#with startlingly accurate detail

[ghost-bxrd]

I think we as a fandom need to have more talks about ✨dramatic✨ Jason running his own AO3 blog where he posts increasingly violent and heart wrenching stories about Robin. (The second Robin. Because he’s absolutely self inserting.)

And the Batfam find out about those fic that have a startlingly detailed layout of the batcave and accurate patrol routes that they choose to investigate (by reading the fics, duh) and growing increasingly upset about how the characters are portrayed.

Especially Robin.

[menaathena]

Okay, so, I rewatched A Tale of Two Stans recently, and a little detail stood out to me. In the scene where Stan gets kicked out, he pleads to Ford for some sort of help or reassurance, which Ford responds to by closing the curtains.

THEN we get:

"Stanford? Don't leave me hangin'. High six?" This comes AFTER Ford closes the curtains and presumably turned away, right? But, in one of the lost journal pages in the Book of Bill, what do we see?

A startlingly accurate depiction of Stan's offered high-six.

This implies two possibilities to me. One: Ford couldn't bear to fully look away and peeked through the curtains, and this image of Stan burned itself into his memory to where he can still recreate it ten years later. Two: Ford knows Stan well enough to where he can accurately guess what his twin would have looked like based on what he heard in that moment. Both options are absolutely heartbreaking. Everything about these two fuckers makes me want to cry

[precious-little-scoundrel]

Thrilled to hear there will be more naughty sleepovers! Might there be an entry forthcoming about dear Dougie aka James Douglass? Inquiring minds want to know!

Oooh Dougie my man, yes, yes thank you, I adore this fella! Come on in, bring in the beer and snacks, can’t have a dry slumber party in honor of this fella, that’s for certain. Special thanks to my contributors: @suraemoon @faegoddessog

Cock-versations || James Douglass Edition

nsfw (AF!) below the cut:

Sordid details: Gosh, how many ways can I describe cocks? The thing is that my vocabulary will run out long before the sheer and varied abundance of cock types has been exhausted. So, while fearing becoming a little repetitive here -I must direct you to the fingers and proclaim: girth. A good average in length but he’s got such a lovely stretch to give and the capable tool is set in a bevy of black curls. Which makes it look pale in comparison, with a little pink tinge and a few startlingly blue veins winding around the pillar. He’s got a seemingly small tip again, by comparison. He likes to get his in some kind of kinky manner but frequency, that’s his highest priority. Pretty substantial balls but they're very tight and round.

A note on the wielder of the weapon: here we’ve got another man who will stand alongside Rosie in his ability and need to make you laugh during. “More rubbers than he can count??” Oh this ain’t his first rodeo and his enthusiasm for the sport exceeds his condom count -and sometimes his talent but eh, whatever. An unapologetic little shit, when y’all have time you’d best prepare to get the living daylights edged outta ya, he’s a terrible tease and now he’s become aware of the galgasm he’s all about going after it in typical bombardier style: accuracy and precision but a deep seated capability to adjust as needed and still be accurate -dynamite combo after some initial bumbling.

Ad libbing the pussy: King of the Quickie, he’s a very eager fella and he’s into some kinky shit, into impossible positions for the hilarity of it and happy to contort himself impossibly too. Quickies are a way of life for this guy, not that he doesn’t like to have long excursions into romance and intimacy but he needs his fill on the hour, so to speak, so he’s gotta sneak it in regularly in between. He’s so smooth about it too, can slip you away so quick, slip into you before you can say “Flynn!”. Now, now, it must be said that he asks so sweetly, he’s a real gem, but then when he’s at it it’s like a Labrador puppy humping a leg. His voice so soft and sweet just to ask to fuck you, because you’re so pretty and distracting and it does things to him, he never forgets how lucky he is to have you despite how frequently he makes use of your allowance.

1940’s Fucbois -they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

A Jabberer: he’s such a chatty bastard when he’s inside you too, chatting between grunts and moans. Some of it's downright looney but it’s all very grateful and very flattering. I mean come on Dougie, lemme hear about how you love how this pussy feels and now onto the score and then yes ask me if I’m down to go boating next week like -yes I can handle that, keep talking to me baby boy. Ain’t stingy with his compliments either so, that’s nice, loves to spin a yarn about how fabulous you are -sometimes that brand of fabulousness should not be shared at a funeral with all your aunts around.

A comment on finesse: He lets out a whole lotta “ya like that? ya like that?” and then he’s one of those unicorn men who actually keeps doing the motion you asked him to keep doing. You ask him to do something and immediately you got it just how you want it, he had to be shown a helluva lot initially but hey, we all start somewhere. We love a fast learner. He’s so down to try new things too, never be nervous or embarrassed to ask for something, you could ask if y’all can do it dressed in tiger onesies and he’s gonna be so stoked. It’ll be funny, you’ll probably get some bruises from falling around- what’s not to love?!

Oral: yeah, he’s a snacker- he’ll go down for sure, he’s also a story teller so best believe he’ll be talking to your pussy, anecdotes, mission funnies, all about the latest canned joke he heard -not saying that it’s the best pussy eating you’ve ever had but it certainly has a vibrating mouth action quality to it, lol. Sometimes you might need to tell him to hush and finish the job. Ya know what happens then? “Right right, sorry babe, gotcha,” -and if you forcefully bring his head back down? well, y’all may later need to discuss why that fed-up action made him blow his load untouched.

I’m not saying he wants you to sometimes act unimpressed so he has to work ten times harder and you still tell him he doesn’t deserve to cum but…he does like it, take it up with him I’m just the oracle

End notes: Just don’t bore this man, whatever you do, and you’ll be the one for him -he hopes. And then you can look forward to a life of ad lib pussy skills, impromptu fucking and improv switching.

-Will likely ask you to make him a sandwich after and will pester you to let him watch you and Dorace down the street have a uh…pool fight.

[incorrect-oppenheimer]

So I wanted to write out something for the films and the documentary that I remember enough of to write a review for, partly for my own use, partly for some friends, and partly for the blog. It will be updated now and again. It's all to be taken with a grain of salt, and I am not sure if I should add more than what I have here or not, but it is a start...

Oppenheimer (2023)

Critics have hailed it an utter masterpiece, winning countless awards in countless fields for countless things. Nolan’s work spans a total of 3 hours, focused on a combination of the trial of J Robert Oppenheimer and the building of Los Alamos and the Gadget. Nolan does his usual thing of sparing no extra scenes and going so far as to build a non-harmful replica of the Gadget and set it off in the middle of Los Alamos on site. The display from this is beautiful, but the radiation cloud and thunder of the real Gadget that evoked such terror originally is... Mostly non-existent. The visualizes and imagery, the usage of motifs, the soundtrack, the chains which if you saw it in the theater rattled around the building in a startlingly ominous fashion, are indeed spectacularly done. While not perfectly historically accurate, the details are not lost for the most part including a nod to the theories surrounding the death of Jean Tatlock even today, though the arrival of zombie Ernest Lawrence caught some of us off guard. The usage of Einstein to fill a hole is an interesting design choice, yet still effective, as well as the centering around Lewis Strauss. Characterization is fair if not slightly pushed in some places due to time constraints. It ends with doom and gloom as Nolan tries most of the film to climb inside Oppenheimer’s head, the only issue being is that not even Oppenheimer was in his head most of the time. Overall, in my worth nothing at all opinion, 9/10.

Fat Man And Little Boy (1989)

Fat Man and Little Boy took three historical personages and morphed them into one fictional character named Michael, a young man who gives us a peak into living and working in Los Alamos on a daily basis. I will offer no spoilers for those who have not seen it. Everyone is a dick for the most part, yet, somehow this adds to rather than subtracts from the film. We get an insight into Los Alamos party life, some of the intrigue between Groves and Oppenheimer, some changing of heart, and plenty of “cute” and endearing moments. A wonderfully balanced film of both comedy and drama. Despite its fictional points there are plenty of “close enough” moments. Unlike many of the other flicks, Fat Man and Little Boy ends much sooner in the story, and nothing is lost for it. It shows nothing of Japan but we the audience are not spared the horrors of what was to come either. All in all, despite its more fictional roots, I struggle to give it a rating lower than Oppenheimer. 8.5, perhaps, as oddly it does some things better than Nolan’s.

BBC Oppenheimer (1980)

The BBC Oppenheimer was a seven part work of art that originally aired in 1980, which allowed the surviving members of the Manhattan Project to weigh in and even work with some of the actors and crew. Its accuracy is not perfect either, but its length gives it room to be very close to what was publicly known at the time. The characters play off one another beautifully, there is ample time for development and characterization as well as thematic development. Like Nolan’s, it centers both around the construction of Los Alamos and the Gadget as well as the trials. Strauss is not made the Disney villain, nobody is really. We get sneak peaks into party life at Los Alamos again. We hear more details of the story and the confusion laced through it. The footage brought back from Japan is woven expertly into the final sections, and it ends on a similar yet higher note than Nolan’s, aiming more for bittersweet than the dark cloud sensation. 11/10.

The Day After Trinity (1980/81)

Filmed around the same time as the BBC this documentary centers around the commentary of Hans Bethe, Isidor I. Rabi, Robert Wilson, Robert Serber, Freeman Dyson, Frank Oppenheimer, and none other than Haakon Chevalier. It focuses mostly around life at Los Alamos, their stories here and there, and indeed, the aftermath of Trinity, showing footage and debris brought back from Japan. Serber gives us a first person account of a trip taken there a short time after and gives us a demonstration of the blast height. Pretty well straightforward. 10/10.

[canmom]

Animation Night 161: Barry JC Purves

Good evening everyone!! I have completed my pilgrimage to Animation City. The last Annecy posts should be dropping tomorrow, all being well.

But! Tonight can be something of a preview!

The very last thing I did at Annecy was to drop into a collection for stop motion animator Barry JC Purves, who received a lifetime achievement award this festival. He totally wasn't on my radar which is a huge oversight because he's been making gay old short films for longer than I've been alive! l became a fan immediately lmao

As it happened, Barry Purves was there at the screening and afterwards took the time to chat with a small group of us, to give advice on animation, talk about his work, and generally be very encouraging. Here I am next to him holding the puppet Toddie from his film No Ordinary Joe (apologies for the shit picture quality, I didn't realise how dirty my lens was)

And here's the puppet up close:

So who is this guy, what's his story? Well, the way he told it, he started out in acting, but felt there were a lot of talented actors around. Around that time he saw stop motion films, and started to think he could bring a lot more performance and emotion than people were doing at the time. This must have been around 1989, when he made his first film Next, a speedrun of the works of Shakespeare performed by a puppet of the Bard...

Theatre would be a recurring theme throughout just about all his personal works. Screen Play (1992) depicts a kabuki play...

while Rigoletto (1993) does opera.

I joined the screening just in time for the end of Rigoletto; the first one I got to see in full was Achilles (1995), which depicts the story of Achilles and Patroclus from the Iliad in the style of ancient Greek theatre.

I loved this one. The characters move in a fascinatingly theatrical way, holding extended poses, is a trademark of Purves, who disagrees with the doctrine of realism in animation and emphasises readability above all; the staging is excellent; there is a lot of gay sex. I have no idea how the puppets were made - they're startlingly flexible for all the muscle detail. Barry said when I mentioned about it that he hadn't set out to tell a 'gay story' as such, rather was mainly trying to be faithful to the original story. I admire a lot his confidence in getting this on TV when I was like 2, but he said people never gave him a lot of trouble for content, just funding...

Gilbert and Sullivan (1998) and Hamilton Mattress (2001) were not included in the session at Annecy. The first continues the biographical theme, the second is about showbiz. I hope I can track them down at some point!

Plume was the next one we saw, and this one was great, a wordless film in which a winged man falls to earth and finds himself confronted by weird little monster guys hungry for feathers. This one was really cool, but I can't find it online.

Tchaikovsky – an Elegy presents a puppet of Tchaikovsky moving on a small set to a voiceover of various quotes from his letters over the course of his life and a medley of his music. Apparently they only had the budget for two minutes of orchestral music, the rest solo piano, but this limitation becomes a strength as those two minutes are deployed very effectively. I'll admit, I don't know a ton about Tchaikovsky, but the chosen quotes were affecting and intriguing, and there is incredible attention to detail in the animation - when Tchaikovsky plays piano in the air, the finger movements are apparently noticeably accurate to the music if you're a piano player.

Speaking of pianos, someone asked about the puppet and apparently the puppet of Tchaikovsky now sits on his piano in the house where he composed... memory fails, one of his famous pieces, maybe Swan Lake.

The last film is about a historical figure who I knew nothing about, but completely intrigued. Joe Carstairs was... in modern terms somewhere in the zone between butch lesbian and trans guy, an aristocrat's child who became a record setting motorboat racer in the 20s and also ruled a small island for a while (bc ig you could just do a colonialism back then if you were rich enough lmao). He (I'm gonna go with 'he' pronouns) had a very specific eccentricity, going around everywhere with a doll called Lord Tod Wadley or Toddie, a gift from his girlfriend Ruth Baldwin. Apparently Carstairs regarded as his closest confidante and only person he could trust. So the film is presented as a dialogue between Carstairs (played by real human being Lindsay Duncan) and Toddy (stop motion animated and composited in), as they reminisce about their life together. It was a very cool way to learn about a fascinating historical figure - apparently the inspiration was the biography The Queen of Whale Cay by Kate Summerscale, which he encouraged me to read after the screening - I'll write about it if I do!

And he's not done. Apparently he's been looking for funding for a feature length animated film that would be a murder mystery styled after the bird masks of the commedia del'arte. It sounds sick as hell and I would really love for it to get made.

Barry was incredibly fun to talk to, really encouraging to all of us and gave fascinating answers to every question. I really hope I can meet him again at the next Annecy and chat for longer. It honestly makes me really happy to know there was such a talented independent animator in the UK making such personally expressive, mature, and also gay as hell animated films before I was around. Hope I can follow in his footsteps one day.

Apologies for the late start today - I was trying to fly to join family in Portugal but my flight got cancelled at the last minute and I'm only just back from the airport, gonna have to do it all again tomorrow ><

but in the meantime, let me share a little taste of Annecy!!! Animation Night 161 will be beginning in about 15 minutes, 23:45 UK time, at twitch.tv/canmom, and I'll start the films at midnight. Would love to see you there!!

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

Deuteronomy giving unsolicited, out-of-the-blue, but startlingly accurate or effective parenting advice when speaking with other cats after carefully observing their new or troublesome litters, but the kicker is they were like five years old at most at the time, and the adults would laugh and say he didn't know the first thing about raising kittens. And they would frown and cross their arms and say: "Yes I do. I have lots of kittens", and the adults would figure it was child imagination play and respond: "*Do* you really? And what are their names?" thinking they're just going along with it and he'll make something up, but then Dee just starts talking in detail about kittens his past lives had - and some that were not his lives but the lives of others - and all of their names, and what they looked like when they were just born, and various issues they had, and then just trail off and mutter a quiet "I miss them", before snapping right back out of it and going back to play like nothing happened.

He does this a lot - the cats who are used to it are used to it - that's just Deuteronomy - but the cats who are *not*, now that's incredibly unsettling.

When Jemima started doing that same thing decades later a lot of stuff suddenly started falling into place as to where most of Deuteronomy went genetics wise.

[autumnalwalker]

Last Line/Heads Up Seven Up Tag

As I was tagged near-simultaneously by both @talesofsorrowandofruin and @ceph-the-writing-spook I'll respond to both in one post and leave this as an open tag.

Of course, seeing as I've been tagged twice, only right to post two snippets. I'll pull them both from Empty Names this time. The first is from the next chapter, the second is from a side story that's been stuck in my head and distracting me from progress on the main story.

Snippet 1: In which Sullivan welcomes the newly assembled party into his home:

As if on queue the group reaches the edge of the treeline, bringing a three-storied, multi-winged Victorian mansion into unobstructed view.  What look like cat-sized spiders skitter about, trimming hedges and washing windows.  As Bridgwood leads the party down the gravel pathway to the front door the gazes of the marble statues they pass by follow them in a way that Lacuna can’t bring herself to believe is mere optical illusion.  As Bridgewood steps onto the front porch the double doors begin to swing inward, but not quickly enough to keep him from pushing them the rest of the way open by hand upon reaching the threshold.

The entrance foyer is dominated by a grand staircase leading to the upper levels whose balconies wrap back around to look down on the visitors.  Above the landing where the staircase splits and turns halfway to the next floor hangs a portrait of a woman in a blue dress of a style as antique as the house’s.  Her smile at the viewer is playful.  Playful in the same way that a cat is playful with a mouse.  Several closed doors line the walls on either side between the entrance and the staircase, although those seem a background detail compared to the small pile of black crates and out of place chairs in the center of the hall.

As Lacuna files in last in line she glances back over her shoulder at the sound of the doors creaking closed behind her.  They get about halfway shut on their own before getting stuck, causing a pair of those spider-like creatures - metal or maybe polished stone orbs with legs, she can see now that she’s up close - to scurry in from the shadows and push the doors closed the rest of the way.  Bridgewood’s voice pulls her attention back to the center of the room before she can watch where the constructs retreat to once their task is done.

“Welcome to my home.  Take a seat, because I don’t like any of you enough yet to give you the tour and we’ve got a job to get to.”  He drops sideways into a seat with his legs hanging over the armrest and gestures to Road.  “My friend, you take it from here.  I might be hosting, but this is your show.”

Snippet 2: In which Eris volunteers at a werewolf park several years before the main story:

“Where are we anyway?” she asks as she catches up with Eris.

“Dakota.”

“Which one?”

“At the moment, I’m in North and you’re in South.  The bridge you came in through’s right on the border.  Same for the visitor center.  The liminality here made it easier to set up shop, mostly for the bridge, but a few other things too.  And for extra oomph Montanna’s like half a mile that way.  The Park extends into all three.  Sorry, the Sanctuary,” Eris corrects herself as the door slides open.  “We rebranded back at the start of the year. ‘There are no dogs here, only people,’” she says, holding up a finger and adjusting her voice for a startlingly accurate impression of the elderly woman Sarah had spoken to on the phone the other day, “‘so there’s no reason to call it the Dog Park.’” She shrugs and returns to her normal voice. “That’s what Gita says anyway.”  

[celeste-i]

Patrick O'Brian said if you want to read my glorious 20 book long epic series of the Napoleonic wars with fantastic characters you're going to sit your ass down and listen to the operations of a ship in startlingly historically accurate detail. and we all said yes Mr O'Brian sir and sat

[greatsealed]

UNPROMPTED || ALWAYS ACCEPTING! || @velvetlift

velvetlift asked: "Please excuse its crude construction, but allow me to present you with a token of my affection for this 'Saint Valentine's Day'." She didn't do air quotes as she said the name of the holiday, but you could sort of hear them in the way she said it. Regardless, she handed her attendee over an incredibly detailed drawing of a human heart cut out on red construction paper. "From what I understand, it' is customary to present those you desire with a heart on this day. I was unaware that humans were able to regenerate such an important organ! Sadly, this is not an ability I possess myself, so I hope this offering will suffice. Such an impressive innate ability seems to render the regenerative skills of Personas rather redundant, so I'll exclude them from my requests from now on."

[Word of "Valentine's Day" had apparently made its way to the Velvet Room; when Minato was called about "something important," he'd assumed it would relate to fusion, requests, or a missing person. Instead...Elizabeth greeted him with a "token of her affection."]

[She handed it off to him, apologizing for its "crude construction" ( even though it was startlingly accurate ); he took a look at it, and though he did appreciate the sentiment, it was a bit unsettling. It was so detailed that he had to remind himself he was holding a flimsy piece of paper, not a beating heart.]

[As always, Elizabeth had the spirit, but was severely misinformed. He almost didn't know where to start. It was bewildering to think about how she'd drawn the conclusions she did; Minato wasn't sure how anything in the Velvet Room worked, nor did he know how sheltered she might be from the rest of society, but his outings with her were a constant reminder that she was..."out of the loop," to put it nicely.]

[Still holding her unnerving piece of art, Minato looked back up at her.] ❝ ...Thanks. ❞ [He could at least express his gratitude before getting into the nitty-gritty.]

❝ When people hand out hearts, they're not giving away their actual heart. It's usually a heart-shaped card or a box with chocolate inside. ❞ [Actually, all things considered, she'd tackled this with an unintentionally great amount of accuracy. It wasn't really a card, but...well, she had the spirit.] ❝ So...in a way, you kind of nailed it. ❞

[sbanimation]

Create Engaging Communications

Animation may help you connect with your audience in a way that traditional visual communication approaches cannot. It's easy to relate to the subject and pay attention to their experience because this Engaging Communication is memory-based. Animated characters tend to get better reviews than live-action ones and are more relatable to viewers. They also tend to get less bad press than stock footage or even real people. Even yet, if you want your animated movie to be as successful as possible, it's essential to accurately define your target demographic.

Any industry may utilize animation to get their customers talking. Examples of clinical promotion goals include patient commitment, item explanations, disease education, and patient education. Thanks to engaging narrating and counseling voice-over, clinical liveliness may be a highly valuable tool for explaining or discussing medical care challenges.

Using the traditional artistic specialized method, animation can help you develop an engaging communication with your audience. Animation elicits different reactions from viewers than startlingly realistic people do. They are less simple in terms of activity than stock images or even real people.

This explainer cartoon, created by one of the biggest pharmaceutical corporations in the world, is intriguing and well-made. To let their customers know about the new strategy and service, the client asked us to create an appealing message. It must also be attractive, colorful, and energizing.

We employed distinctive materials, motion graphics, and brand colors to highlight the advantages of the plan.

Why is Animation the Best Form of Audience Engagement?

With the use of animation, you may convince your target audience to listen to and act upon your messaging. A fun method to promote a product, describe your business, or get ready for a show is through animation.

You should develop emotionally appealing messages that the audience can relate to in order to make sure that your brand connects with them and moves them to action. The manner in which the information is conveyed, not the topic matter itself, determines the style of an interesting communication film. The emotional impact, significance of the subject matter, and audience reaction of your movie will all depend on the style you choose.

Motion graphics are used to highlight the benefits of the strategy while using recognizable elements and brand colors. The project is a fantastic illustration of how great animation can be created from a simple concept to a polished product. Effective communication is highly valued at Sliced Bread Animation. In our company, we have a wide variety of artists and developers.

Visit our website for more details on the Engaging Communication animation video.

[voxies-finest]

rote

gif // original resolution 1440x1440 // 190 frames // 6.33s completed August 28th, 2022

tools and toys: VHS tape, LZX Industries analog video synthesizer system, DaVinci Resolve

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

for a while now i've had a fascination with the relationship between time and memory. the passing of time is exceedingly unkind to memory for most of us, and for those of us who have startlingly accurate and long-lasting memories the lack of decay - which the rest of us tend to idealize and covet like some kind of superpower - can be more of a curse than anything. of course it's a cool party trick - "hey man, u remember when Kathy spilled that drink on Jeff *right over there* on Halloween 2016 at 1:32 AM and Jeff was wearing that Mars Volta t-shirt and those torn up jean shorts with the-" - but what about the things you want to forget but simply can't?

thankfully my memory tends to be pretty bad. i remember big arcs and plot points - the few years i spent without a car in undergrad, the jobs i worked to pay the bills, the places i've lived - but forget lots of vital details, both good and bad. yet oddly my brain clings for dear life to useless information - every song lyric, every actor/actress i've ever seen and where i've seen them, the titles of a million billion songs, the smell my grandparents' house which was demolished nearly a decade ago. probably a byproduct of training myself to memorize songs, keyboard shortcuts, video game control schemes. i pick up bits of random info easily but often lose important things.

anywho. a few years back i discovered vaporwave and this odd obsession with revisiting and distorting old content and i became extremely aware of decay and distortion in my own memory. i began to dig: when i think of the past, what do i actually remember? what landmarks to i fixate on when i think about the past and what details get lost? and while i don't intend to share the personal details of that research with you, in the process of digging i became fascinated by the friction between the real and the fictional, the remembered and the misremembered, the forgotten and the permanent, the things i wish i could remember and the things i can't forget.

rote is my second experiment inspired by this memory work. it has a very localized focus, exploring a broken memory by displaying all of a short loop more or less simultaneously, woven arbitrarily in and over and among itself. the loop at the work's core comes from an old VHS tape bought off eBay as part of a "sold as blank" bundle - code for "these tapes have stuff on it that is copyrighted and i can't sell you the content, so i am selling you the tapes sight unseen". these types of deals are excellent for getting cheap tapes but more importantly each tape is like a portal to some random time in the VHS era. this particular tape transported me to peak soap opera era - an absolute gold mine for source material.

i divided this into 10 even segments and distributed 10 copies of the loop distributed across the width of the frame with each loop starting at a different segment of the video. the set of 10 copies was then cloned twice and each clone was offset by 1/3 of the length of the video for a double-offset effect. the actions in the loop start in the upper left frame and cascade across the frame both horizontally and vertically. the top and bottom rows are composited so the frames get less clear towards the middle while the center row is most clear in the center of the image. a second copy using different compositing rules was made and the two crossfade slowly over the full duration of the gif, adding another degree of removal and distortion.

the end result feels like a memory you can't quite grasp with all of its bits and pieces tangled in and over each other with little sense or cohesion. technically speaking the piece is reminiscent of the phasing concepts explored by Steve Reich in works like Piano Phase and Clapping Music with the main difference being that these loops are forever suspended just out of phase, coexisting and overlapping but unable to fully converge.

[newtonsheffield]

Tattoo artist Sophie and Ballet Dancer Ben?!??

Can’t leave me with just that please?!? More details pretty please?! Was Benni staring at her? Was he asking Anthony about her?!

How did it go when Kate summoned him?

ahh I thought this might catch your attention 😏

"What if I told you, I had found you the perfect man." Kate had hummed, leaning against the counter of Sophie's shop while she worked, Edwina snickering under her hands, barely wincing as Sophie's tattoo gun moved over her ribs.

"Don't get too excited, it's Anthony's brother." Edwina smirked.

"Eddie!" Kate hissed!

Sophie groaned, turning towards her friend with a roll of her eyes, "Kate, Kate Kate Kate Kate. I am not going out with Anthony's brother so that you can get a groupon discount."

Kate's mouth open and closed a little indignantly, "I-he's really nice! He's a soloist with the Royal Ballet and-"

"Oh so as a tattooist in a seedy fucking hole in the wall we have a lot in common!" Sophie had chuckled, turning back to Edwina. "Are you sure it was a good idea to get her a dick? She's been fucking insufferable ever since."

Edwina scoffed, "And you don't even have to hear them through the walls Yes Anthony! Oh fuck Kate that's so good, fuck Kate!." Edwina's voice dropped into a low groan, that judging from Kate's reaction, was a startlingly accurate impression.

"You don't have to listen! You have headphones!" Kate hissed.

"And Anthony just bought a house. A five bedroom house, where no one else lives! Fuck there!"

"Sometimes, the mood strikes! And as I've caught you going down on your girlfriend on our kitchen counter more than once, I'd be careful where you throw that stone! Your glasshouse is looking delicate!"

Sophie hummed, a smirk rising to her lips "You two are fucking wild. Does Mary know she raised a pair of hellions?"

"Yes." They responded together. Silence only broken by the buzz of the gun.

"So Soph, I've been thinking of a new tattoo..." Kate broke it seconds later.

"I do occasionally have to see paying customers you know." She rolled her eyes, already knowing Kate would be on her table within a month, because that's what you did for your friend who dragged you to their home in the final weeks of school when they found you sleeping behind the football sheds after your step mum kicked you out two days earlier.

That's what you did for someone whose parents hadn't blinked an eye, when you'd said, "I have an apprenticeship lined up, I just need a month to get on my feet."

"I never said I wasn't going to pay." Kate hummed.

And it burned in her chest. "You don't pay here. None of your family, not even Anthony the wondercock."

Kate rolled her eyes, "Anthony would never get a tattoo, he's too prim."

"And yet... you're in love with him." Sophie hummed, watching her friend smile stupidly, and she was happy for Kate, she really was. Anthony was maybe the very last person Sophie would have picked for Kate on the surface. A millionaire who thought a pair of £500 jeans were cheap, who grumbled like a grumpy old man, until he looked at her, and his smile softened, and he let her clamber onto his shoulders with a stupid smile on his face. Two people who felt more responsible for other people than they ought to. Something deep inside them, was the same. And it was nice, it really was, to see Kate have someone to finally soften with, who understood the deep grief that Sophie had watched settle in her the day they'd buried Tom Sharma. But it also made her desperately jealous. That Kate had someone, and she went home every day to a Golden Retriever puppy named Geoff and no one else.

"He's a sweetheart." Kate hummed, "He fell in the river the other day because Newton chased a squirrel, and he was only pouty until I took my top off so..."

"I'm still not dating his brother." Sophie said with finality.

"We'll see! You're amazing, Ben's great. It's gonna happen!" Kate said cheerily.

And at the time, Sophie hadn't thought anything of it, but maybe she should have.

____________________

"So, you know how Anthony bought a house, and he was really insistent on me looking at them with him?" Kate's voice was gentle as they sat in the restaurant, lunch on the table between them.

Sophie nodded, knowing exactly where this was going.

"So it turns out it's because he was... buying a house for us to live in? He wants me to move in with him, make it our home like... for the future." She couldn't keep the smile off her face, her answer written all over it.

"This is a surprise to you only." Sophie hummed, "Mary has him and Josie locked in as the parents of her future grandchildren, you know that right?"

Kate hummed, "I have Anthony locked in as the father of my children too."

That got her. "You want kids?" But that wasn't the part that surprised her. She couldn't imagine a better mother, Kate would be patient and kind and fiercely protective, and deep in the very heart of her, under all the false bravado, Kate was a nurturer. What surprised her was the certainty, the fact that this didn't sound like vague future planning, it sounded like she knew it would happen.

"Not like, in the next twelve months, but someday, yeah. It sounds stupid, because we've only been together six months but... this is kind of it for me, and he's told me... it's it for him." She said the last few words quickly, looking away embarrassedly, "He talks about our kids all the time, he wants three: two girls and a boy."

The ache settled in Sophie's chest. Deep wanting, her voice wavering, "How do you feel about that?"

Kate's smile was brilliant, "I want two boys and a girl."

Silence welled between them for a moment, as Sophie tried to swallow the jealousy she felt, unfair, when she should be happy.

"Kate cleared her throat, "So anyway, I've convinced old man Bridgerton to have a house warming party. For someone who was scrounging around on tinder when we met, he is surprisingly resistant to social gatherings. And you have to come, you can bring Geoff."

And even though the very last thing, Sophie wanted to do was go to Kate's new home, with their new furniture and the rooms her boyfriend had bought with their curly-haired future children in mind and feel how alone she was, she couldn;t really say no.

________________

"Just another little while, bud, then we can go home." Sophie sighed, standing in the corner of Kate's living room, Geoff at her feet, searching around for Newton. Edwina and Josie on the sofa nearby, curled up together, surely not far from disappearing off home.

She let her eyes scan the light crowd, no idea who half the people there were, feeling more than a little out of place with the bright sleeves of tattoos that covered her arms, and then she stopped. Her eyes had caught with a man's, clearly looking her way, and her stomach swooped. He was smiling at her, his eyes curious, head tilted, his dark hair swept back from his forehead, tall, far taller than her, his body lean and powerful as he turned back to the woman he'd been talking to, Anthony's sister Eloise, Kate had introduced them earlier. He gestured vaguely, and the movement was so oddly graceful, beautiful, that she couldn't take her eyes off it.

Sophie's hand shot out grabbing Kate by the arm as she past.

“That guy over there? Who’s that?”

Kate hummed a little distractedly, looking over “Who? Ben? That’s Anthony’s broth- wait?! Are you interested in Ben?!”

“Yes, obviously.” Sophie's cheeks were burning, "He's fucking beautiful."

Kate looked far too smug “Well, I’d like to take a second to remember that a month ago, I told you I wanted you to go out with Anthony’s brother and you said Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate I’m not going out with Anthony’s brother so you can get a Groupon discount.”

“If you introduce us, I will do that Tattoo you want next week.”

Before Sophie could blink Kate had cupped her hands to her mouth, “BEN! GET OVER HERE!”

The man's head shot up, eyes widening in surprise, moving forward immediately,

"Kate jesus could you be a bit more subtle?"

"Do you want to meet him or not? perk those tits up!" Kate muttered, "Hey Benni." She hummed as he approached, letting him kiss her cheek.

"Does Anthony know you're being a menace?" Ben's voice was a deep rumble, grinning down at Kate, several inches over even Kate's tall frame.

Kate scoffed, "Please, he loves it. Ben, this is my friend Sophie. Sophie, this is Anthony's oldest baby brother Benedict."

Their eyes met again, churning her stomach, barely able to breathe.

"Hey Sophie, Kate's friend."

"Hi Ben, Anthony's baby brother."

Silence echoed between them, their eyes still locked together, as Kate hummed.

"Well! This seems great! I'm going to occupy my bedroom with Anthony! feel free to use one of the others!" And then she was gone, as Sophie's cheeks burned.

Ben let out a choked noise, turning to watch his brother's girlfriend leave.

"Fuck, I'm sorry about her, she's- well, you know."

Ben shook his head, chuckling, "No, she's fucking great actually. I love Anthony but he used to be such a grumpy arsehole and now he's like floppy haired eighteen year old, can't fucking stop smiling."

"She's... pretty fucking great isn't she?"

Ben nodded, "How do you know her?"

Sophie shrugged, the story churning her stomach just a little, not wanting to share that much of herself just yet, "We've been friends since high school, her parents were pretty great to me, still are."

He smiled gently, leaning against the wall beside her, "So you can tell me if Mary Sharma's cooking is really as good as Anthony claims."

"It's probably even better, she's a goddess." Sophie confirmed, her heart hammering in her chest.

Ben's eyes flicked down, his smile growing as they landed on geoff, staring curiously up at her, bending quickly, "And who's this guy?"

"This is Geoff." Geoff had darted forward, putting his front paws on Benedict's knees, tail wagging furiously as Ben scratched behind his ear.

"This is a great dog. How old?"

"He's nearly a year old, I got him a few months after Kate got Newton."

"And what do you and Geoff do all day?"

Her lip was caught between her teeth, "I'm a tattoo artist?"

Benedict's mouth dropped open, "That's such a cool fucking job! Oh my god, did you do these?" He gestured at her arms.

She nodded awkwardly, "Some of them, the ones on my left arm at least."

He peered curiously at them, at the bouquet of flowers blooming over her left forearm, "That's amazing, you're really talented."

Sophie shrugged, "Kate does some of the artwork for me."

"Did you do her tattoo?"

Sophie nodded, "Yeah, all of them. Edwina's as well."

He nodded, his eyes catching hers again, "That makes my job feel really boring."

She already knew, but she asked anyway, "What do you do?"

He shrugged, waving vaguely, "I'm... a ballet dancer, not a big deal."

There was something so beautiful in it, sensitive and soft, "That's... definitely a big deal. That's cool, but I've never been to the ballet."

His eyebrows shot up, "Really?!"

"My family... we're not the ballet type."

He smiled softly, "Doesn't mean you aren't." He gestured at her arms, "You're an artist, you might like it."

"Maybe." She couldn't stop smiling, "I'll have to see."

"So what's the weirdest thing you've ever tattooed on someone." He was still smiling at her, his head tilted curiously, and there was something in him, that echoed in her, even in this casual conversation, something that felt right.

"... It was... when I was an apprentice, and I had to tattoo whatever walked into the shop, I tattooed a tampon on someone's arm."

His mouth fell open with a guffaw, "Holy shit! Okay, You are the most interesting person at this party, I'm staying right here all night until you tell me everything about yourself." Her heart was hammering in her chest, "Can I get you a drink, Sophie?"

She nodded gently, anxiety swirling in her chest, as he moved through the crowd, "Okay, just- stay right here I'll be back!"

She watched him move away, gracefully through the crowd, returning minutes later, with a drink for her, and a cup of water for her dog, grinning down at her.

"Right, tell me everything about yourself."

And hours later, when he grinned down at her, his lips nearly brushing hers when he said, "Can I take you out this week?"

There wasn't anything to do but nod, and silently promise to tattoo whatever kate wanted on her for the rest of her life.

[writeouswriter]

Hi! I saw your post about wanting to be tagged in the loot box tag game (that's probably not at all what it's called, but bear with me here, you know what I'm getting at) and whilst I cannot seem to find it atm and my data is nearly gone, I would like to tag you anyway in it, since you seemed so enthusiastic about it. So this is you getting tagged in it. :) If it's one with options, pick your favourite, if it's not, that's also cool, I really want to see what you wanted to share. :)

(Sorry for being such an idiot, I just saw your post and I wanted to know more and make your day a little brighter (hopefully)).

Cheers!

Hi!! And thank you so much for this ask. You're not being an idiot at all, Loot Box Tag Game absolutely is what it's called, alternatively WIP loot box or the like. It's a newer writeblr game I've seen going around lately and I just found all the ones I've seen to be really fun, giving a cool way of getting insight into some people's stories, and like, theoretically while I know I could just do the game and if you like the game, you absolutely should just go for it, receiving an actual tag or ask about it gives my personal little gremlin brain that extra little sliver of motivation/accountability to actually do it. Though now I’m going to forget every word in the English language but hey. So, here we go:

WIP Loot Box Tag Game:

Rules: make up what would be in a limited edition loot/gift box for your WIP/work in progress.

You know I gotta do one for Static House, my 80's horror project about a paranoid horror movie buff convinced he's receiving warnings through the TV static. Jack would love something like this. Top of my head, said loot box would include:

A randomized classic horror VHS tape that may or may not hold secret messages hidden at various points throughout (whether or not you actually have a VCR to play this tape in is a you problem, sorry).

A worn, signed 80's style movie poster of the book

Coupon for a 2 for 1 deal at Zhang’s Video Rental that seems to have expired in 1989

A custom Static House special edition Blockbuster style popcorn bowl

Sticker sheet of “Be Kind, Rewind” style stickers that get increasingly more ominous and bizarre as the sheet progresses.

Then we have Umbrella House Mysteries, my contemporary new adult mystery/adventure/possibly magic realism series about a young college girl forced to move to an eccentric building with an even more eccentric group of tenants. Some things the loot box would probably have would be:

A single preserved butterfly in its own little glass casing and wooden frame

An incredibly detailed anatomical painting of a beetle, with the initials N.D.R. printed in wide graceful brush strokes on the bottom right corner

A box of tarot cards, one of which is turned face up away from the others and bears a startlingly similar resemblance to you... or someone you know

A box of Isaac's colourful/cartoon bandaids

A ship in a bottle, possibly with something hidden inside, if you dare try to find it

A small decorative brass key with no discernible purpose... yet.

A custom t-shirt from Tag’s old band (yes, he was in a band)

A custom coffee mug from The Middle Café

Then lastly for now I’ll go with Alien Abduction and Other Life Goals, my WIP about a regular university student who finds himself entwined in a major government cover up when his conspiracy theorist roommate goes missing under mysterious circumstances and he’s the only one who can find him. A few possible loot box items:

A print copy of Jack’s (no relation to Static House Jack) letter to Braden, still in the envelope, with an extra secret message to decode in each one

A cassette tape with a small snippet of Jack’s audio notes and several pages of drawings and encoded text that happened to slip past the government’s sweep of his room

Jack’s university sweatshirt or Braden’s university tee

A shirt that says: Aliens Want Me, The Government Fears Me or alternatively The Government Hates Me for my Startlingly Accurate Alien Conspiracies or alternatively If Lost, Return to *illegible zivalgo text* or alternatively the 18+ edition: Sex? No thanks. I’m already getting screwed by the government.

Lil custom alien or UFO keychain

Tagging if you’d like: @writting-in-blood, @eccaiia, @karolinarodrigueswrites, @mary-is-writing, @carminasolis, @backburnerdio, @anyone who wants to do this seriously tag me as having tagged you, don’t pull a me, I want to see your loot boxes

[haltraveler]

Okay but, you know what would be cool?Psychologically accurate dinosaur monster movie, where the trick to surviving is treating the dinosaurs like big animals instead of movie monsters.

There's still the obligatory "eaten by a theropod" death, of course, but most of the deaths are centered on how scary the herbivores are when provoked.

Seriously, a stegosaurus has DEADLY SPIKES on its tail, more dinosaur monster films should have thagomizer impalements!

Absolutely, that'd totally rule. The Jurassic franchise really fails in using the potential of herbivorous dinosaurs as real threats, beyond the Stegosaurus scene in TLW and the Therizinosaurus in Dominion, and even then there are no actual herbivore kills in the franchise that I can recall, not even of other dinosaurs besides the Therizinosaurus getting an assist against the Giganotosaurus.

If you want to make a movie with scary dinosaurs, limiting yourself to the carnivorous theropods is a HUGE handicap. As you mentioned, stegosaurs had enormous spines and while they couldn't run very fast they could pivot startlingly quickly. But they're honestly one of the LEAST scary groups of large plant eating dinosaurs.

Hadrosaurs, the "duck-bills", are often used as fodder for meat eaters and treated as gentle and placid but that's mainly because they don't have any visible pointy bits. In truth, a hadrosaurid could EASILY end your life for annoying it, because it's the size of a small elephant and probably quite fast for its size. A singe kick from a Parasaurolophus would cave in your ribcage and a bite from its beak and grinding battery of teeth would mangle your hand beyond recognition.

Ankylosaurs meanwhile? Besides being so heavily armored that they even had armor plates on their eyelids, that tail club is one of the most devastating natural weapons to ever evolve. It's meant for smashing T. rex shins and if you've seen a T. rex skeleton you know those leg bones were no joke. Not to mention that some of them seem to have had poor eyesight which if rhinos are any indication would only make them more trigger-happy.

Ceratopsids? Absolute nightmare fuel. The gigantic 3+ foot horns on a Triceratops? Not even the part I'd worry most about, because people forget that fucking beak, which had a very powerful bite and a sharp enough hook that some scientists have speculated it might've occasionally eaten meat. Combine that with ludicrously thick skin and Triceratops is less like a big cow and more like a 7 ton wild boar.

And then there's sauropods... dear lord, fucking sauropods. Easily the most terrifying land animals of all time, just from sheer mass. It's hard to even fathom the idea of a 20+ ton Apatosaurus, let alone a 75 ton titanosaur like Patagotitan. The good news is that they couldn't run. The bad news is that their strides were long enough that it wouldn't matter, because they could just casually walk fast enough to overtake most humans who aren't trained athletes. And if we want to use the most impressive hypotheses about their biology, it's been proposed that diplodocids could crack their tails like whips, generating a sonic boom loud enough to cause fatal organ damage even if you don't factor in the tip of the tail, which in at least one species was covered in tiny spines like a saw, slashing through flesh.

And those are just the major A-list groups. I could go into detail about how an Iguanodon, Deinocheirus, or Plateosaurus could fuck you up but I think I've made my point pretty clearly.

[centrally-unplanned]

Allocating Your Aesthetic Budget: Sailor Moon Edition

Sailor Moon is a show that undoubtedly built a powerhouse of a visual brand. Should I even bother posting a screenshot of the sailor scouts, given that I am 100% confident anyone reading this can recall them instantly? I guess it won’t hurt: 

Anime is often really good at creating iconic designs like this, through repetition of the visuals. It is awkward in live action shows if characters just wear the same outfit every scene (what, they only own one outfit? Are they homeless/work in the tech industry?), but animation gives us enough aesthetic “distance”, an awareness that this isn’t accurate to real life, that you can buy into the conceit. By wearing the same outfit every time, it just becomes the character. Not to mention a studio can really save quite a few bucks by streamlining production with neat tricks like having only one character design to animate - when you are on a shoe-string budget, like pretty much every anime in the 90’s was, every cut corner counts.

What is interesting about Sailor Moon is that most of the time it doesn’t really use this conceit at all.

-----------

Episode 15 of Sailor Moon’s first season has, in its opening act, this shot of all of the Senshi (at the time) talking to the plot-of-the-day character, who clearly trains rock Pokemon in 16-bit caves in his off hours:

If you knew nothing about these three characters, you could probably infer about 80% of their personality just from their outfits. Usagi (the blond one in the middle, if that's necessary) is wearing:

Light pastel colours, with pink on top of that: girly, feminine, bubbly and breezy

Short-but-not-too-short of a skirt, and red heels: cares about fashion, wants to project an image of being a woman with a romantic hint to it

Long-twin tails w/ buns: Contrasting the shoes, she is still immature and childish. It also means she is the protagonist of an anime 

Rei (far right) rocks a very different look:

T-shirt and jean shorts, shoes over heels: sensible, practical, a bit sporty

Very short shorts, long black hair: Confident, a bit aggressive, and suggestive of a more overt sexuality

Ami (far left) settles into a more restrained vibe with:

Full, long, but sleeveless dress, bob-cut hair: Chaste, more conservative, but not to the point of prudishness; particularly with the length (and the hand posture, shielding her body) probably a bit shy

Monochrome blue colour in outfit & hair: reserved, serene, possessing a calm demeanor

I know I have seen the show already, but really none of these details are a stretch - this is just the language of fashion. And all of these outfits are outfits that the characters have never (or rarely) worn before up until this point. The cast of Sailor Moon, far from that animation conceit of “standard outfits”, change clothes all…

the….

time.

     I just randomly clicked on episodes to find these, it requires no hunting

And while it isn’t always as spot on as the top picture, they all in some way embody the language of visual design to speak to the personality of the characters. If you want to see more, check out one of the multiple tumblrs dedicated to the everyday clothing the Sailor Senshi wear, because of course those exist.

If this was a 2010’s Kyoto Animation show, pointing this out would be the end of it - every one of their shows has this level of impeccable detail. Sailor Moon is notable in that it is not at all that kind of show; the animation and designs in Sailor Moon take perpetual shortcuts to get the job done. I don’t think the transformation sequences need to be belabored - the way they permitted the team to recycle identical animation sequences, multiple times per episode, was surely a godsend to the production schedule. Yet not all of the budget limitations are so prettily masked:

     I’m sure they finished the background art in the...VHS release?

The show is filled with dirty animation, unfinished backgrounds, backgrounds that are a simple color gradient for no clear reason, and so on. It is clear that the Sailor Moon team did not have the resources for every detail - which is why the decision of what details they did choose to prioritize is so interesting.

----------

What is the point of Sailor Moon? I do believe that shows have “points”; and by that I don’t mean a message or theme but a core appeal to an audience, something specific that they will get out of the show. Almost every show appeals along multiple axes, and Sailor Moon is no exception, but I want to focus on one: aesthetic identification.

If you learn someone is a Sailor Moon fan, there is the obvious follow-up question you have to ask, namely “which Sailor Senshi are you?” It’s the which-Harry-Potter-house-are-you question of anime, a horoscope where you can choose your sign (in this case literally). The premise of this concept is not hard for media to execute on - it is just personality traits and aesthetics grouped together under a label, a basic building block of media and clickbait internet quizzes. Harry Potter, ironically, raised up its memetic question almost by accident, as its focus is so squarely on House Gryffindor that the others are almost forgotten; it was just so mind-bogglingly popular that it didn’t matter. 

Sailor Moon, however, takes this concept and allocates so much of its aesthetic budget into making it a centerpiece of the show. Sailor Moon herself is a klutzy, lazy romantic, Sailor Mercury is a shy, earnest bookworm, and so on, with none of them ever really becoming very complex characters. However, the show devotes itself to making you *feel* these archetypes as strongly and intricately as possible. All of those outfit changes are chosen because not only do real girls care about their outfits and can therefore identify more strongly with characters who do the same, but so they can constantly emulate their archetype in diverse, different ways. The show doesn't have the budget for intense action scenes, so after Sailor Moon engages in her hyper-serious transformation sequences, she proceeds to, nearly every time, bumble through the combat scenes like this:

Oh sure, the scenes are done this way because it is funny (and good comedy can be done on any budget - these shots are frequently still frames with motion lines!), but it is also done this way because Sailor Moon is a total screw-up, and if you identify with that it is validating to see someone “just like you” able to pull off wins despite it all. The transformation sequences are not only beautiful animation that showcases aspirational power, but are also crafted to highlight the personalities of the Senshi in question - unless you think aggressive, combative Rei got fire powers by coincidence. Half of the run-time of every episode is spent, not on the plot du-jour, but on light-hearted personal squabbles between the cast because those scenes are not just funny, but also allow for far more moments of character expression. 

All of that work pays off in building with the audience, not a connection with a character who reflects their identity in total, but a connection that reflects one aspect of their identity in an extremely deep (dare I say multifaceted?) way. I think if you were to describe Sailor Moon as a “shallow” show, you would actually be right to say so, in a sense. These characters will never have the true depth of personality, themes and so on of a more ‘adult’ show. But those adult shows have to spend their effort somewhere - for all that the themes of say Evangelion or Paranoia Agent are pristinely detailed and impactful, you aren’t ever going to be memorizing the moves of their transformation sequences. The way Sailor Moon committed so strongly to fleshing out the archetypes the Senshi stood for is, I think, one of the keys to how this cast of five became so iconic.

     Not even their school uniforms match! They had to spend time in-universe *justifying* this!

----------

A Final Note:

At least, everything I’ve said here applies to Sailor Moon at its peaks. The show, however, is not one without its stumbles, even in Season 1. This section doesn’t flow into the core essay too well, but I wanted to note it because if you were to watch Sailor Moon today, you might struggle to feel the dynamic outlined above. The biggest culprit here is the length - Season 1 is 46 episodes long, and sections of it most certainly drag. They also take a startlingly long time to introduce the cast - this choice builds tension around their arrival, but it also means the later Senshi get a lot less time to establish themselves. Sailor Venus in particular gets hamstrung by this - she is introduced and then immediately arc plot elements sweep the narrative, and so she is left as a hollow shell for some time. The pacing of the show is undoubtedly flawed.

I think Sailor Moon is a show that you do have to keep its time and place in mind for - namely, middle schoolers and anime nerds watching it on broadcast TV in the 90’s. As an adult you “get” the point of the show pretty quickly, and get satiated on it almost as fast. Watching it all in a few sittings only heightens this problem. For a younger audience, and one that is waiting for a week between episodes with no internet for plot reminders, all that extra time is needed to jog memories and build connections. And younger audiences just have that limitless commitment to the things they love! If you think no one could actually enjoy seeing the same transformation sequence for the 30th time, watch it with someone who would have died for this show when they were 10 and you will be disabused of that notion *very* quickly. 

Still, we can’t travel back in time - Sailor Moon is a show of its era. There are “filler-reduced” guides out there, though I caution that the plot of Sailor Moon is absolutely not the point of the show in comparison to the character dynamics, and so sometimes the filler is the best part (Cat-Rhett Butler is the best character in the show YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT). Certainly, however, some method must be used to cut down on its length. If you are going to be a first time viewer in adulthood, that reality should be kept in mind, and if you do accept it for what it is you can really appreciate its core appeal - and don’t forget to finish it off with a 1990′s era internet personality quiz to really wrap it up!

[appendingfic]

Sooo...

@c2ndy2c1d​ made a pretty fantastic comic, Rockababy (found here), which I would totally recommend reading. And if you can, bookmark and comment on it - good creator engagement can help them with further development on the comic, and I selfishly want to see more.

And I was really inspired and was in a place in my writing cycle that I wanted some (3,500 words worth of) shipping fic so.

I hope y’all enjoy!

Observation 

Rating: T

Fandom: Rockababy

Ship: Richie/Shifty

Summary: The facts are undeniable - Richie has been watching Shifty very closely. To what purpose, however, Shifty is determined to find out.

Shifty was sitting at his workbench, but unlike other times, there was no gadget or technology to work with at it. Just a notebook - identical to the dozens Richie kept in his room, observations on aliens - more detailed, now, that he had regular access to all the species that had found their way to Earth.

Identical in all respects except for one.

This notebook's contents were exclusively about <I>Shifty</I>. He steeled himself to open the book again, page through notes that were both more detailed and less focused than he was used to from Richie's writings.

"Not ticklish," was scratched out, bold letters next to it reading, "Ticklish at base of spine/tail - DO NOT TOUCH". Richie had inadvertently (Shifty hoped) discovered that fact during one of their photo sessions, documenting the regrowth of Shifty's tail. The memory almost brought a smile to Shifty's face - Richie had been mortified, blushing as he apologized fervently from across the room when Shifty had nearly bolted off the exam table at the touch.

"Has a sense of humor", another page read. "Not slapstick - not observational. Absurd? Smiled at a pun - denied it BUT I KNOW THE TRUTH". Shifty actually smiled at that.

Another was a list of foods, apparently random unless you had been studying Shifty's tastes. Next to the word "Chocolate" was a doodle of Shifty's natural face, frowning. The discovery Shifty didn't like chocolate had seemingly depressed Richie, and Shifty still wasn't certain if he'd disappointed Richie by failing to enjoy that particular human treat. The page after that was another apparently random list of foods, again, unless you'd been trying to determine what foods Shifty liked. Six fruits were circled, lines drawn from them to a margin where Richie had written "FRUIT", and, next to it, "even Durian?" There was a doodle of Shifty's face - natural, again - smiling next to the word "peanut butter", and a line drawn between that and "bananas", a wholly intriguing proposition Shifty vowed to explore later.

There was something crossed out with heavy lines next to the word "suckers" - the only letters Shifty could make out were "OR-" and "-IXA-", and the tail end of a question mark. As he had no idea what the note could have been, he left it alone.

Especially as there were other, more puzzling notes filling the notebook. A list of numbers which had been mystifying until Shifty recognized one as his normal body temperature, at which point, the others included a startlingly accurate indicator of at what temperature Shifty started feeling cold. There was a number underlined several times, which Shifty recognized as the temperature the fever he'd had two months ago had pushed him to, and a rambling series of notes that Shifty recognized as documenting Richie's frenzied attempts at treatment when Shifty had finally admitted he was sick (not that the NESB didn't have perfectly adequate medical care, but Richie had been adamant Shifty shouldn't have to recuperate in their medical lab or, as Shifty had suggested, handle it himself). 

Dozens of drawings - of the patterns on Shifty's skin, of his hands, of his tail. Detail of his face - or attempts, as Richie had scribbled over each one. Shifty stared at one such attempt for a moment before flipping to find the doodles next to the lists of Shifty's favorite and least favorite foods. Looking at those drawings, he couldn't pinpoint what had frustrated Richie about the others - the disappointed frown on drawn Shifty's face felt true to life, and while Shifty didn't see his own smile much, the delighted cartoon Shifty looked - much the way he felt when one of his friends drew a smile out of him.

The notes were clearly the work of months of observation - most, if not all, of the period of their...acquaintanceship (friendship. They were friends. The first people who'd seen his natural form and agreed to raid a corporate lab to rescue an infant alien were his friends). And Richie must have been keeping it with him most of the time, as Shifty had discovered the notebook on the couch when Richie had last visited.

So...months of observations. At first glance, somewhat scientific, unless you'd seen Richie's other work, and realized how little of the notebook's contents lacked the - objective veneer he maintained for other work. The notes he included with the photographs of Shifty he submitted to the NESB were professional, and rarely included any of the banter Shifty had to keep up to distract himself from the vague discomfort of being under such close examination.

This notebook was more of the same.

...Technically.

For all it didn't involve the complete suite of photographs sitting in an NESB lab somewhere, the notes were more intimate. They all touched on things that no one should know without having been close to Shifty. It wasn't that he suspected Riche were keeping the notes to - sell them to tabloids or something ("Aliens Love Peanut Butter" wouldn't sell papers, he guessed).

But not knowing what Richie was trying to accomplish with this left Shifty a little uneasy. They were supposed to hang out the next day, ostensibly to study for their calculus final, although both of them were far beyond needing the additional help, which meant it would be a perfect opportunity to get some answers.

Ms. Cunningham answered the door when Shifty arrived at their home, eyes brightening at the sight of him. "Blueberry!" she said, kissing him on both cheeks as she stepped around him to step outside, ignoring the flush on Shifty's cheeks (in human guise, it at least remained confined to his face). "I assume you're here to see Richie - he's in his lab, while I'm off to mine." She pulled Shifty in for a hug before letting go and stepping back to grin at him. "So you boys have fun, and make sure Richie eats."

"Oh - absolutely," Shifty replied, watching Ms. Cunningham drive away. He stepped inside; the Cunninghams had opened their home indiscriminately to Shifty, and he'd only recently become comfortable with it. He knew they had good reason not to worry about him wandering around their home, even if he was expected. He didn't have much reason to wander, of course, except, taking Ms Cunningham's comment into consideration, to bring Richie a sandwich (and experiment with the notion of peanut butter and bananas for himself). 

When Shifty descended the stairs into Richie's home lab (an examination table, a desk, and a couch that had migrated down there at some point in the last several months), Richie barely looked up from a notebook he was writing in, at least until Shifty set a plate down next to him.

He looked up and smiled at Shifty, an open, bright expression that made Shifty glad he hadn't let his human form drop, because his tail had developed a traitorous tendency to wag when Richie smiled at him.

"Your mother said you should eat," Shifty said as an explanation.

"Oh, yeah, thanks." Richie picked up his sandwich, took a bite, and set it down again. He twisted around to look up at Shifty, a frown almost taking over his mouth before his expression smoothed out. "Did you want to get started on studying?"

"Come on," Shifty replied, leaning against the desk so he could look down at Richie's notebook (neat, organized, nothing like the one in Shifty's bag). "You and me have studied enough. I'm just here to keep you from starving to death."

Richie looked back at his sandwich, and picked it up for another bite, apparently focused on it while he ate, although Shifty was certain Richie kept glancing sidelong at him.

"You're, uh. Just trying to keep me fed?" Richie asked. There was a tone to his voice, almost - lilting, and Shifty suspected he was being teased.

"Well, I also wanted to ask you about something you left at my place," Shifty replied. "It probably fell out of your backpack or something-"

"I'm sorry!" Richie blurted, holding up his sandwich between them like a shield.

Shifty, who hadn't expected such a violent reaction, stood, shocked, until he saw jam leaking from the bottom of Richie's sandwich. He caught the drop before it could hit the floor and licked it off his finger.

When he actually looked back at Richie, Richie was staring at him.

"What?" Shifty demanded.

"You...aren't mad?"

"I don't know," Shifty replied. "I'm not sure what you're apologizing for."

"O - oh." Richie's cheeks flushed as he looked away from Shifty. "I thought you found the. Uh. Pictures."

"The drawings?" Shifty asked, and somehow, Richie's cheeks went redder, his entire posture tensing into something that made it look like he was about to bolt.

"Richie?" Shifty asked, leaning forward, realizing only as he reached out to Richie that he'd dropped back to his natural form, pale, clawed fingers coming to rest on Richie's shoulder.

"I kept some of the photos," Richie said. "The ones you didn't really want the NESB to keep because they were a little…" He trailed off, and Shifty, remembering the discussion and in his natural form, felt his whole body blush, because.

Richie had tried to be professional when taking the pictures, requesting standard, clinical poses, but even so, some of them had ended up looking a little-

Well, like the pinups Boomer had implied Richie kept in his room.

"It just seemed a shame, because they're good pictures, and you look really - you look good in them. I haven't shown them to anybody or anything, but…" He trailed off, staring at his feet, and if Shifty were inclined to hugging anyone besides Buttons, he might have tried to hug Richie to calm him down.

Except while Richie had panicked over the photographs, the mention of drawings seemed to have freaked him out worse.

"Can you maybe tell me what you found?" Richie asked, voice a little reedy. "So I know what I'm freaking out about?"

"It was a notebook," Shifty replied, pulling the book out of his bag and handing it over. "At first I thought it was one of your alien data books, but it was - about me, and sort of...personal?"

"I'm sorry," Richie repeated, snatching the book out of Shifty's hands to clutch it against his chest. "I wasn't like - secretly trying to find a way to hurt you or anything. Obviously, I've been paying attention if there was anything you were allergic to because I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I got you killed because you had a peanut allergy or something."

"You also appear to think it's a tragedy I don't like chocolate," Shifty pointed out, and Richie, who'd seemed to be calming down, flushed ducking his head to hide it behind his notebook.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Don't be," Shifty said, settling against the desk so he could lean closer to Richie, squeeze his shoulder in a way he hoped was reassuring. "I mean, it's a little weird - and it's sort of driving me crazy trying to figure out what it's for-"

"I just wanted to figure you out," Richie said. When Shifty didn't respond immediately, he continued, knuckled still white from the strain of holding onto his notebook. "Like - I thought maybe I didn't understand you because you were an alien, so I started paying attention. Like if you were allergic to anything, or if you're ticklish or sensitive-"

"If I can get sick," Shifty interrupted, bringing Richie up short, quiet as he considered that.

"Yeah. And I didn't really have friends before, so I was also trying to figure out friend stuff, like what you liked, what you didn't-"

"I do like puns," Shifty said. At Richie's slightly shaky stare, he shrugged. "It's fun, playing around with words like that."

"I…" Richie's gaze drifted down to his notebook, one hand twitching; it was almost certain he was fighting the urge to document this new revelation immediately. 

"You can write it down," Shifty said gently. "Now that I know it's just you being - observant, I don't mind."

"Oh." Richie set the notebook down and flipped open to the page on which he'd mused on Shifty's sense of humor, making a few notations on it. "Thanks."

"Don't worry about it," Shifty allowed. He eyed his own sandwich, forgotten in Richie's panic, wondering if it was safe to start in on it again. Probably not; this conversation didn't feel over yet. "I liked the drawings of me in the notebook. They're - good." He paused a moment, trying to sort out his thoughts. "I liked the little cartoons."

Richie scowled. "They're dumb. I only drew them because I can't get your face right when I'm drawing it seriously."

"I don't think it's dumb. That smiling face looks like - how I feel when I'm smiling."

"...Oh." Richie closed the notebook, but didn't move after that. "I'm glad. That you aren't upset. I don't want to upset you."

"Hm," Shifty replied. "I don't think you would. Do anything that would upset me." And now that he was...observing, considering facts with an assessing eye, Shifty had a - hypothesis.

Richie had been watching Shifty <I>very</I> closely. He had in his possession photographs they had both decided were a little - much for the scientists at the NESB to see. And there were...drawings, somewhere, that Richie didn't want Shifty to see.

Without his conscious input, Shifty's tail began to swing behind him, a slow horizontal drag that Richie had probably been watching Shifty closely enough to interpret. Shifty leaned over Richie, finding he liked the idea of - testing his hypothesis.

"You've been watching me pretty closely, haven't you?" he asked. And Richie had taken his eyes off of Shifty, because when he looked up, his face paled and he licked his lips, a nervous swipe of his tongue.

"Yeah, but not in a creepy way-"

"It's a little creepy," Shifty pointed out. "I'm pretty sure there's a drawing of the marks just above my tail in there. And I don't have much chance to look at it, but it's a pretty good likeness."

Richie closed his eyes. "Sorry, I-"

"Where did I give you the impression I minded?" Shifty retorted, and Richie's eyes snapped open, jaw dropped, and he just...stared.

"Wha," he croaked out after a few quiet moments.

"It's a little creepy for - professional interest," Shifty continued, as he let his tail continue to sway behind him. "But if it's a more - personal interest." He paused, hoping he hadn't read this embarrassingly wrong, or he'd never be able to face either of the Cunninghams for the rest of his life. And then he leaned down just a little more, so the next words were spoken just next to Richie's ear. "That might be a project worth - exploring."

In Shifty's defense, everything he knew about flirting he'd learned from television, and the "bad boy" type he'd sought to emulate always acted this smooth.

In Richie's (as Shifty learned later), no one had ever hit on him before.

So Richie's startled flailing resulted in a bruised and slightly bloody nose on Shifty's part, and a possibly fatal case of embarrassment and remorse on Richie's, as he sat as far away from Shifty as the couch allowed while Shifty iced his nose.

With Richie licking his (metaphorical) wounds at giving Shifty literal ones, Shifty suspected he would have to speak up if he ever wanted to resolve this.

"I'd sort of like to know," Shifty said, at last. When Richie looked up, his eyes were almost looking wet, just on the edge of tears.

"What?"

"If you're just - looking, or if you. Want," Shifty concluded, finding the words awkward to force out. "Me," he clarified, and he probably shouldn't have, because his face was starting to flush again, which meant it was a matter of time until it encompassed his entire body. "Because if you do, I'd. Apparently, I like smart, sweet guys who care about. Snakes." He wasn't certain how he'd managed to make this sound more awkward than it already was, but. Here they were. Shifty with all of his cards on the table, and Richie.

Staring. 

He was used to Richie staring - Richie was the budding xenobiologist, and whether Shifty was in human guise or his natural form or somewhere in between, Richie wanted to see anything he did that was out of the ordinary. But he wasn't used to watching Richie staring, and Shifty suspected if he ever had, they might have had this conversation a while ago.

Because Richie's gaze dragged over Shifty, along the frills on his head and arms, the patterns along his skin, including the heart-shaped one on his forehead, the pointed, inhuman head, and his tail, from the tip to the base, where Richie knew Shifty was - sensitive.

Richie pressed his palm against the end of Shifty's tail, a feather-light touch. And then he trailed his palm along the frills, a lighter touch, if possible, and Shifty shivered. Richie's gaze shot up to meet Shifty's, eyes wavering, wide, afraid.

(Shifty dismissed the thought that Richie was worried what Shifty would do, but that left as the only possible conclusion that Richie was worried for Shifty.)

"Gentler treatment than I'm used to," Shifty said, winking at Richie. "Seeing as I live with a kid with grabby hands." When Richie didn't move, Shifty flicked his tail to brush the end against the back of Richie's hand. "You can keep going."

Richie's gaze shifted from his own hand back to the lazy waving of the tip of Shifty's tail. And the next touch was - firmer, more present, if still tentative. Shifty grinned and twisted around toward the back of the couch so he could provide Richie access to his tail without discomfort, even if he had to crane his neck slightly to watch Richie draw his hand along the frills of Shifty's tail. 

It was - intimate, if at the same time a step back from some of the - implications of what they'd been talking about. Still, the slightly dazed expression on Richie's face faded over the course of several minutes, and gave way to something more - analytical.

"So," Richie mused. "There's some. Stuff. We haven't talked about. About your species and. You. And." His voice rose throughout his stuttering statement, until Shifty decided any amusement he took from Richie's slowly-growing discomfort would be cruel and a diversion from Shifty's - well, not ultimate goal, but his most immediate one.

So Shifty tugged his tail from Richie's grip and crawled the short distance that separated their bodies, leaning up just enough to kiss Richie. Just a press of lips, more a statement of intent than anything.

Richie didn't jerk backward - but only just. His cheeks were red, and he was looking at anything but Shifty. "What-"

"You were working your way up to a question," Shifty replied. "I was giving you an answer. As for romance, that's a yes. As for kissing, that's a yes. As for - other concerns, I figure we can...explore that question in further detail if the rest seems to be working out." Shifty smiled, aware the slow, deliberate expression was likely one Richie hadn't seen before, a notion confirmed at the distant, glazed expression on Richie's face (either that or the promise that any forays into more complicated activities would come with the expectation of scientific inquiry and rigor, even if Richie and Shifty were the only people who ever benefited from it).

Shifty leaned back in toward Richie, pausing this time when he was almost close enough to touch. "Soo," he drawled, grinning. "What's the verdict?"

Richie crossed the few remaining inches to press his lips against Shifty's, and then press forward to - experiment, Shifty realized, to observe and detail his findings. Shifty grinned against Richie's mouth at the thought, surging forward to contribute to Richie's obvious desire to explore.

They passed an hour or so that way, before Shifty dropped his head onto Richie's lap, looking up as Richie traced along the marks on Shifty's face, face fixed in concentration, until that concentration faltered and Richie gave Shifty's mouth a strange look.

Shifty smirked. "What's that look for?"

"Your smile is - you're really pretty," Richie stammered.

And Shifty might have - suspected Richie thought that, but hearing it sent a thrill along his spine, and his smile widened. "I guessed," he replied, "seeing how you kept all those photos."

Richie ducked his head away, covering his face with his hands. "Oh god, please don't bring that up. It's embarrassing."

"Is it?" Shifty asked, stretching out (and not failing to notice how Richie's gaze darted toward Shifty's stomach as he did so). "Then maybe we could talk about the drawings that came up earlier."

It would take some time, Shifty suspected, before he got a straight answer about those (even if Richie's embarrassment was incredibly telling about the nature of said drawings). But Shifty was certain enough about his intentions, and Richie's own, not to worry overmuch about it. Richie had better things to occupy his time with, now, anyway.