#and was thinking. about weird transition styles.

[boreal-sea]

So something I realized watching a few videos and reading a few articles is that most of us aren’t angry at the idea of AI in general. Many of us are excited to learn about AI systems that can identify cancer better than doctors, for instance.

What we’re angry about is generative AI being used to destroy the jobs of artists (and I mean all creatives here), who have already been dealing with their work being devalued by modern society.

And I’m not sure how to deal with it. I do remember learning that when photography became a thing, many painters were horrified and terrified of would erase the art of painting. It didn’t obviously, and in fact photography because a whole new art form.

I grew up during the birth of digital art. I distinctly remember the phase digital art went through where many people declared it to not be “real art” and that it was “cheating” etc. I’m sure other millennial artists also remember this transition. But graphic designers pretty quickly adopted digital tools, and websites like DeviantArt popped up, and I don’t think there are too many people nowadays who would say a digital painting isn’t “art”. Still, I do imagine there is a gulf between how some people would view the “artistic merit” of a 3 ft tall oil painting hanging next to a 3 ft tall print of a digital painting, even if the subject and styles were similar. So the worries that digital art would erase physical painting was also proven false. And for the record, I think digital art is 100% art. The merit of digital art is equal to that of physical art.

On the other hand, I can’t say these changes didn’t affect older forms of art. Like, photography did affect the world of painting. I don’t have statistics, but it seems like it probably affected the world of portraiture the most. And I wonder if many of the 20th century art movements were influenced by photography. None of my art history classes touched on that and it’s kinda weird to me. There is definitely something about a Dada or cubism or surrealist painting that transcends beyond what a traditional photo of a landscape or a portrait can do. There is no location in the real world with actual melting clocks or people whose faces show multiple angles at once.

And then there was the digital photograph that changed everything again! Film has become a niche art form.

There were specific kinds of jobs lost due to the digital transition, too. I’m thinking of things like murals being replaced by printed banners, or book covers often being done in photoshop. Oh, and that’s another tool that was faced with fear: Photoshop! There was a fear it would destroy the need for professional photographers because everyone could just fix their own photos. Turns out nope, and in fact people skilled in photography and photo editing are still in demand. And of course there’s the loss of 2D animation in favor of 3D animation, the loss of practical effects for digital, etc.

And you might argue that in some of those cases people can tell corners are being cut and that they won’t stand for it, but Marvel movies still make billions of dollars so…

So I don’t know what’s going to happen with AI art. I am NOT saying “all current artists are stupid and wrong, in the future history students will laugh at how stubborn they were to resist this idea”. AI art is not comparable to photography or digital painting.

With a photograph, you still need to compose the image in the frame, you need to position yourself in the real world, you need to know your equipment, whether you’re using film or digital. You also need to know how to process that photo either in the dark room or in Photoshop. These are skills the average person does not have. You cannot tell an AI “that shot was good but can you increase the contrast?” It’ll just produce a completely new image.

I read an article about an art director who was encountering difficulties as the department tried to incorporate AI. They got back first drafts of art ideas from the people employed to work with the AI, gave critique, and the second round was just completely new images that didn’t include the suggestions… because they couldn’t. AI does not understand color theory. It does not have the ability to take critique. It can’t slightly alter the layout of a design.

And all of that applies to painting too. AI (currently) can’t do what a trained art student can do. It doesn’t know that to create a sense of atmosphere you should make distant objects bluer. It doesn’t know how to use human physiology and psychology to draw a viewer’s eyes across a large painting to reveal a story.

AI also can’t replicate INTENTION - and intentionality is a HUGE part of art. WHY an artist chose those colors, that medium, that composition, those tools, why they chose to display it a certain way, why the composition is like this instead of that - all of that adds meaning to the painting that you can’t get with AI.

(Yes, there is an absolutely valid field of art critique that evaluates a piece of art on its standalone value and the message it conveys without the context of the artist’s intent, but that should be compared to the analysis that DOES include the artist’s intent! That comparison can bring about so much understanding!)

Anyway I’m going to end this post now because it has gotten WAY too long. I focused mostly on painting and photography in this post because those are my particular fields of speciality, but this applies to ALL ART. It applies to music and writing and scripting and acting and composing music and just. Everything. All art.

I don’t think there are any forms of art AI doesn’t threaten. Now granted, AI can’t currently pick up a paint brush. It can’t use a crochet needle. It can’t hold a camera. And maybe there will be some sort of return to physical media in response to AI produced digital art. Or maybe there will be a response in digital art to stylistically distinguish it from AI in a way AI can’t reproduce. I’m not sure what will happen. Maybe some proof the image was digitally painted by a real person, somehow. Or that it’s a real photo, or a real article. I saw someone mention there may end up being labels like “100% human made” like we do for organic food lol. Maybe work in progress videos or photo metadata will become more commonplace as evidence of authenticity.

Anyway, NOW I’m ending this post. Whew.

#ai art discussion

[grand-line-shenanigans]

Younger pariging? My head is full of them with no coherency all I can think of is. Gasolina for curious dreams that are haunted disquieting kind or uneasy I'll wait till you break I've got patience for years cause when your head is undone I'll get you right where you walk (summer love)

#hxh #hunter x hunter #pariging #pariston hill #ging freecss #sheila #its the curse. #my art #doodles #sketchy #listen to The Hustle by Kiltro. #actually listen to every song by Kiltro #i like Ofelia as well. as a song that almost isnt-quite pariging #im a little bit delusional. #i was thinking about pariston-is-sheila theory #as is common. for me #and was thinking. about weird transition styles. #between cutesy femme young woman. and politician wearing eccentric suits. #what is the in-between there? IS there an in-between there? #do you see my dilemma #but i enjoy drawing paris with long hair #so mayhaps i will continue. to do that

[dykeinthedark]

venting in tags about gender n shit (long as hell) (u can comment and talk 2 me as always :3)

#okay so i got a really masc haircut about a month ago and i know it's just a haircut but holy shit has it changed EVERYTHING for me #like.... i've always leaned masc except 1) before i came out 2) when i was actively in love with someone who i knew liked femmes #and they always described me as a fem. because that's what i showed her. because i wanted to be with her. #but lowkey whenever i'm in a not-impressing-anyone raw-dogging-life-no-crush era i always resort to a very masc style #like masc being my default and i'd only lean fem to impress people whether it's for love or peer pressure in a specific setting #like ''dressing up'' has always been a form of drag to me. like something i HAD to do to fit in or impress my parents (scott favor core) #but ever since this haircut i've realized... i could just BE masc innately like i really don't have to be womanly if i don't want to #which i usually don't. again i have only ever dressed fem for other people. but it's not even being masc that attracts me on its own #it's like. being masc in a distinctly lesbian way. as in whenever i look in the mirror i don't wanna be like a Guy i wanna be a dyke. #like lesbian as a gender identity too sort of thing honestly. okay i've been waffling but basically i sort of want to call myself butch #but i don't know if i like... can?? if i'm allowed to??? #everyone always says it's MORE than just wearing boy clothes and not wearing makeup and having short hair (which i already do all those) #i mean i've always id'd as genderqueer because it literally just means gender weird and i experience gender in a queer way #what's probably the most telling is that my friends (all queer) CALL me a butch lesbian #like every time they do i feel really internally validated. it's not just my clothes but my personality too ig is what people tell me #i have a higher pitched voice relatively speaking but apparently the way i talk is quote ''very clockably into women'' #which?? gender euphoria asf. my best friend specifically he (gay trans guy) always uses butch to describe me very intuitively #people have also noticed that i ''transitioned'' in all aspects except hormonally. like ppl have commented and noticed my masculinzation #but at the same time i always feel rly haunted by my ex relationships because one wanted me to be more masc #(she's the one who came out as straight and would treat me like a man) which i didn't like and i didn't like playing up being fem either #bc now it feels like she (butch) won't believe me if i called myself butch too bc she remembers me being femme #idk i feel like there's her voice in my head all the time that sees everything i do through her eyes (i'm lowkey still in love) #i feel like even though this comes so naturally to me i must be putting on a performance #even though i've actually read stone butch blues and done research into the history and i truly love and id with the culture like i rly do #that im still just a sad imitation of a butch lesbian and can never really be a part of it because i used to enjoy dressing up sometimes #like it's so stupid but can i still be butch if i wore a dress to prom and i think i looked good in it?? #even though i was envious of my friends who wore suits?? that i used to try goth makeup?? that i liked long dresses?? #that i enjoyed stacked necklaces and rings on every finger??? #and tbh ALL OF THAT CAME FROM A CONCIOUS EFFORT TO FEMINIZE MYSELF IN JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGHSCHOOL WHEN I WAS 16 #because omfg it was 2 months before junior prom and i was worried that i was too masc and wanted to get comfortable with being fem

[waffled0g]

Everyone gets “The 90s” look wrong and I hate it

Couple years ago I saw these two board games at the store back to back. Well, not saw them per se, but ya know. Spied them out of the corner of my eye. And for a moment without reading the text, I couldn’t tell you which was which decade at first. Funny. Either they were in a rush to get these out the door or they wanted their throwback trivia game boxes to look uniform. I didn’t think too much of it.

Only, from then on I started seeing it MORE. Every time someone markets a 90s or 80s throwback...

Goddammit they’re identical! What??! How did we let this happen? As a 90s survivor and a designer, this drives me up a wall.

Look, I know I’m late to the party to complain about “the 90s look” when we’re just starting to get sick of the Y2K nostalgia train. But c’mon, the 90s were not The 80s: Part Two™ 

Trust me when I say that we weren’t all wearing neon trapezoids up until the year 2000. The 90s look being peddled is so specific to the tail end of the 80s and an early early part of the 90s - a part of the 90s when it wouldn’t stop being the 80s. This is Memphis design being conflated with the wrong decade.

Keep reading for a long ass graphic design history lesson and pictures of old soda and fast food.

Specifically, the look is Memphis Milano, self-named by the Italian design house Memphis Group. Starting in the early to mid 80s, they made all sorts of furniture, fabrics and sculptures that were like a Piet Mondrian grid painting under heavy radiation. Their whole deal was defying the standards of existing industrial design up to that point on purpose. Chairs had weird arches, bookcases would be in strange alien colors, unusual materials like plastic or elastic were used in place of metal or wood, that sorta thing.

Memphis quickly became the signature look for the decade. You can tell something’s influenced by Memphis design from it’s telltale trademarks:

Clashing, neon colors.

Use of diametric shapes.

Contrasting patterns like zebra print stripes, confetti squiggles and checkerboards.

It wasn’t long before Memphis Milano-inspired design was everywhere in 80s pop culture:

It was a special time, yes.

I was a kindergartener at the tail end of the 80s, so I knew Memphis mostly through the lens of kids media. Toys, clothes, games, tv shows used it like candy colored catnip. Cable channel Nickelodeon more or less adopted the Memphis aesthetic as their signature in-house style and practically built a monument to it at a Florida theme park:

I think this is why folks mistake what decade Memphis is representative of - 90s staples like Nick, Saved By The Bell, Fresh Prince - they all stayed around much longer than the design trend’s expiration date. 

Couple that notion with the fact that companies are slow followers to design trends. Something gets popular and they want to get on the bandwagon? Gotta wait for the ink to dry, gotta wait for the production molds to be made. It would take a few years for them to completely work Memphis outta their system.

Now, this is not to say Memphis is bad! Personally I’m a fan of the aesthetic, if my neon-drenched artwork wasn’t a tip-off already. But it is a trend, and trends never last forever.

So what took the Memphis Milano look down for good? This part’s up for debate, but I personally think it had something to do with this dude:

It’s that grunge music from Seattle that’s so popular with the kids these days dontchaknow.

Once Smells Like Teen Spirit hit in 1991, the Nirvana tone drove the rest of the decade. Clean geometry became weathered, grainy and organic. Bright neon pastels became more bold. Bubblegum pop music sounded fake and manufactured. Attitude and apathy was authentic. Whatever.

Things got grungy. Things got grimy. Olestra was invented.

I think the best way to visualize this transition is how Cherry Coke entered the decade and how it left it:

1992 Memphis on the left, 1998 grunge junkie on the right. Fitting that the 90s would end with a design that looked like Darth Maul’s lungs.

Okay, so what should 90s retro design look like?

Continue on to PART TWO! Spoilers: No VHS filters or vaporwave needed, but maybe bring an antacid.

#90s #1990s #memphis milano #grunge #everything you know is wrong #y2k

[chainmail-butch]

i was talking to a friend who's a trans woman about this. she used to be really weird about butch trans women, but ended up being butch herself. she told me she was adverse to it because "it was like watching someone leave their house completely naked. you feel maybe a little embarrassed for them but you're mostly scared for how other people are going to treat them too. [she] thought "well, [she'd] be embarrassed doing the same and maybe they were having a hard time passing. but then finding out they're doing it on purpose, [she] thought that they were making a joke of being trans, like they were enforcing the stereotype of just saying you were a woman despite not making any effort to look like one. [she] was confused as to why anyone would do that, especially when she'd been having a hard time being treated well even though she did everything to make herself like a cis girl." she hated having to put in so much effort into looking feminine but did it because she was sure that's just what you had to do. obviously, probably regardless of how she looked, she was going to be treated like shit on the principal of being trans and after actually talking to butches and thinking about it more, she decided to just dress how she felt comfortable and still be proud of being a woman.

That's very interesting to hear. That is the consistent impression I've gotten from well meaning trans women.

I had to wrestle with the whole, "declaring myself a woman without making the effort," thing. When I first transitioned I put on dresses, tried on makeup, and got cute jackets. None of it felt right. I knew, entirely, that I was a woman. But doing all of the things women were supposed to be doing made me feel even worse than when I had lived as a man, which is saying something.

I eventually figured out that there is plenty of effort to being a butch woman. There are still styles, there are still pieces of gendered clothing, there are still gendered actions, they're just hidden in plain sight. They're all the things I wanted to do and all the ways that I wanted to be perceived that I couldn't understand until someone (Leslie Feinberg) held a mirror to my face (SBB) and said Butch. Then it all clicked.

I've been doing HRT for three full years now. I've been socially transitioned for three full years now. It is work. It is a challenge. It is walking out of the house with nothing but your soul and what you choose to armor it with. For some women the armor is a dress and a full face of makeup. For me its leather and boots.

I love my sisters deeply. I love women deeply. I love womanhood deeply. But my womanhood is also deliberately not womanhood. My selfish desire is a world where I can be exactly who I am without having to justify it to every woman, trans or cis, that crosses my path. But that's not gonna happen any time soon.

As so many butches, cis and trans, have said, It is a difficult road to walk and I have no choice but to walk it.

#asks answered #butch #transgender

[namazunomegami]

Mélange

Pairing: Okkotsu Yuta x gn!reader

Synopsis: Sometimes humans are not above animals. Sometimes they burn to fulfill the same basic needs and not strive for more in the moment. A full belly, safety, procreation. What happens when all three of them need to be satisfied? Tinged with spice. Under the influence of an unknown substance.

CW: aphrodisiac, dubcon, slight somnophilia, feral and animalistic Yuta, he has cannibalistic thoughts, licking, lovebites, scratching, biting, slight pain, handjob, premature ejaculation, fingering, Reader can feel Yuta’s ring during fingering, slight dacryphilia if you squint, implied multiple rounds, porn with feelings, good old unprotected sex + creampie, both Reader and Yuta are ultra possessive in their own toxic way <33

WC: 3.6k

Credits: my dearest @notveryrussian for proofreading this mess and doing a bit of rework on the tenses <33 the cannibalcore pics are from pinterest

Song rec: needles and pins by deftones and gibson girl by ethel cain both give a nice vibe to the fic as we slowly transition from Yuta's POV to Reader's POV

A/N: Can't believe I'm posting my first one shot here 🥹 After so many unsuccessful attempts to wrap up multichaptered fics, at least, this one messy smut got finished. My first ever finished fic 🥹 And the first to get completed in a relatively short time. Yes, a week is a short time for me. And happy holidays to y’all, this is gonna be the last fic in this year so expect only shitposts from me from now on lmao.

Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated <33

Minors do not interact or else I'm gonna go apeshit, also a seperate warning for heavy dark content as usual. If there's anything mentioned in the tags that you're not comfortable with, this is not your fic.

Many sorcerers envy the title of special grade. Yuta thinks these people deserve a separate Naraka in Hell. They don’t realize the immense responsibility, they can’t fathom the challenges, the danger of the missions. The threat those curses pose. They only care about the power he carries.

During today’s mission, Yuta realized he’s not entirely an unstoppable force. Even someone like him is weak to certain fighting styles, he can’t counter everything with his wide range of copied techniques. This curse’s grade was well deserved. Whenever the katana slashed deep into it’s skin, a strange kind of gas was emitted from the wounds. Though he eventually exorcised the curse, he did breathe in the weird, sweet-smelling substance. The scent was hard to resist, it felt like the perfect mixture of all his favorite smells, inviting and comforting. However, he trusted his body to withstand the temptation, reinforced to near perfection with cursed energy and the usage of reversed cursed technique.

There was no problem until he finished reporting back to the higher ups and was on the way home. Maybe it was just the fatigue, the late summer heat, the humidity of the night but something made him feel weird. Almost sick. A thin veil of sweat glistened on his skin, his cheeks, ears and upper body were flushed. His chest was heaving, a burning, aching sensation tormented him between his legs, throbbing with a synced rhythm to his heartbeat. All his thoughts narrowed down to one single, inherently primal thing. A need. A hunger.

Shame and confusion swelled inside his chest. How can he lose his composure? How can he want it so badly? If he wasn’t so wired for monogamy, he would have fucked anyone who moved. And with every passing minute the feeling was getting worse. Descending slowly to the brink of madness. Hell, he was close to wheezing and growling like a rabid dog. He already had no patience to find the right key to the door. He could break that shit, he definitely could. He had no idea why, but he could stop himself from doing that. Maybe the insane price to get it fixed.

But the comfort of his home isn’t helping him. He can’t calm down, he can’t unwind. On the contrary, everything intensifies the strange urge in him to act territorial. But it’s only natural when he grew up feeling like he didn’t have anything he could call his own, whether it’s a material possession or a person. Every comprehensible thought vanished from his head. Leaving only the instincts. The need to claim. He immediately goes to the bedroom, not even bothering to have a quick shower or a light meal.

He gazes at your sleeping form, unknowing and peaceful. Innocent and vulnerable like a newborn lamb and he’s… he wouldn’t compare himself to a wolf, he’s a more vicious predator than that, all starved and keen on capturing its prey. Your limbs are thrown in every direction on the mattress, a thin, silk blanket barely concealing your body, but you’re hugging a some of it to your chest. Like you’re missing him, finding solace in the way the material is touching you. The windows are wide open, hoping that the night air can cool you down.

Yuta caught himself almost drooling at the sight. He can’t stop himself, he can’t fight the shameless thoughts plaguing him. The need, the want is stronger than what he deems right in the moment. His steps are quiet, that part of the floor that normally creaks is now completely silent. He looms over you, like a sinful, ungodly spirit, your very own kanashibari that’s bound to you. His weight is pressing down on the mattress ever so slightly, caging your form between his arms. He breathes in the smell of your freshly showered skin. A mixture of heady vanilla, milk and honey. He mindlessly licks a stripe up your thigh, wanting to taste you, to bite you, to tear out a big chunk of your flesh with his teeth to satisfy this torturous hunger he feels for you. More than anything he wants to devour you. Completely. Have you all for himself. The thought alone makes his dick so hard it’s outright painful.

He ascends towards your hips, leaving soft yet wet kisses that make you twitch in your sleep. Yuta swears that he’s more sensitive to all stimuli, his senses are working at their maximum capacity. He’s able to feel every morsel, every particle of you. The soft peach fuzz, the bumps, the ridges of your stretch marks, their pearl-like glistening texture flowing on the surface of your skin like a river. The material of your shorts, loose and thin, he can feel the seams on the band of your underwear through the fabric. Where the bones bend, where flesh folds. Your smell. Not just from the shower gel and the laundry detergent but your natural scent, so strong he believes it’s some kind of weird pheromone that’s driving him wild. To the point he almost considers nudging his nose between your legs, just like dogs do when they smell blood there.

Maybe it’s not entirely wrong to claim you this way. He can spare you from this more primal side of him, you won’t get to see it and despise him for it. It’s enough if he deals with the shame alone, self-deprecation is his ultimate talent afterall. But that can wait until after he finished soothing this excruciating itch. Because now the last remnant of his resolve goes out the window.

He pulls up your shirt all the way up to your chest. His shirt to be exact. It makes his heart flutter, a piece of him enveloping you, makes the boundaries between your sense of selves blend and blur. The thought of you using his stuff as your own feels so right, so promising.

He practically glues his face to the expanse of your stomach. The flesh is so soft between his teeth, feels so good to bite on it, so easy to suck on it until the skin turns a deep purple.

And maybe… maybe he can lower his crotch onto your knees. Just a little. Just for a little friction…

You stir, opening your eyes slowly, tiredness and confusion are still heavy on your expression. And then you feel teeth nipping at your stomach, fingers digging into the dips of your hips firmly, some wetness here and there along your leg.

Your first response is fear.

You start to squirm and fuss, kicking your legs up in the air, not even thinking about who’s doing this to you until Yuta grips your shoulders and pushes you back into the sheets, keeping you still by the weight of his own body, shushing you. You can feel his nails penetrating the skin, branding the crescent Moon itself into your flesh.

“It’s me, don’t panic.”

You’d recognize this voice anywhere, but you blinked a few times just to clear your vision. The striking white of his coat is easy to spot, even in the dimly lit darkness of the room.

“Yuta…?”

Your voice is an ode, a blessing. Even when it’s hoarse and faint after waking up. He bends down and kisses your temple, nuzzling into your hairline, breathing in your scent. His body feels oddly warm, almost overly so, radiating through you. Through your spine, to the very center of your being and that’s when you notice that you’re a little bit… hot and bothered. What has he done to you while you were asleep?

“I’m so sorry…” he whispers an apology. But his voice is just… it’s like his mind is not entirely here. Something is hurting him and he’s trying to conceal it. Barely. You can hear his voice is hitched from the deep breath he takes, in a futile affort to calm himself. “Have you been sleeping for long?”

He asks you for the sake of it, there’s no genuine interest behind it. Even if you were sleeping for hours, it wouldn’t stop him. He couldn’t stop. He genuinely feels like he’ll die if he can’t get it out of his system. He snuggles his face into the crook of your neck, listening to the rhythm of life coursing through your veins. The thought of puncturing your jugular with his teeth is so irresistible. He must do it… It’ll drive him insane if he won’t.

“N-not really.” your answer is weak, all your strength is used to move your arm freely, trying to locate your phone on the bedside table. The light coming from the screen almost blinds you as you’re checking the time. “I went to bed about… half an hour ago.”

He dips his fingers right into the hollow dips between your ribs, he kneads the skin in a way that has his nails slightly scratching you. And then you realize that you’re almost entirely topless.

He traps your earlobe with his teeth, sucking on the soft tissue.

“Y-Yuta…” your voice is more reprimanding that you want it to be. But your patience is starting to run thin. You want to know what the fuck is wrong with him, he never did anything like this before. Even if he’s horny as hell he would ask for your permission because that’s the way he is.

Instead of giving you an answer he bites your neck. Hard. It hurts, it makes you yelp. Shit, that’s gonna leave a mark. And he growls, just like a wild animal.

You squirm, you jolt, trying to get away from the source of your pain with a prolonged hiss. Only one hand of his is enough to stop you from fussing while the other fondles your chest. Your nipple is caught between his fingers, he twists it slightly. You can’t see it getting red, hard and swollen. His moves are awkward and tactless, but somehow they help with soothing the sharp pain in your neck. Your tensed body eases up a little.

He kicks the inner side of your knee with his own, creating a little space in between them, then forces your legs apart with one smooth movement. As he tries to settle right under your core, you feel him brushing the apex of your thigh.

He’s so painfully hard.

You’re sure he can read the instinctual reactions of your body. The rush of adrenaline, your pulse, how your heart is almost breaking your ribs with every beat. You’re getting more and more aware of your surroundings because you have no idea what will happen to you. He pins your wrists down on the bed. He doesn’t want you to escape.

What has gotten into him? Where’s your shy and gentle man, your sweet little angel? The one who needs so much guidance, who gets so awkward about his lack of experience compared to you. The one you need to encourage to talk about what he likes since you won’t judge him for it. Well, angels shouldn’t be benevolent and sweet, right? They’re the soldiers of god after all. And the depth of his psyche is still very much a mystery to you…

“I don’t want to hurt you… I just need you.”

He has no control over his own thoughts, everything on his mind gets blabbered out. Not just that he needs you, but that he wants to fuck you (he rarely uses that word so you’re even more baffled), that he wants to eat you up, bite for bite, digest you so nobody else can have you.

It sounds devoted yet utterly terrifying.

“You’re-“

He’s scary. Well, you knew this prior to crawling into his life. What people thought about him, one rumor more unhinged than the other and you have no idea how much truth there was to them. Everyone has some sort of admiration, respect for him or repulsion of him. You just tend to forget sometimes, how malicious his cursed energy feels, how his eyes never reflect the light, looking outright dead. But it’s all so contradictory to his personality… you know that you’re dear to him, he’s willing to risk everything for his friends, he’s so starved for connection, to carve himself a place within people’s hearts. You blamed the whole phenomenon on Rika. And you took pride in yourself, for taming a monster.

“I feel so…” he suspires, trying his best to contain himself. “… weird.”

And he’s a kind monster indeed, even now, controlling his impulses as he humps your thigh like a feral dog.

“I don’t know if I’m able to hold back, so I need to know….”

His voice is desperate, almost a plea. He’s afraid of himself too. With the last bit of his sanity, he wants to make sure that it’s alright for you, whatever he has in store for you.

You don’t protest.

His lips crash into yours in a violent, hungry kiss. Your teeth clang together, he shoves his entire tongue in your mouth. He grabs the hem of your shorts, peeling off anything that covers you below the waist. You hear the fabric tear. It’s the same with his own clothes too, in a few blinks of your eyes he’s already stark naked.

He takes your hand, pulls it towards him, you can feel him in your palm. So hot, hard and swollen to the touch. He closes your fingers around him and his hips start moving back and forth, fucking himself into your grip. You smear the precum along his length with your fingertips, squeezing lightly when you feel the base. It has him moaning, breathily, more vocal than he usually is. He’s so sensitive, his pace quickens and his voice is thinner, almost like a whimper.

And he groans. Unexpectedly. It bursts deep from his throat. You feel his cum pooling in your palm. Though you may be surprised, you don’t make a big deal about it. You search for tissues on the bedside table to clean your hand like nothing happened.

“Feelin’ okay?”

Your voice is calming, tender, it warms his heart but the mere sight of his cum on your hand makes the blood rush to his dick again.

You sit up to caress his face. You open your mouth to question him, but he won’t let you start your aftercare routine.

“It’s… not enough.”

He grabs your thigh, hooking your leg over his shoulder, giving him better access to your naked core. Your back falls onto the mattress again.

“I’ll take care of you.”

It’s a promise, you’re sure of it.

His fingertips sink into your folds, relief ripples through him when he finds them already wet. He goes all out on you, his thumb circles your clit and two fingers dip in at your entrance, waiting to loosen you up so they can be pushed inside. His nails gently caress your inner thigh, it’s a tickling sensation, goosebumps dot your skin, a sigh dies on your lips. Treating it as a sign, his fingers start stretching your walls. They curl and curl inside you to the point of the cold band of his ring touching your folds, your essence soiling the stainless metal. The symbol of the haunting spirit of his first love. Childish love that it is, unserious, all just a game. The promises… the word forever holds no weight. Or maybe it does but they have no idea how hard it is to maintain those vows.

Can you ever compare to Rika in his eyes? Have the same effect over him? You don’t dare to talk about it just yet. No, the nature of your relationship is not the same. Childhood love is not like adult love, you just want some reassurance. You want to feel important.

And your reassurance is soaking that wretched finger with your juices. Make that wretched ring yours. He spreads his fingers inside you, scissoring you apart, eagerly working to prepare you. You’re holding onto the sheets and the pillows desperately, your body feels so volatile you might as well float away.

When he pulls out you feel hollow, incomplete. But he won’t keep you waiting long. The head of his cock feels like salvation. Scorching hot and wet with the mixed arousal. And he completes you with one smooth thrust. You’re whole, fulfilled, a merged existence worth suffering over. He’s throbbing deep within your walls, pulsating through your nerves. You can’t tell if the noise coming out of him is a moan, a whine, or a growl, you only know that it’s bordering on bestial. Filled with need, an ache, coupled with something beyond your comprehension.

He drills into you, there’s so much strength and resilience in him, it almost makes you scared. But something else also swells inside your chest. An unknown kind of excitement, a thrill, it makes you feverish, wired. The dissonance between his absolutely feral state and the fact that he’d never hurt you. Or maybe he would, in a way that you’d like it. Nobody could bite through your throat with such force that your windpipe breaks, only him, him and no one else.

He holds you at the back of your pelvic bone, lifts you up in an utterly perfect angle. You mewl him that it feels so good, so perfect, so raw. You love this feeling so much. You get completely lost and immersed in it.

“…it?”

His voice is faint yet his broken self-worth shines through it. Poor soul… You didn’t pay attention to his most important desire. He’s a parasite living off of your kind words, but nothing can make him as blissful as knowing you love him, despite everything he despises about himself. And you’ll feed him. Prove it to him that he matters more than the things he does to you.

“Oh Yuta, my sweet…” the rest of the sentence gets stuck in your throat as you open your arms and he crashes into your embrace like a lost, lonely puppy. You hug him tightly, brushing through his locks with a free hand. The sweat makes the strands stick together. “Of course I love you, don’t be silly.”

He might as well have been a puppy in his previous life. And now your words eased his guilt about his temporary condition. He gained your forgiveness.

What he does next is much more instinctual. He folds you in half, where your knees bend, is pressed right against his traps, your heels graze the middle of his back. Now his thrusts have weight, uncovering spots that even you had no idea that existed inside of you. Tears of joy prickle in your eyes, calling upon whatever deity’s name you can think of, off the top of your head. You can swear his pace increases at the sight. It’s so intense a broken cry erupts from your throat.

He thrusts right into a sweet spot, which has you melting and trembling. Please is the only word your lips can form. At this point, you couldn’t care less about the lewd sounds of your skin slapping together or the squelching noises that make the whole act sloppy, shameless and primal, you only want to reach  your peak, and you’re not far from it as you’re clenching around him with a rhythm that you have no control over.

It crashes, it ruptures, sudden, sharp and hot like an electric spark. A scream empties your lungs, but Yuta muffles it with sealing his mouth onto yours. You feel yourself getting filled as you’re convulsing around his length.

After he fucks you through your orgasm you feel yourself shaking, your whole body is limp, numb, drifting slowly to sleep. You’re both soaked in sweat, your bodies stick together but there’s a need to bond further in each other’s embrace. You plant a kiss between his locks, praising him, telling him you love him. Satisfaction clouds your mind, like a soft, pillowy pink mist.

However, his cock is still not soft.

“I have no idea what has gotten into you.” you tell him, marveling, as you’re still catching on your breath. “I like it though, but you owe me an explanation.”

He handles you gently, like you’re some precious thing, made from glass, fragile. Your body is like a ragdoll’s, he has you lying on your stomach, lazily, flatly, you might as well fuse together with the mattress. Calloused fingers are drawing nonfigurative shapes on your shoulder blades.

“I’ll tell you right after we finish.”

Your blood runs cold for a moment.

“Again? Yuta, for the love of god I’m exhausted.” you whine.

He apologetically kisses your spine.

“Just this one, okay? Please? I’ll do all the work, I’ll make it quick. You only need to relax, you can sleep even.”

You want to tell him that sounds a little bit creepy, but you don’t have the strength to talk. He kisses the two shallow dimples right above your tailbone. His gaze lingers on your folds, admiring how red and swollen you are.

“If you manage to make me cum again, you deserve a fucking award.” you comment, face nuzzled into the pillow, your voice is obviously snarky.

You can feel teeth sinking into the flesh of your asscheek. The mark that is burning on your neck found it’s pair. He presses down your overly sensitive clit with his thumb, balancing the pain out with pleasure. But it gets overstimulated so easily, you feel the need to bite the pillow.

You brace yourself with a deep breath through your nose. You’re going to pay him back next time, you promise yourself that you’ll make a begging, crying mess out of him, and the thought makes you chuckle.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk smut #yuta okkotsu x reader #okkotsu yuta x reader #okkotsu yuuta x reader #do not perceive me please idk how I came up with the whole cannibalcore pipeline #yuta okkotsu x you #jjk x reader #meesa writes

[enuui]

long thoughts abt watcher

its so weird to me that people are being like ‘you aren’t entitled to free content’ about the watcher situation bc that’s not the actual problem here. artists deserve to be fairly paid, but the watcher situation reveals a truly bizarre level of business incompetence and a lack of market research.

they actively cultivated a relatively young audience, actively claimed to be ‘eat the rich’ style liberals, then turned over and told that audience that they need to pay $6/month. which again, fine! dropout did it and survived, but dropout had so much more backing it up, went about the transition slowly, and on top of that, their audience was older and therefore had more spending money available.

watcher has none of that. it would be one thing if they had started marketing to an older audience months ago, or changed the style of their content to match the heavy production costs. but as it stands, they built their career off of relatively simple videos with a lower budget, gained a specific type of audience from those videos, then expected that audience to pivot with them when watcher realized they wanted to make a different type of (more expensive, more produced) content.

it can’t work that way. the audience is not acting entitled right now for feeling a shock, bc the audience became loyal to watcher due to a desire for a certain kind of content (specifically the dynamic between shane and ryan).

and if watcher wants to make different content and be paid for it on a more regular basis, that is also okay! but they severely miscalculated their existing audience, and definitely misunderstood how much their current audience wants to watch the style of videos they want to make.

also, imo, ryan and shane have admitted that they dislike the admin side of running a business. i think they truly thrived as regular content creators and not as business managers, and so they struggled to figure out how to run their company and ultimately handed over the reins to steven to wash their hands of it all and go back to making the content they want. and thats also fine, some people are not built for business and work better as individual contributors.

but ryan and shane and steven also seem to have a view that their simple content is almost… beneath them? they talk a lot abt challenging themselves to put out well produced content that their cultivated audience clearly doesn’t really care about. its a mismatch between watcher’s desires for the future and the audience they built in the past that ultimately led to this mess.

they had two options: easier option to make the type of low-budget content their audience has been proven to enjoy, or put in the work to build up an expanded audience so that they could fund the content they wanted to make, put in the work to do a longer, more well thought out transition, put in the work to make connections and figure out how to manage their revenue streams.

and instead they decided to take a shortcut and brute force their existing audience to fund their dreams, and in the process shooting themselves in the foot by alienating their audience. i just can’t comprehend how they reached this conclusion at all.

#watcher #ryan bergara #shane madej #steven lim #i feel like i’ve repeated myself a few time in this but i can’t be bothered to edit my freehand thoughts its like 6am rn #mqposts

[that-ari-blogger]

Critical Role's Cameraman

So, Critical Role (@criticalrole) just released their newest opening title sequence, an animated sequence in the same style of Your Turn To Roll and I would be remis as a film nerd to not pick apart every detail.

What fascinates me about this introduction, however, is the camera movement and shot composition. Allow me to explain.

I DONT THINK THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD, BUT JUST TO BE SAFE

So, we open with a hand, this is a close up, I don't think that is unobvious.

But this stops being a close up rather quickly, before it starts moving away. The shot just gives the hand context, and suddenly you aren't in an extreme close up of a hand, you are in a medium shot of a very large person. Then the camera pans backwards, and you can see villains and places spring up, although the perspective on Matt remains weird. Is he a few metres from you, or a hundred? How big is the Game Master here? There's a sense of mystery, of incomprehension. This is setting up some cosmic horror shenaniganry.

Then, we get Fearne. This is a wide camera motion, swivelling around her in a tracking shot that focuses on her face, and those eyes. It is like a reverse panorama, where Fearne is taking in the world, the world is observing Fearne.

But I want you to take note of the leaves here, because they are used to form a connection between her and Orym. The transition uses them, while it isn't a direct wipe transition (the leaf just flies close to mask an abrupt cut), it is framed as one. The name of that isn't important, though, what's important is the leaves. By being in both shots, they emphasise the relationship between the two characters. But where for Fearn they show off her sense of wonder, for Orym, they take on a very different meaning.

Notice, however, how still this shot is. There is no sense of danger here. This is a scene of a warrior with a sword and two people passing on from this world. But it's calm. Because this is a memory. Orym might not be at peace with the death, but the memory isn't a violent one, it's a memory of his family's lives.

Cut to a close up. Orym creates a gust of wind.

And cut to the next shot.

I will not lie, Bertrand is my favourite character across all of Critical Role, so this shot of him made me smile, but it isn't the point here. The point is Imogen's introduction.

Although is Bertrand not actually the point? Because take a look at how Imogen is shown here. Do you notice anything?

She's shown in the exact same way. Imogen is shown doing the exact same thing that those who have died have done. And she can see them ahead of her. The camera panning back shows a wider perspective here, showing her as she tries to run, tries to get away from the same path as Bertrand.

The wind from Orym's blade that came to this scene gets across a consistent element: Memory. This is a dream. But dreams can become nightmares.

As Imogen loses her footing, the camera gives some of its wildest movements yet. It tumbles around her, then looks up.

The camera stops moving when it sees the red moon, because now the viewer has something to orientate themselves around. There is a constant point, and we can see Imogen falling down. And getting closer, and closer, and closer, until.

These are the three frames in order, there is nothing in between.

Imogen crashes into the screen, and we get an abrupt impact frame (that's the black and white one) then Ashton. This is so cool to watch, in my opinion, but it is quite possibly the opposite of smooth in camera work. So why is it so cool? Motion.

The motion is in towards Imogen and out away from Ashton. They are both falling, just in different directions. And the impact frame both helps smooth over and accentuate the abrupt transition.

The camera around Ashton is a tracking shot. They are falling, but they remain the exact same in the screen (shrinking slightly). The rest of the world moves. And when Ashton lands, the screen cracks. The tracking shot is used to show Ashton's disassociation with their surroundings. Not in a "I feel nothing" type of way, but in a "it's me vs the world" type of way.

Then, there is an abrupt cut away. Nothing hides or smooths this at all, because Ashton's memory isn't smooth, and neither is Ashton. Remember the disassociating thing I mentioned, now it changes again to someone who gets lost in his thoughts. Medium.com calls this an "anxiety stare" and as someone who does that on the regular, I can attest to this abruptness being exactly what that feels like.

I'm not going to talk too much about the ship, but just be aware that there is a Dutch angle (the horison is diagonal) here to heighten the stress of it.

Likewise with this shot, there isn't much to talk about. The slow outward zoom and triangular composition are neat, and the tiered reactions (bottom row reacts, then middle, then Fearne) are amusing, but other than that, not much.

Then we meet Laudna, playing with Pate and giving him life. That's a neat little shot, I wonder if there's a metaphor there.

Oh.

This is a super cool visual because it establishes exactly who this character is in two seconds. But I also want to point out the symmetry of this. The hair becomes the blood which becomes the hair again, and then the tree.

Laudna is introduced as big and scary and imposing, and that is very intentionally undercut by making her look small.

Being small means you are less likely to be the focal character, so shrinking Laudna takes away her agency. Only to give it back through Imogen, and when the camera pans back outwards, Laudna is the same size, but the colours and the surroundings make her feel less alone, and as a weird result of that, less small.

And last but not least in this moment, there is the delayed drop of the hands. Laudna finally feels safe and finally breathes a sigh of relief.

That, however, imediately match cuts to this. FCG's vision. The red tinting has obvious implications that I don't need to explain, but the match cut heavily implies a connection between this group and the Bells Hells. There is a fear that this might happen again made clear by a single transition.

Here's something else. FCG doesn't move. At least, the camera doesn't treat them as moving. It's a slow panning out as if nothing is happening. It's the disassociation vibe that you get from Ashton's falling shots now repurposed to someone who isn't in control of their own actions. This is what FCG is afraid of, this is the important pieces of his character. This is FCG.

And just like Laudna, FCG finally gains agency when surrounded by their friends who hug them, and FCG finally moves.

Chetney Pock O'Pea, outlaw of the RTA, alpha of his own heart. A fundamentally chaotic character who takes rules as suggestions to be intentionally ignored. A man who's first instinct upon meeting you is to consider how you could be killed. And he is introduced whittling, with a steady camera and warm light illuminating his face. This is a peaceful side of Chetney, there is a duality to him.

Speaking of which, notice how Chetney draws back from the light as he transforms. His eyes begin to glow, but they don't illuminate him, until this:

Chetney is now backlit by the cold light of the moon itself (There's a neat reveal of Ruidus caused by the pan, but that's only tangentially relevant). Notice how much further you are from him here than in his first shot. But notice how much of him is visible, and how much of the screen he takes up. It's the same, this is still the same character. It's a true Doctor Jeckyl and Mr Hyde character. This isn't split personality, but a character who can be a different person in each form, while still remaining Chetney at all times.

There is more in this video. I encourage you to watch it, but unfortunately, Tumblr has a limit on how many images I can include, so I will leave you with this final shot. A group of heroes looking up at a threat that is so much bigger than them, a threat that is literally controlling the light. But the Bells Hells are closer to the camera, they take up more of the screen. The battle isn't lost, instead, it is just starting.

#rants #literary analysis #literature analysis #media analysis #critrole #critical role #bells hells #imogen temult #laudna #ashton greymoore #fcg #orym of the air ashari #fearne calloway #chetney pock o'pea #its Thursday night #critical role bells hells

[unhinged-transmasc]

"If you go on T you won't look like a pretty anime boy, you're gonna look like an ugly man!" is so funny because I'm SE Asian, have been on T for 3 years with subtle (but satisfactory) changes, and definitely still have been told I look like an anime boy or a K-pop idol (because racism.) I do like to take care of my appearance and make an effort to look nice and stylish, but that's not a "pretty anime boy" or "K-pop idol" thing, I'm just A Guy who wants to look nice and pretty and cool. It's such an odd statement cause from my perspective it definitely does not consider the experience I described above, LMAO. It's assuming a "little white girl who doesn't know any better and likes anime" person, or something like that. (Just putting this out there because transmascs of color definitely need to be heard more, and transitioning on T experiences are all very very different.)

And anyways, the condescending way people talk down to trans men who do want to look like their cute/pretty fictional men transition goals is so weird... Like, what's wrong with that, anyways? Some fictional guys are really designed nicely, and may give new perspective on masculinity or maleness that people IRL may not show depending on where you live. Anyways, I think even if T changes you to be more masculine than you expected, you can still present in a way inspired by characters and styles you admire if you so like.

And the other side -- what's wrong with looking like an "ugly" man? I feel like that's saying any masculine trait is "ugly," so if you think that please reevaluate yourself. Looking more like a man Is Kind Of The Entire Point. Many transmascs will embrace that masculinity, and that's not anything bad, wrong, or poisonous. If you think it makes them look uglier or more like a predator or enemy, I want you to know that is not a very kind mindset to have toward transgender people, or to any man in general; it's rather in poor taste, and shows you are not an ally to transgender people. So if you do desire to be an ally, I urge you to reevaluate yourself and challenge yourself on what being a "man" entails, what being "masculine" entails. Because it's not inherently immorality or ugliness, it's just a gender.

This framing of masculinization as something to be warned against, that we don't know what we're getting into is not very cool, definitely ignoring we have our own agency and choices and feelings about our bodies. Like, when we go on T, often we know what it will do to us, and what kind of person we are gender-wise. We're making that choice for ourselves, absurd that we're treated like we don't know any better. We know. Don't treat it like a warning that we'll become less desirable types of people.

#transgender #transmasc #trans man #this was a sideblog for shitposting but y'know what lemme talk abt this shit too #transandrophobia #text #long #queer #lgbtq #intersectionality

[prokopetz]

why do you think earthbound was THE progenitor of so many inde rpgs? was it just that it was an rpg that did something new with its setting published by a big name?

(With reference to this post here.)

The big-name marketing engine and where it happens to be situated in time is certainly a big part of it, but something that's easy to overlook about EarthBound if you're not familiar with the timeline of console generations is that EarthBound is so frequently name-checked by weird meta retro games because EarthBound is, itself, a weird meta retro game – one of the very first of its kind.

It's funny to think of a Super Nintendo game from 1994 as "retro" from the perspective of 2022 – isn't that just what games were like back then? The thing is: no, they weren't. Most Super Nintendo RPGs did not look like EarthBound.

A big part of EarthBound's aesthetic boils down to juxtaposing current gen flash and spectacle (understanding that "current gen" means "for 1994") with deliberately shitty graphics and audio, and mechanics that are janky and counterintuitive in a calculated way to create a very specific experience.

This is apparent in everything from the old school pick-a-verb menu interface that you literally never have to use because the game also has a context-sensitive action button, to the soundtrack's whiplash-inducing transitions between NES-style bleeps and FM synth (wait for it at about 0:53), to the American localisation's script being a blatant spoof of the frequently genuinely terrible translations of the game's NES predecessors.

Plus, the weird meta stuff that modern retro RPGs are known for? EarthBound already has that. It's famous for being one of the first console RPGs where diegetically acknowledging the human player as a separate entity from the player character is an explicit plot point. It even has a clever sleight of hand where it asks the player to fill out a fake consumer survey partway through the game so that it can drop your real name into dialogue later on, prefiguring the way that later games would lift information from your Steam profile to similar effect.

Bascally, EarthBound is a big inspiration for a lot of deliberately janky, insufferably meta retro nostalgia RPGs because that's literally the kind of game that it is.

#gaming #video games #earthbound #game design #history #swearing #earthbound spoilers #spoilers

[toriangeli]

I was writing a longer post with my takes on all the 18th century costumes in the trailer, but this section about what we see in the theatre with Armand watching Lestat perform got long, so I'm posting it separately.

If you thought you remembered Lestat mentioning in TVL how Lelio doesn’t wear a mask, you’re not imagining things.  He doesn’t.  Moreover, there’s something very distinctive about the pattern on his costume.  Those triangles on his sleeves?

What’s more, the mask he’s wearing is a straight-up replica of this:

The mask itself will change between eras and theatres, but for this character, it always has that boil on the forehead. That triangle pattern and the mask together are for the character of Arlecchino/Harlequin.  Below is one traditional (VERY pre-18th century) look for Lelio:

Arlecchino is one of the goofier Commedia characters, being an aged, ugly, and supposedly stupid valet with a kind of trickster persona.  The triangle pattern is meant to mimic patchwork, and is also seen on Arlecchino’s lover, the lady’s maid Columbina.

But we know Lestat played Lelio in Paris, not Arlecchino.  It would be extremely weird for him to switch.  I don’t even think the guy who usually plays Arlecchino would want to give him up for the night if he could help it, since that’s like…the classic Commedia character, and kind of the opposite of Lestat's usual.

I think what we’re seeing could be Lestat’s particular genius with Commedia, where he could play this relatively unfunny young lover but still be very funny with it.  I think Lelio is disguising himself as Arlecchino for some kind of lover’s shenanigans.  Disguise hijinks are all over the place in the fiction of this era, a comedy trope that was really made popular by Commedia.  If you’ll note, Arlecchino in the picture wears a mask fixed to his face, not on a wand, leaving both his hands free because the mask is worn constantly.  I think Lestat may be using this style of mask so he can bring the mask away from his face when he’s speaking as Lelio and not Arlecchino.

Why is that interesting?

Because this isn’t how it goes the one time Lestat is onstage in Paris as a vampire, at all.  In that particular mental breakdown, Lestat doesn’t bother with any character at all, even if he's dressed for Lelio.  He just starts doing wild shit.  But Armand is at this performance.  I could see Armand stalking him at the meltdown performance, as someone from the Children of Satan was there to witness it, but nobody from the CoS indulges in these human frivolities and they wouldn't just happen to be there and notice Lestat.  It was their entire beef with Lestat in the first place, that he was acting like a human and not like a demon.  The CoS did stalk Lestat, but only after he became a vampire—that we know of.

My theory: the CoS noticed Magnus noticing Lestat and Armand wondered what was up.  We know they were keeping close tabs on Magnus.  Moreover, Armand…his costume is hard to see because of the Where’s Waldo nature of the pic below, but he’s dressed simply and in black, in what does not look anything like 18th century Western European clothing.  His hair is disheveled, too.  He doesn’t blend in at all, but he wouldn’t blend in anyway when every single other face in that crowd is lily-white.  I think, then, that he’s wearing something non-Western that I’m not familiar with.  Judging by what looks to be a split, flowing sleeve, it could be Russian or Arab or from any number of countries Armand would believably be a native of.  He may have grabbed clothing that would let him blend in simply as a brown man in the 18th century who isn’t trying to look French.  Any actual fashion historians who know non-Western clothing would need to be on this one.

I may not be able to identify what Armand is wearing here, but everyone else is looking 1780’s French to me.  Reenactors I’ve known have joked about how in every century, the 80’s has massive hair.  We’ve also just begun the transition away from the conical torso/bell-shaped skirts in 1770’s women’s fashion and toward the empire waist that will dominate until roughly 1820.  1780’s gowns have a wonderful freeness to them.

Anyway, either Armand was stalking Lestat before he was turned, or Lestat did more than one performance as a vampire. I think the former is more believable, personally, since we know they were keeping an eye on Magnus.

#amc iwtv #iwtv #armand #the vampire armand #the vampire lestat #lestat de lioncourt #interview with the vampire #costume stuff ig #can't wait till the show airs and i can see how much i was wrong about

[triptychgardener]

As I was finishing up my HS reread, and it's interesting noticing the slight art style change that appears at the very end. Obviously HS is no stranger to changes in art style, but it really slowed down on that from Act 6 onward, where it mostly stayed pretty consistent. Especially in A6A6I5, where the focus is heaviest on the dialogue.

But as we start actually wrapping up, Hussie (I assume it's Hussie) changes it up slightly.

Like the difference between the top and the bottom is subtle, but it's there! Faces get more circular, troll eyes are less just big ol' ovals. As much as I'm a sucker for the old bug eyes, I do think the new style is appealing! It gives us some of the best character images in the comic, and doesn't skimp out in the weird bug effect either.

(Including some of the Jades of all time)

I was wondering if it was setting up for a smoother transition into these big splash shots before Collide.

But then Ado pointed out (something I forgot about as an archival reader

That in between the art style change, the Gigapause happened, taking up nearly 8 months!

And sure enough, looking at the last scene before Terezi: Remem8er and the first one after

The shift occurs! Meaning it was probably just Hussie's artstyle changing over a period of time away from the comic!

It's especially interesting (to me, if no one else) is that this seems to have been the prevailing inspiration artstyle for most postcanon Homestuck projects like Vast Error or HS^2. It was such a small part of the comic relatively, but has had a disproportionately large impact on the visual style of its successors!

So anyways, hell of a mystery that no one really thought was one, but damn if it didn't just get solved, etc.

Edit: So I have been informed that Hussie actually didn't do most of the panels past Terezi: Remem8er, and that those were all done by fan artists! So far I am aware that the excellent Jades were done by PapersEverywhere, though I am not sure on the rest! My bad, sorry!

#homestuck #meta

[ardienothesieno]

SPECULATING ABOUT THE WATCHER

Wanted to make my own analysis post, as I've seen some comments on other sites pointing out things but nothing here so far... AND I AM TOO DEEP IN THE BRAINROT TO NOT ANALYZE THIS EVEN JUST A LITTLE BIT. SO.

I would like to mention that I have not played any modded regions! So if there are certain details that I make note of in the screenshots that have explanation in their original mods, please feel free to correct me!!

STARTING OFF WITH THE TRAILER:

Rot tendrils. Rot tendrils on the ceiling... just casually... that's totally not concerning...

The blue lizard only has two toes on each foot!

The background of this first shot looks like it might be on an iterator structure? There are some support beams but other then that it's just clouds.

The spears that the scavenger is carrying are kind of weird... for one, they're white. And one of them has a large, almost pinecone-shaped tip.

Also they have a crack in their face/mask.

what the pole plant doin

The Watcher doesn't seem to have a nose? That's probably just an art style thing, but I thought I'd mention it. Also their eyes are glowing.

Even the title font has implications. whoa.

For one, more rot. The rot has now made a double appearance and that probably guarantees its significance here...

And plants... Leaves and some vines.

The way that the black screen transitions to a white one is very rot-esce to me. Rot triple appearance...

There seems to be some graffiti on the right side of the final shot? It's obstructed by the visual effects in the foreground, however.

Once again Watcher is depicted without a nose BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT BECAUSE THIS SCREEN HAS IMPLICATIONS

Watcher is floating. Normally I'd mark this off as "cool title screen choice" but they're also surrounded by ECHO PARTICLES.

And the warping around the Watcher and the title? THE OUTMOST RIPPLES HAVE GOLD VEINS RUNNING THROUGH THEM. THE VOID IMPLICATIONS...

And this might be a stretch but the palette of this final image is black and gold... void colors...

OKAY THATS MOST OF THE TRAILER

ONTO THE STEAM DESCRIPTION:

Rain World: The Watcher is a DLC expansion of Rain World. Journey beyond to something, somewhere only ever glimpsed. When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown? The wilds that await will be unlike all that's come before. Unknown creatures stalk and climb and dive and hunt. New breeds rip and pluck and burrow and hide. Predator and prey redefined. And through the middle of it all, a lonely lost slugcat trying their best to outlast the ravages of a warped world.

Do... do I even have to say anything?

THE VOID IMPLICATIONS!! HOLY MOTHER OF SCUGS THE *VOID IMPLICATIONS!!!!*

"Journey beyond to something, somewhere only ever glimpsed. When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown?" YOU READ THIS AND TELL ME THIS DOESN'T HAVE VOID SEA VIBES. Journey BEYOND to something, somewhere only ever glimpsed... it feels very void-y to me. And the talk about the world beneath you crumbling-- holding on to what you once knew or diving into the unknown?? If this somehow ISN'T related to ascension I would be shocked

"And through the middle of it all, a lonely lost slugcat trying their best to outlast the ravages of a warped world." This line about the world being warped, as well... I'm thinking this DLC might either have to do with Rubicon, or have to do with the encroach of the void sea consuming the world from below.

Other then the void implications, it sounds like we'll be seeing some new creatures that could completely redefine the game. I'm excited to see where that goes.

OKAY. SCREENSHOTS. LETS GO.

I know these are from pre-existing mods, but I'm completely unfamiliar with said mods and don't know if any of this means anything. Just wild speculation, pretty much.

Gonna start with these two because they're kinda visually similar. On the left we have desert!!!! Cacti!! Cactuses!!!!! I've seen lots of people calling the image on the right snow, but that doesnt feel right to me. We saw snow in Saint and I do not remember it looking like... that. The first thing that comes to mind for me is Kingdom's Edge from Hollow Knight, and the drifts of ash that pile up there? If this is the case then it confirms several of my lore theories and I would so love that to be the case. There's also a collapsed structure in the back of the "snowy" image, which looks to me a bit like a train car?

Also I've now seen several people calling these milk... and I can't unsee it now...

I've been told by several sources that these screens are from preexisting mods! I think these are from Stormy Coast, Coral Caves, and Aether Ridge? At least that's what I've picked up from searching through other discussions. I don't have too much to comment on here! I think these rooms are cool, and I really like the fans in the Aether Ridge room!

...oh no... acid region..? I don't know why, but this room gives me Shoreline vibes. Also I do not think bubble fruit are supposed to grow that perfectly--

And finally... what I think has the possibility of either being a huge lore thing, or a complete false alarm. Well for starters it's purple

But there are no iterator cans in the background. We're above the clouds here; in every above-the-clouds show from the base game and Downpour, you can see iterators and communication towers off in the distance. There's nothing here. And I don't think this takes place near or after Saint, because there's no confirmed snow. And I think a lot of these structures would be far worse for wear if this were so far in the future that the planet has warmed again. So. Uh. That's pretty odd.

Again, these all might be from mods that I am unfamiliar with, so please correct me if I'm misinterpreting anything!!

AND THAT CONCLUDES MY ANALYSIS FOR NOW!

tl,dr-- This DLC is gonna be crazy. Also void

#rain world #rw nightcat #rw watcher #rw the watcher #rw nightwatcher #rain world the watcher #rw slugcat #rain world theory #I'm sure I missed a ton of stuff so feel free to add on!! #might make a separate post theorizing on some of this... #ramblings #brain rot #oc

[egg-poll]

Egg Poll Intro

HELLO TRANSGENDERS OF TUMBLR... WELCOME TO EGG POLL 2K23

very simply egg poll is just a tumblr-style tournament of characters that YOU think could be transgender, but also think that they haven't realized this themselves yet. the idea of this came to me in a dream and ive been mulling it over for like a week but i decided to go for it.

to get a decent bracket of egg characters to go through though we are going to need submissions. SUBMIT CHARACTERS YOU THINK ARE EGGS below just be sure to follow these few rules:

fictional characters only. referring to a real person as an egg is generally pretty weird and especially in the case of celebrities/strangers online, is not really something that should be done on or off this blog. but for fictional characters its awesome and encouraged!

no canonically trans characters. this blog is meant to highlight trans headcanons, specifically a type of headcanon that often goes overlooked in favor of the "this character has fully transitioned off screen" type.

the exception to the above though is that characters that have been confirmed trans (or had trans hcs receive a general thumbs up) by creators outside of the media itself are allowed, again as long as they are the type of "this person has not realized/come out yet."

please avoid submissions based on transphobic/especially transmisogynistic stereotypes/jokes (ie a male character that wears dresses repeatedly and its treated as embarrassing/a joke every time). this is a fine line obviously and many trans people may want to reclaim these types of characters, but for the most part this is meant to be a positive and fun tournament avoiding that type of content.

overall, if youre unsure, go ahead and submit it anyway, whether or not characters fit these requirements will be done at my discretion. also you dont have to be trans to participate in this, but trans people are the target audience.

THATS ABOUT IT.. TUMBLRINAS PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR EGGS.!!! 🏳️‍⚧️🥚🏳️‍⚧️🥚🏳️‍⚧️

#trans #transgender #tumblr polls #tumblr tournament #egg #tournament #idk what else to tag it as :P

[beanghostprincess]

Roger really DOES have mad girldad energy and I am feral.

Welcome to my walls btw, it's hot af in Florida, so lmk if you need a popsicle/hj

Just. Omfg imagine Toki and Buggy bonding SO MUCH and Toki is the one who helps Buggy find Her Style and Her Confidence. Oden also has Big Himbo Dad Emergy too, so I bet he'd just be like ":000 a GIRL! WONDERFUL!!! I shall have TWO daughters!"

Roger ofc takes big offense to that and it becomes a shipwide brawl over who gets to be her dad, and Buggy is just laughing, crying, pickpocketing everyone. Only like. Three fellas even have the driving NEED to call her their daughter, they just love the chaos. Shanks is just left GAPING bc ofc he loves Buggy, he always has, always will, but the way she was smiling, the way she's just beaming at the acceptance, no matter how dramatic it is - by Davy Jones, it steals his breath away.

Whatever you do tho, don't imagine Toki dressing Buggy up in traditional Wano attire. Don't imagine Toki taking on the role of aunt or big sister and sharing this culture with Buggy. Teaching her the ways of warriors from her homeland, the codes and dress and recipes. Don't imagine Toki telling Buggy "family secrets" like recipes, fighting styles, etc. Don't imagine Toki just easily saying that of course Buggy needs to know these things! Blood is but the fluid of life, and love is what makes a family - and Buggy has so much love to give, so much to receive, and Toki calls her a child of Wano in heart and soul, in all the ways that matter should Buggy want that.

And Buggy, who has only ever wanted to BELONG, oh she accepts without hesitation.

Leaving Toki behind was hard, but she gifts Buggy an heirloom of sorts, a hair piece that she keeps either tucked under her beanie or safe in a chest, anchored to the floor of her room ((or hidden carefully with Devil Fruit powers)).

The day Toki manages to make/get a suitably sized kimono for Buggy, maybe for a party on the ship, maybe a birthday celebration ((and here I insert my Wano Culture Headcanons, that there's a birthday where children transition to young adults, and it's similar to a quinceñera but different, partially because it's done at 13, and then a second one at 18, a five year period of growth, life compared to butterflies, and so Toki convinces the crew to do these for the Cabin Kids-))

Buggy comes out, hair done, kimono flawless and bright and bold and so very her, a quiet joy on her face, and the crew is FLABBERGASTED.

Roger is sobbing.

Rayleigh has suddenly aged 20 years because oh shit oh gods she's going to be beautiful as an adult, oh damn it all he's gonna have to beat men off of her-

Shanks is caught between swooning, wanting to tackle her, and remembering just how the heck breathing works.

((Roger, Rayleigh, Crocus and Oden do rock paper scissors to get the first dance with her, and it dissolves into a fist fight somehow. Shanks gets involved and bites them. Toki takes the first dance.))

I have. So many emotions about transfem Buggy, bestie, send help it's all my brain can think about.

It's okay, I miss hot weather because here in Spain I am freezing and I am a spring child. My spiritual flower is a sunflower. I need the SUN. I NEED TO GO INTO THE FLAMES. So I'll stay there happily.

Please, Toki would so adopt Buggy. And Oden would be THRILLED. He'll see them getting along and he'd instantly say they look like mother and daughter. Buggy would be shy about it but Toki would probably laugh and say "Oh! Do we really? What do you think, Bugs?" and it's just,, So sweet,, Oden loves her a lot and he can't wait to see his Hiyori grow up too. Roger would be FURIOUS when he hears that because he "found her first" which, you know, true, but it's a weird way of saying that's his daughter. Anyway- Rayleigh would be so fucking done with everything. They'd fight about it and Buggy would actually have the time of her life because she feels important and flashy for once in a long time, and she'd laugh oh so beautifully at them when talking with Shanks about it in their room. Like she'd just laugh at the situation and Shanks is still not getting used to his very very not platonic feelings for his best friend. But he'd enjoy his time with her. He's just going a bit insane.

I can't stop thinking now about Buggy finally finding a place to belong. She's been lost for so long,, Feeling left out. And now Toki has gifted her with the most precious treasure there is: A home. Belonging. And I am so so emotional right now. Toki would be so proud of her and Buggy would just be so thankful. If Buggy called her 'mom' at some point, she'd feel embarrassed right away, but Toki would probably fight the tears and hug her close. Going crazy, really. All the men in Buggy's life fighting for her first dance,, Rayleigh just knows he'll have to fight all the men that hurt his precious star. And Shanks is starting to think about that too and the thought of Buggy dating somebody else makes him sick, so perhaps he needs to start with a plan to confess finally (he's so asking Toki about it. I'm gonna cry). Roger crying because he wants to enjoy every second he has left with her... It kills me.

I just know that to this day, Buggy still thinks about Toki as her mom. She never mentions it to anybody, but she feels such a strong connection to Wano and she's dying to go there finally someday. She might have not been born there, but her soul belongs there. And it's just so sweet. I am sobbing, thank you. Every time she does her hair, she feels Toki's hands instead of hers and she remembers everything she taught her,,,

Now I have on my mind a very silly Shuggy thought about Shanks trying to flirt with Buggy but failing miserably (because he's a kid and he only knows how to tease her or follow Roger's advice which are, um, not good) and Buggy just being so done and exhausted. She can't stand him! He's so annoying! Sometimes she doesn't know if she wants to punch him or kiss him! And she doesn't even know if Shanks likes her back because he keeps acting stupid. And she goes to Toki for advice and she's like "oh, darling... Men are stupid. Do you know why you felt smarter than them when you were unaware of being a girl? Well, one of the reasons is that Shanks is a kid. He's dumb. But he loves you and cares so much for you... He's just having a hard time trying to make his way to your heart" / "But he-! He's so damn- Ugh. He's such an idiot. He already did, and he just doesn't know because he can't see it and I can't stand him-" / "Well, maybe you should be the one telling him, huh?" / "What?! No! And give him the satisfaction of thinking I fell first?! I'd rather die. No. He has to make the first move". And now Toki is involved (like the rest of the crew because Shuggy is a whole teen drama) in their love story because Buggy keeps complaining about men being stupid and Shanks keeps saying he doesn't get how Buggy can't see he's in love with her.

#i think we're soulmates anon you always write exactly what i'm thinking :(( #this is just so beautiful i am sobbing and now i want to write countless fics about this #god i swear this whole thing made my day #thank you so much for your asks really <333 #fem buggy lives in my mind rent free forever i love her so much she's so important to me #one piece #buggy the clown #fem buggy #kozuki toki #roger pirates #red haired shanks #shuggy

[punkeropercyjackson]

The original trio + Their gender presentation

Percy:Pastel punk and femme trans woman.She was always punk but finds the pastel edition most fitting and comforting after depreving herself of being allowed to enjoy womanhood for so long out of trauma.Blue is still is her main color ofc but she also mixes in different shades and different colored pastels and learns to reclaim her sea heritage so she also adds on mermaid themed things like seashell hairclips.Uses she/her but no they/them and also a BIG hoard of neopronouns due to her autism-Those being blue/dude/cookie/meow/paw/lego/doll(Last one is reserved soley for loved ones because of how weird people can get about them)and makes catgirl jokes sometimes by comparing herself to Rosie from Animal Crossing,Mae Borowski,etc.Afrolatina so she wears her hair in black styles,usually just letting it be down in it's natural super poofy state

Annabeth:Stud(A term for butch lesbian but black exclusive).Your classic pick me tomboy turned transmasc lesbian deal and has an undercut and was on t and got both surgeries,complete with owl wing shaped top surgery scars.Mostly uses he but ocassionally likes they and almost entierly uses masc terms(Such as 'king' over 'queen',Percy calls her 'Wise Guy' instead of 'Wise Girl' and so forth).Dresses like a tomboy everyday and wears suits and cologne for special occasions and helped Percy with her transition by giving her the 'girly' things she'd been gifted but didn't want,such as the Claire's kids makeup kit her stepmom bought her inbetween TLT and Som.Still has her silver owl earrings because imo they give her black butch swag and allows her to match with Percy and Grover,which i'll get to in a sec

Grover:Transneutral but presents as a mix of masc and fem and also gay(Juniper is a she/her transmasc).Since i hc him as blasian because of his actors,he mixes in his indian heritage with his specific type of gncness such as doing both men and women's traditions!!Sadly he felt bad about his identity at first because of stereotypes against asian men not unlike his two best friends and now found sisters too with their own queerness but thankfully,a big part of his character development is learning to do things for himself without caring what others think!As per canon he wears rasta hats but in 'groovy' fun colors and outfits that match them and tbh i don't wanna give him an assigned birth gender not just cause it's weird but also because i think it's more fun if you can make whichever interpretation you like :].He couldn't care less about pronouns as long as you're using them respectfully but uses xe/leaf in addition to the standard ones.And for the earrings,Percy has a pair of pastel blue strawberries with light pink petals and Grover has a mismatched set that's a music note and a leaf♡

#the original trio #percy jackson #persephone jackson #annabeth chase #butchbeth #he/him lesbian annabeth supremacy #grover underwood #nonbinary grover so true #gay grover underwood #black percy #latino percy #leah is our annabeth #leah jeffries #blasian grover underwood #pastel punk percy jackson #team mom percy jackson #autistic percy jackson #juniper pjo #gruniper #t4t gruniper #pjo #hoo #tods #the anomalies #pjo disney+ #💌 #summerposting