagine if I made a bible movie and the moral I took from a parable is that when Jesus asked for food and everyone donated fish, I concluded that Jesus was a mutant who had fish powers and could immediately conjure fish with magic and gave him fish death rays that shot out of his hands.
So that’s what you can expect from this interpretation, the weirding way now means everyone has Lasers its rad as hell.
Some other incredible choices made! This is a spoiler, but in the novels and the new films you can see the Freman collecting every scrap of water they can. Dr Liet-Kynes, the planetologist, reveals to us it’s because they have a long, multiple generation spanding plan to fix the planet. By introducing this water back they hope to reset the ecosystem over centuries of work. The reason they have been unable to do this is because a green planet would obviously not have worms and sand who produce spice, the most coveted drug in the empire, so imperial and harkonnen forces have been stopping this from ever happening. They want to be free from oppression so that they can start to work on slowly fixing their world, a project that plays out in Paul’s adult life and has its own dramas and complexities.
In Dune 1984??? The moment, the Moment Paul lays out his cousin and throws the final punch, it begins to rain in Arrakis. As if they were all under a magical curse and were just waiting for a teenager to come fight another teenager and then the water will come back. It’s so good, it’s so funny.
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Also Pugs! House Atreides official Pugs! Paul has pugs in his lap!!
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This is honestly an adaptation choice that I really really like! Paul is the result of centuries of selective breeding, this practice is an artform to the Bene Gesserit and a skill that they monitor closely. It produces bizarre and sometimes terrifying results and is the reason for Paul’s existence.
I think having an animal that was also created through selective breeding, was engineered from a wolf into an animal that can hardly breathe is an incredible metaphor! A smart and identifiable symbol for the audience, I think it’s a slam dunk and the new movies should have done it to.
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Anyways can not recommend this film enough.
-The body suits the bad guys wear are made out of real body bags, that actually had been used.
-David Lynch to this day hates it.
-The original cut was four hours.
-The cast and crew were sick the Entire shoot with something they called Montezuma's Revenge, which was probably just food poisoning, side effects from the constant smog because they shot the whole thing on backup generators, illness from the cockroach infestation and terrible morale.
-Frank Herbert saw it multiple times and said he absolutely loved it.
-When they ride the worms, sick rock jams play.
If you love electric guitar, lasers, worms and will forgive me for not including all the trigger warnings cause Yes this film will gross you out, then go watch this movie.
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headspace-hotel · 8 months
Text
Just spent a couple hours digging into this book. I'm not even sure what has worse environmental impacts, the paper the book is made of or the opinions printed within.
Is "post-colonial" literary theory a joke? It's distressing that a book printed in 2021 by a reputable academic press can be so painfully Eurocentric, and I mean PAINFULLY. The philosophical and literary frameworks drawn upon in most chapters are like what some British guy in 1802 would come up with. In most of the chapters, every framework, terminology, and example is inseparably fused to Latin, Greek, and/or Christian philosophers, myths and texts, even down to the specific turns of phrase. You would think only Europeans had history or ideas until the 20th century.
Don't get me wrong, non-european and even specifically anti-colonial sources are used, and I don't think all the writers are white people, but...that's what's so weird and off-putting about it, most of the book as a whole utterly fails to absorb anything from non-European and in particular anti-colonial points of view. The chapters will quote those points of view but not incorporate them or really give their ideas the time of day, just go right back to acting like Plato and Aristotle and Romantic poets are the gold standard for defining what it means to be human.
In brief, the book is trying to examine how literature can shed light on the climate crisis, which is funny because it completely fails to demonstrate that literature is good or helpful for the climate crisis. Like that is for sure one major issue with it, it shows that people *have* written stuff about climate change, but it sure doesn't convince you that this stuff is good.
Most of the works quoted are rather doomerist, and a lot of the narrative works specifically are apocalypse tales where most of Earth's population dies. The most coherent function the authors can propose that literature fulfills is to essentially help people understand how bad things are. One of the essays even argues that poetry and other creative work that simply appreciates nature is basically outdated, because:
“One could no longer imagine wandering lonely as a cloud, because clouds now jostle in our imaginations with an awareness of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants” (Mandy Bloomfield, pg. 72)
Skill issue, Mandy.
The menace of doomerism in fiction and poetry is addressed, by Byron Caminero-Santangelo, on page 127 when he references,
the literary non-fiction of a growing number of authors who explicitly assert, some might even say embrace, the equation between fatalistic apocalyptic narrative and enlightenment…they are authoritative in their rejection of any hope and in their representation of mitigatory action as the cliched moving of deckchairs on a sinking ship
He quotes an essay “Elegy for a country’s seasons” by Zadie Smith, who says: “The fatalists have the luxury of focusing on an eschatological apocalyptic narrative and on the nostalgia of elegy, as well as of escape from uncertainty and responsibility to act." Which is spot-on and accurate, but these observations aren't recognized as a menace to positive action, nor is the parallel to Christian thought that eagerly looks forward to Earth's destruction as a cathartic release from its pain made fully explicit and analyzed. Most of the creative works referenced and quoted in the book ARE this exact type of fatalistic, elegiac performance of mourning.
I basically quit reading after Chapter 11, "Animals," by Eileen Crist, which begins:
The humanization of the world began unfolding when agricultural humans separated themselves from wild nature, and started to tame landscapes, subjugate and domesticate animals and plants, treat wild animals as enemies of flocks and fields, engineer freshwater ecologies, and open their psyches to the meme of the ‘the human’ as world conquerer, ruler and owner.
This is what I'm talking about when I say it's dripping Eurocentrism; these ideas are NOT universal, and it's adding nothing to the world to write them because they fall perfectly in line with what the European colonizing culture already believes, complete with the lingering ghost of a reference to the Fall of Man and banishment from the Garden of Eden. It keeps going:
“Over time, the new human elaborated a view of the animal that ruptured from the totemic, shamanic and relational past.”
Okay so now she's introducing the idea of progression from shamanic nature-worshipping religions of our primitive past...hmm I'm sure this isn't going anywhere bad
“While humanity has largely rejected the colonizing project with respect to fellow humans, the occupation of non-human nature constitutes civilization’s last bastion of ‘normal’ colonialism. A new humanity is bound sooner or later to recognize and overthrow a colonialism of ‘nature,’ embracing a universal norm of interspecies justice.” (pg. 206) 
OKAY????
Not only denying that colonialism still exists, but also saying that humans' relationship with nature constitutes colonialism??
Embracing limitations means scaling down the human presence on demographic and economic fronts…(pg.207)
ope, there's the "we have to reduce the human population"
Embracing limitations further mandates pulling back from vast expanses of the natural world, thus letting the lavishness of wild (free) nature rule Earth again” (pg. 207) 
aaaaaaand there's the "we have to remove humans from wild nature so it can be freeeeeee"
don't get me wrong like I am a random white person with no particular expertise in anti-colonialist thought but I think this is an easy one. I'm pretty sure if your view of nature is that colonialism involving subjugating humans doesn't exist any more and actually humans existing in and altering nature is the real colonialism so we should remove humans from vast tracts of earth, your opinion is just bad.
Anyways y'all know I have an axe to grind against doomerism so it was probably obvious where this was going but good grief.
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sparrowlucero · 6 months
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Even if a creator is a bad person it's still okay to like their work. People need to mind their own business.
Honestly it's not really that sort of situation. I'll actively defend Steven Moffat here.
There was a huge hate movement for him back in the early 2010s - which, in retrospect, formed largely because he was running 2 of the superwholock shows at once, one of which went through extremely long hiatuses* and the other of which was functionally an adaptation of an already well regarded show**, making him subject to a sort of double ire in the eyes of a lot of fandom people. Notably, his co-showrunner, Mark Gatiss, is rarely mentioned and much of his work is still attributed to Moffat (and yes, this includes that Hbomberguy video. Several of "Steven Moffat's bad writing choices" were not actually written by him, they were Gatiss.)
People caricatured the dude into a sort of malicious, arrogant figure who hated women and was deliberately mismanaging these shows to spite fans, to the point where people who never watched them believe this via cultural osmosis. It became very common to take quotes from him out of context to make them look bad***, to cite him as an example of a showrunner who hated his fans, someone who sabotaged his own work just to get at said fans, someone who was too arrogant to take criticism, despite all of this being basically a collective "headcanon" about the guy formed on tumblr. Some if it got especially terrible, like lying about sexual assault (I don't mean people accused him of sexual assault and I think they're making it up, I mean people would say things like "many of his actresses have accused him of sexual assault on set" when no such accusations exist in the first place. This gets passed around en masse and is, in my opinion, absolutely rancid.)
On top of that a ton of the criticism directed at the shows themselves is, personally, just terrible media criticism. So much of it came from assuming a very hostile intent from the writer and just refusing to engage with the text at all past that.
Like some really common threads you see with critique of this writer's work, especially in regards to Doctor Who since that's the one I'm most familiar with:
A general belief that his lead characters were meant to be ever perfect self inserts, and so therefore when they act shitty or arrogant or flawed in any way, that's both reflective of the author and something the show wants you to view as positive or aspirational.
An overarching thesis that his characters are "too important" in the narrative due to the writer's arrogance and self obsession (even though this is a very deliberate theme that's stated several times)
A lot of focus on the writer personally "attacking" the fans or making choices primarily out of spite.
A tendency to treat the show being different to what it's adapting as inherently bad and hostile towards the original.
Just generally very little consideration and engagement with the themes, intent, etc. of the shows
This one's a little more nebulous and doesn't apply to all critique but a lot of it, especially recently, is clearly by people who haven't seen the show in like 10 years and their opinion is largely formed secondhand through like, "discourse nostalgia". Which. you know. bad.
I think these are just weird and nonsensical ways to engage with a work of fiction. I also think it's really sad to see the show boiled down to this because that era of who is, in my opinion, very thematically rich and unique among similar shows, and I'm disappointed that it's often dismissed in such a paltry way.
This isn't to say people aren't allowed to critique Steven Moffat or anything, but the context in which he basically became The Devil™ to a large portion of fandom and is still remembered in a poor light is very tied to this perfect storm of fan culture and I just don't agree with a ton of it.
* I'm sure most people have seen the way long running shows and hiatuses will cause people to fall out with a show, with some former fans turning around and joining a sort of "anti fandom" for it while it's still airing. That happened with both these shows. ** Doctor Who will change it's entire writing staff, crew, and cast every few years, and with that comes a change in style, tone, theme - the old show basically ends and is replaced by a new show under the same title. As Steven Moffat's era was the first of these handovers for the majority of audiences, you can imagine this wasn't a well loved move for many fans. *** I know for a fact most people have not sought out the sources for a lot of these quotes to check that they read the same in context because 1) most of them were deleted years ago and are very difficult to find now and 2) many of them do actually make sense in the context of their respective interviews
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thewebcomicsreview · 1 year
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You know, it's always struck me as a little odd how little most webcomics actually attempt to adapt to their medium. There's basic strips, the old 2k era 4-square, the endless scroll of Webtoons, and a few weird experimental things like Homestuck, but most webcomics I run into tend to stubbornly stick to conventional portrait-oriented page layouts.
It's… readable, I guess, but that format doesn't seem to work very well for either desktop or mobile viewing. It wastes a lot of screen-space, and usually makes it impossible to actually view the full page without making the text too small to read.
Have you encountered any interesting webcomics that experiment with more landscape-oriented layouts? I'm kinda curious about how well that would work.
So, there's this dude Scott McCloud who wrote about comics in the 90s. His first book, Understanding Comics, is literally the book on comics, it's the one schools make kids read. This third book, Making Comics, is a pretty good practical advice guide I'd recommend, even if it's not his groundbreaking seminal work. In between those two books was one called Reinventing Comics
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Reinventing Comics, written in 1993, was basically a book of predictions about how this newfangled Interweb was going to revolutionize the art of comics creation. Like a lot of early-90s stuff "Wow the internet!" stuff, it has a lot of inaccurate predictions, and thus isn't super well remembered (though, unlike a lot of early-90s predictions of the internet, it at least vaguely resembled reality).
Anyway, one of the big things from that book was the idea of the "infinite canvas".
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Which was basically the idea that a comic didn't have to be constrained by the size of the screen because you could scroll it. And this was a big idea in early webcomics, you heard this phrase a lot. And you'd see infinite canvas techniques like "What if the characters are falling and the comic is really tall to sell that?"
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(Read Narbonic)
Which is basically the one and only example that actually took off, because it turns out that scrolling horizontally sucks and no one really wants to do it except as a one-of gimmick (as Homestuck does). The much bigger impact of the internet was that a webcomic could be infinitely long and still reasonably expect it's readership to have read it all, but I think McCloud missed that one. So while there were a bunch of "landscape" webcomics where you scrolled horizontally, none of them took off, and even the ones that were well received are long gone.
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Adams himself would make Zot!, which is a vertical scroll comic that had a bit of a gimmick with parallel story beats being literally parallel. I think he even did some branching paths, and experimented with comics that you could read in different directions or that looped back on themselves.
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But then Homestuck just did that better because, as I mentioned, infinite depth ended up being a lot more impactful than infinite width. It turns out that making a comic really wide calls a lot of attention to itself and makes the comic annoying to read. And it doesn't mean you can't do it (Homestuck did it!), but it does mean it can't be the gimmick you hang your comic up on unless you've got a really good reason for doing it.
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bonny-kookoo · 8 months
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Taehyung/Jungkook
Crowded | Drabble #1
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In which you're gone on heat-leave, and Jungkook is grumpy about it.
Tags/Warnings: Wolf!Jungkook, Tiger!Taehyung, Fox!Reader, Mutual (secret) pining, romance, fluff, slight angst, mention of heat but everything's SFW
-> Masterlist
♥━━━━━━━━━━•.♡.•━━━━━━━━━━━━♥
“Wait, where’s-” Jungkook asks, only finding Taehyung on the couch of their shared apartment.  
“She left this morning for her hotel stay.” The tiger hybrid replies, watching how Jungkook’s wolf tail slowly lowers down, falling limp behind him as he shows his disappointment.  
“Oh.” He simply says, having forgotten that it’s this time of the year again, when you’ll be gone a lot due to your heat. It happens every year, but that doesn’t mean that Jungkook likes it- especially because he considers you part of his admittedly kind of odd pack.  
He gets upset when Taehyung is gone for more than a day as well.  
You’ve all been living together for a few years now, since rent prices have been rising, and you all had simultaneously started struggling paying for your own apartments around the same time. This, and the long-term friendship you’ve all had, resulted in the decision to simply move in together, with Jungkook’s original apartment becoming the new home for everyone.  
And to him, it had always been heaven- except for times like these. 
Taehyung knows of the crush his best friend has on you, mostly because he himself has the same feelings for you as well. It’s not as complicated between the two guys as one might think though, minus that they don’t know what your own emotional connection to them as of yet. It’s not that easy, after all- if you don’t have any feelings for either of them, you might feel too weird to continue living with them, and that’s just something they’d like to avoid.  
Then again, the moment you find that special someone that’s not them, you’ll leave as well.  
So what to do?  
“Can’t she just.. Stay here?” Jungkook huffs, sitting down next to Taehyung who’s been watching TV on his day off. “I don’t like it when she’s gone so long..”  
“She texted and said she’ll be back tomorrow, Kook.” Taehyung sighs. “And you know very well why she can’t be here.” The tiger hybrid reminds his friend, who just continues sulking on the couch.  
He especially is very much affected by your yearly heat every time- and while he can most certainly control himself, and poses no danger to you at all, he still can’t deny the effect you have on him. It’s one of the main reasons he feels so strongly about you not being here right now- his instincts yelling at him to keep you close and in sight during such a vulnerable time.  
But you’re not his mate, and he’s not your partner. He has to accept your decisions.  
Much to his surprise however, the door opens to reveal you back already- bag in hand and everything. Your more than annoyed expression immediately tells that something must’ve happened for you to come back home way earlier than you said you would.  
“What happened?” Taehyung wonders instantly, a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder keeping the tail-wagging wolf down on the couch until you’ve revealed why you’re back already.  
“I don’t know!” You whine. “But I couldn’t stay at all.” You complain, throwing your bag into your room before you walk into the open kitchen to grab a bottle of water. “Don’t worry, I’ve taken surpressors and basically bathed in scent-blocker.” You motion towards Taehyung holding Jungkook- and the second the tiger hybrid lets go of his friend, Jungkook is right at your side, hugging you from behind while you drink your water.  
To everyone else, this must look like he’s some touch-starved boyfriend. But to you, this is normal. Jungkook is always like this, especially during your mating season.  
And he’s also a wolf- a known kind of hybrid that just has a strong pack-mentality. It’s why Taehyung is a lot more independent compared to him- as a tiger hybrid, he’s more laid back and offers you a lot more freedom. At first, you actually thought he didn’t really like you- but after a thorough talk, you now know that he really does deeply care about you and Jungkook. He was just a little worried to overstep boundaries- that was it.  
But nowadays, boundaries just don’t seem to exist amongst the three of you.  
From Jungkook’s need for physical contact, to Taehyungs casual forms of bonding whenever you want something quiet- sometimes, you wonder if this is all still just a very good friendship. But right now, you don’t really care. Right now, you’re just happy to be back home and with your two best friends.  
“We can look for another hotel you can stay at?” Taehyung asks, a bit nervous at the sight of Jungkook shamelessly sniffing your neck, while his arms are wrapped around you. He knows that Jungkook can control himself, and he trusts him too- but his own instincts still make him a bit uneasy since he doesn’t know how you’ll react during such a time like this.  
After all, this would potentially be the first time you’ll spend your entire mating season at home, and not away from them. And that alone will most likely be a gigantic challenge for both of the hybrid men in this household.  
“No, I don’t know..” You whine to yourself, putting the bottle of water down on the kitchen counter. “I..” You’re quiet now, just staring ahead, and Jungkook perks up at that, looking over your shoulder to check on you.  
“You..?” He asks, wondering what you’re not saying out loud.  
“The.. You know, doctors there said I might..” you sigh, carefully removing Jungkook’s arms from you to put some distance between you and him, and Jungkook stares at you now like a kicked puppy, confused. And it alarms Taehyung too, who stays at a distance, but walks closer anyways. “They said because I live with you both, and have been for some time, I might’ve gotten..” You sigh, crossing your arms. “Instinctually.. Attached.” You mumble.  
It’s quiet for a moment. Jungkook is visibly caught off guard, looking over helplessly at Taehyung who’s just as lost as the wolf.  
Instinctually attached, basically is just a fancy way of saying that your body has started to believe that both Jungkook and Taehyung are your mates, and therefore your permanent partners- in every way, including the more intimate aspects. This is usually what you want to happen in a relationship- but in a mere friendship, this is basically the worst thing that could occur. 
Because this means that your body basically won’t accept anyone else as your heat partner whatsoever unless you’re confronted with flat out rejection. Which is what you expected to happen now- 
But they’re both oddly quiet, nervously looking around instead.  
And that makes you nervous in turn.  
“I mean.. What do you think about that?” Jungkook wonders, while Taehyung’s ears snap towards you as if to hear your answer better.  
“I.. Don't know?” You answer. “I really need you both to.. You know, reject me though. Otherwise we might be facing some issues.” You chuckle dryly, looking down nervously.  
“We can’t.” Taehyung simply answers, both Jungkook and you instantly looking at him. “What? You know even if we did, it wouldn’t change a thing because we wouldn’t mean it.” Taehyung says to Jungkook who’d been shaking his head in a bit of panic.  
“What?” You respond, confused.  
“I.. Well, what Taehyung is hinting at..” Jungkook rubs his neck nervously. “.. is that we both like you.” 
“Which would explain your situation.” Taehyung says, before he walks closer. “And what would explain this even better-” He says, his own tail rising behind him. “-Would be, that the feeling is mutual.”  
You stare at him, ears pinned back, having both of them wait for your answer. And you know you can’t lie. Because Taehyung is right.  
The rejection has to be mutual, and it has to be sincere.  
And you can’t do that.  
Because it would be a lie.  
And the second your body loses all tension, visibly admitting to your own emotional connection to them, Jungkook is right there, hugging you close to reassure you. “Why didn’t you say anything?” He wonders, and you just shrug.  
“Cause I thought it would be weird.” You confess. “And it would ruin our friendship.” You whine.  
“It doesn’t, I promise.” Taehyung reassures as well, now also at your side. “We’ve always been a pretty odd pack after all. Why not evolve into a pretty odd couple?” He shrugs, making you look at him wide eyed.  
“Wait, are you serious?” You ask, confused- But with the way Taehyung smiles, and Jungkook’s tail keeps wagging against one of the kitchen chairs, you don’t actually need a verbal response.  
And you know, they’re not just saying it because of your heat. Because it’s pretty clear to you now, in hindsight, that they’ve been very much openly hinting at it for a good year now.  
You’ve just blinded yourself with some made up excuses as to why it can’t be true.  
“At least you’re back home now.!” Jungkook sighs in bliss, holding you close again.  
“True, if not, he would’ve been yapping into my ear the entire weekend.” the tiger hybrid jokes, making Jungkook huff a bit embarrassed.  
“Well, you won’t have to miss me too much.” You giggle. “Just maybe a little bit when I have to you know, put my room on lockdown.” You say.  
“I mean, we could always help?” Jungkook shamelessly asks, causing Taehyung to shake his head.  
“Shut up you horny dog-” He scolds, but you but into it right away.  
“Won’t it be too fast?” You worry. “I mean.. I don’t know. Like, sure, I love you guys but, we probably should take it easy..” You drift off, looking at both the hybrids in question staring at you with eyes wide. “What?” You wonder, before Jungkook hides his face in the crook of your neck.  
“We love you too.!” He happily whines into your skin, tail wagging again, and even Taehyung can’t help but blush quite visibly, having to hide his face behind his head. And in that moment, one thing is for sure; you’ve always been an odd pack, and you’re already a pretty odd couple as well.  
But you already wouldn’t have it any other way. 
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badlydrawnronpa · 2 months
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hi anon ty for sending the message! I did look through their blog and they very obviously use AI - I would've published the ask normally to let other people know but I decided against it in the end because after a closer inspection I noticed that all commissions are fake (besides being fake art I mean) and they're not actually scamming anyone because. uh. literally most of the blogs I saw interact with them are empty rp blogs that are blatantly controlled by them and one of the commissions I saw on their patreon was for a defunct ohsc rp blog from 2014??? Which honestly was really funny.
so yeah, they're very much not pulling any money from that, and on top of it all they posted pics of themselves sooooo yeh, not going to blast them on a blog with a big following for trying the 'i dont use ai im a real artist' but ultimately not scamming anyone out of their money. They're also not the best at like... hiding they're using AI because you can see their traditional art in other posts, and the style or experience level doesn't match at all.
I will post some of their AI stuff underneath the read more and point out the inconsistencies tho, to help out other people in spotting out ai shit (esp non artists that might have an harder time figuring things out). If you find out the original user that posted these, please don't harass them, be civil.
BTW I'M SAYING THIS NOW: if you see something I point out and say ''ah, I do that, I'm in trouble" - no you're not, if you actually draw the stuff yourself. You can see when an artist's work (and mistakes!) are genuine. Beginner's mistakes can be made by experienced artists too, but if you look at their entire body of work you can see when something doesn't add up.
to start off, I saw anon calling them out on this one so I'm just reiterating some of the points, but here's some junko 'art' they made
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when confronted abt it, they said that the fingers look weird because they can't control their shaky hands and drawing small is hard. anyway if you draw digitally you can zoom in on the canvas and work on a detail as big as you need, so that excuse doesn't hold
this other post was basically what made me just say 'yep thats ai' and it was just the second 'art' post I saw from them
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while taken alone they could've been a little harder to spot as AI, with them all bundled together you can easily see they came from the same prompt; the user tried to justify the inconsistencies saying it was because they were 'experimenting' with the design of their oc and gundham's scar but I'm telling you now, no sane artist fully renders four pieces that are basically the same concept while changing the design of the character just slightly in every single one of them. anyway, here's the breakdown of every piece:
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another that was way easier to break down because it's so full of inconsistencies the moment you really take a look at it
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also let's be real if you render art like that you're not gonna put a bright purple unreadable text on your supposed vtuber "art"
let's end this with the AI "commission" that could be harder to break down as AI if seen in a vacuum now, shall we? esp because our friend, the fucked up melty finger, isn't there
I honestly had to look for a while at this one because if you had shown it to me and I didn't see the other stuff this person posted, I could've just chalked up a lot of these mistakes to human error. Tangents between lines, scribbles for details, forgotten uncolored sections is all normal stuff. BUT we know this person used AI in all the other posts, so we know what to look at:
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again, some mistakes the AI does can be also mistakes actual artists do: be sure to check the other art the user makes before throwing accusations
they also posted a fake speedpaint that is so embarassing it made me laugh but if I start pointing out inconsistencies in an AI speedpaint we're gonna be here for a long time, so.
TL;DR AI 'ART' SIGNS:
The classics: hands and fingers don't make sense, there's additional weird lines and they melt into other part of the drawing
long hair strands and other long or flowy elements can suddenly disappear behind objects and not reappear where they should
jewels, intricate details, hairpins and other accessories bend and melt into each other and other part of the design
the resolution of the image is very low and/or grainy - a lot of artists post lower res pieces online, but again: look for a pattern and combos of all the other signs
inconsistencies between multiple art posts, character designs constantly being different, sudden art style changes - while this can also be found with real artists, this is an additional tell of someone using AI, when combined with the stuff I mentioned above. humans mistakes usually have a reason for what they happen, AI makes them because it doesnt understand what it's doing most of the time
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puckpocketed · 2 months
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who is #43?
Hello !! First off thank u for visiting. If you clicked read more by accident rip sorry it’s a lot of text. ENJOY!!! <3
1. This was the photo reference I used. I really did mean it when i said he photographs well!! I really like how scrungly he looks at times lol. v paintable
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2. here’s a timelapse for your viewing pleasure in video + gif form <3
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3. Process breakdown below. I am not formally trained, so don’t take any of this as professional advice!! The way i paint has been compared to channeling some evil contract with a demon also. So um . Im saying that i dont remotely think that this is efficient or correct, its just whats comfortable for me <3
3a) the dreaded lining phase. I have 2 modes of operation when it comes to painting - either i go full-dick with fancy inking/sketching + cel shading (rare, unrefined, haven’t figured out a nice workflow yet) OR i do a very very basic chicken scratch set of lines like so:
It’s less about being realistic here and more about laying down some guide lines for the chaos ahead. If i thought i could get away with it, I would start every rendered painting i do with laying down colours — but unfortchh ive tried that before and it usually ends in really weird proportions. Even with the lines i still need to make adjustments. This is something no people except me would notice but look at the above sketch; the eyes are too big and slightly too far apart, the forehead is too small and thus the hair is also not quite big enough… I have a bad habit of drawing eyes too big on faces, they’re my favourite facial feature to draw.. i barely resisted giving him big cow eyelashes (I love big cow eyelashes… all of my OC’s and most of my more stylised fan art of characters get big cow eyelashes… god…. Big cow eyelashes SAVE ME……….)
Anyway. Structure of the face + hand somewhat established. <3
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3b) Underpainting!! Okay stay with me here . Ever since i figured out i dont have to paint in 03925893853 different layers, I’ve joyfully painted on 1 layer as much as possible. I dont have the brain power all the time to be managing layers so I simply dont work with that many layers. For this painting, the skin in its entirety was painted on one layer, the hair on another layer, and the effects on the last layer. There was a placeholder background off-white/grey colour for a while there, and I duplicated the line layer — one for figuring out where to lay colours, and one hidden for later so i could check back to see how accurate to the sketch/proportions were to the actual painting. 6 layers, 2 of which i painted the bulk of the piece on, 1 more at the end.
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3c) here’s where I started carving out features. I think about objects in terms of volumes and light rather than lines. i love painting and sculpting because of this!! Here you see where I’ve begun to define his features — his eyelids, his bags, his nostrils. Just refining what was there before. The suggestion of facial hair before i gave it up and left it for later (his face is so naked the WHOLE time)
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3d) nose bridge highlight, suggesting his eyebrows, a cheek highlight. A touch more coral red and muted yellow pull away from the grey/blue underpainting. Strategically leaving some of it peeking through.
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3e) i truly start messing with the fidelity of his features here. Red lipstick <3 and some violet/blue for shadows on the right side of his face.
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3f) the part where it starts looking like q.hughes to me (though, my friend said i got his vibe pretty early on which is such a compliment.. waaaaa…..) I love this part of every painting i do. I know it’s definitely not the Correct order since other parts of the entire painting are simply Not Rendered or Done, but whos gonna stop me?? :3
I love love loveeee painting faces. Adding the little shinies to his eyes + lips + upper lip + nose … you don’t know how much of a difference it makes until you do it. Also i snatched his eyebrows
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3g) i really pushed the red/coral/ochre/orange here. Note the yellow highlights on his cheekbones, the forehead, and the thin thin line of pink right between where his bottom lip ends and his chin shadow starts <- very important . To ME!!!!!!! Also highlighting his waterline and adding his lashes was so so fun <3
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3h) FACIAL HAIR!!! And I started rendering his hand. Some micro adjustments made to his face for proportion check.
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3i) i start painting his hair in earnest and realise his forehead is too small so i make the adjustment. I really love how it falls into his eyes in this photo. <3
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3j) i make some final adjustments to his eyes — a bit smaller, closer together. And i refine the outline of his jaw, push the stylisation of it just a little.
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3k) Finishing details; his flyaway hairs, his moles, a bit of texture on his face, shadows cast by his hair, his little forehead cut <3
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3l) i adjusted his hand here, added more texture to his skin, refined his hair a tiny bit more, and made the decision not to fuck around painting his jersey because i wanted the focus to be his face <3
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3m) Canucks blue and green. Captain at 23. His form bleeds into the background. He is the franchise.
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theee most fun ive had painting anything. and i finally feel... warmed up? if that makes sense. art for me is like. if i dont do it in a while it feels like nothing goes right when i come back to it. i hate that feeling, and the most difficult hurdle to clear is letting myself feel that until i get back into my Zone. after all this time i feel like im BACK !!!!!!!
i loved painting this fella. hes SO Shaped. <3
Apologies i simply do Not have the energy to write the alt text for all of these so i hope the little blurbs are okay aslkjasdklj. i gotta post and go to bed . if u made it this far, thank you for reading!!
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words-4u · 1 year
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don’t shut me out
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pairing: jordan li x f!reader
wc: 750
a/n: i combined the two requests bc they felt kinda similar but i hope you guys enjoy <3
(NOTE: your super power is the ability to transform into any animal you want)
you stared at the last message you sent jordan.
to j 💗 i miss u. text me when u see this pls
you had sent that text at 8 pm last night and it was almost noon the next day and you still hadn't heard back from them. sighing deeply, you locked your phone, stuffing it in to your backpack.
is it me? did i do something? you thought.
it might seem over the top reacting this way but jordan is so communicative especially at night so it was off brand for them to go ghost like this. you were going through the different possibilities in your head as walked the god u campus to get to your next class, you had almost missed your friend calling your name.
“hey, y/n!” 
you looked up and saw cate beckoning you over to a table she’s at with andre.
“hey guys,” you said with no excitement which the blonde found weird.
“did your cat die or something? what’s up?” she asked patting the seat in between her and andre.
you huffed and set your bag on the table and your head on andre’s shoulder.
“okay this is gonna sound so stupid but i’ve been texting jordan all night and all morning today and i haven’t heard so much as a peep from them. i know the messages are going through, i just don't know why they're ignoring me”
“oh y/n. you haven’t heard,” andre begins. ”jordan’s parents are in town. we don’t know much about them but we know they are jordan’s least favourite topic.”
“i mean they’ve told me the basics but…” you trail off.
if their parents are in town then that explain why they’ve been so hard to reach. jordan's parents have never understood them and always made them feel ashamed of their powers which is ridiculous because they are ones who’ve injected their kid with compound V.
"guys i’ve got to go,” you said grabbing your bags and transforming into an eagle, flying off to jordan's student accommodation.
you knock rapidly on your partner’s door, once you arrived. “jordan, open up!”
silence.
you grabbed your vphone out of your bag and checked the “find my” app. “i can literally see that you’re in there so either you open this door and let me in or i turn into a snake and slither in… your choice.”
you hear some metal clanging and something unlocked and in a second you were faced with your gorgeous significant other who looked like they have been crying their eyes out.
no words needed to be said between you before you dropped your bag and pulled them into your arms, rocking them side to side.
you let a few moments pass before you spoke. “why didn't you just tell me?”
“i’m sorry,” they said pulling away. “i fall into this pit of self hatred when my parents come around.”
you guided them to the bed and played with their fingers as you shared your thoughts. “you know i thought you were ignoring cause i might've done something to piss you off or something…”
“no, baby” they whispered. “it’s not you. like at all. it’s them. they… they’ve never accepted my full powers. the girl version anyway. to my parents, i’m their golden boy and nothing else. i came to god u and swore that i would never feel ashamed of myself and would never be forced to choose one gender like my parents desperately want.”
“that’s a lot to carry by yourself, jord,” you move their short black bob out of their face and tuck it behind their ear. “i’m here if you ever need to talk. about any of it.”
“i know,” they smiled softly.
“and for what it’s worth i like…all of you,” you confessed which made jordan put on their sexy grin that you fell for.
“is that right? and which parts of me do you like?” they asked switching to their male form and placing you on their lap.
“hmm now that i think about it, i actually can’t remember,” you stroked your chin jokingly.
“how about i make you remember?” they replied, capturing your lips in an over due kiss. you breathe them in as you run your hands through their short hair.
you pulled away still holding their face in your hands. “promise to tell me when things bother you, big or small okay? i don’t want you to shut me out.”
jordan nodded, whispering, “i promise,” before kissing you once more.
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